There was grass beneath Starlight Glimmer's hooves.
Her head was spinning; she didn't feel up to opening her eyes... or even getting up. Beneath her, blades wet with morning dew brushed against the pinkish fur of her belly, slightly chilly and soothing against her newly-acquired host of aches. She could breathe, however... and was reasonably sure she hadn't passed out.
Her ears flicked, a mountain breeze tracing its way through them. She heard a distant rush - possibly water, or trees, or any number of things. Thankfully, she also felt the weight of two saddlebags pressing against her sides. Trying to survive without her provisions wasn't something she cared to think about.
At last, she opened her eyes. She was lying on the crest of a large hill, freshly strewn with loose gray stones dislodged in her tumble. Groaning, she looked upwards. A sheer, loose cliff face loomed high above, and several meters up she could see a dark patch marking the mouth of the cave from which she had recently fallen. Starlight eventually ignored it, looking only forwards.
The hill itself was surprisingly forgiving, just shallow enough in gradient that thick, rich grass clung to it all the way down. Beyond, in every way she turned, mountains far taller than the one from which she had fallen blotted out the horizon, close enough that they forced her to tilt her neck to see the peaks yet still impossibly far away.
In the valleys littering their bases, forests sprawled in a dark green blanket, reaching as far as halfway up some of the more imposing slopes. Starlight didn't need the shade of their canopies to tell her the area in which she'd emerged was rich in rains; the musky scent of freshly ionized air tickled her nose even though there was hardly a cloud in the sky.
She held still, sniffing harder. The mountain range behind her was said to be impassable - no roads braved its surface, no passes had been documented, no ponies kept more than grannies' tales of the lands that lay beyond. For several weeks - judging by the number of times she'd slept, at least - Starlight had walked and lived the caves that traced through the heights of those mountains, in search of a way to prove the ponies wrong. And finally, she'd done it. She was outside.
Slowly, she felt a heat against her back. The sun was high enough in the sky to pierce the mountain behind her, it seemed. Apparently, that meant she was facing west. Starlight didn't care. She simply lay there, allowing the warmth to soothe the caverns' lightless chill that had infested her very core. She let the dew soak into her coat, feeling a spike of pleasure at the almost palpable sensation of stony dust working its way free. She inhaled deeply, allowing the clean mountain air to cleanse and refresh her lungs... and promptly fell asleep, there in the grass.
Starlight came to with a start. The sun was reaching the horizon - admittedly, still quite high up. She ran her mind over her extremities, something she chided herself for not doing earlier, and was relieved to find nothing painful or broken. So, she got to her hooves and stretched.
Then she shrugged off and opened her saddlebags, taking stock of their contents. Having lain in the grass alongside her, the bags were damp... as was she. Starlight grumbled and brushed her chest fur with a hoof before turning back to the bags.
She had some food left - probably enough for another week, if she conserved at her present pace. Hungrily, she stole a glance at the trees in the shadowed valley below; anything they might grow was certainly better than stale bread and holey cheese.
Her water canteens were a different story. All but one were empty, and that was after refilling them at a pool deep within the caves some time earlier. It wasn't as good as mountain water was proverbially said to be. But perhaps that would change now that she had made it to the surface; already, she could count over two dozen streaks of glacial meltwater racing down steep inclines to the forested valley beneath her. Her eyes drifted upward, catching the glare of the setting sun refracting off freshly-fractured snowbanks that fed the glacial runoff. Peaks linked with peaks in a wall of amber-tinged majesty that nearly made Starlight's eyes water.
The only items remaining were a thin, lightweight blanket, a folded paper map of Equestria - not that she'd need that - and a small black box, sealed closed inside a waterproof case. That appeared to be undamaged. Good.
Starlight looked forward again with renewed interest, mentally planning her route in her head. The sun was setting; she knew that to be west. And since the mountain range she had just crossed ran from east to west... she squinted at the rivers, sparkling in the sunlight. Those would ultimately be making their way north. Following them would take her out of the mountains, and at least give her a plentiful supply of water and vegetation.
Vegetation... her stomach growled, and she glared back at her bags. Then she nosed the grass on the ground, rolled her eyes, and took a bite. It wasn't like anyone was watching.
For something that was considered anywhere from a sign of abject poverty to a public nuisance in Equestria - and even worse in predominantly desert areas - eating grass felt and tasted surprisingly good. It might have been the mountain air, or the fact that this particular patch of grass likely hadn't been trodden in thousands of years, or even the monotony of her diet the last few weeks, but the crunch of greenness against her teeth and slender, leafy bitterness on her tongue and throat made Starlight shiver in delight. She tossed her head back, munching and swallowing. It was like eating spaghetti and a salad at the same time.
She leaned back down, taking a second bite and a third... and eventually lay back down entirely, contentedly munching away. As she filled her cheeks with greens, she reflected with additional satisfaction upon how naturally she was doing something that was entirely unnatural in Equestria.
Eventually, Starlight rolled onto her back, delightfully remembering what it felt like to be full... when she was plunged abruptly into shadow. She glared up at the western mountains; the sun had sank behind them entirely. Shivering involuntarily, she glanced forlornly up at the still-lit peaks to her right and back. She'd just slept the whole day, and as tired as she was, she didn't presently feel like fixing an inverted sleep schedule.
So, she hitched up her saddlebags and climbed to her weary limbs and began trotting north.
Starlight climbed steeply down the grassy hill, treading stiffly so as not to topple and faceplant. The ground beneath her was dark, assaulting her senses with confusion when the sky above was still perfectly bright with evening glow. The far mountains' shadow stretched longly, and she suddenly felt a wave of familiarity as memories of caves and darkness swam through her mind. She wasn't sure if it was pleasant or not.
She didn't light her horn - not yet, at least. After countless days of wandering beneath the ground, with only herself as illumination, it was taxed far beyond aching. The unicorn folded her ears, feeling ever so slightly nauseous as a result. Perhaps she was young, perhaps she was unskilled, or perhaps she just had unrealistic expectations of what a unicorn should be capable of, but she wouldn't let the hornache stop her. Besides, she could see in the dark.
The darkness suddenly magnified tenfold.
With a yelp, Starlight tripped over something and barely caught herself. She landed on her flank, looking up to see the fringes of a canopy obscuring the still-light sky. Had she reached the forest already?
Stubbornly, she climbed several paces back up the steep hill for a better vantage point. When she turned around, she saw that she had indeed reached the beginning of the trees - or any other patch of never-ending, monochrome land bathed in the blue of the night.
Starlight sighed. Rubbing her horn gingerly with a hoof, she tapped it once... twice... and winced as it lit up, throwing out a spark or two. Squinting and holding herself low to the ground, Starlight re-entered the forest, praying for a breeze to make its way through the trunks and cool her horn.
Surprisingly, the underbrush wasn't dense. Giant ferns blocked her path, but they were neither prickly nor poisonous, and she pushed her way through headfirst with relative ease. Her hooves padded across a bed of needles, indicating that the woods were coniferous. She licked her lips; pitch was a fairly useful material.
Threading her body through the amply-spaced trunks, Starlight continued downhill with a slight sideward variant. She was trying to reach water, both as a guide and for her own supply. Fortunately, her meal earlier had been sufficiently moist - far more than her hard, preserved rations from the caves. She kept her ears pricked for the sound of rushing water, just in case... and plodded onward.
Starlight blinked. The woods ahead of her opened up into a clearing, her namesake filtering down from above. Smooth, flat stretches of exposed rock abounded, covered in moss and perfectly inviting. She touched one with a hoof; it was springy and supple and felt reasonably well insulated. She let her horn go out, breathing a sigh of relief as she pondered stopping to sleep the night away.
Casting off her saddlebags, the unicorn flopped down on her pink back, admiring the cloudless sky and trying to pick out familiar constellations from her foalhood. Idly, she followed her gaze with a pointed hoof... but every time the action came with a lingering sense of nostalgia, as if her favorite constellation simply wasn't there.
What was there was the moon, early into its rise and still partially obscured by the treetops. It was far more relaxing, and Starlight stilled, letting its white light wash over her body until her thoughts quieted and she couldn't even feel her horn. It felt good. She wouldn't have minded if it had stayed.
But eventually it moved on, and Starlight was plunged back into relative darkness. She frowned, holding still for a moment longer... and realized she was hungry again. Grumbling, she got to her hooves, relit her horn, and resumed her trot into the forest.
This time, Starlight felt, the trees moved faster. The ground was more forgiving, opener and slightly less steep. There were still crags and boulders she had to leap over or navigate her way down, but they were further apart and hardly as tall.
Her mind processed this as she wound around a particularly wide trunk. Rocks fell down, so wouldn't the base of the mountain have an abundance of-
Her ears perked. She heard water.
Starlight Glimmer bounded forward, suddenly thirsty in addition to her hunger. A gust of wind suddenly disturbed the treetops high above, but she simply stopped, waiting for the noise to die and her ears to pick up the river again.
Belowhoof, the ground grew barren again, its only coating lichen, moss and the occasional root so powerful it had forced a crack in the stone. Eagerly, Starlight sped up, chancing a brightening of her horn. Something glistened ahead, a long ribbon of reflectiveness... and there it was, racing down the incline perpendicular to her charge, pure and crystal and with no bed save for flat, hard stone.
Eagerly, Starlight leaned down... and dipped her horn into the stream. Briefly, she hissed in pain at the temperature change, but soon the pain melted away into relief as her overtaxed appendage cooled and numbed. It was like a gulp of fresh air, if fresh air could be applied directly.
Next, she drank. For nearly two minutes, Starlight lapped without pause, only stopping to roll onto her side and groan after having as much as she could possibly hold. Still, she felt thirsty... so she resolved to lay there, the tips of her four hooves barely touching the running water, until she was able to drink again.
Before too long, however, laying on the exposed stone in the night air began to take its toll. Starlight shivered; it wasn't a bone-piercing cold like that of the caves that had never seen the light of Celestia's sun, but it was the kind that would wear out its welcome soon to even the sweatiest of exercisers. Starlight felt her coat. It retained all of its youthful fluffiness, but that group definitely included her.
Starlight got up, considering taking a bath in the stream... but decided against it. If she was cold now, that would just make things worse. She'd do it in the daytime, when the sun could dry her out.
Instead, she pulled open her saddlebags and removed her flasks. Unceremoniously dumping the cave water from her last filled one, she held the three under the stream with her mouth, carefully rinsing them and filling them back to the brim. To test, she sniffed one and took a sip - exquisite. She topped it back off and returned them to her bag.
Next, she withdrew her food supplies in their entirety. Stale, dried fruit. Stale, dried bread. Stale, dried cheese... and maybe some other things. Much less exquisite. The unicorn glared at them, wishing for the grassy meadow from the previous evening... but they were what she had. Frugally, she put most of them back away, saving a few bites to munch on as she made her way downstream.
Starlight stared in dismay at the landscape ahead.
She had emerged from the trees, and now stood at the edge of a wide, flat, smooth stone field. Her river coolly streamed across it before vanishing at the edge in a cloud of haze. And beyond? She could see nothing for miles save for the jagged shadow cut through the heavens by the distant interlinking of peaks.
Starlight paced to the edge anyway, careful to steady her hooves in the event of wet ground. Peering over the cliff face, she swallowed: it was perfectly sheer, and so far down she couldn't make out the bottom. Or she could - but all it was was a mirrorlike lake, reflecting the immeasurable swarms of stars in the sky.
Sitting down, she took a moment to pout, thinking back on the way she had come. She had hoped the flattening of the terrain had meant she was reaching the bottom; instead, she had merely found a cliff... and would have to part from her river, as well.
Her instincts told her there was no time to waste, and she batted them away. So long as she found food and drink, she had all the time in the world. So she sat there at the edge of the cliff, staring flat-eared at the sky and the moon, the horizon that limited her sight so far away she felt she could touch it.
After a moment of moongazing, she shook her head and looked away, briefly chastising herself. She enjoyed it, to be sure. Perhaps a little too much. With a slight feeling of nervousness, she curled around and inspected her flank. It bore two parallel lines of charcoal gray, exactly as she had seen it last.
She sighed bitterly, overcome by an unknown mix of emotions that left a lonely taste in her mouth. Eventually, she straightened up, turned around, and continued walking.
The first thing Starlight Glimmer did was backtrack along the river to a safe distance from the cliff's edge, so that she wouldn't get washed over if she slipped and fell in. Next, she dipped in her muzzle and drank deeply once again - this time remembering to stop while she could still move. She sighed again, wiped her lips, checked that her flasks were full... and turned her back on the stream, marching with the edge to her left.
The filly stayed on the fringe of the forest, gladly letting the light from above replace her need to use her horn. But she stayed within range of the carpet of needles; thin as it was at the border, and even though she wore horseshoes, it was considerably better than hard stone.
As she walked, she noticed her shadow growing longer... and it wasn't just from the setting moon. The ground beneath her was slightly sloped, indicating that she was losing altitude. She hummed pleasantly to herself; she had guessed the right direction.
That and she just hadn't wanted to cross the river.
The moon set. Abruptly, Starlight found her path that much darker: she hadn't realized just how much of the light it was responsible for. She almost considered relighting her horn, but the terrain was flat and the only cliff around was very obvious. Besides, it felt nice to rest, for a change. Rest. She snickered; she couldn't remember a time in her life her legs had been this used.
Honestly, she was surprised she'd done as well as she had, going on hoof. Early on - before she'd even reached the caves - she'd overtaxed herself and had to rest for a day, legs turned to pillars of pink pudding, and had proceeded with horrible cramps afterward. But ever since, she'd been more careful, and hadn't once given herself more than she could bear. She wished she could say the same for her smarting horn.
Starlight was still following the cliff edge when the sky began to lighten, and again when the sun fully rose. It snuck speedily out from behind a crag so fast she barely had time to blink - though her blink was more at the realization that she didn't need to blink. She craned her neck up and up, trying to look over the towering wall of stone that loomed before her much closer than the day before... and when she saw the sun, it was nearly at midday.
She sighed, shivered, and stood there, allowing it to warm her coat and dispense of the night's chills. Then she continued walking.
Now that the sun was up, Starlight opted to make another trip to the edge to check what was below. When she reached it, she was pleasantly surprised to see the forest canopy only a few meters down. She was almost there.
Hardly wanting to shimmy down a sticky, sappy trunk with her saddlebags, she kept going. Parts of her body began to complain: her stomach was hungry, her legs were weary, her back was hot even though she still felt cold inside. Unhappily, she thought of the rations in her pack and the size of her last meal. If she didn't want to run out of food, she'd need to find trees that grew something other than pine cones. Or more grass. She doubted she could take that with her, but it had certainly been nourishing.
Still, she forced herself onwards, periodically checking the cliff. Several hours later, it finally became shallow enough to jump down, so she braced herself, coiling, and leapt.
More stone. Starlight frowned; she had hoped for grass. But the sun was still high in the sky, and the forest resumed ahead of her, so she would need to get a good start if she didn't want to have to use her horn again to see at night. To that end, she stopped, spread her packs, curled up on a rock and had the most pitiful picnic that mountain valley had ever seen.
She winced from hunger again even as she re-packed her saddlebags, and shrugged it off. There would be real grass again eventually. Maybe she'd eat a full meal that evening. She'd tried ferns and moss already, only to find them intolerably scratchy, bitter, and dubiously edible.
At least she wasn't sleepy. That much, she had under control: after countless sunless days in the mountain caves, her sleep schedule had devolved to something nopony could even guess. She wasn't sure how long she would sleep for when she next properly went to bed, but she knew she'd been up for a day and a half and her eyelids weren't the least bit heavy.
So, with a supply of food that needed to last an unknown amount of time and a pair of eyes that definitely weren't sleepy in the slightest, Starlight Glimmer hitched up her saddlebags, perked her ears forward, and trotted into the forest.
Exuberantly, with the setting sun tinging the topmost layer of the canopy gold above her, she munched and munched contentedly, pulling berries off a cluster of bushes with her telekinesis. Her eyes were closed, relying on the feel of her magic to separate the fruit from the leaves... though the leaves on this particular bush were quite tasty, too.
She scarfed the berries by the dozen. Small, bulb-shaped, and incredibly sour, they made her tongue puff up as she ate, but she didn't care. As far as she was concerned, any flavor at all beat out stale bread. Besides, she liked sour.
More usefully, the berries were fairly hard, sturdy and didn't drip. When she had eaten as much as she considered wise (plus a few extra hooffulls for good measure), she set down her saddlebags, rearranged the contents so that one was empty, and began packing the thing with berries as well.
The berries were small, and the bushes not infinite, so that task took her several hours. It might have gone faster if she hadn't kept eating, but she didn't care - at least, not until she realized stars were visible through the treetops above. The sun had set, it was night, and her horn was just beginning to ache again.
Starlight yawned, belching contentedly, and realized how badly she needed a drink. Deciding it could wait, she shrugged on her saddlebags... and promptly faceplanted into the springy earth.
She hit the ground with a yelp of surprise. Her saddlebags were heavy! And she was full, and more than a little tired. She blinked, twitching her ears, wondering if it was time for a nap.
Not sleeping now meant sleeping during the day... or staying awake twenty-four more hours, twice as long as she'd already been up. Swiftly making up her mind, she dumped her saddlebags again, rummaging through the contents. The filly produced a warm, lightweight blanket and backed her way to a nearby outcropping of stone, against which she curled, wrapping herself like a burrito. She hovered her bags next to her head, extinguished her horn, and listened to the night.
At a sudden burning sensation on her face, Starlight yawned herself awake. She blinked, cringing, upwards; the sun shone on her through the trees directly above. It was midday, and she had been rudely awakened.
Grumbling, Starlight shook out and packed her blanket, checking on the berries in her other bag. They had held up, it seemed - perfect. She searched the bushes one last time, grabbing a few more elusive clumps and throwing them in her mouth as she set off again.
The sun was perfectly overhead, so she couldn't use it for guidance. What she really needed was another river: water flowed downhill, so it would inevitably lead her to a lake, or, preferably, out of the mountains or even to civilization. As she walked, she daydreamed about what non-Equestrian civilization would be like. There would be no worship-this and worship-that of cutie marks... or possibly no cutie marks at all. She licked her lips and looked back at the gray equals sign on her lilac flank.
She walked perfectly counter to the gradient, reasoning that water flowed downhill, so by keeping her altitude constant she'd cross the most potential room for rivers to run. Eventually, her instinct paid off, leading her to a rushing torrent many times wider than the small stream she'd found earlier. It was moving downhill to her left, so she shrugged and followed it.
The river led a fairly straight course. Starlight was somewhat surprised; from her view of the mountains from above, they looked like folds in a blanket: jagged, triangular and geometric, straight sloped lines all the way to the bottom. She wondered if that meant she was nearing the bottom, but was hesitant to assume seeing how recently she'd been tricked by the alien geography.
Home... the mountains of home didn't look at all like this. They were tall stacks, rounded humps, whimsically deposited across flat stretches of land like scoops of ice cream fallen from the cones of giants. Even the homeward side of the supposedly-impassable mountain range she was leaving behind was somewhat curvy, though it was definitely closer to this than anywhere else.
Something about the triangular mountains soothed her. There was an ordered chaos to them, something wild and raw... that hadn't been made to be anything other than what it naturally was. She was almost jealous, in a way.
Jealous of mountains! Starlight laughed, picking her way around small logs that had washed up at the riverbank. No, she wouldn't be jealous of anything. That was too much like getting attached, and she had to prevent herself from caring too much about anything in order not to find her cutie mark.
Evening had come again, the sun shining the last rays it would shine before being swallowed by the impossibly high horizon when Starlight and her river exited the forest. She breathed in wonder at the lake before her, its perfectly flat waters stretching all the way to a massive, sheer cliff face to her left. Her eyes searched for the top, and perhaps a mile down she saw a small waterfall glistening in the dying light. That was probably where she'd been last night.
The waters met the cliff without leaving a path, meaning Starlight's only path forward was around the other side of the lake... and across any and all rivers pouring into it. Silently, she hoped there was at least one that left it, because if not, she'd have to find a pass, and that meant more climbing.
She didn't want to swim; she knew that much. And seeing as she wasn't tall enough to ford all but the shallowest of shallows, she set off to find something she could use as a bridge.
A series of flat, decently-large rocks poked up through the river, just high enough that they avoided most of the splashes and spray. Starlight Glimmer sized them up, decided they would do, then waggled her tail and leapt.
With a clink of metal on stone, she landed on the first one. Her legs complained slightly from the jump, but she was still sturdy. The stone below her was too, not shifting in the slightest from her landing. Pausing, she examined the river surging around her again, lining up the best way across. She targeted her next stone, backed up as far as she dared, and made another jump.
Tink! Her hooves made contact, scrabbling for purchase. She'd been munching on berries from her saddlebag all day, so it wasn't as heavy as it once had been, but was still cumbersome. Minding its weight, Starlight judged another stone and leapt again. Halfway there.
She made it past one more jump... and paused, realizing she had made a mistake. The end of the river loomed just ahead, but it was more distance than she could jump at once and she was all out of stones. She frowned, bit her lip and pouted. The river rushed around her.
Eventually, when the river had made it clear it wasn't going to magically grow a new platform for her to stand on on its own, Starlight sighed and narrowed her eyes. Grunting in concentration, she lit her horn and pointed it at the halfway point between her and the rocky edge.
Flash! A stream of teal flew forward. Where it impacted, cyan manacrystals formed together in midair, interlocking into a prism that traced its way down until it ingrained with the riverbed. Starlight stuck out her tongue in concentration, pouring all her focus into the high-powered spell, all the while making sure to deliberately not enjoy it.
The crystal block stayed put. After a few moments, horn still active and keeping it in existence, Starlight gritted her teeth, ran forward, and jumped again.
Her hooves made a strange, metallic sizzling noise as they came in contact with the substance, but it was as sturdy as anything she'd ever walked on. Not stopping to rest on her work, Starlight immediately jumped again, relying on her momentum to carry her to the far side.
She landed abruptly, pebbles shifting under her weight, and hopped to higher ground. Her horn went out, the block behind her disappearing in a flash. She smirked, proud of herself... but not too proud. She didn't want a cutie mark in river crossing, after all.
So, with the setting sun in her eyes and the forded river at her side, Starlight set off once again, returning to the lake at the bottom of the cliff.
Starlight awoke with a flash of panic. She didn't remember falling asleep or even making camp... but what she was now was wet, and she was getting wetter.
It was raining. Fat dollops of water fell all around her - at first sporadically, then closer and closer together. Her coat bristled in defense even as it became plastered to her backside, and she looked around wildly to get her bearings.
She was at the edge of the lake. She'd been walking alongside it. It had been night... she must have fallen asleep on her hooves. The sky and everything below it were gray, indicating it must have been some time during the day... but when didn't matter. She had to find shelter before her packs soaked through.
Already imagining her hard, stale bread and carefully hoarded berries turning to mush, Starlight woke her sleepy limbs and galloped, hooves scrambling against the wet lakeshore below. Sand and pebbles slipped beneath her, jamming in her horseshoes and making her wince. She needed shelter... but where?
Quickly, the filly zipped up to a tree, a steady thrumming rising in her ears as rain beat down on the soft floor and rippling lake around her. Its branches and needles were thin, however, and it offered next to no protection. She shivered and darted further into the forest, leaving the lake behind.
She passed a gnarl of bushes that strongly resembled a wilder version of a garden hedge, branches waving invitingly at her... but they were already soaked. She stuck her head in anyway, shiversnorting from the wet contact, and backed out, cantering away.
Ahead, a break in the trees loomed, and she burst out into the full force of the downpour... and groaned. Ahead was another river, waters churning hungrily as the gray rain fed it further. Again, she tried and failed to bristle, little lilac face falling with the raindrops.
With a muddy hoof, Starlight pushed her wet mane out of her eyes and surveyed the area, hooves hurting and teeth chattering. This river was far less straight than the last one, zigging and zagging through an open stony field with occasional outcroppings of rock sticking straight up into the sky.
Hopefully, she took a few steps toward them, wondering if she might find one with an overhang.
Starlight wandered in and out among the blocky, flat-topped spires, ears flattened by the pounding rain as she peered around corners and inspected rocks. At last, she found something: two protrusions, one leaning against the other such that their tops locked together, creating a small tentlike crevice between. With a gasp, the filly darted toward them, wriggling her way in.
She held still, breathing. The twin walls reached up like a stony hug, open at the front and back and so close together she couldn't even lay on her side... but at last, she didn't feel rain on her back. She eased her saddlebags off and set them in front of her, tucking in her tail to keep it out of the rain.
Inside, her blanket was... wet. So was her bread, and most of her other food. Her water was fine, of course. She popped a hooffull of berries into her mouth, pleasantly surprised to find that they were still as firm as ever and even tasted good with rainwater. And her black box was completely fine.
Squirming, she turned her head around, inspecting her flank. It was blank and markless, safe for a few smudged streaks of gray that even then seemed to be running down her coat. She groaned inwardly, but couldn't fix it now. Her coat was still too wet.
Unsure if wearing her blanket while both she and it were wet was wise, Starlight raised the object in her telekinesis, squinting as she hung it near one entrance of the triangular cave. She set her bags next to it, contents arrayed as spaciously as she could afford... and turned around, squeezing to fit through the narrow walls of the enclosure.
As the rain hammered down around and above her, with the muffled roar of the river in the distance, Starlight sunk down, tucking all four limbs beneath her body and pulling her soggy tail alongside her. She tried, futilely, one more time to fluff her coat, then lay there, a silent sentinel of the watery valley, content to watch, listen, and maybe fall asleep.
Eventually, Starlight awoke in a snug, soggy pile... and sneezed. She shivered. That wasn't a good sign. Catching a cold here, while completely reliant on her own ability to take care of herself, would be disastrous. At the least, it would force her to find shelter and sustainability and stop for a few days until she was better.
The rain had stopped, though. Instead, the world outside was shrouded in cold, gray mist, creeping right up to her cave and filling the air with so much humidity that she imagined her blanket would be even wetter than it was before. Starlight groaned, hugged herself, and stood up, strolling outside.
The first thing she noticed was the river. It had swollen considerably from the day before, and with a spike of alarm she imagined it getting so large that it would reach her and wash her away. Thankfully, that didn't seem like it would happen soon.
She sniffed the air. As clammy as it felt, it at least had the decency to smell nice. Tilting her head straight up, Starlight took a deep breath... and sneezed. She scowled.
Turning around, the filly began dragging her things from her cave with telekinesis. Sure enough, her blanket had several bucketfuls of water waiting to be squeezed out, which she did at a distance and with several shivers. It probably needed to be washed, anyway.
Repacking her things, she slumped the wet saddlebags against her back, miserably tramping away from the cave. As she walked, she realized she'd forgotten to clean out her horseshoes, but wasn't about to stop now. This much mist likely meant it was early morning, and she wanted to travel as much as possible before night returned... or it resumed raining.
Starlight hung her head as she walked, searching for a way across this river. If there was one thing she had to be happy about, it was that her horn had stopped hurting. There was still a twinge every time she thought about it, but it was far from omnipresent. Traveling in the day and giving it a rest, apparently, had helped.
Eventually, she came to a large tree that had fallen across the river. Perking slightly, she inspected it, cautiously feeling it with telekinesis. It was wedged firmly in place, though it had been stripped of bark and was slick with moisture. Starlight eyed the swollen waters below distrustfully, their blue-gray waves lapping up against the side of the log. Carefully, she tested it with a hoof... and promptly slid right off.
The filly frowned, lighting her horn. Concentrating, she forced mana into the log, watching as it shimmered... and began to change. Her magic wrapped around the outside, forming manacrystals attached to the surface, tiny and jagged and myriad across the bridge. When she tested it again, their coarse, magical surface gave excellent perch to her hooves, and she immediately scampered across without incident.
Having reached the end of the bridge, Starlight sighed... and sneezed again. Releasing the crystals from her magic, she let them fade behind her as she plodded drearily onwards into the dripping forest.
As the day passed, the rains mercifully didn’t return… but neither did the sun. A blanket of grayness hung low over the world, infecting even the trees with dim, monotonous shade.
Starlight plodded on regardless, her little hooves beginning to drag across the forest floor. Trees surrounded her, tall and straight and with limbs interlocking in a web of crossroads high above. No wind blew through them or caused them to sway, but the forest was hardly silent. Exotic birds trilled deeply, crows and woodpeckers and hidden things that gargled deeply with their throats. But all of it was in the treetops. On the ground, Starlight was silent and alone.
She broke the silence with a sneeze, her still-wet fur clinging oppressively to her back. Wiping her nose on a foreleg, she looked around without stopping, unable to see more than a few dozen meters in any direction due to the density of the trees.
Aside from fallen branches and scattered boulders, the way was clear, at least. Starlight couldn’t feel a path beneath her, instead trusting her instincts and traveling almost imperceptibly downhill. With the sun hidden behind a wall of gray, she had no way of orienting herself save for the slope of the earth.
Ironically, her goal was still to find water. Dully, she popped a few drying berries into her mouth and contemplated where she was headed. At this rate, she’d find herself back by the lake… two streams crossed, yes, but then what? If it was indeed a mountain lake, the odds were good it had no way out. She could remain indefinitely trapped in that crater until she climbed, and then… what then?
Suddenly, Starlight broke out from the forest cover. A river of loose, jagged stones lay in her path, winding its way all the way up into a fold between two mountain walls. An avalanche zone, evidently. She briefly considered climbing it, but the land above looked just as gray and foreboding as the sky that touched it. Not wanting to stay in an area where something might fall and crush her, the filly plodded onwards, thoughts of grayness beginning to fill her head.
Rain had been rare, growing up. Her home had been near a desert, and while the pegasus ponies had been convinced that watering it was important, there had always been a degree of stinginess to the job. Rain had been something to rejoice over. Still, it had looked nothing like this - fluffy, swirly white clouds that dumped their payload when bounced on and were carted away.
These clouds were nothing like that… if they could be called clouds at all. They completely lacked any defining features, quantifiable not in number but by volume. No matter how hard Starlight stared, leaning up and glancing past the sea of branches, they were one and the same, without bottom or edge, sans even a single swirl or spiral etched into them to show the world their purpose.
They were just gray… not as an adjective, but an incarnation. And that grayness was beginning to infect Starlight’s mood, too. With sullen steps, she dragged one hoof after the other, occasionally stopping to sniffle as she wearily hiked further into the forest.
Starlight Glimmer couldn't go on.
Miserably, she lay flat on her stomach, staring at the perfectly smooth lake before her. It was a different lake than the one she had seen before, with a short cliff to her right that swiftly petered out. She looked at it, told her legs to move, and they didn't.
For all the chills she had endured in the caves spanning the peaks of the mountains, nothing compared to this. She had lain on bare stone, protected by nothing but her blanket and her fuzzy coat. She had walked miles through sunless depths, with no source of warmth save for her own little body. Never, though, had she been wet and unable to dry off.
The water hugged her like a squid, half-evaporating and refusing to finish the job. Every time she imagined it, thoughts of her wet blanket filled her mind instead - how was she supposed to fix that? Without it, she couldn't stay warm. Without it, she couldn't-
Starlight yelped as a thick drop struck her squarely in the muzzle, spurring her legs into action. Within seconds, the rain had returned, morphing into an extension of the mist, an impenetrable curtain of drops individually too thin to see yet together capable of soaking anything and everything.
The filly panicked, shivered, hissed, and cried, fleeing along the short, stony bank along the cliff floor. It narrowed as she ran, quickly trapping her with a wall on her right and the rippling, disturbed surface of the wide lake on the left. Starlight sneezed violently, looking around with wide eyes at the bank on which she stood. It was backtrack or be trapped... and she didn't remember having recently passed any good hiding places.
Frozen, Starlight stood, her decision-making having failed her. A split second later, her horn flashed, and suddenly the air where she had been standing was replaced with a block of crystal.
Inside, a lilac filly blinked. The material had formed around her, by instinct or otherwise. Her panic held her frozen for a minute longer... during which she realized she didn't need to breathe. The crystal seemed to respire for her, placing the feeling of cool, rainy air in her lungs without even a rise and fall of her chest. She didn't think about what would happen if she had to sneeze.
The misty rain silently made land on top of the prism, trickling its way down the sides in thick rivulets that reminded Starlight of looking out a window... if the window was made of teal stained glass. As her heartrate slowed and her brain took stock of the situation, she realized two things: she was still wet, but she wasn't getting any wetter.
Mentally, Starlight felt her horn. It was shimmering, keeping her protective cage in existence. While putting a pony inside a block was an entirely new experience to her, she assumed the usual rules for making gems still applied. Simpler is easier. Stop concentrating, and they disappear. A little more taxing than levitation... which was easy in a pinch, but awful to sustain without breaks for an extended amount of time. Still, Starlight was far from tired. She could probably keep it up a while longer.
As she thought that, the rain intensified, picking up until the beat of drops against her shield was audible and even tangible. She shivered within the block, narrowed her eyes, and resigned herself to a long, drawn-out wait.
Several minutes into her vigil, something caught her attention. In the lake in front of her, a branch was floating past. Its movement was surprisingly rapid, from which Starlight could only deduce one thing: the lake must have a current. That meant it had an exit. There was somewhere further for her to go.
With a rush of determination, Starlight steeled herself. Her horn pulsed, and the protective crystal shield around her vanished, immediately exposing her to pelting rain and a light wind. She cried out in shock and annoyance, but didn't break her concentration, instead forming a wide, flat slab of crystal on the ground in front of her. With careful skill, she maintained the sheet, lifting it in her telekinesis and holding it above her head like an umbrella.
Her horn immediately complained from performing two sustained spells at once. Pushing through the accompanying wince, Starlight blew a raspberry. She was dry, and she could move. Keeping her horn happy could wait.
Starlight didn't waste a second of her newfound mobility, kicking into a swift trot on soggy, cold, over-taxed legs. Some part of her knew that she would have to rest hard soon, but that could wait... and for less practical reasons than that she presently had no shelter. She wanted to find out where the current went!
Hurriedly, she chased after the branch, its barren twigs still poking up in her misty sight. The path below her shrank so thin, her shield grated against the cliff, each contact causing a few sparks to pop from her horn and her head to tilt as if she'd been slapped. Eventually, she ground to a halt, fuming. The land beneath her completely disappeared. There was nothing but water, all the way up to the cliff.
Panting, growling, exhausted, and pained, Starlight stared angrily at the stick that had led her to the dead end... when suddenly, it swerved, turning right and floating straight into the cliff face, where it promptly disappeared.
Starlight's eyebrows rose. She leaned out as far over the water as she dared, trying to get a better view of the area the branch had disappeared to. A vertical sliver of black teased at her vision... when a sudden, violent sneeze nearly capsized her, forcing her to throw a hoof into the water to prevent tipping in entirely.
Yelping, Starlight righted herself. She threw away her shield and stared, feeling fresh rainwater begin to evaporate off her warm horn. With the frown of an accepting challenger, she relit her horn, pointing it downward at the vanished shore in front of her, and fired.
Slowly, a thin bridge materialized out of crystal in front of her, allowing her to progress slightly further along the cliff base. She did so deliberately, refusing to flinch or shudder as the rain drummed against her back... and when she reached the end, a black cave yawned in front of her. She peered around the entrance, eyes adjusting to the light... and with a sudden burst of smugness, saw that there was an outcropping of rock several hooflengths above the flowing water, flat and dry and tucked nicely against the wave wall. Starlight coiled her legs and leapt.
Her body complained, and the jump didn't go quite as far as she intended it to... but the upper half of her body still landed cleanly on the platform. Scrabbling, she wheezed as the hard edge dug into her belly and her hind legs met water, kicking and splashing as she tried to haul herself up. The crystal behind her vanished in a puff of magic as she did so, and soon she was entirely on the platform, saddlebags and all.
Starlight stood up, surveying the blackness. She lit her horn, summoning a light spell, and just had time to see that the shelf stretched further back into the cave before a loud pop extinguished her horn in a shower of sparks. Exhausted and pushed to her limit, Starlight fainted, collapsing with her saddlebags still on to the cold stone floor below.
When Starlight Glimmer came to, it was slowly, groggily, and with a great deal of unhappiness. The discomfort in her hooves, legs, and horn swiftly made her wish she hadn't.
She wasn't sleeping, though, and found she couldn't if she tried... so she simply stared dead ahead. The mouth of the cave loomed in front of her, and beyond it lay night... and more rain. Big surprise. Her coat felt slightly drier, at least, albeit with the stiffness that comes from leaving one's clothes out and forgetting to iron them. It probably needed brushing. Starlight didn't have a brush.
Her saddlebags were still on. The side she was laying on was the one with the berries. That probably meant they were all smashed. She inwardly groaned, but there was nothing she could do about it then. Doing anything required moving.
Still, as long as the rain continued, there was no way she was setting hoof outside that cave. Slowly, she also reminded herself that she'd need magic to get out. Her horn warned her not to even try casting a test spell, and she wisely listened.
With nothing else to do, the exhausted filly lay there, defeated and bored, staring unblinking out into the night.
The next time Starlight came to, the rain had stopped. The sun wasn't shining, but it was definitely day. That meant she could continue, if she got up and left the cave.
She didn't get up or leave the cave.
Instead she groaned, long and loud, stretching until her legs cramped and she curled back up, hissing. Her horn was still useless, but she had had enough of laying around. Slowly, stubbornly, Starlight rotated upright, dumping her saddlebags in the process. They hit the floor, her few possessions falling out behind her.
There was, at least, one thing she possessed the tools to take care of then and there. Twisting around, she examined each hoof in turn, prying off the curved strips of metal that normally served to make her life easier. Clumps of sand, mud and pebbles dislodged as she did so, and with a contented sigh she massaged the tender, newly-freed surfaces at the bottoms of her legs.
Her concentration was broken by a sneeze. Nose running, Starlight sniffed several times, absently looking out into the cloud-shadowed daylight.
There was grass on the lake's far shore.
Ears perking in interest, Starlight leaned closer. She wasn't sure how she had missed it earlier, but it was clearly there. A good, large food source that was right within her reach the moment her magic recovered. Guiltily, she turned back to her saddlebags, one of which was indeed leaking berry paste. It was a good thing she didn't need that anymore.
She had shelter, and a nearby source of plentiful food and water. She was also exhausted, possibly sick, and with supplies in poor condition. Starlight's common sense didn't take long at all to overrule her stubbornness and tell her she'd be staying in that cave for a while. So, she turned back to the belongings she did have and began to ponder how to make a camp.
Several minutes later, Starlight sat back at the entrance of the cave, proud of herself. Her blanket had been stretched to dry on a section of floor far back enough from the river swiftly flowing by below that it wouldn't pick up any errant spray or dampness, and her box and food supplies were similarly arrayed. Her saddlebags sat nearby; she would need to wash them of berries and stickiness, but the current was extremely swift and she couldn't reach down to the water without serious risk of falling in. That task would have to wait until her magic was recovered.
Ideally, she wanted her things outside to dry. But the sun wasn't really shining, and getting there required magic too. So, with nothing better to do, Starlight sat back and began to groom herself.
It wasn't pleasant work, due to the mish-mash of angles her fur had dried at and the amount of dust and dirt that had become caught in it. She made liberal use of her mostly-full canteens, both for re-wetting herself when necessary and frequently cleaning out her mouth. Slowly, she worked her way down her chest, along her sides, up her legs, and across her unmarked, off-pink flanks. But she was in no hurry.
Eventually, she finished, leaning out over the flowing water and using it as a mirror. Her coat lay smooth at last, which did feel undeniably pleasant even if her mouth tasted like hair and dirt. Her mane, though... it had been weeks since that had been cared for. Her old pigtails had vanished long ago, her neatly-trimmed bang had grown far enough she could probably lick it, too.
Fortunately, it was so matted, it stuck to itself when she moved it and she could just stick it behind her ears. That was something she'd have to fix properly later, once she had a brush and felt up to a bath. Maybe once she got closer to civilization.
Starlight did have one other thing that could technically wait for civilization, but she wanted to do now. It would be tricky without her magic, but she would manage. Pacing stiffly towards the area where her things were stored, she picked up the black box from her saddlebag in her teeth and moved it closer to the light.
Delicately, she unwrapped it, determined not to break the protective layer that she would inevitably need later. When that was done, the lid popped gently open, and she leaned inside.
Within was a small, feathery brush, a folded piece of stiff paper, and a large amount of gray powder. Starlight unfolded the page, revealing a stencil pattern of two parallel lines that she proceeded to hold to her flank. Taking the brush carefully in her teeth, she dusted it over the page, trying desperately not to sneeze as she worked. Ash flew as she worked, and when she pulled away, her cutie mark was restored, good as new.
She repeated the process for her other flank, then folded the stencil and put her box away. Strictly speaking, the mark she had applied was pointless. Not only was Starlight not yet at the age where she would hit a growth spurt and leave behind her filly body, but there were no ponies around to question her blankness in the first place, let alone who knew her enough to call her bluff if she said she was younger than she was.
Still, something about the equals sign that graced her flank was comforting. Starlight had vowed that she wouldn't accept any special talent that could set her above others... but there was no such thing as a cutie mark in not having cutie marks. So, she had made her own.
The filly finished packing, setting her box next to her other things. Next, she looked over her food supplies. The bread was wet, and as stale as it was it couldn't possibly last much longer like that. Since she had a ready food source just outside the cave, Starlight shrugged, taking every last bit of it to eat then and there.
Slowly munching, grimacing at taste and texture, Starlight contemplated the world outside. Her magic was recovering, but she didn't want to use it yet. But the world would still be there tomorrow. Silently, she laid with her bread at the edge of the cave, deciding she wouldn't mind if she fell asleep.
Lazily, Starlight Glimmer opened a single eyelid, though it didn't tell her anything she didn't already know. It was day again. Her horn felt a little better - good enough to use. And once again, it was raining.
Resting her chin in the crook of a leg, the filly looked glumly out at the enticing, green patch of grass on the far side of the lake that was presently being flattened by the weather. She wasn't hungry, but her bread was gone. Hopefully, the rain would let up within the next day, or she would be forced to soak herself again in order to graze. And she still couldn't properly sun-dry her things.
She huffed a bored sigh, using her telekinesis to draw swirls in the dust on the cave floor. A headache swiftly sprang up, causing her to stop. She wasn't that stubborn. Instead, she rolled over, laying on her back and looking up at the many shades of mineral deposits etched on the ceiling.
That, however, caused her running nose to swiftly plug. Flipping upright and standing on heavily cramped legs, she groaned loudly and stomped a hoof, venting her displeasure to any who were nearby to hear it. The echoed flow of the cave river quickly swallowed all reverberations, and soon Starlight was once again alone with only the water for noise.
For several moments, she just stood still, staring across at the far cave wall for no reason in particular. Then, owlishly, her head swiveled until she was facing further downriver, looking past her belongings at the ledge that trailed into blackness... and shrugged, stepping toward it. She had nothing better to do. She might as well keep exploring.
Summoning a dim glow to her horn, Starlight kept her ears well-perked, listening intently as the sounds of the rain and the world outside died away, only to be replaced by cave noises like drips and gurgles and the echoing, omnipresent flow of the river. The stone was smooth beneath her unprotected hooves, sloping slightly downhill to match the river's alarmingly swift pace. A hunch told Starlight that there would probably be a waterfall somewhere deep within the cave. That, she didn't want to fall into.
Soon, the familiarities of cave travel set in. Like old habits, memories of endless dusty labyrinths and relying on her own horn to tell direction floated across her eyes, reminding her to look down at all times in the event of spiky stalagmites. Starlight rounded a bend, fairly certain she had reached the point where the sun was only a myth. She felt a chill, not as all-encompassing as the bleak mountain hearts she had pierced before, but still decidedly uncomfortable when she was on the mend from chills. And then, just when she began to shiver... the path widened.
Starlight brightened her horn, holding still through the bout of nausea that came with it. Maybe using magic so early hadn't been such a good idea, after all. However, all thoughts of tipping over and curling up were swiftly banished from her head as she saw what the room contained.
It was filled with wooden crates - nearly a dozen of them. They were dusty, and clearly old, but their deliberate architecture was plain to see. Some time, some ages ago, another creature had been this way, and seen fit to bring cargo. Wherever civilization was, it couldn't be too far.
More important, however, was the possibility that the crates held something of use. Starlight sized one up, sticking her tongue out and squinting across its length. It was easily bigger than she was, the kind of thing for which a full-grown stallion would be paid bits for moving at a job. Rearing gingerly up to try to make out the top, Starlight hopped a little... and frowned. It appeared to be nailed shut.
Feeling her horn, she figured she could magic it open... but wasn't really up to that right then. Instead, she dropped back to the ground, poking around for anything else of interest.
Quickly, she discovered a keg, the remains of several burlap bags, and what looked like a very old stump. Starlight paused at the last item, curious. What would someone have dragged a thing like that in there for?
Its surface was smooth, almost polished, and hard enough to use as a table. It seemed to be sloped toward one end, and the base at its lowest section had a concavity that practically begged to be sat in. Was that what this was? A desk?
Starlight licked her lips and tried it. It was clearly meant for somepony much bigger than her, but its function was undeniable. A thought crossed her mind, and she felt around, searching for shelves or drawers.
Suddenly, part of the stump slid open under her telekinetic pressure. A flat, recessed sheet of wood slipped out, and in that was a thin, neatly-bound book. Dry and dusty, it lifted easily in her hooves, a tingle of magic that might have been a preservation charm reacting to her presence. Starlight set the book on the desk... and sneezed violently, turning away just in time.
Shuddering, she turned back to it. It had an unmarked cover and loose, open binding, begging to be read. However, her dizziness from acting as a lamp was rising, bringing a wave of nausea along with it. Wisely, she stood back up, deciding it was time to bring this expedition in the caves to its end.
Back at the entrance to the cave, Starlight lay as close to the rain as she dared, allowing the misty air to purge her lungs and refresh her headache. It worked to an extent, after which nothing but time seemed to help. So, she opened the book, reading aloud by cloud-covered sunlight.
Dear future explorer,
I am Sosa, explorer of minor renown. Based on whether I survive this expedition, I imagine you will either know me as an adventurer of legend or have never heard of me at all. I can only guess at how the world has changed in the years, decades, or even centuries since my time in these mountains, but it warms me to know that as long as there is mystery in the world, there will be those like yourself who actively seek it out.
At the time of this writing, I was on a quest to explore and record these venerated hills, that future generations might have a chance to know and love their majesty as I do. Should I have succeeded in my goal and earned the world's fame, this journal will undoubtedly prove to be a historical artifact of great import. Take it, and with it earn yourself a slice of the fame and riches that I myself may have enjoyed. They will be nothing compared to the beauty of this wilderness that you and I have shared, but if I am given them, I pray you will be, too.
On the other hoof, should I fail in my journey and perish before returning my knowledge to civilization... please. I beg of you, complete my life's work. Take my journal and return with it alive, so that creatures of all types might benefit from what I died to see. Show these mountains to the world.
I leave to you this journal, and bid you luck in your own quest. May the mountains be with you.
-Sosa
Starlight flipped through the rest of the pages, sticking her tongue out in disappointment. They contained no maps, no directions, and nothing but boring, flowery poetry. Still, Sosa's camp might prove useful to plunder, depending on how well it had been preserved. She'd go back to it later, when her horn stopped wanting to kill her.
The realization caused Starlight to lurch awake far more quickly than she preferred to, and she spent the next ten minutes sitting groggily up with a slump that could put every teenager ever to shame. Blinking, she licked her lips several times, eventually stretching away a cramp and taking a drink from her flask. Her horn didn't feel wonderful, but it would let her get out and in again.
Outside the cave, there wasn't a cloud in sight. Starlight took her time, figuring the sky would give her ample warning if she needed to run, and when she formed the bridge to exit the cave it was with her saddlebags packed and her eyes fully awake. The berry pouch was untouched, still filled with smelly paste, and her slightly damp blanket occupied the other.
Stomach rumbling, Starlight reached the end of the rocky spit that lead to the cave and circled around to the grass. She threw down her things, spread her blanket out to receive as much sun as possible, and then proceeded with the slightly gross task of cleaning her saddlebags.
Wading up to the very edge of the water, the filly dunked the article entirely, using a concentrated ball of telekinesis to scrub around in the inside. Reddish yellow glop began floating to the surface where she worked, and she had to change location twice to keep her work in clean water.
Eventually, the bags passed the smell test, so she turned them inside out and left them to dry, too. With that accomplished, Starlight knelt and began munching on grass.
She wasn't sure why, but it wasn't as pleasing as the meal she had had upon emerging from the upper caves. Perhaps the joy to be outside was gone, now that the weather had rudely welcomed her back with endless buckets of rain. Perhaps the thrill of eating things she wasn't supposed to had worn off, now that she had been away from home for longer. Or perhaps the grass up there was just better.
Either way, she still made a point of enjoying it. Her rations were gone, and unless Sosa had been there recently enough that his were still intact, this grass was all she'd have. Briefly, she contemplated how she might efficiently harvest the grass... and then she felt the sun on her back.
It had been there for the past hour, of course, but now she actually noticed it. She noticed how cold she was, and how much she'd missed it... and flipped over on her back, simply laying there and sunbathing.
The rays of light poured down on closed eyes, softly fluffing her fur and sinking their way into her body, warming even the deepest recesses of her where the caves' chill had taken root. A smile slowly grew on Starlight's face as, with the pace of an artist and the effectiveness of hot soup, the sun warmed her from within, allowing her to finally feel as if she didn't need to shiver.
She rolled over several times, letting the surface of her coat cool while still absorbing warmth. She sniffled once again, and eventually fell into a peaceful slumber.
Starlight awoke when the sun disappeared. Looking disappointedly upwards, she watched as cloud cover rolled in from the peaks, obscuring her precious warmth with hazy, high-up grayness. She pouted, but at least the sun had done its job: the filly felt like a living heat battery, a warmth sitting in her core that stayed and comforted her even as the air temperature began to drop.
She took a moment to smile giddily. She still had other problems, such as a temperamental horn and minor leg cramps, but this was a feeling she'd been missing for weeks. Even the sun she'd received at the exit to the caves hadn't come near to comparing to this.
Of course, she also hadn't been wet then. But rather than ponder the intricacies, Starlight instead took another mouthful of grass and turned to her things. Her saddlebags still held moisture; appropriate, given that she had recently submerged them. Her blanket, however, was as toasty as she was. It had a sufficient amount of dust and dirt that she briefly regretted not washing it, too, but that could wait. She shook it instead, closing her eyes at the cloud that flew from it, and then wrapping it around herself like a shell. Taking her saddlebags in her mouth, she made her way back to her cave.
Once there, she sat in the entrance, huddled under her blanket to preserve as much of the sun's warmth as possible. The sky looked back down at her, not raining but very well threatening to, and she wasn't about to tempt it. She could explore the cave again, but presently had that feeling that wasn't quite a headache yet could become one in an instant and decided against using magic.
That left her with little to do... though she could always try reading Sosa's book to see if she could learn more about the land around her. She shrugged at the thought; as boring as it had looked, it was probably less boring than doing absolutely nothing.
Silently, the filly skimmed the pages, turning them with her mouth like an earth pony. The walls of text within were just as mountainous as her surroundings, consisting of all sorts of canticles, arias, odes, dirges, boleros and other fancy types of songs. Green this, blue that, majesty and glamor and blah blah blahhhh... Starlight's eyes rolled as she read. Maybe it wasn't better than nothing. Still, she kept reading.
Once or twice, she read mention of something called the Yule river. Sosa wrote of having a boat, so she figured it must have been more substantial than the shallow things she had crossed with stepping stones. Pondering, she closed her eyes and imagined herself on a boat, cruising through a glacial river with no need to use her hooves and shelter always at the ready. She had just begun considering how she might make such a boat when a useful, if slightly morbid, thought occurred.
There had been quite a few crates in Sosa's camp. Wouldn't the explorer have taken those with him if they had gone on? What if they had never left the mountains, after all?
Not thinking at all about the fact that the long-buried remains of a starved corpse might lie in the old camp in the cave, Starlight turned her daydreaming instead to the possibility that a nice, fully-made boat could be waiting for her somewhere, still afloat and ready to carry her out of the mountains.
As the week wore on, Starlight Glimmer continued her recovery. Each day, she used her horn as little as possible, making do with hoofwork and simply doing nothing instead. The filly reattached her horseshoes, finished drying her saddlebags, and flatly refused to take a bath. On days when it was dry out, she left the cave, carefully cutting grass and spreading it in the cave to dry into hay. On days when it was raining, she hunkered under her blanket, reading Sosa's journal for the umpteenth time.
She kept herself warm, and before long her nose stopped running. She made sure to stay active, not willing to let herself get out of shape while she was down. And before long, she decided it was finally time to gear up and do something.
The day she decided that, it was raining.
Starlight pouted at the entrance to the cave, empty saddlebags slung over her little back. Outside, a gale was blowing, forcing her to stand back lest the rain intrude too far. She curled a lip, stuck out her tongue, turned around, and decided to explore the old camp instead.
Her horn felt fresh as she lit it, and the tingle of pleasure from finally being able to use magic comfortably almost succeeded in dispelling her dour mood. This was the first time she had returned to the camp since discovering it, not wanting to push herself while she was still on the mend and secretly fearing what she might find. But excitement was there too, and it forced her steps to quicken as she drew deeper into the cave.
She reached the camp, gaze immediately drawn to the sealed wooden crates she had observed before. Tossing aside her bags, she struggled to climb on top of one, jumping to reach the edge far above her natural height. Once there, she inspected the top in greater detail.
It was bound shut by numerous nails, and a quick telekinetic probe revealed nothing for her to easily grab to force it open. She could probably manage by lifting the lid from within, but was already unenvious of the amount of effort that would take. She paused, thinking... and then closed her eyes.
Starlight extinguished her light spell, but the shimmer on her horn remained. Carefully, struggling for precision, she expanded her telekinetic field until it surrounded the box... and everything in it. Tightening her grip only the barest amount, she slid her field left and right, feeling small amounts of drag as it passed the solids by. Over a minute, she repeated the process, gradually building in her head a map of where the resistance was.
Eventually, she stopped, and proceeded to sit in pitch darkness, unmoving as cool cave air filled her lungs. Whatever was in the box was heavy, long, pointy, and numerous in quantity. Her mind couldn't place what that could be, but she was relatively sure it wasn't food, rope, a tent or anything else useful to her.
She abandoned the crate, yet smirked in satisfaction; scanning it had been surprisingly effortless. Perhaps it was because she was fresh, but the difficulty had all been in imagining what she was feeling. Her horn pulsed on her forehead, good as new.
Licking her lips, Starlight chose another crate to scan. This time, she identified the contents fairly quickly: bottles, probably glass. She turned up her nose; water was good enough for anypony.
Scanning was definitely easier than forcing the crates open, Starlight thought to herself as she chose another and covered it in her field. Briefly, her eyes widened in disgust at what she felt: the contents of the box were coiled in all sorts of chaotic directions and moved when she felt them, nearly a centimeter thick. She quickly realized it was a rope, and wiped a hoof across her brow.
Starlight had brought a rope when she first set out. It had been useful, but was lost fairly early on in the caves after she misjudged the slope of an incline at the base of a ledge and tumbled far out of reach before she could untie it. This was something she needed to get.
Squinting, she hardened her telekinesis under the lid and shoved... and let out a frustrated growl as the crate flew upwards entirely, coming back down with a wooden clunk and nearly flattening her. She wished she knew how to teleport. Accomplished mages would be able to get inside the box, then push from there. But Starlight had to make do with her filly magic, and that meant doing it the hard way.
She set the box aside, deciding that no smart pony would use packaging so hard to open without leaving a tool for it laying around. Relighting her horn, Starlight returned to poking around the room and its low stacks of crates, searching for anything that might prove useful.
Her search turned up no real tools, but she did find a jagged shard of rock that might serve as an impromptu crowbar. Carrying it in her mouth back to the offending crate, she kicked and shoved the thing until it rolled over, leaving the nailed top on one side. Starlight scrambled back up, hammered the rock into a seam, and pushed, uniting telekinesis and her own physical strength.
The box creaked... groaned... and gave. A crack opened up, wide enough for Starlight to shove the rock further in and use it as a lever. She worked her way down the side, rolling the box several more times as she completed the tiresome process of loosening the lid, eventually wrenching and chucking the nail-ridden thing away. The box's contents came tumbling out.
It was, as she had predicted, a rope. Starlight beamed, sitting upright and holding a length of it in her forehooves. It looked slightly frayed and was horribly tangled, but seemed thick and didn't make too many cracking noises when she touched it.
Working by the light of her horn, she knelt and began trying to sort out the first knot... only for the thing to immediately snap in her hooves. She blinked in surprise. Selecting a random portion of the rope elsewhere, she gave an experimental tug, only to be met with the same result.
Starlight groaned loudly, kicking the box before throwing the rope aside and flopping down with her chin on the floor. It was cold, but her frustration needed to be cooled. All that work for a broken rope? At least it hadn't snapped when she was trying to use it. Her heart briefly slowed as she imagined falling down an endless cliff into a pit of darkness, a frayed rope end trailing meters above her...
She gulped, and immediately found that her frustration had been replaced with tears. She wasn't exactly sure why, but lay there and let them come. The rope must have been old. Any food Sosa had brought would be old, too. There was probably nothing of use in his camp, after all.
After several minutes of feeling cold and tired, Starlight scooted forward and pushed herself to her hooves. The cave did still go further, after all. Maybe she would see if there was anything interesting that way.
The passage, to Starlight's complete and utter surprise, led to more caves. And those to more caves still. She followed the river, dubiously eyeing the passages that broke off from her shelf every now and then. She was used to narrow, shifty tunnels, but was without her food and the river was her only method of reliably backtracking.
The river itself rushed at a fairly steep slant, leading Starlight to wonder just how deep it went. A shelf similar to the one on which she walked sprang out of the cave wall on the opposite side, and she could see tunnels branching off there, too. She could have formed a bridge out of manacrystal and crossed, had she wanted to, but that would have been pointless. So, she kept walking.
Her hoofsteps wound ever downward, twisting and spiraling to the point where Starlight swore she was directly under a point she had trodden before. With a slight twinge of nervousness, she realized she had left her saddlebags in Sosa's camp and all of her supplies even further up; if she got too hungry or tired to climb all the way out, she'd be stuck there. She wasn't hungry yet, but this amount of uphill could change that in an instant.
Starlight was almost ready to turn around when she felt a curious sensation on her cheek: the rush of wind. She sniffed; fresh air was indeed coming from somewhere ahead. Her curiosity was instantly piqued. Raising her ears and lowering her head, she charged further into the caves.
Wind this low was unusual. She had entered the cave on level with a lake. After this much altitude loss, shouldn't she be far underground? She shook her head at that line of thought; as far under the surface as the caves she had survived earlier were, they still ran through the very peaks of the mountains. Regrettably, she had no way of telling altitude as she did direction.
She rounded a turn, and realized that she didn't need her horn to see. Light was filtering in from somewhere ahead, and it illuminated the river surging forward with a furious froth. An echoing, stone-piercing roaring that had been building for some time finally completely overpowered the river, leaving little doubt as to what lay ahead. Starlight skidded to a stop around the final bend anyway, blinking furiously as her eyes adjusted to broad daylight - and the sight before her.
Starlight skidded to a stop at the lip of the cave. It opened abruptly in a wall of sunlight, the river dropping out from beneath her and her ledge doing the same a few paces later. Above, below and all around stretched a sheer, vertical wall of stone, the river simply popping out of a hole in the side and falling into the distance.
Across from her, many meters away, rose a parallel wall baked gold by the afternoon sun. Starlight swallowed, hairs prickling at the sight: she was in a colossal canyon, a harsh sideways wind whipping past and nearly threatening to unbalance her. She crouched low to the ground, weathering the blasts and fluffing her coat in defense as the scale of the mountains overwhelmed her with its suddenness.
Above, the sky was blue. Her ears flicked as she watched it; this wind must have blown the clouds away. She could see trees packed all the way to the edges of the gorge, leaning perilously and in one place even forming a natural bridge across the wonder. Below, a river churned, much larger and more violent than any she had crossed before. Flowing from around a bend to her left, it rushed past her, fed by the comparatively small cave stream she had been following and surging on into the... horizon?
Starlight blinked. The left end of the canyon bent and twisted out of sight, but the right one simply vanished, ending the river in a curtain of mist and above that, a spotless blue sky. Conveniently, the ledge she stood on clung to the cliff face for a ways, allowing her to get closer.
Crawling to minimize the area of her exposed to the wind, Starlight crept forward along the narrow protrusion, hooves scraping across loose stones and pebbles that had likely fallen from above. As her eyesight adjusted to the size and depth of the canyon, she grew slightly more confident; it wasn't that deep. The water below was close enough that she could throw a reasonably-sized stone and probably hear the splash, and the cliff edge above was low enough down that if she tried to climb it and fell, she might be able to do it without breaking anything important. Not that she wanted to try, of course.
The ledge kept going, widening and narrowing in intervals as she slid cautiously along it. It rose and fell, dipping so low at one point that if she pinned her tail to the edge and dangled from it, she might be able to touch the splashing spray. All warnings of venturing too far from her supplies forgotten, the filly pressed on, determined to see what lay at the end of the canyon.
Starlight's ledge reached the end, and she saw that it wasn't just the end of the canyon - it was the end. Everything dropped away, from water to mountains to land itself in an endless expanse of green below and blue above. This was a more dramatic height change than what Starlight had seen emerging from the peak tunnels, the landscape so far below that she couldn't even make out individual trees. But trees were what there were; green intermixed with black and gray in a sharply rising and falling sea of stone and foliage that looked more like a bumpy carpet from her vantage.
On the horizon, where miles turned to inches and those into an atmospheric haze, a flat belt of clouds retreated, blown out of the mountains by the wind and sent to annoy the lands below. Aside from that, the sky was so open that it might not have existed at all. For a moment, Starlight stared upwards, before realizing she was above the sky. She pondered if this was how pegasi felt, before remembering that she had never seen one soaring overhead with even a fraction of this much height. She was on top of the world.
Finally, her eyes focused on the horizon, and she took in the most important detail of all. At the base of the waterfall where the river left the canyon, there was a massive lake, hammered into the bedrock by untold years of pressure and torrents. At the edge of the lake, a tiny ribbon of blue trailed into the forest before it was lost to the canopies... but she could still track its path by following the depressions in the landscape. And perhaps twenty or thirty miles downriver, she could see smoke.
It wasn't the thick, dark smoke of a forest fire, but a wide, compound haze caused by hundreds of controlled burns in one area. Her purple eyes shone, reflecting the pillar: that was the work of ponies. And for there to be so many ponies in one place... she was within sight of a town.
Soberly, she reminded herself that when you could see forever, something being in sight didn't count for much. Still, she had a promise from the land: if she followed the river, there would be an end. Perhaps it would be a community of ponies who wouldn't care if she never got a cutie mark!
That still left her with the question of exactly how to get there. Miles meant miles, which could mean days with no guarantee of shelter in a climate where rain could appear without warning. Even that close, one unfortunate soaking could still spell disaster. More importantly, she needed a way to lug her saddlebags and self down a cliff higher than a pegasus sky city, a drop she would have been nervous to take even if she had been a pegasus herself.
She scooted forward, examining the edge of the cliff as carefully as she could. Sosa had made a camp in that cave, and had mentioned having a boat. Any logical place to put a boat would have to be downriver of all major waterfalls, which likely meant he had climbed up this way... which could mean he had left a way back down.
Deciding to take the fast method of searching, Starlight closed her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and expanded her telekinetic aura. She wrapped it around the cliff face near her ledge, tightening it just enough to perform her newly-invented scan, and rubbed, getting a feel for the edge. Quickly, a line of thin, hard spikes protruding down the wall stuck out to her, and she blinked in realization. The contents of the first crate she had scanned must have been some sort of nails for anchoring a mountaineer to a cliff face!
Unfortunately, she was still without rope, which meant such things would be useless. And even if they were close enough together to form a ladder... she shivered mightily. Starlight wanted nothing to do with a plan like that. She poked her head out around the edge, looking at the rest of the mountainside in hopes the slope got easier elsewhere, and was rebuffed.
Groaning loudly, Starlight plopped herself down in the dust at the edge of the cliff and yelled at the sky. But it was clear that she had reached the end of the trail, and there was nothing more she could do there. So, feeling the beginnings of hunger stirring and other signs that she was beginning to tire, she got back up, turned around, and began the long ascent to return to her camp at the lake cave entrance.
Back at her camp, Starlight ate swiftly, not taking the time to properly rest. Her head was too abuzz to do so, swinging back and forth between creativity and defeat at hundreds of times per second. She had seen smoke. Civilization must be near. Yet, an insurmountable drop and miles of jungle still lay between her and her destination.
She picked up a stone from the lakeshore and threw it, letting the ripples disturb her reflection. The gale from the canyon blew here, as well, but by some geographical oddity the surface of the lake was protected from the winds and remained still and placid, even as the conifers threatened to topple.
The town was clearly built next to the river. If she could follow the river, she'd find it for sure. Sosa had had a boat, but with the rope in that condition... it would probably be useless, too.
A thought suddenly occurred to her: while the rope had been useless, she had struggled long and hard to get the crates open. Those had to be sturdy. It wasn't impossible that she could make her own boat from them, should she find a way of surviving the waterfall. Immediately dropping her meal, Starlight scampered back to the cave, eager to test her hypothesis.
She arrived, chest puffing and saddlebags bearing the full weight of her supplies. Around her, illuminated by the light of her horn, Sosa's crates lay exactly where she had left them... but they wouldn't stay that way for long. Starlight licked her lips, selecting the one she remembered to contain bottles. The climbing spikes might come in handy, now that she had seen what lay ahead, but never this.
Starlight sized the crate up, taking a minute to rest and even her breathing. Then, she shoved against it with her shoulder and telekinesis both, pushing it toward the subterranean river.
It ground along the dusty, stony floor, much heavier than the one with nothing but dry rope. Grunting as she pushed, Starlight leaned harder... and barely caught herself when it suddenly disappeared over the lip. A colossal splash rose up, soaking her face and mane, but she leaned into it, hornlight intensifying as she eagerly watched the choppy, speeding surface of the river.
A second later, the crate surfaced, bobbing madly as it surged along and was swept out of sight. Starlight grinned triumphantly: if they could float with that much weight inside, surely they could carry her. Forget having a whole boat, she could just use a plain old crate!
With a confident smirk, Starlight hoisted the rope crate in her aura and began trotting back toward the beginning of the cave.
Starlight's crate gave a light plop as she dumped it into the shallows in a still part of the lake. She then sat back, watching.
The blue sky scrolled by overhead, and trees bowed over, leaning in with interest as Starlight Glimmer apparently did nothing. Her crate bobbed placidly, occasionally drifting away from the shore and being dragged back by a warding prod of telekinesis. After half an hour, Starlight pulled it out and looked in... and frowned. The walls were wet, and nearly an inch of water had pooled in the base.
She yanked it up further onto the shore, dumped it out, and sat back to think. At best, a leaky boat would be extremely uncomfortable to ride in. At worst, it would sink. She tipped it back on its side and examined it, but couldn't see any obvious holes - the boards must have just been loose in general.
Sitting back and sighing into the sky, Starlight wracked her brain for answers... and one quickly surfaced in her memories. Trees were covered in sap. Tree sap was sticky. Once, she had been playing and covered herself in the stuff, and water hadn't been able to wash it out. Would the same apply here?
Willing to find out, Starlight stood up and approached the nearest pine. She tongued the inside of her mouth, imagining the best way to collect the stuff, and eventually settled for brute force.
Her telekinetic aura expanded and encircled the tree. Starlight was no expert at levitating liquids, but pine sap was more solid than liquid anyway. It would work out.
She rubbed and rubbed, but nothing seemed to happen. Frowning, she rubbed harder... and suddenly broke off, feeling the twinge of an oncoming headache. That wouldn't do at all, not after how long she had waited to get her magic back. Reluctantly, Starlight gave up, flopping onto her back and staring moodily up at the trees.
Several hours passed, during which a lone cloud scuttled across her vision. She glared at it, daring it to rain on her. It chickened out, floating off into the distance without so much as a drop. Starlight thumped the back of her head against the soft forest floor and sighed.
When she got up, it took only a brief glance at the mirrorlike lake to tell her she had twigs in her mane. Grumbling, she didn't bother to brush them aside, enthusiasm cut sharply short by her forced break. The one positive was that it had worked; her headache never fully materialized. Still, she glared treasonously at her stubby lilac horn. Why couldn't she use magic for days on end like grown unicorns?
The crate lay where she had left it, drying in the midday sun. Perhaps she'd settle for a leaky boat after all. If only Sosa had had something to say about how to build a boat, rather than how awesome his was.
It didn't matter anyway, she thought miserably, mood failing to reflect the brightness of her surroundings. She still had no way of getting down the waterfall, let alone with a giant wooden crate. Completely ignoring her earlier fatigue, she channeled all her frustrations into her horn in one swift burst and conjured up a giant manacrystal in midair. With a yell, she slammed it into the water, taking bitter satisfaction in the giant splash that arose.
Seconds later, it bobbed to the surface.
Starlight blinked as the block vanished, her spell dropped in surprise. That stuff floated too? Her curiosity suddenly returning, she felt her spirits lifting, returning a grin to her face... until her horn stabbed her with a bolt of dizziness. Growling loudly and unhappily, Starlight stomped over to her crate, flipped it upside-down over her like a shelter, and took a long nap.
Starlight was awakened by a loud rumble from her stomach. Groaning and rubbing her eyes, she lifted the lid of the box, gulping down a breath of fresh air. Outside, the light was dim, with fading stars still visible in the sky and dew covering the grass around her.
Patiently and groggily, she crawled out into the world and began munching. Apparently, she had slept the rest of the day away, and the whole night as well. It took her almost a full minute to remember why she was so tired; she had done more in the last day than the entire previous week put together.
Before her brain could wake up enough to recall her frustration from earlier, her box caught her vision. With grass poking out of her mouth, she eyed it, suddenly realizing that if properly waterproofed, it could make a superb portable rain shelter. A glow rose in her chest; that was another problem solved.
She felt her horn, and it seemed to be fine. Maybe it would take more than one day of overexertion to tire her out for good, now that she was rested. But she didn't want to push it, so she spent the rest of the time until sunrise eating in peace.
When she finished, belly full and the sun beginning to break over the snow-capped horizon, it was with a renewed determination to test her earlier discovery. Starlight crafted another manacrystal, this one sufficiently small as to take little effort, and dropped it into the water near her.
It bobbed and floated, about a quarter of its volume sticking above the surface. With a hoof, Starlight tapped it down, and it swiftly rose back up. She grinned.
Next, Starlight released the pebble. She had an idea she wanted to try, but it would be tricky... but something that could probably be done. Recalling the feeling and the process she had used when sealing herself in a crystal earlier, she summoned again, this time targeting only her head.
A prismatic block appeared, almost perfectly in place. Starlight suddenly struggled in panic, having forgotten that this would result in her being unable to breathe: though her head was trapped, her chest was free, yet she was unable to expand her lungs. She quickly banished the spell, hyperventilating and staring wide-eyed down into the lake.
After taking a drink to calm her nerves, Starlight focused on her memories of the experience earlier. She'd made it work before, after all. All she had to do was be rational... and calm. Rational and calm. She repeated it to herself in her head several times, took a minute to practice holding her breath, and lit her horn, ready to try again.
This time, she successfully fought back the initial wave of panic as her head was encased and the rest of her body remained free. Acting as if she was deliberately holding her breath, she found that she still didn't need to breathe while in the crystal... and nothing felt wrong until she tried to use her lungs.
Now more comfortable, the filly waddled to the water's edge, struggling not to tip over in her new, top-heavy state. Her vision was impaired by the crystal's refraction, setting the world spinning at bizarre angles and playing havoc with her depth perception, but her goal was to submerse her head, and that was something tipping over was at least beneficial for. A splash reverberated around her, wetting her hooves and forelegs and sounding strangely hollow from within the prism, and she was in.
Starlight blinked within the gem, slightly surprised at what she saw. Beneath the surface of the water, everything looked perfectly normal, the cyan-tinged view beyond the crystal melding neatly with its prismatic exterior to create an almost-uninterrupted portrait of the lakebed. The surface and edges of the gem were nearly invisible, and she found that she could somehow still breathe.
Pulling up, Starlight dispelled the gem and waded back out of the pool, an idea rising in her mind. She had no idea how hard her manacrystals were, but what if she could use them to shield herself during drops? There was a sizable lake at the base of the large waterfall, and it was undoubtedly carved to be extremely deep by the forces that created it. What if she descended the mountains by jumping?
The prospect sent a chill of fear up her spine, but also excitement. A skydive of that length would surely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience... but was it safe? She'd have to test first.
For now, though, that could wait. She still had the problem of waterproofing her boat to deal with, and was ready to tackle it with a fresh mind. Sticking her tongue out at the conifers that had failed her the previous day, Starlight turned away and kicked one, surveying the land for alternatives.
A pine cone fell down and bonked her on the head.
Narrowing her eyes and rubbing her scalp, the fuzzy filly glared up at the tree... farther up than she had usually looked. Suddenly, she realized that among the branches were crystallized orbs of sap clinging to the trunk, just waiting like fruit to be picked.
She extended her aura warily, and after a bit of focus and struggle snapped one off. Levitating it down to eye level, she examined it carefully, poking at it with the barest tip of a hoof. It was hard and completely solid. Wasn't this stuff usually runny and sticky?
The cold mountain air answered for her. Like chocolate, she reasoned, sap must have a low melting point. All she needed to do to make it spreadable was warm it up!
Starlight proceeded to gather several more nubs as she pondered exactly how to do that. Unicorns were capable of heat spells, but they were among the most exhausting one could perform. Converting mana in a horn to light or kinetic energy was an extremely efficient process, with very little lost to friction. But warming something up? That would be akin to rubbing herself telekinetically with a towel to generate heat. There was no way she could handle something like that.
...The forest, however, might. A grin growing on her face to match the plan in her mind, Starlight righted her box and began gathering small branches from the forest floor, tossing them in.
That evening, Starlight had herself a fire. It crackled in the cave entrance, fed on scraps she had carried over from the woods, fairly small and yet sufficient to do the job. Her crate lay upside-down nearby, thoroughly doused in water to prevent it from catching any stray sparks, and her still-packed saddlebags sat in a pile further back. The entirety of her sap collection now hovered in her aura, turning into a honeylike ball of golden slime as she turned it and cooked it over the roasting twigs.
When it reached the consistency of jelly, she decided it was ready. Spreading it thinly, Starlight levitated the mass over the crate and slathered it on, paying special attention to the bottom and the lower half of the sides. She worked it in, pushing and rubbing, briefly imagining herself as a telekinetic masseuse as she coated the crate in gold.
Finishing the project, she set it aside to cool and dry, turning instead back to warm herself by the fire. Usefully, the crate seemed to be fairly bottom-heavy, meaning it would roll itself upright if it got tipped over in the voyage. If she could ensure that diving in a crystal would be safe, she could just wrap everything in at once, then release herself safely at the base of the falls in the boat.
Still, one more piece needed testing: the dive. Idly unpacking and repacking her saddlebags, Starlight tried to convince herself to do that there and then. There were still several hours of light left in the day, after all.
Her blanket was tightly wrapped and rolled. She'd split the waterproof wrapping from her cutie mark box with Sosa's journal, having decided that as boring as it was, the adventurer might be right about others paying for it. The rest of the space was packed to bursting with dried hay, enough to keep her well-fed for at least three days. Longer, if rationed. Idly, she decided she might as well go get dinner before dusk fully descended.
Munching on the lakeside, Starlight watched her cave from across the water. The embers of her pocket-sized fire burned within, silhouetting the large dark rectangle of her new boat and the small lumpy shape of her saddlebags. She'd need to test the boat again, too. Applying the sap had been fairly easy, once she discovered how to do it. She could always give it more if needed.
But that could wait for tomorrow. She was getting tired, and the sun was beginning to set. With a belch, she got up from her meal and began trotting home.
She had just reached the stony spit that would take her within reach of the entrance when a cool breeze blew down from above, ruffling her ears. Glancing upwards, Starlight blinked at the sky... and grinned. She still had some energy. Might as well not retire until she really needed it. Maybe she could test now, and set out the next morning. Now that progress was on the horizon and things were working smoothly, it was getting harder and harder to deny her eagerness to continue.
Starlight backtracked, quickly finding a point where the cliff that formed the lake face was low enough that she could climb up. She swaggered confidently along the edge, walking along and looking for a point sufficiently high that she could make a dive. The stony path to her cave was in the way, its gentle slope indicating that the lake was quite shallow beyond it... she'd have to go further.
She passed the mouth of the cave, walked several more meters to where a small stream trickled down the rock face, and looked again. There wasn't a visible bottom to the water, and it looked fairly clear. Starlight suddenly gulped, nervous... but this was still her best shot. She had her fire to dry off if she got soaked, and if she couldn't make a jump like this, how would she ever convince herself to go over the falls?
Steeling herself, the filly swallowed harder, backed up... and ran at the cliff. Little legs flailing, she charged off the edge, leaping as far as she could with her horn already lit. Mouth open in a yell of determination, she formed the spell around her, and the crystal formed just in time to protect her.
Splash!
Bobbing to the surface, Starlight realized she was upside-down... but a feeling of elation filled her. The jump had been slightly awkward and disorienting, but she had made it. Hitting the water at terminal velocity probably wouldn't be too much harder. Now she just needed to-
A shadow suddenly covered Starlight's head. With a flicker of freezing panic, she realized that she was drifting... and had just been sucked into the mouth of the cave.
This was a mistake. A huge mistake! Starlight started to flail in terror, before remembering that she was trapped... and just what a bad idea releasing her crystalline prison would be. She would be going over the falls then and there, ready or not, and she wasn't ready at all. So, focusing with every ounce of concentration she had, she reached out with her magic instead. Was there anything it could do to help her?
Instinctively, the first thing that came out was a scanning spell. Starlight felt her fire, her boat, and her saddlebags all on the edge of her perception and swiftly drawing away... so she did the only thing she could think of and hardened her aura, dragging them into the river with her.
The world darkened around Starlight as she rounded a corner, thrusting the sun firmly out of reach. Her crystal rammed up against a wall, knocking her into a spin. Rotating and disoriented, her telekinesis failed and she lost her grip of the things she had dragged after her.
Unable to gasp due to the solid around her, the filly was taken over by an instinct deeper than any she knew she had. Suddenly, with a dull flash, she lost feeling in her throbbing horn, her gem hardening as her body did everything in its power to make sure what little protection she had wasn't lost due to shock. The cold lucidity a pony feels when facing inexorable death flooded over her, and then she was alone, able to think, and perfectly still with the entire world moving around her.
Starlight wasn't sure what to do with her newfound calmness. Beyond the swirling in her ears, she felt gravity's pull and knew that she was leaning at a sharp angle, her head likely half-submerged. She imagined being able to see the tunnel around her, and her horn obligingly lit of its own accord, painting the patterned ceiling in shades of refracted cyan and black.
The edge turned its way into view. It was high enough that she wouldn't be able to grab it even if the water was warm and still, and the reactionary pang her brain sent through her when she even considered dropping her shield was too much to bear. It rotated its way out of sight again and Starlight floated further, drowning in river noises amplified tenfold by the gems in her ears yet so quiet and defined she could make out every last drip.
She drifted past Sosa's old camp. Briefly trying to grab more crates and being met with denial, she imagined her box in her saddlebags and wondered if its wrapping would really be enough to protect against this. She had split it with the journal, after all. Of course, that only mattered if she could ever find it again... and that only mattered if she survived the fall. Which she probably wouldn't.
Why wouldn't she, though? This had been her plan all along... or as long as she'd had a plan, at least. Maybe she could have thought of something better. Definitely, she'd have started at the big waterfall and just made one jump, and she'd have protected her boat and saddlebags with her... but she could still do this. She just had to concentrate properly. She could-
The world lurched around her as the river's flow altered, some subterranean structure beneath the surface changing the currents around her. Bumping, Starlight splashed several times as choppy waves rose up around her, freshly staining her window with moisture. The eye she had below the surface blinked at darkness, and she felt herself speeding up.
Several more times, she clanked with the walls, each contact harsher than previous. She could feel muted sparks in her head each time they struck, her brain's ability to ignore pain evidently being pushed to its limit. Spinning, Starlight tried not to think about what she'd feel like afterward.
The next surge sent her tumbling in a different direction, head rapidly submerging and rising again as she flipped from upside-down to right side up and back again, forcing her to extinguish her light spell lest her vision add to the chaos overwhelming her senses. Her stomach flipped with her, and she instantly regretted eating so much right before performing her test. If she hadn't been completely immobilized, she would have surely lost it by then, but all she could do was hold still and weather the turns.
Another wall clash flipped her upright again, immediately followed by the water dropping out from under her. Seconds later, she splashed, submerging entirely and spinning in random directions as river turbulence forced her under. The only thing she could see was the dim light from maintaining the crystal reflecting off the insides of its walls.
Suddenly, that changed. Starlight was catapulted out into the light, falling in a curtain of mist as velvet twilight surrounded her. She only had time to register that up was one of the directions swirling around her before she was submerged again in a shower of bubbles. This time, the water around her wasn't pitch black, carrying a purpleness from the sky that gradually intensified as she floated back to the surface.
She reached that surface... and then the surface vanished. She had crossed the edge.
Her horn chose this moment to fail, causing her barrier to explode in a shower of sparks and droplets. Feeling returned full force... at the cost of her vision. For the first few seconds of her drop, Starlight struggled to make sense of the blackness and then meaningless images that flickered through her brain, before tying them to her eyes... and forcing her eyes, in turn, to work again.
The land below was still bathed in golden sunset, having a far enough horizon that it didn't obscure the sun. She barely had time to register the ironic beauty when her horn hit her like a carriage, pulsing against her skull with such force that she imagined it exploding like her barrier had.
Hyperventilating, Starlight steeled control of her lungs and forced in a deep breath, pushing it out while plugging her nose to build pressure in her head. Her ears popped, her hornache subsided just a little, and she could think again.
The world around her was still spinning. She flung out all four limbs like a kite, feeling chill air ripping at her somehow-dry body... and stabilizing it. Soon, she was able to look downward, and the moment her eyes stopped tearing from the wind she realized just how much she still had to fall.
Starlight flipped over onto her back, her own wind shadow allowing her to see and breath more easily. Above, she could hazily make out the top of the waterfall she had toppled from, its cliff face sitting at such an angle to the setting sun that great swaths of shadow mixed geometrically with still-lit planes on what appeared to be a nearly flat surface. A small spot of black tumbled in the distance above her, which was probably her boat. She couldn't see her saddlebags anywhere.
The wind continued to shred through her, and she readied herself, flipping over again. The ground was maybe a little closer. Her brain pointed out that the closer it was, the faster it would seem to approach, so she resolved to keep an eye on it as thoroughly as possible. Somehow, she was repressing her dread of what she would do when it arrived. Her horn was probably useless, hurting even to think about. Maybe time itself would make an exception and stop, just for her.
Noticing that she was drifting off course from landing in the sizable lake at the cliff's base, Starlight angled her body, soaring closer. As she did so, an errant spray of water from the falling torrent hit her, quickly wetting the surface of her coat... which in turn began doing something between drying and freezing due to the wind. Starlight hissed, fighting the urge to curl up and looking wildly around.
Something small and solid flashed across her vision, falling with her. She spread her limbs again, stabilizing to look at it better. There, perhaps twenty meters below her, was a dark patch maybe the size of her head... or, two dark patches tethered closely together. Her saddlebags?
Grimacing in determination, Starlight adjusted her angle again, pointing her forehooves in front of her like a speeding pegasus and diving. Second by second, she sped up, dodging through jets of water that appeared around her in slow motion. The land below faded out of her perception as she locked her focus to the tumbling bags, muscles straining to reach as she approached closer and closer.
At last, she reached a hoof out... and snapped it around the strap connecting the two objects. Her saddlebags ejected water like a sponge, no gravity present in freefall to even begin wringing them of their held moisture. Starlight squawked in displeasure, looking away... and realizing just how close the ground had gotten during her dive. Eyes widening in dismay, she stuck the strap in her mouth and spread her limbs again, trying desperately to slow her fall.
The lake loomed large below her, close enough that she could begin to make out its sandy shore. Individual trees were now visible, protruding like green-gray spikes in the night shade. The sound of the waterfall hammering down wasn't yet strong enough to pierce the wind's eternal roaring, but she could tell it soon would be. Starlight was out of time.
She pushed energy into her horn, and it pushed back, causing her vision to flicker again. Hissing, the filly tried again, and still got no result. She managed to swallow, the size of the ground increasing measurably with each passing second.
Her horn wasn't working. She was going to die. What else did she have? What else could she do? Panic rising in her chest, Starlight bit open one pouch of her saddlebags, only to be met with a pile of sodden hay flying up into her face. Spitting and blinking, she opened the other pouch.
Her box and the journal floated out, and she didn't have time to ascertain their condition, stuffing them back into the first side. Her water flasks came, too. The only thing left there was... her blanket. What could a thin, sodden blanket do for a filly falling to her death above a giant lake?
Hopefully enough.
Grimacing in concentration, Starlight flung her saddlebags onto her back, where they would hopefully stay. The blanket, she gripped in her mouth, still spread-eagled to try to preserve the last few seconds of her fall as long as possible. Hooves wouldn't work for holding something like this. She needed a better way.
Again, Starlight felt her horn, begging it to work. A crystal was too much to ask for, but could she have telekinesis? Just a little? Pretty please?
Nothing. Predictable. Her horn couldn't even work to save her life! Choking back a yell of frustration, she readied her forehooves; the clumsy appendages would have to do instead. Grabbing two corners of the blanket, she tied them in a messy knot, barely managing to pull it tight with the assistance of her mouth. That would have to do.
Starlight lunged forward, pushing her body through the loop created by the blanket. Allowing the knot to slide back until it caught against her hind legs, she took a bite elsewhere and began to pull. Little by little, Starlight worked her grip closer to the far corners of the blanket as it trailed behind her like a cape.
A new kind of thunder filled her ears. The base of the waterfall was within hearing. Without even stopping to look, Starlight reached the end of the blanket, bunched the two far corners in her mouth... and yanked down.
The blanket billowed above her, mushrooming out into a small, soggy parachute. Air resistance caused it to tear at her teeth and drive into her stomach simultaneously, winding her and nearly causing her to lose her grip. Starlight snorted through her nostrils, teeth clenched and bared... and she held on.
Her fall slowed abruptly, but she was still moving at a considerable speed. Mentally, she judged the depth of the lake and how deep her dive would take her, and angled sharply towards the shore. A countdown began in her head as she watched individual waves and ripples grow closer. Three... Two...
The knot holding the blanket around her belly snapped, rendering the parachute useless. Flailing, Starlight tumbled the last meter and impacted the water, her blanket catching the wind and flapping onto the beach nearby.
She was laying on her side on a bank of sand. She was wearing her saddlebags, but they were mostly empty. Her horn burned with a dull fire, her stomach felt as if it had been punched, and her entire body was a giant bruise just waiting to pass out again... but she was alive.
She was also completely drenched. Rivulets of water drained from her coat and mane, and the lake shore water lapped across her legs and hindquarters. A chill night breeze was beginning to stir, and the mountain water was hardly warm. She had to move, or she wouldn't stay alive much longer.
There had been smoke. Downriver, there was a town. There would be safety... she hoped. No, there had to be. She had nothing to her name save for a box, a book and two empty saddlebags, all of which were likely just as waterlogged as she. Three canteens of mountain water, too. She wasn't in a very good position to appreciate the irony.
The breeze caused her blanket to roll over in the sand ahead of her, and she blinked slowly. She had that too, for what it was worth. The thing was wet, which meant wearing it would make her even colder... not to mention how much sand it had likely picked up. The fabric, normally the same midnight purple as her mane, didn't appear much different after everything it had been through, but there was no doubt about its condition.
At least it was something. What she didn't have, and what she needed more than anything, was her-
Her boat. A rectangular shape was bobbing in the lake, floating gradually to her left. Had it somehow survived the fall, too? She shook her head; of course it had. If she hadn't been able to break it, there was no way that dumb waterfall could do the trick.
If it was her boat, it wouldn't stay there for long. Rather than let her best chance slip away, Starlight commanded her body to move several times... eventually getting her hooves to pick themselves up and get underneath her. She stood slowly, balance upset as the various parts of her moved on their own, without central coordination. Shakily, she took one step and then another, first hobbling towards where her blanket had fallen. It was useless now, but she couldn't spare any advantage, no matter how slight.
...Maybe not entirely useless, she thought, slowly spreading the thing out. As dirty as it was, the fabric was intact. Maybe she could wash it, and dry it, and it would be good again. It wasn't ripped, at least. Unfortunately, Starlight was cold now, and that meant she needed an immediate solution. If she could survive this night, she could make anything work. She hoped.
After putting the heavy, water-soaked thing into her saddlebags, Starlight stumped along the shoreline, spitting the taste of grit out of her mouth and leaning sideways with the extra weight. Odds were, she'd have to groom herself again, so she needed to get used to that. The sand shifted under her hooves, a product of countless years of water striking stone and refining it into mush that was only good for clogging horseshoes and annoying fillies like her. Too bad for it she was too tired to be annoyed.
Unblinking, Starlight followed her boat. Eventually, it drifted nearer to the shore... so she marched straight into the water in pursuit. Ripples lapped at her chest fur and tugged at her saddlebags as she approached the box, but it was shallow enough that she didn't need to swim.
The boat greeted her, half-submerged yet somehow upright. At least that had worked. Unable to give it a smile, Starlight got behind the thing and pushed, dragging it closer to shore. Her tail trailed limply in the water behind her, such an unbrushed mess that her streak of cyan was completely invisible, the hairs blended into the rest of the appendage. Wading through her own ripples, the filly leaned and shoved, occasionally backing off and bumping against the box to give it a little extra push.
Once there, she overturned the box and waited patiently as all the water drained out. She had her things back... or, at least, as much as she was going to get. She still had miles to cover. She wasn't hungry. Eating was the last thing she wanted to do right then, but she knew that wouldn't last, and had no food. Wracking her slow, tired brain, she tried to recall the vista she had seen from the clifftop. Had there been any more waterfalls in the way?
The forest around her seemed to increase in size as she thought. Bushes peered out from under trees, leaning toward her like a solid wall of twilit vegetation. Above that, trees towered, and above that? Stars.
She sighed. The atmosphere seemed to be conspiring against her ability to think, but she couldn't recall seeing any waterfalls - at least, none of this scale. Making up her mind on the spot, Starlight righted her boat, threw her saddlebags inside, and began to push it back out onto the water. She was going to fall asleep. She was going to get hungry. She needed to reach safety... so she might as well get started.
Successfully, Starlight climbed into the crate. It righted itself as she had hoped, rocking slightly as she sat down in the middle. The walls were too high for her to see over, which was probably an oversight. But they also shielded her from the wind, and there was nothing she could do about it anyway. They were also wet, so she couldn't tell if her sap was working. If it didn't, it would wake her up, at least. And if it didn't? Well, if she reached that state, there would probably be nothing she could do even if it did.
With nothing left she was capable of doing, Starlight curled up in the middle of the crate and passed out, hoping fervently that the waters would be on her side.
Starlight didn't stay out as long as she was expecting. Her eyelids opened for her, pried apart by the cold and a splitting headache. Slowly, she breathed, trying to let the nearby crate walls orient and comfort her as the river's gentle trickle filled her ears.
Her horn was like a dark spot in her senses, always on the edge of what she could feel... but no closer. She didn't dare try to use it, which was just as well: there was nothing she could have done with it in the first place. She was in a mildly-waterproofed box, floating down an unknown river with nothing to her name in hope of finding a destination that merely had a high probability of existing.
The chill from the caves was back, this time born by the water in her coat. It wormed its way past her muscles and into her bones, cooling her very core. Already, she felt a scratchiness in her throat, though whether it was an oncoming cold or merely rawness from screaming, she couldn't tell.
A shallow layer of moisture lined the bottom of the box, combined residue from what had dripped from her coat and what had remained when she bailed the boat out earlier. It made it difficult to tell how well her waterproofing job did earlier, but at this point, it didn't matter. She was already wet, sandy, freezing and entirely at the mercy of the coming sun. Hopefully, she would make it that long.
Starlight shivered, hugging herself. Grimacing at the feel of sand gritting through her coat, she rubbed her sides and back, lucklessly trying to eke out a bit of warmth from the actions. It was likely a waste of time, but she had nothing better to do. Hopefully, she glanced at the sky, but the moon hadn't even risen yet. She would just have to occupy herself and try to survive until sunrise.
Maybe she should have made a fire, on the beach. There had been wood, hadn't there? She struggled to remember, mostly recalling a thick layer of green underbrush that would have made searching on hoof impossible. Perhaps it was edible. She still wasn't hungry.
She reared up on her hind legs, deciding to get a look at the land around her. The crate wobbled as she did so, but still managed to balance, leaning but not capsizing. Starlight peered out, seeing a wide, flat expanse of still water fringed by jagged, rocky spikes intermixed with sand. Above and beyond that was the canopy, branches stretching nearly far enough to meet in the middle.
The river was calm and smooth to the point where Starlight had no expectations of rapids anywhere near. She tried to take the opportunity to sleep again, but couldn't tell if she succeeded: no dreams came to her pounding head, and the river looked the same as it had before.
On the crate floor, her saddlebags and blanket lay in a bundled, watery heap. What did those even contain? Water? Ironically, all three of her canteens were intact and full. She took a sip from one, hoping it would help calm her overtaxed horn. If only she could stop doing that to herself!
There was also sand everywhere. Aside from her coat, her blanket was full of it; perhaps even more so. Could she fix that, at least, as she floated? ...Actually, maybe she could.
Unbunching the thing in her hooves, Starlight figured out where the corners lay, sitting upright on two legs as she worked. Upon extracting two, she carefully gripped them, then tossed the rest over the side of the crate.
Her blanket hit the water with barely a wet slap. As soaked as it was, this wouldn't make much of a difference, but it could still wash the sand out. She let it trail in the water for a moment, then rotated it to another angle, washing the bits that had previously been held above water. With nothing better to do, she sat still, continuing the process for quite a while.
Eventually, Starlight leaned back, deciding it had had enough. She rolled the blanket up like a burrito, folded it in on itself once, and twisted it further as if baking a pretzel, food evidently on her mind as she wrung as much water as she could from it, eventually hauling it back into her crate. It took nearly a minute for the stream of runoff to dwindle to the point where it broke into droplets, at which point she deemed that to be good enough, as well. Folding it carefully, she draped it back along the crate edge, making sure to keep it above water.
She had done something, at least, even if it had done nothing to make her less cold. The air around her seemed moderately humid, which annoyingly slowed her drying. She took a moment to ponder that; in her hometown, it had been fairly hot and dry most of the time. Cold and humid seemed like a logical counterpoint to that, especially given how much rain she had seen the place receive, but pictures in her mind gleaned from reading books said humidity paired with hotness. Jungles, and things. And from somewhere, she recalled that it could simply be too cold to rain.
That obviously wasn't where she was now, she thought to herself with a shiver. Growing up, rain had always intrigued her. Perhaps it was because the pegasi brought it so rarely, but it had seemed like an otherworldly event. Unnatural; magical, even. Wild magic, not the domesticated kinds that ponies used. The kind that begged to be explored... that she might have explored herself, had her life taken a different turn not so very long ago.
Now that she no longer had a roof over her head and windows to watch from, there was no more wonder in the rain. It was a menace, and she hoped it stayed away. Eyeing the fringes of the star sheet strewn above, there were no clouds in sight... though the massive mountain range from which she had fallen loomed starkly nearby, and she knew rain could descend from that in an instant.
The boat rocked gently, snapping her from her contemplations. Was the river changing? No, a quick glance told her that she was merely rounding a bend. At least she was moving. Starlight sighed and brushed her sandy coat once with a hoof. It was beginning to dry, and the sand was causing it to stick together and clump into useless, patchy spikes. She would have to get those out soon. That, and fix her cutie mark. All things to do when she was inevitably forced to make landfall, be it by hunger or rain.
Hoping for the former, Starlight Glimmer drifted onward into the night, tired and broken... but not yet unable to proceed.
By some miracle, she wasn't presently wet. Instead, she lay in her crate, turned on its side on the sloped riverbank as an open-air shelter, hoping the wind wouldn't decide to change. For the moment, the air was still, allowing the water to drum down in perfectly vertical shafts, intermixing blackness with streaks of slightly more blackness.
Starlight huddled, her almost-dry coat wrapped in her almost-dry blanket in a combination that proved warmer than doing otherwise. Her horn still throbbed, though it was beginning to fade back to the state of controlled senselessness where it made a pact with its owner that they would mutually leave each other alone. She could live with that. She had to. So long as her luck didn't turn foul, it wouldn't kill her... and her luck had been surprisingly good, so far.
The rain hadn't snuck up on her. She had been fully alert for it, in between attempts to shut out the world and pass time through unconsciousness. She had seen the stars disappear, swallowed by the mouthful, as clouds rolled down from the mountains and blotted them out above.
She had also realized, then and there, that she possessed no method of steering or propelling her boat. Drifting helplessly in the middle of the stream, it had been by pure fortune that her craft had washed ashore before the rains started. Now that she was there, she had no intention of returning to the water without some sort of safeguard.
But finding a method of propulsion would have to wait. At present, she could do nothing but lay and wait, feeling as friction prevented her from sliding out of the downhill-facing opening. If the wind picked up, threatening to drive the rain in at her, she'd just tip the box over all the way and lay on the wet sand.
Every once in a while, her roof dripped. She took each drop with a grain of displeasure; they meant her boat wasn't waterproof. Oh well. There was nothing she could do about that now.
There was nothing she could do about anything. Eyes closed and head raised, Starlight waited for the rains to pass, and didn't care whether she did so by sleeping or not.
Eventually, she was met with success. A gleam of morning sun pierced the trees; the first she had properly seen since embarking on her journey. In the mountains, dawn had long left the sky by the time the sun reached her. Here, it was instantaneous, and she reveled in its light.
The rain stopped shortly after, and Starlight crawled out to explore. The first thing she saw was the state of her boat, and it made her lip curl with displeasure.
The thing was peeling. Her wonderful, hard-spread tree sap was all coming off, a flimsy, brittle sheet hanging from the tightly-spaced boards like a scab waiting to be picked. That must have been why it was dripping. Why hadn't it worked?
Stomping in frustration, the filly turned and ignored her craft, climbing further up the riverbank to reach the vegetation. She was growing hungry, and needed to find food. Clambering her way through the vertical, rocky spires that the terrain devolved into, Starlight struggled to keep her fur from brushing against too many wet surfaces, trying to reach the wall of green that peeked through.
Her head came within reach of a plant, and she bit down... immediately spitting it out. Bitter! She didn't know for sure, but felt that a good rule was that if something didn't taste good, it wasn't meant to be eaten. It certainly wouldn't do to eat the wrong kind of plant and make herself sick.
She bit back a sneeze, nearly falling flat from the motion. That wasn't something she was eager to see back. Waiting a bit to ensure her lungs wouldn't rebel again, Starlight returned to poking around for plants.
Bitter... spicy... too hard to bite into. She gave up entirely when something stung her tongue, the underside of the leaf apparently covered in prickly spikes. Whimpering lightly, Starlight held her mouth closed and returned to her boat, soothing herself with a drink. It only served to remind her of her increasing hunger. She had to press on.
But to do that, she needed a paddle. Casting around on the rocky beach, she eventually found a moderately long, flat piece of wood wedged under a boulder, and freed it with a couple of strong tugs. Experimentally, she swished it through the river several times, and found it to hold. It would do.
Returning her things to her box, Starlight pushed it upright and shoved it back into the stream, running and jumping to get in at the last moment. Quickly, she was back to drifting, her destination an unknown number of miles away.
Starlight sighed. She was beginning to feel exhaustion weighting on her eyelids, but some part of her body refused to let her sleep. It was as if the survival instinct that had taken her over and kept her shield up in the cave river simply never let go, and she was now beholden to a force that told her she had to stay awake or die. She hoped that wasn't the case. If it was, she was likely a lot more tired than she felt. And now that she was beginning to feel tired...
How long had she been awake for? She couldn't tell if she had slept after going down the falls. That had been the previous evening. Probably. And before that, she had been up all day... had that been the day she went to the canyon and returned to Sosa's camp? The day she built her boat? No, there had been a night in there somewhere. Hadn't there? She couldn't remember. Apparently, her body had decided that memory wasn't a critical aspect of survival.
In her worn-out state, she had to agree with it. The only thing that mattered was staying fed, staying dry, and reaching the source of that smoke. She stood up, clutching her paddle resolutely, deciding to test if it could really move her or make her go faster.
Many hours later, with the sun lowering in the western sky, she had determined that it didn't. In fact, the thing was useless for anything more than making her spin in circles. That was a problem, because the clouds were returning.
Gulping and staring upwards, Starlight continued to desperately waggle the thing, hoping it would push her to shore. She could see the rain itself, a dismal wall of gray haziness that perfectly hugged the bottom of the advancing cloud front. How much longer did she have? Not long at all.
The edge of the cloud covered her, and suddenly there was mist. Her ears registered the hiss of water pouring into water, and her exposed head told her that the mist was already turning to droplets.
She was out of time. Thinking fast, Starlight pulled on her blanket, untangling herself from the article. Propping her paddle up like a pole in the middle of the crate, she strung the blanket on top, wrapping it around all four sides like the canopy to a tent. She could no longer see where she was going, and it wasn't very waterproof, but maybe it would help.
As the air darkened around her, Starlight huddled against the pole, standing slightly to avoid the leakwater already pooled in the bottom of the crate. She would just have to hope the cover didn't blow off... and that there would be warmth and dryness waiting for her at the end.
Time passed, and the water rose around Starlight. Drop by drop, it leaked in through the cracks in the walls and floorboards and dripped from her hasty blanket ceiling, stranding her in a puddle an inch deep and growing deeper.
Her hooves were soaked. She was standing up, but hadn't managed to keep her belly fur from getting wet... and her legs were getting stiff, too. Walking all day, she had practiced. Standing still for hours, while cold and tired? That was a different story entirely.
Still, there was nothing she could do but survive it. Failing wasn't an option; she didn't want to die. Her saddlebags were useless. Her blanket was in use. Her paddle had failed her, and her horn wasn't yet feeling up to registering as an organ she possessed. So she stood, eyes closed and ears flattened to avoid brushing up against the dripping ceiling, and waited.
The boat rocked around her; at least she was still moving. She would get... somewhere. There was somewhere she could go. Somewhere better than this. Wasn't there?
Unable to see the world around her, Starlight listened. The song of billions of raindrops hitting a placid surface and lending it turbulence hissed like static in her ears, magnified and echoed by her container. Some wetter thumps sounded, the noise of droplets striking her blanket like a drum. Heavy plops were mixed in, these from the moisture that seeped through and landed in the lake at her hooves.
She could hear her own breathing, too, cold and ragged. Her lungs didn't want damp, evening air, but that was all she had. She imagined she heard her heartbeat, but it might have just been in her head. She could also hear voices, like those of her parents at her old home.
Her ears folded harder, and she fought back a sniffle. Her flank was bare, having not been repainted since it was last washed clean, leaving the reason for her exodus staring blankly back up at her. She was blank. And she wanted to keep it that way.
Did she really want it bad enough to leave behind all the ponies she had ever known? She told herself she did. She told herself leaving someone behind wasn't a very big deal at all. It happened all the time. If only she could do that without becoming lonely. At this rate, she would-
Thud!
Something heavy rammed against the crate, causing it to jolt and knocking Starlight onto her side. She wheezed silently as the water bit through the remainder of the dryness she had, kicking her legs uselessly, unable to stand. The crate was moving. Wherever it was going, it was taking her with it... and there was nothing she could do but lay there and go along for the ride.
Suddenly, there was a scraping against the bottom of the crate, and Starlight felt it tilt as if on an incline. Her ears wiggled, picking up more phantom voices.
"I got it!"
"Yay, we got another one!"
"I wonder what's inside this time!"
"Hey, look at the top!"
Starlight's cover was whisked away, exposing her to nail-like streaks of falling rain... and was swiftly replaced by three wide-eyed faces.
"A filly!" one gasped, clearly shocked. The others mimicked her expression.
"Is it alive?"
"Look! She is! She blinked!"
"Look on her head! She's got a horn!"
"Woah! A unicorn?"
"What's a unicorn doing up there?"
"Forget that, I bet she's freezing! We need to do something!"
"Willow, you have foals! Don't you know what to do?"
"My house is clear on the other side of town!"
"Mine's close by! We can take her there!"
"Should I go get anypony?"
"No, help me get her out!"
Strong legs reached down, grabbing Starlight and hoisting her out of the crate. She wasn't deposited, instead held against the chest fur of a grown mare who had evidently been standing in the rain for quite some time. Part of her wanted to say something, but her brain refused to make the necessary connections to put thoughts into words... or even to form thoughts at all. Had Starlight been able to think, she would have frightfully realized that she wasn't able to think anything at all.
The mare who was currently holding her had a silvery coat, which reflected well in the dim light shining through the clouds. Another looked brownish, and the third was so wet she couldn't tell. Had she swam out to push Starlight to shore? The filly couldn't tell that, either.
The brown one was rummaging further in Starlight's boat, seemingly oblivious to the rain soaking through her coat. "Girls!" she called, lifting her head. "Look! Saddlebags!"
She lifted out Starlight's pack, hanging them from one hoof. Feebly, Starlight stretched out a hoof of her own, reaching for them.
The brown mare looked at her, concerned. "Are these yours?" When Starlight nodded, she added, "Don't worry, I won't touch them."
"Hey, should someone keep watch?" the drenched mare asked, pointing over her shoulder at the river. "If a kid could come down this thing, who knows what next?"
"Amber, you're soaked!" the mare holding Starlight protested. "We'll get someone else to do it!"
"Well, I'll stay here until they arrive," Amber called back through the rain. "Now are you two gonna go take care of that poor thing, or what?"
The brown mare had approached Starlight gently, saddlebags carefully worn across her own back. "Do you know if there's anyone else with you?" she asked, ruby eyes shining softly.
Starlight's teeth chattered in response. Her chest lurched, and she heaved out a sneeze.
"I think that's about as good of an answer as you're gonna get!" Amber called from the riverbank, where she had repurposed Starlight's boat into a shelter of her own.
"Yeah..." the silver mare sighed. She leaned down and over until she could make eye contact with Starlight. "We're going to help you, okay? You're going to be all right, little filly. You're going to be all right..." Hugging carefully, she rocked Starlight back and forth over the ground.
"Willow..." the mare with Starlight's saddlebags huffed. "Wouldn't that be better done inside?"
"Yeah," Willow repeated. "Which way was your place, again? Over there?" She indicated a direction with her head.
"This way!" the other beckoned. Willow immediately kicked into a slow trot, moving as fast as possible while doing her best to keep Starlight from bumping and shielded from the rain.
As they walked, the leading mare drew alongside Starlight, smiling gently. "My name's Maple," she offered. "I wonder what your name is, little filly..."
Starlight couldn't answer. She was still too exhausted to register its importance.
"You're going to be quite the sensation around here, little filly," Maple continued, hopping along. "Maybe the most exciting thing that's happened here in years..."
Maple might have kept talking, but Starlight didn't notice. Safe in Willow's embrace, she finally closed her eyes... and blacked out.
Starlight didn't need to wake up. She didn't want to wake up. In her dreamless, half-lucid sleep, she was warm... and the functional part of her brain told her that the only thing waiting beyond her eyelids was water, ice and darkness.
It felt so nice... Somewhere, a flicker of thought said that if she was far enough gone that she didn't feel the cold, that meant she was almost dead. She had to get up. She had to move, had to make herself truly warm. She had to... yet she couldn't. Would there really be warmth after the mountains? If the mountains were going to defeat her, shouldn't she take this last shred of comfort?
No. She couldn't. She had to keep living, it was too important. Pooling her consciousness and her willpower, Starlight lifted an eyelid as hard as she could... and the warmth didn't vanish.
A fuzzy, tingling sensation rolled over her body as she slowly regained feeling. Something large, soft, and honestly, truly warm was wrapped around her, covering her back and ears and other eye. The area was bathed in an ambient orange light, so dim the only thing it showed for sure was the lack of dripping walls all around her. Her ears registered the dim thrum of rain pounding somewhere above.
The cold of the mountains was still there in her chest, but it was fighting a losing battle against whatever her present insulator happened to be. The aches in her legs from untold hours of standing were there too, as were all the pains from hitting the water at the base of the falls. But how? The last thing she remembered was... rain. And her boat. They couldn't have just gone away, but...
The thing touching her moved, expanding slowly... and contracting, a quiet stream of warm air brushing past her exposed ear. Starlight would have tensed, but her body decided not to. Focusing her eye on the thing her head was leaning on, she squinted... and the outline of a fetlock came into view.
It was a pony. Somepony was hugging her. She had been found.
This time, Starlight shook. She scrunched her eye back shut, but the warmth was now overpowering. It mixed in her heart with her blankness, her solitude, her decision to run away, morphing into the realization that this pony had probably saved her and definitely cared. That realization ballooned throughout her, finally finding an outlet through her eyes. Motionlessly, Starlight began to cry, tears soaking cleanly into the foreleg beneath her.
The older pony noticed. After a gentle drawing of breath, her muzzle prodded the top of Starlight's head. Her voice came, then, in the barest of whispers from above.
"Are you awake yet, little filly?"
Starlight opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Then, after a pause: "Am I alive?"
"Hmm... You are, and you're lucky to be. You're still so cold, little filly." The mare responded with a gentle hush, laying her chin over Starlight like a blanket. "It's the middle of the night. You're safe here. Go back to sleep."
Nestled between the mare's forelimbs, with bedding beneath her and warmth all around, Starlight felt her willpower weaken even as her tears continued. Was she in danger? Did she trust this pony? If she didn't, did she trust her less than the river and the rain?
She knew for sure that she was tired of fighting for her life. Maybe the north really was as good as she'd told herself. Maybe this was a risk she was ready to take.
The state of survival that had taken hold of her in the river finally began to abate. This time, when Starlight's eyelids drooped, it was loose and peaceful. The exhaustion of the past days and weeks spread through her, and she was finally free to do what it told her.
Starlight didn't even have time to finish registering how tired she was when she fell back asleep. She didn't wake up for a long, long time.
The next evening, a door creaked open, ringing the room with a vertical halo of light. "Willow?" A face peeked in, whispering softly. "You've been in here nearly twenty four hours."
Willow's silvery head stretched to look at the door, having given up on laying upright and now sideways on the bed. "She woke up a little, but quickly went back to sleep. She's more peaceful now. Want to take a shift? I need to stretch, eat and other things..."
"I sure hope you do," the other mare said worriedly, sliding through the door and closing it to a crack behind her.
"Nngh..." Trying to avoid letting the bed bounce Starlight, Willow spread her weight, untangled herself and got up, sliding away. "All yours. Thanks, Maple."
Maple winked. "No problem."
As she moved to slide back onto the bed, though, the filly stirred again. Both mares froze, waiting to see what would happen.
Starlight's large eyes opened and took both of them in, unblinking. Willow and Maple watched back with kindly smiles. Eventually, Starlight worked her jaw, and after a few attempts, said, "Am I a-alive?"
"You already asked that, little filly," Willow replied, smile growing as she took two steps back toward the bed. "And you are alive."
"You really are lucky," Maple added. "Earlier, my friends and I were down by the river, when we noticed a crate had gotten caught on the shore. But there's nothing upriver a crate could have come from! We got curious and decided to camp out by the river to watch for more, but it was raining and the sun was setting and we were almost ready to go back to our homes when you floated along."
Willow nodded. "Was there anyone else with you? Anyone we should be watching the river for?"
Starlight shook her head, teeth already beginning to chatter in memory of the cold, even though it wasn't chilly in the room at all. "N-No..."
"That's a relief." Willow sighed and brushed back her mane. "I guess I'll go tell Amber and whoever replaced her, too. And I need to check up on my kids after leaving them alone all day. You'll be fine here on your own for a bit?"
"I think so." Maple nodded, already on the bed. "You will come back though, won't you?"
Willow gave a sure smile. "Wouldn't miss it for anything."
The door clicked behind her, leaving Maple to turn to Starlight. For several moments, no words were said. Then: "Do you have a name?"
"Starlight," she murmured, shaking.
Maple spread her forelegs, patting the bed in front of her. Starlight raised an eyebrow, looking on with caution.
"Here," Maple said, frowning. "Aren't you still cold?"
Starlight nodded and bit her lip.
"Were you out there for a while?" Maple asked softly, lowering her head to the bed. "Alone?"
Starlight nodded again.
"Oh." Maple's face fell. "I guess you're not really used to other ponies right now, then."
Without moving from where Willow had left her curled, Starlight gave her a look that told her all she needed to know.
Maple sighed and looked away. "Right. You're probably a bit wary of everything right now, aren't you?"
Starlight still said nothing, fixing her with wide eyes that reflected what little light there was in the room.
"If it will help you trust me..." Maple paused, and produced Starlight's saddlebags as if out of nowhere, tossing them halfway over to her. "I saved these for you. I opened them to let them dry, but I didn't look in your book or your box."
Slithering across the bed, Starlight reached the bags. They were still fairly damp and unpleasant to the touch, but a brief bit of poking revealed that the most important things were still there.
Maple smiled. The filly had at least gotten closer.
"Starlight is a pretty name."
Starlight said nothing, watching Maple from across the bags.
Flicking her tail in irritation, Maple thought... and perked up. "Starlight?" she offered. "Are you hungry?"
Starlight nodded, mumbled, and sat up.
Maple instantly brightened. "Yes! I can fix that. Follow me!"
Rolling across the bed until she hit the floor, the older mare straightened up, trotted to the door, and swung it open, letting evening light flood the room.
Starlight dropped off the bed herself, plodding along the wooden floor on heavy hooves. Someone had removed her horseshoes. She wasn't sure what to think of that.
The door Maple had opened led into another room, shaped like a semicircle. Every surface was made of wood paneling, the natural golds and browns accented further by the late evening light streaming in through four circular windows. Extrapolating this design to the bedroom behind her, Starlight figured the building was roughly circular. The presence of a descending staircase against the flat wall indicated that they weren't on the ground floor.
Her host watched her curiously as she took in the room, and Starlight watched her back. She looked almost as if she resented the filly for following her, yet wanted to hug her at the same time. Did she want Starlight to ask her to carry her? This pony was strange.
Silhouetted against the vertical shadows of tall, branchless trunks visible through the windows, Maple forfeited the staring contest and turned to a counter, set with many cabinets and drawers. Humming softly, she began to open them. "Starlight?" she asked without looking back. "What kind of food would you like?"
Maple knew that without turning to make eye contact, she would have to speak to respond, of course. Starlight silently pouted at that. Part of her yearned to open her mouth and answer... and not stop there. It was the same part of her that had never wanted to leave Equestria, had seen the hardships of the mountains as an injustice, and now wanted nothing more than to tell someone everything she had been through. She knew that the more she talked, the harder it would be to stop it... so she just whimpered.
The older mare sighed loudly. "Fine, then. I guess I'll just have to guess."
How would other ponies react if she told them everything? Would they be proud and impressed? Starlight didn't want that. The whole reason she had left was because she was tired of some ponies being better than others for reasons they couldn't control and that didn't matter. At the same time, crossing those mountains had been the hardest thing Starlight had ever done. There was always the chance others wouldn't be proud and impressed... and she was more terrified of that than she was willing to admit.
What if they felt sorry for her, instead? What if they wanted to hug and coddle her and do everything they could to make everything right? Would she deserve it? It would be embarrassing, but she couldn't deny that she wanted it. Her memories of everything since the waterfall were hazy, but she was certain that last night, she had decided to trust and let it happen.
Last night, when Willow had slept with her in her forelegs, Starlight had felt something. Something she'd been missing... something she'd conditioned herself to survive without. She couldn't put her hoof on what it was, but it had felt wonderful. She wanted more, but like talking, she knew that the more she accepted it, the more she'd lose her ability to survive without it. And surviving was the most important thing she could do.
A whistle interrupted her thoughts, and she realized Maple was standing right in front of her, holding a plate in her teeth and grinning. On it was a sandwich of some sort.
Maple wiggled the plate in her teeth, eager for Starlight to try it. Starlight sniffed, and it smelled good. She couldn't identify the type of bread used, but she was undeniably hungry. Leaning in, she picked the whole thing up in her mouth and swiftly pulled back, chewing awkwardly and having to support it with her hooves.
Her host watched her eat, and Starlight watched back in turn. For the first time, she was able to get a properly good look at Maple. The mare was an earth pony, a fully-grown adult of average size. Her eyes were ruby, her coat was a light, dusty tan, and her voluminous mane was brown bordering on reddish. It had a tangled curliness that looked less like a natural property and more the result of not being brushed in a week, and was tied in a very loose braid that trailed off at her shoulders. Starlight pointedly ignored her cutie mark.
"Well?" Maple asked, looking as if she was restraining herself from leaning in. "Do you like it?"
Starlight swallowed, and before she could stop herself, said, "Thank you."
Maple beamed, and made to respond when her head suddenly tilted. Starlight raised an ear in question, and Maple looked to the stairway in response. "I just heard the door slam. I know I put out the closed sign..."
As if in answer, a pair of ears stuck up above the floor in the stairwell, followed by peeking eyes and then a head. "She's up!"
"We're back!" Willow's voice announced as she trotted into view, followed by the third mare from the river. "Whew! I feel much better after a long run. Kids'll get along without me a little while more."
"Hey, kiddo!" The third mare, slightly small and with a yellow coat, leapt over the stair railing, landing next to Starlight and immediately laying down on all fours. "I'm Amber. I swam out to get you last night! Better me than you, right?"
Starlight took a single step backwards, half-eaten sandwich hanging from her mouth.
"Amber..." Maple chided. "She's been around nopony for a long time, and isn't very talkative. Don't push her."
Inwardly, Starlight rolled her eyes. Other ponies weren't allowed to ask her things, but Maple could do so as much as she liked?
From across the room, Willow gave her a look that quietly informed her the silver mare could read minds. She pursed her lips and gently shook her head.
"So, what's cooking?" Amber walked across their line of sight, shattering the effect as she approached Maple. "Got anything good for us after such a night?"
Maple rolled her eyes for real. "Don't tell me you haven't eaten. It's been a whole day." She shot a sideways glance at Willow. "You have eaten, haven't you?"
Willow smiled softly. "I've had enough, but if Amber talks you into making something nice, I'm staying too."
"Hmmm..." Maple wandered to the window and stuck her head out, peering into the orange distance. "I'd like to make soup. A half-frozen filly could do a lot worse than that." She blinked across the room at Starlight. "Don't you think?"
Hot soup did sound good, and the sandwich hadn't filled her up. Starlight nodded appreciatively.
Nearly spinning on her hooves, Maple strolled back to her countertop with a spring in her step. "Well, I'd like some too," she hummed. "Just have to find something that won't take too long to make... hmmm..."
Amber already had a hoof on the staircase. "Want me to go check what you've got in stock?"
"No need." Maple shook her head. "I've got a pretty good memory. But I might need an extra clove of garlic..."
"On it!" Amber slapped a hoof to her forehead in salute and vanished below.
Starlight watched with vague interest until she suddenly became aware of a presence next to her. Somehow, Willow had crossed the room unseen, and now crouched right next to her, staring across at Maple as the earth pony worked.
She didn't need to look to tell she had the filly's attention. "She cares about you a lot," Willow murmured.
Starlight said nothing.
"We all do," she continued. "I don't know where you're from or what your story is... but..."
She turned to look at Starlight fully, and her face was soft and gentle. "If you can, it would mean a lot to her if you would accept it. And, as her friend, it would mean a lot to me, too. Think you can do that?"
Starlight didn't break eye contact, and after a second her ears folded. She opened her mouth and shivered. "Uh-huh."
"Thank you." Willow exhaled heavily, smiling. "You're a strong pony."
"I got the garlic!" Amber erupted from the stairway, skidding to a stop as she sheepishly checked her enthusiasm. "Here." She held it out, grinning nervously.
Willow rolled her eyes, sighed, and got to her hooves, slowly walking toward Maple and the assembling meal. "All right, girls. Anything I can do to help?"
Starlight watched her retreating figure with pinprick eyes. It was just as well that all three mares were ignoring her - had they not been, they would have seen her staring, transfixed, at Willow's silvery flank, upon which she had just realized there was no trace of a cutie mark whatsoever.
It was the first full sentence Starlight had said in over a month, enunciated with a pointed hoof and too many different emotions to count. Even discounting her tired, conflicted state, she simply felt too much to begin putting into tone: surprise, confusion, hope. So, hoof hanging in the air, she closed her mouth and waited for the mares to explain.
Willow looked over her shoulder first. "A what?"
"A cutie mark," Starlight repeated, ears shifting. "On your flank." She indicated her own... or where one would be, if she had one.
"Oh!" Willow chuckled. "Well, that's a cute name. But I'm not that old."
As Amber elbowed her in the ribs and whispered something nefariously in her ear, confusion won out in Starlight's mind. "Huh?"
Willow raised an eyebrow. "Is that unusual?"
Starlight simply stared, hoof pointing again as her jaw hung loosely. "But... you're fully grown! You said you had kids!"
"I did." Willow took a step closer, tilting her head. "Given that you're a unicorn, I'd have expected you'd be more surprised that these two have them."
A quick scan told her that Maple and Amber were indeed marked: the first with an open-topped box, and the second with something that looked like honey on the end of a board. But Willow's words did nothing to quell Starlight's confusion, so she could do nothing but sit down and repeat herself. "Huh?"
The two looked at each other, Maple and Amber joining in, but none knew how to break the silence. Eventually, Willow said, "What part of me not having one is confusing you, little filly?"
She stopped, seeing three pairs of widely-raised eyebrows. "What?"
"I've never heard of a Sosan with a name like that," Amber tensely whispered, excitement hiding behind her eyes. "Maybe that's why she calls them cutie marks! She must be from really far away!"
"But that's impossible!" Maple's face scrunched. "We found her floating down the river to the north, didn't we? There's nothing but wilderness for hundreds of miles to the east, so she had to have come from the west!"
Starlight had thought her confusion to be at maximum, only to have it double in a single word. "Sosan?" she mouthed, thoughts fixating on the journal in her saddlebags.
The three mares took turns staring at each other. Then, with one voice, they turned to Starlight and asked, "Where are you from?"
Bristling, Starlight hunched backwards, pulling her head towards her fuzzy shoulders. Some part of her noticed that her fur was no longer dried and spiky, but had, at least partially, been licked straight. But that was the last of her worries right then. "Ummm..." She probed the room nervously with her eyes. "First tell me why she doesn't have a cutie mark."
Willow sighed and took two more steps toward her, bending down until her head was on eye level with the defensive filly. "I can't tell you if I don't know what it is you don't know, Starlight." She bit her lip. "May I assume you don't know anything?"
Starlight was still.
"So." Willow knelt down until she was laying on all fours. "When a pony has a dream, and they want very badly for it to come true... so badly that they'd do anything, including dedicating their life to making it happen... sometimes, the world will bless them with powerful, unique magic that will help them make that dream come true. That magic takes the form of a symbol on the pony's flanks."
Starlight attempted to narrow her wide eyes and failed. "So why don't you have one?"
"You can't get one if the world doesn't think you need it." Willow shrugged, turning to the side. "I've never had any dream I wanted to chase badly enough. Maybe I would have, but..." She heaved a loud sigh. "Never mess with stallions if you don't want your life to get anchored in place, suddenly and abruptly. Anyway." She blinked, turning back to Starlight. "Ponies who get them mostly get them around my age or older. You have to know something about the world to care about it that much. Does that answer your question?"
From the sidelines, Amber grinned. "I don't think I've ever heard you talk quite so much at one time!"
"I'm sure you don't have anything to do with that," Maple added with a roll of her eyes. "Chatterbox."
Starlight, for her part, swallowed hard. "So you mean... ponies who never get cutie marks are... normal? That happens all the time here?"
"Worried you'll never get one?" Willow smiled softly. "Starlight, all sorts of ponies go through life contented with who they are and never have it matter."
Amber awkwardly piped in. "Sure, the magic is neat and all, but it's not like anyone would ever be mean or a big elitist about it! Not here, at least."
"Yes." Nodding, Maple stepped up. "If this is something that's worrying you..." Her lips stretched in a curved smile. "Don't be."
Starlight simply sat and gaped. She could practically feel her eyes lighting up as two thoughts warred in her head. One told her that what the mares said was too good to be true, while the other insisted that this was everything she had ever wanted... and if she passed it up because it seemed unreal, she would never, ever be able to live with the real thing.
There was also the issue that she longed to trust someone. After more than a month in the caves and mountains on her own, she had thought herself used to the solitude, but it was becoming more and more apparent that she couldn't keep going on the same way when other ponies were actually around. And so far, these mares had been perfectly welcoming... and would offer more. They already had. In a snap, her resistance crumbled and she rushed across the room.
Willow staggered backwards as Starlight wrapped herself around her forelegs, trying frantically not to sniffle. "Can I stay here? With you?"
Gently prodding the filly, Willow nudged her toward Maple. "I think you're asking the wrong pony," she whispered. "Trust me. She'd appreciate being asked."
Maple beamed down at them, as if she knew what the silvery mare was saying. Her forelegs waited, open and inviting. Starlight hesitated, honestly preferring Willow... but decided that if she was giving this whole thing a chance, she might as well go all in and be as nice as she could be. Besides, if anything turned out rotten, she could always run away again.
"Can I stay with you?" Starlight repeated, cautiously making eye contact with Maple.
"You can." Maple leaned down, and Starlight accepted the hug. "For as long as you like."
"Thank you." Nervously, Starlight stayed in the embrace. She was keenly aware that she hadn't yet told them where she was really from, and she remembered they hadn't even imagined it as a possibility earlier. Sosan unicorns had also been mentioned. She needed to ask about that.
Suddenly, Maple's ears twitched, and she looked toward a nearby pot. "Soup's ready!"
Breaking from the hug, Starlight watched as the other two mares shuffled and bounded toward a wooden table. Slowly, she got back to her hooves and took up her own seat, deciding to join them.
When dinner finished, Starlight found her mood to be considerably more relaxed than earlier. She had managed to avoid talking about where she was from, in no small part thanks to Willow reading her mind again and hinting to the other mares to leave her alone. But Maple had been generous with her cooking, and the two bowlfuls of soup Starlight had downed now warmed her pleasantly, lulling her and making her eyelids droop.
Burping lightly, she turned away, standing next to a window as the other mares conversed and two of them prepared to leave. The breeze flowing against her was cool, but not cold. This was one of those times when the cold felt nice; when it could wash over her coat but fail to steal the warmth inside. It was the feel of facing a difficult challenge, but being more than prepared... of sitting indoors during a storm, of having danger nearby and knowing that she was perfectly safe.
But she didn't want to go to bed quite yet. Even though it was dark out, she had woken less than two hours ago. Her limbs ached with the restless tiredness that came with recuperation which could only be cured by sleeping and running at the same time. But she presently felt good. It was enough.
She turned, watching as Willow's tail vanished down the staircase. Listening intently, she heard the slam of a door below.
Maple heard it too, and finally looked up from the staircase her friends had vanished down, meeting Starlight's gaze from across the room. "I wish Amber would be gentler with my door," she mused. "Don't you think?"
Feeling as if she was supposed to say something and having nothing to say, Starlight muttered, "I guess?"
"So... you're living with me now." Maple smiled at her. "That's exciting, right?"
Starlight shuffled her hooves.
Maple saw it and frowned. She hesitated a second, and began crossing the room to join Starlight. Eventually, she reached the filly and sat beside her, lowering her head. "I really want to be nice to you, you know. Could you please tell me what you'd like? What I can do for you?"
"I..." Ordinarily, Starlight would have been silent, but Willow had asked her specifically to be nice to Maple and give her a chance. That warranted a response, at least. "I've been on my own for a while, so I'm not... really used to asking for things." She looked up, hoping her expression was apologetic.
"Oh." Maple's ears folded. "Well, if it helps you get used to asking again, you can ask me anything, okay? I won't mind at all."
"Okay." Starlight did her best to maintain eye contact, and succeeded.
Maple sat there, thinking. "Oh, I know!" She suddenly perked up, hopping to all fours. "Would you like me to show you around my house? It's yours now too, of course."
The grown mare stood there, eyelashes fluttering hopefully... so Starlight nodded. "Mhmm."
"Great!" Maple nearly jumped, turning toward the staircase. "You've seen the upstairs already, but follow me!"
Starlight got up to follow her, but hesitated, a memory turning into an idea inside her brain. "...Could you carry me?"
The sound of several hoofsteps preceded Maple's arrival at the base of the staircase. She practically bounced her way down, the filly on her back fighting not to be launched off.
"Here we are!" Maple cheerily flung a hoof, barely looking where she was pointing. Starlight quickly took in that the circular room was separated into two halves like the floor above, though rather than by a full wall it was by a low counter. Was this some sort of store?
"So for my job," Maple perkily confirmed, "I run a store. Right here in my house. It used to be a general store, but now it's more of a bakery. It doesn't really matter what I make, since it's mostly for my friends. But here..." She pointed at the counter, under which several boxes were stacked. "...is the counter, and across it is the customer area, and back here..." She turned around, to where a wall split the half of the room they stood on further into two. "...is the storage room!"
As Maple stood still, beaming, Starlight took her own time to inspect the place. It had the same round windows as the upper floor, along with the same omnipresent wood paneling and general aesthetic. Several paintings were hung on the walls, breaking up the theme, and three small, round tables rested on the other side of the counter. She wondered how full they would get during the day.
"This is your new home, Starlight Glimmer," Maple whispered in the silence. "I hope you like it."
"Mmmhm." Starlight kept her head up and neck straight, still looking around.
"Good."
They stood in relative darkness, golden-orange light from the brightly-lit kitchen above filtering down the staircase. The lower floor had the quiet stillness of a building normally welcoming and now firmly asleep, making Starlight feel as if she was in her own little bubble of warmth. The staircase beckoned to her.
"Starlight?" Maple asked. "Want to go back upstairs?"
"Okay."
Maple took Starlight back to the bedroom. While it was even darker than the ground floor, the darkness had a completely different feel: rather than being fast asleep or resentfully woken, it was drowsily awake, waiting for someone to arrive before it could turn in for the night. Laying on the bed across from Maple, light from the kitchen still shining through the door crack, Starlight felt her drowsiness returning.
"Well, then," Maple said with a smile. "We didn't do much today, did we?"
"Nope," Starlight said face-down into the bedding.
"Hee..." Maple murmured, carrying the conversation. "That's because you just got up! ...Still, it feels like so much happened... I mostly whiled the day away thinking about you, up here."
"Mmmmmhh..." Starlight yawned into her pillow. That soup really was making her drowsy.
"We're going to have fun tomorrow, though." Maple crept closer along the bed, and Starlight neither approached nor shied away. "I'll take you out to see the rest of the town. We'll get you cleaned up, too. I bet your mane looks pretty when it's clean."
"Mhmmmm..." Starlight was fond of her mane, if she was being honest. Striped manes weren't very common in her old home. It was probably hypocritical of her to be proud of that, but she had just climbed over a mountain range to prove a point. Besides, staying blank was about not changing who she was. Changing her mane would be silly.
"I don't know if you know, but this town is called Riverfall," Maple hummed, sliding closer. "Would you like to hear a little about its history?"
Soft snores greeted her in answer.
Maple chuckled, making out the rise and fall of Starlight's form before her. "I hope you like sleeping with the night light on," she murmured, "because I don't feel like getting up to shut that door."
Starlight continued to slumber, relaxing further as whatever dream she was having began.
"And also, I... enjoy it..." Maple yawned too, realizing she would swiftly follow the filly. "Good night, Starlight Glimmer. We'll have fun... tomorrow..."
Stretching, Maple finally made contact with Starlight. With a single hoof, she scooped the filly closer, nestled her chin against her, and weathered a restless kick. The night stretched on about them, and they were both too asleep to care.
The room was perfectly dark when Starlight finally woke. Due to the covers tightly draped over the windows, she couldn't see if the sun had risen, though a sense she'd gained through her mountainous trek told her it was still pre-dawn. It didn't feel like pre-dawn. The air was warm around her, and another body slumbered close beside.
Her senses and memories returned much faster this time: this was a town where ponies could never get cutie marks and no one would care, and this was her new home. The mare nearby was her... caretaker? Starlight wasn't sure what their relationship was, other than that Maple was trying, so she would have to, too.
But for then, Maple was sound asleep. Starlight was hesitant to get up and go about her business, both for fear of waking the mare and because she had no idea exactly what her business would be. But falling back asleep was out of the question; as hard as she had pushed herself recently, there was only so much rest her body could take. She had to get up. She had to do something.
She could always test her magic, of course. Maybe it was working again? She hadn't tried the night before, and it had been too soon before that... and she couldn't have taxed it that hard. Concentrating, she dragged her horn back into her awareness and forced energy toward it, bidding it to light up.
It did... with a shower of teal sparks and a stab of pain. "Ow!" she grunted, immediately stopping and wrapping a hoof around her head.
Behind her, Maple stirred. "Nnguh? Wuzzwrong?"
Starlight cringed; she hadn't meant to wake her host. "Sorry! Nothing," she hissed. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep."
"Starlight?" Maple's head rose, in the middle of a giant yawn. "Nnmph... is it morning already?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Starlight curled back up, drawing away. "I didn't mean to wake you!"
Maple yawned again. "No, I... usually don't sleep in. You must... be wide awake though, right?"
Starlight held still, not saying anything.
"Two minutes," Maple muttered. "Just..." She flopped back down, facing away from Starlight, and resumed her slow, steady breathing.
Stifling a sigh, Starlight relaxed too. Waking her host up in the middle of the night wouldn't be a good way to get off on the right hoof at all. Hopefully Maple was asleep enough that she wouldn't remember it in the morning, or would think it was a dream.
Just as Starlight finished purging her worry and started setting her train of thought on a more interesting track, though, Maple snuffled and sat up. "All right," she said, blinking. "That'll do it. I'm awake now."
Starlight folded her ears. "I didn't mean to wake you up..."
"Oh, stop apologizing," Maple chided. "I told you, I'm an early riser. Now, what time is... hmm."
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head.
"About an hour left until sunrise," Maple softly proclaimed, staring intently at the gray light leaking through the window coverings. "Well?" She turned to look at Starlight in the darkness. "Since we turned in early last night, would you like to talk about anything now?"
Starlight shrugged.
"Hmm..." Maple looked upwards, wracking her brain. "I'm curious where you're from. We thought for sure it would be Sosa, but you sounded surprised when we mentioned that last night. Would you like to tell me that?"
"I..." Starlight looked down, conflicted.
"Oh... well, if not, let's see..." Maple's eyes lit up with another idea. "I could tell you about where we are right now! Of course, I have no idea what you already know, so..."
Starlight gulped, feeling herself pushed toward a decision. "If I tell you where I'm from..." She fought back the clamminess that came with doing or saying something irrefutably bad and harmful to one's reputation. "Will you promise to keep it a secret? And tell nopony else?"
"Even Willow and Amber?" Maple gave her a concerned look.
"Not yet? Please?" Starlight didn't mistrust Willow, but she barely knew anything about the yellow mare and didn't want to sound like she was picking favorites. "I just... well..."
"All right. I promise." Maple edged closer, leaning in politely.
Starlight sighed, and relented. "Okay. I'm from the south."
"The south?" Maple's brow scrunched. "But there's nothing to the south. If you follow that river we found you on for about thirty miles, you reach a cliff that's so tall, we call it the edge of the world! It's higher than even pegasi can fly. Ones who try really hard sometimes make it, but when they come back down, they say there's just more and more above it... or they never come back at all."
"I fell off that cliff," Starlight muttered, hanging her head. "If I'd been able to get down the proper way, I wouldn't have needed saving."
"You... fell off?" Maple blinked in confusion. "But how did you get up there? Even pegasi and griffons have trouble! You can't even fly!"
"I told you," Starlight stubbornly answered, "I didn't. I went the other way. From the south."
"But... that's impossible..." Maple's jaw was hanging. "Those mountains are supposed to go on forever! There's nothing beyond them!"
Starlight stuck out her lip. "Yeah there is. It's called Equestria. And there, everyone has to get a cutie mark when they're young, and they all thought there was nothing to the north of the mountains. So there."
Maple blinked again, eventually managing, "...Are you sure?"
Starlight was about to roll her eyes when she remembered Willow's request to be nice. "Mhmm."
"Woah."
Now it was Starlight's turn to blink. "You believe me? Just like that?"
"Well, it explains why you were so confused earlier," Maple breathed. "If that's true, you must have come from a completely different culture. Maybe even different magic! You would have had to, if you could find a way to get that many ponies branded!"
"Yeah." Starlight's mood darkened. "I don't miss it."
"Oh?" Maple's ears folded slightly. "Now I'm even more curious. Something big must have happened to you to take your chances with a supposedly infinite mountain range..."
"You could say that," Starlight muttered.
Maple drew closer, laying a hoof around Starlight's shoulders. "Can you tell me about that?"
Starlight looked up, eyes wide. "So it doesn't matter that I'm from Equestria? You don't care?"
"I think it's exciting," Maple offered hesitantly, acting like she was wary of a trap. "I've always loved stories of far-off lands. And I bet most of the ponies here do, too. You could get super famous if you told everyone..."
"No!" Starlight pulled back, alarmed. "I don't want to be famous! I'm just an ordinary pony!"
Maple looked hurt. "You don't? I think it would be fun..."
"No," Starlight pouted, slowly allowing Maple to re-hug her. "All I want is for everyone not to treat me differently for some dumb bit of magic I can't control and would be stuck with for life, or because I refuse to get one."
"Will you tell me why?" Maple gently asked, pulling her closer.
Starlight looked at the window coverings, and they were still unlit and gray. "Well..." She had come this far. She might as well tell Maple everything. "Okay."
"I'm sorry to hear about your friend," Maple murmured, hugging Starlight close. The filly so far had succeeded in keeping her eyes dry, and wanted to keep it that way... though if she was going to trust Maple, she wasn't entirely sure why.
"Uh huh."
"But... still..." Maple hesitated. "You went across a mountain range that's legendary for being impassable all because of one friend leaving?"
"No. I told you, that's just what started it," Starlight grumbled. "It was because of the cutie marks. He caught a stack of books! What's so special about that?" She punched a pillow. "It's like you can accidentally do one stupid thing and your life completely changes for it. 'Oh, you're a mage, you should go off to mage school!' It's not fair. Why should anypony get treated that differently just because of some decision they made or thing they did when they were young?"
"So you weren't worried about never getting one, then," Maple said, folding her hooves. "You were worried that you would get one, weren't you?"
"Yeah. Some bit of magic should never be that important. But apparently, not having one makes ponies treat you just as differently as whatever you get." Starlight hung her head glumly. "I wear a fake one around most of the time. It washed off in the river, though, and I haven't put it on. It looks like an equals sign."
"It sounds pretty," Maple offered. "Maybe if you ever get one, that's what it will look like."
Starlight frowned.
Maple saw it and re-hugged her. "Well, I don't think you'll have to worry about that. I don't know how things are in 'Equestria' that you can get one for shelving books, but they're very rare here."
That caused a memory from the previous evening to surface in Starlight's mind. Latching on to it and changing the subject, she asked, "What's Sosa?"
"Sosa?" Maple's brow furrowed. "You don't... oh. Right, you don't know anything about what the world looks like here, do you?" Her eyes brightened as she spoke, up from the melancholic solidarity of moments earlier. "I suppose you'd like to hear about that?"
Starlight nodded for her to go on.
"Well, then. Where's the best place to start..." Maple glanced upward, wracking her brain. "So the mountains run from east to west, forever. You can't go around them. It might sound silly, but ponies have tried. Though you'd be better asking ones who have been outside this village than me..."
"Mhmm," Starlight politely pressed.
"And along the base of the mountains," Maple continued, "runs a great river called the Yule. This town, Riverfall, is built on its southern bank, and the river continues until it reaches an ocean far to the east. The stream you floated in on is one of its tributaries, coming down from the mountains."
"The Yule? I've heard of that," Starlight said smugly. When Maple's eyebrows rose in surprise, she immediately shook her head. "Never mind!"
"Okay..." Pausing, Maple re-grabbed her train of thought. "So if you follow the mountains far enough west, they start to curve north. They're low enough there that you can climb them, but you still can't go south. If you keep going west through the mountains, you reach Yakyakistan. That's where the yaks live."
Starlight nodded. That much had been made apparent by the name.
"But before that, right where the mountains curve, is where the Yule's headwaters are," Maple said, tone growing tense and excited. "And there's a city there that supposedly is built straight into the mountains, from the snowy heights to the forest below. It's called Ironridge, and it's very big."
Starlight continued to nod.
"And Ironridge sits in a very unique place that lets it make a lot of things. Fruit, steel, mining..." Her eyes practically swam as she spoke. "And there are no roads that reach it. The only way in or out is by boat, along the Yule... and that's where this town comes in. Halfway along the river is a waterfall big enough to be impassable. Sailors and traders had to climb out and carry their boats uphill to cross it, and eventually they stopped and made a town here. And that's where we are now!" She blinked cheerfully. "Riverfall. Your new home."
"Huh." Starlight had paid attention, but had little to comment. "So what's Sosa?"
"Oh! Right." Maple's ears rose in embarrassment. "Sosa is in Ironridge. I think? It's a part of it, like a city in a city... it's where all the unicorns live. That's why we thought you were from there."
"Oh." Starlight had nothing more to say.
Maple sighed loudly. "Well, that's what I know. I've never been there. Most of the ponies in Riverfall are here because they intend to stay. I once followed the river south to the base of the mountains with some friends, to see what it would look like. But that's as far as I've ever been."
"So they just like it so much they never want to leave?" Starlight asked dubiously.
"You could say that," Maple said with a twitch of the corner of her mouth. "But more often, it's because they disliked somewhere else, and Riverfall was where they had to leave to. Ponies ambitious enough to be elsewhere in the world never settle at a backwater service town like this, and all the adventurous colts leave as soon as they're able. Of course..." Suddenly crestfallen, she finished with, "For certain types of ponies, there's so much to like you'd definitely never want to leave."
"Huh?" Starlight's ears twitched at the other pony's sudden mood swing.
"Oh, don't mind me." Maple smiled dully. "Just reminiscing about what could have been."
Starlight stuck her tongue out. "You sound like a granny."
Maple snorted heavily, breaking into choking laughter. "Me? A granny? Hah! Ha ha ha... Ohh..." She calmed enough to roll over, stretched, and laid a foreleg over Starlight, having broken away earlier. "I'm glad you're staying here. You're a funny filly, Starlight."
Starlight's eyes crossed. "It wasn't that funny..."
"Ohhh..." Maple groaned, and stretched again. "It's probably almost morning, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Probably." Starlight nodded in agreement.
"I'll go get breakfast started, then," Maple grumbled, beginning to scoot herself from the bed. "There's a mirror and a brush over there, if you think it will help, but we really need to get you a real bath. Not a sandy river dunking with no towels."
She trotted to the wall and pressed her hoof down repeatedly on a small, metal pedal on the floor. A string attached to it moved up and down like a pump, turning a previously-unseen mechanism that caused her window coverings to roll up.
Starlight looked keenly on with interest. "Where'd you get that?"
"Oh, you like these?" Maple smiled over her shoulder as she continued around the room, raising the other blinds. "There's an old inventor who came here from Sosa around a decade ago. He's constantly making us toys like these. Everypony loves him." She finished her work and trotted to the door, cracking it open. "I'll be sure to take you to meet him. I bet you'll get along wonderfully."
Maple left the room, leaving Starlight sitting behind on the bed. Gray light from the windows washed in around her, waking her eyes with monochrome and a streak of orange. Through the farthest window to the right, she could see a burning haziness just above the horizon... sunrise.
Maybe this would be a good day. Maybe she'd get to meet more ponies and find out that Riverfall really was as good as Maple and Willow made it sound. Hopefully, she wouldn't accidentally earn her cutie mark. Either way, Maple was cooking something, and it already smelled good. She took a deep breath of the blossoming aroma and decided that, good day or not, it couldn't hurt to look good... so she bent over and began licking her chest and sides, grooming the dawn away.
Starlight didn't need Maple's announcement to tell. Beside the beaming mare stood a golden stack tall enough to feed four, wafting steam as it cooled.
Maple paused to pull two more from a griddle, then expertly popped the tray onto her back and walked over to the table, barely even paying attention as it swayed with her stride yet somehow didn't fall off. Starlight had always been curious and slightly envious of earth ponies' abilities to do that. It would make having a horn that was useless half the time much more bearable if she could carry things without her mouth or saddlebags. She would have asked, had she not been certain the answer was "magic."
"I made pancakes," Maple repeated, voice softer as she slid them onto the table. "Eat as many as you like. I'll have whatever you don't eat."
"Uhh... okay. Thanks," Starlight muttered, distractedly searching for condiments.
After a minute of munching, Maple caught Starlight's attention. The mare was still standing by the griddle, flipping several more when she looked over her shoulder and coughed. "Starlight?"
Starlight swallowed. "Huh?"
"I don't suppose..." Maple turned back to the griddle and sighed. "No, never mind."
"What?" Starlight leaned closer, taking another bite.
"Well..." Maple fidgeted, suddenly bashful. "What do you think of my friends?"
Chewing, Starlight lifted a single ear.
"Amber and Willow," Maple elaborated, turning back to the cooking pancakes. "Who found you with me."
"Oh." Starlight swallowed again, wondering how honest to be... and decided it wouldn't hurt. "Willow's nice. I like her. I couldn't tell much about the other."
"Hmmm..." Maple sighed wistfully as two more pancakes sizzled and browned in front of her. "And what do you think of me?"
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. She had no strong attachment to the mare either way and still preferred Willow, but somehow doubted saying that would go over well. "You're nice too," she offered.
"Am I...?" Maple trailed off, pulling out the pancakes and not putting more in. Slowly, she added them to her new stack and brought that over to the table too, sitting down next to Starlight. "You can tell she's much better at this than me, can't you?"
"Huh?" Starlight looked up, ears folding.
"At kids," Maple stated, a note of bitterness in her voice. "You've been out in the wilderness for who knows how long, probably surviving with whatever you can find. Now you survived, and are here. It sounds like Riverfall is a place you'll like, doesn't it? From what you've said? And all I want is to give you what you deserve for making such a long, hard journey... but you just shrug at all of it." Her ears folded, mirroring Starlight's. "I really want you to like me, Starlight. What else can I give you?"
Speechless, Starlight fought back a shrug. "No, you're nice. I just don't really want anything."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Maple drooped even more. "So there's nothing I can do, then?"
"Uhhhh..." Starlight hesitated, panic briefly flaring. Be nice to Maple. Don't make Maple sad. Right then, she was accidentally doing exactly the opposite of both. Quickly, she decided to try distracting her instead. "Why would she be better than you?"
"Because she already has foals," Maple said, shoulders sagging. "She's done this before. She knows what it's like. And I never have."
"Why not?" Starlight asked around a new bite of pancake. Sad or not, she was still hungry.
Maple didn't say anything.
"Uhh... okay..." Starlight looked around the room; that wasn't working either. Suddenly, she hit upon an idea. "Hey! It'd make me happy if you could feel better..."
When Maple looked aside at her, Starlight leaned her head against her, gently rubbing. The earth pony seemed to have a thing for physical affection, so maybe that would work?
Miraculously, somehow, it did. Maple's face lifted and she blinked away the beginnings of a tear. "So you do care about me. At least. Thanks." Snuffling briefly, she then devoured a pancake whole and licked her lips. "Mmm. These turned out good, didn't they?"
"Mhmm," Starlight replied absent-mindedly. Then, re-railing her train of thought, she added, "I like pancakes. They're nice."
"Oh?" Maple brightened. "I can make them every day, if you like."
Starlight shook her head, thinking for a tactful response. "Make other things too. Don't you have a bakery?" She licked her lips and added, "I want to try all kinds of stuff."
"Oh!" Maple began to grin; apparently that was also on the right track. "Now I'll have to plan something really good for dinner. Hmmm..." She brought a hoof to her rounded chin in thought.
Starlight's ears flicked. "What about lunch?"
"Oh, we might not be back here in time for that." Maple swallowed another pancake, eyeing the stack sideways as she counted how many were remaining. "Seeing Riverfall might take most of the day, and somepony will probably invite us to stay with them for lunch on the way."
"Oh." Starlight looked down at her own plate as Maple reloaded it. She was getting full, but if she enjoyed her eating her cooking...
"I have other friends besides Willow and Amber," Maple offered. "You might like them."
Starlight's mouth was full, so she didn't respond.
"You also might get along well with Willow's kids," Maple added, downing another pancake. "Her eldest is about the same age as you, I think." She blinked. "I never asked! How old are you?"
"I dunno," Starlight said, swallowing. "Filly."
Maple blinked harder. "You don't know? You don't know how old you are?"
Starlight blinked back. "Is that important?"
"Well, I..." Maple fidgeted. "I mean, you don't have to, but it's a useful thing to track, so..."
"Age doesn't really matter in Equestria," Starlight explained disinterestedly. "At least, not the part I'm from. Most ponies can figure theirs out if they want to, but the only age that most ponies care about is when you get your cutie mark."
"Oh." Maple immediately stilled. "Well, I guess our cultures have their own ways of measuring maturity, then. I wonder what other things could be completely different there that we think of as so normal, we wouldn't even question being changeable..."
Starlight ignored her and continued. "And even if I wanted to find how old I was, I was adopted when I was little, so my parents never got my birth certificate."
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that." Ignoring the rest of her food, Maple leaned over and gave Starlight another hug. She flinched, and added, "That your real parents are gone, of course. There are adoptions here, but from the stories I've heard they can be anywhere from happily ever after to waking nightmares, or never even happen at all..."
"Don't be," Starlight sighed. "My real parents probably would have cared just as much as the ones who raised me about my cutie mark."
Maple sighed too. They were silent for a moment, before she said, "I'm twenty-five, if you were curious."
"Huh." Starlight poked at the remains of a pancake.
"Willow is twenty-nine," she added, staring off into space. "And Amber is twenty-three."
Starlight had no response, and Maple had nothing more to say. Some time passed, during which the pancakes continued to cool.
Eventually, Maple eyed the stack. "We should finish these and get on with the day, don't you think?"
"I'm full," Starlight burped. "But they were good, though. Thank you for making them."
"Hee... thanks." Maple nuzzled the top of her head, before going cross-eyed. "We really need to fix your poor mane. Go do anything else you need to get ready, and I'll finish these off."
Nodding her thanks, Starlight got up and paced away from the table, heading for the bedroom. Her saddlebags were still there, and as useless as the contents now were, she felt safer with them on. She looked over her shoulder, smiling at the sight of Maple framed by the door, tilting her head back and cramming the rest of the pancakes into her open mouth in an attempt to devour them as fast as possible. She was feeling it would be a good day.
The morning air was like a slap to the face as Starlight stepped out of Maple's home, but she didn't notice it for long. She was too busy looking, for the first time realizing what the earth pony's idea of a village was.
Cylindrical dwellings much like theirs were scattered almost without thought or placement, stretching as far as the eye could see... though due to the lack of any straight roadways, that wasn't very far at all. Starlight couldn't see a thing that wasn't some shade of red or brown, with the hard-trodden dirt plazas that separated buildings and the dim, canopied horizon.
They were situated in a forest of perfectly straight, branchless trunks that reached impossible heights, the top so far above that Starlight couldn't make out anything but a sea of muddy color. The trees grew wherever they pleased, be it in the middle of a thoroughfare or neatly behind something that didn't seem to be in use.
It was utterly directionless, without roads, landmarks, distinguishing features or even the hint of a gradient to tell one where to go. The half-dozen ponies out and about didn't seem to care, slowly going about their ways with their eyes closed and features relaxed. Starlight half-wondered if they even had destinations at all.
"Pretty, isn't it?" Maple asked, appearing beside her and shutting the door.
Starlight was practically cross-eyed, trying to find anything that looked planned or even stood out in the chaotic, peaceful neighborhood. "How do you tell where to go?"
"Hee... It's pretty big, too..." Smiling just as carelessly as the ponies around her, Maple began walking, heading in what seemed like no direction in particular. "Look above you."
Starlight gave upwards another glance. It was almost dizzying, between the straight brown trees and the distance they stretched for, but she quickly realized what Maple wanted her to see. Ropes bedecked with colorful pendants were strung between combinations of houses and trees, and after a bit of staring it became apparent that they weren't as random: color was related to direction.
"Those are guideposts?" she asked, unsure of a better word.
"Mhmm!" Maple chirped, a spring in her step despite the sharp morning air. "They take a bit to learn, but they tell you whenever you're heading toward anything interesting." She smiled down at Starlight as she walked, turning to avoid a house almost by instinct. "But don't worry about needing to do that any time soon. If you ever want to go anywhere, I'll be happy to come with you!"
"So where are we going now?" Starlight asked, briefly stumbling in her effort to match the older mare's pace.
"The bathhouse," Maple said frankly. "Probably a good idea to get you looking nice, first."
Starlight couldn't protest. She wasn't hung up on fashion like some of the fillies she knew back in Equestria, but it still felt nice to be clean. It would probably be nice to get wet without the imminent threat of hypothermia for once, too. After all her negative experiences with water lately, she could use it. The last thing she wanted was to develop some sort of phobia.
"...So, where's the bathhouse?" she asked after several minutes of walking.
"We passed one already," Maple informed her as if it was the most natural thing ever. "But the one we're going to is downtown. You'll know it when we're getting close."
"We passed one?" While not a protest, there was a certain demand for explanation in Starlight's voice. "Why?"
"Because I'm friends with the mare who runs this one," Maple said. Apparently that was all there was to it.
Starlight wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself, but she wasn't holding up as well as she imagined she would. Perhaps it was because she was full, or perhaps laying and resting for the last week had taken the edge off her exploration-induced stamina, but she could already feel the tug of gravity on her legs. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that now, she didn't need to keep moving.
To distract herself, she kept looking around the town, searching keenly for more things of interest. The longer she stared, the more she realized it wasn't the same all the way through, merely so different from anything she was used to it took an acclimated eye to tell one kind of different apart from another. There was variance to the houses, whether they were made of light wood, dark wood or some reed-like material that looked like incredibly thick, notched straw. The size of everything was subject to change, from tiny pathways where two buildings were squeezed together to byways wider than they were long, and the number of stories present at a time could be anything between five and one.
But no matter how hard she looked, two things about the town seemed completely static and unchanging: all the other ponies she saw were earth ponies, and they were all mares. A slight feeling of uneasiness bubbled within her, and at one point she checked and made sure her matted forelock was covering her horn.
Maple was right, however: Starlight did indeed notice when downtown was approaching. Aside from a slight uptick in the heights of buildings and an increase in bridges built high-up between them, the road around her grew looser and looser, transitioning from hard-packed dirt to soft beach sand. And then, in a hard line, the sand was gone, replaced by glass.
Starlight stopped to take a moment to stare, and Maple let her. Stretching in front of her, the town roads were a mirrorlike sea, flawless and reflective to such a degree that she saw a perfect double of every pony walking on it shining below. When she looked down through the glass, her eyes were met with a cloud of suspended, wildly-colorful rocks ranging from pebbles to the size of her hoof. The glass ran down nearly as deep as she was tall, ending in a gray, unobtrusive bottom wherever she was able to see past the rocks.
"Woah..." Starlight poked cautiously at the surface. "What's this?"
"A gift," Maple replied, grinning at her curiosity. "It looks slippery, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Starlight mumbled, poking it again. The edge of her hoof glided effortlessly across the pristine surface... but the moment she put it down flat, it was like she was standing on glue. Her hoof simply wouldn't budge in any direction but up, no matter how hard she forced it.
In the distance, a pony was pulling a wagon across the glass with no trouble at all. Raising her head, Starlight gave Maple a questioning look.
"The stones are enchanted," Maple explained, stepping confidently onto the substance. "They hold your hooves in place. Wheels, too. Even when it's raining, this place gives you the best traction in town..." She sighed and closed her eyes, reliving memories. "Once, when this was new, I twisted a hoof trying to dance on it. It's that strong. It's still being made, too. Some day, it's supposed to cover the entire town. I can't wait until it's finished up to my house. Isn't it pretty?"
Starlight nodded mutely, still investigating the magical surface.
"It also means we're not far," Maple offered. "Ready?"
Standing with all four hooves on the glass, Starlight nodded. She slid her saddlebags to a more comfortable position, and they set off, continuing into the heart of Riverfall.
The bathhouse certainly proved to break up the wild, circular nature of the town, Starlight thought, staring as Maple's destination came into view. Rather than a tall, round tower like most every other building she could see, it was squat and appeared to be shaped like a peanut. The filly squinted. "Is that two houses turned into one?"
"Three, actually," Maple replied, her step light and tone cheery. "But you can't see the third from here. They wanted to get as much ground room as possible, since it's hard to elevate a waterproof basin. The upper floor has a salon, as well as Sycamore and Frond's house."
"Who are they?" Starlight asked, stubby legs scurrying to keep pace.
"The owners. And friends of mine. Especially Sycamore. You'll see!" Maple winked back at her.
A bell rang as Maple trotted across a short patio and pushed the door open. "Coming!" a voice sounded from above, followed by a clatter of hoofsteps as a gangly teenage filly tumbled down a brightly-lit staircase. "Hey, what can I do for..." Her eyes widened before she even finished getting up, and a grin appeared on her face. "Hey moooom! It's auntie Maple! And she's got the river filly!"
Starlight drew closer to Maple's side, standing in her shadow but not quite hiding behind or under her. "Auntie?" She raised a questioning eyebrow. "Her mom is your sister?"
Maple smirked back. "Not quite. As best as anyone can tell, Sycamore and I are second cousins, but we were friends growing up. And in this town, memories count for more than ancestry."
A saloon door in the back of the room quickly swung open, and a middle-aged mare with a pristine, deep purple coat strode through, broad face widening in a welcoming smile. "Maple!" she exclaimed, rushing to hug the mare. "How's it going? Is this little Starlight?"
Starlight stared her straight in the eye, doing her best to maintain a poker face. "Hi."
"Hi, Sycamore," Maple gasped, flailing for air in the older mare's grasp. While Sycamore wasn't abnormally sized and could probably fit into a normal mare's clothing, her muscles were so toned that she dwarfed a grown stallion in force of presence alone.
"You're so cute," Sycamore hummed in a deep baritone voice, dropping the frazzled Maple and turning entirely to Starlight. "And by 'cute' I mean a disaster in need of fixing up!" She edged a thick eyebrow at Maple. "That's why you're here, I presume?"
"That we are!" Maple smiled as she regained her breath. "Out and about, touring the town, you know..."
"Well, if you're looking to go soak yourself," Sycamore began, motioning for Starlight to hang her bags on a rack, "Amber's been hogging the main tub for two hours, and you're more than welcome to make her share the place. I, for one, need to go grab a bite before tackling a knot like that. So make yourselves at home, m'kay? Frond, be nice to our guests! Later!"
Starlight and Maple watched as the purple mare barged toward the door, shoving it open with her chest and strolled out onto the glassy streets. It swung closed behind her with a whoosh.
There came a yawn from the staircase, where Frond was still standing. "So, how long will you two be staying?"
Maple shrugged. "As long as it takes. Certainly not before Sycamore's back. Why?"
"Oh." Frond swallowed and turned around. "Well, don't leave before I get to meet the river filly! But right now, I'm... I'm gonna go back to bed... Next time, don't come so early, okay?"
They watched her vanish around the lip of the ceiling, and Maple rolled her eyes. "Some ponies... Oh well. Come on, Starlight. Let's get you cleaned up."
The doors swung open before Maple's hoof, revealing that the interior of the building was actually an open-sky courtyard lined with a stone floor and several pits of clear, rippling water. The air was warm and incredibly moist, and puddles of condensation lined every available surface.
"Yoohoo!" A mare in the middle pond waved frantically, indiscernible except by voice through the light haze of steam that enveloped the room. "Maple? Starlight? Over here!"
Maple rolled her eyes again. "Hi, Amber. Mind sharing the water?"
No response. Maple's eyes narrowed as she paced closer, Starlight at her side. Amber's head lowered through the steam until her eyes and nose were barely above the water, peering out like a crocodile as the two stared down from above. "...Amber?" Maple asked, readying a hoof.
"Welcome to my domain," Amber rumbled, deepening her voice to subterranean levels without raising her head.
Maple snorted. "Oh, really, now? Is that-"
Amber's head broke further above water, and she was grinning like a lunatic. "Have some of this!"
Splooosh! She heaved a blob of water with both forelegs at Maple, who wasn't able to dodge out of the way in time. Starlight shrieked and jumped to the side, moisture spattering her coat, but Maple took the blast full-force, standing and dripping and snarling down at her friend.
"Uhhh..." Starlight backed away, raising a hoof.
"Oh, it is so on!" Leaping and tucking in all four legs, Maple cannonballed at the pool, vanishing on top of Amber with a huge splash. Several moments later, they both resurfaced, laughing uproariously and flinging more splashes at each other.
From a safe distance away, Starlight raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"
Amber stuck her tongue out. "What the water was meant for! Having fun!"
"Come on in," Maple added, beckoning and splashing with a hoof. "It's really warm!"
Starlight dubiously eyed the water, the two waving mares in it fading into the background of her conscience. For a split second, her vision went gray, and the pool was transformed into a raging river, which then slid sideways as gravity changed, falling endlessly without direction until it hit a storm-tossed ocean, her head separated from it only by a pitch-black sky... She shook her head frantically, trying to clear the vision. This was exactly what she didn't want to happen. It was practically a hot spring! And there were other ponies nearby. She'd never be in danger of freezing here.
Still, she gulped. The pool was there... and her friends were in it. And if she was honest with herself, she really did need a real bath. Besides, there was no way she wanted to live her life being afraid of water.
That did it. Picking up her hooves and moving them one by one, Starlight stomped toward the pool, overcoming her own stubbornness with even more stubbornness. At last, she reached it, dipping a forelimb in... and finding that Maple hadn't exaggerated about the temperature. Blankets and warm hugs aside, if she was still frozen from earlier, this would be a great way to fix that. Idly wondering if the hot water would do anything for her horn, Starlight slipped herself in, shivering warmly at the contact.
Maple grinned at her from across the tub. "Do you like it?"
"Yeah, it's nice," Starlight admitted hesitantly. "But I don't know if I really aaack!"
Amber's cheeks deflated as she blew a jet stream of water at the filly. Smirking playfully, she raised an eyebrow, daring Starlight to retaliate.
"Grrrrr!" Starlight floundered at her, reaching for the bottom of the pool with her hooves to find purchase so she could fight back. Maple stood to the side, laughing at each subsequent blow until an errant wave swamped her and forced her into the melee. A mixture of shrieks and laughter floated skyward as the three playfully assaulted each other, splashing on into the morning.
Maple, Starlight and Amber's bath-turned-waterfight was interrupted by a thunderous clearing of a throat. The three ceased their battle, looking upwards at the purple mare who was half-smirking back at them. "Sorry, ladies," Sycamore growled with a hint of regret in her voice. "But some real, paying customers just arrived, and I need to at least pretend to be running a respectable establishment." She pointed a large hoof over her shoulder at a pair of mares slinking towards a far-corner pool and nuzzling furtively.
Amber waggled her eyebrows. "I'd say whatever they're planning is a lot less respectable than good old splashing and dunking!"
Snorting, Sycamore shot a sideways glance at Maple. "Could you slap her for me, hon? There are fillies present."
As Maple obliged and Amber yelped, Starlight's face scrunched in thought. "What?"
"Never you mind that. Now what else was...?" Sycamore held her chin in thought. "Ah! I should turn the ventilation on. It's getting steamy in here. Be right back..."
As she wandered off, Maple nudged Starlight. "So? How do baths in Riverfall compare to where you're from?"
"That was it?" Starlight's eyes widened. "But we were just messing around!"
"That's what they all say," Amber interrupted, backstroking past. "But Riverfall likes its water way more than the rest of the world. Just because 'bath' and 'boring' start with the same letter doesn't mean you need to make them one and the same!"
"Hmm... well..." Maple gave a soft tug on Starlight's mane, which was still a gnarled clump. "It'll take a little more to fix this. And maybe not all outings I've had here have been this energetic. But I bet you do smell much better!"
"What did I even smell like?" Starlight muttered under her breath. "I laid in a box and didn't do anything else since the last time I got wet..."
They were interrupted by a low hissing noise from above, followed by Sycamore's returning hoofsteps. As she walked, the air cleared around her, making it almost seem like she was approaching twice as fast as she really was. With a sigh, she flopped down on the edge of the pool, patiently watching the three inside.
"Well?" she prompted when no one spoke. "I'm dying to hear about your new filly, Maple. Aren't you dying to tell me?"
"I basically told you everything there is to know," Amber drawled, floating past again. "We camped the river and found her floating past in a crate, and Willow told Maple to take her home!"
"Oh, really?" Sycamore leaned in closer. "And how does a little filly come to be floating north along a tributary from the mountains? That's a long way to walk to get here from Sosa..."
Starlight squirmed slightly at the question. Mercifully, Maple noticed and interceded. "She actually asked if we could not talk about that for right now. I hope you don't mind?"
"Of course." Sycamore backed off respectfully. "Not meaning to pry."
A moment of silence followed, during which Maple suggested, "Should we get dried off? Then you can get to work on Starlight's mane?"
"Heh. Won't that be a treat." Sycamore rolled her eyes and extended a forelimb in case any of the bathers needed a lift getting out. Maple took it graciously, while Starlight scrambled her own way onto the ledge and Amber stayed carelessly floating in the pool.
"Right, then..." In a section of the building that ringed the pool compound, next to a window looking out over the bathing area, Sycamore set Starlight, wrapped in a towel, onto a stone table. She stuck her tongue out, squinting as she ran a hoof over the filly's mane. "Let's see how we can save this, shall we?"
"O-Okay," Starlight grunted, shivering. She couldn't tell if she was actually cold or if it was merely a reaction caused by all her memories of being unable to get dry, but it was certainly unpleasant and not a welcome way to end what had been an otherwise funner-than-expected experience. Fun... she needed to remember to be careful with that. It would never do to get a cutie mark in bathing.
Sycamore had just begun pulling apart her mane, searching for a way to make a part when an ear-splitting boom echoed in through the window, causing Starlight to jump. She didn't cry out, but every muscle in her body tensed in preparation to run.
"Hold still, you." Sycamore pressed a strong forelimb over her, pinning her in place. "I'm not done yet. No reason to end early over a little thunderstorm."
"Thunderstorm?" Starlight lifted an ear. "But it's not raining out there." She pointed a hoof toward the open window, beyond which Amber continued to soak in peace.
Sycamore stuck her head out and looked upwards. "I really think it's raining, kiddo. Have a look, but then get back here so I can do your mane."
Released, Starlight looked outward and upward herself... and blinked several times. Rain was indeed beating down, but it stopped as if striking an invisible surface, turning to a rippling sheet and sliding off. There was some kind of dome or barrier protecting the building she somehow hadn't noticed before.
"Like it?" Sycamore asked, tapping the table Starlight was supposed to be waiting on. "That shield is Arambai's doing. Same goes for the plumbing, the water heater, the ventilation... everything that makes this place run, really. That stallion is a wizard, both literally and metaphorically."
"Who's that?" Starlight glanced up at Maple.
"Arambai? He's the inventor I was telling you about earlier," Maple replied, sitting nearby and rubbing herself with another towel. "The one who made my window blinds. He also is making the glass roads, and lots of other things in town."
"He's amazing," Sycamore added, rolling her eyes. "Single, too. I'm sure the only reason he stays that way is because it keeps half the town daydreaming whenever they're around him."
"Or it could be because he's old enough to have grandfoals," Maple chided. "Or because he doesn't want to pick favorites."
"So what's so great about him?" Starlight squirmed as part of her mane was tugged, finally coming loose from the rest. "Is it because he's the only stallion in this place?"
Maple blushed heavily. Sycamore might have as well; her coat coloration made it difficult to tell.
"What's with that, anyway?" Starlight tilted her head, forcing the mare working on it to bend with her. "Why aren't there any stallions here?"
"Didn't I tell you?" Maple shifted where she sat, looking out at the rain sliding down the dome shield outside. "It's because, as long as we can remember, all the colts would eventually grow up to the point where they got bored with this town and leave. They all hopped on ships headed west, to test their fortunes in Ironridge and beyond. Same with the unicorn fillies that are inevitably born whenever Sosan stallions come back here to settle down."
"All of them?" Starlight frowned. "Wouldn't there be some who stayed?"
"That's not how herd mentality works, kiddo," Sycamore rumbled, gently teasing apart a knot. "If enough ponies do it, it becomes the normal thing to do. Besides, who doesn't want to be told their expectation in life is to be set free after spending ten or fifteen years cooped up in this town?"
Starlight's frown grew deeper. "So I'm going to be abnormal if I don't leave and run away again, huh? Is that it?" Her leg twitched, and she re-adjusted her seating, looking forlornly at Maple. "I thought you wanted me to stay here..."
"Well..." Sycamore cleared her throat. "That's how it used to work, at least."
When Maple saw Starlight's confused expression, she leaned in to clarify. "I won't be making you go anywhere you don't want to, Starlight. Don't worry." She gave her a short, wet one-legged hug.
"But why doesn't it work that way anymore?" Starlight asked as her mane was yanked to the side, snagging briefly on her horn. She gritted her teeth.
Sycamore sighed, then hesitated. "We... don't really talk about that."
"Because it's a sore subject for every pony old enough to remember it," Maple murmured in her ear. Before Starlight could protest again, she added, "I'll tell you later if you want to know. But she was nice enough not to ask where you were from, remember?"
Starlight pouted, but that was the end of that. "So what's so awesome about the inventor?"
"Well, for one, it's how much he's done for this town," Sycamore replied with a smirk. "He's the spitting image of selflessness. Makes all this wonderful gear for us, and never asks a thing in return except the right to his own privacy and secrets."
"Which I'm sure he has a lot of," Maple added. "He turned up one day, nearly ten years ago, as if out of nowhere. None of us know a thing about his past, or about how he learned to make so many things. Or why he's so nice to us all the time."
"He got off a boat from Ironridge, obviously," Sycamore cackled. "That or one to it. I'm convinced the whole forlorn, mysterious thing is just an act to give all the unattached mares something to pine over. Fits with every other thing he's done for this town. They'd all go insane without it."
"He sounds shifty to me," Starlight muttered darkly. "I don't trust him."
"The one thing we know for sure is that he cares about Riverfall," Maple soothed. "You'll be able to ask him yourself, if you want. I'm sure we'll run into him within the next few days."
Sycamore nodded. "Trusting him is one of the things every pony in this village agrees upon. We'd make him leader in a heartbeat if he ever asked. Some have even tried to volunteer him for the job. He just shrugs and goes about his business."
"Do you have a leader already?" Starlight batted at the clips holding finished sections of her mane out of the way as Sycamore continued her work.
"Nah. Well... sort of." The purple mare paused, using her teeth to work out a particularly stubborn snag. "There's another stallion, Hemlock. He's basically the opposite of Arambai. Born and raised here in Riverfall. Went off to get his adventures, but eventually came right back. He invented this machine to help hoist boats up the falls, and acts like we should all worship him for it. But everyone knows that ninety percent of the time, he's got nothing important to say, so we just let him do his own thing and only pretend to listen."
Maple nodded sagely. "Those two are the closest to leaders you're going to get."
Sycamore glanced out the window. "Oh, lookie there. The rain's stopped. I should probably get a move on this and finish her up so you two can get on before it returns, shouldn't I?"
Starlight shivered in agreement, not liking the idea of taking a hike through the rain. Especially not on that glass surface. Magic or not, she wasn't sure she was willing to give it her full trust so soon. With no dissent, Sycamore doubled down on her efforts, finishing up Starlight's mane and moving on to her tail as the day continued to tick by.
Starlight and Maple stood in the entrance to the building, backed by Sycamore as the muscular mare bid them farewell. "So, fillies, where do you think you'll be heading next?"
Maple was busy nuzzling Starlight's silky, freshly groomed mane, and didn't stop when responding. "After all that, I'm famished. We're going to go to Willow's and see if she wants to share lunch, I think."
"You mean you're going to shamelessly raid her pantry, right?" a loud voice chimed in as Amber strolled in from the pool room, dripping streams of water and not bothering to wear a towel. "Sounds smashing. Mind if I come with?"
"Mmmm... you could... so fuzzyyyyy..." Maple purred into Starlight's mane. The filly almost regretted not having a mirror. She had a feeling her deadpan expression could win some kind of record, and wanted to see it.
"Well, I wish you luck with that," Sycamore chuckled, pursing her lips at Starlight's plight. "Want a poncho for the road? I've got a few spares laying around here..."
Maple looked up with a smile, to Starlight's immense relief. "We could do with that, I think."
"No way, no how!" Amber shook her head vehemently. "We're water ponies to the core! Right, sis?" She shoulder-bumped Maple, sending a shower of droplets her way. Maple and Starlight cringed.
"Sis?" Starlight asked after the water bounced harmlessly off her fluffy coat. "Is that another 'family but not really' thing?"
Amber smirked wryly. "Well, technically I'm her half-aunt. But when she's older than me, that just hurts to think about."
"How...?" Starlight's face contorted. "Your family tree must be really gross."
Maple laughed. "Every pony in this town is related in some way or another. It comes with the demographics. That's why we never care about blood relationships. The only thing that matters is who you know, who you care about and who you get along with."
"Ponchos, ponchos, ponchos..." Sycamore interrupted, humming as she bustled back into the room, carrying a thick, shiny garment. "Here you go."
As Maple accepted the gift, Amber sidled in and nudged Sycamore. "A nail for your thoughts?"
Sycamore blinked. "If I ever have another kid, I should name them Poncho. Just to rebel against this trend of naming foals after trees. It would be the most unique name in a thousand miles. My foal would never have to share a name with anyone." After seeing the looks the other three were giving her, she shrugged. "You asked."
"Remind me next time I see you to do nothing but chat about the weather," Amber said, sticking out her tongue. "Now let's get going! Are you girls coming, or what?" She marched, still dripping, over to the door and flung it open, eliciting a clattering of bells and tromping outside.
"We're coming, we're coming..." Maple rolled her eyes and looked aside at Sycamore. "Thanks for saving her mane. I was worried it might have been a lost cause."
Sycamore nodded. "Just promise to let me try out a new style on you, too, one of these days. Now, away with you!" She flung a hoof, ushering Maple and Starlight swiftly to the door.
It slammed shut behind them. Moments later, before Sycamore had even turned away, a tumbling sounded from the stairs, and the bleary-eyed, leaf-green head of Frond poked down. "Mom? I didn't miss them, did I? ...Mom? Mom... oh, come on!"
Moisture from the rainstorm was still draining away as Starlight strode across the glass roadways, her broad hoofsteps necessary to keep up with Amber. Maple took the pace with similar levels of enthusiasm, her face strained as she stepped and splashed quickly, looking as if she would much rather follow her strenuous soak with a leisurely stroll than an almost-dash.
Starlight stomped her way through a puddle, noting with less interest than she would have normally given how the glass seemed to be constructed with invisible holes in it, allowing the water to sink into the ground rather than disperse entirely by runoff. Whoever had thought that up must really have had good foresight. She was still skeptical of Arambai after everything Maple and Sycamore had said, but there wasn't much doubt that the stallion's engineering abilities truly were that good.
Memories of that conversation filling her head, Starlight recalled when she had asked a question and been rebuffed. Apparently, something about the town had changed recently, within Sycamore's memory... but she had nothing to go on. Maple had offered to fill her in, but while racing hardly seemed like the time to do that. Especially since her legs were complaining.
So, instead, Starlight focused on not-quite-running, legs propelling her through the rain-soaked world. They weaved around cylindrical buildings, the stones suspended below sparkling like stars in the night sky. Hadn't someone said this trip would be short? Her lungs weren't yet burning, but her legs were to the point of noodles, and there was definitely nothing her horn could do to help. Growling in frustration, Starlight spurred herself onwards, trying to keep up with Amber's increasing pace.
"A-Amber!" Maple called out, gasping. "Do you mind? Not all of us are athletes!"
Amber pouted and slowed down, leaving Starlight time to catch her breath. "Sorry? I figured we were all hungry, so might as well get there fast..."
"It's, well..." Maple swallowed. "We are almost there, at least. But can we walk the rest of the way?"
Starlight swallowed as well, her saliva thick from exertion and likely dehydration. She eyed a puddle on the glassy road, wondering if it would be suitable for drinking. Maple made the decision for her, grabbing and nudging her along at a new, more reasonable pace.
Within minutes, they were there. Willow's home was a single tower that looked to be four stories tall, a marked improvement from Maple's apparently modest two. An exuberant knock from Amber followed, and that was proceeded in turn by the door swinging open.
Willow was there, and she looked down and scoffed. "Amber, you are not setting hoof in my house until you dry off. Go on. Shoo." She waggled a hoof, at which the offending mare took off running with a gasp. Her gaze softened, and she swung the door open the rest of the way. "Maple, Starlight! Touring the town?"
"You could say that," Maple wheezed, still slightly winded. She pointed a hoof at Starlight. "Got her mane fixed. Bathed at Sycamore's. Mind if we drop by for lunch?"
"Well, it's a little early in the day for that," Willow mumbled, poking her head back inside in thought. "Sure. We'll have an early lunch. Come on in."
At Willow's beckoning, they walked through the door. The interior design immediately stood out: unlike Maple's partitioned shop of a home, the floor was wide open save for a few counters for cooking and an iron spiral staircase descending from a hole in the center of the ceiling.
"It'll take a few minutes to get lunch on," Willow explained, already turning toward the cupboards that were undoubtedly stuffed with ingredients. "You're welcome to go upstairs and make yourselves at home. Faron is probably reading, and the kids should be on the third floor. Starlight?" The corners of her mouth tilted upwards in a smile. "I bet you'd get along very well with them, if you want."
Starlight shrugged and turned toward the staircase. "Okay. Who's Faron?"
"My husband," Willow replied firmly, yet with low volume. There was a note of something in her voice, sounding equal parts pride and resignation. That was an odd combination. Muttering her acknowledgement as Maple volunteered herself to help with lunch, the filly ascended the staircase.
The second floor was littered with bookshelves, a double helix staircase wrapping around both far walls. Somewhere within the maze of literature was a large recliner, no doubt occupied by Faron. Starlight didn't see any reason to bother him, so she made for one of the wall stairs and continued upwards, hooffalls soft and soundless against the padded wooden floors. Was that good? Did she want to announce her presence? Starlight realized with some trepidation that she hadn't met a foal since...
No. She shook her head as she climbed; that was in the past. That was a world of mountains away. And she'd met plenty of ponies her age since then... she just hadn't become friends with them. Not best friends, at least. There was no reason at all for her to feel nervous about this.
She reached a landing, which was decidedly not open like the previous floors. Instead, it had several doors and more stairs up... Willow's children all had their own rooms, apparently. Unsure of where to knock, she settled for clearing her throat loudly, making her presence known to all.
Almost immediately, a door clicked open, and a bright face with a stubby horn poked out. "Hi, there! Are you the river filly mum was talking about?"
Starlight was speechless.
"I'm Alder," the colt said, offering a hoof. "Mum told me you were a little shy, and might like a friend. Wanna be friends?"
Still, Starlight couldn't say anything. She trembled, her jaw hanging loosely.
"I've always wanted a friend from far away," Alder added, his fiery, rust-colored mane bobbing as he tilted his head. "She said you floated in on a boat you made yourself. That sounds pretty cool!"
Alder blinked at her, looking slightly concerned when she still didn't respond. "What's your name, river filly? I already told you mine."
Starlight didn't say anything. How could she? He was standing right there in his burnt-orange coat, covered in splotchy markings of his mother's silver, holding out a hoof and asking to be friends. It was like she was staring into a mirror that showed into the past. She could already feel tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Somehow, across all this distance, she was looking at him.
Cracking like a dropped glass, Starlight burst into tears, turned tail, and ran, wailing, leaving Alder sitting on the landing with an empty hoof. He looked after her, surprise and confusion covering his silver-marked face. "Was it something I said?"
Maple jumped as a pink-and-purple whirlwind tore through the kitchen in a fit of tears and crashed out the door, leaving it swinging behind her. Willow arched an eyebrow, silently asking if she knew what that was about and whether she wanted to handle it herself. Maple shook her head.
A thumping announced the presence of another body coming down the stairs. Alder tumbled to the bottom, looking torn between panic and worry as he scurried halfway up to his mother. "I swear, I didn't do anything!" he emphatically protested, jaw flapping. "All I did was ask her if she wanted to be friends, and she took off like she'd seen a ghost! She didn't even tell me what her name was!"
Willow shushed him with a hoof, looking to Maple. "Do you want to go talk to her?"
Maple stared back, shrinking. "But I don't know what to do! I don't know how to handle-"
"Shhhh," Willow interrupted. "Then I've got it." She briefly knelt to Alder, whispering, "I believe you. I'll go talk to her, okay?"
The colt nodded, clear relief on his face. He turned around and scampered back up the stairs, leaving Willow to push her way outdoors and try to find Starlight.
Standing on the small patio that ringed her house, she raised her nose and sniffed. It wasn't raining, but the air told her there would soon be more... and she wagered Starlight would be able to tell that just as well as her. There was no trace of the filly, but with that in mind, the most likely direction she would have ran would be... this way.
Willow walked hurriedly, yet kept her steps soft. There was an art to sneaking up on a foal who had recently ran off. Approach too fast or loudly, and they'd likely avoid you. Appear without warning, and they'd think you were hunting them and clam up, or even bolt. You had to let them know you were coming without causing them to spook... you had to make them feel like they had a choice whether to see you or not. Fortunately, Willow was skilled in giving such choices.
She threaded her body through two close-pressed houses, slowing as she heard Starlight's sniffling come into earshot. One by one, she moved her hooves forward, tail down and posture loose until the filly saw her. Starlight looked up and hiccupped.
Instead of talking, Willow chose a dry spot and sat down a safe distance away, looking at an angle where Starlight was in her peripheral, but not her focus. Then she did nothing, waiting and listening to the filly's breathing. Thankfully, there were no pedestrians around.
Eventually, looking straight ahead, she said, "You gave my son quite a fright back there."
Starlight sniffled. "Sorry."
"Oh, I'm not worried about him," Willow said with a hint of reassurance. "If I was, I wouldn't be out here, right now. But he's a resilient child. He'll shrug it off quickly."
No response greeted her ears. Marginally, she turned her head and saw Starlight staring at the ground, unblinking. She waited three slow breaths, and said, "Is there anything I can do?"
That did the trick. Starlight didn't look up, but she muttered, "No. I'm fine. He just surprised me." She hesitated, and eventually added, "He reminded me of Sunburst."
Willow said nothing, sensing she wasn't done... and keep talking, she did. "He was my best friend back in Equestria. We did everything together, until the day h-he got his cutie mark. Then his parents packed him up and shipped him off somewhere where I'd never see him again. That's how things worked, back there. You accidentally do some magic and lift a dumb stack of books, and everyone says you have to do that for the rest of your life. That's why I ran away." Starlight paused, and wiped at her face with a hoof. "He's dead now. To me. Because they changed who he was. They've probably got him locked up in some dumb school full of books and make him go around telling ponies that he's going to shelve books for the rest of his life. Maybe the cutie mark makes him enjoy it, too. It's stupid."
Willow blinked several times while Starlight was rambling, getting the feeling that she was missing some important context. Perhaps it had been given to Maple, instead. But she shelved the confusion in the back of her mind, simply sitting and listening as the filly continued to talk.
"You're lucky not to have a cutie mark," Starlight finished glumly. "You never had to change who you are. Or had any other dumb ponies try to change it."
Willow's heart sank slightly. "Would you believe me if I told you I regret not getting one?"
"What?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "No."
"Good," Willow sighed. "Because I don't. There's no point in worrying what might have been."
Starlight looked suspiciously at her. "Buuut?"
"But that doesn't mean my life has never been involuntarily changed," Willow said softly. "Life happens. And with it come all sorts of twists and turns that make you live in ways you'd never imagine... and those don't always happen when a pony gets branded. Finding the power to make your dreams come true is a big change... but it's not the only thing that can happen out of nowhere and never be undone."
"Huh?" Starlight stood up and took a step closer.
Willow spread her forelegs, still sitting up and looking as far as the distance would let her. "Come here. I have a story I'd like to tell you, if you don't mind..."
"A story?" Starlight moved closer. Her voice was no longer shaking. That was a good sign.
"A story," Willow repeated. "About when I was younger. Maple and Amber are in it, too. When we were young, we were quite close. We still are, but for different reasons."
Starlight stopped. "You're not going to try to convince me to get a cutie mark, are you?"
Willow glanced down at her own, bare flank, and laughed ruefully. "Do I look like the best pony to tell you that?" She shook her head, and added, "I'm not, Starlight. I don't want to convince you of anything. I just want to tell you about the time my life took a giant turn nopony saw coming... not me, at least. And how it had nothing to do with getting branded at all."
"Why?" Starlight looked unconvinced, but she took a step closer.
"Because it sounds like you were perfectly happy with your life and how it was going, until something changed you couldn't control." Willow sighed, motioning again for Starlight to join her and looking away. "I just wanted to show you that I know how that feels. And while I'm not going to try to convince you of anything..." Her gaze softened. "I don't want you to take it out in the wrong place."
She received no verbal answer... but did feel something soft brushing up against her leg. She looked, and Starlight was there, trying to appear noncommittal and doing a very poor job of it. Laughing slightly, she lifted the limb and tucked Starlight against her chest. "I take it that's a yes, then?"
"Okay," Starlight mumbled, sitting under Willow with her back to the mare.
"Well, then," Willow sighed as thunder rumbled in the distance. It would probably begin raining soon; she fluffed her fur in defense. "It all began on that day, ten years ago..."
"When we were younger, we were inseparable. Of course, age makes a bigger difference then, so we were hardly equals... I was the leader of our little group. The one the others looked up to. I had recently finished my growth spurt, while Amber was still a filly and Maple was somewhere in between."
Willow's eyes drifted as she began to recount the story, hovering aimlessly from house to house. "We were ambitious, though. Adventurous. Did anypony tell you why there are so few stallions and unicorns in Riverfall, yet?"
Starlight nodded. "Mhm. But she said that had changed and didn't tell me why."
"Well, I'll get to that. But this simplifies things." Willow sighed, considering the best point to start, and continued. "Myself and the others didn't really think of ourselves as ponies to stay and live out our lives here, growing old and never setting hoof outside this village. For years, we would stay up at night, and I would tell them stories I'd heard listening to the Sosan sailors who guided ships along the river. We promised ourselves that someday, we'd go on an adventure ourselves, and see the world..."
She stopped and paused, taking a moment to let the memories refresh themselves in her mind. "It was Amber who wanted to go the most. She should have been born a pegasus, I'm sure. Imagine all the enthusiasm she has now, only focused. Funny, now, that she's the one with the least regrets..."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "But you said you didn't have any regrets."
"That's not entirely true," Willow murmured, her chin on Starlight's head. "I merely choose not to dwell on them. But they are there. Anyway..." She cleared her throat, and shifted around the filly. "Maple, by contrast, simply adored me and wanted to do everything I would do. I'm sure that's not all there is to it, as she did become branded for our efforts... but it was a big part."
Willow sniffed, clearing her sinuses. "I, on the other hoof, was mostly interested in the foreign ponies. When everything is the same around you growing up, it only takes meeting one pony from far enough away to completely change your world..." She nudged Starlight's ears. "When I'm done, if you have any stories you'd like to tell me, I'd love to listen."
"But you haven't even gotten started yet," Starlight complained, tucked against her chest.
"Shhh. I'm getting there." Willow stared, then closed her eyes. "Our dream was to go to Ironridge; to see the city and make a living for ourselves. But we couldn't just leave whenever we wanted. On my own, I could have made it much earlier, but as the caretaker of a group? I needed to make sure I was old enough for the job. And we couldn't leave while Amber was too young, either. We also needed to get some money to live off of, and buy passage..."
Willow sighed heavily. "Eventually, Maple became... earned her... cutie mark?" At a nod from Starlight, she continued. "In packing things. She was arranging supplies in boxes to try to make them fit... and that was when I knew it was almost time. So I started spending more time at the docks, and I began looking for a boat that might take us." She hung her head. "I didn't find what I was looking for. Instead... I met Arambai."
Starlight tried to give her a questioning glance, but her horn only wound up grazing Willow's chin. The older mare needed no prompting, however. "I did. This was a year or so before he moved to Riverfall. Town legend says he appeared out of nowhere one day and set up and stayed, and he did never tell me his name, then... but I'm sure it was him. He was the captain of a westbound ship. I asked passage for me and two others."
"And what did he say?" Starlight flicked her ears.
"Something I hadn't expected," Willow answered. "He didn't truly refuse me. He just warned me that something bad was going to happen soon, in Ironridge. He told me to be wary... that we should stay here, because this wasn't a good time to be optimistic and ambitious. But he assured me that nothing bad would befall this town."
"So you stayed here," Starlight muttered. "And trusted him."
"I decided to be cautious," Willow corrected. "I didn't tell anypony what he had said. I told Maple and Amber that I was still looking for a boat... which I was. Only, instead of asking for a ride, I just tried to gossip with the sailors. I listened to them, asked them to talk... and do you know what I found?"
She shook her head. "At first, nothing. But as I got more and more familiar with them, I began to notice a change. They talked less, and the words they did say had less meaning. They were nervous. I didn't know what to tell Amber and Maple..." Willow gulped. "But soon, I didn't have to."
Starlight's ears folded. "What happened?"
"Alder happened," Willow said dryly. "My son, whom you just finished scaring witless."
The silence that ensued was broken by several heavy drops, the rain choosing that moment to resume. Willow and Starlight sat in the open, but didn't budge, Starlight protected by the bigger mare's posture and thick coat. Pellets of water bounced off of Willow's head and back, trickling along the ground beside them. From the safety of Willow's shadow, Starlight eventually asked, "How?"
"How?" Willow smirked. "I think you're a little too young to know the exact details of that. The important part is that I was constantly associating with mysterious, interesting stallions who had things to say that I wanted to listen to... and occasionally, I let myself enjoy it a little more than I should have." She sighed loudly as the rain began to turn to mist. "And then I paid the price. I put off telling Maple and Amber as long as I could. There was no way I could care for a foal and those two while navigating a foreign city filled with mysterious danger."
Stiffening her back against the rain, she continued in the same calm voice she had maintained for the entire tale. "They learned eventually, of course, but that's a story for another time. Our dreams were dead. When Alder was born, I didn't know what to do with myself. I devoted myself to being the best mother I could be... I decided I never wanted my son to be able to see me look at him and think that, given a choice, I would take a life of adventure over him. And that was the end of that."
A prolonged silence stretched between the two, broken only by the static of rain all around them. Eventually, Starlight mumbled, "Huh."
"The important part," Willow said, breaking her stoic narration and resuming a warmer tone, "is that things happen. Who you think you are and what you're meant to do can change extremely fast. And as much as it can hurt... a strong filly like you can learn to love what you still have, and what you've gained." She turned to look at Starlight, opening the way for a few errant drops to land on the filly's head. "Can you do that for me?"
Starlight nodded mutely.
"Good," Willow sighed. "As shaken as I was back then... Maple and Amber forgave me. Alder is happy, and has two more siblings. I have a husband. My life isn't what I dreamed it would be, once... but it's a lot better than many ponies can ask for, even in as peaceful a town as Riverfall."
"So..." Starlight mumbled towards the ground. "Sycamore said something happened here a while ago, and wouldn't tell me what it was. Was that what he was talking about?"
Willow exhaled slowly. "It was, yes. Shortly before Alder was born, Arambai returned to Riverfall and began his life here. And after that? The boats stopped coming. It didn't happen instantly, but for the last seven years, we haven't seen a single boat go by."
Starlight's eyes widened. "They stopped?"
"More or less," Willow whispered, voice muted by the hiss of rain landing on and around them. "To some ponies, that's a good thing. Riverfall is now so isolated, nothing will ever happen to change our town for good or for worse... and it's a good town. There's a lot to be happy for, here. To some ponies, this will be a paradise forever."
"You don't believe them, do you?"
Willow chuckled. "Being too sure of your own future is never a smart thing to do. Something will happen to change this town, someday. Who knows? Maybe it will even be you."
Starlight shuddered uncomfortably at that, prompting Willow to lift a hoof and hold her closer. "For other ponies, though, it's a cage with no escape. We don't have the knowledge or the resources to make a boat that could survive both the trip east and the open sea, and we wouldn't go to Ironridge. Arambai discourages everyone who tries. Eventually, ponies just stopped trying."
"So if they aren't leaving anymore, where are all the unicorns and stallions?" Starlight asked. "Or pegasi?"
"If there were ever any pegasi here, they would have flown away," Willow said wistfully, her damp forelock plastered to her head and no longer able to shield her eyes from the rain. "As for the others, it just takes time for a culture that's been around as long as ours to change. Riverfall has always been a town where stallions are rare and mares are everywhere. Some just enjoy staying inside and letting us do all the work. Others don't like the attention that comes with being a rarity. In fact, that could be said of almost all the Sosans in town. They're very quiet ponies..."
There was a long silence. Eventually, in a voice so low Willow had to lean in to hear it, Starlight asked, "So what happened to Ironridge?"
Willow opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the approaching sound of hooves splashing across wet glass. "Hey!" a voice shouted from behind them, distinctly recognizable as Amber's. "Willow? Starliiight? You gals out here, or what?"
The yellow mare charged around a corner, decked out in a slick poncho likely liberated from Sycamore. Her face flew into a smirk when she saw the duo hunched over in the rain. "Well, well, well! If it isn't the mare who told me to go get dried off before scooting inside her pretty home! Ha ha ha! Who's laughing now, grandma?"
Willow fixed her with a calm, unbreakable stare. "Starlight and I were having an important talk. The rain could have waited, but I wasn't about to go out of my way to deal with it."
"Oh. Heh." Amber shrugged sheepishly. "Well, Maple asked me to come hunt you down and let you know lunch is ready. She made fruit salad. Nothing special. See you back at the house!"
She disappeared as quickly as she had arrived, leaving Starlight and Willow sitting alone once more. "Ready to go back?"
"Yeah," Starlight muttered. "I'm cold." She hesitated. "But... can I keep talking to you later?"
"Of course you can." Simultaneously getting up and leaning down to give Starlight a hug, Willow broke into a slow trot, memory and instincts guiding her effortlessly back toward her house.
"How'd it go?" Maple asked without turning around as the door swung open behind her. Willow and Starlight stepped through, the former streaming water, the latter manageably dry.
"I'm okay," Starlight instantly said. She wasn't the best at sounding reassuring, but it seemed to pacify the mare.
"That's good. I-" Maple interrupted herself mid-turn with a gasp of surprise. "Willow! You look like you just got caught in a thunderstorm without a raincoat!"
"Or went swimming," Amber added, mumbling around a piece of fruit in her mouth as she strolled over from a different part of the room.
Willow smirked slightly. "I was having a talk with Starlight when the rain came up, and I decided I'd rather keep talking than stay dry."
"Oh?" Maple took a step closer, smiling down at Starlight. "What did you end up talking about?"
"Our trip to Ironridge." Willow suddenly fought back a shudder. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it's best I don't stay this wet for any longer than I need to..." She ducked back out the door, where the sound of furious shaking could be heard, followed by a ginger rush to the staircase to the upper floors.
Amber rolled her eyes, surveying the trail of water her friend had left despite her precautions. "I'll clean that up. Maple, you got something to do with yourself?"
"I'll manage," Maple replied, sounding as if it was the hardest thing in the world. Then, as Amber darted up the stairs as well in search of a towel, she turned to Starlight. "Feeling better now?"
"I was just surprised," Starlight mumbled, her head looking as if it was shrinking into her neck. "He reminded me of someone I hadn't seen in a while. That's all."
"Does this mean you want to be my friend after all?" a voice asked from above. Starlight looked, and Alder's head was poking down the stairwell, blinking hopefully at her. She sighed.
"Yeah... okay."
"All right!" Alder pumped a hoof. "We're hanging out back on the third floor until lunch is ready, if you want to come and join us?"
Starlight shivered slightly. Alder really was a spitting image of Sunburst, right down to the facial and hoof markings that had made her old friend stand out so much. It still produced a powerful reaction to do something, somehow... to warn him and prevent him from getting his cutie mark, or else to flee, to be as far away as possible when the moment arrived so she wouldn't again be hurt. She only managed to stand her ground and keep her composure because she was expecting it, but it was still undeniably unsettling. So, after a slight pause... she accepted Alder's invitation.
Amber cleared her throat, prancing down the stairs around the colt with a bundle of towels slung over her back. "You kids know lunch is ready now, right?"
"It'll keep," Maple said, waving Starlight onwards. "Besides, we've got some drying to do. Here, let me help." At her insistence, Amber passed her a towel and they set to work, clearing the way for Starlight to head upstairs with her new friend.
"So where are you from?" Alder rambled as he led the way, Starlight close behind. "What I heard was that you mysteriously floated down in a box from the southern mountains! Are you a pirate?"
Starlight's eyes whirled. How did he make that leap of logic? "Buh?"
Alder shrugged. "Well, mum said that the day before, another box showed up, and it was full of alcohol. Pirates love alcohol, right?" He turned up the next staircase. "Besides, they're totally mysterious and can do just about anything!" He rubbed the back of his neck. "At least, they can in mum's stories..."
At Starlight's silence, he continued, speculation growing wilder and wilder. "Or maybe, you were teleported there in a giant laser beam! Wouldn't that be cool? Oh, or you might have found a secret passage up from the underworld! Or what if... what if you actually fell down from the mountains!?"
"Yep. That's what I did," Starlight said smugly, waiting to see the shock plastered on his face.
She was handsomely rewarded. "No way..." he gaped, turning around and nearly tripping on the stairs. "That's amazing! Or..." His face scrunched. "Are you pulling my tail, river filly?"
Instantly, Starlight remembered why she wasn't telling anyone where she was from, and nearly broke out in a cold sweat. Fortunately, he had given her an easy out, and ever since Sunburst had left, she'd had a lot of practice becoming a good actor. "Heehee," she giggled, putting on her camera smile. "Yep. Keep guessing, pirate colt!"
"Pirate... colt...?" he muttered confusedly, clearly distracted. Perfect. "Oh, I see! Because I called you river filly! Well, I wouldn't have to if you would tell me your-" He cut himself off, eyes widening with a new idea. "Wait a moment! Are you a princess...?"
As Sunburst... no, Alder pushed open the door to what was presumably his room, Starlight carefully plotted her alibi in the event she did have to tell them where she was from. Maple and Willow had assumed she was from Sosa, so that seemed like a reasonable excuse. Willow had implied earlier that Sosans were quiet and didn't talk much about where they were from or what things were like there, which suited her just fine since she knew nothing about the place. It was too bad Willow hadn't told her more before they were interrupted. Hopefully there wasn't some secret everyone knew that was too obvious to be worth telling... Also, Willow's husband was a Sosan, apparently. He might be able to call her out on anything. Best to say nothing for as long as possible, then.
"Psssst!" A loud whisper interrupted her train of thought. She looked to see Alder beckoning from a pitch-dark room, the door of which was cracked just enough for her to wiggle through. "Come on!" he beckoned again, looking hopefully out at her. "This is our secret meeting place!"
Shrugging, she slipped in, brushing against the doorframe. Alder closed it as soon as her tail was clear, tapping her with a hoof to get her attention. "Follow me!" he breathed, prowling ahead in the blackness.
Something that felt like a lightweight curtain swished about her head as she moved. The air grew warmer and staler, and Starlight detected the presence of a third body. She kept silent.
Suddenly, there was a light flash and the hiss of magic... and two horns lit in the darkness. Alder's yellow aura - of course it was yellow - mixed with a rich sapphire blue from a filly who sat next to him, creating a small point of white light that descended and hovered just off the floor, staying on even as their horns went dark.
Starlight blinked at her surroundings. She appeared to be in some type of tent or blanket fort constructed from objects normally found in a foal's bedroom. Alder and the filly, whom she presumed to be his sister, sat with their backs to the backside of some kind of cabinet, watching her eagerly.
"Welcome to our lair," Alder rumbled imposingly when she didn't say anything. "Do you like it?"
"Yeah, it's nice." Starlight nodded. "And I'm Starlight." Tactfully, she omitted Glimmer, as that had seemed to somehow tip off the older mares last time that she wasn't from Sosa.
"Yes!" The other two hoofbumped, raising their voices above a whisper. The filly turned to Starlight and grinned. "Hiya! I'm Fir. Nice to meet you. This is my brother, Alder, and he's a doofus."
"Am not..." Alder scratched his head. "Besides, me and her have already been introduced!"
Starlight was taking in Fir's appearance. Her coat was a pleasing spring green of a much richer hue than she had ever seen in Equestria, and her striped, two-tone mane thankfully didn't trigger any more flashbacks or panic attacks. She also seemed to hold the kindred opinion that Alder was ever so slightly out there. A good first impression, all told. Maybe she would be nice to be around.
"So this place," Fir began, seeing that Starlight didn't appear to be starting any conversations on her own, "is pretty much our clubhouse. And it's just the two of us just about all the time, because Yew isn't old enough yet, Frond is too old and Maple and Amber don't wanna have kids for some reason."
Alder nodded sheepishly. "Well, that's because mum said Amber only likes other mares..."
"Eh. Whatever." Fir shrugged, and leaned toward Starlight. "So you're being adopted by Maple, right?" When Starlight hesitantly nodded, she added, "That's cool. I've always thought it must be super lonely living by yourself like that. Brrbrrbrr..." She hugged herself, shivering for emphasis.
"...She's nice," Starlight offered, unsure of what else to say. "And she is pretty lonely."
"Well, good thing she's got you, then, huh?" Fir scooted over and nudged her, grinning conspiratorially. "You know, if you make good enough friends with her, you could try to hook her up with somepony. I bet it would make her really happy. We'd totally help, too..."
"Fir..." Alder droned uneasily. "Remember how mad mum got last time you tried to do that?"
"Huh?" Starlight's ears perked. "She didn't want you trying to find her a special somepony?"
"She blew her stack," Alder muttered tragically. "Gave Fir a big long talk that she probably doesn't remember any of."
He shoved Fir, and she blew a raspberry in response. "I remember it just fine! 'Something something, blah blah blah...' You know!"
As the siblings bickered and teased each other, Starlight's head was spinning. This was something she'd have to remember to ask Willow about... assuming the older mare would tell her.
"Enough about that for now, though!" Alder interrupted. "River filly, we wanna hear some cool stories about wherever you're from! Won't you tell us?" He leaned closer, face hopeful.
Fir bonked him. "Doofus. She said her name was Starlight!"
Alder rubbed his head. "Ow, what was that for...?"
Starlight cleared her throat before they could start again. "Where I'm from," she began imperiously, "there are cities that grow on clouds, caves filled with monsters, and, uhh..." She wracked her brain for something obviously untrue. "There's also a castle made of cheese."
"...Are you pulling my tail again, river filly?" Alder narrowed his eyes.
"Doesn't matter if a story's true or false as long as it's epic. Doofus." Fir stuck her tongue out and folded her forelegs, laying down towards Starlight. "Don't stop there, Starlight! Tell us the best story we've ever heard!" Grinning sideways at Alder, she added, "Just make sure it's got lots of romance. You know, make it mushy. Heh heh heh..."
"Awww..." Alder protested, frowning at her. "Sis! C'mon..."
A knock sounded at the door to the room Starlight, Fir and Alder were holed up in, and Willow's voice drifted in. "Kids? We're going to eat now!"
Fir and Alder groaned, but Starlight sighed with relief. She'd spent the last several minutes trying to appease their demand for stories, a difficult task to accomplish without reminding herself how much she used to like reading. There were only so many ways to make a tale sound convincing while also having a bad time telling it, but the last thing Starlight wanted was a cutie mark involving books.
The siblings released their light, relenting to their mother's call. Starlight left the blanket fort first, sliding through the door that Willow held open. "Did you have a good time?" the mare asked, her freshly-dried fur still spiky in places where it had clumped together.
"Mhm." Starlight nodded briefly, not waiting for the others on her way down.
It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the bright, yellow-orange lighting of the ground floor, during which she blinked a lot and stood off to the side. Eventually, Amber noticed and sidled over to her, a bowl balanced on her back. "Hey there. Looking a little overwhelmed?"
"Yeah." Starlight nodded quietly.
"Well, hey. Those kids are a hooffull. Don't worry about it. Fruit?" Amber reached behind herself and held out a pre-peeled banana, waving it temptingly in front of Starlight's face.
"Thanks."
As Amber returned to the table where the others seemed to be gathered, Starlight munched and cleared her head, taking stock of the room. There were cupboards... counters... but no visible sign of a pantry. They were arranged in a mostly circular pattern along the walls of the house, maximizing storage area while minimizing dead wallspace and how much they got in the way. Starlight figured a household like Willow's probably had to keep a lot of spare food on hand.
The lights were inset into the wooden ceiling, and looked like some sort of enchanted crystals. Part of her wanted to ask about them, but the other half knew the answer was likely Arambai. She snorted at the thought. Everyone seemed to have such a high opinion of the stallion, and she hadn't even met him.
With a start, she noticed that there were only five bodies present at the table: the three who had found her, and Willow's kids. Was Faron still upstairs? Starlight frowned harder. It was as if all the stallions in Riverfall were actually determined to avoid her... Alder notwithstanding.
Apparently, Amber noticed her pout. "Starlight!" She waved. "We're saving you a seat!"
"Okay. I'm coming." Starlight did come, but she took her time, leisurely trundling across the wooden floor. Her spot was between Amber and Maple, and she took it without complaint.
"So," she mumbled around a pear, "What happened to Ironridge?"
"Hmm?" Maple turned to her, also munching.
"You know." Starlight swallowed. "The thing that stallion warned you of. That made all the boats disappear. You were going to tell me, but then you decided to come back here instead."
"Oh!" Willow folded her ears. "Right. I was going to do that, wasn't I?"
Amber rolled her eyes and popped a pear into her mouth. "It's not that hard to guess. Sailors get worried, then stop coming? Obviously, somepony found a better way to get to Ironridge and put all the Sosans out of work. Give 'em a year to hear about it, then another to get worried and one more for the producers to all switch over. Boom, fits what happened perfectly."
Politely, Alder raised a hoof. "Personally, I like the theory that a plague of zombies came down from the mountains and ate them all up."
Fir scoffed. "Zombies? More like they got taken over by Yakyakistan and now have to pay all their food in taxes, so they can't send it through us! We've just got to wait until another hero shows up and kicks their rears, and everything'll go right back to normal!"
The siblings looked at her like she had just committed heresy. Alder pointed a hoof. "You mean to say you don't know the story of Yakyakistan and Blazing Rain?"
Starlight looked cluelessly at Maple, then Willow. The silver mare smiled at her, and responded, "A bedtime story I used to tell these two about a pegasus who once stopped a civil war in Yakyakistan."
"A magical pegasus," Fir forcefully corrected. "Who could fire laser beams and make explosions and beat a hundred yaks with one wing tied behind her back!"
Willow smiled forlornly. "It's based on a bit of gossip I heard during my dock days. Between my own memory, a little embellishment and the fact that the original narrator was completely drunk and trying to impress me, I wouldn't trust it too much."
"Hey," Amber belched. "I've heard of that too, and not from you. Blazing Rain, that is. Dunno about lasers, though. In the one I heard, she could freeze stuff solid."
Alder pointed accusingly at her. "You mean you knew another of her secret powers and never told us?" He glared at her for a second, before being distracted when Amber tossed him a mango.
Starlight zoned out again as an argument started over whether or not Blazing Rain was real, and if so what powers she possessed. Ancient legends were all well and good, but who cared what ponies had done thousands of years ago? Not her. Well, not since Sunburst had left.
If she was honest with herself, she used to love old legends. Ones surrounding the Mare in the Moon had been her favorite, but she'd liked them all. They were just another thing that had been taken from her when her friend had gained his cutie mark.
Taken from her... Once again, when being honest, she had taken them from herself. At first, it had been because she used to love sharing them with Sunburst, studying and reading ancient history and the folklore that surrounded it. She had tried looking at them again, in the days that followed, only to find the memories still too raw to touch. Later, during the start of her personal crusade against getting a cutie mark, she had prevented herself from doing anything enjoyable, for fear that it might earn her her mark, too.
Now, she might have been past that. There was a mirror image of Sunburst sitting across from her, and she was functioning normally. She'd slipped up and enjoyed something enough times by now to realize it wasn't quite the instant trap she had imagined, though she still treated joy with caution. But more than anything... now she was scared to discover that she could enjoy them again, and all that shunning of the other things she loved would turn out to have been for nothing.
Maple poked her, snapping her back into reality. "Starlight?" She briefly nuzzled her ear. "Getting full?"
"Huh? No." Starlight looked down; the pile of fruit on the table was rapidly diminishing. "I'm still hungry." To prove her point, she leaned in as far as she could, taking a mango in her teeth.
"Hey, river filly..." Alder looked curiously at her, wincing as Fir kicked him. "How come you don't use magic to grab your food? It's much easier than reaching..."
Starlight swallowed her bite, and mumbled, "I hurt my horn making it here."
Maple's eyes widened, and she gasped. "You should've told me! There might be something we could do, or..." She blinked several times, thinking, and eventually scooted the basket of fruit closer to Starlight. "At least you shouldn't have to reach across the table!"
"It's nothing," Starlight grumbled. "I just overtaxed it. It'll be alright in a few days."
"A few days?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "It's, uh, afternoon now... and you were sleeping all of yesterday, and we found you the evening of the day before, and you didn't look like you'd been able to do that much that day either. Just how many days does it take to recharge a horn?"
Willow frowned worriedly. "The worst Alder and Fir have ever had it, it took them all night to recover. Having your horn broken for several days can't be normal..."
Starlight shrank, suddenly apprehensive. Getting special treatment she didn't deserve was one thing, but the last thing she wanted was ponies thinking there was something wrong with her. "Hey!" she protested, coat fluffing in defense. "I almost died a bunch of times out there. It was use it too much when it was tired, or don't make it at all. And I'm here now, aren't I?"
"You are," Maple said, hugging her with one hoof, "and I'm proud of you for making it."
They went back to eating, though Willow occasionally stole glances at her, clearly concerned. Some time passed, during which there wasn't much conversation. Starlight almost wished there was, now. She could use something to distract herself from the possibility that her horn was defective.
Amber granted her wish with a tremendous belch, earning herself a scowl from Willow. "Welp!" she announced, thumping her petite chest, "Think that's it for me. Thanks for lunch, grandma!"
As she got up to leave, Starlight looked curiously at Willow. "Why does she call you that?"
Willow sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's a looong story..."
"One I don't even remember," Maple added. "Any chance you want to retell it... grandma?"
"Not you too," Willow snorted. "Come on, kids. Help me get lunch put away." She turned back to Maple and Starlight apologetically. "You two are done, right?"
"I am," Maple nodded. Starlight added her own nod in confirmation.
"I'll see you tonight, then." With that, Willow turned away, leaving Starlight and Maple to march for the door. Maple grabbed the poncho from Sycamore on the way out, though it didn't appear to presently be raining.
"Tonight?" Starlight asked, easily matching Maple's leisurely pace. "What are we doing then?"
"She said something about you wanting to talk more with her," Maple answered casually, strolling between two houses and into a wider section of road. "So I invited her over. Really, though, the three of us are welcome to come and go at each other's houses whenever we please."
"Huh." Starlight shrugged and fell into step, splashing her way through the still-draining rainwater as she followed Maple through the city.
Starlight could tell there were still clouds overhead, as evidenced by the gray coloration to the light filtering down from above. The distant, deciduous canopy was too thick for her to make out the sky itself, but she knew. She wondered if any pony's mood had ever been improved by not having a dismal, gray backdrop provided by the weather. Hers might have been... or perhaps it hadn't.
Truth be told, Starlight wasn't exactly sure what she was feeling. It felt like loneliness, but that didn't seem right: she had just met a bunch of ponies. Perhaps she was still feeling some repressed shock from her run-in with Alder before lunch. Whatever the case, thinking about it was drawing her into her own head and shutting out the world around... which probably wasn't the best idea. She should be taking in and enjoying Riverfall, even if for no other reason than to make Maple happy.
Unfortunately, there just wasn't much to take in at the time. Tall, round houses and buildings? Check, she had seen those before. Glass streets with magical stones swimming below? Once the initial wonder wore off, they were just there. Rain-soaked everything? Always present. The town really did fall into a consistent pattern, once she stopped being boggled by the circular, alien architecture and differences from Equestria. But at least it wasn't raining then. She might have been bored, but she was also dry.
"Starlight?" Maple huffed over her shoulder, attention grabbed by the filly's silence. "How are you holding up? We can stop for a break, if you need to..."
"I'm fine," Starlight mumbled. If the distance to Maple's house was anything like she remembered it being, she wouldn't be fine later, but Maple didn't need to know that. Yet.
Her hooves splashed along, and she began to make a game of seeing how small of ripples she could make. She had just managed to take several steps walking with her legs angled so she made less contact with the ground when Maple's voice again jolted her back into the world. "Well, hello!"
"Buh?" She dropped back to standing normally, then scurried to catch up.
In the clearing ahead, the glass surface morphed back to sand, before trailing into mud and dirt in the distance. At the dividing line stood Maple, and beside her was a large yellow stallion who appeared to have just stopped working. "Starlight!" She waved, smiling cheerily. "You wanted to meet Arambai, didn't you?"
Starlight did a double-take, eyeing the stallion more closely. "You're him?"
"I am," he answered in a voice that wouldn't have been out of place on a lumberjack with a sore throat. "Working on the roads, right now. It's easier when the sand is wet, because it stays in place for melting."
With that, he turned and pointed his horn at a flat, compacted stretch of sand bordering the forged roadway. A purple aura so dark it was nearly black enveloped the area, almost causing the sand to appear as if it was bubbling... and then a bright white jet of light flew from a point at the tip of his horn, and like water spreading across a floor, the sand melted into an expanding pool of white, before it was flash-frozen into road, the traction-giving gemstones already underneath.
"So you're the filly that washed in from the south," he said, standing upright and stepping toward her, careful to avoid the steaming patch of glass behind him. With a nod, he extended a hoof. "I'd wager you know who I am already."
Starlight shuffled uneasily, staring back at him without answering. In addition to his powerful, oversized frame, he sported a horn nearly twice the length of a normal pony's. His shaggy black mane, long for a stallion and short for a mare, bore a look of wild, ungroomed would-be-handsomeness that could only actually be achieved through careful cultivation... or incredibly lucky genes. He had a neatly trimmed beard to match, and not a scrap of muscle that was only there for show.
"Uhhh..." Starlight mumbled, taking a step back. Eventually, she steeled herself and said, "Every pony here thinks you're pretty great."
Arambai looked down at her with a hint of a smile. "There are a lot of ponies who think a lot of things about me. I don't tell them how to go about that. Some day, my actions can speak for me instead."
"Uh huh." Starlight nodded dully. "This place pretty much worships you already."
Maple smiled awkwardly from the side, half apologetic and half in agreement. "No offense, but they really do..."
He shook his massive head. "None taken..." Then, turning to Starlight, he asked, "So, I hope you're enjoying your new home?"
"It's much better than what I left behind," Starlight said with a shrug.
"Well... I hope it stays that way." Arambai looked off to the side, past the patch of cooling glass from which wisps of steam were still rising. "This town is in the middle of nowhere, making it difficult to get to... and even more difficult to leave. In Sosa, ponies sometimes refer to it as Last Chance. It's as close to a paradise as exists in the world, where you can bring your secrets and failures and die with them, all while living out a happy life. And no one will think any less of you for it."
Starlight watched him apprehensively, feeling as it a but was coming. It came.
"Of course... as good of a chance as it might be, it's still the last one around for hundreds of miles, not counting Ironridge." Arambai sighed into the cool air, and continued. "So take my advice and don't do anything you'll regret here. Unlike wherever you came from, you can't fix a problem in Riverfall by running away."
Starlight bit her lip. "Okay."
"Good," he finished, straightening up. "I've dedicated a lot of time to making this place as good as it can be, precisely because there's nothing better. That's always a talk I like to have with every new arrival. Glad to see you and I are on the same page."
He stepped back, giving Starlight more space. Maple moved closer in turn. "Well? Now that you've met him, what do you think?"
Starlight fidgeted. Somehow, she got the uncomfortable impression that Arambai knew everything about her, including where she was from... but didn't want to say it when he was standing right there. "He's nice," she managed instead.
"Really?" the stallion cut in from where he was standing, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. If he detected the lie, he didn't show it. "Interesting. Most ponies either find me intimidating, or far too attractive for their own good."
"I knew you did that on purpose," Maple quipped, grinning triumphantly.
Starlight frowned. "Did what?"
"Nahhh..." Arambai waved a hoof. "Everyone knows I've got more to hide than the rest of this town put together. It isn't my fault they choose to enjoy it. Besides, I'm too old for that stuff. Although..." He raised a thick black eyebrow at Starlight. "I am the best secret-keeper in town. If you've ever got anything you need to get off your chest that wouldn't do getting out, miss Maple here can show you where to find me."
"There are lots of cool things in his house," Maple hummed aside at Starlight. "You might want to take him up on that."
"Well..." Arambai sniffed upwards. "You kids better get on home. Smells like it's going to rain again soon..."
"I think we should," Maple nodded, already trotting through the sand. "Thank you! It was nice talking to you, Arambai!"
"Aaaah, don't sweat it," the stallion grumbled, turning back to his work. "Until later, ponies."
"It's good advice, you know," Maple whispered once they were out of earshot. "Aside from Ironridge, Riverfall is the only civilization within hundreds of miles. You're very lucky to have made it here, and won't just be able to run away again if anything bad happens."
"What do you want me to do?" Starlight asked as her hooves padded through the wet sand, a flash of magic illuminating behind her. "I'm already following you around all day! I went swimming, and I had lunch and talked with Willow's kids!"
"Nothing," Maple murmured, slowing down and nuzzling her as she caught up. "I think you're doing a fine job, especially for your first day. Still, if he thinks it's something you might need to be careful with... I don't think it would hurt to keep that in mind."
"Yeah, but he said he says that to everyone," Starlight grumbled. Then, changing the subject, she added, "So what does he do on purpose?"
"Ohh..." Maple sighed heavily. "He doesn't usually act the way you saw today. Most of the time, he's darker and more depressing, like he wants you to ask about his past. Lots of moping and brooding."
"Why?" Starlight asked, looking up from her hooves, careful not to slip on the still-muddy ground.
Maple winked slyly. "One of the things that lots of mares find attractive in stallions is the implication that they could cheer them up. He gives so many something to pine for, it's practically an act of public service."
"Oh." Starlight blinked. "So why was he different today?"
"Because I let him know long ago that I wasn't in the market," Maple stated plainly. "I imagine this was what he looks like when he's not putting on airs."
Starlight was about to ask why again... when she remembered what Alder and Fir had said earlier about trying to find Maple a special somepony. If these were about the same thing, it was probably better that she didn't ask. Regardless, the hairs on her back were rising, and something in her nose told her more rain was imminent... a sense she wasn't inclined to mistrust.
Apparently, Maple felt it too, because she motioned Starlight closer. "We should get going," she observed, staring upwards and checking to make sure she had her poncho.
"Yeah." Starlight nodded. "We should." Together, they kicked into a canter, speeding across already-waterlogged dirt roads in an effort to return home before the rains arrived.
Starlight stepped inside Maple's house just after it began to rain, long enough for her coat to become wet but not completely soaked. She fluffed it in defense; so long as the water didn't touch the skin beneath, she'd stay plenty warm.
"Starlight?" Maple called from ahead of her, where she was rummaging in the storage room. "Here, I found you a towel!"
"Thanks." Starlight took it without ceremony and, having no magic to hold it in, threw it on the ground and began rubbing her head on it. Around her, the ground floor of Maple's house was slowly becoming lit as the earth pony bustled around, tending to the lights, her own coat either not important or already taken care of. It felt like it was evening, due to the drop in temperature and all the things they'd done earlier, and Starlight had to remind herself that this was still afternoon and Maple had a shop to run.
As she watched, Maple got a rack full of pastries set up, humming to herself as she went up and down the stairs to the kitchen with a stamina that made Starlight jealous. Smells of assorted berry sauces and glazes filled her nose, until she regretted having eaten her fill already at Willow's. Maple even offered her a cookie, and she unhappily had to decline.
Eventually, Maple moved to turn around the sign on the door, letting ponies know she was open. As she passed Starlight, she asked, "Do you have anything you want to do while I work? I'll probably be doing this for several hours..."
Starlight shrugged. "I'll just watch you."
Maple smiled at that, and stepped aside to allow Starlight to pass. The filly took her towel and walked behind the counter, where she jumped and curled up on top of a box next to the storeroom, in full view of anything that might happen below.
Several minutes passed, during which Maple fussed with various small things that probably didn't need attention. Just when Starlight was about to question her decision to stay and take a nap, however, a bell jingled and a stallion in a heavy raincoat walked in.
Starlight watched as Maple's ears perked in interest. "Oh, hello!" she greeted in a tone that suggested she wasn't familiar with this customer but was intent on remaining polite nevertheless. "Forgive me if I don't remember your name... Can I help you?"
The stallion nodded hesitantly, and spoke in a slightly subdued voice. "Sorry. I don't usually come here. I'm with Birch, but she was feeling under the weather and asked me to-"
Maple cut him off, nodding briskly. "Then I'll have to get her something extra special. I assume she told you that I'd know what she would like?"
"Yeah!" The stallion blinked thankfully, accepting a basket full of goods in his aura a moment later. Maple waved him off, bidding him deliver her best wishes to Birch, who was apparently a friend of hers. The door jingled again on his way out, and then the shop was still.
Starlight sat on her high perch, musing. Eventually, the door rang again, and a dark green filly marched inside. Water poured from her bare coat and mane, but her head was held high, and the spark in her eyes dared any pony who saw her to suggest she didn't enjoy it. "Hey, Maple!" She loudly announced her presence.
"Pine," Maple began with a note of exasperation, already moving to fetch towels for the floor, "do you really have to drag so much water in here?" Her ears rose, and she added, "Cookies, scones, or pie? I've got a turnover in the oven, if you want to wait."
"Wait?" Pine stuck her tongue out. "Lady, I waited for the rain to start. Six cookies, please?"
"Seven, you rude thing." Maple packed a bag, rolled up the top, and handed it to the filly. "And they'll taste better if you don't let them get wet on your way back."
The door jingled shut yet again as Pine left. Starlight looked down at a tray of cookies arranged on the counter, eying a hole where Maple had taken several to give to the filly. She sniffed; they were still warm. Maybe she could manage some desert after all...
Before she could get down, the door banged open again, and a red-coated mare with massive bags under her eyes and an umbrella saddle strolled in, sighing massively. Maple greeted her with a wave and presumably a smile.
"Acacia!" she chirped from behind the counter. "You're looking better than I expected. How's life with the foal?"
"One week, Maple," Acacia grumbled with a slight smile on her face. "It's been a whole week, and I've had like an hour of sleep at a time. I don't know if I'm cut out for this..."
"You poor thing..." Maple trotted out to give her a hug. "Let's see what I can get you..."
Starlight stuck her tongue out, having little interest in the conversation. Eventually, Acacia left with a pie, and Starlight half-registered it through the haze that comes when trying to take a nap after already having had too much sleep.
The door didn't ring again for several more minutes, during which Maple restocked her display, ate a cookie, and eventually sat down, doing nothing just like Starlight. After even more silence, Starlight observed, "You're giving all your food away for free."
Maple looked up with a twinkle in her eye. "Money has more value where you're from, does it?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight's face scrunched. "Doesn't it everywhere?"
"Here," Maple said, pulling open a drawer and taking something out, hoofing it up to Starlight. "Take a look at this. Pretty, huh?"
It was a small crystal, six-sided and colored cloudy purple. At about half the length of her hoof and much longer than it was wide, it was small enough that she nearly had to squint to look at it. To the best of her limited knowledge, there was nothing special about it: it wasn't a true gemstone, just a common mineral that formed underground and in caves. She had seen plenty like this, on occasion, while walking through the caves in the mountain peaks from Equestria.
"Is this money?" she asked, eventually making the connection Maple wanted her to make.
"It is in Ironridge," Maple answered. "Color determines value, and four-sided ones are worth more than six-sided ones. Lots of them were left here when the boats stopped coming." She turned back to her drawer and sifted a hoof around inside, a rattling from within suggesting it was filled with the stones. "We still use them, sometimes. Every pony honors them. Some, especially the Sosans, just feel more comfortable with some kind of safety they can hold. But money never leaves or enters Riverfall, and there's plenty here for everyone already, so most of us just don't even bother."
"Huh." Starlight licked her lips, staring again at the crystal in front of her. Maybe she would keep it. Even if no one cared, it couldn't hurt to have, right? Of course, that was probably what the entire town thought. Idly, she tucked it away, yawned, and thumped off the boxes, pacing towards the stairs. "I'm gonna go upstairs for a bit..."
"Okay," Maple called after her. "Wait... Here." She caught up to the filly, offering a cookie.
"Thanks." Starlight took it, slowly munching. It was oatmeal and... coconut? Interesting. She found she liked it, and all too soon it was gone.
Starlight eventually found herself drawn to Maple's bedroom, where she set down her saddlebags and curled up on the bed, basking in the silence that allowed her to think. It was nice to slow down now, without having to ignore other ponies to do it. Maybe she really had gotten used to the solitude, up in the mountains with no ponies around for miles.
Slowly, her thoughts began processing the day. Maple, Willow, and Amber... had she only met them that morning, or had it been the evening before? Some part of her remembered soup. That was likely before, then. Now there were Sycamore, Alder, Fir and Arambai... and a few other, less important names. Sprig... or was it Frond? Yew, someone the siblings had said wasn't old enough to play with. The ponies who had just come to the shop. And another... Hemlock? Idly, she wondered how often Riverfall ran out of trees to name ponies after.
She had made a list of all the things she wanted to ask someone about... or, at least, subconsciously thought of them at the time. She tried to go about unraveling it, but the only thing she could remember at the moment was to ask someone about Maple's special somepony. Or maybe her lack of one. Or maybe it would be better not to ask about that at all. Willow was coming over that evening. Hadn't she wanted to ask something of her? She shook her head; she couldn't remember.
...Her horn. She needed to do something about that, though she wasn't sure what. Just as long as she could use it enough to convince other ponies it wasn't defective... Starlight squinted. Tensing her focus, she pulled her magic back up where she could feel it, registering only a dull pain in her horn. No pangs of dizziness. That was good.
Experimentally, she pushed magic into her horn, not letting it go anywhere or do anything; simply a small current to wake the appendage up. It sparked slightly, and eventually glowed to life. It didn't feel good, or even like nothing, but it was manageable. She could probably use it for more or less anything, if she needed to. Thus, she planned on not needing it for anything, provided she could help it.
Just to prove she could, Starlight extended a cyan wave of telekinesis, eye ticking slightly as she hoisted her saddlebags onto the bed next to her. Her horn went out as she examined the contents, prodding her way through her meager possessions. There wasn't much. Three water canteens, all of which were empty. Her blanket, which had been thoughtfully cleaned. And, still mercifully encased in their waterproof wrapping, her cosmetics box for her cutie mark and Sosa's journal.
She unwrapped the book, leafing through its pages. They were still as intact and boring as ever, but once again, she found it to be the closest thing she had to entertainment. As she pretended to read it, she pondered briefly if this was going to become a problem in the future. Back in Equestria, she had always had something to do... first, hanging out with Sunburst, and later avoiding doing anything. In the mountains, whenever she hadn't been sleeping, she'd been forcing herself onward, or else recuperating in the cave. Now, her options for what to do seemed limited to talking with Maple, walking somewhere... and that was it. The only other thing for her to do was sleep.
That evening, she resolved, she would find something better to do with her time. She'd add it to her list of things to ask Willow, maybe. There had to be something to do around here that was either productive or fun. Arambai was proof of the former. Idly, she found herself wondering if she should ask him what to do, next time she saw him... but until then, there was nothing for it but to try to fall asleep.
Starlight woke blearily, with a feeling that told her sleep wouldn't be the answer to having nothing to do forever. For once in her life, she was too hot, and every part of her felt stiff and restless. She wasn't full, but wasn't hungry either. Most of all, she desperately needed something to do.
"Hellooooo?" she mumbled loudly, seeing little point in getting up.
The door swung open more quickly than she was expecting, and Amber's head poked through. "You were asleep again? Spend any more of the day like that and you'll turn into a cat!"
"Mmrmph." Starlight rolled herself upright and onto the floor. "It's not my fault there's nothing better to do around here." Tail dragging, she made her way to the door where Amber waited.
"Nothing to do?" Amber's eyebrows rose. "Are you sure about that, kiddo?"
"Well, what do you do all day?" Starlight countered.
She hadn't expected a response, but Amber was all too willing to give one. "I make my rounds across the whole town and hang out with every pony I know," she smugly proclaimed. "Between that many, there's always someone who has something cool I can get in on. Wanna know what I did today?"
Starlight nodded, so Amber continued. "Went swimming, ate lunch with a friend..." She leaned in conspiratorially. "You were there. Then I went and saw another friend who makes paintings. She asked me to model for her. She usually does. After that, I tested a zipline another friend was building to make sure it was safe for her kids, and then I went to the library and got a book I'll read if I ever have time." She grinned as if spilling forbidden secrets. "You look like you'd be good with books. If you're ever bored, just go check that place out. Our literature's a little dated, but we do have an author or two in town."
"Huh." Starlight blinked. She wasn't reading books as a personal rule... but that didn't seem to have stopped her with Sosa's journal in the cave. Perhaps it would be worth breaking more often.
"Starlight!" Maple appeared around the corner, a tray balanced on her back. "Dinner's almost ready, and Willow just arrived. She said you wanted to speak with her?" She grinned slyly at Amber, before adding, "And it seems someone else has shown up to eat all my food again, as usual."
"Hey." Amber put a hoof across her chest in self-defense. "I worked to make it here, for your information. Besides, you give free food to everyone..."
Maple rolled her eyes. "Since when is memorizing directions and getting lost anyway work?"
"Oh, come on..." Amber rubbed at the back of her neck. "You haven't had this place that long. And everything looks the same in this section of town!"
Starlight's face scrunched in confusion. "Doesn't everything look the same in all of the town?"
"Amber..." Willow's voice chided from out of sight. "The one that was right next to mine wasn't set up for a business, remember? We've been over this many times."
Maple moved over and nuzzled the mare as she came into view. "Thanks, Willow. And who knows? Maybe I'll need a bigger place some day, now that Starlight's staying with me. If I do, we can try harder to find one that's not so far away."
Amber relented, so Maple sighed and turned to the bedroom. "Starlight? Want to come for dinner?"
Starlight paced out and seated herself at the table, where an unknown dish with sliced apples over a flan-like pastry awaited. She sniffed, and found it quite good.
As the others arrived and sat down, she swallowed her first bite and asked, "You moved? Why?"
Maple looked away, face falling, leaving Willow to speak up for her instead. "Remember what I told you about life having ways to change your plans without warning?" Starlight nodded, so she added, "Well, Maple moved a while back, and then something changed and she had to move again."
"And you should do what I don't do and not bug her about it," Amber chimed in, already serving herself seconds. "It was a little hard on all of us."
"Okay." Starlight leaned down for another bite. As curious as she was, she hardly wanted to make herself unwelcome by poking her nose where others had hinted it didn't belong. Especially not when she didn't want to tell most of the other ponies where she was from. Willow could know, she supposed. She trusted the silvery mare. Amber was nice too, she decided, but maybe not as trustworthy.
Briefly, she recalled her encounter with Arambai. The stallion had made no secret of showing that he had secrets, but had been perfectly respectful of her own. It was starting to feel more and more like that described every pony in the town... including herself.
"So you're bored, hmm?" Maple broke her train of thought, leaning towards her and smiling pleasantly.
"Yeah." Starlight nodded, pausing to lick her empty plate. She didn't think she wanted seconds.
"I told her about the library already," Amber helpfully volunteered. "She didn't seem that interested. Maybe you'd have to take her there to see?"
"They do have a very good stock of adventure books," Maple hummed thoughtfully. "Mostly because of ponies in Riverfall who dream of them but can never leave, of course. They probably would be boring when you've experienced the real thing..." She laughed slightly. "I don't imagine you had any run-ins with pirates, mysterious cults or ancient artifacts on your way here, did you?" Then she sighed. "Of course, when you can never actually go anywhere, it doesn't hurt to imagine..."
Starlight shook her head. "There was nothing but trees and cliffs and caves out there. It was dangerous, but not very exciting. I wouldn't do it for fun."
"That's the point of living vicariously, though," Amber chimed in. "If you get to watch somepony be put in danger without any danger to yourself, you get safe thrills, not unsafe boredom."
Maple snorted. "Maybe we should just have more real adventurers write books."
"A real adventurer..." Amber sighed wistfully. "How many of those do you think exist in the world anymore? Like... five?"
"More than that, I'm sure," Willow muttered, sipping tea from a mug. Starlight frowned; for some reason, she only had water.
"And there's one sitting right here," Maple added, pointing proudly at Starlight. "She's probably the only pony in all of history to have made it here without taking a boat from Ironridge, or the sea."
"Without wings, either." Amber nudged Starlight jovially. "If I had some of those, who knows where I'd go." She blinked, and added, "But I'd make sure to come back here and visit you two every now and then. Even when your home is on the road, you have to have a real home, too..."
"Would you really go, though, if you could?" Maple asked, setting down her own mug and counting up how much food was left in the pan. "I know we tried to do that once, but that was then..."
"You did?" Starlight blinked. "When?"
Willow smiled bemusedly. "Didn't I just tell you that story earlier?"
"Oh. Right." Starlight's ears sank, and she slumped slightly in her seat.
"Well, there is a little I didn't say," Willow continued, prompting her ears to perk back up. "After I found out we wouldn't be going to Ironridge, I didn't want to let these two down too hard, so we made a back-up. Instead of going west on a ship powered by mana or steam, we built our own, wooden boat, and rowed south down the river you floated in on. It took us nearly a month to build the boat and another to get there, but we made it all the way to the cliff base. I don't know if you ever saw the cliffs up close when you reached the river to come here..." She smiled softly. "But they made the whole thing worth it. We camped there until we ran out of supplies, just enjoying the wild... and then drifted back here, and haven't left the village since."
"If you didn't see them and ever want to," Amber added, "some day, I'll take you. I've still got the boat we used. Got myself branded making it. But let me tell you, they're a sight I'll never forget."
Starlight blinked. If she was ever to tell these two where she had really come from, this was the best chance she'd have have for a long while... so she threw caution to the wind and took it. "I sort of saw them." She shrugged, and added, "I was kind of dead, though. But they were pretty from the top."
"The... top?" Amber's face scrunched. "What?"
"Of the cliffs," Starlight stated matter-of-factly. Then, she sat back, waiting for the impact of her words to sink in.
Amber got it first. "You were up there," she said blankly.
Willow was similarly confused. "How did you get down?" she asked, head tilted.
"I fell by accident," Starlight said with a shrug.
"You fell?" Willow's jaw dropped.
"Forget that," Amber said, voice rising. "How did you get up there? Those things are so high even pegasi get tired and give up halfway to the top! For a unicorn, that would be impossible!"
Her adrenaline from the announcement wearing off quicker than she would have liked, Starlight suddenly felt cold. It hadn't even sounded nearly as epic as she had hoped. Suddenly fearful, she demanded, "I'll only tell you if you promise to never tell anypony else. Got it?" She leaned in fiercely towards each of them in turn. "I ran away because I was tired of being treated differently because I didn't want to be like others. I don't want to be special or famous!"
She sat back, slightly shocked at herself. First, she had spilled a secret she had been feeling proud of herself earlier for keeping... and now she had just yelled at Willow. What would she do next?
Fortunately, Willow seemed to be completely understanding. "I promise," she said softly. "But you shouldn't tell me anything if you don't want to."
Amber looked almost more surprised at being yelled at than from the announcement that Starlight had fallen off the cliff. "Wow," she finally said. "Yeah, don't worry. Your backstory is safe with me."
"Well... all right..." With none of her earlier confidence and no other options, Starlight heaved in a breath and began her narration, sparing none of the details she had given Maple earlier.
"...And he looked just like Alder, too," Starlight finished, having talked for the better part of an hour. "That's why I was surprised when I saw him."
The mares, to their credit, hadn't interrupted once during Starlight's speech. Finally, sensing she was done, the only thing Amber could manage was, "Wow. That's crazy."
Starlight's shoulders slumped. "So now I'm here. I don't want to have to run again. So please don't treat me like anything special?"
"I dunno..." Amber rubbed the back of her neck, staring at the window. "It sounds to me like you're more special than the hundreds of thousands of other ponies who never even dreamed of crossing something like that, let alone actually made it. Wouldn't it be... like... the whole 'not treating you like who you really are' thing to sell yourself short when you've actually done something big?"
Starlight almost considered thinking about it, then vehemently shook her head. "No."
"Suit yourself..." Amber muttered, still slightly confused.
"Do you still have that journal?" Willow asked softly, head tilted. "What you said makes sense with everything else we know about you, but it could be a good way to prove you're telling the truth..."
"No!" Starlight pouted, almost snarling. "I told you, I don't want other ponies to know about where I'm from!" Suddenly aghast at her behavior, she cowered, and added, "Sorry. But I do still have it..."
"I promise we won't tell anyone," Willow reassured. Then, looking concernedly at Starlight, she added, "Are you okay?"
"Yes," Starlight sniffed. "Can we talk about something else?"
Amber darted to her rescue. "Then that's my cue to change the subject! So, the other day I was down by Mulberry's place, and someone said they had caught a giant..."
Starlight instantly zoned out. Unfortunately, her head wasn't the most pleasant place to be at the time, being torn between second-guessing her decision to tell Amber and Willow where she was from, guilt for yelling at Willow, and the knowledge that she wasn't likely to have anything to take her mind off it any time soon. Her throat was getting sore from all the talking she had done, too, which was never pleasant and might have been making her irritable.
She had just begun to properly stew when Maple slunk up beside her, whispering so as not to interrupt Amber's story. "Are you really all right?" the dust-colored mare asked, mouth close to Starlight's ear.
"No," Starlight muttered dismally. "I'm bored."
"Hmmm..." Maple held a hoof to her chin. "What could we do about that...?"
Amber cut herself off, apparently listening in. "Oh, right, I was suggesting things to do! Say..." She looked out the window, musing. "There's probably still a few hours left before dark, and I don't mind being out past then. If there's anywhere you wanted to go, I could probably give you a ride."
"She's pretty fast," Willow added, raising an eyebrow. "It might be bumpy..."
Starlight stared back at them. It was like they knew she had been invited earlier by Arambai, and wanted her to take him up on it. As they all gazed innocently at her, she silently weighed the pros and cons in her mind.
She still wasn't sold on the praise for the stallion, of course, but he hadn't seemed particularly rude, manipulative or creepy when she had met him. The odds that he would do something to give her a reputation in town seemed slim, too. All things considered, the worst that would likely happen was that he wouldn't be interested and send her away. And just perhaps, it could be interesting. "Tonight?" she asked, seeking confirmation.
Amber shrugged. "I don't see why not. Have a place in mind?"
"I was thinking..." Starlight scuffed at the ground. "Arambai told me earlier, I could..."
Maple instantly beamed, with a faint hint of smugness. "You sure warmed to him quickly. I think visiting him is a fantastic idea."
Starlight fidgeted, prompting Willow to lean in and whisper, "The sooner you leave, the longer you can stay, or the faster you'll be back if you don't like it. Besides, I'd like to talk to Maple for a bit."
Starlight sighed, and said, "Okay. Now. Sure. How do youuuaaagh!"
Somehow, Amber had appeared underneath her, standing up and hoisting all four of Starlight's hooves off the floor. The filly flailed slightly, before realizing that she was actually quite well supported by Amber's strong back. Amber turned, winking at her with one eye. "You'll want to hold onto my neck for sure. Anything we're forgetting?"
"My saddlebags," Starlight mumbled, obediently wrapping her forelegs around Amber's neck. "They might be useful..."
"I doubt we'll need them," Amber said, sucking the inside of her mouth, "but sure. Are they in there?" She pointed toward the bedroom. At a nod from Starlight, she trotted in, and soon re-emerged, the filly on her back clad in saddlebags once again.
"Thanks," Starlight said as they walked to the stairs, voice muffled by Amber's fur.
"Save the thanks," Amber answered, grinning as she descended, "until we get there."
Willow hadn't been kidding about Amber being fast, Starlight reflected as her steed charged enthusiastically through the muddy roads of Riverfall. The yellow mare was nearly kicking up a spray as she cantered, causing Starlight to bump up and down on her back and fervently wish she had taken this ride before dinner. Still, she did an admirable job of holding on, and in mere minutes they reached the start of the glass that coated the roadways, making a pleasant break from the squishy, flying muck.
Amber shouted no less than three personalized greetings at ponies she passed and nearly rammed into a cart, at one point banking so hard that Starlight was knocked breathless by the force with which she was pressed into her back. Eventually, they drew to a stop outside a pair of towers joined with several bridges, the base formed into a single room like Sycamore's bathhouse from earlier.
"Hellooooooo?" Amber called at a volume that likely alerted every pony within a hundred meters to their presence. Starlight clumsily hopped down, landing on all fours on the slightly moist roadway.
"Hello yourself, missy," called a weathered old stallion perched in a rocking chair at the edge of the roof spanning the first story. He gazed down at them through a monocle, sporting a droopy gray goatee and a well-treated top hat, rocking idly as if he neither cared nor had anything better to do. "Is that miss Amber I see?"
"No, it's a big hairy walrus," Amber called back dryly. "Is Arambai around? We're here to see him, not for you to hit on me."
The stallion's goatee drooped. "Really? Shucks. I hadn't even gotten started. You know me too well, missy..." He then leaned over his shoulder, took a breath, and bellowed, "Hey, Arambai! Get your caboose up here, you got company!"
Starlight glared suspiciously up at him as he shouted. Eventually, once he had stopped: "You live here too? Really? Who are you?"
"Nah. The view's nice here, though." He worked his mouth as if chewing something. "But what's a pretty little lady like you doing, not knowing who I am? You not from around here, or something? 'Cuz pretty much every pony 'round these parts knows who I am."
Amber cut between them, blocking Starlight from his line of sight with her posture and grinning aggressively. "I'm sorry, who did you say you were, again?"
He gazed mournfully down at her. "Come now, this is no way to treat an old friend..."
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Amber called back up. "Being around you is inflicting short-term memory loss!" She stuck her tongue out for emphasis.
The stallion shook his head. "If this is about what I said about your mane last week at the bazaar, I still stand by every word of it."
"Hey, Hemlock!" Arambai's voice suddenly growled from behind him on the balcony. "Who made you the welcome wagon for my house, eh? You better not be scaring away any of my guests..."
"Hemlock?" Starlight's face scrunched in recognition. "He's the stallion everyone ignores, right?"
Amber and Arambai both burst out laughing, the muscular stallion pointing a hoof at Hemlock. "Take that, you old coot. From the mouths of fillies!" His dark eyes narrowed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it seems I have some business to attend to."
With a loud thud and accompanying crack, Arambai jumped off the roof, landing sturdily on the ground below. After a second, he straightened up, eying Starlight and Amber. "Well, well. Looks like someone just missed me that much, hmm? Because the odds are ten to one you didn't come here for him." He trotted up to them, extending a hoof. "Welcome back, kid. What brings you here this evening?"
Amber shrugged, answering for her. "Short answer? She was bored." She smiled apologetically. "And no offense, but your place is pretty interesting..."
"Hah! I'd take offense if you said it wasn't." Arambai grinned, then suddenly turned around, saw Hemlock still rocking, and roared, "Hemlock, get off my roof!" He looked back to Starlight and Amber. "Don't mind him. Everyone ignores him, anyway." Lightning his tone, he continued, "So, let me guess. You've found yourself in the middle of nowhere, gotten away from whatever haunted you enough to drive you here, and now the relief is wearing off and you're realizing that no matter what you do, it'll never matter to the world again?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight's eyes crossed. "No. I'm just bored."
"A quick secret?" He leaned down, whispering in his growly voice. "I never really got over that one myself. Ambition is part of what makes ponies ponies! Doesn't matter what we've been through in life, being told you won't amount to anything never loses its sting." He looked up at his roof, which was thankfully vacant. "The entrance is on the second floor. There's some stairs around the back. Follow me."
He set a brisk pace, and Starlight followed him. "Really? Why, what's inside?"
Arambai's lip twitched in a hint of a smile. "You think an old stallion like me would take irrelevance quietly? Nahhh. Come on, I want to show you my workshop. See if you can manage to stay bored then."
The entrance to Arambai's house was on the second floor. As Starlight slowly descended the stairs to the first, however, it felt much closer to a basement. There was more metal present than she had seen in all of Riverfall so far combined, and it was twisted into shapes and constructs she couldn't even begin to trace the purpose of. Pipes hung from the ceiling, and every permanent surface was covered in trails of glowing, geometric conduits that pulsed with ethereal light.
Walkable floorspace was limited to tight walkways, with bulky wooden tables higher than her line of sight taking up every available inch and then some. Under the tables were an endless sea of crates, boxes and other storage devices, some covered in sheets and others simply open-topped bins.
Completely lost and confused, Starlight settled for following the stallion as he confidently navigated the maze, vaguely aware that Amber had followed her inside. They turned several times, until suddenly, abruptly, the walls fell away. Starlight blinked at the openness.
She was standing on a slightly raised circular dais, inscribed with more runes and glowing etches leading up to a higher pedestal in the middle. Suspended in the air high above was a mesh of what looked vaguely like rails, twisting about in a cloud of metal but never quite intersecting, hung from barely-visible crystalline supports. Nearby, a stack of glowing towers seemed to feed into it.
"Just takes your breath away, don't it?" Arambai asked, using the central pedestal as a stool. "I've spent the better part of seven years building this one. Based on some research by an old colleague. How do you like it?"
Starlight was completely nonplussed. "What is it?"
"Well..." Arambai gestured up at the nest of metal rails. "This one here's supposed to be a long-distance teleporter, at least in theory. But it's more of a proof of concept for more, cutting-edge technology." He raised an eyebrow at Starlight. "How much do you know about mana tech, kid?"
Truthfully, Starlight answered, "Nothing."
"Ahhhh..." Arambai growled. "Shame, that. Then you probably wouldn't be able to appreciate the intricacies even if I told you. Of course, if you're looking for something to do here, and you've got time to make vanish, you could always learn... Say, how good are you with that horn of yours?"
Starlight winced. "I hurt it getting here. I don't want to use it yet."
"Shame to that, too." Arambai got up, pacing in a circle around the center. "How'd it happen? Trip and bang it on a rock?" He moved to a clearer table at the edge of the dais and began rummaging.
"Overtaxed myself on a spell," Starlight muttered, hanging her head. She considered trying to deceive him, since the last thing she wanted was another unicorn telling her there was something wrong with her horn. She was here to stop sulking, not be told she was defective.
"Overtaxation? And it's still bothering you now?" Arambai looked back over his shoulder. "That must have been quite the spell that took you out. What all could you do, back when it worked?"
Starlight shrugged. "Levitate, light stuff up. Normal things. Make crystals appear."
"Making crystals appear?" Arambai's eyebrows both rose, and he grinned. "Huh. Sounds to me like you were quite the magical prodigy. I bet you'd learn quickly, if there was anything you wanted me to teach you..." He picked up what looked like a helmet with one end cut off, spinning it on one hoof. "Any spells you'd like to learn? Teleportation, perhaps? Transfiguration? How to fly?"
"How to fly?" Starlight's eyes nearly bulged. "Unicorns can't do that! Only pegasi can!"
"Is that so?" Arambai's lip twitched. "Tell me. Have you ever seen a pegasus?"
Starlight nodded, and Amber shook her head.
"Heh." Arambai swung a hoof, nodding at Amber. "I hardly blame you. Those winged goofballs hardly come 'round these parts anymore. But the important part is, they look like you took a normal pony and stuck a pair of flappers on just to make them cuter or more huggable." He raised an eyebrow upon seeing the expressions he was getting. "Sure, go tell that to the town. Me having a thing for pegasi would make a fantastic rumor. I can't wait to see how they manage to take it too seriously. Now where was I?"
"Have we seen a pegasus," Amber helpfully interjected.
"Right, right, I knew that," Arambai loudly muttered. "Point is, they're about the least aerodynamic things you could imagine, and their wings are tiny compared to the size of their bodies. Ever wonder how those things stay in the air?" He grinned triumphantly. "Magic. Same as unicorns have magic in their horns and earth ponies have... whatever it is you earth ponies do. Way I see it is, how different can two kinds of magic be?"
Starlight scuffed at the ground. She could guess where Arambai was going, but something about messing with a pony's personal magic sat uneasily with her. It felt too similar to forcibly changing who they were.
"Plenty different, it turns out," Arambai growled, distracting her from her thoughts. "Mana is the basis for all magical technology society has ever built. It's like an energy form produced in unicorn horns, and a few other ways... Anyone who learns a simple spell can push it out, and trap it in a gemstone where it can be used for all sorts of stuff. Heating. Sending signals and information. Making giant engines for boats and ships. But real ponies can effortlessly do things like telekinesis and flight that we can't even begin to approximate with mana tech. It's always been as if there was something missing..."
He hefted the helmet, and offered it to Amber. "And I just might be on the right track to figuring out what that something is. Care for a little demonstration, miss...?"
"If it's what you make it sound like," Amber said, licking her lips, "I'm beyond game. And it's Amber, by the way. I'm pretty sure we've met?"
"I knew that!" Arambai waved her closer. "So, little filly, I'll need you to lift her. Any way you like will do, so long as it's off the ground. Just to get a sense for how heavy she is."
"And I'm Starlight," Starlight mumbled, moving towards Amber and trying to slide under her, hoisting with her back the way Amber had lifted her earlier. Amber was fairly small for a grown mare, so she didn't have trouble getting the required height, especially when the earth pony spread her limbs out, putting her entire weight on Starlight's back. The filly wheezed, but stood strong without shaking.
"I knew that too!" Arambai growled. "Anyway, if you've got it, then put her down. Amber, come here and wear this." He held out the helmet, which was connected to the glowing towers with a set of heavy wires. "It goes on your butt, by the way."
"What?" Amber took it, blinking bemusedly and holding it to her behind. "Why there?"
Arambai shrugged. "Don't ask me who decided where ponies' brands should appear. But they're somehow involved, so the closer this gets, the bigger the effect is... Let's see, now." Seeing that Amber had the helmet properly fitted, he turned back to a control panel next to the towers and made some adjustments. "Starlight!" He turned back to them, watching eagerly. "Try to lift her again."
"I don't feel anything..." Amber said uncertainly, but still stretched for Starlight to lift her.
The filly held her up, thinking. It didn't really feel that much different from last time... but now that there was a metal helmet on her, she should probably feel noticeably heavier. Instead, if anything, she felt slightly lighter... about the difference that would be made by her being hungry, instead of just after a good meal. She blinked several times. "I guess she's lighter? Maybe?"
"Hah! There you have it, then. How many times have you ever seen an earth pony do that?" Arambai moved to turn the machines off, adding, "You can set her down now. It's not like she'll up and float away, or anything..."
"What happened?" Amber asked bemusedly, taking off the helmet and hoofing it to Arambai.
"Technology happened," he replied with a grin. "Well... it will happen, eventually. Unfortunately, it's fairly useless right now, but still around a hundred times better than anything anyone else has ever made! This thing's powered purely by you, and not anything else. Maybe after enough years, I'll get it efficient enough that you can fly for real!" He turned to Starlight, adding, "Sound interesting, yet?"
"You said there was no way out of this place," Starlight answered, changing the subject. "So why do you have a giant teleporter?"
"Proof of concept, mostly," Arambai said with a shrug, running a hoof along the central pedestal. "I want to make this work with as much natural pony magic as possible. It can do telekinesis, too, at about enough strength to levitate a tissue. As for getting out of the village, it doesn't have that long of range. Maybe with half the population of Riverfall powering it, it could get you to Ironridge, but there's nowhere out there for a much bigger distance past that." He leaned in, adding, "Care to know a secret?"
"Okay." The stallion was rambling so much, Starlight didn't see much point in giving him permission to continue, but did it anyway. After all, it probably couldn't hurt to know more about this.
"Where I'd really like to go with this thing..." He sucked in a breath, looking wistfully upwards. "Is to get on top of those big cliffs everyone thinks are the edge of the world. It's definitely good enough to do that, I think. Only issue is where to go from there... and once you were done, how to get back down. I actually had a talented seamstress offer to make me a parachute once." He sighed, still gazing into the distance. "Never found out if that was ever going to happen. Just a dream, I guess."
Starlight held her tongue. It very well could have been accidental, but she was getting the uncomfortable feeling back that he knew where she was from and was baiting her to talk about it.
While she was thinking, Arambai shot her a glance. "Is any of this hooking you, kid?"
Starlight shrugged. "It's nice," she answered, truthfully adding, "but I don't get it."
"Well..." Arambai hitched himself up, straightening and stretching as if he was preparing to leave and return upstairs. "If you ever find yourself needing something to do, I can guarantee you that you can sink more hours into this work than you'd otherwise know what to do with. I think you'd be a good learner, and I'd be happy to teach you. And if you'd rather be in it for the reward..." He narrowed his eyes conspiratorially. "Who knows? Maybe you'd be around when this gets to the point where you could carry everything you need to make it work on your back, in a suit of armor."
Amber brightened, shivering slightly. "That sounds like something straight out of a story..."
"Well, what's the use in having technology if you don't make it interesting?" Arambai chuckled slightly. "For real, though... this is too new for me to have any idea what it could lead to. Anything could happen, absolutely anything... and you'd be there when it does."
"I'll... think about it," Starlight finally answered, shuffling nearer to Amber.
"So, old stallion..." Amber poked at some of the supplies laying nearby that weren't part of his flying machine. "What else do you have down here?"
"And this one," Arambai said, proudly holding up a silvery box with a slit on one end, "is a nifty device for cooking bread! You put a slice in at the top, and it makes it all nice and crispy, see?"
Starlight looked at the box with a slightly bored expression. "It's a toaster."
"Well... yeah..." Arambai rubbed his neck. "But nobody has toasters out here. Sometimes, reinventing the wheel is easier than dragging one in from halfway across the world!"
"So you just build appliances all the time?" Starlight asked, watching as Arambai set the toaster down next to what looked like a triangular abacus.
The stallion shrugged. "Well, I am an inventor. Science doesn't make itself happen overnight, and I like doing things for the town just as much as for my own curiosity. When I'm not out building roads or getting ponies settled in, that is. It makes for a busy life, with just enough time to do whatever I want."
Arambai rolled his eyes. "Surely you've seen at least some of the stallions moping around town. They're a bit of a quiet bunch, but not that quiet. How do you think they got stuck here?"
"I dunno," Starlight said, drooping slightly. "I never thought about it before."
"Remember what I said about Riverfall being a town of second and last chances?" Arambai walked behind her, his growly voice low. "Well, every time some poor stallion up in Sosa gets so sick of their situation that they're ready to leave, this is where they end up. There are two kinds of stallions in Riverfall... ones who were born here and never got out before the boats stopped, and refugees."
"Does that make you..." Starlight trailed off, voice hesitant.
"A Sosan? Well." Arambai hung his head, grinning sadly. "I like to think of myself that way. A lot of the ponies back there probably think of me anywhere from a genius and prophet to a coward and a traitor. Don't ask what I did, or why I left. I think I've earned the right to my silence by not pressing you for where you're from. After all, we both know you're not from Ironridge."
Starlight had known that was coming for a while, but it still felt like she had been slapped in the face with a fish. "H-How did you know?" she stammered, fighting to retain her composure.
"It's simple," he said, closing his eyes and leaning against a wall of boxes. "Just like how it's all mares in Riverfall, Sosa is a male-dominated society. Most of the ponies who call themselves that don't actually live there, see. It's all commuters... and they and their families live elsewhere. A cute little filly like you shouldn't have had any reason to run away, and if you did, your dad would already be here by now." He raised an eyebrow. "And I'd know about you. Hope I didn't spill the beans to miss Amber, by the way."
"That I'm not from there? She already knows," Starlight said, gulping.
"Good..." Arambai sighed, whistling slightly. "I couldn't tell if it was an act you were putting on or not. Any Sosan here would be able to see right through it, if it was."
"Well..." Starlight scuffed at the ground. "I don't want ponies to know where I'm from..."
"Should'a told me earlier," Arambai grumbled. "Now I'll have to make up an alibi for you on the fly. Oh well. Not many ponies here will care, either way..."
"What's the difference between Sosa and Ironridge?" Starlight suddenly asked. "Everyone talks about them like they're the same thing, and I couldn't tell..."
"Mmmm! Right!" Arambai straightened up. "Obviously wouldn't hurt for you to know a bit about the city, if you want to pretend you're from it. I assume you know nothing?"
Starlight nodded.
"Right..." The yellow stallion let his gaze wander, searching for a place to begin. "Ironridge is built into the side of a mountain, you see, which means the terrain changes a lot in a very small amount of distance. So they divided the thing up into districts... There are seven of them, but only four that really matter. The Sky District, Stone District, Earth District and Steel District."
He cleared his throat before continuing. "Sky District's up at the peaks of the mountains. All snow and ice and stuff ponies weren't meant to have to live next to. Then you've got the Stone District, which is the part on the mountainside. Very nice climate, lots of ponies live there. Below that, in the jungle basin, you've got the Earth District. That's where fruit and crops are grown, and where a bunch more ponies live. And finally, you've got the Steel District, which is on the edge of the river. Mostly a bunch of factories and warehouses, these days. Anyhow, the Steel District calls themselves Sosa."
"Huh." Arambai's explanation had been surprisingly simple. Starlight had expected there to be more to it than that. "So what happened to them?"
"You mean, what started this whole 'no more boats' thing?" Arambai smirked wryly. "Well... isn't that a story. What happened was airships." He gazed out across the teleporter dais, eyes wandering across walls of equipment. "In the olden days, the Yule river was the only way in or out of Ironridge, short of trekking hundreds upon hundreds of miles through wildlands full of shattered stone and inhospitable forests. Forget about building a road across that. Would have been impossible..."
The manalights glowing overhead flickered as he talked. "Sosa prided themselves on being the gateway to Ironridge. They were majestic, and had everything going for them. The city was a major exporter, and they were the welcome wagon for traders from all over the world... and traders themselves. They built boats specially designed to handle both the waters of the Yule and the open ocean to the east, until they mastered their craft and came to rule the waterways. Sosa was everything."
"So when airships came," Amber added, having sat quietly for some time, "that stopped?"
"More or less," Arambai said, stretching. "When they were first invented, nopony batted an eyelid. Then they got better, and the bigger ones started packing enough fuel to make it there from Yakyakistan under good weather. After that, they started reaching the cities in the north... Everything really went downhill when they started building a skyport in the Sky District. That place had a refueling station, doubling the distance ships could travel. Suddenly, they could bring cheaper ships, with more room for cargo. It was a blow Sosa wasn't able to handle."
Starlight's ears folded. She knew plenty about forced, external change. "What happened?"
"The Sky District became the new gateway to Ironridge," Arambai said simply. "The Stone District prospered, and so did the Earth District. Most Sosans live in the Earth District, at that. The city's doing better than ever, and everyone's well off... but sometimes, survival isn't enough for a pony, you know?" He raised a knowing eyebrow. "The Sosans were crushed. They lost their purpose, drifting along on a rising tide, completely powerless to do anything. Funny, then, how the ones so desperate to have some say in their lives that they'd leave their families and run away found themselves here, where there's even less they can do to be relevant in the world."
"So now what do they do?" Amber asked, voice subdued.
"Exist? Survive? Don't look at me," Arambai said with a shrug. "I got out early. It's the others you should ask if you want to know what it's like now... but don't expect them to tell you. I may have asked them when they came here not to be downers all the time. You Riverfall mares are so bubbly, and who'd want to depress that?"
Starlight got the distinct feeling that that was the end of the story. Sighing through her nose, she stared straight ahead, focusing and unfocusing her eyes, trying to think of what to say next... if anything.
Her eyes fell on a silver, metal pendant hanging from a strap that had been looped around the corner of a box. It was triangular in shape, with another upside-down triangle inscribed in the center, dividing it into four smaller triangles... or perhaps three, with a hole in the middle. "What's that?"
"Huh? Oh, this?" Arambai walked over and picked the amulet up with a single hoof. "This is a keepsake a friend made me to remember them by. Beats me if it means anything. Probably some sort of personal crest. But it's got a lot of memories attached to it..." He sighed wistfully. "I should put this somewhere safer. Don't want it getting scratched or buried."
"While you go do that," Amber said, stepping in, "we might have to get going. It's probably getting dark out, and I didn't tell Maple when to expect us back."
"Have to leave so soon, eh?" Arambai's face fell in disappointment. "Well, it was interesting talking to you, even if I'm the one who did most of the talking. I have a tendency to ramble sometimes. You should interrupt me more!" He gave a brief, growly laugh. "Probably comes with the whole quiet treatment I give the village most of the time. Don't forget to gossip about those pegasi, now."
Amber giggled. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. Bye now!"
"Hold up!" Arambai raised his voice, giving Amber and Starlight pause. "I've got something for you, kid. Here. Take this."
In his darkly colored aura, he extended a thin book towards Starlight. She took it in her hooves, eying it uncertainly. "What's in here?"
"That," Arambai explained, "is a bit of a textbook. If you ever feel like taking me up on my offer, or at least want to see if you're cut out for this stuff, or even are just bored, give that a read. It's got some of the basics in regarding mana tech and how that relates to pony magic."
Starlight shrugged, stuffing it in her saddlebags. "Okay. Thanks."
"Right, then. Have fun, you two!" Arambai waved as they walked up the stairs. "Ahhhh..."
Maple's door clattered open, a panting Amber stepping through from the dim twilight haze into the now-closed store, Starlight clinging to her back. "Hello?" Amber called, glancing around the dark, unlit room. "Girls, you still here? We're back!"
"We're up here," Willow's voice called, drifting down the staircase.
Amber smirked and began to climb. "Right you are. We had a pretty fun time down at old Arambai's. Got to test out this sweet machine that takes a piece of bread and..." She stopped in her tracks at the top of the staircase, looking across the dimly-lit upper room to where her friends sat at the table. "Maple?" she asked, a hint of concern in her voice. "Are you crying?"
Maple sniffed, eyes slightly red. Willow was presently right next to her, one foreleg draped around her back. The silvery mare answered for her friend. "We were talking about Aspen."
Amber's enthusiasm immediately vanished, and she let Starlight slide off her back. "Oh."
As Maple scrubbed at her eyes, trying to compose herself, Starlight asked, "Who's Aspen?"
Willow ignored her for once. "Since it almost came up earlier, and Starlight decided to trust us with where she was from, I asked Maple if she wanted to tell her this. We had a talk about it."
"And what did you decide?" Amber asked, stepping forward.
"Well..." Maple sniffed again, clearing her throat. "I'm probably going to cry again, but... Starlight? Would you like to hear a story?"
Starlight was slightly taken aback by the mood in the house, to the point where she almost suspected it would be polite to refuse the mare. It felt as if every pony she met that day just wanted her to listen to them, and she had to remind herself that she had done plenty of talking of her own that day. Was that what her life in Riverfall would be? A pony who wandered around, listening to tales? It was like the opposite of a bard. Inwardly, she shrugged. It couldn't hurt to try...
"Sure, I guess." Starlight nodded, and waited for the story to begin.
Starlight eventually looked up. "Are you going to say anything?"
"Sorry." Maple swallowed. "Just thinking... You know how Willow was talking to you earlier, and said I looked up to her? That she was my role model, and I tried to do everything like her?"
Starlight nodded mutely. She didn't remember the exact words, but recalled something similar.
"Well... I did." Maple sighed, and continued, held against Willow's side by a steadying hoof, just in case. "That was true for wanting to leave Riverfall. After that failed, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Well... I didn't. Willow started a family. I was just a teenager." She shuddered heavily.
"Eventually, I grew up," she said, eyes barren. "Things changed. Willow met... her husband. I wanted that too. I tried, and... well..."
She broke off, starling hollowly into the distance. Willow let her sit for a minute, and when she didn't continue, nudged her. "Do you want me to take over?"
Maple turned and buried her face in Willow's shoulder, answering without words.
"Maple met a stallion," Willow said without fanfare, her voice as gentle as it always was. "From Sosa. We all liked him. She got a bigger house. They moved in together. She wanted to have kids, like mine." Her voice clenched briefly, and her lips tightened, showing her teeth. "Apparently, he didn't. We found out it would happen, and were overjoyed. But the day after she told him... he left." Maple shook visibly against her.
Amber paced slowly out of a corner, talking. "We were furious. Sosans don't talk much, so we never really know what they're thinking... but to do that? To just leave someone without warning, explanation or even a chance? I hunted for him for weeks, after that. I found him, eventually, clear on the other side of town." Her face darkened. "I got an explanation. It wasn't good enough. I also got one of his teeth."
"We told Arambai, too," Willow said softly. "We asked him what we should do. After all, he takes responsibility for most of the Sosans in town. He said he would take care of it. He wasn't pleased."
"We never saw that stallion again, after that," Amber added. "Granted, we weren't looking."
"Maple was distraught." Willow hugged the dusty mare closer as Starlight watched patiently. "She'd been looking forward to that for so long, only to have her dreams collapse in front of her... right after everything seemed to be going so well. Her new house was right next to mine. I spent many days after that just sitting with her... Her foal's name was going to be Aspen..."
"But she miscarried," Amber finished. "I've heard depression can do that to a pony. I was there when it happened. It's... not something you need to know the details about." She shuddered, and added, "Or something I'd be comfortable telling."
Willow shook her head in agreement. "Things got even harder after that. At the time, I was pregnant with Yew, my third foal. I never would have tried for her then if I had known all this would happen. She was eventually born perfectly healthy... I could barely even look at Maple after that. Not when I had everything she didn't, purely by chance. Not when I had Faron and three happy, healthy foals..."
Maple sucked in a hissing breath, lifting her head. Her eyes were wet with tears. "After we c-couldn't go to Ironridge, these two s-set down lives and did something with themselves. I tried that and f-failed." She shuddered, hugging herself. "Being branded is supposed to give you the p-power to make your dreams come true! So why couldn't I? It still hurts, sometimes... feeling powerless when I should..."
A triumphant surge coursed through Starlight. Of course this was about Maple's cutie mark. "See?" she proudly proclaimed, pointing a hoof as connections were made in her mind. "I told you! If you never had gotten a cutie mark, you never would have tried to change who you were just because it told you to, and you wouldn't be sad because you failed now!" She stood, eyes closed and fully validated.
Pow!
"Eeeep!" Starlight went sprawling, landing awkwardly on her side with a heavy stinging in her cheek. Amber was standing over her, face thunderous.
"What is wrong with you?" the yellow mare snarled, teeth bared. "We tell you about the hardest thing we've ever gone through as friends and your first reaction is to interrupt her to try and prove a point that has nothing to do with what we're talking about? Look at her! Look at her!" she snapped, pointing a hoof at Maple's subdued form. "Does she look like she had us tell you that so you could complain about cutie marks?"
"Amber," Willow said sharply, eyes flitting between her friend and Starlight's stricken face. "That's enough."
"No it isn't." Amber sucked in a sharp breath, addressing Starlight once more. "Where is your compassion? Where's your... your empathy!? Weren't you just telling us about how you lost your friend earlier? How'd you like it if one of us had responded to that by going, 'Hah! I was right about something earlier that's presently completely irrelevant!?' You should know how she feels! Where are your emotions?"
"Amber." A silvery hoof appeared on her shoulder, and like a siphon the rage was drained out of Amber's face. Her eyes, ears and muzzle fell, along with eventually her neck and tail.
"I'm... sorry," she said, turning to walk away. "That might have been uncalled for."
"Stay." Willow patted the floor next to her, Maple already walking over. "We aren't done yet. Are you okay, Starlight?"
Starlight stared at her, drawn back and too frozen to move.
"Starlight." Willow's hoof stretched out, offering itself to the filly. "What you went through must have been terrible, to drive you out over the mountains. But what I hope you can understand..." Her eyes softened, and she beckoned again. "Is that hardship is a fact of life. There are no ponies who have lived a perfect, ideal life, Starlight. Some of us are like you and Maple, and have been hurt directly by circumstances beyond our control. There's nothing to blame for it. There is only rebuilding and moving on."
She looked over to Amber, who had finally collapsed against her, on the opposite side as Maple. With both of her friends leaning on her shoulders, Willow continued, "Others are like me and Amber. Our lives may have been free of misfortune... or at least had little enough that we move past it naturally, without scars that won't heal. Yet because we know other ponies... because we have friends whom we love, and care about very deeply... their hurts become our own. You cannot avoid pain and hardship, without also living a life without joy... which would only bring pain in another way. You can only endure and survive... and, if you're strong enough, make a positive difference for others, as well. Would you like to know what happened to us next?"
Mutely, Starlight nodded.
"We survived," Willow said, "and we healed. It wasn't easy. Amber helped Maple find a new place; this one. It was hard, being farther from me... but it was the right decision. Her old house had too many dead memories and dreams... After that, we continued to support each other. Maple learned to smile again, and then to laugh, and eventually to truly mean it. The memories still hurt and will never go away, but eventually..." She sighed, and smiled. "We moved on. Our wounds healed, and we became stronger for it... as friends and as ponies. Sometimes, we still sit and remember it like this... but our lives are happy, now."
Sniffling, Maple dared to speak again. "Starlight? Do you know what took the longest to heal?"
Starlight shook her head.
"You can probably guess," Maple said with tears in her smile. "It was for me to hope again. It's easy to expect the world to get worse. It's possible to recover, and be happy with what you have... but expecting the world to get better, all on its own? After the last two plans I had made for my life fell through, it took a miracle for me to start believing that was possible again..."
She reached forward, breaking from Willow and touching Starlight's face where Amber had slapped it. "A miracle like a filly floating down in a box from nowhere, for me to look after."
As Starlight's pupils dilated in realization, Maple sniffed and added, "So if I'm a little overbearing, that's why. Sorry about that."
"And that's why I asked you to be nice to her," Willow added softly, speaking to Starlight. "But it turns out you two are even more similar than I thought."
"So... please?" Maple held out a tender hoof towards Starlight, offering to help her up. "I'm ready for things to be good around here, for a change. I want to love you and care for you and give you everything you need to be happy as I watch you grow up... and after everything you've been through yourself, you deserve it. Please? Our world is getting better, and you can be a part of it. I'll never make you become anything you don't want to, and I'll always be your friend. Always."
"Always?" Starlight sniffed, breaking her silence. "You promise?"
Maple smiled down at her. "I promise."
Willow and Amber faded into the background as Starlight slowly got up and moved into Maple's embrace. "I'm sorry," Starlight mumbled, unsure whether the tears beginning to sting her eyes were in remorse for what she had said earlier... or from somewhere deeper.
"Whatever it's for," Maple answered, hugging her tightly, "I forgive you."
Maple awoke with a start... but some instinct she never knew she had prevented her from actually moving. It pinned all her limbs in place, holding her still while her brain caught up with the rest of her body. It had nothing to do with fear, panic or hesitation, however.
No, this instinct was caused by not wanting to crush the fuzzy ball of lilac breathing pleasantly against her chest.
She smiled softly, memories of the previous night filtering themselves into the only thing that really mattered: Starlight was here. Starlight had been told everything there was to tell, and still, she was here. That was more than Maple had once thought she could ask for. Having no pressing reason to get up, she relaxed, sliding a tender foreleg over the filly and matching herself to Starlight's slumbering breaths. She could already tell this was going to be a perfect morning, feeling a tear threaten to slip through her closed eyelids.
One of her ears was inside out. Pressed to a fluffy pillow, she felt no reason to correct it... until she realized why she had suddenly awoken.
A rhythmic thumping reached her eardrum, the kind that travels through the ground rather than the air. It sounded like a beast with hooves the size of houses was marching many miles away, and while that would have been absurd, she couldn't think of any valid explanations. Annoyed, she rubbed her head against the pillow, trying to fix her ear so that it might blot itself out. Eventually content that it had worked, she curled more closely around Starlight, perfectly happy to continue relishing her morning.
But try as she might to ignore it, the thumping continued, pulsating in her very core and preventing her from returning to slumber. Eventually, she gave up, realizing she could neither get back to sleep nor banish a growing irritability at whatever had woken her... so she gently licked the top of the filly's head, just in case she was awake. "I'll be right back," Maple murmured, carefully disentangling herself and moving toward the edge of the bed. "Don't go anywhere."
"Mmmkay..." Starlight lowly mumbled, facedown, from where Maple had left her.
Sighing, the earth pony went about her way, slipping out the bedroom door and closing it before it could let too much light in.
Looking about her kitchen, she guessed the sun had risen about three hours ago. Outside, it was raining thunderously, such that even when she opened a window and stuck her head out all she could hear was the hiss against the ground. There was no sign of whatever had woken her.
Still, she left the window open as she went about preparing something to eat. The cool breeze felt pleasant against her filly-warmed coat, and she strongly suspected bed would feel nicer if she cooled off first. She had every intention of returning, having sat up far later than usual with Starlight before finally going to bed.
She didn't touch the stove, instead taking a serrated blade in her teeth and carving off the end of a partially-hardened loaf of sourdough bread. Casting around for something to put on it, she eventually settled for strawberry jam and nothing else. She took her sandwich and settled back at the window, munching thoughtfully.
It smelled nice out. The rain was mixed with the smell of pine, and while it was a smell that was frequently around, it was far from unpleasant. Her tail swished as she took a bite, her mind idly running over any ingredients she might be running low on. Powdered sugar, she'd have to pick that up... but little else. Not knowing what to do with herself, she had made a run two days before, while Willow was busy caring for Starlight shortly after the filly had been found.
The tower next to hers and immediately in her line of sight was four stories tall. She wasn't intimately acquainted with her neighbors, but knew that two separate families shared the space... or three, depending on how you counted. It was complicated. But there were plenty of foals living there... She'd have to take the time to get to know them better, to give Starlight someone nearby to play with. Mentally, she added taking them a gift cake to her to-do list.
As she watched, the door to the house burst open, and a mare wearing a thick poncho dashed out, hastily turning and charging off toward the center of town. Maple frowned. She hadn't seen the mare's facial expression, but she was moving with a haste usually the rain alone wasn't enough to cause, especially when one was dressed for it. She strained, almost feeling she could still hear the drumming in the distance. She could certainly hear the rain.
Maple shrugged, shutting the window and stuffing the rest of her sandwich into her mouth. It had been sufficiently filling, and she had better things to do. Cheeks bulging, she pushed open the door to the bedroom, tail flicking contentedly.
A pair of filly-sized eyes stared back out at her, shining in the darkness. "I stayed here."
"Sorry about that," Maple grumbled, climbing back into the bed and wriggling over to Starlight. "You can go back to sleep now, Starlight. I shouldn't need to go anywhere else for a while."
"I'm not tired," Starlight offered, laying with all four legs tucked underneath herself and her tail wrapped neatly around her side. "You're cold. And you smell like strawberries."
"Yes, I am cold," Maple astutely observed, "and you can do whatever you want, but I'm not getting up until I'm warm again."
Starlight responded by snuggling up against her again, causing Maple's heart to leap in her chest. The warmth from that feeling alone was more than anything physical Starlight was providing... though that was welcome too. "Thanks," Maple murmured, draping a hoof back over the filly.
"You really like cuddling," Starlight remarked, squirming slightly.
"I guess I do," Maple exhaled. "That's not a problem, is it?" she asked worriedly.
"No." Starlight rolled over. "It makes it easy to make you happy."
Maple flushed slightly, moderately uncomfortable at the idea that the filly was making accommodations for her... but also enjoying that she was being thoughtful. Before she could finish thinking, however, Starlight asked, "So how long ago did all that stuff happen?"
"From last night? Very recently," Maple answered, shifting uncomfortably. "Though it feels like forever. It couldn't have been more than two years ago that it started. Maybe a year and a half. I've only had this house for a few months. It's not history. I'm still on the end of it." She leaned in and nuzzled Starlight. "Or maybe it ended two days ago."
As she lay there, she began to hear the distant pounding again, and her ears twitched. "Starlight?" She sat up, craning her neck. "Do you hear that?"
"Yeah," Starlight mumbled, sliding slightly into the depression under Maple that had been left in the bed. "It's called the rain."
"Not that..." Maple stared hesitantly at nothing. "It's like... drums..."
Starlight's ears pricked too. After a minute, the filly said, "Huh. I think I do."
"Maybe we should check it out," Maple grumbled, sinking back to the bed. "Not yet, though. Nnngh... Gotta get ten more minutes..."
Starlight stuck her tongue out, flopping back against Maple. "I thought you were a morning pony. Hmmph."
She received no response.
Over thirty minutes later, Maple finally stirred. The noise was still present, and had, if anything, gotten louder. "All right," she muttered, stretching. "That's enough. Let's go see what that is."
"About time." Starlight was out of bed faster than Maple could blink. Standing by the bedside, she briefly tested her horn, and the expression on her face indicated she was pleased at the result.
"Is you magic feeling better?" Maple asked as she got up, figuring she'd prompt the filly to talk about something she might enjoy. Slowly, she paced to a mirror and began straightening her mane.
"Yeah..." Starlight squinted, summoning sparks. "It doesn't hurt to use, I guess."
"That's good." Maple hummed, brushing. "I'd love to see some of your tricks some time..."
Starlight shrugged. "Okay. I'm hungry."
"I'll find something. Just a moment." Finishing her work, Maple set down the brush... and as her eyes passed over Starlight, she squinted and tapped her chin. "I know what would look good on you."
"Huh?" Starlight twisted, then suddenly yelped as she was grabbed and set on the bed, Maple fussing with her mane. "Hey, that pulls! Ow!"
"Sorry..." Maple bit her lip, working. "And... there!" She stepped back, triumphant, and grabbed a mirror for Starlight to see. The filly stood with her mane in a neat ponytail, one of Maple's own bands tying back all the excess that had grown during Starlight's time in the mountains. "Now you can see again!" she proclaimed, waving the mirror. "Do you like it?"
Starlight touched it with a hoof. "Huh. I used to have pigtails back in Equestria. But this is bigger, and just one..." She turned her neck, examining herself. "Yeah, this is nice. I like it."
Maple tapped her forehooves happily. "Well, consider it a present from me. Now let's get you some breakfast!" Nearly skipping, she bounced back into the kitchen and began preparations.
One home-made caramel apple later, and Maple and Starlight stood downstairs, examining a poncho. The distant booming still ringing in their ears above the thrum of rain, somehow louder than ever, they were all set to investigate... save for one problem. Maple didn't own any filly-sized raincoats.
"I can just wear a big one," Starlight volunteered, looking up at the garments. They were sleeveless and more resembled rubber robes, allowing plenty of room for size adjustments. Any excess would just trail behind her... which would be dirty, but not unmanageable. The only perceivable issue was that the hood might fall into her eyes.
"You'd trip on the front," Maple replied, dashing her hopes. "Trust me, I did that once when I was younger. I'm trying to think of a way we could..."
Starlight shrugged. "We could tie the dangling part so it doesn't reach the ground?"
"Hmmm... maybe..." Maple scratched her chin with a hoof. "But there's got to be a better..." Suddenly, her eyes lit up. Had she possessed claws or talons, she would have snapped them. The kind of grin spread across her face that only comes with the hatching of a truly bad idea, and she giggled slightly. "Never mind! Heee! I just thought of the perfect idea...!"
Maple pranced through the rainy streets of Riverfall, wearing a poncho that appeared several sizes too short and a smile that suggested everything was right with the world. If any ponies had been around to stare at her, they probably would have felt differently, but that was neither here nor there.
"Maple?" Starlight asked, riding on her back with the poncho draped over them both, her head crammed awkwardly through the neckspace. "Doesn't this look really weird?"
"Oh, hush," Maple replied, her ears pressed against her scalp by rubbery fabric that was stretched far tighter than intended by the presence of two heads in the hood. "It's cozy."
"Yeah, but..." Starlight had to lean so far to the side to see around Maple that the only thing keeping her from falling off was the tightness of the over-stretched coat. "It probably looks like we have two heads, or something!" She glanced down at their reflection in a passing puddle.
"It does not," Maple teased, pushing her stride a little faster. "Besides, it saves you from having to walk! I'd sure love to be lazy today. Mmm... This should have been a lazy morning..."
"Yo! Maple, is that you?" Amber's voice sounded through the torrent of rain, followed by the splashing of hooves. Her yellow body skidded into view, characteristically drenched without so much as a hat to protect against the water. Her coat was plastered to her sides, making her seem even smaller than she actually was, but the amount of excitement in her eyes brought her back up to larger-than-life. That excitement drained only slightly when she took Maple in, raising a soggy eyebrow and snickering. "Woah! Did you grow a second head, or something?"
"Really?" Starlight pouted, face slightly scrunched by the close quarters of Maple's hood.
"Well, then, I take that back," Maple breathed, brightening for her friend. "Hi, Amber!"
"Hi yourself," Amber panted, tossing her wet forelock out of her eyes and turning back in the direction she had come from. "I was coming to get you. Thanks for saving me some distance. You won't believe what happened!"
"What did happen?" Maple picked up her pace, following. "We heard a pounding, and..."
"That was probably the parade," Amber urgently replied. "Everyone's super excited. But get this: a boat came!" She spun around, walking backwards on the mud with shining eyes. "Going west! To Ironridge! It's one of the old Sosan makes that's been out of production for years! Specifically designed for this river and everything! I didn't see the crew; there were too many ponies to get close. But everyone's speculating and saying they might use the waterway for trade again, and reopen the docks, even! Hemlock's out there getting his hoist machine thing set up and..." She stopped, gasping for air.
Maple further picked up speed, gaining a look of determination. "Hold on tight, Starlight. This isn't something I'd miss for the world."
At some point after the glass began, the surroundings transitioned from devoid of life to all too full of it. Maple and Amber crashed into a sea of mares, teeming and bustling and chattering with wide eyes and eager faces. Surprisingly few of them wore ponchos, and the resulting plethora of mish-mashed coat colors made Starlight's head spin. Their ages seemed mostly concentrated between young adult and middle-aged, though she figured that some older ones might be hidden beneath raincoats and some younger ones were too short to be visible in the crowd.
Amber herself fit into the 'too short' category. Growling, she nudged Maple and headed off, skirting the fringes of the crowd. "Follow me."
She led them to the door to a tower on the edge of the crowd, and knocked heavily. A few moments later, it was opened by a tan stallion in his early twenties with meticulously-groomed hair and an air of perfume about him. His eyes lit up upon seeing them. "Hey there, girlfriends. Here to petition for access to my VIP box?"
"Depends how reasonable your terms are," Amber answered with a smug smile and aggressive posture. "Otherwise, we'll petition your mother instead."
He laughed and waved them inside. "I wouldn't take a hug even if you offered it to me, not when you're that wet. Towel rack is on the right. And howdy." He bowed to Maple, though his eyes were mostly on Starlight. "Cute kid. Ivy's over; I take it you'll want me and her to keep it down?"
Amber rolled her eyes, draining water from her coat and fluffing it with a towel. "What do you think, doofus?" She coughed and added, "Starlight, this is Cedar. His mom foalsat Willow when she was a teenager, so he's a bit of a family friend. And he has a balcony, so get out there and go see what's happening!" She waved them toward a staircase, spraying droplets from her mane.
"Ow, no introduction for me?" Cedar's mane drooped. "Harsh. Oh well. Follow me, ladies!"
He led them up three flights of stairs and out a door, across a covered bridge between two towers. Below, Starlight unenviously watched the mares jostle, a loudspeaker somewhere booming. They crossed into a lavishly-furnished sitting room, a glass double-door on the far side already open and a patio suspended beyond. Waving again, Cedar strolled out onto it.
"Hi mom," the stallion briskly said before flopping down onto a couch next to a curvaceous, well-endowed mare with a dark green coat and possibly-dyed hot pink mane. "And hi, Ivy," he purred, nuzzling up to her.
As they flirted, a hanging bench that swung from two cords turned towards Starlight and Maple. To the filly's surprise, Willow sat there, next to a slightly older mare in a poofy jacket that looked to be trimmed with pegasus feathers. The mare's lips turned upwards, and she extended a hoof. "You must be Starlight. I'm Juniper, and it's a pleasure. Now pay attention, he's about to get to the good part!"
"He?" Starlight's face scrunched as she slipped down from Maple's back. "There's only one?"
Willow got up, drawing a hoof around her and moving to the edge of the balcony, rain plummeting only a short distance beyond. "See for yourself. He's an explorer."
Below, in the center of the huddled crowd was a clearing, and in that a covered tent. Beneath it, a griffon stood, gesturing exaggeratedly. "By that point, I knew there was little reasoning with them," he proclaimed in a refined voice, "so I drew my sword faster than they could blink, and felled all six with a single blow!" He cleared his throat, adding, "Unglamorously, I made more from looting the mercenaries than from the treasure I fought them over, but that's neither here nor there. And that is how I was able to afford this ship!" He bowed humbly, the crowd roaring and stamping their hooves in applause.
"Hoooo-whee! Sounds like that was one pack of unlucky llamas," a familiar stallion with a top hat announced, standing beside him. "Yer' one impressive adventurer, Gerardo. Go on, give us another one. How about tellin' us how you got that fancy sword of yours, what do you say?"
"Gerardo Guillaume," the griffon corrected, brushing something off his red coat. "And are you quite sure you can't move my boat now? I would feel much better about entertaining if I knew you were making the same effort to aid me in return."
"Eh, we'll get to it." Hemlock turned to the crowd surrounding him, and bellowed, "Ladies and gentlemares... Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire! So, what would you like to hear about next?"
Gerardo sighed into his sound-enhancing device. "Very well. I suppose I can do one more..."
"Heh. 'Griffon adventurer extraordinaire,'" Juniper chuckled as he launched into a slightly unenthusiastic tale. "That's how he referred to himself when he first showed up, and the first time that old crone has said it the right way. I bet he's tickled pink inside!"
"He's been sounding more and more annoyed each time Hemlock asks for an encore," Willow informed Starlight, still watching the griffon below. "He might just fly off, if this continues."
"Or start telling stories that are bad on purpose," Ivy drawled, a bored expression on her face as she looked over the railing, ignoring the stallion who was lovingly rubbing his face against her. "Cedar, knock that off. There are fillies present."
He raised his head, smiling guiltily and without remorse. "What? You know you like it, babe..."
"Slap him for me and then shut up," Juniper tartly requested. "I wanna hear this story."
As Gerardo began describing what he had eaten for dinner two nights ago in fulfillment of Ivy's prediction, Starlight leaned closer to Willow and whispered, "Why isn't he quiet like you said?"
"You mean Cedar?" Willow leaned down, murmuring in her ear. "And the Sosans? It's because he's not a Sosan. He was born and grew up in Riverfall, and just wasn't old enough to leave by the time the boats stopped. There are quite a few like him, actually. Most of them figured out that being rare makes you special, so they banded together to live in this part of town, looking for thrills and getting whatever they want." She rolled her eyes, and added, "Most of the time, that means making the most of the fact that they live in a city full of mares. Don't expect Maple to take you here very often."
"Then I added another stick to my fire," Gerardo rambled below, "and another! By the fourth one, I knew I risked ruining the soup if I didn't take utmost care, so I took my sword and whittled it down precisely to the size I needed!" He glanced around dramatically, somehow managing to maintain a convincing stage character while telling a story about absolutely nothing. "Alas, by the time I finished that the fire had burned down considerably and I needed to stoke it again..."
With a thunderous boom, the rain tripled in strength, a sheet of falling water veritably flattening the audience. Many along the fringes instantly broke off and began fleeing, while others hugged buildings or backed nervously away. Starlight recoiled from the edge, hairs raising from the sheer force.
"Well, would you look at that," Gerardo cheerily announced, covertly kicking the tent stand next to him and causing it to collapse. "It seems we're out of time! A pity, that. But fear not, there will be time for more later..." His voice took on a businesslike tone. "After I move my boat. Might we get on that?"
"Arrrgh!" Hemlock flailed, his hat knocked off by the tent as it imploded overhead, immediately becoming drenched by the pouring rain. "Shucks! Uhhhh... Hey, y'all! Who wants to come see the first boat raising Riverfall has had in some seven years?"
"I know I do," Gerardo muttered, shrugging off the rain as if it were nothing. "A shame about your tent, by the way. They really don't make these things like they used to. Now, if you all would be so kind as to allow me to pass..."
Starlight watched as he pushed a path through the adoring, drenched crowd, the rain evidently too heavy for him to fly. "Huh," she commented, having little else to say.
Maple was already prodding her. "Well? Want to go see them lift the boat?"
"Do it," Willow whispered, nodding. "I've seen it many times, but it'll be less crowded."
Nodding her assent, Starlight prepared to walk back into the house... when she ran straight into Amber. "Hi, girls!" the yellow mare chirped. "Whoo, finally got dried off. What'd I miss?"
Starlight and Maple resumed their march through the city, following along with the crowds bold enough to brave the rain and continue after Gerardo and Hemlock. This time, Starlight rode on Amber's back, giving her enough height to wear a raincoat and not trip. All things considered, she found it a much more dignified arrangement than sharing a hood with Maple, and was content to sit and ride.
"It's not far from here to the docks," Maple explained as they walked, pace slowed due to the necessity of the thick crowds. "They line the north edge of town. Most of them are above the waterfall, which is probably why Gerardo wants his boat moved." She splashed through a deep puddle, her own coat shielding her from most of the effects. "He might even be moored in the middle of the river, now."
Abruptly, the air lightened around them. Starlight glanced around for the cause, eventually looking up and seeing it: the impermeable canopy that stretched high above all of Riverfall met a sudden boundary here, leaving the gray, overcast sky perfectly open to view. She didn't look long, however, a torrent of fat raindrops meeting her face.
"It looks like we're there!" Maple hummed, almost skipping out between two final towers. With just as much abruptness as the sky had changed, the houses fell away, leaving nothing but an ornate plaza stretching until it fell away. Starlight had no doubt it formed the southern bank of the river.
The crowd pushed its way east, eventually jostling to a stop. "Hey!" someone shouted, "No pushing! Don't knock anypony over the edge!" It had little effect, the ponies all pressing closer to get a view of what was happening ahead.
Amber grinned up at Starlight. "You're totally small enough to slip through them, if you wanted a better look. It's not like you can see much from here."
Starlight shook her head mutely. Her view wasn't very good, but when she stretched, she could still probably see better than most of the ponies here.
"Actually... hang on." Amber began moving toward Maple, and Starlight had to steady herself to hold on. "Maple? Think we could try... The Tower?"
Maple snorted in surprise. "Really!? We haven't tried that in years! How would we even...?"
"I don't weigh that much," Amber said with a shrug. "Neither does Starlight. And if you wanted to see, I could probably hold both of you and take a turn on the bottom."
Starlight watched with mixed caution and interest as the mares debated... and then Maple knelt down and Amber began trying to climb onto her back, the filly still attached to her own. Somehow, they both managed to stand straight up, Amber's hooves planted squarely on Maple's shoulders... and Starlight suddenly realized she was the tallest thing around, easily able to watch the distant proceedings.
"And that," Amber proclaimed, "is why being friends with ponies of all sizes is a good thing! Whoo, I don't think we've done this since the docks stopped! Good old times, huh? Starlight, what can you see?" Then, slightly guiltily, she added, "And Maple, how are you holding up?"
Maple smiled up at them. "I'll be fine. If Willow could do this, so can I!"
For her part, Starlight looked out over the assembled ponies, realizing just how useful a move like this could be. A short distance ahead, the ground seemed to drop away in a cliff, a thin iron railing preventing the packed mares from tumbling off... and below that, the plaza continued. To her left was Riverfall's namesake, about two stories high and somewhat unimpressive compared to what she had fallen from in the mountains, yet still a significant obstacle to naval travel.
"I can see his boat!" she announced, realizing the other two expected her to be narrating... mostly for Maple's benefit, but still. "I think? It doesn't look very big..."
"I recognize that," Amber said below her, apparently also able to see. "It's an S24. Crewable by one to four, designed for speed and fuel efficiency over cargo capacity or stability. You wouldn't want to take it to the open ocean, since a storm would sink it instantly. But it's good when you can stick near ports, and especially for this river. He must have known what he was doing when he got this."
"Manaships..." Maple shuddered in excitement. "Who's with it? Is Arambai there?"
"I... think he is, yes," Amber muttered, trying to shade her eyes without unbalancing the stack.
Starlight looked for herself, scanning the boat's slate-gray hull and deck for signs of life. Eventually, she realized the creatures of interest were lining the shore next to it, not aboard it.
The magically enhanced voice of Hemlock blared to life. "Hello? Is this thing on, yet?"
"Eeyep. Seems like it," Arambai's growly voice confirmed, also magically amplified.
"Beautiful! Now get outta here, hornhead, and stop stealing my show!" Hemlock waved a dripping forelimb at the yellow stallion, his tent canopy restored... albeit somewhat too late to preserve his dryness. "Go on! Shoo!"
Without a word, Arambai disappeared into the crowd, leaving Starlight blinking. "Woah," Amber remarked. "He pretty much just vanished. There's no way you can hide a stallion that big in a crowd!"
"Maybe he used some kind of spell?" Maple offered. "To... make yourself less interesting so no one notices you, or something?" She turned her eyes upward. "Starlight? Can magic do that?"
"I dunno." Starlight shrugged, more interested in the conflagration of ropes and pulleys she now realized existed in the background behind Gerardo's boat. "Is that the lifting machine?" she asked.
"Watch and see," Maple said, leaning forward with a grin.
Hemlock whistled, and below a team of ponies dove into the waterfall basin where Gerardo's boat was moored. Surfacing at its edges with bits of rope in their mouths, they began working and tying... and eventually, a giant net was wrapped around the bottom, the lines trailing off into the opposite bank. The boat bobbed there, ensnared and presently useless.
"My good stallion," Gerardo began, "This all looks very impressive, but are you quite sure-"
"Haw haw! Watch and learn, Gerardo the Great!" Hemlock posed aggressively... before stomping a hoof. "Fire it up, ladies!"
The mares on the far riverbank nodded, and together began spinning what appeared to be a giant crank. With a titanic groan, a crane arm of solid timber swung out over the river, positioning itself just above Gerardo's boat with enough height to clear the waterfall.
"Hah! How do you like that?" Hemlock pointed a limb in Gerardo's face. "This is Riverfall tech! And while it was very kind of you to give us some stories and that parade earlier, now it's time to see what we can do for you! Lemme tell you, son, you're gonna be wowed by this here lift."
He barked another command, and the team operating the machine changed their positions. Wood creaked and pulleys turned, and the ropes connecting the boat to the crane boom pulled themselves tight. Then, there was a pause, a rush of water... and the boat lifted, rising above the water until it was dangling in midair.
"Wow," Amber commented, watching the thing ascend as the sounds of creaks and snaps filled the air. "I'm honestly kind of surprised that thing still works after seven years. Maple, you should see this. Want to take a turn in the middle?"
"Sure," Maple offered, tensing as she prepared to lower Amber and Starlight to the ground.
Suddenly, a sharp crack filled the air, and a collective gasp rippled through the crowd.
"Hold your panic! That's just a little maintenance it needs," Hemlock's voice shouted, failing to stem the rising din.
"Back up! Back up!" Amber hissed, quickly being lifted again. The boat was still hanging from the crane, but one of the ropes holding it had snapped, and was dangling in the rain. A cold wind stirred, rushing down the river corridor and causing the entire boat to sway.
"My good stallion," Gerardo exclaimed, "this is precisely why I requested that we remove my cargo before moving the boat! Did you really expect me to trust a machine this primitive?"
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with it, now," Hemlock hastily reassured. "Had that happen all the time in the old days. And watch your words, son! A slight against Ironridge tech is a slight against Ironridge! Ladies! Keep it moving!"
CRACKKKKK!
A splintering sound emanated from the base of the crane, causing the boom to jostle. As it did so, several more ropes broke from the shock, causing the boat to tilt at a wild angle and begin to slide from its net. The action sent a shockwave crashing through the crowd, who began to panic and shout.
"Maple!" Amber hissed breathlessly. "Hemlock's crane is falling apart with the boat midair! This is huge!"
"Woah, that's not good!" Hemlock yelped from below. "Ladies, bring 'er down gently!"
"We can't!" a mare screamed from the opposite riverbank, fighting to be heard without magical enhancements. "The central gear's shattered! If we even touch the emergency release, it could cause the entire tower to explode!"
"Arrrgh!" Hemlock tore at his beard, hat long forgotten. "Arambai! Help! Where'd that hornhead get to at a time like this? Arambaaaaaii!"
Before anyone could respond, he was blasted aside by the unfurling of Gerardo's wings. The griffon rocketed out through the rain and over the water, clutching the edge of his boat and flapping heavily, providing as much lift as he could, attempting to stabilize it. "Do something!" he panted, straining. "Anyone! My cargo...!"
"On it!" Arambai charged out of nowhere, horn lighting with a murky aura. It surrounded the boat, pressing upward alongside Gerardo... but failed to be enough, the ship sliding a few more degrees as another rope snapped. "Bah! That's not gonna work!" he growled out at the crowd, looking back as his horn blazed. "Anyone else? Running out of ideas, here!"
"Maple?" Amber asked, a note of fear in her voice as the crowd's panic reached a fever pitch. "What should we-" Her voice was cut off by a burst of artificial wind as a poncho fluttered down over her head, empty.
A streak of purple knifed through the falling rain as the sky filled with snaps and cracks, the boat tilting further and further. The crowd flinched as a set of tiny lilac hooves stampeded by above, leaping from head to head with grim determination and not a single apology. At the head of a wake of agitated ponies was Starlight, flying toward the railing, mind as clear as glass.
Crystals can float in water.
Her horn flared to life like a sword being drawn, crackling with energy as its cyan aura reflected in her eyes. It hummed welcomingly in her ears, apologizing for all the times it had made her head hurt and informing her it was ready to do anything. She sure hoped it was.
Landing in front of the railing, Starlight pushed out a wall of telekinesis, shoving back the ponies around her to give herself some space. They didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that something bad was happening, something someone didn't deserve... and she was in a position to stop it. Aiming through a gap in the iron bars, she maximized her energy and fired.
Exactly as she did so, the crane's base exploded in a shower of tension, sending debris soaring like rockets across the river. Through some spring-loaded backlash, the crane boom was driven downward, smashing into the roof of Gerardo's boat like an axe and flinging the griffon away. The boom and the boat locked together in free-fall... which was precisely when Starlight's beam struck. F-F-F-Flaaaaashh!
Starlight grunted under the impact, the roar of crystal striking water nearly drowned out by the harsh magical buzzing in her ears. Beads of sweat began to mix with the raindrops on her brow, and she strained, even as she gathered air in her lungs to shout. "Hurry! Push it up on land!"
Panting, Starlight rolled onto her back, leaning against a railing as she focused all her concentration into maintaining the massive gemstone. This was guaranteed to hurt later and would probably put her out for several days, knowing her luck, but she didn't consider that important to think about right then. What mattered was the boat... and she could already feel hooves tapping against the side of her crystal, indicating that ponies were pushing it toward shore.
After a minute of pure exertion, she felt something huge and grainy scrape against her crystal... the riverbank. Silently hoping that no ponies would be crushed, she released the aura as gently as she could, allowing the crystal to fade out and give them some warning. Yells came from below... but no worse. Organizing shouts were heard, and Starlight allowed herself to collapse, horn hissing in the rain.
As she lay there, feeling catching up to her body, she began to be aware of the ponies around her... ponies who were staring at her with reverence and awe. "You just saved that guy's boat," one mare said, pointing a hoof.
"That was amazing," another breathed, holding a hoof to her mouth. "I haven't seen magic like that from even Arambai!"
"Who are you?" a third inquired, leaning in curiously.
"Hey, I recognize her!" a fourth exclaimed, dancing on her hooves. "She was at Sycamore's bathhouse with Amber!"
Starlight stared back at them in horror, comprehension dawning over what she had just done. Gerardo, to them, was some kind of myth... and she had possibly just saved his boat, or at least tried to in a very flashy way. The one thing she wanted was to never be treated like anything special... and now, she had given the entire town a public display of why they should do the opposite of that. It was her second day here. Her second day, and she'd managed to blow it. Already, tears began to sting her eyes.
The mares continued to press in around her. "We should take her down to see Gerardo!"
No. Not that. Anything but that. Starlight closed her eyes, burying her head in her hooves and wishing she had left the boat to its fate. It was probably wrecked anyway. She had to get away, as far away as she could. Anywhere but here. She had to... leave.
Unbidden, her horn lit itself, surrounding her in a harsh teal glow. A strange sensation tingled through all of her limbs, like she was being pulled and compacted from the inside... and suddenly, everything was quiet.
Starlight was still as her vision slowly adjusted to the darkness. Dim, pulsating lights seemed to swirl around her, illuminating a flat stone floor that definitely wasn't anywhere near the docks. A wave of dizziness from her horn washed over her, making her shudder and cringe. It wasn't nearly as bad as what had happened when she fell off the waterfall, at least. But what had happened, and where was she? It was as if... she had teleported...
Her eyes finally focused, revealing the sluggish lights to be traces of energy worming their way down manaconduits in the ceiling. She gasped softly, and every further detail she took in only served to confirm it: somehow, she was in Arambai's basement. She had felt a powerful urge to flee, and her horn had activated... that she had performed new magic was the only reasonable answer. Besides, it wasn't like she hadn't done it before. The mountains had forced her to come up with all sorts of new uses for her horn, like encasing herself in crystal and scanning hollow things with telekinesis. But why here?
...She was laying on the central dais of Arambai's teleportation machine.
With a sickening feeling, the reality of why she had fled crashed into her at full force. Those ponies back on the docks, they probably adored her by now. She had saved their hero! Hadn't she? What if she had failed? She hadn't seen the aftermath. What if she had crushed someone when the crystal dispelled? What if Gerardo's boat would have just floated naturally to the surface? No matter what, the entire town knew about her and thought she was special... but they could just as easily consider her a villain as a hero. Not knowing only made it worse.
A sudden spark of determination dulling her emotions, Starlight realized why her horn had elected to bring her here, of all places. Her chances of living in Riverfall were ruined, so why not visit the one exit door the town possessed? With a pang of regret, she remembered that her saddlebags were still at Maple's: she hadn't thought to pack them under the poncho when they left.
There was nothing she could do about that now, though. Who knew how long she had to figure out how to turn the teleporter on and escape? She could have anywhere from hours, if Arambai helped with the cleanup, to minutes if he could track her teleportation spell. Hoisting herself to her hooves with an iron frown, Starlight began inspecting the equipment, trailing water from her brief time in the rain.
The controls were surprisingly easy to find. It looked like Arambai had hacked together some sort of splitter, a dial labeled with strips of tape sticking out of a box many cables were connected to, with room for several more. Not stopping to marvel at the fact that Riverfall used a script she could read, she quickly turned the thing to Teleporter, silently thanking the stallion for making things easy.
Something came to life in the machine behind her, though it still looked relatively dormant, the twisting rails overhead silver and cold. Of course, it needed power. The helmet-like apparatus wired to the main towers of the machine was still sitting on Arambai's desk from the demonstration the day before, so Starlight took it in her hooves, thinking. What had he said about it? The closer to a pony's cutie mark, the better? But that had implied it didn't need to be perfectly there to work... which suited her perfectly, since she neither possessed a mark nor was big enough to wear it where intended.
She investigated the machine further, but couldn't find any sort of on-switch. Digging in her memories through the haze of her horn, she didn't actually recall Arambai doing anything to activate the flight magic the day before... merely putting the helmet on Maple and letting it work. Or had she worn it before? She couldn't remember, but maybe that would work all by itself. Steeling herself just in case and pushing back a final tide of doubts and reservations, Starlight stepped onto the central pedestal, holding the helmet high. She wouldn't get to say goodbye... did it matter? It didn't. She lowered the device, ceremoniously allowing it to make contact with the top of her head.
CRACK!
A bolt of lightning surged through the rails above her, blinding her in a bluish haze. An instant later, or maybe before, it lashed through the helmet and her body in a surge of white pain. Her scalp seared where it made contact with the blazing metal of the helmet, and a concussive blast of thunder sent her flying, smashing into a high shelf of objects. She tumbled, hit the ground, and blacked out.
Silence.
Hoofsteps.
A thin beam of bright light across Starlight's face.
And then: "Woah! What in the seventh district happened here?"
Starlight blinked, seeing spots, her body somehow refusing to move. "Unnnnngh..."
"Starlight!" Arambai's yellow face loomed over her, his black beard appearing bigger than usual from below. "We've been looking all over for you. Well... me and your folks, at least. Figured you wouldn't want too much of a fuss made over you. I was coming down here to see if I could find a device I made a while ago for telling you when unicorns were near. Your new mum's been worried sick." He narrowed his eyes, and added, "Less importantly, what happened to this here machine?"
"I-I'm sorry," Starlight choked. "You said it could go to Ironridge, and I was trying to escape..."
"Ahh, never mind." Arambai shook his head. "I'll go find someone to let Maple know you're here. As long as you aren't dying of anything magical. But even if you were, here's the best place to be."
Starlight hiccupped, laying miserably in a pool of water that had seeped from her fur. She still felt the urge to run and hide, more overwhelming than ever... but her legs wouldn't respond, and even if they would she knew it was all over. Other ponies knew. They wouldn't let her leave. They would force her to be special... to be everything she despised. A coal of helpless anger burned in her heart, but there was nothing she could do. A moment later, Arambai returned.
"Someone'll get her," he casually explained. "So, then. You tried to use my machine, did you...?" Poking at the panels and instruments attached to the case, he asked, "What did you hook this thing up to?"
"Myself," Starlight shivered. "I thought, maybe, since it was powered by ponies, I could..."
"Weird..." Arambai growled thoughtfully. "This is mind-boggling..."
"I... didn't break it, did I?" Starlight asked glumly, deciding she needed another reason to feel bad about herself. Her reflection in the puddle on the floor sniffled back up at her, and she imagined it agreed.
"You? Nahhh." Arambai shook his head and gave a mysterious grin. "Not unless you swallowed some ancient artifact when you were an infant or are an entirely new species I've never seen before. We don't really power this, you see. Ponies are more like... catalysts, for energy that already naturally exists. But this looks more like some sort of energy surge, or short circuit... And don't worry about my machine, either. It's built to handle way more power than that. That wasn't even a percent of what it could take!"
He picked up the helmet, hefting it and inspecting it with one narrowed eye. "This thing, however, is completely fried. But they're easy to make, and I've got dozens of extra. What I'm more interested in..." He tossed the helmet away and leaned down towards Starlight again. "Is you, little filly. That back there was some skill in magic it takes a full-grown unicorn who specializes in wizardry to match. If you do that on a regular basis, I can see why you'd get your horn so roughed up."
Tensing, Starlight tightened her voice, making herself sound as fierce as she could muster. "I don't want to be special. So tell everyone to leave me alone!"
"You don't, huh?" Arambai asked bemusedly. "That's a pity. You'd be good at it. In all my years, I've seen a kid with talents like yours maybe once, and they already had their brand. Imagine what a sight you'll be if you ever get yours!"
"No!" Starlight hissed. "I don't want a cutie mark! And I'm not getting one!"
"Hmmm..." The corners of Arambai's mouth fell. "You know, I'm doing you an awful lot of favors here, kid. Giving you a tour of the place, offering to make you my student, telling you I'd spread around some story from where you were from... and now, I'm about to overlook the fact that you broke into my house and damaged a very rare experiment. I care about this town, but that's an awful lot to do for just one pony, you know?" He looked questioningly at her, as if permitting her to suggest otherwise.
Starlight shivered, finding the strength in her legs to back away.
"Now, I like respecting ponies and their pasts, but if you could give me an honest answer about just one thing, it would make me feel a lot better about doing all this for free." He raised a thick eyebrow, inviting more objection. Still, Starlight was silent.
"All right," Arambai sighed. "You came from across the mountains, didn't you?"
Mutely, Starlight nodded.
"Go figure," Arambai muttered. "Eventful days, these. Anyway, your secret's safe with me. I won't tell a soul... and I'll see if I can whip something up to take the eyes off you, too."
Maple chose that moment to barge down the stairs. "Starlight!" she yelled, eyes wide with concern and excitement. "You're here!"
"Good afternoon, Maple," Arambai greeted with a lazy wave. "Your timing is excellent. I just finished having a chat with her, myself! Anyhow, I've got to clean up after a little mishap, so have yourselves whatever talk you need to!"
"Starlight?" Maple stepped closer, face suddenly questioning when she saw the filly's state. "Are... you all right?"
Starlight sniffed once. For a second, the only noise in the room was water dripping against the stone floor from Maple's coat.
"You didn't hurt your horn, did you?" Crossing the distance and leaning down, Maple wrapped the filly in a watery hug. "You were amazing out there. You saved that griffon's boat! I couldn't see it from the bottom, but they told me..." Slowly, the excitement drained from her face, replaced by comprehension. "Oh. That's why you were hiding."
"Yeah. Oh." Starlight's voice was bitter and cold. "I was amazing. Right in front of the whole entire town!" She sniffed, burying her face in Maple's coat... which didn't have the effect she had hoped, partially because they were both soaking wet and partially because she still had every intention of leaving as soon as she was able. Maybe she'd stow away on Gerardo's boat, or something.
"I'm sorry," Maple sniffed back. "I was just so proud of you. I guess..." She sighed deeply. "That explains why Amber was grandstanding and trying to be an attention hog after the thing was over. I guess she just had a better grasp of what you were feeling than me. And instead, I come running in here, all happy for you..." She wiped back a tear, though it might have been water from her mane. "Some parent I'm turning out to be, huh?"
Something tore at Starlight's insides. Could she really tell Maple she wanted to leave? What would it do to the mare? Would it matter, if she wasn't there to feel it? She knew all too well what it felt like to lose a friend one had come to cherish above all else. How come upholding her values, which were designed to avoid pain, would wind up hurting others? She hung her head; it just didn't make sense.
Once, there was a time when Starlight didn't solve all her problems by running away. That was also the time when she could count on other ponies to solve them for her, and be fair in doing so. Ponies like her parents, and Sunburst's. That was before they had failed, and shown her how useless they were at being fair and protecting her from accidents. Before she had learned to do everything herself, with what limited power she had... even if that power was only to run, and hope there might be some corner of the world where things were better.
But what did better look like? Was it really a freedom from hardship, or change? Or could it just be that there were ponies who were there to fix things when they went wrong... or at least tried? She desperately hoped that could be true... so she pressed closer to Maple and did her part.
"I don't want to run away again," Starlight truthfully cried, eyes squeezed shut. "Can you fix it? Can you make them leave me alone?"
"I don't know," Maple answered back. "But I'll try, Starlight. I'll try."
"Starlight?" Maple whispered out of the embrace. "Can I show you something?"
"What is it?" Starlight grunted, wrapped between Maple's still-wet forelegs on the stone floor of Arambai's basement.
"It's nothing special," Maple began softly. "Just a trick I learned when I was feeling down... that sometimes helped me feel better. Maybe it will work for you, too?"
"Mkay..."
"Well..." Maple stared off into the walls and rows of boxes and storage that made up most of Arambai's lab. "Whenever I was feeling like there was nothing that could go right with the world, I would get out of bed and take a walk. And while I was walking, I would look at everything I saw, and think to myself about who might be happy that it was there."
"Mhm."
"It didn't always work perfectly," Maple continued patiently. "Sometimes, I would get jealous, or angry that the world was unfair. Still, those emotions are better than despair. They can make you want to change things. And I know how you feel about that, but when things never change, they can also never get better..."
She shifted, scooting to a slightly dryer part of the puddle. "But other times, I didn't feel that. Instead, it made me glad for other ponies, imagining what they had and loved. And on those days... it didn't matter what I was glad for. I was happy, and then, that was enough."
The lights flickered overhead more harshly than usual as Arambai messed with a piece of equipment in the back, causing Starlight to wince and close her eyes.
"No matter what I felt while I was on those walks, imagining who loved what I saw, though, I always ended them the same way. Do you know how that was?" Maple leaned down and nuzzled Starlight, receiving no response.
"Hee... well... whenever I would get back... the last thing I looked at was a mirror."
Starlight grunted, still seeping water from her coat and mane. "I'm cold..."
"Well, we should fix that," Maple said, holding her close. "But after we do, will you go on one of those walks with me? I think it would help... and I'd love to share one with you."
"I can tell you what somepony would love right off the bat," Arambai interrupted, trotting out from between two stacks of boxes. "It's called a towel rack, and there's one right upstairs! Seriously, it's like you brought the entire river down here!"
"Sorry," Maple hastily apologized, cheeks reddening as much as her rain-chilled state would allow. "We can, uh, clean this up on our way out?" She stood up, hefting Starlight and facing the stairs.
"Don't worry about it," Arambai replied with the wave of a foreleg. "Just take care of yourselves, you two. I'll manage this mess by myself."
"Thank you!" Maple waved back as she climbed the stairs, Starlight on her back.
"Well, this isn't how I usually begin these," Maple admitted, rubbing herself vigorously with a white linen, "but being dry is nice, right? Isn't this a good thing?"
Starlight slumped beside her, not moving or toweling herself off.
"What's wrong?" Maple's head craned around to look her in the eyes. "Starlight, I really am trying my best. Won't you at least talk to me?"
"Sorry," Starlight mumbled at the floor. "I'm listening. You can keep talking."
Maple sighed, forcibly unfurrowing her brow and beginning to dry Starlight. "Starlight, I'm already saying practically everything I can think of to try to make conversation. I've given you my inspirational speeches, I've told you about how my life hasn't been perfect just like yours. I'm running out of things to say! And it's not like I can help you with just words when I don't even know you as well as I'd like. You told me about you, and where you came from, but that doesn't help as much as you'd think it does. To get to know you, I need to... well..." She sighed again and drooped. "I need to talk to you, and you need to talk to me. And I bet it goes the other way, too. How well do you know me? You know what I've done and what's happened to me, but that's not the same as who I am..."
"Sorry," Starlight repeated. She didn't have anything else to say.
"Look, if you need time..." Maple sucked in a breath. "I'll give you time. Okay? For right now, let's just finish getting you dried off, and then go on that walk. As long as you're trying. Please try?"
Before Starlight could answer, Arambai bustled up the stairs, the light of inspiration in his eyes. "I've got it!" he crowed as he passed. "I bet there's something in that griffon's cargo that caused the machine to go haywire through proximity! And those readings might have been closer to what I was trying to achieve, too! I've gotta track him down before any variables change!"
Starlight and Maple looked at each other, then at the still-swinging door Arambai had barged out of, his voice trailing off into the distance. It appeared to have stopped raining.
"Well? That's something a lot of ponies are probably happy about, isn't it?" Maple asked with a smile. "Good for us, too! Do you want to walk yourself, this time?"
"My horn hurts, okay?" Starlight looked sharply up at Maple. "My mind won't stop thinking about things or slow down and it's giving me a headache! It keeps coming up with stupid ideas for how I could make everyone here forget I ever did that or treat me the same anyway that would never work, and it won't stop telling me how screwed I am and how I need to run away even though that's impossible and I already decided I'm staying here! Okay!?"
"Oh..." Maple's lips pursed in shock. "I'm sorry! Would it help if I wasn't talking, then?"
"No. Keep talking," Starlight muttered, rubbing her forehead with a hoof. "It distracts me."
"Okay..." Gently, Maple lifted the filly back to her back and pushed her way out the door. It wasn't sunny, but the rain seemed to have stopped, save for a few fat drops still working their way down from the canopy. They splashed against the river of moisture making its way to a drain somewhere along the glass, gemstones twinkling like stars below. Maple breathed, relishing the scents.
"See that house ahead?" she asked, not batting an eye when Starlight didn't respond. "I bet somepony really loves that house. Or maybe some ponies. Don't you?"
Starlight was silent.
"I wonder... what if one day, when this house was newly built, a pony hurt themselves here, falling from the roof. A construction worker, maybe, adding the finishing touches. And because of that, other ponies began to think this house was bad luck, and no one wanted to live here. Wouldn't that be sad?"
She closed her eyes, walking by instinct as she narrated. "But then, one day a little filly about your age didn't know the house's history, and she moved in, taking shelter from the rains after having a fight with her mother. The house was so grateful to her for giving it a chance that it hid her when ponies came looking for her, and provided for her every need. Eventually, didn't need to hide anymore and reconciled with her family. The house had kept her safe while she needed it most."
Maple rounded the building, brushing it with her tail. "In time, she grew up and learned the story of the house, and why it had been empty when she needed it. It still was. But she remembered everything it had done for her and bought the house, and they lived happily ever after."
"Did she really?" Starlight asked from her back, eyes distant.
"Heehee. No." Maple skipped along, putting the house behind her before settling into a gentler gait. "That's just a story I made up to tell myself. Sometimes, you see a thing and you know instantly how it's loved. Other times, you have to guess, so why not have fun guessing? Besides, like you said. Imagining helps take your mind off whatever you don't want to be thinking about."
"Oh." Starlight blinked, staring around.
"I have so many stories like that..." Maple sighed wistfully. "Part of me needed to hear them."
"Only part?" Starlight leaned forward to ask. Maple brightened; the filly was getting engaged.
"Well," she giggled softly, "the other part of me needed them to be told. We told you about our attempt to see the world. It didn't make me depressed when we failed, but I never got over it like Willow or Amber, either. I still dream of places far away, you know. But that's okay." She leaned back and nuzzled Starlight. "As long as I have you here, I think I can rest, knowing that I'm doing something with my life. I'm glad you're here, Starlight." She blinked, and added, "But I do still like telling stories."
No response.
"You see the road?" Maple asked, tapping her hooves as she walked against the glittering surface. "We can't see the sky very much in Riverfall. You have to be at the docks to see it, and it needs to be a clear day. If it's night, though... well, I bet you saw the sky a lot in the mountains." Starlight hummed, so she continued. "Sometimes I like to imagine that the roads are the night sky. They're shiny... glowy... yet behind the stars, it's perfectly black. It's beautiful."
She cleared her throat, shaking off an errant drop of rain. "Anyway, I tell myself that before Arambai came here, he was a powerful mage... and he made a pact with a sky spirit, who knew what we were missing and wanted to give us the sky to have, always. So the spirit sent him here, and told him he could never leave until we had the sky... but if he succeeded, he'd be rewarded. Arambai then took a slice of the sky and sealed it in glass, and now we have this, for all of us to look at whenever we please."
"Huh." Starlight continued to ride without fidgeting, giving no indication that she was impressed... or bored. She had withdrawn back into her head, and wasn't coming out.
"I know, it's a silly story," Maple admitted, pressing on past the boundary of the glass. "But doesn't it help? To be able to escape somewhere else for a while, without having to actually leave?" She hung her head as she walked. "I know it helped me, at least. Let's see, though... ah!" She pointed a hoof across from her. "See there, on that patio? Someone's left a stuffed toy. It doesn't take a story to imagine how that could have been loved..."
Maple continued glancing around, looking for things. "There, that house has a wind chime by the door. The wind never blows here outside of the docks due to all the trees, so somepony must have put that there for a very special reason. And look at the cups in the window of that house! They look lovely, but the set is incomplete, so they must be in use. I bet somepony appreciates those..."
They wandered further through town, Maple's hooves squelching in the mud. "Look over there," she offered. "See that cart parked next to that house? It looks like it's been repaired, and skillfully, too. Somepony must have really loved that cart to take such good care of it..."
On her back, Starlight's eyes drooped. "I'm not tired," the filly pre-emptively explained. "Magic just makes you yawn. It's... nngh..."
"Taxing. I know." Maple softly shushed her, not using a hoof as hers were caked in mud. She continued to scan the area, eyes settling on a passing mare. "Oh!" In a low voice, she exclaimed, "See that mare? I think she's going to have a foal. I know just how much joy can come with that. When you're not... you know..."
Blinking, she shook herself from her rising stupor. "And look, she walked right past us! That's good, right?" She looked back at Starlight. "Looks like you aren't famous enough that every pony in town knows, yet!"
"Mmph." Starlight sagged. "She probably had better things to do than get smashed in a crowd and rained on for hours, like staying inside and minding her own business."
"Perhaps," Maple hesitantly agreed. "Now that I think about it, though, we haven't been stopped once, and you're in plain sight. Where are all the ponies from the docks?"
"Nngh." Starlight shrugged noncommittally. "I don't care."
"It's weird, though..." Maple glanced around, eyes darting back and forth as they entered a street lined with ponies standing around and chatting. Snippets of conversation flew around, the words 'griffon' and 'boat' registering several times in Maple's ears... though all she picked up were a few friendly waves. More than half of the ponies ignored them entirely. "It's like they don't even see you! What happened?"
"Relax," Maple said, rounding another turn. "We're almost home. Tonight, I was thinking of making biscuits with vegetables and mushroom gravy. I think you'll really enjoy it. In fact..."
More houses passed by as Maple talked about dinner, and eventually hers came into sight. Sighing tiredly, she announced, "Next time, I think you get to walk. Anyway, we're home!"
"Okay." Starlight slumped to the ground. "Just not right now..."
"Hold on," Maple murmured, pulling her back. "Aren't you forgetting the final step?"
Starlight's head was turned toward a shining mirror sitting on the porch. She stared back at herself, recently drenched and still half-wet, with shadows under her eyes and a few black singes along the edge of her mane from Arambai's machine. Her ponytail had come undone, and her purple eyes were dull.
"The other ponies might not be able to see you, or maybe act like they don't," Maple hummed, stepping up behind her and placing her chin on Starlight's head, "for better or for worse. But I do, and I love what I see. No matter what you do, whenever you look in a mirror, you can see yourself and think of me. Okay?" She waited a moment, sighed contentedly, and then stepped back, raising a hoof to push open the door.
It swung open of its own accord, and a beaked face blinked out. "Oh, hello!" Gerardo Guillaume announced cheerily. "It seems these directions were correct, after all!"
"You probably know who I am already," Gerardo Guillaume said, preventing an awkward silence from forming. "Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. In case you forgot, you lent me your aid earlier, and for that I am most grateful." He bowed graciously at Starlight.
"Uhhhhh..." Maple recoiled harshly, her expectations of a quiet, private evening suddenly dashed. "What are you doing in my house?"
"In order of importance?" He raised an eyebrow, staring at them with one avian eye. "First, to thank you; second, to apologize; and third, because one can never have too many friends." He coughed into a wing, and added, "Also, because I'll apparently be stuck here for a while and have nothing better to do."
"To apologize?" Maple asked, coldly pushing forward into the door while Starlight glowered at the griffon from behind. "For... breaking into my house?"
"To her, as a matter of fact," Gerardo said, pointing a wing at Starlight. "And in my defense, you did leave the door unlocked, and it was still raining when I arrived. Furthermore, this is a store..." He backed away from the door, allowing the ponies through. "Regardless... I have been made aware that putting yourself in the public eye in order to aid me was not something that was in your best interests to do?"
"What?" Starlight blinked groggily up at him, frowning.
"You saved my ship," Gerardo explained in simpler terms. "Or, more precisely, the priceless cargo inside it." He tilted his head. "Did you not?"
Starlight growled towards the ground. "Mmmph..."
Gerardo raised a concerned eyebrow at Maple. "Does she not like me, or is it always like this?"
Maple shrugged, leaning suspiciously against her store counter. "No offense, but you're not really making the best first impression on me either..." Inwardly, she bristled, hoping he would get the point.
"Erm. Yes. Ahem. I do apologize." Gerardo shuffled from talon to talon, apparently nervous. "I like to think diplomacy is my strong suit, but apparently I misjudged the situation. Might I have a redo?"
"Fine," Maple waved, moving to stand next to Starlight. "But just so you know, today I got up earlier than I would have liked, hiked back and forth across town while carrying a load, got rained on, ran around very frantically for four hours and just had a long, emotional and very one-sided chat with my newly-adopted daughter. I'm exhausted, and no matter how excited I usually might be to find an adventurer from distant lands standing in my house and wanting to talk to me, right now all I want is to make dinner, take a nap and reassure Starlight that her world is not about to implode."
"I... see." Gerardo blinked several times. "Perhaps it would be best for all parties involved if I came back at a later time, then?" He looked toward the window and blinked again. "How do you tell time here when you can't see the sun?"
"You do that," Maple grumbled. "I'm going to go put dinner on..." She and Starlight climbed the stairs, not waiting to see what the griffon decided to do.
"Stupid griffon... stupid griffon..." Maple stewed as she prepared a pot of broth, stiffly throwing in ingredients that would transform it into mushroom gravy.
"All I wanted," she sniffed angrily, stirring the pot with two hooves, "was to make dinner, sit down, and go to bed. But apparently, that is too much to ask for without some bozo invading my privacy when I was talking with Starlight and ruining the mood! Rrrgh!"
She slipped to the side, dumping a vat of rising dough on her counter and beginning to shape it into dollops on a sheet for baking. "He could have knocked..." She threw down a lump. "Or waited outside..." She splatted another, briefly folding her ears and pushing it back into shape. "Or apologized when I asked him to instead of talking about something completely different..." Dropping the mix, she threw herself onto her back, staring up at the ceiling and steaming. "But he didn't. And now I'm ticked, and can't cook right, and am talking out loud and sound like Amber!"
She panted for a moment, not quite hyperventilating but still laying on her back. Eventually, still irked, she professionally flipped onto her hooves and resumed spreading the biscuit dough, not speaking a word as she shaped them with considerably more finesse than earlier.
As she worked, leaning across to give the pot a quick sniff and additional stir, the back of her mind continued to spin. What had the griffon done? Come to say thank-you after Starlight worked her magic for him? Spoken in an unnecessarily theatrical manner that was probably a show for all the villagers?
A sudden hiss outside heralded the return of the rains, never content to stay gone for long. The cool air from the open window caused Maple's coat to raise, and she huddled slightly closer to the pot as she worked than she otherwise would have. She knew exactly what Gerardo had really done: caught her with her guard down. It wasn't something that would have been a problem years ago. A younger her would have been delighted to come home and find an explorer in her house. Now, she could only lower it for ponies she trusted... and as an offering to Starlight. He probably truly had no idea what he had walked into.
"Starlight?" she asked, turning around. "Do you think he was...?"
Starlight was nowhere to be seen. The benches at her table were vacant, the lights dim and the door to the bedroom ajar. Curiously, Maple stuffed the biscuit sheet into the oven to begin baking and walked toward the door on the tips of her hooves. It swung open soundlessly at her touch.
Light from the door illuminated half of a lilac body slumbering softly on the bed, Starlight's head fully in the shadows. Maple felt her poise soften at the sight, and she stepped further in, leaning her head onto the bed. The feel of Starlight's gentle breaths brushed against her cheek, and like that, all her tension was gone. It didn't matter. The thing that mattered was currently on that bed, and she was happy enough to be at peace.
With a smile on her face, Maple resumed her cooking, thoughtfully adding more to the pot. She had too little experience to know what Starlight would love, so she let her imagination take its place, projecting her mind out beyond the mountains.
Should she use spices commonly associated with Riverfall? It would always be good if the filly developed a taste for local cuisine. On the other hoof, maybe something more exotic would impress her. Face scrunching as she tried to sniff two vials of spice at once, she felt her eyes brighten at the combination and prepared to generously shake it in.
Thud.
Maple gasped, realizing that something yellow and fuzzy had plastered itself against her window. She squinted. "Amber?"
"Mapllle!" The yellow mare grinned through the glass, clinging on upside-down like a giant yellow squirrel before lithely wriggling around and squeezing herself through the aperture, leaving a trail of water across Maple's counter as she slithered to the floor.
"Amber, what...?" Maple squinted curiously, standing over the soaked mare laying on the floor.
"So, enjoy the gift?" Amber grinned cheekily up at her. "Stupidest thing I've ever done, but wow will it be worth it in the morning. And oooh, is that something coking I smell?"
"Gift? Wait a minute. You didn't..." Maple blinked worriedly, doubt creasing into her brow.
"I did!" Amber nodded twice, wearing an expression that suggested she was leaking a national secret and loving every second of it.
"Oh." Maple hung her head. "He might have surprised me, and I... told him to go away."
Amber bit her lip, still laying on the floor. "Huh. Hope you didn't make it too awkward, because me and him are kind of friends now and he's stuck in Riverfall until I can fix his boat."
A silence as perfectly awkward as Amber had implied settled between then. Eventually, Maple said, "Well, I am making dinner, and you're welcome to stay if you're hungry." She rolled her eyes and added, "Not that being unwelcome would ever stop you."
"Or that I'd ever be unwelcome?" Amber asked, flipping upright with a smirk. "We also tried to take some of the heat off Starlight, by the way."
"That was you?" Maple raised an eyebrow. "Everyone was ignoring us on the way back. It sounded like you were doing something when I was leaving, but... what did you do?"
Amber stuffed a hoof in her mouth, suddenly trying not to laugh. After composing herself for a moment, she snickered, "Basically, I got everyone's attention, then convinced old Hemlock right in front of the crowd that I had sabotaged his crane and made it explode. He blew his stack super hard! I think he was actually looking to blame someone for that already, but whatever. Most of the crowd probably just thought I was messing with him in return for wrecking Gerardo's boat, but they loved it and played along. Gerardo was in on it, too! I got him to tell everyone the crystal thing was a safety mechanism in his boat. Get some conflicting stories out there and then don't give anyone time to think about it, you know?"
She licked her shoulder, straightening an errant clump of fur, and continued. "So yeah, Starlight might still be a bit of a celebrity, but she's already old news. And Gerardo's stuck here for a bit, so as long as he hangs around her he'll keep her in his shadow. I'm also technically a fugitive now, which is why I came in through the window, but who cares? So, when's dinner?"
Relief washed over Maple's face. "Soon. But you actually did that for her?"
"Well, I can't say it didn't feel fun to do," Amber said, brushing some dirt off a foreleg. "Ever since that one day where he followed me around the downtown bazaar and..." She shook her head. "Ugh. You remember. Who does that, anyway? Point is, he had it coming."
"Why's it so loooooud...?" Starlight complained, hobbling out of the bedroom while rubbing her eyes with a hoof.
Maple pursed her lips in alarm. "Oh! Sorry, I forgot to shut the door for you! But, umm..." She smiled hesitantly. "The biscuits are in the oven and this gravy is coming along well, if you'd like a taste?"
"Kiddo," Amber said, leaning down with a smile, "me and Gerardo got the town off your back for you while you were out there. Just wanted you to know." She threw in a wink for good measure.
"...Huh?" Starlight blinked several times, mouth stretching in a massive yawn.
"Yep," Amber added, "we did. And by the way..." She glanced aside, then whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "The dude's actually kind of... y'know... nice. You did him a big favor, and he did one in return for you. So it would be cool if you at least said thank you, next time you see him, because I have a feeling that the last time, you didn't."
"That's why the other ponies left us alone," Maple added from the background, still stirring. "Something about you being old news. You won't have to worry about being special after all!"
Starlight blinked again, hope and mistrust mixing in her eyes. "You did? How?"
"Hogged the spotlight, stole the show." Amber waved nonchalantly. "Gave Hemlock the runaround he deserves. Still am, actually. I just told Maple all about it. She'll give you the story. I've gotta run."
"...You're not staying for dinner?" Maple asked, a slight look of annoyance on her face as she finished dumping more ingredients into the pot. "But I was making extra!"
"Oh, I am." Amber grinned, hopping up onto the windowsill with a salute. "Just after I'm back... with guests."
Maple sighed as Amber disappeared from the window, and turned to Starlight. "Well, I guess-"
Thump.
She raised both eyebrows as Amber climbed back inside. "You," the yellow mare began, seating herself on Maple's counter and folding her forelegs, "might wanna go check your porch."
Slightly nonplussed, Maple turned down the heat on the gravy and softly stepped down the stairs. She crossed the darkened interior of her store, eventually reaching out a hoof and swinging the door open. "Hmm?"
A very wet griffon stared back at her, standing a respectable distance away... but no further. Gerardo bowed. "I do wish to apologize for anything I may have said or done that was unbecoming. Is there any chance this is a better time? I am, as you can see, in a slightly uncomfortable position."
"Uhhhuhummm..." Maple laughed nervously. "No, that was my fault. You can come in. Sorry." She waved him in, at which he gratefully rushed past. "It's rude to enter others' homes without asking, though."
"I gathered as much," Gerardo said wryly, beelining for a stack of towels and rubbing his head and face against them. "And before you ask, fear not, I didn't smash any of your crockery in search of money. That's one stereotype even I won't be living up to any time soon."
"What?" Maple squinted, tilting her head.
"You friend Amber invited me here, for the record," he said before the conversation could continue in that direction. "I felt I should mention that sooner this time."
"She's upstairs. She told me." Maple kept her distance from the big griffon as she spoke. Regardless of her intentions of hospitality, she still felt a significant awkwardness around him. "Did you really do that for Starlight?"
"Your filly?" Gerardo blinked, shrugging off his sodden garment and hanging it next to the towel rack, the clattering of steel emanating as he did so. "If by that you mean giving that fraud at the river a piece of my mind, indeed I did. That isn't to imply that I'm not grateful she saved my ship, nor that I'm unfamiliar with the circumstances that can cause one to want to lie low, of course."
"So..." Maple began warily, keeping her curiosity in check. "Amber said your ship is broken, but you say it's saved. What happened there?"
Gerardo sagged slightly. "More precisely, what has been saved was the cargo aboard it. I am, or at least was, making a delivery, you see. As for the ship, its core components and hull appear to be intact, but the cabin was completely smashed when that crane fell on it. I'm afraid I will be stuck here until it can be returned to service."
"Okay." Maple hesitated, unsure of where to go next. The griffon was still dripping, but she could invite him upstairs... or go look for more towels. Thanks to Amber, the kitchen was already wet, so his sogginess probably wouldn't make a difference.
Suddenly, the door breezed open and a large mare in a long raincoat walked through. Willow tossed off her hood, preparing a cheery greeting... then stopping in her tracks, eyes widening at Gerardo. "You're here?" she managed, sounding nearly breathless.
"Willow?" Maple tilted her head. "What are you doing here?"
Willow composed herself with remarkable speed. "I heard from Amber that Starlight had had a hard day and wanted to come see if there was anything you needed, but..." She shook her head.
Gerardo blinked concernedly nevertheless at her. "I hope I haven't managed to offend again."
Forcing his concern back with her stare, Willow stood her ground... then swiftly glanced up at the stairway, catching a yellow head retreating around the top. "Amber?" she called, smiling like she had caught a naughty foal. "Is this your fault?"
"No promises," Amber replied, lazily backstroking down the stairs. "Sure would be a shame to let all three of us being here with an awesome adventurer go to waste, though, wouldn't it? Maple, I sure hope you made a ton!"
"If that's an invitation to stay, I do have nowhere else to be," Gerardo helpfully volunteered. He hesitated, and added, "Technically, Hemlock invited me to borrow his residence for the time in compensation. I told him to go jump in the river."
"C'mon, Maple..." Amber pleaded from behind the counter. "This is actually, literally a once-in-seven-years opportunity. Let's have a party and stuff! We can be the luckiest mares in Riverfall tonight!"
Maple sighed, smiled, and let go. "All right. Come on upstairs, everyone. I'll get extra started."
Three mares and a griffon sat around Maple's small upper-floor table, warmed by lighting, hot biscuits and general good cheer. Gerardo beamed broadly, firing off answers to questions as rapidly as they came, with Willow, Amber and Maple asking whatever came to mind between bites.
Maple sat back and sighed, feeling much better than earlier now that Starlight was sound asleep in the bedroom with the door shut tight and her friends were all present. She was still working off her surprise and annoyance toward the griffon, but for the moment felt much better. Swallowing, she asked, "So, you talked about llamas before the river? What were they like?"
"Ah!" Gerardo twirled a biscuit on one talon before devouring it whole. "The llamas live in a port city far to the north. I'd tell you its name, but the city is run by a council who gives it a new name each and every day. I suspect them to be insane, blind adherents to tradition, or both."
"I've never seen a llama," Amber belched, licking gravy from her plate. "How big are they?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Quite a bit of variance. Between ponies and griffons, I would say. Of course, if I'm the first griffon you've seen as well, that can't be a perfectly good reference."
"About that..." Maple licked her lips. "I thought you were red earlier, but you look sort of blue now. Does being wet change your coat?"
"This is my natural coloration," Gerardo responded, stretching a blue-gray wing for emphasis. "I imagine what you saw before, if from a distance, was my coat, which hopefully won't end up shrunken."
"Oh. Yeah... Sorry about that..." Amber bit her lip. "Probably should have been there too when you turned up, huh?" She munched the end of a green bean pulled from the gravy for emphasis.
"Think nothing of it." Gerardo calmly spooned himself more gravy, adjusting his talons carefully to use the utensils designed for gripping by pony mouths and hooves. "I'm sure this town has a tailor somewhere I could get something new at. Perhaps black would look good on me? I have been meaning to try a new look..."
"I have a question," Willow asked, putting down her drink. "Have you heard the legend of Blazing Rain? We were having an argument earlier over how much of it is true."
"Now there's a legend ponies are good at putting spins on." Gerardo sipped from his own, eyes increasing in intensity. "The pegasus who stopped a Yakyakistani civil war forty years ago. The closest anyone has come since times of legend to saving the world. There's no doubt she existed."
"Forty years?" Willow leaned forward with interest. "That's not outside living memory."
"Saving the world?" Amber practically vibrated. "That's the part that's true?"
"Yakyakistan is built predominantly on top of a large glacier," Gerardo narrated, setting down his food. "That glacier, according to legend, happens to be the resting place of a race of demons known as windigoes. Windigoes are said to feed on hatred and strife, so if a war transpired in Yakyakistan..." He drew a talon ominously across his throat.
Amber had stopped eating, watching him with wide eyes. Maple and Willow still politely chewed, making as little noise as possible.
"Whether or not the windigoes even exist beneath the glacier is indeed up for debate," Gerardo continued with significantly more levity, "but what is certain is that the war was snipped in its infancy and the windigoes did not come out."
"But what about the magic?" Amber asked, gauging the amount left in the pot. "She had special powers, right?"
Maple smacked her hoof away. "Save some of that for Starlight, please."
As Amber shook her sore hoof, looking more hurt than she really was, Gerardo answered, "That's difficult to verify, considering the only witnesses were members of her band and yaks. It is, in turn, impossible to tell who really accompanied her when it is such a tempting position to lay claim to, and the yaks are..." He stared upwards thoughtfully. "An interesting bunch, to say the least."
"So, have you ever been south of the mountains?" Maple asked casually, preparing a bowl and setting it aside for Starlight.
"The mountains?" Gerardo blinked. "Which ones, if I may?"
"To the south," Maple said, doing her best to keep her tone as innocent as it had been. "From here. The tall ones."
Gerardo shook his head ruefully. "I'm aware they aren't as infinite as some lore makes them out to be, but crossing them remains truly impossible. Travel east or west as far as you please, there is no way around them. The distance and altitude gain make them insurmountable to even the best-equipped airships. And if the height of technology cannot conquer them, what hope do lone adventurers have?"
"But they have tried, haven't they?" Maple consciously kept her ears straight. "And just failed?"
"They've been trying for thousands of years," Gerardo laughed. "The most successful barely scratched the foothills. One did discover the natural formation upon which Ironridge was founded, however. I imagine that worked out nicely for him!"
Amber, Maple and Willow shared a look among themselves, and instantly knew what the others were thinking. "...So!" Amber chirped, before the silence could get suspicious. "Could I get a rerun of how you battled those mercenaries to buy your boat?"
Several hours after dark, the party ended. Gerardo vanished to who knew where, Amber leaving through the window soon after. Maple's dinner had been completely devoured, save for a small bowl for Starlight staying warm on the stove.
Gray slits of light filtered in through the covered windows as Maple stood in the doorway, seeing Willow off with a wave. The silvery mare was the last to leave, poncho hugged tight against the gently pounding rain as she vanished into the night.
Maple waited for a few moments, letting the cool night air cleanse her emotions. As it drifted against her face, she felt the evening's excitement turn into a perfect sense of calm and lucidity. She still felt uneasy around Gerardo, though it was mostly on a superficial level and hadn't prevented her from enjoying his company. Starlight had apparently had a traumatic day, but she was fine now, out of the public eye and sleeping peacefully. Everything seemed to be going fine... which meant it was time to take Starlight her dinner, and then get some sleep herself.
The stairs creaked slightly under Maple's weight as she ascended. Upstairs, only a single light was on. She didn't bother to snuff it as she passed; it would be good to have if she came back out. Instead, she carefully balanced Starlight's bowl on her back and pushed open the door to the bedroom.
A teal light greeted her. Starlight was awake, horn glowing and hunched over sideways. She started when Maple appeared, gasping briefly and looking up.
Maple blinked. "Starlight? Are you okay?"
"I had a nightmare," Starlight muttered, face suddenly downcast. "It woke me up."
"What was it?" Maple asked, minding the bowl on her back as she stepped closer. "Er, if you want to tell me?"
Starlight hung her head. "I dreamt I really wanted my cutie mark."
"Here." Maple set the bowl down and leaned onto the bed, letting it support her as she offered Starlight a hug. "You can want whatever you want, and I'll still love you. Okay?"
"I was older," Starlight continued, not returning the embrace. "I was killing ponies to get it."
"Oh..." Maple felt her insides tighten. "Well, maybe try not to want that?"
"I don't," Starlight protested forcefully. "I'm never getting a cutie mark. Not if it could make me do that. I woke up, and I've been watching to make sure it doesn't come..."
"I don't think it will," Maple said in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. She was slightly unsettled that Starlight would have that sort of dream, but didn't want it to show. "I saved you dinner. It's very good; I made it with you in mind. Want some?"
"Okay. I'm hungry," Starlight said, worming her way to the edge of the bed. "And tired," she added with a yawn. "I want to sleep, but I'm scared if I do, I'll..."
Maple lifted the bowl up to her. "If you do, I'll be here for you when you wake up. I promise."
Starlight didn't bother with utensils, lapping directly at the bowl with her tongue. "This is good," she managed between bites.
"Thank you," Maple replied, leaning against the bed as soft teal light streamed off of Starlight's horn.
Eventually, the filly finished, leaving the bowl completely cleaned. "Nnngh... I feel better..." she yawned, pulling back.
"Better?" Maple took the bowl and set it aside. "Was anything else wrong, besides hunger?"
Starlight yawned again. "I felt fuzzy when I woke up, like I was made of paper or cotton. It's been going away for a while..."
Maple nosed her, climbing into the bed. "You're using your magic. Does that mean your horn feels better, too?"
"I am?" Starlight's eyes crossed upwards. "Oh. Huh. My horn does feel better. I don't know why. Usually it doesn't work for..." she yawned again. "Days..."
"I think somepony needs to get to sleep," Maple murmured, rolling onto her side and inviting Starlight closer. "Or some ponies. But don't worry. I'll be... here if anything happens..."
She closed her eyes, melting into the bed in the darkness of the bedroom. A minute later, she felt Starlight approach, crawling under a foreleg. A minute after that, she was asleep.
Starlight slowly felt herself come to. The room around her was dark, as it usually was. That was right. Maple was next to her, large and warm and softly breathing. That was also right.
As she checked over herself, though, she started to get suspicious. Her head was almost too clear, and she didn't feel any of the usual cramps or grogginess associated with waking up. Her limbs felt like she'd just finished her morning stretches, and she wasn't thirsty. She was always thirsty in the mornings. It was almost as if things were too perfect.
She had just been using magic, too. Her sleep had been so dreamless, it felt like seconds ago... and her horn definitely didn't hurt now. That wasn't right... or, at least, it wasn't normal. She certainly couldn't complain about any of the changes, even if they were seemingly out of nowhere. Still, something had to have caused them...
With a flash of panic, her eyes flew open and to her flank. Her horn lit dimly, but all that was there was blank lilac fur. She sighed heavily. At least that wasn't different.
As she sat there, though, she heard the muffled noise of Maple's voice coming from behind. When she turned, the earth pony's eyes were squeezed shut tighter than normal, her mouth upturned in a frown. She muttered several incomprehensible words.
Starlight bit her lip. Apparently somepony wasn't having nearly as nice of a morning as she was, unusual or not. For that matter, how early even was it? She could never tell, thanks to Maple's darkened windows. But that wasn't really important, right then.
Maple shifted and hugged herself. Poking carefully, Starlight squeezed in such that the mare was hugging her instead... and watched with satisfaction by the dimming light of her horn as her face shifted to a smile.
It was probably early. There was no reason not to go back to sleep. So Starlight did that, letting her light die out as Maple contentedly sleep-snuggled her. There would be time to properly wake later.
Outdoors, the morning light was dim and misty. The sun hadn't yet begun to rise, and within the cover of the forest, all was likely pitch-black. But on the banks of the Yule, next to the waterfall basin where the previous day's collapse had occurred, there was just enough light to see by, filtering in from the exposed eastern sky.
Gerardo Guillaume puttered about in that light, pacing next to the wreck of his boat. It had been left on the shore, the cabin top hammered in by a gigantic beam of wood still partially affixed to it. His cargo had been moved, and was now safe and dry. But he still marched, not feeling the least like sleep.
He spread his giant wings, effortlessly soaring to the top of the waterfall, and resumed pacing along the riverside plaza. The moon sat low in the southern sky, low enough that he could walk in the shadow of the trees and remain nothing more than a wraith in the pre-dawn sunlight. Not that he had any wraith-like business to attend to, of course. Still, it was important to be aware of one's terrain at all times.
Taking wing again, he glided down to the site of the destroyed crane, landing among the wreckage. Splintered gears, shafts and beams were everywhere, the only intact part seeming to be a control platform unattached to any formerly moving parts. He calmly ascended it, picking up and examining a fragment of a massive wooden cog that appeared to have split down a pre-existing fault line. Granted, that line appeared years or decades old.
The far side of the river was a relatively uninhabited place, which was almost surprising to the well-traveled griffon. In a town like this, waterfront space would likely be considered a luxury... or so his experience told him. But here, the jungle grew nearly unimpeded right up to the riverbank, save for a small carved clearing where the crane wreckage stood. Curious, Gerardo began examining the edges of the clearing. Was that really all that was back here? If so, why build the crane on the far side of the river when there was all that space on the town's side?
His hunch paid off. At the back of the clearing, furthest away from the river, he detected the remnants of a trail that hadn't seen use in quite a long time. Foliage pressed in from both sides, though the ground was hard-packed from decades of hoofsteps and proved a reliable guide.
The curious griffon didn't bother hacking vegetation aside with his sword, pushing naturally along the northbound path with his head lowered like a plow. As he proceeded, it quickly became apparent why that side of the river hadn't been settled: the terrain broke up as if it had been raked by a giant, alternating spikes and chasms of rock passing by that would have proved extremely annoying to navigate without either wings or that trail. Gerardo had both, and followed it with relative ease.
The trail seemed to hug the cliff wall that formed the waterfall to the south. Suddenly, it opened onto a flat, well-cleared plane adjacent to the cliff, which looked as if it had seen a lot more recent use and maintenance. The trail continued to the north, broader and better-kept... but the wall in the clearing also bore the entrance to a cave, and lights shown from within. Suspicious, Gerardo prowled closer.
A few paces in, the cave transitioned to a reinforced tunnel, manalights embedded in the ceiling and crates stacked against its broad walls. Gerardo narrowed his eyes, sniffed... and withdrew, taking to the sky to wing his way back. An industrial-looking cave in a town formerly sporting an industrial district was very likely commonplace, but the griffon had seen enough caves to know that caution was always the better route to take regarding them. Perhaps he'd ask someone about it in the morning.
Maple rolled awake with a soft grunt, realizing with pleasure that she had nothing important to do that day... and that Starlight was presently sleeping on her. The filly was snuggled up so far, she was using Maple's barrel as a pillow, mouth cracked open with a thin thread of drool hanging out. It was the kind of situation a mother would find adorable and anyone else would cringe at, and she felt a warm surge as she realized her reaction was the former. Unable to lift a hoof to wipe the drool away, Maple settled her head back into the bedding, perfectly content to let her day start as slowly as it wanted to.
They stayed that way for at least half an hour, during which Maple alternated between letting her mind lazily wander and planning and plotting for the day ahead. Starlight likely didn't need another bath, not after she had gotten rained on the day before. Then again, few ponies in Riverfall ever went to bathhouses to get clean. Doing that again wasn't off the table.
Weighing meals in her mind, she alternated between making lasagna and doing something with corn for dinner. She found she had a particular urge to eat corn right then, the thought of its scent making her mouth water alone... but there was the issue that she didn't have any corn, and would need to go out and get some. Fortunately, she was looking for things to do with her day, and a trip shopping was something Starlight hadn't done yet that might be very interesting.
She resolved to do that, laying there with Starlight's head resting upon her. All she needed to do first was get up... and that required the lazy filly to awaken herself. Maple exhaled, not at all minding that it might be a long morning.
As if on cue, Starlight sniffed, snuffled, snorted and awoke, blinking around before rubbing her face with a hoof. She turned, blinking again when she saw Maple staring at her. "Oh, you're up."
"I was going to say the same to you," Maple laughed. "Enjoying the morning? I sure am."
"Uh huh." Starlight licked her lips. "I'm hungry."
"Aww." Maple pouted slightly. "Well, I am too. Might as well get up and start the day?"
She rolled to her hooves, humming lightly as she furled the window covers and pushed open the door. Outside, dawn had long passed, sending light streaming into the house and eliminating the need for artificial illumination. Walking into the kitchen, Maple pulled out a saucepan, turning on her stove. "Oatmeal, Starlight?"
The filly nodded, depositing herself at the table and yawning away the last vestiges of sleep.
"I think," Maple began, readying water to cook the oatmeal, "that we should have some kind of morning tradition. Don't you?"
"Huh?" Starlight looked questioningly at her, one hoof on the table.
"Oh, I don't know. Something like asking each other how our night was, or always adding something special to our breakfast, or sitting by the window together. Shouldn't we?" She filled a glass as she spoke, ferrying it over to the filly.
Starlight took it, slurping noisily. It was suspended in her aura, Maple noticed. Apparently, feeling well enough to use magic extended to the morning.
"Yeah, I guess." Starlight finally set down the glass. "I slept okay. After you came in."
"It sure looks like it," Maple observed, watching as the water heated. "Weren't you only barely feeling well enough to use magic yesterday? And then you did all those spells, but now you look fine."
Starlight shrugged. "I dunno. I don't really remember yesterday. But I feel fine, and it would be dumb to want to feel bad."
"Well, don't overtax yourself," Maple reminded as she waited for the water to boil. "But I am glad you're feeling better. Hmmmm..."
She stared out the window as it simmered. Outside, the rare weather seemed to be drawing the entire town out of their houses. Due to the perpetual shade offered by Riverfall's tree canopy, it wasn't likely hot, but for many ponies it was still a welcome break from the chilly rains.
A few beams of sunlight that managed to make their way down landed on the colorful pennants designed to give the town direction, lighting them up like a festival. The dirt road was just becoming dry enough not to stick to the hooves of passing ponies, a welcome gift for the crowd of mares that wandered aimlessly, basking in the not-rain without purpose or care.
The hiss of boiling water interrupted her, and she turned back to her oven, pouring in the oats and stepping back. That would take a minute or two to cook. In the meantime...
"Starlight?" she asked with a measure of caution. "I was thinking of going shopping today, to get things for dinner. It's a nice day out, though, and there are a lot of ponies outside. Want to come with me?"
Starlight gave her a slightly strange look. "I'm not scared of other ponies. I just don't like it when they're treated differently for things they can't do anything about. I don't want to be a hypocrite. Otherwise I'd be just as bad as Sunburst's parents."
Maple sighed, giving the oatmeal a stir as it cooked. Inwardly, she was impressed that Starlight knew what hypocrite meant, but she had a suspicion mentioning it wouldn't do any good. "Starlight, you saved his cargo, and you very much did it on purpose. Isn't letting ponies thank you for that different from splitting up two friends just because you can?"
Starlight almost seemed to think about it... and then pouted. "No. It isn't."
"Okay..." Maple closed her eyes, then let out a breath, opening them and pouring the oatmeal into two bowls. She pulled out a banana to top them with and began slicing it, thinking. It was clear Starlight's response was based entirely on emotions and what connected in her mind to her hurts, rather than logic. Having once felt such a response herself, Maple was entirely able to sympathize... but it didn't stop her from seeing plainly how much happier the filly would be if she could move past this, and she wasn't sure how to help. The best she could offer was time and friendship.
...And a warm bowl of oatmeal. "Here you go!" she chirped, pushing the steaming breakfast in front of Starlight.
Maple watched as she dug in greedily. That seemed to have worked, at least for the moment. Pleasantly, she settled in across the table from Statlight, licking thoughtfully at her own bowl. With everything considered, it was still a perfectly fine morning, completely lacking in scared fillies, annoying drums and griffony drama. How long would that last? Until she reached the market, she wagered. Still, all the more reason to enjoy it while it was there.
No water dripped from above as Maple strolled leisurely through the streets of Riverfall, Starlight stalking warily at her side. They were, for the most part, ignored... but every now and then, a clearly curious mare would turn and stare at them as they passed, and Starlight deliberately avoided making eye contact. They could stare at her as much as they wanted, for all she cared, but she wouldn't give them the pleasure of knowing they got a response.
"I bet they'd be less interested if you walked normally and weren't acting like they were doing something wrong," Maple whispered, leaning down to meet Starlight's ear amid the hubbub of the streets. "You kind of are making yourself stick out right now."
Starlight folded her ears. Was she? To be fair, it wasn't like most of the mares had anything better to look at. Aside from the ponies in it, the street looked the same as any other in Riverfall: brown dirt floor, randomly placed house towers, and thick bases of tree trunks. The ponies were probably the only thing that really changed from day to day, if that. How many of them knew each other already? Were they neighbors, or just passing through? Maybe being new was all it took to make her stand out.
One of the nice features of the town was that there were no sudden bends, making it nearly impossible to accidentally walk into anyone. A cherry-coated mare with a foal on her back strolled around a house ahead, neatly hugging the wall yet still so visible they had ample time to get out of the way. Starlight walked by her, eyes lingering for some reason on the infant the mare carried.
She surveyed the crowd again, suddenly taking interest in the ages of the ponies present. Adults were everywhere, young and old, and she saw several in their later teens. There were also a surprising number of foals young enough to be carried... yet very few who looked to be near her age, and none who were slightly younger. "Maple?" She prodded the mare. "Why are their ages so split?"
"Because between when the boats stopped and the colts who were stuck here grew up, there were very few stallions old enough to have children in Riverfall, and almost all of them were married," Maple hummed, not taking her eyes off the path. "Now, there's enough of them that foals are everywhere again. More foals have actually been born in the last three or four years than... well, in a long time. And it's probably not going to change any time soon..."
"Really?" Starlight tilted her head, noting that Maple's pace had reflexively quickened and adjusting hers to match. "There are that many stallions?"
Maple deadpanned, "It doesn't take that many stallions to..." She cut off, eyes focusing. "You know what? You can learn about this at home. Or from Willow. Or not at all."
Starlight squinted at her. "Okayyyy..."
"Sometimes, I wish you were a few years older," Maple sighed. "I'm curious how this works in... well... never mind."
Respectfully, Starlight didn't press. Instead, she took another quick scan of the crowd, realizing with a spike of resentment that a decent number of them were still watching her. Hardly all, or even a majority... but enough to be unusual. "They're still looking at me," she complained.
"That's not really a crime," Maple pointed out. "I mean, aren't you looking at them? Besides, you just said how rare ponies your age are here, and don't forget that you are a unicorn. Maybe they're interested in you because of that, and not because of what you did at the docks. And if anything, that's closer to what you were talking about earlier, with circumstances you have no control over."
"Yeah. Maybe," Starlight said, trying her best to appear normal and boring. "I just don't like it, okay? I just want to be a normal pony who never makes anyone do anything they don't want to or makes them better or worse than anyone else and have them do the same to me! Why is that so hard?"
Maple bit her lip, then sighed. "When you put it that way, it sounds impossible. You think influencing someone's decisions is bad?" She stopped walking, rounding on the filly. "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have made those biscuits last night, and everyone enjoyed them. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have joined Amber at the bathhouse the other day, and we had a ton of fun there! Speaking of Amber, it sounds like she finally got her revenge on Hemlock because of you. And Starlight... these are all good things that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made them." She hung her head. "I know if you hadn't come into my life, I would still be living day by day, not letting myself hope things would get better. You made that change just by existing here."
Starlight shrank, not knowing what to say.
"I know what happened to you was horrible," Maple said, "and I'm not saying it wasn't. But I think you're too busy blaming things that can be both good and bad, like unexpected change..." She leaned down and hugged the filly. "Rather than appreciating the good things that do happen. Like meeting me. That's good, right?" She held the hug for a minute longer, before nervously breaking. "Oh! Sorry. If ponies weren't staring before, they definitely are now..."
"Never mind," Starlight muttered, resuming her pace. "I'll think about it. Let's keep going."
"So if there are more and more ponies," Starlight suddenly asked in the middle of a busy plaza, "wouldn't you run out of houses? Where do they stay when they move out?"
"Well, nopony knows for sure," Maple answered, weaving her way between a pack of chatting mares and a broken couch someone had seen fit to leave on the roadway. "It's actually slightly worrying. They've converted a bunch of old industrial buildings used for storage when the docks were active into houses. Those are the tall ones in the north side of town, like where Arambai lives, and where we watched from when we went to see Gerardo. But they won't be enough. Once this new wave grows up..." She brightened. "Well, they're thinking of expanding town to the southwest, and building more."
"Huh." Starlight sidestepped a mudhole that apparently hadn't had enough time yet to dry. "Wouldn't that take a ton of work? Who would make it?"
Maple smirked. "Does this town look like it has anything better to do? There are plenty of volunteers. Most of the stallions help out, too. Which is good, because it's their fault we need it..." She sighed. "Before, we never needed to worry about growing or shrinking. When it got hard to find space, ponies would be more inclined to leave. When it got easier, they'd stay. But now, there's no way out..."
"What do they look like?" Starlight asked.
"I don't know." Maple shook her head. "They only started a year or so ago. And I've... well... that's where Amber found my former husband. I haven't wanted to go there since then."
"Oh." Starlight shrugged, and didn't press. Together, the pair walked onward, the streets becoming still busier as they drew nearer to the heart of town.
It was readily apparent when Maple and Starlight reached Riverfall's market. The glass flooring resumed, but the crowd was so thick it was barely visible. They walked under a wooden archway, taking great care to stick together as the tide of ponies ebbed and flowed, and into an open pavilion with a great many booths lining the fronts of houses. A forest of stakes poked high up from the ground, undoubtedly supports to use for setting up cover when the weather wasn't dry.
Starlight hopped up on Maple's back for no other reason than to avoid being trampled, and looked around alertly. It was too busy for any individual ponies to pay attention to her, but she couldn't relax amid the noise the rainbow sea of mares was making. Shouts rang out, everything from haggling to friendly conversation as they pressed forward, accidentally knocking against more than one pony in the chaos. Maple offered an apology each time she did so, but was likely never heard.
She studied the banners above the merchandise booths with interest. Unable to ask questions amid the din, she tried to deduce them herself, and quickly noticed a pattern. There seemed to be a deliberate divide between locations providing raw goods, such as food or building material, and ones offering services and artistic things.
Maple approached one of the goods stalls, evidently selling produce. A spring-green mare with a bright yellow mane who looked to be in her late teens sat behind the store window, and instantly perked up when they stopped in front of her. "Hi!" she chirped. "What can I get for you?"
"We're just here for corn," Maple answered with a smile. "I think... ten ears should do it?"
"Woah!" The corn mare smirked happily back at her. "Planning a feast, huh? Well, here you go!"
She bundled together the requested ears of corn, tied them off with a string, and hoofed them over the counter to Maple. "Have a super day, and come back if you need more, okay?"
Turning away with a wave and a shout of thanks, Maple took her bundle and dove back into the crowd, swimming through mares until eventually stumbling into an alcove free enough to hear herself speak. "Well, Starlight?" she asked. "We've got what we came for, but we did just get here. Want to do anything else before we leave? See what some other stores have to offer, maybe?"
"I dunno," Starlight answered with a note of tension. Her own feelings on how ponies treated each other aside, that many bodies in that little space was enough to put anyone on edge.
Maple tapped the ground, evidently thinking. "We could go get ice cream," she offered. "I bet the line is long today, but it's worth it. They usually have fifteen different flavors!"
As long as Starlight stayed above the crowds, she didn't mind relenting. Ice cream did sound good, after all. "Okay," she said with a shrug. "Sure. Ice cream."
"Hee!" Maple giggled, not-quite-bouncing back into the crowd.
Starlight slumped against her warm back as she progressed, idly noting that Maple seemed very good at making herself a path without getting shoved around too much in turn. They did get jostled, but she never really felt it. It was almost like her ride had armor. Even though it was probably all skill, Starlight briefly let her mind wander, imagining Maple as a big tan tank bulldozing her way through a mosh pit. It felt nice, imagining her to be strong and useful. She wasn't quite sure why, since it probably amounted to treating her better than the other ponies in the crowd, but no one would mind her fancy if they couldn't see it.
Or could they? Starlight suddenly became aware of a mare several pony-lengths away who was somehow managing to keep eye contact through the crowd, lips pursed in recognition. Starlight didn't recognize her... but apparently that didn't go both ways.
"Hey! Hey, everyone! Look!" the mare screamed, hopping up and down excitedly. "It's that filly! The one with the really impressive magic that makes her better than everyone else!"
The crowd froze, somehow all turning to Starlight. "The one from Equestria?" another piped up.
"Yes, her!" Someone lunged at Starlight, trying to knock her off Maple's back. "She's amazing! We should give her a scholarship and send her off to Ironridge!"
Starlight's lips split in a snarl, her horn lighting... when someone tapped her on the shoulder. "Starlight?" Maple's voice asked. "What flavor do you want?"
She sat bolt upright and shook her head, blinking. The crowd was minding its own business, a sea of colorful ponies milling around as aimlessly as ever. She was still on Maple's back. The only ponies looking at her were her ride and the attendant at their present stall, who seemed to be waiting on her for an order. "Uhhhh..." she mumbled, disconcerted.
"I'm having mango," Maple offered. "It's really good. They make it right here, fresh."
"Okay," Starlight said hollowly, still clearing her head. "I'll have that too."
"Starlight?" Maple asked as the mare at the counter filled their order. "Are you okay?"
"Just a daydream," Starlight grumbled unhappily, shifting around and settling back into a comfortable position. "Mmmph. I'm all right."
"Here you go!" the shopkeeper chirped, holding out two chilly, yellow treats. They were frozen around short loops of string in such a way that a pony could suspend them from one hoof, eating without needing to stop walking. "Next!"
Starlight didn't have that issue, taking both in her telekinesis and holding Maple's up for her. "Thanks," Maple hummed appreciatively, taking a few experimental licks before shivering with pleasure. "Just as good as they always are! Starlight, you should try yours!"
As they walked in search of a less-crowded part of town, Starlight did so. She had to agree with Maple: the mango was good. Almost overwhelmingly sweet and fruity, but only almost... and that made all the difference. Hers was nearly gone by the time the crowd broke, Maple stepping into a narrow alley that no ponies seemed to be using, finally able to talk and be heard without raising her voice. "Well? Is there anything else you want to do?" she asked. "We can go to a less busy part of town..."
Sliding down from her back, Starlight steadied herself as her hooves made contact with the glass roadway. "I dunno," she said with a shrug. "Ummm..." She looked around. "What is there to do?"
"Well, we could go visit Willow," Maple suggested. "We could try to track down Amber, but that might be hard. We could also go look for Gerardo, if you'd like to meet him. We probably shouldn't visit the bathhouse, though, because I bet they'll be busy..." She closed her eyes and inhaled, evidently thinking. "I could show you the riverbank where we found you. We could also visit Arambai. He might know something about why your magic is feeling better, but we've been there an awful lot lately..."
"Visiting Willow sounds nice," Starlight offered. She didn't mention that she felt a slight twinge after carrying the ice cream in her telekinesis for several minutes: as restful as the previous night had been, there were no supernatural horn fatigue cures involved.
"We'll do that, then." Mind made up, Maple oriented herself and set off towards her friend's house, Starlight scurrying along behind.
It didn't take long to reach Willow's house from the Riverfall market. Both were fairly close together, slightly north of the center of town. A useful location, Starlight decided, if you had five whole mouths to feed in addition to ravenous friends.
They arrived slightly before noon, at a time when the morning crowd of street-happy mares was on its way out and the afternoon just coming in. Ponies walked with purposeful gaits, some heading south to the market, others walking in all directions, laden with bulging saddlebags and contented smiles. With a start, Starlight suddenly realized that not only was she wearing none... neither was Maple.
"Maple?" she asked worriedly, Willow's house in view at the end of the road. "What happened to the corn? Did you forget it when we were getting ice cream?"
Maple continued her carefree stroll, hooves and mouth empty and nothing on her back. "Nope."
Starlight's face scrunched. "Then did you ask somepony to take it back for you?"
"No, it's right here." The dusty mare produced a pristine, green-wrapped ear of corn from somewhere, then just as easily put it back, no trace of it remaining. Starlight's eyes bulged.
"Where... where..." she stammered, pointing. "How did you do that?"
"My cutie mark," Maple said plainly. "It's like a big pocket for holding things. It's very useful. I haven't been using it much around you because I know how you feel about them, though."
Starlight squinted. "They can do that? Really?"
"Mine can." Maple shrugged and kept walking. "Other ponies' do different things. Didn't we tell you earlier? They give you magic to help follow your dreams. I wanted to be an adventurer, and got it while packing boxes and saddlebags. Now, I don't even need to!"
"Huh..." Starlight stared at the ground, thoughts abruptly set on a completely different track than the way other ponies treated her. After all, everything really did come down to cutie marks. Were they really not just status symbols and prophecies by which one had to live their life, but also actually powerful? She couldn't remember seeing any ponies in Equestria doing tricks with theirs... though she had made a point of not looking. This was something she'd need to ask about later.
Suddenly, another thought struck her like a sledgehammer: Maple had said she wanted to be an adventurer, and that was how she got her mark. Yet, ten years after the fact, she clearly wasn't, never had been, and had just received the best reason of her life to not get up and go become one. Societal mandate, divine providence and bad luck had all stayed perfectly out of her way and allowed her to go on living her normal life. Aside from a minor magical convenience that was probably less useful than a horn, she didn't have a single thing wrong with her life and out of control as a direct result of her mark.
Pondering the implications of that would have to wait, however, because they had arrived.
"Hello?" Maple asked, rapping politely on the door. A moment later, it swung open.
"Oh, hello again!" Alder's striped face beamed up at them, causing Starlight to briefly shudder. "Mooooom!" he crowed, charging off to the house. "It's auntie Maple and the river filly!"
It didn't take long for Willow to appear in the doorway. "Hello, you two," she greeted with an ever-so-slightly tired expression. "Out enjoying the weather? I wish I was." She sighed. "Apparently, Yew missed me more than usual while I was at the party last night. It took nearly until dawn to calm her down, and until now for me to... nngh... wake up..." Smiling through her yawn, she stepped aside, waving the pair in. "But don't let that make me a bad host. Just so long as you're not expecting anything... fancy for lunch..." She yawned again, strolling back into the house and seating herself.
"Wow, that sounds fun," Maple said wryly, following her into the kitchen. "She's asleep now?"
"Thankfully," Willow groaned, curling up on a bench cushion near her table, head propped just high enough to see over. "And before you say anything, you're not imposing and this isn't a bad time."
"Whatever you say," Maple giggled, rolling her eyes. "In that case, want me to make lunch?"
"Oh, yes, please..." Willow closed her eyes halfway and stretched out. "That would be helpful..."
Starlight stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, Alder having vanished upstairs and for some reason not returned. Maple set to work cooking, and she was just about to join her and watch when she realized Willow was beckoning her from the bench. She trotted over, ears perked.
"Hey, Starlight," Willow greeted with a subdued voice, reaching out to nuzzle her between the ears. "Sorry I said I'd come visit so we could talk, and then spent each trip doing other things. Is there anything you'd like to talk about now?"
"I dunno," Starlight answered. In truth, she didn't remember why she had asked the mare to continue talking with her earlier, though it probably had to do with Sunburst. Still, she felt compelled to think of some question to ask. "Maple just told me what her cutie mark does."
"Oh?" Willow's ears twitched. "And what did you think?"
"I dunno," Starlight repeated, hanging her head. "Curious, I guess. I'm still not getting one."
"Then you took it better than I did when she first got it," Willow said, smiling gently.
Starlight tilted her head. "What do you mean by that?"
"Didn't we tell you several nights ago?" Willow closed her eyes, settling into the cushion. "She got it after I knew we wouldn't be going to Ironridge, but before I had told either of them. I remember how excited she was, and I'm sure she remembers too. It made it so hard to tell them, knowing that it was my fault the plans were off. Maybe I shouldn't have dragged it out as long as I did..."
"I told you," Maple said, overhearing and wandering over, "not to second-guess yourself. We're happy now, aren't we?" She offered a hopeful smile. "And if we went, we'd never have met Starlight."
"I know," Willow hummed, blinking tiredly. "I was only answering Starlight's question."
Maple was about to remark something else when a loud thud sounded from the upper floors, prompting all three to look up in concern. "What was that?" Maple asked.
Willow's ears folded, and her teeth briefly showed. "It better not have woken Yew..."
"I'll go see what it is," Maple offered, moving toward the staircase with curiosity. Starlight trotted swiftly behind her, while Willow stared regretfully at her cushion, looking as if she was having a fierce internal debate on whether or not to get up.
They quickly reached the second story. There, a clear path through Faron's maze of bookshelves led to a nearby window... that was presently ajar, Amber standing in front of it and dusting herself off. "Oh, hey, girls!" she piped upon spotting Maple and Starlight. "Funny running into you here!"
"Amber..." Maple put a hoof to her forehead, then pointed at the window. "Are you always going to enter that way from now on?"
The yellow mare shrugged. "I'm actually really enjoying this whole fugitive thing. It's gotta be the most exciting thing that's happened here in seven years. So yeah, I probably am."
"It certainly is enjoyable," Gerardo's beaked head announced, popping into view outside the window. "Almost interesting enough to make me forget how I'm stuck here. And I certainly don't mind lending my aid when the target of her antics happens to be the one equine in this town I count among my enemies." He proceeded to attempt to stuff his massive, feathery body through the open window.
Maple groaned and shook her head, but could do nothing more than invite them in with a smile.
"Well?" Gerardo began, giving Amber a glance as he straightened a few feathers that had gotten bent climbing through the window. "I take it you have an agenda for our visit? Or is this merely a social call?" Contented, he ruffled his wings and stood at attention.
"It's for breakfast, of course!" Amber replied. "Well, technically lunch, but you know. Hey Maple, got anything cooking?"
Maple raised an eyebrow. "As a matter of fact, I do. But why would you come here for my food when I live all the way on the other side of town?"
Amber shrugged. "Happy coincidence?"
As the two grown mares began teasing each other, Starlight realized uncomfortably that Gerardo was staring at her. She folded her ears and met his gaze. "Um, hi?"
"Ah. Starlight." He stepped forward, extending a talon once he was in reach. "I believe I haven't had the chance to thank you properly yet for saving my fortune during yesterday's fiasco, especially as it was at great apparent risk to your reputation." He bowed deeply. "Please accept my sincerest thanks."
"Someone said you made everyone else leave me alone?" Starlight asked, seeking confirmation.
"Well, we certainly gave them something else to think about," Gerardo said, brushing off a foreleg. "Though most of the thanks goes to your friend miss Amber over there. She was the one who traded her reputation for yours." He laughed, and added, "Though if my reading of this town is correct, she'll be more of folk hero than villain by the time this blows over. She likely has been all along. It's readily apparent that she enjoys it, after all."
Starlight had nothing to say to that. After a moment of silence, Gerardo seated himself next to her and asked, "If you don't mind me asking, what prompts you to lie low in a town like this? It seems to me the entire population either has pasts of their own, or are used to not caring about others'."
"I kind of do mind, actually," Starlight mumbled at the ground.
"Perfectly fair enough." Gerardo sat back and stretched, looking ahead. "Queen knows there are many things I'd rather not answer about myself. Of course, for every one of them there are ten I love to talk about. Funny how that adds up, isn't it?" He gave her a wink.
Neither had to say anything for Starlight to get the impression that he very much wanted her to ask about whatever it was he didn't want to talk about. So she asked... something else. "What queen?"
Gerardo's headcrest drooped; apparently she had read him right. "Of the Griffon Empire," he explained disappointedly. "The home of any griffon worth their griffon-ness. Myself included, of course."
"Huh." Starlight pursed her lips. She had expected something a lot more elaborate.
At that moment, they were interrupted when Willow hauled herself up the stairs. "What's going on up..." She blinked. "How did all of you get up here?"
"Oh, hey, grandma!" Amber chirped, waving happily. "We came in through the window."
"The second-story window," Maple added with a roll of her eyes. "Again."
"Grandma?" Gerardo asked questioningly, tilting his head. "You don't look that old..."
Willow sighed noisily. "I'm not her grandma, it's a very long story, and that still makes me sound old." She climbed off the stairs, slightly unsteady on her hooves. "Nevertheless, welcome to my home."
"The pleasure is mine," Gerardo relied, bowing neatly. "You seem to be quite the tight circle of friends, and while starstruck fans have their merits, they don't make for nearly as pleasant company."
Maple tapped a hoof. "If you're going to stand around talking, maybe I should go finish lunch? Because there's nobody working on it and otherwise it'll never get done."
"As noble a task as any." Gerardo stepped cleanly out of her way. "Please, by all means."
As Maple vanished down the spiral staircase, Willow stepped closer, and attempted to keep conversation going with a fatigued expression on her face. "What did you do this morning?"
Gerardo beamed proudly. "I spent an inordinate amount of time being fitted for and waiting for the completion of this new suit. Granted, time is presently the one thing I possess in excess..." He craned his neck downwards, lifting the black fabric of his outfit with a single talon. "What do you think?"
Willow eyed him blearily, blinking several times. "Sorry, I think I'm... not really awake enough to judge, but... nngh... if it's made by Cypress, I'm sure it's very quality..." She yawned heavily.
Starlight eyed him properly as he showed off. The garment looked vaguely similar to a tuxedo or business suit, with a pronounced collar and shoulders, and a professional-looking breast pocket. However, it was made from a material that looked significantly more durable, and had some of the trappings of a military uniform. Notably, a long sash ran down the side, equipped with a large sheathed sword and plenty of room for more weapons. She had no doubt he knew how to use them.
"Is that a sword?" she finally asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
"And what a sword it is," Gerardo chuckled, withdrawing it with a nod. Glancing down the flat of the blade, he waved it several times. "What's a wandering hero without his magic sword, after all?"
"Excuse me," Alder's curious voice came from a nearby stairwell, "but did you say magic?"
"He totally did!" Fir's voice interrupted. There was a yelp, and the two children suddenly tumbled into view, one having apparently tripped over the other. They waved sheepishly.
"Magic I did," Gerardo answered, not in the least bit fazed by the new audience. "To make things better, it even looks the part. Very detailed, black blade, a fancy hollow hilt..." He poked a talon through the triangular hole bored through the sword right where the blade was attached and waggled it for emphasis. "It's as if it was designed to be a hero's sword. In fact, I'm fairly sure it was."
Starlight watched, transfixed, as light glinted off the sword's dark, smoky surface. It was likely because she had never seen a weapon bigger than a vegetable knife before, but something about the blade called to her, urging her to touch it. Feeling equal parts fear, yearning and awe, she almost took a step forward to reach for it... but mentally slapped herself and sat back down. Becoming fascinated with things was a good way to accidentally earn a cutie mark, and she had no interest in hurting ponies.
Gerardo continued swinging it around, admiring the length and balance. "It's almost an exact replica of the kinds of swords in the greatest griffon epics. Thousands of years old, only the chosen may wield... that type of thing. The only thing that's missing is the history, and that matters little in a fight."
"And how do you know it isn't?" Amber asked, winking slyly and giving him a nudge.
"Because I bartered it off a unicorn whose specialty was in enchanting weapons," Gerardo said, smirking sadly. "Technically, off the daughter of such an enchantress who was helping her mother sell her wares. A cute little thing, if somewhat of a scruffy urchin. Similar in age to Starlight, I would guess."
Amber didn't lose her teasing grin. "You buy from child merchants? How do you not get hustled?"
Gerardo shrugged. "I know quality metal when I see it. Even if the enchantment had failed, a sword is still a sword, and a fine one at that. Besides, I no longer needed what I traded for it."
"But, like, what's it do, though?" Fir asked excitedly. "How's it enchanted?"
"I can demonstrate, if you wish," Gerardo said with a smile. "I assure you, it's completely nonlethal and the effect wears off rapidly..." He blinked at Willow. "With your permission?"
Willow blinked back. "If you're offering to test your sword on my kids..." She growled. "Not on your life. Why can't you just explain it?"
Gerardo sagged slightly. "I meant no offense, I assure-"
"Test it on Hemlock!" Amber interrupted, pounding her hooves together with a shark-like grin.
"Maybe after lunch?" Maple's face popped up above the staircase. "It's ready!"
"Hey, sounds good to me," Amber muttered, still grinning as she made her way to the stairs. Gerardo followed, and soon Willow was rounding up her kids and pushing them down as well. Starlight watched them descend, sighing. Her eyes were still fixed on the now-sheathed sword, and this time, she found she couldn't tear them away.
"Starlight?" Maple called from below. "You coming?"
"Yeah, I'm coming!" Breaking into a trot the moment Gerardo vanished from sight, she headed toward the staircase, trying instead to focus on thoughts of an early, tasty lunch.
Lunch was taken with a subdued eagerness, Willow constantly yawning and Starlight never really having much to say. Amber and Gerardo mostly carried the conversation, which centered largely on their exploits as a result. Maple shuttled more food to the table in a constant state of fond exasperation, while Alder and Fir jabbered and egged the griffon on.
"So why can't you test your sword out, huh?" Fir asked, ears alert and smile confident. "What's it do? Shoot lightning? Freeze stuff? Summon a swarm of monsters to aid you in your hour of need?"
"It probably starts a tornado," Alder offered helpfully.
Gerardo laughed and shook his head. "Not remotely close, I'm afraid. It can cut through anything..." He sliced at the air with a cucumber shard for emphasis. "But when it passes through a living creature, it doesn't leave a mark. Instead, it saps them of their strength to such a degree that they become completely incapacitated." Seriously, he added, "Perfect for nonlethal combat, though hardly a toy. There's power in this thing to fell even a mighty yak in a single blow. The only cure is time."
"If it can cut through anything," Alder asked with an innocently confused expression, "why doesn't it chop its way out of its sheath when you're not using it?"
"Well... almost anything," Gerardo responded, flustered. "It would hardly be much use if you couldn't carry it safely when not in use, of course."
"I wonder if it can cut through the river filly's crystals!" Alder pointed at Starlight.
Fir gasped. "We should have a contest!" She pumped a hoof, eyes dancing with inspiration.
"River filly?" Gerardo asked bemusedly, batting his eyelids. "Is that how she's known after yesterday's incident?"
"No, it's-"
Alder didn't have much of a chance to begin speaking before he was loudly interrupted by Amber, who rubbed her hooves deviously. "So it can cut anything and make ponies tired? I can think of so many good pranks involving that..."
As Gerado repeatedly insisted that it wasn't a toy, Starlight stared thoughtfully at her salad, poking as she ate. It was remarkably fresh and moist. Willow must have had a good way of preservation. Now that she thought about it, however, where did all of Riverfall's food come from? If the town was completely isolated with no way in or out, they would need to have massive plantations somewhere to support so many ponies.
She dug through her memories, trying to recall her view of the town from atop the mountain waterfall. There, it had been heralded by a few plumes of smoke, but no breaks in the trees that she could recall for farmspace. Distractedly, she connected the smoke to fires, and realized disappointedly that neither Maple nor Willow had hearths. One of those would have been nice to warm up against, back when she had first arrived and was freezing. It would still be nice, actually.
Food, though. A second thought clicked in Starlight's head: earlier, Maple had fretted about population growth, and where the new ponies would be housed when they grew up. But wouldn't expanding food production be a bigger issue? The town's food supply would have to be extremely stable for that not to be the case. Additionally, Maple had also bought corn at the market. Wasn't corn something that required fairly warm weather to grow? In Riverfall, more often than not it was raining.
Suddenly, a collective rustle at the table made her look up, discarding her train of thought. Everyone's heads had turned, and Starlight followed their gazes to the staircase, which was presently being descended by a stallion.
The stallion, presumably Faron, stared back at the dining ponies and griffon with orange eyes. "No need to stop on my account," he muttered in a slow, weary voice that was slightly too deep for his darkly-colored build. "Just getting myself a refill."
"You're always welcome to join us..." Willow murmured, eyes closed as she half-slept.
Faron didn't respond. Instead, he paced with just as much speed as his words to the edge of the room, where he kicked open a large storage cabinet. Without using the dark gray horn on his forehead, he slid a crate about the size of an adult pony halfway out, reached in, and withdrew a clear glass bottle in his teeth. Colorless liquid sloshed inside as he set it down, pushed the crate back, and closed the door.
Starlight watched him first with curiosity, then suspicious recognition. There was something familiar about that crate... Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly flew wide. It was the same kind of crate she had seen in Sosa's camp in the mountains!
A vague memory flickered through her head of scanning a crate and finding it full of bottles. A second half of the memory recalled dumping it in the river, though as an experiment or in frustration she couldn't recall. Maple, Willow and Amber had found her floating in a crate. Had they found that one as well? Apparently so, and whatever was in it, Faron found worth drinking.
"You have a spirit collection?" Gerardo asked, apparently more curious as to the contents of the bottles. "Not that I question your hospitality, but isn't it customary to offer such to guests?"
"A what?" Amber scrubbed her ear with a hoof, confused. "This place is haunted?"
Willow sighed, face looking almost as peaceful as if she were really asleep. "No, it isn't. Alcohol is a Sosan thing, and not many ponies are accustomed to having it..." She trailed off, as if she forgot she was supposed to be talking, then resumed. "Why bother when nopony wants it? But help yourself..."
"Well, my apologies!" Gerardo chuckled, nevertheless getting up eagerly. "I hardly consider myself an aficionado, connoisseur, or even the biggest proponent of drinking in the first place, though I have learned that one can in fact get a very good impression of local culture merely by the way they brew their hard drinks. Hah!" He stepped toward the cabinet, reaching out and swinging it open.
"Mmmm..." Willow mumbled, so vaguely it could have been agreement or emphatic protest.
"Hah," Gerardo chuckled, pulling the crate out into the light. "Quite the label on this one. 'The cure to mountain madness.' Whoever packaged this had a real sense of adventure. Fitting, for a foothill town. I think I feel kindred already!" He pulled out a bottle in one talon, inspecting it quizzically.
"Quite the interesting bottle design, as well," he observed, running a talon over glass lettering formed by ridges in the bottle. "You ponies have an excellent ability to replicate the style of the antique. It even has an old Sosan emblem! The last time I saw a bottle that looked like this, it was in a smuggler's hideout that had been abandoned for decades, or perhaps centuries!" He tried to pop the cork, only for it to crumble beneath his talon and become stuck in the neck. His smile faltered. "What?"
"They're hard to get out," Faron sighed from the staircase, having not yet ascended. "It's worth it, though, to have something like this again. You never realize how much you'll miss it until you have something you truly want to forget..."
Gerardo squinted down the blocked bottleneck. "You may wish to have words with your supplier about this," he remarked, experimentally digging at it with a talon. "There is such a thing as too much antiquity, after all. It's never a good practice to have products that fall apart when used."
"We didn't buy it," Willow mumbled sleepily. "Found it floating down the river... just before Starlight..." She shifted in her chair, peacefully oblivious.
Instantly realizing what had been said, Starlight cringed... which only caused Gerardo's eyes to widen in intrigue. "Ironridge is dumping their detritus into the river? Including aged spirits and fillies?"
"The boxes didn't come from Ironridge!" Alder proudly proclaimed. "You found her floating north, from the foot of the mountains! Didn't you, mum?"
He sat there, eagerly wagging his tail like a puppy waiting to be praised for remembering a new trick. The rest of the room, however, was frozen as Gerardo put two and two together, muttering aloud to himself. "Floating north? Along with a crate that by all rights appears ancient... You couldn't possibly be from..." He raised an eyebrow. "Could you?"
The terrified expression on Starlight's face was all the confirmation he needed.
"The Plains of Harmony," Gerardo muttered as if revealing a great mystery, sipping from his ancient wine. "Few believe in them. Fewer are aware that they actually exist. The mountains that separate them and us are said to be infinite and uncrossable, yet-"
"No offense," Maple broke in, raising a hoof, "but we've actually heard this speech before."
"More importantly," Amber added, hefting a hoof dangerously, "this is exactly why Starlight doesn't want too much heat on her! So if you so much as dare tell anypony else, I swear I'll..." She paused, looking around. "I'll stop being your friend. And that goes triple for you kids!" She pointed dangerously at Alder and Fir. "If you tell, I'll stab you with Gerardo's sword, or something."
Alder's eyes lit up. "That actually sounds really awes-" He was forcibly silenced by his sister's hoof, Fir wearing an apologetic, guilty grin and whispering as hard as she could at him to shut up.
"Oh, you've nothing to fear from me, I assure you," Gerardo promised, eyes on the still-petrified Starlight. "In fact, everything makes much more sense now. I can see far more clearly why you wished to lie low at the docks. A very wise decision, and one I'm glad to have helped with."
Willow blinked herself into slightly more wakefulness. "Kids, go upstairs," she commanded, apparently sensing the conversation was about to route into sensitive territory. "And don't listen in."
Grumbling, they both obeyed, Starlight unfrozen just enough to follow them with her eyes as they left. Her jaw cracked. "I just wanted ponies not to treat me like I'm special..." she mumbled.
"Yeah," Amber added slowly. "How did you know why she wants to be left alone?"
Gerardo's brow furrowed. "Do you mean to say you don't know the reason a potential Harmonian would wish to conceal their identity at all costs?"
The atmosphere in the room chilled slightly, and Starlight clammed back up.
"Then it is... quite fortuitous I found out," Gerardo said, sounding as if he was fighting back a sigh. "Allow me to enlighten you. The Plains of Harmony are the most reclusive nation in the world, covering its entire southern half, and have been since an unknown calamity one thousand years ago prompted them to seal themselves away and sever all ties with the creatures of the north. Entry is blocked by a confounding mountain range some swear to be enchanted. It has never been crossed... ever."
He raised his head, brow shadowed in such a way that it appeared he was looking up at and down on the others at the same time. "Yet, the realm is also said to be the resting place of amazing treasures and ancient powers. That, on top of peace and prosperity that would make any struggling nation envious."
Gerardo sipped once from his glass. "Needless to say, were one truly to have made the pilgrimage across the mountains and lived to tell the tale, it could not be by coincidence... and even if it was, who would believe it? You would suddenly find yourself in possession of knowledge concerning a security flaw in the largest, most isolated nation in the world... the kind of knowledge that wars are fought over. And I think we can all agree that that would be bad."
Starlight was looking at herself as if she were a bomb. Amber appeared similarly shellshocked, while Willow merely blinked sleepily. Maple, however, straightened up with a frustrated expression. "Really?" she huffed. "Are you trying to scare my filly out of her wits? There are so many ways you could have said that less dramatically! Besides, what does it matter when no one can leave this town?"
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "My apologies. My penchant for drama can do that, sometimes..."
Ignoring him, Maple hugged Starlight close. "It'll be fine," she murmured in her ear. "I'm sure it's not that bad. There's nothing better you could have done if you had known, and nothing you'll need to do different. Things can just stay how they are, and you can stay with me..."
"Indeed," Gerardo agreed. "With this town in the condition it's in, I see no reason to panic. Still, we never know what the future holds! If I may, who else knows about this besides the four of us, Starlight herself, and your foals?" He nodded aside at Willow, who was valiantly propping her eyes open.
"I told Arambai," Starlight muttered weakly. "He found out. He didn't give me a choice..."
"Didn't give you a choice, you say," Gerardo mused, scratching at his chin, wine long forgotten. "He does seem like the type of pony to run everything from the shadows. And that reminds me, I had something else I'd like to inquire about as well. Yes, perhaps we should pay him a visit..."
"It's early afternoon," Amber announced, banging her hooves together. "He doesn't live far away. We could do that right now?" She stood up, turning toward the door and looking back hopefully.
"I trust Arambai," Maple murmured, still hugging Starlight. "But it's probably a good idea..."
"Nnngh... I'm staying here..." Willow yawned and got up. "I should go back to bed..."
"As you wish." Gerardo nodded and bowed, straightening up himself. "In that case, let us be on our way!" Politely, he offered a wing to help Maple and Starlight to their hooves.
Two mares, a griffon and a filly trotted out the front door to Willow's house, Starlight once again riding on her surrogate mother's back. Behind, inside the house, Willow wearily staggered towards the staircase, thinking thoughts of warm bedding and crying foals... when a powerful pair of forelegs reached out and steadied her.
"Unngh... thank you, Faron..." Willow groaned, pulling herself upright until she was standing on her own. "I finally think Yew is growing out of infancy, and then this. I guess I should have just stayed asleep when I had the chance, huh?" She smiled tiredly at him, light reflecting off her eyes.
"Perhaps." The stallion walked carefully at her side as she ascended the staircase, though her footing was more sure and she didn't even stumble. "As long as she brings you happiness, I'm glad we had her. You are too, I hope?"
"Most of the time," she answered, climbing. "Right now, I'm too tired to be anything but tired!" She giggled slightly. "You should come read by the bed while I nap. It would be cozy..."
Faron nodded in agreement as they climbed. However, his head was to the side, looking out a passing window at Gerardo, Maple, Amber and Starlight as they walked away below, an unreadable expression on his face.
Maple, Amber, Gerardo and Starlight strode purposefully towards Arambai's house... as purposeful as they could be, at least, with Starlight still mutely riding on Maple's back. None of them spoke, in fact, but with the other three it was mostly for drama. Thus, when a voice finally shattered the quiet, it didn't come from any of them.
"All right, you hooligans!" Hemlock yelled, not leaving his rocker on Arambai's roof. "I see you down there! That means you, yellow missy!" He flung a hoof wildly at Amber. "I hope you like chewin' on justice, because the hottest tail in the world isn't gonna save you this-"
SPROOIIING!
With a noise like a jack-in-the-box, a floorboard under Hemlock's chair came loose with such force that it catapulted the stallion sideways, spilling him over the floor. "Ow! What the-!?"
"Hah." Arambai stepped out from behind a wall, picking up Hemlock in his telekinesis and unceremoniously moving the stallion to the street. "Been working on that one for a while. Very satisfying to see it finished and doing its job." He glanced down, staring at the four visitors. "Well, if it isn't the most prolific crew in town. Can't say I didn't expect you to show up, sooner or later. Here for the old 'how do I get outta the middle of nowhere' talk for Gerardo? Because I'm pretty sure I already gave you that..."
"Something else, as a matter of fact," Gerardo said, acting as the spokesgriffon for the group. "Although..." His eyes darted to the fallen Hemlock. "It might benefit us to have some privacy?"
"Easier done than said," Arambai replied, turning toward his house with a wave. "You all know where the stairs are. See you inside."
Arambai led them to a fourth-story room in one of his twin towers. The side facing outward was a solid wall of curved glass, trimmed with metal and affording a view of the town that felt almost like the bridge of a ship. Several bean bag chairs were present which the mares instantly gravitated to, as well as more formal seating chosen by Arambai and Gerardo.
"So," the stallion began, once they were all seated. "What is it you lot have on your mind?"
"It concerns young Starlight's country of origin," Gerardo answered, sitting up straight. "Namely, the possibility for that information to spread... and the potential undesirable consequences thereof."
"Oh yeah. So you found that out, huh?" Arambai tapped a hoof against the arm of his chair. "Can't say I'm surprised. You strike me as difficult to keep a secret from, and with all these chatty mares around it's practically begging to be spilled. So we're talking damage control, then?"
Gerardo blinked. "As a matter of fact, it concerned the possibility that you intended to use knowledge of her origin for nefarious purposes. Though damage control is most welcome, as well..."
Arambai's grin was so big, it stretched the corners of his black beard. "Me? Nefarious purposes? I may not be the most forthcoming pony in existence, but it's pretty obvious where my heart is."
"With all due respect, your benevolence could be seen as suspicious," Gerardo remarked in turn, raising a talon. "Does it not bear mentioning?"
"It also bears mentioning that you showed up yesterday morning without an ounce of credibility to your name," Arambai growled. "If they want to be suspicious, it's not me they ought to be wary of."
Gerardo flinched. "I didn't mean-"
Arambai didn't let him finish. "Point is, if we start arguing about who's trustworthy, we'd never get anything done. Besides, what kind of scummy villain would want to hurt a cute little filly?" He gave Starlight an approving glance, but she remained still and huddled. "I do trust you came with something you wanted to get done?"
Maple interrupted, sparing the griffon from having to answer. "He said that if ponies find out Starlight came from Equestria, she'd become the most important thing in the world and wars would be fought over her, because she'd know how to get there." She glared briefly at Gerardo, then looked softly to Starlight on her back, who was still speechless. "I don't think she took it very well..."
"Rubbish," Arambai said in return. "If anyone powerful enough to use information like that got ahold of it, they'd be smart enough not to tell anyone else they knew. Besides, nobody in their right mind would fall for that without proof, and we don't even have anything that proves she's from there and not just lying. Crossing those mountains is just too implausible... and if they did take the bait, they'd just try to steal it with spies instead of going to war. Besides, Starlight herself wouldn't even matter once some other pony knows the secret." His eyebrow lifted. "Assuming there is one."
Starlight spoke for the first time since leaving Willow's house. "So they wouldn't...?"
"Wouldn't think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread?" Arambai shook his head. "Nah. Granted, they'd still want to know. But there's plenty we can do to take care of that..."
"How's that?" Amber asked, head raised from where she loafed on a bean bag.
"Simple!" Arambai waved a hoof. "Starlight tells me how she did it, then I go spread that around a little as a rumor in some disreputable areas. Once the knowledge of this 'secret route across the mountains' has had a little time to propagate, anyone can let it slip whenever they want and nobody will think she's anything but a dirty pretender trying to take credit. And it won't really matter that they know, because who's gonna try climbing that mountain range based off a rumor from a friend's friend?" His lip twitched. "A combination of truth and audacity is one of the most powerful secret-keepers around."
"Well?" Maple asked, looking to Starlight, who was now folded beside her as she lay.
Starlight looked as if she was thinking heavily... and sighed, ears folding. "I fell off the waterfall. I didn't do anything special. I was trying to protect myself with a crystal on the way down, but I had to use a parachute instead. Then I floated here, and Maple found me."
"Okay," Arambai said, sounding slightly disappointed. "But ponies have managed to scale the initial cliff before. What about after that? What about the rest of the mountains?"
"I just walked a ways," Starlight answered, shrugging slightly. "For about a week. And before that, I went through the caves."
"Caves, you say?" Arambai's eyes widened. A slow grin appeared on his face. "Perfect. Impossible to verify, yet actually one I haven't heard before. That should be all we need... Out of curiosity, though, how long in total did it take you to cross those mountains? Are we talking weeks, months, years, or what?" He leaned forward in interest.
"A month. Maybe a little more." Starlight shrugged. "I couldn't see the sun in the caves. I don't know how long it was. I also got sick right before the cliff and had to stop for a week and get better."
"You did?" Maple hugged her closer in concern, prompting Starlight to squirm slightly.
"It was just a cold..." Starlight mumbled. "I got rained on and couldn't find shelter in time..."
"Well..." Arambai got up, stretching. "I think I know everything I need to. If that's all, I'm gonna go start spreading this around. See ya later, ponies." He tipped his head toward Gerardo. "And griffon."
Gerardo held out a talon, slowing him. "As a matter of fact, there was one more thing..."
"Oh?" Arambai stopped, and looked back. "What's eating you?"
"While inspecting the wreckage of the crane, I couldn't help but press deeper into the forest." Gerardo cleared his throat. "There I found a cave that seemed to be... in use."
"You found that, did you?" Arambai looked back, bemused. "You really are good at digging up secrets. Come on down to the basement. This'll take some time, but if that's got you curious, I have something you'll really like to see."
"I call this..." Arambai grunted, shoving his weight against a stack of boxes that were slowly sliding out of the way. "The best-kept secret in Riverfall!" He jumped aside as they finally ground into place, revealing another set of stairs leading beneath the ground. "Don't ask me why that is. It's hardly one I try to keep. It's like everypony just wants to forget about it, or something."
Gerardo, Amber, Maple and Starlight hesitated at the top of the stairs as he began descending. "Come on, you lot!" Arambai beckoned with a hoof. "It's a bit of a walk, but it ain't dangerous."
With some initial reluctance, they followed. However, as the stairs morphed into a tunnel that continued sloping downwards, the area took on a very well-used feel. The gray stone walls were clean, hewn into the bedrock yet free of wall drippings, stalactites and distant watery echoes. Manatorches winked on snappily at their presence, giving the air that the place was in perfect working order.
After three or four stories of sloping downward, the tunnel came to a four-way intersection, widening out significantly. Arambai paused and leaned against a wooden support beam, waiting for the others to catch up.
"Arambai?" Maple asked, eyes more on the ceiling than the floor. "What is this place?"
"Back when the boats were around, this was a tunnel under the river," the yellow stallion narrated, a light shining steadily above. "Industrial stuff. The ponies didn't really want to build a bridge, because it would get in the way... but being able to cross the river on hoof is useful, you know?" He winked back at them. "It doesn't see much use now, of course."
"Wow," Amber remarked, surveying the crossroads chamber. "I can't believe I never actually knew about this from back when we used to haunt the docks."
"Eh. It's not the most impressive thing. Besides, I've made some improvements." Arambai turned again and continued walking, pacing in a circle around the room. "I got dibs on the house I did actually because it was connected to this place, thinking I might be able to use it for something." He passed by an opening and indicated. "To the left, here... that's west, by the way... it leads to some other old openings. Not much good for anything other than pranking an unexpecting stallion."
He continued walking. "Over here, then, to the east, there's an old storeroom. I'll tell you what I use that for in a moment. But right now, we're going north, under the river!"
The north passage continued to slope downward, a sudden chill invading the rocks as they drew underneath the river. Eventually, it flattened out, and then began to slant back upward. For the duration of the dip, Maple's imagination was held hostage by the idea that the rocks were glass and she could see through, walking in an air-filled tube through the depths of the ocean. Then, as quickly as they had descended, they reached another crossroads.
"More storage," Arambai lectured, pointing to the north. "West heads to some spare docks further upriver that were used when things were really busy. If you think Riverfall at present has a decrepit harbor situation with that crane and all... heh. Well, let's just say you wouldn't want to go up that way. But we are going east!" He leaned back and smiled knowingly. "That's the entrance Gerardo found."
"No offense," Amber muttered, scratching her head, "but all this north-south stuff isn't really easy to follow when we're underground."
"Eh. Sorry about that." Arambai shrugged and moved on. "I just try to visualize what they'd look like if you drew them on a map, from above. Makes it a whole lot easier, that way..."
"If I may..." Gerardo asked, walking on his knuckles to prevent his talons from clicking annoyingly against the stone floor, "what about this makes it the best-kept secret in Riverfall?"
"Oh, it's not these tunnels. They're just boring." Arambai waved a hoof. "It's what's on the other bank that no one ever notices because they don't come down here!"
The tunnel widened again, spare crates and boxes stacked around the edges. Soon, the rocks grew rockier and more rough-hewn, and eventually traces of natural light began to filter through before blossoming into a full-fledged curtain. A few plants and vines drooped their way over the top of the entrance, and then everyone was outside.
"Well, this is indeed where I was," Gerardo observed, glancing around the forest clearing they had emerged in. "I'm not sure whether that was more or less impressive than what I was expecting."
"Save your impressions for when we really get there," Arambai growled. He then kicked at a slightly-overgrown trailhead and pressed in, the ground below winding its way upwards and further east.
The path continued its gradual upward trend, until it suddenly spiked sharply, leaving the ponies climbing a carved set of stairs. Gerardo flapped slowly alongside, eyes keen in case anyone should slip. "Where are we going?" Maple huffed, pulling herself upward. "We're gaining so much altitude..."
"Probably another reason ponies don't care to come here," Arambai answered, apparently not winded in the least. "Too much work. Why go to all this effort for a reward when you've got a paradise down there, free for the taking? It's not the most sensible of options, when you think about it..."
"I still don't know," Maple grunted, "what that means!"
Abruptly, the ground dropped away, the group having reached the pinnacle of whatever rocky spire they had been climbing. The path continued, however... in the form of a bridge spanning to a nearby tree trunk, where it was anchored in a platform. Another bridge was visible on the far side of that, though mostly obscured by the tree.
"Well?" Arambai asked, stepping out onto the wooden structure. "You like it?"
"That can hold my weight, right?" Maple asked nervously. Starlight, still on her back, eyed the bridge dubiously.
"Well... it couldn't, for a while," Arambai admitted. "Or, at least, it wouldn't have been safe. But I had a go at magically reinforcing it a while back, and now it's as solid as dragon hide."
Gerardo poked at the bridge from the air, and it didn't sway. Amber trotted out onto it, and it continued to hold fast under her and Arambai's combined weight. Eventually, Maple stuck a hoof of her own out... and sighed in relief at the solid feeling beneath it. The bridge had nearly as little give as the bedrock in the tunnels.
"See?" Arambai shrugged. "What did I tell you? Anyway, it's just a little further." He stepped out toward the tree platform, the rest of the group still in tow.
Around the tree, the bridge did continue. But only one more link... and after that, they abruptly reached the edge of the forest.
Perched on the border of an extremely sheer drop, Maple, Amber, Gerardo and Starlight found themselves on some kind of lookout platform. Below was the river, inching by at the bottom of a veritable canyon made of trees. The canopy stretched above them so close that Maple could hit it with a a thrown stone, lending a palpable greenness to the air that was completely absent in the town below where everything was red and brown.
In the distance, to one direction, the corner of Riverfall was visible, the waterfall pouring downwards and the northbound tributary intersecting the river a moment later. The outlook was directly perched on a bend in the river, providing visibility in the other direction as far as possible.
"You like it?" Arambai asked, turning to the rest of the group. "It's the prettiest place in town, and for some reason... not a soul knows it exists but us."
"Is this some kind of lookout to watch for inbound ships?" Gerardo asked, apparently slightly more used to seeing things from above than Maple or Amber.
"Precisely," Arambai replied. "It fell out of use, after. Beats me why. You'd think ponies would come here just for the fun of it, but apparently I'm the only one who needs a place sometimes to sit and think, where nobody else will bother you. What do you think?"
Starlight gazed out across the river. The forest on the far side consisted entirely of thick, upright trunks, with no branches until the very top. She could see just as far through them as she could on the ground. And above them, in the distance... she saw the mountains.
"This must be what pegasi feel like..." Maple breathed, wonder in her voice as she stared at the ground far below. Beside her, Amber's expression indicated she felt similar.
"I can confirm that the view of the world from above is a very interesting thing," Gerardo added, wings shifting. "It seems a shame that this is not better-used..."
"This is super impressive," Amber finally said, eyes shining. "Thanks for bringing us up here."
"I know, right? And don't mention it." Arambai shrugged. "You're welcome to come back at any time. There's another entrance to the tunnels in that one single-story tower next to the river plaza that nobody lives in, if you ever need it."
"So, you took us here purely to sate my curiosity about the cave?" Gerardo enquired after the mares took a few more minutes to look around. "I can't tell if that's surprisingly generous or..."
"A waste of your energy when you could have just flown up?" Arambai asked wryly, then laughed. "Nah. Actually, I had something else I wanted to segue into, and this seemed like an appropriately dramatic place to discuss it. But enough about that." He shrugged, then changed the subject. "Having fun on your accidentally-forced tour of Riverfall, so far? Enjoying the cuisine?"
Gerardo smirked. "You can't expect me to answer that candidly when the chef who prepares half my meals here is standing right beside me. What's more, after living on canned goods and the likes of supply crate food for a month, anything is refreshing. However, it is remarkably good."
"Glad to hear she's taking care of you." Arambai nodded respectfully at Maple, who faintly blushed from the praise. "Have you gotten a chance to tour the fields where it's grown, yet?"
"I can't say that I have, no," the blue griffon answered, blinking.
Amber pointed a hoof at Arambai. "Hey, that's a dirty trick. You make all of Riverfall's food with magic. We don't even have growing fields!"
"Really?" Starlight asked. "Nopony mentioned this when you were trying to make me like him?"
Maple rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, careful not to dislodge Starlight. "Umm..."
"If I may be frank, that's ridiculous," Gerardo retorted, pointing a talon at Arambai's bearded face. "I'm no mage, but I've taken the time to learn some of the theories of magic. Conjured materials cannot be maintained without at least some strain that can vary based on distance and abuse, and all unicorns have limits at which point the difficulty of conjuring more becomes extreme. Furthermore, all conjured materials are energy-neutral and are thus incapable of acting as fuel, including by means of digest-"
Arambai cut him off by breaking out in laughter. "Sorry," he said, wiping an eye after a minute. "Didn't mean to do that. It's just that you spent so much effort not taking me seriously there, and..."
"Wait a minute." Maple's brow furrowed. "When I was buying my house, the previous owner listed you as their supplier for raw food materials, and so have most of the marketplace vendors I've stopped to talk with. Don't tell me you're not the source of Riverfall's food?"
Starlight's brow continued to furrow. "Seriously, how didn't anyone tell me this?"
Amber frowned at her. "I guess we didn't think a kid would care about economics. Sorry."
"Now now," Arambai said, waving a hoof. "I didn't say that. Anyone want to take a guess at what's really going on?"
"So you're getting enough food for an entire town without magic?" Maple held a hoof to her chin. "I always thought you had a machine to do it, that was powered by the river, or something..."
Amber's eyes narrowed. "If you're not growing it and you're not making some other way, then you have to be importing it, and that means you have a way into and out of the town. Which would mean..." Her eyes widened. "Your teleporter? You've been teleporting food into Riverfall?"
Arambai slapped his forehoof. "One leap of logic too far, there. Teleporting food... heh... Nah, I do it by boat. Same way we get more Sosans showing up every now and then from Ironridge."
"By boat?" Maple squinted. "But we haven't seen any for years! When..."
"More like where," Arambai answered. "I told you, those tunnels are connected to an advanced western loading dock out of sight of the village. I just run a barge every night that brings in food for the next day, along with every once in a while some poor pony who needed to leave their old life behind."
"So what you're getting at, if I know my heroic scenarios," Gerardo cut in, "is that you do have a way out of this town, and you're about to offer it to me in exchange for some favor. Is that it?"
"Well..." Arambai shrugged. "Maybe. That's one way of putting it. But it's less a matter of payment and more one of risk management, so it'll take me a while to decide. Of course, the fact that I'm telling you now is proof I'm highly considering it."
"Risk management?" Gerardo's headcrest perked. "I'm unused to being considered a threat by anything but scum and villainy. Should I take that as a compliment?"
Ignoring the question, Arambai said, "Yeah, risk management. You think an old stallion like me can just make a mountain full of food appear out of thin air? Because it's just as easy here as it is in Ironridge. All that's gotta come from somewhere, in addition to the power for the boat. Truth is... before all this air travel business started, I used to be a very influential pony. Quite well off, with connections in high places. I don't think you lot have any business knowing exactly how that worked, but a large part of the reason I'm here now is because Riverfall is off the map, and I need to be, too. You follow me? I can't let hide nor hair of you leave this village until I've got some manner of assurance you won't spill the beans about me being here. Or any of the other Sosans, for that matter. The stuff in my shop, too."
"Who else knows about this boat?" Maple interrupted to ask. "I mean, you don't want us to tell ponies in Riverfall about it either, right?"
"Think of keeping quiet about it here as a sort of test," Arambai said with a shrug. "If you tell anyone, I'll find out, but I've already got damage control in place on that one. And, uh... sorry, Gerardo." When the griffon stared back questioningly, Arambai added, "I just tied your ability to leave to the secret-keeping ability of a couple of mares, didn't I...?"
Maple, Gerardo and Amber all shared a glance that wondered exactly what was going on.
"This feels slightly like a threat," Gerardo finally said. "Something akin to blackmail..."
"It ain't just for me," Arambai replied. "This town is full of hideouts who don't want anything more to do with the world and would hate if it came knocking on their doors. I may be a beneficiary, but I also more or less built the place. It's kind of my responsibility. Besides, I didn't say you could never leave. I've just gotta... trust you, you know? Just give it a day or two more, I'll think of something. All the Sosans here know about that boat, by the way, so don't worry about letting it slip to them. But nobody else, even their wives!"
Maple bit her lip. "Even Willow?"
Arambai shrugged. "I made this deal with all of them when they came. You wanna stay here, you don't mess with others. That includes spreading around ideas that make ponies want to leave. Once the floodgates are open, this is just another backwater town that's no good for keeping secrets."
"This is... a lot to take in at once," Amber admitted, blinking at the ground. "I mean, you've always had a way out of here... since the very beginning... and never told anyone..."
"Yeah. Sorry, but there's not much of a better way to break that than all at once, with the warnings attached." Arambai shrugged and turned toward the bridge back to the ground. "Those two storerooms we passed, by the way? Stuffed with enough nonperishables saved from the shipments to last this town two full years. More, with rationing. Seeds and landscaping equipment, too. So if worst came to worst, we could shut down the ferry, add some military defenses in the river, and grow our own food. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would be a living. Just thought you should know. Feel free to stay here, and head back whenever you like. I've got some experiments to wrap up back at my house."
He stepped down the bridge and out of sight. Soon, Gerardo and the three ponies were alone on the platform, mid-afternoon passing gradually around them.
The moment Arambai was out of earshot, Maple began to fume. "Nnnngh!" Angrily, she kneaded the wood flooring with her forehooves. "What was he thinking?"
"Mmm." Gerardo nodded his head in agreement. "While his logic is sound, I still can't help but feel I've been blackmailed."
"Ugh! Not you! Me!" Maple would have thrown her hooves in the air, but didn't want to unbalance Starlight. "Why would he talk about a secret way out of town right next to Starlight? He knows how precarious it is that she's here! She even tried to use his teleporter to run away!" She scowled heavily down the bridge the stallion had left by, expression not at all matched by the color and cheer of the forest. "And he just... he just told her..."
"I'm right here, you know," Starlight droned from atop her back. "I can hear you, and I'm not leaving. I thought about it... but I changed my mind. I'm staying here with you."
Maple immediately calmed... mostly. "Thank you..." She reached back to nuzzle the filly.
"It's still super strange, though," Amber muttered, pacing and holding her chin. "Whether Starlight should have heard it or not, what about us? If he really wanted to keep that as tight a secret as possible, why not tell Gerardo alone? Why drag you and me into it?"
"It's not impossible he means it as a test," Gerardo said with a shrug. Upon receiving two identical stares, he elaborated, "Of my ability to keep a secret. Much easier for me to not tell anyone than to keep those who know from telling, is it not?"
"Well, we won't tell..." Amber said hesitantly. "But if it's a test for you, why would he specifically warn us himself not to tell our best friend? Wouldn't he stick that on you?"
"He told us so much other stuff that didn't have to do with that, too," Maple murmured, walking back toward the other two. "We were in private in his house. Why bring us all the way out here? Not that it isn't pretty, or anything. But he made a big point about how much food he had stored up..."
"You don't suppose it was a veiled threat that he can and will stop the ferry at any time if word gets out, do you?" Gerardo asked, pacing as well.
"Veiled? Didn't he say that directly?" Amber rubbed her head. "It feels like overkill, but..."
"I wonder just what's going on in Ironridge that he can keep that much food coming out on a regular basis, but stay completely hidden," Maple mused. "How much do you think a town this big eats in a day? For that matter, I wonder how many ponies even live in Riverfall. A thousand? Two?"
"It just doesn't make sense..." Amber whined. "Didn't we go to him in the first place to clear things up? Why did he have to go and be confusing? He's usually so helpful!"
Starlight loudly cleared her throat from atop Maple's back, prompting everyone to look her way. "Okay," she demanded, "stop being paranoid! I'm not leaving, and we're all being quiet so Gerardo can leave. Problem solved." She looked around, as if satisfaction with her outburst was conditional on everyone else's approval.
Maple looked at Amber. "Can you do that?"
"I can do that. Sounds like a plan." Amber shrugged back. "You?"
"Mmhm." Maple nodded solemnly, then turned to the griffon. "Okay, Gerardo. We won't speak of this to anyone, even Willow. I'm going to have some words with Arambai about it, and I expect Amber is too, but only after you're safely on your way. I..." She looked sheepishly to the side. "I guess you don't really have an end of the bargain to hold up, do you? Still, we're thankful that you helped distract everyone from Starlight earlier, and we are sorry about what happened to your boat, so..."
She reached out a hoof in offering, and Gerardo shook it, sealing the deal. He gasped slightly as he did so. "You are unexpectedly strong! Err, pardon. Nevertheless, you have my thanks."
Amber held out a hoof, and they similarly shook. Starlight settled for an exchange of nods.
"Well... it's a long walk back..." Maple sighed and turned toward the bridge. "I better get going. I'd like to open the store a bit before dinner. Starlight? Want to walk, this time?"
Starlight slipped off her back, and the two stepped side-by-side down the bridge that led to the ground, the colors of the afternoon shifting around them.
Amber and Gerardo remained on the platform, watching them leave. Amber eventually shrugged, the sun shining through the river corridor and illuminating her yellow back. "So..."
"I take it you'd prefer a ride back?" Gerardo asked, tilting his head. "I have no intent of repeating that trek, at least."
"Yeah... hold on." Amber bit her lip, fidgeting with a hoof. "There's still something not quite right, and I can't put my hoof on it..."
"Concerning our recent lecture by Arambai?" Gerardo exhaled. "I can't say it sits well with me, either. Still, there is little we can do but do what he says, even if it seems unfair or-"
"No. Not that." Amber held a hoof out to the side, facing away with a grim expression. "It's just... I can't get over it. He's usually so nice and helpful to the village. He totally cares about every pony in it! He's not a 'few for the sake of many' kind of guy. So why would he tell me and Maple that he's had a way out of this town all along, and not let us tell Willow? He knows our history. Hers, especially. He's the one who told her not to go to Ironridge when she had a chance to take us! It's like... like he's being a hypocrite, and now he's rubbing it in our faces? This just doesn't make sense! He has to be..."
"What's this?" Gerardo asked quizzically. "You and miss Willow were thwarted in leaving before?"
"Long story," Amber said with a shrug. "Not as relevant as it sounds. I'll totally tell you later, though. But it's just... out of character! Like, he knows us. Maybe even better than he knows most of the other Riverfall ponies. How could he have said all that and not expected us to get suspicious?"
Gerardo blinked. "You don't mean to suggest he wanted us to become suspicious? That he was... leaving some sort of secret message?"
"Ugh... maybe..." Amber rubbed her head, eyes closed. "But why not be direct? He's good at getting ponies alone. He had us alone! Unless it was supposed to be a secret that only one of us could figure out, but..." She sighed deeply. "Maybe Starlight's right. I'm totally being paranoid about this. He probably just wanted to be dramatic and messed up, or something."
"Perhaps," Gerardo happily announced, brightening and resuming his pacing. "However, I actually find secret-digging to be quite fun. And if there were any to be found here..." He stroked his chin for the umpteenth time. "They would be found by analyzing the broader context of our meeting. Do you recall what we were doing right before that deluge of information?"
Not waiting for Amber to answer, he continued. "We were discussing the potential implications of knowledge concerning the Plains of Harmony, which are apparently known locally as 'Equestria' escaping. And, immediately after, he chooses to reveal to those of us who inquired... all those who inquired... the existence of a route outside the city. Try going about putting an altruistic motive to that!"
Amber's eyes widened. "A warning..." she gasped. "He was warning us? That... if anyone found out... they might have a reason to, if they knew they had a way out of the city! And if they're good at finding secrets, of course they would..." Her pupils shrank. "He was warning us about you, wasn't he?"
"Not quite," Gerardo said wryly. "Remember who he specifically said not to reveal the existence of this conversation to."
Gerardo opened his beak at precisely the moment realization dawned on the mare. "And remember who he said already knows about the ferry to Ironridge."
"And who I completely forgot was listening when we talked about where Starlight was from..." Amber groaned. "Pegasus feathers. We're thinking exactly the same thing, aren't we?"
"Sadly, I believe so," Gerardo agreed. "It seems our tricky ultimatumist is in fact a benefactor attempting to warn us about a possible foalnapping and subsequent sneaky escape."
"We're totally guarding Maple's house tonight, aren't we?"
Gerardo's beak curved in a grin. "Actually, I was thinking of doing some sneaking of our own..."
A dusty door at the entrance to a single-story riverside home swung open, by all other means looking abandoned. Out stepped Maple, Starlight at her side.
"Well," she sighed happily, "fresh air does feel nice after those tunnels. Doesn't it, Starlight?"
"Yeah." Starlight walked out of her shadow, lilac legs scurrying to keep up with the older mare's stride. "So are we going home, now, or what?"
"I think so," Maple breathed, stopping and taking a moment to bask in the weather, which was still sunny and pleasant. "Like I said, I want to open my store for a while today. I hope you won't be bored?" She looked aside at the filly, slightly concerned.
"Nah." Starlight shook her head. "I'll find something to do. It's not like I can spend all my time riding around to visit friends. That alone would get boring too, after a while."
"Well..." Maple looked down the nearest road between two houses. "I'm glad you feel that way. That, um, visiting friends is fun." She was silent for a moment. "Thank you. For... saying you're staying."
"I don't know why you're surprised," Starlight mumbled. "Why would I run away and leave you just because some stallion told me I could? That would be stupid."
"I guess I don't know you as well as I'd like, then." Maple bit her lip. "Sorry. It just seemed like something you'd... I mean... you were trying, with the teleporter, weren't you?"
"Yeah. But I told you, I changed my mind." Starlight straightened herself up, perfecting her posture. "Besides, I can't complain about Sunburst's parents sending him away just because they can and then leave just because I can right after. If I left, I'd have a good reason for it. And I'd tell you."
"Well... thanks." Maple looked again down the street. "Let's get going."
As they walked, Starlight let herself get lost in her head, following Maple out of the corner of her eye as guidance so she didn't crash into anything. She recalled her initial mistrust of Arambai... mistrust that had mostly been shelved, but never really evaporated. Had he been trying to convince her to run away, or merely letting her know that she could if she needed to? But hadn't he stressed how dangerous Ironridge was? Why would he think she would be better off there, alone, instead of in Riverfall with Maple and the other mares? Was there something in Riverfall he knew about that he wasn't telling her? And if so, why not?
She shook her head. She couldn't chastise the others for reading into his words like they were some kind of mystery plot, then do so herself behind their backs. But what was she supposed to do, then? She had promised Maple she would find something to do, and everyone's fussing was stuck in her head and she couldn't get it out. What else could she do? Talking about something? She wasn't much for conversation, but she did need a distraction. But what to ask about?
"Maple?" she asked, seizing the first thing that came to mind. "Tell me about your cutie mark."
"Huh?" Maple looked back, bewildered. "Why do you want to know about that?"
"I'm curious," Starlight replied simply. "It doesn't seem like it has much to do with what you do."
Maple's eyes focused for a moment, until she apparently realized what Starlight was talking about. "Oh!" She shied back slightly. "Yeah, it doesn't, does it? It sure is useful, though. I just use it for ordinary things, and never really think about why it's there. Or, at least, I try not to..."
"What do you mean?" Starlight pressed, hoping this didn't have to do with Maple's past and that she wasn't being insensitive.
"When you think about it, it's like a dead dream," Maple answered. "Isn't that sad? I mean, I guess you wouldn't see it that way, but I sure do. I wonder if it's possible for a cutie mark to disappear..."
Starlight clammed up. The last thing she wanted was to make Maple moody, after accidentally scaring her that she would leave earlier. For the rest of the walk, she remained silent.
"All right," Maple chirped, "we're home." Starlight saw her pause to look in the mirror hanging next to the door as she entered, and took a second to study her own reflection as well. Her mane looked slightly frazzled, probably from when Gerardo had been talking about countries going to war over her, but her flanks were as blank as ever, just like they should be.
She stepped inside, her host already busying herself setting up a display case. Shrugging, Starlight looked around, considering offering to help. Her horn still felt pretty good. Levitating things would be easy, especially if they were lighter than Sosa's old supply crates up in the mountains. But she suddenly found herself feeling slightly lazy... and slightly rebellious. After all, she had both just asked calmly about a pony's cutie mark, and turned down an offer to ruin someone's life just because she could. At least one of those deserved a reward, though at the moment she wasn't sure which.
Regrettably, she found herself reaching the top of the staircase, and then her room, with nothing to indulge in. Maple didn't have any confections ready yet for her to eat, and even if she did, something about eating to pass the time didn't seem like a good long-term strategy.
Her hooves led her to her worn-out saddlebags, still slightly stiff from being river-drenched, sand-crusted, and not properly washed or dried after. Idly, she poked at them. Her cutie mark makeup box rolled out, along with Sosa's journal, which prompted a sigh. She had read that boring thing so many times as a cure for boredom that it was worse than nothing, at that point. Although...
She turned to the other side of the bags, dumping out her blanket. She really needed to ask Maple to wash that. However, there was one more thing packed beneath it: the magic book lent to her by Arambai. She stared at the cover for a solid minute, not daring to open it. It was academic material, supposedly, which meant it both wasn't there for fun and paying attention could result in her gaining skills... which was dangerously close to a cutie mark. At least, it would have been, going by what she assumed them to be in Equestria. Were they really different here? What made them so much rarer? She shrugged; either way she wouldn't be at risk if she still stayed somewhat bored. She opened the book.
It was a table of contents. Starlight yawned and began skimming. The conservation of energy... Mana: the stable state of magical energy... Natural occurrences of mana... The properties of crystals... Harmony and thermodynamics... The elements of harmony... Concentrations of harmony in harmonic life forms... Brands of power... She blinked. Brands of power? As in cutie marks? Intrigued, she began searching for the listed page number.
She quickly found it, realizing with slight dismay that Arambai's writing was just as rambley as his normal speech. Tracing her hoof along the page, she read aloud by the light of her horn.
"After days of interviews and poring over all the data I can find on brands, it seems most useful to categorize them on a three-point system," she whispered, imagining her voice to have Arambai's growly tone. "There are normal brands, which don't have measurable magical effects. They do things like make a pony smart about something, most of the time. It's clear something's happening, but you can't scientifically measure or quantify it. Then, there's more powerful ones with measurable effects, like making a pony stronger or faster. Sometimes they can even do weird stuff, like create certain types of objects out of thin air. There's one mare I've seen who can store anything and recall it later."
Starlight stopped reading, eyes widening. Maple was in the book! She giggled slightly, then immediately stopped herself. It wouldn't do, taking pride that some ponies were being treated better than others, just because of a mark they couldn't control. Still, as little as she wanted to admit it, some part of her felt proud of the mare, and she couldn't tell why. She kept reading.
"The third kind are incredibly rare. I've only seen one of them, and it's going to remain anonymous in case this book falls into the wrong hooves. Their magic deals more directly with the harmonic energies that make up a brand, externalizing it in ways we've never seen before, ways that should be scientifically impossible... stuff like putting the wrong kind of species magic in a pony. To my knowledge, they've never been studied, and could lead to absolutely anything. Of course..."
Starlight squinted, then turned a page. Arambai's hornwriting had become crammed up against a margin, making it hard to read. "Anyway," she continued on the next page, "that's where the focus of my research goes... and what whoever reads this could one day help me on, assuming they paid attention to the basics. Speaking of which, if you saw the word 'power' and skipped right to the end, shame on you! Go back and..."
She set the book down, blushing at having been so thoroughly called out. Regardless, what she was reading seemed less like academic information or scientific methods and more like propaganda aimed at getting her to stay and help the stallion with his experiments. Had he really kept a book like that laying around, just in case? What was he even doing with something like that? Had he somehow known she would come? That was preposterous and silly, but she pondered it just the same.
Her pondering was interrupted when the door swung open, Maple's cheery face sticking in. "Starlight? You've been in here a while! The corn's almost done, if you're hungry..."
Starlight licked her lips. Corn sounded welcome indeed. Pushing off the bed, she trotted out of the room, ready to join Maple for a peaceful early dinner.
Sunlight filtered down warmly through the leafy cover high above Riverfall, lighting the paths of hundreds of ponies going about their evening business. For most, that consisted of ambling slowly, chatting with others, or hanging around outside and seemingly doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.
For Amber, however, it consisted of laying atop the roof of a three-story tower directly adjacent to Willow's, and had been for the past three hours. Her head poked surreptitiously out over the edge, constantly watching her friend's door for any signs of coming and going.
A rush of wind and a furling of wings behind her heralded the return of Gerardo Guillaume. The blue griffon landed softly on the roof, a corn cob clutched proudly in his beak. Taking it in a talon, he announced, "They're currently having dinner, and a very fine one at that. In fact, miss Maple almost seemed disappointed you didn't show up. She said something about making extra." He pulled a fresh, un-gnawed cob out of his suit and offered it to the yellow mare.
Amber took it briskly, pinning it between her teeth as if it was a pipe and utterly failing to look cool due to its comically large size. Scrapping that plan, she grabbed it normally in her hooves and took a large bite. "It's good. Tell her thanks if you recon over there again!"
"Any signs of suspicious activity on this front?" Gerardo whispered, sidling up to Amber and holding his beak sideways to her ear.
The ear flicked. "Yeah," Amber suddenly deadpanned. "Us. We're, like, lurking on someone's roof and have been all day! We're probably the most suspicious ponies in town right now!" She covered her mouth to prevent loss of corn due to snickering. "At least, we should be. Watch this."
She swallowed and stuck her head back out, surveying the street around Willow's house. Out of the crowd passing below, at least two mares looked up, saw her, and smiled and waved.
"Apparently there's absolutely nothing unusual about me doing this whatsoever," Amber said, bewildered. She shrugged. "I actually don't know whether to feel proud or offended."
"All the more useful for us," Gerardo proclaimed. "Incidentally, this corn is very good." He pulled out another cob and bit the top clean off. Speaking with his mouth full, he added, "I don't suppose you'd care to make a friendly call on an old friend to see how our friends in the house below are doing?"
"Uh... sure thing, friend," Amber offered, setting aside her unfinished corn. "Give me a lift?"
"Still sound asleep," Amber reported, strolling out of Willow's house for the third time since Gerardo had returned with the corn. "Kids still playing. Faron still reading. And I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to ask again without making someone actually suspicious."
"Oh well!" Gerardo shrugged happily. "No harm, no foul. Speaking of fowl, I happen to have a chicken-themed deck of playing cards, if you consider it a better way to pass the time..."
Amber eyed the implement strangely the moment they were back on the roof. "Where did you get a thing like that?" She arched an eyebrow as high as it would go, studying the slightly bizarre cover image of a chicken girded in a crown and battle uniform.
"A passing vendor gave it to me when I was touring the bazaar," Gerardo replied with a deep smile. "For free, of course. It isn't common knowledge, but us wandering adventurer-hero types actually do get a hero discount." He hung his head. "Regretfully, it's rarely for anything useful."
"Right..." Amber asked dubiously as the griffon spread his cards atop the roof. "And while we're playing cards, who's going to watch the door to see if Faron goes anywhere? You are taking this seriously, aren't you?"
"Of course I'm not," Gerardo replied flatly. "If we're correct in our assumptions that your friend's husband is in fact a nefarious foalnapper, which already sounds like a rather silly accusation, he'd have to be an idiot to do anything during the day when there are this many ponies around and his escape route is only present at night. Our stakeout up here is completely pointless save for the fun of it, and that is what I intend to capitalize on. Of course..." He aimed one eye at Amber, and it shone dangerously. "Once night falls, then it will be time to take things seriously."
Night fell.
With a single sweep of a wing, Gerardo assembled the deck and stuffed it back in its case, erasing their score tally before anyone could check who the overall victor had been. He stood militarily, touched the hilt of his sword with a single talon, and strode to the edge of the roof. "Now," he spoke, "it is time to be serious. Keep a careful watch over that door."
Amber nodded solemnly, looking back over the edge herself. The day's crowd was quickly dispersing, ponies flowing back to their homes through ever-thinning streams of traffic. The sound of doors clicking echoed below as shadows deepened and windows came alive with lamplight, and within half an hour, the streets were deserted save for a few solitary figures dashing about on late-night business. Gerardo and Amber waited an hour after that, and then another. Moonlight began filtering through the trees. No ponies entered or exited through Willow's door. Riverfall was silent.
"I think," Gerardo whispered, leaving Amber crouched at the edge, "that I'm going to take a look around. Should anyone leave while I am absent, pretend to be an owl."
The mare nodded again, and Gerardo swooped off, circling around Willow's tower and clinging beneath window frames, checking them one by one. It didn't take long for him to return.
"Suffice it to say," Gerardo announced slightly more loudly than he had done before, "that being up all night tending to foals is a perfectly valid reason to sleep all day, but apparently that does not necessarily extend to the night after. Furthermore, our possibly-villainous stallion seems directly occupied as a result, and I strongly suspect he won't be feeling up to trying anything heinous, nefarious or dastardly before next sunrise. Finally..." He rubbed his talons together. "Those window blinds you ponies have are a miraculous invention and whoever created them deserves a raise and a promotion."
Amber reddened. "Yeah, thanks for making that subtle," she stage-whispered back. "So... we kinda waited up here all day long. You're just going to call it quits and... what, try again tomorrow? Because this could actually get boring after a while and I don't really feel like becoming nocturnal."
"Oh, ridiculous," Gerardo said with a smirk. "I said we were going to sneak, and we'll still do that. All we need is something else to sneak around, and I have the perfect target in mind..."
West of Riverfall, the forest of the southern riverbank rustled as a griffon glided his way through it, navigating between trees as much with his talons as with his wings. Amber clung to his nearly upright back as he swiftly and silently flew upriver, staying close enough to the water to see the opposite shore but not be seen as anything more than a passing shadow.
Abandoned, broken-down docks stretched along the far riverbank, mostly just poles that floating platforms had once been chained to. Amber felt a few thoughts about dubious construction fleeting through her head that they could be in that bad of shape after only seven years, before she remembered what had happened to Hemlock's crane... and the hubris that had allowed it. Who knew what kind of condition they had been in before the boats stopped coming?
Suddenly, they reached a dock that didn't seem damaged at all, at least from afar. It stood sturdily and without tilting, harsh white manalights stationed in rows atop short pillars on either side. Nothing was moored there... but the silhouette of a stallion stood at the end, coat illuminated with a yellow corona by the orbs of light.
Gerardo froze. When Amber saw him, she did too. They waited like that, hunched over in the foliage on the southern riverbank, for what felt like eternity. And then... a light drifted around the bend.
The river split in the beginnings of a wake as a dark prow nosed past, the boat that followed gliding soundlessly through the river. It seamlessly slid to a stop alongside Arambai's dock, disturbance so shallow that it was entirely swallowed by the river's natural turbidity. Out of sight, a platform dropped, and the sound of wood striking steel could be heard. Gerardo hovered closer.
"Ahh, Gunga. Here with tonight's shipment, are you?"
Arambai's voice rang out across the water. It was evident that he was talking softly, but the sound carried so well that Amber and Gerardo could hear it plainly. They craned their necks for more.
"That I am, Milord." A refined voice answered him, sounding like its owner was attempting to make it sound deeper than its natural pitch. "A reminder that the shipping schedule is due to update in a week. I brought you another new copy, just in case."
"Bah. You worry too much. But still... thanks. Anyway, here's the latest for you-know-who. Don't let it slip, but I think I've got a big break coming! Still a work in progress, though."
"You say that every time, sir," Gunga said with a hint of amusement behind his stiff, important tone. There was a flash of telekinesis, and something floated between the two stallions.
"Shut up!" Arambai's tone was whimsical, and two seconds passed before both stallions snorted and began chuckling. "All right, all right, yeah, I do," Arambai admitted. "So for the record, it's your fault if anyone gets their hopes up. I've got a whole city to run, here, for crying out loud! Besides, I've read the reports; things are perfectly stable. Why blunder into something untested when we've got all the time we could possibly need?"
"Whatever you say, sir," Gunga replied. "Shall we move these crates to land?"
"Eh, hold up. There are a few special circumstances." Arambai didn't move, and the stallions remained standing on the dock. "First off, a traveler wandered into my town the other day, and I'm thinking of sending 'em your way. Mind keeping any eastern passengers off the boat for the next week or so? It'd probably be easier if you arrived to take them alone."
"As you wish." Gunga bowed. "I assume you've already thought through the complications that could arise from such an act?"
Arambai laughed. "You bet your boots I have! It ain't an easy choice, let me tell you. But what am I, some kind of prison master? And besides, I think this'll be for the best."
Gunga didn't protest. "You mentioned more than one circumstance?"
"Yeah." Arambai paused, taking a breath. "I've got a rumor I need spread around, to get nice and circulated. How fast do you think you can spread a sensational story around Ironridge?"
"Sosa? One morning. The Earth District? A day. The whole city? Forty-eight hours."
"Snazzy. Here it is, then: some wild yahoo crosses the mountains, from the south. Found a network of caves that let them get through, or something. They probably crossed... eh, about two hundred miles east of my village. A pegasus, adult. Real rambunctious, loves bragging about it. Has a bunch of shiny artifacts to prove it. If anyone asks, you heard it from the crew of an airship from that crazy llama city that can't decide on a name. Ain't around these parts, though. Think you can sensationalize that?"
"A pegasus, sir? From the Plains of Harmony?"
"Yeah, that place. Oh, and he's gotta look the part, too. Let's see, what's something no sane pony would ever look like... ah, I know! Red and black mane, totally evil-looking. And he's got a sinister goatee! Nothing beats doubters like the smell of fake embellishment covering up the real thing."
"Should I give him a name, or say I don't know?"
"Yeah, better make it something spooky. Lots of M's and D's! How about... Dommordimo?"
"No offense, sir, but that's a terrible name."
"You're right, I stink at naming. Figure something out yourself, then. And help me get this stuff to shore! I'll come pick it up properly in the morning."
As the two stallions adjourned their conversation, Amber and Gerardo looked at each other, both brimming with unanswered questions. Silently, mutually, they decided to go someplace more private to discuss them.
"What was that all about?" Amber asked as they broke into a small, unused forest clearing.
"A good question," Gerardo huffed. "The better one is, where to begin?"
"That was Starlight's cover story!" Amber exclaimed softly, waving a hoof. "But why are they spreading it in Ironridge? Isn't Ironridge not supposed to know about Riverfall?"
"I'm more interested in the part where that stallion referred to Arambai as 'milord,'" Gerardo replied, catching his breath. "I'm not perfectly versed in Ironridge's political system, but I do believe it to be governed largely by an economic council. That is to say, the shipping companies are the government. It is hardly a monarchy to produce lords and ladies. He is from Ironridge, is he not?"
"Arambai?" Amber asked. "I mean, I think so. Maybe it was, like, a gesture of respect? He did only do it once, after all."
"Yes..." Gerardo mused. "Nevertheless, within a confidential setting I was not supposed to be privy to, they went about making preparations for my eventual voyage out of town. That, at least, is heartening, is it not?"
"For you," Amber replied. "I just wish our sneaking had actually answered something. Maybe Arambai wasn't kidding when he said he had more secrets than the rest of Riverfall put together." She blinked. "He did say that, right?"
"I don't know..." Gerardo stroked his chin. "However, I believe further discussion on this matter would best be done in the morning, after a good sleep, and with as many minds present as possible. What say you we pay our friend Maple a very late visit?"
Amber shrugged. "Well, sure. I'm game if you're game. But maybe we should sleep somewhere that doesn't involve barging in in the middle of the night?"
"Very well. Then let us be off!" Picking up the mare on his back, Gerardo swooped into the forest, heading back east in the direction of Riverfall.
Starlight felt herself awaken, but didn't open her eyes. Everything was warm and dark, and she found herself with no pressing reason to get up. Stretching slightly, she curled up and prepared to enjoy the morning by doing nothing... or perhaps going back to sleep. It wasn't like Maple wouldn't do the same, of course. Aside from that first morning, the earth pony seemed perfectly content to let the time go by and cuddle. All in all, it was a much nicer way to start the day than with an alarm clock.
Maple stirred against her as she moved. "Starlight?" she mumbled. "You're up?"
"No," Starlight mumbled back. "I'm asleep. You can stay... if you want..."
A hoof draped over her, pulling her closer to Maple's snuggled form. "Hee... I like waking up this way. Thanks for putting up with it, Starlight. I'm glad..."
Starlight hummed, rolled so that she was facedown, and let herself drift back to sleep.
The next time she awoke, it wasn't quite so peaceful. First, one ear twitched, and then another, registering some sort of roar around the house... and not the soothing sound of rain on the roof.
She groaned, which seemed to awaken Maple as well. "Really?" the earth pony scowled, moving her hooves in an attempt to get up. "Why is the town so noisy these days? If it's another boat..."
Maple hauled herself upright, and Starlight eventually followed suit. Both blinked owlishly for a moment as Starlight lit her horn, removing the need to open the blinds for illumination. "Well," Maple announced, sliding off the bed, "I'm out of patience for noisy events for the time being, and have every intention of pretending it doesn't exist. Come on, Starlight, want me to fix your mane?"
Starlight stood still as her mane was fussed with, eventually coming away with it in a neat single ponytail that Maple probably thought looked quite cute. She followed the mare to the kitchen, sat by the table as breakfast was prepared, and eventually nursed an ordinary bowl of cinnamon milk and oats, all the while pretending to ignore the hubbub outside. Maple sat across from her, and they politely and awkwardly stared at each other and nowhere else for the duration of the meal.
"All right," Maple said, putting aside her finished bowl, "this is getting ridiculous. It sounds like they're just outside the..." She trotted to the window and looked down, bewilderment pausing her in mid-sentence. "House? Why is there a giant crowd of ponies standing right outside my house?"
"There's what?" Starlight got up, walking over herself. "How big is it?"
"Maybe something happened and my store got famous," Maple murmured, turning toward the stairs. "I'm going down to check. You can wait here, if you like."
Starlight declined, creeping warily along behind Maple as the mare moved to open the lower door. The moment it swung open, her mane was blown back by the sheer force of excitement radiating in from outside. "Hi!" a pony beamed, managing to cram their face past all the others and into the door. "Is this where Starlight lives? The one from the Plains of Harmony?"
Both ponies in the house froze. Maple took a step backwards, ears folded. "I... what?"
"Starlight!" another shouted over the first one's head. "We heard she crossed the southern mountains! Is it true?" More ponies pressed in, and more questions were launched, though they quickly became indiscernible due to the clamoring.
Maple's ears pressed heavily against her head, and she tried to stammer an inaudible response... when a field of cyan telekinesis picked her up and gently pushed her aside. That same field hardened into an iron ball, forcing the doorway clear of ponies as Starlight icily stalked outside, maintaining space for herself with a telekinetic forcefield that the visitors smashed up against. "All right," she hissed, words drowned out by the crowd, "you have three seconds for me to realize this is a nightmare and wake up."
None of the ponies heard her. Three seconds later, Starlight's horn crackled with energy, and suddenly the entire crowd was encased in a giant manacrystal, Starlight standing in a clearing in the center. Behind her, Maple looked on in shock. Her horn twinged painfully, but she ignored it.
"One at a time," she demanded, shrinking the crystal just enough so that a lone mare stumbled free. "What happened to not bothering foreigners about their pasts!?"
"I-I..." the lone mare stammered, clearly stupefied by the crystals. "I don't know! I j-just followed the others because they were excited, and t-they said, well..."
Starlight stamped a hoof. "Okay, look! I didn't come here because I wanted ponies to be obsessed with my past, or care about where I'm from, or treat me like anything special, because I don't want to be! Got it?"
She stood there for a second, watching. From the crystals, eyes blinked back at her, and she suddenly realized that the captive ponies hadn't listened to a word she had said. Guiltily, she remembered the panic she had felt the first time she had sealed herself; the feeling of neither needing to nor being able to breathe.
The crystals vanished. There was a minute of still silence, and then the crowd dispersed and vanished in the blink of an eye, only a few cowering stragglers remaining. "I-I'm sorry," a mare wept, looking as if she might try to roll away if her legs didn't start working soon. "I didn't mean..."
Starlight looked down at her, blood chilling at the expression on the mare's face. "No..." she murmured, voice rising. "I'm not dangerous! I'm sorry! You were being too loud to hear me! W-What was I supposed to do!?"
The mare finally found her hooves and scrambled away, leaving Starlight standing alone in the middle of the street. Suddenly, the weight of her horn hit her like a ton of bricks, and she staggered. Ordinarily, she would have shrugged it off like she always did... but this time, it felt far more appropriate to collapse, the dust of the road brushing harshly against her muzzle.
"Aaaaagh!" Starlight pounded the ground, covering her face with both hooves. "Now they're probably all afraid of me! Why did they have to be so... rrnngh... why weren't they listening? What did I do wrong!?"
"Starlight." Maple's shadow covered her, and it was clear from the tone that she had to try to keep her voice steady. "I know it's been a little stressful with the things Arambai said yesterday, and I don't blame you. I'll find them. I'll talk to them and make them come around. Okay?" A hoof scooped her off the ground and attempted to set her upright, failing as she slumped over again. "Starlight?" Maple's soft face met her eyes. "Please?"
Starlight finally got up, hugging herself close to the mare. She sniffled and said nothing.
"I think," Maple announced after a minute, "that we should go see Arambai and tell him about this. He said he was going to do something, after all. Maybe he can help."
"I'm still staying," Starlight mumbled, clinging tightly. "I'm still not going to leave, okay?"
"Yes. Thank you." Maple patted her, then began to lift her onto her back. "Now let's get going."
Before they could, a loud rustle of wings sounded from above, heralding a griffon swooping in with a mare on his back. "Err..." Gerardo landed, looking awkwardly at the two. "Did something happen of which we're unaware?"
"Yes," Maple growled, "something did. We just got visited by a mob of ponies who knew where Starlight was from. And before we could explain or learn anything, they ran away."
"Wow." Amber blinked, hopping down from Gerardo's back. "Really? That almost makes what we saw last night look tame."
"It was weird," Maple sighed, "and we're going to talk to Arambai."
Three loud knocks sounded on the door to Arambai's house, and it obligingly swung open. "Aha," the stallion muttered, seeing the two mares, one filly and griffon standing in wait. "It's you."
"It's us," Starlight answered, still upset and very much willing to take the lead. "And your village of respectful ponies who don't go poking at others' business just sent a mob to bother me about where I was from, didn't listen when I tried to talk to them and then ran off."
"Yeah." Arambai looked at the ground. "I'm, uh, sorry about that. If it interests you to know, I've actually had quite a few of them show up here already, talking about being stuffed in crystals and wanting to know if they'll be alright."
Starlight bristled. "I didn't have a choice! They were pushing and talking and wouldn't shut up so I could answer them!" She drooped slightly. "But the crystals are safe. I used them a lot on myself in the mountains."
"They'll be glad to know that," Arambai said with a sigh. "...So. I imagine there's a whole bunch of stuff you want to ask, and can't decide where to begin?"
"How they found out would be a good starting point," Maple offered defensively. "You said you were going to spread some rumors to take everyone's focus off of Starlight!"
"That one's easy enough," Arambai replied glumly. "Everyone here says it was the fault of a certain loudmouthed stallion who's a little bit embarrassed about a recent mishap that made him look bad. Can't say I know how he found out, but as best I can tell, this was nothing more than a petty little revenge scheme from a bruised ego looking to pin blame. A reputation for a reputation, you know. That sort of thing."
"Hemlock...?" Maple's ears folded.
"Yeah. Apparently he was stirring up a crowd at the market this morning. Again, sorry there was nothing I could do in time."
"I always knew he was trouble," Amber said darkly, pounding her hooves together.
"So why'd he do that to me?" Starlight pouted, stomping. "It was his fault the crane broke! That's what you're talking about, right?"
"Well..." Arambai shrugged, still standing in the doorway. "The whole episode made him look pretty bad, and you were kind of a hero even if ponies had other things to talk about. I guess, somehow, he figured out that you didn't want attention and went around to grab you a bunch. You know, as punishment for stealing his spotlight, or something. Beats me how his mind works. I just wish I knew how he found all that out..."
"If I may," Gerardo asked, stepping up, "what do you plan to do about this? I'm afraid miss Amber and myself wouldn't be nearly as successful if we attempted a repeat of our last stunt."
Arambai nodded. "I haven't gone out to look for him yet. Although, something tells me you're better at hunting miscreants down than I am..." He sighed and turned to walk into the house. "There might be nothing to do but live with it, I'm afraid. I'll try to take my usual disciplinary actions, but that can only deal with Hemlock. And even then, I'm limited in what I can do. Lock him up? This town doesn't have a jail. Banish him? Much as I'd love to, that's a horrible idea when the crime is spilling secrets. Think you can manage, Starlight?"
Starlight frowned back at him. "I'm not scared or hurt, or anything. I'm frustrated because they were being idiots and don't get it! Do they want me to be better than them? Don't they get that that's a bad thing? Why do they want some ponies to be special or important?"
Arambai sighed. "Some day, you're going to have to get that outlook of yours looked at. Still, at least it's a lot easier to get by being offended by something than it is being traumatized. Anyway, get in here. I've got a bit of reassuring to do, and then we can go look for Hemlock."
"Actually," Gerardo offered, turning to Amber and motioning at the sky, "it doesn't seem either of us are needed for this present conversation. Might we get a head start on that mercenary business while you and Starlight have your talk?"
He was met with nods all around.
"Starlight's here, girls," Arambai's voice boomed through the house. "She says she's done the crystal thing to herself and it's perfectly safe, and she apologized for using it at all and said she only did it because you lot wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise. Everything fine with that?"
A collective sigh of relief radiated through a sitting room, where no less than ten mares were huddled on couches, loveseats and even the middle of the floor. When Starlight came into view behind the stallion, there were instant chattered apologies, everyone tripping over each other until they realized what they were doing. The room fell silent.
"Look," Starlight mumbled, realizing she finally had their attention. "If you really need to know, yes, that's where I'm from. But it shouldn't and doesn't matter because I'm just as much of a pony as you are and there's no reason to treat me any better or worse for it. Okay?"
"But you're not," one mare countered, boldly pointing a hoof. "You must have seen things that are legendary! You probably know more than all of Riverfall combined!" She swallowed, and added, "Why shouldn't that make you special?"
"Because..." Starlight fumbled briefly; no matter how many times she rehearsed this in her head, it was difficult to say it without imagining other ponies poking mercilessly for cracks in her logic. "Because you never had a chance to! I just got lucky, or... or unlucky. How is it fair to make someone special because of luck?" She glared back, hoping she wasn't appearing too threatening.
"Well, I... I dunno..." The mare stared at her hooves, perplexed.
"If you don't mind," Maple interrupted, stepping up close to Starlight, "what really would be best is if we could have our space. Could you simply treat us like everything is normal for now, please?"
A chorus of nods echoed in return, and Maple sighed. "There," she said, turning to Starlight. "We'll probably get strange looks for quite a while, but we'll... we'll live with it."
"Glad to see that's all cleared up," Arambai announced, looking in from a hallway. "Anyway, since it'll probably be a while before those two heroes drag our suspect back in for questioning... and I am very curious to learn where he found that information out... think you two are feeling up to assisting me in an experiment down below? It's something I was hoping to work on before all this mess, but since you're here anyway, why not?"
"As long as it doesn't need my horn," Starlight grumbled, rubbing her head. "It hurts, now..."
"I'll help." Maple glanced around at the mares in the sitting room, some of whom appeared to be leaving, and others settling in to stay for a while. "Err... should we go downstairs to say what it is?"
"Eh, it's not really a big deal." Arambai trotted nevertheless towards a staircase leading to the shop below. "It has to do with that incident the other day when Starlight tried to use my teleporter. Basically, I want to try that again, to see if it was some sort of freak accident or is actually reproducible."
Starlight sighed loudly, pouting as she set hoof on the stairs. "Whatever. I already have a headache. Maybe if I get blown up and knocked out again, I can sleep it off..."
Starlight, Maple and Arambai descended the stairs to the ground-floor basement in silence. Now that they had been that way several times, the mountainous maze of boxes and storage equipment seemed far less daunting, passing in the blink of an eye. Idly, Maple wondered why the stallion kept the room so full when he had access to a network of storage tunnels without even going outside.
Arambai looked over his shoulder as he walked. "By the way, I... wanted to apologize for some of the stuff I said up on that overlook yesterday. Probably weren't the best kind of secrets to let out in company, you know? I just got eager, and forgot why Starlight shouldn't've heard them."
"About there being a boat out of Riverfall?" Starlight droned. "I made up my mind already. I'm not leaving."
"Really...?" Arambai raised a surprised eyebrow. "Even after what happened this morning? Huh. Not that I don't support that decision, of course. Ironridge is a dangerous place for a little filly like you, even one clever enough to survive the mountains. The wilderness is one thing, but desperate ponies are a whole other barrel of troubles to deal with."
"I made up my mind," Starlight answered, seating herself on the teleporter dais and looking firmly at the stallion. "It wouldn't be fair to Maple if I just left. It isn't either of our faults that the ponies are being pushy or bothering me, and I hate it when you lose friends for things you can't control."
"Good, good," Arambai grunted, fiddling with a piece of equipment on his workbench. "At least you're selfless. Always an admirable trait to see in a... pony!" With a heave, he snapped something into place, then straightened up with a chunk of machinery.
"Starlight?" Maple asked, standing nearby and watching as Arambai worked. "If I didn't exist... then... Are you really staying just for me?"
"Then I'd leave," Starlight replied matter-of-factly. "Maybe there's some other place where it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from. Somewhere you don't have to keep secrets because nobody cares anyway. I'd keep looking until I find that."
"I hate to break it to you," Arambai announced as Maple folded her ears in the background, "but even if something were to happen to her, or she wasn't here in the first place, I wouldn't let you leave. Didn't I just say how foolhardy it would be to let you wander unattended around that big city? It's not like I could ask Gerardo to take care of you, either. That bird would probably just fly off the moment he's gotten rid of his precious cargo, or try to find some other family to dump you on. He's not the kind of creature that likes being chained by responsibility."
"It doesn't matter," Starlight hissed, stomping a hoof, "because I'm not leaving and nothing's happening to Maple!"
"Yeah, you mentioned that." Arambai stepped closer, holding a modified-looking helmet. "Here. This one's got extra sensors and indicators, so hopefully we can get some good data even if it gets fried. Wear this the same way you did before, and just do what you did last time."
"You're sure this is safe, right?" Maple asked, standing nearby and steeled for anything.
"It's never hurt a pony before," Arambai answered, waving Starlight on. "Now let's see what happens!"
"Well... okay..." Starlight took the thing nervously in her hooves, the machine already thrumming behind her. Above, the energy rails were dull and dormant, and she wobbled unsteadily from the leftover throbbing in her horn. Reaching up, she set the helmet on her head.
CRACK!
Maple felt Starlight slam into her with the speed of a bullet, sheer luck placing her in the way to catch the flying filly. She staggered back a step from the impact, grunting and holding Starlight tightly.
Above, blue lightning surged through the rails, illuminating the entire room in a cloudy haze for several fractions of a second before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. An acrid stench quickly filled the room, which Maple realized to be coming from the cables that tethered Starlight's helmet to the machine. She grabbed and threw the thing off, letting it clang and bounce against the floor, smoking lightly.
"Starlight?" She reached down and nuzzled the unconscious filly, unable to see as her eyes struggled to adjust after the flash. "Starlight, are you okay?"
Arambai was hurriedly dashing between consoles, ignoring them. "Interesting... interesting... that's weird... now how do you like that?"
"Starliiight," Maple moaned, worriedly hugging her closely. She licked the filly's scalp, to no effect. Upon examination, however, she was not only breathing regularly but seemed to have a perfectly normal heartrate. "Arambai?" she asked. "Can you turn on a brighter light?"
The stallion kicked a wall switch as he passed, and suddenly the room was bathed in a dull yellow glow. Maple sighed... then gasped when she saw Starlight.
"Arambai!" she screeched, lifting Starlight up. "Why does she look like that!?"
"I-I think so," Maple stammered, holding Starlight against a backlight. The lamp was still faintly visible through Starlight's coat, as if she were made of very dark, fuzzy stained glass. They sat there for a solid minute, and as time passed, she gradually went from transparent to translucent and then entirely solid once again.
"Well..." Arambai straightened up. "She's not going to take that well."
"What do you mean?" Maple bristled. "It's permanent? If she's not all right after this, I will-"
"Nahhh." Arambai quieted her with a wave. "She's done this before, remember? I bet she'll be completely back to normal by the time she wakes up. What's really going to bug her is that this is pretty much proof she's different from other ponies. Maybe even metaphysically so. The only thing I can think of is that ponies from the Plains of Harmony are just... different from us."
"How so?" Maple stood defensively, still holding Starlight as Arambai wandered around.
The stallion raised an eyebrow. "You want my best theory? I'm warning you, it's untested." At a nod, he continued. "You see... the way this machine works is by using ponies like... like catalysts. There's all sorts of magic ponies can do that machines can't even begin to approximate, so the idea is to incorporate ponies somehow into a machine. It sounds sinister when I put it that way, but it's really not that different from using yourself to pull a cart. You follow?"
Maple felt sick. "You're saying you tried to... borrow something from her, but somehow took too much, and might have... made her almost disappear? You are, aren't you?" She took a step backwards.
"That's putting it in layponies' terms," Arambai grumbled. "But yeah, something like that. It sure is interesting..."
"Well, you can forget about doing any more experiments on her," Maple hissed. "Who knows if there are permanent effects, or if this could cause her to actually disappear, or something?"
"I wasn't planning to," Arambai replied with a wave of a hoof. "Believe me, if I'd known it would do that, I never even would have tried this time. Sticking the wrong power source in a broken machine to try and fix it is the kind of thing that works in adventure stories, but it's a terrible idea in real life, when lives are on the line. And much as I'd love to learn more about this... doing it safely would require the tools I used for initial research on this type of thing. Besides, where would we get more of her kind to make anything we learned actually be useful?" He shrugged. "Keep an eye on her and bring her back if it looks like anything's getting worse, though I'm not really sure what I'd do about it if it did."
Focusing on calming herself, Maple nuzzled Starlight again. "Okay. I... will. If you don't mind, though, I'd like to go home now and put her to bed?"
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Arambai turned back to the machines, reading over a strip of numbers again. "Let me and your friends deal with the Hemlock stuff. And, uh..." He looked back at her. "Want to not tell Starlight about this? That she really is different from every pony in the northern world? I doubt she'd like it, and it seems like the kind of thing to keep under as tight of wraps as possible."
"Yes," Maple answered with Starlight on her back, "let's do that. Oh, and... if you don't mind..." She hung her head. "I had one other question, about something you said earlier?"
Arambai took a step toward her. "All right, let's hear it."
Maple moved to open Arambai's door, Starlight asleep on her back and the tiniest of springs in her step. She reached a hoof out... when suddenly, it blew open of its own accord.
"Well, that didn't take long at all!" Gerardo's smiling, beaked face announced. Next to him, a smirking Amber was guarding a tied-up Hemlock, who was thrashing and probably would have been hurling insults had he not been gagged. Maple raised an eyebrow.
"You... hogtied him?" she asked dubiously.
As Amber nodded sagely, Gerardo answered, "Overkill, perhaps, though considering both of us had prior grudges to settle as well, I can't bring myself to feel bad about it in the slightest. Is, um..." He tilted his head. "Is Starlight taking a nap at this hour?"
Maple smiled awkwardly, before craning around to check on the filly. "Yeah, she is. I'm taking her back home, so hopefully you don't need either of us?" She winked forcefully.
Amber quickly got the hint. "Nah, you're good. We'll handle this crone ourselves."
Gerardo bowed in agreement. "Indeed. The dispensing of righteous justice is always a pity to miss out on, but we'll promise not to have too much fun. Please, do enjoy your nap."
"Kind of a little over the top there, buddy," Amber giggled, nudging him and getting a chuckle in return. "Yeah, have fun. See ya!"
"Thanks, you two." Maple's ears folded gratefully. "Oh, and... I was thinking of making dinner down at Willow's tonight, so you should definitely be there. I'm grilling a pineapple!"
"We'll be there!" Amber waved eagerly, keeping a smile plastered to her face as Maple and Starlight walked out of sight. The moment they were gone, however, she scowled and turned to Gerardo. "All right, now what do we do with this guy?"
"Good question," Arambai's voice remarked from the doorway. "You could start by bringing him inside."
In the high tower room where one wall was made entirely of curved glass, Hemlock's muzzle was finally removed. "I demand a lawyer!" he instantly screeched. "And some refreshments, too."
"Hold up, big shot," Arambai drawled, telekinetically planting him in place. "First, there's some stuff we wanted to talk to you about. Collateral damage from breaking a boat while trying to show off aside, you broke Riverfall's number one rule this morning. Any guesses what that was?"
"I was sabotaged!" Hemlock flailed helplessly, failing to break free of his bonds. "That wasn't my fault, it was hers! Oh, and I still want a lawyer!"
Arambai rolled his eyes. "Fine. Pretend I'm a lawyer. Now tell me you know what this is about?"
"Actually," Gerardo interrupted, raising a talon, "playing devil's advocate can be quite amusing at times. Might I lawyer for the crone?"
"Nah. I want to keep this semi-serious, here," Arambai answered. "Besides, the less we goof around, the faster it gets the crone out of my house."
"I am not a crone!" Hemlock bellowed. "I'm thrice the stallion you'll ever be! Now untie me and treat me with the dignity I deserve!"
Amber stuck her tongue out. "My tail thinks you're a crone. Still think it's that attractive now?"
Realizing the situation was going nowhere, Arambai put his head in his hooves and sighed. "Good grief..."
Starlight slowly snuffled and snorted herself awake, some part of her brain deciding it was time to begin the new day. A fuzziness clouded her head as her thoughts awakened with her, feeling vaguely like she was made of paper... but with each blink of her purple eyes, it lifted somewhat.
"Are you feeling okay?" Maple's soft voice came from beside her, where the mare was curled.
"Huh?" Starlight lit her horn. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Maple's brow creased with worry in the teal light. "You mean you don't remember what just happened?" She hesitated. "What were we doing before we went to bed?"
"Umm..." Starlight chewed her lip. "Not much? You were selling things, and I was reading, and..." Her eyes crossed. "We had oats for breakfast."
"Now that I think about it, you had trouble remembering what immediately happened last time, too, didn't you?" Maple asked, sighing. At Starlight's questioning look, she added, "Arambai wanted to try hooking you up to his machine again to see what would happen, and I let him."
"Oh." Starlight looked down and shrugged, light still streaming off her horn. "Well, I feel fine."
"Do you..." Maple hesitated. "Remember why we were at Arambai's in the first place?"
Starlight's face scrunched. "There was an annoying noise... umm... Mares?"
Swallowing, Amber said, "A mob turned up that had figured out where you were from. It was Hemlock's fault. We went to Arambai to see what he could do about it."
Starlight blinked in disbelief... and then in strange recognition. "Wow." She rubbed her head. "Maybe I don't want to remember that... Are you sure?" She looked up, pleading.
"Yes," Maple said sadly. "Though you did handle it very well. I thought so, at least. Starlight... you also said you were staying here anyway, but only because of me. That if I wasn't here to miss you, you'd leave. Do you still feel that way?"
"Now that I think about it, I can remember more and more," Starlight said glumly. "But it still feels like a dream. Did I really freeze them all in crystal?"
"Yes," Maple repeated. "It was very impressive, but they were just scared. But they were being so pushy, and I'm not really sure what else you could have done..."
"That's weird," Starlight responded, blinking in confusion. She rubbed at her forehead. "Making a crystal that big should have been really hard, but my horn doesn't hurt at all."
"It doesn't...?" Maple breathed, eyes widening. "That happened last time, too! I wonder if Arambai's machine is somehow able to heal your horn when it gets overexerted..."
"Meh." Starlight shrugged. "Maybe. But didn't you also say it makes me forget stuff?"
"And sleep for hours," Maple hummed. "It's late afternoon, almost evening. We're having dinner at Willow's tonight, and will need to get going pretty soon."
Starlight folded her ears. "Were you in here the whole time?"
"More or less, yes." Maple looked around the room, not yet getting up. "I've had some things to think about. But, about what I asked earlier... if it weren't for me... would you leave? On Arambai's night ferry to Ironridge?"
"I don't know..."
"You don't want to make me feel like I'm a burden to you," Maple said gently, putting a hoof over Starlight. The filly shook, and ever-so-faintly nodded. "Starlight..."
Starlight hugged her back. "I'll be fine here. Really. You're nice, and Willow's nice and so are the others. I can live with it if ponies won't stop treating me like I'm special as long as they don't try to take me away. You'll see. I'll be happy." She swallowed, and added, "I started reading Arambai's book."
"That's nice..." Maple stretched. "I hope it's not too dry. Anyway, we should get going. It's a ways to Willow's house, and who knows how many ponies will try to stop us to talk on the way there?"
Together, they got up and unfurled the blinds. The sunlight had turned gray, evidently due to a fresh patch of cloud cover, but it wasn't yet raining. Invigorated by the new reason to hurry, they quickly prepared themselves, grabbed a poncho just in case, and headed out the door.
Starlight scurried along at Maple's side, opting not to ride on the mare's back. It took more effort, leaving her with marginally less concentration to watch the ponies they passed in the street... which was just as well, because more than half of them were looking at her.
"It still feels like that was a dream," she muttered, matching Maple's pace. Her ears folded as she looked up at her friend. "They're scared, aren't they? They're keeping their distance..."
"Yes," Maple answered, looking straight ahead, "they are. Would you rather they not?"
"Well... no..." Starlight's head drooped, and her tail with it. "But I don't want them looking at me like I'm a monster. It's the same thing. Whether they think I'm better or worse than everyone else..."
"But none of them are going to try to change anything you don't want them to because of it," Maple comforted. "And if they did, Arambai wouldn't let them. I don't know if you remember, but he said he wouldn't..." She cut off. "Actually, let's not mention that in public."
The street ponies didn't seem to care, though they kept watching, staring, judging. Starlight forced her steps to stay proud, yet she didn't glare back. The last thing she wanted was to challenge any of them, right then. Besides, it was something she would have to get used to, staying in Riverfall.
They kept walking, and they kept being given a wide berth. Around them, Riverfall's vibrant reds and browns were muted by the overcast sky above the canopy, acting as a fitting backdrop to the unblinking eyes that watched them pass. Ponies broke off conversations as they drew close. Some, who wouldn't have cared otherwise, started looking just to see what everyone else was looking at.
Eventually, Starlight couldn't take it anymore, and stopped. "If you have something to say, you can say it," she loudly announced. "I'm listening."
The ponies blinked. One took a step closer. None said anything.
"Well?" Starlight demanded, doing her best to mask her irritation.
"They said you came from over the mountains," a voice came from somewhere in the crowd, followed by its owner stepping forward. "Did you really?" The pony's ears folded. "I wanted to see for myself, if you looked like the type that could survive such a journey. But you're just a filly."
"A filly that turned Palm and twenty others to stone," another countered. "She's probably more powerful than Arambai! I bet she just teleported across!"
"She did save the griffon's boat, remember?" A mare stepped out, nodding in agreement. "Arambai couldn't do that. He even tried! I was there!"
Starlight sighed loudly, lit her horn... and a moment later encased herself in a large chunk of crystal. She waited for the ponies to gasp, successfully remembering not to try to breathe, and dispelled it. "I didn't turn anyone to stone," she said dully. "I did that. And it's completely safe."
The first mare to speak up raised her voice. "So did you really come from across the mountains? Do you have anything that can prove it?"
"If I had anything, I wouldn't want to," Starlight answered loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Isn't this town a place where you don't poke into ponies' pasts? Because I don't need to be reminded why I came here." She raised her ears. "Besides, Arambai said we're not supposed to do things that make ponies not happy to live here. You can't go to Equestria. It wouldn't be fair if I told you about it."
"I've seen you riding her around all day," the first mare prodded, pointing a hoof at Maple. "If you could really walk across those mountains, you should have the stamina to walk on your own. Why do you need a caretaker?"
"Shut up!" Starlight snarled, dropping into a crouch and lighting her horn. "Leave her out of this!"
The mare didn't stop. "I don't get it. You don't seem like the type to make up a story like that about yourself. You're not nearly charismatic enough! Not like Gerardo..." She briefly gave an oblivious smile, then continued. "Did she do it for you?"
Another mare elbowed her harshly. "Knock it off, Mangrove! You're gonna get crystalled!"
"More importantly, you're being rude," another added. "Do either of them look like-"
They were interrupted by a jet of cyan light. Instantly, Mangrove's head became encased in gemstone, leaving the rest of her body to flail in panic. She immediately toppled, yanking at the thing and bashing it against the ground, unable to cry out.
Starlight winced every time it struck, but her horn was completely fresh and it was easy to shrug off. After a moment, she let the mare go... but kept her horn lit, and made sure everyone saw.
"Look," she demanded, "I don't want to be famous or special. I'm not a hero, and I'm not a villain, so don't try to make me one! You can think I'm a secret alicorn or a hobo from Ironridge, I don't care! I'm used to ponies not getting it. But don't you dare do anything to my friends, okay?"
"We'd never!" shouted back one of the ponies who had chastised the now-fleeing Mangrove. "We're just curious! Nothing has happened here for seven years, and now both you and Gerardo showed up a few days apart!" Her ears folded. "We're curious..."
"Please don't be mad at us," another added. "Or freeze us or run away. It's just been so long since we've been able to be excited about the outside world..."
A blue mare nodded. "It doesn't even matter if what you say is true. We don't care. It would be interesting!" She tilted her head. "Like, what's an alicorn?"
Starlight clenched her teeth in a frown of indecision. They wanted to love her... most of them, at least. And letting them do so would make them happier, even if it didn't actually lead to any change in their lives. Unless it would? What if they tried to leave; if she stoked dreams that would then fail them like Maple's failed her? Would that be worth it? Then again, if they never were able to leave, they'd never find out that the outside world wasn't as good as they likely imagined it. But there couldn't be no catch. That would imply that it would be an all-around good thing to let them love her...
"Maple?" she asked, looking to the mare for advice.
Maple, who had been standing by ready to intervene but doing nothing for the whole exchange, simply shrugged. "Who knows what the future has in store, Starlight? If I were you, though?" Her eyes shone with the light of unshared knowledge. "I'd let them. Tell them stories. Be nice to them now. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to hope for something good to happen?"
Slowly... hesitantly... Starlight nodded. "Fine."
Most of the crowd beamed. By that point, the density of ponies had roughly tripled, others from further away being drawn in by the noise and flash from Starlight's spell. As they began to press closer, however, Maple raised a hoof, warding them back.
"Um, sorry," she apologized. "I shouldn't have said it that way. We had dinner arranged with a friend, and were on the way..." She blushed hopefully. "You're welcome to come to my house tonight, though! We'll be there, and can talk until however late you want!"
"We'll definitely be there," a mare at the front of the crowd said, and several others nodded in agreement. The rest of the crowd parted, allowing a path for Maple and Starlight to resume their original trek to Willow's house.
A slow knocking preceded the door to Willow's house opening, Maple not bothering to wait for someone to let her in. "Hello?" She tilted her head around the entry, not setting hoof into the room.
"Hey, Maple!" Amber waved enthusiastically from the table, where she sat chatting with Gerardo. Willow was nearby, looking slightly tired, if much less so than the previous day. "Come on in!"
Maple obliged, followed shortly by Starlight. She beelined straight for the table, seating herself between Amber and Willow. Folding her hooves, she smiled, leaving Starlight standing bewildered by the door. "Uhhh..." The filly pointed a hoof. "Didn't you say you were going to make dinner?"
"Oh!" Maple stood straight up, ears folded in embarrassment. "Sorry! I completely zoned out, didn't I? Heh heh..." Apologetically, she rushed to the counter, depositing two large pineapples, hurriedly doing nothing as she oriented herself and prepared to begin working.
Willow's nose twitched. "Starlight?" she asked, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. "The kids are upstairs, if you'd like to go play with them. I'm certain they'd enjoy it."
"I... guess?" Starlight looked apprehensively at Maple. The mare was acting distracted... Did Willow see it too, and wanted her gone to ask about something in private? Maple had, after all, just left her to address a crowd of street ponies on her own. Nodding, she agreed. "Yeah, I'll go."
"Have fun!" Amber waved as she slowly headed for the stairs.
As soon as Starlight left, Amber offered, "We messed with Hemlock for a while at Arambai's. Didn't really hear anything useful, or where he found that information out. I mean, who even knew? All of us, plus Starlight, Faron and Willow's kids."
"It isn't impossible the children let something slip." Gerardo raised a talon. "Still, as Arambai pointed out, Riverfall is ill-equipped with a system for punishing rulebreakers short of public dishonor, and I'm not sure that Hemlock is the type of stallion to possess honor in the community to remove so much as a minimal level of tolerance. Ultimately, we let him go... but who knows what will happen next?"
Amber nodded from where she sat. "He'll probably try and dig up dirt on another one of us in some dumb revenge scheme. As if he didn't start the whole thing!"
"They might've," Willow said, mostly paying attention to Maple. The dust-colored mare was sharpening a long knife in preparation to slice the pineapples. "I asked Faron to tell them not to, but who knows? Either way, it's an open secret now. I don't think there's anything we can do..."
"How is Starlight taking it?" Gerardo asked. "She didn't appear very upset either of the times I've seen her."
It took a second for Maple to respond. "Huh? Oh, she's good. I think. Everyone was looking at her on the way here. She stopped and talked to them. It might be a thing she could get used to."
Willow's hoof came to rest on her shoulder. "Maple," the silvery mare pressed, "you're distracted. No matter how Starlight takes it, it's going to be hard on you as well, I'm sure. Are you doing all right?"
"I'm fine," Maple murmured back, turning on the oven as she chopped the scaly skin from the pineapples. "Just a lot to think about. I guess I still need time to process things and make up my mind..."
"Are you making grilled pineapples?" Willow asked, leaving Amber and Gerardo to watch from the background. "I'm sure you remember the last time you made them. What's going on?"
Amber's face scrunched. "Huh? What happened last time?"
"Yes," Maple sighed, "I do remember. And I'm okay. Like I said, I've just got a lot to think about."
"River filly!"
Starlight was greeted by a pair of enthusiastic voices as Fir and Alder scampered up to her on the staircase landing. The foals bounced slightly, Alder's orange horn letting off a few errant bursts of light. She blinked back at them. "Uhh... hi?"
"Amber said everyone found out that you're from over the mountains," Fir said, smirking slyly. Her ears perked. "Does that mean we can ask you about what it was like, now!?"
"We've just been dying to know!" Alder added, nodding furiously. "Is it true that trees can talk down there?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight took a step back from the force of their inquiries. "I don't think they do?"
"Aww!" Alder swung a hoof, head hanging with a dejected pout. "There goes my number one theory..."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "You two didn't tell Hemlock just so you wouldn't get in trouble for asking me, did you?"
Fir's eyes widened, and she held a hoof to her chest. "Of course we didn't! That would be dirty!"
"Yeah!" Alder added. "We wouldn't dare do a thing like that! We're not bad guys..."
Starlight sniffed. She wasn't sure whether they were exceptionally bad at lying, or too innocent to know that that was even a consideration. Did she want them to be the ones who leaked her secret? Not really. She already felt like she was putting up with something every time she was around Willow's children, and having an actual reason to dislike them wouldn't help. Not when she should be treating them the same way as any other ponies. Being young and cluelessly happy wasn't a crime. It wouldn't be fair to be anything less than eager and nice back. ...Well, maybe not that eager.
She folded her ears. Did that mean she should lead them on about what Equestria was like? Arambai had told her that it was better if the ponies of Riverfall didn't have any unnecessary reasons to romanticize the outside world. But she had also just promised a large group of ponies in the middle of the road that she would tell them stories. If she couldn't talk to a pair of bouncy children, how would she ever give a speech to that many adults?
With a sigh, Starlight asked, "Alright, fine. What do you want to know?"
Fir smartly raised a hoof. "Are there other kinds of ponies besides earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi? And have you seen them? Actually, have you even seen a pegasus? What did they look like?"
Sighing internally, Starlight began as long and pointless of a monologue as she could muster, hoping to bore the ponies with Equestrian mundanities just as Gerardo had done when he had arrived.
"What happened last time you made this?" Amber repeated, face tilted. Gerardo mimicked her motions, headcrest flopping comically.
Willow closed her eyes. "It was the night I told you two I was pregnant with Alder; that we weren't going to Ironridge. She wanted to make something special to cheer me up. If she's made it since then, I wasn't there. Even the smell is... making me remember..." A single tear leaked out of the corner of her eye, the pineapple slices sizzling pleasantly in their juices and giving off a strong aroma.
"Wow." Amber blinked. "I mean, maybe I remember that? I guess? It's kinda not the first thing that sticks out in my mind about that night."
Gerardo nodded beside her. "Amber filled me in on that episode. A truly tragic event, indeed. Dreams and aspirations were not made to be crushed."
"It's almost ready," Maple announced as the others talked. "Someone will have to go get Starlight. Willow, can you do me a favor?"
Willow reached again for her shoulder. "Anything, Maple."
"Could you find something else for Alder and Fir to do during dinner? I'd... like to be able to talk about things they probably shouldn't hear, if that's all right with you?"
"Of course it is." Nodding, Willow retreated for the staircase, hooves tapping against metal as she climbed.
Starlight, Maple, Willow, Amber and Gerardo sat around the ground-floor table, eagerly eyeing a plate of pineapple still steaming in the middle. Acting as accessories to the meal were carrots with peanut sauce, a leafy salad, a loaf of bread with spreadable cheese, and several ornamental glasses filled with soft cider. Despite the extravagance, all eyes were on Maple.
The mare cleared her throat. "Everypony?" she asked without standing up. "I have an announcement to make."
Nothing moved, so she continued. "Arambai has a boat to Ironridge. He keeps it running. He said it goes every night." She swallowed, coat bristling as if the temperature in the room had dropped.
"Uhhh... Maple?" Amber shifted toward her, muttering out of the corner of her mouth. "Weren't we, like, specifically told not to mention that to Willow?"
Willow, for her part, looked torn between being surprised, suspicious and annoyed. "He does?"
"He does." Maple nodded. "But that's not what I wanted to say. He told Starlight about the boat." She paused for effect, even though all but one of the room's occupants already knew. "She told me she's not leaving, even though she knows it's there. But..." She hung her head. "She also said it's only because of me. That if I weren't here to miss her, she would go. Because Riverfall knows where she's from, now, and it isn't what she's looking for..."
"No!" Starlight protested, putting both forehooves on the table. "I told you, don't think of it like you're getting in my way! I don't want to be a burden!"
"And you're not," Maple said, pointedly looking at her. "Because Arambai also said he wouldn't let her go if she wanted to. It makes sense, doesn't it? If Ironridge wasn't a place where the three of us could go and be safe ten years ago, even when Willow was an adult, it certainly isn't now, for a lone filly. So it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter at all..."
"...Maple?" Willow asked, a touch of concern in her voice. "What are you getting at?"
"Well..." Maple blinked. Her eyes were dry, almost awkwardly so. She grinned, though it contained so much anxiety it was halfway to a grimace. "He also said, when I asked him..."
The others watched as she trailed off. A minute passed in silence.
It was Starlight who broke it, narrowing her eyes. "Maple, what are you talking about?"
"Arambai said... that it would be all right, and you could go... if I went with you."
Thunder rumbled across the sky in a long, slow wave, proceeded by the beginnings of a torrential downpour. It clashed poorly with Maple's awkward smile as she waited for someone... anyone... to say something, be it encouragement or condemnation. But the house was silent.
...Until a high-pitched eeeee began to fade in, building in volume until its source was identifiable as Amber. "Eeeeeyes!" She flew across the table, knocking Maple out of her chair with a hug, eyes radiating an unstoppable force of personality. "Do it. Don't you dare not do it."
Maple's apprehension melted like a flower springing up from the ground. "Then you think it's a good idea?"
"Wait, what?" Starlight got up, a hoof held defensively across her chest in imitation of the older mares' mannerisms. "Hold on! I told you I wanted to stay here! What are you talking about?"
"Only for my sake," Maple answered, regaining her ability to talk. "Now that doesn't matter."
"But..." Starlight folded her ears, scuffing the ground. "But what about your friends!?"
"I'm inclined to agree with Starlight," Gerardo interrupted, rapping the table. "To be frank, have you lost your mind? You have all the makings of a perfect life right here! Friends, family, peace and stability..." He tilted his head. "Even I, an avowed adventurer to the core, only go to Ironridge on a mission. Whatever do you even hope to accomplish there?"
Amber darted across the table, getting firmly in both protesters' lines of sight. "You two, listen to me. We wanted to go to Ironridge, to see the world outside Riverfall. It was our dream. And if one of us has an opportunity to go... even if it's only one of us... it is worth it. It's worth it all the way."
"We'll see her again, of course," Willow broke in to say. "I don't think you would be moving there. That was never what we planned, ten years ago. Even if you did find somewhere else worth living, I'm sure you'd come back some day?"
"Of course." Maple nodded vigorously. "It wouldn't be goodbye forever. I couldn't turn my back on you for the rest of my life, no matter what I found."
"Erm..." Gerardo's headcrest drooped, the griffon slightly put out. "You can't mean to say you wish to go purely as a sightseeing tour or a vacation..."
Amber grumbled. "When you put it that way, it makes it sound silly."
Maple, however, vehemently shook her head. "It's not about that at all. I don't have anything specific I want to do, and that's the problem! What would I do if I stayed in Riverfall forever, and never left? Sit around and watch Starlight get old? Maybe help some ponies pack a few boxes for moving between houses?" She sighed loudly at the floor. "What I want to do in Ironridge is find something to do with myself. I have a brand... er, cutie mark. It just doesn't make sense that I could have that and yet not have anything to do with my life! Not when they're so rare..."
"Ah." Gerardo sat back down, turning to his abandoned cider. "You want to make a difference in the world, but have no idea how... only the knowledge that you can't do so here. Is that it?"
"Yes. And I'm not alone." Maple's eyes shone back at him, glowing with determination. "That's the way it always used to be in Riverfall. Ponies would come here for peace and quiet, and they would leave when they wanted to do things, to make themselves useful. And right now, I have had it with sitting back and just taking everything that comes my way. I hate being powerless. I want to do something. I always have. And this is my opportunity."
Starlight watched the conversation with narrowed eyes. "So you want to go, then? You're not just trying to leave your friends behind because you think it would make me happy?"
Maple blinked, looking slightly hurt. "Well, I mean... Starlight, isn't this best for both of us? You told me you wanted to leave. Things in Riverfall aren't going to get any quieter or easier for you. I thought this was what we both wanted!"
"But you'll be leaving your friends..." Starlight repeated, tail drooping.
"Real friends want what's best for each other," Amber answered, "even if it means not being side-by-side forever. Even if it means living in different cities for a while."
Willow nodded from where she sat. "Starlight, this was our dream. Last time, we didn't have any plans either. We just wanted to see the city and the world for the sake of it, to make something of ourselves and learn things and have new experiences. When that failed, well..." She hung her head, then raised it and smiled. "If Maple went now, even without me or Amber, it would be like bringing that dream back to life. The dream that's there, on her flank."
Starlight surveyed the room. The three mares were looking at her with identical expressions of hope, pride and thankfulness... and everything they had said made sense, or at least they did to each other. Still, one more question tickled at her brain. "So if we're just going to come back, what's the point in me leaving? Won't that just make me more famous?"
"I..." Maple bit her lip. "I guess I didn't think that far ahead. I mean, at least it'll put it off for a while? You'll be the center of attention now, if we stay here. And maybe you'll learn or do something in Ironridge that will make it not as bad anymore?"
Finding herself unable to continue protesting, Starlight bit back a sigh, brightening to cheer Maple back up. "Okay. When do we leave?"
The mares' faces nearly split from beaming, and even Gerardo Guillaume swatted a speck of dust from his eye. A four-way hug ensued, and didn't stop for at least a minute. When it did, Maple said, "I wanted to see what everyone thought before I made any solid plans. But, I don't see why we couldn't do it tonight?"
"If you do," Willow said, "this is the most fitting goodbye dinner I can imagine. Shall we dig in?"
She was greeted by a hearty roar of acceptance, mostly backed by Amber and Gerardo with valiant assistance from an already-teary Maple. Eagerly, they dug in.
"Rommfff..." Amber crammed another serving of salad down her throat, mouth opening wide to accommodate it all. Willow rolled her eyes at the antics, but did nothing to stop it. A feast deserved to be a feast, after all.
"I imagine," Gerardo said between daintier bites, "that it would be useful to inform Arambai of this turn of events as quickly as possible, so that he might prepare? I can notify him myself after dinner, if you wish to spend your time packing instead, miss Maple."
Maple smiled cheekily back at him, still elated by her announcement and its acceptance. "Well, I imagine, mister Gerardo, that I'm far more packed than you think I am. Still, that would be very useful, if you don't mind?"
Gerardo nodded. "My precious cargo that Starlight saved was left in his care for storage. I'll need, at the very least, to inform him that it is to be moved. On the subject, having additional bodies will make it much easier to transport once we reach the city proper!"
"How much is it?" Maple frowned. "I'm already going to be carrying a lot of weight from our supplies, though I am pretty strong... And I don't want to make Starlight carry anything."
"Hey!" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "I can manage heavy saddlebags!"
"Two crates," Gerardo answered, "each cubical and approximately the length of one pony along each side. Standard issue, the type designed to be easy for earth ponies to carry on their backs. Regrettably, they are not small enough that I can manage both, despite being considerably larger than your average pony." He blinked, and added, "And they're moderately heavy. I don't know what's in them, this being a confidential, anonymous and no-questions-asked type of job."
"Speaking of that..." Maple nodded as she ate. "You haven't said all that much about what you'll be doing in Ironridge besides delivery. Is that really it?"
"Is it really that these two crates were of great enough importance to justify a trip through a long-dead byway that will not be patrolled over sending them through main air transit routes?" Gerardo lifted an eyebrow. "Whoever is paying my compensation certainly thinks so. Of course, we'll be able to talk all you like about the exact details during the ride. If the maps I obtained are accurate, Ironridge is nearly two hundred miles west of here. Upriver, that will likely be quite the lengthy ride."
"What are you getting in compensation?" Willow asked, nibbling at a slice of bread.
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "I regret to say that I'd rather not say, if it's alright with you? At least, not until it is safely within my talons. Safe to say that I do not consider it a laughing matter, and will feel much better divulging potentially sensitive information once I have what I want and know nothing further can go awry because of it."
"Yeah, sure." Amber shrugged. "If you're still hanging around with Maple and Starlight when they get back, though, definitely remember to show it to me, okay?"
"There is a nonzero chance I will find myself passing back through Riverfall once my business in Ironridge is completed," Gerardo replied. "Granted, that will likely be in a matter of days rather than months or years, and I'm unsure if your friends will be ready to cut their adventure so short. But, consider it a possibility."
Amber slapped a hoof to her chest. "Consider it considered!" Then she dove at a slice of pineapple, attacking it with gusto.
As they continued to eat and laugh, a solitary figure watched from the staircase. Willow was the first to notice him, and waved. "Hello, Faron. Care to join us for dinner? It's special..."
The stallion blinked, and descended to the floor, pacing closer to the table one hoofstep at a time. "You're really leaving Riverfall? And going to Ironridge? And Arambai is letting you?"
"Uhhh..." Maple fumbled with a utensil, caught off-guard by Faron's dull, uncelebratory tone of voice. "Yes, we are. Myself, Starlight, and Gerardo. I asked Arambai, and he said it was okay."
Faron stopped, sighing with a heavy note of bitterness. "Then times must be changing. I don't deserve it, but can I request a favor while you're there? Only if it's convenient, of course."
Amber's eyes narrowed in concern. "What's eating you? You're not usually this talkative..."
"I asked them," Faron replied dully. "They're the ones who are going."
"I..." Gerardo tapped a talon to the table, contemplating. "I don't see why not? Name your boon, sir Faron, and if reasonable, I shall fulfill it to the best of my ability."
"I'm curious what this is about as well," Maple added, leaning forwards across the table.
"In the Earth District," Faron muttered, voice quiet and head minimally raised to maintain eye contact without bowing. "In an area called Gnarlbough. You'll know it by the houses, which look like hills in the ground. Go to this address." He lit his horn, floating over a small scrap of paper with something scrawled on it. Maple caught it and tucked it away. "Find the ponies that live there," he continued. "I don't know if they still do. You'll know they're the right ones if they remind you of someone familiar. And if you do, tell them... tell them I'm sorry."
Gerardo squinted. "No offense, but that is incredibly vague and mysterious. Might I ask for clarification? A motive, perhaps? At least some better means of identification?"
"I can't," Faron said simply. "Again, I apologize. There's one other thing, though. It isn't a request, just advice. If you're in Sosa, stay away from the graveyard at night."
Eyes widened all across the table, but Faron gave no further explanation, retreating to the stairwell and climbing, the sound of his hooves against metal the only break in the silence.
"OoOoOoOoOo!" Amber waggled her forelimbs. "Spooky!"
Gerardo shrugged. "Graveyards at night do tend to be favored haunts of practitioners of foul magic. Grave robbers, as well, and even hideouts for bandits! Once again, would it kill him to be a little less vague?" He sighed, and turned back to his meal with a flopped headcrest. "Ah, well. As a connoisseur of heroic cliches and all the trappings that come with them, I can't say I haven't faced worse. We'll simply have to make a note to avoid any tombs we happen to run across, shan't we?"
"I suppose we shall!" Maple smiled, in a successful effort to lighten the mood. Soon, the room was returned to its former festivity, five friends sitting around a table and talking about the future. Outside, the rain continued. Farther away, above the canopy and above the clouds, the sun began to set, time ticking away until they would be called to the docks to depart.
Gerardo Guillaume soared expediently over Riverfall, making the most of the still-towering gap between the tallest house spires and the lowest branches of the canopy. His destination was Arambai's house, and despite his lowered visibility from the pounding rain, it soon homed into view.
Alighting on the first floor roof and furling his massive, dripping wings, he rapped hurriedly, desiring to stay outdoors no longer than need be. Fortunately, it quickly swung open, and he excused himself into the house before even checking who had opened it.
"To what do I owe this evening call?" Arambai's growly voice asked from the shadows, before a warm light illuminated the entire room. "Not that I can't make a very good guess, but I'd like to hear it from you. After all, it never does to overextend."
Gerardo nodded, seizing several towels from the door rack in his talons and liberally applying them to his feathery face. "Myself and two others, requesting departure from Riverfall tonight."
"That quickly, huh?" Arambai chuckled. "Sounds like some ponies were eager to skip town. Can't say I blame them. I don't feel up to making offers like that every day!"
"If I might ask, whatever prompted you to make such an offer in the first place?" Gerardo stepped further forward, allowing the door to comfortably close. "Why, just the other day, you were telling us you hadn't even made up your mind on when I could leave!"
Arambai shrugged. "First off, she asked really nicely. And second? I guess I was feeling generous... and maybe a little bad for blowing up that poor filly with another experiment. But what can I say? I've got a good feeling about those two..." He stepped toward the stairs to the ground floor, beckoning. "Come on. Let's talk logistics down here."
Soon enough, they were standing by the teleporter dais, Arambai lovingly rubbing a hoof over a chunk of machinery. "So, you're going to Ironridge."
Gerardo nodded. "Indeed, I am going to Ironridge. That is my intent, at least."
"Well, I hope it works well for you." Arambai turned, and marched across to a stack of cylindrical iron drums. "The first thing to remember about Ironridge is that the higher altitude you go, the less trouble you're likely to run into from rogue types, but the tighter security is in turn. Get too low, and you run the risk of bandit attacks, given that you're carrying something they want. Get too high, and you just might tick off some company security guards and make yourself unwelcome around the place. It's a balancing act, you see?" His eyes flitted across a large, ornate sword framed on an exposed patch of wall. "And make sure you stay armed at all times. Either way, it's a good safety practice."
The griffon patted his belt, through which his own sword hung. "I have every intention of it."
"Good, good..." Arambai leafed through a stack of paper, clearly not reading a word. "The next thing to remember is that basically everyone there has a side, and sticks to it like their life depends on it. It's a good idea to be nice to folks and avoid making enemies, but be careful about being too nice, as well. You don't want to get yourself roped into any obligations should things turn messy for whatever reason. If trouble starts and you can walk away without ticking any ponies off, that's always a win for you. Besides, most everyone there has better things to do than chasing after the unaffiliated. Believe me, they know how to pick their quarrels wisely..."
Gerardo nodded. "Unintuitive advice, but I shall take your word for it."
"Third thing is..." Arambai picked up a part and squinted lengthwise down it, as if it were a telescope. "Riverfall is a secret, and so am I. As far as Ironridge is concerned, I don't come 'round those parts anymore. Now, there's so many bogus rumors about this stuff I've got in circulation that you don't need to worry much about letting anything accidentally slip, but it's still good to be cautious. If you do mess up, audacity is your biggest refuge. Too many attention seekers in that city for anyone to give you half a blink of their time if you look like one yourself. And don't you dare go around trying to prove I'm here, either. Of course, I'll cover this one again at the boat, since it's important for the other two to hear as well."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Gerardo said respectfully, standing at attention.
Shrugging, Arambai put the part down. "There's one exception to that rule. Up in the Sky District is a stallion called Dior. He knows I'm here, and he's a good friend of mine. I'm still in contact with him, sort of. He's very cunning, like me. If you ever get yourself in an extreme amount of trouble... say, the group gets separated, or some such... track him down, tell him I sent you, and he'll do his best to get you out of your pickle. Try not to rely on that, of course. But it is an option, should you need it."
"I'll endeavor to keep him in mind," Gerardo replied. "Is there anything else?"
"Yeah. And this is the most important one." Arambai's eyes narrowed. "As part of my conditions for letting the three of you out there with all the stuff you know, you need to stick together and watch out for each other. So long as you're within the city limits, you're a team. That means including guarding your precious cargo, you have to watch out for those two kids. Maple's never dealt with big-city life before, and as tough as Starlight is she won't be able to stop her from getting taken advantage of by cheapskates and scoundrels. Especially not when she's used to doing everything for free. You follow? If one hair on their heads gets bent out of place and it's your fault for not doing more, you'll be dead where you stand. Figuratively speaking, of course."
His eyes nevertheless wandered back to the sword on the wall. "That isn't saying that I'm not peerless with a blade. And it's worth mentioning as well that this teleporter's fully operational, and with enough ponies hooked up to it at once, I could probably extend the range far enough to get myself to Ironridge in an emergency. Point is, stick to your friends and make sure there's less trouble for all of us."
"Good, good." Arambai turned back to the stairs and began to ascend. Halfway up, he looked back and said, "Well, that's what I wanted to say. Stick to the Earth and Stone Districts if you can help it, stick to each other at all costs, and never stop watching your back, and you should be right as rain. Show back up here around midnight with Starlight and Maple, and anyone who wants to see them off. And tell Starlight to bring me back that book I lent her; I don't want it floating around in Ironridge for anyone to read. Too many trade secrets in there. Heh... I wonder if she actually read any?"
"I shall inform her," Gerardo said, making for the stairs himself. "Thank you again for your advice. I do hope this expedition turns out profitable and enjoyable for all involved."
"So do I, Gerardo," Arambai muttered, pacing into the foyer of the house. "So do I..."
Maple and Starlight tramped through the muddying streets of Riverfall, the filly once again riding on her new friend's back. The poncho Maple had had the forethought to bring presently shielded both of them, and they afforded a leisurely pace, not being stopped or followed nearly so often now that the other ponies had the weather to worry about. Between the gray chill of the world around and the warmth of being pressed against another pony, Starlight had a perfectly content shell of isolation to slip into while pondering things slightly less certain.
She would be leaving Riverfall. How long had she been there? A week? Probably less. When she had left Equestria, it was simultaneously the hardest and easiest thing she had ever done. In order to sever herself from all the things she had called home, she had needed to harden herself, to forget about them and pretend they were already gone... which had been helped along by the world actually taking them away. But once she had, leaving had been a matter of getting the proper supplies and simply walking away. There hadn't been any fanfare, any heart-wrenching goodbyes, or anything of the sort.
And when she had arrived in Riverfall, she'd been prepared to do the same at a moment's notice. She hadn't wanted the kind of attachments that could keep her in place, should she need to leave again. She had known the kind of tenderness she would be missing out on by keeping her distance from Maple, Willow and Amber... and ultimately chosen them over the ability to leave. She had trusted that Riverfall would be perfect.
It clearly wasn't, looking back. The town's reputation for keeping secrets had crumbled around her, to the point where she could tell her decision to let the mares in was making the difference that kept her there. The situation she found herself in was exactly the kind of thing she had wanted to be able to run from. And suddenly? She could.
Maple wanted to go with her. In fact, Maple wanted to go more than she did. Having stayed in Riverfall through as much as she had already, a part of Starlight felt a stubborn reluctance to go, as if the city was trying to get rid of her and to go after resisting so long would be to capitulate. And besides, after Riverfall had seemed like the perfect paradise and then turned out not to be... what exactly was she still looking for? How would she know it when she found it? Did it even exist?
She might have to settle for living in a place that was imperfect. To do that, she would have to learn to tolerate a place that was imperfect... and would running away from Riverfall now do that? Wasn't she making a start at tolerating, there and then? Maybe leaving would make all her work count for even less than she'd thought.
That didn't change that she still wanted to leave. She'd had to push down reservations last time, too. But what part of herself was she supposed to trust, then? Crossing the mountains had been hard, but so had been staying home. And now, she had friends. One friend in particular who wanted her to leave... and who wanted to go with her. Suddenly, the best thing to do became a lot clearer.
"Starlight?" Maple murmured, breaking the silence. "Are you thinking about whether or not we should leave, too?"
"You mean you are?" Starlight's eyes widened slightly. "I mean, yeah. I am. But I'm going."
"Yes," Maple breathed, rain falling around her. "I am. It's weird, you know? I've wanted to do this for so long, and from such a young age, that now that I can... I almost can't believe it's happening. After all the bad things that have happened to me before, within a few days of each other, both of the things I wanted most and never got are coming true... Part of me thinks it's a cruel joke. If Arambai hadn't been so nice to me in the past, I'd wonder if he was pulling my tail with this. And another part is worried about all the things that could go wrong, going by ourselves... What if I really do never see Willow and Amber again? Or what if we make it there, and all my expectations for what the city is like are wrong? I mean, I've never done something like this before. What if I mess it up myself?"
"What's there to mess up?" Starlight shifted around on Maple's back, wiggling to get more comfortable. "You said you didn't have anything you really needed to do, and we won't be in a hurry."
"I don't know. I guess I'm just nervous." Maple sighed into the evening, daylight already banished by the clouds and now sinking away entirely. "But you must know how that feels, right? Leaving the place you've lived your entire life and going somewhere completely unknown? I've only heard stories about Ironridge, most secondhoof from Willow." Her eyes flicked up. "How much did you know about what was north of the mountains before leaving? Probably not much, huh?"
Starlight shrugged. "I think I've heard of Yakyakistan before, and someone said something about that. Nopony really cares about far away stuff in Equestria. They're always things you hear about and never see. Maybe if I had lived in Canterlot, or something. That's the capital."
"Oh... that reminds me." Maple stiffened slightly as she walked. "We invited those ponies over to hear about Equestria tonight. When I said that, I was thinking it would be one night, so it wouldn't be so bad... I hope you're okay with that. If we promised that and then disappeared, they'd be so sad..." Her tail drooped along with her ears, and only a quick save kept it from being dunked in a mud puddle.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Starlight thought... and decided that if going to Ironridge really was running away and giving in to Riverfall, she would at least have the last word. "Okay. I'll talk to them."
When they reached Maple's house, not a soul was to be seen lurking in the rainy darkness outside. Curious, Maple pushed open the door... and was greeted by bright lights and at least a dozen ponies huddled within the ground floor of her shop. The doorside towel rack that was a staple of every home in Riverfall was completely empty, and the distinctive odor of wet pony filled the air.
Maple's nose wrinkled as she wiggled out of the poncho, aided by Starlight's magic. "Umm... hi? Let me go see if I can find more towels."
"Thanksies!" A gleeful mare waved back at her, jumping slightly. Starlight watched the exchange, standing in the doorway, and decided to prop it open in hopes that some of the humidity and warm air would find its way outside.
"Hi, Starlight," another mare said in a softer voice. "And Maple, too. I really hope we're not being imposing. I mean, I heard about what happened earlier..." Her aquamarine ears folded.
Maple bit her lip, rummaging behind a counter. "I know I know your name from somewhere... what was it... Papyrus, maybe? Something that started with a P..."
"Ponderosa," the mare answered. "Though I did have a second cousin named Papyrus who left when the boats were running... but we're not here to hear about Riverfall history!" Her eyes lit up. "Starlight? We, umm... really don't want to pressure you, but we're really excited."
Heads all around the room nodded, leaving Starlight staring nervously at them. Hopping up on a table so she could at least see all the mares at once, she asked, "How do you even want me to do this?"
Shrugs. "Just talk about anything!" a mare in the back offered.
"Well... okay..." Starlight scuffed at the table surface with a hoof, gathered her concentration, and looked back at the crowd. "So the place I'm from is Equestria, and it's ruled by an alicorn called Princess Celestia. Alicorns are ponies with both wings and horns, and she keeps the sun and moon moving across the sky..."
By the time the last of the mares cleared out of Maple's lobby, yawning regretfully and watching over their shoulders as they donned whatever raingear they possessed, the sun had long set and the rain not abated, coating the world outside in pitch blackness. It was through that blackness that a beaked figure stepped, protected from the weather by a cloak of his own.
Starlight sagged, letting all the evening's tension flow out of her. Telling stories of Equestria should have gotten easier once she got past her reluctance to put herself in the spotlight, but she had all too quickly been reminded just how little she knew of her homeland. Between her young age, remote hometown, and tendency since Sunburst left to ignore any attempt at tutelage, she had been unable to answer even basic questions like how big the country was, or why there wasn't a queen.
"Starlight. Maple." A voice from the open doorway interrupted her reverie, and a hood was shrugged off to reveal Gerardo Guillaume. "The optimal time for departure draws near. Are you ready?"
"I am," Maple said softly from the shadows. Her sides were bare, a testament to the power of her cutie mark in packing for trips. Idly, Starlight wondered just how much it could carry. "Starlight's been busy, though. Starlight? Do you have anything you want to pack?"
"Mhm." Turning, Starlight quickly ascended the stairs, rounding the corner into Maple's bedroom. She paused for a second at the sight of the bed; it was late and she was tired, even following her experiment-induced nap earlier. She hadn't even known that was the last time she would get to sleep in it... but it didn't matter. If she could leave ponies behind, she could leave a bed. It wasn't like beds could miss her.
She picked up her saddlebags from where they lay. Blanket... water canteens... her cutie mark kit... and two books. She blinked as Sosa's journal floated in front of her. So far, she hadn't told a single pony she had that. It was the one secret of her journey she had managed to keep... for whatever it was worth. But maybe it would be worth a lot? She shrugged and stuffed it back into her bag.
"All right. I'm ready," Starlight announced, reaching the bottom of the staircase again. Maple nodded from where she was locking the storeroom, and Gerardo stopped pacing in front of the door.
"Excellent. Then we should be off." The big griffon pushed open the front door, looking back. "I would offer to carry you both to save time, but given that the rain shows no signs of abatement, I fear that may be unwise..." Apologetically, he bowed his head. "I've already taken the liberty of speaking with Arambai, and Willow and Amber. They will all be meeting us at the dock for a final sendoff."
Maple nodded. "Thank you. And you..." She grinned uneasily. "Probably wouldn't want to carry me. Come on, Starlight. Let's go."
In the midnight rain that coated all of Riverfall, there wasn't a soul in sight to watch or interrupt the trio as they made their way northward. Maple, Gerardo and Starlight stepped purposefully through the mud, the filly walking on her own and keeping her oversized poncho from dragging with her horn. She also lit the way, albeit dimly to preserve her magical strength. Her horn still felt fresh after being knocked out, and she wanted to keep it that way.
In the teal shadows cast by Starlight's illumination, the town looked almost unimaginably alien, forming a stark contrast to the cheery, bustling streets of red and gold that filled the daytime. Whether they had been called home for a week or twenty-five years, those streets weren't there, and wouldn't get a goodbye from the three friends. Maple guided them more by muscle memory than landmarks, hooves treading muddied, familiar paths for what could be the last time, should she fail to keep the promise she had no intention of breaking.
Gerardo brought up the rear, his blue feathers shining handsomely in the light. He bore no load, having the entirety of his possessions stored in Arambai's house save for a suit and a sword. As the buildings grew taller around them, his head rose higher and higher in response, a combination of pride and eagerness driving him onward.
They reached Arambai's house. They didn't have to knock. The door swung open before them as they reached the roof, the yellow stallion pre-emptively standing in wait. "Good evening, you all," he growled. "Your friends are already here."
"Excellent." Gerardo bowed, and moved aside to let Maple and Starlight in. "Shall we continue?"
No further words were spoken. Amber and Willow emerged from a sitting room as if in a vigil, and the six creatures descended to the basement. Arambai ignored his machines entirely, sliding aside the hidden doorway to the tunnel under the river.
Single-file, they descended and then ascended, the stone walls radiating cold from the depth and the night. Starlight shivered, despite still wearing her poncho. She almost cast the wet thing aside, but remembered she might need it once they were back aboveground.
The second intersection came, and they turned left. The tunnel continued to slope upward. The magical lighting in the ceiling vanished, replaced by strips of glowing gemstones along the ground.
Quickly, the strips widened into two guidelines on either side, accompanied by a dramatic broadening in the tunnel. The ceiling ended entirely, and then the six were walking along a rain-soaked stone pathway, illuminated only by magic in the dark. They kept going.
In silent procession, they wound their way westward, the trail making concessions for crags and valleys in some spots and in others showing signs of outcroppings simply having been blasted out of the way. At times unnaturally smooth and at others nearly obstructed by the forest, it held the air of abandonment and repurposing possessed by so much of the city's northern riverside, now serving as host for the six quietest creatures in the city.
With funeral-like somberness afforded by a mix of excitement, anticipation, and impending goodbyes, they drew out of the forest at last. A single sturdy pier floated amid several ruined ones, and it was empty. But the lights on either railing were lit, and Arambai stepped towards it. "Careful," he muttered, the water on the surface nearly reflective if the rain would stop causing it to ripple. "This is not the kind of place you want to slip and fall in."
"So you had this and never told anyone..." Willow breathed, looking around the dock with slight misgiving in her eyes. "You told me not to go to Ironridge, yet you kept a route open for yourself..."
"Hey, uh... sorry about that..." Arambai rubbed at the back of his neck, which would have been more effective without the heavy poncho he wore. "I still stand by that, though. Sending two adults and a filly to Ironridge when one of them is a veteran traveler is one thing, but sending two fillies under the care of someone who's technically still a teenager? Besides, Ironridge is a lot more stable now. In those days, no one knew what would happen. There could have been a violent revolution at any minute."
"If I may," Gerardo broke in, raising a talon, "where are my crates? I was informed you brought my cargo here ahead of time."
"Just a sec, they're right here..." Muttering, Arambai stepped off the path and pulled a hidden cord. A camouflage tarp rolled upwards, revealing a large overturned metal container lit by gemstones that was mostly empty, save for two moderately large wooden boxes. "There. Happy with 'em?"
Gerardo beamed. "Thank you kindly!"
"Everyone, shhhh!" Amber waved a hoof in front of her muzzle. "Look upriver! Is that the boat? I think I see it!"
To the west, a hazy white glow slid into existence beyond the impenetrable curtain of rain. It approached deceptively fast, appearing not to move at all... and then suddenly being right in front of the ponies. The ship slowed to a stop, expertly hovering in the water next to the dock without any sign of moorings. At about twice the length of Gerardo's boat, every bit of it was sleek, technical, and radiating skilled craftsponyship. Its seamless docking complete, a lone stallion appeared at the railing... and mechanically lowered a ramp, stepping professionally onto the pier.
"Good evening," the stallion said, bowing, much of his dark green coat obscured by a heavy jacket. "Are these the ponies I am to take to Ironridge?"
"Yeah." Arambai nodded back. "And griffon. Though two of them are just here to say farewell." He gestured over his shoulder to the five in wait. "You all, I'd like you to meet Gunga. He's a bit of a higher-up up in Sosa, and is the one who keeps Riverfall's food supply delivered on time and without suspicion. Gunga, these are Maple, Starlight, Gerardo... and Amber and Willow. The first three will be accompanying you."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintances." Gunga bowed again, then fixed his eyes on Arambai. "Shall we proceed with unloading, then?"
"Sounds like a plan." Shrugging, Arambai turned to the other five. "This'll only take a few minutes. It's a long ride to Ironridge, though, and we don't want any delays. So if you've got any goodbyes to say... let's just say that now is your chance."
Maple nodded uneasily, looking around at her two staying friends. "Well, we'd better do that, then..."
"It's all so sudden..." Amber whispered, barely loud enough to be heard above the pounding rain. Around her, the other ponies shivered, holding their cloaks and ponchos tight.
"I know..." Maple's voice shook with tension, sorrow and eagerness deeply intertwined in it. "This morning when I woke up, I was just an ordinary pony living in Riverfall. Now, because of a silly little question I asked without thinking, I have a chance nopony in this city has seen for seven years..."
"It almost makes me wonder if it's a good idea," Willow added, subdued. "It's easy to dream about something you have no hope of ever getting. Easy to imagine it as more perfect than it really is... because isn't that the point of dreams? To hope for something better than what you already have? Anything else would be a nightmare." She swallowed. "You've had so little time to really consider this, knowing that it's a serious option. I didn't keep us here because I was forced to..."
"You stopped to think," Amber murmured. "And while you were doing that... then you were forced to. Face it, you couldn't have gone with Alder and kept us safe."
Maple nodded. "But what would have happened if we had gone, then? If we had rushed in, not waiting to see if it was safe? You never would have had Alder then." She glanced aside at Willow. "What would happen if Starlight and I chose not to go, right now? Maybe we'd decide to go eventually, and nothing would be different than if we left now. Maybe we would decide never to go. Or maybe something else would happen to prevent us from ever going..."
"Such as not having a griffon guide to keep you safe?" Gerardo asked from the sidelines. "I'm aware this is not my goodbye to partake in, but it bears mentioning that part of Arambai's conditions for allowing this is my own presence. You may very well have to wait another seven years to find another adventurer such as me bound for Ironridge."
"Aww..." Amber walked up to him, eyes big. "You've got me to say goodbye to, don't you? We're pretty much besties..."
Gerardo bowed. "Indeed. It was a great pleasure, being your partner in crime... as non-serious as every bit of it was. I bid you luck in whatever solo exploits lie in your future."
"Yeah... You too, big guy..." Amber reached out, braving a lack of cover to give the griffon a hug. He returned it awkwardly, and both smiled.
Maple took a step forward. "Hasty decision or not, I've made it, and Starlight has too. Maybe there will be good things that we'd miss out on, staying in Riverfall. I know I'd miss you two..." She took a deep breath, and continued. "But we'd just as likely miss things in Ironridge. It's supposed to be a majestic city, remember? All we have to do is stick to the upper districts where things are affluent, and we'll be perfectly okay! We'll be able to see buildings, meet ponies..."
"And you have my blessing." Willow leaned forward and embraced Maple, just as Amber had hugged Gerardo before. "Have fun fulfilling both of your dreams, Maple. Being a traveler, and being a parent... Too many ponies never even get a single thing they wish for. Despite everything you've been through, Maple, you're lucky. Your life will keep getting better... and I'm happy for you. I'm proud of you, too. And I'll see you again, someday..." She tightened her grip, then released. "Goodbye, Maple. I love you."
"I love you too..." Maple pulled away, then turned to Amber. The yellow mare looked as if she wanted to wipe at her eyes, though with muddied hooves it would have done more harm than good.
"Well..." Amber sniffed. "I guess this is goodbye, huh?"
"I guess so..." Maple sniffed back, standing her ground. "I'm... wondering if I should have asked Arambai to let you come too, huh?" Her ears folded. "I mean, you got your cutie mark for the same reason I did... Going on an adventure, and all..."
"Nah." Amber waved a hoof, trying her best to act casual. "I've got plenty of things left to do in Riverfall. Tons of ponies know me, so I'd definitely be missed, and we can't leave Willow all alone, can we?" A confident smirk grew on her face. "Besides, if I leave, who's going to take care of Gerardo's old boat? He gave that thing to me, you know. I bet I can get it fixed up. It's not like the damage is more than cosmetic... even if it is pretty big. Maybe when you get back, I'll have it done, and we can go on another adventure... together?"
Maple grinned back. "That does sound nice. Awesome, even. And like I said... I'll be back. If nothing else, I promise you, I'll be back. Someday, somehow, no matter what happens... I'll be back."
Starlight stood and watched as they proceeded to embrace, just like the last two times. However, she quickly became aware of a presence beside her, and looked up.
"Hello, Starlight." It was Willow. "Or... goodbye. I enjoyed meeting you, even if it was only for a few days..." She sighed warmly, and added, "You're a very special filly who can do a lot of special things. You're strong, determined, focused, and unstoppable when you need to be. It wasn't coincidence that you managed to get here when so many others have failed."
Starlight stuck out her lip. "Really? Didn't I tell you how I feel about ponies treating me like I'm special?"
"You told me what kind of world you want to live in, yes." Willow leaned down, whispering. "But this isn't it. The world is unfair, Starlight. Many ponies prosper who deserve nothing... and some who fall deserve life. You can give it to them."
Starlight took a step away, face a mask of uncertainty. "What?"
"You have a lot of ideals," Willow murmured. "Very strong ones. And the world doesn't make itself perfect on its own. It's ponies who follow their dreams who make it better... and having a perfect world is a very special dream to follow. Do you want a world where decisions you made earlier in your life are never held against you? A world where friends are never separated, just because they're different? Make it. Not every pony has the chance to follow their dreams. But out there, in the wide world, you could find it... and if you accept that you have this chance, you can change the world. I believe in you..."
"I-I..." Starlight stuttered, looking up at Willow. "You want me to do what? Changing the world? How?"
"Mmm..." Willow hummed back at her. "Change can be good or bad, Starlight. But you can have a say in which way it goes. You get a say, whether you deserve it or not. I don't know what it will look like, or what will happen once you're out there in Ironridge... in the world. But any difference, no matter how small, can be made in a good direction. Can you put yours to use?"
Too busy processing Willow's words to properly think, Starlight nodded. "Okay."
"Good. I have one other favor to ask you, Starlight." Willow took a step to the side, looking at Maple. "Earlier, I asked you to be nice to her. Thank you, for that. She needed it. But now?" She looked back at Starlight, eyes shining. "Protect her for me. Keep her safe. She's eager and will do her best, but you've actually been in danger before, and had to survive... Can I count on you?"
"Uh..." Starlight blinked. "Yeah. Don't worry. I'll keep her safe."
"Thank you..."
"All right, you all!" Arambai's gruff voice interrupted the party of goodbyes, its owner walking dutifully over. "Looks like Gunga's about ready to depart, so I hope you've made your peace already. See, before you go, there are a few last-minute things we need to cover..." He leaned down, checking something held in his aura. "Before I start, any questions?"
Heads were shaken all around.
"Right, then!" Arambai cracked a hoof against the ground. "First off, I gave Gerardo here a brief rundown of some Ironridge survival tips earlier. I expect he'll tell you the whole deal, but here's a general rundown. Stick together, keep to the civilized districts as much as possible, do everything you can to avoid making enemies including getting yourselves roped into alliances, and all that jazz. Maple, Starlight, I don't know much about your combat abilities, but in the event that things go sour, stick with someone who can fight or else get as far away as possible. If any city drama starts happening, get yourselves back to Riverfall as fast as possible. I've also got a friend in the Sky District called Dior, who might be able to bail you out of a really bad spot. Oh, and mention me to no one. Got it?"
Nods. Arambai looked upwards, receiving a facefull of rain, and added, "One other thing: never trust a yak. And by the way..." He raised a soggy eyebrow at Starlight. "Any chance you've got that book I lent you? I'd really rather it not go along to Ironridge, see..."
Mutely, Starlight folded open her bags beneath her poncho. Horn shimmering, she levitated Arambai's science book until it hovered at the edge of her rain shadow.
"Many thanks." The stallion took it in a hardened ball of telekinesis, rain visibly bouncing off the edges. "Anyways, get to boarding. We've got all your cargo loaded and are ready to go at any time."
Gunga saluted from behind him on the pier, the boat's dark shadow illuminated in the water behind by the spheres of light bordering the walkway. One final look was exchanged between the five creatures in means of goodbye... and they broke apart, three sets of legs moving toward the river.
Starlight was levitated aboard in a cloud of purple telekinesis, much to her chagrin. Behind, Maple and Gerardo stumped up the walkway, the former's hoofsteps echoing as if she was made of iron. Together, they turned, seeing three ponies watching from the light of a solitary orb on shore.
A mechanical whirring echoed, and the boat's ramp rotated upward, swinging around until it locked into place on the deck. Gunga bowed from near a door to the cabin. "It will be drier in here."
"Yeah," Maple said hollowly. "Give me a minute. At least until they're out of sight."
The thrum of mana engines intensified below, and Starlight realized the ship's own propulsion had been stabilizing it in place. The dock began to slide back, and soon it was out of reach, the ponies on the shore growing smaller. Amber waved. Maple waved back. "I love you! I'll be back!" Maple shouted, straining, as the ship continued picking up speed, the sound of its wake mixing with the rain on the river in a serious threat to drown out her voice. She leaned out, eyes fixed on the trio on the shore as they retreated further into the haze of rain. "I promise!"
"We love you too!" Amber's voice faintly echoed, piercing the darkness and static of noise. And then the ship rounded a corner, and they were gone.
"...And so we left, just like that. Several hours before, I was eating dinner, thinking I would spend my whole life learning to deal with Riverfall... and then there I was, on a boat going west. It was one of the most sudden things that ever happened in my life, right up there with losing Sunburst... and losing my village."
The late-afternoon sun streamed through an ornate stained-glass window, refracting into dozens of colors which refracted again upon hitting a crystalline floor. The shadows they cast silhouetted two ponies sitting comfortably on opposing couches, a glass table set between them decked with the remains of refreshments and cups of cooled tea.
"Wow." Twilight Sparkle blinked, interrupting for the first time in hours. "So you just... left, without even having one day to think about whether it was the right decision?"
Starlight chuckled back, watching as her friend and mentor finally broke her silence. With a voice raspy from a day of nonstop narration, she said, "Pretty much, Princess. But I was... kind of used to it, at the time. And before you try to feel bad for me, keep in mind that I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't gone with them to Ironridge. It was a hasty decision, and maybe not the wisest, but..."
"But you're here now." Twilight nodded appreciatively. "Thanks for offering to tell me all this, by the way. I mean, I always wondered if there was more to your past than what you showed me while we were time traveling, but thought it would be rude to ask..."
"Didn't want to dredge up bad memories?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Or didn't want to risk making light of what happened to me if there was nothing more than what I showed you?"
Twilight's ears pressed against her head. "Both, actually."
"Heh..." Starlight looked away. "Believe me, Twilight. Talking this long is a lot harder than having to think about all that again. I mean, I almost considered doing something with time travel again to let the past tell the story for me, there's so much to cover. It's so foreign and exotic, it sometimes feels like a dream... and there were some truly good times I had with those ponies. And griffon. It's nice to remember, and tell someone besides myself that it actually happened."
"Are you sure?" Twilight's ears stayed down, a look of concern on her face. "I mean, I think I would have noticed if there had been a pony named Maple who acted like your mother in your village. I keep waiting for the other horseshoe to drop, and don't try to tell me it doesn't come."
"I know, I know, I grew up to be a dictator, and that doesn't usually come from perfect, happy childhoods," Starlight sighed. "Twilight, you're an alicorn. Shouldn't you be the expert here in appreciating things while they last?"
Twilight flinched. "That's not really something I like to think about..."
"Sorry." Starlight looked away as well, and for a moment both mares were locked in an awkward silence.
Eventually, Starlight was the one to break it. "She doesn't die, if it makes you feel better."
"Huh?"
"Maple. In the story, she doesn't die."
"Oh." Twilight slowly stretched. "I don't know. I think I need a break, anyway. Something to reset my brain..."
Starlight nodded. "You do that. Meanwhile, I need to rest my voice..."
Several hours later, both mares had returned to the repurposed reading room, a fresh tray of refreshments arrayed and the couch cushions neatly fluffed. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and Starlight glanced apprehensively at it. "Are you sure you want to continue now? The next bit's kind of long. I might not have a good place to stop until well into the night."
Twilight shrugged. "I like the night. It's perfect for reading."
"Well, okay, then." Starlight glanced dubiously upward, as if searching for someone to agree with her that Twilight didn't know what she was getting into. "Actually, before we start, is there anything you need a refresher on, or anything I forgot to explain? I'm kind of figuring out how to tell this story as I go along, so, you know..."
"Actually, I was wondering about Arambai's machine," Twilight said with a nod. "I researched ways to make a non-pegasus fly once, but never looked that much into it. Then when I saw you flying when we were time traveling, I guess I just assumed it was some spell I didn't know, or some kind of trick or... I had bigger things to worry about at the time, okay!?" Slightly frazzled at the admittance of her own scientific shortcoming, she ran a hoof over her bangs, smoothing them. "But in the story, you made it sound really hard. Does that have anything to do with...?"
"With this?" Starlight asked. Her horn pulsed, and a moment later she was enveloped by a shimmering aura, rising a few feet off the ground. "Maybe. How alright are you with spoilers?"
Twilight's eyes went wide with horror. "No! No spoilers! You wouldn't dare!"
Starlight chuckled, returning to the ground. "I just told you Maple doesn't die, didn't I?"
"Okay, we're changing the subject." Twilight's face went rigid, indicating she would stand no argument on the matter. "Other questions! Umm... I assume it did, but since you never said, your horn stopped doing that burnout thing, right? I mean, I can't think of how you could do some of the stuff you've done if it hadn't. Did you ever find out what was causing that? From everything I know about unicorn biology, horns aren't supposed to react that badly to overuse..."
Starlight winked back smugly. "It did. I thought you didn't want any spoilers?"
"Aaack!" Shielding her head, Twilight ran into the next room, calling back, "No spoilers!"
Starlight considered pointing out that she would just tell her naturally as part of the story in a day or two, but bit back the comment. As fun as it was to tease the princess, she was grateful enough to Twilight for sitting and listening through all that that it didn't feel right to push it or risk going too far.
The conversation had started innocently enough. She and Twilight had been discussing magic while working on an experiment, and Starlight had made a casual remark about the differences between cutie mark magic and unicorn magic that Twilight had found interesting. The train of conversation had wound its way to Starlight's own mark, and Twilight had mentioned how ironic it seemed that a pony could have a cutie mark in not having cutie marks. She had asked how it was even possible to obtain such a mark, and if a seething hatred for the icons in general wouldn't just keep a pony blank indefinitely. The silence that had followed had been too awkward to pass without explanation.
Eventually, Twilight crept back, looking like she was preparing to assault an enemy encampment. Starlight greeted her with a friendly wave, as if nothing at all was wrong in the world.
"No spoilers," Twilight hissed warily.
"Then stop asking those kinds of questions." Starlight shrugged, picking up a cookie with her aura and tossing it into her mouth, munching. "Want me to keep going, then, or stop for the night?"
"No, hold on!" Twilight flailed slightly in protest, taking several deep breaths. "I've still got more questions! You mentioned Yakyakistan being known up there, right? I can't remember, were you here yet when the leader of the yaks came to Ponyville?"
Starlight nearly spat out her cookie. "You've met Flame Face? In Ponyville!?"
"Uhhh..." Twilight blushed sheepishly. "Who...?"
Starlight blinked momentarily, then snorted with realization. "Were they a prince?"
"Prince Rutherford..." Slowly, Twilight nodded, as if aware she was being drawn into a trap.
"Twilight, you do know that 'prince' is the title given to yak village chieftains, right? As in... the leaders of every small, outlying settlement ever?"
"Umm... no..." Twilight's embarrassed blush threatened to creep all the way to her ears. "Wait, are you serious? He threatened to declare war on us! Celestia herself said it was a big deal!"
"Beats me," Starlight said with a shrug. "The Yakyakistan I know has... well, no spoilers. But wait a minute." She leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "How much do you know about Equestrian foreign policy?"
Twilight leaned away. "How much should I know?" she asked cautiously.
"Well, you were Celestia's personal student." Starlight grabbed another cookie, taking a bite and speaking through it. "I figured she'd have taught you a lot about the olden world, to the north."
"Not really..." Twilight hung her head, unsure how to feel. "I mean, most of her lessons were about magic theory, and later guiding me to make friends. Wielding an Element of Harmony, becoming an alicorn, that stuff. And it was mostly just pushing me in the right direction. Honestly, I don't think I got an in-person lesson from her outside of mission briefings after I came to Ponyville. She mostly just... let me do my own thing, you know? All the academic rigor I had before that was just me reading."
"Huh..." Blinking, Starlight took another bite. "That's interesting. I guess you'll be going into this just as blind as I was."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Twilight asked suspiciously.
Starlight smirked. "No spoilers."
"Arrgh! Starlight..." Twilight shielded her ears with a pillow, the peeked out from behind. "Look, maybe you should just start the story?"
"About time." Grinning, Starlight settled back on her own cushions, cleared her throat, and began. "It had stopped raining by the time the boat began to slow..."
A catwalk snaked through black air, suspended to a rusty metal ceiling with thick iron chains. In the distance below, a solitary stallion sat in the dark, muzzle pressed to a glowing screen, manipulating the console with magic. A forest of tall, lean drums filled the room, connected by a confusing web of glowing pipes, transporting some sort of luminous liquid at a sluggish pace.
The entire chamber vibrated, whirring from the cylinders filling it with a perpetual mechanical racket. Among the crisscrossing shadows that covered the floor, abandoned desks could be seen, empty pushcarts and toolbelts sitting without wearers. Whether it was sleeping or hibernating, the place smelled of metal and oil, letting any visitors know that it was home to one kind of pony alone: those who lived with industry.
Two sets of hoofsteps sounded along the catwalk, iron-wrought horseshoes clattering against the serrated lattice that provided traction and insulation against spills. A bubble of magic shimmered around their owners, forming an insulated soundspace that allowed conversing despite the noise.
"I've told you two dozen times that if you think I should be in charge of this thing, then I want more security!" the first demanded as he walked. A wiry thing who might have been scrawny had he not been well-fed, the stallion sported a mid-gray coat, dormant horn and curved muzzle that could get him mistaken for a mare. He stood nearly a head shorter than his companion and had a whiny voice that wasn't doing him any favors in being taken seriously.
"Every single time we try to make a shipment," he pouted, "it's blah blah bandits this and blah blah money that. Is it so much to ask to, I don't know, arm our convoys?" He scowled up at his companion. "Sosa is a laughingstock, and having all the stuff we're still paid to make stolen before it even reaches the Stone District is not helping! Dorable, with all due respect you hired me to do what's best for this factory, so let me do my job!"
"At ease, Nimwick," Dorable rumbled. He was a broad stallion, the exact opposite in proportion to his companion's slightness, and had a lighter gray coat that mixed well with the lime aura coming off his horn. "I'm hiring you to do what's best for Sosa, and killing some Sosans in the name of benefitting others is not an acceptable outcome."
Nimwick was shaking with anger. "They're bandits! And our economic situation is not going to improve if we can't control our own goods! How are we supposed to even start regaining our former glory if we can't even secure our supply routes? It's like we're bleeding money!"
"Bandits with families and friends," Dorable calmly responded. "And bandits who have not taken a life on Sosan soil for as many years as they have been organized. It's better to bleed silver and gold than blood, especially when our financial situation is stable. I won't have this be escalated."
"Pfft. Financially stable, my tail," Nimwick grumbled, turning at an intersection. "It's not about money! We don't need money! Have you actually taken the time to go down and talk to all the ponies we're supposed to be leading? Because I have! They have money, Dorable. They don't want money. What they want are meaningful jobs! You think making throwaway trash with a guarantee from management to be stolen by bandits before it reaches anypony who will use it is a good way to cure Sosa's collective depression? Because if so, take your head out of your rear and look again!"
"That's no way to talk to a factory chief, Nimwick," Dorable answered. "We symbolize Sosa to all of Ironridge, now more so than ever. Don't speak of pride with one breath, and then tarnish it the next."
Nimwick growled. "Oh yeah? And how am I supposed to give our ponies something to be proud of if you won't even let me do anything? You want me to stand around and give speeches all the time? Try to give out smiley face stickers and see if that cheers ponies up? You want me to solve this mess with words?"
"Precisely," Dorable said with a nod, as if it were obvious.
"Oh, that's real great. We'll make the bandits go away by talking to them and asking nicely." Nimwick exaggeratedly rolled his eyes, jaw hanging mockingly. "Is that what you want?"
Dorable nodded again. "That would be acceptable."
Nimwick nearly faceplanted, sputtering. "Is that... Ugh! Really?" He looked up to glare at Dorable. "I was being sarcastic! Oh, yes, let's go make friends with the stinking Spirit of Sosa because obviously they're just lonely and misunderstood and only stealing our stuff because they want friends, because that's how all big bandit organizations work! This is ridiculous!"
"Sarcastic or not, I do think it is a good idea," Dorable remarked. "You talk of meeting the individual ponies we serve, but have you met with those who oppose us? You won't be in danger. I will even go with you. It would be a useful learning experience, if you wish to fully take up this post."
"Fine," Nimwick spat. "Then let's get to the terminal. The cart should be leaving in ten minutes."
Nimwick and Dorable stepped through a sliding doorway made of interlocking leaves, emerging on a balcony above a U-shaped chamber with one wall missing. In its place was a sizable body of water, entering the building through a depression in the floor to form a covered docking area. No ships were moored in the bay, and on the concrete loading zone below, an abandoned forklift was parked haphazardly next to a discarded orange vest and a stack of opened barrels. Warm night air drifted in through the open wall, patches of starlight shining through wherever there was a break in the clouds.
They descended a staircase that hugged the wall, careful not to trip and tumble down the painted metal structure. Across the room they walked, coming to a vehicle-sized door blocked by retractable sheet metal. Dorable punched a button with magic, and it rolled open, another blast of night air flowing through from the other side.
There, on a walkway about a meter off the dirt ground, illuminated by floodlights placed slightly too far apart, three stallions in blue suits worked, hoisting crates onto the back of a cart. The vehicle was all wood, and sported three harnesses on the front, suggesting it wasn't motorized.
Nimwick scoffed. "Really? We can't even afford a more armored transport? Forget about fighting bandits, we could just run right past them! If, I don't know, we had something better than that? We're sitting right next to a mana refinery! Why can't we put it to use?"
"Feel free to budget for one," Dorable replied. Turning away from Nimwick, he addressed the three workers. "Gentlecolts. Nimwick and I wish to join you for this evening's delivery."
"Uhh... really?" One of the stallions cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Well, all right. You know the drill, Milord. There's room at the front of the cart."
With a nod of appreciation, Dorable moved to board the vehicle, Nimwick grumpily behind him. Before they could, however, they were interrupted by a confident, female voice from behind.
"Well, well, well," someone proclaimed, "fancy running in to you two here."
The intruder was another unicorn, bearing a vivid orange coat and deep blue eyes. Her mane and cutie mark were obscured by a lightweight suit of armor, and a white, technological-looking lance was strapped to her side. Dorable bowed in respect when he saw her, though Nimwick remained standing. "Lady Shinespark."
She nodded politely in return. "A pleasure as always, Dorable. And you don't have to bow to me. So..." She glanced between the cart, the ponies loading it, and the other two. "May I ask? This is a far earlier hour than usual for factory inspections, or for training the new pony."
"Nimwick is concerned with security," Dorable answered. "Understandable, with the long-standing string of delivery thefts. I am watching as he attempts to parley with the thieves. But what are you doing here, armed for combat?"
"Parley?" Nimwick squawked. "You twisted my tail into this! I told you, the obvious answer is to step up security on the transports, which is obviously what she is here to provide!"
Shinespark shook her helmeted head. "Actually, I'm here because a traveler filed a complaint earlier in the night that someone set up a roadblock in the Earth District and denied him passage. He was a pegasus, so I'm unsure why he didn't just fly over, but it's an obstacle nevertheless. He also claims they threw fruit at him and made fun of his mane."
"That seems awfully suspicious," Nimwick grumbled, pointing a hoof. "A pegasus complaining about a roadblock? What was a pegasus doing down here, anyway? It sounds like a trap..."
"Which is why I'm going armed, and doing this myself instead of sending the ponies I'm supposed to protect." Shinespark patted the spear at her side, levitating it with her horn. "I mostly want to investigate. It's unlike the Spirit of Sosa to bother citizens and travelers, so I suspect this is the work of someone else."
Nimwick slapped a hoof across his chest in salute. "Well, at least we'll have somepony with a weapon on this convoy! It's supposed to be leaving soon, if you'd care to accompany us?" He angled his eyebrows hopefully.
Shinespark gave him a hard stare. "You know the Sosan Code, Nimwick. I will not draw first blood against my kin. It's even more important than ever, now that so few of us are left." She turned to Dorable, and added, "Though, I would appreciate a ride."
One of the worker stallions approached and bowed in means of asking permission to speak. "Milords and Milady, we are ready to depart, if you have no further business holding you..."
"We do not," Dorable rumbled, stepping towards the cart once again. "Come, Nimwick. Show me what you can do."
Almost invisible in the darkness of early morning, a concealed dock slid out of the riverbank to the left, next to an alcove barely big enough to harbor a large boat. Gunga's vessel nosed its way in, piloted by the stallion's expert seaponyship and knowledge of the waters. The rain had ceased only recently, and drops of moisture still pattered from overhead branches with just as much frequency as normal weather. A strange heat cloaked the land, as if it hadn't yet stopped soaking in midday sun for the evening, despite it being an hour before sunrise.
In these conditions, Maple woke, a talon gently shaking her shoulder. "Maple." A beaked face blinked down at her. "Rouse Starlight. It seems we have arrived."
Less than a minute later, the two ponies stood, groggily blinking sleep away as Gerardo looked out proudly to shore. A chain unlatched and coiled around a winch somewhere, and the boat rocked into place, its metal boarding ramp swinging down to the secret dock below.
"Here we are," Gunga said with a bow. "I assume you know what to do with yourselves."
It wasn't a question, and Gerardo didn't take it as such. "I have my directions," he answered firmly. "And my warnings. Unless you have something you wish to add?"
Gunga nodded. "See that road? It leads to Sosa. If you don't have business there and wish to bypass it, cut through the forest southeast and hug the base of the mountain. It's overgrown, but I see you have a sword. Don't worry of wild animals. There aren't any this close to the Earth District, and those that are know to keep away from ponies. I wish you luck in your travels."
Rather than going on his way, he sat down to watch as the trio made their next move. Gerardo pulled down his two crates, inspecting them carefully. "Now, how should we go about carrying these?"
"I'll take one," Maple offered with a shrug. "You can take the other. Sorry, Starlight, but you'll probably need to walk this time..."
Starlight pouted, though the effect was diminished by her lack of sleep. "Just because I ride you around all the time doesn't mean I can't walk."
"Excellent," Gerardo replied, hefting his crate and balancing it with his wings. "In that case..."
Maple nodded, sliding her own onto her back, using the same grace, dexterity and possible magic that all earth ponies possessed to keep it from tipping off. "Yes. Let's get going."
The forest parted as they pressed through, wet leaves brushing Starlight's coat and bringing back uncomfortable memories of rain in the mountains. They didn't soak her all the way through, at least, which was a mixed blessing when it actually seemed hot enough to quickly dry. Surprisingly, it wasn't as humid as one would expect of an area with plentiful heat and plentiful rain, to the degree where it would actually be pleasant if she wasn't busy hiking.
Her horn glowed periodically, lighting the makeshift trail for her two companions. It wasn't needed all the time; the cloud cover had rolled back, and the canopy was both low and sparse enough that occasional patches of her namesake shown down, illuminating the forest floor. Starlight led the group, using her small size to crawl underneath plants and bushes as Gerardo hacked a broader passage in her wake, sword clenched in a single talon. The griffon was careful not to disturb too much foliage, though, thinning his efforts the further they pressed, not wanting to inadvertently lead ponies back to what was likely a closely-guarded secret.
Maple brought up the rear, stumbling and occasionally panting from the heat. She didn't talk, but if she had, she likely would have commented on the meager amount of sleep she had managed on the boat. Her reddish-brown tail drooped behind her, occasionally dipping into the forest mud.
The terrain itself was much less jagged than the rocky pits and outcroppings around Riverfall, and possessed far more soil than the high-altitude coverings of moss and needles that made up the ground in the mountains. This did make the mud a more considerable factor, and even as Maple struggled to manage her tail, Starlight waded at times nearly up to her belly fur, short filly legs doing her few favors in the environment.
Vines hung from trees just as stumpy and gnarled as the ones in Riverfall were straight and tall, and Starlight wondered if they might have borne fruit. After all, it would make sense for such a tree to be low, so creatures could reach and eat their bounty, right? Her stomach rumbled as the thought crossed her head, and she realized it would soon be time for breakfast. Idly, she expanded and thinned her telekinetic field, readying her scanning spell to search for fruit she might pull down... when Maple interrupted with a soft call.
"Is anyone tired?" she asked, looking as if she wanted to set her crate down but thought better of it. "I have lots of food packed, if we need to take a break..."
"Yeah!" Starlight nearly bounded over, but slowed herself to avoid slipping in the mud.
"Shh! Wait." Gerardo held a talon to his beak, looking off into the forest at an angle.
"Gerardo?" Maple asked, wiping a hoof clean with which to withdraw some food items, finally relinquishing her crate to the mud. "I can get some for you, too, if you li-"
Gerardo abruptly silenced her. "Quiet. I can hear shouting, coming from over there. Listen."
That got Maple's attention. As she craned her neck in the direction the griffon had indicated, Starlight climbed onto the dropped crate, using it as a vantage point. Her fuzzy ears twitched, straining... and she began to pick up strains of what might have been a distant shouting match. Or, at least, one pony was shouting at something. She looked down at the two adults, waiting to see what they would do.
"Shouting," Maple whispered, to which Gerardo nodded. "What do we do?"
"I," Gerardo muttered, putting his crate aside as well and holding his sword in front of him defensively, "am inclined to take a look. Stay close behind. Arambai instructed us not to become separated."
"Yeah," Maple breathed, putting her cleaned hoof back into the mud with a squelch. Cautiously, she stepped forward, sparing a glance behind her. "Starlight? Stay by me."
"Didn't Arambai say to avoid trouble?" Starlight asked, waddling through the mud to catch up. "Isn't this exactly what he said not to do?"
"Keep your voice down," Gerardo hissed. "In order to properly avoid trouble, one must first ensure that what they have observed is, in fact, trouble. Rest assured I have no intentions of dragging us into any conflicts in which we do not belong."
A bush shifted slightly as Gerardo crept to the edge of a clearing, Maple and Starlight at his back. It seemed to be a wide point in a woodland road, the packed dirt surface elevated so as to be less muddy. A wooden, three-pony cart sat immobile, surrounded by a ring of masked ponies wielding various forms of weaponry, though mostly heavy artillery.
Atop the cart, a gray unicorn with a curved muzzle was ranting furiously. "You idiots have caused incalculable economic damage to Sosa! You think you're saving it? Saving morale!? Regular, hardworking ponies like me have had it with our products being stolen, so get out of our way!"
The two other ponies on the cart, a larger stallion and an armored orange mare, watched the exchange with almost bored expressions, and the three stallions still hitched to the cart watched resignedly as a masked bandit held a sledgehammer to one of the cart's wheels. "You can give us the boxes," the hammer bandit droned, "and go on for free. Otherwise I'll break this wheel and you'll be stuck here, and we'll take everything you leave behind when you walk away. We're very patient."
"No! You... Gah!" The ranting stallion nearly tugged at his mane. "How can you think you're in the right? You're stealing from the ponies you say you're trying to help! It's asinine!"
The hammer bandit stared back up at him, and probably blinked beneath his mask. "Those boxes are full of weapons, and you're taking them to the enemy. Better to keep them here, in the hooves of ponies loyal to Sosa." Around him, the circle hefted their cannons for emphasis.
"Interesting..." Gerardo whispered to himself, only Maple and Starlight close enough to hear. "They steal weapons? That explains why they're so well armed, then, even if those cannons are hardly appropriate for close combat. Does that mean they... bring stolen goods to future robberies as a means of showing off? These bandits have some odd intellect governing them. I wonder what they would do if those ponies fought back."
"The yaks are not Sosa's enemy," the larger unicorn on the cart interrupted. "Their business contracts with Sosa are lucrative and the source of the money keeping the region afloat."
"Yeah! What he... Hey!" The smaller stallion angrily pointed a hoof at his companion. "Dorable, the yaks are jerks and do not need defending! They're the reason we're in this mess in the first place!" He turned and glared back down at the masked bandits. "But this doesn't mean you aren't in the wrong, either! Stop interfering with ponies' work!"
Gerardo eyed his companions. "I don't suppose this is making sense to either of you?"
Maple shook her head, and Starlight followed suit.
"I agree..." The griffon leaned forward, pressing through the bush. "This has to be the most unusual robbery I've ever seen, and at a glance it seems very politically charged... yet among members of the same side. Something tells me the situation in Ironridge is more complex than I would like to get involved in..." His talons itched toward the hilt of his sword. "Yet, going blind may be the more dangerous of the two options. I am highly inclined to step out there and get some information."
"Staying out of trouble..." Maple hissed worriedly. "Running in there is not how to do that!"
"I'm aware of what I said and what was asked of us," Gerardo replied. "The fact remains that something incredibly fishy is going on here. If robberies can be carried out like business transactions, which seems to be the intent of all but that one pony, I need to know why. And besides... if we save that caravan, there is a good chance they will give us a ride."
Maple folded her ears in protest. "I really do not think that's a good idea! Isn't the Stone District supposed to be safe? All we have to do is get there and we can not have to deal with... this!"
Uneasily, Gerardo shuffled, but didn't draw his sword.
"Tell me," Maple whispered, "if you ran in there, who would you even fight? How do you know which ones are good, or if they're both bad?"
Gerardo shrugged. "An unarmed economic convoy is being held up by bandits with sizable guns and full facial masks. What does it seem?"
"I've read a few books," Maple whispered back. "More than a few! And I haven't read a single one where the weapons dealer isn't the villain!"
"Hmmm..." Gerardo tickled his chin. "You have a point. Here, hold this."
"What are you doing?" Maple asked, noting the griffon's offered sword and taking it warily.
Winking, Gerardo retreated toward the forest. "A tried and true method of testing the moral fiber of opposing parties."
"Good evening, gentlecolts," Gerardo loudly announced as he strolled down the road, approaching the circle around the cart. "I was wondering... erm..." His eyebrows both raised in a well-practiced act. "What is going on?"
From the bushes, Maple silently groaned. The bandits and cart ponies looked at him with a mixture of incredulity and suspicion, but he received an answer nevertheless. "My name is Dorable," the larger stallion announced, "and my companions are Shinespark and Nimwick. We are making a delivery."
"And we're presently being held up," Nimwick added, grumbling darkly.
"I... see." Gerardo blinked. "Well, I apologize for interrupting. I find myself lost, you see, and was wondering if anyone could furnish me with directions?"
"Hey." A bandit waved his oversized launcher at Gerardo, trying to get his attention. "Maybe you should leave Sosan affairs to the Sosans, buddy? Whatever your deal is, you'll have better luck looking after yourself and leaving us alone."
"No! No!" Nimwick waved his hooves, flailing. "Don't listen to him! We're under attack and you look tough, so do something because these buffoons won't!"
The bandits ignored him, turning to each other after the first had spoken. "Hey..." another chided. "He's, like, lost, dude. No need to be so harsh!"
"Yeah!" A third nodded vigorously. "Wouldn't be very nice of us to just leave him in need, you know. We should do something!"
"Nice?" another loudly scoffed. "We're here to smite infidels and save the world, not be nice! You kids are too innocent for this line of work!"
"Save the world?" Another's eyes rolled beneath his mask. "Someone's got an overinflated opinion of their own ego, here. Sosa is at the bottom of the barrel! All I want is to give those scumbags up in Skyfreeze a little payback for how they've treated us!"
"Oh, shut up. They probably pay your wages for your day job!"
Another lifted a hoof. "Hey, doesn't he have wings? Why not fly wherever he's going? You can see everything from the air!"
"Hah! Ha ha ha... You think Ironridge is covered in flying address posts? Probably all looks like forest from up there! How'd you like to try finding something from the air?"
"Wow, no need to be rude..."
Gerardo stared, perplexed, as the bandits bickered... and his eyes were eventually caught by Shinespark's. She didn't speak, but her message was clear: don't get involved in this mess. He bowed his head. "Suddenly, I feel I've remembered a route I never tried before! Farewell, and may you have a pleasant morning."
Rather than walking back to the bushes, he spread his wings and lifted off, skimming the canopy in a random direction until he was sufficiently out of sight to loop around and find his friends without alerting the Sosans. In his wake, Nimwick resumed ranting, though his target was unclear.
He settled quickly into the bush behind Maple and Starlight, who were both waiting crossly. "Well, that was uneventful," he sighed regretfully. "Still, it could be for the best."
"It's definitely for the best!" Maple hissed. "What were you thinking? Don't you remember what Arambai said? We're not supposed to look for trouble! That includes walking in on robberies!"
"I am aware." Gerardo's headcrest drooped. " And in case you weren't, I was the only one there who possessed wings. Had I needed to make a retreat, I could have done so with ease. I did my best to act without suspicion and confirm the presence of any reasonable ponies... even if all I found was a pack of buffoons. However, it seems clear that this conflict is and should be none of our business, so let us prepare to depart..."
"Uhh..." Starlight tapped both of them on the shoulder with a pebble held in her aura. "Look."
A short distance up the road, two bandits had emerged from the forest, lugging a pair of muddied crates. "Hey, look what we found on recon!" one gloated to the rest. "Free loot!"
Gerardo's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he drew his sword with a muffled shhiiing. "This conflict has just become our business."
"I believe you have something that belongs to me."
The bandits by Gerardo's crate turned, nearly jumping in surprise when they realized a sword was flicking back and forth, inches from their muzzles. "What the...?"
"Indeed." Nodding, Gerardo pushed closer, and they retreated until he was standing firmly between the two crates. "These are mine. Steal from each other if you must, but when my own belongings are taken I am forced to become involved."
The ponies on the cart watched him intently, Nimwick tensely and the other two with suspicion. From the back of the circle, a bandit called, "Hey, didn't you just fly off that way? What are you doing, laying claim to stuff we just found in the woods?"
"Yeah!" Another bandit smacked his chest. "Finders, keepers! Unless you wanna fight for it?"
One of the bandits being faced by Gerardo's sword nearly panicked. "Dude, shut up! He's got a huge sword! He'd hurt us!"
Nimwick could no longer contain himself atop the cart. "Arrgh!" he shouted, flailing. "We are not a charity case! If you're going to get rid of them, hurry up and spare my ego, would you?"
"No fighting!" Shinespark sharply announced, cutting him off and brandishing her own weapon.
More than half of the bandits turned to her. "And why should we listen to you, huh?" one demanded. "You're a sellout to Yakyakistan!"
"No she isn't!" another protested, shoving his companion. "She's the only good Sosan left among the higher-ups! Don't you get her mixed up in this!"
A third turned to the second. "Wow, are you okay? You sound like you have a crush on her..."
"Who doesn't?" another loudly proclaimed. "She's incredible!"
"Ugh! Seriously!" The third looked up at the cart, almost beseeching. "Please tell me you're, like, in a relationship right now? Associating with these guys is getting embarrassing!"
"Tell me about it!" Another threw down his cannon, pouting. "I just wanna do what's right for our great city! I feel like my dignity got thrown in a centrifuge and then flushed down a toilet..."
"Spare me the rhetoric..." Nimwick moaned. "You guys are all idiots! Sosa isn't great, and Ironridge isn't ours! What do you clods even think you are, loyalists? You're going to, I don't know, enforce a no-fly zone with all this stuff? Or are you just going to hit on the pony you're trying to rob?" He buried his head in his hooves, nearly sobbing. "And you're talking about your dignity? What about mine? I'm getting held up by this... This is so degrading..."
"I feel ya, dude!" one of the bandits who had addressed the cart called back.
"Hey!" a fifth loudly announced. "No fraternizing with the enemy! That includes hitting on them! We've got a job to do, ponies, and we're not gonna disappoint the commander! Now move it and get those boxes!"
"Hey, screw you! You don't get to talk about her like that!"
Gerardo could only stare as the pack of would-be robbers quickly fragmented, the argument spreading and getting more heated. Swiftly, he realized that the coast was clear to take his cargo and run... except that he couldn't carry it by himself, and had no line of sight to the bush where Maple and Starlight still hid from where the crates had ultimately been deposited. On the cart, Nimwick looked on like a loser playing their final coin in a gambling den, drowning in despair while maintaining a possessed grin, with Dorable watching impassively and Shinespark's face twisting in a mixture of shock, disgust and disappointment.
Slowly, he crept closer, aiming to get in sight of the bush... when the first sound of a punch rang out. A stallion carrying a back-mounted launcher far too big for a normal-sized pony toppled.
The griffon readied his sword in defense, hoping none of the artillery would be used and wondering exactly how a group of bandits could be cohesive enough to function while so readily falling apart. Then he realized that the brawl was safely far from his cargo, yet very near Maple and Starlight's hiding place. Hopefully, they would be smart enough to move... but in the meantime, he readied himself to intervene the instant it should become necessary.
Under cover at the edge of the clearing, Starlight's ears flattened. "What are they doing?"
"Don't know, doesn't matter." Scooping her up, Maple stepped backwards, nearly tripping on a root. "We are not staying here. Come on, let's get to Gerardo and run."
She crept through the undergrowth, wet leaves clinging to her coat. Constantly looking sideways as she moved, she stumbled more than once, but both wouldn't and couldn't take her eyes off the brawl. Most of the ponies were incapacitated by their own weapons, the heavy accessories making it difficult to get up once knocked down. It would have been almost comical, had it not been so dangerous. That danger was only accentuated when one pony got far enough away from the group to set up their weapon and begin firing.
SHOOM!
A huge, slow-moving pellet of magic erupted from the nozzle of the device. In almost an instant, Shinespark's telekinetically-controlled spear left her side, skewering the cannon in an explosion that sent its technician reeling. The other bandits, quickly alerted by the weapon's blast, broke up their melee to dive out of the way, leaving the bolt soaring for Maple's place of hiding.
"Oh, that's not good," she breathed, tensing her legs and jumping to clear the magic blast's path. Immediately, her tail snagged on something and she crashed back to the ground, legs splayed.
"Wha...!?" Starlight scrambled backwards, too startled to begin lighting her horn. "Maple!"
The earth pony tried to lift herself upright, but there was no way to move out of the way in time. All she could do was spread her forelimbs wide, as if trying to catch it and shield Starlight. Milliseconds from impact, the filly lunged... and the magical blast disappeared.
Gerardo went rigid at the sound of Starlight's cry... and that rigidity evolved into motion when he saw where it had come from, and what that area was presently in the path of. Abandoning all hesitation, he charged, boosting forward with his wings as he swept through every bandit in his way. Swish! His sword cut a broad, back-and-forth arc in front of him as he plowed, passing seamlessly through the midsections of bandits without a trace of resistance or a drop of blood, the metal visibly fuzzing as it intersected with flesh. Through the eyeslits of their masks, pupils went wide... before they were shoved aside, or simply collapsed of their own accord. Still, despite the desperation of his charge, it was clear that he wasn't going to make it... not that he had a plan of what to do if he did. That he would be late became all the more apparent when something massive and metal erupted from the jungle, sending him crashing to his side.
For an instant after the projectile vanished, the air around Maple was still... and then, with a concussive blast exactly like the original cannonshot, it reappeared, blazing its way upward like a flare. The force of it bowled her over backwards, eyes dilating and chest heaving as her legs pointed up at the sky. Immediately, Starlight leapt to her, clinging on to her shoulder. The filly was speechless.
"I-I just..." Maple panted, not yet trying to roll upright. "I just tried to catch it, and..." She blinked several times, shock slowly being replaced by wonder. "I just stored magic. My cutie mark... works on magic." Blinking again, she slowly rolled over and began to climb to her hooves.
"Nnnnngh!" Gerardo slammed heavily to the ground, rolling with the momentum and quickly getting to his feet. He was too late. The projectile was gone... but his sword was still in his talons, and he had a clear view of what had attacked him.
It was a pony in a thick, full-body suit of armor that gleamed as if it had been polished for days. Plates expertly interlocking, it fitted so finely that not the slightest bit of their coat, face or mane was visible. It was so heavy that the pony stood just as tall as the bandit stallions still standing, despite having the proportions of a mare. A large, golden horn graced the suit's forehead... and, most strikingly, a pair of ornamental folded metal wings adorned the sides.
"Enough," the armored pony demanded in a magically distorted voice, holding perfectly still. "Spirit of Sosa, take your fallen and leave. This display brings shame to your noble cause. Griffon, do not harm my ponies, no matter how poorly they may be behaving."
"I will not," Gerardo answered, shuddering. "Whoever you are, you claim ownership of this street brawl? Because you just-"
He was interrupted by a tremendous bang, and a surge of magical light soared upward from the forest nearby. The bandits turned to look. Gerardo didn't wait to see if the armored pony did as well.
His sword flew forward in a swift, horizontal stab, aiming to pierce the armor and reach the pony's chest. But the pony was ready, rocket boosters attached to their forelegs firing, blackening the dirt below even as they launched their owner swiftly backwards. Gerardo missed, immediately following with a swing as the pony landed safely out of the way.
"Don't fight her!" Shinespark's voice called from the cart, laced with alarm. "She's dangerous!"
Gerardo ignored her, this time prepared. As the pony made to jump again, he readied another horizontal swing, adjusting his trajectory upward... and her hooves couldn't clear the blade in time. But just as it began to bite into the metal, preparing to cleave it in two, she twisted into a backflip in an incredible display of agility for one evidently so heavy. As her hoof turned, the top and bottom of the partially-severed sabaton bit down on the blade like a clamp, wrenching it from Gerardo's grasp and uppercutting him with the hilt.
He shook his head to clear it, eyes widening in alarm as the pony didn't return to the ground. Instead, she hung there in midair, boosters on all four hooves firing to keep her airborne as the sword dangled limply from where it was embedded.
Growling, Gerardo spread his wings... and the armored pony flipped her hoof, tossing the sword out and catching it between the two. A protrusion from the armor likely designed for wielding just such weapons latched around its handle until it was tied to her good hoof, and she held it warningly, waving slightly as she hovered away. "Who are you?" Gerardo hissed, crouching. "And give me back my sword!"
Wordlessly, the armored pony stared back through a pitch-black visor, the sword still held wardingly... then turned, angled her legs, and fired, rocketing away over the trees.
Gerardo had already tensed, preparing to give chase, when Maple staggered out of the forest. "I'm all right," she panted. "I'm all right. Don't do anything... stupid."
From their vantage point atop the cart, Dorable, Nimwick and Shinespark merely watched, some to the deflating griffon, others the distant, retreating forms of the disgraced Spirit, and some the empty space where the armored mare had soared away, Gerardo's sword firmly in her grasp.
For a long time, none of the ponies remaining said anything. Then, from Dorable: "See, Nimwick? I told you to talk to them."
"Oh, shut up," Nimwick returned, sulking.
"It seems we'll complete a delivery for once, though," Shinespark observed, before hopping down from the cart in a single bound and snatching her abandoned spear. It was slightly charred from the cannon's explosion and sparked when she hefted it, and she looked at it with disappointment. "So..." She turned to Gerardo, then looked between him and Maple, where Starlight was also cowering.
Starlight looked at Maple. Maple looked at Gerardo. Gerardo swallowed, and said, "Yes?"
"We're going to the upper districts," Maple interrupted, sensing that the griffon wasn't about to say anything useful. "We were advised to stay off the roads to avoid trouble, but we heard shouting and came to investigate. Those two crates were ours, and must have been stolen when we weren't looking."
It was the truth, if not all of it. Shinespark eyed her as if searching for leaks in a balloon, then nodded. "I haven't seen a sword that doesn't cut before. What will happen to those ponies?"
Gerardo shifted uneasily. "It was... special. Purchased from a unicorn enchantress to the north. I'm unclear how it works, but it nonlethally disables the target for several days. The effects wear off on their own, but can be hastened slightly by proper food and rest... I'm rather upset over losing it, as well. And seeing as I acted partially in your defense..."
"You're seeking compensation," Dorable remarked.
"Yes." Gerardo frowned sternly. "I am."
Dorable shrugged. "We have nothing to give, and it was your own fault for getting involved. The Spirit of Sosa, the group who attempted to rob us, is never lethal. Little to nothing was at stake."
Nimwick scratched at his chin. "Nothing to give? Well, it's not like we aren't carrying a bunch of weapon crates or like he just lost a weapon helping us, and we wouldn't even have these if he hadn't! Do you or don't you want to reward those who help us?" He tapped a hoof annoyedly. "Because it's a good way to get us help in the future, as annoying as it is that we've been reduced to a charity case!"
"We've spent too long here," Shinespark cut in. "We need to get going." She pointed her blackened spear at Gerardo. "Sosan business is best kept between Sosans, and we're sorry you got involved. If you're headed for the Stone District, we would be willing to give you a ride."
Dorable glanced uncertainly at her... and she answered him with a firm stare. He nodded. "Very well. There's room on our cart, if you need it."
"Surprisingly generous of you," Gerardo answered with a bow. "Allow me to just get my boxes-"
"No need," Shinespark interrupted. Her horn lit with the same dark, piercing blue as her eyes, and all the way across the clearing the two muddy crates lifted off the ground, drawing themselves to the back of the cart and settling into place. "There's room for you and your friends at the back."
Maple tracked Shinespark's eyes as she led Starlight to the back, where Gerardo helped them up. The mare's gaze followed them in turn, almost seeming to rest more on Starlight than herself. Was it because Starlight was a unicorn? Not impossible, given that that was her general impression of Sosa.
The wooden cart rattled, and began moving again. As soon as the clearing had scrolled out of sight, leaving only winding roadway in view ahead and behind, Shinespark spoke again. "That sword of yours... how valuable is it?"
Gerardo shrugged. "In truth? I have no idea. It's proved itself through utility, and that is plenty."
"How much did you pay for it?" Her face remained static, probing.
"I didn't pay. I bartered." The griffon stared straight ahead, not making eye contact. "From a little filly selling her mother's wares. Supposedly, she enchanted it herself. I got it in exchange for some old exploration equipment I no longer needed. Rations about to go stale, ropes... those sorts of things."
Nimwick raised an eyebrow. "You buy from child merchants? How do you not get hustled?"
Gerardo blinked, staring off into space. "For some reason, I feel I've heard that before..."
"How much would you pay to get it back?" Shinespark asked, rerailing the flow of conversation.
"How much would I what?" Gerardo looked at her sharply. "Exactly what do you mean by that?"
The orange mare shrugged. "There aren't any ways in or out of this city that those bandits have access to. Unless they find a good use for it, it has high odds of winding up for sale somewhere... and I have a good idea of where to look. What I'm saying is, I could probably get it back for you, if you could make it worth my time... and I'm very busy, so my time is worth a lot."
"I mean this in the least offensive way possible..." Gerardo blinked slowly. "But you apparently have enough time to arm yourself and escort a convoy, yet sit idly by while it is robbed. You don't strike me as poor at combat, either. It would surprise me were you unable to handle that mob."
Shinespark shrugged. "They weren't why I came. I didn't need to do anything about them."
"You... didn't need to..." Gerardo tilted his head in confusion. "You were being robbed."
"It's economically sustainable," Dorable answered. "We get hired on contract to build weapons for the yak embassy. The deliveries are stolen by bandits. The yaks hire us again, because they still want their goods. Money comes in, ponies keep their jobs, and everything works out."
Gerardo's brow furrowed. "That makes no sense whatsoever! Why would they continue using an obviously faulty service? Where does all that money even come from? Why does-"
"It doesn't matter," Shinespark interrupted. "What matters is that it works. But we're telling you things you don't need to know." She tapped her spear against a crate. "What I do need to know is, will you make it worth my while if I go looking for your sword? Because I'd have to pay what they want upfront. And I can do that... but I'd need a guarantee you would come for it."
"Hold on," Maple objected, "this is shady. Who even are you? There are so few guarantees here, and..." She looked up at Gerardo with a mixture of hope and frustration. "Is this really a good idea? I feel like I'm walking blind into a canyon. What are we even doing?"
"Business," Dorable said, Nimwick sitting beside him and stubbornly looking away from the conversation. "A common thing, here in Sosa. Notice how we're trusting you, not inquiring as to what you're doing here with outbound goods and little knowledge of the area, when everything that leaves Sosa is made in Sosa." His hairless brows scrunched briefly. "Courtesy and trust are difficult virtues to abide by in these times, yet we've found that a no-questions-asked policy can sometimes prove beneficial to everyone." Sighing, he turned his gaze forward, alongside Nimwick. "But, if you wish to know more, I am Dorable, lord and chief of one of Sosa's three central factories. The beta factory, to be precise... Nimwick, here, is in training to take over the gamma factory. And this is Shinespark."
Maple and Starlight both folded their ears. "You put two leaders on an undefended convoy you know is going to be attacked by bandits?" Maple asked. "But... why?"
"The Spirit of Sosa doesn't fight Sosans," Shinespark answered, rotating her spear. "Aside from themselves, apparently. I suspect that group may have been younger recruits, entirely inexperienced. Their ideals are extreme, but well-meaning. To us, at least."
"What do they even want?" Maple pressed.
"To restore the days when Sosa was the capital of Ironridge. What else?" Shinespark shrugged. "An impossible dream, as anyone who knows an ounce of economic theory will tell you. But it's also an appealing one, easy to follow and fight for, and too many ponies these days need a dream to give their lives meaning."
"And that armored pony?" Gerardo asked. "The one who bore likenesses of both wings and a horn? What of her?"
The cart hit a stone in the road and jostled, but even the sudden motion didn't break Shinespark's composure. "The leader of the Spirit. They call her Commander Braen... It isn't hard to see where she adopted that name, or anatomy. Nopony knows what is really beneath the armor, but it's easy to tell what they want you to think. Everything the Spirit does is to raise their own... spirits."
"Blazing Rain..." Maple breathed. "The magical pegasus hero?"
"Her." Dorable shrugged. "She didn't have a horn, but it's what ponies think of. Ponies born after her time, like all of the Spirit."
Shinespark nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a single pony over thirty in the Spirit. Any old enough to have had jobs before the airships would... well, they would remember."
"Pardon my asking," Gerardo began, "but you can't possibly be that old yourself. What do you remember that they don't?"
Dorable looked concernedly at him, and opened his mouth to speak... when Shinespark interrupted, again. "Stop the cart," she suddenly commanded. "We're getting close."
"Close?" Gerardo blinked in confusion. "To what?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Actually, if you want to get a head start on paying me back for your sword... get off the cart, keep walking down the road, and act like an innocent traveler, exactly the same as you did to us earlier. There's supposedly another holdup in the road, and that one I'm here to check."
An old stone wall, crumbling from time and little upkeep, extended from a gate in the road. Broad, squat, and sturdy, it bore the look of something originally intended to be ornamental, before being abandoned and eventually repurposed as an actual wall. Its present crew consisted of three ponies, unarmored and unarmed, who were eating, bickering and snoring.
"Come on, now, Tarfeather," said one guard to the other. "No need to hog all the mangoes. We're all friends here, aren't we?"
Tarfeather, a scrawny black pegasus, reared away with a large stack of mangoes clutched tightly against his chest. "No!" he barked in a voice even whinier than Nimwick's, juice slathered over his muzzle. "Go get your own mangoes! Or eat this melon that nobody wants, or something!"
He kicked at a solitary melon, rolling it towards the first guard, a droopy earth pony with a perpetual frown. "Tarfeather, you know how much I like mangoes..."
"Sure do," Tarfeather answered, popping one of the fruits into his mouth and sucking until he spat away the pit. "Mmm-mm! Too bad you didn't care about protecting favorites when Valey was eating all my bananas, then, isn't it?" He pointed a shaking hoof at their third companion, a charcoal-black mare who lay on her back, loudly snoring, face covered by a black beret. The walltop around her was littered with banana peels. "The only thing I'm doing is returning the favor!"
The earth pony looked dubiously at Valey, eyeing the boxing glove emblazoned on her flank. "Yeah, somehow I don't think that would have worked out for me..." His eyes shifted sharply upwards. "Besides, I wasn't the one to wake her up, and she wasn't eating my mangoes!"
"Hmmph. Well, if Valey gets Tarfeather's bananas, then Tarfeather gets Mudhoof's mangoes. So there! Glorrrmph..." Tarfeather took as huge of a bite as he could manage, grazing at least three mangoes and spraying juices everywhere. Mudhoof winced, then groaned.
"Eeughh... Night watch duty stinks..." Mudhoof put his hooves on the rampart and leaned out, observing the forest floor close below. "Why'd we get dragged all the way out here when there's just as many jobs to do back at headquarters...? This isn't what I signed up to do..."
"So I can... mmrmff... eat all these delicious mangoes," Tarfeather said around a mouthful. "There's still that melon, if you're hungry. Unless you're saving it in case that pegasus comes back?"
Mudhoof's expression darkened. "He better not! It's that weasel's fault Valey woke up in the first place!" Careful to keep his voice down in case the mare showed signs of waking, he continued, "And we should probably save this in case she wants breakfast. Otherwise she'll steal my mangoes..."
"For real, though..." Tarfeather swallowed, munching. "This stinks. It's like they're taunting us, putting us on a squad with a mare... and making that mare be her. Scratch that, she's taunting us! Doesn't even feel right, using her as eye candy when she's sleeping. And I'd certainly rather this than she be awake..."
"If you don't want to wait here, go raid the Earth District again," Mudhoof said with a shrug. Glancing out over the forest around them, he added, "Get plenty of fruit for us both."
"Ohhh ho ho no!" Tarfeather chuckled dangerously, holding the remains of his mango pile as far away as he could. "You just want me to leave these so you can have them all to yourself, don't you?"
As the guards began a fresh round of bickering over their presumably-stolen fruit, Gerardo Guillaume eyed them from a shadowed patch in the roadway. He could hear every word they said with clarity, and had a good idea they could see him if they were actually looking for travelers... which clearly meant they weren't. To his side, deeper in the forest, he was passively aware of Shinespark, waiting and watching to see what would happen when he approached. It didn't seem like the guards would stop any time soon... so he shrugged, and stepped into the moonlight of pre-dawn.
"Hello, up there!" Gerardo called, pacing forward with his wings ruffled to make him seem bigger than he really was. "Is there any chance a weary, unarmed traveler could pass through this way?"
Both wakeful guards were at the railing in a flash, Tarfeather abandoning his mangoes. They squinted. "Is he...?" Tarfeather murmured, fearful.
"Nah." Mudhoof shook his head. "That's a griffon. Definitely not the birdbrain from earlier."
Gerardo blinked up at them, pretending he hadn't just been listening for several minutes. "Well, bird or not, I would very much appreciate passage. Would that be all right with you?"
The guards looked at each other again, and Mudhoof shrugged. "Well, he doesn't look like a Sosan, so he's probably not a bandit. I say we let him through."
Tarfeather thought for a moment. "Yeah. You can pass... on one condition! Be quiet and don't wake up Valey! She'll eat all our fruit and is really annoying!"
Gerardo looked quizzically up at them. "Surely you're making far more noise than I am."
"Conditions?" Mudhoof hummed, ignoring the griffon and thinking as well. "Oh! We'll let you through..." He stared down at Gerardo, frown almost lifting into an eager grin. "If you go to the Earth District and bring me some mangoes! You've got wings, it'll be easy! How's that sound?"
"No!" Tarfeather kicked him. "Bananas! We'll only let you through if you bring us bananas!"
"Err..." Gerardo blinked harder. "I may be a self-styled wandering hero, but that doesn't mean I need to be offered fetch quests. Do you ask every pony you stop to fulfil pointless errands like this? Or do I really look that much like I'm inclined to agree?"
Tarfeather shrugged. "Well, you are only the second, and the first was definitely a bandit..."
Suddenly, there was a disturbance in the bushes at the side of the road... the side where Shinespark wasn't hiding. Gerardo instinctively fell into a defensive stance as a figure leapt out, landing squarely in front of him... but their attention seemed fixed on Mudhoof and Tarfeather.
"Ha-hah!" the pony crowed, flexing a pair of feathery wings. "I knew you were just a pair of ne'er-do-wells, blocking the road for fun and profit!" He jabbed a hoof as if making an accusation in court, then turned to Gerardo and bowed. "Sorry you had to get dragged into their schemes, citizen. But fear not, I'll have this rabble cleared in a jiffy!"
As Gerardo backpedaled, Mudhoof and Tarfeather stared down, faces pictures of dismay. "Not this again..." Tarfeather groaned. "Hurry up and do something before he wakes her up!"
The pegasus glared up at them, wearing a righteous smirk. "Okay, do-badders! It's time for round two! And you better know what that means..."
A silent spark of understanding passed between Tarfeather and Mudhoof. Shrugging, Tarfeather turned to his companion, and said absolutely nothing. Mudhoof was silent as well.
"Uh, hello?" The pegasus tipped his head, looking up at the gate.
Silence.
"Maybe if we ignore him, he'll go away," Tarfeather whispered, just loud enough to be heard on the ground.
"Oh ho!" the pegasus called back. "Sounds like you guys remember me! Well, I may have been polite and accepted your judgement before, but no longer! Not when there are bystanders on the line!"
Tarfeather bit down on a mango. "You think that griffon needs your help? You think he wants it? Who even are you, weirdo?"
"No no no," the pegasus replied, still smirking. "The great Howe doesn't tell his name to scoundrels. So how will we fight this duel for passage? Singing competition? Or dance-off?"
Gerardo steadily continued backing away, entirely unnerved by the display taking place. As he pondered the explanation that all of Ironridge was riddled with that much incompetence, Tarfeather hefted the melon, prompting Howe to squawk and cover his head. "Aack! Not the fruit! That took forever to get out of my mane! Fine, we can compromise and settle this with a rap battle if you need to be that way!"
As he retreated, a hiss from the bushes caught his attention. Shinespark poked her head out, beckoning, and he drew closer. "Is this..." he paused, searching for words. "Normal? Around here?"
Shinespark sighed. "The blockade is obviously a prank. Anyone could walk right past, but will just get distracted arguing with the guards... and that pegasus fell for it earlier tonight and probably wants revenge. Before you ask, there is someone in Ironridge who would set something like that up, and hopefully they won't wake up any time soon. But we can't afford to wait for him to get bored and leave, and if the pony behind it is who I think it is, we're going to need all the time we can get. I'm going back to bring in the cart and demand passage."
Following along behind her, Gerardo merely shook his head. "This is a very strange city..."
The Sosans' cart rattled around a bend, letting the gate come into full view. In the short time it had taken Shinespark to rally it forward, nothing had changed.
"No means no, kid!" Mudhoof stage-whispered, leaning as far over the rampart as he could. "Now seriously, get lost! All you're doing is hurting your own case, here!"
"Yeah!" Tarfeather added, still clutching his mangoes. "Maybe you could have passed by now if you weren't so dead-set on getting us in trouble! Now pipe down and wait for morning!"
Shrugging, Howe pulled out a megaphone... but before he could use it, Dorable's cart rolled to a stop, capturing the attention of all three ponies. Nimwick hopped off, scowling. "All right, what is this? A police state? Since when do we have blockades in the Earth District?"
"It's an anti-bandit checkpoint designed to keep the area civilized," Mudhoof droned, as if the words couldn't be more obvious.
"Oh. Right. Bandits." Nimwick violently rolled his eyes, then flipped his mane. "Because we look so much like bandits right now. Yes, I'm obviously here to pillage and plunder from civilized ponies because I have nothing better to do with my life. Do we look like bandits to you?"
Tarfeather shrugged. "Well, you're Sosans, aren't you?" he asked, pointing at the emblem on the trade cart. "All Sosans are bandits. Everyone knows that. Even more likely than what's-his-face here."
"All Sosans are...?" Nimwick stomped. "Aaaugh!"
Howe smirked, almost politely. "Me, a bandit? Your intuitions deceive you, almost comedically so! Care to put your money where your muzzle is and put that to..." He paused dramatically before striking a pose. "Debate!?"
"Kid..." Mudhoof sighed, then stared levelly at him. "If a normal bandit took a mirror, stood you next to it, and compared you with their reflection, they'd become so convinced they were a normal citizen that they'd sit down and do their taxes right there in the middle of the road. Have you looked at yourself recently?"
Howe's coat was a girlish shade of purple, periwinkle erring toward lavender under the light of the setting moon. His cutie mark was a megaphone, which he probably considered far more impressive than it really was. He also sported a pointy goatee and black pompadour, laced thickly with jagged bolts of red. Innocently, he stared back up at the wall. "What?"
"You've, uhh..." Mudhoof tapped his own, balding crown. "Got a little something, right there..."
"We don't have time for this," Shinespark announced. "Open the gate so we can pass, or I'll open it myself... and you alongside it." She hefted her spear dangerously, eyes glinting.
"Woah, woah, woah, slow down a minute!" Howe waved his forelegs, giving a small flap and grinning up at the cart. "Listen, guys. And gal. The Howenator may be fine weathering these kinds of abuses on his own person, but to stand by and let others suffer this foolery?" He cast a mock-disbelieving foreleg toward the guards on the gate. "Let me handle this."
As Shinespark and Nimwick watched him with impatience and Dorable looked on impassively, the pegasus turned back to the wall. "Let's settle this democratically," he began, pacing in a circle. "See, I happen to be in a line of work that involves meeting many flakes. I know a flake when I see one." He pointed up at Nimwick. "He's a flake, for example."
Nimwick snarled back, but Howe continued without missing a beat. "But the gal with her, with the pointy spear? Seems pretty straightforward. Same for the griffon dude. Those two in the back..." He squinted, walking closer to look at Starlight. "You know, it's hard to get a read when they're sleeping. But hey, that happens."
Marching piously back toward the wall, he continued, "And the big guy, I can't get a read on either. Now, as I can't really speak for myself without obvious bias, that just leaves you three..." He squinted, rubbing his chin. "And I've got a feeling you two are definitely loons. The sleeping one? Eh. I dunno, I've got a good feeling about her for some reason. Might as well give you the benefit of the doubt."
Shrugging, he finished, "So that means Team Me has at worst, more stand-up folks than you..." His grin turned smug. "Which means it should be us on that wall, guarding Ironridge from you! Hah! Take that, windbags!"
Nobody applauded. "That was a beautiful piece of logic," Mudhoof droned.
Tarfeather nodded sagely. "And we're still not letting you through."
Atop the cart, Shinespark stirred, looking as if she was finally ready to climb the wall and kick them off herself... but Nimwick beat her to action. "You are too letting us through!" he snarled, hopping down from the cart and striding towards the gate. "Now get out of our way, or I'll make you!"
Tarfeather shrugged to his companion. "Even the bad hair guy thought he was a bandit."
Mudhoof nodded sagely. "If he looks like a bandit and smells like a bandit, odds are he's a bandit."
"I do not smell like a bandit!" Nimwick hissed, lighting his horn with a crackle of energy.
Reaching down, Tarfeather hefted the melon and offered it to Mudhoof. "Melon?"
"Melon," Mudhoof agreed, taking and aiming it at Nimwick before firing with a mighty buck.
Smassshh!
The melon impacted Nimwick's charging horn, found it an easy fracture point, and shattered, peppering his face and body with shards of melony glop. Tarfeather snickered. Mudhoof's perpetual frown lifted slightly. Nimwick stood, blinking, silent... and yelled. "Raaaaaauugh!"
A short ways along the walltop, Valey's beret shifted slightly, snuffles and snorts ringing out from beneath... and then a black hoof reached up, reaching for eyes and finding only a hat. Its owner sat up groggily, blinking. "Whuzzat? Something going on? Who dares disturb... urgh."
Mudhoof and Tarfeather instantly stopped their laughing and stared, watching Valey awaken with the same kind of abject resignation that came with being reminded of the world's worst ear worm after somehow forgetting it. Tarfeather clutched his pile of mangoes like a foal's blanket.
Stumbling up next to Tarfeather, she extended a wing, reaching through the darkness, and liberated the remains of the mango stack from his suddenly slack grasp. Rearing back, she buried her face in them, ignorant of everything else, chewing with a series of wet squelches. "Mm! Mmm. There we go. Much better way to wake up. Mrph. What's goin' on?"
"My mangoes..." Mudhoof and Tarfeather whimpered in sync.
Ignoring them, she chucked the mango detritus over her shoulder and off the wall, eliciting gasps of dismay. Mudhoof and Tarfeather both rushed to the site where the fruit had been disposed, leaving Valey leaning casually on the railing, staring at the cart with forehooves folded, her unbrushed emerald mane dangling over her similarly-colored eyes... her slitted eyes. With a pointy wingtip, she brushed it away, straightened her beret, and grinned a fanged grin. "Wow. How'd those bozos manage to hold up so many ponies without getting the wall knocked down? I must be a heavier sleeper than I thought!"
As Nimwick was busy furiously rubbing his mane against a tree, trying to purify it of melon, Shinespark got in the first word. "Valey, on whose authority have you closed this road?"
Valey shrugged with malicious innocence. "Valey? No clue who that is. Titles, please?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "Admiral Valey."
"Hey, much better, Sparky! Good job!" Valey winked, voice slightly raspy. "And first off, I'm merely doing my job. If that's a problem, bring it up with Ambassador Herman." She shrugged apologetically.
"Pardon me," Gerardo interrupted, "but did you say admiral? You do know what an admiral is, correct? Because I have a hard time believing that a pony so truly important would be here..."
"Don't take the bait..." Shinespark groaned. But Valey was talking again, and it was too late.
"Well, technically..." Valey leaned back against a crenellation, tale flopping against the stone floor. "Something to do with boats, right? I dunno. I'm important enough I get to choose my own title, and admiral sounds cool and gets others asking silly questions like you. But really, you should see the other guy." She tilted her head back, looking at the cart out of the corner of her glow-in-the-dark eyes. "He's a commissar. It suits him, too!"
"Admiral Valey, we are on a schedule," Dorable broke in. "Please allow us to pass."
"Aww." Valey's face fell. "But yeah, that's the second thing. You're the ones sitting here and arguing with these melon heads. None of us are stopping you."
From over the wall, Tarfeather paused his mango digging to yell, "It's a trap! If you're not being paid to be here, spare yourselves and run while you can!"
Shinespark stared levelly at the gate blocking the tunnel through the stone wall. "The way is blocked. And it's about to not be, whether you cooperate or not."
"It is?" Valey leaned so far over the edge, she had to wrap her tail around the stone to keep from falling off, looking upside-down through the tunnel. "Huh. Well, what do you know?" Hauling herself upright, she smirked. "So that's what this is all about! Those two thought to close the gate!" She gave them a perfectly innocent grin. "And here I was thinking they made this holdup by being so crazy, everyone just had to stop and get a load of it for themselves!" Shrugging, she hopped down behind the wall, calling out across it. "I mean, that's why I put them here. That and they were bugging me. Here, lemme open this for you..."
There was an ancient creak, and the gate trembled open, aided by several shoves from Valey. When it was finished, she strolled through, smiling contentedly. "All right," she chirped, "I've had my fun. I mean, I kind of wish you'd woken me up for it, but that's for next time, you know?" Winking, she hopped out of the way. "Don't want to actually be impeding business. Now get on with your bad selves."
"Hey! Wait!" Howe protested, holding out a hoof as the Sosan cart rolled through the wall gate. "You can't just give up! I haven't even done anything yet!"
Valey turned to him, pursing her lips. "Well, I am kind of bored, if you want to argue with those mango munchers again for a bit..."
Howe's gaze flicked between her and the retreating Sosan cart. "You know what?" He regained his smirk. "No. I'm outta here... just as soon as I show you how wimpy these defenses of yours truly are. Take... this! Hiyaaa!"
Spreading his wings with a rush of air, he leapt, soared straight over the wall... and landed on the other side, preening smugly. "Yeah, take that," he gloated. "Mind-blowing security, that stuff."
Tarfeather and Mudhoof had returned to the walltop just in time to catch the display, and stared at each other, flabbergasted. "That seems like a major security oversight..."
Valey sprung atop the wall after him, not even bothering with flight in a pointless display of athleticism. "Hey, don't feel bad. You tried," she offered, patting the guards' backs as she passed. Eventually, she reached the edge, and looked down, grinning. "So, pegasus, on a scale of you to me, how clever do you think that was?"
"Uhhh..." Howe took a step back, suddenly confused. "Say what again?"
"First off," Valey began, "Sosans are unicorns. They don't have wings. Second, I'm not here to keep anyone in or out, I'm here to annoy pedestrians like you and these two. And third..." She climbed further onto the edge, until she was looming over Howe with precarious balance. "There's no defense better than me."
Howe didn't get a chance to respond, as Valey launched herself into a massive belly-flop off the wall, aimed squarely at his head. The pegasus tried his best to dodge... but Valey's aim was impeccable, and she cleanly squashed him into the ground. "Oww..." he groaned. "My hair..."
Rolling to her hooves, Valey blinked down at him. "Huh. You actually make a pretty good pegasus pancake, Pancake. Anyway, you may be crazy, but you're not a bandit... and if you are, you're a funny one. Go on! Shoo!"
Hefting his prone body, she reared back on two legs and threw him at the Sosan cart like a javelin. Without even checking to see how far he flew, she turned back to her guards and stifled a yawn. "Tarfeather! Earth District, stat. Go steal us some more fruit, I'll want breakfast. Nyup nyup..."
"Well," Gerardo sighed as Howe crashed to the ground behind them, "I, for one, have no idea what that was about, and dearly hope it will not be our continued experience with this city." He raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of that, wouldn't apprehending travelers on public byways be the definition of a bandit? She almost seemed more... bandity than our friends from earlier. How do you know her?"
"She works for the yak ambassador," Shinespark said dryly. "And she wasn't kidding when she said she was only doing her job: she really is paid to be a public nuisance. The less asked about her, the better, including why they would hire someone for that."
"I get the impression these yaks have very strange financial habits," Gerardo remarked.
"As I said, they're not a thing to be questioned when they benefit us," Shinespark answered. "The yaks do what the yaks do. Some of Sosa hates them, for sinking us years ago. Others love them, for keeping us afloat now. Anyone intelligent will take what they can get and hope things don't change."
Letting out a loud breath, Gerardo turned away, moving to check on Starlight and Maple in the back of the cart.
"Starlight? Maple? Are you awake?"
"Nngh..." Starlight blinked up at Gerardo's voice, curled warmly against Maple's slumbering form. "She isn't. They woke me up..."
"Yes, well, I hardly blame you," Gerardo chuckled, peering down from atop a crate as the cart shifted and swayed. "I wouldn't be surprised if we have at least another hour of travel to go, and it will hopefully be less eventful. Best to get as much shut-eye as possible, if you can. I'll leave you be."
His head disappeared, leaving Starlight blinking sleepily back down the way they had come. The gate was still visible in the distance, and she could see Mudhoof's form still moving around in the dim pre-dawn light. But Valey... She shivered. The batpony was standing in the middle of the road, emerald eyes clearly visible despite the distance. Unblinking, Valey watched... and Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that she was staring at her.
"No," Starlight grumbled, shifting herself so that her forehoof better covered her eyes. Things were brightening. The sun must have been coming up. And aside from the fact that she was bouncing slightly, jostled as the cart she was presumably still on passed over rocks in the road... she very much wanted it to be true.
"More so than Maple, then, at least. Hmm..." Gerardo's voice drew further away, as if he was no longer speaking directly at her. "I promise you, however, this is a sight worth waking up for."
Starlight lifted her exposed ear, and that was the extent of her compliance. She knew she was only sliding further back into consciousness, but her eyes still stung with tiredness, and she didn't feel like making an effort to open them. She did listen, though, and it took her a moment to discern the steady, distant roar for what it was: a mixture of every sound in existence, carried by the breeze over a long distance and mashed into a single, unwavering rush. She cracked an eyelid.
That eyelid was followed by another, and swiftly she raised her head entirely. Below her was a vast sea of green, a pool of trees of every height, interspersed with occasional towers and buildings tall enough to break the canopy. From groundbound crops to cultivated fruit and nut trees... Starlight breathed, and her eyes came alive.
The verdant valley was ringed by stone on all sides but one, a horseshoe-shaped bowl in the mountains that sent its trees and greenscapes crawling like tendrils towards the peaks. But before they could even approach a third of the required elevation, they petered out, and a band of something else strapped its way around the mountainside: terraces. Architecture of dull stone and glinting metal built its way into and out of the sheer, heavily-angled slope, endless switchbacks leading to main streets formed from the rooves of multi-story buildings. The shelf of civilization stretched nearly to the forest, dipping down with roads designed to connect, and didn't stop climbing until it reached a perfectly vertical face of rock that also ringed the crater, stalling further construction. Starlight's eyes wandered higher still... and then the snow began, and soon after the jagged brightness beyond her side of the mountains' shadow. Above that, the peaks just kept going.
"Is this what it looked like?" Gerardo whispered, checking that the Sosans on the cart weren't paying attention. "From... there?"
It wasn't hard for Starlight to guess where he was talking about. "Sort of," she muttered, gaze torn on what to investigate next. "But I could see farther. A lot farther."
"That is saying something," Gerardo murmured back, "seeing as the Earth District, which encompasses every bit of green between these mountains... has a diameter of over ten miles."
Starlight exhaled back, watching. Eventually, Gerardo stretched. "Enjoy it while you can. I imagine we'll be parting ways with this cart in a matter of minutes. And if you could rouse miss Maple, it would be of great use..."
The earth pony was still snuggled against Starlight's back. She didn't doubt that getting up herself would rouse her... but still wasn't convinced that she wanted to get up herself, either. Then again, was there any chance of her getting back to sleep? She'd likely have plenty of time with the view to ponder whatever the heights would make her ponder. It wasn't like Gerardo would be taking them back to the Earth District any time soon.
All in one motion, she stood up. The mountain air was surprisingly warm for their altitude, ruffling at her unbrushed coat and swirling around her muddy legs. Yet, her experience of the forest floor had been at night, and compared to what it would probably be like in the day... she imagined this altitude, or perhaps slightly higher, would be a perfect temperature to live life with open-air windows and never be too hot or too cold. The decision of ponies to settle themselves higher up on the mountain face, where it would take an hour's hard work just to climb up or down to where the food grew, suddenly made a lot more sense in her mind.
Maple stirred behind her. "Starlight...?" she murmured, blinking groggily. "Bed is... where...?"
"Good morning," Starlight hummed back, looking at her reflection in Maple's eyes. Both ponies were muddy wrecks, Starlight's mane having come undone and Maple largely caked in brown due to falling over during the battle. It matched her coat, at least, but the cracked and flaking texture wasn't pretty. Still, she tapped the mare's ear with her muzzle, and said, "Gerardo says we're almost there."
"He does, does he...?" Maple stretched without getting up, legs reaching off the back of the cart as she extended them to their maximum. "Wow, we're up high. How far have we come?"
"I could try to draw a map," Gerardo offered, appearing again on the crates above them. "However, I presently lack the implements to do so, so an explanation shall have to suffice. The semicircular mountain wall you see to the right... err, the cart's right, that is, opens to the northeast. We have traveled due south since meeting up with this group, and are presently rounding the eastern tip of the mountain ring and beginning our trip clockwise around the entire Stone District. Does that help?"
"Err... sort of..." Maple rubbed her head. "One more moment to wake up, please?"
"Take your time," Gerardo answered, straightening up. "But come to the front of the cart when you're done. There's something very interesting ahead which you may like to see."
"More interesting than this, huh?" Maple said to Starlight, just beginning her survey of the Ironridge valley. "All right, I think I'm awake... urgh. I need a bath. Want to go see?"
Starlight nodded as Maple produced a canteen and emptied part of it on her face, then took a long drink. Once she finished, they climbed the crate stack and went forward, looking for Gerardo.
The cart was small, and he was easy to find. Seated at the front next to Shinespark and away from Nimwick, the griffon stared forward... and at what was instantly apparent.
The road, immediately where they were, was a gravelly affair, sloping sharply up to their left and dropping just as sharply off to their right. Small, rusted metal barricades were all that stood in the way of rockslides and careless stepping, though the road was wide enough that two carts could pass each other without that even being an issue. Ahead, though, the ground fused into cement... and then left the mountain entirely, rising into an elevated bridge. And ahead of that, the mountain ceased, replaced by an unnaturally smooth wall of concrete and iron, curved such that the bridge was fixed to the inside. It towered upwards so far that Maple and Starlight had to crane their necks vertically to see the top, and even that was obscured by distance and a line of blinking, technological lights.
Their brows furrowed, half from the contrast of shadowed wall against brightening sky, and half from the otherworldliness of the structure. "What is...?" Maple began, and didn't finish.
"It's a dam," Shinespark answered, taking their confusion perfectly in stride. "There's another like it on the opposite side of this mountain. Together, they form a deep lake filled by meltwater from the Sky District. It's the reservoir that provides all of Ironridge's fresh water... and coolant for the machines in the mines. In return, steam from the mines is piped to the Sky District, and used through exhaust vents to melt snow and provide more water for the reservoir. We call it the Water District."
"The Water District?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow as the cart passed onto the bridge. "I was under the impression that Ironridge only had four districts: Steel, Earth, Stone and Sky."
Shinespark shook her head. "It has six, though the last two aren't really official. The Water District is one... and the other is the Flame District. That's what we call the mines. Though I doubt you'll need to go there any time soon, and good luck getting in if you do. They're dangerous, and not for tourists. Staying aboveground is a good rule in general."
Maple and Gerardo hummed their acknowledgement. Starlight was silent, looking up at the heights of the dam... and also down. They appeared to be fairly close to the base, which curved outward at a greater and greater angle until it melded seamlessly into the mountainside below. But they were still gaining altitude, and ahead, where the bridge met the end of the dam... there was a gate. A sleek, polished white stone gate, doing a much better job of being ornamental than the one Valey and her goons had commandeered, the pony standing watch looking perfectly well suited for the job.
They rolled to a stop just outside of the gate's arch, and the pony leaned down. "Sosans, eh?" he asked, pulling out a clipboard. "I remember the days when we'd get three, four of your carts per day, and those weren't even the good old days. Heh... Got any papers, or anything to declare?"
Dorable levitated a thick folder in his lime-green telekinesis, open to a particular page. The stallion took one look, made a mark on his clipboard, and grinned. "Well, you're definitely set! Have a nice day, Chief!"
He waved, and the gate rolled open. The Sosan cart passed through without fanfare, and soon, they had properly entered the Stone District.
Starlight wanted to stop and stare at the architecture, now that she could see it up close. Everything was made of some form of rock, bar occasional instances of iron and wood evidently imported from the other districts. But the cart quickly stopped again, and it was time for business.
"...So." Shinespark met Gerardo's gaze for a moment longer than necessary, and he got the hint, moving to disembark. "Your sword," she continued. "I can try to get it back, but I can't make promises. Sosa isn't poor, no matter what the other districts say. Money won't be an object. I'll most likely want some favor from you in return for my trouble... but what I need right now is a promise." Her eyes hardened, fully serious. "If I go to the trouble of helping you, will you come back to get it?"
Gerardo looked to Maple and Starlight, and neither had immediate objection to give. "Very well," he agreed. "I'll need to finish my present delivery before I can do anything else. But after that, and before I leave, I shall return to Sosa and seek you out. Tell me, how shall I know where to find you?"
"It won't be hard," Shinespark said, horn lit, unloading Gerardo's crates without even turning to look at them. "Almost every pony in Ironridge knows who I am, and at least how to find a pony who can find a pony who can point you to me. Or, if you're lost, you can just go to the alpha factory, on the northern bank of the river. I'm often there. But you'll do fine."
"I shall... keep it in mind." Bowing, Gerardo stepped away from the cart, extending a wing as if to ward Maple and Starlight back from it. Shinespark's only reply was a nod, before she turned forward, and the cart set off once again.
"...Well." Gerardo looked around the plaza where they had been deposited, the gate at one end and two roads at the other, one up and one down. "We have arrived, with our bodies and luggage intact. It seems it's time to plan our next move."
"Well, I, for one, need a bath," Maple announced, self-consciously flicking an ear as the eyes of passers-by began drawing themselves to her muddy form. "And you do too, Starlight."
Starlight bowed her head in agreement, a slight shiver running down her body. They were at a strange altitude where the air was warm, drifting up from the valley below, yet the ground was cold; the cobble-patterned road on which she stood still bore the night's chill, and the facing of the mountain to their side meant the sun wouldn't warm it for several hours more. Against her muddy hooves, it wasn't the worst, but there were many pleasanter surfaces to be had.
Gerardo clicked his beak, staring around the Stone District's entry plaza. The buildings inset into the mountain wall might have been homes, or artisan storage areas, but there were no signs or decorations depicting them as merchants. Down the roads, what appeared to be vendor stalls cropped up, most with their backs to the Earth District... and none of them were remotely big enough to house baths. He turned to his deposited crates and hummed. "Well, we'll need some sort of starting point..."
"We could always ask," Maple offered, slightly louder than need be.
As if on cue, a stallion with a perfectly friendly smile came trotting over, his wings tucked neatly beneath a windbreaker. "Well, someone looks like they just rolled into the better part of town. I reckon you're looking for a nice room and a chance to get freshened up?"
"Anything that will get this mud off," Maple muttered, rubbing at her foreleg and watching dried mud flake away. "Ugh. The closer, the better, too..."
The stallion winked. "Lucky for you, this close to the skyport is where all the good inns and hotels are located! Just head up and..." He rubbed his chin. "Well, up. The further away you get from the entrance, the cheaper stuff gets, but the dirtier, too. And between you and me, you don't want to go around looking like Sosans any longer than you have to! Hah!"
Turning his back on the party, he strolled away. Maple and Gerardo turned to each other, and the griffon raised an eyebrow. "Hotels, he says..."
"Well, we have to have somewhere to stay, don't we?" Starlight asked, looking up at the two. "You don't have a house here, right?"
"I do have money," Maple said with a shrug. "Ironridge money. Everything I owned. I'm not sure how much it's worth here, though. But it could probably get us at least a night, and we do need a way to get clean..." She looked hopefully up the cliff, trying to catch a glimpse of any good destinations, and found her view blocked by the immediate row of buildings. "It would also give us a place to leave those boxes while we tour the city, and I would like a room to try some things in private..."
"Out of the question," Gerardo immediately snapped. "I want my delivery taken care of as soon as possible. We'll have plenty of time for sightseeing after, but every moment we spend sitting in public with these boxes I grow slightly more nervous. I would be much more able to enjoy myself knowing that they were gone and my payment in hand. You do know what they say about things that can go wrong..."
Maple bit her lip. "It's not like anyone will steal them if they don't know what they are. I mean, they're two muddy cargo crates. Everyone here looks way to fancy to bother with those..."
"Our recent experience in the forest suggests otherwise," Gerardo muttered darkly.
"Well..." Maple protested, gritting her teeth. "Fine! Where are we taking them, then?"
"It's in the Sky District," Gerardo answered, "and that's all I can say. In fact, it's nearly all I know. Merely the name of a building I am to deliver them to, where there will presumably be someone ready."
"Well, You-Know-Who said that Ironridge gets more civilized the further up you go, and if we look out of place right now, we definitely will up there, so there." Maple stuck her tongue out. "Getting cleaned off isn't just to feel nice, it's a good idea. If you don't want to draw attention to us, don't make us stick out! We'll probably blend right in!"
In emphasis of her point, Starlight tapped their shoulders and pointed down the street, to where a mare was lugging a large box up an incline and into a building. Not a single pedestrian gave the mare a second glance, though the muddy trio were slightly less inconspicuous.
"...Very well," Gerardo sighed. "They're your funds. I have no intentions of leaving these crates, however, and have been bade not abandon you, either. If the purchase of a hotel room that very well may go unused save for a quick bath seems like the best priority, then let us proceed."
Maple nodded with an exhale of relief. "Same as before, then. I've got one crate, you've got the other. He said to go up... so I hope I'm not as tired as I feel."
The group got an idea of just how far up there was to go at the same time they became acquainted with how far they had come. Some thoughtful tourist agency had, at the edge of the road, installed a lengthy plinth with an observation platform at the end. Supported from below with braces and above with sharply-angled cables, it jutted out an entire street-width, providing both the freest view of the Earth District they had had so far, and enough removal from the Stone District's climbing sprawl to see above the nearest tier of buildings. Above that, there was another... and another... and before the count could even reach five, it dissolved entirely due to the mishmash of heights of different buildings, stalls on their edges, breaks in the road for switchbacks, and both the curvature of the rim and the fact that there weren't tiers at all so much as an endless series of interconnecting ramps. But most importantly, there were a lot of them.
"It's so far..." Maple whispered, eyes wide as she shifted her crate to a more comfortable position on her back. "And all that times the width of this entire mountain chain..." She swept her gaze to the side, all the way around the city's curve until she reached the far northern tip. "And that's just for one district. What do they do with all this room? It's so big..."
"Live in it, I presume," Gerardo answered. "Work, play... When an area's population grows, so, too, must the infrastructure of civilization."
A light breeze ruffled Maple's mane as she stared at the city. "I just can't imagine that there could be so many ponies..."
"Tens of thousands," Gerardo said, nodding. "Hundreds, even, more likely. Perhaps even a million, or more."
"One million ponies..." She reached a forehoof out, ancestral knowledge preventing her from even wobbling with the load on her back. "Back home, you could pick out any pony on the street, and odds were, you'd recognize them, especially if you were social like Amber. But here..."
"The world is truly an epic place," Gerardo murmured. "Ironridge is a gem of a city, if the stories are to be believed. Yet, even it is far from the best the world has to offer. Is this what you left to see?"
"I don't know." Maple swallowed. "I can't know; I'm... still not even sure I believe it. How do I even comprehend it? How could I ever get to know one million ponies? How would I remember their names? Who would even name them all? I mean, their families would, but..." She squeezed her eyes shut, having realized she had gone for far too long without blinking and that they were beginning to sting. "So many families, then. So many stories that would never even meet, and that do, I... I can't..."
"Well, you'll have plenty of time to try," Gerardo remarked, stepping back toward solid ground. "Because regardless of our destination, we have a large amount of ground still to cover. Onwards!"
The sun was visible by the time Maple and Gerardo collapsed outside a building in the upper Stone District... though that was more a testament of the sheer amount of height they had gained. A look to the east saw the Water District dam towering in the distance, the bridge they had entered upon visible far below.
"If you're tired," Gerardo huffed, panting, "I think a break could be in order. What say you?"
"I'm not tired," Maple answered, nevertheless throwing down her crate and flopping against it, draining the last of a water canteen and pulling a fresh one to offer to Starlight. "I'm perfectly fine!"
"Well, I'm tired," Starlight muttered, taking the thing in her hooves and pulling the stopper out with her teeth. The sheer amount of walking had caused most of the mud clinging to her to crack and fall off, though there was still a copious amount of dust left in her coat that nearly made her sneeze when she brought her hooves to her face. "How much further is it?"
"I don't know, Starlight..." Maple shook her head, then looked up at the current row of buildings. "Look at the rest of the city. The Stone District doesn't go all the way up, so we can't be that far from the top. We should just have to find somewhere... right?" She looked to Gerardo for approval.
"Indeed." The griffon pulled out his own water and drank, though much more briefly than the two ponies. "In fact, while we rest our legs, I'm very inclined to do a quick bit of scouting. Nothing that would let you out of my sight, of course, just a quick bit of altitude gain..."
"Sure," Maple said with a nod, "go for it. We'll be right here..."
Gerardo took off, soaring straight upwards. Maple and Starlight craned their necks to follow him... until he darted forward and out of sight. Maple frowned. "Where is-?"
She was spared having to finish by the griffon's abrupt return, a pleased smile on his face. "Fortunately," Gerardo announced, "there seems to be a well-off establishment not two tiers from here. It doesn't look the cheapest, but amenities such as baths should be in plentiful supply. Shall we?"
"We shall!" Maple nodded firmly, heaved herself to her hooves, and beckoned for Starlight to follow suit. Grumbling, she did so, and together they stumped their way toward yet another switchback.
"Well, you certainly look fresh off the road," greeted a heavily-perfumed receptionist with a bouquet in her mane, working from an open-air window facing the street. "Dirty work in the Earth District? I can always appreciate a hard worker..."
"Something like that," Maple answered, grinning nervously from the mare's slightly suggestive demeanor. "We, um, need a room. With a bath. Do you have those?"
The receptionist shrugged, showing off her lipstick. "Every room has a private bath, hon. There's an on-site spa, but access to that is extra. You'll be wanting..." She carefully evaluated Starlight. "Two beds, am I right?"
Gerardo raised a talon. "If one is cheaper, I'm perfectly willing to sleep on the floor."
The receptionist grinned harder. "Economical, too! I like it... Just for that, you can have a two-bedder for the price of one. That'll be two gray fours. For extras, you pay when you get them."
"Oh! Umm..." Hesitating, Maple turned away, shading one hoof with the other and sifting through her gems. While she knew the basics of Ironridge currency, she was hardly practiced with it and didn't trust herself to make change. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find a pair of smoky, four-sided ones which were probably what the receptionist was looking for. "These?" She held them out hopefully.
"That'll do it," the mare sung back, turning towards the rear of her booth. While she made a show of shifting and shuffling about, tail bouncing as she looked for something, Maple sniffed.
"I wonder if she's paid to do that, or does it deliberately," she whispered aside to Gerardo.
"To flirt with customers?" Gerardo whispered back. "In my experience, it's usually both."
"All right, here's your room key!" Returning to the front, she tossed a small artifact towards them. Maple easily caught it. "Room two-oh-six. That's the third on your right on the second floor, not counting the lobby. Pleasure!"
She blew them a kiss for good measure, but the trio was already gone. Shouldering their boxes, they pushed through the door into the hotel lobby... and suddenly felt very out of place.
The room was broad and long, likely running the entire footprint of the building save for an indent that was the receptionist's booth. The low ceiling was supported with ornate stone columns that appeared older than it was, the room carved around them into the mountainside when it was first constructed. A shallow reflection pool took up the center of the floorspace; a hearth, the back. The pool's bottom was strewn with colorful rocks and tiles slightly evocative of Riverfall's glass roads, though they were hard to see above the omnipresent, reflected torchlight... magical torches that appeared to burn while lighting the room evenly and giving off no smoke. Doors lined the sides, and to the right was a staircase to the upper floors.
"I believe," Gerardo murmured, staring at the back of a hat worn by a patron on a sofa in front of the fire, "that we are badly outclassed, at least until such time as we clean ourselves up."
"Well, let's get on that, then!" Maple shrugged, already heading for the staircase.
When they reached their rented room, they found it far less ornate than the lobby, lacking carvings, water art, or even a window, but it still had everything needed to be serviceable. No angry staff had approached on their way there to demand they take their muddy boxes off the premise, and the boxes were thus stacked in a corner, waiting as Gerardo took first shift with the bath.
"I'm not sure why he needs to go first... I paid for this, after all," Maple grumbled, sitting on the floor so as not to dirty the beds. They were circular, more resembling nests than anything else, with just enough room that two large ponies could cuddle and not feel they were too small. Since she was average-sized and Starlight was a filly, it didn't seem that would be a problem.
Fortunately, the griffon didn't take long, and soon emerged with his uniform wet and folded and the mud carefully scrubbed from his feathers. "Much better," he hummed. "Help yourselves."
It didn't take long for Maple to fill the tub. Beckoning to Starlight to follow her, she left the drain unplugged as she climbed in, the tap still running. "So the water doesn't stay muddy," she explained.
Starlight paused at the edge of the tub, examining the miniature sluice gate through which it filled. "Come on," Maple offered. "In. You're dirty too."
"Huh? Oh..." Starlight blinked, and followed, but remained quiet after settling in.
Several moments of silence passed, during which Maple was content to soak and cleanse her legs. Eventually, she asked, "Starlight? What are you thinking about?"
"Shinespark," Starlight answered simply.
"Her, yes..." Maple took stock of a giant sponge affixed to the wall, in a perfect position for washing the back and ears and other numerous spots pony limbs had trouble reaching on their own. "I think I liked her the most of those three. How about you?"
Starlight scowled. "I don't trust her. What she said didn't make sense. I think she was lying."
"Well..." Maple reached harder, scrubbing the back of her head against the sponge. "Let me know if you can't reach this, by the way. But all the Sosans were kind of funny. Why did you think Shinespark in particular was bad?"
"I didn't say bad," Starlight grumbled. "But you wanted me to trust Arambai, and she said and did some stuff that Arambai said doesn't work that way."
"Oh?" Maple's ears perked, swiveling backwards towards Starlight as she rubbed at her shoulder.
"Yeah," the filly grunted, rubbing at her own muddy legs. "I've been trying to remember. It was that first time I went to his house. I don't think you were there. He was telling me about Sosa."
"Oh?" Maple repeated, still digging at her ears with a hoof. "What did he say that contradicts her?"
"For one," Starlight answered, "she said Ironridge had six districts, and he said it had seven."
"Hmmm..." Maple tilted her head. "Well, he was last here years ago. Maybe one just doesn't exist anymore?"
"No..." Starlight hummed in thought. "He hears from all the Sosans who show up, remember? Like Faron! Didn't you say Faron only came to Riverfall a year or two ago?"
"It would be... let me think..." Maple bit her lip. "I lived in that house for... umm... Yew was..." She closed her eyes. "It was between a year and a half, and two years ago. So much has happened since then, though, it feels like forever. Like I was a completely different pony back then..."
"Yeah!" Starlight nodded. "So he should know. And you wanted me to trust him. But that's not the only thing." At a prompt from Maple to continue, she said, "He also said Sosa is an all-stallion society, like Riverfall and mares. That all the ponies live with their families in the Earth District. But she was there, and she acted important. Almost like she was more important than those other two."
"Now that you mention it," Maple hummed, "when they were introducing themselves, Dorable and Nimwick had big titles for themselves, but she didn't. But you're right... She didn't sound like she was their subordinate, did she? I wonder what her story is... Now hold still and let me get your ears. Maybe she was Dorable's daughter. She definitely looked young enough."
Starlight sighed. "And now we're probably going to run into her again because Gerardo wants to go back to get his sword. Mmmmrmph..."
"Hey!" Maple nudged her. "Maybe she'll turn out to be nice and helpful though, like Arambai?"
"Yeah... I guess..." Sighing again, Starlight waited as Maple finished with her ears. "I'm cold. This bath is cold. Can we go dry off now, and then lay down?"
"Depends on whether we're going anywhere else," Maple murmured, shutting off the water flow. "But we'll rest a bit, and hopefully we can leave those crates here, so you can ride on me again if you want. I know I don't want to carry one just after getting clean..."
Climbing out of the bath, Maple shook, spraying the stony architecture with droplets, then paced off in search of a towel.
"I have to agree," Gerardo muttered, once all three were dry and seated in their room, "about Shinespark. I noticed her doing some things myself I had previously associated with Arambai, and now wonder if extend to all Sosans. Well..." He closed his eyes. "Except Nimwick. Him, I don't understand."
"Go on," Maple offered, curled in a bed with Starlight huddled against her for warmth. Though the mountain air carried a pleasant warmth drifting up from the jungle, the hotel's all-stone architecture conducted heat well, and freely drained any they had to offer into the core of the mountain.
"Well..." Gerardo strummed his talons along the floor, suit drying behind him. "It was in her manner of conveying information. She said a great deal, much of which we didn't need to know, some of which we possibly shouldn't have known. And every bit of it was said such that it felt she was imparting some deep secret, as if she trusted us deeply... or wanted us to feel that way and trust her in return."
Maple nodded. "Now that you mention it, Arambai did always talk like he was telling secrets..."
"He did," Gerardo agreed. "And doing so can be a very effective strategy, both before and after your audience catches on. It's difficult to hold it against them when they truly do tell useful things, yet one can't even be sure why they do it. Is it to obscure the existence of real secrets, or to provide cover should something truly sensitive come out by mistake; for us to be... desensitized to it?"
Starlight blinked and furrowed her brow. "What?"
"Pretending to tell us a lot of secrets makes us want to trust ponies like Shinespark and Arambai," Maple explained. "And makes it so we don't wonder what they're not telling us. Right?"
"That is the gist of it," Gerardo answered, strumming again and looking toward his crates. "That said, what we should take from it is completely up in the air. That she has something to hide? Who doesn't? I know I have my share of secrets I would fight tooth and claw to keep from seeing daylight. Perhaps Sosa is merely that way in general, for some reason or another. Or, perhaps Arambai and Shinespark knew each other in times passed, and she picked up on his mannerisms. Who can say?"
"We were wondering earlier why Shinespark was on that cart," Maple said, adjusting her hooves beneath her. "She didn't have a title, or apparently a job, but it sounded like she and Valey knew each other. We thought she might be Dorable's daughter. What do you think about that?"
Gerardo shrugged. "You may be on the right track. Given what we just discussed, however, I can think of another pony perhaps more suited to be her sire..."
Maple's eyes widened. "You mean...?"
"Indeed." Shifting himself, Gerardo stretched his wings and lay them out, so as better to dry. "I also observed that the stallion Nimwick was supposedly 'in training' to become a factory chief alongside Dorable. It isn't impossible that our yellow benefactor was once one of the leaders of Sosa himself."
"Starlight said Arambai said Sosa was a stallion-dominated society," Maple said with a growing look of self-confidence as her brain put the pieces together. "What if he left her behind, but because she's a mare, she can't have his old job, but she still knows how to do it so she's tagging along while they find someone else to do it? Do you think that could be it?"
"Assuming Sosan societal roles are hereditary, it is a good bet," Gerardo answered, rubbing two talons together. "All we know for sure is that she told me to meet her on the northern bank of the river, at..." He frowned and hung his head. "Alas, I can't seem to remember the names they used for their factories. I know she had one. Most unfortunate. However, that brings us to the next topic..."
"You want your sword back," Maple sighed. "And we're going to have to go to Sosa to get it."
"We may have to do even more," Gerardo sadly corrected. "Considering she wished to discuss some form of payment... and I have no goods to offer. I imagine she has a service in mind, instead, and those take time. More importantly, however, I'm concerned by her apparent certainty that she could recover my weapon, as well as the speed and deliberateness with which it was stolen. Few honorable warriors would keep their foe's weapon as a prize for a battle they retreated from."
"Well, these were thieves and bandits," Maple pointed out. "But are you saying you think she knows a way to talk to them and make sure she gets it back? That she might be working with them?"
"It would make sense, from multiple angles." Shrugging, Gerardo elaborated, "She was armed, yet reluctant to fend off their attack save for when it showed signs of turning lethal. If she is, in fact, effectively cheated out of a high title due to her gender, she may harbor resentment against the existing system for that and wish to undermine it. And we know for sure she has something to hide..."
"Well..." Maple exhaled heavily. "Does it matter? You're still going to try to get your sword."
"I am, yes." Gerardo nodded. "I'm aware that this seems shady business, but once we clear this job we will have few possessions save for our lives and my payment... and I doubt the former will be in danger. At least, that is my hope. They did seem very reluctant to take lives during that skirmish..."
Maple looked carefully at him. "But we're not Sosans. What if they need us to do something risky without breaking their own code of honor?"
"A risk we'll... have to take," Gerardo said, a slight awkwardness to his voice.
"And what about your reward for this delivery?" Maple pressed. "How would you keep that safe? Won't it be just as valuable to you as these crates we're lugging around? What about that?"
Gerardo smiled. "Well, you seem to possess a very useful way of storing objects..."
Maple reached and looked at her flank. "This?"
"Indeed," Gerardo said. "The utility of that brand of yours has already spared us from needing a bag carrier. I'm very curious to know the full extent of what it can contain, though from the trinkets you've stored so far I doubt my reward will be of much trouble."
"Well, as best I can explain..." Maple took a deep breath. "I haven't found any specific thing it can't store, though I haven't tried a lot. There's a total size limit at the size of my body, and as I approach it it just gets harder to carry things until I start dropping them when I lose concentration. And the weight of things I'm carrying is added to my own."
Gerardo's eyebrows both rose. "Really...?"
"Mhm." Maple nodded. "I actually carry ballast, most of the time. It takes up room, but it makes me heavier..." She closed her eyes. "And stronger, as a result. It's like those sailors, back when the boats ran, who would put iron gauntlets around their hooves just to make themselves used to living with them, so when they needed to move cargo, they could take them off and be able to carry all that extra weight with ease. I've never fought anyone, and I hope I never have to, but..." She sighed. "I've wanted to go on an adventure my whole life, even if I never really thought it would happen. This is what I still did to prepare."
"They're just a few old iron ingots," Maple said with a shrug. "And don't worry, I always take them off before bed so I don't wear the bed out, or crush you by accident. I'm very careful."
Sighing in relief, Starlight wriggled closer again. Gerardo's curiosity, however, remained. "Most interesting. I can't say I would have guessed that, observing you before."
"It's not something I showed off," Maple answered. "Like I said, the point is to be able to do it and have everything stay normal. And remember, I still don't know how to fight."
"Nevertheless, this could be a considerable tactical advantage," Gerardo breathed, thinking.
Maple shrugged, then settled her chin onto the bed. "If you want something that could really be a tactical advantage, just this morning I learned that my cutie mark can store magic."
"More and more interesting," Gerardo continued. "I presume testing the precise functionality of that is in order? Perhaps now that we have some downtime?"
"I do want to find out how it works," Maple agreed, nodding. "I'm still not sure what we're doing now, though. I just want to enjoy the city, and I think Starlight wants to sleep."
Gerardo continued his thought... then suddenly stopped, an idea lighting his eyes. "As an aside..." He glanced at Starlight, staring without looking directly at her. "Have you tried pocketing her?"
Maple flinched, hard. "I... don't really want to. I still haven't forgotten what happened last time I had another pony inside me..."
Instantly, Gerardo backed away, holding a talon to his chest. "My sincerest apologies. I..." He hung his head. "Admittedly did not remember, myself. But that is most understandable."
"Sorry," Maple sniffed. "I might need a minute, if you don't mind."
"Of course." Turning away, Gerardo paced towards the room door and settled in wait. "Take your time. I'll be right here, whenever it comes time to discuss our plans going forward..."
"All right," Maple said after a few minutes. "I'm all right. What else do we need to talk about?"
Gerardo turned back to face her, a lone eyebrow raised. "Namely, we need to decide our present course of action. At my last check, you wished to leave my cargo here and explore the city, whereas I would like to see it delivered with all due haste... and splitting up is out of the question. Does that adequately describe the situation?"
"It sounds like it to me," Maple sighed. "So how do we decide who gets their way?"
"A good question." Gerardo began pacing, walking back and forth in front of the spot in the wall where a window would likely be, were they not technically underground. "I'm sure I don't need to relay to you my concerns about vandals and thieves, despite the unlikelihood of such a thing transpiring here. And yet, did you come here solely to work for me?" He shook his head. "We could argue for hours, and attain nothing more than a more strenuous relationship among our team."
Maple hummed. "How were you planning on moving them before me and Starlight joined you? Maybe you could do that, and let us be free?"
"My boat," Gerardo replied with a sad smirk. "I intended to trade it for a cart upon arrival, and use it to haul the crates myself. Then, I was to sell it upon completion of my quest and purchase an airship ticket out of the city. A flimsy plan at best, considering as none of the ponies here have any need for boats, but it was my best... and now outright impossible due to my no longer having a boat."
"Oh." Maple hung her head. "Well... I still don't know how much money I really have..."
Gerardo nodded. "I can't imagine it would be a small expenditure. There's always the possibility we could rent one, but that would provide no return on investment when we no longer need it. And regardless, it was my own carelessness in trusting that buffoon of a stallion that cost me my ship in the first place. I can't rightly ask you to compensate me for that, in addition to everything else you've done."
Maple looked up. "But that still doesn't help with what we do next..."
"You could flip a coin," Starlight offered. "Winner gets their way."
At that, both adults paused... and Gerardo looked levelly at Maple. "Have you any interest in such a solution? I can't say I'm entirely comfortable trusting my fortune to luck, yet it would be fair..."
"I, um..." Maple hesitated, staring distantly. "I'd need something to flip... but that does sound fair."
"I'll do it," Starlight said. "Give me two gems with different colors. Small ones."
Maple deposited two in her hooves, one blue and one green, and got up, moving to stand next to Gerardo so Starlight would have room to work. "Okay," the filly eventually said, "pick a hoof."
"How exactly are you doing this?" Gerardo blinked. "You have one gem under each, and...?"
Starlight nodded. "I like the blue one best, so if you guess it, you win. Who's going to guess?"
"I... might as well..." Gerardo shrugged. He squinted down at the filly's outstretched hooves. The bed around them was too cushy to even tell there was anything beneath them, so it truly would be up to luck. He sucked in a breath... and pointed at her left. "That one. That is my pick."
Starlight lifted her hoof... revealing the green gem beneath. She bit her lip, staring up at Gerardo as if to say sorry. Her right rose too, the midnight-blue winning stone tucked away in its depression.
"Well," Gerardo admitted, drooping, "fair is fair. It seems I must forfeit. Which is very much a shame, but as I did agree..." He glanced forlornly at his crates, sitting in the corner. "I suppose I shall have to trust the hotel staff in their competence at thwarting burglars."
"And trust that nobody would even want to steal them," Maple said with a shrug, moving towards the door. "Even the bandits didn't know what they were. If somepony broke into a hotel like this one, they'd be looking for money, right? Not things that are big and hard to carry..."
"I suppose you are right," Gerardo muttered. "I still shan't stop being on edge until we return, however. That said, I see no further reason to dawdle here. Shall we?"
Maple nodded eagerly, beckoning to Starlight. "We shall!"
Minutes later, the trio stood outside, the hotel to their backs and a host of ponies passing in both directions ahead. The sun had risen over the peaks of the Water District during their time indoors, and now blazed down through a cloudless blue sky, warming their necks and sides against the cool, pleasant mountain air. Starlight had regained her spot astride Maple's back, and Gerardo's crates were nowhere to be found.
"It just occurred to me..." Gerardo announced, watching the wandering crowds. "Before we stray too far from our room for the night, how are we to remember our way back here? I doubt I can carry both of you, and searching by leg could be exceedingly slow. Should we not establish some form of landmark to aid in our return?"
Maple shrugged. "That sounds like a good idea. Maybe you can see something if you fly high enough, like how you found the hotel earlier? Then you could scout again when we're coming back..."
With a nod, Gerardo's wings swept out, and he took off straight upwards. Maple and Starlight watched him ascend, observed as he pivoted and stared about, continuing to climb... and then suddenly faltered as if hitting a wall, dropping several meters before catching himself and returning to the ground.
"Well," he answered upon landing, moderately flustered, "that was some unexpectedly sudden turbulence. I am, however, all right. Additionally..." He beamed. "Not only do I have a good bearing on what to look for to aid in our return, but I believe I've sighted our next destination!"
"Oh?" Maple's ears perked. "Where is it?"
Gerardo pointed a wing further clockwise around the mountain wall. "Should we continue our present course of upward in that direction, there is a significantly large convergence of both roads and equines at the very top of the city, centered around what looked to be an entrance into the mountain. While this is just a hunch, I would give that entrance at least ninety-percent odds of being a route into the Sky District. Would that not suit both our needs?"
"It sounds good," Maple said with a shrug. "If that's where the airships land, and where everypony normally enters Ironridge, there's probably some good things to see there!"
"And it will take me closer to my destination as well," Gerardo muttered. "So long as we're out and about, there's no sense in wasting a potentially informative scouting trip. Onwards and upwards!"
"You keep talking about scouting, and your destination..." Maple remarked, steadily climbing a textured street with Starlight on her back. "How much do you actually know about where we're going?"
Gerardo shrugged, the vast landscape of the Earth District spilling out to his right. "I have the name of a building, supposedly located near the top of the city. I take that to mean the Sky District, though I suppose it could also be closer to our present location. So, as we are presently headed to this city's nexus of travel..." He shrugged again, gesturing forward with a wing. "It seems like an opportune place to innocently ask for directions. I'm sure there will be dozens of information booths about." He paused, and added, "To be clear, the Sky District is where you wish to go, yes? I'm not merely commandeering your sightseeing tour because I feel it would be a useful destination?"
"I guess I don't care that much." Maple nodded an assent. "I would like to stop somewhere and get lunch, and the Stone District probably has a lot of good places to see. But let's go to the Sky District!"
Ahead, the road merged into another at an angle, and the crowd of passing ponies dramatically thickened. Inwardly glad that Starlight wasn't on hoof and thus wouldn't be able to be swept away, Maple suddenly found herself missing carrying a box: if nothing else, it made ponies want to get out of one's way. Bravely, she lowered her head and pushed into traffic, ears folding under the pressure of indistinguishable chatter from both sides. She winced, steeled herself... and suddenly, the crowd's noise was drowned out by a colossal roar from above.
Every pony stopped and looked up. Overhead, a huge metal oval soared out from behind the peaks of the mountain wall, casting a blinding reflection of the sun down from its curved surface. The crowd collectively flinched and covered their eyes... and in a matter of seconds, it had accelerated to the point where it was far out over the Earth District, jets of magical flame surging from cylindrical engines placed strategically over its body. Yet more seconds later, it was gone, out of sight to the west. The crowd had already resumed their motion, moving around Maple like a log stuck in a river.
"What... what was...?" she breathed, still gazing at the western horizon.
"An airship," Gerardo smoothly answered, somehow able to hear her... or merely accomplished in guessing what she was about to say. "And quite an advanced one, at that. Only the newest and best have graduated beyond the 'propellers and dirigibles' variety, and they still suffer from exceedingly high operating costs and short ranges. That one is bound for Yakyakistan, I'm sure."
"Let's, um..." Maple turned back to the road, beginning to weave her way upward once again. "Go somewhere easier to hear, maybe..."
As they progressed, it didn't get easier to hear.
The road widened, and the crowds swelled, and suddenly the hill stopped and it was as if they were in an open plaza more than a route of travel. Almost every pony had a direction they stuck to, and for at least half of those ponies, the direction of choice was towards the wall... towards a great, arched gateway in the wall, supported by ornate pillars carved into its sides and easily wide enough to accommodate a large boat, were it filled with water. Over it hung an etched sign, proudly describing the gateway as the Ironridge Skyport - C Terminal.
Staying close enough that they could reach out and touch each other at all times, Maple and Gerardo were pulled into a rush of equine bodies all headed into the tunnel. So many ponies rammed and jostled into Maple that Starlight stood all the way up on her back, climbing closer to her head, and she was unsure whether her staying upright was more thanks to her heavier weight or merely that there was no room to tip over.
Daylight faded around them, as did the stone walls of the tunnel interior, replaced by seamless plates of polished metal and even magical illumination. Unlike the enchanted gemstones with which Arambai used to light Riverfall, the Ironridge lighting seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, leaving no visible point sources and a light so smooth that had a pony stood alone in the hall, they wouldn't have cast a shadow.
Despite the slow rate at which the crowd moved, it only took a few minutes for the tunnel to change. Abruptly, it angled upwards, at an incline far too steep to climb. A system of belts and pulleys whirred along its surface, and attached to them were several giant, grated platforms, moving up and down along tracks to form an escalator. The ground in front of it was a grate perfectly matching the platforms, and every so often one would arise from the floor, lifting all the ponies standing on it and carrying them up the tunnel. The left side was identical, but worked in reverse.
Soon enough, the crowd pushed them onto the grate, and their turn came to be lifted. Maple buckled slightly from the change in momentum, then straightened up... and suddenly, she could hear again. The lift was only wide large enough to accommodate her and Gerardo plus six others, and of them only one pair seemed to be at all chatty. Sighing, she relaxed her posture, reached back to check on Starlight... and decided to listen.
"...doesn't make sense!" a mare in a business suit was complaining. Snorting, she fluffed her wings and pouted, "It's a huge and obvious waste of money, but every time I try to bring it up to the council they won't even hear my case! And now, I get a letter of rejection from the Chancellor! The Chancellor, Brightcoil! My request made it all the way to his desk and he just... rrrgh..." She kneaded the ground with her hooves, tail flicking violently.
"It was probably a secretary, Sharpie," the mare standing next to her said with a shrug. "Still, their loss, ignoring your talent. Ironridge is rich. Maybe they can afford not to care. As long as they can pay your salary, I certainly don't care..."
"Well, you should care, because it makes me feel worthless," Sharpie grumbled, sitting and staring miserably at the ground. "Why even have an investigator into transactions between the government and the embassy if nopony ever listens to what she has to say!?"
The last words were practically chanted, bitterness seeping from every syllable. Brightcoil leaned close, draping a hoof around her neck. "Well, at least it's not like Sosa, where everyone gets paid to sit around and do nothing..."
"Heh... yeah..." Sharpie lifted a hoof and wiped at her muzzle. "At least I get to do what I'm good at, even if nopony listens..."
The conversation ended. Maple and Gerardo met each other's eyes... and the message to wait until the two mares were out of earshot to make any comments was clearly reflected.
Light broke around Maple, Starlight and Gerardo all at once, as the lift they were riding on emerged from the surface... and continued going up, shielded from the chill by a thick tubing of reinforced glass. Despite the mild temperatures of the Stone District, the land around the escalator's exit was caked in a near-glacial field of snow, freshly whipped and spread as if a storm had passed by not two nights prior. In the distance to the left, a path could be seen leading to a thin, gleaming metal spire, somehow kept clear of snow by jets of steam from roadside vents, and to the rear the white plateau dropped off, the distant fringes of the Earth District visible far beyond. And ahead... ahead lay the Ironridge Skyport.
It looked from a distance like a forest of glass mushrooms, buildings large and small with habitable domes set atop sturdy central pillars, as if they were docks designed to weather the snow drifts rising and falling like a tide. The mountain plane was surprisingly flat, at least for the immediate area, breaking up into more jagged peaks if one went too far in either direction. Another terminal complex loomed far to the right, and all around them, the outlines of dirigibles drifted. Far, far in the background, beyond all of the industry and technology and wealth, a sheer, horizontal black line marked the start of the real mountain range that Ironridge was merely a foothill for.
Maple was speechless, staring. Starlight had nothing to add. Gerardo left them to their awe and silence... and the platform leveled out, sliding further down its track to the skyport.
The sun was high in the sky when the lift platform docked, sinking beneath another grate and leaving its group of passengers standing in an unloading zone. A warning light flared, prompting them to get off before the next platform arrived... and once they did so, they had arrived.
Maple and Gerardo moved to the side, several steps away from the entrance. The interior of the skyport was pristine, polished, and decorated primarily in whites and blacks, a smooth marble flooring stretching between dark iron supports, but its most striking feature was the relative lack of ponies. The massive crowd from the Stone District entrance had dispersed, bottlenecked and strung out by the lift tunnel, and aside from a lengthy line of ponies waiting to use the outgoing transit, there was room... room enough for personal space, room enough to talk, room enough to breathe. Relaxing, Maple let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and turned to see Gerardo doing the same.
"Well?" the griffon prompted. "I'm starting to wonder if this area of the city isn't slightly too official for what I had hoped, but-"
"I love it," Maple countered, silencing him. "Just... let me enjoy it. I'm glad we came here."
Shrugging, Gerardo paced forward, and she followed. They appeared to be in some sort of atrium, a series of successively higher, wider ringed walkways forming the outside of the room, and a plaza at the bottom filled with carefully-curated greens and even a small artificial river, complete with bridges. They were one tier from the base. "Should we find a way down there?" Maple asked.
"Hold," Gerardo instructed. "We'll do that, but at present I see a sign pointing us to the whereabouts of an informational kiosk..."
Once again, he took the lead, not-quite-prowling around the walkway, hugging the railing so as not to run into any of the pedestrians entering or exiting the numerous side passages. Eventually, the desired kiosk scrolled into view... with an accompanying line of ponies so long, it had to be cordoned off with strips of retractable tape. Gerardo drooped. "Well, it seems that's out of the question..."
Maple shuffled. "If you want to wait in line, Starlight and I can go sit by the water downstairs..."
"Appreciated, but..." Gerardo smiled awkwardly. "We've already abandoned my cargo to a potentially lonesome fate. Let's not get carried away with splitting up, now."
Minutes later saw them sitting on what might have been some artist's representation of a bench, listening calmly as a fountain fed the stream of water winding through a shallow cutout in the floor. They were in an alcove that, while hardly private, was still shaded by nearby plants and the overhang of the next tier. It felt out of the way, and that was enough for Maple's eyes to be closed, lungs steadily breathing air that had undoubtedly been ran through dozens of filtration systems, or possibly taken straight from the pristine mountains themselves.
"That was certainly an interesting conversation we overheard coming in," Gerardo remarked.
Maple merely sighed, but Starlight answered for her. "About the embassy investigation thing?"
"That one." Gerardo nodded, staring toward the middle of the plaza. "I can't say it's any of our business, but it sounds as if intrigue is a daily occurrence in Ironridge. You don't suppose this embassy that pegasus spoke of investigating belongs to our friends the yaks, do you?"
Starlight shrugged. "Maybe. Why? What if it does?"
Gerardo shrugged in return. "I recall it being mentioned earlier that they were funneling currency into Sosa in exchange for deliveries that were... never being delivered. A connection, perhaps?"
"Umm..." Starlight squinted. "Why would she care if the yaks were wasting their own money on weapons?"
"It isn't impossible that such could be an issue." Gerardo clicked his talons against the marble flooring in thought. "Currency imbalances, trade deficits... economic things like that which I am not professionally versed in. She hardly said much for us to speculate on, either. For all we know it could merely be bureaucracy it its finest and she was having a very bad day. Whatever the case, I pray it doesn't concern us any time soon."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "Talking like that is asking for trouble."
"Heh. Yes, I suppose it is..." Gerardo chuckled beneath his breath. "You're spending too much time around me. Usually, I'm the one to point out the cliches of life like that."
No reply came.
The conversation drifted into a lull, all three sitting in a mixture of heavy thought and mere appreciation. That silence lasted for several minutes... until Starlight noticed a passing pink pegasus who appeared to be staring at them out of the corner of her eye. She blinked, waited... and the pegasus strolled on, out of sight. Minutes later, she returned, again walking past at the speed of no hurry and seemingly intent on stealing as many glances at them as possible.
Gerardo noticed, and beckoned. The pegasus faced them properly and took a step closer. "May I help you?" Gerardo queried.
"Not really," she answered, drawing into a comfortable speaking range. "I just wanted to let you know that your wings are really handsome. Hope I'm not interrupting anything?" Her manner had a certain survivor's confidence to it, as if she were regularly screeched at from behind a cage she knew to be impermeable.
"Why, thank you," Gerardo replied with a blink. "Unless the act of doing nothing counts as an occupation in and of itself, you are, in fact, interrupting nothing. Initially, we were intending to visit the information kiosk up one floor, yet our need was not as pressing as the line was long."
The pegasus brightened considerably, adopting a warmer tone. "Hey, what a coincidence! I just got off a shift there!" With a wing, she pointed to the official-looking shirt she wore. "Would you mind if I bought you lunch, then? I'd love to answer whatever it was you were going to ask there..." Hopefully, pointedly, she ignored Maple, who was watching her with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
Gerardo nodded at the two who shared the bench with him. "That would be very generous of you, and I'd be happy to accept. Though, might it be permissible for my traveling companions to join us? I feel it would be unfair to accept gifts for myself only."
"Traveling companions?" The pegasus looked sideways at Maple, evaluated her again, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Of course they can come." She extended a wing to Gerardo. "I'm Slipstream, by the way. It's not often we see griffons around Ironridge. Nice to meet you!"
"Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire," Gerardo said, bowing, "and likewise. My companions are miss Maple and Starlight. Now..." His eyes scanned the heights of the atrium dome. "I imagine you have a destination in mind?"
"There is a food court," Slipstream replied with a nod. "It's very good. Please, follow me!"
Maple, Starlight and Gerardo sat with their impromptu host at the edge of a building, looking down through a glass wall at the landscape below. It was a tower much slimmer and higher than the initial lobby, connected to it with a glass bridge tube and positioned just so that patrons seated near the edge could look down into the atrium, observing ponies scuttling about below as they ate. The center formed a wheel of restaurants and eateries, with free seating lining the entirety of the outer rim.
In the distance, a massive zeppelin drifted by, framed against a background of snowdrifts and distant mountain peaks. Gnawing on a fruit kebob, Gerardo opened conversation. "Quite nice of you to do this, if I haven't said so enough already."
"My pleasure," Slipstream answered, biting into a gourmet sandwich with visible satisfaction. "What else am I supposed to do with my breaks? You looked interesting. And, well... I completely agree about the lines. Granted, there were a few big flights that got in at once today, but still..." She brushed her mane back. "It gets kind of hectic when ponies think they're running late and take it out on you, you know? But anyways, what were you going to ask?" She blinked innocently. "I'd love to help, if I could."
Gerardo shrugged. "Nothing pressing. We've been in for the better part of a day, ourselves, and are still getting a feel for the lay of the city." He took a breath, closing his eyes and sighing pleasantly. "I did hear from a kindly passer-by that a place known as Warehouse W-28 was well worth visiting, though they neglected to mention where it was."
Slipstream snorted so hard that she had to cover her mouth with a wingtip. When she recovered, she giggled and said, "Sounds like you got pranked, Gerardo. That W means it's in the Water District, which is pretty much the least touristy part of Ironridge! Well, except for Sosa. That place is a dump." She giggled again and blushed. "But most of the Water District is just empty warehouses left over from the building of the dam, and then from the days before the skyport was built. These days, they have better places to store things."
"It sounds as if I have, indeed, been had," Gerardo agreed with a self-depricating laugh. "Would you say anything else in the Water District is worth visiting? I did happen to see that very impressive dam during an earlier excursion to the Stone District..."
"Not really." Slipstream shrugged. "I mean, the dam is very cool, but it's supposedly dangerous. I've never been up top myself. Very few ponies get to. Maybe they'll open it up later as a tourist attraction, but... who knows?" She took another bite of her sandwich. "Oh, I guess the other thing that's there is the Defense Force base. When they were established, Skyfreeze kind of went 'meh' and found some out-of-the-way land that nopony was using to hide them in. So that's what they got."
"Skyfreeze?" Gerardo asked, lifting an eyebrow. "Defense Force? Pardon me if my memory is slipping, but I can't say I'm familiar."
"No biggie." Slipstream shook her head. "Skyfreeze is the big administration tower between here and the reservoir where all the airline companies have their local headquarters. It's also where the Ironridge economic council meets, and where Chancellor Dior has his office. The yaks want their embassy moved there, too, but that hasn't happened yet. And the Stone District Defense Force is-"
"One moment," Gerardo instructed, lifting a talon. He peered keenly at the pegasus. "Did you just say Chancellor Dior?"
Slipstream nodded. "He's been the leader of Ironridge for more than four years now. They say he's a prodigy, and he's the youngest Chancellor Ironridge has ever had..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Which doesn't count for very much when he's also the second. He's also very private, which is a shame because he could easily be a celebrity if he wanted. Where did you hear about him?"
"A friend referred him to us as a trustworthy stallion," Gerardo said with a shrug. "That he runs Ironridge is certainly news to me. How much power does a chancellor have?"
"I don't know," Slipstream limply admitted with a hint of exasperation. "I didn't go into economics. I know about local history, maps, flight schedules and how to get past bureaucracies."
"Ah, well, my apologies." Gerardo bowed neatly. "Please, do continue. The Defense Force...?"
"Mhm!" Slipstream perked up. "Since the skyport was built, Sosa went into a decline, and now there are bandits everywhere who steal goods and cause trouble." Nodding eagerly, she said, "The Earth District isn't very safe. I bet you could handle it, but I haven't been there in years... however, the Stone District didn't want to deal with that, so they went and asked Skyfreeze to do something about the problem! Ultimately, what they came up with..." She hung her head. "They couldn't find a way to make the Earth District safe, so instead they authorized an armed guard in the Stone District to protect caravans and make sure no bandits came up the mountain. I kind of feel bad for the bandits, myself. It must be hard, having so little that you need to steal to survive..."
"Indeed." Gerardo twirled his empty kebob stick between two talons, musing. "I doubt the presence of such a military organization would make a good destination for viewing, then, in either the Earth or Water Districts. What do you recommend we make our next stop, if our aim is to stay safe, enjoy the city and return to our hotel in time for dusk?"
Slipstream thought for a moment. "On the third floor of the lobby," she began, "there's a tunnel to a high-speed transit. It goes between the A, B and C terminals and Skyfreeze tower. Terminal A is for cargo ships only and is off-limits, but if you ride it to the B terminal, they have a museum of airship history there. I've been through it many times, and still love to go there on breaks... You'd probably enjoy it, too."
"Well..." Gerardo slowly got up, pushing in his stool. "This was quite enjoyable and informative. Thank you for your time and generosity, miss Slipstream."
Slipstream blushed. "Thank yourself for looking cool and unusual. I work here, I've got the money to spare. Speaking of which, I'm on evening shift tonight, so say hi if you're coming back late!"
"And the lines aren't too long, I presume," Gerardo added, earning a chuckle from both.
The pegasus departed with a final, cheery wave. Moments later, Maple spoke for the first time in the entire conversation. "How often does this happen to you?"
Gerardo's eyebrow rose. "Being generously offered lunch, potentially flirted with by unknowing fans, or finding a shortcut to exactly what I need immediately after being denied the normal way?"
"All three, I guess," Maple said with a shrug.
"In that case..." Gerardo grinned. "More often than you would think, yet not quite often enough to make up for all the stores and shops that somehow expect me to adventure without so much as a discount. Let's leave it at 'I'll take what I can get.' And speaking of getting, that was a fine lunch indeed."
"It was," Maple agreed, licking her lips and glancing up at Starlight. "So? A museum of airships sounds interesting, right? Shall we go there next?"
"I don't see why not!" Gerardo stepped toward the food court's exit, and both ponies slowly got up to follow him.
From Slipstream's description, Maple had expected the 'high-speed transit' between the Skyport's various branches to be something akin to the lift platforms that had carried them up from the Stone District. What she hadn't expected was a long, horizontal box outfitted with heavily cushioned seats and walls to lean on in periods of rapid acceleration... and she eventually found herself standing in such a box, hurtling over the surrounding snowscape through a larger tube at speeds faster than freefall.
When she finally disembarked, following an alerting siren and a perhaps-too-rapid deceleration, it was on shaky legs and with Starlight at her side. "T-That was..." she breathed, straightening her mane.
"Unanticipated?" Gerardo grinned. "Certainly an effective mode of travel, if nothing else."
"I was going to say 'exhilarating'," Maple answered, shaking herself. "Though a warning might have been nice. Is that what flying feels like?"
"Yes," Starlight muttered before the griffon could speak. "Falling, at least. But with more wind."
"When did...?" Maple's brow furrowed. "Oh. You told me, with the waterfall..."
Starlight nodded and climbed onto her back.
"I wouldn't be opposed to ferrying us somewhere myself," Gerardo offered, turning away from the boarding platform. "Provided, of course, you weren't too heavy. That said, I've been informed that the experience can be somewhat disorienting for those born without wings. I can't promise it would be anything more pleasant than a tactical maneuver in a time of need."
"That's okay," Maple assured as she followed him towards the nearest tunnel. "For now, let's just find that museum she told us about."
They emerged in an atrium similar enough to the previous terminal's that they could have shared blueprints. A quick glance around by Gerardo found a sign hanging with navigation instructions, which he quickly paraphrased, holding his chin in thought. "It seems our recommended target is this way," he said, pointing a talon.
One staircase and two glass bridges later, they found the entrance. A stallion who looked as if he was paid to smile sat outside at a booth, waving them in. Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Are you here to collect admission, or...?"
The stallion shrugged. "Dude, the thing's free. It's here so ponies don't get bored while they wait for their flights. If you want a cash grab, just go look at all the hotels in the area."
Maple glanced uneasily at Gerardo at that, but he didn't return the stare. Instead, she walked through the museum gate... and immediately stopped, squinting at the statue immediately inside, clearly positioned to catch the attention of all who entered. "Is that...?" she murmured.
It was a pony, wrought in bronze and staring proudly down the hall. A unicorn, more specifically, and a mare at that... with a very distinctive, familiar manestyle.
"It looks like a much younger version of Shinespark," Gerardo observed, confirming her suspicions.
Strolling forward, Maple checked the plaque on the statue. "Shinespark of Sosa," she narrated. "In the year 965 A.B., became the first pony to be..." Her brow scrunched. "Born on an airship?"
Gerardo peered over her shoulder. "Now that's an interesting title. From what I've gathered of the Steel District, it doesn't seem like it would be an honor, however."
Maple rubbed her chin. "And didn't Ar... er, You-Know-Who say airships were only invented ten years ago? This is a lot older than that. I wonder, why wouldn't he have mentioned this...?"
"Wait," Starlight commanded. "What did you say? About the year? What year is it now?"
"Hmm?" Gerardo tipped his head. "That would have been twenty years ago. It's presently 985. Why do you ask, if I may?"
Starlight blinked. "Huh. You have the same date as where I'm from."
"Really?" Maple nearly sat down in surprise, before remembering to avoid dislodging Starlight from her back. "You do? That's an interesting thing to carry over..."
"Not really," Gerardo answered, checking furtively to ensure no other ponies were listening in. "After all, A.B. stands for After Breakup. The present calendar was started during the greatest period of global upheaval since the Plains of Harmony were established, in which they cut themselves off from the rest of the world. I don't doubt it would have been as big of an event there as it was here, if not bigger."
"They cut themselves off..." Maple mused. "How does that work, even, when they're protected by a giant mountain range? It's not like the mountains weren't there before, or that they made them..."
"There are ways," Gerardo said with a shrug. "Passes in the mountains which remain sealed through other means, even if the terrain is gentler. However, I believe we came here to be fascinated by air travel, as I can tell my own myths whenever I please." He pointed a wing. "Over there, I see what appears to be a timeline of aviation history. Might that be a good place to start?"
Maple paced toward it, curious. "957... This goes back almost as old as Willow is. This really is older than I thought..." Reading aloud, she skimmed the beginning of the timeline. "Two unicorn engineers, who dreamed of flying, figured out that you could fill a balloon with heated gas and attach a basket... They stored it on a boat and traveled the coast, powering it with their magic and selling brief flight trips, while trying to make their balloon better, and... eventually came to Ironridge..."
She stepped back, blinking. "We were right. Arambai was a Sosan factory chief. Look, he's right here!" Pointing a hoof, she indicated a portrait of the yellow unicorn, many years younger, standing next to two other middle-aged stallions they didn't recognize.
Starlight leaned down, reading their names for herself. "Mobius and... Arad?"
"This certainly predates our friends Dorable and Nimwick's time, then," Gerardo observed. "Interesting. This makes it sound as if Sosa embraced the new technology, and attempted to create air travel as a market themselves. Look at these diagrams..."
"Project Aslan," Maple narrated. "To create a ship that could sail both the skies and the seas... that's what they were doing. That's what Sosa wanted to be the ones to do."
Impatient, Starlight hopped off Maple's back and plodded further down the timeline. Technical graphs were all well and good, but she had no intention of building an airship any time soon. She was sure enough Maple knew how she felt on the issue that she didn't repeat it every chance she had, but that was the kind of pursuit one had to dedicate their life to, and that was far too close to the realm of earning cutie marks for her taste. Eventually, figuring she had wandered far enough, she turned to the nearest panel and began reading.
Summer, 964: the Spirit of Sosa was completed. Her maiden voyage was attended by important creatures from around the world.
Starlight's eyes skimmed across a panorama showing a number of ponies and other creatures gathered proudly in an assembly hall, and continued.
However, on the day of the launch, tragedy struck. The ship exploded and fell from an altitude of more than five hundred meters. All 35 crew members and passengers on board died in the crash, including Factory Chief Arad and the ambassador of Yakyakistan. In the following days of turmoil, Project Aslan was shuttered and the Sosan research was locked away. Ironridge promised never to repeat such a catastrophe. Water travel would remain the dominant and only method of world shipping. The cause of the crash remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in aviation.
"...Huh." Blinking, Starlight sat back on her haunches. The next picture could have been mistaken for a normal, sunny sky from far enough away... but a single look revealed the 'sun' to be a ball of fire engulfing all but the very ends of a ship in midair, debris launched in all directions by the blast. Some of that debris, if she squinted right, looked almost like falling ponies...
"Starlight?" Maple's voice called, accompanied by the sound of hoofsteps wandering nearer. "What did you...?" A small gasp, barely audible. "Oh."
A foreleg reached around, pulling Starlight close. "Well, that explains why we never heard about this," Maple's voice said lowly. "He... probably felt responsible, somehow..."
"What have you found?" Gerardo asked, striding over. "Is it, perhaps-?"
"Shh." Maple cut him off, and for once the griffon was silent. Starlight appreciated the silence. It wasn't something she had fully realized she was missing... but the difference was undeniable.
Above and beside her, Maple was still reading the description, eyes moving silently around the picture of the explosion. It seemed appropriate that Starlight do the same... but when she tried, it was as if her eyes simply bounced off the timeline plaque. She furrowed her brow. Thirty-five ponies had died. Ponies and yaks and griffons and who knew what else. Maple was silent, contemplative. Gerardo was silent, doing who knew what. She was silent... but as important as the crash seemed, her thoughts simply didn't want to focus on it. Instead, she found herself enjoying the silence and absence of chatter. She found herself recollecting the mornings she had spent in Riverfall, waking up to find Maple cuddling her or else making breakfast, completely content to let the day go by as slowly as it pleased... and she enjoyed it.
Why? Wasn't she supposed to be sad? It seemed like the kind of thing most ponies would do, but when she tried again to force her thoughts onto that track, the rational side of her brain protested. Those ponies had died over twenty years ago. Her tears wouldn't bring them back, or change anything whatsoever. So why cry?
Gerardo snapped her from her thoughts by opening his beak and making noise once again. "Hmm... After that incident, it seems the more obvious Sosan innovations, such as a sealed dirigible and propeller propulsion, were copied by the world at large and air travel once again passed into the realm on single entrepreneurs. The kind who would build and operate one ship, by themselves..."
Maple joined him, and to her relief Starlight couldn't hear any hint of wavering or sadness in her voice. Apparently she was overthinking her own reaction to the crash. "Let me see... huh. Here's 965, but there's no mention of Shinespark."
As the two adults proceeded, Starlight ignored them, sitting and leaning against a pedestal that held a miniature replica of some obscure ship. She kept her ears swiveled backwards, making sure Maple and Gerardo didn't leave her behind or wander too far away, but for the most part let herself become lost in three thoughts. Usually, Gerardo never stopped talking. It was as if the griffon saw conversational silence as an offense, and took it upon himself to banish it wherever it occurred, at all costs. But he had, for a moment, stopped and allowed her to hear herself think... and she had enjoyed it. And finally, depressingly, he had been personally bade protect her and Maple, which likely meant he would never shut up and she would never get silence. That the only way she could be as alone as she was now was to-
In the shadows of a nearby trophy case, a pair of slitted, emerald eyes stared up at her from the ground. She wasn't alone.
"Ah!" Starlight scrambled backwards, wincing as she banged her head against the wall behind her... and the moment she focused again, the eyes were gone. It was just an ordinary shadow.
"Starlight?" Maple came bounding back slightly faster than museum ettiquite would usually allow, concern evident in her voice. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Hit my head," Starlight grumbled, rubbing a hoof against her sore scalp. "Probably... fell asleep and woke up too fast..." She stifled a fake yawn for emphasis, though it wasn't hard to do. She was still tired from the night before, after all.
Maple bit her lip. "Gerardo? How much longer do you want to stay here before we go back to the hotel? Starlight's getting tired."
Starlight felt her eyes widen. It wouldn't do if Maple cut her own enjoyment short on account of her, especially since she really was fine. "No, no," she protested, "you can stay. I'm fine."
"Hmmm..." Gerardo scratched his chin, staring out through the glass wall at the snowdrifts outside. "It does appear to be getting later in the afternoon. Not what I would call evening yet, though it would be wise to return within several hours if we are to hope to complete my delivery tonight. To postpone it until tomorrow would be..." He closed his eyes. "Well, it would require renting another hotel room if you wished to wash yourself again, after carrying the crates."
"I guess," Maple agreed with a shrug. "Honestly, I read the timeline, but most of the stuff here is more technical than that and goes over my head. And all the rest, I could have guessed anyway. Airships go back into single, private use... contractors arrive... companies form and the skyport is built here, when Sosa doesn't think it will happen and isn't prepared. But the details? It's like this was made for ponies who... well..." She blinked. "Have seen an airship before today, I guess. I guess I'm kind of an outlier?"
There wasn't a hint of self-deprecation in her voice, but Starlight took two steps closer nonetheless. "So...?" she asked slowly. "What are we doing?"
Gerardo raised a talon. "One vote for returning to our room and calling this outing a success, provided nothing negative has transpired while we were away. Do note that I left unguarded my cargo..."
Maple nodded. "Make that two. I wouldn't mind just laying down for a while..."
"Okay." Starlight scrambled up on Maple's back again, and leisurely settled in. "Let's go home, then."
"Home..." Maple sighed as they began walking. "I wonder what my home is now. I haven't really thought about it, yet. I wonder if I could ever truly call Ironridge home..."
"Well, do you like it?" Gerardo queried.
"I don't know." Maple shook her head. "It's pretty and impressive, but I haven't really felt it... you know?" She looked up hopefully. "I'm used to things going so much slower than this, and it feels like all we've done so far is hurry, hurry, hurry to see this or find that."
Gerardo shrugged. "There is no rest for the adventurous. The day I lose all urgency will be the day there is nothing left to learn or experience in the world."
Maple didn't answer, instead drooping slightly. Riding on her back, Starlight was acutely aware.
They paced away, past the giant statue of Shinespark and through the gate of the museum, around bunches of colorful equines probably out on day trips just like theirs. Gerardo got some looks for his species and size, but for the most part, they went unnoticed and unbothered.
The spot where they had stood moments ago, next to the timeline showing the rise and fall of Sosa's air program, was left vacant... and then became occupied by the one equine in the room who seemed to take more than a passing interest in the trio. The pony blinked, adjusted her black beret, and watched until her line of sight was broken by a passing couple. By the time they had moved out of the way, she was nowhere to be seen.
The sun was beginning its descent to the horizon as Maple, Starlight and Gerardo looked on, all astride a lift that would return them to the Stone District. The valley below was likely already bathed in the mountains' shadow, and the eastern Stone District would soon join it, if it hadn't already.
Nothing of interest had happened during their return journey. Gerardo had been unable to find Slipstream... though, admittedly, it didn't seem as if he was trying. It was a setting that might have demanded a note of somberness to the air, or tension, or even peaceful relaxation, and Starlight would have been fine with any. Predictably, however, Gerardo was talking.
"Indeed, the construction of the skyport over a three-year period was what sent Sosa into its decline," the griffon rambled, re-iterating things he had probably gleaned from the timeline after she had stopped reading. "I imagine the happenings prior to that were too mundane to be worth mention."
"I read it too, Gerardo," Maple said with a weary smile, sitting down on the platform they shared with three other ponies. "It's not that hard to guess. You don't need to explain it again."
"Well, I..." Gerardo looked away.
He continued, but Starlight nevertheless felt a small rush of appreciation for the mare... followed by concern. Maple hadn't tried to make any small talk with her like she usually did since they had reached Ironridge. She was up and about, friendly, seemingly trying her best to be useful and conciliatory... and those were normal, for her. But it felt as though other things were missing, like her penchant for routines. She had one of those, right? Starlight hadn't properly been around her long enough to know for sure, but it felt like it. And none of these changes felt like her choice so much that she just hadn't had a chance. What if she was constantly being stressed or annoyed, but just hadn't noticed it yet? It had taken Starlight until the museum to realize it herself, after all.
Her eyes turned back to Gerardo, who was saying something else, and she didn't care to listen. More pressing was her worry from earlier: they were told to stick together, and would until they had left Ironridge. When she was on her own, in the mountains, it had been difficult, but she had survived. She had made it work. With Maple, she had initially tolerated the mare because Willow had requested that she do so, but eventually come to enjoy certain aspects of being around her. But with Gerardo... would that be a good thing? He was tasked with keeping them safe, but his constant presence would quickly become tiring. In doses, he was entertaining, but constantly talking...
It could become a problem. She didn't want it to become a problem. She would have to do something to ensure it wasn't... and that involved figuring out exactly why he was bothering her. Talking too much? Amber had been happy to talk, too, and she had never had a problem with the mare. Inconsiderate of when he was talking? Much more possible. So was he clueless, or did he just not care?
She was just a filly, not special in any way, with a possibly-defective horn and no special talent. She didn't like it, but the growing difference between what was practical and what was ideal had been made all the more apparent in her mind since reaching Riverfall... and especially since leaving it. With those credentials, why did he insist on protecting her? Honor? Because of a promise? Was that all she was worth? A deep-seated instinct screamed out, telling her all ponies and lives were priceless, no matter what, but it wasn't as if everyone believed that. Yet, he still kept her around. He had to care... right?
She tried to remember the last time the griffon had even tried to open conversation with her. In the skyport atrium, about the investigator mare's conversation... No, that had been her responding to something he had said. Same for when she had suggested choosing randomly who got their way in the hotel room. And before that... she couldn't remember. Maybe he had in Riverfall. To apologize after she had shown off her magic, maybe. All of one time. Lovely.
It didn't make sense that that would bother her, though. Technically, he was respecting her wishes. He was treating her the same as the other thousands of ponies living in Ironridge. He was treating her and them as complete equals... by only speaking to them when necessary or if they could do something useful, crossing paths without so much as an acknowledgement, and carrying on with his own ways regardless of how she felt about them. So why did that bother her? Why did it? Why?
...Her train of thought derailed, falling through the floor and landing in a deep lake of sadness and loneliness that welled up out of nowhere, catching her completely by surprise. Suddenly, she realized she was pressed tightly into Maple's side, barely breathing so as not to accidentally sob. The leftover thoughts swirling in her head coalesced into one question: it wasn't whether he cared, but why she cared. And no answer came.
She could put up with what she didn't like, as she had done until she snapped and left back in Equestria... or she could take Willow's advice and try to change things, to make her situation tolerable. It wasn't much of a choice. In Riverfall, she had known what she would be giving up by opening up and letting the mares love on her: the ability to go it alone, to ignore and block out and pretend she wasn't missing out on anything at all. She had decided it was worth it for that one taste... and because she had made that choice then, she didn't have one now. She couldn't go it alone. Something had to be done, and a fiery determination rose in her to figure out precisely what.
...Maple was what. She cared about Starlight. They could get along. They would; they already did. She would just talk to her whenever they got some time, quiet and alone... which would never happen, because someone never left them alone.
Suddenly, her earlier annoyance with Gerardo bubbled up into an intense dislike, and she had to immediately clamp it down to prevent herself from growling. This was why she cared. He wasn't just ignoring her, or annoying her, or treating her the same as every other pony he met. He was separating her from her friend and that was unforgivable. He probably didn't even notice. Sunburst's parents probably hadn't noticed, either. It was happening again right before her eyes, and it was all she could do to keep her horn from igniting then and there and-
Maple was still there. Touching her, even. And Willow's final advice flashed through her head: the world is unfair, but you have the power to change it.
Nothing had happened yet. She could still do something. Everything could go right back to normal... so what should she do?
There was always the possibility that she could somehow get rid of Gerardo, but that wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair to treat him differently, just because he was in her way. He was still standing there, across from them on the lift platform, yapping his head off about something or other... no, talking about something. Deep breaths. Just because he had managed to accidentally offend her didn't mean she had to treat him poorly back. But where did that leave her? Making him change? Making him be different than he was? Wouldn't that be just as antithetical to her ideals? And how would she do it, anyway?
She couldn't tell. There had to be a long-term solution. Something in Riverfall had worked, hadn't it? He had been there for several days, and not grated on her any more than... no, he had caused her to show off her magic in front of the entire town and probably been indirectly responsible for her origin getting out. Maybe there wasn't an answer in that, after all.
What she did know was that, until she found something permanent, she had to deal with it. She couldn't take it out on Gerardo or treat him unfairly, couldn't break up or sabotage the group, and she needed to do something to help Maple. Maybe if the griffon left them alone for a while, then came back? That sounded difficult, but it could be a temporary fix. It was worth trying, at least. With some effort and reluctance, she dragged her attention back into the real world.
"...and that brings us to tonight," Gerardo was saying. "I still think we have time to complete my delivery, though we'll have to be quick about it. After all, we are bound for the Water District, and what we learned about it doesn't seem to be of much use."
Maple shrugged, sounding slightly more lively than she had when discussing airships earlier. "Well, you know where in the city it is, at least."
Gerardo nodded. "Indeed. I also have little clue how we are supposed to approach that place. We could go through the Sky District and walk across the mountain plane, but I fear that would be unpleasant and difficult to begin. Did you even see a public access point in those terminals?"
"No, I didn't," Maple admitted, shaking her head. "You say that like there's another way?"
"Well..." Gerardo hummed. "The existence of a Stone District Defense Force carries certain implications..."
"...Of course!" Maple's eyes lit up. "So there might be an entrance in the Stone District..."
"That is what I was thinking," Gerardo confirmed. "Of course, I neither know where that is nor am free of reservations bringing the two of you through the lair of a paramilitary organization. Being authorized by the government, I would imagine it contains at least some modicum of decency, but with these types of things..."
Maple's brow furrowed, but she had no counterpoint to make.
Starlight saw her opportunity and pounced. "Hey," she announced, consciously avoiding calling Gerardo by name. "You could leave us at the hotel and go looking for it yourself, and see how dangerous it looks and where it is, couldn't you?"
"I was..." Gerardo hesitated, looking conflicted. "Instructed to prioritize your safety, you know..."
Starlight shrugged. "You're willing to leave your crates back there alone, right? Why not us with them? We won't go anywhere. I promise. Please?"
Gerardo sighed. "Normally, I would say let it be so, and that anything negative that transpired as a result would be upon your head... but so that that might not be the case is precisely why I insist on accompanying you. Nevertheless, I suppose I shall... think about it."
"I second this plan," Maple broke in, causing Starlight to beam: it seemed like she had at least read the situation right. "We'll be fine on our own, Gerardo. You don't have to worry about us that much, especially if we just sit in the hotel room. How long will you even take?"
"Unknown," Gerardo answered. "Though it appears I am outvoted once again. First, however, let us ensure that my crates are indeed untampered with. Should anything have happened to them, I fear both your reassurances and the point of scouting will become moot."
The lift abruptly plunged below the snowline, the tunnel's darkness heralding the nearing end of the ride.
"And you're sure about this?" Gerardo asked from the safety of their hotel room. "Truly and absolutely? To even consider this feels like a breach of my word..."
Maple waved a hoof at two crates, stacked exactly where they had left them. "Gerardo, we'll be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to us while we're alone in this hotel. Go look for a way up!"
"Mhmm," Starlight agreed, nodding. "You left us alone while you were flying around earlier!"
"But... that was for... much less..." Gerardo protested weakly. "Fine. Very well. I shall endeavor to return as swiftly as possible. For all of our sakes, please keep yourselves safe." Straightening his shoulders, he marched to the door of the room, opened it, threw one last glance over his shoulder that insisted that this was a bad idea... and the door closed behind him, leaving the room in silence.
Starlight's ears tracked the clicking noise of his talons along the stone hall floor until they vanished around a corner. Two seconds later, Maple sighed happily. "Hmmm... I don't know about you, Starlight, but I'm tired. That griffon is not easy to keep up with. Thanks for pushing to get us a break, there."
"You feel that way too, huh?" Starlight probed, trying not to let her earlier worry show.
Maple immediately moved toward the nearest bed and curled up, tapping a hoof in invitation. "I don't know if I'm made for following him around this much. It's kind of exhausting."
Accepting, Starlight climbed onto the bed beside her. She said nothing, less because she had nothing to say and more because she had too much. What would be appropriate? Where should she start? Or should she at all, and merely enjoy the tranquility while it lasted?
"I can see why he and Amber were such good friends," Maple continued. "They can actually keep up with each other. When I try, I think I'm doing all right, but I just..." She sighed. "It tires me out, and makes me feel like I have no time for anything else." She reached down and nuzzled Starlight. "Like talking to you. How are you doing? What do you think of it here? How does it compare to Equestria?"
Starlight shrugged. "It's nice, I guess. A lot bigger than where I grew up. Umm..." Closing her eyes, she swallowed and made up her mind. "What happens if we don't get along? With Gerardo? If he keeps making you tired?"
Maple was silent for a moment, apparently detecting something in Starlight's tone. "You were thinking about this before I said that, weren't you?"
"The whole way back," Starlight admitted. "Since the museum."
"Well..." Maple paused. "First, we get rid of those crates. They're worrying him, I can tell. And then, we see what happens and decide what to do next. If worst comes to worst, we can always find Gunga and ask him to take us back home... but I don't think things will go that far." She blinked. "I know what I want, but what do you want, Starlight?"
"I don't know," Starlight mumbled glumly. "I just don't want things to change again."
"Well, we just went to Ironridge, which is a pretty big... change..." Maple hesitated for a moment, and then her eyes widened... and subsequently softened. "Do you feel like he's been taking me away? Like I have less time for you? Like you're losing a friend?"
"Y-Yes..." Starlight sniffed. Maple was right. She couldn't make herself really think through the response, so she went with what came first... and what came first were tears. She buried her face in Maple's shoulder.
"Then I'm glad that I mean that much to you." Maple rested her head on top of Starlight's, brushing her cheek against Starlight's horn. "But it's only been a day. Some days are bad days with good parts, and others are good days with bad parts. But I promise, I love you and will always find a way to make time."
How much she meant... How much did Maple mean to her? Now that Starlight thought about it, it was a lot... just like her tolerance of Gerardo had remained completely passive until she had noticed it, there in the museum. When had that happened? At first, Maple was someone she accepted because of a request. But now, she felt like a friend... or maybe something more.
As if she could read her mind, Maple asked, "Do you think of me as your mother?"
There. That was it. "Yeah," Starlight murmured, not lifting her head.
"Well, I hope I'm doing a good job." Maple sighed and adjusted her position. "I'm glad we got to talk right now, alone. I know I want more of this. Somehow, it's... better... than just going on an adventure. Once we finish Gerardo's delivery, I'll find some way to get us more." Blinking, she stretched again. "But while we're here... what do you want to talk about?"
"I dunno," Starlight mumbled. Then, suddenly remembering, she said, "Someone was watching me, earlier."
"Hmm?" Maple tilted her head downwards. "Watching us?"
"In the skyport," Starlight elaborated. "At the museum. I think it was the pony from the gate, with the green eyes. She was looking at us. I saw her, and then she left."
"The gate...?" Maple mused. "The one who let us into the Stone District this morning? Wasn't that a stallion? I don't remember him very well..."
Starlight shook her head. "Before that. In the Earth District. Valey. I was sort of asleep..."
"Well, I was more asleep than you were," Maple sighed. "Gerardo might remember... but I don't want him to worry and insist on never leaving us alone." Settling so she was laying fully on her side, she continued, "Maybe I should speak to him. I don't know..."
Sensing that she was making Maple worry, Starlight bit her lip, then blurted, "I will. Can you tell me a story, instead?" She looked up, hopeful. "Any story. Please?"
Maple perked up, proving her guess of what to do accurate. "Well..." she hummed. "Let me think... hmm... What would you like to hear about...?" It was more of a question to herself than to Starlight. "Oh!" Her ears rose. "I've got a good one. Would you like to hear about how I decided I wanted to have a foal of my own?"
"Okay." Starlight shrugged. Truth be told, she more wanted to give Maple something more stress-free to talk about. Her own enjoyment wasn't an important factor.
"Well..." Maple stared off toward the brown, stony ceiling. "I was a teenager. It was about the time the final boats stopped coming from Ironridge. Alder was getting old enough to start trying to talk, though he wasn't good at it yet. But he was walking, and that foal got everywhere. Amber and I thought he was really cute. It might have been because we really wanted to see something good come from us not going to Ironridge... but that was more than two years ago at that point. It was mostly because he actually was that cute."
Pausing for a moment, she eventually continued. "Anyway, he was getting faster and faster. And at that time, Willow was getting ready to have Fir... and that slowed her down a lot, enough that she stopped being able to catch him at all." She closed her eyes, imagining. "It was actually pretty funny, watching her getting winded waddling around chasing him at times. He must have thought it was a game. I remember him laughing almost nonstop when that happened..." She sighed pleasantly.
"The point is, she made us watch him a lot, because we were younger and could actually catch him when he got too adventurous. Amber especially enjoyed it. She was good at roughhousing with him without making it unfair, boring or dangerous. She knew how to tire him out so much, even he would stop running around. But there was one night where she was occupied with something... I don't remember what, maybe she was sick, or at a friend's house. Either way, I wound up watching him alone, for a whole night. I sat up and played with him past his bedtime. I wanted him so tired, he'd sleep the entire night through and let me wake up on my own terms."
Maple glanced away, failing to hide the smile growing on her dusty-brown muzzle. "But when I woke up the next morning? He had somehow climbed out of his crib, made it all the way into my bed, and was tucked against me, snoring his little head off." She shook her head. "I don't know how or why he did it, but when I woke up there and realized that, I just decided I didn't need to get up, or make breakfast, or do anything important except lay there and enjoy it."
"Huh," Starlight interrupted, sensing the story was nearly done. "Is that why you're so cuddly?"
Maple snorted, then blushed. "Is that a problem?"
"No." Starlight shook her head. "It makes it easy to make you happy."
"And what about what makes you happy?" Maple looked concernedly at her.
Starlight blinked. That was the response, she realized, she'd given, or at least thought, when she had first noticed the trend in Riverfall. How much thought had she given it since then? None at all, actually. It wasn't something she even noticed happening, for the most part; just part of her new normal. But... what was wrong with doing something you didn't mind for someone else's benefit? And riding on Maple's back during travel was an act she did almost by instinct. Besides, it was good for warming up if she was cold.
"Yeah," she answered, having decided that the specifics didn't matter. "It makes me happy."
"Hmmm..." Maple sighed, and nuzzled her again. "Well, back to the story. I enjoyed that morning... but what really made me stop and think was the next morning. I woke up then, and Alder was back with his mother where he belonged... and I just sat there for almost an hour, by myself. I didn't get up. I just sat and thought about how nice it would be to start every day that way, with someone by my side like that, and enjoy the company... and so I started wanting a foal of my own."
Starlight's brow furrowed. She knew what she was about to ask was risky... but decided to go for it anyway. "Isn't that what getting married is for?"
"Huh?" Maple tilted her head in confusion. "Mmm... they are always there, I guess. It does happen, sometimes. That... actually sounds kind of nice." A wistful smile spread across her features as she imagined, and then slowly turned sad. "Is that how it is in Equestria?"
"I dunno." Starlight shrugged. "I didn't care much about my parents there. They enjoyed being around each other, I guess. But I think that's supposed to be how it works."
"In Riverfall, it's..." Maple stopped, swallowing. "Well, not entirely. There are ponies who really, truly do enjoy being married. It's something you hope for, I guess. I hoped for it. But it isn't why we marry. In Riverfall, if you want foals, you can either have them yourself, like Willow's first two... or find someone who will stay with you. A husband. So that they all have the same father." She looked away. "If you're friends with them, or something more... it's wonderful, but it's a bonus. It isn't why." Hanging her head, she finished, "It's not something I try to think about anymore."
Starlight was about to say something comforting, and considering questioning Maple's viewpoint further, when the door loudly banged open and Gerardo Guillaume stuck his head in. "Good news, friends! I have located the nearest..." He blinked, evidently seeing the looks that were being shot his way. His headcrest drooped. "Erm... am I interrupting something?"
"Yes," Maple answered coolly, seeming to instantly can her previous emotion. "You are. Starlight and I were having a conversation, which seems to be over now. Gerardo..." She hauled herself to her hooves, stretching without taking her eyes off him. "We need to talk, eventually, about how we work as a team." She glanced toward Starlight, and Starlight returned it. "But it would be better first if we got your boxes taken care of. Did you say you found where to take them?"
"Well..." Gerardo began awkwardly. "I found an entrance to the Defense Force fort from quite nearby, and upon friendly discussion the posted guard seemed quite open to allowing us to traverse it for our purposes. The sun is setting, but we could easily complete the delivery before it is too late."
Maple stared upwards and sighed. "I'm tired, but I suppose we should. Starlight? Do you want to come? I doubt it will be very exciting, but-"
"She comes." Gerardo cut her off, holding out a wing. "I'm glad to see you both unharmed, but I have every intention of taking Arambai's warning seriously, even if I have recently been forced to break it. Now, I do believe it would be best to depart sooner rather than later, and as such..."
"I know." Maple sighed again, moving to the corner and taking up a box. "Let's get going, then."
To Maple's dismay, the journey to the Water District entrance Gerardo had located was once again uphill. She was hardly out of shape, and had the natural good stamina inherent to earth ponies, but a full day spent on her hooves, constantly carrying either a heavy crate or a large filly in which breaks were minimal and she had ascended the better part of a huge mountain proved taxing. Panting lightly, she forced herself to keep pace with an eager Gerardo, trying not to stumble.
If the griffon himself was tired, he didn't show it, proudly and efficiently leading the way through the city streets. The crowds began to die down as they passed, thanks to a combination of the late hour and the approaching outskirts of the city.
Most families would be inside, eating their dinners together. Maple's thoughts on the matter still hadn't settled from her conversation with Starlight, though the rational side of her brain knew dwelling on it wouldn't prove useful then and there. Hopes and goals for the future were fine, but she had enough on her plate as it was, first and foremost making sure her two friends didn't wear on each other. After the delivery, she told herself. In the event that Gerardo's crates truly were urgent, it would be best to get them out of the way as soon as possible, and if they weren't, doing so would still be an act of good faith. They could discuss everything once they lost this excuse to be busy.
Suddenly, a shadow flitted over her eyes, causing her to blink and pull up... and realize that Gerardo had stopped immediately in front of her, and was looking around. "My load feels oddly heavier," the griffon remarked. "Can any of you..." He looked up, and Maple followed suit.
Lounging atop Gerardo's crate, where there definitely hadn't been one before, was a pegasus... if pegasi had featherless wings, leafy ears, and slitted eyes, that was. "Woah, look who it is!" She grinned down with a fanged smile, green mane kept out of her face by a black beret. "You guys are those bandits from earlier!"
"Who...?" Maple squinted up at the crate, drawing a blank.
Gerardo met her gaze more evenly. "Please get off my crate, Admiral Valey."
"Hah! Wow." Practically slithering down the side of the box, Valey landed on all fours, blocking the road with her posture. "You actually remembered my name without me asking. Good job, Birdo."
Gerardo's brow furrowed. "Ignoring the irony of that statement, to what do we owe this meeting? By my own last check, you cleared us to travel in this district yourself."
"Bad luck." Valey shrugged, taking a step around Gerardo, closer to Maple and Starlight. "I spent most of the day haunting that wacky pancake pegasus, but he eventually got kinda boring. Then I happened to run into you guys, and thought, 'hey, cool bird! Maybe I'll go bother it instead!'"
"I am a griffon," Gerardo imperiously began, before Starlight cut him off.
"No you didn't," she accused, pointing a hoof. "You didn't just find us! You were following us in the museum! I saw you watching me!"
"In the..." Gerardo blinked. "What? And I was not informed?"
"Meh. You got me." Valey spread her forelegs wide, shaking her head and hovering. "I lied. Pancake got boring hours ago, so I tracked you down. Pretty easy, when you can smell the kid from across the city." She pointed a rear hoof at Starlight, keeping her forelegs folded in front of her.
"Hey!" Maple defensively set down her crate and moved in front of Starlight, shielding her from view. "She doesn't stink!"
Valey shrugged. "Hey, whatever floats your boat. For real, though, I did see him lurking around this place not too long ago, so watch your backs. I don't trust that guy any more than you should trust me."
Maple scowled, but Gerardo tilted his head. "Would the implication of such a phrase not be that we should trust that pegasus, should we happen to see him...?"
Ignoring him, Valey did a backflip in midair. "So, are you gonna tell me your names, or do I get to name you myself like Birdo?"
"If I may..." Gerardo raised a talon, looking somewhere between wounded and annoyed.
"I'm Maple," Maple answered, glaring defiantly at the batpony, "and this is Starlight."
"Cool, cool." Valey nodded. "So... what's in the boxes?" She prowled around behind Gerardo, nosing at the crate Maple had dropped and making a face. "Ew, mud. You guys are weird."
Gerardo puffed up defensifely. "For your information, mud appears to be a regular occurrence in the Earth District, and I would strongly expect you to know that. Furthermore, the contents of these crates is classified, and I'm afraid I cannot tell you."
"Eh. I know there's mud." Valey shrugged again, flicking her tail at Maple as she turned back to Gerardo, running a wing over the crate. "I know a lot of things. Basically everything, actually, since I get paid to stick my nose where it doesn't belong." She turned again and glared at the box. "Except what's in here. And I really wanna know."
"As I said, I would very much rather you didn't ask," Gerardo insisted, far more force in his tone than his word choice. "I'm not going to tell you!"
Valey squinted sideways at the crates, tilting her head so far her beret nearly fell off and she had to catch it with a wing. "Can't ask, huh? Well, since you didn't say anything about guessing... is it contraband? Contraband..." She hummed, holding her chin. "Snails. Yup. That's my guess."
Maple's eyes crossed. "Why would anyone even try to smuggle snails? That makes no sense."
"Neither does hiding something from someone who can kick all your rears into next week, or have you arrested on the spot," Valey countered with a shrug. "It's like you actually have no idea who I am. To be honest, this is the most refreshing thing that's happened to me all day."
"You're welcome?" Maple gave her an odd look, but didn't press. The words didn't seem hostile.
"So, random question!" Valey perked up, jumping on the box and flopping lazily, one foreleg dangling over the side. "Mangoes or bananas, which do you like more? Or any other kind of fruit."
Gerardo looked suspiciously at her, but Maple shrugged. "Mangoes, I guess? Pineapple is kind of special. Why do you ask?"
"Well..." Valey stared off down the cliff wall, the emerald canopy of the Earth District looming in the distance. "I was going to go steal some fruit for dinner, but lately there's this new accountant working for the higher-ups who has a really short fuse when it comes to robberies, and he's so fun to mess with that I've been getting carried away and bagging more than I can eat just to make him blow his stack. Mind if I dump the excess on you guys instead? There's no need to be wasteful..."
"What value of 'dump' are you referring to?" Gerardo asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Hah! You're good." Valey pointed a foreleg at him, backstroking through the air. "Anyway, I'll take that as not minding. Smell ya later!"
She flipped into a dive, soaring off toward the trees so fast that the tips of her wings left minute vapor trails in her wake. The trio peered over the street edge, watching her depart, and in a matter of seconds she was gone.
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, that was acceptable. The entrance is just ahead. Let us make haste!"
Behind him, Maple hoisted her own crate back onto her back, checked to ensure Starlight was still by her side, and stepped onward, following the griffon further up the stony road.
The 'entrance' Gerardo had found was at the utmost top of the Stone District, where the mountain slope became a mountain wall and further construction was impossible. Their road hugged the cliff face, growing narrower and gravellier until at last it ended entirely, a glacial waterfall trickling past just beyond the edge.
On the small bit of flat land at the end of the road, the entrance sat, entirely small and unglamorous compared to the majestic arch of the Skyport. It was round, jagged, and looked more like a naturally formed cave than anything else, with room for two large ponies to pass each other and not much more. A pair of guards flanked the entrance, clad in thin armor that sported wing-and-pickaxe insignias and looked designed not to interfere in flight. They blinked, spotting Gerardo.
"Good evening, gentlecolts," the griffon announced once they were safely within earshot. "Myself and my comrades were contracted to make a delivery to the Water District, and were informed that we could receive an escort through your base to reach there? Our destination is Warehouse W-28."
A guard blinked back at him, slowly and deliberately. "Night shift started twenty minutes ago. How urgent is it?"
"Err..." Gerardo glanced back to the western mountain peaks, behind which the orange glow of the sun still permeated the sky. "I would very much like to have it taken care of now, if at all possible."
The guard shook his head. "I don't know the policy. Stay here while I go get someone more important..." He turned, tramping back into the corridor, at which his lone companion took up defense.
Minutes passed in tense silence, until two sets of hoofsteps sounded down the tunnel. The guard re-emerged with a unicorn, who sported an off-white coat and slender horn. Muscular yet slender, he eyed them, jaw twitching with overconfidence.
"My name is Selma," he announced proudly, looking as if he were straining his neck to stare down at the clearly taller Gerardo. "Leader of the Stone District Defense Force, if you care for titles. Who..." His sharp eyes narrowed. "Are you?"
"I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire," Gerardo proclaimed, "and these are my companions, Starlight and Maple. I take it you have been briefed on our situation?"
Selma smiled dangerously. "I've been informed that you're trying to take undeclared goods into the upper districts. Since you didn't catch on earlier, allow me to repeat myself: who are you?"
"I told you," Gerardo answered, a touch of nervousness in his voice. "We are independent contractors performing a delivery. We were informed we would be allowed to pass."
"I'm sure you are." Selma shook his head, still grinning. "See here, Gerardo... this is my fortress, and where I'm standing, you're making this delivery from..." He raised an eyebrow. "Where, again? Not the Sky District, oh no, or you'd be coming from there. Is it..." He tilted his head, staring owlishly at the griffon. "The Earth District, perhaps? Or maybe those ingrates down in the Steel District who never deliver anything, ever? No... heh... Where I'm standing, you three are bandits with bombs, and you're not getting in my fort without a full inspection of your cargo."
"Opening the crates is against the terms of my contract," Gerardo insisted. "I cannot do that!"
"Your contract, you say..." Selma tapped his chin, lit his horn, and levitated several pebbles, flicking them at one another in midair as he made a show of thinking. "Did you perhaps miss the part where I said this was my fortress? As in, me who is in charge? Because if someone truly did hire a buzzard like you to deliver unmarked crates, they would either be me or work for me, that means those are technically mine." He beckoned with a hoof. "Open them."
Gerardo took a step back. "Would you allow me a moment to converse with my team, please?"
Selma shrugged, stepping back into the entrance. "As you will."
"Well, this is an unfortunate obstacle," Gerardo observed the moment they were out of earshot. Keeping his voice low, he added, "It's especially troubling because the points he makes are legitimate. If this is his fortress, he would indeed know about my quest, or perhaps be my employer himself."
"How long ago did you get this job?" Maple hissed back. "And when was the last time you heard about it? Who gave it to you, even?"
Gerardo sighed. "If you must know, I obtained both the job and crates while in Yakyakistan on unrelated business, with explicit instructions to use this roundabout route and avoid air travel. From an agent of the government, specifically. This would have been... many months ago. Almost a year."
"How would they have had someone waiting to accept it, then?" Maple asked quizzically. "I wonder if the crates contain some sort of magical beacon. Is that even possible?"
"I imagine so, but..." Gerardo shook his head. "Now that you've drawn my attention to the subject, I cannot remember if we know when this Defense Force was established. It is very possible that the Water District was turned over to their control after I was given the job."
"Isn't there a yak embassy in Ironridge?" Maple asked. "We could go there, then... Especially if your job came from the government. Maybe the ambassador could just take the crates there."
"It's seeming like that's the wisest course of action..." Gerardo admitted.
As they talked, Starlight sat off to the side, horn shining. They could talk and plan all they wanted, but she was doing. Her telekinetic field was expanded to its thinnest, resting over the tunnel entrance at the edge of her range, and she gently jiggled it back and forth, feeling for obstructions. Three ponies were in the way, and she could feel the cave walls... more than one set of cave walls. There was some type of room right next to the entrance, and the mountain wall in front of it was thin. Tightning her focus, she probed it more. How sturdy could a wall like that be? It wouldn't be feasible with the guards right there, but it might be possible to break through with enough force...
"Starlight?" A dusty brown hoof tapped her on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go back to the hotel, so we can find the embassy tomorrow..."
"Okay." She nodded, letting her horn rest and grow dim. Pulling herself to her hooves, she prepared to follow Maple and Gerardo back down the roadway... when a burst of air nearly knocked her back down. "Waah!"
A pegasus straightened up, sporting a goatee and a still-slightly-flattened red and black pompadour. "Hey there, friends," he greeted, slicking back his mane with a wing. "It's your old friend, the Howenator! Miss me?"
The trio blinked, processing the newly-arrived pegasus. Eventually, Maple asked, "Who are you?"
"I concur," Gerardo added. "You look vaguely familiar, but I've been doing quite a lot of new-pony-meeting today and my memory is slightly overtaxed at the moment. Do we know you?"
"Aww." The pegasus drooped. "Come on, you don't remember old Howe? We totally had each other's backs down there this morning, with the gate and the guys with the fruit and that one scary lady! Remember?" He looked up beseechingly, which didn't mesh with his goatee or manestyle at all.
"I was asleep," Maple immediately announced, as if it excused her from all further dealings with Howe. Starlight could see why; his sense of fashion was appalling and there was something about his demeanor that put her on edge.
"Ah. Yes, that does seem to ring a bell," Gerardo admitted. "Pardon me, but my friends and I are currently very busy and have somewhere we need to be, which namely is not here. Is there something you need?"
"A friendly face," Howe said with a slightly cheerier shrug. "Seriously, you get thrown out of one establishment..."
"Then you will have to take what you can get, I'm afraid." Gerardo neatly shook his head, bouncing the crate on his back for emphasis. "The hour for being social with strangers is long over, and as I said it would not be prudent for us to dawdle. And I hate to be rude, but you..." He raised an eyebrow at Howe's red and black mane.
Howe looked up and frowned. "Hey, don't knock the 'do, bro. Do you know how hard it is to find a stylist who will put up with specs like these? I'll have you know, my clients can be very demanding!"
"If you please..." Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "My patience has been tried enough already by this day. Maple, Starlight, we are leaving. Howe, much as I hate to be impolite, please do not follow us. You will find yourself having much better chances with impromptu social calls in the daytime, and when your targets are not busy doing things they are paid to do."
"Having a rousing discussion, are we?" Selma's voice sounded from further up the road, and everyone turned to see him marching down toward the group. "I'm interested to hear what you've decided."
"We're leaving," Gerardo announced, standing with his crate in the middle of the road. "We have no quarrel with-"
"Woah woah hold on a sec!" Howe's eyes widened, and he jumped around so that he was facing both Gerardo and Selma. "You guys were trying to get through another checkpoint? They made you give up, didn't they?" He stomped a hoof. "Well, this cannot continue! Watch out, guard guy, because my friends busted me through a checkpoint earlier, and now it's time for Howe to return the favor! Hiyaaa!"
He did a midair fighting dance, punching and kicking at nothing. "What kind of fruit have you got this time, eh? Eh? 'Cause it's gonna take more than melons and mangoes to stop this pegasus, oh you better believe aaack! Hey, leggo!"
Selma had seized him in his ice-blue aura, completely immobilizing him and holding him in the air. He squinted, inspecting his catch with the same kind of eye used by insect collectors. "This is a very suspicious pegasus, wouldn't you agree?" he mused, directing his gaze at Gerardo.
"We are unaffiliated," Gerardo quickly assured.
"Yes, quite. Because complete strangers simply stop to talk to each other at the ends of unpopulated roads," Selma countered, his smile betraying his intentions. Sparing Howe a final glance, he fired the pegasus like a javelin off into the distance of the Stone District, and turned entirely to Gerardo. "Tell me, what were you conspiring?"
"We," Gerardo said forcefully, "intend to leave. It is clear that staying would be unproductive for everyone, and we bid you no ill will. Would you stop us from even that?"
Selma put a hoof to his chin, the two pegasus guards fluttering up behind him. "Have you forgotten the role of my Defense Force? It is to protect the upper districts against all threats, including the titular Stone District. And when I not only have reason to suspect you lot of being up to no good, but you won't even take the simple step of proving those crates to be harmless..."
Gerardo tensed, taking a step backwards. Maple pulled closer to him, Starlight tucked between her forelegs. "What are your intentions?" Gerardo hissed.
"Ironic, that it would be you asking me that," Selma said, shaking his head. Then he looked up, gaze boring into the griffon's skull. "Open the crates, or surrender them to my custody."
"I told you," Gerardo insisted, "we cannot-"
"Fine." Selma shrugged. "Guards? Arrest them."
"What!?" Maple gasped, moving tighter against Gerardo. "But why? We're trying to leave!"
"Clearly," Selma began as if reading a court verdict, "you have something to hide. I am not merely the lord of this fortress, but the protector of all the Stone District. Whatever danger you think you can get away with is only as suitable for my city as it is for my sight. Arrest them."
Gerardo reached for his sheath as the pegasi approached... and found it empty. Growling, he deposited his crate roughly to the ground and tore the sheath from his belt, desperate for any kind of weapon. "Maple," he hissed, "Starlight. I shall handle this. Run."
Maple started to back away... when Selma stomped a hoof, causing the two pegasi to soar overhead and block the road with their spears. She cringed, looking back to Gerardo.
Selma raised an eyebrow, expression growing eager. "Assaulting an officer? Interesting. I wouldn't have expected that from someone cowardly enough that their first reaction to trouble is to flee. Do you realize that being suspected of committing crimes and actually committing them are two different things? Jumping to such a last resort isn't painting any better a picture for you, Gerardo Guillaume. Although, this does give me an idea..."
"Nngh..." Cringing, Gerardo hesitated, lowering the sheath slightly.
"Don't be so hasty to back away, now," Selma added, grinning like a shark. "It's only illegal because I say it is. I don't make these laws, but I do decide which ones to uphold. Arm yourself." Horn flaring, he yanked a wingblade free from one guard's armor and levitated it in front of Gerardo.
The griffon stared at it, squinting. "What are you...?"
It butted him dully in the chest. "Take it," Selma announced. "Guards, move the crates over by the entrance. You two..." The glow of his horn brightened, and Maple and Starlight were seized, floating out to a better vantage point and hovering in the air. "...get to be the audience," he continued. "Cheer, or don't."
Gerardo continued to stare as the blade poked him again. "What in the world are you doing?"
"Proposing a trade," Selma answered, standing alone and unarmed in the center of the clearing. "Those crates of yours are mine, but if you make this entertaining enough, I'll forget about anything else you may have done... and just might decide you're not enough of a threat to be worth holding. Fight for your freedom, swine! Amuse me!" His eyes glinted dangerously.
Not waiting to see if he had anything more to say, Gerardo lunged, grabbing the blade as he passed, preemptively throwing himself to the side in preparation for an attack. Right where he would have landed, the ground boiled blue, and a storm of gravelly pebbles surged upwards like bullets. Selma nodded in approval. "Good! Don't waste your time waiting for monologues, and always anticipate-"
He didn't have time to finish, as Gerardo had made it close enough to close the remaining distance with one charge. The griffon pounced... and abruptly screeched to a halt when Maple was flung in front of him, acting as a shield. That moment's hesitation proved to be a mistake, as a small boulder levitated and hurled itself from the roadside, impacting Gerardo's side and sending him crashing painfully to the ground.
"A rookie mistake," Selma lectured, moving Maple above him and out of the way. "When a friend on the battlefield is between you and your opponent, you go through them. A liability is-" CLANGGGG! "Ow!"
He staggered, and his aura fizzled out, his horn having been impacted by a sizable iron ingot from above. Maple landed roughly, struggling to her hooves. "Unngh!" she panted, readying to jump away...
Flash! Once again, everything was immobilized by Selma's telekinesis. "Where did that come from!?" he snarled, glancing in every direction. "Raaaugh!"
A violent aura of blue seized Gerardo, flinging him up into the air... and piledriving him back into the ground with enough force to render him barely conscious. Starlight was flung against him, his feathery coat largely cushioning the blow.
Maple wasn't so fortunate, being dragged immediately before Selma's snarling face. "You were the only thing up there!" he hissed. "You dropped that!"
"I-I don't-" she protested weakly, before a telekinetic clamp locked her mouth closed.
"You two," Selma snapped at the pegasus guards, "bring the crates! Leave the idiot and the filly, they're useless! But this one is... is..." He glared up at Maple, floating along in his aura. "I don't know, my head hurts! Lock her in a storage room and figure something out tomorrow. I need to lie down..."
Staggering briefly, he lead the march into the fortress tunnel, Maple and both crates in tow.
From Gerardo's side, Starlight stared at the departing ponies in disbelief. Her head was swimming from the impact, but not enough to stop the tears. Maple was being taken away.
The world isn't fair, but you have the power to change it.
Her horn lit. Nobody was looking at her, and if they had been, they probably would have assumed it was meaningless. And they would have been right... because she was just a filly with a possibly-defective horn and no training. There was nothing she could do... but she had to do something.
A telekinetic field expanded, stretched so thin it was invisible, reaching all the way to the retreating ponies. It was one of the few spells she knew, and maybe, just maybe, it would find something she could use. She wiggled it back and forth, feeling for drag, closing her eyes and concentrating as hard as she could on the shapes of the four ponies and two crates. There had to be something...
...She could feel the contents of the crates, and the revelation almost shocked her eyes open. It wasn't so much that what was inside was unusual; on the contrary, it felt rigid and metallic, likely parts for some sort of device. But in one of the crates, under a section of curved plating that didn't seem as broken up as it could have been, there was a crevice... a pocket of air where a very cramped filly might fit.
There was nothing she could do there, but there might be later, if she followed. Taking a deep breath, she let her magic surge, uncaring of the consequences of letting loose her full power. Her mind flooded, focusing all of her overwhelming emotion on the desire to be anywhere but where she was right then... and instead, to be inside that crate, following her new mother.
Two pegasi and a unicorn tramped through a sparsely-lit stone corridor, carrying with them Gerardo's crates and an immobilized Maple. Selma's horn aura almost provided better illumination than the glowing crystals studded too far apart in the walls, though it still sparked and flickered on occasion.
The tunnel had shifted in style, transforming from a natural-looking formation to something obviously and hastily excavated, a rectangular passage of uniform height and width that lacked any sort of sealant around its corners. As such, the cracks that formed there occasionally bled with water, staining the dark blue stone of the walls darker than it already was.
Aside from Selma's angry breathing, the journey was silent, hoofsteps intensifying in volume whenever the guards passed over metal grates designed to drain any water that accumulated in the tunnels. Frequently, corridors branched off to the side, and occasionally, Selma took those branches. Their course was generally downward, however, the slope sometimes as steep as the roads outside.
Overhead, a collection of pipes filled the ceiling, increasing in density the lower they went. Silently, they performed their job, carrying whatever they were meant to carry without so much as a thought for the mare held captive below.
For her part, Maple could barely think... yet thinking was the only thing she had the freedom to do. She had dropped an iron ingot on Selma, one of the two she always carried to make herself heavier. Gerardo had been in trouble. What else could she have done? She had to have done something... right?
Anger bubbled inside her, trying its best to protect and distract her from the fear and hopelessness it knew she was vulnerable to. It was effective, though its targeting was sporadic at best. Gerardo... She fumed. Wasn't this why he had scouted ahead? Why she had pushed him to do so? Had he known his journey with those stupid crates would invite so much trouble? Shouldn't he have gone all the way in contacting his employer first, before getting them involves?
...And then there was Starlight. Her new filly was back there, now, with him. What would they do together? Would the griffon give up on his mission and leave? If he did, would he take her with him, or would he leave her on her own? And if he tried to save her and his crates, would he drag Starlight into more danger to do it? The worst part was, she couldn't even decide what she wanted him to do.
Engulfed in blackness, Starlight huddled. Cold metal was jamming into her back and side, making breathing difficult and stretching impossible. A sack of something lumpy, like bolts or wingnuts, was pressed so tightly into her belly that she was infinitely thankful she hadn't eaten yet for the night. Her legs were tucked firmly against her body, and one had already started to fall asleep. Her head was forced into her neck in an even more awkward position, something bending one of her ears back and something else putting pressure on the tip of her horn. But, all things considered, she was surviving.
The crate she was inside of jostled on a stallion's back, its bearer clearly inexperienced in carrying delicate cargo. With each bounce, there was a small prick of fear that she would be crushed, and every time the motion subsided with only a bit of unpleasant rubbing against her ribcage.
Her mouth was open, pressed against the wooden crate wall. It was old, dry, and slightly porous, the miniscule gaps between the boards allowing air in... almost no air, but just enough that she was able to breathe. She considered encasing herself in crystal, as it would lessen the pressure and she never had trouble with air when she was in it, but her horn still throbbed slightly from her teleportation earlier and she didn't want to push it. Whenever the time came to leave the crate and free Maple, that would take another teleport at the least... and after that, who knew how much magic to escape the fort. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to do it at all, in her current state.
Still, that was for the future. Stowed away as she was, the only thing she could do was wait... and so she waited, bumping up and down with the rhythm of the crate.
Slowly, Gerardo felt his vision focus and his thoughts become coherent. Taking stock of his situation, he registered the most important thing first: he was alone.
That meant he had time to think, and wasn't in any immediate danger. It also meant that Maple and Starlight weren't present... which meant they likely were in danger. And finally, his crates were gone... which boded poorly for his mission. He coughed, growled, and pushed himself upright slightly faster than his head was willing to take, immediately sitting back down.
"Hey, bro! Welcome back to wakey-land!"
...He wasn't as alone as he thought. And, annoyingly enough, the pony who was there was the last pony he wanted to see.
Surging into action faster than should have been possible, given his condition, Gerardo whirled, a talon expertly closing around Howe's throat. "You," he hissed, "have, through your interference, just caused priceless amounts of damage to my cause and endangered two friends whom I was charged with protecting!" Exerting his superior weight and taking advantage of the pegasus's surprise, he twisted, slamming him to the ground in a suplex. "What have you to say for yourself!?"
"Um... ow?" Howe blinked innocently. "Hey, careful with the 'do, bro. I told you, this thing was expensive. Don't wanna go all dragging it across the ground now, huh?"
Gerardo shoved him aside and stepped away, shaking. "I could care less about your mane, Howe. Now leave me be while I think of a plan!"
"Hey, hold up!" Howe protested, holding out a hoof in defense as he righted himself. "Did you get trashed by those guards or something while I was gone?"
Feathers tattered and dusty, with a slight tear in his new uniform, Gerardo stared levelly at the pegasus. "What does it look like?"
Howe raised a limb and opened his mouth in protest... but put it down, saying nothing. "Yeah, actually you look like you got whupped," he admitted. "Sorry for getting taken out first, bro. You know, given what those last guys were like I thought for sure we would've had them. Good guy advantage and all that, you know?" He shrugged innocently. "So, what do we do now?"
"Be quiet," Gerardo commanded. "I'm thinking, and don't need any more of your help. We are not a team, and wherever I go next, you are not going to be a part of it!" In emphasis, he spread his wings, flapped shakily... and took off, soaring straight upwards.
Howe watched him ascend, raising an interested eyebrow. Gerardo didn't even bother looking back, flapping to power his altitude gain... until a torrent of wind slammed into him out of nowhere, flipping him like a pinball until his wings were useless and he spiraled out of control. He plummeted, righting himself just in time to avoid a crash landing, though it was anything but dignified.
"Yep," Howe announced, "that right there is some grade-A 'I can do it on my own.' Best I've seen all week. Bro..." He leaned forward, face exaggeratedly skeptical. "You do know about the whole wind thing Ironridge has, right? The reason airships dock in the Sky District...?"
"If you have an explanation," Gerardo grunted, straightening his feathers, "be direct about it."
"So, basically..." Howe proudly grinned. "Down there, it's all super hot... and up there, it's all super cold... and where they mix, the air gets wild. It's a nonstop whirly-whirly of fun, and covers the whole Earth District. Makes flying upwards pretty much impossible."
Gerardo sighed, trying to seek out the distant entrance to the skyport along the district rim.
"Really though, doing a good job of convincing me you don't need a guide," Howe added, leaning casually with his forelegs crossed. "Come on, I owe ya! Twice, now! Don't be a guy to cheat a bro out of fulfilling his debts. I can totally help you, just like that!"
"I'm not going to be able to get rid of you, am I?" Gerardo growled, flexing his wings again.
"Nope!" Howe smiled smugly. "It's a pegasus's honor! The Howenator will be your sidekick until the day it is no longer necessary!" He waggled his eyebrows. "And if it's fun, maybe we can get a permanent gig going, you know? I've got this good feeling about our dynamic."
"Just... keep silent..." Gerardo sighed, closing his eyes. "I am doing nothing until I think of something to do, and thus far, you haven't given me a moment to think about it."
Howe drew a wing across his muzzle. "My lippers are zippered!"
Gerardo exhaled in relief, taking a few precious moments of silence just to bury his annoyance at the pegasus. On his own personal scale, matters were a 'last resort' level of dire, and still prone to escalation, which meant he needed a last resort. Fortunately, Arambai had provided him with one... provided he could use it. The Defense Force, supposedly, was authorized by the Sky District, and he had been given an inroad. It was time to seek out Chancellor Dior.
"I am going to the Sky District," he announced, spreading his wings and preparing to take flight. "I can't stop you from coming short of methods I am not willing to resort to, but I will be watching you." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "If you attempt to sabotage me again, be it deliberately or accidentally, I will do nothing to bail you out. If you interfere at all with my mission or do anything to my detriment, I will be far less inclined to hold back in incapacitation than I am now. Understood?"
"Stood under!" Howe saluted with a wing. "Let's get this show on the road, bro!"
"And stop calling me that," Gerardo sighed, before kicking off the gravelly road and soaring south, aiming for the distant road to the Sky District.
Gerardo Guillaume stood tensely on an escalator platform, waiting impatiently as it carried him closer to the skyport terminal. It felt half the speed it had been before, and while the rational side of his brain told him it was just his nerves, that didn't prevent his wings from ruffling, itching to take flight.
He stayed groundbound, however, the memory of no ponies soaring overhead during their earlier pass despite the high traffic volumes hinting that such an act was forbidden. Since more trouble was the last thing he wanted to incur, he waited, talons digging into the grate of the nigh-empty platform beneath him. Empty, that was, save for Howe.
"This place sure is emptier at night," the pegasus observed, resorting to stating the obvious to keep conversation going. "The moment the sun sets... boom! It's like a light bulb of ponies!"
The sun hadn't even finished setting. A few golden rays still shone out across the western mountaintops, though Gerardo wasn't looking their way. His gaze was fixed to the east, where a distant metal spire shone... Skyfreeze, if he had been correctly informed. The seat of government in Ironridge, and where he would hopefully find Chancellor Dior. That was based on a whole host of assumptions, of course, not least of which that the stallion would still be in for the day.
His plan for getting there as well was hazy at best. In fact, it was less of a plan and more of 'ask every pony you see until one of them proves helpful or throws you out,' and that was only one step up from hoping for the best and running in blind. But Arambai had said it would be possible, hadn't he? And perhaps Howe would make himself something other than a liability for a change. The odds weren't good, but they were what he had, and he would have to make do. Slowly, the platform slipped into its station, and he prepared to disembark.
"So? What's the plan, brother bird?" Howe asked, sticking to Gerardo's side and just out of his line of sight as they entered the atrium. "We're in the Sky District! Time for phase B..." He rubbed his hooves together eagerly, cackling under his breath. "What's phase B, again?"
"For you to be quiet," Gerardo instructed, "and not speak under any circumstances. Please."
Howe shrugged. "Whatever you say, bro. But don't complain when it makes me less helpful!"
"I have little worry of that," Gerardo whispered, scanning the atrium for an ideal first target. Like the ride in, it was much emptier than the previous afternoon, with very few ponies actively involved in going places. Those who were there stood idly, some yawning, others leaning against walls or laying on benches, trying to sleep. A lone passage on the far side of their level emitted a decent flow of ponies, likely passengers disembarking a single late arrival. And to the left, an information kiosk stood, lit with attractive blue lighting and sporting no line whatsoever. Gerardo blinked and stepped closer.
In the first stroke of good luck since the encounter with Selma and his guards, a perky pink hoof waved at them from behind the counter, and a pegasus quickly hopped out and strolled across to meet them. "Hey, Gerardo!" Slipstream greeted cheerily. "Didn't think you'd be here this late! What happened to your traveling companions?"
"They have been..." Gerardo flinched slightly. "Detained, I fear. If at all possible, I need to speak with Chancellor Dior, whom you told me about. Is there anything you can do to help me reach him?"
Slipstream's expression went from cheery to grave in a heartbeat, and her wings flitted outward in shock. "Wait, what happened!? I mean... you need to see the Chancellor?"
"I do," Gerardo answered with a nod. "I was referred to him by a friend for times of great need. If I can get his ear, he can help me, I am sure. Please, if there is anything you can do..."
Biting her lip, Slipstream glanced around the mostly-empty atrium, the sky above just beginning to show stars. "The Chancellor lives in Skyfreeze. His work is his home, and he almost never leaves, so you'd need to get over there. Umm..." She scrunched her eyes shut. "The transport between the terminals goes all the way to the tower, but to ride it that far, you need an employee's clearance. Everyone has one because it's where they payroll office is, but mine is only valid on payday and that's not for two more days..."
Howe mimed saying something, but no sounds escaped his mouth. To Gerardo's relief, he was taking his commandment seriously, if being unnecessarily dramatic about it.
"So we would need to find someone with a security clearance that is always valid," Gerardo mused, finding himself with a more immediate goal to work toward. His mind flickered through the list of ponies he had met so far in Ironridge, scanning. Slipstream had said she didn't have one. Howe, he didn't even have to ask. Anyone affiliated with the Defense Force was out of the question, as well. The Sosans... The Sosans. Particularly Shinespark. They didn't like the Defense Force, and he had been given a free invitation to return. He would likely get his sword back, and would have a high guarantee of help... and if anyone could get the required clearance, it was a factory chief, or someone who had their statue in a nearby museum. Unfortunately, Sosa was all the way on the other side of the city.
"That's just for the transit, though," Slipstream interrupted. "Once you're inside, it's fairly open. You know, because security is ugly? Skyfreeze is a show of wealth for the ponies who work there. So you could walk or fly, and maybe get in. Or course, it is night..."
"You say that like there is a road?" Gerardo asked, tilting his head.
"Well..." Slipstream hummed to herself, crossing her forelegs and looking away, embarrassed. "You could call it that... Follow me and see for yourself, though!"
"This is..." Gerardo swallowed, searching for words. "Certainly a way forward..."
Howe mimed something, which he paid no attention to.
Slipstream shrugged, hugging herself with her wings and shivering. "I'm sorry, but it's the fastest way!" Her mane moved slightly in the cold breeze, and she stepped back so that she wasn't taking the full brunt of it. "You asked for options..."
The 'way' she had led them to was an out-of-the-way waiting room nobody seemed to be using. One of the glass wall panels had, with some force from her, been propped open. The purpose of designing windows in such an environment to be opened was nebulous at best, but there it was, an exit to the world below preceeding a lengthy drop to a night-covered snowscape. Gerardo shivered. Howe mimed. Slipstream stood well out of the way, blowing on her wings to keep warm.
"Well, I suppose I have no choice," Gerardo admitted. "Flying in such conditions will be dubious at best, but I shall manage. Howe?" He looked sternly at the pegasus. "If you follow me and succumb to the weather, I am not carrying you. Understood?"
Howe nodded resolutely. Slipstream gulped. "Isn't that a little bit cold?"
"An amusing choice of words," Gerardo deadpanned. "However, this pegasus is largely responsible for getting my friends in the trouble they are in, and I have almost no sympathy for him at present. He and I have already discussed this, and there is nothing more to be said."
Slipstream stared again at Howe, taking a step away... but before she could respond, there was a gentle swish, and Gerardo's tailfeathers disappeared out the window.
Whump!
With a griffony impact, Gerardo hit the snow. His wings flexed mechanically, hitching several times as if rusted and in need of oil. Fortunately, it was somewhat dry and easy to brush off, but when he sank up to his chest merely trying to stand, there was little point to that. He puffed his coat, trying to keep the stuff as far away from his body heat as possible. Less worrying was the immediate coldness, and more the prospect that it could melt, soaking into his feathers. Finally wading to the top of a crest and getting a decent percentage of himself above the drift, he spread his wings fully, giving a few more experimental flaps in preparation for takeoff.
Whuddd! A dark shape hit the snow beside him, and he turned to see Howe. "Gah! C-Cold!" the pegasus exclaimed, before recoiling as if he had swallowed a lemon. "Er, shutting up again!"
Gerardo sighed, nearly acclimated to the cold enough to fly. Would he wait for Howe? It didn't feel right to strand the pegasus, even if he deserved it... but the night chill would only increase, and the lights of Skyfreeze shown in the distance in vertical golden strips, beckoning him closer.
Before he could make up his mind, there was a disturbance in the mountain breeze, and a third body hovered to a stop above him just before impacting the snow. His eyes widened. "Slipstream?"
"Brrbrrbrr..." The pink pegasus shivered, forelimbs tucked beneath her flimsy kiosk shirt and tail wrapped around her hind legs. "I hope I don't regret this. Let's go!"
"You're coming too...?" Gerardo asked, eyes widening as far as they dared in the chill air.
"You need a guide," she pointed out, pulling her head down against her body. "And I've never done something like this before! Maybe it will be interesting! But can we hurry?"
Hesitating slightly longer, Gerardo commanded, "Howe, let's go!" and took flight himself. His large, powerful griffon wings cut through the cold air with much greater ease than the two pegasi, and it only took a slow, steady rhythm of pumping them to stay airborn. In a way, he was disappointed, because it meant less work and thus less warmth... but they were hardly in the place to complain. Only slightly wondering how he was somehow indebting himself to most of the ponies he passed and when Slipstream would want something in return, he knifed eastward, making a beeline for the distant outline of Skyfreeze.
The night was clear and cold as Gerardo pressed forward, leading his companions by a considerable margin. Howe, surprisingly, was nearly able to keep up... but Slipstream was validating all his concerns and more, moving at nearly half the pace he could set on his own. He still couldn't be sure exactly what had compelled the pegasus to follow him, but unlike Howe, letting her suffer for it was something that would weigh on his conscience.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he called back, pausing and allowing Howe a break as Slipstream struggled to catch up. Not that there was much he could do if she wasn't...
"Maybe," she rasped, dragging herself limply through the air. "I d-don't usually come outside l-like this... Whoo..."
Fortunately, so long as she stayed airborn, the high visibility meant it was easy to keep her in sight. If she fell, though... the surface was a flat, nondescript sea of snow drifts highly reminiscent of the actual ocean. Troughs formed between peaks of snow, and anyone landing on, or falling below the snowline would be instantly impossible to make out. The drifts gleamed white beneath the black sky, bathed in their own shadows from the light of the rising moon, creating many pockets of darkness where fallen bodies would be invisible.
Still, she only had to keep it up a while longer, as they were almost there. Above a final ridge, the base of Skyfreeze sat, the sporadically-supported transport tunnel running inside a great distance up. Ascending high enough, Gerardo could make out a cleared ground road to the left, running from the tower off into the distance.
"That looks like it could lead to a door..." the griffon mused, rubbing his talons against themselves for warmth. He turned back, checking on his companions again. "It is not much further!"
"I can..." Slipstream huffed, shivering violently. "See that..."
To her side, Howe mimed something, though it was interrupted by his own chattering of teeth.
Seeing that they had not yet collapsed, Gerardo held back, hesitating a moment and allowing them to get a head start for the final stretch.
Slipstream gasped, slumping to a stop underneath the metallic archway of the entrance. It was blocked by a heavy, gleaming door... but as if reacting to the presence of outsiders, it shifted and began to part. Howe hovered beside her, and Gerardo arrived last, determined to keep an eye on his would-be companions. There was a slow grating, and then with a swift, seamless rush, the door opened.
Everyone stumbled, some with more dignity than others, into the antechamber. It was small, featuring only a glass door further into the tower, most likely as an airlock of sorts. That theory was confirmed when the door behind them slid shut, and the air began to heat as further passage was given.
The next room was long, with a shining, gold architectural theme. Gerardo didn't stop to take it in, too focused on finding a way to further his goals.
"Hello, and welcome to Skyfreeze," a voice announced to his right. "What can we... oh my..."
It was a bespectacled mare sitting at a reception desk, old enough to have streaks of gray in her mane, but not enough to be elderly. She stared at the trio, lifting her glasses with a hoof. "You three don't look like you're in the best shape. Are the roads that bad tonight?"
"W-W-We..." Slipstream tried to begin, ultimately failing.
"We flew from the nearest skyport terminal," Gerardo announced, speaking for her and flicking an errant bit of snow from his feathers. "We would have used the transport, but lacked authorization that would be valid tonight."
Howe mimed something moving quickly, swinging a hoof past his head with a silent whistle. The receptionist blinked and pursed her lips, eventually stepping out of the booth and closer to the group. "Well, come this way," she beckoned. "I don't know what's so important that you had to do a stupid thing like that, but nobody's using the break room at this hour. We'll find something to get you warm."
"As a matter of fact, I do have urgent business," Gerardo replied, falling into step behind her. "It is imperative that I speak with Chancellor Dior as soon as possible."
"Flying here at night because you're not important enough to take the transit, but thinking you can just get a meeting with the leader of Ironridge, hmm?" The mare looked back over her shoulder as she walked, face somewhere between chastising and amused. "You're nothing but guts. I don't know whether to feel happy or sorry for your friends, here."
Slipstream didn't respond, but Howe did a little jig, flashing her a winning smile.
"Well," she muttered, pushing open an out-of-the-way side door that led to a slightly less decorated corridor, "no matter how you slice it, he's still in a meeting and won't be done for thirty minutes. No matter how urgent it is, you've got time to sit down and make sure you don't kill yourselves. Never underestimate the power of the mountains."
She shook her head, turning again to the side and opening into a small room furnished with plush benches, a large stock of cupboards and space for preparing food. "Wait here," she added.
Gerardo uneasily sat. While the mare's words weren't encouraging, and she had more or less said he wouldn't be able to see Dior, they were being treated with a surprising amount of hospitality for effectively bypassing a system designed to limit access. Granted, there had been a road leading away from the tower, but who knew where that went? The griffon was all for accepting good luck as it came, but there were too many potential catches, too many conditions and asusmptions that might fail.
In no time at all, the receptionist was back, three steaming mugs balanced on coasters on her back. "I hope you're fine with cocoa," she said, positioning herself so that they could be easily taken.
Greedily, Slipstream seized hers in trembling wings and hugged it to her chest fluff, absorbing as muh warmth as it had to offer. Gerardo merely appreciatively sipped his. "Thank you, miss...?"
The mare shook her head. "Marin. And don't fret it. Your friends looked cold, and it wouldn't do to let that go unhelped. Speaking of help, the Chancellor's workday is officially over after this meeting, but since you were so stubborn about getting here, I can ask him to take pity on you, if you like."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "In truth?"
Marin shrugged. "I've had a good day, and am in a good mood. Is there anything you'd like to say that I can tell him?"
"Erm... yes..." Gerardo hesitated. "Might I have paper and a quill? It is somewhat confidential, but I was assured he would understand. I would write this down, if at all possible..."
A quick trip to a cabinet drawer by Marin produced the required items. Neatly, Gerardo tore off a section with one talon, took up the quill, and wrote, 'Arambai.' Folding it thrice, he offered it to the mare. "If possible, this is for Dior's eyes alone," he added, hoping it wouldn't matter if she looked.
"Whatever you say. Wait here, again," she commanded. "Unless this meeting goes fast, it'll be a while." Turning, Marin exited the room, the door swinging shut behind her.
"Mmm..." Slipstream purred in her wake. "Hot cocoa..."
Gerardo was content to savor his, though a quick glance at the others told him they were doing a much better job of going slowly. Nervousness, he supposed. While the flight to the tower had been unpleasant and hardly his idea of a vacation climate, it was hardly intolerable, either. During the day, he could likely be outside for hours at a time with few ill effects. During a storm, though... he shuddered, and took another sip from his cocoa. Almost gone. Unfortunate.
Suddenly, Marin bustled back in, looking somewhat surprised. "The Chancellor says he will meet with you immediately," she announced. "You alone," she added, when Howe made to get up. "I don't know what you wrote in that paper, but congratulations, it has his attention."
"Well, this is unexpected." Gerardo drained the last of his drink, standing up. Really, it was perfectly expected, given what Arambai had said as they were leaving... If anything, things going well was what was unexpected. He set down the mug and turned to Marin. "After you, then?"
She nodded, and pushed her way back out into the hall.
Marin led Gerardo through several more corridors, coming to the base of an elevator. As its immaculate golden doors closed behind him and the ascent began, he let out a sigh of relief, only half because he was on his way to a guaranteed meeting with Dior. He had managed to ditch Howe... been given an excuse to, no less. If at all possible, he had no intention of returning through the lobby, leaving the pegasus to do something other than follow him.
That also meant leaving Slipstream, of course, and it hurt somewhat to repay her loyalty, pointless as it was, by leaving without an explanation. Hopefully she wouldn't hold it against him. Perhaps he could ask Marin to apologize for him...
The elevator slid to a stop, opening near the edge of the tower wall. It was another lobby... or perhaps a pointless show of space, dominated by a curved, crystalline window that stretched seamlessly from floor to ceiling, following the outer shell of the tower. It was reminiscent of the room high in Arambai's tower in Riverfall, with its panoramic view of the town, only this one faced all of Ironridge. High enough to see over the rim of the mountain wall, the lights of the Stone District glimmered below, and beyond them sporadic clusters in the Earth District, likely living settlements. Beyond those, Sosa.
His wing brushed against a plant that had been placed next to a cushy bench. It was warm enough in the tower for such things, almost hot, as if some planner or architect had decided that night should be just as warm as day. The wedge-shaped lobby was certainly well-lit, with the same kind of even, sourceless lamps that brightened the Skyport. Whether a property of the lights or an enchantment on the glass, no light was reflected, ensuring that the well-lit tower and dark nightscape provided optimal contrast.
Marin indicated a door to the side. "In here," she directed. "The Chancellor should be waiting for you. When you're finished, he'll have someone escort you back. I need to return to the entrance, now. Good luck, whatever your request." She turned, stepping back into the elevator. Quickly, the doors blocked her face from view, and a low hum announced her departure downward.
Gerardo shrugged, raised a talon, and rapped on the hard metal door.
"Come in."
The door slid open of its own accord. It wasn't an office, as Gerardo had been expecting, but a conference chamber, a long, rectangular table positioned with one end to the window, which continued for the width of the room. A single pony occupied it, sitting near but not at the end. He was small, with the chin and countenance of a mare, and a dark gray coat and orange mane and eyes that burned into Gerardo with their intensity. "Chancellor Dior, I presume?" Gerardo asked hesitantly.
"I am," Dior replied, lighting his horn with a golden aura and pulling out a chair across from him as an invitation. "And you're Gerardo, the griffon from Riverfall. I was told to expect you, though I didn't think Arambai meant so soon."
Sensing the stallion wanted to get quickly to the point, Gerardo wasted no further time with pleasantries. "My companions," he began. "Starlight and Maple, who recently joined me. While we were attempting to fulfill my delivery, we were attacked by members of the Defense Force, including a captain by the name of Selma. I was incapacitated, and I strongly believe them to have been taken captive."
"I see." Dior nodded slowly, keeping all four hooves beneath the table. "Where and why did they attack you?"
Gerardo gulped. "At the entrance to the Water District. I had been instructed to go there as a part of this job. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts we encountered some... hostile resistance."
Dior closed his eyes. "Arambai already gave you a speech on why you shouldn't put those two into danger, didn't he?"
"He did," Gerardo hesitantly admitted, "and I assure you, I took utmost care to-"
"You didn't." Dior stood, interrupting him. "I don't know the details on this job you were doing, but you didn't need to involve them. You could have done it on your own. I won't waste time telling you off, however. I have the safety of two ponies to see to. Good night."
The stallion paced around the table, heading for the door... though limped would be more accurate. As Gerardo watched, he heavily favored a foreleg, not carrying it but putting no weight on it either. The griffon was still blinking when Dior's horn flashed, prompting the room's door to slide open. The lights dimmed and went out as he left, and the door stayed open, waiting for the room's last occupant to exit.
"Well, that was certainly brisk," Gerardo muttered to nobody in particular. Getting up, he straightened his feathers and marched toward the door himself, rapidly sinking into thought. Dior had said he would handle things, and Gerardo had no doubt he could... but was it wise to trust him? For that matter, Selma had seemed like a less-than-legal pony. What if he was able to hide the existence of the incident? And precisely how long would Dior take, helping Maple and Starlight? Most importantly of all, there was almost no way he would recover the crates, and that was a problem. A problem that would require Gerardo's own intervention to solve...
He was abruptly shaken from his thoughts when the sound of sobbing reached his ears. Peering around, he stepped further into the windowed lobby, the conference room door sliding shut behind him. The sound told him to look backwards, and eventually he saw the source: on a bench closely guarded by two potted ferns, a unicorn awkwardly lay, a professionally-clad pegasus crying quietly into her chest. She stared blankly, looking through Gerardo, apparently just as deep in though as he was.
Blinking, Gerardo stopped, staring back. Something about the couple felt familiar, though he couldn't quite place where...
The unicorn's eyes focused in recognition. "Hey, Sharpie, look," she said cautiously, patting her companion's back. "I think it's that griffon we saw on the elevator on the way in, remember?"
"I wasn't paying attention..." Sharpie whimpered from the unicorn's fur.
"...Ah. Yes." Gerardo quickly composed himself, ensuring he was presentable. "I believe I recall you as well, now that you mention it." Bowing, he added, "My name is Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. A pleasure to make your acquaintances."
He wasn't entirely sure what purpose talking to the mares would serve, but Dior had left him on his own without so much as an escort, and it was this or return to the company of Howe. Besides, they had opened conversation and it would be rude to simply walk away.
"I'm Brightcoil," the unicorn replied with a tired look in her eyes. "And this is Sharpie. Nice to meet you, I guess. Sorry, but we're a little down right now..."
"You think?" the pegasus jabbed, raising her head just enough to stare at Gerardo with one pink eye. Sniffing, she added, "Had a productive meeting with our wonderful, almighty Chancellor?"
"I..." Gerardo hesitated. "Can't say that I got what I wanted, but..." He tilted his head. "Are you all right? It's somewhat unusual to see a grown mare crying so, after all, and much as I hate to intrude..."
Sharpie didn't answer, burying her face back in Brightcoil's coat and shaking anew. Brightcoil looked sadly down at her, then up to Gerardo. "She's an inspector for the government," she explained softly. "For the past two years, she's been building a case that the yaks are stealing huge amounts of money from Skyfreeze, and recently finished... but she's been trying to present it, and nobody will hear her. Every letter gets rejected, everything..." She hung her head. "Today, she got a meeting with the Chancellor in person, and I came with her to support her. We waited in line for over six hours... and he just dismissed her without even hearing the full story, like always." She rubbed Sharpie's back again as the pegasus heaved another sob. "It's a good thing I came. Two years of work, wasted..."
"I dedicated everything to this..." Sharpie hissed, lifting her head. "And they just threw me out like garbage... They deserve to lose that money! Screw them! Screw all of them!"
"I have some inkling of how you feel, myself," Gerardo replied, seating himself across from them. "A... project I have dedicated the last year of my life to has recently run into an untimely end at the hooves of the Defense Force, and all I got upon going to Dior for help was a rebuke. At best, he will clean up the fallout and leave me back where I began. At worst, well..." He sighed.
Sharpie sat up, smiling darkly. "The Defense Force, huh? If I had my way, I'd wipe that sham off the face of the district, just to spite them."
"Really?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "You have an issue with them as well?"
Clearing her throat, Sharpie sniffed one more time and launched into speech. "What I was investigating involves a weapons contract used for arming the Defense Force. It was set up to be funded by Skyfreeze and administered by the yaks, who chose to source Sosan goods. But the Defense Force is just an excuse. The weapon deliveries keep getting stolen before they reach the Stone District, and every time it happens, the yaks ask for the contract to be renewed, and Skyfreeze accepts because it makes work for Sosa and they don't want to stand up to the yaks. It's nothing but an endless cycle of waste, and nobody will lift a hoof to stop it..."
As she slumped back into Brightcoil's embrace, Gerardo took a moment to process the information, reconciling it with what he already knew. Most of it was merely assembled puzzle pieces he already possessed, but... "What do the yaks have to do with this? Isn't the Defense Force administered by the Sky District?"
Sharpie didn't speak. Brightcoil answered for her, saying, "When they first made the Defense Force, it was a community effort organized by the yaks because Skyfreeze wouldn't do anything about the bandits in the Earth District... real bandits, who stole food and money and hurt ponies, unlike these new ones. Eventually, they recognized the effort and officially sanctioned it and took it over. Chancellor Dior is the Defense Force commander in name, now, but it's just for show. Everything is still handled unofficially by the yaks. The real commanders are two ponies called Selma and Valey, who are paid by Skyfreeze but hired by and answer to the yak ambassador, Herman."
"Selma and Valey..." Gerardo whispered, feeling his eyes widen. "Most interesting. If I may, though, how does this profit the yaks? It sounds as if it merely results in Sosa becoming filled with weapons."
"It's obvious, if you look at the city's import-export charts between districts," Sharpie grumbled. "There's a lot of money going into Sosa because of this contract, but when the shipments never leave, you can't verify that they have the same net worth. It's a black spot on the records, a perfect place for criminals to smuggle money out before it even goes into production. And I've seen the Sosan trade carts; they make no effort to defend them. They're obviously complicit. But the yaks..." Her face tensed in a snarl, and she held it for nearly a second. "They set it up, clearly know what's going on, could stop it at any minute and have no other obvious benefit. Either Sosa's bribing them to keep this going, or they're getting extorted, and I hate it."
Blinking, Gerardo straightened his posture. "I... see. That does match my own, limited experience of Sosa. Well, seeing as I have nothing better I am capable of doing with my time, and we seem to have the kindred experience of being brushed off by the Chancellor, would it interest you to know that my own quest was interrupted by a run-in with Captain Selma in which he detained myself and my companions, stole my lawful possessions, attacked me for sport, and ultimately left me unconscious in the middle of the road?"
"My case is dead! It doesn't..." Sharpie started to sigh, then stopped, growling. "You know what? I don't care anymore. If you want to try catching the yaks and their stupid Defense Force money sink doing something illegal, go right ahead. There's no way you can put together anything that'll even scratch them... but if you want to try anyway, we'll help you, just to spite them."
Gerardo nodded. "I very much do wish to do something about this. What does your help entail, exactly?"
"Our residence is in the embassy compound." Slowly, Sharpie pushed herself away from Brightcoil and got to her hooves. "The offices are closed for business at this hour, but you can stay the night with us and meet with Herman first thing in the morning. We can get you a meeting for sure, at least."
"Sharpie, are you sure...?" Brightcoil hesitated, placing a questioning hoof on her shoulder.
Sharpie looked back. "You want to see them ruined too, don't you?"
"About staying with us, I mean," Brightcoil said, shuffling her hooves. "We only have one bed, and after today, well..."
Sensing where the conversation had the potential to go, Gerardo intercepted. "I am perfectly able to sleep on the floor, or even the roof if need be. Either way, your generosity is appreciated."
"You can sleep inside. We'll be fine." Sharpie straightened her outfit and looked toward the elevator. "It's getting late, and it's a long walk back through the skyport. We should be going if we want to be up before everyone else tomorrow. Come along."
Gerardo hesitated, falling into step regardless. Hopefully Slipstream wouldn't try to wait all night for him. Howe, he could care less. All night... "I do wish we could act earlier than morning, though," he remarked. "The less time elapses between now and when my friends and cargo are safe, the better."
"Too bad," Sharpie answered, a note of dryness to her voice, "because waking Herman at this hour is not a good way to get what you want. Besides, nothing ever happens during the night, anyway."
After an eternity of marching, Selma's guard convoy came to a halt. Maple shook herself back to alertness; he was carrying her at an unfortunate angle that caused her blood to rush to her head, making focusing hard. Nobody was speaking. Instead, they stood at a doorway, the blue stone of the corridor's natural walls abruptly parting before a slab of metal. A security console stood to the side, and Selma approached it, pulling out a card and sliding it into the machine. There was a click, a hazy green light lit up, and the door slid open.
The guards with the crates moved through first, Selma watching them lazily. Maple stole a glance at him, ensuring he wasn't looking her way, and then stared hungrily at the card key in its slot. A thing like that would be invaluable in an escape attempt, and half of it was sticking out of the machine...
Selma turned, subconsciously moving Maple along with his head's motion. She licked her lips as she passed the console, and stretched as hard as she could... and felt the tip of her tail brush along the surface where the card was. Success. So long as he didn't blame her when he inevitably noticed...
His aura tingled along the slot where the card had been, and out of the corner of her eye saw him stare suspiciously at it... and then at her. Pretending to be just as defeated as she had been for the duration of the trip, she slumped, acting as if she didn't even register the change in terrain. Two seconds passed, and then three... and he shrugged and looked away. Maple kept herself from breathing a sigh of relief as he moved through the door with her and let it shut behind him; apparently he was too proud to even ask the guards if they had seen it. Served him right.
The fortress was all metal from there, a grated floor covering a trench for pipes that no longer had to run along the ceiling. It really looked more industrial than military, almost like a control room or what she imagined to be the inside of a giant ship. Cool air rushed through the corridor with enough force that Selma tightened his aura to prevent her from blowing out; either the tunnels were excellently ventilated or were ventilation ducts themselves.
On the walls, occasional support beams ran vertical, a mixture of pipes and reinforced crinkles in the metal plating designed to keep them from buckling. Maple's tale swished against several, and she entertained the idea of grabbing hold and yanking herself out of the captain's grasp. It remained a fantasy, however, as the reality was there would be nothing she could do even if she succeeded.
Several turns and a few more open rooms later, they came to another door, this time not requiring a card reader.
Selma flicked a lever, and it slid open. Beyond, a dim, tall natural cavern formed, a forest of pipes running floor to ceiling. "Leave the crates here," he commanded. "And then do whatever you will. I have some words for the prisoner I want to share in private. Make it quick!"
The guards hastily deposited the crates at the back of the room, where they blended in with a host of other random materials likely left in storage. Then they scuttled out... and with a pulse of magic from Selma's horn, the door slid closed, and he and Maple were alone.
"I see the way you're looking at me," Selma said lowly, the light of his horn the only source of illumination in the room. Turning Maple so that she faced him, he continued, "Unfair, you think. Cheater. Lawbreaker. Scoundrel, even. Amusingly enough, what I don't see is liar."
Sturdy ropes snaked out of the shadows, led by his aura, and Maple quickly found herself vertical, back pressed to a pipe, hind hooves barely able to touch the ground. "Because," Selma whispered, "I lied. I knew Gerardo was coming, sooner or later. I knew about his job, his delivery. And I have a very good idea of what's in those precious crates... and their contents are dangerous." He shook his head. "Think I was unfair, aggressive, or picking a fight all you want. But what I am is the protector of all of Ironridge... and this was a threat that had to be dealt with."
He leaned in closer, the illumination of his own horn casting unnatural shadows on his face. "You're obviously not from around here, so I'll let you in on another secret. Ironridge isn't like the rest of the world. In Ironridge, it's kill or be killed... and I am not afraid to play dirty to win. Nobody cares how nice you were after you're dead."
Maple gasped as the ropes constricted around her chest. "If you knew it was just him, then... ugh! Then why did you arrest me?"
"Because you dropped a brick on my head," Selma growled. "I didn't say I wasn't petty and vengeful. Now you're going to stay down here until those crates are no longer a danger to me and my city... and then I just might let you go." He smiled in the dim light. "I do have a soft spot for pretty faces, after all. Such a shame you had to get caught up in the wrong crowd. In fact... how did you come to be associated with that griffon?"
Maple glared back at him. "Leave me alone! I don't care what your reason is, and I'm not telling you! You're a jerk!" She wanted to add and my filly is out there, but strongly felt his attention didn't need to be drawn to that.
Selma shrugged. "I can do that, too. In fact, until this random headache clears, I might just forget about you altogether. But that won't be a problem." He prodded twice at her exposed belly with a curious hoof. "You look well-nourished. I'm sure missing a meal or two won't hurt."
"Don't touch me!" Maple hissed, trying and failing to lean away.
"Once again, your loss," Selma said, turning away. Freed from his aura, Maple sagged in her restraints. "Warning you about your griffon's goals... giving you a free excuse to part ways with him... you could always see this as an act of favor, or generosity. If you benefit nothing from this, you have only yourself to blame. Good night, pony."
The door closed behind him, sending the room into total darkness. Maple's fuzzy ears twitched, listening to the echoing vibrations of his retreating hoofsteps... and then her cutie mark activated, pocketing the ropes that bound her to the pipe. She dropped back onto all fours, plus one rope and a card key, briefly massaging the spot Selma had jabbed as if his touch left a stain that could be wiped away. It was time to find her filly and make sure she was safe.
Within the darkness of her crate, Starlight huddled. The stallion carrying her had set her down - roughly - and everything was still, except for Selma's muffled voice which she could somewhat make out. It probably would have been easier if her ears were in workable positions instead of mashed against her head, but she could get tone, at least.
There was a faint hiss... and suddenly, the voices stopped. Carefully, Starlight lit her horn, feeling it buzz against the metal pressing on it. Her field expanded, stretching outside the box, using the same scanning spell she had used to discover the cavity outside. There were many tall, hollow objects... pipes? And assorted junk, laying on the ground... but no ponies. No, that wasn't right. There was one pony, or at least something soft and breathing, in a very un-ponylike position against one of the pipes.
Maple. It had to be. Closing her eyes against the blackness, Starlight's horn shone harder, until with a flash, the interior of the crate was pony-less once again.
She materialized on the floor, head swimming, horn instantly going dim. The stone floor clacked against her old horseshoes, refitted for the journey after not being worn in Riverfall, and she staggered to catch her balance. Shaking her head, she blinked once... and again. It was just as dark as it had been in the box. Had she somehow gone blind, or were there just no lights? Struggling, she lit her horn.
Flash! It strobed slightly brighter than she had expected, causing her eyes to be forced closed and her headache to worsen. But as she shook, waiting to recover, she heard a gasp... and the sound of hooves running over. "Starlight? Starlight, was that you!?"
Was that Maple's voice? Forcing her horn to the bare minimum level of illumination, she cracked an eye... and her newly-adoptive mother was carefully running toward her, on the ground and completely unrestrained. She blinked, headache momentarily forgotten. "Huh?"
"Starlight..." Maple reached a hoof out as if testing to see that the filly was really there, shock and gladness mingling in her voice. "How did you get here?" she whispered, drawing a hoof around Starlight's back and pulling her into an embrace. "I thought they abandoned you with Gerardo..."
"I teleported..." Starlight moaned, slightly nauseous and once again glad she was hungry. "There was room in one of the crates, so I hid and came out when I heard them leave. My horn hurts..."
"Then put it out," Maple said gently, tapping it with a hoof and immediately flinching. "Ooh, that's hot. I can't imagine how it feels..."
She obliged, and the room went dark. Dark, but not cold, because Maple was hugging her... and as the seconds ticked past, she could feel the mare beginning to shake. "I was going to come find you," Maple eventually sniffed. "I was going to tear this fortress apart if I had to. I wasn't going to leave either of us alone... But now that you're here, what can we do? We have to get out, but I don't want to take any more risks. Anything that could get you taken away again..."
"Then don't do anything," Starlight mumbled. "I need to rest first. I can sneak past anything when I have magic, but right now my horn feels like cheese."
"Hmmm..." Maple exhaled, softly holding Starlight against her. "Did you hear what that villain was saying, while you were in the crate? When he was talking, right before he left?"
"No..." Starlight groaned.
Maple sighed. "He tried to convince me that Gerardo's delivery was something that would harm Ironridge, and that he was doing me a favor by getting me away from him. I think he wanted to win me over, but he was terrible at it. But either way..." Starlight felt her tense in the darkness. "Starlight, I don't... I don't know if it's safe here, any more. What happens if we do escape, and then have all of the Defense Force thinking we're criminals? We could run into them again, and... I think we should go home. Back to Riverfall, where it is safe. I know things got a little tense for you there, at the end, but..."
"We shouldn't have to leave because Gerardo got us in trouble," Starlight protested. "Not if you want to stay! We're just normal ponies. Why should they have anything against us?"
"Because we got involved in something we shouldn't have gotten involved in," Maple said bitterly. "I don't know, maybe I should have gone along with Selma and done whatever he wanted. If I had known you would be safe, I would have for sure... and who knows what Gerardo's up to now, by himself? He's probably getting himself into even more trouble, and if we want to associate with him at all we'll be in it, too. And that's not counting ponies like Howe..."
Starlight thought for a moment, which grew easier as her head progressively cleared. Her horn still hurt, but it was no longer debilitating. "We could go to the Earth District," she offered. "That pegasus we had lunch with said the guards don't go down there. I bet a lot of ponies live there."
"We could..." Maple mused, shifting so that she was sitting beside Starlight instead of across from her. "Of course, we'd go there anyway if we were going back to Sosa to look for the boat. But instead of just passing through..." She paused. "Okay. Once we get out of this place, we go to the Earth District, and if things get better, we can stay for a while, or keep going and find Gunga and his ship."
"We have something to do in the Earth District anyway, remember?" Starlight added. "When we were leaving, Willow's husband asked us to go find some ponies."
"I didn't remember..." Maple slowly gasped. "He gave me an address, didn't he? I still have it in here somewhere. He wanted us to apologize, that's right... Didn't he say something else, too?"
"Something about staying away from graveyards at night," Starlight recalled. "I think? In Sosa?"
"Mmm... that sounds familiar..." Maple murmured in agreement. "How's your horn feeling?"
"It still hurts." Starlight sniffed in emphasis. It wasn't that bad, but if it was a question of whether they should leave yet... "Shouldn't we wait here a while, for all the guards to go to bed?"
"I'm not sure how long that is, though," Maple admitted. "Hmmm... I don't want to fall asleep to pass the time. After all that, I'm not even sure I could. How about you?"
"I'm not tired," Starlight lied. Maple couldn't see it, but her eyelids were already closed, and she desperately wanted to imagine that they were laying together in a fluffy bed instead of a cold stone dungeon. "We should wait longer."
Maple shifted slightly against her. "What did being in those crates feel like, anyway?"
"Cramped." Starlight's ears burned from the memory... or more likely, they were still bruised from being mashed at such heavy angles. "Hard to breathe. It made me glad I was small."
"No, I mean..." Maple hesitated. "Did it feel dangerous? Like something that could hurt an entire city? I kind of want to open the crates to see what's inside, since it didn't seem to hurt you..."
"Parts. Machine parts. Metal ones."
"That doesn't sound dangerous," Maple commented. "Unless they were for a weapon, or something. Or maybe it's an economic danger, like how the airships replaced water ones."
"Or maybe he was lying," Starlight dryly retorted. "Should we try to take the crates with us when we leave? I might be able to carry one in my magic..."
"Now that sounds dangerous," Maple said softly, tail twitching against Starlight's. "Wouldn't it be hard on your magic? They're heavy enough that I get tired, carrying them myself."
Starlight frowned. "Well, if they're that dangerous, we can't just let these guards have them, and if they aren't, we need to get them back to Gerardo!"
"Do we?" Maple asked sharply. "Think about it, do we? I'm not very happy with him right now, since he brought us along for this instead of leaving us sleeping in our hotel room! And you were worried about him earlier, weren't you? He's our friend, but... I'm not sure if I want to go that far out of my way to help him now. Or more importantly, put you through that much. And if we do get them, he's just going to have us try to deliver them again..."
"Well..." Starlight bit her lip, thinking of a counter. "But what about the guards, then? What if they are dangerous, and he wants them for something?"
"He said he wanted to destroy them," Maple said hesitantly. "I think... But maybe... I don't know. I'm sorry, Starlight, I don't know what to do..."
"Use your cutie mark," Starlight offered. "We open them, find the piece that looks the most important, and take just it and hide it. That way, if they're bad, they won't work. Right?"
Maple slowly inhaled. "That... actually could work. Do you know how to open them? Usually, I use a crowbar for supplies for my store, but I didn't pack one of those..."
Starlight nodded. "I've opened crates with my magic before. I just need to wait for my horn to feel better. It shouldn't be too long."
"Just don't push yourself," Maple gently cautioned. "We have all night, if you need to sleep, and can. I won't be going anywhere. I'll be right here, by your side..."
"...All right," Starlight said after a lengthy wait. "My horn doesn't hurt as much. Should we open the crates now?"
Maple yawned. "If you think you're able. But please don't push yourself, okay?"
Starlight's horn lit, providing the first illumination either pony had seen in over an hour. As it brightened in intensity, she winced, a single errant spark flying off into the distance, but she held solid. Her aura filled the inside of the first box, pressing up against the top from within, the same as she had opened the crates in Sosa the explorer's camp in the mountains. There was a dry creaking, accompanied by the bending of nails... and the lid cracked. With the tension in the air as Starlight slid it off, it would have been entirely appropriate for the box to give off a shower of dust as the contents were revealed, as if it was an ancient relic unearthed by an archaeology dig.
She hopped up on the rim and peered in, and her face scrunched. "What is this?"
Maple trotted closer, craned her neck, and joined her. "I don't have any idea..."
The contents of the box did resemble machine parts, true to Starlight's earlier prediction. But rather than any sort of metal she had ever seen, large areas of them were hewn from what appeared to be black glass. As her hoof passed over them, they briefly lit up with faint, complex blue runes that seemed to be shining from within the substance. She reached in and pulled one out.
"These are strange," Maple whispered, examining the object in Starlight's grasp. "They look kind of like... mirrors? Magical ones... I wonder if they reflect magic."
"This one's curved," Starlight commented, holding another out. "And this one looks like a lens..."
Maple leaned over the edge, rummaging further. "There are some normal-looking things in here too, but not many. It's mostly these weird black things, and packing to keep them from breaking in- oh!"
She straightened up, clutching an orb roughly the size of a newborn foal's head. It had a vaguely geometric surface, and was clear all the way through, save for a teal prism at the very core. Suspended throughout the outer shell were flakes of gold leaf, oriented as if the sphere was constructed of infinitely many layers and they were sandwiched between, large enough to have more tiny runes burnt into their surfaces but not so large as to obscure the view of the center. "This looks important, don't you think?" Maple asked, beaming.
"Yeah..." Starlight slowly nodded, mouth suddenly filled with an unpleasant taste. No matter what angle she tilted her head at, it felt as if there was something important about the ball she couldn't quite see, as if the shininess was merely a distraction, or that it was lying to her and enjoying it. "It looks important."
The orb disappeared. "Well, it's what we're taking with us, then," Maple said, straightening her shoulders and giving a satisfied sigh. "Now, should we try to make it look like we haven't been in these?"
Two pulses of magic were all it took, one to float the removed parts back in, and one to hammer the lid carefully back in place. Starlight snorted and turned around, the door to the chamber standing temptingly on the other side. "Are you ready?"
"Ready?" Maple asked with a grin that was half nervous, half eager. "To escape from this awful fortress and do something normal with my life? You bet I'm ready."
In an abandoned fortress corridor, blowing with ventilated wind and lit brightly should the night shift deem it worth a visit, a teal aura flickered. It stretched, expanding, feeling for signs of traps or ponies... and, finding none, homed in on an inconspicuous lever on the wall. Flick! Swishhh! A door slid open.
Maple stepped out, Starlight tensely astride her back. The duo carried no crates, immediately looking both ways to ensure the magical scan hadn't missed anything. Eventually, they silently selected a direction, and Maple took off, moving at a swift walk with silent hooffalls.
Ceiling lights occasionally strobed, due to age, faulty wiring or something else. They blended with the flickering of Starlight's horn, the filly constantly recasting her detection spell, a single bead of sweat running down her brow. No ponies ahead. Don't turn right. Keep going. She wordlessly guided her steed with nudges and tugs, focus taut and unwavering.
They pulled to a halt at a T-junction, Maple pressing herself upright into the cover of a wall pipe as two guards lazily wandered past. Undetected. Success.
Starlight steered them right; the direction from which the guards had come. Momentarily, the passage widened and they entered what seemed to be an empty break room, furnished with several posters, a bean bag chair, a refrigerator and a table holding an unfinished game of cards. The filly sniffed, pointing to a used coat rack. "There's money in the pockets of the green one," she whispered.
Maple adamantly shook her head. "We are not criminals," she whispered back. "Actually robbing them will just make it harder to get our names cleared if we ever get the chance. Opening those crates was bad enough! Now which way do we go?"
Scanning again, Starlight pointed to an empty doorway. "That one. The other's a bathroom."
Rushing onward, they rounded a bend and immediately encountered an incline. "Good," Maple whispered, beginning her ascent. "The guards went down a lot taking us there. This is the right way."
"Be careful," Starlight warned as they charged upwards, "the next room's big. I can't feel it all."
The next room was, as she had predicted, very big. Fortunately, it was another storage room, and the mess of crates covering the floor provided almost constant cover, if Starlight kept her scanning active. It had such a low ceiling, though, that it was impossible to see how far it truly stretched, or to pinpoint exits. A crystalline column that might have been an elevator shaft stretched some distance away, and numerous support pillars in uniform arrangement kept the metal ceiling from falling in.
Slowly, one at a time, they darted between crates, keeping the wall constantly at their backs so as not to be flanked. After ten or so jumps, by the time their entrance had faded from sight, Starlight called a halt. "I need to stop," she whimpered. "My horn hurts again."
"Okay..." Maple bit her lip. "Let's just find a place to hide, then, and we can rest. Hmmm..."
Her eyes scanned the room manually, quickly spotting a large crate placed at an angle against the wall. Perfect. The crevice it provided would cover their sides and back, leaving them only one direction to keep watch in, and nobody could see them without nearly touching the wall. Eagerly, she trotted toward it, pausing just long enough to ensure that it was empty... and it was. With a sigh of relief, she trotted in and lowered herself to let Starlight down.
The filly slipped off. "Okay," Maple whispered, "okay... I think we're good to rest here for-"
"Who's there!?"
Maple froze, pressing herself as far against the wall as she could while still staying in front of Starlight. But Starlight slipped in front of her regardless, horn lit violently even as the action made her eyes water.
"Who's there?" the voice repeated, closer to pure alarm than aggression. "I-I-I mean it..."
Hesitation. A newer guard, perhaps? Maple crouched as well, readying to produce her remaining ingot as a weapon at an instant's notice if need be.
"Dry, if you're trying to bust me again for slacking off, I swear I will-" The guard trotted into sight, well out of ingot range, confusion suddenly spreading on his face. "What the...? Hey, you girls aren't Defense Force..."
Before Maple could even move, Starlight's horn went out, and the filly gasped. "A guard!" she squeaked, voice sounding uncharacteristically helpless. "Mister, w-we've been... we were invited on a tour, but we got separated and lost, a-and..." She darted forward, wrapping her forelimbs around his armored leg, much to his surprise. "Please help us! The last two ponies we saw just ignored us, and I'm tired and hungry and we might never get out!"
Maple watched Starlight's uncharacteristic display in silence, nodding along, the shock from seeing her filly acting like that the only thing strong enough to keep her from accidentally breaking the charade. Starlight was staring up at the big pegasus with wide, teary eyes, still freshly wet from focusing her horn the instant before, though in the moment they looked anything but.
"I, uhhh..." The guard hesitated, taking a step back and freeing himself from Starlight. "You guys sure about that? You're not spies or anything, trying to catch me doing... uhh... what I wasn't just doing?"
"We're lost," Maple added, working up the confidence that she wouldn't say something ruinous to Starlight's act. "Please, at this point we're just desperate to get outside. Can you help us?"
The guard wasn't arresting them on the spot, and his suspicion of them had nothing at all to do with why they were actually there. Maple seized onto the kernel of hope that came with it, refusing to let it die.
"Uhhh..." the guard repeated, scanning them up and down with his eyes, a pair of wingblades hanging folded at his sides. "So you two were on a tour... and you got left behind... but I don't remember anything about us giving tours, especially to unicorns." He pointed a wing at Starlight. "Might be Sosans, trying to sneak in for an attack. That's what they say, at least. No Sosan would actually be that dumb. They're smart little rats, they are..." Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Hey, this tour of yours didn't have anything to do with a pony called Valey, did it?"
Maple glanced at Starlight, and was barely able to stop herself from cringing. The guard saw it anyway... and smiled gently. "Oh, well, that explains everything, then! She probably brought you in off the record and ditched you as a prank. Don't feel bad, she's like that to everyone." He reached out and patted Starlight's head. "Sure, I'll help you out. Dunno why we even keep someone like that around in the first place, let alone let her do whatever she wants. That menace is even worse than the Sosans. Oh well. Keeps us on our hooves, at least..." He sighed heavily. "Closest exit's this way. Follow me, hope she's not haunting you now, and you'll be just fine in no time."
Gratefully, Maple fell into step behind the guard, ever so slightly in awe of Starlight's emergency acting. That was the kind of thing she should be doing to keep the filly safe, not the other way around. Making a mental note that once her shock and adrenaline wore off, she would almost definitely have a panic attack, she let herself draw away from the wall, entering back into the maze of crates and boxes.
The guiding wall faded from sight as the guard led Maple and Starlight deeper into the maze of crates that made up the storage room. Unlike their earlier prison, it lacked a high, natural ceiling, reducing visibility to nearly zero. It wasn't incomparable to walking through fog, if that fog was made of boulders.
Maple and Starlight scurried side-by-side, the filly no longer choosing to ride. Her horn was at its limit, and if the guard turned out to not be as helpful as she hoped... well, if there were two of them, at least one would be able to get away. The thought was morbid to the point of being unusable, but it wasn't doing what felt nice that had gotten him to help them in the first place. Fortunate, she thought, that she had come to accept long ago how rarely her comfort could be a priority.
Weaving right and left, they passed crates that had been unprofessionally deposited without rhyme on reason, a strange job for an elite military organization... but exactly what she would expect from a militia held together by a common cause and a leader's charisma. It didn't take Starlight long to decide that was where the Defense Force belonged, and her lip nearly curled at the thought of being abducted by such ponies. Without adherence to rules, things became unfair. And while unfairness was too common for her not to tolerate, it would never, ever be accepted.
The guard wandered through the storage room as if he had lived his entire life among the crates, however, displaying the same kind of navigational ability that had fascinated Starlight when she first moved to Riverfall. Soon, the crystalline shaft she had seen when they first arrived - or another exactly like it - faded into view.
"Elevator," the guard casually explained, confirming their initial suspicions. "You girls want the shortest way out, right?"
Maple nodded gratefully. "We'd like that very much!"
"Guess we're going up, then," the guard said, sliding open the door and waving a forelimb. "After you."
They stepped in, and he followed, pressing a button that caused the elevator to begin its ascent. The ceiling quickly scrolled past, and then they were surrounded by blue stone, the only illumination a tiny manalight at the top of their cylinder.
The guard hesitated as they rose, looking as if he was pondering whether or not to make small talk. Starlight hoped he wouldn't. He did.
"So, uhhhh... what were you girls doing?" he asked slowly. "That led to getting a bad tour?"
"We're tourists," Starlight answered, hoping to say enough to dodge the question without making anything more up on the spot. "Here visiting a friend."
"Oh. Huh." A floor slid past, and they kept rising. "Where are you from normally?"
"A city of llamas," Starlight lied, stealing a story Gerardo had told in Riverfall and hoping it was accurate. "I don't know what it's called, because they change the name every day."
"Really?" The guard raised an eyebrow, and another floor passed. "I heard about that once. Is it really-"
BRRRRRNNNG! BRRRRRNNNG!
He was interrupted by an ear-splitting siren that caused both Maple and Starlight to cower in panic. A second later, the pale blue manalight illuminating the elevator turned blood-red, and a magical voice blared to life on a hidden intercom. "Armed intrusion detected on B87 floor. All guards report."
The guard's ears folded, and he glared up at the discolored lighting. "Oh boy, whoever pulled that alarm is in a world of hurt. Don't worry," he added, nodding down to the stricken Maple and Starlight. "Selma outlawed drills after midnight, so it has to be someone fooling-"
"Repeat: armed intrusion detected on B87 floor. All guards report. This is not a drill. We are under attack."
"Well... icicles," the guard spat, immediately punching another button. The lift jerked to a halt, stopping flush with another floor, its door sliding open. "I have to handle this," he grumbled, pointing outward, wingblades at his sides rattling. "B87 floor is far down from here, so you girls aren't in danger; don't worry. Wait here until you get the elevator, then go three floors up. Get out, take a right at the first intersection, and you'll be outside in the blink of an eye. Now hurry up, I have to go!"
He shoved them hastily, if gently, out of the elevator, and it immediately closed behind them, dropping out of sight. An In Use sign flickered on the console beside the entrance.
Starlight and Maple both tripped, landing on their chests in front of the shaft. "Oomph!" Maple grunted as she impacted the ground.
Starlight hissed, more from annoyance than pain, though she was hardly comfortable. Scrambling to her hooves, she glared at the console, then the empty shaft, the chain running through it descending at a rapid rate. "Hey!" She banged on the glass. "Don't... ugh!"
Dejected, she slumped, eventually feeling Maple's hoof on her shoulder. "What?"
"I..." Maple bit her lip. "I don't know. I don't know what to do..."
The red emergency lighting that flooded the room shone darkly on her coat as she stood over Starlight. Around them, the room seemed largely disused, one dilapidated steel panel partially detached from the ceiling. A few metal-lined corridors and one of bare stone snaked away, but most of the room was filled with old foals' toys and discarded medical equipment. At least half of the lights weren't working, period.
Behind them, the elevator chain stopped moving for several seconds... and then began its descent again. It had stopped to let more guards on, presumably.
Maple's stomach loudly growled, causing Starlight's ear to flick, and she hugged herself. "I wish I had brought food..." she whimpered. "Who knows how long we'll have to wait for this thing...?"
Starlight was hungry too, but she said nothing, sensing that it would make Maple feel even worse. The chain stopped again, and she snorted. Was it really smartest to sit around doing nothing? It wasn't like there were any guards left that high up. If there had been, they would have ran into them waiting for the elevator already. Still, it might have been wise to hide... but that was doing nothing, too. Hooves moving of their own accord, she wandered toward the corridors leading away, instinctively drawn to the single stone one. Perhaps there was something useful she could find.
"Starlight?" Maple called softly, watching her go.
"I won't go far," Starlight answered. "Not out of sight. But maybe there's something I can find."
She could feel the reluctance radiating off Maple even with her back turned, and almost considered it would be a better use of her time to stay and comfort the mare. But danger wasn't abolished through hugging and hiding, and neither was being lost, hungry, or possibly hunted... even if their hunters did have bigger things to worry about. Following her hooves, she trotted down the long, straight corridor, until in the distance... She squinted. Was that another elevator shaft?
"Starlight!" Maple's voice called softly from behind her. "The elevator is coming back up!"
Whipping around, Starlight kicked into a canter. Of course they would get a chance the moment she left. Wasn't that how the world always worked? Maybe she should have left sooner.
"Starlight, look!" Maple was beckoning at the chain as she re-entered the room, and it was definitely rolling its way up. But even as she watched, it stopped... before moving downward once again. "The elevator is... Oh."
"There's another one over there," Starlight snorted, pointing a hoof down the stone corridor. "I didn't see if it was in use. We could try it?"
Maple shrugged. "Well, it's better than not trying?"
Starlight nodded. "Let's go!"
The elevator shaft stood empty, its console looking older than the sleek, previous one. It was rectangular instead of cylindrical, and significantly larger, enough that it was likely meant for cargo instead of personnel. Why anyone would turn a room directly connected to a pony elevator into storage space when something like this was so close by was beyond Starlight, but it didn't matter. What was important was that no dangling chains were visible, and there wasn't an In Use sign anywhere to be seen.
Maple peered at the console, and Starlight looked over her shoulder. "These buttons..." Maple mused. "I've never used anything like this, but I bet this one is 'up'..."
"This one is in the middle," Starlight pointed out, hoof hovering over another. "Maybe it makes it come to you?"
Maple pressed it. "Well, let's find out!"
Seconds passed. They would have given up and tried another, if not for the sudden, delayed presence of the usage sign... and then, after a heraldic grinding of gears, the large, boxy elevator car descended into place, its double-doors sliding open.
"Yes!" Maple beamed. "Good job, Starlight!"
Starlight nodded, moving to stand in the elevator. "So we go up three floors," she recited.
"Hmmm..." Maple rubbed her chin. "Do you think that means we press up three times? Let's try it..."
After a quick succession of jabs, a warning light lit up, and Maple scurried into the elevator after Starlight. A short moment later, the doors closed, and the elevator began to rise.
"Well, that worked," Maple said, wiping her brow as the previous floor disappeared from view. Another soon scrolled past, and she beamed when the elevator didn't stop. "We did it!"
"Yeah," Starlight said dully, not wanting to waste energy chatting now that waiting was actually productive. She did move to sit by Maple, however, leaning into her soft, if dusty, coat. "Almost there..."
The second floor passed by, and Maple nudged Starlight's horn. "How are you feeling?"
"Mmph."
"Any better? Anything I can do?"
The third floor moved into view... and the elevator didn't stop, continuing to rise. Any serenity that had allowed itself to build up was instantly lost as Maple flew to her hooves, looking for a way to stop the ride. Unlike the earlier one, however, it completely lacked an internal control panel, and their ascent continued unabated.
"Starlight..." Maple whined, shaking. "Starlight! I set it wrong! I don't know what to do!"
Starlight's eyes were fixed on the elevator entrance, where a fourth floor should have been passing by... but instead, there was only blue stone, flowing downwards like a waterfall. As Maple's breathing sped up behind her, she flicked her tail once against the ground. "I think," she said as the next floor continued to fail to show, "we just wait..."
Starlight had lost count of how many exitless floors had passed by. Ten? Thirty? A hundred? The rational side of her brain knew that, when traveling upward from below the ground, one would eventually reach the surface, but she was a unicorn, not meant for flight and unused to thinking in vertical distances. For all she knew, they were nearing the peaks of the mountains.
Crawling to a stop, its double-doors slid open, revealing more blue stone. The chamber was jagged and cavelike, massive iron bulwarks reinforcing it where it might otherwise crumble. Rather than doors and passages, some of the walls simply melded into adjacent rooms, as if someone had carved house-sized pockets in the stone at random and they had happened to intersect. The only light came from blue-burning iron torches set into sconces high on the walls, and a deep chill permeated the stagnant air, causing Starlight to flinch and move slightly closer to Maple.
"I don't think we should be here," she murmured, put on edge by the area's ominous architecture. "Maple? This place is creepy."
Maple nodded mutely.
Sticking her head out around the edge of the elevator doors, Starlight saw another control panel, and perked as hard as her tired body would allow. "Should we go back down and try again?"
"N-No!" Maple shot a hoof out to pull her back, stammering. "Starlight, what if it takes us back down even further than we started? We don't know how the controls work, and there are a lot of guards down there...!"
"And somepony attacking the fortress," Starlight muttered. "But what should we do, then? We won't find any food in here and we're just going to get even more lost wandering around! Does this look like a maze or doesn't it?" She folded her forelegs. "It's cold, too."
"I'm sorry..." Tensely, Maple nuzzled her, eyes moist. "I don't know why I didn't think to pack at least some food! It's big, heavy and spoils quickly, and I thought we could buy some when we were here..."
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "What do you have?"
"Umm..." Maple hesitated. "Money, raincoats, some ballast, a few small things like our hotel key, a rope, and Selma's card key. I stole the last two." She hung her head. "And the card, I don't even know how to use..."
Starlight sighed. "So you just want to walk around until we find some stairs back down?"
"Yes. I..." Maple shuffled her hooves, standing up and taking one step toward the elevator door. "That might be the safest..."
Frowning, Starlight watched her take another. Very likely, they were up so high that there wouldn't even be a staircase back down, and all they would succeed in doing was tiring themselves out more. Her horn was useless, maybe good for one concentrated burst of magic at best, and that would probably knock her out for the rest of the night. They had no food, no bedding, and to say the catacombs they stood in looked poorly-traveled would have been a generous complement.
At the same time, Maple seemed to be giving up. Starlight was used to surviving on scant resources in poor conditions, and if nothing else knew how to hang on to her determination and grit. Her adoptive mother, though, especially given her history...
They might have to take a gamble, more for Maple's sake than anything. Starlight strolled out of the elevator, peering carefully at the control panel. It looked ancient, and every button was unlabeled, but if they were going to try again, better to be as prepared as possible. She was just looking sideways, trying to figure out if a cross-shaped button meant 'add more floors', Maple peering worriedly over her shoulder... when with a mechanical rattle, the elevator doors slid closed, and it descended of its own accord, having been apparently summoned from below.
"Well," Starlight grumbled dryly, "it looks like we're looking for stairs."
Starlight led the way through the dungeon-like caves of the upper Water District, her earlier predictions of the place being a maze having been proven sadly correct. Exacerbating the random placement of side paths and empty rooms was the overwhelming sameness of it all: everywhere she looked, the same jagged, stalactite-ridden midnight-blue stone, with the same massive, black iron support structures and utter lack of furnishing. Worst of all, the elevation remained so constant, it was as if the cave floor had once been liquid and left to cool in place. They were making no headway up or down, and that showed no signs of changing.
"I think we might be lost..." Maple whimpered for the tenth time. Starlight's ears folded.
"Ohhh, we shouldn't have stayed up here..." Fretting, she following closely behind the filly. "I should have let us go back down! I shouldn't have been impatient to wait for the first elevator! And why couldn't I have packed food? What was I thinking, why-"
"Stop." Starlight spun, lifting a hoof to the mare's mouth, an easy feat when she carried her head inches from the ground. "I'm fine. I've done this before. Don't worry about me." Her stomach gave a treacherous growl, and she ignored it. "You should be worried about yourself, instead! I'm worried about you! Because you're worrying instead of trying to survive!"
She looked away, and continued. "Maple... M-Mom... It doesn't matter whether we will or won't find our way out, because that hasn't happened yet. Right now, you can't think about what's going to happen or what already happened, or you'll stop thinking about right now and then you won't make it!" Expending precious energy stomping a hoof, Starlight lowered her head and added, "And I don't like seeing you give up..."
Maple stared at her, mouth slightly ajar. "Starlight..."
Starlight felt her cheeks burn. Had she really just yelled at Maple? More importantly, had she really just presumed to know better? To be her superior? For them to be different, just because she had crossed the mountains and Maple hadn't? Besides, it wasn't a thing she liked to think about, but the memory of Amber's stinging hoof from the last time that had happened...
Wait. She took a deep breath; something was off. It was hard to be sure, thanks to her emotions and body getting in the way, but it had felt as if the tiniest gust of warm air brushed against her. Sniffing heavily, she thrust her brain into the coldest focus, tuning everything else out in the name of detecting heat. Because where there was heat...
She sniffed once, then again in a different direction, head held high. That was a lesson she had learned long ago, when she still attended school in Equestria: warm air rose, and cool air sank. There, in the high-ceilinged caves, it would be hard to feel anything warm on the ground, but if there was... it had to have risen from somewhere, which meant a way down. She took a few paces and sniffed again.
"Starlight?" Maple asked, voice slightly more sober. "What are you doing?"
"Finding a way out," Starlight answered confidently, locking on to a passage and striding forward, constantly sniffing the air and searching for any traces that didn't burn cold against her tired lungs.
"Well," Maple said nervously, "this is certainly a way down..."
They had come across their first real door in ages, completely unblocked and radiating warm air. Though likely little more than room temperature, it felt like a furnace against their chilled coats, and they had both stopped for a moment to bask before proceeding. That rest swiftly proved unnecessary, as they were stalled again, staring at what lay beyond.
It was a tunnel, if something of its size didn't deserve a bigger word. Broad and tall, it bored its way downward at a forty-five degree angle, a railinged observation platform at the edge of the incline providing a safe view down. Lit by periodically-placed floodlights that weren't even half bright enough to do their job, the bottom was lost to shadow, far beyond the vanishing point of the stark, boxy dimensions. Along the ceiling, two identical pipes ran, so massive that the Sosan trade cart they rode in on could have trundled through them with ease. A low, rumbling din filled the room, permeating upwards from the depths, soft enough to become inaudible outside the immediate chamber but deep enough to be heard with the chest, not the ears.
Parked at the top of the incline was a square platform with enough space to fit Maple's old house. It was fitted to a track that extended down into the depths, and to one side, a sizable conglomeration of engines and machinery sat, undoubtedly designed to power the ride.
Starlight nodded. "It's an elevator. I don't think it goes back to the Water District."
"But it goes down," Maple countered. "And maybe, if there are any ponies at the bottom, they'll help us..."
"Then let's take it." Starlight wasted no time stepping over the clearly-marked warning strip that separated the platform from solid ground, and Maple quickly followed her. "Where are the controls?"
Maple pointed to a panel next to the machinery. "Two buttons," she observed. "It's probably easy to guess what they do, but maybe you should..."
With a sigh, Starlight punched the lower of the two buttons. Immediately, there was a hiss, and a warning light flared as a gate rolled across, separating the lift from the exit. With a deep churning of gears, the elevator rumbled to life... and slid away from its dock, beginning its journey into the hazy blackness.
Starlight watched as the edge rolled away, then turned to Maple, sat, and curled into a ball. "It's probably going to be a long ride," she murmured, closing her eyes.
A moment later, she felt Maple coil nearby, wrapping a foreleg around her. "I'm sorry," Maple whispered.
"Don't be."
Maple ignored her. "It was a mistake, coming to Ironridge. I got excited, saw my chance and took it. But I didn't know what I was getting into, I... I thought it would be a fun adventure. And then we left that very night, without any time to think about it at all..." She sighed deeply, chest expanding against Starlight's back. "I wish I had waited. I wish I had thought about it more. There shouldn't have been a hurry; Arambai would have made Gerardo wait if I said I needed time. I should have asked them more about what I was getting into. I should have asked you..."
Her chin rested itself against Starlight's head. "I'm sorry," she repeated, the movement of her mouth slightly dulled by the filly's mane. "They warned me, didn't they? I wish I had listened. I wish I had made Gerardo leave us out of his delivery. I wish... I wish I hadn't come alone, and left my friends. I miss them..."
"I didn't, did I...?" Maple answered, a strangely bemused tone in her voice. "I don't know better. I don't have any reason to, because I'm so new at this. And since I don't, I should be blameless..."
Something that might have been a tear landed on Starlight's ear, and it flicked. "It works, sometimes, when I think of it that way," Maple whispered, voice tightening. "That I'm not responsible for anything I do. That I can't be blamed for it. That I don't deserve to be blamed for it. That nothing I do matters." A sniff. "And every time I do, I decide it's horrible, and I would rather be guilty than meaningless. At least then, I'd have a chance... to do things right. I want to matter, Starlight. Please..."
"That's why you came to Ironridge."
"That's why I brought us to Ironridge, yes..." Maple took a deep, rapid breath. "Part of it. Starlight, my life was... I thought... It wasn't easy. It still isn't, sometimes, like now. I'm... I'm scared of not being able to do anything for the ponies I love."
"Well, you did something for me," Starlight said softly, feeling Maple relax around her. "So thank you."
"You think that...?" Hesitantly, Maple sighed. "Thank you, then. For... for being somepony I could..."
"We'll do something else, too," Starlight added resolutely. "We're getting out of here, and there's no point in thinking otherwise! And then we're going home... to Riverfall. But on our way, we'll do something. We'll find somepony to help, and make a difference for. I promise."
"Promise..." Maple whispered.
By the time the lift slowed into its dock at the bottom of the incline, both mare and filly were soundly asleep.
Restless as her sleep was, she grumbled, shifted, and cracked her eyes... and yelped, sitting up in a flash. A pair of green, slitted eyes were inches from her own, close enough that she could smell their owner's breath.
"Aah!" She struggled back, bumping up against Maple, who was clutching her tightly. "What...? What are you...?" she panted, gaze flicking wildly.
Valey stared back, unblinking, still well inside of Starlight's personal space. "Hi."
Behind her, Maple grunted, squirming in her sleep. "Aspen... nngh... no..."
"Maple..." Nervously, as patiently as she could, Starlight shook the mare. There were things she could deal with on her own, and the batpony was not one of them.
With a gasp, Maple woke. "What!? I... I..." She put a hoof to her chest, and then her face fell. "Ohh..."
"You know, you two don't look so hot," Valey remarked, standing in front of them with a large sack slung over her back.
"Valey?" Maple paralleled Starlight's gaze, staring at the mare.
"That's my name." Valey nodded. "So, why did I have to come all the way down here to find you guys? You hiding from me, or something? Because I didn't take you for hobos."
Maple tensed. "You were... looking for us?"
"Well, duh!" Valey jostled her bag, pulling the top open with a wingtip. "You promised to take these off my hooves when I was done, remember? Although, I, uhh..." She glanced around. "I figured you would have someplace more respectable to put them..."
The lift had docked during their slumber at the bottom of its incline, furnishings sparse save for walls of sheet metal and occasional crates that looked to be in storage. To one side, a large, sliding cargo door was padlocked shut. The only thing that separated it in aesthetic was a metal archway, styled after gears and looking deliberately ill-fit and half-melted, set in the far wall, fiery red light pouring from the corridor behind.
"Not to knock your house, or anything!" Valey hastily continued. "I mean, metal floor, metal walls? Looks, uh, sturdy. And a very short commute, if you work in the Flame District. A little lacking on the privacy side, though." She tapped the side of her hoof against the ground, musing. "No beds, either. Kudos to you for trying that, by the way. I couldn't live without something nice and fluffy! I hear it might be going into style, too..." She winked. "After a year or two of extreme poverty. Seriously, how much did you guys pay for this place? It's a dump."
"Is that a bag of fruit?" Starlight asked, skipping all but the most important detail. Beside her, Maple nodded, a repressed spark of hope in her eye as if she were on the losing end of a battle against the fear of being pranked.
Valey stuck her head inside. "Yeah, something like that. Here, have a pear." Reaching a wing out, she lobbed the object at Starlight. "So, what are you doing down in the Flame District at two in the morning?"
"...We're lost," Maple admitted, hanging her head. "And we've had a terrible day. Just, whatever you're going to do... please don't separate us..."
Looking up, Valey bit her lip, eyes shining with suppressed eagerness. "Terrible, huh? Ooh, spill the beans!"
Wincing, Maple started, "I-I don't..."
"Gerardo," Starlight interrupted, already stuffing her face with the pear. "He had us take those boxes we were carrying to the Water District, where we got attacked by the guards and Maple got stolen! And I followed her, and we almost got out, but got trapped by the elevators, and..." She trailed off. "And give Maple one too."
"Huh!" Valey beamed. "Look at that, you guys were honest. I know everything, remember."
"Then why are you here now?" Maple asked, voice steady.
"I just told you." Valey looked mournfully at her fruit bag. "Because I got all this delicious fruit and need something to do with it, and no way am I sharing it with the guards. I forget, what did each of you say you liked, again...?" Rummaging with her head entirely in the bag, she stretched a wing back, holding an offered peach.
Maple's eyes widened, and she stared at the tantalizing fruit. "We are hungry..."
"Well, take it!" She wiggled it under their noses for emphasis.
Relenting, Maple followed Starlight's lead with the peach, spraying juices in her eagerness. "So, about that being lost..." Valey closed the sack and slung it back on her back. "What're you gonna do? Try to find old Birdo? Hide out here and play it safe?"
"We do not want to stay here," Maple hissed around her fruit. "We're trying to get out as soon as possible!"
Valey rolled her eyes. "Should've stayed put, then, I could have found you faster. Still not as fast as I'd like, since the entire Defense Force got themselves into a pickle and needed me to bail them out..." Pouting, she puffed her cheeks and looked aside.
"You mean that siren?" Maple asked, slurping down another mouthful of peach. "We would have gotten out by now if not for it. There was a guard, and Starlight got him to help us before he kicked us out of the elevator to go deal with that."
"Yep." Valey stood up, pacing. "It was crazy. Pretty much what happened was the Spirit honcho - calls herself Braen, nasty strong unicorn in armor, small chance you've met her - just strolled right in, all alone, and the guards picked a fight with her because she's who the Defense Force was made to fight and it was home turf and a hundred versus one and all that, and she completely creamed them without lifting a hoof. She had this weird magic sword that made them go all noodly when hit, and just stood there waving it around in her magic. Complete no-sell, since those pegasi are dumb and have no decent weapons."
Grinning harder, she added, "On top of that, whatever nutjob designed the invasion response policy completely forgot that noodle-guards block the hallways and make it impossible for reinforcements to get past. I mean, everyone knows that you don't deploy full armies in close combat situations! Kind of hilarious, actually." Cupping a hoof around her muzzle, she whispered, "Spoiler alert: that was me. I thought it would be funny to see everyone standing around in a crisis with nothing to do, not that they'd be much use anyway. Anyway! So I had to go clear that out and tell her to get lost before coming to find you. Sorry." She shrugged, only half-apologetic, and straightened her beret.
Maple blinked. "O-Okay. And thank you very much for the food, but... could you please show us the way out of here, now? Please?"
"Yeah, sure." Waving them along, Valey strode confidently toward the glowing, reddened entrance to the Flame District. "Follow me!"
Hooves drummed against metal as Maple stepped wearily forward, Valey's peach and her brief, restless sleep providing enough energy to carry on... but only just. Starlight plodded close at her side, head held proudly but exhaustion showing through, evident in the little things like how her tail hung lower, or how her legs rose a little slower than they went back down. At some point, the filly's hairband had came undone, leaving her mane lying limply across her back, its ends slightly straighter and more ragged than normal.
Maple's own coat felt sticky, as if the constant wind of the Defense Force tunnels had contained something particulate and clingy. It didn't help that she was beginning to sweat, the present tunnel obviously the source of the rising heat they had felt together in the shaft. The fiery glow that poured out of the entrance was all around her, endlessly reflecting itself off burnished metal walls, and it penetrated effortlessly through her dusty fur as if the light itself was heat.
The source of the glow became readily apparent when the corridor ended. Across a chamber constructed of so much steel grating and mesh that it would be harder to slip than to tear one's hooves off, a broad, heavily-reinforced glass wall stood... and beyond it, oblivion. They faced a vertical cavern the size of a mountain, looking down from a window near the top past the red, smoke-stained rocks to the mechanized metal beyond. A pillar of composite machines, covered in ladders and catwalks and enormous pipes of ventilation and coolant, hung from the ceiling, dominating the view. Exhaust vents belched jets of flame, obscuring the true extent of the depths with an impenetrable haze of smoke, great black shadows of moving things projected on them by brighter lights from below.
"You like?" Valey asked, shifting the weight of the fruit sack on her back and peering down through the glass. "The mines of Ironridge, mostly known as the Flame District. And they really do their best to look the part! That thing in the center is one massive drill that sends arms out sideways, letting them stripmine without having to do anything but rotate it every once in a while."
"It's... certainly impressive..." Blearily, Maple glanced down into the mines, then back up at Valey. "We're too tired for sightseeing, though. Can we please get out?"
"Yeah, yeah..." Grumbling, Valey turned to a side passage and pressed on.
If the corridors of the Water District were lined with steel and shared space with pipes, the ones in the Flame District were made of pipes, surrounding a metal mesh cage of a tunnel in which ponies could travel. It was impossible to make out the walls beyond the nest of tubes through which they walked, and the porous ceiling made Maple thankful none of the overhead pipes were leaky.
For several cycles, they pressed on: a tunnel of pipes, into another observation room and so on, gradually making their way around the circumference of the drilling pit. The entirety of the journey was done in a dry, uncomfortable heat, suggesting that at least some of the pipes around them were carrying something well past its boiling point.
Occasionally, they passed other ponies, mostly vest-wearing stallions plucking dutifully away at consoles with their wings, horns and hooves, focusing on broad console screens flashing with numbers and data. They barely gave the party a second glance, and many times not even a first... and when they did, it was fixed on Valey and accompanied by desperate innocence and blatant dislike.
The chain of rooms continued, slowly and gradually curving. Looking out the windows to the central mining pit, more were barely visible on the opposite side, tinted dark against the light welling up from the depths, likely in a complete ring. Finally, after what felt like several revolutions but was probably only a quarter lap, a wave of cool air kissed Maple's cheek. "Are we there?" she asked in eager relief.
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Depends where 'there' is. We're here, certainly. Exit's just a bit further. But unless you plan on sleeping in an alley or on a roof or something..." She shrugged preemptively, as if expecting them to say yes. "I mean, Ironridge is kind of a big city."
"We do have a hotel, but..." Maple's ears drooped. "Gerardo was the one who knew how to get there. Everything looks the same to me in the Stone District, and I can't remember any landmarks..."
"You have a hotel?" Valey blinked. "Well, why didn't you say so?" She looked back guiltily at the sack of stolen fruit, and added, "Sounds like a way better place to enjoy these than this smelly cave. Let's go find it!"
They turned right, down an upward-slanting corridor leading away from the ring. The light became progressively more natural as they passed lobbies and break rooms, the red glow fading as if by design to be replaced by bright greens, yellows and whites. Eventually, the tunnel widened... and the surface came into sight.
At least halfway up the Stone District, they stood in a broad, lowered plaza cut into the face of the mountains, bearing tiered, concentric benches and the design of an amphitheater. Valey led them along a decorated path to the rim, the moon shining brightly overhead, well past the peak of its arc across the sky. Starlight stared at it, and it glowed back, its cool light ruffling her mane like the affectionate hoof of a familiar parent. Deeply, her lungs breathed, flushing themselves of the stale, cold air of the Water District and hot, oily air of the Flame District, the long-overdue freshness doing almost more for her fatigue than the nap and the pear combined. It was good to be outside.
Far enough west that the Water District dam was cleanly visible in the distance, the trio stopped, Valey still in the lead. "So..." she mused, leaning on one hoof. "This hotel, right? Where is it?"
"If we knew, we'd be there," Starlight mumbled, too grateful at being outside to be properly grumpy at still being awake.
"No, uhh..." Valey sprang into a hover, tail flicking. "Like, better question: do you remember anything about it? Anything I could use to find it? It doesn't take much, but nothing is nothing, and it's a pretty big district. Stuff you could see, stuff it was near..." She blinked. "Whether the receptionist was particularly hot?"
"She did seem interested in Gerardo," Maple recollected. "But I'm not the best judge of that..."
"It had a pool in the first room," Starlight offered. "It was dark. Before the skyport entrance."
"Okay..." Valey licked her lips. "That isn't too far from here. Let's skedaddle, and then when we get closer I'll fly up and take a look around. Think you could recognize it from above, kid?"
Maple hissed, moving to block Starlight from Valey's sight. "If you're saying you want to take her flying, I don't trust you nearly enough yet for that. Starlight is not leaving my side!"
Grinning broadly, Valey floated backwards out into the street. "Wisest thing you've said all night. Now come on!"
"You can find it just from that?" Starlight plodded forward, deciding to waste her breath on the question.
Valey looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. "Like I said, the more info, the better. Anything else? Anything at all?"
Starlight's eyes scrunched in thought. "The mare at the front was flowery. I think she smelled like them, or had them in her mane..."
"Flower mares, flower mares..." Valey unfocused, slowly spinning upside-down and then back upright without appearing to notice. "Wait a sec. Is there any chance she was pink with a green mane, pretty well-endowed and wore a gigantic vase in her mane?" She blinked. "Or maybe just a bouquet. Enough to look ridiculous."
"Maybe?" Maple offered with a shrug. "I think I recall something like that."
"Yeah." Starlight nodded. "That sounds right."
"Huh!" Beaming, Valey did a backflip and landed on her hooves. "Her husband works for me! I asked her out once to annoy him. She didn't say yes. But she works in a hotel, so... why not check there?"
"There's a hotel," Valey said, pointing over her shoulder as she hovered along. "There's a hotel. There's one. And another. Ringing any bells?"
"I don't, no..." Maple huffed, winded from the altitude constantly shifting. "I thought you... said you knew where it was?"
"Eh." Valey shrugged. "I know the general location. It's somewhere around here."
They came to an intersection, both options leading downhill. Starlight frowned, glancing between them. "I think we should go that way," she eventually declared, pointing back close to the way they had come. "It feels better. We're too far this way."
Valey raised both eyebrows. "You sure? If you say so, I guess."
Starlight nodded. "When we found the hotel, there weren't any right below it. If we're seeing them now, and they're mostly in the same place, that means we're above it, but if we keep going, we might go too far. I think." She swallowed, hoping she was right. Maple was clearly flagging, and it wouldn't do to keep her on her hooves any longer than necessary.
"Hotel?" Valey asked, repeating a tried-and-true procedure that had been uninterrupted for at least thirty minutes. "Hotel... hotel..."
"Wait," Maple instructed, eyeing a building to the side. "I think... Starlight, does this one look familiar at all? I think this might be it!"
Starlight squinted, inspecting the building by the light of the moon. Her bleary eyes didn't make it any easier, but eventually she snorted. "Don't you have a key to check if it's right? It looks good..."
"I do..." Hesitantly, Maple pulled out a small object and slotted it into the front door. With a well-oiled creak, it swung open.
"Slick!" Valey stomped a hoof, her normally-raspy voice slightly rawer from the nonstop hotelling. "Now let's go eat this stuff in peace!"
Maple raised an eyebrow. "You're coming too...?"
"Well, duh!" Valey bounced the bag on her back, stepping through the door ahead of Maple and Starlight. "After all this walking? Why wouldn't I? You guys are fun!"
"Because we're tired and want to go to sleep," Starlight announced, well aware that she was past her limit for the day and would feel the consequences in cramps when she woke. Maple would only have it worse.
"Oh." Valey's face fell. "Well, at least let me get this stuff up there. But if you think this is the last you'll see of me, though..." She shook her head and winked. "Well, you've got another think coming."
Starlight looked up, lifting her head from a cantaloupe slice as the bathroom door swung open. Maple trotted out, coat damp, cheeks rosy and looking slightly less exhausted than she had before bathing... but still ready to collapse. She made a beeline for the nest-like bed where Starlight lay, nudging the filly aside with her nose. "Move over, you. I need to lie down..."
"Careful with those," Valey remarked from where she lay prone on a table, pointing a wing at the open fruit sack. "Gotta remember to only drip juice on the bed. Makes it more of a headache for management to clean up."
The hotel room was perfectly untouched since they had left the previous evening, with no evidence that anyone had entered. Its normalcy was almost shocking after the night's events, but it was a shock that ended in serenity, not panic or fear. Granted, it wasn't nearly serene enough to go to sleep, despite Maple and Starlight's overwhelming exhaustion. Valey made sure of that.
"Gerardo isn't here yet, is he?" Maple asked, sighing, ignoring Valey's bad advice. "I mean... I suppose it's hard to be late at this hour, and he more likely came and left already, but..." She stared forlornly at the door, and Starlight had to offer her a banana to get her to look away. "He doesn't have a key. Right..."
"Haven't seen him." Valey slithered closer to the table edge, head hanging off and staring at them at a bizarre angle. Her beret was on the hat rack by the door, and and her emerald mane hung free, nearly touching the floor. "Probably bailed. It's not like I can follow everyone at once, you know."
Starlight shot her a glance that might have been reproachful, but was tempered by the presence of donated food. "If you were following us, then why didn't you help earlier?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "I wasn't following you. Where did you think I got all this food? And didn't I tell you about the mess in the fort?"
"Then how did you find us?" Maple asked, swallowing her mouthful. "The Stone District is huge, and we were hidden!"
"I told you that too: she reeks." A leathery wing pointed itself at Starlight. "I can smell her for miles."
Both ponies shot her a dirty look. "What?" Valey shrugged. "You asked, and it's true."
Maple pressed her nose into Starlight's side, inhaling deeply and causing the filly to squirm. "Well, I think she smells wonderful," she countered, eyes narrow, "so there."
"Meh. I didn't say it was a bad smell." Valey rolled herself upright, folding her forelegs. "Though now that you mention it, something does smell a little funky right now, and not in a good way." She raised her muzzle and took several sniffs, then shrugged again. "Eh, maybe the neighbors had a fight, or something."
For a moment, nobody said anything, and the room was silent save for the sounds of chewing and slurping. Then, Starlight said, "Why are you helping us?"
Valey patted her stomach and burped. "I told you, because I can't eat all that by myself."
Starlight frowned. "No. The guards in the fort hate you. The one who helped us only did it because he thought you got us in trouble there, and you keep doing weird things like blocking roads and telling me I smell. So why are you being so helpful, and why to us? Don't you have other things to do?"
"Wow, you need to pay attention more." Grinning, Valey rolled back upside down. "I told you that too! I get paid to do what I want!"
"So why do you want to help us?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "What are we to you?"
"Well... eh... fine." Valey deflated somewhat. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but..." She extended a wing, examining it and then displaying it to the two in bed. A fanged grin followed, though there was no mirth in it. "Get it?"
"I... don't, no..." Maple blinked. Starlight stayed silent beside her.
"Precisely." Suddenly dour, Valey looked at them, eyeslits thin and constricted. "Because I've been watching you, and if you had noticed anything, you would have done something by now. But you don't get it, and that both makes you the stupidest, naivest things in this city and some of the only ponies worth being nice to. It's... selfish, I guess."
Leaning forward, Starlight asked, "What are you talking about?"
"Everybody else?" Valey examined her wing again, carefully displaying its featherless, leathery texture. "They see these, and they think oh bananas, here comes trouble. Never even give it a second thought. My kind have a bit of a bad rap around here, in case you hadn't noticed that either."
"What... What are you, anyway?" Maple blinked. "I've been meaning to ask..."
"Batpony," Valey replied, shrugging limply. "Ever heard the saying 'never trust a bat'? That's us. Good advice, too. And ponies listen." Slumping, she let herself droop slightly further off the table. "Mean, nasty pranksters, the lot of us. Can't escape it whether you're a felon or an angel, if the latter is even possible."
Maple sniffed, setting aside her food. "That... Really? That sounds so lonely..."
"Hey." Valey frowned, pulling her wings back to her sides. "Before you go throwing a pity party, I'm hardly deserving of sympathy. Maybe if I wanted to sit back and do nothing but whine about the world being unfair, but I give as good as I get. Ponies want to blame me for all sorts of stupid stuff?" Her grin returned. "Way I see it is, might as well have the fun of doing it. So I do my job and keep the city safe when it needs it, and spend the rest of my time haunting pedestrians and screwing with paperwork to annoy bureaucrats. It's no paradise, but I don't wanna even think about how much worse it could be."
"You work for the Defense Force," Maple noted. "Are you a detective, or something?"
Valey shook her head, still grinning. "I lead the Defense Force, much as Selma hates to admit it. Of course, that doesn't really mean much, with how poorly the top is organized. I have no requirements, no duties, no nothing except bossing ponies around on random whims, and neither does he. You probably couldn't design a more corrupt, dysfunctional system if you tried, but I do keep the district safe, and with this many enemies, the threat of an army at my back is kind of something I really don't want to live without."
"That sounds too good to be true..." Starlight said dubiously, ears folded.
"Eh. Well, I didn't mention the downsides." Valey snorted. "If I didn't have all of Ironridge hating my guts before, this would be great for making enemies. I hardly deserve the post, and only got it through blatant favoritism. I've stepped on the hooves of most everyone there, and everyone, especially the dangerous ones, are jealous someone like me gets the post instead of them. And then I have to answer to an even worse boss than I am..."
"In the Sky District?" Maple asked, blinking.
"Nah. It's the yak ambassador, Herman." Valey gritted her teeth. "Herman is pure evil. He always gets his way, and then acts like he never even noticed you wanted something else to happen, or at best like he allowed you to lose. He makes all his plays by doing things that have nothing to do whatsoever with his goals, and somehow always gets them to work out in his favor. It's... unfair!"
She tensed, rolling upright again on the table. "Like, look at me! I'm literally paid to do whatever I feel like, and have all the power in the world! I should be the best wild card ever made, the definition of impossible to manipulate!" She pointed both hooves at her chest in self-indication. "But the more I use this job, the more I need it. The one thing I can't do is not play. I'm on the board and can't get off, and that works in his favor every single time..." Kneading the table with her hooves, she drew in a hissing breath. "I hate him so much, and there are so many ways I could end him. So many secrets I could spill that would obliterate his career and smash his stupid yak face into melon paste... but then I'd lose this job because no sane successor would hire me, and that would be suicide and he knows it!"
Her wings flared, and she stood up, panting. "I think I need to go ruin someone's morning," she huffed, red and disheveled. "Bye."
Valey blasted out the door, executing a perfect right-angle turn in the hallway, letting it swing closed behind her. Her beret remained unclaimed on the hat rack, swaying slightly in the breeze from her wake. Maple and Starlight looked at each other in the silent aftermath, blinking.
"She sounded like she really needed to vent," Maple eventually whispered. "And if all that's true, I still feel sorry for her..."
"Yeah," Starlight muttered under her breath. "And I'm tired."
"And I'm full," Maple happily groaned, pulling over the fruit sack and peering inside. "Looks like she left us enough for breakfast, too... or lunch, with how late we're probably going to sleep in."
Starlight nodded contentedly, her own hunger thoroughly alleviated. For all Valey's quirks, she had certainly brought them quality food. Curling up tightly, she tucked herself tightly against Maple's side, listening to the sound of the mare's slow breathing as she drifted off to sleep.
The entrance plaza outside the skyport was empty when Gerardo Guillaume emerged from the lift tunnel, Sharpie and Brightcoil at his side. A few lonely equines paced stiffly by, eyes fixed forward, interest locked on their unknown destinations.
A distant rush permeated the air, which Gerardo soon realized to be the eternal windstorm that blocked flight directly into and out of the valley. It sounded more like a waterfall than anything, though no rivers of meltwater made their way through the district anywhere near him.
He shot a glance northward, where the hotel room Maple had booked lay empty. A small part of him clenched at the waste of money, but it was quickly overridden by more important concerns. Wherever Maple and Starlight were, it was in far less comfort and safety than they deserved... and than he had been charged with providing. All he could do was hope his mission to the yaks would prove successful.
Howe and Slipstream lingered in the back of his mind. The former still rubbed him the wrong way, and it was hardly a sad parting on Gerardo's side. From what he had learned of the pegasus, it likely wouldn't be their last... but that was a bridge to be crossed when it came. Slipstream, on the other talon, he hadn't even gotten a chance to ask anyone to say farewell to. Hopefully she wouldn't remember him poorly, and would be fine stuck with Howe. Most of his thoughts were consumed with Dior, however, their brief encounter playing over and over behind glazed-over eyes. The stallion had said he would see to Maple and Starlight's safety. Had he acted yet? He spoke and left with urgency, yet what could be done on such short notice, and at night at that? Short of walking into the fortress himself and demanding their release...
If he had acted, then Gerardo's friends were likely safe, though he couldn't even begin to guess where. Skyfreeze, most likely. The hotel? No sane guardian would leave them on their own. The Earth District or Sosa? Hardly likely. Few options seemed even remotely reasonable, and if they had been taken care of, his own presence shouldn't be needed to ensure their safety. No, he had time to pursue his crates. Those were equally if not more so important, for unlike the ponies, Dior certainly wouldn't help with them.
A loud sigh from Sharpie broke him from his thoughts. "It's a twenty-minute flight from here to the embassy. We shouldn't waste time standing around."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Flight...?" His eyes flicked to Sharpie's folded wings... and then to Brightcoil, standing demurely with her horn dull on her forehead. Unicorns couldn't fly.
Crouching almost low enough to the ground for her business suit to scrape the roadway, Sharpie ignored him, beckoning to Brightcoil with a wing. The unicorn strode closer, before climbing onto her friend's back in a well-practiced series of motions, forelegs locking tightly around her neck.
"I see..." Gerardo mused, bringing a talon to his chin as Sharpie flapped, face scrunching in exertion as she gained altitude and hovered out over the cliff edge. Flying for two, the pegasus' progress was hardly going to win any races, and Gerardo stood for a moment before spreading his own broad wings and taking off.
In a matter of seconds, he had eclipsed Sharpie and Brightcoil in distance, and pulled to a halt, not wanting to embarrass the pair. Sharpie's suit made it impossible to tell how toned her muscles really were, but it was at least clear she wasn't an athlete. Her flaps were broad and desperate, lacking some of the finer wing control displayed by any flier used to performing professional maneuvers.
Having allowed them time to form another lead, Gerardo sped up... and immediately passed them once again, despite his best efforts. "Would you stop?" Sharpie snapped. "You're literally flying in circles around me! I don't need another reason to feel bad about myself tonight."
"M-My apologies!" Slightly shaken, Gerardo bobbed backwards. "Although, if it would be of service, I could always carry her myself..."
Upon receiving the biggest stink-eye of his time since entering Riverfall, which was saying something as he had managed to make an enemy of Hemlock, Gerardo instantly backed off, resolving to stay firmly behind the slow pegasus for the duration of the flight.
"There's the yak embassy compound," Brightcoil narrated as they neared the Stone District once again. Even in the moonlight, it was easy to see what she was referring to: set in a break in the switchbacks and roadways that made up the district's walkable space, a walled area sat, taking great care to remain flat despite the steepness. In the back, it carved itself into the mountain, and in the front extended in a platform all the way to the walltops, gargoyles and crenelations acting as architectural staples. Inside the courtyard, several buildings stood... but it was the outer gate where Sharpie finally stumbled to a landing.
"Urgh..." Panting, she brushed her suit off and blew a stray mane hair away from her mouth, produced a card key from a pocket, and strode up to the gate. It was unstaffed, a sleek console accepting the identification instead and beeping as a wrought iron grate rolled aside. Brightcoil quickly stepped through, and Gerardo made to follow her, when he was stopped by a hoof. "Hold on," Sharpie muttered, punching at the console. "Give me a minute..."
There was a ding, and something printed itself out from a slot at the bottom. Sharpie reached down and took it. "Visitor badge," she mumbled around the scrap. "Take it. You need it in here, and it's not my fault if you get in trouble without it. This isn't Ironridge anymore."
Gerardo nodded, affixing the card to his lapel. "Completely sensible. I shall endeavor to keep it as safe as safe can be."
"Suit... suit yourself..." Sharpie bit back a yawn. "Our quarters are this way. I'll handle things in the morning. And now, I'm tired, so don't bother me until then. At all."
"Of course," Gerardo replied, nodding once again and slipping in behind them in silence.
"I... seem to see what you meant about only having one bed," Gerardo remarked, standing in the entrance to Sharpie and Brightcoil's generously-named house. It wasn't so much a statement about the number of beds in the room as a testament to the lack of anything besides that one bed. Two suitcases lay open against a wall, a closet-sized room sat in a corner that likely had no space for a shower, and there was a tiny table with standing room only. The walls were undecorated and predominantly gray, as was the floor, ceiling, and single window. There was a small mirror, a half-unpacked bag of groceries, and that was it.
"It isn't much," Brightcoil admitted, standing next to Gerardo as Sharpie shrugged her way out of her suit. "It's less that we're poor and more that it's hard for the yaks to be fond of ponies in a profession like hers, and we only live here because Skyfreeze makes them let us. Some day, when Sharpie can retire, we're going to buy a nice Stone District mansion with plenty of room, and live more happily there. Or maybe we'll even go to a nicer part of the Earth District, and never have to deal with upper-district problems again. Everyone talks about it like it's a slum district, but almost all of them have never actually been there. Really, parts of it are very nice..."
Finished with her suit, Sharpie slithered up between the bed and a titanic mound of blankets, disappearing completely. A single hoof stuck back out, patting in invitation. Brightcoil looked at it, then back at Gerardo. "You can sleep on the floor, or... wherever, I guess. I really do hope in the morning we can help each other, Gerardo."
"As do I," Gerardo whispered back as she joined her companion under the covers. "As do I..."
Starlight didn't need to crack her eyes to regain consciousness, floating pleasantly in the black haze of sleep that could be banished with so much as a thought. It warmed her and wrapped around her like a comforting blanket, preventing her from feeling the limbs that would likely cramp with pain as soon as moved. Maple was against her, and so was their bed, but the feeling was so proper and normal that her nerves registered nothing save for peace.
No light shone on her to warm her coat, but an internal sense born of days in the wilderness told her it was mid-afternoon. She felt she could sleep all day, if she willed it, and after the previous day of exertion, it would be more than welcome. At the same time, the sooner she got herself back to normal, the more useful that rest would be. Who wanted to wake up, ready to face the day, and be greeted with sunset?
...She might, if she was honest with herself. There was always something about the night that felt welcoming to her, as if the black sky and bright moon liked seeing her under them. But Maple wouldn't want to do that, and she couldn't afford to make herself her own first priority when the mare was around. Maple loved her and accepted her, and that meant Starlight had to keep her happy and safe when she needed it in turn. And right then, that meant letting her decide when they would wake up. Not blinking or even swallowing, she rubbed and rolled her head deeper into her new mother's coat, rearranging her legs just slightly, and settled in to wait in peace.
Maple snuffled from the movement. Without lifting her head, she asked, "Starlight?"
"Mmph," Starlight mumbled, mouth tasting of sleep.
"Last night feels like a nightmare," Maple whispered, curling around so that her cheek was right next to the filly, resting her chin on the edges of Starlight's hooves. "I wonder what will happen today..."
"Nnnn..." Starlight agreed, flicking an ear. Apparently, Maple wanted to wake up right then, which was maybe a bit too soon. It wouldn't hurt at all to lay there for a while, like they did in Riverfall. Hopefully Maple would feel the same without her having to say anything.
"My... nngh..." Starlight felt Maple's muscles tense, shake briefly, and go limp. "My legs hurt... Ow." She exhaled softly. "Ohh, I hope we don't do too much running around today. I'm not sure how much I can take." Silence. "Starlight, I..." Her voice lowered even below a whisper. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I wasn't myself last night. I got scared, and I panicked and lost hope... even when I know how important it is never to do that. But today will be better. You'll see. I can already feel that today will be a good day, and we'll be able to help ponies and make progress and do something good."
"Mmm." Starlight didn't particularly care what she was saying, only that the more awake she grew, the more aware of her cramps she became. Going back to sleep was definitely the best option.
"I still don't want you to be in danger, of course," Maple murmured, seemingly having no intention of allowing that. "We'll stay safe. I think our plan from last night is still good; to go to the Earth District where the guards won't recognize us and start again. Maybe we'll go back home, or maybe Ironridge will still work. But we'll be all right. Things will get better. We can still have a good time and make this a fun adventure, Starlight. I promise..."
As Maple talked, Starlight swiveled her ears, going about the process of sorting background noise into sounds she knew, familiarizing herself with her surroundings still without opening her eyes or surrendering the last traces of comforting fog in her mind. Maple's talking. Maple's breathing. A set of hoofsteps clumping down the corridor beyond their door, likely a stallion from the heaviness with which they struck. Distant vibrations, perhaps echoes through the rock. And from behind them: "Shhwonk... nyup nyup... Shnorrrrr..."
Starlight pried her eyes open, leaning up and looking over Maple's side at the same time as the older mare lifted her head to look back for herself. In the second bed, where Gerardo once intended to sleep, lounged Admiral Valey, sprawled upside-down and sound asleep. Her eyelids were cracked from the force of gravity, and her mouth was open with a tongue and small thread of drool hanging out. Her wings were spread, her hat was missing, a banana peel rested on her belly and her legs stuck straight up in the air, one occasionally twitching.
"Is she...?" Starlight muttered, voice grumbly from just waking up.
"I wonder how long she'd been here," Maple mused. "Didn't she leave, just before...?"
As if detecting the presence of eyes on her, Valey blinked awake, and her twitching froze. "Oh hey, you're up," she remarked, moving as little as possible. "Uhh... huh. Hey, do I look as cute as I feel right now?"
"I might not be the best judge of that," Maple admitted hesitantly. "You look... peaceful?"
"Nyeugh." Valey flopped upright in a single motion, dropping the banana peel and flipping her mane. "You ever dream about busting up every single thing that's ever ticked you off and having superpowers that make you look flashy and do epic charge-ups and transformations and lasers and stuff? It's the best. Definitely recommend." She yawned massively, showing her fangs, then shook and blinked rapidly. "So, I feel like tagging along with you guys some more, today. What's the plan?"
"Why are you in our room?" Starlight asked, ignoring the question. Her voice was successfully not hostile, but she hoped Valey would get the point that it was rude and uncouth to spend the night in someone else's room, unannounced and uninvited.
With a shrug, the batpony answered, "'Cuz I felt like it. That fluffy bed beats whatever random roof or tree I'd usually hide on, and if you're somehow in more trouble than I'm aware of, it'd be dumb to turn down an excuse for a free fight. Besides, it's not like I was interrupting anything."
Maple squinted. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing! Nothing." Valey looked away innocently. "By the way, you guys are, like... what, siblings? I mean, you act like mother and child, but look just a little close in age for..." She cringed.
"I adopted her," Maple answered firmly. "I mean, we don't even look that much alike..."
Completely different would be a better way to put it, Starlight thought, looking over herself and her coloration. Maple's dusty tan coat shared no similarities with her own pale lilac, and the mare's reddish-brown, neither-straight-nor-curly mane and ruby eyes were both far away from hers as well. They were even different races, which was made ironic by the fact that Maple was the better magician of the two. Her cutie mark was strong and versatile, and Starlight still felt the vague buzz in her head that told her magic was in emergency-only mode.
"Eh. Makes sense." Shrugging again, Valey wandered over to the fruit bag, pulled out a banana, and dangled it over the pair with a wing. "Catch. So, what's the plan, again?"
As Starlight took and peeled the banana, Maple answered, "We're going to the Earth District. We'll be less likely to run into trouble there from that captain finding us and remembering us, and there's a pony there we're looking for as well."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "The Earth District is a pretty big place, you know."
Maple nodded. "We have directions. Or, an address, at least."
"Well, suit yourselves!" Valey closed her eyes and pranced toward the door, marching with a spring in her step. "Luckily, I'm pretty good at that place, myself. And don't go worrying about the Defense Force; I'll take care of that. Come on, let's get started!"
"Wait a minute!" Slowly, Maple scrambled to her hooves, wincing every time she moved her legs. "Ow, ow, ow... Last night was not good on my body. All of yesterday can go jump in the river, actually, and... owww... Ah! Okay. Phew," she panted, "I'm good. Just give me a minute to pack this fruit, okay? And Starlight, you should stretch now, since I don't think I feel up to carrying you today..."
Starlight carefully moved her legs, testing them before relying on them to stand. Her muscles were knotted and her hooves were sore, the latter of which was partly her fault for being too tired to remember to take her horseshoes off before bed. Still, while it was a degree of uncomfort she had done her best to avoid pushing herself to in the mountains, it wasn't debilitating. She would be able to walk, and maybe run, and at least trust her legs more than her horn... and hopefully have a short recovery period, as well. Just as long as they didn't have to walk several dozen miles that day...
"Don't bother taking the whole thing," Valey advised, pointing a wing at Maple and the fruit sack as she straightened her beret with a forehoof. "Just eat what you want now and dump the rest. We'll get more later. Trust me, it's the funnest thing in this city."
Shrugging, Maple pocketed several fruits regardless as Starlight looked on. "I am not traveling without food nearby again," she resolutely stated, finally coming up and taking a breath. "Shall we go?"
Valey nodded, extended a foreleg, and pushed the door open.
The sun shone down from straight overhead as Maple, Starlight and Valey stepped out into the world, mixing warm light with the cool winds of the altitude to provide a pleasant, refreshing contrast to the interiors of caves and buildings. The heavy breeze teased at Starlight's mane, prevented from sending it flapping about only by her ponytail, which Maple had seen fit to fix before they left. As she breathed, filling her lungs with the scent of the mountains, Maple passed their room key back to the receptionist, then strode forward to stand beside her.
"We don't need the room any more?" Starlight asked, looking up and shading her eyes with a hoof. "What if Gerardo comes here to look for us?"
"Well, then he'll ask at the desk and they'll tell him we left, which will tell him we're all right," Maple answered confidently. "And we're not planning to come back here, are we?"
Starlight shrugged. "I guess..."
"Good," Maple exhaled, straightening her shoulders. "So... I suppose the fastest way to the Earth District is down, right?" She looked to Valey for approval.
"Huh?" Valey blinked as if distracted. "The Earth District? Oh, yeah, we'll get to that in a bit. Something else we gotta do first that's a little more important. This way, though. Follow me."
She led them down and to the right, retracing the direction they had come when first entering the Stone District. The dam loomed ahead, gradually turning into a thinner and thinner vertical sliver as the angle they viewed it from narrowed with proximity. It was far easier going than on the way up, though still not completely free: ponies possessed far-forward centers of gravity that aided in climbing and running, but made faceplanting on downward slopes a constant threat.
"So we're going through the bridge by the dam?" Maple asked as they passed a cart, a faint cloud of dust in its wake causing her to stop and cough. "We've been there once before..."
"Nah. I told you, there's something else we need to do." Valey ruffled her wings, walking in the lead, and now that Starlight was watching she saw far more signs like ponies averting their gazes or shooting dirty glances at the mare. "Don't worry, it'll be quick."
Starlight wasn't thrilled by her lack of transparency, though there was little she could do about it, and it was hardly unexpected. If Valey's importance was all she had touted it as, she could do whatever she liked with Starlight and Maple, and they would be forced to go along with it. Unless she was being manipulative, and her preferred way of making ponies do things was making them want to...
In fairness, she had outright warned them that she wasn't trustworthy. What was the point of that? It was the classic I'm lying paradox: were Valey trustworthy, warning them about her would be a lie in and of itself, if a justified one. But were she rotten, she never would have been up front about it. It felt like there were several easy explanations she was missing, but the logical side of her brain refused to drop the issue and let any others be considered.
Then there was Herman. Valey had spoken loudly against him, including showing the first trace of any emotion besides confidence, smugness and nonchalance she had seen. Was Yakyakistan's ambassador to Ironridge truly psychotic, or had Valey been lying? Or perhaps she was projecting, and was truly the manipulative one herself. Starlight had to admit, she was likable, even if she seemed to go out of her way to be so. There was even the possibility that Herman was a good, fair leader whom Valey had a personal grudge against. After all, she hadn't mentioned him doing anything wrong.
"Valey?" Maple called, snapping her from her thoughts. "Why are you going in there?"
"Huh?" Valey looked back, standing in the square stone entrance of a windowed building that seemed recessed from the rest of the street, likely built mostly underground. "'Cuz this is where we're going. Are you coming, or aren't you?"
Starlight surveyed the entrance, instantly suspicious of caves and anything remotely resembling them. Her eyes eventually flitted upward, and widened... and then narrowed. Above the door was broad lettering that read, Stone District Defense Force. "That's the place we just spent hours trapped in."
"Pretty much!" Valey said with a grin. Stepping back out, she opened her eyes and her face straightened. "Look. You're probably still spooked about last night and yadda yadda yadda, which is why we're here. I'm gonna officially hire you guys and make you part of the Defense Force, then do up the papers so you answer directly to me for everything. That way if anything bad happens or we get separated or whatever, you'll get brought to me and Selma won't be able to touch you. He knows to stay off my turf."
"That's..." Maple blinked. "That's actually a really good idea. Er, assuming we can trust you. I'm..." She looked away. "I'm still not completely sure that's the best idea..."
Valey put a hoof to her chin. "Right, I'll have to give you an easy out... Uhh... I could let you carry your contracts around yourselves, but then you'd have to risk putting them in danger if you needed them as proof... Still though," she mused, "you guys are screwed if I decide I don't like you no matter how many lawyers take your side. You can't ditch me, so you kind of have no choice but to put up with what I want. So yeah, I think standard policy will be just fine."
Unfortunately, Valey was right, and the look in Maple's eyes told Starlight she knew it too. The batpony was all over them, and with the skills and resources she supposedly possessed, very little could save them if she decided to actively be a traitor. There was no good course of action left save for one, and that was to try their hardest to remain on good terms with her. "Okay," Starlight responded, "we'll do it. Please don't make this take long."
"All right..." Maple agreed, still clearly unhappy at the sight of the entrance. "I guess you're right. Sign us up. Just as long as we won't have to do any actual fighting work?"
"Nahhh. Of course not." Valey emphatically shook her head, stretching her wings and brushing the sides of the door with their tips. "If we get in a scrape, no hogging my fun. All you've gotta do is what I say, and I'll be nice. Oh, and you get paid, too."
Instantly, Starlight perked up. "We get paid?"
"Well..." Valey shrugged. "It's not the best money, but stallions can support their families on it. Dunno what you'd do with it, yourselves. Get some fancy eats or hotel rooms, I guess, though really, fruit and trees work perfectly well. You could probably save up for airship tickets, too, if you ever get fed up with this place and want to bail."
Starlight and Maple turned to each other, the same thought simultaneously crossing their minds as Valey beckoned them into the fortress.
As Starlight crossed the threshold into the fortress, her first realization was that her expectations - for the place to be a dank maze of blue stone and leaky pipes like the outer reaches of the upper fort - were completely incorrect. The door opened immediately into a broad, naturally-lit room with several windows, painted walls, and a dated-looking light fixture on the ceiling. Aside from a rack of simple weapons on one wall and a few maps covered in arrows and tactical things, it could have been an eatery, or even a house.
A group of stallions seated at a round table in the corner immediately looked up on their entry, and one scowled. "Bah. Party's over, boys, it's you-know-who. Time to get back to work..."
Valey grinned back and waved a wing, making sure to show off her fangs. "Hey, don't feel bad. Getting back implies you were there in the first place!" Her eyebrows rose suggestively. "Don't worry, I won't tell Selma. Keep those expectations low!"
Muttering something about working for the good of the city, the guards abruptly vacated their table and shuffled out, sparing neither Maple nor Starlight a second glance. Valey happily waved them on, then winked as soon as the last one had disappeared. "Guess you guys didn't cause too big of a splash, huh? Those clowns sure didn't care!"
The only other occupied table in the room held a gaggle of younger stallions, all leaning together intently and whispering excitedly about something. Valey stared longingly at them, a prank twitching in her eyes... and eventually snorted, spinning about to face Maple and Starlight. "This way," she said, walking toward a doorless entrance in the back of the room. "We don't have to go too far."
Two bends, a staircase and another hall later, they emerged into a second window room, presumably right on top of the first. A massive billboard covered one wall, and several desks were strewn against the other. A lone, sandy yellow pegasus watched them enter from a stool at the central table, working his way through a pastry. "Admiral," he said with a respectful nod. "I wondered if you'd show up today. Who's earned your ire on this fine afternoon? Here, by the way."
He lifted a wing and flung a small bag at Valey, who caught it expertly and slipped it beneath her hat. "Yo, Sandybutt. Got some new recruits, so I was thinking of heading down to the Earth District and messing with D.K. for initiation. This one's Maple, and this is Starlight. They need better names, I know. Anyone else I should annoy while I'm there?"
"Maple and Starlight, hmm?" The pegasus raised an eyebrow, not getting up. "Lieutenant Sand Stream, not to be confused by the Admiral's insults. And don't you look a little young for this?" He tilted his head. "Not to mention both being mares?"
Valey stuck her tongue out. "Didn't stop me, did it? Besides, Selma makes laws and I break them. If he's got a problem with this, it's his own fault for baiting me."
"Umm..." Maple hesitated, raising a hoof. "Sorry, but what did you just give her? Something about that looked illegal..."
"A bribe," Valey answered smugly. "Sandybutt here is the smartest pegasus on the Defense Force, and the only one at all who's figured out it might be a better idea to find a way onto my good side. And it turns out, he's got a marefriend with a brand for making toffee!" She reached under her hat with a wing and pulled out the bag, shook it, and deposited a carmelly cube onto her tongue, then put it back, chewing loudly. "Mmm-mm. So he gives me candy, and I'm slightly less annoying and maybe occasionally bother ponies he doesn't like. I've got a sweet tooth, in case the fruit didn't tip you off."
Neither Starlight nor Maple had anything to say, and Sand Stream merely offered a shrug. Returning the gesture, Valey strode to a nearby table where several stacks of paper sat in bins, and inspected them, biting her lip. "Hmhmmm... We'll need some of these, and a few of these..."
Gathering a ream of documents under her wing, she quickly spread them out on a table and set to work with a pen. Starlight tried climbing up to look over her shoulder, but the detail and complexity of the forms lost her before she could even begin reading.
Valey, meanwhile, skimmed over them like they were nothing. "Weight... eh. Height... eh. Distinguishing physical traits..." She tapped her chin. "I'm gonna say your age is forty-two and your favorite flavor is garlic/curry, so hopefully those are false. Have you guys ever fought a water buffalo?"
"Are you making stuff up?" Maple asked sternly, trying to see the papers as well.
"Sorta," Valey answered, flipping a paper and grabbing another for reference, talking around the quill in her teeth. "Sandybutt was right earlier. Mostly I'm messing stuff up so the clowns in the Sky District who track this stuff will have bigger things to worry about than wondering why I'm recruiting a mare and a filly, or will just give up and not vet this so I get you on my roster no matter what. I could also just pull rank if anyone tries to call me out or even beat them up, but this way is way more fun."
"But you're a mare too," Starlight pointed out, frowning. "Why does it matter?"
Valey shrugged, quill scratching. "I also was pretty young when they first made the force. Way older than you, but still. I told you I only got the job because of blatant favoritism." She crossed something out and re-wrote it. "It's a mix of what everyone expects and what Selma says."
"It does seem strange to let a filly do guard duty," Maple agreed.
"Yeah. And something something protecting pretty faces." Valey bent down and licked a spot on a form, causing the ink to smudge and become illegible. "Every time I ask him if he means that rule to be about me, he gets pretty steamed. Selma's way too obsessed with looking good in public."
"Didn't seem that way to me," Starlight muttered darkly.
"Hey, you can't have a reputation built around stopping villains without villains to stop." Holding up and comparing two forms next to each other in the light from the window, Valey put one over the other and carefully began to trace an existing signature.
"That's impersonation..." Maple worried, shuffling her hooves. "Couldn't you get in really big trouble if you got caught doing that...?"
"Oh, this?" Valey squinted, not looking away from her work, tongue stuck out the side of her mouth. "Nah, my signature's good enough to authorize anything. I'm just copying some nobody cadet's to make sure this form gets thrown out. That'll wreck the paper trail somewhere else. Hey Sandybutt, has that embassy inspector been poking around here recently? You know, the hot one?"
"She was here early this morning," Sand Stream remarked disinterestedly, sipping from a ceramic mug as Valey added countless hours to an unfortunate administrator's workload. "With a griffon. Seemed happier than usual. Selma was in a bad mood, by the way."
"That's a shame," Valey mused, reaching back for another form. "He's too easy when he's already mad. That inspector, though... Let's, uhh... hmm... Let's send an order for D.K. to ship two dozen crates of marmalade to the embassy, with the Defense Force fund key written all over it. That'll give her something to find a conspiracy in."
"Yes, you do that," Sand Stream sighed, getting to his hooves. "I need to get back to work. You two..." He looked closely at Maple and Starlight. "She seems to like you, but whatever your business is with the Defense Force, I sincerely hope you're all right. I've seen just as many promising careers fail as take off, and knowing the Admiral, this is an ideal start for the former. Stay safe, please."
"Go jump in the Yule, fatty," Valey retorted, not bothering to look up. "Promising careers taking off? Here? I'd never let such a thing slip by."
The lean pegasus rolled his eyes, ruffled his feathers and snorted, turning and walking out of the room. Valey made a few more quick strokes before finishing as well, proudly depositing her forms in outbound boxes. "Right! All taken care of. That's this week's efficiency in the system, completely ruined. So, ready to hit the Earth District?"
Maple shook her head. "I don't know how you're able to keep the city safe when you try so hard to sabotage your own army. What if something actually happened and you needed to move fast?"
"Meh." Valey shrugged, popping another toffee from her hat into her mouth. "If anything did, it would be better with them out of the way. Less potential for escalation, and all that. Right now, I can protect the Stone District all by myself with one wing tied behind my back, and with the crazy stuff the Sosans are doing, the fewer competent fighters in this city, the better. Remember, I need Ironridge not to explode so I can keep my job. I'm a jerk, not a maniac."
"We should go, then," Starlight announced. "That unicorn might come back, otherwise."
Maple shuddered in agreement. "Yes, please. Every moment we stand here, I keep feeling like something is going to go wrong..."
"Yeah, yeah. Right this way..." Shuffling, Valey walked to the door, leading the way back to the entrance of the fort.
"I'm really, really nervous..." Maple whispered to herself as Valey led her and Starlight out of the fort. "Things have gone too right today, and after yesterday, I don't trust it to keep up..."
"Didn't you say you were going to hope for the best?" Starlight gently prodded, walking at her side.
"I did, yes," Maple sighed, biting her lip. "...Still. What would Gerardo call it? Dramatically appropriate, or something?"
"Talking like that, you're just asking for something to happen," Valey chuckled from the lead. "Life is ironic."
Starlight furrowed her brow. "That sounds superstitious."
"And you don't have a bunch of legends wherever you're from?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Come on, superstition is fun! Except when you want to run into trouble. I'm bored and need a fight, and asking for it is just gonna make this even blander. I can't wait to get down to the Earth District."
"Would you mind asking for something to happen, then?" Maple asked with a crooked, hopeful smile. "I really am trying my best, but if there's anything you can do to help..."
"Fine, fine." Valey rolled her eyes, then tipped her head to the ceiling and loudly announced, "Wow, I sure hope I run into someone important! I totally want to sit down and have tea with them and share my amazing toffee and wouldn't even dream of beating them up!"
"You like that?" she finished, tossing her mane. "Now there's no way we'll oh bananas!"
At that instant, they rounded the final corner to the lobby room, and Valey nearly crashed head-on into an unfortunately familiar white unicorn.
"Captain Valey," Selma lectured, not even sparing a glance toward the petrified Maple and Starlight, "did I just hear you picking fights with employees?"
Valey pursed her lips. "You really need to get better at names, Commsy. It's Admiral! Even Herman says so!"
"Eugh..." Selma shook his head as if realizing he had stepped on a slug. "I am a captain, not a commissar. I doubt you even know what that means. Now answer the question."
"Depends," Valey said with a shrug. "Are you volunteering?"
"What I'm volunteering," Selma sneered, "are some popularity pointers you as the face of the Defense Force cannot afford to ignore, and will inevitably do so anyways. I don't know why I even bothered to waste my time."
"Hey, uhh..." Valey pointed behind her with a wing, indicating Maple and Starlight. "That won't interfere with me training my new recruits, will it? Because it sounds like work."
Selma's gaze slowly drifted across the pair... and somehow failed to widen in recognition. "You look nervous," he observed. "I take it you've already had a taste of what she can do."
Silence, from both Maple and Starlight. Selma tilted his head. "Well?"
"Hey, shove off, you." Valey elbowed him to the side, pushing with her wings. "Go get your own recruits. These ones are mine."
A full second passed before Selma snorted. "I have better things to do with my time than oversee cadets who are clearly part of a disposable prank. However, my day is going swimmingly, thank you for not asking, and there are better ways I can spend my time counteracting her damage to our reputation than educating you on how to obtain a proper commanding officer."
Valey blinked, eyes focusing as if for the first time. "Hey, has anyone ever told you your mane looks like a pineapple?"
Selma blinked back, then growled. "You're incorrigible. I can't believe Herman thinks your presence is somehow beneficial to our great district. You two." He turned back to Maple and Starlight. "I don't know what you're doing here," he continued, still showing no outward traces of recognition, "but you don't belong. Wherever you came from, go back and live in peace, and don't get caught up in our affairs. After all..." He lowered his voice, staring directly at Maple. "It would be a shame to waste such a pretty face."
"Helloooo?" Valey waved a hoof in front of his eyes. "Ironridge to Mister Creepy Stalker? What about my pretty face?"
Grimacing, Selma closed his eyes and stepped down the hall, giving Valey a wide berth. In a matter of seconds, he was gone.
"Speaking of hoping for good outcomes," Maple panted, finally allowing herself to breathe. A hoof to her chest, she added, "He knew. He definitely knew, and he didn't care..."
"Eh." Valey shrugged. "His opinion of me is low enough that he probably thought if he wanted to punish you, there'd be no better way than standing back and not intervening. Too bad for him it's the Earth District getting pranked today! Now let's get out of this place."
Sun broke over Starlight's head as she exited the fortress door with almost as much intensity as Maple's sigh of relief. "Whew," the mare panted, "I can't believe our luck held through all that. When he showed up, I..."
Valey pouted, bringing up the rear. "You know, I say I'll help you and chase off all the loons and goons and bad guys, and somehow, you still act surprised when I come through. It's like you don't trust me!"
"Um-!" Maple fidgeted. "I didn't mean..."
"No no, that's good!" Valey shook both forehooves, hovering. "Never trust a bat. Means you're learning."
"That's not really what I meant either..." Maple looked away, as if regretting opening her mouth.
"Should we start going?" Starlight asked, sticking close by Maple's side. "The faster we get away from the guards, the better. And he did tell us to leave..."
Valey licked her lips. "Well... it is the hottest part of the day, and the Earth District gets pretty nasty if you're not used to it. Which I'm guessing you're not, since your coats are a little long for around here. You really want to leave right now?"
"What else would we do if we stayed?" Maple asked, straightening up and wincing slightly, evidently still cramped from the day before.
"Beats me." Valey strolled across the street and looked down, staring out over the Earth District. "All the fun stuff is down there, like stealing fruit and messing with D.K. and the Sosans. Hey, wanna go sit on that wall and pretend to be a checkpoint? That's a good pastime."
"Who's D.K.?" Starlight interrupted, slightly lifting a hoof.
"Dangerous Karma," Valey explained, a far-off look in her eyes. "What his mother was thinking when she named him that, I really want to know. He's the richest pony in the Earth District, and owns a lot of plantations and growers' complexes, and even a town. If you think of the Defense Force as the Stone District's government and the Sosan factories as Sosa's, him and his army of infrastructure and organization wonks are that for the Earth District. Generally, the assumption is that if you're stealing fruit, it's coming somewhere from him."
"I don't know..." Maple shuffled her hooves, wiggling them in a futile attempt to loosen her muscles. "Part of me is nervous and wants to hurry to go find that pony we're looking for. The other part of me is tired of hurrying and wants to do something safe and relaxing. Is there anything to do that doesn't involve... doing anything?" She tilted her head hopefully.
Shrugging, Valey scratched at her ear with a wing. "I mean, you could always sit in the audience while I start a bar fight, or something. Or just watch me do my thing in general."
"You seem really obsessed with fighting ponies," Starlight warily observed.
"Well... yeah!" Valey's eyes widened with legitimate surprise, and she reached back and tapped her rump. "What else did you think a brand like this was for? Making gloves?"
Starlight stared back, eying Valey's red boxing glove dubiously. "I don't care about cutie marks."
Valey blinked. "A whattie mark?"
"It doesn't matter," Starlight snorted, turning away. "You shouldn't have to do something just because you have something like that that says you should."
"Uhhh..." Valey eyed her as if she had just proclaimed herself to be a tomato, then turned into a toad. "I don't have to do anything, because I'm me. I'm just bored and want to do what I like. Is that a problem? Because I think I've been pretty nice and helpful so far."
Maple stepped between them, waving nervously. "Maybe we should just get on to the Earth District then, and think of what to do once we get there?"
"Good call!" Valey relaxed, shooting her a wink. "So, should we do this the fast way, or are you still scared to try flight?"
Starlight looked at her hooves. Lifting a foreleg, she could practically see the knots in her muscles, and if it was just her she knew she would be willing to take Valey up on her offer. Since it was Maple who objected last time, however, she held her silence.
"I'm still not sure," Maple answered. "I'd rather not, though, if it's all right with you."
"Eh. Suit yourselves." Valey shrugged, hopping into the air and hovering. "It's kind of a big district, so don't blame me if you get tired."
"Getting tired?" Maple exhaled heavily, looking at the sky. "I wish I was only tired. These cramps do not feel very nice."
Starlight bit her lip. She had suspected Maple had it worse than her, and the protest hardly reassured her about the mare's condition. Still, if she said she was good... "I'm ready," Starlight declared. "Where's the road to the Earth District?"
"Heh..." Valey chuckled. "Downhill. Unless you're made of helium, it's impossible to miss. Let's get going!"
The first hint of rising sun was all it took to rouse Gerardo from slumber, shining through Sharpie and Brightcoil's lone window and illuminating a patch of slate-gray concrete that was part of the far wall. It was a welcome awakening, his sleep having been less than pleasant thanks to the hard stone floor serving as his bed. Still, as an adventurer he had dealt with much worse, and rose with several degrees more grace than could reasonably have been asked.
Nearby, a bulging mound of quilts and blankets covered the room's single bed, stacked so high that it was impossible to tell if there were any ponies beneath them. Taking stock of the temperature as he preened, Gerardo judged the night to have been pleasantly cool and no colder, implying that at least one of the mares was used to a much hotter climate. Brightcoil, he supposed. As a unicorn, it was fairly likely she was from the Earth District.
Carefully, he coughed, impatience to get on with his mission clashing harder and harder with his desire to be a respectful guest as his brain tuned its priorities for the day. The guest identification Sharpie had printed the previous night was still affixed to his uniform, so leaving to explore on his own was always a possibility... but since he needed Sharpie's help to meet Herman, soloing wouldn't do anything productive. Finishing one wing and moving on to the next, he settled in, resolving to wait.
About halfway down his inner feathers, he heard a rustle from the bed and looked up. A pair of pink eyes blinked out from a gap in the covers, eventually followed by Sharpie's face and then the rest of her body. She slithered disgruntledly onto the floor, sitting up and digging in her ear, cheek puffing as she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth.
"Ah!" Gerardo beamed. "You're up!"
Black, uncombed mane plastered messily across her face, Sharpie took several seconds to respond. "Not until I get coffee and a shower." Getting to her hooves, she staggered past him, eyes unfocused, completely oblivious to personal space, and squeezed her way out the door, opening it as little as possible to get through. Gerardo blinked.
A wistful sigh echoed from the blanket stack, and Gerardo turned once again to see Brightcoil's head also protruding from the pile. "Good morning..." she said tiredly, not making any move to crawl further out.
"Indeed." Gerardo nodded, bowing deeply. "Let us hope the rest of the day is as such. Did you have a pleasant sleep?"
"I should probably be asking you that..." Brightcoil mumbled, looking away. "Since I'm your host, and all, and you were the one sleeping on the floor. Um... did you?"
"I have had much worse," Gerardo truthfully answered. "In my line of work, one can rarely afford to be picky. Last night was at least spent with the presence of a roof, and I did not wake to find myself surrounded by brigands or wild animals. Of course, I trust we still have a plan?"
Brightcoil exhaled. "You'd have to ask Sharpie. You've probably noticed, but she's the one who's in charge of things. She feels better when she makes things work to help others. She really needs it..."
"Mmm. Forgive me for saying, but she doesn't seem to be in the happiest place."
"It didn't used to be like that," Brightcoil sighed. "Years ago, before she got promoted to this job, things were different. She used to work as a low-level manager for airship maintenance at the skyport. Not quite low enough to get grease on her hooves, but she was directly responsible for the ponies that did. Making sure they did their jobs, stayed safe, and kept others safe by making the system as efficient as it could possibly be. She'd say it was worth it, every time a ship left and completed its flight without issue. All she ever asked was for someone to thank her when she was done."
Gerardo nodded along as she talked, but eventually raised a talon. "Are you sure these are things I need to hear? They seem somewhat... personal."
"Oh." Brightcoil's face fell. "No, you're probably right. I just... I don't know. I've felt for so long like things are just going to keep getting worse until something else happens to make a change, and then you started talking in Skyfreeze, and... sorry."
"Hmm. Well, there's no need to apologize for hope," Gerardo countered, firmly silencing any possible continuation. "And I suppose I did ask, so there's always that. However, while I'm flattered you trust me so, perhaps stories of your clearly tragic past should wait until at least formalities have passed? At present, we are allies, and I'd prefer that to become friends before we tell tales of emotion and drama."
"I..." Brightcoil blinked, face scrunching in confusion. "Sorry. I'm not awake enough yet for that many big words, and that went right over my head."
"Ah. My apologies, in that case." Gerardo bowed again, turning away without breaking eye contact. "Being unnecessarily verbose is an unfortunate habit I can't quite seem to shake... Err... that is, yes, I talk too much. To paraphrase: let us have breakfast before any more of that talk."
Brightcoil's horn lit, projecting a green aura the color of her mane out over the room. Without moving an inch further out from under her covers, she hovered over a jug of water, drank deeply, then unwrapped an oat cake and held it to her muzzle, chewing.
"That... is one way to have breakfast, yes," Gerardo admitted, left feeling slightly awkward from the display. "I don't suppose there is anything for me...?"
When Sharpie returned, coat still ruffled with dampness and mane tied in a cord to dry, Brightcoil had finally risen, sleepily sitting next to a table as Gerardo chewed daintily on a mango. "Morning, Sharpie," she offered limply.
"Aha," Gerardo exclaimed, "You're back! I take it we are nearly ready to depart?"
"Coffee," Sharpie demanded. "Later. Wait."
"I started it already," Brightcoil interrupted, pulling over a small press in her aura along with a kettle of boiling water. "Here."
Seizing a mug in her wing and holding it in anticipation, Sharpie watched dully as the unicorn squeezed. A moment of dripping later, and she lifted it for a sip, steam still rising in curtains... and sighed. "I needed that. Where were we?"
"Myself," Gerardo announced. "Last night in the Sky District, we agreed to join forces as I attempt to recover my friends and cargo from the Defense Force. You thought it would be prudent for me to take my case to Herman, if I recall correctly."
"Right." Sharpie took another gulp. "You're the optimist who thinks he can do something about them." Setting her mug down with a clank, she rubbed one wing against the other, then bent down and began licking her fur, trying to straighten it back into place. "And I said I'd help you, because why not? It's not like I have anything left to lose."
"Technically, we do still have a lot of good things..." Brightcoil whispered to the side. "Sharpie, want me to get your mane?"
"Not relating to defeating the yaks," Sharpie grumbled. "And fine. I assume you want to leave as soon as possible?"
"That would be ideal, yes." Gerardo nodded, standing up. "How fast are we referring to by 'as soon as possible'?"
"I will not be happy or pleasant without something to eat," Sharpie muttered, moving to inspect a still-packed bag of food as Brightcoil's aura followed her around with a comb. "Two minutes."
"Very well..." Impatiently strumming his talons against the floor, Gerardo settled in to wait, counting off the seconds in his mind until he could get another shot at helping his friends and saving his cargo.
Gerardo stepped out into the morning sun of the yak embassy compound, Sharpie and Brightcoil leading the way. He blinked several times; first to adjust to the sudden brightness and second at what he saw. "For an embassy of yaks, this facility certainly has a lot of ponies."
At least seven equines were visible within the walls, discounting his companions, some engaged in conversation and others walking between doors and entrances. Most wore saddlebags designed for paperwork, and all dressed smartly or else not at all.
"Yakyakistan has a pony population, too," Brightcoil narrated. "Most of these are citizens. The yaks just like using pony diplomats because it makes them seem more relatable."
"And because they're small," Sharpie added. "Yaks are big, so accommodating them takes up more space, which means they would need a bigger, more expensive compound for the same level of output. Herman makes an exception for himself, of course, but usually they're too stingy to even represent themselves properly."
"Herman is a yak, though, I take it?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," Sharpie said stiffly, her wet mane clinging to itself despite the breeze. "You can see for yourself soon enough, provided he doesn't ignore me and shove me down his schedule."
They entered a doorway at the rear of the compound, backed by a wall that was carved into the mountain. After a short tunnel while the ground rose overhead, the ceiling opened up as well.
Though the walls were stone, as always, they were cracked, cobbled together from smooth-faced boulders of all different shades of blue and gray. Dark wooden trim hung along the floor, walls and ceiling as support beams, or perhaps in imitation of them, being too thin to hold any real weight. Instead, they were covered in red-painted runes and patterns, occasionally studded with hooks from which large, tribal-looking yak masks hung, staring with perpetual frowns and empty eyes. A rotary clock was mounted at the far end of the room, embellished with careful but blunt carvings and designed without hands, such that the entire panel rotated loudly with the passing of time.
"Hi," a candy-colored mare behind a low desk droned in an extremely thick accent. "What make ponies come by yak headquarter this day?"
Sharpie hissed through her teeth. "Spare me, Maia. My job stinks enough already without having to parse you."
Maia looked up, lidding her eyes and dropping the accent. "What, so I shouldn't be able to do mine either? I get paid too, you know. Now are you going to tell me what you want, or what?"
"This griffon needs to meet with Herman," Sharpie quickly commanded. "He has something important to discuss regarding the Defense Force."
"Hmmhmmhrrrrmmm..." Maia gnawed her lip, skimming through an appointment book that out of the corner of Gerardo's eye appeared nearly blank. "I can pencil you in two weeks from now. How's that sound? We could also push it back later..."
Deciding it was better to interrupt early than let the situation continue in its present direction, Gerardo raised a talon. "I'm detecting a significant amount of animosity in this room, which is very unfortunate as I would very much rather act as soon as possible." Straightening his posture, he added, "Please, I have no wish to get swept up in internal politics, and mean you no harm or ill will."
Sharpie shot him an unhappy look, then sighed as if used to being thrown under the cart and held her tongue, backing away from the conversation.
"You do, huh?" Maia blinked up at him from her tiny little stool. "See, by picking their side, you're getting as politicky as possible, mister catbird. You've got 'here as part of a scheme' written all over you, and Herman doesn't have time to deal with that! Go find someone else to accuse of wasting money protecting your ungrateful little city!"
"On the contrary," came a voice from the corner, "involving himself in the schemes of others is what our glorious leader does best."
In a rocking chair, gently swaying, half-hidden by a tall potted fern, an elderly stallion sat, traces of green in his mane and a dark, mottled coat the perfect shade for blending in. "Your trust in the Ambassador is too thin," he lectured in a small voice. "Let him decide what pieces are useful and which should be cast away. After all, in the great game, he plays for both Ironridge and Yakyakistan."
"Uurrrgh!" Maia reached up and tugged on her mane, which was rolled into two buns. "I've been here for a while now! Stop treating me like I'm new!"
"Then stop pretending to have so little faith," the stallion softly said. "Our Ambassador was appointed by the Bishops themselves. Besides, I know your planner is empty for this morning."
"Don't you... they're using... aaagh!" Maia slammed both forehooves against the desk, causing it to rattle woodenly on its supports. Lips drawing back in a scowl, she flipped the appointment book back open. "Herman have time for catbird after present meeting. Catbird wait in lobby and not go anywhere. I'm taking my break!"
With a huff, she threw down the planner, stood up, and exited the room through a side passage, tail flicking violently. Gerardo shrugged, looking to Sharpie and Brightcoil. "I hope that doesn't return to bite me. Such a temper could prove to be an unfortunate and volatile obstacle."
"I wouldn't fear too much, catbird," the stallion in the corner reassured. "Our ambassador is used to never letting his staff get in the final say. You'll get your chance for him to judge your cause, rest assured." He raised an eyebrow at Sharpie and Brightcoil, still rocking. "Although, that's no guarantee he'll take your side. Some ponies are quick to forget that Herman is the savior of the Stone District, and blame instead of thank him for their livelihoods. You two, for instance, would be much happier if you put your ambition aside and worked to make the world a better place. And don't try to pretend you're happy now. I know the signs of stress and anger when I see them."
Sharpie fumed, and Brightcoil laid a comforting hoof on her shoulder. Meanwhile, Gerardo tilted his head. "I'm sorry, but who did you say you were, again?"
The stallion nodded in time to his rocking. "You can call me Emil. That isn't my full name, but it's much simpler than the explanation. And I've been working at this embassy since it was founded, for nearly forty years."
"I... see," Gerardo said, eyes unfocused. "I did spend some time in Yakyakistan, but can't say I have a particular memory of the workings of their naming conventions..."
"Well, don't waste your time worrying about her." Emil nodded toward the door Maia had left through, shrugging slightly and revealing a pair of decrepit wings. "She was born and raised in this embassy, and has never seen the homeland. I have faith she'll grow into a good mare in time, though who can say how long that will take? She never has taken her virtues seriously..."
"Forgive me if this lacks tact, but my memory of Yakyakistan consists entirely of rock and ice," Gerardo remarked. "I have been considering returning there some day, however. When you speak of that mare that way... what places do you recommend I not miss out on?"
"You're asking the wrong pegasus," Emil wheezed sadly. "I've been here since this embassy's modern inception, which was just after the war. There've been so many progressions and revolutions since then, I imagine even if I went back I wouldn't recognize a thing. Who knows what the Yakyakistan of today looks-" His ears twitched. "Oh?"
A door on the far wall clicked, its lock being undone. "That's the Ambassador," Emil announced. "Whatever you want with him, I hope it benefits both of our nations."
"That would be most beneficial, yes," Gerardo said, striding toward the door. "I-"
The door swung open, and Gerardo's face fell like a fruit smashed against the ceiling when he saw the ugly manestyle waiting behind.
"Oh, hey, bird-bro!" Howe grinned, beaming, acting for all the world as if he hadn't been ditched miles away less than eight hours earlier. "Fancy meeting you here, heh heh!"
"I really would rather not deal with this right now," Gerardo softly remarked to no one in particular, looking as if he had been robbed thrice in one day. "Howe, whatever your business here, I-"
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa." Howe held a hoof out, confidently interrupting. "Look, bud, you feel that we've got some bad blood, and I get that. I mean, I might have oversold myself back with those guards just a little, but hey, a guy's allowed to make mistakes, right?" He raised a challenging eyebrow. "It ain't like you didn't leave me in a pickle yourself, you know. Or... I dunno... just wandered off without saying a word to your poor pal? Look, I like you, brother bird, but it's almost like you don't want the Howenator around."
"That is the point, Howe," Gerardo sighed. "Despite, and often because of your best efforts, you've done nothing but be a hindrance to me and my causes. Now please, get out of my way. I have a very important meeting to attend to, and you are not a part of it."
Howe opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Sharpie. "Excuse me?" she asked, wearing an uncharacteristically-pleasant smile. "You said your name was Howe? I feel like I know you from somewhere!" Leaning across one foreleg to match his posture, she continued, "How long have you been in Ironridge? More than a month? I kind of feel like..." She trailed off, putting a hoof to her chin.
"Who, me?" Howe turned, immediately gravitating to the pony actually willing to pay attention to him. "Nah, I just rolled in real recently, like a few days ago. I've been here before though. Gotta go where the work takes you, yeah?"
"That's it!" Sharpie snapped her feathers, jumping in place and grinning broadly. "I do remember! You're that public speaker, aren't you? Who gave a speech here a year ago?"
"Heyyy!" Howe grinned back, then blew a raspberry at Gerardo. "Looks like someone here can appreciate a pegasus with talent! Lucky for me, she's a hot babe, too! We should hang out. Feeling up to lunch with little old Howe?"
Sharpie only missed half a beat, keeping her expression pleasant even as it faltered. "I-I'm not... eligible," she managed, to Howe's clear dismay. "But we can talk?"
"Excuse me, but I don't-" Gerardo began, but was suddenly cut off.
A green magical aura clamped itself around his beak, and when he looked to Brightcoil, she minutely shook her head. "She's distracting him for you," she whispered. "Go see Herman!"
Pausing only slightly to marvel at Sharpie's ability to repress her general bitterness in the name of furthering their mission, Gerardo nodded, slipping through the door and into the corridor beyond.
Gerardo rapped thrice on the ornate wooden door separating Ambassador Herman's office from the rest of the back hallway beyond the reception room. The corridor was poorly lit, just bright enough that one could make out the paint etched into the wooden trim, but not so much that he could see the color of the sturdy, carpeted floor. The mechanical, rotating ticks of another clock echoed in his ears as he waited for a response, silently adjusting the collar of his uniform.
"You may enter."
Preemptively bowing, Gerardo pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Immediately, his vision was assaulted by whiteness. It was mixed with just enough gray not to be blinding, yet retain every bit of purity the color was associated with. Everything was white and geometric, his eyes tracing their way around the floor, the walls, the ceiling and down across the room's cubic furnishings in search of a place to rest his eyes. Each flat, unblemished polygon that made up a portion of the interior was slightly offset in shade from its surroundings, emphasizing the edges and seams between them. Like water flowing down a drain, his eyes were drawn along the lines of difference to the center of the room, where a nine-sided prism served as a desk. A muscular yak sat behind it, silently observing as he tried to take in his surroundings.
The first thing he registered was a massive horn. Where most yaks had a broad, thick rack nearly as wide as the length of their body, Herman possessed only one side of one, the skin to the right of his face gnarled into a hairless scar, as if his had been cloven at the base long ago and never grown back. Where his coat did grow, it was the same shade of whitish-gray that made up the architecture, or otherwise insulated by an ice-blue uniform that seemed to make him radiate against the background. In fact, if the room hadn't lacked shadows already, Gerardo would have taken him for its light source.
"Good morning," Gerardo began, breath visible against the cold air of the room's interior. "My name is Gerardo Guillaume, griffon ad-"
"Introductions are time-consuming," Herman interrupted, completely impassive. Then, breaking into a smile that stretched the full distance across his broad face, he continued, "After all, you must be in quite a hurry to request a walk-in appointment at this hour. Is not your task at hoof far more necessary?"
"I..." Gerardo swallowed, blinking. The top of Herman's desk was completely empty save for a rune, nearly half the width of the polygon, shimmering slightly beneath the surface. It consisted of nine points interconnected by a web of lines, and as he watched, bewitched, it changed, rotating around itself, ticking. His only guess was that it was another clock.
He shook his head, trying again to speak. "Yes, well, you see. Myself and my friends were unjustly attacked and robbed by the Defense Force, and urgently require your assistance."
Herman nodded, the corners of his mouth rising slightly less than they had a moment ago. "Do go on."
"Yes..." Attempting vainly to calm his nerves, exacerbated by the cold and the room's otherworldly appearance, Gerardo began pacing, ruffling his wings as he walked. "I was hired over a year ago in Yakyakistan, to perform a delivery of two unmarked crates to a location in the Water District, avoiding all manner of air travel. However, when I attempted to enter the Water District in completion of the last leg of my journey, I was accosted and attacked for sport by a captain named Selma, who confiscated my cargo and abducted two dear friends with whom I was traveling." Steeling himself, he stared Herman straight in the face, unnerved by the slight angle the yak's head hung at due to the weight imbalance of his horns. "As you are both a representative of Yakyakistan, whose government requested my delivery, and the alleged protector of the Stone District, where my friends were taken hostage, I was hoping there was something you could do about this situation."
Herman's smile grew in warmth, though it failed to counteract the icy chill in the air. "I see," he rumbled, "I see..." Breaking eye contact with Gerardo for the first time since the griffon had entered the room, he stared downwards, as if expecting answers from the swirling pattern on the desk. "I apologize for the treatment my Defense Force gave you and your friends," he eventually answered. "I can offer you a job, if you wish it."
"A..." Gerardo blinked. "A job? I assure you, while obtaining the compensation for my delivery would be very much welcome, I hardly need a new-"
"The Defense Force," Herman interrupted, "has been without an official facilities inspector since the Water District was approved for its use more than five years ago. I have asked Skyfreeze to hire one, but they have declined my requests for funding time and time again." He shook his head sadly, smile maintained. "As inspector, you would have full access to the facility and be free to search for your friends at will."
Gerardo's beak dropped. "That is... surprisingly generous of you, sir. Though I must admit, authorization or not, were there to be criminal practices at large in the force, my safety would still be in jeopardy. I am presently unarmed, and would... very likely meet an untimely doom."
In answer, there was a small clink... and a gemstone rolled onto the desk surface. Small, octagonal and smoky gray, it came to a stop just in front of him. "What is this for?"
"The smallest unit of currency Ironridge has to offer," Herman answered warmly. "Worthless on its own, but compensation enough to be considered an employee of the embassy in the eyes of the law. I think diplomatic immunity will suffice for your safety. The Defense Force knows they owe their continued existence and stability to Yakyakistan. Us, they cannot and will not attack."
"Of course..." Gerardo whispered. "Are you really willing to threaten to abandon Ironridge on my behalf? That seems tactically unsound."
Herman shook his head. "Many threats would be so if they required willingness to be proven. That is the essence of a threat; a gamble of whether one will follow through. I know my subordinates, and they were chosen in part because it is a gamble they are unwilling to take."
"I see..." Gerardo fidgeted. "And what do I do if they learn of my impending presence and further hide my targets?"
"Then I will request Captain Selma accompany you at all times." The rune in front of Herman continued to swirl, the unclaimed gray gemstone sitting like a blemish on its flawless surface. "If he never leaves your sight, you will be aware of every action he takes. Is this suitable?"
Gerardo stood, thinking, next to a cubic bench. "That may very well work, yes... Of course, you could order them to return my cargo and friends, but there is always the chance they would refuse, so brute force remains the next best option..."
"Of course," Herman said, still smiling, "An order would not benefit me, as well. Recall that the Defense Force has lacked a facilities inspector for quite some time. In exchange for this aid, I trust you will return to me upon completing your mission and give a report on anything you find? After all, if my Defense Force has sunk to abducting innocents, proper maintenance may be beneath them as well."
"That sounds perfectly reasonable," Gerardo hummed, feathers settling. "One other thing; I have... friends in the lobby. An inspector pegasus named Sharpie, and her friend Brightcoil." Part of him cringed at willingly acknowledging his relationship with ponies who were likely on the yaks' bad side, but Herman would inevitably be able to figure it out regardless, if he didn't already know, and being forthcoming could be seen more favorably. "Would it be at all possible or permissible for them to accompany me to the Water District?"
If he stiffened at their mention, Herman didn't show it. "If you require it as a show of good faith, I will not intervene. Sharpie already has her own clearances. Though do beware..." He briefly frowned, then returned to his smile. "Perception can be tainted by bias. Keep your mind open to possibilities, and do not be quick to draw conclusions. Now go and see to your quest. I will summon Selma here, and he will accompany you as long as you require it."
"I thank you for your assistance." Gerardo bowed, taking a step backwards. "It was refreshing to ask aid of someone who felt I should be part of the solution."
Herman merely smiled, pose as warm as ever in the chilly room. Of its own accord, breaking from the seamless white wall behind Gerardo, the door swung open, inviting him back to the main embassy lobby.
Howe was still talking excitedly at Sharpie when Gerardo re-entered the lobby. The growing signs of stress beneath her cheery demeanor were all the indicators the griffon needed to tell that Brightcoil hadn't been lying. Watching the stiffness with which her tail hung, he quickly decided to return the favor.
"Excuse me," Gerardo announced, loud enough to interrupt whatever Howe was yammering about, "but my meeting has adjourned. Fortunately, it was highly productive, and we have been granted entry to the Water District to search for any evidence of wrongdoing myself. Er, that is, I have." He nodded at Sharpie. "I was informed you already possessed your own? Regardless, we are free to make a surprise inspection and poke our beaks and noses into whatever we deem of interest."
Sharpie snorted derisively, her fake cheer entirely evaporated. "He knows my case is dead. He's going to let us in there and either show us nothing, taunt us with things we can't use, or plant fakes for us to find and waste our time on. It's how he works."
"Still..." Gerardo tapped a talon. "There are no limits he laid down. And if there is wrongdoing, which I know there to be, it is only a matter of sticking our heads deep enough to find it."
"You kids know you're in public, right?" Emil's quiet voice came from the corner, where he still sat, rocking. "I've seen a lot of conspiracies in my day, and it sounds like you're planning one right now!"
"For the record," Howe loudly proclaimed, "this pegasus is down with a conspiracy or two. Gotta spice up the old life somehow, you know?" He waggled his eyerows hopefully at Sharpie.
Gerardo swallowed awkwardly. "If you must know, sir, the conspiracy was executed against us, or myself in particular. I was unjustly robbed by the Defense Force, and Herman has given me clearance to steal my belongings back. Dramatic, perhaps, but nothing more than fighting illegal with questionably legal."
"Heh. I wasn't going to turn you in," Emil chuckled. "Seems everyone's planning something or other, these days. Who knows, maybe you'll be good enough at it for the Ambassador to consider worth playing with!" He threw back his forelegs, stretching, until one popped and he winced.
"You... seem to have a very interesting policy on workplace honesty," Gerardo hesitantly said.
"I'll say!" Howe pumped a hoof. "To be fair, I've seen some pretty messed-up liars myself. Once visited a town where every pony only spoke in lies, so they always knew what each other were saying but outsiders were obvious! Hah!"
Emil shrugged, favoring his shoulder. "If everyone were honest, that would even the playing field and prevent the Ambassador from truly showing his worth. A real leader cannot assume everyone they deal with has no hidden intentions of their own. Why not embrace reality and thrive?"
"In that case, you hold Herman in extraordinarily high regard." Gerardo blinked, looking back to the hallway door, eyes still seeing a faint impression of whiteness.
"It's a Yakyakistan thing," Sharpie interrupted, narrating quickly. "Their highest level of government is revered on an amount approaching worship. Anyone directly appointed by them, like Herman, effectively has the citizens under mandate to believe in them to do their job."
"The Bishops of the Nine Virtues," Emil added, nodding sagely. "There is a long history of-"
Flash!
In a burst of ice-blue magic, a white stallion materialized to the side of the room. Lowering his head and blinking slowly, Selma announced, "I have arrived."
"Uhh huh huh heh heh..." Howe rubbed the back of his neck nervously, choosing himself to be the first to speak. "Fancy meeting you here?"
Selma brushed him aside, ignoring him entirely and focusing on Gerardo. "Hello again, griffon. Forgive me if I've already forgotten your name; I don't believe you said it with enough flare last time. I've already received my instructions." He nodded to Howe, Sharpie and Brightcoil. "Who else is coming? We'll be teleporting to save time, and I prefer to only take one passenger at a time."
"She is," Gerardo said, quickly indicating Sharpie. "Er, that is... assuming you wish to?" Apologetically, he added, "Your arrival was somewhat swift, and we hadn't the chance to discuss this as a team before..."
"I'm coming," Sharpie answered stiffly, pointing a hoof at Brightcoil and then Howe. "She isn't; he is."
Gerardo did a double-take. "Pardon, but did you say we do wish for Howe to come?" He glanced across to Selma. "Is that even permissible?"
Howe gripped both of his cheeks tightly, squealing to himself in delight. "He said my naaame..."
"I've... said it many times, Howe..." Gerardo sighed in confusion with an underflow of annoyance. This wasn't how he wanted Selma's re-introduction to go.
Selma's horn briefly flickered, effect unseen as he closed his eyes. Eventually, he looked up. "He has permission, if not from me. He shouldn't expect his stay to be hospitable."
"I meant what I said," Sharpie affirmed. "We've been having an interesting talk, and I'm not ready to end it just yet. We won't get in your way." She glanced aside to Gerardo. "I'm reading this right, right? Herman asked him to escort you? Something about you mutually preventing each other from doing anything he doesn't want happening?"
"Something like that," Gerardo said, swallowing.
"Well then, let us not waste any time." Stepping toward Gerardo, Selma held out a hoof. "You first. Hold tightly. I will not be responsible for any failures of yours to observe magical safety protocols."
"And I have no intention of doing such," Gerardo reassured, reaching out and grasping Selma's muscular limb. "I am ready."
Another flash of magic, and they disappeared.
Gerardo blinked, eyes adjusting to the low lighting of his destination. The yak embassy had been poorly-lit, too, but teleportation was bright and Selma's magic was a harsh color and his pupils still needed to finish dilating one way before they would even consider going in the other.
The floor was stone, at least, red and cracked and slightly warmer than should have been the case for a cold mountain fortress built underneath a glacial lake. He was closely surrounded by three walls and a ceiling, made from the same substance. And in front... bars.
Black, rusted iron bars, stretching floor to ceiling and causing Gerardo to jump in alarm. "This is...!" he yelped, before catching his tongue. "Selma!?"
"I'm aware," Selma answered, sitting just on the other side. There was a door, Gerardo realized, and it held a sturdy black padlock that looked like it hadn't been opened since the application of its last coat of paint. Evidently, Selma had teleported them both into the cage, then warped himself out before Gerardo regained his senses.
"Before you run your tongue and accuse me of tricking you, listen," Selma continued, voice colder than Herman's office. "I have no intention of keeping you here. I had no intention of seeking you out, but it seems you came back to me. Now, I'm going to have to deal with you, and because you insisted on sticking your beak where it doesn't belong, you have to deal with me. In short, we will have to tolerate one another."
His voice dropped even lower. "Your friends you claim to care so much for are safe, for a given definition of the word. Free, above ground, no longer part of my jurisdiction. You can forget everything you've tried to do this morning and seek them out, and live innocently ever after wherever you please. Or, because you've caught me in a hard place and I have no choice but to cooperate, you can continue in your misguided quest... but I don't advise that. Make your decision."
"...What are you saying?" Gerardo asked, brow furrowed. "You robbed me for sport! Of course I want my cargo back; it is valuable!"
"Very well. Then we will go on your inspection," Selma answered. "I'll even go back for your friends. But first, we're going to talk, here in the most secluded, abandoned, private part of Ironridge, because what I am about to say is magnitudes more illegal than any police brutality." He leaned closer to the bars, far enough that Gerardo could have reached out and seized his neck had he wanted. "Tell me, griffon. Do you know what was in those crates of yours?"
"My job instructions were to keep them unopened and confidential," Gerardo said stoically. "I never deviated from them. The knowledge of their contents was for my employer alone."
Selma nodded. "And I was the one waiting for them."
"What!?" Gerardo hissed, taken aback. "Then why would...?"
"Would I confiscate them myself, instead of allowing you the dignity of your completed journey?" Selma's eyes bored into Gerardo, his gaze freely covering the entirety of the prison. "Because I had no intention of turning them over to my superior."
He stood up, began pacing, and continued. "In Yakyakistan's government, the highest existing security clearance is rank SS. It is so exclusive, no yak or pony who lacks it has ever seen or even heard of information containing that classification. I am one of four in Ironridge who possess it... alongside Valey, Herman, and now you. There is only one thing that has that classification: the knowledge of the existence of rank SSS, the rank given only to the nine Archbishops... and that it does contain certain projects."
Gerardo sat stiller than a glacier, listening. "For forty years, ever since Blazing Rain and the great restructuring, Yakyakistan has had an interest in Ironridge. A project they wished to complete, under that designation... a project worth dedicating forty years to bringing about. It was one of the first projects conceived under the post-restructuring government; one of their most important national priorities. A project that can only be completed in Ironridge."
Eyes narrowing in frustration, Selma narrated. "It is this project that keeps Yakyakistan in Ironridge, even as the city's stability hangs by a thread. It is this project that drives Yakyakistan to do everything in their power to preserve that stability... whether it means organizing private, ill-disciplined defense militias, or protecting Sosa from further economic collapse by funneling vast amounts of currency into them under the guise of a weapons contract; something your inspector friend has been torturing herself for years trying to figure out."
He nodded, scanning Gerardo's eyes for comprehension. "Herman and his superiors in Yakyakistan know how volatile this city is. They know they are playing with fire, and that despite their immense influence and power, anything could go awry. Today, they are heroes, but public sentiment is a fickle toy. Were they to fail... were they to become vilified in Ironridge's sight, to be banished from the city before they could complete their project... they created a backup. A Plan B, a package that would survive such a doomsday scenario and allow them to eke some semblance of payoff out of their decades of work. A meager closure, but far better than a complete loss... They sent that package through as obscure a route as possible, forbidding it from being carried by air in the name of delaying its arrival."
Bowing his head, Selma gave no indication that he was anywhere near finished. "Knowledge of Plan B, and the SS rank that came with it, was entrusted to me, a pony who would be believably loyal to Ironridge in the event of catastrophe, who could remain in the city and see the project through at all costs... and now the backup has arrived. However, they made one mistake."
His eyes glinted dangerously. "I am loyal to Ironridge over Yakyakistan. Plan B was in vain; a rebellion never came to pass. But now that backup is here, and with it, they could finish everything. Yakyakistan has been in this for the long haul. It has always been a large and dangerous investment for them to make. Now, their backup is no longer in transit, and every day the Spirit of Sosa and their accursed commander wind this city tighter and tighter and will not stop until it explodes from the strain. What do you think they will do, griffon? Will they sit still and keep playing their long game, knowing that time is their enemy and their insurance is gone? Or will they settle for a middle ground, use their last resort while it's here and then take what they get and leave? I know what I'll be doing. As the protector of Ironridge above all else, I cannot allow the yaks to leave, and thus your delivery cannot be completed."
Sighing, Selma turned away, tone softening and spent. "I apologize for any necessary brutality at the district border last night, though I won't pretend not to have enjoyed it. As I said, your friends are already safe. Now. We are going to the Water District, and you will conduct your inspection. You won't find your crates; I've already taken care of them. You will catalog our broken lights and leaky pipes and return to Herman, as he asked you to do. And then, you can return to your friends and go about your way... or, if you prove trustworthy, you could stay and obtain a job under me. I can always use more trustworthy confidants. Have I convinced you of the importance of my cause?"
Gerardo swallowed, taking a moment to allow the silence to ring in his ears. "I... do have many questions, but... yes, I believe I understand where you're coming from." As Selma visibly relaxed, he added, "The safety of my friends is my utmost concern, and while I will not rest until I have seen them well in person, it is heartening to know they were released. I imagine you only took them in the first place because of the brick?"
"There are many things I've done because of that brick," Selma growled. "Being forced to teleport you one at a time not least. But yes, her incarceration served no point beyond vengeance."
"I see..." Gerardo deflated. "Then there's only one other thing I must inquire as to. I poured a considerable amount of time and effort into completing that job, so to voluntarily forfeit it at the gates of completion... What will become of my compensation?"
"What were you promised?" Selma asked, voice level.
"A..." Gerardo hesitated, mulling over the wisdom of answering. "A Writ of Harmonic Sanction," he finally admitted. "Permission to use Yakyakistan's pass to the Plains of Harmony."
Selma's eyes shone greedily. "Now that is interesting..."
Gerardo blinked. "You just said this plan has been in motion for forty years, yet such an amount of compensation surprises you? Have there been developments in the world I am somehow unaware of?"
"I may have to re-evaluate certain ideas I had discarded earlier due to feasibility," Selma announced to nobody in particular. "I shall see what I can do. Your odds of getting your writ will significantly improve if you cooperate fully with my plan. Now, I imagine your friends back in the embassy are getting restless. Shall we get to work?"
"That would be very much appreciated," Gerardo said with a nod. "If I may, though... the way you spoke of Herman's clearance implies that he does not have SSS. Is that the case?"
"...Yes." Selma nodded. "Nobody in Ironridge knows the exact nature of Yakyakistan's project, nor what lies within those crates." Instantly and without time for further questions, he teleported into the cell, grabbed Gerardo, and vanished once again in a burst of light.
With a flash, Selma and Gerardo appeared in a sparsely decorated, if slightly homely lobby surrounded by round wooden tables and a smattering of pegasi nursing thermoses of coffee. "Wait here," the unicorn instructed, stepping back. "This won't take long."
As quickly as they had arrived, Selma vanished, leaving Gerardo blinking and adjusting to the fresher air. He paced to a window, natural light streaming through, and inhaled deeply, stretching his wings while watching to ensure he didn't hit any ponies through his broad wingspan. Between his meetings with Herman and Selma, he had a lot to think about, and then was as good a time to wade through it as any.
Herman was helping, and for that he knew he should be grateful. The tools the yak had offered him would be useful under any circumstances, no matter the intent, and he had already seen them force Selma into a more desperate state. The help was real... and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that it had been too easy. Perhaps he was still unnerved from Herman's bizarre white office, or too much on the lookout for any possible source of things going wrong, but it was as if he had jumped to his aid without so much as questioning Gerardo's own credibility. Was it?
It was entirely possible that Herman was waiting for him to show up; that he knew already what had transpired at the gates of the Water District and had decided on his plan before they ever met. But if so, he would certainly know about the delivery, and not want to wait for a slow, lone griffon to stand a chance of reclaiming it.
Selma had said that Maple and Starlight were no longer in the fortress, after all, which unless he was lying lent credence to the theory that Herman had already acted. But then, assuming he had, and controlled the situation previously... why go to such lengths during their meeting? Surely, granting anyone diplomatic immunity was a colossal risk, as was unrestricted access to a military facility...
His train of thought was interrupted by another flash of magic, Selma depositing Sharpie. "Ah!" Gerardo broke into a polite smile. "It seems you're here."
"And now for your other," the unicorn droned coldly, blinking away once again.
"Before you apologize and explain for what took you so long," Sharpie rapidly said, putting a hoof to Gerardo's beak before he could continue, "listen. Howe is lying about something important and I don't have enough information yet to say for sure what it is but it probably involves the Defense Force and that's why I'm bringing him along and keeping him talking; so I can keep an eye on him. I'll tell you more once we have more time and they won't be back any second, so for now just do your thing and-"
Flash!
Selma reappeared, Howe at his side, and Sharpie stopped talking so fast she didn't even have time to inhale. Gerardo's eyes were wide as he watched the pegasus recover.
"Ho-hooo!" Howe scizzored his wingtips behind his back, stretching cracking his neck. "Teleportation sure is something, huh, brother bird?"
"Yes, it..." Gerardo blinked absentmindedly. "I suppose it is..."
His thoughts weren't on Howe's yammering. In fact, they weren't on Sharpie's explanation-warning either: they had slipped back to Riverfall, to a one-sided conversation he and Arambai had had concerning how to thrive in Ironridge. And one particular piece of advice from that night rose up, haunting his mind...
The next thing to remember is that basically everyone there has a side, and sticks to it like their life depends on it. It's a good idea to be nice to folks and avoid making enemies, but be careful about being too nice, as well. You don't want to get yourself roped into any obligations should things turn messy for whatever reason...
As Howe ran his mouth and Selma prompted him to begin his investigation, Gerardo suddenly realized just how many sides he had already managed to get tangled up in.
"I think," Gerardo began, choosing a door at random and pointing to it with a talon, "that this is as good a place to begin as any. Shall we?"
Selma took a single step away from him. "That is a bathroom."
"Oh! Err... well, then..." Glancing around the room, Gerardo sized up the other three exits, two in the back and one that clearly went outside. "Regrettably, I find myself with no idea where to begin."
"It would seem counter-intuitive to your goal to come to me for directions," Selma coolly said, eyes wandering. "Weren't you going to be nosy and look everywhere you weren't supposed to?"
"This is a lobby," Sharpie helpfully interrupted. "A break room, mostly. You'll want to go deeper into the fortress."
"If you're looking for an elevator, consider going right," Selma mentioned, observing Howe with faint curiosity as the pegasus sniffed the underside of a table. "It can take you to most anywhere in my fortress."
Chancing a grin, Gerardo stepped toward the corridor, hoping against the faint possibility that it was a trap. "Well, going most anywhere hardly can hurt, can it?"
Pacing through the corridors and directed by Selma at intersections, the residential aesthetic of the Defense Force base quickly faded, its look changing from that of an office or house to that of a basement and eventually a well-maintained mineshaft. A steady flow of air along the length of the hallway became noticeable, and at one point they passed under a large ceiling grate beyond which a fan with blades bigger than Gerardo himself thrummed ceaselessly.
"We should begin by going up, I feel," Gerardo announced as the elevator drew into sight. "The area where my friends were captured seems a prudent place to search first, and as it was at the top of the district going down seems a counter-intuitive way to reach there."
Selma nodded, touching the control panel with a brief flicker of magic and making no comment as the elevator thrummed to life.
Hissssss! The elevator doors slid seamlessly open with a rush of air, and the three ponies and griffon filed inside. Selma hesitated, making a second adjustment, and they began to rise as the doors slipped closed behind them.
The elevator was cylindrical and made fully of glass, allowing its riders to see the damp blue rock of the Water District whizzing by at impressive speeds. Gerardo's legs buckled from the combined pressure of gravity and acceleration, and it was only with a significant effort that he stopped himself from staggering... though one look to Sharpie and Howe told him they were hardly in a position to care.
"Let me guess," Selma droned as the elevator rose, leaning against its wall as if he were weightless. "Next, you want to find the room where I put them."
"That... was my plan, yes," Gerardo admitted, slightly embarrassed at being so transparent, even if his course of action was obvious for a reason. When conducting a search, it was best to start at the source, after all. All he had to do was find it.
"In that case..." Selma paused for a single second, and that was all it took for the elevator to slow to a jarring stop, granting its passengers the briefest instance of weightlessness before a final spike of pressure to the legs. "Right this way."
The elevator opened into a cavernous storage room, littered with crates stacked like partitions in a maze on a metal-tiled floor. Gerardo swallowed. He was just tall enough to see over all but the largest, and the endless sea that he saw was exactly the kind of place he would choose to hide two unmarked, stolen boxes were the roles reversed. If that was what Selma had done, he was screwed.
"Are you coming, or aren't you?" Sharpie's voice called from behind him, and with a whirl he realized Selma was leading the two pegasi off in a different direction.
"Takin' the old detours, eh, bird-bro?" Howe pumped a wing in support, calling back over his shoulder. "I dig it! Don't forget to write!"
Sputtering, Gerardo flapped his wings, propelling himself forward and instantly catching up.
They followed Selma further, leaving the crate room behind and returning to narrow, metal-lined corridors of pipes and grating and harsh manalights that did their best to flicker the moment someone stopped staring directly at them. Gerardo's headcrest swept back, blown by the ventilation to the point where he was ready to sue to have the place's name changed to the Wind District. Sharpie fared even worse, her long, flowing black locks billowing loosely in every direction and frequently sticking to her face. Selma's mane wasn't long enough to garner more than an unkempt frizz, and Howe's was loaded with so much gel and conditioner that it held its shape like a boulder.
"Gah, I h-hate how cold it is in here..." Sharpie shivered, wrapping her wings around herself as she walked. "It's like you keep those stupid fans that high just to keep ponies out!"
Selma nodded as he walked. "They do serve as a defense mechanism, yes. I am from Yakyakistan and thrive in wind and cold. The rest of the Defense Force is comprised only of pegasi, and they tend toward natural resistances to these things." He let one eyebrow rise, eyeing her shuddering form, and added, "Apparently, that does not extend to all. But as the Sosans are used to the heat of the Earth District, they will surely feel it much more than we do."
"Interesting." Gerardo's talons curled around the grated metal floor as he walked, providing ultimate traction against the winds. "As inspector, however, would that not be a potential security vulnerability, if someone were to reach and shut off the fans?"
"Negative." Selma turned a corner, continuing his march. "If the fans were off, it would merely even the field, not act as a disadvantage. And the control room is placed at an easily-defensible choke that would cost any invaders a large amount of resources to break."
"I might like to see this control room later," Gerardo mused, slipping gently into thought.
As he trailed off, Sharpie hissed, "You know, I once wanted to be in the Defense Force to do my part for Ironridge before I was disillusioned and took this job instead. It's your own fault for that pegasus stallions only rule that I'm not a thorn in your side. Ever thought about how much talent you're wasting by being arbitrarily exclusive?"
"You?" Selma chuckled. "A thorn in my side? Don't make me laugh." As Sharpie's face stretched in a snarl, he added, "I've thought about it a lot, and that's precisely why the rule is there. A basic rule of combat is that pegasi beat earth ponies through superior speed and mobility, earth ponies beat unicorns through greater strength and resilience, and unicorns beat pegasi by blasting them out of the sky, as a certain griffon is undoubtedly familiar with. Now, observe who the sole unicorn in the Defense Force is."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "That is... quite devious. You constructed your army specifically with the intent of winning a one-on-one with each and every one of your soldiers? Engineered it with a critical flaw you could exploit to save your own skin in the event of betrayal? How many of them even know that was the reason for that factor in their hiring?"
"I'm a pegasus too," Sharpie grumbled, pushing her mane out of her face.
Selma didn't even look back. "Ah, yes. The No Mares rule. Stallions only are so the fortress doesn't contain anyone for Valey to flirt with."
Sharpie and Gerardo sighed at exactly the same time. "That is the pettiest excuse for discrimination I have ever heard," Gerardo muttered. "Though, I suppose, it is your militia."
"Pettiness is the lesser half of it," Selma answered, still marching straight ahead. "Valey is toxic to the structure of this organization. I can't fire her, so by giving her as big an incentive as possible to occupy herself elsewhere in the city, her interference is minimized instead. Any step that can be taken to keep her out is a step toward granting the Defense Force some semblance of efficiency so we can respond to crises as needed, fulfill our obligation to Ironridge and not have a repeat of last night."
Straightening his neck, he continued marching. "It wasn't always like this. When I implemented that rule three years ago, the difference was one of the biggest I have ever seen in my career."
"...Your internal politics are very strange," Gerardo admitted, blinking. "Where's Howe?"
"Right here, boss!" Howe piped from the back of the procession. "Figured I'd let you important types do the talking on this one, and all. Did you miss the sound of my lovely voice?"
"'Miss' is very much the wrong word, but yes, I did notice your unusual silence," Gerardo replied. "It was a welcome change. Please, do carry on."
"No need," Selma interrupted. "We are here."
With the swish of a card key and a hiss of moving metal, a door swung open, bathing the room beyond in light. Selma entered first, horn brightening in intensity until the entire room was lit.
Gerardo's eyes eagerly swept it, tracing the forest of thick pipes rising from the floor as they threaded their way into the stalactite-laden ceiling. The walls were all bare stone, with the roughness and shape of a natural cave, the metal-framed door in which he stood the only link back to the industrial fortress. A smattering of half-opened crates and discarded tools lined the walls, and he instantly stepped forward, beginning to search.
"They aren't there," Selma droned as Gerardo poked at a box and discovered a logo.
"I am well aware..." Gerardo hissed to himself, brain clocking into overdrive. This was what he should have been thinking about on their walk from the elevator: he was a detective, and needed to detect. Up until then, his plan of action had been pitifully obvious to the point where it was Selma doing all the work, and without being proactive that would never end in success. He needed to find a card to play, and he needed it soon.
The sound of wings fluttering passed overhead, and he momentarily noted Sharpie's suited body flitting around the pipes. Instead of looking up after her, he began to check another crate, pretending not to notice when Selma spoke again. "Do you really think I would leave your things in the first room you would have me take you to? This inspection is going nowhere fast..."
"Up here!" Sharpie suddenly chimed.
Gerardo looked up to see her hovering by a pipe, indicating something attached to the surface. Spreading his own wings, he kicked off the ground and drew level beside her. "What have we here?"
"See for yourself," she said, poking at what appeared to be a darkened glass dome with a metal base, bolted onto the pipe and leaving a braided wire running off to the shadows of the ceiling.
"This can't be..." Focusing hard, Gerardo stared into the surface, and thought he made out a darker spot beneath the glass. "Is it a security camera?"
"The entire facility is constantly monitored," Selma remarked. "Real-time video is available anywhere, and recordings are kept for twenty-four hours."
Gerardo's eyebrows rose. "Is there any chance we might be able to see such recordings?"
With a wordless nod, Selma turned and exited the door, beckoning them to follow with a hoof.
Silently, Selma led the procession back to the elevator, where they continued to ascend. As it rose, Gerardo tried to force his thoughts onto a productive track. There was a security camera, and they were going to inspect the feed. Evidently, Selma didn't care much that he was showing it off for free... even though with access to such a monitoring system, Gerardo could see veritably everything in the facility. Then again, the unicorn didn't seem much for secrecy in general, since his meeting with Herman.
What was it that had caused him to reveal such apparently-sensitive information? He had dramatized it even more than some of Arambai's non-secrets, and been fairly thorough in his explanations... as far as Gerardo could tell, at least. But why had he revealed them in the first place? For a cold, threatening officer-type, a simple 'You won't find your crates' would have sufficed as a warning. Why explain why...?
His best two guesses on the matter were either that Selma sought to have him as an ally... questionable, given their brief history and Gerardo's own limited utility... or that he had panicked and not chosen his strategy with sound mind. Down his weapon and weighted with numerous obligations, Gerardo would be the first to admit that he was a borderline liability even without his limited knowledge of the situation. If Ironridge was one massive, ruleless game, as had been stated at the embassy, then he was playing with an empty deck.
The elevator slid to a stop before he could reach a satisfying conclusion, its doors cleaving open with a whoosh. Selma stepped out, taking the lead once again, and beckoned for them to follow.
At least Howe was holding his tongue, Gerardo thought, walking past walls laden with data displays and instrument panels that glowed electric blue on black. The silence was both welcome and unprecedented, and he half-wondered if Sharpie had said something to convince him to shut up.
...No, not unprecedented, he realized. For the entirety of their Sky District sojurn the previous night, Howe had been mute to the point of resorting to mime. While he had left strict silence behind, he was also no longer risking his life to fill dead air. It was as if he had... listened.
Gerardo found a slight rush of appreciation for the pegasus, which he immediately regretted. Howe was still responsible for getting them into their predicament in the first place... only he wasn't that, either. Selma had openly admitted to ambushing Gerardo with intent of stealing his crates, regardless of Howe's intervention. He certainly hadn't made matters better, but it was fully possible that the incident wasn't his fault.
Blinking, Gerardo resolved that some time, once their present danger was resolved and his friends, sword and delivery reward were safely by his side, he might owe the pegasus a second chance.
"Here we are," Selma announced, rounding a corner into a circular, dimly-lit room ringed by chairs and stools all facing console screens. Each and every one of them was further subdivided into windows, and each of those showed a single video feed, positioned through awkwardly blown-up lenses and showing abandoned metal corridors, blank stone walls and rooms, guards occasionally pacing or lounging about.
He walked to a slightly larger screen directly across from the entrance and knelt down, inserting his long horn into a hole directly beneath it. "Job security," he muttered as it pulsed, evidently anticipating a question. "Nopony in a high enough position to benefit from usurping me would want to deal with all the personal locks I'd leave behind."
Gerardo shrugged as the screen flickered to life. "I wouldn't put it past you."
Nodding, Selma stepped back. "Sit. Give me rooms and times and I can connect to any camera in the Water District. It also accesses those in the Flame and Sky Districts, but your clearance does not cover those."
"Fair enough," Gerardo answered. "Take me to that storage room where my friends were housed, around dusk of last evening."
Selma's hoof flew against a flat, sensitive surface, and images flickered by like mismatching bandwidths. Eventually, a red-on-black image appeared, showing what Gerardo quickly realized was a high-up view of the entrance to the captive room, several other pipes stretching vertically to the side.
"Is it... are the colors...?" Gerardo asked, pointing a talon.
"Because there are no lights in that room," Selma coolly said. "I presume you want me to fast-forward until I arrive with your friend?"
"Friend, yes..." Gerardo muttered. "Friends. There were two of them. Didn't you say as much earlier? I have a distinct recollection of..."
"See for yourself." The red flickered out of the image as the door slid open, and two grainy pegasi strolled in, crates balanced on their backs. Gerardo leaned forward eagerly.
Behind them, Maple followed, floating in Selma's icy aura. She looked limp and defeated, though the recording's resolution wasn't enough to make out her finer details, and the only source of light being behind her made the problem even worse. Still, there was no doubt it was her, her messy, half-braided mane hanging off to one side and her brand briefly glinting as she turned.
They watched as Selma's video self stepped up to a pipe and forced Maple up against it, ropes streaming out to wrap around her in his aura. In the background, the guards set their crates aside, bowed, and left. Selma's mouth moved, uttering some command at them, but the feed was silent.
"...There's no audio?" Gerardo asked, headcrest drooping.
"There is not," Selma answered, standing stock-still. "Adding such was deemed unnecessary, as the purpose of this system is to monitor hypothetical invasions and search for slackers. The recording functionality was added later, and the cameras lacked sound receivers."
On the screen, Selma prodded Maple's belly with a hoof, and Gerardo's eyes narrowed. Several more wordless phrases were exchanged, before he turned tail, marching out and sliding the door closed behind him. Plunged into darkness, the room turned pitch-black for several seconds, before the red lines resumed.
"Well," Gerardo began, watching Maple's upright form tied prone against a pipe, "I believe we should continue our fast-forward until-"
Suddenly, Maple dropped free, landing shakily on her hooves, her bindings seeming to have disappeared. Gerardo leaned forward, and even Selma gasped in surprise. At that, Sharpie raised an eyebrow. "You didn't watch your own security tapes before showing them to two inspectors?"
Selma growled, head low. "I was too preoccupied sleeping off a headache from a certain brick of metal..."
Gerardo's interest redoubled. If Selma hadn't seen the recordings, and his admittance was almost certainly candid, that meant they were guaranteed not to be screened... and could contain any amount of valuable, verifiably-true information. If Ironridge was a game, he might have just found his first card.
Just as abruptly as Maple had freed herself, there was a bright blast of teal, and the camera's night vision switched itself off. Several more seconds elapsed, during which the screen maintained its pitch-black uselessness, occasionally teased by a faint teal flicker... and eventually, the red light turned on again, revealing the mare leaning down and hugging a small, possibly-horned filly.
"Where did...?" Gerardo blinked. "Where did she come from?"
Selma didn't answer, and neither did Sharpie. Howe was leaning toward the screen with almost as much interest as Gerardo's own, eyes constantly flickering around the virtual room.
The room was still dark, Maple and Starlight largely unmoving as the minutes ticked by. As Gerardo continued to baffle over Starlight's appearance, pondering if a filly could really teleport that far, and if so how she would target it, a slow tapping began, intensifying in speed.
"They've got your crates, brother bird..." Howe said nervously, craning his neck, leg twitching against the floor to create the din. "Those are the ones I totally owe you a hoof getting back!"
"I'm well aware," Gerardo whispered back, waiting for Selma to move forward. He didn't, and time continued to flow by at a snail's pace.
Just when it got to the point where Gerardo began wondering if Selma was deliberately stalling for time, the screen lit teal again, Starlight's horn glowing. "Hmm," the griffon muttered. "I was under the impression you said you released them, yet they look like they're about to try something escapeish."
Selma massaged his temple. "I was briefed on their whereabouts during my morning Where's Valey report. She was seen with them leaving the Flame District. I assumed she let them out..."
Suddenly, the screen flared brightly with magic, and with a wave of telekinesis, the top of one of Gerardo's crates popped clean off.
The shock in the surveillance room was palpable as the lid of Gerardo's crate hit the floor, the camera at a perfect angle to observe as Starlight and Maple leaned up, peering into the box. Selma looked as if he had fallen for Maple's brick drop a second time in a row, while Howe's wings shot out in excitement, nearly knocking Sharpie over, who was frowning in confusion. Gerardo merely sagged.
"How...? What...?" he stammered, watching the camera's dim teal lighting and blurry resolution as indefinite shapes hovered out of the box and into the air, Starlight and Maple both rummaging eagerly. "What were they thinking?"
After a solid minute of watching in rapture, Maple withdrew from the crate, clutching something vaguely round and sparkly that seemed to command her and Starlight's attention. Several more words were exchanged... and then it abruptly disappeared. Immediately, the rest of the objects removed from the crate flew back into it, and the lid hammered itself back into place.
As Maple and Starlight forced open the door and exited, nobody stepped up to change the camera. Instead, Selma hissed, then growled, face contorting so heavily that his mane clung more tightly to his skull. "Rrrrnngh... I..." He abruptly stood up, stalking toward the room exit. "Excuse me. I need to adjust some plans..."
Swooooosh! Gerardo recovered far faster than he, and with a mighty wingstroke soared across the room, landing in the doorway and cutting Selma off. "I think not," he demanded, wings remaining spread in obstruction. "Is this not precisely why Herman demanded that you accompany me at all times? To ensure you wouldn't run off and alter something the moment I make a discovery?"
"Out of my way, griffon," Selma growled, horn lighting. "We both lose if the contents of those crates escapes, if you haven't forgotten. What happened to getting your important reward?" He scuffed at the ground as if preparing to charge.
"No," Gerardo forcefully countered. "You'll send your army to collect them, and I cannot permit any more harm to befall my friends. On this, I will not budge."
Selma seethed, but didn't teleport or attack. "I told you what would happen if those crates were tampered with. Would you really risk something so monumental?"
"Hey, uhh..." Howe lifted a forelimb. "I don't actually need to be here, so... want me to go find your pals and give them a little old heads-up?"
"You certainly have a knack for running into us," Gerardo breathed, preparing to take a risk that would have been almost unfathomable several minutes ago. "If you truly mean that you wish to make amends with me... find my friends and warn them that the Defense Force may still be pursuing them. Hurry!"
Howe gaped, then beamed, then grinned a stupid grin, saluting heavily with his feathers. "I will not fail you, Brother Bird!" With a powerful flap, he scooted past Selma, who did nothing to try to stop him, and soared down the fortress corridor.
With an angry flash, Selma's horn glowed brighter... and an icy-blue shield mushroomed out, settling around him and Gerardo like a dome. "Soundproof," he explained, voice nevertheless at a whisper that was far calmer than his features. "You caught on faster than I expected. Impressive."
"What?" Gerardo whispered back, brow furrowing in confusion. "Whatever do you-?"
Selma's face remained perfectly serious, inches from Gerardo's own. "Keep your fighting face on. This room is under recorded surveillance, as well."
Gerardo was too taken aback to respond, though he still managed to comply, listening as hard as he could for the unicorn's next word.
"Here's the new plan," Selma growled, teeth gritted and eyes hard. "I've sent Yakyakistan a missive informing them the crates have arrived. They are sending someone to complete Plan B, who will be bringing your reward. This has already happened. Understood?"
"Indeed," Gerardo growled back. He couldn't tell if Selma was being honest or telling him a lie that must be perpetuated at all costs, but at that moment it didn't matter.
"Excellent. Now." Selma's face didn't move as he spoke. "My hooves must be innocent in this matter for this heist to work. It is your responsibility to buy your friends as much time as they need to take what they stole - and I know they stole something - and get somewhere we will never, ever find them. Continue your inspection. Stall as much as you can. Because the moment I'm free, I will have no choice but to hunt them down with every resource available."
The shield dropped before Gerardo could respond.
"You know," Sharpie sighed from the console, ears twisting backwards at the sound of magical dissipation, "a less-cynical me would try to arrest you for assaulting a diplomat right there. Now, I'm just wondering why I'm the only one of you idiots who cares what happens to these poor girls."
Gerardo stepped back to the console, which was focused on a poniless view of the crate storage room with the elevator. "...Where are they?" he queried, tilting his head and trying to solidify his composure.
"I've lost track." Sharpie sagged, flitting between several different cameras. "That room isn't completely covered, so I can't follow them any more."
"Focus on the elevator," Selma droned, standing to her other side and not looking at Gerardo. "It is unlikely they would have reached the Flame District without it."
"Nnngh..." Sharpie scrolled to a camera positioned within the elevator, face tensed and lip bitten. Reaching a hoof forward, she tapped once. "Fast-forward..."
In a flash, the doors were open and three pony-shaped whirls of color were outside. She swiped it back to speed just in time to see Maple and Starlight step in, followed by a guard.
Gerardo's beak clenched as the doors slid shut and the elevator rose. The ponies were close enough to the camera to get a better look despite the resolution: Maple's face was split between shock, worry and relief, and she was panting. Starlight, to her side, was completely blank.
"I don't remember assigning him to a patrol route involving that room," Selma sniffed. "It seems this system catches slackers even when it's being used for other purposes."
They continued watching silently as the elevator rose... until it suddenly stopped and opened, the guard punching a panel rapidly as the lights turned red around them.
"What...?" Gerardo leaned closer, squinting as Maple and Starlight rapidly, unhappily shuffled out of the elevator, its doors closing behind them. The guard remained inside, and abruptly began to descend.
"He's responding to last night's invasion," Selma said with a shrug, tone bored and dour.
Gerardo's beak dropped. "An invasion? Forgive me, but what exactly does that entail? I was... under the impression that your defenses were more of a deterrent than for actual combat."
"Usually." Selma straightened his back, turning to glance at the exit. "Last night was an exception. The Sosan commander, alone, entered my fortress and attacked the good defenders of the Stone District. Eventually, she was overwhelmed by our numbers and forced to flee. I imagine you will be taking your investigation and looking into this unusual event?"
"That," Gerardo said, standing up, "sounds like an excellent plan moving forward. After all, I am in no hurry whatsoever! Lead the way, if you please."
"So this is the remnants of a fight scene, you say," Gerardo mused, standing in a mostly-ordinary metal corridor many floors down from the control room. He didn't have a perfect grasp on how far up it was, but it was definitely below the level where Maple and Starlight had been held captive. "I'm not sure what kind of damage I was expecting, but it involved more burns and less... brute force."
Selma raised a hoof, placing it against a vertical pipe on the wall. He flexed his muscles, pushed... and with a creak of metal, the pipe moved, its bottom half bending out to reveal that it had been severed down the middle with the most hairline of cracks. His hoof then traced alongside a wall, dipping slightly in places where it had been bashed in, the thin metal plating shredded and the rock chipped beneath. "Thanks to the failures of a certain weapons contract, we have little weaponry that does not rely on pure barbaric force," he said coldly. "And the Sosan chose not to bring any."
Sharpie sulked. "If you wanted better weapons, you should have helped with my case while it was still alive, instead of being an obstructive yak hugger and refusing everything I asked."
While they bickered, Gerardo closely inspected the floor, quickly coming to a hypothesis that needed testing. "For a battle fought with weapons that do this much damage to metal and walls, there seems to be a remarkable lack of residual blood... and not because these floors have been recently cleaned, either. What really happened here, Captain?"
"You say that..." Selma slowly droned. "Yet the casualty report I was given this morning listed twenty-seven injured." He leaned down, sniffing the floor for himself without taking his eyes off the griffon. "And yet, you are correct. Interesting."
Gerardo frowned. "A weapon that could injure that many without spilling a drop of blood... Might there be an infirmary within this fortress where the victims are being treated? I would very much like to see as to their conditions..."
After a roundabout hike that included more than one trip in an elevator that had Sharpie flying to stay off her hooves and Gerardo questioning whether Selma was doing stalling of his own, they arrived. The infirmary was a series of white-lined rooms with gentle ventilation, cleen sheets draped everywhere and hung from the ceiling like curtains. A unicorn with a test tube on his flank walked past, pushing a cart with his forehooves and not even glancing as Selma entered.
"Hey, boss," said a pegasus with incredibly sunken eyes from behind a counter. "Was wondering when you would show up to see the damage in person. Everyone's signs are stable, but... they could really use a morale boost. I could too, knowing the enemy has a weapon like that."
"I am temporarily off-duty," Selma answered, earning a slight recoil from the darkly-colored pegasus. "But we are here to assess the damages. Take us to the patients."
The pegasus nodded slothfully back, slumping one limb at a time out of his chair as if he was up three hours before his preferred wake-up time. Tail limp, he shuffled to a sterile-looking metal door that hissed open as he approached. "In here," he muttered. "Had to get some of the beds out of storage. Not often we need them all at once. Should probably keep them out, just in case..."
Gerardo followed Selma into the room, and his eyes widened at what he saw. A full compliment of beds held pegasi, most unmoving, whispering and glancing at the newcomers with only their eyes as if paralyzed from the necks down. Several managed louder words and noises, and a few even sat up.
"Private," Selma announced, approaching one of the sitting pegasi, composure iron. "Report."
"Ohhh Commander..." the pegasus breathed, laughing nervously. "It was the spookiest thing ever! She just stood there like a demon, and we were throwing spears at her but she kept advancing one step at a time, and it didn't even matter that she had armor because she blocked all of them with her sword! And I know you said to always stand your ground, Sir, but she was so scary and I tried to run, and then she hit my shoulder because the others were pressing us closer, and... oh boy..."
He held up a forelimb... or tried to, at least. It dangled limply, like a noodle, barely even indicative that there was a bone inside at all. With his other, he tapped a sling that pinned one of his wings to his side. "Can't even feel them, Sir. I think they might be dead. I..." His smile broke, turning to one of denial rather than relief. "I was one of the lucky ones, Sir. Most of the others, she hit their necks or bodies, and they... they're like zombies..."
The chorus of whispers from the immobile ponies intensified, many single eyes staring at unnatural angles to see Gerardo and Selma. Sharpie's mouth was covered with a wing, and her cheeks were slightly green. "I might... go back outside..." she murmured, mane askew.
"Fear not," Gerardo interrupted with a commanding voice, catching the entire room's attention. "I've seen magic like this before," he narrated. "It isn't permanent... at least, not the variations I've discovered. Rest, eat well, and it wears off in less than a week. It's designed as a nonlethal combat solution, so none of you should be in danger."
The room gasped louder, and several voices asked hopeful, disbelieving questions, but Gerardo's mind was elsewhere. It was blatant what had happened: Braen had attacked the fortress using his stolen sword. His own experience with the weapon suggested that his advice was true. Though, there always was the sinister possibility that Braen had somehow changed it... and her continued possession of the sword didn't speak well for Shinespark's odds of recovering it.
Selma jabbed him, snapping his attention back to the room. "How do you know that?" the unicorn asked, frowning.
"I, Captain, am a Griffon Adventurer Extraordinaire," Gerardo proclaimed, holding an imperious talon to his breast. "Running across unusual things such as these is in my job description."
"Whew..." The guard with the limp foreleg sighed noisily, then lay back. "If you're telling the truth, that's the biggest relief of my life. I can't fight with three legs and one wing! I could probably barely walk! Imagining going home to my wife after all this and telling her I was permanently unemployable... That would just be the worst. I mean, she knows I do night shift, but this is still past the time I usually get home, so I'm a little late already and she's probably already worried..."
"Yes, yes, indeed," Gerardo agreed, bobbing his head. Surveying the room, he asked, "Could any of you tell me if there was a known motive for the invasion? I am presently an inspector, after all, and anything you could tell me would be of great use."
"Oh, yeah, that's easy," the noodle-legged pegasus answered, nodding hopefully. "She was going on about how we had captives we needed to return! Which is completely false, by the way, because that's something only the Sosans would do, but you can inspect that, too! Something about a mare and a filly. Really, who foalnaps a cute little filly? A complete scumbag, that's who."
Oblivious to Selma's sudden glare, he continued. "But she thought we had them, anyway. She kept saying their names. Maple and, uhhh... Twilight."
"Starlight," another nearby guard helpfully corrected.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." The first guard shrugged a one-shouldered shrug. "Pretty much the same name. New parents these days need to be more creative when naming their kids." He blinked, eyes unfocusing. "I had a friend once called Poncho. See, that's a name that's both unique and creative. I bet nobody ever confused him with anyone else."
Gerardo wasn't listening. He couldn't listen, because his mind had just been seized by an idea... an idea that wouldn't stop growing. He had gone to Dior late the previous night to request aid for his friends, and received a blunt reassurance and nothing more. Then, an armored pony had appeared to demand his friends' release... but the guards said nothing about the crates, and Dior hadn't vouched for those, either. It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it? How else would the Sosans even have known his friends were in the Water District, let alone in need of saving?
"How was Braen defeated, again...?" he asked, mostly to keep the guards busy while he thought. Braen was a mare... as evidenced by the proportions of her armor. Thanks to her magically-distorted voice, though, there was nothing else by which to tell. His mind silently conjured up an image of Dior next to her, and the stallion suddenly stood out for his slight proportions and curved muzzle...
And his limp. When Dior left the meeting, he had been reluctant to put weight on his right front hoof. With a flash, Gerardo's mind spun back to the battle in the Earth District where Braen had stolen his sword... and had done so by lodging it in her armor after it partially penetrated her right front hoof.
"It couldn't be..." he breathed, which was thankfully covered up by the guard's continued talking.
"...because Valey is scary." The guard hugged himself with one limb. "I mean, if you can spook the baddest bandit in Sosa with just a bit of mumbo jumbo and a glare, nobody wants to mess with you. I sure don't! Besides, she's weird, kind of mean and is constantly playing tricks."
Gerardo blinked. His mind wanted to make a connection between Braen's presence in Sosa and the fact that Arambai was somehow still in touch with Dior, but he had to focus... that or get somewhere where taking time to think was more reasonable. "Selma!" he uttered. "I've recalled that we were going to... visit the ventilation systems control room. If there is further work to be done here, I have no qualms with waiting, but otherwise it seems we have no reason to dally."
Selma shot him a look that appeared to have its intended meaning be quite obvious, though Gerardo had no idea what it was. Shrugging, he turned to the door and began to march. "Onward, in that case. Let us inspect some ventilation."
In another elevator, riding to another part of the fortress, Gerardo stood still, deep in thought. Now that he knew Shinespark had failed to recover his sword, it was time to deeply reconsider his priorities... a list that constantly appeared to be shrinking.
He had three goals, in a best-case scenario. The first, and most important, was the safety of his friends, because actual lives and trust and other creatures besides himself were on the line. The second was to recover his sword; the most useful and potentially irreplaceable tool he possessed. The third was to obtain his writ of entry into the Plains of Harmony, which he had been promised as a reward for completing the Yakyakistani delivery... a task that was progressively becoming more tangled and convoluted by the minute. The ultimate goal underlying all three of those was to escape the city with his life intact and in possession of as many of the three as possible.
Every one of those required him going out and hunting down something he didn't already have; finding something that was lost in the city. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to have a brand like Maple's that would allow him to guard his possessions from theft at all times... and shook his head. Wishful thinking wouldn't be practical.
Finding Maple and Starlight was the most important of those goals, because they would be helpless and vulnerable without him and would soon come under attack, assuming Selma wasn't lying. But without his sword, he would be powerless to defend them, as Selma had painfully taught him the previous evening. Furthermore, neither of them could fly, and while they weren't pushovers physically they couldn't match him for fitness and endurance. Unless he could establish a guaranteed safehouse to hide them in, finding them before the sword would only weigh him down... and so long as he stuck to his present task of pursuing the crates and the writ, they would be safe from pursuit. Logically, then, they would have to be the last thing he found before leaving the city.
That left his sword and his writ. As much as it pained him to admit it, neither was truly essential: once he left Ironridge, having a weapon would no longer be of as critical import, and Starlight herself could function as a key into the Plains of Harmony, having somehow found a route out. But if he were to get them...
Stalling Selma would have to be his top priority, as that would buy him more time to act later, and that hopefully was moving him closer to the writ. His sword was a mix-up: he could go to the Steel District as requested and hope that Shinespark had managed to obtain it over the course of the night, or go to the Sky District and confront Dior with what he suspected about Braen's identity. A mistake in either direction would be a costly waste of time.
Quickly, he took stock of his tentative alliances; the greatest asset he still had. Sharpie? Motivated by revenge and working with him out of shared mutual interest. Slipstream? He was already indebted to her before considering that she might be mad at him for ditching her at Skyfreeze. Howe? Ironrically, his most trustworthy ally. For all the pegasus's incompetence and bravado, he seemed to have a legitimate interest in helping Gerardo. If only trustworthiness extended to reliability...
Then there were Selma and Herman. He wasn't sure why he was lumping them together when they seemed to be on opposing sides... or, at least, Selma was plotting behind his superior's back. Likely, it was because they were both the most suspicious: Herman had been overly helpful without a clear motive, and Selma had said too much, too quickly. Gerardo wished he could rewind his conversations with the unicorn to analyze what had been said for clues and contradictions. In the heat of the moment, it had seemed reasonable enough, but the mere fact that Selma always chose to discuss important things during moments of extreme tension wasn't a strike in his favor.
None of those ponies, he suddenly realized, he could properly confide in about everything he knew. If Herman assigning him to work against his own underling wasn't enough, Selma had told him, with the barest sliver of consent, information that was both extremely sensitive and extremely useless... making him dangerous to talk to. The only ponies he could fully trust in Ironridge were lost somewhere, being chased by Howe and soon the rest of the Defense Force. He was isolated by his knowledge, unable to trust any minds but his own to aid in parsing it. He was stuck thinking through the things he learned and observed on his own, and that made it extremely easy for his perception and agenda to be manipulated. That was dangerous.
As the elevator slid to a stop, Gerardo quickly resolved to set his plan in stone: get the writ if possible, get the sword if possible, get Maple and Starlight, get out. Any changes to that agenda caused by anything he found that Selma or anyone else could possibly have anything to do with had to be questioned under utmost scrutiny, because he was a sitting duck to misdirection. No matter what he found while stalling, he couldn't make any hasty, influenced decisions.
...And the act of stalling and dragging out the inspection rather than hurrying back to his friends was just such a decision.
"Selma," he immediately probed, "once we are finished here, how am I to proceed?"
"With?" Selma lifted an eyebrow. "You're going to make your report to Herman, unless you decide otherwise. I could care less what you do, myself."
"That's rubbish," Sharpie grumbled, pacing out of the elevator at Gerardo's side. "The way you were talking when we watched those kids open the crate, you both obviously talked about it beforehoof, and I know you're not in this together because I listened to him complain about being mugged earlier." She jabbed a wing at Gerardo. "And don't think I didn't notice how long you were gone for that first teleport. Selma, you've clearly got something on him, so don't pretend to be ignorant for my sake."
Selma's face fell into a frown. "I'm perfectly serious; I could care less what he does when this inspection is over." Huffing, he quickened his pace.
"I imagine you could," Gerardo whispered under his breath, falling into step behind the unicorn. It was blatantly obvious that Selma did care... or, at least, wanted Gerardo to think he cared. But he had only started caring once Gerardo mentioned what the reward was...
The writ, he realized, was likely a lost cause. He had just witnessed a bold-faced lie in some capacity, and Selma had openly conspired with him earlier to attempt to con an unknown representative of Yakyakistan... and a pony like that would hardly consider him a perfectly trustworthy ally, either. If something didn't collapse and trap him in the remains of a scheme, whether through treachery or merely being caught, it was almost inevitable that Selma would just take the writ for his own purposes, whatever they were. And Sharpie was smart and hard to shake, so if there was anything to catch...
It was time to call quits to his fake inspection. He would ditch Selma, not return to Herman, and track down his friends as quickly as possible... and see where he could go from there. All he needed to do to start was find a way out of the tunnels.
"We're approaching the ventilation room," Selma announced, turning a steel-lined corner lit by overhead strips of energy.
Sharpie furrowed her brow. "What exactly do you plan to do there, Gerardo? The fortress's air conditioning has nothing to do with your crates, and we left the surveillance room before even losing track of your friends!" She huffed. "I can't see what this has to do with anything."
"Do you have any better ideas?" Gerardo quirked his head. "In absence of leads, the best I can do is look into anything and everything I come across. Although, it may be time to call this inspection quits..."
"Giving up so easily?" Selma asked, looking back. "Interesting. I thought you were stubborn."
Gerardo sighed under his breath as he walked. Whatever the reason, there was all the proof he needed that Selma was vested in his drawing things out as long as possible. He cleared his throat and continued moving, talons clicking against the sturdy metal floor.
The corridor widened out into a funnel shape, entering a high-ceilinged room with sparse furnishings and a central metal tower. Along the floors and roof, gigantic conflagrations of pipes and engines sat like massive metal spiders, housed within cages that constantly thrummed and beat with the sound of spinning. Like a brain stem, or the roots of an upside-down tree, pipes radiated out from the top of the tower, its highest level ringed with outward-leaning panes of clear blue glass.
Sharpie whistled. "Can't say I've seen this part before. It looks like a guard tower."
"It is," Selma answered with an indifferent shrug. "I told you, the ventilation system is counted as a military asset and thus its core controls were made to be easily defensible."
Rubbing his chin, Gerardo looked around the room. Evidently, the Water District predated the Defense Force by quite some time, which meant any defenses in place were either new or had been built into a recent upgrade of the system... and the level of protection present seemed far more than adequate when the system's importance was as low as Selma had made it out to be. Especially for a force apparently incapable of obtaining real weapons, why choose to protect this part so heavily? It wouldn't come as a surprise if there was more to the room than just ventilation.
"I think," Gerardo announced, wandering off at a slight angle to the ponies, "that here is where I wish to do some poking around of my own."
Selma shot him a measured glance... and nodded. "As you must."
Gerardo spread his wings, flapping through the heightened airspace of the outer ventilation chamber. Alighting on a lumpy, black box that appeared to be sculpted to the shape of moving parts within, he took several seconds to regain his balance against the thrum. His eyes scanned the room from on high, noting periodic fixtures on the octagonal walls... Turrets, perhaps? Unlikely, given the Defense Force's lack of conventional mobile artillery, but they certainly seemed positioned to be useful. The room's donut-shaped floor plan was largely covered in machines, though they were arranged such as to provide poor cover for any hapless invaders.
Soaring again to the back, he noticed a tightly-sealed steel door set into the tower's base, and landed to investigate. A card key slot sat next to it, glowing internally with a dull red light.
"Allow me," Selma's voice requested. Gerardo whirled to see the unicorn standing behind him, brandishing a thin key in his aura. Stepping aside, he allowed Selma forward.
Chink! The card slipped into the slit of metal... and was rejected with a resounding beep, the red light growing briefly more intense. Selma frowned and tried again.
BEEEEEP! Again, the door refused to budge, red light glowing angrily. Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Captain? I take it this is an unexpected occurrence?"
"Apparently," Selma growled, "the permissions on my key are not properly set following a recent... incident. Unless you have your own, we will have to skip this tower."
"Let me try," Sharpie interjected, landing with a flap of her wings. Coiling them, she pulled a card of her own out of her suit and held it, clasped in her teeth, to the card reader.
BEEEEEP! Rejection, once again. She snorted and shook her head, pocketing the card.
"My apologies for the inconvenience," Selma said dryly. "I imagine you'll want to turn your investigation elsewhere, now? The barracks, perhaps? The upper levels?"
"Not so hastily," Gerardo instructed with a talon. "I don't think I'm done here yet."
Staring at the door, he wracked his brain. Would Selma really not have access to parts of his own base? That seemed suspect. He had seemed hasty or impatient to move on, as well... What if there was something in the ventilation room beyond security and fans? It didn't make sense to invest this heavily in security over a paltry asset, as he had pondered earlier, but if the room contained something more important, the air works could serve as an excuse...
With a blink, Gerardo realized that if his crates were still in the fortress, the ventilation control tower could very well be where they were.
He spread his wings and kicked off, hovering up to the glass pane windows ringing the top of the tower, just below its root-like mass of pipes. Inside, the walls appeared ringed with consoles, chairs, sets of buttons, levers and switches... and in the middle, there was a table. It had a pristine surface that glowed pale white, and above it floated an ethereal nest of lines, paired into sets of four, that could best be described as a tumbleweed with vertebrae and only right angles. It was a hologram, he realized... a projected map of the interior of the fort.
Blinking again, he returned to the ground. "Where are we right now?" he politely asked. "Relative to the fortress. The top, the bottom, the sides...?"
Selma nodded. "This is the lowest floor in the Water District, about ten stories beneath the base of the mountains. You're looking at the map, aren't you?"
"I hope that isn't a problem," Gerardo answered, soaring back up before Selma could reply.
Looking at the map with fresh eyes, he quickly overcame the fact that it was tilted - a pony actually in the room would be able to manipulate it, of course - and pinpointed their location as a large room on the lowest floor of the structure. Halfway through trying to count the levels, his eyes gave up from the monotonous sting and he blinked, losing his progress, but at least one hundred was a good estimate. Perhaps more, but they weren't spaced consistently, making counting by chunks impossible.
He quickly narrowed in on the map's extremities, where three paths somehow left the tangle and snaked off far in their own directions. One departed from the very top and slanted downward and away; a straight forty-five-degree slide into oblivion. Another also left from near the top, in exactly the opposite direction, flat end level yet gently curved, unlike the rest of the fortress's straight, boxy corridors. The final one mirrored the second, only halfway down.
"What are these?" he queried, glancing down without landing. "These three spinoff passages?"
Selma gazed back up at him with an expression that would have been identical were he the one looking down. "Major exits," he replied boredly. "One to the Flame District, one to the top of the dams, and one to a... 'maintenance' platform halfway up the eastern dam. They would..." His voice grew slightly terse. "Take significant time to investigate, and turn up nothing of interest."
Gerardo glanced to Sharpie, then to the unicorn. "I think," he began, descending, "that I would very much like to inspect this dam, if at all possible."
"The lower platform is closest," Selma slowly answered. "It is also presently closed for maintenance."
"Most interesting." Gerardo gave a vague nod. "It sounds like a perfect place to start."
A resigned gaze from Selma told him he would mount no objection. More interestingly to Gerardo, however, was that dam tops and maintenance platforms implied being outside... and that would give him the perfect opportunity to escape, no matter how much Selma wanted him preoccupied.
At Gerardo's insistence, the group flapped and strode down a long, narrow corridor with a floor far finer and less worn than most... likely an indication of sparse usage. They were en route to the middle observation deck before the top of the dam first, as it was closer, and he had seen no reason to object. A way out, after all, was a way out.
Silently, he nursed his plans as he walked, the last elevator of the journey behind him. Get outside. Fly away. Find Starlight and Maple. Get back to Riverfall... and if he could obtain his sword with little hassle on the accompanying trip through Sosa, take that with him. Get outside. Fly away. Find Starlight and Maple...
A hairpin turn in the corridor startled him back into alertness. Looking behind, he saw Sharpie navigate it with utmost grace. She met his gaze, some question unspoken on her lips.
"Here we are," Selma announced, breaking into a broad, stout room with a thick metal door at one end. He nodded to the door, a perfect square that looked like it would retract into the ceiling.
Next to it, rather than a card reader, sat a large breaker switch, flipped to the off position. Selma said no more, and Gerardo took his silence as an invitation. Stepping forward, he extended a talon, preparing to grasp the switch and see if it opened the door.
"I imagine you think this room is out of the way," Selma interrupted, "and thus a place someone might put something they don't want to be found. A good idea, were it not shared by every single guardpony who believes they can get away with something they don't want to be found doing."
Gerardo pulled his talon back an inch. "Are you saying this switch is booby-trapped?"
"I'm saying this is one of the few rooms in the fortress not connected to the surveillance network," Selma replied. "A honeypot, to compare troublemakers to flies. Instead, we patrol it regularly by hoof. It's surprisingly effective at catching such miscreants."
"...What are you saying?" Gerardo asked, talon hovering in midair. "I can't quite see the point..."
Selma nodded. "I am saying that this would be one of the worst places in the fortress to hide something, when it is regularly patrolled by both the dishonorable members of the force and those who bring regulations. Anything that did not belong would be stolen or confiscated. In short, you're wasting your time here. There are other places far more useful to search."
"Well, there is such a thing as hiding something in plain sight," Gerardo answered with a shrug. "And you did say this room is presently closed for maintenance."
Sharpie frowned, pivoting her head around the room. "Yet you wait until after we lugged our tired carcasses here to mention that. Thanks, pal. Are you trying to waste time?"
Gerardo just had time to see Selma's half-smug glare out of the corner of his eye before he wrapped both talons around the breaker and threw it. CH-TUNNGGG!
Nothing happened.
He blinked, pushing it back up and throwing it again. There was the barest flicker in the ceiling lights, and the door remained solid. "This does do what I expect it to do, correct?"
"I told you," Selma growled, "this room is under maintenance and has been since yesterday morning. It's presently off-limits to all but those with proper clearances, primarily because lesser ponies aren't smart enough to understand that when things are broken, they don't work."
"That is... unfortunate," Gerardo answered, crouching at the door. It had no insulating strip at the bottom, and faint traces of sunlight and fresh air filtered through, confirming his hypothesis that it led outside. "I don't suppose there's any chance we can open it another way?"
Selma stared levelly at him. "Brute force, provided you're willing to explain why a maintenance inspector would tamper with repairs that are already under way."
Gerardo hesitated, scratching his chin. That wasn't as strict of a no as he would have expected, were there something truly important behind the door... or if Selma had caught on to his plan to fly away. In turn, that likely meant there was nothing behind the door. But there was a chance it was a reverse-psychology bluff and Selma intended him to reach that conclusion, and regardless he needed the door open to fly out. "Open it," he requested. "I desire to see what is behind."
With a single nod, Selma's horn flared icy blue. His aura surrounded the door, and there was a crunch, followed by a brief grinding of gears that sounded like they were being spun the wrong way... and the door rattled upward into its slot. Selma stood still, horn still aglow. "It won't hold itself up on its own. Conduct your inspection as you please, and I will hold it up and wait for you."
A thought triggered in Gerardo's mind that Selma was instructed to follow him at all times, never to wait behind. It was followed by a second thought that the door was something Selma could have guaranteed nobody but him would go through... as the area was blocked off, and he had effectively been goaded into searching it, from the unicorn's point of view. It could very well be a trap... which was why he tensed when Sharpie proceeded through ahead of him, reaching out a talon to grab her back.
He was too slow. She reached the platform beyond, a railinged deck of red wire mesh that looked out over a peaceful, undeveloped valley with a mountain range looming close beyond. A smattering of junk lay to the side, including an abandoned folding chair, a weighted-down magazine with a mare on the cover and an empty crate of some type of drink. For a moment, Gerardo watched as she gazed around, positioning himself halfway through the door... and then she looked back, and her face paled.
"What in the Seventh District is that!?" she hissed, jumping so far away her backside collided with the railing, eyes fixed on something evidently above the exit to the door.
"What is what?" Gerardo murmured in alarm, taking a step closer.
"Out of my way." Selma pushed past him, walked out on the platform, and turned to follow Sharpie's gaze. His face quickly melded in a mixture of shock, confusion and anger.
Gerardo followed them, looking up. Something that looked like a manacrystal was bound to the stone face above the door, only rather than being a single enchanted rock, it consisted of three or four in slightly different shades, all glowing and bound together awkwardly using liberal amounts of thin wire. To his right, facing the mountain, the dam extended like a vertical sea of gray, and more of the devices could be seen placed in a straight horizontal line along its full length, all wired together, twinkling cheerily and with a slight undercurrent of menace.
Selma stared thunderously at the nearest device, its colors alternating as parts of the core periodically flashed brighter than the others. "I last inspected this area myself the day before it was closed for maintenance," he ground, face iron. "These were not here then. I read the reports of both the door malfunction and the process to fix it, and these were not involved. And these. Look. Like. Bombs."
"Bombs?" Gerardo's mind whirled. This was the eastern dam, the far-side twin to the one he and the Sosan trade cart had traveled along that could be seen from all of Ironridge. A string of explosives, rigged halfway up at a place and time where nobody would see them... "What would be the meaning of this?" he asked, confused. "To destroy the reservoir, perhaps?"
Sharpie shook her head, and pointed north into the distance, where any floodwaters would inevitably rush from the shape of the topography below. Beyond a dense treeline, a faint cloud of smog hung in the air, accompanied by a forest of black smokestacks and the outlines of taller buildings.
"Sosa..." Gerardo whispered, feathers standing on end.
"Sosa," Sharpie breathed, standing next to him. "A cheating, no-good, freeloading district that's working with Yakyakistan to rob Ironridge..." She swallowed. "But still ponies. Whatever this is supposed to do, it... it would be genocide. A war crime. And Ironridge isn't even at war. Who could possibly hate them enough to erase their district?"
"Nobody from the Defense Force," Selma growled, horn glowing and enveloping the first bomb in an aura. "We are an organization that keeps the Stone District safe, and starting a war would be the most counterproductive act possible. Of that, you can be sure."
Gerardo's spine crawled. "But who would you go to war with if your enemies were gone?"
"...I'm going to warn Sosa," Sharpie announced, spreading her wings. "I don't care how little they trust me, I'll think of something. I'll- hey, leggo!"
A fragment of Selma's aura attached itself to her tail and grounded her in place, expertly splitting itself between three tasks at once. "Not so fast," he grunted, still staring at the bomb. "I was going to suggest that myself, but first let us be on the same page."
Sharpie relaxed enough for him to continue. "These bombs," he began, "are linked together in such a way that their trigger is being removed from the wall. If one comes off, they all explode. If the wire is severed, they all explode. So far, I haven't detected any alternate triggering mechanisms."
Gerardo gulped. "I suppose magical neutralization is off the table?"
"Not quite." Selma shook his head. "One of them... this one... is outfitted with an additional component that can forcibly detach it from the wall, which in turn is connected to a short-range unique key manatransceiver. In short, whoever has the trigger... and there is only one... can forcibly disconnect it from the wall and set off the reaction, provided they are close enough."
"How close is close?" Sharpie asked, wings and tail rigid in anticipation.
"Some areas near the middle of the fortress, and the top of the dam." Selma glanced straight up, where the afternoon sun was a sliver against the vertical mountain precipice. "As I said, this component's range is limited. Now, what I can do..." His horn glowed brighter, and a bolt of ice-blue mana surged at the bomb, shimmering around its base. "Is that. An adherence spell. It should maintain its maximum strength for at least thirty hours... likely tomorrow night. So long as it is in effect, I doubt the remote detachment mechanism will work. And I can refresh it myself as needbe."
Gerardo flexed his talons. "As it happens, I may have business that takes me near Sosa as well..."
"Very well." Selma nodded. "I'll excuse your report to Ambassador Herman. See to your friends, and whatever warnings you wish to deliver. I have a Defense Force to comb without end until I catch the one responsible for this." He lifted an eyebrow. "In the meantime, I recommend convincing them to evacuate. Sosa is not a residential district, so it should be possible. And I would certainly rather see Ironridge replacing loss of property than loss of life."
Sharpie paused. "Where will you start? Who do you think it is?"
"Who do I think?" Selma turned his head, already facing back into the door. "I haven't a clue. The usual prime suspect is out, as Valey is a creature of ruining lives, and that means she needs lives to ruin. But rest assured, I will find them."
He took another step back, and his aura faded, the door slamming down behind him, effectively locking Sharpie and Gerardo out. "Well," Gerardo muttered, "this is a twist."
"I told you... I... ugh." Sharpie sighed loudly. "I know how much you trust him, you know how much I trust him, and we both know how much each of us needs allies. We have to do something, unless he somehow made all that up just to make us make Sosa panic. What do we do?"
"If he's telling the truth..." Gerardo mused, "it seems we aren't in the world's greatest hurry. Only... second greatest. And as you said, he could be being dishonest, but this seems like an incredibly unproductive thing to do so about. Regardless, acting on this is in line with my previous plan."
"Which is...?" Sharpie's brow rose, the pulsing light of the bomb reflecting in her eyes.
"I need to see to the safety of my friends, first and foremost," Gerardo answered. "At the very least, that will involve checking the hotel we reserved. Ideally, they are already making their way to the Earth District, where they should be safer from the Defense Force. Then, I have business of my own in Sosa, which should be easily accomplished while telling them what we found."
Sharpie sighed again. "My first instinct is to take Brightcoil and all our money, board an airship for who knows where, and show this city just how much loyalty its treatment of me has bought. But then, if anything did happen, I'd have to live knowing I could have prevented it... even though the world doesn't work that way and anything I do try to help is just going to be a failure."
"...Admittedly, I'm doing much of the same." Gerardo hung his head. "I merely happen to be broke, and Sosa involves my ticket out. Not the most heroic of actions for a self-styled hero, but at this point I too have had my fill of this city's antics. I'll do what I can, and no more."
"Well, he wouldn't tell us we have fewer hours than we really have." Sharpie stretched, got to her hooves, and spread her wings. "Let's go find your friends and go to Sosa. But remember, the moment this city takes one step closer to eating itself alive, me and Brightcoil are gone."
"Fair enough." Gerardo nodded, spread his own wings, and leapt into the air. "To the Stone District!"
Three ponies impacted a broad dirt road with a meaty thump, Starlight tumbling like a bowling ball until her momentum finally met its end at the base of a tree. Upside-down, with her spine to the bark and her horn digging into the ground, she groaned and went limp. "Owww..."
Valey was already on her hooves, if shakily so. Wobbling, she picked up her hat with a delirious smile and said, "Hey, that was fun. Who's up for round two?"
"This is why I didn't want to try flying..." Maple whimpered. Growling, she hauled herself one hoof at a time out of the roadside ditch where she landed, wincing and glaring at Valey.
"Woah, hey!" Valey raised her forelegs in self-defense, staggering and catching herself as a result. "You were the one who eventually agreed to my bad idea!"
Maple harrumphed, tending to her ruined mane. "It was your bad idea in the first place."
"Hey, I know my limits," Valey said, shrugging and examining her wings. "I can carry a grown stallion and maintain altitude. A normal mare and a filly shouldn't be too much harder to do at once..." She licked a scrape and brushed some dirt from a fetlock. "Emphasis on normal. You should've warned me that shapely rump of yours weighs as much as a boulder."
Maple's ears folded, and Starlight could tell she didn't have a response. Sliding down the trunk, the filly rolled herself upright, ignored her own wrecked mane, and took advantage of the silence to survey just where they had landed.
In all directions, squat, gnarled trees rose up with thick, twisting trunks and broad canopies, shading out the sun and providing slight relief from the heat. The air felt like a blanket that had been worn slightly too long; having come from the mountains where the air was cool, its warmth was pleasant, but with no way to cast it off Starlight knew it would quickly become oppressive.
The roadway itself was gently sloped, still descending through the foothills, and made of packed dirt that rose nearly as high as her chin off the forest floor, evidently to provide drainage and prevent puddles from forming when it rained. The road twisted such that it wasn't possible to see more than a short distance in either direction, and its width rippled randomly in a series of passes and clearings.
"Welp!" Valey sang, completely recovered. "Welcome to the Earth District, kiddos." She blinked at Maple. "Even though you've been here before. And I'm pretty sure you're older than me. But who cares, let's go annoy some farmers!"
Maple grunted, massaging her sides. "As long as it doesn't involve running. Now I'm cramped, bruised and sore... Where exactly are we going?"
"Mmm..." Valey squinted at the sky. "Our big target is a place called Grand Acorn. It's kinda north-northeast. Not from here, in the Earth District in general. Straight north from here. That's where Dangerous Karma has his headquarters, which is where we need to be if we want to watch him get ticked off by us stealing stuff. But the closest town is Blueleaf, which is right nearby. It's... not exactly the least shady place ever, so hey, it'll probably be fun! Where were you two going, again?"
Maple hesitated. "I think it was called... Gnarlbough? Starlight, that sounds familiar, right?"
"Yup," Starlight answered, in truth having no idea and more focused on preventing her tattered ponytail from itching at her neck. It would have been easier if she used her horn, but that was still sore and resting from the previous evening, too.
"Yeah, that's not too far from Grand Acorn." Valey licked her lips and began trotting downhill. "A little further northwest. Still, that's a lot of walking and you two look kind of dead right now. Let's get to Blueleaf first, and you can snooze a bit while I trash some bozos. Sound good?"
"The further we get from the Stone District, the better," Starlight grunted, flicking her tail and falling into step. "We'll just have to walk this way eventually."
"Agreed!" Maple emphatically nodded, then winced and rubbed her neck. "Ow. I really could have done without that crash landing after overdoing it so badly last night..."
"Hey, no hard feelings." Valey's emerald eyes lit up from beneath her hat. "Although... I think I'm gonna call you Ironflanks from now on. You needed a good nickname, anyway!"
"Hey!"
Half an hour into their trek, the road wasn't nearly as peaceful as it had first appeared. They passed a fairly constant stream of outbound traffic, teams of two or sometimes three ponies of all races hauling sturdy wagons filled with crates, barrels, fruit, lumber and all manner of tradeable goods. There were slightly more mares than stallions, Starlight noted - interesting, after the Defense Force and its base being almost exclusively male pegasi.
The ponies they passed kept carefree, yet steadfast and determined expressions, hauling their loads without bothering to speak to or even acknowledge anyone else. Whether because they were too focused on escaping the heat after a long journey or recognized Valey and didn't want to draw her attention, they marched stoically, smelling of sweat under the midday sun.
Starlight was starting to roast. She relished every time the road narrowed, as it provided a broader canopy of shade that was almost enough to make things bearable. Pacing as close to the side of the road as she could already, she frequently drank from the water flasks in her saddlebags, always resisting the urge to lick at her dry lips. Her hooves weren't as sore as they could be, thanks to careful re-application of her horseshoes, but her legs weren't doing her any favors and the heat was only intensifying the residual headache from her overworked horn.
No fruit that she could see hung from the trees, though she wasn't particularly hungry. Mostly, it was nuts... and frequently, nothing at all. She imagined Valey trying to repel a convoy by instructing her guard to throw hard, pointy nuts instead of melons, and quickly wished she hadn't, wincing as if struck herself by a walnut to the ribs.
Eventually, the road straightened, then widened, and the horizon became obscured by a solid wall of brown lumber that might have passed for a building. Starlight stopped, blinking. It was built at such an angle that it looked to be perpetually sagging, was at least three stories high, and had a shadowed gap in the middle through which the road continued. "What is that?"
"It's Blueleaf!" Valey happily shrugged. "Just as lopsided as it was yesterday. Good to see it hasn't suddenly grown an architecture code. My advice? If you see an overhang, stay under it. Helps avoid nasty stuff ponies like to toss out their windows."
Undaunted by the town's appearance, she proceeded, Maple and Starlight warily following.
"Well, here we are!" Valey announced with a grin. "Blueleaf! Hooves crossed for a nice brawl!"
Maple grimaced. "I'd really rather the other way around..."
The town rose vertically around them, architects throughout the ages having decided that building on the roofs of existing structures was far less hassle than cutting down trees to expand outwards, and the laws of gravity having somehow agreed to play by their rules. Structures upon structures were stacked, all made of the same dark wood but with dramatically different levels of craftsponyship and no adhereance to floor plans whatsoever. The result was a shadowed maze where jutting overhangs were just as common as alleys two stories in the air, the thin gaps of sky visible from the ground only letting sunlight in at the height of the day... and only then when they weren't blocked entirely by bridges or clotheslines. It was a chaos akin to Riverfall, only wilder and ridden with danger.
"So where are we going in here?" Starlight asked, dubiously squinting down the main street they had entered on. It ran straighter and wider than any of the side roads she looked down, but eventually met its end somewhere beyond the crowd of ponies that blocked out her view of the ground.
"Hmmm..." Valey adjusted her beret, thinking. "I still like my idea of starting a bar fight best. But if you're feeling chicken, I guess we could just wander around and wait for trouble to find us."
"I'm not sure I like the look of this place," Maple understated, standing protectively near Starlight. "The ponies here look... desperate. Why aren't we passing straight on through?"
Valey shrugged, peering hopefully down a dark alley as they walked by. "One, because I'm bored, and two, because it's six miles to Grand Acorn and you two are basically dead. Can't have you guys collapsing from exhaustion. I don't even do that to ponies I want to mess with. Being unconscious makes you boring."
Starlight's eyes wandered as they talked, looking over the other ponies in the street. The ones that caught her attention first carried themselves with an air of slight tension and importance, or else confidence with their setting, all suited with nothing or clothes that weren't the finest, stallions allowing a day's worth of stubble to grow on their chins and mares wearing manes that had gone a day without washing. It was as if they were giving the town their second-best, and wanted it to know it.
But there was a second class of ponies about too, who stuck to the shadows more and had longer, less-kempt manes and scruffy coats that hadn't had a proper grooming in much longer. They only talked to each other, and they constantly stared at the first group of ponies, and did their best to be less noticeable than others. Had the weather permitted it, she was sure they would have worn heavy, well-used cloaks to compliment the aesthetic, and when their mouths moved she imagined their voices were gruff, even the mares. Very few of them were unicorns.
There was also an unusually large number of unattended colts and fillies, going by both her sensibilities and her experience with Riverfall and Equestria. She watched them curiously, tuning the rest of the ponies out and touching Maple with her tail to ensure she didn't get distracted and separate herself. Most of the foals moved in quick, darting bursts, never going for more than a second without being next to a wall. Some carried saddlebags gripped in their teeth, while others used cruder methods to haul their belongings and others carried nothing at all.
One colt managed to pull over a better-dressed mare and withdrew something from his sack, offering it to her with two hooves, evidently trying to sell it. She shook her head and continued, and he chased after her for several steps before looking down, dejected. Starlight's heart sank with his spirits, and she looked away.
The next filly she looked at returned eye contact. Sitting alone in front of a dark, open door, she had a short mane and tail and stared back with sharp, burning eyes that refused to let Starlight go or even take a breath. Her insides crawled after several seconds of the filly's determined gaze. It wasn't natural, seeing a pony so young who had anything to care about that much. Every youthful face her mind could bring up was innocent, happy and carefree, yet this one was so devoted to some unspoken goal Starlight considered the possibility that the filly was willing to kill to get it. No pony should ever look like that, young or old.
...She wondered if she looked that way when talking about cutie marks.
"Maple?" she whimpered, voice shaking more than she had hoped. "I don't like it here."
"Neither do I," Maple whispered back, then kissed the top of Starlight's head. Then, to Valey: "I hope the entire Earth District isn't like this. It doesn't feel nice."
"Eh, don't worry about it," Valey said with a shrug. "Blueleaf is a bit of a special case. Granted, towns further north have a lot more Sosans, especially Gnarlbough, where you wanted to go. The thing is... Ironridge has a bunch of districts, but most of them are only for work. The only residential ones are the Earth District and the Stone District, and the Stone District is way nicer because it has a view, is close to the Skyport, and isn't stupidly hot all the time. So it kinda costs more, and any economy's gonna make floaters and sinkers. And since this town is right next to the Stone District... it's where a lot of the sunken wind up once they can't afford to live up top anymore. Some of them get back on their hooves and work with a commute, and dream of moving up some day. Others realize they don't have to work to survive, since food is pretty much free down here, so they wind up doing nothing... and then they wander around, wondering why their lives are so meaningless and being depressing."
Starlight's thoughts flickered back to the colt, trying to sell something to support his family, and she gave a frustrated snort. "That doesn't sound very fair."
"Hah! Ya think?" Valey laughed bitterly. "Didn't I pour my heart out to you last night about how dirty the world plays and you you've gotta play dirty back, or something? Look at me!" She flexed her leathery wings and gave a fanged smile. "Walking, talking, cuddlier-than-a-cactus proof that fair doesn't exist. Now come on, this way looks promising."
With a flick of her tail, she darted to the right, and the mid-afternoon sunlight disappeared as they were enveloped by a narrow alley.
Starlight stepped through the perpetual dusk of Blueleaf's back streets, blue sky shimmering tauntingly through blocky cracks in their wooden surroundings high above. Maple pressed close to her, and she to the mare, and they both followed Valey's confident hooffalls in an aimless search for trouble.
"Mmmm..." Maple murmured uneasily. "Weren't we going to stop somewhere and rest? You said this was a break, but if we're on our hooves the whole time it won't do much..."
Valey nimbly sidestepped a pile of garbage. "Oh, yep. We just gotta find the right place first."
"And what kind of a good place do you think you'll find here?" Starlight complained, shortly waving a hoof at the dimly-lit entrances that lined the road, some open and some boarded up and precious few with actual, functioning doors. "This street is so not-straight you can't even see where you're going! If anypony wanted to make a place where we were welcome, they'd put it somewhere easier to find." Snorting, she craned her neck to see around the back road's gradual bend, finding nothing but more dusk.
"Who said anything about the place being good?" Valey asked with a dangerous grin. "The only ponies who live in a place like this are ones that don't want to be found or can't afford to be found. I've told you like three dozen times, I need my exercise before I go and loaf around."
With a grumbly whine, Starlight lowered her head and continued her pace, eyes constantly scanning the doorways for threats. The street itself seemed to be a place nobody wanted to be, the few ponies they saw hurrying past with nothing more than wary glances.
One door was dark, a frame of blackness surrounded by the shadows of the street, ambient light extending just far enough to reveal a worn plank floor. The next was lit orange, a mare within laying on a cushionless chartreuse couch, a foal pressed against her while her hooves busied themselves with a book. Her mouth was moving, reading aloud words that didn't carry past the door, and then she slid past Starlight's line of sight and was gone.
The filly blinked, and looked onward. A door that was boarded up, and then another dark one through which she swore she saw something moving. Then there were none for an extended stretch, and the snaking pathway split in an intersection.
"Meh, meh, meh..." Valey mumbled under her breath, hoof flicking between the two directions as if trying to pick one randomly. Eventually, her emerald green eyes lit up, and she focused. "Right!"
They turned and turned again, Starlight nearly tripping over a discarded board that was invisible in the dim light. The streets were such narrow canyons that she doubted if sunlight met the ground for more than ten minutes every day. The ground attested that it didn't, squishing slightly between her hooves despite the presence of a drainage ditch dug directly into the middle of the street. The usual jungle heat had dissipated as well, giving way to a clammy dankness she associated with caves with occasional wisps of hot air adding to the unnatural feel of the place.
Maple, evidently, was having similar thoughts. "How does this stay sanitary?" she asked. "There's so little ventilation or drainage, it seems like it would be really easy for disease to spread. Or mold, at least. This entire town is made of wood!"
"Huh." Valey rubbed her chin. "You know, that's actually a kinda good question. I feel like they had some sort of special manalights that dried stuff out and could keep a constant temperature, but I don't see any. On second thought? Let me go check."
Hovering, she flitted to a low overhang where one building jutted out above another. A moment of poking and prodding followed, and then she flew back with a shrug. "Yup. The lights are still there," she explained. "I guess they decided they like it darker for some reason. Suits me just fine!"
"They just decided?" Maple repeated dubiously. "That sounds strange. Why would they get rid of something that's obviously so important? How long ago did it even happen?"
Valey shrugged. "Beats me. I usually fly past this place. Besides, I like the dark, so I didn't think too hard about it. When life cuts you a break, you take it, you know?"
"Either way..." Maple's brow furrowed, and she glanced at Starlight. "I'm tired and sore enough already without getting some sickness here, and that goes double for Starlight. Valey, can't we do this somewhere... I don't know, cleaner?"
"Thought you'd love the cold," Valey answered, flicking her ears. "I mean, this is one of the only places in the Earth District that isn't roasty-toasty. If you insist, though. Come on, let's start looking for the way up."
"...You mean you don't know?" Maple and Starlight whined in sync.
"Hey. There are two things I'm good at finding." Valey twirled her beret and set it back on her head, gently flapping backwards ahead of them. "Trouble, and food. Trouble's everywhere here; this place reeks of despair and nastiness and stuff. But if we want to find food, it means getting out of these back alleys, and I can totally do that. Trust me on this." She blinked. "Oh, I can smell the kid too."
Starlight pouted, scuffing at the mud. "What is it with you and saying I stink?"
"I didn't say that!" Valey protested as Maple gave her a quick glare. "It's a nice smell! Seriously."
Neither responded. Instead, they rounded one more corner... and Starlight gave a soft gasp, pointing forward with a hoof. "Look at that," she whispered.
The boxy, winding road opened into a small square clearing, wooden support pillars holding up the edges of the surrounding buildings to allow for a plaza slightly greater in size than otherwise. Boardwalk floors covered the edges, leaving a patch of dirt in the center where the road continued... and like a merciful hoof held down from the sky, a pillar of light descended, bathing the middle of the patch in warmth. Short, scraggly grass huddled all the way to the edges of the lit area, forming a small hummock of color, and a few flowers stood in the center, delicate and reaching.
"I kind of want to eat it," Valey belched.
Instinctively, Starlight stepped in front of her, blocking her path. It wouldn't do much good when the mare could fly, but the intention was clear enough. The clearing was built like a shrine around the grass and flowers, and taking that away felt wrong, somehow.
Above the grass, the tunnel down from the sky was lined with reflective mirrors, she realized, bouncing sunlight on its way down to allow it to reach the ground for more than minutes a day, allowing the flowers to bloom. Someone had done that very deliberately. It was like the plants were a gift, the ponies who lived higher up showing the ones below that good things could grow on the bottom... or maybe she was reading too far into it. It was a flower garden, sitting where it didn't belong. It didn't take much to form a high contrast when the rest of the world was so dull.
"We should leave them alone," Maple added, voice soft and respectful as if she could tell that this was a place where ponies came to hope. "The ponies here need them more than we do."
Starlight mutely nodded her agreement.
"That was kind of the point," Valey grumbled, but nevertheless obeyed. "Come on, then. Let's find some stairs and get up top where it's nicer. If you want out that badly, hoof it!"
"Oh, I do." Maple nodded emphatically, then stopped to rub a cramp in her leg. "Ow..."
No sooner had they taken three steps, however, then they were interrupted. "I really thought you'd eat it," a voice called from the shadows, under an overhang. "I guess you are decent ponies!"
They all whirled. A small shape paced haughtily out from where it had blended with a support pillar, and drew nearer to the light until Starlight recognized them as the sharp-eyed filly from the main street. Strong, lithe and looking properly nourished, her coat was a vibrant, shocking red, and her mane and tail darker accents thereof. She stood still, as if waiting for them to speak.
The red filly stared back at them with every bit of complexity and emotion in her eyes Starlight had seen on the main road, and didn't answer. To Starlight's side, Valey grinned innocently. "Aww! What a cute kid."
That was impetus enough. "You have bat wings," the filly pointed out, standing her ground.
"Sure do!" Valey winked. If she was unnerved by the filly's demeanor, she did a perfect job of not showing it. In fact, the uneasy tension seemed only to excite her, tail twitching predatorially at the very tip. "What of it?"
A second passed, and the filly dropped part of her guard. "Can you help me, then?" she asked, glancing nervously around, ears having gone from rigid to flat in a heartbeat. "The staircase broke and I need to make sure Ma is alright, but I can't fly and it's really hard to know if you can trust somepony here..." She turned shyly, showing off wingless sides and a cutie mark of a hoof ladder.
Starlight watched Maple's face soften, the mare giving a sigh of relief, and frowned. That frown intensified when Valey eagerly agreed. "Oh, absolutely! I can always..." She stretched her wings, cracking them audibly at the joints. "Make some time for a little public service! Lead the way, kiddo!"
The filly turned and nodded to a dark, doorless entrance in the far shadows of an overhang, low enough that a grown pony's ears would have brushed the top. "Oh, thank you!" She pleasantly smiled, eyes unchanging. "It's in here. It's a little dark, so watch your step and follow me."
"This has 'trap' written all over it," Starlight muttered under her breath as Valey cheerfully followed the filly. "I don't like it..."
Maple suddenly paled, her own smile sliding away over the course of a very long second. "Oh... Oh it does... I didn't think a filly would..."
"I would," Starlight countered, "if I was desperate enough. And she wants something."
"...But the only thing we're carrying is your saddlebags," Maple protested, whispering. "Valey doesn't have anything to steal. And it's just one filly!"
"If they know who she is, and she's as good at fighting as she says she is..." Starlight straightened her posture and took a step forward. "Then the filly wants to distract her from us."
Maple grimaced. "I'm more worried that she's as good as she says she is, and that poor filly doesn't know." Hastening her stride, she followed Starlight into the darkness of the building.
Valey stepped around a pile of broken glass, deftly navigating the pitch-black interior. Maple and Starlight were following her, silhouetted in the gray light from the door, which earned a slight huff but was probably for the better. No reason for them to get ambushed while she was having her fun. Admittedly, fighting fillies for sport was hardly her best idea of a good time, but the lack of concern wafting from her red coat indicated it was definitely a trap. So long as the filly wanted to play dirty, who was she to refuse?
"So, uhh..." she began, putting her forehooves on a staircase that seemed intact, if rickety, not flying due to the low ceiling and copious amounts of dust that would be stirred up. "Where's this broken thingamajig you can't get past? Because this one looks fine to me."
"It's up ahead!" the filly's little voice called from the top of the staircase. "Hurry!"
"Yeah, yeah, one sec..." She paused on the stairs, stalling and watching the others. Just because she could see in the dark didn't mean they could, and giving them her voice as a beacon would be a lot less work than letting them get injured or lost and making up for it later.
"Valey?" Maple's voice hissed behind her, the mare almost in reach of her tail. "Are you sure-"
"Oh yeah." Valey flashed a smirk, though she knew Maple wouldn't be able to see it. "Careful with these stairs, by the way, Ironflanks. I think they're built for normal ponies."
Hoping she had earned a blush and unable to check, Valey coiled her hind legs and sprung, clearing the entire flight without even using her wings. She skidded to a gentle halt at the top, expertly catching her balance and kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. Her muzzle scrunched, sniffing.
...There was more than one pony in the room with her. Enough that she had trouble counting, even. Their emotions ranged through tension, apprehension, excitement, and a hearty dose of fear, but any despair was at least an hour stale, not fresh. What there was was a palpable scent of dislike bordering on hatred, varying intensely by body but especially concentrated in at least three points. A middling level of danger tingled on her flank to cap it all off, just low enough to tell that no weapons were immediately pointed her way.
Breathing deeply, Valey let out a contented sigh as Maple and Starlight arrived at the top.
"All right, kiddo! Let's get this party started! Where's your broken stairs?"
"Here." Shhhunk!
There was a swish of a blade embedding itself in wood, and with a clatter, something large and flat fell from a wall where it was suspended, landing and completely covering the stairs back down. Colored lights lit sparsely around the room's edges, revealing themselves to belong to unicorn horns as no less than fifteen colts and fillies stepped out from behind boxes and broken furniture.
"I'm Redshift," the filly she had followed announced, positioning herself as the group's leader, demeanor suddenly haughty and antagonistic. "My mother isn't here. She's up living in a nice house at the top of town, because she's lucky. But you know who is here? Them."
She swept a hoof angrily, indicating three of the foals, all pegasi, who stepped stubbornly up to stand beside her. "I know you," one declared, pointing a hoof.
"Yeah," another added more meekly. "You're Commander Valey. My dad used to say nasty things about you all the time."
"Admiral..." Valey hissed under her breath, keeping her smile eager and calm.
"Used to," the third emphasized. "Until you fired him. Mine quit because he hated you. And because you messed up all their paperwork, they couldn't get jobs anywhere else, and we were having hard times already! We had to move, and now we're stuck here!"
"And it's your fault," the first pegasus accused. "And this city is a dump! Nopony wants to live here, especially when you and your government won't help us fix basic problems!"
"We," Redshift finished, taking attention from the pegasi, "don't like you, Valey. So when-"
"Woah, woah, hold up." Valey waved her forehooves for them to stop, then butted in regardless. "First off, to set the record straight? I don't fire ponies. That's like throwing away your toys. You're probably just confused. And second...?" Ignoring the roomful of scowls, she clutched her cheeks in bliss. "You kids set up a mob ambush just for me!? It's like it's my birthday and someone remembered!"
The three pegasi's confidence abruptly wavered, and they stepped back. Redshift stood firm, though her mask was pointless when Valey could smell the nervousness behind it. "No, no, don't let me scare you off," Valey reassured. "Trust me, I've been looking for a fight. It's why I'm here. Your traps need work, by the way. Super easy to spot. But don't worry, I'm generous."
Redshift's face twisted in anger. "You came here to...! You came to Blueleaf looking to attack our ponies? You're evil! Everyone, get her!"
As the ring of foals surged uncertainly toward the batpony in the center, Valey's eyes lit up. Tongue lolling in anticipation, she spread her wings and readied her empty forehooves, lacking anything to use as a weapon. "Oh boy let's go!"
"Valey!" Maple protested urgently as the foals flowed past her, utterly ignoring her and Starlight, who was crouching beneath. "They're just children!"
"Buh?" Valey looked up instants before the wave reached her, breaking off to nimbly flip over a colt's head. "But they want a fight!" she complained, strafing towards the nearest wall. "And so do I!"
Starlight held her tongue, Maple's dirty chest fluff tickling the back of her neck. "But..." Maple extended a forelimb. "But they're kids!"
"Look, Ironflanks," Valey grunted, nevertheless obeying the commandment not to strike, dodging and skirting around the room as she was chased by an uncoordinated mob of large heads and flailing hooves. "This is like, my dream arena right here, I haven't gotten to let loose in several days, and these little lemon bags asked really nicely for it. Will you please not be offended if I knock just a few blocks off? See, I'm even asking nicely!"
"Arrrrrgh!" a foal howled, leaping forward with a punch that Valey deftly dodged.
"Knocking blocks off?" Maple gritted her teeth. "No!"
"You won't be offended?" Valey bobbed her head, using half a chair as a shield. "Slick!"
"Hey! Hey!" Redshift shouted from atop a broken vanity. "Don't forget our strategy, you guys! You have to corner her, or she'll wear you down and pick you off one by one! Don't go for where she is, split up and cover the whole room!"
"Oh, come on!" Valey pouted, gently running backwards and flapping her wings as if to blow the foals away. "I'm not fighting right now! Don't take all the fun out of this by admitting you're trying!" Grunting, she tipped over a rack in her wake, leaving it as an obstacle.
"All right," Redshift called, "Change tactics! Take her friends as hostages!"
The foal mob changed course, and Valey's face fell. "Hey, wait!" she protested. "I hadn't even-"
"I'm done with this," Starlight abruptly growled, stepping out from under Maple to face the incoming ponies, horn lighting and crackling with energy. "We can talk later!"
Flashhhhh!
A teal laser flew at the mob in a concentrated beam, and crystals spiked around them, melding into place until every combatant sans Redshift was immobilized, looks of shock and fear plastered on their faces. Valey hung upside-down in the crystal too, looking vaguely amused.
"Listen up!" Starlight shouted above the buzz of her horn, eyes squinting from the effort. "I don't know who or what happened to all of you in the past, and I don't care! I'm sorry your town stinks, and I'm sorry life hasn't been fair to you, but apparently that's the way things are and there are better things you can try to do to change it than getting revenge! Now all three of us are going to leave, and we're not going to cause trouble, so leave us alone! Right, Valey!?"
"I-I-I..." Redshift stammered, the giant manacrystal reflected in her wide eyes. "Who are...?"
"Zoop!" The moment Starlight took her eyes off the prison, Valey's voice crowed in her ear... and she turned around and blanched. The mare was standing right there, completely free.
"How did you get out?" she demanded, brow unable to furrow further.
"Meh. Magic." Valey dusted her shoulders and moved to the closed trapdoor, bending down to pry it open. "Killjoy. Oh well. They're probably too scared now to fight any more, so no point in sticking around. Let's blow this dump."
The stairs clattered open as she shoved the blockage aside. Starlight's aura finally faded from her horn, and she slumped with a gasp, Maple barely catching her before her head hit the ground. "Starlight!" She wiped Starlight's brow worriedly, no longer visible in the darkness. "Are you all right?"
A single unicorn in the pile where the crystal had vanished managed to light their horn, giving the room some semblance of illumination once again. Redshift stayed still on her perch, eyes unblinking and mouth slightly ajar. Starlight's head swam too much to tell if she was saying anything, but she quickly vanished from sight as a strong foreleg grasped her, carrying her down the stairs.
"So your horn is pretty much exploded now, right?"
Valey looked back over her shoulder, slipping her way through a narrow, shadow-ridden passage as Maple and Starlight followed, leaning on each other for support. Starlight panted, dizzy and slightly nauseous. "It'll... It'll wear off..." she growled, closing her eyes. "It's not broken. It just works differently."
"Works differently. Right." Valey nodded slowly. "Well, hey, that's good! I thought you might'a been in pain, or something. It would stink if you hurt yourself being flashy, because I could totally have gotten us out of that way easier. Oh well!"
"Nngh..." Starlight grimaced. In hindsight, it was stupid; both unnecessarily exerting herself and trying to steal the batpony's show when that was the reason she walked into the fight in the first place. If it could be called a 'fight,' that was. Despite Redshift's seriousness, and Starlight had no doubt she was serious, Valey had made it look like a circus act. Laughing at danger was one thing, but disrespecting ponies just trying to get back at the world for their own bad luck? To say it was disrespectful would have been redundant, but her brain was too wracked with pounding to think of anything better.
"Sorry I can't carry you," Maple whispered aside to her. "Ugh, why am I so beat up? Why are we so beat up? This city just wants to teach us that adventures are dangerous over and over..."
"Not that you didn't steal my thunder, of course," Valey was rambling. "I mean, I have this really cool exit I've been planning pretty much since I met you, but its like every problem we run into takes care of itself before I can do anything!" She snorted. "Remember how we ran into Selma back when we were leaving the fort? He didn't even try to pick a fight. Rude. ...We should run into more problems."
"Or, we could run into fewer..." Maple offered, a note of strained hope in her voice.
Valey sniffed and turned a corner. "Hi boring, I'm me. Nope nope no- oh hey look, stairs!"
Her emerald eyes lit up, smiling in the darkness even when her mouth was hard to make out. Around the bend, a narrow staircase sat, tucked against one wall and supported by a single crossbeam on its way up to a bridge crossing the street one story up. Valey jumped, landing smoothly atop it and looking both ways. "It's good!" she called. "Doesn't look like a dead end! Come on up!"
Starlight's hooves parted from the cooling mud as she stepped onto the first stair, and she instantly couldn't tell if she missed it or not. On the one hoof, it was sticky, annoying, unpleasant and a part of the lower city's oppressive atmosphere that she couldn't wait to be rid of. On the other, it was a constant cooling touch, and that made her head feel slightly better. She staggered once as her horn gave off an errant shower of sparks, catching herself and continuing to the top.
"...But for real, though," Valey said as she crawled up the final step and collapsed on the bridge. "Your magic hurts you to use? That's kinda a fatal flaw, even if you are a filly as strong as some adult mages. Weird, too. Usually it's a brand that gives ponies unique quirks like that."
"I'll make it work," Starlight hissed, laying on her side with her head to the ground. "I don't need a cutie mark! Nopony does! Nngh... ow! You'll see!"
Valey awkwardly shuffled her forehooves. "Uhh... suit yourself, but I'll take my chances keeping mine. Those kids back there were loons, but what they tried happens all the time, and others are way better about actually getting the drop on me. Without mine, I'd be toast." She winked, and added, "I still think cutie mark is adorable, by the way. Where'd you get that?"
Starlight clamped her mouth shut, and remained that way until Maple slowly crested the stairs, taking each step gently so as not to risk damaging it with her weight.
"...Right." Valey blinked down at her, then at Maple. "Hey, Ironflanks, you mind if I carry her? She looks kind of like a puddle and is slowing us down, and I do wanna find some place where you two can put your hooves up for a bit. You're, like... doing a bit too good a job at beating yourselves up, here."
"Be gentle," Maple sighed, "and fine. And do you really have to call me that?"
"Well, what else am I going to call you? Tree sap?" Valey asked, hefting Starlight's frowning form and slinging her crosswise over her back, the filly's head dangling over one side and hindquarters the other. "I'm bad with names unless I make them myself. Still need something for this kid, too. Something like, uhh... Something small and cute. Eh, I'll think of a good one in time. Now let's go!"
"Slow down!" Maple halted her with a hoof, then walked over to Starlight. "You carry her like this," she explained, dragging one of the filly's forehooves across Valey's black neck and turning her until she lay evenly on her back. "Better. Now we can go."
Valey grinned. "Aww, this feels like a hug! Now I see why you're always trying to cuddle her!"
"I have reasons for the things I do," Maple mumbled, ears turned down. "And be nice! I haven't had an easy life either, okay?"
"Nice?" Valey's face scrunched. "First off, who gave you the idea I could do that, and second, I was complimenting her. That's perfectly nice! Silly pony." She stuck out her tongue. "Nyaa."
For her part, Starlight slumped lethargically on Valey's back, trying to sort her head into productive thoughts... or at least any thoughts at all, aside from how many better options she had than wasting her magic on the foals. Her ride felt different, she noted. Looking at them side-by-side, Maple and Valey had the same proportions, both fully-grown young mares with the standard body type and no unusual physical traits. But in that much contact, and after spending so much time using Maple as a personal taxi, she could feel a world of change just in how they walked. Was it demeanor, and the way they stood? Did Valey have different muscles due to having wings? Or was she merely in better shape? She could just be smaller. Her coat was different, at least, short and silky next to Maple's long winter fur.
As she breathed in, Valey's green mane got in her face, earning a cough and several blinks and a failed attempt to wipe it away. But with it, delayed in recognition by several seconds, she caught a scent she couldn't quite parse. Subsequent sniffs confirmed it was definitely coming from Valey's mane. It was familiar, somehow, but she couldn't place what it reminded her of, or where she had smelled it before.
"...You know..." Valey broke the silence, humming to herself. "Speaking of brands and not having them, I just remembered this spooky old story that says if you lose yours, you turn into a scary monster. OoOoOo..." She flexed her wings. "Better not be too stubborn about them, huh?"
"That's bogus," Starlight grumbled, her head reminding her that she was, in fact, presently miserable. "And you said lose, not decide not to gain. And aren't there tons of ponies here already who don't have cutie marks? They're not monsters."
Valey frowned and gritted her teeth. "That depends on your definition of monster..." In a flash, she lightened up. "But yeah, I didn't say it was a true story, either. And whoever managed to lose a brand? You get one, it's on your butt for life. These things aren't exactly transferable."
"I'm well aware," Starlight deadpanned.
"You know..." Maple hummed warily to herself, as if searching through memories she knew were best left alone. "I did hear a story once, about a pony who lost their cutie mark. It said so many terrible things happened to them that they lost all hope for the future, and when they did, their mark just disappeared... but I don't know if it's true. I wasn't in a very good place when I heard it. It might have been made up to try to push me to keep going, I don't know. And there definitely wasn't anything about a monster, either..."
"Huh. Weird." Valey's ears swiveled, scanning down a passing side road containing several discarded, broken crates and a flickering light somewhere beyond a door. "Wow, though, now I feel like being in a spooky mood. This city sure isn't helping, huh?"
Around them, the path contained the same jagged, cubical aesthetic that had defined it on the ground, only the mud floor had been replaced by roofs of varying heights and occasionally unsound construction. Valey leaned in eagerly every time there was a hole into someone's house, though nine out of ten rooms were dark and disinteresting. The gaps, holes and steps were covered by bridges and ramps of plywood and corrugated aluminum, except in places where the material had been co-opted for use as doors instead. At least the doors, however ramshackle, had a better rate of existence than below.
"So, more spooky stories..." Valey's voice was an exaggerated, quivering whisper, as if she was a songbird trying to warble three octaves too low. "I'm not a normal pony, yeah? Pretty much the whole city already thinks I'm a monster, whether it's from how I look or how I act. And those kids were right, by the way; I'm a jerk. Should've given them a pat on the back for remembering to never trust a bat. And just between you and me... I heard that story from another like me. So if we're already monsters... what's a monster to us?"
Starlight's spine crawled, mostly thanks to Valey's theatrics. If she hadn't been on the mare's back, she could easily imagine her putting on a magical minstrel show, sliding in and out of the shadows while talking and projecting her voice from every direction, finishing things off with a jump scare and a whisper in the audience's ear. She was so wrapped up in the sudden idea, she almost forgot to process what Valey actually said.
"I don't think I want to find out," Maple answered for her. "Really, this place is creepy enough already. Do you have to go and tell horror stories now? I'm on pins and needles as is, and you're not helping. Couldn't we talk about something... nice instead? Or even nothing, so we can at least hear if anyone tries to sneak up on us? For a city, this place is too quiet..."
"Something nice?" Valey's grin split so far sideways, Starlight could see it without the mare turning her head. "Ironflanks, did you miss the bit where I'm a mean little gremlin who plays with everything? Seriously, stop expecting me to be nice. It's naive and kind of turning me on."
"U-Umm..." Maple drew a step further away. "No offense, but I'm really not interested in that. Bad... Bad personal experiences. Sorry."
"Meh. Not a big surprise. I didn't peg you as a mare's mare, anyway." Valey stepped forward, staring straight ahead. "And by the way, I was being nice, just for you. If I really wanted to get spooky, there are dozens of better stories out there for that. I could talk about the Yak Civil War... The Tale of the Three Dragons... The Mare in the Moon... The... oh, er, probably would count as being mean to say the name of that one. And don't worry about us being snuck up on, either." She winked back at Maple. "I can only smell one of them following us."
"That," Maple began, suddenly drawing close enough to Valey that they were nearly touching, "is really not the best way to go about being reassuring or nice..."
Maple, Starlight and Valey stood at the bottom of a valley of shadow, the distant sky only marginally closer than it had been from the ground. Their second-floor alley and the wooden roofs that formed its surface was only a single step less dismal than the one below, doors more often in existence and slightly more light trickling down from on high. Bridges and entire platforms still crisscrossed above, and the amount of light filtering down was barely enough to watch their hooves for debris. Overhangs were rarer, at least, but the roads were narrower and frequently lead to visible dead ends, and there were still no lights working to counteract the gray gloom.
Valey's recent announcement made matters no better.
"So they're following us..." Maple gulped. "Really? The foals from before?"
"Eh, relax." Valey shrugged, slightly jostling the dazed Starlight on her back. "I said only one of them. Besides, you saw how harmless they were! Probably just wants to come get my autograph."
Maple frowned. "Last time, they tried to trap you and beat you up, and were willing to take hostages. I don't think they'd have turned into your fan club just by chasing you around a little..."
"Hey, a girl can hope, right?" Valey grinned stupidly, then glanced into a dark corner as if expecting a foal to leap out in want of a hug. "Besides, it's that or they want a rematch, and I'm down with both. Not to be passive-aggressive, but I did kinda get my time cut short, there..."
"It's the red one," Starlight dizzily muttered. When Maple looked questioningly at her, she added, "She's the leader. I saw her on the main road. She was following us that far, so why not now?"
As Maple bit her lip, contemplating, Starlight groaned and sank further into Valey's mane and coat, wishing fervently she had a proper, non-moving bed.
"Well..." Valey sighed, then looked to an opening in the wall. It led to a balcony overlooking a larger ground-floor plaza, and she paced through, beckoning for Maple to follow. "I guess if you're that worried about it, we can deal with it now. Hey, kid!"
No response.
Valey smugly smirked. "Come out and play with me, or I'll do that whole eeee-eeee-eeee bat-shriek thing that's really loud and annoying and will break any glass still intact in this place!"
"No!" Starlight hissed, yanking hard on one of Valey's ears. "My head hurts!"
"Ow, hey!" Valey flicked the affected ear heavily, knocking her hat askew and requiring it to be fixed by a wing. "Fine, then. Uhh... Hey, kid! Come on out, or I'll insult everything in this place until I find something that mortally offends you! Yeah!"
"You're rude and obnoxious," replied a voice from the shadows. "Everything my dad and friends said you would be. Everything the whole Sky District is, and the Stone District, too!"
After careful focusing, the filly-shaped outline of Redshift came into view, sitting on what might have been intended as a railing. She was balanced on her hind legs, forelimbs crossed in front of her chest, and her expression was given away by the tone of her voice.
"Eh, that's cool." Valey nodded. "I dig being rude. Ponies do funny things when they're mad. Kinda like you!" A smile slashed across her face.
"Laugh while you can," Redshift said darkly, immobile atop the railing. "The Spirit of Sosa is going to come and take back Ironridge, and make everything right again, and then you'll be gone!"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You're having an entire revolution just to fire me? Wow. I'm actually flattered."
"You're just a symptom," Redshift sneered. "Ironridge is broken from the top! Everything was fine ten years ago, and they're going to put it back the way it was! All of it!"
"You know..." Valey took a step forward, leaning casually and slightly unbalancing Starlight. "You sound an awful lot like you're just repeating propaganda someone else shoved in your cute little brain. That's a shame. I had you pegged for an independent thinker, but parrots are way less fun."
"Hold on," Maple interrupted before Redshift could answer. "That was ten years ago. You don't look that old... How do you know for sure what it used to be like? Change makes everyone talk about the past more fondly, usually."
"I'm eleven, actually," Redshift responded in a slightly more civil tone, completely ignoring Valey. "But it doesn't matter when things are still changing and I can see them with my own eyes. Every time another family moves here, I see it. Every time me and my friends catch another robber and see they only stole because they needed to, I feel it. Every time the lights go off and the Sky District refuses to even hear about our problem, I know it!" By the end, she was shaking, having climbed down from her perch and walked far enough into the light that her face was visible. She had been crying.
"Oh my..." Maple whispered, holding out a hoof.
"Hold up," Valey belched, "you mean the light thing wasn't just a welcome party for me?"
"...No," Redshift spat with a glare. "The managenerator for the Blueleaf power grid has been failing for three months now. It goes on and off whenever it wants to, and it's getting worse. It's been off for a week solid right now, and none of us have any idea how to fix it or even get inside because the Sky District won't send any of their stupid technicians! It's making the bottom floors dangerous and completely unlivable since almost no one there can afford their own portable lights and we don't have room to move them up, and some ponies are staying there anyway in the dark and we can't find them and don't even know how many ponies are living like that!"
The tears on her face had resumed by the time she finished talking, though they did nothing to dull the burning intensity of her eyes that shone from behind scrunched lids. "I hate you," she hissed. "I hate you all! And some day, the Spirit of Sosa is going to win, and they're going to take back Ironridge, and they'll fix our city or let us move somewhere better! They'll make the Earth District as good as it once was, not some fruit place where nobody wants to go because it's hot and has no power! See how much your airships and your yaks do for you then, you jerk!"
"Hey, uhh..." Valey looked to Maple as the filly sobbed. "Anything about this not making sense to you, either? Because it's my job to know everything, and I legit didn't know about this generator thing. And I read my reports like comic books! You'd think if there was some issue that was causing part of the Earth District to become super radical and unstable, someone up in the Defense Force would consider it a major security threat, especially since this is the closest city in the district to the HQ."
"Go on," Redshift gasped around a sob, "say you think I'm lying. That's what they all say! Or say you're going to take care of it, and then do nothing! Just t-to get us to like you and leave you alone, which isn't happening! Say you're going to run back to your wonderful council and tell them all about it, so they can brag about how little they care and do nothing just to taunt us!"
"...Okay," Valey growled, shifting and setting Starlight aside, breaking into a swift trot toward Redshift. "I'm actually legit curious here and there's a pretty good chance of me helping, or at least investigating until I know what's going on, because I'm an untrustworthy jerk but I do do my job. But first?" She stopped in front of the hyperventilating filly. Redshift looked up... and her head was abruptly seized by Valey with a single hoof. "You need to chill out."
Maple and Starlight both gasped, stretching to do something as Valey reared back, preparing to slam Redshift's head into the ground... but instead of a crack and a cry of pain, she fell through the floor, as if the ground was a projection covering the surface of a lake. Valey tipped forward and followed her, and in a blink there was empty blackness, the omnipresent shadow rippling like disturbed water.
A second passed, and then... Fwoooshh! "Gahhhhh!"
Redshift shrieked as she plunged back above the surface, still in Valey's grasp. The batpony hovered half in and half out of the ground, bobbing slightly, the shadows around her body distorting rapidly and unnaturally like waves. "All right," Valey announced, "we're going to do that as many times as it takes for you to stop freaking out, because that isn't productive for anyone."
The filly's mouth instantly snapped shut, eyes wide and pupils constricted, an obvious question hammering at her teeth and held in by fear. Maple asked it instead. "What was that!?"
"Oh, this?" Valey grinned, and pointed to her barrel, apparently bisected by the floor. "Batpony magic. It's called Shadow Swimming. The title is pretty self-explanatory. Very good for spying, too!" With a wink to Starlight, she added, "Feels a lot like being put in your crystals, by the way, except you have to hold your breath the old-fashioned way. Dunno if you've ever tried that on yourself, but it's gotta be the freakiest thing ever for newbies. Good at making them shut up, though!"
Maple gulped. "That's what you were talking about when you said you had a better way of escaping that room, wasn't it? You wanted to... take us through the shadows?"
"Wow, you're quick!" With a nod, Valey poked at Redshift. "Hey, uh, didn't mean to make you catatonic, little filly. I'd been saving that one for a while, and at this point I was like, 'meh, I really wanna show this off,' and might have gone a little overboard. Still spunky in there?"
The smallest bit of fire returned to Redshift's eyes. "I'm telling my father," she mouthed.
"...Right. You do that." Valey climbed all the way out of the shadows and set her on the ground, posing her in a comfortable sit. "So, I wanna do something," she announced to nobody in particular. "I feel like we should go check out that generator thing, but I actually have no idea where it is or where we are now. And unless miss sobs-a-lot repossesses her faculties, something tells me I'm about to be stuck carrying another comatose kid, because leaving her here like this would just be dumb. So, team, what do we do?" She winked at Maple. "And by team, I mean you, Ironflanks."
"Wow, thanks," Maple deadpanned, rubbing a still-sore leg. "You're never going to let that drop, are you...? Anyway. I think you know what I'm going to say, but we should find somewhere to rest. Just me is one thing, me and Starlight is another, and now you've managed to scare a local senseless yet for some reason are actually taking responsibility for it and not leaving them behind in a dark alley."
"Hey, I clean up my messes!" Valey held an indignant hoof to her chest. "...Sometimes. When it sounds like fun. Or is actually important to my job. Really, keeping these districts from fighting is a pretty easy catch for getting to do whatever I want. Besides, how was I supposed to know she'd be such a wuss about a little dunking? I do that all the time; it's easy!"
"...Really." Maple glared levelly at her. "Prove it. Give me a 'little dunking.' I want to know what you did to her, and if it's something you're considering having us use later, I want to be prepared."
"Suit yourself." Checking over the two fillies one last time, Valey shrugged and reached for Maple, grabbing her with both forehooves. "Take a breath beforehand, since you won't be able to breathe. I can swim anywhere there's shadow, but you can't and will just be dragged along. Prepare to feel helpless, drowning and really, really strange."
With a dark splash, Maple plunged toward the ground, thrust by Valey's hooves... and the impact never came. Instead, her perception shattered so completely that she had to close her eyes in order to remember that she had eyes to close, which in turn reminded her that she had lungs that needed to breathe and couldn't. Fortunately, she couldn't exhale either, and suppressed her panic well enough to think without losing any air.
She inched open her eyes. The arrangement of grayscale shapes and angles bent her mind, an impossible and confusing cloud of chaotic nonsense with no resemblance to anything in the real world. She squeezed her eyes shut again... and eventually reopened them.
This time, she completely gave up on trying to make sense of her vision, which strangely made it that much more bearable. Everything was fuzzy, with ill-defined detail and shapes that were as easy to identify as clouds. They reminded her of something a friend in Riverfall had once called 'cubist paintings,' which apparently worked the same way. There was motion, but less that of a sliding object and more that of a patterned screen being slid across her face. Her curiosity was just getting strong enough to overcome her fear and adrenaline when she surfaced.
"Ah...!" she panted, bringing a hoof to her heaving chest, drawing in and gulping down air furiously, slightly hesitant to open her eyes. "That was..." she eventually managed. "Bizarre."
Valey shrugged beside her. "Hey, I warned you. But anyway, were we going to find somewhere to rest up and wait for sobs-a-lot to wakey wakey? So we can, like... make this place a bit less of a fanatic haven and all around dump? There's misery and annoyance, and then there's despair, which I hate. Blueleaf is just begging to get someone hurt."
"Yeah," Maple agreed, finally getting her breathing under control. "Let's do that."
A hoof crested the final step of a flight of stairs, and Maple dragged herself onto a new street, panting. She took a moment to lean against a mostly-intact wall, head and tail drooping as she caught her breath. Behind and above her, Valey flapped, a groggy Starlight resting on her back and a still-shocked Redshift dangling by her barrel from the mare's forelimbs. Redshift's eyes were unblinking pinpricks, neither focusing nor moving, ears pressed flat against her head.
The third level of Blueleaf was another shade lighter than the two below it, sunlight still hesitant to make its way to the floor but occasionally visible in bright squares and polygons against the walls. It was still gray, bright enough to read by, and safe enough that they finally weren't alone.
While by no means a healthy crowd, ponies stood in the streets, forgoing scarves or jackets as the jungle heat began to exert its presence again. The air was pocketed and a mix of extreme hot and cold, hardly a pleasant conglomerate but much more tolerable than either extreme on its own. The road had slightly fewer holes, and the wood and sparse metal used to make it was significantly newer than the misshapen, recycled sheets below. Bridges still crossed overhead, but with far less frequency than they had before, and Maple even spotted a mare wearing something that to a particular income bracket would qualify as nice.
The rise in quality of living as they climbed was palpable, exhibited by the presence of functional doors on nearly every entry, but it was most apparent in the ponies themselves. For the first time since the wide main street at the town's entrance, ponies talked to each other, and looked forward with eyes that could think about more than where their next source of light would come from. Manes were still dirty, coats were still patched or ungroomed, but the ponies of the third level had enough hope to get up, go outside and do things with their days. It made a world of difference.
"It's like a tiny version of Ironridge..." Maple whispered as they passed a pony, favoring a hind leg, who was meekly pushing more-identifiable trash into a bag. "The higher up you go, the better things get. I bet the top level is full of aristocrats and private mansions. I wouldn't be surprised if it's guarded and we can't go there at all..."
"No fur off my back," Valey replied with a shrug as she flapped along, careful not to jostle either of the fillies. "I'm kinda liking where we are right now, personally. Seedy enough for ponies to want to be up to something, rich enough for there to be things for them to be up to. Let's find somewhere we can sit down, put our hooves up and wait for these two to unscramble their brains."
Starlight groaned in response, horn dim and eyes dull. "I'm not scrambled! I just hurt and have a headache and want to lie down!"
"Yeah, yeah, same difference." Valey shrugged again, fortifying her grip on Redshift. "But this other one's a potato. I mean, I'm flattered that she thinks I'm so scary, but this is kind of getting annoying, you know?" She bounced Redshift and craned her neck, trying to look into the filly's eyes. "Wakey wakey, kid! You're being boring!"
Something shifted in Redshift's eyes, but she made no response. "Eh," Valey dismissed, holding her normally again and flapping forward, "she'll come around. Hey, Ironflanks!" She nudged Maple heavily. "Go ask some ponies if there's a bar around here, or something. I'll back you up if things get hairy, but if I ask myself they'll just lie. I am infamous, after all."
That infamousness, Maple reflected as she approached a middle-aged mare with a threadbare tail and a coat one size too big, only translated into the same mistrustful looks the ponies already gave each other, a smattering of acquaintances aside. After all, why trust a notorious troublemaker less than a complete stranger when there was a good chance the stranger was worse?
"Hello?" she asked, trying to conceal the cramps and aches spread throughout her body. "Do you know if there's a bar or food place nearby? I'm slightly new to this part of town, and, well..."
The mare just stared at her like a cow chewing its cud. Maple half-expected her to moo.
"Umm..." Maple blinked, considering how to best get the mare's attention, stepping backwards so she didn't just walk by. "I asked if-"
"Get lost," the mare grunted, roughly shoving Maple aside with a forelimb, not even looking her way as she staggered and very nearly avoided falling over.
"Ah..." Maple hissed, rubbing the spot on her chest gingerly where she had been punched, another ache added to her collection. "Ow..."
She chanced a look to where Valey was, preparing to ask if she really had to do that again... only to see Redshift sitting dazed on her own, Starlight standing uncertain guard over her. "Where...?"
Maple's eyes quickly scanned the surrounding area... and as they passed the mare who had shoved her, she saw a hoof dart out from the shadows beneath her, sharply prodding the bottom of her barrel and vanishing immediately after. Her eyes widened in interest.
"Huh?" The mare took several sharp steps backward, staring wildly for what had touched her. "What the...?"
If Maple hadn't been expecting it, she wouldn't have seen the shadows rippling along the ground where the mare stood. But she was, and it made her jump considerably less high at what happened next.
"Blaaaaaughhyuckhyuckhyuck!" Valey's face appeared on the ground like a ghost, poking just out of the shadows, expression twisted into a maniacal cackle, eyes glowing malevolently. She shook, still laughing, mouth changing dozens of times per second as she ran her looks through the equivalent of drawing a hoof along the edge of a book and watching the pages fly by. It was equally incomprehensible, a lot more terrifying, and for the unexpecting mare, impossible to see coming.
"Aiiiieeee!" She backpedaled frantically, only to have Valey's flailing limbs erupt from the shadows like tentacles on a sea monster, grasping at her own. Several times, Valey wrapped a forelimb around the fleeing mare's hooves, pulling her partway down into shadow, grip deliberately loose so the mare could free herself and be grasped at again.
Eventually, Valey gave up her chase, leaving the mare fleeing into the depths of the city at racehorse speeds, shrieking like a banshee, Maple blinking in her wake. "That was... savage..." she breathed, holding a hoof to her chest both to still her thumping heart and because it still slightly hurt.
"Are you kidding?" Valey cackled, standing up, wiping her brow and fixing her hat. "That was awesome! Argh, I needed that." She stretched, arching her back and cracking her wings. "Seriously. Made my day right there. Almost as good as flattening someone. Whew... heh heh heh..."
"She deserved that," Starlight muttered darkly from her vigil by Redshift, looking at Maple with concern. "That's what I should have saved my magic for."
"Starlight...?" Maple began hesitantly. "Wasn't it a little disproportionate, though? I mean, she was rude, but probably had a reason to be mistrustful. Wouldn't you say it wasn't fair?"
Starlight's eyes narrowed. "You and Willow spent all that time trying to convince me that the world isn't fair and what I want isn't how it works. If you want me to be selfish or unfair, why is when you're in danger not a good time to agree with you?"
"That's... not the healthiest way of looking at it..." Maple cringed.
"If the world is unfair," Starlight said with a shrug, "fine. I want to protect my friends."
"Violence, violence, violence..." Valey happily cackled in the background... before noticing at least five other ponies were staring at her. "What?"
Like water draining from a tub, Maple's sense of privacy evaporated as she realized they had attracted a crowd, standing very safe distances away and occasionally checking the ground beneath their forehooves.
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked. "Hey, citizens!" She waved cheerily. "Enjoy the show?"
A nervous stallion was pushed forward, elected by his peers to speak. "Ehermmm..." he began in a tone that perfectly matched his thick gray beard. "W-What was the lady's question, again? We don't want no trouble, Miss, really..."
"I was..." Maple gulped and tried to regain her composure. "Trying to ask directions? We're looking for a bar, or some place we could rest and get food..."
The stallion smiled like a death row inmate being told their execution had been postponed. "Go thataway, then left, straight until you find the intersection after the big bridge, turn right, and it'll be a few doors down on the right! There's a sign, so it's easy to see!"
"Hey, thanks, Mister!" Valey gave a nod, stepping forward and reaching beneath her hat. Her hoof probed for a bit as the stallion smiled in apprehension... and she produced a banana peel and held it out. "Here. Take this as a reward."
The stallion didn't hesitate to accept. "I shall cherish it always!" he assured, before backing away and breaking into a run, undoubtedly to dispose of the item the moment he deemed it safe. The rest of the crowd quickly dispersed as well, looking for all the world like they had never met Valey, and never intended to if they could help it.
Behind them, Redshift stirred, but still didn't snap out of her shock.
"Well..." Valey paced over, preparing to grab the fillies in the now-abandoned street. "I suppose we should head over and find that place, huh? I've had a bit of fun, so I can rest easier while we wait for these two to get it together. Right?"
Maple nodded, standing gingerly as Valey picked up Starlight. "I wouldn't mind that at all..."
"Slick." Valey nodded, preparing to grab Redshift... when the filly's eyes suddenly focused.
"Gah!" she panted in alarm, staring frantically about. "What...? Where...? You!"
"Hey. Chillax." Valey pinned her to the ground with a forehoof to the back. "You were freaking out over your generator thing and how evil I was and randomly passed out. It was a really strange coincidence." Innocently, she rubbed the back of her neck, looking away. "But believe it or not, I actually kinda sorta felt like helping you, because I'd rather not have a big fat beacon for the Spirit of Sosa sitting on my doorstep, and because you're super cute. Savvy?"
"You did..." Redshift trembled. "Something dark... with shadows and shapes and I couldn't breathe, and I... I..." Her eyes threatened to unfocus again.
"Hey, buck up, you!" Valey patted her roughly on the head, her dark auburn mane laying flat. "It's not that bad! I do that to myself all the time. Whatever happened to being all 'arrgh I'm gonna get my revenge' from down there in that little funhouse?"
Redshift's eyes flared in recognition. "You!"
"Yeah, something's wrong with your noodle," Valey sighed, rolling her eyes and turning away. "Seriously, take twenty until you can focus on a conversation, or I'll dunk you again because we're more productive that way. Last chance to get it through your head before we move out: I want to look at your generator. Got it?"
Redshift stared blankly at her. "This is a good thing," Valey emphasized. "For you. Right?"
Several more seconds of staring followed... and the filly's eyes went blank, slipping back into a shocked stupor. She maintained her stance, posed fiercely and ready for a battle that wouldn't come.
"...I don't get it." Valey shook her head blankly at Maple, mouth questioningly ajar. "You're the mom, Mom. What am I doing wrong, here?"
Maple frowned. "Technically, I'm not... never mind. But what you're doing wrong is using creepy magic on children and scaring them, whether you're trying to or not. Next time she wakes up, just... don't say anything and let me try, okay? In fact, I'd carry her entirely myself, if I didn't ache so much!"
"Sure thing, Ironflanks." With a shrug, Valey turned to Redshift and scooped her up, the filly melting into her grip with a thousand-mile stare. "...Anyway." She faced down the road, squaring herself and flapping slightly harder. "Let's go find this bar."
"As long as you don't start any fights," Maple insisted. "Please. I know you said something about bar fights earlier, but I really need to rest!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Valey droned into the distance, a filly on her back and another in her arms as she drifted steadily down the abandoned streetway.
Valey dug in her ear with a wing, standing on three hooves and holding Redshift with the fourth, staring at an ordinary, closed door in the wall. It was where the stallion had directed them, there was a sign proclaiming it as such, and a healthy din emanated from behind the barrier, yet... "Who leaves the door closed on a place like this?" she protested. "Bars are supposed to be inviting!"
"Remind me," Maple said tiredly, sitting beside her, "why are we going here, exactly, again? I mean, me and Starlight are exhausted and we need to rest, but is a bar really-?"
"Hey, relax!" Valey shrugged. "We're going to a bar because they're usually no-questions-asked with enough leniency that everyone will love it if we have to solve a problem by force, and because this is the middle of the day and most ponies will have finished their lunch breaks so there'll probably be a ton of room for us to sit around and rest. We can also get food, and places like these are notorious for having interesting characters so we might even run into someone cool. See? Watch."
She pushed the door open... and her ears quickly fell. "Oh. Wow. That's weird."
The interior of the bar was filled with warm, orange light, and even more filled with ponies. At least two dozen round tables were spread across the floor, each intending to seat six and some seating more, with few less than full. Behind the bar, a fat stallion polishing a mug gave them no notice, which was just as well as the bar stools themselves had no vacancies either. So little room was there that some ponies even stood or sat on the edge of a stage where a raggedy band was playing a poor harmony of a bagpipe, drum and accordion. A pegasus stumbled past them on her way out, muzzle dripping with foam, as a gray-bearded stallion raised a mug and shouted something obscene in her wake.
"Lunch break..." Valey's jaw stayed where it had fallen. "Not over yet, I guess. Huh. Maybe these all are slackers. Wow, there might be close to two hundred ponies in here. Wow. Oh well!" she chirped, perking back up. "Time to start some minor altercations until this place clears out a little!"
A pair of leafy ears rose from the ground like cute dorsal fins as Valey swam through the shadows, breath held and muscles loose, in search of ponies who could be persuaded to make themselves excusable. Maple and the fillies waited just inside, left against the inner wall rather than the doorway as it made them that much less conspicuous. Bits and bursts of speech floated through the batpony's head, and she snaked left and right, constantly waiting for it to make itself intelligible.
"Pwaaah! Your momma couldn't even keep down twenty of..."
"...so she said - urp! - she really liked my mane, and I..."
"...and that filthy cheater totally ripped me off! Can you believe it!?"
Valey slithered to a halt, her interest suddenly caught. Complaints followed trouble, and at the very least if some stallion was already having a bad day, it wouldn't make too much of a difference if she ruined it further. Not stopping to consider that that might have been a con, she took up residence beneath the offender's table, ears swiveling like radars, pleasantly noting that only three sets of legs dangled from the stools around her.
"So wait, where was this again?" a husky mare's voice asked, probably belonging to a pair of dark green legs that swung freely, not quite touching the ground. Valey sized them up, trying to guess what the rest of the mare looked like, and eventually decided they weren't worth ogling.
"It was just over in Copsewood!" the stallion's squeaky voice chirped back, in a tone that was a single note too high. "Cute place, thought it couldn't hurt to give it some business. Ohhh ho ho boy was I wrong. Tip from a pro? Mercenary work is garbage. We got into way more than we could handle and I had to bail, and now my moral fiber has been, like, stained. Feels like stepping in peanut butter, or something."
"Copsewood?" The mare's voice took on a note of disgust. "Mercenary work? You weren't messing around with the Spirit, were you?"
"Mweeeeh," another voice broke in, slurring. "Moral fiberr... Yyyou shays that while... Urp! While shharing drinks wif ush in... dish plashe! Heh heh hee!"
"Shut up, Randall," the mare droned. "Pickle Punch is enjoying his rant. If you're going to make fun of him, do it creatively. And go rain on your own parade, I want to hear this!"
Beneath the table, Valey resisted her urge to snicker at their names. Sosans got to pick new names for themselves if they ever earned a brand, which meant they might even have been deliberate.
"But Missh... Peanut b-butter! Have you ever heard shuch a bad anacrogy, eh? Eheheh?"
"Grrr... It's called a metaphor!" Pickle Punch broke in. "And you try making one that works, let alone isn't a stupid pickle joke! It's harder than it looks, you know!"
"Relax, Pickle, we're all proud of you," the mare reassured, possibly sarcastically. "Even Randall, when he's not drunk. Which was at least a week ago, but still. You've got a three-day streak going! Maybe some day, you'll stop being a stale joke."
"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence," Pickle Punch deadpanned. "I really hate this name, sometimes. Like, thanks, Mom. Way to tell your kid you believed in him."
"Hhhey, Pickle Punshh..." Randall began, what might have been intended as a lecherous tone in his voice. "Dat'sh Lilac'sh wayy of shaying your pickle jokesh are sheckshy hicurrrrp! And shhe wantsh you to make more..."
"Put a pickle in it, Ran-" Pickle Punch's voice was interrupted by the sound of a forehead hitting wood, followed by the clatter of a mug tipping and a peal of uproarious laughter. "Not again..."
"Ahahahaa..." Lilac cackled, banging the table. "Sorry, Pickle. No more streak for you."
"Oh no..." Randall's voice drooped in disappointment as something golden and frothy began pouring over the side of the table, dripping its way to the already-stained wood floor.
Valey frowned up from the shadows. As much fun as the table's poor attempts at pettiness and humor were getting them, they had distracted themselves from whatever they were complaining about and were making poor progress getting themselves kicked out of the bar.
She shot a glance through the forest of legs to Maple, still tucked safely with the fillies by the entrance, and bit her lip. If the table of ponies wouldn't give her an easy excuse to get them thrown out, she would make one... or perhaps just invite herself and Maple as it was, and see who got awkward first.
Pickle Punch, Randall and Lilac blinked at the sudden presence of a batpony on the stool across from them. Valey's eyes were closed peacefully, until she opened them with a cheery grin. "Heya!"
Slowly, the two more sober ponies' eyes constricted in recognition and fear... and Randall's lit up with something else. "Hey therre..." he slurred, dropping into a lidded smile and extending a thick, shaky forehoof, spilled drink forgotten. "Are you shhingle, hot... hot ponyyy?"
Lilac decked him with a giant punch from across the table, knocking his jaw askew. "Shut up, you idiot!" she hissed, eyes frantic. "Don't you have any idea who that is!?"
"A marre with a hot bod, that'sh whoo..." Randall groaned deliriously, drooling.
Heartened and slightly disappointed by their complete unwillingness to contest her presence at their table, Valey waved a wing, beckoning Maple over. For the three at the table, she held her silence, smiling with just the wrong amount of innocence and betting Pickle Punch would leave first.
"Please don't take him personally!" Lilac begged with a beseeching demeanor that didn't at all fit her looks or earlier behavior. "We do not mean offense or trouble, Ma'am! Really!"
Pickle Punch cowered, holding his forelegs on top of his head. "Ohhh she's come to arrest me for that stupid work with the Spirit and now my last act as a free pony is going to be being laughed at for making a stupid pickle joke and what is wrong with my life that that is what I'm most concerned about?"
"Mehhh." Valey sighed, pouting. "Arrest you for wrongdoing? That would imply that I was fair, which if you know me, you should know I'm not. Besides, the Earth District technically isn't my jurisdiction, so I'd probably just beat you up instead, but you look kinda wimpy and I'm also here for some downtime so maybe I won't do that as long as you're funny. M'kay?"
"Yes! Yes!" Pickle Punch nodded as if his life depended on it, furiously agreeing. "Way too wimpy to lock up here! I'd just do nothing but fill your jails with bad jokes and metaphors and make all the guards depressed and hate themselves because their outside lives couldn't possibly be as fulfilling as laughing at me and I don't wanna get beaten up!"
Valey felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as Maple drew up next to her, both fillies in tow. "Valey?" she asked, blinking. "Who are these?"
"They're... bystanders," Valey replied innocently, stretching and ignoring the table's previous occupants. "Or maybe entertainment. I dunno, really, they're just some random saps unfortunate enough to already be here. Hope for the best, though, you know? It sure would be a shame if anything bad were to happen to them." She jabbed a wing at Randall. "He's drunk, by the way."
"Y-You shay that like... hic! Like it'sh a bad thing!" Randall smiled with a surprisingly intact set of teeth, letting out a puff of breath that smelled of garlic and vinegar.
"Right..." Maple mumbled warily, taking a lone stool between Valey and Lilac, as far from the drunk stallion as possible. There wasn't room on it for the fillies, so Starlight remained on the floor, guarding a still-dazed Redshift.
Pickle Punch sized Maple up, weighing his words carefully. "Uhh... So, you're like her-"
"Hey, idiot!" Lilac jabbed him, hissing out the side of her muzzle. "Tell the Defense Force Commander about that bad run-in with her sworn enemies and build us some favor points!"
"Admiral..." Valey whispered inaudibly, not twitching a muscle.
"Oh! R-Right!" Pickle Punch jumped to attention, slightly too eager to please. "I was... uh... t-telling a story when you showed up, about... the Spirit! And don't get the wrong idea, now, because even though I was trying to help them I'm definitely not now! I've changed my ways, I swear! Go... Go Stone District! Yeah!" He nervously pumped a hoof.
Valey smiled, making sure to show off the sharpness of her teeth.
"So anyway..." Pickle Punch gulped, slightly improving his composure. "I was in Copsewood, okay? The northeastern place? Really close to the, uh..." He hissed aside to Lilac, "Which factory was it, again?"
"The Alpha Factory is on the north bank of the river," Valey helpfully offered. "The Beta and Gamma ones are on the south side, and Gamma is east of Beta."
"Right! Thank you!" Pickle Punch nodded furiously. "So I was just south of Beta! Anyway, as we all kno- err, as the Spirit says and I definitely don't believe because I was only there for the money, the yaks are pure evil and are trying to arm their army to invade and take over the Steel and Earth Districts, so what the job was for was to go in there and rob a delivery cart to stop the weapons from arriving! Easy, right? Right!"
He banged the table, babbling without pause. "So we're there, and we find the cart totally alone and undefended except for Shinespark, who we know won't fight back because she's too honorable or something. Actually an excellent mare, if only the times didn't call for playing dirty."
Valey's brow creased at his praise for Shinespark, and for a second, she bit back a sigh. It no longer mattered when Randall interrupted, loudly belching, "And shhe'sh shhingle, too!"
"Shut up, Randall!" Lilac threw him a glare. "She's like half your age and is a hundred times the pony you'll ever be! Pickle?" She turned to the meeker stallion. "Keep talking."
Valey listened as he continued, smile set in stone and ears still forward, but with teeth clenched together slightly harder and slightly more edge to her gaze than needed.
"Right... uh..." Pickle Punch flailed slightly, getting his groove back. "Anyway. We made it to the cart, it was totally undefended, and we even had all those awesome toys to play with from other raids... and then it was so weird. There was this griffon, and then someone started a fight but we were fighting each other and I honestly was just trying to protect my tail so I hid behind the wagon. But then the griffon charged, and he had this sword, and it was... it was..."
His eyes thinned with recollected shock. "He had this sword. And Braen stole it, because she was there, but not before he had used it. And then after they all left and it was just us in the clearing, it was like..." He swallowed, trembling. "There was no blood. Not from the sword. It didn't leave cuts. It must have been cursed, or something. But you could see the ponies who had been hit by it, and they were..."
A minute passed. "I don't even know what to say," he managed eventually. "They had fallen down. It was like they were asleep, but with their eyes open and they could move their eyes and look at you and nothing else. They were scared. Like they wanted to scream and couldn't use their mouths. They had just as much of an idea what had happened as I did, only it had happened to them. And I couldn't take it. I didn't help drag them back to safety, or see if there was anything that could be done. I just turned around and ran for my life. Didn't expect any pay, not for that. Didn't get any, either."
"And that's why I stay out of stuff like this," Lilac hummed darkly. "Things like this happen all the time. Going looking for them is suicide. I'll take existence, thank you very much."
"Easy for you to say," Pickle Punch answered sadly, hanging his head. "You're not even from Sosa. You've got no loyalty to it. You're just content to ride out your level-three existence and never do anything worth doing for yourself."
"Level four," Lilac corrected with a shade of confidence. "With how many bottom-two refugees they're moving up, I bit the shovel and paid to move up. Dunno why, when I'm back here now with the likes of you two idiots. Besides, you're not a Sosan either, flat-head."
Pickle Punch ran a hoof self-consciously over his bare forehead, brushing aside a chewed lock. "My dad was! It's not his fault my mom was an earth pony, or that he got out before he could be fired!"
Lilac smirked. "Technically, both of those were his fault. And after calling Sosans filthy cheaters, don't be so hard on us earth ponies, now. We might be all that's left you can get."
"Hey!" Pickle Punch shouted in indignation, banging the table. "I would never insult Sosa! And just you watch, some day I'll get a cute unicorn who likes-"
"You were just complaining about how they hired you for a dangerous job and you didn't even get paid," Lilac droned, still cocky.
Valey leaned back, watching. Both of the arguing ponies seemed to have forgotten about her entirely, and while Randall was staring at her unscrupulously, he didn't seem inclined to act on it. It was just as well, as the petty altercation was somewhat amusing and Maple was also left out of it. She slumped tiredly on her stool, which was significantly less comfortable than a bed or couch but hopefully adequate, with Starlight and the still-shocked Redshift under the table. ...On second thought, none of them seemed to be getting much rest. Perhaps it was time to be more proactive in clearing the table for themselves. With a cough, she drew everyone's attention.
"Ah!" Lilac shot bolt-upright, silencing Pickle Punch with a hoof. "You idiot! You were supposed to be complaining about how bad Sosa was for her, not praising it! And, uhh..." She relaxed her brows in what was probably supposed to be a sweet, hopeful expression. "Would you like a drink? Can we buy you anything? To be good hosts? Please?"
"Mmmm..." Valey stretched. "Nah. I don't drink. Need to keep my brain at one hundred percent, all the time. Do keep talking though, this is interesting."
"So as I was saying," Pickle Punch began, "don't you judge my dad for taking a wife from that one place! It was, uhh... I don't remember the name, the place on the river when you're sailing out east? Before you reach the sea?"
"Riverfall!" Randall belched eagerly, the haze of drunkenness lifting slightly from his eyes. "Now that wash a plashe! Shtopped there on every shhingle voyage, both in and... hic! Out! Hah! In an' out... Eheheheh... Urp. A whole... plashe full'a maresh who all treated you like the besht thhhing ever! It wash like the Sheventh Dishtrict, and only we got to shee it! The world ishn't... ishn't like it ushed to be..."
"Hey Pickle Punch..." Lilac slyly poked his foreleg. "I think Randall is saying he wants to be your father..."
"What?" Pickle Punch's eyes screwed up in confusion.
Valey's wings shivered in alarm as she saw Maple's expression cloud with anger. It was time to change the conversation. "So," she interrupted, "enough with the mares. Keep talking about how awesome this place that ripped you off is."
Pickle Punch blushed sheepishly. "Look, Braen and her tactics can go lick a cactus. I just know there's a war coming, and I chose my side, okay? Sosa's still the ones trying to fix this dump Ironridge has turned into, and that's enough to earn my loyalty!"
"I'm sho confushed..." Randall mumbled. "Why wash you attacking your own shide, then?"
"It's... but...!" Pickle Punch sputtered. "Because of the yaks! We have to purge Sosa of this yak influence and make them give up on the contract so the yaks don't get any of our weapons!"
"Why do they have it in the first place if they're so self-righteous and pure?" Lilac quizzed.
"Hey, I never said that!" Pickle Punch pulled his hooves to his chest in protest. "I mean, I just said they weren't, because they gave me that dumb job! But, uhh... they're, like, playing the yaks against themselves by taking all their money and then never delivering! Yeah!"
"Then why are you trying to sabotage them?"
Pickle Punch's eyes constricted. "Uhhhh..."
"Sounds to me like you have no idea what you're actually fighting for," Lilac pressed.
"That's not true!" Pickle Punch gasped. "I do too! I have... I mean..." His eyes met Valey's. "You know what? Never mind! I fight for money. I'm a greedy sellout! Please don't beat me up!"
At that moment, Starlight's voice piped up, and her head appeared above the table, standing on Maple's lap. "What's the Seventh District?" she grumbled, eyes bleary.
The conversation halted. Eventually, Pickle Punch pointed a hoof, mumbling, "You have a filly?"
"Yes," Maple said, still bristling slightly from Randall's remarks earlier. "I do. Is that a problem?"
"What's the Seventh District?" Starlight repeated, insistent. "Ponies are always mentioning it, then always saying there's only six. You're not making sense."
"The Seventh District is a myth," Valey droned.
"What!? No it's not!" Pickle Punch quickly protested. Then, realizing that Valey was still present, he shrank. "I mean, actually, it probably is..."
"The Seventh District is anywhere better than where we're at now, kid," Lilac said with a sigh. "For some ponies, that's moving up the mountain. For others, it's that old Riverfall place Mister Drunken Bozo was talking about. Some think it's wherever you go when you die, others say it's the past, while the most realistic of us don't believe it exists at all." Her head lowered slightly closer to the table. "Would be nice of someone to prove us wrong about that, some day..."
"If you ashk me," Randall interrupted, "the Sheventh Dishtrict ish inshide... inshide Shhineshpark'sh bed..."
"Hey!" Pickle Punche shouted, shooting to his hooves. "I thought we agreed that she was a wonderful mare and you weren't allowed to disgrace-!"
"And I think," Lilac whispered urgently, covering Pickle Punch's mouth and pointing at Valey, "that she just said no more talking about mares!" She turned fully, as apologetic as it was possible for a pony to be. "I'll be getting out of here now, if you don't mind, before I wind up in jail or at the bottom of the Yule!" Whispering loudly, she added, "And I strongly recommend you two idiots do the same!"
Pickle Punch needed no second bidding. "Yeah, I'm out of here!" Nearly slipping on a gross, chunky patch of spilled something, he bolted for the door, vanishing before Lilac had even left the table. She shot a forlorn glance at Randall, then left herself, not looking back.
Alone with Maple, Valey and the fillies, Randall blinked, still processing his friends' departure. "...Sho," he began after a long silence. "You never did shay if you wash shhingle..."
"All right!" Valey blinked, stretched, and dusted herself off, stepping away from the wall where she had unceremoniously deposited Randall's unconscious body. "Everyone sees, nobody cares. This table is ours."
"You just punched out a drunk stallion," Maple observed, watching Starlight climb onto a stool of her own. "In the middle of a crowded bar."
Valey shrugged. "Eh, he had it coming. You hit on me, I hit you, you know? And it was a soft hit. Meant to stun. Besides, don't tell me you wanted that sleazebag making commentsh like thish about our buttsh while we were having our down time, did you?"
"Well..." Maple looked away. "He did just get abandoned by his friends, right? I don't know, it just seems a little... much."
"Eh. Look at it this way." Valey nudged the stallion's abandoned tankard, causing it to roll off the table and fall to the wooden floor with a clatter. "If I hadn't done that, he'd probably be going back for another one of these right now. I was doing his brain and liver a favor! And it's not like this is a strange place to be passed out, or anything." She raised an eyebrow. "What's with you and being so kind to ponies, anyway? First you were all 'No, don't beat up those foals!' and now there's something wrong with me giving an old stallion a nap?"
Maple grimaced, as if something was caught in her teeth. "Well..." she stalled, then pointed a hoof. "You wanted to help Redshift."
"Huh. I guess I did..." Valey leaned back with a casual smile. "I guess you're rubbing off on me, Ironflanks. So hey, while we're here, feel like some grub?"
"If you mean food..." Maple's nose traced through the air, being told a tale of grease, soot and poor hygiene. "From this place? I think I'll pass. I saved some of these, though." Her hoof reached out, holding a bunch of perfectly ripe bananas.
"Aw, sweet!" Valey seized them, instantly beginning to peel with her teeth. "You're a... mmrf... real lifesaver, Ironflanks... Oh, goodie goodie goodie sweet bananas..."
Maple smirked wryly. "You're never going to stop calling me that, are you?"
"I feel like we've covered this before," Valey mumbled around a bulging mouthful of banana. "My brain?" She tapped her head. "Bad with names. When I don't make them myself. Sorry."
"And you're sure that's not just an excuse?" Maple asked, taking a bite from a mango.
Valey put her forelegs up. "All right! You got me. I secretly have a perfect memory and just do it to bug ponies. Almost as shocking as... ommph... how much I love fruit." She leaned forward, swallowing. "Really, though. While we're asking the hard personal questions, you alright? You looked kind of offended back there by some of those loons' hot air."
"...It's nothing," Maple sighed. "Past problems. We're supposed to be resting, right? Not talking about things that make us unhappy?"
Despite her insistence, Maple had to force her mind off track to prevent it from dwelling... and even then, her train of thought was like a boomerang. Riverfall. Sosa. Randall talking so carelessly and drunkenly about the mares she had grown up alongside... or her parents' generation, as if they were a fixture of a mythical place rather than actual ponies. A gift given by no one, a fleeting pleasure to be taken and then abandoned... just like...
Pacifistic feelings abruptly gone, Maple suddenly, fervently wished she had beaten Valey to the punch of knocking out Randall. Her heart clenched, shutting off all further thought, and she whimpered almost audibly. Hoping to break out of her stupor, she nudged Starlight, who was rock-still. "Hey, you. How are you doing?"
"This isn't very restful," Starlight plainly stated, breaking Maple's mood like a battering ram. "The stools are hard, it smells terrible, and it's so loud that I'd have a headache even without my horn. This place is a shrine to ponies pretending their bad lives don't matter instead of trying to change them for the better and I hate it. Why are we here?"
Maple paused, mouth lowered... and the bubble she had been using to block out the true extent of the room's din abruptly collapsed. They were one table out of many, afforded the scant mercy of a wall to one side yet fully exposed every way else. Behind her, within hooves' reach, a fat gray stallion laughed uproariously, his tail spilling dangerously close to hers. Further in the distance, a sharp crack rang out, and whether it was accompanied by a cry of pain, dismay or even victory was lost to the identical din. Everywhere, ponies were bellowing, guffawing, bawling, hooting and jeering, occasional intelligible strings drifting into her ears that she really wished weren't things she could understand. Through the dimly-lit, constantly shaking forest of heads and manes, nothing stood out save for the musicians on their raised stage and a stallion on a table at the far side of the room, balanced on two legs as he beat his chest and roared.
She squared her jaw. "Starlight's right. Some break this is. I'd rather be laying in a corner of the road than here."
Orange manalight glinted off Valey's slitted eyes, tinged dull brown by the contrast. "Well, excuuuse me," she cackled back. "How was I supposed to know that this place would be jammed an hour after lunch break? I thought it would be nice and empty and we could have half the room to ourselves!"
"I'm sorry," Maple mumbled. "I know you wanted to keep going, and we're slowing you down-"
"If you're about to say but," Valey interrupted, "can it. We just kicked those clods out and stole their table, and if you want to rub it in their faces by leaving right now and throwing it away?" She winked. "Then I guess I'm rubbing off on you, too!" A pause. "But seriously, if you wanna bail, I'm so down. This place is really not loving my ears back, and every time I have to hope I heard something wrong, I get this much closer to wiping the walls with every last pony here. Except you guys, of course."
"As long as we can find another place to get off our hooves," Maple sighed. "I have more food, and water too. We'll not starve for want of whatever this smelly bar has to offer."
The moment the words had left her mouth, the bar pressed back in around her, as if taking offense to being called smelly. Her eyes flickered, unable to settle... and landed on Randall. Had he known where she was from, when he said what he said? Of course not. If he had, would he have changed his words? No, he was drunk. If he hadn't been drunk...?
She shivered, unfocused, aches from walking and bruises from landing coming into sharp relief. If she was heading to Sosa, to find a boat out... how many more ponies would she encounter who felt that way about her home?
"Hey!" A leathery wing poked her twice in the side. "Ironflanks! Wakey wakey!"
It was Valey. "You coming?"
"I, umm..." Maple blinked, focusing. "Yes! Yes I am..."
To her side, Starlight lifted a hoof, signaling for them to hold. "Wait," she announced, staring under the table where Redshift had been deposited. "She's waking up."
"Huh?" Maple followed the Starlight's gaze down, under the table... to where Redshift was shivering in the heat, back to the table's central leg and taking in her surroundings with a fragile, newly-restored composure. "You're awake down there?" she asked, poking her face down under.
Redshift glanced frantically her way, and just barely managed to keep her mask of defiance from shattering. "W-Where did you take me?" she hissed, trying to sound menacing.
Maple raised a hoof above the table, hoping Valey would take the hint and not interfere. "In a bar on the third level. You're not in danger."
For a long moment, the filly glared back at her. Maple kept eye contact, but remembered to blink, hoping it would make her less threatening. Finally, Redshift managed, "And where are you taking me?"
"To wherever we were when you woke up," Maple answered.
Redshift stared at her for clarification.
"You... um..." Maple bit her lip. "Passed out down below, and we didn't want to leave you there like that, so we carried you with us. We just wanted to make sure you were all right. Now that you're up, you can go wherever you normally would. Really."
"...I don't believe you," Redshift eventually stated. "I set a trap for your friend. You made my friends look like fools because our trap wasn't good enough. We got what we deserved for not being better, but we're your enemies. Why would you want to help me?"
"Because you're a pony?" Maple shrugged. "Because it was our fault that you were unconscious? Because it's a decent thing to do?"
Redshift sat... and snorted. "Fine, then. You're a fool too. Decency doesn't get you anything in Ironridge, and if you believe that, you must not be from around here. Even the pampered Stone District isn't that naive! If you want something, whether you deserve it or not, you take it by force. That's how it works."
"But you don't seem to be leaving," Maple countered with the premonition of a smile. "Something tells me you want it to work this way, even if you don't believe it can."
"Don't give me that," Redshift pouted coldly. "You're keeping me captive. That evil bat is on top of this table, and the moment I come out she'll jump on me and use her dark mind magic again."
Starlight loudly cleared her throat, having jumped down to the floor herself. "If you can get what you want with force, why don't you go make this city a better place? Force it to be a world where being a good pony makes good things happen, and where no one has to lose because of bad luck?"
Suddenly ignoring Maple, Redshift matched Starlight's stare. "You're the filly with the crystals."
Starlight tapped her horn with a hoof, and it let off a faint shower of teal sparks. "Not right now, I'm not. Answer the question."
"...Hmmph." Redshift snorted and turned away. "You've seen the state Blueleaf is in, unless you're blind as well as dumb. One pony can't do anything, not even my dad!"
"You're not just one pony," Starlight countered, growling. "You have a whole pack of friends who were willing to fight a mare who could have killed you all in her sleep for you! When you can't do anything by yourself, try fighting with your friends!"
"We have," Redshift snarled back, face inches from Starlight's own. "Didn't you hear me down there? Me and my friends spend every day going down and patrolling the dark, when the power is on and when it's off, looking for stragglers and trying to convince them to move! We've stolen and made and sold things to get money to buy lights for ponies who are too stubborn to leave, and we've carried up on our backs ponies who wanted to and couldn't! A stallion who fell and broke his leg in the dark, and couldn't even get up to get food! A mare who was having a foal in an old bedroom that we only found because of her cries! And we've found bodies, too! Three of them, that I touched to close their eyes because they spent their last moments trying to see something before they died! So don't you dare tell me I'm not trying."
Starlight took a step back, expression faltering, and Maple pressed back an urge to hug the red filly. "Well..." Starlight recovered shakily. "You haven't fixed your generator, have you?"
Redshift took another step, giving Starlight no quarter. "If we could, we would have. It's blocked by a door only Sky District technicians can open, and even then we have no idea how to fix what went wrong!" She hesitated slightly. "And we were trying, too. After we got our revenge on that bat, we were going to see if she had a card key we could use to open the door. Then we could at least see what was wrong and maybe find somepony here who could fix it. If we could fix this emergency, we could get back to doing what mattered and trying to help Blueleaf with other things..."
Immediately, Starlight pressed back. "She's right there. You can ask her."
Redshift snorted. "No. I told you, Blueleaf doesn't work that way!"
"But it's what you want, isn't it?" Starlight drew herself up to match Redshift's height - they were perfect equals. "A world that's fair? Where ponies help each other just because they can? She said earlier she wanted to see your generator. Go show her! Or do you have not enough faith that good things can happen that you won't even accept one when it shows up in your face with your name on it?"
"If I could trust ponies like her and not expect anything bad to happen, Blueleaf wouldn't need fixing!" Redshift sneered, not backing down. "If I trust you three now, that's just a recipe for losing!"
"Is it!?" Starlight was shouting. "You were a zombie! If we were evil, we could have thrown you off a cliff or tied you up in an abandoned building or any number of bad things, but we didn't! Instead, we helped you! So are you going to get it together and take a chance to help your ponies, or are you going to be a coward who wouldn't solve a problem because she was afraid of working with ponies she didn't like? Huh!?"
"Starlight," Maple hissed, breaking back into the conversation, "remember, we only were keeping her safe while she woke up! Now that she can take care of herself, we don't need-"
Thwack!
"Aaaaugh!" Starlight fell back, both forehooves to her cheek where Redshift had punched it. Her eyes burned, and her horn sparked, struggling to life, when...
"All right, playtime's over!" Valey erupted from the floor between them like a barricade, forcing both fillies back. Her wings lashed out, grabbing Redshift by the barrel, and dragged her half into the shadows, impervious to the thrashing of tiny hooves. "Listen, you little punk," she growled in Redshift's face. "You've seen bad stuff, I've seen bad stuff, we've all seen bad stuff. I get it. Being a little mistrustful of everything, I get too. Especially me; never trust a bat. But the moment you pick a fight with my friends while I'm around, you go from being a rude dude to a screwed dude." She leaned in closer to the filly's terrified face, frowning. "Now, there's two things I'll accept out of you for that. One involves a lot of groveling and hoof-kissing, and the other begins with 'en garde.' Make. Your. Choice."
Maple's eyes widened, and not only because of Redshift's impending fate: that was the first time she could remember Valey calling them her friends. Her musing was instantly cut short by Starlight appearing at her side, stiff and tense and nursing a swelling cheek.
She stepped forward, determined. "Valey," Maple demanded, "let her go."
"Buh?" Valey's eyes crossed. "She just walloped your kid. What do you mean, let her go?"
"I meant what I said," Maple insisted. "It's not worth it. We don't gain anything from hurting her. Let her go. Please." She hesitated, meeting Redshift's quaking eyes... and the filly seemed to be pleading with her, silently begging that she do anything possible to call the batpony off. Maple returned as reassuring of a gaze as she could, then looked back to Valey. "Now."
For a moment, Valey was still, forelegs like tombstones around Redshift's tiny body. Then, she relaxed ever so slightly... and the filly seized her opening, slithering out like a greased eel and darting off beneath another table, losing herself in the forest of legs. Another second passed, and Valey laughed.
"Wow, Ironflanks," she chuckled, wiping her eye in a gross exaggeration as she got back up on her stool above the table. "What a goodie four-shoes. That wasn't even your revenge to call off. It was the kid's!" She flung a hoof at Starlight, who was also scaling her stool. "There's being merciful, there's being pointlessly merciful, and then there's sparing a kill that isn't even yours, which is also the kind of thing I do. Seriously..." She exhaled loudly. "You all right, kiddo? You didn't want to beat that brat up yourself, or anything?"
Starlight tensed... and shook her head. "No," she sighed. "Like Maple said, there's no point. She's had a hard life. It wouldn't be fair to make it any harder."
The atmosphere calmed enough for Maple to remember the bar's regular shouting in the background, and she decided it wasn't a pleasant change. The thought briefly crossed her mind of how strange it must have looked, her on her stool with her head under the table and three other ponies also down there, none using the table for its intended purpose... until she also remembered that, being a bar, strange happenings far odder than that were likely the norm. Eventually, Valey spoke again.
"...So." She fiddled with Randall's discarded mug, which she had picked up off the floor. "What was so important about making friends with her, anyway? All I wanted was for her not to get ran over or foalnapped or something terrible. Why try to convince her to like us, too?"
Maple hesitated. "Because... she looked sad."
Valey sighed heavily, blowing on her loose bang. "You're crazy, Ironflanks, you know that? I hope you do. Anyway, this place is a dump. We should've gotten out of here long ago." She stretched, standing up, and glanced at Starlight. "Kiddo? Need another ride? I have to admit, the whole fuzzy-cuddle aspect is something I can't say no to..."
"I think I'm fine," Starlight answered, looking at the floor. "So where are we going next?"
"To find that generator, I imagine." Maple gingerly got to her hooves. "Assuming we still want to do something about it? I know I do. That filly may have been angry, but she was as honest as I've ever seen. I don't know that I'd ever be able to forget it if I left without at least trying to do something..."
"Eh, yeah, we'll do that." Valey stretched, spreading her wings. "Mostly for the Spirit, though."
"Right..." Maple nodded. "Because if the town is miserable and blames it on the Sky District, they might like the Spirit more... Well, let's get going, then. Starlight?"
Scrkkkk!
With a dramatic flicker, the lights in the bar shut off, bathing the entire room in inky gray. Silence fell just as quickly, and for a second all was still. Then one panicked voice rose, and then another... before a white spotlight switched on, aimed squarely at the stage, which was now clear of musicians. "A-hemmm!" a too-suave, magically amplified stallion's voice boomed. "Ladies and gentlecolts..."
With a glare of white-on-black contrast reflecting off the eyes of every pony in the room, a spotlight focused on the no-longer-occupied stage, stealing the attention and breath of the entire bar. A ratty, purple curtain at the back rustled... before parting, a lanky stallion with dark shades, a trench coat, and a greased-back multicolor mane strolling slowly forward. He stopped, aloof, and surveyed the crowd with an upturned chin... before firing off a dazzling gleam simultaneously from his horn and his smile. He flipped up the lenses of his shades with a hoof, revealing a pair of bright yellow eyes. The tavern erupted in applause.
Valey tossed the tankard she had been playing with over her shoulder, giving him a bored expression. "Who's this lemon bag?" she muttered, folding her forelegs across her chest.
"Hello, ponies, one and all!" his voice theatrically blared, magically amplified by a small red megaphone he pulled from his coat, the swish of fabric revealing a fancy white suit beneath. "You should probably already know who I am... but if you're somehow not that fortunate, I'm Neon Nova, your official Blueleaf branch of the Spirit of Sosa! Here to take some names, make some fame, kick some tail and make that awful, awful Sky District totally bail!"
Maple shrunk, ears flat against her skull. "This is completely different from the Spirit I'm familiar with," she whispered during a gap in the talking, trying to make herself heard above the crowd's din. "It's so... showy."
She was cut off when Neon's voice resumed, bombastic and reverberating. "So here's the scoop, my little ponies: I've just gotten back from the city core, and we're midway through our eighth day straight of no power! That's right, for more than a week now, we've seen nothing but sparks from our wonderful technology! As the crowd would put it: booooo!"
He took a step back, holding his tongue and allowing the bar to boo uproariously. Maple winced again. "I honestly preferred the arguing and vulgarity..."
"This clown is like a bigger Pancake." Valey licked her lips. "I kinda want to lock them in a room together and see what happens."
"Who?" Maple whispered aside.
"Agh, you know...!" Valey fidgeted. "Crazy hair, pegasus, kinda loud... I kicked his rear yesterday at that wall?"
Neon Nova's horn and smile flared in tandem again, recapturing the room's attention. "You're probably all getting tired of me reminding you this, but it does bear repeating, folks: that generator is Sosan tech! Now, our stuff's pretty sturdy, but when it does break, there's nopony like a Sosan to fix it up again! So, quiz time! If the Sky District and their twisted council knew that, why ever would they put that obstructive locked door on your generator? It's a mystery... except the answer's obviooous!"
"I think I know who Redshift spent too much time listening to," Maple muttered to Valey. "If he actually cared about this problem, he'd be trying to fix it, but he's just using it to become popular!" She glanced around. "If she's still in here, I bet she's eating this up."
Popular he was, because the crowd roared back an answer with such ferocity it was completely unintelligible. The cloaked unicorn on stage pretended he had heard it perfectly. "Right you are!" he crowed back, randomly pointing a hoof into the sea of drunk, rowdy ponies. "Is it because they're a bunch of bad ponies who think the Earth District is beneath them? Yes it is!" He cupped a hoof to his mouth, adding in a stage whisper, "It's also because they're totally jealous of our superior Sosan technology! What a scam! What a sham! What a bucket of something not suitable for mention in the presence of ladies!"
"Mrrrmph," Valey pouted, puffing her cheeks and burying them in folded forelegs. "If I went up there and tried to arrest him right now, think of the size of the brawl that would cause! But then he'd be a martyr or something stupid and there'd probably be a billion more fanatics right as a result..."
Neon held a hoof to his chest. "Tragically, there's little we Sosans can do as a result. The Sky District says we're all criminals, guilty of the heinous, truly atrocious crime of telling the truth! But let Neon Nova tell you what's what! Here in Blueleaf, we appreciate the truth! Here in Blueleaf, the Spirit of Sosa will stand by you in spirit, even when all our other hooves are bound and the Sky District says we're heretical to their cult of lies! Well, guess what!?" He jumped to the edge of the stage, legs spread wide. "This citizen of Ironridge is proud to be a heretic! Now let's hear it for the truth!"
As the crowd roared once again, Maple drew Starlight close, the filly's ears just as flat as her own. "Come on," she hissed at Valey, "let's get out of here. This is hurting to listen to."
"You're telling me," Valey grumbled back. "This is the exact opposite of smoothing tensions and keeping things peaceful, and I can't even go take him down without getting these chumps even more fired up! Maybe we can try to abduct him in secret on his way out, or something..."
Starlight said nothing, sticking like glue to her side as they wove their way through the crowd, dodging hooves and spilled drinks and careless revelry. Unfortunately, the route to the door also took them nearer to the stage... a predicament that became far worse when Valey stopped them with a hiss. "He left the stage!" she warned, spreading her wings as a barrier.
"So, who's going to be the lucky pony?" Neon's voice crowed from within the crowd, emphasizing nearly every other syllable with more dramatic flair than reasonably possible. "Will it be you? Or how about you? Show me the fire in your eyes, ponies! Bring it ooooon!"
With too little warning for her to do anything but cringe, the crowd broke... and Maple found herself standing mere paces from the Sosan performer. He looked down at her, then Starlight and Valey, yellow eyes shadowed with something other than enthusiasm.
"Woah, there, little lady," he said, briefly moving the megaphone away from his muzzle. "You look smashed, trashed and way too tuckered out. Do me a favor and chillax some time, okay? Oh, the suspense is just killing me! I can't wait to find out which pony here wants most to tell..."
His voice grew distant, amplified once again as he drew back into the crowd, and Maple let out the longest breath of her... last ten minutes. She groaned; when had her life become so stressful?
"Hey, that was close!" Valey grinned. "You just had a one-sided conversation with a real, live probably-a-con-artist! And now we're here. Let's get some fresh air."
"Silence," Maple gasped, gulping down breath after breath of fresh air, "has never sounded so good! Ahhh, that bar was terrible. I don't feel refreshed at all..."
"You're telling me," Valey groaned, rubbing her muzzle with a grimace. "That speech made my nose hurt. I wonder if that was scheduled, or if he just randomly showed up?"
"If it was planned," Maple said dryly, "that would explain why there were so many ponies."
"Isn't the city overcrowded because they're all having to move up?" Starlight grumpily massaged her ears and forehead. "This doesn't look like a place that would have spare room, in the first place."
Maple stared off down what was visible of the street in the gray light. "You're right... Blueleaf looks like it has an extremely high population density, but wasn't built from the top down with that in mind. And if the bottom was the densest, and they really are trying to move everyone out of there with this failing generator, there might just be so many ponies that the bar is less crowded than anywhere else they could be..."
She strode down the path, its regular inhabitants having returned after being scared away by Valey earlier. Pausing atop the most recent bridge they had crossed on their way there, she allowed her gaze to wander, judging the buildings and wondering just how many ponies they really contained. The canyon it spanned cut all the way to the muddy bottom floor, shadows along the walls deepening as her eyes slid downwards. The houses that formed the walls had windows, mismatched squares at all elevations separated by crossbeams and supports seemingly tacked on for decoration.
Those windows probably constituted prime real estate in a city like this, Maple realized. Craning her neck while staying carefully back from the edge, she peered through a few... empty. Lights off. A counter, possibly for food preparation. A vacant bed. Curtains. A window higher up was open, and a private manalamp flickered against the ceiling.
"...Hey Ironflanks?" Valey called uncertainly from the direction of the bar. "You coming, or what? Because the city core is this way!"
"Oh! Right!" Maple jumped to attention, her stiff, cramped legs instantly reminding her why that was a bad idea. "Ow! I mean, sorry! I'm coming!"
A ragged, purple-and-gray curtain swished, parted, and closed again, blocking out sound in its wake. In the back room behind it, next to a sparse pile of stored musical equipment, Neon Nova stood, brushing off his trench coat and replacing his megaphone, cheers of thanks and demands for an encore still echoing in the shadows of the room.
"You're the best for business, you know that?" said a short mare, standing in the exit to a hallway and wearing a faded, outdated dress with a dangerously short hemline.
Neon winked, then flipped his shades down. "Well, it's not like you can own the Sky District without helping local business owners, is it?"
The mare tittered. "And you never break character, either. Thanks again, Neon. I mean it."
"Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint. It's important work, you know, and they put me here for a reason." Smile morphing back to a slightly serious frown, he stepped toward the door, moving to walk around the mare.
She hesitantly shifted to block him. "You do know, if there's anything we can ever do to repay-"
"Said you and every mare ever!" Neon interrupted with a dazzling smile. "Some stallions too, but I prefer not to let them get their hopes up. Anyhoo, mind if I take a rein check on that eternal gratitude of yours? Spirit duty calls, and I must answer. Literally!"
Blushing furiously, the mare wrapped her tail around her legs and retreated. "O-Of course..."
"Dandy. I'll be sure to drop by again soon!" Neon waved her off, then closed the door in her wake. Kneeling, he pressed an ear against the ground, listening... and after a minute, stood up, seemingly satisfied.
His horn lit with a white aura, digging inside his trench coat, and eventually a large gemstone floated out, about the size of a filly's hoof. It glittered with residual enchanted energy, and he raised his horn, tapping it with a shower of sparks.
The stone lit up, pulsating, a miniature magical vortex spinning inside. Holding it close to his head, Neon said, "Hat trick."
A second later, the stone changed color, its internal vortex flipping to spin the other way. A voice echoed back, confirming the password.
Neon's face lit up. "Yo, boss! First off, just thought I'd let you know that I totally blew off a smokin' mare to make this report! Between you and me, I think she wanted to give me a big old smoocheroo."
The stone flipped again, and the voice sounded back on the other end.
"The point, you ask?" Neon grinned beneath his shades. "You mean aside from how much better than you I am with the ladies? I'm pretty sure I just spotted those two ponies you asked me to keep an eye out for!"
A response, mixed with static.
"Cute little pinkish filly with a horn and a messy purple mane? Check!" Neon grinned into the stone. "Grumpy tan mare with her in her twenties who ain't too much of a looker but is still way out of your league? Double-check! Even spoke to her once. Want me to keep an eye on them until you get here?"
More words.
"Yeah, lilac. That's what I meant to say." Neon's lips pursed. "Nope, no griffon with them."
Another response, long, low and conspiratorial.
Neon frowned, mouth open, shades sliding slightly down his muzzle. He fixed them with a hoof, staring past the enchanted stone. "They what?"
Muffled affirmation.
"Well, I better get on that, then!" Neon levitated the stone away from his head, then gave it one last look. "Anything else? No? In that case, toodles!"
With a pulse of magic, the stone went dim, and he stowed it back in his coat. A slow breath followed, and when Neon Nova swung open the door to the back halls, it was with a whistle and an almost giddy smile. He didn't notice the swish of curtains behind him, or the small red filly disappearing back toward the empty stage.
The lighting of Blueleaf's Level Three didn't change much as time progressed, even after nearly an hour of walking. Maple stumped along in the perpetual gray twilight, telling herself she wasn't that tired and trying not to think about how badly her legs would hurt the next day. The pony population around her served as impetus for her walk, some obviously displaced who clung to the shadows or sat in a daze, looking lost, and others level natives who moved in groups, watched each others' shoulders, and kept a constant air of tension and unease. If she was uncomfortable... what Redshift had described was worse.
"There's a staircase," Starlight observed from Valey's back, the batpony only marginally in the lead. "We can go up a floor."
"Nah." Valey shrugged as she walked. "I told you, I like it here."
Maple sucked in a humid breath. "I think we're more concerned about covering horizontal distance. Right?"
"Pretty much," Valey replied, looking straight ahead. "This city's kind of big. Not too big, but big enough that when you've got nothing but windey roads, it's hard to make progress. I wish you weren't so fat, so we could fly there. The generator's an obvious landmark and easy to see from the sky."
"So it's on the top level, then?" Maple asked.
"It's a tower." Valey kicked a discarded can off a bridge as they crossed, pausing to watch it fall. "All the way from the ground up, and below ground too. Something to do with the way mana stuff works. I know a bit of the basics, but I'm not an engineer. All I do is stay ahead of politicians and bureaucrats, and fight stuff for a living."
Starlight frowned. "So how do you know we're heading in the right direction?"
"Easy!" Valey straightened her hat and flashed a grin. "If we weren't, that kid who socked you in the bar would come out and be all 'Hah, you aren't going there after all, I told you so!'"
Maple's ears fell flat against her head. "She's still following us?" she murmured.
"And she's good at it, too." Valey eyed a passing crevice, far too dark to see inside. "We ditched her for a minute or so at the start, and she caught up. Makes me wonder if she's got a brand in tracking. Either that, or she knows this place so well she can automatically tell which way an outsider would go. Probably has a bunch of friends lurking around and being spies, too."
"How can you tell where she is, anyway?" Maple asked, taking a short stride so they were walking side-by-side. "That's the third time you've said that, I think."
"Eh. I told you, it's her smell." Valey licked her lips. "Well... not hers, but the one she has. Let's be generous and call it... intense dislike. So long as she's close enough and no other ponies smell that way, easy peasy."
Maple could have replied, but held her tongue, suddenly intensely focused on a twinge building up in her right foreleg. "I have to stop," she said instantly, pulling to a halt and holding the leg limply. "I think I'm about to cramp a whole lot worse..."
Valey sniffed, but didn't keep going. "Wow, you two are really out of shape," she eventually remarked as Maple sat, relaxed, waiting for her muscles not to feel on the verge of inventing a whole new class of knot to tie themselves into. "It's still like, uhh... six miles from here to Grand Acorn. I mean, I do stuff like this every day, but if you can't even manage this much you're toast."
"She was walking for ten hours yesterday," Starlight grumbled in Maple's defense. It was probably accurate, at that. "And carrying a heavy crate up a mountain for most of it. That's not being out of shape."
"Says the filly I've been carrying." Valey stuck her tongue out. "Nyaa. It's a shame, too. If her fat rear didn't weigh so much, I could fly us there in seconds."
"Valey!" Maple simultaneously blushed and frowned. "Would you stop? Really..."
"She's not fat," Starlight added. "Her cutie mark makes her weigh more."
"Is that a fact?" Valey asked, grin widening. "I guess Ironflanks is a better name than I thought!"
"Please don't..." Maple sighed. "Look, I know I'm not an athlete, and I know why it's important that we hurry. I just... nngh..." Growling, she looked at her hooves. "I guess this is what I wanted, isn't it? The chance to do something bigger than myself, or Riverfall? Something like helping this place. So I guess I really don't have a right to be tired or..." She narrowed her eyes at Valey's expression. "What?"
Valey whistled. "That place, huh?" she said quietly. "I knew there was a reason you looked so offended by that old stallion back at the bar."
"Ah!" Maple pulled back, stricken. Atop Valey's back, Starlight was gritting her teeth. "I-I didn't say..." she panted, chest beginning to heave.
"Can it, can it, can it." Valey put a gentle hoof to her muzzle. "I was pretty sure already, am not going to do anything about it, and we're in public so freaking out is a great way to draw attention to yourself and maybe let something slip to ponies who weren't listening then but definitely are now."
"I... I..." Maple's eyes slowly returned to normal, along with her breaths. "You're right..."
"Ponies like her." With a nod, Valey deposited Starlight and zipped upward, punching a shadowed overhang and causing it to rattle... and dislodge an angry, red filly.
Redshift tumbled to the ground and landed on her hooves, bristling like a cat. "Hey!"
Valey shrugged. "What? You were stalking us; it's your fault if you get caught."
"You're still following us?" Maple asked, eyes going back to wide. "After all that? Really?"
As she spoke, Valey made a show of sinking into the shadows, saluting as her head passed through the floor. Starlight stared dubiously at her. Redshift glared, then smirked. "I don't want anything to do with you. I'm just here to watch the Spirit beat you up."
Valey's eyes and nose remained at the surface. "That's cute," she mumbled around the floor. "They're really gonna do that? I wouldn't want to get my hopes up for nothing..."
"Yes." Redshift stepped forward victoriously, her short mane waving slightly as she shook her head. "I waited to talk to Neon after the message, so I could tell him a yak commander was here for them to take down, but he already knew! I heard him talking to someone with magic. He said he'd been watching for you, and that Braen was coming to back him up, so there!"
Effortlessly outdoing the filly's confidence, Valey swam forward, causing her to waver. "You must have a pretty high opinion of these loons to think they'll be a-okay with you spoiling their trap like that," she said with a shark-like grin, extending a hoof and booping the petrified Redshift's nose.
All of two seconds passed, and Redshift spat out a laugh. "You could set a trap for them and they'd still win! Braen is invincible, and you're just a dirty bat!"
"So that's why you're following us, then?" Valey quickly asked, adopting a perfect poker face. "To watch us fight?"
Redshift didn't suspect a thing. "Yes. And don't you try and stop me!"
Maple watched warily as Valey continued, Starlight by her side. "In that case..." Valey's mouth was stable, but her emerald eyes were gleaming. "Care to make a wager on the outcome?"
"A bet?" Redshift stood a little taller. "Anything."
"Fine!" Valey broke into a smirk. "Name your terms."
Redshift's eyes hardened. "If you lose, you have to stop working for the Defense Force, punch Herman and Dior and the whole Sky District council in the faces, and then leave Ironridge forever and never come back. Ever."
Teasingly, Valey hovered with her face so close to the filly that Redshift couldn't even see her grin. "If I lose as hard as you think I will, I'll hardly be able to do all that, now, will I?" she breathed predatorially. "Let's change this around a bit. I win if I wipe the walls with Braen and everything your team has to throw at me. You win if I lay a hoof on them doing it. Better?"
"Valey..." Maple held out a hesitant hoof. "Are you sure that's a good idea? What if-"
"Deal," Redshift interrupted. "Now what do you want if you win?"
Valey hesitated. Her eyes flickered to where Maple and Starlight were standing... and her face lit up. "If I win, you have to kiss Starlight."
"Hey!" Maple ferociously stepped between Starlight and Valey, watching the batpony's mischievous expression. She registered that Valey had used Starlight's real name, but couldn't point it out without distracting from the main issue... which was something Valey had probably calculated. Devious. "You will not," she insisted. "That's hardly a fair thing to gamble with!"
"Meh." Valey shrugged. "You think this bet is serious? She's got no way of making me hold up my end if I accidentally land a few headbutts, and when I win, the look on her face will be reward enough."
Maple opened her mouth to admonish her further... but Redshift beat her to it. "Still deal," she insisted, holding out a hoof.
Valey bumped it. "There we go," she belched. "Fun times ahead."
With a sigh, Maple relented. "Well, I guess that's that..."
Behind her, Starlight was silent.
"...So," Valey eventually said. "Since apparently they're coming to me... they are, right? I guess I'll just keep doing what I was doing until they get here! You're good to go, right, Ironflanks?"
"I guess," Maple admitted. "Let's take it slow, please?"
"Right." Valey nodded at Redshift. "As I've told you a billion times, I'm going to take a look at your generator, which is apparently what you've been wanting all this time? Dunno why you're even at my throat over this. Seriously. Anyway, tag along or whatever, and try not to have any panic attacks because it'll be really awkward for you to root for someone to get beaten up while you're riding their back. Cool with you?"
"Fine," Redshift snorted.
With several sighs and no further objections, the four ponies trotted further into Blueleaf, afternoon shadows shifting around them.
Starlight's pace was slow, constantly sticking by Maple, who was the group's main bottleneck. Part of her wished she could do something to help, as a means of repaying all the time the mare had spent carrying her when she could have walked perfectly fine... but her headache was only just clearing, and she knew it was favor enough to be able to take care of herself. So she spent the walk staring at Redshift, who was vehemently disinclined to stare or even glance back.
The filly was her equal in height... nearly, because Starlight had a horn and that made a difference. She walked with a righteousness born of having absolute trust in something bigger than herself, despite knowing that she was just as absolutely outclassed on her own; something Valey's constant presence made sure of. Her eyes still burned, in the few times Starlight managed to catch glimpses of them, and she found her gaze wandering to Redshift's cutie mark.
It was a ladder. Before, she had suspected the filly might be a carpenter, or window-washer, or pony who specialized in working with roofs. But after their debate in the bar, Starlight wondered if its meaning might have been far less literal: her mark was the social ladder, and her passion was for taking as many ponies up it as possible. Fitting, for someone so driven by the state of their home.
That drew Starlight's gaze to her own, blank flank, and with it came a slight pang of shame. When her own home had proved rotten, did she dedicate her life to changing it? Far from it; she did everything in her power and more to avoid letting it change her.
She took a deep breath, Willow's parting words swimming through her mind. The world wasn't fair, and she wouldn't find a paradise suited to her ideals just by looking. Riverfall had been impossibly close, yet proven far enough away that Maple's dream and a single boat had been enough to make her abandon it like sand, dry and useless. Swallowing, she wondered if she would still make the same decision, if it came to it then and there and with everything she had seen. Would she?
With a tremble, Starlight realized she would. Committing to building a perfect world would mean admitting that it didn't already exist, and while she knew that on a factual level, facts had nothing to do with hope. Keeping faith in an impossible goal was the kind of challenge she felt like doing, just because she could.
Faith and goals and hopes and dreams... Starlight mentally slapped herself. Her other goal was to keep her flank clean in the first place, and those were exactly the kinds of words talked about by ponies who had theirs. In the long run, it might not have mattered: whether she found or made a place where marks changed nothing, being blank and having a mark would mean exactly the same thing. The only difference would be before she reached there, where it was a choice between being an outcast, a rejected nonconformist who constantly earned strange stares, or giving up her morals and changing who she was.
...She blinked. If, hypothetically, she got a cutie mark in making a place where cutie marks didn't matter, that wouldn't change her goals at all. And if it came with a power that would be useful for-
Stop. She slapped herself again; that it would be beneficial to gain a mark was an outcome given to be false, so her logic had to be flawed. She had to have messed up somewhere. Her face scrunched, thinking... until she found it.
She wasn't being rejected for her lack of a mark. Not in Riverfall, not in Ironridge. She earned stares, but always for different reasons: having a horn, keeping the company of a griffon, doing feats others deemed heroic and getting mixed up on the wrong side of law enforcement, as well as looking like a total wreck and wielding powerful, exotic magic.
That brought up a completely different question. In Equestria, cutie marks were an integral part of society, because everyone could be expected to have one. In Ironridge, they were apparently rare, a sign of exceptional ambition and motivation, and when useful powers were involved... why didn't society care? Valey had yelled at her a few times about it, sure, but only after she had insulted the mare's obsession with her talent. For everything logic suggested, the ponies would have divided themselves into castes, if for no other reason than the ponies with marks having enough drive to go about making a point of being the best. It was how equines worked.
She had no idea. And so, she asked.
"If... brands are so rare here," she began, choosing her words carefully, "why aren't the ponies who have them far more important than the ones who don't?"
Maple looked at her like she had just asked why trees grew leaves, and then realized she didn't actually know. Valey, on the other hoof, stopped in her tracks. Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a hissing breath as if having collided with an invisible wall. "That," she exhaled, "is not a story for kids like you."
Starlight frowned. Of all the possible answers, being told she wasn't allowed to know wasn't high on her list of expectations. Fortunately, Redshift chimed in.
"Our society evolved past that," the filly bragged, adding extra emphasis to her marked rump as she walked. "My father said so. Being branded gives us an extra burden as public servants."
"Yyyyyou know what?" Valey grinned uneasily. "That's a totally correct answer. Let's go with that." Her eyes narrowed, and her tone hastened. "So, change of subject. You sure hold your dad in high regard, kiddo. What is he, a lumberjack?"
Redshift smirked haughtily, leaving Starlight no time to parse Valey's unfiltered unwillingness to discuss an apparently important segment to Ironridge's past. "The mayor," she gloated.
"Pfft. No, really?" Valey snorted. "And let me guess, your mom is Braen? Or wait!" Her emerald eyes lit up. "Better yet: your mom is that creepy dude from the bar who apparently wants me to take Braen on in a fight? Nailed it, didn't I?"
"I was being serious," Redshift muttered, frowning. "Not that it would matter to you. I still can't wait to see the Spirit give you what you deserve."
"Neither can I!" Valey grinned, flexing her forelimbs as she hovered. "I sure do deserve a good workout after all I've been putting up with. Wanna make another bet on how long they'll last? Starting at ten seconds..."
Starlight sighed, tuning out their bickering, and turned to Maple. The mare was biting her lip, either thinking about what Valey had clumsily avoided saying, trying to press herself to keep going, or both. It was easy to feel sorry for her; Starlight's hooves were sore and legs tired after the previous day's lengthy hikes around the Stone and Water Districts, and she had the advantage of being in shape from a recent month-long cross-mountain trek. Not to mention Maple's heavy load...
Hopefully, helpfully, she drew a little closer, and Maple responded warmly. "Hi, Starlight," she puffed, slightly apologetic for not perking up more. "How are you... holding up?"
"I don't know how we'll reach Sosa today," Starlight answered with a shake of her head. "We need to stop and rest. For real, not that bar. And for more than an hour."
Maple nodded. "Redshift said her father was the mayor. Of Blueleaf, do you think she meant?"
"Mmph." Starlight slouched, pouting. "Yes."
"Well..." Maple looked overhead, scanning the further gloom of Blueleaf's lower levels. "I hope she warms up to us, because that sounds like someone who would have a very nice, safe house. But I can't see how that will happen, unless we manage to get inside the generator and then actually fix it..."
Starlight frowned again as they continued their walk through the shadows.
As time passed and the four ponies progressed, there began an almost imperceptible shift in the architecture of Blueleaf. Like the movement of the sun, it was invisible to the naked eye... but a look back minutes later revealed slightly more gray, slightly more metal, and slightly fewer sagging corners than before. The town had grown from its center upward and outward, and they were reaching the area that was old enough to have been made with some manner of purpose. That, or it had collapsed entirely and needed to be rebuilt.
Still in absence of powered lights, the party trekked past wood reinforced with steel, iron beams forming the corners of buildings and braces beneath jutting overhangs. More than one grate passed underhoof, though they were still rare, randomly placed enough to be less by design than whatever material was available at the time. Doors were closed, windows didn't exist, and ponies passed quickly with wary glances at strangers, cracked from the pressure of being native to the lowest habitable floor at a time when a mass exodus upward was at hoof. A thin, markless mare with a long mane warily shepherded two foals past a stallion with stubble and a torn hat, while a unicorn held a horn to the door they were exiting, carefully enchanting its lock. There were ponies that had little, and ponies that had less, and the ones with little looked at their brethren with the same eyes that would be used on them if they ever climbed up to the Stone District.
"Here," Redshift announced amid the tense silence, coming to a stop next to a broad, straight staircase that sat beneath a clear view of the sky.
Valey's ears swiveled. "What, that thing?" She turned up her nose. "Meh. I like it where we are. Not too dark, and not too bright, and not too many respectable ponies who would be offended by anything we do..." She stopped and blinked. "Wait, that's a con."
That earned a frown and stomped hoof. "I thought you said you were going to see our generator," Redshift huffed. "Are you admitting you lied about that, too? Because you've been taking the long way this whole time and your minions look like corpses, and this goes right there."
Maple exchanged a glance with Starlight. The filly was right, if rude: riddled with dirt scuffs from their hard landing, manes in disarray and posture sent down the drain by exhaustion, they both looked like things that had been hit by a cart, then shoved in a ditch for hiding.
"If there's a faster way," Maple sighed, head drooping, "take it. I trust her. I'm just tired..."
Redshift looked at her as if she'd just said something very stupid, face scrunching through implications. "No you don't," she eventually objected. "You don't trust me. Otherwise you wouldn't be traveling with her, because she's evil." A jabbed hoof found its way in Valey's direction, and was met with a flattered grin.
"If you don't think we should trust you, why are you giving advice?" Starlight grumbled to no one in particular, looking up from her march.
No answer.
"Probably 'cause she's bored and wants something to happen just as much as I do," Valey replied, leaning casually on the bottom stair as a train of stallions climbed past. "Kinda creepy how much we have in common, when you think about it. Only difference is she trusts others to win her fights, and I only trust myself." She shot Redshift a wink, and added, "I mostly fight for myself, too."
A frown tugged at Maple's lips, and she gritted her teeth. "And you also fight for the sake of fighting, apparently. I just..." She hesitated, and glanced at Starlight. "Why is it we keep getting stuck following others who insist on walking into trouble? Valey, would it hurt you that much not to make dangerous bets or go looking for duels for the very short time we're with you?"
Starlight had other ideas. "If you trust yourself so much, why do you keep telling us never to trust batponies?"
Valey blinked. "It's a turn of phrase, kiddo. Ever heard of them? Usually means I'm a selfish jerk with things higher on my priority shelf than you? I mean, you're cute and all, but sorry." She shrugged.
"Then why batponies and not just not to trust you?" Starlight pressed.
Ignoring her, Valey turned back to Maple. "Oh yeah, it probably would hurt that much, by the way. But come on, we'll be fine! Remember, Braen trashed the entire Defense Force with that sword thing last night, and I still whupped her without a single blow. The odds of me losing are literally zero percent. And mostly, I just wanna see the look on this shrimp's face when I make her champion turn tail and run."
Starlight frowned. "So now you want us to trust you that you won't get us into trouble, but you still don't want us to trust you? Make up your mind, already!"
Valey stiffened, then leaned forward with a predatory grin and ruffled Starlight's already-ruined mane. "Keep that up, and you'll be just as annoying as me some day. And come on, I shouldn't be that hard to read; I just want a brawl. How's that saying go, again? 'You can always trust an untrustworthy mare to be untrustworthy...' or something. Seriously, learn to tell what ponies are going to do from what they want, not what they say. It's a skill that'll get you a long way in life."
As Starlight and Valey bickered, Maple watched them carefully... and soon became aware of Redshift watching her, in turn. "Hmm?" She looked up.
"Why are you with her?" the filly asked plainly. "You care more than she does, even if you're clueless. Is she blackmailing you?"
"No." Maple frowned. "If you want to know, we had bad luck in the Stone District and were with someone who got in trouble with the Defense Force and got dragged in ourselves. Valey got us out and offered to protect us from them, and we were too desperate to refuse the help. We still are."
"You should join the Spirit," Redshift said matter-of-factly. "The Sky District can't touch them. They have food and weapons and money and an awesome commander who cares about all of Ironridge, and are always fighting to make this city a better place. They wouldn't care who you are and what you can do. They'd protect you, and anything you did would help."
"Thanks for the offer, but..." Maple hesitated. "Really, there's just a thing or two I need to take care of, and then me and Starlight are trying to get out. It's too dangerous for us here, even if we have ponies trying to protect us. We don't want a side; we want to live in peace."
"Once the Spirit wins, there won't be any more sides," Redshift huffed. "They'll fix everything that's wrong with Ironridge and let everyone be happy and work together again, and we won't have to live in places that are broken and no one will fix any more."
"Speaking of which..." Maple looked slowly at the staircase, unable to see anything over the crest. "I think she really does want to fix your generator, you know? If the Spirit is her enemy, and the broken lights are making this town like the Spirit more, then wouldn't it be in her interest for that not to happen? Forget about being nice; it's practical..."
Redshift snorted. "So she can open the door, then what? If that's true, would she let the Spirit go in to fix it? They'd still get the credit. And she sure isn't educated with Sosan technology!"
"Yes..." Maple hummed. "But that would still be better for her than letting that Neon Nova pony keep riling others up, wouldn't it?"
"Hey! Neon is great!" Redshift protested, holding a hoof to her chest. "He's one of the best Sosans out there! He dedicates all his time to living in Blueleaf, so we always have someone from the Spirit here when we need them, and does more than anypony else to keep the citizens from giving up! He inspires them, and they need it!"
"He's good at inspiring, all right," Maple said with a frown. "He's probably going to start a mob with his tactics..."
"You take that back!" Redshift pouted. "He says what he has to to give them energy and hope! That's much better than letting them live meaningless, futureless lives turning their brains off with alcohol with nothing more to look forwad to than what leaky roof will be over their head the next night and whether they'll be hurt or attacked in the dark!"
Her face shadowed, and she turned away. "He's probably even more important than Braen... to Blueleaf, at least. Most of the other Spirit ponies don't even come here, because it's too close to the Stone District and we don't have anything worth coming here for. Just a bunch of ponies who lost their jobs, homes or families..."
For far from the first time that day, Maple held back the urge to hug the prickly filly.
Redshift wasn't finished. "Braen's important too, though. You wouldn't understand if you haven't seen her. And then there's Shinespark, and-"
"Hold on," Maple interrupted. "I keep hearing ponies talk about how good Shinespark is, but they never explain at all. Why do you like her so much?"
"Because..." Valey entered the conversation with a belch. "She was born on an airship, or something. Ain't that the best? I mean, wow, what a special pony." She shot Maple a sideways glance. "Remember that statue you were checking out up in that museum? That's pretty much it."
"Wait..." Maple's brow furrowed. "How did you know about...?"
Valey sank halfway beneath the ground and saluted, grinning wordlessly.
"That's not the only thing special about her!" Redshift protested, stomping a hoof. "She's next in line to become a factory chief, and worked her way up there from nothing! In fact, they should have given her Arambai's old factory! She's smart and honorable and protects both Sosa and the Earth District, and can stop ponies from fighting just by looking at them! No matter how many bad or dumb things Sosa does that the Spirit has to save them from, Shinespark never gets caught in it and always helps to make it better. She's the only pony in Ironridge who doesn't have a side, because she fights for everyone and is inspirational to everyone! She's also the only pony who both the Sprit and even the Sky District will listen to! Just you watch, the day the yaks and the Council are overthrown, she's going to be the next Chancellor of Ironridge for sure!"
"You know what they say about ponies who look perfect..." Valey muttered, emerald eyes glinting. "Besides, that's awfully vague. You realize how many of those things you could say about me, too, don't you? I'm on my own side, can make the Defense Force and the Spirit do whatever I want, and rally every pony in Ironridge... against me, but still." She swam closer, head poking dangerously above the ground. "It sure would be a shame if anything were to tarnish your idol's reputation."
Redshift blanched. "What are you talking about? The Spirit don't take orders from a thug like you." She frowned and stood her ground. "Forget about our bet earlier. I just want you arrested."
"Buh?" Valey backpedaled. "Hold up, kid, you don't get to call this off. I haven't had my fun yet!"
"Yes she does," Maple forcefully interceded. "I don't like all this escalation and would be much happier if you weren't gambling with your ability to keep up safe."
"Or with me," Starlight muttered from the side. "Dare her to kiss yourself, or something."
Valey frowned. "I'm like twice her age or something. That would be creepy."
"And that's a concern of yours now?" Maple snorted, tossing her gnarled mane. "You know what? I think... I think we should get going. Whatever we're going to do, I just want to get it over with."
"Fine. And she is right, for once." Redshift climbed two metal-reinforced steps, then looked back down at Valey. "There's nothing I could do to make you keep your end when you lose, so it never mattered anyway." Her gaze hardened. "Shinespark could beat you in a fight, too."
With a roll of her eyes, Valey followed. "Sure thing, kid. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
A wall of sunlight hit Starlight with a blast as she stepped past the edge of the city, leaving her instantly panting from the heat. Behind her, Blueleaf's fourth level sprawled, high enough to occasionally be warmed by the sun at corners where streets intersected and paths widened or turned east-to-west, and light enough to offer heat, and more colors than gray. Ahead of her stretched a long iron bridge, with thick pipes for railings and a transparent grate floor, reaching out over a sun-baked pit that yawned like a dry lake. Cracked brown earth sat four stories below, in a hollowed-out circle free from buildings in the center of the town. And in the center of that...
Starlight's eyes widened. "That's what the generator looks like?"
A gray metal tower stood, tapering to a cone that ended several stories above the rest of the blue, cloudless skyline. Covered predominantly in large vertical pipes, it looked like a weapon designed to fire or be fired straight up, like the head of a massive spear. Inert exhaust vents filled it surface, and it was ringed by catwalks and ladders for outer maintenance, were any ponies there to provide it.
"Nah," Valey shrugged, swaggering forward. "It's a giant moon laser. The generator is that tiny pebble down there in the dirt."
"This is too the generator," Redshift huffed, scurrying alongside her, determined not to let Valey be the first to the core. "You're just jealous you can't make anything this cool."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "How cool can it be if it keeps breaking all the time?"
Starlight and Maple followed them, Starlight taking note of more bridges spanning out to the city in other directions... the pipes attached to them must have contained power conduits, she realized. Hooves clattering on dusty grates, they quickly reached a central catwalk ring, and began skirting right under Redshift's direction.
"If Braen comes and fights you while we're here," she growled as she lead, "you better not break anything while you fight, got it? We don't need an even bigger mess!"
"What's that?" Valey belched. "An invitation to cause collateral... Oh hey look a door!"
Redshift nodded, coming to a stop in front of an ironclad portcullis with rounded corners, set deeply into a recessed entry tunnel. Valey sniffed at it, thinking. Eventually, she pulled back, and said, "Yup, this thing was definitely added after the generator was built. Sosans are obsessed with their sliding doors, and this one swings outward. Look at the size of this hinge!" She pointed to a thick metal bar on one side. "Only reason for that is if they never made room for it to open their way. I bet Sosa even needed special equipment to make this, or at least couldn't mass-produce it. That, or it was left over from a boat."
With a snort, Redshift kicked a card reader with a hind leg. "Desecrating a boat is exactly the sort of thing the Sky District would do. Now open this so the Spirit can get in and let's leave!"
"Easier done than said!" Valey reached a webbed wing under her hat and popped out a glittering card key, and swung it through the terminal. "Zoop!"
A red light flared in her face, reflecting brown off her eyes. Valey frowned a fanged frown and tried again.
Again, the console beeped red, and Valey kicked it. "What gives?" she growled. "I've got a triple-S clearance on this thing! Open up, stupid door!"
"Hah!" Redshift laughed, pointing. "You're a fraud! Are you sure you're not accidentally using a stolen card, or something?"
"Speaking of stolen cards..." Maple moved forward hesitantly, and produced something flat in her hoof. "I took this from Selma while he had captured me in the Water District..."
Valey's eyes narrowed beadily as she took in the stolen artifact. "That's his key, alright. Wow, Ironflanks. I didn't know you were the type of pony to get away with stuff like that!" She happily nudged Maple's side, taking the stolen card and whipping it through the terminal. "Take... that!"
Red light.
"Oh, come on!" Valey stomped, pouting. "Now that's just rude."
Redshift smirked. "I guess even the Sky District is smart enough to keep you on a leash."
"Can it," Valey muttered, brow furrowed at the console. "I'm thinking... What did you say happens every time you try to get the Sky District to fix this themselves, again?"
"They don't," Redshift grumbled. "Our requests get lost, or denied, or something in their pile of paperwork. We can't trace them except that we either get no response or a 'no.' Once, my father went up there himself and got an appointment to talk to the Chancellor, and as soon as he made it up there, he learned it was cancelled without notice! That jerk just completely ignored him!"
Valey's brow furrowed dangerously. "Sounds to me like if they did send a technician, they wouldn't be able to get through here either, and the council knows it... which means there's something else behind this door besides a broken generator, and it's something they don't want anyone to find."
"Really...?" Redshift tilted her head, processing... and her mouth dropped in shock and suspicion. "They did!" she pouted furiously. "They probably are hiding something! That's stupid and selfish! So they know about our problem and care more about whatever's in here than us, do they?"
"Furthermore..." Valey tapped her chin. "I didn't know about this, which is kinda annoying but mostly suspicious because it's my job to know every last thing that happens in this city. That means whoever's behind this is either so small-time I didn't care about them, or so big-time they can hide stuff from me. If you got to Dior and he said no, small-time is out of the picture, and that doesn't leave many options. My money's on Herman, I think. Though... do you know for sure Dior did the cancelling on your appointment thing?"
"Yes," Redshift insisted. "My father was in his office and everything."
"And your dad also made all these requests, I suppose?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"Yes..." Redshift nodded sullenly, apparently sensing a trap.
Valey sighed, shrugged, then grinned. "Well, we better add him to the list of suspects too, just in case he's lying about sending all those reports and has his own reason to keep this thing closed. So, who wants to go see what's inside?"
"But you just said it's locked and you can't open it," Redshift protested. "And my dad's a good pony!"
"Not from this side, maybe," Valey said, answering both statements at once. She cracked her wings, pacing to the edge of the catwalk and looking off. "But there sure are a lot of vents on this thing, and I'm willing to bet at least one of them leads inside... or at least could be convinced to with a bit of violence. Here I go!"
She dove off the railing, wings spread... then froze in midair, turning and eyeing Redshift dangerously. "And don't you try anything while I'm gone, now. Do anything sneaky to those two and I'll know before I'm even back. Savvy?"
Redshift stared. Slowly, never breaking eye contact, Valey sunk into the shadowed side of a pipe and was gone.
"...Huh," Maple said after a silence. "I suppose that technically makes her flat, so she can fit through a lot of spaces she wouldn't normally..."
Starlight grumbled indeterminately in agreement. Redshift said nothing. The silence resumed.
A minute passed, and then another, all three ponies looking uneasily between themselves, with more than one degree of impatience. Judging from the sun, they were on the southeast side of the reactor tower, standing on a relatively small portion of the bridge that was shaded, and keeping a far-too-close proximity to each other was preferable to baking in the jungle heat. Starlight sniffed, nose dry. Maple coughed. Redshift tapped her hooves.
Then, with a grinding of metal, the door swung open, and they had to jump to get out of the way. Valey's face poked through, perky and smiling. "Looks like nobody put a lock on the inside of this thing!" she crowed, stepping aside and waving a hoof. "Come on in, girls. It's nice in here."
Starlight stared around the entry chamber to the Blueleaf generator, eyes reflecting countless sheens of bronze and silver. The place was harshly lit from below, sharp blue light stabbing up through the grated floor and casting their shadows against the domed ceiling. Pipes and valves covered the walls, obtrusions that made the room feel much smaller than it really was.
"Sure is bright in here for a place without power..." Maple mumbled nervously, standing close by Starlight's side.
Valey shrugged. "As long as we can get below the light, I'm good. More light means more shadows cast. Should we go down, or what?"
There was a staircase at the back of the room, hugging the wall in a spiral as it descended beneath the floor. Starlight's hoofsteps were slow and safe as she climbed; it was obviously intended for grown stallions and she was strongly tempted to take it one step at a time. Dangles of wires passed to their open side, and at one point a rotating belt moved by, the shaft humming with the rattles of machinery.
After three full revolutions, they reached the source of the light. Seated upon an iron pedestal and suspended in a mesh cage, a massive crystal floated, nearly steaming with energy. The edge of the room was lined with spiked apparatuses all pointed to the core, and below the floor a twisting trunk of cables descended even lower into the depths. Their staircase passed along the outside of the chamber, running behind the ring of devices.
"What is that?" Maple asked, eyes huge. Starlight leaned forward, curious as well.
"I dunno." Valey scratched her chin. "Like I said, I'm not a scientist. As best as I understand it, mana comes from the ground, or something, so maybe this is like a pump or reservoir? Beats me why it's glowing, though. Usually that's a sign that something's turned on and going just fine."
To the side, Redshift was pouting. "If you don't know what you're doing, why are you in here? I told you to open the door and let the Spirit handle it! Now you'll either break it harder on purpose, or they'll follow us in here and it'll break when they fight you!"
"Fat chance." Valey smugly turned away, cheeks puffed from the weight of her smile. "I locked the door behind us when we came in, just so that wouldn't happen. Besides, the inside of a giant machine feels like a pretty sketchy arena, anyway." Her eyes glinted in the blue manalight. "Sure would be cool, though. So many moving parts to use as platforms..." She blinked and shook her head. "Wait, I said I was gonna take Braen down without landing a blow, didn't I? Ah, bananas. Me and my big mouth. No epic machine fights for us, I guess..." She sighed sadly and looked on. "So these stairs keep going."
Redshift merely glared. "So you're just here out of cowardice, then? Is that it?"
"Okay, hold up." Valey spun, sat down on the landing, and bored her gaze into Redshift. "Maybe you missed all the spooky theorizing we were doing up top by the door, but I think there's something other here than a busted power plant and I wanna know what it is. Odds are you should too, 'cause it's probably the reason why nobody's coming to fix your lights. We are here to snoop around and stick our noses where they don't belong... which is totally where mine belongs, by the way, and that's good for me and you and everyone. That's why we're here. Do you want to hear what I said again?"
Unhappy at being called out, Redshift scowled, but said nothing. Valey frowned, flexed one wing... and grinned. "I'll take that as a yes, then! Okay, hold up," she repeated happily. "Maybe you missed all the spooky theorizing we were doing up top by the door, but I think..."
The stairs wrapped around for three more turns after the crystal room, the temperature plunging as they delved into the ground. Fewer pipes and apparatuses littered the walls, with the shaft's dominating feature instead being the snarl of massive cables feeding upward into the core. For the last revolution, the walls dissolved entirely, replaced with more steel mesh beyond which a vast cavern was visible, the bottom of the shaft hanging into it like a sack attached to the ceiling.
Starlight's eyes flickered from wall to wall as she stepped onto the solid floor, suspended at least two stories above the bottom of the room beyond. It was dimly lit, but not so much that she couldn't see the edges. Spread beneath them was a five-by-five array of rectangular pillars, laced with crystals and wires and protruding like spikes from the rough-hewn stone floor. She had little doubt that they were spikes, driven far below the surface as some kind of probe. If Valey's explanation was accurate, they would be what was drawing energy up from the ground.
From the top of each, a thick cable snaked, coming together in a knot that fed up through the shaft floor, through another podium, and upwards to the crystal in the room above. Starlight stopped, staring, mostly because Valey had stopped too.
"So..." Valey licked her lips, then pointed to a small door at the side of the shaft, leading to a ladder to the stone floor below. "Looks pretty dark and creepy down there. Who wants to bet there's a hidden door at the side of that room, or something?"
Redshift snorted. "If the generator is locked to keep ponies from finding something, why would it be hidden now that we're inside? I don't see anything at all."
"I do," Maple softly said. "Look at this."
She trotted around the podium where the twenty-five columns' cables were bound into one, pointing to its far side, where a massive breaker switch sat. Valey squinted at it. "Looks like some sort of master power switch," she mused. "Since it's on the main cable, and everything..." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "And it's off."
"Well, if the generator is broken-" Redshift began, before Valey cut her off.
"Nope!" The batpony raised a hoof. "If nobody could get in here after it was broken..."
"Then nobody should have been able to turn it off," Starlight growled. "Which means it's probably not broken."
Redshift blinked. "Huh?"
"She's right," Valey said, nodding to Starlight. "Think about it. Main power switch is off, right? Implies someone came in here to turn it off. You said this thing has been failing, not completely dead, which implies that it can't have been off for longer than whenever you last had power. I mean, that crystal up there still had some juice in it! So why would someone turn it off?" She took a step closer. "Could be that they're maintenance, and needed it off to work on it. But that door doesn't open for maintenance, and if someone was fixing this, Spirit or Sky District, they'd be letting the city know. The only other explanation..." She reared up, seizing the lever in two hooves. "Is that it's not actually... broken!"
CH-TUNNNGG!
"Valey wait-" Maple held a hoof out to stop her, but it was too late. There was a shower of electric-blue sparks, and with a tremendous thrum, the central cable shook visibly. The room rushed, then whirred, then settled to a soft humming. Three seconds later, a soft orange glow faded into existence, dormant strips of lighting coming to life.
Valey smirked proudly and thumped a hoof against a stunned Redshift's back. "Well, that worked. Congrats, you've got power again, kiddo! Go me, right?" Her smile held at first... and then slipped away. "Oh, hey, I bet that's what was in here that someone didn't want anyone to find."
At that moment, they were interrupted by the clatter of hooves against metal, coming from the staircase. They stopped once the owner reached the bottom. A second passed, and then a loud, slack-jawed voice managed, "Well well, this sure is a shocking twist! How ever did you kids get in here!?"
Maple, Redshift and Starlight stared as a tall shape stepped from the shadows. Valey stood one step forward, wings spread protectively, halfway between a grin and a growl. "Y-You're..." Redshift stammered, jaw dropped. "How are you here?"
"The same could be said from me to you," Neon Nova replied, equally flabbergasted. "Whatever could you kids be doing in this generator!?"
"Defense Force," Valey confidently stated. "My credentials are more than enough to be here, and if they weren't, I'd be here anyway. What about you, Mister Sky-District-Locked-The-Door?" Her eye twitched eagerly, and her hat slid slightly to one side. "Steal some sap's card key to come in here and fix it yourself?"
Neon Nova hesitated for slightly too long. "Thought not," Valey continued, stepping forward while staying between him and the others. "Otherwise you'd have done that long ago, especially with how good you Spirit ponies are at robbing others. So what's really the game, here? I can guess..."
"...Be that way, then!" Neon Nova snorted. "Looks like someone's just about figured it out anyway, what with all the lights back on. Several months ago, I hacked that door and deleted all its recognized credentials so it can't be opened from the outside. Since then, I've just teleported past it whenever I feel like coming in, something nopony else in this town has had the horn, the skill and the idea to do! The plan was to just toggle it on and off every now and then... to let the ponies down easier than a total blackout, you know? Safer and gentler. Give 'em time to move up or do something about it. And, well, if any had figured out how to get past the door and fix it, they'd've been a hero."
Redshift looked ready to vomit, ears so close to her head it was a wonder she could hear at all. Face pasty and legs shaking with a mixture of despair and rage, she managed, "B-But... But why?"
"Oh, did I not say?" Neon's brows arched in spectacular concern. "Here's the thing, kid: your town's a doormat, full of bigger doormats. They left their fire at the door, dropped their spunk down the river, and hope ain't even in their vocabulary. What they need most of all is to think things can get better... and that is totally what I came here to provide! But no ponies have ever rallied around being sad in the sad sack before. You need to have something for them to get together against, and they already had that in a Sky District that doesn't do anything! There was nothing fake about that part; they really couldn't care less about you upper-district dropouts. All I did was show them a reason why being ignored from on high is the worst thing ever!"
"I spent weeks in the dark..." Redshift murmured, eyes unfocused and haunted. "Trying to save ponies that you trapped down there!" She flew into a crouch, suddenly burning. "You tricked everyone! You tricked me! You made me like you and believe in you when you were my worst enemy all along! You're evil!"
"Life lesson?" Valey whispered to the side. "If someone ever tries to get a crowd too excited to think straight, they're probably up to no good. Trusting them? Bad idea, right there."
Neon flashed his smile. "Okay, my tactics were a little bit dishonest and sacrificial, I'll give you that. But a drop in the bucket when you've already got a waterfall is a small price to pay for giving everyone else the drive to survive, don't you think? Besides, my work's showing visible dividends, and my motives have your best interests at heart! On the other hoof, check out which side of the room you're standing on..." He gestured unsubtly to Valey. Valey grinned back.
"That's right!" Neon continued with an exaggerated nod. "I've heard plenty about you, Missy, but I believe this is the first time we've met in person. Want to take a guess at how many poor stallions and mares are stuck in this hole of a town because of you? I sure don't, because the results would probably depress me really really bad!" He hugged himself and shuddered, frowning for all to see.
"Y-You..." Redshift blinked, looking between Valey and Neon, suddenly trying her hardest to appear small. "I'm only following her because I wanted to see her get beaten up by Braen..."
Valey nodded slowly, latching on to Redshift's sudden fear of being caught in the middle. "You might wanna decide which one of us you hate less, kid. Really fast."
In a snap, Redshift was at Valey's side, so close they were almost touching, glaring daggers at Neon Nova. Valey clicked her tongue, smirking. "Huh. Being the hero feels kinda fun for a change!"
Neon's jaw fell, and he lifted his shades to blink... but only for a moment. "Well, this sure is a disappointing turn of events," he proclaimed with more gusto than his words merited. "You know, if we hadn't run into each other down here, everything would've been perfectly fine! You could've fixed your little power crisis, been a hero, and no one would've been a hair wiser!" His mouth gave a short, semicircle frown. "And I was only here for a good deed, too."
No response from the opposing side. Maple and Starlight stuck together, several paces behind the aggressive wall of Valey and Redshift.
"Those two, back there?" Neon gestured over Valey's head at the duo, taking a step to the side. "A friend asked me to give them a hoof if I saw them, so when I ran into them at the bar, it seemed logical to turn the lights on for the duration of their stay! Figured I'd give them the best Blueleaf has to offer, you know? It's a shame, really. We've got a friendly connection and everything! Maybe we could've been friends if things had turned out slightly differently..."
"Like anyone would want to be friends with you," Redshift huffed. "You're evil!"
Neon Nova smirked. "That doesn't stop the rest of the town, now, does it?"
"So who is this friend?" Valey asked, keeping her stance relaxed while functionally defensive.
"Mmm..." Neon sucked his cheek, thinking. "Seeing as we're enemies now, I think it's best if I keep that a little old secret. When in doubt, protect your friends' identities! And make sure to have friends to protect!"
"It's Braen," Redshift growled, still clinging to Valey like glue. "I heard you talking in the bar. You had a magic stone. She said she's on her way here." She paled slightly, then looked up at Valey. "What are you going to do when she gets here? She wouldn't be in on this, would she?"
"Take a chill pill, little filly!" Neon urged, waving a hoof. "All Miss Braen knows is that Blueleaf's got a power problem and I am doing my best to keep everypony's spirits up! No need to think trash about all your heroes, now! The whole point here was to give you someone to cheer for, after all!"
Redshift started to reply, but Starlight cut her off with a loud cough, speaking for the first time since Neon Nova had arrived. "You two realize he's stalling for time, right? He's also between us and the stairs. Whatever you're going to do, do it, because this is probably a trap!"
Valey nodded appreciatively, tipping her hat with a wing. "Smart kid," she acknowledged. "So then, Spirit guy, what'll it be? I know how I'd like this to end..." She licked her lips, polishing hoof against her chest in anticipation.
"The only thing it can be," Neon tossed back, grinning confidently. "Here's the facts, ponies... and weird bat-creature. Up there, every last citizen positively adores me and my mane, and at least one of you is a known criminal, despot, tyrant, jerk and all-around slice of cow pie! The other two are complete strangers, and one is just a kid! So all we have to do is go up there with the lights on, and it'll be a battle of your words against mine! And no offense, but you'd kind of be pushovers, even without my awesome PR." He tossed his head, smile flashing again.
"But I... no..." Redshift paled again as the reality of his words washed over her. Suddenly, her fire returned. "My father will trust me over you. He's the mayor! The ponies will listen to him over you! They chose him in the first place!"
"I'm afraid it won't be that easy," Neon answered, turning and showing off his black cloak. Yellow eyes flashed confidently from underneath his shades, and he continued, "You see, when you hold office for months without doing anything about a town's number one problem, your popularity goes doooown." He punctuated his words with a long, vertical sweep of a hoof. "I could challenge him for his job and win by a landslide. He can't touch me! And of course, if I ever needed even more leverage, I could always stoop to spreading sensational stories... about your mom!"
Redshift blanched. "You leave my mother out of this!"
Valey's lips pursed. "Your mom has a penchant for trouble? Filing that away for later..."
"Point is, you can't touch me." Neon Nova swaggered, turning fully and putting a hoof on the spiral staircase back to the entrance. "Anyhow, the generator's all fixed, so I better go tell everypony the good news. You know... the little story about how I tricked the big bad bat into opening the door, then snuck in and fixed everything myself! See ya!"
Only an instant passed before Maple whispered, "What do we do? Wait here until he's likely in the middle of talking, then turn off the power again to cost him credibility?"
"No," Starlight shot back, also whispering to stay out of Neon's earshot. "He'd just say we were still down here and blame it on us!"
Valey bonked her forehead with a hoof. "Wow you guys are dense. Use your brains! What have I wanted to do since pretty much the moment you met me?"
Neon stopped on the staircase, less than a quarter turn up, staring down curiously.
"Hey. Kid." Valey nudged Redshift, who was looking on, confused. "That bet we had is off, right? Or at least doesn't apply to him?"
A moment's pause... and then Redshift's face twisted into a smirk, then kept going. "No. It. Doesn't."
Neon leaned over the stair railing, blinking. Valey's wings snapped out. She spun to face him so fast, she could have teleported in place... and she kicked off, streaking toward him in a flash, leading with a pummel-hungry hoof.
Valey rocketed into Neon Nova at an upward angle, hoof striking with such force that the stallion was lifted clean off the staircase, falling several meters to the floor below and landing in an undignified heap. "Unnngh..."
"Uh-oh." Valey's face fell in quick dismay, and she landed, prodding his cloaked form with the very tip of a hoof. "Hey, please don't go down that easily! I'm sorry I went too hard, I wanted to savor-!"
Only a well-timed backflip saved her from Neon's get-up attack, hind legs lashing out low to the floor as he flipped upright, somehow not tripping on his massive coat. He fixed his crooked shades with a dizzy hoof, shook his head, and staggered into a fighting stance.
"Oh yeah!" Valey spread her wings, crouching between him and the other three with a lunatic smile. "That's better! Here we go!"
She pitched forward, diving facefirst into the ground in a ripple of shadow. Beating a zigzag path toward him amid the dim orange lighting, she closed the distance quickly, before...
"Dazzling..." Neon's horn sparked white. "Gleam!"
A burst of harsh light that seemed to blacken everything else in the room twirled from his horn and polished smile in sync, reflecting in stripes across his shades and causing Maple, Redshift and Starlight to wince. Valey was forcibly ejected from the floor as her shadow swept away, landing with a thud and a tangle of limbs. "Hey, that's rude!" she lifted her head to complain.
"Mmm hm hwa!" Neon laughed, flicking his forelegs out of the sleeves of his coat. "Apparently, that counts as an attack back in bat-land! But here's the truth, Missy! It was just a pose!"
His horn flared again, summoning an invisible gale that barreled into him, flapping his coat back like a heroic cape and revealing a gem-studded, gold-trimmed, white faux-leather suit beneath. "Aw yeah! It's go time!"
A hoof erupted from the ground beneath him, punching him in the gut and earning an arched back and a hearty wheeze. "Ooooof!"
"Nyaaah!" Valey blasted out of the ground at an angle, kicking him to the side as she rose. "You gotta take advantages when you get them!" She landed, once again facing him a safe distance away. "Not sit around preening! Try again!"
Neon stood his ground. "You're one to talk! I am in top condition, and also know your weakness! Take... this!"
Another surge of white light, though this one was scaled back slightly... and also didn't fade. He held the glow, eye twitching slightly from the strain. "Be weakened, foul foe!"
Valey rolled her eyes. "Light doesn't hurt me, you blowhard! I just like shadows! Now knock that off before you overexert yourself and cut my fight short!"
Neon held his grin, and his spell.
"Fine, fine..." Valey sighed and spread her wings. "Guess I'll have to turn your lights off my way."
She flipped forward, soaring into the air, eyes constricting against the shine of her opponent's horn. Suddenly, her flank tingled with danger... and she focused. There. He was hiding a telekinetic cloud in the glare, performing two spells at once, undoubtedly to catch her and slam her groundward.
Fat chance. With an easy smirk, Valey pulled up, watching as the telltale signs of the cloud followed her... then did a backflip, dropping into a loop and gliding effortlessly under in a burst of speed.
Biff! She collided with her target's slack-jawed face, bracing against the ground and uppercutting his chest.
"Yeowch!" Neon managed as he went flying, rolling to a stop on his back. Features drooping, he inspected the circular hoofprint where Valey had struck his suit. "Kindly keep your muddy hooves away from-"
Valey was beside him in a flash. "You were saying about weaknesses?" With a dastardly smirk, a sharp, webbed wingtip reached out... and tore a clean gash in his his suit, nearly two inches long.
Neon's eyes went pinprick. "Nooooo!" His horn lit. "You will pay for that!"
Suddenly, Valey's flank stabbed with danger, and time slowed to a crawl.
Suspended in slow-motion, Neon's words drifted inaudibly past her, his lips moving at a comical speed. Normally, it was a sight Valey would find funny, but this was a sensory boost for only the most dire circumstances. Her eyes flicked back and forth over his entire body, scanning urgently for whatever had triggered her brand, legs already coiling for a leap to safety.
There! Curled in his telekinesis, a knife was floating out of the folds of his trench coat. Knives were for cheaters.
Scowling, Valey simultaneously slammed out a forehoof and hind leg. Time returned to normal as she struck Neon's horn, extinguishing his aura in a shower of sparks, at the same time kicking his knife to the far corners of the room. She pummeled him once more for good measure, then took off, soaring out of his range.
"Guh... Someone's... hasty on their hooves..." Neon mumbled, getting up and massaging his head. "You think that's funny? I'll show you the funniest joke in the wooooorld!"
Valey scoffed, not sensing immediate danger. "You're the one who was playing dir- Hey!"
With twin bursts of teleportation, the stallion appeared at her side, swiped her hat, and left before she could react. Valey snarled.
Neon frowned innocently. "Ohhh, that strikes a nerve, doesn't it?" He hovered the black beret over his head, another knife snaking out from his coat and flickering dangerously close to the fabric. "See how you like having your trademarked appearance disrespected. Count of three... or maybe not!"
Splorp.
Before Valey could react, before Neon could slash the hat, a banana peel tipped out, landing wetly atop his head and plastering its leaves over his eyes like a tiny yellow octopus. "Buh-waaaugh! What the...?"
Valey was at his side again in a flash. "Mine!" Seizing the beret and slapping it in place over her bare green mane, she bicycle-kicked the back of his head, striking twice before landing and driving his face into the ground.
"Now then..." Wrapping one foreleg around his neck and the other against his back, she lifted him in a suplex, flinging him over backward. As he flew, she yanked back hard on the coat... and it snapped clean off, settling limply in her hooves.
"Nice!" Valey shook it, ignoring the discombobulated stallion behind her. It jingled with lumps of weight, laden with hidden things of all kinds. "Yeah, I don't think you need this," she muttered, before tossing it to the edge of the room.
"Y-You..." Neon Nova staggered to his hooves, wiping banana paste from his eyes.
"Me!" Valey interrupted, excitement returning. She glanced to Maple, Redshift and Starlight in the corner... and after a second's hesitation, flung her hat at them like a boomerang. "Hey, hold this! Hats are off for the next round!"
Maple caught it, and it vanished. Valey nodded appreciatively. Neon looked frantically around, quickly realizing that Valey was standing between him and his primary advantage, fully confident.
"You ready?" Valey scoffed, licking her lips. She tossed her freed mane, its messy green strands falling nearly to her shoulders.
"Dazzling..." Neon's horn flashed, smoking. "Gleam!" he managed desperately.
Valey looked on, unimpressed, as the twin surges of light flashed by her ineffectually. One of Neon's lenses was cracked, dampening the effect even more. "Eh." She shrugged. "If that's your battle cry..."
Wings whizzed, and a cloud of disturbed air swirled where Valey had once stood. Four black hooves landed in front of Neon with a smash that shook the room, and Valey crouched, ready.
Pow! Neon's hoof flashed out in a pre-emptive strike... and Valey countered with a punch of her own, sending shock waves that caused the stallion's leg to buckle. She struck again with her other, and it was all Neon could do to block it with the flat of his leg, taking a step back to avoid overbalancing.
Smash! Valey reared up, taking a step forward to counter, a hoof meeting Neon's chest with another impact. Seeing her occupied, he swung out of his flinch with a right hook, aimed squarely at her head... and she swept her foreleg sideways, knocking his away and forcing him to stumble.
Crack! While his head was down, she punched his horn, which had begun to light, sparks landing harmlessly on her tight black coat. Neon pitched forward, gasping, and was met with an uppercut, forcing him back upright.
Bam! Wham! Biff! Valey took another step, and then another, blows increasing in speed as he lost all ability to counter. Every third or fourth was aimed at his horn, keeping his magic at bay, and she occasionally batted back flailing forelegs, driving him closer and closer to the wall.
Hoofprints peppered Neon's body like the tempo of a storm, frequency rising even faster as Valey's forelegs morphed into a blur. They never struck the same place twice, each thrown at a single percent of her power, as if he was a dinner that needed to be evenly cooked and not overdone. His eyes shook in his skull, jaw rattling incoherently as Valey spun him around and around, not sparing his back or sides from her wrath.
Suddenly, her head dropped, an upward gust from her wings propelling her down and forward. Valey lunged off the ground with a massive headbutt, flinging Neon's helpless body high into the air, and flipping up after him.
Her wings pumped as she chased him upward, launching more punches to boost his momentum. The rocky ceiling approached, twirling blackly... and Valey grabbed him, flapping to the side and spinning like a tornado.
As they met the roof, she yanked her wings out, drawing their momentum up so that he was below her. Firing with all four legs and bracing her wings against the top, she launched him downward like a cannon blast, flipping and kicking off it herself in pursuit.
With a tempestuous explosion of air, they landed as one... and Neon Nova didn't get up.
"Bluh-hurrrrgh..." His yellow eyes rolled back in his head, and he was still.
"Well?" Valey looked up, grinning, as the three spectators crept out from behind the power switch, slack-jawed in awe. "How'd you like it? I told you I'm good!"
"H-Here's your..." Maple stammered, trying to look at Valey and Neon at once. "Hat back..."
Valey slapped it in place. "Much obliged." She turned to Redshift and smirked. "So that's what it looks like when I draw something out for fun. If I needed to... say, break through some armor, those punches could've been a lot harder and gone for a lot bigger of weak points. Still fancy Braen being able to trash me now?"
Silence swept around the generator room like a wraith, aided by Valey's light panting and several coughs and false starts from the other three. Neon Nova was out like a light, sprawled on the floor at a strange angle with his suit covered in so many scuffs and tears it barely even counted as fabric. His shades were gone, his horn sparked occasionally, and his tongue hung out, tasting the metal floor.
"Well..." Redshift finally managed, tone firm. "He deserved that."
Valey stretched happily, flexing her well-used forelegs. "Not as much as I did!"
"So what are we going to do now?" Maple asked, stepping forward in concern. "He might need medical treatment, and I doubt we'll find any of that here. And this doesn't change that it's his word against ours. If he has injuries from you, that'll just help his case!"
"Hey, I was gentle!" Valey protested. A second passed, and then another, before she finally relented to the host of incredulous stares thrown her way. "...Sorta. Gentler than I could have been. He's still alive, probably didn't break anything, and will only feel like a meatbag for a month or two, tops. Seriously!" She shrugged, then glanced down at his prone form. "As for what we'll do... that's the thing with good-PR types. They know they can take you to the shed if everyone talks, so the best thing to do is shut them up and then keep your own mouth closed."
Maple frowned. "You don't mean...?"
"Kill him?" Valey straightened her hat. "Nah. I want him to wake up so he can remember that awesome thrashing I gave him. But arresting him and taking him back to the Stone District is totally possible."
"We just were there," Starlight pointed out. "That would be going backwards."
"Eh, I'd figure something out." Valey nudged Neon's shallowly-breathing carcass, then got bored and wandered closer to the other three. "Anyway, the problem's gone. Once he's gone too, ponies will probably just forget about him and find something else to talk about. A place like this probably generates a lot of good gossip, huh?" She shot Redshift a glance.
The filly remained silent, and Valey's eyes narrowed. "So. You. What do you think of all this?"
Redshift's brow softened, and she looked through Valey, a slight tremble to her voice. "I don't know," she said, slightly close to a whisper. "I looked up to him, and he just admitted all that... right here..." She swallowed, eyes getting part of their spark back. "And you. What's with you, anyway? Every pony who's ever met you has nothing but bad things to say, and you have stupid shadow magic that messes with my eyes. So why did you help us?"
"Why did I help you...?" Valey stretched again. "You mean, why did I break in here, turn the lights on, trash that bozo, and also constantly put up with you being a rude little twit who's well on your way to becoming just like me?"
"I..." Redshift trailed off, torn between agreeing and protesting.
"I know what you mean, though," Valey interrupted, answering for her. "And it's just a perk of being on your own side. You can decide who to fight for, what to fight for, when to fight for it, and never need to worry about silly things like codes or laws in your way." She licked a hoof, and used it to straighten the fur on her leafy ears. "Granted, I did have stuff to gain by doing that. Blueleaf is right next to the Stone District, so if it becomes a haven for clowns like him who make everyone hate us, that quickly becomes my problem. I finally got to beat someone up, too. Aaand I felt like it." She winked at Maple and Starlight. "Maybe goodie-goodie Ironflanks is rubbing off on me. Hah!"
Redshift narrowed her eyes. "So whose side are you on now?"
"Didn't you listen?" Valey chuckled softly. "My own! But don't worry, I'm not about to stab you in the back and blow up this generator, or something. Honestly, we've got a lot of ground to cover today still, and if I go looking for any more trouble that'll just slow us down. Besides, I got my exercise. I'm good for a day or two after that show, at least."
"You're right," Maple added, wearily examining her own forelegs. "I'm still not feeling so well, but there probably isn't anywhere here it would be safe for us to rest, especially if you wanted to leave us behind while you take him to the Defense Force. You can fly him, right?"
"Oh, sure, sure." Valey strolled away from them, pumping a hoof experimentally. "Actually though, now that you mention it, wanna know the safest place in the whole Earth District I could leave you if I wanted?" She turned back and winked. "Right here. No one but me can get in, you can always open the door from the inside if something happens and I can't get back... which won't happen, but just in case. It's pretty much perfect!"
Starlight grumbled, lowering her head. "It's also full of hard metal floors. Resting here wouldn't be very restful."
"Well..." Redshift broke in, hesitant. "If you're really serious about helping us..." She stared Valey in the eyes, daring her that if she was going to turn her cloak, to do so then. "I could take them."
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head.
"My family is well-off," Redshift explained. "Mayor, remember? They're in the safest part of town, have a big house, and are used to me bringing back ponies for a day who look like they need it. And you..." She wrinkled her nose at Maple and Starlight. "You don't smell like it yet, but you look like it. So if you promise to make sure he never comes here again, they can come with me for a while."
"...Huh." Valey blinked. "That's actually pretty generous of you, kid. How do I know you'll keep your word, and not just leave them in a ditch somewhere?"
"How do I know you won't just let him go, or even try to hire him?" Redshift countered. "In fact, how do I know he wasn't working for you in the first place, trying to make this city a worse place?"
Valey stuck her tongue out. "Well, then, I guess we'll just have to trust each other, won't we?"
Redshift stared.
"I trust her, if it helps," Maple offered. "Both of you, that is. Go take Neon to prison, and we'll stay with Redshift until you're back. It'll be better than pushing on without rest, for sure..."
"Tsk, tsk..." Valey shook her head. "Remember what I always say about trusting bats. Still, if you're fine with this, I guess we better get going?" She shrugged, turning to hoist Neon's body.
"What about this?" Starlight's voice cut in from across the room.
"Huh?" Everyone turned to look at her. She was standing by the fallen stallion's trench coat, discarded where Valey had left it when she tore it from him mid-fight. Thick, black and sized for his long legs, it looked huge next to her, like a sleeping animal slumped on the ground.
"It has a lot of things in it," Starlight explained. "It could be useful. Should we take it?"
"Hmmm..." Maple wandered over, carefully inspecting it with Valey by her side. "It looks pretty big, but I think I have room to carry it. I'm running light, too, after dropping that ingot on Selma, but I'm tired enough that I don't know if I want to take more on..."
Valey shot her a strange look, and she shrugged. "I guess I'll take it," Maple decided. "It's only a few flights of stairs and then however much longer to your house." She nodded at Redshift, then extended a hoof, wrapping the garment toward her. It vanished against her dusty-tan coat, and she leaned forward slightly, exhaling hard. "Okay, I'm full. Now let's hurry up!"
"You realize you have no idea where that thing has been, right...?" Valey muttered uncertainly, before shrugging and moving on. "Whatever. It's your... space-pocket thing. Suit yourself!"
With a brief grunt, she hefted Neon's body, slinging him unceremoniously over her back. "All right!" she crowed, starting up the staircase to the exit. "Time to get this nutcase back to base before he wakes up! Oh boy, Selma's gonna be jealous at this find..."
Valey paused near the door to the generator tower, Neon Nova's unconscious form slung carelessly over her back. Below, visible beneath the grated floor, the crystalline power core was pulsating vibrantly, the array of machines around it firing alternating streams of lasers that might have served as pumps... or could have been there just for show. The room's metallic interior was lit with the dull orange glow of safety lights, and the hum of operating machinery filled the air.
"...So," she said, staring at the locked portcullis. "We've covered all we need to cover? You two are just going to hang out with this kid while I take care of business, and eventually I'll be back and we keep going. Right?"
Starlight, Maple and Redshift blinked back. "Right."
"Okay then! Try not to..." Valey grunted, adjusting Neon's weight on her back and moving to push the door open. "Miss the sound of my voice! Buh-bye!"
It swung open with a disused creak, daylight and fresh air flooding in. Valey slipped out the moment the entrance was wide enough, kicking off the bridge and winging away in a green-and-black streak. A slight breeze followed her, and she was gone.
The remaining three stepped wordlessly out after her, the door swinging shut with a clang after them. The bridge was deserted; no spectators were in sight to witness them leaving the generator. Valey was a speck on the horizon, and save for the jungle heat and each other, they were alone.
"...Huh," Maple eventually said, staring around. "I almost expected there to be a crowd waiting for us, or something else dramatic that would get us in more trouble. Where is everyone? Do they not care that the lights are back on?"
Redshift stepped to the edge, peering down into the pit of cleared land around the generator. Entrances to bottom-level streets were visible below, and they glowed faintly with orange light. "They care. But why would they come here? For all they know, it'll just go out again in a few days or hours."
"I guess you're right..." Maple breathed.
"Look," Starlight interrupted, pointing a hoof at the mountain peaks to the south.
Everyone's heads turned. An ugly mass of gray clouds were building beyond the ridges of the Sky District... which were alarmingly close, as Blueleaf sat at the very base of the mountains. Maple frowned. "That doesn't look pretty..."
Redshift shrugged. "It's just rain. I've been out in much worse. Now are you coming, or what?"
Starlight's hooves beat an impatient stanza through the fourth-level streets of Blueleaf, tapping against metal reinforcements as she passed by windows and closed doors. With only one level above her, sunlight was somewhat common... as were views of the sky. The storm clouds bore down fast, and every pony who had somewhere better to be was either there or in a very swift hurry to reach it.
Her pace was hindered by Maple, weighted and panting in the heat, and multiple times she almost opened her mouth to ask if she could help. She knew better every time, though: her own hooves and legs were only slightly on the better side of laden with aches and cramps, and only because she had pushed herself through far worse crossing the mountains. A day full of hiking up the Stone District, through a museum, then endlessly around the Water District and followed by another day's trek through the Earth District wasn't something that was past her limit, but it was close enough to it that doing anything unnecessary or wasteful could easily break her stamina.
"Are you really that tired?" Redshift asked over her shoulder, leading the two ponies by a considerable distance. "It's not that much longer. We can slow down and still not get rained on."
"That would be nice," Maple huffed, dropping her pace instantly. "Ooh... I'm really not as in shape as I thought I was. I don't know how we're going to walk all the way to Gnarlbough after this..."
Starlight frowned. "You were carrying a heavy crate up an entire mountain, and then did a bunch of other stuff. That would tire anypony out."
"Doesn't... change the fact that I'm the one slowing us down..." Limping with all four legs, Maple slowly caught up with the fillies, and the group started moving again as one. "I think stopping for a few minutes there just made it worse. Gave it... more time for the cramps to set in..."
"What even happened to you?" Redshift asked. "I still don't like or trust Valey, but you're nothing like her. You're beaten up, you follow her around... you said you're wanted in the Stone District and she was helping you get away? Why?"
"I don't really know," Maple sighed, stumping along. "She just said she took a liking to us. When you're desperate enough not to care where help comes from..." She shrugged. "Besides, she's been nice to us, at least. She's strange and sometimes rude, and constantly calls me Ironflanks and talks about Starlight smelling bad, but I don't think she means anything by it. She might just like having others who are nice to her. Maybe that's all there is to it."
Redshift exhaled. "You know what they say about her, right?"
"Aside from constantly grumbling about how bad she is?" Maple lifted an eyebrow.
"Yes," Redshift growled. "They say that in the Defense Force, she has some kind of rivalry with the other commander, and they try to get at each other by doing stupid things like making rules about what kind of ponies can work for them, or messing up paperwork, and it makes all the ponies who do work there's jobs be jokes! Nobody knows anything about her past other than that she's from Yakyakistan, and she's been in charge for as long as she's been in Ironridge. She's never had to do anything to earn or keep it, and every time anyone tries to complain to the yak embassy about her, the ambassador won't even listen! She acts like Ironridge is her playground, has never had to work for or earn any of the things she has, and is constantly treating everyone else like jokes and making their lives more difficult. It's not fair!"
"Earlier, she told us she hated Herman," Starlight remarked. "The yak ambassador. Even talking about him made her really mad."
"...Whatever," Redshift muttered. "We're here."
She had stopped in front of a slightly-decorated fourth story door, and knocked thrice with a hoof. Maple leaned closer. "I thought you lived on the fifth level?"
"I do," Redshift answered. "Watch."
The door swung open, a meaty stallion with a bushy black mustache eyeing her beadily from within. He stood stock-still for two seconds... then smiled, facial hair moving as he spoke. "Afternoon, Miss Redshift. These two are with you?"
She nodded in return. "They are, yes."
"Go on through, then!" The stallion stepped aside, opening the door wider. "You've seen, of course, but the power's back on, and there's a storm brewing! As good a time as any to finish up your business and get home, isn't it?"
"Yeah... yeah..." Redshift paid him half a glance in respect, then walked past, motioning with her tail for Maple and Starlight to follow.
The door lead only to a small room, two chairs and a counter for ponies to sit at and a carpeted staircase along the back wall. The wooden walls were shiny against the orange light fixture, boasting an old coat of varnish and a musty, dusty scent. A hefty mat at the entrance served for wiping hooves, which the filly stopped to use liberally.
"This is where you live?" Maple asked, gazing around the dark interior. It wasn't foreboding or poorly lit, just themed with black and brown, as if dwelt in by something very old that had gotten bored of daytime long ago.
"No," Redshift answered, making for the staircase. "Up here. You'll see."
Maple and Starlight followed. "This," Redshift explained, "is the way to level five. Only the richest families can afford to live at the top, so there are no public ways up. All the staircases from level four have guardposts, like this one. Part of what your money gets you is privacy..." Her face darkened. "And not having to look at proof each and every day that you're literally living on top of hundreds and hundreds of suffering ponies."
At the top of the flight, she pushed open another door to the side, and daylight spilled in once again. Swiftly at her side, Maple and Starlight's eyes widened. As much of a leap as the third level had been from the two below it, and then from the third to the fourth, level five was twice the difference and then some.
An artificial enclave in the sky, it boasted a meandering, cobblestone street that wiggled naturally like a river. Beds of dirt on either side held grass, flowers and occasional exotic plants, divided by dainty walkways to houses that stood not wall-to-wall, each having their own space on all sides. Behind them, a fence wall rose, mostly obscured from sight and designed to obscure them in turn, preventing the luxury from being obvious from floors below. It was a hidden jewel... that in turn hid everything it was built on.
Redshift didn't pause to stare, both because she didn't care and because raindrops were beginning to fall, appearing as dark spots against the ground. Instead, she set off at a brisk pace, marching stiffly down the whimsical road, leaving Starlight and Maple scurrying to keep up.
"I have to wonder..." Maple panted as she walked. "How does Blueleaf not collapse under its own weight? All this stone and dirt must be heavy, and to have it all held so high up with no building code..."
Redshift shrugged. "It's been reinforced. Parts of the city are often torn down and rebuilt, and we rebuild it a little better each time. That hasn't happened lately with the generator out, though."
"I see..." Maple licked her lips, still dubious, and followed, Starlight at her side, further through the maze of the fifth level.
Maple and Starlight stood, stopped, before a small rounded hoofbridge made of rustic stone architecture, providing dry passage across a stream of water that gurgled freshly, tracing its way across the landscape... the landscape that was constructed on the roof of a four-story city. Some rich family, it seemed, had seen fit to build a river in the sky.
"Maybe you can see now," Redshift grunted, unceremoniously crossing the bridge, "why it bothers me so much that there are ponies living with nothing down there. Blueleaf does have some money. Things like this are where it goes."
"I think I can see..." Maple breathed, the surface of the river disturbed by raindrops as she crossed. "It's pretty, at least, but that somehow makes it worse..."
"How old is this?" Starlight asked, close by Maple's side. "They didn't make it while the power was out, did they?"
Redshift shook her head. "Blueleaf's top level has always been for the richest. My father says it used to be a lot smaller, years ago, with just a few houses built on roofs and the fourth level as the real top. They started building it when the Sky District stole being Ironridge's capital. A lot of important ponies from the Earth District got together and wanted to show the Stone District that they could be just as high up as them, but still in their own district. But now, they made... well... this."
"How many ponies below even know about this?" Maple asked, frowning openly, the bridge quickly being left behind.
"That the fifth level is better than anything they'll ever have? All of them," Redshift answered, turning at a three-way intersection. "What it actually looks like? They aren't allowed here, usually." She paused and thought. "Well, some of them work here as cleaners, builders, servants and other things. Those ponies regularly see it, I guess. But that means having a stable job, which isn't something you want to brag about down there. When everypony has that little, it's easy to get jealous and..."
"So very few, then," Maple sighed. "I wonder, if they all knew exactly what it was like up here, what would happen."
Redshift shrugged. "I don't know. They might try to get in by force. Or maybe they wouldn't care. It depends if they would have someone like Neon telling them wha to think."
A silence passed, filled with the pattering of early raindrops and the hurried tromping of three sets of hooves. Overhead, the clouds covered exactly half the sky, signaling that their time of relative dryness was nearing its end. "We should hurry," Redshift said, looking back down. "It's not far."
A spire scrolled into view, the top of a palace among mansions. Stretching three stories above the already-lofty ground, it boasted carved wooden trim around the windows, a raised balcony, and slightly curved roofing paved with real shingles. While the rest of the fifth-story dwellings were reminiscent of Equestria's quality of living and rich only by contrast, this house could have qualified as opulent even in a city that was reasonably well-off.
Redshift nodded. "The Governor's Mansion," she explained disinterestedly. "I don't spend much time here, but it is nice."
"I thought you said your dad was the mayor?" Starlight's face scrunched in confusion.
"Never mind that!" Licking her lips eagerly, Maple hobbled forward, aiming for the covered entrance... when the storm finally broke, immediately flattening her mane with a wall of water. She blinked, growled, and shook, halted in her tracks by the shock of the sudden cold and extra weight that came with being soaked. "Rrrgh..."
Starlight disinterestedly plodded past her, then turned and beckoned when she stayed still. "Come on!"
"R-Right!" Snapping from her stupor, Maple's legs unlocked and she charged forward once again, nearly tripping in her dash for the entrance.
Though they were exposed to the storm for less than a minute, the trio was still fully waterlogged as they stood outside the wooden double-doors to the mansion. Redshift was the best off, having darted for cover immediately, and her short mane still dribbled at her hooves as she reared up, reaching with her nose to use the huge iron knocker. It swung against the door with a wooden thump, and she stepped back, waiting.
Maple's tail swished limply, still managing to spray a shower of droplets. Starlight reached behind her neck, wringing moisture from what had once been a ponytail - the hairband Maple had given her had gotten itself lost once again, likely when Valey crash-landed them into the Earth District. She would have to remember to tie it tighter, if she ever got another one.
Suddenly, the door swung inwards with a well-oiled creak, and a cream-colored pegasus stallion who looked to still be in his teens peered out, just young enough that his muzzle was only halfway squared. Face very slightly shadowing with surprise, he said, "Huh. You came back for the storm. Looks like you didn't make it in time." He stepped forward, blocking the entrance, adding, "The power's back on. The twins were taking bets on whether that meant you'd be back or stay gone. Ribbon will be disappointed."
"Good for her," Redshift pouted back. "These are my friends, and we're wet. Where are the towels?"
The stallion blinked at Maple and Starlight. "More vagabonds, huh?" he asked, as if they weren't even there. "They might need a little more than a towel..."
"Perfeeect," Redshift whined, trying and failing to push past him into the house. "That's what the bath is for!"
"Uh uh uh," the stallion interrupted, pushing her back with a wing. "Your dad was pretty unhappy last time you clogged the drain with mud doing that. It's raining right now, go pre-wash! All of you!" With that, he pushed the door closed in her face, locking it with a click.
Redshift snorted. "He's not going to change his mind. Back into the rain!"
Starlight obliged without so much as a word. The rain itself was icy, having come straight from over the mountain peaks, but it hadn't managed to banish the heat from the jungle air, creating a strange sensation that didn't quite chill her to the bone.
Maple, on the other hoof, shivered violently in anticipation. "Really... We hurried to b-beat the rain and now he wants us to stand in it? Who even is he? Your brother?"
"Half-uncle," Redshift corrected, moving out from under the balcony in solidarity, exposing herself to the elements alongside Starlight, who was frantically scrubbing at her muddy coat. "On my mother's side. And you do look like you could plug the drain."
"But that does mean you have a hot bath we can use afterward?" Maple asked hopefully, taking a step out into the wet.
Redshift nodded, and Starlight secretly huffed. What was it about being north of Equestria that had her taking so many baths?
Soaked first by cold rain, then a hot bath, she sat in a fuzzy, filly-sized robe on a dull red couch in a room trimmed with wood and shiny metal, reflective glass everywhere in the form of display cases, protected paintings, and a high-up window to the gray outside. The cream-colored pegasus who had insisted they stand in the rain leaned against a doorway, watching.
Soon, Maple returned, evidently leaving Redshift the last turn in the bath. Stiffly, she walked across the carpeted floor, around a low table with a vase of green flowers, and deposited herself next to Starlight on the couch with a massive sigh. "I needed that," she hummed, looking straight ahead. "I really hope we don't have to leave immediately. It's still raining, and I'm so tired..."
As she snuggled contentedly into Starlight and invited the filly to do the same, the pegasus in the door spoke up. "My niece usually keeps her charges for around a day," he explained. "Until she gets tired of being here and runs off to the slums again. She'd probably keep them all indefinitely, if she could. Our family seems to have a predisposition to that..."
"Huh?" Starlight looked up.
The pegasus ignored her. "You cleaned up much better than the usual kinds of ponies Redshift brings home. You don't look as desperate, or as untrusting. What did she see in you?"
Starlight hesitated. Were she to lie, there would be no way to safely bring Redshift in on it, and that could get them in trouble. But the full story would serve them no better... so she went with half of it. "We found her on the bottom level and traveled together for a while. Then it started to rain and she offered to let us stay here while we wait for a friend to finish an errand so we can leave. We don't live in Blueleaf; we're just passing through."
"...Makes sense, I suppose." He leaned back, taking a breath. "I won't say 'make yourself at home' because ponies tend to take that far too literally, but it's good to see someone with slightly more class. So far, you seem to know how to be good guests, at least."
Maple frowned, looking up from Starlight. "You don't like the lower-level ponies as much as your sister, do you?"
"Niece," the pegasus corrected. "And don't confuse not liking someone with not feeling sorry for them. But Redshift only goes below because she can... To her, it's a game where she is the hero, and she always has this home to return to when she needs it. I was born there, and even a decade later have more than had my fill of ponies who smell and need more than a fancy room for the night to get their lives back on track."
"You were born on the lower levels?" Maple's eyes widened, then her face scrunched in confusion. "But... hold on, aren't you related to the mayor?"
"His is an elected position." His face darkened, and he added, "There's no such thing as inheriting power from your parents, anyway. And even if there was, he's my brother-in-law. We aren't actually related."
Alarm bells went off in the back of Starlight's mind. The pegasus' statements reeked of drama and intrigue just below the surface, and getting into that with Gerardo's delivery was exactly why they were trying to leave Ironridge in the first place. Whatever was prompting him to be upset about hereditary positions, whatever had brought him up into the mayor's household, she wanted no part of it. The only thing that mattered was to rest, enjoy the peace, and eventually move on without anything bad happening, and that meant ending the conversation then and there.
"I'm tired," she suddenly grumbled to Maple. "Can we talk about this later? I want to sleep."
"We probably should..." Maple smiled sadly. "I am curious though, but..." She fought back a yawn. "We've had an exhausting last couple of days, with a lot of walking and travel, and..."
"Of course." The pegasus nodded. "Sleep as long as you like. I'll inform my niece when she's done in the bath that you're resting."
He backed out of the room, closing the door to a crack... but Starlight could still see the fur of his back, him seated watchfully outside.
"Ohhh I'm tired," Maple sighed, nuzzling Starlight's ear. "I'm so glad we're somewhere safe at last... mmm..."
Starlight nodded minutely, leaning back into her in the darkened room, thick raindrops audibly drumming on the roof and giving her a slight chill with their noise. She didn't need to respond, only rest... and in a matter of seconds, she had slipped away into a well-deserved sleep.
The shimmer of magic and thundering of little hooves illuminated Starlight's sleepy ears, and she stirred.
"See? I told you she brought someone back. Look at them!"
A raspberry was blown. "Yeah, but these don't look like hobos, and you specifically said 'from the lower levels!' So nyah!"
"You can't prove that. Maybe they spent all their money looking nice and that's why they had to move down there."
"Hey, Redshift! How sure are you they aren't hobos?"
"Fernand! Make them leave Maple and Starlight alone!"
"That would be..." More magical shimmering. "Easier if I could move my body..."
Growling softly, Starlight cracked her eyes. A pair of rust-red fillies, both unicorns at the very start of their growth spurt, leaned excitedly over her with glowing horns. Their grins broadened when they saw her wake. "You're up!" one exclaimed. "So we need to know: are you a hobo?"
"Please say no," the other added, nodding sagely. "I have my whole allowance bet on this and you can have half the winnings!"
"Say yes!" the first demanded. "I'll give you three quarters of mine!"
Starlight's teeth bared, and her own horn lit with a swirl of teal. The fillies both stepped back in shock and dismay, revealing the pegasus from earlier suspended in midair in a combination of their auras, limbs locked as he looked on helplessly. Sighing, Starlight let her horn go dim, head already twinging as a reminder that it wasn't ready to be used yet. "This isn't a nice way to wake up."
To the side, Redshift hung her head, standing in a fuzzy robe of her own. "I know. Sorry..."
"I completely agree!" the pegasus exclaimed from his magical prison. "Twins, let me go at once! This is not a question! I will tell your sister!"
The unicorn twins both paled, turning to look at him... but didn't dispel their yellow auras. Maple grunted and snuffled, shaken from her own slumber. "Starlight...? Wha..."
"That's it!" the pegasus snapped. "Redshift, go tell Elise the twins are being poor hosts."
Redshift was gone in a flash. Slowly, the shine of magic in the room went out... and the pegasus freed himself, gliding to the floor and folding his ruffled feathers. "Thank you very much," he grumbled. "Copper Cable, Ribbon Cable, apologize to our guests. Now."
The twins pouted as one, drooping. "Sorry, Fernand..."
"Not me. Them." Fernand pointed a cream-colored hoof at Maple and Starlight. "It's our duty and tradition as ponies of the Earth District to be good hosts, within reason, regardless of the origin of our guests. It's also rude to place bets on who Redshift inevitably brings back. Don't make fun of ponies who mean well."
"Sorry..." Copper and Ribbon repeated, turning back around. One hesitated. "So are you hobos, though?"
"No," Starlight grumbled as Fernand brought a hoof to his head. "Are you?"
The twins looked uncertainly at each other, and then one smirked. Maple interrupted, asking, "Sorry, what's going on here? I'm still half asleep, but..."
Fernand sighed. "My easily-excitable siblings here ambushed and incapacitated me while I was guarding your room. Curiosity is their vice and virtue, unfortunately..."
The filly who had lost the bet rolled her yellow eyes. "You're just jealous you don't know how to be happy now that the lights are back on. We can actually stay up reading again, so ha!" She stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to Starlight and Maple. "So I'm Ribbon Cable, but you can call me Ribbon. That killjoy is Fernand, this is Copper, and who are you?"
"The lights are just going to go back out again in a few days, you know," Copper grumbled.
Maple blinked at them. "Sorry, I've... met so many ponies within the last two days I'm almost definitely not going to remember all of your names. But I'm Maple, and this is Starlight."
"Cool, cool..." Ribbon nodded nonchalantly. "That's kind of the point, though."
Copper backed her up. "Even Fernand can't tell us apart. If he could, he'd know that I'm actually Ribbon."
The other filly blanched. "Says you! I thought we agreed to use or real names today! Dad was getting angry after we messed with that contractor from Grand Acorn yesterday, remember?"
"Fine..." the first pouted. "I really am Copper."
Maple bit her lip. "I'm not even going to try."
"Don't bother," Fernand added from the background. "It's not worth it. These two are incorrigible, and I've lived with them since this household was established."
"...Okay, then," Maple said, sighing and relenting. "You two are Redshift's sisters, then?"
The twins shook their heads in sync. "Aunts," one said.
"Half-aunts," the other corrected. "But it doesn't matter. Elise is like everyone's mom, even though she's actually our sister. Even to that crab over there." She pointed to Fernand.
"Speaking of which..." Fernand huffed. "Maple and... Starlight were sleeping when you so rudely interrupted. I think it would be a good idea if you made yourselves scarce so they could resume their rest. This rain doesn't show any signs of letting up soon so you'll get your chance to interrogate later, if they're willing. Now shoo!"
"Actually..." Maple shuffled slightly on the couch, Starlight pressed into her side. "We did sleep for a while last night. Mostly, we just need to get off our hooves, so..."
Fernand raised an eyebrow at the exact moment the twins' smiles returned. "If you're sure about that. It's your funeral."
"Sweet!" The twins flopped onto an empty, opposing couch, sprawling massively to hog as much room as possible, preventing Fernand from joining them. "So, if you're not hobos, where are you from?"
Maple skipped a beat. "Umm..."
At that moment, the door swung open, and Redshift strode through imperiously. At her back was a grown mare, old enough to conceal signs of age yet young enough to do so flawlessly. Extremely short, she was lithe and supple with a muzzle a hair longer than normal and perfectly curved ears. Her sky-blue mane was heavy and full, pinned back with a hairclip shaped like three triangles in a pyramid, her coat was a slightly lighter shade of brown than Maple's, and a fluted horn sat proudly on her forehead. Her cutie mark was an arrow, folded violently back on itself in a sharp reversal.
Both twins gasped and sat bolt upright. "Mom!"
To the side, Fernand looked at his hooves. "My apologies, Sister. These two were getting out of hoof, and I didn't-"
"It's okay, Fernand!" Elise reassured with an airy, regal laugh, mane bouncing slightly as she talked. "Redshift told me the twins were being rowdy, and that's hardly cause for alarm!" She looked importantly at Maple and Starlight. "You two aren't offended, are you?"
Starlight wanted to say maybe a little, but Maple shook her head. "We're fine."
"Good," Elise replied, walking across with fluid grace and seating herself between Copper and Ribbon. "Because now that I'm here, you're stuck with me. I wasn't doing anything important, anyway." She looked across at Fernand, who was still standing awkwardly near the doorway. "Fernand? If you could bring tea, that would be wonderful. Redshift, darling, have a seat." She patted the cushion next to her, smiling warmly at Maple and Starlight.
"So..." Maple paused, humming. "You're Redshift's mom, then? And their sister? Sorry, I'm..."
"Trying to get a sense of our family tree?" Elise smiled back. "It confuses most ponies, but that's right. Everyone here is my sibling, except Redshift, my daughter, and my husband, who is out today. And since everyone asks, I'm thirty-six."
"Huh." Maple blinked. "Isn't that a pretty big age gap? I mean..."
Elise shrugged, shoulders shifting against her flowing mane. "It's strange, but not impossible. If you're curious, I have nothing but time, and nothing better to do but tell how our household came to be to whoever will listen. Are you interested?"
Maple opened her mouth to agree... but Starlight cut her off. "Hold on," the filly objected, "we've been in a whole lot of trouble because we keep getting mixed up with others who want things from us and give us obligations that get us in bigger messes." She narrowed her eyes. "We won't have to take your side in any sort of war, will we?"
"I'd never ask that." Elise graciously shook her head. "Everything that happened here is in the past. The last thing I would want is strangers getting caught up in issues of ours that have already been resolved."
"...Fine." Starlight relented, and leaned back into Maple. "Then what is your story?"
Elise hesitated, as if she hadn't expected Starlight to agree to listen so quickly. She opened her mouth, paused... and said, "Well, then. The shortest way to put it is that in the Steel District, Factory Chief Mobius has had many lovers, and never taken a wife."
Another silence passed, this one to allow Maple and Starlight to think through the implications. "Wait," Maple began. "You don't mean... he's your father? That you're all children of a Sosan leader?"
"She did say half-siblings," Starlight added, nodding at Redshift. "So what's the rest of the story? You made it sound like it would be long."
"That is just how we're related," Elise said with a gentle smile. "From there, and how we got here, the story gets a lot longer..." She sighed, and looked up to the vaulted ceiling.
Maple nodded, shivering slightly. "I'm not very fond of ponies who... you know..."
Elise's eyes flicked between Maple and Starlight, watching them nestled together, and softened in understanding. "Who leave mares to raise children on their own? Neither am I, my little pony. It happens all too often, especially in times and places as desperate as these. And when deceit or coercion is involved..." Her eyes closed in a grimace. "Mobius didn't do that, at least. His reputation preceded him, and not in a bad way. He was sought after. And those were wealthier, more prosperous times, when it was easier to raise a family on one's own..."
"There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?" Maple asked, swallowing a lump in her throat.
"There is." Elise's smile returned. "The 'but' is that eventually, the foals from those hasty unions grew up... and began to ask why if their father was so important, they couldn't be too."
Maple and Starlight sat silent in rapt attention. Elise continued, "I was one of the oldest, if not the. It's difficult to tell, when so many mothers never tell their children their heritage, or don't even know for sure. But I was the first to ask. I was fourteen, and it remains one of the clearest memories of my life."
She bit back a sigh. "My mother had told me stories about my father. I bothered and pestered her to take me to Sosa, so I could meet him and ask if I could be important as well. I was eager, ambitious, and optimistic, just like all of Ironridge. Those were the days of Project Aslan, when we thought we could construct a ship that sailed both the skies and the sea and lead the world in a new technological revolution."
Maple's eyes glazed over slightly, thinking back to the museum timeline and the fiery explosion Starlight had found. Project Aslan, shuttered when the maiden voyage dramatically crashed...
"There was nothing to stop us from seeing him," Elise continued, likewise staring into space. "Ironridge wasn't worried about anything, then. The workers thought we were a curiosity, a mare and her filly wandering through construction yards and complexes of factories and docks. They were polite and helpful, and extremely surprised when I told them why we were there. I don't think the fact that Mobius had children had ever crossed their minds."
Sadly, she looked to the gray window, rainwater that missed the gutters tracing its way down in rivulets. "My mother hadn't seen him since their stand fifteen years ago. He remembered her, somehow. She remembered him, too. We stood there in his office, and they talked, and..." Her head turned down. "He didn't even acknowledge my presence at first. When I tugged on the sleeve of his suit, he flicked me away. I got louder, and the most he ever said to me was that children couldn't do anything useful for him."
A bitter sigh passed. "We left, after that. He told my mother he'd like to see her again... without me." Her face darkened, sky-blue mane shadowing her eyes. "Two days later, she went. I didn't care to find out what happened. I was too upset. I just left, and went to make my own way in the world. I..." She shivered. "I wasn't a filly any more, and had a strong horn. Times were prosperous. And I did fine. Well, even. Because I was ambitious, and told myself that if a pony selfish enough to be my father could hold that respected of a job, I had to do better."
"You ran away," Starlight interrupted. "Because the world you were in was rotten and you knew there was something better." She hung her head. "I know what that feels like."
Elise bit her lip, looking like she wanted to skip straight to a valuable life lesson. "As I said, I did well for myself," she murmured instead, continuing. "I moved to the Earth District, to Grand Acorn. My mother still lived in the Stone District, in the house where I was born. She may very well still be there. But I vowed that I would once day take Mobius' job and become a factory chief in his place, and share it with any offspring I ever had."
At that moment, Fernand pushed through the door with his head, a tray of teaware balanced on his back with outstretched wings. "Here you are, sister."
He deposited it nobly on the table, and Elise gave him a smile. "Thank you, Fernand. We're just getting to the part where you come in."
Fernand smirked good-naturedly back. "Are you, now?" He turned and nodded at Maple and Starlight. "Sometimes I think she has nothing better to do than make sure as many ponies hear her life's story as possible. Then again, there aren't many better things to do in this city. Carry on!"
"As I was saying..." Elise cleared her throat. "I set my sights on becoming a Sosan chief. Chiefs choose their own successors, so I needed Mobius to acknowledge me... and went about that by becoming a regular presence there, in the construction yards. Sosa has few mares by tradition, not rule, so nopony stopped me. I made friends with the smiths and carpenters and technicians, brought them food I prepared myself, never got in the way, talked with them for hours both to know them and learn their jobs and how everything in the factories was managed. I showed them I cared, and it worked. They grew very fond of me, without ever being told why I was there. I'm sure some remembered I was their leader's daughter from my first visit, with my mother, but they didn't care. I was just me."
She nodded at Fernand. "I became enough of a Sosan myself that when another mare showed up one day, I was just as interested as the rest of the ponies. She was a pegasus who worked as a housekeeper here in Blueleaf... and was carrying another of Mobius' foals."
"Myself," Fernand added.
"Yes, you," Elise confirmed. "She had the same idea I did, I learned, wanting some of Sosa's greatness for her unborn foal. We became good friends, even though she was half again my age or more. After that day, we decided to work together. I had the idea that if we found as many of my siblings as possible, I could ask on behalf of us all, and perhaps rally ponies beyond Sosa to our cause. It has a feel to it, does it not? Scattered siblings, all come together in search of their birthright, working as one?"
She sighed wistfully, closing her eyes. "Fernand's mother quit her job and devoted her time to searching for more possible siblings, first in Blueleaf, then moving in with me in Grand Acorn when her funds ran out. I kept going to Sosa and talking with the workers, and eventually started telling them my plans, one by one in secret. They..." She swallowed.
"They loved it. They thought it was poetic and inspirational, that I was an accidental outcast, an exiled princess back to reclaim my throne. They treated it like something from a storybook." She wiped the corner of an eye with a forehoof. "I don't think any of them wanted me to depose him then and there, of course. I wasn't even fully grown. But they supported me. They wanted to see me succeed. I was so close, and it should have been easy. But then..."
A pause. Elise regained her composure, kind and regal as ever, and continued. "That was when the crash happened. You've heard the stories about that, haven't you?" She inclined her head.
"Sort of," Maple answered, rearranging her fuzzy robe. "We read about it in the Sky District museum, but it's been a while since then and I've had more important things to remember..."
Elise didn't even hesitate. "Then you probably know the important parts. It was the biggest shock Ironridge had ever received. Chief Arad, the oldest chief and the program's biggest supporter, was killed. Mobius wasn't even there. He had left the celebrations early after the launch, before the crash occurred. Arambai, the third chief, was there and watching when it happened. I was there too. It was the first taste I had of how much weighed on the chiefs, and just what could happen if they failed."
Her horn lit with a gentle shimmer of blue, and drew a line of magic down the center of the coffee table. "Before that, Sosa had three chiefs. After, it had two. Arambai wanted to try again, and continue the program at all costs." Her aura shifted the teapot clearly to one side of the line. "Mobius wanted to close it; to keep Sosa's focus on water travel. He always had, but not as strongly, and when Arad was alive, he was overruled two to one." She shifted a large saucer to the side opposite the teapot. "But then, it was a balance of two sides... and ponies were scared."
Looming large over the table, Elise's glow brightened, and the cups began shifting themselves away from the center line, some to the side of the teapot, others to the saucer, crowding together in an effort to escape the middle. "Suddenly, I realized, there were ponies who wanted me to take over... no, to usurp Mobius then and there, in hopes that I would break the stalemate and let their side win. Just as many wanted to defend their side at all costs, and saw me as a threat. My name was the one whispered in passing, used in gossip, rallied around or against and spread underneath the city. There were ponies too who didn't care what I did so long as Mobius was gone. That he wasn't present for the crash... caused some controversy, and some even suspected him of causing it. But I was practically a filly, and I was terrified."
She swept the table's contents out of focus, one tiny plate sitting exactly on the wavering magical line, a bigger one at its side. "I sold my house in Grand Acorn. I considered going home to my mother, but didn't know if she was still there, or if she would speak to me after I ran away, or if it would be right to bring my own attention and danger onto her. Instead, I adopted a permanent disguise, learned how to defend myself in a fight, and went with Fernand's mother to the ground floor of Blueleaf, where we found a place to live. We hadn't found any more siblings or relatives in the short time we had been looking. It was just the two of us... or three."
Elise looked sadly at Fernand, horn dimming and arranging the table back to normal. "Your mother managed to get her job back. She really should have been on leave. I had enough money of my own, given in secret by supporters before I disappeared and left over from my time in Sosa, and she was far enough along to stay at home, resting. Eventually, you were born, and then she was forced to stop and live off my money. And for many months, we lived like that. I did what I could to support us. Somehow, I was never attacked and never found, even as I heard whispers of my own name everywhere I looked. Everyone said I would return one day, a destroyer to some and a savior to others. It was... hard."
Starlight's brow furrowed. "Kind of like how everyone's obsessed with how great Shinespark is, even though she never actually does anything?"
"It's interesting that you bring her up," Elise hummed, triangular hairclip glinting as her expression grew bemused. "I wonder what you'll think of what happens next..."
The rain continued its steady gray rush against the roof of Redshift's house, providing a peaceful backdrop that served to remind Starlight how glad she was to be indoors and off her hooves. Thinking back to Riverfall, she wasn't sure if Maple had a particular aversion to rain, but the mere scent of it reminded her of when she had been caught out in the mountains; her subsequent scramble for cover and week spent recuperating from catching cold. It wasn't traumatic, at least... but it left her with a healthy respect for the elements and a shiver in her spine.
Fortunately, she had cover, and not just the meager roof of a drafty cave but a mansion in the sky, with a warm robe and Maple's warmer body at her side. The ponies around her weren't overtly hostile and seemed to be doing their best to be accommodating, and much as she agreed with Redshift about the unfairness of having so much when the city below went empty-hooved, she knew better than to complain. She knew her limits, and the rest was sorely appreciated.
So, laying on a couch under high vaulted ceilings trimmed in dull reds and golds, she made the most of their hospitality, keeping her legs off the ground and her ears tuned to the gentle sound of Elise's voice. "I was living in Blueleaf," the small mare narrated, "at fifteen, and supporting myself, my friend, and my newborn brother..."
"For months after he was born, we went on like that, me living in disguise and doing what I could to support my new family. It wasn't as hard as it would have been now, of course. Times were still plentiful. Food was cheap, there were no lighting crises, the streets weren't yet filled with ponies who had fallen from the Stone District. There were fewer desperate enough to turn to criminal acts to get by, and the ponies who stood on corners and preached doom had only politics to talk about, instead of where they would find light for the night. But it wasn't easy, either."
Elise sat still on her couch, mane flowing around her, filling the orange-lit room with presence despite her small size. "It lasted for half a year, or maybe more. Sosa was stalled during that time, unable to do anything important at all. Arambai kept his scientists working on theoretical improvements to Project Aslan, though they never built or tested anything. Mobius did what he could to block him, while defending himself from accusations that he had had something to do with the crash. He was a naysayer, after all, who had disappeared hours before it happened. I had given up on my ambitions of becoming chief, or uniting my siblings, or doing anything except surviving until my name passed out of legend. And then... I found another."
Starlight stared attentively as Elise continued talking. "She was another young mother with a newborn. She had just arrived in Ironridge, I learned, and knew nothing of our city's situation... but her foal was in the exact same place as I was, another of Mobius' abandoned children."
"Hold on," Maple interrupted, "aren't you going to tell us their names?"
Elise blinked, as if having been asked the most obvious question in the world. "Oh... of course. Fernand's mother is Pearl. This new pegasus was called Matryona." She cleared her throat and continued. "When I found out why she was here, I brought her home and told her everything, and how it would be both so easy and so hard to take Mobius' job from him. But first, I listened to everything she had to say..."
She paused, recollecting. "She told me she had been a dancer, once, in a traveling troupe of performers who had come to Ironridge for that fateful launch nearly a year ago. That very night, even, was when the two of them had their stand... That was where he was, even, when the crash occurred. Her troupe left on a boat the very next day, before she even got to see him again, because there was no longer anything to celebrate in Ironridge."
Sighing bitterly, Elise sipped from the tea set with a graceful swallow. "It wasn't until she was all the way back to civilization, at the northern ends of the world, that she learned he had left her a foal. That would cost her her job, and perhaps even more. She set her sights on returning to Ironridge at all costs, not because she wanted power or prestige but because she wanted someone to take care of her. That had always been her dream, she told me."
Another sip. "She didn't know about his reputation, of course; that he never wanted children or committed relationships. She couldn't have. And when I told her what had happened to me; what was in store for anyone hoping Mobius would recognize them... it broke her. She laid on my floor and cried for an entire day, to the point where Pearl had to take care of her foal. She had worked so hard to get here, and to find that..."
"How did she make it back?" Maple asked, sitting warmly in her robe.
"In those days, the world's more ambitious ponies were starting to realize that Ironridge wasn't going to put itself fully behind making airships a mass reality, and decided to create their own," Elise answered. "They were amateur, unsafe and understaffed, but they existed. Matryona..." She refilled her teacup as she talked, kettle held gently in her aura.
"She rode in on such a ship. The captain had landed in the wilderness and was digging a mana well to recharge his power core, when she found him. She had grown desperate enough to attempt to fly to Ironridge using nothing but her own wings..." Elise squeezed her eyes shut. "A journey the strongest endurance fliers undertake in teams to challenge themselves... and she was alone, without any sort of practice or training, and carrying a full-term foal. It was a miracle she encountered him, and that he took pity on her, because otherwise she would have likely died. Yet, still, she tried it. That's how badly she wanted to make it back." She paused briefly, and swallowed. "Her foal was born on the way, on board that ship."
Maple's eyes widened, harkening back to the description on a certain statue at the gates of the Sky District museum. "Wait... so her foal was Shinespark?"
"Correct!" Elise beamed, then turned somber once again. "Now, as I was saying... after everything Matryona had risked to get here... learning about Mobius and I ruined her. And seeing her like that, part of the family I had given up on looking for... it pushed me to get back on my hooves, start taking risks, and use what influence I had to do something, if not for Ironridge then for my family. So I comforted her as best as I was able, and the very next day, all five of us set out and went to Sosa. It was the first time I had been there in nearly a year..."
Around the room, the twins lounged boredly to either side of Elise. Redshift sat attentively beside her, and Fernand lurked dutifully in the background. The rain continued its hammering outside.
"We didn't go to Mobius," Elise continued. "Instead, we went to Arambai. I knew that almost whatever we did, we would need his support, because without some kind of leverage we couldn't do anything. All I had was a claim, and if ponies backed me not because of who I was, but who I wasn't... that would only lead to disaster. The next few days..."
She smiled softly. "It's far easier to tell how it ended than everything that happened, but it made me wish I had asked that stallion for help long ago. He found a way to use Matryona and my stories to save my father from the accusations that he had been responsible for the crash, then publicly changed his stance on the airship program to agree with him. It left a lot of ponies worried and scared, feeling their champion had abandoned them, but also brought Sosa back together enough to function again. It was the most self-sacrificing attempt to unify so many ponies I've ever seen."
Her face clouded with guilt. "As for whether it was the right decision... Ironridge now has no airships, is all but ruled by Yakyakistan, suffers from worse division than ever before, and Arambai vanished nearly a decade ago. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt it was made with the interests of every pony in this city at heart. And he helped me, too."
The table glowed again as her horn came back to life, the rest of the room darkening in contrast. She chose three pieces of teaware for props once again, and began. "Pearl and Fernand had never put themselves in the spotlight like I had," she explained, maneuvering a plate and small saucer to one corner. "All they needed was money to live off of, and a way to stay off the stage. I left them all of my money. I wanted to see to their safety myself."
Another set of moved to the center. "Matryona and Shinespark, he promised to personally take care of as long as he was able. And myself...?"
The last, lone teacup flew off the table and vanished into a shadowed corner of the room. Elise watched it go, eyes growing slightly wet. "The best gift he could give me, he told me, was to leave. A ride on a boat out of Ironridge, a one-way ticket to a world where I didn't have to bear any of the burdens of such a fracturing city and could live out the rest of my childhood in peace."
Her head turned down. "When the world is a mess, and those of us who are adults fail to leave it intact for the next generation... it falls to the young to grow up fast and fix it for themselves, or fight for what they believe in. I almost did. I started to, but escaped instead. But there are influential ponies in Ironridge now who did start their careers that young, or younger... Chancellor Dior. Shinespark herself. A Defense Force commander in the Stone District called Valey. I don't envy any of them. Times are tragic when ponies need to take up a cause that early and defend it with their lives..."
Again, the table returned to normal, and she gave a deep sigh. "I left, and I didn't look back. For a long decade, I made a way for myself in the outside world, became well off, and watched as technology was pushed along by individual ponies working together because Ironridge wouldn't. I saw other governments with their own petty squabbles, and never got involved because I once again had nothing to fight for. Eventually, I found love, and my husband, and had Redshift. And one day..."
She sagged slightly, leaning forward with her shoulders pushing up against her back. "I learned that Ironridge was building a skyport. I wondered if my hometown had finally decided to lead the world like it should have been capable of... so I took my family and boarded a ship home to find out."
Wryly, she continued, "I didn't find anything of the sort. Arambai had recently vanished. Sosa's government had all but dissolved. Mobius was still there, but his sway had never fully recovered after the crash. There was a new chief, Dorable, who I knew nothing about. Instead, there was something called an economic council, made up of representatives from companies from other nations."
"They shifted power from Sosa to the Sky District," Maple breathed. "Yeah. We heard."
"Then you probably know how the story ends," Elise answered. "I went back to Mobius once more. He didn't even recognize me. I talked to the ponies once again, and my legend was dead on their lips. They were too jaded to believe in a pony who hadn't been heard of in over ten years, by then. The only upside was that I was free... so I returned to Blueleaf and once again began trying to rebuild my family."
She raised a hoof, gesturing to each of the ponies in the room with her. "These are them. Fernand and Pearl were still here, having stayed in the same place for twelve, thirteen years. I found the twins, too. There were others, but far enough away or well enough off that they didn't need or want to come live with me. Now, we're public servants, doing what we can where we can..." Her eyes closed in a final sigh. "But mostly, I sit here and remember this city's history. I watched it fall from unity and greatness. I know things about it known to almost no other ponies, not because they're forbidden but because no one will listen. I was the chosen one, once, and could do nothing but watch and hide. It's still all I do. Watch and wait as this city falls further and further into chaos, and wish someone could come to save us all."
After a long silence, she opened her eyes, and once again smiled warmly. "Thank you both for humoring me. I know it was a long story, somewhat disorderly and not all that happy or important, but I have this silly idea that somehow, all the things I've remembered will help someone else bring harmony back to Ironridge. It's my own comfort, knowing that I once could have fought and didn't, because I was afraid to choose a side. The two of you are welcome to stay here as long as you need, and if you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer."
Maple shook her head, smiling back and wrapping a hoof around Starlight. "No, I didn't mind! I like stories. They're certainly better than getting chased around tunnels and mountains and walking for dozens of miles."
Elise hummed, and for a moment, the room was at peace.
The soft orange manalights of Redshift's house were shaped like candles, set in chandeliers that hung from faintly glowing conduits of power. Between them and sconces that sat unobtrusively across the walls, they filled the room with a warm, even light, illuminating corners that otherwise would have been cast into the depths of shadow. Starlight stared up at the high window and streaking rain beyond, and was momentarily blinded by a flash of lightning.
How would that look with the power out? The window and its gloom would suddenly seem bright, casting dim gray light into the room that could change at any second, leaving sharp, long shadows on every surface and robbing objects and ponies of their color. It wouldn't feel safe, as she felt then. It would feel like being at the bottom of a hole, constantly looking up for fear that water would flood her and leave her to drown. For all the luxuries of being on the top level of Blueleaf, Starlight almost thought she would prefer to ride out a storm in the mid-levels if the power was off, clustered around other ponies for light and warmth. There, at least, the rain would be a mile away.
In the silence of their insulated sanctuary, one of the twins shuffled, then spoke up. "I'm bored," she proclaimed. "I'm gonna go read that forklift manual we found yesterday while the lights are on. You coming, Ribbon?"
"Yeah," the other grumbled, getting to her hooves and sliding down from the couch. "It doesn't look like they're going to say anything interesting, anyway."
Elise shot them a watchful glance. "Girls, be careful. Just because the lights are on now doesn't mean they couldn't go out again at any moment."
Starlight caught the frustrated, wishful look that crossed Redshift's face as the twins ignored their elder and bounded down the hall, hooves thumping on carpeted wood. Fernand shook his head and sighed. "Sister, shall I keep an eye on them? I recognize how easy it is to get excited at a time like this and throw safety to the wind..."
"Thank you, Fernand," Elise answered with a nod.
"Of course." Bowing, Fernand trotted to the door with far more dignity than his siblings. "Give a call if you need me. I shall return immediately if the power fails, either with them or having ensured their safety."
He left the door slightly ajar behind him, and Redshift eyed it, considering. "I'm sort of hungry..."
"Then go eat," Elise huffed, giving her a push toward the door. "You need to take care of yourself! Knowing you, that means you've been starving yourself to spend more time down below, or something! I appreciate how much you care for our ponies, but you have to care for yourself, too."
"I said sort of!" Redshift muttered back, fast on her way to the door. She closed it fully behind her with a click, and the lights stayed even as silence returned once more.
The gray static of pounding rain filled the room as Maple and Starlight looked at Elise, and the unicorn back at them. No words passed, and it was pleasant.
"If you're tired, I can leave you to rest," she said eventually. "Though I don't mind this, either."
"We don't mind," Maple answered, quickly shaking her head. "It's not lack of sleep that's getting us. Just..." She lifted a hoof uselessly, giving an awkward smile. "Too much walking, you know?"
Elise nodded. "I can sympathize," she replied, holding up her own hooves. "When I left Ironridge, walking was my own primary mode of transportation." Giggling softly, she added, "I learned how to tell good horseshoes apart from bad in a hurry, then. I also learned having short legs means you have to take a lot more steps to get where you're going. Hah!"
"Maybe I should look into getting those, then," Maple hummed, softly massaging the bottom of one of her forehooves. "I doubt they'd help with the cramps, but anything would be welcome..."
"Where are you going, if you don't mind me asking?" Elise tilted her head.
"To Sosa," Maple answered with a slight bit of resignation. "And before that, to Gnarlbough. There are ponies there we need to see. We'd really like to make it tonight, if possible..."
Elise thought for a moment. "That will be difficult," she said eventually. "Unless you're willing to travel under dusk, and even if you were to leave now. Depending on where you want to go in Sosa, Gnarlbough is near the very northwestern tip. All there is up there is a few warehouses that were abandoned when they rerouted the flow of the river several years back. If you go through Grand Acorn, which is the fastest way from here, Gnarlbough and the three factories are in completely opposite directions."
Maple sighed. "Well... I trust our guide knows what they're doing."
"Mmm." Elise nodded, and didn't press. The tea set remained on the table, and she stared at it, aura forming and disappearing repeatedly around the handle of a cup. "What did you say your names were, again?" she finally asked.
"I'm Maple, she's Starlight."
"Maple..." Elise stared up at the ceiling. "That sounds like a Riverfall name. My mother was from there, actually. I passed through when I was leaving Ironridge, as well. It was a beautiful place. I almost considered stopping to stay there, but felt it was still too close and wasn't fond of the idea that if I ever had children there, they would likely never know their fathers just like me... Did you once live there, too, before the shipping stopped?"
Maple looked like she had suddenly found herself in a cage. Elise quickly noticed, and sucked in a breath of concern. "If it's a sore subject, never mind that I asked. I don't want to pry into any sensitive histories."
"Thank you," Maple sighed. "I'm just... we've been in a lot of trouble lately, up in the Stone District. All we want is to finish what we're doing and get out of Ironridge, and it feels like any time we become anything more than complete strangers to somepony, they either become our enemy or want to get us in trouble... It's nothing against you, but we're scared and want to stay as close to unknown as possible. Again, I'm sorry."
"I completely understand," Elise answered gently. "I know myself what it's like to have the world breathing down your back the moment they know who you are. If it helps, my house is a haven for all. We are in private, and I won't act on anything you say, if you have things to get off your chest."
Maple sniffed and wiped her eye. "Thanks again, but... I think we'll take our chances. I can manage for a little while longer, I'm sure."
"As you wish." Elise nodded and sipped at her tea.
"You said you'd answer more questions if we had them," Starlight interrupted, changing the subject. "What's with your hairpin? The triangle one? I think I've seen it before."
"You mean this?" Elise asked, turning slightly to show off the silver clip.
"Yeah." Starlight nodded. "That."
"An interesting question." Elise smiled bemusedly. "I haven't been asked about it in a long time, actually, mostly because here in the Earth District, there aren't very many ponies who know what it means. This symbol, three triangles forming a single greater one, is Chancellor Dior's brand."
"Really?" Maple leaned forward in interest. Then she whispered aside to Starlight, "When did you see it?"
"Doesn't matter," Starlight replied. The symbol, she recalled, had been on a pendant Arambai owned that she saw the first time she went to his house, but she wasn't about to say she knew the former Sosan chief so soon after Maple had declined to tell Elise her own tale. "So why do you have it?"
"Nopony knows for certain what it means," Elise answered, the room softly darkening in contrast as her horn lit again. Light traced its way across the table, forming the gently rotating glyph around the teapot. "Or what it does. There are theories... Some ponies think it bears a passing resemblance to to a symbol the yaks use called the Emblem of the Nine Virtues. Others think it represents balance; a leadership trait that would help explain how Dior managed to get and keep his job while he was so young. Between the three races of ponies, some would say... though they can't agree on what the empty middle means, if anything at all. However, without any explanation, what it ultimately means is what ponies see it as, and that is the symbol of the leader of Ironridge."
The burning pattern lifted off the table, breaking into three pieces that swirled and danced around each other like colored fire in the night, the room's normal manalights mere pinpricks shining against the blanket of Elise's projection. "As such, anyone who claims they have a right to rule the city wears it as a statement of defiance," she continued, horn glowing softly against the darkness. "In the Spirit of Sosa, Braen has it emblazoned on her armor. Shinespark has a clip much like mine she often wears, as an acknowledgement of what her ponies expect of her. And as for me?" She adjusted the clip slightly in her magic, and turned her head to hide it from view. "I wear this as a reminder of what I could have done, had I found a way to act twenty years ago."
"...Huh." Starlight sat still, pondering. How did Arambai say he came by his triangle pendant, again? Was it a gift from a friend? Elise had said she left Shinespark and her mother in his care. Maybe it was her... "What happened to Shinespark after you left her with Arambai?"
Elise shook her head. "I didn't learn that for nearly thirteen years, until I returned to Ironridge to find him already gone. When I got back, her mother, Matryona, was one of the first ponies I sought out. I found her amid the Sosan elite, well-dressed and groomed. She told me after he had agreed to take care of her, they fell in love, and he took her as his own wife..."
Maple's eyes widened. "So that's why he never showed any interest in other mares..."
"Hmm?" Elise looked up. "Pardon?"
"I didn't say anything!" Maple quickly gasped.
Elise watched her with a mix of pity and worry, then continued. "I offered to let them come live with me, and told them me and my family were going to re-establish lives here in Ironridge. They politely declined. Matryona was well-off, and while her history with the chiefs made her interesting to the local ponies, she didn't lead a bad life. If she had, I would have been ill-equipped to protect her."
A far-off look grew in her eyes as she continued. "Shinespark, though... she was an intense filly. She reminds me of how Redshift is now, only she had no brand, and aimed even higher. It's been interesting, watching her grow over the last seven years. She's taken the legend I had, as Mobius' lost daughter, the returning heir to Ironridge, and made it so much more than I ever did. She doesn't split the city like me; the Sosans want her to bring back their glory and the Stone District sees her as the voice of reason next to the Spirit. She has a middle ground, and somehow truly manages to please everyone."
Lightning flashed again outside the window, and the rain redoubled in strength. "Part of it is because she doesn't do very much," Elise narrated. "Before the crash, everyone in Ironridge truly was optimistic about the world. During my time, they were too jaded and scared to rally around any kind of symbol of peace, because the memory of having those kinds of aspirations and seeing them destroyed was too raw, and there was too much tension between those who rejected it and who clung to it. Now, the ponies are even more scared and desperate... enough that they're ready to believe in anything, even if it is too good to be true."
She lowered her muzzle and sighed. "That is what happened to Shinespark. She became Ironridge's symbol of hope and justice. She doesn't do, she inspires. She gives the ponies the strength to face another day, knowing that there's an entire district just up or just down the mountain who fears and sometimes hates them and the divide just keeps growing. Is she lying to them, that there's some old ideal worth fighting for? If there isn't, does it matter that she is? It truly is a sign of these times that a pony like her can do so much for the soul of such a city and not even have a brand..."
Starlight looked at her own flank, lilac and smooth, unmarred by sigils of any sort. Her mind flashed back to a time, far away, when she carried a box of ashes and a dusty cutout mask... and suddenly, she asked, "If having one would mean so much, why doesn't she make a fake one?"
Elise blinked. "What?"
"I mean..." Starlight blinked back. "I used to want ponies to stop pestering me about not having one of my own, so I made a filter and painted one on using ashes..."
"Oh..." Elise visibly relaxed. "That's good. I thought you were talking about the... never mind. I suppose because it wouldn't be very honest? She's supposed to be a role model. And then if she ever did get a real one, she would have a lot of explaining to do..."
"The what?" Starlight leaned in curiously, suddenly remembering how Valey had reacted the last time she had asked about ponies who didn't have brands. She almost pressed further, but the uncomfortable look on her host's face made her reconsider. She didn't want to be rude to the pony who was keeping them out of the rain, after all.
"Right." Maple nodded, then broke off into a yawn. Sighing, then stretching, she said, "If I don't get back on my hooves, I'm going to cramp even worse, but I don't want to... Ugh. I suppose we just wait here until our friend gets back?"
"I assume so," Elise answered. "That is what was said. I can get something to eat, if you like, or leave you to rest? We also mentioned horseshoes earlier?"
"Something to eat would be nice," Starlight announced, untangling herself slightly from her robe. "I'm kind of hungry too."
With a meaty thump and a delirious groan, Neon Nova's unconscious body hit the cobbled streets of the Stone District, landing right in front of the entrance to the Defense Force headquarters.
Two seconds later, Valey landed beside him, furling her wings and casually blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Whew!" she panted, straightening her hat. "Fatty. Should have just launched you here with a catapult, or something. Off to jail, off to jail..."
Humming merrily, she dragged him by a hind leg into the building, maximizing scuffs and damage to his already-ruined performer's suit. A host of pegasi looked up from tables where they were sipping coffee and chatting around hands of cards, several opting to instantly leave, and the pony tending to the drink counter instantly rolled down the cover on their window, signaling that they were closed.
"What?" Valey gave them all a peeved look. "I'm picking on this guy today. You can all... have a vacation, or something." She hoisted Neon slightly for emphasis, then dropped him back to the ground and continued dragging, grumbling slightly.
That was the biggest problem with doing things that helped ponies in ways that let them know she was actually helping, Valey reflected as she walked. The moment someone thanked her for what she'd done, if what Redshift had said even counted as thanks, completely spoiled her. Dirty glares would come her way whether she was naughty or nice, so she had little choice but to relish them... and that was a whole lot easier when she could convince herself nothing else was possible. Silently, she resolved to pull some sort of prank on Maple and Starlight when she got back; nothing that would hurt them but just enough to make them annoyed with her, to keep them from getting too cozy and making her complacent in turn.
She was so busy brooding that she almost missed the sound of approaching hoofsteps coming toward her in the hall. Dropping Neon's carcass at the last possible moment, she faded into the wall... and watched with a silent chuckle as Selma rounded the corner, stopping with wide eyes to avoid tripping on the passed-out unicorn blocking the way. Two pegasi accompanied him, and both collided with their captain, unprepared for his abrupt halt.
Selma's mouth twitched, and he turned to his guards. "Whoever this is isn't on my payroll. Get them out of this fortress!"
"Oh, him? That's my fault!" Valey stuck her head down from the ceiling, taking care not to let her hat fall off as Selma's guards stepped back in a panic.
Selma himself took a full second to find her, then frowned. "Fault?"
"Yeah." Valey grinned. "I was going to leave him in your office, but was feeling lazy and figured here was as good a place as any. I have good tastes, right?"
"No comment," Selma droned. "Now, what has this citizen done to earn your affections?"
"Him?" Valey asked, sliding down the wall, half-in and half-out of the shadows. "He was actually a legit troublemaker. I caught him down in Blueleaf. You should be proud of me." She licked a hoof and ran it over her ears. "Confirmed responsible for the misery and suffering of probably thousands. I couldn't let him outdo me, so I had to take him down! Figured I'd lock him up before getting back to business, you know?"
Selma nodded. "I wondered what brought you back after you said you would be gone for the day. Very well. Allow me to take care of his incarceration for you so as not to delay your return. Will the flame barracks be sufficient?"
"Aww, that's swell, Selmey-Welmey!" Valey blushed, waving a hoof in front of her face.
"...What are you doing?" Selma's eyes narrowed, stepping forward so his guards could reach Neon's body.
Valey's cheer evaporated, and she climbed onto the floor. "Right there? Protesting you firing that cute barista from the front counter a week ago and replacing her with a fat stallion. But if it's not gonna make you feel awkward, I guess I'm wasting my time. Believe it or not, I actually am in a hurry."
"In that case..." Selma smirked back. "I'll have you know my day is going much too perfectly for anything you can do to ruin it. That noisy griffon with the crates was in here earlier, and all it took was a bit of acting, patience and running in circles to get him exactly where we wanted."
"Don't challenge me. I live for breaking those." Valey pointed a hoof at Selma's chest. "And you do know that whatever you and Herman are planning, he's got twice as many plans to screw you over behind your back, right?"
"Silly Valey," Selma tittered, "that's you he has plans for. Of course, you're probably right, but more than one can play at that game, and I assure you I'm up to the task. Speaking of Herman and days going swimmingly, I have something that will completely make yours: he's in the upper conference room right now, and would very much like to speak with you."
Valey froze, scanning his eyes for signs of deceit. Then again, did it really matter? If Herman had specific orders for her, he had more than enough ways of making her regret not jumping to them. She didn't have much of a choice... but dealing with both him and Selma at once would be even worse.
Suddenly grinning, she seized on the only option she had. "Race you!"
Her green-and-black trail raced off down the corridor, leaving Selma choking in a cloud of dust.
Valey burst through the conference room doors, skidding to a halt in front of the central table. Herman stood behind it, ignoring the flimsy metal chairs that were many sizes too small for his yakkish girth. His face was impassive, framed by the west-facing window that gave a perfect view of the late-afternoon sun. Several dusty vending machines stood in one corner, and an empty weapon rack adorned the other. In front of him, on the table, sat a large, lumpy object covered by a tarp, and aside from that, the room was empty.
"Bosssssss!" Valey grinned broadly, with all the fake cheer in the world. "What can I quickly get over with for you today so I can get back to my routine of being an admirable admiral and citizen?"
Herman nodded imperceptibly, cutting straight to the chase. "I need you to make a delivery to the project room," his deep, distant-thunder voice rumbled.
"The proje..." Valey's brow furrowed. "Why can't you do it... Oh, you mean that project."
Herman's gray, one-horned face stared back at her. "Indeed."
"Heh heh..." Valey chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. "Wow, it's been so long since you asked me to go down there I was wondering if you had forgotten why you hired me." Her tone became slightly more serious. "But like seriously, I'm actually doing something kind of important and that's a really long way to go just for an errand. Do I have to? Or, I mean, can I do it later? Like tonight?"
"You cannot." Herman shook his head, then pulled off the tarp, revealing two muddy, unmarked crates on the table, one looking as if its lid had been removed and hastily reapplied. "These crates have been the object of some contention recently, and I want them placed where they belong before they can cause any further drama. Ideally, they will not factor into things at all, but it is always wise to have a backup. Deliver them now."
"Uhhh..." Valey squinted unhappily at the crates. "You know, those things are bigger than I am, and if I try to carry both at once something's probably going to break... and no promises it won't be any doorframes I pass through. Can I at least get some mooks to help me lug them to the elevator?"
Herman smiled broadly. "Make two trips!"
High above the Earth District where Starlight and Maple sat listening to Elise tell stories of the past, above the Stone District caves and tunnels where Valey grumpily lugged crates one at a time and pegasi with shabby spears sat and talked and wondered when they would get to fight for their city, above the barrier of wind where hot air and cold collided and flurries of snow turned to rain on their way to the jungle below, big dark clouds billowed, flowing down the mountains from the south and the east, sweeping across the Sky District and burying it in white. They poured like a river from an origin nopony knew, reinforcing the glacier that served as the headwaters of the Yule and blotting out the sun.
White specks hammered against the magically-reinforced glass domes of the skyport, rising above the snowdrifts on stalks like metal mushrooms. Eagerly, the snow tried to coat them, and slid off every time, unable to stick to the masterfully-crafted materials, iron crossbeams that acted as supports providing scant purchase against the wind.
Within the biggest dome, a pair of pegasi sat in a neon-glowing kiosk, watching and waiting as ponies paced or ran to their destinations. One huddled within a thick, patchwork quilt, nose slightly red as she sipped from a warm thermos.
"Wow, Slipstream," her friend said, staring up at the dark sky through the central atrium's glass roof high above. "Sure is a good thing you weren't caught in this while chasing that handsome griffon around, you think?"
"Give it a rest, Updraft," Slipstream mumbled past swollen sinuses. "I told you I don't regret it. All it is is a little... Snrrk! Little cold! Besides, maybe he'll be back to thank me."
"Eh. It's not like we've got anything else to talk about." Updraft shrugged, tossing her orange mane. "All the flights are getting delayed because nobody wants to land in this storm, so there are no ponies to ask questions." She pointed at their empty line, stretching and spreading her wings. "It'll be bad when they all land at once, sure, but... Nngh..." She yawned. "I just think it's cool you have a thing for griffons. Wish I could've seen him, the way you're going on."
"Well..." Slipstream blustered, trying to change the subject. "What about the ponies who want to leave and can't? Hmm?"
Updraft stretched massively, back arching and wings tingling as they reached for the sky. "Probably all on their ships waiting for takeoff. Or looking at that huge screen at the entrance telling everyone what the times are like so we don't have to." She leaned down to a monitor, eyes scanning across changing shapes and text. "Oh look, the comms tower says one is actually landing. I wonder if it's a big model, the storm's letting up, or they're actually in a hurry enough to take the risk?"
"Really?" Slipstream leaned in next to her, their ears brushing as they both tried to read the tiny text. "Huh. It has a Yakyakistani certificate, so I guess they're just familiar enough with cold weather to try it."
"Yeah..." Updraft breathed, not pulling away even though her friend had a cold. "That's weird. They don't have a chartered flight number."
"Not really," Slipstream answered, pulling back and sneezing into a corner. "Yakyakistan has part of their fleet on permanent sky duty. They just go wherever they please, or where their leaders direct them. I think there are two near Ironridge. They just land every few weeks or so to resupply and give the crew some land time. It's probably one of them."
Updraft's ears perked in interest. "Really? A job like that actually sounds kind of cool."
"Watch," Slipstream said, nodding. "One of those gates, a whole bunch of ponies will come out of who look really glad to be on the ground. I think you weren't on shift last time it happened?"
They both sat, watching. True to Slipstream's predictions, a herd of slightly-dazed-looking ponies tumbled out of an entrance on the far side of the room, wearing thick fluffy coats and happily beelining for the exit to the Stone District. Updraft pouted. "Doesn't look like any of them are coming to talk to us. That's lame."
"No... look..." Slipstream pointed a hoof, reluctantly poking it out of her blanket. A lone figure had broken off from the group and was making its way around the room toward them, rather than targeting the exit. She squinted. "I can't really see what they look like."
"They're wearing a cloak," Updraft announced as they got closer. "A full-body one. Spooky!"
The pony slowly made their way to the counter, as if taking care not to walk with audible hoofsteps, a long black hooded traveling cloak wrapped around them and tightened at the face, completely obscuring them from sight. There was a point in the hood where a horn might be, and a shadowed pair of eyes looked out over a rounded muzzle. In a mare's voice, the pony hesitantly spoke: "Is... this the information desk?"
"It... it..." Slipstream sniffed back a sneeze that wanted to come at the worst time. "It is..."
"You're certainly dressed for the weather," Updraft proclaimed, folding her forelegs across her chest in a complimentary manner.
The cloaked pony stared back at them. "So are you," she said, evidently addressing Slipstream, though her eyes were hard to see. "...My coat attracts a lot of attention," she eventually explained. "Showing it off doesn't usually get me where I'm going any quicker."
Her cold making it easier to force down the curiosity the mare's words piqued, Slipstream asked, "So then, how can we help you?"
"You're not going to press?" The mare stumbled over her words, as if legitimately surprised they hadn't asked. "Interesting. I... haven't been here before. Can you tell me how to find the yak embassy? There's something important there I need to do."
"Uhh..." Updraft blinked. "Sure thing! Let me get you some paper for a map and directions..."
A large shadow swept across the streets of the Stone District, Gerardo Guillaume's powerful wings carrying him smoothly between the sun and the ponies below. Sharpie flapped along behind him, panting, the inspector's gray body suited more for other things than rapid flight. He restrained himself slightly so she could keep up; she was the closest thing to an ally he had at the moment, and that was something he desperately needed.
"I believe we're almost to the hotel!" he announced, turning his head back over his shoulder. He meant it to be reassuring, but the strained glare on her face told him he was merely showing off his ability to talk while keeping that flight speed. Embarrassed, he locked his beak and looked straight ahead.
They landed shortly, Gerardo touching down with grace and padding smoothy to a stop, turning back to straighten a single errant feather. Behind him, Sharpie hit the ground hard, red-faced from exertion and panting heavily. Her wings took several seconds to fold, and if she were to try to talk, it wouldn't be hard for Gerardo to guess what she would say.
He would have to try even harder to go slow, he resolved, since the alternative - offering her a ride - would be thrown back in his face faster than a runaway cart on Ironridge's steep roads. Still, he couldn't be too hard on her. A partner with a badly-injured pride was better than none at all, even if she was also painfully slow, and he had been pressing to go fast.
While she recovered, he set his sights on the hotel that was their target, hoping eagerly Maple and Starlight would have found their way back after the previous night... assuming Selma had been telling the truth. He didn't trust the military unicorn one bit, but his words and the video feed he had seen on the security cameras were all he had to go on, and it was best to hope for the best.
Surrounded by dusty cobbled streets with busy ponies passing in both directions, Gerardo marched up to the hotel's outer desk. "Excuse me," he began, "can you...?"
The mare squinted at him, then interrupted. "Hey, I remember you! You were... oh! Excuse me, where are my manners? You were asking?"
"Erm... yes." Gerardo coughed; at least it was the same receptionist from before. "You may recall I had two friends with me, and we reserved a room together. Can you possibly tell me if they returned for the night? We have... become separated, and I am trying to find them."
"They sure did." The mare nodded. "Let me see..." She turned to a technical-looking terminal covered in brass pins, then looked up. "Their door was unlocked a little past midnight this morning, and then they checked out about one, one and a half hours ago. They had a message for you, actually. Said if you came asking for them that they were making their way toward Sosa." She shrugged, curling her lip. "Personally, I don't know what you'd want with ponies who are going to Sosa, but it's your life, not mine. They were with that Valey, too. Careful around her, she's rotten to the core."
"I... see. Many thanks." Gerardo nodded, then stepped back. "Well, it seems my business here has concluded, so farewell!"
He turned around and nearly bumped into Sharpie. "Well, this is fortunate!" he proclaimed. "It seems my friends are not only safe as of several hours ago, but are moving in the direction we need to go. I believe it would serve us best to be on our way to Sosa, then? So long as we follow the roads, we should see them if we pass them, and otherwise draw closer to our final destination."
Sharpie had managed to control her breathing enough to talk. "So you want to have another cross-country race all the way to Sosa. Is... is that it?" she puffed, face still red.
"Well..." Gerardo shuffled on his talons, pleasant mountain air stirring around him. "Now that we have confirmed my friends' recent safety, I should think we are in considerably less of a hurry. So long as we reach Sosa before sundown..." He blinked at the sun, more than halfway across the sky. "I imagine everything will be fine. And we don't want to miss anything by going too fast, of course."
Her pink eyes glared back at him, torn between frustration at her own slowness and his implication of it, but in the end, there was nothing she could do. "Thanks," she finally admitted. "Let's... go, then."
She took off at a slow walk, not even spreading her wings. Gerardo blinked, then followed, figuring he could press later. "Well, all right. I suppose we can walk. Though it will mean considerably longer until we catch up..."
Over an hour later, having scoured the roads of the Stone District and reasonably sure Starlight and Maple were ahead of them, Gerardo glided slowly along the surface of a dirt road as it wound into the Earth District, Sharpie flapping slightly more comfortably at his side. The pegasus was still getting worn out, he could tell, and his primary concern was thinking of a way they could stop to rest without triggering her dislike of feeling useless.
Get to Sosa. Find Maple and Starlight. Get his sword, if possible. Warn someone important of the bombs they had discovered attached to the dam... and let them decide what to do about it. And then, find Gunga the ferry operator and get a ride back to Riverfall. Hopefully Amber had found a way to repair his boat... and from there, he would see where life took him. Gerardo rolled his plans around in his mind as he drifted, solidifying it with each turn. There was enough flexibility and enough goals he could drop that it should have been foolproof... though he was too smart to really believe in such a thing.
Suddenly, he squinted and slowed to a halt, a towering wall of wood and occasional bits of metal looming out of the forest, a jagged, blocky and dimly-lit canyon cutting through it where the road continued. "What have we here? A settlement, of some sort?"
"Blueleaf," Sharpie narrated at his side. "It's the place where most of the economic dropouts from the eastern part of the Stone District end up. I used to keep a loose eye on it because it seems like a good place to do off-the-record business, but haven't checked for a long time. If your friends were smart, they wouldn't have wasted any time here. It isn't a very safe city."
Gerardo nodded. "Well, I have full faith in their intelligence. Shall we fly over? We can't have caught up to them at this rate, assuming they are on hoof and didn't dally."
Sharpie shrugged, squinting into the city street herself. "It looks far too dark in there. Sure."
Once again regretting that he wasn't armed, Gerardo took wing and soared up and over the ramshackle wall of building edges, gaining height swiftly. He leveled off at the top... for a given value of top, that was. The city roof was uneven, in some places spiked with random spires, in others depressed in valleys for plazas, and largely supporting a maze-like, walled in structure of brighter colors and neater roofs that might have been a gated community.
"I can't fathom how all this doesn't come tumbling down," he muttered, winging forward across the chaotic architecture.
Gerardo looked, and just as she had said, the city was rapidly coming aglow with flickering, orange energy. He shrugged. "Perhaps it grew late enough at night?"
Sharpie shrugged back. "I heard something about them having power shortages recently, but don't know the details. But..." Something compelled her to turn around, and her coat completely bristled. "Maybe we shouldn't sit around talking?"
"Hmm?" Gerardo turned as well... and likewise recoiled. A hefty wall of clouds was pouring down from the mountains, its haze of rain already visible, threatening to overrun them in minutes. "...Ah. Yes, that could be something we don't wish to get caught out in..."
"I don't want to look for shelter here..." Sharpie hesitantly grumbled, an unspoken but on her lips.
Gerardo nodded. "And my friends would not have doubled back to find it. If we stop, they will undoubtedly get further ahead. I nominate that we proceed with haste, and try merely to outrun the storm."
A smile and a grimace fought for dominance on Sharpie's face. "You aren't very familiar with Ironridge weather, are you?"
"This," Sharpie growled, fat raindrops drumming on the ground around her, "is extremely embarrassing."
"However, it is certainly effective," Gerardo shot back, shaking his wet, windblown crest away from his eyes. "And you did agree to it. Furthermore, at a glance I would say you are benefiting far more than me."
Sharpie said nothing, her dry mane and suit excellently proving Gerardo's point as the muddy road whizzed by below. She couldn't argue with that.
"Furthermore," Gerardo continued, wings beating periodically to power their glide, "were we to stop now, there wouldn't have been much of a point to doing this to begin with! And as generous and self-sacrificing as I fancy myself, that does seem the slightest bit wasteful of my efforts."
Below the gliding griffon, Sharpie dangled unhappily, two talons clutched around her barrel and holding her as close in Gerardo's rain shadow as possible. In the windless forest corridors of the Earth District, there was no wind to blow rain in from the front or side, and the formation proved effective for both dryness and speed. The cost, of course, was that the pegasus hated being treated like cargo, and Gerardo was having poor luck trying to make her take it better.
"I suppose we could always have stayed in that last town," he chirped, far too upbeat for the pounding rain. "We would at least be certain my friends would still be ahead of us, doing that!"
"Blueleaf is not a vacation town," Sharpie grumbled back, bad options milling around her like sheep. "I did agree to this, okay? Now stop rubbing it in!"
"My apologies!" Wisely, Gerardo closed his beak, letting the rain hiss down in silence as they passed.
"So..." he said eventually, eyes flicking through the dimly-lit foliage. "I presume the weather is a safe topic of conversation? How exactly does a storm of this size manage to come down from the mountains? In more northerly parts of the world, the rule seems to be that it rains when the clouds are going up, not coming back down. I'm foggy on the precise details, but was expecting something a little less..." He chanced a glance at the heavy, dark clouds, showing no signs of letting up on all horizons.
Sharpie shrugged stiffly in his grasp. "Maybe the storms are so big that this is what survives making it up. Maybe the mountains are cursed. Nobody's ever made it far enough to see where they come from and lived to talk about it."
Nobody... except one little filly. Gerardo bit his tongue, letting the conversation die the death it wanted and thinking about Starlight. In exchange for his delivery, the yaks had promised him a writ of passage to the Plains of Harmony... a delivery that was beyond the realm of possibility, or at least too shrouded in risk and mystery to even consider pursuing further. Suppose he succeeded in everything else, in recovering his sword and friends and making an escape unharmed to Riverfall. What then?
Starlight didn't seem inclined to go back, from absolutely everything he had gathered, and he had no intentions of forcing her, but were he to attempt retracing her steps, he would need a guide. How would that work? Would it work? Did it even matter?
It didn't, he decided. Nothing was more important than the immediate goals of staying safe and leaving Ironridge. There would be plenty of time later to find a course of action everyone found fair.
With Sharpie still dangling in his clutches, he soared off down the rainy road, keenly intent on making progress as fast as possible.
"Well, this certainly seems to be a bother."
Gerardo hovered before a crafted archway made of bamboo, carved imagery of acorns adorning both posts. Beyond, the road proceeded straightly, a continuous wall of wooden buildings lining either side, far lower and much further apart than the ones in Blueleaf. He stared down the main street, resisting the instinct to scratch his chin and thereby drop Sharpie in the mud.
"It's Grand Acorn," Sharpie grumbled back, struggling to get more comfortable. "The richest town in the Earth District. Can we find somewhere to wait out this rain? Please? Or at least put me down?"
Gerardo frowned. "Well, yes. But the issue here is that we haven't found my friends yet, and as they surely weren't past this city when the rain began, it means they must now be here..."
"Yes, yes, and we don't want to pass them." Struggling faintly against his hold, Sharpie huffed. "They aren't going to leave before it stops raining if they're here, so we should stop too!"
"...How long do rainstorms like these usually last?" Gerardo asked, hovering in place against the rain.
Sharpie looked at the ground. "Between several hours and two weeks."
"Ah. Well, then, I suppose waiting is out of the question." Gerardo darted forward against her protests, into the city. "Selma informed us we had thirty hours perhaps several hours ago, and I hardly imagine my friends have the means or the desire to stay in one place for that long, especially if this city is indeed affluent. Let us press on to Sosa, and await them there!"
"No!" Sharpie kicked. "We're stopping and you're going to put me down! I need some time to myself or I'm going to freak out! Please..."
"Very well, very well!" Gerardo carefully maintained his grip on the thrashing pegasus, soaring upward and adjusting his course slightly east. "We'll find an awning and camp the exit, then. At the very least, will that suffice?"
"Yesss..." Sharpie whined, eager to be free.
Pow!
Sharpie exploded from Gerardo's grasp the moment the town's eastern exit drew near, zipping under the eaves of what looked like a plumbing store with far more speed than she had exhibited while traveling earlier. Huffing, she sat, putting her back to the building and meticulously preening, straightening the crumples in her suit and furrows in her fur where the griffon's talons had grabbed her.
"...You are all right, of course?" Gerardo asked, gliding up beside her and landing a safe distance away. "I'm sure you were able to see the necessity of-"
"Leave it. Please." Sharpie didn't raise her head to look at him. "I know I have issues, okay? You're not the only one who has to deal with them." She heaved a fast, noisy sigh, and massaged her temple. "I need a vacation so badly... All I want is to do one thing that lets me feel like I actually helped this miserable, forsaken pit of a city and me and Brightcoil are out of here. One more thing... one more thing..." She started mumbling, shivered, and continued. Gerardo frowned sympathetically.
He didn't dare do anything, though. So, leaving the pegasus to her sulking, he took up an eastward vigil, watching the gate to the road to Sosa like a soggy sentinel and hoping against luck that his lost friends would walk by.
When the rain let up, it was with a red tinge to the clouds in thin spots where the sunset shone over the mountains. The Earth District valley was already bathed in dusk, making the backlit stormclouds' illumination all that more apparent.
"...Hmm," Gerardo mused, sniffing at the petrichor that filled the air. "I'm no pegasus, but I would hazard a guess that this break will be long enough for travelers to dare press on?"
Sharpie had recovered as much as she was going to, and sniffed beside him, tasting the air on the back of her mouth. "Probably," she agreed with a nod. "Are we waiting or going to Sosa now? It's late, and your friends might be stopping for the night."
"If I'm not mistaken..." Gerardo clicked his beak, thinking. "Some time shortly after sunset would be when it is most optimal to find ourselves in Sosa. Seeing as we haven't seen them pass by yet, it is very possible they opted to press on ahead of us in the rain, and we never truly caught up. I'm inclined to suggest we press on ourselves, and if we did indeed pass them, so be it. There doesn't seem to be anything here outwardly suggesting this town is not safe, at least."
"This is Dangerous Karma's town," Sharpie added, flicking a wing. "I've investigated him before to look for connections, but as far as I've seen he's a legitimate businessstallion who is neutral to the Stone District and dislikes the Spirit. That means they're not welcome here, so it should be one of the safest places in the Earth District."
"Dangerous Karma?" Gerardo blinked, grinning despite himself. "Now that's quite the interesting name. Have I heard it before? It sounds... difficult to forget."
Sharpie shrugged. "Maybe," she replied, staring down the east-west boulevard at the dim signs of the sunset. "He owns most of the Earth District's means of production. Almost all of its money goes through him. He's strange, but showed me his ledgers himself. You can't deny that his methods work."
"And neither do I care to." Gerardo shook his head, still damp from the flight from Blueleaf. "Ponies who are not my enemies I would very much like to keep that way. Although..." His eyes narrowed, in the process of forming a plan. "I wonder, would attempting to get him as an ally prove beneficial? If his influence is as great as you say..."
"No." Sharpie instantly shut him down. "He isn't like Stone District ponies, or the yaks. Getting involved in every last thing that sounds interesting is like candy to them, but he knows how to keep his hooves clean and far away from string and ropes. If he thinks you're trouble, and he will, he won't help. And aren't we supposed to be going to Sosa to warn them of a bomb attached to their dam?"
"Yes, yes... quite..." Gerardo hung his head. "Alas, it was worth a shot. Set the pace, if you would?"
Sharpie soured slightly, but thankfully took up the lead, flapping her way over the muddy ground and out the eastern gate of the city.
The tree trunks got straighter as the sky darkened and the road progressed, the ground having leveled to flat long ago. There were no travelers walking against them; apparently any Sosan workers who dwelt in Grand Acorn had already returned home for the day. At least their hours weren't unreasonable, Gerardo thought... unless the truth was that the workers hadn't yet begun their return, or the even more morbid scenario that there simply weren't any workers to return in the first place.
He shook his head, clearing his mind of jungle shadows. Even the Earth District night was warm, though it was still considerably cooler than the roads earlier in the day. The road they traveled was closed in on both sides by a thin, metal fence, and straight enough that sticking near the ground was just as fast as winging through the sky.
To one side, across the fence, a set of wooden poles ran, wires strung between them likely as a long-distance energy relay. Communication, perhaps? Gerardo watched them rise and fall in arcs between the poles, his mind idly counting the number of bushes growing between each pair as a means of passing time.
To the other, a largely overgrown field stretched, covered in young saplings, hefty shrubs, and tall, wild grass. He got the impression that both sides of the road had been cleared, once, and left to go wild many years ago. How far back had these been abandoned? Ten years? Or perhaps more, following the airship crash he had read about with Starlight and Maple in the museum?
"I hope," he murmured, breaking the long silence, "that there are no planned deliveries the Sosans are making tonight which the Spirit intend to rob. It would be rather unpleasant to be held up by two of those in two days."
Sharpie said nothing back. Gerardo didn't know what he wanted her to say; on a practical level his words had been true, yet part of him was eager to confirm whether Braen still possessed his sword. But in the distance above, clouds continued to push each other on, and as he pushed on himself the road continued uneventfully without signs of delivery or attack.
Eventually, they came to a fork in the road, a branch that looked even better-used than the way to Grand Acorn splitting off to the right. Gerardo turned his head to look down it, careful not to pass Sharpie while he was distracted.
At some point, he realized, the roads had become paved, because the southern path was made of concrete, shiny with water and split frequently so it could drain. He blinked, looking up. "Are we-?"
Ahead, the road broadened, proceeding through a massive metal arch higher than the domes in the Sky District before splitting into a plaza, empty and wide and covered in miscellaneous guiding lines and markings. Forming its back was a wall of corrugated aluminum, crisscrossed with dirty glass windows and forming the side of a warehouse at least five stories tall, its base lined with large retracting doors atop a dock high enough above the ground to easily load or unload materials from docked carts. Several of those carts sat at their docks, free of ponies to pull them, wooden and high-fronted and identical in design to the one Gerardo had rode to the Stone District on the previous morning.
He swallowed, craning his neck. "I take it we have arrived at Sosa, then?"
Sharpie nodded, not at all impressed. "Yeah, this is Sosa. Now, where are we going from here?"
Gerardo landed on the concrete of the Sosan loading plaza, paws and talons splashing slightly in water that hadn't fully drained. His neck wanted to look up, at the distant edge where the giant warehouse's roof finally stopped climbing, but he knew the route forward would be lower down and forced himself to scan the ground instead. Several abandoned carts, left docked until morning... cargo doors to the warehouse, all closed for the evening... there!
He perked up and strolled forward, aiming for a smaller, ground-level door at the far edge of the wall. Sharpie flapped alongside him, pink eyes off in a world of blankets, coffee and corners that didn't have conspiracies lurking beyond.
"Well, this seems as good a place as any to begin..." Gerardo reached for the door handle, designed with unicorn telekinesis in mind but just as easily serviceable with griffon talons. It clicked, began to swing open... and immediately halted with a rattle of chains from beyond. He frowned.
"Locked?" Unhappily, Gerardo wedged his eye into the door crack, peering through in a manner only a bird could, and spied several thick chains and shackles stretching between the wall and the door. Disappointedly, he plucked at one with a talon, and it gave a metallic rattle.
"This is a shame," he pouted, withdrawing. "It is at times like this I sincerely miss having my sword. It would be able to slice through this obstruction nigh instantaneously!"
Sharpie gave him a look, and he blinked. "What?"
"Ugh..." she huffed, flapping to keep her hooves dry. "We want Sosa to take us seriously about an incredibly important manner when you're already a nobody and I'm someone who has spent the last few years unsuccessfully accusing them of laundering money to Yakyakistan, and you think it will help our case to cut a lock and break in to their factory?"
Gerardo blinked again. "Oh, yes, I suppose that would be easy to take the wrong way... My apologies. Shall we search for a less-illegal way in? I believe I see one of those windows above to be broken..."
Thunk. Sharpie's hoof met her forehead, and she groaned.
"Look," Gerardo said impatiently, beginning to grow flustered. "It is imperative that we meet with someone, and it is preferable that that someone be Shinespark. In order to do that, logic dictates that we find someone to take us there, does it not? So our primary concern should be running into more ponies, and that involves getting inside!"
"Shinespark mostly stays in the Alpha Factory," Sharpie pointed out. "On the northern bank of the river. So why are you trying to get in here?"
"...I knew that." Gerardo turned away, muttering. "I knew that, I knew that... Very well! In that case, let us take wing once again!"
Once again, Gerardo and Sharpie winged their way north, across desolate Sosan courtyards and empty or abandoned construction, this time in search of the Yule. Above, the clouds were thinning, allowing the air to actually brighten for the last few hours of daylight before the sun set for real. It had still passed below the mountains, however, so even as the sky grew lighter, no shadows were cast and gloom seeped through every bush, fence, empty shed and dormant kiln they passed. Before long, the southern bank unfolded into sight, fringed by tall grasses and rusted machines leading up to a well-reinforced shore, erosion held at bay by carefully-stacked boulders.
They soared out over the water, broad enough to be considered a lake and edged on both sides by open-back warehouses, docks with roofs and heavy maintenance equipment that could be entered without leaving the river. Some were lit, revealing interiors laced with support girders and beams, and all were empty, their docks waiting for seafarers that would never come.
"Odd, isn't it?" Gerardo muttered. "You'd think that if they have no cause to set sail, the boats would still be here, as they have nowhere else to be. Was it a sensitive subject, perhaps, and they wanted them out of sight?"
"There's a shipyard to the west," Sharpie answered, flapping hard to keep up with him, the night air chilling further as they began to leave the protective mountain bowl of the Earth District. "Once the skyport opened and everyone who was going to leave left, they took all the remaining ships and moored them there, then redirected the river to drain that area so the ships wouldn't take water damage from years of disuse, in case they were ever needed again. It was Shinespark's idea, I think."
Gerardo slowed down, letting her pass him, and she continued. "I've never been there and don't know a lot about it."
That was apparently all she had to say, because the only sound that met his ears was the whistling of the passing air. He checked, and she was still ahead... and hadn't seemed to have seen anything unusual. Silently, he added the shipyard to his list of potential conversation starters, figuring it likely had a few more interesting stories tucked inside.
Focusing his attention, he homed in on a cavernous brick building with its roof slanted toward the water, covered by rows of yellow-lit window crosspanes so grimy that they were completely opaque. A single exception shone jaggedly, the far wall visible in clearer detail beyond.
"...What are you doing?" Sharpie asked as he zoomed toward it. "Didn't we just establish that-"
"That where there is light, there are ponies?" Gerardo called back. "Our primary objective is to find someone who will take us to Shinespark!"
"At least..." Sharpie huffed. "Try to..." She flapped frantically, attempting to get in front of and block the griffon. "Enter the right way, please? From the ground?"
Just as she said that, the lights switched off, one by one, until the building was black and dim.
Gerardo nodded. "I do believe we stand a great danger of missing whoever just turned off those lights by taking anything but the most direct approach. Speed is of essence, and after all, I presently have nothing to lose!"
Folding his wings and tucking into a dive, he streamlined his body and shot forward, cleanly passing through the dark, windowless hole and into the building's cavernous interior. Sharpie shook her head, groaning. "You're such an idiot..." she mumbled to herself, flicking her fuzzy gray ears against the cold. "I think I see what kind of recklessness got your friends captured..."
Gerardo unfolded his wings, braking sharply before he could collide with the warehouse's far wall. Silently, he hovered, gray light from outside illuminating the silhouettes of giant chunks of machinery covering the floor. Idle pistons, concrete motor blocks, hoses thicker than he was and turnwheel valves rested atop a darker technological mass, with walking isles barely visible below. He momentarily hesitated; aside from necessity, the primary reason he was being so brazen was the guarantee that he wouldn't run across any fliers who could chase him should trouble appear, and in quarters like those taking off would be a distinct risk itself.
Frowning, he looked back at the window, and saw Sharpie hadn't followed. It was almost enough to convince him to go back... until his peripheral vision was lit by a spotlight, cast by a unicorn horn. That was it.
Leaving and searching for a more polite manner of entry was certainly on the table, but ultimately there was no polite way of saying one's district was at risk from bomb-induced floodwaters. So, he dropped to the floor, placing himself squarely in the unicorn's path, and prepared to introduce himself to Sosa.
The flashlight unicorn's voice was jumpy, as if Gerardo had scared him slightly more than intended, his beam of light searching for the source of the sound of the griffon landing.
"Egil, if this is a prank..." The unicorn sighed, rapidly calming. "All right, har har. Now if-"
"Ahem." Gerardo stepped squarely forward, intent on introducing himself. "I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. Pardon the intrusion into your very nice warehouse, but I very much need to talk to someone important. Can you, perchance, take me to Shinespark?"
"What the..." The unicorn blinked, horn flickering, jaw slack against his gray uniform.
Gerardo nodded. "Once again, I apologize for this somewhat awkward and hasty meeting. If at all possible, might I see someone important?"
The unicorn took a step back. Then, he called over his shoulder: "Egil, get your fat rear over here! There's a giant griffon standing right in front of me!"
"Seriously?" a distant voice called back, accompanied by the clatter of hooves. "No way! Be right there!"
"A... giant griffon..." Gerardo shook his head. "I can't tell whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, but please!"
With a burst of teleportation, a very round stallion appeared by the first's side, sporting a beard and a uniform that might have been custom-tailored. "Whooo," he breathed, whistling. "Well, I'll be. It's a griffon." He nodded in appreciation. "And it's a big one."
Gerardo's words caught in his throat, torn between what he wanted to say and what needed to be said. "Actually, as far as griffons go my size is quite average," he hastily interjected. "But that is beside the point. Once more, I very much apologize for barging into your domain, but it is imperative that I talk with someone and..." He frowned. "Are the two of you even listening to a word I'm saying?"
"Think he's with the Spirit?" said the first stallion to his partner, who was apparently named Egil.
Egil shook his big head. "What would give you that idea? You know of any griffons in the Spirit? Besides, what if he is? The Spirit think they're on our side." He eyed Gerardo beadily. "It's not like stuff to actually happen on night shifts, though, let alone when it's still evening. What even is his story, you think?"
"Hello?" Gerardo suspiciously waved. "I am right here!"
"Well, then..." The first stallion looked at his friend, then Gerardo as if for the first time. "A couple questions, if you please. Friend or foe, how'd you get in here, and if those answers aren't nefarious, how interested are you in being really popular?"
"I..." Gerardo cleared his throat. "Friend, I assure you. I flew in through that window there, which was already broken when I arrived, and while I'll never say no to friends and allies my number one goal is to speak with someone important, namely Shinespark. Is that at all possible?"
The stallions sized him up, and eventually the first extended a hoof. "Name's Bardal," he informed with a nod. "You don't seem like a saboteur, though I can't really say what you do seem to be. What's this you want to meet with the chief's daughter on?"
Egil rolled his eyes. "Buddy, it's not gonna make her like you any more whether you say her name, don't say her name, use a ton of honorifics or what, so just say Shinespark like the rest of us! Seriously..."
"...Important matters," Gerardo managed. "I've come from the Water District with information relating to this district's security, as the recently-appointed facilities inspector for the Defense Force who has presently felt the need to change sides, as it were." His eyes narrowed. "In short, I have things to say your superiors would very much benefit from knowing."
"So you're big and important. What do you know?" Egil laughed like a drum. "Should we take him to the Oasis?"
"Hmm... I sure want to..." Bardal hummed. "We did just start our shift, though, and nopony'll want to cover for us if we turn in with an excuse like this."
Gerardo tipped his head. "Pardon?" he queried, looking between their hairy faces. "The Oasis? That sounds less like the name of a leader's office and more a bar of some sort."
"...You could say that," Bardal said with a shrug.
"You couldn't, if we didn't have Shinespark," Egil added. "I'm getting a feeling you don't really know her so well, do you?"
"That..." Gerardo grimaced. "Technically didn't answer my question..."
"Question?" Egil's thick, conjoined eyebrows rose. "You made a statement, bud. And what I say is that evening shift can be done by Mobius, if it's so important." He turned to leave, waving for Bardal to follow. "You two coming, or what?"
Suddenly, there was a disturbance in the air behind Gerardo, and Sharpie softly landed. "That was reckless," she whispered, stiff-faced. "You're lucky they didn't impale you."
Egil turned back around, and his expression rose. "Well, I'll be. It's a mare." He whistled in appreciation. "And it's a hot one!"
Gerardo and Sharpie groaned, each for different reasons. Wisely, Gerardo stepped back, just in case things got violent... but his precaution was fortunately unnecessary.
"I'm not eligible," Sharpie grunted, "so don't waste your time. He's telling the truth." She pointed a wing at Gerardo, who stared back in uncertainty. "We know something important to the Sosan leaders that we can't tell just anyone. So if either of you two could take us to someone's office, rather than this Oasis place... it would be appreciated."
"...The Oasis kind of is the chief's... Shinespark's office, though," Bardal offered awkwardly.
"Oh." Gerardo blinked. "Well, I suppose that is a sensible destination after all, then! If you wouldn't mind leading the way..."
Egil nodded, jowls swaying, and began a long march outward and to the side of the room. "The only way I'd mind it less is if you made me go back on duty once we get inside! It's been far, far too long since we've had anything new to talk about down there..."
"Hold on. Are you okay with this?" Sharpie halted Gerardo with an outstretched wing before he could follow. "This doesn't feel too easy? Like you're in danger? My job was to know when things don't smell right, and right now, you just broke into a warehouse, ran into two guards, and now they want to take you to a hidden, underground location with a code name that could either be Shinespark's office or a bar. Are you okay with this?"
"Well, when you put it that way..." Gerardo muttered, looking closely at the guards once again.
"Lady, please." Egil waved a hoof. "Have you even heard of Sosa? There's so much nothingness and depression here the last thing anyone wants is to make others feel bad. The Oasis is about having a good time even when the world's buried your dreams under the number of dumps it's taken." He sized her up, eyes wandering over the stress lines all across her face. "Something you kind of look like you need."
Sharpie's pink eyes gazed back. "How do I know your definition of a good time isn't the complete opposite of mine?"
Bardal frowned. "We're trying to be friendly, here! This is the best Sosa has to offer, and frankly, you're right about yourselves. You did just trespass on a technically-closed part of the factory without any clearance whatsoever." He huffed, and looked away. "Earth District hospitality, and all that? You know? Do other ponies just not even want us hoping for the best?"
"If I may..." Gerardo raised a talon, interjecting. "Shinespark did tell me more or less any pony I ran across here would happily take me her way. And if we can't trust ponies who seem friendly and willing, how precisely are we to find her?"
"This guy gets it," Egil belched, pointing a hoof.
"...Fine," Sharpie sighed, relenting. "I..." She gritted her teeth. "Apologize for being less trusting than a complete and utter optimist, and don't expect me to stay any longer than I have to."
Bardal whistled. "With an attitude like that, once you see it, you might find yourself changing your mind in a pretty quick hurry..."
As Gerardo, Sharpie and the two guards pressed further into the factory complex, it slowly came alive with automation that hadn't yet shut down for the night. They crossed outdoor bridges over fields laden with moving machinery, under conveyor belts halted with chunks of ore still sitting atop, on catwalks through chambers containing pistons that turned gears the size of houses, and past iron pipes that had boiled their paint away and glowed green at the seams. Chains moved up and down in the distance, raising and lowering lifts and buckets and empty hooks that sometimes grew close enough to touch.
And yet, for every device they passed that showed signs of operation, there were just as many metal walls bearing empty bolt holes around slightly less-weathered rectangles, places where equipment had been used and removed countless days before. Spider webs existed in corners just out of the way, high-up windows were missing panes, chunks of rusted pipe connected to nothing sat in space from the past that had yet to be reclaimed.
"This is... a startling amount of activity," Gerardo observed, watching the indeterminate machines doing their jobs. "I was under the impression that Sosa found itself without much to do, as of late. What all is this being used for?"
Bardal shrugged. "Can't say that you're wrong. We do have nothing to do these days. As for this stuff, most of it is for materials processing... you know, turning the stuff from the Flame District into other stuff we can export, or making things for those weapons the yaks keep getting us paid for. A good amount of energy production, too. And then some of it is just on because it still works and ponies feel better when it feels like stuff is happening. How much of it does that, heh..." He wiped his brow. "Please don't make me think about that."
Gerardo eyed a noisy centrifuge closer, squinting. "You operate machines purely for the sake of operating them, without a single goal but to make the area look... industrious?"
"Sure do!" Egil answered from in front. "The good old days were beyond my time by a bit and a half, but all this did do something, once! Some of it used to reinforce metal for ship hulls, back when we did that. In fact, there's probably still things around from the days of Project Aslan. These machines are even older than Shinespark!"
"Project Aslan..." Gerardo mused, recalling. "Ah, yes. That was your ill-fated endeavor to build an airship, yes?"
Sharpie rolled her eyes. "Way to be sensitive about it..."
Egil ignored her. "That, my friend, depends on your definition of 'ill-fated'. The politics around it at the time were pretty revolting. As for me? I'm just glad I wasn't part of it!" He gave a full-chested laugh, then scratched his chins. "Shinespark thinks it was a great idea in hindsight, though she wasn't even born yet when it happened. Still, she's the one who keeps most of these machines in shape when they go and break down. Just some of the little old things she does to clean up around here, you know? Up in the Stone District, it would be like hiring a public artist to draw murals or something!"
"Interesting..." Gerardo paced onward. "I take it these don't require a lot of oversight, then? There seems to be a lack of ponies tending to them..."
"Aside from turning them on and off, I'm not even sure what an overseer would do," Bardal replied. "Like, see this one here?" He tapped on a big, whirring drum that lay on its side, pipes disappearing into the floor on either end. "I see a control panel with a few indicators, fifteen-something years old going by the standards it meets, and all of one unmarked lever. That's called automatic. It just does its own thing."
"And that thing it does may very well be nothing," Gerardo finished, shooting a look at Sharpie. If the pegasus was bothered by the blatant wastefulness and inefficiency, she didn't show it... or perhaps made a point of not showing it.
Idly, he filed away the information that a large number of production-oriented machines were doing something, seemingly nothing, primarily at the behest of one pony, yet no one could be bothered to find out what that something actually was, and continued down the automated hall.
As gradually as the factory had awakened around them as they entered, its din soon began to quiet, Gerardo and company drawing into dimmer, darker reaches that were farther away from the heart of the complex. He had lost much of his sense of direction aside from a vague idea that they might be going east, though if someone had told him it was west he would have nodded his head and told them they made perfect sense. Above, strips of mana lighting glowed with luminescent energy, opting to use exposed power conduits framed in glass as opposed to conventional crystals.
"We're, uhh..." Bardal blinked at an intersection, then turned left, the metal walls bluey-black around him. "Almost there. This is more the administrative area. Lotta offices and paper pushers around here."
One wall of the corridor was replaced by glass, offering a proud vista of an empty courtyard bathed in what light from the setting sun managed to seep over the mountains. Below, grass and weeds grew in cracks between broken concrete flooring slabs, a forklift sat parked, and in the distance a weathered metal statue of a stallion looked proudly out over a dusky road into the forest.
A right turn and a long, steep staircase later, and they were back to the ground floor, inside a mostly-empty warehouse that faced the open courtyard. Instead of heading to the open the doors that lead outside, Egil wandered to a far corner of the room... and his telekinesis flicked open a lone, nondescript door that could very well have been a storage closet.
Gerardo blinked. "That seems like a somewhat out-of-the-way place to put an important pony's office..."
"Heh. Bear with him," Bardal chuckled. "That's probably what Mobius thought when he first gave her the space. Just wait until you see what she's done with it!"
The door lead immediately to another staircase, descending in a series of switchbacks below the earth. Its steel frame hung in a smooth-walled, rectangular shaft, as if it had originally been an elevator and had the stairs installed retroactively, much later. They were certainly newer, Gerardo reflected, running a wing feather along the shiny metal.
Eventually, the stairs bottomed out, at least three stories below the ground in an octagonal chamber lit by a single conduit, round and dark and completely empty save for a few scattered boxes and a single door set into the edge. It swung open of its own accord, moving seamlessly on well-oiled hinges.
Sharpie attempted to follow both close to Gerardo and at a distance, but was forced along when Bardal insisted on bringing up the rear. Past the door was another chamber just like the first... and when the door forward from that one began to move, bright daylight spilled through.
Gerardo blinked heavily in the sudden influx of daylight. Wasn't it evening, with heavy cloud cover, and weren't they three stories beneath the ground?
The door swung wider, and he pressed through it, intensely curious. Staring upward as he walked, he took in broad, rectangular metal walls that stretched upward before fading into a haze of blueness, exactly the same shade as the summer sky. Shadows of pipes and ventilation ducts were faintly visible through the fog, like an illusion that didn't want to be dispelled, and a chartreuse point-source hung in the middle, mimicking the sun.
He felt something press against his chest and stopped, neck still craned to the sky. "Is that... an enchanted ceiling?" he murmured, trying to make out the true extent of the heights.
"Sure is," Egil gloated from the side. "Something tells me you don't really need me to tell you who done it. But if you like that, maybe you'll want to have a look around at the rest of the place?"
With some effort, Gerardo managed to look down. The object he had bumped against was a guard rail, belonging to a catwalk which ran halfway around the edge of the room, about a meter off the floor. Said floor was clean and tidy, sporting a selection of well-populated round tables with a staffed counter at one end and a raised speaking platform at the other. The sounds of stallion laughter filled the air, though it was beginning to die down as more and more ponies noticed the newcomers' presence.
Gerardo snapped his talons. "I knew this sounded like a bar."
"We didn't say it wasn't!" Bardal shrugged with a grin. "It's just also Shinespark's office. Granted, it's also one of the cleanest, safest, most professional bars in Ironridge, so once you've finished whatever your business is, stay as long as you like!"
"That's... very nice," Gerardo answered. "I can't say I'm the world's biggest drinker, but I have been known to indulge in a celebratory glass every now and then. However, now is most definitely not the time for that. Might I see Shinespark immediately?"
He stopped and blinked, brain catching up with his words. "Also, do you mean to say that Shinespark, renowned across much of Ironridge for whatever the reason, is... headquartered in an underground bar? What could possibly possess a pony to choose a base of operations so odd?"
"One question at a time, bud!" Egil interrupted. "Sloooow. She's around here... More specifically, this is around her because she likes being accessible and near us all the time! What better thing to do with your place than make it welcoming?"
Gerardo nodded. "Fair enough, but when might I-?"
He was interrupted in turn as the room's crowd finally got around to speaking for themselves... with varying degrees of eloquence. "Dude!" A younger stallion pointed a hoof. "You're a griffon!"
"Yes. I am, in fact, a griffon." Gerardo blinked back. "Now-"
The crowd instantly cut him off, multiple ponies getting up and walking to the balcony, eyes shining with interest. "Are you-?" one began, only to be silenced by three others.
"Who-?" another cut in, before being interrupted himself.
"I cannot hear you all over this din!" Gerardo bellowed, failing to halt the crowd's noise. Sharpie covered her ears with her wings and Egil belched thunderously, and neither had much of an effect.
Then, from the middle of the room, someone cleared their throat... and everyone fell silent.
"It's not very hospitable to bombard your guests like so," came a feminine voice from a lone, hooded pony with her own cup, own table and own circle of space that none of the others seemed to violate. "If you attack anyone who walks through your door, whether with attention or spears, it won't make them want to come back."
The rest of the room didn't make a sound. Making the most of the silence, the hooded pony looked up at Gerardo with deep, orange eyes, and said, "Please forgive them for acting like children. They do mean the best, I assure you."
"Err..." Gerardo clicked his beak. "No offense taken. However, might I speak to Shinespark as soon as possible? I came here because I have something of very great import to discuss."
"We have something important to discuss," Sharpie corrected, some of the ponies below seemingly noticing her for the first time.
"She isn't here right now," the cloaked mare responded, not taking her eyes off Gerardo. "I can call her back, if it matters, and anything suitable for her ears is also fit for mine."
Judging from the other ponies' reaction to her, Gerardo presumed she wasn't lying about her importance. "That would be greatly appreciated," he said, bowing from on top of the catwalk. "Is it possible we might go somewhere more private to talk, however? This is... not suitable for most ponies."
Wordlessly, the mare rose, her figure tall beneath her robe, and seemingly glided across the ground to a door in the far wall. When she noticed Gerardo wasn't following, she turned over her shoulder and called, "This way."
"O-Of course!" Quickly, Gerardo stepped down a small staircase to the floor, Sharpie close behind him. As he waded through the sea of tables, the eyes of the ponies around him bored in eagerly, wanting very badly for him to stay or talk or do anything but leave. Bardal and Egil followed hesitantly, but soon fell behind, seeming to detect that if they were meant to be a part of the following conversation, someone would have said something first. Then, the door closed behind him, and save for Sharpie and the hooded mare, he was alone.
They were in a tunnel, tubular in shape, with wooden wall paneling and soft, natural-colored lights placed in knots all around them. The floor was a series of rugs, and looked like it would have been carpet were that not annoyingly difficult to clean. It wound its way around and upward out of sight, and a gentle ventilated breeze moved by, keeping the air from growing stale.
The mare shrugged her hood off, gray with purple stripes, and revealed an elegant square muzzle in front of a snow-white coat and long orange mane. She sized them up for a moment in the privacy of the tunnel, before nodding. "Let us get to my daughter's office to talk. It's much more comfortable than standing around here."
"Your daughter?" Sharpie stiffened, as if remembering she was supposed to bow. "Then you're Matryona?"
That earned a smile in return, though it was tarnished with a wistfulness that seemed embodied in her cloak. "I'm not nearly as famous as Shinespark, but it is good to know ponies remember me, sometimes. Depending on what I'm remembered for..." She turned away with a swish of fabric. "Come."
The journey through the dim, homely corridors behind the Oasis was a short one, around twists and over hills and past several intersections on ground that was always going up or down, and never flat. It felt like walking through hollowed roots of a tree the size of a mountain, organically constructed rather than the rivet-studded, right-angle architecture of the rest of the Steel District with concrete and metal.
"This is Shinespark's office," Gerardo and Sharpie's leader, Matryona, finally said, pushing inward a round wooden door with a green coat of paint and a three-triangle emblem. Behind, a small room with a low ceiling sat, decked in just as much Earth District livery as the previous passages, much of the floorspace occupied by a tidy desk and several chairs. A portrait of Arambai adorned one wall.
Gerardo nodded. "It appears quite cozy. Though..." He tapped the thin, swinging door with a talon, producing an audible knock. "How private would you say it is? This door seems rather thin."
"There is an insulated conference room through there, if you need." Matryona indicated a door in a back corner, styled to blend into the wall and appear invisible at first glance. She frowned in concern, and added, "Is this truly so important?"
"It is, yes..." Gerardo hesitated, then spoke more firmly. "Although, I have spent the greater part of today traversing nearly all of Ironridge, and am more than willing to say my piece here and now. Traveling gets... tiring, after a time, when one's goals are pressing."
"I'm well aware..." Matryona deposited her cloak on a chair, revealing a pair of wings fuller than most pegasi, and an orange streak that resembled a hilted sword on her snow-white chest. Gently holding a wing over her heart, she said, "Please, do not hesitate. Whatever you require Shinespark's help with, I may be able to assist until she returns."
"Well, then." Gerardo swallowed, looked to Sharpie, and wasted no more time. "I'll cut to the chase: the eastern dam of the Water District, overlooking much of Sosa, appears to be rigged with bombs. We both saw them ourselves, along with Commander Selma of the Defense Force, and mutually agreed that somepony or someone seems to intend to flood this district, or else wash it away entirely."
The color of Matryona's coat made it hard to tell if she paled, but it took nearly three seconds for her to respond. "...I should summon back my daughter," she eventually said, rising quickly and striding fluidly to the back door to the conference room. "I imagine there is more to this story?"
"Indeed, there is." Gerardo bowed, and moved to follow. "And I imagine you'll listen?"
The room beyond was long and wide, with a carved oak table large enough to seat eighteen ponies plus room to squeeze. Display cases lined the walls, most containing things technical or magical or even like ordinary rocks. A spear hung from two hooks behind the head of the table, its prong crystalline and a manacore encased in its hilt, and on a pedestal in a corner sat a half-suit of armor reminiscent of the one Shinespark had worn on the convoy when Gerardo had first entered Ironridge.
Matryona eased the door shut behind them, its back covered in triangular spikes of foam that could only have been a noise dampener. Sharpie gazed around beside him, awkwardly doing nothing as their tall host glided to another corner, where a black, metallic tower sat, glowing with tiny lights and indicators.
"...There," Matryona said after a minute, standing up and turning to face them. "She will be coming soon. Shinespark is very punctual. In the meantime, please, be seated."
"Much obliged." Gerardo picked out a cozy chair on rolling wheels, feeling slightly bad for the dampness still clinging to his uniform. "Now, then... I suppose the most important thing to mention first is that, according to Selma, the danger is present but not truly immediate. He claimed to have placed a spell blocking the triggering mechanism that would last through tomorrow night, and I fail to see the motive in lying about such a thing."
Matryona visibly relaxed. "That is good to know. What else?"
"In this case, I suppose it is best to start at the beginning," Gerardo said with a shrug. "For starters, as we have not yet been formally introduced, my name is Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, and this is my ally and traveling companion, Sharpie. I came to Ironridge about two days ago, seeking to deliver two mysterious crates of high value..."
Over the next indeterminate period of time, long enough for Sharpie to begin fidgeting in her seat but not yet to the point where Gerardo's voice became scratchy from overuse, the griffon narrated his trials and endeavors in Ironridge to Matryona. He tactfully omitted any information pertaining to Riverfall or Arambai, relived the encounter with the Spirit in full detail, expertly bemoaned the loss of his sword, and vaguely hinted that Shinespark had offered to get it back. He glided over the holdup at Valey's checkpoint, memory muddied by the sheer amount of fruit throwing and new names present, then pressed on to the Stone District, forgetting entirely their excursion to the Sky District and its museum. He loudly derided the Defense Force's robbery of his crates and kidnapping of his friends, heroically depicted his night-time traversal of the Sky District snow fields, casually slandered Dior for blowing him off, glossed over his meeting with Sharpie, and finally stopped to breathe.
Matryona's face remained impassive throughout it all, acting the perfect audience, though her expression clouded slightly when he reached the part about Dior. Sharpie, by contrast, looked downright uncomfortable, and more than a little annoyed for having come all that way and contributed a grand total of zero words to the cause. In fairness, neither she nor Gerardo had expected to get any sort of audience without a long, drawn-out slog of requesting, but there she was, and there she pouted.
Then, just as Gerardo was wrapping up his explanation of the first day, the door burst open and a unicorn skidded through, coat the same vivid shade of orange as Matryona's mane. "Whoo!" she panted, breathing heavily. "Nine minutes and... thirty-seven seconds from... Grand Acorn, plus finishing what I was already doing." She wiped her brow, brushing aside short, ruby-red bangs with a lone teal streak. "Hi, Mom. Please don't tell me we... we..." Swallowing stickily, she blinked at Gerardo with deep blue eyes, then looked to Matryona again. "Huh. I told you he was coming?"
The three already in the room blinked back, and Gerardo frowned. "That was an entire ten minutes? My sincerest apologies, I... was not expecting to spend nearly so long covering-"
He was interrupted by Sharpie banging her head against the table. "All that wasn't even ten minutes?" she groaned, wings dangling limply from her sides.
Matryona shook her head, paying attention to the actual question. "I don't think you did, no."
"Ugh." Shinespark stretched, a locket that served as her only piece of clothing bouncing on a chain around her neck. "Well... next time, if it's just guests who want to see me, could you... not use the highest-priority alarm, please? I thought we had a major security breach, or something." She bounced the locket in a hoof, adding, "Can't wait until dad gets... uhh..." Her eyes focused on Sharpie, suddenly acknowledging the pegasus. "You're the finance inspector for the embassy, right? What are you doing here?"
"The former inspector," Sharpie corrected. "I quit. And I don't know what I'm doing here, either." Pausing, she added, "You actually remember me?"
"Mhm." Shinespark corrected her bangs again before collapsing in a chair opposite from them. "Hey, mom?" She looked up. "I'm probably who they're here for, right? Could you go and get refreshments, please? I'm... ngah... really thirsty."
Matryona stood, but looked down at Shinespark with careful eyes. "They're here for more than just talk, but I'll do that."
"Right!" Shinespark lounged, showing off her un-marked, orange flank, then straightened up slightly as her mother disappeared and shut the door. "So, about that sword of yours..."
"As a matter of fact, as much as I'd appreciate having that back we did come here with something different to discuss," Gerardo sadly interrupted. "You see... we discovered bombs planted on the eastern dam of the Water District, and felt obliged to warn you."
"I'm sorry to say it appears that way," Gerardo continued. "Though before you make any rash decisions, please hear me out: the danger is not right-this-second imminent and in every scenario will require much thought and investigation. The bombs were discovered by myself, Sharpie here, and Commander Selma, and he placed a spell..."
For the second time that evening, Gerardo began the long, slow process of narrating what he knew, Shinespark listening intently.
Matryona returned about the time Gerardo finished narrating to Shinespark the events of the first day, a tray of fruit balanced on her back. It was a good point to break, and conveniently where he had been interrupted the first time, meaning both Sosans were on the same page.
It also meant Sharpie was even more unhappy than usual, being forced to sit through the long, tangentially-relevant details of Gerardo's tale for the second time in one hour. She sat, slumped, and only marginally lifted her ears above folded when Matryona set her tray down, indicating with a wing that everyone could eat. Wordlessly, she took a melon slice and bit down, taking care to avoid dribbling juices.
Shinespark opened her mouth to say something... then stopped herself, before turning and tilting her head at Sharpie. "You know... as fun as this story is and as long as it's taking to get to the point... what's your part in it? You haven't said a word all night, and look even more miserable than the ponies I'm regularly saddled with cheering up."
"I don't know," Sharpie grumbled around a mouthful of melon. Swallowing, she added, "I was there when we saw the bombs. Neither of us knew how easy it would be to talk to someone important, and I wanted to pretend my job actually had any influence."
"Hold on a moment," Gerardo interrupted. "Was I not still telling my tale? This is rather urgent, as you are no doubt well-"
A blue aura gently clamped his beak shut, and Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You said until tomorrow night, and if it was that important you'd get to the point faster. You've had your share of the conversation, now let me do what I need to do. I'll hear you out in a moment."
As Gerardo lifted a talon in futile protest, she turned back to Sharpie. "So, it sounds like you're not very happy with your job."
"You think?" Sharpie glared. "You said you know who I am. You should know what I've been accusing your district of. Is this seriously the best time to talk about why we shouldn't be on the same side?"
Shinespark sighed. "Yes, I do know. I'm sorry it worked out that way, and never intended anything personal."
"You never..." Sharpie faltered. "Are you saying this is your fault? To my face? Are you trying to taunt me?"
"Assigning fault isn't useful," Shinespark said with a shrug. "You're trying to track the money from the Defense Force weapon contract, right? Trying to keep things accountable, make them make sense?" She shook her head. "Ironridge doesn't work that way any more, for anyone. It's all about who can hide the most and outplay everyone else, now. The only thing to blame is everything at once, for having fallen so far... or else the past, since trying to do things the way they once worked isn't working. But yes, I do know where each and every gem of that money is going."
Sharpie sat back, looking dazed. "What?"
"Here's a different question." Shinespark straightened her back, then paused to drink deeply from a jug. "If you could have one wish and get it granted... anything at all... what would it be?"
"One wish?" Sharpie's eyes narrowed around her slice of fruit. "Why should I tell you that?"
Shinespark shrugged. "I'm good at granting wishes."
No response, save for the squelching of the melon slice against Sharpie's jaw.
"...I can guess," Shinespark offered after a while. "You want what you do to matter."
Sharpie's eyes widened slightly. She didn't need to ask how the unicorn knew.
"It's because that's what every pony wants," Shinespark answered, standing up and pushing her chair back. "When the world is so chaotic and you can't put logic to the things you see happening, when you're out of control and can't see the difference you make. I've seen it time and again across countless Sosans who can't understand why or how their world moved on from something that worked for them, and you're no different. You want Ironridge's money to make sense, because it used to... don't you?"
"...And?" Sharpie glared protectively, wary that Shinespark would probe open wounds.
"And I can give you a choice. One where the options are exactly what they look like, where if you say yes it will be your decision and not a product of chance, and will lead to your own impact on your life. Can I?"
Sharpie hesitated. "Go on..."
"Tonight," Shinespark said. "There's a way out of the city that leaves tonight... very soon, in fact. It goes somewhere where there are no sides working against one another, where there is no poverty, where the world is small enough that anything you do can make a difference for everyone. It's a haven, built for ponies who never wanted to play by Ironridge's new rules and would lose whether they played or not. There are a few rules to follow to keep it that way. You can decide if it's worth it."
Sharpie blinked. "I was already going to buy tickets on whatever airship goes as far away from here as possible first thing in the morning. I'm not broke."
"In that case..." Shinespark clenched and unclenched her muscles. "Thank you. For coming here to warn us about what you found, even though someone else was too, and even though you don't trust us or like us or think your word will amount to anything. It... means something."
"What does it mean?" Sharpie's ears were flat.
"It means you hadn't given up." Shinespark turned away, speaking into the corner where her armor sat on a pedestal. "Just because you try to make something better doesn't mean you're guaranteed to succeed. But when you stop trying, then you're guaranteed to fail, and when you stop even believing success is possible you won't know what to do with a better world even when it some day arrives. That's what I do. Some day, I'm going to fix all of Ironridge and make everything right... some day soon. But until then, my job is to keep the ponies' hope alive at all costs, so that when things do get better, it matters."
She turned back, sapphire eyes shining. "That's what it means. It means one more pony... you... were ready and waiting. So thank you."
The silence held for nearly a minute... and then Sharpie said, "That's your way of telling me thank you very much, I'm no longer needed, isn't it?"
Shinespark's smile faltered. "I meant every word of it," she corrected. "But if that's your way of asking if you can go..." She looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. "It's night out, isn't it? The Steel District isn't a residential district, but I've furnished this place with quite a few sleeping chambers, and tried to make them as nice as possible. Both of you are welcome to stay the night here, if you please. You can stay and talk as long as you want, or turn in whenever you like."
"I'm staying here until we're done talking," Sharpie said flatly. "I did not come all this way to go to bed and let someone else do everything on their own."
"Okay!" Shinespark relented, suddenly cheery. Flipping back into her chair, she made herself comfortable, and said, "Well, that's what I wanted to say. Gerardo, feel free to continue, and don't skip anything important or worry about the time." She nodded at a wall clock. "I take a lot of naps, so can be up until whenever."
Instantly, Sharpie shot a disgruntled hoof out. "Actually, I think I might just go to bed..."
With a straight face that might have been practiced, Shinespark nodded at Matryona. "Hey, mom? Could you...?"
"Of course." Matryona nodded in turn, getting up and proceeding to the door. "Please, come with me."
A minute later, the door creaked shut, both pegasi having vanished behind, leaving Gerardo and Shinespark alone in the conference room. The griffon drummed his talons. "If I'm correct in seeing what you did there, that was quite devious."
Shinespark shrugged in return. "Well, she wasn't wrong. I've had to hold my tongue about sensitive topics one too many times tonight and had to do something about her. Still, I meant what I said."
"Topics like Riverfall," Gerardo added.
"Like Riverfall..." Shinespark sighed. "Yes..." She opened her eyes. "Thanks for being so long-winded there, by the way. It turned out the threat of a rambling griffon was the perfect card for that situation. Though, now that it's just us... maybe you could skip to the important parts? I already know a lot more than you think."
"Thanks for being long-winded..." Gerardo muttered. "Well, I can't say that's a phrase I usually hear as a compliment, but I'm glad to finally take it as such! Now, where was I...?"
"...And that is the long and short of it," Gerardo finally finished, folding his talons. "My friends, at present, I believe to be safe. I can't judge Selma's intentions beyond the obvious fact that there is a complex situation in the Defense Force I know all too little of. And there are what he claimed to be bombs attached to the eastern dam."
"Your friends are safe," Shinespark said, her short red mane bouncing as she nodded. "I can confirm that. Now, as for these bombs-"
"You can?" Gerardo cocked his head. "Pardon the interruption, but may I ask how?"
"Because they were in Grand Acorn as of when I left for here." Shinespark folded her hooves, mirroring Gerardo's pose, and grinned slightly. "Something you summoned me away from, by the way. And don't worry about them; they're fine. They're being watched over by somepony I greatly dislike, but do trust, and nothing bad is going to happen to them overnight."
"That is... a significant relief," Gerardo admitted, wiping his brow. "At this point, all I want is to see them safe and sound and reunited here so that we might catch a ship back to Riverfall. Though... heh..." He laughed weakly. "I suppose that ship has sailed for tonight? Literally, as it were?"
Shinespark nodded. "It will have by the time you could get to its downstream dock. But don't be too hasty to plan on leaving. At least wait and talk it out with your friends."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying you know something I don't?"
Wordlessly, Shinespark got up and paced to a long display case at the side of the room. Her horn shone briefly, and a darkened compartment at the bottom swung open. Enveloped in her aura, a long, dark sword floated out, a distinctive triangular hole in its hilt.
"You managed to recover my weapon?" Gerardo perked up.
"I did," Shinespark responded, laying it gently on the middle of the table. "I told you it was possible. What I haven't decided is what I want in exchange for giving it back. It's... a very interesting sword, after all, and if you don't want it, I wouldn't mind keeping it myself."
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "Somehow, that sounds like more and yet more trouble..."
"It could be." Nodding, Shinespark walked back to her chair and seated herself formally, not lounging or slouching. "Or, it could be nothing at all. Look at it this way." She slid one hoof across the table, as if pushing pawns on a strategy map. "You want to get back to Riverfall. I know how to find that boat, and odds are you're going to have a pretty lousy time getting on yourself without my help. The next boat isn't until tomorrow night... so stick around for a day. You need my help, I might be able to use yours, you've got nothing better to do and I could use the time to think of something. Deal?"
"I... suppose that sounds workable," Gerardo admitted, not reaching to shake Shinespark's proffered hoof, eyes fixed on his sword. "Surely you don't need me to repeat why I am on edge, of course."
"No, I get it. I really do." Shinespark leaned back, putting her forehooves behind her head. "Ironridge doesn't work like anything you've ever seen, and no matter how much you try to plan or think you know, you're at the mercy of the few ponies who really understand what's going on, myself included. And even if one of us offers to 'tell you everything,' we're almost definitely lying. Being powerless feels nasty, doesn't it? It just hasn't had as long to break you as it has that finance inspector."
Gerardo blinked. He had omitted his entire conversation in the distant jail cell Selma had teleported him to from the tale he told, and was wondering more and more exactly how much of it had been calculated. "That is... certainly an accurate summation..."
"You know..." Shinespark began, staring off into space. "I once felt that way too, actually. It was around eight years ago, when they were building the skyport but not yet done, when Sosa was getting scared but hadn't quite lost its grip on power. A friend and I walked, on hoof, all the way up the mountain, snuck past the one guard we found, strolled into the construction's mobile command center, and demanded to know what was going on in the way only a naive, innocent pair of kids could. They didn't throw us out. They didn't yell at us, or tell us off... and they didn't give us an explanation, either. They just completely, utterly ignored us. I was pretty mad, to say the least."
She smiled fondly, as if the memory didn't bug her all that much. "The point is, that's when I started getting serious about figuring out how the new Ironridge would work. There were a lot of things I wanted, but being able to thrive there and guide my ponies in turn was one of them. I figured it out eventually, and... now look at me."
"And how does it work?" Gerardo probed, leaning in.
"Really?" Shinespark shrugged. "It's simple. Things work out in the favor of whoever has the most information. If you want to weaken a side, find out what they're hiding and threaten to exploit it. If you want to get stronger, find something yourself to hide... something useful. And then never tell anyone anything where you'd lose more from them knowing it than you would gain by knowing they know it."
Gerardo's eyes focused keenly. "I suppose that applies to this conversation as well, then? Namely, that last statement? That in telling me something like that, you've somehow come out ahead merely by the knowledge that I know it?"
Shinespark smirked. "You learn fast! And that's right. Here's an instance of how it could play out: you know the rules. Anyone who doesn't know you know them... say, the Defense Force... might try to cheat, or do something riskier than if they knew you were a level opponent..."
"I can see where this is going," Gerardo finished with a nod. Then, ruefully, he added, "...To a titanic migraine. Parsing all of this I-know-you-know-I-know business sounds like it could easily become unreasonably infeasible."
"Then let's talk about something you know about, instead." Taking another drink, Shinespark went back to lounging in her chair, exhaling heavily. "Something far away from Ironridge and its troubles. Let's talk about Riverfall. How's my dad doing?"
"Pardon?" Gerardo blinked.
"My dad? Arambai?" Shinespark shrugged. "I mean, technically, he isn't my biological father, or the one who gave me an old maintenance tunnel under his factory to turn into a base, or even the stallion I see and interact with on a daily basis, but he still raised me, and he and mom were... close. He writes me all the time, mostly to talk about science and his research, but he can't leave Riverfall and I can't leave Ironridge, so I haven't actually seen him in years, and..." She sighed bitterly. "Aside from Gunga, nopony ever leaves Riverfall, so you're the first I've talked to who's recently seen him in just as many years. Your friends don't count, since we never got around to it. So how is he?"
"He is..." Gerardo hesitated, brain clicking into place. "Charismatic. Imposing. Well-loved, slightly eccentric, and doing what he feels best for the ponies of Riverfall... his ponies, he says. He loves mystery and is dishonest by omission, but never did anything to make me suspect he wasn't trustworthy or fully on the side of good. I would not at all mind someday meeting him again..." He gulped. "Provided it isn't at the end of his sword, which he threatened to do should I allow my friends Maple and Starlight to come to harm."
"Heh... That sounds like him, all right." Shinespark smiled serenely, eyes closed. "Some ponies never change. Some day, I wish I could see the town he's devoted so much of his new life to. I guess that'll be my reward for when I finally save Ironridge and make everything right again." She glanced aside at Gerardo. "And don't worry about getting hunted down. He wouldn't return to Ironridge unless the stakes were a lot bigger than... well, unless they were big. Besides, he's got others looking out for them, too. Like me, for instance."
"Is that so?" Gerardo drummed his talons on the table, curious. "When we met you that first time, at night on the convoy..."
Shinespark raised a hoof, halting him. "If you're going to ask why I didn't tell you to come stay here where it was safe and not get in trouble in the Stone District, it's because the safest you can be in Ironridge is by not drawing attention to yourselves. I wanted to leave you hidden, to let them enjoy Ironridge... because really, the districts are just as pretty as they once were. As long as you can stay far above the politics and fighting and spider webs, you're fine. And once you got caught..." She hung her head. "Well, it isn't like Sosans can just march into the Defense Force headquarters and do something about it. Your friends came back on my map in Grand Acorn, and that's why I was there."
Gerardo opened and shut his beak several times, before chancing, "With all due respect, Braen marched into the Defense Force headquarters and reportedly caused quite a scene. With my very blade, nonetheless. I witnessed the aftermath myself. It... took some doing to reassure the afflicted that the sword's magic does, in fact, wear off."
"It wears off completely, then?" Shinespark tilted her head. "That's good to know. It's starting to do so on the Spirit ponies from two nights ago, but I wasn't sure if..."
"Hold on," Gerardo objected, lifting a talon. "You are in regular contact with the members of an organization that regularly rob and pillage the products of your workplace?"
Shinespark shot him a deadpan stare, and her hoof pointed to the sword on the table. "How do you think I got this?"
"Ah... Right, I suppose..." Gerardo wilted, talon curling back in on itself.
"There is more to it than that, though," Shinespark continued. "The Spirit ponies have lives beyond what they do at night. All of them are Sosans, plus some Earth Districters who got caught up in the cause. And when you have a higher-than-usual number of ponies all calling in sick to work at the exact same time and none of them will describe what's wrong, you investigate."
Gerardo squinted. "So you're fully aware that not only are your own employees working against you, but you know exactly which ones... yet won't lift a hoof to stop it?"
Shinespark hesitated, holding a breath that eventually came out long and hard. "There are a few things you need to understand, first about what the Spirit of Sosa is to the Steel District... and second, about what all the ponies of Ironridge, including the Spirit and its every last member, are to me."
She stared Gerardo deeply in the eye, sapphire gaze boreing into his. "What the Spirit wants is for things to go back to the way they used to be... where Sosa was on top, and the Stone District was just a nice place to live and the Sky District was a bunch of snowfields and some coolant systems for the mines. What I want is to bring Sosa back up on level with everyone else... to restore it to its former glory, without making losers of any other districts in the process, or any other ponies. I want it to not matter what district ponies are from so much as that they're from Ironridge, and that extends to everyone here. Even the Spirit. They're still Sosans, and I'll treat them with just as much dignity as the old codes say they deserve."
"That is perfectly noble." Gerardo bowed. "Go on."
"What the Spirit is to our factories is more complicated." Shinespark folded her hooves again, straightening slightly. "On the one hoof, nopony here wants to be making weapons. They'd rather make boats, like in the good old days. Or... at least not something used for dividing ponies. And when what they make gets stolen anyway, that really doesn't help them feel like there's any more point to their jobs. It's why what I do here is that much more important: they know their jobs don't matter, they know I could stop it... or at least see the deliveries ensured, and they don't even know if that would help."
She swallowed, continuing. "But on a practical level, the money involved... That inspector was one hundred percent right. We're being paid exorbitant amounts for what we do, and then we get paid again and again even when we don't do it. There's a lot of things we do with that money, like sending food to Riverfall... and creating a safety net that ensures every Sosan, even those who can't have jobs because there's nothing for them to do, don't have to live in poverty."
"I see," Gerardo interjected. "So when you say hope is the most valuable commodity in Sosa; that feeling as though one does not matter is the greatest problem... you say that from a perspective that none of the ponies here want for any physical need?"
"Precisely." Shinespark nodded. "They don't live in luxury, but they never have to worry about where their next anything will come from. We've found a system that ensures Sosa will survive... and I won't deny that myself and Chief Dorable are complicit in it. Again, that's part of why I take this so seriously: I'm part of the reason why their jobs are meaningless, and it's my duty to compensate for that. But we've secured survival. The next step is to allow Sosa to live."
"Ah, Dorable." Gerardo nodded too, sifting around in his memory. "He was the chieftain present along with you on the convoy, yes?"
The nodding continued. "Along with Nimwick, who is a candidate for filling Arambai's factory." Shinespark sighed loudly. "It's been seven years, nearly eight, and that post has never been filled. Multiple ponies have tried. None have lasted. They just can't do justice to his legacy. It's like the job knows he's still alive, and still fit for duty..."
Gerardo tipped his head. "Pardon my asking, but why don't you fill it? You seem capable enough."
"Several reasons," Shinespark answered. "First are the legal ones: Sosa is and always has been a society of stallions. It's how our culture works... a culture that grew up around Riverfall, a city of mares, though I'm sure you know about that already. Now that the cities are separate, it could be time for that to change. How much respect ponies have for me is certainly a sign of that. But still, I would have to become the first mare chief in the history of Ironridge, and that's not a useful place to focus my efforts."
"And second?" Gerardo asked, sitting back.
"Second, I don't have a brand, as you can clearly see." Shinespark stretched, showing off her bare, orange flank. "I don't know if you've put it all together, but Sosans change their names when they earn their brands. There's a difference in naming schemes... compare mine to Mobius and Arambai, for instance. After what happened eight years ago, it isn't as much of a deal, of course. There are quite a few grown stallions now who changed their names despite never getting branded, but I never did, and... that's just not something I want to possibly make ponies focus on, right?"
"Ah. Yes. Of course. That." Gerardo's face shadowed. "I was going to say, Ironridge seemed remarkably... Never mind. I believe I'm sensing a pattern in your priorities here, however?"
"Probably." Shinespark laid her chin on the chair's armrest, taking a second of silence. "The real reason I don't try to become a factory chief is because I don't need to. It wouldn't help what I'm trying to do, which is improve Ironridge for everyone. In the Stone District, they already talk about me as 'the good Sosan.' I don't want to establish myself as a leader of Sosa. I want to be a symbol to all of Ironridge."
Gerardo let the silence hang, then sighed, savoring it. "Well, for a pony who knows far more than is safe to tell, you've certainly been a much more pleasant conversationalist than Selma."
"Thank you." Shinespark bowed. "It's something I make an effort to do. Now, we should probably talk more about these bombs."
With a flap of his wings, Gerardo nodded emphatically. "I can confirm that would be prudent, yes..."
"So." Shinespark spread her hooves, an imaginary map sitting on the table between them. "Dealing with bombs. First, let's imagine what would be the worst-case scenario, right?"
"Of course," Gerardo replied.
Shinespark nodded. "Right. So, the Water District is on the eastern end of Ironridge. The primary mountain range this city is built against runs from east to west, and we are nestled into a corner where that turns to northwest. Mhm?"
Her horn lit, and she began flicking dots of telekinesis at the table, as if they could help her track her thoughts. "The eastern rim of the Earth District crater is a small, short mountain range that runs north to south, sticking out of the main range. There's a hole in it, about the size of one mountain peak... Think of it like a set of teeth, with one missing. Or, whatever the griffon equivalent of that is."
Gerardo nodded. "Consider it considered."
"Good." Shinespark turned back to the table. "The east and west dams stretch across that hole, forming the lake where a mountain could be. They're parallel to each other, running north to south, and there's just the one mountain peak to the north."
She moved her telekinesis slightly. "So, the west dam can be seen from all of Ironridge, the east dam from almost none of it. That makes sense, because someone would have noticed the bombs if they were visible. Right?"
"Right," Gerardo confirmed.
"Now, if the east dam is gone, the water will rush out..." More moving telekinesis. "And then go north, because the mountain slope there goes down that way, since the mountains run from east to west. Sosa lies along the river basin to the north of the mountain that forms the north wall of the reservoir. So, the east half of Sosa would get hit the hardest. That's Arambai's old factory, where Nimwick is now."
Gerardo peered at the half-formed figures on the table, assembling it all in his brain.
"Okay. A lot of the land around Sosa has been sculpted," Shinespark continued. "A long time ago we messed with the terrain a bunch to get the river to form a lake, and then have a lot of flat, low land around it where the factories are built, because we needed to be by the water. We still do that, sometimes. But what matters is that no matter where the water comes from, all of Sosa is on one gigantic floodplane, and the water won't drain down the river fast enough for anything that survives the initial wave not to get swamped. In short, we would lose everything..." She sighed, massaging her forehead. "We'd have to make a complete and total evacuation to ensure ponies were safe. Maybe leave a few to the west on towers, who can fly... and Sosa is all unicorns. We'd have to get help from wives and children who are pegasi. That would be a mess."
"Well, it is what Selma recommended," Gerardo remarked.
Shinespark's eyebrows rose. "Is it, now?"
"Well..." Gerardo hesitated. "Admittedly, I may be confusing it with my own advice. In the heat of the moment, I can't remember for sure if that was his exact counsel. Though it does seem a sound plan, does it not? As this is not a residential district, there should be no ordinary citizens about, and everyone here will be accustomed to leaving and have a home elsewhere to return to."
"Yeah... Sound..." Shinespark grimaced.
Gerardo stared. "You don't seem convinced."
Shinespark eyed him back, gaze level. "You don't think it's the slightest bit suspicious that a military commander who very definitely sees Sosa as an enemy would let you find yourself in a scenario where the logical course of action is to completely abandon our district, in turn letting anyone who pleased come in and do whatever they wanted? What if we did evacuate? What if those bombs are fakes, and all they want is a chance to run in here with nopony around to stop them? Do you have any idea how much there is in Sosa the Defense Force might want to steal?"
"I haven't but I can guess," Gerardo said, shaking his head. "And that does indeed sound plausible. Unfortunately, I possess neither a horn nor the knowledge to use one, and had to rely entirely on Selma's confirmation that the strange devices that very much resemble bombs are, in fact, bombs. It would be truly optimal if one with the ability to tell for certain could get up there, but that would require going back through-"
"I'll ask Braen to do it," Shinespark interrupted. "Regardless of her methods, she's skilled with magic and familiar with weapons, and can fly to get up there. And if it's a military matter, she'll definitely take it seriously."
Gerardo blinked. "You truly do seem in close contact with her. Given her history of robbing and assaulting your factory goods, I'd expect at least slightly more tension."
"It's a working relationship." Shinespark shrugged. "We have a lot to gain by cooperating, and really aren't all that different. Both of our primary goals are to inspire Sosans and give them hope, for one. Her version of empowering is just... a lot more brute-force than mine. But what matters is that she'll do it, and she won't be wrong."
"As a matter of fact..." Gerardo raised a talon, lighting up with recollection. "Now that we're discussing military means, I seem to recall Selma advocating we invade the Defense Force fortress. He greatly stressed that the triggering mechanism only worked from a short range, implying that if we completely secured the area near it, we would be safe. What do you make of that?"
"Well, no matter what, we need to get those bombs looked at." Shinespark shook her head. "We're not doing anything costly until we've confirmed that they're real. Unfortunately, he would know that, so either they will be real and just never intended to be used, or they're bait to get someone important to the Water District. Unfortunately, that might be a risk we have to-"
Suddenly, she flinched as if stabbed with a needle. Eyes constricting to pinpricks, both forehooves shot to the amulet dangling from her neck. "Oh no," she breathed. "That is not an alarm I want to have triggered..."
"What's this?" Gerardo abruptly stood in concern, sending his chair reeling. "Are you quite all right?"
"Go hang out in the Oasis, or talk to my mother or something," Shinespark directed, tone harsh and commanding. "I'll be back later, but I have to go, right now. This is urgent."
With a blue burst, she vanished in a flash of teleportation, leaving Gerardo blinking and alone in the conference room.
"Well, that was unexpected," he remarked to no one, drumming his talons and settling his wings. "I do hope it isn't a portent that I'm about to meet a watery doom."
Standing, he took three steps toward the door... then turned back to the table, his sword laying there, glittering and black. He blinked. It seemed a shame to leave it laying around where anyone could find and take it, and as Shinespark was correct that he would have to stick around to use the boat to Riverfall...
His talons closed around the hilt, feeling a pleasing sense of familiarity as they thrust the weapon back into the long-empty scabbard on his belt. Smiling merrily, Gerardo pushed open the door and exited to the rest of the complex.
It was with sword in sheath that Gerardo Guillaume stepped out of the tunnels and into the Oasis' central room, enchanted sky shining in the colors of the evening around him.
A few heads turned when his door swung open, and more were turned by the murmurs of the first. His conversation with Shinespark had lasted for so long, though, that the room's population had considerably fallen for the night... fallen enough to make him brave. Confidently, he strolled to a table with three other stallions and seated himself, folding his talons and waiting to see what would happen.
The stallions' eyes lit up... but before they could gather the nerve to speak, a fourth appeared as if out of nowhere, yanking up a stool and joining his familiar, many-chinned face to the conversation.
"Hey, buddy!" Egil the guard laughed merrily, dropping a tankard to the table beside him. "You must've been in there for hours! Decided to come give the boys here a bit more of your time tonight?"
Gerardo shrugged. "I am presently closer to accomplishing my goals than I was when I entered this place, and am thus in a good mood. Unless you plan to fight me, rob me, betray me, recruit me for any dangerous shenanigans or attempt to bring harm to my friends, I see no reason not to humor you."
Egil rolled his eyes. "Bud, the whole reason this place exists is for ponies who want to get away from that. Everyone's friends in the Oasis. Speaking of which, lemme introduce you to the crew here!"
He pointed a hoof first at a stringy stallion with a wide mouth and dangerously pointy goatee, like Howe's but much, much classier. "This here is Live Wire..." His hoof moved on to the next, who had a long muzzle, longer mane, and deep bags under his eyes. "That's Off Switch, and then the third fine fellow with the blocky head is Crennel."
"Pleased to meet you," Crennel replied in a deep monotone that didn't seem to be deliberate, broad shoulders taking up half the table.
"It's a very great pleasure..." Live Wire grinned toothily, eagerly extending a hoof for Gerardo to shake.
"'Lo," Off Switch remarked, looking as though he was short several cups of coffee and hadn't decided whose fault it was.
"It... yes, likewise," Gerardo assured, reaching and shaking back. "I do apologize, though, if I fail to recall you later. I've been positively bombarded with new names as of late, and, well..." He tipped his head at Egil. "You, I believe I recall, but I'm afraid I've already forgotten the name of your companion."
Egil laughed. "Bardal? Hah! I told him he needed a better handle when he picked it out, but who did he listen to? Sure wasn't little old me! He's still doing our rounds, by the way."
"Ah, yes, quite tragic." Quickly agreeing, Gerardo turned back to the rest of the stallions. "So, I was meeting pleasantly with your leader when we were abruptly interrupted and she had to speed away, and I find myself with an indeterminate amount of time to kill before she gets back. What does one normally do around here to pass the time?"
"Tell stories. Complain. Talk about life." Off Switch shrugged, slightly more animated than his appearance initially suggested. "Old romances, lost dreams, bucket lists. What we'd do if we were chancellor of the Sky District."
"But we talk about that all the time!" Live Wire interrupted, voice just as sparky as his namesake. "Let's get some new stuff on deck. You got any stories to tell, griffon guy?"
Crennel nodded slowly in agreement.
"I... well..." Gerardo hesitated. "First off, since I don't believe it was said, I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. And I'll have you know ponies have been utterly enthralled before by me telling a tale of making a perfectly ordinary pot of soup, which in truth was as boring a story as they come. Are you sure you wouldn't rather hear something more substantial than the tales I have to tell?"
Egil shoved him. "So tell a better story, bud! Don't think we'll buy that you don't have them!"
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Would you rather hear the far-less-realistic tale of how I am an exiled prince from a far-off land, questing to raise an army and restore my birthright kingdom?"
"Gerardo, friend, we seriously couldn't care less how fake it is if it's good." Live Wire grinned, shaking his head. "Just tell a good story!"
Off Switch bobbed his head, a scarf wrapped many times around his neck. "Agreed."
"Eherm. Yes. Well, I'll see what I can do." Gerardo coughed into a wing, took several seconds to think, and began. "Once upon a time, I was traversing a port city bearing a load of cargo intended for a very important destination. I sought to travel by water a ways, so I sat down and said to myself, 'I should buy a boat.' Unfortunately, I was presently broke, as a result of being scammed into buying a land title deed I was lead to believe contained a great amount of treasure by a very dastardly llama who was far less friendly than he seemed. So I set about hiring myself out for odd jobs to raise capital, and in turn found myself teamed alongside a sellsword named Winsom I had crossed blades with in the past! It turned out he was just as dishonest as the llama, and in fact also a llama himself, but a lot more friendly, so together we plotted to rob a casino that was itself secretly a scam operation..."
An unknown number of hours later...
"...By the time we made it out of the cave my land title granted us access to, the thunderstorm had intensified to the point where the entrance was veritably a river. Fortunately, it was also bad enough to ground all air traffic, so Winsom and I made it back to the city without being annihilated by the patrol ships the government had searching for us. Following a climactic swordfight on the roof of the parliament building, we were able to enter through a slightly flimsy window and present all the evidence needed to force the prime minister's incarceration, right as he was about to sign the measure that would have opened the borders to the invading armies! We were offered fame and recognition beyond words, but I merely accepted a small boat as payment, dug out my crates from where I had stashed them in a hole at the side of a road, and sailed into the horizon, leaving for greater deeds."
Gerardo blinked, story finally finished. "And no, to my knowledge, Winsom never got to kiss the ousted prime minister's daughter, so there is your forbidden love."
The stallions at the table sat silent for a moment longer... then applauded, Egil slapping Gerardo on the back. "Now there's how you tell a story, bud! Go on, tell me it matters whether or not that all even happened!"
Gerardo grinned slightly back. "As a matter of fact, it contains slightly less fabrication than one might think. While it is greatly the product of embellishment, I did in fact find myself adventuring with a past acquaintance named Winsom in search of funding to purchase a boat, and it truly did involve him attempting an affair with the daughter of an influential leadership figure. Now, as to the invading-"
"Don't tell us!" Crennel interrupted, more passion in his voice than usual. "It breaks the magic!"
"Ah... well, my apologies." Gerardo drooped, headcrest sagging over one eye. He blew it out of the way, and added, "Additionally, my throat is the slightest bit scratchy after all that talking. Might one of you gentlecolts be willing to take up the tale-telling in my stead? I'm more than happy to receive my own introduction to Sosan lore, and as Shinespark does not seem to be back yet..."
Live Wire grinned ferociously. "Gerardo, I have more than got you covered. Want to hear about the latest in Sosan weapon prototyping?"
"Do I wish to hear about the latest in Sosan weapon prototyping?" Gerardo cocked his head, making a show of thinking. "Well, I can't say that couldn't be interesting. Please, do tell."
"Perfection." Live Wire slammed both hooves on the table, eliciting a chuckle from Egil and a dubious recoil from Off Switch. "Now, I was in the lab yesterday, making adjustments to a new master die for manacannon compression chambers, which are down to science enough that a hair's width could make them explode the bad way... and shut up, Crennel, I know how rare it is to hear me say that. Anyway, a... colleague had noticed that the firing nozzle on the casting machine was cracked and neglected to tell me until I already had a new vat of entwinement glue heating, and that is the end result of a three-week process that you really don't want to try stopping after it's started. So I was trying to get the filament that had already been fed out without pulling any-"
"Hey. You." Off Switch cut him off with a rasp, thick scarf shifting slightly as his head turned. "Look at the griffon's eyes. See that sheen of gloss? It means you're losing him. Tell a story you don't need a background to understand."
Live Wire blinked owlishly, broad mouth frowning at his companion. "...Once, I discovered that putting two cannons on your back gives twice as much firepower as one. They said it wasn't an original discovery, but it sure worked well."
"I... see," Gerardo replied. "Remarkably sophisticated. Though, while I do indeed lack the background to understand most of this technology, I'm hardly opposed to hearing about it."
"You should take him to the testing range," Crennel offered, speaking in slow-motion.
"That... could be interesting..." Live Wire's grin broadened, and he rubbed his hooves. "Hey, Gerardo. Down for a little explosive demonstration?"
"You know I'm in!" Abandoning his seat, Egil rose and moved to join him, pumping a meaty hoof.
"No," Off Switch grumbled, nevertheless rising too and moving to follow the group.
"Well, I suppose I might as well oblige!" Game for anything that didn't involve being exploded himself, Gerardo neatly shoved his stool under the table where it wouldn't get in the way and stretched, vaguely aware of the amount of ponies at other tables paying him attention. It wasn't many, since there weren't many left in the bar, but it was enough to give him a tingling impression of being famous. "Might I ask that one of you lead the way?"
"Leading like a bad oil level leads you to the supply room." Live Wire strode ahead, pushing open the door to the corridors with a bombastic red aura and motioning for the rest to follow.
They slipped through the door, and it swung closed behind them, leaving a lone Crennel happily nursing three forgotten drinks, because it would have been a shame to let them go to waste.
Another door flung open into a deep, straight, iron-walled chamber that looked like it had once been used for cooling and ventilation equipment. Great sections of air ducts hung from the sides where they had been magically sawed off, and the majority of the room was taken up by a balcony overlooking a reinforced, burn-resistant track.
Live Wire unlocked a sizable cabinet with his horn, its face rolling aside to reveal rack upon rack of blasters, launchers, lasers, stabbers, slicers, choppers, clubbers, whackers and other assorted lawn care implements. "Any of these look fun to you, Gerardo?" he offered confidently. "I know I can think of some ones to recommend..."
As a square cube that slightly resembled a bucket tumbled in his aura like a ball spun on a hoof, Gerardo squinted. "Truthfully, I have no idea what to look for. Have you any you are particularly proud of yourself?"
"There's not really all that much here we made," Egil answered, shoving his girth through the testing range door. "Most of these finished products here are from the other two factories. Mobius has us doing more preliminary research, proof-of-concept types of deals, and who knows what happens with that?"
"Shinespark," Off Switch coolly replied, standing near the wall, mane long and black. "She's the one who controls everything, here. Mobius isn't the stallion he once was, so any time someone is doing something and you can't see who, it's Shinespark."
"Well... we do have these..." Live Wire shrugged, pulling out something that looked like a brass snail shell the size of a pony's head. "They're made here, by us."
"Are they, now?" Politely, Gerardo did his best to keep the conversation moving. "What does that one do, if I may?"
Live Wire grinned. "Egil? Mind playing the good guy again today?"
Egil shook his head, taking the machine in his aura and moving toward a staircase to the track below. "You enjoy your job far too much, sometimes, bud."
"We all have our ways of coping." Shrugging, Live Wire pulled out a turret with a long, slim barrel and several concentric rings attached to a wide nozzle. "Better than doing nothing all day. En garde!"
He followed Egil to the floor, and Gerardo peered at them over the railing in morbid fascination and suspense. Were the weapons really suited for a head-on duel?
"You may want to cover your eyes," Off Switch murmured, shuffling up beside him. "That long one makes a very big flash."
"I should like to think I'll be all right," Gerardo assured with a smile, nevertheless holding a wing near his face in case he needed to duck behind it at a moment's notice. With a small crackle of lightning, Live Wire's weapon charged to fire, aimed squarely at Egil... and then let loose.
A single, blinding, razor-thin beam streaked instantaneously from its end, moving so quickly it might not have been traveling at all so much as springing into existence, already spanning the gap between it and its target. Gerardo barely had time to blink before it splintered violently, however, filling the room with the sound of metal striking metal.
Egil held his shell protectively in front, and a broad umbrella of energy streamed from the hole, mushrooming out into a wall that broke the beam's advance. His portable shield sparked and crackled, yet held firm, its cracked surface glossing over and returning to pristine seconds after Live Wire's beam finally ended.
The attacking unicorn tossed down his laser and grinned. "How about that, Gerardo? Impressive?"
"Verily," Gerardo called back, unsure entirely what else to say.
"This thing..." Egil huffed after a moment of climbing, trying to get back on the overlook railing. "Developed completely in-house, with work from Shinespark herself!"
"The Defense Force contract that funds us doesn't contain any specifics," Off Switch interrupted. "We can make what we want... or what the chiefs want, at least. It's a good sign for integrity when a pony asked to make a weapon for a war she doesn't believe in brings you a shield instead of a sword."
"Now, now, while we're showing off the shield..." Live Wire interrupted, sticking his head up above the railing. "What say we show off some of the rest? I'm very partial to cannons, myself, but it's not too much of a stretch to show it off against melee instead..."
As Live Wire clashed an energized, sparking sword against Egil's mechanically-projected shield, Gerardo watched from the railing above, eyes half-focused and Off Switch standing disinterestedly by his side. The ponies around him seemed to be enjoying themselves sufficiently to stay out of trouble, and that meant it was as good a time as any to get a handle on recent events: namely, his conversation with Shinespark.
It was safer to assume she was on his side than Herman, Selma or anyone in the Stone District, for certain. But the air had been thick with unshared knowledge, and he had a strong suspicion she wasn't willing to help him purely for his own sake. At the very least, it would be for the sake of ideals.
That was the problem with the knowledge-is-power model Shinespark had confirmed, he mused: it made it impossible to tell whether someone was telling the truth so long as they had any cards left to play, and very rare to both see and identify a showing of true colors, let alone find them useful. Sharpie, for instance, he was reasonably sure had nothing left to hide, but was too weighted down in both personal baggage and information he was unable to share with her to be remotely useful as an ally. Shinespark spoke with conviction and seemed to believe in her words, but openly admitted to hiding uncountable things from the griffon. And finally, there were Maple and Starlight, both of whom were solidly on his side yet even more in need of protecting than he was.
With invisible satisfaction, he patted the sword hilt on his belt: at least that was back where it belonged. Aside from unreasonably maneuverable ponies in armor, it had been both perfectly unstoppable and completely nonlethal for the duration of time he had had it. Arambai had warned him, on that night of departure, to always go armed in Ironridge, and at last he had been reunited with the best weapon adventuring could find.
...Ironically, that meant his advantage would be at its greatest should any warfare or fighting break out. He decided not to think about that.
Down below, Egil managed to shove back Live Wire's assault, thrusting the shield-projector forward with his shoulder. Both stallions stopped, lightly panting, the sword growing dull and the shield sparking and fading from existence.
"Well, well!" Egil wiped his brow, then frowned at the shield. "Looks to me like that's all this little old thing can take without a recharge. What say you we break and look at something else?"
Live Wire grinned, leaning on his sword. "I have more than a few ideas..."
Alighting on the floor beside them, Gerardo tucked in his wings and took two steps forward. "Truly impressive, I must say," he commended, pretending he had been fully invested in the sparring match. "That shield certainly seems interesting. How does it work, if I may?"
"It takes one technical term you don't know and applies it to another, creating a third," Off Switch droned, descending the stairs the easy way. "In layponies' terms, science and magic."
Egil belched. "Well, everyone's gotta start somewhere, right? Listen, bud, here's a crash course, the very basics of the basics." He stepped beside Gerardo, slung one foreleg over the griffon's shoulders, and swung the other wide, as if picturing a vista. "Mana is energy. It gets conducted by stuff... rocks, most of the time. Sedimentary stuff like sandstone is a little worse, garden-variety crystals are a little better, diamonds and real gemstones are great. Pony bones are actually the best, but we don't use those for obvious reasons. Most kinds of wood are poor conductors, and then glass, air and metal don't work at all. Gold is a strange case, so let's not cover that. Starting from higher grades of crystal, you can grind the stuff into a powder and it'll work too, so long as you spread it thick enough. Following me?"
Gerardo nodded. Live Wire didn't respond, absorbed in tinkering with a weapon.
"Swell. Now, the more mana you've got in something, the more resistant it is to holding more, and the better grade of conductor that is, the slower that happens. The idea is that if you put something with a lot of mana and something with a little mana together, they even out... so the way you store the stuff is by taking a conductor, touching it to something with a lot of mana, letting it equalize, and then taking it away and surrounding it by air or metal so it doesn't drain. Then, when you want to use it, you touch it to something else... Simple, right?"
"Hmm!" Gerardo beamed. Between his old boat and past technological endeavors, the workings of mana cores and generation of power were hardly news to him, but Egil seemed to enjoy explaining it, so he played along. "That is, in fact, simpler than I thought it would be."
"Then your expectations were too low." Off Switch strode past, scarf ruffling beneath his sunken eyes. Reaching out with his telekinesis, he lifted the dormant shield device, slid open a hatch on one side, and popped out a moderately-sized hexagonal prism. "It's far more complex than whatever you were thinking. What he said is the amount of information children take to change the batteries in their toys."
Live Wire looked up from his tinkering, grin broad. "Says you and your black boxes. Tell Gerardo about the black boxes, then! Those are batteries, too!"
"...No." Off Switch stared back, straight down his muzzle. "That's precisely why you weren't chosen to work on this project. Information is handled on a need-to-know basis and nobody could trust you with delicate secret-keeping."
Gerardo paused, vaguely sure they were on the verge of discussing something not meant to be discussed... and decided not to intervene.
"He's working on the black boxes, Gerardo," Live Wire said, doing his best to force eye contact. "They're replacements for mana cores that supposedly never need to be recharged. It's scientifically impossible, but they already have proof-of-concept prototypes."
Off Switch scowled. "Stop making foolish, erroneous statements in an attempt to make me correct you and talk about the project."
"As a matter of fact..." Gerardo butted in, wings spread to appear bigger. "I'm all for hearing interesting secrets, but perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to raise tensions in a room full of explosives?"
"That sounds mighty good to me!" Egil agreed, pulling a fresh hexagonal cartridge from a shelf and stuffing it into the vacancy Off Switch had left in the shield. He slid the door closed with a clack, and fired it up, a full-strength dome of energy arcing out once more.
"Thank you," Off Switch sighed, moving back to stand next to a wall.
"Killjoys," Live Wire muttered.
A disgruntled silence ensued, and Gerardo quickly decided to break it with a question about the last successful topic of conversation. "When recharging these cores... mana ultimately comes from the ground, does it not?"
Egil nodded. "That's one of two places. You can also charge them straight from a unicorn horn, though that's hard and not as potent unless you're a really buff mage. But it makes sense that since rock is a conductor, you'd go to the ground to find it, right? Turns out all of the ground is infused with it, and the deeper you go, the more there is. It comes from there, too, so we don't have to worry about no finite supplies."
"Interesting," Gerardo remarked, hoping Off Switch wouldn't cut in again. "I take it this is one of those deeper-is-better types of situations?"
"Yes and no." Egil shrugged. "It does become more concentrated as you go down, but ultimately, you reach a threshold where the rock is so suffused, it conducts better than diamond. Nopony wants to actually bury cores and dig them up to recharge, so we stick long conductive pylons deep in the earth, and hook them up to charging stations. But once you pass that threshold, you stop seeing any benefit from going deeper, so... why bother?"
"The city banned it, too," Live Wire added, licking his lips. "Quite some time ago, in fact. It seems like an odd restriction, considering nobody wanted to do it... except maybe me. 'Just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean nobody will try it,' they said. It's as if they prophesied my existence. I'm almost proud to take it personally!"
"Oh?" Gerardo looked up. "Now I'm curious as to their rationale."
"It's because there's nothing wrong with the present system," Off Switch answered. "Practical experience shows that there's no benefit to going deeper, and we aren't wanting for power in the first place. However, if the concentrations continue to increase with depth at the rate they have been, they eventually reach levels where phenomena we can only theorize would occur. There's always the chance someone would try to bore a deep enough hole to find out."
"And how does the rule go again?" Live Wire asked slyly. "If it's never been broken before, best to find out how much it can take?"
"You're missing the point." Off Switch shook his head. "We can't replicate those conditions in a lab. For all we know, rocks explode when under that much pressure and would kill anyone who attempted to descend, or worse, cause an earthquake under all of Ironridge. And what would you do when concentrations were high enough that the air itself became energized?"
"You wanna know the funner reason?" Egil cut in. "Because the world has all sorts of legends that are thousands of years old about monsters and ancient evil and their ilk that aren't around today, yet never about them being outright destroyed. No one knows where they are, and no one knows what the bottom of the world looks like, if it even has one... See what I'm getting at?"
Live Wire hung his head. "Admittedly, that sounds like too much excitement even for me. Still, it does have some appeal..."
"If that excuse works for you, so be it. What matters are the combined dangers and non-necessity of going down that far." Off Switch shifted his scarf and stared up at the exit, clearly pondering whether it would soon be time to leave.
"Hmm..." Gerardo stood, on the fringes of the conversation. "I'm curious, just what kind of depths are we talking about?"
Off Switch eyed him back. "Several stories is sufficient for normal charging. You could bury a stone beneath a second-level basement and see it charged in a day. For maximum efficiency, you need descend about ten. To see anything truly beyond safe prediction, you would have to bore several miles."
"I... see. Most interesting." Gerardo filed the information away for later, noting its primary use as things Ironridge ponies are superstitious about. "Well, I believe I have seen everything you have shown me. Is there more to do here, or shall we make ourselves elsewhere?"
Egil trotted to the stairs, their metal rungs groaning under his weight. "I might be game for heading home for the evening, I think. It's been a fun night of slacking, but Bardal's gonna kill me if I'm still here when he gets done with rounds!"
"I think I've just had a flash of inspiration for a new combo weapon," Live Wire muttered excitedly, carrying several implements toward a far door in his aura. "It'll be night labbing for me, tonight. Here's a hint: it involves a harpoon and an ammunition clip..."
Both doors clicked shut, and Gerardo suddenly found himself alone... with Off Switch. The stallion stared back at him, unblinking.
"...I suppose I ought to get going myself," Gerardo said awkwardly, shifting his weight between talons.
"Do me a favor," Off Switch interrupted before he could leave. "And don't accept any favors from any ponies here."
"Pardon?" Gerardo blinked, trying to parse the contrary requests.
"You disabled several Sosans two nights ago in a skirmish in the Earth District," the stallion said, voice low in the echoey room. "I wasn't there, but I still know it. So do a lot of other ponies. They aren't sure what to think about you, but they think you're strong. Some are afraid of you. Others think you're here to help them. I don't know how strong you really are, but it isn't as much as they're expecting. Everyone here has expectations of you, so try not to get caught up in them."
Gerardo gulped. "I shall keep that in mind. The heads-up is most appreciated."
"Think nothing of it." Off Switch stood for a moment, then slowly climbed the stairs and left the room, turning the lights out as he went. Gerardo was left there, amid glowing indicators and dormant weaponry, suddenly hoping much more fervently that Shinespark would hurry her return.
The central room of the Oasis was even quieter when Gerardo stepped back inside, soft indigo light shining down from the enchanted ceiling. Streaked with a flurry of stars and lacking clouds or a moon, it was unblemished by light pollution of any sort, reminiscent of the very best kind of nights one could spend while traveling. Since no ponies were pressing on him with demands for attention and he had no goals to attend to, he took a moment to stare up, reveling in the expert enchantment.
Slowly, his eyes wandered down the walls, tracing the rivets that bound metal plates together and occasional squares where an access panel had been welded shut. The stage at the room's far end sat unused, its curtain hanging high above the floor, a small lectern standing humbly at the head. Across from it, the bar counter was unstaffed, most of its dispensers covered with cloths for the night.
At the tables, only four ponies remained. Two stallions chatted inaudibly over plates that had long-since been licked clean of food, and three tables over, a third had fallen asleep, head resting sideways on the surface in front of him. The last was a large figure, keeping a watchful vigil of the entry door from beneath a gray-and-purple hood, her square white muzzle just visible beneath.
Gerardo silently tapped forward, letting his talons strike the floor with just enough force to announce his presence.
Without turning her head, Matryona slipped a long wing free from her cloak, nudging a stool out in invitation. Gerardo took it without word, waiting to see if she would initiate conversation.
"We have a room for you, too, if you would like it."
"Thank you." Gerardo nodded at the door, himself and Matryona watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. "I believe I'll seek to retire soon, but not perhaps yet. I would very much like to finish my conversation with your daughter, and am not nearly to the level of exhaustion that I must sleep early. Do you have any clue as to when she will return?"
"I haven't," Matryona replied, holding still. "Shinespark often leaves too quickly to tell anyone where she is going, and she wouldn't tell you if you stopped her and asked."
There was a slight pause, before Matryona continued, "You have your sword back. I take it what you discussed was productive?"
Gerardo blinked. He couldn't remember whether the pegasus had left the room before Shinespark had brought out his sword... Had they discussed this ahead of time?
Opting not to risk a potentially troublesome subject, he instead said, "Think of it as a token of my agreeing to remain here for a time, until I have sufficiently ensured our business is finished. A signature on my honor, in other words."
Matryona sat silent. The two talking stallions walked past, having finally abandoned their table in a quest for the door, their dishes still sitting, unbussed. Well-oiled hinges swung shut without a squeak. Twice as much time as that passed afterward... and eventually, she said, "Your friend sleeps fitfully."
"Ah. Yes. Her." Gerardo's face fell. "...You were watching her sleep?"
"She wasn't comfortable," Matryona explained. "Even to ponies from the Stone District, it is important that we be tolerant and hospitable, as much as possible. So yes, I watched her in the same way a mother walks past her child's room at night."
"I see." Gerardo wasn't entirely sure what he expected, or why he asked aside from latent paranoia from the Defense Force, but felt it would be awkward to let the conversation die then and there. "How often do you have guests in this place? Of the vein of myself, that is. Non-Sosans."
"Rarely," Matryona sighed. "Much of what they're for is to care for the families of our workers when they need it, such as during a housing transition, or if one has a condition of any type that requires ponies nearby to help. Once, you know, Sosa was the entryway to all of Ironridge. Remnants of that time are why the Earth District and we prize hospitality so much. But now, we are at the far back of Ironridge, surrounded by a climate alien to visitors and separated from the entrance by walls of propaganda from ponies who like the new way of things and fear that all of Sosa is like the Spirit, wanting to turn back time and in turn erase their own progress. Ponies just don't come to Sosa any more."
"My condolences," Gerardo offered, unsure of whether to interrupt the matriarch's reminiscing.
"The ponies here feel it heavily," she continued, hood reflecting her somber tone. "Ten years ago, it started. Seven years ago, it finished. That's recent enough that everyone remembers it, whether they were a worker or a foal, but more than long enough ago to idealize what it used to be like. They don't comprehend in terms of 'I want the past.' When they look at their home, they think, 'I don't want the present' instead. ...At least, that is what Shinespark says."
"Oh, really?" Gerardo lifted an eyebrow. "Forgive me, but I can't help but sense a but..."
Matryona nodded. "I am not from Ironridge. For nearly two decades, I never even set hoof in the city. When I did, I came when it was at its greatest... during the dying days of Project Aslan. The Ironridge I first saw was magnificent, and Sosa was its capital. Every pony at every corner was overflowing with optimism, every direction you could look was decked in color. I was there to spread more joy and happiness, dancing in a traveling performance troupe. I even met a handsome, powerful stallion who took an interest in me... Mobius. None of it lasted, of course. I assume you've heard many times what happened to the city. That tragedy hurt me tremendously, and I never looked at the world the same again... but the memory of that first impression was even more powerful. The Sosans here see their city as what once belonged to them; what was theirs to give to and share with others and was taken away. But I saw it from the other side of the window, and always will."
"...I see."
Gerardo let the conversation die. He had a feeling it would be rude to break the silence; there was no question in his mind that Matryona was being as painfully honest as possible. How did that line up, when Shinespark had emphasized exactly the opposite as a virtue?
His mind wandered over the catwalks and corridors of the factory above, where two guards on patrol had jovially invited him to their base despite the admittedly-suspicious circumstances of their meeting, then down to the testing room where two out of three had been more than eager to show off their work, no matter how secret it had been intended to be. He thought of how Shinespark had spoken frankly and passionately about her beliefs and goals, almost going so far as to apologize for having things she couldn't tell him. And now Matryona...
Looking at them, the Sosans didn't seem at all like a band of ponies who had once had everything, and had it taken from them over a series of brutal blows. Up close, they seemed far too innocent, too optimistic, too hopeful for anything their situation would warrant possible. How could that be? Was there something about their history he still didn't understand, something that made their spirits that unbreakable? Or had Shinespark really done that much for them?
...With a slight misting of his eyes, his thoughts turned to the trapped bombs along the eastern dam, and for a split-second he felt just as protective of the Steel District as Shinespark did. But he wiped the thought away; it would be dangerous to become overconfident or deviate from his plan, even though things were going well and his sword had been reclaimed.
"You seem lost in thought," Matryona remarked, hood shielding her mane from the enchanted starlight above.
"Perhaps." Deciding to repay honesty with honesty, Gerardo added, "Just contemplating the attitudes the ponies here seem to possess. All in all, they're far more innocent than I could have expected, given their situation."
"They are," Matryona admitted, stoic and tall. "Part of it is denial. They've been through so much, so quickly, they don't want it to be true. Enough that when somepony tells them it isn't, so long as their needs are met..." She sighed, head turning toward the table. "Remember, Sosa's crises isn't one of means, but of meaning. What the ponies need most is to know that they matter, and what they do is still important, now that they are unable to do what they've done for centuries. They want to believe, and they need to be told. They know that they should, as well. Part of me... shivers, whenever I think about what would happen if someone tried to break them entirely. I think they would try to break them back."
Gerardo listened, pondering a world of isolation a short river-ride away, where actions ponies took could never affect more than just their community, trying to reconcile that with how far a pony would have to fall in Ironridge to believe they could do more if they just left. "...How familiar are you with the situation of how I entered Ironridge?"
"I know every detail Shinespark does," Matryona answered calmly. "From the letters he writes us. They're mostly about science, but he told us about you and Starlight and Maple. Willow and Amber, too."
"Hmm..." Gerardo sighed, sitting back. "Well, I'm... Hmm. Now that I think about it, would you be terribly offended if I asked precisely how your and Shinespark's familial situation works? From what I've gathered, she is Mobius' foal, yet treats Arambai as her father?"
"That is correct." Matryona nodded. "It's a very, very long story... but the important parts are shorter. I fell in love with Mobius during my first visit to Ironridge. It was a very brief affair. My friends at the time told me it was part of an infatuation with the city itself, and I don't trust my judgement to say they were right or wrong. After that, I returned to the city when Shinespark was born, but it was at a time when there was a lot of political drama happening, which I got swept up in. Eventually, Arambai rescued me from it and hid me from the public eye, allowing me to live out my existence and raise Shinespark in secret. I fell in love with him, too, for real that time."
She folded her hooves beneath her robe, voice silvery in the starlight. "He cared for me and her... sometimes more like a proud uncle than a father, but he was there for her. Mobius had said he had no need for heirs, but eventually Shinespark began to grow up and show off amazing talents, and in turn he began to desire a relationship with her. Now, he dotes on her with all kinds of material and political favors, though it matters little when she is already richer, more powerful and more loved than he. It's too late, though. He wasn't there for us when we needed it, and she will never truly think of him as her father."
"I see..." Gerardo mused. "From everything I've heard, it sounds as though Mobius-"
At that moment, the room sparked with a soft flash of light, and Shinespark materialized on the stage. Her mane was wind-blown and looked like it had been rained on, and she waited out a breath or two before climbing down to the floor, trotting toward Gerardo and Matryona.
"Welcome back," Matryona invited, gesturing with a wing and pulling out a free stool.
"It's true," Shinespark replied, sapphire eyes alight with an unquenchable fire. "What dad described in his letters. I saw it, and it's really true."
Matryona sat silent for a moment, facing away such that Gerardo couldn't read her expression. Then, she climbed down, spread her wings... and buried her daughter in a hug. "You doubted him?"
"No," Shinespark muttered back. "It's just... it's been so long. So many years, and I can't believe we're almost there..."
Gerardo hesitated, unsure of whether to butt in. "My apologies, but I'm afraid I'm missing the point..."
Shinespark extracted herself from her mother's embrace, nodding up at Gerardo. "I have a lot to fill you in on. But first, I think we have an unfinished conversation to get back to?"
"That would be most appreciated." Gerardo bowed deeply. "I was up at the crack of sunrise this morning... which is admittedly not that early, thanks to the mountain's shadow, but still, the night is beginning to get to me. I would enjoy it immensely to not feel as if I were sleeping on unfinished business tonight."
"Of course. Let's get back to my office, then." Shinespark nodded in return, tracing her hooves along the metal floor as hew aura eagerly propped open the door, several strides away. "I think we'll discuss an exact plan in the morning, but there are some things we can go over now."
As she held the door open, letting Gerardo and Matryona pass by, her eyes flickered to the sash that held his newly-sheathed sword. "I take it that means you agree to stay and help us as long as needbe?"
Gerardo shrugged. "For what my help is worth. As you've said yourself, though, I am a player with sadly few cards to contribute at present."
"Lucky for you I'm good at finding meaningful things for others to do!" Shinespark smirked gently, then followed, closing the door behind her. "Here's what's important, though. I've thought about it... and you can leave tomorrow, if you want, under some conditions. You can also stay and help us. All you have to do is hear me out first. I know what I would do, of course. ...Anyway."
"You make it sound almost foreboding," Gerardo remarked as they traversed the corridors beneath the Steel District, eventually coming to Shinespark's office. "What kind of conditions are we talking about, here?"
They stepped inside the office antechamber, Shinespark immediately making for the door to the back conference room. "Oh, you'll find out."
Once again, she held the door open with a hoof, Matryona's cloaked form gliding through on graceful hooves. Gerardo stepped into the dimly-lit room himself... and immediately collided chest-first with a tall, full-body suit of polished golden armor.
Gerardo stood still as a statue, and so did the pony he had bumped into.
He had no ears to flatten, and her metallic ones were incapable of the motion. Presumably, judging from the size of her helmet, they were already pressed against her skull inside, though he felt no solidarity in the knowledge.
She wasn't as tall as he was, even with the golden plates' thickness adding to her height, but it felt as if that difference was magnified a thousandfold in the opposite direction. It might have been her horn, long and fluted and thick enough to accommodate the real thing inside. It might have been her eyes, covered by lenses so dark that not a hint of light shone back out. It might even have been the way her armor interlocked so finely it could have been airtight, completely devoid of motion... though he knew from firsthand experience just how rapidly she could carry herself when she wanted to.
Commander Braen stood inches from his chest, and every bit of confidence he had gained from recollecting his sword had vanished like water in a golden, impassive sieve.
"...Commander," he croaked, talon itching protectively toward his sheath.
"There's no need for that." Shinespark flicked it away with a dab of telekinesis, closing the door and locking the four of them in the room. Steadily, the manalights reacted to her presence and came alive, glinting off Braen's metal coat. "We're all allies here, I can assure you."
Gerardo said nothing. Neither did Braen.
"Please." Shinespark dropped into a chair across the table, not lounging like she had earlier. "Have a seat."
Slowly, deliberately, Braen clinked toward a chair, the first indication she had given that there was actually a pony inside the stoic suit of armor. As she sat, the light illuminated a three-triangled emblem on her flanks, exactly like the one that adorned the office door outside.
The chair creaked beneath her weight.
"Look, if this is a big deal, I'm sorry I didn't warn you she would be coming." Shinespark sighed, putting her hooves on the table. "It's hardly a secret that I have some of my dad's penchant for drama. But really, is it that big of a surprise? I told you already I'm in contact with her. I proved it by getting back your sword. In fact, you should be able to guess precisely why she's here."
Gerardo blinked, brain in overdrive, exploring all facets of the situation. "How did she get down here without me seeing her pass?" he asked, seizing on a discrepancy.
"There are other ways."
"I see..." Gerardo muttered to himself, trying to think of something to say next.
Logically, Shinespark was right. She had forgiven him for disabling the Spirit ponies she apparently took responsibility for, after all. Would she not have confirmed Braen would do the same?
"Well, from this reaction I think I already know what you'll say when I make my offer, but whatever." Shinespark pushed out a chair with telekinesis, offering it more aggressively. "Braen went and looked at the bombs. They're real. Selma wasn't lying about the trigger mechanism, or anything else. His sealant spell was real, too."
Mechanically, Braen nodded, confirming what Shinespark had said.
Gerardo gulped. "I take it that is unfortunate?"
"She also found something else," Shinespark continued. "A note. It was left on the overlook, and addressed 'To Whom It May Concern.' Selma signed it, and it was written in his horn."
One talon at a time, Gerardo stepped closer. Braen's head tracked him with perfect efficiency, her metallic wing replicas coiled at her sides. The sabaton where his sword had struck looked newer then the rest of her armor, he noticed. She hadn't been limping.
"The note assumed that we would want to invade; to attempt taking over the fortress militarily to ensure no one could bring a transmitter in range. It's obvious Selma wants us to do that. Unfortunately, that doesn't tell us anything about his goals, because whether he wanted to help or trap us, he would still say that. Selma prefers solving things by force."
Gerardo reached a chair, sitting at an angle so he could see both Shinespark and Braen at the same time. That put Matryona behind him and out of his line of sight, but she was just as silent as the Spirit commander.
"What it said..." Shinespark's voice dropped to a growl. "Was that tomorrow evening, he would muster every pony in the Defense Force who could fight to the bridge atop the eastern dam. There's an old road leading up the north face of the mountain, impassable by cart but possible to traverse by hoof... either for an assault, or a retreat. On that, we have no idea if he was lying."
"...What, then, do you intend to do?"
Shinespark folded her hooves. "We're still working out a plan, but most likely? Everything. That's for the morning, though. What matters is that we will have to take action."
Gerardo clicked his beak. "I must say, you sounded considerably more upbeat about that excursion when you were talking with Matryona in the lobby earlier."
"Well... there's good news, too. For me." Shinespark sighed, then looked him straight in the eye. "I guess I'll be as direct as possible: I don't know if I'm willing to let the ferry run tomorrow evening. I'm considering an evacuation, and that would mean keeping the river clear, too. As a favor to you, though, I could run it in the day... partway there. You'd have to fly the remainder of the distance."
"And carry my friends, I presume?" Gerardo grimaced. Flying with two ponies at once, even if one was a filly, sounded like an unreasonable load for cross-country travel.
"Maybe." Shinespark toughed the table, then leaned forward again. "The conditions for that are that you would have to stay in Riverfall for a bit. If you're not going to help us directly, I want to make sure you stay as far away from Ironridge as possible... and that would mean a quarantine. It sounds harsh, but I've done harsher. It wouldn't be for long, hopefully, but I don't know how much you know and can't take any risks, least of all right now. I'm sorry."
"...And the second condition?" Gerardo glanced keenly at her, managing to tear his gaze from Braen.
"Your friends will get an offer of their own," Shinespark said. "They may not want to go back with you. It isn't a decision you'll have time to make as a team."
Gerardo blinked. "I'm sensing you want for me to stay."
"I'd appreciate it." Shinespark nodded. "But it's your choice."
Gerardo pointed a talon at Braen. "And it's all right that we're discussing this in front of her?"
"She already knows."
"...I see."
For a moment, the room sat in silence. Eventually, Shinespark said, "You've been to Riverfall. You met my father, and whatever you did there, it earned his trust enough that he let you come here, to Ironridge, with some of the most valuable, exclusive, and dangerous information in the city... knowledge about where he is, what he's doing... You already know some of the best-kept secrets of our side. You haven't struck me as incompetent, and you've shown you have some things to offer our cause. Leaving for Riverfall isn't the only option. You could join us, instead."
Gerardo paused, picking apart her words. "Precisely what would such a job entail?"
"I'd tell you everything." Shinespark folded her hooves. "Everything. And then I'd trust you just as much as the precious few who also know. After that, you'd do everything in your power and more to help us. We're almost there, so it wouldn't take long. This isn't something you'd be committing years of your life to. But it will be messy and possibly dangerous, and would take one hundred and ten percent. We'll take care of your friends, so you won't have to worry about them. It would be just you... with an opportunity to do something truly great for the world. If you've ever felt like my ponies, like you'd do anything for a chance to make a difference... this is one of the biggest differences anyone will ever have an opportunity to make. What we're doing here is about more than just Ironridge. We could change the world."
Eyes narrowing, Gerardo glanced between Braen and Shinespark. "Something tells me you two are much more than casual business associates to be saying such things in front of each other."
Shinespark nodded. "That's easy to explain."
Further explanation didn't come, and Gerardo realized it was in lieu of him saying yes. He blinked, carefully contemplating. "Forgive me my skepticism, but in light of my experiences with this city, I feel it is well-earned."
"Of course." Shinespark nodded. "Ask all the questions you need."
Gerardo returned the gesture in appreciation. "I think I'll do just that..."
Shinespark's conference room wasn't poorly lit, but the atmosphere was tense enough to physically change the shadows, drawing Gerardo's eyes to the edges and crevices and little dark spots filled with things unseen. Matryona had left at some point, leaving him alone with the room's real presence: Shinespark and Braen, sitting on opposite sides of the table yet both staring directly at him. He hesitated, throat briefly paralyzed.
"You were going to ask something?"
It was Shinespark who broke the silence, rocking a hoof back and forth on the table idly. She didn't break eye contact.
"Ah. Yes, of course..." Gerardo swallowed, and again was able to speak. "When I was leaving Riverfall, Arambai gave me a lengthy speech of advice. One of his primary points was to avoid becoming tangled up in choosing a side at all costs. You and him are on the same team, yet you request me to directly disobey his words? Because this is an invitation to take a side if I've ever seen one."
"We wanted you three to remain inconspicuous for as long as possible," Shinespark answered. "That's why we didn't ask you to stay a while when you were entering the city. Arambai said you had other business in the city to attend to, and really, it's a nice place on the surface. We wanted you to enjoy it... but not risk you getting too sympathetic with the Defense Force or the yaks. That's why he said that. It turns out, though, that the Defense Force did a pretty great job of alienating you on their own, so that didn't wind up being an issue."
Gerardo clicked his beak. "And how do I know that my friends actually are in good care, seeing as I haven't seen them in more than a day?"
Shinespark frowned. "Do I look like the kind of pony who would lie about the safety of ponies my father specifically told me needed to be protected?"
"A valid point..." Gerardo's talon lowered, his objections being dealt with one by one. "Now, you speak of sides, but who precisely would we be working against? The Defense Force and the yaks?"
"Ironridge isn't held in the grip of a malignant conspiracy," Shinespark said, shaking her head. "At least... I hope not. Where it is is crushed between opposing influences who all want the most they can get out of it without thinking of the ponies who live here, and yes, the yaks are a part of that. Remember, we're not working to make an Ironridge where there are sides who are winners and losers. We're working in the name of the city, against anyone who would try to stop us, and we have a plan. For now, our only enemies are those who are trying to divide the city further."
"And wouldn't that include her?" Gerardo pointed a talon at Braen. "From what I've heard and seen, the Spirit is slightly less fair and significantly more military in its approach."
Shinespark shook her head. "You can't change the rules by playing by what you want them to be. There's a lot of things we've had to do to get this far we'd never want anyone to do in an ideal world, but that we've had to do because if we pretended everything was honest and fair, someone would stop us. You'll need to be okay supporting someone who is slightly hypocritical... but I can assure you, my heart is in the right place and I believe in the world I'm working for. If my motives were anything less than pure, the Ironridge of today would be my paradise."
Gerardo squinted. "When you say 'a lot of things...' what kinds of moral atrocities are you referring to?"
A blue aura lit the room, and a padlock on a display case undid itself. Shinespark didn't move.
Instead, Braen got to her hooves with a clank of armor and walked to the case, interlocked plates moving seamlessly around her. She reached the open compartment... and stretched, one metal wing unfurling itself to its full gleaming length.
Gerardo's jaw dropped, light from above catching on individual metal feathers that flowed over each other with grace that made the rest of the smithery look like foals' play. It was apparent from their size and construction that no real wings could fit inside... wasn't it? "Those wings can move?"
"Yes, but that isn't the point." Shinespark watched Braen carefully, the metal mare reaching her wing like a hand into the case. She drew it out, held it over the table... and deposited a shard of smooth, black glass, polished to a mirrorlike sheen that absorbed all color, reflecting the ceiling above in grayscale. "This is. We've been using these ever since they first appeared, knowing full well what they can do to ponies who don't have brands. That's how far we're willing to go."
"I see..." Gerardo blinked slowly. "Would you at all mind if I made a specific request for a reward? While I am inherently dispositioned toward wandering hero work, it does very much help..."
"You can ask." Shinespark met his gaze as Braen slowly hid the dark stone away where it belonged, tightening the door on her way back. "If I can help, I'll make a good effort."
"Well..." Gerardo gulped. "My original task, as I have explained, was to deliver a set of crates to the Defense Force. My original goal, as I may have glossed over in an attempt to avoid divulging any knowledge that could prove sensitive, was to obtain in payment a Writ of Harmonic Sanction from Yakyakistan. Now, as my crates are very likely still in this city, and the payment may have been here to begin with-"
"We can do that," Shinespark interrupted. "Maybe not get your permission specifically, but if you want to go to the Plains of Harmony..." For the first time that meeting, she grinned. "You might be a lot more interested in exactly how we plan to fix Ironridge."
"Oh really?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, really." Shinespark nodded, grin broadening. "Here's a hint. Sosa used to be the gateway between Ironridge and the rest of the northern world. Now, the Sky District is. If we want to give Sosa that role back without taking away what the other districts have..."
"Then it follows that you... need a new world to be the..." Gerardo breathed, eyes so wide they were watering from strain. "I have no idea how you plan to do that, but if I follow your implications correctly, you may consider me on board."
"Well, it seems we have a deal!" Shinespark beamed, getting up from her chair and trotting around the table to shake his talon. "Now, we've got a lot to cover, and as it's getting late and we have this bomb business to deal with tomorrow..."
"Expedience would be a virtue, yes," Gerardo finished for her. "Perhaps it would be useful for me to inform you of certain major points I've already deduced, then, to save the time of explaining them?"
"Oh?" Shinespark's brows rose. "What kinds of points are we talking about?"
"For one, I have a very accurate hunch as to the identity of the pony sitting silently inside that suit of armor there," Gerardo replied, unable to help feeling slightly smug.
Shinespark smirked. "Do you, now? Go on, let's hear it."
Gerardo bowed. "Of course. You see, I managed to embed my sword in her right front forehoof during our altercation in the forest, which would expectably warrant for her to have a limp. Additionally, she showed up in the Defense Force fortress on what was arguably a very foolhardy mission at precisely the time my friends may have been in need of a rescue. Now, this potential rescue attempt occurred shortly after I made a visit to Chancellor Dior, and was promptly shooed away as if he had somewhere very urgent to be. However, during my short time there, I could not help but notice he possessed a limp in his right front leg."
Eyes narrowing in impending victory, he pressed on. "Furthermore, as it is readily apparent now, you and Braen seem to trust each other significantly more than you're willing to let on in public, and you also have quite a high opinion of Arambai. As Arambai told me personally that Dior would be a trustworthy and versatile recourse should I ever find myself in an extreme amount of trouble... I propose Braen is not in fact a she, but a he."
Shinespark's jaw dropped slightly in awe, and she whistled. "That's remarkable," she managed. "You didn't even follow the clues we left. You just stumbled into that conclusion on your own..."
"...Clues?" Gerardo's pride faded to the kind of polite, innocent smile one gives when being accused of a crime they never even knew existed, slowly sliding into a frown of confusion and denial. "You... did what? I'm afraid I don't understand..."
"You're right about one thing," Shinespark said, dodging the question. "Dior is helping us. He's one of the most trustworthy ponies I know, and is one of the elite few who know every last secret Sosa has to keep. He's been in with us since the beginning, since before he snuck his way into the chancellorship through guile, luck, a bunch of superstitious yaks and a very useful brand. He's an invaluable ally who protects us from curious snoops like your friend Sharpie, who mean well but have no idea just how much is out there for them to stumble into. He keeps the yaks happy, the economic council competing against each other instead of Ironridge, and lets us have things like the weapons contract that supplies massive amounts of off-the-record funding. But most importantly? He's a scapegoat."
Her eyes were hard with determination as she talked, having long since abandoned her chair. "Dior intentionally set himself up so that, in case of a true catastrophe, he could take the blame. If the Spirit ever went too far... If they took what we tell them too literally and irreparably hurt our cause... he could be passed off as Braen, and stop them from taking down what really matters. It would be a tremendous setback, but it's a fall he's always been ready to take. Because the truth is that we can lose the Chancellor's office, and we can let Sosa lose hope, and we can lose contact with Riverfall and lose the Spirit and lose all of the factories to a flood and still have a chance, so long as the true keys to our salvation remain safe and intact."
Gerardo leaned forward, asking the most important question. "Then what is this mythical core pillar on which everything hinges? Who is inside that suit of armor, and how are they so important?"
Shinespark wore a mysterious smile. "Myths, you say? It's interesting you should word it that way..."
With a rustle of folding metal, Commander Braen's faceplate began to retract in on itself, her helmet folding back and out of the way. In less than a second, the rim of the armor's neck was exposed, its golden metal having completely retreated from the chinguard up.
Gerardo's jaw dropped, and he stared, speechless, at what he saw.
With a magnificent squelch, Starlight bit into a tangerine, practically purring as juices dribbled down her fuzzy chin.
"Clean that off, you," Maple murmured, looking up from her own meal to wipe the nectar away. "It'll get sticky if you let it dry."
Starlight dubiously accepted the treatment, then turned back to her food, beginning the process all over again. Maple groaned.
"You two certainly are carefree," a male voice remarked from a nearby doorway.
Redshift's brother Fernand leaned against the entrance, coolly observing Maple and Starlight as they sat on bar stools by a counter, a bucket of cores and rinds on the floor growing gradually fuller. "Enjoying the selection?"
"What is it," Starlight asked around a mouthful, already reaching for another piece from the basket on the counter, "with Ironridge and fruit? It's good, but it's like it's all everyone here ever eats."
Fernand blinked. "You aren't aware? Ironridge is one of the few places in the world with the climate to grow crops like these so perfectly. They're a cultural staple and the city's most renowned export, particularly now that we are no longer in the business of building boats."
"I kind of agree," Maple added, halfway through a papaya. "They really are delicious, but how healthy is a diet with this much sugar?"
"Well, there are other crops, too." Shrugging, Fernand drew up a stool alongside them and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "The Stone District's reputation is for residences, but the terraces of its western half are largely for farmland, not roads. Wheat, rice, potatoes... But those can be grown anywhere. They aren't things for impressing foreigners."
At that moment, Elise walked through the door, practically gliding on stately hooves, an understated dress hanging from her shoulders that nicely complimented her sky-blue mane. "Hello, Maple, Starlight!" Her eyes lit up as if she had been searching for them for some time. "I wondered if you would still be here."
Maple shrugged. "Well, there's been no sign of our friend, so I don't see why not?"
Elise giggled, voice musical. "Oh, I meant in the kitchen. I recalled the twins interrupting your nap earlier, and spent all this time checking the bedrooms first!"
"What did you want to see us about, then?" Maple asked, ears twitching. In the distance, rain beat violently against the roof, its thick background rush the kind of noise one would only notice when it was gone.
"Nothing important." Elise's horn lit, light vanishing from the corners of the room as a ghostly, colored flame materialized in the fruit bowl and levitated her over an apple. "I'm just paranoid that the lights will go back out, and need something to do with myself."
Maple smiled back, taking a fresh piece of fruit in one hoof. She couldn't say it, but Blueleaf needed likely never worry about random power outages again. "Coming from a pony who's had plenty of bad happen over the past day and a half... I wouldn't worry about it. Maybe the world will give us a break today?"
"Maybe it will," Elise agreed, with a smile that was pleasant but unconvinced.
Rather than reply, she reached to take a bite... and found her hoof suddenly empty. "Huh?" She squinted, and slowly turned.
The peach sat on the dimly-lit countertop, being examined from a hair's breadth away by a pair of eager, slitted green eyes.
"Are you gonna eat that?" Valey's face asked, poking barely out of the shadows.
"Waaugh!" Maple flailed backwards, falling from her stool and landing heavily on her shoulder. "Ooomf!"
Elise and Fernand simultaneously rushed forward to help her, and were over halfway there when Valey stood entirely, holding the fruit morosely and looking down from the counter. "I guess that's a 'no,' huh?"
"Y-You!" Fernand froze in his tracks, a shaky hoof pointed upwards. "I'm aware of you! You're a Defense Force commander!"
Valey rolled her eyes and sighed. "Admiral..." she muttered under her breath.
"That was mean," Starlight protested from the side, her own fruit forgotten. "Could you say hello normally, for once?"
"Sister," Fernand demanded, "please remove this enemy combatant from our house at once!"
Elise ignored both him and Valey, however, kneeling and helping Maple up. "Are you all right?"
"Ooof... yeah..." Maple gingerly stood. "Just one more bruise to add to all the rest. Nothing a weeklong vacation and the world's fluffiest bed can't fix..." With a crack, she stretched, arching her back and making sure her spine was in proper place. "She's the one we were waiting for, by the way, so please don't start any fights."
"You are their friend," Elise corrected, gentle eyes narrowing beneath her sky-blue mane. "Who they've been waiting here for?"
Valey shrugged, biting into the stolen peach. "Not my fault if they want to call me that, but I guess?"
Elise looked to Starlight for confirmation, Maple having already said her part.
"She's the one we were waiting for," Starlight repeated with a nod.
Carefully, Elise gave the batpony a final scrutinization... then drew back a step. "Very well." With a half-curtsy, she added, "Then you are welcome-"
"Sister, I must object!" Fernand loudly protested. "You know full well who she is! If we allow her to remain here, she might..."
"Might what?" Valey leaned over the counter edge like a vulture, smirking. "Eat all your fruit? Put all your dishes in the wrong cupboards? Tell a really bad joke? Here's one: what do you get when you cross me and a seagull?"
"That's perfectly irrelevant! Sister-"
"A see-eee-eeegull! Hah! Get it?" Valey grinned broadly.
Fernand gave her a stupefied expression.
"Nothing? Really?" Valey's face fell. "You stinking killjoys. That was worth at least a boo."
"Sister," Fernand groaned, "please do something about her!"
Valey lifted an eyebrow. "Okay, that's like the fifth time you've said that. And seriously, I'm trying not to judge, but it's giving me the impression here that you have a little thing for her, or something?"
"You two are ridiculous!" Elise giggled madly as Fernand sputtered. "Really, Fernand, she's not doing anything wrong right now. Have you even met her before?"
Fernand grimaced. "No, and I'm sorely wishing I had kept up that streak..."
"And neither have I," Elise hummed, bouncing her shoulders. "At least, not in person. So as long as she behaves, I'm perfectly fine with her being our guest."
"Uhh..." Valey hesitated, drawing a hoof to her chest. "Wow, thanks? Tip from a pro, though; never trust a bat. Like, you guys have heard the stories about me, right?"
"I have." Elise nodded. "I'm also a believer in judging ponies not by their pasts, but their presents. Unless you actively try to endanger or hurt my family and friends, you are welcome here."
Valey grinned, flexing a foreleg. "And what can you do about it if I do?"
"Then I will kick your rear all the way back to Yakyakistan, along with that of anyone who gets in my way," Elise replied, tone dangerously calm.
"Bwaah hah hah!" Valey doubled over, slapping the countertop and cackling. "You have no idea who I am if you think you can do that. But seriously, though, don't worry about it; I like you. Your kids are safe. And your, uh, 'brother.'"
Fernand bristled, but was finally smart enough not to respond.
Elise, however, smiled mysteriously. "I don't look like a very good opponent, do I?"
"Eh, you're just saying that to make me underestimate you." Valey waved a hoof. "You can probably do something crazy like punch out a yak or hit really hard with a frying pan. You are kinda shrimpy, though. But I'm invincible, so it's no contest."
Nudging Valey with a hoof, Maple interrupted. "I know you're having fun, but shouldn't we get going? The day's more than half over, and we still need to get all the way to Gnarlbough and then Sosa by nightfall..."
Valey grimaced. "Eeergh..." Staring up at the high, vaulted ceiling with its dark red coating and gold-trimmed supports, her eyes wandered to an upper window, pitch-black save for the ruthlessly pounding rain. "Are you guys sure about that? It's really nasty out there, and you were already basically ready to collapse. You'd barely make it past the city gates without dying of hypothermia. I mean, I'm in great condition, and the only reason I dared come back here was because it's nice and dry inside shadows."
"Well, what else are we going to do?" Maple shrugged, a slight note of desperation in her voice. "Gerardo is probably looking for us, and he'll never find us here. Besides, there's still a long time before sundown!"
"Ask her if you can spend the night." Valey returned the gesture, pointing over to Elise. "Let this storm blow over, and head out in the morning."
"Would a covered wagon help?" Elise asked.
Everyone turned to stare at her. "...You'd do that for us?" Maple asked, ears folded.
Starlight lifted an eyebrow. "Who would pull it?"
"No one." Elise shook her head. "Not if you use the carts I'm thinking of. Let me explain. All of the Earth District's produce is exported through the Sky District, and we use pull carts to transport it. But somepony always must bring the carts back after they've been unloaded at the end of the day, and that was seen as inefficient. Recently, Sosa started working with Grand Acorn to make mechanical carts that could re-travel their last route, on their own and without any oversight. The carts are kept in the distribution center there, taken out in the evening, pulled up the Stone District by ponies, and then return to the stable on their own power. Less than an hour from now is the time when they usually come through Blueleaf on their way back. You could climb on one as it passes and have a free ride to Grand Acorn, which is most of the way to Gnarlbough."
"Wow..." Maple breathed. "That's..."
"Ridiculous? Convenient? Straight-up sweet?" Valey grinned. "Ponies do crazy things when they have nothing better to do with themselves. Better the Sosans waste their time and oodles of money with that than flooding this city with even more weapons. And it lines up for us, so hey, let's roll with it!"
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "Wouldn't you know about something like this already?"
"Eh, yeah." Valey shrugged. "They're kinda new though, and it's not really my department. I figured there were other things worth remembering more. But if you guys wanna go, we'll take it, right?"
"Right!" Maple nodded, enthused.
"Then I'll teleport us there whenever you're ready," Elise said, glancing between the three. Fernand had long since slunk off to another part of the house, and was no longer present.
"Heh... No goodbyes from that red kid?" Valey scanned the room as well, and her ears drooped slightly. "That's a shame. She was funny. Loud, too. Oh well! I've got what I need, so get your stuff and let's go!"
With a gout of colorful flames, Elise, Maple, Starlight and Valey burst into existence under an overhang near the mouth of an alley, entering into a prominent main street. Thanks to the hammering rain and mostly-open sky, however, the place was largely deserted, and what few ponies there were had exactly the same idea and were already grouped in the mouths of alleys. One such group stumbled back, startled, at the sudden arrival.
Elise frowned apologetically, but the ponies had already retreated further into the city, too skittish to stick around. She sighed, and said nothing.
Valey, however, whistled. "You can teleport three passengers at once and aren't even winded? Maybe you weren't kidding about being strong! I kinda want to fight you now just to see what happens."
"Is that really a good idea?" Maple tapped a hoof against a wooden wall, which responded by threatening to fall off. "This isn't a very sturdy place to fight..."
"Nah, probably not." Jumping into a hover, Valey folded her forelegs and shrugged. "But when has that ever stopped me?"
"Let's not do that right now," Elise agreed. Craning her head out around the corner of the alley, she added, "However, we do have some time left before the carts arrive. Is there anything else you would like to know?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Like to know? What, like... about stuff?"
"Yes, about stuff," Elise confirmed. "And the history of Ironridge. Project Aslan, Sosa's decline, how my household was formed. About Mobius' many lovers. The things we talked about while they were waiting for you."
"What? You did?" Valey turned to Maple, ears folded. "And you didn't ask me first? I know everything, remember!" To Elise, she added, "And ooh, saucy. But isn't he basically senile these days?"
Maple and Elise looked at each other, and Elise yielded. Maple stuck out her tongue and said, "You didn't ask to tell us. Besides, you were busy and we had nothing better to do."
"Mrgrgh. Fine..." Valey pouted.
"What's the big deal?" Starlight asked from Maple's side. "Did you want to tell us yourself? I thought you didn't want us to trust anything you say, or something." She squinted and cocked her head. "Unless she said something you didn't want us to know?"
"Uhhh..." Valey went cross-eyed. "Know what? Never mind. Good on you for remembering that, by the way. Never trust a bat." Under her breath, she added, "It's like you can't be obstinate for the sake of being obstinate anymore..."
"So, what was that about Mobius being senile?" Maple cut in, hoping do head off any possible tension.
"Eh. He lost his touch." Valey shrugged. "Apparently the dude used to be super handsome and charming and stuff, but he's basically a graybeard now. Only without a beard to be gray. I don't hang around Sosa much, so I rarely see him, but it sounds like ponies say his mind's going, too. Can't be that bad if he's still got the job, though, you know?" She blinked. "Actually, scratch that, I'm about ninety percent sure Sparky is using him as a puppet so she can call the shots without having to publically lead a factory and get her hooves dirty, so maybe he's totally bonkers. But you never know! Maybe his head for numbers is fine and he's just a loon. Ponies go insane in strange ways..."
"That's mostly right," Elise said with a nod. "He is older, now, and his days of leaving family members in unexpected places are over. The reason ponies say he's losing his sharpness is because he obsessively dotes on Shinespark, and makes it his main priority instead of governing. It makes his ponies feel like he's forgotten about them, and when ponies feel forgotten..."
"...They need something to blame," Maple finished for her. "I get it. I hope she does take care of them, then."
"She does that and a lot more," Valey muttered, smirking. "If you knew everything she thinks she can do, you'd think she was the insane one, not her dad."
"Hmm?" Maple's ears perked, swiveling forward. "What's she doing?"
"Ohh ho ho nope!" Valey cackled, waggling a forelimb. "Just because I know everything doesn't mean I can tell you. And telling you that would be, uh, not a good idea."
Starlight looked sideways at her. "Earlier, you said things not being a good idea has never stopped you before."
Grinning, Valey shook her head. "No, I asked when it had ever stopped me before. It's your fault if you thought that was a rhetorical question! I avoid doing dumb stuff all the time. And in this case having mud on all the powerhouses down in Sosa... or, at least, stuff that they don't want getting out is an important part of keeping all fighting in the city friendly, consensual, or involving me. If others knew the stuff I know about them and they ever found out, they'd have nothing left to lose." With a wink, she added, "In case you're wondering, I've also got dirt on Braen. It's how I make her do stuff like stopping attacking the Defense Force fort when she's already trashed all the mooks."
Elise coughed loudly, interrupting Valey's speech. "Excuse me, but the carts are arriving..."
A slow caravan trundled its way through the Blueleaf main street, five wagons with protective coverings and no reins. They moved in a straight line, their bodies and construction wooden but with metal spoked wheels and support frames, the mud underneath them shimmering with reflected manalight. Instead of the rickety cobbling click-clack of hooves against earth and squeaky axles Starlight usually associated with pull carts, they emitted a soft, constant hum that was barely audible over the rain's violent hiss, and in less than a minute had reached the alley where the four ponies waited.
Elise lit her horn, its residual darkening effects making little difference against the storm-blackened world, pulling light from glowing doorways and street lamps and manifesting an aura of colorful flame around Maple. Nodding at Valey, she asked, "You carry Starlight and I'll lift Maple?"
Starlight frowned, but at the rate the carts were moving, they barely had time for goodbyes, let alone arguing over how they would board the passing carts. So, she squared her shoulders and stood still, letting Valey grab her with a careful foreleg.
A single second of flight later, and she was in the wagon, Valey setting her down and straightening the fur on her leg. She shook loose the droplets of water that had already managed to accumulate in her mane, exhaled, and moved to the back, where Maple was floating in, surrounded by flame. On the road behind them, Elise was standing, waving... and then another cart moved between them, blocking the unicorn from view.
"Whew..." Maple shivered heavily, having taken much more water than Starlight did. "Well, we're moving again."
"Yep." Valey nodded, staring up at the curved white canvas roof overhead. "At this rate, though, we're gonna have a looong lot of down time."
A silence passed, and Maple joined Starlight in looking out the back. "You know," she said, "I've only been levitated by unicorn magic twice in my life, and both times have been over the last two days. And it feels weird."
Valey shuddered. "Yeah, getting caught in auras is nasty. If they know what they're doing, they'll try to stop you from flying out, and things can get bad fast when you're immobilized. That's why you always want to carry something to throw in a fight."
Maple shook her head. "Well, I'm talking about just for normal things. And you're used to flying! For me, it's... having the ground that far away, and moving without me being able to do anything about it..."
"I fell a lot, once," Starlight added.
"It felt different when she lifted me and when Selma lifted me, too," Maple mused. "Selma's aura reminded me of swimming, like it was a very thick liquid that was all around me. Hers felt more like multiple big points... I wonder if she was doing something differently, or if her magic works different in addition to the way it looks?"
Starlight was silent, so Maple continued to muse. "Her magic sure was pretty, at least. And she was nice to us, too. She didn't even press when I said we didn't want to talk about what we had been doing in the Stone District. I hope we find more ponies like her."
"Yeah, she was great." Valey nodded sagely. "Small, too. I know I'd be down for running into her again!"
"Small?" Maple blinked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Valey grinned, completely unapologetic. "Well, that's my kink!"
The orange-lit gates of Blueleaf receded into the distance as Starlight, Maple and Valey's machine-driven cart hummed its way into the Earth District, shadowed by rain thick enough to obscure the ponies' vision. All around them, darkened outlines of trees bent beneath the hammering force, but the round canvas roof over their heads held solid, and they didn't get any wetter.
That wasn't to say that they were dry. Starlight and Valey had fared well thanks to the batpony's speed, but Elise had levitated Maple two seconds slower... and that made all the difference. Maple licked at her coat, shivering, trying to brush the water away, wet but not soaked through. "Brrbrrr..."
Starlight blinked around the cart interior, looking for anything that might help. It was relatively bare: a flat wooden floor smelling of fruit juices, low walls with railings designed to keep crates from sliding away, a crowbar laying in a corner next to a paint can, empty and on its side.
"Don't you have a blanket, or something?" she asked, looking up. "In your cutie mark?"
Maple stopped licking, sheepish. "I... actually don't..." Her ears folded. "I didn't think when we were leaving we wouldn't have a place to stay that would have all that, so I didn't bring food or bedding or anything actually important. All I brought was all my money and a book if I got bored. Sorry, Starlight. I guess I should have asked you how to prepare for an adventure, shouldn't I?"
"You brought a book, huh?" Valey glanced over from where she was lounging against a railing. "That's cool. I like books. They're hilarious."
"Well, this one isn't a comedy..." Maple smiled sadly. "It's a thriller set in a dingy city. Kind of pointless to read about, since we're living one right now, but you can borrow it if you like."
"Oh, nah." Valey shook her head. "I didn't mean for me to read. I just like planting cheesy romance novels in guards' lockers so they fall out when you open the door."
"I do have this, I guess..." Maple hesitated, then dropped Neon Nova's giant trenchcoat to the floor. "It looks kind of warm?"
"Ew, you still have that thing? I told you to get rid of that! It's probably nasty!" Valey flinched back, glaring at it. "Full of knives and stuff, too. Come on, don't wear that. You can totally do better."
"Hold on," Starlight cut in, pointing a hoof. "Aren't you carrying my saddlebags? I had a blanket in there! You even washed it for me, remember?"
Maple's lips pursed, and her eyes widened in remembrance. "You did! I actually forgot your pack wasn't empty..." She paused, and an instant later Starlight's saddlebags tumbled to the ground in front of her. "Do you mind if I use it, then?"
"Umm... no..." Starlight mumbled, rooting through the bags with her nose. The blanket spilled out, alongside a trio of empty water flasks and two objects wrapped in waterproof casing.
She stopped and stared, passing the blanket off to Maple and pulling the objects closer. Her fake cutie mark kit... it seemed lifetimes ago that she had actually used it, even though it had been closer to a week. What had she stamped on her flank, using a paper cut-out and ashes taken from the family hearth? An equals sign, to say that no matter what ponies were given on their flanks, they shouldn't be treated differently? Funny how quickly she had found different things to worry about, there in Ironridge where ponies were oppressed randomly because of where they lived, or because there was someone who could, or for no reason at all.
"Ooh, wha'cha got there?" Valey leaned in, curious.
Suddenly, Starlight remembered the contents of the other wrapped package: it was the world's most boring book, stolen from a desk in the mountains and read through countless times while she was recovering from her cold in a cave. She wasn't entirely sure why she still had it... aside from the obvious; she had forgotten it existed and never left it behind. But the mere memory of its scent was enough to give her flashbacks of laying on stone, coughing and wiping her nose and doing nothing else for hours on end, and that wasn't a thing she was willing to let be used as a conversation starter.
"This is the world's most interesting book," she proudly proclaimed, holding up the book package in one hoof. "I read it at least twenty times in one week. Want to see it?"
"Uhhh..." Valey backed away, skeptical. "Yeah, no. I can smell a prank from miles away."
Shrugging, Starlight stuffed the book, cutie mark kit and water flasks back into her pack. "Okay. Your loss."
Boredom averted. She crawled over, joining Maple under her blanket, the pack at her side. Perhaps some day, she could find a pony who would actually like it to pawn it off on... Arambai, once she got back to Riverfall, maybe. Or she could give it as a prank. But right then, she was content to settle in, let the ride happen and not think about those days crossing the mountains.
"It's nice to be off our hooves for once," Maple murmured beside her, mirroring her thoughts.
"Meh. You guys are just lazy." Valey stretched, hind legs reaching almost parallel to her body. "Of course, I am too, so I shouldn't be talking."
"What were you doing up there, anyway?" Maple asked, draping a foreleg around Starlight's shoulders. "That took a lot longer than I would expect for locking up a villain."
Valey smirked. "You bet it did. Get this: Herman and Selma basically ambushed me in the fort, and Herman was like, 'Hey, you, go do these chores.' It was one hundred percent busywork. He even made it longer than it needed to be, just to bug me. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I've complained about this to you before, but that guy has it out for me, big time. It's like he wants to steal my title of biggest jerk in Ironridge, but still keep up a good reputation."
"Really?" Maple tilted her head. "What is his reputation, even? I don't think I've heard very much about him aside from what you've said..."
"In a nutshell, nobody who isn't super naive likes or fully trusts him, but everyone thinks he's on their side so they don't wanna actually say bad stuff about him." Valey drew a hoof along the wooden floor, thumping slightly as its edge ran across cracks between the thick boards. "It's the kind of thing where everyone wishes they could catch him playing dirty, but no one actually can, and even if they did they'd have to all mutually agree to do something about it for fear he'd just help their opponents to get back at him, so he's pretty much invincible."
Maple nodded, one ear slipping free of the blanket that she used as a hood. "What kinds of things is he doing for them to catch?"
"Honestly?" Valey shrugged. "Not much. That's why nobody can catch him. He lies a bunch, but everyone does that so that's the norm up in Skyfreeze. Puts loopholes in laws and then abuses them. Stores stuff in areas that are technically off-limits. He does a ton of stuff that's unethical, but unless you want to completely change how Skyfreeze works, that's business as usual too. Remember, it's not evil yaks versus heroic ponies here. Everyone on the economic council is just watching their own rears and doing what they think they can get away with, and he's just the best at it."
Her green, slitted eyes scanned the dripping world beyond the canvas roof, the roads dark and gray. "It also doesn't help that it's impossible to trace what he's actually doing at any given moment. See, when he wants something, he doesn't ask for it, or even go get it. He'll give someone something else and act like he's doing them a favor, but he already knows what they'll do with it and that thing winds up getting him what he wants. And if he does say he wants something or actively tries to get it, it means his real goal is something that'll happen as a side effect of that. So he gets all his goals accomplished by doing favors so specific, he doesn't even need to ask, gets everyone dependent on his help, and if there ever are ponies he needs to flat-out extort... say, me... he makes sure we can't do anything about it."
"He sounds like a very pleasant creature," Maple said, swallowing. "I'm glad I've never met him."
"Who else is in Skyfreeze?" Starlight asked when Maple didn't continue.
Valey nodded. "The economic council is basically a bunch of industry representatives from places who want to do business with Ironridge. Not Ironridge itself, mind you, just other places. The kinds of places who own the huge shipping lines that sprung up to replace Sosa when they decided not to do their thing with the airships. The three main factions are Yakyakistan to the west, the Griffon Empire to the east, and a place up north called Varsidel."
"Huh." Maple shuffled, tucking Starlight's saddlebags away. "How come all we've heard about so far is the yaks, then?"
"Because the other two don't do much," Valey said with a shrug. "Varsidel used to be big. They were the ones who started building the skyport, actually, though I think they had a lot of funding and help from the yaks. But a few months ago, they got into a huge war and have been converting most of their cargo ships to military and sending them off to fight. Then there's the griffons, who have a huge amount of buying power but don't have a fleet of their own, so they rely on the other two to ship stuff to them. Last I heard I think they're trying to change that, now that Varsidel's throughput is gone, but haven't deployed anything yet."
"A war?" Maple's eyes widened. "Just how much is going on in the world?"
"Hey, I'm concerned with Ironridge," Valey said. "Everything beyond that is incidental and doesn't really affect me, so I haven't gone out of my way to find out what's happening. If you're really curious, there'll probably be tons of ponies once we reach Grand Acorn who keep close tabs on that kind of stuff, so you could ask around, but I can tell you right now it won't be useful info."
"Huh." Frowning, Maple sat under her blanket... and said nothing.
The Sosan-made carts hummed onward through the rainy darkness, magically tracing their routes past mud and trees to return to Grand Acorn. Driverless, they rolled on without care for the three ponies huddled under one's roof, staying dry and chatting amicably while they hitched a ride across the Earth District.
"Speaking of Herman, though," Valey was saying, her face lighting up. "Wanna see something crazy?"
Starlight squinted. "Do we?"
"It's... Hang on..." Rummaging around under her hat with a wing, Valey pulled out what looked like a cowbell on a lanyard, and slung it around her neck. "He wants me to wear this for the next few days. What do you think? Silly, right?"
Maple opened her mouth to respond... but before she could, Valey raised a hoof, interrupting. "And don't say it's adorable. Only I'm allowed to call myself that."
"I was going to ask what it was," Maple finished, smiling uncontrollably.
"Oh! Uhh..." Valey juggled it, re-railing her train of thought. "So basically, some nutcase called Selma totally forgot to let Herman know that he ran into me with you guys this morning, so the big boss thought I was taking the week off to hide under that big bridge by the dam on the road from Sosa to the Stone District and pretend to be a troll, or something, which for the record I've totally never done. So this is a pager."
"A pager?" Maple leaned forward.
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "Apparently there's some big hullabaloo planned for tomorrow night, and he wants a way to call me back to make sure I'm not slacking when I should be doing my job. On the one hoof, it's kinda rude that he thinks I'm that lazy or forgetful... but on the other, that's exactly the kind of time I'd choose to slack. So who knows, maybe he'll need it after all?"
"You could just ignore it when it goes off," Starlight pointed out.
Valey grimaced. "Yeah, but then I can't use 'I was napping' as an excuse, and he'll find some way to make me miserable in return. But don't worry, he said tomorrow night, so I've got plenty of time to get you wherever you're going."
"Thank you for sticking with us, by the way," Maple said. "I know we're clueless and useless next to you, and don't really have a way to pay you back, and you know it too. But you've helped us even when we're slowing you down, and you even came back after returning to the Stone District, and... I just wanted to let you know I appreciate it."
"Yeah, well..." Valey looked down, avoiding eye contact. "You know what I always say. Never trust a bat."
Maple smiled gently. "You keep saying that, but I can tell you're a better pony than you think."
Valey lifted a dangerous eyebrow. "And I can tell you have no idea what you're talking about."
Maple didn't back down. "If you don't have our best intentions at heart, why do you keep warning us not to trust you? If you were trying to trick us, wouldn't you just let us walk into it?"
"Look," Valey sighed. "I have no idea how to get this through to you without sounding edgier than that pancake pegasus from way back yesterday at my checkpoint, but there's nothing you can or should do. This isn't about some heinous crime I think is 'irredeemable' or some nonsense, it's about what I am, and you can't change that any more than you can make yourself randomly grow wings and a horn. Probably even less, because for all I know, some crazy mage has a way to do that. But believe it or not, I've made peace with being the bad guy, know how to enjoy my life and am not miserable on a day-to-day basis, so there's nothing here to pity. If you're going to feel sorry for anything, feel sorry for the random ponies I remind every day why I'm bad news. And if you really need to be thankful for the fact that I'm using you to indulge my fantasies of not being the designated villain..."
"Then don't bother you about it. Okay." Maple kept smiling. "We'll do that, then."
It wasn't spoken, but Starlight heard a silent 'And I'll still trust you' at the end. She wasn't sure whether to join in the sentiment herself. She recognized Valey's help just as much as her adoptive mother, but at the same time, there was always such a thing as being too trusting.
"Uhh..." Valey squinted. "I was going to say, 'Thank your kid for smelling nice,' but that works too, I guess? Really, though, if you want to thank me, then just listen to me when I tell you how to stay safe. Namely, stop thinking I'm some heroic do-gooder! I'm the bad guy whether either of us want me to be or not, because that's how the world works, and like I said earlier I'm fine with that. I love messing with ponies and causing mayhem. Maybe I should have beaten up that roomful of foals in Blueleaf, just to get the point across..."
"You said something in Blueleaf, about us asking questions?" Starlight asked, recognizing that the topic needed changing. "Where you sounded like you wanted us to ask you something?"
"Eh, don't read too much into it," Valey answered, quickly regaining her nonchalant attitude. "I was making a joke, I guess it flopped, whatever. But since we've got nothing better to do, I do know everything, so if you're asking permission to ask..."
Starlight hesitated. There was a question she wanted very much to have answered... a question regarding something that had come up multiple times before, in Blueleaf, and always been shot down. It was high on her list of dangerous things to ask, but if Valey was issuing an invitation...
Maple held her own silence for one second too long, and Starlight went for it. "Every time I talk about cutie marks here, everypony gets really nervous and tries to talk about something else or won't even answer. I don't remember exactly what I asked that made them mad, but what happened?"
For a moment, the cart was silent save for the hum of magical energy and this hiss of the rain... and then there was a thunk, Valey's forehead meeting the floor. "You have got to be kidding me," she groaned, hat falling off and exposing the top of her messy green mane to the damp air.
"Huh?" Starlight blinked.
"If I didn't know better, I'd swear you asked that on purpose," Valey grumbled, slumped facedown against the fruit-stained boards. "Oh, bananas."
"Are you all right?" Maple frowned in concern, scooting forward beneath her blanket.
"Yes!" Valey grunted, shoving one foreleg beneath her and propping herself up. "Just... ticked, because now I'm gonna have to talk about something I really don't wanna talk about."
"I don't need to know," Starlight quickly said, confused and trying to restore the peace. "I was just curious!"
"Yeah," Valey sighed. "Just curious. Curious enough that you've apparently been asking about that a whole bunch of times, even though I'm pretty sure I remember telling you in Blueleaf it wasn't a story for kids like you. And that means you need to know, because otherwise you're going to get yourself in a huge amount of trouble, especially given your attitude toward brands."
Starlight bit her lip, silent.
"I don't get it," Maple murmured, confused. "I have no idea what this is about either, but if something is dangerous for ponies to know about, shouldn't you not explain it?"
"Ugh. It works like this." Valey sat up, shuffling so that she was fully facing Maple and Starlight. "Say you find something really bad, and it's impossible to get rid of. Pretty much any pony with a functional brain will agree with you the moment they know what it does and not touch it, right? But there's always going to be some whacko who thinks they can profit off of it, or some idiot who doesn't know how it works and thinks messing with it is a good thing, and that's just a part of life. So what do you do? Do you yell at everyone about it, in hopes that maybe your city won't have any of the idiots? Ironridge is full of scoundrels, you know."
Starlight and Maple stared, letting her continue.
"What they figured the better way was," Valey narrated dourly, "was just to cover it up as much as possible. Tell no one but important, trustworthy types, keep an eye out for anyone who might misuse it and preemptively get rid of them, and hope as hard as they can that anyone who goes poking around..." She glared at Starlight. "Like you runs into someone who can explain it properly first, and then possesses enough of a brain to agree that it's bad and never want to hear of it again."
Maple blinked, suspicious. "I'm sorry if this is bringing back up another bad topic, but if you're so certain you aren't trustworthy, why are you allowed to know about it?"
"Well, I knew about it beforehoof," Valey said, grimacing. "But more importantly, I'm the one creature in Ironridge who can be ensured beyond a shadow of a doubt to absolutely loathe this thing and everything to do with it. That's why I was hoping not to have to talk about it, by the way. And don't ask why, because I'm not telling. ...Anyway." She stretched, settling down into an uncomfortable sit, green eyes dull. "Let's get this story over with."
"So you have brands," Valey began, "and there are three really important things about them. First, they're rare. Some ponies get them when they're young, some when they're adults, and most never at all. Second, it's a lot easier to have one and pretend you don't than it is to lack one and pretend you do. That's part of what clothes are for. And third, they give whoever has them cool powers... some better than others, often unique, always something. So before you start arguing," - she pointed a hoof at Starlight - "I'm just saying it how it is. Ponies who don't have them want them, and ponies who do get to choose whether to ignore them or not. Generally, they were considered a good thing."
Maple and Starlight blinked, huddled together under Starlight's blanket in the back of the mana-powered wagon. The rain around them was in a lull, sending down a mist so thick it might as well have been fog, touching the waterlogged earth without a sound.
"'Were?'" Maple asked, tilting her head.
Valey acknowledged with a nod. "I'll get to that. Anyway, brands are related to stuff you want to accomplish, so the ponies they turn up on tend to be the really driven, ambitious ones who aim high and naturally succeed. You see more of them at the top, you know?"
Maple nodded for her to continue, so she did.
"Eventually... and by that I mean pretty much since the dawn of recorded history... some of those higher-ups decided the brands themselves were the cause, not the effect, and started saying being branded made them better than the ponies without. Who knows if they are or not, what matters is that they all get the same idea. A bunch of other branded ponies went along with it, because if someone was saying you were awesome, why wouldn't you agree?" Valey rolled her eyes. "The ones without couldn't do anything about it 'cuz they weren't in charge, and from then on that was how the world worked. As to how much better they thought they were... I'm no history buff, but I know for a fact ponies can have some pretty twisted imaginations."
Starlight's brow furrowed. Maple shuddered.
Drawing a hoof in a semicircle, Valey sat with her back straight and wings folded. "Now, Ironridge has always had a bit of a superiority complex in the world. They were founded by this crazy explorer guy who went out thousands of miles into the middle of nowhere and found a totally unique climate where fruit grew and there was minable ore and nice places to live and even a water route to the eastern sea. Special snowflake city, right? They've always wanted to prove they were better and more advanced than other nations, and kinda passively make them look barbaric without insulting them too much because they were totally reliant on trade."
She flicked an ear against the cool air and continued. "So what they did was get a bunch of ideals and stick to them. Ever heard the phrase 'Earth District hospitality?' Ironridge figured, 'Hey, let's be nice and fair by treating every pony decently regardless of whether they have a horn or wings or brand or are young or old or missing a leg or any of the other stuff other places in the world care about."
"You don't sound very happy about that," Maple pointed out.
Valey smirked. "When was the last time you saw anyone being nice or fair to yours truly? You guys aside, because no offense, but you're idiots."
Maple tried to protest, but it died on her lips.
"How they treat me isn't important, though," Valey interrupted. "The point isn't whether it was a smart ideal, but that they had it. They went and let ponies be nice and happy members of their society, and tried for all the world to pretend it didn't matter."
She blinked off into the misty distance, eyes focused on something far in the past. "It did matter, of course. There were still classes. Ponies with brands still had more opportunities than ponies without. Maybe because they were more ambitious, maybe because society let them, but still. Ponies with brands sometimes didn't like marrying ponies without. That one was probably Yakyakistan's fault; I think they've got something in their doctrine that says earning brands can be hereditary, though I'm pretty sure it's random. What matters is that however Ironridge tried to make things equal, ponies without brands always wanted them, and sometimes, they wanted them bad."
Valey's ears stayed straight as she recounted the next part, narrating without flair or excessive emotion. "There were a lot of con artists, back then, who could make a ton of money with 'procedures' they said would improve a pony's chance of getting one. Stuff you could eat, stuff you could drink, stuff you could do... spells a unicorn could cast. There were ponies who dedicated their entire lives to getting brands. Sometimes, they would succeed, but there was nothing in the numbers to suggest it wasn't just the same distribution that everyone else got; that their efforts had made a difference. The wisdom from everyone who had one, and from everyone who was at peace with the fact that they might never get one was the same: if you get one, you get one, and there's nothing you can do to change that either way. And the world worked that way for hundreds of years... until."
"Until?" Starlight felt Maple shiver. "Until what?"
Voice hollow and haunted, Valey continued, punctuated by a distant flash of lightning. "Until that night, eight years ago. There was... some sort of magical kaboom from the moon. Nobody knew what caused it. Nobody still knows. The griffons call it a Lunar Flare, but I have no idea what they say about it. The yaks think it might have been related to their big war a few decades ago, though I haven't a clue how they reached that conclusion. But in the aftermath, there was a gigantic meteor shower that scattered material all across the world. It looks like black glass that reflects a colorless image when used as a mirror. We call it moon glass, or obsidian. And it didn't take very long for ponies to find it, and realize... that each piece contains a brand, and they can be given to ponies without them."
Maple and Starlight sat, wide-eyed. That time, it was Starlight's turn to shiver, her mind immediately tracking back to a time in the Water District when she had snuck after Maple by hiding in a crate. They had looted it afterward, she recalled, and stolen an important-looking glassy orb... but what they had left behind were dozens of mechanical parts incorporating glass that perfectly matched Valey's description. Shaking uncontrollably, she nudged the blanket aside, checking to ensure her flank was still bare.
Valey's eyes snapped to her. "You look like you've seen that before."
"M-Maybe," Starlight managed. Maple looked at her with concern, evidently not remembering the incident even though she had been present.
"Before you freak out," Valey said, "the effect is instant when it happens. The stuff works like a container, so there's no halfway point. And sometimes, you find it and it's already empty."
Starlight sighed in relief, but Maple kept staring, eventually biting her lip. "It does sound weird," she murmured. "Ponies get cutie marks when they're ready, if they ever are. That's the natural order of things. But wouldn't this be exactly what everyone was hoping for? It sounds like most ponies would think it was a dream come true."
"That's what everyone did think," Valey replied, voice monotone. "What's especially ironic is that according to the batpony legends... or, at least, what I've heard of them... the moon is associated with granting wishes. Hope... dreams... night... the moon... It fits together, you know?"
"I like looking at the moon," Starlight offered. It was true, though she hadn't had a chance to do it since wandering the mountains before Riverfall.
"Anyway," Valey said, "let's get on to the bad part. When ponies do get brands, they're about whatever that pony cares about most. So if you force yourself to get one but don't have anything you really care about, what do you think it would be?"
Neither pony had an answer.
"That's the first of it," Valey sighed. "It has nothing to do with anything. The brand you get is random. It might not even be possible to use it. You can see earth ponies walking around with brands of clouds and air stunts, pegasi with vague magical swirls, and unicorns with plants and trowels. Real brands always match a pony's personality without fail. They never change you, they always fit perfectly and just make you better at what you want to do. These don't. The power is real, but they're not real brands. They can't be. They're something else, something sinister and vile."
Her teeth clenched as she continued, spitting words through a tightened jaw. "Once a bunch of ponies had these fake brands, they started to notice the side effects. It wasn't just that the brands didn't fit their ponies... they changed the ponies to fit them. Family members and loved ones started noticing personality shifts, changes of interests. At best, they became twisted, but still recognizable. At worst, it was like they were completely different ponies. Sometimes they turned mean, sometimes uncaring. Sometimes ponies who used to be jerks even became nice. But every time, they were overwritten with something else, and were no longer ponies. And to cap it all off?" Her eyes flashed. "The brands left a mark, as proof that they weren't real. When they appeared, they would change the color of one of the host's eyes, as a permanent indicator that that pony was no longer real but possessed by a parasite posing as something everyone desired."
Chest heaving, she bitterly finished, "That's it. Nobody knows what they really are, or where they come from, but it doesn't matter when you can see plainly what they do. Those stones... there's something inside them that looks like something ponies want, but then takes them over and uses their body and memories for itself. They're monsters. I hate it..."
Slowly, dragging the blanket and Starlight along with her, Maple scooted to where the batpony had collapsed, reached out and laid a hoof on her shaking shoulder. "I'm sorry for making you feel like you had to say all that," she whispered. "It sounds terrible. I can't even think about watching that happen to someone I love, like Willow or Starlight. I hope I never have to live through it..."
"You wanna know something funny?" Valey asked, still facedown.
"A joke?" Maple frowned. "Now?"
Valey's head rose... and despite the hints of fresh tears in the corners of her eyes, her breathing was perfectly controlled, even. "You believed me," she whispered. "You think this stuff is totally, irredeemably evil, don't you? Just because I was dramatic about it? Just because I told you it is?"
"Now... Wait..." Maple blinked, confused. "Of course not! Or... it is, but not just because..." She blinked again. "What's your point?"
"Weren't you listening?" Valey grinned, sitting up and out of Maple's reach, though her eyes still weren't perfectly dry. She wiped them with a hoof, was satisfied, and continued. "The fake brands don't necessarily make ponies behave poorly, or do nasty deeds. I even said sometimes, they make mean ponies get nicer. But still, you can tell they're evil."
Maple bit her lip.
"I'm not saying they aren't," Valey said. "They're horrifying. I probably didn't even do them justice. Ponies sure don't need me to come to the conclusion that they're bad news; everyone reaches that on their own. But don't you get it? It doesn't matter how useful something is, or whether it gives you what you've always wanted... whether that's a brand or a safe ticket out of town. It can still be objectively bad, just because it is."
"It... You know what?" Maple drew herself up until she was standing, snagging the blanket on Starlight's hooves. "If that's what this is about, I'm not sure I care. What's the use in calling something bad if it only does good things?"
Valey snickered. "Do I look like a paragon to you? I wander around Ironridge ruining days, messing with bureaucrats, flirting with ponies who obviously aren't eligible and leaving banana peels in really annoying places. The me you've seen is not the me everyone else sees, because regularly, I'm a menace."
"Only because you're always trying to convince other ponies how bad you are," Maple pointed out. "Right, Starlight?"
Starlight took a step back. The whole situation made her uncomfortable, and she didn't want to voice a strong opinion until she had had proper time to think.
"Yeah, well, that and because they'd hate me anyway." Valey shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I said this earlier, but if you're gonna get blamed for stuff, you might as well have the fun of doing it, right?"
Maple didn't back down. "If you've never given them the chance, how do you know they wouldn't accept you with enough work?"
"One, 'cuz they're not all idiots." Valey stretched a wing, counting on its leathery spokes. "Two, because Herman would remind them even if I didn't, because that guy doesn't like me having nice things. And three, because they probably eventually would start to think I'm not all that bad..." Her eyes narrowed. "And they'd be wrong, just like you thinking I'm a big pile of cuddly hugs. Nobody in Ironridge knows what my real deal is besides me and Herman, and I'm not telling, but..." She stretched. "I promise you, I know this for sure, and even the judgement of a thousand clueless imbeciles isn't going to change fact. So hey, instead of you beating your head against a brick wall, why don't I continue the story? I was just getting around to how Ironridge reacted to all this."
Sighing, Maple sat, and Starlight gratefully pulled the blanket back around them as the rain poured down and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Valey unceremoniously belched, before her ideas caught rail and a light sparked in her eyes. "Okay! Ironridge, eight-something years ago. There was a meteor shower... Lunar Flare... moon glass... whole bunch'a stuff..."
Her voice continued, spinning in circles and recounting things she had already said. Several times, she gained a burst of enthusiasm only to instantly lose her place in a fit of blinks, ear scratches and uhhhs.
Starlight squinted. "You're thinking about something besides what you're talking about, aren't you?"
"Your fault for asking questions I didn't wanna answer," Valey grumbled, tossing her poise out the window and stretching out on the wooden floor, cheek touching the boards. "But yeah. I am."
"Well, then, we don't have to talk about this," Maple reassured. "If the important thing was us knowing to stay away from any black glass, then we know what we need to to stay safe."
"Meh."
Slowly, Maple asked, "What are you thinking about, then?"
A minute passed in dripping silence, the storm outside filling the gap between pony voices. Then: "You know a dude called Arambai, right?"
Maple carefully studied the question. "How would it matter?"
"Oh, come on. I know you know." Valey's emerald tail flopped once against the floor. "He's in Riverfall, because Sparky is bad at secret-keeping. You're from Riverfall, because you're even worse at it and said yes when I asked earlier, remember? So how well do you know him?"
"...Closer than many of the other ponies in Riverfall," Maple said hesitantly. "I like to imagine that, at least. I don't really know. But one of my best friends there has a history with him, from when he hadn't moved there yet. I think he saw us as family friends."
"Huh. That's cool." One of Valey's ears twitched. "He ever tell you about why he left Ironridge?"
"No," Maple murmured. "He never talked about himself. We didn't even know he had been a factory chief until we saw him in a picture in the Sky District museum. But we've figured it out now, from what we know and what Elise said. He got into a fight with Mobius over whether to keep trying to make an airship after the first one crashed, and eventually surrendered to try to help unify Sosa. Then the other airships came, and it turned out to be the wrong idea..."
"Nah." Valey shook her head, hat sliding askew, cheek rubbing against wood. "I mean, he did do that, but that wasn't the last straw. Ten years ago, when they finalized plans to start building the Skyport, everyone who had their heads in the sand looked up and thought, 'Hey, maybe he was right!' That was the end of anyone liking Mobius."
"Ten years ago..." Maple mused. "My friend Willow first met him ten years ago. He was on a boat passing through Riverfall, and warned her that Ironridge was about to become dangerous. We had been hoping to travel here..."
Valey grinned against the ground, showing off her pointed teeth. "Hah. Was he? Figures he was looking for a way out that early. Everyone thought they could just put him in charge and have it be like the world hadn't moved on ten years without Ironridge while they were clowning around with their hooves in their ears. He knew it was pointless, but... eh..." She shrugged. "How do you take ponies who come to ask for a second chance and tell them they're ten years too late?"
"What happened to him, then?" Maple whispered against the rain.
"He put on a show." Valey's eyelids drooped, and eventually she could have been napping, save for the stream of words flowing from her muzzle. "Fought the inevitable a bit. Might've slowed it down by a month or a day or two. And then he went out with the saddest bang you've ever seen."
Maple craned forward, curious.
"Something like... seven years ago," Valey continued. "A bit after I turned up here, and a bit more after the whole Lunar Flare thing. He'd already been gone a lot, and it was obvious to anyone not in denial he wanted to leave. Didn't like ruling Sosa when they all looked to him to solve problems he never told them he could fix. One day, he marched up to Skyfreeze, where the newly-formed economic council met in chambers that were still under construction. He told them that he'd abdicate his post, lay down Sosa like a doormat, and let them have their new city order where the Sky District was on the top."
"He did...?" Maple's ears pressed back, face awash in disbelief. "Why?"
"What he asked in return," Valey said with a shrug, "was that they put a permanent ban on all imports of obsidian into Ironridge. The city's tiny, on a world scale, so there wasn't much here to begin with, and none left to find. All the supplies that currently turn up are brought in by treasure hunters and explorers from the wildlands and sold in other nations on the black market, especially Varsidel. You know... the place to the north with the war. For a council of merchants running these shipping lines, it was an easy request."
"And they agreed..." Maple breathed. "And so he left?"
"Eh, almost." Valey's leg twitched peacefully, scraping at the ground with the side of a hoof. "He also had a condition that they had to keep a bunch of ponies without brands working for them. The idea was that these stones are rare enough and in high enough demand to be really valuable, even with most ponies knowing how bad they are... so all you have to do in a place like Ironridge that's already harder to reach than usual and has less demand than usual is make it a little harder to reach and have a little less demand than that, and boom. It's not worth anybody's time to bring the stuff here, so there's no supply and no possessed ponies."
"And then he left," Maple repeated.
"Yeah, yeah, and then he left." Valey cracked an eye at her, then shut it again. "Took the last boat to ever leave Sosa, except for that one ferry Sparky keeps around. Then they took all the ships that were in the city, moved them to an area upriver by Gnarlbough, and rerouted the river's flow through the Earth District, stranding them all high and dry... Called it Sosa's Graveyard, because that was where they sent their legacy to die. And that was the end of that."
"That's..." Maple sniffed.
"Unfair?" Valey grinned. "Tell me about it. The dude takes a horrible, no-win situation and makes the best out of it... which I can totally relate to. He actually manages something really good with the nothing he has, and what does he get for it? At best, ponies get that they did that to him and feel sorry for the guy. Since the whole point was to make obsidian unknown and unneeded, though, the ponies he helped most don't even know what he did... and mostly think he's a scoundrel and a traitor. Some thanks for being a good guy, right there."
"And he still doesn't give up," Maple whispered. "In Riverfall, the Arambai I know is secretive, but he always gives everything for the town and never asks anything in return. No wonder he doesn't tell us what he used to do..."
"Mmph." Valey licked something from the edge of her lips and swallowed. "The funny thing is that Sparky's the one everyone gives credit for being this big, massive hero, even though all she's ever done is pull a bunch of crazy strings in secret and look cute. When you think about it, she's exactly the opposite of what I am: no matter what she does, the world wants her to be a hero, and she can get away with all the misdirection and back-room skullduggery she pleases and never change that."
Maple looked as if she wanted to say something in protest, but thought better of it, nose wrinkling at the taste of unspoken words.
"Really," Valey said, "think about it. You guys said that shortie back in Blueleaf told you about her, right? So you already know how Sparky's this whole legendary lost heir to one dynasty adopted by another that was warring with it, or something? How she's got that big, fat statue in the Sky District that's all 'First pony to be born on an airship' and all that? How she was probably conceived while the original Spirit airship was crashing and burning? She's even got Spark in her name, which is apparently important in yak lore. You could probably slap a vague, mumbly prophecy on her about how she's the chosen one and not make her any more obviously a hero, and I know for a fact she's hiding something that screams it even more than all that stuff put together. She could go around zapping ponies with moon glass and still be a hero, she's so up to her ears in the definition."
For the first time since the very start of the conversation, Starlight spoke. "So what? Why does that matter more than whether she helps ponies?"
Valey paused, and cracked an eyelid. "She has Good Guy written all over her."
"So?"
"So..." Valey frowned. "The same way I'm a walking, talking Villain with a capital V?"
"Something you've made a very poor argument for," Maple pointed out. "So you're a mischief maker and take pride in being a public nuisance. Those aren't very serious crimes, even if you didn't keep saying you could behave like a saint and still be bad."
"You know what?" Valey curled into a ball that was facing away, shuffling slightly as she got comfortable. "You're wrong, but I'd be wasting my time trying to change your minds. I'm tired and wanna take a nap, so just talk about your own stuff or something for a while. But I'm warning you, good luck finding anyone else who agrees with you. Other ponies know I'm bad news, even when you were apparently born without that instinct."
"What about Elise?" Starlight asked. "She liked you."
"Shut up."
Starlight and Maple looked to each other, and both held their tongues as Valey's breathing stilled and the world faded back into focus around them.
For a long, long time, the cart continued in silence, and not a word was spoken.
Maple and Starlight lay side by side, their hooves tucked under them for warmth, watching the gentle rise and fall of Valey's breathing. Rain registered in their ears, loud and crisp against tree leaves and standing puddles in the road. Rays of gray light shone past the openings in the wagon cover, the sun several hours from setting behind the endless clouds.
"Do you think she's asleep?" Maple whispered.
Starlight didn't answer. She felt Maple tense, as if to rise... and then relax, thinking better of it.
Quietly, Starlight got to her own hooves, crawling out from under the blanket and softly stepping along the edge of the cart, keeping a safe radius from Valey as she walked to get the mare's face into view.
Her head was sideways, facing away from where Maple lay, tucked between her neck and hind leg, one forehoof coming up to brush her nose. Her ear stood up like a beacon, though it didn't track Starlight when she moved. The one eye that was visible was squeezed shut, and her mouth was scrunched, not in a smile.
From the other side of the cart, Maple gave Starlight a look, and Starlight nodded.
Slowly, with a slight bit of wobbling, Maple got up too, taking a corner of the blanket in her mouth and dragging it along with her. She came up behind Valey, stood as straight as she could, looked down... and in one clean motion, draped the blanket over her, making sure not to cover her head.
Valey fidgeted, kicking once with her forehoof and moving it away from her face. But she didn't wake.
Maple waited a second longer as the batpony's breathing returned to normal. Then, seemingly satisfied with her work, she turned around and paced to the back of the cart, where she sat, looking out at the world.
Starlight stared from the opposite side of the cart. Maple's ears were swiveled backwards, waiting to hear if any tiny hoofsteps would come to join her.
Wordlessly, she came, settling into place again at Maple's side.
"Hey, you," Maple murmured, wrapping a hoof around her shoulder, voice little more than a whisper.
"Hi," Starlight murmured back.
"How are you holding up?" Maple touched the top of Starlight's head with her chin. "It feels like forever since the last time we got to stop running and talk..."
"I'm fine," Starlight said. Her horn hurt, but not badly, and Maple didn't need to worry.
"That's good. I'm still so sore from the last two days..." Maple flexed a leg and laughed weakly. "I hope Grand Acorn isn't too far from Gnarlbough. I just want to get back to Riverfall and have this whole adventure be over with, but I'd hate to look at Faron and tell him we just didn't have time to see the ponies he wanted us to see..."
"Willow's husband? He wanted us to apologize to someone, didn't he?" Starlight looked up.
Maple leaned aside and met her eyes. "That's what I remember. Maybe he wanted us to see if they were all right. All I have written down is the address."
Starlight hummed, and was silent.
"Hey." Maple squeezed her, gently. "Tell me about you. What do you think about the city? About all the crazy stuff that's been happening to us? You haven't been talking much, and I miss talking to you."
"Because everyone else talks a lot," Starlight answered. "We're always traveling with ponies or griffons who hate it when nobody is talking and never want anyone to have time to think! How am I supposed to say anything?"
"Mmm..." Maple's ears folded briefly. "Gerardo did talk a lot, didn't he? Now that you mention it, I think I got annoyed by it as well. So much has happened since we last saw him, though, I guess..."
"It's dumb, too," Starlight pouted. "We keep getting in trouble because our friends are sticking their noses in beehives all the time. At least Valey didn't get us captured. But why can't we just stop making a big deal about ourselves? There are probably like a million ponies in this dumb city who have nothing to do with getting captured or stealing crates or breaking generators or any of that stuff!"
"I know." A pause. "What do you think it is?" Maple eventually asked. "That makes this happen to us? Do you think it's just luck that we keep getting helped by others who make a big splash in the world? Or is there something about us that makes us the ponies things happen to?"
Starlight frowned.
"I don't feel special," Maple continued. "I feel like a normal pony, who worries and hopes about things just like everypony else. Maybe less lucky than most, but the only thing anyone could do was move on, so I did. But then I got you, and then I became the first mare to leave Riverfall in years, and now I'm sitting here after being foalnapped, escaping from prison, tagging along when a whole city's power was fixed, and just tucked in a pony with the weirdest sense of self-worth I've ever seen. One of those could be luck, but all of them... Why?"
She hung her head. "I just can't stop thinking about it..."
Starlight shrugged. "I don't know."
"Do you?" Maple squeezed her lightly. "Because I know you don't like me saying this, but you're even more special than I am. Me leaving Riverfall is like a tiny version of what you did."
"Eh. It... doesn't really matter any more."
"It doesn't?" Starlight could feel Maple stiffen in curiosity.
She shook her head. "It does, but it isn't as important. I'm still never getting a cutie mark, but there are more important things to worry about right now. At home, I could get sent off to a big school for getting a cutie mark in magic, but here, you got treated like a criminal just for being next to that dumb griffon! Ponies are going to be unfair here whether I have a cutie mark or not, so if I have to be stronger or better or more determined than someone else to keep you safe, it's worth it."
Maple hugged her close. "It should be me looking out for you..."
"Should be," Starlight grunted. "The world doesn't work like it should. Especially not this place. I'm never going to go along with it and let it hurt me when there's something I can do about it."
"I wish everypony could see it that way," Maple murmured, looking over her shoulder at Valey's slumbering, blanketed form.
Starlight looked too. "What's her deal, anyway?"
"I wish I knew for certain," Maple sighed. "Then maybe I could do something about it. I don't think she's lying when she says she enjoys her life, but I think it took her a very long time to convince herself of it. And whatever she says, her definition of what makes a pony good or bad isn't one that would make the world a better place, even if she's right and other ponies agree. I don't know, I... I know what it's like to have plenty of things and friends who are nice and still feel worthless inside, like the whole reason you exist is to fail. I don't know if she feels like that, or ever has, but I guess I see a bit of myself in her, and that's why I'm trying so hard to make her see..."
"She doesn't really want to talk about it," Starlight remarked.
Maple vehemently shook her head. "No, she does. She very much does. Haven't you seen how often she brings it up? It's like she knows I'll respond and tries to goad me into arguing about it. Because it's not just compassion. I... I don't like being reminded of those times. I'd love if she were happy and carefree, and it would make me feel like I could really make a difference in the world... but there's a part of me that's more selfish, and just wants to help her so she stops reminding me of what that felt like."
"Maybe she just likes being pitied?" Starlight offered.
"I don't know." Maple's head drooped, ears nearly touching the rain. "I've met ponies before, in Riverfall, who seem to want nothing more than to make you feel some particular emotion toward them, and Valey doesn't feel like that. They're shallower and more straightforward, more like... when she's..." She blinked. "Have we ever actually seen her being mean to another pony?"
Starlight thought. "Didn't she scare Redshift with her shadow magic?" After a bit more thought, she added, "She was asking for it, though. So was Neon Nova."
"I think she scared a mare in Blueleaf, too," Maple added. "But... only after she hit me when I tried asking for directions. It wasn't disproportionate retribution. It wasn't even as bad as what happened to me in the first place..."
They looked at each other, and Starlight wondered if her eyes were just as wide as Maple's.
"But we've seen other ponies react to her, haven't we?" Maple whispered. "She scared off the ponies in the lobby of the Defense Force building this morning, and again when we were in that bar in Blueleaf. Everyone who knew who she was acted like she was disgusting."
"And she wanted to help Blueleaf," Starlight added. "Even though she said she didn't have to, because her job was just in the Stone District. She made us bring Redshift instead of leaving her unconscious at the bottom of the city, too."
Maple's newly-dried chest fluff bristled from proximity to the falling rain, and she stared out into the rainy world. "I don't get it. I thought I was starting to understand her. I thought she was just doing petty things that didn't matter to keep ponies afraid of her and justify how she looks at the world, but now that I look at it all at once, every single thing she's done has been to help someone, whether it's us or a city of ponies she doesn't even know. She's not just a regular pony who's done things that are good and others that are bad... she's a hero. But everyone is still afraid of her, and even ponies who aren't, like us and Elise, still know her reputation. I just don't get it at all..."
With a crunch of metal wheels striking a rock in the road, the cart jolted, shaking Valey out of her slumber. "Wha-!?" She looked in three directions at once, kicking to free herself from Starlight's blanket, and then froze, tension draining as she realized she wasn't in danger. Grumbling, she turned in a circle, laid back down and pretended she had never woken.
From the wagon's back by the window, Maple and Starlight both watched, and eventually Valey cracked an eyelid.
"This is a cool blanket," she mumbled, chin against the boards. "Beats me why you'd decide to give up something like this."
"You looked like you could use it," Maple replied. "And I'm perfectly warm."
The rain had washed much of the heat from the jungle air, though it was hardly chilly out. At least half of the shivers that tingled along Maple's spine were memories of dripping days spent in Riverfall, where even with a black rubber poncho more than an hour in the rain could leave one with a cough the following morning. And she had Starlight, who wasn't large but made up for it in warmth and willingness to sit at her side.
"Your loss." Valey shrugged and wrapped it tighter around herself.
Starlight frowned. "I thought you would be upset that she put that on you and treated you like a kid."
"Why?" Valey flicked her tail. "Free stuff is free stuff. And this is pretty cozy..."
"Well, you can't keep it!" Maple clarified, sensing a possible line of thought. "I just borrowed it from Starlight, and it's the only one we have."
"Meh. That's cool." Valey lay with closed eyes, rolled up tightly enough that she couldn't extend her wings without first standing up. "It would probably be awkward to carry this thing around later, anyway."
"Good," Maple sighed, turning to Starlight to make sure that was, in fact, something the filly cared about. Starlight nodded.
"How long was I out?" Valey asked. "I can't smell Grand Acorn yet, but it's kinda raining, so..."
"At least an hour," Maple answered. "I really don't know. It is starting to get noticeably darker out, though. The sun must be getting close to the mountains..."
"Ooh, really?" Valey cracked her neck. "We're probably almost there, then. These things are pretty slow, but it's not that long of a ride. You guys all rested up, too?" She raised an eyebrow. "Because I'm not trying to carry you. Maybe the kid, 'cuz she smells nice, but you're way too fat, Ironflanks. My wings could use an adjustment after that."
Maple pouted, tail lashing. "Do you have to keep calling me that? I hoped you would have forgotten after going back to the Stone District."
"Ironflanks, Ironflanks, Ironflanks," Valey happily sang. "Sure do. That's a great name. Super accurate, and just suggestive enough to get you flustered without sending any wrong messages." She nudged her nose in Starlight's direction, no hooves free to point with. "Now, her, I need a name for."
Starlight frowned. "Or you could just call me Starlight."
"Eh, that's boring." Valey shrugged, stretching at her self-imposed wrappings. "Starlight, Starlight... can't think of any good puns for that at all. Got any really embarrassing episodes in your past I could pull a nickname from?"
"No," Starlight huffed.
Valey grinned. "That's a shame. I guess I'll just have to imagine one, then, won't I? I bet... one day... you took a bath..."
"Oookay," Maple interrupted, holding out a forehoof. "Let's... not?"
"Not what?" Valey's face bore just the wrong amount of innocence. "That's all I was gonna say. Seriously, baths are embarrassing."
"Hey, I like baths." Maple frowned. "Although... how much do you know about our pasts? I'm curious, now that you brought it up."
"Huh?" Valey tilted her head to the side.
"You know..." Maple waved a hoof. "You figured out that we were from Riverfall, and you've been following us for most of the day. I'm curious how much you actually know about us."
Valey spent a second contemplating. "So basically you're inviting me to make all the assumptions I like about you, and then tell them straight to your faces."
"I was just trying to change the subject," Maple sighed. "If you're going to be like-"
"Nah, I'm cool with being asked to show off!" Valey interrupted before she could back down. "I mean, we'll probably be to Grand Acorn pretty soon, but if that's really what you want to spend our last however long of peace and quiet talking about..."
Maple looked up. "What else did you want to discuss?"
"Eh, this and that." Valey rocked back and forth. "We could tell horror stories. I know some pretty good ones, too. You ever hear the one about the 'paintings' where-"
Maple hurriedly cut her off. "I don't think I want to," she said with a wave of a hoof and a nervous smile. "Please. I've always been fonder of adventure stories."
"Yeah, you said that earlier..." Valey rolled her eyes. "So are you actually serious? I can guess whatever I want?"
"What you know about us." Maple nodded. "And please don't make me regret not choosing the horror story."
"Or call us rude names," Starlight added.
"I'm pretty sure those are givens, but whatever. Ironflanks." Valey rolled her eyes. "You first, then, I guess. What you look like is pretty obvious. You've got a brand, call it a cutie mark, and it hides stuff for later. You're from Riverfall, and I'm about ninety-nine percent sure you're straight, 'cuz if you weren't you never would have left."
Maple's ears folded. "I'm more just not looking for a romantic relationship at the moment..."
"Uh huh. Sure you are." Valey bobbed her head. "But hey, that's okay! I didn't really have a thing for you anyway. As for your age..." She drummed the floor, a frown tugging on one corner of her mouth, then indicated Starlight with a nod. "I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're probably too young to actually be her mom. If you are, though, that's okay too! I won't judge."
"Do you mind?" Maple cut in, defensive. "I just asked if you could not make me regret this! Don't you have more... normal things you can say?"
Valey winked. "Remember that drunk guy back in that bar in Blueleaf? Think his name was Randall, or something? Remember how ready to explode you looked when he started talking about what he thought of Riverfall?" She nodded sagely, face far more serene than her tone. "It's pretty obvious that you have some bad history with a stallion from Sosa."
Maple winced.
"You did invite me to say what I knew," Valey consoled without a hint of remorse. "Another thing I know is that you're far too cozy with me for your own good, so if you want to ignore my warnings? Look, I don't like being mean to you, but I really don't know how else to get this across! Seriously, this is me making you uncomfortable. You don't want to see what I could do if I actually meant it."
"Leave her alone," Starlight demanded from Maple's side. "She just feels bad for you and wants to help you, and you keep bringing this back up! Why do you have a problem with us treating you nicely?"
"Oh?" Valey fixed Starlight with a raised eyebrow. "Let's see about you, then... You smell. Really strongly. Good, too. Honestly, it's the main reason I started following you guys around in the first place. I dunno what it is, but there's just that something..."
"Wow, thanks," Starlight deadpanned. "I'm a pony just like anyone else, and you think all I come down to is stinking."
"I didn't say only!" Valey grinned. "You're also super touchy about a bunch of stuff. I wish you were funner to tease, though. I always feel bad about it, for some reason."
Starlight huffed, but didn't interject. If Valey wanted to annoy her instead of Maple, she could take it. It was more than enough to make her second-guess the assessment of the batpony they had done while she was sleeping, though.
"Aaaaand..." Valey broke eye contact, looking as far to the side as she could. "You've got some pretty cool magic, want to get a brand in not having a brand, and honestly? I have no idea how old you are. Could be anywhere from six to twelve and have me convinced."
"You can't tell either, huh?" Maple smiled softly, trying to put the previous conversation behind her.
Valey blinked. "You don't know?"
"I was adopted," Starlight said. "Then I ran away, and was adopted again. By Maple. I don't really know how old I am. I used to have a friend I played a lot with who would have been ten now, though."
"Hey, that's cool!" Valey looked away again, then came back with a mischievous smirk. "Wanna guess how old I am?"
Maple frowned, putting a hoof to her chin. "Maybe... twenty, give or take two years?"
"Nah." Valey winked. "I'm actually an eldritch horror from before the dawn of time, incalculable millions of years old."
"Really?" Maple gave her a skeptical stare.
Valey laughed. "What do you think?"
"I just told you what I thought," Maple huffed. "Somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two."
"Well, I don't know either, so you're not gonna find out." Unwrapping herself from Starlight's blanket, Valey stood up, holding the item out with a wing. "Here's this back, by the way. Hope I didn't shed in it too much."
Maple pocketed it, nodding in thanks. "I guess that means we're almost there?"
"Suuuure are." Valey swallowed, walking to the front of the cart and peering out, a large, black structure obscuring the horizon. "And for the record? Your guess is as good as anyone else's. All anyone knows for sure is that I was still a filly when I came to Ironridge seven years ago, so I can't be that old."
Nobody spoke as the cart rattled toward the wall of blackness, crunchy gravel spitting beneath its wheels. Suddenly, a quartet of orange floodlights flickered to life, illuminating the side of a massive, metal warehouse. A cart-sized door in the wall was retracting open, and their procession was headed straight for it.
"So this is probably the depot where they load and store the carts," Valey narrated as they moved toward the building, rain falling in sheets around them. "Which means it... might be a bit of a walk to Grand Acorn proper."
"How long is a bit?" Maple asked cautiously.
"Well..." Valey wavered. "Let's put it this way: there's no way we're going to Gnarlbough in this weather, so we have to wait somewhere until the rain lets up. And since I'm not that popular here, that'll be a choice between walking through the rain into the respectable part of town where nothing bad usually happens..." She grinned, devious. "Or playing hide-and-seek with a bunch of guards who are very well-acquainted with how much I love fruit."
The cart slid smoothly to a stop inside the darkness of the fruit-loading depot, rolling into a stall with raised platforms on the edges to facilitate easy loading. Several dormant conveyor belts protruded from holes in the wall, evidently to bring produce to the docks. High above, a harsh white lamp hung from a lengthy cord, bathing the room in stark contrast and making it look somehow darker than if it had been left to shadow.
"There are hostile guards," Maple muttered to herself, trying not to hyperventilate. "Hostile guards. In here. And you just waited until we were right at the gates to tell us that."
"Meh, it'll be fine," Valey reassured, patting Maple's back with a wing as she walked past. "You remember how cool I am in a fight, right? Because let me tell you, you don't remember half as well as these guys!"
Her loud, raspy voice echoed in the chamber, making Maple cringe. "Do you need to tell everyone where we are!?"
Valey hopped down to the concrete floor, inviting them to follow. "Of course! It's not a game when you don't make sure everyone's playing."
Maple carefully followed, mistrustful of her purchase on the water-slicked floor. Whoever had designed the building had been thoughtful enough to put in several drains, but the carts dripped with so much excess rain she wasn't willing to put her faith in the drains alone.
"You're not even armed," Maple whispered as she went. "What if we run into a spear, or a knife, or a unicorn, or-"
"Hey, hey." Valey tapped her shoulder with her tail. "You're willing to take your chances with me, aren't you? If you're gonna be stupidly reckless and optimistic there, why not here, too? Seriously, I come mess around here for fun. It's like cat-and-mouse, but the mouse is ten stories tall."
"I don't know," Maple murmured, checking to ensure Starlight was still close by. "I do trust you, but the last time we ran into-"
"Shh!" Valey interrupted her for the second time in a row, hissing sharply and pulling them toward a wall. Maple's ears stiffened, and picked up distant hoofsteps.
A light shone through a nearby entrance, bright and moving, and soon a barrel-chested stallion wearing a helmet lamp and bright orange chest patch stepped into view. "Someone here?" he called, shining his light around. "Cart watch? Thought I heard voices...!"
His light fell on Valey, who was smiling her least-friendly smile, and his eyes constricted in wisdom that could easily have been mistaken for fear. Turning abruptly and not looking back, he trotted as fast as he could out of sight, being careful not to break into a run. "Nope nope nope nope nooope nope nope nope..."
"See?" Valey turned to Maple and grinned. "He knows how to play!"
"I still don't like this..." Maple muttered. "Can we please just get out of here?"
"We could..." Valey nodded, as if seriously considering it as an option. "You know, that actually sounds really fun. I've never tried doing that before!"
Starlight squinted. "Huh?"
"What do you mean, you've never tried it?" Maple asked, nervous. "Are we talking about the same thing?"
Valey shrugged. "Depending on your definition of 'get out of here,' yeah. It's like this. There's no way we're going to Gnarlbough before this rain lets up, so for now, we're stuck here. So, we could either sit around here in this nice, dry warehouse complex and mess with the guards, make a crazy dash to Grand Acorn proper where there are nice places we could bribe or bully into keeping us dry without guards, or do what you said."
"...Isn't that second option what I said?" Warily, Maple made sure her back was covered by a wall. "I don't want to get wet, but it's better than being captured again."
"Well, there's also a tunnel straight to Dangerous Karma's HQ!" Valey smirked. "He's the boss of Grand Acorn, in case I forgot to mention it. He and I have... kinda... Let's call it a tentatively working relationship. But if we went straight through his fort, it would be a nice dry route to the city proper!"
Maple grimaced. "Through another fort? I really don't think so."
"Well..." Valey wobbled her shoulders, as if balancing two options. "It's more an office tower that's built with the outward aesthetic of a fort, but whatever. But anyway, if you get to strike an option, then I do too, and I say no going through the rain!" She grinned, white light reflecting off her sharp teeth. "I guess that means we'll be staying here for a spell..."
Maple wanted to protest, but eventually backed down. "Fine," she huffed. "But if you're not going to use a weapon, I at least want something I can pull out at a moment's notice, since I don't know how to fight with my hooves."
Valey blinked. "Fair enough. I think I see a pipe wrench over there..."
With a whump, Neon Nova's stolen trenchcoat hit the ground. Maple stood over it, pulled it open, and began looking inside.
"What are you doing?" Valey scowled, looking over her shoulder in morbid curiosity. "I told you that thing's nasty. It'll probably give you a disease, or something."
"It's also full of weapons," Maple muttered, pulling a dagger out of an inside pocket with a careful hoof and tossing it aside. "Last time, I got a chance to drop a big iron ingot on Selma's head. Ponies don't know I can pull things out of nowhere. I'll feel a lot better with these ready to go whenever I need them."
"And they're not going to slice up the inside of your brand, or something?" Valey tilted her head. "Seriously, you have no idea what's in that coat other than that it was worn by a pony who was trying to ruin an entire city. How are you so fearless with things that could actually hurt you, yet such a coward about those wimpy guards? I mean, I'd like them to be stronger, so they'd be more of a challenge!"
"Wow." Maple looked up, smirking back. "You almost sound like you're worried about me."
Valey lifted an eyebrow.
Maple sighed and looked away, turning back to the coat. "Anyway. Because this coat..." She heaved, tugging on a stuck pocket. "Is not a living, breathing pony..." She tumbled backwards, her quarry free. "And can neither choose to hurt me nor care about things! It's just an object." She squinted at what she had pulled loose. "What's this?"
"Looks like some sort of enchanted gem?" Valey leaned in, suspicious. "It's kind of small, but with magic that tells you basically nothing..."
Starlight peered closer too, horn lighting softly and lifting it in her aura. "Does it do anything?"
"Hey, woah, put that down!" Valey clasped a wing around her horn, snuffing it out. "For all you know, it could be a bomb, and that guy was a unicorn! It's probably activated by contact with magic, or something!"
They all hurriedly stepped back, Starlight pushed by Valey and Maple of her own accord. The gemstone sat on top of the coat pile, gleaming with a spark of stored energy... but that quickly faded, and it went back to being as normal and inert as ever.
Valey frowned at it. "You're not going to throw that thing away, are you."
"It hasn't gone off in my cutie mark," Maple countered. "Really, I've been constantly regretting not packing any more when I was at home! Just because I don't know where something's been or what it does doesn't mean it couldn't be more useful than nothing, and I'm tired of being unprepared."
"Fine," Valey huffed, darting forward and scooping the gem up in a wing. She shoved it under her hat, licked her lips, and was satisfied. "I'm taking this, then, at least. Might as well keep some of this stuff under closer watch, until we can find a good place to get rid of it..."
"Maple? Valey?" Starlight interrupted from several steps away, pointing toward another door. "I can hear more ponies coming, and it sounds like there are a lot of them..."
Purple blackness hit Starlight like a numbing, temperatureless fog, causing her to instantly lose all sense of direction and acceleration and removing her ability to understand what she saw. Her chest tried and failed to draw in air; it was as if her mouth and nose weren't even there... and she instantly recognized the sensation from when she had used the crystal spell on herself in the mountains. With an irrational calm born of excess shock, she stopped trying to breathe. That allowed her to recognize the presence of something tugging where her shoulder should have been, trying to drag her through what might have been liquid. She went limp.
What was probably only seconds later, there was a sudden sensation of lacking in her ears: the absence of a rush she hadn't noticed before. Then, sensation broke over her head in a wave that felt more like plunging into something than out of it, and after a few blinks, she could see clearly again.
There was also a fuzzy black hoof clasped tightly over her muzzle.
"Sorry about that please don't scream," Valey mouthed urgently in her ear, then turned and said the same to Maple, who was also emergency-gagged.
Starlight looked down. The floor was closer than it ever should have been, unless she felt like taking a nap on bare concrete, and she bobbed slightly, as if swimming. All of her body sans her neck and head, she realized, was beneath the ground, the shadows of a loading platform next to her bending and fluctuating like ripples as she moved. Quickly, she nodded in understanding.
Maple had other thoughts. "You had to do that?" she whispered back, barely putting air to the words. "Without warning us? Shouldn't that be a last resort? What happened to your confidence that you could handle every guard that came our way?"
"Shhhhh," Valey answered, keeping a firm wing on both of them. "That's a lot of dudes. We gotta check them out first and see what they're up to before running in."
As if on cue, the group of ponies Starlight had noticed entered from a doorway, fanning out and illuminating as much as possible with their headlamps in a practiced stance. Their leader, a tall stallion with a buttoned felt coat, glowered from under a wide-brim hat, a lone feather bobbing merrily above.
Having swam atop one of the loading conveyors for a better vantage point, Valey held a hoof to her own mouth, suppressing a snicker. "Seriously, some of Ironridge's fashion statements never get old," she giggled to Maple and Starlight, chancing a slight amount of tone in her voice.
The feather-hatted stallion didn't notice. "Bah," he pouted, swiping a hoof. "At this rate, we shall lose the trail entirely! You all!" He pointed upwards in a rallying cry, hat downturned and still managing to cover half of his eyes. "Spread out and search for clues!"
Maple frowned. "Are they the Spirit?" she murmured, laying close to the ground at Valey's side.
"Nah," Valey muttered back. "Exposition later, though. Looks like they're already being messed with by somebody else!"
As the ponies below poked around, one stood up with a vague shout, drawing the attention of the leader and most of the other searchers. Starlight, Maple and Valey peered closer... to see him holding Neon Nova's abandoned coat, which Maple hadn't had time to pocket when Valey grabbed them and dragged them out of the way.
Maple frowned. "Well, there goes that."
"Good riddance," Valey added.
"Anyone know anypony around here who wears a coat like this?" the one holding it asked. "Doesn't look like much for good Earth District attire, but it might look nice with the right hat?"
The leader sniffed. "Don't touch that, it's evidence!" He paced around, inspecting its sides. "Hmm. Big, and bulky enough for a pegasus to conceal their wings... I would say there is a high probability of this belonging to tonight's culprit! Mares and gentlecolts, we have our trail back!"
He hoofed the coat off to one of the following ponies. "Beetroot, hold that and keep it safe. Grainwave, you're the only one of us who can fly, so keep watch here! Now..."
"Yes, sir!" Two ponies simultaneously saluted, one a dark red stallion with a face that looked as if it had been pressed into flatness with a brick wall, the other a younger pegasus with a textured amber coat and a mane that matched her namesake.
Valey licked her lips. "They're leaving her alone, are they? Oh, this is gonna be fun..."
"Obviously, to shed such a disguise, the culprit must have been intending to make use of their wings," the leader said, touching the bridge of his nose with a hoof. "This I have deduced from the fact that the garment is filled with useful tools, which an active criminal would not easily sacrifice!" He pulled a knife from the coat for emphasis. "As such, they must have intended to leave us sniffing their dust through a flight route... which in a closed building such as this could only lead to there!"
He pointed straight up, to an observation balcony connected to a doorway a significant height above. "Clearly, the culprit thinks they can elude me," he continued. "Well, not today! Now that their plan is back in our sights, let us hurry to apprehend them! Forward!"
"Hey, hold on," the pegasus, Grainwave, interrupted with an outstretched hoof. "You want me to stand watch here alone? What do I even do if they come back?"
"You stop them, of course," the leader said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The two-prong attack is one of the most classic of military maneuvers."
Grainwave gave him a disbelieving look. "Sir... with what? You've been talking them up like some sort of criminal mastermind, and I'm..." She shrugged, showing off empty hooves.
Valey whistled under her breath. "She's not stupid, either..."
"The importance of a mission is not necessarily correlated with its difficulty," the leader proclaimed. "What we are dealing with here is a petty fruit thief, not a member of some organized crime syndicate. At least... I hope not. Regardless, you shouldn't have to deal with direct combat! Simply tag and follow the culprit should they attempt to double back on to escape us. Nevertheless, if you are feeling underprepared..." He held out the confiscated knife. "What could be more poetic than turning the villain's own blade upon them?"
Grainwave took it with a blank stare. "You know," she said, "there are a bunch of carts in here, which means there's a door to the outside, and the water on the floor is still fresh so it must have opened recently. You don't suppose they just... flew away?"
The leader recoiled as if stung. "Don't question my deductions! It was my initiative and investigative skills that exposed this string of robberies in the first place! We are using a two-pronged attack, and that is my decision. Now, the criminal could be on the move at this very moment, and we have no time to lose!"
Feather bobbing, he led the rush down another corridor, leaving a single protesting pegasus in the middle of the room, a dagger held limply in one wing.
Valey watched them go, eyes wide and eager. "She's in a horror story and knows it," she mouthed. "Give them a few minutes to get farther away and let her nerves get to her, then we'll turn out the lights, make some noise, and spook her enough to get her to go find them and spook them too, and we'll be so set..."
"Do you have to?" Maple hissed back, ears folded, mindful of the ultra-vigilant mare on the floor who was already being cautious and not leaving her back unchecked for more than seconds at a time. "She looks nice... Can't we just hide until the rain stops? Please?"
"Yeah, she is pretty easy on the eyes," Valey agreed, nodding.
"That's not what I meant!"
"You're really going to be a killjoy about this, aren't you?" Valey frowned.
Her last remark was slightly too loud, because they heard Grainwave take a sharp breath below. Her wings flapped, and she rose, flying up to investigate the source of the noise.
"Oh, bananas," Valey grumbled, grabbing Maple and Starlight and dipping back into shadow.
When Starlight's vision normalized, they were in a chamber of blackness with a single rectangular hole in the wall providing light... the room the loading conveyor fed in from, she realized. It smelled heavily of fruit, and for all she could tell was filled with the stuff.
Suddenly, a pair of dark brown eyes opened in the darkness next to her, and she blinked. Valey's eyes were green, and Maple's were red...
"Hey, move it!" a low voice growled, trying not to be heard outside the room. "I was here first! Get your own hiding place!"
"Ah!" Starlight gasped under her breath, bumping into Maple as she scrambled backwards. Her horn lit teal, revealing the presence of a scrawny pegasus with bulging saddlebags who shared their hiding spot... and revealing Valey's presence to him.
His eyes constricted. "Uhhh... Boss?"
"Who the what now?" Valey blinked. "Do I know you?"
The pegasus swiftly backpedaled, keeping his voice to an urgent hiss. "Err, nope! Look, just shove off, will ya? I'm out risking life and limb here and I swear, if you eat all my earnings..."
"Hold on," Valey mused, scratching her fuzzy chin. "I do know you... Weren't you one of those chumps I got to camp the gate yesterday morning? Complained a lot? Mad about me eating all the fruit?"
The pegasus deflated. "Yes," he huffed. "And I'm off duty right now, so what I do in this district is presently none of your business!"
"...Mudfeather, right?" Valey squinted, pointing a hoof. "And that's too bad. Showing some initiative, stealing your own fruit? That's what you've got in the bags, right? If you were on the clock, I might have been able to give you a bonus!"
"Tarfeather."
"I don't have any idea who he is either," Maple interrupted, "but hush! You're going to attract that guard! And Starlight, put your light out!"
Starlight instantly obeyed, sticking close to Maple's side. Valey, however, grinned. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Of course it's a bad thing!" Tarfeather hissed. "All I wanted was to stock the gate up in case you came back tonight like the schedule said you were going to do last night and didn't, and got locked in here when the place closed!" He hefted his saddlebags. "Especially if you're off having fun with some other ponies, I don't even see the point. I might as well ditch these on you now and go take a day off!"
Valey licked her lips. "Eh, technically you're an Earth District vigilante, not a real member of the Defense Force. But hey, don't quit the party before it's started! I'm, uh... I'm still trying to place you in my memory, though..."
"Well, stuff it," Tarfeather growled, throwing down his saddlebags. The straps on one side burst, and several bunches of bananas came spilling out. "This is your problem now."
"I remember!" Valey suddenly said, eyes lighting up. "You're the one that really loved mangoes, aren't you?"
Tarfeather's lips slowly curled into a teeth-bearing frown, and he pointed down at the discarded saddlebag. "I. Like. Bananas."
Valey shrugged, grinning stupidly. "Hey, good luck with that, mango guy. There's a reason most mares swing both ways."
Any semblance of stealth was lost as Tarfeather's eyes bulged, the pegasus barely resisting the urge to slam his head against the ground. "Okay," he groaned without looking, "I'm done. Those are your problem now, and so is watching the border and everything else! I quit! Have fun doing everything on your-"
Claaaang!
He stopped dead in his tracks, halfway in and halfway out of the entrance to the main loading depot, wings already spread to take flight... and pitched forward in an unseemly heap, revealing a mare beyond with a pipe wrench grasped in two wings and an expression of pleased disbelief on her face. "I... I got it," she murmured, tone growing stronger with time. "I got it! I took down an outlaw! I..."
Her eyes found Valey, and she paled in recognition. "Oh no..."
Valey gave a cheerful wave.
"Y-You're the Defense Force commander," Grainwave stammered, the wrench slipping limply from her grasp. "You were... helping him? Look, please, I don't have anything against you! I only volunteered for this because I wanted some community service for my resume because I'm trying to apply to work at the skyport and move up! I don't want to get stuck in any sort of district wars, really!"
"Great teamwork, huh?" Valey chirped, Maple and Starlight watching her, transfixed.
"...Huh?" Grainwave's brow furrowed.
Valey belched. "Something about a... uhh... a two-prong attack? One side flushes them out, the other does the catching?" She hefted Tarfeather's fruit-filled saddlebags with a wing and offered them to the pegasus. "I'd say it worked pretty well!"
Starlight's gaze drifted slowly to the unconscious Tarfeather. Was Valey throwing him under the cart as a bargaining chip? To try to get the patrol to let them use the tunnel she had mentioned earlier?
"Wait a minute..." Grainwave's brow furrowed. "You were helping us?"
"Helping you," Valey corrected, shrugging. "And one-upping that boss dude of yours by beating him to his own plan. You know, what's-his-name? The one with the edgy hat?"
"Non Sequitur," Grainwave offered. "And I'm Grainwave. But... you're Valey! No offense, but I've heard some pretty awful stories, and..."
Valey proudly began to pace. "And the moral of all of them is that I do what I want, aren't they? Either that or I'm some soulless specter who stops at nothing to haunt whoever I please?" She flashed a fanged smile. "Well, right now I don't really care about that guy you just beaned either way, and really wanna see the look on your boss's face when he realizes I made him look bad by doing him a favor."
"Awful stories?" Maple interrupted, brow shadowed with what might have been fake concern. "Wait, really? I'm, um, new to Ironridge..."
Valey gave her a flat look. "Ironflanks, is this really the best time for that? I'm getting you what you want, here."
Maple's ears folded, but the light in her eyes made it plain she didn't want to back down.
"I'm... not really sure I should do anything to antagonize her..." Grainwave said warily, taking a step back. "I don't know who you are, but watch yourselves, okay? Never trust a bat. That's the rule of hoof in Ironridge."
"See? She gets it," Valey said, suddenly standing so close to Grainwave's side that they could have touched each other with their wings. The pegasus noticed immediately, lowering her head and shying away.
"Ooooog..." Tarfeather moaned on the ground.
"Whuh-oh!" Valey jumped, putting her attention back on him. "Looks like he's coming to! What do you say we can the chit-chat and get this guy to your illustrious leader? Maybe get him hauled away to Mister Karma's place? That is where you're supposed to take these thieves, right?"
Grainwave stared back, uncomfortable. "This is my first day helping. I've never actually seen us catch a thief before."
"Well, hey, perfect!" Valey shrugged. "There's a first time for everything, right? Now let's find a way to let your boss know about... Hey, anyone have paper? Or just something to write with?"
Grainwave hesitated, looking at herself. She was completely free of clothes, saddlebags or anywhere else to hold things, and shook her head.
"I don't either," Maple said, apologetic.
"Hmm..." Valey rubbed her chin, and her eyes fell on the bananas protruding from Tarfeather's saddlebags. "Then we're gonna have to improvise, big time..."
Several stories up in the fruit-loading depot, a small group of ponies scurried along a hallway, the lights of their headlamps casting shifting shadows that had even the most hardened spending more time checking their shoulders than ahead.
"Hold, good ponies..." their feather-hatted leader, Non Sequitur, said, stopping and extending a hoof by a door. "And silence! We are in position. All that remains is to successfully carry out this ambush!"
He swung the door open, stepping out onto the loading room's observation balcony... and stopped, blinking. "The thief isn't here?"
A pony in his entourage shrugged. "I don't see 'em, myself."
"Of all the holes in an otherwise-perfect plan..." Non Sequitur hissed, peering over the railing at the empty floor below. "The mare we left to stand guard is missing. Of course..." He touched the brim of his hat. "It's only logical. The thief must have anticipated my plan and determined they would have greater luck outrunning a lone pegasus than attempting to elude this squad! Fortunately, my intellect managed to deduce this before too much time could elapse! Now, as for our next course of action..."
Someone tugged on his buttoned-up coat. "Hey, maybe check this out first?"
He frowned. "What's this? Have you found a critical clue?"
The pony pointed to a nearby wall.
Non Sequitur moved to investigate... and nearly toppled when his hoof contacted something squishy, causing it to slide across the floor effortlessly and without an inch of grace. "Gahh!" He caught his balance - barely - and looked down at the item that had almost tripped him.
It was a banana peel.
Slowly, his eyes wandered upwards, to where the metal that made up that segment of the wall had been stained with something yellow and mushy, smelling like smashed bananas, traced in the shape of letters. He squinted.
HA HA HA
I stole your thief
Find me if you can
Valey
"I still don't get why we didn't stay put," Maple said as she walked with Starlight, Valey and Grainwave down a darkened corridor. Grainwave had a headlamp, saving Starlight the effort of keeping her own horn going for illumination. "If we want them to find us, all of a sudden."
"Meh," Valey meh'd, towing Tarfeather along behind. "Don't wanna make it too easy for him. Not too hard, either, but if he's not a little ticked by the time he finds us he won't just march us into town then and there. He'll stay here and wait for more 'criminals,' you know?"
Maple frowned. "I feel like you've just made up an entire plan right here and now and I have no idea what it is, and I don't like that."
"H-Hey, I'm just here," Grainwave laughed nervously. "Please, if there's anything important you need to talk about, don't let me get in the way! I've heard the stories about what you do to paperwork, and I really... really don't want to be an obstacle..."
"Mmm." Valey licked her lips. "Yeah, paperwork. Screwing that up is the best. Don't worry, I've got better things to do today." With a wink at Maple, she added, "And hey, you trust me, right? I thought you didn't need to know what I'm doing!"
Maple sighed, ears flat. "Stop making me regret this..."
"Whateverrrrr." Valey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm making this up as I go. It's what I do best. Don't worry about the mango muncher, he'll get off with nothing more than egg on his face. Mmmph." She stuffed a banana from Tarfeather's pack into her mouth, leaving the peel on the floor and chewing noisily.
"So basically," she said between bites, "The dude you're working for?" She poked Grainwave, who jumped at the contact. "He's like... I dunno if he still is or just used to be a clerk up in Dangerous Karma's base. Super easily ticked off by numbers that don't add up and stuff. Doesn't like it when stuff goes missing, absolutely blows a fuse when it's stolen from under his nose. Now, this stuff?" She hefted a banana bunch. "It's not actually worth all that much. Only profitable because this place makes so much of it... so if I help myself to a free lunch every now and then, that's not even gonna be a single hair off of his mane. He probably loses a million times as much just from stuff that goes bad and falls off the trees without being picked. Maybe more."
Grainwave narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth... and backed down, thinking better of speaking.
"Yeah?" Valey looked up, offering her a stolen banana.
She declined it with a shake of her head. "So you are a thief we're supposed to be catching?"
Valey chuckled. "Yeah, that depends on your definition of 'supposed to.' DK budgets for dudes to check and make sure the roof hasn't caved in, nobody steals the production equipment, and the Spirit aren't using this place as a night base, but... eh..." She stretched. "The clown you've been following isn't official at all. He just goes on thief hunts because he feels like it, and DK lets him because hey, free security is free. Maybe he'll catch something that actually matters?"
Grainwave stared at her, clearly skeptical.
"You said this building was full of hostile guards!" Maple protested, sputtering. "Valey! Are you just trying to scare me?"
"First off, I said it was full of guards," Valey teased, waggling a hoof at Maple's frown. "Nothing about them being hostile! Second, they totally hate me, and actually probably are hostile. There's just nothing they can do about it because even if I let them catch me, they've got no sanction. What would they do, take me to DK? He'd laugh in their faces. Tie me up and hide me away? First off, Herman would come kick their rears, and second, if you can bust out of the Defense Force fort, do you really think an irate accountant can hold me?"
"Hold on," Grainwave interrupted, anger starting to clash with her reluctance. "You're pulling my tail, aren't you? That this patrol is a sham?"
Valey whistled innocently.
"It better not be! When he was asking for help this afternoon in the streets, he said this was official, from Dangerous Karma! He said..." Her ears folded. "Look, I really need this to be something the Sky District will think favorably of as service to the city, and you're... you. Can you please have mercy and just tell me now that you're pulling my tail?"
With a perfectly-angled smirk, Valey wiggled her eyebrows and tipped her beret. "Kiddo, I'm pretty sure you've been hustled."
Grainwave shrank. "You want me to feel cornered, don't you? You're about to point out that you're from the upper districts, and can pull strings to get me hired if I do you a favor."
Valey put a hoof to her chin. "Huh. Hey, that's a pretty good idea! Wanna do me a favor?"
"I've heard of your reputation..." Grainwave backed away further, trying her best to appear an evenly-matched party.
"Nahhh." Valey grinned. "How shallow do you think I am? I just want some help pranking that clerk guy. What was his name again? Non Sequitur?"
Maple coughed, pointing down at Tarfeather, who was awake and gagged. "Weren't we doing something else?"
"Eh, like I said: making stuff up as I go along, here." Valey shrugged. "He'll be fine. Seriously, we've gotta wait the rain out either way, so why not have fun while we're here?"
"Mmmrlmphgg," Tarfeather protested, rocking slowly back and forth. Valey silenced him with a grin.
Grainwave looked carefully at Valey. "What exactly do you want me to do? And how do I know this won't just get me in trouble with Dangerous Karma?"
"You can, uhhh..." Valey looked around. "Yeah, you kind of don't know, do you? Huh. That stinks." She grinned apologetically. "All right, let's do it this way. Give me a hoof, here, and maybe I'll scratch your back back! Not literally. Unless you ask. Or we..." She pointed to Starlight, Maple and herself. "Will leave you and the mango muncher and do our own thing, and you can find your boss and get your reward and all that and we'll still be cool... but I still wanna have my fun so we'll probably be haunting him and anyone with him on the way out, and that might include you. Sound fun and fair?"
"If I do help you..." Grainwave narrowed her eyes. "What would you want me to do?"
Valey snickered. "Easy peasy. All you'd need to do is find the dude, look like you've seen a ghost, and tell them something actually important to watch for is here. Say... a big, huge pack of Spirit ponies. Just put them on edge a little, okay? So that they'll be all primed for spooking..."
"Didn't you just tell him you're already here? With a message on that balcony?" Maple squinted. "Why would you do this, now? I thought you already had a plan to do something else!"
"I told you, I'm making it up as I go!" Dropping Tarfeather, Valey hovered and did a midair backflip, just because she could. "Don't worry, I'll think of something good. I was just... thinking about other things on the way here." Her green eyes glowed in the darkness. "The better question is, why not?"
"How often does that actually happen?" Grainwave drew the conversation back to the request, still wary. "Actual organized ponies breaking into this place, instead of petty thieves? Would he believe it?"
"Eh, probably never." Valey rolled her shoulders. "But paranoid ponies will believe anything. This'll be easy!"
Back in the loading room, which had long since been deserted...
The single, white floodlight flickered and sparked, losing power for nearly two seconds and temporarily bathing the room in blackness. During that time, there was a crack... and one of the rolling doors that separated the station from the rainy world outside inched open. Two strong hooves forced it further apart, and a single pony slipped through, water streaming in torrents from his coat.
He wiped his brow as the power buzzed back on, causing the door to re-engage and tighten itself shut. "Whew!" he proclaimed to nobody in particular, taking in his surroundings. "Made it! Now that was some foul weather to travel in. Lucky for me whoever wired this place doesn't know what a pony can do with just an outdoor power meter and a stick. Time to get down to mission alpha..."
"Where are we going?" Maple asked, panting lightly and favoring a cramped leg as she chased Valey through another corridor in the fruit-loading depot. The batpony was slowed by Tarfeather's bound form, wiggling and protesting against his gag.
"Eh, here's fine." Abruptly, Valey flopped down on the floor, leaning casually against a wall and wiping her brow.
"...Huh?" Maple squinted.
Illuminated entirely in teal from Starlight's horn, Valey shrugged. "Here! Where we're going." She pulled off Tarfeather's gag with a wing, and set about lazily unbinding his limbs. "Sorry about that, buddy," she mumbled as she worked. "I might've put off planning a bit too long there, and when stuff happened, you were the best scapegoat around! How many hard feelings does that earn me?"
Grainwave had long since left to seek out her patrol, leaving no ponies around who were supposed to be catching fruit thieves. Tarfeather sat up warily, as if he nevertheless expected two dozen armed goons to jump him from behind a hidden doorway.
When no attack came, his eyes narrowed. "I don't like you."
"Eh, I'll take that as an eight out of ten." Valey munched on another banana, offering his mostly-deflated pack back with a hoof, keeping one wing clasped at her side. "Seriously, it's your own fault for being unlucky. Next time, try not to run into me!"
Taking the pack and opening it, Tarfeather looked up forlornly with more than a hint of anger. "After all that trouble, you ate my bananas again?"
"I did?" Valey peered in over his shoulder. "Nah, there's still a bunch left."
"One bunch," Tarfeather complained. "You tied me up and dragged me all over the place for this? Really?"
"Yeah, that's just how I apologize." Valey stretched, rubbing her stomach. "If it makes you feel better, they were delicious."
"I can't believe you're worried about that at a time like this..." Maple murmured.
Tarfeather stepped backwards, glaring. "...Screw you," he said, before winging away into the darkness.
"Wow. Talk about ungrateful," Valey giggled once he was gone. "Seriously, we probably got them off his tail, too."
Maple sighed loudly. "Well, whether it was stealing or not, you did just take something he worked hard for. He probably doesn't see it that way."
"Eh, I was hungry." Valey stretched her wing, revealing another bunch of bananas stashed underneath. "I'm full now, though! Want a banana?"
Before Maple could say anything, Starlight interrupted with a groan, sweating beneath the light of her horn. "Can we hurry to wherever we're going? My horn hurts..."
Maple was instantly at her side. "Put it out, then! We can find our way in the darkness. You don't need to hurt yourself, okay?"
"Actually, we totally can," Valey agreed, looking over Maple's shoulder and pointing to her slitted eyes. "Seeing in low lighting, remember? Stick right next to me, and we'll be just fine!"
"How are we supposed to do that if we can't see you?" Starlight asked, horn dimming to the barest flicker.
Valey hummed. "Eh, you can ride on one of our backs, and Ironflanks can... hold my tail, or something."
"Starlight?" Maple sighed. "Are you fine with that? My legs still hurt, so I don't think I'm ready to carry you yet..."
Starlight shrugged, rubbing her forehead with a grimace. "She can carry me. Ow..."
Maple pursed her lips, but didn't protest. A moment later, she felt something tickly and hairy brush her muzzle. "You coming?" Valey's voice asked in the darkness.
She carefully bit down, following the guide at a gentle pace. "Where are we going?" she asked around a mouthful of fuzz.
"Oh, somewhere."
"Valeyyy..."
"Meh, fine!" Valey grunted. "I'm still deciding, but I'm pretty sure we should just bail. Between me, Banana Boy, and our cute friend from earlier, those lemon bags should have like three things to chase that either don't exist or are getting out of here. You two are maybe a little more work to bring along than I'd hoped since you can't fly, so I kinda wanna just call that good, go find that tunnel and smooth-talk our way through DK's base. Unless you're still super duper opposed to that idea?"
"If you promise not to let anything bad happen to us." Maple fought back a sneeze. "I guess it makes sense to go in the direction we want to if there are guards both ways..."
"You take this guard thing too seriously," Valey chirped. "Some day, I'll have to dunk a whole complement right when you're watching to get you over that fear. But in the meantime, let's go!"
Some distance away, in another part of the depot, a gold-coated pegasus with a wavy mane fluttered her wings in agitation, trying to explain to a band of nearly a dozen vigilantes that there was, in fact, a party of Spirit ponies using the facility to conduct a secret, underground meeting.
"I told you," Grainwave insisted, "I don't know exactly which room! I heard them through a ventilation shaft! It sounded like they had heard us or the thief banging around and were sending some ponies out to investigate!"
"But you were unable to apprehend the criminal we were chasing in the first place... I see." Non Sequitur adjusted his hat downwards, so that more of his eyes were covered. "These new clues can only mean something greater than even I had suspected is ahoof..."
"Well, yes, but... Sir!" Grainwave stammered. "When I caught up to him, he had already been caught by Valey! I know better than to fight with that, Sir."
Non Sequitur rubbed his chin. "So you do, so you do... Admiral Valey is my arch-nemesis. You're wise to avoid her! Unfortunately, we have no intelligence concerning whether she is on the thief's side, or sees him as competition. It is useful, however, that we have two separate clues informing us she and our present target are not the same pony..."
"Look, I didn't volunteer for conspiracy hunting," a burly stallion said from the sidelines. "What is it you want us to do?"
Another nodded. "What he said! And make it quick, because I'm starting to feel a little nervous if this place has ponies like Valey and the Spirit in it. We're not exactly armed..."
"I third that," a mare added. "You said we would be up against maybe one unarmed fruit thief at most! Not somepony infamous like Valey!"
"Also..." A fourth raised a hoof. "Could you talk normally? That's starting to get annoying."
Non Sequitur frowned. "What, my vocabulary? Detectives always talk like this! Although, the evidence does seem to suggest that our best course of action-"
Whizzzzz! Thud!
The chunky stallion who had spoken was nearly bowled over by a speeding black pegasus, who reeled back from the collision and nearly hit the floor. "Ooog... Oww..."
"What have we here?" Non Sequitur leaned closer, snatching the fallen Tarfeather's bags. "Ah-ha! You're the fruit thief, aren't you? It seems justice has been given a great... victory..." He trailed off, looking inside. "You went to all the effort of going up against me to steal one single bunch of bananas?"
"I hate everything," Tarfeather said, sprawled miserably on the concrete.
Grainwave eyed him carefully. "That's the pegasus Valey had, yes..."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" The feather in Non Sequitur's hat bobbed frantically. "Tie him up, already!"
As the ponies around him made to do so, he held his chin once again, musing. "In light of this good fortune, the best course of action may be to quit while we are ahead. Ponies!" he barked. "You are correct that we are ill-equipped to handle a potential conflict between Admiral Valey and the Spirit of Sosa, if one is in fact set to occur. Let us take this criminal and return to Dangerous Karma's headquarters to inform him of what we found and allow justice to be served, and let him determine how best to handle the situation. It is he, after all, who holds the greatest stakes, and we are naught but volunteers in the pursuit of justice."
Happily murmuring, the headlamped ponies lined up and began following him towards the tunnel to Grand Acorn proper.
"Hmmmmm..."
A shadowed pony stared up at the parked fruit transport carts in the loading room, thinking carefully. "Anyone who's not as nutso as me would never make it here from Blueleaf in this rain, and there's no way they could have flown like I did, either! So they must've hitched a ride on these..."
He produced a dormant, magically-charged gemstone and rubbed it thoughtfully. "Come on, bro, just pick up! I know you're with them; I got a signal less than thirty minutes ago! Why the silent treatment, huh?"
The stone didn't respond.
"Ugh," he huffed, tucking it away. "Well, if they're going anywhere, they'll probably head through old stallion Karma's place first, so... let's see if I can head them off at the tunnel! Geronimooo!"
Valey, Starlight and Maple stood atop a second-story catwalk, frowning down at the room below.
Spacious and apparently used for storing collapsed packing crates, there was a rectangular hole in the floor where a ramp descended, sloping gently on its way below the earth. The concrete floor around it was barren... save for the dozen-odd ponies milling around it cluelessly, Non Sequitur, Grainwave and a disgruntled Tarfeather among their ranks.
Valey's lip twitched. "Would he get a move on?" she whispered, keeping her voice well below the nervous din from below. "That fatso is blocking our path, and I'm getting kinda tempted to move him myself..."
"Shhh," Maple cajoled. "We can see them, and they can't see us. This is fine."
Content to wait, Starlight sat to the side of the discussion, peering curiously down through the metal lattice of the catwalk. Non Sequitur, defined even more by his feathered hat when seen from above, paced aggressively, muttering words she could only catch part of. Something about deductions... the Spirit? Perhaps Valey's idea had worked after all, though she still wasn't sure of the purpose.
"Boooooring," Valey yawned, glaring down at the vigilantes. "Look, I'm obviously getting through to them, somewhere! And if not me, Banana Boy is. Why don't they... like... run around and freak out, or at least go through the tunnel? What are they waiting here for?"
Maple shrugged. "Maybe they want to stay, but have a retreat route covered? I don't know what they're thinking. It shouldn't be hard to be more patient than them, though."
"Are you sure?" Valey raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "Because I'm feeling pretty impatient. How about I do a fly-by and get all their attention, then you two run past while they're distracted?"
"I don't know..." Maple bit her lip. "You've already gone and told them you're here, and I really don't see the point of everything we've done here so far. What all does it accomplish?"
Valey rolled her eyes. "I told you, I was making stuff up and fishing to see if anything fun would happen! But too bad, so sad, that ship has flown, since you guys obviously don't wanna be here and those goons don't look like they took my bait."
Suddenly, a call rang out from below. "Hey, do you hear voices from up there?"
Hissing, Valey shrank back. "Too loud! Too loud. Uhh... new plan. All I wrote was that I was here, so you should be fine! So go pretend to be lost or something, and see if they're nice and point you down the tunnel. I'll spot you from the shadows and come kick some tail if anything remotely bad happens. Now go go go!"
She shoved them unceremoniously forward, leaving little chance to get out of the way before they came into sight of the vigilantes, who were already looking upward.
"Um... hi!" Maple nervously waved.
Non Sequitur stared back at her. "Well, well, well. Unexpectedly, a new puzzle piece enters play... Logically, as you lack a horn, it follows that you aren't affiliated with the Spirit."
"No we're not!" Starlight called from beside her. "We're lost! We came in here to get out of the rain and want to go to Grand Acorn!"
Below, Non Sequitur looked away, scratching his chin. "The mystery deepens..." he mused, lowering the brim of his hat. "What reason could the Spirit have to extend beyond their predominant race? Is there a mission ahoof for which they would task mere sympathizers with-"
"Uhh..." A stallion poked him. "Boss? Hear that?"
He craned an ear and listened, and all the ponies around him did too.
Far above, the rain roared down against a roof of corrugated metal with the fury of a caged dragon, its volume diluted by distance but still impressive enough that even the most foolhardy knew not to mess with the real thing.
The stallion who had spoken smiled apologetically. "If I was out in that, I'd break into a place like this to get dry, too. Maybe they ain't part of whatever she stumbled in on?"
He pointed at Grainwave, who stepped forward and squinted. "I don't recognize them, or their voices..."
From a nearby shadow, Valey pumped a hoof.
"...I see." Non Sequitur blinked owlishly. "In that case, I deduce that you should accompany us. We will be returning through Grand Acorn shortly."
Maple beamed. "Thank you!"
Together, she and Starlight made their way down a switchback staircase, eventually reaching the ground floor. "So, umm..." She pointed to the ramp descending beneath the floor. "Is that the way to Grand Acorn?"
"You already know of this?" Non Sequitur asked, striding closer, leaving the rest of his ponies behind as his eyes flicked between Maple and Starlight. "Interesting. You want to go this way... Did you not say you were lost?"
Maple's ears flattened against her head. Starlight took a step closer to her side.
Frowning, Valey began swimming closer, ears protruding shark-like from the ground.
"Unfortunately," Non Sequitur said, stepping forward, "the evidence at present is all too suspicious to go about trusting random citizens! You have been lured, you see. Justice will be served, and if for you that means exoneration, it will be all the sweeter, but in the meantime we cannot afford to take undue risks. Ponies, help me tie them up."
"No!" Maple yelped, snarling and backing away as Starlight lit her horn. "Keep your filthy hooves away from me! I am not doing this again! Valey...!"
Non Sequitur lunged...
...And the crucial difference between him and Selma came into play: he wasn't a unicorn and couldn't hold her at bay with magic. Unprepared for physical contact with Maple's enhanced weight, his tackle bounced straight off, leaving her staggering, yet upright enough to retaliate with a giant punch.
Whud! The force of the augmented blow sent him rolling across the floor, snapping his hat's feather and causing the article to fall off altogether. He slid to a stop next to the tunnel entrance, moaning.
"Stay back," Maple seethed, crouched in her best idea of a fighting stance, red eyes glinting. "I'll do that as many times as I have to..."
Valey slithered closer. The rest of the ponies shuffled backwards, unwilling to follow their leader's ill-fated example. Starlight's horn stayed protectively on, and Maple's legs trembled from tension, when...
Flaaaaashhh!
A violent burst of white lit the room, forcibly ejecting Valey from her shadow and sending her sprawling across the ground. "Ow, what gives!?"
"Ha-ha!" an unseen voice crowed from on high as the mass of ponies staggered, blinking and trying to clear their vision. "Tremble in your boots, oh evildoers... for I have arrived!"
"Who?" Starlight sat, rubbing her eyes and wishing away an unwelcome headache.
"Yeah, what?" a voice from the volunteer guards echoed. "Who in the Seventh District are you?"
"I didn't sign up for this!" another grumbled. "This isn't something I should be doing for free...!"
Starlight's eyes finally began to focus, revealing a pony posing hopefully between her and the guards. He was a pegasus... Lavender coat, black pompadour with jagged red streaks. He also had gray eyes and a pointy goatee. She frowned.
"Youuu look like a bad guy," Grainwave nervously observed, several heads around her nodding in agreement. "Like... too much like a bad guy."
The pegasus shrugged. "I didn't pay this much for a stylist for nothing!"
Maple cleared her throat. "Have I seen you before? You look familiar..."
"Really?" The pegasus raised an eyebrow, then drooped. "That's cold. You don't even remember the Howenator?"
"I've met a lot of ponies recently," Maple announced, "and it's kind of hard to... Wait, Howenator..." She chewed her lip. "Howenator... Howe..."
Her eyes constricted to pinpricks. "You're that stupid pegasus who got us in trouble in the Stone District!" she accused, pointing. "Remember? Who made the guards distrust us? Everything that's happened to us over the last day has been your fault! I feel like giving you a piece of my mind, you little..." She strode forward, scowling.
"Ah, so he is a bad guy!" a guard laughed, squaring his shoulders.
"Then would that make them be good guys?" another asked, pointing to Maple and Starlight.
A third shrugged. "I dunno. If the Stone District doesn't like 'em... Their villains, our heroes, you know? Like the Spirit?"
"We're hunting the Spirit," another pointed out.
"Yeah, but you gotta admit..."
"Hey, and what about Valey? Nobody likes her up there, but that doesn't mean down here she's-"
"Pancake!" At the mention of her name, Valey joyously erupted from the floor right next to Howe, startling the whole room into giving her their attention. "Long time no see, huh?"
"Eh heh heh..." Howe waved feebly. "Hi..."
"That's Valey," a guard said, stating the obvious.
"Ow," Non Sequitur groaned from the floor nearby. "My hat..."
Starlight stood in silence. Next to a stack of crates, Tarfeather lay, still bound and having apparently given up on ever reclaiming his freedom, dignity or bananas.
"So, uhh..." Valey looked around at the suddenly silent room. "What's up?"
"I quit," a guard suddenly said, pulling off and setting aside her headlamp and marching down the tunnel.
"Yeah, me too. This is ridiculous," another agreed, following suit. Two more mimicked him, and eventually every last guard was slinking away, Grainwave among their number. Swiftly, the room was empty save for Valey, Maple, Starlight, Howe, Tarfeather and Non Sequitur's punched form.
Valey huffed. "Wow, rude. ...So, Pancake! How've you been?"
Howe chuckled, making sure to stand well out of her immediate reach. "Oh, this and that, you know..." He nodded at Starlight and Maple. "I was hanging out with my bird-bro Gerardo for a while, having some grand old times, busting into the Defense Force mmmph!"
A fuzzy black hoof covered his mouth, stifling his impending monologue. "Hey, cool story and all that," Valey said, nodding, "but if you're about to do any bean-spilling, maybe we should take care of this bozo first?"
Maple tilted her head. "You want us to carry him with us until he wakes up? He looks a lot heavier than Redshift..."
"Nah, he's too fat." Valey shrugged. "I was just thinking of leaving him somewhere more inconvenient. Oh, and we gotta get Banana Boy, too!"
Howe curled his lip, spying Tarfeather. "I'm pretty sure he's one of those dudes who threw fruit at my mane..."
"You probably deserved it," Maple huffed, inspecting and pocketing one of the abandoned headlamps.
"Yeah, well, it... What she said. Your mane's hilarious." Valey pointed over her shoulder as she moved to untie Tarfeather. "For realsies, though, Ironflanks, Pancake is pretty funny, so don't scare him off too fast, all right? I at least gotta know what this random reunion is all about, first."
Maple sighed, then sat down, Starlight at her side, watching the winged ponies slowly going about their business.
The passage beneath the fruit-loading depot was wide enough for a single small cart, if no hoof traffic was attempting to go the other way. Floored by concrete and occasional drains, with wooden support beams holding up the bedrock roof, it could comfortably allow four adult ponies to walk side by side... but since Howe and Valey were hardly normal ponies and Maple was still unhappy with the former, they walked in a row of three, Valey in the middle and Starlight having resumed her perch on Maple's back.
"So," Valey said as sporadic manalights flickered by overhead, "Pancake! Come on, spill the beans! Did you just like me so much you came back to see me again?"
"Ohh ho ho no," Howe chuckled, raising a wing defensively. "This pegasus likes being three-dimensional, thank you very much. As I was saying before, I spent most of that time just hangin' with my bird bro, Gerardo! Y'know, the cool griffon? I figured I owed him a debt after messing up his plans, so I was sticking with him, doing this and that to help pay it off!" He grinned lopsidedly. "Did you know that bird has a thing for mimes? He asked me to be a mime for a while."
"That doesn't sound like it was taken out of context," Valey coughed.
"Pfft. Well, whatever." Howe swiped a wing. "So, the first thing I did when he came to outside that guard hole? I was right there, checking if he was all right! And then Gerardo was like, 'Oh no, my friends are gone,' and I was like, 'Oh well we better do something,' and my bro Gerardo was like, 'Brother Bird, that's gotta be the best idea I ever heard,' so we teamed up for a bit, and-"
Valey cut him off with a snicker, nudging Maple with her shoulder. "Come on, lighten up! This guy's walking entertainment! It doesn't get much better than this!"
"I'm not looking for entertainment," Maple grunted, plodding along under the weight of Starlight, her newly-confiscated headlamps and two days worth of cramps that had just been given a cart ride of downtime and rainy, damp air to tense back up. "I just... want to get to Gnarlbough... and get out of Ironridge. Howe, if there's a point, please get to it?"
Howe eyeballed her from across Valey's back. "You look down in the dumps, uhh..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry, drawin' a blank. I think she called you Ironflanks?"
Valey nearly tripped from laughter as Maple hissed in mortification. "It's Maple!" she half-wailed, just softly enough to keep her voice from cracking. "Valeyyy, I told you to stop calling me that or ponies will actually think it's my real name!"
"Are you kidding?" Valey rubbed a tear from her eyes. "That would be hilarious!"
"Mmmaple, you say?" Howe mumbled, chewing the word in his mouth. "Hey, that is a pretty name. Kinda reminds me, actually, there was this hot pegasus chick up in the Sky District when we went back there for help I'm about ninety percent sure was flirting with Gerardo..."
"Ooh, really?" Valey perked up. "Did you get her name? That could be great if I ever need to really tick him off..."
"Sure did!" Howe gloated, preening. "Slipstream. A pretty name for a pretty, pretty pegasus." He looked up at Maple, blinking. "Say... was the reason you and Gerardo hung out all the time because-"
"I don't want to know what you plan to ask!" Maple loudly cut him off, raising a hoof. "We traveled together because it was convenient, and because someone sort of hired him to be my bodyguard. Howe..." She narrowed her eyes. "I know you know I don't like you, so please, do you mind? I've been under a lot of stress lately, and I feel like... like... my patience is getting thinner."
"Huh." Valey tipped her head in thought, folding one ear. "After the way you decked that guy back there, I'm kinda curious to see what it looks like when you explode."
Starlight leaned into Maple's neck, and she breathed a little easier. Then Howe spoke.
"Look," the pegasus said, "I get it. I know I rained on your parade, and I'm sorry, okay? I'm trying my best to make it up to you! That's why I'm here, even."
Maple raised an eyebrow, signaling for him to go on.
Howe sighed. "Me and Gerardo went to the yak embassy at the crack of dawn this morning. I had some stuff of my own to take care of, but he went and talked up Ambassador Herman and got himself into the Defense Force fort to come look for you by posing as a facilities inspector. Let me come too, when honest? I think he's even more ticked at me than you two."
Swallowing, he continued, waving a hoof. "So anyway, we got to the video recording room, and saw some stuff with you and the cute kid escaping?" He tipped his head. "And it looked like you made it out of that first room just fine, but before that there was some stuff with you opening this box and taking something, and that got Selma rustled."
Maple and Starlight flinched at the same time, while Valey pursed her lips. "Mmmm," Howe hummed. "Sounds like that isn't good news to you?"
"Valey?" Maple asked, voice barely a whisper, having stopped in her tracks in the tunnel. "Does that mean the Defense Force is chasing us? What do we do?"
"You're asking me?" Valey laughed. "I guess you stay the course and hope I'm feeling up to busting up the entire Defense Force if push comes to shove. Stay away from the Stone District, too, that's for sure. But honestly...?" She stretched, cracking her wing joints. "You should figure out something yourselves. Remember, never trust a bat."
Howe shot her a strange look.
"How safe will we be if we stay in the Earth District and Sosa?" Starlight asked.
"Mmmm..." Valey licked her lips. "Stole something from some crates, eh? Still got it? And Pancake, who saw this? Selma, you said?"
Maple bit her lip.
"Selma, Gerardo..." Howe whistled, thinking. "Yours truly, and some nice mare called Sharpie. I think she was an inspector too?"
"Oh boy, Sharpie," Valey giggled, hovering along and rubbing her forehooves. "I love Sharpie, she's the best. So just Selma, though..." She tapped her chin. "The thing about Selma is, the dude's really ambitious. Part of the reason he hates me... most of it, actually, is because I'm officially his equal in rank, and he doesn't wanna share. He has his sights set on Herman's job, you know. Kinda crazy to keep someone like that around, if you ask me, but hey! That yak keeps me too, and makes it work out for him."
She shrugged, flipping over and flying on her back. "Point is, I dunno if Selma will actually do anything about it. If he thinks he can use this mystery thing being stolen to take Herman down a peg, it's entirely possible he'll be less concerned with getting it back and more concerned with making sure nobody finds who stole it... without getting blamed himself, of course." She blinked. "You know anything else about those crates, Pancake?"
"There's two of them?" Howe offered hopefully.
"Yeah, I'll take that as a no." Valey turned to Maple. "How about you, Ironflanks?"
"Maple," Maple growled. "And... I'm thinking."
"Didn't he say he was hired to move them by Yakyakistan?" Starlight offered. "He was supposed to be taking them to the Water District, and someone from Yakyakistan would meet him there to take them. Right?"
Maple nodded.
"Huh. That's cute." Valey closed her eyes, flying by instinct, using her brand to watch for walls. "See, I have a pretty good memory... sometimes. And the stuff Herman wanted me to move when I was back at the base earlier? I'm thinking they might have been these crates that got robbed. So if they really were for the yaks..."
"Then Herman has his big, hairy hooves on them..." Howe spookily warbled.
"Where did you move them?" Maple asked, raising an eyebrow.
"And nobody knows what's in them!" Howe added, smirking for good measure. "Because they're mysterious."
Valey opened one eye and frowned. "Didn't you just say those two were poking around in them?"
Howe blinked, then shrugged. "Huh! Yeah, I guess I did! But hey, to be honest? It probably doesn't even matter. Wanna hear how I tracked you all down?"
Hesitating from the sudden topic change, Maple looked carefully at him. "Um... sure?"
"Nice." Howe grinned back, having drawn closer to the center of the tunnel after Valey started flying. "So basically, I owe you one, I owe my bird-bro one, so when we saw that crate get robbed, hoboy, he told me to come warn you and I zippitied out of there while he held Selma off! No clue what happened to them; I was long gone. Anyway, I managed to track down the hotel where you stayed, and they were like, 'Hey, they left for the Earth District,' and I was like, 'Earth District? My best bro ever lives in the Earth District!'"
He reached into his sizable, heavily-gelled mane, and pulled out a small, magical-looking crystal, causing both Maple and Valey to blink in recognition. "Anyhow," Howe continued, "We've got this pair of magic talkie-talkie gems that let us communicate over a distance. You can't have 'em, they're not for sale! So I sent him a beep-boop and went, 'Hey little bro, another bro asked me to keep a lookout for some more bros who got themselves in trouble; think you could keep an eye out for me and let me know if they pass by?' And he's a bro, so he said sure."
At that point, Maple and Valey were looking at each other like they were cats that had teamed up to shred a priceless rug, albeit with polar opposite degrees of remorse.
Howe didn't catch on. "Less than an hour later, he called back, and was like, 'Hey big bro, I just spotted them in a bar in Blueleaf! Want me to keep an eye on them and make the place as safe as can be while you catch up?' And of course I said sure to that, too."
Valey barely suppressed a snicker.
"Problem is," Howe continued, "when I got there? This huge, nasty rainstorm came out of nowhere, which is actually the norm for here but whatever. Anyway, my bro wouldn't pick up, so I spent twenty billion hours wandering around covered streets and buildings that belong in a dumpster before I got a five-second ping of reception from up this-a-way. So I bolted, got rained on big time, and it turns out you were here! All's well that ends well, right?"
"Your friend wasn't called Neon Nova, was he?" Maple asked, drooping.
"Sure was!" Howe winked. "And he's my actual literal bro, too, random fact. You, uh..." He pointed a wing. "Don't look too thrilled about that. I was going to ask, where is he?"
"Meh!" Valey popped her hat and held out the gemstone confiscated from Neon's giant coat. "He gave us this, said to take it with us. He had some... other stuff to worry about."
Howe looked at the stone and whistled. "Other stuff, huh."
"Yeah. Like..." Valey gnawed her lip. "Indigestion. Super bad indigestion."
Howe's eyebrows rose. "Bad indigestion? Are you serious, here?"
Valey lifted one back. "Yeah, too many mangoes. Do you really want me to describe it?"
"Eh heh... Nah..." Howe stood down, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, that's too bad. He's good in a fight! Could've helped you if the Defense Force came knocking. Still, did he have to just give you that without showing you how to use it? I spent so long trying to reach you guys. Like... gimmie that..."
Shrugging, Valey hoofed Neon's gemstone over.
"It's simple," Howe said, tapping them. "You charge them up, they work. Anything'll do. Hold them next to a manalight, an open power conduit, a lit unicorn horn..." He glanced at Starlight. "You've got a unicorn with you, right there! Then they work for a bit, so you just get a password and some code names and you're good to go! They change color if the other end is open, too, so you need to check them often."
"Okay..." Valey swiped Neon's stone back with a wing, shoving it in her hat. "Cool to know. Until I... return it to him, which I'll totally do, I think I'll keep hanging onto this." She tossed a glance at Maple. "Unless you'd rather have a direct line to Pancake, here?"
"I think I'm good," Maple said, grimacing.
"Hey, that's good!" Valey winked. "Because we're almost there! Who's ready to tell Mister Karma about how we might have tied up his most unofficial goon and left him in a garbage bin? Because I sure am!"
"Heh heh heh..." Howe snickered as the floor began to incline upwards. "He got dumpstered..."
The tunnel grew brighter around Starlight and her companions as it rose, warm yellow lighting shining down a staircase at the end several dozen hoofsteps away. Slowly, they crossed the distance... and climbed up to the world above.
Starlight blinked from the glare. Mismatched wooden floorboards aside, they had emerged in a room constructed of right angles, a flaky white material set in flat sheets to form the walls and ceiling. It was ever-so-slightly reflective, and her eyes were drawn to the dark lines at the edges where the surfaces didn't quite meet, the holes to the woodwork beyond providing a welcome contrast after the darkness of the depot and tunnel.
"Good evening," a huge yellow mare droned systematically from a nearby desk, barely giving them half a glance. "Welcome to Karma Industries. I see some of you have been here before, so mind the rules and have a nice stay."
Maple stopped, staring. "Okay... I don't know what I expected, but the Earth District is weird."
As the receptionist looked back to the papers on her desk and sipped from a mug, the room's single, point-source light glinting off her broad back, Valey chuckled. "Yeah, they follow their own rules. But hey, DK isn't here to grill us on why a whole squad of volunteer vigilantes just came strolling through with their leader ditched and bananas thieved, so who cares?"
"So..." Maple looked between the room's several exits, each of which lead to similar rooms, or else were side doors to corridors. "How do we get out of here?"
"First off, that depends if you want to," Valey said, pointing a hoof back down the staircase to the tunnel. "Remember him? You don't want us to be model citizens and go let his boss know he met an unusual and well-deserved fate?" She winked. "I mean, I'm fine with that, of course! I just thought you had a higher opinion of me than that."
Howe cleared his throat, reminding everyone that he was there. "If the great Howenator could voice his opinion..." He bowed humbly. "You didn't say where you want to go, but if it's outside Grand Acorn? We should find a spot that forgot to put up a 'no loitering' sign, because that rain is nasty."
Starlight perked her ears. In the distance, the rainstorm's pounding was as alive as ever.
"Ironflanks?" Valey looked up. "You good with that?"
As Maple agreed, Starlight inwardly huffed that nobody ever asked her. It wasn't as if she had any better ideas, of course, or that she particularly wanted to talk. It just seemed... less fair than it could have been.
"Cool, cool, cool." Valey nodded, starting toward a doorless frame. "Let's go, then. And hey, maybe we'll run into something interesting on the way!"
"I'm having trouble believing this is really a fortress," Maple said as they paced through a hallway, made of the same flaky whitewall that never quite touched any of the edges it was supposed to. "It looks..." She tapped the stuff with a hoof. "Kind of fragile."
"It's what it looks like on the outside that counts," Valey replied, at the forefront of the group. "This place is older than all the stuff in the Sky District. Its point has always been taking visiting merchants and convincing them to buy Ironridge goods. Mind you, there's not many other places you can go to import this much fruit... but still, looking awesome doesn't hurt. You can't tell from here, but this place has towers, ramparts, a town at its base with gated walls... all that good stuff."
"Seven stories, too!" Howe added. "It actually makes Blueleaf look kinda wimpy, if you can see it from far enough away."
"Huh," Maple breathed, sweating as a hot yellow light passed over her coat.
They emerged at the end of a long, rectangular room filled with two rows of desks, ponies of all colors hunched studiously over stacks of paper, scribbling with quills. Starlight caught one or two of them stealing a peek at the group, but for the most part they ignored the intrusion and kept working, possibly deliberately to avoid Valey's attention.
"Why does growing fruit involve so many papers?" Maple whispered, as if in a library. "What are they all writing?"
"Math," Valey replied, not bothering to keep her voice down. "You don't realize how much bureaucracy there is behind day-to-day things until you've messed with it to keep the Defense Force where you want it, but it's actually kinda important. These dudes? They're probably, like... crunching sales data to track trends and predict where to ship how much fruit so as little as possible doesn't get sold, to maximize profits. Or maybe they're figuring out what to prioritize next harvest, or trying to find some more efficient way of packing it for shipping... or they could just be tracking the workers who get paid to pick this stuff to see if any of them are having troubles, deserve a promotion, all that good stuff. You never know!"
"Or making reports on power consumption," Howe helpfully added.
"Yeah, that too." Valey shrugged. "I guess they have a lot of lights, or something. And they don't just export whole fruit. Making stuff like jam? Takes heat to cook that stuff down."
Starlight squinted. "But how hard is it to get power? Don't you just stick a beam into the ground, or something?" She looked to Valey. "You said that in Blueleaf."
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "I only follow new stuff. As far as I know, Ironridge's power grid hasn't been changed in years. I mean, speaking of Blueleaf! Breaking down like crazy, and still nobody will fix it! Crazy, huh? Anyway, I care about what ponies are doing."
Curious, Starlight glanced at Howe. Valey was obviously fishing to see if he would react, or whether he knew what Neon Nova had been up to... but his cheerful, carefree expression betrayed nothing.
They pressed on, leaving the paperwork room and passing through two more like it. At one point, the corridor became slightly more refined, the floorboards interlocking better and wooden trim covering the cracks at the edges, before it passed by a series of large windows overlooking a metal-lined factory room filled with pipes and canning equipment. Then the windows ended, and after another turn the decor went back to its previous standard of what could generously be called aged class.
Another room passed, this time set with empty luncheon tables that looked suitable for a public event. Several times, smartly-dressed couriers and scribes hurried by, scrolls of paper protruding from saddlebags or even clutched in their mouths.
"Shouldn't be too much further," Valey muttered, voice bouncing off the plain, maze-like walls of the place. "At least, I'm pretty sure we're not lost... Wait, hold up." She spread her wings, blocking the path. "Hear that?"
From somewhere around the next corner, a familiar voice was arguing passionately. "I know you said it wasn't a real job; I'm just trying to get a letter of recommendation or something I can put on my resume for applying to the skyport!..."
Maple, Howe, Starlight and Valey paused at the corner, craning their heads out in a four-pony totem pole to see what was going on beyond. They took in Grainwave, frazzled and somewhere between bargaining and disbelief, having a one-sided argument with a neckless orange stallion who would have matched Starlight in height if not for his tri-fold hat. He had a razor-sharp mustache that accentuated his smiles and frowns, a clean, jet-black mane, and was apparently an ardent believer in the phrase 'limited liability.'
"Look, Mr. Karma," Grainwave was saying, drooping. "I should have been more skeptical, alright? I get it. I've learned my lesson. But your employee still mislead me and put me in a situation where I was in danger, on your property! Can't you do anything as... compensation, or something?"
Dangerous Karma shook his orange head, eyes closed. "I told ya, lass, there's nothing I'm gonna do. You don't make a successful business by messing with strange cases in a town as feisty as Ironridge. And being in danger? Yer' practically there every day, living in the Earth District."
"Which is why I want to leave!" Grainwave protested. "To get higher up! Sir, is... is it really that hard to just sign me something saying I'm a pony who sticks her neck out for the greater good? Generosity is something that comes back around to help you!"
"Sticking yer' neck out, huh?" Dangerous Karma inspected her, head sideways. "You did just leave an employed associate of mine off to fend for himself in a sticky situation, didn't you? What do you call that?"
"I..." Grainwave gulped, holding a wing to her chest. "Commander Valey was there! And this insane pegasus too, but... she... You know what they say!" She glanced around, as if aware she was being watched but unable to find the location. "How she makes stallions disappear forever, when they wander too far from their homes in the Earth District? How she's actually a monster they dug up beneath the Flame District, and turned into a pony using secret yak magic? Or if that's not true, how the reason she's the only batpony in Ironridge is because she was exiled here after sacrificing her entire village in Yakyakistan to dark magic to become immortal, so whenever another one comes here, she-"
Maple looked down at Valey, trying her best to keep from frowning... but the batpony was gone.
"I ain't saying my associate didn't deserve whatever he got himself into," Dangerous Karma said, a shadow shifting on the floor beneath him. "And I've heard those tales, and they're nothing but hogwash. You know if you went up a district, you'd have to work by the mare, right...?" He squinted, seeing the expression on Grainwave's face.
"She's standing right behind you," the pegasus mouthed, shrunken pupils fixed on Valey's smiling mug.
"Sure am!" Valey chirped, after allowing Dangerous Karma sufficient seconds to turn around. "And pardon the interruption... or don't, if this is especially inconvenient. Just heard a little misinformation go by, and thought I'd set the record straight, you know?" She gave a diagonal grin. "I'm an admiral. Not commander, admiral. Cool?"
Grainwave continued watching her with fear and the tiniest bit of hope, taking one step back towards the corner where Maple, Starlight and Howe waited. Dangerous Karma, however, stood his ground.
"Valey," he said, wiggling his mustache. "Congrats on scaring the living daylights out of a pack of recruits Sequitur duped into giving him a hoof. Feeling mighty proud of yerself for that, aren't you?"
Valey winked. "Eh, it was all in a day's work. I might have left your mook in a garbage bin a room or two from the tunnel entrance, by the way. I think it was a bit out of his league, but between you and me? It looked lonely, and I was feeling generous. Total damages were a few bananas, some fruit smashed against a wall and a few loud noises."
Glancing between Valey and Dangerous Karma, who didn't seem to take any issue whatsoever with Valey's appearance or announcement, Grainwave stood, jaw slack. "You just... You sound like you're doing business, or something. Didn't she just rob your supplies?"
"Yeah, so?" Valey looked up.
"Lass..." Dangerous Karma sighed, taking two stubby steps toward her. "Sounds to me like you've been looking at the wrong picture lately. We export fruit around these parts... lots of fruit. Millions of ponies this side of the world eat our fruit. How much of a difference you think letting one glutton eat her fill beforehoof is gonna make?" He pointed at Valey, who beamed innocently.
"She said something like that in the depot..." Grainwave wilted, also looking at Valey.
Dangerous Karma nodded. "The short of it is that sometimes, when you leave yer' criminal population to its own devices, it sorts itself out and makes its own winners and losers. And when you luck out and that winner causes a tree or two of economic damage at worst? You sit on yer' time and let them do their thing. I've ridden this company past a lot of crazy stuff in the world, and the trick is to mess with as little as possible and make do with what comes your way. That's why I let Sequitur go about his business... and why I ain't gonna get my muzzle stuck in yers."
"Sir..." Grainwave began feebly.
He squared his shoulders and turned away.
"Hey, kiddo." Valey extended a wing, tapping Grainwave's shoulder. The pegasus turned to look at her... and she grinned, flashing her sharp teeth. "Did I tell you so, or what?"
"I'll just... go, then." And with that, she slunk away.
Dangerous Karma and Valey both stared after her. At last, Valey said, "You know, most ponies don't think lying is very nice. If it was the Spirit in your barn, you'd get off your rear and do something about it. You just don't like the idea of ponies leaving for districts that aren't yours."
The stallion fixed her with a steady gaze. "That's 'cause the Spirit want to cause a whole lot more economic damage than just eating a fruit or two, and you know it. It's the only reason I let you run around as you please, to boot."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like you could get rid of me if you wanted to."
"...So," Dangerous Karma growled, changing the topic. "How many yahoos do you have lurking around that corner waiting to back you up? Don't think I haven't seen them."
At that, Maple, Starlight and Howe stuck their heads back around the corner, before walking into full sight.
For a moment of awkward silence, Maple and Dangerous Karma stared at each other, Starlight standing close at her side. Howe whistled. Valey grinned.
Eventually, Dangerous Karma blinked. "Any chance yer name is Maple? And the filly Starlight? The lot of you fit the description of some ponies I was asked to keep an eye out for."
Maple took a step back, expression faltering. "You were?"
Howe elbowed her in the shoulder. "Someone's popular, eheh? Sounds like you have actors from all over seeking you out!"
"I was," Dangerous Karma replied, wiggling his mustache. "So yer' them, then?"
"It..." Maple folded her ears. "Depends who's looking for us. There are apparently some ponies out there we really wouldn't like to run into..." She shot an uneasy glance at Howe, who winked in return.
"Are there, now?" Raising an eyebrow, Dangerous Karma walked around until he was standing between them and the door they had entered by. "These ponies wouldn't happen to be the type I'm interested in keeping out of Grand Acorn, would they?"
"Defense Force." Valey shrugged. "Internal issues. But these guys here are all on Team Me, and you're not gonna kick me out."
"Hmmmm..." Dangerous Karma rumbled, scratching his neck. "Well, I can't say I'm fond of ponies who are magnets for trouble. It ain't good for business. At the same time, there are friends you want to keep as friends, so let's get on tellin' them yer' here. Follow me, y'all."
"Wait!" Maple interrupted, stretching a hoof out. "Just... hold on. Who's looking for us? You didn't say, and if they're ponies we don't want to run into..."
"Tough beans, then," Dangerous Karma replied. "Like I said, there are some friends you want to keep that way. Sosans, though. Hope yer' in good standings with them."
Maple frowned, but stood aside as he reached for a low black box on the wall, swinging a panel open with a hoof. "Hello?" he began, reaching inside and speaking directly to the apparatus. "Lemon? Those two ladies Shinespark was asking after turned up. Think you can let her know...? 'Kay? Thankee kindly." He swung the box closed.
"Shinespark, huh?" Valey blew a lock of mane hair out of her face, glancing at Maple and Starlight. "Eh, don't worry about her. I've got enough dirt on her to make her scram if things get hairy, and enough to guess there's a pretty decent chance she's on your side."
"We have a side now, huh?" Maple feebly grinned. "Without even trying?"
"That's how Ironridge works, lass," Dangerous Karma interrupted with a growl. "Something tells me you ain't from around these parts."
"Something like that," Valey cut in, changing the subject. "You know what? Mr. Karma, we're obviously making you skittish, so how about we-"
"Maple and Starlight, please report to the main conference room on the top floor."
A loud, magically-projected voice emanated from an unseen corner of the room, halting the conversation in its tracks. Dangerous Karma looked up. "Huh. That was speedy."
"As I was saying," Valey coughed. "Mr. Karma, you've obviously got more important things to do than guide around us troublemakers. We can totally find our way wherever on our own."
Dangerous Karma narrowed his eyes. "Now that sounds like something a pony who was up to something would say."
Valey stuck her tongue out. "Nyaa. When am I not up to something? Besides, weren't you just telling that pegasus how you'd rather have me running around than anyone else?"
"...Suit yerselves. Now go take care of yer business, and get out of my headquarters."
With that, Dangerous Karma turned, stumped around a corner, and was gone.
"Well," Valey said, grinning, "what did I tell you? Me and him? Working relationship. Kaboom. You're not arrested."
Maple sighed. "So why did you spend so much time trying to scare me about hostile guards? If you knew we could make it through just fine..."
"And the better question," Howe added ominously, "is what the Sosans want! Really, you guys are a little too good at drawing attention, here."
"We're not trying to be!" Maple stepped back defensively. "All we wanted was to not be important and just enjoy the city, and..." Her eyes hardened. "It was you who got us in trouble in the first place, you know."
Howe cringed. "Hey, I said I'm sorry! I'm working to pay it off, alright?"
"Should we be going to the conference room?" Starlight cut in, pointing upwards. "Or are we ignoring it and running away?"
"Meh. I doubt running's a good idea." Valey closed her eyes, licking her lips. "DK's obviously watching us. He didn't make it sound like he just wanted us to walk away. Do you really want us to bail here and then have even more ponies breathing down your necks?"
"Right..." Maple tapped a hoof. "And we do need their help, eventually. For..." Her eyes slid to Starlight, then Valey. "You know."
"There isn't something I'm out of the loop on here, is there?" Howe looked sideways at Maple.
Valey grinned. "Pancake, you have no idea."
"So we're going up, then?" Maple cut in, wanting to head off a potentially long conversation that could steer dangerously close to Riverfall.
Howe shrugged. "There's a staircase right there."
"Well then, let's go...!" Valey took off, flapping through a door and up the subsequent stairs, looking back to check that she was being followed.
The upper floors of Dangerous Karma's complex were, thankfully, much smaller and easier to navigate than the base... that, or they had wandered in circles in the mazelike dungeon of white walls and office desks. This time, frequent windows to the outside provided a definite sense of where one was in the building, helping it feel far less claustrophobic and endless.
They also provided a view of the sky, and the fact that it had stopped raining.
"I almost hope this goes quickly, now," Maple was saying, walking down a hallway entirely bordered to the right with windows. "It looks like there's still enough light left to make it to Gnarlbough, and now that the weather is better..."
"You're going to Gnarlbough?" Howe blinked. "Isn't that a little out of the way, if you're going... Wait." He screwed up his eyes, brow furrowing. "Where's your endgame, here? The Howenator tracked you down like a boss, but really? I have no clue where we're actually going."
"We have an errand in Gnarlbough, and then we're going to Sosa," Maple said, calmly pressing on. "Eventually, we want to leave Ironridge."
They climbed another staircase. "So..." Howe hummed. "What exactly can I do to help?"
"Be entertaining," Valey belched. "Seriously, you're along for the ride, you might as well be useful." Hesitating, she added, "You are sticking around, aren't you? You look persistent."
Howe nodded. "Tenacity is my middle name!"
"Honestly..." Maple bowed her head. "I don't know what we need that you can do. All we want is to get where we're going with as few ponies caring as possible."
"And speaking of where we're going," Valey interrupted, "check it out! Looks like we're here!"
They stopped before a large double-door facing further into the building, slightly more trimmed and decorated than the fort's usual aesthetic. Valey tapped them with a hoof, and they slowly swung open.
The top conference room of Dangerous Karma's fort was spacious and round, ringed on nearly all sides by windows, with two full balconies. The back, in particular, was a rough dome of polygonal glass, hardly impressive next to the insulated bowls of the skyport but imposing in its own right, offering a full view of the cloud-laden heavens to anyone looking up at it.
A broad table adorned the center of the room, its middle occupied by a raised disc bearing a map of the city. The seats surrounding it were more numerous than Maple expected any fruit-growing empire to really need, especially given their plush, dark velvet construction, and they were dwarfed by the throne of an executive's chair, trimmed with pearl and placed squarely beneath a magical chandelier. Still, it was the pony in that chair who commanded everyone's attention.
"You showed up!" she said, beaming and spreading her forelimbs. "And you look like you're okay, too. That's great." Her lips curled in a smile, and she reached as far out over the table as she could without actually walking across it. "We've met before, but I don't remember if we were properly introduced. I'm Shinespark."
Valey batted her eyelids. "Hey there, Sparky."
"Ugh... not you..." Shinespark put a hoof to her head. "Starlight! And... Maple, right? And you're..." She stared at Howe for a moment. "I know you. You're that pegasus who was complaining the other day about having fruit thrown at them trying to enter the Stone District, aren't you?"
"It's hardly the most legendary legacy," Howe admitted with more than a little flair. "Though after a recent string of being forgotten entirely, the Howenator will gladly take what he can get!"
"And I'm the one who put the fruit guards there in the first place," Valey added slyly.
"Nice. Nice..." Shinespark nodded, doing a good job of appearing impressed. "I'm actually here to talk with Starlight and Maple, though, so do you two mind holding your tongues for a bit?"
Valey stuck out her tongue and didn't pull it back in. "Like thith?" she mumbled around the rubbery appendage.
Maple ignored her, instead pulling aside a seat and collapsing gratefully into its cushiony goodness. "Oh, that feels nice... What did you want to meet with us about? We're, well..." Her ears folded sheepishly. "Just ponies, really."
"Just ponies with something special to bring to the table," Shinespark said, folding her hooves. "And first off, because I wanted to say sorry."
"Sorry?" Maple tilted her head. "What for?"
"All the stuff you've... wait." Shinespark shot a sapphire glance at Howe. "Before even that, actually, good job finding ponies who would come with you and keep you safe. The moment you leave true neutral in Ironridge, you need allies... no matter what kind of allies they may be."
Valey grinned, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Well... thanks, I guess?" Maple shrugged. "It's more that they found us, though."
"Same difference!" Shinespark shrugged back, making full use of her gigantic chair's soft backing. "The important thing is, do they..." She blinked at Valey. "Well, I know she does, but is there any sensitive information on the table mister... err... Howenator shouldn't hear?"
"Probably yes," Valey instantly said.
Shinespark sighed. "Well, one more excuse is one more excuse, I guess. The odds that Dangerous Karma has this place wiretapped are incredibly high."
Howe cleared his throat, interrupting and pointing to Maple and Starlight. "If you're asking permission to tell a dirty joke, I'd worry far more about them than good old Howe."
"...I wasn't going to tell a dirty joke," Shinespark deadpanned, slightly put off. "I was going to apologize for the time we met in the forest, on the convoy with the Spirit. We wanted to let you go about your way with as little fanfare as possible, to try to let you enjoy Ironridge without getting caught up in its politics and intrigue. It..." She hung her head. "Sounds like that wasn't the best decision. We should have had someone follow you, or invited you to Sosa right away."
"Well..." Maple heaved in a breath, then smiled. "We're alright now, I guess. I'm guessing I know who asked you to keep an eye out for us?"
Shinespark nodded. "I'm guessing you're right."
"Wait, wait, hold on a minute," Howe interrupted, waving his forelegs. "I was joking before, but are you guys actually famous or important, or something?" He raised an eyebrow. "The Howenator is just helping you as a favor to his bird-bro, ladies. Not to say you aren't cool, but is there something I should know about?"
"Nahhh." Valey grinned. "But there's plenty you shouldn't know about. Hey, Sparky! Want me to go chase this guy around for a bit so you can speak freely?"
"I don't think that will be necessary," Shinespark said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "Though you're free to go about your way, if you want."
Howe shrugged. "That so? Well, I think I'll stay here a bit. Like I said, I have a debt to repay."
Valey folded her wings, offering no objection.
"Well..." Shinespark stretched, then stood up and jumped out of her chair, taking the long way around the table. "Like I said, I'm glad you two are safe. Shall we get going? It's nearly an hour's walk back to Sosa, plus time to reach my factory."
"We're leaving?" Maple frowned. "After climbing all the way up this tower? Why did you meet us here, then?"
Shinespark grinned sheepishly, eyes wandering to the chandelier and throne beneath it. "I... have a thing for impressive architecture. And big tables. Sorry if that was an inconvenience."
Valey waggled her tongue.
"...It wasn't too bad," Maple managed with a long exhale and a weary smile. "I haven't been through that much over the last two days, you know? All I did was carry a crate all the way up the mountain, wander around the Water District until well past midnight, land awkwardly when Valey tried to carry me while flying and wasn't strong enough, walk to and all around Blueleaf... Climbing this fort was nothing."
The heaviness with which she sank into her chair's cushions, making no move to get up even as Shinespark neared the door, wasn't lost on anyone. Starlight nudged her, and Shinespark nervously laughed. "Again, sorry..."
"It's fine," Maple chanted, eventually struggling to her hooves, "it's fine, it's fine. I just hope I don't have to run a lap around the edge of the city, you know?"
As she did, Shinespark turned to Starlight, kneeling slightly so that their heads were level. "Hey."
"Hi," Starlight said.
Shinespark stared for several seconds... and then grinned. "Heh. I guess he was right. You do look sort of like me."
Starlight squinted. "...I do?"
Shinespark tapped the lone teal streak running through her otherwise-crimson mane. "Not really, but we've got the same mane accent. See?"
She was right, Starlight supposed. It could be enough to remind a pony of Shinespark; especially one who thought about her often, and if he was Arambai that could easily be the case. Still, aside from that and them both being unicorns, they were hardly similar: Shinespark's short, semi-spiky manestyle stood in contrast to Starlight's hasty ponytail that for once hadn't managed to fall apart, and Starlight's lilac coat looked nothing like Shinespark's milky orange one.
"Oh, Shinespark?" Maple asked, standing beside them. "We do have an errand to make somewhere else, first. In Gnarlbough. Do you mind if we go there before Sosa?"
Shinespark blinked. "Well, you're the ones who were tired. I don't have anything else important to do tonight, so shall I escort you myself?"
"Oh boy!" Howe slammed his forehooves together, rubbing them against each other. "We're putting together a proper party, here!"
"I don't see why not," Maple said with a shrug. "I hope it won't be long, but I don't really know for sure. But we should definitely get going before the rain comes back."
"Yeah..." Shinespark nodded, staring up at the sky window. "It's never good to get caught in..."
Suddenly, her eyes constricted, and she trailed off, putting a hoof to the locket around her neck. "Ow!" she hissed, body rigid.
Curious, Valey prowled closer, poking her head around for a better look. "Yo, Sparky, what's that?"
Maple also leaned forward. "Are you alright?"
"It's a pager," Shinespark quickly said. "An in-progress model. We're still working on how to... best get its signals across to me. But I just got a pretty urgent ping and need to go right now, so..." She sighed. "I'll see you again as soon as I can. You two?" She pointed at Valey and Howe. "I don't know what either of you are up to, but as long as it keeps Starlight and Maple safe, please continue. Thanks."
With that, she vanished in a burst of teleportation.
"Welp?" Howe broadly shrugged. "I guess we're back to doing whatever!"
Maple, Starlight, Valey and Howe stood in the plush conference room at the top of Dangerous Karma's fortress tower, without a single idea what to do with themselves.
"Does she do that often?" Maple tilted her head, inviting anyone to answer. "Come, and leave suddenly? Because I'm not sure that accomplished anything at all."
"Yeah, pretty much," Valey replied with a shrug. "Sparky's kinda bad at long conversations. Or maybe it's just when I'm in the room. Who knows? I might just make her awkward." Her lips cracked in a grin. "Hey, cool that you've got friends in Sosa, though. You really are getting a little popular!"
"Hmm!" Howe stroked his goatee back and forth, smirking in thought. "What are the odds she was actually summoned? Could it be that that was all a ruse, designed to give her an easy escape after learning some priceless piece of info?"
Valey reached under her hat and pulled out an amulet, softly blinking with a chain to be strung around her neck, and stared at it. "Well... I mean, I've got a pager, and it's legit, so she definitely could. No clue what she'd bail for, though. But I am pretty sure she's serious about wanting those two safe."
Her hoof pointed its way to Maple, who blinked. "So..." Maple shrugged. "What do we do, then? Just keep going to Gnarlbough, like we originally wanted to?"
Valey stretched, shelving the amulet. "I don't see why not!"
"It's getting dark," Starlight observed, staring through the domed sky-window at the back of the room. "The streets here are safe at night, right? Last time, we got fought by the Spirit..."
"Eh... I doubt it." Valey hopped to the ground, pacing towards the door. "Shinespark has some ties with the Spirit. She'd definitely make them leave you alone. And if she didn't, I can send Braen packing without lifting a hoof."
"I don't know..." Howe bit his lip. "There is always the chance they would stand and fight regardless."
An eager smirk spread across Valey's face. "Then I guess I'll get to boot some heads."
The journey back down the tower was marked with silence, deliberacy, and constant checking of passing windows to see if the rain had resumed in the seconds since it had been checked last. It never had; the storm seemed spent, though night-darkened clouds still blotted out every hint of the sky.
There were fewer workers and number-crunchers than when they first entered the building, the ponies likely having gone home for the evening. But the lights never dimmed, even in rooms that didn't look like they had been occupied for days, and the Earth District's signature warmth lingered in even the corners, lacking a mountain downpour to drive it away.
Starlight found herself studying the floor between her hooves as she plodded, noticing the cracks between the boards and never quite deciding if it was worth the effort to step on each one exactly once. It served as a backdrop for the other thoughts swirling through the filly's head: thoughts about Shinespark, and about Howe, and how she and Maple were somehow becoming the attention of all sorts of ponies who had little reason not to be spending their skills on more profitable things.
Shinespark, that made sense... with enough consideration. According to Elise's story, Arambai was all but Shinespark's father, and with a secret ferry running to Riverfall, it wasn't hard to guess they were in correspondence. Shinespark probably helped her father set it up, even. So if Arambai wanted her and Maple safe, she would be his method for ensuring that... and Starlight didn't doubt his intentions, even with his secretive manners. There were far too many untrustworthy ponies not to be grateful for the ones that legitimately seemed to want to help.
Howe, however, was a complete mystery. Had he really gone back and helped Gerardo, as he had said? He was Neon Nova's brother, though she didn't know if he knew what had happened in Blueleaf. Aside from the pegasus's somewhat dubious word, all she knew for certain was that he had been present and at least partially responsible when they first got in trouble in Ironridge, then disappeared for a day before turning up again, smiling and helpful... or at least trying to be, with nothing to prove his good intentions. She didn't trust him, Starlight decided. She didn't trust him at all.
Never trust a bat.
Valey's words echoed through her mind, ingrained by dozens of repetitions during her argument with Maple on the cart. For everything Valey had said, her actions had remained consistent, helpful and selfless enough that Starlight had little doubt she cared about them to some extent, even if she might have had an ulterior motive. Still, the batpony had reminded them time and time again not to get too attached... while Howe had done practically the opposite, loudly proclaiming he was on their side and doing nothing to prove it.
She glared at him as she walked, sticking next to Maple at the back of the procession. Admittedly, he hadn't really had a chance to prove himself, so faulting him too hard for it might not have been fair. Still, she would be keeping an eye on him.
"Attention, visitors and employees," a magically-projected mare's voice suddenly echoed, accompanied by a one-second toggle of the lights for emphasis. "Karma Industries will be closing for the evening in thirty minutes. Please finish your business, ensure you don't forget any important belongings, and have a great night. Your patronage is very much appreciated!"
Howe whistled. "Whoo! Sounds like we finished just in the nick of time, huh?"
"Whoever that was?" Valey ignored him, pointing to a nearby speaker on the ceiling. "I like her."
"They're closing?" Maple frowned, looking out a second-story window. "How much further is the entrance? We won't get in trouble for being here at night, will we?"
"Relax, Ironflanks." Valey strutted at the front of the group, not checking her shoulder. "We've been walking for literally five minutes, and it's ten minutes max from end to end of this place. It's not that big."
Starlight huffed. Whether Shinespark was helping them or not, it wasn't like she had to give them such a detour to see her.
The faintest of light mists drifted down around the fort's palisade entrance, a rain so fine it could have been vapor and had a greater effect on Starlight's coat. Around the entrance, a steady flow of earth ponies passed by, all on their way out of the headquarters building, some smartly dressed and others wearing nothing at all. Gradually, they broke up and went about their ways, some calling goodbyes and others walking off in silence.
Most shot the group uneasy glances as they passed, and Starlight couldn't tell if they were more concerned by Valey's reputation or Howe's mane. Eventually, they came to a stop under an overhang, far enough from the procession of ponies to be out of earshot.
"You know, I didn't really think about traffic," Valey admitted. "Gnarlbough's got basically nothing but homes, and probably a decent amount of these ponies are headed there. Do we really want to travel in a crowd? It'll make talking about... like... anything super awkward."
Maple gave a tired smirk. "Oh, really? You're concerned you'll make other ponies uncomfortable by being around them, now? And not pretending that's a good thing?"
Valey blinked, twice. "...Know what? Yeah, you're right." Winking, she spread her wings and made to take off. "Wait here, I'll be right back. I'm gonna clear us the road my way."
The evening air was still and free from breezes, allowing the curtain of mist that fell in place of rain to drift straight and silent, falling like sand sinking in a lake. Ponies walked down dirt lanes, hurrying or chatting or wearing gear prepared for much more rain than the weather saw fit to bring.
Maple sat at a distance and watched, a protective eave overhead and a boarded sidewalk belowhoof that kept even the meager rain at bay. To her left was a splintery wooden support pillar, which she was tired enough to lean against even though she knew it would snarl her mane and prickle her coat. Starlight sat nearby, and Howe... was staring at her with an unusual expression, as if he suspected she was a yak and was trying to pierce her disguise.
"What is it, Howe?" she sighed, having nothing better to talk about.
"Oh, just..." He whistled, and looked away. "Just thinking."
"Mhmmm." He wasn't looking, so Maple didn't nod, but the skepticism was clear in her voice.
"No, really! I am!" Howe protested, holding a hoof to his chest. "Even if Valey would be like, 'Wow, you can do that?'"
"You really want her to ask what you're thinking about," Starlight remarked.
Howe grinned cheekily. "Would you rather I ask what you're thinking about?"
Maple sighed. "What are you thinking about, Howe?"
"Have you ever heard the phrase, 'Never trust an X?'"
Maple stiffened. The silence that followed was filled with the distant voices of ponies traveling home for the night, in the absence of weather and other natural noises of the world.
"Yeah... I thought so." Howe leaned on one hoof, smirking slightly. "Thought I heard Valey give it a mention when we were down in that tunnel. And something about that response tells the Howenator you don't really know what it means."
Silently, Maple listened, nodding for him to go on.
"Maybe it means something different around these parts..." Howe shrugged off into the distance. "But in the mercenary world, which yours truly may or may not have dabbled in, somepony saying that about themselves is lingo for 'Hey, I like you and bringing you bad luck isn't in my contract, but I am being paid by someone who maybe doesn't like you as much as I do or outright hates your guts. In other words, watch your back and no hard feelings if my boss ever suddenly says you need to go.' It's like a way of warning your bros when things could get messy."
"Does it mean that...?" Maple slowly blinked, deciding how much stock to put in Howe's advice... and ultimately focusing on something else. "So you're a mercenary, then?"
Innocently, Howe grinned. "On and off. At the moment... Well, it's complicated."
"It's complicated," Maple repeated, making sure Starlight was still nearby. She narrowed her eyes. "You haven't said the same thing about yourself; not to trust you."
Howe shrugged. "Well, once you're actually contracted against someone, you can't really give them any more warning without breaking your terms..."
With a hiss of magic, Starlight's horn lit teal, and she glared up from Maple's side. "If you're saying you're betraying us, first off, I didn't trust you in the first place, and second, I'll kick your rear."
"Whoa!" Howe backpedaled, waving his forelimbs. "Okay, that came out wrong! Right now, the Howenator is unemployed, got it? Between jobs, no strings attached, I do whatever I want? No horns, please. Unicorn horns are scary."
Starlight's horn went out, but she continued staring suspiciously at the pegasus... and so did Maple. "Where are you going with this?" Maple asked, dubious.
"All right, let's, uhhh..." Howe glanced from side to side, checking his surroundings and taking another step back. "How should I put this? I'm trying to apologize, ladies. For, uhh... the stuff that went down last night, with the Defense Force. What I'm saying is, back then I was being paid by someone else, even though our contract has since expired. To... you know... get you in trouble, and all that. Gerardo, specifically."
Maple stared, waiting for him to continue.
"For that job in particular, the idea was for me to get your crates confiscated," Howe narrated, confidence slowly building. "Now hold on and hear me out, here. Me and my bro Neon Nova, who you met back in Blueleaf, joined up with a band that got hired by Herman a few months ago. Apparently he likes always having some mercenaries on hoof to do the dirty work he can't ask the Defense Force to do, because he never keeps the same crew around for long and always asks us to do the strangest things. Pretend to be members of the Defense Force, guard random corridors in the Flame District, even act like ordinary citizens down here in the Earth District... strange things like those. Neon's actually on assignment in Blueleaf right now, pretending to be from the Spirit of Sosa. Why is Herman helping them so? It is a mystery to all! ...But the important part is that he personally asked me to go take down those crates."
In absence of replies, he continued. "Unfortunately, you just happened to pick the entrance guarded by Selma, who both knew who I was and resented me for trying to steal his thunder, so to speak. I followed Gerardo for a time to see if anything would happen, and also out of regret, as I'm really not a villain and hardly intended for Selma to unrighteously wipe the walls with his face, or for harm to befall you and your filly. The following morning, I went as soon as possible to Herman's office in the embassy to report my happenings, only to find my contract had been terminated! It was quite frustrating."
With a sigh, he finished, "I was apparently singled out, even though I was hardly a failure. So, fueled by remorse and bitter vengeance, I set out with Gerardo to aid you and show Herman and Selma what for."
"That's strange..." Maple muttered, thinking. Neon Nova, sabotaging his town to stoke resentment against the upper districts, was working at the behest of those districts themselves? And Howe was fired for... something. She had a strong feeling he hadn't told the whole story.
"I know, right?" Howe grinned. "Who simply fires someone for seeing through their mission? There's such a thing as an honorable discharge upon fulfilling the terms of the contract, but my comrades are still in service, and this was done with no fanfare whatsoever! Regardless, the important part is that I am presently unaffiliated, yet harbor a grudge against Yakyakistan. As such, any enemy of theirs is a friend to me... and that is why I am helping you! And Gerardo. In case you were wondering about my secret motives."
Maple shrugged. "Thanks, I guess?"
Howe drooped. "You don't sound impressed."
"Impressed? What are we impressed by?" Valey's voice piped up, its owner striding around a corner. "Or not impressed, if it's really wimpy. Hi guys. What's up?"
"Hi," Maple, Starlight and Howe said in sync.
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Not telling, huh? Eh, probably was a really bad joke. Anyway, I cleared the road for us, so let's go go go before anyone catches on and we have to share it again. Come on!"
"This is what you did to... umm..." Maple bit her lip. "Clear us the road?"
"Yup!" Valey hovered smugly, curtsying in midair. "I'd say it worked pretty well, wouldn't you?"
The group of four stood just beyond the western exit to Grand Acorn, a broad dirt road with ditches on either side and a wooden fence to the south providing easy passage through the forest. Dusk-shadowed trees reached out from the jungle on either side, far enough to darken to surface but not enough to obscure the clouds that still rolled by high above. The still air was free of birdsong, misty rain falling in a curtain that was preferable to being beneath dripping branches. A wooden arch stretched across the road, marking the beginning of the city limits, and a small signpost stood nearby, advising travelers of where they were going, where they were leaving, and to enjoy their trip.
It was at that sign the group was staring, Valey proudly and the others with varying degrees of uncertainty. A lopsided board had been tacked over part of the original message, with 'Copsewood' and an arrow pointing in the direction of Gnarlbough hastily scrawled in a dark brown substance.
"Yeah... uhh..." Howe lifted it aside, peering at the original directions to Gnarlbough beneath. "Somehow, I dunno if changing the sign is going to do all that much."
"Nyaa. Of course it will." Valey stuck out her tongue and folded her forelegs. "This always works. And do you see anyone going this way now? Watch."
On the opposite side of the road, a stallion wandered by, pretending not to look at Valey and definitely not looking at the sign, pace increasing as much as he thought would be unnoticeable.
Howe smirked.
"Yeah, well, your mane looks ridiculous," Valey pouted, picking up the fake sign cover and throwing it like a boomerang into the forest, where it impacted a bush with a leafy crash. "So there. Let's get on with this hike, already!"
As she walked, Maple looked over her shoulder, and was surprised to see the gates of Grand Acorn already out of sight around a bend. It was the first such time she had looked to check her progress, and measured by the dull ache in her legs, she had expected to see the starting line not three paces behind. Was she really doing that much better than she thought?
The sky above remained dull and unchanging, the sun in the course of its arc where it was beyond the mountains but not the horizon, leaving little clue to how much time had actually passed. In Riverfall, she remembered, the tall, branchless trees would cast vertical shadows through the extreme morning and evening sunlight, catching its orange rays on dust motes and allowing one to see its movement with their bare eyes by watching the changes in beams and silhouettes. She had grown up with morning and evening passing with colorful flair, when the clouds allowed it, and something about the Ironridge nightfall was empty as a result.
How much time had passed? She couldn't tell any more than she could count the number of times she had put one hoof in front of the other, making sure they wouldn't slip in the freshly rained-on mud. Carefully, she kept her tension below the point where her cramps would elevate from annoying to debilitating, balancing it with the need to keep moving forward and not simply topple or lay down then and there. But the prospect of her goals coming within reach revitalized her, and she pushed on, tapping into that last well of strength used for seeing one through to the end of a long day.
Blueleaf, Grand Acorn and the Stone District were all behind her, Starlight was beside her, and Gnarlbough was immediately ahead; the one thing she had decided she would do on her journey. Everything the Stone District did, and everything the Earth District could have done, she had dodged through pure luck, she knew, and it was time to change that. It was time to do the favor Willow's husband Faron had asked of her the night she left Riverfall, to prove that she could do something useful with the trip she was taking... something other than being scared of guards, or obsessed with a ratty old weapon-filled trench coat, or being the slowest member of the group or everything else that had defined her during her time on the road.
The trials were behind her. Maple's face set in a picture of concentration. Valey was being less obstinate about insisting she was bad; that was good too. The corners of her mouth twitched upward. Shinespark had appeared, who was directly connected with Arambai and would help them get home and make sure nothing further bad happened... that was perfect. She broke into a smile; for all the bad that had happened she had made it through, and finally could...
"Hey! Maple!" Starlight's voice squeaked from somewhere behind her. "You're going too fast!"
She turned to see the filly stumbling through the mud to keep up, head bobbing and mane bouncing as she tried to gallop for traction on the squishy floor. "Oh!" Maple's ears folded. "Sorry..."
Starlight scooted up beside her, both fliers eyeing them from the air. "I thought you were sore after carrying that crate around and doing so much walking," she huffed, trying to keep her tail above the mud and having mixed results.
"I was... feeling good," Maple sheepishly admitted. "Aren't you? We're almost there! We've made it through so many places all in one day, and are almost to Gnarlbough! I wasn't really sure we'd be able to do this without waiting for tomorrow, but look at us now..."
"Yeah. I guess." Starlight waddled along at her side, stepping carefully through the mud. "Where are we going to sleep? Do you think we'll find somewhere in Gnarlbough, or wait for Shinespark to find us and go with her? You told her where we were going, right?"
"I think so," Maple hummed, brow furrowing. "At least... I think I did. I mentioned Gnarlbough, right?" She looked up at Valey, worried.
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, you did. Never said where in it, but it's not that big of a place... at least at first glance. And let's be honest: it's really hard to find someone in Gnarlbough when they don't want to be found. Or when they do, but not enough to go stand around outside and make it easy."
"Really...?" Maple sucked her cheek, suddenly nervous. "It won't be like another Blueleaf, will it?"
"Nahhh." Valey waved a hoof. "Blueleaf does what Blueleaf wants to do, and that's their shtick and nowhere else's. Each town in the Earth District does their own thing, really. It's like... being individual, or something. Must've been trendy hundreds of years ago when they were planning these places. You know, how Blueleaf is basically a pile and then Grand Acorn looks like a castle town?"
Starlight looked up. "What's Gnarlbough like?"
Valey grinned. "Actually a pretty fun place. They take the earth in Earth District super duper seriously... and build their whole entire houses underground. The things look like these half-buried coconuts from above, or sometimes even full hills with grass growing on the roof and everything. But inside, it's a total maze of rooms and tunnels and twisty turney stuff. They're pretty much burrows, but prettier. Super round, kinda sprawling, sometimes even run into each other and have tunnels from house to house. Absolutely hate straight lines. It's cool! Lots of good places to hide."
"Huh." Maple's ears twitched, and she looked back at Starlight. "Well, that doesn't sound too bad, does it?"
"Yeah..." Valey nodded. "Normally, I'd say, 'See for yourself!' but... we're not quite there yet. So pick up the pace, slowpokes! Or else I'll start calling the filly Molassesflanks. And I still need a good nickname for her, too..."
"All right, then." Maple set her jaw, squared her shoulders, and pushed forward with a fresh burst of determination, making sure Starlight was still with her. "Then let's press on until we are."
"Uhh... Heh heh." Valey floated in front of her face, waving. "Actually, psych! It's right around that corner. We're basically there. Come on and see for yourself!"
Gnarlbough's entrance took the form of a simple widening in the road, grassy banks peeling away to either side with the forest held at bay as if by an invisible wall. The terrain, which had been flat as the surface of a lake for the entire trek from Grand Acorn, suddenly rose and fell in tremendous hummocks that jumped straight past rolling hills to the point where it looked as if a storm had passed by, so powerful it tossed dirt like giant waves. Were it daytime, Maple imagined it would have looked like an illustration in a whimsical foal's book, but by night it was mazelike and more than slightly foreboding.
"Mmm... yep..." Valey stretched, still hovering above the muddy roadway. "Here's Gnarlbough. You guys know what you wanna do here, right? Because seriously, at this point I'm just along for the ride."
"Right now," Maple said, suppressing an instinctive shiver, "what I want is to climb on top of one of these hills so I can actually see how big this town is. It's making me nervous."
She waded off the road into a sea of long, healthy grass that brushed her belly and instantly soaked her legs with held rainwater... with the benefit of washing the mud from her hooves. Howe floated behind as she scaled the nearest hill, climbing carefully against the steep rise, and Valey soared overhead, depositing Starlight at the top so the filly wouldn't have to press through the tall grass herself. No thanks were given.
Maple exhaled upon reaching the top. In the distance, she could see a perimeter of trees ringing the town, marking its border with a leafy wall that stood out as black against the dusk. Countless hummocks were visible in the space between, randomly spaced and occasionally divided by winding roads with a mortal fear of being straight.
"Remember to stomp around extra loudly up here," Valey advised from the air. "This is someone's roof, after all. It would be a shame to waste the opportunity!"
"'Scuse me, but before we go making enemies of the locals..." Howe leaned closer. "Mind filling the Howenator in on exactly what we're here for? Our true mission thus far has eluded my grasp..."
"Ironflanks?" Valey tipped her head at Maple.
"Well..." Maple sucked in a breath. "A... friend of mine asked me a favor when he learned I was going to Ironridge. There was a pony, or maybe some ponies, here he used to know, I think. He asked me to find them and make sure they were doing alright."
"Really." Valey's eyes narrowed. "And that's all he asked you to do?"
Howe tipped his head. "What's this? Is there some secret knowledge to which I am not privy?"
Maple gulped. "I'm not stupid, Valey. I know how to not say anything dangerous."
"Sure you do." Valey landed, patting her on the back with a wing and smiling gracefully. "Just checking. It would make my job really difficult if... let's say... one of the big powers in Ironridge got some of their important secrets spilled, and disrupted the balance that keeps everything working and not exploding."
"...Do you know something I don't?" Maple asked, staring suspiciously at Valey.
"Hey, that's what I said!" Howe complained. Again, he was promptly ignored.
"I've got a hunch what this could be about." Valey shrugged. "But anyway, that's your business. Know where to find them? This place isn't as big as, say, Blueleaf, but if you want a specific pony, it's still about as hard as combing my mane."
Maple reached down and pulled out Faron's scrap of paper, the address of his request still written cleanly on one side. "I have this. It's good enough, right?"
Valey swiped it, scanning it closely by the dim light filtering down through the clouds. "Hmm... mmm... Yeah, I can find this. Here. Be right back!" She stuffed the slip back at Maple, before taking off and soaring away into the heart of the town.
For several seconds, Maple, Starlight and Howe stood in silence... before the pegasus started talking. "This seems to be a well-wrought mystery!" he mused, twirling his goatee with the edge of a hoof. "A foalhood friend, asking a life's boon of you, a traveler, to breach contact with a mysterious party in this of all cities! All the pieces are in place for eldritch powers to be in play..."
Howe grinned. "Well, it's a possibility! In truth, I haven't a clue what's going on. If I'm going to guess, I might as well make it entertaining, might I not?"
Maple sighed. "Howe, I'm on edge right now, and I don't know enough about you to tell when you might really be serious. So... please don't."
Howe bowed earnestly. "Your wish is my command, my lady!"
"Thank you..." Heaving a breath, Maple sat down, trying to make out Valey's dark form flitting on the horizon.
"What's so special about this city?" Starlight cut in, head poking above the tall grass.
"Hmm?" Howe looked aside at her. "Special in what way, little one?"
Starlight pointed a hoof. "You said 'in this of all cities.' What's so special about Gnarlbough?"
"Errr..." Howe backpedaled, biting his cheek. "Well, specifically I was referring to Ironridge, the city of ships, mountains and fruit! Though that isn't to say Gnarlbough doesn't have its own trove of local legends to draw from! In fact, its population is one of the least superstitious in Ironridge!"
"Really?" Maple squinted. "How does that add up?"
"Well, you see..." Howe ominously drew a wing across his face. "Despite its reputation for spacious, beautiful homes and close proximity to Grand Acorn, Gnarlbough does not suffer from overcrowding like elsewhere in the city. Much of this... is because it is widely believed that this town is haunted! As a result, the only ponies who live here are ardent disbelievers in story and science, and those who find it more fascinating than terrifying!"
"Haunted?" Both of Maple's eyebrows rose, and she couldn't keep a chuckle from her voice. "With what?"
"Nopony knows for certain," Howe intoned, slinking backwards. "As best as I can guess? They are the spirits of the old Sosan ships, left to their dusty fates at the graveyard not far from here. Of course, there are some who would fiercely contest me on that."
Maple stared. "What does the haunting actually do?"
"Well... that's just it." Howe sighed, staring at his hooves. "Reports are so inconsistent, it is impossible to truly discern the truth. Some go as far as to tell tales of disfigured monstrosities roaming the lands, while others act as though they've stared into the abyss, before returning right to normal! Sometimes, ponies disappear without a trace, though that was largely debunked when one such prankster was discovered weeks after vanishing having moved to the Stone District, and a quick records search reveals most of the others anyone can be bothered to remember did the same. If you want the less-glamorous and more real truth, I think lower Ironridge merely doesn't want its past to die."
"...How do you know all this?" Maple eventually asked.
Howe grinned. "I hang around in bars. There's no better way to stay up to date on happenings and hearsay than the drunken gossip of the impoverished! After all, they have little better to do than talk about the things other ponies are doing."
At that moment, Valey came winging back, triumph written on her face. "Hey, yo, I found it! Not super far away, either. Ready to go? I found a window to do some spying through, too, but figured I'd give you first dibs on that, you know?"
Maple grimaced. "I'll settle for knocking on the door..."
Valey crept along a hilltop, slithering through a tall bed of grass as she approached a winding road from the side. Tongue poking slightly from the side of her mouth in concentration, she crawled forward one hoof at a time, tail swishing like a cat.
"Is there anything we're being stealthy for?" Maple frowned, keeping her head and voice low just in case. "I thought this was a peaceful town!"
"'Cuz it's fun," Valey whispered loudly back. "Duh! Also because going over the houses is faster than these roads. Dunno if you've noticed, but zig-zagging isn't really the best for efficient travel..."
"They're also drier," Starlight complained, flicking moisture ineffectively from her coat.
Howe hovered smugly, tail dangling just above the grass. "Yeah, that's a problem being on the ground sometimes leaves you to contend with. Fortunately, the Howenator is high and dry on this evening!"
"Are we almost there, though?" Maple pushed a swath of foliage aside with a foreleg and stepped forward. "Being wet is what we just spent all that effort to avoid, and now we're covering ourselves in dew from tall grass!" She blinked. "Why do they keep the grass here so tall, anyway?"
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "Earth ponies are weird. Maybe they think it'll appease the grass spirits or something. But... mmm..."
Nibbling the edge of her hoof in thought, she crawled further, cresting another house-roof hill and looking down at the road beneath. "Yeah, it's that door right there. Here we are!"
"That door?" Maple nodded. "Okay. Come on, Starlight. Let's just... not trip climbing down..."
Valey pumped a hoof, quietly cheering from the grass. "Yeah! Go get 'em! And then let's find somewhere cozy with a bed that wouldn't mind super hard if we broke in. I'm getting yawney..."
Howe rubbed his forehooves, flapping low to the ground and drifting towards the door. "Ah, to surrender to the night's dark embrace..."
"Yoink!" Valey grabbed his passing tail and hauled him down into the grass. "Not you, Pancake. You and me get to sit this one out." She motioned down the other side of the hill, leaving Maple's door out of sight.
"Huh?" Maple looked over her shoulder. "You are?"
"Yeah..." Valey shrugged apologetically. "I've got a bit of a bad rap, and Pancake here looks like an evil cultist or insane supervillain, so we're gonna wait here and let you do your business on your own. If you're supposed to be making sure someone is fine, we're not going to interrupt by scaring them. Go on!"
Maple paused at the top of the hill, watching them for a second longer... then disappeared over the crest, Starlight at her side.
After long enough for the sound of grass rustling to fade from their ears, Howe looked at her and grinned. "We're going to follow them, of course? To keep them free from marauding danger?"
Valey raised an eyebrow as far as she could. "You sure have a high opinion of my decency."
Howe winked. "Well, you did just agree to let her take this confidence-booster on her own, as well as to not attempt to traumatize her target! And let's be honest: we do look pretty scary, you and I."
"Actually, you just look ridiculous, so nyaa." Valey stuck out her tongue. "But of course we're going to follow them. Stick with me, and keep quiet..."
Maple and Starlight stepped out of the grass into a gravelly, well-drained road, thoroughly wet but not soaked through. Across from them, a round door that might have been painted dark green was inset into a hillside, a short path of artistically-curved concrete leading up to it.
"Well?" Starlight asked after a period of no motion. "Are you going to knock?"
"I'm... Yes." Maple hesitated, then squared her shoulders... and did nothing. "I'm nervous, honestly. Aren't you?"
She leaned down to Starlight, who briefly folded her ears. "Maybe? Why?"
"It's just..." Maple shuddered. "I've spent so long trying to do this. I mean, only two days, and it's only a favor a friend of a friend asked me to do if it was convenient, but..."
"That's the problem with trying to do things that are possible," Starlight muttered. "You have to figure out what to do next after you succeed."
Maple stared... and smiled. "That's some interesting advice."
Starlight frowned. "Are you going to knock, or not?"
"I am." Maple heaved in a breath, and took a step forward. "I am, I am..."
Slowly, steadily, she crossed the road, gravel crunching underhoof, and the short, winding concrete path to the door. It was taller than she was, just high enough that an average-height earth pony stallion could walk in merely by bending his ears, yet a unicorn would have to duck. She raised her hoof, hesitated, and put it back down... before all of a sudden rapping thrice and taking two steps back, heart pounding and legs tense and immobile.
"Mom!" a little voice squeaked from beyond. "Someone's at the door!"
"Coming!" a mare's voice echoed from further inside the house.
For a moment, all Maple could hear was her own heart, before that thumping mixed with the vibrations of hoofsteps, someone stomping just inside the door. It cracked, creaked, and swung inward with a shower of amber light... and a mare stood there, looking Maple face to face. "Hello?"
Maple didn't reply.
The mare stood taller than her, but not by much, normally proportioned but closer to a stallion in size. A fuzzy midnight bathrobe was wrapped around her back and shoulders, and a long, straight gray mane with an improper part covered half of her face.
"...Mom?" A colt's face stuck itself into the crack between her and the doorframe, scents of a recently-finished dinner wafting out from behind. "Who is it?"
"Hello?" the mare repeated, in a voice that sounded as if it hadn't been anything but motherly for years. "Is there anything you need?"
Still, Maple didn't reply, mouth hanging open with unsaid questions.
The mare frowned, a drop of worry seeping into her silvery face and one visible eye. "Are you alright?"
"I-I..." Maple stammered. It wasn't a perfect resemblance, watching the mare standing in the welcoming light of the door with that coat and that face and a young family waiting behind. But for her, having bid farewell not two days ago to her entire world and two friends closer even than blood, the slightly-different manestyle and twin bulges in the robe where pegasus wings might go faded from perception, and Maple could only see another silvery mare who was countless miles downstream, in Riverfall.
"Sorry." She swallowed, throat bone-dry, and offered a shaky smile. "I was just surprised. You... remind me of somepony I used to know."
"Sorry..." Maple smiled, trying to force her suddenly-unlocked composure into something more respectable. "You just... reminded me of somepony I used to know."
At that, the silvery mare in the doorway relaxed slightly, if not all the way. "Oh," she said, voice not quite loose. "Is there something you need, then?"
Maple cleared her throat, trying to see beyond the likeness of Willow and find uniqueness in the pony in front of her. "A friend just asked us to come to this address and make sure whoever was here was doing okay. I didn't really know who..."
The mare's face shadowed. "Tell Kero I'm fine, it works perfectly, and thank you very much."
"...Who?" Maple's brow furrowed.
"Oh..." The mare left out a bigger breath than Maple knew she could hold, tension draining from her features as she pushed the colt with her back into the house. "Sorry." She smiled, apologetic. "I guess I thought you were somepony else, too. Please, come in? My name is White Chocolate..."
With heavy hoofsteps, she turned and stumped down a staircase to the left, hugging the wall of the house. It revealed itself to be a depression in the ground beneath the tall hummock, leaving room enough for a high ceiling despite the fact that the hill was only three or four ponies tall when seen from the outside. A rug adorned the wooden floor beneath, along with a scattering of foal's toys, and several passages wound off to other rooms that glowed with warm amber light.
"I'm Maple," Maple offered, following slowly behind. "And this is Starlight."
"If she has another son that looks like Sunburst..." Starlight muttered under her breath.
"Hmm?" White Chocolate stopped, looking over her shoulder. "Did you say something?"
Starlight blinked. "I said 'hi.'"
"I'm Snowshoe!" the colt helpfully added. "Mom? Want me to go let everyone know company is here?"
"Everyone?" Maple tipped her head. "Who else is here?"
"My other children," White Chocolate puffed, reaching the ground. "And I think that could get a little chaotic. Snowshoe, please-"
She was interrupted by a little face peering around the corner of an entrance. "Mom? Who are you..." The filly broke into a wide grin, and she raced off like a tempest down the tunnel, caterwauling. "Oh hey, ponies! We've got company, everyone!"
Like the roar of an incoming avalanche, White Chocolate's house came alive with noise. Several voice rose, and something crashed in the distance like a toppling tower of pots and pans. From somewhere else, a foal started crying.
White Chocolate's ears folded, and she smiled in denial. "I had... just finished putting most of them to bed..."
"Sorry!" Maple lowered her head sheepishly as a band of little ponies began congregating at the entrances to the room. "I guess we should have come earlier..."
"Who are you guys, huh?" A sturdy colt stood with forelegs spread wide, as if he was daring someone to try to tip him over. "I haven't seen you before!"
"You're a unicorn!" A filly bounced, pointing rapidly at Starlight. "I'm learning telekinesis! Wanna see if you're better at it than me? My mom says I'm the strongest!"
"Mom?" another foal asked, standing with an infant on his back with the patience of a saint. "Berry is chewing on my mane."
White Chocolate huffed, adopting a businesslike tone and staring down the army of foals like an army commander. "No, it's fine. Kids? Go back to bed. It's past your bedtimes."
"Not miiine!" a foal sang. "You said I could stay up an extra thirty minutes if I did it reading!"
In the distance, another crash rang out, followed by a squeaky call of, "Hey, that's cheating!"
"Don't worry, Mom," Snowshoe announced, bodily lifting one of the smaller foals and staggering off down a tunnel. "I've got this! Leave it all to me!"
Maple was staring at the cacophony of foals, jaw dropped, trying and failing to get a count on just how many there were, when she felt a nudge on her shoulder and turned to see White Chocolate's sky-blue eye. "Do you mind going down that way, then turning right and closing the door? It'll be a lot easier for me to calm them down if you're not standing right here."
"Sure." Maple nodded, slightly dazed, and made sure Starlight was with her before stepping toward the indicated tunnel.
"I can show them the way!" A colt imperiously saluted, before bolting off ahead and quickly vanishing from sight.
"This is so chaotic," Maple whispered above the din as she shepherded Starlight down the corridor. A pair of foals tore past in the opposite direction to underscore her point, a colt chasing a filly, both with maniacal grins and no inhibitions.
"My ears hurt," Starlight grumbled back. "I already have a headache from my horn, too."
"Sorry, kiddo..." Maple nudged her. "I guess it looks like she's doing okay, though? Sort of? So maybe we won't be here for too long. I'm curious who she thought we were, though, and how Faron knew her. And I do need to rest very badly, so hopefully she lets us stay a while and talk..."
They emerged into what was probably a kitchen, a shelf-table ringing part of one side and several stacked cabinets and countertops placed against the other. The floor was tiled stone, safe for cooking near, and the colt that had barreled ahead stood like a silent guardian, eyes closed and hoof regally pointed to another entrance. Several metal dishes lay on the floor where they had collapsed from a stack, undoubtedly from the high-speed chase Maple and Starlight had passed earlier.
Thanking the colt, they stepped down the next tunnel, curving further down beneath the earth. It passed through a sturdy, well-abused door, which Maple carefully shut behind her, and emptied into another high-ceilinged room that formed an aboveground hill of its own. Dim light poured down through a high window with blinds drawn, illuminating a vast, plush raised bed sitting on a sea of green carpet so thick Starlight sank up to her belly, like it was snow.
"I wonder if she wants us getting this wet..." Starlight said, flicking her dew-laden ears.
"Probably not..." Maple glanced around, before finding a slightly more solid mat for them to stand on.
For several minutes, they waited, listening to the sounds of commotion slowly diminish outside. Then, there was a knock on the door, and it swung open. "Mom?"
Maple smiled apologetically, recognizing an older filly from the foyer. "Just us, I'm afraid."
"Oh." The filly blinked. "Well, if you see her, tell her that Board Biter was eating Snow's magazines again, and he yelled at me for not stopping him even though it's his own fault for not picking them up, and he yells at me when I tell him to do that, too."
"What about Board Biter, honey?" White Chocolate's voice called from behind, the mare making her way down the corridor.
"Snow's magazines," the filly said simply.
"Oh." White Chocolate sighed, standing in the doorway. "Well, that's his fault. Oof. I think they should finally be settling down again..." Her eye focused on Maple and Starlight, taking in their sprinkled appearances. "Oh my, you two are drenched! I'm sorry, I should have noticed, I... Hayseed?" She looked down at the filly standing by her side. "Can you get two towels? And maybe an extra for good measure. And then put on some tea? What kind of tea do you two like?"
Hayseed nodded, turning and slipping out of the room. "Sure thing, Mom."
"Anything is good, really." Maple shrugged. "I'm not all that familiar with the kinds you have here..."
"Anything..." White Chocolate nodded, looking back after the retreating filly. "She's a good child. I hope the rest grow up to be more like her."
Maple hummed, not knowing what to say.
White Chocolate looked up. "Sorry, what were your names, again?"
"Maple and Starlight."
"Maple and Starlight..." White Chocolate waded through the carpet to a well-cushioned rocking chair, heaving herself up and sprawling out on her side, adjusting her bathrobe and mane. "You said a friend asked you to come see how I was doing?" She smiled. "That's nice. It feels good to know there are still ponies in the world who care about me and how I'm doing. I don't think I get reminded of that often enough..." She looked up. "You, too. You came through the rain to get here, it looks like, didn't you?"
Maple smiled sheepishly from atop the rug, looking around for a safe place to sit down. "Sort of? We actually came all the way from the Stone District, but..."
White Chocolate sighed, shifting around on her chair and starting it rocking. "I'm sorry if I'm putting words in your mouths or assuming you're saying what I want to hear, though. Please, tell me about yourselves. Who asked you to find me? If there's somepony out there looking out for me, it would be nice to know..."
"Well, he didn't really tell us anything other than where to find you..." Maple shrugged, crossing her hooves and fidgeting from standing too long. "But we were asked by a stallion named Faron. Do you know him?"
"...Faron." After a long silence, White Chocolate's voice cracked, her visible eye glassy. "Oh. I guess he does still think about us, then..."
"I brought the towels!" Hayseed's voice chirped from outside the door, which nobody had bothered to close. "Here ya go, ladies!"
She stumbled through the carpet with a mountain of fuzzy linens on her back, proudly depositing them at Maple and Starlight's hooves, before walking up beside White Chocolate and nuzzling her cheek. "Hi, Mom. Did you say what kind of tea you wanted? I put some water on to boil."
White Chocolate hummed, unable to change her posture.
"Well, I forgot," Hayseed admitted. She glanced at Maple. "Hey, did you say Faron?"
Cautiously, Maple took one of the towels, rubbing it against her chest fluff. "I did..."
Hayseed's eyes widened. "You've met him? He hasn't been here in forever! He's my daddy!"
Maple stared as if hit by a brick, hundreds of words from different sources rushing into her head at once. Arambai, talking about how Sosans who had grown too desperate or depressed could be given one-way access to the ferry to Riverfall, to leave the remains of their old life behind and to start a new one. Faron, and his distant, wistful mannerisms as if he always regretted leaving his past life behind. Willow, and how White Chocolate looked just like her... or perhaps how the former looked like the latter, to a pony going the opposite direction. Herself, and how her own husband from Ironridge had left abruptly not two years ago, knocking down every hope and dream she had carefully built and leaving her and her friends to pick up the pieces of her life... and the unwelcome possibilities of how her life could have gone, were it not for Amber and Willow. One too many things clicked in her head, and before she could stop herself, she felt a single tear touch the side of her muzzle.
White Chocolate snapped out of her reverie, looking aside at the filly. "Could you go check on the tea, dear? I'd like to talk with Maple on my own for a minute."
"Sure thing, Mom." Nodding respectfully, Hayseed retreated from the bedroom, edging the door quietly closed behind her.
"...So." White Chocolate closed her eyes as the door clicked shut, ears pointing straight and true. "You knew my old husband? And he's in the Stone District, you said? I see..."
Maple gulped and shook her head. "N-No. I mean, we did, but... we're not from Ironridge. We knew him from somewhere else, but we're not allowed-"
"Wait!" White Chocolate cut her off. "Don't... There's no need to tell me."
For a second, the room was silent, save for the sounds of Starlight rubbing a white towel against her face and a rocking chair creaking beneath White Chocolate's weight. Eventually, Starlight looked up and mumbled, "Why not?"
"What did he say about me?" White Chocolate whispered, leaning forward earnestly.
Maple folded her ears. "I don't really remember. We just... When I mentioned that I was going to Ironridge, he gave me an address, and asked if I could go there and see if whoever was there was doing alright, if it wasn't inconvenient. He never even mentioned your name, or how many of you there would be, or anything."
White Chocolate hung her head, sighing slowly. "Well. I suppose that's more than I could have expected..." She looked up. "I don't know who you are, or yet if I'm glad you came, but thank you anyway. It must have been hard, traveling all the way from the skyport to find me in a city like this."
"Why don't you want to know where he is?" Starlight repeated, tilting her head. "Do you not miss him?"
"Because he left," White Chocolate said. "After the airships came, Faron lost his job as an engine die maintenance worker. He used to make sure the equipment used to produce the shells of manaengines was in top shape... and they didn't need him anymore. It saddened him greatly. I tried my best to comfort him, but it wasn't enough. He began leaving the house for hours at a time, doing nothing but taking long, long walks around the Earth District to think. One day, he didn't return. I feared something had happened to him; that perhaps he had crossed paths with the Spirit or the Defense Force. I grew so worried, I went to Sosa to ask for help... and they discovered a record that he had bought an airship ticket in the Sky District. He just left, without even saying goodbye... because Ironridge wasn't worth staying in anymore. Because I wasn't enough. And if I wasn't good enough then, how could I be now?"
Maple's mouth hung open. "...I'm sorry," she whispered.
"That's stupid," Starlight pouted, frowning. "Why should it matter whether you're good or not? And who gets to decide in the first place? Things like this are just bad luck, and they shouldn't happen at all!"
White Chocolate smiled sadly. "He decided when he left, Starlight."
"So!?" Starlight stomped a hoof. "He's probably wrong! Maple! When we get home, we need to give him a piece of our minds!"
"Starlight..." Maple wrapped a hoof around her shoulder, fur still spiky from being dried. "You remember why we can't do that, right? Why it wouldn't do him any good to want to come back?"
"But..." Starlight's face fell. "We could talk to... to..."
"It doesn't matter," White Chocolate consoled from her rocker, blue bathrobe draped over her shoulders. "Like I said, he left. I wasn't worth staying for, and that was when I was there to love and support him. How could I be worth coming back for now?"
"Okay, hold on." Maple's brow furrowed. "He didn't think you were worth staying for. I've had more than enough of my fill of ponies beating themselves up lately, thank you very much. I know what it feels like, and it isn't a useful thing to think, so please don't?"
White Chocolate kept smiling, that same wistful look in her visible eye. "How long have you known Faron? How long ago did he arrive where you were?"
"...About two years," Maple hesitantly said. "Why? When did he leave?"
Instead of answering, White Chocolate shuffled, getting her hooves under her and propping herself upright. Carefully, she unbound and shrugged off her robe, sitting as tall as she could... and Maple instantly realized that what she had initially ignored as pegasus wings were the sides of the mare's belly, swollen and gravid with foal.
"See?" White Chocolate said, stretching uncomfortably and putting both forehooves on her womb for emphasis. "What kind of loyal wife does this? I haven't just stayed the same mare he left. I've... I've been so lonely, lonelier than I was loyal..."
"Huh?" Starlight folded her ears.
Wordlessly, Maple stood up, walking until she was two steps away from the chair where White Chocolate sat. Ignoring the mare's display, she looked her straight in the eye, and said, "My best friend has three beautiful foals, all from different fathers, and I know for a fact Faron has a child where he is now, who's already born. It doesn't matter what you have or haven't done; everypony makes mistakes. That has no bearing on whether or not you can feel good about yourself."
"He has, has he?" White Chocolate stared for a moment, before partially fixing her robe, pulling it over her back without closing the front. "Heh. I guess I held on longer than him, after all..."
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and Maple retreated back to Starlight. It swung open, and Hayseed trotted through, a tray of teaware balanced carefully on her back. "Here you go, Mom!" she proclaimed, happily setting it on a small table next to White Chocolate's chair. "You never said what you wanted, so this one is peppermint, this one is banana cinnamon, and this one is mixed berry!"
"Thank you, dear." Calmly, White Chocolate patted her on the head, ruffling the filly's braided mane. "Is everyone else in bed?"
"Hee... Yeah." Hayseed leaned forward, nuzzling her mother's rounded belly with a cheek. "Were you showing them my new sibling?" She looked up at Maple and Starlight with shining, purple eyes. "Mom's gonna have another foal. She hasn't been to a unicorn doctor to see if it's a filly or a colt, but says this time I can help name them. I haven't decided what, though."
White Chocolate stood up, carefully climbing down from her chair. "I'm going to go tuck Hayseed in," she said, nodding to Maple and Starlight. "I'll be right back."
She stumped out with a heavy gait, not bothering to close the door behind her, and in a matter of seconds Maple and Starlight were alone.
"...Maple?" Starlight blinked, pupils dilated. "We're going to do something, right?"
Maple allowed her strong face to crack, sitting in silence for a minute. Eventually, she leaned over, wrapping Starlight in both forelegs and rocking back and forth. "I don't know," she murmured, eyes closed. "I don't know what we can do, yet... but yes. We're going to do something, Starlight. We have enough friends in this city that we're not in danger any more. We don't have to leave immediately... We're going to find something we can do."
"I'm not sure," Maple murmured, holding Starlight's recently-dried coat against her own. "I'm glad she stepped out, though. It gives us a little time to think. I'm just so..." She shivered. "Rattled."
"Because of what you said that night?" Starlight looked up, lavender eyes glistening. "When you and Amber and Willow were all up in your house? About how you had a husband, and were going to have a filly called Aspen?"
"Yes," Maple whispered. "Partly. She looks like Willow, which doesn't help. But she's... I think she's like what could have happened to any of us if we didn't have each other. Maybe I'm making assumptions, and I'm sure she's her own pony with plenty of unique things I don't know, but it's all I can see. I want to do something. I can't... If I don't, how long do you think it will haunt me for? Every time I see Faron? Every time I see Willow? She sounds like she has so many regrets..."
"So what do we do?" Starlight repeated.
"I don't know..." Maple sighed, slumping. "We can't bring him back, of course. Arambai would never let him leave, and she was right. If he was sad enough to leave then, do you really think he would break off his life again to come back here?"
Starlight frowned. "Maybe he regrets leaving, though! He asked you to come here, didn't he?"
"He did..." Maple rocked back and forth. "But still. He can't leave... and even if he did, what about Willow? What about their family? We'd be fixing one hole and creating another... and we can't try to bring White Chocolate to Riverfall for that same reason."
"She was there every step of the way for me," Maple said, leaning against the side of White Chocolate's giant raised bed. "I couldn't put her through the same..."
"That doesn't give us anything we can do."
Maple cringed. "I know..."
As they sat, Maple's ears awoke to the sound of White Chocolate's heavy hoofsteps returning through the passage. Soon, their silver host moved into sight, head slightly lowered.
"Welcome back," Maple said, putting Starlight down and sitting straighter.
"Thank you." White Chocolate made a beeline for her rocking chair, but rather than climbing in stopped to inspect the untouched tea set. "Was this too hot?"
"Oh!" Maple started, folding her ears. "Umm..."
White Chocolate took a step closer, smiling her same, wistful smile. "It's okay. You were busy thinking about how to help me, weren't you?"
"Yes," Starlight said.
"Hmmm..." Humming, White Chocolate motioned them nearer, retreating to her rocking chair and heaving herself in. "I'm an easy mare to pity. It's one of the nice things about losing so much, I suppose. Any pony I talk to wants to help... when I talk to anyone."
"Well... we weren't really sure what to do," Maple admitted.
"To help?" White Chocolate smiled. "Just stay a while and talk to me, about anything. Since Faron left, I've been all alone... and with all the kids, I can never go out and talk to other ponies in the city. Hayseed and Snowshoe do the errands. Every once in a while, I try to pay the neighbors to come and watch them so I can leave for a bit, but they don't like doing that much. So, please, say something."
"I..." Maple blinked, looking around for a conversation topic. "How many foals do you have, anyway?"
"This will be my twelfth," White Chocolate said, laying on her side and touching her womb. "There are three sets of twins, and all but this one were fathered by Faron."
"Where would you go if you could go out?" Starlight asked, trying to help.
White Chocolate sighed and closed her eyes. "I don't even know, really. There are some ponies down in Copsewood who meet up every once in a while for... this kind of thing. I'm hardly the only mare who was married to a Sosan who left. I met with them once or twice, but it was mostly ponies telling each other what they wanted to hear and didn't actually believe themselves, and I stopped after a while. Really, I'm scared that... if I leave and go too far from the house, I'll have an epiphany about how much better my life could be, just like Faron, and simply leave without even going back for my children. The more I feel that way, the less I want to risk going outside..."
Silently, Maple took three steps forward, placing herself as the first thing White Chocolate would see when she looked up. "Is there something you want to talk about? Because it doesn't sound like this is making you happy."
"That's the other thing." White Chocolate smiled bitterly. "It never does. And I don't learn, either. How much happiness and fulfillment do you think I got from the nights that gave me this?" She looked down at her growing foal. "But I keep trying, again and again, because I don't know what else to do... even if all I ever feel is dull inside."
Maple twitched.
"You can comfort me or hug me, if you want," White Chocolate offered. "If it makes you feel better. It's one of the things I am good for. Just pretend you're doing me a favor, if you need to feel like you did something good..."
Maple opened her mouth to speak... when Starlight pushed her aside, frowning. "There's something not right about you."
"You think?" White Chocolate's voice nearly cracked from surprise. "My husband abandoned me with all of our kids! Of course there's something wrong with me!"
"Starlight..." Maple hissed.
"Wait," Starlight said to Maple, before looking back up at the mare on the rocking chair. "That's not what I mean. Every time you say something, it's the best possible thing you could say if you wanted us to pity you. And it's not just what you say, it's what you are. I hate giving up, and Maple doesn't like Sosans who leave their wives or ponies who beat themselves up all the time. I don't know if you're lucky and figured out we can't ignore you and just want us to feel bad for you or what, but it's making me feel weird and isn't how to actually help yourself go somewhere with your life."
Maple's jaw dropped. "That is weird..."
White Chocolate cringed. "What am I supposed to do? I am pitiful! I'm not the kind of pony others want to be like! Who wants to be a single mother of a growing family who's afraid to leave her house? I just want to feel..."
"Come on," Starlight huffed, walking until she was within hoof's reach of the chair. "You said earlier that ponies feeling sorry for you doesn't help, so why do you keep trying?"
"Because it feels like it should help!" White Chocolate panted. "And it never does, just like having so many foals feels like it should make me less lonely but doesn't. But it still feels that way... What do you want me to do? Please. If you can help..."
"Tell us something good about yourself," Maple added from the side.
White Chocolate trembled. "Can I say something bad, instead?"
"No!" Starlight stomped. "That's doing it again! Trying to make us feel sorry for you! And stop acting like what we think is so much more important than what you think, too! This is your house, isn't it? Why are you asking us if it's okay to do everything, letting us do whatever we want, and all that stuff? Just... do something! Normal ponies don't trust complete strangers with things that are really sensitive!"
"But I'm not a normal pony..." White Chocolate mumbled, hiding her face with her robe.
"Oh yeah?" Starlight stood as tall as she could, trying to look at the mare levelly despite the height difference from the chair. "Didn't you just say a bunch of other mares in some other town were in exactly the same situation as you?"
"Not that..." White Chocolate sniffed, looking up with her one visible eye. "It's... also..."
"We're listening," Maple whispered, waiting patiently.
Heavily, White Chocolate sat up, lifted a hoof to her face, and began to brush aside the thick lock of mane hair that obscured half her features.
Slowly, White Chocolate lifted aside her mane, letting the other half of her face meet the light... a half that was dominated by a large, gray eyepatch, colored to blend in with her hair and be difficult to see unless looked at directly. She sat there for several seconds, holding it back, before pinning her mane behind her ear like it was on the other side, offering no explanation.
Starlight shivered, looking up at the asymmetrical mare, Valey's story on the cart from Blueleaf sinking back into her mind. She had said that obtaining a cutie mark from obsidian left a mark in the form of a discolored eye... and her eyes couldn't help but wander to White Chocolate's flank, which was covered as always by her blue bathrobe.
"You two look well-off," White Chocolate murmured, and Starlight realized she was looking at Maple's own cutie mark. "So I don't know if you would have heard of it. But... do you know about moon glass?"
Maple swallowed. "Well, yes, but... it's not supposed to be something you can get in Ironridge."
White Chocolate's ears folded, causing her mane to slip back to its original style, and she brushed it away again. "And husbands aren't supposed to leave their loving wives without even saying goodbye. That doesn't stop it from happening. I... got some."
"You got a fake cutie mark," Starlight whispered, loud enough to be heard. "...Why?"
"A fake what?" White Chocolate tipped her head.
"Brand," Maple clarified, blushing. "Sorry. We're used to saying it differently..."
"Oh." White Chocolate sighed. "Why...? There were several reasons. For one, it was free."
Maple and Starlight sat together, waiting... impatient. Starlight huffed, trying her best to withhold judgement until White Chocolate could at least explain herself.
"It was the stallion who also gave me this," she eventually said, reaching around and tapping her belly with her chin. "He was a unicorn. A handsome one, named Shad. I met him a year ago, on one of the few times I went out. We talked for a while, and I told him about me, and everything that had happened. He wanted to help me. I showed him where I lived. That night, after I got back and put my children to bed, he teleported into my room and we talked long into the night, among other things. He didn't come back every day, or even every week, but he did return. I don't think I loved him, or that he loved me, but I preferred it to being alone, and he... must have enjoyed that kind of thing. He always asked how I was. I always told him I was tired, lonely and still getting by. Eventually, it got me pregnant."
White Chocolate stretched in place before continuing. "He was apologetic. I don't think he intended for it to happen. But he wanted to make it up to me, so the next night, he brought his boss to my house. He worked for a griffon named Kero, who was very well-connected. He must have known someone in the shipping industry. Together, they decided there were enough ponies who owed them favors that they could get me a piece of moon glass to make it up to me."
She swallowed. "I was a single mother, and he had just made my troubles harder. Having another mouth to feed was never a problem... Sosa pays me Faron's unemployment money still. They're very generous. But with new foals, my children will never all grow up to the point where I can leave them home more easily, and as you can see, this makes it much harder to get around..." She cracked a small smile. "Even though I'm very used to it."
"But you still took it," Starlight said, all but pointing a hoof.
"I did," White Chocolate sighed. "They said it would give me something I was good at, and more importantly make it something I enjoyed doing. I wanted to enjoy something. I was tired of feeling empty and gray inside, like my life was continuing without meaning. They told me how valuable moon glass was, and how I'd never have another chance... and they also told me the stories and legends, and gave me time to go hear them myself. About how ponies changed when they took it, like they were possessed by an outside spirit. Most ponies thought it was revolting, like throwing away the inside of your mind was the worst sin a pony could commit. I suppose it says something about me that I just thought it would be nice to have the company in my head, doesn't it?"
Starlight stared. Slack-jawed, Maple asked, "What does it feel like? To be...?"
"At first, it didn't feel like anything," White Chocolate said. "It happened quickly. I put the glass on a pendant and wore it to bed one night, with a weak string so it wouldn't choke me by accident. In the morning, it had fallen off and rolled to the corner... but there was a snowflake on my flank when I checked. My eye changed color, like they said it would. It wasn't a huge difference; just a darker shade of blue, but I started wearing an eyepatch to hide it from my children, and then wearing my mane this way to hide that from the world. I didn't want to be judged..."
"Well, we're not mad at you for it," Maple quickly assured.
"Thank you." White Chocolate slumped, not looking the slightest bit relieved. "After that, I noticed a little change. There's one hill in Gnarlbough you can see the Sky District from, over the treetops. I went and sat there several times, and part of me felt like I appreciated the sight more. Each time I did it, though, I felt more and more like I was enjoying it because I thought I should, and not because it was actually enjoyable, so I stopped. I never heard any voices, or had any strange desires, aside from food which is usual for me. My behavior never changed, at least not enough for my children to notice. They said it might. I don't know why..."
Her eyes squeezed shut in remembrance. "I didn't see Shad again, after that. That was upsetting, even though I don't think I loved him. Maybe he felt bad about giving me another foal, maybe he didn't want to be with a mare who had something in her head, or maybe he thought he had done all he needed to already. But that didn't make sense, because it was he who gave me the moon glass! And the damage had already been done. I had already been disloyal to my husband, I was already pregnant... It's not like I could be more disloyal, or get pregnant twice at once."
Maple reached a hoof out. "Thinking you have nothing left to lose is how you forget about all the good things in your life, though. Like your children, or your beautiful house..."
White Chocolate ignored her. "I didn't see Kero again, either. I thought he was too busy, or maybe never cared about me in the first place. But every month or so, he sent another pony, a different one each time, to check on me. They ask how my life is going, how my children are, how my new foal is coming along... always like they're reading from a script, to prepare me for being asked if the moon glass worked. It was mechanical, like the voices that speakers use to tell workers what to do in Sosa. I don't think they knew who I was, or cared about me at all as a pony. They were just doing what they were hired to do, and make sure his product satisfied me. Not like anyone could have changed anything if it didn't. But being treated like a gear in a machine... it just made me feel worse about myself. I used to show them my brand, and sometimes my eye. Then I stopped. Eventually, I just sent them away. That's who I thought you were, when you arrived."
"Well..." Maple smiled. "We're not, are we? We're ponies who made a long, hard journey without even knowing what was at the end to tell you someone you've been missing still thinks of you and cares about you, and we do too. You're not a cog in a machine, okay?"
White Chocolate looked away. "No. I'm not even that..."
White Chocolate looked away. "No. I'm not even that..."
Starlight and Maple blinked together. "Huh?"
"Not even?" Starlight pressed. "We said you were better than a machine part! What do you mean?"
"No, it's... Let me..." Carefully, White Chocolate reached up, peeling off her eyepatch. Her hoof moved gently away, revealing a blinking, light-starved pupil that perfectly matched the other in color. Maple and Starlight's eyes widened in surprise.
"What...?" Maple bit her lip. "I thought you said it changed color? That looks identical to me."
White Chocolate motioned them nearer, lowering her neck to eye level. "Look closer."
"Err..." Starlight squinted, looking from close enough that she could smell White Chocolate's breath. It was vaguely minty. "I still can't see any difference."
"I can't either," White Chocolate sighed. "Not when I look in a mirror. Not anymore. Now, if you look over here..."
She reached backward, shrugging her bathrobe off all the way, and scooted her hindquarters to the front of the chair. "Can you see that?"
Starlight climbed onto Maple's back, craning her neck to get a look at the mare's flank. There, where a cutie mark belonged, a large white snowflake sat... only it was so faded, it appeared as nothing more than a subtle texturing on top of her shiny, well-groomed silver coat.
"...What happened?" Maple managed weakly. "It looks like it's... gone..."
"It started disappearing," White Chocolate said, reaching up to meet their eyes, "some time ago. I don't know exactly when. But it's been fading for a long time, and along with it, my eye has been going back to normal... I wear the patch now more to hide that it's normal than that it wasn't. And I can't understand why... Why me? Moon glass is something everyone says is cursed, that only the worst and most desperate ponies turn to for help... and it rejected me. It isn't staying. Whatever Faron saw that was so wrong with me, he left, this glass spirit sees, too. Everyone says this is a mark that the worst of us turn to and can never shake, but it rejected me..."
She shook, a repressed sob rippling all the way down her body. Maple reached out and touched her shoulder with a hoof in response. "If you let yourself cry about it, it will feel better. We'll listen..."
"Will you?" White Chocolate struggled to regain her composure. "Will you really? Because that's not what ponies do. I've talked before about Faron leaving. Every time, ponies say they want to help. They look hurt, like they didn't like knowing what kinds of things can happen in the world. They always do what they can... and then stop the moment they can put me out of mind, because they don't actually care about me. They just want to feel better about themselves, or their world... or maybe they do care, but not enough to make themselves uncomfortable by thinking about it. So I do what I can to put them out of their misery... and let them feel like they helped and forget about me. You yelled at me for doing that earlier. So do you really want to listen to a bitter, lonely mare like me? It won't feel nice, and you don't have to..."
Maple smiled softly. "Isn't that what we've been doing this whole evening? Of course I do."
White Chocolate stared at her. "Why?"
"What do you mean, why?" Starlight frowned. "You need it! Duh!"
"So?" White Chocolate sniffed. "I'm just a mare who... who isn't good enough for anyone, whether they want commitment or a fun night! I live in a hole beneath the ground, using money someone else gives me because the pony who earned it ran away! All I do is have dozens of children and try to raise them in hope that one or two of them... m-might turn into better ponies who can do something useful with their lives! But my house is a mess, and I know I can't handle it all by myself and am not fit to do this, yet I'm still having more because I couldn't just live with what I deserved and be alone and had to go out and get involved with another stallion and have even more kids! That's what I mean, why!"
"Because we can afford to care," Maple replied, still touching White Chocolate's shoulder. "I'm not you and don't know exactly how you feel, but I have a much closer idea than most ponies. I've survived a lot of hardship and come out stronger for it, and I'm here now because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world, so that something I did would matter. Do you want to matter? I do. We won't be able to stay here forever - me and Starlight were planning to leave Ironridge as soon as we had found this place, but we can stay a little longer. That's why I care... for me, for you, and for the world."
White Chocolate panted through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut.
"If you're about to say you don't deserve it," Maple said, "it doesn't matter. There's a lot of luck in the world... bad things happening to ponies who don't deserve them, and good things, too. But really, what kind of luck you get doesn't mean you're a good or bad pony. Just think of me as... good luck."
Starlight stood several paces back, watching as White Chocolate relented and the two mares embraced. Tentatively, she lifted a hoof to move forward, but put it back down. Was there anything she should, or could, do?
Maple cared, and could show it, and that was good enough. Starlight cared too, but hadn't yet had time to process White Chocolate's fake cutie mark, and either way she was unsure how best to show it. With Maple, it was always easy: the mare loved physical contact. But she had no clue about White Chocolate... so, with carpeted hoofsteps and backed by muffled sobs, she trotted her way to the chairside table and helped herself to a mug of cooling tea.
After a long while, the trembles running along White Chocolate stilled, and her breathing steadied. Starlight sat straight upright on the edge of her giant rocking chair, the last of the tea mugs held in her forehooves, eyes flicking between the fake cutie mark and the gentle rise and fall of White Chocolate's chest.
"...You're still here," White Chocolate whispered, opening her watery eyes.
"Yes." Maple squeezed her shoulder. "We are."
"Thank you."
They paused for a second more, Starlight taking a mouthful of lukewarm tea as she watched. "What are you going to do now?"
"Well, I'm..." White Chocolate stretched, and Starlight had to hop down to avoid being knocked off. "Going to get up, first, because the foal is restless and it's not very comfortable. Is there anything I can get you while I'm up? The tea wasn't a hit, but we have..."
She stopped, peering over the edges of the empty mugs on the table, and then at the one Starlight held. "Oh? Did you drink all that?"
Starlight shrugged. "I liked it."
"Well, maybe I can get some more!" White Chocolate beamed. "Or something else, if you like. Have you eaten dinner? There were some leftovers from tonight..."
"As long as it's not more fruit!" Maple nodded gratefully. "I think that's the only thing I've eaten since we made it to Ironridge."
"It's bean soup," White Chocolate said, gingerly climbing down from her rocking chair. "Oof. Thank you, though. I'll probably convince myself this was a dream in the morning... but I think I feel better, for right now." She smiled at Maple, eyes glistening.
Maple smiled back. "Then we'll just have to come back tomorrow, won't we?"
"...I hope you do." Picking up her eyepatch, White Chocolate stumped heavily out of the room, bathrobe laying on the empty rocker.
When White Chocolate's hoofsteps finally faded from earshot, Maple let out a long sigh.
"She looked happier," Starlight remarked.
"She did..." Maple hummed uncertainly. "But I can say from experience it's never, ever that easy. She's probably right about tomorrow. And the days after..." She hung her head. "Well, I don't know. We can come back once, but we do need to get home. We'll just have to find something else... Hopefully we can convince Shinespark to help her for us. There's still a possibility bringing her with us is the right choice, too."
Starlight sat and frowned... then looked up to the room's high window, its shutters failing to hide the night's darkness beyond. "So what are we going to do about ourselves? It's past bedtime."
"Is it?" Maple blinked. "I'm tired all the time, and the sun sets early here, so I can't tell..."
"I dunno." Starlight shrugged. "I'm not that tired. But you look like you've been going to fall over all day, and I can't carry you back."
"I am," Maple said with a grimace. She greedily eyed White Chocolate's plush bed, eventually settling for laying down in the spectacularly fluffy carpet, loudly exhaling. "I feel like I could practically hibernate. But don't you worry about me... I'll manage."
She leaned forward, rubbing between Starlight's ears with a hoof, causing the filly to squirm.
"We do need a plan, though," Maple eventually murmured. "She'd probably invite us to stay here if we wanted, but with this many foals running around, I don't know if it would be a very good sleep. She might not even have room. Besides, Valey and Howe are waiting for us, and while they can take care of themselves, it would be rude to leave them out alone."
"Yeah, well, Howe's weird," Starlight huffed, flopping down beside her and sinking up to her shoulders in carpety fluff. "I don't trust him. He's always looking at you when he thinks nobody is watching, and he says a bunch of stuff that's too ridiculous to be true, which means it might actually be. We can leave him behind unless he does something trustworthy."
"He makes me uneasy too." Maple shuffled her forelegs, trying to get more comfortable with her back against the bed's side. "I don't like judging books by their covers, though. I mean, look at Valey! She can complain all she likes, but her actions have all been in the right place. And she's waiting for us, too."
Starlight shrugged. "Do you think there are any hotels in Gnarlbough?"
"There might be," Maple admitted, ears perked in thought. "I have no idea how we'd find them, unless Howe or Valey already knows where they are. I do have some money left, though. I haven't really been spending ours..."
"If we can't find one, we can go back to Grand Acorn," Starlight offered. "I know I saw a hotel there. If that's the capital of the Earth District, it's probably a nice one, too."
"Hmmm..." Maple shut her eyes. "That would put us closer to Sosa, but we'd have to backtrack if we wanted to come here in the morning. Although we are still going to see Shinespark again... so maybe she'd find us more easily if we were where she last saw us? Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning, though, so backtracking won't be an issue..."
As they thought, a bustle of heavy hoofsteps heralded their host's return. White Chocolate pushed around the door, a tray of bowls balanced delicately on her back and a broad smile on her face.
"Here it is!" she announced, nodding to the tray. "I didn't heat it up, but it should still be a little warm. Please, help yourselves."
"Oh, yum..." Maple climbed to her hooves, nose twitching as she relieved White Chocolate of the tray, taking it in her teeth and setting it on the chairside table. "Finally, food that isn't fruit! I think I've eaten enough fruit to last a whole month..."
White Chocolate stood cautiously by. "Well, I hope you like it. It was a hit with my children last time I made it, so this time I made extra, but apparently there was too much..."
Starlight climbed up on the rocking chair to reach her bowl, carefully balancing on the uneven hoofing. It was, as had been said, bean soup... though rather than the thick, pasty mash she associated with the food in Equestria, the beans were still whole, floating in a watery but rich broth that shone tan in the light. She lapped at it, and quickly found it adequate.
"This is really good," Maple announced, straightening up after several seconds of drinking. "Thank you. We needed..." She tilted her head. "Huh?"
Starlight looked up, following her gaze to a corner, where White Chocolate stood with her back to them, inspecting a dresser. "Go on," the mare said, ears swiveled backwards. "I'm just getting something."
"Oh..." Maple grinned sheepishly. "I just wanted to say it was good, and thanks."
No reply. Starlight kept watching as she drained her bowl, then cleaned it with her tongue, noting as White Chocolate checked drawer after drawer, occasionally moving objects around and grunting in frustration. At last, she stood up, having found her prize... and Starlight quickly looked away, not wanting to be caught staring.
"I have something for you," White Chocolate announced, hesitant. "If you really mean it, about wanting to remember me..."
Maple and Starlight both looked up, attentive.
"...Here." White Chocolate reached out, holding something on a string.
It was a small gray-black pendant hanging from a severed string, jaggedly cut and about the size and shape of Starlight's ear. The light that reflected as it swung freely was cold and unnatural, and somehow, the very act of looking at it caused a dull pain in Starlight's chest. She squinted. "Is that...?"
"This is my piece of moon glass," White Chocolate whispered, touching it with a hoof and producing a tinkling that sounded like it belonged at a funeral all the guests had forgotten to attend. "It's empty, so it shouldn't be dangerous or valuable to anyone. All it is is a reminder, and not a happy one. But if you'd like it..."
Maple stepped closer, curious. "Are you giving it to us?"
"If you want it," White Chocolate said, the pendant swaying in her grasp. "If you mean it about wanting to remember me for the broken pony I am."
"We'll... Thank you..." Hesitantly, Maple reached out, taking it and holding it to her eye. "Wow. It really does reflect the world in only gray..."
White Chocolate shook her head. "Don't thank me. It isn't a happy reminder, I said. It's a weight that should be my job to carry."
"Then we'll keep it safe," Maple assured, "and carry it always. Although..." She looked aside at Starlight. "Given what this is, I'm not sure my usual way of carrying things is the best idea, here..."
Starlight blinked. Of course, using a cutie mark to store an artifact known for containing evil, fake versions of cutie marks sounded like it could have unintended consequences... and after seeing the moon glass then and there, she had little doubt about Valey's truthfulness when describing it as bad.
"Give me my saddlebags," she offered. "I'll carry it. I'm not tired."
White Chocolate tilted her head. "Your usual way of carrying things? I don't see any-"
Abruptly, Maple produced Starlight's bags as if from nowhere, and White Chocolate gasped. "How did you do that?"
"My cu... err, brand." Maple shrugged. "It lets me store things. Here."
She offered the bags to Starlight, who took them and slung them on. Starlight then reached to take the pendant in her teeth and tuck it away... but when she made contact, she instantly spat it out, sending the dark stone rolling into the carpet. "Ew! It's sticky!"
"What?" Maple and White Chocolate both looked at the glass in concern.
"It is?" Maple picked it back up, tapping it with a hoof. "It feels very solid to me..."
Gingerly, Starlight approached it and pressed it against her hoof. When she pulled back, it stuck, even without trying to grab it or hold on. She shook it lightly, staring in curiosity and trying to ignore her sudden tightness of breath.
"Starlight..." Maple took a step forward, concern heavy in her voice. "Is that-"
"Waaaugh!" With a snap of gray lightning, Starlight's vision fuzzed... and when she managed to focus, the world was entirely colorless. "What...? What...!?" she panted, hyperventilating and starting to shake her hoof. "I can't-!"
Maple nearly tackled her, grabbing her hoof and yanking the obsidian pendant off. It bounced away again as more light crackled in Starlight's vision... and eventually, colors began to fade back in.
"I thought you said it was empty!" Maple hissed, rounding on White Chocolate with hackles raised. "What was that!?"
White Chocolate backed up, ears flat, nearly tripping in dismay. "It is! I don't know what... I was just given it! I already used it on myself!"
"Then why did her eyes turn gray?" Maple stalked forward, tail lashing dangerously.
Still recovering, Starlight hastily checked her flank... and it was bare. "Maple!" she squeaked, reaching out. "Wait! I'm okay!"
Maple halted, looking back... and slowly deflated, turning around entirely and wrapping Starlight in a hug. "What happened...?" she whimpered, rubbing Starlight's back.
"I dunno," Starlight muttered, staring mistrustfully at the spot in the carpet where the stone had come to rest. "It stuck to me, and then everything I saw went gray. It didn't make my horn feel better, either. I'm fine now, but I don't like that rock."
Stiffening, Maple let her go... and poked the cursed glass with a hooftip, earning the same hard clink as before. "It must be something about you..." she breathed, standing over it. "Give me your saddlebags. I'll wear them. You're not carrying this."
"...You still want it?" White Chocolate asked from a corner where she had taken refuge, slowly moving closer.
"Yes." Maple nodded. "We'll just have to be more careful about carrying dangerous objects. If there are things out there that are uniquely harmful to Starlight, I... guess it's better if we know about them. I'm not mad. I'm... sorry for yelling."
Unsure, White Chocolate offered Starlight a hoof, though the filly was already standing. "I'm sorry too," she said, ears still flat. "I had no idea it would... I thought it was harmless!"
"Well..." Starlight shook her head, wincing as the last of the effects wore off. "I'm not a normal pony, so it must be different for me."
"Is there anything I can do?" White Chocolate whispered. "Any way to make it up to you? Anything you need?"
Starlight hesitated. "Uhhh... I just had three cups of tea and a bowl of soup... Do you have a little filly's room?"
White Chocolate beamed, grateful for the chance to act. "Of course! Go out that way, then straight, then left, then right..."
Starlight stepped contentedly out into the hallway, a muffled flush swirling from the room behind. Silently, she stopped, letting her ears listen to the noises of the quiet home, its air neither warm nor cold and pleasant against her mostly-dry coat. The tubular, twisty hallway was dark, just short enough not to be claustrophobic, yet long enough that one could only see both ends around the curve when standing in the middle, like she was.
She licked her lips, tasting dried salt and bean soup seasonings. Another bowl wouldn't be so bad, she decided... but not so much that she would be willing to go out of her way to ask. Her tail flicked, softly thumping against a wall as she tried to recall the kinds of food Riverfall offered. There had been pancakes, and some memories of grilled pineapple surfaced...
"Hey! Pssst!" a small voice suddenly hissed, sending Starlight's ears pivoting. She lowered her head, craning her neck to see who was calling.
"Yeah, you!" In the dim light, she recognized the white, suave-maned head of Snowshoe, the colt who had been with White Chocolate at the door. "Over here," he whispered, beckoning, stealthily crouched. "Come hang out with us!"
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head, keeping her voice down too just in case.
"Come on!" Snowshoe beckoned again, giving a smile that was practiced, yet unable to shake off its foalish eagerness. "All the other kids live far enough away that we can only go hang out when it's daytime and their parents walk us over! Hang out with us!"
Starlight stepped forward, still watching dubiously. "What does hanging out involve?"
A filly she hadn't noticed before shifted in the shadows, punching Snowshoe's side. "Snow!" she complained, tossing her huge mane. "You're being weird! Don't scare her away!"
Snowshoe ignored her, jaw dropping. "You've never hung out before? I mean... you just talk about stuff, and say what you like and tell jokes and stuff. You don't know what you're missing out on."
"...Didn't your mom say you need to be in bed?" Starlight squinted.
"Yeah, but you're up," the other filly pointed out. "And it's not like she can do anything about it. There are, like, ten of us and one of her, and she's ultra slow."
"Eleven," Snowshoe corrected.
The filly rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Technically twelve, soon."
Snowshoe looked as if someone had just told him two plus two was one. "That doesn't count."
The filly smirked, triumphant. "Want me to go tell Mom you think her new foal doesn't matter?"
"I didn't..."
"This is bizarre," Starlight interrupted, standing straighter and starting to turn around. "I'm going to go back where the grown-ups are."
"Hey, wait!" both foals called after her, scrambling. "Don't go!"
Starlight stopped, listening.
"Come hang out with us!" Snowshoe urged, beckoning again. "We'll make it worth your while! Please! Nothing ever happens around here!"
"...You look like you're having plenty of fun with yourselves already," Starlight said, dubious. "Why do you want me to come?"
Snowshoe pouted in exasperation. "Because you're from a whole 'nother district!"
The filly shoved him. "Snow's trying to say there's probably a million things you've done and we haven't, and he wants you to tell us about them. I do, too."
"...Really." Starlight frowned. It seemed yet another similarity between Willow and White Chocolate was that both had foals who were dying to meet her... though at least neither of these looked like Sunburst. Shrugging internally, she closed her eyes and stepped forward, figuring Maple would find her easily if it came time to leave and she could use magic to escape if the meeting devolved into a big headache. "Why not?"
"Yesss..." Snowshoe pumped both forehooves, barely avoiding a faceplant.
"Well, hey, that's great!" Instantly, the filly turned cheery. "I'm Jamjars. And you are?"
"She's Starlight," Snow announced, proudly one-upping his sister.
"Well, boo to you, too," Jamjars huffed, shoving him. "Hey, Starlight! Do you like fillies or colts?"
Starlight stopped in her tracks. "...What?"
"Don't say colts," Jamjars sagely advised, watching as Snowshoe suddenly fidgeted, "or he'll ask you to be his fillyfriend. And don't say fillies either, or he'll try to sell you the magazines he's bored of for spending money, which aren't nearly as hot as he thinks they are."
Starlight's face scrunched, eyes torn between narrowing and widening. "What?"
"Sis..." Snowshoe tried to shove Jamjars back, but she dodged. "That isn't true!" Turning to Starlight, he pleaded, "It doesn't matter! Seriously!"
"Which are you, though?" Jamjars grinned, sharkish.
"...I'm leaving," Starlight decided, turning to walk down the tunnel away from the foals. "And for your information, I don't care about that stuff and don't want to date anyone. Now go back to bed!"
"Awww!" Snowshoe protested loudly. "Sis, come on! Don't you want to hear about the Stone District, or how Dad's doing?"
Starlight folded her ears. "The Stone District is full of hills, roads, buildings, and rocks. It's gray and brown, and you can see the mountains, sky and forest from it. Ponies live there. As for your dad, he's a unicorn and lives in a house. Ta-daaa."
"...You're kidding, right?" Snowshoe blinked unhappily. "There has to be more to it than that!"
"Nope." Starlight shook her head. "All of that is true. I've been there."
She turned back to continue retracing her steps to the bedroom... only to find Jamjars blocking her path. "No preference?" The filly grinned. "Hey, Snow, that's too bad. I guess she's not old enough for you. Better luck next year, or the year after that!"
Starlight squinted, trying to find Jamjars' head level beneath her voluminous mane. "Not old enough? It looks like I'm older than you..."
"Oh yeah?" Jamjars squared her shoulders. "I'm seven, and Snow's eight. Beat that, Starlight."
"...You're being incredibly rude for somepony who wants me to hang out," Starlight grumbled. "Please get out of my way."
Jamjars smirked. "You can't, can you? Ha! And come on, it's just a little friendly competition!"
"She's right, you know," Snow pointed out, coming up behind Starlight. "You are being rude. You should leave her alone."
"Oooh, are you white knighting?" Jamjars licked her lips. "Sorry, Snow, but she already said she wasn't into you. Good idea to try, though!"
Starlight felt her temper begin to flare, and tamped it down like a cork. Exhaling, she muttered, "Why does it matter? Leave me alone."
At that moment, Hayseed appeared behind Snowshoe, looking just as irate as Starlight felt. "Girls!" she grumbled. "And... Snow, though you're acting like a girl too. I'm trying to read, and you three are being really loud, so knock it off or I'm telling Mom, and she'll kick your rears all the way into next week."
"You're a filly too..." Snowshoe pointed out, cowed.
"Aw, come on!" Jamjars pouted. "Logloss makes way more noise than us with his snoring! You probably can't even hear us over him! Leave us alone!"
Starlight snorted at the irony of Jamjars' request, and tried to push past the filly, only to be swiftly denied.
"Nope!" Jamjars caught her with a forelimb. "We're just getting this party started! You've gotta stick around!"
"...I do, do I?" Starlight looked down at the leg holding her. It was squeezing slightly tighter than was necessary. "Because I really don't feel like it."
Hayseed frowned. "Are you two harassing our guest?"
"I had nothing to do with this!" Snowshoe quickly backed off, waving his forelimbs. "Serious! I just wanted to hang out! Jamjars was the one who made it weird!"
"Snow made it weird first," Jamjars countered. "All I want is to see which of us is better. Hey, Starlight!" She brushed back her giant, curly mane, revealing a very short, stubby horn. "You're a unicorn, I'm a unicorn. Want to see who's better at magic?"
Starlight blinked, trying to repel her through sheer stiffness of posture. "In a fight?"
"Yeah, sure in a fight!" Jamjars grinned. "I'll bet you three red-"
Flaaaaash!
Starlight extracted herself from the pile of glittering manacrystal that was Jamjars, horn shimmering teal. "Do I want whatever it is she was betting?" she asked, looking to Hayseed for guidance.
Nervously, Snow tapped his hooves. "...I think I'll be in my room now! We should still hang out some time! Bye!" Abruptly, he fled.
Hayseed stood with her mouth open. "Did you just turn my sister to crystal?"
"Yes," Starlight said, shrugging and tapping on the prison, within which Jamjars bore an expression of utter stupefication. "She'll be fine. But she deserves it."
Hayseed paused... when White Chocolate's voice echoed down the hallway. "Children?" she asked, stumping closer. "You're supposed to be in bed! What are you...?"
She appeared in the doorway, instantly freezing at the sight of Jamjars.
"She'll be fine," Starlight repeated, rolling her eyes. "She really, really deserved it."
To emphasize her point, the cage disappeared, sending Jamjars tumbling to the ground. "Hey, that's cheating!" the filly protested, gulping like a fish. "I hadn't said go yet! I want a rematch! And you didn't even make your side of the bet yet, so it doesn't... Mom?"
"Your foals are annoying," Starlight said frankly.
"...No offense, Mom, but most of my siblings kind of are," Hayseed agreed.
White Chocolate stared for a minute longer... then sighed. "Jamjars, are you alright?"
"Pfft! No!" Jamjars snorted. "Starlight cheated! I said I want a re-"
Flaaaaash!
A split second of crystal concentrated on her head was all it took to make Jamjars trip, toppling to the floor again and pouting. "Aaargh! Stop it!"
"Fine. Then I'm leaving." Starlight turned... and bumped straight into Maple, who had followed White Chocolate in.
Maple grimaced, Starlight's filly-sized saddlebags strapped largely across her back. Her face told Starlight she didn't have to guess what had happened; she knew the filly wouldn't use her magic unless it was necessary or provoked.
"I'm... sorry if they were an inconvenience," White Chocolate said, turning to Maple and Starlight. "I wish I could raise them better, but when it's just me against so many of them..."
Jamjars hesitated... and grinned. "And when you're puffed up like a balloon and move at zero miles per year. Catch me if you can, Mom! Hahahahaha!"
She took off for a nearby tunnel like a pegasus, only to slam into another temporary crystal barrier and bounce flat on her back. "Ow!"
"Can we leave?" Starlight asked, looking up at Maple. "I think I'm done with this place for now."
"That's exactly why we finished," Maple answered, leaning down. "I'm ready to go, and it looks like you are, too. Come on, kiddo. Let's get going."
They paced out toward the kitchen and the path to the exit, White Chocolate standing and looking overwhelmed as Hayseed held Jamjars in place, just in case discipline was in order.
Maple and Starlight stood beneath the night sky as White Chocolate's front door clicked shut behind them, staring up into the world.
A short, concrete path away, a gravel street wound by, twisting and winding and edged by steep grassy hills that formed the roofs of subterranean rooms, much like the one they just exited. A light breeze rustled by along the hilltops, causing the tall grass to bristle and sway, but it didn't extend to the road below.
Maple shivered, stretching tiredly as the night air kissed her coat. Her legs felt weary and battered, her head was heavy and her spine stiff and slow, but the day was over. Soon, she could get off her tender hooves and rest, spending a night sorting out her swirling feelings regarding White Chocolate and her friends back in Riverfall... and then face another day, filled with Valey and Howe and possibly Gerardo with the ever-present chance of catching another ferry home.
"Starlight?" She nudged the saddlebag-wearing filly, who had insisted on carrying a load to help despite them containing the spent obsidian.
"So, where are we going to sleep?" Starlight looked up. "Can we find a place here? Or are we going to Grand Acorn?"
"Well..." Maple stretched, coat rippling. "First, I'm appreciating how nice it is to be outside. And then, we need to find Valey, or wait for her to find us..."
As if on cue, Howe's head poked above the grass on a nearby hill. "Pssst!" He waved frantically, grinning his usual grin. "Over here!"
Maple squinted back. "Really? That grass is soaked, and we just dried off. Maybe you should come down here, instead."
"...As you wish!" Howe dove off the edge, barely using his wings and tucking into a roll to land at the base. He straightened up, ran a hoof across his mane, and trotted into the street. "Were you successful in your quest, my comrades?"
"We found what we were looking for," Maple replied, pacing out to the road herself. "It was... eventful. And now, we're ready to find a place to sleep. You're going to keep following us, aren't you?"
Howe shrugged merrily. "Sure am!"
"...Fine." Maple turned to walk down the road. "Then we need a hotel." She paused. "Where's Valey?"
Howe grinned. "Oh, her? She was summoned by the pager in her hat! Muttered something about having no idea what for or when she would be back, and not to wait for her."
"Really?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure?"
Maple frowned, looking in both directions down the street to see if any ponies were coming. "She just... left."
"...No offense," Maple sighed, "but that sounds suspicious."
Starlight blinked, thinking. "She did leave earlier for a while, remember?"
"Yes, but..." Maple bit her lip. "That time, she told us in advance, and we talked about where she would leave us. This time... you're here, and I'm sorry, but I don't really trust you yet." She nodded at Howe.
"Nah, it's cool." Howe shook his head. "The Howenator is familiar with these low-trust situations. Mercenary by trade, remember?"
"Hold on," Starlight offered, pointing a hoof. "Doesn't Valey have that magic stone that's tied to his? Maple, if we're worried about why she left or where she's going, we could call her."
Maple smiled down at Starlight. "That's a good idea. Howe? Can we do that?"
"Well..." Howe shuffled, pulling his soundstone out of his mane. "Sort of. Remember, they require manapower on both ends to activate, and she's no unicorn. What does happen is that one end glows when the other is powered... so if any little unicorn fillies want to give this a little juice, we can see if she'll pick up. She'd need to be near a power source, though, like another unicorn or some exposed manacircuitry, and she didn't leave all that long ago and might still be flying."
"...Starlight?" Maple looked down, mindful of the filly's recently-taxed horn. "Do you want to try?"
Starlight rubbed her forehead with a hoof. "Ugh... maybe..." She swallowed. "Sure. I will. Give it here."
Howe offered the stone in an outstretched wing. Weakly, Starlight lit her horn, conjuring a pair of sparks and no spell, and held it close. The stone began to glow, its internal vortex spinning slowly.
"Well, that'll do it!" Howe pulled the stone back. "If she picks up, she picks up! Being the mistrustful types, I imagine you'll want to wait right here and go nowhere I offer to lead you until we hear back?"
"...Does that include staying here when you want us to?" Starlight asked, still rubbing her horn.
"Errr..." Howe bit his lip.
"We might as well get moving somewhere," Maple decided. "Even if it's just deeper into town. Wherever we go, we know it won't be back to this place until morning."
"Hey, I can do that!" Howe shrugged. "Let's-a-go, then!"
Two major road bends into their journey, Howe shot a glance at Maple... then looked away. Then back again.
"Yes?" Maple asked, walking gingerly and favoring every party of her body.
"Oh, nothing." Howe whistled nonchalantly. "I was just thinking... I already told you of my secret motivation, but would it aid in your trust of the Howenator if he told you his super-secret goal?"
Maple hesitated... then stopped, sitting down in the middle of the road. "What?"
Howe stopped too, looking as if he were bursting with unshared information. Stealthily, he scanned the surroundings, but it was a recently-rainy night and their section of the road wasn't flanked by any doorways. "Well..." He shadowed his face with a wing, whispering. "When you were imprisoned in the Defense Force's vile headquarters and launching a counter-attack by stealing from their stolen goods, did you perchance happen across a mysterious gemstone encased in a glass sphere with flakes of gold? Preferably one with a sinister, evil aura?"
"We... maybe..." Maple's eyes shrank to pinpricks. "And what if we did?"
"Ah-ha!" Triumphantly, Howe pointed a wing. "I thought I saw as much on the video feed from their security cameras! You stole such an object, didn't you?"
"And what if we did?" Starlight repeated, bristling.
"Then allow me to regale you with a tale of woe," Howe sang, leaning back. "That stone is nothing less than the very heart of a mythical windigo, stripped of life by powers incomprehensible and rendered to an enchanted stone; a very bastion of hatred that thousands of years ago in the times of legend was the grounds for the undoing of an entire civilization! Theoretically, they should be as infinite as the windigoes themselves, which I can assure you do exist. However, as far as I am concerned, there are two of them! They were given to my brother and I as gifts by our father, you see. That's Neon Nova, in case you had forgotten."
"I hadn't forgotten," Maple droned. "So how does your father just happen to have hearts of monsters that haven't been seen outside of legend, ever?"
"...That is something that is best left to the realm of shadows," Howe happily rebuffed, continuing. "So, my brother and I were content in our share of ancient history... until one day about a year ago, our fortress hideout was raided by Yakyakistan! They broke in in search of treasure, and stole our two most prized possessions. It was very disheartening. Filled with the desire for righteous vengeance, and more importantly to reclaim our inheritance, the two of us set out on an epic quest of infiltration and sabotage to take back what was ours! ...Mostly, that meant posing as mercenaries for a year after a family friend in Yakyakistan's government was able to deduce that the hearts were bound for Ironridge."
"Wait a minute..." Starlight narrowed her eyes. "When you were acting incompetent in front of the Stone District guards..."
Howe held a wing over his chest. "Alas, whatever you're about to predict may well be correct. We joined with a company hired by Herman himself, and ultimately obtained information relating to the precise nature of the packages... that there would be one heart in each crate, and that they were being delivered by a griffon who would arrive by way of the old Sosan waterway. So, I acted in hopes that I could force the crates to be opened then and there, and might steal the treasure and flee before I could be stopped. Unfortunately, I was defeated and rendered unable to stop the crates from being taken well beyond my reach... yet still! It sounds as though you have rescued at least half of my inheritance from the clutches of the yaks! Might this hope of mine be truth?"
Maple stood defensively. "Are you announcing your intent to rob us?"
"Hardly!" Howe shook his head. "Actually, should you still possess it, I was going to ask if you wished to hire me!"
"To..." Maple narrowed her eyes. "Hire you."
Howe shrugged. "Well, you seem to have something I very much want, and also appear to be in need of a bodyguard. Conveniently, I happen to have some manner of combat experience, and am used to working such jobs! It sounds like a trade that would benefit us both, does it not?"
"...That depends on how much we can trust you," Maple sighed.
"Think of it this way," Howe said with a grin. "You can trust me a lot more if you know you have something I want!"
"First off, you might steal it," Maple pointed out. "Once we show you where it is. And second, if it really is dangerous, should I really let you have it?"
"Well, what were you going to do with it?" Howe asked suspiciously.
"Keep it away from the Defense Force," Maple admitted. "I... didn't know there were two."
"Hmmm..." Howe scratched his chin. "Let's put it this way. How hard would it be for someone to get it where it is right now?"
"To get it?" Maple looked up. "They'd have to hurt me or convince me to surrender it. To find it if they didn't already know? Impossible."
"Brilliant!" Howe tapped his forehooves. "Then please, I implore you to keep it there. It isn't... erm... somehow on your person, is it?"
"Maybe," Maple said.
"Look," Howe huffed, squaring his shoulders. "If I did anything to steal it, I'd have to carry it all around through the Stone and Sky Districts to escape, and that would mean bailing on Neon and the other one. I'd have to hang onto it even longer if I wanted to get those! So as long as you've got it somewhere safe, I want it to stay there... and if you're protecting it, that means me protecting you. You don't need to be all 'maybe' about this. I won't rip you off, I won't do anything shady... to you. It would make no sense for me!"
Maple hesitated... and sighed. "My brand lets me store objects that are smaller than me. It's in there."
Howe whistled. "Okay, that's a pretty good hiding place. Guess I really do have to protect you, huh?" He winked. "In other words, the Howenator will follow you to his dying breath! Or until you consider my service adequate and give me the heart in payment, or simply to get rid of me. Though I implore you to hide it until at the very least we have a better hiding place, or an easy avenue of escape from the city."
"...Starlight?" Maple looked down at the filly. "What do you think about this? We can use all the allies we can get, and it isn't like we have anything better to do with that orb. But still, I'm somehow uneasy about this..."
Starlight tilted her head in thought. "Well, you can't get rid of him, can you? And he's asking for nothing up front, and I'm pretty sure I can beat him in a fight if you get in danger."
Howe stood back, respectfully allowing them to make their decision.
"I guess that's that, then," Maple sighed, straightening up. "Welcome to the team, Howe. Or... whatever our group is."
"Yes!" Howe pumped a wing. "I promise you, you will not regret this!"
"I'm regretting this already," Maple grumbled, head low to the ground as she slunk along a dusky Gnarlbough road.
"What?" Howe covered his chest with a wing, face a picture of innocence.
Maple glared back at him. "You're staring at my butt and it's starting to get really obvious. Knock it off."
"Hey, now..." Disappointedly, Howe clicked his tongue. "First off, you never told me where we're going, so I have to follow your lead. Second, Valey is no longer around, and third, there's something I really want in there!" He blinked. "In your brand. My orb. That's what I meant."
"Look," Maple snapped, sighing aggressively. "I'm tired. My hooves hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurts, my neck and chest and ears and throat and tail hurt and I feel like a giant bag of cramps and bruises, and I can also punch very hard. All I want is to find a safe place to lay down and sleep for several days, and you're not helping. Understand?"
Starlight softly coughed. "Make him go look for one."
"What's that you say?" Howe perked up. "A chance to be of service? I will do my best!" He raised an eyebrow. "Err... How many beds are we questing for?"
"One for me and Starlight," Maple managed. "I don't care what you get as long as it's cheap and doesn't involve sharing."
"As you wish, my ladies!" Howe saluted, taking off just as noisily as could be expected and winging away.
Maple glared after him until he was gone, before sagging against the dry side of a hill. "Whoo..."
"Tired?" Starlight asked, waddling up on stubby legs beside her.
"That's an understatement," Maple groaned. "I don't get it. I always felt fine in Riverfall, and could easily run across town and back to keep up with Amber. I'd get winded, sure, but... ugh. I had no idea I was this out of shape..."
She lifted a foreleg and felt it with the other, squeezing sore muscles. "And we haven't even done that much today. We slept in, walked a long way downhill, rested on fluffy couches, took a long cart ride... but I feel so much worse than I did in the morning. Blegh..."
Starlight frowned in concern. "You don't think you're sick, or anything? Like... there's some disease that's out in the world, but you never got immune to because Riverfall is so isolated?"
"I hope not..." Maple shivered, drooping. "If I am, I guess it's good that we're done with everything. We'll just have to hope Shinespark finds us and takes care of us, because it probably means I'll get worse..." She swallowed. "And they wouldn't let me go back home until it was cured, in case I was contagious. I hope I don't give anything to you..."
"Well..." Starlight bit her lip. "If my home and here have no contact, there are probably a lot of diseases I'd have never been near, either. Though there are shots that ponies get when they're born that are supposed to protect you from the worst ones..."
"Then we'll just have to hope for the best," Maple sighed, leaning against the hillside. "How have you been feeling?"
"My horn hurts," Starlight said. "I have a headache. No different from usual. I don't have a fever." She reached up and touched Maple's forehead. "...I don't think you do, either. And we've been near each other or touching a lot. Where do you think you might have got it?"
Maple's brow furrowed. "Let's see... We were around a lot of ponies when we found the Spirit of Sosa, but never close to any, except the few on the trade cart. But then we passed so many in the Stone District... It's hard to tell when I really started feeling bad, because when you carry a heavy crate up a tall mountain, it's normal to be tired. In the museum, I was only a little sore, I guess, and sitting down to lunch did make me feel better. So did when we took that break at the hotel... remember?"
"What about in the Defense Force base?" Starlight asked, tilting her head.
"The Defense Force..." Maple squeezed her eyes shut in thought. "I got carried in there in Selma's magic. Do you think telekinesis can transmit diseases? He did touch me physically, though not much, if actual contact is important... And then we got out, and rode in the elevator with that one guard before being alone until Valey found us. Right? That guard wasn't acting suspicious, was he? I can't remember..."
Starlight frowned... then gasped. "The crates!" she exclaimed, eyes widening. "When we were digging around in them, and you took that crystal ball... Howe said it was bad, or dangerous..." She looked at Maple's cutie mark, coat standing on end. "You don't think using your mark to store something full of dark magic would hurt you, would it?"
"...You're right," Maple whispered, eyes shrinking to pinpricks. "I can't believe I didn't think of that before. Especially when we had just learned my cutie mark can store magic..."
"We still need to figure out how that works," Starlight pointed out. "It could be useful, or important. The more we know how to do, the better."
"Right... but..." Maple closed her eyes. "If that so-called windigo heart is what's making me feel like garbage, there's only one way to find out..."
Softly, a glass ball with a teal core dropped to the grass between her hooves, rolling slightly and coming to rest. Instantly, Maple's eyes flew open, dilating. "Oh! Oh my..."
"Maple!?" Starlight bristled, instantly looking up at her.
"I feel... wow..." Maple lifted and examined her forelegs. "I think that was it, Starlight. I can't believe how much better I feel. I feel like... I just got several years younger, or let go of some ballast that weighed almost as much as I do!"
She stood up, feeling a huge grin forming on her features. "Wow! I can't believe this! It's like I had forgotten that this was what normal was, or something! And I'm still carrying another of those iron ingots like the one I dropped on Selma, too! I must have never noticed the benefit I got from dropping the last one, because I almost immediately picked up that dumb orb... Starlight, I feel great!"
"That's good..." Starlight frowned. "But now we have to do something with this."
Maple followed her hoof to the orb, sitting with the vague illusion of sinister light in the grass a hoofstep away. "Oh. Yes, we... we do..."
"But what were we going to do with it in the first place?" Starlight asked, looking up from it. "All we wanted was to keep it from the yaks, right? But it looks like it really is dangerous, so we have to put it somewhere safe, and you can't really carry it any more..."
"And Howe wants it, but it might not be a good idea to give it to him," Maple finished. "I... told him I kept it in my cutie mark. Do you think I shouldn't have done that? Should we hide it somewhere, and hope he doesn't ask to see it, or if he does tell him no?"
Starlight nodded. "Yeah. What if we gave it to White Chocolate? We could go back and ask her to take it in exchange for us taking her moon glass. She probably wouldn't know what it was, and it looked like she had space to hide something in her room. This is too big to go in my saddlebags without looking obvious, but not that large..."
"I think that might be our best bet," Maple replied, scanning the skies for Howe. "Starlight?" She sat down and motioned to her back. "Want to ride?"
"Sure." Starlight resolutely grinned, picking up the orb and climbing on.
After three soft knocks and a period of waiting, White Chocolate's door slowly opened, the mare sticking her confused head out. Her eyes focused when she saw Starlight and Maple, smiling and apologetic on the doorstep. "Oh!" She blinked in recognition, offering an unsure smile. "You're back! You didn't forget anything, did you? Thank you for knocking softly and not waking the kids..."
"Not quite," Maple said, Starlight perched on her back. "We didn't wake you, did we? This isn't a bad time to be back?"
"Oh... no..." White Chocolate tugged on her bathrobe. "I was in bed, but wide awake. When the foal is feeling restless..."
"...Right." Maple blinked, trying not to stare. "Anyway, we had a favor we wanted to ask you, if you don't mind. Can you take care of this for us?"
Starlight held out the orb. "Keep it somewhere safe, like where you had your pendant thing."
Maple nodded. "It's... important to us. Think of it as proof that we'll be back later, like we promised. Do you mind?"
"What is it?" White Chocolate leaned forward, inspecting it curiously. "It's very pretty..."
"A family heirloom," Starlight said. Maple couldn't help but notice she omitted mention of which family it was an heirloom of.
White Chocolate touched it with a hoof. "So you're saying you'll come back later to collect it... and that's proof you'll be back?"
"Sure!" Maple grinned. "That and you gave us something special, so we thought... you know." Her ears folded. "Anyway, will you? We need to be going, too."
"Of course, Maple." White Chocolate smiled dearly, taking it and holding it to her chest with a hoof. "I'll see you... see you later..."
She bit back a yawn, then let it out regardless, turning from the door and giving them several seconds to indicate their business wasn't done. When no objection surfaced, the door clicked shut... and Maple turned to Starlight and grinned. "Well, that worked!"
"Mhm." Starlight nodded. "So what are we going to do now? I slept in, and am not really tired yet. Do you still want to find a hotel?"
"That's a good question," Maple murmured, pacing back out to the roadway. "Maybe I'm still getting a feel for what I should feel like, but I don't think I'm that tired, either. We could do something else tonight, still."
"Like what?" Starlight's ears folded. "We did what we wanted to. Now we just have to get out."
Kneading gravel beneath her hooves, Maple huffed. "I don't know. I'm just... ugh."
"You're still not feeling good?" Starlight leaned forward in concern.
"No, I feel fine..." Maple stalked back in the direction they had left Howe. "It's my thoughts that are having issues now! We just... we just met..." She exhaled sharply. "Starlight, throughout my life Willow has been there for me and the pony I've most admired. She stood so strong for me these past few years when I needed it most, even when in hindsight she should have had the worst case of survivor's guilt, but kept both thinking of me positively and thinking of herself positively so I could see how it was done, and seeing her like that just now..." She shook her head. "No. Seeing a pony that looked like her like that... I don't understand how I'm feeling, and I don't like it. I'm angry, because it's not right. I'm sad, because I don't see anything that can be done about it. But it feels like I should, because there's something poetic about it, like returning favors or paying them forward. I just..."
Starlight was silent, pressed against Maple's neck.
"It feels good having you back up there, at least." Smiling, Maple turned to wink at Starlight. "That's something that's right. But with her, I don't know what to say or think or do. She's like... Twelve children, Starlight. Twelve. And another on the way... or was this her twelfth? It doesn't matter. I don't... I just can't understand that. She didn't look that old, did she? Maybe... thirty-five? It's like she started and never stopped..."
Maple swallowed, feeling a lump forming in her throat. "Back when we were trying to go to Ironridge the first time, we were just kids... me and Amber especially. We wanted so much to do it, we got our cutie marks preparing. It was like the world told us that was what we were meant to do. And then we couldn't, and... didn't have anything left to do with ourselves. I told you all about that, right?"
"Tell it again, if you need to," Starlight offered.
"Right." Maple hesitated. "Well... we couldn't go because Willow was going to start a family, remember? And so she did. She had Alder, and then she had another... and then she dedicated herself to raising them and giving them a good life. But with White Chocolate, I see her and she never stopped, and it's like... What if she had something she wanted to do with herself, once upon a time? What if she failed? What if she didn't have friends like me and Amber to stay strong for, and instead of starting a new life, she just... got stuck, and kept doing the same thing over and over and having dozens of children?" She folded her ears. "She's where either of us could be without the other..."
"Mmmph." Starlight grumbled in agreement.
"Maybe we should have asked her..." Maple mused. "When we go back, we will. There must be something she wishes she had done differently, or some opportunity she missed or thing we could find to get her life back on track. I bet we can get Sosa to help raise her kids, right?"
"I just wish she had had someone, for whatever it was..." Maple reached the spot where they had left Howe and stopped, still standing. "Like how we had each other in Riverfall. But listening to her now, it's like she barely knows her neighbors, and never goes out to see friends. Do you think she even has any? I bet she's had to face this all alone..."
Starlight shrugged. "Well, she had Faron, didn't she?"
"That's what's bugging me about this!" Maple suddenly snapped. "Faron! He... he... just left her for whatever reason, because he didn't recognize how important friends and family are and thought he just had to leave to Riverfall and nobody who mattered would care, but then he hooked up with Willow who looks just like his old wife and now they're having foals again, and..." Her eyes constricted. "What if he left because they had too many children here, and he got tired of the pressure? What if he and Willow keep...? And then... like how my husband didn't want..."
"Maple..." Starlight whined. "Don't worry about that! It would take years, and we're going back soon! And I'm sure Willow knows how to get what she wants. Maybe it's not like that here, but don't mares always get their way in Riverfall? And Amber's there too, and if anything bad ever happened she'd go to Arambai. Didn't she for you, too?"
"...Right," Maple panted, calming down. "You're right. We will be gong back soon. It's not... not the end of the world. But when we do..." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm going to give Faron a piece of my mind, and he's going to feel it."
"Okay." Starlight shrugged.
"I'm never going to get to sleep like this, though," Maple complained. "I'm just so... wound up! I want to get back there right now, and do something... something..." Her focus faded, and she trailed off, staring far away.
"Maple?" Starlight nudged her.
"I just remembered something," Maple whispered, breathing shortly, a grin forming on her face. "Something he asked us to do. He asked us to do two things, remember? Find White Chocolate and do something else?"
Starlight squinted. "...He did? Really?" She licked her lips. "What was it?"
"I don't remember exactly..." Maple stared up into the sky, thinking. "But it was something about a graveyard at night, and asking us not to go there. That's not the exact wording, but still..." Her eyes slid down to the treeline beyond the hilltops. "Howe said there's a place not far from here where all the old Sosan ships were abandoned and left to dry, that they call a graveyard. I bet that's what he was talking about."
"Maple..." Starlight warned. "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
Maple deflated. "Hold on and hear me out. I know it's probably a place most Sosans consider sacred or important, and I'm not saying we should deface it or try to harm it in any way. What I do want to do is go there... just for the sake of going there, just because he said not to. If it's an important place, ponies are probably at least allowed to pay their respects, right? We'd leave at the first sign of a warning or anything saying we shouldn't be there and be extremely careful, Starlight. But I need something to do..."
"Not that." Starlight shook her head, pointing upward. "That."
"What...?" Maple followed her gaze. "Oh. It does look a little cloudy, still, doesn't it?"
"It looks like it might rain again," Starlight observed. "But all the other stuff you said is important too. I don't like what happened to White Chocolate either, but we should at least wait for Howe so if anything bad happens, we can blame it on him."
"What's that about my glorious presence?" Howe's voice sounded from above, before the pegasus dropped like a boulder, alighting forcefully in the gravel in front of Maple. "I swear I just heard someone say my name. Hmmm..."
"Howe..." Maple grinned slyly, testing the water. "I'm feeling a second wind, and we were thinking of visiting that graveyard you told us about earlier. How close is it, and would you like to come?"
Howe visibly shivered with anticipation. "Are you for real? Making a nightly raid on an eldritch location so steeped in lore it could contain anything from an ancient demon to the slumbering technological manuscripts of a lost civilization? So exciting! Of course, you may count me in on your epic endeavor. Oh, and it's very close. Ten minutes' walk from the edge of this town, tops. Do you wish to embark with all due speed?"
Maple blinked. "That's... a pretty enthusiastic yes. There's not a reason this is a bad idea, is there?"
"Well..." Howe dusted his shoulder. "The locals do speak of it as haunted, though I'm pretty sure I told you about that earlier. And for some, it's even a draw! I've never been to the place myself, though it's on my bucket list. Also, I found a hotel."
"We'll come back to it, then," Maple said, nodding and beginning down the road again.
"As you wiiiiish!" Howe sang, dancing ahead to take the lead.
Maple trotted purposefully down a dim forest road, Starlight on her back and Howe flapping overhead. Obscured by boughs and branches, the darkened sky granted even less light than usual, leaving her muddy hooves to discover fallen twigs and potholes for themselves. Dirty water splashed from the road's poorly-maintained surface, grass having grown and decayed for many years to cover what was once a layer of protective gravel, soaking her legs and spraying her belly fur with droplets.
It hadn't carried carts for a long time, she could tell, evidenced by the creeping foliage on either side that would have been trampled by any wagon. Still, her hooves found something that might have been a path, and it held true, carrying her past the worst of the puddles and closer to Sosa's graveyard.
The road widened, forming a clearing that let in a little stormlight. It filtered down in a broad, blue-gray pillar, illuminating a dark obelisk in the middle of the path. Maple stepped closer, cautious, raising her hooves high to avoid splashing... though there was a minute hill that drained most of the excess water, forming a solid place for ponies to stand.
"It's a monument," she whispered, coming close enough to make out the stone, and see that there were words carved into it. "But I can't quite read what it says..."
Helpfully, and with a whine of complaint, Starlight lit her horn, wincing as it came to life. Teal illumination washed over the scene, revealing a small pile of waterlogged flowers laid at the base of a truncated pillar, the carved words standing out as shadows against the light.
Maple squinted. "It says, 'The Graveyard of Sosa. Economic powerhouse and the heart of Ironridge.' From..." She peered harder, rubbing at the lettering with a hoof. "Something to 978, A.B. Part of this date is worn away from age..."
"It seems to be a place for citizens to offer gifts to the deceased," Howe observed, hovering above the mud. "Odd, though. You would think they'd commemorate the 965 date of the great airship crash..."
"No..." Maple bit her lip, thinking. "That's not it. That was when Sosa first fell, but they still ruled Ironridge. This date would have to be later..." Her eyes widened, then sobered. "It's when the last ship left. The one with Arambai, when they made it official that the Sky District was the new capital of Ironridge. It makes sense, since they only marooned the boats here after that."
Starlight sniffed, staring past the pillar.
"Well..." Maple straightened up. "I don't see anything saying not to keep going. Should we proceed?"
Howe stared straight up at the cloud-laden sky. "The weather certainly bids us proceed!"
"Huh?" Starlight looked up too. "It looks like it's going to start raining again. How does that mean keep going?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Howe grinned. "It's dramatic! Were the clouds to forsake us, it would mean the night's tension was over, and a peaceful slumber awaited us! But this ominous showing is merely a portent that the night has more adventure in store for us. Onwards, loyal comrades!"
"Or it means we'll get rained on," Maple cautioned... "But it wasn't that bad earlier, and we're still close to Gnarlbough. I can handle a little rain."
Starlight shoved her. "Don't get sick for real! Rain is serious. Trust me."
"Right..." Maple bit her lip. "Still. If it starts, we'll run straight back. This was a fairly short walk, so we shouldn't be out for too long."
"It might not actually matter!" Howe called from ahead. "There's a gate right around this bend!"
Maple's ears stiffened in determination, and she began trotting swiftly. "Really..."
Maple came to a stop outside two low pillars flanking the road, another like the obelisk earlier standing in the center. Beyond, the road opened into a wide, muddy clearing, ground flat and partially concrete before a distant drop-off heralded the start of a dry lakebed. Dark shapes sat at unnatural angles further out; the carcasses of dozens or even hundreds of small cargo ships designed expertly to handle the waters of the Yule. In the distance, on the near shore, was a tall, boxy warehouse that might have served as a dry dock in bygone days, one wall extending into the lake in a water entry.
The central pillar had more words, which Starlight reluctantly lit. Maple leaned forward, reading.
This is the resting place of Project Aslan and the Spirit of Sosa, along with all of Sosa's hopes and dreams. Once, they tried to fly.
Even in death, the Spirit of Sosa lives on. Those whose hearts have lost light and meaning may bring their sorrows and petition the dead for a share of that hope. The dead are generous, and can sooth all wounds.
But you who love the light, beware. The darkness is greedy, and the price for looking beyond the veil is to be drawn into infinite shadow. If you have any unfinished business in Ironridge or the world, attend to it before coming here.
One day, the Spirit of Sosa will rise again. The shadows will part, the world will be turned on its head, and Sosa will reclaim its rightful place as the star of Ironridge. You who love the light, take heart and stand strong.
Somewhere, I'll be standing with you.
-Arambai
In silence, Maple stood, jaw dropped, barely remembering not to sit lest she become caked in mud. "Oh my..."
Howe whistled, long and low. "I've heard stories about that character. Sounds like he was a real champion... right up until the end, when he sold everyone out and ran away. You don't suppose these are his last words before leaving?"
Maple had to bite her tongue to stop herself from interjecting in Arambai's defense. Atop her back, Starlight's horn dimmed, and she heard the filly swallow. "Maple? When it talks about coming here if you've lost hope, and not being able to come back..."
"I think you're probably right," Maple answered hollowly. Howe was standing too close to safely talk about it, but if Starlight was speculating that the graveyard was where ponies went to gain access to the ferry... She gulped too, Faron's words starting to make more sense. What if he had wandered his way there, been too sad to heed the warning, and not came to his senses until it was too late? Shinespark wouldn't allow a pony to remain in Ironridge after explaining the ferry, would she?
Starlight stretched forward, whispering in her ear so Howe wouldn't hear. "What do you think they do to ponies who change their minds about wanting to go...?"
Maple grimaced. She didn't want to think about it. Faron had left White Chocolate, fair and square, and that was unforgivable. Whether he regretted it or not didn't change what had happened, and feeling sorry for him... She knew she would, and couldn't bear it.
Shivering, she stared past the gate into the gloomy courtyard. Still, everything was starting to fit together. Of course, anyone who knew about a sensitive secret like the ferry couldn't be allowed to remain in Ironridge, so they would need some way to ensure anyone who was told about it would be ready... or at least couldn't complain about disappearing when they had just violated a warning saying they would disappear. But how many ponies wouldn't take it seriously? How many would be unable to appreciate what they had, so that by the time they left...?
Her stomach clenched. How many ponies had been ferried to Riverfall without actually wanting to go? What if Faron had been one of them? And what would that mean for how she felt about him?
"Let's go, Starlight," Maple ground out, not willing to resign to the inevitability of her thoughts. "Let's go back. When we talk to Shinespark, we'll... we'll..."
"Ladies?" Howe tilted his head. "Is there something all that whispering's about that the Howenator should know?"
"No." Maple gritted her teeth. "There-"
KRA-KOOOM!
Suddenly, lightning pulsed across the sky, and with less than a second of warning, the storm resumed.
With a giant strobe of sheet lightning, the storm ended its hiatus, a wall of water slamming down and flattening Maple's mane and ears. "Arrrgh!" she hissed, barely audible above the noise. "Ugh! This is... way more than I thought would..."
Howe drooped, his mane gelled so heavily that it retained its shape perfectly beneath the downpour. "Eheheh... I guess the cloud cover wasn't just for drama after all, heh? Never fear, though! This is just a sprinkle!"
"Shut up," Maple sneered, staggering beneath the weight of the water, hooves slipping and sliding on the muddy ground. "That's not helping! We need to get back... get somewhere safe..."
"Maple!" Starlight cried, puddles visibly expanding around them. "There was a warehouse in the graveyard! It's probably got a roof! We can hide there until it stops raining enough to make it back to Gnarlbough! The road is too muddy to make it otherwise!"
"What!?" Howe squawked, jaw dropping. "Are you nutso? This pegasus likes thrills and chills, but that warning sounded like there might be something seriously bad in there!"
"As bad as this rain?" Maple struggled to raise an eyebrow, Starlight plastered against the back of her neck. "Because you'll get chilled, all right, standing around out here in this weather. And it won't be very thrilling! I've got a pretty good idea what's in this graveyard, and me and Starlight will be perfectly fine. You can go back to Gnarlbough yourself!"
Howe pouted. "But I am sworn to accompany you until the bitter end!"
"Tough." Maple coughed, the mountain rain's chill already worming its way into her core and reminding her that the strength she had gained from abandoning the crystal orb wasn't nearly as infinite as it had felt. "We're going this way. We'll be fine. Do what you want."
Swooosh! Somehow flying amid the beating rain, Howe landed in front of them, wings spread. "No!"
"No?" Maple furrowed her brow even harder than it already was. "Get out of our way! We are not staying out in this!"
"You saw that sign!" Howe vehemently shook his head. "You are not setting hoof in this graveyard until the Howenator is certain it is safe! As your officially-hired bodyguard, I won't allow it!"
"Starlight?" Maple looked up, only to get a facefull of water. "Can you get him out of our way?"
"Do I have to...?" Starlight croaked, huddled tightly against her. "I've used my horn for light and stuff too much and it hurts... And it's raining... Sorry..."
Maple gave an iron frown. "Howe, get out of my way or I will fight you. This weather is terrible and the graveyard won't hurt us!"
"Why not?" Howe countered, wings somehow flared against the beating rain. "Do you ladies know something about this place you're not telling me? You never mentioned why you wanted to come here, either! What's with that, huh!?"
Maple swallowed, feeling her tail dragging in the mud. "...Yes," she admitted. "We do. Now let us through. We'll be back to Gnarlbough for you when it's dry, or in the morning."
"Then I'm coming with you," Howe stated resolutely, dropping his guard and turning to walk into the graveyard.
"...It's not safe for you."
"Oh yeah?" Howe didn't even give them a second look. "Well, too bad! So long as you possess my orb, with you I stay!"
With that, he vanished into the cascading rain, trudging in the general direction of the warehouse.
Maple wasted no time in following, ears splayed flat by the weight of the weather. She staggered along, the ancient, cracked concrete underhoof granting marginal traction against the rising puddles. The downpour was so thick that she could barely see two pony-lengths in front of her... but pressed on, trusting her memory as to the location of the warehouse that might offer shelter.
Starlight shivered violently against her back, forelegs wrapped tightly around her neck, the filly's contact the only spot of dryness anywhere on her body. Gritting her teeth, Maple pushed onward, silently berating herself for not paying more attention to the road's conditions, or expecting the ferocity an Ironridge storm could bring. The rain was rawer, colder than what fell at Riverfall, as if something primal far up in the mountains was jealous of the valley's heat and wanted it extinguished forever.
Right as she began to expect she had missed the warehouse alltogether and was about to plummet into the dried lakebed, the storm broke. Maple sighed in relief as the static in her ears lessened and the visibility slowly increased; it had only been an opening squall... but the damage was done, and the rain was still coming. Rivulets of water pouring from her coat, she sighted the warehouse's dark silhouette, corrected her course, and continued trudging forward through the rain.
"L-Look," Starlight chattered as they drew close, shifting a hoof limply against Maple's side. "There's a d-dark spot..."
Maple squinted. Low against the ground, where the corrugated walls touched the concrete, a metal, grated staircase to nowhere sagged from the building's side... and beneath it, a triangular shadow stood, like part of the walling had peeled back in an appealing niche.
Appealing to rain-soaked ponies seeking shelter, at least. To anyone else, it would have looked downright sinister, like a place something far more dangerous would already have claimed as its own. But Maple was drenched past the point of reservations, so she set her jaw and marched swiftly over.
It was, indeed, a hole, the staircase overhead providing just enough cover that she could stop to examine it without immediately rushing in. Maple peered forward, her gloom-adjusting eyes making out the beginnings of an eroded tile floor... and then nothing but shadow. "Howe?"
No response.
Maple frowned. "Where is he? He said he was going on ahead..."
"It d-doesn't matter!" Starlight shivered, clinging tightly. "I h-h-hate rain! Get us inside!"
"Okay..." Warily, Maple stepped through.
The interior, she realized upon stumbling into a rotting desk, was some kind of office... likely not a director's, but a lower-level manager's. She kept standing, unwilling to relinquish Starlight's warmth when nothing good to sit or lay on was available, listening to the water running off her fur and striking the stone ground beneath. There was a door, she noticed as her eyes focused further. It sat slightly ajar.
Beyond the door, a sapphire-blue light flicked on.
Maple's breath caught in her throat. Weren't most manalights orange, or yellow, or sometimes teal? The glow illuminated what she could see of the corridor beyond unevenly, sending deep shadows along the corners and partially revealing a trail of water on the ground.
Starlight sneezed, causing Maple to wince. The shimmer of magic registered in her ears, though it was deeper and more buzzing than the shiny, sparkly noise made by most horns. Moving of its own accord, swung by the cold breeze from the crack in the wall, the door creaked open... leaving them standing face to face with a tall, winged suit of golden armor, horn glowing with magic and forehoof resting on Howe's unconscious body.
"My little ponies."
Commander Braen stood perfectly immobile, eyeless lenses watching Maple and Starlight with no emotion. If she was breathing, her armor didn't leave room to show it. Her golden wings rested at her sides, and the shadow cast by her head obscured the triangular motif etched into her flanks.
"Who is this pegasus?" Braen asked, her broad, rocket-fitted sabaton resting on Howe's side. "He isn't a Sosan, nor is he from Riverfall, like you."
"You... know...?" Maple stood as defensively as she could, which was hard when she had Starlight clinging to her back and was losing feeling in her legs.
"We know a lot about you," Braen said. "I'm not your enemy. But I want to know about this pegasus. Please, tell me."
Maple stared.
Braen stared back. "A day ago, when you were in trouble in the Defense Force base, I went myself to rescue you. I had to retreat, but it doesn't matter. I'm not your foe."
"He's..." Maple gulped. "Following us. We don't know much about him."
"Really." Braen's lenses rotated.
Maple nodded. "Really. He says he wants to help us, but has done nothing useful or trustworthy. And I don't know what he could have done, but he was the only one around when Valey left, and she was helping us."
"I don't like Valey."
"Oh..." Maple's ears folded. "But, still-"
"You've told me what I need to know." At last, Braen moved, taking her weight off Howe and lifting him with a single hoof. "He will be sedated and dealt with later."
"So..." Maple shuffled uneasily. "We're very cold, and..."
Braen nodded. "I understand. I summoned Shinespark when this pegasus was detected. We will take care of you."
Smirking wryly, Maple glanced around, giving closer inspection to her surroundings. "With a storm like that, she'll need taking care of herself. It must be at least an hour's walk here from..." She blinked, spotting a glimmer from the floor. "Oh?"
Braen looked down at what she had sighted: Howe's sound stone, pulsing with freshly imbued magic. "That fell out when I subdued him," she said. "It isn't explosive or poisonous, but I can't figure out its function. Do you recognize it?"
"It's ours," Starlight hastily managed. "Maple, get it!"
Apparently sensing no deceit, Braen turned and continued walking, Howe dangling from her back. "All right. Follow me."
"Well... okay..." Discreetly scooping up the sound stone and pocketing it with her cutie mark, Maple forced her iced legs to work, following Braen deeper into the warehouse.
Braen paused halfway down the derelict warehouse's hallway to open an office that was still standing, where she deposited Howe, slumping him across a chair that looked newer than its dusty surroundings. Cautiously, Maple peered in behind her.
"He'll remain unconscious for a while longer," Braen explained, apparently sensing her curiosity. "He was stunned with a poisoned dart. It contains a fast-acting sedative that wears off after three to four hours, then mimics the effects of a hangover. By then, someone will have taken him to an Earth District town and left him to wake up on his own. It's how ponies coming here who are obviously unfit to go to Riverfall are dealt with."
"So this place is where ponies come to find their way there, then," Maple said, frowning. "I thought it might be."
"Shinespark didn't explain it to you earlier?" Braen's metal ears were immobile, though Maple almost expected them to swivel to face her.
"She had to leave," Maple answered, standing in the office doorway with Starlight on her back. "Who are you? You were stealing from the Sosan convoy yesterday morning before dawn, but now are acting like you're in on everything they're doing."
Braen turned around, causing Maple to instinctively step back. "I am Braen, commander of the Spirit of Sosa. Haven't you heard of me?"
Starlight miserably sneezed.
"...Right. You probably have more pressing concerns." Braen pushed past them, resuming her march down the dark hallway, her gold-plated horn the only source of light. "And don't be too suspicious. Unless you want to walk back through that weather, you don't have much choice but to trust me. You came here because Shinespark sent you, after all."
Trying to keep her teeth from chattering, Maple managed, "We came here of our own accord, actually. Can't you do a heat spell, or something? We can talk later! If you really are here to help us..."
Braen lifted a metal hoof, holding it upside-down and igniting the rocket booster attached to it, producing an open flame. "She didn't? Hmm. Here." She held it closer. "This should be warm enough. Isn't it?"
Maple pulled herself alongside the fiery aperture, turning so that Starlight would get the brunt of the heat. The filly shivered, leaning into it, and Maple stepped close enough that she could feel her hairs move as the water evaporated from them.
Eventually, she switched sides, and then Braen turned off the burner. "This way," she motionlessly beckoned. "We have other supplies here you'll want, including food and towels. You can stay as long as you wish; this place is secure."
Maple didn't answer as they climbed a stairway set into the side of the hall. Its slats were thin, metal and perforated for traction, and a brace that held the thing up halfway along looked far newer than the rest of the structure. "Has someone been restoring this building?" she asked, noticing the walls in some places had peeling paint and in others, none at all.
"Enough to make it functional." Braen paused at the landing, pushed open a door, and stepped inside.
It was a conference room, a long wooden table forming the centerpiece. One wall was dominated by a lengthy window, appearing as if the glass had been replaced, or at least cleaned meticulously, overlooking the dark central chamber of the warehouse. The other wall was stacked with crates and boxes, positioned slightly more neatly than abandoned materials but still lopsided enough to suggest they were in long-term storage.
With a hiss of metal sliding against metal, Braen stood... and her golden wings unfurled, revealing themselves to be far more flexible than mere side ornaments. Slowly, moving with delicate precision, the shiny feathers reached forward, acting as tools to open a box and pull something out.
Maple blinked, staring at the burning blue horn on her forehead. "What? You actually have wings? But... you also have magic! And why not use your magic to open the crate? And how did you manage to make armor that doesn't restrict the movement of your wings?"
"...This magic isn't very strong on its own." Braen held up a stack of towels, shifting them to her back. "In fact, it's mostly for show. We're working on improving it, but without a breakthrough it's going to stay this way. Arambai might have told you about it. But for what it needs to do, it's enough."
Wasting no time in seizing the towels, Maple nevertheless frowned, pulling Starlight from her back and rubbing thoroughly at the filly's coat, tail and mane. "What do you mean, not very strong on its own?"
Braen ignored them. "Shinespark will be here shortly. Will you be fine on your own, or is there anything else you need? I'm going to take care of the pegasus."
"As long as the roof doesn't start leaking." Maple shook her head. "We just ate. And... don't be too hard on Howe. He's weird, but there's always a possibility he's on our side."
"Noted." Braen nodded, stepping back and out of the room, nudging the door closed behind her with a hoof.
Maple exhaled long and hard, still rubbing Starlight with a towel. "Well, that was eventful. Maybe we should have stayed in Gnarlbough, huh?"
"M-Maybe..." Starlight's teeth chattered.
"Come here, you." Maple hugged her close, pausing to focus on her own coat for a second and then dropping the towel. "Sorry for not listening earlier when you said you were worried about the rain. I forgot all about your experiences with being wet..."
"Mmmph..." Starlight whimpered, burying her face in Maple's chest. Her fur stood spikey all along her coat, and Maple cautiously began licking it flat.
"I'm sorry," Maple repeated during a break, voice low. "Is there anything I can do?"
"I'm... I'm... Aaaaahhh..." Starlight sneezed massively. "CHOOO! I'm fine." She sat up, rubbing her nose and sniffing. "Maybe. And I don't know."
Maple leaned closer. "If you're fine, or if there's anything I can do?"
"I don't know..." Starlight rubbed her nose again. "I'm tired of this stupid city! I want to... go back to Riverfall, or somewhere else where ponies will leave me alone and not constantly be doing things!"
"Things like chasing us around," Maple agreed. "I want that, too. Remember how in Riverfall, we would wake up together and just sit there until one of us felt like moving, enjoying the mornings? Maybe we didn't do that for long enough to call it a routine, but... that's what I want. Maybe trying to live both of my life's goals at once is too much, huh? All this adventuring and excitement just doesn't leave us enough time to sit back and enjoy what does happen..."
Starlight sniffed.
"Hmmm..." Maple hummed, rocking her. "What do you think about Braen? I wasn't expecting her wings to be real. Her armor must have some really advanced motors to move like that. Unless... There was something weird about her magic, too, like it was artificial. Do you think she might actually be a pegasus?"
"Hrmph." Starlight leaned into Maple, ears folding. "I think I want a nap..."
"You take that, then," Maple murmured, holding her close. "I'll keep watch for... whatever there is to keep watch for. Hopefully there are real beds in this place, because I don't want to sleep on concrete or walk all the way back to Gnarlbough. There are towels, at least. I bet we could make a bed from those..."
Her words fell on deaf ears, Starlight's tiny body already slipping into slumber.
Maple sat in the darkness of the conference room, no light from Braen's horn shining to brighten it. It wasn't pitch-black, though, a soft gray blanket of illumination filtering in from somewhere... The broad window further into the warehouse, she realized. It was light enough that she could see her hooves and the table and make out the boxes stacked against the room wall, but dark enough that Starlight's nap continued, undeterred.
Having nothing to busy herself with, she stared out the window, lost in thought. The warehouse's cavernous interior housed walkways, hanging pipes, and innumerable shadows that could have been independent or all part of one gigantic structure. It was the ceiling that was letting in light, she realized; despite its hopefully-sound construction the walls were slightly brighter near the tops. She couldn't make out rain trailing past, and either way hoped she wouldn't have to deal with the likely-drafty interior. The conference room seemed to have trapped jungle heat from earlier, though even it was slightly below the temperature a drying pony would most appreciate.
Images of Riverfall drifted across her mind, of Willow's serenity and Amber's smiling face, and of Arambai's mysterious ways. She thought of all the times she had been to his house in the past week, seeking his help or advice or for something to do with Starlight, and sighed at the memory of his machines. His teleporter, with which Starlight had once tried to escape, and subsequently been knocked unconscious... How long ago had that even been?
Arambai had been mystified by the malfunction Starlight gave the device, she remembered. They had been back later, and he had wanted to perform further testing. It had produced the same result, providing a power surge before resetting the fatigue on her horn... and Maple had resolved not to tell her, worrying what the filly would do against scientific evidence that she worked differently from everyone else. Arambai had speculated the power was due to her being from Equestria... the Plains of Harmony.
In the end, what did it matter? Starlight hadn't complained about cutie marks for what felt like years... though was more accurately the two days they had been in Ironridge. Was it still something she cared about? Maple looked down at the filly's cuddled form, her wet mane softly rising and falling with her breath, the distinctive teal stripes impossible to make out in the darkness. Of course Starlight cared. She just... had other things to worry about more, didn't she?
Maple sighed, shifting in the chair she had taken up. She certainly had other things to worry about, even if worrying didn't seem to do any good. Howe was out of the picture, it seemed, and once again she and Starlight were in the hooves of a pony they had no choice but to trust... though Braen at least claimed to be a friend of a friend of a friend. Idly, she produced the sound stone in her hooves and turned it over, but it was dull and unpowered. What even had happened to Valey? Was it possible Howe really had done something to take her out of play?
Dryly, she licked her lips... when a blue light shone under the door crack, and a hasty hoof shoved it open. "Braen," a cross voice panted, "are you...?"
It was Shinespark, breathing heavily and covered in mud. "Oh." Slowly, she took in Maple and Starlight sitting in the darkness. "It's you guys." She tried to manage a smile with her small mouth, and half-succeeded. "I got... the 'come here now' alarm, and... was it for you?" Her brow furrowed. "What are you even doing here? I don't remember telling you about this place. I thought you were just going to wait in Grand Acorn."
"It's a long story," Maple murmured from her chair. "Braen was here, but she left to take care of a pegasus who was with us. I think you met him? His name was Howe? And she was supposed to be here, right?"
"Yes, I remember him..." Shinespark largely ignored them, scanning the boxes by the wall.
"Looking for these?" Maple held up her stack of partially-used towels. "There should still be some clean ones..."
"Yes! Thanks." Shinespark eagerly seized them, applying them liberally with telekinesis to her face, mane and legs. "Running here in a rainstorm is the worst. I'd get that road fixed up, if it wouldn't tip ponies off something important was here... ugh..." She blinked, tossing the towels aside. "Why is it so dark in here? Didn't Braen turn the lights on for you, or anything?" Her aura stretched across the room, throwing a switch and causing a clean yellow manalight to snap to life.
"Nnnnngh..." Starlight groaned, rolling over in Maple's grip.
"Because Starlight was sleeping," Maple whispered, holding her close. "Oh well. I guess that won't last for long. Shinespark, do you mind explaining what's going on here? Because we're kind of confused."
"Oh! Sorry..." Shinespark grinned sheepishly. "Should I leave it off? Or keep my voice down, then?"
"I'm awake," Starlight growled.
"Okay! Okay." Shinespark shook, trying to dry her short mane. "In that case, yes, I can explain anything. Last two questions from me first, though. Are we alone, and is there anything else you need to do?"
"I don't think anyone else is here," Maple answered. "And all we need to do is get back home, to Riverfall. Err..." Her ears folded. "Well, we promised someone in Gnarlbough we'd visit again in the morning. So we can't leave tonight, even if this is where the ferry leaves from."
"The ferry?" Shinespark blinked. "Actually, this is just where we figure out if ponies are ready to go. There's no water here to get the boat up with; we use a downstream dock that's out of sight. That's fine, though. So." Throwing down a towel on a chair for safety, she sat down, folding her muddy hooves. "What do you need explained? Everything?"
"Everything would be very welcome." Maple nodded. "First, though, who is Braen? Is she really on your side? And you're on our side, right?"
"One hundred percent." Shinespark's smile was earnest, leaving Maple with no doubt she was telling the truth. "And Braen is definitely on our side. As for who she is... it'll be easier to show you when she gets back. Trust me on this. It's... something you have to see to believe."
"Okay." Maple swallowed, preparing another question... but suddenly, her mind blanked, and instead of whatever sensible thing she was going to say, she opened her mouth and words poured out, raw and unchecked.
"In Gnarlbough," she began. "When I was in Riverfall, my best friend's husband learned that I was coming to Ironridge. The Sosans there never talk about their pasts, but he asked me to go to Gnarlbough, find a certain address and make sure whoever lived there was all right. It was his former wife; his Ironridge one, who looked exactly like my friend and said he had abandoned her one day without explanation or a trace. She gets money from Sosa, so she isn't poor, but she has twelve foals and no friends and is miserable and overwhelmed. Her house is lawless, and her children do whatever they want. She's so desperate, she found and used a piece of moon glass, not because she wanted a talent but because she was lonely. Why?" Maple took a breath, ears folded, eyes large and watering. "Why do you have a system that tries to help so many ponies... but does so by hurting others?"
Shinespark's face fell further and further as she listened to Maple's lament. When she was finally done, she hung her head and said, "What you saw was one family, Maple. How many families do you think there are in Ironridge who have been pushed over the brink since Sosa fell, twenty years ago? I've personally met with hundreds, who either came to me to petition for help... or I found on my own, while wandering the city. I've tried to help everyone, but there are too many to even come close, and so many take what I have to offer and then fall again. Why do we let ponies go to Riverfall? You saw the sign by the entrance, didn't you? The ponies who come here are usually one step away from..." She closed her eyes. "Something worse. You know."
"No, I don't, actually," Maple replied, voice strengthening. "What I do know is what I saw, and it was unacceptable."
"She's talking about suicide," Starlight grumbled, trying to block her eyes with a hoof. "They don't care what happens to them anymore."
"Yes. That." Shinespark nodded. "Maple, reality in Ironridge isn't pretty. Lots of things happen that are unacceptable, because the ponies who could stop them don't and the ones who want to stop them aren't listened to. We can't just fix everything by waving a hoof, and no matter how many ponies you help, there are always more who need it. It wasn't something I liked learning, but... this is my home, and it would be worse to pretend it wasn't the way it is."
Maple glared. "Is that a way of saying you aren't going to do anything?"
"Would you like to do something?" Shinespark countered. "I'll give you whatever you need to do it. You'd be free to, because society doesn't expect anything of you. I have to be everything to everyone..." Her ears folded. "And sometimes, that means I have to focus on the big picture. But we are doing something. Someday soon..."
Silently, Maple watched, listening.
"...You could also go back to Riverfall, without helping whoever you met," Shinespark offered. "At least you'd be better off. Or, you could help them and then go back... but what about the tens of thousands of other ponies in this city who might need help? You could even dedicate your life to this city and public service, and not be enough. It isn't a problem with an easy answer."
"At the very least, I have a promise to keep," Maple sighed. "When I left Riverfall, I wanted to make a positive difference in the world. Maybe I didn't realize how big the world was, and I'm not trying to be a hero or savior. But even one family makes a difference."
Shinespark nodded. "Then I'll do what I can to help you help them. It sounds like you're doing this nearly as much for your sake as theirs."
Maple said nothing.
"Anyways!" Shinespark brightened, changing the subject. "You'll hopefully be pleased to know I found your griffon friend, Gerardo. He was what called me away in Grand Acorn, actually. He's pretty worried about you. I'm offering him a place to stay in Sosa for tonight, and I imagine you'll want to spend the night here, but tomorrow, you should be able to meet up with each other again!"
"Oh, really?" Maple blinked. "Huh. It feels like I haven't seen him in forever..."
"Does he still talk as much as he used to?" Starlight grumbled.
Shinespark flinched. "He... really likes talking," she admitted. "But he's a good griffon. I'm still going to need to head back to finish talking with him, but I'll ask if he wants to stay around and help us, I think. If you feel like your time in Ironridge doesn't need to be done yet, you'd be in good company for as long as you decide to stay."
"We'll see." Maple's gaze drifted. "I want to help White Chocolate, but this city seems to have it out for me and Starlight. Not that I doubt you, but I'm afraid of whatever will happen next..."
"Really?" Shinespark gave a bemused smile. "I'm actually excited for the next few days. You said you wanted to make a difference, right? To do something positive for the world?"
"I did..." Maple hesitated, wary.
"And Starlight?" Shinespark leaned closer, a loose drop of water falling from her mane. "How about you? I've heard you aren't too fond of places that are unfair for no reason... Ever thought about trying to build a better world yourself?"
Starlight sat up, blinking owlishly. "Maybe."
"Huh!" Shinespark beamed. "Well, we've got something interesting to talk about, then. If you don't mind staying up a little longer, I think it would be worth it to do it tonight... though I need to get cleaned off, and I'd like Braen to get back first." Ruefully, she held up a hoof, which was still caked in mud alongside her chest, tail and most of her belly fur. "And don't worry, we won't ask you to commit to anything."
Stretching in her chair, Maple nodded. "I'll hold you to that."
The conference room lights flickered as the door swung open yet again, this time admitting Braen's golden visage to the table. Wet but not muddy, the metal mare stood respectfully, not taking a seat.
"Oh! You're back!" Shinespark looked up from where she was still toweling herself down, trying unsuccessfully to remove the mud from her fur. "Waiting for me to go check out that dam business?"
Maple glowered, covering Starlight's ears. "Really? There are fillies present..."
Shinespark flinched. "No, I...! Dam, as in the Water District..."
Wordlessly, Braen nodded.
"Well." Shinespark gave up on her towel, shaking her spiky mane once again and settling into a protected chair. "I take it we don't need to do any introductions? Everyone knows each other? Because now that we're all here, I'm kind of eager to get started..."
Maple's brow furrowed. "Get started on what, exactly? And I still don't think we know who Braen is."
"She's the commander of the Spirit," Shinespark answered, waving a hoof. "And an ally. But we'll get to that. First off... Starlight."
"Huh?" Starlight sat up, rubbing her eyes until she was fully alert.
Shinespark nodded. "When you were in Riverfall, my dad - Arambai - lent you a book to read, giving a vague overview of his research. Did you read it?"
"A little," Starlight truthfully admitted. "I don't really remember it. It was a while ago."
"It's been a while since I read it, too," Shinespark said, ignoring her mane even as it threatened to get in her eyes. "I don't know how up-to-date he keeps it. But it has a very important chapter regarding the classification of brands. There are two categories almost all brands fall into: active and passive. Passive brands are unconsciously used, always doing whatever they do. A brand that makes you smarter, or stronger, or have an aptitude for a particular kind of work. Active brands you consciously use, and they have specific, observable effects that aren't always on. Maple's, for example. I have an old friend called Elise with a particularly powerful active. Does any of this sound familiar?"
"Maybe." Starlight swallowed.
Shinespark folded her hooves. "Well, that's fine too. Now, as to how brands actually work... he showed you the projects he was working on, I know. The ones that are powered by brands."
Starlight nodded.
"Right. The way those work..." Shinespark looked up, thinking. "There's a... thing in the world, and it's called harmony. We don't understand very much about it, including whether it's a substance or a force, and if it obeys various other scientific laws like conservation. You know... like how if you use a summoning spell, the longer you try to keep it active, the harder it becomes to maintain?"
"And the more it hurts your horn afterward," Starlight grumbled.
Shinespark smiled apologetically. "In your case, that too. We'll see if we can do something about that, though. Anyway... the two things we do know about harmony is where to find it and what it does. It appears inside ponies; every kind of pony, from infant to elder. In ponies with brands, it's always most concentrated there. In ponies without, it's spread evenly throughout their bodies... though since we started trying to learn about this, we have noticed a few exceptions in particularly young foals. But that's not important. What is important is that it's deeply involved in how pony magic works; things we can't even begin to approximate with mana-based technology like unicorn horns and pegasus flight. It's how my dad's machines work. We've been studying it, along with brands, as hard as we could for the past seven years."
"But even with his big machine, it barely did anything to how much Amber weighed," Starlight protested, skeptical. "Aren't you a million years from doing anything with that?"
"...Yes and no." Shinespark fidgeted, turning over in her chair. "We've lowered the impedance on our harmony extractors as much as possible, and are still working on it. But our progress deteriorates with time, and at this point spending an extra ten years would probably yield performance increases of around two percent, or maybe ten if we switched our material to pony bones which shouldn't even be a consideration for obvious reasons. It's like a mana circuit; we don't pull it out so much as let it out... like removing a plug. Empty obsidian can drain it forcibly, but that destroys the obsidian in the process which is completely impractical." Her brow furrowed. "How did you know about obsidian, anyway?"
"Moon glass?" Maple blinked. "Valey told us this afternoon."
"Oh." Shinespark slumped. "Figures. I wish I didn't have to deal with her. Oh well. That saves me the trouble of explaining it myself. Where was I going with this?"
"You were telling us something where you didn't want to tell us what it was about until you were done," Starlight offered.
"...Thanks," Shinespark deadpanned. "I was... right. The limitations in our machines. There are two ways we've found to get around them. The first is to connect a sufficient number of brands in series. Initially, we thought that would never work, since it would lead to a higher harmonic density in the extractor than the ponies connected to it and cause it to simply stop working, but it turns out brands connected like that somehow resonate and increase their own power. Unfortunately, that state is very volatile and tends to either break the machine or explode after a certain amount of time, so it's a dead end anyway. We just can't get anything stable enough to work, and even using obsidian and our considerable funding explosions will eventually attract attention."
"Even using obsidian?" Maple squinted. "What does that have to do with this?"
Shinespark nodded. "Right. It turns out concentrations of harmony aren't actually exclusive to ponies: disembodied brands work just as well. We don't know exactly what the things inside obsidian are, but they're similar enough to real brands to produce identical results by hooking them up instead of real ponies. There were a few issues safely getting them out of their containers to use - it turns out obsidian has disharmonic properties, which are something yak mythology says exists, but we never observed before in practice - and those bind it to things that are excessively harmonic, which is why they stick together. We found a way to partially unbind them and let out the power while keeping the brands in their containers, though, so that's already solved."
Starlight shivered, recalling how violently Arambai's machine had reacted to her... and how White Chocolate's empty moon glass had clung to her, draining her ability to see colors and not wanting to let her go. There couldn't be a relation... could there?
"The other thing we've found," Shinespark said, instantly confirming her fear, "that the machines react to... is single things with naturally high concentrations of harmony."
"You're talking about me, aren't you?" Starlight gulped. "When I was at Arambai's house, and got connected to his machine, it exploded. And then it exploded again."
"Well..." Shinespark closed her eyes. "Eventually. Actually, I was talking about a certain brand."
"Huh?" Starlight squinted in remembrance... and then blinked. "That was in his book! Wasn't it? He said something about finding a single cutie mark that was way more powerful than anything he had ever seen?"
Shinespark whistled. "So you did read it. Good job! Also, cutie mark? That's pretty cute. I like it!"
"Hold on," Maple interrupted, setting Starlight down, pupils small. "I just realized something. A particularly powerful mark..." She looked sideways at Braen, then Shinespark. "You make it sound like you started whatever research you're doing fairly abruptly. It wasn't whenever you found this mark, was it?"
Shinespark smirked. "It was, and you might be onto something. Go on."
"It's her cutie mark, isn't it?" Maple stood, pointing at Braen. "That's how her magic works, and why it isn't normal. She's not a unicorn, she's... using the wrong species magic..."
"Go on..." Shinespark prodded.
"Do something with magic," Maple commanded, still pointing.
Braen's horn lit sapphire blue. Starlight squinted. Honestly, she had no idea what Maple suspected... but came to the sudden realization that the shade of Braen's aura was an identical match to that of Shinespark's eyes.
"And... do something with your wings," Maple continued.
Shiny, gold-plated wings rose, displaying expertly-crafted feathers, and slowly but deliberately swished, showing off their range of movement. It wasn't perfect, and Starlight could see the joints where the plates interlocked, but if someone had told her there were real wings inside, she wouldn't instantly blow them off.
"You're... no..." Maple paled, taking a step back.
"Yes?" Shinespark nodded eagerly.
"Forty years ago," Maple whispered. "There was a civil war in Yakyakistan. Everyone knows the stories, even in Riverfall. It was so fierce, it threatened to spill out to the entire continent... but was ended by a pegasus hero named Blazing Rain, who fought for peace and had magical powers." She turned to Shinespark, eyes unfocused. "That's who Braen is named after. You told me yourself, on the cart ride into Ironridge. Didn't you?"
Shinespark shrugged. "I... might have. It's certainly true. Ironridge is right next to Yakyakistan. Foals are raised on stories about her. I know I was."
"And then she disappeared," Maple continued, voice soft and gaze distant. "Nobody ever knew what happened to her, after the war, but they always believed she was still out there, watching over Yakyakistan and the towns and cities near it. But..."
Starlight felt her own eyes widen, and she stared at Braen's metal form again. Maple couldn't be going where she thought she was... could she?
"It's been forty years..." Maple stepped closer to the golden monolith. "She'd have to be in her sixties, at least, by now. But ponies live to be that old all the time..." Her eyes focused. "You're not just named after her. You are her. Even after all this time, when Sosa fell from power and Ironridge was taken over by the economic council and yak influence... You thought the yaks were trying to re-form an empire. You came back to help. That cutie mark of power Shinespark was talking about is yours, isn't it... Blazing Rain?"
Shinespark stretched in her chair, showing off her bare, orange flank. "Wow." She blinked. "That would actually be really cool, and would make me feel like the world's biggest fraud. But actually, the brand I was talking about was my own."
Starlight pointed a hoof, indicating Shinespark's obviously-unmarked flank. "You don't have a cutie mark. What do you mean, yours?"
"And..." Maple shook her head. "What does that have to do with Braen?"
"That," Shinespark began, "is why I said it would be easier just to show you..."
There was a pause in the room, and Starlight could have sworn Shinespark's eyes flashed, as if she was willing something to happen with so much force she didn't even have to use her horn. The old wood table stretched out between them suddenly seemed an infinite divide... and then, with a clatter and hiss of metal, Braen's face began to move, and her helmet separated, retracting and folding in on itself until it was completely drawn away.
"It's..." Maple frowned, confusion rising in her tone. "Empty?"
Starlight stared at the neckline of Braen's armor. It was an open hole, reaching down into the torso. Against the inside of the back, on what little she could see from the room's illumination, there were strips of padding designed to keep it comfortable on a wearer... but the golden armor stood there, uninhabited for all to see.
It flexed its wings, just because it could.
"Commander Braen is an automaton," Shinespark announced, standing proudly within a winglength of the empty suit. "She's nothing more or less than a collection of metal, motors and magic of a caliber we've only just begun to understand, made by myself and Arambai for the purpose of helping to save Ironridge. She's fully independent and can move, act, fight, and even make decisions on her own, to an extent..." She stepped closer, coat hairs brushing against the shiny metal, and smiled upward appreciatively. "Though she also makes a very effective suit of power armor, when I need to use her."
Braen stood respectfully at attention, immobile save for a slight motion in her wings.
Maple and Starlight both continued to stare, the former working her jaw. "How...?" Maple tried to formulate a question. "How?"
"It's a long story, but..." Shinespark sighed. "It's also important, so here I go. Seven years ago, I earned a brand that was special. It was while Arambai was still in Ironridge. Back then, I lived under his protection due to a scandal thirteen or fourteen years before, around the time I was born. He kept me out of the public eye, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was Mobius' heir. Nopony was watching me, and few knew I was even there, let alone of important blood. It had the side effect of making it possible to hide my brand."
She started to pace, the suit of armor standing impassively by. "It was the brand of a hero. We didn't have any doubt that it was in response to all the troubles befalling Ironridge, or that it meant it was my destiny to save the city and restore things to how they should have been. But I was still a filly. Even Blazing Rain, if the legends are to be believed, fought a long, exhausting battle with a band of true comrades to save Yakyakistan. It was obvious that no matter how powerful or significant my brand, I couldn't fight Yakyakistan by myself."
Starlight and Maple sat, watching, as Shinespark talked to nowhere in particular, circling the armor. "That's why I started wearing armor, and adopted an alias. I called myself Braen, after the old hero, and went out to do what I could to help ponies. At first, it wasn't much. I found a family who needed medicine here, stopped a robbery there... and eventually I started to become known. At the same time, we began studying my brand, trying to learn its secrets. Due to its nature, we knew there was more to it than any ordinary talent, and thought we could find a way to harness its power. Eventually, we discovered a difficult procedure that was able to extract it from my body, sealing it inside an empty piece of obsidian. That allowed me to go out in public without a disguise."
"Who's 'we?'" Maple interrupted to ask.
"Myself and Arambai, and to a lesser extent my mother, as well." Shinespark nodded. "I introduced myself to the world as Shinespark, Mobius' lost daughter. Years before, there was another pony like me, named Elise, who did the same thing. I studied what she had done extensively, mostly by taking notes from Arambai, and followed in her hoofsteps while taking care to avoid her mistakes. Most of it was luck, though. I was skilled with organization and numbers, as well as with individual ponies, and had a strong sense of duty and what was right... all traits that are effective in a leader. I also had a story. I wasn't completely off the record, before Arambai took me in... My mother, Matryona, helped with that. Some ponies remembered me as the foal who was born aboard an airship. And, unlike Elise, the Sosa I appeared to wasn't fresh off a calamity and in the early stages of blame: they had lived out their denial, were already exhausted and disillusioned, and needed somepony to look up to. I was just a filly, with nothing but potential to my name and determination in my eyes, and to them, that was enough."
The light from the room's single lamp starkly illuminated the mud on her coat, further drying and beginning to crack. She brushed some off with a hoof, and continued. "Some ponies noticed that I had appeared around the same time as Braen, and began to connect that. We stopped and discussed whether that was a connection we wanted them to make. One idea was to make my name as powerful as possible by letting everyone know who I was... but as the skyport was constructed and the yaks' influence continued to grow, we realized that picking a battle too early would be a guaranteed loss. So, we had a close friend who was similar in size to me wear Braen's armor for a time, and make some appearances while I was easily provable to be elsewhere. That took away most of the suspicion. You've probably heard of him; his name is Dior."
"He's the chancellor, isn't he...?" Maple breathed.
"Yes, he is. He's in on this too, and is a true ally and friend." Shinespark paused, staring off into the distance and remembering. "Our research on the obsidian containing my brand continued. We obtained other samples to study as well, and eventually made a breakthrough. It was a collar, fitted with obsidian, that partially extracts the brand within, keeping it from fully entering the wearer but allowing them to use its power. There were restrictions making it practically useless: ponies' bodies inherently try to reject brands that aren't attuned to them. But this was my brand, so it wasn't an issue. Essentially, it allowed me to use my brand without actually having it on my flank."
Starlight blinked. "If they reject them, then how come this moon glass can possess ponies?"
"It's a case of repulsion overcome by greater attraction, we think," Shinespark said, nodding. "To make this work, we had to have that completely not present. It means our device won't work for safely and reversibly using the power of any old obsidian brand on yourself: your own desires have to be in tune with the brand strongly enough that it might as well be yours. If we ever found a way to bypass that and force any pony to accept any brand..." She gritted her teeth. "Well, we think that's why obsidian brands have their documented effect of changing the personalities of ponies who absorb them. But we're not looking for that. We don't think that's a power ponykind were meant to have."
She put a muddy hoof to Braen's armor, polishing it lightly... though it didn't do much good. "We built the device containing my brand into my armor, so that I could still use my power when I was wearing it. That led to the idea to make other... enhancements to the armor. We added a mana core that could be used to power extra weapons, and motorized the important joints so they could assist in motion. I wasn't weak, but armor is heavy, and I wanted a full range of mobility. That lead to another discovery."
Slowly, Braen's armor split down the middle, revealing a seam that could open wider, allowing a pony to climb inside. The thick metal layer proved to be more than just armor and padding; inside was a complex array of motors and technology that fit together like a thick carpet.
"My brand," Shinespark narrated, drawing a hoof down the side and allowing the armor to re-seal itself, "was capable of recharging the mana core. We had never before understood the relationship between a pony's personal magic and their species magic, but this was a link: harmony is related to the production of mana from ambient heat in the air. I don't know how much you know about scientific principles like entropy, but that's supposed to be impossible. In a few short months, I had gone from a filly with a brand that defied explanation to being in possession of something that appeared to be a source of infinite power. That changed everything."
Shinespark sat back down, once again meeting Maple and Starlight's eyes. "A night of planning and deep discussions later, we had something more than a vague hope: a concrete idea on how to save Ironridge. We acted quickly, taking stock of everything we had and everything we needed. We knew it would take time... a long time. Several years, or more. It would be pointless to fight the yaks or try to change the city directly until then, so we moved to stabilize things as much as possible. Arambai sacrificed his post as a factory chief and effectively turned control of the city over to Skyfreeze... not that they didn't already have it. He retreated to Riverfall and built a laboratory there, so he could continue his experiments in peace. Formally, we retired Sosa's fleet forever, but it had the intended side effect of making this place hallowed ground... and the perfect symbolic area to hide and work on the city's salvation. In doing so, we created fallbacks to help the most desperate and depressed Sosans escape somewhere better, and restricted the supply of obsidian flowing into Ironridge, to protect our ponies as we learned more about how it worked."
With a flash of sapphire telekinesis, Shinespark vanished... and reappeared inside Braen's helmetless armor, the rim of its neck fitting perfectly around her. "Meanwhile, I took up residence at Mobius' factory and made him proud of me. It wasn't difficult. Age wasn't the kindest to him, and neither was the past decade. I did what I could for the ponies of Sosa, finding new jobs for them and giving them useful things to do with their lives. All that became a lot easier with the weapons contract, which Dior helped us secure."
"And how does that tie into this?" Maple asked, pointing a hoof. "Having a suit of armor that... moves on its own?"
"Braen was capable of motion for a long time," Shinespark said, flexing her limbs within the armor. "Ever since we mechanized her to aid in my movement. As I grew, the armor had several revisions to fit my body, and we improved it each time, making the motors smoother and more accurate. The wings are a recent feature I'm especially proud of. The real breakthrough, however, came when we were experimenting with remote control."
She stepped forward, hoofsteps heavier now that there was a real pony in the armor. "We knew my brand was still connected to me, on some unfathomably deep level, and wanted to find a way to make use of that link. Imagine, for example, making Braen fire a laser with a thought command. And there was partial success. We were able to make her do what I wanted... but not just that. She did other things, too. We would hook my brand up to a single motor, and it would sometimes spin even while I was sleeping. Then, one day, we tried connecting sensory inputs to the armor... and something incredible happened."
"It turns out," something said, switching to the magically-distorted voice of Braen's armor, "that brands are self-aware." Shinespark hadn't moved her mouth.
"What?" Maple blinked.
Talking normally again, Shinespark grinned. "It's absolutely fascinating. When magically connected to something that can constitute a body, a brand can take it and become a fully-functioning life form. Since this was my brand, it was me... and yet not. Braen identically shared my will, as well as all my hopes and desires, from largest to smallest. If I wanted to walk across a room? She would too. It was as if I had cloned myself. Using obsidian on oneself effectively creates one pony with two souls, but I had made myself two ponies with one... or, at least, a pony and an automaton. What's more, Braen possesses a separate set of inhibitions and memories from mine, allowing her to act independently toward the same goal. I can work from Sosa while she leads the Spirit, both working toward the same idea of carrying on hope in Ironridge while our ultimate plan moves further."
Starlight swallowed, ears flat. "You... made another pony."
"You could think of it that way." Shinespark nodded. "Does that make you uncomfortable?"
"A little," Starlight understated. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but just like with cutie marks, something simply felt wrong.
"Look at it like this," Shinespark hummed, bending down. "What we've had to do... and think about... is exactly what a pony is. For all our research, we barely know anything about brands, especially what they are. They involve hope, dreams and desires... and maybe something more. But what it's looking like is that what's in here..." She tapped her metal flanks. "Is more important to who we are as ponies than these fuzzy, adorable bodies that everyone sees. And with that in mind, the only thing we created is another body... or something a brand thinks can be used as one, just like how mothers can have foals. The brand inside, we just borrowed... It's been me all along."
"So..." Starlight frowned. "If your cutie mark is you, and yours is in there... then what are you?" She pointed straight at Shinespark. "You still sound like a pony."
"That's..." Shinespark bit her lip. "Not something we know. We've been working on this in secret for seven years, two ponies with our only method of communication as nightly letters and transmissions. There's so much more out there to learn and understand and do, and we just can't. Not when our first priority is and always has been finding a way to save our city. I even have engineers with high security clearances unknowingly working on projects relating to this one, but it's never enough... but our brands are what make us us. There's no way around it."
Starlight's ears pressed down harder. "Then what about ponies who don't have cutie marks?"
Shinespark sighed and looked away. "We... don't know that either. There's so much we don't know, and I wish we could because I want to know... but Starlight, everything we've learned... it's to save our home. Some day soon, when Ironridge is healed, we can keep digging and try to unlock the secrets of life. Some day..."
"So what does your cutie mark actually do?" Maple prodded. "You keep saying it's special, but why? What is it?"
"Heh... You want to see? It isn't every day a pony gets a brand for being a legendary hero." Shinespark grinned, taking a step back in her armor. "This isn't a thing I show ponies. Even fewer know about it than ponies who know the truth about Braen... There are several who know we're studying harmony and brands, but think mine is either ordinary or doesn't even exist. So, not that everything else I've said here isn't the most classified material in Ironridge... but you can keep this a secret?"
Maple and Starlight nodded.
With a flash of light, Shinespark jumped into the air, Braen's rocket boosters igniting and blazing against the metal floor, leaving her hovering a safe distance from the table. Maple and Starlight watched intently, eyes fixed on the fiery display.
For countless milliseconds, Shinespark hung there, the rocket flames roaring in everyone's ears... and suddenly, the room was silent, save for the faint tinkle of magic.
Shinespark didn't fall.
Starlight's jaw dropped, watching the armored unicorn hanging in midair as if there were an invisible rope around her barrel, horn gleaming blue... and then Braen spread her wings, flapped, and moved.
Slowly, Shinespark and Braen glided around the ceiling of the room, winging lazily in circles over Starlight's head. The filly nearly fell out of her seat trying to watch them, neck craned and completely ignorant of balance.
"You can..." Maple began breathlessly.
"Blazing Rain was a pegasus who could use magic," Shinespark said, flapping by. "She's history. Legendary, inspirational history, sure, and there's probably truth to it, but nobody has any proof, or is sure. More importantly, she definitely isn't in Ironridge, active and relevant in their lives."
Braen's wings snapped shut, and Shinespark kept flying, flipping over just for show. "But me? I'm a unicorn who can fly, and I'm right here, right now. Blazing Rain is a myth, but I'm a living legend."
She glided closer to Maple, hovering to a stop within arms' reach, still airborne. "Well?" She beamed. "What do you think?"
"With alternate species magic..." Starlight tried to start, still transfixed by the floating mare. "All the stuff Arambai is working on. Making ponies lighter by using their cutie marks for pegasus magic. This is how, isn't it?"
"It's where he got the idea," Shinespark said, turning effortlessly in the air. "It's not identical, but most of the knowledge for building the earliest prototypes was gained from my brand, even while it was still on me. That's how Braen's horn works - there's room for mine to fit inside, but hers is connected to a very compact version of his telekinesis machine that runs off my brand. We weren't able to fit much in, unfortunately. The limiting factor here is size, not the harmonic potential of my brand. It'll get better as we refine the technology, but on her own, Braen's magic is only good for light shows and maybe producing a light breeze."
Starlight and Maple said nothing.
"Oh, and the rocket boosters..." Shinespark fidgeted with a forelock. "Those are there so Braen can fly when I'm not wearing her, and so that I can cover up real flight when I am and make it look like this. Braen's mana core recharges over time, but things like these still run it down, and they're not even strong enough to lift a full-grown mare as well as the armor."
"You can fly," Maple murmured, as if she hadn't heard anything Shinespark had just said. "I can't believe it. It's so..." She swallowed. "What if you could make it so every pony could do this? To make it so any pony who wanted could see what a pegasus sees..."
Shinespark shrugged. "Well, Arambai's actually working on that, but like I was saying, he's not making too much progress. It's a side project, pretty much. But for now... Starlight? Maple?" She looked up, face lifting hopefully. "As great as Braen is, she's only a side project we're making in order to understand what we're working with. Would you like to see what we've really been building these seven long years to save Ironridge, with Arambai and his research and me and my resources?"
"...Sure," Maple said, standing up. "Show us this... thing you've been working on."
A heavy steel door slid aside on recently-oiled rails before Shinespark's cloud of telekinesis, forming a sharp contrast of retrofitted technology against the ancient bricks and peeling paint that made up the rest of the building. Cold air blew against Starlight's face as it rolled open, a draft entering through some unseen orifice that didn't also permit light.
She stepped forward in Shinespark's wake, the armored unicorn's hornlight reflecting cleanly off puddles on the concrete, appearing as a blue sphere against the cavernous darkness. The warehouse's central chamber stretched endlessly before and above her, faint gray light making its way in through cracks that might have been grimy windows in and near the ceiling and not extending to the floor. They revealed the curved silhouette of something massive high above her, and she walked with her head tilted skyward, trying to make it out.
"Careful!" A metal limb shot out, halting her in her path, and she realized Shinespark had veered to the left. "This used to be a dry dock," Shinespark explained. "There's a pit in the center of the room where ships once went. If you fall in, I can catch you before you hit the ground, but it won't be pleasant. Watch your hooves, and stick to the left."
Rattled, Starlight stared at the ground, falling firmly into step behind Maple and Shinespark. She tried again to make out what was around her, but it was like the room's darkness didn't want to be parted by her guide's horn... or Shinespark wasn't even trying.
"Could you turn your horn up a little?" Maple asked, apparently mirroring her thoughts. "I can barely see in here, and if there are hazards we need to be avoiding..."
"Just a second," Shinespark replied, taking a smooth right turn. "I just... want to get us in the best angle to see this before I make it obvious."
Starlight coughed. "Sure! I'm not tired! Just make us wait even longer, because I'm not cold and I don't have a headache and it wouldn't at all be fine to just tell us what it is! Come on..."
Ahead, she saw Shinespark's ears fold, but the mare kept walking... for what could generously be called ten seconds. "Here's good," she decided, coming to a halt. Her horn pulsed slightly brighter, and from the distance came the sound of a switch being thrown to telekinesis. High up along the walls, in the four corners of the room, powerful floodlights ignited, bathing everything in harsh white light.
The lamp beams shone across the cracked, buckled floor, hiding the puddles with their glare and revealing every fault and defect left in the building from age. Wall support beams, made of thousands of strips of metal bolted together in reinforced patterns, stood at minuscule angles, dented and caked in rust. Crates of material and abandoned tools sat in covered areas around the edges of the room, and several more doors and exits were visible, scattered around the perimeter and broader than they were tall.
The hole Shinespark described was readily apparent, a sheer vertical drop as if someone had carved a rectangle out of the concrete floor with a laser-guided knife. It dropped into a deep, metal-lined trench, the walls stained with rust in a clear indication of where the waterline used to sit. At the bottom, a muddy once-riverbed held half an inch of water, hammers and other supplies still poking above the surface. The ship bay was even complete with a sizable wooden boat hull, held in place by sturdy-looking supports with a cabin and railing visible above, though it was missing obvious features Starlight associated with big boats in Equestria like a mast, sails or rigging.
She blinked again at the boat. If it had been left there when the water drained, why did it have supports? And why was there a lowered boarding ramp on one side?
"Here she is," Shinespark breathed proudly. "This is what we've been working on. Do you like her?"
"A boat?" Maple's brow furrowed. "But there's no water! And-"
"It's an airship," Starlight realized, eyes widening. "That's why you cared so much about being able to put pegasus flight magic in a machine!"
Maple frowned, expression split. "But it looks nothing like the airships from the Sky District! It looks like a frigate, or a sea vessel from old picture books..."
"I don't know if you ever learned this, or remember," Shinespark said, floating up next to the wooden hull and tapping it with a hoof, "but the original specification of Project Aslan was to make a ship that could sail the sky and the sea."
Maple sat down, eyes wide. "Project Aslan? But... that was cancelled twenty years ago! It was..." She paused, letting out a slow breath. "You never stopped working on it, did you? You let Mobius think you had, but you hadn't. This is it. You're making another airship..."
"Not quite 'never stopped.'" Shinespark landed and shook her head. "When the project was first suspended after the Spirit crashed, its state was in limbo for most of a year. Eventually, after Arambai conceded to Mobius to try to bring Sosa back together, Mobius wanted to permanently shut it down... and Arambai publicly agreed with him. But he protected copies of all the engineering and design documents related to it, and hid them away. For the next ten years before airships became a world reality, he had his engineers work on them under his own resources, though those weren't vast and he neither made nor expected to make much progress. It was more a statement of defiance than anything. Eventually, the papers completely lost their value as other nations and inventors copied or rediscovered many of the innovations that made Project Aslan special."
"But you restarted seven years ago," Starlight said, standing by Maple's side.
"Ten years ago," Shinespark corrected. "There was a three-year period in Ironridge's history when it was obvious commercial air travel was becoming a reality, but before Sosa officially surrendered, where Mobius had been proven wrong about what would happen and Sosa willingly gave Arambai complete control of the district. He knew Sosa's situation was hopeless, but decided the impossible chance of reviving this project and making up those ten lost years would be better than completely giving up. There wasn't any chance of success, but it would at least give hope to the ponies working on it. The main issue was that simply making a quality airship wouldn't be enough with the present state of the world's technology - we could try to fix the issues with the original design, but it had been outpaced, and was no longer revolutionary. Nobody had copied our idea of a sea-sky hybrid, but that was it. We needed something that would do to air travel as air travel had done to water travel... and he didn't even know what that would be. But still, he tried."
She began pacing towards the boarding ramp, beckoning for Maple and Starlight to follow. "Three years in, he had nothing. Studying obsidian hadn't even crossed his mind. I knew about the project, but wasn't involved with it. But he had been making progress on the parts he already knew about: how to make a seaworthy ship. Doing something special with the air was a dream, but he put his time toward forging the best hull Sosa had ever built..."
Her hoof glided past the carefully-fitted wooden construction. "The outer wooden shell, in addition to physical and structural sealants and protections, is enchanted with the same mechanism used for protecting the skyport's roof: as long as it receives power, it can't burn, can't freeze, self-repairs cracks so long as all the pieces are present, and resists deformation from both point strikes and distributed force like wind and currents. Beneath that are multiple layers of a new alloy Mobius had been prototyping for ships over the past decade, but never had the chance to deploy."
"And then you got your cutie mark," Starlight filled in, predicting. "And that's the way you found to make the new ship special. So Arambai left because he thought it would really work, and you started making this for real."
"Pretty much!" Shinespark beamed down at her. "When that happened, we essentially had the hull complete... and that's all we needed the conventional Sosan equipment for. The rest, we could build in secret. So we towed it to this warehouse when we were moving all the other ships here to beach, and nobody noticed anything about it. Then he left, and now thanks to his research... It hasn't quite been a one-mare project, since I've had most of my ponies unknowingly working on components to benefit it, and some of the most trustworthy are even in on the goal. But this is what we're making. What will make the new Project Aslan better than every other airship anyone could make is that it's powered by harmony, instead of mana... giving it a theoretically infinite flight range. This is a ship that could cross the mountains and reach the Plains of Harmony."
"And how close is it to being done?" Maple asked, stopping at the base of the boarding ramp.
"Well..." Shinespark bit her lip. "We're always making adjustments and fine-tuning, as well as making her prettier... but she's essentially done. The only two things we need are a name and a power source. The former, we're waiting on the maiden voyage for, and the latter... has been problematic. My brand is more than two orders of magnitude too weak. We've been researching, but unless we can find a way to stabilize using multiple brands in series, we need something far stronger..."
Starlight's eyes widened. "You're talking about me, aren't you? Because I'm from Equestria? That's why you're so interested in me and keeping us safe!"
"From the Plains of Harmony?" Shinespark nodded. "I didn't want to make it sound creepy, but... yes. You produced some incredibly interesting test results in Arambai's lab in Riverfall, enough to suggest everything we know about how brands and more importantly ponies work is different there than it is here. I'm not talking about hooking you up like a battery to make this ship go, or anything. But if you'll let us, it would mean the world to us if we could study you to see what you have to teach about the workings of harmony." She winked. "And as a bonus, there's a very good chance we'd learn how to fix your horn."
"Can I..." Starlight swallowed. "Think about it?"
"Of course." Shinespark bowed as low as she could. "I know you have a lot of reasons not to trust Ironridge right now, and I'm sorry about that. You're special, Starlight, and I don't think I can emphasize hard enough that we'd make sure you knew everything that was going on and only did what you let us."
Starlight gritted her teeth, suppressing an old itch at being called special.
"In the meantime...!" Shinespark brightened. "Would you like a tour of the ship? We've got a ton of stuff here... including some very nice beds, if you're looking for a place to spend the night that doesn't involve concrete or that storm outside."
"Now that sounds like something I'd appreciate," Maple announced, perking up and stepping onto the boarding ramp.
Maple and Starlight stepped off the ramp and onto the ship's deck, Starlight riding on her adoptive mother's back once again. The open space was long, flat and rectangular, with walls at both ends near the prow and stern, unobstructed by masts or giant dirigibles. An ornate wooden railing came up to an average pony's chest on either side, preventing passengers from plummeting or being blown off, and to the front there were two doors she could make out heading under the forecastle.
Shinespark nodded at the doors. "The right one goes to the bridge, but we can look at that tomorrow."
Instead, she pushed open the left, revealing a staircase sloping forward into darkness. At a flicker from her horn, manalights built into the interior triggered, glowing with warm orange light and highlighting places along the walls where a carpenter might have spent days fashioning engravings into the trim. A short descent left them standing on a generously-sized landing, with a ladder against the forward wall and a door inset to the right.
"To the bridge, for if it's raining or you don't want to go outside," Shinespark said, pointing to the ladder. "Engine room..." She pointed right. "And back that way, down the stairs is the main hall, kitchen, storage, cargo bay, and navigation room, and on this level is the reading room and cabins." Her hoof pointed back the way they had come, where there were both another staircase and a level path.
"I know where I want to go..." Maple yawned, eagerly slumping along the bridge between the two staircases.
"...Sure you do." Shinespark smiled, standing aside and letting her lead. "The biggest cabin is mine, but you can have any of the others. I mean..." She dug in an ear with a metal hoof. "Unless you really want to sleep in my bed, or something..."
Maple smiled wearily back. "I think we'll be fine."
"What do you think, though?" Shinespark asked, lovingly touching the wood paneling as they entered a room lined with bookshelves on the forward and aft walls, circular windows letting in sterile beams from the floodlights outside. Frowning at them, her horn sparked again, and the outside of the ship went dark. "This is the ship that's going to save Sosa. It's where all of our faith ultimately rests... Do you think it looks the part?"
"You might be asking the wrong pony," Maple admitted. "Before yesterday, I'd never seen even a normal airship, and the last time I saw a regular boat was years before that. But..." She yawned again. "It does look very pretty..."
"I filled this library myself." Shinespark proudly paced past several rows of bookshelves on the starboard side, the other taken up by three fluffy reading chairs and a pair of short tables. "It has almost everything you could ask for, and sometimes more. There's an entire section dedicated to every bit of shipbuilding knowledge Sosa ever gained, along with other arcane arts and sciences, and even some personal research journals from myself and Arambai. Does this look familiar?"
She held up a book in her aura, floating it over for Starlight to see. The filly squinted. "That's the book Arambai asked me to read."
"...An older version," Shinespark admitted. "At least, I hope. But yeah. We have fiction, too, though, if that's more your style! And history. Here's a complete collection of everything ever discovered written by Sosa, the explorer who found Ironridge hundreds of years ago. His style is pretty long-winded, but I find him quite entertaining. If you haven't had a chance to read since coming to Ironridge, you should try it!"
Starlight grimaced and stuck her tongue out. That was a guaranteed pass.
"Thanks, but..." Maple held a hoof to her mouth. "I don't think we're really in a state to appreciate classic literature right now, especially if we need to be doing things tomorrow."
"What are we doing tomorrow?" Starlight frowned. "Can't we just stay here and sleep? Nobody's chasing us for once!"
"We promised White Chocolate we'd be back, remember?" Maple smiled sadly. "It's only a short way, though, if it stops raining. We can come right back here afterward. If this is a safe place, I'd at least like to recover that thing we left and bring it here..."
Shinespark's ears perked, questioning.
"...It's nothing." Maple smiled. "Just something we left with a friend because it was too heavy."
"Okay." Shinespark shrugged, and made to turn away... but didn't. "By the way. I got interrupted to come here in the middle of a conversation with your friend Gerardo, and he had some... interesting things to say. I'm going to invite him to join us, too, and if he agrees I'll bring him here in the morning so we can get you all up to speed at once on everything else that's going on. Long story short, he has some stuff to tell me that might make tomorrow a little bit less peaceful and relaxing than it could be, once you leave areas we have direct control over... and by that I mean this warehouse."
Starlight huffed. "We're going to have to mess with Ironridge again, aren't we."
"If you leave..." Shinespark's ears slowly rotated. "Is that a problem? I can get someone I trust to escort you, if it helps."
With a thud of small hooves against polished wood, Starlight hit the floor. "Can I see the engine room?" she asked. "Like, right now?"
"Sure." Baffled but willing, Shinespark turned back down the corridor to the stairs, Starlight in hot pursuit. Maple trotted uncertainly behind.
A well-oiled door soundlessly opened, letting Starlight look up into the starboard side of the ship. It was smaller than she had expected, only stretching back as far as the reading room. Starlight was no nautical expert, but putting a heavy engine far at the side of a boat didn't take training to identify as a bad idea... and the sparse amount of material inside revealed why such a design choice had been possible.
Instead of any magical generators or hunks of iron, the engine room's floor was spotless... but the ceiling was festooned with a twisting mesh of thick metal rails, interweaving in a pattern that made her eyes hurt to follow and was clearly a counterpart of the machine in Arambai's basement in Riverfall. Near the forwardmost point of the room, against the center wall, several heavy metal consoles stood, including a stack-like machine and several panels of dials. The starboard wall, meanwhile, held a pair of posts with wired helmets placed atop, ostensibly used for tapping a pony's cutie mark.
"Can I wear one of those?" she asked, pointing a lilac hoof at the helmets.
"Uhh... why?" Shinespark's eyebrows furrowed. "My letters from Dad said you already tried that, and it didn't go well. I'm thrilled if you want to get started figuring stuff out, but there are more scientific-"
"Not that," Starlight interrupted, walking closer to the rump helmets. "Both times I used them in Riverfall, it knocked me out, and when I woke up my horn was feeling better. Right now, I need to sleep anyway, and my horn hurts because I've been using it all day. If we're going out tomorrow and it might not be safe, I want to be able to fight, so I need my horn fixed!"
Shinespark bit her lip. "That... might actually be a good idea. But Dad did say to hold off on anything big until we could use proper testing equipment, and to start small..."
At that moment, Maple caught up, standing in the door and panting lightly. "Starlight?" she asked. "What are you doing?"
Starlight blinked at her. "Making sure my horn will work tomorrow. You saw how much I needed to use it today. Why?"
"That's..." Maple stretched a hoof out, but her words died on her lips. Starlight frowned, getting a distinct impression there was something she deliberately didn't want to say.
"...It could be dangerous," she eventually managed. "Starlight, we just heard about all the kinds of technology they're working with here, and how complex harmony and cutie marks and ponies really are! Shouldn't we do this slowly?"
Shinespark stood uncertainly by. "Do you two need a moment to talk?"
"I could just go to bed," Starlight huffed. "But come on! You keep telling me I'm special, don't you?" She crouched, staring at Maple. "Or at least you're thinking it. And I am strong. So do you want me to use it to protect you, or not?"
"Well..." Maple's ears folded. "If you're sure, but..." She shook her head, then swallowed. "How are you feeling compared to the last times, at least? Your horn, I mean?"
"My horn?" Starlight rubbed her forehead, feeling the stiff appendage. "Better than the first time after I lifted Gerardo's boat. The second time... I don't even remember what I did. But it hurts."
Maple sized Starlight up, and eventually sighed. "Only once, then. And after that, if you want Shinespark to work on your horn, you do it properly. And this time is only if she says yes."
Starlight's eyes lit up.
"I guess she can," Shinespark said, shrugging. "According to Dad, the wiring on the helmets burnt itself out, but we've got spares. Unless it busts the primary multiplexer, the machine itself is built to handle concentrations of energy greater than the overloads we've seen from sequences of brands. He said his was fine, at least. If you're sure about this, go ahead and take one..."
Eagerly, Starlight waddled to the pole rack where the helmets were stored, casting off her saddlebags, then lifting and inspecting one in her hooves. She looked to Shinespark for approval.
Standing near the stacks of consoles, Shinespark adjusted several settings in her telekinesis, allowing the machine to him to life. Then she nodded, and stared up at the rail cloud, waiting.
"Umm..." Maple interrupted. "Be ready to catch her in your telekinesis. Both times before, she went flying."
"Really?" Shinespark tipped her head. "Interesting. Ready when you are, Starlight."
Starlight held up the helmet... then stopped and blinked, setting it back on its pole.
"Huh?" Maple and Shinespark both blinked back.
"Hang on," Starlight muttered, moving to her pack and rooting around for a particular package with waterproof wrapping. "I've... almost..."
She tumbled backwards, her prize in her hooves. "Here," she said, leaving it sitting on the floor. "You can have this. I don't want it, but maybe you'll like it. I'm tired of lugging it around, anyway."
"Yeah." Starlight nodded, picking up the helmet again. "But first we need to do this! Is it ready?"
"It is." Shinespark straightened up, ignoring the package and focusing on the rails overhead.
"Starlight?" Maple asked, stepping cautiously closer. "Can you try to stay awake this time, after the machine does its work? Just... as long as you can? For me?"
Starlight nodded. "Okay."
Resolutely, she held the bowl-shaped apparatus high... and slammed it down over her head.
CRACK!
The wire along the wall that connected Starlight's helmet to the console burned a searing, jagged bolt of blue in Maple's vision, enough that she stumbled back, shielding her eyes with a hoof. With a frantic whizz, something tiny and filly-shaped blurred past her, soaring at an angle until being interrupted just before the wall by a thick aura of magic.
High above, the metal rails blazed with midnight-blue fire, lasting for a split second before dissipating in a haze of speckled, astral fog. That thinned, hovering by the rails as it vanished into nothingness, the entire display lasting less than two seconds. The only things in the room that moved were wisps of black smoke rising from the singed wire and Starlight, slumped in Shinespark's aura, gently sinking toward the ground.
"Starlight!" Maple lunged forward, jumping and grabbing the filly free. Starlight's eyes were heavily slitted, and didn't focus. "Starlight? Are you still awake?"
Carefully, Maple examined one of Starlight's hooves, holding it up to the nearest manalight and waving one of her own behind it. There was a definite transparency like she had observed at Arambai's house, and her heart clenched. She didn't trust her memory of what Starlight had looked like the last time, but she was undoubtedly transparent... and it might have been her imagination, but the filly could have lost a pound, too.
"Stay awake, Starlight," she hummed, rocking her. "Shinespark. Come look at this."
When Maple looked up, Shinespark hadn't moved. She was sitting, still staring at the dormant rails, transfixed.
"Starlight..." Maple rocked again, but the filly was fast asleep, and opacity was already returning to her fuzzy form. Slowly, Maple let out a breath. Whatever the harmony extractors did to Starlight, it wasn't permanent... this time. After a nuzzle, she got up, taking two steps toward her host. "I think we could really use a bed now," she admitted.
"Did you see that?" Shinespark whispered, a tear gathering at the corner of her upturned eye. A jagged, silly smile of wonder and disbelief stretched across her face, and she mouthed, "That was it. That was the effect we were looking for... The unstable reactions don't look like that. They're more than one color, and don't leave a mist. There's a way to extend that. There has to be. We're so close..."
"Shinespark?" Maple prodded, chancing one more step.
Shinespark didn't respond, a single gold-plated hoof stretched upward.
"...Good night, then." Taking Starlight carefully, Maple stepped through the door to the staircase landing, closing it quietly behind her.
Maple stepped through the warmly-lit corridor of the ship's middle floor, walking on three legs and holding Starlight to her chest with the fourth. The filly was snoring peacefully, completely limp and relaxed. When she stopped to nuzzle Starlight's forehead, her horn was cool to the touch, as if it had been left under a stream of cold water several minutes ago.
She stopped, looking back the way she had come through the reading room and eventually the landing. Most of the cabin doors were on the starboard side, she realized... a product of Shinespark's taking up most of the room to port. The cabin hallway continued far enough back that she assumed there would be more, but felt like settling herself nearer to the library than further. She still wanted to return to Riverfall... but it was at least a possibility that the incomplete airship would become her home for the next few days, and that meant treating it as such.
Eventually, she settled on the second from foremost, touching its door with a hoof. There was a latch, she realized... though some thoughtful pony had made it hoof-accessible, rather than a lock for horns or a handle for wings. With a soft click, it was undone, and the door swung soundlessly open.
The room beyond was dark, and while it probably had a light switch, the ambience from the hall was sufficient. A capsule-shaped rug adorned the center of the floor, and around it were two dressers, a writing desk, and a stack of bunk beds with a generous height. Unlike Riverfall's vast, round, fluffy beds that were near to the floor and acted like a sea of warmth, the bunks were raised, with storage space beneath the lowest and a plush, square mattress with a blanket that smelled like it had been recently made. Maple padded her way to it on carpeted hooves, gently depositing Starlight and turning back for the door.
It clicked shut, leaving the room in darkness save for a thin strip of light shining beneath. Maple recognized that darkness. It was the same kind that waited for her in her bedroom at Riverfall, sleepy and slow and waiting for all the ponies to turn in so it could, too. The ship's bare timbers still smelled of the forest, almost, though she could have convinced herself that part was her imagination.
She crawled into the bottom bunk, feeling around for Starlight as she moved and taking care not to squish her. Their coats still bore marginal residue from the rainstorm, but it was fading, and wouldn't last long before the bed's comfortable warmth.
"We did it, Starlight," Maple murmured, tucking herself in. "It was scary, but we made it through another day. I wonder how much tomorrow will have in store for us... don't you?"
Starlight didn't answer, curled loosely with her face upturned.
"Hmm..." Maple rolled over, properly positioning a pillow. "I guess we'll... just have to... see when it happens..."
She drifted off, the pure silence of the far-removed warehouse settling into her ears as the night wore on.
Like a shadow projected against the bottom of the clouds, Valey glided south, wind chasing the loose ends of her mane with dying sunlight spilling over one horizon.
Around her neck, a pendant charm pulsed with light, the magical pager responsible for her sudden detour. She growled at it, conscious of the Earth District's tempestuous wind barrier only winglengths above. A slight ascension was all it would take to send her hat whipping away into the sky before being tossed downward like a rag, and the journey was made slightly more interesting by teasing the distance. But she didn't want to fly south. She wanted to be in Gnarlbough, watching and waiting for Maple and Starlight and possibly snooping in the shadows, or at the very least teasing Howe.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
She adjusted her course, centering on the yak embassy near the southwesternmost part of the Stone District's curved mountain wall. Far to her left, Blueleaf's lighted stack rose, and to the right, another Earth District town sat that seemed much less familiar with the concept of industrial lighting. Most of the space was dedicated to fruit groves, and having gorged herself in the loading depot less than an hour prior was the only thing stopping her from diving and helping herself to a snack.
That and she didn't feel like it. She pumped her wings, pushing faster to the embassy where she had been summoned.
POW!
The yak embassy's front door burst open, nearly flying off its hinges as Valey cartwheeled through. "Yo, what's up?" she loudly announced, paying no heed to the building's interior.
"Knock that off!" From behind the reception desk, a younger mare slammed her hooves on the table, suddenly steaming... until she realized who she was talking to. "Ahem... I mean... Yak Lackey not make so much noise. It disturb Maia's nap." She tried to smile, and failed. "Pretty please with yak cherry on top."
Valey straightened some fur on her shoulder, idly glancing at the room's many painted, wooden clocks, stone brick walls and ceramic-potted plants. The only source of light seemed to be a single bulb hanging above Maia, casting a full compliment of shadows everywhere shadows belonged.
"Eh... Don't blame me." Valey shrugged, voice quieter. "This thing was beeping for some reason. I think it means Herman wants me to bring him his coffee? I just work here."
"Herman in yak office." Maia frowned, refusing to make eye contact. "Please... hurry up with business."
"Oh, really?" Valey took the time to smirk, wandering slowly towards the back door... and closer to the reception desk. "Hurry on through? You look kinda sad about that, short stuff."
Maia's candy-colored coat turned a slightly brighter shade of pink, and she kept looking away. "Seriously, could you leave me alone? Herman is really really mad about something and if he catches us slacking off right now..."
Valey's lips pursed. "He is? Okay, yeah, see ya. Stay frosty, or however that saying goes."
She kicked the door closed behind her as she wandered into the back hallway, fidgeting with the beeping pager. If Herman was upset... Well, better to get in and out as fast as possible. Angry yaks set her brand prickling at all hours, and she really wasn't fond of seeing just how far he could be pushed.
"Hello?" She rapped on the door to Herman's office, its cleanly lit interior preventing her from shadow sneaking past... that and the danger of walking in on something she wasn't supposed to. Valey straightened her hat before knocking again.
"It is about time you showed up."
The door opened of its own accord, a wave of sharp-edged whiteness pouring out from behind as the geometry of Herman's lair came into view. Glyphs swirled atop a nine-sided prism that served as a desk, every wall and seat and object in the room made of perfectly-aligned polygons of white and gray that differed subtly in shade to emphasize the borders between them. Behind the desk sat Herman, and to his side stood a heavily-cloaked pony whom Valey immediately identified as a mare.
"Hey, boss." Valey held out the pager, mirth missing from her tone. "This thing was going off. What needs doing now?"
"You did well to come," Herman rumbled, his voice like a distant avalanche. "There has been an unexpected advancement in scheduling. This is Fire." He tilted a hoof in the direction of the cloaked mare. "She is an important representative from Infinite Glacier whom we expected tomorrow evening. You are needed to take her to the project room."
"The capital?" Valey frowned. "And you want...?" Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. You guys actually decided to go through with it?" She glanced to the mare. "And how did you get here so fast? It takes months to cross that distance by airship, accounting for weather!"
"Technological advancements," Herman growled. "Even then, we were expecting an arrival tomorrow. That is why we were... less prepared." Behind his desk, he was motionless and monolithic, like a woolly gargoyle or golem. "As you are the key to the project room, this falls as your job. Take the most direct route, and do not delay. Are there questions?"
His face made it clear there weren't supposed to be questions, so Valey nodded. "Yeah, sure thing, boss. Come on, Missus Mare..."
She stiffly turned and walked out of the room, letting out a breath and enough tension to power a catapult as soon as she was beyond the gray yak's sight, stopping to lean against the wall.
The door clicked closed behind her, and a tinkling, musical voice spoke. "He's intimidating, isn't he? I was expecting the ambassador to Ironridge to be friendlier..."
Valey looked up to see the cloaked mare standing behind her. Hesitant to badmouth her employer in front of anyone who could get between her and her job, she shrugged. "I guess?"
"We should hurry, if you don't mind." The mare began walking forward, and Valey paid extra attention to the way her legs swished beneath her robe. "This task is very important, and if I don't complete it, it won't be good..."
Following along behind, Valey shut the hallway door with her tail, noting that Maia had left the counter. "...Okay."
Halfway through the lobby, the cloaked mare spoke again. "I haven't had much of a chance to see the city, but Ironridge seems like an enjoyable place."
"Yeah... uh..." Valey scratched at her neck. "I might not actually be the best to attest to that. Think what you need to, though. Let's get this over with; I have some friends to get back to."
The cloaked mare stopped walking. "Why not? I heard about the Defense Force before coming here. Aren't you making sure the city stays a good place?" Beneath her hood, she tilted her head. "Or do you mean you've seen and dealt with things that aren't good to keep it safe?"
"You... could say that..." Valey shuffled. "Look, I... don't really know exactly how important you are, and I mean no offense, but you sound kinda naive, here. I'm on edge, you're on edge... can we get this job done and over with?"
"Oh, no!" The mare shook her head. "I'm well aware Ironridge is not a bastion of the nine virtues. I wasn't expecting the Plains of Harmony, or anything."
"He said your name was Fire, right?" Valey leaned forward. "Look, it would really be great if we could hurry. Herman was definitely mad about something, and I do have something else I need to do."
Fire started, then nodded. "I... right! Yes, we need to hurry. Sorry. I guess I should have prepared a normal visit, instead of just business. I've been a little overwhelmed with how many ponies there are here, all at once..."
Shoving open the door to outside, Valey muttered under her breath, "Loads of ponies? Aren't you from the capital...?"
"...It's all the way over there," Fire said, staring far to the east with her cloak waving in the wind. "Really. The place I just walked three hours from, in the rain..."
"Yeah, uhhh..." Valey flexed her wings apologetically. "It kinda is. Sorry about that. Unless you secretly weigh twenty billion tons, though, we can fly to save time?"
"You can carry me?" Fire stepped forward, interested.
"I can, but..." Valey hesitated. "You know, that full-head-blocking cloak you've got is kind of weirding me out. Not being able to see facial expressions, and all? Is there some super-spiritual reason you've got going on for that, or...?"
"Oh! No, actually." Fire shook her head. "I just look very... interesting. I thought covering myself would make it faster to move around here, since I'd get stopped less. Do you know how that feels?" She paused. "Since you're a batpony?"
"I'm... less likely to get recognized for my species as for other reasons, but yeah..." Valey shuffled.
"I can take it off if you want to see," Fire offered. "Here. Let me..."
Her horn lit, undrawing the string that pulled the face of her hood tight, loosening it and slipping it back over her head. A full, off-teal mane spilled out... and the reason she had covered herself immediately became obvious. Instead of visible fur, her coat gleamed prismatically in the dim light, every bit of her textured with crystalline polygons just like the architecture of Herman's office, only smaller. Every insignificant move she made changed completely the pattern of refractions, until it was less like looking at a pony than through a kaleidoscope, every part of her shimmering and pure.
Valey whistled, long and low.
"You haven't seen a crystal pony before, have you?" Fire giggled. "Almost nopony has. It's very fun watching new ponies get introduced to us. Still think you want to carry me?"
"Uhhhhhhh..." Valey paused, gulping. "I think I'm a little more sure of that than I was before..."
Valey almost considered deliberately stalling, but a combined fear of Herman and need to get back to Starlight and Maple pushed her onward. She landed near a sparsely-guarded tunnel entrance to the Flame District, crouching and letting Fire dismount.
The crystal unicorn had drawn her hood again, though not tightly enough to block out her face. "Whew..." she panted, having been unable to speak during the ride. "Flying was... definitely something..."
"Eh. We're here, though." Valey shrugged. "Done with outside stuff, at least. And hey, you agreed to it!"
"I did..." Still catching her breath, Fire straightened her cloak. "I'm ready. Shall we go?"
With hard, clattering hooves, Valey and Fire trekked over floors that alternated between metal and stone, skirting the edge of the Flame District's central mineshaft. Lighting that hung from ancient wiring flickered overhead, sometimes supplied fresh from uncovered manaconduits installed and maintained by a firm believer in not fixing what wasn't broken.
To the left, windows occasionally passed by, offering smoke-stained views into the murderously red central cavern. The titanic, cylindrical core of the mine's drill vibrated with a power that resonated in Valey's chest, a three-dimensional maze of bridges and walkways alternating between using it and nearby pipes for support, a vast network of coolant and filtration that powered the smoking vents and open flames burning impossibly far below. Every now and then, the aesthetic would break off into cooler stone, the red rock of the Flame District being replaced by white-paneled metal that felt like a realization of what the Defense Force base wished it could be.
In those rest areas, which Valey could have sworn were enchanted to emit frost, sweaty workers cooled themselves on break, the mine's ore exports proving too valuable to afford not to run a night shift. She wrinkled her nose as she passed, and instinctively walked a little closer to Fire, since it was clear the ponies wouldn't mess with anyone while she was around.
Fire took the rooms with wide eyes, stepping carefully to avoid discarded objects and random piles of dirt. "I never knew ponies could get so... grimy..." she whispered, in the corridor after one transition.
"Yeah, yeah..." Valey glanced down an open tunnel to the core, a thin metal bridge sitting dully beyond. "There are some jobs that get a little gross. It's hardly dumpster diving, at least. And this place has a world-class shower system, too. Believe me, I've seen it."
Fire shot her a curious glance, but didn't press as they continued.
The two mares made their way further counterclockwise around the shaft, Fire's gaze fixed to every window they passed. "I've never seen anything like this," she breathed, fog having no opportunity to form due to the heat of the glass. "I wonder how many other things in the world..."
Valey interrupted, confidence slightly growing around the awestruck mare. "Y'know, Herman said you're from the capital of Yakyakistan, but unless that place is just as much of nowhere as the back-mountain town where I, uh..." She stopped, carefully choosing her language. "Once lived... And I don't think it is... You haven't seen much, have you?"
"My situation is slightly special," Fire admitted. "I'm from a place very few ponies enter or leave. I'd love to tell you about it, since you seem nice, but unfortunately it's very classified. I'm sorry..."
"Meh." Valey pouted, taking a turn to the right. "First Maple, then you. What is it with isolated ponies and being far too nice? Maybe I'm losing my touch... Oh, and this way!"
Fire perked up. "Are we almost there?"
"Yeah, sorta." Valey shrugged. "There's this long elevator we need to take, but the floor we want is protected. Gotta use my specific card key on a particular terminal to access it, and that involves coming at it this back way. Herman programmed the thing, don't ask me why. I guess he's really paranoid about secrets."
"Well, this is top secret, isn't it?" Fire blinked. "You're going to keep it hidden once we leave, aren't you? Ponies shouldn't be finding this place after we're done..."
"Oh, sure." Valey flipped over, hovering as the corridor transitioned to metal once more, far narrower and less-used than the main walkway they had veered off of, a lonely security camera sitting up in a corner. "I mean, we can even bury it if you're sure you'll never want to come back. But that's for you and Herman to deal with. I just fight stuff, look cute, and eat fruit all day."
"Hahahaha..." Fire giggled. "Well, I would like to come back, if I can get the right ponies to agree to it. I'll be here until tomorrow night, at least, to ensure everything goes well, though. Maybe if we have some downtime later, you could show me some other-"
CLAAANGGGG!
"Eeeeeep!" Fire jumped nearly to the ceiling at the swift rush of metal, rushing next to a wall and covering her head.
"What the-!?" Valey spun, barely having time to react as a pair of hidden security doors descended from the roof, slamming down and interlocking perfectly with the floor and walls. She rushed to one... and the tunnel's lighting gently changed, taking on an unnatural, purple tint.
Everything was still.
"What happened...?" Fire asked, chest heaving as she nervously approached Valey.
"Ugh..." Frustrated, Valey kicked a door. "Some kind of security mechanism got triggered. I have no idea how. Herman had this put in to protect the elevator console in the event of an invasion against the Stone District, but the controls are all the way up in the Defense Force base..."
Fire stared, wide-eyed. "Is it dangerous?"
"Nah." Valey shrugged. "Not unless you get squished by the doors, or something, and that's not supposed to happen. Really, it's just supposed to be impossible to get through. If this is Selma messing with me as a prank..."
"Who has access to the control room?" Fire asked, uncertain.
"Me, Herman, the other commander called Selma." Valey hummed. "Anyone any one of us gives express permission to enter. I've never done that, Selma never would, and who knows about Herman? Probably trying to prank us."
Fire squared her shoulders, frowning in determination. "Well, this isn't a thing to joke about! Yakyakistan has been investing in this mission since longer than I've been alive, and it's serious! Come on. Hold onto me, and I'll teleport us through."
Nonchalantly, Valey took the invitation and laid a wing on Fire's back.
"Okay..." Fire squinted, lit her horn... and it went out. "Huh?"
"It's that light," Valey explained. "Anti-magic. That's the first thing they thought of."
"What...!?" Fire flinched. "But we have to get out! I can..." She stuck her tongue out in concentration, managing a field... and it died after several seconds. "No!"
"If it's a prank," Valey said, "someone will be by to taunt us in a bit, and then we'll be fine. Just chillax for a bit. Like I said, we're not in danger."
"Why would somepony try to prank us?" Fire's ears folded. "Shouldn't everyone you mentioned know how important this is?"
Valey laid down against a wall, slumping comfortably. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure your idea of how the yak embassy runs the Defense Force is wildly optimistic and not in the least bit correct. It's one hundred percent dysfunctional. You'll see. And stop worrying! Even if it wasn't a prank, Selma would still come taunt me for getting stuck, and you can order him to let us out or something. You outrank everyone here, right?"
"Ohhh..." Fire drooped. "I don't think you realize how important this is, though... Are you absolutely sure there isn't a way out of here?"
"Hey, I helped design it." Valey shrugged. "We even tested it on me to be sure I couldn't shadow sneak my way out. Give it to me square, though: exactly what will happen if we just chill here for a few weeks?"
"Aside from starving to death?" Fire frowned. "Well... I'm really not supposed to talk about it..."
Valey scoffed. "Yeah, but bureaucrats are the worst. Come on, I hate secrets! At least, ones that are kept from me. Spill the beans!"
"You don't understand," Fire said softly. "As in, it would be a big enough world security risk to allow anyone in Ironridge to know, if I told you, we'd have to take you back to Yakyakistan, and probably put you in an area of government control you could never leave."
"...Oh." Valey scooted away. "Yeah, that sounds dumb. Fine, then, count me out. On a scale of one to ten, with one being eating a banana and ten being kissing Herman, how bad would it be?"
Fire frowned. "What's a banana?"
"Look... ugh..." Valey grunted, standing up. "Never mind! If you really want to get out that badly, I might have half an idea... Like... how long can your magic last before it goes poof in here?"
Concentrating, Fire lit her horn. "If I don't try to form a spell, I think I can stabilize it like this... but it can't do anything. Why?"
"Eh, good enough." Valey lifted her hat, and popped free a dormant crystal. "Keep doing that, and let me hold this. I've got some friends of friends who maybe maybe maybe would be willing and able to bail us out... but we'll see."
Far away, on the completely opposite side of Ironridge, an airship rested in a warehouse, awaiting the day it could fly. In a cabin deep within, Maple and Starlight lay curled on a plush mattress, slumbering peacefully. Gently, Maple's cutie mark pulsed with light... and the night continued, nobody awake to notice.
"...Okay, I think that's enough. I'm going to stop you, right there."
Starlight blinked, eyes heavy with bags and mane limp and dangling. With a voice that sounded like the breaks on the Canterlot Express, she croaked, "What? Why?"
"That's why," Twilight Sparkle giggled, pointing a hoof. "Also, it's four a.m., which is actually pretty early for me to turn in but I'm never going to get to sleep without a few hours to process everything you just told me."
"But we're..." Starlight stopped and massaged her throat with a hoof. "Barely halfway done with Ironridge..."
"Even better." Twilight stretched, preparing to get up from her comfortable couch. "If that's your idea of halfway, we'd be at this until noon, and you still haven't said just how much is left after that crazy city. Besides, a part where you go to bed in the story seems like a great place to go to bed in the present to me." She raised an eyebrow. "Especially given how long that second day was."
Staring forlornly at the long-empty refreshment table, Starlight swallowed noisily. "I guess. I'm just... into telling this so much right now. It feels like I should keep talking straight through to the end. I don't want to stop, even for the tiniest break..."
"Starlight." Twilight stood up, pacing around the table towards the other sofa. "I'm enjoying it too, and I'd be the biggest liar in Equestria if I said I didn't need to know more about that science you were talking about at the end." Her wings rustled in emphasis, and she grinned cheekily. "Or is it the Plains of Harmony now? Heehee... But anyway. As your friend and mentor, you look like a dump, and I'm ordering you to get some sleep before you wreck your voice, pass out and get ordered by Nurse Redheart to refrain from talking for the next week. Go to bed, Starlight."
Starlight gulped again, shrugging and struggling to her hooves. "You win, then. But we're starting again first thing in the morning, right?"
"After breakfast," Twilight corrected.
Starlight grinned, nodding at a clock. "Or lunch, at this rate."
"Heeheehee..."
Leaving the upper balcony of the library where they had been sitting, Twilight and Starlight trotted through a second-story corridor, crystals drowsily reflected around them in the castle's magical illumination. Starlight turned off first, her room slightly nearer than the princess's... and then Twilight did too, pushing open a bedchamber door and letting it swing shut behind her.
Morning in Ponyville brought sunlight, but by the time Twilight and Starlight were up to see it the sky was half-covered in clouds, an industrious host of pegasi flitting back and forth and doing pegasusy things to bring about their desired weather. The castle's dining room - which, thoughtfully, was not a repurposed throne room but its own location on the second floor - had windows opening to the east, letting in the sun at an angle where it brightened the table but didn't hurt any eyes. It would have been perfect for reading a newspaper, if Twilight had had any interest in that. Instead, her attention was fixed on Starlight.
The mare's mane was fixed, and her eyes were lighter... still weary, but with a much-renewed spark dancing behind. Her voice was scratchy, but at least didn't sound painful to use. And her mouth was full of Prench toast, a giant platter nearby ready for refills.
Finishing her bite, Starlight said, "I think we're going to cap it at eight hours of talking for today. I'm... still feeling a little sore from last night."
Twilight blinked. "Well, technically it was this morning."
"You know what I mean..." Starlight rolled her eyes. "Before we get started again, though, is there anything else you'd like to know? I think I said this last time, but even with the benefit of hindsight, I'm pretty much making this up as I go. I'm bound to forget something important, right?"
"You mean, aside from the obvious?" Twilight grinned back, twirling a fork in her magic. "Starlight, that technology they were working on in Ironridge is crazy! ...And more than a little spooky. I don't know if I should have put this together before, but..." Her voice trailed off, growing quiet. "I've... been assuming all the cutie mark stuff that you did was using your own mark. That you had a mark for removing marks. But is that actually true? Or did you do it with...?"
"With technology?" Starlight set her plate down. "Using the things Shinespark and Arambai were researching? Well..." Her eyes wandered. "The first thing you need to know is that what they discovered was hardly the whole story. Shinespark wasn't lying about their research only scratching the surface of a new field, and I know a lot more now about how everything works than I learned that night in the warehouse. There's also so much that even I don't know."
"Shinespark mentioned removing her own cutie mark, though." Twilight lifted a hoof halfway above the table. "Up until now, I thought that was completely incomprehensible and had to be a product of magic I didn't understand, but..."
"But it's possible entirely through technology," Starlight finished. "And other ways. And flying, too." She tilted her head. "You're going to ask how that ties into everything, too, aren't you?"
Twilight nodded. "Pretty much."
"Well..." Starlight sighed. "There's so much to explain, even if I tried to talk about how it worked now, I'd never be able to keep all the details straight, so let's leave that to the story, okay? If I talk about it the way I found it out, it'll make a lot more sense. Trust me." She winked. "Though I can say that everything that happened, with Sosa and moon glass and cutie marks and harmony extractors and flight machines and all that... is at least related to why I can do the things I can do now."
"And why your horn works, too," Twilight added, sawing off a bite with her fork and nibbling on it. "As opposed to burning out every time you tried to use it. Right? Oh!" She blinked rapidly. "I actually did have a question about that. Was it always that bad, or did you really injure it in the mountains? I never could tell."
"It's... complicated." Starlight grinned, emptying a bottle of syrup onto her plate. "I'll explain it more later, because we did end up studying it. The best answer for now is that there always was something wrong with it, but going over the mountains made it worse."
"...Huh." Twilight folded her hooves, chewing.
Rattattattattat!
Both mares jumped, staring down a staircase in the direction of the castle's front door. "I only know two ponies who knock like that," Twilight said, rolling her eyes. Then, leaning over and filling her lungs with air, she bellowed, "COME IN!"
Flash!
In a streak of prismatic light, Rainbow Dash was next to the table, moving so fast she might as well have teleported. "Hey, girls," she greeted, brushing aside her bangs, not in the least winded by her charge. "Breakfast for lunch, huh?"
Starlight grinned awkwardly. Twilight waved, beaming. "Hi, Rainbow. We've got extra, so you can have some if you want."
"Really?" Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up, and she seized the serving platter with a wing, tipping its contents into her mouth. "Mrmmph... Rommmff... urp... Thanks. This stuff's good!" She wiped her muzzle, setting the platter back down.
Twilight's ears folded, and she rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean that much..."
"It's fine!" Starlight pushed her plate away, patting her stomach. "I've had plenty. No need to make more."
"Well... okay, then." Twilight blinked at her. "If you're sure."
"Eh heh... whoops..." Rainbow giggled, taking a step back. "Yeah, maybe that was overdoing it. Sorry, Twilight. And Starlight." She perked up, showing off her prismatic mane. "Anyhow, I just thought I'd come let you know that the weather corps ordered a huge snowstorm for this afternoon, so if you've got any errands, get 'em done now. Or wait, if you like being out in the snow! I know I sure do. Me and Pinkie Pie were gonna go sledding once it stops coming down, if you want to come too. That's everything, though. See ya!"
She made for a window, carefully stopping to unlatch it before climbing out and cannoning away.
Twilight shook her head as the pegasus left, chilly air from the window drafting in around her. "Isn't it a little late in winter for a fresh storm? Huh." Lighting her horn, she closed the exit in Rainbow's wake, shaking her head. "It feels like I've lived here forever, but every once in a while I realize it's been less than two years, and there are still things I have so little experience with... like how they do winter in Ponyville." She wiped her plate with the last of the toast, savoring it and eventually swallowing. "I bet you know how that feels."
"Tell me about it." Starlight stretched, getting up and walking in a circle. "I've been living with you for just a few weeks, and at the rate things happen in my life, that's practically an eternity. Next thing I know, we'll get called off on some giant adventure the moment I'm done telling my story."
"Well, it can happen. The map table does things like that." Twilight shrugged. "But honestly, I'm still adjusting to the idea that I have a student, and sharing this place with someone other than Spike. I'd be fine if things just went slow for a while."
She stood up too, taking the dishes in her aura and carrying them to the dish elevator to the kitchen below. "Or at least until the story's done. Can we continue? I really need to know more about that Sosan technology!"
"Right now?" Starlight stretched again, pacing to the open archway that led to the rest of the castle. "Sure, I guess. Unless you have to get anything done before that snow hits? Snowstorms can be messy."
"We could wait, I guess." Twilight shrugged unhappily, following Starlight to the door. "Snow has such a nice atmosphere, though. I'd love to listen while it was falling. You can make a story so much better just by hearing it in the right place."
"Heh... atmosphere..." Starlight chuckled. "Well, why not? Snow and I have a bit of a complicated relationship, but sure. Let's go continue."
Starlight sat by the library balcony window, staring out the window at the increasing mass of clouds gathering in the sky. The library was vertically built, with the second story nearly twice as wide as the ground floor: part of the space below was taken up by the reading room, and the balcony was built over that area's roof. Behind her, Twilight's horn shimmered, carrying a fresh tray of drinks and refreshments into the room so they wouldn't have to leave until the story called for it.
"It's so interesting," Starlight mused, "watching pegasi control the weather. It's part of their species magic, just like flight and temperature resistance. Every pegasus can do it. Yet so many parts of the world simply don't... Areas where the weather is more powerful than the pegasi are organized, or where there simply isn't anything to control. Ironridge, for instance."
Twilight walked closer, perked ears visible in the window's reflection. "I've always lived in pegasus-controlled areas. I've read books about places where the weather is wild, though. It always makes the world feel so much bigger, even when it's inconvenient or dangerous..."
"You spent a day or two in my village, right?" Starlight shrugged. "The weather was wild there. Partially because we didn't have enough pegasi to control it, but also because there was nothing to control. I don't even know if pegasi can control sandstorms. And the thunderstorms that occasionally came down from the mountains were far too powerful. Even the weather corps here would have trouble with them. We just got our water from mountain snow, and went underground if things looked frightening."
"It's funny," Twilight murmured, standing beside Starlight and looking out the window. "How weather and magic interact. Truly wild weather follows very observable rules, but only in areas that are free from large amounts of latent magic. Put something very powerful out there... like the Everfree forest, or a group of pegasi... and those rules break down, and the weather becomes controlled. From what I've read, a lot of the kinds of weather that get described as 'wild' in stories don't follow the real rules of weather and are actually controlled by something else... even if it's just the author's impressions of how wild weather works based on the local patterns of a magically-affected area where they grew up. It's fascinating."
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Take Ironridge, for instance." Twilight tapped a hoof against the ground, looking downward as if she was sketching a diagram. "You keep talking about storms moving down the mountains, as well as a wind barrier that separates the hot Earth District and the cold Sky District. Hot air meeting cold air does produce wind, but not usually in that specific or consistent of a pattern... and given how little sunlight per day a mountain valley with frequent cloud cover would receive, the Earth District shouldn't be that hot, anyway. It's obvious Ironridge's weather is magically influenced, even if not by ponies."
"...Wow." Starlight's eyes widened, and she turned to stare at Twilight. "That's... really observant, actually. Remember that you said that."
"Really?" Twilight's face lifted. "I guessed something important?"
"...Maybe." Starlight grinned, moving to take a sofa. "Anyway, is there anything else we should cover before I start again? I'd like to make it all the way to the end of Ironridge before we take another break, and this next bit is pretty long..."
Twilight took her own couch, comfortably folding her hooves beneath her. "Well, I am still trying to wrap my head around how Yakyakistan works. I know I asked last time, and you said the delegation that came to Ponyville was actually just the leadership of an outlying village and that 'prince' is just the title given to village chieftains, but there's obviously more to it than that! Like, first off, where are all the yaks?" Her brow furrowed. "There's all of one of them in the yak embassy, apparently, and this supposedly-important pony you just introduced called Fire keeps saying things like everypony when all the regular Ironridge citizens say everybody and it's just weird!" She blinked. "Fire is a crystal pony, right?"
Starlight waited... then took a long breath. "That is a lot of stuff to explain all at once, Twilight. But yes, Fire is a crystal pony, and yes, she did speak in predominantly pony terminology. I can't really explain everything, but... how much do you know about Yakyakistan? Or think you know, at least?"
"It's where the yaks live." Twilight shrugged. "Northwest of the Crystal Empire, over the mountains. There's lots of snow."
"It's a lot more extreme than that," Starlight corrected. "You know all the old Hearth's Warming stories and the unification myth about how ponies used to live in Dream Valley before migrating to flee the windigoes, and all that?"
Twilight nodded.
"Yakyakistan is built on top of the glacier that formed where Dream Valley once was," Starlight explained. "Almost all of it is an arctic wasteland. Yaks are ridiculously hardy, and their species magic somehow allows them to synthesize necessary nutrients by eating snow, so they can survive there, but travel is almost impossible and it's very isolated. You see a lot of small villages scattered around, especially on the fringes where there are mountains to provide shelter from the wind. Yaks who live there sometimes are only vaguely aware the rest of Yakyakistan exists."
"Really." Twilight pursed her lips.
"Yup." Starlight nodded. "Now, the capital of Yakyakistan is called Infinite Glacier, which sounds cool... but is also about as self-descriptive as you get."
"You were saying, though." Twilight slapped the couch with her tail.
"Right." Swallowing, Starlight continued. "Infinite Glacier is built directly on top of the ruins of Unicornia, the old unicorn capital, and it's near enough both to the pass to Equestria, where the glacier ends, and the end of the glacier to the northwest, that the yaks were able to build these colossal stone bridges from there to real terrain, letting them come and go and bring in real materials, as well as letting ponies make it there. So while most of Yakyakistan is an inaccessible wasteland, the capital is a multicultural haven with lots of different species and impressive architecture. It's also a dead end, travel-wise, and doesn't have much of an economy... or didn't, before the airships came. But it's the center of the yak's religion, which a lot of northwestern ponies follow as well, and that keeps it thriving and able to support its size."
She nodded, focusing on the heavy gray snow clouds as she narrated. "That's about as much as I can say for now. The important parts are that Yakyakistan is large, complex, and very different depending on what part of the country you're in. I'll... talk about it a little more, later, in the story."
"I can't believe I didn't know this earlier," Twilight whispered in awe. "I should have pressed Celestia to let me study foreign policy while I was her student. She has to know about all this, right? That there's such a huge world to the north, beyond Equestria?"
Starlight hummed, nodding. "Oh, she definitely knows. She's thousands of years old, remember? Equestria only became isolated from the rest of the world a thousand years ago when Nightmare Moon was banished. That's what our dating system is based on, isn't it? Celestia would have been the one who made the decision to close everything off."
Twilight picked at the couch, choosing not to reply.
"Well..." Starlight shrugged, staring out at the weather pegasi and sensing a break in the conversation. "It's past noon, and we're just sitting around here. Should we get started?"
"We probably should," Twilight agreed, settling into an attentive position. "Ironridge, day three! Tell me!"
"All right, then." Starlight grinned. "I woke before Maple. Everything was dark, since we were in a warehouse and wouldn't be able to see the sunrise. It was peaceful, and exactly the kind of morning we thought we'd left behind in Riverfall..."
Slowly, Starlight regained consciousness, surrounded by darkness and warmth. Her limbs were enveloped by a fuzziness she couldn't quite place, as if they had been replaced by the extremities of a giant sock puppet. For a split second, she fidgeted... before her brain caught up with her instincts and she realized she was covered by a blanket.
Her limbs still felt fuzzy, but as she flexed them, the feeling drained away, replaced by a freshness and limberness that seemed absolutely out of place against her returning memories of the previous day. She was in Ironridge. She had traveled all the way across the Earth District with Maple and Valey, and they had gone through Blueleaf and some sort of giant warehouse, and met Willow... no, a mare who looked like Willow. That was the point where her thoughts trailed off. She must have fallen asleep there, and been taken to bed by Maple. Were they still at that mare's house, or had Maple decided to press on?
...The warm thing against which she lay was Maple's back. At least, she hoped it was. It was definitely a pony. It was also twitching uncomfortably.
Frowning, Starlight sat halfway up, reached over, and shook her bedfellow. "Maplllle..."
The mare awoke with a small gasp, head shooting up... and quickly calmed. "Hi, Starlight," Maple whispered. "I was... dreaming about..." She trailed off, completely invisible in the darkness. "Mmm. Is it morning already?"
"I dunno." Starlight shrugged against the bed. "I just woke up."
"I might need fifteen more minutes..." Voice groggy, Maple rolled over, laying a hoof over Starlight. "Are you feeling okay?"
"Yes." Blinking several times, Starlight tried to clear her eyes of sleep, before giving up and leaning into Maple's chest fluff. "Why? And are we still at that place?"
"We're safe," Maple grunted. "Just... just a minute..."
Starlight waited a minute, and then two more, feeling the movement of Maple's sides grow slower and more peaceful with each passing breath. Somehow, she doubted fifteen was all it would take.
When Maple next stirred, Starlight wasn't quite asleep... but she wasn't awake, either. It was a restful state, but not enough to prevent her from reacting instantly when the mare shifted nearby.
"Mmmmm..." Maple squeezed her closer, hugging with both forelimbs. "What time is it...?"
"Ow, that's too tight!" Starlight squirmed, one of Maple's hooves caught in her mane. "Leggo!"
"Oh!" Maple instantly relaxed her grip, struggling and pulling away. "Sorry!"
"I'm fine," Starlight grunted. "And hungry. Are we still in that place? With the mare who looked like Willow?" She frowned. "Her kids were annoying..."
"Um... just a minute..." Maple shifted again in the bed, propping her head up and inviting Starlight closer again. "Right... You probably forgot some of the things we did last night, didn't you?"
"Huh?" Starlight's eyes crossed, though there was nothing to see. "Forgot? What do you mean?"
Maple patted the bed again, inviting. "How do you feel? Especially your horn. Is it okay?"
Starlight blinked, then freed a hoof and rubbed her forehead with it. "I dunno. It feels fine."
"That's good..." Humming, Maple exhaled. "We're in a place where Shinespark was doing research. She had a machine like Arambai's, and you wanted to use it to refresh your horn... which is dangerous, because we still don't know how that works. Both of the other times you did that, it made you forget some of the most recent things that had happened."
Starlight sat, recollecting. "Oh. Huh."
"Do you remember where we are now?" Maple asked, her voice suddenly much closer to Starlight's ear.
"Maybe a little..."
It was true, technically. And on the edge of her mind, Starlight felt she could remember more if she tried... but she didn't want to. Over the last two days, there had been confusion, running, and little time to think, yet there in the bed everything was warm and slow and a tiny voice told her that once the world started again, it wouldn't stop. She should savor the peace while it lasted, and not go looking for unpleasant dilemmas.
"We're on an airship," Maple murmured, breaking the silence. "I was too tired last night to care what it looked like, so I guess we'll get to see it for the first time this morning, won't we?"
Starlight shrugged. "I guess."
"...I hope you slept well," Maple eventually said. "I'm not sure I did. I really needed the rest, but at one point I had a nightmare where you disappeared, and there was some kind of magic that made me feel so strange. And then I was alone, and then my old husband was there, only he was Faron, and I had so many kids that I couldn't give them what they needed even though they were asking so judgmentally and-" She cut herself off, taking a much-needed breath. "I suppose I should have expected it, after everything that happened yesterday. I feel like so many of the things we've seen and done should have had a huge impact on who I am, but I just haven't been able to afford stopping to think about it. I had to put them aside and keep going, to protect myself and you and make sure we got through it all..."
"Mmmph." Starlight frowned, her own thoughts beginning to stir.
"How are you handling it?" Maple asked, still keeping her distance.
For a long silence, Starlight's mind swirled faster and faster... until she said, "Can I just talk? For a while? Please?"
"Of course." Maple laid back down, listening.
"When I was in Equestria," Starlight began, punching the bed, "I hated cutie marks, because they took away my best friend, and I never really knew any ponies who had them! I'd sit on the roof and look at the road, and there would be a pony with a bunch of flowers on her butt and she'd be gardening. Like, duh! Do something else for a change! Or maybe one with a jar of milk, and she'd be pulling a milk cart and making deliveries. And who wants to be stuck doing one thing forever, just because? It's like they say 'do this!' and then everypony jumps up and forces it to happen, even if it hurts others or you don't want to. Or if it makes you want to..."
Her ears folded, and she went on. "I never really knew any ponies with cutie marks. I didn't think there was anything to know. Even my parents just did their jobs, which was what their marks said to do. They gave me food and a room and sent me to school, but they weren't anything special. Maybe they didn't want to know me any more than that, because I was adopted, but that's all I saw them as. Maybe if they had talked to me about what they liked and wanted and all the small things they did that weren't running a yarn store or being a doctor who specializes in hoof disease, or explained marks as more than something special and mystical that everypony got that laid out their lives for them, I wouldn't have felt how I did and wouldn't have left."
Slumping, she laid her chin against a pillow, mumbling. "But that isn't what happened. When I needed to hear that Sunburst had left because... Well, I don't know! But they told me that he had gone off to follow his cutie mark because that was his future and that was what he needed to do, and that wasn't! They should have said there was some way I could change it, or that it wasn't hopeless! That there was a way to make friends you could keep over a distance, or that I could follow him, or... or... or anything but that they were sorry, and there was nothing anyone could do."
She choked back a sob, burying her face in the pillow, and stayed there even as Maple nudged her with a hoof, inviting her closer. Eventually, she got up, and said, "That's why I left. I hated it. It wasn't right, just like a lot of things, and I wanted there to be something I could do even though I didn't believe doing anything was right. So I just got up, and hoped there was somewhere better to find."
Starlight sniffed, wiping her eyes with a fuzzy hoof. "It hurt. I left my parents because my friend left me and they told me there was nothing anyone could do. I wonder if they went looking for me, or if they sat around with their cutie marks and told themselves that there was nothing they could do, too. It didn't make sense. Good things are supposed to help everyone, right? But if staying in Equestria meant getting a cutie mark, which was bad, or having everypony look at me like a weirdo, and if leaving meant hurting my parents, what was the right choice? Did I even have a choice? I just focused on trying to survive, but I had so much time to think, and I didn't want to..."
Eventually, Starlight sighed again, sagging back against the pillow. "I decided I was right, since being wrong would mean going back and then everything would have been wasted. I said if it hurt my parents when I left, they deserved it for what they said to me when Sunburst left. I decided they probably cared more about their jobs anyway, because they already had cutie marks. I never wanted one, and wanted to find somewhere where that would be okay, and nobody could ever make anyone do anything because of who or what they were ever again. I cared only about cutie marks, because I didn't know what else to do."
"And then you reached Riverfall," Maple whispered.
"And then I... Yeah." Starlight rolled over, speaking at the far cabin wall. "And you were there, and you got it through my head that you cared about me. There was Willow, with no cutie mark, and then you and Amber, and it was like you didn't even care about your marks, or that they did nothing. I still don't know what Amber's does!"
"It's a talent for shipbuilding," Maple quickly added. "She's good at making boats."
"Whatever," Starlight grunted. "And we were there for a bunch of days, and it looked like everything I wanted but I wasn't satisfied because it wasn't good enough because all the ponies kept wanting to treat me like I was special, just like everyone did with cutie marks in Equestria. And with Sunburst. And I hated it just because, but also because it meant they might take me away from you, and you cared about me more than your mark and I didn't want to lose somepony again..."
Again, Starlight sniffed. "Then when we left, Willow grabbed me and told me I really was special whether I wanted to be or not, and if I had an idea for what the world should be like, I could try to change it. But I had just spent like a week having you and Amber and all those pushy Riverfall mares showing me that cutie marks themselves don't have to change you, it's how other ponies see you that matters! They're the ones who make up society. What am I supposed to do, change all of their minds one at a time!?"
Shuddering, she kicked the blanket off, suddenly hot. "I wanted... I didn't know. I didn't want to be better, even if I did have strong magic and survived some dumb mountains and had two names and made some machine act weird. But then we got to Ironridge, and there were ponies trying to attack us. They didn't care at all about what was right, or what either of us wanted. I didn't want to be better or special or anything, but I had to fight as hard as I could just to keep us from getting hurt or separated..."
Starlight's voice dropped to a whisper as she finished. "Now I don't know what I'm doing, or what to think. I haven't had time to think. Just to act... and not care what it means when I freeze a whole room of angry foals just because I can and they can't. I don't know..."
Maple beckoned again, and this time, Starlight came.
"I don't want to get my way just because I'm stronger," Starlight sniffed, crawling into Maple's arms. "I want to win because I'm right! I want to be right! Or at least have a place to live in where friends don't get broken up for no reason and ponies can be who they want to be! But if I don't do anything, we'll get hurt, and if I do do something, what happens if I win and am wrong? Or if I find someone bad who's stronger than me, and they win? If I'm supposed to make the world a better place, how can I when I my idea of what that looks like might be wrong? I don't know what to think, or what to do..."
"Can I tell you what I think?" Maple asked, holding the fuzzy filly gently. At a muffled nod, she said, "I think those are the kinds of things that leaders of countries should be worrying about... Ponies who are old, and have had a lot more time than you or me to gain wisdom and think about things and do what's best for the ponies they're in charge of. And I appreciate how much you care about good and me and the world... but this shouldn't be your job. You shouldn't have to worry about this, and maybe Willow shouldn't have told you. I think you've had some very bad luck in your life, just like me, and have been forced to grow up far too fast... and I wish you could be carefree, living happily and growing up with other colts and fillies your age and a family who knew how to guide you."
"But I'm not," Starlight protested, voice muffled by Maple's fur. "Sunburst left. My parents either didn't know or didn't care, and I'm not a normal filly no matter how much I want to be. I have strange magic and survived a pile of mountains even prepared explorers can't beat."
"I know. And it's not fair." Maple rocked her gently. "But we can still settle down and live normally. You'll have to live with being special, but it will be in a way that lets you say what you want... including getting to stay right with your friends. When all this Ironridge business is over, we'll go back to Riverfall, and can live as a family and see Willow and Amber, and you can be friends with as many colts and fillies as you like..."
"You think?" Even though Maple couldn't see it, Starlight raised an eyebrow. "What if things just keep happening? What if I can't make friends, or get a cutie mark in saving the world, and I have to be important?"
"First off, then I'd go with you." Maple nuzzled the top of her head. "But I don't think that will happen. And look at Elise! She was important, and managed to get out and lead a normal life. Maybe you can be like her."
Starlight held still, a tiny shiver running down her spine. "But she said she always wished she had done something, all those years ago..."
"...Either way, then, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Maple stretched, and Starlight heard her stomach growl. "I think I'm ready to get up," she announced. "How about you?"
Needing no second bidding, Starlight slithered out of the bed and landed on her hooves, licking a hoof and running it over her face, ears and sides to smooth her coat. "Definitely!"
Maple's hooves tapped against the floor beside her. "Then let's fix your mane for the millionth time and go look for Shinespark! But first, let's see if we can get some light..."
The central corridor of Shinespark's airship was warmly lit as Maple swung open her cabin door, the lights tuned as close to natural sunlight as she presumed was possible... but still with their distinctive, crystally orange glow. Idly, she pondered where the ship got its energy to run them when the engine was offline, and supposed there must be a conduit running in somewhere from outside.
Her musings were cut short by another twinge of hunger, however. Starlight at her back, she eagerly made for the library at the front of the ship, passing straight through and fixating on the staircase to the upper deck.
"Hey!" a voice called from below, perky and feminine and probably belonging to Shinespark.
"Hmm?" Maple turned on the bridge from the landing, ears swiveling as she looked downward instead. Shinespark stood at the bottom, waving.
"You're up!" She beamed, red-and-teal mane looking significantly less storm-tossed than it had the previous night, if still spiked and messy. "Get down here! We've got breakfast and everything, and were just getting set up! It's still hot, too!"
"Who's 'we?'" Starlight asked, waddling up behind Maple and craning her neck over the edge of the stairwell as Shinespark bounded off, evidently to get a head start on the meal.
On command, the beaked face of Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, appeared where their host had been, glancing upward and brightening. "Ah, Maple and Starlight! It's quite a relief to see you well, I must say..." He faltered. "I hope you can forgive me in failing my sworn duty to protect you, but at least all's well that ends well. Of course, you would be the best judges of that..."
Maple's ears folded, and she tried her best to smile... though it was probably far too nervous. "Think... nothing of it. We're glad to see you again..."
"Excellent!" Gerardo's headcrest perked up. "In that case, I do recommend you stop hanging around on that balcony and come sample the spread. It is... quite extravagant."
Carefully, wondering if peace and quiet were about to become a relic of the past now that the noisy griffon was back in her life, Maple descended the stairs, hooves clicking against the hard metal. Most of the ship's floors were wood, but some areas apparently required something more durable.
The ship's bottom floor was taken up by a single room that spanned completely from side to side, stretching backward for more than half the ship's length. Behind Maple was a tunnel to the forefront and a door that might have been a bathroom, and on the room's far side was a wide, off-center double-door that likely led to the galley. Both side walls were completely covered by sheets of thick glass, flush with the vertical walls of the hull and apparently lacking purpose. But the dominating feature was a giant conference table, long enough to generously seat twelve ponies and twice that if they felt like sacrificing first-class proportions. It was stacked with food, and Shinespark sat at the head, hooves spread welcomingly.
Starlight narrowed her eyes... and pointed a hoof. "You really like big tables, huh?"
"They're dramatic!" Shinespark blushed, orange cheeks growing red enough to match her mane. "If you were put in charge of designing absolutely everything, you'd try to make it look cool, too!"
"I do have to concur," Gerardo added, standing beside the mare. "Trademark aesthetic styles can be an important part of defining oneself and one's platform, when attempting to rally others to their cause. Although..." He coughed. "I do believe this is a somewhat petty thing to talk about at our belated reunion."
Maple opened her mouth to respond... but suddenly the galley doors swung open, and two ponies strode through, each carrying more food. One was a stallion her brain vaguely recognized as the ferry operator, while the other was a burgundy mare she had never seen before. "Who?" She pointed.
"Have a seat." Shinespark motioned, tapping the polished surface of the table. "All of you. We've got some introductions to make and food to eat before we get down to business, and I'd like to start this off on the right hoof. Important things are happening, and as early as today could be the most important day in Ironridge's history since the Spirit of Sosa crashed twenty years ago."
Maple stepped closer, hesitantly taking a seat with Shinespark several spaces to her right. Starlight followed, taking up a place at her left, and Gerardo immediately helped himself to the chair between her and Shinespark. The other two ponies took up positions at the other side of the table.
"All right, everypony," Shinespark said happily when the five of them were seated. "And griffon. We've got one more in the back who's still trying to get the carrot gravy to turn out just right, but we can start now. And feel free to dig in whenever you want!"
"I believe I have already been introduced to everyone here," Gerardo announced, snapping out a talon and fishing around for food. "But for those who may have forgotten, I am the griffon of the story: Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, and I am also a griffon. And could this be what I think it is?"
He seized a golden pastry, puffy and semicircular with the round edge crimped and burst in several places, leaking a whitish-green filling. After an eagle-eyed inspection, it met the side of his beak... and he gave a two-thumbs-up in approval.
"Mushroom and leek turnover," Shinespark said, basking in his enjoyment. "I take it you approve?"
Swallowing, Gerardo wiped a crumb from his coat. "Excellent. You've certainly done your research on griffish cuisine, my lady."
As they bantered, Maple leaned down to Starlight, ears folded and nose overwhelmed by the scents on the table. "I have no idea what's going on," she admitted, soft enough that the others couldn't hear. "Or what any of this is! It's nice that they're treating us well, but I'm starting to feel overwhelmed..."
"Hey!" Starlight piped up, rudely breaking the conversation. "Are you guys going to tell us who everyone is, or what's going on, or which food is which or what!?"
Shinespark cringed, banging her hooves on the table for silence and looking mortally apologetic. "Sorry!" She grimaced. "We should have handled introductions first! Everyone, these are Starlight and Maple, and you already know about them." She pointed to Starlight and Maple in turn. "Starlight, Maple? The stallion on the left is Gunga. He runs the ferry to Riverfall and is one of our most trusted ponies."
Gunga nodded, his elongated features and lanky neck setting him at least a head taller than anyone else in the room, save Gerardo. "A pleasure," he said, mustache moving as he spoke.
"And who are you?" Starlight asked, pointing at the other mare.
"This is Grenada," Shinespark said, gesturing with a hoof, Grenada closing her eyes and inclining her head respectfully. "She's a younger, more recent addition to the team, who was originally a Spirit recruit and got herself noticed for exceptional loyalty and dedication. You want to describe what you do?"
Grenada bowed. "I'm a talent officer," she announced, voice sharp and crystal-clear. "Even when there are technically two of her, Commander Braen can't be everywhere at once, and has a lot on her plate to take care of. I'm her second-in-command in the Spirit, and focus on knowing and caring about each and every one of our ponies. My official job is to identify ones that have skills they could use to contribute to the project, but more importantly it's a matter of showing them they're fighting for someone who cares."
"Like I said!" Shinespark grinned appreciatively. "An important addition, and dedicated to the cause. And the last one should be here in about three... two..."
The doors to the galley burst open, and a violently-yellow stallion whose mane looked like it had been struck by lightning at least five times skidded through, a tureen drifting behind in buttery telekinesis. "Howdy, poniiies!" He flashed pure-white a grin. "Here's that gravy for the turnovers! Are these the guests? Come on, Shiiinespark, giiive me the iiintroductiiions!"
Maple folded her ears, shirking from the volume of the stallion's voice. "Does he always talk like that?" she pleaded, having flashbacks to Neon Nova.
"And... this is our other," Shinespark sighed, a note of resignation in her voice. "Before I tell you his name, go ahead and look at his brand... and before you ask, he actually did get it doing the first thing you'll think of."
Maple peered. The stallion's cutie mark depicted a pony getting hit by lightning.
Her ears folded harder.
"This is Gigavolt," Shinespark announced, as if she had tried a hundred times to change it and failed. "Please forgive him if he's a little... out there. Apparently, being exposed to that much energy at once isn't good for a pony's brain."
Gigavolt winked. "Don't worry. III'm here enough to do what counts."
"As a result, he also got that mark-" Shinespark caught herself. "Brand, and it makes him completely immune to damage from high concentrations of energy. He also has a great head for wires, and as a result has been our lead power systems engineer, second to myself and Arambai. He might have saved more lives than anyone else in Ironridge, purely thanks to the number of times he's shrugged off blasts from high-energy experiments that could have killed a normal pony."
"Arambaiii's got some spiiiffy proof-of-concepts," Gigavolt added. "But when you try to scale them thiiis far, stuff starts goiiing wonky. Gotta make sure thiiis shiiip can actually fly when the tiiime comes!"
"And thanks to him, we're very sure it can," Shinespark finished. "We're still running tests, just in case, but we haven't needed to make a major revision in over two years, and not even a small tweak within the last three months." She raised an eyebrow at Starlight. "Although, that could change again, depending on what kinds of surprises you have in store for us. He already spent all of last night replacing and upgrading the wires for the helmets based on my and Arambai's data for the surges. Hopefully, they won't explode again this time if we try another experiment like that."
"Well, we won't!" Maple squared her shoulders. "If you're going to experiment on Starlight, you need to do it in a way that doesn't involve that much energy, and at least doesn't knock her out."
Apologetically, Shinespark shrugged. "Maple, I know how you feel, but... our goal is to get very large amounts of energy. There are things we can scale down for proof-of-concept and try to extrapolate them without ponies, and we'll spare absolutely no expense to keep her safe. If it makes you feel better, not a single pony has died from working on this project so far."
"Pardon my memory," Gunga interrupted, "but wasn't there that one stallion who...?"
Shinespark sighed. "Yes," she managed, exasperated, "there was. There was one stallion who was kind of obese, and not in the best physical condition, and had a heart attack during a chili pepper eating contest while he was on break about three years ago. Yes, they were a particular type of imported pepper you're not supposed to eat a lot of at once. No, we didn't know they had them, and no, that wasn't my fault."
"That... sounds like an unfortunate way to go..." Maple grimaced.
"Well, I don't like peppers anyway, so there." Starlight stuck her tongue out.
The conversation was broken when Gerardo interrupted, seizing another turnover and dousing it in gravy. "I hate to distract from the riveting topic of death by pepper, but I can't help but notice some of us have forgotten that this is a breakfast." He eyed Maple and Starlight, and then Shinespark. "Much as I am for sharing, I think even my generosity has met its match with these delectable pastries, unless some lucky pony should happen right now to help themselves to the..." He glanced at the dish. "Eight that remain."
Maple looked at the turnover plate. They were as big as her muzzle, or more, and it was already half empty.
"Well, that's not the only thing we have!" Shinespark lit her horn and floated a bowl closer.
"I noticed," Maple muttered, claiming one of Gerardo's professedly-delicious turnovers for her plate. "I still have no idea what any of this is."
"Well, I'm having a cranberry salad with shaved almonds and walnuts right here..." Shinespark scooped something leafy out of the bowl, then pointed to the other dishes. "Those are artichoke hearts in garlic butter, that's an egg-and-cheese casserole, and this is toast."
Maple brightened; she hadn't noticed the toast. After liberally helping herself to it, along with a ladle of butter from the artichoke dish, she bit down, feeling a satisfying crunch. "And what's that?" she asked around the mouthful, pointing to a small vat of something Grenada seemed obsessed with.
"Meat broth," Shinespark explained. "What you can make out of leftover cooked meat. I guess you wouldn't have that in Riverfall either?"
Starlight grimaced, halfway through serving herself some of the casserole. "Why would you eat meat? That sounds nasty."
"...Long history," Grenada gasped after taking a long drink from her bowl. "The short version is that it tastes good. You should try it."
"It's a little more complicated than that," Shinespark said, munching slowly and trying her best to eat while being polite. "Ponies are technically omnivores... or, at least, used to be. There are plenty of historical records of ponies who ate this stuff all the time. Where it is popular still is with griffons. Partially because they're different from us biologically, and just work with different diets... and partly because they live about as far as you can get from the yaks, and have their own belief system that doesn't leave much room for Harmonism and the Nine Virtues, which are part of why ponies are a little shy of the stuff. But for some ponies, eating exclusive things is attractive!"
"I can confirm that," Gerardo agreed between turnovers. "As a former resident of the empire, it is remarkably easy to find such food sources there. Although, it's hardly something everyone partakes in."
Shinespark nodded, swallowing her bite. "Right. Anyway, ponies are capable of digesting the stuff... but no matter what something is, if you've been raised your entire life without eating it, you're going to have a little trouble the next night. This is the fix: it has all of the flavor, but none of the solids, making it a lot more palatable to, say, aristocrats or well-off merchants who want to appear cultured but not go through the trouble of actually acclimating themselves to real, solid meat. It's also cheap, since it's easily made from things restaurants catering to griffon traders don't want, and it makes an excellent base for soup. Some ponies don't like it or still can't handle it, though, and it does make others uneasy. Feel free to try it, or don't. I won't judge."
Maple sniffed the pot, then pulled back. It did smell interesting, and unlike anything she had ever had before... but still, her instincts got the best of her. Maybe another time.
"Do you want that?" Gerardo asked, interrupting her meat-smelling to point at the untouched turnover on her plate. The eight on the serving plate had dwindled to three.
"Of course I do!" Indignantly, Maple seized it, and without a second thought bit down.
It was... mushroomy.
And also wonderfully flaky, with a crust that more than gave her teeth purchase against the filling of thin, slippery pieces. The pastry deflated in her grasp, giving her a far bigger bite than she had anticipated and nearly sending her into a fit of coughing.
"Argh..." She straightened up after managing to swallow, gasping. "I have no idea how to eat those things," she admitted, watching as the rest of the turnover fell apart in her hooves, landing on her plate in chunks of mushroom-stained crust.
Her cheeks reddened slightly as Gerardo chuckled. "When in doubt, with utensils!" He handed her a fork. "Admittedly, I'm not sure how those are supposed to work for earth ponies, but every time I glance over my shoulder, it seems there's a way." His head tilted. "Did you like it, though?"
"This is griffon food?" Maple looked back at her plate, helping herself to another bite and cleaning her chin. "I'm honestly not sure I ever thought about what you ate in the griffon empire..."
"Probably meat," Starlight quipped, stuffing her face with casserole.
Gerardo grinned, taking the second-to-last turnover. "Ah, the lands to the east of the great sea are actually slightly more diverse than you may be expecting. It is, after all, called an 'empire.' I should tell you about the geography some time! Some way north of the capital, though, is a low-lying, heavily forested province known as Mistvale that is regularly cold, damp, shady and lends itself perfectly to the mass production of mushrooms. They are... somewhat a food staple in the surrounding areas, as a result."
"Really?" Interested, Maple tilted her head, hoping he would continue.
"Indeed they are." Gerardo nodded, twirling his pastry with a talon. "It's quite an interesting area. I've only been there once myself, but it is hilly, misty, and with plenty of old, broken-down structures from times gone by. Many of what the world considers great horror stories were originally told there, and as such it defines the type of place society considers spooky!"
"Horror stories, you say?" Shinespark perked up. "Since you're finished eating, I always do enjoy a good story..."
"Finished? But I..." Gerardo looked at the last of the turnover he was eating... and then back to the platter, only to see Gigavolt had taken the last one.
"Sorry, dude!" The yellow stallion grinned. "After all you were goiiing on about them, III couldn't help myself!"
"...Very well," Gerardo sighed, staring forlornly at the last of his pastry. "If a horror story is what you want, then a horror story I shall tell..."
Gerardo's tale concluded as Gigavolt was enthusiastically busing the dishes, leaving Maple enthralled, Shinespark amused and Starlight tilting her head. "Why is that scary?" the filly protested. "She was perfectly fine! They didn't even try to hurt her!"
"Ahhh..." Gerardo raised a talon. "The horror, young Starlight, is not in what happened but what might have been. Immediate danger is the realm of terror. In this story, the fear comes from the realization that what she thought were paintings were real, and the imagination of what they could have done while she foolishly allowed herself to sleep. That they did nothing only makes it all the more bone-chilling."
"I'd debate that," Shinespark said, lazily leaning back with her hind hooves on the table. "If they'd actually tried to do something, she could have blown them up. You said she was a unicorn, didn't you? You need more adrenaline for a horror story!" She winked. "Still, good try. I should let you borrow from the ship's library some time. That'll show you how it's done."
Gerardo drooped. "I think you may be missing the point..."
"I enjoyed it," Maple offered, shuddering. "For a given definition of enjoyed..."
"I couldn't help but notice," Gunga interrupted, wiping sauce from his trim mustache, "that the story's morals were... interesting. How does it come to judge the monsters as vile even at the very end, after it was clear they did nothing? It sounds as though they are horrendous, merely because they are different from the protagonist."
At that, Gerardo winced harder. "Well... my version of the tale was slightly modified from the original griffish version, which happened to be based around a certain rarer race of pony I believe I am somewhat indebted to for assisting my friends, yet are viewed culturally there in a... different light..."
Maple's eyes widened, and she stopped smiling. "...Oh." She looked away. "I don't think I like the story any more, then..."
"You know what?" Shinespark announced, banging the now-cleared table. "I think we have some different stuff we need to talk about. And, uh, sorry about your story, Gerardo." She shrugged apologetically. "I guess we're kinda beating up on it, but it was still pretty good."
"No need to apologize!" Gerardo shook his head, grinning. "If I loved everything about my homeland, I'd be there instead of here. That a cultural tale should fall on unappreciative ears is no slight to me, I assure you. I merely regret perchance making myself a waste of time."
"Right. Time." Shinespark nodded, folding her hooves and sitting up straight as Gigavolt took a seat. "Also, I think I'm about to make myself look silly for making fun of explosions earlier, but eh. We have some important things to talk about, and some important decisions to make."
Maple looked worriedly around, and Starlight scooted imperceptibly closer to her.
"The first and biggest issue," Shinespark said, narrowing her eyes, "I'd very much like to have be the arrival of Starlight and Maple. It means, starting today, we're this close to flying this thing, establishing a Sosa-only trade route with the Plains of Harmony, and restoring our place as the gateway to the world. But that isn't the case. Gerardo?" She motioned with a hoof. "You turned up late enough that I haven't had a chance to tell any of these ponies what you had to say. Care to do the honors?"
Suddenly, Maple was even more worried.
"Very well..." Gerardo stood up to speak. Then, bluntly, he said, "Someone who has access to the Water District has planted a large quantity of bombs against the eastern dam wall, and could flood all of Sosa and the lowest-lying parts of the Earth District at a moment's notice."
"...Say that agaiiin?" Gigavolt dug in one ear with a hoof, blinking rapidly.
"Flood Sosa..." Grenada paled, ears going limp, and looked desperately to Shinespark. "They can't do that! That's not going to happen, right?"
Shinespark shook her head, clearly not believing fully in what she was about to say. "Of course not," she reassured. "But... it is true. They're real bombs, and Braen inspected them last night. Remember, though, Sosa is too valuable to destroy. Even as the furthest and supposedly least civilized district in Ironridge, we still are responsible for a significant portion of the city's economic output, including processing all the ore that's mined in the Flame District. No one would do that... but they're still there."
"If I may clarify on the explosives' circumstances," Gerardo interrupted. "They are rigged to all detonate at once whenever any one of them is removed from the wall. One bomb contains a trigger that can be used to detach it from the wall remotely and in turn cause a detonation, with a range of most parts of the Water District. Captain Selma claims to be on our side, and has cast a sealant spell that should forcibly glue the bombs to the wall, preventing remote detonation, through some time tonight."
"You recognize the type of explosive, eh, Shinespark?" Gunga raised a sharp eyebrow. "How are bombs such as these normally defused?"
"They're not designed to be," Shinespark sighed, hanging her head. "I did some research on them. They actually send a magical current through the surface on which they're anchored, so we'd literally have to cut off part of the dam around them to get them off without exploding, and the trigger mechanism is set off by lack of energy so some sort of power drain is out. But there is one thing we can do, and it's so contrived it has to be deliberate."
"Oh?" Everyone leaned in.
Shinespark nodded. "Water. There's a modification that's been made to these bombs... and it must have been on purpose... that makes them not watertight. Rain won't cut it, it needs to be practically submersion. But the chemicals inside used to spark the explosions aren't properly sealed... and could be converted to inert forms with enough soaking." She sighed again. "About forty hours of it."
Gerardo frowned. "The bombs would become inert for forty hours, or...?"
"They'd have to soak for that long not to explode," Shinespark corrected. "Sosa doesn't have many pegasi, let alone ones who can hold water against a wall for that long. But the bombs are located on the area covered by the emergency spillway... and opening that for two days would probably do the trick."
Shinespark's three henchponies all grimaced. Gerardo did too.
"Sorry, but..." Maple swallowed, the conversation going in one ear and out the other. "I think we might be missing something important? There are bombs?"
Starlight nodded. Shinespark sighed. "The simple way to put it," she explained, "is that yesterday, while he was looking for you in the Defense Force fortress, Gerardo found something that could be used to wash away all of Sosa. We don't know anything more, including who did it, why they did it, whether we were intended to know or how long it's been there, and we need to figure out as much as possible so we can come up with a plan. No matter how unlikely it is that this would be used, it's dangerous and we can't take it lightly."
"So what do you want us to do?" Starlight frowned. "Will we be safe if we wait here in this boat? A boat's not going to be hurt by a flood, is it? You said this thing can float!"
"Hold on," Maple interrupted, standing up with enough force that her chair went skidding backwards. "How bad of a flood would this be?"
"It's a whole mountain worth of water. It'll... wait." Shinespark stood as well, walking to the back wall and opening a panel in the wood, a metal console tucked behind. She lowered her horn to it, occasional sparks flying... and with a hum, the room's lights dimmed until it was nearly black.
Suddenly, the starboard wall came awash with color, some sort of magical image projected inside the huge glass pane that insulated the wood behind. Maple blinked, gaping and focusing, trying to separate the colors into a coherent image... and eventually realized it was Ironridge, seen from the northeastern sky.
"We can move the map around however you want," Shinespark offered, pacing back to her chair with thin wisps of magic trailing from her horn. "These walls are pretty spiffy. Gigantic screens for looking at maps, having teleconferences, watching recordings or camera feeds... you name it. The wall paneling behind them is even retractable, so if we were airborne, this could be a real window. Anyway, this is a projection I made of what it might look like."
Her horn flickered, and the map moved to a perfect top-down view, the Yule visible as a lake basin north and east of the Earth District, stretching out above the mountain chain where the dams were constructed and flowing east to Riverfall. Then, the projection changed, showing the eastern dam removed... and the entire reservoir draining into the lake, backing up and expanding it to the west, through dried-out areas where the river had been rerouted years ago and covering everything around them. All three factories were underwater, and two were in the path of the initial wall of devastation. Grand Acorn stood as a speck of dryness on its raised hill, though the road to its east and west were gone. An eastern town called Copsewood was partially covered... and so too was Gnarlbough.
Maple's ears folded.
"...Not pretty," Shinespark said. "The damage would range from really soggy ground at the edges to submersion in the middle to..." She grimaced. "I don't want to say 'flat-out annihilation,' but do you want to try surviving a mountain falling on your face? The factories would be gone."
"That's where White Chocolate lives..." Maple whispered. "And I don't recognize Copsewood, but it looks large. That would be so many ponies..."
Shinespark fidgeted, scrolling the map back and forth to occupy herself. "It... wouldn't be quite as many as you'd think. Sosa isn't a residential district, and very few ponies live there full time. There are two towns that would get hit, and one that would need to be on watch, but they're far enough away that I don't think there would be too much long-term structural damage. Still, it's... bad."
"All thiiis iiis makiiing me depressed," Gigavolt complained. "What are our optiiions, here?"
"I concur," Gunga announced, rapping the table. "It sounds like we have at least enough to form hypotheses on, does it not?"
Grenada was still frozen, too pale to speak.
"I vote we consider the options," Gerardo announced, opting not to stand. "Because it seems we have been left with relatively few. We could opt to do nothing, and trust both the intelligence of our aggressors and that nothing will go wrong. This would allow us to focus on this admittedly-fascinating airship project, and has a small chance of failure... but were it to turn catastrophic, it would be on our heads for doing nothing."
"We're not doing nothing," Shinespark growled.
"As would I." Gerardo nodded sagely. "Then our next series of options are not mutually exclusive, and I believe we should consider each one individually. Primarily, they include attempting to defuse the threat through pre-emptive action, and presuming the worst will befall us and acting to protect property and ponies as best we can."
"Shinespark was carrying on about a release valve at the top of the dam," Gunga offered with a wave of a hoof. "What would that plan entail?"
Shinespark accepted, putting her forehooves on the table and standing up. "It would involve taking over the Water District by force, in order to keep anyone with an activator out of range, and holding it for nearly two days. Damage from opening the release valve would be minimal, though it might cause swelling downstream and reduce the supply of coolant for the Flame District. But there are a few big risks."
Coughing, she continued. "First off, this would mean military action. Ponies could and would get hurt, and it would inflame tensions between the districts that are honestly pretty bad already. Second, even if we succeeded and pulled back with the bombs disarmed, whoever the culprit is could just put them back. And third, this would involve working with Selma."
"Ah, yes." Gerardo grimaced. "Selma."
"From everything we know," Shinespark said, "Selma's hoofprints are all over this. He was one of the only two ponies with Gerardo when the bombs were discovered, and could be responsible for guiding him there. Selma also offered to freeze the bombs to temporarily disarm the ranged trigger, buying us time to act... but an amount at his mercy. The only way I've found to remove the bombs involves taking and holding the Defense Force fortress, which was also his idea... and anyone who knows Selma knows how proud he is. I can't understand why he wants us to invade, but he certainly seems to think it will go in his favor if we do, and thus it's possible he planted the bombs as bait."
Gerardo shrugged. "Unfortunately, as self-reinforcing as that explanation is, it does not rule out the possibility that Selma is in fact on our side and not the culprit. While he did give me a... strange vibe the time we met, it is technically possible he truly is altruistic."
"What would he stand to gain from inviting us in if he didn't plant the bombs, though?" Gunga's lip twitched. "Assuming he wanted to let us remove this problem for him, and it was indeed a problem, it wouldn't remain a secret and would reflect very poorly on the Defense Force. Selma runs his militia with an iron hoof. If this were unintended, he would want to cover it as quietly and discreetly as possible, not invite a walking public relations disaster into his house!"
Gerardo raised a talon in solidarity. "A very valid point."
"So it looks like Selma might really have to do with this," Shinespark declared, cutting off the present conversation. "Although... here's an idea. It's not a secret that the Defense Force has a lot of internal politics and could very well try to get us wrapped up in a struggle between two sides, particularly if someone in the Defense Force had a colleague they wanted to discredit. Maple? Starlight?" She glanced their way. "Do you two have a friend who might know anything about this?"
Maple fidgeted, smiling awkwardly. "Well, you see..."
Shinespark bowed her head. "So you have no idea where Valey is, other than that she's not following you."
"Sort of," Maple corrected. "She could have gone back to the Defense Force, but only if Howe was telling the truth. And I'm... not sure if I trust him."
"Howe? The pegasus?" Gerardo interrupted, blinking. "He actually succeeded in tracking you down?"
Maple sighed, glancing up at Gerardo. "You did send him, then? Thanks... I guess. He never really did anything useful, though."
"Well, at least he did that much," Gerardo remarked, smoothing his headcrest. The map of Ironridge shimmered in the background, still cycling between normal and the flood simulation. "I must say, I found him rather annoying, though I did consider the possibility that he was sincere towards the end. It wasn't impossible that he was, in fact, trying to make it up to me."
"He did explain that," Maple offered, putting a hoof on the table. "He said there was something in your crates that he wanted, and he was initially trying to sabotage us to get the guards to open them. But he must have failed and gotten them confiscated instead..."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "You don't say..." he mused, running a talon down his neck. "You see, Selma told me that they were already expecting the crates, and he confiscated them deliberately to stop them from being properly delivered and falling into the hooves of the yaks. But if Howe professed to having something to do with that..."
"Hold on," Shinespark interrupted. "There's something important here."
Everyone looked at her, falling silent.
"These crates," she said, leaning forward. "You delivered them two days ago, and the Defense Force had no way of knowing they were coming, right?"
Gerardo nodded. "Not unless Arambai said as much in his letters, which were then intercepted by a Defense Force spy."
"Unlikely." Shinespark continued, "Up until now, things have been recently stable in Ironridge. A few months ago, one of Ironridge's primary trading partners became embroiled in a war, which tipped the balance of power on the economic council enough in Yakyakistan's favor that there aren't any big contention points to generate drama. Nothing was happening, basically." She thumped the table. "Now, all of a sudden, there's this. It could be a coincidence, but I think it's much more likely it was caused by something... and the biggest recent change around here has been you guys."
"Us," Gerardo said, pointing to himself, Starlight and Maple.
"Yeah. You." Shinespark nodded. "Maybe it's because they know, somehow, that this means a big break for us. But it also could be because of these crates. Gerardo filled me in on what happened, but here's an overview for everyone who hasn't heard: he got contracted by Yakyakistan to deliver two unmarked, unopened crates to Ironridge, without using air travel. It took him about a year to complete, but when he reached the Defense Force fort... and the crates were going to a warehouse in the Water District... he was effectively robbed by Selma."
"And we were foalnapped," Maple crossly added, laying a hoof on Starlight's shoulders.
"All this is very interesting," Gunga remarked. "If I'm following, we have a sudden delivery that appears to invoke drama within the Defense Force... coinciding with a bomb threat that may very well be factions of the Defense Force trying to frame each other. The pieces of the puzzle appear to be getting clearer!"
Gigavolt pointed two hooves at him. "So you're sayiiing one siiide of the force wants the crates, and the other siiide doesn't want them to have them, and one siiide is tryiiing to get us to iiinvade so they can blame iiit on the other to get them out of the piiicture?"
"That is what I am saying." Gunga bowed. "Since Selma appears responsible for the bombs, and also pilfered these crates, he is clearly a faction, and all these actions seem in character for him. According to Defense Force politics, that would mean the other side is Commander Valey."
"Admiral..." Maple whispered out of the side of her mouth.
Shinespark interrupted, tapping the table again. "Hey, hold up!" she announced. "I'm interested in knowing more about Howe, and the role he played in this. He obviously wanted the crates. Pretend he was their intended recipient, knew they were going to get stolen, and was trying to counter-steal them. What would that imply?"
"That wouldn't make sense." Maple shook her head. "We stole something important from one of the crates while me and Starlight were escaping from the Defense Force fort. When Howe found us, he said he had seen it on a security camera, and wanted what we stole very badly. He offered to help us if I would give it to him. I haven't done that yet."
Instantly, Shinespark's hoof was pointing to Maple. "When did Valey start helping you?" she pressed, insistent. "This could be important. Was it before or after you opened the crates?"
Maple swallowed. "She was always following us, but... very shortly after."
"Well, there you have it, it seems," Gunga sighed. "If Selma's goal was to keep the crates away from their intended recipient, and that recipient was Valey, and if she were to discover that you stole and possessed the most important thing in them, it would be only logical that she would follow and protect you until such time as she could recover the stolen object."
"But she..." Maple swallowed. "She definitely cared about us," she protested weakly. "Even if she loved to deny it. She couldn't have been in that for a mission alone."
"An important detail, if I may." Gerardo raised a talon. "During a confidential talk with Selma, he professed that the true recipient of the crates that he was intending to thwart was, in fact, Ambassador Herman."
"Never trust a yak," Gigavolt remarked brightly, causing Maple to flinch.
"Well..." Maple fumbled for words. "Valey hates Herman, doesn't she? She spent forever telling me about how bad he was!"
Gunga shrugged. "There could always be three sides in play. Or perhaps she was playing you? She is the most infamous trickster in Ironridge, after all."
"...I," Shinespark said slowly, "am curious what was in the crates. They were opened, weren't they? At the very least, knowing what was inside could give us insight on what the side that wants the crates is planning. Maple?"
Maple swallowed, glancing around the room nervously. A forest of eyes stared back at her, unblinking... and she managed, "There was a lot of black glass. We didn't recognize it, but from what we know now, it sounds like moon glass. What we took was a crystal orb Howe said was a windigo heart."
Gerardo's eyes widened, and Shinespark sucked in a breath. Gunga scoffed, Gigavolt said nothing, and Grenada remained as stunned and ashen as she had been for the entire conversation.
"A windigo heart?" Gunga slapped the table, nearly laughing. "Everyone knows those aren't real!"
"...No," Shinespark whispered, "they're very much real. And that isn't good at all."
For a few seconds, the room blinked.
"Say what?" Gunga leaned forward, brows furrowed. "Lady Shinespark, what don't we know?"
"...This is technically information above your classification level," Shinespark said, somber. "But I'll tell you anyway because we need to make the right decision here about what to do. Windigoes do exist. Their hearts are extremely rare, and we've seen exactly one in Sosa before. It was used for the procedure to remove and seal away my brand."
Gunga's ears folded. "Oh my."
"Then..." Maple sagged. "So Howe was telling the truth..."
"Please tell me I'm interpreting this incorrectly," Gerardo demanded, "but do you mean to say Yakyakistan was importing an object usable to systematically remove brands as well as a large quantity of the contraband material used for storing them? Because that would be most alarming."
"It's incorrect," Shinespark sighed, "but only partly. The procedure we used seven years ago destroyed the windigo heart in the process. However, that was less than a year after obsidian first appeared, and... it's been seven times that long now. There's someone I'll need to speak to first, but we have no idea what Yakyakistan's research facilities have done during that time, or what they're capable of."
"Lady Shinespark, if this is true, then this is all extremely sinister!" Gunga insisted. "The windigoes were the mythical incarnation of hatred sung of in Yakyakistani lore! If this is involved with the recipient of these crates, and the possibility of stealing brands..."
"And it appears it is," Gerardo continued for him. "Alas. Everyone? Are you thinking along the same course of action that I am?"
Shinespark nodded. "If the Defense Force is fractured into sides, and we know one is working with this much destructive potential and the other has openly invited us to cooperate with them..."
Gerardo nodded. "Then it follows we should do as Selma wishes and assault the fortress."
Gunga nodded as well. "The enemy of our enemy, as it would be. Additionally, I feel it may be wise to mention that if Selma set these bombs, cooperating with him could be the best way to avoid seeing them go off. When a pony holds a sword to your throat, after all, the best thing to do is exactly what they say."
"Then iiit's settled?" Gigavolt perked up. "As the best-equiiipped to deal with energy weapons, III volunteer to lead the charge!"
"No." Shinespark brought her hoof down. "It sounds like we need to invade, but that's not the only thing we have to decide. There's also the question of whether to take pre-emptive action and evacuate. If we did, we'd clear the factories... and sandbag the towns at the very least."
"What did Selma say on the matter?" Gunga asked. "If we're going to follow his instructions precisely, it would be best to defer to him here, as well."
"Truthfully, I can't remember," Gerardo admitted. "Evacuating does seem like an easy choice, given how much easier it is to prevent deaths than to cure them. What kinds of drawbacks would be involved?"
"To evacuating?" Shinespark shook her head. "Many. Financially, it wouldn't be a concern, but first and foremost it would cause ponies to panic, no matter what happened in the end. Gnarlbough is a quiet town whose residents are more involved with Karma Industries than Sosa, and if we convinced them to move for a false alarm, they'd see it as an inconvenience... getting drawn into Sosan politics. We don't need any rifts with the Earth District. The Stone District already distrusts us enough. Copsewood, meanwhile, is a town with a large number of Sosans... A large number. It's where about seventy percent of our workers live, and their families. If we tried moving them, rumors and panic would spread faster even than floodwater. In fact, it's entirely possible and likely Selma's plan factors in the massive destabilization such an operation would cause. The moment this flood becomes anything more than a closely-guarded secret, everything will be chaos."
Gunga nodded. "We would also need to carry word to Riverfall, so that they might safeguard the riverbanks as well. The town is built right up to the river's edges, and it would likely overflow for several days trying to drain away the floodwater."
"The second problem," Shinespark continued, "is that leaving Sosa empty could be the perfect opportunity for thieves to strike. Remember that Sosa has very few pegasi, while the Defense Force is comprised entirely of them. We wouldn't be able to safely leave anyone here who could get clear if there was a flood... and the Defense Force could easily come in and out while we were gone. I don't know what their target would be, especially since this airship is far from the main factories. But it would be very easy."
"Of note," Gerardo cut in, "it is Selma who wants us to react to this threat, and also Selma who declared that the Defense Force must be comprised of pegasi."
"How hard would iiit be to conviiince the other chiiiefs to move out?" Gigavolt asked. "We don't exactly own even one of the factoriiies, here."
"Easy." Shinespark nodded. "That isn't an obstacle. Gerardo, Maple..." Her eyes wandered. "I'm not sure if you've been brought up to speed on the situation with Sosa's leadership, but there are three factories. One is led by my biological father, Mobius. He used to be very resistant to the idea of hereditary rule, and disowned both me and my half-sister, Elise. But as he's aged and been ruined by political scandals, and as I've grown to have an impressive skillset and leadership ability, he's... changed his mind. Mobius is obsessed with me to the point where he does anything I ask. I might as well be the chief of his factory. Then there's Dorable... and the last factory has no chief, but is currently overseen by an interim candidate called Nimwick. Everyone outranks him. As for Dorable, leave him to me."
Maple didn't respond, sitting stunned just like Grenada. "Valey couldn't be working with the yaks to do something to everyone's cutie marks, Starlight... could she?" she whispered, shaking her head. "Not after how long we watched her, and how much she helped us. There must be another way..."
"Hey!"
Starlight seized everyone's attention, climbing onto the table and staring at Shinespark. "Say more about how your cutie mark thing with the windigo heart worked," she demanded.
"Cutie mark?" Gunga's mustache twitched.
"That what you call brands?" Gigavolt grinned. "Hey, that's adorable!"
"It..." Shinespark looked away. "Why do you need to know?"
"Because something doesn't make sense," Starlight said, standing stiffly. "You said it broke the heart to do it? But you also figured out how really fast, since you didn't get your mark immediately after the moon glass appeared. How did you know it would work, and get it first try? And where did you get the first heart from?"
"...That's classified," Shinespark said. "Though I did promise to let you know anything you needed. Can I tell you later, when these three aren't...?"
Gunga shot her a dirty look.
"Two, techniiically," Gigavolt remarked, nodding at Grenada. "Liiittle miiissy here seems a liiittle out of thiiings! Probably too much meat broth!"
"Does the magic have anything to do with emotions?" Starlight pressed, walking down the table closer to Shinespark. "Cutie marks are supposed to be made of a pony's hopes and dreams, right? And windigoes are supposed to be made of anger and hatred? Those sound sort of related, right?"
Shinespark's jaw slackened... and her lips pursed. "Where are you going with this?"
Starlight waved a hoof at the map. "If they did blow up those bombs, it would wreck half of Ironridge. It wouldn't kill many ponies, especially if you evacuated. But it would take away where a bunch of ponies worked... ponies who are already sad about what they do, since they lost their old jobs a long time ago!"
Slowly, worry settled over Shinespark's features.
"If they blew it up," Starlight continued, "they'd be hurting all the ponies who are already hurt most. But when the airships came, or when Project Aslan died, they had no one to blame! This time, they would. They'd blame the Defense Force for making the bombs. But if you evacuate them, and then go up there, you'd be working with Selma, and you wouldn't want them to blame you. So who's working against him that everyone already hates?"
Maple paled. "Starlight, no..."
"Yeah." Starlight swallowed. "Shinespark, you know how the magic works. If somepony had that much hatred focused at a single point... at themselves... what bad magical stuff could they do?"
Shinespark hit the back of her chair, eyes wide. "Then they could be intending to blow it up no matter what we do. We have to evacuate."
For a moment of silence, long glances were thrown across the table, most centered on Starlight. The filly stood on the middle, facing Shinespark and beginning to prickle uncomfortably.
"...One more time, please," Gerardo requested. "Give me that line of reasoning again?"
Starlight gulped, her ears starting to itch. "You said windigo hearts were used to remove your cutie mark, and windigoes are hatred. The Defense Force is doing something with the material to remove and store cutie marks. Also, if they blow up the dam but everypony survives, all the Sosans will be angry and depressed because they lost their jobs to something that's not their fault for the second time in a row! This time, if it looks like Selma is on your side but the Defense Force are still the bad guys, they'll blame Valey, and they already don't like her so she's an easy target. If large amounts of bad emotions are involved in the spell to remove cutie marks..." Her ears folded. "You'd have them, right there."
"Shinespark?" Gunga raised an eyebrow. "Is this how your removal procedure worked?"
"I..." Shinespark grimaced. "I can't tell you. Not right now, at least."
"What's that supposed to mean!?" Gigavolt leaned forward indignantly. "Do you know or don't you? Liiives are on the liiine!"
"A lot more than just lives, if this is true..." Gerardo muttered.
Shinespark banged the table for order. "It means I don't know!" she shouted, raising her voice. "We did this early in the project, and haven't had the means or reasons to repeat it. It's... not something I understand well. But I do know a pony who might be able to tell me, in Ironridge."
"That's not a request to postpone this meeting, is it?" Gunga leered at her, wary.
"It isn't." Shinespark shook her head. "Braen is on her way to have that conversation right now. Hopefully, she'll arrive here with a report before this talk is done."
Gunga relaxed, leaning back.
"Whether it's possible or not, we should begin planning now," Gerardo announced, drawing everyone's attention. "Because, let us face it: if the bombs are intended to be detonated no matter what, this changes everything."
"IIIf the poiiint iiis to make the Sosans totally loathe Valey," Gigavolt offered with a shrug, "what iiif we diiid nothiiing? They wouldn't set off the bombs untiiil they know the Sosans wiiill blame the riiight poniiies."
"Would they?" Shinespark glanced skeptically at him. "Is that a risk we want to take? If they got impatient and set off the bombs without us doing anything, then Selma told the public he warned us about this and we did nothing..."
"Then we would become the fixtures of... erm... unpopularity instead," Gerardo sighed. "And that is something well within his means to prove, as the yak embassy provided official documentation of my service as a so-called facilities inspector yesterday morning... and to him, no less. It would produce the same result, and with a lot more property loss and casualties."
"That's the problem, though." Shinespark closer her eyes and hung her head, allowing her hanging bangs to shadow her brow. "No matter what we do, if Sosa is destroyed, it would be cataclysmic to morale and some party would have to take the blame. We might be able to find a way to pin it on Selma, who we know is involved, but it wouldn't change the outcome."
Gunga stiffened resolutely, pounding the table for himself. "Then if diplomacy is guaranteed to fail us and we cannot capitulate, it falls to us to stop this threat by force!"
"One issue." Gerardo raised a talon. "That was Selma's recommended course of action. Perhaps he was sealing off our best option on purpose, but to attempt to take matters into our own hands... and hooves... would be to play precisely into his. He will surely be ready for us."
Grimly, Shinespark set her face. "Then we'd have to be readier. Selma had a particular method he wanted us to use in an attack, didn't he? If it was a trap... we'd need to outsmart him."
Talks quickly broke down into military strategy, discussing the entrances to the Water District, the tops of the dams, and fighting pegasi in tunnels. Gerardo drew his sword, showing it off and explaining its function. Shinespark hammered the table. Grenada remained stunned, clearly not going to move until somepony tended to her. And in the middle of it, Starlight stood on the table, feeling thoroughly ignored and not sure whether that was a good thing.
She turned around, and saw Maple staring reproachfully.
"Starlight," she lectured as the filly drew closer. "Why? Weren't you paying attention to how much Valey helped us? You can't believe she would... she would..." She stopped, sniffing back tears. "You couldn't..."
Starlight's eyes widened. Should she have seen this coming when alerting the ponies in charge to what might have been a threat? "I-I..." she stammered, not sure what to say. "I just wanted to be safe! Didn't Valey always tell us not to trust her? She practically said she was going to betray us!"
"What a pony says and what they are are different, Starlight," Maple muttered hollowly. "I don't think Valey believes in herself, but we both saw her actions! She's a good pony. She wouldn't do something like that..."
Starlight stared... and was gone in a burst of teleportation.
She didn't know what part of the ship she reappeared in. It was lit, but barely, and mostly from behind, her shadow stretching long and tall over a collection of panes of glass. Bound in a series of triangles by a metal frame, it protruded out through the wall of the ship in a bubble, big enough for a grown pony to stand in. An observation room, maybe? Something to let a pony look in every direction, including down. Foggily, she recalled something like that at the front of the ship, when seeing it from outside... but it could have been her mind, making up memories of things she thought she should remember but didn't.
Her heart twisted as she paced forward, hooves leaving the wooden floor and stepping onto the reinforced glass. It didn't feel like glass. It felt like... the roads in Riverfall, enchanted so ponies could never slip. She had no doubt she could slam it as hard as she could and it would be perfectly fine. For a split second, she even considered it.
Maple had yelled at her. Or... not yelled, since her voice had kept its volume low. But the feeling had been there. It wasn't even anger. It was sadness, and denial.
Starlight wracked her memories, and turned up blank: that was the first such incident she could remember. Every day, every time either of them had gone somewhere, they had gone together... Every day since Maple and Willow had told her about Aspen, and Maple had asked to be her mother.
She hadn't gotten it then. She could still feel the sting of Amber's hoof across her cheek.
But ever since then, they had been inseparable. They had gone together to watch Gerardo's boat-raising, and Maple had come for Starlight when she panicked and teleported away. They went to market together to buy... some ingredient Maple needed. They stuck with each other when the ponies found out about where Starlight was from, agreed to go to Ironridge together, were so inseparable Starlight spent more time riding Maple's back than walking normally, and had teleported into an unknown crate in a last-ditch effort to prevent them from becoming separated.
They had never disagreed, either. Their thoughts weren't identical, or anything, but when one voiced a concern or need, the other listened. If ever there was a decision about what to do, it fell to them to make it, and them to agree.
Starlight had never expected that to change. From the look on Maple's face, she knew her new mother hadn't, either.
What was so irreconcilable about a stupid batpony, anyway? Starlight ground at the glass with a hoof, as if daring its enchantment to let her slip. Surviving danger was a matter of two simple things: hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. Of course, she didn't want to see their green-maned benefactor as a scheming villain, and it was possible Valey could be framed as a hatesink without being evil, but when such powerful magic was on the line, you had to be prepared. The worst that could happen was worse than she could consider: an entire city devastated, at war, and stripped of their cutie marks.
She paused. Since when had she considered that a bad thing?
With a groan of frustration, Starlight fell face-first against the glass, feeling her fuzzy filly cheek squish up against it and its cold touch drain the heat from her coat. She hadn't realized it, but she had been sweating. It felt nice... or as nice as laying on a hard, flat, slightly slanted surface could.
In truth, an entire city losing its marks was something she could consider... because she had. Once, during a dark year of living friendless and markless in Equestria, she tried to soothe herself by daydreaming about a world without cutie marks. A world where she would make it so... not because it would be fair for one pony to have that kind of power, but because she was bitter and hurting and it was the way the world needed to be. It was a fantasy she indulged in repeatedly, sitting on the roof of her house and staring into the mountains and the sky, though she had stopped after a series of nightmares about tearing the marks from ponies she cared about where they begged her to stop and subsequently died. She never remembered their faces, either.
So if she could think it... and feel justified in doing so, that such a world would be a better world... what right did she have to condemn someone else for trying the same? For all she knew, their reasons could be even better than hers.
Trying weakly to curl up and failing, Starlight realized that for all she knew, the logic she had used to arrive at the conclusion someone had a means of removing so many marks at once was flawed and shaky. Maybe the reason she thought of it as an idea was because that daydream had never really left the back of her mind.
A tear of frustration hit the glass. It was dark enough around her that Starlight could see through, into the muddy depths of the warehouse's construction bay. What she knew for sure was that she hated being alone, and anything was worth it to change that.
...Maybe Maple felt the same way.
Struggling, Starlight got to her hooves, taking note of the sounds of impassioned debate coming from not far behind her. If she and Maple did everything together, and always agreed? That was the price to pay for having a friend who was always there, through thick and thin. She had walked out first. It was on her to go back.
She bumped straight into a fluffy pony chest, and squeaked in surprise.
"I got..." Grenada swallowed, sheepish. "Overwhelmed, a little. It's hard being an authority figure, sometimes. I mean... bombs? The risk of the destruction of Sosa? Braen believes in me, but I'm not... I don't have the expertise to deal with that. This could be the most important Sosan meeting in years, and I wouldn't want to mislead or..."
She shook her head. "Sorry. Let me start over. I missed part of the conversation, but I trust Braen to steer us right. She always knows what to do. I'll take her orders, and give one hundred and ten percent to making sure they work! I'm just... not sure I'm comfortable doing more than that. I don't want to mess her up."
Starlight's face scrunched. "You know her name is Shinespark, right?"
"I grew up with the Spirit," Grenada explained. "She is and always will be Commander Braen to me. I don't know if you've met the Spirit before, but..." Her eyes unfocused, expression dreamy. "They're noble. Together, we're going to take Ironridge and make things how they used to be. They've been an inspiration to me since I was a teenager, and... well, technically I still am, but you know what I mean."
"...Yeah, I guess." Starlight shrugged, and tried to push past her to the lighted corridor beyond. "Can I get by? I have someone I need to talk to..."
Maple wasn't in the table room when Starlight wandered back in, noting that she was in the tunnel next to the staircase she had observed when coming down earlier. It was just Gerardo, Shinespark, Gunga and Gigavolt, collectively doing their best to match wits with a foe they only circumstantially knew existed. Gerardo appeared to be easily holding his own, contribution-wise, while Gigavolt was quieter than she would have expected for someone with his bombastic demeanor. Maybe he knew he was annoying and couldn't help it, so he spoke only when necessary.
Hoof by hoof, she ascended the staircase, figuring Maple was either in the engine room or had retreated back to their cabin. The former proved fruitless as she pushed open the door with a hoof, the room sitting empty beneath the dead and dormant rail coil.
She paced along the bridge to the reading room, then into the cabin hallway, already running her mind back and forth over what she would say. An apology? That she didn't really believe Valey was that bad, or just wanted to be safe? Or should she ask why Maple cared about the batpony so much, risking offending her further if that was something Maple thought she already knew? She could always confess that she had dreamed about removing ponies' cutie marks once, too.
...The door was already open, light pouring through. Cautiously, Starlight peered in.
In the middle of the room, directly beneath the light fixture, Maple stood on her hind legs, stretching as tall as a pony could go. Her face was set in determination, and in her hooves, pressed against the magical light source, was a small, colorful gemstone.
The genstone in Maple's hooves flickered to life, and she dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. Static poured through, causing her to wince from the volume and turn her head away... and spot Starlight, standing in the doorway with her tail between her legs.
"Sorry, Maple..." Starlight drooped. "I wanted to-"
She was interrupted by the sound stone as Valey's voice cut through, butchered by clumps of gray noise. "Nngh... What time iscrkkkk!... flanks, is that you?"
Thinking quickly, Starlight stepped inside, nudging the door shut with her shoulder.
"Valey?" Maple's ears folded. "Where are you? We can't hear you at all!"
"...District! Herman was like... scrkkkand I didn't have much of a choice. Sorry about ditching..." Her voice trailed out. "...kind of anti-magic... Too bright for shadow sneaking, and we can't teleport. We can barely-"
She cut out completely, Maple's crystal still spinning inside with energy, and stayed that way for several seconds. When Valey's voice returned, the reception was marginally worse. "Scrrrrrkkk Shinespark to bail us..."
"Where are you?" Maple asked as loudly and clearly as she could. "I can't hear you!"
The sound stone washed with static. Starlight's ears twitched, picking up a pattern like the same thing being said over and over... "Flame District?" She tilted her head.
"The Flame District?" Maple echoed more forcefully into the stone, resting partway on the bed so she could hold it with two hooves.
"Yes! Stupid magical..."
The stone's connection faded completely.
Maple sighed, mane deflating slightly as she set the stone aside and rolled over on her back. "I don't know what to do..." she groaned, laying still.
Starlight walked up next to her and nuzzled Maple's side. "Sorry about earlier," she murmured.
"No... I'm... mmmf." Maple grunted, staring up at the underside of the top bunk and not bothering to move. "I should be able to handle it when someone has evidence against one of my friends. That's not your fault. Sosa needs to stay safe."
Starlight stood next to her, skeptical. "You don't look fine."
A tear edged toward the corner of Maple's eye. "I didn't say I was."
Wordlessly, Starlight paused... and crawled up into the bed beside Maple, tucking her legs beneath herself like a fuzzy lilac cat.
"It's like I can see two versions of myself," Maple breathed shallowly. "One of them is naive and innocent, and follows around this pony everyone, them included, says is bad. I think that because they were nice to me, there's no possible way they really are, and get torn up when someone says it's possible they are bad... even when that's what everyone says already. The other version says the world isn't nice... speaking from experience... and that ponies sometimes betray you no matter how long you've trusted them for. The first side wants me to have friends and be happy. The second wants to keep me from getting hurt. I feel hurt anyway."
"I'm still here," Starlight said, flicking her tail. "Sorry for running away earlier. Again."
Maple gave a wrinkly smile. Starlight said nothing.
"...You heard all that, right?" Maple eventually sighed, rolling towards Starlight until the two of them were touching hooves. "Valey sounded like she was in trouble. What do you think we should do?"
"Why are you asking me?" Starlight lifted her head, surprised. "I just made everyone suspect her! I thought you were going to..." She swallowed, deciding not to finish that sentence. "I mean. I'm going with you, wherever you go."
Maple nudged her. "Because you're observant," she answered. "And smart. Maybe you can notice something I can't?"
"I don't know..." Starlight frowned. "Like what? Some magic way to tell if Valey deserves help? What would we do to help her if she did? Walk all the way back up that dumb mountain to the Flame District? It's probably even still raining!"
"We could... do something," Maple sighed. "Like... we could..." Her eyes flashed. "This is why I need your help! I can't even think of anything right now!"
Starlight shrugged. "Ask Shinespark?"
"Shinespark has a lot more to deal with than deciding whether or not we should trust a pony who's probably not trustworthy all the way on the other side of town," Maple said with a grimace.
"Yeah?" Starlight shrugged again. "There's an answer, I guess. Just leave her alone."
"But, Starlight..." Maple swallowed. "If you don't know whether a pony is good or bad, and they could be either... is it fair to abandon them just because they could be bad? That's... not how I like to see ponies. I need to believe most of us are good, and that it pays to give the benefit of the doubt..."
"You didn't really like Howe much," Starlight countered.
Maple slumped. "He started off by trying to get us arrested. He's shady, I don't think he's honest, he might be insane, and I think he's interested in me. I've given him more benefit of the doubt by letting him follow us than all the rest of Ironridge combined, Starlight."
"...Oh." Starlight looked away.
"But Valey is..." Maple continued, then stopped. "I don't know. I want to say she feels sincere. Not in what she says, but in how she acts... that she doesn't want to be a bad pony. But doesn't everyone want to be good? I don't know why I'm so fascinated with this one mare..."
Starlight hesitated, looking at everything but Maple. "Do you..." Her eyes wandered across an empty dresser, past wood-paneled walls. "Like her, maybe?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm straight," Maple answered. "...At least, I know I used to be. Ever since what happened with my husband, I haven't actually thought about another pony like that at all, of either gender. But no, it's not that."
The room was silent. Starlight's tail thumped once against the bed.
"Maybe," Starlight managed, "since it would be really hard to go to the Flame District to find Valey, and we don't even know where in there she is or what's wrong with her or if we could do anything about it, and since Shinespark wouldn't want to risk helping and helping her could be a risk, and if she was evil she could have been manipulating you to make sure you'd do something when it would make the biggest difference, and since you'll feel bad if you leave her or if you help her and get betrayed, and-"
Maple cut her off with a hoof to the lips. "I know," she whispered, eyes squeezed shut against the threat of tears. "That's what I need to tell myself. That trying to do something would only make us have to backtrack over all the distance we worked so hard to cross, and has the potential to end even worse than doing nothing. Could you imagine if Sosa got destroyed, and Shinespark's plan would have worked except for me? All that damage would be my fault and my fault alone..."
Starlight pressed closer.
"On the other hoof," Maple choked, "all I have is wanting to repay a favor... and trust in a friend. A pony I considered a friend, at least. I don't know if she ever felt that way back."
Starlight opened her mouth to agree... when the door banged open, flooding the room with noise.
"Greetings, friends!" Gerardo Guillaume chirped amicably. "I finally found your cabin! I thought you would appreciate being informed that the meeting has adjourned, we have a plan, and Shinespark has deemed it in everyone's best interests for me to resume my duties as your traveling..." He trailed off forty-one words too late. "Am I interrupting something?"
"And that is why we are not, in fact, under attack from bandits," Gerardo explained to a skeptical Shinespark, ruefully rubbing a pumpkin-sized black eye as Maple and Starlight stood angrily behind. "I merely... misjudged a situation. Rather badly."
"I'll say you did," Maple steamed, Starlight sitting upright on her back like a frowning totem pole. "I can't believe you didn't even knock! It's good to see you're as gung-ho as ever, but this adventure hasn't exactly been kind to us, and I do not take well to those kinds of surprises when I'm trying to get my emotions straightened out!"
"Well..." Shinespark hesitated, apologetic. "Technically, the doors do have locks..."
"...Oh." Maple deflated, folding her ears.
"Here." Shinespark's horn lit sapphire, floating out a small, ornate metal key with a jeweled bit shaped to be easily turnable with a horn or a pony's mouth. "You've claimed cabin two, right? This is pretty much your place now, so you might as well hang on to this."
Maple pocketed the key and smiled, aware that the fur around her eyes was still slightly damp. "Thanks, Shinespark." She nodded. "Now, as the griffon was trying to tell us..."
"Gerardo," Gerardo corrected, sounding even more wounded than he looked.
"We've made our decision, yep." Shinespark nodded. "We're going to evacuate, and we're going to fight. The Spirit will be our primary combat force, so if we were wrong about the bombs going off, there will be less political fallout on us and so the only ponies risking their lives fighting are ones who have already pledged themselves toward something exactly like this. The Spirit have been redirecting our weapons convoys for a long time now, so they're very well-armed for a fight, as well."
"I see..." Maple swallowed.
"There's more," Shinespark continued. "Selma wanted us to target the top of the Water District, bringing an army up the mountainside and across the dam bridge. We need to take that anyway to open the overflow valve and start disarming the bombs, but we know he'll be ready for us. So we're sending only half the Spirit up that way, in case it's a trap. The other half will be organizing themselves in Blueleaf. At my signal, they'll enter the Stone District right next to the main Defense Force base and attack there, trying to deal with things from the rear. Or, in the event that things go sour..." She broke eye contact. "They'll barricade the road and prevent anyone from passing, and act as backup as needed. Remember, we have no idea what our enemies truly want out of this."
"And the individual ponies of power?" Gerardo asked, a question the answer to which he clearly felt bore repeating.
Shinespark nodded again. "We want the lower force to be stronger, since the upper force has a higher chance of falling into a trap or being incapacitated. To that end, they get both Braen and Grenada, regular Spirit ponies and good morale boosters. The upper force will publicly be led by Gunga, though I'll be there in disguise. If something does go wrong, I need to be there for my ponies, and I can't send them into danger I wouldn't face myself. Gigavolt will be in the upper force as well. Gerardo guards you two, wherever you go."
"Because we have a history with him, I'm assuming?" Maple grimaced.
"Welll..." Shinespark rolled her shoulders. "I mean, I'm assuming he's your friend? But also because he's been vetted by Arambai and I trust him to be able to go with you without the need for secrets flying around. Speaking of flying, he's one of the very few fliers we have, alongside Braen and my mom, and the latter is going nowhere near this fight. She's going to stay in Blueleaf with a friend until we're completely sure it's safe."
Gerardo coughed into a wing. "It seems I've become a lot more valuable than I had initially been expecting. Playing into a struggle of warring powers! Hah!" He grinned, then turned apologetic. "Also, I've made a recent faux pas, and I'd like to atone for that before anything gets too uncomfortable between us."
"Just like Howe..." Maple rolled her eyes. "At least you're sincere, though. I forgive you, I guess. But... please make an effort to be more sensitive when making an entrance? Or being loud, period?"
"A herculean effort, but I should be up to the task." Gerardo bowed, turning toward the stairs to the upper deck. "Now, as I have not yet been informed as to the nature of your plans for the day... might we walk-and-talk?"
Maple nodded, beginning to walk. "That's probably a good idea. I hope we don't have to go too..." She stopped in realization. "Wait, where's Starlight?"
In the unnamed airship's engine room, Starlight paced back and forth industriously, staring at the metal consoles on the wall and trying to replicate Shinespark's settings from the previous night. Eventually satisfied she had it right, she turned around, reaching for the recently-reinforced helmet rack.
"What do you think you're doing?" Maple asked crossly from the open doorway. "You just did this last night! I told you, it could be dangerous!"
"An experiment," Starlight replied, lifting a rump helmet in her forehooves. "All the other times I've done this, I've been tired, and my horn was really hurting. All I've done today was a single teleport, so it feels mostly fine. If I fall asleep from it, this place is safe, so you and Gerardo can help White Chocolate without me, and maybe it'll even be easier since he can probably fly with you alone. But if I don't, it means that how strong this is depends on how much magic I used earlier, which could be really important for us to know! It would mean that if I fixed my horn really often, I'd be able to use it all the time and never have to worry about memory loss or anything else from fixing it!"
"Starlight..." Maple sighed, staring at the stubborn filly. "Please let Shinespark handle this? She knows what she's doing, and you don't!"
"Maple, I wanna fix my horn!" Starlight pouted. "And no she doesn't! Not that much, at least. Wasn't she telling us about how little she knows? She's probably going to try something like this anyway! Please?"
Maple set her jaw. "Not unless Shinespark says-"
"Wait, what's going on in here?"
Shinespark's head appeared behind Maple in the door, neck craning to get a look at Starlight. "What are you doing in here?"
Starlight re-iterated everything she had just told Maple.
"Whew..." Shinespark whistled in appreciation when she was done. "We might have a little bit better equipment for that in storage somewhere, but for working with what you know and what you have, you're pretty good at this. Try it, I want to see what happens!"
"Shinespark!" Maple rebuked. "Is that really how you got... well..." Her gaze swept the room, with its sparse wooden walls and massive rail coil hanging from the ceiling. "All this?"
Shinespark grinned. "Doing stuff to other stuff to see what happened? That's pretty much how it works!"
Maple lifted an eyebrow.
"I'm serious." Shinespark shrugged. "You find something and you don't know what it does, but want to find out? Do stuff to it. Whatever you can think of. Watch what happens, and record it carefully. Look for patterns in how it behaves. When you can predict what's going to happen when you do something else, that's progress. Eventually, you get enough data and you can find out the how and the why... and if you're lucky, long before that you'll find something you can make it do that's useful. Science is all about understanding how stuff works!" She turned around. "Now Starlight, you can..."
The helmet was already sitting on Starlight's head. Maple gasped. Starlight shrugged.
"I feel fine," the filly said. "For a second it was like I was being blown on by wind, but nothing happened."
"Blown on by wind..." Shinespark sucked the edge of her hoof. "What direction?"
"Huh?" Starlight squinted. "Well, I think it was..." She pointed a hoof toward the starboard side of the boat, slightly to stern. "That way? Why?"
"Interesting," Shinespark hummed. "That's the direction you went flying last night. How's your horn, by the way?"
Starlight shrugged. "It already felt pretty much fine. I can't tell."
"And your memories?" Maple leaned forward, worry overtaking the frustration in her voice.
"Also fine." Starlight shrugged again. "I guess I was right, though. But that's all I wanted to do! We can get going now, if you want."
"I think we should do that." Setting her jaw, and without further delay, Maple scooped Starlight up, leaving the helmet to Shinespark to deal with and carrying the filly out of the room, up the staircase to the deck where Gerardo was waiting.
"Good morning, once again," Gerardo cheerfully greeted as Maple and Starlight emerged atop the airship's deck. After a pause, he added, "You look flustered."
"Only a little," Maple huffed, unable to shake her frown. "I'm not a scientist and I don't know how it's 'supposed' to be done, but something about that was far too unprofessional for me."
Gerardo tipped his head, standing near the railing. "About what, now?"
"...Never mind."
By the amount of light filtering in from near the top of the warehouse, Maple judged it was before midday and definitely not raining. She sighed, staring around the metal rafters and distant walls, the ship's deck solid beneath her. If she was this stressed at the start of the day, it was not a good sign... especially given how long the previous two had been. She forced herself to smile, knowing she'd need it.
"I'm ready when the two of you are," Gerardo said, shuffling proudly. "Though, should we discuss where we're going? I've been informed on some vague details of your perilous escape, but don't quite have the full picture."
Maple sighed again, trying as hard as she could to relax. "There's a pony in Gnarlbough I visited yesterday. I promised her I'd come back, and I want to keep that promise. I... think when you meet her, you'll see why."
"Ahhh..." Gerardo nodded. "Faron's mysterious request. Come to think of it, I recall him mentioning this graveyard place as well. Admirable of you to see a petty favor through to completion despite your own danger. I take it you know the way?"
"Back to Gnarlbough, for sure." Maple flicked her tail, starting toward the boarding ramp. "It's just a short forest road that should be an easy walk. Her house in particular... I'll recognize it when I see it, but I still have the instructions. You might have to fly to find it."
"Easier done than said." Gerardo snapped his talons. "In that case, let's get going before any potential evacuation operations ensnare us or get in our way..."
"Hey, wait up!"
Shinespark's voice from the stairwell stopped them in their tracks, and they turned to see the perky unicorn standing in the doorway. "I've got something for you before you go. Here, take this."
Her aura levitated a familiar package containing a very old, unwelcome book towards Starlight, who frowned in recognition. "Where did you get that?"
Shinespark stopped, blinking in confusion. "You lent it to me last night, remember? Right before we... Oh. Right. I guess you wouldn't remember." She shrank slightly, ears folding. "I didn't steal it, I promise!"
Starlight stared back at the book. "I don't care why you have it, you can keep it. It's really boring!"
At that, Shinespark looked offended. "Boring!? This is priceless! I couldn't..." She trailed off, seeing the looks Maple and Gerardo were giving her and Starlight in turn. "What?"
"Wherever did you come by a priceless tome?" Gerardo asked, squinting. He reached a tentative talon for the book. "If I may..."
"I found it in the mountains," Starlight grumbled. "In a cave. There was a really old camp from another explorer. I read that dumb thing for a whole week while I was sick and it was raining, and I really don't care if I never see it again!"
"Starlight..." Shinespark chided. "This is an original journal of Sosa the explorer, the pony who discovered the Ironridge crater and its unique climate and went on to found the city! It's not boring!"
Starlight stuck her tongue out. "Yeah? You try having a cold and being miserable in a cave with no one to talk to and no magic and nothing to do but read that dumb book over and over again for a week! It's stupid!"
"How much is it worth?" Maple asked, stepping forward. "I doubt we're short on money, but if this is really an important artifact..." She blinked. "Starlight, why didn't you show us this?"
"I told you," Starlight huffed, "because it's boring and you probably would have made a big deal about it just like you are now! I don't want to remember that week!"
"I'd be very interested in perusing it, as an explorer myself," Gerardo offered. "If you truly wish to part ways with such a treasure..."
"Actually, if Starlight wants to get rid of it that badly, I'm going to leave it here," Shinespark replied. "It would fit pretty well with the other stuff in this ship's library, and why not stock a one-of-a-kind airship with one-of-a-kind books?" She shrugged. "It fits! And you can come back and read it any time you like."
Maple's eyes lit with curiosity. Starlight scowled. Gerardo looked like he'd just discovered a chest of buried gold.
"I stayed up late reading it last night," Shinespark remarked as she floated it back toward her, eyes glittering. "It's fascinating. It's not just more material, there are things in here we never knew before. And I've read all of Sosa's works, so you can imagine what this is like to me."
"New, you say?" Gerardo lifted an eyebrow, then grinned. "Well, all the more impetus to finish this mission quickly so I can retire to a good evening of ancient history!"
"For example..." Shinespark's voice dropped low, whispering conspiratorially. "An interesting fact that's common knowledge to geology and cartography buffs is that Ironridge is located at the exact midpoint of the capitals of Yakyakistan and the Griffon Empire. It's one of those crazy coincidences that are bound to happen when you live in a world as physically huge as ours." Her voice went even lower. "But this book has a line that implies Sosa already knew that before he discovered the city. It was written during his journey, and he said his goal was to find the midpoint. He thought there might have been something here, enough to go on a massive expedition just to see! Isn't that amazing?"
She gave a foalish squee. "I mean, given what Sosa was like, it didn't take much to send him on an expedition. But still! I just... I wish I could keep reading this instead of having to deal with so many political things, and keeping ponies safe... but I have to, because nobody else can. Anyway. Thanks for giving me this book, Starlight. I'll see you three later... hopefully when this is all over."
With that, Shinespark trotted back down the stairs, an unshakable spring in her step.
"Ahh..." Gerardo beamed. "It's always a pleasure to meet another with a passion for adventuring, even if it is the history of it. Now I want to read that book too. Though, I imagine young Starlight would appreciate it if we chose not to discuss it around her? It sounds as if her experience was quite unenviable..."
"Yes," Starlight grunted.
"Then let's get going," Maple breathed, feeling slightly rejuvenated by Shinespark's enthusiasm, if not all the way. "I want to get this day over and done with so I can go home, see my friends and sleep for a week."
"Oh! One more thing!" It was Shinespark again.
"Yes...?" Gerardo asked, looking over his shoulder.
"We're about to send out the ferry to Riverfall one last time," Shinespark explained, waving a hoof. "It... won't be coming back, at least until this is over. If nothing's happened in three days, that is. My mom's the one who will be going. She'll warn Arambai, so they can take whatever precautions they can think of, and then stay there where it's safe. She'll probably also see your friends. Is there any message you want me to have her pass along to them?" She folded her ears. "I know you've been missing them, so..."
Maple smiled. "Tell them I miss them and will be back as soon as I can, and that I'm safe and have learned so much and that Ironridge is both everything and nothing like we thought it would be. And tell them to start thinking now of what they want me to cook when I get back, because we're going to have a long get-together so I can tell them everything that happened... and maybe freak out just a little about all the things that have happened to me. Could you tell them that?"
"Got it." Shinespark tapped her head, then glanced back at Maple. "Also, you're a chef?"
"Mhmm." Maple nodded, thinking of the exotic breakfast spread that had been prepared below. "Is that something you do, too?"
Shinespark blushed ferociously. "Uhhm... Y-You mean the food we had this morning? No, that was Gigavolt. I'm good at a lot of things, but you really don't want to see me in a kitchen."
Maple gulped, suddenly very interested in seeing Shinespark in a kitchen. "Well, I'll take your word for it."
"Yeah." Shinespark grinned, ears still flat. "Anyway, that's the last thing I wanted, for real this time. Now stay safe out there, and if you get in trouble, Gunga will be in Gnarlbough for at least a few hours overseeing the evacuation. Good luck!"
"I bid the same to you." Gerardo gave a noble salute, and led the way down the boarding ramp.
The forest road leading from the warehouse to Gnarlbough was awash in mud, more than half of the available surface covered in standing water and every bit of visible ground ready to sink below the surface at the slightest application of pressure. Gerardo hovered, safely avoiding the morass, but Maple had no choice but to walk.
Starlight allowed herself to be carried on Gerardo's back, partially reducing the weight her adoptive mother had to carry... but Maple had somewhat foolishly insisted on picking up a spare chunk of concrete on their way out, replenishing the ballast she had lost when fighting Selma two days prior. As a result, the mud sucked at her legs, frequently reaching all the way up to her belly fur. She was immensely grateful she wasn't wearing saddlebags.
The bright sun shone overhead as she squelched through the mottled shade of the trees, walking carefully to avoid any sudden pitfalls. Its rays taunted her, gleaming in a mostly-cloudless sky, warm and shimmering yet far too late to spare her from her plight.
"At the very least," Maple gasped, freeing a hoof from a particularly clingy patch of mud, "this is... fairly cool..." She grunted, nearly slipping. "This day is going to be hot, I can tell. In fact, it is hot! Just walking across the concrete by the warehouse, I could tell..." Glancing upward, she grinned slyly. "Maybe you should join me down here in the mud, Gerardo."
"I think I'll pass," Gerardo panted, his face already sweat-soaked from the heat despite the shade of the trees. "I believe I can see why the Stone District is considered a higher class of living space than here, however. The high mountain breezes sound very appealing at this time..."
"I wonder if it's like this all the time, down here," Maple muttered, realizing she had hit a dead end of deeper puddles and taking a step backwards. "When it's not raining, that is. It would make sense how they grow so much fruit. I bet fruit loves a climate like this. Maybe I almost miss the rain..."
"It's the rain's fault you're stuck in the mud, though," Starlight protested, staring worriedly over the side of Gerardo's back. "What if you slip and can't get out?"
"That's why I'm being very careful." Maple trudged further, finding a compacted bit of slightly more solid ground and putting a solid inch between her belly fur and the water. "And we hardly have other options, aside from just not going at all. And in the worst case, your horn is fresh and you can pull me out."
Starlight frowned.
"Really, though..." Gerardo waved a talon. "It's easy to see why the threat of flood is so severe. I initially assumed that as the river flows east and we are quite far west of the point where the reservoir water would enter the stream, damage would be limited to downstream... but this entire region is so flat, it can't even drain itself from a regular rainfall. Shinespark mentioned a natural choke downstream that would slow the water's draining and force it to back up to the west, but even without that, the splash from everything emptying at once would put this entire roadway underwater..." He flinched. "Well, more underwater than it already is."
"You can say that again," Maple muttered, rubbing off a leaf that had plastered itself against one of her legs. "In the meantime, I'll just stay down here, nice and cool, while you flap around in the heat... Maybe we could even use a mountain flood, if it meant this place cooling off!"
Eventually, the tree canopy widened and parted, the roadway sloping back up to Gnarlbough. The combination of gained height and broad sunlight swiftly dried the road, allowing Maple to climb out of the muddy pit... and almost instantly become dried and entombed, perfectly in line with her predictions.
"Ugh..." she panted, walking stiffly, dried mud cracking all along her forelegs as they entered the city. "I changed my mind. Walking through the mud was not worth it. Not unless I can... get a bath..."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow at the mud lake behind them, opting not to comment.
"Or just a way to get this mud off," Maple complained, shaking a hoof to little effect. "Because I'm starting to sweat under this, and that doesn't feel nice at all." Experimentally, she rubbed a hoof along the grass of a house hill. It didn't have much of an effect.
Frustrated, she rubbed harder, then threw her entire body against the grass, slithering at it and trying to free herself of cracked and peeling flakes of mud. "Argh..." she hissed, sprawling. "This is... starting to itch... really bad..."
Gerardo frowned, landing next to her. "You don't suppose the water could have held some type of natural toxin, do you? Something to... make coats itchy?"
"Yes!" Maple growled, writhing against the hillside. "It's called mud! And having it dried against your coat when it's hot out and you're sweating and..."
Starlight was about to light her horn and search for a way to help when an unfortunately familiar voice interrupted from the top of the house hill. "Hey, it's you guys!"
It was Howe.
"Welcome back, my true comrades!" the pegasus proclaimed, standing nobly with wings outstretched. "It does the Howenator's heart good to see everyone together in one piece!" He trailed off, grinning, eyeing Maple with wings spread. "Also, I don't know how to put this politely, but... whatever you're doing to that house is really turning me on."
Maple stopped thrashing to glare up at him. "I'm covered in dried mud and it itches badly!"
"...Oh." Howe's wings drooped.
"Erm... Good morning, Howe..." Gerardo approached hesitantly. "Might I inquire as to what you're doing here?"
Howe shrugged. "It was the strangest experience! Lo, there we were, three brave explorers prepared to enter a haunted graveyard to take refuge from a blinding rainstorm! Yet no sooner had I pierced the accursed walls to the heart of that dark shrine when I blacked out, with no memory of the events that followed. I... woke up with a headache in an alley behind a bar in Meadowrise, the next town over to the west. I don't suppose luck treated you any more ladylike than me?"
"...Something like that." Gerardo blinked, sensibly reluctant to share secrets. "I take it you're going to insist on accompanying us once again?"
"Oh, please!" Howe folded a wing across his chest. "Anything less would be a slight against my pegasus honor!" He winced. "Which has been known to have been slighted from time to time, but that's neither here nor there. But fear not, friends. The Howenator has reasons both material and of principle to lend you his aid."
Maple stood up, cringing against the feel of the mud but reluctant to continue trying to scrape it off in front of Howe. At least it blended in well with her dusty-brown coat. "As long as you're reasonable about it and give me space when I need it."
"I would do nothing less," Howe solemnly proclaimed, emphasizing every single word.
"And no questions about things we don't want to explain?" Maple lifted an eyebrow, standing uncomfortably against the heat.
Howe grinned. "Secrets to keep, have you? So exciting! I shall interfere only as far as your trust extends!"
"...All right, then..." Hesitantly, Maple accepted, squaring her shoulders and facing the road. "We're going back to White Chocolate's. If you remember where that is, lead the way."
"Right over that hill, my fearless companions," Howe noisily rambled, eschewing the winding roadways of Gnarlbough in favor of a direct route, "our destination awaits! I can feel it in my very bones!"
"Oh, good," Maple griped, the only one of the group who was groundbound. "Only another hill. Thanks for reminding..." She bit her tongue, checking herself as she hauled her way up a sun-streaked slope, still fruitlessly trying to wipe the sweaty dirt from her coat. "Sorry. Don't mean to be a downer... It's just hot and I really wish I had wings too..."
Starlight frowned down from atop Gerardo's back, her own coat growing damp from the humid air and unforgiving heat. "It really isn't fair that you get to cross this so much more easily than her, you know. Why couldn't we have followed the roads instead?"
"Because my pegasus intellect does not work that way," Howe proudly informed them. "Roads like these amble courselessly through the infinite hills and valleys of the world, but on-"
Gerardo silenced him with a cough. "I realize it's hardly my place to say this, but do you mind being slightly less verbose? It's growing difficult to understand you."
"Errr..." Howe winced. "Because I remember things in terms of straight lines? If you saw what this place looked like from up here, you'd have nightmares about memorizing the roads, too!" He bit his goatee'd lip. "But I am serious. Our goal is right there."
"Good." Maple dragged herself to the top of the final hill, collapsing and panting in the sunlight. "This... is hard work... arrrrgh..."
"For what it is worth, I can feel the heat up here, as well..." Gerardo hovered limply. "Well, though? Is that door your destination?"
"Yes," Maple panted. "Just... give me a minute..."
Howe winked. "I presume you want the Howenator to stand vigilant guard, exactly like the time before?"
"Yes," Maple repeated, swallowing. "And, Gerardo, I don't... know if you're good with kids..."
"Better than some and worse than others." Landing, Gerardo shrugged, prompting Starlight to hop off his back and run to Maple. "This is your quest, I remind you. I am merely here to assist in whatever ways I can."
Maple struggled to her hooves, sliding down the hill to the road beneath. "Thank you," she managed, futilely attempting to brush herself off one last time and, when that failed, straightening her mane. "Starlight? Are you coming in or sitting out here? I know with last time..."
"With Howe?" Starlight made a face. "Ew, no. What are we even doing in there though?"
"Hey! I hardly feel I deserved that..." Howe wilted.
"We're keeping our promise to come back," Maple said, drawing strength from the closeness of her goal and straightening her posture. "I imagine we'll talk about whatever she wants to talk about, and if she needs it, we can go with her during the evacuation and help with her foals." She looked up at Gerardo. "I don't remember if I mentioned it earlier, but she's a single mother with eleven foals."
If Gerardo hadn't been grounded, he would have fallen out of the sky. Howe merely looked aroused.
"She's Faron's old wife," Maple continued. "And she's... lonely. You'll understand why I want to help her."
Walking up the path, she lifted a hoof and tapped on White Chocolate's door.
Thud!
Within three seconds of knocking, the face of a filly was plastered against the door's window, a tiny pane of glass set too high up to be useful to anyone but a giraffe. Her cheek smushed against the glass at an awkward angle as her one visible eye scanned the crowd outside, as if she was either balanced atop a very precarious perch that required hugging the door not to fall, or had been flung against it by a catapult and had not yet peeled herself free.
"Mooomm!" the filly hollered, dropping off and hitting the ground with a thump. "Those ponies from yesterday are back, and they brought a giant griffon!"
From somewhere in the house came a muted, unintelligible response.
"Can I let them in!?"
Another distant response, sounding vaguely like "Wait for me!"
Predictably, the door instantly opened, a little yellow filly with an enormous mane lurking in wait behind. "Hi, I'm Jamjars," she greeted with a perfect smile, "and welcome to our..."
She gasped, eyes widening, pointing a hoof in recognition at Starlight as if she had just then noticed her. "I remember you!" she proclaimed, a sharkish grin taking form. "Do you remember me?"
Starlight frowned. "I could hear you through the door."
"...Yeah? So?" Jamjars furrowed her brows. "Are these your friends?"
"I will end you," Starlight threatened, a stray spark flickering from her horn.
Maple took a step forward, wanting to intervene or ask where White Chocolate was... but every time Jamjars spoke, she was distracted by Howe, standing out of the filly's sight on the roof of the doorway, trying his best to do an exaggerated lip sync.
Before Jamjars could do anything she would regret, White Chocolate puffed and bustled her way into the room beyond, stepping over a trio of foals trying fruitlessly to build something useful out of a stack of oddly-shaped wooden blocks. "Maple?" Her visible eye widened eagerly, her manestyle back to covering the other but nothing work to cover her flanks or fading cutie mark. "You came back!"
"Hoping we would?" Maple smiled crookedly. "Can we come in? It's kind of nasty outside..."
"Please, of course!" White Chocolate scooped up Jamjars by the tail, hauling the massive-maned filly out of the entrance. "It's a little toasty in here, but hopefully not as bad as outside..."
"Ow, Mom!" Jamjars flailed. "You're ruining my professional appearance!"
"Too bad," White Chocolate muttered around a mouthful of tail fluff as she carried the filly off.
Maple led the way down the short, curved staircase to the first room, Starlight close at her back and Gerardo bringing up the rear. The griffon flicked the door closed behind them, bowing his head and surveying the foyer with interest. "Hmm. This is quite the architectural style you have here, Miss...?"
"White Chocolate," White Chocolate replied, dumping Jamjars and turning back to her guests. "It's how all of Gnarlbough looks. Are you a friend of Maple's?" She shot Maple an appreciative look.
"I am, indeed." Gerardo bowed deeply. "Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, lest you forget it. But really, I'm just here on behalf of Maple. It is she who has business with you..." His eyebrow raised at her appearance, clearly deducing which Riverfall mare she looked almost exactly like. "And I think I'm beginning to understand why. Regardless, don't mind me! Maple, do what you came to!"
"We're here because I promised I'd be back." Maple smiled, her mud-infused tail dragging like a log across the ground. "I don't remember if we made any other promises or agreements last night. It's been... Well, I've had a lot over the past few hours to remember."
"You remembered me, though," White Chocolate hummed, stepping forward suddenly to embrace Maple... but when she tried to wrap a hoof around the mare's neck in a hug, she stepped back in shock. "Oh my! You're filthy..."
Maple grimaced. "Sorry about that. I... fell in a mud puddle on the way back here."
White Chocolate's face softened. "And you still came? Hmmm..." Her ears drooped. "I don't know that I had anything to talk about, really. I probably should have prepared, but when I woke up this morning and the foals needed to be fed and the house cleaned and everything kept in order, it just didn't seem like... I didn't think hoping you would be back was the most important thing I could do..." She looked away. "I have some leftovers from breakfast, if you like, and was going to get started on lunch in an hour but can do it earlier. And you can borrow my bath, too. Please!"
"Really?" Maple perked up. "This mud is uncomfortable, but..." She glanced at Starlight and Gerardo. "This is my errand, and I'd feel bad to bring you all the way here with me and then force you to sit around while I get cleaned up..."
"Worry not," Gerardo reassured. "You'd have to find time to do so sooner or later, and somehow, I doubt your point of residence last night has working plumbing. Better to do so here under open invitation than to put it off, no?" He winked. "And I doubt it will be that much of an inconvenience in the first place. White Chocolate here looks like a pony very much worth talking to."
White Chocolate's ears folded beneath a soft smile. "You're not saying that just because she asked you to, are you?"
"Hmm?" Gerardo frowned. "No, not at all. Why do you ask?"
"If you're really fine with this..." Maple interrupted, standing near a tunnel. "Where's the bath?"
White Chocolate pleasantly pointed out a direction.
"Thank you!" Maple vanished in a puff of dust.
"Well, then..." Straightening her shoulders, White Chocolate looked up at Gerardo, who safely beat her in height even though she was bigger than most ponies. "Would you two care to follow me to the kitchen, so I can get something started?"
"We just ate, actually," Gerardo remarked, bobbing his head. "Though I could always find room to pack away a little more."
White Chocolate's kitchen was a mess of pots and pans, in large part due to the chubby colt on the floor who had spent the last who-knew-how-long acquiring every single metal dish in the room and forming them into a loot heap to bang on.
"Sorry, Board Biter," she hummed, taking one of the colt's pans in her mouth and risking collapsing the entire pile to free it. "Mommy needs this for lunch. But think of how much tastier something will be to chew on when it's something you can actually eat!"
Board Biter hammered his pans in cacophonous protest. Granted, it could also have been acceptance. Starlight wasn't sure she could tell the difference.
Gerardo stood nearby, Starlight lurking by his legs in a watchful vigil for Jamjars or any other foal who felt like messing with her. The griffon had a huge, imposing sheath for his sword strapped to his uniform, and in light of its non-lethality, she entertained more than one fantasy of whipping it out with telekinesis and using it to incapacitate any who tried to stage a repeat of the previous night's debacle.
"So," White Chocolate began, attempting to breach conversation. "You're a friend of Maple's? How did you meet? We talked a lot last night, but I think it was mostly about myself..."
"Through..." Gerardo hesitated. "Let's call it an incident. One involving a very pompous stallion, an improperly-maintained machine, and a rather selfless pony who made my recovery from said incident a lot swifter than it could have been."
Starlight shrank against the wall. Her memories of the event were blurred by contact with Arambai's machine, but she knew exactly what he was talking about: Hemlock's boat lift, and her extremely-visible attempt to save the boat with telekinesis.
"Oh!" White Chocolate gasped and turned to him, forgetting the pan on the counter. "You weren't injured, were you? I remember Faron once talking about a piece of equipment with these tremendous gears, and..." She trailed off.
"Oh, nothing like that, I assure you," Gerardo chuckled. "Merely property damage and wasted time. Faron, though." He pointed a talon. "I see Maple was telling the truth about your familiarity with the stallion. He was your husband, I have been lead to believe?"
"...Yes. He was." White Chocolate shifted uncomfortably, trying to hide her pregnant belly with her tail as she scrubbed at the pan under a stream of running water.
"I see." Gerardo seated himself against the wall. "I don't suppose Maple told you much about where she is from, then?"
White Chocolate shook her head. "Only that she knew him, and... that it sounds like he misses me. Or maybe she didn't, and I'm just remembering what I wanted to hear. I don't know..."
Gerardo pressed further, inquiring into Faron's disappearance and life with White Chocolate over the past few years, but Starlight had stopped listening. She already knew everything that would come out: the stallion had grown depressed from the loss of his job, taken to long walks around the Earth District, and ultimately stumbled across the warehouse in the graveyard. Whether deliberately or accidentally, he had been ferried to Riverfall and started a new life with a mare who looked as much like his old wife as possible... leaving White Chocolate alone to care for their family, living in constant feelings of inadequacy and ultimately having an affair that would leave her another unborn foal and a fake cutie mark that just wouldn't stay.
She hung her head, stewing. It wasn't fair. It was less fair to Maple, because she had personally dealt with abandonment, and Starlight's own history with the subject... It probably wasn't even a single pony's fault, so much as that of general apathy. And Sunburst had been her friend, not her husband.
Every once in a while, foals peered out of the tunnels connecting the kitchen to the other rooms in the underground house. What about them? As horrible as White Chocolate's situation might have been, were they the victims of unfairness, too? Starlight still felt a flash of anger as she remembered Jamjars' constant pestering of her the night before, and Snow had irked her as well... but when they had lacked a father for the past two years, and Faron very well might have had nothing to do with raising them for some time before that, could she blame them? What was a pony responsible for if they didn't even know better? And if blame could be shifted upwards... who or what was really responsible for everything that had happened to Ironridge?
Shinespark and Arambai, and their program to let stallions run away? That was merely in response to another problem. Herman and Yakyakistan, coming to Ironridge and changing it with their airships? It wasn't like she could ask other countries to stay their technological progress while Ironridge did whatever it had been doing... and from talking to Elise in Blueleaf, Ironridge hadn't been a happy place to live before that, either. In fact, the last time Ironridge had been truly happy, if everyone was to be believed, was in the days of Project Aslan... and that had been ended by a simple airship crash.
Could everything bad that had ever happened in Ironridge boil down to bad luck? And if it did, what could a broken-horned filly like her ever hope to do about it?
Her musing was interrupted by a sharp rapping from the direction of the cave-house's door, and a stampede of hooves as countless foals competed to be the first to reach it.
White Chocolate's ears folded, and she put down her pan, pausing narration. "Somepony else?" she asked, confused. "But Maple was the only one I was expecting today... Kids, hold on, let me get it!"
She stumped off towards the door, the pan still in the middle of being cleaned.
A filly held a slip paper upside-down, squinting at it with her tongue stuck out as an uncertain stallion stood at the doorway, a thick saddlebag of identical papers at his side. "Evv... Evackshun..." She stumbled over herself, trying to read.
"Eviction!?" White Chocolate skidded into the foyer, face paling more than usual, holding a hoof to her womb.
"Give it here, dumb-dumb!" Jamjars seized the paper from her sibling, reading it properly. "It's an evacuation notice. Says we're supposed to go to grand Acorn." She frowned at the delivery stallion. "Why are we supposed to go there, huh? It's hot outside and will ruin my mane!"
"H-Hey, don't look at me," the stallion protested, evidently expecting that type of treatment. "I'm just the messenger, and I have a lot more of these to hoof out, so bye!" His telekinetic aura slammed the door in Jamjars' face.
"Wow, rude," Jamjars huffed.
"Evacuation..." White Chocolate looked even paler. "What's going on?"
"Ah, yes..." Gerardo swallowed, lifting a talon. "Perhaps it would have been prudent for us to mention that earlier..."
White Chocolate's foyer couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a flurry of activity or as still as a tombstone.
"Mom," Jamjars finally complained, "what gives?"
The mare herself was panting, ears flat, clearly fighting back a panic attack. "We'll... We'll just have to..." Her visible eye dilated.
"My apologies," Gerardo assured, taking up a more visible stance in the center of the room. "Had we any clue they would have been so prompt, I assure you we would have found a gentler way to break the news to you beforehand! And the danger is hopefully not real. As it stands, all that's being dealt with is the mere chance of flood-"
"A flood?" White Chocolate paled even further, wobbling.
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, I've only seen maps and had to trust that the somewhat counter-intuitive simulations would be correct, but that is indeed what would happen if the Defense Force succeeds in blowing up the Water District dam."
At that, White Chocolate promptly fell over. Hayseed was at her side in a flash, catching her substantial weight on a strong back, while Starlight and Jamjars shot Gerardo identical glares. "Really?" they intoned as one.
Gerardo gulped, taking in White Chocolate's reaction. "Perhaps there was a more tactful way of putting that..."
The room held its awkward silence for one second longer, before a foal broke it with a warbling, roosterlike scream. "Arrararglargh! We're all gonna capsize and drown!"
From there, everything devolved into chaos.
"Mom?" Hayseed struggled under White Chocolate's weight as Gerardo blinked and Jamjars facehoofed, a cacophony of foals racing past, some hoarding their possessions and others joining the racket for the sake of making a racket. "Mom, you're heavy. Are you alright?"
"Whoo..." White Chocolate moaned, struggling to get her hooves under her. "I need to lie down, but... there's no time for that... Go get your brothers and sisters together so we can move them. Jamjars, give me that paper..."
Jamjars blinked crossly at her. "Mom, you look like a beached whale. Let me have this. I can be in charge!" As if to emphasize her point, she summoned an orange telekinetic glow that was practically lost in her massive mane, seized the tail of a passing filly, and grounded her with a thump.
As two more charged in to take the downed filly's place of yodeling panic, Maple tromped in from the left-most corridor, mane undone and streaming with water. "What's going on in here?" she asked, a note of fear to her voice, looking decidedly smaller with her entire coat plastered to her sides. "They didn't deliver the notice already, did they?"
Gerardo coughed. "I may have had a momentary lapse of judgement in which information would be useful and which would cause undue panic..."
"Maple!" White Chocolate lurched her way to the dripping mare, mane and tail growing disheveled, panic in her eye. "I don't know what to do! I've never taken them all outside at once before...!"
While the chaos unfolded, Starlight slunk her way across the room to the stairwell where Jamjars stood, doing an excellent job of appearing in control while doing absolutely nothing. "Hey, you!" She pointed a hoof at Jamjars. "What does that paper say? How long do we have until we need to be out of here?"
Jamjars frowned, as if she wanted to tell Starlight to mind her own business... and then smirked, reaching down to take Starlight's hoof and help her onto the staircase. "Say," she began mischievously, eyes flashing. "You're smart, right? Want to be my second-in-command?"
Starlight blinked. "Huh?"
"Look at them!" Jamjars swept a hoof at the alarmed room, moving from an uncertainly-shuffling Gerardo to a soaked Maple to White Chocolate, who was swarmed by foals and infinitely too overwhelmed to take charge. "They have no idea what they're doing. Mom's always been that way, 'cause she let our family get in this big of a mess in the first place, but that griffon just freaked everyone out and your wet mom isn't doing anything to help anypony! Hayseed is too busy being a goody fourshoes to get with the program, Snow's a wuss, and everyone else is too young!" She gave a snort of exasperation and tossed her gigantic mane. "Obviously, someone who actually knows what they're doing needs to take charge. So do you want to be my second-in-command, or not?"
"Wait a minute..." Starlight's brow furrowed. "You're actually trying to be helpful? I remember all that stuff you did last night."
"All what stuff?" Jamjars tossed her mane again. "Teasing Snow in front of you? You have to admit, he was being awkward enough to deserve it before I even said anything. Besides, I just wanted to see what you were made of." She huffed and looked back out at the sea of chaos in the foyer, several heaps growing where foals were stacking belongings they didn't want to part with. "So yeah, I am. My family's a mess, but someone's gotta do it. Are you in?"
"As long as you don't bug me about who I like again," Starlight accepted, glowering. "Now can I see that paper?"
Jamjars hid her mouth with a hoof. "Hee hee... Well, fine. Just remember, the harder you try to keep a secret, the more egg you'll have on your face when it gets out. Here."
She turned the evacuation notice to Starlight in her mouth, still talking around it. "It says we've got until tonight, so I don't think we should leave right away. It's probably disgusting out there, and will cool off when the sun sets. So we need to think of a way to calm these morons down so they don't use all their energy now and can still walk when they need to." She lifted an eyebrow, the notice threatening to slip free of her little teeth. "You have that magic thing you did. Think you can make all of them freeze to cool their heads?"
Starlight frowned, studying the paper. "It says to go to Grand Acorn. But they're also moving part of Copsewood, and isn't that big? It'll probably be crowded, so the earlier you get there, the better place you'll be able to get. They'll probably be packing ponies into warehouses and stuff at the end."
Jamjars looked like she had swallowed a lemon. "Ugh! You're right..." She shook a hoof, Gerardo in the background making a feeble attempt to rally order. "Then we'll need to get them organized enough to move quickly..." Her eyes brightened. "Unless we could send someone ahead to pick out a spot and keep everyone else out! Your griffon looks like he could-"
They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Again!?" Jamjars pouted. "Great. Now it's probably some salespony thinking they can..." She flung the door open, and was silenced.
"Ah, good morning, fillies!" Howe curtsied, standing with his wings folded and his back to the road. "Listen, um, Starlight, I know you all told me to keep a lookout since I'm slightly intimidating and all that, but I saw a stallion handing out warnings and heard the most awful racket from within these walls, and fate compelled me to see if you needed assistance." He blinked at Jamjars. "Also, your staring is making me really uncomfortable for some reason."
Starlight was about to say something vindictive regarding him and Maple, but was interrupted by a wide smile breaking across Jamjars' face. "Eeeeeeeeee!" She clutched what was left of her cheeks, most of the available room taken up by teeth. "Your mane," she gasped, "is amazing. I need need need the name of your stylist!"
"Eh heh heh..." Howe chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "Please, hold your applause, my good citizen! The Howenator isn't actually... used to having it be appreciated."
"Howe," Starlight interrupted, "can you go away? Everyone is freaking out inside and Maple and Gerardo can't get it under control and the last thing we need is more noise!" She stomped a hoof for emphasis.
"More noise, you say?" Howe pushed his head past them, eyeballing the room and grinning devilishly. "On the contrary: I feel more noise is exactly what this situation calls for! Behold!"
He brandished his cutie mark - a brilliant red megaphone - and an exact likeness of it appeared in his forehooves. He tossed it up, caught it in a wing, held it to his muzzle, and bellowed into the house, "Greetings, friends and neighbors all! Would you mind toning it down a notch so old Howe can take the stage?"
The house stopped, frozen by the volume of his blast. Maple and White Chocolate's ears were already down; they covered them anyway. Gerardo shrugged off a wince, looking incredulously to the doorway. Most of the fillies and colts were petrified, curious ears swiveled Howe's way for more.
Howe lowered his voice. "That's cool. Very cool. The Howenator is proud of you all, little children. Now... go listen to your mother, or something."
Smugly, he let the magical megaphone dissolve into whatever ether it had formed from. "Now how's that for a show-stopper? I told you I would be useful to have around!"
Back in the house, a foal began crying, triggering the caterwauling to resume.
"Well..." Maple gulped, her coat halfway dry. "This is an improvement, I guess."
"And yet still so far to go..." Gerardo lamented. "Somehow, I don't believe effective parenting is supposed to work this way."
They stood in front of a carefully-closed wooden door, along with White Chocolate and Howe. White Chocolate kept eyeing the latter apprehensively, her two smallest foals held with one foreleg. Jamjars waited smugly behind, with Starlight trying to strike a balance between getting too close to or too far from the filly and Hayseed watching both carefully. Snowshoe was too busy trying to jam together an old suitcase in his room to bother anyone, as was one other of the elder foals.
The remaining five were locked in a bedroom.
"Now, you two..." White Chocolate hummed, still looking dazed as she rocked the foals in her grip. "Let's get you napping so I don't need to watch you, and then we can let the others out of their forced time-out..."
Jamjars blanched. "Where? This is their room! You wouldn't let Snow watch over them, would you?"
"In my bedroom," White Chocolate answered. "And we'll just have to hope... that someone sends help for ponies who have trouble moving on their own. I'm certain there are elders in this town who won't be able to walk that far..."
Howe threw a salute. "Want me to go scan the crowds? Traveling by air is a feat they can only dream of performing themselves!"
"...Thanks." White Chocolate swallowed.
"I'll help you put those two to bed," Maple offered, her coat spiky from the drying water. "I've got something I'd like to ask you about, anyway..."
They retreated together through the corridors of the underground bungalow, none of the others following along. "What is it?" White Chocolate hummed when they were sufficiently out of earshot, apparently sensing it wasn't meant to be shared.
Maple's ears folded. "Not anything important. I just... have a better place now to put that thing I asked you to hang onto for me."
"Oh." White Chocolate's face fell. "So I guess it really was just a promise for this morning..."
"N-No!" Maple stammered. "I didn't mean it like that! I..." Her shoulders slumped. "I talked to some ponies about helping you. Important ones. If Faron wanted you back, and your whole family... would you want him, too?"
White Chocolate sighed, pushing open the door to her darkened bedroom with a shoulder, her bed sitting plush and empty with only a single depression from the previous night. "That's a big if, Maple. He knew what he was leaving behind. You do, too."
"If..." Maple swallowed. "If you could run away... like him, but taking your entire family with you, to a place where they'd be cared for and you could live without all the memories of this place and Ironridge... would you do it? If only the decision was in the way, and all the logistics were taken care of...?"
"That sounds like what we're doing right now." Defeated, White Chocolate slumped, then moved to the dresser where she had stashed her moon glass before. "I heard your friend. He said we were evacuating from a threat of flood, because the Defense Force wanted to blow up the Water District dams. Does it matter if any of us want to keep our old memories, bitter or sweet, if all it takes is one explosion to wash them all away?"
Maple stepped forward... and squeezed her shoulder, despite her wet coat. "I don't really know..."
"Here's your orb," White Chocolate finished, dredging up the artifact with far less trouble than she had had finding the obsidian earlier. "I spent some time staring at it last night. I hope you don't mind. I just hope..." She sighed and hoofed it over. "I hope that some time, I get something to hope for."
Silently, Maple accepted the orb, tucking it away and into her cutie mark when White Chocolate wasn't looking. She felt a familiar twinge of her muscles, reminding that she wouldn't be able to carry it for long... but that didn't matter, then and there.
"I won't leave Ironridge," she assured, feeling White Chocolate's coat against hers, "until you do. I promise."
"Gerardo," Maple whispered, taking the griffon aside in a corner next to a stack of toy boxes. "Can I ask a favor?"
"Certainly." Gerardo bowed, giving her his ear.
With a shuffle of drying fur, Maple pulled out a small key, designed to be held in a pony's mouth. "This is the key to my room on the ship. You remember where it is, right?"
Gerardo fidgeted. "I can't say I'd easily forget..."
"Then can you take this and put it there? For safekeeping?"
Maple produced a shimmering crystalline orb, clear and colorless save for a jagged teal core that seemed to glow in the dim light, countless golden flakes suspended in the shell around it. "It's what Howe wants, and I'm not sure if I trust him yet. The windigo heart. But carrying it with my cutie mark makes me feel sick if I hold it for more than a few hours, and the sooner we get it somewhere safe, the better. Besides, I'm..." She shuffled nervously. "Things are going well so far, but I have a feeling something's going to go wrong, and it would be so much easier to take care of this before it does."
Gerardo took it with a talon and returned a grin. "Hah! Saying you have a bad feeling about something is a perfect way to invite something bad happen. Then again, so is saying nothing can possibly go wrong..." He tucked the orb into a large pocket on his uniform. It was about the size of a newborn foal's head, or maybe an exceptionally large mango, and stuck out sorely but was still safely contained. "I'll be back swiftly. If you aren't here when I return, I'll search for you along the road to Grand Acorn."
"Thank you, Gerardo..." Maple smiled, hoping he'd take it as forgiveness for their altercation on the ship. She was feeling better, at least, despite the shrieks of eleven foals still ringing in her ears.
"Then I shall be off!" Gerardo primly darted up the staircase and out the door, stopping to ease it closed behind him.
Maple exhaled... and glanced around. Starlight was nearby, standing still with a clear mix of impatience and nervousness that was easy to sympathize with. The sooner they could depart, the better... but Howe was still abroad, searching for Sosan assistance to move the huge family.
There was also White Chocolate, leaning stunned against a wall. The task of calming the children was complete, at least until the next stranger appeared in the house to make noise and set everything off, and fortunately the younger foals were easy to distract from their plight. But the mother herself looked increasingly less-capable of coming to terms with the evacuation notice, and Maple had no idea how to help her. So, she walked closer.
"Now that that's all done..." White Chocolate sighed and closed her eye, ears twitching at Maple's presence. "Was that right, what Gerardo said? That the Defense Force is planning a flood?"
"It's..." Maple swallowed. She wanted to say it's a precaution, but that felt like unnecessary sugarcoating. "They threatened to," she went with. "This is all news to me, too. I don't know how much is a good idea to say, though..."
White Chocolate looked up, vulnerable. "Do you think they will?"
"...I have no idea." Maple didn't mention that she had met Selma, and that he came off as a needlessly cruel pony, keeping her and Starlight as a captive audience and then dragging her into his fortress when Gerardo hadn't gone down on that first evening as quickly as he would have liked. Her mind flitted over a claustrophobic sequence of being carried in magic through tunnels, of being tied to a pipe and prodded and mocked, of her probably-insignificant revenge of the stolen card key still floating inside her cutie mark... and realized that if push came to shove, she could see the unicorn captain pulling a trigger and washing away a district. But White Chocolate didn't need to hear that.
"I'm sure whatever happens will be for the best, though," she said instead, giving a smile that she didn't really feel and hoping it reached her eyes.
White Chocolate bought it. "Thanks..."
Maple didn't meet her gaze. Eventually, she heard the other mare shuffle up beside her.
"You know," White Chocolate began, "every time it feels like Ironridge is at its worst, I start... wondering." She swallowed. "I was little when Project Aslan ended, but I remember what it was like before that. Everyone was happy and optimistic, and they fought so viciously afterward even though they still had so much. But after the airships came back and Arambai left, everyone started thinking those were the good old days, because as unhappy as everyone was, we had more than we did now. For me, it got even worse when Faron left. What scares me isn't that my house could get flooded, Maple. It's that if it does, and my family becomes homeless or Sosa runs out of money to let us provide for ourselves, or anything else... that I'll start thinking of now as the good times, even when it's so lonesome around here."
"...I should be able to relate." Maple stared at the floor. "Technically, the worst thing that's ever happened to me is that I've tried to do something and ended up exactly where I was when I began. I didn't lose anything except the things I could have gained. I don't know if that counts, but... the important thing is to remember that things can get better as well as worse, and as long as things don't get so bad that you can't survive... there's always room for that to happen."
To her side, White Chocolate shifted. "I wish things would get better around here, for once."
"You could try to make them better," Starlight offered from a corner.
White Chocolate blinked at her. "How? I can't leave the house because my foals need me, and even if I could, what would I do? Look at me!" She waved a foreleg at herself. "I'm not a unicorn, have no talent or useful skills, can't do physical work, and might as well have only one eye. I wish I could do something, but there's nothing for a pony like me to do..."
Starlight frowned and pointed a hoof. "Well, once you have your foal you can do work, right?"
"It isn't that easy..." White Chocolate shook her head. "I'd still have an infant to care for, and would be competing against hundreds of strong stallions with work histories and just as much need to do something with themselves as me. And I wouldn't be in shape, period..."
"Well..." Starlight bit her tongue. "You could be an artist, or something."
White Chocolate managed a chuckle. "Me? I'm not that creative. Maybe if I had a brand for it, but... it should be obvious I'm only good at making one thing..."
Starlight glared. "You don't need a cutie mark to tell you what you can and can't do."
"Girls, please..." Maple cut in, stressed. "I don't suppose there's any more things we can do to prepare? Packing food, maybe? It'll probably be a long walk to Grand Acorn..."
White Chocolate got up from the wall. "Yes, we could... I'll also need to find something to wear, and... hmm..."
"Are you sure?" Maple tilted her head. "It's very hot out, today..."
"I'm sure," White Chocolate sighed, indicating her rump. "I... don't like showing off this brand. Or the fact that I'm expecting, when most of my neighbors know I used to have a husband and don't anymore..."
Maple winced. "You've kept it a secret for all this time? But... But what about making sure you have medical-"
"Not a secret." White Chocolate drooped. "They know. Maple, I know you're not from Ironridge, and maybe they do it differently where you're from, but... when a community loses something that holds them together, like Sosa and shipbuilding, they try to find something else that they've always honored and honor it more, because it's what they have left. Something like family. And for the disloyal wife of a disloyal husband like me..."
"I get it." Maple silenced her with a hoof to the shoulder. "That's enough. I understand."
White Chocolate shuddered.
Suddenly, the door echoed with a tapping hoof... and Jamjars cracked it open.
"Good pre-noon, my ladies!" Howe grinned fantastically, his silly mane nearly catching on the doorframe. "I bear cool tidings of great usefulness! To be more specific: look what I found!"
Parked outside White Chocolate's door was a generously-sized wooden wagon, two equine harnesses at the front and a full, walled-in flatbed for cargo. It lacked a roof, though with the present, wispy state of the sky, that was more of a danger for sunburn than getting rained on.
Maple eyed it appreciatively, Starlight standing on her back to get a look inside. While undeniably big, and very much better than she could have hoped for, she had a nagging doubt that White Chocolate's family was bigger.
"Wow. Slick." Jamjars waddled around a corner of the wagon, carrying her poofy mane behind her like a balloon on a far-too-short string. "Did you steal it?"
Howe's goatee drooped. "I am disparaged that you would insult my honor, oh fluffy one! Please! The Howenator merely happened upon a contingent of good Sosan workers bringing these in to assist with transporting the elderly and infirm! ...And also their valuables, since this is something of a rich retirement community these days, but that's not important! So I said to myself, 'Hmm! Howe, old pegasus, your friends may not be crippled by the weight of time, but they could undoubtedly use a-'"
"Thanks, Howe," Maple interrupted, sensing wryly that he could keep going for hours if unchecked. "It's great. We'll use it. Now, if only we could get a canopy to shade the foals..."
"Would a blanket help?" White Chocolate asked from the doorway, keeping her back half out of sight and eyes on the constant activity of ponies in the street beyond, doors periodically slamming and couples walking by with thick bundles of belongings strapped to their backs.
"Hmm..." Maple tapped her lip. "We'd also need some clips, and some sort of poles..."
Fifteen minutes later, Maple stood on her hind legs in the back of the cart, awkwardly leaning against the curtain rod from White Chocolate's bedroom. It had been roped upright to a corner of the wagon like three others from elsewhere in the house, finally making use of the cord she had stolen in the Defense Force fort that Selma had tried to tie her with, and was presently forming the support structure for some improvised shade. Starlight had offered to do the task with her telekinesis, and Maple had instantly shushed her. As fresh as the filly's horn was, she wasn't about to let Starlight waste her magic if she could help it.
"Nnngh... Nnn!" She wobbled, grunting around a mouthful of fabric and somehow keeping her balance. She pressed herself against the pole, freeing both forehooves to work an extra-strength toothed clamp that had once belonged to Jamjars' sizable collection of mane supplies. Finally, there was a click, and the last corner of the cart canopy was in place.
Howe floated down from his side as she fell back on all fours, grinning. "Hah! That ought'ta show the sun who's who around these parts! In your face, weather!"
"Um..." Maple bit her lip, already sweating from the heat. "Maybe it's best not to taunt...?"
"Eh, you're probably right." Howe glanced up at the sky, which was about an hour off from midday, and shrugged, a similar cart passing nearby with a rattle of gravel. The two elderly ponies in the back looked decidedly jealous of Maple and Howe's improvements. "My humblest apologies, oh great Nature! Please, uh, feel free to smite me for my indiscretions, or something. But could you spare my friends? And maybe my mane, too, if it's not too much trouble?"
Jamjars rolled her eyes, walking past him and hopping into the lowered back of the cart. "Who are you talking to?" she asked, laying down regally in the middle.
"It's, uhh..." Howe scratched at the back of his neck. "You know, never mind! Maple?" He indicated the dual harnesses at the front of the cart. "Do you believe it's time to get this show on the road?"
Maple glanced at him, then at White Chocolate's door. "I guess we really are the best two ponies to pull this thing, aren't we?"
"Eeyep!" Howe gave her a wings-up.
With a sigh, Maple paced back to the door. "Well, I guess we better get it loaded, then..."
White Chocolate stood nearby, waiting in the cart's shadow with a short silver cloak that blended nicely with her coat. It hid her cutie mark and nothing more, and she self-consciously shuffled from hoof to hoof as Maple and Howe helped load foals into the cart, trying to stay as much out of the road's sight as possible.
"White Chocolate..." Maple grunted, boosting a fat colt into the wagon with aid from Jamjars' telekinesis. "There are a lot of ponies passing by, and none of them are looking at you. I really think that today, they have better things to worry about."
"They probably do..." White Chocolate drooped, staring back at the entrance to her house. "I'm sorry if I'm being difficult. You two are doing all the work, here, and I'm just hiding..."
"Hey!" Jamjars protested from the wagon bed. "I'm helping, too! And there's gonna be a lot more work to do if someone doesn't get rid of Snow's magazines, because they're taking up way too much room!"
"But they're mine," Snow's voice protested from closer to the front of the wagon. "You're bringing your mane supplies! And look at all these boxes of food!"
Jamjars huffed. "My supplies are actually useful. See that blanket that's keeping us cool?"
Maple hummed, interrupting. "How much food do we need, here? Grand Acorn has entire warehouses of fruit. We've been in them! We could take that out, if it's a problem."
"True that!" Howe had her back in an instant. "Grand Acorn is overflowing with fruity goodness!" He cringed. "Err, when it's not being flung at your head, of course. That's... never pleasant."
White Chocolate shook her head. "Most of it is formula for the younger ones. Some of them can handle solid food if it's mashed well, but we need those."
"Then maybe you should come up here and see for yourself!" Jamjars looked down from the railing at her mother. "No offense, but you're a walrus, Mom. You'll take up a ton of room! And we don't even have everyone else up here yet. Don't tell me you want to walk, either!"
"I definitely don't want to walk..." White Chocolate grimaced. "Maple? Howe?" She looked up at the cart bed, which was at her neck level. "I might need help making this jump..."
Getting White Chocolate into the cart safely and respectfully turned out to be an incredibly awkward affair, in large part due to Howe's ineptitude with mares, and was ultimately accomplished when they maneuvered the cart as close as possible to a hillside and laid down two planks as a flat bridge for her to walk in on. Eventually, the mare was laying on her side at the head of the cart, using her fluffy bathrobe as a cushion, and instantly agreed with Jamjars' analysis.
"Snow," she announced, "your magazines are huge and need to stay behind."
"Mom, no! What if they get destroyed by floodwater!?"
"We have eleven colts and fillies..." White Chocolate hesitated. "Twelve, counting Starlight, plus necessary supplies and me. If those old books come, you're walking to make up for it, and it will be hot and miserable! I don't think it's even the best example to let you have them in the first place, but..."
Maple paced to the side of the cart, thoroughly sweat-drenched without even having pulled it more than ten paces. "What's this about? What makes these magazines so important?"
Jamjars' eyes glinted mischievously. "Ever heard of a 'waifu?'"
Maple frowned in confusion.
"Good." Jamjars turned back to to the cart. "Keep it that way."
"Knock it off, Sis!" Snow shoved her. "These are important to me! You're the one bringing conditioner!"
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Buddy, you will be begging me for this conditioner after we've spent hours in this sun."
"Children, please-" White Chocolate couldn't get a word in edgewise.
"I don't need to ride!" Starlight volunteered from the ground, yelling to make herself heard. "I'll just walk! It'll make it easier!"
At that, Jamjars perked up. "Hey, Snow!" She grinned. "Feel like making a deal?"
Snow hugged his stack of belongings protectively as Maple boosted another foal into the already-crowded wagon. "I don't trust you..."
"It's easy," Jamjars proclaimed, swaggering. "I'll walk too, selflessly giving you my spot to keep your garbage, and after that, you owe me!"
White Chocolate frowned, ready to intervene. "Owe you what?"
"I dunno." Jamjars shrugged. "Whatever he has that I want at Grand Acorn." Snow opened his mouth to protest, and she cut him off. "And I promise I won't ask for your magazines! Those are yours to deal with."
"Jamjars-"
"Deal." Snow stuck a hoof out, waiting for it to be shaken.
Jamjars ignored it, bouncing out of the wagon to the lush grass below. "Okay!"
From the side, Starlight saw Jamjars shoot her a glance... and wondered if whatever she would get from Snow was what she really wanted out of walking.
"Okay, everypony," Maple hummed, closing and latching the gate at the back of the wagon. "That's ten foals and one White Chocolate, plus Jamjars and Starlight down here and Howe at the front. Do you see anything missing, and is there anything left I should check the house for?"
White Chocolate took a silent headcount, grouping several squirming foals toward her with a hoof in the impromptu canopy's shade. "I think we're good, Maple. The key is..." She pulled open a pouch on the inside of her cloak, pulled out a metal object and tossed it to the waiting mare. "Can you do one last check to make sure nothing's on or could easily break, then lock the door for me?"
Maple nodded and disappeared inside the house. A minute later, she reappeared, completely drenched in water. Everyone stared.
"I figured this would keep me cool at least for a while," she explained, before winking, locking the door and tossing the key back up to White Chocolate.
"Well?" she asked, dripping, taking up a harness and turning to Howe. "Ready?"
Howe was already strapped in. "Ready!"
White Chocolate gulped, looking down at the still-steady exodus of ponies marching past on the sun-dried street. "Ready."
"Ready," Starlight droned, standing clear of the wagon's path with Jamjars very near by.
Maple nodded. "Then we're ready."
With the clopping of hooves against gravel, the wagon harnesses strained, and the wheels came to life, rolling out to join the colorful tide of equines bound for Grand Acorn.
The sun broke over the trees like a hot yellow wall, flattening spirits and inflaming hoofsteps as an endless procession of equines marched down the straight, white-fenced road between Gnarlbough and Grand Acorn. Dangerous Karma's fruit groves stood tall and lush to the southwest, stands of orange trees immediately visible past a trench meant to collect runoff. It was doing a better job collecting ponies, many of the younger evacuees preferring the leftover rainwater to the sweltering heat.
Starlight wiped her brow with a dusty hoof, though it hardly made a difference. She could feel her mane growing heavier with sweat, and the road's dirt clung to her instead of merely brushing by. It wasn't fair. Heat was supposed to be a good thing, a warm hug or recovery beneath a blanket or riding on Maple's fuzzy back after storms and nightfall and being soaked through with freezing rain. It was supposed to be the dryness she returned to after enduring the weather of the world... but then and there, it was baking her, and the air was so thick with moisture it still felt like she was drowning.
Blasphemously, she wished it would start raining.
Her consolation was that Jamjars was faring even worse than she was. It wasn't right or fair to enjoy the suffering of others, but Starlight still had a chip on her shoulder from her ribbing the previous night, and if reminding herself that someone else had it worse than her was what it took to keep going, that was what she was going to do. The yellow filly's mane was positively deflated, clinging to her like an annoying dog and matted beyond repair, its magenta streaks so messed up that they lost definition and became a single soup of color. To her credit, she wasn't complaining either.
At the front of the cart, Maple sweated and pulled, and Howe pulled and sweated, the latter's mane somehow containing such a huge quantity of gel and stylizing agents that it held its shape perfectly amid the heat. Maple looked to be doing the best of the four walkers despite pulling the cart, her recent drenching warding off some of the temperature, though Starlight didn't fancy racing ahead to check. It was all she could do to keep one hoof moving in front of the other, clinging to the cart's right side to steal some of the canopy's shadow. Jamjars had the same idea, putting her uncomfortably close by.
"Hey, Starlight," Jamjars said, voice limp and quickly drowned out by the rattle of the cart's axle and the far voices of other worried evacuees. "You're pretty tough to keep up like this."
"Thanks?" Starlight's ears were folded. It was hot, and she didn't want a conversation.
"Yeah." Jamjars pulled alongside her, forcing the tiniest bit of bounce back into her step. "What's your story? Are you from somewhere where it's hotter than this all the time, and just don't notice it?"
Starlight plodded, focusing on her hooves. "No."
"Oh." Jamjars' neck twitched, as if she wanted to shake her mane but the thing wouldn't budge. "You must just be tough, then. Your magic is strong, too. Probably stronger than my whole family put together. That's not saying much, though, since they're wusses."
"What do you want?" Starlight grumbled, turning to acknowledge her with a single eye. Did Jamjars know she was annoyed by ponies calling her special? Was this some type of revenge?
Jamjars just shrugged at the ground. "I want to know how you do it."
"...Huh?" Starlight's face scrunched. "Do what?"
"Be special," Jamjars said, kicking up dust in her wake. "You know who the only one in my family who has a brand is? Mom, and she cheated. I can beat all my siblings at magic, or outsmart all of them or look prettier than them or anything, but it doesn't matter because they're all weak and that means it's not enough. But you aren't. You did something different."
Starlight's ears perked. The filly's voice had completely changed - where there was haughtiness and a layer of false politeness before, now there was only well-veiled frustration. Starlight imagined she was still incredibly sore about being crystalled the previous night, but was brushing it off in favor of a legitimate question. Despite the obvious lie, it felt more honest... and interesting. She let Jamjars go on.
"Well?" Jamjars asked. "What makes you so special? Don't make me guess."
"...I don't know." Interesting or not, the last thing Starlight wanted to do was brag about herself. "I hate giving up or losing, I guess?" She stared at the cart, away from Jamjars. "I don't really want to be special. It makes ponies treat me unfairly."
Jamjars scoffed. "Unfair? You think being praised is unfair? I'll tell you what's unfair. I'm the third-oldest in my family. Snow and Hayseed are older, and they're twins. My parents could have taken us and raised us and taught us how to do what we wanted to do, but instead they were like 'Let's have a million more foals,' and then forgot about us like we weren't enough. Dad spent all his time wandering around and being sad, and Mom was always too busy needing to care for the youngest of us or else being fat and slow and pregnant to raise those of us who were old enough to think. And look how we turned out! Hayseed is a goodie four-shoes who'll probably end up just like Mom, Snow's a pathetic bookworm who reads the same old magazines again and again, and I'm the only one around here with any ambition. I'm rude, too. Don't you think I'm rude?"
Starlight put an extra hoofstep between them, just in case. "Yeah..."
"See? I told you." Jamjars flung her mane, only for it to slap her across the face like a wet fish. "Aaack! Ugh." She wiped it away with a hoof. "Dad worked for Sosa. He knew how to do things, and he was smart enough to leave. Mom can't, apparently. He's gone, and she's still making the same mistakes. Either she thinks it'll turn out different for no reason, or her head's in the ground, or both. Kind of like where we live. In a hole. Some day, I'm going to leave, too... I just need something I can do first."
Starlight sighed, the hot dirt of the roadway burning against her hooves. "I ran away. It's harder than it sounds."
Jamjars' lips pursed, and for a moment it looked like she had forgotten about the heat. "Really...?"
Before continuing, Starlight checked herself, issuing a stern mental reminder that basically everything from her past, from Equestria to Riverfall, wasn't for telling to random ponies... especially those crazy enough to act on it. "Yeah," she settled for. "I ran away."
Jamjars' gaze drifted to Maple. "Did you come back? Or is she not really your mom?"
"Maple adopted me." After hesitating, Starlight added, "She needed me as much as I needed her. But the parents I ran away from adopted me, too. I don't know who my real parents were."
"...Huh." Jamjars trudged alongside her, staring at the road ahead. "I'm jealous. But you already knew that. It probably makes it a lot easier to run away if you don't care about them in the first place."
"...So you do care about White Chocolate?" Starlight squinted.
"Hmmph."
For a moment, the fillies fell silent, sounds from outside rumbling around them. There was no wind to stir the trees, but between the mechanical grinding of the cart, the nearby squabbling of foals atop it, and the distant mashup of pony voices beyond, anything but silence rang in Starlight's ears. Somewhere, it sounded like someone had started a fight, though she didn't bother to look.
Suddenly, Jamjars yelped from beside her. Starlight whipped her head around to see that the filly had almost tripped... on a small picture frame laying in the dust, inevitably fallen from an earlier pilgrim's bundle. Three colorful shapes dotted the canvas: a mare and a stallion lovingly embracing, and a cheerful, bouncy filly sandwiched between them.
Jamjars gave it a venomous look, and kicked it into the drainage ditch.
The painting was saved at the last second by Starlight's telekinesis, floating discreetly up to the wagon and sandwiching itself between a box and a crate. Starlight didn't watch it go, instead looking levelly at her companion. "Being an only child isn't fun either, you know."
Jamjars raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to go on.
"When you're alone..." Starlight swallowed, struggling to explain. "There's no one else who has to be there. All your friends are the ones you make. And they can leave, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's lonely."
"Family can leave too," Jamjars countered. "Like Dad did. And he was smart. And even if they couldn't, that means you get stuck with wimps like Snow. Do you think I like bunking above him when he's drooling into the night with his flashlight on and giggling about stuff he's looked at a million times before? I wish there were other foals around to make friends with. Then I wouldn't be stuck with them if they turned out to be dumb."
Starlight winced. "You really don't like your family, do you?"
"It's Mom and Dad's fault for not raising us right." Jamjars shrugged. "Unfair is unfair."
"So?" Starlight glared. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do something about it. Help your family, or at least treat them nicely!"
"Shouldn't I?" Jamjars stared back. "Dad didn't. He was smart, and got out. Mom doesn't. She just keeps having more and more and more foals, and she wouldn't if she wanted anything to change. At least it's only one more this time. And it's not like my other siblings aren't all lazy or useless or unable to act for themselves."
Starlight rounded on her, halting their progression and instantly regretting it when the cart's shadow rolled on past. "You want to know what makes me special?" She pointed a hoof. "It's because I don't give up. Because if there's something unfair, I don't just sit there and act like that gives me a reason to be unfair too, even though it does! It's because I go out to fix things that are wrong!"
Jamjars bristled, sweating. "You ran away," she countered. "You said so."
"Because there was nothing left at my old home to fix." Starlight wanted to wilt from the heat, but stayed strong, perfectly matching the other filly in height. "So I left to find something better, where ponies treated each other fairly. I'm still looking, but if I don't find it, then some day I'm going to make it myself. It'll be a place where unfair things don't happen, ever."
Jamjars opened her mouth to reply... when a noise blared behind her.
"Beep beep!" an earth pony yelled, part of a team hitched to another wagon that was bearing down on them. "Out of the way, shrimps! This here's a wagon lane! Keep moving, 'cause you don't wanna get gotten by the floooood!"
"Aack!" Jamjars leapt ahead, trying to shift into a run. She made it three wobbly, heat-weakened steps before her limp mane caught under a hoof, yanking her head down and slamming it into the dirt.
Instantly, there was a lilac presence at her side, propping her back to her hooves and giving her something to lean on as she struggled to chase after White Chocolate's cart.
"You obviously know better," Starlight said once they were both safely in the shade and had caught their breaths as much as they were going to. "You keep talking about all the stuff that's wrong with your family, but if you thought that was normal, you wouldn't notice it. So why not be better?"
Jamjars' muzzle was stained with dirt from where she fell, and she tried and failed for the umpteenth time to wipe it away. "Do we have to keep talking about this right now?"
"Well... no..." Starlight shrugged. "I mean, you're the one who's been doing most of the talking."
"...Yeah. I am," Jamjars agreed with a huff. "Because I don't think you get it. I don't want to be a good family daughter like Hayseed. I've already tried fixing my family the nice way, and nopony listened. All I want is to know how to be special so that I can have a good life even though my parents stink at parenting."
Starlight squinted. "Then what are you asking me for? I just told you what makes me strong. It's having a goal I'll never give up trying to reach, and that's to protect my friends and make the world a fairer place."
"Pfft," Jamjars scoffed. "Like your horn magic is powered by goals and hopes and stuff. You're just strong! I want..." She gazed up at the sky, teeth bared. "I want to be something, instead of the small fish my family set me up to be. You think I ever want to be like them?"
"What kind of something do you think I am, then?" Starlight tipped her head. "If you're asking me for advice..."
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Well, you're a traveler, for one. I wish I knew how to go places. I want to leave this family, leave this town, leave this city and go somewhere awesome, where I can get stronger and figure out how to do what I was always meant to... and what that is in the first place."
Starlight glanced at Jamjars' blank flank, then at her own. "I don't have a cutie mark either, you know."
"But you have your own name for them," Jamjars pointed out. "Everyone else just calls them brands. It's unique. It's special. I want to be special."
Starlight's ears folded. She had never thought about that before.
"It's... cool. You're cool, and I'm jealous," Jamjars continued. "And if you think for one moment I'm not trying, you can eat one of the socks Hayseed thinks I don't know she brought along, because I hate that and am sitting here telling you about it like a well-adjusted pony, even though I'm not and have never had any reason to be. I want to be the best, should have been the best, and am still going to be the best, and you right now with your superior magic and travel experiences and special names and all that stuff are doing nothing but reminding me I'm not. Right now, I want nothing less than to find something to rub in your little pink smiling face to take you down until you're below me and I'm back where I belong..." She paused, and drew a bitter, heaving breath. "But I'm not, because that won't make me better. So don't you dare think I'm not trying, or that I'll give up, or am not a mess of a pony with my family to blame for it."
Starlight gaped, having a sudden flashback to a bitter little filly who had been pulled from a river by three curious mares. The filly had been warmed, coddled, and loved far beyond what she had conditioned herself to live with... and had made a painful choice to accept it, rather than staying as hard as she could so it would hurt less if it ever disappeared. She looked at Jamjars, realizing that somehow, she had that same hard crust of self-sufficience, and saw a lonely trek through an empty mountain range, fueled by nothing but the knowledge that things should have been better.
A pang of frustration flew through her, and she glared at her filly-sized hooves, wishing she were twenty years older and could do exactly for Jamjars what Maple, Amber and Willow had done for her... but as it was, they were too much of equals. Nevertheless, when she straightened up, it was with renewed determination and a new promise added to her list of goals for Ironridge.
She would find a way to help Jamjars. Just like White Chocolate's family situation was personal for Maple because of Willow and Faron, it was now personal for Starlight, too.
The march to Grand Acorn continued unabated, the sun relentlessly climbing higher and diminishing the length of the cart shadow Starlight had to stand in. Sticking to the shade meant putting herself so close to the wagon that she could touch it with her tail... not that she wanted to. It was rough, and that was a perfect recipe for getting splinters. She walked single-file behind Jamjars, the other filly too spent to continue talking, perhaps emotionally or more likely from the heat. It wasn't something Starlight felt like complaining about.
Every so often, she let her eyes wander skyward, trying to measure time by tracking the progress of the sun. It felt like a skill she should have had, having survived a mountain journey through the wilderness, but truth be told the entirety of her mountain travel had been under cloud cover, at night, or inside caves... and even then, it had been cloudy the last time she walked that road, so she would have had nothing to measure it against. Still, the act gave her more solace than doing nothing, and she was starting to feel frustrated. They had made the same journey the previous night, after an entire day of walking. Why weren't they there yet?
Swooooosh!
A winged shadow blotted out the sun for a fraction of a second, and with a shower of dust a griffony form touched down on the roadway ahead of them. Gerardo Guillaume straightened up, shaking his head to clear his eyes, and beamed. "Aha! It seems I've found you!"
Starlight stumbled ahead, muscles threatening to cramp at the extra exertion as she left the shade behind, wanting to be in on any conversation Gerardo was going to have with Maple.
"Hi," Maple puffed, voice cracking under the heat. "Did you put the...?"
"I did as you asked," Gerardo replied, falling into step beside her. "And I was met with pleasantly little difficulty. Here's your key back, though I'm half-tempted to hold onto it until this trek is over. You seem to have more than your share of a load..."
Maple's head bobbed from exertion. "I'm... holding up. It's not so bad. Not so bad. Not so bad..."
"Everything is peachy in my corner of the court!" Howe proclaimed, somehow managing to keep up his bravado despite visibly flagging. "I'm good for a whole 'nother year of this stuff! I think..."
"Are you sure?" White Chocolate's voice echoed from inside the wagon bed, full of concern. "I feel so bad about making you two do all this work... I should be out there, helping and giving one of you a chance to rest!"
"You," Maple managed sternly, her sopping mane dangling into one eye, "are not fit to pull this cart. We're helping you because we want to, and don't try to tell us you'd be fine without it."
"I do have to concur, though," Gerardo pointed out, nodding up at the wagon. "Are you really going to pull this all the way by yourselves? I assure you, I'm more than fit enough to take the next shift if either of you needs to rest in the wagon bed."
"...Not feasible," Maple panted, failing to break stride. "The wagon's packed. Starlight and Jamjars are already walking because there's no room."
Gerardo peered over the rim of the wagon bed, and frowned. "Indeed there isn't. That is... a truly impressive amount of foals. I'm almost tempted to call it less of a family and more of a litter!"
White Chocolate laughed weakly from within. "Trying to raise them all, it certainly feels like it."
At that, Jamjars frowned.
Gerardo looked back at her and Starlight, and scratched his chin. "Hmm..."
"Huh?" Maple's ears shifted, though they remained limp.
"Oh, just a thought." Gerardo resumed pacing along, though he kept his gaze on the two fillies. "I would hate to abandon you so soon after you've returned, but I could very well take those two and fly on ahead to Grand Acorn. We could attempt in advance to find a place for Miss Chocolate's family to stay, hopefully getting better dibs through being earlier and sparing a little bit of hoofwork in the process. I could remain with them, retrace my route to rejoin you... or attempt to find our Sosan friends and assist with the preparations, if I'm not elsewhere needed. What say you?"
"Yes!" Jamjars instantly demanded. "This sun is stupid! And we need as big of a room as we can get for all of Mom's kids, too!"
"Starlight?" Maple asked, looking over her shoulder. "Would you be fine with that? We might not get to see each other again for a while..."
Starlight shrugged, muscles aching, yearning for the rest despite Maple's apparent reluctance to be separated. "I'll be fine. How much further is it, anyway? We have to be almost there!"
"At the moment, you're about two thirds," Gerardo helpfully replied. "Though the last leg may be the longest. I... witnessed traffic slowing down ahead as I scanned the road for your party. It's quite possible ponies are arriving faster than they can assign space, and creating a bottleneck. Furthermore, there's a relatively steep hill to climb..."
"Are you sure you'll be alright, carrying two ponies?" White Chocolate's concerned voice came from within the wagon.
Gerardo winked. "So long as that daughter of yours doesn't have a bevy of anvils hidden within her magnificent mane, I think I'll be perfectly fine with two children. Don't you worry about me."
White Chocolate's head appeared over the railing, gazing down at Jamjars. "And you'll be fine on your own, too?"
Jamjars rolled her eyes and huffed. "Mom, this is a good thing. It'll give me a break from foals and from Snow and from walking. Just say I can go!"
"I'd like to ride the griffon, too," Snow remarked, popping up alongside his mother.
Gerardo raised a talon. "While you're very much correct that I'm a griffon, I do possess a name..."
"No way, Snow." Jamjars blew a raspberry at the cart. "I agreed to walk, I get whatever goes with it, so ha!" She blinked at White Chocolate. "Can I go, already?"
"...It's probably better if we get as good of a room as we can, then," White Chocolate decided, watching Gerardo. "They will be using rooms, right? If I have to keep track of all these foals in an open space..." Her ears folded.
"That will be something I'll endeavor to find out," Gerardo assured. "Now, if that's your permission, then with all due speed..."
White Chocolate and Maple both nodded. Seeing their agreement, Gerardo stopped, moving to the side of the road and beckoning for Starlight and Jamjars to follow. The cart rolled on, leaving them in its dust.
"Now," Gerardo asked, bending down when both fillies had reached him. "Have either of you two flown before?"
Starlight nodded, remembering with a shudder her accidental cliff diving experience in the mountains. Valey had tried to carry her and Maple in the Earth District, but that didn't count.
"Nope." Jamjars grinned. "Teach me."
Gerardo stretched out a wing like a boarding ramp. "That means Starlight will be on my back... and I'm sure you know to hang on. Miss Jamjars, I'm afraid that for maximum safety I'll have to carry you directly."
Two fillies and a griffon soared through the air, bypassing a long yellow road snarled with colorful ponies and dull brown wagons. Gerardo hadn't been kidding about the increase in traffic; between the lush emerald jungle borders the crowd went from an orderly two-lane solution to a complete pile, lone ponies and wagons all jammed together without order. Sosan lakewater stretched to the north like an inviting plateau, and the tower of Karma Industries loomed to the southeast, silhouetted against the lone, massive peak that formed the north face of the Water District reservoir.
At least it was cooler up high, Starlight thought as the wind raced through her soggy mane and her tail streamed behind her. Most of it was due to windchill from Gerardo's swift glide, but the air temperature was marginally lower, too. For a moment, she indulged in the delicious fantasy that the Earth District's signature wind barrier didn't exist, and they could swoop up to catch a breath of frost and make the heat feel inviting, for once. She held the griffon close, leaning in so the wind didn't threaten too hart to tear her away, and tried her best to forget that feeling of falling and weightlessness and enjoy the ride.
The same couldn't be said for Jamjars.
The yellow filly hung beneath Gerardo, all four legs dangling as his talons grasped her tightly around the barrel. Realistically, it was a position it would be impossible to slip from barring a very wiggly and deliberate escape, and Starlight almost envied her greater safety in the ride, but Jamjars clearly didn't feel the same. Her ears were back, her face was green, every single muscle in her body was rigid, and Starlight suddenly found herself entertaining a morbid curiosity about what would happen if a pony lost their lunch dozens of meters above a crowded roadway.
Fortunately for the ponies below, Jamjars kept it together, and they streaked onward towards the distant spire.
Gerardo circled, homing in on an entrance gate all the ponies were passing through. It appeared to be the real source of the bottleneck, the crowds beyond quickly dispersing into Grand Acorn's T-shaped outer plaza... though that was too full of equines to even move a wagon, too. Many sat abandoned, some stripped of belongings and others guarded by lone sentries, inevitably waiting on a loved one to scout out a hotel room or the like on their own.
The town sat at the top of a raised hill, built with artificial smoothness nearly three stories higher than the majority of the flat roadway leading up to it. Starlight hadn't been able to tell from the ground, but seeing it from the air, its sharp corners were alarmingly conspicuous. She began to wonder if Dangerous Karma had desired a basement for his headquarters, but been too lazy to dig the hole and instead piled earth around it to simply raise the ground level. It reminded her of Arambai's house and its unusual second-story entrance. Still, it was easy to see why it would be safe from a floor.
"Ponies," a distant loudspeaker was blaring below, "your attention, please? All the hotels are full, so stop clogging the street by looking! Right now, evacuees are being moved inside the Karma Industries tower..."
Starlight's ears flicked at the deep mare's voice. Whoever was running it definitely wasn't Dangerous Karma, Shinespark, or any Sosan she had met. An employee of Karma Industries, perhaps? Focusing again on the crowd, she saw a throng of ponies osmotically trickling into the myriad double-doors to the tower lobby... and Gerardo descended to join them.
He was big enough to clear out a landing space through sheer force, but instead chose to target an abandoned wagon bed. Starlight hopped off the moment she was low enough, already feeling the heat tickling at her scalp and hoping the line wouldn't move too slowly. Jamjars was deposited next to her.
"Urgh... haaaugh... hurrrff..." Jamjars hugged herself, still vaguely green, struggling heroically to regain her composure.
"Had a rough first flight?" Gerardo asked regretfully, perching on the railing next to them. "My apologies if you're nauseous. If if's any consolation, I've seen others fare far, far worse."
Jamjars glared at him. "No! I'm not nauseous. I love flying! I'm great at it. I just..." She fumbled for an excuse. "You squeezed my stomach too tightly, and I had a big breakfast. You should be more careful next time."
Gerardo grinned feebly back. "If that's your preferred version of things. Though somehow, I doubt you'd have been much happier had I held you more loosely."
Preferring not to antagonize the other unicorn, Starlight prepared to jump off the cart and into the sea of ponies below. They were packed tightly enough trying to reach the doors that she feared she would suffocate from body heat alone, but it was worth it to get inside, even if all it meant was shade. "Come on, Gerardo," she urged. "Let's go!"
Gerardo tapped a talon. "A perfect plan. I'm starting to feel uncomfortable in this heat, myself..."
After an almost-unbearable final wait, they reached the open doors to the fortress tower... and cold air burst around them. Starlight practically sagged with relief, panting and gulping it with big, greedy breaths, hearing Jamjars doing the same behind her.
The two of them were still riding Gerardo, using the griffon's broad back as a ferry to avoid getting trampled underhoof by nervous mares and stallions, many of whom were stubbornly trying to protect large quantities of belongings. Ahead, an even stricter bottleneck loomed, officials having set up retractable tape barriers to corral the ponies into lines so that individual evacuees could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Starlight watched as families would reach the front of their line, be questioned by a smartly-dressed worker, and led away into distant hallways, slowing things to a glacial pace but preserving the order and functionality of movement inside the tower.
"Heh heh..." Jamjars chuckled, rejuvenated by the cold air. "Mom's going to have fun getting so many kids through all this. Good thing we're here to get a room now, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't be so sure about an entire room," Gerardo cautioned. "I saw an identical mass of ponies entering from the east, where Copsewood is. Crowding will be severe, and... it's very likely that many will be given blankets and left to sleep in the hallways."
Jamjars blanched. "But what about... like... using the little filly's room? How long are we supposed to stay here, anyway?"
"With luck?" Gerardo grimaced. "It'll be all over by tonight. But for now, the only thing you can do is be prepared."
The line inched steadily forward, and eventually Gerardo was at the front, a haggard-looking mare of interning age with a blue shoulder strap sizing him up. "You're a griffon," she said.
Gerardo nodded. "How very astute of you. Moreover, I am not just any griffon: I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. However, at the moment, I'm here on behalf of a friend who is still trying to get her abnormally huge family through the traffic. We're hoping to get some space in advance."
The mare nodded. "How huge are we talking about?"
Gerardo gulped. "One mother and... eleven foals. Counting these two."
Starlight nearly corrected him, before remembering that she and Maple wouldn't be staying with White Chocolate. They had a boat to get back to. She wondered if Maple remembered that when agreeing to walk through the heat all the way to Grand Acorn.
"Eleven." The mare's eyes narrowed. "Look, sir, we get that there's traffic out there and ponies are getting split up, but you can't just lie to get more space. Nobody likes it, everyone's in it together, and there's a hundred ponies in line behind you who don't have time for this. I'm sure you remember how hot it is out there."
"He's not lying," Jamjars smugly protested. "Mom loves having kids. Wait until you actually see it. It'll blow your mind."
"Not helping," Gerardo hissed, before turning back to the mare. "What do you usually do for families with more young children than there are parents to keep them from wandering off or getting into trouble?"
The company mare shrugged. "There are some supply closets on the fourth floor we've been cleaning out. They have lights and doors, and are about..." She sized him up. "Big enough for you to stretch one of your wings in?"
Gerardo grimaced painfully. "If it's what's available, then we'll give it a look."
"Well?" The company mare kicked a switch, turning on a light. "Is this adequate? Because if not, I don't know what to tell you."
They were standing in an edge corridor at the side of the tower, one wall covered in windows overlooking a wall of trees. The other was lined in doors spaced evenly apart, most of which were already closed with light glowing from beneath. The one the mare had led them to, though, hadn't yet been claimed.
"This is the same size as our filly's room at home," Jamjars complained, looking into the meager, unfurnished, dust-ridden square that had once made a very nice closet. It looked like it had been converted from long-term storage not two hours earlier. "It could fit, like... four nice cushions and nothing else. And I am not sleeping in a pony pile."
"Like I said, it's the best you're going to get." The mare shrugged again, stepping inside and turning around. "Most of the others like it are already taken. Do you want it? Because someone else is going to say yes."
Jamjars sniffed the door in disdain. "It doesn't even have a lock. You call this privacy?"
"It's not about privacy," the company mare sighed, growing frustrated. "Nopony can afford that! It's about having a safe place to put young children! Take it or leave it, this is your last chance. I need coffee and I need to get back to somepony else's case. I can't believe the Sosans threw this garbage at us at the last minute..."
"We'll take it!" Gerardo quickly said. "I assure you, we're grateful for whatever we can get. Is there anything else we need to know?"
The mare ripped open her saddlebag and thrust a sheet of paper at him. "Here. The rules. Have a nice day." With that, she turned around and was gone.
"Rules, hmm...?" Gerardo quickly scanned the page, holding it in a single talon. "I... fail to see anything here that comes across as particularly problematic. You'd best peruse it for yourselves, though." He passed it to Starlight, then squared his shoulders and faced down the hallway. "Good luck on your own. I think I'll return to our other friends, now, and with luck begin ferrying more foals who are old enough to take care of themselves to lighten the load. I'm afraid some of your belongings may need to be left behind by necessity, though..." He gazed sorrowfully at the pitiful closet. "Ah, well. I'm off."
As he departed too, Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Great. That means we either get to deal with Snow or Hayseed next, and if Snow has to leave his magazines after owing me to let him bring them, he's going to be insufferable."
"So..." Starlight looked at Jamjars, then the room. "Should we read these rules, or what?"
Jamjars shrugged, then pranced into the closet. "Oh, there'll be plenty of time to do that while we check out our five-star accommodations! Come on, Starlight. Let's give ourselves the tour!"
Maple sweated, standing still.
"Well... this stinks," Howe proclaimed, seating himself on the hot earth beside her. "Royally so, I might add!"
The traffic around them had condensed to a point where only ponies on hoof could move forward, and even then at a snail's pace. White Chocolate gazed worriedly over the cart railing at them, ears folded and lip bitten. "There's nothing I can do, is there?"
"Nothing any of us can do," Maple sighed. "We're stuck. It's a..." She took a dry swallow, her throat feeling three times its usual size. "A good thing Gerardo went ahead to find room. They must be having trouble finding shelter for so many ponies..."
Howe shrugged. "Yeah. You would think Sosa would get their logistics right before doing a thing like this. It's like they thought, 'Let's evacuate!' and didn't even have a plan."
Maple stared at him, then looked away. It seemed the heat had finally taken its toll on Howe, too, because his bravado had finally faded. "I know you said we needed all this stuff, but..."
"This stuff?" White Chocolate asked, nudging a box. "Well, it is important..."
Maple let out an inaudible whine. "...Yes. But if it comes down to it, is it as important as ponies?"
White Chocolate didn't respond.
Suddenly, the wagon in front of them rolled forward, and Howe jumped up. "Hey, look! The line's moving again!"
Like an uncorked bottle, or a grain of sand reaching the bottom of a funnel, the crowd rapidly began to move around them, and Maple found herself suddenly picking up a much brisker pace than she had used before just to keep their cart from getting ran over or pushed off the side of the road. "What's going on?" She glanced curiously around. "Why is everyone moving again?"
"Don't question it!" Howe grimaced. "Good luck is... Err, I mean, the wings of providence have finally rejoined our side!"
Maple didn't question it... until the crowd suddenly veered down a smaller road to the right, completely ignoring the throng of ponies that were still bottlenecked at the gates to Grand Acorn. "Hey, wait! This isn't the way to...!"
Howe shrugged, racing along beside her. "If my knowledge of geography hasn't abandoned my side, it's a road to the warehouses where Earth District fruit is processed! Obviously, they must be in need of more space to house us!"
"But... But Gerardo and Starlight went the other way!" Maple panted. "And Jamjars! We have to... go that way..."
There was nothing she could do about it. The turn was too sharp, and they were far too close to the right side of the road to do anything but get swept along in the torrent of ponies and wagons, suddenly moving away from their destination.
Jamjars lay on her back, too sweaty to concern herself with getting dust in her mane, and kicked fruitlessly at the air. "We better not have to stay here for too long, or I'm going to lose it."
Starlight paced in circles next to her, having discovered everything there was to discover about the storage closet her semi-friend was faced with calling home. Two meters by two meters and perfectly square, it was certainly bigger than what her house had used as closets in Equestria, and if every bit of floor space could be dedicated to sleeping, it might have been possible to find an eleven-foal arrangement that would let them and White Chocolate rest peacefully and without forming a pile... but with no room to spare.
Beyond that, every bit of the closet had the look of something that was designed to be as functionally pretty as possible for the minimum amount of effort. The white drywalls were clean, the single manalight in the ceiling didn't flicker, and the floor was a sturdy piece of textured vinyl... but there were inch-wide gaps between the floor and the drywall where trim should have gone, cobwebs lacing the upper corners and light fixture, and squares of dust on the ground marking the outlines of where boxes had lain. The two-by-fours that formed the inside of the doorframe were sturdy, but had clearly never been sanded, and one even sported a bent nailhead surrounded by dents where some construction stallion had shown off their lack of skill with a hammer. Starlight sneezed.
"I said, we better not have to stay here for too long," Jamjars huffed, clearly hoping for a reaction.
Starlight eyed the rules paper sitting on the ground. "It says up to three days."
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. "What they said was that there were some bombs on the eastern dam by the Defense Force, and they had to defuse them by putting them underwater for a few days, or something." She carefully omitted names, mention of military tactics, or anything that could prove sensitive... she hoped.
Jamjars stuck her tongue out. "The dam is east of here. And guess which way the river flows? Surprise... it's east! What does that have to do with anything?"
Starlight's brow furrowed. "Isn't there supposed to be a lot of flat land to the west of where the water would land, and some kind of narrow part to the east? I think they said it would back up, or something."
"Who's this 'they' you keep talking about?" Jamjars frowned. "Was that messenger supposed to tell us more than he did this morning?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight fidgeted. "We found a place to stay with some Sosans last night and they were discussing it," she not-quite-lied.
"Hmmph." Jamjars hugged herself, still frowning and still laying upside-down. "So why do they need us to evacuate, then? Couldn't they just deal with it some way that's safer?"
Starlight shrugged again. "They don't know who put them there. I think they're..." She swallowed. "You won't tell anyone, right?"
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
"Someone could blow them up from inside the Water District," Starlight said. "They have to be careful about getting rid of them. They don't want to take any risks."
"It doesn't sound that risky to me," Jamjars huffed. "You said they turn them off with water, right? Just glue some buckets of water over them. Easy."
"I... don't think it works that way..." Starlight frowned, suddenly realizing she had missed the latter part of the Sosans' conversation and didn't actually know how they had arrived at their conclusion that it wasn't best to stealthily sabotage the bombs. "Maybe they thought whoever put them there would just put more back later? Or that they could blow them up while they were being disarmed?"
"Then what are they doing?" Jamjars scoffed. "Trying to take over the Defense Force so nobody can reach the dam to put more bombs on it? They're a bunch of pegasi! They'd just fly back past!"
Starlight bit her lip.
"...You know what?" Jamjars flipped upright and shook her mane. "It's nice and cool in here, and I'm feeling better. Let's go exploring."
"Hold on..." Starlight tapped the rules list. "We can't do that, remember?"
Jamjars grinned, leaning on one side. "And just why can't we do that?"
"Because..." Starlight inspected the sheet, narrating. "To reduce crowding in the halls, families must take turns going anywhere, and only travel at designated intervals when employees will be able to escort them, under any circumstances..."
"Easy," Jamjars interrupted.
"I'm not done!" Starlight frowned. "Also, to keep a claim to this room, somepony has to stay with it at all times. Or somebody, if Gerardo was here, but it actually says somepony so maybe they'd even kick him out too."
Jamjars looked like she had swallowed a lemon. "Oh. That's stupid. Well, help me think of something, then!"
Starlight didn't oblige, standing back and watching warily as Jamjars took up pacing, muttering under her breath. "We could bribe someone... mess this room up enough that no one else would want to use it... hmmm..."
"What do we have to bribe anyone with?" Starlight waved a hoof at the empty room. "There's nothing here, and neither of us have saddlebags! And we'd get in trouble for trashing the room, and then you'd have to live in it anyway."
"You could make some crystals," Jamjars suggested. "We could bribe ponies with those."
"They hurt my horn to keep out for too long," Starlight countered, careful to downplay the extent of her horn's issues. "Eventually, I have to let them disappear."
"Oh." Jamjars scowled. "We could steal something from someone, then bribe someone else with it..."
"No!" Starlight stepped back in shock. "I mean... really? That wouldn't be nice."
Jamjars tossed her limp mane. "Too bad I'm not nice. Fine, though. What are your bright ideas, Starlight?" She raised an eyebrow. "How do you propose we get out of here?"
"Why does it matter, anyway?" Starlight paced to the door, standing between it and Jamjars. "This is where you're going to stay, isn't it? We could just stay here like we're supposed to."
"Don't remind me," Jamjars scowled. "It matters because I'm bored, and stuff. You're strong. You could probably freeze someone if they tried to punish us for going exploring."
Starlight's ears folded. "I don't want to be the bad guy!"
"...Fine. Okay, fine." Jamjars stretched like a cat, walked around Starlight, and pushed the door open with one hoof. "In that case, you stay here and be an angel like Hayseed, and I'll go exploring by myself."
Frowning, Starlight sat in the windowed hallway of the fourth floor of Karma Industries, her back to the door to White Chocolate's new home. She figured as long as she was right there, she could say she was still with the room, yet it was significantly less claustrophobic and the air was freshly ventilated. Somewhere, a great fan drove cool air through pipes, much like the wind infrastructure she had felt in the Defense Force base, though here it was less a matter of defense and more to make the place livable. As an extra, her position let her watch Jamjars, snooping and scouting out the hallway and checking out all the other doors.
It also exposed her to a cacophony of crying... and made her very glad their room was at the farthest-upwind end of the hall.
"This place," Jamjars announced upon her return, "is a giant nursery! Every single one of those rooms has exactly the same thing, and that's a million foals and their mother and sometimes their father too. It smells, it's noisy, it smells, why do we have to be here, and did I mention that it smells?"
Starlight nodded, again grateful for the direction of ventilation.
"None are as bad as Mom, though," Jamjars added as if it was something to be proud of. "Most of them have only three to five kids."
Starlight slumped, deciding that particular thread of conversation had worn out its welcome long ago. There was only so much to say about the size of Jamjars' family, after all.
"Also, though, you know what I found?" Jamjars' face broke into a grin. "This hallway is full now. That means they shouldn't be checking it for empty rooms. So nobody will notice if we leave."
"Are you sure...?" Starlight squinted.
"Definitely." Jamjars' teeth flashed. "So do you want to go exploring, or what? This is the capital of the Earth District. There's gotta be something worth finding here."
Starlight didn't respond.
"Look," Jamjars huffed. "It's my family, so we'll pay the price if we mess up. You've got... wherever else you're going to stay, because even if Mom wants to let you you're not sharing this room with us. You don't have any risk in this. My fall, my call."
Starlight glanced down the corridor. A uniformed pony was visible passing in the distance. "And what about them? We're not supposed to be clogging the hallways, remember?"
"We're two fillies!" Jamjars grinned. "We take up, like, no space. We'll be easy to avoid."
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe you don't believe me..." Jamjars swung open the door to their closet. "Then come in here real quick and let me show you what I could have done if you hadn't been so hasty when I wanted a magic duel last night."
"I prefer to call it invisible," Jamjars bragged, "but yeah. I am. Aren't you jealous?"
Jamjars' once-colorful coat and mane were now flaky white, blending in smoothly with the drywall behind her and making her quite easy to miss when she closed her ruby eyes. Starlight could clearly see her, and she was definitely still there, but an overworked employee who only wanted to see an empty line, a paycheck and a thermos of coffee wouldn't notice her if she reached out and slapped them.
"You can do that without a cutie mark?" Starlight asked.
Jamjars shrugged. "You can make your crystals without one."
Starlight frowned... and didn't press the point. "But that's just you. How long can you do it for? And if I come with you, what about me?"
Jamjars' grin turned sharkish, and she lovingly fluffed her mane. "You can hide behind this."
"I can't believe this is working..." Starlight groaned, voice an inaudible whisper as she crouched in a corner between a hallway wall and a crate that had been removed from storage to make room for ponies. Jamjars stood in front of her, balancing on two legs for height, keeping a forehoof in contact with the wall to maintain her enchantment as she acted as a living curtain to shield Starlight from view. A pair of Karma Industries mares paced by, chatting obliviously.
"And so," one chittered, "I was like, 'screw you, buddy, I like my flank the way it is!'"
"Wow, really?" the other cooed. "And did he leave?"
"Yeah, he did..." The first tossed her mane. "I considered filing a complaint with Skyfreeze for unprofessional conduct, but that would have meant walking all the way up there, and they actually got back to me first... Kero sent a letter and it sounded all sorry and everything, and I felt kinda bad for him since he had nothing to do with it and didn't want him to have to deal with it, you know?"
"I know, I know... It's a shame, too, since the two of you were getting on so well!"
"I know! Like, it's one thing to want to keep things casual and realize when you've gone too far, but I work for Karma, baby! All I need is an apology, not some kind of..."
They trailed off, passing around a corner and out of earshot. Jamjars giggled, dropping back to the floor and letting her disguise fade. "Hee..." She nudged Starlight. "Sounds like somepony's love life was getting a little dramatic. I'd say sneaking out here was worth it already!"
"Yeah... Dramatic..." Starlight murmured, falling into step behind Jamjars and letting her choose the way forward. She still had reservations about leaving the closet room unattended, but as Jamjars had pointed out, it was no fur off her back if anything bad happened. A hidden, grumpy part of Starlight secretly wanted something to happen and see the filly get what-for.
That wasn't what swirled in her head as she followed Jamjars in search of... whatever Jamjars was looking for. Something about the passing mares' conversation stuck with her, making her feel uneasy and faintly like she needed to lie down, and she couldn't put a hoof on it. They had been talking about a relationship gone bad... some kind of compensation, and a stallion being sent away. Someone named Kero. Did that name ring a bell? Starlight couldn't remember. She had been introduced to far too many faces over the past three days, and even more counting Riverfall. Worse, a faint fog still hung over her memories of the previous night, so if it had been anything to do with Shinespark or the Sosans, she would probably never remember.
"Jamjars?" Starlight stopped her companion with a hoof. "I know you're bored, but... do you really think this is the best place to go?"
They stood in front of a tall iron archway, crossbeams of riveted steel forming a doorless entry to a staircase leading down. It stood large, gray and jarring against the hallway's white drywall, which obviously made it irresistible to curious fillies. A sign on the wall next to it, written in capital letters, warned, BASEMENT LEVEL - POWER AND AIR-CON PLANT - AUTHORIZED EQUINES ONLY.
"I don't think you get it, Starlight," Jamjars gloated, body rigid with adrenaline. "I've lived my life from birth to hours ago in the same hole in the ground, with too few exceptions. Now, I can go where I want because no one is around to stop me, and it would be the world's biggest waste not to do it while I can. So are you coming, or not?"
Starlight stared at the steep, darkened staircase. The other reason she was with Jamjars and not back at the room, she realized, was in case she needed to keep the filly safe from something like this.
"Well?" Jamjars pressed, twitching and impatient.
"Just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to," Starlight pointed out with a frown. "That sign is probably there for a reason."
"Pfft." Jamjars blew on her mane. "Everything happens for a reason. Doesn't mean some reasons aren't better than others."
"It's probably dangerous down there, though..." Unhappily, Starlight leaned forward, trying to parse the darkness. She didn't want to use her horn, but it might have been required.
"Starlight," Jamjars patronized. "When was the last time you did something dangerous? Don't you dare say never, because I'll know you're lying."
Starlight blinked. "Well..."
"Hah! You have to think about it, don't you?" Jamjars pointed triumphantly. "Because you've done it so much. The most dangerous things I get to do are tease Snow when he has something he can throw at me, so you'll be a hypocrite if you say we shouldn't go down there. And don't you want to go on an adventure?"
Ignoring the first half of the argument, Starlight stomped. "I've been on an adventure for the last month, and it's not as fun as you think it is! So no, I don't want to make it unnecessarily more dangerous! Let's go back and make sure no ponies have taken your room!"
Jamjars opened her mouth to reply... when a startled voice came around the corner of the main corridor. "Who's that!?" an employee queried, followed by the sound of hoofsteps.
"Uh-oh." Jamjars' eyes widened, and she bolted down the staircase.
Grumbling, Starlight trotted after her as swiftly as she dared. "The moment we run into any fan blades or giant pendulums positioned to knock us off a walkway, I don't care what it does to my horn, I'm crystalling you and carrying you all the way back to the room myself..."
A world of jungle heat away, Maple panted and fretted, trying to find support as she slumped against the wood of her harness, caught in yet another traffic jam.
"White Chocolate..." She gulped, her saliva having the consistency of syrup. "Do you have any water back there? If you do, I'd really appreciate it..."
A hoof passed her a water pouch, and she sucked greedily, draining the entire thing dry. "Ugh. Thanks..." She wiped her muzzle with the least-dusty part of her hoof. "Howe? Do you need one too?"
"If you... have one to spare..." Howe's tongue lolled, and Maple had slightly too much sympathy for the pegasus to giggle at how silly it looked.
"Here's for you, too." White Chocolate passed another down, leaning over the forward railing of the cart. "Maple? I think I can see a warehouse in the distance..."
"Don't worry," Maple reassured, detaching herself from the harness and turning around so she could look White Chocolate in the eye. "Either Gerardo will find us and fly our fillies back here, or Howe will go out and find them to tell them what happened to us. Won't you, Howe?"
"Glug, glug... Urp! Yup! Sure will!" Howe offered back his own canteen, also drained of contents. "Speaking of finding a place to stay, though, it looks like there's a thing coming back this way along the road..."
"Wagons to the right, and hooves to the left, please!" an authoritative voice blared, projected from a pony who was pushing themselves down the middle by riding a device that looked like a very thin ironing wedge. "No exceptions! We're trying to get this cleared out and flowing, and that means traffic belongs where traffic belongs! Wagons to the right, and hooves to the left, from your perspective..."
In their wake, as ponies rearranged themselves, the trickling flow of hoof traffic slowly untangled itself from the cart wheels, and suddenly the wagon in front of Maple began moving again. Maple gasped, fixing her harness as quickly as possible. "We're moving! Oh, we're moving and can finally get out of this heat..."
It only took a single bend for them to discover the wagons' destination. One by one, they were ushered into a lot of unloading stalls next to a raised platform to make disembarking easier... which was more likely intended to make it possible to wheel on heavy crates. The door-riddled wall of a slate-gray warehouse loomed immediately behind, and whenever a wagon became finished, a team of pegasi would swoop in and lift it away, clearing the way for new arrivals.
A stallion who had gone a week without shaving waved Maple and Howe through, pointing them to a stall near the middle, the line of hoof traffic diverging and heading for a ground-level entrance to the warehouse some distance away. For the briefest of moments, Maple paused, pondering how to properly back into the unloading dock... when a team of well-built earth ponies approached, coats glistening from sweat.
"Out of the harnesses," one commanded, tapping a hoof. "We'll take it from here."
"You're all sticking together?" another asked, craning her neck to see into the cart. "How many do you... Wow, that's a lot of foals."
"Sorry..." White Chocolate's ears folded.
"Nah, we've gotcha." The mare grinned, hardly needing her reflective vest in the broad daylight. "We'll, uh... I'm sure we can find something that'll work. Easy does it, now..."
The wagon backed into its stall, hardly even rocking as it came to a butter-smooth stop. Two stallions dropped the gate at the back, one whistling at the contents and the other admiring the canopy. "Did you make this here umbrella yourself, Ma'am?" he asked, impressed.
"We did!" Maple nodded, motioning to Howe. "It took a bit of work, but..." She slumped, drawn like a homing pigeon to the relative darkness of the warehouse's interior. "Oof. I'm glad that's over."
"It was worth it," White Chocolate assured, stepping out of the cart with two foals on her back. "I wish I could have helped, or at least paid you back by pulling the cart..."
"I told you not to worry about it," Maple growled. "We're here to help! I mean it!"
Meanwhile, the mare from the unloading team was waving and shouting through the entrance, summoning backup. "Hey!" She reared up slightly, stomping a hoof. "Can I get a team for moving infants? We've got a huge family in stall number seven!"
"Follow us, Ma'am," a stallion urged, standing nearby in case White Chocolate needed support. Herself and Howe, Maple realized, still looked capable of handling themselves to the overseeing pony team, a fact for which she felt mixed frustration and relief.
"Well, that's our benevolent deed for the day out of the way," Howe sighed, leaning gratefully against the metal wall of the warehouse, angled such that it had been shaded all day and wasn't yet hot. "Feel like sticking with them for a while longer? Or should we call it quits and go find that Starlight of yours? Looks like this family's in good hooves, now..."
Maple chuckled, rubbing her aching forelimbs. "If there's a place for it, I think I might need to sit down for a few minutes before I go running off somewhere again. And don't even think about trying to carry me somewhere by flying. I'm heavier than I look."
Howe's lip curled in a smile. "Was that a self-deprecating fat joke? Because let me tell you, you don't-"
"Don't finish that sentence," Maple interrupted with a hoof. "Please."
"...Suit yourself." Howe shrugged. "What should we do, then? This pegasus has a bit of punch left in him, still."
"Do you..." Maple stretched, still taking stock of all the places she was sore. It was a more wholesome soreness than that caused by the windigo heart, at least. "Think you could go look for Gerardo and Starlight in Grand Acorn? If you find them, it'll probably be easier to move Jamjars here than to take White Chocolate and her family all the way back there, unless they found a place that's really nice and worth it..."
With a grin, Howe's bravado returned. "Your wish is my command! The Howenator departs... with gusto!"
With a swoosh of wings and a blast of air, Howe was a lavender speck in the sky, swiftly lost beyond the treetops. Maple sighed, following with her eyes as long as she could, before looking back to the loading dock where a convoy of ponies were assisting with White Chocolate's foals and supplies. Smiling, Maple picked up a box of her own, falling into step, damp coat prickling at the rush of shadow as she entered the cool warehouse air. It had been a long walk, but if the weather was the worst she had to deal with, that was absolutely fine.
A throbbing hum built in Starlight's ears as she descended switchback after switchback of pitch-black metal stairs, chasing the light of Jamjars' horn into the basement of Karma Industries. It was like distant thunder, only much closer and without direction, the rumbling of something massive that was all around her and never stopped moving.
She tumbled to a stop at the bottom of a platform where Jamjars had chosen to pause, feeling her fur snagging on the sharp, high-traction metal grating. The orange light of Jamjars' horn flickered like a candle in the darkness, failing to illuminate the hugeness of the basement beyond simply showing how close the walls weren't. Starlight saw nothing in the distance, and wondered if the single cavernous room in fact spanned underneath the whole town.
They were at the edge of a massive lattice of support beams, collectively reinforcing six colossal columns that presumably formed the foundation for Karma Industries' tower. Each was bigger in diameter than Maple's house, made from concrete interlaced with steel, and she could make out the scaffolding for a cargo elevator in the distance. Out from the tower foundations, giant horizontal half-cylinders hung in midair, churning away and creating the thrum, air ducts big enough to pull a wagon through snaking in one end and out the other.
Starlight gaped, staring into the blackness. Experimentally, she held out a hoof, lighting her horn and creating a tiny shard of crystal, then dropped it into the depths.
It hit the bottom far faster than she was expecting.
She blinked, realizing the cylinder bank that appeared to be air-processing wasn't floating in midair; the ground was just inexplicably black. A continuation of the staircase next to her looked like it became lost in shadow two flights down, but did it just reach the floor instead? Experimentally, she reached for the first step downward.
"Hah!" Jamjars crowed, having stood in Starlight's peripheral vision while she was examining the room. "You want to keep going. I told you exploring would be fun."
Starlight's ears folded. "You were the one who came running down here. I'm just trying to make sure it's safe before you do something reckless again. Don't tell me you're not going to try it..."
"Sure thing, Miss Safety-Shoes," Jamjars gloated, falling into prancing step behind Starlight. "And I'll be right behind you!"
With an increasing feeling of unease, Starlight progressed... though it was far more from Jamjars' reckless attitude than their environment. Despite the darkness, she strongly suspected it wasn't as huge as it had first appeared, and furthermore was remarkably empty. What could possess someone to build a tower with such a colossal basement and then use it for so little, however, was beyond her.
She reached the last step, staring into the bottom, and tapped it experimentally. "...Huh."
"Hmm? What is it?" Jamjars bumped up against her backside, nearly sending her toppling forward.
"This ground is weird," Starlight said, tapping it again. "It's really, really rough, like a bunch of sharp, tiny pebbles... but they're all stuck together and don't move. And it's black, too."
Jamjars pushed past her, setting all four hooves on the substance with little regard for precautions. She licked her lips, then sniffed it. "It smells kind of gross. I don't want it in my mane."
Starlight scraped at it again, and it was so rough and sturdy that it could have scuffed the strongest horseshoe. It reminded her of the traction from Riverfall's enchanted glass, only sharper, and just as flat. Testing her weight on it, she decided that without horseshoes, it wouldn't hurt to walk on... but would certainly feel unusual. She echoed Jamjars' sentiment that it smelled gross.
"Well?" Jamjars asked, her horn revealing that the black ground spread out evenly in all directions. "Let's go see what else there is down here!"
Warily, Starlight followed her, though she couldn't make out much beyond the metal cylinders clustered together in one part of the floor, their ducts raising back to the ceiling... Probably the air conditioning, she guessed. They must have been what was responsible for keeping the interior of Karma Industries cool despite the ferocious jungle heat.
"Weird, isn't it?" Jamjars remarked. "That big tower is kind of ugly and looks unfinished, like they forgot that ponies would have to look at it some day. There's nothing pretty in it. It looks like it's under construction. But this part is huge and complex. I bet they were idiots and wasted all their money on this part, and then didn't have any to finish the rest of the tower."
Starlight frowned. The discrepancy between architectural standards for the powerfully-built support columns and the aesthetic sense of all but the uppermost floors certainly existed, but she was more interested in another part of the basement: namely, something that was missing from it. In Blueleaf, she had visited the bottom of a power reactor, where long rods of crystal were inserted deep beneath the earth to draw out mana, yet she saw nothing that looked remotely similar in the Karma Industries basement. Hadn't the sign by the entrance said this was a power plant, as well?
Jamjars made her way to one of the cylinders, sniffing and poking around, and the frightening strength of the vibrations from within made Starlight certain she didn't want to be near it if it broke. She was more interested in how the thing was being powered... and eventually, she lucked out, spotting a twisting of smaller cables around a central big one that weaved their way out of it and into the air.
Ignoring the harshness of the strange ground, Starlight took several more steps, watching as the cable soared over her head, eventually intertwining with others and threading itself through support chains that dangled from the ceiling... and by the time she lost sight of it in shadow, she had a reasonably good idea of what direction it was going.
"Hey, Jamjars." She beckoned with her tail, trying to sound less disapproving than she felt now that she had something she was curious about as well. "Found anything interesting yet? Anything worth coming down here for?"
"Who cares?" Jamjars retorted, stretching upward to sniff at the air conditioner. "This thing's hot. Why would you use a hot machine to cool air? That's stupid."
Starlight was about to reply that, logically, if you were removing heat from the air, it would have to go somewhere... but thought better of it. "There's a power cable here. Want to see what a mana generator looks like?"
Apparently, her question was the right one, because Jamjars licked her lips and grinned. "Okay."
Together, they shuffled off in pursuit of the cable. Starlight tried to construct a map of the area in her head, deciding that if the long direction of the basement was beneath the bulk of Grand Acorn, then that would be south of the tower, which meant they were going east... but the churning throb of the basement's engines was permeating every last inch of her body, and made it impossible to make sure her thoughts were coherent. At least the ground wasn't sloped. That much she knew for sure.
Eventually, all the cables converged in a huge terminal, scaffolding on either side protecting raw manaconduits of unprecedented size, one of which split up to power the air conditioners before turning up into the tower. The other flowed straight back, into a hole in the wall.
Starlight and Jamjars approached the hole, set halfway up the wall and ringed in thick concrete. It was a pipe, sloping downwards and slightly curved, with a metal staircase built against the wall for easy access. They climbed it to see a walkway descending around the curve and out of sight, a thick bank of glowing mana to one side providing all the illumination the pipe could need.
"It's a maintenance tunnel," Starlight murmured. "An underground power cable in a pipe with enough room for ponies, so someone could go in and fix it without digging it up in case it breaks..." That would explain why there were no generators in the basement: Karma Industries was piping in its power from somewhere else. "I wonder where it goes."
"Let's find out!" Jamjars said haughtily, flicking her tail in Starlight's face as she strolled into the pipe's entrance.
"No." Unflinching, Starlight stood at the top of the stairs, daring Jamjars to follow the narrow walkway down the pipe.
"No!?" Jamjars scoffed, then swung a hoof at the tunnel. "What are you talking about? Have you ever seen anything like this?" Her face darkened. "You probably have, which means now I need to. Look at this thing! There's probably something really interesting at the end."
Starlight wanted to know what was at the end, too, but couldn't let it show. "No," she repeated. "We've already wandered far enough away without letting anyone know where we are. What if someone else comes and takes your room? What if Gerardo gets back and is looking for us? What if White Chocolate gets here and discovers you're missing? Besides, there's nothing close to Grand Acorn, so that pipe is probably really long, and I'm tired of walking."
"Oh yeah?" Jamjars countered. "Well, once my mom gets here, we're probably not going to have a chance to sneak back down here! And I can handle a little walk!"
She was betrayed by a growl from her stomach.
"Really." Starlight didn't even bother to lift an eyebrow.
"S-Shut up." Jamjars blushed and looked down. "Maybe you've already had your fill of this, and good for you if you have. There's no way I could be any prouder. But guess what? I haven't, and I am not ready to go home yet!" She tapped the walkway with a hoof. "Though if you have any food, I would like it..."
Starlight sighed, sizing up the stubborn filly and wondering how hard it would be to teleport another pony alongside herself. If size mattered, it might be slightly more possible... but she was starting to get hungry too, and was very definitely thirsty, and it was becoming abundantly clear that for all Jamjars' hype, there was nothing of interest in Karma Industries' basement. "No," she repeated. "Let's go home, Jamjars."
Instead of agreeing, Jamjars' horn flickered... and she became the same shade of mottled gray as the catwalk and the pipe beneath it. "Fine, then!" She blew an invisible raspberry. "Catch me if you can, Starlight!"
"Hey!" Starlight growled as if struck in the face and lit her horn, listening to the pattering of little invisible hooves drawing rapidly down the tunnel... and blinked. She could still hear the filly. And she had crossed mountains, and hiked all over Ironridge, while Jamjars had self-professed to sitting at home for her entire life. She didn't need magic for this.
Starlight took off at a furious gallop, her muscles aching in protest... but definitely not as much as Jamjars'. She took care to land lightly so she could still hear the other filly, and felt an immeasurable burst of pleasure at just how quickly she was catching up. She saw Jamjars' ruby eyes blink back at her in shock, heard the filly gasp... and lunged forward in a tackle.
"Gotcha!" She collided with something soft and fuzzy, grappling and trying to cling on like a monkey with all four limbs. Jamjars bucked and flailed in protest, kicking the walkway railing and altering the trajectory of their tumble.
With a painful thud, Starlight felt a second of weightlessness and then an impact against her back. They had fallen off the walkway... but kept rolling. She shut her eyes against the dizzying spinning, still glomped on to a struggling Jamjars, and weathered another bump as they hit the lip of something, or an edge lain out along the ground... and then they tumbled one short second of weightlessness more and came to rest, moaning.
Starlight ran a quick mental check of herself before attempting to move. Teeth? Nothing loose. Legs? Not broken. Back? In an awkward position, but same. Head? Bruised but fine. Herself in general? Weighing down on something warm: Jamjars had broken her fall, and they were locked together, tangled against a metal floor. That meant the other filly might be worse off than she was. Carefully, Starlight began the process of untangling herself from Jamjars' mane, recognizing that if she was unconscious, it would be up to her to carry Jamjars all the way back to her room. At that point, it might have just been better to ask for help from a guard.
Her eyes opened halfway through climbing to her hooves, and she froze at what she saw.
A steel ceiling filled with rivets surrounded her, merging seamlessly into the walls with rounded edges and corners. It was lit by a dull reddish light, made from huge pieces of prefabricated metal that had been bolted together with industrial precision. Beyond a portcullis that they had tumbled in through, she could see the maintenance walkway and the pipe in the distance... There had been a hole in the wall; a side door, and they had rolled through it.
The floor they were on was metal as well, though covered in some sort of rubbery mat that felt like it was to absorb drips or spills. Several round tables sat against the walls, some containing empty bottles or abandoned decks of playing cards, next to worn posters that depicted mares doing questionable things. At the back of the room was the source of the light; an unattended bar made from reforged metal that contained three stools and an impressive array of drinks.
As Starlight glanced around and took in the reality of the room, her legs gave out from trembles, and she slumped back against the unmoving filly beneath her. "I-I have no idea where we are," she gulped. "But I don't think we're supposed to be here..."
From an adjacent passage, loud against the metal and silence, came the sound of approaching hoofsteps.
S-Swooooosh!
With a synchronized flapping of wings, Gerardo and Howe pulled to a landing atop a protrusion halfway up Karma Industries, clearly marked to be for that exact purpose. The heat was slightly lessened by the altitude, but Gerardo still beamed gratefully at the sight of a sliding double-door that was his ticket to air-conditioned bliss.
"Whooo..." Howe wiped his brow with a wing. "Lucky thing we met up when we did, huh, Bird-bro? I just pulled a cart through this weather! Flying in circles trying to find you after that would have been nastier than a yak's armpit."
"Indeed," Gerardo agreed. "Also, I have a vague recollection of asking you not to call me that."
"My bad, Brother Bird," Howe gasped, beelining for the doorway. Gerardo facepalmed.
A mare with a company uniform in front of the door raised a hoof, the other clutching a sizable jug of water as if her life depended on it. "Hold up," she announced, blocking the way. "Karma Industries is closed for regular business right now. Are you boys aware of the situation?"
"Indeed we are," Gerardo replied, nodding politely. "We've... found a more ideal lodging for some of our friends who are already inside, and intended to ferry them there by air so as to leave you more room to process arrivals of greater need."
The uniformed mare glanced off the edge of the platform at the colorful sea of stalled equines trying to enter the tower below, and nodded. "That would be very welcome. I'll call for an escort. Do you know where you're looking for?"
Gerardo beamed. "As a matter of fact, my memory is good enough at these kinds of things that we could make do without. Unless it's a security issue, of course? We'd prefer to be in and out as fast as possible."
"...Sure." The mare gazed at them, sizing them up... and hit a button that caused the double-doors to roll open. "Be swift, and absolutely no loitering. We're trying to keep the halls as open as possible. Good luck with your friends."
"Good luck with whatever luck can help you with!" Gerardo bowed, strolling through the doors.
"Heh..." The mare smirked, taking a drink from her water jug. "I live in Copsewood. My husband's a Sosan. We'll probably need it."
The doors slid closed behind them, and Howe immediately threw himself to his knees, whooping in exaltation at the cold. "Ha-ha! Finally, my strength has returned to me, as a lost child returns to its mother! Take that, sun! Even your best efforts were not enough to thwart the Howenator!"
"Um... quite." Gerardo blinked, for once at a loss for words. "The nature of today's weather aside, shall we press on? I'm rather sure miss Jamjars is dying to be reunited with her family almost as much as Maple wants to see Starlight."
"Ah yes, Jamjars..." Howe smugly shrugged. "Now there's a filly who knows how to appreciate a manestyle."
Eagerly, Howe's hoof rapped on a door. After a moment's hesitation, it swung open. He squinted. "Uh, Gerardo? Are you sure this is the place we're looking for?"
Inside the door, a spring-green mare lay on her side on a thin cushion, three foals held to her chest and a stallion at her side holding two more. They stared at Howe in confusion.
"Quite sure," Gerardo replied, tapping a spot on a windowsill. "I distinctly recall this bit of damage to the woodwork, and selecting it as an indicator so I could choose the right door when I returned. Is there...?" He gazed over Howe's shoulder at the young, evidently-growing family within.
"...Can we help you?" the mare nervously asked, hugging her foals closer to herself.
"You aren't newsponies, are you?" the stallion asked from against the back wall, taking a step forward. "I mean... either kind of news? Delivering it or interviewing... You know?"
Gerardo frowned. "We're looking for someone, but it appears we were mistaken about where. I'm deeply sorry if we disturbed you, of course."
"Do you have any news?" the stallion pressed, far more talkative than his other. "Everyone's been gossiping, but there are no straight facts! You have wings; have you seen what's going on? They said the Defense Force was going to flood Sosa!"
"That is, regrettably, the state of things," Gerardo informed him. "Though nothing irreversible has happened yet, and I assure you everyone is working as hard as they can to diffuse tensions. Hopefully, you and your beloved should be able to return home as swiftly as possible."
The stallion frowned, and tilted his head. "Sister," he corrected. "I'm just here to help her with her foals."
"Ah, yes, well, erm..." Gerardo looked away, the sudden awkwardness in the room causing his feathers to curl. "Might I ask how long you've been here, in this room?"
"We arrived about ten minutes ago," the mare replied, giving one of her foals a lick between the ears. "They said it had just been freed up, and that we were very lucky. Maybe whoever you're looking for already left?"
Gerardo looked to Howe, and nodded. "That makes sense, does it not?"
Howe grinned. "I suppose the services of Karma Industries are even faster than we are! They must already have Starlight and Jamjars in transit to the warehouse!"
"Warehouse?" The mare frowned. "I don't..."
"That's quite alright," Gerardo assured. "Rest assured, you've helped us find what we need. I bid you good luck with your stay!"
"Thanks..."
He closed the door behind him, and grinned. "Well, it seems out expedition was unnecessary after all! Shall we return to Maple and White Chocolate and see if we can outrace their fillies?"
Howe raised a wing in a salute. "You said it, Brother Bird."
Maple paced along a first-story warehouse corridor, her hoofsteps ringing against the concrete flooring as she drooped with exhaustion. The outside heat hadn't fully wormed its way into the building, and she constantly found herself shooting expectant glances at the worker pony who was leading them.
Beside her was White Chocolate, along with six other workers dedicated to carrying the mare's children and belongings. For a moment, Maple wondered how the Earth District could afford to dedicate so many ponies to helping others... before it clicked in her head that every able-bodied equine helping was a pony that didn't need to be helped. For all she knew, the squad was comprised entirely of volunteers.
The mare at the lead flipped through a clipboard held in her teeth, humming as she walked. "Not really sure how to handle a family this big," she apologized around it. "We'll look for something we can use, but for now you'll have to make do with a shared space. Sorry, but these are tough times."
White Chocolate hung her head, seemingly resigned to her fate. "Do you think you could get me barriers so my children don't run off?"
"A wall of crates, or something?" The lead mare shrugged. "Sure. I think we can do that."
They rounded a corner, breaking into a wide room with a low enough ceiling that it likely had a second story. Rows of parallel conveyor belts stretched across it, evidently part of a processing facility. Now, however, it sat dormant, filled instead with nearly a hundred ponies, bustling with sweat and fear and life.
"It's a little hard to move around in here," the lead mare apologized, treading carefully down a cleared isle. "But I think we can get you a corner space. That way, you'll have at least two walls to your back. We'll keep looking, I promise, but in the meantime you'll just have to make do."
White Chocolate's ears folded at the chaotic scene. "Oh my..."
"This is a disaster..." Maple murmured under her breath, scared back to proper posture by the sight of the room as she stepped through, careful to avoid any errant tails. "I had no idea an evacuation would involve this. I wonder if Shinespark is seeing what this looks like. We... We should have tried harder, and found a better way..."
"Well, here you go." The mare shrugged, having reached a mostly-empty corner and persuaded the ponies on the edges to move slightly further aside. "Once again, I assure you, Ma'am, we'll try our best to find a better spot. But like I said..."
"I know," White Chocolate interrupted. "It's... better than drowning."
Maple's ear twitched. Somehow, the sea of ponies was dense enough that she wondered how different real drowning would feel.
Long after the workers had left, with a promise to update Gerardo or Howe on Maple's location should they return, White Chocolate lay on her back, using her folded bathrobe as a cushion and holding three foals close. Her belongings and boxes had been arranged into part of a wall by Maple, Hayseed and Snow, though it wasn't big enough to form a complete enclosure. Hayseed sat silently, trying to amuse two more of the foals, while Snow rested against his stack of magazines that was built into the wall and unsuccessfully tried to distract himself.
For her part, Maple sat and stood watch at the break in the wall, trying to recover her strength as much as she could. The refugee families were packed close enough together that she couldn't walk between any two of them without violating someone's personal space, and thanks to the enclosed nature of the room, it was impossible not for body heat to accumulate. So did smells.
The conveyor belts blocked her sight of much of the room, affording a false sense of privacy when she looked at how many ponies were still next to them, White Chocolate's wall too short to do anything but help corral foals. Maple's ears folded. Gerardo had to get back. This couldn't continue.
"Nnnnnngh..." White Chocolate moaned, drawing her attention and her presence.
"Are you alright?" Maple asked, sliding up beside her, keeping a careful eye on the foals who were still unattended so that they didn't wander off.
"Maple, I'm worried," White Chocolate whimpered, voice barely audible over the noisy shush of the room. "There are so many things that could go wrong..."
Maple touched her shoulder with a hoof and smiled a smile she didn't feel. "They won't," she reassured. "You'll get out of here before you know it."
"There are so many ponies, though..." White Chocolate fidgeted, rocking slightly, still holding her foals close. "I don't remember the last time I was around so many. What if...? What if I get up to do something, and when I get back, one of my foals is missing in the crowd?"
Maple bit her lip.
"Or what if...?" White Chocolate's face was strained with worry. "What if somepony in this room is sick, and gets everyone else sick too? There wouldn't be enough medicine! And they just want us to stay here for three days. What if there is a flood, and all our old homes are destroyed? What if we have to live like this for months?"
"That's not going to happen," Maple repeated. "We'll make sure of it. I promise."
White Chocolate didn't even listen. "What if I foal here? With no one to help, and so many to take care of already, and surrounded by strangers, and-"
Maple's face turned ashen. "That's enough," she commanded, silencing White Chocolate with a hoof. "You. Will. Be. Alright."
Somewhere in the distance, a pony coughed.
Maple glared in their direction, limbs shaking with frustration. She had been there when the decision to evacuate was made. She could have said something. She could have done better...
"You don't have to be here," White Chocolate's voice reminded her. "You aren't tied down by an unmanageable family. You only have one filly, and she's old enough to care for herself. You could get back on an airship and return to wherever you came from..."
"No." Maple stomped, glaring. "I'm not leaving. I can't leave this. There must... There has to be something I can do to help, and to make things right."
"Why?" White Chocolate asked. "You told me you're not from Ironridge, didn't you? You don't owe us anything! Even if you want to help me, there's not much you can do now that I'm here!"
Maple hesitated, mouth open. Then, eventually: "Because I can. You're right. I'm not tied down. Aside from Starlight, I don't have anything holding me anywhere... and that means I don't have anything stopping me."
White Chocolate's brow furrowed. "What?"
"Because I can," Maple repeated with a shrug, feeling determination replace the weariness in her limbs. "Don't tell me you've never thought, 'I wish I could make a difference in the world, but there's just no way...' because I have. For days and weeks and months and even years on end. And I want to."
She didn't mention why the plight of the evacuees was personal, or that she was friends with the Sosan top brass, but didn't feel she needed to. "If you think you'll be alright for an hour or two without me..." She smiled, softening her tone. "Or at least until Starlight and Jamjars get back, I think I'm going to go see if they could use another able-bodied pony who's good at moving heavy things."
At that, White Chocolate caught on, blinking giving way to a smile of her own. "Good luck, then. I wish I could help too..."
Maple stomped through empty hallways, trying frantically to cool her head. She had meant every last thing she had said to White Chocolate, even if her words had been on the spot and not thought through. She wanted to help. She needed to help. The mass displacement of the evacuation couldn't be right... but how?
She was a pony who had spent the past two days being chased, assaulted, foalnapped and drained beyond the point of collapse by what was likely an evil artifact. She had been invited into the company of ponies who had been playing the planning game for decades, a dynasty that had been plotting city-sized solutions for almost as long as she had been alive. She was just a mare who had led a life with large shares of fortune and misfortune... and right then and there, she realized, luck was happily ignoring her entirely. Maybe that was why it felt like she had a chance.
A troupe of ponies in worker garb stomped past her, barely giving her a second thought save for one nod of greeting. As unobtrusively as she could, she followed them, figuring they would eventually be bound for the point where ponies were arriving. At the very least, lending other evacuees a hoof, even as nothing more than a pack pony, was something she knew she could do.
Bright sunlight broke around her after several minutes of walking, instantly causing her to shy away. She could practically see the hot air billowing in through an entrance, making the bright world outside shimmer with its oversaturated green and yellow hues. She winced... and pushed through it. It was something she needed to do.
"Hey, that's Maple!"
Maple gasped at the incoming voice, and jumped aside just in time. Howe and Gerardo dropped through the sky like missiles, homing in on the cool, welcoming entrance and landing right where she had been standing a second ago.
"Hmm!" Gerardo straightened up, happily fixing his headcrest. "That was easier than expected."
"So Starlight and Jamjars are already on their way here?" Maple asked, sitting much more comfortably in the shade inside the warehouse entrance as more refugees were ushered in. Gerardo sat beside her, and Howe was away, searching for water.
"As best as we could tell, that's the truth," Gerardo replied. "The room where I left them had recently been re-commandeered by a new family, and they weren't there any more. As best as I could tell, they must be in transit here, through some company function."
Maple frowned unhappily. "The conditions here are... not good. It's so tight, and nervous. Everyone here is one step away from panicking. I wonder why they didn't offer to move White Chocolate to the tower, if they really had an air-conditioned private room there instead?"
"Transportation difficulty." Gerardo shrugged. "What is easier? Moving two fillies, or ten plus a rather large mare? The Earth District, I've gathered, is somewhat short on fliers as well."
"They said they were going to try to find somewhere better here, but..." Maple hung her head. "Even if they find something for White Chocolate, there are still so many other ponies here. It makes me wonder if this evacuation was really the right thing to do..."
Gerardo shot her a strange look, as if there was something he desperately wanted to say. After looking in every direction and determining that they were sufficiently alone, he dropped his voice to a whisper, and asked, "May I confide in you something that's very... troubling to me about this entire operation?"
Maple tilted her head. "Sure."
"Well..." Gerardo looked away. "What do you think of Shinespark?"
Maple blinked, not expecting the question. "She seems very friendly. Enthusiastic. Maybe unprofessional, even. Why?"
"I'm unsure if this is a common phrase where you hail from, but I would describe her as wearing her heart on her sleeve," Gerardo said. "She... discussed her personality with me, in fact, while we were traveling to meet you early this morning. I take it she told you how Braen works?"
"She did." Maple nodded.
"What she told me," Gerardo continued, "is that it is their hopes and goals that are ultimately linked. I don't believe Shinespark was ever a recluse or introvert, but at least part of the reason she behaves as she does is because she needs to feel what she feels honestly in order for their magical connection to work properly. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Slowly, Maple nodded. "She needs to make sure she knows what she's feeling and always feel what she wants in order to... make Braen act on those wants... right?" Confused, she folded her ears. "What are you getting at with this?"
Gerardo grinned bleakly. "Does the word 'impulsive' come to mind, at all?"
"I..." Maple sat, thinking, staring.
"She's wholly invested in what she does," Gerardo continued. "Passionately so. A commendable trait in a leader who needs to feel for their people... but what about in one who also gives lectures on how the most potent form of power in Ironridge is information? Surely you must have noticed all the things she told us or allowed us to listen in on were secrets of the most sensitive order... and she sounded excited to be sharing them."
"Gerardo..." Maple frowned. "You're questioning her judgement abilities, aren't you?"
"I wish I was." Gerardo hung his head. "But, in fact, this is about a problem I only noticed recently, at breakfast this morning. Do you know how old Shinespark is?"
Silently, Maple counted in her head, trying to recall dates.
Gerardo didn't let her finish. "She's nineteen," he interrupted. "Not even twenty. And look at her cabinet! Grenada was a recent appointee, and couldn't have been much older than she was, if any. Gigavolt, at least, I'd peg in his twenties. Dior is on her side, and appeared quite young himself. Now, I'm hardly an elder myself, but..." He narrowed his eyes. "Does it at all worry you that the only pony there who is likely to even remember Project Aslan was Gunga? I'm sure Arambai has some hoof in things, remote as it may be, but..." He straightened up, sighing. "It feels to me as though this entire half of the city is being ran by far more passion than experience. They can be as driven or noble of leaders as they please, but were I a villain... I would smell an opportunity to manipulate, or set a trap." He sighed again, turning to Maple. "Perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but have doubts about our present course of action. Especially since it involves real bloodshed."
"...I know." Maple hung her head. "Now that you mention it, I guess they are really young. I don't like to hold that against a pony, but..." She looked in the direction of the warehouse corridors, beyond which there existed rooms and rooms of worried ponies. "I'm having doubts about this plan, too. About the evacuation. You should see White Chocolate in there; she's about to have a nervous breakdown. I'm almost feeling guilty just for not being there with her right now..."
Swooosh!
Howe appeared in a flash of feathers, clutching a freshly-filled canteen that he guzzled greedily from. "Greetings, comrades!" Water dripped from his muzzle like a leaky faucet. "Has the Howenator missed anything of supreme importance?"
"Oh. We..." Maple trailed off, remembering that Howe wasn't aware of any of the Sosan planning they had taken part in. It wouldn't do to let any secrets slip. "We were just talking about the evacuation. It's so crowded here, with no privacy and easy for panic to spread, and..." She sighed. "I wish there was a better way."
"Well, they could always send them to Blueleaf," Howe offered with a shrug.
Howe grinned. "It's a place my biological bro Neon Nova hangs out at. You passed through yesterday, right?"
Maple squinted, choosing her words carefully. "Isn't Blueleaf currently having... infrastructure issues? Would sending a large amount of ponies there really be a good idea?"
"Well, about that..." Howe rolled his shoulders. "Right, so here's the deal. Blueleaf's mana generator is having... let's call them issues. Unfortunately, there's a door on it that only Sky District technicians can pass through! As a result, the city has been suffering from periodic blackouts that make the lower levels uninhabitable and force ponies to move upward or migrate to the Stone District. Now..." He grinned harder. "We may not look like it, but Neon Nova and myself are fairly accomplished at mana technology. In fact, we've extensively studied the entire Ironridge power grid to find out if there was any other bypass to the failing generator! So if we decided, 'screw the Sky District!' and found a way to blast that armored door off its hinges, I'm fairly sure the two of us could get that generator working right as rain again in no time. Then, all the abandoned lower levels would become livable once again, and we would have plenty of space for these refugees."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "That could be a most valuable resource, indeed..."
"Hold on," Maple snapped, realizing with a rush of fear that she was the only one of the three who knew that the situation in Blueleaf had been resolved... or how it had been resolved. Howe thought the generator was still under Neon Nova's control, and hadn't a clue that Neon Nova had been incarcerated in the upper districts by Valey. She blinked, remembering Valey's sound stone message.
"...Hold on for what?" Gerardo eventually asked.
"Right," Maple gulped, having left herself hanging. She glanced between Gerardo and Howe, sizing up whether the griffon would be able to take down the pegasus in the event that things turned ugly... and reminding herself of his fearsome, strength-sapping sword. Suddenly, she had a way to test how trustworthy Howe was.
"We..." she continued, struggling not to stammer from nervousness. "Already went in and fixed the generator. Valey was with us, and when she found out about how the power outages were stirring up the Blueleaf and being used to raise tensions with the Stone District, she wanted to get to the bottom of it. She got inside the generator through an air duct. It... won't be having problems any more."
Howe paled. "So that's... what you were doing with my bro's sound stone, eh?"
Gerardo blinked in confusion. "Have I missed something?"
Maple gulped, pulling the stone out and holding it in her hooves. It was dormant. "It is."
After a second of staring at it, Howe sat down. "And here I was, telling tales of Neon the moment we crossed paths in this very warehouse last night. You must've figured out I was in on it instantly."
Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "Once again, and I'd like an answer this time: what's going on?"
"The generator door wasn't locked with Sky District access," Maple said, nodding at Gerardo. "It was locked by Neon Nova. He would enter it himself, every once in a while, and turn the power on or off with a breaker, to the entire city. He did it to simulate the generator failing and rally the ponies to the Spirit, against the upper districts."
Gerardo balked, first at Maple, then at Howe. "Is this true!?" he demanded.
"...Mostly," Howe answered, slumped with his chin against the ground, looking utterly dejected. "I doubt there's anything I can do about it now. If Neon's locked up in the Water District and I'm busted by you guys, I doubt I can even talk my way to freedom, let alone get that windigo heart and bust my bro to safety."
"Mostly," Maple repeated, standing over him. "If you feel like making a good start, what do you mean by that?"
"We weren't doing it to help the Spirit," Howe explained, slumped. "Remember what I told you in Gnarlbough? About how me and Neon were mercenaries... at least until I got thrown out the other day? Manipulating Blueleaf was a paid job, with them. Neon's, specifically."
"Mercenaries?" Gerardo frowned. "Someone was hiring a squad of mercenaries for the express purpose of inflaming tensions between the Earth District and the Stone District?"
Maple stared at him, wondering if he was thinking the same thing she was thinking.
"Yep," Howe said glumly. "Well, again... sort of. Our band was hired directly by Ambassador Herman. He had us doing all sorts of stuff, like... you know. Me trying to get you in trouble with the Defense Force. Selma knew about us, and had a pretty big chip on his shoulder because he wanted the Defense Force to be the top military authority in Ironridge, and there his own boss was hiring out mercenaries to go do dirty work behind his back instead of leaving everything to 'city loyalists' like him."
Gerardo's jaw dropped. "Do you mean to say that Ambassador Herman has both been playing behind his own side's back, and stirring up the opposition to... to cause them to come to blows?"
Maple whimpered, ears folded. "Didn't Selma sound surprised by the bombs? If they really were put there behind his back..."
"Furthermore," Gerardo continued, frowning deeply, "I recall it being stated that Herman was the architect of the so-called weapons deal meant to arm the Defense Force with Steel District weaponry... which to this day has resulted in nothing more than massive amounts of resources freely finding their way to Sosa." His eyes grew hard. "Including putting countless weapons in the hooves of the Spirit."
"He wants them to fight..." Maple breathed. "And if the Spirit is that well armed... does he want his own army to get destroyed?"
"Uhh... guys?" Howe looked worriedly up from the floor. "Was it something I said?"
"Yes, Howe." Gerardo stalked across the empty room. "It was. And I don't know what Herman is up to... but it sounds to me as though we've found the real culprit behind this recent turn of events."
Maple gazed sadly at the sound stone in her hooves. "Then that would mean Valey was set up to take the fall. She always did say he hated her..."
"I think it's clear that we need a new plan," Gerardo announced, straightening up. "And if the action really is to start tonight... then we haven't a moment to lose."
Howe's right ear flopped. Then his left one. Then he frowned.
"Could you, umm... run all that by the Howenator again? Because I frankly have no clue what you just said."
Gerardo and Maple gulped, turning to stare at each other. "That's right," Gerardo mused. "I do suppose we need to figure out what to do with Howe before anything else..."
Maple glanced guiltily at the pegasus. If she hadn't spoken up, he would be happily playing along with whatever they were going to do... but they wouldn't be doing anything in the first place. And if he had been in on Neon Nova's schemes, it was his fault, in the first place.
"Might I remind you," Howe asked, not yet daring to pick himself up from the floor, "that I was but a humble mercenary? A base creature motivated to act in the service of others via instinct and greed? Uhh..." He winced, backpedaling. "What I mean to say is that I've since had a break with my former employers, as apparently has my bro. And back in Gnarlbough, you did say you wished to hire me in return for something I very much want... Err. What I'm getting at is that that deal could still be on! Despite the obvious disapproval with which you're looking at me..."
"First things first," Maple interrupted. "Exactly how much did you know about Blueleaf?"
Howe shrugged. "Everything. Neon's assignment was very... general in what it asked of him. So he came to me, and together we crafted a plan to disable the generator's access panel and simulate a power failure. Herman himself covered for us by preventing any real Sky District technicians from being sent to conduct maintenance on the generator, thus discovering that we had sabotaged the door. But me and Neon architected it from the ground up."
"And did you ever go there?" Maple's eyes narrowed. "Did you ever spend time in Blueleaf, to see how your plan was hurting ponies? If not, maybe you should head inside this refugee center and take a look at the ponies here, because this is what happens when ponies are displaced from their homes."
"Err..." Howe sweated. "No? But we were in constant contact through our sound stones. And need I remind you that I did call him and ask him to turn on the lights for the duration of your stay, in order to make the city safer for you?"
"Well, we did." Maple glared, ignoring him, her breathing starting to grow faster. "And we met ponies who had been there for a lot longer than us. There was a filly called Redshift, who was about Starlight's age, who spent her days climbing around in the dark, looking for ponies who were trapped or wanted to move but couldn't. A. Filly." She stomped a hoof. "This place is what happens when two districts with massive amounts of resources work together to help displaced ponies. Blueleaf didn't have that. It was a town where the economic outcasts from the Stone District wound up, segregated by poverty in terms of how much sunlight ponies received! They didn't have the resources to do an evacuation. It was survive the dark or move on your own... and guess who needed power the most? The ponies on the bottom, who were least able to help themselves! Your plan hurt a lot of real ponies."
"Well..." Howe fidgeted, struggling, even though he wasn't pinned down. "Most mercenaries are hired to fight in wars, you know! Like the one up north in Varsidel? We could have dressed up as Defense Force members and beaten ponies up to rally everyone to the Spirit! When your band leader says you accept a job, you do it, and... Look, we were really proud of finding a solution that didn't involve killing anypony!"
Maple lowered her head until she was on level with him, not breaking eye contact. "How do you know no ponies died, alone in the dark?"
"Uhhh...!" Howe squirmed.
"I believe the pegasus gets the point," Gerardo said, intervening on Howe's behalf. "As do I. It seems this is a case of carelessness more than malicious intent. Though it begs the question..."
His eyes narrowed. "Tell me more about your reward, and why it was so important."
"Uh-huh!" Howe gulped, trying to recollect his posture. "Right, so. As I kind-of, sort-of recall telling Maple, I don't particularly care about financial compensation. In fact, my team's compensation was... complicated. What Neon Nova and I were really after was a chance to steal back a pair of ancestral heirlooms that had, in turn, been stolen from us by the yaks and were being routed to Ironridge. You know... the windigo hearts in those crates of yours. All we really wanted was to get close enough to nick them and make our escape. Ideally, we would seize both, then immediately flee before anyone could stop us." Hesitating, he added to Maple: "We would have left the power on, too."
Gerardo nodded. "And what use would a pair of imposter mercenaries like you have for two artifacts that are clearly quite dangerous?"
"I told you," Howe insisted, "they're heirlooms. Relics given to us by our father, left over from his glorious days of travel and adventure. We don't want to use them for anything! Just... keep them safe, you know?"
Gerardo frowned.
"Hey, don't look at me like that!" Howe protested. "Aren't you all big on quests and adventure and things like that? If a villain steals something of yours and you have nothing better to do with yourself, you leave on an epic crusade to get it back!"
"Do you have any idea what they might want them for?" Maple asked, leaning in. "Or if they'd be able to do it with just one, instead of both?"
Howe shrugged. "We did some investigating as a part of learning they were being taken to Ironridge. Apparently, it wasn't just ours that were confiscated. Windigo hearts are extremely rare, but they... do exist. We couldn't find out where the others went, unfortunately. Our two best guesses were that they were bound for some eldritch research facility to perfect whatever dark arts the yaks seek to employ, or that they were shipping them to other countries to repeat whatever they intend to perform here."
Maple slumped, feeling her eyes go wide as the strength drained from her limbs. "You mean... whatever Yakyakistan is planning here, with the dam and the hearts and getting the districts to fight each other... could also be happening in the rest of the world?" Pale, she looked to Gerardo. "This is like what happened forty years ago, with Blazing Rain and the yaks threatening the rest of the world..."
"Technically," Gerardo corrected, "the threat to the rest of the world was if Yakyakistan's internal conflict became an external affair. Yakyakistan attempting to make a play on the world theater would be extremely disconcerting... and, in fact, worse than history repeating itself."
"Now, now, I didn't say that!" Howe got partway up, waving his hooves. "Please, bear in mind, this was only a humble pegasus's speculation! For all I know, they consider the windigo hearts a delicacy and like eating them. Yaks do eat snow, after all."
Gerardo and Maple both looked at him.
"Erm... what?" Howe shrugged. "You're steering the conversation, here. Not me."
"Look." Maple stomped. "We already know whatever is happening with Yakyakistan and Ambassador Herman is bad news, and we have to do something about it! Letting things keep going like they are isn't an option! We might be closer to the truth than any other ponies in Ironridge, and that means it's our job to help them!" She trailed off, wilting. "I... didn't really see myself saying this, yesterday or the day before..."
Gerardo chuckled. "It seems Shinespark was right about knowledge being the most potent thing in Ironridge. You're certainly quite a bit more assertive than I recall you being when we set out, Miss Maple. That said, we do still need a plan."
"Hey, uhh, I don't know if I've slipped your minds or what, but..." Howe fidgeted, standing fully upright. "A helpful reminder that I'm right here, and fully willing to employ my broad talents and full loyalty in exchange for something you have, and don't want to see falling into the hooves of the yaks!"
"I'm... still not sure I trust you with the windigo heart, though," Maple pointed out. "For all I know, you could know something even worse about it than the yaks."
"Look at it this way!" Howe grinned. "Technically, you don't have to give me the one you have. However, while you cannot ascertain my true intentions, you're certain the yaks are up to no good... and thus we can both agree that they shouldn't have the other heart! And frankly, all I have to do to get the hearts from you is get you to trust me, whereas the yaks stole them from me in the first place. So we could go ahead with no promise of payment, yet I'll still come out of this better off and have every reason to help you!"
Maple hesitated.
"Need I read to you my resume?" Howe raised an eyebrow. "As you have seen, I possess a pair of wings, an elusive treasure in this heat-ridden jungle! I may yet also possess a trove of knowledge you don't even know yet that you need, could instantly recruit my brother to the cause should we come across him, and happen to be very good at both working with technology and addressing crowds!" He blinked. "Also, I know kung fu."
"Maple?" Gerardo turned to her, expectant.
"...Why are you looking at me?" Maple frowned, taking a step back. "I'm not the leader."
Gerardo sighed. "Well, what I'd say..." He twiddled a talon, drumming it against the cold warehouse floor. "Howe, I can't say I've reason to doubt you, though that could easily change if you try anything underhooved. I'm not sure it's wise to trust you with everything we're privy to, and I shall be watching you, but... we do need all the allies we can get."
"Yeeessssss!" Howe sang, fluttering. "I promise you, you will not regret the day you chose to hire the Howenator! So, then, what's our first order of business?"
Maple looked sideways at him. "Isn't that exactly what you said when I hired you in Gnarlbough?"
"Well, I don't know about you two," Gerardo announced, "but now that we know the true villain is Yakyakistan and not the Defense Force, it seems increasingly less likely that Selma is suspect. In fact... and I'm slightly mad at myself for not remembering this earlier... Selma took me aside prior to my inspection and gave me a very lengthy speech that I don't remember well and recall amounting to a lot of nothing and drama, all intended to confuse me. But I seem to have a memory of him indicating that the yak embassy was nearing completion of a project that involved yak meddling in Ironridge, and he desired to sabotage that project in order to force the embassy to stay, and continue propping up his Defense Force. Does anyone have any ideas how this fits into the puzzle? Or is it likely something that became irrelevant the moment Selma discovered the bombs?"
Maple frowned. "Well, Selma did tell you to tell us to fight in the Water District, didn't he? So he can't see that far behind the yaks' backs to be able to tell that fighting is a bad idea..."
"Aaand you lost me again," Howe announced with a shuffling of feathers. "What's all this about Selma wanting a battle in the Water District?" Out of the side of his muzzle, he added, "I don't like that guy one bit, by the way. If he's an enemy, give him a whack in my name!"
"There's something more important, actually," Maple interrupted. "Valey." She pulled out the sound stone again, holding it between her hooves. "She'd never work with Herman behind Selma's back to destroy the dam. She wouldn't. She... She hates him. But it still looks like what Starlight said is true, and that someone wants to frame her for everything..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I know the foals we met blamed her for Blueleaf. And now that everything is happening, she's locked up so she can't change things. I think if we want to make a difference, we have to save her first."
Gerardo nodded slowly.
"Wait, Valey?" Howe protested, shivering. "The one with the hat who throws fruit and sticks her tongue out at ponies? Nooohohoho thank you." He hugged himself. "I like my third dimension."
"She's also my friend," Maple warned. "And she could know something important about what's going on in the Defense Force."
"Remind me..." Gerardo tapped a talon. "What, precisely, is her situation? I seem to recall that she had flown off..."
Maple held out the sound stone. "Me and Starlight were able to call her this morning. She's in the Flame District, and there's some sort of anti-magic trap that's keeping her there. We couldn't hear her very well. The reception was bad."
"You don't say?" Howe grinned, reaching a wing for the stone. "May I?"
Maple didn't stop him from taking it. "Do you have an idea?"
"Oh ho, the Howenator is good at having ideas." Howe cackled softly to himself as he flew, reaching for one of the glowing manalights that illuminated the ceiling of their room in the warehouse. As he flew, Maple pondered how odd it was that White Chocolate's room was so crowded when they had found an empty space so easily... and felt a pang of guilt for leaving the nervous mare.
Howe reached the light, pressing the stone against it. After a few seconds, ambient mana from the fixture had charged it, and it lit up with a swirl.
"Cool!" He dropped back down, offering it to Maple. "Let's see if she picks up..."
Scrkkkkk!
"Hello!?" Maple shouted into the stone, holding it a hair's breadth from her muzzle. "Valey, can you hear me?"
"Yeeowch! Not so..." Valey's voice was drowned out by a flurry of static. "...closer to getting us out of here? I haven't had breakfast, haven't had dinner, and really, really need to..."
"Yo, Valey!" Howe called over Maple's shoulder. "Pancake talking! What kind of trap are you stuck in?"
"...cake? Seriously?" There was a brief moment of clarity, lasting for all of a second before it was gone. "I swear, if you say another word about food right now I'm gonna..."
"Never mind that," Howe growled. "You're in a mess, and your friends want to get you out! What's trapping you?"
"...light! It cancels our magic and..."
Howe squinted. "Some kind of magic light?"
"Yes!"
"Well, then, my loyal comrades..." Howe straightened up, an unstoppable smirk on his face. "The Howenator knows just the trick to save you!"
Maple looked sideways at him. "Really?"
Howe nodded. "Oh, yes. It sounds to me as if your plight is a product of nothing more than a magically-powered trap that requires constant power to stay on! And if, for example, there happened to be an ex-mercenary with a bone to pick with the yaks who knew everything there was to know about the workings of Ironridge's power grid..."
Starlight hissed inwardly. She was bruised, tangled, and somewhere she very definitely wasn't supposed to be... and someone was coming.
Shaking herself, she struggled to get off of Jamjars' unconscious form, spending precious seconds wrestling with herself over whether to exert her telekinesis and waste precious time trying to drag the troublesome filly along with her. Jamjars annoyed her, it was her fault that they were there, and she would be glad to be rid of her... but it was the right thing to do. Her horn lit.
It was too late.
"Huh? What was...?" A mare trotted out from a side passage, silhouetted against the room's metal construction by the bar's red light, her featured completely lost in the darkness. "Starlight?"
"...What?" Starlight frowned in confusion, standing defensively over Jamjars' body, ready to fight at moment's notice.
The mare lit her horn, casting the room in more proper illumination, and Starlight's frown deepened. "Grenada?"
"Starlight, what are you doing here?" the familiar Sosan mare asked, stepping closer and causing the shadows of the ribbed wall supports to shift ominously. "And who's this? This isn't a place for fillies."
"...We're lost," Starlight countered, hoping pity would be enough to get her out of trouble. "Or... she's lost, and I was chasing her. Where are we?"
Grenada bowed her head. "This is the Spirit headquarters. It's empty today because everyone is out working, but..." She stepped closer. "How did you find your way down here? We disguised the entrance so well..."
Jamjars stirred, but wasn't awake yet. Starlight shot a worried glance at her; she wanted to resolve any potential trouble before the filly came to and inevitably made more. "We were supposed to be staying with a room in Karma Industries while we waited for her family to get here. Maple wanted to help them, and Gerardo flew us ahead so that we could claim a spot. But Jamjars..." She pointed to the yellow filly beneath her. "She wanted to go exploring, but she's never been out on her own before, so I followed her to keep her safe. She went into the basement, and then tried to run off down this pipe, and..." She folded her ears.
"Hmm." Grenada leaned closer. "Starlight, the Spirit headquarters aren't the best place for a filly like you to explore. You should take your friend and get her back where she belongs, then return to the ship yourself. Ironridge is going to be dangerous today."
Starlight frowned. "What? First off, she's the one who wanted to explore, not me. You can keep your headquarters. They're kind of ugly." She glanced at the metal architecture, noting its roundness. Its architecture looked considerably less sterile than the clean, geometric warehouse interiors she was used to, more like the inside of an engine. Something that should have been organic, yet wasn't. It rubbed her the wrong way.
"Second," she continued, "what's so bad about this place? I'm strong, and you're not that old either, you know." She shot a glance at the posters on the walls. "Is it those? Do you have ponies come down here just to do naughty things?"
"Well..." Grenada blushed. "That's beside the point. But we keep the Spirit's weapon cache here, and those aren't toys."
"Oh." Starlight looked away, a sudden flashback triggering in her mind to the cannon pony who had shot Maple during their very first encounter with the Spirit at the start of their visit to Ironridge. She wanted nothing to do with that.
Jamjars stirred again, and Starlight glanced down at her. "So what are you doing here now, then, if everyone else is busy? And could you help me carry Jamjars? I don't even remember the way back to our room, and my telekinesis won't work long enough to keep her from running off again when she wakes up."
Grenada carefully surveyed them. "I'm doing some inventory work before heading out to assist with the evacuation in Copsewood. This place will likely go underwater from a flood... or at least risk having the entrance submerged. The tower and the ship aren't really on my way."
Starlight frowned in annoyance at Jamjars.
"You are right, though..." Grenada conceded. "I don't want you out there alone. You're far too important to the project, Starlight. I think maybe it would be best if both of you came with me to Copsewood, and we'll drop your friend off with evacuation officials on the way. They have teams in place for helping foals who get separated from their parents. Would you be able to behave if I let you come with me?"
"Yeah." Starlight nodded. Most ponies' definitions of behave, she noticed, were to sit still and not interfere with important things. She was fairly confident she could make herself actually useful, but if that was what Grenada wanted, that was what Grenada would get.
"Okay..." Grenada sighed, rolling her shoulders. "I don't know when you'll eventually get back. Shinespark will have to find time to take you. After Copsewood, I'm going to be assisting the team in Blueleaf. There will probably be at least one arms convoy from there to here and back, so maybe you can get a ride this far with them. I assume if you're here, it means Maple is too? Hopefully she doesn't leave without you."
Starlight swallowed. Hopefully, indeed. She didn't want to think about Maple's reaction if she found out Gerardo had lost her. Shrugging, she asked, "So what do you want me to do until you're ready?"
"Uhh..." Grenada chewed her lip. "Good question. You know, I don't think I have that much more to do..."
"Well, I'll just wait here, then," Starlight offered, taking up a cleaner-looking chair at the side of a table and settling herself in. "Let me know when we can go..."
Grenada nodded and wandered off, leaving Starlight alone with Jamjars' steadily-breathing body. Again, Starlight's heart asked her to feel back for the unconscious troublemaker, and again, she reminded herself that it was Jamjars' fault she had gotten tackled... and the end result was her looking away, neither feeling up to gloating nor wanting to go down and do whatever it was ponies did to help unconscious ponies wake up. A bucket of ice water to the face, maybe, though she couldn't deny that sounded appealing.
Her eyes fell instead on one of the dingy room's posters, showing two mares who might have been twins on a plush bed with their noses touching and their tails entwined. She squinted. The text on the bottom was in a faded, blocky font, and read Melia and Sirena. Their names, she presumed. Perhaps they were performers? If they were, she wasn't sure she was interested in whatever their performance entailed.
Bored, she looked instead to the lone bottle left on the table. It had a bitter, foul smell, and she couldn't tell if that was because the contents had gone bad or because macho ponies drank it to show off. Either way, she wasn't about to try it to find out.
There was a half-full pack of playing cards on the chair next to her, and a wad of chewing gum stuck to part of the table's peeling laminate, something someone could have only put there as a prank. Chewing gum was devastating to fur. Starlight groaned at the realization that she had nothing better to think about and tried to tap her hoof... but it didn't even reach the floor. Why couldn't Grenada hurry up?
Suddenly, there came a cacophony of crashes and shattering from the corridor Grenada had disappeared down, along with a mare's yell.
Starlight skidded around a metal corner, hooves scrabbling for purchase on the rough floor. "Grenada!?" she squeaked, eyes wide.
Thud! She collided with Grenada's hindquarters and fell back, rubbing her bruised nose. The traces of a shield spell were still flickering in front of the older unicorn, and beyond her Starlight could see the wreckage of several flimsy wooden palettes blocking the path, along with dozens of shattered glass bottles, all of which might once have been as big as she was. The floor was covered in a spreading wave of bitter-smelling liquid.
"Stupid..." Grenada gritted her teeth, whispering under her breath. "Careful. Don't go any further or you'll cut your hooves."
"What happened?" Starlight asked, getting back up. "Is everything okay?"
"Just an accident," Grenada muttered crossly. "Some drunkard must have forgotten to read the labels on how high these can be safely stacked, so when I opened this closet, the bottom one imploded and the whole stack went sideways..." She growled out a sigh. "I don't have time to clean this up, but it's a major hazard like this. Why can't ponies just respect protocol? The rules are there for a reason!"
Starlight took a step back, wary of the spreading contents of the bottles. "What was in them? And can I help?"
"Alcohol," Grenada replied. "It's a Sosan drink that makes painful emotions hurt less, but also makes you slower, stupider and have a headache afterward. A lot of us say they need it, but as you can see, the consequences aren't worth it. It's also bad for fillies."
Starlight blanched, resolving not to find out if the stuff tasted better than it smelled. "So can I help, then?"
Grenada shook her head. "I've got this under control. Besides, there are a lot of sharp things and Braen wouldn't be happy if I let you hurt yourself. This is why I said this isn't a place for children."
Reluctantly admitting that she was right, Starlight retraced her hoofsteps to the lobby. Thoughts of dingy decor and empty alcohol bottles taunted her mind, reminding her that she had just been condemned to even more time waiting for Grenada... time that Maple could be worrying about her, or that she could be going somewhere useful, or that Jamjars could be spending getting into trouble.
She rounded the final corner and blinked. Jamjars was gone.
No, not gone, she realized a second into her initial burst of panic. Her questionably-friendly friend had moved from the entry where Starlight had left her and was now standing on the table where Starlight had waited, having kicked off the empty bottles, balancing on her hind legs against the wall. Her mouth, horn and forehooves were busying themselves detaching and rolling up the poster of the nuzzling twins Starlight had noticed earlier.
Starlight stood and watched, wondering how long it would take Jamjars to notice her. The filly continued her task, prying the last bit of the poster free and stuffing the tube-like roll awkwardly into her mane for safekeeping. That it actually fit spoke volumes for Jamjars' mane size, though Starlight wasn't as astonished as she felt she should be.
At last, Jamjars turned around, blinking in surprise as she saw Starlight. "Oh! You're still here!"
"Really?" Starlight asked, pointing a hoof. "You're stealing posters from the Spirit of Sosa? What are you even going to do with that?"
Jamjars blinked. "The Spirit of Sosa? Well, they steal from ponies too, right?"
Starlight blinked back, wondering if she really should have told the filly where they were.
"Eh. Either way." Jamjars tossed her mane, the rolled-up poster inside making it bounce awkwardly. "Obviously, I'm taking this because Snow will probably be obsessed with this and I can get him to give me something I want."
"...Really?" Starlight squinted. "But you just did that by walking and giving him your spot on the cart. How much stuff does he have that you want, anyway?"
"None of your business," Jamjars huffed, turning away.
It really wasn't, Starlight decided. Mostly, she was busy being grateful that Jamjars wasn't trying to poke around further in the hideout, and that she wouldn't need to be carried back. Hopefully.
"Are..." Starlight hesitated, lifting a hoof. Maybe they wouldn't have to follow Grenada to Copsewood after all, if Jamjars would cooperate. "Are you ready to go back? We've been away for a while, and if our parents reach the tower and we're not there, they're going to be worried whether the room's been taken or not."
"No way! Screw them." Jamjars confidently smirked. "Besides, we get to go to Copsewood if we stick with her, right? I told you, I'm sick of being cooped up. Mom can catch me when she feels like being a good parent. Until then, we're doing stuff our way."
"What!? Our way?" Starlight took a step back. "Jamjars, I hate being alone. I want to go..." She trailed off. "Wait a minute, how did you...?"
"You hate being alone, huh?" Jamjars countered with a grin. "Good thing you'll have me, then! Now how did I what? Know where we're going?"
"Uhh..." Starlight uncertainly pointed a hoof.
Jamjars winked. "Oh, I was only pretending to be unconscious. I wanted to see what you would do, or if you'd try to carry me. That would have almost been worth going back for. Besides, you were nice and fuzzy."
Starlight took a step back, squinting. "Okay, you're making me kind of uncomfortable."
"Oh no! I was?" Jamjars feigned horror. "I have to make it up to you! Here, uh, let me think..." She strummed her chin like a guitar string. "I know!" She leapt from atop her table, landing on another one and nearly knocking both over in the process. "Here, let me get another of these posters, just for you. It'll be an apology gift. This one has a mare and a stallion. That's alright, right?"
It was obvious where Jamjars was going, but the only way out Starlight could see was to physically leave, and the exit was clear on the other side of the room. "No!" Starlight stomped her hoof. "I don't want a stolen poster! I want to go-"
"What's that?" Jamjars spat out a piece of tape, one corner of the poster folding over to cover the face of the stallion. Only his muzzle remained in sight, nibbling the neck of a delirious mare. "This one isn't good enough? Sorry, but the one with the mares is mine. First-come, first-serve!"
Starlight paused, suddenly presented with a choice between yelling at Jamjars or firing back by playing her own game. The temptation was too great to resist. "Yours?" She smirked. "So you don't want it for your brother, then? You want to keep it for yourself?"
Jamjars stopped pulling down the poster to smirk. "Ooh, somepony's jealous."
"What? No! I..." Starlight gritted her teeth. "I am this close to crystalling you right now. You're lucky I'm even remotely responsible, otherwise I'd just leave and go home and you wouldn't have me to keep you from getting into trouble! Don't push me, or I will push back!"
"You want to know why I'm giving you a hard time again?" Jamjars leaned casually against the wall, showing off her balancing skills. "Because you're being a killjoy. Instead of 'Hey, let's go to Copsewood!' you're all 'Let's run back to Mom and Snow and Hayseed and a pile of noisy foals and blathering refugees and sit around and do nothing for a week because it would be soooo responsible and blech!' This is my first and last chance to do what I want in forever, and if you're not going to help me have fun, you can be my fun instead. So there." She stuck out her tongue.
"What's going on in here?" Grenada demanded, appearing at the entrance to the room with several boxes of tools floating in her aura.
Starlight breathed a sigh of relief. "She's stealing your posters," she said, indicating Jamjars.
Hastily, Jamjars slapped the corner of the poster she was working on back against the wall. It immediately folded over again.
Both of Grenada's brows rose. "You barely look old enough to have had your first crush. What are you doing with those?"
"Uhh..." Jamjars giggled, sensing she was busted. "Admiring them?"
"Really." Grenada snorted, then turned away. "Good thing Braen had a content policy for what could go in the main lobby..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jamjars lifted her voice, glaring.
"Let me put these tools away," Grenada called back, "and we can leave for Copsewood. Less than a minute."
"Are you sure?" Starlight hesitated, suddenly hoping Grenada's mind could be changed. "Can I go back to the tower by myself, and you watch Jamjars?"
"We could do it the other way around..." Grenada grunted, struggling with an access panel twice her weight. "But you're too valuable. You need to stay with someone important at all times."
Jamjars didn't need to say anything. She just grinned victoriously.
In the corner of a crowded refugee center, Maple sat, holding White Chocolate in a careful embrace.
"Because I have another friend I need to help," she explained, sitting at the mare's side as Howe and Gerardo stood guard, making sure none of the foals wandered off. "I'm sorry. Seeing what it's like here, I'd like to stay with you the whole time, but..."
White Chocolate wore a look of pained optimism. "And when you're done, you'll be back? This room is just... it's so stressful..."
"Promise." Maple nodded.
"It's hard to believe I met you just last night..." White Chocolate leaned into Maple's shoulder. "I feel like you've been my friend forever, now..."
Maple shook her head. "That's how good luck works. When your life changes hard enough for the better, your old life can feel years away... even if it was just days or weeks ago. Just... hold on, and believe that meeting me won't be the last good thing to happen, okay?"
White Chocolate smiled. "I'll try."
"And we will be back," Maple assured. "I wish we could afford to wait here for Starlight and Jamjars, but my friend is in trouble and we have to help her now. Starlight is strong, though. I'm sure she can help you if you need it." Her voice softened. "And you'll look out for her too, for me, right?"
"Of course." Another smile.
"Also..." Maple leaned closer. "Trust me. It helps more to dream about what could go right than to worry about what could go wrong. I've done a lot of both in my life."
"...I'll try," White Chocolate repeated, strained but trying.
Maple lowered her head, giving White Chocolate's belly the slightest of nuzzles. "You hear that, little one?" she whispered. "Your mother worries about you. Stay safe in there for her, okay?"
White Chocolate almost giggled.
Their conversation was cut short by an approaching worker team... led by the same mare that had helped them unload, Maple realized. "Excuse me!" the mare announced, carrying a clipboard in a pouch at her side. "Miss White Chocolate? We've cleared out a small overseer's room that should be a safer place for your foals. Can we help you move your stuff?"
Maple winked, and thought she saw a tear in White Chocolate's single eye.
"Well, that's taken care of," Maple said, standing in a hallway in the top floor of the warehouse, just far enough from a large, open window that she didn't feel like she was melting. "White Chocolate is comfortable enough, and will take care of Starlight when she arrives. Now what's your plan for saving Valey?"
Howe glanced back and forth, ensuring their position was sufficiently secluded. "Very well," he announced, satisfied. "The first thing you need to comprehend about Ironridge's power system is that it wasn't designed... let's be generous and say all at once. Pretty much every pony you will talk to will say that before Project Aslan, those were the good old days, but the truth is that politics have always been politics and probably always will be. They just... had different things to argue about!"
He rubbed his fetlocks together. "In the ancient days of yore, the mines in the Flame District were dug using pickaxes, primarily by unicorns. Eventually, they started inventing mana technology, and the small stuff came before the big. In fact, one of the first inventions was that you could use a crystal as a battery by burying it! So everyone used battery tools before they had a permanent infrastructure. Then came generators, because ponies wanted to recharge them without digging a hole and hoping nobody came to dig their gems back up while they were charging and steal them. They built all the generators in Sosa, because Sosa was the middle of everything in Ironridge and also needed a big power source for their boats."
Gerardo nodded appreciably, and Maple hummed. It was a slightly roundabout history lesson, but she trusted Howe knew why they should hear the whole thing.
"Eventually," Howe continued, "Sosa kept improving their generator more and more, expanding it to huge capacities and rates of efficiency! They dug deep and used only the purest crystal, so by the time the Flame District decided to employ more powerful, permanent drills, it was still a financially viable option to carry batteries up from Sosa rather than to build a new generator under the mountains that would only get dug up as they burrowed deeper for metal and ore. But!"
He swished a wing dramatically across his muzzle. "One day, they grew even more ambitious! For a while, they had been using steam from the Flame District to melt Sky District snow to use as a coolant, but that was inefficient and sort of resulted in them having coolant that was already unbearably hot. That's when they decided to construct... the Water District! With a mere two mighty dams, they could create a deep reservoir of water high above the arctic reaches of the Earth District's wind barrier, ensuring that they could pump meltwater into the top and drain water for coolant only from the very bottom, where it would be the coldest. Now, you've seen those dams, of course. They're kind of massive. And that required a lot of power to make."
Gerardo tapped a talon. "So they expanded the Sosan generator into a permanent infrastructure to facilitate the building of the dams?"
"Precisely!" Howe whooped. "Of course, it took a lot of pony power, too. Years to complete. Probably an even more ambitious project than the airships, only they actually succeeded. But they did, and then they had their powerful coolant system ready to go online... along with power routing installed halfway from Sosa to the Flame District already. So do you think they built new generators, or merely imported their mana from Sosa's already-perfected design?"
Worried, Maple cut in. "You're not going to suggest we sabotage a power line to the entire upper districts, are you? Because I have an uncomfortable feeling that's where this is going..."
"Please, hold your applause 'til the end," Howe urged, bowing. "I assure you, this is not the kind of citizen-entrapping plan my brother and I came up with. Er, maybe. But anyway! Yes, you have the right of it. Since those times, the power network has been expanded from the Water District to the Flame District and from there to the Sky District, and also from Sosa to the Karma Industries tower and from there to these warehouses and also west to some other Earth District towns. Blueleaf is... a weird case. They said nope nope nope to importing Sosan batteries early on, due to the demands of lighting their... unique architecture, and built their own generator instead that isn't actually attached to the main grid. But everything else in Ironridge, all the way to the skyport in the south, is ultimately powered by Sosan-generated power."
"Really...?" Gerardo blinked. "Forgive me for jumping to conclusions, but would this not mean that flooding Sosa would destroy their generator system, thus removing power from the entire city of Ironridge?"
"Errm..." Howe fidgeted. "Well, sort of. Do keep in mind that this is an issue that became largely dead and buried since the whole airship business started. And then they built the skyport with funds from other countries, and Sosa was like, 'Yeah, go ahead, extend power from the Flame District in return for an insignificant amount of cash because we're basically dead,' and now I think it's something everyone takes for granted. Don't quote me on this, but it's very possible Herman doesn't even know this would happen were the bombs to go off!"
Gerardo frowned, ruffling his feathers and stepping further away from the window. "I presume all of Ironridge losing power at once would be problematic."
Howe shrugged. "Ask Maple, there. She's the one who's seen what it looks like."
"Oh, no..." Maple shuddered. "I don't want to think about what the caves of the underground districts would be like without any light or ventilation..."
"...That, actually, is something I was getting around to," Howe said. "You see, as they were installing the new infrastructure, they... left the old battery system in place, connected to it. For lights and things, you know. It's not like they waited for all that to be able to see down there! And what Neon and I deduced from our studies is that were anything to happen to the main supply, there would be about a... two-second gap before the batteries kicked on, and that they could power all the necessary survival systems for several days. And, of course, we'd turn the real power back on long before that."
Maple gulped. "So we would be cutting the power to half of Ironridge."
"We would," Howe admitted. "For two seconds to the places that would feel it, which should be plenty of time for Valey to free herself from her predicament, should she be warned in advance. And then we'd turn it back on. At best, it could even be a warning of what would happen if Sosa were to be annihilated!"
"How much power would we have to cut?" Maple asked. "I mean... how close could we get before turning something off?"
"Depends on how close to the Fire District you're willing to get, and how easily you can pinpoint her location," Howe replied. "And on how much time you'd want to take. The fastest, safest way for us would be to visit the main cable station in Copsewood, which is a short flight southeast of here and conveniently also a zone of present chaos! It would be very easy for us to get in, toggle the power off and back on again, and ride away like lightning in the breeze!"
"Well... I do want to save Valey as fast as possible..." Maple hung her head. "Howe, you're the expert on Ironridge's power system, here. You had better not make me regret trusting you on this."
"I assure you, Milady," Howe declared, holding a wing to his chest, "you shall not. The Howenator never abandons a job until he gets what he wants, or is fired!"
Gerardo cringed. "Perhaps not the most uplifting of analogies, but in that case, shall we away? I have no particular reservations for or against Copsewood, myself."
"Alright." Maple stepped toward the window. "Gerardo, do you think you can carry me with my ballast, or shall I leave it here? Being heavier is often useful..."
Gerardo straightened his headcrest. "Hmm. I'd say we give it a go as-is, and if I find myself struggling, we can make an emergency landing. Or even a bombing, should we find a safe place to do so. Ha-ha!"
"We're coming for you, Valey," Maple whispered as her winged companions prepared to take flight. "Please prove me right that you're on our side..."
With two swooshes and three thuds, Gerardo, Maple and Howe landed on a low roof bordering the outskirts of Copsewood.
The town was low enough to still be in the flood zone, yet close enough to the western base of the mountains to be not entirely flat. It was like the Stone District in miniature, buildings rising above each other in a sloping hillside... only gently, instead of the sheer terraces and precipices that formed farther up. No roads formed over building roofs, and the town probably rose less than twenty meters before it gave up trying to climb the mountain.
Everything was covered in a dark-brown jungle aesthetic, a mix of faults between creeping ivy and the heavy use of bricks in the architecture. Buildings were squat, looking like they rarely supported more than one floor, and roofs were frequently slanted with the mountain incline.
Howe rubbed his goatee. "This place strikes me as... flood-proof. I wonder, why don't they just move the citizens further up the mountain? Surely the waters couldn't reach that high."
"True..." Gerardo mused, every feather on his body wilting from the heat. "Their concerns here could be based in something else entirely. Perhaps the town was built with an unstable foundation, and could be taken out by a landslide should the base be washed away? I notice the lack of tall buildings..."
Maple stepped forward, staring down a nearby main street where throngs of ponies were exiting to the north, beginning their pilgrimage to Karma Industries. "Either way, we should hurry. Where's the cable we're looking for, Howe?"
Howe opened his muzzle to reply, but Gerardo cut him off. "Actually..." the parched griffon wheezed, raising a talon. "Have you any water? I'm afraid after that last flight I'm not entirely feeling up to anything right now. And by that I mean I'm about to collapse."
"I... I don't..." Maple hung her head, feeling the dryness of her own throat. "I had a little, but we used it while pulling the cart to Grand Acorn. Maybe I should switch to carrying water instead of rocks or metal for ballast..."
Gerardo drooped in disappointment.
"Well, if you ask me," Howe swaggered, either not thirsty or doing the best job at hiding it, "a town full of Sosans is liable to be absolutely swimming in bars! In fact, my pegasus intuitions detect there may be one right..." He pointed a hoof, squinting down the length of his leg. "There!"
"A bar?" Gerardo blinked. "So long as we'd be able to procure regular water. I don't believe this is the most optimal day to impair ourselves sampling local brews, as interesting as they may be..."
Maple fixed Howe with a look. "The last time I went into an Ironridge bar, it wound up giving me a side goal that distracted me from my main job. How do I know that won't happen here?"
The pegasus shrugged. "Well, perhaps it would! Bars are known for attracting interesting characters, after all. But you could always say no."
Gerardo smirked. "Technically, you could run into a needy lookalike for Amber..."
"No." Maple stomped. "Let's... If you need it, let's go. But let's hurry. We already have someone important who's counting on us to help them, and don't need any distractions."
"Excellent!" Gerardo spread his wings and hopped to the ground.
Maple followed, using a dumpster as a stepping-stone as she jumped down from the building, praying its lid wouldn't collapse under her weight. Howe followed along by air, soaring above the streets as Maple and Gerardo paced through the crowd.
The traffic flow wasn't as heavy as it had looked from above, Maple noticed as she wove around a stallion. She had expected it to seem the other way, due to being in close proximity with so many ponies instead of simply observing them. Pondering, she realized it was due to the lack of carts and heavy bundles. Were ponies not taking their things? Had the Sosan organizers learned from the rush in Gnarlbough, or sent all their cart resources there? Perhaps it was later in the day, and the carts that were available had all been taken. Or perhaps it was just a town where ponies had less, or were more willing to part with what they had.
Almost every single pony was working-age, she observed, and most were stallions... with an emphasis on unicorns, or robust ponies with broad shoulders good for lifting heavy things. Some traveled alone, while others kept mares close at their sides, some even sporting children. But in the entire crowd, there was only one mare that appeared to be single... and that was her.
The knowledge prickled uncomfortably like an invisible plant brushing her shoulder, but before she could think and unpack it, she was at the door to the tavern Howe had indicated. The pegasus was already there, casually propping it open for her with a wing.
Nodding, she stepped inside... and was immediately hit by the same scent of haze and fermenting she recalled from the bar in Blueleaf. Inside, she had fully expected to find at least some ponies trying to make the best of their lives before leaving for who-knew-how-long, but the sheer density of the crowd of ponies was even greater than that at Blueleaf, and those ponies had turned up to hear Neon Nova. This time, she didn't even have Valey to scare ponies away.
"Attempting to drown their sorrows before they leave, I imagine," Gerardo said, shaking his head. "That will be a sight. I can't imagine a host of drunk ponies will be remotely what the refugee centers want to deal with. I doubt we'll find something any less crowded by pressing on."
"...What do we do, then?" Maple swallowed, deciding she would be better able to keep going without refreshment in the heat than press her body through the noisy, ever-shifting mass of reeking equines in the tavern. "I don't want to be in here."
"What we do..." Gerardo winked, and shrugged such that his sheathed sword became all the more prominent. "Is hope none of these ponies are foolish enough to pick a fight with the griffon who possesses a magic blade. Wait here. I'll be right back."
Bravely, he puffed out his feathers and strode into the soup of ponies.
Once Gerardo was gone, Maple sighed, drinking in the tavern's bitter air and regretting it.
"This place certainly is interesting," Howe remarked, sidling up to her. "What is it you're thinking about?"
"Oh, I'm..." Maple's ears folded. "Just not used to being around so many stallions at once. It's a little bit overwhelming."
"Hmm, yes..." Howe grinned, leaning back against the wall. "If my door swung that way, I'd be overwhelmed here as well! But if it makes you feel better, most of them are probably either married, drunk, or both. Probably better to search for romantic pickings in a better part of town."
Maple glared at him. "I did not mean like that."
Wisely, Howe shut up.
That left Maple more alone with her thoughts... even if she wasn't entirely sure what her thoughts were. For every day of her life, she had lived and grown up in Riverfall, where stallions had been an occasional oddity and everything had been for mares, by mares, and about mares. That might have explained her lingering unease with Copsewood and its predominantly Sosan population, the important workers and their resident families. The town might as well have been part of the Steel District, except for its geographical location. But she had been around mixed-gender crowds before, especially on the first day in the Stone and Sky Districts, and felt nothing but awe and wonder... so that couldn't be it. Could it?
She singled out a stallion to observe, taking care to stand where he and those he was conversing with couldn't see her watching. His frame was respectable, not as large as Arambai but still capable of heavy work... but the coat atop it was a patchy gray, sporting telltale signs of muscles gone to seed and looking as if the unshaven stubble on his chin had somehow ingrained it into the rest of himself as a dirty hue. He shook when he laughed, full and hearty, but it had a slightly pained quality as if the volume was there to help him feel it. He also lacked a cutie mark.
He had once been proud, Maple decided. He still thought he was, but didn't feel it, as if the world had told him over and over that he wasn't and he had yelled back to drown it out. Were these the kind of ponies Shinespark felt for when she vowed over and over to meet the nebulous goal of saving Sosa at all costs? Was that the kind of pony that made Shinespark say it wasn't Sosa's economy that needed healing, but its soul? Would that pony watch his home be destroyed, turn around and blame the first plausible, easily-loathsome target he was presented with, like Valey? Was a pony like that who Faron had been, back in those dying days before he had abandoned his family and chosen to start a new life, only to seek out a mare who looked so much like what he had lost?
Was that the kind of pony her own husband had been?
Maple gritted her teeth, barely stopping herself from whimpering as a wave of tension washed across her heart. She was in Copsewood, a whole city of ponies who for twenty years had endured dream-ending calamity, a devastating political war, economic takeover by foreign countries and the march of technology, and then left to languish, watching everyone above them and wondering when they had stopped doing good enough. She could see it so clearly, and that was what was wrong with the place. It stank of despair.
She perked her ears, trying and failing to glance over the heads of the much-taller bar patrons. Suddenly, she wished Gerardo and his sword would return.
"Say... Maple?" Howe nudged her.
"Hmm?"
"I don't mean to be a killjoy, or anything..." he whispered conspiratorially. "But I think some ponies in this room are staring at me, and it's starting to weird the Howenator out."
"Really?" Maple deadpanned. "You don't make a very big effort to blend in, Howe."
"Yeah, but..." Howe bit his lip. "I dunno. This just feels... weird."
Great. So she wasn't the only one getting a bad vibe from that place. Maple danced closer to the door, staying as alert as possible for a returning griffon or any signs of trouble.
"...Is this the same sister you caught with a piece of moon glass?"
Maple instantly zeroed in on the conversation behind her. It was the stallion she had been watching who spoke, and apparently he - or one of his companions - had something much more interesting to say than she had given them credit for.
"Shuddup, Trawley," a smaller, brown stallion demanded. Maple instantly cringed, feeling sorry for anyone with a name like that. "It is, but that was ages ago. Besides, this was her son I'm talking about, not her."
The third stallion, an off-gold earth pony with a hat, sighed into his drink. "It wasn't that long ago. And the both of you are lucky we're such good friends, because I'd probably have arrested her for it. Along with you, countless times."
"Thanks, Constable," the brown stallion said, slouching. "We love you too."
"You know," Trawley pointed out, "she'd get in a lot less trouble if you could just convince her to settle down with someone instead of being a wheelbarrow all the time. I'm sure someone would want her."
"Would you just-" The brown stallion banged his head against the table. "This story isn't about my sister!"
"Embarrassing family situations happen to everyone," the constable said. "Don't let it get to you. What did you hear from her colt, Ricks?"
The brown stallion, Ricks, perked back up. "So, this is total heresay, but he said he was hanging around with a stallion who occasionally runs with the Spirit, and that guy told him that at one of the meetings, one of the other Spirit ponies said-"
Trawley cut him off with a deep, barrel-chested laugh. "I think you mean she said, little dude? I've got a pretty good idea of what circumstances someone would brag about stories from their very tangential connections to the Spirit of Sosa. It's when you're trying to impress someone who has a reputation for being very easy to impress."
"Do you mind?" Ricks growled. "This isn't about my sister! It's about what she... I mean he heard!"
"Whatever you say, little dude." Trawley shrugged and turned back to his drink, the constable giving him the stinkeye.
"Anyway..." Ricks tipped more of his drink into his already-red face. "She told me they've got this rumor about some pony actually crossing the mountains. The south ones. From the... hic! Plains of Harmony. And I have it on good faith that-"
Maple froze, eyes wide.
"Aww, seriously, little dude?" Trawley interrupted yet again. "Come on, my stallions. Every pony from here to the Seventh District has heard of the Mountain Crosser. Pegasus, crazy mane that looks like something from a really questionable novel that no sane pony would ever look like? You watch; in three days someone's going to publish a bad adventure book with that as the protagonist or maybe villain and it'll turn out to have been a publicity stunt. You have to choose your rumors wisely, little dude. It's super easy to spread stuff like wildfire here."
"Excuse me..." A stallion with a funny accent leaned over from the next table. "Are you all talking about Dommordimo, the Mountain Crosser?"
"Hah hah..." Trawley slapped his flank. "Well, my dude Ricks here wanted to, but I just got done telling him I had already heard that. Hey, though, no hard feelings, Ricks."
"Actually..." The intruding stallion ruffled his mustache. "Myself and my friends were just talking about that for ourselves, and you might want to look over there, by the door. Especially you, Constable Coldstone."
Howe blinked as three new pairs of eyes fixed themselves on him. "Uhhh... why are you all looking at me like that?"
Maple pressed against the wall amid the sudden attention, wishing she could melt into the shadows and hide like Valey.
"Eh heh heh..." Howe rubbed the back of his neck. "Hey there, Constable. I'm Howe. As I like to say... heh... Howe do you do?"
Trawley burst out laughing at the pun, but Constable Coldstone stood his ground. "Interesting. This crazy story's out for two days, and already there are ponies dressing up like the pegasus that supposedly flew their way north from the Plains of Harmony. How much did you have to pay a stylist to look like that, kid?"
"Uhhh..." Howe glanced to the door, clearly considering bolting.
At that, Coldstone's horn glowed warningly. "I don't know what you're up to, stranger, but listen here. We're in the middle of a major civil crisis, here, and a pegasus showing up in the most attention-grabbing gear possible just reeks of something. You know how ponies around here are feeling about pegasi right now, right?"
Howe sweated even harder than he had outside.
"What's going on here?" Gerardo Guillaume's voice asked, the griffon pushing his way through the crowd at last with a set of filled canteens. Maple sagged in relief.
Coldstone raised an eyebrow. "Sir griffon, you know this pegasus any better than the rest of us?"
Gerardo nodded. "You could very well say I do. Is there a problem?"
"No, but I smell one brewing." Coldstone's eyes narrowed. "There's always a problem around here somewhere or other. And in times like these... I think I'd like to take mister Dommordimo here down to the station, just in case."
"The station?" Gerardo's eyes widened. "As in a jail? Sir, surely you couldn't intend to incarcerate ponies in a town that is in the process of being evacuated."
Howe was backing closer to the door, and Coldstone froze him with a look. "Not fully. Just until the bulk of the crowds are gone, and just to talk to him. He's probably a harmless prankster, but even that can slow things down. The last thing an orderly evacuation needs is chaos or troublemakers, and you try telling me a pony wears a mane like that to look fashionable."
From the corner where she hid, Maple frantically shook her head at Gerardo, hoping he remembered just how fast things could go from bad to worse when antagonizing pushy guards in Ironridge. Fortunately, Gerardo's memory wasn't lacking, and he bowed, taking a step back. "Of course. He and I are traveling together, though, and I'm unaware of the precise location of your local constabulary, so might I accompany you? I assure you I'll stay out of your mane."
"...Hmmph. Very well." Constable Coldstone obliged, bowing in return. "Just keep that sword where it belongs, and don't start any trouble. The last thing this town needs is a street brawl, and there are a lot of mighty-strong citizens in these streets who know it... if you catch my drift."
"Of course." Gerardo bowed again. "I assure you, we mean no trouble."
He followed Coldstone and Howe out the door, leaving Maple reeling. A tiny part of her mind drifted back to a distant conversation with Arambai, concerning Starlight and her birthplace... or had it been Gerardo? This felt like the kind of rumor he would spread to protect her from prying eyes, and make her story seem like a copycat rather than a dangerous secret. But that thought was drowned out by the much bigger, more violent memory of Selma floating her helplessly above the entrance to the Defense Force, their talks having broken down from cordial to unlawful arrest in a matter of seconds. This case wasn't nearly as bad, of course, and she herself was free. But it was a painful reminder that no matter how much she knew, or how important her cause, in Ironridge, anything could happen.
Slinking along the wall, unnoticed and uncared for, Maple stepped out into the heat of day, nearly tripping on a lone canteen Gerardo had dropped for her. That was thoughtful. She picked it up, fixing her eyes on the direction they had gone in and beginning to follow.
"How much farther is the exit?" Jamjars complained, plodding along at a speed that blocked Starlight's path on the narrow walkway. "My hooves hurt!"
Grenada glared back in irritation, setting a swift pace through the power tunnels that spanned between Sosa and Karma Industries. "Keep up! I've got a lot riding on me if I don't get this done quickly, and you were the one who could have stayed behind. And we passed the most recent exit about ten minutes ago."
"What!?" Jamjars squawked. "Why didn't we get out there!?"
"Because it's hot outside, and these tunnels go to Copsewood just fine," Grenada replied, levitating along a big bundle of weapons beside her head. "And it's best not to be a walking armory aboveground when tensions are high. We need to come out as close as possible to where the Copsewood Spirit are meeting before heading to..." She shook her head. "Why am I telling you this, again? You're just a civilian kid."
Bad choice of words, Starlight thought as Jamjars pointed a hind leg back at her. "Oh?" She tossed her mane, still containing the stolen poster. "And what's she, then?"
"A friend," Grenada said. It wasn't enough.
"A friend, huh?" Jamjars smirked, taking the edge off her tiredness by prodding at Grenada... or never having been tired to begin with and just wanting to whine. "Well, I'm a friend of a friend, so there! Or did you mean 'friend' as in 'accidental family member you don't want anyone to know about?'"
"She has a missile launcher," Starlight remarked from the back of the procession. "If you're going to be annoying, she could blow you up."
Grenada blanched. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to have any idea how to deal with Jamjars... and the filly had waited to become a pest until they were too far along to want to turn back.
"These aren't missile launchers," she said, hefting the bundle of short, cannonlike devices in her aura. "They're portable shields. They're supposed to keep our ponies safe."
"Oh yeah?" Jamjars kicked at a cluster of hoof-sized metal balls that hovered low enough for her to reach. "And what are these?"
"Don't touch those." Grenada swiftly floated them further up with the other piles of weapons. "They're sedative grenades. A recent Sosan invention we haven't started mass-producing or shared any designs on yet. They let out a cloud of gas that will knock you unconscious for hours."
Starlight tilted her head, something about Grenada's weapon cache not lining up with what she already knew about the Sosans. "Those sound like defensive weapons," she pointed out. "I thought your contract wanted you to make dangerous weapons, that were designed to kill ponies."
Grenada shrugged. "Not everything we make has to be for the contract."
"You mean you steal." Jamjars stuck her tongue out. "It's the Sosans who make everything. You're from the Spirit, and just take what you want."
Apparently sensing that she was being drawn towards saying something she shouldn't, or perhaps feeling guilty at being called a robber, Grenada shut up, marching straight ahead with the weapons floating well out of Jamjars' reach. Starlight frowned. "Should you really be insulting the mare who's helping you right now?"
"Oh, I'm not insulting." Jamjars tossed her mane. "I do what I want too. When I grow up, I'm going to be just like her."
Grenada hung her head, grimacing helplessly at the ground with reddened cheeks.
"What is your problem?" Starlight asked, walking impatiently close to Jamjars, much more easily sustaining Grenada's pace than the yellow filly. "You're going on your adventure, and I'm coming with you. You're getting exactly what you wanted. Why are you still being such a jerk?"
"Eh. I dunno." Jamjars shrugged. "Maybe I'm just bored. Aren't you bored? This place is nothing but the same thing over and over again. It's pretty blegh. I dare you to say it's pretty."
"You just said it was pretty," Starlight countered, just because she could. "Pretty blegh, at least." She stifled a snicker.
Nevertheless, Starlight glanced around the tunnel, and had to agree that it was repetitive. As far ahead as she could see, and the same for behind, it was nothing but endlessly-stacked concrete rings, the catwalk suspended in the middle and a small river of drainwater that had seeped in flowing by underneath. The left side was heavily laden with protected conduits, carrying massive amounts of energy and eliminating the need for dedicated lighting. Of course, as far ahead as she could see wasn't very far, given the tunnel's strange habit of imperceptibly zig-zagging just hard enough to limit her ability to see around the corners. It was a straight line from Grand Acorn to Sosa, wasn't it? Had the ponies who built the tunnels really been that bad at digging in a straight line? She asked Grenada.
"I wasn't born yet when they made this place. I don't remember." Grenada shrugged. "My mother might have even still been a filly. It would have been thirty... no, twenty-five... or..." She shook her head. "It was a while ago. History is history. I care more about the ponies who are here and alive, right now." Blinking, she realized she had strayed from the question. "Um... sorry. My best guess is they made the tunnel bend but only wanted to cast one kind of segment, so they made them curved. It could also be to avoid obstacles in the ground. We're not far from the surface, and Earth District soil is deep."
"Huh." Starlight shrugged. That made sense.
"So what's with the big basement?" Jamjars asked, apparently forgetting to be rude. "Did somepony just forget about it, or what? There should have been more down there!"
"More down there?" Grenada raised an eyebrow. "There's a whole hidden Spirit base! What were you expecting? Giant engines and machines and the like?"
"Kind of," Starlight admitted, backing Jamjars up. "It was a really big, empty basement."
Grenada bit her lip. "Well... that's a slightly longer story. You both know about Project Aslan, right? Starlight, I know you do."
Grenada sighed noisily. "Okay. It sounds like you don't." Her pace grew stiffer. "The short version is this. Decades ago, before the skyport and the yaks and the Stone District becoming better off than us, Sosa tried to go into constructing airships. As part of the project, they wanted to make their own port, with a hangar and a control tower, so that they wouldn't get in the way of water traffic. Some political nonsense. I bet it had to do with Shinespark's dad. Eventually, the ship part of the project got scrapped, so they had no reason to keep working on the port. So it sat there for a year or two, half complete, until Dangerous Karma came along and bought it, then renovated it into his base. The basement is the old hangar. He just built a hill over it to cover it up, then made his tiny, neat-and-orderly town on top of that."
Suddenly, dozens of pieces clicked into place in Starlight's mind. Of course, Sosa would have installed a power tunnel to the site of their hopeful Earth District skyport. And that explained how Karma Industries had such a grand foundation and impressive structure, yet bore the look of being perpetually unfinished, with only the cheapest materials used sparingly for interior decoration. She imagined if she pried off one of those ugly drywall panels, instead of seeing wood and stuffed insulation, she would be greeted with high-tech steel infrastructure. The current skyport was in the Sky District because... Well, she could speculate a whole host of reasons on that one.
Abruptly, she collided with Jamjars's backside, not realizing the filly had stopped. Jamjars turned, snickering.
"We're there," Grenada announced before anything could start. "Or close enough, at least."
"Huh?" Starlight glanced around. They had emerged in the corner of a mid-size underground room filled with mana equipment... evidently a routing station from Sosa. To her right, another pipe diverted, labeled as 'Copsewood.'
It didn't have a walkway next to its bank of manaconduits. Instead, it had a pair of rails and a high-speed tram.
Maple charged out of an alley and around a corner, breathing heavily, not stopping to wipe her mane from her eyes. She didn't see Gerardo, Howe or the constable, the road she was on stretching long and straight for a considerable distance... but there was a side road nearby that they could have gone down and still been relatively close. She galloped across to it, shade from a building washing over her back as her hooves hit heavily against the dusty, sun-baked road... and came to a stop, finding a four-way intersection with no trace of her friends in any direction.
Hot and miserable, she flung herself into a pout. Howe, the pegasus she needed to find the power access and safely use it, had somehow gotten himself in trouble. Gerardo, his priorities attuned to the situation, had leapt to accompany him, ensuring their key wouldn't get lost. All Maple had needed to do was follow both of them, and she had somehow failed to do that. She had lost the trail, and was now lost herself.
Leaning against a rough brick wall, she uncorked the flask Gerardo had left for her and drained the rest of the water, resisting the urge to tip it on her head and wash the sweat off her brow. A single tear of frustration slipped from one eye, and she shook it away. That wouldn't help. She had to do something.
Unfortunately, her racing heart and wobbly legs reminded her, that something involved taking care of herself so that she could keep going. Riverfall had been constantly cool, with rains that fell for weeks on end in the stormier seasons, and as little as she liked being cold and wet, it was something she knew how to deal with. Find a roof. Find a towel. Get warm... and the warmth would feel good.
But the Earth District heat was murder in atmospheric form. Buildings retained heat, so there was no inside to hide in. The best she could manage was a few scattered outcroppings of shade, but that was like wearing an umbrella saddle when one was already drenched and standing in a puddle that was almost belly-deep and rising. All it did was give the illusion that things weren't getting worse.
Windigoes were ice monsters, weren't they? Maple smirked to herself, head spinning. Maybe if she had hung onto the heart instead of sending it back to the ship, it could have done something for her.
Laying tiredly against the building, she started to put together a plan. First, approach another pony. Hope they were friendly, and if they were, ask for directions to the constabulary and maybe some water. And if they weren't? She hefted a hoof grimly, feeling its weight enhanced by the iron and concrete Gerardo hadn't asked her to drop. But hopefully she could just back off. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. But she could ask for directions. She could do this.
...Assuming she could find another pony. The high noon sun left almost none of the short brick buildings casting shadows, and whether from the evacuation or to avoid the heat, everywhere she looked was empty. She checked the building she was leaning against. It was a home, already boarded up and abandoned.
Following her ears towards the sounds of the distant main exit, she sighed and stepped into the sunlight. This was going to be a long, hot day.
"The constabulary?" an almost-fully grown colt said, sizing her up from a rare corner of shade next to what looked like a saw maintenance shop. "Well, sure. You want the yellow one, right?"
Maple folded her ears, having not considered that there could be more than one place in the town that might qualify for taking prisoners to. "As opposed to what?"
The colt grinned, showing off two missing teeth. "Why, the red jail, of course!"
Maple frowned. "What's the difference?"
"I dunno." The colt shrugged, idly twirling a mechanical something about one hoof. "They're both places where we send arrested bad ponies. You wanna know something they have in common?"
"What?" Maple asked, listening.
The colt's face lit up. "They ain't the green one!"
"But..." Maple's spirits fell further and further. She knew someone had mentioned the constable's name, but had forgotten it and wished she hadn't. It would make this whole business that much easier. "There are three? How am I supposed to find the right one?"
"Oh, no." The colt shook his head forlornly, chewing on a toothpick. "There's also the blue one, the orange one, the purple one, the magenta one, the violet one, the indigo one-"
"Those are all the same colors!" Maple protested in exasperation. "And... what... Why would you have so many jails in the first place? This is ridiculous!"
"To catch all our bad guys, Miss," the colt said. "We sure do have a lot of them here in Copsewood. Ain't it obvious?" He rotated his toothpick to the opposite side of his mouth.
"Well..." Maple stammered. "You asked if I wanted the yellow one first. What makes it special?"
The colt grinned a toothy grin. "'Cuz that one's got a constable! All the others just have sheriffs."
Maple turned to leave. Her head hurt.
"Hey now," the colt called from behind her. "Don't you want directions, or something?"
Maple stared expectantly at him, and he obliged by leaning forward as if telling a secret. "The yellow one? Don't tell any pegasuses this, but it's protected by a magic spell. To find it, first you've gotta go to Derb's watering hole and walk past the window three times in the same direction. Then, you cross behind the old wagon wheel building... and I mean behind, not in front of..."
"You can't be serious," Maple interrupted. "That's ridiculous! Who would try to hide a public service building with a spell like that!? It should be easy to find!"
The colt shrugged, bearing an 'I told you so' look. "Unicorns work in mysterious ways, Miss."
"Fine," Maple grumbled, the sunlight beginning to cause her back to burn. The colt had his shade, and he wasn't sharing. "Could you just give me the last step? Where the building actually is?"
"Okay," the colt continued. "Next, you need to go three blocks up Saddle Street, only done while walking backwards..."
Maple stood in front of her destination, trying to decide if she had been pranked.
She hadn't followed any of the colt's instructions. The only reason she had gone straight there instead of searching for another pony to ask for advice was that it had been very close by, and the two groups of ponies she had passed - both evacuating families - had looked at her with something between pity and annoyance that set her spine crawling. She had a mounting suspicion that it was because she was a single mare, and severely regretted not asking Shinespark, Arambai or someone knowledgeable about the culture of the actual ponies of Sosa for more information about the place. For all she knew, they could see her as anything between an opportunistic gold digger from the Stone District to a mare who had been kicked out and left behind prior to her husband's evacuation. Her limp, worried appearance probably wasn't helping, and she tried her best to stand strong.
Now, though, she stood in front of a garishly yellow building, one of the few structures in Copsewood that either had a second story or wasn't made of bricks, let alone both, and needed to make up her mind. Its windows were barred and armored, she noticed. But its architecture was too curvy and whimsical to fit with her impression of jails, designed to look as if it was made of jell-o on purpose.
It also had a door with a handle suitable for only griffons and unicorns, with a welcome mat that read 'GO AWAY' in faded red letters. She decided she had been pranked.
Apparently, though, her long spell of standing sheeplike in front of the house had caught the attention of whomever lived inside, and the door burst swiftly open with a rattle of tinny bells. Maple could only stare, taking a step back in worry as her brain processed whether to fight or run. A graying stallion stepped out onto the porch, glaring around, seemingly taking a second to focus on her.
"Ah, corncobs," he spat. "Not again. What did you drag your rear here looking for?"
"I-I..." Maple swallowed, ears flat. "I just asked for directions! I'm not looking for trouble, Sir."
The stallion eyed her sadly. "You ain't from around here, are you? Let me guess, Stone District tourist? Evacuation take you by surprise? Any of that ring true?"
"...Sort of," Maple admitted, not sure how much to say. "I am from out of town. Where am I?"
The stallion shook his head. "Then today's the worst day you could've picked to visit. And this is my house. If you're looking to get out of the sun, I think you'll find it a good bit more hospitable than some of the other places around here. The good kind of hospitality, too. I haven't forgotten that this is the Earth District."
"The... good kind?" Apprehensively, Maple took a step forward. As hot as she was, she wasn't sure she wanted to trust anything in Copsewood, especially going into a house that wasn't her intended destination.
"Mmph," the stallion grunted, turning back inside the door. "That's your call. But if you're going to wander around out there, do yourself a favor and try to blend in with the crowd. It'll make it less obvious you're alone."
Maple stared after him. Briefly, she wished she were Valey, able to detect danger with a prickle on her flank... but all she felt was curiosity, and she already knew the town had a strange vibe to it. Picking up her hooves, she loped toward the invitingly open door, figuring at the very least the stallion might be able to give her real directions.
The old stallion's foyer was clean and evenly lit, with lovingly-crafted wood trim and a fan that spun lazily from the low ceiling. Everything was painted in hues of primary colors, faded only slightly from age, making Maple feel as if she had stepped into some kind of art exhibit instead of a house. The full-wall mural of a pegasus across from her compounded that effect.
"Hmmph. You came." The stallion stood in a corner at a polite distance, a deep-set weariness in his eyes. His mane looked naturally gray, with several lighter streaks that heralded the onset of age, and Maple didn't doubt that his legs still held all the power necessary to carry crates and operate heavy machinery... though she couldn't imagine he had done that for a long time.
"Where am I?" she asked, hesitant to put too much distance between herself and the door just in case. "And can you help me? I really do have somewhere I'm trying to go."
"Where you are is far from home," the stallion said. "And of course you do. Nopony wants to be here in today's Copsewood. What's a Stone District lass like yourself doing wandering alone this far down the mountain?"
Maple had to catch herself before she could tell him she wasn't from the Stone District. If he wanted to believe that, she could correct him when it became a problem. "I'm... looking for two friends," she answered. "They told me to meet them at..." Something in her mind clicked. "Coldstone! They were with Constable Coldstone."
"That's a funny place to schedule a meetup." The stallion looked at her sideways, but made no further comment. "Anyway. I'm Bertram." Maple couldn't help but notice he omitted pleased to meet you.
She gulped. Was he going to tell her the directions? "I'm Maple."
"Maple, huh?" Bertram turned away, settling into a chair in an adjacent room connected by an open wall. "Come closer, my hearing's not what it used to be."
Warily, Maple obliged, still fervently wishing for Valey's cutie mark. So far, the old stallion didn't seem deceitful or hostile. Just... tired.
"Let me guess," he said as she stopped where the wood floor transitioned to carpet. "You asked some young hooligan what the way was, and he told you to do a bunch of silly stuff before winding up at my place, didn't you?"
"Well... yes..." Maple hung her head. "If you tell me where to go, Sir, I can get going."
Bertram laughed and shook his head, sounding as if he had dust in his lungs. "I'm in no hurry. They'll be evacuating ponies all day. And I'll tell you once you've heard me out, because you're clueless and are just going to get hurt or embarrassed if you don't learn your lesson the easy way."
Maple's ears folded in worry.
"I don't know what they teach you in the upper districts these days about Sosans," Bertram growled, a hint of wheezing in his voice. "Probably that we lot have nothing to live for. Sad wrecks of ponies who refuse to join progress and move on from the past. That's what I get from all the other confused tourists those rapscallions send my way. Some of them think they have compassion for us, but don't get it. Others are scared of us. And in truth, they aren't wrong. Being beaten down and told you're no longer good for what your family's been doing for generations isn't good for a pony's soul."
He coughed, then went on. "And we know it, too. You look down from your mountain loft and think, 'Wow, I'm sure glad I don't live in a society that messed up,' don't you? Wondering if we even know what's going on with ourselves, wishing there was some way to reveal to us that the world had moved on and it was time to change? Ponies will come here to try to open our eyes and convert us to their worldview, like they think their fancy rich-pony ideals up in the Stone District are all we need to do better. Like it's our fault for not getting with the times. Is that what you came here to do, Maple? Help us to see your new economic theory to 'save us' like all the mountain gossip says?"
"No!" Maple took a step back, head lowered but still meeting his eyes. "I... I know what it's like down here, and I don't care about anyone's economic theory."
"Oh?" Bertram cocked an eyebrow. "If you're such an expert, what were you doing thinking it would be smart to wander around on your lonesome without a map on this of all days?"
Maple gritted her teeth. "Look, whatever it is, I'm sorry. You're making me really uncomfortable here, and all I want is to find my friends! Can you please help me?"
Bertram took a moment to size her up, then ignored her and continued with his story. "We know we've fallen, Mountain Mare, and you're the ones who are blind if you think it's that easy to just discard centuries of pride in and sacrifices for our work and fall in like gears to your new economy."
"I never said that," Maple countered, resisting the urge to stomp a hoof.
"But you were thinking it," Bertram sighed. "All upper-district ponies do. They see all their new wealth and importance and think it's just progress making the whole world better, and can't wrap their pampered minds around how much the old order meant to us. 'Times have changed,' they say. 'We're sorry, but this is how things are now.' Well, you can afford to be sorry. Hooray for you. Turns out it's a lot easier to walk in and tell someone to abandon their lifestyle for yours than it is to give up yours for theirs. Memories can never be abandoned."
"Please stop?" Maple cringed. "Sir... what even is your point? It feels like you're just trying to make this awkward, rather than helping me. And I'm not trying to project any ideals on the Earth District!"
Bertram grumbled. "Hmmm... Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. You try not doing that after years and years of the same thing. I'm sure some of the folks up in the Stone District really do want to care, even if they have no clue what it means."
Silently, Maple waited.
"You know what ponies do when they lose what defines them as a group?" Bertram raised an eyebrow, changing the subject. "They think of something else they can stick to. Family values, for instance. Some will stick to it like their souls depend on it. Others do it because it's convenient, or suits their interests. Some will openly defy it out of a need to feel individual. And then those who really don't get it will harass an old stallion for his insistence on staying single by taking every naive, clueless mare who wanders into this city and throwing her at his front door, just to mock him."
"Oh!" Maple took a step back, ears folded.
Bertram shook his head. "It's about me, not you. No need to take it personally that they were messing with you. Or do, since they're cretins and would deserve it. Sometimes, I wonder if you Stone District ponies should really be feeling sorry for us at all."
"But... why?" Maple's thoughts flicked back to the toothpick-chewing colt. Did he really see her as nothing more than a prank to play on an old stallion?
"Why stay single?" Bertram sighed, then looked up at the pegasus mural covering the foyer wall. "Because I still love her. That's why."
Maple blinked in surprise. She had meant why would they do that, and was caught off guard by the stallion's response. She stumbled back, looking again at the wall. The pegasus was young, in the prime of her life, colored in the hues of the sky with a look of unabashed joy on her face as she soared above a line of treetops. She could have been singing.
"What happened to her?" Maple whispered.
"We were both aviation scientists," Bertram said, voice completely monotone. "She died in the Project Aslan crash. I was in the control room miles away, and could do nothing but watch it happen."
Maple's heart froze.
Bertram continued talking. "You think I wanted to turn my back on the work she gave her life for? You think I'm going to throw away her legacy by embracing this new economy of yours, with its airships that weren't even made by Sosa? You think you'll make me happy by convincing me that the new way is better, and Mistsong died in vain? Then you know nothing."
After a minute of silence, he added, "Turn right and go three blocks. You can't miss it."
The streets of midday Copsewood were no cooler than they had been however many minutes ago Maple walked into Bertram's home, but as she slouched along with her head hung and her back drooping on her way away from the place, the heat didn't bother her as much. She noticed it; she felt her skin begin to sweat and her lungs work harder to draw in the humid air, but she felt she could walk into a Sosan kiln and still have something cold inside.
She had never told the stallion where she was from. She hadn't said anything presumptuous... she hoped. And he had told her what he needed to say to someone, anyone, regardless of whether she had been the right pony to hear it. And now, she needed to talk to someone, too.
Bertram's wife had perished aboard Project Aslan, which had then been abandoned, buried and forgotten, and replaced by something else. He had had ponies from all districts telling him to move on, but... where was the justice in that?
No matter how many ponies you help, there are always more who need it. Shinespark's words rang in her ears, directed toward her efforts to help White Chocolate's family. Maple had protested. Just because you couldn't help everyone didn't mean you shouldn't help those you can, who need it. But now?
There had been two ponies she had stopped to listen to, and wanted to help: White Chocolate and Valey. The former, she had seen to as best she could... which still wasn't good enough. The latter, she was trusting an insane pegasus to tamper with Ironridge's power system to save. Just two ponies, and her limited resources were stretched as far as they could go... and now she had met a third, another pony who desperately needed the world to send something good their way, and she had no idea where to even start. What if she met another? Two more? Five more? A dozen? A hundred? What about a thousand? What if she tried to reach out to every pony in Ironridge... and what about those she missed?
That was what Shinespark was trying to do, she realized, the enormity of the orange unicorn's self-given task crashing down around her. No wonder Shinespark had tried to concern herself with only the big picture, to let the plights of individual ponies go by without giving her utmost for each and every one of them as they came to her attention. The effort would drive any pony with a shred of empathy insane.
So, she swallowed, repressing the sadness in her heart at Bertram and all the other ponies in Ironridge she was just realizing the consequences of not knowing about. She would do what Shinespark was: pick what she could do, and only what she could do, and give it her all.
It still hurt, but slightly less.
Maple pushed open the door to a definitely-not-colorcoded building, right where Betram had indicated, with a massive, two-tone sign outside that simply said The Law. It left little doubt as to whether it was the right place, especially when Gerardo's enthusiastic voice spilled out from the crack.
"Fortunately, llamas sometimes fail to be the brightest fellows," the griffon was saying, a talon in the air. "Not a one was able to notice the discrepancy, so the next day, when the newspapers rolled..."
"Precisely!" Howe chimed in, sitting next to him and perfectly unbound. "Not only did I capture the front page with my glorious visage, but we managed to dupe the entire city with the hoax of a lifetime! I mean, some of them probably realized it, but it was at least worth a good chortle, no?"
"Umm..." Maple stood uncertainly in the doorway, glancing between the two fliers and the constable sitting across from them.
"Ah! Another of our bold associates." Gerardo stood up, bowing to Maple and sweeping a talon towards the lawpony. "Constable, this is Maple, a good acquaintance of mine. Maple, this is Constable Coldstone, and Howe and my good self were just regaling him with the story of how we slipped the wool over the eyes of that entire crazy llama city that can't decide on a name and convinced them Howe was from the Plains of Harmony. Hah! It's always amusing, playing a harmless prank to show off how gullible creatures can be, is it not?" He winked conspiratorially. "This occurred shortly before we met you. You may not have heard of it."
Maple uncertainly stepped inside, realizing Gerardo wanted her to play along and forcing herself to giggle nervously. "Oh! Yes, that's me, always living under a rock..."
Constable Coldstone nodded. "I imagine you two are going to take this as an invitation to go?"
"With your permission," Gerardo said politely. "And thank you for informing us of the delicate state of things at present. We'll keep our profiles low until this storm of yours has blown over, and do our utmost to avoid trouble, good-natured or otherwise."
"Good." Constable Coldstone stood up as well, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat. "The last thing we need right now is a real scene. Thanks for being level-headed and understanding, folks. I'll just-"
POW! The door burst open, narrowly avoiding slamming into Maple's side, a haggard and wide-eyed stallion stumbling through. "Chief!" he panted. "There's a... a whole pack of bandits at the southwest end of town, going through and robbing all the homes that have already been abandoned! You've gotta... gotta do something, Chief! Word's starting to get out, and folks are turning back to protect their things instead of evacuating, and... and..." He collapsed, passing out from exertion.
"Bah!" Constable Coldstone spat. "Rust buckets! I had to open my mouth and temp fate, and..." Growling, he tromped to the side of the room, picking up a firearm that resembled a multi-barrel dart launcher. "This is the last thing we need right now. Come on, stallion, wake up! I need directions!"
"Ahem..." Coughing politely, Gerardo stepped up, patting the sheath at his side. "If you wouldn't mind assistance, it seems now would be as good a time as any for us to prove ourselves on the side of the law, would it not?" He ruffled his wings. "I should be able to track down and deal with the problem in mere seconds. With your permission?"
Constable Coldstone eyed him. "No killing. It's important that ponies who steal from ponies be brought to justice."
"Fear not, my good constable." Gerardo bowed, one talon around the hilt of his blade. "This sword is not a sword known for disemboweling." With that, he stepped through the door and took off.
"Howe!" Maple stopped the pegasus before he could pursue. "Could you... carry me after him? I really don't like walking through the streets of this place alone."
Howe sized her up, gaze flicking to the fainted pony in the doorway and the constable who was already charging down the street. Idly, he pulled the pony all the way inside and set him against a wall, then shrugged. "Everything hinges upon the mass of your person! The Howenator is no pushover, but he... probably can't carry you at your full weight. No offense."
Regretfully, Maple dropped the weights she was carrying, cringing when they clanked against the wood floor and left dents where they landed. Hopefully Constable Coldstone wouldn't connect them to her. "Is that better?"
Howe tried hefting her... and agreed. "Perfect! Now, after that griffon!"
The rail platform through the Sosa-Copsewood power tunnel finally lost its momentum, leaving the three ponies standing on board in varying states of disarray. Starlight had been smart enough to stand in Grenada's wind shadow as they blew along, and was able to recover with a few hoofstrokes to smooth her mane and a careful check to see if it was possible for her ears to do anything but lie flat. Grenada's short, purple Shinespark-styled mane was similarly suited to surviving the tunnel winds, naturally unruly and looking no worse for wear. Jamjars, on the other hoof...
Starlight tried not to snicker, no matter how much the filly deserved it. Her massive hair volume had been turned into a single, pointy blown-back spike as thick as her head, the stolen poster still somewhere inside, and it was already beginning to collapse and fray into an uncombed mess under the force of gravity. She had a feeling if she showed Jamjars a mirror, it would put her on the verge of tears... and pointedly didn't remind herself that she could conjure reflective crystals on a whim.
"Alright! We're here," Grenada announced as the platform pulled into a docking station.
As she disembarked onto a latticed walkway, Starlight's eyes crawled in every direction, but especially up. The pipe had opened into a wider room made from shiny, reddish metal, littered with massive glowing cylinders and drums that were fed by the incoming mana conduits, probably performing some important power functions. The ceiling, though, was unusually high, vaulted with curved metal crossbeams like the sitting room of Elise's mansion in Blueleaf. Starlight had little experience with industrial utility rooms, but it was enough to make her wonder if the room had served a different purpose in days gone by, or if the Sosans who built it took that much pride in their work.
The walkway hugged the length of the room, and at one point passed an open side passage to a spiral staircase going down. A sign in brilliant, mana-illuminated blue lettering proclaimed Breaker Room, causing Starlight to blink. Just like Blueleaf, was Copsewood designed with a master off switch to the entire town's power? She shuddered, and filed the knowledge away just in case. It would be uncomfortably easy to abuse that.
Grenada had caught her looking. "What? Are you admiring how much effort the Sosans of old put into their work?"
Starlight shrugged, opting to let Grenada reach her own conclusions. That was one question answered, at least.
"Ironridge has always been a rich city," Grenada continued, walking on past the breaker room. "That was true twenty years ago, and it's still true now... even if it has other problems. Back then, they showed it by making their technology both functional and aesthetically pleasing. It let them express how they saw themselves... and outcompete real coastal cities, as well. If you're a rich customer, you're going to buy a product that's aesthetically pleasing. We've since lost that spark, as you'll see if you ever visit Sosa as it is right now. Braen says we'll know Sosa is back and able to take pride in their work again when they return to making it look cool. Until then... this is one of the few places in Ironridge that preserves the aesthetic of the past. Everywhere else has either been left to rot in the weather, replaced by the new glass-and-steel look of the Sky District, or was never under Sosa's influence all that much to begin with."
"Huh." Starlight looked once again at the pristinely-crafted catwalk beneath her hooves, trying to imagine being a pony making it and thinking she was making art... but it was just a lattice, a set of vertical strips meshed together for strength, traction and drainage with millions of tiny slits angled and positioned at random.
She nearly tripped on the first step of a staircase, yelping in surprise. Jamjars was too busy nursing her mane to laugh.
"You sound skeptical," Grenada remarked, reaching the top of the staircase and stepping onto a large platform just below the ceiling. "Come here, and look at this."
Starlight came. Grenada was leaning over a railing made from slim, polished brown pipes fit together with real junction pieces that probably could have carried water better than any plumbing system in Equestria. But it was the catwalk below they had trotted in on Grenada was looking at.
"Do you see it?" the burgundy mare urged, forelegs folded on the railing.
"I, uhh..." Starlight squinted... and suddenly, what had been a random mesh of metal and holes up close morphed into a mosaic, her being far enough back to see it. It was a mare, seen from above, laying in a grassy field and sleeping with her forehooves under her head, almost as if she was taking a nap on the catwalk. "Wow."
"That's Radiance," Grenada explained. "She was the wife of the factory chief who first envisioned the construction of the Water District. History says she was kind, beautiful, generous, and one of the few mares to play a significant role in Sosan society... prior to the last twenty years, at least. But this is what Sosans once were. Can you see our legacy?"
Starlight continued to stare at the metal mosaic of a sleeping Radiance. It was a catwalk; a rough bridge for ponies to tread on with their dirty hooves and no more purpose than not breaking and not letting anyone slip... yet there, some craftspony had been so proud both of what they were doing and what had been done before that they baked art into the tiniest detail and most insignificant place. That, she realized, was the spirit that Sosa had lost over the last twenty years; the love and pride both in their work being the best and that made their work the best. That was what Shinespark thought she could restore with a secret airship, the first failure of which had caused the decline in the first place.
And if the Sosans of old thought that highly of an underground power station... what had they thought about their twin dams that formed the Water District? What did the present-day Sosans think about that monument to what they had been, and what Shinespark said they could be again? The dam that looked out over all of Ironridge, an was visible from virtually anywhere in the city... what would it do to them to see it destroyed?
It was the eastern dam, the one no pony could see from the city proper, that was at risk. But still. The loss of the Water District, Starlight realized, could hit the Sosans' psyches just as hard if not even more than the destruction by flood of their towns and factories. Had Grenada wanted to show her this; what was really at stake? She glanced at Jamjars and swallowed. Of course, if she did, she'd be indirect about it, since they weren't alone... and that was precisely what she had done.
"Yeah." Starlight nodded, throat dry. "I get it."
"...Good." Turning away from Radiance, Grenada paced across the platform, heading for a bridge to another tunnel that sloped upwards, presumably leading to the surface. "Follow me. We need to rendezvous with..." She caught herself, stealing a glance at Jamjars, who was still completely absorbed in her mane and making no progress whatsoever. "With Shinespark," she said as if unwilling to think of her leader by anything other than the name she had trusted all her life. "And the Spirit. We... have to finish preparations in the Earth District, and make sure everything is ready to go."
Bobbing her head, Starlight followed. Most of her had been rained on far too much by mountains she once thought of as pretty to experience wonder, but the part that hadn't lingered, reluctant to leave the metal shrine to Sosa's history.
When Starlight emerged from the nondescript shack that disguised the entrance to the power tunnel of Copsewood, all thoughts of annoyance and monotony toward the lengthy tunnel walk melted away, replaced by a murderous sun and a view down the side of a slightly-sloped town that shimmered more and more with heat mirages the closer her eyes wandered to the jungle basin. It felt like her coat might fall off, and as morbid as the thought should have sounded, she almost wanted it to happen.
"Ugh..." Grenada winced, her mane visibly deflating to a limp and ragged state. "This is hotter than I'd like," she remarked, aura flickering as if the heat was trying to extinguish her horn. "It likely means we're going to see a thunderstorm tonight. That'll be bad if things come to blows, and I don't think it will cool down, either. So unless you like hot rain, you should find somewhere dry tonight." Seeing Starlight's expression, she added, "It's worse than right now. Trust me."
Steeling herself, Starlight squared her hooves, ready to follow wherever Grenada went. She had already survived an hour-long trek in the humid weather, after all, even if it felt even hotter than it was then. She could make it to wherever they were going next.
Jamjars, meanwhile, limped along, not even acknowledging that her once-bushy tail was dragging in the dirt. At Grenada's guidance, the trio took a single, mildly-sloped switchback, moving closer to the southern end of town... and almost instantly arrived at their destination.
It was a building, broad and squat, just like every other in the town that left Starlight with no way to differentiate between houses and stores. Made of dusty bricks with tin gutters and a flat roof, its few windows were too high for her to see in even if she had been an adult, and even if they were unboarded. But the door was unbarred, and had a slat at eye level with a pair of eyes looking out.
"What's the password?" a gruff, accented stallion's voice asked. Starlight almost giggled at the unsubtlety before remembering that those were likely ponies who were both seen for good reason in the Stone District as bandits and were likely on her side.
Grenada rolled her eyes, cleared her throat, and began to recite. "Hark, by Mobius' flimsy beard I command thee to open up, and admit thy..."
Jamjars actually laughed, preventing Starlight from hearing the rest of the muttering and prompting her to chuckle too. Then the door swung open, and an abundantly hairy stallion with a dark brown mane that completely covered his eyes stepped out, looked them over, and grinned. "You brought kids? Huh huh! Hello, kids! It's a good password, isn't it?"
"Uhhh..." Starlight blinked, waiting for Grenada's indication that this was actually the place they were supposed to be.
Grenada nodded. "Kids, this is Rickshaw, owner of this... house and generous member of the Spirit of Sosa. Rickshaw, these are Starlight and Jamjars. The former is an important pony I've been tasked with looking after until I can find Braen and get her word on what to do with her. The latter is a refugee who somehow wandered down into the tunnels and needs to be sent on her way so she can be reunited with her family. Until then, requesting permission to come in. It's hot outside."
"It is very, very hot," Rickshaw agreed, dragging his hairy visage back inside. "Come in, come in!"
Rickshaw's house was far better lit than Starlight's expectation of a clandestine meeting location. Its large, central room held an array of couches that were all far too colorful and all looked like they had seen far better days, with several dozen fans placed in high open windows, hung from the low ceiling or even placed on the floor, all set at full blast. The couches were completely occupied, entirely by stallions, and the two things the fans failed to drown out were their voices and their scent.
Starlight put a hoof to her nose as she edged further in, conscious of the massive pile of weapons in the middle that Grenada quickly added her stock to. The mare was bowing, ponies calling greetings from all around, and Starlight almost thought she would miss Jamjars making a curious move on the pile... almost.
With her purple telekinesis, Grenada dragged Jamjars back by the scruff of her neck. "Bezier!" she barked. "This is a refugee who got separated from her family. Go take her to an evacuation official who can get her on a caravan that will reunite her with them at Grand Acorn."
"Hey!" Jamjars squeaked, shooting her a baleful look. "Leggo! I can take care of myself!"
Grenada closed her eyes, dangling the filly. "And be careful; she's stubborn."
A lanky stallion wearing a striped shirt sprung up, saluting, and took Jamjars in his own aura, marching for the door. "I'll do that, miss!"
Starlight watched with a tinge of mixed unease and fascination. She was unsure what appalled her more: the stallion's fashion sense, or that he was wearing anything period in that weather. Another part of her pondered if it was really safe to leave Jamjars in the care of a lone, unknown Spirit stallion.
"Don't worry," Grenada reassured, apparently reading her trepidation. "Bezier's loyal. She'll be safe with him. He's had plenty of times to prove it before, and has always come through."
"I'm more worried about him." Starlight bit back a frown, and her tail flicked once. She was familiar with how much Jamjars hated being confined, and Copsewood would be a frighteningly easy place to camouflage oneself in even without a spell. But eventually, the tingling of being watched by an entire crowd forced Jamjars out of her head, and she turned, raising an eyebrow. "What?"
"So... who is she again?" An obese stallion taking up half a couch pointed. "I can't help but notice you didn't send her off with the refugee."
Grenada sighed. "Braen asked me to look out for her herself. I'm doing that until she gets here. Has she been here yet?"
The fat stallion shrugged, his chins jiggling with the movement. "She ain't and she hasn't, lady dude. As far as I know, we're just waiting here until the call goes out to head to Blueleaf for the rendezvous. You think the big boss mare is going to come here herself? I mean, you know better than me. But I figured she had more important stuff to do."
Another stallion chimed in. "Do we even need to wait for her? I'm sick of waiting! The day we fight the Stone District has been far too long in coming!"
"Yeah!" another stallion roared. "Down with the upper districts! I've been waiting ages to put those idiots in their places!" He beat his chest, one hoof wrapped around a drink.
"That had better not be what I think it is!" Grenada's eyes narrowed dangerously as she seized the glass in her aura, floated it up to her nose, sniffed it, and poured it out the window. "Ugh! This is the day we need to be at our very best in the name of protecting our home and everything we want to bring back, and every last pony needs to be at their best performance! We can't let a single one of us tarnish Braen's vision by not giving it their all, and turning your brain off is not the way to do that!"
The stallion smirked. "Please. The boss respects you, and we respect you too and all, but aren't you a little green to say that? Some of us are old enough to remember the past we're bringing back. You can order us around with logistics and stuff, but don't tell us we can't celebrate when you don't even know what we're celebrating."
"You..." Grenada's eyes flashed. "You're right." She backed down. "I overstepped. I'm sorry. But please remember the difference between celebrating, and celebrating prematurely."
Another stallion rolled his eyes. "Now you're talking like we aren't going to win!"
"I would never!" Grenada hissed. "But that doesn't mean we can't lose if we don't try!"
In a nearby corner, Starlight crouched, grateful to have the room's eyes off her, yet suddenly filled with doubt about whether Shinespark was overestimating the nobility of her prized fighting forces.
By the time Howe touched down, gasping for breath and nearly tipping over under Maple's weight, the bandit threat had already been dealt with. A smug Gerardo stood, the tip of his sword embedded in the ground, next to a pile of five magically-incapacitated bodies and a mound of recovered plunder. Constable Coldstone, despite being on hoof, had somehow beaten Howe there.
"Was that it?" Maple asked, pacing carefully up to one of the bandits, feeling exposed without her extra weight. "Just these five? I was expecting an army..."
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, bandits do tend to work in smaller groups. There's a balance that must be struck between strength in numbers and sharing the fruits of one's thievery, after all. Though, I think you'll notice that these are no ordinary bandits."
Maple sized them up a second time. They were all stallions, all hornless, and all wearing masks and cloaks that bordered on triggering a memory in her brain. She knew she had seen them before.
"That's Spirit garb," Coldstone interrupted. "It's what they use when out raiding convoys. Looks like they really were just out to get what they could, hiding behind their rhetoric, now that push comes to shove. A pity. I always hoped they'd turn out to be better at the moment of truth."
"Or..." Gerardo interrupted him with a talon and a smirk, lifting his sword. "They merely have a shared interest in concealing their identities. That is what these robes are for, are they not? Observe!"
With a flash of black metal, his sword bisected a stallion. As usual, it passed harmlessly through flesh as if made of thin air, but the bandit's garments were another story, and were cleanly severed without the slightest hint of resistance. Gerardo beamed, pulling the ruined fabric away with the tip of his blade. "What do you call those, my good lawstallion? And how many real members of the Spirit do you know that have them?"
Maple's eyes widened. Through the torn robe, it was plainly visible that the bandit was a pegasus.
Constable Coldstone gaped. "What!? They're with the Defense Force? Unspeakable!" His brow hardened, and he stomped towared the felled pegasi. "Deliberate impersonation or not, how dare you come to pilfer from a town as its citizens are being evacuated? You dirtbags are the ones who started this whole thing. Don't tell me you want us to leave just so you can rob our homes!"
"This is what we were afraid of," Gerardo sighed, stepping closer to Maple. "That the entire point of them forcing us into an evacuation could be no more than a ploy so they could fly into the unguarded areas and take something of supreme importance. Regrettably, it seems such banditry is going to happen, whether intended or not."
"...It can't be intended," Maple protested. "If they were doing it deliberately, they would have waited until everyone was gone, right? And they wouldn't have been so easy to capture! They wouldn't have wanted to alert us to what they were going to do. At least, if they're anything like the villains in the books I've read, but..." She folded her ears. "Why would they go about it like this if their goal was to steal things?"
Gerardo tapped a talon. "All perfectly valid points. I'm almost wondering if..." He blinked. "I say, where's Howe?"
A beckoning whisper came from around a corner. Maple and Gerardo looked, seeing Howe pressed against it, carefully out of sight of the stunned bandits. He waved a hoof, beckoning.
Gerardo waited until they were out of sight of the pegasi to speak. "Have you something important to say?"
"I recognize some of those dudes," Howe stage-whispered. "They're all bundled up, but you can't hide from the Howenator! And those are pegasi from my mercenary company!"
"...Well, that explains quite a bit." Gerardo hung his head. "If they're mercenaries in direct employ of Herman and capable of going behind the Defense Force's back, then impersonating Defense Force operatives impersonating the Spirit would be... quite the devious double ruse. As would it explain why they were so easy to take down. We could very well be looking at an attempt to frame the Stone District for a crime they did not commit... which unfortunately fits all too well with our previous theory that the true mastermind's ultimate goal is simply to bring these two districts to blows."
"What kind of mercenary would allow themselves to be deliberately captured?" Maple asked.
Howe shrugged. "Oh, the chances of several unicorns laying in wait to teleport them to safety should events take a turn for the bleak are astronomically high. But as long as they remain captive, yet not in danger, they'll probably just leave them."
"Previous theories and true masterminds, huh? Mind saying all that again?"
Everyone jumped. Maple's landing was particularly unsteady, since she hadn't been expecting how high she would fly, but she eventually caught her balance... to see Shinespark standing in a nearby doorway. She gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Shinespark nudged her short mane out of her eyes. "I've been everywhere today. There's a lot to get done. Speaking of which, it looks like you've been out doing a lot more than you were supposed to be planning." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm glad to see you didn't bring Starlight, but please don't take unnecessary risks? You two are important."
Maple tried to offer a defense... but was beaten to speaking by Howe. "Oh wow..." The pegasus rubbed his forehooves. "I remember you! Yes, my superior intellect has dredged up a memory from the depths of time itself, of... of..." He scratched his head, drew a blank, and suddenly lit up. "Aha! You were there the other day, when Valey was throwing fruit at my head! The Sosan boss lady! Truly, the Howenator is indebted to you for-"
He was silenced by a sapphire glow around his muzzle. Shinespark's ears were folded. "Uhhh..." She took a step back. "First off, slow down. You're kind of creeping me out. And if this is going where it usually goes when ponies say stuff like that, sorry, but you're not really my type."
"As I was trying to say..." Maple cleared her throat, glaring at Howe. "We've been trying to take care of our own friends, and staying out of trouble as much as possible. Right now, Starlight should be with a friend of mine at one of the Grand Acorn evacuation places. We're going to get her on our way back, once we're... done with what we came to Copsewood to do."
Shinespark eyed her... and nodded. "Okay. Anyway, it sounds like you've been doing some digging of your own on what we're up against? While I'm here, is there anything I should know?" She glanced at Howe. "And should we talk... you know..."
Howe mimed something, lips still sealed by Shinespark's sapphire aura.
"The short of it is like this," Gerardo explained. "Our associate Howe, here, is an ex-member of a mercenary company apparently employed by Ambassador Herman strictly designed to operate behind the Defense Force's back and undertake missions increasing the tension between the Earth and Stone Districts. Yesterday, there was a resolution to an incident involving Blueleaf's power generator that turned out to be a mercenary member posing as a Spirit operative to drum up anti-Sky District sentiment over blackouts he himself was secretly responsible for. Additionally, just now, around that corner, I apprehended a group of so-called bandits engaged in acts of pillaging who we believe to be mercenaries posing as Defense Force pegasi posing as Spirit members. As such, we've determined Herman not only to be the ultimate instigator of this conflict, but actively working towards seeing the sides come to blows. Additionally, it is very likely he is manipulating the Defense Force the same way he's done for us."
Shinespark paled. "That's... not good. I've already been trying to arm the Spirit to incapacitate, not kill, but this probably means Herman will be at the dam himself to prevent us from talking things out and reaching an understanding, and..." Her ears flattened further. "You were talking about Neon Nova, right? I knew him. I talked to him several times, and I didn't catch this. It's... very likely we have a spy somewhere, who's been watching everything we were planning. I think our conversation this morning was safe, but... but..." She straightened up. "Thanks for letting me know. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually change anything, because it makes it even more likely the bombs will go off if we sit back and don't show up... but if Herman is expecting us, I don't know what we can do either."
Gerardo grimaced.
"I'll see you around," Shinespark said, releasing Howe and moving to leave. "I have work to do... though now, I don't have much of an idea what it will accomplish beyond saving lives. Take care of yourselves, and whatever you do, make sure Starlight is at the safe place by nightfall. I just hope things will be-"
WHUD! A huge, golden form slammed down on the dirt road next to them.
"Yeow!" Howe scrambled back. "It's that Braen chick!"
Shinespark turned, raising an eyebrow. "Braen? What are you...?"
Starlight peered down from the armor's back.
"Hi," Braen said, crouching to let Starlight down. "She was at Rickshaw's hideout. Grenada had brought her there after finding her in the tunnels. I thought it would be a good idea to bring her here."
Everyone blinked. Slowly, Maple began, "You're... not at the evacuation center?"
"Or en route away from the tower where I left you?" Gerardo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Haha!" Howe grinned, ignoring the filly and rubbing his chin. "I knew you two ladies were in cahoots!"
Starlight hung her head. "Sorry, Maple," she offered, coming closer. "They found a room for White Chocolate and me and Jamjars were supposed to guard it, but she wanted to run off and I didn't want to freeze her for that long, so I followed her to keep her from getting into trouble, but she went down to the basement and there were power tunnels and we wound up all the way here. There's another stallion who's supposed to be taking her back so the evacuation ponies can get her back with her mom, but I'm pretty sure the room we found won't still be open."
Gerardo winked. "Well, in that case, I'd say no harm done! Miss Chocolate was unable to reach the tower in the first place and instead relocated to a warehouse, and they were going to bring you two to her! When myself and Howe returned to attempt to pick you up, your room was taken, so we assumed you had already left! And now, we're reunited here. Funny how that worked out."
Maple bit back a sigh of worry. "Maybe I should have kept you with the cart..."
"Well, he is right," Howe pointed out. "It seems the gang is truly reassembled, regardless of how it came to pass!" He grinned feebly. "Although... I would really appreciate it if I knew how you and they, they and you knew each other!"
"Family friends," Shinespark answered without hesitation. "...So. Starlight. You're here now."
"I am." Starlight gulped, stood up, and immediately changed the topic. "Are you sure all those Spirit ponies are a good idea? I wasn't there for long before Braen arrived, but they sounded like they really wanted to fight the Stone District, and they weren't listening to Grenada. Didn't you say she was important?"
"They listen to me," Braen said, completely immobile. "Don't worry."
Shinespark rubbed the back of her neck. "Grenada is... special. She isn't in her position purely because of ability. But that's why we won't have her in the front assault squad. And remember, her job isn't to order around the Spirit, but to be a better bridge between them and me."
"We were wondering about something along those lines, actually," Gerardo remarked. "Assuredly, I mean you no offense, but... we couldn't help but notice your command team is on the younger side. Surely that can't be optimal for getting jaded ponies to follow and obey."
"That's what happens when the previous generation makes such a mess of things." Shinespark shrugged. "If they won't leave the world clean for their kids, it falls to us to do that. Maybe, because we haven't lived through some of the things our parents have, we still have more faith in the world... but whatever the case, the ponies who are trying to make a difference here and now are just the ones who answered the call."
"Excuse me, 'scuse me..." Howe barged in. "So you have my complete and total permission to educate me on what's going on the moment you get tired of me making wild guesses, but..." He wiggled one eyebrow. "As far as the intellect of the Howenator can discern, you, the daughter of Mobius, are balancing your duties to your district with a secret collaboration to lead a group of underground agents? A secret society fighting for a better tomorrow?"
Shinespark shrugged, and glanced at Braen. "Me, helping to run the Spirit of Sosa?" She shrugged again. "Pretty much."
Howe winked. "Of course! So, you thusly promoted your lover to a possibly-disputable position as a personal favor!"
"My...?" Shinespark's brow furrowed... then she stomped, glaring at Howe. "Grenada is not my lover!"
Howe merely waggled his eyebrows. Gerardo blinked. "...Interesting. I noticed you wore the same manestyle, but I presumed it to be more an issue of-"
"She's..." Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I'm sure you all are aware of my father's... proclivities?"
The alley was silent. Eventually, Starlight offered, "So she's your sister, like Elise?"
"Half-sister," Shinespark said. "One of very many. She first tried to join the Spirit several years ago. Braen and I like to do background checks to know what we're getting into with our members. It isn't always possible, but when you find a talented child with no record of their father, it isn't hard to want to do a little more digging, and..." She shrugged. "I found out. We've kept an eye on her and tried to guide her over the past few years, especially Braen. And before you ask, she doesn't know, and I'll thank you not to tell her."
Maple blinked. "What? Why not?"
"First off," Shinespark continued, "I want to make sure my actions speak for themselves. She puts a lot of trust in me... and as much as I have to trust myself to keep from faltering under my burden, that kind of irrational faith from others... makes me a little uneasy when I feel it in person. I'd rather the way she sees me be based on what I do, and not colored by anything else." She glanced at Howe. "Second, he's not entirely wrong. I think Grenada does have a crush on me. And I'd really like to let it wear off naturally instead of... You know. I wouldn't want her to distance herself out of embarrassment, either."
"Well..." Howe shrugged. "There's always the possibility the knowledge could make her even more-"
Shinespark's aura clamped back around his muzzle. "Don't even think about finishing that sentence."
Howe nodded limply, eyes watering. Sighing, Shinespark turned back to Maple, Gerardo and Starlight. "I really do have to go. I know I've said this already, and I know you have things you want to do and I'm not about to lock you up or imprison you, but this is important: stay safe. Especially Starlight. I'm trusting you to do this. I can trust you, right?" She raised an eyebrow.
Maple responded with a forceful step. "I will keep her safe."
"One last question, if I may," Gerardo interjected. "The mention of spies came up earlier. Who all knows about the... erm... more sensitive of secrets from this morning?"
"Right." Shinespark nodded. "The place where we were? Everyone who was there, obviously, along with Dior, Matryona, Arambai, Mobius and Dorable. The other factory chiefs were... Well, I needed my father's support for resources, and Dorable had something to contribute no other pony could provide. As for Braen, it's the same group. But those who know about Braen's brand are... only myself, Dior, Arambai, and Dorable. And you." She turned to go, then blinked. "Oh, and Valey knows everything. She's the only one who found out on her own, instead of being invited."
"Mmmm hee hee hee..." Howe cackled softly into a wing. "All these secrets are setting my fur ablaze with veritable lightning. So excited!"
"Yeah, well..." Shinespark shrugged, and lit her horn. "Both of us very badly need to get going, so we'll leave you here. Stay safe, and good luck."
With a flash of energy, she vanished in a burst of teleportation. A moment later, Braen crouched, jumped, and ignited her rocket boosters, soaring over a roof and out of sight.
The three remaining ponies and one griffon turned to each other and shrugged. "Well, I don't imagine our constable friend will miss our help in carrying those mercenary scallywags back to wherever he's taking them," he remarked. "Shall we be on our way to the power control point?"
"Power control?" Starlight frowned. "What are you doing now?"
Quickly, Maple explained their plan to rescue Valey, speaking in a hushed tone. When she finished, Starlight's face brightened. "Huh. I think I was just there!"
"You were?" Howe looked up, wide-eyed. "Perfect! My, uhh... memory of where exactly the place is might be slightly tarnished."
Maple snorted. "Of course you didn't actually know where we were going."
"Hey, it's not my fault!" Howe protested as they followed Starlight's lead further into the city. "Seriously, it's like these architects have no sense of style! I mean, maybe it's just me, but every building looks the same around here! You know? ...You know? You just can't blame a pegasus for this...!"
Starlight, Maple, Gerardo and Howe stood at the door to an otherwise-nondescript house at the highest part of Copsewood, far enough above the jungle floor that the streets grew rocky, a mix of dust and cracked mountain surface. A light wind blew against their backs, not enough to ruffle their sweat-matted manes, but enough to turn Maple's gaze skyward, wishing she were in the upper districts, high above the heat. The dam stood along the mountain wall to their right, tall and monolithic like a smooth, white monument to the past, and the road by which they had first entered the Stone District sat in a cleft in the mountainside several dozen meters above.
"You're sure this is the right place?" Maple asked, inspecting the house's dark, boarded windows and the peeling, burgundy paint on the door. "It looks... just like everywhere else in this town."
"Comrades, there is no doubt that your filly has led us true," Howe proclaimed, swaggering around to one of the corners and lifting a hoof to the house wall. "Seeing this place has... jogged my memory! All the subtle differences and landmarks that would be imperceptible to those without such a trained eye are standing out to me, and calling my very name! 'Howe!' they say! 'At last, you have returned to-'"
"I believe we get the idea." Gerardo rested a talon on his shoulder, silencing him. "Now, if no one else cares to do the honors..." He stepped forward, grasped the unicorn-oriented door handle, and tugged. Nothing happened. "Hmm..." He frowned. "It appears to be locked. Inconvenient..."
"Okay..." Maple tongued her cheek. "But there's got to be a way around..."
"Ahem!" Howe imperiously cleared his throat, stepping forward and brandishing a wing. "Please. Allow me."
Carefully, he plucked a feather, spinning it around and taking it in his teeth before delicately inserting the quill point to the lock. "If muh hunch ith correc..." he lisped around it, wiggling it carefully in the keyhole. "Thith plathe... wath made before..."
Click! He pulled back, beaming, and spat away the feather. "Judging by the age of this thing some unfortunate soul called a door, it was of a very rudimentary lock design! Modern ponies are so much more innovative, but this was easier to crack than an expensive teaset! ...Not that I've ever done that, of course."
As he pushed the door into the darkened abode open, Maple nervously pocketed the fallen feather. That was the kind of evidence they could do without leaving behind.
"Or," Gerardo offered as the moved inside, "this is a city predominantly of unicorns, and their home security is based entirely on goodwill and a very zealous constabulary when a reasonable percentage of the population can likely teleport."
"Hey, don't you rain on my parade! I didn't see you picking it open, Brother Bird!"
Maple swung the door shut behind them once everyone was inside. The house was unventilated and unlit, pooling a stifling amount of heat inside a small, dark space. Quickly, Starlight lit her horn, solving the latter problem and revealing a small hoofful of age-old possessions, tools and construction supplies, as well as a staircase leading belowground. She marched toward it, head held confidently.
The others followed, treading two-file on the unusually wide steps. They quickly reached a basement, empty save for an ancient reading chair sitting underneath an unlit light that hung from a chain. A lone bookshelf sat against the wall, and a squat refreshment table sat next to the chair, devoid of content.
"Hah! Really?" Howe gloated, striding to the shelf and inspecting its assortment of books. "Such a grandfather of all puzzles as the secret bookcase passage chooses to grace the Howenator with its presence? I feel honored! Fear not, puzzle, for I shall solve you with the respect and reverence you-"
Starlight coughed. Her horn glowed slightly brighter, and something clicked inside the stout table, causing it to roll aside on an unseen track, revealing a steep, narrow set of stairs going further down.
"Oh. Err, well..." Howe flushed. "That works too, I suppose?"
Gerardo groaned. "Of course it would be the table..."
They descended again, this time in single file. Fortunately, the stairs were short and the passage instantly broadened after the initial descent... and after one nearby door, it was brightly lit. The walls morphed to a smooth, reddish-brown metal, slightly curved at the seams to avoid the hard, boxy aesthetic that was prevalent elsewhere in Ironridge. Maple squinted. The metal was brushed inconsistently, and if she stood back, the patterns it formed almost looked like ponies.
The passage sloped downwards without bending or twisting, eventually coming out near the ceiling of the tunnel room Starlight had entered in earlier. She led the way, marching to the upper platform's far railing and pointing down. "There's a sign that says 'Breaker Room,'" she announced, pointing downward with a hoof. "I think that's where it is."
Howe was too busy gaping at the architecture to respond. Eventually, Maple jabbed him to get his attention. "Hello? Ironridge to Howe?" She waved a hoof. "We need to know what to do..."
"Uhh..." Howe shrugged. "Truth be told, I just knew this place existed. And what to do when we find the switch. So... onward?"
Beyond the breaker room door, the spiral staircase wrapped downwards three and a half times... Maple thought. Her head was spinning by the bottom, a combination of turning around and the strange discomfort of walking that close to the edge of a cylindrical shaft, making it hard to count. Either way, their destination sat directly underneath the pipe room, the ceiling deeply covered in bright blue manaconduits attached to a grate, beyond which was visible the room above. The floor was littered in terminals and monitoring equipment, and dead center was a pedestal with a large lever on the side. A tube of glass connected it to a similar, hanging pillar on the ceiling, and an unceasing arc of plasmatic lightning crackled between the top and bottom terminals.
"There it is..." Howe rubbed his forehooves. "The master breaker switch! All we have to do is turn it off... and then turn it right back on again!"
Maple stared at the switch in trepidation. "Why do I have a feeling it isn't that easy?"
Howe shrugged. "Beats me. I could do this in my sleep!"
"Well," Gerardo offered, "perhaps because this is the point of no return? Thus far, we've more or less been observers in the grand scheme of things in Ironridge, making predictable moves that affect things on only the smallest of scales. Right now, the three sides appear to be locked in the highest-stakes game of gambling and manipulation I have seen in a very long time, and if we do this... if we let Valey free... it would not only mean us entering their game and making a move of our own, but it would be very possible that none of the sides intend for us to play. In short, we could go back to our refuge and allow Ironridge to make its own course, for better or for worse, or we could take this shot at changing things... also for better or for worse."
Maple's brow furrowed. "You heard Shinespark back there. She's afraid. She doesn't know everything that's going on... and neither do we. But she knows someone's planned for everything."
"Indeed. But they may not have planned for us." Gerardo stroked his chin. "For that matter, I'll remind you we're playing behind Shinespark's back here, as well. The odds are... unfortunately high that if we do nothing, she will lose and something terrible will happen. But if we do act, knowing not the outcome, you do realize this will make us solely responsible for the fate of Ironridge? If the game is otherwise decided, and we are the last unplayed piece?"
Maple swallowed. "But if we do nothing and Herman blows up the dam, that would be our fault too, right? Because we could have tried to help and didn't?"
"Well..." Gerardo began to pace. "It's debatable exactly what our help here will accomplish. As intended, we'd merely be assisting your friend and freeing her from an unfortunate fate. However, seeing as one of the sides put her there for a reason, doing so would throw a spanner in the works to their plans... and it is easy to see how such a chaotic creature as Valey could prove disruptive to plans. That may be why she has been captured, in the first place. So, likely what would be accomplished by throwing that switch is that the certain unfavorable outcome would be thrown back into the realm of uncertain... and after that, who can say? Where would we limit our involvement? We're presently out of the game, but how long would it take for our stakes to become intrinsically intertwined with Ironridge's? Need I remind you that we could wait this entire thing out, or even make for the Sky District and attempt to leave the city before everything explodes?"
"I am not walking away," Maple snorted, stomping. "At least not while there's anything we can do. Howe? Let Valey out."
Howe winked. "As you wish! Although... since she'll only have a second or two before the backup systems kick in, perhaps we should call her up right now, just to give her forewarning?"
"Right." Maple paced to a glowing terminal, taking the sound stone in a hoof, and holding it next to the power conduit. In a matter of seconds, it was glowing brightly, the magical flux inside spinning and fully charged.
Scrrrrrkkkkkkk!
"...Maple? Is that..."
Maple held the stone close to her muzzle, speaking as clearly as she could. "The power is about to go out. You'll have maybe two seconds. Be ready to get out."
"...Seconds?"
"Two seconds," Maple repeated. "Be ready."
There was a burst of static that she took for agreement, and she nodded at Howe. "Ready."
The pegasus grasped the lever, straining... and flung it off. Immediately, the pillar of lightning linking the breaker terminal to the contact above died, and the room was plunged into blackness. Maple held her breath, counting her heartbeat... and after eight pulses, a soft amber glow spread throughout the room as the backup power systems came on. She let out a sigh of relief.
"Hey, we're out!" Valey's voice chirped through the sound stone, crystal clear and no longer distorted by static. "Thanks, Ironflanks. I have no clue what you did, but as long as it makes Herman blow a gasket, I really don't care. Anyway, I need to use the filly's room super bad, and then go stuff my face with fruit, because I skipped dinner and breakfast and now am basically dead. Where can I meet you after that?"
"We're in Copsewood," Maple replied, relief washing over her face as Howe turned the switch back on and the room spun itself to life. "Though we'd rather not stay here for too long."
"Yeah, yeah, I feel that. Copsewood is sort of a depressing dump. Too many angsty unicorns. Did I mention I prefer it in the Stone District? Anyway, I'll come meet you there. Give me, like... ten minutes. There's this house up on the east side of town I totally didn't steal the deed to that may or may not be just as much of a dump as the rest of the place, but nobody should be living there so you can just wait there for me. If there are any squatters, that's illegal, so you can bust them up and not feel bad about it. Or save them for me. Whatever. Anyway, need directions? Here goes..."
"So, Valey has a house in Copsewood?" Maple squinted, standing outside at a street intersection. "And this is it?"
"It certainly appears to be that way," Gerardo remarked. "At least, I'm quite sure we properly followed her directions. Although I wasn't expecting something this, well... ordinary."
"Yeah," Howe agreed, staring at the same squat, brick building that made up the rest of the dusty town. The only difference between it and any other was the presence of a sizable amount of graffiti on one wall, done in green and black spraypaint. "I wonder if the decor is because she owns it, or how she got it in the first place..."
It looked just as lived-in as the rest of the town... which, admittedly, was not at all. Maple ventured carefully closer, Starlight close at her side. "She said the door is barricaded, but there's a way in on the roof..."
Gerardo swooped up. "That she did, and that there is! How fortuitous."
Howe ruffled his wings. "Well? Shall we stand around here, or shall we enter the lair of the fruit-thrower? Personally, all this sun can't be good for my mane..."
Some assistance from Gerardo and Howe later, and all four of them were standing on the roof. A triangular cover sat atop an entrance, presumably to stop the house from getting rained in. Gerardo cleanly lifted it aside, and hopped down through the opening. "Hmm!" His voice rang back out. "This is considerably cleaner than I expected."
Maple and Starlight followed, carefully being lifted down, and Howe replaced the cover after them. The house was indeed austere, with a single light illuminating the lack of furniture save for a desk that was wedged against the door and a small box in the corner. Curiously, Maple paced toward the box.
A note was set on top. "For Ironflanks," she read wryly. "Thanks, Valey. I'll be back soon."
Howe lunged, swiping it from her. "Aha! She's probably seen fit to return my brother's stolen sound stone! May I do the honors?"
At Maple's lack of protest, he flung the top off and away... accompanied by a light snapping sound and a click. A metal orb rolled out onto his wing, and he stared at it in confusion. "Hmm? Whatever have we here? Do any of you recognize-"
BANG!
Starlight's head reeled from the concussive air wave as the thing went off. Howe staggered back, and Maple gasped. "What!?"
Just as blackness began to edge at her vision, Starlight's gaze fell on the remains of the thing, and recognition clicked in her head. It was one of the experimental stun grenades Grenada had been carrying in the tunnels. She involuntarily took a breath, and felt her dizziness redouble as Maple hit the floor beside her. The room had been filled with sedative gas!
Frantically, her brain spun as she felt herself hit the floor too. Gas... breathing... she knew how to deal with that. Her horn lit, struggling to summon a crystal around her mouth and nose. It was unpleasant, but when she was like that, she didn't have to breathe. She heard her aura spark to life... and blacked out, unable to complete the spell.
When Starlight came to, she was surrounded by nothing but dim, red light.
"Uggghh..." she rasped, drawing in a slow breath. The air would have been hot had she come from any other day than the present one, and as it was, there was a dirty, smoky quality to it that made her slightly dizzy. Or maybe that was her lungs, which felt like cotton after... after...
Realization of what had happened to her struck like a thunderbolt, and she tried to scramble into a defensive stance, only for her legs to fall out from under her and leave her in a slightly more uncomfortable heap than she had already been in. The ground was stone, she noticed. Warm stone.
She focused, rust-red walls blurring into existence around her, along with three grayish piles that might have been her unconscious friends. As she watched, one of them stirred. It was Maple.
"Mapllllle..." Starlight groaned, crawling over to her adoptive mother, not trusting her legs to carry her so quickly again. She reached for Maple's shoulders and shook, rocking her back and forth. "Are you alright?"
"What? Nngh... nguh..." Grunting, Maple kicked her legs, lifted her ears, and opened her eyes. "Starlight? Is that you? We were... What happened?"
Starlight's vision cleared even more, enough to make out the dull red rock boxing them in with sheer walls and a low ceiling. One of those walls, however, didn't exist - in its place was a twisted iron grate, blocking the way to the next room. She doubted she was small enough to slip through the holes.
"I think..." She gulped, throat feeling stiff and rubbery. From gas inhalation, she realized. "Howe opened that box from Valey, and it was a stun grenade. Grenada had some. She said they were Sosan prototypes, and that nobody else had them..."
Maple's pupils were small. "No... she wouldn't! There has to be... Someone else must have set her up, or this could be a misunderstanding, or... or..." She fumbled for words.
Through the iron grate, Starlight could see a row of cells much like theirs, all empty. The corridor between them was just wide enough that, were they full, a passing officer could walk down the middle while avoiding flailing hooves. Its ceiling was higher, too, creating extra space on top of the roofs of the cells that guards could potentially use. That, too, was empty.
"She warned us, I guess," Starlight decided, shrugging. She tried again to climb to her hooves, and this time, succeeded. "Probably a million times, too."
Maple's hoof reached up to her, and the earth pony smiled. "Starlight. We're here, but we're all right. Maybe Valey did betray us, and this doesn't look good... but until I see real proof, I'm not going to doubt her. First, because it wouldn't do us any good now, and second, because if I were her right now and I was innocent, I'd need someone to believe in me, too."
"...We've been imprisoned, haven't we?"
Starlight swung her head over to Gerardo. "You're awake?"
Gerardo smiled, keeping his eyes closed. "I have been for quite some time. When resuming consciousness after a hostile situation, it's a reasonable course of action to pretend to still be out as you determine your situation. After all, if anything was going to kill you while you were comatose, it would likely have already done so."
"Oh..." Maple sighed loudly. "Well, I don't think I see anyone, so it should be safe to get up."
"On the contrary," Gerardo proclaimed, keeping his voice soft... whether deliberately, or because the sedative gas had inflamed his throat, Starlight couldn't tell. "There is someone, admittedly stealthy, in this room, and furthermore I have a very good idea who. Care to take a guess?"
Maple sat up, looking out the grate and around the room. "Valey? Are you there?"
No response.
She cleared her throat and spoke louder. "Valey, if you're there, I... I still trust you. If you captured us... maybe you were forced to, or maybe you wanted to put us somewhere safe, or... I don't know! But please say something? Please talk to us? I forgive you!"
Then, from near the ceiling: "You guys are ridiculous, you know that?"
Howe was still crumpled in an unconscious pile, but Starlight, Maple and Gerardo watched as Valey's head poked down from the burnt-red ceiling, protruding from a shadow. She slithered further out of it until she was completely upside-down, hanging by her tail from a rusted spike wedged purposelessly into the rock. She was scowling.
"Most ponies don't like being betrayed," Valey growled, showing her teeth without smiling. "They get all ticked off. They go, 'Oh no, the pony I for some reason though was my friend who warned me over and over blew me up with a stun grenade after I did one nice thing too many for them! I guess they were a jerk after all!' Why can't you morons be like that, huh?"
Her eyes glowed emerald like slitted bonfires. "They do the sensible thing and cut their losses, or at least have the decency to get mad about it. But not you. I tricked you, blew you up, foalnapped you and threw you in jail, and your first thought was that I was helping you? What do I have to do, laugh like a maniac about it? Mua ha ha, and all that? Throw you in separate cells? Or is it because all I ever do is play silly pranks and call you names and get too close to your personal space that you can't take this seriously? Do you think I'm a big, huggable bat that can't hurt a fly?"
"Valey..." Maple interrupted, looking hurt. "What do you need? All I've done is try to help you, and if you feel this bad about us, it isn't working! What am I supposed to do?"
"You're supposed to possess common sense," Valey grunted, looking away. "...You wanna know what really sickens me? What's disgusting right now about you, and me, and everything?"
Maple's ears wilted, and she reached a hoof toward the grate. "What...?"
"You're right!" Valey let go of the ceiling, kicking off it and slamming into the ground with such force that her hoof chipped the rock, sending out a small fracture of hairline cracks. She barely even stopped to massage it, tail lashing. "Ironridge right now is the biggest powder keg in the world, and some idiot yesterday went and lit the fuse. The whole thing is going to go off, and even when it's my job to stop it, my stupid boss sends me on a dumb escort mission right into a trap that might as well be designed to hold me, and then leaves me there, out of the picture. I'm done with Ironridge. I'm so done."
She sniffed back a tear, looking up and attempting a grin that didn't come out properly. "You know where we are right now? This is the Flame District. The upper part, pretty far from all the drilling. It's called the flame barracks, and is the most remote, unvisited, out-of-the-way location in... well, most of Ironridge. It's certainly a billion miles from anywhere that'll get wrecked by that dam, or the fighting that will follow. After I bagged you, I did my research on what's going on. This is the perfect place to ride everything out, stay safe, and... you know."
"Then..." Maple's face lifted. "You were helping us?"
"Weren't you listening?" Valey hung her head, eyes obscured by her dangling mane. She was missing her hat. "I said I'm done with Ironridge. It's a license to do what I want, and it's all I have, but that isn't enough. The Defense Force can't hope to win against Sosa's arsenal. It's finished. I'm pretty sure Herman wants them to be destroyed. He probably just locked me up because he knows I could beat all of them with my wings tied, and figured I'd starve to death in there. Either way, the Defense Force can't survive without Herman, and I can't survive without it. So... I'm leaving. And I wanted to see if you'd come with me."
Maple frowned. "Really? We'd love to have you, but aren't there more polite ways to ask?"
"Pfft. No." Valey leered at her. "Here's the thing, Ironflanks... You're the first pony in pretty much ever to actually treat me like... not a monster. And that's fun, because I hate being a monster. But instead, you practically worship the air I fly through, and that's even worse. Because guess what? I am a monster. I try not to act like it. I try my hardest. That's why my worst real crimes are flirting with married mares and telling really bad jokes. But... it's not enough to change facts. I'm not a pony."
"Valey!" Maple snapped... then softened. "You're wrong. You might have leafy ears, or strange wings, but that isn't what makes someone a person. I mean, look at Gerardo! He's a griffon, a completely different species, and is just as much of a person as any of us! What you look like doesn't matter. It's what you are inside that-"
"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Valey growled, eyes burning. "You have no idea what you're talking about. None of you do, but especially not you, Ironflanks. You're the one who insists on treating me like I can do no wrong. You think I'm not some mythical incarnation of black and white morality? Prove it. Get angry when I wrong you!"
"Why!?" Maple cried, putting both forehooves on the grate, Valey standing just out of her reach. "I know you're not bad, so why can't I treat you like my friend?"
"Because that's not what you're doing," Valey said, pointing back with a hoof of her own. "Look at Pancake. If he had done this, would you be ticked? In fact, he did do this! He was the one who set off my trap! You'd be all, 'I trusted you!' like you should be here! And look at Gerardo! I was following you, two days earlier when you were complaining endlessly about how you felt like he was marginalizing you and preventing you from spending time with your kid, or something. I don't remember. Remember?"
Gerardo paled. "I was? I'm... deeply sorry if I came across as overzealous or rude, or..."
"It's fine," Maple assured him with a glance. "It's fine."
"What I want," Valey said before Maple could ask another question, "no... what I need is something better than your stupid hero worship. Because let's say I went with you. Let's pretend I kept you safe, bailed you out of Ironridge, and we got to a more decent part of the world. Let's say we were going about our business, and I happened to do something really bad for no other reason than that people mess up... and you trusted me so much that you refused to take even the most basic self-preserving actions and wound up dead as a result. Not scarred, not all I'll forgive you, dead. How do you think I'd feel about that? Use your overly-optimistic idea of me on this."
Maple gulped, and didn't say anything.
"See?" Valey snarled. "I get that you'd forgive me. It's in your nature. You're too optimistic and too nice. It's like nothing bad has ever happened to you before, which is funny because I recall guessing something about you having a really bad history with a Sosan stallion and it made you all cringey just like it's doing now!" She jabbed a hoof as Maple recoiled from the bars. "And I'd be happy with that. I'd love having someone around who could live with it if I mess up, just like normal friends do! But for all your talk about how wonderful I am, you couldn't even do that much for me, could you? You hypocrite!"
She stalked forward, tail flicking violently. "All I wanted was to see if you actually could see me as the person I wish I was, and you can't! I got this place all set up! All you had to do was tell me off abducting you, and yell at me or get mad or anything to show you weren't fine with this, and we could have been perfect! I would have apologized, you would have forgiven me, I... I could have been your friend. But now I can't. I'm not going to go along with someone with such a caricatured view of me that they think I'm perfect. That would be just like Herman. But instead..." She deflated, losing all of her tension and nearly falling down. "Well, that was my last plan. Now I don't know what I'm gonna do."
Maple stared, speechless. Gerardo didn't talk either.
"...Heh," Valey lifelessly chuckled. "My cutie mark is tingling. See? I'm even using your name for it. I guess at least one of you got a little-"
Flash!
Starlight appeared from a burst of teleportation in midair, right next to Valey's head. Pow! She punched with all her worth... which wasn't much, since she was both a filly and airborne, but Valey didn't dodge. The blow caused Starlight to land awkwardly on her side, but it also sent the batpony reeling. Valey shook her head and spat. "What the...?"
"How dare you!?" Starlight squeaked, scrambling to her hooves and posing aggressively like a small, puffed-up cat. She winced only briefly at the crack in her voice; her throat felt coated in wax paper, but it would have to deal. Valey blinked, watching to see if she would go on.
"I don't know what you've done," Starlight hissed, "or had done to you! But you also don't know about me, and you definitely don't know about Maple!" She stalked forward, and Valey actually scooted back. "She spent years having the world step on everything she ever wanted to do, and for a long time thought because that was the only way things were, that was the way they had to be!" She glanced over her shoulder at Maple, checking if she was overstepping any bounds. The mare was listening with wide eyes.
Bolstered, Starlight went on. "She has to be nice! She knows how dumb the world can be, just like I do, and the only thing that keeps her going is believing hopeless situations can get better! Hopeless like you, when you keep going on and on and on forever about how bad you are! Right, Maple?"
In the cell, Maple was torn between beaming and worry. Valey still looked stunned.
Starlight fixed the batpony with her best glare and stomped, her filly-sized hoof landing squarely in the slightly bigger impression left by Valey's earlier blow. "It's not fair that all the Ironridge ponies treat you like dirt when you don't want to be. I hate things that aren't fair, and I'd be your friend just to change that! But I've got other friends over there right now with their own hopes and worries, and if you're going to try to use their quirks to get what you're missing and then abuse them and do weird experiments like locking them up to make them mad at you when it turns out to not be what you want...!" She trailed off, her train of thought getting away, and refocused. "I'll never judge someone by what they are. But if you want to be our friend, you have to be honest about it just like you want from us. You..." She clenched her eyes. "Instead of being all vague and telling us not to trust bats, you should have just told us what you were worried about in the first place."
Valey gaped. The room was silent. After a few seconds: "...Wow. You actually get it."
"I'm sorry," Maple murmured from the cage, hanging limply onto the grate. "I guess I didn't... I should have..." She shook.
"So, Ironflanks," Valey said, shaking herself and flicking her ears. "And Starlight. And the rest of you, I guess. I really am sorry about that. I mean, not like you wouldn't forgive me anyway, but..."
"Yes." Maple folded her ears. "I do. I should have noticed how I was making you feel. And I'm sorry too. I hope I'm right about what your answer will be, but... would you still like to...?"
"To join up with you?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "To be your friend? To make you put up with me and do what it takes to get you out of this exploding city in the same number of pieces you entered in?" She smirked. "This is your last warning: I'm not a real pony. I try to be different, but it doesn't change what I really am." She raised a hoof. "Say yes, and I won't bug you about it again... unless it comes up for some other reason."
Maple reached out, touching Valey's hoof with her own. "Yes."
"Heh..." Valey shook her head. "And you're not even going to press. Typical. Oh well! Let's get you out of here. My cutie mark's been complaining for the last few hours about me having nothing to fight for."
She slipped into the shadows, moving underneath the grate and partially surfacing to grab Maple around the barrel. "I don't remember if I've done this with you before while you were awake, but it'll feel weird. Hold on."
An instant later, they were out, Maple gasping and climbing to her hooves. "I've done it, but it feels no less weird..."
"All right, griffon guy," Valey announced, brushing her hooves off. "You next. You're fine with all this too, right?"
Gerardo nodded. "I'm always down for the assembling of a band of heroic compatriots, and have no objections to your presence. Though right now, I think a far simpler way out would be..." He grasped for the hilt of his sword... and came up empty. The sheath on his side was bare. "What?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Something the matter, Birdo?"
"I... could have sworn I had my..." Gerardo blinked frantically, searching the cell. "Wherever did you put my sword? Has it been stolen?"
"Uhhhh..." Valey glanced back and forth. "You know, I did get an off-duty squad of Defense Force dudes to lug your carcasses most of the way here, so I guess it could have fallen out..."
"This. Is. Troubling." Gerardo drummed his talons against the floor. "Still, nothing I cannot overcome. I was prepared to leave the city without it regardless, and only got it back the first time by a stroke of good fortune. If anything, I'm more worried that our enemies might have it."
"Yeah, that would stink, wouldn't it?" Valey shrugged, then turned to Howe. "Pancake's still out, huh? I hope he doesn't get too triggered by all this. Still, his fault for holding the grenade when it went off. He probably got the worst of it." She grabbed him, still sleeping, and deposited him on the other side of the grate, before performing the same for Gerardo.
"By the way..." Maple glanced around. "What time is it?"
Valey tapped a hoof to her chin. "Uh, I'd say... An hour and a half 'til sundown? Maybe two? From the Sky District. So from what I've gathered, we've got that long to either blow this popsicle stand or hunker down in this room and hope nobody manages to turn the city into an even bigger crater than it already is. Any ideas?"
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "Even more unfortunate. I wager it will take much of that time to even get back to Sosa, assuming we travel at top speed?"
"Yeah, probably." Valey shrugged. "You guys weren't thinking of playing the heroes, were you? Because take it from me: even with me on your side, brawling skill isn't what it'll take to keep the peace any more. You'd have to assassinate Herman and keep those armies apart with a forcefield... and that yak is basically invincible. Even I probably couldn't lay a scratch on him. You could probably stab him with your magic sword and still not be able to kill him while he's stunned. So basically, that's a no-go."
Maple wilted. "So after all this, we probably can't save Sosa from the bombs?"
"Bombs?" Valey tilted her head such that one ear flopped, squinting at Maple. "Well, I mean... Hey, you remember how I kept saying we were stuck in that trap, right? As in, more than just me?"
"I think I do...!" Maple breathed. "Why? Who was with you?"
"Some representative from Yakyakistan." Valey shrugged. "Probably a scientist. Her name was Fire. She was pretty cute, and didn't say much about herself, but was completely clueless about the situation with the districts and all their tensions here. One thing I considered was that the trap was for her and not me. Something tells me Herman doesn't want to do anything too bad while she's watching... but it's just a hunch. Anyway, as long as she's out and about, I've got a feeling the worst that'll happen is a Defense Force massacre. I mean, if you ask me, that's all Herman wants in the first place, but still."
"Might I ask what your plan was, then?" Gerardo interjected. "And, incidentally, where might we find this scientist? It sounds like she could be a valuable ally."
Valey stretched her wings, staring at the stairs to the room's exit. "Well, I thought we'd break into the skyport, steal ourselves an airship, and high-tail it somewhere else. Maybe, uh..." She blinked. "Wherever you guys were going next? Honestly, Varsidel's a dump, Yakyakistan is Yakyakistan, and the griffons are... Well, I figured there was a reason why Birdo was here and not there. Maybe we could go hang out in the Griffon Empire."
Gerardo hesitated. "So, in short, we would make a direct break for it."
"Not quite direct," Valey corrected. "I have one stop to make first. It's in the Flame District, so not a forever-long detour. It's super important to me, and we are not skipping it no matter what. Fortunately, it's also the place that scientist was heading when she and I parted ways, so if you feel like doing some hero work instead of running for the hills, that helps us there, too."
Maple nodded. "Then it sounds like that should be our first stop, no matter what?"
"Yeah," Valey agreed. "Then we have a plan!"
Purposefully, the group set out, Howe's unconscious form draped on Gerardo's back and Starlight once again riding Maple.
Maple, Valey and Gerardo rounded a corner, coming to a stop at the top of a flight of steps in front of a closed iron door and an armored terminal. Valey pulled a card key from her mane, having found and replaced her hat, and swung it through the reader. "Zoop!"
A red light beeped, and the door didn't open. Valey frowned and stuck out her tongue.
"Oh... pardon me," a magically-distorted stallion's voice blared from the terminal, the communications array at the top lighting up. "Is that thing not working? Did some not-a-pony's access get revoked?"
Valey narrowed her eyes, stepping back and looking at the security camera above the terminal. "Hey, Selma. What's up?"
Maple and Gerardo drew up defensively alongside Valey as the terminal continued. "What's up, you ask? Oh, not much at all, I'm afraid. I've been merely sitting here in this control room having the time of my life listening to you pour your heart out to a bunch of strangers you met not two days ago while all the noble soldiers under our command are quaking in their sabatons and scurrying about like ants trying to find a way to combat the illustrious Spirit of Sosa. It's really quite exhilarating. And I'm not even being sarcastic!"
Valey nodded. "Uh huh."
"Did you cry?" Selma's voice asked. "I couldn't get a good look, but it sounded like you were all choked up. I don't suppose you'd care to give me a repeat performance, would you?"
"With all due respect, Captain," Gerardo interrupted, "is there a point to this? And how can you even hear us? You informed me yesterday that the security system lacks microphones!"
"Good old Gerardo..." the terminal crooned. "Always getting hung up on the how... Is that a thing you do? We barely even know each other. Regardless, the cameras lack microphones, but these security terminals are much newer! And there is a point. Quite a few of them, even."
"Is one of them to monologue at us?" Maple asked. "You sound like a book villain, and you sound like you're enjoying it."
Selma cackled. "Exactly! You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. You see, Valey, you just threw in the towel. Abandoning the Defense Force? Leaving Ironridge and its protection all to me? How did you know it was my birthday? I don't believe you've ever shown up before..."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Valey yawned, fanning her mouth with a wing. "Get well soon, and all."
"Oh, boo," the terminal droned, magical lights flickering with the tone of Selma's voice. "Really, I wish you had skedaddled years ago. You've been a constant annoyance and thorn in my side as long as I've known you, Valey. What was it you liked to be called again? Allergen? Amphibian? Some cheesy title starting with an A... Regardless, I thought it would be a stunning sendoff to trap you in here for a spell and force you to take some of your own medicine. A little catharsis for yours truly, or something. All you have to do for me to open this door is let out a single yowl of frustration and rage! Preferably with an eye tick. You do so love inspiring those in me..."
Gerardo stomped forward. "Selma, must you really? Surely you're aware of how much danger much of Ironridge is in right now! Should we not be working together to defend it?"
"Oh, you mean that silly little bomb threat, or your intended invasion of the Water District? Those are your and Herman's plans, not mine. By the way, have you figured out precisely what Herman is doing yet? I'm curious now that you're playing the game how smart of creatures I'm up against..."
"And you have?" Gerardo countered. "Tell us what you know! It could be critical!"
"Oh, but I already have," Selma cooed. "Remember? I teleported you to the very room you're standing in now shortly before we 'discovered' those bombs and told you everything! Don't tell me it's slipped your puny mind..."
Gerardo blanched. "What!? I... I can't say I..." He hung his head in realization.
"Too bad, so sad," Selma mocked. "Now do you mind taking your hideous mug elsewhere? It's Valey I want to make fun of, not you."
"Keep trying, lard silo," Valey remarked, relaxing against a wall. "You have no idea how to be annoying. Honestly, I'm kinda enjoying this."
"What's he talking about?" Maple asked, turning to Gerardo and raising an eyebrow. "He told you something important earlier? And you were here?"
"You didn't even tell your friends?" The terminal sounded astonished. "Fascinating. And here I thought you cared about them. In that case, maybe I'm feeling like a crash course after all! Let's see... Yakyakistan, running a top-secret project. Shipping some crates here, by sea and not air as a backup in case they failed. Been in planning for forty years, all they're really in Ironridge for... sound familiar? It should..."
Gerardo nodded. "Continue to jog my memory."
"Look at the griffons, or the Varsidelians! Do you see them taking over the political scene or forming militias and hiring underhoof mercenaries to get what they want? The yaks are in it deep. Everything that's happened here since you showed up with those crates has just been part of the culmination of a plan forty years in the making. I tried to stop it, of course. What reasonable Defense Force commander wouldn't? My entire livelihood hinges on it! If the yaks finish, the yaks leave, and no more Defense Force. No more me, and no more Valey. Isn't that sad?"
"Meh. Not really." Valey shrugged.
"Says you, now that you're getting out. Anyway, I fumbled about for a while, trying to come up with the perfect plan, not knowing exactly what Herman would do... and then I realized! He wants to start a war!" Selma cackled again, doing his best to sound unbalanced. "Now that, I can work with. Do you know what I'm going to do, Valey and Gerardo? I gave him the crates. I'm being the perfect henchstallion and playing along with everything. And then, when the explosions start, we'll see where the dice fall... but I'm betting the Spirit of Sosa are going to attack. And I'll be there to stop them! Even with the yaks gone, I'll be a city-wide hero who rebelled against my boss and restored order, just like the old legends of Blazing Rain. I'm going to save the entire Stone District from the threat of mass vengeance and pillaging, and everyone will be too indebted to me to allow the Defense Force to dissolve. It will make me the hero of Ironridge forever, and I won't have to answer to that scheming yak or pretend to share power with you ever again! I'll even get to put some nice mares in the Defense Force again. Doesn't that sound like a good plan?"
Maple's eyes widened. "You want to let things escalate to a conflict just so that you can be the one to get credit for stopping it? But what about all the ponies you're supposed to protect!?"
"I'm supposed to protect the Stone District. Nobody said anything about the lower two..."
"So, uhh..." Valey got up, sashaying toward the terminal. "I don't know if you're expecting me to be blown away by the evilness of your plans or what, but can we go now? Because otherwise I'm just going to shadow sneak us all through the door, and I happen to know this one isn't proofed against that. We're only here because you're entertaining, and I'm starting to get bored."
"Hmmph," Selma growled. "My throat's getting sore from talking like that anyway. Regardless, I have an offer for you, Valey."
"My ears are fuzzy," Valey chirped.
"...Right. I don't like you, you don't like me, and neither of us like Herman. Presently, none of the Defense Force know you're no longer employed. Perhaps you'd like to get out quietly, or perhaps you'd like them to all come down on your tail so you can beat them up one last time. But if you stay out of my way and don't interfere with my plans, I'll keep your treacherous little secret and let you get out of Ironridge unscathed. It's your deal to call. I'll keep my end until you break yours."
Valey nodded. "Cool, cool. Maybe I'll take you up on that. Anything else?"
"I really would like to hear you scream in annoyance... but it appears that's off the table. Good bye, and good riddance."
The communications array went silent, and Valey shrugged, holding up her card key. "Well? Anyone want to bet on whether that loser is letting us out?"
Maple shuffled nervously, and Gerardo said nothing. Valey took that as a yes, flicking the card once again through the reader. It beeped red... and then, with a flurry of static, the array crackled back on for a long burst of Selma's laughter. Then it went dead again.
"Har har," Valey droned. "He's camping it. Either that or he left a recording. Hmm..."
She tried her card again, only to be met with the exact same cackle. "Heh." Valey put the card back in her hat. "Points for him trying, at least. But I can totally do a better evil laugh than that. Anyway, shadow sneak time. Who wants to go first?"
"I've got something to try, actually," Maple announced, stepping toward the terminal. Digging around in the nebulous pocket of space that was her cutie mark, she found something she had stolen on the very first day while Selma's guards were carrying her into the Water District: the card key he had used to open a security door. She grinned, baring her teeth. "Let's see if he locked out his own card!"
Beep! The light glowed green, and the door hissed open.
"What!?" Selma's voice suddenly sparked over the array. "That's cheating!"
"Oh, so you were camping us, huh?" Valey leaned seductively against the terminal, grinning up at the camera. "Huh! And I thought you weren't even going to try. You are trying to annoy me, right? Sorry, it's the tiniest bit hard to tell..."
"Rrrgh..." the terminal growled. "This is why I hate you! Why can't you just let me have the last word for once? Get out of here and go! Good riddance, I said! Hurry up, the door is right there! It's even open!"
Valey got to her hooves, using the terminal as a step and sticking her face right in front of the camera. "Ehh... nah. Remember, I don't like you either. Here's a lesson, though: if you want to make others uncomfortable, you have to be totally shameless... like this!"
Happily, she started licking the camera lens.
"Aaargh! Ew! What the...?" Selma's voice flailed. "I didn't need to see that! You killjoy!"
The array clicked off, and Valey hopped back down, spitting. "Bleh, that tasted nasty. Totally worth it, though. I bet he's gone. Also, we're probably gonna have to deal with goons because of that, but..." She shrugged. "This is my home turf, so we'll be fine. And like I said, totally worth. Cool card trick, by the way, Ironflanks. Anyway, everyone ready?"
She was met with no resistance from the others, so they strolled out the door and into the rest of the Flame District.
Maple, Valey and Gerardo were scarcely past the door Selma had locked, charging down a corridor of hazy air and red rocks, when Howe began to stir.
"Blargh! What...? Where...?" the pegasus sputtered, thrashing and falling off Gerardo's back. "Ow!"
"Heya, Pancake!" Valey rounded on him with a wink. "Look who finally decided to wake up just as normal ponies are going to bed!"
"Excluding us, it seems," Gerardo mused. "Regardless, thank you for coming to. I was beginning to fear I'd have to carry you through this entire cave network, and it was a daunting prospect!"
"Someone blew me up!" Howe exclaimed, climbing to a sitting position. "It was... It was... My noble head hurts." His eyes focused on Valey. "Oh no. It's you!"
"Sorry to hear you bonked your brain, Pancake," Valey consoled. "Long story short, stuff went down, I'm on your side, and we're bailing from Ironridge." She squinted. "At least, I'm on Starlight's side. You turned out to be a good guy, right? I'm guessing since you were with them, they decided you weren't a loon?"
From atop Maple's back, Starlight's eyes widened. "Did you just say my real name?"
"Buh?" Valey went cross-eyed, then rubbed the back of her neck. "I, uhh... Huh. You mean like as opposed to Ironflanks or Pancake? Yeah, I guess I did." She grinned teasingly. "Sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time."
"For your information," Howe interrupted, looking peeved, "I am no mere water fowl! I bear intellect critical to the success of this mission, and my loyal comrades have welcomed me with open hooves!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey smirked. "Like what?"
Howe crossed his forelegs, hovering and looking away. "Like how to free you from your imprisonment, for instance! Without me, you could very well still be locked away, starving and withering into a shambling corpse!"
"Oh. Cool, cool..." Valey turned away, whistling. Eventually, she looked back over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "You guys do trust him, right?"
"Hmmph," Howe snorted. "I am certainly more trustworthy than you! Lest we not forget, I have never thrown the other's friends, relatives, or allies in jail!"
Gerardo winced. "Actually, I believe that happened the second time we met..."
"You kind of did..." Maple added crossly, frowning at him. "I forgave you because you said you were sorry and I needed allies, but that doesn't mean you were supposed to forget!"
"I, uhhh..." Howe's jaw dropped. "Wow. Okay, then! That was my blunder, and I apologize for it! I will... swallow my own mistrust of you and agree to stand at your side. I must really have egg on my face, mustn't I...?" He groaned, covering his eyes with a wing.
"Yeah, your face is pretty eggable," Valey jived, apparently not ready to let Howe's blunder go so easily. "Flattenable, too. And kinda edgy. What's this about me busting one of your pals, though?"
"No thank you!" Howe drew a wing across his chest, striding pompously away. "This pegasus enjoys having a third dimension, and I will not allow a repeat of my prior pounding. And before you make fun of my mane, you have the dark-and-edgy aesthetic going on yourself, Miss Black-and-Green!" He blinked. "Also, did you forget my loyal brother Neon Nova already? That is highly rude."
"Neon Nova?" Valey blinked. "That lemon bag was your fault? I mean, brother?" She grinned. "Oh yeah, I knew that! Silly me. Tell him I owe him one if you see him. I hadn't gotten to bust anyone up for like a whole day before him, and he was good sport."
Howe trembled with indignity. "Why you..."
Maple stuck herself between the two, blocking their views of each other. "Please, no fighting!" she demanded with a stomp. "Howe, in our defense, he was being a criminal, we didn't know he was supposed to be helping us at the time, we didn't know you were helping us at the time, and both of you hardly go out of your ways to look trustworthy or like good guys! What were we supposed to do?"
"I, uhh..." Howe fidgeted. "Well, when you put it like that..."
"Let's put it this way," Valey offered, jumping over Maple so she was staring Howe face-to-face. "What are the odds that, if we happened to run into him for no reason whatsoever, he'd make himself useful? Hypothetically speaking, of course. Just in case I had him locked up in pretty much the exact place we are now."
Howe's eyes widened. "Are you for realsies?"
Valey tapped a hoof. "Depends what it would get me and my friends."
"Well..." Howe shrugged. "Considering as I had already resigned myself to leaving this city with neither my brother nor our precious heirlooms, and am already assisting the lovely Maple in return for one of them in payment..." He grinned. "I've no insight on the desires that stir your heart, but would be willing to grant most anything you could imagine!"
"First off, put a lid on that imagination of yours," Valey instructed. "You're not my type. Second, me and Ironflanks are keeping your sound stones; they're spiffy. Third, unless you do something stupidly noble and heroic, you're not following us once we leave this city... though I might change my mind, like if Ironflanks thinks you're a big enough charity case. And finally..." She tapped her cutie mark. "I'll know if either of you are planning something against us, and you won't have a good time. Savvy?"
"You have yourselves a deal!" Howe pumped a hoof, eyes burning with intensity. "I swear it on my father's noble journey, the Howenator will not fail you!"
"Cool." Valey started back down the corridor, nudging Maple as she passed. "Hope you're cool with that too, Ironflanks. I mean, knowing you, you probably trust him with your life already, but having my help means I decide what's dangerous."
Maple sighed, shaking her head. "I don't mind. My ears might, if we don't start getting more friends that can talk without trying to be the center of attention, but that's neither here nor there..."
With a rusty squeal, the gate to a cell much like the one everyone else had been deposited in swung open, causing the unicorn inside to blink himself awake. "Say whaaa...?" Neon Nova looked around, yellow eyes flicking back and forth nervously without their usual sunglasses.
"Guess who it is, biological brother-of-mine!" Howe stepped out from behind a wall with a dastardly smirk on his face, kicking the door wide open. "It is I, the Howenator! And I have come to rescue you!"
Neon Nova blinked harder. "Boss?"
"Umm... yeah." Howe stood in the cell door, waiting. "Anyway, it... turns out we've both been fired. However, I have a new contract with one of the hearts as promised payment. So we will at least retrieve one from the yaks' vile clutches!"
"You're pullin' Neon Nova's tail, aren't you?" Neon gaped, his white performer's suit still hanging in tatters from his tall frame. "That's outrageous! You mean our luck's turned right back around!?" He sprung to his hooves... then winced heavily. "Owowowow! Still... sore..."
Valey stepped into view behind Howe, wearing an obviously-fake smile. "Hey there, generator boy. Guess who else it is!"
Neon Nova paled. "Aw, shucks! It's you!"
"Technically, you could say, 'It's you,' to anyone and still be correct," Valey pointed out. "Anyway, by some crazy fluke Pancake and I are now allied, and as long as you don't try to mess with me or my friends, we figured we'd see if you wanted to be helpful."
"I still feel like... I've been put through a meat grinder because of you..." Neon gasped, potentially overplaying his pain... but Valey didn't want to stake any bets on it.
She shrugged. "Hey, don't worry, it was all in good fun. Also, me on your side. Cool?"
"This could be our one chance to get out of here with our hides intact," Howe offered. "Join me, and together we will escape from this accursed landscape!"
Gerardo sidled up as well. "I recommend accepting. Also, did he call you Boss?"
"It's..." Howe nervously shuffled. "A very long story involving more than one failed romantic relationship. Please, refrain from asking."
"Not when you put it like that," Valey snorted, still eyeing the pair suspiciously. "Anyway, choice? We're in a hurry, here."
"Well, hey, take me with you!" Neon Nova urged, hobbling out the door. "Just because we live in a cave back in Yakyakistan doesn't mean I want to die in one!"
"You... live in a cave," Maple dubiously said.
"Also a long story." Howe pointed a wing at her. "Which we can, perhaps, tell once the stakes are a little lower. In the meantime, onward!"
Valey led the way, being the only member of the group who knew their way around the Flame District's upper reaches. Eventually, however, they reached a long, straight corridor with no turnoffs, and she took the opportunity to slip backward, falling in next to Maple.
"...Yes?" Maple asked, the batpony drawing uncomfortably close.
"He mentioned a heart," Valey whispered, just loud enough for Maple to pick it up. "What exactly did you promise him? This is important."
Maple's heart slowed as she realized Valey didn't know about what she had liberated from the crate that first night in the Defense Force fort. "A windigo heart," she whispered back. "One of two. I stole it from those crates Selma stole from Gerardo. I didn't get the other. Why?"
Valey's face remained stoic, but her voice grew even quieter. "Yeah. That's what I was afraid of."
"Why?" Maple asked, feeling a chill. "Do you know what they're used for?"
"You had it on you earlier," Valey said. "But you don't now. That's why you smelled funny when you left the Stone District. You tried hiding it in your cutie mark."
"Don't tell them," Maple urged back. "Howe doesn't know I hid it." After hesitating, she added, "Why? What do you know about them?"
"It's lucky you're okay," Valey whispered. "Those things are like moon glass. Cutie marks and them... well, mixing them is for mad scientists. Anyway, if we have the chance, give me any you find before we leave. I know someone who can get rid of them. If not, I hope you hid it well."
"Why?" Maple paled. "What do they do?"
"That's what Yakyakistan wanted to find out when I lived there," Valey answered lowly. "Beats me what they've figured out since then... but of all the stuff they knew when I left, none of it was good."
Valey pouted, having been unable to keep her conversation with Maple as quiet as she wanted. Pressed by Gerardo to explain what she knew, she grumpily narrated, "Windigo hearts are pretty much concentrated badness. Hatred, despair, stupidity... you name it. Beats me where they come from; they're from before I was... around. Maybe they come from actual windigoes, or maybe they're fake."
"Fake?" Howe drew up indignantly, still walking so as not to get left behind. "Whose sacred heirlooms are you calling fakes, fraud?"
"I mean artificial," Valey droned. "Made by ponies, yaks, whatever. Like I said, beats me. Either way, they're also really hard to destroy, and that was something the yaks figured out how to do. Turns out, all you need is a pony, and, well..." She glared, avoiding eye contact with everyone. "You don't need to know the specifics. The harder part was getting the pony to survive, because otherwise, it doesn't break. But if they do, and when it does, it removes that pony's cutie mark."
"It does who to the what now?" Neon Nova blinked, limping along and favoring all four legs.
"She means brands," Howe sagely replied. "It is a... form of lingo my comrades have taken to using. I can't quite sniff out the meaning myself, but I'm sure it is very important!"
"Whatever." Valey rolled her eyes. "The point is, as far as I know, the marks would just reappear after a minute or two, so it wasn't much of a setback. Once the moon glass happened, though, they figured out you could catch the marks in an empty piece and that would stop them from coming back..." She raised an eyebrow at Maple. "Sound familiar, Ironflanks?"
Maple gasped inwardly, recalling that Shinespark had said Valey found out everything on her own... She was testing to see if Shinespark had told her about her cutie mark, and how Braen was powered. She nodded. "Yes. I've heard of it. Yakyakistan invented that?"
Valey shrugged. "Eh, something like that. Anyway, after they figured that out, the yaks started treating the hearts like a precious resource instead of hazardous waste, since mark loss went from a temporary side effect to something they could exploit... at least in the place I lived. They hoarded them and started doing all sorts of crazy experiments with cutie marks. It was a research station way out in the mountains on the eastern edge of the glacier. Prime middle-of-nowhere kind of place. What were they doing? I dunno. What would you do if you could separate your soul from your body?" She shivered. "I left before it was even a year old, and came straight here. One of the upsides to working in Ironridge is that moon glass is super rare, so I don't have to deal with it much."
But it was still there, Maple reminisced, thinking of White Chocolate. Pointedly, she didn't let her mind wander down the paths of what a markless pony could do... but Howe did for her.
"Remove your very soul?" He scratched at his head. "Well, I suppose I would seal it somewhere safe! Would that protect me from perishing were I to be tragically eviscerated?"
"Wouldn't that turn you all zombified?" Neon Nova asked, tilting his head. "If you took the little pony in your head and locked them up outside?"
Gerardo tapped a talon. "Are you quite sure a pony's mark and their soul are one and the same? What of those many who never earn theirs, or, like griffons, who cannot? Even were one to hold a position of some type of superiority, even ponies who do manifest marks spend the earlier stage of their life without! This all seems quite mysterious..."
"One question at a time!" Valey shouted, muttering under her breath. "You guys are incorrigible. If Selma really wanted to get under my coat, he should have just pestered me with questions..."
She coughed once they were silent. "All right. I dunno if you can make yourself immortal. I'd be surprised if that wasn't something they tried. You don't go all noodly, you're just like you were when you didn't have a mark. And Birdo, I seriously have no clue. Now do you mind? I don't know a lot about this, I hate not knowing stuff, and that's why I didn't want to talk about it in the first place! Point is, bad stuff is bad. The end." Sullenly, she walked away.
Maple chased after her, the group still wandering through the Flame District tunnels. "Valey, wait!" Her hooves pounded against stone as she drew up alongside her. "Is there anything else bad you know they can do? I know you said they were considered hazardous waste before the moon glass was found. We really could use knowing what the yaks want them for."
"Yeah," Valey sighed. "They could make ponies fight over them."
Maple's eyes widened, and she glanced back at Howe and Neon Nova.
"Pretty much." Valey shrugged. "I have no idea how. Maybe they're telepathic, and alive somehow. Maybe they just have an effect on nearby emotions. I can't detect when I'm near them, but I can detect ponies under their influence, so I'm guessing it's the latter. Fortunately, you're so meticulously nice that I really doubt you had any problems with it."
Visions of the past things she had done with the orb surfaced in Maple's mind, making her squirm uncomfortably. In the Water District, while robbing the crates... was that why she and Starlight had taken it, instead of what she presumed was moon glass? Had White Chocolate had any qualms about giving it back to her? Would anyone be drawn to it, sitting in her cabin on Shinespark's ship? Had Gerardo even put it there? She clenched her eyes, grimacing. Even simply being told was making her doubt her friends.
Finally, she considered how carrying it had made her feel. She had become exhausted to the point of collapse, weary with muscle pains and gaining no energy from long periods of rest in the motorized cart and at White Chocolate's house. Perhaps her cutie mark had somehow shielded her from the heart's magic, and caused it to take a physical toll on her body instead? She hoped that was the case. At least that would mean the damage had worn off.
"Then again," Valey continued, "think about someone who isn't all friends-with-everything. Someone who already has it in for someone else, and is just looking for a reason to fight. Maybe food is scarce... That's a really big problem for ponies in Yakyakistan. It's not a very big influence, but if tensions are already high, it can be all that's needed to push something over the edge. From there, you get superstitions, and going on from those..." She kicked into a faster pace, pulling a few steps ahead. "Yeah, they wound up with a reputation."
"Hmm..." Gerardo was following along behind. "I suppose this could line up with what we know. A conflict in the Water District seems nigh inevitable, as Selma seeks to profit off it and fully believes it will happen. We lack any knowledge of Herman's motivation for starting such a battle, but the fact that these hearts can apparently cause wars of their own is cause for correlation. But if the effect is as minor as you say, why would they go to such extreme lengths to procure some, and then ship them as the centerpiece in this plan?"
Howe shrugged. "My, uhh... sacred intellect pales at this problem. Comrades? Any suggestions?"
"The way I see it," Gerardo continued, talons clicking against the floor, "is that this conflict will be on a much larger scale than what the hearts are known to create, yet still much smaller than the entire city... so far. Thus, I can see two explanations. One is that the yaks seek to amplify the power of the heart somehow to broaden its effect, thus expanding any conflict that is sparked... though that still doesn't explain the why, and could also be achieved through easier means. Furthermore, we have no clue how such a thing would be accomplished."
His eyes shone brightly in their sockets as he prepared to finish. "On the other side, it is entirely possible that... and forgive me for my uneducated scientific flailing... it could be less that the hearts are a catalyst for the war so much that the war is a catalyst for the hearts."
"Buh?" Valey stared sideways at him, along with everyone else.
"Erm..." Gerardo fidgeted under their stares. "What I mean to say is, if the hearts are capable of affecting conflict, perhaps conflict is capable of affecting the hearts? Valey postulated that they could have been created in the first place, rather than actual organs from demons of myth. What if the entire purpose of driving the districts to blows is to create a source of disharmony and strife to... enhance them somehow? Perhaps for some experiment bringing them closer to their ultimate goal that requires something more powerful than the existing hearts?"
Everyone continued staring at him.
"You know," Neon Nova pointed out, "there's a big, fat old war goin' on up in Varsidel right now. If a little punch-punch-pow is all it takes, why not slip on up there and borrow that old stuff?"
"I, well..." Gerardo hesitated. "In truth, I have no idea. I suppose that's a hole in my theory, isn't it?" He grinned crookedly. "While we're speculating about Varsidel, though, I did happen to adventure there many years ago. It was a politically... interesting place, and I'm not completely baffled by its present state of war. That said, their conflict was just beginning when I left the final port of civilization on my seaward journey to Ironridge, and as such I'm quite behind on the news. Does anyone know for certain that Yakyakistan is not behind the war there, as well?"
Maple's ears folded. "Are you saying you think Yakyakistan is trying to send the rest of the world to war, or something? Like... Like what happened forty years ago?"
"I can't say that I am." Gerardo shook his head. "Did we have this conversation before? I have a vague memory of it being stated by myself or another that the last yak war was an internal affair... Regardless, however, I'd wish them luck in attempting to destabilize or conquer the rest of the world, because they would fail. Not only are the Plains of Harmony virtually inaccessible, but the Griffon Empire is far too stable and geographically removed from their clout for the yaks to have any bearing there."
Maple sadly smirked. "You know, I recall a certain someone telling us Ironridge was far too stable for anything to happen while we were here when we were deciding to go, too..."
Gerardo chuckled nervously. "Well, Ironridge doesn't very well have a millennia-old goddess protecting it, does it? The peacekeeping abilities of economic councils, foreign powers and intense regional animosity pale in comparison to someone who's seen everything before."
"Well, the Plains of Harmony are also protected by the mountains," Maple sighed. "Though they do sound like a place I'd like to visit some day... I was talking about the Griffon Empire, though."
A smug grin spread across Gerardo's face. "Ah, well, you see... so was I!"
Maple nearly tripped.
"Are you pulling the Howenator's tail?" Howe asked, incredulous. "You mean to say that you found a rock to grow up under where you never even heard of the griffon goddess?"
Gerardo nodded sagely. "Such places certainly exist, though I'm mildly surprised you haven't at least come across mention of her in your life. Filling you in, I imagine, will be most-"
"Hey, can the chatter!" Valey suddenly hissed, pulling against a wall. The rumble of machinery was loud in the air, vibrations seemingly coming up through the floor, and the air temperature was steadily increasing. "We're at the part where we have to either sneak, look like we belong here, or beat up anyone who gets in our way, and even me being me I'd really prefer the ways that don't leave trails right now!"
Unhappily, Gerardo shut his beak, leaving Maple wondering just when she'd get another chance to ask.
The corridor Maple and her friends were traveling through opened abruptly into a wide room, the floor and ceiling plated with reinforced metal and several exposed support columns holding the whole thing up. The far wall consisted of a series of long, soot-stained windows... beyond which a familiar sight burned.
Making sure the way was clear, Maple crossed to them, putting one hoof against the thick glass and looking down into the central drilling chamber. Cylindrical and so far across the catwalks on the far wall looked like writing on a book, it plunged downward, a mechanical shaft more than thrice the radius of her Riverfall house hanging from the nearby ceiling and delving into the smoky, orange abyss. Hundreds of pipes spanned the distance between the walls and the column in maze-like tangles, meeting in junctions or boxes with vents that belched everything from clean air to open flame and acting themselves as supports for yet more catwalks.
She felt a whine building in her throat. "We're going to have to go through there, aren't we?"
"Yep." Valey patted her on the back with a wing, grinning contentedly. "Whoever built the flame barracks figured it would be smart not to make them too easy to get into or out of. Can't really blame them. But hey, as long as you're not afraid of heights, are cool with bad air quality, have no problems with sensory overload, don't mind getting roasted, and are confident you won't fall off if we get into a fight, you'll be fine! Seriously, I hang out here all the time."
Howe was nearly biting his hooves in glee. "This looks like such an awesome place to build a secret lair...!"
Valey raised an eyebrow at him. "Hey, good for you, Pancake. Now, one more door this way..."
She hadn't been kidding about the heat, Maple realized as a sliding double-door hissed open, exposing the group to the Flame District core. They stood on a metal balcony near the very roof of the cavern, and between the array of wagon-sized ventilation outtake fans covering the roof and the quantity of heat-powered machines operating below, they were essentially standing in a giant chimney. Acrid smoke mixed with clear steam drifted upwards in visible trails toward the powerful suction fans, and Maple could practically see a hot wind rising where the platform ended not three steps in front of her. Unlike the jungle heat of the Earth District, it was a dry heat... which would have made it more tolerable if she wasn't instantly parched. The air irritated her throat enough, as it was.
"Very well," Gerardo announced, bravely stepping to the railing. "I assume you can point Howe and myself to our destination, or at least lead the way? Of the six of us, three are fliers, and I'd very much like to be in and out of this infernal place as swiftly as possible. How ponies work here day-to-day, I can't even begin to comprehend."
"Are you sure about that, Birdo?" Valey looked hesitantly at him. "If we do, dibs on Starlight. But I don't really think that's the best idea."
Gerardo opened his beak to reply, but was interrupted by a pouty Starlight. "Dibs on me? Why?"
Valey shrugged. "Because I'm tired of lugging Shades around..." She pointed to Neon Nova. "And Ironflanks would probably worry I was feeling her up. Also, she's super fat. And you convinced me to come along, so I'm your problem. Besides, would you rather be carried by Pancake?"
"Oh." Starlight looked away. "That makes sense."
"I take offense to that," Howe imperiously began, before Maple cut him off.
"I got rid of the stuff I was carrying, okay!?" She stomped a hoof. "I'm not heavy anymore! You don't have to keep calling me that!"
"As for flying..." Valey tapped the ground, pre-empting Gerardo's question. "Look at it this way. There are three fliers and three who can't, meaning no spares. Conditions out there are pretty fatiguing, pretty gross, pretty much every synonym for bad... so there's a decent chance someone would drop someone else and maybe themselves, too. Who's gonna catch them? Nobody. And if I'm feeling up to playing doom roulette, having to kiss either Selma or Herman would be a funner set of outcomes than all the random stuff there is down there to land on. If we hoof it, it'll be slower, but then there will be three of us who can catch anyone if they trip and fall."
Gerardo paled, which was difficult given the heat. "An excellent point. As urgent as our mission may be, it sounds as if walking very well may be worth the time after all!"
"I suppose you could fly us across in trips," Maple offered. "Howe and Gerardo take Neon Nova across, then leave him there and the three of you can fly me and Starlight. That way, there would always be one extra in case anyone needed help."
Valey looked her seriously in the eyes, the first walkway out into the metal maze shimmering in the heat behind her. "Are you sure about that? We'd be more likely to survive, but there's still just the same possibility someone will slip. Do you like scares, Ironflanks? I hear skydiving without wings is pretty spooky..."
Starlight nodded, eyes wide.
"I think we'll be all right." Maple squared her shoulders, boldly meeting the sight of the cavern. "We're in a hurry, and the faster we get through this place, the better. I trust that you won't drop us."
Valey stared... and shrugged. "Is anyone adamantly not cool with this?"
Neon Nova raised a hoof. "The boss and I used to fly around together all the time as a mode of easy transportation! We've got this act down."
"Anyone else?" Valey glanced around.
"I'm reasonably confident in both my grip and my lift," Gerardo offered, indicating his talons and ruffling his large griffon wings. "I know Starlight can attest that I've safely carried before not only her, but others simultaneously."
Starlight nodded at that.
"Well, cool." Valey shrugged again. "I know I know my way around this place. Pancake, let's take Shades first. I'd send you with Birdo so I can stay here and stand guard, but someone needs to show you the way. Birdo, guard Ironflanks and Starlight, avoid confrontations and bust up anyone who messes with you anyway. We'll be as fast as Pancake can manage."
As the three flew off, Maple waited, sitting at the edge of the platform and watching tensely. The thought crossed her mind that she could ask Gerardo then what he had been about to say about the Griffon Empire's goddess, but between her nervous fixation on Valey and Howe's distant forms and the all-permeating rumble in her ears, conversation was the last thing she thought she could stomach. Machines ground against each other beneath the orange-lit cloud curtain below, emitting harsh screeches and clangs that sent vibrations all the way through the platform she was waiting on, and she wondered just how much of her request had been influenced by a desire to clear the room quickly. Probably almost all of it, she decided. The Flame District wasn't a place she wanted to spend a moment longer in than she had to.
She must have slipped into a heat-induced trance, because before she knew it, Valey and Howe were back, the latter panting slightly. "All good," Valey snapped, sounding as if the heat was getting to her, too. "He's hanging out by the elevator we need. Want to do the rest in two trips or one?"
"Well..." Maple looked them over, considering.
"Birdo is carrying Starlight, period," Valey demanded. "Either way. He's safest. And I'm the fastest, so I need to go solo since I'll be the best backup. Ironflanks, either that means you go with Pancake, or you wait here, alone or with him, for us to get back."
"I'm coming," Maple instantly said. Waiting would mean an extra trip ... and she wasn't sure how much more of the Flame District she could take. No reason to keep the others waiting, either.
Howe crouched down for her to climb on his back. "As you wish!" He saluted with a wing, a few beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. "Honestly, the faster we can get out of this accursed place, the better off I'll be, too..."
Maple climbed on, suffering a recollection of the crash landing she had suffered in the Earth District on their entry the day before, when Valey had tried to lift both her heavier self and Starlight simultaneously and failed spectacularly. They lifted off, hot winds blasting upward as they cleared the platform, and she instantly found herself second-guessing the decision to fly... but Howe kept from wobbling too much, and held their course steady.
One quarter of the way there. The destination was completely on the opposite side, blocked from view by the central drill column, and they were just starting to round it. Gerardo glided powerfully beside her, Starlight clutched tightly in his talons... and the filly clearly knew what to expect, eyes braced against the wind and body limp, carefully not wriggling.
Almost halfway. "Whoo," Howe panted as they weaved between a pipe and the catwalk it supported. "I don't... see why Valey calls you Ironflanks, but I'm... sure glad this is the last trip..."
"Not a reassuring thing to say!" Maple reminded, holding him tightly as he dipped, flapping harder to make up lost altitude. Gerardo glanced in their direction.
"Yo, Pancake!" Valey flitted past. "You're flagging, and that's making my mark go off!"
"Nonsense," Howe chuckled, gasping. "I'm merely-"
CLANGGG!
His forehooves dipped too low, clipping the railing of an incoming walkway and causing him to flip forward from momentum. Howe plowed into the metal grate, faceplanting heavily and catching his mane in its latticed grating, but Maple was catapulted off, missing the far railing and sailing over the edge. She barely had time to gasp before gravity caught up with her, and she was falling.
Zooooom! A trail of green instantly bolted past her... or perhaps it took forever, her sense of time imploding as she twirled through the air, unable even to orient herself to the direction she was falling. Something pony-sized and fuzzy latched onto her side and applied torque, and with a rush of vertigo, the spinning stopped. She couldn't see where they had fallen from... but she could clearly make out an array of fire-belching pipe vents they were hurtling towards, attached to some fiendish piece of machinery reaching from the central column to a wall.
With a whistle of wings so loud it pierced the mechanical din of the cavern, their trajectory adjusted, and they shot through a hole between the pipes. She became aware that Valey was beating her wings, trying to slow their momentum... but they were still speeding impossibly fast, and this time, a massive, grated platform was rushing up from below, lit from beyond by chaotic orange and far too wide for Valey to simply dodge. Maple clung closer, squeezed her eyes shut...
A rush of something that felt like hot ice water passed over her senses, and she briefly considered that she had died, but the double-strength fiery updraft said no. She opened her eyes and looked up. The grate was receding above them; somehow they had passed through it... and she recognized the sensation as belonging to Valey's shadow sneak. The batpony had used her ability to catch them on the bottom-lit surface, and for reasons that made her head hurt, they had been able to fit through the lattice and emerge on the other side.
Valey's wings were locked into a glide, yanking them upwards, trying to convert their downwards momentum into horizontal. It worked with shocking efficiency, sending them into such a fast hurtle sideways that Maple became just as worried she would meet her end against a wall as she had been with the floor. Their turn continued until they were shooting roughly upwards... and at last, they collapsed onto a chunk of steel protruding from the central column, momentum completely spent. Valey flipped at the last second, shielding Maple's landing with her body, and then not getting up.
"Uggghh..." Maple groaned, trying to reconcile her stomach with the feat of acrobatics she had just been forced through, not moving either.
"Hey, uhh..." Valey's fuzzy form said from beneath her. "I know I just saved your life, and that cuddling's your thing, and all, but maybe you could get off and thank me later? I've got an injury check to do, and from the feel of my wings, we're going to be walking the rest of the way to the elevator."
Maple shook herself, heart beating far too quickly. She was alive, and that was what mattered... and that Valey was alive too. The black mare was still checking herself, tugging her limbs one by one and making faces.
Eventually, Valey stood up. "All right," she said, "one of my wings got wrenched pretty bad. It'll be fine, and should still work in an emergency, but I'll need to stay off it for it to get better, and the longer I wait to do that, the longer it's gonna take." She stared up into the smoky heights of the cavern, wings coiled firmly at her sides. "Even if they were fine, I'm not really sure I'd be down for flying you back up there in the first place."
Maple's ears folded in resignation. "I... guess I shouldn't have suggested flying in the first place. Sorry."
"I'm pretty ticked at you for that," Valey mentioned, walking past her. They were on a solid platform connected to the central machine shaft, and her ears were perked toward a bank of flickering terminals connected to a wall of pipes and wires. "Not as ticked as I am at Pancake for dropping you, but still. I decide to bail on my job... a complete and total license to do what I want, as well as security from all the bozos who want to see me at the bottom of a lake... to hang out with you guys, and the first thing you do is take a dumb gamble and make me save your life. What's the payoff? Being faster? A better chance to, I dunno, go tell Herman and Selma how much of jerks they are at the Water District?" Her green eyes flashed back at Maple. "If I cared about that, I wouldn't be ditching Ironridge. What I'm interested in is your safety, and not much else."
"You're more concerned about me than yourself," Maple said, following her. "Even though you got hurt and I'm fine."
Valey reached the terminals, staring at them. "Yeah? You've officially hired yourself as my reason for living, haven't you? Stay safe, don't do anything dumb, and it'll make my job a lot easier."
Suddenly, there was a great boom from far, far below, as if a house-sized boulder had fallen and impacted the floor. The terminals all flashed. Maple gasped, glancing around... and her eyes fell on a series of fire vents on a complex metal appendage that stretched from the core to the wall. As one, their flames slowed, withered, and retreated, until even the orange glow from within died out. The room's rumbling still resonated in each of her internal organs, but it was noticeably less than before.
"...Did you do that?" She swallowed, looking again at the terminals behind Valey.
"Nah." The batpony tapped something on them with her good wing, watching as lines and numbers sped past on a two-tone display. "...Huh. Looks like there's a shutdown sequence in progress. I was wondering why there were so few ponies present. Must be getting ready to begin a maintenance cycle, or something. Kind of hard to crawl around in tubes that are full of water, steam or fuel."
As Maple continued to stare, Valey moved up beside her, sitting by the railing and looking out over the pit. Eventually, not making eye contact, she said, "You know what the biggest difference between batponies and other kinds of ponies is?"
That got Maple's attention. "What?"
"Our cutie marks," Valey replied, shifting so that the boxing glove on her flank was more visible. "Normal ponies... Well, you know how they work. But we're born with our marks, without fail. There's no such thing as a batpony without a mark."
Maple pursed her lips. "Really...?"
"Yeah." Valey continued looking away. "It's not a 'you figure out you like doing this' kind of deal. And typically... at least as far as I know... we really do like doing whatever it is. Mine is obviously for fighting, and if you don't get that, go think about how I creamed Shades back in Blueleaf. But the thing is... I need something to fight for. That used to be keeping Ironridge from blowing itself to smithereens... which is kinda ironic, when you think about it, since it's basically a mark for destroying stuff. Before that, it was something else. Odds are, it'll change again in the future. Right now, it's you."
She stood up, setting her sights on a catwalk leading into the rising fumes. "I figured you were going to chide me about being self-deprecating, saying you were my reason for living. That's why. Thought I'd save your breath. Now let's get out of here! I don't like what this is doing to my mood."
Walking across the narrow, grated catwalks of the Flame District core brought a hot wind rising against Maple's belly, curling the hairs of her coat and making her dance slightly from contact with the hot metal. The floor wasn't latticed to improve traction, she realized, but to create less contact area to transfer heat to hooves.
Valey had insisted they walk side-by-side, since she both knew the way and didn't want to let Maple out of her sight. Both being thin, average-sized mares, they managed it, but the walkway clearly wasn't designed to let two barrel-chested stallions pass by without extreme maneuvering. The likes of Arambai might not even fit, period. Maple imagined it must have mostly been maintenance work that far up, with the bulk of the heavy equipment and machinery being in use farther below.
"This place's design is pretty cool," Valey rambled, explaining the workings of the drill to pass the time, apparently not in the least starved for breath. "The central column's built out of these rings, with the actual drill at the very bottom. They build a new ring on at the bottom in a collapsed form, and once it's done, it expands, lowering the drill further and making room to build the next one between the drill and the finished column. While they go down, each ring has this arm that can rotate all the way around and drill into the walls with a really long reach, basically letting them strip-mine and cover far more ground than just this shaft. Really, the entire point of the main drill is just to make more room for the strip-mining rings. They're the flame belchers you see all over the place, and the reason it's fierier at the bottom is because the ground there is fresher and richer, so there's more there to mine and they run them harder."
"How do you know all this?" Maple asked, realizing after a second of delay that Valey wanted to turn left at an intersection. "I thought you were more interested in security than technology."
"Eh. I come down here for flying practice." Valey grinned. "Before you ask, that's how I knew the trick with the grate would work. And if that look on your face means you think I took so long saving you because I was showing off, nah. You're just heavy. Ironflanks." She stuck her tongue out. "Nyaah."
Maple recoiled. "First off, I got rid of my ballast! But I was going to ask why you'd do something as insane as practicing in here."
"It isn't that insane when you can tell if there's a pipe heading for your head even with your eyes closed, you know." Valey patted her flank. "But the ponies who work here don't need to know that, and unless they have a personal grudge against me are usually like 'Wow, that's so cool!' and get kinda chatty, wanting to impress me back, show me up, whatever. So I hear a bunch of bragging about the drill." She waggled her eyebrows. "Also, this isn't Defense Force turf, which means mean old Selma can't fire all the mares."
"You... do it to impress..." Maple's eyes focused, and she shook her head. "Of course you do. Never mind. Forget I asked, even! Let's just hurry and-"
"Woah ho ho," Valey interrupted, eagerly brushing past her and charging ahead. "Hold that thought, Ironflanks. I think I just spotted someone I know!"
Valey cantered up to a platform where a mare was working, back to her and laying on her side, gripping a power tool in her teeth and servicing the insides of a terminal. She had an orange reflective vest, a hard hat covering a short-cropped shock of dirty pink mane, and a pair of safety goggles pushed up above her eyes, and was clearly doing her best to ignore the intrusion.
Unscrupulously, Valey leaned over her shoulder. "What'cha doooin'?"
"Replacing a burnt-out flux capacitor," the mare grunted, not looking away from her work.
"Huh. That's cool." Valey kept watching, showing off her complete lack of regard for personal space as Maple breathlessly caught up. "Sounds like some kind of candy. Do they taste good?"
The mare's jaw tightened. "This really isn't the best day for this, Valey," she muttered into the terminal's glowing guts. "Shouldn't you be on duty right now?"
"Why? What happened?" Valey backed away, leafy ears folding. It was clear to Maple that she was feigning, but she really had no idea how well the maintenance mare would be able to tell.
Sighing, the mare set down her tool and stood up, eyeing her up and down with a side glance at Maple. "Power failure," she sighed. "Came in a little after noon. It happened in Copsewood, according to the reports of the effected areas. Didn't last long, but enough to knock out some equipment." She shot the terminal a dirty look. "Probably sabotage by the Spirit bandits. Everyone knows they live there, and have apparently been rattling sticks all across the Earth District today. That's not usually my business, but when they break our equipment, it is. We need to do a full system reboot to get everything back online, and it's the delicate control equipment we use to do that that mostly got fried. At this rate, we'll just leave it off for a day or two until your Defense Force has dealt with everything, since otherwise it'll just happen again the moment we get everything up and running." Her eyes glinted dangerously at Valey. "Which is why I hope your flank has a good reason for being down here instead of dealing with the economic saboteurs you're supposed to keep us safe from."
Valey preened, completely nonchalant. "Yeah, it does."
The mare waited a few moments, eventually comprehending that Valey wasn't going to say what her reason was. Instead, she looked at Maple. "Oh. I get it. You're giving some overworld mare who's never seen this place a tour to impress her. Aren't you?" A slight smirk played across her muzzle, as if the situation was just funny enough to overcome its inconvenience.
Maple looked to Valey, uncomfortably wondering if she should play along.
"Hang on," the maintenance mare said, moving a few steps along the metal wall the terminal was affixed to and prying open a slightly heat-warped storage cabinet. She pulled out a hard hat in her teeth, tossing it by the strap to Maple. "Use that. Things fall from above all the time in this place, and that's enchanted to keep you safe." She shot Valey a disapproving glare. "Safety beats making someone feel above the rules. Unless you want to see your crush get crushed, use a little common sense. We like to keep a low accident rating around here." She slammed the door shut. "And for that, no hard hat for you."
As they argued, Maple focused on putting the hat on. Looking inside it, a comfortable mesh padding that smelled deeply of sweat and smoke covered a magical glow from beneath... a powered gemstone. The thing fit perfectly, clearly sized for a mare, her ears forced back snugly against her head. She was about to complain that it made it hard to hear when she realized how much nicer the Flame District was with the industrial cacophony muted, and a smile spread across her face.
Two straps magically attracted themselves together beneath her chin, fastening tightly with a clasp she could press with a hoof to undo. Whoever engineered the hats really had put a lot of work into them, she reflected. Now she just needed not to get hit on her unprotected back.
"So," Valey was saying, "the elevators are working, right? 'Cuz it sounds like now might not be the best time to wander around..."
"They were briefly offline," the maintenance mare replied. "Came back on by themselves. We did a safety check first thing, and they've been in service ever since. They're perfectly good to use."
"Cool, cool." Valey fanned herself with a wing. "I guess we'll get out of your mane, then. Come on, Ironflanks! Don't be slow!"
Eventually, they were well out of earshot of the maintenance mare, which wouldn't have taken long due to the din even if she hadn't been wearing the same kind of helmet as Maple. "Who was she?" Maple asked, trying to ignore the helmet's itching against her sweaty head.
"Buttermarsh?" Valey shrugged. "The grand champion of making dirty and hard-working look good. I might have pushed my luck a bit too far with her in the past, though. But still, by Ironridge standards, she's practically my biggest fan!"
Eventually, she added, "Sounds like your stunt to bust me out did a number on this place. Honestly, I've been too busy lurking and watching you in the flame barracks to check. Really, you'd think they'd be better equipped to deal with a two-second outage... It's probably because a lot of this place was designed like, if it works, don't question it and build something else on top of it. At least, that's my impression. Still, congratulations on bringing an entire district's economy to a daylong halt!"
If Maple's ears hadn't already been folded, they would have gone back. "All I wanted was..."
"Yeah, yeah. To save my rump." Valey blinked. "Actually, knowing you, you were probably more concerned about the rest of me, but still. The elevator's right there. Want to see if your friends were smart and patient and waited there for us?"
Maple sighed. "I sure hope they did..."
When the elevator doors slid open after a long ascent, Maple and Valey were met by Gerardo's very anxious face, Starlight close beside him and Howe tending to a host of bruises in the background. Neon Nova stood to the side, doing absolutely nothing.
"Friends!" Gerardo chirped, relief spreading across his expression. "I saw you fall and assumed Valey had everything under control, so I hurried Starlight to the elevator and rushed back as quickly as I could. Howe was still there, but I couldn't find any trace of you two, even with a lengthy search, and..." His headcrest drooped. "Well, let's just say I was considering our options for being without you."
"We're, uhh..." Valey blinked at all of them, turning so that her injured wing was in clear view, even though it looked completely normal. "Yeah, we're fine. I totally busted my wing, though. I can still use it, but..." She flexed it, wincing. "Might be better if I stayed off it as much as possible, so no more flight shenanigans. Fortunately, the way we're going now is down. Ready?"
"Ready," the three males echoed. Starlight had already slipped into the elevator and was pressed against Maple.
As Howe, Gerardo and Neon Nova filed in, Maple looked curiously at Valey. She had been far more open about her wing than Maple expected - she thought she would try to hide it, or play it off. Sighing, she sat down, feeling herself grow lighter as the elevator began to descend. Clearly, she had a lot more work to do to get to know Valey than merely trusting her if she wanted to be her friend.
"I notice," Gerardo said to Maple as the elevator began its descent, "that you've obtained for yourself a hat!"
Valey grinned, tapping her own beret with her good wing. "Hats are the best. We should find you one too, Birdo."
"Yes, I have..." Maple looked up at the brow of the hard hat obscuring the topmost part of her vision. Somehow, the elevator capsule was air conditioned, and the badly-needed rush of cool air had made her forget the itching of the padding against her mane... until Gerardo brought it up. "It's supposed to be magically armored," she added.
"Practical and stylish." Gerardo nodded. "I approve!"
"Well, it also isn't very comfortable," Maple grumbled, fiddling with it with a hoof to try to get her mane to settle down. "Unless we're going back into an area where things fall from above, or get into a fight where I need armor, I don't think I'll be wearing this a lot."
Deftly, she pocketed it... and instantly went rigid, a buzzing filling every inch of her body and triggering all the nerves she had at once. She tried to gasp and couldn't tell if she succeeded, feeling as if her conscience was disconnecting from her body to protect her sanity. Ten rapid heartbeats later, her mind adjusted to it, tuning out and dulling the alien sensation and giving her back control. It was still there, buzzing through her heart and veins like the harsh flicker of a dying manalamp, but it didn't hurt, and it wasn't overwhelming. It was just... strange.
Everyone else was looking at her in concern. "What happened?" she asked, trusting her balance enough to hold a hoof to her chest.
Valey blinked hopefully. "It looked like something turned you on!"
Pushing her aside, Gerardo concernedly asked, "I was hoping you could tell me."
"I don't know," Maple murmured, thinking carefully as Starlight lurked against her legs. "All I did was store the helmet, and then..." She blinked in realization. "The helmet had an active mana core. And my cutie mark can store magic. I found that out two days ago when we ran into the Spirit, remember? With all the things that have happened since then, I'd completely forgotten we wanted to test it to see how that works! I guess this is what storing magic feels like..."
Valey's hat popped off. "The question is..." She grinned, pulling out Neon Nova's former sound stone and pointing it at Maple. "Can you do anything useful with it?"
Uncertainly, Maple touched the stone with a hoof, concentrating on the magical buzzing and trying to direct it inside, just like controlling where a physical object would appear when withdrawn. After a second or two, the sensation completely petered out, and the stone was charged and glowing.
Valey whistled appreciatively, slipping the stone back under her hat and meeting Maple's eyes. "That's actually a pretty useful trick you've got there, Ironflanks," she remarked, nodding imperceptibly. "Any chance you can do other stuff with it? Say, hold enough to attack, or do telekinesis or something?"
"I don't think so." Maple shook her head. "In the Earth District, it absorbed a cannon blast, but I couldn't hold it and it went back out immediately. Maybe if I practiced, but..." She wasn't keen on doing that. While the mana charge wasn't strictly painful, there was a kind of wrongness to it, as though it didn't belong in her body. Trying to hold it for long periods of time would be irritating at the very least, and if the strength of the sensation scaled with the amount of magic... She didn't want to think about it.
"Eh. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Valey let it drop.
The elevator dinged to a stop, and the doors slid open into a metal-plated chamber separate from the chaotic, burning core. Valey bade everyone out, and they followed.
"Where are we?" Gerardo asked. "I was under the impression that we had quite a bit further to go than merely stopping halfway down. Have I let my sense of drama run away with me?"
Valey shrugged. "I dunno if I said that or not. But the elevator's only programmed to let us off at the stop we need if we use my card key to board it from a certain other stop... and none of the normal stops are programmed to ever stop there. Basically we have to get off at this floor, walk down a floor, and get back on. It's convoluted, but that's yak security for you."
"Aha," Howe wheezed, still looking slightly beat up from his crash earlier. "I take it this is the area protected by the fiendish security trap you fell victim to earlier?"
"Spot on, Pancake." Valey nodded, opening what looked like a maintenance closet and instead finding a disused tunnel sloping downwards. Graffiti on the walls labeled it as a certain unregulated type of worker's break room. Maple blanched.
"Come on, you lot!" Valey beckoned, slipping underneath a flimsy strand of yellow tape informing visitors the area was closed for maintenance. The hall curved in a semicircle, creating the disquieting effect of having no corners yet being unable to see far forward or behind. Eventually, it straightened out, the wall and ceiling panels taking on an unusual texture.
"Is this the place?" Maple asked, wary of the panels, deliberately looking away from a side door she presumed led to the break room. "With the security?"
"Just a little further," Valey answered, continuing and taking a left at a crossroads. They were once again going down, and then that too evened out. "This is."
Maple gulped. Unlike the earlier hall, this one looked completely ordinary.
"It's probably totally safe," Valey said, striding forward. "I doubt anyone is watching it now. Selma should have better stuff to do. But just in case, let's go through two at a time so that there will be someone on the outside to open it if we need to. It has a manual override, and all that."
Gerardo and Howe crossed first. Then her and Starlight. Then Valey and Neon Nova. Nothing happened.
"Remind me where we're going, again?" Maple asked, nerves completely shot. "And why we're going there? After that fall, I think I'm ready to play it safe and not go looking for trouble in extremely secure areas..."
"To a place I stashed something super important to me," Valey chirped, swiping her card key through a terminal. She bounced in delight when it lit up. "So I can get it back and take it with me when we bail. Anyway, looks like nobody messed with my privileges for this elevator! Let's go!"
The elevator continued its smooth, air-conditioned descent through the Flame District. The shaft was set exactly against a far wall, and the elevator capsule was a cylinder of glass, so half of the view looked out over a doubly-insulated view of the smoggy cavern, and the other was warm, red rock. They passed drilling apparatuses used for strip mining, some dormant and others still belching flame, they slid below giant box fans blasting ventilated outside air downward into the chasm, they saw massive closed cooling loops pumping in ice water from the reservoir and funneling out scalding steam to melt snow above and create more water for the reservoir. Ponies grew more common as they descended, as did open flames, and eventually they broke through the final cloud cover separating the bottom from sight.
Maple gaped at the hot, craggy floor, steam billowing from vents in the wildly uneven rock. It had no semblance of flatness, not even pretending for it between massive ridges and broken plates jutting up at sharp angles, making traversal by hoof impossible... or, at least, it should have. The bulk of the construction, she realized, was on the bottommost rung of metal pipes and lattices to the drill, which itself was poised dormant over a giant crater like the tip of a diabolical quill, waiting to be called to action. Most of the floor was covered in power machines, giant bright-blue treaded things with buckets and shovels and cockpits for ponies to sit, that had stabilizers propping them steady even on wildly-angled terrain. All of them were empty, signs of the shutdown visible everywhere.
And then the elevator stopped. The pit contracted as it grew closer to the bottom, and their glass shaft window was swallowed by rock, becoming enclosed entirely. Its descent after that didn't even last long enough to clear the bottom of the pit. Maple estimated that they were still three of four floors up, on level with the very top of the drill bit.
It landed on a pedestal in a room half-plated with steel, looking as if it had been abandoned midway through construction. The room was a broad tunnel, big enough to build a small road through, giving up on straight-edged architecture and moving forward like a cave, and as the plates broke up and it traced away from the core, the rocks gradually lost their angry heat, being further and further from the kiss of the infernal machinery.
It was also completely dark, save for several mining lamps that looked like they had been lit recently, then left on the floor.
With Valey in the lead, they approached a metal wall that looked like someone had teleported three separate floor-to-ceiling chain-link fences inside of each other, letting time and brute force work out the collisions. Warning signs littered the fence, jammed in wherever they would fit in the mish-mash of metal, leaving just enough space between that Maple could make out what looked like a cave-in beyond. DANGER, they read. RESTRICTED. NO ACCESS.
There was a gate in the middle that looked like it had been padlocked shut with chains and an exorbitant amount of padlocks. But the central clasp was a hole, the metal around it melted into slag, and the gate was left wide open. When it was Maple's turn to walk through, she could feel its residual heat on her cheek, still burning.
"Valey, this is making me really nervous..." she cautioned, slipping closer to the batpony. "You said the other pony you were with was going here? Did they do this?"
"See for yourself," Valey said, stopping and pointing a hoof forward.
There had, indeed, been a cave-in. It fell from the roof, cracks spreading outward, a sea of boulders and shorn rock spilling out into the cave with crushed mining implements visible beneath. The emphasis, in this case, went on been.
Valey whistled. "You know, this was supposed to be me-only because I could shadow sneak through the rocks, but I... guess this works too..."
Another tunnel had been carved through the boulders, round and solid and partially gouged into the floor. Heat radiated from it even some distance in front of the entrance, and the force of whatever blast created it had been great enough to fuse the boulders together into a solid passageway. If there was one thing Maple liked about it, it was that it wasn't likely to collapse on her. She also doubted she would survive setting hoof inside it.
"On second thought?" Valey backed away, apparently just as rebuffed by the furnacelike tunnel as Maple. "There's the Flame District, and then there's this. I think I'll shadow sneak us past anyway."
"What kind of pony do you think could have power like that?" Maple asked, sitting with Starlight on the opposite side of the collapse and staring at the tunnel, waiting as Valey ferried more ponies through. "It looks like they just shot a laser, and it burned the rocks away..."
Starlight shrugged. Her opinion on the entire detour was one of mounting frustration; first, Howe had dropped Maple and left her with nothing she could do to help, and second, it was clearly putting her adoptive mother on edge. She wasn't sure what their goal was anymore. It felt like they had too many conflicting plans: stop the fight at the Water District, save Sosa from a flood, get some trinket, protect their friends, help Shinespark with her ship, escape Ironridge... and what they should have been doing was trying to figure out what they should have been doing, not sitting around and guessing at more mysteries that would only lead to more assumptions and confusion. But the tunnel's origin was what Maple wanted to know, so she gave it her best shot.
"I dunno," she said, leaning against the mare. "Back at my old home, they said Princess Celestia could shoot big lasers and burn things up like that. But she's an alicorn. Maybe someone used a Sosan weapon like that cannon from two days ago."
Maple grimaced. "I bet if I tried to pocket whatever made that tunnel, I'd just explode."
"Please don't," Starlight said, looking away, further down into the cave.
"Hmmm..." Maple wrapped a hoof around her shoulders. "This day really is getting out of hoof, isn't it? I wish we could help and make a difference, but now I'm afraid we just aren't the right ponies for the job like I hoped earlier. I guess I let our good luck last night go to my head..."
"It's fine," Starlight insisted. "It's fine."
Maple leaned against her. "I wonder if it's me," she hummed. "I get scared and back off or want to retreat when I'm following someone else, like the first day with Gerardo, or right now with Valey. Last night and this morning, somehow everyone decided to let me say what we did, and then I got so bold and decided we should try to save the city. I wish I could figure out how that lines up with how much I want to trust Valey and you and all my friends... Do you think I have trust issues, Starlight?"
Starlight didn't have time to reply, because Valey reappeared with Howe and Neon Nova, dropping them gasping as one at the edge of the rockslide pile. "Gotta get Gerardo, be right back!" Throwing a salute, she eagerly dove back in.
The ground tingled beneath Starlight's hooves as she continued to walk, the tunnel's direction straight and purposeful as if whoever had bored it had known exactly where they wanted it to go. It felt energized, eager, like it wanted to see her keep going. Perhaps it was Maple's nerves getting to her, but Starlight knew if she was personifying the rocks, she was far closer to cracking than she thought she was.
Either that, or the rocks were alive, and this place had been sealed for a very good reason.
"I like to call it the project room," Valey rambled, trying to keep the mood upbeat as they walked down the broad passage. "Actually, that's its official code name, according to the yaks, though apparently Skyfreeze used to call it something cooler. It's not a small part of why I'm here in Ironridge, either. They designed the security around making me the key. Though, it doesn't look like that was quite as foolproof as they thought..." Lackadaisically, she rolled her eyes.
"I'm not actually sure how long this place has been here," she continued. "I know they discovered it accidentally while doing test digs about... twenty, twenty-five years ago? Not long before the whole Project Aslan thing went kablooie. I bet the yaks were involved, since they probably knew it was here. Anyway, the few who initially knew about it were promoted, transferred, sworn to secrecy, whatever, and they buried it and made a rule about no digging too deep so nobody else would find it. I guess they thought it was dangerous or something. Or maybe that was also yaks and they wanted to hog it all for themselves, and save it until they had enough influence in the city that they could cover an operation with it. Remember, this wasn't long after the yak war, so their government back then was still getting its stuff together."
Gerardo raised a talon in curiosity. "I recall a conversation about something similar in Sosa, actually," he remarked. "Only vaguely, but I seem to remember something about a no-digging-too-deep rule? Might that be the one?"
"Probably is." Smugly, Valey tipped her hat. "Remember, messing with laws and loopholes is kind of my forte. Anyway, the yaks have been interested in doing some sort of project here... which mostly means sitting on it and not letting anyone else in. Except me. I can come and go as I want, because I'm the key. So, I figured, why not make it my lair? That's why I hid my stuff down here. I don't really have a safe place or house of my own aboveground, you know. All my stuff is either down here, or kept safely in my hat."
"One thing though, if I may..." Gerardo peered ahead, worried. "I'm aware that this tunnel is sloping down, but we still must be fairly close to the level of the drilling cavern, and surely they intend to keep expanding that downward. How much more of this tunnel is there, if we are to gain that sufficient of an altitude loss?"
Valey grinned. "Oh, you'll find out."
They reached the end of the tunnel, and Starlight staggered.
It was a circular room, with stalactites on the ceiling and walls that looked vaguely like they had melted, as if the air was rich in some kind of mineral that hardened over the natural construction. The floor was perfectly flat, almost polished, made from white stone. A few abandoned wooden pallets and metal cans sat against the walls, and in one corner, a power crane was parked, a treaded machine with stabilizers and a cockpit just like the ones in the core.
In the center of the room, there was a hole.
It was dim and impossibly sheer, wide enough to take up half the room's radius, with a vertical grain that made its edges look like they had been sliced up and down with a legendary sword many times over. The edge between the floor and the pit walls might have been sharp enough for Starlight to cut herself on. Everything was perfectly lit, a magical charm on the ceiling spreading clean daylight and seemingly receiving power from nowhere.
A wooden bridge stretched halfway out over the pit like a pier, and abruptly stopped.
At the sight of the hole, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia washed over Starlight, forcing her to ditch the group and rush forward despite Maple's cries. She skidded to the edge and onto the pier, compelled by a sensation she knew she had felt before and had been missing for all of eternity. She needed it. But what was it?
She looked over the edge, and the pit was bottomless. It faded away into black, mile after mile, until it was like looking up into the void of the night sky... and a single star twinkled back at her from below. Whatever that light was, she had once had it, and needed it back.
...With a spike of lucidity, she wrenched herself away from the pit with a yell, falling back onto cool stone. It was messing with her head! She clenched her eyes shut, fighting back every bit of longing and insubstantial positive memory that flowed out of the pit. It was a trap. It wanted her to jump in, and that couldn't possibly lead to anything good. Her friends would probably be in trouble too. She had to beat it so that she could stop them, maybe freeze them in place before they gave in and jumped-
A powerful hoof hooked her around her barrel and dragged her back. Valey deposited her in front of the rest of the group, where Maple was staring at her, aghast. The others looked on in concern.
"Heh heh..." Valey wiped her bangs out of her eyes. "You sure looked curious, right there."
"I-I-It was..." Starlight sucked in a breath. Had none of the others felt that? Had the pit's magic spoken to her alone? Was it because she was a filly? Lacked a cutie mark? Equestrian?
"Just wait for us, okay?" Valey nodded toward the mobile crane.
To Starlight's horror, she realized that it was connected to a platform dangling out over the abyss, right next to the half-bridge. She gulped. "We're going down there, aren't we?"
"Yep!" Valey smirked, pacing towards the crane machine. "Kiddos and, uh, everyone else? Welcome to the Shadow District."
Starlight peered in nervous fascination over the edge of the lift platform as it descended, swaying lightly from a magically-conjured cable feeding from the crane machine above. Nobody had thought to install a real elevator. Nobody had needed to, Valey said, since she could fly and she was the key. The crane was just a failsafe in case any yaks needed to get down.
The light twinkled up at her from indefinite depths below, stirring something in her heart that she felt desperately compelled to believe in... yet the urge to reach it had diminished. Perhaps the reality of diving down a bottomless hole and her sense of self-preservation was winning out over whatever sway it held on her.
Valey wasn't helping. "Yeah, I skydive here for fun all the time. You'd think the actual sky would be better for that, but it gets stupidly cold above the wind barrier, and this is way higher..."
Even then, Starlight lay on her belly, purposefully keeping her legs out from under her and her tail wrapped around Maple's nearby hoof as an anchor. There was something down there, and she was too suspicious to tell if she wanted it or if it wanted her.
"Starlight, are you alright?" Maple nudged her, moving closer and putting a hoof over her back in safety. The platform swayed with the motion, Gerardo and Neon Nova sitting on the opposite side for counterbalance. "This place is creepy, but it looks like it's really affecting you."
Starlight didn't stop looking down. "It doesn't feel creepy. It feels good. Which makes it creepy, since ponies aren't supposed to feel this way about creepy-looking holes in the ground." She swallowed. "It feels familiar, but if I'd ever been to a place like this before, I'd remember it! It feel like... there's something down there that's supposed to be mine."
Maple looked over the edge with her. "It's just an empty black hole, Starlight. It feels like we're descending beneath the world. I can't believe there's anything down there, and I might not even after I see it."
"Huh?" Starlight looked up at her, worried, and then back down at the distant star. "You mean you don't see it?"
Maple frowned. "See what?"
Starlight slumped, going cold.
"Hey, maybe," Neon Nova offered, "you feel that way 'cause you're a unicorn! There's some pretty wicked magic in the rocks and even air of this place! It might be resonating with your horn!"
Gerardo perked in alarm. "When you say 'wicked...'"
"He means cool," Howe corrected. "Neato. Epic. Awesome. All those words with an absolutely chilling effect on the soul of the one who hears them, like they have come into a presence they are unworthy to..."
Starlight tuned him out, feeling her horn. For the most part, she had been avoiding doing magic since the last time she used Shinespark's airship to repair herself. All she could think of was using her horn as a light on their trip to the Copsewood power breaker, and her teleport to punch Valey. That was enough to make her feel non-perfect, right? Teleports were difficult. Granted, she was getting better at them with practice, but still. Yet, for some reason, her horn wasn't bothering her in the slightest.
Could the place's ambient magic be doing that? If so, no wonder she felt unusually right there. Maybe there actually was something good about it, if it could dampen her issues. Then again, Shinespark's machine had supposedly worked by removing something, so if that was the case...
She brought her hoof to her forehead, experimentally feeling her horn. It was surrounded by the fuzziness of a magical aura.
Only her sudden tension stopped her from jumping, and potentially falling off the platform.
She heard nothing, the familiar shimmering that came with her aura completely absent. She couldn't see her horn, but imagined that if the others could see something, they would have asked her what she was casting long ago. And when she tried to light her horn for real, any trace of energy was plucked into thin air with the gentleness of a good-night kiss, preventing it from flickering to life.
Starlight gulped. At least she knew one thing: if whatever was in the pit was sapient, it wasn't trying to hurt her. Because if it was, she would already be dead. Taking as much comfort as she dared from that knowledge, she clung to the platform, trying not to stare into the depths as they were lowered closer to the distant star.
The lift reached the bottom.
It was an abrupt stop, the pit coming to a perfectly flat end. The stone beneath them - at least, Starlight thought it was stone, though it didn't sound like it to her hooves - was a dark shade of pink, cut off visibly from the rest of the rock with enough architectural precision that it had to have been put there instead of occurring naturally. And that implied someone had built it.
The tunnel walls around them, still perfect in their vertical bore, were permeated by midnight-blue veins of energy sluggishly moving their way upward, letting off enough of a glow that Valey didn't need her plundered lamp to keep the place lit as brightly as a very clear night. They had started about three quarters of the way down and greatly increased in intensity, and Starlight presumed they made up the star she had seen. As the lift drew closer, the others began to see it too, though at much more limited range than Starlight had. Maybe it was her eyes. That was an explanation she could like.
"Fascinating," Gerardo said for the third time that descent, reaching out to touch one of the veins now that they were no longer confined to a swaying platform. "They look almost like mineral deposits. Raw mana, I presume, so concentrated on its journey to the surface that it appears to temporarily alter the substance of the rock it moves through. I have a hard time imagining that the surface generators have nearly the efficiency of a piece of equipment that could be placed down here. The scientific possibilities were this chasm to be explored are beyond astounding..."
"Meh. I've explored this place pretty well already." Valey was working on the platform, getting her forehooves beneath it and shoving it aside from where it had landed. "It's not as big as you'd think. Exploring it is easy. But yeah, it probably would make scientists completely flip. You can sort of see why the yaks would want to keep it all to themselves."
Clang! The lift platform tipped... and beneath it, directly where it had landed, a sharply-gouged crack in the floor was visible. They were on a roof, Starlight realized, and it was only hairline, but that was enough for Valey to shadow sneak ponies to the chamber below. There were no signs of burn marks, so she presumed whoever had blasted apart the tunnel had chosen to teleport here. She gulped as Valey began helping everyone to the floor, one pony at a time.
She was the third to go, after Gerardo and Maple. Upon landing, she let out a yelp: the floor was covered in a thin layer of some sort of clear liquid. It rippled where her hooves touched it, sending refractions clear across the room, yet offered no more resistance to motion than air and left no trace of wetness on her hooves when she lifted them. It had no smell whatsoever.
Nevertheless, wary of the substance, she hopped on Maple's back, meeting no protest. Valey looked at her with a grin, then splashed slightly. "What? Scared of this stuff?" She bent down and lapped some up. "It tastes delicious, you know."
Maple grimaced at her. "I don't want to know how you safely found that out."
Valey rolled her eyes. "And you don't eat stuff off the ground to find out what it is? Boring."
Howe, Gerardo and Neon Nova were eventually dropped in. After giving them a minute to acclimate to the strange, dull-pink room, Valey moved for the only exit. It was hexagonal, low-ceilinged, and not a door but a winding tunnel.
Starlight's eyes traced carvings on the walls as they left the pool room behind, lit by the same ambient light that filled the bottom part of the pit where glowing mana was exposed to the air. The entire structure's walls must have been charged with the stuff, she realized. Ancient runes in tongues she presumed were long dead formed flowing inscriptions between murals of ponies and things she didn't recognize. Three. Six. Nine. Twelve. The patterns changed, but groups of symbols with the same numbers prevalent in their theming passed by again and again. There were never groups of two, or four, or thirteen. Someone had made that place to mean something.
Was it a castle? A fortress? A temple? A shrine? As they walked between tunnels and empty rooms, still charting a course downward, Starlight's mind rolled over and over against who would have built a structure so far beneath the world. It had to predate Ironridge. It probably predated some geographical event that had buried it, or at least shut off the intended way to get down there.
It was discovered by accidental digging, Valey had said. Though the yaks probably had something to do with it. Yakyakistan had known something was here. The way the Flame District tunnel had gone straight before turning into a vertical pit suggested they knew exactly where.
It's an amusing geographical coincidence that Ironridge is directly between the capitals of Yakyakistan and the Griffon Empire, she remembered Shinespark telling her, raving eagerly about the explorer Sosa's book she had left her. But this suggests Sosa was interested in this halfway point before he even discovered the crater. It's like he knew something was here, and came looking for it!
There was something here, all right: a giant mountain crater of infernally-hot weather, with a wind barrier and gentle enough slopes to form a full mountain economy, the upper districts producing cold-weather crops and the lower districts producing hot-weather ones. The western side of the Stone District, she recalled, was supposed to be filled with farming terraces. But what if Valey's so-called Shadow District was the real prize? What if Sosa had suspected it, and never found it? What if he had found it? What if he was the reason why the yaks had needed to make their own entrance?
Even as the ancient castle's ambient magic tried to calm her, flowing and physically soothing with a sense of rightness she desperately hoped wasn't a lie, Starlight's tension grew and grew. It had been forgotten, and she was sure the reason was good.
"Hey, do you mind?" Valey nudged her, grumbling. "You reek when you're paranoid. Seriously, I've been down here a million times. I use this place for storage! It's not going to bite you!"
That was right, Starlight reassured herself, that was right. If the castle held something immeasurably evil, Valey probably would have kept her distance as much as possible. But it was old, and it was important, so it had to have a point.
"Honestly, I don't get why you're so nervous about this place," Valey continued, walking confidently at the front of the line. "I mean, maybe if you have a phobia of caves, but it has an effect I've always found relaxing. Like someone's giving me a big, cuddly hug. Maybe you guys already have that since you're not designated public nuisances, but hey, I'll take what I can get!"
"It does?" Maple pricked her ears, leaning forward as she walked. "Huh. It just feels like a cave to me. It's old and very interesting, but I don't feel anything that special about it..."
Starlight held her silence. Valey had just described exactly the way she felt about the place, and hadn't seemed bothered by it at all.
That was what the feeling of longing was. Putting two and two together with Valey's experience and her own, Starlight realized what it was triggering in her: the castle's magic felt like acceptance. Tenderness. If it was a pony, she knew they wouldn't care about her cutie mark, and would tell her they loved her even if she got a piece of moon glass and turned into someone completely unlike who she was. A pony who, when she lost Sunburst, wouldn't run away with her but would hold her and cry with her and tell her that as mean as the world could be, that was no reason to lose heart, because there could be nice things too, and they cared about her. That was what she had been missing when she left Equestria. And it was a feeling she had found in Maple... but the castle was deeper, grander, vaster, without blemish and with room enough for everyone. She wondered how Valey ever managed to leave.
Maple hadn't been missing that. She had been hurt by the world, but always had her friends at her side. Gerardo... She didn't know about his past, but had no reason to assume anything. The same went for Howe and Neon Nova. Maybe that was why they weren't as affected by the magic. They might just not have needed it. Could the thing that forced her to the edge of the pit when she first saw it have been not mind control or manipulation of her desires, but... just her?
For the first time, the possibility crossed Starlight's mind that whatever was in the sealed castle wasn't dark or manipulative, but something very, very good.
The Seventh District is anywhere better than where we're at now, kid, the voice of a bar patron whose name she had forgotten droned in her ear.
Simple! a shadow of Arambai said in her head. I go spread that around a little as a rumor in some disreputable areas. Anyone can let it slip whenever they want and nobody will think it's anything. A combination of truth and audacity is one of the most powerful secret-keepers around.
At the top of the pit, Valey greeted her and four others, welcoming them to the Shadow District, the fabled Seventh District of Ironridge. Suddenly, Starlight hoped very badly that whatever Valey had stored wasn't just in some side room somewhere, and she would get to see the heart of whatever empowered the place... if it had one.
Another tunnel opened out into a large, six-sided room with concentric engravings in the floor leading up to the center. There, a polished stone table sat, round and glittering to the point where it looked like a metallic gemstone. It had no chairs, and was a perfect size for the six of them to group around and share lunch or a conference. Lunch sounded good, though perhaps because of the stress Starlight didn't think she was as hungry as when she entered the pit.
"Well, hello, there," Gerardo remarked, striding up to the table and inclining his head, staring at it with one eye. A faintly translucent magical projection hovered in the air an inch above it: an equilateral triangle, with a hexagon inscribed minimally inside of that, and a single dot in the middle. He squinted at it. "This is the Yakyakistani Emblem of the Nine Virtues, is it not?"
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, I think that's what it's supposed to be. It usually actually has another dot kind of floating around in the middle of nowhere, but it looks like that's not here today. Poor it, huh?" She grinned. "But hey, look at this!"
Flinging back a foreleg, she swept it across the table, hoof gliding effortlessly across the polished surface. As if drawn by her movement, the emblem swirled about its center point, drawing two blurred, glowing circles in the air before the points connecting the edges slowed down enough to make out again. "Hah hah! Whirlywind!" Valey giggled and laughed, spinning it again. "Sorry, I dunno why I like doing this so much. But it reacts to being touched, see?"
Gerardo stopped the spinning with a talon of his own, then gave it an experimental rotate with much more precision. The table itself stayed put, but the projection above moved perfectly to suit him, and he beamed. "It is indeed satisfying. I wonder if this is some ancient civilization's form of arcano-technology. If so, how is it powered, and what does it do?"
"It glows and looks pretty." Valey shrugged. "Duh."
As Howe and Neon Nova wandered over to good off with the table, Starlight buried herself in Maple's mane, still sitting on the mare's back, still wrestling with what to think of the buried castle. There was one thing she could tell for certain: no amount of magic, even friendly, could replace having real ponies in her life. The idea of a lost soul sitting in the castle, waiting out their entire life there because it hurt too much to leave flashed through her mind, and she shivered. If the place was benevolent, what would it do about that? Could it revoke itself from them to force them to leave, because it knew that would be better? If it wasn't intelligent, could it even be benevolent?
"Can we keep going?" she croaked, desperate to finish their business in the place so she could figure out whether it was safe to indulge in the castle's aura... and at the very least get back to the surface so she could return to having thoughts she knew were her own.
"Valey!" Maple barked, catching the mare's attention. "This is really interesting, but aren't we in a hurry? Where's the thing you left here? I can go get it, if you want to stay and play with that table!"
"Yeah, yeah, gotcha..." Valey broke away, turning to another tunnel leading away. "Chillax, Ironflanks, it's only one more room. Hey, are you other guys coming?"
Gerardo, Howe and Neon Nova abandoned the thing as well, running to follow her.
The last passage was a spiral staircase, winding down and around in an endless flight of steps. The walls were close enough that Starlight could see scuffs on them, like someone had tried to drag something big and blocky down and kept bumping it against them. Odd. Wouldn't a place that had lasted that long be made of sturdier stuff?
The pink wall coating was chalky to the touch, and she realized it rubbed off as she scrubbed at a passing blemish with her hoof. The walls beneath were harder and sturdier, suggesting it was only a residue that had built up over the ages. As Maple stopped, waiting for a tripped Neon Nova to get back to his hooves, Starlight rubbed harder... and a final ball of uneasiness settled in her stomach as she realized what the pinkish walls looked like beneath their brittle coating.
They were made of crystal. Solid, flawless, faceted sheets of vast crystal, differing only in color from the ones she could summon.
Whoever had made that place hadn't built it - they had created it with magic, summoned it out of thin air. They had used her spell, and they had been powerful enough to make the crystals last forever. At that point, Starlight thought it was far less likely to be a who than a what... and as the stairwell evened out, pointing her into a room directly beneath the table one, she knew she would find out either then or never.
Maple and Starlight stepped out into a tall, six-sided room matching the table room above in dimension, standing on a narrow pink bridge halfway up the shaft. Above, sparkling runes and transfers of energy decorated the ceiling, like constellations with their lines drawn out. To the sides, tiny crenellations acted as meager railings to the bridge, everything coated in the chalky pink substance that concealed the crystal structure beneath. Below them, the walls abruptly cut away, an infinite cavern expanding in all directions beneath, black and purple and blue and stars swirling ethereally beneath in a vivid representation of the night sky that only the clearest surface nights could come close to matching. Maple gulped, quaking. "Is this... the bottom of the world?"
"Call me insane," Gerardo offered, "but I'm highly tempted to fly down there and check."
"Woah..." Howe gaped. "By my own wings of chaos, it's like the world ends and the sky continues! Never had I guessed the world would be double-sided!"
Starlight was more interested in what was ahead of them.
Snaking down from the center of the ceiling, directly beneath where the table would be, was a winding, gnarled column of crystal, broader than a house and tinged with a rainbow hue. All along it, branches broke off, snarling into the walls like the limbs of an impossibly ancient tree. In fact... was that what it was? The thing looked far more organic than any crystalline structure she had seen before. It was a crystal tree.
The base of the tree snaked off into the starry curtain below, until it faded from sight far more quickly than she would have expected from an infinite abyss. The bridge they were on crossed to the tree, eventually meeting it at an opening that would allow equines to walk inside. And the reason it held her captive? It was the source of the feeling she had felt throughout the castle. She thought she could even see it, a burning ball of energy shining within the core and calling out to her. But she held fast to Maple's back, and didn't go.
"The sky continues?" Valey chuckled, walking past Howe. "Nah. This isn't some other side to the world. That would be crazy. It's a wall made of some kind of magic. Looking infinite is an illusion. It's actually super close. See the tree? It grows out of the wall. You can see where it ends; that's how close it actually is." She winked at Gerardo. "And you can go flying around down there if you want. It's pretty fun. But, busted wing, remember?" She shrugged apologetically. "I won't be able to save you."
"Save me?" Gerardo frowned. "Is the area hostile?"
Valey stared over the edge of the bridge. "If you touch the magic layer," she said, "you fall asleep. All you gotta do to wake up is stop touching it, which means someone has to pull you off. But they'd just fall asleep too, so you need someone it has a different effect on, like yours truly."
"A different effect?" Maple glanced at her in concern. "What does it do to you? And why? Because you're a batpony?"
"Yeah, probably." Valey shrugged. "And touching it turns me on really hard."
Maple gave her a flat expression. "Really."
Valey returned a cocky grin. "Maybe, but do you want to watch and find out?" She looked away. "I'd rather not, though, because that means flying more than I have to, and like I said, I wanna stay off my wing as much as possible. Anyway, I just need to grab the thing I stashed here, but that'll mean ditching you all for about a minute. Think you can stay out of trouble until I'm back?"
"Assuredly," Gerardo assured, holding a talon to his breast. Maple nodded alongside him. Howe and Neon Nova were busy ogling the place.
"Wait," Starlight said, unable to tear her eyes away from the tree. "What's that?"
Valey glanced between her and it. "What as in what does it do? Beats me. According to Fire, it's something called a Tree of Harmony. Now sit tight, and I'll be right back!"
She charged down the bridge, coiled her legs, and sprang off the side, landing deftly on one of the lower branches. Keeping her momentum, she leapt again, gaining height while swiftly crossing around and out of sight behind the trunk.
Howe and Neon Nova turned to each other and whistled. "So let me get this straightened out, here," Neon said, gesturing with a forehoof. "We've gone so far below the surface of the world that we've found a buried castle right above some mystical magic layer connected to stuff about harmony? Am I gettin' the proper read on this situation?"
Howe tapped his forehooves together, an eager grin spreading across his lavender face. "I know, right!? It's just like in Father's stories! Truly, we are the scions of legend!"
"...Excuse me?" Maple glanced at them, raising an eyebrow. "You two knew about this place?"
"In the same sense that one knows the legends about the Mare in the Moon," Howe imperiously said, wrapping a wing around himself. "Now, being here in the flesh, on the other hoof, is something else!" His eyes glittered. "And I can say with certainty another thing that is no legend..."
He pointed across the bridge to the tunnel leading inside the crystalline tree. To the sides of the entrance, empty and abandoned, sat two well-used wooden crates.
"Well, biological brother-of-mine?" Howe smirked at Neon Nova. "Care to reclaim the other half of our inheritance and clear this city with a perfect record? Because my unfathomable intellect is telling me our reward lies directly inside that tree!"
Maple frowned, stepping between them and the door. "Are you sure that's a good idea? We have no idea how this place works, or what anything does! If you mess with something, we could..."
"Ruin the yaks' plans?" Howe asked with a cocky grin. "We've already established that they're up to no good! Steal a little here, mess with a little there... it's the bad guys who stand to lose, right?"
Reluctantly, Gerardo shrugged. "Indeed. Whatever the yaks have planned is undoubtedly nefarious, so while the fallout from taking back my cargo here may be unpredictable, it would still work out in our favor, would it not?"
Maple raised a hoof... and lowered it. "Yeah. I guess you're right."
"Should they have it either?" Starlight asked, coming to Maple's defense. "Howe dropped you and we don't really know if either of them are trustworthy!"
"That was an accident!" Howe implored. "I assure you, I did not intend for that to happen! You felt the vile atmosphere of that strength-sapping place, did you not!?"
"I have a compromise," Gerardo offered, patting his pockets. "Perhaps I'll take the orb, seeing as it was originally my cargo, and shall decide what to do with it once we're in a slightly more airy situation, hmm? Perhaps one without the threat of district destruction hanging over our heads?"
"Hey, I can agree to that," Neon Nova replied, Howe bobbing his head alongside him.
Gerardo straightened up, smoothing his uniform. "Very well," he announced. "Into that tree!"
Starlight grumbled as they walked through the entrance. Apparently, nobody considered Valey's request of staying out of trouble to include not going inside the tree. Whether that was part of the intent or not, she didn't care. She was too busy being filled with apprehension.
Faceted crystal loomed close around her as she rode through the narrow entrance tunnel, the hairs on her coat standing on end from the force of the tree's ambient magic. She was inside the core, the very source, energy moving past and through and all around her that caressed her horn and soothed her mind and whispered that everything would be all right. If she was alone, she might have believed it. As it was, she resisted, and stayed terrified.
The short tunnel widened into a cavity; the very heart of the tree. It was lit as brightly as day, with another tree growing up from the floor of the great one. The smaller tree's branches were crafted and molded into the shape of a brazier, as if the Tree of Harmony had grown it for expressly that purpose, and safely burning within was a sparkling pink flame.
The flame should have looked happy. And then Starlight saw what had been done to it.
All around it, clamped onto the branches that formed the brazier and held the fire to its pedestal, were the mechanical parts she had seen when she and Maple opened one of the crates to dig through for the windigo heart. They leaned toward the flame with cranes and booms and prongs, holding polished pieces of moon glass Starlight had initially taken to be mirrors up close to the flame. If they were reflecting, they were reflecting it in on itself. But instead...
Maple swallowed. "It looks like they're melting..."
The fire blazed angrily, slightly too big for its brazier, licking and lashing at the pieces of monochrome black that were held up to it. Starlight watched in fear and fascination as the metal supports appeared perfectly unscathed, yet the moon glass drooped, twisting into slag and sliding from its supports before the onslaught. As she stared, one piece gave entirely, converting all at once into black liquid and then gray steam with a whisper that sounded almost like a tiny voice. The faint outline of a glyph hovered in the air where the glass had disappeared... a fake cutie mark, freed from its prison. Her eyes widened as it sat there... then slowly drifted into the walls of the tree, gaining momentum as it left the fire and floated upwards. The fire relaxed its assault on the now-empty support, turning to the others.
"What is...?" Gerardo swallowed loudly, the pink flame somehow not making a sound.
"Look," Howe whispered, pointing into the core of the bonfire. A glowing, gold-flaked orb sat, the icy gemstone at its center burning like a pink sun. "Our windigo heart!"
Neon Nova made to lift his shades, before realizing he didn't have any.
"What's this all..." Maple cut off, watching the fire. "What's this all doing?"
"The righteous powers of harmony..." Howe extended a dramatic forelimb toward the pyre, his muzzle casting a shadow between his eyes. "They have been forced into a conflict with the unholy and disharmonic forces of moon glass and a windigo heart! The presence of the obsidian fans the flames as the fire seeks to destroy it, enhancing the intensity of the blaze as the windigo heart sits within, absorbing energy to fill the infinite void inside! Truly, only the most dastardly villain would think to taunt such a holy power so, all in the name of strengthening it so they might bottle its sacred fury and unleash it at its strongest against their foes! The vileness makes my wings tremble..."
"You think that's the point of this?" Maple asked, turning to him with wide eyes. "That they're trying to..." She blinked. "Sorry, I thought I got what you said, but now that I'm trying to rephrase it..."
"I believe I understood," Gerardo said, staring at the heart at the center of the blaze. "Our feathered pegasus friend means to say that the windigo heart and obsidian, being disharmonic in nature, react adversely to the power of the flame, and it to them. The heart, for instance, appears to be absorbing the harmonic energies, perhaps in an attempt to reach some neutral state. The obsidian, meanwhile, is rendered to nothing by exposure to the flame, and as such the flame is burning brighter to attempt to destroy them. A catalyst, in this case, as the goal appears to be a supercharged windigo heart. I would not be surprised if that item turns out to be usable as some type of harmonic battery."
"Correct!" Howe exclaimed. "Which means the obvious course of action to foil our opponents is to steal it and escape cackling into the night!"
Maple gulped. "Harmony. A different type of energy than mana, produced naturally by cutie marks. We know someone who would be able to use a harmonic battery, don't we...?"
Starlight didn't care. She saw the fire battling the moon glass, recalled the time she had gotten White Chocolate's piece stuck on her, felt the longing that had pervaded her throughout the castle and the descent, and realized beyond a shadow of a doubt: this place was good, and someone had tried to break it. She needed to get those artifacts away from the fire.
Something clicked in the fuzzy, invisible aura surrounding her horn. Instead of holding her tight, the place's magic had reacted to her intent and started helping her. It was like a giant hoof moving alongside hers, guiding her, and she had a feeling that once she lit her horn, it would be able to cast the strongest spells of her life until she left that castle.
Whud!
Valey suddenly appeared between them and the flame, a decorated golden pendant with a black gemstone clasped around her neck and her wings spread defensively. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold up, bone brains." She glared from Howe to Neon Nova and back again. "I told you guys to stay out of trouble. Are you sure messing with this place is the best idea?"
Gerardo jumped to the brothers' defense. "First off," he presented, "we're quite sure that the yaks are up to no good, so any act of sabotage against them is itself inherently useful. Second, this entire setup someone appears to have built here looks quite... creepy."
Valey gave him a raised eyebrow. "I look creepy too, and you don't hold that against me."
"Is there anything important you know?" Maple asked, Starlight waiting atop her back to see what Valey would say. "About what this is, or what it does, or anything like that?"
Hesitantly, Valey glanced to the modified brazier. "Well, I'll grant you that it does look creepy. This is the first time I've seen the setup too. I also know that it was the cute unicorn I got locked up with who set this up, and from talking to her on the way here, she's clueless. She definitely thinks she's a good guy, and has no idea that Herman's a jerk or that Ironridge is trouble."
Maple frowned. Gerardo clicked his beak. Starlight stared in determination at the fire.
"I know there are a whole bunch of bozos running around," Valey admitted, "but I'd stake my sweet tooth on her not being one of them. Sheltered and naive, maybe, but not the kind of pony who would knowingly walk in and set up a doomsday device. She thought whatever she was doing down here was really good and really important." She blinked. "And she's also the pony who can apparently melt a tunnel through a huge landslide and then walk through it without kicking the bucket. Messing with someone like that makes my flank tingle just by thinking about it."
"If she's that sheltered, she could easily be being tricked," Gerardo pointed out.
Valey glanced back at the brazier. "Huh. Yeah, I suppose she could."
"Valey," Maple quickly interrupted. "We think this is trying to store harmonic energy in the windigo heart. You don't think, with Shinespark...?"
"That she's behind this? No way." Valey shook her head. "Remember, I've gotten a pretty solid infiltration on her operation. I know all of her secrets. Every. Last. One. It's how I do stuff like get Braen to back off with a single safe word, and keep the peace so long as she'd rather her secrets be kept than start a war with Skyfreeze. Neither her nor any of her friends even know this place exists. Although..." She grinned down at the orb. "While we're talking about defacing this thing, if we assume it's up to no good and you're right about it being a battery, I bet it's exactly what we need to get her little project working. You know... just in case we need another escape route from this city."
"Aha!" Howe pumped a hoof. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"
Shrugging, Valey reached into the bonfire and pulled out the orb, wincing at the contact. "That's... agh! Ow. Okay, someone else can carry this." She dropped it at her hooves, and it rolled across the floor to Gerardo, pink energy burning along the gold flakes between the edge and the glowing core. A faint mist rose from the surface.
"Y-You just..." Howe's eyes widened, pointing between her and the flame, too shocked to stop Gerardo from pocketing the harmonic battery.
"Reached in there?" Valey shrugged. "Yeah, usually it feels pretty good, but I think it's kind of angry today. Might have to do with all this other weird stuff. Should we get rid of that, too?"
Starlight didn't have to be asked twice. Her horn lit with a blade of light, the corona extending beyond the length of her stubby horn as if she was a fully-grown adult, or more. Shimmering, it flashed, overlain with pink atop her usual teal, and a storm of telekinesis rent the metal supports from the crystal tree brazier, tearing them to the floor melting moon glass and all. Slowly, ever so slowly, she watched as the bonfire died back to a soft, welcoming blaze, and let her horn go out.
Despite the massive expenditure of energy, her horn didn't hurt at all. The tree's magic had done all of the work for her.
"Yeow!" Neon Nova gaped at her. "How'd you do that? I can't even light my horn in this place!"
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. She really didn't... but knew that if she left it that way, it would always bother her, so she gave her best guess. "The tree was helping me. I guess it was because I wanted to do what it wanted."
"Sapient trees..." Gerardo shivered. "Well, we have what we came for, I presume?"
Valey nodded, tapping her new pendant. "Yep! Got it right here. Next stop, bailing on Ironridge. Unless you guys talk me fast into going to the Water District, which I think is a really bad idea."
Starlight was still staring at the reduced flame. Kindly, it beckoned, wanting to enwrap her... and she had just seen Valey stick her forelimb into the center of the blaze without injury. "That fire is safe to touch?"
"Eh, yeah, for me." Valey shrugged. "I think it's a little similar to the barrier down below us, so maybe not for everyone. Then again, Birdo's fine and he just grabbed that orb, so who knows?"
...Starlight had better things to do than indulging her own whims with mysterious, harmonic fire, no matter how much it seemed like she should touch it too. Sighing, she slumped on Maple's back, giving the scattered, destroyed support mechanism one last glance and not protesting as they exited the tree.
"So," Gerardo said as they crossed the bridge back to the staircase to the table room. "A gigantic underground tree, made of crystal and powered by a scientific force nobody has been able to unlock, connected to a layer of subterranean magic that serves a purpose I can't fathom, all contained within a castle that is also buried far beneath the earth. Have I managed to wrap my head around this entire secret, or is there yet more I never expected to know the world contains buried within these halls?"
"The castle's made of crystal," Starlight dryly offered, still glancing back regretfully at the tree chamber. Leaving felt so wrong... but if Valey could walk away, so could she. "Conjured crystal."
"Ah. Of course." Gerardo scratched at his brow, headcrest flopping. "You'd think as a professional adventurer more than ten years on the road, I would have seen it all..."
As he pondered, Maple matched Valey's pace. "What did you bring us down here for? That necklace?" She glanced over the golden artifact, Starlight leaning over her shoulder. "Wait..." Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the black gemstone set in the forefront of the thing. "Is that moon glass?"
"Yeah. It is." Valey touched it with her good wing, polishing the surface lightly. "This pendant is a Sosan prototype they made a long time ago, trying to find a way to let a pony 'safely' use moon glass without actually getting the fake mark stuck in their body. You probably know what for. I stole it when they wound up integrating the design into that other thing... you know..." She shot a surreptitious glance at the stallion brothers, keeping her voice lower. "And they didn't need this one any more. It's kinda wimpy because it turns out marks will reject you if your body isn't attuned to them and there's anywhere else for them to go, or something, so this is basically useless. But it makes a good holder for the thing I really care about, which is this." Again, she touched the dark stone set into it.
"I thought you hated moon glass," Starlight said with a frown, watching closely from Maple's back. "What are you doing wearing it?"
"Well..." Valey's ears folded, her beret tilting slightly. "This is part of why I hate it."
"Oh." Maple didn't press.
Eventually, Valey tried to break the silence. "So, yeah, the only thing the pendant really does is let me keep this on me without it being dangerous to anyone. Of course, if someone came along who somehow was attuned to a mark inside a piece of moon glass, they'd be able to use it... but what are the odds of that happening? I mean, I know I already have a mark." She shrugged. "I suppose you could also try to find someone whose body can attune itself to any mark, but that's not how normal ponies work."
Starlight shuddered. She couldn't remember how much Valey knew about where she was from, or how she reacted differently enough to harmonic magic that some ponies thought she could provide scientific insight or the keys to unlimited energy, but she desperately hoped those words weren't meant to imply something about her.
"I'm somewhat surprised as to how well you're taking this," Gerardo remarked to Maple as the lift to the Flame District was silently hoisted on its magical cable.
Maple blinked at him, Starlight nestled into her back. "Taking what? That six ponies are being lifted an incredible distance by a single chain coming from a machine that isn't even tied down?"
"Ah ha ha... erm, no." Gerardo coughed into a wing. "The fact that we've just been far below the lowest point in the world's surface that most creatures imagine feasible and discovered a whole host of things that completely defy explanation under our current understanding of the world. Buried castles? Crystal architecture? What of that table, or that tree? Nefarious experiments performed with them whose purposes we can't even begin to guess..." He blinked upward toward the distant light of the Flame District. "It's taking all of my professional fortitude to keep composed, stick to our present mission, and not drop everything in the name of trying to puzzle out the workings of what I have seen and therefore must believe. The fact that we may well never know, nor even get a chance to return here is beyond aggravating and would likely undo me if I gave it too much thought."
"...Oh. Right." Maple took a moment to process that, then gave a smile. "Gerardo, do you know how many things I've seen in the last three days I could only have dreamed of existing before? Things like a city with a thousand ponies, let alone maybe millions? Weather that was anything but cool and rainy everywhere, all the time? Ponies fighting for what they want with weapons and political factions? These were things I read about in fiction, not thought of as real. I'm too far past what I'm familiar with for my worldview to be shaken by anything, because it's already gone. As far as I'm concerned, anything could be out there, and I won't be surprised if it is. We could probably go to the moon and I'd be just as surprised as I am now. I just wish things weren't on the edge of war so I could appreciate it all."
Gerardo grinned back at her. "Well, I'm afraid going to the moon isn't exactly scientifically feasible at the moment. You can attempt to fly, but eventually your wings will freeze and you'll suffer a very long and usually lethal tumble as a result. As far as I'm aware, we don't even know if the moon is conceptual or a real, physical place."
"Isn't it?" Starlight muttered from Maple's back. "What about the Mare in the Moon?"
"I believe there exist magical principals that allow for the conversion of physical matter to a state storable in a spell," Gerardo countered. "Take, for example, teleportation. I wouldn't be surprised if it is how Maple's brand works, either. The moon could merely be a very complex spell with said mare's essence anchored inside. That is, of course, assuming the legend is even true. A thousand years has a way of mixing fact and legend, or even outright replacing one with the other."
"You seriously think the Mare in the Moon is real?" Valey interrupted, strolling over and ignoring Neon Nova and Howe, who were muttering to each other at the other end of the platform. "Everything I know about my kind is just a little second-hoof... but we're got some weird legends that say she created batponies. And is a monster. Who lives on the moon." Nonchalantly, she licked the side of her hoof and ran it through her mane.
Starlight squinted. "She did?"
"The Mare in the Moon?" Valey blinked. "Yeah. Maybe she's real, maybe she's not, but anyone who'd make us with this lot in life and then ditch us here doesn't sound worth believing in to me."
Gerardo looked at her curiously.
"Oh." Starlight looked away. "I thought she was just a monster that got defeated a long time ago."
"You know..." Valey leaned back, reclining on the platform, her golden pendant glinting around her neck. "Not like it matters, or like I'll ever get to give her a piece of my mind, but I'm honestly kinda ticked at her. If the legends are true, at least. You're trying to make a race of ponies? Why not make them cute and cuddly and stuff? But nooo, we get these fangs and slitted eyes and wings that look like they should only be out at night. Gotta go and make us look all spooky and creepy and all that. Hey, though, what do I know? Ironridge's only batpony, and all. Maybe I've been listening to Herman too much, and other parts of the world really do like us."
Gerardo winced, not meeting her eyes.
"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Birdo." Valey rolled her own. "Anyway, what were you talking about before that? This is taking forever and I'm bored. Usually I just fly up." Dismally, she flexed her wings with a huff of frustration.
"Why I wasn't surprised with what was down there," Maple answered, watching the wall go by. "I guess you've been down there a bunch of times, haven't you? What did you think of it the first time you were there?"
"Eh..." Valey scratched her head. "That was a super long time ago, Ironflanks. Honestly, I don't remember. I had more important things to think about at the time."
Quickly sensing that meant please don't press, Maple held her tongue.
Eventually, Valey spoke up again. "So what are your plans for after this? You know... once we bail on Ironridge. Where are we going?"
Gerardo shrugged. "The life of a wandering adventurer can take me where it will, so long as I don't stay put for too long. Truth be told, I was hoping to find some interesting lead to pursue here in Ironridge once I completed my business that could guide my path beyond the city, but it seems that is a long-lost cause."
"First off," Maple insisted, "I'm going back home, to Riverfall. I promised my friends I'd be back, and even though it's only been three days, it feels like..." She bit back a tired sigh. "Well, it feels like it's been forever. I need to see them. I need to talk to them, tell them about what's happened, probably laugh and cry about it a lot..." She grinned crookedly. "I've been bottling up and putting off thinking about so much stuff to keep from freaking out here, it'll probably take forever to get my head back on straight. So first, I need to go home and come to terms with the fact that I got shot with a magic cannon, was foalnapped, sabotaged power to a city this big, have been getting along with Sosans and everything else that's going to happen before we escape. Then I can see what I feel like doing."
"Yeah. Makes sense." Valey slumped. "Honestly, I was kinda hoping to go... farther than that. That's what, half a day by boat? Less, since it's downstream? The world's a stupidly huge place, Ironflanks, and I'm just done with Ironridge. The only place I want to go is away. Just pick a direction and keep going, you know?"
Starlight leaned into Maple's back, resting her head sideways against the mare's fuzzy neck. "I know how that feels," she mumbled.
"Only kind of?" Maple shot a worried glance at Valey. "And you're more angry than worried?"
"Well, in hindsight, it does seem a rather obvious move, given how you disrespected him and foiled his revenge at that terminal earlier," Gerardo conceded. "Although, I did assume you had a contingency plan for this sort of thing..."
"A plan? Oh, I've got a plan." Valey stretched, arched her back and worked her forehooves. "Get up there, knock some blocks off, and tell Selma to sit on a lemon and rotate. With extra insults."
The group of six was gathered around the final elevator to the Flame District. Its carriage was open and waiting, the door facing them, with a message clearly scrawled on the floor: We want the bat. Surrender quietly, or you're all dead meat.
Howe rubbed his chin, thinking smugly. "I suspect an ambush..."
Gerardo shrugged. "No offense, but you do have a lot of enemies. However, this is the time to form a plan, not stand around lamenting our luck. Does anyone have any ideas besides charging headfirst into what may well be a batch of cannons pointed at our faces? For all I know, they intend to pour magma down this shaft as we ascend."
"Easy." Valey smirked up at the small gap between the elevator roof and the cave ceiling - nobody had installed proper bottom to the shaft, so they were hardly flush. Coiling her legs, she sprang, hooking her forelimbs atop the carriage and wriggling her way atop it through the narrow space. "I'll just head up there and do a scouting mission!"
"I thought your wings were hurt!" Maple protested, a strained caution in her voice.
"Yeah, yeah, they're busted." Valey rolled her eyes. "But this elevator shaft is super dark until the window opens up, and I can shadow sneak up the walls. I'll be right back!"
Valey slithered up the side of the shaft in darkness, her protruding green eyes reflecting the distant light from above. She moved along in strokes as if treading water, nose barely above the wall and ready to submerge at a moment's notice. Slowly, steadily, the windowed portion of the shaft that looked out into the Flame District approached, and she spent the climb planning what she would do from there.
When the moment of truth came, she hit a wall of light, casting around for a further direction to swim that just wasn't there. The light entered the shaft at an angle, and immediately above was a small rocky shelf where the tunnel ended and the tall glass window began. Tensing, Valey targeted it, then pushed herself out of the wall and kicked off it in the same motion. Her leap carried her to the ledge, and she landed safely.
Fortunately, the shadow of a pipe from inside the core fell across the ledge, forming a narrow path through the glass. Normally, Valey's shadow sneaking was a two-dimensional ability, limited to surfaces and unable to pass through even the thinnest solid object so long as it lacked holes for her to wrap through, but translucent materials were a different story: if they were up against something opaque, and a shadow ran through them, she could cross it just like air. A simple duck of her head and she was through the glass.
One machine level above, directly overhead, was an elevator terminal connected by a broad walkway to the drill column. Valey frowned up at it; from the number of shadows present, there were a good ten ponies and possibly a piece of heavy artillery stationed waiting for the elevator to climb past. That couldn't be right. Selma would send far more than that to catch her; there had to be more laying in ambush. She needed a better look.
The red rock edges of the core were rough and blasted, the product of having been mined away with industrial explosives and brute force, and as a result provided plenty of ledges for a nimble pony to leap to. Paying careful attention to her cutie mark, Valey coiled her legs and leapt, moving to the side.
Success. Then, she targeted a ledge further up; she needed to get close enough to see the ponies for real and assess their threat level. Another jump, and she felt no tingle, but the following one left her feeling sharp stabs of danger every time she thought about the next platform. Either someone would see her, or it wasn't stable.
That would have to be close enough. She stood on two legs so as to better press against the illuminated wall, staring up at the ponies on the bridge, and saw one flex their wings... Yep, definitely pegasi. All stallions, from the looks of them as well. Valey licked her lips; if the Defense Force really wanted one last go...
Within hopping distance was a slanted pipe running upwards from the wall to the drill column. Not sensing that it was scalding, Valey leapt, purposefully aiming low and hitting the shadowed bottom or the thing. She sank most of the way in, shadow sneaking's bizarre physics preventing her from falling out as if she were right-side up while inside the pipe. Slithering along, she eventually came to a junction, flipped on top of the pipe, and crouched low beneath the catwalk affixed to the top of the other pipe hers intersected with. If she followed it, one more leap would put her up behind the mess of stallions ready to assault the elevator. It was time for a stupid plan.
Valey reached her good wing out, hooking a tiny bundle of cables from the catwalk's underbelly that supplied mana to its feeble array of safety lighting. Slipping the dirty thing into her mouth, she gnawed and gnawed, getting an unpleasant spark for her efforts but successfully stripping away a hole in the shielding. She pulled her sound stone out from under her hat, pressed the gem against the exposed energy conduit, and watched it light up, tucking it beneath a folded wing to muffle it and hoping Maple would pick up.
"Valey? Is that you?" Maple was whispering. Good.
"Yeah. Listen, there are like ten dirtbags and a giant cannon pointed right at the elevator at the very first stop, and we kinda want to go to the top. I bet there's more in hiding. Quick question: do you know how to get to the Sky District without me?"
Gerardo's voice chimed in. "I do believe I've familiarized myself enough with the terrain to be a guide, should we find ourselves outdoors. Getting there, on the other talon, may prove a problem."
"I think I remember," Maple tensely replied. "If we can find that lift to the Water District, I know how to find the Flame District entrance from there. Or maybe we should take the lift? Do you think they'd expect us to go that way?"
"Listen, I don't care which way you go," Valey hissed into the stone, holding it close in front of her muzzle. "Remember, Starlight reeks; I can find her from miles away. Go anywhere and I'll catch up. Right now, here's the plan: start going up. You want the very highest this elevator can go. It's not destination restricted from your floor. The moment these bozos see the cable moving, they'll get all excited and distracted and I'll take them out or distract them or whatever so you guys can get to safety. It's me they want, so I should be good at that. Got it?"
"Valey, you can't fly and they're Defense Force! And you're in the Flame District! They'll have a huge advantage!"
Valey stuck out her tongue, fully aware Maple couldn't see it. "Yeah, maybe if they had, like... ten of those it would even the playing field. Remember, I'm awesome, and the Defense Force is deliberately trained to be incompetent by both me and Selma. I don't want them causing trouble and he doesn't want them usurping him, y'know? Anyway, this'll be easy beans. You ready?"
"Whatever you do, stay safe."
"Nyaa. You worry too much, Ironflanks. Look at it this way: if I kick the bucket, you'll be able to laugh at me for the rest of my life."
The voice on the other end of the sound stone whimpered.
"Right! Coolio..." Valey readied the sound stone to tuck back into her hat, turning to stare just as eagerly at the elevator shaft as the crowd of ambushers watching it. "It's on you to kick it off, Ironflanks. Here comes my goodbye present to the Defense Force."
Valey crouched on the catwalk beneath the platform where the elevator ambush waited, watching as they perked up with shouts and yells. She couldn't see the moving cable from her distance, but it was obvious they could.
The top of the elevator carriage scrolled above the rocks and into view, and that was her cue. Clang! She vaulted onto the last platform, gave her most eager grin, and cleared her throat. "Hey there, boys! Looking for someone?"
Her flanks tingled before they even started to turn; someone was aiming a projectile at her. But the threat wasn't instant, so she had time to stand and watch as they turned, confused and still rallying for a fight. "Look, there she is! Get her!"
"Pfft. Cheesy." She spat off the side of the bridge, sidestepping as the danger grew closer. "You're going to have to think of better lines than that if you want to catch me!"
Hissssss! A chunk of burning plasma hit the bridge where she had been standing, reducing half of it to a hole and causing her to yelp from the heat. The Defense Force shouldn't have had anything that could do that!
Regardless, her opponents had somehow gotten their hooves on Sosan weaponry, and there was little good complaining about it would do her. She kicked a pipe free from the railing, grabbed it as a weapon and prepared to drill into the combatants, hoping to disable their lone turret and take them down before their plasma sniper and whatever other backup they had got too annoying.
"Haaaugh! Grrargh!" Thud! Relying on her cutie mark, Valey expertly ducked a blow from the shortest, most pitiful club ever, surging past a stallion and kicking him off balance with a hind hoof. She caught his weapon with her tail as she passed, clocking the next pony's head with it and shoving him into a third. She whirled her pipe to smash a fourth out of the way... and he caught it, parrying deftly with an identical small black club.
"Woah!" Valey recoiled, pivoting her momentum back into a strike at the ponies who were regrouping behind her rather than engage a test of strength she might not win. "Okay, your taste in weapons is horrible, but you actually paid attention in basic self-defense class! Good for... you!"
She panted as she swung the bar through the three previous ponies, knocking one's legs out from under him. The second flapped his wings, jumping over it, and the third deftly stomped down, catching her pipe and wrenching it from her grasp. She barely had time to strike a defensive stance before her flank caught her attention again, and she glanced back to see the fourth pegasus winding up for another blow. Grinning, Valey folded her ears. "Uh-oh."
Sidestepping as late as she possibly could, Valey let his hoof graze her cheek, then flipped on her back, kicking him to keep him airborne and using his momentum to turn him into a projectile toward the other three. Frustratingly, he shot out his wings, wrapping one around the railing and yanking, throwing his course off so that he only crashed into one, twisting the railing in the process. Valey wasted no time in shadow sneaking, dropping through the mesh platform and materializing on the other side, hooking a hoof around the edge of the floor and swinging back up through the mangled railing.
"And stay down!" With both forehooves acting as one, Valey brought down a decisive strike on the two incapacitated stallions, stunning them further and knocking them out. "Whew..." she panted, looking them over as three more stepped up from by the turret to take number four's place. "You guys are tough. Since when did we have a special ops training department?"
Deftly, she snatched the pipe bar with a wing as it was hurled at her face, then scooted sideways to dodge another plasma blast. That much and the elevator was only just passing the first station? This fight was going to be fun.
CH-TUNNNGGGG!
It got a lot less fun as the pony at the turret began firing on the elevator.
Shattering glass rang in Starlight's ears as Maple clutched her way tighter than was necessary, great spidery cracks crawling their way up the elevator shaft's glass front. Smoke from the explosive shell was just clearing, allowing her to observe the pegasus at the turret loading it again.
"This is most unfortunate!" Gerardo caterwauled, pressing against the intact surface of the carriage. "Why are they shooting at us? Their professed target is right there!"
"I don't know!" Maple cried, hugging Starlight so tightly the filly was lifted off the ground. "Maybe they're mad that she's fighting? Maybe they want to use us as hostages!"
A second shell rammed into the elevator shaft, puncturing a hole in the wall with an ear-splitting tinkle. The elevator just barely had time to rise into the still-intact section before the turret was ready for round three.
Valey suplexed a guard's head into the floor, having isolated and gotten the better of him far more slowly than she would have liked. There were still seven left, and as she righted herself a third shell fired off, disintegrating the elevator shaft and causing it to break away far higher than the carriage had made it. Her friends were now exposed. If she had been messing around, it was time to stop.
A guard taunted her from a guarded stance, too smart to make a reckless charge. But he wasn't smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and her good wing flashed out, holding a banana peel - the last remains of her lunch, stored under her hat along with the sound stone and a lone Sosan stun grenade she felt worth saving for an emergency. Unfortunately, when they could fly away and she couldn't, this wasn't it.
The guard's gag reflex triggered as his mouth was stuffed forcefully with nasty, inedible banana peel. But he was a big pegasus, enough so that as he bent down to retch, Valey leapt at his back... and used him as a springboard, kicking off and vaulting over the remaining pegasi towards the turret. Unfortunately, one was already airborne, and having functional wings, he was far better at changing position midair than her.
...But not good enough. Valey's lone good wing shot out, launching her into a corkscrew that dived past his side, lacerating his own wing as she passed. He yelped and fell, but already had a blow incoming, and the slice from her sharp wingtip wasn't enough to remove his weapon's momentum.
Whuddd! Driven by a thick, hairy hoof, the stallion's miniature club pummeled her soft belly and sent her rocketing downwards so hard she bounced once against the floor, landing on her back. She gasped for breath, fighting the simultaneous urges to curl up and to lay immobile, glad it had been as long as it had since she'd eaten. Someone had actually landed a blow against her!
The turret fired again from right next to her, scoring a clean impact against the side of the elevator carriage.
Warning lights blared as a web of cracks spread completely around the cylinder, its five inhabitants huddled terrified within. Normally air-conditioned and depressurized to provide as comfortable a ride as possible, the carriage was filled with jets of hot air as the pressure equalized through the wider cracks, forcing them further apart from the force of the transfer of air.
The cracks grew, first a centimeter, then an inch, and kept spreading. Starlight looked at the floor, which was beginning to tilt, and then the ceiling, connected to them only by that thin sheet of reinforced glass and the one thing keeping them attached to the upwards-moving cable. Below, she saw Valey go down, having taken an attack, and the turret pony loading another shell just in case. Several of the pegasi were flying towards the bottom of the cylinder... Yes, they were definitely supposed to be hostages. She hoped.
Gulping, Starlight felt her horn. It still had the faint pink tingle of the crystal palace below them, as if the energies the tree had lent her to dismantle the moon glass apparatus hadn't quite worn away yet. How much would they be good for? A single enhanced spell? She was still fresh, herself. Time to find out.
Starlight's horn flared as the cracks grew exponentially, wisps of pink mixing in with her own teal magic. Maple's body was rigid around her, too in shock to pay attention to what she was doing as her aura intensified. The floor's tilt increased as she further charged her aura, milliseconds away from a final shatter... and with a surge of effort, a conjured crystal bloomed around them, wrapping her and Maple and the elevator roof and all her friends in a sturdy, protective shield that filled the outline of the cylinder. The waiting pegasi gasped. The elevator continued to rise.
"Yeah!" Valey cheered from her back as she lashed out with both hind legs, hoping to catch anyone trying to sneak up on her while she was prone, trying to gather herself and get up. She had seen the elevator fill with crystal. As long as Starlight could keep that up, she had a little more time.
Unfortunately, her attackers weren't stupid enough to get within kicking range... from that direction. Why did she have to be up against the one team of fighters in Ironridge who were apparently coordinated? Any other day of the year, it would have been a welcome challenge. Then, as one pegasus lunged at her from the side and another waited patiently for her to roll out of the way, it was ridiculously inconvenient.
Sensing the waiting fighter, she instead rolled into the attacking one, reaching out and grapple-hugging the pony's chest like a zombie. His blow went wide and he toppled from the batpony latched onto his chest, flailing. "What's the matter?" she heaved, still breathless from the strike to her gut. "Don't like hugs? That's your loss, 'cause I'm really fuzzy!"
Gathering all four legs between him and her, she kicked, launching his body airborne and spinning upright to grab his club. The paltry weapon found its way to the face of the pony who had been laying in wait, where it bounced off and did little more than make him mad.
Maybe that was why they were using them, Valey mused as she decapitated another railing, her old pipe bar too far away to be useful. They knew she could steal whatever they brought, so they took things that would only be useful with enough raw muscle behind them. That was rude and cunning! Torn between being offended and impressed, she hefted the pipe like a javelin, forcing the nearest pegasus to dodge for fear of being skewered. He was such a big target... but the pipe didn't even leave her hooves. Instead, she spun and took out the turret pony with a blow to the head, who had just loaded another explosive shell.
Where was sniper pony? Not firing for fear of hitting his allies? And where was all the backup? With four guards out, three having eaten at least one good blow and three off chasing the elevator, the fight was almost won. Valey stood against the turret, watching the remaining three size her up and decide they didn't like their odds. They took wing and flew away.
Pity. Thanks to sniper pony's hole in the other side of the bridge, she had been planning to aim the explosive turret at the bridge coupling with the elevator terminal, causing the bridge to fall entirely. It wouldn't have done much since they were all pegasi, but it would have looked cool. Too bad that wasn't a plan she would ever...
Her flank buzzed.
Idly, she sidestepped, expecting another bolt from sniper pony, massaging her sore barrel with a hoof. But the danger tingle sharply increased, almost instantly reaching the point where time stopped and she had a few precious seconds to identify the threat... and her eyes picked out a burning gob of plasma heading straight for the turret. The one that fired explosive shells. That couldn't be good.
She flung herself away just as the turret exploded, feeling her tail singe and the hairs on her back scorch. The bridge fulfilled her predictions neatly, severing where the turret had been and bending around the hole that had been perforated closer to the core. The section she was on swung like a trap door, flinging her with it as she frantically dug into the mesh surface... and then hit something and stopped with such a clang that she would have been pancaked if she hadn't gone shadow and flown right through.
Landing on a small maintenance platform underneath a large overhang from the drill column's lowest completed ring, Valey stared upwards. The elevator was up there, and more pegasi were, too. She adjusted her hat; there was no time to sit around.
Valey clung tight to a chain as it rattled, dragging around a distant pulley and yanking her upwards at a far faster speed than she could climb by hoof. Catwalks and pipes whizzed past as she fought to hang on, and only a tingle from her cutie mark allowed her to jerk to the side, avoiding having her ride disintegrated by sniper pony.
She had a good fix on his location, and wanted him gone. She could see the elevator; it was still above her, but she was gaining on it, and Starlight's shield was holding. Five pegasi buzzed near it, alternating between whaling on it with their wimpy black clubs and simply waiting for it to break. That was two more than last time, but not three more. Even if there were no reinforcements, there was an escaped attacker unaccounted for.
Sniper pony shot again, far enough above her that there was nothing she could do as he severed the long chain she was riding upwards. Converting her momentum, she flipped and landed evenly on a dormant platform. He was getting annoying! He was also watching her, only half a level above and three catwalks away. Valey grinned.
She lunged off her platform, using a hanging bundle of cables as a landing point to extend her jump, rolling smoothly onto a walkway. There was a pipe she could run along to the second. Cackling as she ran, Valey leapt as the pipe exploded in a shower of plasma behind her and falling away, letting her momentum carry her to the catwalk. She was close enough to see his eyes, and they looked scared. He was... wait. He was a unicorn?
Up close, it was obvious sniper pony wasn't a pegasus. His long-barreled launcher was mounted to a stand, but swiveled and aimed by a cloud of green telekinesis originating from a point on his head. That wasn't fair! The Defense Force was supposed to be all pegasi...
Well, it was unfair for him, at least.
No wings? No chance to fly away if she got too close, and he didn't look nearly as acrobatic as her. The stallion struggled to aim at close quarters while Valey searched for a way across the final gap, eventually giving up and abandoning his launcher, racing down the catwalk to the drill column... and getting decked out of nowhere by an earth pony wearing a hard hat who was thrice as beefy as he was.
"There you are, varmint!" the mine technician roared, slugging the unicorn again as a squad of backup arrived, toting welding torches and pipe wrenches and furious expressions on their soot-stained faces. "You're with those roughhousers who're damaging the equipment! The Defense Force sits around hogging resources all day while they're supposed to keep us safe and it's bad enough, but now you're breaking the machines!?"
"Uh-oh." Valey grinned, ducking behind a thin support pillar. She had hoped to commandeer sniper pony's launcher to try to knock some things down on the pegasi chasing the elevator, but it looked like that was firmly out of the question. The core was mostly shut down, but the workers left inside didn't seem to take kindly to the collateral damage the fight was causing... and since they couldn't fly or be acrobatic and nimble, that was good for her.
Sniper pony actually started fighting back, shielding himself with a pulse of telekinesis and a dodge, then yanking away a weapon and tripping a pony who was trying to flank him. Seriously? The ponies she had just gone one versus ten against were themselves willing and able to fight a mob solo? Valey whistled. She was almost tempted to jump in and even the odds, just to see what would happen, if he hadn't just been shooting at her and her friends weren't still under attack. He could reap his own reward; she had an elevator to catch.
Valey raced up a steep, swaying bunch of cables, its incline just gentle enough that she could get purchase on the ties holding the cables together without sliding back down. She was gaining on the elevator again, but suspected it was going slower, possibly as a safety mechanism and possibly because of the weight of Starlight's crystal. The same five pegasi kept haunting it, some flying underneath inside the elevator shaft and others rising along outside, hounding the exit stations as it passed. They had risen far enough that the glass window wasn't shattered anymore and no longer had a turret, but that didn't stop them from trying.
Time to rejoin the fray. Shadow sneaking up a lengthy crevice, kicking off a hanging air duct and landing on a bridge to an elevator terminal, Valey steadied herself just as the five reached her level. "Hey, lemon bags!" she shouted, standing aggressively despite the burning in her legs from so much rapid climbing in an already-roasting environment. "You totally forgot me down there! What gives!?"
The three pegasi outside the elevator shaft spun on her, landing, as the two within bludgeoned the door until it shattered and they could slip through to rejoin their companions. Even as a team of five, they looked uncertain as they faced down Valey, clearly remembering that they had been far more numerous in the battle below.
"Well?" Valey tapped a hoof in annoyance. "What gives? Do you guys have an extra-special beef, or something? Just felt like targeting me on your own time? Giving me a proper farewell? Or do you chicken out of a fight and go after your enemy's friends the moment the going gets rough?"
"It's called taking hostages," one pegasus spat, stepping forward into a position of command. "We asked you to surrender and you refused. We're not interested in your friends, just you. It's our job." He spat again. "Please surrender. I don't want to lose another tooth or any of my friends over this, either."
"Technically, your job is to protect Ironridge," Valey pointed out. "Unless you're secretly cultists or something crazy posing as Defense Force, which I totally would believe given your competence. You want me to leave you alone? Easy solution: leave me alone first."
The lead pegasus shook his head. The elevator rose higher. In all the climbing they'd done, they were only three levels from the top of the shaft, and if she could distract the pegasi a little more, the elevator would be out of the Flame District.
"No, huh?" Valey took a warning step forward. "So where's your buddy? There's one fewer of you than there should be... Summoning reinforcements? Running for the hills at my awesome combat skills? Or did I take him out so anti-climatically that I don't even remember fighting him?"
The pegasi looked goaded. Good. She could handle them; Maple and Gerardo probably couldn't.
"He's tending to our injured," a pegasus said irately. "Like a responsible member of a team. We don't like taking losses. Every single pony counts."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Ooooh, noble. What, are you trying to guilt-trip me out of fighting you? Have you even heard of my reputation? No, seriously, have you?" She leaned forward, squinting. "If I didn't recognize some of you, I'd say you guys can't be Defense Force... Though hey, I've always had a better memory for mares. But who cares? Ready to continue thumping heads?"
The pegasi snorted, staring at her and not charging. They were stalling too, Valey realized with a shiver. And whatever it was for had to be more important than letting Starlight get away and risking the miner ponies finding them.
As if she'd let that happen.
"Well, it's been fun!" Valey shot her wings out, visibly wincing on her right side. "Bye!"
She leapt straight up... and the surprised pegasi, having caught on or otherwise been informed that she couldn't fly, scrambled into the air to intercept her. But rather than flapping, she folded her wings again, simply leaping in place and then darting forward along the ground. The pegasi were unprepared as she scooted underneath them, beelining straight for the broken doors to the elevator shaft.
"Nnngh..." Valey grunted in exertion as she clung spiderlike to the jagged, hewn wall of the elevator shaft interior. It was a long way to the bottom, and falling was the last thing she wanted to do... but she had an opportunity to get them all off her tail and prevent them from following, and she was going to take it. With the strain of burning muscles, she leapt off the wall, reaching the far side of the tunnel and digging in again with moderate height gain. Then she did it again. Then four pegasi zoomed in beneath her.
Go! Valey dropped down from the wall, kicking one squarely in the head and leaping back off, resuming her perch on the wall's other side. Unfortunately, it didn't knock them out and send another diving to catch them. She needed just a little bit of distance...
Then, the lights went out.
Valey blinked in surprise. A large portion of the upper core had dimmed, plunging the elevator shaft into enough darkness that she could shadow sneak. That was convenient! Now she could swim up the walls, which was faster, safer and easier than jumping. Smirking, she sank into the shadows as confused pegasus shouts rang out. Maybe she'd get to save some stamina for later, after all.
One pegasus shot past her, streaking upward. The other three hovered down below. Where was the fifth? Didn't matter. Obviously, they were trying to pincer her somehow, heading her off from above and below, but her cutie mark wasn't tingling, so she had nothing to fear.
She swam upwards, passing another elevator station... and the next... and eventually reaching the stone ceiling where the glass disappeared and the tunnel became rock all the way around. Almost there, almost there, almost there...
Suddenly, her mark suspended time, and she halted with a gasp. What was going on? Below her, far below, the three pegasi waited. She could see a pony above, flying back down the tunnel, but she was in the shadows. She ducked all the way in regardless, there shouldn't be anything the oncoming pony could do.
The pony held their pitiful black club straight forward like a blaster... and then the end flashed, emitting no projectile and a very large amount of light, forcefully ejecting Valey from the wall. "That's cheating-!" she barely had time to yell before the pony plowed into her, delivering a ferocious punch to her already-sore belly and sending her flying downward toward the waiting pegasi.
...The body pressing her downwards was the same size as her, she realized with a flash as they passed back into the glass portion of the elevator shaft and the waiting pegasi streaked up to meet them. That meant she was a she, and might be cute and cuddly... but more importantly wasn't at a strength or weight advantage like the stallions were. Valey grabbed the hoof that was pushing her as they fell, yanked the mare out of her flight pattern, and grappled her sideways such that she was pinning both of the mare's wings awkwardly against her sides. They spun out, and just before reaching the stallions Valey was able to kick off the glass, shadow sneaking and forcing both of them into the wall.
Disorientation from having her head submerged immediately caused the mare to writhe furiously, and Valey fought to keep a hold on her as the stallions approached from below and the tingling in her cutie mark increased. She saw them charging their flash clubs, preparing to flush her out... and leapt at the last second, flinging the thrashing pegasus into their faces and causing significant team damage as they were kicked and bucked and tried to get a grip on their friend. It was a perfect time to get ahead and test out her idea.
Fresh with the knowledge of what the flash clubs really did, and slightly annoyed that they were even more specifically designed to fight her than she thought, Valey smirked and pulled out the stun grenade from her hat. It used a sedative gas, and in an enclosed, unventilated shaft...
Her cutie mark gradually buzzed once the pin was pulled as the grenade timer wound down and down. She kept a careful eye both above and below to ensure it wasn't masking any threats; the pegasi below were ascending again and nothing was coming from above. When the grenade was a second away from explosion, she flung it downward and it detonated, filling the tunnel with a faint haze.
The first stallion charged into it and took about a second to faint. He landed on the second one, who was swiftly losing consciousness. The third one and the mare were far enough back to realize what was happening and be saddled with the task of catching their friends. Valey cackled as she rose; the tunnel was blocked, and even if those two felt like holding their breath and flying through it, they still had to go back and set down their allies and would then be two against one.
Still, that mare had come from above, and she hadn't seen a trace of the stallion who had soared away ahead of her. She could smell Starlight somewhere above her in the distance, but that meant the very best she could hope for was that there were enemies between them and her... and they could easily have been captured. She swam furiously upward; they weren't out of Ironridge yet.
Starlight released her spell with a gasp as the elevator reached its highest point, the shaft door opening with a blare of emergency lights. With a rush of wings, she was seized by Gerardo and flung out of the carriage alongside Maple, Howe and Neon making their own escape behind them. Somehow, lacking their weight pressing down on it, the bottom of the carriage didn't fall away.
A trio of pegasus mares backed by a battered stallion stood in front of them, holding flash clubs aggressively. They tensed to attack... and then blinked in confusion, sizing up the group.
"Well, uhh..." Howe chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with a wing. "This sure was unforeseen!"
"Howe?" One of the mares blinked, looking incredulous. "And Neon-"
The middle mare silenced her with a feather to the muzzle, eyeing Starlight's group sharply. The tip of her flash club blazed, and when Valey failed to materialize from a hidden crevice, she said, "Looks like she hasn't made it this far yet. Harshwater, fly down the shaft and try to trap her against the rest of the squad. You two, guard the entrance, just in case."
"Ah." Gerardo's eyes narrowed. "Someone who can speak before attacking. What is the meaning of this? Has the Defense Force became an Attack Force whilst my back was turned? Have we somehow meddled too far in someone's villainous plans? To what am I not privy?"
The commanding mare tossed her flash club, catching it deftly in a wing and keeping it trained on the group. "Doesn't matter. We're after a pony who calls herself Valey. Apparently, the three of you mean something to her, so we need you as bait. We'll let you go after that; we aren't heartless. Now surrender!" With a yell, she lunged forward, swinging her weapon at the unarmed Gerardo.
He caught it with both talons, pressing back using his superior griffon strength. "The three of us?" he panted, fighting to keep his balance as the mare jerked and tried to throw him on his side. "Whatever are you talking..."
Maple stood behind him, ears folded, holding Starlight as she rubbed at her horn. To the side, Howe and Neon Nova sat awkwardly, nobody paying them any attention.
Gerardo dropped his grip and rolled out of the way, causing the mare to briefly stagger and redouble on him as her primary target. "Howe! This had better not have anything to do with you!"
"Well, technically..." Howe spun his forehooves. "It doesn't anymore? See, these are some of my friends from my old mercenary band that I just got fired from... But since Herman was our employer and not my boss, he kinda only fired me from the job I was hired for and not from the band itself, so my hooves are kind of tied either way, here." Neon Nova nodded in agreement.
"Not for us or against us," Gerardo grunted, exchanging another blow with the armed mare. "That's absolutely brilliant. Need I remind you you technically hired yourself on as an ally to us, and we have yet to deliver your payment?"
Howe shrugged. "Well, I... do suppose you could hire us to duel our own comrades. But since you have everything we want on you in the first place and they're already trying to subdue you..."
Starlight seethed in realization, the fur along her spine bristling. Was he betraying them, now that he thought they had both windigo hearts and were about to lose? He didn't know they had hidden the first heart on Shinespark's ship! And she had never liked Neon Nova, either. Her horn lit, preparing to make them regret ever coming to Ironridge.
Instantly, the commanding pegasus mare lost all interest in fighting Gerardo, bolting across the room and clubbing Howe so hard that his gelled mane was knocked askew. "Are you selling out on a contract!? I knew you two didn't have what it took to do real mercenary work when we let you join on last year! Stand up and fight your hardest for your job, cowards!"
Gerardo and Maple gaped as she set into the stallions, twirling and hammering with a ferocity that forced them back even with their backs to the wall, more than a match for the duo in their surprised condition. "Well, this may be our cue to sneak away," Gerardo whispered, edging toward the unguarded door. "If they see fit to throw us under the proverbial cart, I'm moderately inclined to return the favor."
"Rainstorm, guard the door!" the commander barked without even looking over her shoulder.
Instantly, a small, determined pegasus mare the color of bruised thunderclouds was blocking the exit with her wings spread wide, leaving the guarding of the elevator shaft to the battered stallion. She glared at them, making it known she wasn't about to back down from a three-against-one or a fight with a griffon.
Scrrkkkk! A wall-mounted flatscreen that had been showing dormant feeds of data lost its signal in a flurry of static. It fuzzed, and the data was gone, replaced by a camera feed of Selma's face.
"Well, this is interesting," the white stallion's voice hummed, using the same inflated, egotistical tone he had carried in the Flame Barracks while trying and failing to taunt Valey. "I'm so glad I left someone in the data station who could patch me in if any funny business occurred while I was away. Defense Force operatives, disobeying my order to leave the bat alone? Defense Force operatives, ignoring the mandate to secure the base and wandering around the Flame District? Defense Force operatives working with other Defense Force operatives who aren't even stallions, as per the rules? By Herman's one horn, it's almost like you aren't even Defense Force operatives at all!"
Grinning far too broadly, he hissed in glee. "You're mercenaries, aren't you? That pesky, secretive, unofficially-hired group Herman keeps around to go behind my back day in and night out? Well, guess what? I don't know what you're up to, but I've been getting some very interesting reports of battle damage in the Flame District, and that means you are breaking the law and defacing a domain that is mine to protect! Now, I can legally-"
Crash!
The lead mercenary mare's hoof went clear through the screen to the wall behind, causing it to shatter in a cascade of sparks that she effortlessly shrugged off. "Don't do that!" Selma's voice snarled from an intact speaker somewhere. "Those things are expensive!"
"Not as expensive as a contract." The mare shrugged in no direction in particular, and she turned back to Howe and Neon Nova.
Selma's voice only scoffed. A second passed... and Rainstorm, the mare guarding the door, had to desperately roll to the side to avoid getting skewered as a platoon of Defense Force pegasi stormed in with spears lowered.
"Change targets!" the leader's voice hollered above the din as the room suddenly became occupied by far more ponies than its intended capacity, the real Defense Force members focusing on the mercenaries and ignoring Maple, Starlight and Gerardo.
Pressing together, the three made it to the door and past, the hallway beyond narrow and empty. Maple sighed; pressed against her, Starlight could hear her heart beating thunderously. "What do we do now!?"
"Worry not, I've sustained no injuries and still possess the orb." Gerardo patted a bulging pocket in his uniform. "Are you hale as well, friends?"
"I'm okay," Maple quickly said, then nuzzled Starlight.
"I'm fine..." Starlight groaned. Her horn had clearly taken some wear from the prolonged crystal spell, though not nearly as much as it would have without the pink magic's assistance. She could no longer feel the tree's influence, though. If she had to fight further, it would be on her own.
Gerardo nodded. "Then I'd say our best course of action is to flee. Valey will find us, and hopefully these two sides will serve to knock each other out."
"Up on the dam..." Maple gulped. "It sounded like this wasn't planned? Do you think Selma's troops are coming from there? Like this could change what's happening?"
"It may," Gerardo acknowledged. "I believe you said you wished to seek out the lift to that place so that we could make it to the dams ourselves and do our part to help?"
"I... what?" Maple's brows scrunched. "No I didn't! At least, I didn't mean that. I meant that if we found the lift, I'd know where we were, like a landmark. I could find my way to the exit from there, going through the outer Flame District like where we are now."
Starlight swallowed, cutting in. "If we go outside, we'll be easy targets for pegasi."
"Indeed. But let us walk as we talk." Spreading his wings, Gerardo pushed them along, hurrying down the corridor away from the fighting. "It may well be worth noting that Selma just sent an army in our defense. If this lift goes to the upper Water District, as you've described, that could very well be the path they entered by, meaning it would be safe. Meanwhile, I wouldn't put it past these mercenaries to have guards on any normal exits to the outside world. And if both factions gathering for a confrontation on the dam believe themselves to be our allies..."
Maple's ears folded. "You're not suggesting we go back up there, are you? There's nothing at the top of that lift but a terrible maze! Me and Starlight were lost for hours last time!"
"Ah, you were..." Gerardo lifted a talon as he ran. "But I have a feeling the sounds of conflict would travel well were it nearby, especially that far removed from any heavy machinery. There's also the chance we could run into some friendlies using the caves as a base, who would already know their way around. And it could serve to bamboozle the mercenaries just as much as us. Also, in the unlikely event that we found a door to the outside leading southwest, that would put us in the perfect position to make a break across the Sky District snowfields to the skyport, as we planned! Don't forget, I should be able to carry you two together so long as your weight isn't magically inflated."
"You are suggesting it," Maple grumbled, resignation in her voice. "Well... let's find the lift first, and see if it isn't guarded. We can see what happens from there. But unless the regular way out is heavily guarded, I just want to get somewhere safe."
With a ripple of black, Valey reached the top of the elevator shaft. Someone pulsed a flash club from behind the open shaft door, and the ruined elevator carriage had been jammed sideways such that she would have to shadow sneak to fit past it and then immediately be revealed.
Unfortunately for whoever was waiting at the top, Valey didn't take kindly to being told she had to do things. Coming out of the shadows and clinging to the wall just below the carriage, she wedged her back into a crevice, steadied herself... and kicked the carriage bottom so hard that she finished what the artillery had started, snapping it clean off and sending the metal disc sailing into the room as a lead-off attack.
The pegasus with the flash club dodged out of the way, but was unable to stop her as she followed it, getting a firm hoofing in front of the elevator and taking quick stock of her surroundings. Three hostile pegasi; two mares and one stallion. Two dozen unconscious or incapacitated pegasi that looked like real Defense Force ponies... and fought like it, too, if they had been bested by three. Signs of a fight everywhere, ranging from scattered and broken weapons to a smashed display on one wall.
Valey grinned. "Ooh, looks like someone's party got crashed. Did the three of you do this?"
Looking slightly harried, one mare stepped forward, sweeping a wing back. "They were the ones who tried to stop us. Sorry, but business is business, and our business is you. We'd appreciate it very much if you surrendered, because the longer this goes on, the more likely it is to get bloody."
"Or you could leave me alone," Valey offered. "Or I could bust you all up." Her flank was beginning to tingle; either they were about to charge or the elevator shaft wasn't as blocked as she thought it was. Whichever was the case, stalling wouldn't be in her best interest.
The pegasi accepted her challenge as one, grabbing hardened Defense Force spears from the defeated party and dropping into formation.
"Hoboy..." Valey rolled her eyes as they approached, trying not to show her nerves. Would she be fine? Probably. The mooks she was up against were clearly elite and far more than what she was used to dealing with, but they were still mooks, and she was still her. Her friends, though? She saw no signs of them, so that could be an issue. She fell into a defensive stance, preparing to block an incoming swing.
The attacking mare anticipated her block, but wasn't quite fast enough to play around Valey's reflexes as she shot a hoof at the thrust, wrapping around the weapon and catching it in a lock. The stallion, however, was, and as Valey twisted herself around the spear to deliver a kick to its owner's head, he stabbed straight at where she was going to be. Only the nimblest of twirls allowed Valey to get below the caught spear, kicking off it into the ground like a lever, uppercutting its owner with the haft and dodging into the stallion's own shadow with one movement.
The other mare gave her less than a second before having her flash club primed, hitting the metal-plated ground with a blast of light. Instead of trying to gain momentum coming out of the shadows, Valey flipped away, keeping her guard up. Three stabbers that close together needed a to be separated; fighting all three at once would inevitably give one an opening to stab her while she dealt with the others. All three pegasi anticipated her erupting from beneath them with an attack and guarded downward.
Before she could take advantage of their split-second distraction, four pegasi streaked up from the elevator shaft, and she had to roll out of the way to avoid being immediately flattened. So much for her grenade holding them off. With a single glance, they formed into a team, and Valey had suddenly gone from an armed three versus one to an armed seven versus one, both in close quarters. Those were odds that needed evening.
She backed up until she felt her hoof bump against a defeated Defense Force pegasus. Did he still have a spear? Of course he did. Good for him. She grabbed it with her good wing, aimed, grinned as the pegasi realized if they failed to dodge, that could be a lot more lethal than a simple kick or headbutt... and jammed it into the room's overhead lighting mechanism, causing it to explode with a hiss of magic and sparks. Red light filtered into the room from its smoke-stained window to the core, dimly bathing the ceiling and completely shadowing the floor.
The pegasi grinned; they had their flash clubs. Valey grinned harder: they'd be forced to use them to stop her from escaping, but lacking her borderline prescience, they'd have no way to keep from blinding each other with the flashes. So long as she kept them going, they wouldn't be able to see her, even when she wasn't sneaking.
She ducked, and her mark tingled. Flash! She surfaced just in time, squinting to protect her eyes as five out of the seven pegasi tried to flush her out at once, the combined intensities of their strobe forcing most of them to rub frantically at their eyes and even earning a yelp. She could have hurled the spear then and there and stood a good chance of impaling one, but instead she flung it to the side, clattering, and ducked again.
At least one of the pegasi had caught on and screwed his eyes shut, relying on hearing and their numbers advantage to fight, but that meant he fell for the decoy, chucking his stolen spear at the noise and blasting away blindly with the flash club. He was at the wrong angle to illuminate her, though, and the dizzied other pegasi had just as much luck as the previous time as she chaotically ducked and resurfaced, never quite being submerged when the shadow was parted. Sensing they were sufficiently thrown off, she made a break for the door...
...And smacked into three more pegasus mares who were freshly arriving. Gasping, they grasped the situation far faster than Valey was hoping, using their flash clubs as clubs once again and trying desperately to block her way with a precision rain of blows.
"Nope, nope and nope!" Time slowed by her cutie mark as she pressed into their attack, Valey moved her forehooves and spare wing like lightning, catching all three clubs at once. Wrenching herself in a circle, she yanked the three mares together so that they tripped on each other, falling into a pile. She didn't bother kicking them out of the entrance, vaulting over the heap and hoping it would slow the others down. That was ten hostile ninja-tier ponies in one room, and she was far more exhausted thanks to climbing the core than she had been for her previous battle. Not even stopping to taunt or wave, Valey cantered down the tunnel, hoping to find a place where she could ditch the pegasi for good.
"I hope I... know where... I'm going..." Maple panted, her legs thudding along the metal mesh floor of the Flame District corridors as Starlight bounced on her back and Gerardo raced along beside her. "Ohh, I'm still sore from this morning... Scratch that, I just hope we don't have to stop so I can rest..."
"Then slow down!" Starlight growled, hanging onto her mane. "Pace yourself better! I know about not pacing yourself! I spent a week sick in a cave because I didn't!"
Maple folded her ears and narrowed her eyes. "Not until we're safe. We need to find... somewhere. We need to keep going..."
"In Maple's defense, you were not potentially being chased by an army of irate pegasi," Gerardo replied, easily keeping pace. "Right now, there is more of a downside to resting than merely taking longer to reach our goal. Collapsing in safety is preferable to having a comfortable escape." He sniffed. "Though, you very much do have my sympathies."
They exited the tunnel into an employee break room, a sturdy window with triangular metal braces showing the Flame District core to their left. The floor was still hot, uncomfortable metal, but there were two tables along with a row of countertops that sported a sink, refrigerator and stove, alongside countless cupboards. The stove looked exceptionally new and shiny, its curved chrome trim polished to a mirrorlike state, and its cardboard packaging still sat in a corner.
"Shh!" Gerardo abruptly halted them, letting the Flame District's usual din fill the air... and hoofsteps sounded from the tunnel ahead. Without hesitation, he grabbed Maple and Starlight and darted behind the empty stove box.
A trio of pegasus mares strode into the room, two with flash clubs strapped to their backs and one holding hers in a wing. Briefly, she strobed it around the room, grunting. "There's someone in here. I heard someone coming, and then they stopped!"
Another looked at her curiously. "How much noise do you think Valey would make if she got past everyone? Wouldn't she try to do it as quietly as possible?"
The third shrugged. "Well, we heard something. Check, maybe-"
At that moment, Howe and Neon Nova skidded into the room from the direction Maple had came, both panting heavily and holding their sides. "Urgh... did you..." Howe glanced up at the pegasi. "Good evening, ladies! Has our elusive target passed this way? I swear, we were just on her heels!"
"Howe?" The three mares frowned in unison. "I thought you got fired!" one said, pointing.
"And Neon, aren't you stationed in the Earth District?" another asked, confused. "The boss said it was only pegasi on this mission, since we didn't want to give the impression that the other districts were interfering!"
"I still don't get that, by the way," the first grumbled. "We get all these jobs from Herman raising tensions between the districts, and now suddenly one with a really big potential to do that and he wants us not to? Imagine how much easier this would be if we had a proper number of unicorns! But no, all we get is one sniper..."
"No questioning orders," the third said. "Howe, Neon, what are you doing here?"
Howe slapped a wing across his chest. "Trying to restore our glorious reputations! We were... in the area and thought we'd help out. Anyway, the rest of the team has been attacked and set upon by Selma's Defense Force. We felt it incomprehensibly wise to continue searching for the target instead of helping them out. I'm sure they'll be fine on their own."
Behind the box, Maple bristled. Through a pinprick hole in the cardboard, she could see Howe shoot a glance straight at her.
"Specifically?" Neon Nova grinned. "We teleported out. Having a unicorn is useful!"
"Okay. Right." The lead pegasus ran a hoof along her face. "So she was between us and you missed her. Is that it?"
Howe shrugged, noncommittal. "Technically, I think she was behind us. We were trying to reach the exit and head her off."
The mare raised an eyebrow. "You were trying to escape. The Defense Force attacked and you chickened out."
"Hey, it's not like we were being paid to do this, or anything!" Neon Nova protested.
"Ugh..." The lead mare unhitched her flash club with a sigh. "You cowards. Go on. Escape. We don't need you to deal with this, anyway. Boss says it's our last job, so when it's over we're leaving. You can stay here in Ironridge for all I care."
"Eh heh heh..." Howe nervously giggled. "In that case, maybe we'll be... sort of helpful? We'll hold down this room. Now go get her!"
With a snort of disapproval, the lead pegasus flapped past them, the other two trotting swiftly along behind her back along the tunnel to the elevator. Howe and Neon took up seats at a table, not leaving the room.
"Look," Howe said to no one a minute after they were gone, "I know that wasn't exactly flattering for us back there, but they were about to find you. You could at least say thank you."
Maple rose from behind the cardboard packaging, silent, offering the stallions a chance to explain themselves.
"We were cowardly, okay?" Howe looked cowed and slightly desperate. "You haven't fought with our band. Every one of them is a hardened warrior of unspeakable strength! Well... every one they'd send on a job like this. Which isn't to say the two of us are pushovers, but we could maybe take one on together and it would be a fair fight. If Neon wasn't already busted up. Besides, they did not intend to hurt you! We just needed to cover our rears, and..."
Gerardo fixed them with a sharp stare. "Somehow, I did not receive the impression you knew them very well back there, judging by their reaction to your perceived treachery."
"Well..." Howe wilted. "We really want those hearts, okay? We thought, maybe, if you got captured, we could play along and get you to give them to us in exchange for letting you out..."
"Yes," Gerardo mused, "you really do want those hearts. In fact... and I feel like I should have put my talon on this earlier... Maple, have you noticed any change in Howe's demeanor since you met up with him in Grand Acorn? I wasn't there for much of the time, so cannot say myself..."
Maple thought, then shook her head. "I don't think so. Not significant, at least. Why?"
"Because I have," Gerardo stated. "Between our separation in the Defense Force fort and reunion in Gnarlbough this morning. An absence coinciding with your discovery that the hearts were not beyond reach, as you had thought. Before, you were penitent, silly, and slightly too aggravating for your own good. Now, you're... shall we say, much more intense."
"And I never spent more than a few minutes around you before that, so I wouldn't know..." Maple's eyes widened. "Gerardo, where are you going with this?"
Gerardo held up the windigo heart, glowing like a star with internal pink flame. "You want this, don't you? Badly enough that you'd do anything for it?"
Howe and Neon Nova watched it like dogs salivating before a meal.
"Valey said..." Maple's heartbeat increased in worry. "She said the windigo hearts could make ponies fight over them. And these two had the hearts as heirlooms. You're not saying having them that long... changed them, are you? Made it so they aren't themselves when the possibility of getting these back is on the table? That there's something unnatural going on here?"
"Hmm?" Gerardo glanced over at her. "Oh, hardly. I was merely thinking it was time for a very honest question-and-answer session, since they've been in dire need of a chance to show their true colors and that display back there wasn't the most inspiring."
"Name your proposition," Howe said dully. "We're not cursed, all right!? We just want our legacy back! And we're so close, yet so far, and it's making us incredibly nervous!"
Starlight crawled towards the door, glancing down the tunnel. "Is this really the best time for this? We're staying in one place too long!"
"You wanted me to rest, didn't you?" Maple smiled tiredly at her. "Well, here we are."
Gerardo nodded at Starlight. "Indeed, we should keep moving," he agreed. "As such, I have only one question: how did these orbs become a family heirloom? What is your initial claim to them?"
"Uhhh... Well, that's..." Howe scratched at the back of his neck. "It's not something we usually talk about because it's very hard to prove, but we were given them by our father. And he obtained them during the adventures of his youth, when he... slew their original hosts?" He grinned hopefully.
Gerardo gave him a careful stare. "You father found two live windigoes and killed them. Is that how I'm supposed to be reading this? Wherever did he manage to do that?"
"I'm not certain on the details..." Howe fumbled for words. "Apparently the windigoes lurk in a creepy castle like that one, uh, far beneath the ice under the yak capital of Infinite Glacier. As for how, he was one of the original companions of Blazing Rain forty years ago. All the stories say that war failed to dredge up the windigoes of old, but... it did. She and her friends were able to stop them in time, though, and since then the church was able to cover up their existence and keep it as a legend. In case anyone wanted to get at them again and use them for evil. And believe me, as bad of an idea as it sounds, there are ponies who would." His posture firmed, and he returned Gerardo's stare. "You want to know why I wear my hair like a supervillain and talk about darkness and chaos all the time? As bait! So those ponies will approach me and think I'm one of them, and I can shut them down before they dig too deep! That's what we spent our lives doing before our hideout was raided and the yaks stole back our windigo hearts..."
He finally sighed. "And if you want to know why I was acting different, that's how I usually am when I'm not acting. Losing all hope of getting the hearts back has this way of taking the wind out of your sails, you know?"
Maple's eyes were wide. "Really?"
"By my own blood, yes." Howe slumped. "The hearts and the secrets they protect are ours to guard, and our forgotten legacy they serve to remind us of. For a time, the yak church aided with passing Blazing Rain into legend so that the details surrounding her quest would be forgotten. Those hearts are not only dangerous artifacts, but our last proof of that which wasn't wiped away. That is why we want them back."
Gerardo glanced to Maple. "Should we trust them?"
"Why do I have to decide!?" Maple pulled on her mane, ears tucking against her skull. "Why can't we... ohh..."
"Maple?" Starlight asked from across the room. "There's a map here, on the wall. It shows that we're right by that lift. Are we going up to the Water District, or going out to the Stone District? We need to decide!"
"I know I'm going up," Neon Nova added sagely.
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And why is that?"
Neon shrugged. "Because the Water District is where the surveillance center is, and I just realized someone let all that slip on camera!"
Howe's eyes constricted. "What!? But... but... Oh, I did! Neon, why didn't you stop me!?"
"Because I only realized just now!" Neon yelped as Howe slammed him back against a wall.
"What?" Gerardo's eyes were pinpricks. "But Selma said the surveillance system was video only, and lacked an audio feed! That..." He drooped. "He was lying, wasn't he? That scoundrel. Well, that's one less choice we need make, at least. In the event that these two are telling the truth, I see no good coming of Herman having access to a confession involving underground castles and the existence of windigoes."
Maple got to her hooves, following him along and whispering under her breath. "I'm just worried he already knew..."
A Flame District tunnel rattled as Valey kicked off a wall and bounded around a corner, legs burning from exertion. So much of the corridor was taken up by pipes that the engineers who built it had installed a mesh cage separating ponies from them, preventing anyone from touching them like a tunnel within a tunnel. It was like racing down a pipe made of pipes, the walls, ceiling and even floor leaving no trace of the rock below. And it was just as hot as could be expected when some of those pipes contained steam or worse.
Beating wings sounded from behind her, accompanied by a flash of her cutie mark, and she ducked just in time to avoid losing an ear to a spear thrust, scooting forward along the ground.
Over her lowered head vaulted a pegasus who immediately jammed the spear crosswise into the tunnel walls, blocking her path and forcing her to jump to clear it. The pegasus clearly knew that was her only option and hovered, ready to rebuff her if she leapt or slam her if she stopped to move the spear. More pegasi charged and soared up behind her, promising a quick end if she spent so much as half a second to think... but thanks to her cutie mark, she had slightly more time than that.
Her eyes fell to the bottom of the tunnel. It was just as laden with pipes and cables as the sides, the flooring made from detachable grate sections so that a maintenance pony could remove it to get below if need be. Some generous architect had left just enough room between the floor and the pipes that a slender mare could crawl there to fix things without the entire floor being removed... or to escape being stabbed and foalnapped. And Valey didn't need time or tools to get through grates.
Flash! A light strobed, knocking her out of the grate and onto the pipes below with a painful landing, but it hadn't been fast enough to eject her from the shadows where she would get punted back to the top. Her hooves struggled against the round, uneven pipe floor as her back scraped the ceiling and her cutie mark blazed, and she surged forward, a spear stabbing down where she had been and nearly impaling her tail.
Another stab, again barely missing. Hooves pounded atop her, causing the grate to vibrate harshly against her back as a pony ran ahead of her. Her cutie mark constantly burned to the extent it should have slowed time; apparently that ability had a cooldown if mortal danger was constant. This wasn't working! On instinct, she threw herself to the side, dodging another stabbing spear, and-
HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Valey yowled as if her life depended on it. In her dodge, she had stepped on a boiling pipe and not had the maneuverability to instantly dance off, leaving one of her forehooves a seared, blistering mess. Snarling against the pain, she jerked herself back to the center of the passage and dared a second of rest. She had to; it felt like it would fall off if it so much as touched anything that wasn't ice water.
With a thunk, a spear impaled the pipe in front of her inches from her head. She eyed it widely; it had been led, and if she hadn't stopped moving because of her burn, it would have turned her into a bat kebab. As it was, the spear was doing a perfect job of blocking her path.
"All right..." Gritting her teeth, Valey stared upwards. A mare stood immediately above her, readying a final stolen Defense Force spear to finish her off as she lay prone. "I'm done. This is not happening! Hraaaugh!"
She flipped on her back, using her good wing to propel her spin, and slammed her three working legs into the grate like fuzzy piledrivers. With the popping of bolts, the section above her burst from its frame, flying upward and sandwiching the stabbing mare heavily against the ceiling. Valey erupted after her, seizing the grate and twisting in midair before bucking it as a giant iron projectile back at the mess of pegasi chasing her down the hallway. It struck two with a clang, wedging itself awkwardly with its corners catching in the mesh walls, temporarily blocking the way.
Valey landed, seething, on three hooves, facing the nimble stallion in front of her who had tried to lead his shot. She straightened her hat with a flick of one ear. He was visibly sweating.
"I'm getting out of here," Valey croaked, her voice a mix of its natural raspiness, suppressed pain and fiery determination. "I don't care how bad you or Selma or Herman or anyone else wants my head or how awesome you lard barrels think you are. I'm me! I've never been beaten before..." She touched the black moon glass in her pendant from the castle with the tip of a wing. "And I sure don't intend to start now that I've got something actually decent to fight for. Now get out of my way!"
She coiled her hind legs. He saw, and prepared to catch a jump... but Valey read the tension in his muscles, knowing he was calling a bluff and preparing to intercept low. So she sprang even higher, targeting the ceiling well in front of him. Clang! She flipped over in midair and kicked off it, heading back toward the ground. Clang! She kicked off that, bouncing back toward the ceiling, repeating the move like a black and green pinball of doom as he tried frantically to read where she would be when she reached him. Up... down... up... down...! Smash!
At the last second, Valey headbutted, and there was nothing his flailing forelimbs could do to block it. His guard broken, all it took was two rapid-fire blows for him to go down in a heap. Valey snatched his fallen spear and leapt clear of him just as the grate behind her broke; the chase was on.
It took all of three limping steps for more reinforcements to appear, this time a trio of pegasus mares from ahead. All were armed with flash clubs, and all looked ready to cost her the precious few seconds' lead she had on the squad behind her. Why did the corridor have to be so cramped!?
With a yell, Valey didn't even give them time to react, snapping her wings out and surging forward on three legs. The two foremost swung at her, one's club glancing harmlessly off her pendant, the other striking her square in the head, earning some complimentary stars for her vision. Valey didn't flinch, separating a path between them with the haft of her spear and tripping forward, catching the foremost two around the chests with her wings.
"Raaaaaugh!" She dove, shadow sneaking and slamming them both into the grate. One dropped their flash club; she kicked the ignition with a hoof, blasting herself mid-sneak. The recoil ejected her from the grate inside the tunnel, but the two mares she had shoved were trapped beneath the floor. Not waiting to see if they would copy her move of kicking out the grate, she slithered forward on her belly like a waterfall, slipping between the last mare's legs before she could react to the attack and slamming her good hoof into her barrel.
The mare wheezed, eyes bugging, and arched her back. Valey struck again, unbalancing her and flipping her off her hooves, then leapt, coming down with a final blow to the prone mare's stomach.
"That's for earlier," she rasped as the mare curled into a ball, holding herself and tearing up while heaving for breath. If they thought it was funny to hit the same spot twice in a row, well, they could see how much they liked it happening to them.
The attackers were still coming behind her. The way ahead was clear. Valey ran for her life.
Maple stumbled through the door to the Water District lift chamber, the aesthetic half-melted appearance of its frame perfectly fitting now that she knew what the Flame District was really like. The lift platform sat obediently at the bottom of the incline where she had left it; she wondered if it had even been used. A few abandoned crates and tools dotted the floor and walls, and then the tunnel sloped away, steep and rectangular and with no end in sight. Pairs of dim floodlights dotted the sheet-metal walls at sparse, regular intervals, and her eyes could trace their hazy glow until they converged from distance, far, far above her.
Neon and Howe bolted for the platform. Gerardo hung back, ready to help her if she slipped; they hadn't met any more mercenaries, but had pressed themselves as hard as they could to reach the lift, leaving Maple on the verge of collapse. The moment she was a safe distance inside the platform's edge, she simply flopped, panting and feeling the warm metal against her side. Cool metal would have been more welcome.
Starlight punched at the controls, and with a mechanical grind, the platform came to life. Warning lights flickered, a gulf appeared as the rim retracted from the ground, and safety railings rose up to guard the edges. Boxes stuffed with gears churned into motion, and the lift began dragging itself up a track built into the smooth incline with measurably less grace than it had used going down. Maybe it was an illusion because they were in a hurry, but it could have stood to go faster.
"All right. We're safe..." Maple screwed her eyes shut as the platform's vibrations shook through her entire body. "We're making it out... Valey, please be okay..."
Valey burst out from a tunnel, cantering at an angle into one of the many rooms that formed a ring around the Flame District core. This one was filled with benches, lockers, and an equipment maintenance station. She bore right, then frantically swerved left, dodging a thrown flash club as she tried to take weight off her crippled hoof.
A pegasus lunged, and she dove under a bench to escape, slipping into the shadow the metal plank afforded. A stallion soared to the other side, ready to cut her off, but she emerged with all of her momentum thrown into a frantic feint, getting him to block right and then sliding past without attacking at all. She had a way out, and it hopefully wasn't one the pegasi were thinking of.
One side of the room was filled with windows to the core. Dirty, grimy, smoke-stained windows, but still translucent enough for her to slip through, and so heavily-reinforced that the pegasi wouldn't stand a chance breaking it with their silly clubs. Darting and rolling beneath another attack, she reached the glass... and a flash stopped her from getting through.
She winced; the pegasi had formed ranks. Three were alternating their flash clubs in perfectly synchronized strobes, leaving small enough time windows between each flash that she couldn't get through the thick barrier without being ejected back into the room. The other five were advancing, preparing to strike as one now that her back was to the wall. Two held spears, two held flash clubs, and one's hooves were the size of her head, needing no weapon. She gulped.
"This is your last chance to surrender," the unarmed stallion warned. "You're cornered."
No duh. "Thanks, captain obvious," Valey ground, holding her injured hoof and gritting her teeth. "Go choke on a banana peel!"
She kicked off the wall, shooting forward at the attackers. A wall of deadly spearpoints shot forward at point blank, leaving no chance to dodge... until her tail wrapped around a wall support, yanking her back as hard as it could, causing the spearponies to stumble forward as their thrusts failed to meet their target. Again, Valey lunged, grabbing a spearhead in her teeth and pulling away, tugging it free from its off-balance holder. The two motions happened in less than a second, and by the time any of the pegasi realized she wasn't dead, she had a spear.
Then she wasn't. Not even wasting time to turn it around, she flung it shaft-first, perfect aim sending it into the battery of flash clubs pinning her down and giving a mare a very sore hoof. In the split-second of disruption, she launched herself backwards, skimming through the shadow where the glass fused with the wall...
Flash! Another club strobed, and she was launched violently out of the glass. But she had reached the core, and rather than being flung back into the room, it flung her out, away from the wall and into freefall at the top of the giant mineshaft.
...Until her wings pumped as one, sending her gliding back to the wall the moment she was out of the window's line of sight. Valey found a crevice several meters below the glass and sank inside, resting her wing. She was hardly about to do acrobatics with it, but there were certain benefits to pretending an injury was worse than it was, and now she had shaken the pegasi and made them lose her trail. The flash clubs could only expose her if they already knew where she was. All she had to do was stay stealthy and get away as they were forced to take the long way back to the core.
Then the wall exploded. With a whoosh and a roar, the entire windowed section blew out in great shattered chunks above her, and she had to pin down her hat to keep it from being blown away as the debris tumbled into the district below. Her hiding spot was safe, but just over her head seven pegasi swooped out, circling and wheeling and setting off all the flash clubs they still had in random directions, determined to flush her out if she was still nearby. Those without dove, streaking straight downwards to see if she had fallen far below.
She couldn't stay there. It was only a matter of seconds until a pegasus accidentally flushed her out; her cutie mark was fluctuating like a scientific instrument on an overloading reactor as danger rose and fell with every strobe that missed. The room above was only a single leap away, so the moment enough backs were turned...
That instant arrived, and she sprang, vaulting back into the room. Half of it had been completely destroyed by the explosion, and as she landed, she saw the source: one pegasus, left behind to stand guard, holding a back-mounted rocket launcher. She didn't want to know where he had gotten it, just whether it would weigh him down enough to make him an easy knockout. It did.
Her climb wasn't without notice. A pegasus spotted her taking the cannon user down and alerted her team, but didn't immediately attack. There were seven of them left, Valey realized, and none of them were fresh. They wanted to group up to assault her. As battered as she was, if they strung themselves out, she could take them... so she made the most of the reprieve and liberated the launcher.
It was impressively large, boasting an entire clip of ammo despite firing missiles that were nearly the size of her barrel. Granted, that clip was only three long, and the first had already been used, but still! As she dragged it toward the continuing tunnel, Valey watched the pegasi finish forming up and start to streak forward. Seven of them and one of her, and below she had taken ten at once... but that was when she had been fresh. Then again, the pegasi were tired, and the quarters were open, so if she was ever to stand and fight, this would be her best chance to finish them off...
Then a squad of four appeared from the tunnel she had entered by. Two were stallions she had ditched or incapacitated earlier, and two were the mares she had trapped under the floor, looking flushed and angry and ready for revenge without a single injury on their coats. Of course, that was the trouble with playing the nonlethal game: as the fight went on, your opponents would recover and rejoin the fray. For all she knew, the pegasi she had taken out down on the bridge at the bottom were flying back up right then as well. Those weren't odds she fancied. Time to run.
"Leave me alone!" Valey growled, backing towards the exit and fixing the newcomer squad with the rocket launcher. Her cutie mark was hovering at medium, implying there wasn't a pegasus waiting behind to impale her with a spear, so she focused everything on covering her retreat. "I'm serious! Notice how I'm not making you guys dead? I'm trying to be nice, here! But I wanna get out of here in one piece, and if you idiots keep chasing me, you won't enjoy finding out which of those I want more!"
The pegasi hesitated... then split up, forming a wide line instead of a concentrated target. They started advancing, trying to flank her, betting on the launcher's power only being enough to take out a hooffull of them rather than all. Valey's eyes widened. "You're insane! I will shoot this!" She disarmed the safety for emphasis, placing another missile in the firing apparatus.
That halted the pegasi for half a breath, during which Valey backed toward the tunnel as fast as she could. Suddenly, she made it; she felt grate beneath her hooves and the tingle of being surrounded by an enclosed space. The pegasi looked frustrated.
One more step... two... three... and they lunged, flying in a vertical line, desperate to intercept her. Valey lunged backwards as well, tumbling back and letting loose a missile at the ceiling.
It detonated with a shatter of rending pipes, the wall of heat blowing her hat off and singing her mane, making her burnt hoof throb in agony. The ceiling didn't collapse like she hoped, but from the carnage of the pipes sprang multiple jets of pressurized steam, forming a wall of impassable death that would cook anything short of a dragon. Valey fell back, heart pounding, watching as the pegasi were cut off through the white haze.
Then one flung a spear through the wall at her. It missed, but spurred her to her hooves with a yelp. There wasn't time to loaf around just yet.
She grabbed the launcher, took the spear under her wing for good measure, found and replaced her hat, and limped off down the tunnel, nose twitching. Her mark was still tingling, but dully. Starlight was ahead, to the right, and going up... The lift to the Water District. Why would she go up there? Maybe she thought it would be a shortcut to the Sky District. Tensing herself against her injuries, Valey pressed on, face set in a mask of determination that wouldn't expire until her she and her friends were safe and out of Ironridge.
Valey stared up the incline of the lift tunnel and groaned, the mechanical rattling of the contraption clearly audible in the distance above. She could make it out rising in the distance, close enough to see yet far out of reach, and silently kicked herself for doing more running than thinking: the slope was too steep to run up, flying the distance was at the very bottom of her bucket list, and even though she had managed to go without pegasus encounters since acquiring the missile launcher, backtracking was a sure way to change that. She had no good options.
That meant she'd have to settle for a bad one.
Leaving herself no time for second-guessing, Valey shoved some loose debris into a small ramp facing up the incline, then mounted the missile launcher atop it. She squinted alongside the firing mechanism, trying to get the trajectory to fly as perfectly up the tunnel as possible, the last piece of ammunition sitting primed and ready along open-air guidance rails. Good enough. She shoved it to ensure it wouldn't fall down too easily.
As satisfied as she was going to get, Valey mounted the launcher, wrapping her forelegs and hind legs around the gigantic ammunition. It was an awkward fit, her being thrice the missile's size, but she made it work with just a hefty tingle of danger. Her tail flicked toward the trigger, but didn't pull it.
She felt a harsher spike. Her cutie mark continued to complain as she flirted with the trigger, but never to the level of impending death that suggested pulling it would instantly blow her to goo. She her her teeth. Was she really about to-?
"Look, there she is!" a voice crowed from the tunnel behind, accompanied by thundering hooves and flapping wings. "Woah! What's she doing?"
"Something awesome," Valey shot back, transferring her hat to her mouth to ensure it didn't blow away and lashing the trigger. No reservations.
Fwooooooooosh! The thrust from the self-powered missile nearly punched a hole in her chest as she doubled over, wings spread in a futile effort to control their trajectory, tail dodging complete incineration by millimeters and becoming heavily blackened instead. Together, they shot forward, Valey leaning her head straight into the wind, a single degree of variance in either direction setting off her cutie mark in preparation for pitching and slamming into the roof or floor. Pairs of floodlights shot by at two per second... three per second... They were still accelerating! Valey gripped tighter as the missile began to vibrate beneath her and the elevator platform grew nearer...
Time stopped. That was it, the missile was about to explode. Pitching forward with all her might, Valey swung around the thing like a pivot, legs screaming from the strain as she reversed the rocket's course, flinging it back the way they had came and vaulting forward with her momentum intact. The tunnel floor rushed up to meet her, and she angled to hit the very edge, far enough out of the floodlights' direct illumination that she could shadow sneak. Below, the tunnel filled with a fiery roar as the missile detonated, making all the lights flicker as one.
She hit the ground, diving in like it was water and skidding along like it was ice. The shadows liquefied before her, letting her ride her momentum like she was belly-sliding on a bar of soap, and another pair of lights flashed past... another...
Just as she felt herself beginning to slow, the lift platform shot past. Valey jumped out, kicking off the wall and trying not to tumble as she ran along the sheer slope to the middle, putting the last of her strength into a final leap... and crashing onto the target, rolling and nearly falling off the far edge before a generous griffon pounced, pinning her down so close that the rim bit into her cheek.
"I say," Gerardo remarked, standing over her, "you've certainly seen better days."
With a flick of her neck, Valey tossed her hat from her mouth to the platform, and then she was spent.
"Valey!" Suddenly, Maple was hugging her unabashedly. "You're alive!"
"For a given definition, Ironflanks..." she croaked, legs rebelling against the thought of being moved. Then her green eyes focused, staring down the incline at what was flapping up to meet them. "And maybe not for long, either."
Maple stood up, chest constricting as she saw the wall of pegasi soaring toward them. The assailants had formed rank, and she counted thirteen in all, grim, bruised and determined as they swiftly drew nearer. They had less than a minute before the pegasi would be on them.
"Ugh... Guess I..." Valey tried to struggle to her hooves. "Gotta keep going a little more..."
Gerardo grasped at his empty sheathe, a thunderous look playing over his face. Howe and Neon Nova looked on with piteous frowns. Starlight was...
Flash!
A narrow jet of magic flew straight and true, impacting the centermost pegasus and turning him into a crystal boulder. His momentum carried him for less than a second before he met the tunnel floor, bouncing and rolling down the incline as long as the crystal could keep itself up. Starlight watched from the railing, horn glowing fiercely and a fiery look on her face as he fell.
Flash! Starlight freed him and shot again, encasing a mare. The mercenaries instantly broke rank, surging and swirling like a pegasus tornado in an impressive show of evasive action, some darting ahead and others slipping behind as they flapped and rose and fell and swerved left and right. With each crack of the tumbling crystal against the floor, Starlight winced, the blows only visible in her bared teeth and slightly greater straining of her lips.
"Don't touch my friends..." she whispered between shots, a bead of sweat forming on her brow. "Don't touch my friends..." Flash! "Don't touch my friends...!"
Despite the mercenaries' evasion, her shots stayed true, seeking out whoever was foremost in the pack and setting them tumbling back to the depths. Already, though, Maple could see the first crystalled pegasus fighting to catch up with the others, and she knew from experience Starlight wouldn't be able to keep her stalling up for long.
"Urf... Go for the second-closest," Valey instructed, dragging herself into a sitting position next to Starlight. "If they reach the platform one at a time, I can still beat them. We can tie them up as they come in, or something." She shot an evil eye at Howe and Neon Nova. "Why do I get the feeling you two are going to be trouble?"
Howe curtsied, a wing across his chest. "I assure you, our motives are pure!" Then Neon Nova kicked him. "Ow, what was that for?" Howe glared at him, then coughed. "Uhh... I mean, nope. We've worked out our allegiance. We're on your side 'til the very end!"
Starlight was shaking, the cumulative effect of the blows from the floor to her crystals taking its toll on her horn. Maple sat down beside her, putting a hoof around her and holding her even as she fired another blast, taking Valey's advice to heart. "You're doing fine," she murmured, not knowing what else to say. "Starlight..."
Swoosh! The first pegasus made it on board. Instantly, Valey was upon them, desperation powering her swings as she slipped beneath them and broke their guard, pummeling until they groaned and lost consciousness. The batpony staggered as Starlight's horn flashed again, wiping back her mane. "See? Easy. Now we just do that a bajillion more times..."
Starlight whimpered, then snarled, firing an even brighter laser that managed to catch two pegasi at once. Maple could feel the heat burning off her horn as the gem bounced, sending sparks crackling from the tip of her horn and even the occasional plasmatic arc. Despite her efforts, the pegasi were closing in, and this time two made it past, landing as one. Valey blanched as she faced them, falling onto the defensive and staggering to keep from falling flat on her face. Gerardo shot to her side, steadfast even while unarmed. Howe and Neon Nova just blinked.
"This would be a really great time to help us!" Maple pleaded as Starlight fired again, Gerardo managing to occupy one mercenary long enough for Valey to take the other down with another desperation attack. But the two stallions looked just as stupefied as they had in the elevator room, lifting a hoof neither to help nor to flee.
Flash! Another pegasus got crystalled, and Starlight's steely expression started to melt into nausea. She launched yet another beam, scrunching her eyes shut and doubling over.
"Howe, do something!" Maple screamed, lacking even a brick in her cutie mark she could use to make her punches heavier. If she tried to fight, she'd be bested instantly, and if she left Starlight's side, she feared the filly would simply pass out and fall over the edge. But Starlight opened her eyes and managed another attack, impacting a pegasus a second away from slugging both her and Maple with a hoof.
More pegasi shot past. One focused down on Gerardo, landing a hit that snagged and tore his uniform... sending a glowing, fiery pink orb rolling out along the lift floor. That spurred Howe to action.
A frowning mercenary tried to approach it, and Howe tackled him with a flying kick. "You shall not touch our sacred treasure and legendary inheritance!" he boomed, Neon Nova joining the fight with a fairly useless light-based attack from his horn. "That belongs to us and us alone!"
Maple pinned the orb with a hoof as Starlight gave a final shot. Then, the toll of her attacks proved too much for her, and she pitched forward, only being saved from falling by Maple's strong grip. Starlight shuddered, trembled, and fell still save for shallow breathing, her pupils mere pinpricks in her eyes. Her horn still sparked angrily, and her body was uncomfortably warm.
"Starlight..." Maple held the filly, watching uselessly as the pegasus Howe had attacked quickly bested him, then used him as a ram to take Neon off his hooves. Gerardo toppled, losing his duel with the one who had torn his uniform. Valey somehow fought on, dueling four opponents without a weapon, but they were too coordinated, exploiting her heavy limp and managing to pin her down. She snarled and thrashed, still not finished until one held something to her face, and then she was still.
Somehow, none of them came for Maple, sitting there and shaking and holding the fainted Starlight while keeping the windigo heart out of sight beneath her. Let them figure it rolled off the edge, if they cared about it at all. Did they think she wasn't a threat? Did they know she wasn't? The unarmed little earth pony from a downriver town who traveled with adventurers and survivors and possibly-ex-mercenaries and sometimes thought she could do things to help ponies who deserved it while they were getting trampled by Ironridge and its politics? She shook. They ignored her for it, focusing on binding Valey, trying and failing to remove the golden pendant clasped around her neck.
"Why?" Maple sniffed, barely able to keep her head up to watch.
One of the mares who wasn't busy binding Valey actually gave her a glance, clearly agreeing that she wasn't a threat. "Why?" The tired pegasus tilted her head. "Because Kero said this was what we were being paid to do. And when you're a mercenary, you do your job, even if it's taking down a mare with a reputation for being invincible and the odds are against you living to see your friends at the end of the day."
"Kero!?" Maple flinched. She knew that name. That was... She dug through her memories... That was the one who had given White Chocolate the moon glass! The boss of the father of her unborn foal, who had constantly been sending ponies to check up on her! "Kero is the leader of a band of mercenaries?"
The pegasus flinched, seeming to realize she was heading for dangerous waters. "Look," she said crossly, "we didn't kill any of you. You all just hurt yourselves fighting so much. We didn't even kill her, even though the job didn't specify dead or alive. Be grateful, okay? And then take a professional's advice and get as far away from this city as you can. This is our last job here and then we're out. If it wasn't..." She sighed. "Well, we might have just said no. Even though being a deserter will ruin your reputation for life." She glanced at Howe and Neon Nova. "If you really hired them out from under our noses, they should have stuck with it and helped you."
Maple grinned feebly. "I don't suppose there's any way I could hire you out of this?"
"Nope." The pegasus shook her head. "Can't accept competing contracts."
Another strode over and joined in, having nothing better to do. "The only reason they were allowed to help you was because we didn't have a job to take you down. They should have stuck with it. Now we're not going to take them, and I bet they're in too hot of water with you to get whatever payment you offered them."
"Whatever payment..." Maple gulped, her thoughts drawn back to the fiery orb she was sitting on and hiding from view. In front of her, the pegasi had finished trussing up Valey, having bound her with ropes containing light-emitting gemstones that would stop her from shadow sneaking her way out.
"Yeah?" The first pegasus looked at her strangely.
It was a ball filled with magic. She had no idea what the magic was, but it hadn't seemed cold or brutal. In fact, in the center of the tree, once the moon glass apparatus had been destroyed, it had been warm and comforting, like drying off by a hearth after racing across Riverfall in a rainstorm. What could magic like that do? Help ponies? Heal ponies? Keep them safe?
A memory flashed across her mind of trying to block a magical cannonshot to keep Starlight safe, of absorbing the energy and immediately firing it back as an attack, and suddenly, Maple had a plan.
"Please let her go," she said, feeling her voice strengthen and the waver leave her limbs. "You said you hoped you would still be here to see your friends at the end of the day, and they to see you? She's my friend, and I don't want to lose her either. Please let her go."
The pegasi just shook their heads. "Sorry," one said, "but orders are orders. We don't pick the jobs we do, just see them through to completion. We are grateful she spared us, and will be as kind as we can, but letting her go just isn't possible."
"...All right, then." Sucking in a final breath, Maple set Starlight aside and stood up, keeping a back hoof on the windigo heart, feeling her mane begin to blow in an invisible breeze. "Then I'll just have to make my own possible."
She stomped down, pocketing the orb.
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Everyone but Maple and Starlight were knocked back by the pink shockwave, stumbling several paces before halting, paralyzed. But the spell was just getting started. Maple's cutie mark burst into pink flame, gouts and spires of energy twirling upward as her eyes were flooded with platinum, turning her vision bright silver as the platform lit up with the intensity of the noonday sun. It felt like a hurricane had been sealed in her heart, the force of a city-leveling storm surging through her veins so powerfully that her soul itself strained to keep her from exploding. Arcs of energy surged all across her coat, and when they didn't make contact with the floor, she realized she was hovering a foot in the air. Had the platform stopped? Or time itself? Did it even matter? The hairs of her mane and tail liquefied under the magical pressure, then vaporized, flowing together into a solid cloud, and cracks began to appear on her cutie mark, shining with the same light as her eyes as every fiber of her being fought to keep from being torn apart under the magic's power. The heart fell to her hooves, empty and useless. And still, it grew.
Then, as Maple hung in the air like a pink star, efforts to divest the energy futile and terror giving way to wonder giving way to the realization that she was going to die, the buildup finished. For half an instant, she blinked; it was as if something snapped and she was looking at herself from outside her body. The light began to concentrate at a point on her chest... and then a soft voice whispered in her ear.
"Targeting. Intents have been judged. No harmonic purification needed. Use a peaceful option?"
Yes! Maple thought back as hard as she dared, feeling as though a single heartbeat could kill her in an explosion of magic.
"Enemies will be teleported. Is this location okay?"
An image burned pink like a memory in Maple's mind, overlooking the far nothwestern corner of Ironridge. That was fine! That was perfectly fine! Anything to get her body back and not be consumed by the pink flame...
Affirmation whispered itself in her ear, and the glow on her chest discharged.
Maple found herself back in her body as a laser thicker than she was poured into the lift platform, undulating in every shade of pink imaginable and washing everything in oceans of flame. The roar was too great to hear anything but; if the mercenaries screamed, it was on deaf ears. The energy bled out of her into the inferno, until her mane stilled and her coat stopped crackling and her eyesight returned to normal and she was lowered back onto hooves that she could feel and move and immediately collapsed out from under her. Her cutie mark throbbed dully as she crawled to Starlight, feeling as if her entire body was a pipe that had just carried millions of gallons of water over the course of a second, barely noticing that there was no trace of the attacking pegasi. She reached the feverish filly, yet somehow touching her felt like a cool salve to her flank... and then she joined her in unconsciousness, the grinding of mechanical rails the last thing that rang in her ears.
"Ugh... ow. Bananas... Feels like my head's been sat on... Urrgh..."
The clattering of heavy gears against rails.
"Oh, come on! I'm hogtied!? Lame! Stupid..." Thud! "Ow! Where'd everyone go? You jerks! Are you... ugh... waiting for round two, or something? Bring it on! I can take you! I can... I can... aaaargh! I can't even roll over! Stupid glowing rope! This stinks!"
Something thrashed against the ground, thumping and writhing ineffectively.
"Where are you, you cowards!? I know you're behind me! I can hear you breathing! Now stop taunting me and keep fighting! I haven't lost yet! I don't lose! I can't lose! Really!"
A sniffle.
"I'm serious..."
Mechanical silence.
"What do you even want? To kill me? You're doing a lousy job of it... To laugh? Then come on and laugh! Just... do something, all right? Please?"
A cold draft of air, sliding steadily downwards.
"Fine! You win! And I... I lost, okay!? Is that what you were waiting for? What you wanted me to say!? To hear for yourselves? Well, there it is, jerks! Now just... do something... so I don't have to think about it. Hurry up!"
Nothing.
"The longer you wait to do what you're gonna do, the bigger the chance of me escaping. I'm warning you! I don't want to be a monster. I tried. I didn't kill a single one of you, remember? But now I've got something I want even more, and if I can only have one, I'll... I'll... do something you'll regret..."
More sniffing. Sobbing, then.
"I hate you! Why do I get to be unbeatable for seven worthless years, and then the moment I make some friends who are actually worth fighting for, I can't even beat up a squad of dumb mooks? Why!? Please just get this over with..."
Hiccuping.
"I'm not a monster... I'm not... but... if I get out of here, and if my friends aren't all right, you won't agree. I'll destroy you. I'll find out whose fault this is, and I'll... I'll..."
Deeper nothing.
"This is my fault, isn't it?"
No reply.
"I get it. Neither Herman nor Selma put you up to this, did they? I did. I've probably messed with you all over the years... I tried to make my mischief and pranks not that bad, honest. I really tried... but I probably got you all hurt anyway. Or maybe your friends. Or friends of friends, and all you wanted to do was give me what I deserve... Well, hurry up and give it to me. I'm here. I'm waiting. I'll take it."
But nothing happened.
"I can smell Starlight behind me, you know. I know my friends are there. I bet you've got them awake and listening, tied up too so they can't let me know they're there? Is that what this is? You're... you're trying to pay me back by getting me to say all this in front of them. Did I mention that I hate you?"
More silence.
"Well, I've said my piece. This is your last warning: I have a way out of here. I'm gonna use it. I've got nothing left to lose... and you won't like what happens next. If you wanna kill me, gloat, or even just roll me over so I can see who's behind me... this is your last chance."
Held breath... and then a sigh.
"Sorry, Sis. I know I promised I'd never use you like this, but..."
Flash!
Three hooves scrabbled, clacking against the ground.
"Wait, what? Just Starlight, Ironflanks and Birdo? Where's everyone else? Where are those stupid pegasi? Are they hiding under the platform?" Running hooves. "No... Hey, idiots! Where are you!?"
Only wind and the sound of machinery responded.
"Okay, this is creepy. I lost. I hate it, but I did! And all you guys are unconscious! What happened? Did they just want to beat us up and... that was that? How are we okay?"
A nearby rustle of fur.
"Hey, Starlight! Starlight! Are you... Okay, wow, you don't look so good. Is your horn supposed to be... Ow! Ooh, that's hot! Bananas, why am I not a medic? What, uhh... Okay, what do I do? Maybe... cold water, or something? Don't think I have any, unless... Hey, Ironflanks! Did you have an accident with your cutie mark, or something? All your stuff is just sitting in a pile around you! Oh well, this looks like a flask. Uhh... Starlight, do I just dump this on you, or pour it on your horn, or what?"
More hoof clattering. "Hey, Birdo, wakey wakey! You're an adventure bird, you know about injuries and stuff, right? What do I do with Starlight? Just let her sleep this off? She's really hot! And I mean that in the bad way!"
"Ooog... Your ranting is giving me a splitting headache, Valey. I'm... afraid I may have been compromised in battle..."
"Yo, you're up! Look, you're busted up, I'm busted up, we'll get over it. Starlight doesn't look too good. Like... I don't know unicorns, but maybe she used her horn too much, or something? Tell me what to do with her, and then see to your headache."
With a shuffle, another body made its way upright.
"It... seems we've vanquished the attacking mercenaries? I know I fell in battle, but... however did we win? Did you somehow defeat all those pegasi on your lonesome?"
"Err... Mercenaries, huh? Not saying I didn't, but maybe? Emphasis on somehow..."
"Hmm. I notice our friends Howe and Neon Nova have disappeared without a trace as well. Good riddance, frankly. Howe and I got off to a bad start, but I was beginning to think he really meant to amend ties with me. Unfortunately, two less-than-impressive moments of truth in a row..."
"Yeah, well, we'll pancake him again if we find him. Shades, too. Now seriously, do you know what to do with fevered, fainted fillies? Like, look at her! Her horn's practically still sparking."
"Well, I am aware Starlight has issues involving her horn degrading and becoming painful over prolonged or strenuous periods of use. From what Maple has told me, there are machines in Riverfall and aboard a certain airship that can restore her, though she sounded very unenthusiastic about their use. I believe we should consult with her first, and in the meantime merely hope that Starlight wakes up and is not in undue pain."
"The far north side of the Earth District? Rrrgh. That's not what I wanted to hear, Birdo... Okay, plan. I carry Starlight, here. You take Ironflanks and as much of her dropped stuff as you can carry, assuming those trinkets weren't just left there as a joke. The moment this lift reaches the top, we run through the Water District, exit to the Sky District, cross the snowfields to the skyport, do some late-night ship stealing, swoop over until we're far enough north of Ironridge that there's no wind barrier and land in the badlands, then you can fly Starlight back and get her fixed up. Once you get back we bail to some seedy port in Varsidel, ditch the ship and live adventurously ever after. What do you say?"
"Crossing the snowfields by hoof and talon at night? I'm afraid I nearly perished attempting it on wing and during the day. That sounds unfeasible bordering on suicidal."
"Yeah, but at least we'd have snow to cool Starlight down with. I wonder what Ironflanks thinks. You think she's awake yet? Hey, Ironflanks! Iron-"
Dead silence.
"...Woah. Okay, I'm pretty sure cutie marks aren't supposed to look like that. I mean, I've seen some messed-up stuff done with cutie marks before, but this is... You... think this is why all her stuff fell out and is just sitting around her?"
"It... It's like a shattered mirror. How could an image have so many cracks? It's merely a colored portion of fur; this shouldn't be possible!"
"Colored fur? Nah, they're magic. You can't get this much detail otherwise. Seriously, though, look at this..."
A flash of pain stabbed from Maple's flank and through her entire body as it was poked by a hooftip, dull enough not to burn but hot enough to jolt her mind out of the haze it had been in for who-knew-how-long. She gasped, flopping, flinging open her eyes and wincing again as she rolled onto her other flank, earning another stab.
"Hey, Ironflanks?" Valey's face was inches from her own. "Do you know anything about why...?" She trailed off, blinking. "Huh. Were your eyes always pink?"
"My what?" Maple frowned, lifting a hoof to get herself some space. She felt as if her insides had been scrubbed with a wire brush, leaving a combination of cleanliness, lingering pain, hunger, and enough exhaustion to hibernate, her muscles barely responding to her command.
"I dunno how, but we won. Don't move, by the way," Valey said, pointing to the floor around her. "Looks like your cutie mark went kaput. One wrong step, and you'll smash some of this lovely fruit you were carrying around."
"We... we..." Maple swallowed, her throat tasting like strawberries, a haze of pink fire clouding her recollection. There had been pegasi... fighting... explosions... Starlight... "Starlight!"
She forced herself to move, staggering toward Valey on unsteady limbs. The batpony sat back, one forehoof dangling uselessly as the other held Starlight's shivering form to her chest. "I think she messed herself up bad," Valey said, loosening her grip and offering the filly to Maple. "Seriously, though, you look like that too. Know how we got out of this after I went down? Because I... nngh." She looked away. "I wasn't good enough. Sorry. Any chance you were listening earlier, when...?"
"I don't remember," Maple admitted, moving forward and taking Starlight in a hug... and catching Valey, too, who struggled slightly less than she could have. Starlight was a hot lump against her chest, but somehow, the contact brought a cooling mist across her throbbing flanks.
Thinking, she dug, parsed... and something slid together in her mind. "The windigo heart," Maple whispered. "The charged one. I remembered how I had reflected a magic attack in Sosa, so I thought I could do the same here, and pocketed it. They were... They were about to take you, and I had to stop them. There was so much pink, and I couldn't get rid of it, and it felt like it was tearing me apart, but..." She shuddered, still hugging. "I'm still alive..."
"It seems we all are," Gerardo remarked with a smile, standing to the side. "If in rather bad condition. Since I don't see the heart anywhere, and you've dropped everything else you were carrying, I take it it has been reclaimed by our cowardly friends Howe and Neon Nova?"
Maple closed her pink eyes and sighed. "They're gone, aren't they...?"
"Yeah. And good riddance." Valey sat limply in her embrace, still holding Starlight. "So... we're basically all half-dead, right?"
"I don't know," Maple murmured. "I have no idea what that flame did to me, though I doubt I'd survive doing that again. Do I look bad?"
Gerardo scooped up the sound stone Maple had been carrying, turning it over and over in his talon. "Well, you lack obvious combat damage. As for your cutie mark and your eyes... unless a magical remedy produces itself or they return to normal on their own time, I highly recommend obtaining a trench coat and a pair of shades. Though the latter could be skipped, if you're willing to come to terms with the new look. All told, different does not necessarily mean bad." He smiled feebly.
Maple sighed. "I'll have to see them. I doubt this will feel real to me until I see for myself they aren't red any more. Maybe it won't be a big deal, or maybe it will turn out to be one of those things you always took for granted..."
Idly, she reached towards a fallen water flask, picking it up and taking a drink, then inspecting it carefully. "My flanks hurt," she murmured. "It sounds like whatever I did broke my cutie mark... Huh. It's funny. It's stuck with me all these years, even after I failed to reach and then gave up on my dream... and now it's using it that actually takes it away." She glanced down at the spider web on her flanks, then quickly looked away. "...Maybe I should wear a coat. I don't want to think about that. I don't want to... I don't..." She rolled the flask over again, then tried to pocket it. It disappeared, but the burning in her flanks grew, and she instantly felt full, like she was storing her usual maximum capacity. She held it for several seconds, and the moment she stopped consciously keeping the flask in, it tumbled back out onto the ground. "Well, that's that, I guess."
Gerardo nodded appreciatively. "So your mark does still work. I assume merely sub-optimally?"
"Yes." Maple closed her pink eyes, feeling a sniffle build up in her scoured chest. "And... maybe I should just not use it at all right now. For all I know, there's a way to fix it, but this will just damage it even more..." She sighed bitterly, the faintest of inaudible whines in her throat. "I used it every day, for everything. It'll be like losing my mouth, if I could still eat. I'll miss it..."
Valey shuddered, then groaned, pulling away, her golden pendant bouncing gently against her neck. "Well, I might have an idea or two about how to get fixing it. Just ideas, though. But either way, that's gonna have to wait a looong time..."
"Hmm?" Maple looked curiously at her. "Why is that?"
"Because we've gotta deal with them first." Valey pointed a hoof up the lift tunnel. The top was gradually drawing into focus... and a phalanx of pegasi stood at attention at the rim, spearheaded by Selma.
"Well, look who the bat dragged in," Selma drawled, standing at the head of his formation as the lift platform docked at the top of the shaft. His eyes widened with mild surprise. "You look ready to keel over and die at a stiff breeze. Don't tell me... you handicapped yourselves so Herman's mercenaries would put up a more interesting fight? You better not have shown mercy..."
Valey, Maple and Gerardo stood, staring levelly back at him. Gerardo was in the best condition of the three, the fainted Starlight on his back and a worn-out Maple leaning against his shoulder, still limp and exhausted from the intensity of the magic. Valey stood on her own, concealing her limp and various bruises with a proud posture, and winked back at him. "Nah, we kicked their rears."
Selma snorted. "Good. I couldn't stand that group."
"Oh?" Valey perked up, having to deliberately summon strength even to lift her ears. "I did you a favor? Heh... oops. Sorry about that, pal. So why the party here?"
"Preparing to defend the Water District in the event the mercenaries return," Selma replied, keeping his voice even. "Sundown is nearly upon us. Ambassador Herman is here, as is every active-duty member of the Defense Force we could gather. Intelligence says the Sosans are ascending the mountain from the north this very minute to make a move on our stronghold, and there is likewise a force gathering in Blueleaf. Tonight is going to be eventful, and the last things I need on my hooves are wildcards I didn't play. So, I'm here in case any mercenaries needed taking care of."
Maple worked up the energy to speak, standing straighter on jellied limbs. "They said this was their last job before leaving Ironridge. I don't think they'd have done it otherwise. They're probably gone." She fixed Selma with her pink gaze. "Knowing you, I'd rather they be the ones who stayed."
Selma gave an exaggerated wince. "Harsh words from a pretty mare... So we've come to blows before, but haven't I helped you as well? I'm a simple stallion, Maple. All I want is to protect my district and receive the accolades I deserve. Surely that's better than a group of honorless thugs whose only loyalty is to money?"
"Y'know, speaking of wildcards..." Valey waved her burnt hoof. "You realize you're talking to yours truly, right? You know what I want to do. Is stopping me here really the most competent thing you could do?" She eyed the guards surrounding Selma; they looked decidedly nervous.
"Stopping you?" Selma blinked at her in mock mortification. "Oh, I'd never. I told you, we're here to defend from mercenaries, are we not?" He stepped aside with a too-wide grin, leaving a clear path to the archway to the next chamber. "I have every intention of helping you on your way!"
"...Right." Valey bored into him with her gaze, but he didn't flinch. The guards around him, at least, didn't seem at all emboldened by her weakened state, and the tension in the air between two commanders seemed to have them turned to just as much putty as Maple. If Selma wanted to stop her, he'd have to do so himself. Testing, she put a hoof forward, and then another.
Perfectly on cue, Selma turned the moment she passed him, falling into step beside her. "Shall we walk and talk?" he offered cordially, nodding at Gerardo and Maple following along behind. "I'm sure these guards will be more than sufficient to hold this entrance."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Talk, huh? No bragging or gloating? Or did you realize I don't care any more what you're up to?"
"Any more?" Selma smirked. "You mean you used to care about me? Why, Valey, I thought you only appreciated mares!"
"Great." Valey rolled her eyes. "So you want revenge for that licking-the-camera thing. Gonna try and one-up me at being annoying one last time. Just so you know, I'm a little more concerned with bailing than giving you funny reactions right now, in case you didn't notice."
Selma sadly shook his head. "Actually, you were right the first time. I just want to brag."
Gerardo drooped, following close behind. "Of course you do. After all this time we've spent running around, trying to protect the lower districts from a flood, I imagine you're dying to tell us how we've either utterly failed or were never in any danger to begin with?"
"Either?" Selma harrumphed. "You think I've stuck myself to a linear plan that relied on everything happening as perfectly as possible? That's no way to get what you want, Gerardo. Perhaps the Steel District will be flooded. Perhaps it won't. I'd prefer the latter, am prepared for the former, and either way have a path to victory."
"Meh. Cool story..." Valey yawned, fanning her mouth with a wing.
"You, on the other hoof, seem exceptionally single-minded on your current goal," Selma said, nodding to Valey. "Fleeing from Ironridge. Turning tail, showing your yellow belly, becoming the queen of cowards. I don't know whether to be envious or to feel pity. On the one side, abandonment of your duty is contemptible and vile. On the other, both Herman and I want you gone, and as a result I had little trouble obtaining a well-stocked airship with minimal crew requirements and anchoring it immediately south of the upper Water District for you to steal. Unless you were to try something immensely stupid, getting what you want is at this point a done deal."
Valey blinked. "You stole an airship for me? Wait, seriously?"
"Of course I did," Selma chuckled. "I loathe you. I want you gone, but you're far too tenacious to get rid of myself. You're annoying, force me to share power, and have a habit of messing up careful planning merely through existing. Now that the time has come for me to make my own plays, I don't want you in my way. You want to be gone, I want you gone... so for once I'm swallowing my pride and aiding you. And accepting aid as well, if you really did do in those mercenaries."
"And Herman wants me gone too, huh?" Valey stared carefully at him. "You realize he's either getting you to do some dirty work that'll benefit him more than you, or else is lying and will screw you over at the last minute, right?"
"Oh, perhaps." Selma waved a hoof, trotting beneath another iron archway that separated two damp, dark-blue caverns. "But you being gone is still a benefit to me, and I can make some bad trades if it still gives me the winning hoof first. From what I've gathered, though, Herman is more interested in seeing a certain underground project I'm not fully privy to be vandalized prior to the perpetrator making a clean escape from Ironridge. He seemed to believe there was some reason you would go down there immediately prior to leaving the city, and that you might think to take out some of your dislike of him on the project he was supposed to oversee while you were there, in hopes of ruining his career, or somesuch. Why, I haven't a clue, but it sounds like he wants you gone before he has to blame you."
Valey shared a glance with Maple and Gerardo. Selma grinned. "You did exactly that, didn't you? That's another reason I want you gone. Herman can read you like a book, but to me you're more confusing than a fish flopping in the river. He can use you. I can only try. It evens the playing field in my favor."
"Quaint," Valey grumbled. "So how do I know this airship isn't rigged to explode, or something?"
Selma leered at her like he had just heard a particularly bad joke. "Why, that would steal my spotlight, of course."
"I'm detecting you're about to ramble about the brilliance of your own plans, now?" Gerardo asked, head tilted. "Seeing as we'd have to be idiots to ignore your escape offer to stop you?"
"You're quick on the draw," Selma drawled. "Herman thinks Valey will run away? Then she will, and you'll go with her. You won't do anything about it, so of course I'm going to gloat."
His grin twisted. "Here's the big idea: the Water District has two dams. If one bursts, it will flood the Steel District and parts of the Earth District. That's the eastern one, with those mines you've all been freaking out over. But if the west one goes... it'll take a much larger chunk of the Earth District with it, including the edge of the Stone District and much more of the Defense Force base, including everything else that was going to go. Furthermore, it will be visible across all of Ironridge."
"You can't be saying..." Gerardo took a step back, beak frowning in worry.
"That anything's going to happen to the west dam? I hope not." Selma shook his head. "But that's what we've been telling the Defense Force. The Sosans have lost everything already. It's a common enough belief in the upper districts, and too few know Sosa enough to be credible voices of dissent. So, the Sosans are preparing to bomb the western dam, to make a statement. Everyone thinks it sounds crazy. Then, the Sosans abruptly evacuate the Steel District and low-lying Earth District towns, and there's all sorts of whisperings about a flood. Suddenly, it sounds a lot less crazy. And then a party of heavily-armed Sosans starts scaling the mountain..."
Maple's eyes widened. "So you really were just trying to make them fight..."
"I was," Selma admitted with a shrug. "Herman was, at least on the surface. Those mines on the side of the eastern dam? I cast an adherence spell to ensure they wouldn't go off, and renewed it mere hours ago. The last time I checked, another unicorn had done the same, likely in anticipation of me betraying them and dropping the spell. I have no intention of doing that, of course. All I want is a fight."
Valey licked her lips. "Let me guess. All this boils down to you setting yourself up as a hero somehow so everyone goes 'Yay, Selma saved us!' and you're suddenly popular and famous and everyone wants to put you in charge?"
Selma smirked down at her. "You know me too well."
"If Herman is really as threatening and prescient as you make him out to be," Gerardo interrupted, raising a talon, "how are you intending to deal with him? Do you even know what he wants? How are you going to avoid playing straight into his own plans?"
"Several ways." Selma strutted forward, hefting open a wide steel door with his telekinesis. "Firstly, by staying flexible. I'm not relying on anything to happen. Will there be a battle? Of course, but if it's somehow averted before it can even begin, at worst I'll be back to square one. What if Herman somehow destroys a dam even despite my efforts? I'll have tried. I'll have proof that I tried. There will still be a battle, I'll be innocent, he'll be guilty... If it ever comes time for the loyal minion Selma to realize what a dastard his master is, public opinion holds me in higher regard than Herman. I can beat him in a battle of loyalty, should we come to open confrontation. And I can beat him in a physical battle, too, thanks to a certain weapon a guard of mine happened to find laying around..."
He winked at Gerardo, who gasped. "You purloined my sword while I was unconscious?"
"No," Selma huffed, "one of my guards did. Regardless, I am well-kitted for any eventuality, including everything from peaceful resolution to epic betrayal to open confrontation. You could even decide not to take up this offer of escape and attempt to press charges against me... with what, property theft? I think you'll find I've not only tried to protect and warn my district of impending assault, but districts I am not obligated to protect as well. I may be self-centered, but I'm already a hero."
"But you're preparing to blow up the dam!" Maple protested. "You're misleading the Defense Force that the west one could be blown up! You're-"
"Weren't you listening?" Selma snapped, cutting her off. "I said I'm stopping those mines from being detonated! Herman could have other ways to take out the dams, or provide some other type of catastrophe, or not. If he does, I'll have nothing to do with it and will have tried my best. If he doesn't, no harm done. As for misleading the Defense Force..." He slowly raised an eyebrow. "True, perhaps the Sosans don't intend to blow it up. But someone could. And taking precautions in an age of high tension is not a crime, my little pony."
Valey murmured, "You sure seem intrigued by the possibility that something's going to happen to these dams..."
"If I wasn't," Selma said, "I would be severely underestimating-" He abruptly cut off. "Herman."
The huge yak loomed down at them from the middle of a doorway, wearing an unreadable frown.
"Interesting," Herman rumbled down at the ponies with a voice like a distant avalanche. "I gave you the perfect opportunity to run, yet you came right to me instead. Have I misjudged our relationship, Valey? I assumed you despised me, and would flee at first chance. But here you are..."
Valey snorted, glaring in his general direction but not making eye contact. "Ask your stupid mercs about that. You had them practically herd me here. You want me? You got my attention. What's up, boss?"
Herman smiled piteously at her. "The band of mercenaries I kept on call? I had them do no such thing. Their contract with me expired this morning; I was told they wished to leave the city. If one of your numerous enemies hired them first with a job to fight you and they accepted, the fault is yours for being so unpopular."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're pulling my tail." Valey rolled her eyes. "They sure didn't sound like it was a job they wanted to do. Anyway, the only thing stopping me from leaving now is you, so if you want me gone, kindly take a hike and let me through that door?"
Herman shook his head, his hairy, uniformed visage blocking one of the cave's arched doorways. "No. I expected better of you, Valey. Vandalizing the project room, then rather than making a silent escape, you enter a fight highly destructive to the Flame District, and then come straight to me? You damaged Yakyakistan property, Valey. Valuable property. And cleanly admitted it to Selma minutes ago in these caves... which echo very loudly. I would be just as much a failure of an ambassador as you are a failure of a saboteur, Defense Force operative and equine if I let you get away now. Your actions force me to endure your presence slightly longer."
"How tragic," Selma snarked. "I feel so sorry for both of you. Now, if you're going to be getting it on, I have some preparations to attend to. Save a recording if it gets too frisky; I'd love something to blackmail Valey with if you keep her around." With a pout, he vanished around a corner back in the direction they had came.
"...You heard me say that, huh?" Valey flicked her ears, not looking at Herman. "I suppose you heard all the other stuff Selma said, then? Was he lying? Reading from a script you prepared? Or are the both of you just so big, bad and macho that he can spill his plans right in front of you and you don't even care?"
"The latter," Herman rumbled. "Selma is too smart to think I was in the dark about his plans before telling them to you. But he can do as he pleases. Our plans operate in different spheres. His ambitions do not concern me... though I am admittedly curious how he plans to make peace in the event of two warring sides when my weapons contract has seen to it that his own is so terribly outgeared."
Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "Pardon me, but does that mean you've arranged for a battle at the top of the dam where you fully expect your own side to lose?"
"Yakyakistan is my side," Herman countered. "Not Sosa. Not the Defense Force. I helped both of them, ensured both of their existences through financial and legal aid, sustaining Sosa through the weapons contract and lobbying Skyfreeze for the necessity of a Defense Force, but neither are my side."
Maple coughed. "If the caves are so echoey, then wouldn't the rest of the Defense Force hear us too? Do you really want them knowing how you're not on their side and Selma just wants a battle, and all?"
"Does it matter?" Herman looked at her sideways. "They can hear what they will, but the Spirit will still be knocking on their doors with explosives and artillery. Most of the guards will be readying for battle at the north end of the district, regardless, and we are at the south. Any who hear us would be in the minority, and the others will have better things to do even if those who hear us feel it prudent to share. Finally, I care not what any guards hear or know. Selma may, but his plans are his and not mine. None of it will change the course of this night, regardless." He frowned, then snorted. "These are things an intelligent pony could figure out for themself."
Maple's ears flattened, and she backed away, Gerardo moving to stand defensively in front of her.
"I suppose this is where you brag about your own big, bad plan in front of us just like Selma?" Valey glanced up at him, then looked away. "Since you can apparently just let whoever hear them and it won't matter? I mean, you've caught us. Yay for you. Now what?"
Surprisingly, Herman nodded. "You are aware that the Defense Force is terribly equipped to survive an assault from the Spirit of Sosa?"
"Well, yeah," Valey huffed. "These are things that an intelligent blob of blubber and yak wool would remember just telling us."
Herman smiled. "Touche. You are a Defense Force commander. Gerardo accepted compensation as a contracted Water District inspector and as such a legal member of the Defense Force. And I recall you explaining to Selma yesterday morning that this mare and filly were new recruits of yours? As in, also members of the Defense Force? Since we are so short-staffed and outmatched, I thought you could lend your considerable fighting experience to their side. You did just prove yourselves better than an entire troop of elite mercenaries, did you not?"
"That single piece of money you bade me accept in order to make my so-called work yesterday official?" Gerardo's headcrest rose in alarm. "Blast... Are the Sosans not armed with a large amount of heavy artillery? I'm not imagining two melee specialists, a civilian mare and an unconscious filly will prove themselves of much use, here. Particularly since we are already more than slightly worn out from our earlier battle."
Valey took a step back. "Yeah, you know, that sounds like a lost cause already, and I really just wanna get out of here. Maybe you like picking fights the Defense Force can't win, but seriously, I'm done with this stuff. I quit. Would you mind horribly if we just bailed instead?" She looked hopefully at the door.
Herman's smile grew. "Request denied. The Defense Force is on red alert. Every active member is required to participate, and withdrawals are temporarily suspended. And besides..." His eyes twinkled, and they weren't merry. "I want you gone, too."
In an upper Water District room with slightly more metal plating and slightly less exposed, jagged blue rock and rusty bulkheads, Defense Force pegasi milled around nervously, doing stretches and giving pep talks and sharpening spears against the walls. They were woefully outfitted, carrying only a few advanced Sosan weapons between the lot of them - likely the product of shipments the Spirit had somehow failed to snatch, despite being ran by the same pony who organized the shipments in the first place. Much of the armor they had looked hoof-fashioned, with the occasional wingblade or clawed hoofguard mixed alongside woven uniforms or nothing at all. All of the pegasi were on edge... and yet there was one corner of the room that, even in their preparations, none of them wanted anything to do with.
"Nyaaaaah." Valey yawned, stretched, and rolled her shoulders, keeping weight off of her burnt hoof and giving an eager glance to any pegasus that got too close. "If we have to do this, we might as well start already... What's taking the Sosans so long? It's just climbing a mountain!"
"Waiting does give us the chance to rest," Gerardo countered. "I can use it, and I took much less of a beating than you in that battle. I say we be grateful for the downtime and use it to try to puzzle out exactly how we're going to get out of this mess."
"Not much of a chance there," Valey muttered. "Herman's obviously lying about not sending his mercs to get me, since they herded us right to him. He wants us here, and obviously has a way to prevent us from leaving. Or two. Or ten." She glanced aside at Gerardo. "They did herd you, right? I only followed you guys."
Maple sighed, cradling Starlight's unconscious form. "I don't think so. It was Howe and Neon Nova's idea to come up here. Right, Gerardo?"
Gerardo tapped the floor with a talon. "True. However, that was as a solution to a questionably problematic problem of their own making, which may or may not have been solved... and only came to be after we briefly parted ways with them whilst they were in the company of their former mercenary cohorts. It is not impossible they were, in fact, working with the other mercenaries to herd us."
"The thing is," Valey grumbled, "we're stuck here now. We can't bail. We're going to get hauled into this fight, and we're going to have a ton of Sosan cannons firing at us. Could we get to the other side of the bridge without being blown to smithereens? Yeah, maybe. I can dodge, and the honchos probably wouldn't shoot you... but I bet the mooks would. But even if we reach the Sosans and go, 'Hey, Herman is misleading the Defense Force...' yeah, of course he is. They already know that. They're not going to stop. Maybe we could get out on their side at best... which I suppose is still pretty good. But Herman's either going to have some way that us doing that benefits him, or it'll be impossible."
"Remind me why we can't simply leave, again?" Gerardo asked, gazing at the room of ponies.
Valey nodded. "I just told you, Herman obviously has it covered somehow. My guess is it's like this: because between the four of us, we can't be fast enough to avoid getting caught. If it was just me, I could slip away, but all it takes is one hostage and we're screwed. So unless you want to ditch Ironflanks and Starlight..." She looked venomous at the possibility.
"You said Herman could benefit from us surviving this fight and reaching the Sosans, and maybe getting them to not massacre the Defense Force, right?" Maple hummed. "I'm just thinking... he has to be prepared for us dying there, too. So if he wins both ways... either there's some reason we couldn't make a difference he knows about, or what he wants doesn't depend on the outcome of this battle at all. Don't you think?"
"Hmmm..." Valey chewed her cheek. "Well, yeah, the mercs definitely did want me impaled. Seriously though, have I mentioned I'm done with Ironridge? I'm so tired of trying to guess around Mr. Thinks-of-Everything and his upstart unicorn wannabe when he's so good at figuring out what I'm going to do. I hate being his tool. We need... meh..."
"If I may," Gerardo offered. "Perhaps our best move would be to act as unpredictably as possible? If Herman is as good at reading you as he says he is, let myself or Maple call the shots. He's had far less time to acclimate to us, after all. What do you suppose is the last thing he'd expect of us?"
Maple swallowed, hugging Starlight. "Great. More important decisions placed on my shoulders... Why does everyone keep thinking this is a good idea? I have no experience at this, get us into trouble just as often as I don't, have only been in Ironridge for three days..."
Valey's nostrils flared. "You know, there's a difference between doing something Herman wouldn't see coming and staying safe. I doubt he's expecting us to jump off the dam, but doing that wouldn't do us much good. Still... eh... you got any ideas? Might as well consider them, as long as they're not stuff like trying to weird Herman out by kissing him, or the like."
Gerardo blinked, his eyes widening. "That's it!"
"Buh?" Valey frowned. "I was joking! You can't actually make me kiss-"
"Hear me out," the griffon said, proudly strutting. "Herman apparently predicted you vandalizing... Well, permitting Howe and Neon Nova to vandalize the altar we visited based on your innate distrust of him and desire to foil any plan that had his yakkish hoofprints all over it, did he not? It follows that the thing he'd least expect you to do... to find unpalatable beyond consideration... is to deliberately spend time around him. Or has he not, as I've gathered from my every interaction with him, gone out of his way to make you dislike him immensely?"
Valey grimaced. "Okay, that's disgusting."
"See what I mean?" Gerardo grinned. "This is something you would never even think of doing, and thus something he can count on not happening. I have no idea what it would accomplish, but it may very well throw a wrench in whatever he's planning."
Maple swallowed. "You know he could wait at the back himself and just order us up front to fight, right?"
"Another problem," Valey snorted. "You realize that annoying a yak up close who just said he wants you dead is a good recipe for getting turned into melon paste, right? Herman is really strong. You guys wouldn't last a second if he decided to take you out himself. How does this plan keep our rears intact?"
Gerardo winked. "Well, first off, I hardly imagine Herman will want to spare soldiers to persuade us to do anything if his goal is to force them into combat. Once the fighting begins, I have a strong hunch the only one forcing us directly to do anything will be Herman himself... and that will still entail us sticking together. As to the second issue... there are four of us and one of him?"
"Nuh-uh." Valey shook her head. "Three of you. I do not want to get in a fight with Herman. If I was in peak condition, I could fight him to a stalemate because he'd never be able to hit me, but one blow and I'd basically be toast. And that guy's so big and hairy that punches and even magic and stuff barely phases him. You'd need something special to even hurt him."
"Alas." Gerardo looked away at the wall. "I had high hopes for this plan, but it seems it is indeed being stabbed full of holes. Back to the drawing board, then, as it were..."
"Well, here's one we can use," Valey offered. "Be as lazy as possible. Once the fighting starts? Hang back unless someone shoves us forward. Play defensive. Pull rank wherever possible. Commander gets to go in the back, and all that. It'll mean sitting still and watching what's probably going to turn into a mass execution without lifting a hoof to stop it... but it could see us through long enough to get an opportunity, or for someone else's plan to collapse. Remember, Ironridge hasn't really had a war before, just skirmishes and stuff. There's a pretty big chance of panic, chaos and something completely unexpected happening that blows everyone's plans to shreds anyway." She nodded at Maple. "And if Herman tries to tell us to get up front, he'll have to follow us to make sure we don't stop the moment we're out of his reach. That way, at the very least, we get him to the front lines too. And if worst comes to worst... I guess we really can jump off the dam and try to find a way to survive."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "That sounds both remarkably callous and pragmatic of you."
"Hey, I owe Ironridge nothing." Valey shrugged. "The one and only thing I care about protecting now is Starlight. And if anyone has an issue with that... well, they can take a hike. Anyway." She glanced around at the room full of ponies. "If we have a chance to do something, we do something, but I don't see it happening. It's too bad these Defense Force mooks are way too scared to save themselves."
"They certainly look scared..." Maple gazed out sorrowfully at the pegasi, some of whom almost appeared to be in shock.
"Yeah, for most of them this is probably the first time they'll ever see actual combat." Valey shrugged, emotionlessly following Maple's gaze. "Too bad for them it'll be a firing squad and not a real fight. They'll be complete toast."
"I wish we could save them..." Maple sighed, averting her gaze. "What are the odds you can use your status to just... tell them to leave, or something?"
Valey looked at the floor. "Basically nothing," she said with a shrug. "Ironflanks, the Defense Force is mostly a volunteer organization. It's not all that big compared to Ironridge as a whole. One to two hundred active duty ponies in a city of over a million. I bet half to three quarters of them answered the call to arms tonight, if that. In this room? Maybe fifty. These are the ponies who most believe in all the propaganda about the lower districts being nasty no-nos, to whom I've been a terrible boss, who... you get it. If I tell them to knock it off and go home, they'll do nothing but see it as a chance to finally one-up me and be even more determined to be here. So their lives are on the line. To them, so is their home... and these are the ones who are willing to die to defend it. Barely, but we can't break all their resolve at once. And that's even before considering that Herman and Selma are here."
"Maple..." Starlight's weak voice cut in. "Head hurts... dizzy..."
Instantly, the conversation was swept away as Maple and Valey's attention went straight to Starlight. Gerardo watched too, from a greater distance. "You're awake?" Maple asked softly. "Please tell me you're okay..."
"Ow..." Starlight whimpered, holding a hoof to her stomach. "Worse than... when I went off the waterfall..."
Maple carefully brushed her forehead with a hoof, avoiding touching her horn. "We'll find a way to get you back to Shinespark's machine. Things are dangerous right now, but we have a plan. I want you not to use your magic again until we get there, okay?"
"No... duh..." Groaning, Starlight scrunched her eyes shut, nestling her face into Maple's dust-colored coat.
"Hey, at least she's coherent and understands us," Valey chirped, leaning in closer. "...Huh. Ironflanks, your coat is way cleaner than it should be for someone who just tromped through the Flame District. Did you take a bath when I wasn't looking?"
"Probably the magic," Maple murmured, rocking Starlight softly. "I know I feel clean. Almost too clean, like someone scrubbed me inside and out with a very hard brush..."
"Valey's safe?" Starlight muttered. "We got off the elevator?"
"Yes, sweetie," Maple hummed, stroking her mane. "We did. We survived those mercenaries. Howe and Neon Nova left, but I won't miss them. You did a good job..."
Suddenly, a blue warning light began flaring, and Selma's voice blared over an intercom, washing over the entire room. "Defense Force, the time has come! The Sosans are cresting the mountain! Assemble to meet them at the eastern dam bridge in five minutes! Defend your city now or forever be the ponies who did not answer at the hour of greatest need!"
"Well..." Gerardo straightened up, adjusting his ruined uniform and shaking his feathers. "I believe that is our cue. Here's to living to see another day."
After hours of caves and claustrophobia, and days before that of green canopies and oppressive jungle heat, the dam bridge at the pinnacle of the Water District was more open than nothingness itself. Starlight stared into the open depths with swimming eyes, the cold atmospheric breezes of the cloudless sky soothing her horn and lessening the pangs of dizziness it sent spiraling through her with every heartbeat.
The dam top itself was wide enough for four wagons to pass side-by-side, with crenellated edges and artistic brick patterns carved into the white rock surface. Vents of warm air piped all the way from the Flame District were periodically placed, preventing the bridge from growing truly chilly or icing over. The right edge, near which Starlight rode, dropped away into a forested valley east of Ironridge, overwhelming in its scope with miles upon miles of pristine trees and mountainsides and harkening back to her travels through the southern mountains' upper reaches. The left edge saw a short drop before a shimmering lake of arctic water that spanned the entire footprint of an absent mountain, another dam's silhouette bordering it in the great distance... and far beyond that, distant mountain peaks from the west side of Ironridge and then Yakyakistan. The sun hung low over them, minutes away from touching the tips of the mountains, leaving the entire sky orange in anticipation of the battle to come. And ahead, the bridge connected to the Water District's lone northern mountain, a lonely lighthouse visible at the very peak... and a squad of ponies moving like ants down the stairs to the bridge surface. It was time.
Maple, Valey and Gerardo stood out of rank behind a jumpy, bristling wall of pegasi. Maple still leaned against Gerardo, but had insisted on carrying Starlight for herself, not wanting to be separated from the filly. Once again, Valey stood on her own yet hovered near, concealing her limp and her bruises as best she could in front of the army of pegasi. None of them were focused on her, regardless.
"I see them," Selma muttered from nearby, floating a spyglass in his aura. "Two to three dozen. Is that all they could scrounge up? Hmmph." He shook his head. "All carrying loads. Explosives, no doubt. It looks like their leader is a stallion; I can't see that metal mascot of theirs anywhere. No doubt waiting with the rest of their forces for a sneak attack. Fortuitous that we split the guard between here and below."
"Sir." A huge red pegasus with hooves that looked meant for crushing boulders stepped up next to him and saluted. "The stallions are as ready as they'll ever be. We're waiting on your orders."
"Very good, very good..." Selma put the spyglass away, a familiar black sword hilt sticking out next to it in his uniform. "Squad Leader Blast Furnace? Rejoin rank and wait on Herman's orders. This may be my Defense Force, but right now, I wouldn't dare steal his show."
"Sir." Blast Furnace bowed, stomping back to the line of pegasi.
Suddenly, Herman was beside them, nodding appreciably. "Continue to hold. Selma, can you make out individual features on the ponies there?"
Selma reached back for his spyglass. "Mane and coat colors, yes, but I wouldn't be able to accurately identify mere acquaintances. Give that less than a minute, at the rate they're moving."
"Hmmm..." Herman rumbled. "With me. Along with Valey and her squad. Now."
The pegasi parted as he strode in front of the line, Selma at his side. Gerardo glanced at Valey. "Well? Is this the time to dig in and remain in the back?"
Valey bit her lip. "I'm not getting any more danger than passive hostility from the Defense Force... Let's, uhh..." She straightened her neck. "Bananas. Let's go with him. Hope for the best..."
Herman checked over his shoulder, and they were following. Starlight could feel the tension beneath Maple's coat. She had missed something while unconscious, she could tell, and the group's earlier assertions that they had a plan utterly failed to convince her: she knew what trapped ponies felt like. With nothing but open sky and dozens of pegasi all around, there was nowhere they could run even if Valey's wings worked. The rest of the group was possibly as battered as she was, too, if not even more. Her horn was hurt and her magic exhausted, but aside from her head, her body felt fine. It almost made her wonder if she should have been helping carry one of her companions instead of getting a ride.
"That will do," Herman said once they were several meters in front of the pegasi. "Form a line. Let the Sosans see you."
No protest was raised. Selma stood to the yak's left, Gerardo to his right, and the others right of that, with Valey waiting as far away from Herman as she could get. Seconds passed like averted catastrophes, slowly eroding the distance between the sun and the mountaintops. The Sosans drew closer. The pegasi shuffled nervously. The wind blew, gentle and cold.
Flash!
Shinespark appeared in a burst of sapphire light, dashing towards Maple and Starlight with her horn still glowing. She reached to make contact...
Crack!
Reacting seamlessly, Herman threw something at the ground that exploded in a wave of magical energy. Starlight felt the shock ripple through her, concentrating on her horn, repressing it and separating it from the rest of her body until it was just a dull stub of bone. Some sort of magic suppressor? It actually alleviated a large part of her headache, disconnecting her from the dizziness that poured down through her head.
Then Shinespark crashed into them, knocking Maple over and sending them sprawling in a heap. Starlight was thrown wide, while Maple and Shinespark fell together in a tangle of limbs. Maple yelped; Shinespark gasped and scraped a hoof at her forehead. "What!? I can't teleport! My horn! My magic! We never made anything that could do that! I... I can't..."
Herman suddenly loomed over them. "A Varsidelian anti-magic grenade," he purred. "Sosa is not the sole supplier of weapons in the world."
Down the bridge, the Sosans broke into a run.
Shinespark glared up at Herman, climbing off of Maple, then looked to Starlight, her eyes widening. "What are you three doing here? This is the last place you belong! I told you to get where it was safe...!"
"Acting as bait for you," Herman rumbled, then turned to Valey. "And you performed your final duty admirably. Congratulations, little bat. Now take your friends, fly away, and never return to Ironridge. Or stay, if you would like to watch. You no longer matter."
Starlight glanced between Herman and Valey as she rushed back to Maple's side. Did Herman not know Valey's wing was injured? They couldn't run! Not without going back through the Water District, at least. And where would they go from there?
"What do you want from me?" Shinespark hissed, taking a defensive stance, her horn sparking fitfully as the anti-magic grenade suppressed her attempts to light it. "You plant bombs on this dam, threatening to destroy my entire home, and now try to make hostages of ponies critical to Sosa's future? What do you want!? Tell me!"
Herman shrugged. "You, as an audience."
Gerardo had already helped Maple up, and together they stared Herman down, backing slowly away as Starlight and Valey joined their side, putting themselves firmly between him and the advancing Sosans. "Be ready to make a break for it," Gerardo whispered. "Something tells me he is serious about letting us go."
"So the Sosans can spot me and turn me into a puddle?" Valey rolled her eyes. "Remember, I'm wearing the enemy team's colors to everyone but you three right now. Including Sparky. Or did you want to go back through the Water District and freeze our rears off crossing the snowfields at night? We're not in immediate danger right here, right now."
"We are not leaving Shinespark." Maple gritted her teeth. "We need her, she needs us, and I don't like this one bit!"
"Maple..." Starlight nudged her. "We can't do anything! My horn is useless and you and Valey can barely stand!"
Valey flicked her with her tail. "I can stand perfectly fine, thank you very much."
Meanwhile, Shinespark continued staring Herman and Selma down. "My audience?" Her coat bristled. "For...?"
Anyone with half an ear would have been hard-pressed to miss the sudden desperation in her voice. Herman smiled broadly, then turned to the west. "This."
The sun touched the horizon.
Suddenly, a yellow corona lit the air. Framed by the setting sun, a dark shape glinted out of the horizon, long and thin and streaking on a burning trail out of the mountains. Leaving a fading trail in the air born of impossible velocities, it hurtled east, preparing to pass by to the south... before taking a sudden dive, vanishing and impacting the snowfields between the skyport and the southern mountain wall with the sound of distant thunder. Shinespark gaped. "What was...?"
"That?" Herman finished for her. "A signal."
Like that, the air filled with pegasi, the entirety of Selma's division blazing overhead in a swarm of evasive maneuvers, piercing the blanket of tranquil space that remained between them and the Sosans. Cannonfire rang out in response, great masses of magical energy flying back into the pegasus cloud. Most missed. Some hit. Pegasi crashed to the bridge, injured or worse.
Shinespark took off running, racing to rejoin her soldiers. Herman watched with amusement from behind her... and then he was gone.
Wind whistled as a great shadow passed overhead, briefly plunging Shinespark into darkness. Reflexively, she looked up, before being knocked off her hooves as the dam shook from the impact of Herman landing. The great yak blocked her way, his broad face smiling invitingly. "Going somewhere? Stay a while, and watch the battle. I insist."
Shinespark gritted her teeth, scanning for a way around. In response, Herman raised a hoof... and misty energies swirled around it, coalescing into a gleaming silver double-edged axeblade studded with rubies and garnets and edged with diamond. If he had held it himself, it would have taken two hooves even with his enormous size, but it floated freely, hefted as if by telekinesis with a flat, runic ring of light around the handle where a horn's aura would normally grasp. It wasn't sized for fighting ponies. It was sized for fighting mountains.
"Are you sure you want to fight, my little pony?" Herman asked, the axe hovering next to him with its bizarre self-levitation, stepping aside to reveal the cracks his jump had chipped in the surface of the bridge. "This battle will go more in your favor if the leaders sit it out."
Starlight could feel Valey's shiver from were she stood. "Don't fight him!" the batpony urged. "I'm serious! Herman is bad news!"
Shinespark didn't attack, but she didn't back off, either. A twinge of pain ran down from Starlight's horn, and she fought to keep from wincing as her brain reminded her what it had just been put through: the anti-magic grenade was wearing off. She didn't doubt the other unicorns knew it, too.
At the center of the bridge, the pegasi and Sosans met, the fray intensifying into a melee. Somehow, Selma's forces hadn't gotten completely mowed down by artillery fire during the approach, and the air rang with bursts from stun grenades as ponies yowled and fought for their homes and their lives. Shinespark stared at the mass, shaking. "...Why?" she asked, teeth gritted.
"Why bring them to blows?" Herman glanced behind him at the battle, shrieks and screams filtering out through the air. "Why should I tell my methods to you? I act in the name of the glory of Yakyakistan. My goals are all that matter."
Shinespark lit her horn, pressing through the dregs of the anti-magic grenade's effect. "Get out of my way," she sobbed, red mane tossing in the wind. "Get out of my way! If you won't tell me why you're hurting my friends, at least let me help them!"
"No." Herman loomed down at her as Starlight and the others remained frozen, able neither to help nor simply leave her. "If you join the fight, then I will too, and I do not need pegasi to turn your entire band to dust. We can both sit here and observe, or we can both fight."
Shinespark's horn crackled louder, and Herman grinned. "We can also duel, one against one or with however many seconds you desire." His axe pointed at Valey and Gerardo. "A battle until surrender. Unlike those forces, you are quite useful to me alive."
Fighting to focus through her intensifying headache, Starlight suddenly saw what Shinespark saw. Next to Herman, outside of his field of vision, Selma's horn was also glowing, his ice-blue aura gently wrapped around the hilt of Gerardo's sword. He slowly inched it out, Shinespark's blazing horn covering the noise of his own... and winked. He was about to betray Herman.
The sword floated free, swiveling in midair, angling itself toward the yak. Herman smiled, staring steadily at Shinespark... and then his eyes suddenly met Starlight's, following her gaze to Selma. In a flash, his hoof shot out, taking hold of the weapon and plucking it effortlessly from his grasp. "Thank you for arming me," Herman rumbled. "Well. I suppose, if you really wish a fight, there is no need to hold back..."
Like woolly lightning, he flung the sword as a skewer, straight for Shinespark's heart. She teleported in the blink of an eye, dodging the projectile and appearing directly in front of his face, horn charged and leveled to blast a stream of burning energy. Herman sat back, raised his forehooves, and gripped her gently like a doll, forcibly turning her head and sending the attack soaring harmlessly into the sky.
Shing! The flung sword hissed past Starlight's head, brushing her fur with wind as it whistled by. Time suddenly seemed to stop, and she turned her head to follow its path one heartbeat at a time.
Its hilt was protruding from Maple's chest.
Beat. Her pink eyes widened in surprise, and she stood on all four hooves. Had they always been pink? No... Beat. She opened her mouth to say something, and nothing came out. Then she was on the ground. Beat. The sword disappeared, pocketed by her cutie mark, leaving no trace of a wound. She wore a shocked, defiant smile, like she had done one last thing to be proud of even while helpless.
Gerardo blinked at her. "Now see here," he thundered, taking two steps toward Herman, "you can't just-"
The mirrorlike axe swooped in out of nowhere, its flat side hitting Gerardo and punting him clean into the frozen reservoir lake with a mighty splash. Shinespark hung with terrified eyes from Herman's hooves, well aware that a single twitch of his muscles could crush her entire body. Selma still stood at his side, unable to hide the look of chagrin on his face. Valey just shook her head, muttering, "I told you so."
Herman laid Shinespark down, patting her head as Gerardo climbed back onto the dam, gasping and sputtering. "An acceptable duel," the yak rumbled. "Though I am far out of your leagues. Shall we continue to spectate, or is it time to bring this to a close?"
Starlight wasn't paying attention, the events between the others passing like a haze through her mind. Gerardo had talked about what his sword did to ponies and she had shrugged, but then, it wasn't real. Having it happen here and now to a pony she cared about and loved, there was no doubt in her mind that that sword was evil. She pressed against Maple, feeling for the movement of her chest, lowering her ear for a whisper from her muzzle, anything. The mare was breathing... barely. Her eyes could move. That was all.
"Yes!" Shinespark shook, trembling, her resolve allowing her to remain rooted in place. "Stop this! Stop the fighting! Go back to Yakyakistan and leave Ironridge alone! And don't hurt my friends!"
"Stop the fighting?" A smile danced across Herman's face, no more pleasant than any of the other times he used it. He reached into his uniform and pulled out a small black box adorned with two buttons. "Are you sure that is the wording you want to use?"
Shinespark gasped. "No! That's... Is that a detonator!?"
"It is." Herman was stoic, oblivious to the still-raging battle behind him. "One wired to both dams. Should the Defense Force somehow prevail in this fight? Sosa will become victim to the corrupt and heinous 'protectors' of the Stone District, their heroes tragically sacrificing their lives to prevent destruction that was inevitable. They will have nothing left to lose, and the force you left in Blueleaf will fight for vengeance until their dying breath. Better, should the Spirit win... and my weapons contract has stacked the odds heavily in your favor... the defenders of the Stone District will have fallen to the terrorists everyone knew Sosa to harbor, who evacuated their own before unleashing destruction on all of Ironridge and annihilated the most visible monument of progress in the name of repressing the rest of the economy to their level. Either outcome creates an Ironridge in which two armies will fight with all their strength until one is dead and the losing side has been ravaged and plundered. They will become unstoppable. Nothing in this city will be able to stand against their wrath."
Shinespark looked sick, her ears going limp and her face pale. "You... You can't! What do you even gain from that, you monster? What do you want? I'm at the table, here!"
"For the record," Selma drawled, "I still have the mines on the eastern dam frozen. Herman could have other ways of removing the dams... say, underwater mines inside the lake... and I did warn you of that possibility. Or maybe he doesn't, and is bluffing. I did everything reasonable and more to avert this."
"Is it not obvious?" Herman's eyes hardened, ignoring Selma. "I have need of a war. Here." He set the detonator down, shoving it and sending it sliding across to Shinespark.
She blanched away from the thing. "Why are you giving me this? What are you trying!?"
"So many questions..." Herman shook his head. "I thought I would let you choose the fate of your ponies. The top button will remove the west dam; the bottom, the east. I have spares, so disposing of this will do nothing to stop me. Let the battle finish, and I will remove the dam of the losing side. Or, if you are feeling merciful, you can cut their battle short yourself."
Shinespark stared at the detonator, shaking. Herman looked at her, bemused. "Remove the west dam, and obtain a bigger war in which both sides have reason to attack, as well as the loss of many lives in the Earth District. Remove the east dam, and your little war party will suddenly find themselves without ground to stand on. Literally."
"I can't..." Shinespark was frozen, unable to move. "No..."
As she stared and Herman patiently waited, Starlight huddled against Maple's fallen form, hugging her and whimpering frantically. Half of it was from her headache, and half the shallowness of Maple's breath. "Please be okay... Please be okay... Please be okay..."
A dripping Gerardo dragged his way over to them, leaving a trail of moisture on the bridge that was only prevented from turning to ice by the dam's internal heating. "Brrbrrbrr..." He shook, ice crystals forming at the tips of his feathers. "Regrettably, I don't think I'm going to be capable of flight or complex combat stunts until my wings thaw slightly..." Taking in Maple and Starlight, he sighed. "She's going to be all right, judging by every past experience I've bothered to observe. Don't worry."
Maple's pink eyes focused on him, silently pleading for reassurance, and he nodded. "I'm well aware that it's terrifying. But you are going to be okay. Provided, at least, we make it out of this..." His gaze wandered from her and Starlight to Valey, who was standing on her own. "Our team is now completely comprised of invalids who can barely move, possibly plus one unicorn who appears to find herself in a highly unenviable dilemma. That does not bode well for escape options."
"I'm not an invalid." Starlight sniffled, rubbed Maple's neck one last time, and stood up. "I can stand. My horn hurts, but I can probably use it. And I hate Herman. I'm going to find a way to make him pay."
She could practically feel Maple's disapproval at the mention of using her horn. In truth, she doubted she could; the pangs of dizziness were just barely at a level where she could still talk. But the smoldering she felt at the image of that hilt protruding from Maple's chest burned even hotter.
"Don't. Try. Anything. Rash," Gerardo hissed urgently, pulling her back with a shivery, ice-cold wing. "We are on the thinnest ice of our lives, right now!"
As they huddled, Valey stepped forward, finally approaching Herman, Selma and Shinespark. "Hey."
Shinespark didn't respond, still staring in shock at the detonator.
"I said hey." Valey nudged her side, keeping weight off her burnt hoof. "Listen. I'm going haywire with danger right now. Something really big and really bad is coming, and since I'm pretty sure fat old Herman here has better things to pick on than me right now, I've got a feeling that means the Sosans are close to winning and are about to head this way."
Shinespark swallowed, her eyes fixed on the detonator. Herman and Selma just watched.
"Look, I don't care for you and you probably despise me, what with all the secrets I threaten to spill and how often I steal your old stuff." Valey rubbed the golden pendant around her neck for emphasis with her good wing. "But right now, you seriously might wanna listen to me. If they win, that western dam goes boom. You heard Herman. You think he's lying? I know you've got fancy simulations and stuff that'll show what happens. The east dam goes? Bye bye Sosa, underwater Gnarlbough, and maybe landslides in Copsewood, all of which you evacuated. The west dam? There goes the entire Earth District. No more water backing up draining and creating floods and all that, it's basically dropping a mountain. All those refugees you spent so long evacuating? Herman says they'll be fine while the rest of Ironridge suffers; I bet they'll be toast. Same with Blueleaf, Grand Acorn, the western towns..." She sighed. "Either someone blows up the eastern dam right now, or tens... maybe hundreds of thousands of ponies are going to get blicked, just like that. It's not even a choice."
At that, Shinespark's eyes unfroze, and hovered out to the battle, which to a trained eye might have been starting to diminish. "But these are the ponies that have been counting on me to keep them safe..."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, and they're also the ponies who basically knew this could very well be a suicide mission and are still here, aren't they? They've accepted that they could die tonight. The ponies down in the Earth District who are tucking themselves into bed right now, wondering why the districts hate each other so much when they're just trying to get by, hoping things will be better when they wake up and not even considering that they might not wake up? What about them?"
"I can't..." Shinespark rasped. "I can't kill them, though! I can't..."
"...Fine." Valey snorted. "You're lucky I chose today to grow a conscience. I'm probably going to hate myself for this like nothing else later..." She reached a hoof out to stomp the detonator.
With a well-disciplined snap of movement, Shinespark caught her before she could make contact, catching Valey's body with her own and holding her high enough that her forehooves couldn't reach the trigger on the ground. "No!" As Valey struggled, Shinespark twisted her legs, locking them around Valey's and completely preventing the batpony from reaching the device. "There has to be another way! Please let there be another way! There has to!"
Herman grunted in bemusement. Valey shifted, trying to wriggle out of Shinespark's grip. "Leggo! Your worldview is too pretty, Sparky! I dig cute and innocent but nasty stuff happens and you can't stick your head in the ground and hope it goes away when you get a choice with no perfect options! Now stop hugging me and go blow up your friends!"
"No!" Shinespark struggled back, fighting to keep Valey away from the detonator. "I'll fight Herman again... stop him from using whatever backups he has... There has to be a way to save Sosa!"
"Bananas... Just cut your losses, already! We'll need your help to get out of here ourselves at this rate!" Valey pushed harder, making Shinespark give a step as Herman twirled his axe in anticipation. "Didn't you always go on about ignoring the few in favor of the many!? Why is this so hard for you? Why are you... ugh... making me fight so hard to do something I don't wanna do either?"
Shinespark's grip softened, and she gave another step. "Because you're asking me to destroy my home, which I've spent all my life fighting for!"
"Then you'll be able to join the club, because I've never had a home to fight for!"
Finally close enough, Valey snaked out a wing, aiming for the east dam button. Shinespark kicked it away with a hind leg, sacrificing her balance and sending both her and Valey over in a heap. The black box skittered across the bridge, coming to rest squarely in front of Starlight.
Herman glanced to her in interest.
"I..." Starlight swallowed, staring at it. Gerardo made no move in any direction, and Maple couldn't. If she decided to touch it, everyone else would be too far away to stop her.
In the distance, the battle dwindled. Starlight watched as another Sosan keeled over, taking two pegasi with him. They had pushed down the bridge as they fought, leaving in their wake a road full of stirring, injured ponies, some better off and others worse. Neither side had surrendered, but it wouldn't be long before they wouldn't be able to.
Why did this have to fall to her? Why not... She blinked, ending that line of thought. Shinespark couldn't destroy her own home. Starlight had just watched her fail. Valey's reasoning seemed sound, yet she could read the batpony's reluctance to pull the trigger. For someone worried that they were a monster, it wouldn't be an easy thing to live with after the fact. But herself? Ever since the moment when she had arrived in Ironridge, the city had been hammering at her and her friends, with mud pits and bandits with cannons and giant hillsides and evil guards and foalnappings and cursed artifacts and oppressive weather and dozens of other maladies that made her boil inside just thinking about. And the city had gotten Maple stabbed. That was the last straw if there ever was one. If some catastrophic property damage and the lives of a few zealots were what she had to pay to stop a worse fate than hers from befalling hundreds of thousands of Earth District residents, that was a price that, for a few critical seconds, she didn't mind paying.
The last rays of the sun plunged beneath the mountaintops, throwing the bridge into shadow. "Sorry, Maple and Shinespark," Starlight whispered, taking the detonator in her hooves and picking out the east button. "I hope you won't be mad at me for doing this myself..."
Click.
Far to the northeast, in a corner of the Steel District that sat outside the Ironridge crater and was carved into civilization out of the badlands by proximity to the Yule and necessity, a stallion stood in an airy metal watchtower, afforded a broad view of the eastern Water District dam through a spyglass held in his shaky aura. His coat was black and wrinkly, he had a once-vibrant red mane that had faded mostly to gray, and his cutie mark was obscured by a lopsided cloak that seemed custom-tailored to his frame, but he stood with pride and determination, unwavering in his vigil as he stared toward the top of the dam.
"Mobius..." A short, plump mare a third of his age stepped up alongside him, holding a canteen in her aura. "The evacuation is complete. We've checked and triple-checked. The sun has set and it won't stay warm. Please, let me teleport you to Karma Industries? Dorable and Nimwick are already there. I know you want to be the last pony to leave, but we are the last. Everyone needs you. Please, let's go."
"Nonsense, Secretary," Mobius harrumphed, not even blinking as he focused on the bridge between the still-sunlit peaks. "My daughter is risking her life up there to protect our great district, and I will not retire until she is safe and sound!"
"My name is Hestia, sir. Please try to remember it?" She straightened her mane with a hoof, a prim business suit wrapped around her shoulders. "You went through the applications and hired me yourself. Just because I'm your personal secretary doesn't mean-"
"Yes, of course." Mobius interrupted her with a wave of a hoof. "I don't care. Put it on my schedule, Secretary. I'll get to it when things quiet down a little, as soon as we get an answer to the power plant activists. Can you see my daughter?"
"Sir?" Mobius was easily twice her height, but Hestia looked up at him with a sternness that could quell even the naughtiest foal. "With all due respect, I don't think being out here stressing is good for your mind. Let me teleport us... Huh?"
The distant sounds of the city gradually vanished, replaced by a swelling roar that grew and grew until it sounded as if a hole had been blown in the sky and the entire atmosphere was being sucked out into an eldritch dimension. The eastern dam lit up, crisscrossed by a web of lines that blazed brilliant orange for an impossibly long second. Then, they went dim... and the dam fell out of the mountain.
The world turned into a vertical shockwave that, even from the dead center of the walkway, lifted Starlight's mane and tail straight up and threatened to fling her off her hooves. First, the dam was whole, and then it wasn't, great fissures separating the bridge into islands that lifted and moved in a wave rolling out from the center. The fragmented architecture launched into the air, upwards and outwards, spinning, soaring... and began to fall away.
Herman paid her no attention whatsoever as the detonator slipped from her limp hooves, clattering against her section of ground. The water in the reservoir boiled, sucked by powerful currents as a way to relieve its massive gravitational potential presented itself, pressuring the dam and widening the rift that had been torn in the center. Crumbling stone and the raging lake formed a maelstrom of noise in her head, and it was only with a sharp jolt that she realized what the yak had: as close as they were to the edge of the dam, it wasn't close enough. The stone she was standing on was about to join millions of tons more on a journey down the mountainside, and diving off a waterfall with an overtaxed horn was an experience she had no desire to repeat.
Valey and Shinespark, still locked together from their struggle over the detonator, had slipped beneath the shadows newly created by the set sun, and were visible as a ripple streaking south toward the entry into the mountain. Herman dashed past, his huge legs making incredible time as Selma fled after him. Maple... couldn't move.
Starlight gasped as the cracks of destruction moved closer, like a train on a bridge she had no way down from. Gerardo was trying to move her, but his frozen limbs weren't having any luck.
"I'll get her!" Starlight shrieked over the din, hurriedly appearing at Maple's side. Digging at the ground, she started to lift, then got her head under Maple's barrel, then rolled the mare crosswise onto her back, all four hooves dragging along the ground. She struggled to lift her, back and legs complaining against the heavy load...
Crack! "Let go of me!"
Behind her, further from the door, Valey and Shinespark were no longer progressing. Shinespark had somehow escaped the shadow sneak and punched Valey, and was racing toward the chasm and newly-formed waterfall. She reached the edge with her horn flaring, leapt... and disappeared over the edge in a streak of orange and blue.
"Guh... idiot... Owww..." Valey groaned, curled up, and didn't move.
"...Aaargh!" Snarling, Starlight set Maple down, racing back to Valey. The rock shifted under her hooves as she reached her, tumbling imminent. "Don't make me carry you... Come on, get up!"
Valey groaned, rolling over, and her eyes widened as the section next to them fell away, leaving them at the very edge. The ground groaned harder, tilting, a fissure widening between it and the surviving dam structure. "Oh bananas!" She hopped upright with a hiss of pain, staggered, fell again, climbed to two hooves, grabbed Starlight... and their chunk fell, flinging them out into the watery night.
Not again!
For the second time in her life, Starlight fell without end, caught by a watery nightmare and sent hurtling over a cliff a mile off the ground. For the second time, she was left with her horn at its worst, burnt out and unable to defend her as she fell. For the second time, she wanted to scream, and the wind battering against her tumbling head was too great for her to even open her mouth.
But this time was also different. The dam was an ordinary tall cliff, not the roof of the world, and her fall would be over in seconds rather than minutes. It was dark out, making it harder to see the ground. There were rocks in the water: huge ones, parts of a blown out dam, and no deep lake below. And instead of being alone, she had an injured batpony, and they clung to each other like it was the end of the world.
How did she solve this last time? Encase herself in crystal and land in water to survive the fall? That was what she wanted to do, but her horn had been too far gone... and still not nearly as gone as it was here. She had gotten her blanket from her packs, made a parachute, somehow slowed her fall enough... and for some reason, even though she was sure Maple had been carrying them in the Flame District, she was wearing her packs then and there. Her blanket might still be inside. She could do this.
Swooosh! Valey's wings shot open and caught air. Their momentum didn't break, but it ever-so-slightly started to slow. Starlight's heart rose with it. They could fly! This wasn't going to be a disaster like last-
Valey swerved to avoid a chunk of bridge that was falling faster than they were, and something pony-shaped plummeted past them. It was Maple.
"No!" Starlight screamed, struggling. "Valey! Hurry! Fly down and catch her!"
"Are you nuts!?" Valey flapped, wincing. "I'll be lucky if I can save myself! Carrying you is practically suicide! If we grab her too I might as well be a boulder!"
"I don't care!" Starlight howled back, throat already raw. "If we're dead anyway then it won't make a difference! I'll think of something; I've done this before! Just get her!"
"Bananas..." Growling, snarling, Valey stopped flapping and angled her wings forward, pressing Starlight to her chest and becoming more aerodynamic. "This is duuuumb!"
Together, they shot forward, propelled as Valey swam through the air, gaining on the falling chunks of dam. Starlight's eyes strained, searching in the darkness... There! She pointed, and Valey flew, Maple coming into reach. The mare was tumbling horribly, unable to right herself or even move, the mere sight of it making Starlight's stomach churn. She reached out, careful not to get kicked by Maple's limp, flailing legs, and after a near dodge finally closed her forelegs around her target just like how Valey was hanging onto her. "Got you!"
"Yeah, great, what next!?" Valey tried to flap again, and gave up after a single gasp, able to do no more than angle them further from the falling water and rock and prevent them from spinning as they fell. "I'm at 'certain death' levels of danger right now! I can't lift this!"
The reality of their dead end sank in as Starlight tried fruitlessly to fumble with her saddlebags; they were hard enough to manage with hooves when her forehooves weren't both occupied with holding a mare who was as good as unconscious. Last time, she had survived through resourcefulness, creativity, determination and dumb luck. What did she have this time that she didn't then?
That was simple: a very good reason to keep living.
Starlight brought her horn to life. That was like lifting a mountain in and of itself; the appendage didn't want to be used. Pain drilled down into her skull as her magic complained and rebelled, but she pushed past it. Anything would be worth it to survive and protect her friends. Anything.
...Flash! It lit up with a flare of angry teal, sending sparks of energy flying everywhere. Her entire body crackled as the unformed energies crackled back against her, sending arcs of light bouncing across her coat, stabbing everywhere they touched. Many hit Maple and Valey too, causing the latter to yowl. "Owowoww! What are you even doing!? That hurts!"
Of course it hurt. It probably hurt a lot less than it hurt to keep her horn glowing in the first place. But Starlight pushed past as her vision fuzzed, forcing the spell to take shape around them, locking the three of them inside a solid crystal prism. Would there be water at the bottom? Rocks? Something else? She didn't know, and as they started spinning again, she wouldn't be able to tell. But the crystal would keep them safe. It would have to.
The shield struck something. It cracked, spun, and held, the shock of the impact feeling like it would tear Starlight's horn off. It cracked again, and still held. And again.
Then it bounced, and that turned into rolling, converting Starlight's horn into a jackhammer against her head. Her perception started to drop, the rolling faded from her consciousness, and she suddenly realized she would pass out again before reaching somewhere safe...
And then an explosion of midnight blue tore all sensation from her, and she was gone.
A chill night wind arced across the ruins of the Water District entry, the last glint of sunlight vanishing from the top of the lighthouse. The lake was empty; the destruction was done. Gerardo had pitched himself over the edge after his friends with spread, icy wings, and only Selma and Herman remained to survey the aftermath.
"You really went through with it," Selma remarked, standing shortly back from the edge. "Impressive. And, knowing you, not in the least surprising."
Herman glowed with satisfaction as he stood at the edge of a stable chunk, staring into the depths. "I merely set up the underwater charges and provided guidance. They were the ones who went through with everything."
"You did, didn't you..." Selma breathed softly, staring at the wet underside of the west dam, an array of mines visible against it, blinking in the distance.
"Leave me," Herman instructed. "I have succeeded in my mission and wish to bask in the glory of Yakyakistan. You, on the other hoof, have inevitable vengeance to head off. Unless your plans involve watching the Stone District burn as well, which would be unnecessary but permissible."
"Actually, I felt like doing some basking of my own," Selma drawled, voice suddenly loud. "Yakyakistan's glory, and all that? This does remind me of the homeland..."
Herman said nothing. Selma didn't give him a chance to. "All these high cliffs and cold winds? Very nice, very much appreciated... Now that Valey is gone, we're the only two important natives left in Ironridge. Also." He cleared his throat. "As a unicorn, I can teleport. The Defense Force will survive without me for five more minutes, and when I wish to arrive, it will be instantaneous."
"Selma, cease rambling," Herman growled, cutting him off.
Selma smoothly interrupted back, leaving absolutely no dead air. "What were you planning, anyway? Exterior redecorating? A show of superiority? War for war's sake? I think I've earned knowing what we're fighting for by now, don't you?"
"Selma-!" Herman whirled... and saw Selma's horn glowing, the unicorn's noisy talking covering up the shimmer of magic. Wasting no time, he lunged away from the edge.
As he did so, Selma's horn pulsed brighter, pouring all his energy into the bridge beneath Herman's hooves. It was fractured, the chunk precariously perched, and ground under his tug... then slipped backwards, downwards and away, leaving Herman in midair flying toward the bridge, his momentum considerably less than it could have been if he had jumped from stable ground.
Flash! Selma's telekinesis intensified again, gripping Herman and shoving downward as hard as he could. The yak soared toward the intact edge before dropping far faster than under normal gravity, barely scraping the clifftop with his hooves. Herman glared at him as he stepped closer, still straining down and away with an ice-blue field that matched Herman's uniform. Both sweated; neither spoke.
Herman lost his grip.
Without so much as a roar, his hairy mass plummeted away, losing itself in the darkness of the chasm. Selma stared over the edge, a broad smirk splitting his face. He was alone.
"Yeeeeesss!" He reared back, punching at the darkened sky. "Yesssss! At last, they're both gone! 'Ambassador Herman destroys Steel District in petty nonsensical plot; Selma delivers vengeance! Commander Valey too cowardly to assist; flees city!' I win, and I can hear the news already! All the pieces have fallen, and I win everything! I'll be famous, and I win!"
He danced back from the edge in exuberance... and tripped on an abandoned silver handle. Grumbling, he rose to his hooves, dusted off his face, and stared at Herman's magic axe. The faintest feeling that he was forgetting something crossed his mine, but he shrugged it off. He didn't have any part of Herman's body as proof he was dead, but a weapon that could be summoned by its owner at will should be good enough. Hefting it in his aura, almost staggering under its silver weight, he strode through the door to the Water District, a chill wind blowing against his back.
A bitter night wind laced with memories of stone and ice and native to the highest peaks of the Sky District blew past them, lifting the sodden hairs on her coat. She was wet. She would freeze. She had to move.
Forcing her eyes open, she took in a portrait of black upon more black: jagged, hewn stone, swiftly-flowing water and a starless sky, all darker than even her coat. She was at the bottom of a ravine, three meters deep and blasted into the rock by megaton forces that had stripped the forest away, and the ground, scoured all the way to bedrock and kept going. Her only company was a small river, racing by with scarcely a ripple like a pouncing predator as it drained residue water from the dam.
Valey watched it, sniffing, the air against her lungs feeling just as blasted as the landscape looked. It took a minute, but she caught Starlight's scent. The filly was somewhere nearby, and she wasn't dead.
As her grasp of the situation reasserted itself, she made a second effort to get up, inwardly complaining about everything to ever happen. She would have lifted Starlight, had they been alone. She should have won against the mercenaries, preventing them from needing to go to the Water District. She could have just taken Maple at face value earlier and waited until they were out of Ironridge to see if she was serious about being her friend... but instead she knocked her out, and wasted precious hours brooding in the Flame Barracks when they could have been escaping.
In the end, what convinced her to get off the jagged rock where she had been deposited was the touch of water against her tail. As uncomfortable as having her wing pinned beneath her and her burnt hoof stretched at the wrong angle was, the realization that the river level was rising galvanized her body to action, getting it to listen to her brain and squirm, struggling to stand up.
...She was in bad shape. Her limp from her burn was gone, she realized, but only because it was hard to limp when all of your legs hurt. She felt like she had been ran through a centrifuge, gravity wobbling beneath her as she failed to detect exactly which was was down. Starlight's spinning crystal was probably to thank for that. It might also have been why at least half of her body was a bruise... though maybe that had happened after the gemstone shattered. At some point, she must have passed out, because twilight no longer lingered in the darkened sky.
It took several minutes of standing in place to convince herself she could move. Starlight's scent was still there... across the river, up the cliff and a little ways more. The water trickled past with a gurgle that would have been soothing were it not so deadly, and her legs locked up in protest. There was no way she was going to swim through that.
So, out of better options, Valey moved her legs one step at a time, trudging purposefully along the uneven riverbank.
The river curved. It didn't curve away from Starlight, but rather stayed mostly perpendicular to her, Valey's nose constantly twitching to make sure she knew where the filly was. The water level continued to rise; she passed many areas where a smaller stream cascaded down a wall in a flow to join the bigger one.
She rounded a bend, and suddenly made out something that definitely wasn't a rock laying on the far bank at the edge of the water. It looked like a body... She blinked. Maple?
The pony was laying on her side, back to her, and in the darkness it was hard to make out features regardless, but the mane looked the same. The tail... was underwater, along with the mare's entire hindquarters. Valey gritted her teeth. She needed a way across, and fast, because the water was still rising.
There was nothing for it but to swim. The distance wasn't too far, and she had been far enough downriver to know that there were no sudden waterfalls to pulverize her if she got swept along. She was already cold and already wet, and a little more would be worth it if it meant getting back another of her friends.
Or maybe it wasn't worth it! As Valey waded in, first to her chest, then her neck, the current threatening to sweep her off her hooves, she was swiftly reminded that all of the water left was residue from the bottom of a glacial mountain lake. It bit into her legs until she felt nothing at all, losing sensation of the ground and even whether or not they were moving. The former, at least, could have been because she was floating, the river quickly carrying her away.
She angled herself, told her legs to kick, and begged them to work, leaving nothing left she could do but hope. Silently, teeth gritted, she waited... and the far bank got closer. She lurched as her hooves struck stone. They weren't sturdy enough any more to stand, so she crawled forward until she was clear of the waters, hugging herself ineffectually for warmth.
Again, the rising water touched her tail.
Valey sucked in a sharp breath. That was right, she had to get to Maple. If the earth pony got swept away, she sincerely doubted she'd be able to swim out again to get her.
Once more, Valey tried hauling herself upright, but this time she failed. So she continued to crawl, hugging the ravine wall and shivering as she dragged herself breath by breath through another tributary stream, around a corner and back to the spot where she had started to cross.
Maple - and it was definitely Maple - was in a bad way. The water had risen even further, soaking her chest, submerging her belly and lapping at her neck and mane. The spark of panic the sight gave Valey was enough to thaw her legs for one last charge, and she staggered forward, tripping over herself to reach the mare. Anchoring herself, she bit down heavily on Maple's mane, setting her jaw in a death grip, giving her some way to hold on no matter what. Her hooves grabbed at Maple's shoulders, and weakly fumbled, trying to drag her up and out of the water.
As she tugged, she met Maple's eyes. They sparked with hope and recognition, though it wasn't nearly enough to banish the deeper shades of terror, desperation and despair. Her brown body was limp and waterlogged, unable to do so much as flick her tail, and Valey tried carefully not to think about being paralyzed on the bank of a rising river.
Minutes of careful struggle later, they were far enough from the water that they would be safe for a time. It wouldn't be long enough, but it would be something. Valey sighed.
They needed to get to safety. To find Starlight, to get up, to move at all, but she was utterly spent, dripping like a sponge just like Maple and with limbs that were ready to quit. Breath catching angrily in her throat, she sniffed. Starlight was still nearby.
She wanted to say something like 'We'll be all right,' or even 'I hate losing,' but all that came out when she opened her mouth was a formless stammer and the chattering of teeth.
Maple just looked at her, with eyes that said she needed to talk even more.
"Urgh... cold..." Valey breathed, shivering. The more time passed, the less the cold hurt, and that meant everything bad. Maple couldn't even shiver. With nothing left to do, Valey pressed against her, hoping that despite their sodden coats, there would be enough warmth between them to share. Please let there be. She wanted to survive.
Suddenly, something sparked in her vision. Valey looked, and realized Maple's eyes had changed: seeming to flicker with dim energy. As she watched, Maple glowed softly, and tiny amounts of pink fire reminiscent of the underground tree leaked from her coat, swirling and crawling across her and Valey and the ground shortly around them. It lasted for a second at the most before the flames receded and Maple's eyes returned to stable, unmoving and very slightly dimmer pink... but when they did, they took the water with them. Maple and Valey's coats were dry, and as much as they hurt, Valey could again feel her limbs.
"Woah..." she breathed, voice partially restored, a bare amount of warmth restored to her chest. She held Maple even tighter as the wind scraped by overhead, not willing to relinquish it, and Maple was warmer, too. "Did you do that?"
Maple just stared at her, unable to answer.
"Uhh..." Valey thought, for the first time uncomfortable and slightly distracted by not giving another pony their personal space, but glued to Maple out of necessity. "You can still look at stuff, right? Look to your left if you can, and at me otherwise."
Maple's eyes slid left, then returned to center.
"Whew..." Valey gulped. "So, uhh... left means yes, right means no. Did you do that?"
Maple stared straight at her.
Valey blinked. "Up means sort of, or you have no idea?"
Up went Maple's eyes.
"Okay..." Valey swallowed, suddenly aware that she was extremely hungry. "That was the tree magic you pulled from that windigo heart, right? Does that mean you still have some?"
Left. Left meant yes.
"...Okay." Valey swallowed. "Well, we'll deal with that later. Listen. I can smell Starlight nearby. I dunno how she is, but she's not dead. I'm going to go find her... and you're coming with me. I have no idea how, but I'll carry you if I have to. Okay?"
She hadn't given Maple a 'don't leave me' option, but Maple gave it anyway, piercing her with her pink eyes.
"Yeah, yeah..." Valey hugged her slightly harder, then started to get to her hooves, instantly regretting breaking contact as the sharp air blew under and over her. "Ow, it's cold. Too cold. Yep... I am definitely finding a way to carry you, because I don't want to be out in this weather alone."
Upon fully straightening up, she gasped. The riverbank immediately under them was clear, but a perfect ring of ice surrounded that, even extending out into the rising river in an iceberg the water flowed around. Flat and shiny, it bore dozens of strange scratches that almost bore resemblance to runes.
"Woah." Valey staggered slightly, touching a damp spot the flames had missed in the area around her pendant. In fact... had they avoided the pendant deliberately? The moon glass within still shone, black and monochrome...
"Ironflanks?" She turned back down to Maple. "Check out all this ice. You think that magic, like... moved heat from there inside of us, or something?" She scratched the back of her neck, then blinked, a realization swiftly coming to mind. "Uhh... Maple?" Her ears drooped and her brow creased, her mane feeling bare and vulnerable without her hat to cover it. "Should I knock this Ironflanks stuff off and use your real name for now? I mean, you always act like it bothers you, and you've kinda been through enough right now... unless it's familiar or something and you just need that right now, or...?"
Maple's eyes went up. That was I don't know, right? Or was it I don't remember? Close enough. She followed that with Please don't leave me.
"Yeah. I gotcha." Valey bent down and started the careful process of lifting Maple onto her back. Even though they were roughly the same size, with at most an inch advantage to Maple, Valey's host of injuries and Maple's inability to use her muscles made it a monumental task. But it was the only way she would be able to bring Maple along, and the warmth being in contact afforded made her certain it was worth it.
Funny, Valey thought as she finally got Maple situated and made sure her legs weren't going to collapse out from under her. Any other day of her life, the mere idea of having a helpless mare riding passively and willingly on her back would have given her all sorts of interesting daydreams to explore, but then and there the only things crossing her mind were warmth, safety, survival and Starlight. That was what almost dying so many times in rapid succession did to a pony, she guessed. Or maybe it was having friends. Just more things to get used to if this was really going to be her future.
Of course, that meant she had to live to see it. Eyes fixed forward, she spotted a cleft in the ravine where she could climb to the surface and began the journey.
As short as Valey's climb was, she had to stop several times to catch her breath, well aware that the rejuvenation from Maple's pink flame wasn't infinite and the moment she pushed herself too hard, she might not be able to get up and continue. Maple weighed like a bag of bricks across her back, fortunately warm but also limp and useless, lacking even the strength to keep her head from dangling toward the ground. Valey had to hold her mane back with a wing to keep from tripping on it.
They crested the edge of the ravine, revealing nothing but more devastation. Another climb to the top of a nearby crag later, and they had a panoramic view of just how bad the landscape was: black bedrock, stretching on into the night, crisscrossed and scarred with rivers and lakes of draining water, a maze of ridges and walls and waterfalls just like the ravine they had left, in which flat ground was rarer than signs of life. To the west, the blown-out husk of the dam stood like a relic of a long-dead civilization, parts of the wall still standing despite teetering outward, the giant fissure down the middle still leaking water from the bottom. To the south and east, their valley rose back up into the mountains, a wall of debris where the ground had been scoured and the dirt above collapsed into a mudslide, leaving a vast climb before any untouched land continued. And to the north, where Sosa was supposed to be, there was a sea.
The Yule had burst its banks a hundred times over, the narrow canyons it threaded itself through on the journey east unable to accommodate a mountain's worth of water even with the force that had blasted the valley bare, backing the water up as it tried to drain and forcing it out in every direction. The wind-rippled surface extended out of sight around the mountains, reaching west to where the Earth District lay, and far out into the north where chunks of the already-broken badlands poked above like natural spikes. The ruins of Sosa breached the surface; much had been completely crushed by the onslaught, but there were places where the water had merely flooded, leaving part of a roof or a leaning tower or smokestack visible against the new lake.
"...Heh." Valey licked her lips, the wind blowing at her hatless mane. "Well, at least if we get out of here we won't have anything to miss, right?" She expected no reply, and got none. "Dunno how we're going to do that, though. The only way this valley opens is to the north, and that's totally blocked by water. Beats me what I was thinking earlier, swimming through this stuff to get you... but there's no way we're making it through that mess. And I doubt I'll be ready to fly you and Starlight any time soon."
Maple didn't respond. With a blink, Valey realized that all she saw was the ground; up on her back she was probably a lot more exposed to the wind, too. Carefully, she set Maple down in a sitting position, holding her up with a wing and a shoulder and her own neck to lean on so she wouldn't be in too much contact with the cold ground. It didn't let her see Maple's eyes, though, so hopefully she was fine with it.
"That better?" Valey asked, huddling against her for warmth, again getting no response. "Don't worry. We'll... We'll get Starlight soon. She's not too far, and then we can think of some way to ditch this place. We can..." She swallowed, closing her eyes. "Ugh. Bananas. Hey, Iron... Maple? Wow, that's awkward. I know there's nothing you can really do to stop me, but... can I say some stuff? Stuff I probably... no, definitely wouldn't say to anyone who could say something back? That you'll probably wanna talk about when you get de-swordified, and I'll totally kick myself for opening up on then but really need to anyway? Please?"
She pushed Maple away far enough that they could see eye to eye, and Maple looked left. Left meant yes, didn't it? It did. Valey took a deep breath.
"Knew you'd say that. Heh..." Valey looked away, then pulled Maple back so they couldn't see each others' faces. "Here's the thing: I'm... I'm scared. I don't feel like me any more. For seven years, my life consisted of putting up with Herman, making sure the Defense Force couldn't do anything big, trawling the Earth District for stealable fruit and cheap laughs, and wearing a snazzy hat. I was so ridiculously invincible between the threat of having an army and just being me that I could stroll into the most hostile situation imaginable and treat it like a joke. I mean, you saw me fight Neon Nova back in Blueleaf, right? Where I basically put on a show and kicked his rear as epically as possible when one or two moves could have finished it instantly? That was, like, a taste of what I could do. I must have started so many good-natured bar fights back in the day..."
She shivered, both from the wind and from the memory, and was sure Maple felt it. "And now that's all gone. Like, yeah, I knew I decided to ditch my allegiance to the Stone District to fight for you and Starlight, and I knew that would be big... but this is like everything's changed! Forget all the stuff with Herman and the Defense Force that just went down, I lost! The first fight I picked... or got picked by... to keep you guys safe, and they kicked my rear. You had to bail me out, and it took some weird magic that changed your eyes and broke your cutie mark and probably did a ton of other bad stuff to do it! And then I basically sat there and watched while the Defense Force and the Spirit blew each other to pieces when I had stopped them from doing that for seven years before while barely even trying. And I don't even have my hat anymore! Why? I don't get it..."
Leaning away from the billowing wind, Valey kept her eyes closed and her voice level. "That's not all. I used to go out of my way to annoy absolutely everyone. Sure, I had reasons I don't now; I wanted to keep anyone from getting too friendly with me... but still. I mean, I'm pretty sure I got actually kind of nasty probing you about your past in that wagon to Grand Acorn. But look at me now. The two of us, doing some hardcore cuddling for the life-and-death reason of staying warm? I should totally be flirting as hard as I can right now, trying my best to make this awkward, or maybe even feeling you up. I mean, you're completely helpless! But instead, I'm telling you what I'm scared of. And I mean really scared. Being honest... vulnerable... Since when does the terror of Ironridge do that?"
She took a shaky breath. "I'm scared of not being me any more. It's kinda ironic, given how I see myself... and yeah, I know I promised to stop bringing up the whole 'I'm bad' thing, but this is important. I wanted to change. I wished I could be different. But now that it's happening, now that I am... I didn't like what I was, but I knew what I was. Is that changing? Can it change? I don't want to find out..." Loudly, she exhaled. "Bananas, for all I know every normal pony has this problem. Ironridge is basically all I've ever known. Iron... Maple? Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever felt like you're a completely different pony than you used to be? Especially over just a day or two?"
Valey turned her so they could see face to face, and Maple's eyes slid to the left. Yes.
"Heh... heh heh heh..." Valey slumped forward, staring at the ground, and Maple practically fell on top of her without the assistance sitting up. "Oof. I guess I've got a lot to learn about acting like an actual normal pony, then." She sighed. "You know what the difference between batponies and other kinds of ponies is? I can't remember if I've told you this before... but we're born with our cutie marks. We always have them. Every last one of us. You could say they're even more important to us than to normal ponies. So... what do you think happens to us when we lose them?"
She glanced down at the black stone set in her pendant, and her vision briefly misted. "...We're a lot worse off than Shinespark and her secret armor, I'll tell you that. And did you know the Earth District has stories of mares whose cutie marks just... faded away?"
Maple's eyes shifted left. They looked surprised.
"Really? Huh." Valey pursed her lips. "I'll be interested to know how you found that out. All the cases I'm aware of, it's something they really, really don't want to talk about. Anyway, the point is, it can happen, and... Hmmmff. I don't want that to happen to me. Even if I don't like who I am, and would normally love to be something better, if there's a chance it would make my soul disappear... Yeah. You get why I'm scared, right? I've never even considered that anything could get rid of me before today, and now two different ponies just blew themselves up to stop me from dying twice in a row, and... you get it? You understand?"
Once again, Maple's eyes looked left. Valey could see her own reflected in them, and both sets were watering.
"Bananas... sorry..." Leaning forward, Valey buried her face in Maple's chest, wrapping her arms around the mare and shaking. "I don't mean to be a big baby about this. Maybe I still am a jerk, springing all this on you when you can't talk back or stop me from using you like a towel or whatever, and while we should be looking for Starlight, and... and..." She swallowed. "I don't want to disappear. This isn't just because I've lived my entire life surviving by knowing my surroundings and controlling them, and am scared of anything new. I'm serious..."
She didn't look at Maple's face for what felt like an eternity, just hanging there as the wind continued to blow and the temperature slowly dropped. Eventually, though, she stood up and wiped her eyes one last time.
"Sorry for the unsolicited pretending-you're-a-pillow," she grunted, struggling to get Maple back on her back. "Think of it this way: now I have to make sure both of us survive so you can get me back for that. I... do feel better, a little. But first, let's go get Starlight. I am way too tired to fly, but maybe I can carry both of you together on the ground... maybe."
One careful hoofstep at a time, she descended from the tip of the crag in search of a path toward Starlight's scent. Everything would soon be over, and she'd see to it that they all survived.
Valey crested another ridge, trudging onward with Maple on her back, her own issues forced to the back of her mind in the name of getting her friends and getting out of the still-cooling wasteland she found herself trapped in. The eastern valley was outside the Ironridge crater, and it apparently lacked whatever weather phenomenon kept the city core warm and tropical, letting cold mountaintop winds race down the ruined walls and sweep through her mane with a force that would have torn her hat away had she not lost it already. It didn't help that the ground was gone; bedrock that had likely gone without sunlight since the dawn of time was now exposed to her hooves, and everything had recently been covered by a deluge of glacial water. Or maybe the water had warmed things up, since it being water at least implied it wasn't frozen.
At the rate her legs were shaking, she'd get to test the coldness with her face sooner or later.
"Sorry..." she huffed, sitting down, taking care not to let Maple slide off her back. "We're almost there... just... gotta rest..."
Ahead, the ground dropped away into a sunken trough, a somewhat-cylindrical core of rock sticking out of the center like a leaning, truncated tower not even as high as a house. She could see water flowing around it like a moat, a stream splitting and rushing past on both sides before recombining in its journey to the new Sosan sea. There were several clefts in the sides, places where a stranded pony might take shelter from the wind. From the biggest one, she could smell Starlight.
Swooooosh!
Valey jumped; she hadn't been watching the sky! Legs protesting, she tried to fall into a fighting stance, not sure if she could even manage a single hit in her state. Why hadn't her mark warned her? Why hadn't she been paying-
"At last," Gerardo Guillaume gasped, shaking ice from his feathers. "I've been searching this blasted wasteland back and forth in the vain hope that even one of you survived..."
Valey nearly tipped over from relief, still ticked at herself for being snuck up on. "Birdo! Don't scare me like that. This place is spooky enough as it is, and..." She blinked. "Hold up, you can fly?"
"Barely." Ruefully, Gerardo looked at his wings. "Let's say it is the product of intestinal fortitude, careful pacing, and a great deal of climbing to high points and gliding off. I fear I'm going to need some way to properly defrost before I can so much as get off the ground without jumping from a cliff." His eyes brightened. "But I've found at least two of you! I don't suppose... erm... Starlight's fate is still undetermined?"
"She's in there." Valey shrugged, pointed, and almost lost her balance, forgetting that one forehoof was even weaker than the other from being burned. "Alive. Dunno by how much. So's Maple, even though she doesn't really look like it."
Gerardo hung his head, then looked squarely at her, and Valey propped her head up with a wing so she could look back. "I'm... terribly sorry about all this," he admitted, wilting. "I had intended to part ways with you after tampering with the power at Copsewood so that I could fly past the Yak Embassy, the Defense Force base, and other places to do my part in advancing our agenda while you waited for Valey, but I was sluggish in my departure. Had I left before we were all captured, my sword would not have parted ways with me, and would not have found itself in Herman's diabolical hooves. So, in a way, the fault is mine that you were-"
With a clatter of stone against steel, the black sword dropped out of nowhere, landing on the ground next to Maple.
Gerardo's eyes widened. "You held onto it!? Even with your brand in such a state...?"
A silence passed. "Well, I thank you," he sighed, picking the instrument up with a talon. "I can't say how much good it will do us, exactly. Perchance we will find the opportunity to use it against Herman, though I imagine that would only lead to a repeat of this tragedy..."
"You saw how easily he trashed you guys," Valey grumbled. "I dunno if it's about vengeance or honor or what, but I really don't think looking for a rematch with him is the best way to go. Especially since I'm apparently on a losing streak now. Seriously, he was letting us go! We could have just forgotten about Sparky and bailed..."
"All the same," Gerardo murmured, caressing and sheathing the blade. "At least it will be better off in our possession than floating around for anyone to find. Though that doesn't change how sorry I am that this happened to you." He stared at Maple. "I've never been impaled by it myself, but I'm told it is a terrible experience. A profound and otherworldly sense of weakness, being unable to so much as move a muscle, like nothing anyone has ever felt before. They say the totality of it is... ah." He drooped.
"Buh?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"She can't even meet my eyes." Gerardo hung his head. "I understand, of course. If another's folly had reduced me so, I would have an undeniable degree of upsetness."
Valey blinked. "Oh, that? She can move her eyes, so left means yes and right means no. It's not the best way of being able to talk, but there's really not much better we could do."
Gerardo squinted, looking back at Maple. "My right, I presume?"
"Uh, no. Hers." Valey glanced as far towards Maple as she could. "I hope?"
"No, then...?" Gerardo hummed, holding his chin. "You disagree with what I said? What part of it did you take issue with? Well, perhaps my blaming of myself, of course, but-"
"Hold on," Valey interrupted. "Maple. Left if you've been using your left for yes this whole time. Your left, not Birdo's."
Gerardo met her gaze. "Right..." he mused, then jumped. "Er, no, left! Her left! My apologies; yes she has."
Valey let out a breath. "Cool. And you did just disagree with part of what Birdo said there?"
"Left," Gerardo narrated. "So that would be a yes."
"...Huh." Valey shrugged. "You know, here's what we're going to do. The two of you get to stay here, and you can have your own little chat. Up means I don't know, by the way. See what you can figure out. I recommend hugging her, since she's apparently got some weird magic going on that might be able to help defrost you and also apparently just likes that. Meanwhile, I'm going to go check out that cave, see how Starlight's doing, and hope she doesn't have some reason to try punching my face in because knowing my luck today, she totally does. Savvy?"
Gerardo nodded, and when she set Maple down, the earth pony's eyes went left. Valey kept her upright until Gerardo was steadying her, making sure she wouldn't have to lay on the cold rock any more than necessary, then shrugged, limbering up and taking several steps away. As tired as she was, no longer having to carry a deadweight mare meant she at least felt capable of a normal range of motion.
She rolled her wings in their sockets. Still sore? Yeah, kind of. Compared to the rest of her body? Business as usual. The only issue was that she was exhausted, and while she could walk as slowly as she pleased, there was a certain amount of continuous effort required to stay airborne. Much more than was needed to remain standing, and since falling on her face was already a concern, she wasn't about to trust herself in the air. Even if there was a good chance her wings felt better than her legs...
Halfway down the next cliff face, well out of sight of Gerardo and Maple and within gliding distance of the rock core where Starlight waited, she had a change of heart. There was another river to cross, looking far nastier than the one she had opted to swim in, and that dip would likely have killed her if not for Maple and the tree magic. What had she been thinking, if anything at all?
...Right. Maple had been sinking, and she hadn't had time to think. Well, this water wasn't rising, courtesy of a waterfall just within her sight around the next bend carrying it lower and toward the sea, so this time, she did. Flexing her wings, she stretched them out. Ow. Better to glide than to swim.
The wind ripped at her as she flew, forcing her to flap to stay on course. Her wings protested, her body sagged, and she nearly fell anyway before managing a crash landing on the far bank, the rough, jagged rock acting like a cheese grater against her fuzzy coat. Again, ow. At least it was cold enough that she didn't feel the new cuts and bruises added to her existing ones... which, in hindsight, probably came mostly from her first landing when Starlight's shield had broken. Standing up, trying not to fall back over, she clenched her teeth and wandered out of the wind and into the cave.
It wasn't completely dark... which wasn't saying much when she had exceptional night vision, but still. There were cracks in the ceiling allowing the faintest amount of light through, and a dim grayness ahead suggested that the cave opened back up on the other side of the stone. A slight incline led her hooves upward, and a breeze traced its way through the tunnel, apparently not as good a shelter from the wind as it had appeared.
Then the tunnel opened up, giving a paintinglike view of the stormy sky above and the Sosan sea below, the height allowing Valey to see over the river beyond. Past that, only a short wall and the next cliff separated her from the newest holding place of the dark water of the reservoir. The ruins of Sosa stood like ghostly monuments above and below the surface, the occasional leaning tower or shard of broken wall piercing the wind-tossed ocean. For a brief space, the tunnel floor was flat and its walls open, as if fate itself had appointed it as the viewpoint for the devastation.
Completing the picture, silhouetted there against the sea and the city, a short-maned unicorn lay on her side, looking out, unable even to lift her head from the cold stone floor, shaking with uncontrolled sobs. Atop her side, on the only perch separated from the warmth-sucking stone, Starlight lay, her horn dull and her eyes covered by her mane. She bounced up and down as the other unicorn's chest heaved for breath, but made no motion of her own.
"Oh, bananas..." Valey swallowed inwardly, unable to keep from smirking at the misfortune of what she was about to have to deal with alone. "Hey, Starlight. Hey, Sparky."
Shinespark's head whipped around violently at the sound of Valey's voice, her neck craned back as far as it would bend even as she remained flat on her side. Her sapphire eyes were wet and puffy, her face streaked with tears, and Starlight jostled with her movement, still unconscious. "It's you."
Valey put on a fake grin, straightening her posture as she met her gaze. "Yup. Sure is."
"Go away," Shinespark growled. "You tried to press the button on that detonator."
"Yeah. I tried," Valey admitted, sizing up the situation. "To do both of those." Her cutie mark tingled, which was neither surprising nor good. She hadn't expected Shinespark to be glad to see her after everything that had happened, and very much didn't want to get in a fight. "As for the latter, would you rather I succeeded?"
"It doesn't...!" Shinespark's breath caught in her throat, and she choked on a sob. "Sosa is gone!"
Valey stared levelly at the filly laying on her side. "You know, I might be the wrong pony to go to for sympathy on that. It stinks that you lost your home, but all of Ironridge kind of hated my guts. Kinda hard to be attached to that. But hey, can I have Starlight? We'll get out of your mane and leave you to wallow in peace..."
Shinespark snorted. "No."
"Excuse you?" Valey lifted an eyebrow.
"She's all that's left..." Shinespark shuddered. "The o-only one I was able to save! There were d-dozens of Sosans on that bridge, and I couldn't catch any, or f-find any... I searched, and all I g-got was her..."
"Mhmm." Valey licked her lips, taking a single step closer. "Well, I'm here too, and her mom and Birdo are totally chilling outside this cave to boot. And when I say chilling, I mean literally. We kinda want to find our way out of this wasteland, and it would be really swell if we could bring Starlight with us."
"Snnnkkkt...!" Shinespark sniffed, loud and wet. "N-No. No! I was supposed to save everyone! All of Sosa! All my friends, and I failed, a-and all I got was one little filly who isn't even from Sosa! M-My... My dad said when he left that if everything we were trying to do saved even one pony, it would be worth it, a-and... here I am, with just one pony. He was w-wrong. It doesn't feel worth it at all..."
Valey shrugged. "Does that mean you don't want her? 'Cuz I can help with that..."
"No!" Shinespark screeched, voice lost to the winds outside. "I-I said... I told everyone that she might have the key to finishing our airship, and that she was the most important pony in Sosa. I said it! And now she is! Because she's the only one. Because... I should have... I should..."
She curled up, heaving, looking neither at Valey nor the devastation out the window. Valey bit her lip. "Yeah, sounds pretty terrible and all that. You know you evacuated basically every last pony who wasn't ready and willing to give their life for this, right?"
"She's the one I saved..." Shinespark shook. "She was supposed to be our way out, and... she p-pressed the button... This wasn't supposed to happen..."
"Ooh, ouch." Valey took another step forward. "She kinda did, didn't she? Totally stopped Herman from doing this whole total annihilation thing to the rest of the Earth District, too. What a hero. Look, if you're that ticked at her..." She reached her burnt forehoof out, inches from Starlight's unconscious form.
"Don't talk to me about heroes!" Shinespark screamed, rolling over and causing Valey to jump back. "I was supposed to be the hero! All the signs were there! I was like Blazing Rain, with a brand that let me fly and use magic! All the Sosans loved me and trusted me! I was Mobius' returning daughter... Mom was... S-She was on an airship when she foaled me, of all the possible places! An airship! I was supposed to make Sosa soar! I was meant to, and I couldn't! How could I fail to do something that was going to happen...?"
Valey rolled her eyes. "Should'a gotten anyone but me in here, then. I mean, hello, you realize who you're complaining to, right?" She narrowed her eyes. "You got hoofed a bunch of trust and love and admiration you did absolutely nothing to earn, got put on the world's biggest pedestal, took up the most stupidly huge and unrealistic task as a result, and when you shockingly suffer a minor setback, wow, ouch, pity party time?" She raised both eyebrows. "You're the complete opposite of me! I got the villain card by virtue of what I am! I was always going to be reviled whether I was a scumbag or a saint, unlike you, who got hoofed free love and acceptance on a platter every single day of your life no matter what you actually did!" She smirked; she had Shinespark's complete attention. "And hey, now that the world's totally ended and everything is objectively bleak and terrible and there's no possible way forward, look which one of us is on their hooves despite being stupidly beat up and is going around thinking about their friends and the future?"
Shinespark looked ready to murder her, but her cutie mark still put her in only mild danger. "You don't understand," she seethed. "You don't know what it's like to have those expectations on you! All you do all day is stalk me and rob Dangerous Karma and keep up a bad reputation in the Stone District! I had ponies who needed me to succeed for them! I was going to win. It was s-set in stone..."
"Meh. Says you." Valey shrugged. "I had six whole districts expecting me to be a scoundrel day in and day out, and I could bust up as many real criminals or hand out as much candy to foals as I liked; it wouldn't change any of that. What you are isn't set in stone? Ooh, scary. I-"
She stopped, suddenly recalling a very recent conversation about exactly the same thing and with her on exactly the other end. Fear, loss of identity, suddenly being unable to do what she had defined herself by for as long as she could remember... and she wilted. But before she could say anything, Shinespark whispered, "I was jealous of you, you know. You could do whatever you wanted and never once had to worry about letting down others' expectations."
"Ah, bananas." Valey sat back, hitting the ground with a thud, then laying down just like Shinespark. The rock was cold, but she didn't feel like standing that far above her any more. "Okay. Yeah. Letting down the stuff you care about because you can't meet your expectations for yourself kinda does stink... a lot. Sorry." She paused. "For the record, having expectations you can't rise above is no fun either."
"I know."
Valey blinked... opened her mouth... and folded her forelegs. "Well, if it helps, I was never relying on you to save me, or anything, so I'm not all that torn up that you failed."
"Thanks," Shinespark snorted insincerely.
"No, seriously." Valey yawned. "I can, like, insult you a bunch, if that helps take off some of the pressure of being perfect. Wuss. That help?"
Shinespark just shook, not meeting Valey's eyes.
"...Look. I don't like you. You've had everything I ever wished I could, completely for free," Valey said, standing over her. "Popularity, yeah, but best of all a chance to do something worthwhile with yourself. Up until today, I've only ever been able to be what I was made as, and I convinced myself to like it because there wasn't an alternative. Today, I got a break, and you can bet I'm chasing it with every drop of strength I have and then some. The fact that I'm actually sticking around and trying to help you instead of covering my own rear and just getting what I want is proof of that. Maybe you didn't need that chance, because you were born with everything in the first place, but surprise: you get it anyway. You can give up and wallow here and let everyone down if you like, or you could get back up and follow whatever your contingency was and still have a chance to protect your Sosans from a big nasty war. And it's only a chance, not a guarantee. But hey, beats giving up, right? If there's one thing worse than losing a fight, it's losing forever."
"You can see the destruction," Shinespark whispered. "You call that not lost forever?"
Valey shrugged. "...Yeah, but still, though. You're not blown to pieces, are you? You evacuated all those towns; the ponies are all fine. What are you doing here when you can still keep going?"
One more time, Shinespark shuddered... and was still. Eventually, she opened her mouth. "I don't know how I can. I've... I've tried, and my best wasn't good enough."
"Easy," Valey lectured. "You pick up your hooves, get up, and keep going. I mean, come on, you had contingency plans for this, didn't you? You knew getting flooded was a possibility. So just do what you figured you'd do if this happened. I mean, at the very least, don't you have that big pile of Spirit ponies in Blueleaf to do something with? Actually, forget that, your dad is so obsessed with you won't he go ballistic and do something really dumb and suicidal if he thinks you're dead?"
"Can you feel nothing at all?" Shinespark slumped. "Of course I had plans. I always had plans. But they weren't what mattered. In Sosa, and the Earth District, I knew so many ponies... Everyone was hurting. They would come to me for help, or I would go to them, one at a time. I listened to their stories and their hurts, and helped them if I could, but there were so many I couldn't... and more I could, but only with resources that could instead help someone else. How would you live with that, helping so many ponies with their burdens? The way I did it was by looking at Sosa as a whole, and saying, 'If I can heal this entire city, I'll save everyone in it.' It made it manageable. It let me live with my decisions of who to help and what to do because I had a rule to follow and a greater good to reach. So I still have plans? So what? So what if there's still a way forward? Sosa is gone. Now they're just ponies, and there's never been a real way to help all of them at once. Maybe my plans could help most, or some, or enough... but I didn't take myself into account. I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to follow through on them once I lost the goal that let me live with myself for making these kinds of decisions, which could only save some of the ponies. The Spirit that followed me to the dam are already dead. Gunga was among them. Gigavolt too, I think. I don't remember. It's too much..."
Shinespark rolled over, facing back away from her, Starlight falling off onto the stone.
"...Huh." Valey stepped forward, scooped up the filly, and got her on her back without any trouble or protest. Starlight was uncomfortably and unnaturally warm, enough that Valey almost shuddered from the contact. She definitely needed to be looked at by a medical pony who knew what they were doing... if any specialized in exploded disabled filly horns. She doubted any did.
Either way, she had what she came for, standing up with stiff legs and a few jolts of pain. Standing over Shinespark, she nearly turned to leave... and found she couldn't. She gritted her teeth. "Ugh. I don't know if I'll ever get used to having a conscience..."
Bending down, she touched both of Shinespark's shoulders with her hooves, leaning in for the barest of hugs. It lasted a second at most, with almost no contact, and when Valey stood up, she twitched as if something was stuck to her coat. "There," she muttered. "Something tells me someone really wanted that. But seriously, if a prickly cactus like me can legit give you a little empathy, I kinda think you can get up and get going to help all the friends you still have left."
Shinespark said nothing.
Valey stood over her for several seconds. Once, she sniffed. Then she resumed shaking. She didn't speak, just shook, curled up and facing towards the window. Valey's eyes traced her... and eventually fell over her rump. Instead of its usual smooth orange blankness, it bore an outline of a wingless pony posed like a soaring pegasus, backed and bordered by stars. It had been a long time since she had seen her like that.
"Huh." Valey licked her lips, making a point of staring. "You actually used that remote self-destruct thing built into Braen to get your butt back. I was wondering what you were thinking, punching me in the face so you could jump off a cliff. And how you survived."
Shinespark's chest heaved. "I thought I could r-reach them in time... I thought I could catch them, o-or stop them from falling, or do anything. I couldn't. I searched everywhere, and the only thing I f-found was her..." She swallowed, choked on it, and coughed. "I don't want it. It's not mine. I failed it. I couldn't stop even one yak, or save my home, or even one of the friends who fought with me. Take it away again. Please... find another windigo heart and d-do what you did last time..."
"Don't you have bigger things to worry about?" Valey stared at her. "If Braen's magical soul control core thingamajig is gone, she's just going to be an empty suit of armor," Valey mentioned, leaning against a wall. "I bet she'll just sit there, or maybe even collapse. All the Sosans will probably think she had a heart attack. And they'll be worried about her, and try to get the armor open to help her, and of course it won't stop them and they'll find it's empty and then they'll think whoever was in there teleported away like a coward and that was why it collapsed..." She raised an eyebrow. "What's a pile of extremists to do in a situation like that? Think they might bail? Or would they fly into an unstoppable rage and go off the deep end in Braen's name?"
Shinespark shuddered.
Valey shrugged, turning for the mouth of the cave with Starlight on her back. "Whatever. I've said my piece. If you're not interested in helping the ponies you just saved with that evacuation, feel free to wallow in here until the end of time. But whether you feel like a hero or not, they sure could use one, and I'm a bit too preoccupied with keeping my own friends safe to go about saving nations. Besides, being the good guy is new terrain for me. Baby steps, you know?"
Still, Shinespark lay there, shaking, unwilling or unable to get up and follow.
"...One more thing," Valey said, Shinespark nearly out of sight. "The yaks have a creepy altar they dug up far beneath the Flame District. It produces this stuff that I'm ninety percent sure is the same stuff that airship of yours runs off of. Maple sucked up a bunch in her cutie mark and it nearly blew her to bits, but it turns out she's still got some left that she's carrying around. Once we get out of this valley, we're heading to Gnarlbough, and unless your ship's completely junked, we're stealing it and using what she's got to fly it out of here. You won't miss it if you're going to stay here until you croak, anyway. If you want to stop us or use it for anything more noble, you'll just have to get up off your rear and do it."
Valey stood at the mouth of the cave, the river rushing by inches from her hooves with murderous precision. The wind was cut off by the rock wall on the opposite bank, but she could hear it blowing above, and wasn't looking forward to climbing back into the open. Her more immediate problem, at least, was crossing back in the first place.
She didn't want to fly with Starlight. Not only did she have nowhere higher to launch herself from, but she had nearly fallen the first time and with an unconscious filly it would be thrice as hard. Why did her allies have to keep getting knocked out? Not that she hadn't, herself, of course.
"Birdo!" She raised her raspy voice. "Hey, Birdo! If you're not an iceberg any more, I've got Starlight and we could totally use a ride!"
The wind stole her words, carrying them off into the sky.
"Birdo!" Valey yelled louder... when suddenly, the iron vice of a telekinetic field closed around her, lifting all four hooves off the ground. She squawked as she floated out over the river, then immediately ceased to struggle, since being dropped would be far worse than going wherever her captor wanted her to go. Besides, the aura was sapphire. It wasn't hard to guess who it was.
Starlight on her back, she was deposited on the far riverbank. She looked across to the mouth of the cave, and Shinespark looked back, haggard and glum with her ears and mane limp and the spark she was named for missing from her eyes, but on her hooves nonetheless. Then, she surrounded herself with her own aura and flew.
It was graceless, like a one-stringed marionette, but nevertheless swift and effective. As quickly as she had started, Shinespark landed, her aura vanishing, standing and staring neither at Valey nor away from her.
"...Hey." Valey nudged her shoulder with her own. "Looks like I goaded someone into joining the party?"
"You're a terrible therapist," Shinespark mumbled, looking away.
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, maybe you should have thought about that when you decked me while I was trying to not get stuck down here. But now, whomp whomp, this is what we're both stuck with. Now let's go find the others."
Valey crested a ridge to see Maple and Gerardo waiting, Starlight still on her back. As useful as it would have been for Shinespark to carry the filly, she didn't feel like pushing her luck... even if she wasn't entirely sure yet why she had put forth the effort she did to help the mare. Probably just one of those hero things.
"Valey!" Gerardo crowed with enthusiasm for two, and Maple's silent pink eyes lit up beside him. "You've found our final member!"
"Something like that," Valey grumbled, pacing closer and leaning against an outcropping to rest. Starlight wasn't as heavy as Maple and was a whole lot warmer, but she didn't even want to carry herself right then, let alone another pony. Shinespark slumped into view behind her.
"And... Shinespark?" Gerardo's voice caught, slightly confused. "I'll admit, when I saw you take the plunge after your fallen comrades, I didn't expect you to make it. How...?" He blinked. "Also, if I might be frank, you look terrible."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, she's had a pretty rough night. Typical angsty teenager things... you know. No home to go back to, she's having regrets about her new tattoo, stuck with a kid she doesn't want-"
"She's pregnant!?" Gerardo gaped.
That got Shinespark to show a reaction. Valey snickered. "Not what I meant, but you know what? If she wants to clear that up, I think she can do it herself."
Shinespark shot her a dirty look, followed by extreme questioning from Gerardo. "...My home is gone," she reluctantly sighed. "I'm... trying to get over it. Or just be able to do something again."
Maple stared at her with such intense sympathy that Valey almost expected her to throw off the sword's curse and start talking then and there. Shinespark looked back, staring wordlessly.
"She was tragically impaled by my sword," Gerardo explained, patting the implement at his side. "I believe you were there."
"I was," Shinespark growled. "A-And if you remind me that I attacked him first-"
Valey strolled between them, cutting off their line of sight. "Don't go there, Sparky," she advised with a grin. "You're trying to get out of your sad sack, right? Tip from a professional do-badder: if it's your fault, be proud of it. Don't worry; she'll forgive you later."
With a bitter sigh, Shinespark reset her focus, looking back at Maple. "Valey said you found a power source for my ship."
Maple looked up. As Gerardo sputtered to explain the significance, Valey interrupted, "Technically, I already knew about it for a really long time. Just didn't tell you, since I had no clue how to move it, didn't want to break the power balance in Ironridge by giving one side a big advantage, and we were officially enemies. But now I do, that balance has already been kersploded, and we're both on Team Starlight, so... here we are?"
Gerardo tapped a talon. "All assuming that the so-called harmony from this underground palace and the mythical proto-energy required to run your ship are one and the same, that is. However, eldritch altars far below the lowest point in the earth anyone has delved before certainly fit the bill for finding mythical proto-energies or other resources of exceptional rarity. As a professional adventurer, I am hardly surprised."
"Yeah, but the only way to find out is to test it," Valey reminded, ears flicking in impatience. "Like, seriously, is there anything we're waiting for? I'm freezing and want to get out of this dump."
"A way out would be useful, for one," Gerardo suggested.
Valey glanced pointedly at Shinespark's flank.
"Right..." Shinespark drooped. "I just... flying over it... and seeing everyone again..." She sniffed, then stretched her lips in a snarl. "I'm fine. I'll manage. We can go."
Gerardo sighed, picking Maple back up onto his back. "Pardon my saying so, but you certainly do not seem fine. Nevertheless, it will be a long hike to anywhere, and we do still need to find a way either across the sea or up a cliff, so it does seem prudent that we begin..."
Instantly, Shinespark's horn lit blue. Her aura surrounded everyone, herself included, and they lifted, hovering off the ground and starting to float northwest.
Maple's eyes focused knowingly on Shinespark's cutie mark as Gerardo blinked in amazement. "Is this new? I was under the impression that this could only be done inside your power armor!"
"Eh, something like that," Valey explained, drifting contentedly along. "Her mark was in a piece of moon glass stuck in Braen... She explained this to you, right?" Gerardo nodded. "I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but basically there was a mechanism in there to destroy the moon glass and turn Braen back into a regular suit of power armor. And when there's nothing keeping your mark from returning to you, it usually just does."
"Stop talking, please," Shinespark whispered, eyes scrunched, voice barely audible over the magical whine of her horn. "Lifting four ponies at once isn't easy!"
"Then release me at once," Gerardo insisted. "I have had ample time to thaw thanks to Maple's magic and should be more than capable of flying on my own."
Shinespark gasped in relief as the griffon slipped from her grasp, the noise of her horn tuning down significantly. Valey watched the appendage uneasily; as far as she knew Starlight's self-destructive quirk was unique, but all unicorns had a limit beyond which their magic would simply be unable to work.
"Better," Shinespark gasped as Gerardo rose back up beside them, flapping on powerful wings.
In silence, they continued, a cloud of sapphire blue drifting slowly along between the ground and stormy sky. Shinespark could easily move faster when it was just her, she explained, but levitating herself and levitating others were different processes and manipulating things with telekinesis while moving at vast speeds was exceedingly difficult.
The watery ruins of Sosa passed beneath, the sky too dark to make out anything below the surface. Strangely, the darkness wasn't total, as if the world was lit by the moon or perhaps the stars despite the thick blanket of clouds that had rolled in since the battle on the dam. It was like the world was defying physics out of a need for what had been done to it to be witnessed.
As they rounded the northern tip of the mountain and the Earth District began coming into view, the full extent of the damage became obvious. The flood hadn't spread in a straight line so much as a spiral: the waters had burst out to the east, landed in a valley that funneled them north, and met the river Yule, which flowed to east from west. There, they had backed up against a river canyon downstream from Ironridge in the badlands and formed a massive lake stretching up the river, flooding all of riverside Sosa and encroaching on the Earth District from the north.
After so many turns, the flood's brute hammerlike force had been blunted to a swiftly-rising tide, and instead of the blasted moonscape the five were leaving, trees and buildings still stood, some crumbled, most leaning, and a few straight and upright. Shinespark picked a sheltered rooftop tower from the sturdier structures and beelined straight for it.
They alighted in what had once been an open-air observation post, looking out over a workyard that was now a shimmering surface of black. The trees surrounding the area were still standing, but all bent in the same direction, like they had been rubberized and exposed to a strong wind before setting once again, or a brush that had been combed against the fur of a giant pony in the same direction far too many times.
Wordlessly, Shinespark set them down under the tower's roof, curled up, and started to shake.
"Hey." Valey stepped up beside her, but didn't launch into a pep talk.
"This was mine," Shinespark sniffed. "The Oasis... it's right beneath us. Or was. It's probably completely underwater now."
"...Ah." Gerardo also paced closer, leaving Maple and Starlight sitting together even though neither could move. "I remember that place. It was a fine establishment."
"Nnghkng..." Swallowing, Shinespark stood up. "What am I doing, running off to check up on my own projects? I should be... helping the Sosans..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "No offense, but you might want to see to your own stability before wrecking your mind running off to all those refugees. Look at it this way: either they'll turn on you and blame you for what happened and it'll be terrible, or they'll blindly trust you just like they always have and act like you're a saint and now that you know you don't deserve it, that'll just feel awesome. So?"
Shinespark shuddered.
"Ugh, why can't Ironflanks be up and about!?" Valey groaned, starting to pace. "Why do I have to do all this pep talk and rally girl and therapist stuff? She's the one who actually likes absolutely everyone! I just wanna get out of this in one piece! Look, how about this: you go run off to do whatever after leaving us somewhere dry, and we'll go bag your boat on our own, 'kay?"
Gerardo raised a talon. "Well, I could always-"
"No." Valey cut him off. "You're really good at saying the worst possible thing with no bad intentions whatsoever. You'd be even worse at this than I am."
She turned back around... and Shinespark was gone, a glowing blue ember in the distance on its way to the unlit silhouette of Karma Industries. Valey stomped with two hooves. "Oh, come on!"
"I was going to suggest," Gerardo reprimanded in a soft tone, "that were she to simply leave us here, I could fly Maple to the ship, see about powering it up, and return here to pick up you and Starlight. Her magic did, in fact, work its magic on me, and as I've so far gone without substantial physical injury, I well believe I can safely make the trip."
Valey groaned. "Well, we're kind of stuck otherwise... but look what a wreck Sparky is! Isn't Ironflanks going to kill us if we take off now and just abandon her with this mess?" She glanced at Maple. "You are, aren't you?"
Maple looked pained. Her eyes drifted upward.
"...Yeah." Valey slumped. "Out of the four of us, two are basically corpses and I'm at my very limit. Birdo's... Well, who knows what he can do? But I really don't see us being big giant Ironridge heroes, and after all the city's done for me, I'm completely fine with that. I can see you considering it, and Starlight even pressed that button. Even I was going to have a hard time doing that. She must really hate this place. Stinks that the grand entrance of the second chapter of my life has to go this way, but if I'm mortal now, I do not want to waste it on this pile of yak hair."
"Examining our options for recourse..." Gerardo stared out at the watery wasteland that had once been Sosa. "Presently, three of our members are stuck here, unless you fancy yourself able to fly. I can carry perhaps one at best. No matter what we do, our first move will involve me flying out of here, at the very least on a resource-gathering mission to obtain food for waiting until Shinespark comes back... if she ever will. Seeing as our team is so immobilized, and having an airship would provide a mode of transportation as well as a safe haven for the incapacitated to rest, it seems that attempting to retrieve it is the optimal next move whether we intend to flee or help. So, shall I get on that?"
He took a step toward Maple, who slowly agreed. Valey nodded. "Yeah, I guess you can. I'll stay here with Starlight. Probably going to try to catch a nap. I really..." She yawned. "Really need it, and I've got an alarm if anything nasty comes this way." She patted her flank for emphasis.
"Well, then, it seems we've come to an agreement." Carefully, Gerardo picked Maple up, spreading his wings and moving to soar away. "Should we succeed, we shall return, and should we fail we'll return as well, whether it be due to insufficient power or the failure of the warehouse to survive. Although, I dearly hope the latter has not come to pass."
Like that, they were gone, leaving Valey alone with Starlight. "Insufficient power..." she mumbled, glancing back out at the Earth District. Karma Industries, usually a glowing pillar of civilization, was dark, as was the entire Stone District. The only lit area was Blueleaf, thanks to its off-the-grid power generator: Sosa had been flooded, and taken the city's power supply with it.
Fighting back a shiver of her own, Valey hugged Starlight close, guiltily grateful for the filly's unnatural warmth. There was nothing she could do but wait. So, true to her word, she nestled up against an abandoned desk and closed her eyes.
Gerardo flew low over the swamped treeline, Maple held carefully in his powerful talons. He didn't trust her not to slip from his back, and so she dangled, carried with safety valued over comfort.
He made out factories, fields and roads, sticking mostly to the original river course where no shadowed obstacles protruded from the newly-formed lake. The water's sweeping arrival had pushed and scattered so many buildings that nothing was certain, but his course was roughly true, and Sosa began to fall away, the dark tower of Karma Industries slowly approaching on his left.
The waters rose around the land platform that served as the town's base, but didn't breach it, leaving Grand Acorn's primly-placed woodwork of shops and houses safe and dry. The streets weren't empty; some evacuees remained in the town who had failed to find room in the tower, others had emerged from their shelters to sit or stand in shocked vigil at the edge of the sloshing water. Wind tossed Gerardo's headcrest as he passed the tower's darkened windows, colorful murals of terrified faces plastered against them like imprisoned souls, watching the water and only visible when the angle was just right. Gerardo tried to meet their eyes as he passed, but to them, he was just a phantom in the night. They couldn't know he was flying to raise a legendary airship constructed in secret as a means of restoring Sosa's economic dominance... and even if they did, what difference would it make?
Gerardo moved on, putting the tower behind him and shivering at the wind. The Earth District was still warm from its daylight baking, and hadn't suffered the frigid water that scoured the eastern valley, but even after Maple's pink magic he couldn't shake the memory of the lake's chill from his bones.
West of Ironridge, the southern mountains turned, meandering in a northwesterly direction, and the Yule turned north to follow them. But it took its time doing so... or would have, if the ponies of the Earth District hadn't changed its route, forcing it to skirt a wider distance around the city, with the goal of improving drainage and usable land. Instead, they had gotten the Graveyard out of the deal, a desolate and lonesome monument to the past... and now the river had burst its rerouted banks, occupying both the new riverbed and old. Dozens upon dozens of abandoned ships bobbed fitfully where they had been retired, water gracing their dusty hulls once again, some floating, others leaning, some actively sinking and far too many mere shadows beneath the waves. They groaned of wood, metal and regret, knocking against each other in a listless attempt to roam, the waters calling them to service of a port that didn't exist.
Above it all, the warehouse stood, its four walls keeping each other upright as the water surrounded it like an infinite moat. Any trace of the riverbank on which it had stood was gone, leaving it a lone citadel in the waves, water once more flowing inside through a broad entrance that had seen ships sail in and out in Sosa's glory days. Gerardo angled straight for that entrance, heart beating faster as he made for the cavernous interior, feathers rigid in anticipation of what he would find.
The inside of the warehouse was dark, the floor completely flooded, water filling the work pit and washing up over the raised platform deck that surrounded it. The silhouette of a hull drifted aimlessly, the wooden supports that kept it off the ground having long since collapsed, and it gently knocked against the submerged shell of platforms. Gerardo circled it, soaring in close, but it looked as if even the initial shock of the flood hadn't fazed it. It made sense, after all: the ship's hull was made from proto-technology designed to usher in the next generation of sea ships. It was made to take a beating.
At last, Gerardo furled his wings, landing on the ship's deck and carefully depositing Maple as he made to catch his breath. It bobbed faintly under him, performing its duty for the first time ever, new and polished and ready to serve. While the boats outside had been called back from the grave, this one was being given its maiden voyage, love and commitment and hope for the future pouring from every inch of its hoof-carved construction. As Gerardo affixed Maple to his back and began to make for the door belowdecks, it occurred to him that even without its mystical power source, the ship would make for a very seaworthy vessel, and could still sail the world the old-fashioned way. It was, after all, designed from the beginning with both air and water in mind.
The stairs were pitch-dark enough to realize that in the absence of all other light, Maple's pink eyes glowed faintly. That was useful, Gerardo mused, pointing her forward like a flash club, still having to feel his way forward to avoid tripping. He reached the landing, turned, and fumbled with the door to the engine room. Fortunately, the ship's designers had put it near to the entrance, rather than buried in rooms and ladders and difficult hatches. The door slid open.
Inside, a faint amber light intensified: emergency systems, powered by some backup battery aboard the ship, awoken by his presence. It wouldn't have been light enough to see by had his eyes not already been adjusted to the dark, but Gerardo found his way to the poles holding the cutie mark helmets with relative ease. There wasn't anywhere optimal to set Maple, so he settled for laying her against the wall, mentally resolving to drag out a mattress from the cabins at earliest convenience. He picked up a helmet and looked down at her. "You are fine with this, yes? One last time before we proceed?"
Maple looked straight back at him, her pink irises the only part of her that was discernible under the light. They wavered, tried to move... and looked straight at him, asking for something she had no voice to specify.
Gerardo tried to guess, though he wasn't the champion of that: after all the time Valey had left him, he hadn't been able to puzzle out what she had meant by 'no' in the eastern valley. "If this works, we'll be back to Starlight in a flash, and we will as well if it doesn't."
Maple closed her eyes.
"I'll take that as not a no, then." Gerardo stepped forward, reached, and gently affixed the helmet to Maple's cutie mark.
It fit. Good. He turned to the consoles lining the interior wall; they were dim. Eyes struggling under the meager light, he scanned them for anything that looked like an on switch. One presented itself...
Click.
The room exploded, blinding Gerardo in pink. If his eyes hadn't been fully dilated, it wouldn't have been half as bad, but the underworld flames racing through the mesh of rails overhead forced him to scrunch his eyes, cover them with a talon, and avert his gaze. After several seconds, as he grew more used to the light that filtered through his eyelids and the whoosh of flames had smoothed to a soft shimmer like the magic of a very large unicorn, he dared open them.
Maple shimmered. The cable connecting her to the terminals shimmered, but didn't break. The crystal mesh and twisting iron suspended from the ceiling was surrounded by a cloud of pink fog of seemingly infinite depth, stars twinkling so far behind it it could have been a portal to real space. The light and noise was coming from everywhere, all at once... and as the seconds turned into minutes, the reaction stayed steady.
He glanced at Maple, and she stared back with eyes that flickered between pink and red, laying on her side and unable to move. She would be fine. Gerardo turned to make for the bridge.
The rest of the ship was lit, too. Shinespark's harmony extractor powered everything, and now that it had an energy source, Gerardo was walking through one of the few places in Ironridge that wasn't suffering from a blackout. Lighting shone merrily, expertly engineered to illuminate floors and walls evenly without any point sources that were painful to look at. The cabin was alive, a broad bank of sensors and indicators and glowing lights on controls flashing on a console beneath the windshield. There were two chairs, pony-sized, in case the ship needed a co-pilot. Using his passing familiarity of manaship controls from sailing a Sosan model up the Yule to Riverfall, Gerardo easily picked out the seat with the ship's primary interface.
The levers were labeled! How nice. One was thrown, causing even more of the cabin to come to life, including a side display prompting the first-time user to set a password. He grinned at that, found the earth pony-friendly input device amid the controls, and typed 'Starlight' just in case the ship wouldn't start without it. After a two-color boot sequence, the terminal finished setting itself up, boasting two accessible files and a host of ship functions.
Gerardo idly inspected them, hoping one would be an operator's manual. The first was an audio recording with a note in the description: For Shinespark. I slipped this onto the data matrix prior to installation at Arambai's request. I don't know what it is, but he wanted you to have it upon completing our mission. Good job. -Gunga. Best to leave that one alone.
But the second one... Bingo! A manual with full descriptions of the ship's controls and usage. Browsing quickly, Gerardo adjusted several more levers, turned a dial all the way up, backed out in the terminal and ran a specified program, and threw a final throttle... and was rewarded as the ship stopped rocking and gravity increased, the bottom pressing up against him.
In the night of the Earth District, a gentle wake rocked the ghosts of retired boats trying to come back for duty. Out from the service warehouse, a ship edged stern first, the child and final fruit of Project Aslan. It floated there proudly under the sky... and then crackled with pink energy, mist and lightning swirling upwards and coalescing into a burning comet above the deck, connected to it by ethereal strands of energy. The comet pulsed, its tail streaking out behind like the ship was already soaring unchained through the sky, and with barely a groan the ship lifted until it was hovering, free from the water.
Valey woke up in the practiced manner she had used for her entire life. Step one: play dead. Did her cutie mark say she was in danger? No. Someone who knew about her trigger could still be trying to get her with a non-harmful but incredibly annoying prank. Think further: she had friends now, and her mark wouldn't warn about things happening to them. Her brain put the finishing touches on her train of thought as she prepared to launch it while her faculties automatically took note of the area around her. Quiet? Fairly. Cold? Sort of. Light? Wait, why was there light shining against her eyelids?
She hissed internally, heartbeat rising. One of her favorite tricks was to slip into shadow while appearing to be asleep; it was nearly instantaneous and hard to stop. Pre-emptively shining a giant flickering light on her was a great way to actually do it. Someone had trapped her.
Unfortunately for that someone, she wasn't feeling in a patient mood.
"All right!" In a single, sudden movement, she bolted upright... "What's the big aaargh!" ...and promptly fell on her face, her limbs and body partially ensnared by shroudy wrappings. "Hey!"
"Don't," a lone pegasus mare said, sitting by the light source, which turned out to be a fire. "The longer you leave them on, the more good they'll do you."
"Buh?" Valey's face scrunched in confusion.
The mare sat straighter, stirring a pot over the fire that Valey realized smelled quite good. "Combat medication. The bandages are for all your cuts and scrapes. Designed to get you back on your hooves quickly in a fight, if not actually heal you. It's... the least I could do."
"Wait, what?" Valey narrowed her eyes, quickly taking stock of Starlight's limp form before looking back at the mare. She gnawed her lip, hummed, made eye contact, tried to scratch her mane... and blinked. "Hey, I know you. You used to front the snack bar in the Defense Force lobby before Selma fired you, like, a month ago. I didn't know you were in my new fan club."
"I'm not," the mare sighed. "And it's Varsidelian war technology. They don't export it since they need everything for themselves, so it's not very common in other nations. It's useful, though, if you get into trouble a lot."
"Huh..." Thinking, Valey checked herself over again. She had chalked it up to the nap, but maybe she did feel significantly better than she had before. Hardly perfect, but better. "Okay, that's cool. So what's all this about, then?"
"This is about you sparing my friends when you had no reason to and it put you in danger," the mare muttered, stirring at whatever she was cooking. "I'm... grateful for that. So even though I don't like you, I'm trying to return the favor."
Valey blanched. "Sparing your friends? Hold on, if you mean-"
"Our mercenary company," she finished with a nod, staring into her pot. "I don't know or care how you managed a teleportation spell of that magnitude. It had to have been harder than just killing us. I know for a fact you caught my sister in a hallway, shoved her companions under the floor, disabled her, had her alone... and just left. There weren't that many of us. Taking one out would have made a difference. You didn't." She swallowed, still staring.
"...Huh." Valey frowned. "You know, you dudes kind of inconvenienced me in more ways than one. Are you seriously wanting to help me now? Not that I couldn't use it, but this seems shady."
"Maybe," the mare said, and left it at that.
"Yeah, no, I'm gonna need more than 'maybe' to roll with," Valey announced, picking herself up and starting to pace, mindful of the slightly itchy bandages. "Spill the beans, here. What's going on?"
"You mean why did I track you down, fly you and your friend somewhere safer, and start helping you when I could just have captured or killed you like we were supposed to?" She shook her head and sighed. "I wasn't in that party directly. For... medical reasons. So it wasn't my job. So I don't have to, and can do what I want, because that's the way my mercenary company works. But even if you ran into the ones who do need to fight you, they might not. We were already reluctant. That was one job too far, and it was a miracle that everyone survived. If we were asked to do it again..."
Valey winked. "I'm that scary, huh?"
"You have a reputation," the pegasus deadpanned.
"Yeah, well, seriously..." Valey sighed and flopped back down. "Screw that reputation. The moment I get tired of being the bad guy and try to stick up for someone decent for a change, there's a bajillion elite mooks stomping at my tail and then all my friends get blown up and now the best two are basically comatose, and there's also a cheery griffon and I'm stuck playing therapist for a really angsty unicorn and aaaagh..." She held her head in her hooves, complaining loudly. "Why is it so hard to just bail on Ironridge, already? I want oooout!"
"You tell me," the pegasus said with a shrug. "We would have left hours ago, except someone appears to have stolen our airship from the Sky District. Most of the team is there now, trying to find any clues."
Valey opened her mouth to suggest she might know where Selma put it... but was interrupted by a little voice. "For the record, I'm awake," Starlight grumbled, sounding like she was about to explode from frustration.
"Woah, you're alive!" Valey whirled on her, trailing loose bandages like streamers. "I mean, you better be, but finally! Ironflanks is looking super sad with her paralysis and stuff and could totally use a little cheering... up..." She trailed off, noticing that Starlight wasn't bothering to get up or even open her eyes. "You are okay, aren't you?"
"No!..." Starlight gritted, tensing against the ground. "I can't feel my horn! I can't even feel it if I bang it against the ground. Every other time I use it too much it feels terrible, but now it feels like it's gone! I think it's broken completely..."
"Oh... uh... that ain't good," Valey mumbled, crouching down next to her, her moon glass pendant dangling against the ground. "It isn't, right? Because technically if I had the choice between a super terrible headache and none at all..."
Starlight opened her eyes, staring just far enough off to Valey's side to be disconcerting. "I also can't see."
Valey blinked... twice... and paled, waving a hoof in front of Starlight's face that the filly utterly failed to track. "Oh, bananas, you aren't kidding. Uhhhhhhhhhhh..."
"She was up earlier than you," the pegasus said. "We talked about it. It doesn't seem enviable, but there isn't anything I can do."
"Well... meh." Valey slumped, briefly sharing Starlight's dejection. "Oh well. If it's not lethal, we can probably deal with it later. Just don't turn into an edgehorse about it and you'll survive. Really, I don't need another sad pony to try to cheer up." She patted Starlight's head, then turned to the pegasus. "So, uh, you know we were actually waiting for some other friends, right? I can't help but notice you moved us quite a ways..."
She glanced around for emphasis. They were on a flat rooftop in some western Earth District town, removed from the flooding and with a metal brazier the pegasus was using to safely burn her fire. The dark shadow of Karma Industries provided an outline in the distance, still drawing some light from the sky despite the heaviness of the storm above.
"I left a note," the pegasus said. "Just in case. It said you were taking care of business and would find them again when you were ready."
"Uhh... well, great." Valey slumped, sighing. "And I suppose 'when I'm ready' involves sitting around a while longer while you whip up something to patch me up?"
The pegasus shrugged, lifting her ladle and tasting the pot's contents. "This is food, not medicine. Though if you haven't been eating, I thought it would help too."
Since Valey's plan for reconnecting with Maple and Gerardo had just been reduced to look for an airship, and their primary goal was staying safe, she decided that didn't sound so bad. Sitting down and scootching closer, she licked her lips. "Well... if we're really going to be midnight snack buddies... did I actually get your name?"
The pegasus sniffed. "Bourbon."
"Mmm. Mm. Right. Bar pony. Did you know I'm bad with names?" Valey knocked on the side of her head as if expecting her brain to fall out of her ear. "I totally knew that, by the way. But, so, like... while we're waiting for all that to be done, do you wanna tell me a little more about all this mercenary stuff? Is it really as simple as Herman wanting me smushed?"
Bourbon nodded. "We're a fairly large band, usually between forty and fifty. About half of us are from Yakyakistan, a quarter from Varsidel, and the other quarter from everywhere else. Our leader is a griffon named Kero. I don't know if he has royal blood, but he's from the Griffon Empire and certainly has important connections there. With how many ponies we have, it's rare that all of us are needed at once for a job, so Kero handles all our official contracts and assigns individual jobs to make sure they get carried out. Usually, we don't even know what our friends are working on unless we tell each other directly. Mostly, we figure out for ourselves what's happening inside the company. I think it's a system designed to let us take jobs that require a lot more secrecy without it looking conspicuous when someone tries to hide something. Or it could just be no one wanting to do the work of keeping us filled in." She took another sip from her ladle. "What I'm getting at is that I don't know. Maybe Herman gave us the job. Maybe someone else did. You certainly have a lot of enemies."
"You don't say...?" Valey groaned.
That didn't earn a smile. "You know, my coltfriend was also down there in the Flame District," she said. "You force-fed him a banana peel. He was also present a while ago at the snack bar when you were talking about the undersides of my wings. Thank you for sparing him, but that's how you make enemies. Not a lot of ponies like you, Valey. Even us, and we're only alive because of you."
"Cool..." Irately, Valey tapped the ground. "So anonymous detractor maybe named Herman tells you guys to off me and you try it, just like that."
"Not just any anonymous detractor," Bourbon said with a shake of her head. "Ironridge has worn our group thin. Kero knew we needed to leave, and he knows he has to pay us. He wouldn't accept a job this risky for us unless it would pay very generously." She met Valey's eyes. "But we're not trying to kill you right now. If you'll take my advice on survival, sneak around and worry about bigger things." She sniffed the pot again. "Also, the soup's done."
A handy benefit of Valey's cutie mark - very handy, her stomach reminded her - was that it allowed her to eat almost anything without fear of accidental food poisoning, poisoned food, or really bad gas. Bourbon's stew, she could presciently tell, wasn't doctored with anything that one would usually slip into an unsuspecting enemy's food, allowing her to dig in with abandon... which was good, because she was hungry and it was really good.
Starlight joined them, sitting lethargically and slurping from a bowl left on the ground, occasionally bumping the edge by mistake and causing the contents to slosh. Bourbon barely paid the filly any mind. Her eyes were fixed on Valey.
"Random weird observation," Valey said with her mouth full. "Hypothetically, if someone were to want me distracted and out of the action or away from my friends for any reason..." She swallowed, belching noisily. "This would be a really great way to go about it."
"Would that someone include yourself?" Bourbon asked back, sipping from her own bowl, which was held in a wing. "You did say you want to leave Ironridge, didn't you? There's a fight brewing in Blueleaf right now, not far away. I thought you'd want to stay clear of that. I do." She took another drink, large eyes showing over the rim of the bowl. "If you really want to get involved, be my guest."
"Yeah, okay, maybe bad idea." Valey set her own bowl down, polishing it one last time with her tongue. "What about my friends, though? See, the longer I'm away from them, the more chance there is of something happening I'm really not cool with..."
Bourbon nodded. "That depends. How likely are they to go to Blueleaf? If they're there, that's their own fault, and if not, there won't be many pegasi willing and able to catch them. Not if it's just a griffon carrying an earth pony."
"Mrmmff." Valey leaned back, reveling in the warmth of the meal and wishing she could ignore the need to return to action just a little longer. "Says you and your big fat mercenary brigade which could totally be waiting right around the corner."
"I'm trying to be nice!" Bourbon frowned. "If you don't trust me, that's... expectable, and maybe I should just go. If anyone has a right to be worried, though, it's me. You're not behaving like yourself at all. You're being far too pleasant. You haven't once done anything outlandish, or made any comments about how I look, or even acted rude beyond poor table manners. Especially if you don't trust me, that makes me think something is going on."
Valey's eyes widened. "I haven't? Argh. Sorry about that. Apparently switching teams seriously throws off your game with all this stuff. Uhh..." She squinted. "The way your legs-"
"That wasn't an invitation to start," Bourbon interrupted. "Look, if this is just going to be awkward for everyone, I'm leaving. All I wanted to do in the first place was patch you up, and I did that. Don't be too hard on yourself, physically. You might feel better and be able to move around, but you're still injured and won't be able to take nearly as much as a healthy mare. Try not to run yourself into the ground."
"Yeah, believe me, I'd rather avoid doing anything stupidly suicidal too." Valey got to her hooves, looking at Starlight, who was most of the way through her bowl, and flexed her wings. "Flying while carrying her better be fine. Don't tell me it isn't."
"That depends on how badly you hurt your wings," Bourbon sighed. "Which I don't know. I gave you general restoration, not local. Where are you going?"
"Blueleaf," Valey grunted.
That got Starlight's attention. "What? Why? Didn't she just say not to go there?"
"Yeah, probably." Valey shrugged. "First off, if Ironflanks and Birdo get back and we're missing, they're gonna assume trouble, so they'll head toward trouble to find us. At least Birdo will and she won't be able to stop him, even though it would be really smart to stay out and wait for me to return. And depending on how long I snoozed, that's probably already happened. Second, our local unhappy unicorn probably totally did head right there, so if we want to bail her out of whatever she's getting herself into, we give chase. I dunno if that's even worth it, but she's strong enough to be useful and it would be sort of great if she was on our side. Still, she's ditchable. And third, because Beer Butt here told us not to and I don't really trust her. Don't worry, we'll be sneaky about it."
"There it is..." Bourbon sighed, holding a wing over her face. "Look, I'm... going to regret asking this, but if your wings were hurt... I'm going to the skyport to meet up with my friends. Blueleaf is on the way. Do you want a ride?"
"A ride?" Valey's eyes grew massive, then narrowed. "Hold on, like, as in, fuzzy pegasus offers to carry me where I'm going, for free? With Starlight? You can lift us both?"
Bourbon snorted back. "I'm not a well-paid mercenary for nothing. I can manage two ponies."
"Starlight?" Valey raised an eyebrow at the unseeing filly. "Best deal of my life, or actually too good to be true? Because seriously you have no idea how much I want this right now."
"Too late," Bourbon deadpanned, spreading her wings and flapping away, abandoning the cooking implements on the roof. "I regret I asked!"
Valey snatched Starlight and leapt after her, wings pumping unevenly in a bid to keep up. "Hey, wait! I'll take it! I'll take iiiiit!"
Shortly before Valey came to...
With a majestic shimmer of pink magic, Shinespark's unnamed airship floated closer to a rooftop tower standing amid the watery remains of Sosa. The huge comet of energy hovering above it pierced the night like a laser, casting aside whatever ghostly illumination made the moonless world visible in the first place and replacing it with harmonic light. The ship shone like a star all across Ironridge, and Gerardo piloted it with a nervousness born of the knowledge that any curious pegasus could simply fly up for a look and he would be too short-staffed to do anything about it.
As it was, his lack of crew members presented an entirely different problem: he had left Valey and Starlight in the tower to take a nap, and had no free members to head in to wake them up.
The tower was too sheltered to establish line-of-sight; he couldn't actually see them. He had given up looking several minutes ago, holding the airship steady and taking to the manual on the terminal instead, browsing it hurriedly in search of an autopilot feature that could automatically anchor the ship in place and allow him to leave to check himself. He was sure there was one. He couldn't find so much as a horn feature.
He was just beginning his third reread of the manual, examining each fuzzy magically-displayed monochrome letter in eye-watering detail, when the sound of a unicorn horn pulsed, and the door to the ship's deck slid open. Gerardo blinked in alarm as a graying unicorn stalked in, light glinting off his black coat as he stared about in desperation. "Shinespark! Where is she!?"
"I'm sorry, what...!?" Gerardo gasped as he was pinched by the stallion's aura, which was incredibly hard despite its shakiness. "Unhand me!"
"This is Shinespark's ship..." the stallion panted, still staring frantically. "Not yours! What are you doing here? I want my daughter, not a griffon!"
"Sir Mobius..." Panting, a short unicorn stumbled in behind him, burgundy mane mussed, glasses and professional attire askew and a wisp of steam rising from her horn. "I told you to wait for me! I can only teleport us so many times in a row, and... and..." She swallowed dryly and was cut off.
"Secretary, arrest this griffon," Mobius commanded, his red-turned-gray mane also hardly a model of recent grooming. "He's stolen my daughter's airship! He must have her somewhere... he must..."
"Sir, you can't just barge onto a privately-owned aircraft like this and start making baseless demands and accusations!" The mare glanced at Gerardo with as apologetic a look as she could muster.
Gerardo tried to say something, but his beak was being held shut by Mobius' vicelike aura. Mobius stomped. "This is my daughter's ship! I'd recognize it anywhere! She showed me it herself; it was built in secret! Arrest him and save my daughter!"
"Sir, that's ridiculous," the mare protested. "Sosa doesn't build airships in secret. I know you miss Shinespark but this is far overstepping Sosa's cargo searching right of-"
"Silence, secretary," Mobius growled. His horn flashed brighter, and suddenly he was struggling to haul Gerardo out of the pilot's seat, the airship slowly drifting away from the tower with no one at the controls. "Give me my daughter's ship...!"
Gerardo rolled with the aura, getting his head clear, and it dissipated as Mobius climbed into the chair in his place, throwing several levers and forcing the ship into a rapid ascent. "What is this even about?" Gerardo coughed, climbing back upright. "You're Shinespark's father?"
Mobius leaned into the controls, accelerating the ship to the east, back toward the impact site where the water rush had hit the land the hardest. Face grim, he refused to answer.
"I'm sorry about this..." The mare accompanying him stumbled up to Gerardo, leaning on a wall. "Sosa will compensate you for this inconvenience, I promise." She gulped again. "The Factory Chief is taking the loss of his daughter very hard..."
"You look in a mild state of disrepair," Gerardo remarked, pulling a water flask from his uniform and offering it her way. "Water?"
"Ah... Thank you..." She took it in her hooves, draining it in one go and sighing heavily, then wiped her brow, straightened her glasses and blew on her horn. "Thank you. He's been having me teleport us all over the Earth District, and even though that's my specialty..." She paused for a moment, still panting. "I don't know where he's going now, but if you could humor him until he finds something else to chase, that's the fastest way to resolve this. Again, I promise-"
"We're going to the dam!" Mobius barked. "She's still there, I know it! I will find my daughter!"
"Last I saw her, she was going south," Gerardo offered, and was promptly ignored.
The mare looked up at him. "You've seen her since this catastrophe?"
"I suppose I have," Gerardo said. As pressured as he suddenly found himself, he decided it was better to err on the side of saying too little. If push came to shove, at least, he had his sword back and could forcibly incapacitate Shinespark's father, though he didn't imagine that would earn him many favors with secretary or daughter.
At the mare's hopeful gaze, he added, "I couldn't tell you where she is now. Blueleaf, at best guess, but she was heading there a while ago."
She sighed. "Sir, did you hear that? We should check Blueleaf next! And since the wind barrier prevents us from flying ships in the Earth District-"
"No!" Mobius interrupted, well-acquainted with cutting her off. "Don't let him fool you, Secretary. That's a ploy to force us to abandon her ship. You can't fool Mobius..."
Gerardo sighed. Despite everything he had hoped, it seemed like the night had nothing but more escalation in store.
Valey stumbled to a landing outside the southern gates of Blueleaf, alone save for the filly on her back. Elite mercenaries, it turned out, were fast, and between her exhaustion and injuries and Starlight's added weight, Bourbon had effortlessly ditched her in their impromptu race.
"Urgh..." She gingerly folded her wings, testing her weight on her legs. "Yeah, I think I see what she meant about this stuff. Gets you patched up in a hurry, but you can get wrecked again just as fast. Or maybe that's needing a second nap talking... Hrmmmff."
It wasn't that it hurt to fly, or that it took more than a little effort than normal. But when every pump of her wings caused the faintest-possible spark to jump through her cutie mark, it was surprisingly easy to be on edge.
"Don't hurt yourself," Starlight grunted from her back. "I'm one to talk."
"Yeah..."
Sighing, Valey looked up at the city gates, imposingly lit against the darkness that gripped the rest of the city. She took a step toward them. Twinge. She took two steps down the road to the Stone District. Bigger twinge. Maybe it wasn't her body at all so much as what she was flying toward... which wasn't really any more comforting a thought. Still, Shinespark would be following trouble, so if her aim was to find the wayward unicorn, that's where she had to go. Now all she needed was a plan for what to do when she found her. Somehow 'tell the sad pony to go home' seemed a little incomplete.
She made good time down the road, until a chorus of "Halt!" brought her and Starlight dropping like rocks into the shadows. At least being blind prevented Starlight from being boggled by the strange perception of shadow sneaking, Valey mused as she watched like a shark from below the ground, sliding into the tree cover so as to safely surface for air.
Three bedraggled ponies charged up to where she had been, equipped with all the overkill weaponry of the Spirit and not an ounce of skill. Really, if she had set a trap, they would have charged right into it... They blinked around, shaking. "I thought I saw something!" one complained.
"You're always seein' things!" another reprimanded.
"This night is cursed," the third muttered. "There's bad stuff ahoof. 'Course you saw something, and I don't want to know what it was..." He shot a wary glance at the pale, clouded sky, then the bushes around the sides of the road. If Valey had wanted to scare him, he would have been an easy target.
"Nnngh..." The first whimpered, shaking. "Let's get back with the others. We shouldn't have came. We should have stayed home where it was safe..."
"Home ain't safe anymore, idjit!" He found himself bonked with a crackling energy spear. "If we don't defend Blueleaf, them Defense Forcers will raze it to the ground just like Sosa! Or do you think they're gathering at the border just for fun, huh?"
They slunk off, muttering and complaining and badly letting their nerves get the better of them. Valey breathed once it was quiet. "Sounds like a lot more ponies than just the Spirit have been galvanized to action," she exhaled. "And the only thing scarier than a panicked, stupid, well-armed pony is a whole herd of them. Looks like fatty Herman might get his war after all..."
Starlight grunted atop her back, sounding disinterested. Valey continued through the bushes, avoiding the road itself, relying on her cutie mark to avoid accidentally bumping into any ambushers laying in wait.
Eventually, she reached the edge of a large clearing in the road right before the slope up to the Stone District caused the terrain to change, forming a break in the forest canopy and forcing her to stop and assess the situation. It was the same spot she had crash landed with Maple and Starlight early in the day before, but rather than being empty like it was then, the hollow had been turned into some kind of base of operations. Nervous or terrified ponies used supply and weapon crates as barriers, safely lounging behind and trading gossip, advice and unfelt encouragement, while a small few who looked like they knew what they were doing trotted back and forth, carrying things or trying to appear busy.
Valey frowned. "What's with this ragtag bunch? I get that all this stuff would turn out civilians who think they have no choice, but where's the actual Spirit? There were a bunch of them hanging around Blueleaf before the bombs went off..."
Her eyes found their way to a hurriedly-pitched white tent at one side of the makeshift compound, and she started swimming toward it. That looked like a command tent if she had ever seen one. Odds were, if Shinespark was here, she'd be hanging around in there.
The inside of the tent was well-lit, and only abruptly pulling up stopped her from being unceremoniously ejected on the floor when she tried to swim under a wall. Instead, she hid under a crumple where the canvas met the ground, leafy ears cupped and waiting for info.
A set of light tan hooves walked through her narrow slit of vision, moving with a pace and stride length that suggested their owner was short. "Have you had any more luck with convincing our ponies to return home, Fernand?" she asked, voice soft and regal.
"My apologies, Sister. I think I've found all the individuals who can be talked down. The last group I approached looked at me like I was a traitor for suggesting it."
"Hmmmmm..." An airy sigh. "This would be so much easier if they would put their trust in me. I don't know, Fernand... I've done nothing for twenty years too long, and now that I'm trying to change that, it's starting to feel too late. I know having the Chancellor would help, but I wish Shinespark had stayed here instead of running off. The ponies hold her in their hearts, not me."
"Nonsense." Another pair of hooves stepped up, standing very close to the tan ones. "I, for one, doubt that after their atrocities, the Defense Force will follow the official chain of command and listen should Dior tell them to step down, no matter how ceremonially he may outrank Valey, Selma or Herman. If he'll even listen to Shinespark, that is. If anyone's mission is futile tonight, it's hers, and not yours. We will survive, Sister. Our ponies may lack it, but I have faith you'll see them through."
"Fernand, you know how my brand works..."
"And there's an entire city of ponies just north of here counting on us to be safe. That will be enough, don't you think? Besides." A short pause. "Maybe we won't have to fight at all. Maybe the best will happen, and we can just stare at the Defense Force and they won't invade. Or perhaps we could pursue a diplomatic route and offer them access to our power. It's been going steady for a day and a half, and-"
A hoof cut him off. "Thank you, Fernand," the mare said, a smile almost audible in her voice. "But let's return outside. If we're going to do anything to help, it won't be done from in here."
"Agreed. You'll do wonderfully, Sister. It's what you do."
Both sets of hooves departed, and Valey pulled back out into the cool night air, surfacing and clearing her lungs.
"Was that Elise?" Starlight asked, hanging half in the shadows beside her. "I couldn't see."
"Who else?" Valey shrugged. "I didn't exactly get a facefull of her cute bod myself, but I don't forget a voice that quickly. Still, sounds like she's got this place under control."
Starlight's ears twitched. "She said Shinespark was here and left to find Dior. Isn't he in the Sky District?"
"Skyfreeze. Yeah..." Valey breathed. "Didn't say anything about the rest of the Spirit, though. First the mercenaries, now these guys and the Defense Force and the Spirit... Way too many groups of ponies running around with heavy ordinance tonight. Even if you talk a bunch of them down, all it takes is one shooting to send this whole thing up in smoke. I bet that's planned. Let's just... focus on finding who we know how to find. And maybe if we're in the Sky District, Birdo will head there too for some stupid reason and can pick us up."
Starlight tried to give her a flat stare, but was a few degrees off.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Not really the best night to hope for the best..." Shrugging, Valey shouldered Starlight again and moved out, swimming through the shadows and leaving the Blueleaf encampment behind.
Despite their nervous vigilance, the Defense Force line at the opposite end of the road between the Stone District and Blueleaf wasn't difficult for Valey to sneak through. The mountainside was too steep for a direct path, so the road snaked back and forth in a set of switchbacks, slowly rising high enough to reach the lowest levels of the upper city. The ridges created by that switchback gave the pegasi a significant terrain advantage, but also created ample cover for a pair of bat ears and occasionally peeking set of eyes.
Valey swam sideways just below the lip of a ledge, dragging Starlight with her, waiting for her cutie mark to subside and stop indicating there was a guard watching the precise place she would pop up. She had to give it to the pegasi: between their blockades, chokepoint and multiple traps designed to dump heavy refuse down the mountain, they actually seemed more interested in living up to their name defending than in doing anything villainous. Too bad they weren't equipped to defend against her.
She darted up through a break in patrols, crossing the road like a fish sliding across a sheet of ice, and pulled herself into the poorly-swept corner at the base of the next ledge. Plenty of mid-sized rocks and other fallen things littered the road edge, in the ghostly darkness providing perfect camouflage for her to lift her head and take a better peek.
Two guards were approaching, walking close together and shuddering at the night. "I don't like this one bit," one murmured under his breath. "Not at all..."
"Would you rather be anywhere else?" the second asked, his eyes betraying the feigned confidence in his voice. "With your family, for instance? Huddled in your home and hoping no vengeful Sosans came your way, or the way of any of the thousands of other families in the Stone District?" He shook his head. "This is what we've trained our whole careers for. Tonight. We have to be ready."
"I'd rather things have not gone down like this!" the first countered vehemently. "The Ambassador... our own founder... It's so hard to believe he was playing us, and trying to start a war by getting us to fight the Sosans. But even though we know the truth now, all they think is that we did it! Now the Sosans are coming, if not for our heads, then all of the Stone District!"
"Valey and Herman might be gone, but at least Selma's head is screwed on right," the second muttered. "I just hope he can work as much of a miracle here as he says he can. Those Sosans have us badly out-teched, and when it comes to blows, we're going to need all the strategy we can just to keep our home safe, let alone get ourselves out in as many pieces as we came in..."
"Yeah. But the Sosans probably thought the same thing this evening, and look where that got them. They're saying this night is cursed, and I'm starting to believe it..."
The two guards wandered out of hearing range, prompting Valey to hum curiously to herself. "Herman bailed, huh? Wonder what that's all about."
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged in her grasp, limp and listless and not about to go anywhere in her blind, magic-lacking state.
"Hmm..." Licking her lips and sinking back into the shadows, Valey started up the next wall.
"Oh, that lemon bag," Valey seethed from a hiding spot near the Defense Force's final blockade. "That is the uncoolest thing I have ever seen him do! Even worse than turning the Defense Force into a sausage fest just to tick me off. Come on, Starlight. We're going to go give this bozo a piece of our minds."
"We are?" Starlight cupped her ears, not even bothering to gaze Valey's way. "Selma? You are, maybe. I don't even know what he did."
"Can't you-!?" Valey started to snap, before abruptly shutting up and groaning. "Right. You can't see. Long story short: that scoundrel has my hat."
At the end of the road, flanked by four pegasi in front of a gate that had been barred closed with a shoddily-welded iron grill, Selma strutted imperiously, eyes closed and confidence aired, a snazzy black beret that was one size too small resting atop his pineapple-shaped mane. His guards were nervous, staring and jumping at every shadow, but he was the one with the experience and intellect to tell which seemingly-moving pools of darkness were illusions and which ones really contained a bat. As such, Valey had no trouble getting his attention without alerting the others.
He didn't seem inclined to raise the alarm either, dismissing the four around him and staring intently at the patch where Valey hid... before beckoning with almost-imperceptible subtlety and walking back into the Stone District proper.
"Boo," Valey said, popping out of the ground once they were in a removed alcove free from prying ears.
"You survived," Selma remarked, staring at her in unmasked disappointment. "How quaint."
"Sure did." Valey remained dangerously stoic. "So, how does baiting Ironridge's trouble magnet factor into your plans, huh? You've got my attention."
Selma blinked. "What are you talking about? I told you, I want you gone! I'm trying to defuse Herman's conflict before it can explode any further, and someone as volatile as you has no role in that!"
"You. Stole. My. Hat." Valey ground each word through gritted teeth.
"What, this?" Selma's eyes widened in realization, and immediately floated the article out to Valey, who leapt out of the shadows and seized it like a ravenous shark. "You left it on the damtop and I took it as a prize. If that's really all you need, take it and be gone! I have far more important things to worry about tonight."
"Oh boy, really?" Valey rolled her eyes, slapping her hat back in place. "You know, since I've got you here, I'm kind of curious: something happen to Herman? Because your mooks were actually badmouthing him earlier."
Suddenly, Selma smirked. "Something happened? Oh, you could say that. What happened was me. I killed him. I backstabbed him, pushed him over the edge just like he sent you and all those poor, martyred Sosans. And given that he's fat and heavy and lacks wings... well, I've seen neither hide nor hair of him since. Perhaps he's alive, perhaps he could turn up still, but I've had all the time I need already to rally the Defense Force behind my back and my back alone. We're defending, now. And say what you like about my motives, but there's a very unhappy pack of ponies just down the road, and I'm going to keep the Stone District safe from them. A noble goal, don't you think?"
"Yeah. I heard your goons jawing about it," Valey muttered. "Congrats, Mister Good Guy. Have you considered that if it happened, Herman probably wanted it to happen, that he could survive the fall, still show up and find a way to wreck your plans, or that you might just not be able to hold against all that Sosan rage and firepower?" She raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it's swell that you think you can do this without me, but really, I wouldn't have anything to do with this if you got on your knees and begged."
"Touche," Selma spat. "For how much you complain about Herman, you appear to hold a very high opinion of him." His grin returned. "Since I doubt you'd be insane enough to object to a peaceful end before this war can even start, though, if you really wish me to brag... I was thinking of inviting whoever provides themselves as the leader to parlay. We banter, we squabble, we waste time, and ultimately I challenge them to a duel in which the loser must refuse to advance. I'll read the situation, and should it seem like it would calm them at all, I'll happily throw such a match if it preserves a ceasefire. Either way, I'd stall a long time. The goal would simply be to outlast their rage, or wait until an official proceeding can incriminate Herman and convince the Sosans we are not their enemy. I may even extend them a hoof in friendship as proof of our desire to do better."
"...Really." Valey nodded slowly. "And when they don't buy it and blow you up?"
"Look in the sky," Selma commanded.
Valey stared up. Against the ghostly blanket of clouds that looked long past due for a storm, a lone airship hovered, propelling itself lazily in circles above the Earth District. She hazarded a guess, from the design and dirigible, that it wasn't Shinespark's ship.
"I see you see it." Selma shrugged. "That was the vessel I appropriated for your escape. Too bad that ship has sailed; I now have need of it myself. Now, I really would like to do this bloodlessly, but in the event I can't bring Sosa and the Defense Force to such easy reconciliation, I'll settle for protecting my district, and that will be accomplished through the spectacular overkill of crashing an airship onto their little forward camp down there."
"Crashing a what?" Valey's eyes bugged. "Hold on, you might have to repeat that a time or three. Are you insane? I mean, obviously yes, but aside from that."
"Insanely brilliant, perhaps." Selma smirked again, beginning to pace. "First, the Sosans have a... history with airship crashes. If flooding their factories got them riled up, dropping a ship on them will break their spirits entirely, and at the very least wipe out their advance fighting force. Second, it wouldn't be me to do it. Ironridge is currently host to a band of mercenaries I very much despise, who happen to be in the official employ of Herman, who is quickly becoming known as the architect of this little skirmish. It would be almost disgustingly easy to pin this on him."
Valey inclined an ear, listening.
"The mercenaries, as it turns out, are down an airship," Selma narrated. "This one isn't theirs, though I wanted that one to be. Theirs was, according to my surveillance, taken by a pair of highly disreputable stallions fleeing the underground while abandoning their loyal companions to be taken captive by the Defense Force and mean old Selma. In short, it's very much gone enough that I can say this one was theirs and have the math add up. And if any nosy inspectors try to dig too deep, I set up months in advance just in case an obscure loophole transaction entitling this particular ship to their name, so dirt on them would come up in a search."
"...Yeah, you're crazy," Valey decided. "There are so many things that could go wrong with that plan I can't even start. You realize how much of a mess this could make, right?"
Selma narrowed his eyes. "You can laugh at my plans and put Herman on a pedestal all you like, but the fact is I'm the one who's still plotting while he's at the bottom on a lake. In this world, results speak for themselves."
Valey stared... and sighed. "Eh, suit yourself. I'm looking to bail anyway. It's your reputation that stands to be ruined. But seriously, why tell me this?"
Selma shrugged. "I may never get a chance to brag about this to a living soul ever again, and you're both smart and unscrupulous enough to understand everything I'm doing. Sometimes I think it's almost a pity we dislike each other so much. We'd make an excellent team... But then, I'm me and you're you, which means you're about to make a lewd joke and run off cackling while I question why I ever thought you possessed intellect in the first place."
"Slick." Valey ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. "You know, you're probably not wrong. Anyway, tip from me: I just snuck around the camp down there, and it's mostly Blueleaf citizens freaked out that you're going to invade and finish what you started. Actually not a lot of Sosans at all, and none of the top brass. So try and hold off on that airship thing, since they might be perfectly happy with a ceasefire too... and something tells me going for the big boom would give Herman a warm fuzzy. Thanks for dunking him for me, and screw you for stealing my kill. I'm outta here."
Like that, she was away, carrying Starlight into the Stone District in a beret-wearing pool of shadow. Selma watched her go, chuckling to himself... only to immediately have his mood ruined when it started to rain. He stalked back toward the barricade, muttering under his breath about grandstanding being no fun when he was soaked and freezing, and giving at least one forlorn glance to the hat he had just parted ways with. It was too small, anyway.
Gerardo stood uneasily near the door to the airship's deck, watching as Mobius earnestly piloted toward the blown-out dam and his secretary Hestia hovered nearby, resting her horn and constantly frowning.
"It is snowing," he remarked, having finally acknowledged that protesting was futile against Mobius' stubbornness. "And rather hard, I might add."
"Only more reason we must find her quickly," Mobius growled, his face glued to the windshield as fat white flurries blew in and refused to stick. "Secretary, shine a spotlight on the valley. I can't see a thing through this weather, and she could be down there!"
Hestia sniffed, nudging her nose with a hoof. "I don't know what this ship is equipped with, and the snow will soon be thick enough that we won't be able to see the ground from this far up."
"Then use your horn!" Mobius barked. "And that's exactly why we need to do it now. That's an order. What are you waiting for?"
With unhappy resignation, the short wine-red mare sighed and pushed past Gerardo, sliding open the door. A frigid wind instantly invaded the bridge; now that the storm had begun to dump its payload, it wasn't going to hold back. Teeth chattering already, she slipped out, making to close it behind her.
Gerardo caught it with a talon, propping it open and following her into the white. The passive-aggressive part of him left it open, willing to let Mobius freeze if he was going to bestow the same on his assistant, not to mention hijacking an airship. He itched toward the sword at his side, the urge to use it against an unarmed opponent building.
The deck was somehow clean, the pink majesty of the energy comet the ship hung from reducing every flake that touched down to runoff. It didn't feel hot, though, and Gerardo couldn't help but notice how steady the airship kept its course despite the building winds. It was as if the ship was simply unaffected by the weather, though as a product of some futuristic stabilization technology or the mystical energies empowering it, he couldn't tell.
The same couldn't be said for its occupants. Hestia staggered once from a gust, then bit the railing and held it in her teeth for support, wincing from the cold as she aimed her head downward and illuminated. The cone of directed light glowed off the falling flakes, failing to make it to the dark valley below.
"I gather that your boss has little idea of what he's doing," Gerardo said above the winds, moving so that the smaller unicorn was in his lee. Gripping the railing for stability himself, he stared at the crumbling black form of the dam silhouetted through the flakes, a chasm of white splitting through where the top should be. "Perhaps you should simply usurp him and teleport him away?"
"S-Sorry..." Hestia shivered harder, casting an illumination beam again to the same effect. "My oath of office forbids it. I would be out of my job for certain. My position as a Sosan was already hard enough won..."
Gerardo drummed his talons. "Forgive me for saying it, but from where I'm standing, your position is already extinct. Sosa is something of a lake right now, and should this storm turn into rain below the wind barrier, that may only get worse."
That wasn't the right thing to say, apparently, as Hestia gritted her teeth and tried fruitlessly to light the landscape a third time. Gerardo very nearly picked her up and carried her back into the cabin, but then, he didn't think she would count that as a favor. Again, he contemplated immobilizing Mobius and flying off in search of his friends himself.
Suddenly, a blinding beam of light fell across the deck, and he yelped, covering his smarting eyes. Shielding them with a talon, he carefully looked, realizing that it was a point source, coming from something high up, to the right of the dam. The northern lighthouse? He had seen it before at night, guiding incoming and outgoing air traffic and acting as a high-up beacon for Ironridge, but there it had spun aimlessly, not targeted a single ship. Was someone up there controlling it?
Before he could voice his concerns, there was a thud from the far end of the deck, a badly-battered pegasus crashing against the wood and skidding all the way to the far railing, impacting it but not being flung off the side. Gerardo raced to him, noting the tattered Defense Force regalia, Hestia following carefully. The wind continued to blow.
"Ow..." The pegasus groaned, slumping near the entrance to the cargo bay. His eyes opened, and fixed on Gerardo. "Survivors!" he gasped, trying to get himself upright. "Twenty-two of us, in the lighthouse... Some Sosans, too. We were trying to climb down, but the storm came out of nowhere and we went back for shelter, and..."
"Intriguing," Gerardo remarked, giving a determined glance to the bridge. "Secretary, please see to this stallion; there are rooms down below. I'm going to have a talk with your ornery boss."
"Shut the door when you leave," Mobius growled, not looking away from the windshield as he hovered the airship around the ruins of the dam. "I need to concentrate on finding-!"
He instantly trailed off, eyes wide, a fast flicker of metal vanishing in front of him. Just before he could topple from the chair, he was steadied by a griffon, gently removed and placed on the floor.
"My sword talon was twitching," Gerardo explained, sheathing his sword. "Sorry about that, but I borrowed this airship first. There's also apparently a selection of Sosans and Defense Force who survived the battle, holed up in the lighthouse and are managing not to kill each other, which I very much wish to investigate but didn't imagine you'd take kindly to. For now, you'll just have to settle for being tragically deposed."
Placing himself back in the pilot's chair where he belonged, Gerardo adjusted a throttle, lifting the ship higher and angling it toward the lighthouse with a rush of pink. Snow flurried around it, bending into a wake as it began to move forward.
Hestia shortly re-entered the cockpit, gasping at Mobius' condition. "Sir, are you all right!?" She rushed to him, shaking his limp frame.
"He's merely taking a nap," Gerardo assured as the stallion glared daggers at him. "Quite tiring, teleporting around the Earth District is, isn't it? It took only a little encouragement on my behalf, and don't worry, he'll be right as rain before too long. In the meantime, I find myself having this ship back!"
Hestia almost glared at Gerardo... then looked at Mobius and sighed. "If he did something, it's your own fault," she informed him. "Sky District regulations do nothing to prevent ships from fighting against unsanctioned takeovers, and since we're not sanctioned by the Sky District, all this was breaking the law..."
"Speaking of acts righteous and unrighteous," Gerardo interrupted, reaching the lighthouse's snowy base. Several unicorns were diligently keeping the door clear from drifts, breaking from their work and looking up at the nearing ship with undiluted hope. "There are quite a few ponies down there I'd very much like to talk to and presumably save, and I cannot both hold this airship in place and assist them on board simultaneously. Unless you fancy yourself a skilled pilot, can you nip over to the cargo hold and open the bay door? I think it will be a lot more feasible than trying to get out a bridge to the deck in this weather."
For a moment, Hestia stared, open-mouthed... and then nodded and ran off, much to the already-mad Mobius' chagrin.
"Very well, then. Let's see..." Pleased, Gerardo turned back to the terminal with its user manual, searching for bay door controls. Eventually, he backed out, looked at the terminal's other functions... Door control. Bingo.
The door turned out to have a physical switch, unlatching a portion of the ship's flat stern and folding it out like a drawbridge, but what the terminal had to offer was even better: one of the windshield panels flashed opaque, transforming itself into a high-definition video feed of a camera focused on the ship's rear. It gave him a perfect view of the rocky mountaintop he was backing towards, maneuvering the airship with precision controls and its remarkable wind resistance until the end of the ramp was touching the snow drifts. He watched eagerly as the stranded ponies wasted no time in coming aboard, eyebrows raising at the sight of both Sosans and Defense Force in the mix.
"Hmm. Fascinating..." he mused, leaning into the screen. The two groups stuck to their own kind, eyeing each other warily... but not with open hostility. Indeed, they appeared to have wholeheartedly put aside their differences in the name of survival. Still, Gerardo reminded himself, appearances were only appearances, and he very much wanted to get whoever was in charge up to the bridge for questions. Lifelong mortal enemies didn't just suddenly begin getting along.
The stream of ponies slowed, then stopped, Gerardo tallying twenty-one of them. That would be all, then, assuming the first pegasus had counted himself. He started the door closing and lifted back into the sky, Hestia quickly re-entering the room.
"Sir," she reported, "there are a lot of ponies, some of whom are the ones who bombed-"
"Stop!" Gerardo interrupted her with a talon. "Herman was the destructor of Sosa, no more and no less. I, for one, am in a position where I can afford to pass judgement only where it is due, and would very much like to hear the whole story before getting too far ahead of myself. I don't suppose you're familiar with the art of captaining ships?"
She stared blankly at him, blinking.
"Well, no matter." Gerardo shook his head. "If those lot haven't taken up all the cabins below, you might want to move Mobius somewhere more comfortable as well, assuming you don't decide to do the personally smart thing and take him and flee to the Earth District. But first, would you mind terribly telling our new guests I'd appreciate speaking with their leaders?"
Hestia hesitated, nodded, took Mobius and vanished belowdecks in a slightly fitful burst of violet magic.
Deep inside a metal tunnel where the emergency lights had drained to a fraction of their power reserves, a shadow flickered, and Valey rose from the ground after slipping through the crack of an immobile high-tech door. The Defense Force base had proven almost abandoned, every pegasus still willing to stand their ground massed at the Blueleaf border, but even if it hadn't the conditions for stealth were the best imaginable. The darkness was just light enough that she could make out walls and obstacles with her exceptional night vision, but any normal pony would be unable to see her if she left the shadows and stood within slapping distance of their face.
"Okay..." she whispered, ears failing to register any life beside their own. "Think I need a quick break. Whatever that mercenary chick gave me was good stuff, but she was definitely right about it not being a full restore. Urrrgh..."
Starlight didn't protest, so she backed into a maintenance alcove and sat down against a wall that smelled faintly of cleaning supplies, getting Starlight off her back but keeping the filly near. Her legs felt like they had been disassembled and put back together with parts that were just a millimeter off, working efficiently but with a not-quite-pain that waited to intensify just below the surface, like the strained mix of looseness and tension felt a second before cramps set in. Her hoof was still undeniably burned; while it took weight, she frequently caught herself limping. But at least she had her hat.
Licking her good forehoof and running it over her ears and through her mane, she glanced at Starlight. "You holding up, kiddo?"
"No," Starlight muttered back. "I'm probably crippled. Maple got stabbed by that stupid sword, and now you let Gerardo and her leave. When I woke up and it was just you, I thought I hadn't saved her at all. I hate this city, wish I had never come here, don't know who to blame and wish I could blow up another dam right in its stupid face."
"Ow. Violent." Valey leaned against the wall, giving her body the rest it furiously hinted it needed. "Yeah, welcome to the Ironridge Smells club. I'm a little wound up, ticked off and put out myself right now. But just a little. It's not like I just defected to your side under the promise that I could have real friends and not do everything myself any more, only to get blown up and then stuck putting aside my own emotional baggage so I could haul your near-corpses around the city, or anything. Honestly, as cool as it is to know there are ponies with problems worse than my own, I was really looking forward to not having to put up with this. Oh well, life isn't fair, old news. I've gotten this far without giving up..."
The part of her that dared to dream hoped Starlight would magically turn into a saint, invite her to vent about anything and everything, know exactly what she needed to hear, and offer it free of charge, but of course that didn't happen. What did she need to hear? That there was a way ahead? That all of her trying would get her somewhere worth going? Where did she even want to go? Her mind conveniently blanked on everything Maple and Starlight had said back in the Flame Barracks, leaving her only with the vague and slightly useless assertion that having nice friends was good. Thanks a lot, brain. Frustrated with herself and the world, Valey gave Starlight a poke, hoping for a change of topic.
"Hey, Starlight." She glanced aside at the filly. "I'm kinda surprised your saddlebags haven't completely disintegrated or at least fallen off after all the stuff we've been through. Do they still have anything in them? Anything... I dunno... distracting? I need something to fidget with."
Starlight shrugged, failing to get the frayed strap off her back. "I don't know. I can't check or move them without magic. They're not empty."
"Well, you could just make like an earth pony and use your mouth..." Rolling her eyes, Valey reached over and pulled off the bags, trying to sort through them.
Quickly, she found it to be an impossible task without light. She could ask Starlight... except the filly was injured and effectively had no horn. Or eyes. She probably didn't even realize how dark it was.
...At that, Valey paused, a hoof rising to the pendant around her neck. She sniffed, testing the air, but there were no other ponies nearby. She had started using it recently, and since Starlight wouldn't be able to see...
With a vibration of magical energy, Valey issued the mental command to activate the pendant. As a design prototype created for experimentation, the magical buffer it used to control the coupling between the wearer and the contents of the moon glass had a variable strength, with no connection on one end and a full coupling on the other - no different from trying to absorb the mark directly, straight from the moon glass.
She glanced at Starlight, gulping, feeling the pendant hum against her coat. The pendant was designed with a single goal in mind: allow the wearer to access the power of an obsidian-encased cutie mark without actually absorbing it. Unfortunately, its development had led to a realization: pony bodies were somehow intrinsically attuned to their marks, and even though moon glass could bestow new ones by force upon blank candidates, letting ponies borrow the powers while making the effect temporary proved to be completely infeasible. The version that powered Braen only worked because Shinespark was borrowing her own cutie mark; she and it were naturally meant for each other. Any other pony with any mark but their own, and it would have no effect.
Maple could argue that Valey was just as much a pony as anyone else as hard as she wanted, but the fact was, she was the exception to that rule.
The connection opened, Valey consciously keeping it as narrow as possible. She felt a familiar warmth, a knot of emotions squeezed to a trickle as if through a tiny gap... and a tingling like helium being pumped through her veins, spreading out through her body, not strong enough to have any effect save for a faint, sickly-green light that glowed from her entire body. Starlight didn't notice at all.
In the green glow, Valey's shaking hooves shuffled through Starlight's saddlebags. They were still full of the contents of Maple's cutie mark, dropped after she had broken it during the fight against the mercenaries on the elevator. Selma's stolen card key... useless, since there was no power. One of Howe's sound stones... useless, since she had dropped the other along with her hat and would likely never see it again. A written message of encouragement from somepony named Willow...
Valey swallowed, suddenly feeling sick. She was using this particular cutie mark as a flashlight to look for a toy to amuse herself with while the friends she was supposed to be protecting were scattered and apart? What was she thinking? She slammed off the connection, the warmth and fuzziness that covered her nerves and sparked through her body instantly vanishing as the pendant went dull.
Her stomach still churned as she packed the removed items back in Starlight's saddlebags and repositioned them on the filly, a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead. Maybe it was the air; the ventilation system had shut off along with the power. "Come on, Starlight," she grunted, wanting to curl up and instead heaving her back on her back. "We've been loafing around too much; it's Sky District time. See if we can find Sparky, or if Ironflanks and Birdo got that ship to work and are up there poking around. Urrgh..."
The official entrance to Skyfreeze was in the Sky District, an elevated tube with a high-speed transport system connecting it to one of the skyport's mushroomlike hubs, but that wasn't the only way. There was also an outdoor ground-level entrance, used by absolutely no one due to the cold and the lack of roads in the Sky District, and an underground entrance, connected via elevator to the Defense Force base, Flame District, and several outlets throughout the Stone District. This was the one used by ponies who were late enough that they could afford a faster yet less-scenic commute, or those who had had enough of the Sky District and just didn't care. It was also the route through which Valey and Starlight were hurriedly sneaking.
Valey swam furiously up the walls of the elevator shaft, the carriage lacking power to move itself. She was beginning to properly ache, having no qualms about pushing herself, fixating on finding Shinespark or heading off the airship with her friends or really doing anything beyond double-checking her tenuous reasons. The last thing she wanted to do was stop. She had to get everyone back together, and then out, and then... something. Maybe food, definitely rest, and above all, safety.
She crested the lip of the shaft, throwing herself and Starlight through the glass doors and out into a gold-and-marble lobby. Skyfreeze's emergency lighting was in much better shape than the Defense Force's. Suddenly, she had to worry about being seen.
The lobby itself looked more like it belonged in a six-star hotel than a center of government, with a long, polished corridor and alcoves formed on the walls by sculpted plants. Doors and walled-off desks filled every convenient location, with checkered stone tiles covering the open floor. Despite the opulence, Valey hardly gave it a glance as she strolled straight down the middle: her focus was one hundred percent on her cute mark.
It tingled constantly, low and deep, like the rumble of a waterfall or far-off storm. And there certainly was a storm: the corridor ended in a panoramic window through the wall of the tower, revealing a blizzard raging into the night. The tower was supposed to be equipped with retractable insulation that would cover the windows in case of such a snowstorm, but the power had gone out before this one had started, and apparently sealing off the view wasn't a priority use of emergency power reserves. Still, the mighty glass held... but Valey could feel a chill in the air just from walking near it, and small tendrils of frost coated the ground just inside it. She avoided stepping on those.
Valey turned, walking up a broad, semi-circular staircase that hugged the inside of the tower wall, emergency lighting casting a wan glow that reflected off gold-painted metal and casting deep shadows from the vines that hung from wall sconces. The steps were shallow, designed for unathletic, aristocratic hooves, but somehow even they made her cold, worn-out body groan in protest. She didn't want to go on. She wanted to curl up and lick her wounds... but she didn't.
The next level was a hall filled with offices. Offices of offices, with doors on the wall bearing plaques like 'Department of Multinational Relations' or 'Office of Inter-District Affairs,' behind which rows and rows of gilded cubicles could be seen through glass windows. It maintained every bit of bureaucratic splendor as the floor below, with pools of water sitting under dead fountains along the walls. How long until they succumbed to the mounting chill in the air and turned to ice?
After three more levels of offices, the decor changed. Out was the gold, and in was the ice-blue, keeping with Skyfreeze's namesake. This was the residential level, small and exclusive and sporting expansive villas for those agency workers, councilmembers and foreign diplomats important enough to live in Skyfreeze and skip the commute and the rest of the city altogether. Often, during more carefree days, Valey spent her time wondering how much they actually knew of the city they rarely visited, and more than once arranged bureaucratic pranks exploiting or poking fun at specific ponies' lack of real-world experience.
'Hightower Manor,' one villa's address read. 'Crystalhorn Estate.' The residents certainly thought highly enough of their homes to name them. Valey climbed a level. There was 'Griffon Empire Ambassador's Residence.' Apparently the griffons were slightly more modest than Skyfreeze's usual crowd? Across from it, the Varsidel residence had a note stuck to the door informing the cleaning staff that the ambassador had recently passed away and not to disturb his quarters until official proceedings could be taken. The Yakyakistan villa, on the other hoof... Valey bit back a snicker. The nameplate simply read 'Kero's House.' Had Herman really used his private Skyfreeze residence as payment for his mercenary squad? It made sense, since he usually lived in the embassy down in the Stone District...
The residence floors continued for several more levels, sometimes four and sometimes eight villas per floor, all separated by stairs that wrapped around the tower wall and elevators that lacked the power to function. Finally, they broke off, leading to another office floor and then another lobby, this one on level with the transportation tunnel to the skyport.
Valey kept climbing, the tunnel entrance floor entirely wall-free and ringed by an unbroken window, a set of huge support columns the only thing preventing her from seeing all the way across. The next floor up was a food court, and it was there that the warmth still trapped in the tower grew concentrated enough to be noticeable.
Lurking past countertops and beneath the edges of tables, she let her nose guide her, stomach rumbling for food. That was one cost of using the pendant: it made her hungry, quickly. But the scents told her an exotic sandwich parlor had forgotten to lock down their supply room as tightly as was necessary to stop a bat, and soon she was under the door, feasting on lettuce and mass-produced buns. Exotic sauces and seasonings stayed on their shelves where they belonged; Valey knew what she liked: things she could grab as fast as possible. There was no time to be fancy when she wanted to stuff her face.
"Want one?" she mumbled around a mouthful to Starlight, putting together another sandwich.
"I'm full. I ate a lot of stew," Starlight declared. "Didn't you?"
"Yeah. But now I'm hungry again." Shrugging, Valey put the second sandwich in her mouth, not bothering with eating in bites. "Let's just... mmrmff... Mmm, this is good stuff. For not being sweet, at least. Needs more mangoes. I'm just gonna stuff a few more of these in your saddlebags though, just in case."
"Suit yourself," Starlight sighed, leaning against a rack of disposable cups.
Eventually, Valey slid back out through the crack beneath the door, still weary and still feeling a chill that refused to leave her limbs, but at least comfortably full. The wide-open food court beckoned with its darkness, and she set off toward the far staircase-
Pony! In a flash, Valey dove behind a counter, yanking Starlight with her. A janitor was sweeping halfway across the room, attention focused on his broom and the faint jingle of music coming from a device at his side. Heart pounding, Valey shuddered; she had almost been seen. If that happened...
She frowned. What would happen? He was a janitor, not a ninja! She could pound him any day of the week, and her cutie mark wasn't even registering him. Odds were, she could walk right past him and he'd do nothing more than nod his head, or give directions if she asked. Had she really fallen so far that she was afraid of janitors?
Yes, a part of her said... and she mentally glared at it, suddenly fighting back an unwelcome wall of worry. She was not a coward. Cowardice didn't suit her... yet, she had nearly lost her lunch at the prospect of using her pendant earlier. Even thinking about it made her woozy, and that wasn't a way she wanted to feel just after gorging herself on sandwiches. She had lost against the mercenaries, ergo she wasn't invincible, and that meant she might just be bad enough that that janitor could take her. She definitely didn't deserve the pendant... didn't deserve... Since when had she ever had a problem with taking things she didn't deserve?
Silently, every muscle in her body rigid, Valey listened to logic over feelings and dragged Starlight back into the sandwich shop storeroom. "Hey, Starlight?" she whispered, standing up in the darkness.
"Hmmmph," Starlight grunted.
"Well, I was gonna ask if you were feeling like yourself lately..." Valey sighed. "But I guess that answers that. Or doesn't. Whatever..."
A lot had happened to her, especially over the past several hours, but Valey was decidedly not feeling like herself, and the more she thought about it, the stranger that felt. Losing against a ton of really powerful, really well-prepared enemies, then almost dying in a fall? Well, fine. Completely losing her self-confidence and respect as a result? Suddenly being unworthy to use the pendant when she had used it just fine to escape from being tied up earlier, when she didn't know no one was watching? Valey frowned harder. Maybe some psychologist would tell her that was the result of trauma and having friends to care about and realizing that she didn't have to be alone, and tell her all sorts of sentimental things and prescribe therapy to fix it... but she didn't have any psychologists or therapists. What she did have were a lot of enemies, and a need to keep going. How possible was it that someone was using mental magic to mess with her emotions?
Instantly, something clicked. Her emotions were out of whack; something was clearly wrong. If there was an external cause, and something needed beating up? She was good at that. She was. It was how she had always worked, and that wasn't something that was supposed to change. If it was internal... then she could deal with it later so long as she kept going, and having that threat to push against, fake or real, was something she could use to keep herself going. She almost smirked.
She did smirk, standing slightly taller and prouder in the darkness, and almost immediately was hit with a wall of doubt. If she tried to push herself beyond what she was capable of with Starlight on the line and lost... She shivered, but her defiance survived.
That was it, then. Maybe it was her survival instinct talking, but a survival instinct that told her to hole up and cry in a hostile building when her friends needed her at her best wasn't one worth listening to. If she got overconfident and got herself in trouble? At least she could try to fight her way out. And in the event that it really was just her, Maple could talk her through it when they weren't in the middle of a war.
And like that, she was back. Valey licked her lips, doing a quick combat-readiness check on herself. Immediate disabilities? None. Weak points where she really didn't want to get hit? One partially-healed burnt forehoof and her wing, which was probably better but still ached. Her whole body ached, a lingering chill permeating her core she felt even open flame wouldn't be able to shake, but she successfully ignored her self-reprimands for not being stronger. She could read future attacks, punch like nobody's business, and thanks to her hat, look good while doing it. There was just one thing...
With a faint sparkle, her pendant activated, sending her body shimmering with a faint glow of green. This time, she expected the wave of disgust that came with it: before, she had used it to dig through Starlight's packs, but now she was using it for no reason at all? She kept her mouth closed and her head held high, though, ears folding as she weathered it... and eventually, her mind left her alone. Valey sighed, focusing on the fuzzy, bloated sensation that tingled through her limbs that came with the magic. It almost made her feel less tired and worn out, though she didn't very well trust her own judgement on how she felt at the moment. She looked at Starlight, still glowing, and swallowed. A cutie mark for music appreciation wasn't going to be much use in a fight, but if she was separated from any edge at all by some psychological barrier, that was a recipe for losing again. In the event her feelings were legitimate, she could atone for her desecration once she was safe.
Confidence restored enough to fight, desperately hoping she wasn't overselling herself and wouldn't run into avoidable trouble, Valey let the glow die, picked up Starlight and exited the closet.
A janitor hummed along with his music, following the trail of his wide broom as he pushed between two tables and around a support column. Power or not, he was still getting paid for his job, and the food court was usually dark at night so he didn't much mind.
Suddenly, there was a shuffle in front of him, and he looked up, blinking. A shadowy, leather-winged mare was strolling past like she owned the place, somehow navigating the tables with her eyes closed. She had an unhappy-looking filly on her back, and the filly was wearing saddlebags... because apparently, for this mare, wearing them herself was just out of the picture.
He almost snorted to himself in amusement, but recalled an old bar buddy's story about a mare like this just in time, catching his breath and keeping his silence. Didn't she work for the Defense Force? Had a vicious sense of humor, would leave a banana peel outside your door just because she knew you didn't look down when you exited? She was probably off to make some executive's life miserable over the power outage. Hopefully that would be cleaned up before morning, or the bureaucrats would wake up and start whining... He rolled his eyes, let her pass, and continued on his janitorial way.
Nerves completely shot and emotions utterly ignored, Valey nearly collapsed at the far staircase. Whatever was wrong with her did not want her having a good day. Still, her cutie mark hadn't betrayed her, and was still tuned enough to avoid walking into obstacles without her eyes. At least she could trust that... and she had made it.
The next floor was offices. No sane pony would be working at night during a power outage and a blizzard... or maybe they would be, if their job was to head off a district war. Technically, though, that was the Defense Force's job, and it was their job precisely because no one at Skyfreeze wanted to do it.
Valey pressed onwards, toggling her pendant several more times just to prove she could, despite it being both pointless and rationally stupid. Eventually, she stopped; even with the glow of the emergency lights there was a possibility of errant cameras catching her faint aura. Would they even be on with the power out? Who knew. She climbed another floor, legs pumping as she hurried towards Dior's quarters at the top, where she stood the best chance of finding Shinespark.
The floors switched back to residential, and she switched to flying, her legs starting to feel worse than her wings and her need to clear that mission and get back to her friends increasing. Then they were administrative, and quickly lost the floor structure altogether, switching to balconies and overhangs and lobbies structured around the large central council chamber. Above that, she knew, was the Chancellor's office and quarters.
Skipping the stairs, Valey swooped up a shaft overlooking a three-story window, an atrium at the bottom and ghostly white clouds billowing like passing trains outside. The chill radiating through the air was alarming, even with the highest concentration of heat in the tower funneling its way to the top, aggravating Valey's aches and weariness, and she activated the pendant again just because the fuzzy magic it filled her with seemed to repress or at least numb the tiredness and cold. Spreading her wings and pulling up, she landed on the final floor.
"Are we there yet...?" Starlight mumbled, shifting on her back.
"Yeah, actually, we are." Licking her lips, Valey walked past Dior's empty secretary desk, ignored the door to his personal meeting chamber, and paced with purpose down the hallway to his quarters.
The door to the towertop villa was half-open, as if it had been in the middle of closing when the power cut and the emergency systems hadn't seen fit to finish the job. Frowning, Valey stepped through into an orderly apartment. For all her years of sneaking about, this was the first time she had set hoof in the Chancellor's quarters.
A room for food... a room for entertainment... Really? A busy stallion like Dior had time for that? Another room held a majestic four-poster bed, with posters of the various districts placed on the walls around it. The Steel District seemed better-represented than the others.
Inside the bedroom were also doors to a bathroom, closet, and personal study. Valey poked her head through the last one, noting a tidy desk with a locked file cabinet and a single sheet of paper sitting under a portable lamp. She squinted, walking closer to read it.
I'm out of the office for tonight. If you want to find me, come to the skyport.
Valey frowned, then shook. Was he expecting his private study to be invaded by anyone on business? Wouldn't he leave a message like this at his front desk, and keep someone on-duty to staff it?
Those questions didn't even matter when she turned the note over. On the back, it was signed by Herman.
Hestia's departure left the bridge welcomely empty, Gerardo alone save for the flashing controls and blinding snow bouncing ineffectually off the windshield. He took a second to sigh, his sword returned to its rightful resting place... and instantly had his rest cut short as the door slid open and two icy ponies stepped through.
One was a pegasus, huge and red, half of his flimsy Defense Force armor missing, his neck singed and much of his mane burned off from an energy blast. The other, a forest-green earth pony mare, limped alongside him with one hind leg dangling uselessly, her side covered in bleeding lacerations, barely able to support her own weight.
"I say!" Gerardo's eyes widened. "You're quite heavily injured!"
"Ya think?" the mare growled, pained tension in her voice, eyes darting around the cabin.
"Hello," the pegasus intoned, stepping forward and revealing ice-encrusted wings that looked useless for flight. "I'm Lieutenant Blast Furnace, and this is Mosswater. Respectively, we are the highest-ranking remaining members of our companies of the Defense Force and the Spirit of Sosa. We wished to thank you for braving this storm and saving us."
Gerardo looked worriedly at the bleeding mare. "There should be first-aid supplies somewhere down below. This airship was very well-stocked..."
Mosswater nodded, then coughed. "We divided them already. The others needed them more."
"Oh! Erm, well..." Gerardo tried to stare at anything other than her side. "Perhaps there's a medical box or first-aid kit up here, of some sort? You'd think there should be..."
"If there is, send it down below." Mosswater shook her head. "It looks bad, but my life's not in danger. Two more minutes and that battle would have been over, no surrender."
"And yet, you're still alive now." Gerardo nodded. "Might I ask what happened?"
Blast Furnace stared at him. "Words were exchanged during the battle. We were told the Sosans were trying to destroy the west dam and directly flood the Earth District, but they said they were trying to stop us from destroying the eastern dam. When the dam exploded, it became apparent that they were telling the truth, so we caught and saved as many as possible." His eyes narrowed. "Listen. There are buildups of both Defense Force and Spirit ponies near Blueleaf. The Spirit were supposed to act as a decoy to force us to split our forces, making the battle on the dam smaller scale, or else invade and try to capture the Water District themselves if we didn't show up. Now, they'll likely want revenge. We don't know who is behind this, but it's not the Stone District and not the Defense Force! You have to take us there as fast as possible so we can talk them down, or else help the Defense Force so this doesn't escalate into a war!"
Mosswater coughed again, nodding in agreement. "We need to get there before either side loses! If the Defense Force wins, whoever was behind this will still have an army and could do something worse, but if the Spirit wins, they'll try to get revenge. Our economic engine is gone, so they might retaliate by attacking the skyport..."
"...Which contains enough delicate systems that it wouldn't take a flood to sabotage," Blast Furnace finished somberly. "If I were them, I'd go for the airship hangar."
"Gunga is dead," Mosswater said, her eyes tearing slightly... though whether from pain or loss, Gerardo couldn't tell. "He was leading us on the bridge. There are rumors Shinespark was there too. I didn't know she was officially a part of the Spirit, but if this fight killed her..."
"Shinespark is alive," Gerardo quickly interrupted. "I can confirm that, as well as that Herman is the mastermind behind this bombing plot. I was on the bridge myself, along with my friends, and saw the detonator pressed with my own eyes."
Blast Furnace's eyes narrowed. Mosswater's widened with hope.
"As for flying to Blueleaf, I'm unsure." Gerardo spun in his pilot's chair, the airship still hovering just outside the lighthouse. "I'm slightly new to this craft myself, and while it seems remarkably weather-resistant, I'd hate to destroy it against the wind barrier. Additionally, it's been well over two hours since the blast, and it may not be wise to make suppositions about the state of any battle in Blueleaf. Might I suggest that, since we're right next to the Sky District as-is, we make for the Skyport and trace our way down to Blueleaf from there? Though it would be a considerable amount of walking, it would be all downhill, we would be sure to intercept any approaching Spirit ponies, and you did at least say you had pegasi still capable of flight..."
"If that's what it takes, do it." Growling in pain, Mosswater sat down, while Blast Furnace blew on his wings and tried to defrost them. "Also... I don't know if it will help, but we took the backup battery for the lighthouse when we left. Since the city's power source is gone, we thought it could be important."
"Duly noted." Shoving a throttle, Gerardo angled the airship southwest, pulsing the engine and sending them streaking into the storm.
In the Stone District, torrents of rain scoured the empty streets, forming rivers of ice-cold runoff that storm drains channeled into steep canals. Not a soul dared to brave the night, every home-owning pony huddled deep within the crust of the mountain, curled around fires with their families and hiding from open-air windows. The world outside had lost itself to madness; a district was gone, and nopony knew the full story. Questions flurried like snowflakes: was my marefriend okay? Was my best foalhood buddy's house warmer? My old acquaintance lived in the Earth District, what happened to them? The yak embassy's walls rattled with a clock that never stopped ticking, counting down seconds until the sun would rise and the storm would break... or Ironridge would fall further, and the ponies below come up above to avenge what had been taken from them.
Below, on a switchback road bordered by waterfalls, a posse of pegasi bravely advanced, with one hatless leader and two dozen brave, weary guards, terrified by the knowledge that they were all that stood between a district of innocents and the ponies who had been losers for ten years. If any of them had compassion for the lower districts, it was edged out by fear, indoctrinated knowledge saying how little it would take to push these ponies over the edge. That edge had come, and so had the time to fight for those who couldn't.
Ahead, in a five-story stack of material lit by the last lights in Ironridge, the city of the oppressed shuddered the same. The mighty Earth District, Ironridge's engine of production and Sosa's backyard, thrown to the bottom of the city when the mountains became the new capital... everyone there had a reason to be, whether by tradition or inability to move up. Blueleaf was the bottom of the bottom, the landing pad for ponies economically fallen from the Stone District, and now the top had declared war on their new home. Sosa had vanished, the pegasi were coming, and they would be next. For the first time in history, Blueleaf had something the rest of Ironridge lacked: a power generator. The surest of the citizens strode forth to defend it, and everyone else stayed in their lit wooden shacks, fearing the ponies above and wishing they weren't about to be destroyed.
Karma Industries loomed to the north, surrounded by water and host to thousands of refugees. At the top, the remaining executives waited, looking out over Blueleaf's lights and Sosa's watery remains and thinking back on the twenty years that had led their city to this. Could it have been avoided? Where had they erred? Did they deserve another chance? And if they got one, how would they proceed?
The overflow of refugees filled processing warehouses all throughout the fruit groves, the ground outside muddy and rapidly turning to ice. Great pools of standing water surrounded tilting trees, showing where the already-receding floodwaters' highest surge had reached... but with the freezing rain, the ponies could only hope the waters wouldn't rise again. Most refugees knew nothing but claustrophobia and bad smells, living in one of the only hot places left in Ironridge thanks to the propagation of body heat and listening with folded ears to the rain drumming on the roof. Rumors flowed; no one had news of home for sure, and the orange-vested organizers walked patiently through the crowds had nothing but petitions for medical ponies to share. In a second-story manager's office, a family of twelve and a half waited without even rumors, White Chocolate trying desperately to protect her foals from the waves of panic breaking against her mind.
Far above them, separated by rain and wind and snow, blueish-white stormclouds churned like an endless explosion, spilling down from the mountains and out across the badlands for miles and miles. Somewhere beyond the eastern edge, an airship puttered, the last commercial flight to leave before the skyport closed for the night, the power outage and the storm. The passengers murmured, crowding around the windows and remarking with sophisticated ignorance how dreadful Ironridge's weather had always been. Two mares in particular, a pegasus and a unicorn, their tickets provided free of charge by Shinespark after they had assisted Gerardo with the Defense Force the day before, stared downwards instead, wondering if the river always looked that swollen, taking note of the small town below.
The Sky District itself was receiving the full brunt of the storm, the power outage removing energy to the anti-weather enchantments that strengthened and tuned the glass and steel against the wind and snow. A streak of black and green shot down one transport pipe with a blurring of wings, Valey and Starlight soaring through the connection from Skyfreeze at top speed. The tunnel swayed around them on its elevated supports, unable to resist being buffeted by the wind, and snow was already piling up and freezing in place against the meager shelter of the extruding supports. Everything groaned, the tunnel shifting like it was an awakening limb of a giant beast, but the chaos did nothing to sap the batpony's speed or determination.
The only place worse off was the eastern valley, its bedrock already at glacial temperatures from being buried for millennia. The lakewater had stopped draining; it was frozen in place, snow piling up over sheets of flowing ice and settling into holes in waterfalls that had solidified mid-tumble. Icicles formed from ledges, their shapes curved from the wind like fangs or claws, not even a wind barrier existing to protect the ground from the storm's wrath. To the north, Sosa suffered the same, the city's watery ruins afforded only a fraction of the protection of the Earth District by the fringes of the barrier. Everything was still, save for the snow and the wind... and then there was a flash.
A burst of violent, multi-colored magic ended with a plume of smoke on a semi-sheltered roof, intact enough not to collapse despite the conditions. There was a brief spell of coughing... before a strong, yellow stallion stepped out of the haze, scratching his beard and surveying his surroundings.
"...Heh. Looks like the long-distance teleporter worked like a charm. Always suspected a team of ponies would be enough to get that functional, since it never required a sustainable reaction... It's been too long since I've seen this place."
Arambai's grin held for an entire half-second, snow already beginning to catch in his black mane. Then it vanished. "And it's all flooded. Looks like they blew the dam after all. Not what I wanted to come back to, Ironridge..." He took two steps forward, a gigantic, threatening broadsword strapped to his back. "I hope whoever bungled this place up has good life insurance, because when I get my hooves on their sorry hide, there's gonna be tartarus to pay."
The transportation station in the first skyport terminal was dark and desolate as Valey soared in through the pipe to Skyfreeze. There wasn't a trace of emergency power remaining, but the same spectral light that refused to let the eastern valley go unlit filtered in through the blinding snow, giving more than enough illumination for Valey to make her way by.
She flapped over a dead transport cart, sitting at the terminal in an endless wait for passengers who were safe in their homes, and vaulted onto the loading platform, Starlight tucked against her back. Straining her senses and cutie mark to pick up any danger beyond the omnipresent, crushing force of the storm outside, she toggled her pendant again, feeling another flash of green. It no longer felt like she was wearing her sister around her neck. The pendant had been reduced to a tool she could trigger without thinking... and it was a useful one, the sensation of it being active forcing back some of the wrongness in her body that came from a combination of deep cold and lingering injuries. It very well might have physically given her the strength to keep going.
"What's that thing you keep doing?" Starlight mumbled against her coat, holding tight and weathering shivers of her own. "It feels weird. I don't like it..."
Valey blinked. "Uhh... nothing." Of course Starlight could feel it! She had used a higher intensity earlier to burn through her bindings on the elevator; it had a physical effect. Too bad it didn't warm the filly up. Then it would be good for both of them.
Glancing around to distract herself, she spotted several pedestrian tunnels leading deeper into the groaning, glass-and-steel behemoth of a building, sleet pelting against their transparent casings. Which way would have Herman gone... No, which way would Shinespark have assumed Herman went? Tunnel to the atrium? Maybe. Tunnel upwards towards flight loading docks? More likely. To someone who lived in the lower districts and associated both yaks and bad with up...
She took the stairs three at a time, resting her wings in case she needed them more later. The room above was closer to a tube than a dome, evenly-spaced kiosks against the outer wall separating doors to the outside, movable bridges ready to link them with docked airships. The rest of the space was filled with benches and chairs for waiting, support pillars plastered with fliers and announcements, and dead displays meant for showing flight schedules, advertisements, and entertainment.
"Don't see any ponies..." Valey murmured, staring up and down the length of the room from the stairwell where she had emerged. "Don't hear any ponies, but that's this place's fault for being loud... Don't smell any-"
With a building flash, a glowing sapphire streak zoomed past them, slowly braking in the distance before returning and landing in front of them with a shimmer of magic. Valey blinked, then grinned. "Hey, Sparky. Wow, you look even worse than the last time I saw you!"
Shinespark looked back at them, trembling beneath her orange coat, eyes dead and muted. "Valey," she croaked, staring almost as sightlessly as Starlight. "I can't find anyone. I just checked the eastern control tower. Maybe they're in the west one..."
"Okay, hold on..." Valey took a cautious step toward Shinespark. Her mark said the unicorn wasn't at risk of attacking her, but it couldn't tell if her target was about to flee. "You came here because of that bogus note? Listen, girl... You look like a liability to yourself and absolutely everyone right now, and I totally recommend chilling out and actually taking care of yourself real quick. Please?"
"They're here somewhere," Shinespark murmured. "I need to find them!"
Valey rolled her eyes. Had she not read the back of the note? Or did she just not care? "Look, my own reasons for being here are flimsy enough at the moment, but hunting Herman is-"
"My reasons aren't flimsy!" Shinespark interrupted, emotion building in her voice. "The Spirit weren't at Blueleaf! I looked! The Defense Force had a blockade, but they must have teleported past! I already searched the entire other terminal, so they must be in this one! Help me find them! Hurry!"
She grabbed Valey's shoulders, muzzle so close to Valey's own that she could smell the unicorn's breath. "Hold on, what?" Valey narrowed her eyes. "The Spirit? You're not here about Herman?"
"Herman?" Shinespark blinked, a snap of lucidity returning to her eyes. "I'm here about the Spirit! Valey, you know how Braen works!" Haunted, she slumped, staring at the tile floor. "I had to take back my cutie mark to survive. That would turn Braen into an empty suit of armor. The Spirit in Blueleaf would... think their leader had abandoned them. But I was their leader! For so many years, I told them whatever they needed to hear to retain hope, no matter how extreme! But I thought... When I planned for this flood, if the worst happened, I thought Braen would still be there to guide them! I wanted them to defend the Earth District in case the Defense Force were true barbarians and attacked while we were down, but now I'm not there, and they weren't there, and..." She collapsed, covering her head with her hooves.
"Oh, bananas..." Groaning, careful not to throw off Starlight, Valey knelt and tried to prop Shinespark up. "You didn't even go to Skyfreeze, did you? Just the skyport? Just... running after your nutcase bandit squad? I wasted all my time chasing you up there?"
"What's in Skyfreeze?" Shinespark asked, wiping a hoof across her eyes. "Valey, Braen and I taught the Spirit whatever it would take! I always knew we'd have to talk them down some day, because an all-or-nothing world wasn't the one we wanted to build, but I assumed I'd have Braen to do that, and it wouldn't be in the middle of a war, and..." She stared, pleading, up into Valey's slitted eyes. "I shouldn't have sat for so long in that cave. I shouldn't be sitting here now. I shouldn't have told them from the beginning that we could literally get the old Ironridge back by stealing weapons and robbing convoys! Now I can't find them, and they could be here trying to break the skyport, and with the storm and no power the structure is already stretched to its limit..."
Valey sat down. "Huh. Sounds like you've got some serious guilt issues going on, there."
"You think!?" Shinespark screamed in her face, eyes regaining a flicker of their old flame.
"Hey. Look." Valey stared seriously at her. "This skyport is totally creeping me out right now with all the storm stuff and how it feels like it's just gonna collapse or blow away or something. Like it's a coconut and the storm's a crab trying to crack it and get at us. And every minute I'm wondering more and more why I thought it was a good idea to come up here. So... you're important, Starlight's important, I'd really like to keep my butt in one piece... What do you say we bail somewhere warm and not spooky, and if this place falls over and pancakes Herman and all the Spirit goons, we say the wind blew it down and no biggie? Please? Look, I'm actually saying please. I'm ready to cut my losses, here."
Shinespark shook her head, mane limp and ragged from worry. "This skyport is built to withstand a blizzard with no power, but barely. It will be okay on its own, but not with anything else! Besides, the Spirit are my friends. I don't want them going on a suicide mission in my name! Especially not Grenada..."
"Grenada?" Valey blinked. "She's that half-sister who doesn't know she's your half-sister, wears her mane just like yours and probably totally doesn't have a crush on you?"
"Thanks," Shinespark growled. "And yes, she is. I'm not leaving her to die, become a terrorist, or both. We have to find them and stop this." She met Valey's eyes, gripping the batpony in her telekinesis to prevent her from looking away. "Help me. I can't... I'm barely keeping myself together as it is..." She sniffed, chest clenching. "I can't fail Ironridge again..."
"...Fine. But I'm not lifting a hoof to fight. Got it?" Valey lifted her burnt forehoof, waggling it for emphasis. "I'm seriously done with getting kicked around. Don't wanna make anyone else mad right now; I'm just in it to survive."
Shinespark's aura expanded, covering both her and Valey. "Then let's check the western control tower. I'm looking for places where the most damage could be done with technical knowledge, explosives, or both."
"Sure thing..." Valey resigned herself and Starlight to being floated along, suddenly imagining finding the Spirit locked in a duel with Herman.
The base of the western control tower was situated directly in the middle of the lobby, a hollow stalk rising from the floor to the ceiling and then beyond like a fancy, glass support column. Ordinarily, it was protected from pedestrians with a card-reader door, but that had been broken open, two heavily-armed unicorns standing watch outside.
"Shinespark?" one questioned, eyes shining in realization as Shinespark, Valey and Starlight approached. "Is that you?"
"You survived the dam?" The other pointed a hoof, jaw dropping hopefully. "We saw the flood, and thought everyone up there kicked it!"
The first rushed up to her, nearly taking her hoof and kissing it. "Please tell us you're here to take over! Braen's gone, and we're trying to carry out our final mission, but there's so much chaos, and this building is freaking me out! I know you're not technically part of the Spirit, but everyone else is up in the tower and there's a leadership spat going on and-"
Shinespark cut both of them off. "Stand down. That's an order. Whatever you're here for, you need to go home! Enough ponies have been killed already without this escalating any further!"
One pony happily stepped aside. The other hung his head, moving more slowly. "I... I really want to, but with Braen gone, this is when we need to stand up for her ideals most..."
"You just said she's gone, dude," the other pointed out. "She teleported off the moment we lost at the dam and just left her armor behind! If she can't put her money where her mouth is, why should we?"
"...I don't know..." The one who objected wilted, leaving enough room for Shinespark to push past and Valey to follow, slinking through the shadows.
"Go home!" Shinespark called back as she ascended. "The survivors need you! Help defend Blueleaf, or stay out of this entirely! The only way things can start recovering is if everyone stands down!"
The two guards looked at each other, and made no move to stop her. Eventually, one muttered, "Did she always have a brand?"
Shinespark galloped up the spiral staircase within the control tower, struggling not to slam into the walls from her speed and the tightness of the curve. She passed the level of the waiting room roof and kept climbing, surrounded on all sides by flurrying snow and winds that made the tower groan at its supports.
Eventually, the staircase let out into a disc-shaped observation room halfway up, another flight continuing up the shaft to reach the control room at the top. Manalights flickered upon the ceiling - apparently emergency power wasn't dead to the entire skyport, after all. Against one wall, crouched before an open access panel on a cabinet of manacircuitry, a burgundy mare with a familiar short manestyle worked, body shaking as her horn flickered in concentration.
"Grenada!" Shinespark gasped, noting that the rest of the room was empty and charging over to her half-sister.
Without a word or wasted heartbeat, Grenada dropped her work, turned around, and raced to Shinespark, burying her face in the orange mare's chest and sniffling. "I knew you weren't dead..." she whispered, barely audible over the winds outside. "When Braen went dull, I didn't think... didn't think that would happen because you died, so you'd have to do it consciously... Maybe to avoid a fall..."
Shinespark hugged her back. Valey whistled from the shadows, careful to stay out of earshot.
"Everyone's upstairs, aren't they?" Shinespark asked after too few seconds. "The power is on here. What are they trying to do?"
"I'm rerouting the emergency power," Grenada said, pulling back enough for her hardening eyes to be seen. "The upper districts won't get away with this. We're trying to open the roof shield on the airship hangar and let the storm do its work on everything inside. We think we can do it from here. Don't you worry. We're... We're staying strong..."
Shinespark's eyes widened. "No!" she protested, recoiling. "Grenada, Ironridge just lost a quarter of its economy and dozens of lives! The remainder of the Defense Force are massing at the border with Blueleaf, and if the Spirit attack the skyport in the name of revenge, they can strike right back even harder! More lives will be lost; civilian ones this time! And if we destroy the entire economy of Ironridge-"
"If we destroy the skyport, they'll get what's coming to them," Grenada interrupted. "That's what you always said. It's what you raised the Spirit and me on! Commander, this is our chance! We've always wanted Ironridge's economy to go back to the way it was, with Sosa at the top! And you said it yourself; the Defense Force aren't here! This is the best chance we've ever had to do this, and they just struck first! We already have nothing. If we don't, they'll just get farther ahead..."
"But Sosa isn't here anymore," Shinespark whispered, ears drooping. "There's no old way to go back to. Even before it was washed away, that was the reality. I said what I needed to to give the Spirit something to fight for, but it's never been possible to turn back time on a nation's economy..."
"Something to fight for?" Grenada was glaring. "So fight, then! If we're gone, or always have been gone, that's all the more reason to..." She broke off, choking on her words. "Commander, what happened to you? What happened to doing whatever it would take for Sosa? You're telling me not to fight back when they just wiped us off the map, after so many years of saying we had to keep going and never give up, and that nothing was the worst thing we could do! Why?" She fought back a sniffle and looked away. "That fire is gone from your eyes. It broke you, didn't it? We need you... Why did it have to be you...?"
"Broken?" Starlight stood up, climbing away from Valey and getting unsteadily to her hooves, feeling about to make sure she didn't whack into any obstacles. "She's trying to keep you safe, dummy! The Defense Force thinks Herman is dead! This stupid war could be over and you're trying to start it up again!"
Both unicorns blinked at her.
"Yeah, hate to burst your bubble on that..." Valey rose out of the shadows beside Starlight. "Maybe you didn't hear when I was trying to slap you out of your funk earlier, but we totally just spent a while clowning around looking for you in Skyfreeze, and we found a note from Herman up in the top saying he had bagged the Chancellor and taken him here. So with all the swords being pointed and the whole Blueleaf thing, I seriously recommend running away and not making this any nastier than it is."
"Herman is here?" Shinespark blinked, worry spreading on her face. "And he has Dior...?"
"Tried to tell you," Valey said with a shrug, rolling her shoulders. "Someone was a little too deep into panic mode to register that, apparently." She shot a glance at Grenada. "And for those who weren't on the dam, Herman was the one who made your district go blooie."
Grenada's gaze drifted downward in shock... before her determination redoubled. "Then it sounds like everything is going down in flames anyway. Commander... Braen... Shinespark..." Her watering eyes fixed on Shinespark, and she squared her hooves. "If things are this complex and tense, running away or standing down won't solve anything. We need to make our mark while we still have the chance. Go keep yourself safe. I... I care about you..." She sniffed again, turning for the staircase upwards. "And don't worry. If they've broken you and you can't go on, I'll fight for your ideals in your place."
"No!" Starlight hissed, starting in her general direction. "You idiot-"
"Woah, there." Valey reigned her in with a wing around the chest, pulling both of them back into shadow. "Kiddo, some ponies actually get attached to their homes and go maybe the tiniest bit bonkers when you turn that into a lake. Let's grab Sparky if we can and just get out of here, because this is way more trouble than it's worth."
Grenada didn't even have to reach the stairwell. An echoing voice called down it, "Hey, Grenada! Got the power working everywhere? We're ready to give this a try!"
"Yes!" Grenada called back, voice as loud as her small frame could make it. "Try it!"
"No!" Shinespark raced forward, knocking into Grenada and sending the mare crashing to the floor, not stopping or even slowing as she charged up the stairs. "Don't!"
"Aaand that's our cue to just bail," Valey muttered, instantly swimming toward the stairs down. "Who's outta here? We're outta here. Sorry, Sparky, but you can get yourself out of this..."
She passed by Grenada, meeting the mare's confused eyes. "She hit me," she whispered, not getting to her hooves.
"Welcome to instability city," Valey replied, backstroking so she could keep her eyes on Grenada. "Tip from a pro? If one of you can make Sparky generate that much drama, the top of this tower is probably literally going to explode depending on how many you've got up there. The smart thing right now really would be to run." She nodded at the stairwell. "And I'm not saying that just because you're cute. We might have that airship of yours up and running, and if Sparky explodes herself, we'll want someone who knows their way around it. But seriously, take care of yourself."
And with that, Valey and Starlight slipped down the stairs and were gone.
Shouts echoed down the stairwell. The open circuitry cabinet started to spark. Head spinning, Grenada struggled to her hooves.
Her side hurt from the abrupt landing, perhaps a little more than it should have. But then, her entire body was weary, presumably a function of the evening's stress that made her feel like she had walked a thousand miles and accrued just as many minor aches and bruises. The cold of the storm crept through the cores of her bones, and as she carefully paced back to the cabinet and nearby window, the winds howled just a little bit louder.
Everything should have been in order. Most of the skyport's remaining backup power reserves had been diverted to the hangar door; she had seen to that. There had been one power core in the central atrium she had been unable to access, but it shouldn't have mattered. The Spirit ponies upstairs just had to send the command...
Then, the storm broke. By some unknown force, as if it wanted everything that was about to unfold to be witnessed, the winds parted the flurried, leaving a clear tunnel of vision all the way from the control tower to a hump of glass and steel in the distance on the ground. It looked like someone had taken a barrel the size of three factories, turned it on its side, and buried it three-quarters beneath the snow and the earth. The airship hangar... The top could slide open, providing access for ships to fly in and out, but thanks to the power failure it was covered by at least a meter of freshly-fallen snow, no enchantments to keep it safe and unburied.
With a rumble she could feel more than hear, that snow covering shifted. A horizontal line appeared in the middle, then widened, as every emergency power source in the skyport had their reserves redirected to opening the door. Snow started collapsing, sliding in... and then the winds found purchase, tearing down the forming canyon and scraping the walls of show away. Soon, the opening roof was bare. The storm didn't stop there.
Like the claw of a titanic beast, the wind forced its way under the lips of the parting door. Pressures changed, the wind lifted up... and the roof, secured to its rolling tracks by gravity more than anything, began to rise.
Grenada's eyes widened in wonder as the sliding mechanism began to come apart under the violence of the storm, the wind pitting everything to widen the fault in the structure. Buffeted and improperly supported, the roof began to crack, distant booms ringing out as fractures appeared in the glass plates that spanned between supports. The roof halves began to rise like sails, supported by the wind, pieces splintering and spinning into the sky.
She wanted to stomp her hooves in applause, but found she couldn't. The storm's fury transfixed her, the scale of the destruction impossible to move in the face of. The largest building in Ironridge, the airship hangar, being systematically dissected by a force even greater... As more flakes and pieces of metal-reinforced glass began to crack off and blow away, each the size of a house, the tower groaned again around her, swaying. The lights flickered and went out.
Suddenly, Grenada's heart was pounding. There was a reason the skyport was closed for storms even when the power was on and the anti-weather enchantments activated at full strength. A denizen of the Earth District, she weathered Ironridge's storms underground, or beneath a protective barrier of insulating winds that trapped the jungle heat and reduced the wind and snow to breezes and heavy rains. Standing there in a tower on a mountain, so far from the crater's protection and staring the storm straight in the eye, it didn't feel like watching water fall from clouds. It felt like she had just made a deal with something infinitely powerful for it to destroy a different something she wanted gone... and now it was staring back, reminding her that she hadn't brought anything in payment.
With the precision of a veteran sniper, a jagged plate of glass from the disintegrating roof hurtled straight toward the tower, spinning like a diamond sawblade. It sheared straight through the shaft, halfway between the observation room and the boarding terminal roof, severing the tower so cleanly that Grenada barely even stumbled. As the world began to lean around her, the storm might have been laughing.
Valey and Starlight had barely cleared the door out of the control tower base when a wall or arctic wind billowed out behind them, throwing the batpony off her hooves and forcing her to roll to catch Starlight and prevent her from suffering a worse crash. She grunted from the impact, the filly landing on top of her, and quickly started to struggle back upright.
"Woah!" The two guards, who apparently hadn't left, jumped in alarm as the temperature in the room dropped noticeably, cold air laden with snowflakes drifting down the open shaft. "What the...?"
One stuck his head in to look up. "Wouldn't do that if I were you," Valey croaked. "That's gotta be a hole to the outside. I knew those clueless unicorns were about to blow..."
Flash!
With a gigantic burst of sapphire, a crowd of nearly a dozen ponies haphazardly appeared, Shinespark at the center. Her horn was smoking, her eyes glassed over... and her legs gave out beneath her, and she hit the floor. All of the ponies with her were heavily armed, though one in particular stood out: he was a short, lithe unicorn, and had somehow gotten inside the helmetless shell of Braen's armor.
A different stallion was instantly at Shinespark's side, propping her up as she tried to steady her heavy breathing. "See, Veralt?" He jabbed a hoof at the armored stallion. "She just teleported us all to safety! After we put ourselves in danger doing something she told us not to do! We should listen to her and go home! If anyone has the reputation to give everyone in Ironridge justice, it's her!"
Valey blinked in alarm. More unicorn drama? Wonderful. She sank out of sight.
"You forget yourself, soldier," Veralt rebuked, shaking his head. "It's not possible to be an ally to all of Ironridge when the city is at war with itself. Everyone is either for us or against us, and we can't take risks! Sosa is gone, and this is our one chance to show the upper districts what we've been feeling for the past ten years! I'm grateful that she saved us, but if she would do the same for our enemies..."
"She also demanded that you give back Braen's armor, just like Grenada," a mare at his side added. She stomped a hoof. "Shinespark is a good mare, but this armor belongs to whoever is going to use it to fight to the end for Braen's cause! And Shinespark could never fill Braen's horseshoes."
"Grenada...!" Gasping, Shinespark pushed away from the group of ponies, swaying unsteadily as she ran for the entrance to the decapitated control tower. "Where is she!? She made it out, right?"
The two stallions who had been left behind to stand guard blinked at her, shivering. "Only ponies that came out this way were that bat and a filly," one offered with a shrug.
The other bristled, suddenly searching the teleported group with a building panic. "Wait, we lost someone? We lost Grenada?"
"Grrrrr..." Snarling, Shinespark tried to force her way up the stairwell, being pushed back down by the weight of the winds.
"If we lost her, we can go on," Veralt consoled. "I'm prepared to fight on until I die, breaking this skyport with my bare hooves if I have to, and she should be honored that she died a similar death instead of retreating like I was afraid she would! As should you all! Leave Shinespark unless she tries to fight us; during peacetime she would be a paragonal mare and we should bear her no ill will! Let us find our next target and waste no more time here!"
He turned to go, but Shinespark blocked the way, horn glowing and forelegs locked in a battle stance. "No!" she growled, teeth bared. "Braen was about inspiring ponies, not running them to their deaths in the name of destruction! That armor doesn't belong to you! Give it to me!"
"Ba-da-boooom!" A chunky, double-chinned stallion to Veralt's side responded with the roar of a missile launcher, exactly the same make as Valey had borrowed in the Flame District. A rocket ignited, spewing a trail of magical flames as it streaked toward Shinespark. Her horn glowed brighter, catching the projectile in an envelope of telekinesis that also spread around her and hardened into a shield... but there was no stopping the missile's propulsion. It shoved against her and sent her sliding, shield and all, in an ever-accelerating arc toward a distant wall, where a fiery explosion removed her from sight.
"Hey!" The mare who had spoken up in defense of Veralt earlier rounded on him, her own horn glowing and an energy weapon drawn. "You just killed Shinespark!"
The missile stallion belched, but before he could answer Veralt stepped in front of him, extinguishing the mare's aura with a wisp of his own. "For us, or for our enemies. Right now, there's no such thing as both. If you've any moral reservations you haven't dealt with before following us this far, I suggest-"
He was interrupted by a punch from a stallion carrying what looked to be a portable battering ram, Braen's armor protecting him but sending his staggering back. "You take that back!" the challenger roared. "Shinespark was the best thing to happen to any of the districts in the last twenty years!"
The ponies didn't even have the chance to form lines. An open brawl devolved, the temperature in the room plunging even more as Valey swam furiously away toward the missile impact site, Starlight clutched tightly to her chest.
There, from the edge of a slowly-clearing screen of smoke, Shinespark watched, the wall behind her dented from where her shield had impacted it, holding just long enough to protect her from the explosion that ensued. All around her, the glass walls and ceiling were cracked from the blast, leaking swirls of cold air that traced through the room and ruffled her mane as she shook, sobbing.
"They're fighting over me," she choked as Valey surfaced in front of her. The air was clear enough that she could be seen from the brawl, but nobody cared. "For the past seven years, they've been my friends... the ponies I did the most to give hope... the ponies who needed it the most. And now they don't even recognize me..."
"Ya think?" Valey looked sideways at her. "Maybe that has just a little to do with you telling them to their faces that the upper districts were ridiculously irredeemably bad and getting them to be all militant in the first place? Robbing convoys and stuff? You wanted a goon squad that thinks with their blasters, there it is."
Shinespark buried her head in her hooves. "I told them what I had to to give them hope! We... We needed someone to take the weapons so we could keep the contract cycle going! I never thought it would come to this, where they'd get the chance to put it all into practice! I never meant for this to happen..."
"Wow, famous last words, right there." Valey rolled her shoulders. "You know, the Spirit are... what, fifty ponies at best? Before the big bang at the dam? Out of the entire Earth District, which is like in the hundreds of thousands, or something? You could totally have just left these ones alone, settled for your ninety-nine-point-million percent success rate, kept the whole city just a little saner..." She lifted an eyebrow. "You kinda messed up, here."
"Don't remind me..." Shinespark sniffled. "I was in charge of everything. Maybe I couldn't have stopped what happened at the dam, but everything else... this... Grenada..."
Starlight coughed. "I can still hear them fighting, and it's cold here. Can we leave? Please?"
Valey straightened up and glanced around. The missile had left them not far from a tunnel marked 'Atrium,' which ostensibly would have a way back to the Stone District. "Yeah..." Adjusting Starlight on her back, she took a step toward it. "I've said I'm done with this place so many times it's probably meaningless, but seriously, I want out of here. Sparky? You coming?"
"What?" Shinespark blinked at her. "What's in it for...?" She swallowed. "Valey, why are you even here? You keep coming after me. You're fine leaving them behind, but not me..." She glanced back at the fight, which seemed to be gearing up as the remaining ponies took cover and dug in. "Why? You should hate me. I had the entire world given to me for free just because of when, where and to whom I was born. We've been on opposite sides of the city all our lives, and I've done nothing but make your life hard by making the Spirit and demanding scientific favors of you. And now I messed up with all the power I was given and made this..." She clenched her eyes. "I wish I had an easy route, or someone I could blame, or some way to just quit and leave... so why are you here for me?"
Valey blinked. "You mean why am I trying to drag your rear out of this skyport in one piece instead of just saving myself?" She shrugged. "Hey, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf as anything other than the bad guy because the world says so. Maybe that means hanging out with ponies who are actually decent, but it definitely doesn't mean turning into some giant superhero and saving all of Ironridge. That's your job, hero." She jabbed Shinespark in the chest for emphasis. "Still, Ironridge kinda needs it, and I figure running away right now and being selfish... Well, I'm already gonna have to do a ton of thinking to live with myself after all this quiets down, and I don't need any more. If you want to think of it in less flattering terms, I'm saving you so you can save Ironridge for me and I can both be lazy and feel good about myself. Make sense?"
"Being a hero was just what was expected of me," Shinespark sighed. "Like with you and being a menace, apparently. It doesn't mean I'm destined to live up to it. And when I think I am, I just forget about the consequences of failing, like... like this..." She glanced again at the fighting Spirit.
"Okay. Not good enough?" Valey's tail flicked, and she grinned. "I'm sticking around and trying to drag you out of here 'cuz I like cute mares. How's that?"
Shinespark's cheeks lit up in embarrassment. "Y-You're flirting with me? Really? Now?"
Valey shrugged. "Hey, it's better than saying I only came up here before I knew the storm would get this bad because I thought it would be the best place to track down my friends, with a side helping of finding the Chancellor and getting him to yell at those clowns at the Blueleaf border, and since both of those are bust I'm trying to save you as a consolation prize."
"Seriously, can we go!?" Starlight growled. "I feel terrible and really want to get back to Maple!"
"You feel bad too?" Shinespark looked curiously at her, straightening up and starting toward the atrium tunnel. "Physically? I've been feeling aches and bruises I don't remember getting, but assumed it was just stress. Then again, you've probably been even more stressed than me..."
"Enough stressing, more bailing!" Valey charged ahead, Shinespark hot on her heels, down the tunnel and away from the boarding room.
Grenada felt the ground rise under her as the wind seized the severed tower, lifting it clean off its shaft and hefting it into the sky. She stumbled again, trying and failing to keep her balance as the realization of what was happening sunk in.
They had blown up the airship hangar. The airship hangar had just sentenced them to death in return.
A bright blue flash gleamed from up the staircase. That was Braen's aura! Braen had been up there, along with the rest of the Spirit... Braen... Shinespark...
She gasped, a strange lucidity flooding through her head, as if time itself had slowed down. Thoughts she should have had in the minutes preceding surfaced: what was that Valey had said about their airship? Braen wanted her to fight. Shinespark wanted her to live. But they were two halves of the same pony... and neither was Veralt, the stallion who had been first to teleport inside Braen's armor once they realized at Blueleaf that it was empty. She had tried to take it for herself. That armor didn't deserve to be worn by anyone who didn't know its true purpose.
But it was, and she hadn't even apologized to Shinespark for not protecting it herself. Was Shinespark up at the top of the tower? No, that flash had been teleportation. It had to have been! Grenada needed to get out... Her own horn lit with the same ruby as her eyes, thinking for her, readying a teleport to the boarding room that had to still be somewhere below...
The tower flipped over, then again, throwing her into the air. Her horn cracked against something, causing her to lose the spell with a burst of stars in her vision. "Gyaaaaaaaaah!"
She tumbled, slamming against walls, the floor, the ceiling, head splitting from the blow, incapable of doing anything more than wishing for survival. A titanic crash rang out while she was mid-bounce; the tower had struck something hard. It bounced again, blew... and came to a rest, lodged firm and unmoving.
"No..." Grenada croaked, too dizzy to register if her bones were intact, whether she was right-side-up, or even if there was light around her. "Shinespark... I don't want to die..."
The wind was muted. The air was cold. Over and over, she repeated that last phrase with a hair of a breath... until she slipped into unconsciousness. Save for the slow, shallow rise and fall of her sides, all was still.
In a distant part of the skyport, in another boarding terminal near the destroyed hangar, a sealed door stood firm against the weather, separating the waiting room from a bridge that would serve as a gangplank in calmer weather. The wind battered against it, blowing down a narrow outdoor tunnel that provided a modicum of shelter, but it didn't budge, because it was well-designed and that was what it was designed to do.
Until a long, flat black spike forced its way through from the outside, slicing effortlessly through the metal.
Gerardo Guillaume's sword swept in a circuit, carving an entry that was kicked inwards upon completion, the frosty griffon climbing eagerly through. Behind him, Shinespark's ship hovered at the dock, the close proximity of its magical propulsion system repelling the weather enough for creatures to function outside. Following him, crossing from the deck and into the skyport, were ten of the fittest Sosans and pegasi who had been rescued, Blast Furnace and Mosswater at the forefront. Some limped, many had burns, and all entered with a steely determination that let them go on anyway.
"The skyport..." Blast Furnace exhaled, coming to a stop and glancing around the cavernous, snow-covered boarding room. "Your ship will be fine waiting for our return?"
"It should be, yes." Gerardo nodded. "There was enough talent in the group remaining behind that I've secured a backup pilot and left them to keep it in place. Although, it would still be prudent to make haste."
"That's not the only reason," Mosswater coughed, leaning against another Spirit pony for support, her side ultimately having been bandaged. "Don't forget why we're here..."
Blast Furnace exhaled. "The rest of the Spirit."
"And, namely, the possibility that they somehow got past the Defense Force at Blueleaf, be it through battle or sneakery..." Gerardo ruffled his wings. "And now intend to deal vengeance upon this facility. An economic powerhouse for an economic powerhouse, as it were. I'll do what I can to aid you if you think your mutual understanding regarding what happened on the dam will be able to defuse any tensions, though I'm admittedly curious as to how we'll tell whether they're here or still held up at the Stone District border with only ten ponies..."
"We'll figure that out as we go," Mosswater said, trying to stand on her own. "The important thing is to try! They'll be fresher than we are, too..."
Muted wind from the broken door tossed the remaining strands of Blast Furnace's mane. "Then we need to be smart about where to look. The Spirit are armed, but not enough to destroy this facility entirely. They'll go after high-value targets first, and things that can be broken without wasting limited resources like explosives."
"Right..." Mosswater nodded. "That would be any nodes in the technological infrastructure like control stations. Each boarding room like this has two control towers, which regulate some facility functions as well as landing, scheduling and routing control, but there are eight in total, and four of them are in the next hub over. They might be headed to the museum, but I don't think robbing it of Sosan artifacts is the important part. Then there's the main hangar, which wasn't the most expensive to initially construct but contains a lot of valuable equipment. Forty-eight general purpose ship charging and storage docks, six specially-kitted repair docks, four jumbo docks built in anticipation of larger future airships-"
"And plenty of ships themselves, I presume," Gerardo finished, cutting her off. "Precise numbers aside, it sounds as though that is a prime target. I must say, though, you seem quite knowledgeable about this?"
Mosswater sighed. "In the Spirit... we spent a lot of time daydreaming about scenarios like this. That and robbing our own convoys was all we ever did, really: sit around and think about the future. Only, every time we imagined getting square with the upper districts and forcing everyone to return to water for transportation... we thought we'd have a Sosa to return to. Having our lives saved by the Defense Force didn't factor into it, either. I can see a lot of us doing it anyway, especially without that time in the lighthouse to cool our heads, and half of me badly wants to see this place burn... but an Ironridge with both of its connections to the outside world gone is an Ironridge no longer on the map."
"Agreed." Blast Furnace took a step forward. "Can we reach it from here? We shouldn't delay."
The hangar was, in fact, accessible from the main skyport complexes... though not in the same manner as the rest of the area. A tunnel connected it through the ground, and after a long flight down a powerless elevator shaft, they found themselves in a passage reminiscent of the Water District. Powerless conveyor belts covered the floor, along with a rail for a moving cart, normally intended to help officials, engineers and maintenance ponies improve the speed of their travels. But Gerardo and his battered army had to make do without, walking at a stiff pace, horns lit for illumination. It was warmer than upstairs, likely due to the proximity of the Flame District, so at least the journey was a more comfortable one.
For the most part, the tunnel was without side passages, though at one point Gerardo noticed a poorly-visible metal door marked 'Emergency Exit.' It was rusted shut, which somewhat defeated the point.
Still, it proved no match for the griffon's sword and curiosity, the bolt and hinges finding themselves sliced from the wall as the fighters marched ahead. Gerardo allowed himself a quick peek through; his wings were working enough that he could fly to catch up.
The door let out into a series of switchback staircases descending below the tunnel. Signalling that he would catch up, Gerardo dove down, instinct telling him that a way out of the Sky District he didn't know about before could prove useful, provided the path was intact.
The staircase was long. With nothing better to do, he counted one hundred and eighteen flights at seven steps each, though before he could math out how many steps that equated to, he was at another door. This one wasn't rusted, though it did fit poorly in its frame. He kicked it open...
And got a faceful of smoke and foul air. The door let out into the very top of the Flame District core, and without the ventilation systems online, the ceiling had accumulated all manner of gasses meant to be dispersed. He got a vague impression of a small, ill-used catwalk leading into the structure, then backed out and cracked the door shut, not needing any more of that air. He filed the passage as 'last resort' in his mind, then took wing, racing back up the long staircase to rejoin the ponies.
The transport tunnel reached its end, a staircase thoughtfully added alongside the dormant elevator. Ten ponies and a griffon made their way up, finding both exiting onto a platform next to a wide service door that was presently closed.
"Let me see this..." Mosswater stepped up to a cable box next to the door, prying the lid off with her telekinesis. "This door should open into the hangar. If they came here, it doesn't look like they came through this way, but we should check to be sure. Give me a minute..."
Her magic rearranged cables with sparks and flashes, then she stepped back. "Whoever has the strongest horn," she requested, "stick it in there, touch the tip to the orange terminal, and give it all you've got."
A stallion nodded, stepping forward and grimacing in concentration as his horn burst into a magical corona. With a smooth, well-oiled grind, the door retracted into the ceiling.
Immediately, a wave of bitter air rolled into the tunnel, and a short wall of snow on the other side of the door collapsed, casting ice over every pony's hooves.
"T-This is..." Gerardo's beak chattered as he danced back from the cold, collapsed snow spilling about his talons as more heavy flakes flurried in from above.
"What happened to the ceiling?" Blast Furnace asked, staring upward into a wall of bluey-gray. "It's gone..."
Muffled winds echoed down from high above, but for the moment the interior of the hangar was still, the incoming snow drifting and spiraling lazily, barely being tossed. It was a deceptive calm that disguised the intense cold, as if the storm wanted to offer the spot in refuge to battered ponies, then freeze them to death while their backs were against the wall.
The retracting door let them out at the bottom of an industrial gully that was rapidly filling with a blanket of white, stalls holding docked airships lining the walls to either side. The ships were separated only by raised catwalks for maintenance and boarding, and many were askew, crushed or damaged by twisted chunks of fallen steel and glass and other debris.
"We're too late..." A Defense Force stallion started shaking. "Look at this place! Everything's snowy, and there's metal and garbage laying everywhere, and some of the ships look trashed, and..." He trailed off, pointing a wing at the detritus littering the ground between damaged ships. "Those terrorists!"
"Hey." Mosswater shot him a consoling look. "We just had our home violently destroyed. As much as we need to stop them before they can do more... they have good reasons, and are our friends. Empathize, if nothing else."
Suddenly, as if in welcome, the calm air became a raging gale just above their heads. It caught the massive dirigible of one ship, dragging it sideways, turning it and smashing through a catwalk until the ship's prow rammed into the side of the one moored next to it. Their hulls collided, metal ground, splinters and sparks flew everywhere... and then the wind dissipated back to nothing, leaving two ships twisted into one as a show of its power. The rest of the room appeared to be untouched.
"Now that's just creepy," a Sosan who had lost an ear and a decent amount of fur around it muttered. "The door was closed, so you wouldn't think they've been here yet. But where'd the roof go? And how's this place exposed to the storm without instantly getting wiped away?"
A deep boom echoed in the distance, accompanied by the howl of wind. "I don't like this either," Gerardo replied, still staring down the snow-coated tarmac between the rows of parked ships. "It feels less immediately lethal and more like a trap, though who a trap in a place like this would be set by and for completely elude me. However, if this room being unsealed is pony-made, it implies that our Sosan friends are indeed in play here. I recommend falling back into the tunnel where it is warmer and trying to intercept them should they leave and move on to another target."
Mosswater sighed. "If they were even here in the first place, and didn't do this remotely. Would you want to be in a room you were planning to open up to the storm like this?"
"Oh, hardly," Gerardo laughed. "Though I fail to see how they could do this remotely with the power... off..." He trailed off, squinting. "I say, does that look like a pony to you?"
A dark silhouette was visible in the distance through the falling snow, though he couldn't make out how far. Or maybe it was two... or three, huddled close together? His companions paused to look for themselves, before one opted to give away their position. "Hey! Over here!"
Blast Furnace and Mosswater both turned to silence the offender. Gerardo, however, grimaced. "As the fittest of us, I think I'm going to take a peek ahead. Everyone who is injured, stay near shelter."
Without waiting for objections, he spread his wings and soared out into the snow, icy air enveloping him. It was at the perfect temperature to be harsh and painful without impeding his ability to fly, and he skimmed low to the ground, dusting the snowdrifts with his feathertips. His target quickly came into better view.
Three ponies, all pegasi, trudged along together, not flying over the belly-deep snow. Two were stallions, the third was a mare, and they walked with their sides touching and wings over each others' backs to conserve body heat. In fact, the mare looked barely able to keep her head upright, sandwiched between the others and on the verge of passing out.
"Pegasi?" Gerardo asked, eyeing them curiously. "I was expecting Sosans. You didn't perpetrate this, did you?"
"No," one pegasus growled, coat fluffed against the cold. "We were here earlier, and then the roof tried to open... It blew away. We've been stuck here and are looking for a way out. How did you get in?"
Gerardo nodded over his shoulder. "A tunnel from one of the main terminals. Myself and a group of survivors are here with an airship, attempting to track down and neutralize any Spirit remnants attempting to take revenge for the loss of their own district. It's not far, and is a good deal more survivable than these conditions."
"So cold..." the mare murmured, slumping.
One of the stallions glanced down at her, propping her head back upright with a nudge. "It'll be okay, Rainstorm. Gerardo says we're close to a way out..."
Gerardo blinked. "I say, you know my name? Has my fame really spread so... rapidly...?" He blinked harder, and his eyes narrowed. "Wait a moment... Your face... Rainstorm... Do I know you?" He jabbed a talon at her. "I remember you! You blocked our path while we were escaping from the Flame District! You three are with those mercenaries that accosted us!"
"Mhmm..." Rainstorm whimpered, starkly defeated and helpless next to Gerardo's memory of the unflinching combatants from the caves.
"Yes," one of the stallions acknowledged, "we are. It was business, not personal, and that contract is over. We aren't going to fight you now. But if that means you won't help us..." He gave a sorrowful glance at Rainstorm and the other stallion. "We... understand."
Gerardo swallowed, feeling a bubble of anger welling up. "You are aware of how highly you inconvenienced myself and my friends?" He shot them a hard glare. "In stopping you, one of my companions grievously wounded their horn, and another may have permanently broken their brand! What's more, you effectively herded us straight into the middle of an exceptionally lethal battle, and now that we're here, I find myself well within my rights to-"
He was cut off as the wind howled again, gaining a sudden burst of intensity. Snow whipped past their faces, and a great groaning echoed down the corridor... followed by a metallic boom from the direction he had came. Gerardo whirled, looked, and as the wind vanished and died, saw two ships from opposite sides of the corridor that had been dragged out of their docks and rammed together like an elevator door, cutting off the path by which he had came.
"...Did two ships just get blown in opposite directions at once?" His jaw dropped. "If I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes, I'd... I'd..." He gulped. "Well, regrettably, that was the way out. I don't suppose flying over any obstacles is an option?" He glanced hopefully at the pegasi, all of whom had their wings occupied in staying upright and warm.
They shook their heads. "It doesn't look like it, but there's wind," one sighed. "Bad wind. There are obstacles like that all over this place. It's practically a maze. And every time we try to fly over them... That's why Rainstorm is in as bad of shape as she's in."
"Regrettable and annoying," Gerardo huffed. "Still..."
He trailed off, vision switching between the freezing mercenaries on one side and the wrecked airships on the other. "It seems forgiveness and cooperation in the name of survival are in order. I'll be very interested in exchanging words and explanations later, but for now, let us focus on reaching that exit alive." He extended a frozen talon. "Does anyone have a floor plan for this place?"
One pegasus took it with his wing, giving a single shake of agreement. "Wouldn't do much good, what with how much can and has changed. It's like a maze that rearranges itself in here. But if there's a way out, we at least need to get back to the others and let them know."
"Others?" Gerardo tilted his head, already following the pegasi's lead. "The rest of you are here, as well?"
"For a given definition of rest. Sixteen of our eighteen pegasi are here, counting us... or is it seventeen, now that Howe got kicked out?" He scratched his head. "The same team that fought you, pretty much: every pegasus we had that could be mobilized. Couldn't send any earth ponies or unicorns because we had to fly up here." Sighing, he looked aside at the other stallion, who was still trying to keep Rainstorm awake. "I'm Darkwind, by the way, and this is Avalanche. If you notice a pattern, it's because we're all from the same tribe in Yakyakistan."
Gerardo nodded, the snow offering slightly less resistance as he fell into the groove of walking. "I see. Is the entire company like that?"
"Most, but not all." Darkwind shrugged. "It's where we got the company started, back when it was a smaller, all-pegasus group without Kero or the warm-weather ponies. In Yakyakistan, the weather is like this a lot more often, so we're at least used to it. Doesn't mean it can't beat us, though." He shot another look at Rainstorm, who was still awake. "Hmmmmmph..."
Gerardo had been to Yakyakistan before and wasn't surprised by many of the pegasus's statements, but kept that to himself in the name of sustaining friendly conversation. He had to hand it to Darkwind: now that they had a working alliance, he was doing better than necessary to be pleasant. "Sixteen of you are here, you said, out of seventeen? What happened to the last one?"
"Bourbon? Same reason she wasn't in the tunnels," Darkwind grunted. "Just far enough into her first foal that it would be bad if she suddenly got dizzy or nauseous in a fight. And it could be real bad if she took a hit the wrong way to the gut."
"That... does indeed sound like a valid reason to sit out a fight," Gerardo said, wincing in pre-emptive empathy. "If you don't mind my curiosity, though, what's a member of an elite mercenary group doing engaging in these family affairs? Given how lengthy such incapacitations tend to be..."
Darkwind exhaled, the wind around them keeping its silence for the time being. "We're more than just a band of fighters," he settled for, thinking slowly about his words. "For everyone with us, this is their home. It's not just where we work, it's where we live... all aspects of life, including families. We have friendships, courtships, married couples. We have ponies who joined up based on a relationship with someone already here. We have ponies who can't fight, whether by disability or career, and even foals, and we take care of them as long as they need it."
"Rainstorm has a foal," the other stallion, Avalanche, offered, still trying to rouse the barely-conscious mare. "Stormy, talk to us. Tell us about your foal."
"He's a colt..." Rainstorm murmured, flicking her ears and struggling to move her dragging legs. "He'll be six this summer... His name is Swift, and he's going to be a great flier..."
Respectfully, Gerardo held his silence, letting the stallions tend to their frozen companion. Darkwind, however, cracked a sly smile and said, "Tell Gerardo about everything we did to support you in having him, like that one time I saved you in Varsidel. He's very curious."
A touch of pink somehow made its way to Rainstorm's pale cheeks. "Nooo..." she protested, struggling weakly. "That was so embarrassing..."
Gerardo raised an icy talon. "If I'm intruding on anything private..."
"Hush." Darkwind cut him off. "Focus, Rainstorm. Better to be awake and embarrassed than asleep in the cold."
"Fine..." Rainstorm grumbled, staying pink. "I'm small, so I usually... do reconnaissance..." She yawned, but kept talking through it. "And I had stayed at the ship for so many months, and badly wanted some action, and then we got an easy job where I could just get information and stay safe, and..." Her ears folded, and pink turned to red. "I underestimated how big I had gotten, and... got stuck in an air duct..."
Gerardo's eyebrows both rose. Darkwind grinned, nudging her to go on, and Avalanche looked torn between glaring at him and being grateful.
"It's not funny!" Rainstorm protested, voice strengthening. "Really! The duct got narrower and I couldn't turn around or back out! I was scared in there!" She glared at Darkwind. "You're terrible!"
"But it livened you up," Darkwind said, and Gerardo had to agree. Rainstorm wasn't sagging nearly as much as she had earlier; it looked like she was actually recovering.
Rainstorm huffed, suddenly shivering. "Now I have to survive just so I can tell him about the time you got arrested in Mistvale for making eyes at a sarosian and we had to-"
"Yes, yes. Survival is good," Darkwind interrupted her by saying. "You should definitely do that."
"Well, you certainly torment each other like a family," Gerardo admitted lightly as Avalanche almost laughed, measuring his own stamina and deciding he still had a decent amount of time left before being incapacitated by the cold, so long as the present conditions held. "I heard mention of you being on a ship, though? What's this?"
"We have an airship," Darkwind said, nodding. "It's our company base when we're on the go, and for short-term jobs. Ironridge is a lengthier assignment, so we've had a roomier facility rented in the Stone District to use instead, near the yak embassy on the western edge. It's also the reason we're here." He glared up at the heavily-snowing sky. "Kero said capturing Valey, dead or alive, would be our last assignment, and that we were leaving Ironridge and heading for the Griffon Empire once it was done. After that magic teleported us out of the caves while we were fighting you, we made the decision as a group that the job wasn't worth it and we were leaving right then. Everything exploding made it a lot easier. Some of us flew up to get the ship, since we knew the power outage would close the skyport and we didn't know when it would re-open, but when we got here, it was gone."
Rainstorm took over for him, heeding the importance of staying awake. "Its stall was empty," she said, shivering between the two stallions that carried her. "We went back to let everyone know, and decided to send all the pegasi who could up here to look for records or clues. But then the storm got bad while we were here, and eventually someone tried to open the roof. I have no idea how, since the power was out. It was a good ship, too, freshly repaired and kitted and designed to be ran by a skeleton crew for emergencies. Now we're stuck here, just hoping we survive the storm..."
"We will survive," Avalanche assured her. "Don't you worry, Stormy. We'll see Swift again."
Darkwind nodded. "Yes, we will. The place where we left the others is just ahead."
The air inside the opened hangar remained unnervingly calm as Gerardo and the three pegasi approached an area where two ships had been twisted sideways, creating a space that was sheltered enough to be free from fresh snowfall. They pushed inside through a narrow gap between the two hulls to find thirteen pegasi warming themselves by a small fire; it looked like they had used wood from one of the damaged airships as fuel.
Rainstorm immediately rushed to the flames, basking gratefully in the meager heat. The waiting pegasi eyed Gerardo with a mix of curiosity and suspicion, several outright frowning. "Look," one said, "if you're looking for revenge for our fight in the Flame District-"
There was an echoing boom as the wind grew and slammed ships in the distance. Gerardo quickly cut the stallion off: "I hardly think this is the best time or place for that. While our past interaction has been decidedly unpleasant, matters of justice and fairness can and should be settled once our lives aren't all on the line courtesy of this accursed weather. Don't you agree?" He gave them a sharp eye.
Darkwind stepped in. "I don't think he's the type to risk his own life in the name of revenge," he said, nodding at Gerardo. "Besides, Kero isn't even here right now. Our shared interest is in getting somewhere warm and safe, and there's apparently a service tunnel out of here."
The pegasi started murmuring, giving possibly-more accepting looks to Gerardo. "A tunnel?" one grunted. "As in, not the main bridge to the B Terminal that blew down when the roof opened?"
"...There was a more main route than this?" Gerardo blinked several times. "I didn't know that. Perhaps what I used was an old construction road, then. Either way, yes, I am aware of an intact way to parts of the skyport that are, last I checked, still standing."
"How far is it?" a stallion asked. "Most of us are from Yakyakistan and are used to the cold, but I'm from Varsidel and have a shorter coat. There are a few of us who won't manage out in the wind!"
"I don't know," Darkwind sighed. "The wind blew some ships across the way we came. We'll have to find our own way back."
Gerardo coughed for attention, smugly patting his sword. "Actually, physical barriers are no obstacle to me, I assure you. Whatever bad fortune these winds wish upon us can be mitigated with proper application of slicing, dicing, and carting away debris. All told, I would say it amounts to fifteen minutes' very slow walk."
The pegasi glanced around at each other. "That's not far," one remarked.
"Hey..." A suspicious mare pointed a hoof at Gerardo. "If you're not out here chasing us down while we're trapped to get us back for hunting you and your friends, why are you here? I don't trust this."
"Ah, simple." Gerardo held a talon to his breast. "Myself, along with a coalition of survivors from the battle at the dam, are here in anticipation of the Spirit of Sosa launching a strike against this facility."
The mare tilted her head, face scrunched in confusion. "Wait, you are looking for a fight? But it's not with us? You want to fight the Spirit even more?" She sighed, tossing her mane. "Whatever. It's not like this city ever made sense in the first place."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Well, it's less of looking for a fight and more intending to talk them out of damaging Ironridge's remaining connection with the world and effectively isolating the city. Besides, I'm reasonably sure of the survivors, only two or three are remotely fit for battle. It's less a mission that we're doing because we are suited for it and more that everyone else is even less so. However, especially in light of the apparent destruction of this building, it seems they are both here and must be stopped, and that is my present goal."
Darkwind nodded at the confused mare. "Don't worry, Harshwater. Our contract is done in Ironridge. We won't be seeing any more fighting."
"Don't worry?" Harshwater blinked incredulously at him. Then, her mouth split in a grin. "Hey, Gerardo. How many Spirit ponies are we talking about, here?"
Gerardo winced. "It is... extremely unnerving, being addressed by name by ponies I have not introduced myself to..." Swallowing, he quickly composed himself. "I can't say for certain, though I'd imagine less than twenty. Likely all armed to the teeth, however."
Harshwater wiggled her eyebrows hopefully at Darkwind. "About as many as us, huh? Even odds, Mister Darkwind? And it would be just terrible for the city if they blew anything more up?"
"Harshwater, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking..." Darkwind raised a hoof in caution.
"Ayep!" Harshwater giggled. "We can probably take them down without a single scratch. We can fly, so we're faster than them... we've seen real action... they're from the stupid hot district, so they're probably getting wrecked by the cold... and then Ironridge will owe us big time! Maybe we can even get them to give us a new ship, since ours is totally gone without a trace."
"Ah, yes. Before I forget." Gerardo raised an important talon. "In terms of resources we have available to bring them to justice, I feel it's important to mention that I possess a ship that can fly in this weather. Such could prove an invaluable tool."
Darkwind gave him a stare that was borderline deadpan. "If you're trying to trick us into stealing a trapped ship, that's too obvious. And if you're being honest... you're far too trusting."
Gerardo wilted, more wind and booming echoing throughout the chamber. Several of the pegasi were climbing to their hooves, however, most looking at Harshwater. "If we're going to try to get anything for protecting the skyport," one observed, "we better do it while there's still anything left to protect."
"Do we even know for sure that he's telling the truth?" another asked, pointing at Gerardo. "How do we know the Spirit opened the roof? How does he know? I mean, how did they do it in the first place if the power was out? Rerouting emergency backups, or something? That would take so much studying to know how to do..."
"Remember," Darkwind cautioned, "what Harshwater is suggesting isn't contracted work. We might not get paid at all, and if it were an offer, I would reject it. It's time we got to go home."
Harshwater harrumphed. "Then whoever wants to sit out can sit out. I'm awesome enough to beat them all up on my own."
Grumbling, another one countered, "You were also awesome enough in the tunnels to freak out when Valey grabbed you and kick me in the face..."
"Hey, that's not fair!" Harshwater snapped back. "She used her shadow magic on my eyes and I was disoriented!"
"The point is," Darkwind growled, "we're not invincible. None of us are. We've gone without casualties for an entire year thanks to being in Ironridge, despite extreme danger from our last mission, and aren't out of the storm yet. Be careful, and don't cost us a perfect survival rating on a job this long."
"Either way, might we go?" Gerardo knocked against the ship wall. "I've left the rest of my allies waiting, and both escaping and protecting the skyport are not being accomplished by waiting here in the cold! I, for one, have some familiarity with cold-weather flying but am not far from the point where I will become actively handicapped and unable to go on. We must hurry!"
Darkwind raised his voice. "Yes! We're moving out. Everyone who can't fly, get with someone who can! Stick low to the ground, keep together, and be prepared to rush to the next shelter. On ten!"
A countdown ensued, during which the pegasi scrambled, a few approaching others for rides while some scattered the fire, just in case. Gerardo himself flexed his wings, deciding he was definitely still capable of a short glide.
A sighing Rainstorm walked past him, looking wistfully at the embers of the fire, and Gerardo cleared his throat. "I take it you're feeling better?"
"Huh?" She glanced back at him. "Oh. Yes. I am. I can't believe I almost froze to death..." She hugged herself with her wings. "Usually I'm one of the best with cold, which is why I was out there. I think I forgot most of what happened, and my mind is maybe a little slow right now, so sorry. But if you did do anything, thanks. Even if it was just being worried."
Before Gerardo could reply, Darkwind whistled sharply, and they set out.
Eleven wingspans trailed powdered snow, half of the mercenaries loaded down assisting their warmer-weather kin. Gerardo and Darkwind flew at the front, and despite the thick snow limiting their vision, the griffon was fairly confident he was leading everyone true. Turn at this wreck... Go straight past that one... Ahead, they should have been reaching the point where the two ships completely blocked the way.
...They should have. But they kept going, more ships passing on the left and right... and eventually reached a side passage blocked by a boat that completely lay on its side, causing Gerardo to signal for a landing. "I don't remember this!" he loudly announced. "I think we've gone one too far over! We may need to detour through that ship to get back on course!"
Darkwind also signaled for a stop. One pegasus ignored him, flying higher, trying to clear the obstacle through sufficient height... and the winds immediately intensified, the lone pegasus landing before he could be swept away.
"Fear not," Gerardo grunted, drawing his sword and pacing up to the ship's vertical deck. "I'll just slice my way through this..." Stab. "And do the same to the next deck..." Slash. "And the one below that, until we come out the other side!"
He swept the sword in a circuit, carving an entry that was quickly removed. Respectively cautious and eager, Darkwind and Harshwater stepped up beside him to look into the hold of the ruined ship they were about to turn into a tunnel.
Two massive, hairy, double-horned faces looked back. "Look, Priscilla!" one yak happily boomed, pointing at Gerardo and the pegasi with a big black hoof. "Little ponpons!"
Valey doggedly paced forward, carrying Starlight on her back up a gently-sloping tunnel to the central atrium, Shinespark running dejectedly at her side. The sounds of battle grew muted behind them before fading entirely, and she couldn't tell if the fight had ended or been drowned out by the storm.
"Okay!" She stumbled into the atrium on a mid-tier balcony, nearly tripping as she came to a halt. "Right across this room, there should be a tunnel straight to the Stone District. We can just find a cave, hole up, wait this entire thing out..." Her eyes focused downward. "Oh, that's probably not good."
Between her hooves, gouged into the polished marble floor, was a giant arrow pointing around the ring-shaped balcony, indicating the information desk a quarter of the way around. Valey's eyes followed to where the desk had been forcibly ripped from its alcove, then leaned against a wall with the terminal screens facing outward. A mess of severed cables hanging beneath had been shoddily re-wired, with a gigantic glowing emergency power supply laying exposed on the ground to keep the whole thing going. In front of it, more interested in the glowing screens than the newcomers, sat Herman.
"Bad news! Bail harder!" Valey pushed her legs, trying to run, and heard Shinespark take off beside her. But when she glanced aside, rather than running, the unicorn was soaring straight for the remains of the kiosk. Groaning, Valey headbutted a glass railing. "Oh, bananas..."
"You!"
Hissing violently, Shinespark flew toward Herman, pulling up just out of his reach and barely stopping herself from striking him like a missile. Her restraint had less to do with the clearly-battered yak and more the fact that Dior was seated next to him, completely free of restraints.
Herman turned to face her. "Shinespark. I wondered if you would accept my invitation. Are you here for the party?"
"Party?" Shinespark's face scrunched, confusion fighting with rage for dominance. "Wait, huh?"
"The viewing party," Herman repeated, shrugging in his tattered uniform. "During the battle on the dam, I had expected Selma to betray and kill me. Unfortunately, he played his part poorly, and I survived. Since I have no further role in the plan..." He shrugged, pointing at the terminal screen.
It was a video feed from a security camera, Shinespark realized... one in the Stone District, evidently with a backup power supply of its own. The image was focused on the Blueleaf road, and a group of pegasi headed by Selma could be seen holding parlay with Elise and her citizens.
Herman went back to watching. "I am out of the game. My part in it is over. No matter how the pieces fall, I will be arrested come morning for crimes against civilization. Stay and watch, or go about your way."
"...And what's Dior here for?" Shinespark narrowed her eyes, horn staying lit.
"Also watching," Dior sighed, not meeting Shinespark's eyes. "Herman invited me on his way here. Shinespark..." He folded his ears. "The game with Braen is up. You took back your brand; the Spirit knows the armor is empty. Tell me you haven't told them yet that you were her."
Shinespark blinked. "No, but what does that have to do with anything? Dior, Herman destroyed our home! And you're just sitting next to him, like... like..."
"Like the kind of coward that would teleport out of his armor the moment his plans went awry, then hide in the Sky District while Ironridge fought itself to death?" Dior finally looked at her, his eyes a bright orange. "Exactly. Shinespark, don't tell me you forgot about what we planned regarding us and Braen..."
"No..." Shinespark swallowed. "You're trying to take all our rumors about you being Braen and give them irrefutable evidence, so everyone blames this catastrophe on you and doesn't look further. To protect me, Dad and the ship..."
Dior sadly nodded. "There's nothing I could do if I was anywhere else. With the Defense Force? My leadership of them may be a technicality written in law, but if dams are falling and districts are sinking, I don't think Ironridge's warriors are interested in the law. Besides, I've been set up to take a hit like this for your sake for years now. It will probably mean a large number of ponies from both sides becoming very angry at me, since Braen is currently only popular with those obsessed with revenge, but that's fine."
"Dior..." Shinespark took a step forward, eyes beginning to water again. Herman watched with passing interest.
"You, though, shouldn't be here," Dior continued. "Shinespark! The entire point of this plan is for your reputation to remain intact. Get to Blueleaf and try to calm this fighting, or else to the warehouse and check on our ship! Don't waste your time here on myself and Herman."
"You seriously might wanna listen to him," Valey remarked, standing even further back. "We're free to go! Like, I can see the tunnel right over there! Why would you stick around Herman any more than you absolutely need to?"
Herman shrugged. "As I said, stay or go. Pretend I am not here. It should not matter either way."
"Rrrgh..." Shinespark bared her teeth. "Dior, I tried talking to them! One of them shot me with a missile! If the Spirit won't listen to me any more, the Defense Force never will! Whatever reputation I had was either fake or not good enough! I can't... Look at me! We had accounted for losing Sosa, but I can't even keep myself together now enough to follow through with things I just planned this morning! Who's going to be inspired by a unicorn who's still crying while she talks!?"
"Shinespark..." Dior got up, slowly pacing over to her. He touched her chin with a hoof.
"Why can't I do this?" Shinespark choked. "I know we planned for you to take the hit if anything ever happened because of Braen, and I know I planned for what to do if Sosa was destroyed, but I can't do either! I could have stayed on that dam instead of jumping off, kept my brand where it belonged, kept the Spirit in Blueleaf under control... but I took it back because I thought I could catch one or two ponies as they fell! I didn't even get that! Now you're saying you're not even going to try to go down to Blueleaf and find a way to help, and even though it was planned for years I'm still not fine with it, even though as much as I apparently care about that I'm falling apart here instead of going to help myself, and... and..." She sniffed, hard. "Why can't I live up to myself when my ponies need me the most...?"
Herman glanced at her, breath rumbling in his chest. "Because you are a child," he replied. "A nineteen-year-old unicorn who cut her foalhood short and wrapped herself in a web of games and lies and stories about her destiny to try to accomplish a task bigger than a million ponies. And then, instead of hardening your heart and learning to control your emotions so you could always do what needed to be done, you chose to rely on a piece of technology you controlled with your feelings, giving you an excuse to take everything as openly and earnestly as possible and never grow up. You made ponies love you by feeling. You tried to use a limitation as a strength, and while your effort was admirable... now that your plans have reached a point where you must not feel in order to act, it paralyzes you."
Shinespark sat, wordless, anger and disbelief mixing on her face. Herman continued, "You look at Ironridge and see ponies. I look at it and see only numbers. A true leader would be able to do both as needed, so we are similarly deficit, in a way. Perhaps your youth makes it not your fault. Perhaps you could have tried harder, acted earlier, practiced. But it matters not, because that is in the past, and now it is breaking you."
Valey sidled up beside Shinespark, nudging her shoulder. "There's old Herman, always giving the world's worst pep talks. I've heard a million of those, myself. More than a little part of why I don't like him... but you gotta admit, it's hard to argue with what he says. Now ask yourself if you'd rather follow me out of here or stick around for an encore."
"If it makes you feel better," Herman hummed, "I have been inconvenienced quite a few times over the years, adjusting my plans so as not to break you prematurely."
Shinespark's eyes flashed blue. "Die."
"Yarrrgh!" Yelping, Valey dove out of the way, taking Starlight and Dior with her as Shinespark's body was surrounded by a furious glow. The enraged unicorn shot forward like a bullet... until with a hideous clang, she stopped short in midair, bouncing off the blade of Herman's magical axe as he summoned it to block her path.
Moaning, Shinespark rubbed her head as she rolled to a stop on the floor, before lifting her head and glaring at Herman. The yak returned her stare. "If you want to resume our duel from atop the dam, I have time for that, too," he announced, slamming the ground with the shaft of his axe for emphasis. "Remember, the outcome changes nothing. Forfeit at any time, or kill me, and you can walk away freely."
"Raaaaugh!" Shinespark's horn pulsed into overglow, and she fired a beam of burning mana straight at Herman's face.
With a mirrorlike tinkle, the blade of his axe intercepted it, reflecting the beam and sending it soaring off into the air of the atrium. It impacted distantly on the roof, a giant glass panel warping from the heat.
Shinespark was already flying again, smoke visibly trailing from her horn. Howling, she streaked towards Herman, who raised the axe to strike at her in response. He swung, aim perfectly true... and Shinespark teleported, keeping all of her momentum as she approached from another angle.
Instantly, Herman adjusted, ready to cleave, not block. Again, Shinespark teleported, her momentum building, her horn's sapphire glow being eclipsed by red from the heat as the strain of so many rapid-fire spells took its toll. But Herman didn't even have to rise from sitting in front of the displaced console, his axe completely handling the fight for him.
Suddenly, there was a teleport where Shinespark didn't immediately appear... and when she did, it was inches in front of Herman's chest. With a massive fork of lightning, she plowed into him, horn piercing his uniform and then his chest like a white-hot branding iron. There was a concussion of air, and her momentum threw him backwards nearly to the railing.
For a long second, the only sound was sizzling... and then Herman's hooves clamped around Shinespark's body, pinning her in place. She barely got out a gasp before he rolled upright, crushing her against the ground.
"...Ow." Herman rose shakily, a charred black patch in the middle of his chest. When he tried to walk back to the screen, Valey saw why he had been sitting: that his uniform looked like he had fallen down a cliff wasn't for show; he was limping heavily. Shinespark, he ignored.
The mare lay awkwardly on her back, one hind leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Her eyes slowly glassed over, her sides heaved as she hyperventilated, and Dior quickly rushed over to her. "Shinespark!" He nudged her, rolled her so that her broken leg was against the ground, pressed an ear to her mouth and then her chest, and started trying to set the limb so that it wasn't twisted.
"Quiet," Herman muttered, his duel completely forgotten as he focused on the display. "Invite her to watch again, if she likes. It looks like a fight is starting."
In the middle of a heavy downpour, a brigade of pegasi marched toward Blueleaf, the lone unicorn at their head doing his best to keep their spirits up through leading by example.
"Selma?" a soaked, bedraggled guard asked, head held low. "Do you really think the Sosans want a fight in this weather? We could leave, and they might just go home."
"Oh, I don't doubt they do," Selma declared, stepping proudly through the mud. "And that's why we're going to hand them an easy surrender and flee. Once they've had a win to soothe their spirits, the desire won't burn brightly enough to keep them out here and they will go home."
Another pegasus blinked. "Or they could be emboldened and come to the Stone district for revenge. Then we'd have come all this way for nothing."
Selma tutted. "It's a good thing you have me to remember our plans. The airship? That we're going to drop on their heads should they try an all-out assault? We have a backup. Now stop worrying. We must give them as ferocious a show as possible, so they don't realize we aren't... What's this?"
He stopped, blinking. In the middle of the road, blocking his path, Elise stood defiantly, Fernand at her side and a camp of equally-bedraggled ponies waiting behind. Despite her short stature, she wore a look of determination that sent every pegasus back a step, her flowing mane teased by an invisible wind. The entire image was helped by the fact that she was dry.
Selma's eye twitched. Her horn was alight, and her unusual, flamelike aura was held in a shield over her head and back, protecting her and Fernand from the rainfall. After a second of staring, Selma snorted, forming his own rain shield far too late to do any good, inwardly berating her for having common sense. He didn't extend his to his soldiers.
"Hah! Someone who looks like they're in charge!" he growled, putting on airs regardless. "We, the Defense Force of the Stone District, are here to-"
"I challenge you to a duel," Elise interrupted, stepping forward, a dress on her back and a set of dainty, ornamental boots protecting her from the mud. "No seconds. If you lose, you and your forces retreat from the Earth District at once, and we will discuss our differences diplomatically and without weapons come the end of this storm and morning."
Selma blinked. "You? A duel? What?" He blinked harder. "You're a shrimpy little mare!"
"I meant what I said," Elise replied. "Name your terms for winning."
"Terms? Pah!" Grinning viciously, Selma dropped his shield as hurriedly as he summoned it. "If I win, I get to take you down in front of whoever you're fighting for!" He swept a hoof at the array of ponies encamped in the clearing behind her. "It's nothing I wouldn't do anyway! Let's fight!"
He barely had time to signal for his stallions to stay back before a gigantic pillar of magical flame hit him like a lukewarm train, knocking him off his hooves and sending him flying towards the forest. Another intercepted him, a hardened wall of chromatically burning telekinesis whacking him to the ground like a paddle against a ping-pong ball. The fire morphed into a giant boot, pressing him down and sending him skidding through the mud until he came to rest directly in front of Elise's hooves, horn stinging, body bruised, and clean white coat turned solid brown.
"Ow!" he yelled, the petite unicorn standing over him with a neutral expression. He had intended to throw the fight; that she had offered a duel with exactly the defeat condition he came to win was perfect, but she hadn't left him even a chance for a fake attack. "What...? How...?"
"Do you yield?" Elise asked, horn still glowing, ready to strike again and again if need be.
"Yes... ow..." Selma croaked. If he couldn't make the battle look close, the next best thing was to play up his defeat. "How are you... so strong...?"
Elise looked flatly at him, then nudged the hem of her dress. "My brand," she informed him. "It strengthens my magic under certain conditions, not that you need to know them."
"Sister, I agree. You've no need to explain yourself to them," Fernand interrupted, fixing her dress with a wingtip. "Defense Force! You accepted her duel, and you lost! Now begone!"
The pegasi with Selma were all too eager to retreat, none bothering to help their leader out of the mud. A whoop came from the Blueleaf encampment further down the road, followed by exuberant cheers as the citizens realized the Defense Force was fleeing.
As they ran, Elise continued looking down at Selma. "You intended to lose, didn't you?"
"Wha...?" Selma sputtered, trying to find a clean thing to wipe his mouth dry against.
"Probably just so he could ask about your brand and hopefully get a look at your flank," Fernand muttered darkly.
"When you came down here," Elise said, ignoring Fernand's remark. "With your pegasi, to fight us. That wasn't the full Defense Force. That was barely a squad. You couldn't have intended anything with so few numbers except defeat, even with the amount of confidence you sounded like you had in yourself."
Selma grinned a muddy grin. "Bingo," he growled, getting to his hooves now that Elise wasn't keeping him pressed to the mud. "You want to go home. I want to go home. Neither of us want a fight in this weather. I can take a loss in the name of securing a win later."
As if on cue, the rain stopped.
"Thank you!" Selma rolled his eyes at the hazy, distant sky. "Couldn't this have happened earlier? It would have spared me a very miserable walk!"
Then, the snow started.
"What...?" Elise's breath came out in a cloud as she lifted a fetlock free from its boot, held it out, and caught a flake on its way down. It rested, supported by a few hairs of her coat as she examined the icy structure... and then it was lost as dozens and hundreds more fell around it.
"It snows down here?" Selma frowned. "I can't remember the last time it snowed in the Stone District! The wind barrier is supposed to keep the cold up above!"
"Elise!" Several ponies from the Blueleaf encampment came charging up, worry and confusion written on their faces. "It's snowing! In the Earth District!"
Elise struggled to keep her face straight as Selma continued trying to clean himself off. "I'm aware of that," she curtly replied. "What do you want me to do about it?"
With a jolt, Selma realized the Blueleaf ponies were completely ignoring him; between the mud covering his features and his lack of wings there was nothing identifying him as Defense Force. Instead, they stood around gaping, having no idea how to answer Elise's question. "Well..." one started.
"The Defense Force retreated," Elise told them, shooting a side glance at Selma. "After a short fight. Everyone should return home and stay warm. Myself and Fernand will stay here and keep watch, just in case. Now go home, all of you!"
Hesitantly at first, then gratefully, the Blueleaf ponies obeyed, the camp beginning to show signs of packing up.
"Well, now that you're all happy, I think I'll take my leave," Selma muttered, turning to walk back to the Stone District. "Thank you for angling your strikes so that they hit where they would hurt the most, incidentally. I've always wanted to walk up a mountain in the snow with nothing to do but think on aches I'd rather not have."
"One moment, sir!" Fernand flapped, landing in his path and blocking the way. "You're the Defense Force commander, aren't you? The bad one?" He leered sideways. "If you're telling the truth about wanting a truce, what say you to waiting here with us, instead?" He glanced toward Elise. "For all we know, you could have been intending to sacrifice a small number of your forces to put us off-guard for a greater assault. I think a show of goodwill is in order."
Selma raised a muddy eyebrow back at him, his brown coat turning back to white as the snow began to stick. "If I were intending to backstab you, what good would my staying do you?"
Fernand started to reply, but Elise cut him off with a smile. "Little. You can stay or go."
Weighing his options, Selma looked between the quickly-freezing mud and the camp of departing Blueleaf ponies. He saw Elise hide a shiver, and hid a smirk of his own. If this was what it took to be hailed as a war-stopping hero, better to act in good faith than achieve a one-sided victory through military means... and besides, showing off the high cold tolerance of a native of Yakyakistan might be amusing. "All right," he decided. "You have my presence. Make the most of it."
That made things awkward enough that no one spoke. Above, he could hear wind, which was unusual as the wind barrier was usually silent. The snow continued to fall... Wouldn't it ruin the Earth District crops? If it did, that might be something he could work in his favor. Elise adjusted her hoofing to prevent her boots from freezing in place, and Fernand looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"So," Selma said, finding himself bored with the silence and unable to let his eyes wander thanks to Elise's dress being in the way. "Who am I standing vigil with? A Sosan attack pony chosen for her talent in magic? I don't recognize your faces."
"Of course you don't," Elise sighed coolly, not meeting his eyes. "I'm the wife of Blueleaf's mayor, and have been right here for the past six years."
"Leading by example, hmm?" Selma's jaw twisted in a smirk. "Admirable. A shame the Sky District types can't be bothered to do the same," he hinted, measuring his subtlety. "You'd think Ironridge should be ran by the ponies who actually do things."
Elise looked levelly at him. "If you're trying to recruit me to help in a coup, I'm not interested. Thousands of ponies before you got the same answer."
"A coup?" Selma blinked in mock offense. "Oh, I'd never. I already executed my coup, you see. Herman is dead. I flung him from the ruins of the dam myself as vengeance in the name of Ironridge for his crimes against the districts." He futilely tried to brush the snow out of his mane. "Right now, I'm just interested in bragging."
"Good for you," Fernand deadpanned, standing close under Elise's magical umbrella.
"Nothing tonight is worth bragging about," Elise whispered. "Or in Ironridge for the last twenty years. If you're on the side that wants the fighting to stop, there are better ways to do it than starting fights. If you aren't, I'll defeat you again and again. Fighting skills haven't been what Ironridge has needed for a very long time, but they are something I have, and now, if they're needed to keep the peace..."
"Mmmmm..." Selma rolled his eyes. "You can fight, but can you plan? My tactical genius defeated Herman, after all. In fact, your victory over me was only a victory because I threw the match! I still could have effortlessly annihilated your entire camp, and could even do so now!"
Fernand bristled in alarm. "What are you talking about? You have a trap set for us, fiend!?"
"Oh, I did." Selma stared upward into the impenetrable curtain of snow and wind that blew just above the treetops. "I had an airship stationed above this area with a skeleton crew of pegasi, ready and waiting for a signal to slam it into the ground and annihilate both any target and your spirits! But I didn't, of course. That was just a backup in case you and your Spirit tried to pillage the Stone District." He blinked. "Where are the Spirit, anyway?"
"An airship." Fernand blinked slowly at him, flicking his ears. He pointed up at the chaotic sky. "Up there."
"Yes...?" Selma looked cautiously at him.
"No airship can fly in this weather," Elise murmured, suddenly tense. "They would have left earlier, as the storm was building."
Selma froze, realizing the hole that had just been punched in his plan. "Of course they wouldn't!" he sputtered, stomping. "The Defense Force are fearless. Besides, I saw the ship just before the rain started! They wouldn't break position. They would..."
He trailed off, eyes widening at what he was suggesting.
Then, with a cavernous groan, the sky reacted, like it had been waiting for that connection to be made. Visibility doubled, tripled, until everything up to the clouds could be seen in a narrow column of free air... and in that column hung the storm-tossed remains of Selma's airship, falling with murderous precision towards the still-emptying clearing where the Blueleaf ponies had set up camp.
"What!?" Selma's jaw dropped. "Those idiots! Why didn't they break position? I had a holding peace treaty! I had it...!"
Beside him, Fernand was equally speechless. "What...? How...?" He blinked in shock at the falling ship. "This makes absolutely no sense! It falls straight for a large cluster of ponies, waits to drop until precisely the moment you mention it, and the storm somehow clears exactly in the way it must to allow us to see it happen? Any one of these would be a coincidence of the highest order, but I have no knowledge of any kind of magic that could explain this!"
Elise's boots were empty, frozen in place in the churned-up mud as their owner raced towards the clearing.
"Everybody, move!" Elise screamed, the glow of energy around her horn flaring violently as she charged into the camp. Ponies dropped what they were doing, looked at each other, looked at her, looked up, and instantly broke into a panic, trying to flee. But it wasn't going to be fast enough: some stumbled, others tripped, and at the rate the ship was approaching, the clearing had less than ten seconds before impact.
With a roar of colorful flames, Elise's spectral magic surged upward toward the falling ship, the ghostly light suffusing the area dimming and darkening for contrast. She seized it in a giant cone of flickering telekinesis, straining, but didn't even make a dent in its speed.
Still, she pressed, legs nearly buckling as her aura concentrated near the needlelike prow. Finally, it shifted, not slowing but altering its trajectory by a fraction of a degree. Elise pushed harder, turning it more...
FWOOOOOM!
An explosion of blinding teal rocked the forest as the airship impacted barely one treeline away from the clearing, the ensuing shockwave throwing every pony off their hooves and thawing the newly-formed ice with a wave of intense heat. That quickly faded, a teal glow settling and lingering over everything. For a moment, the world sat in silent shock... and then the snow resumed.
"Sister! Elise!" Fernand came racing across to where Elise had fallen. She was slowly getting to her hooves, but he seized her in his wings, quickly helping her upright. Both were glowing the same pale teal as everything and everyone else in the clearing. "Are you hurt? Tell me!"
"At ease, Fernand." Elise struggled to support her own weight, eventually standing. "Nothing worse than cuts to my side and hooves, and a ruined dress. Check on everyone else!"
The other ponies were also climbing upright, staring around and murmuring in shock. "Ew, what's this blue stuff?" a mare with a nasally voice complained, looking at her hooves. "It's all glowey and doesn't taste good!"
"Don't panic! I remember that!" a grungy stallion urged, raising his voice. "It's likely fallout from that ship's manacore exploding! Nothing more than concentrated energy... but it does weaken you and makes wings and horns fairly useless. A shower and a good night's sleep will put you right as rain!"
"He's right!" another called. "I used to get like this all the time working in the Flame District!"
Fernand nudged Elise. "They're telling the truth about my wings not working. Now tell me that you're well!"
Elise tried to pull her dress aside with her teeth and failed. "I told you, Fernand. My hooves are cut from running on the frozen mud, my side is cut from landing on it, and my dress is ruined from the same. Hmmph." She tried to brush herself off, earning a puff of glowing mana drifting away into the air. "If you want to yell at Selma, he's right there. You have my permission."
Before anyone could act on it, there was a sparkle of dark purple magic... and a large yellow stallion appeared on the edge of the clearing, briefly adjusting his hoofing.
Everyone blinked in disbelief, Elise most of all. She took several steps toward the stallion, mouth moving in a silent whisper. Eventually, she said, "You're back."
"Yeah. And I don't like what I see." Arambai's broadsword quivered, strapped to his back and ready for action. He took several steps forward of his own, quickly realizing that he had appeared in a mana-irradiated zone that was interfering with his horn. "First you get warnings, then a flood goes right by your home. When you get back, your old home is underwater..." His eyes narrowed. "And I'm pretty sure I just saw someone use an airship crash as a weapon."
His eyes fixed dead ahead, staring up the road to the Stone District. "Not too many places I know of that have access to that dam, airships, and I constantly get warned about by a certain unicorn's letters," he growled. "I've been gone a long time, and it sounds like I'm needed now to kick some tail."
That was all Valey needed to hear.
She had been keeping her distance, just close enough to make out the display's picture and hear its crackling speakers. She needn't have hidden, since Herman didn't give her a look either way. Dior's attention was divided between Shinespark and the screen; he rested his hoof on her, feeling her breathing, but from the moment Arambai had appeared he had been transfixed, unable to look away.
"Come on, kiddo," Valey whispered, getting Starlight more securely on her back and turning to leave. "I've heard stories about that guy, and if he's here and out for blood, that's one more thing we'll be toast if we're caught in. Sparky can stay here, I'm done trying to help her. I'm just... done. Let's go."
Her hoofsteps were inaudible against the muted fury of the storm raging outside, clicking softly against the skyport's marble floor. Starlight tensed against her back, whining carefully. Herman was out of earshot. The exit was near. Still, Valey stopped, angling her ears back toward the filly. "What's up?"
Starlight sniffed. From a wetness where her face was pressed into Valey's neck, she was probably crying. Valey groaned. "Oh, come on. Not you, too. Can I, like, do anything? Or am I basically doomed to be lugging around sad unicorns until the day I change my mind again and decide to keep going it alone?"
"Is no one else nearby?" Starlight asked, lifting her head. "I've been being quiet just in case..."
Valey glanced at the information kiosk. "Well, sorta, but they're not gonna hear you unless you scream your little heart out. And even then, I'm not sure if they'd care. One's unconscious, one has his own problems to deal with, and one would probably find it cute. Need a minute?"
Starlight sniffed again.
"...Well, okay, then." Shrugging, Valey moved to a waiting bench with nice, fluffy cushions and flopped down, carefully depositing Starlight next to her. "Welcome to another round of Valey gets drafted as a therapist and has no idea what she's doing! What totally subjective trauma do you want me to unpack and then fix by carrying you physically out of here exactly like I was just doing?"
Starlight huffed. "Not me. You." A pause. "...You're giving up."
"Buh?" Valey's face scrunched up.
"I just blew up that dam," Starlight said. "Remember? Not you, not Shinespark, not Herman. Me. And I also just blew up my head fighting pegasi and then saving Maple. Now I can't see, haven't even gotten to make sure Maple's alright, and am completely helpless. I hate being helpless! And I'm mad because I can't do anything! And I want to!" She sniffed harder. "But you can. You're not in danger of walking off a cliff or into a wall if you try to take two steps on your own. You know about Ironridge. You're a good fighter and can talk or trick your way into anything. If anyone should be messed up and quitting, it's me, but I'm not. So why are you?"
Valey blinked. "Quitting? Who's quitting? Kiddo, I'm just straightening my priorities. Right now, there are exactly two must-dos on my list, and they are to keep my two friends alive and as safe as possible through this mess. That's you and Ironflanks, in case you forgot our deal down in the Flame Barracks. Sparky? Grenada? Whoever else we've ditched? Cute, but that's not enough for me to risk my life bringing them along when they're being suicidally aggressive maniacs. You saw... uh, heard her. We had a clean run to the exit, and she flew off all on her own and got busted up. Her fault, not mine."
"What happened back there?" Starlight asked. "With Shinespark. And Herman. Just now."
"You see..." Sighing, Valey sat back against the bench. "So Herman's here. Looks like he fell off a cliff, which matches what Selma said he did to him. Dior's here too. They're watching this repurposed screen with a backup power supply. It's showing the battle in the Earth District that we totally flew past the opening of. That's what you heard. Then there was some drama with Shinespark and Dior... Ninety-nine percent sure they're siblings, lovers, or maybe both. And then-"
"Not that," Starlight interrupted her. "Important things. Things I could use to make a difference. I just got an idea and want to see if it would work. You said there was a power supply?"
"Woah, hold on." Valey leaned in close, eyes narrowed. "Things you could use? As in...?"
"Me. Myself. I." Starlight shrugged, then climbed to her hooves. "I hate this city. I didn't like where I was from; it took my best friend. Ironridge is trying to take my friends and my eyes and my magic and kill me. It's even worse. I haven't had a single chance over the last three days to think about who I am or what I want or even remember that a week ago the worst thing I could imagine was getting a cutie mark. It's reduced me to trying to survive!" She stomped, tears at the corners of her unseeing eyes. "Same for you. You're trying to run and just keep me safe, aren't you? You don't have room to want or worry about anything more because you can't afford to! Would you help Shinespark if it wasn't likely to get you killed?"
Valey blanched. "Starlight, I did! I've given her so many pep talks and dragged her out of fights and... Yeah. I would."
"See?" Starlight turned in the direction of the kiosk, guided by the memory of which way they had came. "I don't like being like this. It's nice to not worry about my cutie mark every day, but not because I can't afford to. I want to be me again! The whole point of this was so the world wouldn't change who I was... and now I feel more than changed. I feel gone. Like I don't have time or safety to be me anymore. Valey, I know about running. This is what running got me... running from home and running again from Riverfall. A pony I care about told me that I'd never be able to find a world worth living in by looking; that I'd have to make it myself if I wanted to be certain. And the one thing I can still do? The one thing the world can never take from me?"
Her eyes flashed with determination. "It can't make me give up. We could run, but we'll just find somewhere else that needs fixing. So you can run if you want, but I'm going to keep trying to fix Ironridge."
"...You're insane," Valey muttered. "Completely insane. And... wow, hearing that makes me feel all tingly inside. Kinda like I've heard all that before, somewhere..."
"Cool." Starlight started waddling toward the kiosk. "If you think of something I can use, say it."
"Hold up!" Valey stopped her with her tail. "There's such a thing as beating your head against a brick wall until you pass out with a concussion, and it's not called being smart. I'm feeling maybe twenty percent more galvanized, but not nearly enough to let you walk up there and try to punch out Herman."
"Then you do it," Starlight countered. "You know how to fight."
"Nope." Valey seated her hard on the floor. "I'm Ironridge's designated baddie, remember? And maybe I'm trying to buck that trend and do something legitimately nice for two stubborn, unlucky ponies... but there's no way I'm the entire city's savior. That's Sparky's job. Besides, even if Herman's pretty beat up, I am too. And if I somehow did manage to kill him, what would it accomplish? That Arambai dude will still rough up the Stone District, and there's no way Herman could have predicted him showing up, so there's probably yet another component to his big, bad plan. We have no plan-"
Starlight tapped her with a mis-aimed hoof. "I have a plan. I'm making one right now."
"Oh...?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"They were talking about mana radiation," Starlight said. "On the screen. That means there was a bunch of mana everywhere, right? Was Selma standing in it?"
Valey looked aside, thinking. "Uhh... I'm not a technician, but I'm pretty sure that's a yes and yes. Why does it matter?"
"And Arambai's still there?" Starlight pressed. "He's smart. Really smart. And he likes me."
Valey shaded her brow, looking at the distant screen. "Can't see from here, but I sure think so?"
Starlight nodded. "And when Selma gave you your hat back, he didn't give anything with it?"
Valey squinted. "Where are you going with this?"
"I'm going to talk to Herman," Starlight declared, stepping toward the kiosk once again. "He'll probably tell me all his plans if I ask right, since I'm helpless and can't do anything. Then we need to tell them to Arambai, so he can stop it. And that'll be easy, because there's a power supply right there... and the sound stone in my saddlebags is buzzing."
"Oh." Valey's eyes widened. "Oh bananas. Would that work?" She tore open Starlight's saddlebag, dug around inside, and pulled out an enchanted crystal stone... which was presently glowing with the signal for an incoming communication; the kind that appeared when the other end was energized. She looked back at the screen. The clearing was still bathed in magical energy. If Selma had picked up her hat on the bridge, then he likely would have found the sound stone with it... kept it as a trophy... not given it back... and Arambai would be right there with him.
"All right, Starlight," she snapped, crouching down and lifting the filly with a wing. "Back on my back. I hope you're not wrong about what this Arambai dude will be able to do with a secret confession, because trying to steal Sparky's job of saving Ironridge would be a pretty lame way to die."
Starlight shuffled blindly forward, keeping her head up so that her hooves would hit any obstacles before her face did. She stepped near to the floor, testing every inch of the way to ensure she wouldn't trip on a boulder or fall in a hole, relying on her ears and the small sound of Herman's display to guide her. Eventually, she ran up against a body.
"You're back," Dior's voice remarked, sounding slightly surprised. He paused, probably looking around. "Just you? Did Valey leave? It looked like you were unconscious."
Well, at least playing dead had avoided drawing attention to herself. Though that wouldn't count for much, if she succeeded in what she was about to do. "I don't know where she is. Where's Herman?"
Another pause. "...Right next to you?" Dior sounded confused and slightly suspicious.
"Oh." Starlight sat down. "I can't see."
Neither reacted to that. Starlight took a minute to think; how was she even going to go about doing this? Valey was sneaking to charge the sound stone, make contact, and instruct the ponies on the other side to either listen quietly or wait for her to get what she needed. She just had to trust that Arambai could do something about Herman's plan... and that she could get him to tell her about it.
"Hey, Herman?" she asked suddenly. "Why'd you blow up Ironridge?"
Herman grunted, sounding amused. "I blew up Ironridge? What are you talking about?"
"The dam, all the crazies attacking the skyport..." Starlight huffed. "Whatever was just on about an airship crash... you know."
"Oh, those." From the distance of his voice, Herman was looking straight at her. "Selma orchestrated the crash, not me. He positioned the ship, stole it and repurposed it from the use I authorized... even forgot to recall it when the storm grew dangerous. The Spirit? Their motive was given by Shinespark, born of injustices inflicted long before I became ambassador here. Perhaps I enabled them with their valued weapons contract, but much like providing a ship for your escape, that contract was signed with the more noble purpose of keeping them economically afloat. They had no input from me in deciding to misuse it."
"So?" Starlight frowned. "What about the dam, then?"
"You pushed that button, my little pony. Not I."
A memory flashed through Starlight's mind of a trigger beneath her hoof, and two mares brawling over whether it should be pressed. She consciously stopped herself from bristling. "If I didn't, someone else would have. Probably you."
"Can you prove that?" Herman rumbled.
"I..." Starlight flinched. "You said you would. You threatened to. You can say the Ironridge ponies did everything to themselves all you like, but no one will believe you. Besides, Valey says you're really good at planning ahead. So why did you... why did you make us blow up the city?"
"You are correct. They would think like you, and blame me regardless."
Starlight hesitated. Wherever this was going, Herman was completely steering the conversation. She had to change the subject. "I liked pressing that trigger, you know."
"Really?" Herman seemed to perk in interest, Dior giving a slight gasp beside her. "Say more."
"I did," Starlight insisted. "Because I don't like Ironridge. Me and Maple are constantly getting foalnapped, or running around until we get too tired to move, and getting dragged into conspiracies and having no time for ourselves and now we're both hurt and separated, too. I didn't like falling off the cliff afterward, but pressing that button was satisfying."
"Interesting..." Herman was definitely looking at her; she could feel his gaze on her spine. "You are surprisingly ruthless for a filly. I can feel you lying, but lying about enjoying the destruction of centuries of pride and work is no easy thing. Perhaps you could even come to mean it in the future."
Starlight snorted. "You think I'm lying, huh?" She stood up. "Well, guess what. If you want to say you did nothing? Okay. I blew up a dam. You don't want to tell me your reasons? I told you mine, so that makes mine better. And you just said earlier that you're done with Ironridge and are waiting here until someone comes and gets revenge on you in the morning, or something. You're giving up." She stomped a hoof, turning away. "Well, I'm not. So if you want to see whether I'm telling the truth... test me. Give me whatever plans you've given up on. Wait for morning, and see whether I follow through on them. I bet I'll beat you."
"No."
Starlight blinked, feeling the fur along her back rise. Outright rejection, so flat? Really? "Wuss."
"You seem to have a high opinion of my planning and readiness," Herman said, unprovoked by her insult. "I imagine Valey told you that. I imagine she would. I make it a priority to psychologically understand the ponies I use as direct tools, and she is the sort of pony who gets easily frustrated by being predicted. She is probably incapable of thinking of me as anything less than omniscient, and also the kind of perfectly irredeemable monster she perceives society as making her out to be. A biased source, in short. How many other sources is your opinion of me based on?"
"Direct experience?" Starlight tilted her head. "You were a jerk on the dam. You stabbed Maple. I wish I could stab you back."
"There that ruthlessness is, again," Herman commented. "I think you mean it, this time. But that is an opinion on my personality. I asked about what you know on my plans."
"Well..." Starlight thought, but suddenly couldn't come up with anything.
Herman gave her time to think. Eventually, he asked, "Would it surprise you to know that ever since you showed up in Ironridge, things have worked out for me in the worst way possible?"
Starlight felt her eyes narrow. "Really."
"Really," Herman repeated. "Vandalism of the skyport. The destruction of Sosa. Even the abduction of Starlight and her friend several days ago, starting with the delivery of those crates. All were things I could work with, but only because my plan for Ironridge has been playing itself out for too long to be derailed by individual events. All of these were optional and not necessarily desirable."
"You made all those happen," Starlight declared, stomping. "They weren't desirable? Yeah, right. They sound pretty great if you want chaos and unhappiness to me. So what did you want, then?"
When Herman next spoke, it sounded like he had moved closer. "Here is a thought experiment. How many ponies are in Ironridge?"
Starlight flicked her ears. "I think someone said a million?"
"About that," Herman told her. "More importantly, there are a lot. Most of them live in the Earth and Stone Districts. Now, how many of those ponies do you think remember the events of the downfall of Sosa twenty years ago?"
"...Probably a lot?" Starlight offered.
"Not as many as you would think. The population has grown quite a lot due to easy travel. Some affected ponies leave. Others die. Twenty years is a long time, and as a foal, you should easily appreciate that. Now, of the ponies who do remember it... how many do you think have failed making new lives for themselves?"
Starlight blinked, envisioning the city as she had seen it during that first sunrise, a blinding metropolis stretching from rim to distant rim of a mountain crater, the streets clogged with hoof carts and merchant stalls and ponies going about their business. It wasn't the face of a fallen city... though she also remembered Blueleaf, with its dark alleys and skittish citizens, and then she thought of White Chocolate and her massive, chronically-growing family that lacked any semblance of a plan for the future. "Not none," she decided.
"Some," Herman agreed. "But, next to the masses, not many. And of those fallen, how many do you think were so incapable of escaping the past that they decided to do something about it? Something like joining the Spirit?"
"...Fifty?" It was a guess at best, judging from what she had seen on the dam and knowing there were more, and assuming that was a high turnout. "At any one time? Maybe a little more, in total?"
"Fifty," Herman repeated. "The Defense Force has similar numbers for active fighters. Together, any battle they might wage would be less than a hundred ponies... One hundred out of a million. One percent of one percent. Ironridge is some ten miles across. If they all stood in a ring around the city, evenly spaced, all together, each pony would be far enough away that they would have to shout to be heard on a windless day by their nearest neighbors. Do you understand how insignificant that should be next to a city of this scale?"
Starlight wasn't sure where this was going, but she had played along so far. "Yes."
"Now." She heard Herman move beside her. "Of the ponies in the upper districts who fear the lower, who see the weapons convoy attacks and the propaganda of the Spirit as the true face of every last one of the hundreds of thousands of innocents living below... and of the ponies of the lower districts who see the upper the same way, as cold or authoritarian or uncaring or simply not knowing what they are talking about... Of all those ponies put together... how many do you think they number?"
Starlight gulped. "A lot?"
"Every. Last. Soul. In. Ironridge."
Starlight folded her ears.
"And they are the ones who matter," Herman said. "My plans for Ironridge? Nothing more than preserving the status quo. I did not need either party to win up on the dam. One could have been victorious. They could have made peace and walked away. The only way that button was going to get pressed was if a pony pressed it, because that has always and exactly been my policy: I enable the fighters to fight. I give them tools to do terrible things to each other, present myself as a target for their leaders to plan and plot against, and then stand back and let them do their deeds. I cannot predict where the chaos of their fights will take them, or who will win. But they are not the ones who matter. Everything has always been about the audience: the million other ponies who watch, fear, hear the news and hope with all their hearts that things could be better."
"...So you just like fighting. Huh." Starlight hung her head. "Fighting for the sake of fighting. Ponies watching fighting... Is that it? Why quit now?"
"Fighting for the sake of fighting sounds pointless," Herman countered... or so she thought. "The citizens find it pointless, too. Some of them lap up the drama like milk. Others prepare vehemently to defend their side in an argument, out of fear of losing, because they think they know what the other side looks like and they think the other side is lost. But the point is for them to get tired of it. Tired of the stress, of the strain... ready to make amends and try to work together to build a cooperative future. And then the fighting goes on, and they become beyond ready. They grow impatient, willing to settle for anything, even an imperfect solution, so long as it means they no longer have to worry about the battle growing and suddenly involving them. To stop it, they will do anything."
Starlight felt her heart rise into her throat. "Anything like...?"
"Like bowing down and pleading for Yakyakistan to annex them, since their own governments are incapable of action."
It took all of Starlight's self control to bite her tongue, preventing a spur-of-the-moment reaction. There had to be more things to it than that, and she had to stay in character to figure it out. "Really?" she eventually managed to say. "Your big bad plan is to take over the world? Boooring."
Herman probably smiled. "If only it were that simple. How much do you know of the yak war forty years ago?"
"The Blazing Rain one?" Starlight folded her ears. "Not much."
"One concern when it was fought was yak expansionism to the north and west," Herman rumbled, explaining. "Yakyakistan was turning itself into an empire, much like the vast Griffon Empire to the east. This was a time before airships, when administration of such a large and mountainous land was already difficult at best. Instead, Yakyakistan tried to hold its citizens, traditional and absorbed, together through faith: expanding the power and influence of the Bishops of the Nine Virtues, and the church that followed them. The sparks that started the war came over concerns from within the government that the church was growing too powerful. Eventually, when the war concluded and the surviving powers met to forge a plan for the future, one of the decisive mandates they wrote into law was that Yakyakistan could never again annex territories and try to form an empire."
The sound of his hooves scraping against marble echoed against the distant wind as he continued. "As I said, this was an age before airships. Travel and administration of lands separated by difficult terrain is much more possible than in times passed... yet Yakyakistan refuses to reconsider this law out of fear and remembrance of the war. Foolishly, they limit themselves in an age of new expansions just like Ironridge limited itself in the shuttering of its airship program twenty years ago. I have seen what happened to Ironridge. I will not have my own nation suffer the same fate, fading into sadness and obscurity as the world leaves it behind! And that is why I have crafted Ironridge into the most piteous case imaginable... If Yakyakistan cannot be brought to undo this law out of the ambition to face the future, then they shall do so through the necessity of kindness!"
"Woah." Starlight took a step back. "That's..."
"Ambitious? Manipulative? Some other negative adjective of choice?" Herman was right in front of her. "Perhaps. And now you see why this is game over for me: regardless of the true perpetrator behind destroying Sosa and damaging the skyport, Yakyakistan will have to publicly disown me as a part of gaining the trust of the citizens. Every creature needs someone to blame, and every creature needs a hero. For years, I have enabled Ironridge to tear itself apart, because it was necessary to save my own nation from a similar fate of obsolescence and irrelevance. Ironridge itself, I care not about, but the leaders of Yakyakistan are compassionate. The benefits of their rule may well outstrip the violence I enabled, as well! So if, in the end, I am helping both nations..."
Suddenly, Starlight squealed. A giant hoof lifted her, before she was slammed on her back against a wall. She barely had time to start sliding down when there was a titanic crunch right next to her head, a cold, thin bar pressing tightly across her body and pinning her in place. She couldn't move.
"Okay, Yakbreath," Valey growled, rising from a pool of shadow where she had been watching, the active sound stone hidden beneath a folded wing. "That's not cool. She was having a nice conversation with you. Let the filly go."
Herman stood with his back to her and glanced over his shoulder. Starlight was pinned to the wall in front of him, trapped by the haft of his gigantic magic axe, which had its head buried far too tightly in the stone for her struggles to budge. "What?" he asked, looking back at Valey. "She openly bragged about destroying the dam and Sosa, and requested my aid in doing worse. A confession of criminal activity is a confession, and it was entirely voluntary. What does the law say about that, Dior?"
Dior was getting to his hooves, rubbing at a laceration on his throat. Starlight hadn't been able to see it, and Valey silently berated the filly for not noticing his silence, but Herman had been keeping the Chancellor at axepoint throughout the duration of their talk: no interfering. "Let her go," Dior said. "Herman, as the Chancellor of Skyfreeze and your direct superior, I officially pardon this filly and order you to release her."
"No," Herman replied, standing between Dior and Starlight. "You hold no authority over Yakyakistan or me."
"Herman..." Valey stalked forward. "Is this some kind of 'I just told you my plan, so now I'm taking hostages to make sure you can't go and tell anyone else' kind of thing?"
Herman shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I simply decided to play my role until the end."
"Oh? You don't care if I bail and spill your plan to all of Ironridge, then?" Valey's teeth bared in a grin.
Herman looked lazily at her. "And you expect the entire city to become self-sufficient friends based on your word alone in a matter of minutes?"
Valey's eyes narrowed. "Who said anything about my word?"
Then, from the sound stone she suddenly thrust forward, came a voice: "Long time no meet, Herman. I hope you're not planning to harm a hair on Starlight's head, because right now, I'm this close to losing my bartering mood."
"Who is this?" Herman frowned. "Arambai? A wireless sound communication device? Clever."
"Nah, just something I borrowed from a very terrified former captain of yours. Regardless, something tells me you've got at least one of my friends up there in a bad spot. Feeling up to negotiations? Or am I going to have to teleport up there and turn you into a rug the old-fashioned way?"
"Let me go!" Starlight thrashed against the axe hilt pinning her chest to the wall. "Rrrgh! I didn't even do anything except let you brag about your evil plans!"
"I have no need for negotiations," Herman purred back into the stone, turning up towards Starlight. "You chastised me earlier for giving up, foal," he rumbled. "And complained to me about the injustices Ironridge has done you as a city. I can sympathize with that. Spending years preparing a city that does not wish to be conquered for conquest by a nation that does not wish to conquer... it has been a very thankless job. Now that the end is nigh, I could sit and wait like I was planning... but I think I will steal a page from you, instead. Abducting the favorite filly of the Sosan leadership?" He glanced between the sound stone, Dior, and Shinespark's half-conscious form. "In that line, I think I will also take a page from you, Valey... and try to enjoy my misdeeds."
"You do that!" Arambai growled, the pounding of hooves echoing through the sound stone. "But the Defense Force are over! So's the Spirit. And once I get up there and tan your woolly hide, Ironridge won't need Yakyakistan!"
Herman smiled. "Will you have the time? I was not planning on Ironridge catching Yakyakistani attention out of the blue to ask for aid. Yakyakistan has been interested in this city for a very long time... ever since the war. A government secret relating to this geographic location. I have never been primed on what it is, but they find it enthralling enough to keep up a presence in this city. It was the sole reason for diplomatic ties between our nations before airships, even. And in Yakyakistan, there have been two schools of thought surrounding it... an A plan and a B plan. The A plan is desirable and involves an indefinite presence in the city. The B plan was crafted in response to the deterioration of stability, and involves Yakyakistan making one great use of whatever it is they found here and then leaving. One year ago, the B plan was activated in secret, a set of packages shipped by land and sea and private contractor to enter Ironridge in the most roundabout way possible. Three days ago, they arrived here. All the plan required then was for a qualified government official to visit and make preparations... which already happened... and one final delivery to arrive, which arrived at sunset while we were on the dam."
Starlight kicked uselessly. "Yeah, well, wouldn't that mean you yaks leave?"
"Under normal circumstances." Herman grinned harder. "Unfortunately for that plan, Valey made a visit to the project location, undoubtedly as an act of sabotage aimed at me. Yakyakistan will likely find themselves in this for a longer amount of time as a result. But first, they will have to deal with the reality of conflict in Ironridge. Their easy out is gone. I had hoped otherwise, as fighting would have been enough, but much of the Ironridge economy is also gone, and the city will likely destabilize further. Thousands of refugees are in crisis; their homes are gone. City-wide power outages. A government that has done nothing to stop this. And while I know not what was delivered in a streak of light over the mountains at sunset... An experimental, ultrafast technology known as rocketry... I can see the details of its security classification. A classification that mandates it be protected by a group of yak warriors. The only thing stopping them from helping right here and right now is the No Invasions, No Occupations law... and an official with both knowledge of the project and its importance, and the ability to lift the law, is already here. Warriors are already in Ironridge. The law may already be lifted. Do whatever you think you can, Arambai. I have already won."
He laughed a deep-throated laugh, then winked at Valey. "Hmmm! Perhaps I should learn from you more often. That felt far better than sitting here and watching the results on a screen."
"Laugh it up while you can, rug," Arambai fired back. "I know how to handle a yak in combat. If soldiers are what you brought, soldiers I can take down."
"Even if you could, would you?" Herman countered. "Repelling peacekeepers and aid from your own devastated nation? You cannot-"
CRAAAASH!
With a deafening splintering and rending of metal, a gigantic plate of debris from a destroyed something in the skyport struck the melted, weakened section of the roof where Shinespark's magic blast had impacted, shattering it and tearing a gash in the ceiling. The already-cold temperature began to drop as outside winds forced themselves in, raising hairs all along Valey's spine. Her body groaned as if she had just ran a marathon, even though she had spent the last half hour sitting and doing nothing.
"As much fun as you're having, if we stay here, we'll die!" Dior shouted, trying to move Shinespark's injured form without disturbing her broken leg. "We have to get out of here!"
"I am already dead," Herman assured them with a nod. "Although, now that this is getting interesting... surrender is falling further and further off my list."
"So we're bailing? Cool." Running past him, Valey dashed up to the axe and started trying to tug it free. It refused to budge, though, held in place both by the grip of the stone and its strange self-levitation. "Nngh... come on... stupid thing..."
"No," Herman said, once again choosing the path of obstinance. "Dior and Shinespark can leave if they like. You, I want here."
Valey eyed him flatly. "Seriously, I'd love to take you up on your offer earlier to let us go..."
Herman shook his head. "I am starting to feel cheated out of my duel with Shinespark. She let her anger get the better of her, and was defeated too easily. You, fight me instead."
"A pity." Herman looked back up at Starlight. "You see, I no longer feel like going without a fight. But I have already done enough damage to Yakyakistan through allowing the destruction of their future economic assets without attacking warriors they need to bring peace to the city. Arambai might happily do me harm, but we are not well acquainted. He left this city for seven years, and I would also prefer to fall at the hooves of someone who has been fighting me all this time. Shinespark failed. You are what is left. Fight me."
"Screw off!" Valey shouted, shoving and scraping at the axe, unable to shadow sneak on the lit surface. "I've just gotten busted up twenty billion times, and nothing is getting between me and getting my friends to safety! I'm done with this, done with you, and done with Ironridge, you hear me!? Now... Nnngh... Move this stupid axe!"
The glow holding the axe haft intensified. "Very well," Herman said. "Then fight for your friends. When Arambai arrives in this room, if the three of us are all still alive, I will tighten the handle and crush her to death before he can finish me. Fight me."
Valey froze... and dropped to the ground, crouching, staring at Herman. "Don't you dare."
"I dare."
Blinking, Valey looked about... at the hole in the ceiling, at the tunnel to the boarding room, at Dior unsuccessfully trying to move Shinespark without earning whimpers of pain. "Hey, uhh... Herman?" she asked, a thought crossing her mind. "You feel like yourself, right? As in... no weird emotions or impulses you wouldn't normally be having? Because normally you're cold, calculating, and really offensive, and you basically just turned into a mustache twirler since we've been talking."
Herman frowned back at her. "What does that have to do with anything? Fight me."
Valey looked harder for anything she might use. "Uhhhhh..."
"Is that still on?" Herman asked, pointing to the sound stone Valey had dropped beneath the spot where Starlight hung.
"Yeah, but-"
"Citizens of Ironridge!" Herman bellowed. "Valey of the Defense Force is not a real pony! I acquired her as an unnecessary by-product of experiments to combine-"
Powww!
"Shut up!" Valey screeched, having hurled the sound stone so hard at Herman's jaw that there was a crack... and not from the rock. She darted forward and kicked it, sending it skidding away under the balcony railing, dropping to the floor below. Dior was staring at her, and even Shinespark had managed to open her eyes. She didn't want to look back at Starlight. Her entire coat was standing straight on edge, making it look like she was covered in black spikes rather than fur.
"You have a death wish?" Valey rasped, the pendant around her neck starting to crackle with energy. "You want to goad me in to killing you? Because you're doing a pretty good job of it! I'm not usually in the business of murdering folks. If this were some kind of last stand thing, where I was trying to survive until Arambai got here? I could see myself doing that... but this...?"
She paused... then deflated. "Nah. Don't wanna." For a second, she was somber, until a grin broke out on her face. "Thought you got my goat, didn't you?"
Herman's eyes flashed. Valey's ears went backwards, listening for the axe's magical shimmering she knew was about to come... but this time, her eyes were on Herman, with a very specific thing in mind. There! Through a hole torn in the shoulder of his uniform, something was emitting a matching glow!
Faster than she had ever moved before, Valey lunged for the glowing spot, propelled by the activation of her pendant. Her teeth closed down on a metal band... but it hadn't been intended for the width of Herman's foreleg, and was partially fixed on with elastic. She hung on, twisting, biting fiercely... and tore the thing away, hearing the loud clatter of an axe against the floor behind her.
"Yeah!" She cheered, a devilish smirk setting itself back on her face as green energy danced and burned across her coat, focusing on the pendant and leaving in waves off her mane and tail. Starlight fell free, and Dior was instantly running to get her. "You like that, fatty?" She held up the band, grinning at Herman's stupefied face. "You wanna fight me? Okay. I'll fight you. But we're doing it on my terms. If you want to hurt my friends, you get past me first... and the moment Arambai gets here, you're toast."
"Give. That. Back," Herman ground, rounding on her and matching her cheeky expression with pure fury. "I observed your fighting style for years. I know everything about your motions. I will destroy you."
"Nyaa." Valey stuck out her tongue as her pendant glowed brighter. "You know about Valey, sure. But this failed Yakyakistani science experiment has a few more tricks than just that."
Valey and Herman stared each other down, the wind building in pitch above them, Herman glaring murderously at the enchanted band that Valey twirled from her hoof, the axe it controlled laying dormant and useless on the floor. Dior had snuck Starlight over to where Shinespark lay, but still couldn't move her, trying gently and slowly and clearly going to take a while. Green energy crackled all over Valey's body, and her tail lashed as she circled into place, standing between the yak and her friends.
"What am I gonna do, huh?" Valey asked, crouching. "Know where you're about to strike? Are you... what, going to lure me into melee and try some sort of feint? Blast me with glowey stuff? Sure, sure... you've been watching me and stalking me all this time and think you can read me like a book..." She threw the pendant's connection wide open, engaging it fully. "Then try and read this!"
With a whoosh of flame, Valey's mane and tail shortened slightly, the tips bleeding with color until they turned a soft crimson pink. Patches of her coat lightened to a brighter shade of gray, and the cutie mark on her left flank sparked with energy before disappearing... and resurfacing in a flash of light, this time in the shape of an ear next to a jagged, vibrating line. Another flash lanced from Valey's eye, leaving the affected iris sky-blue, glinting in the atrium's relative darkness. The energy died away; its job was complete: the pony standing opposed to Herman was half Valey and half someone else. When she grinned, it was unmistakably confident.
"Ever fought a mare with two cutie marks before?" Valey asked, gently pushing back the confused, second conscience that was suddenly trying to use her mouth and limbs. "You can try to learn everything about me you like, but it won't matter. I can change. And the only thing you'll know for sure... is that I have the element of surprise!"
She kicked forward, wings spread, the blizzard's cold a forgotten memory, targeting Herman's weak point where Shinespark had stabbed him and preparing to drive him back. They needed to take their fight down a rung on the atrium's concentric balconies; having Herman with a straight path to Dior was a recipe for trouble. Her forehoof reared back for a flying punch...
Flash! Time stopped as her cutie mark burned. She had been trying to dive low and go beneath him, but there was danger that way. She saw his own leg moving preparing to crush her, and grinned. "From below? Then I'll go..."
Holding her course, Valey jumped slightly, then returned to skidding along the ground. Herman's feinted stomp turned into a face-height punch that would have turned her chest inside-out had she dodged up, and she turned on her back at the last second, seizing the opening and slamming all four legs into his wound, pushing against the ground for force. Yes! The impact sent him staggering back several steps, and Valey took advantage of the stun by hooking around a foreleg, converting her momentum to upwards, kicking his chin as she rose.
In truth, the element of surprise was all she had, alongside a somewhat-intimidating appearance. A cutie mark that let her pick out individual sound pitches, once used for music appreciation, wouldn't be much help in a battle. As the fight wore on, Herman would realize she wasn't doing anything new, too. She had to stall, be mysterious, and rely on reads like that one to stay safe, since a single blow from Herman's mighty hooves would leave her crippled, if not kill her outright.
"All right, you...!" Valey spun back around, preparing to dive-bomb Herman, silently reassuring the voice in her head saying it was scared. But he was already moving, stomping back to where his axe had fallen. Its telekinetic control was gone, but that did nothing to stop him from lifting it in his teeth.
"Gruuuoh!" Herman ignored Valey, charging along the balcony to where Dior, Shinespark and Starlight were waiting. Instantly, Valey dove.
Spinning like a torpedo, she kicked off the atrium wall, angling herself so that a strike would push Herman off the edge. She soared at his side... and dropped to the ground, sliding on her belly as he whirled, sending his axeblade in a singing circle right where her head had been. Valey felt the wind shred her flattened ears as a large chunk of her mane became disconnected from her body, but she still had her momentum and Herman was unbalanced from his spin.
Pow! She planted her forehooves, swinging into a rising kick targeted straight at the leg Herman was using as a pivot. It went down, taking the yak with it in a hairy crash, and Valey stalled just long enough not to get crushed as he fell, shoulder-slamming him and giving them the extra boost they needed to topple through the railing and fall to the level below.
Surrounded by glass shards and polished metal pipes from the broken railing, Valey kicked off Herman as they plunged, propelling him towards the ground and giving herself a precious extra second of airtime. Her wings wrapped around a straight, sharp pipe; if she could end this now...
She dropped like a lightning bolt, impromptu spear aimed straight for the scorched wound on his chest. But she wasn't fast enough: a cloven hoof shot out, catching the pipe, and Valey had to flap sideways with all her strength to avoid being skewered on her own weapon. Her cutie mark warned her that Herman was about to throw it, and she flipped to the ground, hooves skidding on slippery, broken glass as the projectile flew over her head.
Herman stared her down, using his axe as a crutch as he got up. They were beneath the lip of the upper balcony, and Valey crouched, using the shadow of a garden of tall, ornamental plants for cover. Neither had any words to say.
Then Herman swung his axe. "Graaaah!" It smashed through a marble support pillar, causing the balcony above them to wobble dangerously. Herman readied an upward swing, targeting the floor itself.
"Nope! You're fighting me, not them!" Valey lunged forward, and the swing converted into a shot at her head... which was feinted a grand total of three times, and almost certainly would have hit had she not stayed completely out of range. But that just let Herman attack the ceiling again, and with a splintering of stone and steel, it groaned and began to collapse.
Valey's second cutie mark made her ears twitch, the perfect pitch detection letting her make out every frequency of rock splitting and steel rending as the upper balcony distorted, and she had to shake her head to get all the unnecessary information out of her mind. She readied herself to dodge as a bite-shaped chunk of the walkway above prepared to fall directly on her head... then paused. Her cutie mark wasn't warning her about it quite as much as it should have.
Her wings buzzed, and she flew straight up, hooves extended toward the collapsing ceiling. Herman lunged sideways with a swing that covered the area she was about to dodge to. Breathing a sigh of relief, she grabbed the ceiling and shoved. As heavy as the stone was, it was also thin, and a plate broke free just light enough not to crush her. Straining and angling, she flipped it and plowed it into Herman, using the broken floor as a shield.
Crack! It sent him staggering back, shattering against the point of his one horn. Valey pressed her advantage, sensing that the immediate counterattack would be weak, as he couldn't swing the axe over his head. Balling her forehooves, she somersaulted and slammed them against his spine.
He didn't buckle, instead whirling and catching her with his axe. But the quarters were too close for him to hit with the blade, and all he did was strike her with the haft, throwing her into the floor. Valey used the shadow of a piece of rubble to swim, breaking her impact and saving her from everything but a very sore line across her chest.
Rubbing the injury, impatiently trying to calm the cry of fright in her head, she flew out, pulling away from Herman, ready to return the battle to neutral and come at him with a fresh approach. She hovered, surveying the atrium and trying to come up with a battle plan... when the wind reminded her that it was still there.
She was caught and tossed by a gust from the crack in the ceiling, and with a deafening boom the fissure expanded, a new crack running all the way across one side. The wind rolled her to a stop at the foot of a staircase back to the level where Starlight and Dior were, its message delivered.
"Hnnngh..." Gingerly, Valey climbed to her hooves, but nothing was broken. Hopefully Arambai would arrive before the roof was completely destroyed, because the harsher the weather got, the bigger Herman's advantage. Herman himself was staring straight at her, clearly wanting the way up for himself. But he was crouching, not advancing, watching her while he busied himself with something else... the axe's control band! Had it fallen down when the floor collapsed?
"Nope!" Valey lunged, preparing for another assault. Herman cracked his hooves together, the band not yet properly affixed, readying to strike back. The axe in his jaw swung straight down her path, then at the last second angled to cover the band instead.
Valey rolled the other way, keeping her distance. She grumbled inwardly; he had left his wound open. If she had taken the risk, she could have hit it... but no, better not to take risks. She had to stay alive. Right then, she was living for a lot more than just herself.
Herman yanked his axe out of the ground, already whirling into another swing. But he had made a mistake: they were standing underneath an intact part of the next balcony up. Valey grinned, almost let the blow connect, and then was gone in a ripple of shadow.
There wasn't much room to work with, and it only took a single step for Herman to put the hoof holding the band out of her reach. But again, he didn't cover his wound, and this time, Valey was ready. The axe stabbed down next to his hoof, and before he could withdraw it from the cracked and crumbling floor, she was at his chest, standing on two legs and pummeling the injury like a jackhammer with gritted teeth and a furious smile.
Each hit only made him wince for an instant, but the blows were less than an instant apart. Both hooves flew, burnt and healthy alike, and Valey grinned through the pain of her residual injuries, taking one step after another as she steadily forced him away from where the axe lay buried. These punches weren't like the flashy ones she had given Neon Nova back in the Blueleaf generator, designed to see how many a single pony could take before folding: every single one packed all the power she had to give it and more, kicking up a breeze as the onslaught refused to stop.
"You're not invincible!" Valey ground out as her burnt hoof gave way and she continued her assault at half speed. "Fat and hairy, but Sparky got through you! So did Selma pushing you off that dam! There's a limit to what you can take, and whatever it is... I will find it!"
Powwww! Herman caught his balance enough to punch at her, and Valey had to spin to duck the flying hoof, breaking off her attack entirely. Her forelegs felt like mush, and she found she could barely stand... and soon, there was nothing to stand on at all.
The floor gave way again, cracking where Herman's axe lay embedded in a fault line, further weakened by their stomps and the intensity of the last attack. As they tumbled, Valey wrapped around him, swinging past his back with a death grip around his throat, and caught the control band with a hind leg before flipping away.
She landed on her chest, propping herself into a sitting position with her wings. She was reaching her limit, too... so it was time to expand her capabilities. Hoping it wouldn't explode, she strapped the control band around her own forelimb, flexing it appreciatively.
Herman charged, swinging with her bare hooves.
"Uhhh..." That band had better work! To Valey's surprise, it did; the axe soared to her aid as an un-angled projectile, its edge missing completely but still driving its considerable weight and spiked ornamentation into Herman's side. He grunted, struggled, and tripped, teetering before falling over.
"Hah!" Valey crowed, gingerly limping toward the next railing to put distance between her and Herman as she figured out how to manipulate it. Was this how unicorns felt with telekinesis? Did she have to move every aspect of it herself? Or was there some functionality involved that would let her give it a location and it would obey? From its behavior earlier, she suspected the latter.
Chop him! The axe swung back... but it was far too slow, and Herman moved out of the way, ignoring it entirely and running toward her, tilting like a derailing train. Valey's cutie mark flared; he was going to veer sharply, but she had no idea where...
With a burst of panic and determination that was at least half the other mind in her head, she called for protection, and the axe came, dropping in from the sky to shield her. Herman charged straight into it with an effect like a frying pan to the face, fell back, and roared.
Swing... no, block! Herman recovered far too quickly, beyond enraged as he raised a hoof to tear at where Valey sat. She tried to stay limber, but knew her mobility was decreasing after what she had just put her forehooves through. But the axe was reliable, swishing just past her face in a tight arc to intercept the blow. Valey grinned, blocking again: Herman couldn't feint now, or else the blocks would become attacks that would hit him in turn.
He was far enough away; she turned the next slash into an attack, imagining she was ten times her size and able to put power into the stroke with her own hooves. As tired as she was growing, the blade sang with deadly wind, and this time it was Herman openly blocking, faced with an autonomous floating weapon just as big as he was.
"Take... that!" Valey flapped closer, abandoning walking and hanging from her wings instead, connecting the dots that the telekinesis grew stronger the closer she was to the weapon. "And that!" The axe whirled, backing off for strike after strike, and Valey figured out how to aim the blade as it clanged and sparked off Herman's blocking hooves and horn. The two titans exchanged blows, Herman and the axe, until one block connected awkwardly and Herman crashed down on his shoulder. Valey prepared for a decisive blow...
And then her cutie mark burned. A trap? Of course. She couldn't see anything brewing from Herman as he struggled to get up, but flipped away just in case.
Not one second later, with a roar like the explosion of the dam, the atrium's domed roof failed. It split in a spider web, huge, deadly chunks raining down. One piece fell like a giant glass skewer, severing cleanly through the floor where she had just stood, detaching that segment of the balcony from its supports and sending Herman toppling to the ground floor.
Well, that was good for her, but if the building was about to be gone, it could also get very, very bad. Valey glanced around for her axe, preparing to fly back up and check on Dior and the others. It would take Herman longer to climb up, and if they were in danger of getting crushed... There the axe was! Trapped under a fallen slab of metal. Valey commanded it to rise, danger tingling all around her, and huffed as it shook, not quite able to throw the metal off...
Then, out of nowhere, a hoof-sized piece of roof struck her beating wing, sending a shock of pain rippling through it and knocking her into a dizzying, unintended spiral. "Oh, come on!" she started to yell, before clamping her mouth shut, trying not to lose her lunch.
She crashed painfully on the frozen surface of a fountain pool on the atrium floor, snow flurrying down all around her. Her wing flexed, spasmed... and was definitely in 'use at your own risk' mode. The same wing she had strained in the Flame District, at that. Valey growled, then screamed in frustration, more debris falling around her, her forehooves barely able to keep her upright in a sitting position.
The snow parted, and she saw Herman limping towards her, ready to kill.
"Uhhh... nope!" Her cutie mark warned her of a much more immediate danger, and she twisted her torso, flipping up onto her hind legs and nearly losing her balance before throwing herself away. A moment later, a glass-and-iron meteor struck the fountain, shattering the ice and sending a spray of tiny, lethal crystals into the air. They painfully peppered Valey's side, the cold quickly numbing the cuts and a number of bruises inflicted by bigger chunks, but Herman wasn't so fortunate. He took the blast right to his face, and was left with one eye held painfully closed.
Valey set her teeth in a grimace, getting back onto her hind legs, good wing extended for balance. Willing the axe to her, she watched as Herman approached and nothing happened. She was nimble enough to dodge, still, but didn't trust herself to nail an upright landing...
Another chunk of roof was falling straight for her, and she leapt for safety. Herman read her movements, dodging back himself this time, and it exploded harmlessly against the ground, leaving a pock-marked crater chipped in the once-lavish marble flooring. Valey staggered back upright, having realized the last major tool in her possession: she could see where the roof was about to fall.
With a crash, a huge beam of steel tore straight through the floor next to her, revealing what was below: a hole overlooking the rising snowfields; a portal straight to the certain death of the outside world below. She stepped nervously; that would be doom to fall in. Why couldn't Arambai show up, already!?
Valey danced in a circle, still trying to summon the axe, concentrating as hard as she could to block out the terror in her head and analyze the dips and spikes in her danger perceptions. Where was the next bit of roof going to drop? It was... there!
Clumsily, nearly tripping on the mounds of debris partially disguised by snow, Valey danced at an angle to it carefully chosen in hopes that Herman would back away from where she had been, moving directly into the danger zone. But he didn't: completely throwing off the lethargy he had been sporting since reaching the ground floor, he charged, putting himself on a collision course with Valey. She wasn't able to catch herself, only roll. They collided.
"Aaaaaaaugh!" Herman's hoof scooped her off the ground before she could even come to a halt, flinging her into the air in a vicious arc as Herman leapt and whirled. He threw her against the ground so hard she bounced; her injured wing gave a spasm of pain, her head exploded in dizziness. Her cutie mark was burning, he was pouncing again, she was still suffering sensory overload due to being two ponies in one body...
She rolled into the hole.
Valey's rubbery forelegs caught the edge, her back half dangling below, yanked and jerked as her tail and hind legs were seized by the wind. There was no way she could drag herself back up; her good wing flapped uselessly at her side. Herman landed with a crunch in front of her. Snarling, Valey shut her eyes...
And her increased clarity of hearing made out the one sound she wanted to hear more than anything else: the metallic song of an axeblade on the wind. She grinned, fighting to hang on, the jagged edge of the severed floor scraping against her belly. "Hey, Herman. Don't look behind you."
Herman looked. There was nothing.
"Very funny," he snorted, raising a hoof to smash down on her legs-
While his back was turned, Valey let go.
Herman stepped back in surprise just in time to avoid the axe that plunged down after her. She flipped mid-drop, just before the opening, as the axe spun past her, and she was outside.
The buildings of the skyport were shaped like huge mushrooms, their domed tops supported by thin, central stalks. Valey had come out near that stalk, after busting through over a meter of stone, steel and maintenance space, and was nearly blown away by the wind... but the underside was coated in giant icicles, and with a flick of telekinesis, she spun the axe horizontally, shearing through the bases of several before it finally caught and became wedged. She grabbed the haft with one forehoof, converted her momentum, felt her shoulder pop as she swung wildly, lashed out at a falling icicle with her tail... and caught it, wedging herself against the axe in a crouch.
"Grrrrr..." A snarl built in her throat as the axeblade shifted, but she had a weapon, a spear of ice nearly as long and thick as she was. Fighting through the cold, she hugged it to her side with both forehooves, pointing it straight upward, coiled her legs against the axe haft beneath her, extended her wings, and sprang. "Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!"
Herman didn't even have time to step back in surprise as she erupted back up the hole, spearing straight for his chest. The icicle hit the wound, penetrated, and kept going, Valey's momentum pushing it as far as it would go, even knocking the yak back with the fury of her final charge. He reared up, and blinked once in surprise.
Valey held the base of the icicle. Her hooves were frozen, her cutie mark was burning, and with Herman, she didn't move... until the next ceiling fragment fell. With a shattering her enhanced ears heard perfectly, a wicked spear of glass backed by a hammerlike clump of metal dropped straight and true, piercing Herman's back exactly opposite to her icicle. Impaled from the top and bottom at once, he stood... and Valey flipped away, jumping off him just in time as the floor gave out and sent his corpse plummeting to the wastes below.
"Ugh... ugh... heh heh heh... urrrrrgh..." Valey took two steps, then collapsed in the shelter of a remaining section of balcony, completely spent. "Yeah... We... got him..." She closed her eyes. "Guess I really am unbeatable, after all."
After a minute, she opened them, the snow coming down heavily all around her. "Sorry, Sis," she whispered, putting a hoof to her pendant. "I know you don't get what's going on..."
She sighed. "But, hey. I can protect my friends. Maybe I'll finally get out of this stupid city, and can see about doing something to get you back for real. To get both of us. In the meantime... shhhh. Go back to sleep. Stuff's gonna get better. Eventually."
The connection faded as she closed down the pendant, and with a flicker of burning green energy, her eye and cutie mark returned to normal. The bright patches on her coat faded to their usual black, and the rose disappeared from her tail... but her mane didn't grow back where she had lost it to Herman's axe. Oh well. She tried the band around her forelimb, but it was dull and unresponsive. Maybe the axe had had enough, too.
"Ohhhhhh bananas I am hungry," Valey moaned, hugging herself and then rubbing her belly. "Wish this thing didn't do that. Still, better than a whole bunch of other nasty prices magic could ask..."
She sat up, the snow completely obscuring her vision. The roof pieces had stopped; either the storm was in a lull, or there was nothing more to knock down. "Guess I've gotta climb out of here now, huh?" she said to no one in particular.
A small gleam caught her eye, and she crawled over to examine it. It was the sound stone she had kicked over the edge, and it was still glowing. Scooping it with a shaky hoof, she held it to her muzzle, still breathing heavily. "Yo! Is this thing on?"
"That you again, Valey?" Arambai's gruff voice replied, sounding badly out of breath. "If you can hold on a little bit longer, we're almost there!"
"Yeah... think you missed the boat on that one, gramps." Valey leaned back again, groaning in pain as her back cracked and her shoulder finally popped back into place. "Herman is gonzo. I kicked his rear. Sealed his coffin. He got dunked on. But if it's fine with you, I really could do with a care package before you run off to beat up those soldiers he was going on about."
"What do you need? And where are you? We just arrived, and only see... Shinespark! What happened!?"
"Down at the bottom, gramps." Valey sighed, closing her eyes again. "As for what I need... a ride outta here, for one. I can barely move. Preferrably to some place nice and warm with a bunch of cute massage mares who could do something about ow ow ow cramp! That really hurts..." She grinned lazily into the stone, not even batting an eyelid as she acted. "My super sore muscles. Oh, and I want a sandwich."
"A sandwich."
"You got it, gramps." Valey set the stone aside, exhaling and staring out into the snow. There was a warm glow in her cutie mark that muffled the dangerous tingle from the storm, and despite being battered and horribly bruised, she felt better than she had in a very long time.
Valey crawled up a staircase, having decided that as nice as pampering and a ride out would be, she would regret it if waiting earned a case of frostbite for her hooves.
All four of them were icy, and she had been ready to drag herself along on her belly, but the numerous jagged rocks and shards of glass on the floor and below the snow were a sharp detriment to that plan. She felt raw enough from clinging to the hole's edge, as it was. So instead she crawled, moving limb by jellied limb and waiting to ensure they wouldn't give out under her.
She reached the first tier, found herself face-to-face with the giant gap where the floor had been smashed out beneath her in the fight... and saw Dior skirting the edge, making his way toward her. Their eyes locked.
"Arambai says to tell you he doesn't have any able-bodied massage mares," he shouted over the nearby wind. "He also said you couldn't move! Do you still need help?"
Valey glanced at the dull sound stone under her good wing; it had ran out of power shortly after their exchange. "Oh, I totally can't move. This is... uhh... cheating." The foreleg with the burnt hoof gave out, and she tipped over, catching herself against a wall. "And don't worry about it. You're the next best thing. Did you bring my sandwich?"
"No," Dior grunted, reaching her and using his orange telekinesis to help lift her onto his back. "Arambai did not bring a chef with him. Now bear with me, because I'm not particularly athletic."
Taking careful, heavy steps, he made his way back to the second balcony, and then the third. The shelter was lesser there, and Valey saw Arambai, Starlight, and Shinespark inside a waiting alcove by a section of roof that was somehow still standing. The wind blew just overhead, but didn't scoop down into the exposed bowl of the atrium, like a cat waiting to pounce.
"...That's it?" Valey raised a frosty eyebrow, hugging Dior for warmth. "I know we've never met, so maybe you're crazy strong... but did you really bring only yourself as backup?"
Arambai sighed. "I told the Blueleaf folks to stay home. Figured they'd only be a liability. Elise stayed with 'em, since without her horn she's not much. A few Defense Force followed me up until you made contact, and then even they went home. Smart, really. If Ironridge is about to be invaded by helpful yaks, this is the worst possible battleground for it. I've been binding Shinespark's leg so I can carry her, Starlight can walk, and apparently you're one of the good guys now." He glanced up at the howling sky. "Gotta admit, Shinespark didn't speak too glowingly of you in her letters, but you can never tell if that means you're actually a dirtbag or just her crush."
"Dad!" Shinespark weakly protested, awake and lucid and eyes still stinging with pain. She focused on Valey. "You... That pendant... How...?"
"None of your business," Valey growled, hugging Dior tighter.
"Do you mind?" Dior hissed back. "Your hooves are very cold."
Valey shifted on his back. "Yeah, that's kind of the point."
"The point is, we should be getting out of here." Arambai stood up, his aura forming around Shinespark and slowly lifting her. "Can't say I'm entirely sad to see this place go, but I'd like to not go with it. We can continue our reunion somewhere safer, and hopefully try diplomacy with the yaks."
"Dad..." Shinespark looked hurt. "The Spirit... Grenada... They're still..."
Arambai glanced over to the tunnel to the boarding room. "All right, then. They've got ten seconds to come out, play nice and come with us, but I care about you lot a little more than them."
Valey counted. By second three, there was nothing but a curtain of falling snow. By second seven, she looked away.
"I see something!" Shinespark yelped. "Dad!"
"Hmmm?" Arambai growled, looking up in interest. Valey followed his gaze.
There were ponies coming... ponies carrying ponies. Four in all were standing, and as they drew closer she could see their horns glowing, using a mix of telekinesis and their backs to carry or drag other ponies with them, most of them with weapons still affixed to their bodies. One of them had a taller frame that glinted gold in the light: Braen's armor.
"Look!" one shouted, perking up. "Other ponies!"
Another blanched. "Who else is up here but us? If they're Defense Force..."
"Then we surrender and hope as hard as we can for mercy."
"Huh." Arambai levitated Shinespark carefully, stepping forward. "Looks like your Spirit did survive, after all. For a given definition of survive, at least."
Shinespark's eyes watered, and she was speechless.
"No! There's Shinespark! She's alive!?" One perked up, and they all listened, stumping eagerly forward under their loads. "And..." They drew up, one by one. "You're Arambai, aren't you...?"
Arambai nodded.
"What are you doing back?" a chunky stallion asked, wonder in his eyes. "You've been gone for years! Have you come to save Sosa?"
"Shinespark," the mare in the golden armor said, bowing. "Our side won. The ones that wanted to listen to you. I know I shouldn't be wearing this out of respect for Braen, but it was the only way to bring it with us. We... We left the dead..." She hiccuped. "And haven't seen Grenada. Please forgive us. We just want to go home..."
"That's sounding like a common refrain, these days," Dior muttered. "Join us. We can discuss matters of justice once we're back in the Stone District, this storm has subsided and we can inspect the extent of the damages."
As they talked, Valey beckoned for Starlight, calling the filly over. Her saddlebags were still on, and, mercifully, packed with spare sandwich supplies looted from the Skyfreeze cafe. "Can't get me a sandwich, my butt," Valey grumbled, not bothering to assemble them as she stuffed bread and lettuce and gourmet toppings into her mouth by the hoofful. "Ohhhhh that feels good..."
Arambai had hefted several injured ponies on his back, using his mostly-recovered telekinesis to carry Shinespark, freeing the exhausted, injured Spirit ponies to tend to their weapons and injuries on their own. The group started moving, taking several steps through the snow to the Stone District exit.
Then, they were interrupted by a shout. "Hail, friends!" Gerardo Guillaume's voice came from a far corner of the smashed atrium, and with a flurry of wings the griffon soared nearer, eyes widening in confusion as he drew into sight. "Starlight and Valey? We left you in safety, not..." His beak dropped open. "Arambai? Whatever are you doing here?"
"I told you..." Arambai winked. "I could probably get that teleporter to send me back to Ironridge in a pinch, if anything needed beating up that badly. But it looks like you kids had it covered." He held out the sound stone taken from Selma. "Here's this, by the way. I'd love to study it if you don't want it, since it's pretty unusual technology, but let's save that for another time. Right now, we're getting out of here. With us?"
Gerardo held a talon to his breast. "Much as I'd love to, myself and my present compatriots are on a mission to... erm... prevent damage to the skyport caused by the potentially-renegade Spirit of Sosa." His eyes drifted upward, then to the weary Spirit ponies. "Though by the look of things, we're too late for the battle."
"I'll say," Valey muttered from atop Dior's back. "The Spirit kicked their own rears, but you totally missed me trashing Herman."
"...Herman is gone?" Gerardo looked incredulously at her. "And he was here? Last I saw him, he was at the top of the dam commanding the Defense Force. How much has happened while we've been flying around?"
"And where's Maple!?" Starlight demanded, biting Dior's tail so she didn't get lost.
"Back at the ship," Gerardo assured her. "It handles smoothly and appears immune to this weather, so I have full confidence in her safety. It was how we got up here, even."
Valey sighed. "So that ship really worked, huh? Lame. I could've gotten a free ride up here."
"Hold on a minute..." Arambai glanced suspiciously at Gerardo. "What ship are you talking about, here?"
Gerardo blinked. "Ah, yes, that might be prudent to mention. We discovered a power source for your ship from the Earth District warehouse, and it seems fully operational."
Shinespark and Arambai both gaped.
"Also," Gerardo noted as a significant number of figures drew into sight in the snow behind him, "I should clarify that by 'we' I mean myself, several members of both the Defense Force and Spirit of Sosa, all sixteen mercenaries we dueled in the Flame District, and a pair of mildly eccentric yaks." Seeing everyone's reactions, he quickly added, "All on the same side."
The Spirit saw each other first. As the two battered parties reunited, swapping tears and stories and explanations of why Arambai was there and how they had survived, not even caring whether they were on the same side, the mercenaries stuck to themselves, watchful and wary amid the snow. But everyone who had been present for the fight against Herman, Arambai included, were purely interested in the yaks.
"Yak Xander," one broad, smiling yak explained, completely oblivious to the mistrust sown on the ponies' faces. "And this Priscilla. Hello, ponpons!"
Priscilla gazed around, looking extremely bored next to her eager, friendly companion. "What are ponpons doing all the way up here? The storm will turn you little guys into ice cubes."
"When they say ponpons, they mean ponies," Gerardo quickly whispered aside. "Also, we've been talking and they seem quite amicable. Is there a reason for the dirty looks? It's hardly fair to condemn them simply because Herman was rotten."
"Xander and Priscilla..." Dior stepped forward, trying his best to look respectable despite having a trashed batpony on his back. "The recently deceased Ambassador Herman spoke of a military contingent accompanying a shipment here of some sort. Is this you?"
Xander pounded his hooves together. "Is not yak primary job, but still certified expert at smashing things. Went through very expensive training program which almost broke yak piggy bank. Why? Ponpons have things that need to be smashed?" He looked up hopefully.
Priscilla shoved him. "I think he asked about the shipping."
"Oh." Xander turned slightly red, grinning apologetically. "Fear not, Xander very good at shipping. Yaks were sent in advance to intercept top secret yak government delivery. Xander and Priscilla went out after rocket land, but crash site was too cold even for thick hairy yak wool. Probably magical reaction. So yaks went to hide in nearby building and wait for storm to blow over so could go back and inspect rocket delivery."
"Hmmm..." Arambai sighed, staring critically at the two yaks. "See, your ambassador more or less said to our faces you were here to invade and take over the city. Something about a government official here to give you the okay?"
Priscilla stared back, voice a perfect monotone. "We have a law that forbids invading cities. The ambassador was probably wrong."
"Well... actually..." Xander nudged her nervously. "Tell no one, but yak have second cousin who works as government bureaucrat. Once got cover from them to break law and skip jury duty. So technically have gotten government okay to break law before."
Priscilla chewed a mouthful of snow. "Whatever you say."
Valey eyed them carefully from atop Dior's back, then glanced at Arambai. "Y'know, I'm pretty sure this isn't really invasion material. If these guys are friendly, could we continue this in the Stone District? I mean, for all I know they'll help clean stuff up and then leave nicely."
"Yeah." Arambai resumed his march towards the exit. "No matter what, we're getting out of here and resuming this when we're not in danger of freezing to death. This close to the storm, it's a wonder we're still up and talking."
No one objected... except Gerardo. "I left the ship docked at the next terminal over. It seems to be weatherproof, but should I not return and pilot it somewhere out of range of the storm's wrath? After all, it is quite valuable, and I would rather see to Maple's safety myself..."
"If you're feeling up to it," Arambai said. "Where are you gonna take it that's safer, though?"
"...Right. This storm covers all of Ironridge, doesn't it..." Gerardo's headcrest lowered. "Well, at the very least, I-"
At that moment, they were interrupted by a desperate yell from the entrance. A pair of ponies soared in... or rather a pony riding a pegasus, both covered by a large weather cloak. The pegasus was clearly flagging, and barely managed to make a safe landing before collapsing to the snowy floor. "I'm so getting paid overtime for this..." she complained, massaging her candy-colored wings.
"Is Herman here!?" the pony on her back asked frantically, climbing off, her cloak drawn so closely around her that it hid even her face. "Please... He's not at the embassy, the Defense Force headquarters or the dam, which is already destroyed! This is important!"
Valey blinked, face scrunching in recognition. "Wait a sec... Fire? Is that you, girl? And did you get a ride from the embassy's one and only Maia?"
"Yes!" Fire gasped, a shrill note of worry in her voice. "Valey, you work for Herman! Do you know where he is? I need to find him and ask him what's going on! I hope I'm not too late..."
"Yeah, you might be too late," Valey informed her. "Just a little. Unless you think Herman survived me impaling his heart with an icicle and a chunk of roof at once, then dropping him into a raging blizzard. And between you and me, if he lived through that, I quit."
"Oh no..." Fire wilted. "I needed to ask him about why this city is so violent! He's been assuring us that everything's stable, but there was just a fight over a dam that left thousands of ponies homeless, and now-"
"I can answer that," Valey interrupted. "Herman was a scumbag. That's all there is to it. He pretty much just bragged about spending his entire ambassadorship stirring up every last pony in Ironridge, getting them thinking like us and them, and trying to get them indoctrinated into fighting so they'd ask Yakyakistan to break some law thing and take over the city. True story."
Fire pulled her hood down, letting her crystalline mane spill out around her shoulders. "Everyone in the city? And he's been indoctrinating it for years? No... No! Why wouldn't he tell us? Why would he do that!?"
Arambai put his hoof down. "What's all this about, here? You didn't know that Ironridge was a place full of ponies that didn't quite like each other?"
"We knew there were social tensions, but..." Fire swallowed. "Not that they ran high enough to lead to massive infrastructure attacks like these! Have... ponies been fighting? There have been fights because of this, haven't there?"
The heavily-battered Spirit ponies looked dryly at her, covered in dried and occasionally fresh blood. The surviving Defense Force members looked much the same.
"No..." Her ears folded, and the light grew dimmer in her eyes. "Then we're too late..."
"Hello? Hey!" Valey barked, trying to be heard above the wind and the ponies chattering about her unusual, sparkling appearance. "Once again: what's all this about? You're kind of spooking me."
Fire gulped again, tilting her head up toward the sky. "Well... this storm..."
Fire's horn pulsed a bright, pure yellow, conjuring a glowing orb of light tethered to her by an impossibly thin strand. She clenched her eyes, gritted her teeth, and flicked her neck, sending the light soaring up until it pierced the roiling, whiteish-blue cloud cover above, the line between her and it twisting and shaking and growing taut.
Then, it pulsed, and the storm began to reach down. A ghostly tentacle of cloud descended from the violent sea, oozing down the line toward her... except Fire was straining and pulling, like her magic was a fishing rod and she was extracting something from the heart of the storm. The cloud pillar bent and twisted, keeping itself connected to the sea above, and whatever was at the end began to take shape, a glowing ball of rapidly-swirling energy shedding little puffs of cloud like a moving statue being chiseled into form.
The end of the tendril reached eye level. Fire faced it, standing on a spur of the balcony that remained standing thanks to an intact support pillar, the floor to either side of her having been destroyed by chunks of falling roof. The last of the cloud shell cracked away, and the energy sphere shattered, revealing a vaguely-equine creature the color of clouds glued to Fire's tether. It was faintly translucent, with flailing forehooves and blinding eye sockets and a muzzle twice as long as any stallion, and its back half devolved into a billowing plume of white and blue that formed the chain connecting it to the storm above. It howled.
"Aroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"What is...?" Gerardo blanched, stepping back and raising a talon against the waves of intense cold radiating from the thing. "It couldn't be!"
Even the yaks were cowed. The only creature who didn't gape or cringe in shock, fear or disgust was Fire, and she was far too busy fighting to control the abomination to look reassuring. "It's a windigo," she grunted, staggering and catching herself. "The demons of the old world that destroyed Unicornia two thousand years ago..."
"Those monsters are real!?" Arambai shouted, refusing to back away. "As in, still alive?"
"Heh..." Valey chuckled weakly. "Always wondered what you guys looked like. Hey, icy buddy."
"What's going on?" Starlight hissed, staring around sightlessly. "T-This feels weird! I can't see!"
The windigo shrieked again. Planting her hooves, Fire rasped, "They've always been real, living beneath the glacier of Yakyakistan. We wanted to get rid of them! In Ironridge, far beneath the city, there's a powerful source of harmonic energy. We wanted to use it to contain them... to force them into a dormant state where they could be sealed forever! Windigoes magically resonate with each other. We found that by placing them in close proximity to harmonically-charged windigo hearts, we could weaken them. So we used Ironridge's source to supercharge a heart, then meditated over these ones for years to force them into a state that would remain stable long enough to take them here! We hoped once we moved them down below, the strength of the resonance would keep them dormant forever, but when so many ponies had their homes destroyed all at once exactly when they arrived... it must have overwhelmed the strength of the harmony and given them the power to awaken! Now they are feeding on the city, and will only grow stronger..."
Valey grinned. "Uhh... oops?"
"Then we have to hurry and get back to the Stone District before they destroy us!" Dior shouted, preparing to charge and nearly throwing Valey off. "Everyone, with me!"
"No." Fire cut him off. "Don't you see how close we are to them right now? There's nothing separating us from that storm! If it was going to kill us..." She looked back over her shoulder, meeting the eyes of each and every pony, griffon and yak. "The only reason we're not already dead is because of all of you. I haven't had long to learn about the situation here in Ironridge, but I can see a lot of you have been fighting and aren't any more. Whatever you do, don't start again. Windigoes are strengthened by hatred, conflict and strife."
"The Spirit..." The mare wearing Braen's armor swallowed. "We were fighting ourselves, and the Defense Force..."
"And we've made peace with both the mercenaries who attacked us and the envoys of Yakyakistan," Gerardo added, nodding toward Darkwind, Xander and Priscilla. "Furthermore, Herman is dead, and he was a major driver of conflict."
Shinespark's eyes watered in pain, her leg still held carefully by Arambai. "In the control tower, when the Spirit were trying to destroy the hangar, it was like the storm was deliberately trying to kill us..."
"Hey!" Starlight yelled in the general direction of the windigo, fur bristling. "You hear that!? They're not fighting with each other, so go away!"
"Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
The windigo wailed, lifted its muzzle and strained... and the tether Fire was using to hold it in place shattered, sending the unicorn toppling backwards. The windigo sped away, galloping through the air and plunging back into the clouds, leaving a trail of ghostly blue in its wake.
"Ugh... nngh..." Fire shook her crystalline head, tears visible at the edges of her eyes. "Why did this have to happen!? Why now? Why not when we were stronger...? Why did we assume the ambassador's office would be infallible, and not take greater precautions to read the situation in Ironridge?"
Gerardo strolled over, offering a talon to help her up. "Well, on the bright side, you do seem correct about us not facing imminent destruction. All the tales I've heard agree that windigoes feed on strife and are powerless against the likes of forgiveness, solidarity, empathy and friendship. Perhaps they will simply leave and return to their glacier in Yakyakistan?" He blinked. "I wonder what keeps them there in the first place, for that matter."
"No..." Fire hiccuped. "They'll leave, all right. And they'll go down to the other districts. If all the Earth District is hating the Stone District for taking their homes, and all the Stone District is fearing the Earth District will take revenge against innocents..."
Gerardo paled. "Best, worst and most likely scenarios?"
"All the same." Fire swallowed. "Unless we could get every pony in Ironridge to make up, or find a legendary weapon we don't have access to, all of Ironridge will turn into a glacier just like Unicornia..."
"Legendary weapon?" Starlight perked up. "What kind of weapon?"
"The Elements of Harmony," Fire whispered. "The first six of the Nine Virtues. They're physical objects with immense power, and have been used to defeat disharmonic incarnations in the past. But they are in the Plains of Harmony, and even if we had them, we lack the Spark to make them manifest."
Starlight thought. "So you just need a really lot of that harmony stuff from the cave?"
"The first six?" A Defense Force pegasus looked curiously at her. "Sorry, I don't know much about Yakyakistan's religion... but what about the other three? I didn't know these virtue things were weapons. Could we use them instead?"
Fire shook her head. "No. It doesn't work that way."
With a thump, Valey dropped off Dior's back, shakily standing on her own legs. "You know," she said, moving one step at a time toward Fire. "Would it change things at all if the reason that whole 'set up some stuff in the cave' thing didn't keep them asleep was because Herman kinda had that setup trashed? Part of his plan to force Yakyakistan into a long-term occupation of Ironridge, or something, by preventing you from getting what you came for now?"
"He... broke it?" Fire's eyes widened in horror. "Why? Why would he go against a direct order from the Bishops...?"
"I told you, he was insane. And evil. And insanely evil." Valey shrugged.
"And you're sure of this?" Fire looked as if she couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted Valey to be sure or not.
Valey cringed. "Err, well... Remember not to be mad because windigoes are breathing down our backs, and all... but yeah. I was down there and totally watched it happen. Maybe even had a hoof in it myself."
"Valey!" Fire stepped back, looking hurt. "I told you how important what I was doing was when we were trapped in that security door! How could you?"
"Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Fire winced, eyes widening even further, and lunged forward, wrapping her forelimbs around Valey in a tight hug. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I love you! I'm sorry!"
"Uhh... heh heh..." Valey returned the hug. "Forgiven, but keep doing that; I'm really cold. Also you're totally making me feel tingly in a different way than usual."
The storm didn't get any worse.
"Whew. Anyway..." Valey grinned, unable to help herself, Fire leaning around her neck and not breaking the hug. "Yeah. Sorry. I told everyone maybe we shouldn't, but they made a pretty convincing case for screwing with Herman, and you seemed kinda naive about the city so I figured he was pulling a fast one on you and getting you to set up some sort of doomsday device. We also didn't know then that he actually didn't know what this whole project was about. Pretty sure he had no clue about windigoes and even wanted the city intact. But that's why we stole it instead of destroying it outright."
Fire blinked, pulling back enough to meet Valey's eyes. "You still have it?"
"Well..." Valey wilted in her embrace. "Technically, we got attacked by those mercenaries over there and Ironflanks had to use all the energy to roast their rears. And then while we were passed out-"
"Wait." Fire cut her off. "Used it? How? What do you mean?"
Valey's face scrunched in thought. "I was in lights-out mode at the time, but I'm pretty sure she just used her cutie mark. Err, brand. It lets her absorb and store things, and apparently fire them back in giant lasers. Magic too, I guess?"
"That's incredible..." Fire breathed. "Supposedly, it isn't impossible for a pony to survive concentrations that high of harmonic energy, but finding a buffering agent that could protect them is extremely dangerous, and Princess Celestia herself has always asked us never to research that because of the cost..."
"That's all very nice, and all," Gerardo interrupted, striding forward, "but aren't we supposedly in a race against time to prevent this entire city from being turned to a glacier? Does this have anything to do with rebuilding this setup to harmonically neutralize the windigoes?"
"It might not need to," Fire told him, looking up from Valey. "If we have a pony who can use harmony like that, then they might be able to function as a weapon, sort of like the Elements. Where is this Ironflanks? If we could shoot the windigoes with a high enough concentration, we might be able to actually kill them like in the war forty years ago!"
"Out of the question," Gerardo swiftly countered. "The act of doing it once nearly destroyed her brand. Furthermore, she was stabbed by Herman using my sword and has been weakened to the point of being unable to speak. On top of that, the battle in the Flame District completely depleted the energy within the heart, and the small amount remaining in her body is currently powering Shinespark's airship." He nodded in Shinespark's direction. "I do suppose that explains why it is resistant to this weather, though, given that its empowerment is the antithesis of the disharmony this storm is made from..."
Valey groaned. "Yeah... and on top of that, we don't have the heart any more. It got nicked by two weirdos claiming Yakyakistan stole it from them in the first place. Howe and Neon Nova? I dunno what you did to tick them off, but try sourcing your materials from somewhere other than loopy wannabe cultists. Having enemies stinks sometimes."
"They're gone?" Fire's crystalline ears pressed harder against her skull. "Both of them? We sent two separately in case something like this happened, since we only needed one..."
"As a matter of fact, they are not!" Gerardo proudly interrupted. "Through a profoundly complicated series of events I've not been fully briefed on, myself and my companions procured the other with the intention of withholding it from an unknown adversary's devious hooves. Last I am aware, it was placed for safekeeping in Maple's room on the ship, which is docked at the next terminal over. Although, the door was locked and the key likely lost when Maple's brand failed, so we may have to smash it open..." He winced apologetically at Shinespark.
"If you put it in my saddlebags with all her other stuff, I have it," Starlight quickly announced. "If you're going to the ship, take me with you! I want to see Maple again!"
Fire shook her head. "What about the obsidian? Did you leave that there? We need it as a catalyst to make sure the heart is charged as fast as possible!"
"We, uhh... maybe didn't..." Valey shrank apologetically against her yet again.
"And you're not going to find any anywhere else in Ironridge," Dior added. "We've had a powerful contraband on the substance for the last seven years, one all the trading companies have agreed to as a matter of honor. Unless any of us are friends with an exceptionally-talented smuggling ring..."
"We are, though," Starlight quickly said. "Those mercenaries work for someone called Kero, right? He's the one who gave White Chocolate her moon glass. We've still got the empty piece she gave us in our room on the ship, and maybe they know where to get more?"
Valey blinked. "White Chocolate? Who's this? And does she live up to her name?"
Several mercenaries stepped forward, Darkwind at their head. "If you must know, yes. This isn't our first deployment to Ironridge. We were here years ago, and I helped Kero smuggle in a very large supply of obsidian. Some of our company remained here on long-term assignment between when we left and returned a year ago, and the package was left with them. If anything has been done with it, or where it is, I don't know. None of us who are here now stayed behind over those years."
"Herman gave Kero the yak ambassador's quarters in Skyfreeze for some reason," Valey offered. "That's probably a really secure place. Given how illegal moon glass is, what are the odds he'd have moved it there?"
Dior's eyes narrowed. "He gave it to this Kero? I assume that's the leader of you mercenaries? It isn't easy to transfer rights to Skyfreeze condominiums, and I haven't had any request reach my desk from Herman asking to authorize the change. He was the one who pushed for the security rules to be as strict as they are, even. If he broke protocol and gave Kero his own credentials instead, then it would be very secure."
Valey shrugged. "Can the security stuff be reassigned on death? I mean, the Varsidel quarters said the ambassador had kicked it, so there's gotta be something..."
Dior paused in realization. "...Yes. They can. As long as the emergency power remains on, in the event of a confirmable death, I as the Chancellor can reauthorize the quarters to one of us so we can get inside. But that can only be confirmed by someone with embassy credentials. My personal terminal can physically access what we'd need, but without the proper, up-to-date password from someone who works at the embassy..."
"Sorry," Fire wept, "I don't have that! The embassy affairs were-"
"Yeah, but she probably does," Valey interrupted, pointing a hoof at the candy-colored pegasus Fire had flown in on, who was shivering while lounging on an intact plush bench. "Hey, Maia!"
"What?" she snapped, eyes fearful as she got up and walked forward. "Look, this isn't my thing, all right? Ice demons are scary, and I want to go back to bed!"
Valey licked her lips. "Mmm, toasty warm blankets. I get that. But you can use the embassy terminal system, right? To, say, officially record Herman croaking?"
"Yeah..." She shifted uncertainly on her short legs, rocking her weight back and forth. "Why?"
"It doesn't matter!" Fire exclaimed. "We'll pay you whatever you want, but it needs to be done! The survival of the city is at stake, and we might have a way to save it!"
Maia's eyes widened. "Wait, whatever? As in, anything?" Her hoof shot forward. "Don't you dare let me freeze to death, and you better keep your word. And deal."
Gerardo, Valey, Fire and Dior all looked at each other, Starlight standing sightlessly to the side, Maia glancing around without a clue, and Arambai and Darkwind trying to keep calm among the other ponies. "Then we actually have a plan," Gerardo stated, slightly in awe.
"One too complicated to possibly work," Dior added. "Split up. Transfer the rights to Herman's Skyfreeze quarters and hope they contain obsidian, which is several layers of pure conjecture. Get back to the ship and fetch the windigo heart. Take everything to this cave you've spoken of and hope it is strong enough to neutralize the windigoes. Am I missing anything?"
"What's the quickest way down?" Fire asked Valey. "I know you showed me how to get there once, but that was coming from the embassy..."
"Aha!" Gerardo raised a talon. "In the maintenance tunnel connecting the other terminal to the ruined hangar, there was an emergency exit I noticed which lets out directly into the Flame District core! Seeing as the elevator shaft casing was destroyed during our battle, anyone capable of flight could easily navigate from there almost straight down to the harmonic flame!"
Arambai came stomping over, snow clinging to his black mane. "Getting a plan together here, ponies? I'm hearing slightly better than wails of despair..."
"...We have one," Fire breathed, daring to sound hopeful. "But I don't know how much time we'll have. The windigoes in the storm are still waking up and absorbing power. The faster we act, the more likely it is we'll be able to stop them, or at least weaken them enough that I can fight them. My magic... lives up to my name."
Valey shuddered. "Says the pony who can burn a tunnel through solid rock. Yeah, not arguing with that."
Fire blushed.
"Hmmmm..." Arambai gave a long glance to the Stone District tunnel. "Any way the likes of me could slow them down? Reassuring ponies, and the like? Trying to calm them down? I used to be unpopular with quite a lot of folks here, but for all I know that's thought of as the good old days now..."
"Only if you have a way to talk to ponies on the scale of thousands at once," Fire said, drooping. "Which means probably no."
"...I just remembered!" Gerardo interrupted excitedly. "The Defense Force and Spirit ponies we rescued claimed they looted a very large emergency power supply from the Water District lighthouse! It's currently on board the ship, should it at all prove useful for constructing such a system, or at the very least opening Herman and Kero's door."
Dior nodded. "Noted."
"Right." Arambai glanced back at the rest of the ponies, all of whom were awaiting orders. Xander and Priscilla had loaded their broad backs with the injured, the mercenaries were once again tending to themselves, and everyone looked ready to move. "Then if time is important, where does everyone go?"
"The Stone District?" Dior offered. "That seems to be the consensus, here..."
"No, wait," Valey interrupted. "Send them to Skyfreeze instead. Then we'll only have to split into two teams. I was just there, and it seems to be holding better than this place against the storm. Probably because of more emergency power and less ponies fighting. If the districts are full of bad juju, they might be even colder than it is up here."
"...Good idea." Arambai nodded, taking a step away.
Gerardo spread his wings. "Right, then. I myself shall ferry Starlight back to the ship with all due speed, since I believe my wings are still flight-worthy. Everyone else, head for the tower. We will take the ship and come meet you, and should we obtain all the materials we need, we'll fly as close as we can to the Flame District access point. Is that a plan?"
Everyone nodded.
"Then it sounds like a plan." Extending his talons, Gerardo gripped Starlight firmly, flapped his wings, rose, and was off.
Gerardo shot through a raised glass tunnel connecting the destroyed atrium to the terminal where Shinespark's ship waited, the cylindrical surface swaying and shuddering around him from the wind pressure. While the atrium had been exposed, the presence of so many allied ponies had acted as a throttle to the storm's might; here, he was alone save for Starlight, and the storm's fury was nearly tearing the building apart at the seams.
They soared through lobbies, past plazas of shops for ponies who needed to kill time, threaded through waiting areas and avoided downed bits of ceiling, occasional currents of snow twisting in ribbons through the air. Banking and rolling as fast as his frozen wings would allow, Gerardo cleared obstacle after obstacle, careful to keep Starlight and her saddlebags safe. Finally, the room where they had entered from the ship came into sight.
"Aaaaah!"
Starlight hissed, trying to curl tighter as the temperature suddenly plummeted around her and winds whipped against her exposed lilac fur. Gerardo touched down; she felt the shock running through his talons. "A-Are we outside?" she stammered, teeth chattering.
"We're on the ship," Gerardo replied, his voice gentle and firm. "I'm going to ensure that Maple is where I left her and leave you there as well, and then we must fly. I'm optimistic, though, as the power appears to be on. Thus far, the plan has gone without a hitch."
Starlight merely nodded, hearing a shimmering roar from close above her head, and then the sound of a door sliding open. Gerardo trotted, his steps bumping sharply as he descended a staircase. She tried to recall the layout of the ship in her mind from her tour that morning... He turned right and slid open another door. The engine room, this would be.
"Maple?" Gerardo's voice called. "Ah, good. You're still here. I brought you Starlight."
No response... but then Starlight was placed against another pony. They were warm, laying on their side, and their muscles tightened slightly at the contact before softening again. They didn't move.
"Excellent." Gerardo's voice was farther away. "I must return and pilot the ship. Once we have the others, we can worry about the heart. Leave everything to us, and try not to worry."
The door slid closed, and he was gone.
"...Maple?" Starlight asked, not moving from where she had been set. The pony had a sudden tightness of breath, but still no response.
Starlight frowned. She couldn't see, they couldn't talk... so she began to feel. They were a mare, wonderfully warm against her frozen hooves. They were wearing one of Arambai's harmony extractors over their cutie mark, had a thick, loosely-braided mane, were an earth pony, and had a faint, lingering scent of tree wood, powdered sugar, and... loneliness? She sniffed harder. It was definitely Maple.
"Maple..." Starlight sniffed again, this time because her nose was starting to run. "I didn't want to get separated... I'm sorry... Valey said we were supposed to be waiting for you to get the airship, but we got taken by someone and moved somewhere else before I woke up. I should have woken up sooner..." She swallowed. "Sorry."
You're still so cold, little filly.
Words spoken in Willow's voice echoed through her mind. Had Willow said that before? She was certainly cold. "Maple, I'm cold..."
Maple had no way of responding, so Starlight hugged her harder, burying her face in Maple's mane. "I can't feel my horn," she whimpered, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "At all. It's like it's gone. And I can't see, either. I can't even see you. I'm sorry... I know you told me not to overuse my magic, but I did it to save you when we were falling... I miss you... P-Please do something..."
Nothing. Starlight stood up and took a step, crashing into a pole and hearing a spare harmony extractor helmet topple to the ground. Carefully, she sat back down, then laid down, positioning herself so she was holding Maple's head in a more upright position. "Maple..." She bowed her own head, pressing her ear so close to Maple's muzzle that it was all she could do not to flick it from the tickling of her shallow breaths.
"I love you..."
They were the faintest of words, more a pattern of air than actual sound, but Starlight felt them, and started to cry. "The Earth District and Stone District were fighting each other," she sobbed, feeling a sudden urge to tell Maple everything that had just happened, an urge that had been building ever since they met the Spirit on that first morning and one had shot her with an energy cannon. "Valey carried me... Took me up Skyfreeze. I don't know why she went. I think she thought you might go there as well and wanted to get back here, or something. And there was a note, and Herman said he was in the skyport..."
She hiccuped. "Selma said Herman died, but he didn't. He was there, and the Spirit were here too, and they were fighting Shinespark and each other. They killed Grenada and made it sound like they destroyed the whole skyport, and... and..."
Swallowing, Starlight wiped her eyes with one of Maple's ears, feeling a wetness trickle down from Maple's own eyes onto her hooves. "Then there was Herman, and he hurt Shinespark, and Dior was there, and I got mad. I couldn't take it anymore and wanted to get Ironridge back... for everything... and so I tried to fight him. I wanted to."
Starlight felt the ship rise under her; it was airborne once more. "Valey helped. We got him to tell everyone his plan... All he wanted was for Yakyakistan to take over Ironridge. As if that made anything worth it... Then he attacked us, and Valey killed him. I couldn't see anything, only hear. He was so mad, and sometimes she screamed too. But she's alive, though."
Maple kept crying against her, and Starlight knew... no, hoped that she wanted nothing more than to hug her, because she definitely needed it. "Then someone called Fire showed up," she said, gritting her teeth. "She said Yakyakistan had sent windigoes to Ironridge for sealing them away with that pink flame, or something, and because Herman made the city so mad they got loose... or because we messed with the windigo heart they had down there. Now they say the city's going to be destroyed unless they stop it."
She shuddered. "They have a plan, but it's really complicated and probably won't work. And we have this airship, which runs on harmony, which is why it isn't affected by the weather. They say if we don't do anything to help, Ironridge will turn into a glacier. But... we'll be fine..."
Mouth stretching in a snarl, Starlight hissed, "We'll be fine. It.. It can turn to ice for all I care. We can get away. We can keep going, go somewhere else... I hate this place. We could get Valey and go right now, and never come back. We can... We can let it freeze..."
As much as she shook, Maple couldn't say anything more. Starlight heaved, trying to get her breath under control. "Why?" she sobbed. "I... I hate Ironridge... Why can't you tell me that's wrong? Why do I have to do it myself? Because it is... Giving up and leaving would be giving up! And there are ponies here who need our help! We need to, and we're going to, because I can't give up, but I still hate this place... It doesn't make any sense... Why do I have to hate this city and not give up on them at the same time? Why can't I care about everyone, like you...?"
Suddenly, an intercom screeched to life. "Hello?" Gerardo Guillaume's magically-transmitted voice asked, coming from a speaker mounted on the wall. "Is this thing on? Testing!"
Apparently satisfied, he cleared his throat. "I'm afraid this looks inconvenient. We're en route to Skyfreeze, and the transport tunnel connecting it to the skyport seems to have severed. We have quite a few allies traveling this way on a mission of utmost importance, and I can see some flagging us down at the break now. We're going to have to act as a ferry. This could get bumpy, and as there are quite a few injured I'll need as many cabins cleared out as possible! We're likely to reach passenger capacity. And remember, they are all allies. Not fighting over resources is of utmost importance!"
Starlight stiffened. "Do you think they'll need our room?" she asked, fishing around in her saddlebags for the key. She found it, taking it in her mouth and dropping the rest of the bags. "Gerardo said the windigo heart we put there is important. I'm going to get it so we can keep it here and they can use our room if they need to. I remember the way. I'll be back, I promise!"
Once again, Maple couldn't reply.
The floor dropped and rose under Starlight as she felt her way along the wall, carefully locating the door. Its handle was meant for adults, not fillies, and she had to crane her neck to get enough leverage to slide it open. Picking back up the key, she trotted out onto the stair landing.
The ship collided sideways with something, likely a part of the smashed transport tube, pitching her forward and sending the key flying from her mouth. "Aaah! No!" She scampered forward, trying to catch it before it stopped bouncing and making noise... and her forehoof went off a cliff. It was only the top of a staircase, but only falling flat on her belly and spreading her legs for stability stopped her from sliding further and rolling all the way down. If the key fell down there...
Frantically, she kicked around, patting the ground next to her, and the key mercifully appeared. Hugging the railing, Starlight picked it back up, slinking along the bridge to the reading room.
That room, her ears told her, was full of injured ponies. "Hey!" she shouted, flicking her ears. "I'm blind and need to get to a cabin! Where are you? I don't want to crash into you!"
"There's a clear corridor straight in front of you, filly," a pained stallion's voice told her. "Turn about five degrees to your right... That's it. Now walk forward."
Starlight trusted him, doing as instructed, and eventually felt the side of a bookcase brush her fur. But that was a wall; she could follow it. Hugging close, she found a door. Hers and Maple's was second from foremost. Keep going.
She continued, nearly tripping over a pile of something a pony had left next to the wall, and found her door. This one was harder to open than the engine room, since she had to manipulate a key, and when she succeeded, she simply left it in the lock. Now all she had to do was... find wherever Gerardo put the windigo heart. Without being able to see. Great.
Starlight sniffed. She had her nose, at least. What would a windigo heart smell like? Snow? Or, since they were made of negative emotions... would it just smell bad in general? Her nose was already wrinkling from the scent of blood, but their room was very clean. Hoping to block out unnecessary scents, she slid the door closed behind her and set to slowly scouring the room.
Sniff, sniff, sniff... headbonk. Ow. Starlight sat back, rubbed her forehead and horn with folded ears, and tried again. Same result. But she couldn't give up: again. And again. She found the bed; it was so soft, and she wasted a second fantasizing about dragging Maple off that power supply and hibernating together until they were far away from Ironridge. The bedside dresser... Suddenly, something smelled off.
Running her chilly hooves all over the front, Starlight made out a number of drawers, though she was too numb to get a precise count. The bottom one was the biggest, though, and the heart wasn't tiny. She slid it open with her teeth; it contained a blanket. But still that funny smell...
Starlight dug, pulling out the blanket and tossing it aside, and was suddenly rewarded with something round and cool against her hooves. So hard it almost hurt, it was definitely the source of whatever odor she had pursued. Yay for her nose! Gritting her teeth, Starlight pulled out the heart, managing to carry it beneath one foreleg and limping out of the cabin.
She guided herself back through the reading room, mumbling, "Can't see, can't see," feeling hooves tromping along past her as more ponies were ushered on board. Everyone who didn't have business in Skyfreeze was coming below, most likely, since the ship would be even safer than the tower thanks to its energy source. Fortunately, they gave her a path to follow.
Swoosh! The engine room door rolled open, and she shut it behind her, trying to find Maple again by memory. "I'm back," she called into the darkness. "I just had to get this. It's important, and someone else will want to use our... Ow!"
With a clang, she tripped over the second helmet she had previously knocked over, colliding straight with its pole. "Dumb thing," she groaned, getting up and hearing the dropped heart rolling away. "Who designed these? They keep getting in the way! Maple! Where are you?"
No answer, of course, so she resigned herself to chasing the rolling heart. But just when she caught it... the floor disappeared.
"Aaaaaaaaa-" Thud!
She bounced heavily as the ship abruptly came to a halt, hearing Maple hit the floor somewhere behind her, the heart still in her clutches. Something was wrong; the floor was at an angle, and the magical shimmering she had grown accustomed to was gone. It was also suddenly much, much colder.
Scrkkkk! The intercom crackled again, much more staticky this time. "Hello!?" Gerardo sounded downright panicked. "We've somehow lost power! At least the emergency is on, but the ship cannot fly like this! Don't panic; I'm going down to check on the engine room as fast as I can! Please, stay where you are!"
Starlight crawled to Maple, wary of standing on the slightly-slanted ground, and found her just before the door opened. "Maple!" Gerardo gasped. "Are you all..."
"Looks like everything's off down here," Arambai's voice growled behind her. "Hello, Maple. You look slightly the worse for wear."
"Her eyes!" Gerardo quickly remarked. "They're back to normal!" He gulped. "You don't suppose that means... she's used the last of the energy she absorbed...?"
"I'll take it from you," Arambai said. "You're the ones who figured out how to power this thing, not me. But if that's the case, we're in a bit of a pickle."
Gerardo swiftly agreed. "We must take one or two strong fliers, such as myself, reach the opposite end of the break in the tunnel by... flying through the storm..." He audibly gulped. "And merely proceed with the plan from there. Starlight, is that the heart?"
Starlight realized they were talking to her, and almost jumped. "Yes. I'm not leaving Maple."
"Well... good," Gerardo decided. "Keep it safe, then. We'll need it soon... if all goes well, for which we can only hope. Now, I can carry Dior, but will Maia be able to fly herself in these winds?"
"Sounds like she'll have to," Arambai sighed. Then, the door rolled closed, and they were gone.
"...So we can't even run, then."
Starlight drooped. She sagged, still holding the heart, and fell across Maple's side, sobs returning and increasing until she could barely talk, but she didn't even try. Eventually, she wiped her eyes with a hoof, still laying limply across Maple, and said, "I knew that plan wouldn't work. Too many things could have gone wrong. They're still going, but they're not going to be able to do it now, either. Something else will happen..."
She hiccuped. "We could die."
Maple said nothing.
"We will die," Starlight said. "I-If no one does anything. We can't even run away. I don't want to die..."
Swallowing, she added, "I don't want you to die..."
Still, she couldn't even see her. "I'm going to do something. Don't worry..."
The wind grew louder outside, and Starlight sniffed. "I'll just... refuse to die when the windigoes freeze me, or something," she muttered. "I'll keep you warm. They can't actually kill ponies, right? Just freeze them? That's not a myth, right...?"
Her hooves shook. That wasn't good enough. She had done her part, even, retrieving the windigo heart from their room! She wanted to scream, to light her horn and force all the windigoes away with a barrier of magic, to protect herself and Maple, but her horn wasn't working. She had overtaxed it, and the only way to fix that was-
Was with the harmony extractor an entire hooflength away. And it wasn't like anyone else was using it.
Starlight rested a foreleg on the device attached to Maple's rump. No, that wouldn't be good enough. The extractor knocked her unconscious, and that test she had ran the previous morning suggested the more beat-up her horn was, the worse the side effects. She could fix herself, but after what she had done to her horn, she probably wouldn't recover for a year. That would be way too long to help Maple and the others, unless she could force herself to stay awake through sheer willpower alone.
But... She rolled the windigo heart over in her hooves... The more overtaxed her horn was, the stronger the harmonic discharge too, right? And it was a discharge that happened all at once, which was why it couldn't be used for continuous power. A discharge... A blast... Starlight felt her eyes widen. An attack didn't need to be continuous, did it? Wasn't the whole point to hit something as hard as she could, all at once?
A sufficiently strong harmonic attack, Fire had said. Like the Elements of Harmony. How strong were those? Comparable to an exploding filly? Something told her that if Fire and the Yakyakistan church worshiped those enough to name their bishops and faith after them, she was probably horrendously outclassed. But still, Maple powering the airship using the dregs of the energy from the pink flame had been enough to force the windigoes back, according to Gerardo, right? And Shinespark had said her weaker surge had been strong enough to power it too, albeit for all of two seconds. Maybe there was a chance?
She held up the windigo heart again, and felt her attention drifting to the second helmet. Windigoes were somehow attuned to each other, so if the heart got charged...
Could she possibly charge it as hard as the tree, or even harder? If a single second could knock them out or weaken them, Fire had said she could fight them. Reverently, Starlight got up, located the second helmet, and set the heart inside, realizing she had something more than a plan: a real chance.
"Maple," she said, voice resolute. "I know you don't like me doing this, and you can scold me all you want afterward, but I already almost killed myself fighting the mercenaries and then shielding us when we fell off the cliff, and I'm not giving up now. I will protect you. I-I'm sorry."
She leaned back against Maple's side in preparation. When she passed out, the least she could do was let Maple hold her. Maple was tense, as if every working muscle in her body was fighting, but it wasn't even enough to budge a hoof. Starlight reached out and removed the extractor helmet from Maple's cutie mark.
The helmets were connected to each other, Shinespark had said. Something to do with testing multiple ponies wearing them at once. So she would power hers, and that would power the system, and that would power the heart... and that would be enough. It had to.
It had to.
She slammed the helmet down.
FLASSSSHZZZT!
Every wall, floor, ceiling and surface in the ship fluctuated with arcing sheets of midnight-blue energy. The control panel on the bridge saw every dial tilt to max, then crackle and burst with smoke, growing still. In the engine room, both helmets and the wires connecting them to the machinery instantly vaporized, leaving scorch marks on the walls and floor. The windigo heart gleamed like a knife made of pure light, bubbled... and melted, swiftly evaporating and leaving nothing but a pile of seared gold flakes on the floor. Meters and switches on the machine casing lining one wall exploded in gouts of blue flame, so many sparks flying that the noise was deafening... but the rail system that guided and funneled harmonic energy affixed to the ceiling was intact and alive.
As the essence extracted from Starlight coursed through it, flames transformed into mist and that into stars, like the roof of the world had been torn away and there was nothing but night sky going on for ten infinities at once. The nebulae pulsed, swirled, as if struggling not to be contained by the physical plane... and vanished, sucked away along the mechanism to reveal rails dripping with frost.
Above the deck, the ship's propulsion energy comet reformed, this time dark blue instead of pink. But instead of shimmering gently like a watchful guardian, this one roared, escaping the magical guidelines that held it in place and angling itself straight up, the tail burning against the deck, leaving runes etched in the freshly-fallen snow where it touched. The tip undulated, sharpened, formed into a gleaming star... and it fired, leaving the ship smoking and dormant as it arced toward the clouds.
With a crackle deeper than thunder, the energy mass struck, brightening the ghostly clouds until they were burned away, then expanding in a cosmic ring of blue that forced them away, growing and increasing in speed exponentially as the clouds were shredded. Snow turned to rain midair, ice turned to slush, and clear night sky was left in its wake.
"Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"Arooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
One by one, eight flashes of brilliant white burst in the sky as the ring vaporized seemingly random patches of clouds, and tiny gleams could be seen falling where they occurred, sparkling in the moonlight. No wind blew to alter their course.
Not a creature could speak as the explosion faded from the edges of the sky. The only sounds that graced the night were the crackles of burnt-out mana equipment and the trickle of draining meltwater.
A vicious wind tore at Starlight, thousands of tons of physical force trying to convert itself to kinetic energy and send her flying... but she didn't budge. When she opened her eyes, she realized she could see again. The room around her was a mess, but she was touching Maple. She was touching...
She saw the remains of the windigo heart in front of her, and her heart skipped a beat. "I did it?" she whispered to herself, first in shock, then in exuberance... and once again in shock when she realized she couldn't hear herself speak. Was something wrong with her ears? She didn't feel wrong...
But she wasn't sleepy, not even in the slightest. She tried to turn, grinning, to Maple, and that was when she realized something was wrong.
She couldn't feel the floor.
She couldn't feel anything. Not the floor, not Maple, not the warmth of her side nor the rise and fall of her breathing. Starlight's breath caught in her throat, and it was the easiest breath she had ever taken, because she wasn't moving any air.
"What!?" she tried to squeak, and held up her hooves... and she could see the far wall through them. In fact, they were growing fainter as she watched.
"N-No!" Panicked, Starlight swung at the floor, and her hooves went straight through it. Little more than outlines by now, they had no physical touch whatsoever. "No! Maple!"
She swung around, inertia and twisting her body allowing her to turn her head. Maple's own head was lifted to look at her, actually lifted, held up by her own strength... and at the look of anguish on her face, Starlight instantly broke down.
"No! Maple!" she wailed, thrashing with limbs even she couldn't see any more. "Maple! What's happening to me!? I'm sorry!" She tried to light her horn, and felt every connection working, but no effect came out. "Maaaapleeeeee!"
Maple looked back at her, straight into her eyes, and moved her mouth... barely. "Starlight..."
Starlight stretched, yawned... and stretched harder, throwing back her head and folding her ears and holding open her mouth until finally she had had enough. "Well..." She massaged her eyebrows with a hoof. "I think that's plenty for today..." She yawned again. "Until tomorrow, Twilight?"
"...What?" Twilight Sparkle took several seconds to realize that the story had ended, and to appropriately respond. "Starlight, what!?" She pointed a hoof, increasing incredulity in her voice. "It hasn't been eight hours. You said eight hours! Starlight, it's barely evening! That's not fair!"
Starlight leaned back on her library couch, red evening sunlight touching her mane through the holes in the clouds, and gave a cheeky smirk. "I said no more than eight hours, not no less than. Besides, I think that's a wonderful place to stop."
"Starlight...!" Twilight sprang from her couch, flapped her wings, and landed standing directly over her student, knocking aside an empty teacup and leaning straight into the unicorn's face. "You can't just tell me you died fighting windigoes and expect me to wait all night without an explanation! You know how much stories mean to me! That's just evil!"
"Evil?" Starlight raised an eyebrow, not flinching despite the alicorn leering down at her. "Good thing I'm not a cruel and capable supervillain, then."
Twilight started to object... and then wilted. "You're pulling my leg, aren't you? There weren't actually any windigoes, were there? Did I just fall for that?"
"Huh? N-No!" Starlight suddenly flailed, realizing she had just cost herself her audience's suspension of disbelief. "No. Sorry, Twilight. Whoo..." She exhaled, wiping her brow with a forehoof. "I've had to reconstruct parts of the story I wasn't there for myself, and it is being told from memory, but I've never outright made anything up. There really were windigoes, and I really did disappear."
"You died," Twilight said flatly. "And now you're here telling me about it."
"I said I disappeared," Starlight replied as Twilight settled down onto the couch next to her. "Not died. It was still terrifying. I guess I shouldn't have tried to tease you with a cliffhanger right after so much hard-to-swallow stuff?"
"Does that mean you'll keep going?" Twilight asked, slightly hopeful but mostly calmed down.
Starlight rubbed her throat with a hoof. "Well... let's put it this way. If I take a break now, I might be able to make it to the end of Ironridge tonight and still keep my voice tomorrow."
Blinking, Twilight stared at her. "Ironridge keeps going? That's not the end? How much more is there?"
"Not much, but more than you think." Leaning back, Starlight sighed, her head toward the ceiling. "Also, I stopped you earlier when you wanted to ask about the Tree of Harmony we found beneath Ironridge, and again about Maple using the heart, and again, and again... and I'm pretty sure I should give you a chance to get those questions answered before I go any further and you get way too many new ones."
"...Fair enough," Twilight admitted. "I... might not have them at the front of my mind, though..."
"If you need to clear your mind..." Starlight glanced to the window, then flashed Twilight a grin. "The snow has stopped. Didn't Rainbow Dash invite us to go sledding once that happened? We've been talking for two solid days, and some fresh air would probably do us good."
Twilight stood up, arching her own back in a stretch. "Fine. I probably do need to reset my brain after that, anyway. But bundle up, because it looks cold out there."
Fifteen minutes later, Twilight and Starlight stood outside the doors of Ponyville's resident castle, adjusting their eyes to the bright snow and evening colors. The princess was decked out in a set of cute purple galoshes, a slim striped scarf wrapped thrice around her neck, and a pair of giant fluffy earmuffs, a thin smile on her face and a sparkle in her eyes as she pranced forward into Ponyville.
Starlight, meanwhile, wore nothing.
"You're going to get cold, you know," Twilight remarked, the slightest touch of concern in her voice as her hooves crunched down prints in the freshly-fallen snow. "If you really were telling the truth, I'm sort of surprised you're not traumatized by the mere sight of winter."
"Eh. I've been through much worse." Starlight shrugged, matching her pace. "This isn't that cold. There's not even any wind. And besides, we won't be out here for long, and have a warm home to get back to whenever we need it. It's different from being crippled and stranded in a magical blizzard capable of physically targeting you."
Twilight shrugged. "I guess? Still, that's not how post-traumatic stress disorder works, or a lot of related afflictions. Logic has nothing to do with it. Supposedly, you just get triggered."
"Well, it's a good thing I don't have those, then." Starlight grinned mischievously. "Otherwise I'd also have a phobia of rain, heights, and a lot of other things. Watch, Twilight. Just because it's snowing and bad things have happened to me in the snow doesn't mean we'll be attacked, freeze to death, or have anything bad happen now whatsoever. See? Try me, world. Bring it on." She sat upright, spreading her forelimbs like a target.
PAFF!
An impact came from close beside her, and she whirled to see Twilight hit the ground, a toilet plunger stuck to her face. "Mmmmmph! Nnnnnnngh!" Twilight grunted and flailed, grabbing the thing and prying it off with a loud pop. "Hey! You don't just...! These things are unsanitary!"
Rounding a corner, disappearing from sight, was a two-pony sled carrying a laughing, cackling pink-and-cyan duo.
Starlight picked up the plunger in her aura, looking at Twilight with a bemused expression. "Okay, I guess I take that back. Maybe we'll be attacked after all."
Twilight was back on her hooves, two galoshes and the earmuffs gone, and her wings shot out with a focused grunt. "Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, it is on."
With Pinkie steering and Rainbow buzzing her wings for propulsion, a havoc-causing sled careened around a corner, its occupants both on the lookout for incoming revenge.
"Telekinetic snow pile at ten o'clock!" Rainbow hollered, eyes fixed on the sky as Twilight soared closer, revenge in horn. "Pinkie, watch it!"
"On it!" Pinkie threw the sled into an epic drift, leaning and sending a spray of snow across a nearby hedge. "Wheeeeeeeeeee!"
"Hah! Missed!" Rainbow pumped a hoof, readying another plunger. "Oh boy, it's our turn-"
Fwoomp!
Their momentum instantly ended, sending both tricksters flying headfirst into a snow bank levitated by a nearby Starlight. "Gotcha!" she sang, depositing them on the ground and letting them burrow their way out. "Me two, you one, Twilight zero." She blinked up at the sky. "Hey, Twilight! I stole your-!"
Soon, there were three ponies shaking snow from their manes, a slightly-triumphant Twilight touching down nearby and wincing slightly from her bare hooves. "Hah!" she spat, imperiously twirling the plunger next to her head.
"Ooog..." Pinkie violently shook her head, restoring her mane to its usual poofiness. "Oh, hey, Twilight! Hi, Starlight! Dashie said she invited you earlier, and we were taking bets on whether or not you'd show up!"
Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, removing a clump of snow with a hoof. "Hey, girls. Decided to stop nerding around in the castle and join us for some quality hanging out?"
"Yes, we..." Twilight blinked. "Wait, you were betting on whether we'd show up? Really?"
"Yepperoonie!" Pinkie slapped a hoof to her chest. "And now I get to do this! Watch, watch!"
Opening her mouth even wider than her head, she lowered it to the ground and pushed forward, devouring snow at an alarming rate... for all of two seconds. She quickly sat back up, hugging herself and sweating. "Ooh! Brain freeze! Not my best idea..."
Starlight gave her a quick look of concern. "Oookay, then. I take it she lost?"
"Nah," Pinkie mumbled, climbing back to her hooves. "That was my privilege for winning."
No one bothered to comment. Instead, Rainbow shrugged, and offered, "So, we've got another sled. Wanna race?"
Twilight and Starlight glanced at each other and shrugged, Twilight's enthusiasm for vengeance having been cooled significantly both by nailing Starlight and the cold snow.
"Cool." Rainbow got up, righted her own sled, and left Pinkie racing off to fetch the other. "So we should probably split me and Pinkie up," she mused, "since we're both grand champions and it's gotta stay fair. Dibs on Starlight for my team, because you need wings for propulsion and Twilight already has those. That means you steer." She kicked the sled down in front of Starlight.
"I'm on your team? Okay." Shrugging, Starlight boarded the sled.
"Propulsion?" Twilight frowned as Pinkie came darting back. "Couldn't we just go downhill?"
Rainbow Dash grinned coolly. "Oh, we'll be doing that too. The point is to go fast. Wanna hear the rules?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Rules?"
"Sure." Rainbow shrugged. "One: get there first. Two: cheat as much as possible. Starting in three..."
"Wait!" Twilight raised her voice. "Where are we racing to?"
Rainbow gave her a 'wouldn't you like to know' look, then suddenly sped up. "Two one gogogo!" Her wings buzzed like a hummingbird, pure pegasus power firing her sled forward. "Nyaa ha ha ha-" Whud!
Starlight had been completely unprepared for the rapid start, hadn't steered at all, and they had crashed into the hedge, the sled half-stuck inside and both her and Rainbow flung into a tangled, disoriented mess. "Ow, hey!" Rainbow complained. "Starlight, that's sabotage!"
"Hey, you heard her!" Pinkie slapped the sled behind her, already locking the handlebar in a death grip. "C'mon, Twilight, let's go while they're crashed!"
Twilight barely had time to step onto the sled when Pinkie kicked at the ground, offering her own propulsion and steering them out into the open.
Swishhhh!
Barely ten seconds of Twilight flapping and Pinkie kicking had passed when Rainbow and Starlight sped past them, the pegasus cackling at the top of her lungs. "Booyah! You guys are so slow! We're gonna win this by a mile!"
"Oh yeah!?" Pinkie's face split in a snarl, and she whipped another plunger out of absolutely nowhere, hurling it like a missile at Rainbow's sled. It would have struck Starlight cleanly in the face had she not pulled a last-second dodge, but the maneuver still cost Rainbow speed, and Pinkie and Twilight pulled back ahead.
"Not so fast!" As Rainbow and Starlight regained speed, Rainbow angled one wing downwards, scraping the surface of the snow and lifting a sheet of white that curled in on itself, rolling and compacting into a giant snowball. "Take... this!"
She flung it at Pinkie's sled. Twilight was already panting from exertion, flapping her wings as fast as she could, and didn't have time to extend her telekinesis and catch the missile... but Pinkie was on it. Jerking the sled violently to the side, she lifted them off the ground and tilted ninety degrees, blocking the snowball with the bottom of the sled before yanking it back into place just in time for the landing. "Nailed it!" she crowed. "Go team us!"
Rainbow's sled was still ahead, though. Pinkie leaned forward in determination, kicking the ground for speed along with Twilight's flapping. "Harder, Twilight, harder! We've still got this in the bag! We're... huh?" She blinked. "Hey, where'd Dashie go?"
The leading sled was just Starlight, and rapidly losing speed... before Rainbow dropped out of the sky, landing squarely in front of Twilight and Pinkie. "Surprise!" Grinning like a lunatic, she spread her wings, completely blocking the view of the terrain.
"Aaack!" Pinkie batted at her, trying to shove her off. "Dashie, move, I can't see-!"
Shwump!
With a hiss of falling snow, the overloaded sled hit a leafless bush, catapulting all three equines off and into another snow drift. Pinkie and Rainbow lay laughing helplessly, and Twilight soon couldn't stop herself from joining in.
"Hello?" Starlight called, drifting with her magic back along the sled trails, Rainbow's sled held alongside her. "Everyone? Where are...?" She noticed the three laying near the bush, Pinkie's sled still caught in its branches, and frowned. "Are you all right?"
"Oh yeah!" Rainbow burst into the air, pounding the forehoof Starlight hadn't been trying to extend. "You see that, slowpokes? Who won? We won! Aww yeah..."
"Laugh it up, Dashie!" Pinkie growled, but there was a broad grin on her face. "So, up for another round?"
Twilight slowly got to her hooves, touching her chest and trying to stop panting. "I think... that's enough exhilaration... for today..." She wiped her brow, shaking snow from her wings. "I'm a bookworm, not an athlete. And it's cold out! Oof..."
"Heh heh heh..." Giggling, Rainbow Dash floated down and punched her on the shoulder. "That's fine, too. Glad you could join us."
"Thanks for inviting us," Starlight replied, touching down herself. "After all that, I needed a break."
"Well, come out for breaks more often!" Rainbow sidled over and sat next to Starlight. "Seriously, me and Pinkie do this stuff all the time. And, uhh..." She glanced at her, carefully weighing her words. "It's cool to see you enjoying spending time with us. To be honest, I'm still maybe just a little freaked out by all that stuff from before you were our friend... even though we make a pretty awesome team now."
Starlight sighed wistfully, hanging her head.
"Too soon?" Rainbow lifted an eyebrow. "Sorry."
"Huh?" Starlight blinked. "Oh, it's not that. You just remind me a lot of someone I used to know."
Rainbow Dash grinned. "Really, now? Were they awesome?"
Starlight stared off into the late evening sky, crowded by occasional clouds and leafless treetips. "You could say that."
"What are you doing in there, anyway?" Rainbow asked. "Some kind of science experiment?"
Pinkie Pie rubbed her chin. "Mmmm... The Pinkie Sense says Glimmy was trolling Twilight about almost dying in conjunction some transdimensional holiday celebrating really bad jokes. Huh. I wonder what that means."
Everyone looked curiously at her. Eventually, Twilight glanced to Starlight, a request for permission in her eyes. It was a request Starlight happily obliged.
"Actually," she began, "I've been telling Twilight my life's story." She grinned, then hesitated. "Well... mostly three days of my life, so far, with a few weeks before that, but I've got a lot more before I'm done. Mostly I've just been talking straight for two days."
"Wow, really?" Rainbow blinked. "You spent two whole days telling Twilight about things that took three days to occur in real life?" She stared, gears spinning in her brain. "I can't tell if that must have been hideously boring or really, really exciting."
"It's definitely the latter!" Twilight lunged forward, clutching Rainbow's shoulders and staring deep into her friend's eyes. "Rainbow, there's a city-state called Ironridge, and it has this amazing economical system and twenty years of intrigue and there are these warring factions called the Spirit and the Defense Force, and ever since the invention of airships-"
"Woah there, Twilight." Pinkie gently patted Twilight on the shoulder, trying to break her away from the stupefied-looking Rainbow Dash. "Pretty sure you just turned Dashie's brain into overload city. The important part for her is, does it have epic kung fu fighting?"
Twilight backed away, blushing. "Well, yes, it did. Sorry, I've just been way too invested in hearing this, and..."
Rainbow finally spoke, retaining her flabbergasted expression... and when she did, it was to Starlight. "Ironridge is real?"
Four mares sat in Twilight Sparkle's first-floor kitchen, a couch having been thoughtfully dragged in front of the roaring oven so the friends could warm themselves in comfort. Twilight sat on the far left, with Starlight at her side, then Rainbow, and finally Pinkie Pie, all four sipping mugs and pointing their hooves at the open flame.
"You're saying Ironridge is real?" Rainbow Dash murmured in rapt attention, completely focused on Starlight. "And you've been there? Wow. That's crazy."
"What's crazy is that you've heard of it," Starlight replied. "It's separated from Equestria by an uncrossable mountain range, and even travel in Equestria is set up so that for most of the nation, places where you actually might hear about the northern world are just names on a map, where only other ponies go. Even Twilight never knew the north half of the world existed, and she's a government official. How did you find out?"
"Bedtime stories my parents told me when I was little," Rainbow replied. "They used to travel Equestria a lot. A lot, a lot. My dad would tell me how they would always meet other ponies on the go, and swap stories, directions or supplies. Just for fun, or because they could. Eventually, they settled down in Cloudsdale to raise me, but..."
She stared up at the ceiling. "Every time I asked where the stories came from, they always said they picked them up from other travelers, or heard them thirdhoof, or even fourth. My parents are kinda straightforward, so I never really figured they made them up, but whoever they heard them from? Who knows? I didn't. Maybe they were actually real. Eventually, I got old enough to be more interested in what I could do instead of what other ponies had done... heh... and started getting stories about all the races I won or the time I got my cutie mark or stuff instead. But, wow. I hadn't heard that name for ages."
Starlight sighed, an almost giddy smile crossing her face. "See, Twilight?" She winked. "I told you I was telling the truth."
Twilight was likewise impressed. "I know. That's pretty convincing evidence that at least something happened."
"So, uhh..." Rainbow spun her forehooves. "Not to be rude, but would you guys mind if I listened too? This is, like... almost making me want to fly back home right now and ask my folks how much of that stuff they still remember."
Starlight smirked. "Maybe. We just cut off at a pretty big cliffhanger, and you'd be extremely confused if you started listening right now, but tomorrow we'll start on a new part of the story, and it probably won't take too much explaining if you want to pick up from there. How's that sound?"
Rainbow raised a wing in a salute. "You got yourself a deal. I'll be by, uhh... How bright and early is bright and early for you?"
"Follow the smell of breakfast from the kitchen," Twilight cut in, rolling her eyes. "You're unnervingly good at it already."
"Oh! Yeah! Heh heh..." Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck, leaning against the couch and grinning. "Yeah, I can just do that. Come on, Pinkie. Think we should bail so these two can get to the right place in the story?"
Pinkie bounced to her hooves. "Okie dokie lokie!"
"Oh... Rainbow Dash?" Starlight leaned after her, grinning nervously. "If you're going to ask your parents about the north... could you do me a favor and not mention me? At all?"
Rainbow blinked. "I guess? Why not?"
"Well..." Starlight chewed her lip. "If you mentioned me, and it turned out they had heard of me... because I did a really bad job keeping a low profile in the north... and they told you anything that would come up in my story, and you knew the wrong question to ask that might accidentally spoil Twilight..." At that, Twilight grew alarmed, violently shaking her head. "Just in case?" Starlight finished hopefully.
"Oh. Yeah. That's actually a good idea." Rainbow stared for a moment, then jumped back into action. "Yeah, that actually totally sounds like something my parents would do. Tell me everything they could if they recognized your name, and stuff. You know, maybe I'll just skip the visit home tonight and just chillax in a tree at Sweet Apple Acres or... No, that's for summertime. Meh. I'll just try to remember stuff on my own. See ya! Bye!"
Rainbow zoomed away, and when Starlight next looked, Pinkie Pie was gone as well. It was just her and Twilight, sitting on a couch in front of the oven, mugs in hoof and the crackle of sparks in their ears. The tick of a baking clock echoed from a wall behind them.
"Well?" Starlight asked, turning to Twilight. "I think I'm feeling okay to continue. Any questions before I start?"
"I honestly don't remember." Twilight shook her head. "All the adrenaline, both from the story and that sled fight, and... wow. You said you were keeping track, or something?"
"Sort of." Starlight shrugged, the fire emitting a particularly loud pop in front of them. "First off, speaking of fires... that place we found was a Tree of Harmony, just like the one that makes up this castle. I'm pretty sure the underground palace was even the same type of building as this one. The gorge in Everfree runs deep enough that you can find the tip of the tree itself, but if you found a cave that went deep enough, you'd probably find another flame just like that one."
"Huh." Twilight stared into the flames. "I always thought the tree was special. I mean, Celestia told me she and Luna got the Elements of Harmony from it in the first place. I never figured there might be multiples."
Starlight shrugged again, feeling the red velvet of the couch against her back. "Actually, they probably did. The trees are just attuned to different elements. This one is yours, while the one in Ironridge is Kindness."
Twilight's eyes widened. "Really? So would that mean there are...?"
"Four more of them?" Starlight finished. "That's what I assume."
"Huh," Twilight repeated, and the silence ticked on. Eventually, she said, "So. Windigoes."
"Windigoes," Starlight repeated. "Real monsters. At least, I think so. Remember, I technically never saw them for myself. So much of Ironridge... especially the last night is based on what I learned, talking with my friends afterward. It's not the only time we split up, either. But I don't think you have to worry about them attacking Equestria."
Twilight exhaled. "Yeah..."
"One of the few things you don't have to worry about, at that," Starlight added, voice slightly drier. "When major villains are practically a weekly occurrence. But ponies here seem happy enough that monsters who feed on strife will probably look elsewhere."
"...Starlight?" Twilight swallowed. "This is a little hard for me to ask, but... you made it sound like the presence of the windigoes influenced your thinking, or your feelings. Did you... With the dam, and destroying Sosa, did you ever...?"
"Feel bad for it?" Starlight's voice was carefully measured. "I... never did. I felt bad for not feeling bad for it, but that's not the same thing. That wasn't the windigoes, if they even had an effect. I felt mad at the city for making me destroy it, maybe. But... Twilight... remember who you're talking to. I'm not a role model for emotional or moral stability. All I know about is taking impossible goals, giving them one hundred and ten percent, and achieving them no matter the cost. I don't lose, and that's it."
Twilight raised her head, warily proceeding. "Because you lost Sunburst?"
"That was what started it, but we've covered that." Starlight looked away. "With the dam... It happened. I know I'd do it again, if I had to. I could do it again, even if I didn't. But you shouldn't need a lecture on what I'm capable of to get my way."
"Starlight..." Twilight scooted closer. "Are you sure you want to keep going now? We're already taking a break. We could just stop here for the night, if you want."
Starlight sipped from her mug, swallowing loudly. "No. We can continue. It's felt better than you can imagine talking about this from start to finish, actually. Maybe it'll even help me sort out my issues and feelings on things that are still bothering me. A lot of what's happened so far, I've had time to process... but especially later on, there are things I've never, ever told another pony. Even Maple."
Twilight smiled softly. "I'm ready when you are."
"...Right." Starlight drained the last of her mug and sat back, leaning into the cushions. "Just a warning, though... if we're starting when I'm emotionally compromised, I'm almost definitely going to cry before this is over. I didn't die, but there's a difference between surviving physically and not being broken."
"What did you used to do when you were stressed or sad?" Twilight asked without thinking.
"Usually?" Starlight snorted. "There's no time for psychiatry when you're fighting for your life, Twilight. In Ironridge, I just pushed everything aside in the name of survival. After that, and before it in Riverfall, it was mostly friends, hugs, crying and sleeping it off... and you can probably guess which of those were out by the time I was making my village." She beamed, eyes already watering. "Which is why I need to tell this and am glad you're listening, I guess. But come on. We need to get started before I start, or else this story is never going to get told."
"...Hmm." Twilight shifted slightly, aligning herself. "Well, if you need it, my shoulder is always free."
It felt like she had been swimming in... something... for longer than she could remember. Her body felt hazy, like fuzz was clouding her senses, some sense she had never used before taxed to overloading and now interfering with her perception of everything else. But she knew what she had been doing. She had connected herself to the harmony extractor, to the windigo heart... there had been an explosion. She had regained her eyesight, and then faded from existence. The last thing she remembered was Maple...
But she had a body. She felt the ground beneath her hooves, flat and nondescript. She felt snowflakes alighting on her back, though oddly there was no temperature whatsoever. They didn't feel cold, they definitely weren't hot. They just... were.
She was standing on a featureless plane, looking out into a windless blizzard, thick, fat flakes falling without flurries in a curtain that ended her vision in a wall of gray. The layer of fallen snow coating the ground, if that was what it was, was hardly thick at all. There were no hoofprints.
Tilting her head upward, Starlight caught a flake or two in her mouth. Bland, but that wasn't saying much. They still lacked temperature.
After a moment, her eyes began to sting from the overwhelming grayness of the place. She turned around and around, but every direction looked the same: nothing but flatness and snow for the short distance she could see. Would it hurt the world to be anything but monochrome? Starlight stomped, shook her hoof... and completely stopped when she saw herself out of the corner of her eye.
Her hoof was gray. She raised it to her face, but there wasn't even a trace of color. Sitting down in shock, Starlight twisted, looking at as much of herself as she could see, but the same gray malaise hit her eyes. On her flank, where a cutie mark would go, a nondescript light pulsed gently, but even it was colorless, and didn't change as she watched it. Thanks a lot, world. Teasing her about a cutie mark at a time like this. Growling, Starlight punched the ground.
...This wasn't the first time she had seen without color, she slowly recalled. There had been another time, in Ironridge, when she had touched White Chocolate's moon glass. It had stuck to her, and Maple had pulled it off, but for a time her vision had been monochrome, just like this.
Moon glass was disharmonic. An absence of harmony, or even negation. She had just pushed herself as far as she could possibly go, taken her horn until it flat-out disconnected, and had everything drained from her as a result... Was this what was left? If she had been made of harmony, was what she was now a pony who had nothing of that? Was she dead?
Starlight quickly decided that if she was dead, the afterlife was decidedly boring.
"Rrrgh..." She lit her horn, surprised to hear it come alight with no effort whatsoever. Predictably, the aura was gray, and there was nothing for her to do magic on, but it didn't stop her from sending a bolt of crystallization energy straight into the sky, just because she could.
She waited for the twinge that came with using her horn. It never came.
Curious, Starlight fired again, without getting any sort of feedback whatsoever. Her magic was working, at least. In fact, working might have been an understatement; it felt infinite! Screaming purely because she could, Starlight pushed her horn as hard as it could go, forcing in raw magic without thought for form or function. A deadly cyclone of power whipped around her, and eventually she was forced to stop, drained and panting but not in pain... and as she stood, she felt her horn slowly recharging, all on its own.
Was that what normal unicorns felt like? What she had always been unable to do?
Great. She huffed, laying down on the flat, hard floor. Not only was death boring, and taunting her with that glowing spot on her flanks that neither went away nor manifested into a cutie mark, but it even had to tease her with a fully-functional horn. If she had had one of those in Ironridge, she might not have died in the first place. Starlight groaned, placing her chin on folded forelimbs.
She didn't want to quit, but it was difficult not to give up when there was nothing to do.
Suddenly, a sound reached her ears. Was that a yell? Ears folding in concern, Starlight turned and raced toward the source of the noise. If anyone else was here...!
She tripped over something and went sprawling on her face, though it barely even stung. When she looked back to see what she had tripped over, though, her heart shot into her throat.
It was a corpse. And not a corpse of a pony, but a hideous approximation of one, hard and black and lacking fur. Instead of skin, it had plates, interlocking like armor. A pair of transparent, insectoid wings protruded at broken angles from its sides, and its hooves were riddled with holes she dearly hoped were caused by whatever killed it. The head was missing.
As Starlight stared, bile rising in her throat, the thing's neck leaked with what looked like more snow... until with a dull glow of light, its entire body transmuted into a pile of the same stuff, spreading slowly out until it was indistinguishable on the ground from what had fallen from the sky. Starlight blanched, and almost considered scraping at her tongue. What was that?
She pressed on, quickly finding another. This one's head was intact, sporting a short, curved horn and pupilless eyes, and it was similarly dead. As she watched, it too dissolved into snow, sending a deeper chill down her spine than any windigo had been able to cause. The afterlife, she decided, was a terrible place.
Something else came into her vision as she passed by more corpses, not bothering to watch them disappear. It was a wall, looming as a lighter gray through the storm, made of vertical white stone that stretched farther in all directions than she could see. She picked a direction and walked left along it, hoping to find something, anything, that didn't belong in a nightmare... or at least made sense.
"Heh heh..."
The voice was tired and raspy and, to Starlight's ears, unmistakable. Valey!? She charged forward, stumbling over another corpse as they grew thick enough to be piled, first in stacks, then in walls. Tripping, gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes, Starlight pushed through the stacks, both physically and with her horn, tossing them each and every way. Eventually, she found what she was looking for.
"Ow..." Valey groaned, covered in lacerations and missing her hat, laying limply on her back with her head propped up against a wall. She was barely moving, and with the signature emerald of her mane and tail missing, it took Starlight a minute to confirm it was really her. She looked less youthful, more developed and perhaps half an inch taller, but was also not nearly as filled out: the Valey Starlight knew stayed fit and exceptionally well fed thanks to a diet of nonstop fruit plundering, but this one's ribs were nearly showing. Her slitted eyes burned with a spark that wouldn't go out, though it had clearly come close, and her muzzle twitched with the memory of a daredevil smile.
She was unquestionably older, and Starlight did not want to know what had happened to her.
"Looks like no more are coming," Valey sighed, closing her eyes and resting, taking absolutely no notice of Starlight. "Guess that means I got 'em all. I told you I could do it. I told you I'm unbeatable."
With corpses turning to dust and snow all around her, Starlight tried to meet Valey's eyes. "You told me? Valey, why are we here? What's going on!?"
When Valey opened her eyes, she looked straight through Starlight, not even registering that she was there. "I wonder if it even matters," she whispered.
"Valey!?" Starlight tried to reach forward and touch her friend, but it was like time slowed the closer she got, freezing her until she drew away and returning to normal. The world wouldn't let her get close. Where was she? When was she? And what was happening?
"Starlight... Glimmer..." Valey croaked, sending Starlight's eyes wide. She looked back at the wall, and Starlight followed her gaze, realizing Valey was leaning against what looked like a door. The batpony craned her head back, looking up and up into the heavens, and sighed. "I still believe in you, no matter what you do. Just... gotta..."
She heaved herself unsteadily to her hooves, giving the door a grin. All the corpses were gone, now, and there was nothing but a gray filly standing between her and the open plane. Opening her mouth, she caught a few falling flakes just like Starlight had, then licked her lips. "Gotta stay alive to see it for myself. No way did I start this not to see it through. Heh heh... ow..."
Starlight tried to call out, but to no effect. Valey slowly limped past her, battered face set in determination. Only as she passed, though, did Starlight notice the one thing fundamentally different about her friend: her cutie mark, instead of being a simple rendering of a boxing glove, was a complex set of triangles and runes she was fairly sure she had never seen before.
"Valey?" Starlight blinked, following her. "Valey, where are we? How did your cutie mark change? You're older, and you know my full name, even though I never told it to you. Are we...?" She stopped. "How far in the future am I?"
Suddenly, a wall of pressure built behind her like static. Something inside her screamed for her to turn around, and she started to jump... but barely made it halfway through the action when her world was washed away in a river of billowing black. Starlight spun, tumbled, thrashing, as her perception shattered and the snowy plane became nothing. She was drowning, rising, swimming through a river of inky cold, fighting to hold her breath... and then she broke the surface, and everything was pink.
Starlight gasped, shuddering, as blackness drained out of her vision like droplets of water. Her ears were filled with a gentle crackling, tongues of shimmering pink flickering and dancing upwards around her. The ground she was on was hard but warm, and there were two ponies hugging her... one shaking, adult-sized mare, and one disembodied presence that was wrapped around her, yet bigger than a mountain.
"Maple?" Starlight breathed, recognizing the branches of a crystal brazier and walls of organic crystal around that. "Are we... back underground? At the tree?" She felt her heart beating, let her ears twitch, shook off memories of the suffocating, claustrophobic grayness. "Am I alive?"
Maple's teary eyes looked straight at her, watering and pink. "You're alive..."
"I feel alive," Starlight admitted, standing up and testing her muscles. No aches, no pains, no weariness, no nothing. She and Maple had been laying on the pink flame's pedestal, and as it licked up about them, she realized that was the second thing she had felt holding her. "What happened? What did I just see? It felt like a nightmare..."
"I don't care..." Maple shook, trembling, and clung to Starlight harder. "I don't care!"
Starlight took the cue and laid back down, letting Maple nearly smother her with a hug. "You're alive..." Maple whispered, over and over and over.
What had happened? What about Valey and Shinespark and Ironridge and the windigoes? What about the airship, or the pony called Fire, or the warring factions and Arambai and Gerardo? Starlight felt Maple's hooves around her, rocked with the shaking of her adoptive mother's body, and quickly realized one thing: she didn't care either. For three days, Ironridge had been running them ragged, and more than enough was more than enough. The city could do what it wanted, but if anyone wanted to mess with her and Maple, they'd have to get through her first... and remembering the first time the tree had augmented her magic, Starlight had no doubts that she could send even a yak packing with it on her side.
"Yes," she grunted, "I'm alive. And don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."
"You're not?" Maple choked back, a hint of anger in her still-weak voice. "You're not just going to try to disappear again, right in front of my face, even after I told you so many times not to!?" She swallowed, shaking, leaning away from Starlight. "I... I just watched you..."
Starlight winced, a thorn going straight through her heart. "You knew that would happen!? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know..." Maple cringed, then wailed. "I don't know why I didn't! I saw it in Arambai's house, and again on the ship when you were experimenting! After you passed out, you started to fade, every time, and then stopped and came back... I told you not to play around with it, but you didn't listen! I-I didn't want to scare you with it, b-but..." Her voice wavered. "Then you were doing it again, and I couldn't talk or move or stop you, and it was so much bigger than the last times because... I don't know! You... You... I never thought I'd have to watch my foal die and have it be my fault and be powerless to stop it again..."
Again...? Starlight's eyes widened. It had been so long since that story with Amber and Willow in Maple's kitchen in Riverfall, she had completely forgotten about Aspen, Maple's biological foal whom she had miscarried. "S-Sorry..." she whispered, wishing she had let Fire and the others try to find a way and heeded Maple's warnings not to use the machine, violently quashing the part of her mind that told her Maple was right and really never had given her a good reason not to do it.
Gently, she wrapped her own forelegs around Maple's neck. "But at least I'm alive now, aren't I? I'm not dead. See?"
"O-Only because..." Maple hiccuped, ears flat. "Only because you were touching me when you did it. If you had been even an inch away..."
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head, confused.
Maple gritted her teeth. "I had promised I'd... never use my cutie mark on another pony, but you were almost gone, and it was the only way..."
Starlight's eyes widened in surprise, darting to Maple's flank. "But... isn't it broken!?" The cracks in the image were still there, though they had begun to reflow, like a smith had melted down the edges and was trying to seal everything back together. "I was in there...?"
"For hours," Maple choked. "Hours and hours. After what you did... I couldn't talk, so when someone came to check on me, I couldn't tell them what happened, or where you were. Gerardo came. He said Valey and Shinespark had already passed out, that the ship was broken and we were stuck but the snow was melting and we could walk or be flown down once we recovered. He talked on and on about how miraculous everything was and how it was all sunshine and rainbows and everything would be alright and never once asked where you were or even tried to guess why I was crying! He took me back to Shinespark's room and set me there to rest, and told me to go to sleep, since our room had been taken after you unlocked it. Valey and Shinespark were there too. And I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't, since my mark is harder to use now that it's broken and I have to actively concentrate to keep from dropping things. It hurt... I could feel you, but I was so scared I'd slip and the moment I did, you'd be gone forever and I didn't even know what to do...!"
Starlight held tighter as she sobbed, cradling her head and gently rocking back and forth. "They put Braen's armor in that room in the morning," Maple whispered. "They were talking about moving ponies out. The ship got quiet, but Shinespark and Valey hadn't woken up, so they left me with them since I wasn't officially hurt and didn't need medical help. Eventually, I got enough strength back to drag myself across the floor, and reach the armor. I could move, but I had no strength. But I thought, since the armor is mana-powered and makes you stronger, maybe it could do something..."
She swallowed. "It did. It even opened when I touched it. I don't know how, but I was able to get in. And it worked. Even though I could barely move, it was able to strengthen my movements and move for me. So I thought... that if you were disappearing because of a harmony extractor, and if that was the same thing as this tree... that I could take you down here, and it could save you..."
"Maple..." Starlight's own eyes stung with tears as she held on tight. Looking beyond the flames, she could now see the empty suit of Braen's armor standing at attention. Some parts of Maple's story didn't make any sense, but that didn't matter right then. "I love you," she sniffed, burrowing into Maple's fur. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to disappear! But I'm alive now, and... we're alright..."
Maple sniffed back, laying on her side and drawing Starlight close.
"We can just stay here," Starlight declared, her cheek resting against Maple's fuzzy side. "We don't have to go anywhere. I don't care what happens. I don't want anything to happen. I just want to... to slow down, so I can feel like me..."
Maple's stomach growled right next to her ear. "I wish we could," Maple murmured. "But I was starving even before I got into the armor, and we've been down here for so long. I fell asleep while you were coming back... I think I'm weaker than I was when I came down, now. I hope I can even get us out. I just want to go home and see Amber and Willow..."
Starlight frowned. "Really? Huh. I feel kind of full."
"Lucky," Maple murmured weakly, not questioning it.
"Right." Starlight slipped free from her embrace, the pleasant rightness of the pink flames still trailing off her horn. As long as she was down there, she had as much magic as she needed. "Then I'm carrying you out, and and we're going to find as much food as you need. You probably need it to get your strength back, or something. Ready... Nnnngh!"
Heaving, she lifted, and managed to get Maple awkwardly on her back.
"Starlight..." Maple murmured.
"That's my name," Starlight said, climbing down from the flame pedestal, still feeling its warmth swirling around in her body and radiating off Maple's. "And we're going back to Riverfall so you can see your friends. If you carried me down here, I can carry you out, and anyone who gets in my way gets crystalled. Let's go home... Mom."
As Starlight trotted through the narrow corridor leading out of the tree chamber, Maple laying heavily on her small back and faceted crystals glinting welcomingly around her, her thoughts turned to the shadowy experience she had had while unconscious. It gnawed at her mind like a dream that refused to vanish with dawn, and as much as she wanted to let the past be the past and focus on getting back to Riverfall, the memory just wouldn't leave her alone.
What had that been? A nightmare? It could have been. The forced stillness she had felt on trying to reach Valey had been so much like trying to move in a dream and finding herself incapable, her legs and body bound in real life by the close confines of her bed and unable to translate into motion in her mind. And if she broke it down, the elements present had all been things that had scared or impacted her recently. The blizzard, Valey nearly dying in her fight against Herman... but what about the monsters? Where did those come from? Her own detonation of the dam? That hadn't killed anyone... at least, no one below. And try as she might, she couldn't even bring herself to feel guilty for it.
It had all the elements of a nightmare, including the limited focus. The snow had been so thick, she couldn't make out any detail; it had just been her and Valey and a few specific things that mattered. And she wanted so much to brush it off as one... but she couldn't.
She had almost died. She had ridden, nigh disembodied, inside Maple's cutie mark, and been reconstituted by a flame of pure harmony after being completely deconstructed by a machine that used her own Equestrian harmony to fight windigoes. If she had wondered before whether she was made of the stuff, now she was almost certain. But with so many intensely unusual and magical circumstances put together, it would almost be more surprising for nothing to have happened... so the nightmare very well might not have been random.
Still, with all the things that had happened to her, what could even have caused that? The flame? The flame was good, pure and untainted, and the dream was completely the opposite, so that couldn't be. Although, remembering the display she had destroyed in which the flame had been melting moon glass to empower the heart... perhaps what she had seen was somehow generated by that? Could it have left behind an aura, or something? Starlight didn't know enough about magic to do anything better than wild speculation, but she did know that the nightmare had been gray and White Chocolate's moon glass had made her see gray and there just might be a connection.
She had also ridden in Maple. Maple's cutie mark was fractured, but looked like it was healing. And she had been stabbed by Gerardo's sword, and no one really knew how that worked. Emotionally, she wasn't well either, having once been depressed and then exhausted by Ironridge. But could her adoptive mother really look like that inside? Starlight violently shuddered. That couldn't be.
Atop her, Maple sniffed, and she felt another tear trickle down the mare's cheek and onto the side of her head. "Don't worry," she assured, crossing out from the tree and over the bridge to the rest of the castle. "I told you, I'm all right. You'll be all right too, once I get you out of here and back to Riverfall. I promise."
The third possibility was that Starlight had been close enough to death to see what lingered on the other side. Even more than the others, that sent a chill down her spine. There was no such thing as an immortal... well, except for Princess Celestia, but still. Normal ponies like her couldn't just live forever, and the same went for Maple... and Valey, too, now. Was that the inevitable destination for everyone? She desperately didn't want that to be true either, and fortunately, the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. Had she been dead, what was holding her back from interacting with Valey? Her connection to life? Where were all the other souls of the dead? How could there be dead monsters in death? And what was Valey doing there in the first place - an older Valey, no less - when she was clearly alive?
Valey being in Maple didn't make much sense either, but she knew the batpony had frequented the tree and its flame, and even touched it many times before. That the tree was showing her a vision both made the most sense and felt the most palatable as an explanation, and she wanted to accept it and be done... but that still left the question of why. Why had the tree shown her something like that? She knew it had emotions, if not thoughts and desires as well. If it had done it, it meant it was deliberate... and that it was important, since the tree was nice and a nice tree probably would have wanted to show her something nice as well.
At least if it was important, she didn't have to worry about forgetting. Starlight could almost feel the memory physically floating in her mind, like a small kernel of shadow, and whenever she wanted to think about it, it was there in just as much detail as when it had happened.
She stepped out into the table room, and saw other ponies.
"Starlight? You are here?"
"Hah! Told you I could smell her from halfway across Ironridge."
One of the ponies was Valey, dressed in so many slings and bandages that she was well on her way to becoming a mummy, floating regally in a yellow telekinetic aura. The mare who held her was a unicorn Starlight hadn't seen before, with a strange texture to her coat and mane that made her glitter, appearing faceted just like the crystal of the tree.
Atop her, Maple's eyes lifted. "Valey...?"
The glittery unicorn exhaled. "And you're Maple? This is a relief. Ever since that explosion, we've been trying to get everypony the attention and safety they need, focusing on what we could for who we could, but when Maple went missing after we thought we had left her somewhere safe..."
Starlight's eyes narrowed. "And what about me? Did you ever go looking for me? Huh?"
The unicorn hesitated, lifting a hoof, apparently unused to being put on the spot. "Well, we searched the ship! Gerardo said we needed to find you. But the snow was melting so we would have seen anypony who fell off, and..." She looked curiously back. "How did you two get down here?"
Feeling a sudden, boiling anger, Starlight lit her horn. Her telekinesis wrapped around Maple, flush with pink magic from the tree, and set her aside. Starlight straightened, cheeks puffed and lips drawn, marched right up to the unicorn's face... and slugged her with a sucker punch. "That's where I was!" she yelled, chest quickly heaving, and glanced back at Maple, tears already stinging her eyes. "You didn't check her! You didn't ask or try to find a way for her to communicate or..." She gnashed her teeth. "Who do you think you are!?"
Valey crashed to the ground with a yelp, her telekinetic cushion gone. The unicorn rubbed her stricken cheek, looking hurt. "I'm Fire..."
Starlight wasn't done. "You want to know about 'that explosion'? That randomly and mysteriously saved your rears? That was me! And I almost disappeared, but she caught me with her cutie mark, and not one of you even tried to figure it out or help her! Why not? Why not, huh? I almost killed myself to save you, and you didn't even do everything you could to help my mother!"
As much as Fire shied back from the outburst, Valey looked even more cowed. "You almost what?"
"I meant what I said," Starlight told her, glancing back at Maple and levitating the mare back to her. "I'm fine now, thank you very much. But if you have any food, she really, really needs it..."
"Heh..." Valey chanced a grin. "Well, there, at least, I've got you covered." With her good wing, she popped her hat off, reclaimed from the chaos of the central atrium, and fished out a packet of sliced, dried mango. "Nothing beats the fresh stuff, but that ship of Sparky's is still really well stocked. Here ya go. And... sorry."
Starlight took it, effortlessly summoning a shard of crystal and manipulating both it and the package at once, slicing off the top like a knife. Dispelling her tool, she floated out the contents to Maple, who took them gratefully. "Sorry?" Starlight tilted her head. "Weren't you asleep?"
"Yeah, I was!" Valey growled. "But I didn't have to be! After everything went all blue, Ironridge basically... fixed itself. Everything was still smashed, but the weather instantly went normal, and even the snow in the Sky District started melting. I was a little worried about what had done that, but I could still smell you nearby and knew Ironflanks wasn't going anywhere, and I thought..." She gritted her teeth. "Ugh, I thought it was over and I could take it easy! I mean, seriously, I was mega tired, but it's not like I fainted or anything. If I'd actually checked on you myself, I'd have noticed the smell and been able to say something, or..." Hanging her head, she closed her eyes and hid her face.
Starlight watched, Maple chewing beside her... but Valey didn't look up. Suddenly, she realized the batpony was waiting for an extension of forgiveness.
"...Well..." She walked forward, her little hooves quietly clacking against the pink floor. "We're alive now," she said, reaching Valey and touching her chest with her cheek in a not-quite-hug. "All of us. And we're going to survive. Right?" She looked up. "So I forgive you."
"Heh..." Valey met her eyes. "Thanks. And yeah, I'm pretty sure this is finally over."
"It better be," Starlight muttered under her breath, turning to Fire. "Hey. You said you were Fire? You were in the atrium when I couldn't see, right? Are you the Yakyakistan official Herman was talking about?"
Fire started, realizing Starlight was addressing her. "Oh? I-I... am. A little bit more than just an official, actually, but yes. I'm sorry about not finding you and your mother. We couldn't figure out what had happened, but since we knew Maple's cutie mark could buffer harmony magic, we assumed it had just been her. Even if the colors didn't match up, but-"
"Don't." Starlight cut her off. "You can use magic down here. I saw you levitating Valey. The first time I came down here, I couldn't, and the other unicorn with us never could. But right now?" Her horn crackled pink. "All of this place's magic is helping me. I'm probably even made of it. So whether you believe I saved you and all of Ironridge or not, I have some demands, and you had better listen, because I can flatten you right now."
Apprehensive, Fire stood her ground. "Demands? I... Starlight, I'm still finding out about what has been going on in Ironridge with Herman and our embassy, but please believe me: that isn't what Yakyakistan is like. We have a lot of apologizing to do and reparations to make, and you have every right to be angry or hurt for what's happened. I assume you lost your home because of us, or possibly worse. And we're going to do what it takes to make things right. If that means bowing and giving whatever you need... it can be done. But, please... could you make requests, instead? It's not my place to ask, since debts like these can't be truly repaid, but we want to go into this with as generous a spirit as possible and hopefully come out as something better than resentful former foes."
Starlight blinked. "...You're really humble for a Yakyakistan official."
Fire waited, watching to see if that was a compliment.
"We've only been in Ironridge for a few days," Starlight told her. "We didn't get our house blown up or anything. And what we want is to leave. No one stopping us, no one chasing us or hunting us down, and none of our friends left behind. That's what I want."
Fire blinked. "That's it? You just want a way out of the city?"
Nodding, Starlight watched as Maple finished the last of the mango pieces, lifting her back onto her back. "Yes. What else would we want?"
"Well..." Fire hesitated. "An explanation, for one. Of what Yakyakistan was doing with windigoes, or meddling in foreign affairs so soon after a brutal war was fought due to expansion. These are national secrets relating to the security of the entire world, but-"
"No!" Starlight barked, harshly cutting her off. "I don't want to know more secrets! I don't want to know things that will have crazy pegasi or sad unicorns breathing down my back to use me as a research project! That's how we got stuck here in the first place! Besides..." She sniffed, breaking eye contact. "I want to forget about the windigoes. Pretend they never happened. My life doesn't have a normal, but I don't want this to become it. I'd even be happy, living in Riverfall where everyone knows where I'm from, getting my cutie mark and growing old... maybe having kids... but right now, I never even saw the windigoes. They were just a bit of howling and cold air, and one dumb idea and a bad dream, and... it doesn't make sense, and I don't want it to. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't feel real. I want Valey to have beaten Herman, call that the end, go home..."
Valey exhaled. "Mmmmmph. Kinda got a point, there. I sure wouldn't mind knowing just why I threw my butt on the line beating up Herman... but right now, I did it for Starlight, and if we're going to be moving on and getting on with our lives, that's good enough for me. Ironflanks?"
Maple shuddered. "Thanks for the food. I... won't be able to listen to any explanations right now. I just need to get home. Please, take me home..."
Starlight raised an eyebrow at Fire.
"...Right. You know what you want, at least," she sighed. "That's almost a shame. What happened on the ship... was that really you?" She looked intently at Starlight.
"I hooked myself up to the harmony extractor," Starlight replied. "I joined myself to the windigo heart. I thought it would transfer the energy and work like an attack to weaken them. Did anything else happen?"
Fire paused, her mouth half open. "It... completely destroyed the clouds," she said. "Over the entire city. There was a blue ring, and... I didn't do anything. There are very, very few things I'm aware of in the world with that kind of power."
Starlight frowned. "Where are you going with this?"
"Nowhere," Fire sighed. "You want to be let go, and we'll honor that. The last time Yakyakistan fought with a pony who could do that, it was Blazing Rain, and you should know how that ended. But even then, we have reparations to do and trust to rebuild. As much as I'd like to invite you back to Infinite Glacier as guests of the highest honor... and I will, in case you would like to come... you can go where you wish. We won't stand in your way."
Grinning, Valey sidled over and nudged Starlight with a bandaged hoof. "She's as strong as Blazing Rain? No-myths seriously? Wow, Sparky will be miffed to hear that."
"Well..." Fire reached into her drawn-back robe, then pulled something out. "You are the only two ponies in living memory, excluding immortals and as far as I am aware, who have done this."
In her hoof was a chunk of crystal, jagged and cruel like a curved knife, glittering with a frosty teal. It gave off a faint coldness that stung the inside of Starlight's nose, and she blanched. "Is that...?"
"A windigo heart," Fire finished for her. "A fresh one, one of eight and harvested by you. We made it a priority to find where they fell and get them all back, as they can become dangerous in unknowing hooves. If you want them, they belong to you."
Starlight stared at the shard, feeling her eyes widen against its dull light. Eight windigo hearts. All the trouble she had had in Ironridge had been caused by two, started when an unknowing Sosan had stolen the crates containing them from the side of the road, and here she was being offered eight. Her heart pounded in her chest.
"You'll need at least one of them," Fire told her. "If you want to leave Ironridge. The remaining boats have been out of service for ten years, and even if they were trustworthy, there is a canyon shortly east of Ironridge causing the river to back up and drain slowly, and the rapids there will be unsurvivable. Furthermore, all of the airships in the hangar have been smashed, and any inbound ones will be unable to refuel with the skyport damaged and Sosa's generators gone. But Arambai and Shinespark say their ship can be quickly repaired from the damage your shockwave did when it overloaded the systems. If you don't want to stay in this city, it could be your last chance to leave for a very long time."
Slowly, Starlight nodded.
"Right now, the hearts are unprotected and raw," Fire continued. "Unlike the specially-sealed ones we shipped using Gerardo. That makes them more useful for dangerous types of experiments you would likely have no interest in, but also reduces their capacity to hold harmonic energies. If you like, we will leave you one and take the other seven back to Yakyakistan to be treated, since you'll primarily want them as batteries. We can then charge them at Ironridge, assuming the city lets us, and find a way to ship them to you, wherever you've gone. But they're your property, so it's your decision."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Not to be rude, but aren't you being kinda naive? If, say, Starlight was just a random schmuck who didn't do anything to help, she could be telling you all this and scoring a bunch of super dangerous artifacts and you wouldn't be doing anything to make sure she's telling the truth. Not that I don't want a clean ride out of here, but trusting everyone to be stellar paragons and stuff just worked out really well with Herman."
Fire flinched, drew back her head, and sighed. "Yes. I am. I don't... live in very realistic conditions at home, apparently. It's saddening every time I'm reminded of that."
"Valey..." Starlight grumbled, ready and willing to not question trust if it meant a faster way out.
"But it's not pure conjecture," Fire quickly added. "You were right, earlier: you're using this castle's magic. It's already very special that my magic works here at all, and is thanks to countless hours of meditation and training in Yakyakistan. But you are adding it to your own. You have to have some kind of innate connection to harmony that other ponies lack, and it might explain being able to unleash that power on the windigoes."
An innate connection... like where she was from, as Arambai and Shinespark had speculated. "Fire..." She looked seriously at the unicorn. "You really want to help me, right? And if I tell you things bad or even normal ponies would probably chase me for, you mean it about letting me go and live my own life?"
Fire touched her heart with a hoof. "I swear it on Princess Celestia."
Starlight blinked, then decided to try something safer first. "I destroyed the dam. I was the one who pushed the button. Herman said he was going to anyway, but I did it myself."
Fire slowly blinked back, unsure how to react to the news. "And I'll keep my promise," she eventually said.
Starlight nodded. "Me and Maple are from Riverfall. No one's come to Ironridge from there in years."
"And that's where you are returning?" Fire tilted her head, then smiled. "I hope you are happy there."
"...I'm not from Riverfall, though," Starlight continued, throat tightening at what she was about to say. "I crossed the mountains. I'm from the south. Equestria. The Plains of Harmony. I did it alone."
Valey gave her an interested glance, and Fire's eyes widened. "You...? How? That's supposed to be impossible! The only passes are in Yakyakistan and the Griffon Empire..."
"Not telling," Starlight firmly told her, taking a determined stance. "You're still not going to stop me?"
Fire looked conflicted, once again averting her gaze. "I... No. I won't. And I won't tell anyone, as you requested. But..." She folded her ears. "I have a feeling... that wherever you go, you won't find your peaceful life. I don't know who you are, but those mountains are designed to be uncrossable, even by a trained, full-grown team of pegasi, and wielding harmonic energy of that magnitude, even with the aid of a machine... Either one would be proof that there's something more special than a normal pony about you. Yakyakistan might not deserve right now to know what it is, but I promise you, I'm not wrong."
Starlight gritted her teeth, old memories of her aversion to being special bumping up against her mind.
"Starlight," Fire said. "Throughout history, there have been... patterns. Almost a thousand years ago, Equestria sealed itself off from the rest of the world after a terrible tragedy in which Princess Celestia's own sister was lost. A thousand years before that, the world was scoured by several great demons: the windigoes... and Discord. Equestria was created, and Unicornia buried. There might have been another calamity a thousand years before that. Either way, through fate or self-fulfilling prophecy, the world tends to move all at once, and often in these specific intervals. A war isn't unusual, but the reappearance of windigoes, along with a filly such as yourself... and perhaps the arrival of obsidian, as well, may be heralds of things to come."
"Oh, come on!" Starlight stomped. "I told you, I didn't want a bunch of mumbo jumbo or vague threats or explanations or anything! I just want to be left alone so me and Maple can be happy together!" She glanced at the room's resident batpony. "...And Valey!"
"That was just a warning," Fire sighed. "Just in case. I hope for both of our sakes it is meaningless, because you deserve to live out your life in peace, and Yakyakistan is poorly prepared to stand as a bastion of harmony in the world right now. But even if it isn't..." She gave a small smile. "There are still fifteen years left before the turn of the millennium. That's plenty of time to live out your foalhood, at least."
"...Yeah. Fifteen years." Starlight hung her head. "Ironridge could've waited fifteen years. But it didn't."
Fire nodded. "The world was in turmoil leading up to the past cycles, as well," she promised. "...Still. As long as Yakyakistan stays the Yakyakistan I know, you have nothing more to worry about from us. We will be your friends if you need it, and otherwise leave you be. Now... let me charge this heart for you, and we can be on our ways."
Starlight didn't stop her, and neither did Valey, turning and watching as she walked past. Maple, however, caught her attention.
"Wait!" the earth pony called. "When I was getting Starlight down here... I borrowed Braen's suit of armor so that I could move. It's still down there. If you can lift it, Shinespark would probably appreciate having it back."
Fire nodded, winked, and disappeared down the staircase below.
"...Well," Valey sighed once they were alone. "Just you and me and you. You, uhh... look kinda out of it, Ironflanks."
"I'm tired of trying to hold myself together," Maple moaned, drooping. "It's just too much..."
"Heh heh..." Valey looked away, spinning a hoof idly against the surface of the table and causing the collection of points on the surface to spin. "That's too bad. I'm feeling a little messed-up myself, and was kind of hoping you'd be feeling up to talking me through it, or something. You know... the kind of thing I got in my head we'd totally be able to do when we were talking in the Flame Barracks. You know what I mean, right?"
Maple shook her head. "I don't know anything right now..."
"Meh. That's too bad." Valey got up and started pacing away. "Oh well. Take care of yourself first. Waiting probably won't kill me. Just... eh... after all that... Nah, just take care of yourself."
As Starlight paced after her toward the exit, brushing past the table, its surface caught her eye. The collection of points was the same, still that hexagon-inside-a-triangle pattern she had been told associated with the Yakyakistan church... only now, one of the dots had very faintly changed color and appeared to be glowing pink. Was it her imagination? Maybe it was. Or maybe it had always been glowing like that. Deciding she had more homeward things to think about, Starlight straightened Maple on her back and picked up her pace, running for the lift to the surface.
In the room beneath the lift to the Flame District, Starlight paused, looking at the ceiling. She had a vague memory of a crack where Valey had shadow snuck everyone through, but now there was a clean hole in the crystal, polished and faceted and free of the chalky buildup that coated the untouched walls in the palace. It was convenient, though, and that was more than enough of an excuse not to question it.
Horn humming with pink energy, Starlight easily levitated Maple and Valey to the top, then conjured a crystal staircase for herself, pleased at how little effort magic took with the tree helping her and slightly sad she was about to leave it behind. Shinespark's ship had a harmony extractor that could fix her horn whenever she needed it, and all signs currently pointed to that being her ride out of Ironridge, but after almost disappearing thanks to the machine, she was nearly as leery of using it as Maple had been in warning her. Her sight was back, but to stay on the safe side, she might have to never use magic again.
She sat with her friends at the base of the lift, waiting for Fire, relishing that last taste of harmonic power like a shrinking piece of candy in her mouth. She leaned Maple against her, once again shivering from contact with the mare's warmth, and rested her cheek against Maple's shoulder and Maple's head atop hers.
"Your eyes are pink again," she remarked. "After laying in that flame with me. Are you all right? That's what broke your cutie mark last time."
"It felt like the right thing to do..." Maple murmured, completely spent. "It was much gentler than last time. And it feels good to carry, too. Not much... but just a little."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I told you that stuff usually feels good."
Starlight grunted in agreement. If there was anywhere she wanted to wake up after thinking she was dead... well, Maple's bed in Riverfall was her first pick, but in the tree would make a close second. With Maple beside her, she could almost feel the flames still flickering around her, soothing her like a caring lullaby. Considering Maple was carrying some and she held their magic in her horn, maybe they even were.
"Hello?" Fire called out beneath them, splashing into the thin liquid at the bottom of the room that Valey had once said made a wonderful drink. In her aura, she floated Braen's armor, along with a glowing, pink-charged windigo heart. Starlight reformed the stairs for her, too, and together they started the lift on its ascent back to the Flame District.
The second elevator, Starlight remembered with a pang of dismay, had been destroyed in their fight against the mercenaries. The shattered, twisted remains of the carriage lay at the bottom of the shaft, a short distance above to the start of the core and a very long ways to reach the roof. Valey looked regretfully at her hurt wing, bandaged to her side and unable even to be flexed. Starlight growled at her horn, wishing to no avail that Fire had Shinespark's flight magic.
What Fire did have was exceptionally-powerful fire magic, demonstrated by a beam of pure sunlight wider than a yak that poured from her horn, melting a diagonal-upward passage several meters into the rock. She started to follow it, beaming and preparing to carve it further, when Valey stopped her with a cough.
"I dunno how you can stand on rocks so hot they're literally glowing orange," the batpony pointed out, "but we definitely can't. And it'll take hours before those cool off."
"Oh..." Fire blushed from embarrassment, though it might have been the light from the half-magma glowing off her sparkling cheeks. "Whoops. My magic can do that..."
Valey wiped her brow with her good wing, the proximity of the heat causing her to sweat even though the tunnel was on the other side of the cave. "Where were you when I was fighting Herman? Seriously..."
"Maple?" Starlight asked, glancing up at the earth pony on her back. "How did you get us down here in the first place? Did you just jump?"
"I don't remember..." Maple murmured, sagging. "It feels so long ago. I think I flew... I want to go to sleep..."
If Starlight hadn't needed all four hooves to remain standing under Maple's weight, she would have reached up and tried to stroke her ear. "Then do that," she insisted. "We've got this. Fire?" She stared at the unicorn. "That armor has a jetpack. Can you use it to fly us up?"
Fire couldn't figure out Braen's jetpack function. She couldn't figure out anything except the basic strength-enhancement powers, but apparently those were enough. Using her telekinesis to carry the other three ponies, she dragged herself up the tunnel wall, using the sharp implements along Braen's hooves for purchase on the rock.
The core itself was dark and filled with the sound of rushing water. Fire's horn illuminated dozens of columns pouring from overhead, fueling the formation of a vast, dark lake where the pit bottom had once stood. Smoke vents, once designed to capture steam and hot air and facilitate the melting of snow in the Sky District to feed the reservoir, now had their functions reversed, funneling meltwater from above underground, the pump and filtration systems designed to keep the flow one-way gone with the power.
"Heh... good thing the power was already off when this hit," Valey muttered, eyeing the watery cavern. "Probably still gonna ruin a bunch of this equipment, though. Something tells me it's going to take a lot of work to bail this place out and start mining again."
Fire climbed catwalks and ladders, not risking jumps when she was unaccustomed to the strength of Braen's legs. Starlight clung to Maple as they floated along; her mother had kept her word and gone to sleep, and Starlight felt the rise and fall of her sides and listened to her heartbeat as if they were the only things that mattered in the world. Slowly, they progressed through the darkened and abandoned facility, finally reaching a thin walkway to a disused emergency door at the very top.
The shell of the skyport was chilly, but not life-threateningly so, and Fire's horn glowed with a warmth that kept even the mountain air at bay. She still carried Starlight, Maple and Valey, showing no sign of tiring as she paced across marble floors with occasional cracks and stepped through connection tunnels that felt slightly off-center.
An eastern morning sun shone through the remains of the clear glass, some rooms with their domes cracked but intact and others wide open like the atrium. Deep blue and cloudless, the sky welcomed them back after the storm, promising the same kind of disgustingly-hot weather Starlight had suffered under the day before... or had she been gone so long that it was two days, now? She didn't care. They were alive, and could go home.
The snowfields outside were melting. At their latitude, Starlight didn't doubt they'd be back, but her sight was graced with the actual mountain surface, craggy folds of gray protecting white in their lees and rivers in their lowest gaps. A sea of gray and white, tossed like waves and foam in a frozen ocean, stretched out for miles and miles to the south, until eventually it met the towering ridge of the true mountain wall that separated Ironridge from Equestria. Hopefully that much meltwater wouldn't make the flooding worse, though she had little doubt it would.
Skyfreeze still stood in a proud, golden spire, no clouds present by which to measure its progress in touching the sky. The one time Starlight had been there, she had been blind, but she knew it served as both the center of government and residence for councilmembers, wealthy traders and diplomats. If Ironridge was truly cut off from the world, as Fire had said, what would they all do? Sit around in their giant tower without energy and debate policies that had no impact? Starlight wondered who in the districts would even listen to them, after all their leadership had brought the city to. That had, after all, been part of Herman's plan.
Then she saw the city itself, lifted high enough to view beyond the mountains' edge and into the crater. It sparkled with wetness in the morning, looking as if it had just been flattened by a giant mop. Everything seemed to sag, simultaneously brighter and duller, and despite the distance Starlight's eyes were drawn to a myriad of tiny specks of color. Everywhere, across the western Stone District, Blueleaf's misshapen stack, the Karma Industries tower to the north, ponies were outside and moving around.
That was nice. Hopefully they were moving and doing productive things, rather than moving and blaming or fighting... but what could she do if they were? As well-rested and freshly-charged as her body felt, Starlight was still tired, and putting herself back out under more risk and stress to fix problems other ponies had caused for themselves was just too much. It was time to leave. Time to go.
As they drew down the broken tunnel to where the flightless airship still sat, Starlight saw Shinespark's greatest work for the first time in the light of day. It had been righted, sitting on a broad slab of rock with landing gear extended, waiting powerless for the harmonic energy that would give it flight once again. Curved and lovingly sculpted from wood over metal, every trace of snow within a certain radius of it had been completely annihilated, and the air almost felt springlike to her nose. Was that the scent of flowers?
They didn't go unnoticed. Gerardo's head shot out from the bridge, staring right at them, before calling something loudly down below. Soon, Arambai stumped up the stairs, followed by Dior and a self-levitating Shinespark with her leg in a cast. All of them watched in interest as Fire levitated the three gently to the deck.
Arambai sighed as he made eye contact with Starlight, almost able to manage a smile. "Well. Look who survived. Gotta admit, after what I saw with you and that surge back in Riverfall, and then that explosion... I figured you bit it. Would've explained why poor Maple was so upset. Glad to see at least someone's back in once piece, though..." He looked away, then glanced back curiously. "What did happen to you?"
"Magic," Starlight grunted, not in an expository mood now that Maple was back on her back and there was a ship beneath her hooves. "Listen. If you want to make ships like this, there's a power source under the Flame District. Don't use me. Me and Maple are going back to Riverfall, and we're going to live together and be happy and not be bothered by any ponies with big, grand plans, okay?" She plucked the windigo heart from Fire's aura, a pink light radiating from its frosty surface. "This can run the ship. We need a ride back. Please."
Dior watched the crystal with interest, while Shinespark floated in place, looking shellshocked. Arambai squinted at it, and eventually rubbed his beard.
"Well, you're half in luck," he eventually told her. "See, we weren't all that sure what we were messing with, making this ship, so we built it to withstand absolutely anything. End-of-the-world levels of energy, you hear?"
Starlight swallowed. "There's a but coming. You're going to tell me I broke it, aren't you?"
Arambai looked apprehensive. "Well... yeah. The internals might have burned out in a place or two. Fortunately, they failed like they were supposed to fail, so it's not like the whole ship's junked. All we need are replacements for a few easy-to-replace parts... fuses and dials and regulators and the like. The important parts of the internals are all intact, and structurally, she's as sound as can be."
"All right," Starlight sighed, hanging her head and glaring. "How long will it take?"
Arambai grinned. "Seeing as Sosa's underwater..."
Starlight's eye twitched.
"...It'll just mean getting the ship back to my lab in Riverfall," he finished. "If you've got power, I'm pretty sure I can wire up levitation in under an hour with what I have here. That'll keep the ship airborne... without any controls whatsoever. And if you want actual propulsion, too bad." He raised an eyebrow. "Still, it's not too long a trip, so Shinespark can probably push it there in a few days, tops."
"Fine." Starlight turned away, heading for the stairs belowdecks. "As long as we can come with you, and don't have to do anything else after."
"Come with me?" Arambai shook his head sadly. "Oh, I'm not going back to Riverfall, Starlight. It'll be up to these two to fix it up for you." He shook a hoof at Shinespark and Dior. "Nahhh... You were out a whole day and two nights, and I haven't been up here the whole time. I've been showing my face a little around the city, here and there. Seems an old rival of mine is in a bit of a state of disrepair, while an old friend is looking to finally get her hooves dirty and see what she can do for the city. As for me... looks like the ponies are willing to try anything, even the stallion that sold them out to the economic council seven years ago, so long as it's not the system that brought actual war to their soil. I've got my old job to get back to, seeing if I can fix this place up and put things right around here."
Starlight blinked. "You're not?"
"Not going back to Riverfall?" Arambai's lips turned upward in a smile. "That's what I said. But don't worry. I'm pretty sure Dior will do a good job keeping old Hemlock annoyed in my place. Might even give all those frustrated mares someone even better to swoon for."
Dior bowed his head stoically.
"...Anyway." Arambai took the windigo heart from Starlight, rolling it over and examining it in his aura. "This is what we need, hmm? Well, I'll get to work. Enjoy wherever life takes you, and all that. And by the way."
He whistled, and in a crack of telekinesis, a short, plump, wine-red mare appeared in a slightly rumpled suit. "Yes, sir?" She primly straightened her glasses.
"Starlight, this is Hestia," Arambai introduced, waving a hoof. "Secretary for Mobius, before he coincidentally retired yesterday. You may have met her."
"I don't think we have," Hestia replied, moving to shake Starlight's hoof. Despite her being an adult, Starlight was fairly sure that if she wasn't weighted down with Maple, they would stand eye to eye. "Starlight? A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Mmm." Arambai lifted Maple from Starlight's back to his, freeing the filly. "I'll go put her somewhere comfortable down below. We're still cleaning the place up, but there should be a good room or two. Anyway, Hestia is an accomplished teleporter and can ferry a passenger across the entire city with just a few leaps. If there's any unfinished business you have in Ironridge, take care of it now. And if not... go for a walk, or something. It would be a shame to leave without at least one good memory of the city, and I hear the mountain air is good for the lungs. But that's your call. Come back here in an hour, or whenever you're ready to leave."
Starlight hesitated... and Valey instantly snapped to her side. "I'm coming, too."
Hestia nodded at her. "I can ferry two. You're Valey?"
"Reputations, reputations..." Valey hung her head. "Yeah. So, Starlight? Anywhere you wanna go?"
With a burst of light, Starlight's hooves touched the ground. She shook her head, clearing it of disorientation and gathering her senses, feeling the sky fall into place around her.
Her horn didn't even twinge from the spell, but if it had, the cool mountain breeze twisting down from the cloudless blue would have soothed and dampened it, freshening her mind and cleansing her lungs of smoky, unventilated cave air. Taking several deep, endless breaths, Starlight finally walked forward.
She was on a long glass plinth, sticking out from the Stone District as an observation platform. Designed for tourists and giving a full view of the city, it had been one of her first stops after arriving in Ironridge, when she and Maple and Gerardo had rested to get their bearings while carrying two crates up the mountain. Just like then, the sun was midway through rising above the mountains, and she could see the shadow of the remaining dam and the lighthouse mountain north of it slowly drawing back across the Earth District.
Behind her, below her and in a band all around the Ironridge crater, the Stone District wrapped, a staircase of buildings and terraced streets that bustled with early-morning life. Starlight looked straight down, staring through the glass at the street below. A roadside vendor sat in a roofed stall two stories down, selling something Starlight couldn't make out to a line of colorful equines three ponies long. A stallion trotted hurriedly past pulling a crate-laden cart... Why hadn't Gerardo stopped to get one of those? A mare and a stallion wandered aimlessly to the side, sticking close together.
"It's so peaceful..." Starlight sighed, folding her forelimbs on the railing and resting her chin on them with a dismal frown. "I wish every day could have been like this. It's not too hot, not too cold, ponies are doing normal things with their lives and nothing is exploding. Do they even know how close they came to dying? Why couldn't Ironridge have been like this for us? It's not fair..."
"I hate to break it to you," Valey remarked, leaning against the railing next to her, "but this is basically a normal day in the Stone District. Remember all that stuff Herman was going on about with all the problems being caused by just a few squabbling ponies? He was one hundred percent correct. Until you mess with the conspiracy crowd, it's all just normal citizens and... well, Ironridge had a reputation as being a city of progress for a reason. Not all of them, but a lot of the ponies here had it really good."
"Had," Starlight muttered. "And now they've got no power and no ways out. Poor them."
As they sat, Starlight thinking, Valey waiting with her tail swishing impatiently and Hestia standing by with impeccable patience, a stately-looking couple turned off the street and onto the bridge to the observation platform. They made it halfway down before growing close enough to recognize Valey, hesitating in veiled alarm, and trying as innocently as possible to look like they had made a mistake and had somewhere else to be.
"Really!?" Valey complained, loud enough for them to hear. "I don't even bite anymore! Come on..."
Arrested, the couple froze in their retreat, passed a whisper, and decided they thought themselves classy enough that leaving after being called out wouldn't be worth the loss of face. They trotted out to the platform, standing as far away as they could from Valey and smiling with as much politeness and as little nervousness as they could muster.
Starlight snorted. She would have been just as fine if the interlopers had left them alone.
"Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" the mustachioed stallion managed, a tense note in his voice as Valey stared idly at his tweed suit. "That storm the other night was simply dreadful. They're calling it a new record."
"Are they?" Starlight and Valey dryly replied as one.
"They are, yes," the mare at his side agreed, bobbing her head. Starlight looked closely at her coat, noting the smoothness and lack of wrinkles, and then at her gray mane that let a few telltale streaks of pink through... Was she dying it to appear older than she really was? What a strange pony.
"They're saying it damaged the skyport," the stallion added with a very important air to his voice. "Probably just a few safety protocols and regulations they have to inspect it for compliance with. But ponies these days scare so easily, we went out yesterday morning and invested in padding out our wine cellar. That'll return a healthy profit the moment anyone suspects this closure of hindering imports! Oh ho ho!"
The mare standing beside him sulked. "Of course, I wanted to donate the money to help with that horrible housing crisis in the Earth District following the accident at the dam. Those poor ponies had enough on their hooves already, trying to stand up for their traditions and olden ways of thinking in the modern world..."
The stallion chuckled, winking at the mare with a twinkle in his eye. "Well, you see, love, once we cash in in a day or two, we can donate even more money! Or perhaps buy that deluxe reading chair for the sitting room I've had my eye on..."
"Oh, you don't need that..." The mare glanced coyly back at him, teasing her eyes around his gaze. "With the power off, these last two days have felt so rustic! Sitting inside in the storm using blankets for warmth... Using batteries and sunlight to light the house... I think it's romantic. Can't we put off upgrades at least until they get around to turning our power back on?"
She teased at his chin, and for a moment Starlight was worried the two were going to kiss. Then Valey interrupted, face just flat enough to ruin the moment. "You guys know fruit wine is a Sosan thing, right? It's made in the Earth District, not imported."
It took the stallion a minute to remember what she was talking about. "Oh ho ho, yes!" His face lit up and he slapped his knee. "I suppose that means we donated to the cause after all, doesn't it, love? You see, I was thinking of you all along!"
The mare blushed back, and she wasn't quite able to stammer out a rebuttal.
"Yeah..." Valey kept up her lazy expression. "Also, you know Ironridge's power generators were in Sosa, right? And that's pretty much gone? It's gonna be a pretty long time before whoever this they is gets you off those oh-so-rustic batteries."
Both ponies blinked at her. "Are you for real?" the stallion managed. "No power for..." He shook his head. "You're important; you must know what's going on. How long are we talking about, here? Another day? Two?"
The mare looked hopefully at Valey's deadpan face. "Three days? That might be kind of long..."
"I think she means a whole week, love," the stallion whispered in her ear.
When Valey's expression contorted to stop from laughing, the mare's ears drooped under her hat. "I-I don't know if I want to live without power for that long. This doesn't sound fun anymore..."
The stallion wrapped a foreleg around her shoulders, leading her away. "Don't you worry, my love. Let's go home and clean out the icebox just in case, and then we'll check some reputable sources and if it sounds like this blackout is going to last for more than a few days, we can sell off the cellar and go on a nice cruise to pass the time the moment the skyport reopens. Really, whoever was responsible for that travesty at the dam ought to be sued..."
Starlight felt the ghost of a little box with a button underhoof as they left, and consciously caught herself putting all her weight on that leg.
"That's the Stone District for you," Valey sighed, waiting until they were out of earshot. "About as typical as you can get. Well-off, well-meaning, and completely clueless about what the world is actually like. Those two probably think poverty is something out of a storybook, or something."
"T-They..." Starlight stared after the retreating pair. Her stomach hurt, and they were to blame for it. "They were sitting inside during that storm, while the power was off. With a blanket. They thought it was romantic. Romantic. While we were dying." She held up a lilac hoof, turning it over in front of her eyes. She had always been pink, right? "While I did die."
Hestia's eyes widened, though like a respectful secretary she held her silence and didn't press.
"It's not fair," Starlight whispered. And with those words, she was struck by a realization heavier than any storm winds or magic attack she had weathered since leaving Equestria: it wasn't fair. She had risked her life to stop Herman and the windigoes, when she could have just stuck with Valey and ran. The Stone Districters had stayed safe and warm and not even needed to realize the danger. They thought of it as a fond adventure, experienced from the shelter of their familiar homes. For her, it had been terrifying, staring into the face of oblivion with a body that didn't work properly, far from home and in defense of a city that had done nothing for her. Still, she could have ran, and she stayed.
Despite all that, despite the dust from the dam explosion on her hooves, despite everything that could be conceived as extreme acts of heroism or villainy and either way undoubtedly special, she had just met two ponies who treated her as so normal, they barely acknowledged she existed.
Once, that had been everything she ever dreamed of. But now, three days later, Ironridge was ignoring her. History didn't matter. She was normal... and it didn't feel fair at all.
Starlight sat with a stoic frown on her face, refusing to look at anything but the taunting, sparkling city. What had happened to her? She had been so sure something was unfair in Equestria, she crossed an uncrossable mountain range to get away from it. In Riverfall, three days and an entire lifetime away, she had been upset by the ponies' attention, to the extreme where she remembered crystalling them... but crossing mountains aside, she was an outsider and they hadn't seen nor heard from the outside world in nearly as long as she had been alive. Of course they had been curious... right? She had been special, and it was stupid to deny it.
Now, she had done something unheard of again, something nopony else could or even would do. This time, she was getting exactly the reaction she had wanted in Riverfall... and just as her struggle for normalcy there had been fruitless against the collective hope and curiosity of the society, she was under no delusions there was anything she could do to convince the likes of that Stone District couple how much danger Ironridge had been in, let alone that she had stopped it, or how. Anyone who did notice things didn't add up would probably just ascribe an outside cause. Maybe they'd think they were saved by the yaks' religion, or something.
And it wasn't fair. Starlight felt a single tear slip from her cheek, watched it drop over the railing and fall two stories to the street below, narrowly missing a pony's back and splattering against the dusty brown cobblestones. The road was the same color as Maple's coat, Starlight realized.
She wanted to go back to the ship. To return and tell Maple how she felt, all of it, and see if her mother could make any sense of why nothing felt fair, ever. Because she couldn't: she tried to imagine the stately couple fawning over her instead and commenting on how wonderful it was they had a skilled and special filly like her to save them from certain doom, and the same part of her heart clenched that had driven her to leave Riverfall with Maple in the first place. It wasn't that she had made a mistake, at least. What bothered her was that she still wanted whatever had driven her across the mountains just as much as she had then... only she no longer knew what it was.
"Hey, uhh..." She noticed Valey looking sideways at her. "You okay? Because you're looking kinda miserable right now."
"Sort of," Starlight murmured, nearly grunted. She couldn't elaborate.
"Just wondering." Valey shrugged. "I mean, I'm pretty sure I've got a lot of stuff bottled up from last night I told myself I could deal with once the explosions stopped... Putting staying alive before staying sane, you know? But now that we're actually there, I seriously have no idea how to unpack myself. I feel like a suitcase. Just waiting for... I dunno."
Starlight could relate, but didn't say anything. She imagined Maple could too; the mare had said as much even before Copsewood and the Water District and everything on that third day.
"Barely even feels real, trashing Herman like that," she continued, looking out beside Starlight, the breeze teasing the remaining tuft of her awkwardly-chopped mane. "I get where you were coming from, yelling at Fire not to drag us into anything more or make all that more complicated. Feels like I could stroll right back to Defense Force headquarters, forge a few names on some papers to keep the bureaucrats annoyed, fly out to the Earth District to steal some bananas..." She rubbed her stomach. "Mmm, I could really go for some bananas right now."
Starlight still wasn't hungry. She imagined she would be eventually, but whatever the flame had done in reconstituting her body, it hadn't left her famished.
"Any reason you wanted to go here in the first place?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "It's a nice view, and all. But there's also not much here. It's kinda... quiet."
"That's the point," Starlight mumbled, though she didn't mind the batpony's talking. "I just wanted somewhere to think, and thought this would feel far enough away."
Valey bit her lip. "Oh, uh, whoops. That probably means I should stop talking, right?"
Starlight shrugged.
Slightly concerned, Valey leaned around to look closer at her. "Thinking not doing you much good, huh?"
"Not really," Starlight admitted, stepping back from the railing and shaking her head with a groan. Her heart hurt, and all she was doing was making herself realize that answers she thought were good enough had a long way to go before being complete.
"Yeah, same for me." Valey reclined against the railing, nodding her head. "Thinking alone never gets me anywhere, either. Hey, wanna go to the Earth District and steal some bananas?"
Starlight glanced at Hestia, who looked slightly hesitant but didn't object. "Okay," she decided. "Sure."
With a flash of light, Starlight and Valey appeared in a dusty clearing surrounded by jade foliage, Hestia standing patiently nearby and the sunlight already striking their backs.
Starlight's eyes turned towards the mountains, realizing that their shadow no longer covered them. "Where are we? In the western part of Ironridge?"
"Yeah, this is further west in the Earth District than I think you guys have been," Valey commented, swaying on her legs to take weight off her burnt hoof. "Right outside a town called Mosstower. You know how the southeastern Stone District is mostly a bunch of miners, Defense Force and establishments catering to tourists and immigrants from the skyport, so Blueleaf winds up with all the economic dropouts who can't afford to live up top any more? Mosstower is sort of the same, only since the western Stone District is mostly dedicated to farming, the skillsets carry over. You get miners and mechanics moving down, they don't know what to do with themselves, but here it's not that hard to go from farming wheat and potatoes and stuff to harvesting pineapples. Makes the income distribution a lot evener."
"So what you're saying is," Starlight droned, "the ponies are happier and less bad things happen?"
Valey grinned. "Hey, there's a reason the Defense Force was based way over on the east side. A lot of ponies here even live in Mosstower but commute to the Stone District to work the farms there, so they can save room for terraces up top by not building houses. Honestly, it's a lot like it was before all this airship stuff happened, since farms are boring for tourists and all the Sosans lived closer to Sosa."
"Great." Starlight hung her head. "So all we needed to do to have an actually nice adventure like Maple wanted was go to the west side of the city. I didn't even think there was anything out here! Why didn't anyone tell us!?"
"First off, because most of what's out here is farms and farmers, and to the east side, that pretty much is nothing." Valey poked her in the shoulder, staring at her with serious eyes. "And second... hey. If Birdo had just bumbled on into the Defense Force without you guys, you wanna know what would have happened? Ironridge would probably be a giant iceberg right now, and I'd either be buried with it or a corpse courtesy of those mercenaries. Seriously. I might have a few issues to deal with about who and what I am, but I like being alive. So if you're wishing stuff had gone differently... Well, I, for one, could be a lot more torn up about it." She turned away, and added, "Literally."
"Given that I let you talk me out of bailing in the atrium and into putting my life on the line for a city that's been pretty garbage for both of us..." Valey stretched, taking another step towards the fruit trees growing just off the road. "We sure better be."
Valey grunted in thought, her best three limbs wrapped around the underside of a tree branch as she dangled, her free hoof rifling through hanging bunches of bananas. One detached at her touch, falling to the ground with a wet splat.
"Stealing fruit is hard with no wings!" she finally complained, huffing and hanging her upside-down head to look at Starlight and Hestia for sympathy. "And all these bananas are squishy, too! Probably got frozen by that stupid storm. Rrrgh."
Starlight shrugged, opting not to damage her horn helping. She could still feel the ghost of the presence of the pink flame, recalling how last time, she had been able to cast a single spell with the flame's aid after leaving the crystal palace that didn't leave her any wear. If she had another free shot, picking bananas was not the best thing to use it on.
Hestia could have helped, but she was busy keeping an eye on the occasional, clueless passers-by. Probably best for someone to stay wary, even if Valey had her cutie mark and most of the passing ponies paid them absolutely no attention beyond a glance. All carried things; some were laden with bags large and small, while others pulled carts not unlike the ones used in the Gnarlbough evacuation. Still, the traffic was thin, and for all Starlight knew were regular merchants crossing from one side of the city to the other. Ironridge might have lost its connections to the outside world, but was still big and varied enough to trade with itself, right?
Directly overhead, Starlight saw an airship drifting lazily in on the wind. How connected was the world abroad? Did other nations know what had happened to Ironridge? Would they keep sending ships, and would ships already in transit keep arriving, until the lack of ships coming back told them something was amiss? The arriving crews would probably be shocked to find the skyport a shattered, powerless ruin, leaving them with no way to recharge their ships and return home.
"Hey, I found some good ones!" Valey crowed from above her, waving a bunch of bananas. Deftly peeling one with her teeth, she popped it whole into her mouth, munching and chewing as loudly as possible. "Oh, yummerly..."
"What's she doing?" a curious mare's voice asked from beside Starlight.
"Stealing these wonderful bananas," Valey replied around a very full mouth. "Don't tell anyone and you can have one too. Here, this one's mushy. The others are-"
She stopped in mid-chew, halfway through flinging a banana with her good hoof, actually looking at who she was talking to, and her jaw dropped. "Buhhh."
Starlight turned as well, curious at what had gotten Valey's attention. It was a pink pegasus mare, hitched to a small cart with a few boxes and furniture items. The mare's nose was reddened, and she wore a thick, bottle-green sweater. The weather was fair right then, but didn't she know how murderously hot the Earth District could grow?
"...Do I know you?" Starlight asked, trying to recall a reason for Valey's reaction. Pink pegasus mare... Something rang a bell in her mind, but she had met far too many ponies over the past few days to remember what.
"You are!" the mare chirped, her face brightening... and suddenly contorting. "I... I... Ah..."
Starlight furrowed her eyebrows. "Huh?"
"CHOOO!"
The mare blew herself backwards with a mighty sneeze, tumbling and rolling head over heels until she landed against the cart, half-sitting and wiping her nose with a dazed expression on her face. Starlight tried to blink, then realized with alarm that she had instinctively summoned a crystal to shield herself; she dispelled it instantly, hoping it hadn't used up the pink flame's enchantment on her horn.
Behind her, there was a crash of foliage as Valey fell out of the tree.
"Sorry... I..." The mare covered her nose with a hoof, and the next sneeze turned into a yawn. "Still have a cold," she admitted apologetically before brightening. "You're that filly that was with Gerardo! Right? The griffon adventurer extraordinaire?" She cutely folded her hooves, beseeching Starlight with a smile. "Does he remember me?"
Starlight went completely blank. "What? How should I know?"
"Oh, come on!" Valey yelled behind her, stomping off into the heavy undergrowth.
Hestia looked curiously at Starlight, giving her the impression she had just as much of an idea what was going on as she did. Starlight looked back at the pegasus. "I have no idea who you are."
"Oh." The pegasus looked down. "I'm Slipstream. Skyport information desk attendant? I took a griffon named Gerardo to lunch, and a filly that I thought looked like you. Then I helped him get to Skyfreeze a few nights ago. But now things are looking down, and... N-Never mind. I just thought you were someone else."
Starlight blinked in recognition. "That was you?" Before Slipstream could say anything, she added, "If you want to know whether Gerardo remembers you, just go ask him yourself. He's probably up by the bridge that used to connect the skyport and Skyfreeze. It's not that cold up there, right now."
"That was you!" Slipstream gasped, getting back to her hooves. "I knew it!"
"Okay..." Starlight looked her up and down, wondering whether to ask her what she was doing in the Earth District. Now that she tried to remember, she had a vague recollection of being taken to lunch in the skyport on the first day, with a host who didn't seem to like the lower districts much. Part of her was curious, and the other part didn't want to get sneezed on again.
"The skyport is gone," Slipstream said, deciding she didn't need an invitation to talk. "The news isn't completely sure what happened yet, but... I've been to Skyfreeze and I'm out of the job. And now that there are so many homeless Earth District ponies from the flood, ponies are probably going to get pushed south, and the cost of housing will go up. So I decided to move west and find a cheaper place down here, since I don't have any more income and need to make my savings last as long as possible. I have a cold from flying with Gerardo through the snow, too. I probably won't be taking anyone out to lunch again any time soon..."
"Flying Gerardo through the snow?" Starlight shook her head, trying to remember how events had gone. "He doesn't owe you anything, does he?"
Slipstream brightened slightly. "Well, he did say he was an adventurer, and I might have been fantasizing just a little when you showed up..."
Starlight frankly had no clue how to deal with the pegasus, barely recollecting her herself. Still... "Hestia?" she called. "Could you take her back to Gerardo, then come back here?"
Slipstream jumped, unbuckling herself from the strap tethering her to the wagon as Hestia bowed her head. Soon, they were both gone in a flash of light.
With a crackling of fallen branches, Valey picked her way back out of the forest, a large haul of bananas cradled against her. "Ow... ow ow... ow...!"
"Are you okay?" Starlight looked at her in concern. "Did you know her, or something?"
Valey grinned halfheartedly. "Nah. She was just totally my type."
Hestia returned, only to vanish again, porting away some of Slipstream's belongings with her. And again, and again, until the entire pile was gone. All the while, Valey hoarded more fruit, eventually convincing Hestia to lug that back to the ship as well.
"My horn," the teleporter informed them upon clearing the last of the load, "does have a limit. It isn't close, but I will reach it with too much more of this work. I apologize, but if there's anywhere important left to go, please make that a priority."
Starlight took a moment to think about that. As far as she was concerned, Ironridge and her didn't get along, so aside from getting herself a breath of fresh air or Valey some fruit, where did she even have to go to? Anything for any of her friends? Gerardo had his sword; she wasn't sure what else he would want. Maple...
Maple would want to check on White Chocolate.
The problem, though, was that Starlight didn't know where White Chocolate was. She had gone to Karma Industries during the evacuation, and all she knew was that everyone in the wagon supposedly had been diverted somewhere else. Maple or Gerardo could probably find them, but Maple was asleep and she had just left Gerardo to deal with a problem that sounded at least partially of his own making. But how else was she supposed to get there?
"Take me..." She hesitated. Karma Industries, in hopes someone had kept things organized enough for ponies to be found? Or back to the airship, to try to ask Gerardo? "Ummm..."
"Is there anything particular you're looking for?" Hestia asked, trying to read her face.
"Yes," Starlight sighed. "A family. Evacuated from Gnarlbough. Probably put in a warehouse somewhere. Maple and Gerardo might know exactly where, but I don't."
"A family?" Valey blinked curiously at her. "Who's this? Have I met them?"
Starlight shook her head. "The mother's name is White Chocolate. Probably not."
Valey's eyes perked. "White Chocolate? Ooh. Does she live up to it? Quality candy makers are ridiculously hard to come by, and that stuff keeps way better than fruit."
"I can take you to the evacuation headquarters at Karma Industries," Hestia offered. "Someone there might be able to help you look them up, if they're not too busy."
Starlight didn't doubt that they would be... until Valey interrupted, pointing a smug hoof at herself. "Hey! Good with paperwork, remember? I mean, mostly good at ruining it, but you have to know the rules to break them. You need some records parsed, I can do it lickity split."
"Okay." Starlight shrugged. "Let's go to Karma Industries, then."
Another flash of Hestia's teleportation later, and Starlight was standing on a wooden platform high above the jungle roof, sticking out from the wall of the Karma Industries tower as a landing and access point for pegasi. Valey continued chewing on a banana at her side, not relinquishing her snack even during the teleport.
"Hello?" A mare in a security uniform that looked designed to be unobtrusive in the jungle heat looked up from where she had been sitting, eyeing the three with a lack of surprise that suggested she was used to the platform being a teleportation arrival zone. "Miss Hestia," she remarked, nodding and taking in the arrivals. "Welcome back. Business as usual?"
"No rest for the weary, Ginger," Hestia replied, with a smile that suggested she was familiar with the security mare. "But, working for Arambai requires significantly less foalsitting than Mobius, and I'm one of the few Sosans who gets to keep their job."
Ginger raised an eyebrow at Starlight and Valey as she rose to open the tower doors. "Enjoy not foalsitting, then. I'll just be here, enjoying the weather."
The weather was enjoyable, Starlight noticed, the transition of walking into the building actually making things hotter. Outside, cool mountain breezes swirled, taking the edge off the sun's heat, while the tower's air conditioning systems had been knocked offline by the power outage. She had a sudden vision of refugee families baking in the heat... but all the windows had been designed to open, so the shaft still stayed well-ventilated. Still, Ginger's job was probably one of the most enviable in Ironridge, right then.
"Yo." Valey nudged her, getting her attention. "Did that guard just make a dig at my age, my behavior, or both?"
Starlight shrugged, having not really paid attention to the conversation.
"I mean..." Valey paused to belch, making Hestia's ears fold. "I think I've been pretty well-mannered since everything went boom, right?"
Starlight almost snorted.
"Hey, come on, laugh a little!" Valey shoved her as Hestia led them up a staircase. "You're being mopey. Brooding is cool when you get to do it to bug other ponies, but most of the time it just makes me feel weird. We trashed Herman, didn't we? That means we're awesome!"
"I'm not brooding," Starlight replied under her breath. "I'm nervous because there are a lot of Sosans in here and trying not to draw attention to myself. Maybe you should do that too."
They stepped out of another flight of stairs, and in the time it took Starlight to blink Valey was gone. She glanced around, suddenly not finding the mare. "Huh?"
"Down here," Valey whispered from within Starlight's shadow. "Good idea!"
Valey hid just in time to avoid detection from a wandering, unshaven Sosan. She blinked back out after he had passed. "Did you see that guy's eyes? He had a serious beef."
"I wonder why," Starlight droned, once again feeling the memory of a remote control under her hoof. For all the ponies who had lost their jobs when the factories were destroyed, she was probably public enemy number one, and they didn't even know it. Fortunately, they'd never believe it even if she confessed to blowing the dam right in front of their faces.
Another stairway passed by, with turnoffs to conference rooms and rooms filled with ponies doing paperwork at desks. Odd... With the economy ground to a halt, wouldn't Karma Industries be more interested in using its available room to house refugees? Or were all those ponies just trying to manage logistics?
As they approached the top, though, Starlight suddenly felt a prickling on her back, as if she was being watched very intently from close by. "Valey?" She glanced around, not seeing anything.
"What's up?" Valey's ears perked above the shadows, mostly hidden between Starlight's legs. "Want one of these bananas?"
"Hold on..." Starlight looked away, still scanning the corridor walls. If Valey didn't detect danger, then odds are she wasn't in imminent trouble, but something still wasn't right. "Hestia, wait."
The secretary looked back at her, yet still stopped, watching as Starlight scanned the corridor. Half of it was lined with open windows, the other half with partially-finished drywall, a few doors opening up into rooms full of workers. Some crates were stacked next to the windows, marked for holding office supplies. Spying a potential hiding place, Starlight stepped toward them, fur bristling.
Nothing behind them. Inside, maybe? She didn't want to use her horn, but still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Thinking, she leaned against the wall, standing exactly where she'd stand if she were sneaking up on where she had been. Where...?
"I'm standing right next to you," a smug little voice she would have been perfectly fine never hearing again whispered in her ear, petrifying Starlight and sending a shiver down her spine. Her eyes slid to the side, this time knowing the precise shade of camouflage to look for. A sharp face stared back at her, and Jamjars grinned.
Then, Jamjars leaned over and kissed her.
Several things then happened in rapid succession. Jamjars opened her mouth, undoubtedly to gloat. Starlight's horn lit in slow motion, and in return Jamjars' eyes widened in worry. Then Starlight vanished in a burst of teleportation... a very bright burst of teleportation.
With Valey still in her shadow.
POW!
Valey was catapulted from the floor with the force of a rocket, appearing straight under Jamjars and carrying them both to the ceiling with a plaster-shaking thud. Starlight appeared back by Hestia, holding a hoof to her horn in a combination of shock, worry and outrage, and Valey toppled back to the floor with a thud, groaning loudly. "Ow, hey! Respect the injured war hero, here!"
"You... what...?" Starlight moved from rubbing her horn to scraping at her cheek, having determined she hadn't actually hurt herself. "Jamjars!? What was that for?" She raised her eyes, seeing what had become of the filly. "And what are you doing?"
Jamjars was stuck in the ceiling. "I wanted to see your reaction!" she complained, writing and thrashing and trying to free her horn from where it had been embedded. "And whether you... ugh! Hurry up and get me down from here before we get in trouble!"
Hestia stared blankly as Valey got to her hooves, dusting herself off and checking various sore spots and tender places before lifting a bunch of now-smashed bananas. "Oh, come on," she pouted, tossing them over her shoulder and out an open window. "Now what's going on here? Starlight?" Her eyes shot between the two fillies at a rapid pace. "Did she just snog you, do you know her, and do you have a thing going?" Her blinks of realization quickly turned to a grin. "This is what you were doing while I was stuck in the Flame District, isn't it? How am I just learning about this now? Doesn't Ironflanks think you're too young for this?" Her grin widened. "Does your mom even know...?"
"I will crystal all of you," Starlight growled, a gentle barrier preventing her from lighting her horn she was sure she could push past if she wanted to. "I mean it!"
"Help! Help!" Jamjars continued to thrash.
Valey took a step back. "Uhhh... Okay, mark's getting tingly, I won't pry. I'm sure she's-"
"Hold up!"
An incredibly stout orange stallion with a razor-thin mustache stomped out of one of the nearby workrooms, an iron frown on his face and a tri-fold hat on his head. A small Sosan energy weapon sat in a holster at his side, and Starlight was sure that despite its small size it was not something she wanted to get hit by. Quickly, she scooted against the wall, recognizing the newcomer as none other than Dangerous Karma himself.
"Hmmm..." He eyed up the crowd, first focusing on Valey. "Well, if it isn't Ironridge's finest fruit thief. Heard you actually made a hero of yourself the other night. Keep it up. And Miss Hestia." His glare instantly switched to a kindly smile. "How ya doin'?" Then he was glaring again. "You all made that racket just now, didn't you? And why's a filly stuck in my ceiling?"
He didn't wait for an answer, ignoring Jamjars' pleas. "I don't know which of you are the troublemakers, but the upper floors are for workin' ponies only. Somepony's been snoopin' around the place for the last day or so already and stealin' refreshments from my employees, and I need that lot at top performance right now. Dumb blizzard ruined a large percentage of my crops, and they need to get the math right on whether we need a ration in place as fast as possible in case things go from bad to worse. So Miss Hestia, if you could kindly get that filly down and then remove all of y'all from the premises, I'd be very much obliged."
Hestia nodded, not even waiting for input from Starlight or Valey before grabbing Jamjars in her telekinesis, then teleporting everyone out.
They appeared again on the outdoor landing platform halfway up the building, Jamjars landing on her head and Ginger staring in slightly greater curiosity at the rearrival. Hestia glanced back at Valey and the fillies. "I'm going to be catching up with a friend. Come get me when you've sorted out any business you have with each other."
Starlight watched her go, until Jamjars sat up, grinning. "What was that for?" Starlight repeated.
Jamjars closed her eyes and crossed her forelimbs. "That was your reward for being so slow to catch up to me. Seriously, I thought when we got separated by that dumb Grenada we were going to meet up, but after I shook her goon I looked through all of Copsewood and couldn't find you!" Her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I even came back here because I thought you might have thought this was our meeting place, and it still took you nearly two whole days. Even Mom is better at catching me than that, and that's when I don't want to be found. So you owed me, and I thought I'd figure out if you really liked mares."
Starlight sighed, holding her head in her hooves, not wanting to have been reminded of Grenada. Had she not made it clear, back in Copsewood when they split up, that she was going off to do her own thing? "I..." she started, then trailed off before looking to Valey for guidance.
The batpony shrugged.
"I'm not old enough for this..." Starlight grumbled, trying to remember back to the time she had wanted to help Jamjars and bracing for a potentially annoying incoming conversation.
Starlight sat, keeping her hooves to herself, trying neither to stare at Jamjars nor look like she was deliberately avoiding the filly and attract attention that way. Her mind drifted back to a long walk through the sun they had taken together, when things in Ironridge had seemed stable enough for her to worry about other ponies in addition to simply staying alive. There might have been the potential for them to become something like friends... but then Jamjars had pushed her luck, made Starlight chase her into the power tunnels, and after the drama at the Water District and skyport, Starlight's nerves were frayed enough that another episode like that could make her snap very hard.
"I've heard of you," Jamjars casually remarked.
Valey raised an eyebrow, laying on her side in the shadow of an empty supply crate at the edge of the pegasus landing dock. "That's cool. I've heard of myself, too."
Really? Starlight stopped herself from looking up in curiosity. Jamjars was going to bother Valey instead of her? That could be interesting if she pushed her luck too far. Did she even know who Valey was?
"I have," Jamjars insisted, keeping her tone nonchalant. "After I ditched that stallion, I went around through some bars to look for Starlight. Gossiping ponies are way too easy to eavesdrop on. They kept talking about politics and the Defense Force and you."
"Did they, now?" Valey tongued the inside of her mouth, settling her chin on her hooves and preparing for a nap. "I've got a bit of a reputation. Did you pick up any insults that would make your mom's coat curl?"
"Oh, they insulted you a lot," Jamjars informed her, wearing that dangerously smug expression that told Starlight she was steering the conversation exactly where she wanted it. If Valey noticed, she didn't care. "They called you all sorts of names. Talked about how weird you looked with your wings and slitted eyes."
Valey stared back at her, looking perfectly bored. "Mmh. Probably just jealous."
"Oh, they definitely were," Jamjars announced, starting to pace importantly back and forth. "I've heard my siblings insult things like that all the time. It's the way a pony sounds when there's something they really like and they're trying to convince you they hate it. I bet every last one of them had a crush on you."
"You sure about that?" Valey gave her an questioning gaze, otherwise ready to fall asleep.
Jamjars ignored her, grinning like a shark. "The way everyone was going on, I figured you'd be ridiculously hot." She then humphed and looked away. "It's kind of disappointing. You're fatter than I expected."
Valey gave Starlight a dazed look, shaking her head. "She knows who she's talking to, right?"
"Please leave me out of this..." Starlight quietly requested, watching Jamjars listen.
"Hmmph!" With a haughty twirl, Jamjars bounced her mane. "Looks like you have a better temperament than they were giving you credit for. Good job. It looks like you can hang out with me and Starlight after all."
"Starlight, who is this?" Valey gave Jamjars a concerned glance. "She has the survival skills of boiled cabbage. And some really unhealthy ideas about a healthy body weight. What does she want, my ribs to be showing?"
"She's Jamjars," Starlight sighed. "And she's from the family we're looking for. Jamjars, if you make Valey mad, I'm not telling her to leave you alone."
Valey licked her lips. "Jamjars, huh? Jamjars... mmm... okay. Nice to meet you, Jellyjugs."
Jamjars blanched. "What did you call me?"
"Jellyjugs." Stretching, Valey got to her hooves, stepping closer until Jamjars' back was to the open sky. "So you want to mess with me?"
"Well..." Jamjars looked over her shoulder.
"Lesson number one!" Valey seized her by the shoulders, dangling her out over the precipice, the tower's courtyard looming far below. "Don't mess with ponies who can turn you into actual jam. I don't know if you grew up in a hole in the ground where absolutely no one could hurt you, or what, but taunting ponies with reputations for being dangerous is suicidally stupid. Fortunately for you, I go easy on foals as a matter of personal policy, otherwise your horn would be rammed in the underside of this platform right now. Also, I'm in a ridiculously good mood this morning because nothing has been thrown at my head all day, I just had a nice snack, and am finally getting out of this dump of a city. Lesson two-"
She stopped, blinking. Rather than quaking in fear, Jamjars' eyes were wide and shining with admiration. Valey tilted her head. "What's your problem?"
"You're dangling me over a cliff," Jamjars whispered. "You actually have the guts to do that."
"What the...?" Valey pulled her back and set her down, freeing a hoof to scratch at her head. "Okay, my head hurts. You make no sense at all."
Jamjars huffed. "My family is the lamest of lame. I never get to see ponies who actually do cool stuff, or get to do it myself." She glanced up. "You said you're leaving Ironridge? Take me with you."
"You know what?" Valey shook her head, walking away. "This is weirding me out, and I'm way too fried from the other night to deal with it in a way I'm not gonna regret later. Toodles."
Starlight watched as the tower door slid shut, leaving Valey, Ginger and Hestia visible on the other side of a pane of glass. Now she was stuck alone with Jamjars.
"Hmmph!" Jamjars straightened her coat, then tossed her mane. "I can't tell if I like her or not. What do you think, Starlight?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You're really bad at figuring out which ponies are good ones to annoy, aren't you?"
"What?" Jamjars shrugged. "She didn't do anything to me, did she? I say I'm good at it."
When Starlight looked away, Jamjars pressed on. "So what kind of adventures took you so long before you came to find me, huh? I heard there was a battle on the dam. Did you hear any of the Spirit talking about that?"
"Maybe," Starlight grunted.
"Ohhh, look at you," Jamjars cooed. "Did you do something you don't want to talk about?" Her face split in a grin. "You were involved, weren't you!? That griffon with you had a sword, and you were all talking like you knew something about what was going on! Come on, you can tell me..."
"Do you know how to find wherever they took your family?" Starlight asked, interrupting with a seriousness that actually got Jamjars' attention.
"I guess?" Jamjars pulled a strip of paper out of her mane. "This is the routing number they gave to the pony who was supposed to escort me when I slipped away from that guy at the Copsewood gates. Beats me what it does."
Starlight nodded, quickly memorizing the short code on the strip. "Yes, I was up there, at the dam and the skyport. Maple is injured. We're going to go back home, but I wanted to check on White Chocolate for her before we leave. I was thinking..."
Jamjars smirked. "So you are leaving? Good. Take me with you and I'll help you find my family."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You nearly got us into big trouble in the power tunnels."
"Nearly is different from it actually happening," Jamjars taunted. "Just like how Valey gave up and did nothing to me. And besides, it was worth it, remember? I got this." She reached into her mane and pulled out a familiar, rolled-up poster stolen from the Spirit headquarters.
Starlight's brow furrowed. "You still have that?"
"Of course." Jamjars smoothed her coat, stowing it back away. "It's a quality poster. So will you stop me from coming?"
"I..." Starlight blinked, making sure she parsed that right. "I was..." She swallowed. "I heard Maple say earlier she was planning to take everyone with us, back to her home. Your whole family."
Jamjars' ears folded. "Seriously? Why!? Ugh. That really rains on things..."
"You can stay here if you want," Starlight offered.
"Pfft. No." Jamjars shook her mane. "How about this? I'll help you move everyone... but you have to tell me what happened during the battle!"
"Maybe." Starlight shrugged, pacing towards the tower door. "I memorized that number, though. I guess I can find them on my own."
"Hey!" Jamjars scampered after her. "Fine. I didn't want to know anyway. I can always go back to trying to find out who you like, if you'd rather...!"
"...And that's what we're looking for," Starlight finished, standing carefully at attention. "Can you help us?"
A company stallion with a brushy mustache stared back, pretending not to watch as Valey and Jamjars traded uneasy and predatory glances behind her. "Ahrrrm... Hemmm... Well, it possibly might be possible. What do you say I get you some papers to run this request up to the filing department upstairs? They should be able to get you sorted and on your way to the right warehouse! Hmm?" He raised an eyebrow hopefully.
"We were just there," Starlight said coolly. "Twice. And they told us you could do that. If your company is bad enough at management that they can lose track of a family of twelve, just say so and save us the trouble of walking back and forth."
The stallion's face drooped in sympathy. "Well, that can't be quite right. If only I had the proper documents, I'd help you in a jiffy, but seeing as this isn't my department-"
"What's that?" Valey chirped, ducking beneath the stallion's desk and coming up with a crate saddled heavily on her back. "You don't have the right documents? Huh. That's a shame."
She glanced at her swiped cargo. On the side, in bright red letters, was painted Evacuation Pony Location Registration. The stallion blinked at it.
"They're not in here?" Valey shrugged, grinning beneath the crate's weight. "Huh, that's too bad. It really looks like they should be. I'll just dump this out a window then so it doesn't go confusing anyone. Besides, a little mischief might be just what you paper pushers need to stay... on your... Nngh, here it goes!"
Grunting, she lifted it to a window, the stallion rushing to save it. "No, wait! Those are important!"
Thud! The crate hit the hallway floor, and Valey lounged against it. "Cool. Then stop being lazy and tell us where to go."
The stallion grumbled and began to rifle through the box, muttering about thousands of pages and pushy customers and the unfairness of life. Valey offered a hoofbump, but Starlight didn't take it and Jamjars just looked at her weird.
"Okay. Fine. Whatever..." Leaning back, Valey rolled her eyes. "These bureaucrats are pretty dumpy. Back at the Defense Force, everyone had to be good because they had me to keep them in shape. Slackers."
Jamjars grinned. "Speaking of staying in shape..."
Valey raised a dangerous eyebrow. "I have no idea what your problem is, but can and will give you one if you keep asking that nicely."
"Please don't," Starlight sighed, aware that Hestia was still giving them a wide berth. She was tempted to find the teleporting unicorn and simply request for Jamjars to be sent back to the ship, then incapacitated with Gerardo's sword, but that could lead to trouble later on.
"I know, I know..." Valey rolled her eyes. "The moment I try to pound her, she can scream bloody murder and get us all kicked out of this place in a snap..."
Jamjars smirked. "Oh, I've already gotten kicked out twice. They're just bad at stopping me from getting back in."
"Knock it off!" Starlight groaned, feeling her nerves fraying further. A faint, pink magical presence at the back of her mind whispered peace and calmness, but however much stability she had recovered by getting her sight back and reuniting with Maple was quickly unraveling with stress. She didn't want to think about how much she had hurt herself overexerting her magic, about how helpless she had been while blind, about how Herman had pinned her to a wall with an axe handle at her throat while Valey was fighting for her life when they could have just ran. She didn't want to think about how Grenada had died... Others had died too, but Grenada's only fault had been placing too much trust in the Spirit, and from the several times Starlight had met her, she seemed nice. But the moment she started thinking about that, Starlight knew, she wouldn't be able to stop. That was something she needed to save until it was safe, quiet and dark, surrounded by ponies she trusted completely. She just had to hold herself together a little longer, to see Maple's wish through and help White Chocolate, since Maple was unable to do it herself...
"Ouch!"
Jamjars' shriek pierced the air, making Starlight jump. The yellow filly was clutching her side with a hoof and glaring sourly at Valey. "You cut me!"
"Meh. It's just a papercut. Wuss." Valey examined the edge of her wing, the thin, spindly bones holding it together just sharp enough to be used as an annoyance. "Maybe you've never been beaten up before, but injuries hurt. Seriously, stop trying to annoy me! All my usual ways of making someone feel awkward back aren't appropriate for kids."
Jamjars pursed her lips, the paper-digging stallion thoroughly ignoring her. "Oh yeah? Like what?"
Valey waggled a hoof. "Nope! Flirting and rude jokes and stuff. Maybe I'll tell you when you're older."
"Stop..." Starlight growled, tension building in her throat. "Or I'm going to start yelling louder than both of you put together, and then we'll just leave and you can explain to Maple why we weren't able to help her friend!"
The company stallion was now positively sweating, knowing exactly who Valey was and clearly fearing a scene. Jamjars looked like she was feeding off his discomfort, and Valey shot Starlight an apologetic glance. "Yeah, you know what? Sorry. We'll just go somewhere else."
She matched Jamjars' grin for half a second, and that was all the warning the filly had before Valey tackled her, pulling them both into shadow. Starlight grimaced. She remembered what had happened the last time Valey had used her shadow sneaking on an unsuspecting foal, but really, Jamjars had it more than coming. She stood, ears twitching, keeping the stallion in the corner of her eye, and eventually was rewarded with a distant "Aaaaaugh!" from a supply closet at the far end of the hall.
"Got it! Found it, found it...!" So nervous the stack of papers nearly slipped from his mouth, the stallion straightened up. He scratched away at another paper for three seconds before shoving it in Starlight's face. "There's a map! No numbers! Even a bothersome filly like you can understand it! Happy!?"
Starlight took it and eyed it over. Rudimentary and not artistically inclined, but it left little doubt of where the roads were... or used to be, before the flood turned them into mud canals or else put them entirely underwater. Hestia could certainly use it for a teleport, and once they got to the right place, hopefully someone on duty would actually remember a family as big as White Chocolate's.
"Hmmmmmff..." Starlight exhaled, nostrils flaring, trying to compose herself as the stallion raced away, muttering about incident reports. "I can do this, Maple," she whispered to herself. "I hope White Chocolate will be as glad to see me as she would be for you..."
In her fifth or sixth flash of teleportation for the day, Starlight appeared at Hestia's side on a raised loading dock outside an Earth District warehouse. The sun lit her coat, but wasn't oppressive, and she saw quite a few ponies simply sitting around and taking in the weather. The loading doors were open for ventilation, unused carts littered a dusty courtyard, and inside, Starlight could see the shadows of refugees who had spread out in search of slightly more private spaces.
At least one of the on-duty ponies recognized them, standing up and trotting closer. "Miss Hestia," he said, nodding politely. "Here on Sosan business?"
Hestia gestured to Starlight. "This filly is looking for someone. If you can help her, it would be appreciated."
"Separated from her family?" The stallion gave a kindly smile. "We'll help with that. Who are you looking for, kiddo?"
Starlight swallowed, emboldened by the calm atmosphere. "A friend. She had a large family, more than ten foals-"
An earth pony in a reflective vest lounging atop a cart perked her ears. "Was her name White Chocolate?"
"She was." Starlight nodded, simultaneously anxious and hopeful. She still wasn't sure what to do when she found the mare, but Valey and Jamjars had been left behind in Karma Industries, and she felt slightly less like she had to get out or explode. "Do you know where she is?"
"I better," the mare chuckled. "Spent nearly an hour trying to find and clear an office so she could have a room for herself. With that many kids, I don't know why they didn't let her into the main headquarters. Come with me. We'll get you there plenty quick."
Gratefully, Starlight followed. The ponies' good moods piqued her curiosity, but she wasn't feeling talkative enough to ask about it. Maybe they were just glad to be alive.
They wandered through cavernous warehouse chambers lined with bricks and sheet metal and supported by H-shaped beams of steel, the ceilings dangling with unpowered lights. Illumination came from grimy, high-up windows, and once Starlight saw a pegasus with a rag hovering and polishing one. The refugees sitting in corners and laying along hallways sometimes used their horns for light, most sleeping or murmuring or keeping tabs on children of their own.
There weren't nearly as many foals as Starlight expected, though. While twenty-somethings were common and older stallions were everywhere, teenagers were rarer and foals were downright scarce. The few she saw belonged to single mothers sitting alone against the walls, or the occasional family unit that frequently had more than one. The more she looked, the more Starlight noticed other patterns in the demographics: most of the ponies were stallions, most of the stallions were unicorns, and almost none were pegasi. The mares followed the same split, though there were more pegasi among them than the stallions, and none of those were single.
It didn't take much thinking for Starlight to understand why. Ironridge had been cut off from Riverfall. According to Willow, Maple and Amber, the cities had been intertwined, where the stallions of Sosa sailed in on their boats, and the mares of Riverfall would return with them to start families. Ponies with their adventures behind them would retire to Riverfall for peace and quiet, and the colts born in Riverfall would grow up to become adventurers or Sosans themselves, sailing away to repeat the cycle. But after a decade of no contact, many Sosans were left with no way to start families, the large, mostly-male population relegated to mares born in the lower districts, or from above.
Her eyes widened at the implications, and she shook her head to clear it. Ironridge was facing heavy population growth, she had heard, from easy travel and the promise of a booming economy. But the way into the city was in the upper districts, and with the tension between them, ponies wouldn't have been moving freely from Stone down to Earth. If everything hadn't exploded and the city had continued as it had been for twenty or thirty more years... Sosa would have died out on its own. The lower districts' population would have collapsed. She couldn't guess how that would affect the economy, but it was clearly inevitable. No matter what, Ironridge on that trajectory would have been fated to change.
But what would it look like now? Ponies had been attracted by economic progress, but that was erased. The mines were ruined; she had seen it with her own eyes. Valey had demonstrated how the crops took the storm's cold, and the shipping industry and whatever Sosa made were both gone. No more ponies would come even if there had been a way left into the city, and the moment someone made one, many of the better-off ponies would flee. Sosa would still die off, and the Stone District would shrink too...
Starlight's eyes started to sting from the enormity of the realization: Ironridge was dying. It would get smaller, and the smaller it got, the less it would make, and the less it made, the less reason it would have for anyone to be there... and eventually, it could disappear, just like she had trying to save it.
For all her anger toward the city, that wasn't fair. She hoped she had made a mistake, that there had been something she overlooked that would change things. It held so many ponies, and there had to be many among them who just wanted a good, peaceful life. She hadn't just saved her friends from the windigoes, she had saved them all... and for that to vanish anyway just wasn't right. But she was too tired to think of a solution, and just wanted to bury her face in Maple's coat and rest.
"Hey...? Hey!" She blinked, realizing that the mare leading her was waving for her attention. "You lost in thought?" the mare asked, realizing she had her eye. She sighed. "I don't blame you. All the things that have happened must be pretty scary for a filly like yourself. We nearly had a war... and if you're being escorted by the Sosan leadership, you were probably closer to it than the rest of us. You said this was a friend... Did your parents...?" She swallowed. "No. I won't ask. We're here, though."
Starlight blinked. They were in a second-story hallway next to an unornamented iron door bearing a strip of tape reading Overseer's Office and equipped with a handle an earth pony could pull. Nodding in thanks, she reached out and pulled open the door.
"Who...? Starlight?"
The hope in White Chocolate's voice made Starlight's chest hurt, and she averted her gaze as she slipped into the room alone. "It's me," she said, ears perked for whatever was said next.
"I-Is Maple with you?" White Chocolate sounded like she had been crying. "Or Jamjars? Where is my daughter? They said you and her were coming here two days ago, then the ponies in charge knew nothing! I was... I-I-I was..."
Starlight looked up. White Chocolate lay on her side on a pillow, still pregnant, mane unbrushed and eyes desperately searching for contact. The younger half of her brood were laying in a padded box near her, with Snow reading quietly in a corner and the others somewhere else, hopefully being useful.
"Maple isn't feeling well," Starlight said, stepping closer. "She's sleeping. I'm not either, but wanted to come see you for her. Jamjars is annoying ponies in Karma Industries. I didn't feel like catching her."
White Chocolate's eyes watered. Her lip wobbled, and it looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn't.
"...You don't look so good either," Starlight remarked, coming within a hooflength of the mare, trying frantically to figure out what Maple would do in this situation. Comfort her? But what would be the right thing to say? "Are you okay?"
"No!" White Chocolate's voice cracked. "No, I'm not! I've been so afraid, and a-alone, and I don't know what's going on! They said there was a flood, and Gnarlbough's a s-swamp now. Then there was a blizzard and it was s-so cold, even though they said there was a wind barrier that protects us from mountain weather! And n-now I've been in here for days, and everyone has c-conflicting news, and they're saying ponies were fighting and g-getting injured, and you and Jamjars never arrived and Maple never came back like she promised! I thought she had died, or forgotten about me..."
Starlight felt a harsh twang of pity, deciding not to mention that in Maple's current state, she probably had forgotten about White Chocolate. Still finding no ideas on what Maple would do, she took the final step forward, hoping the same trick that worked for her would work here, now.
"Everyone's alive still," she grunted, trying to make her voice soft and caring as she leaned in and nuzzled the side of White Chocolate's neck. "Sorry it took so long to find you. I didn't know where you were, and I was unconscious for a day. Maple is-!"
She was violently cut off as White Chocolate's forelimbs wrapped around her, squeezing her against the mare's chest with a grip of iron. White Chocolate curled up and sobbed, heaving, holding Starlight like she was a rag doll and her life depended on it as whatever dam was responsible for her tears failed yet again. Starlight limply took it, half out of sympathy and half in shock, not struggling as White Chocolate used her mane as a tear sponge.
"There's no more fighting," Starlight said the moment there was a break in White Chocolate's sniffs and wails, the bigger mare balled up tightly around her. "The Spirit-"
White Chocolate resumed again, and after that Starlight didn't even try to hurry. She sat there for what felt like hours, solaced by the knowledge that she seemed to be helping and harboring a secret hypothesis that all sad mares could be remedied by proper hugs. Though, White Chocolate had plenty of foals of her own, and Maple had other friends too. Why did it have to be her?
Eventually, White Chocolate fell silent and didn't continue. Starlight's head rested on her side, and she the rises and falls of the mare's breath, feeling the return of slow regularity as tension drained from her body. Patiently, Starlight waited, still held tight, until a kick from the unborn foal prompted White Chocolate to groan and let her move.
"Feeling better?" Starlight asked, standing up and realizing that her coat now smelled thoroughly of White Chocolate.
White Chocolate blew her nose, rubbing with a hoof where the foal had kicked. "You said everything is going to be all right?"
"I mean it," Starlight promised. "I'm alive. Maple is alive. Jamjars is being Jamjars. There's no more fighting, the storm is over, and we're not going to forget about you."
"But my house is unlivable now..." White Chocolate whispered, staring at Starlight with folded ears. Her eyepatch was gone, Starlight realized. If she hadn't known what to look for, she would have said the mare's eyes were exactly the same color, and couldn't see a trace of her moon glass cutie mark.
Starlight swallowed. "Sorry." That part had been her, at least.
"Where will we go?" White Chocolate asked, eyes dry and red. "Hayseed has been out listening for news for me, and she says they're starting to find places for some ponies, but it's all volunteers. No one is going to have room for a family like mine in their house. We might stay here..." She touched her belly again. "I'm going to have my foal here, I know it. It might wait a week or two, but not another month..."
"No. You won't," Starlight reassured, making as sure as she could that what she was about to promise was the right thing. "You can... come with us. Me and Maple are leaving, but we have an airship. It's big enough for you. It will be hard, and there might be some weird relationships to deal with, but we'll help you figure that out as soon as we're alright ourselves. Maple needs help too, right now."
White Chocolate's eyes widened, and she wiped them despite already being dry. "They said the skyport was broken and all the airships might be damaged..."
"We've got one that will work anyway," Starlight told her. Under her breath, she added, "I hope." Swallowing again, she took a step back toward the door. "I'm going to ask some ponies and make sure they know we're doing this, and then we'll teleport you to the ship. Where are the rest of your foals?"
"Not far," White Chocolate sniffed. "Except Hayseed, but she'll be back soon on her own. I... Are you sure...?"
"Sure what?" Starlight paused at the door. "That we're going to help you? Don't worry. I never give up."
Starlight stood on the leaning deck of Shinespark's ship, watching and waiting as a magical crackle filled the air. The ship's luminous comet didn't reform, but she felt the deck shift beneath her hooves, and it slowly righted itself, drifting upwards at a snail's pace as power was restored.
Arambai tromped out of the bridge moments later, wiping a hoof across his brow. "That oughtta do it," he growled, surveying the ship and letting his eyes fall across Starlight. "Well! Don't you have good timing in getting back. I'm just testing the stabilizers to make sure the ship doesn't do a barrel roll in midair, but they seem to have been spared any damage. I installed a small, manual propeller on the back for propulsion and steering until you get the real systems back online, which will be slow, but should work. In other words, I'd say she's just about ready."
"Hmm." Starlight stepped forward, taking a deep breath and setting a wide stance. "There's a family I want to take back to Riverfall. They're friends with Maple, and don't have a future here."
Arambai's lip twitched. "Why are you telling me? Hestia's the one who can help you get them here."
"I..." Starlight blinked. "It's your city!"
"So's Ironridge, now," Arambai sighed. "Riverfall was always a place meant for folks who had no choice but to go. If you think these ponies of yours need it... there's not many secrets left to protect. Take them with you. You're the ones who are going to be living there, unless you decide otherwise."
Starlight huffed, puffing her cheeks. "Yeah, like we'd ever do that! We're tired of Ironridge."
"Suit yourselves." Arambai straightened up and turned away. "Hestia can get her teleporting taken care of. There should be a clean room or two still downstairs. That bat with you still hanging around?"
"Valey?" Starlight glanced at Hestia. "Make sure to bring her back too, okay?" She didn't mention Jamjars, but was sure the filly would come regardless.
Hestia nodded. "Of course. Please don't move the ship while I teleport Miss Chocolate and her family. It will make things much easier." She touched her glasses with a hoof. "I'll come inform you when I'm done."
She vanished in a blink, and Arambai sighed. "Well... The others are in the bridge. I'm going to have one last little meeting before you cast off. You're welcome to attend, or go to Maple if you feel like it. She's slumbering right now. Poor girl..."
Starlight hesitated. Weren't there other things to do, like make sure White Chocolate knew which room to go to? She desperately wanted to curl up with Maple and go back to sleep, but that should wait until they were on their way. Slowly, she followed Arambai into the bridge.
Gerardo sat in the airship's cockpit, spinning idly on the rotating chair. Elise occupied the copilot's chair next to him, resting regally with her sky-blue mane flowing in its endless wind. Shinespark hovered listlessly in a cloud of her own magic, her hind leg bound in a thick white cast. Dior and Fire sat patiently on either side of her, and Braen's armor waited in a corner, patient and empty.
"Well, gentleponies," Arambai growled, choosing to stand. "It looks like this is goodbye."
"Hmm..." Dior made a sad sound that could have been a sigh or a chuckle, glancing to Shinespark. "It always ends like this, doesn't it? The first I've seen you in seven years, and now we're to switch places, still apart. It was nice seeing you again, old stallion."
"You too, Dior." Arambai gave a respectful nod. "And Shinespark. It warms my heart to see how much you've grown, even with the unfairness of the load we left you. I'll always be sad you two couldn't have proper foalhoods, on account of this city and politics."
Starlight blinked. Was there some link between Shinespark and Dior that was closer than she thought? She almost opened her mouth to ask, but this was their goodbye, so it wasn't her place to speak.
Despite Arambai's words, Shinespark remained downcast, her eyes barely flickering with life. "But I wasn't enough. I couldn't stop Sosa from being destroyed, or save Gunga and Gigavolt or anyone else on the dam, and I couldn't even stick to the plan after that to prevent the fighting from getting worse. Now the skyport... and Grenada, all because I told the Spirit the wrong stupid things to give them hope...! I wish... I wish..."
Gerardo waved a talon. "To be fair, it is a well-established maxim that those who play with fire tend to get burned."
Shinespark hadn't been crying, but that made her start.
Starlight started to move, ready to do something, but Elise beat her across the room, touching Shinespark's shoulders in a gentle hug. "You wish you hadn't tried?" she murmured, brushing aside a lock of her half-sister's mane. "I've spent your entire lifetime wishing the opposite. Failure comes with action, but it doesn't make trying any less necessary."
"But I didn't fail," Shinespark whispered. "What I got was... exactly what I told the Spirit to want. To turn back the clock on progress... A pre-industrial Ironridge. No power. No connections to the outside world. It's all gone. It's farther back than even the Spirit intended..."
"If what you did didn't work," Elise consoled, "then try something new. But please don't hurt yourself for doing the opposite of nothing, Shinespark. I know about doing nothing. Trust me..."
"Try something new." Shinespark drifted closer to the floor. "Try what new? I gave everything to this... to Sosa, and the Spirit, and my friends... and they're all gone. Everything I fought for is..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't know what to do without it! What does Ironridge want from me!? To become the champion of the Earth or Stone Districts? To devote the next ten years of my life to a new plan to save everyone when I've just ruined them? I don't know what to do..."
"Then don't," Arambai said. "Take this ship and get out of here. Find your way to the Plains of Harmony, like this was always intended to do. A ship that can cross the mountains, remember?"
Shinespark's eyes widened, and she stared incredulously at him.
"What?" He shrugged. "Don't tell me you weren't considering it. A ship that runs on a fuel source naturally produced by ponies... The entire point was for it to fly forever without needing to refuel. Or have we been working on this for so long you don't even remember why we started?"
Ignoring her shocked expression, he continued. "There's a lot of stuff I'm bad at, Shinespark. A lot of things I've messed up on. But the one thing I'm best at... what I've never failed at doing... is giving ponies a way out. Elise knows that better than anyone, as do a hoofful of stallions who've found new lives in Riverfall... and Maple, Starlight and Gerardo, who left a place with a reputation for no one ever leaving. So get out of here. Dior's covering for Braen already, and hopefully all that'll have blown over by the time ponies start figuring out that the river's still a river and rediscover Riverfall. I've got a good few decades left in me to get this city back into shape, and Elise here is ready to step up her game and help with everything that needs it. We'll cover for you, Shinespark. Here's our ship. It's your ticket out."
"Leaving..." Shinespark swallowed, staring at the floor.
"Which implies being able to return." Arambai stood across from Elise, also touching Shinespark's shoulder in the ghost of a hug. "Some day, ten or twenty years from now, when you've got what it takes to fix up Ironridge for good. But in the meantime, go out and live your life. I'll make sure the city's still standing when you come home. You've got a lot of laughter and being carefree coming first, after all this pact of ours has put you through."
Dior nodded. "Don't worry, old stallion. I'll look out for her so long as she's in Riverfall."
Shinespark raised a heavy eyebrow. "You're a year younger than me..." she protested weakly.
"Heh." Chuckling, Arambai sat back down against the wall. "I'm more hoping she makes like Elise and sees the entire world. There's a lot of stuff out there, and while I'm not poorly traveled, I certainly wish I could go with you. I imagine Gerardo can, unless he's got better things to do."
Gerardo took that as his cue to resume speaking. "Well, I've just devoted a lengthy period of my life to the ultimately bogus delivery of those crates. I had hoped Yakyakistan was serious in offering compensation of letting me journey to the Plains of Harmony, but if that is Shinespark's ultimate goal, perhaps a long-term alliance would be of service!"
"Actually," Fire said, speaking for the first time during the meeting, "we were serious."
Gerardo's beak dropped, and even Arambai looked surprised. "Pardon?" the griffon squawked.
"You did deliver the crates to Ironridge," Fire said. "Even if our embassy here was corrupt... which I can't express my remorse enough for... you brought them to the city. And one of the hearts within was instrumental in saving the city from the windigoes, which was also our fault. I've said many times how much we'll have to do in reparations... but keeping our promises is a good place to start. You may have your payment."
"There's a catch, isn't there?" Starlight asked, almost hoping there was one.
Fire hung her head. "Yes. There's a catch, though there isn't anything we can do about it. Again, I apologize..."
Gerardo tilted his head, and Starlight watched, listening. A way back to Equestria... She didn't want to go there. That wasn't her home. Yet somehow, she knew that if she and Maple stayed in Riverfall while Gerardo and Shinespark flew off to Equestria, she would remember it for the rest of her days.
"The catch," Fire continued, "is that the border is secured from the southern side. Obtaining sanction to pass isn't an issue of our governments, but of the Plains themselves... or Equestria, as they are known there. The travel passes they issue are given to our government to use as we please, but are forged in very short supply."
"Ah." Gerardo drooped, disappointed. "I take this to mean there's some sort of quota that is currently filled by those more important than I?"
Slowly, Fire nodded. "One pass. Per year. That's what we have to work with."
Gerardo's beak dropped even further.
"You can have the next one," Fire offered. "As I said, we will keep our word. But... the issuing cycle just happened. We won't receive another for almost an entire year."
"Once per year?" Gerardo's voice cracked, clearly in a state of shock.
"It's an extreme system," Fire explained, apologetic. "One that we didn't decide upon. But yes. The passes are magically ingrained into a pony or other creature's body, making them non-transferable, but they are effective for a lifetime of travel once you have them."
"I see..." Gerardo murmured. "Conditions in Yakyakistan must be truly extreme to be willing to expend such a valuable resource on a mere backup plan, if my understanding of your schemes is correct."
Arambai nodded. "Mmmm. I'm curious to hear an explanation for all this, myself. Not that getting things stable around here isn't more important, but once we've got no more risk of famine and all that, it wouldn't hurt to indulge a bit of curiosity."
"...You would be surprised." Fire looked away. "I know Yakyakistan must do a lot to rebuild trust, but our reasons for this operation were dangerous. We won't continue here, not in the way we've been doing. But if it is at all permissible for me to ask... please don't press."
"I might need to anyway," Arambai rumbled. "If only because I believe you that they're dangerous. But don't worry, I'm a professional at keeping secrets."
Starlight held still, recalling how Fire had openly asked to tell her, Maple and Valey what Yakyakistan had been up to with the windigoes and the underworld flame, and she had refused. Why was it okay to tell a filly, an ordinary mare and an avowed troublemaker, but not ponies of real importance? She shook her head. She still had more pressing things to do than judge the motives of a bunch of yaks.
At that moment, the door opened, and Hestia and Valey walked in.
"Everyone you requested is here," Hestia announced to the room. "I left Miss Chocolate and her family in one of the cabins, and she assured me all of her children were there."
"Hey, dudes." Valey waved a hoof, looking weary. "Just thought I'd let you know, the hardest opponent I have ever cracked and made beg for mercy is now a little filly. Where's a good spot for a nap?"
Arambai straightened up, heading for Hestia in the door. "Yeah... I think we've just about finished that. By the way." He levitated out a pair of identical, glowing stones, twin vortexes of magic shimmering within. "I scrounged these up and ran a bit of a communication test. No clue what they're made of. We've tried experimenting with ways to send wireless information, but a single unicorn walking through the signal's path can muck everything up. These are crystal clear from all the way across the city, though. Where'd you get them?"
Starlight shrugged. "We stole them from Howe and Neon Nova. I don't know where they got them."
"Eww, those guys were flakes," Valey agreed, nodding.
"Huh." Arambai set them down. "Well, I suppose that makes them yours. Keep them, if you like... though if you want, you can leave one here with me. Keep a permanent line open between Ironridge and Riverfall. Who knows? It could come in useful some day."
Dior smiled, lifting and cradling one of the stones in his forehooves. "If you wouldn't mind... I would truly appreciate that."
Starlight, Valey and Gerardo glanced at each other, and none of them objected. "Hey," Valey muttered, "if anyone's got a claim to them, it's Ironflanks. She was the one that swiped that goon's coat that had one in in the first place."
"Right..." Arambai kept one, almost to the door. "Well, if she wants it back, we'll figure something out. Can always turn this ship around and make a few more runs between Ironridge and Riverfall, if needbe. Anyhow, me, Elise, and Hestia have places to be that aren't on a wild adventure. Fire? Who are you going with?"
Fire nodded. "I need to return to Yakyakistan and tell them the situation. We keep two ships in orbit of Ironridge at all times, designed for maximum flight times and with their fueling cycles alternated. If we can signal or intercept the one that wasn't docked when the storm hit, it should be able to return me to Infinite Glacier."
"That's with us, then." Arambai sighed, stepping out onto the deck. "Goodbye, kids. I'll see you again some day. In the meantime... try not to get up to more trouble than you can handle."
Elise followed him out, giving a sad glance to the taciturn Shinespark. Gerardo eagerly spun his chair, kicking it to a stop facing the windshield, and Dior settled into the empty copilot seat beside him. Fire almost left, then hesitated.
"Starlight? Valey?" She raised an eyebrow. "Could I talk to you...?"
"In private?" Valey guessed. "Sure."
They retreated to the landing where the stairs split between all three levels and the engine room. Fire glanced around, swiveling her ears and checking for sounds of other ponies. Eventually, she said, "Here."
Starlight looked. In her bright yellow aura was a small crystal chip, looking like it belonged in some sort of expensive technology. "What's this?"
"An audio recording," Fire whispered, offering it to them. "You told me that you didn't want anything more to think about right now, with all that had happened. Knowing what Yakyakistan had done..." She hung her head. "But some day, I hope that you will find yourselves more secure, and able to act again to help the world. This is a recorded explanation of everything Yakyakistan has tried to accomplish in the last forty years, culminating in the release of windigoes at Ironridge. An explanation of everything. It won't be as good as being told in person, since you won't be able to ask questions, but it's better than nothing. You've seen the consequences of Yakyakistan keeping this information to ourselves. It's better that someone else knows... and you are the best ones I can think of to handle it and keep it safe."
Valey frowned. "When you say 'us'..."
"The two of you and Maple," Fire responded. "Her and Starlight have both channeled the harmonic magics the Bishops have dedicated themselves to for a millennium, and accomplished feats with them that only existed in legend. And you more than any other risked your life to stop our ambassador, from what I have heard... and if my guess about your past is correct, you have more than enough knowledge already to do irreparable damage to Yakyakistan were you to wish it. I'm trusting you with this. You can decide whether to share it with more ponies... but please listen to it first so you can understand what is at stake. Please. And thank you."
"Heh..." Valey gave a lopsided smirk. "A valuable recording with nation-toppling information inside? Listen, as far as I know, we're heading off to some legendary mare paradise to chill and take it easy for as long as we please. This won't send any ultra goons hunting us to try and get it, will it?" She shook the chip. "I mean, I'm clearly invincible and can beat up anyone, but it would seriously stink to wake up from a nap with half the town on fire."
Fire shook her head, smiling gently. "It's just like any other audio recording. You can smash it once you've heard it, it isn't trackable, and the four of us will be the only ponies in the world who know you have it. Three, until you tell Maple."
Valey slipped the chip under her wing. "Well... I think we can deal with this once we've blown off some steam. I dunno about you, Starlight, but I feel ridiculously frayed right now. Uhh... later?"
"We probably will meet again..." Fire gave a wistful smile, looked at the chip's hiding place one more time, and slipped out and up the staircase.
Starlight and Valey stood there until they felt the faint shifting of the floor beneath their hooves. "We're moving," Starlight remarked.
"Yeah," Valey whispered, nudging her golden pendant. "Bye bye, Ironridge..."
The ship didn't make any funny noises, or give any indication it was about to explode. Instead, it started to turn, and Starlight guessed by the time before it stopped that they were pointed east. Then it began to accelerate. "Bye bye, Ironridge," she whispered after Valey, almost feeling surreal.
"I thought I'd die in this place," Valey muttered at last. "No joke. And I never thought I'd die, either."
Starlight felt like a completely different pony, and, depending on what the flame had done in reconstituting her body, might physically have been one. But more than anything, a weariness washed over her that her time unconscious in the flame hadn't been able to purge, preventing her from evaluating herself beyond a big ball of tired. She didn't want to theorize or philosophize. "I want a nap."
"Yeah, me too." Valey stepped ahead onto the cabin level, still smelling faintly of injuries and dried blood from when it had been used to shelter injured soldiers. It would need a good cleaning once they reached Riverfall, but eventually could be good as new.
Starlight tried the door to her and Maple's room, but then remembered it had been used for fighters after she unlocked it. Maple was supposed to be in Shinespark's room... so she pushed that door open instead.
The quarters were twice as big as her own, with a huge, plush bed in one corner. She could vaguely hear bumps and giggles through the wall - White Chocolate and her foals must have been housed in the next room down. Part of her brain told her to check on them, but Starlight was too tired. She fixated instead on the lump in the middle of the bed... a lump in the shape of the pony she now called mother.
"Mmm... Starlight..." Maple murmured in her sleep, shifting slightly as Starlight climbed up on the bed, tucking herself alongside her and feeling warm breathing against her coat. It was time to sleep for a long, long time.
"Uhhh..." Valey whispered, standing in the doorway, quietly ruining the moment. "Okay, that looks really cozy. Can I be jealous?"
Starlight glared at her, looking back at the slumbering Maple. "Shhhh!"
Valey winked. "Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Just so you know, I'm totally joining that pile once you're asleep."
One day ago...
Inside a hollow, black expanse, all was still. Stale air carried the sounds of trickling meltwater, the storm having broken a matter of hours before. Smashed and twisted metal scaffolding flickered with sparks from damaged mana equipment, a backup power supply somewhere refusing to give up. The inside of the metal tube barely resembled a cylinder any more, and was slanted at a devious angle, but a pony who knew it could recognize it as the severed tip of a skyport control tower.
The middle observation deck lay on its side, melting snow seeping in through cracks in the glass and forming a frigid lake at the bottom of the room. The only places on which a pony could find any purchase were the central stairwell, slightly bent and crooked, or a few terminals and component casings which were still bolted to the walls. Against the stairwell, draped at the perfect angle not to fall off and plunge into the arctic pool below, was a body.
Grenada shuddered, and opened her eyes.
To call herself a bruise would be an understatement. She probably had multiple fractures, and was too cold to properly tell if she was in pain. Icy metal designed to give traction bit into her at all the wrong angles, and every shallow breath moved her slightly in the wrong direction. She was desperately hungry, and painfully aware that she wouldn't survive for long. Yet, she was alive.
Sosa... was... gone. Memories of a chaotic tumble surfaced in her mind, of the tower being shorn from its base and flipping over and over through the air, slamming her back and forth against walls and windows. Braen... Shinespark... the pony she had idolized since fillyhood had been there. She had told her to leave, to survive, that protecting herself was more important than any sort of revenge. But then Braen had gone up to the tower's head to talk down the rest of the Spirit, and...
Please, no. She had lost her home and everything she had fought for. She couldn't lose her friend and mentor as well. Braen had to have been wrong... to have panicked, or known something she didn't, or... There was always a chance things could be made right. If Braen was alive, then maybe they could understand again... but if she was dead, that was one more thing lost this cursed night.
Grenada wanted to yell, but her lungs didn't have enough strength.
She grappled the staircase's central support column, pulling herself along into the tower shaft where there wasn't water waiting below. Her hooves burned, her legs burned, her sides and chest and neck burned and her head ached from being slammed around in the fall, but she wasn't dead yet.
The staircase filled the entire column, its spiral architecture useful for climbing but making horizontal traversal a nightmare. Every rotation, Grenada had to heave herself over a wall higher than she was, made of awkward metal panes that rubbed at her coat and threatened to leave her raw. Braen had to have survived too. She had to be at the top of the tower. There had to be something left...
She reached the top, the staircase spilling out into a broad, empty room. Another frigid lake covered the bottom half, and there was nowhere but below it for a pony to rest.
Grenada cried. It hurt her sides to shake like that, but she had to. Above, the cracked window glass had shattered in a hole big enough for a pony to climb out, letting in a column of misty gray pre-dawn light that fell upon her in a pillar of illumination from on high. Sosa was gone. Everything she had fought for was gone... and she was alone.
What hurt more? The loneliness? The failure? That Braen had asked her to save herself, and now here she was? She had seen what severed the tower: it was their own plan, debris from the roof of the ship hangar. It had to be the last one. Grenada stretched a hoof toward the hole, unable to do anything to reach it. "Braen..." she whispered. "Please..."
But nobody came.
Scrunching her eyes, Grenada focused on her stinging horn, pointed straight at the hole, and poured all her magic into a spell. It was a colored flare, devised for communication among the Spirit and mastered by a few magically-inclined members. This one was blue. Blue for S.O.S. But she didn't even know where she was.
Then, with a distant rumble against her chilled, battered ears, something happened. She heard a roaring, felt a flickering, knew something was happening overhead... It sounded like airship engines. But that was impossible, since she herself had seen to it that every last one was destroyed...
A rope dropped down through the hole.
Grenada gasped, watching with barely-concealed hope... and a pony slid down, stylishly checking his speed with one hoof and one wing. He let the rope spin him in a circle, staring about until his eyes fell on her. "Whoa-ho!" he crowed, giving a generous grin that contrasted with his garish mane and goatee. "By the whims of fate, a pony has survived! How's it hangin'?"
"Uhhh..." Grenada couldn't have managed more words if she wanted to.
"Howdy!" the pegasus greeted, looking almost unreasonably cheerful. "I'm Howe. As I like to say... Howe do you do?"
Grenada stared blankly as he chuckled at his own joke. Then, Howe's face snapped to sober in an instant. "So, I'm guessing you'd really appreciate an evac right now?"
"Yes..." Feebly, Grenada nodded.
"Then the Howenator is on the job!" Pumping his wings, he began to swing, quickly landing on the ledge next to her. "So, uhh... think you'll hang on if I just grab you and haul you up to our ship? We've got more medical supplies than you can shake a you-know-what at!"
"Okay..." Grenada breathed, trying not to think as Howe's limbs closed in a strong grip around her. The pegasus yanked the rope, and they began ascending, passing carefully through the hole in the wall.
The land above was completely alien. Melting snowdrifts and banks of slush were interlaced by gray rocky outcroppings and reflective rivers, the eastern sky just beginning to be tinged by dawn. The stars twinkled brightly without a cloud in sight, and as they slowly rotated, she saw a tremendous wall of mountains the height of the world itself in the distance. That would be south.
They rotated further, and eventually she saw the blown-out shell of the skyport. It looked like a wreck... which meant some of the Spirit had survived. But it was also still standing, even with the damage to numerous glass domes. Her heart clenched, and she sighed. It hadn't been enough. Sosa was gone, and she didn't even know what to do any more.
The airship they were pulled toward was ornate and massive, looking ready to carry a crew of a hundred or greater. Eventually, the winch came into sight, along with a tall, lanky unicorn with a pair of shades manning it. Telekinesis grabbed her, and she was floated carefully on deck.
"Hooo-whee," the unicorn whistled. "What did you find here, Brother-of-mine? Isn't this one of them Spirit mares?"
Grenada groaned, looking him carefully over. She recognized him from somewhere... Maybe a Spirit meeting? It didn't matter. The increasing brightness in the sky only served to highlight the blackness at the edge of her vision.
"Not right now, Biological Bro," Howe chided. "Put your lecherous whims forever aside! This mare is injured, and needs the full force of our medical know-how!"
The unicorn slapped a hoof to his forehead. "On it faster than you know how!"
Panting under her breath, Grenada leaned against the ship's carved railing... but the unicorn really was faster than she knew how. "Neon Nova, at your service," he proclaimed, holding a bottle up to her lips. "Healing potion. Drinkey drinkey, now! Nothing like some good rest and recovery afterwards, but these are genuine Varsidelean war supplies. They'll get you patched up."
Grenada gulped it down. The mixture was more syrupy than she had expected, clinging to the back of her throat and making her desperately wish she had some water to wash it down... or any food in general. Still, she felt slightly more alert, the pains in her limbs and torso not quite so severe.
"Do you have anything to eat?" she rasped, her voice recovering with the increased ease in breathing.
"Only the best!" Neon Nova gave her a grand wink that was visible from behind his black flip-up shades. "Brother-of-mine, think you can be on it?"
Now it was Howe's turn to salute and dart away. "Cheese and crackers, I'm on it!"
Grenada touched her forehead with a hoof, shocked enough out of her stupor that staring out at Ironridge below didn't make her want to cry. Over the peaks of the Sky District rim, she could see the Earth District... and, in the distance, the flood. "What have I gotten myself into...?"
"I don't know what you've gotten into, but I can tell you what you're about to get out of!" Neon Nova assured her with a friendly nudge. "Ironridge! What you you say we stroll on back to the bridge so I can get us back out of sight of the city?"
"Out of sight?" Grenada frowned. "Why?"
Neon Nova rolled his shoulders, whistling innocently and shuffling from side to side. "Oh, it's a very long story. Once, we worked for a band of mercenaries, you see! But then, we got kicked around, made some friends... got kicked around some more... and made plans to flee. So we stole the mercenaries' own ship to do so! We had meant to come back by and pick up our friends once we secured an avenue out of the city, but a ferocious storm sprung up that has only now broken! A few recon flybys here and there haven't gotten us spotted yet, but we're getting nervous that those mercenaries will see us and come out for our blood sooner rather than later. So unless we find our friends... perhaps... now, and they still want to leave, it's time to see to our own hides and bail without them!"
"...Really?" Grenada looked carefully at him.
He winked thrice. "Well, it wouldn't be terribly cool of us to not give them a chance, period. I don't suppose you're looking for a ticket out of the city yourself?"
Suddenly, Howe came racing back with a three-course meal balanced on his back and both wings. "Biological Bro, this place is stacked!" he gloated, bouncing the dishes as he ran. "Truly, the knowledge had fled my mind on just how fortunate we were to steal a ship loaded with this many marvels!" He blinked at Grenada. "Hey, uhh... we're getting ready to ditcherino this place unless the friends we've been waiting for show. Does the destiny of this fell city have you firmly in its clutches? If not, you're welcome to come along in this grand act of our escape!"
"He... just told me that..." Grenada muttered, head beginning to hurt from the stallion brothers' antics. She just wanted to eat, and be left a minute to think.
The airship's bridge was high above the deck, directly attached to the dirigible instead of hanging on reinforced cables like the main gondola, with windows that stretched all the way to the floor and afforded a perfect view of the surrounding lands. As she ate, the healing potion finally slipping into its full effect, she could see the flood more completely... as well as the eastern valley, and everything that was no longer standing.
"Unless you object, I think it's time we headed off," Neon proclaimed, standing at the ship's great rudder wheel. Grenada had been slightly surprised to learn that the massive zeppelin could be operated by a crew of one, but it certainly appeared the stallions hadn't been exaggerating.
"...Where are you going?" Grenada asked. It didn't really matter where, since her home and leader were both dead and drowned. Whatever she was going to fight for... it wasn't going to be the Stone District. She'd need to find it elsewhere, and anywhere was a good place to start.
"Anywhere!" Neon happily announced. "I was thinking we'd nip by the Griffon Empire, spin through Varsidel, check out what the yaks are up to... and if we find anything interesting, we stay!" He teased a gold-flaked glass ball on the dashboard with his magic, the crystal within pulsing with a cool shade of blue. "It'll be an adventure of making things up as we go."
That was a good enough answer for her. Sighing, Grenada put down her plate, extinguished her horn, and got up. "All right. I'm coming. Anywhere will have to do."
Starlight could think of no way she would rather wake up.
It was dark. She didn't need to open her eyelids to feel the lack of light touching against them. She was under a roof, within walls, on a soft, plush bed that shifted just enough to form a nest around her... and she was warm. Maple curled around her, having woken herself or else shifted during her slumber, leaving Starlight toasty but not quite uncomfortably hot. She stretched anyway, exposing more of herself to the air and rolling over so her cool side was against Maple and the bed.
Pretending she was back in Riverfall, waking up in Maple's house after a harrowing trip down a waterfall wasn't hard at all. She still held a tiny shred of cold deep in her core, left over from the icy blizzard, more a memory than anything physical, but it was fighting a losing battle against reality: she was safe, alive, and loved, and so was the pony holding her in her sleep.
Starlight shifted again, laying a foreleg over Maple's shoulder, too small to wrap it all the way around like her mother was doing for her. Any troubles the world could throw at her were distant nightmares here. One day, she'd have to think about how she almost died, or about recordings and countries and passes to Equestria, or about what was fair and right and what she would do with herself in the world. But none of that mattered. All of it could wait. Right now, this was perfect, and she wanted as much as possible... so she did exactly what she had that first time in Riverfall, and drifted off back to sleep.
The next time Starlight awoke, someone was licking her ears.
"Maple..." she murmured, feeling the mare's rhythmic motion against her as Maple rooted through her mane and worked out snarls with patience and teeth.
"Shh," Maple gently commanded. "Your mane is a mess. I'm fixing it."
Starlight held still, letting her work.
"You have a horn," Maple suddenly whispered in surprise.
That caused Starlight's ears to perk in concern. "Maple?"
"You... that wasn't..." Starlight lit her horn with the barest of glows, allowing her to see Maple's dusty brown face and watery pink eyes. "Oh." Maple's eyes clenched in pain. "I-I thought I was dreaming again..."
"Maple?" Starlight nosed her in worry, keeping her voice low. "We're on Shinespark's airship. We're flying back home, and we'll be there soon. Don't worry. We're safe, okay?"
Maple kept her eyes closed. "No..." she protested. "No, we're not on an airship! We're at home! We never left! Ironridge was a dream... We were planning to go this morning, but it's a bad idea... Tell Arambai we're not going. I want to stay here..."
Starlight listened, but could still feel the faint magical hum that told her they were in a ship, and not a house on the ground. "Maple, it's over," she consoled. "No more Ironridge. We're going home."
"We never left home!" Maple insisted. "Please... Ironridge wasn't real... Aspen, tell me it wasn't real..."
"I'm Starlight," Starlight whispered, the warmth she had felt disappearing and being replaced by fear. "Maple? Are you all right?"
"No!" Maple shook, scrunched, curling tighter into a ball. "No, no... Starlight... Please be Aspen... I don't want to wake up... Don't send me back..."
"Maple!" Starlight raised her voice, getting her forelegs beneath her. "Ironridge is over! We're not going back! Things are going to get better, remember? We never have to go back there."
Maple continued to shake. "That's what I thought... I never wanted to be there again..."
Starlight frowned. "Again? Maple, did you have a nightmare? We're awake now. It's okay..."
"I wish it had been a nightmare..." Maple's pink eyes opened, and they were more lucid than before. "That was real, wasn't it? We went to Ironridge after all... We..."
"Yes, but it doesn't matter!" Starlight protested, wrapping her forelimbs back around Maple. "We're out now and nothing more is going to happen! We're okay!"
Briefly, she recollected the dreamlike vision she had experienced while disembodied, with the gray world and dead monsters and older, injured Valey. Wait... Maple hadn't seen the same thing, had she? Could that be what this was about?
"I need to do something," Maple suddenly panted, struggling to get up. "Other than laying here! I'm... I'm hungry! Come on, Starlight. Will you come get a snack with me?"
Starlight quickly agreed. She wasn't particularly hungry herself, but Maple was likely wobbly enough to need her support at the very least, if not be outright carried. And she badly wanted to talk to her about everything that had happened... even if Starlight was the one who would be being leaned on, most likely.
She brightened her horn, helping push Maple out of bed, and realized there was a black shape curled at the far end a respectful distance from where they had lain. "Mrrgrrgh..." Valey grunted, her hat missing and forehooves wrapped cutely over her face. "Buzz off, chumps... Five more minutes..."
Maple glanced at her as they passed, leaning so heavily on Starlight that she might as well have been being carried. Starlight got the door with her magic, remembering to turn left to reach the staircase, since they were on the opposite side of the hall as usual.
They proceeded slowly and carefully, neither slipping nor stumbling, and didn't run into anyone else in the ship's dark interior. Starlight kept her horn lit for illumination, a niggling thought pestering her brain: hadn't there been a time yesterday when she felt it stopping her from crossing some invisible threshold, right after she used a strong spell? She didn't feel that now, her telekinesis and lighting working freely, yet the faint touch and influence of the tree's magic was still there, guiding her just like it had for reinforcing a spell after her first visit. Something was different about her magic, and there was a chance it was permanent. Mentally, she made a note to think about it and figure it out later, once Maple didn't need her attention.
In the dining room that took up most of the bottom of the ship, Starlight paused. The giant table that could serve for banquets or conferences was gone... No, not gone. It had somehow been retracted up to the ceiling, its sturdy legs folded against it. That left the room empty, probably done to help hold ponies when Gerardo was using the ship for rescuing. It also made obvious what the table was covering when in place: a giant, rectangular window of reinforced glass, set as a pane in the floor and providing a bird's-eye view of the landscape below.
Starlight stopped to stare. The Yule River snaked its way east below her, swollen to a point where water was visible between the treetops that banked it, reflecting the red of sunset. Yet the ground wasn't gouged away like the eastern valley; the river had spilled its banks but not annihilated them completely. There must have been some choke point upriver, trapping all the water in Sosa and forcing it to drain slowly. Hopefully that meant Riverfall would be okay.
"I'm hungry," Maple panted, reminding her of their destination.
Together, they staggered into the kitchen, a room Starlight hadn't been in before. Immediately adjacent to it was the storeroom, and that was the target Maple's nose led them for. Horn pulsing, Starlight opened a door, and suddenly they were surrounded by sacks, barrels, and strings of things hanging from the rafters. Maple was practically salivating.
Starlight sat back as Maple tore open a bag and started munching. "I'm not waiting to cook food," she announced, devouring something very crunchy by the hoofful.
Cautious, Starlight picked her way around the room and sat down next to Maple, close enough that they could lean against each other. "What are those?"
Maple held a small, circular chip out on a hoof. "They taste like bananas," she offered.
Starlight tried one. They felt good for snacking, but she could wait until dinner. Or breakfast. Or whenever someone decided to cook something.
Eventually, Maple had her fill, sighing and sitting back against Starlight. "Feel better?" the filly asked.
"A little." Maple sighed again, shuddering once. "I don't want that to have been real, Starlight..."
"Sorry," Starlight murmured. "I didn't want to get separated. Really..."
"It's too much," Maple whimpered. "I miss my friends... I wish I had them to talk to. They would understand..."
"Can you talk to me about it?" Starlight offered, unsure if she wanted anything more to deal with when she was at least somewhat stable, yet desperately afraid of how bad Maple had been when she had first woken.
Maple deflated. "Maybe. You weren't there for... for everything I went through before you showed up..."
"But you told me about it." Starlight leaned patiently into her. "And Amber, and Willow. You had a husband, and he left, and a foal that died. Aspen."
"Miscarried," Maple corrected. "But that wasn't all. Every time I had set my life to doing something, it was like I had a door slammed in my face. Remember, Starlight... I know how you feel about cutie marks, but I got mine preparing to go to Ironridge many years ago. And then that plan died, and there was nothing at all I could do about it..." A tear dripped from her muzzle, and she didn't wipe it away. "So I tried to start a family, like Willow... and then that happened... All of it. It feels horrible. It feels like..."
She swallowed, thinking. "You're laying in bed. It's morning. And you think about everything you could or should or want to do for the day... and you don't believe it will be worth it, so you stay in bed. You're afraid things will just go wrong again, and think because things always go wrong for you, it's because of you. You hate yourself for being afraid to try, and when that's not enough to get up, you hate yourself for not getting up. But the more you hate yourself, the harder it is to get up, even when you tell your body to move and it just doesn't, and then it's noon and evening and you're still there... and you'll eventually get up for the bathroom, and that will be good enough, and you'll go back to bed and do it all over again the next day, and the next, and so on..."
"Maple..." Starlight cringed, something inside her shying away from thinking of her mother like that.
"It's horrible." Maple's voice sounded hollow, haunted by memories of a distant life. "There's nothing you can do to escape it. You have to get up and do things, and convince yourself that you can do things worth doing, and the moment you stop, it all goes away. I still don't understand how I came back... but I had friends who tried just as much as I did, and no shortage of miracles that helped me see the world brightly again. Miracles like you." She sniffed, gently nuzzling Starlight's cheek.
"I never wanted to feel like that again," Maple whispered. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'm scared of thinking I've done enough, still, because if I stop and sit down, a part of me remembers not being able to get up again. But I'm also scared of being unable to think I've done enough, because if I start being unhappy with what I have done, I might not think it's worth doing any more. Finding a balance is hard. It involve not worrying, and hoping things will turn out good..."
Starlight suddenly realized where this was going. "And then you pushed us to do something on the third day, right? To go back for White Chocolate, and then to do something about the fighting, and to help Valey? And we went too far and got in trouble again when we had finally gotten safe?"
"...Yes," Maple choked. "But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when I got stabbed by that stupid griffon's sword..."
Starlight's eyes widened, and she gently nodded.
"He was sitting there afterward, when we were starting to group up," Maple murmured, sounding like she was barely holding back tears. "Telling me all about how scary it certainly was, and how I'd be just fine, and how everyone who got cut with it said it was like nothing they had ever experienced..."
Her teeth suddenly grated, nearly spitting sparks. "And it wasn't! It was exactly... exactly how I had felt before... It didn't matter what I thought, or how much I screamed at my body to move. I just laid there in a heap, able to look around and breathe and do nothing else! I never wanted to feel like that again! I used to rage at myself for not moving, to imagine throwing myself out of bed and willing my muscles to make me walk and having absolutely nothing happen! It was so hard to escape from that... It took so much, from me and my friends, and there I was again..."
Openly, she started sobbing. "I hate that sword. It's evil. I don't care how much he says it saves lives compared to a real weapon, or that it's just some trinket he bought from an enchanter. That sword is bad. Even carrying a windigo heart didn't make me feel that way. I can still feel it. If I didn't know how long I could stay there for... I'd still be in bed right now. In my mind, I still know everything to do, to believe in myself and that it's just a magic curse instead of some hormone imbalance or just me... but it didn't help. I made it for so long, reminding myself of why the world was good and who I cared about that was still in it, like you and my friends. And then G-Gerardo stuffed me alone in the engine room, and hooked me up to a machine, and left me there for so long, and I was alone...!"
"And then I..." Starlight's heart dropped through the floor.
"And then you came back!" Maple screamed, clutching Starlight and wailing. "And were going to use that machine with your horn hurt that much, and I wanted to warn you, and I knew I should have warned you earlier and it was my fault and I couldn't do anything but sit there and watch..."
"I-I'm sorry," Starlight managed, unsure how she was still able to talk.
"I couldn't. I saw it. It was my fault," Maple sniffed. "And I knew what was about to happen. Gerardo said it would wear off, but it doesn't take magic to keep me like that. If you died, and it was my fault... I'd probably stay like that until I died. I was so afraid. Afraid for both of us... I didn't want that to happen..."
Starlight choked out a few noises that might have been the beginning of an apology.
"I don't know how I did it," Maple whispered. "I knew I was still me, and that I had to believe things could be better, even if there was no possible way... I saw you fading, and I refused to let you die... and then..." She was silent for a moment. "Holding you hurt. It was like the overcharged flame, like I could fly apart at any second and be annihilated. I thought I would drop you after only a second. But there was something holding me together, too, that was even stronger. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was both of us... It never got easy, but it got easier, once I realized I could hang on. Once I had hope that I could do it, that there was a real possibility..."
She trailed off for good, leaving the silence punctuated by only an occasional sniffle.
"...Don't worry," Starlight eventually said. "I went back for White Chocolate. They're all on the ship too. If you don't want to deal with them and Willow, I-"
"No." Maple cut her off, still holding her close. "I will. The sword might be magic, but I... n-need to feel like I'm doing something. To remind myself I can make a difference. I'm still scared, Starlight. I need my friends. I need to hear them remind me that that's not who I am, just like they always have..."
"We're going back to Riverfall," Starlight reminded her. "We're almost there. At least, we better be..."
"So how are you, Starlight?" Maple asked, breaking the silence and darkness of the airship's pantry. "I think that's enough about me. How are you taking all this?"
Starlight nestled against her, a barrel to her back and a sack of flour touching her side, somehow just as comfortable as she had been in bed. "Are you sure?" She tilted her head uncertainly upward, her horn having gone dim long ago. "I'm fine for now. Don't you have enough problems already?"
"I'm weary, and it's hard to move." Maple nudged her back, tapping the top of her head. "And magic or not, what will help me most is reminding myself that I can still do things worth doing. So tell me about you. Let me listen."
"...I'm glad it's over." Starlight sighed, not wanting to collapse or spill everything she was feeling, but still trying to be genuine. "I feel... I haven't been feeling. I haven't felt like me. We've been running around trying to stay safe so much, and fighting for our lives and worrying about other ponies and almost dying. It's like... we're too busy trying to survive to do anything we want to do. I want to survive, but who doesn't? You know?"
"Hmmm..." Maple held her close. "Maybe. Tell me more."
"In Riverfall," Starlight grumbled, "all I cared about was cutie marks. And being treated fairly, and other stuff. I crossed those stupid mountains because of it! But it was still what I got to do. I didn't have to, and no one else did. But ever since we got to Ironridge, I've barely thought about them at all. I was too busy being stuck in caves, or getting dragged around cities, or being injured or keeping you alive. I feel... pressed. It doesn't feel nice."
Maple hummed sorrowfully. "And now are you worried because the old you doesn't feel like the new you, but you're not sure who the new you is any more?"
Starlight hesitated. That wasn't how she would have put it, but upon thought, it wasn't far from the truth.
"Anyone would have tried to survive." She hung her head. "Not just me. Anyone. Before, I didn't want to be special. But even insisting that made me different from everyone, because no one else did that. In Ironridge, though, I just did what anyone would have done and tried to survive... stubbornly, but still. And it didn't feel good. All I wanted was to do what I wanted, but that wasn't what I said I wanted, so... Argh!" Pouting, she flopped back against Maple. "Then there were some ponies in the Stone District who were talking on and on like nothing had happened and treating me like a rock and that should have been what I wanted, but that didn't feel right either! I almost died to save their stupid city, and they ignored me and thought it was romantic. Nothing makes sense any more. Once we get back to Riverfall, I don't know what I'll do..."
For a moment, Maple was silent. Then: "Would it help if I told you that I enjoy having a cutie mark?"
"You mean that you and Willow always wanted to change my mind and make me accept them?" Starlight glanced up. "I already know. And I know I'm wrong, too. But I won't forget Sunburst... or everything that made me cross the mountains in the first place. And just knowing what's wrong doesn't help me know what's right! I hate not feeling like me... being forced to change... the world being unfair... But I also hate what happened to Sunburst. And if I tell myself that's nothing, I might tell myself hurting you by not listening to you about using that dumb machine is nothing, and then... I don't want to do that!"
She held on tight, and if she hadn't been whispering, her voice would have cracked. "Maple..."
"Shhh," Maple comforted. "Why don't you... mmm..." She bit her lip. "That's tricky. Starlight, I wish you didn't have to think about these things. You're a filly. You should be loving and enjoying life, not worrying about adult problems like these. I don't think even I'm old enough to deal with those..."
Pausing, she eventually settled on an answer. "I know," she said softly. "Think about it like this. The world is unfair, and things happen all the time that make you prioritize things above your own happiness, just like Ironridge and Sunburst. And those aren't fair, but they always happen. But a cutie mark... is to remind you of who you are, so those don't unfairly change you...and if they do, you can find your way back. How's that? Hmm?" She smiled hopefully.
Starlight wiped a hoof across her eyes. "So you're saying Sunburst's cutie mark was to remind him of who he was, and the reason it meant him leaving was because being around me was unfairly changing him into something he didn't want to be?"
Maple swallowed, and Starlight remembered with a flash that the whole point of this was for her to help Maple feel like she was doing something worthwhile. "Sorry!" she blurted, cutting off whatever the mare was about to say. "I meant... I didn't mean that."
"Oh, Starlight..." Maple rocked her back and forth. "I wish Willow was here. She'd know exactly what to say. I love you, and I'm here for you, and I wish that could be everything you need..."
"It helps," Starlight assured her, thinking as quickly as she could. "Really. It does. I don't like being alone. And don't worry. I told you, I'll be okay. Maybe it'll even be better if I don't know what to think. I might not scare as many Riverfall mares."
"Hmmm..." Maple chuckled under her breath. "I remember that. Who was it you crystalled? Mangrove, I think? I think she deserved it..." Her laughter trailed off. "You were using your magic as a light earlier."
Starlight quickly followed her train of thought. "I'm not going to disappear again," she promised.
Maple looked worried. "Are you sure...?"
"Something's different about my magic since I... came back," Starlight sighed. "Remember when we were at the tree the first time, and everyone's horns weren't working? There was some kind of really strong magic down there that stopped me and Howe's brother from doing anything. And then it changed when I tried to smash the moon glass and started helping me, and made my spells stronger. Remember?"
"I... maybe?" Maple tilted her head in thought.
"When we were leaving," Starlight continued, "and the elevator was falling apart, I put us all in a crystal to get us safely to the top. Remember that? That didn't hurt my horn. It was like the tree was helping me, like some of its magic stuck with me just from being down there. But after that spell, it wore off. But after I disappeared, and was in the flames for a while..." And might be made of them, she subconsciously added. "I feel the same. But it hasn't worn off."
Maple's eyes widened. "You mean your magic is fixed?"
"No," Starlight grunted. "It's still the tree's magic. Not mine. I can feel the difference. While you were asleep, I went back around Ironridge and took care of some things. I accidentally teleported once. But my horn feels fine."
"Starlight..." Maple beamed.
"I hit..." Starlight paused, thinking how to phrase her words. "When I teleported, it was like I hit an invisible barrier between the tree's magic and my magic. I could have pushed through it if I wanted, but it stopped me from doing it accidentally. Like it wanted to protect me. And after a while of not doing magic, I think it recharged."
"But you can do magic and not hurt yourself," Maple whispered. "Really?"
Starlight hesitated, then nodded. "Not much. I could push myself for a long way before getting more than a headache before. You saw how many lasers I fired in the Flame District. This might be a few small spells or one big one. I need to test it more... but yes, I think I can."
"Well, if you can help it," Maple said, nuzzling her, "I don't want you to ever need to use that machine again."
"I won't need to," Starlight told her. "I hope."
For a moment, they were silent. Then, Maple asked, "What was it like?"
Starlight glanced upwards. "Being disappeared?"
"Yes." Worry and curiosity mixed on Maple's face, and she managed a small smile. "Was it like anything at all? Were you actually dead, do you think?"
"...I don't know," Starlight said, pondering how much of her experience with the grayscale vision to share. "I had a dream, I think. Or a nightmare. It ended when I woke up. But I think it had to do with the moon glass that was in the flame. So before you got me there... maybe it was nothing."
Maple shuddered. "It felt like a nightmare, trying to get there... What did you dream about?"
"It was snowing," Starlight sighed. "I saw everything in black and white, like that time I touched White Chocolate's moon glass. There was no wind, no temperature, I couldn't see far, and nothing but flat ground. Then I started finding dead monsters. They looked like ponies, but wrong. All hard, and full of holes. After that, I found Valey, and I think she had killed them. Only she looked older, and had scars and injuries. She was talking to herself, and mentioned me by my full name. You know... not just Starlight. Starlight Glimmer. I stopped calling myself that after it made you realize I wasn't from Sosa, and never started again... But I couldn't interact with her. It was like I was just observing. And then there was this wave of black, and it felt like I was drowning, and I tried to reach the surface and woke up..."
"That doesn't sound pleasant at all," Maple agreed. "What was Valey doing there?"
Starlight shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what it means. I thought about it, but it was just a bad dream. And it was just creepy, not bad like Herman trapping me with his axe while..." She trailed off, seeing the expression on Maple's face.
"I survived," she said. "I'm all right. And if you want to thank someone, thank Valey. She was acting weird in the tunnels and the tower on our way to the skyport. She might be better now, but also might need it."
"...Some day," Maple breathed, "when we're back in Riverfall and Amber and Willow are there with me, and it's just us in my house with warm blankets and tea and we're safe and happy and I can move without fighting my body... I want to hear about Ironridge from you. The whole story, everything you did, especially the parts where I wasn't with you. For now... Are you good for now?"
Sensing Maple was asking if she had done a good job, Starlight nodded. "Yeah." Then, remembering where they were, she added, "Maple? I know you're tired, but do you think you could make something to eat? Not just bags of fruit chips?"
"For you, I would love to." Smiling, Maple stood up, then wobbled. "I might need your help a bit, but let's do this. One tasty meal with whatever this ship has to cook with, coming right up!"
Maple beamed hopefully, sitting in the galley and munching on a simple salad alongside Starlight. She had wanted to make soup, but that plan fell through when they realized the damage to the ship meant no general power, and Starlight's horn wasn't strong enough to heat water.
"It's nice," Starlight agreed, eating appreciatively. She hadn't felt hungry, but now that food was in her mouth, it started to dawn on her just how long it had been since she had eaten last. It was dusk then, and she woke up from the flame around dawn. She had been disappeared for an entire day cycle before that, according to Maple, didn't remember eating at all the night of the battle... and before that, she had been unconscious from a stun grenade that went off shortly before she was wanting lunch.
Adding up that many days caused her to double-take. Had she really not eaten in sixty hours? She stared at the salad with newfound appreciation, shoving as much as she could into her mouth at once and chewing hard. How she was still able to stand was a mystery.
"Hmmm..." Maple set her bowl down, humming softly. "I wish we could have made something that would make the whole ship smell nice. I'm imagining everyone running down here, and us sitting around that big table and talking about nice things instead of bombs and trying to guess what the Defense Force is doing..."
Starlight sat back, taking a moment to breathe. "There's not very many here. Gerardo, Shinespark, Valey, you, me, and White Chocolate's family, I think. We could take some to them, if you want?"
"Let's do that." Carefully, Maple stood up, looking back to where she had mixed the ingredients. "Maybe we should make extra, so her foals can have some too. I hope she isn't mad at me for not coming back after I said I would..."
"She was pretty upset," Starlight cautioned. "I think she was feeling a little better after I talked to her, but be careful. She might not let you leave for a while."
Together, with Starlight carrying the food offering and Maple leaning on her for support, they passed through the swinging doors and into the main hall. The landscape through the window below was closer than it had been before, and fully shrouded in night. Chill air crept down Starlight's coat, and she realized that with the power systems damaged, the ship must have lacked heating as well.
"I know you want to do things and not just lay around," Starlight murmured, "but it is warmer back in bed..."
"Hmm." Maple nudged her back. "It is, but I don't think I can go back to sleep right now. I've just slept a long time..." She yawned in emphasis. "And I bet you have, too. Still, the night is just starting... We've probably accidentally become nocturnal, haven't we?"
Starlight glanced at the distant, flooded river again. "I wonder if White Chocolate is still up."
"Well, we should hurry and go see," Maple decided, stepping firmly forward. "If she is, the longer we wait, the more likely she is to change that."
Rather than knocking, Maple sat back while Starlight pressed her ear against White Chocolate's door, checking for signs that they were about to disturb a pack of slumbering foals. She sniffed at the crack beneath the door, listened intently, but aside from the occasional shuffling and the sounds of small breathing, the room was still.
Starlight gave the door a gentle push, clunking it against the side of its rails with a volume that blended into every other wooden noise normal to the ship's operation, yet would still be noticeable to anyone awake and able to focus. Carefully, she did it again, twice in rapid succession.
"Starlight..." Maple whispered, leaning against the wall and keeping a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "It sounds like she's asleep..."
Then, the door rolled open, carefully and silently, and Starlight stepped back. She was greeted immediately by White Chocolate's face.
"Hi..." Maple smiled uncertainly.
White Chocolate deflated in relief, tension leaving her stiff shoulders, and walked out, touching a hoof to her lips and scooting the door open slightly wider so she could fit. In the room behind her, lit by an uncurtained window, foals could be seen snoring everywhere, though the eldest three were still awake, Snow reading and Jamjars brooding in a corner.
"Mom?" Hayseed mouthed after her. "Anything you need from me?"
Silently, White Chocolate shook her head, then eased the door closed. When she looked at Maple, a hundred different things that needed to be said mixed in her eyes, and she paused... and the one that won out was, "Thank you for not waking them. Can we go somewhere a little... better to talk?"
Maple nodded, awkwardly looking at the bowl on Starlight's back. "The kitchen? We were just there..."
White Chocolate raised no protest, and soon they were there. The moment the doors swung shut behind them, she let out a deep breath and laid straight down on the floor.
Leaving Starlight standing nearby, Maple walked in front of her, legs shaking. "I'm sorry. I said I'd be back, but..."
"I know," White Chocolate cut her off, not making eye contact. "Starlight said you were injured."
"Stabbed by a cursed sword." Maple grimaced. "And hit with a stun grenade and foalnapped before that. But still, I said I'd be back sooner. Are you...?"
"Angry?" White Chocolate folded her ears. "At who? Myself? I was scared. Lonely. Homeless."
"Is there anything I can do?" Maple asked, nearly stumbling and needing to sit down.
White Chocolate hung her head. "Nothing I'd be comfortable asking for."
"Oh." Maple blinked, then looked away herself. "Well..."
"She made you this salad," Starlight interrupted, offering the bowl. "And if you need someone to cry on or tell how awful everything's been again, I doubt either of us mind." She minded a little, but next to everything she had just been through, it was nothing at all.
"No... I think I got all that out already..." Wiping her eyes, White Chocolate took the salad and gave it a sniff, then started munching. "Thank you, though. For this and that."
"Are you sure?" Maple leaned forward. "I want to listen..."
White Chocolate shook her head, tucking the bowl between her forehooves. "You've been doing things for Ironridge, risking your life and getting real injuries. I'm sad about the same things I've always been sad about. It's not-"
"Important?" Starlight interrupted. "Worth our time? You could have just taken the food and stayed in your room, but you came down here with us and asked for a quiet place to talk. I know you want someone to listen to you."
"But...!" White Chocolate protested, her composure beginning to crack.
"Whatever else you think we should be doing, we're here," Maple gently told her. "I'm here. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to keep my promise, and I feel bad about it. Can I please listen? Please?"
White Chocolate gritted her teeth and scrunched her eyes.
"I would mean a lot to her if you let her help you," Starlight remarked from the side, feeling like she was Willow giving herself that advice regarding Maple. Maple shot her a glance, but didn't say anything.
Slowly, White Chocolate started hyperventilating, trying and failing to fight it. "It's not fair," the larger mare sniffed, and again Starlight was struck by an uncanny feeling of role reversal. "For two years, I lived with my children and tried to figure out what I did wrong that made Faron leave me! And then you came along and told me it wasn't me, and made me promise I'd believe that and promised you wouldn't leave to prove it! And I knew you wouldn't come back but didn't want to believe it, and then you didn't, and now you did but after I had given up, and now we're going somewhere and you're here again and telling me to trust you again! I know you mean it and I know that wasn't your fault and I'm horrible for worrying about my problems when my whole family is here and healthy and might even get a new house, but I'm scared because I want to trust you and know if I do, I'll get hurt again but if I don't I won't feel any better in the first place!"
As Maple leaned in to listen and White Chocolate continued, Starlight sat back, stunned. There had been a time, she remembered, long ago when she was waking up after being fished from the river, when she was confronted with a mare trying to love her, and couldn't accept it with the hard shell she had built up in the mountains and since Sunburst to protect herself from loss and loneliness. She had known that letting it go would only make it hurt more in the future if they left her, too, but had done it anyway. Was White Chocolate in exactly the same place she had been? Or... was she exactly where she would be if Maple left her?
Once, Starlight had snuggled Maple because it had been a safe and easy way to make the mare happy. Now, she gravitated toward it without thinking. Just how much did they depend on each other?
She shook the thoughts off like wet cobwebs. If she and Maple were separated... They had been separated, for all of one evening. She was fine, but getting back to Maple had been her primary and only goal. Maple had been a lot less so.
Starlight wasn't an expert psychologist, but she had a faint idea that wasn't healthy. The world was unfair, after all. If it tried to split her and Maple apart, it could probably do so, even if they'd both fight it with every ounce of their beings. They'd both be hurt, like Sunburst but worse, feeling terribly empty and alone, and she shuddered just from imagining it. The solution... What was the solution?
Make more friends. That was it. Starlight nodded, pleased with herself: the more ponies they had that they cared about, the less alone they'd be when one went another way. That was how to survive. Still, she resolved, she would always keep a special place in her heart for Maple, and fight with everything she had to keep them together so long as it was what they both wanted... but if the world thought it could take everyone she would come to know from her at once, it would have to try a lot harder than Ironridge.
Her thoughts were interrupted when White Chocolate broke off her sniffling lament with a groan, putting a hoof on her midsection. "Ooof!"
Maple blinked in alarm. "White Chocolate? Are you okay?"
"Yes..." Slowly, she relaxed, then managed a smile. "Just a rowdy, unhappy foal. I don't think he or she likes it when I get worked up." Curling around, she whispered, "Go back to sleep, little one. Mommy's sorry for waking you, but it's still bedtime..."
"That's amazing how quickly you calmed down," Maple whispered, putting a hoof on White Chocolate's shoulder after a moment of silence.
White Chocolate sighed, and opened her eyes. "I have more than just myself to think about. I've made a lot of mistakes, but my children shouldn't have to pay the price for them. At least, that's what I tell myself..."
"You took your eyepatch off," Maple remarked, looking from eye to eye and comparing shades in the irises just like Starlight had done. "Are you feeling better about that, at least?"
"I needed the string to tie something else with." Sadly, White Chocolate shook her head. "Though if we're going somewhere else, maybe it can be like a new start... Where are we going?"
"To my home town," Maple said, laying down right next to her. "Riverfall. When the boats ran, it was the closest stop to Ironridge. It's very peaceful, and nothing eventful ever happens. The ponies there are almost entirely mares, so there are a lot of single mothers... They all know what it's like, and are used to caring for each others' kids so they can get time away from home. I was raised collectively by four or five different mares, myself, though it varies depending on how active parents would like to be in their foals' lives. But I think you'll be able to be happy there."
"Riverfall...?" White Chocolate stared into space. "It's still there, hmm? My mother was from Riverfall."
"A lot of Ironridge ponies have Riverfall ancestry, and the other way around. And it's still there." Maple stared alongside her, looking slightly wistful. "Ever since the boats stopped coming..."
Starlight watched them from a nearby corner. If Maple was going to talk about Faron, that would be her decision... but it looked like both mares had calmed down, and the salad was once again disappearing. Her presence didn't seem to be needed.
Silently, she slipped out into the main hall, unsure what to do with herself.
Starlight wandered towards the front of the ship, letting her legs carry her wherever they felt like. It wasn't a huge ship, so there was no danger of getting lost, but also nowhere to go. Maple and White Chocolate were making up, and she didn't feel like she could be there without hovering. Up on the bridge, there was probably Gerardo, but she still needed to get her feelings straightened out on the rambly griffon after his sword had caused Maple so much grief and whatever else he had accidentally done to annoy them before that and listening to him narrate probably wouldn't help. Even worse, back in White Chocolate's room was Jamjars, whom she knew was an instant recipe for a migraine.
Without thinking, she passed by the staircase to the upper decks and kept going, walking the short tunnel to the observation room at the prow. The room was half glass, with a curved window letting watchers see forward, to the sides and below, making it one of the brightest in the ship thanks to the rising moon low on the eastern horizon. It made all the more obvious the lone unicorn silhouetted against the glass.
For an instant, Starlight almost thought it was Grenada. The size, mane and horn were right, with the mare appearing black against the dusky world below, and the last time she had been in this room, it had ended with the same encounter. Then common sense kicked in and she stopped, swallowing, wondering whether to disturb Shinespark's vigil.
"Who's there?" Shinespark croaked in a tired voice that sounded like it had been crying.
"I'm just wandering," Starlight quickly replied. "If you want me to leave you alone-"
"Oh." Shinespark sighed, but made no motion to send her away.
Starlight hesitated. Was every pony on the ship somehow depressed? Helping Maple was something she had to do, and helping White Chocolate was something Maple would've wanted her to do, but she had needs too. Parts of her still felt surreal after almost dying, and there was a tension in her heart like she was perpetually holding her breath. She wanted to get back to Riverfall, meet Willow and Amber, make sure Maple was all right... and then all of them could lay down and know just what to say. Especially Willow. Maple might have been Starlight's mother, and she'd do everything she could to help her, but Willow was the one she had woken up held by and the one she knew she could always go back to with anything.
Letting out a breath, Starlight turned to leave. Someone else could be the therapist for the entire ship. Someone who wasn't a filly and wasn't taxed by troubles of their own, but was also sensitive enough not to instantly say the wrong thing. Someone like...
Growling internally, she turned around yet again. Until they got to Riverfall, she really was the only one, wasn't she?
"Shinespark?" she asked, projecting her frustration as confidence in her voice. "Are you okay?"
"I shouldn't need pity," Shinespark replied, refusing to look her way.
Starlight said nothing, sensing there was more coming.
"My plan failed," she continued, and Starlight sat down to listen. "Gunga died. Gigavolt. Grenada, who was my sister. And dozens of other ponies who put their confidence in me. But I'm still alive. Alive, and running away. It's not fair."
There were those three words again. "You'd rather be dead?" Starlight asked, hoping the answer wasn't what Shinespark was getting at.
Shinespark kept staring out the window. "Of course I wouldn't. I don't want to die. No living creature should. Not after surviving that. But I deserve to be. It was my plan that failed, so the just thing would be for me to pay the price. Keep in mind that my life's goal was justice for Sosa, to give everyone what they deserved and keep them from being crushed or forgotten. I always meant for that to be about lifting ponies up, but justice does go both ways. For me to be sitting here now, avoiding what I deserve after spending so much effort on the pursuit of it... I'm an insult to myself. My own antithesis. I won't just give up and die, because then I'd be nothing. But living like this... I'm no longer justice, but have nothing else to be, which makes me nothing anyway. If you think about it, it's like I'm already dead."
Starlight blinked, taking a step back. That was far too much philosophy for her to parse all at once, and given Shinespark's conclusion, she had a feeling it was overwhelming her, as well. "Are you sure about that?" she questioned. "You still look alive to me."
"I don't care any more about helping Sosa, because I'm leaving Ironridge. I don't care about avenging it, either, because I'm having a civil conversation with the pony who pressed the button and don't even feel a shred of anger." Her ears pointed back towards Starlight, but she still kept her eyes focused on the window. "I don't think I can feel anything right now. And before you feel sorry about that, too, I'm doing it deliberately. I've always been good at controlling my emotions like this, and not feeling things that will hurt. I don't want to feel guilty now, too."
"Are you sure?" Starlight frowned. "No offense, but I thought you were bad at that and that's why your plan didn't go right. Because you turned off Braen so you could fly after your friends when the dam broke, and then couldn't control the Spirit in the skyport."
"No! I'm good at it!" Desperation tinged with denial edged into Shinespark's voice, and she bowed her head, her gritted teeth reflecting the moonlight. "That was... It didn't happen like that! That was because I couldn't... because..."
She started to shake, and Starlight quickly realized that if she wanted to leave Shinespark in a semi-stable state, it was too late. Once again, she was forced with a choice between offering herself as a crying pillow or leaving a mare to be both miserable and lonely. Resigning herself, she stepped forward.
"Hey." She reached up and put a hoof on Shinespark's shoulder. "If it makes you feel better, everyone's sad right now. I'm sorry for blowing up the dam, though..."
Shinespark wiped her eyes, looking down at Starlight. "You're insane."
"What?" Starlight blinked. That wasn't in her standard script of hugging sad mares to make them feel better. She quickly glanced at herself, looking for anything obviously out-of-place.
"Herman was right," Shinespark sighed. "About what he said I was in the skyport. I've been sitting here thinking in circles, trying to come to terms with that. He was right. I want him to be right! But I hate him and don't want to accept that he was...!" She gritted her teeth again, pausing and then continuing. "And you said the same thing he did. I am bad at controlling my emotions. I can ignore things, sometimes, when they're not in my face, but the moment I see something I just can't stop myself from feeling..." Another pause. "Because I'm just an ignorant, inexperienced teenager who can't be expected to do any better! I hate having that excuse! I hate it because it says I couldn't have done better, but I know I should have been able to do better! I look like an adult, I feel like an adult, I was responsible for more than almost any adult in Ironridge... but it's so tempting. I want to just believe it and blame everything on my age instead of my decisions, because then I wouldn't have to blame myself and could feel better, but I don't want to admit I was powerless all along..."
Starlight puffed out her cheeks. "So? I'm probably half your age."
"That's what's insane." Shinespark shook her head, and actually managed a smile. "If I can't be expected to have it all together, what about a kid like you? Everything after I broke my leg is a little fuzzy, but you tried talking Herman down all by yourself, didn't you? And then he almost cut your head off with that axe against the wall. If I'm taking myself this badly, you should be absolutely traumatized. So what are you doing telling me everything's okay?"
Starlight shrugged. "My problems aren't going to kill me or stop me from helping my friends. And almost dying to save them is better than how I've been for a year before this, since at least I'm not alone. Besides, it's not like helping with this is hard. All I have to do is ask if they're all right, tell them everything's okay, and then let them hug me until they stop crying."
Shinespark sniffed, but kept smiling. "Probably works because you're cute. Still, I know... knew a lot of kids in Sosa who wouldn't even let themselves be seen within several hooflengths of their parents, let alone snuggle random strangers who were feeling down."
"Yeah, well..." Starlight looked away. "It's not like I mind that much. Or have anything better to do."
"Well..." Shinespark blinked thoughtfully. "Sorry. I don't think I'm the type for that. I'd probably just feel too awkward to feel any better. And I still don't know whether to see you as the filly who was introduced to me as the key to unlimited energy or the filly who destroyed Sosa."
Nodding, Starlight stepped back towards the entrance. "Okay. Good luck thinking about things."
"Come and talk to me again," Shinespark quickly called. "Some time... later. After I've had more time to think. Please?"
Starlight promised, then trotted out of the corridor and into the rest of the ship.
"...We're going to Riverfall," White Chocolate sighed into the darkness of the galley.
Maple nodded, a faint slit of light from under the door the room's only illumination now that Starlight and her glowing horn had left. "Should I tell you about it?"
White Chocolate was still. "That's where you're from, isn't it? You said you knew Faron. He's there too, isn't he?"
"Well... yes," Maple admitted, feeling her ears droop. Her entire body still wanted to follow suit, and it took conscious effort to keep from laying down all the way and resting her cheek against the wood flooring. "We're going to have to deal with that, aren't we? But the town is big enough that if it doesn't work out..."
"Oh." White Chocolate's voice grew faint. "I suppose Riverfall is very isolated, then? Not a place airships usually go?"
Maple shook her head. "The only way in or out for seven years has been a secret ferry to Sosa that runs at night, and I doubt that's still in service."
"So Sosa helped him run." White Chocolate sounded defeated. "I always wondered if that was the case. When he first went missing, and they told me they found records of an airship ticket, but didn't know where to... I wonder if they thought it would make it easier."
"You could ask Shinespark yourself," Maple offered. "She's somewhere on this ship. Though after everything that's happened, I can't imagine she's feeling very good about herself right now..."
White Chocolate was silent.
"Remember," Maple said, "no matter what happens with Faron, Riverfall should be a much better place than Ironridge. He has a new foal of his own, and another wife, but he still cares about you enough to ask me to check on you when he heard I was leaving Riverfall. But with or without him, things should be better now."
Still, White Chocolate said nothing.
"Still awake?" Maple asked.
"Yes. Mmmmm..." White Chocolate sighed, then stretched. "The foal's still not calming down. It's just uncomfortable. You can keep talking. I'm still listening."
Maple sat up straighter in concern. "You're all right, right? I don't need to get anyone?"
"Oh, no. Definitely not..." White Chocolate shifted in the darkness, her voice taking on a more tender tone. "I'd know it if they were coming. I've done this enough times..."
Now it was Maple's turn to hold her silence. Ever since she had lost Aspen, even talking about foaling made her nerves tingle.
"Don't worry," White Chocolate assured. "Even if they did come now, it would be fine. There are plenty of safe rooms and supplies here, and thanks to you, I'll have a place to stay in Riverfall soon. This is hundreds of times better of a place to foal than the refugee camp where I was..."
Maple's ears flattened against her head.
"I spent every hour I was there afraid of that," White Chocolate whispered. "At first, it was just going to be a day, and I thought, 'stay in there, little foal. Please don't come now...' But then they started saying there was a flood, and that Gnarlbough was a swamp, and I no longer had a home to go back to. I was going to stay there for months. I'd have foaled there for sure, and I couldn't care for an infant in a place like that! My youngest are young enough as it is... And actually doing it there when there's nothing but cold metal floors and so many strangers nearby..."
"White Chocolate..." Maple's eyes clenched shut, and she cringed.
Oblivious to Maple's discomfort in the dark, White Chocolate continued. "I was so scared, I imagined hearing ponies calling to the crowd, asking if there was anyone with medical knowledge! Even after they moved me to a more private room, I thought I heard them outside my door! Or maybe I didn't imagine it, and someone else actually was-!"
"White Chocolate!" Maple blurted. "Stop! Please..."
"Maple?" White Chocolate tilted her head. "What's wrong?"
"I..." Maple gritted her teeth. "I adopted Starlight; I'm not her biological mom. The one time I tried to have a foal of my own it ended with me miscarrying, and a lot of other things went wrong in my life before that that I associate with it. It's something I've worked on, but still have a lot of bad memories attached to, so I can be fine around you normally but could you... please not talk about foaling?"
"Oh." White Chocolate sounded almost more disappointed than empathetic, but quickly righted herself. "I'm sorry. It's just something that's... No, not talking about it. That sounds horrible."
Maple wore a too-wide grin, shaking her head. "It's fine. It's in the past."
"I'm sorry," White Chocolate repeated. After a moment of silence, she added, "I was considering whether to ask you if you wanted to feel them kicking, but..."
"Changing the subject!" Maple announced, grin twitching and failing as she stood up. "It's too dark in here. Let's go to the main hall, where there's a window."
White Chocolate followed, and Maple actually didn't stumble as she crossed to the glass panel in the floor. A rectangle of blue light shone up from the night below and illuminated the table folded into the ceiling. Maple chose to lay directly on the glass - it was chilly, but not more than the rest of the ship, and the view gave her something to do with her eyes. They were still losing altitude, she noticed.
Pointedly, she kept her eyes averted as White Chocolate laid across from her, trying and failing to reset her brain after the sudden application of stress brought her to a halt. "...So," was all she managed.
"Changing the subject," White Chocolate whispered. "Were you...? You were involved with the Sosans, weren't you? That's why you were able to get on this ship now, and bring me and my family. Do you know everything that happened? I only heard snippets that Hayseed brought back to me..." She yawned heavily, forcing her ears back and shivering from the effort. "It doesn't matter now, I suppose, since we're leaving all that behind. But if it's something you can talk about..."
"I can talk about it," Maple sighed. "I was paralyzed for most of it, though."
White Chocolate perked her ears in interest.
"There was a bomb threat," Maple started. "Something Gerardo found, I think. And then we had a meeting, and I don't remember what we decided, but I wanted to come back for you first, so that's when we returned the first time..." She lifted a hoof and wiped her brow, memories of the murderously-hot trek from Gnarlbough to Grand Acorn sending phantom beads of sweat cascading down her forehead. "And after we left you there, we went to Copsewood to... to do something with a power line to try to help another friend, and then we got hit with a stun grenade, and there was a whole bunch of fighting and..." She squeezed her eyes shut, memories swimming, trying to remember. "I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, am I?"
White Chocolate gave a sad smile. "It's still news to me. But the Defense Force destroyed the dam?"
Maple swallowed. "The dam got destroyed."
Her gaze drifted back down, through the floor and at the nearing river below. Its waters were visibly swollen, and she could see where it had burst its banks and filled nearby ravines and valleys that usually formed tributaries. The badlands that created much of the terrain north and east of Ironridge were vast rock plains shattered and disrupted by some force many ages ago, then grown over with a thick carpet of jungle and forest such that there were more exposed trunks than canopy. Amid the impossibly-frequent changes in elevation, the river had somehow carved out a way, and that way was now doing its very best to drain Sosa of its flood.
"I can't even remember how long it's been since I've seen this much of the outdoors," White Chocolate murmured. "I never left my home in Gnarlbough. Once a month, maybe, even before Faron left. I always had nowhere to go, and too many foals to care for. I bet all of them have never seen something like this. Even Hayseed, who went out to do errands and buy food after Faron left, never went past Gnarlbough. Most of my children think we're on a great adventure."
Maple nodded, reminding herself that they had been flying for some time while she napped in Shinespark's room. "I wish I'd been able to have more of a real adventure, these past few days. I thought Ironridge would be full of wonder and discovering new things, but I don't even know what Stone District fashion looks like, or what ponies do for entertainment. My friends will be disappointed, too. I wish I could do it all over again, only not visit in a time of political crisis and get caught up in the middle..."
White Chocolate tipped her head. "Why did you come to Ironridge? Is it common for ponies to leave Riverfall? I've never heard of it before, though that comes with never going out."
"It's unheard of." Maple turned solemn. "For the last seven years, some stallions come and none ever leave. It wasn't like a prison. Very few ponies actually wanted to. Riverfall is peaceful, comfortable, and has plenty to go around. More ambitious ponies wanted more, but we always knew what we had was something to be satisfied with. But I came to Ironridge... It was my fillyhood dream, which I never got a chance to fulfill. And then I was in the right place at the right time to be offered that chance, and I took it without even a day to think it over."
"I suppose your dream didn't involve all of this," White Chocolate said. "Evacuations and floods and bad things."
Maple shook her head. "I don't think any of us had a clear picture of what it would involve. It wasn't things we dreamed of, it was ideas and feelings. Discovery, awe, excitement and wonder. Thrills... though Ironridge certainly was thrilling. It would be new, changing, and never boring. Because as peaceful and stable as Riverfall is, the price of that is that it doesn't change. Once you know it, there's very little it can do to surprise you."
White Chocolate nodded.
"What did you want to do when you were a filly?" Maple asked. "Before you started a family. Before Project Aslan, when Ironridge was supposedly happy. What was your life like then?"
Sighing in thought, White Chocolate rolled onto her side, letting her long mane spill across the glass. "Ohhhhh, that feels like so long ago... It doesn't even feel like I was the same pony." She paused, thinking, and soon the memories brought a smile to her moonlit face. "When I was a filly... my father was a technician in Sosa. He worked on mana microequipment, the things that make screens and terminals and cameras work. Anything that involves small wires. He'd always bring his work home with him, show me what he was working on and even make things just for me. I thought I was going to be just like him, but of course I didn't have a horn and couldn't manipulate small tools like I'd need to to do that. But he let me pretend. He'd let me sit at his workbench with him, and I could say what to do and he would do it, and we'd make things out of spare parts from his job. I remember one day so clearly... We made a real camera. The lens was distorted, and the case was held together with tape I put on myself, since the pins were broken, but the very next morning he took the day off from work and walked me all the way to the Stone District, and we took pictures and brought them back to my mother. Those were such different days..."
A tear leaked out of her eyes and dropped to the glass floor. The question of what made things change was on the tip of Maple's tongue, but she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
"I wish it had lasted forever," White Chocolate continued, confirming her suspicions. "I was just old enough for him to explain why I couldn't follow in his hoofsteps when the airship failed. I would have been nine then... My father stopped smiling when he came home from work. He still played with me, but wasn't able to bring home new parts any more. I only found out later that he had been reassigned to do maintenance work on motors. Eventually, we stopped altogether. Then I had some family drama... You wouldn't want to hear about it. It ended with me going to live with another mare, a stepmother. She meant well, but didn't know how to be a good role model, especially as I got older. I reached the stage where I thought I could do anything, and spent all my time planning and daydreaming and wishing, and left the house a lot. Then I made some mistakes, and... eventually I was starting a family and married to Faron, in that order."
Her good cheer from the start of the story had all but evaporated. "And that's about it. I never did anything to earn a brand. Don't ask about the things I left out on purpose, because you wouldn't like the answers. I wish things could have gone differently, but..." She managed a last, gentle smile. "Maybe Riverfall can be different. I always did want to see my foals grow up to make something of themselves."
With that, she yawned again. "I'm falling asleep... Can you help me back to my room? I don't usually stay up past dusk, and it's hard to move around these days..."
Maple struggled to her own hooves. "I think so. Thank you for telling me your story."
"Thank you for giving me a reason to remember the good parts." One hoof at a time, White Chocolate got up, heaving a heavy breath. "Oof. Easy, girl..."
"I'm not at my strongest, either," Maple warned as White Chocolate started to move towards her. "I was stabbed by a cursed, strength-sapping sword during the battle on the dam. So don't lean on me too hard."
"Okay..." Steadying herself, White Chocolate matched her pace with Maple's, and they both moved toward the staircase to the cabin hall.
Starlight reached the library, the ship's middle-floor room between the forward staircases and the cabin hall. She paused, standing in the entrance, having little idea of where to go next, but still nothing to do. Below, she heard the slide of a well-oiled door and two sets of hoofsteps, likely belonging to her mother and White Chocolate... but they shortly stopped, and only snippets of murmured voices reached her ears.
Her horn glowed softly teal atop her forehead. Once, she remembered, she had kept it going as a light source for what must have been weeks, trudging through the caves in the mountains that separated Equestria from the northern world, all without wearing herself out to the point of fainting. Acting as a dim lamp took very little energy, and even with the new limits on what she could safely do without hurting herself, she felt she could keep it going forever.
Crossing the mountains... all to avoid getting a cutie mark. Or telling herself that, when the real reason was that she hated her life in Equestria. Which was understandable in hindsight, since she had forbidden herself from enjoying things to avoid winding up with that mark... It all felt so far away. She imagined reaching a hoof out, as if she could touch her past, to tell the wet, bedraggled, exhausted filly what she knew now... only that required her to understand what it was she had learned. That there were things in life more important than not getting cutie marks, perhaps. And that was it.
She sighed. Every part of her still felt tired and wound up, even after her conversation with Maple and how long she had slept. She needed something, and whatever it was was more important than everything she had once counted as a goal. She could get a cutie mark then and there, and... what? What would it matter? Unless it was with a piece of moon glass, she doubted it would change who she was, since otherwise no one would have bothered with the distinction that moon glass did do that. She and Maple would still need each other. Jamjars would probably be jealous, but that wasn't unusual.
Scanning the library again, Starlight took in just how many books there really were. For a time, she had forbidden herself from reading anything, since books were how Sunburst had gotten his cutie mark and going out the same way was the worst fate her past, Equestrian self could imagine. She had enjoyed them, too. But she needed something to do, and if it really no longer mattered...
Reverently, she stepped up to a bookshelf, dusting her aura along the neatly-aligned spines. Someone had taken great pains to build this library as lovingly as possible, she observed. Her eyes traced the titles, some written plainly and others in obscure fonts that looked almost like different languages. This seemed to be a section about history and geography.
Starlight paced slowly along the wall, looking for something fictional. If she was going to read for fun - and not from the explorer Sosa's ancient journal, which was probably there somewhere - she wanted it to be made-up. Something that would make their adventures in Ironridge seem silly or fantastic, like a story themselves. Surely Shinespark liked storybooks, right? Maybe something about...
Her eyes settled on one, with a simple, unassuming spine and a title that merely read 'The Adventures of Horseshoe Hoof'. Whatever that was about, it would do nicely. She strengthened her aura, pinching the edges of the book and sliding it out from the shelf like she was removing the lid from a box containing a long-ago-abandoned part of her life. The cover floated open with barely a creak, and when the musty scent of well-loved pages reached her nostrils, the sensation became all the more acute. Starlight stopped and touched the book to her cheek, keeping it there for a second before turning to find a spot to read.
The room had two plush reading chairs placed right next to each other, both empty in the teal light of her horn. She chose one at random and hopped in, trancelike, starting to circle and make herself comfortable when something brushed her flank-
"I know you like me," Jamjars said with a smirk, "but don't you think sharing a chair is a little much for this point in our relationship when there's another right over there?"
Only self-control and a quick hoof to the mouth saved Starlight from screaming. Instead, she froze, watching as Jamjars' orange eyes opened inches from her face. The other filly's horn flashed, her normally-good camouflage spell completely impenetrable in the dark, and it melted away to reveal her perched lazily against the side of the chair, one foreleg hanging off the side. Starlight was standing directly over her, and had she sat down then and there, the two of them would have been cuddling.
Carefully, Starlight allowed her mouth to move, mindful that most of White Chocolate's children were actually sleeping nearby. "What are you doing?"
"Enjoying this chair." Jamjars shrugged. "If you don't want this to be awkward, there's a perfectly good other one right there."
"I was going to read this..." Starlight muttered, climbing down and pacing to the other chair, her tail flicking in annoyance.
"Have fun." Jamjars lowered her head, looking as if she had been half-asleep and wanting to still be there. "If it's any good, save it for me."
Starlight almost opened it then and there, but paused to see if the silence would endure... and her curiosity won out over self-preservation. "You're not going to bother me about it? You're just going to leave me alone?"
"Why would I?" Jamjars mumbled from her chair, dangling foreleg and raspberry-red mane the only things visible from Starlight's angle. "We both have what we want, right? I've finally got some room to myself, and get to go somewhere and do something real. You got out of Ironridge, and don't tell me you liked it there. And there's no one around who doesn't take me seriously I need to deal with."
Out of all the ponies on the ship, Jamjars was the one Starlight could predict the least. She folded her hooves and scrunched her eyes, then ultimately sighed.
"Thanks for coming back for me when you got this airship, by the way," Jamjars added. "I knew you'd do it. Must be nice to be an important enough pony that you can decide those things, though. And you got Mom and all my siblings, too. I wouldn't have done that. I think you're too nice. It's part of why I'm jealous of you."
"...How come you're being nice?" Starlight asked, growing suspicious. "Really. Is there something you want?"
Jamjars shrugged, which manifested as a rolling cascade in her mountainous mane. "Of course I want something. I told you all about it while we were walking to Grand Acorn, remember? It's your fault if you forgot. But if my last answer isn't good enough for you, I'm not teasing you because you're not being a killjoy like in the basement and are doing stuff that benefits both of us. Also because there's no one watching."
"Because no one's watching?" Starlight frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Obviously," Jamjars huffed, as if she was explaining things to a foal half Starlight's age, "you have to act different depending on who's watching you. Or at least I do. Like with that weird bat. I have appearances to maintain, and if I look nice and friendly, ponies whom I want to leave me alone won't do what I want. And then they'll realize I'm not nice and friendly, and get all mad at me for it even though it was their fault for not taking me seriously in the first place. But you're strong, so you can take it if I have to make an example of you once in a while."
Starlight shook her head in confusion, slowly recalling just how much trouble she had had getting the Riverfall mares to understand her and her points of view. Every time Jamjars explained herself, things seemed coherent, but she couldn't wrap her head around the whole, like there were dozens of individual rules that together formed something she couldn't see. Was this how the Riverfall mares had felt about her? Part of her wanted to be curious and patient. The other part of her didn't want to get bothered about who she liked and knew she lacked a way to make Jamjars leave her alone.
"So what's the world like?" Jamjars asked. "I'm inviting you to brag, here, by the way, so you better enjoy it. But where are we going? I've lived my life in a hole in the ground with nothing to do but tease Snow and yell at Mom for having more foals she can't care for. What are we going to do? What do we get to do? And what are we not supposed to do that we can do anyway?"
Deciding she wasn't going to get to read the book after all, Starlight sighed and relented. "We're going to Riverfall," she explained. "Me and Maple are staying there, and so's White Chocolate, which probably means you are as well. There are lots of mares who are very curious and will probably bug us for stories about Ironridge, but are also mostly nice, so please be nice to them too. It rains a lot, just like Ironridge, but doesn't get too hot either, at least when I was there. I don't know how much there is to do, but unicorns are rare there, so everyone thinks magic is impressive and useful. If you want to be popular, just be nice and it shouldn't be hard."
"Hmmph." Jamjars rolled onto her back in the chair, letting her mane spill out onto the floor. "I'm more interested in things to do, but that's nice. What do ponies do that they don't want you to know about? Stuff that would be fun to spy on? You know... secrets."
Starlight truthfully didn't know. The only secrets she had ever learned in Riverfall were Arambai's, and given how he treated everything like a secret, she couldn't tell how secretive those had truly been. Then again, she had conditioned herself to find nothing interesting back in Equestria, so she was probably bad at spotting things that were actually interesting.
That brought her train of thought back to the book she held. "Do you mind if I read this?" she asked. "Riverfall can't be that far away. We got here from there in one night by boat and upriver."
"Sure." Jamjars closed her eyes, all four legs poking into the air as she reclined. "If you're going to be staying up, watch me while I sleep to make sure that bat doesn't mess with me. We've reached an understanding, but I don't trust her."
Starlight didn't start reading, keeping her eyes instead on Jamjars. A minute passed, and Jamjars' eyes flew open... and when she saw Starlight still watching, she smirked and went to sleep for real. Starlight mentally rolled her eyes; she knew there would be a test. Maybe she was figuring out Jamjars after all.
Eventually, Jamjars' stolen poster from the Spirit hideout slipped out of her mane, bouncing once and rolling away on the floor. When she continued to slumber, her yellow coat and upright legs shifting in time with her breathing, Starlight decided enough was enough. Why she didn't just camouflage herself again, she didn't know. It didn't require the filly's horn to be alight, so it should have worked while she was sleeping.
She opened the book... and rapidly shut it, ears twitching as Jamjars opened her mouth and began to snore.
Fine. She would go somewhere else, then. Starlight got up, floating the book alongside her, picked a random direction and started to trot.
Fighting back a shiver, Starlight stepped out onto the ship's deck, openly exposed to the night air blowing past her. It rumbled in her ears, breaking around the bridge cabin that stood with her in its lee, and she hugged the book to her chest for warmth. Maybe reading out here wasn't such a good idea. Still, it was better than Jamjars snoring.
She walked to the railing, leaning over and looking down. The river was close enough that she could see the ship's reflection when the waters grew still, and it occurred to her that Gerardo might have meant to land in it. The jagged canopy was even nearer, occasional trees at the top of rocky bluffs growing almost high enough to leap to.
As she watched and listened, breathing the night air and letting it cool her lungs, her ears started to twitch. She glanced over her shoulder... Was there light coming from inside the bridge? She took a few steps closer, and started to make out muffled voices as well. Where had Gerardo gotten power, and who was he talking with? Having nothing better to do than indulge her curiosity, she trotted over and rolled the door open.
"Of course, that was when I turned to Winsom and said, 'I told you she wouldn't kiss an ugly llama like you! Our bet is mine! Ha-ha!' Then he said-" Gerardo cut off, blinking. "Ah, Starlight!"
Starlight blinked harder. The room was brightly lit by a cluster of floating spheres of light, which resonated in time with the glowing of Dior's horn. The former chancellor sat idly in the copilot's seat, while Gerardo lounged against the control panel next to him, beak still open in the middle of a story. As close in front of him as possible sat Slipstream the pegasus, listening in rapt attention and still wearing her sweater. That she was on the boat had completely slipped Starlight's mind.
"Welcome to the after party," Gerardo announced, saluting with a wing and holding out a bottle of some darkly-colored drink. "Seeing as we've many who are resting, injured or dealing with their emotions, we thought to confine the festivities to the bridge for the time being. Would you care to join us? I'm afraid you've missed my glorious rendition of our duels and escapades in defense of the city, but I was just wrapping up some tales from my days of adventuring in Varsidel and was going to move on to some classic Griffish lore!"
"A party?" Starlight tilted her head. "What? We barely got out of Ironridge alive!"
Gerardo waggled a talon. "Ah, but we are all alive, and I feel that is ample cause for celebration. Besides, a certain member of my audience is thoroughly enamored, and His Chancellorship was direly in need of some lessons in how to take things less seriously."
Dior nodded, a slightly uncomfortable smile on his face. "My role in Ironridge, both with respect to Skyfreeze and Sosa, left little room for socializing or enjoying myself. I should be seeing to Shinespark's well-being, or perhaps agonizing over abandoning my city, but she didn't want to talk to me when I asked. I think I'm letting the excitement of being free from all our planning get to me."
Starlight stared at the black unicorn, realizing that for all the times she had heard of Dior, she knew nothing about what he was really like. He looked... younger than she had imagined. "How do you know Shinespark, anyway?" she asked, tilting her head.
"That's usually a secret," Dior said, adding a small chuckle. "We set everything up so the public would assume I was from Yakyakistan. But since we're in the business of not needing those any more..." He put on a naughty grin, like a foal getting away with stealing from the cookie jar. "Shinespark is my sister. And not on Mobius's side, like half of Ironridge! I don't know if she told you, but after her and her mother Matryona were taken in by Arambai upon returning to Ironridge, he kept them out of public sight to protect them from the controversy surrounding Mobius and his absence during Project Aslan's crash. And while Matryona was hidden, a real relationship bloomed, and I came along, and was also kept from sight because wouldn't that have been a scandal? When the time came for me to take a role in the city's path, there were no records or ponies who could identify me as Sosan."
"...Huh." Starlight blinked. She hadn't thought of that, though it made perfect sense in hindsight. "How old are you, then?"
Dior shook his head. "Just over a year Shinespark's junior. And I've been the chancellor for quite a while, now. It's remarkable what some creatures will let you get away with just because of symbolism. Have you heard the story of how I did that?"
Gerardo sadly raised a talon. "Well, I was in the middle of a tale of my own..."
"Wow, Gerardo..." Slipstream rolled her eyes. "Let the filly ask her questions! I like her! And besides, I worked at the skyport for five years, and would love to hear this."
Dior was happy to oblige. "My brand," he said, indicating the three-triangle symbol on his flank. "It has no magical function whatsoever, but bears a passing resemblance to the Emblem of the Nine Virtues worshipped in Yakyakistan. Not nearly enough to make the smarter or more unscrupulous economic representatives of the country believe I was some divinely ordained colt of destiny, but enough to tempt them with the possibility of convincing others that I was. We got them to install me as a puppet chancellor when I was just starting my growth spurt. I wouldn't be surprised if I got puppeted to their whims even more than I realize, but it did leave me in a position to help obfuscate my family's secrets, as well as funnel Sosa large amounts of money through the weapons contract."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Even if that was really being used by a treasonous ambassador as a means of arming sides for a conflict," he appended.
"I don't know about you," Slipstream said to Starlight, "but I'm really feeling like this is the right crowd to be with. This is like listening to gossip in the skyport's lobby, only if the actual leaders were doing the talking. I never thought I'd like feeling outclassed, but I could get used to this."
"Well, a band of loyal companions is something any adventurer should strive for," Gerardo remarked with a wink. "It remains to be seen how many of my present compatriots I'll be able to convince to continue past Riverfall and join me wherever the winds take us, so if you have any adventuring skills you'd like to put to use..."
Slipstream winked back, looking utterly silly with her do-anything grin and bottle-green sweater. "I can make a mean cup of coffee out of almost nothing, answer any question about the world's air-travel system, and keep up with you in a blizzard. Think you can handle me?"
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "Technically, I recall myself almost perishing of worry that my loyal guide would succumb to the ice and be lost forever within a snowdrift. However, good coffee is always a plus." He blinked at Starlight. "Do they have coffee in Riverfall? Many find it a staple of rising with the sun, though I can't recall seeing any last time I was there."
Starlight shrugged, noting Slipstream's face shaking. She had thoroughly lost track of the conversation, and the reset was completed when Slipstream sneezed, bowling herself over backwards.
"Case in point," Gerardo observed. "For what it is worth, I do feel terribly for any sinus issues you've had following your following of me. But now that that tangent is cleared up! Who would like to lend audience to some tales of my homeland?"
Proudly, Gerardo leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and preparing to launch into an epic narration. "Ah, the great eastern continent, the Griffon Empire! Land of my forefathers and their forefathers before them. Legend has it that in times of old, when it became ruled by the great-"
Slipstream shot up an eager hoof, interrupting already. "The Griffons have their own religion that runs counter to the yaks. Everyone from there I've talked to acts like they have a goddess who is physically there, in their capitol. Is that true?"
Gerardo winced. "You seem... err... well-informed. That was actually right where I was going."
Slipstream nodded, smiling, and Starlight looked sideways at her. She was showing off for the griffon, wasn't she?
"Ah, yes, well, ahem." Gerardo coughed, regaining his composure. "The Empire is indeed ruled indirectly by the goddess Garsheeva. For the most part, however, the citizens are free to make their own laws and governmental structures, though they do tend to model society in respect to her. There is an Empress, after all... again, usually."
Again, Slipstream interrupted, raising a hoof. "The last Empress got assassinated years ago on a diplomatic visit to Varsidel, right? I remember that. It was big news at the time."
"I'm telling the story," Gerardo meekly replied, looking hurt. Slipstream sneezed again, though it might have been deliberate in realization that trying to impress him wasn't working.
"Go on," Dior urged him. "I'm familiar with Griffon politics, but it should be interesting to hear it directly from a citizen."
Gerardo rubbed his forehead. "I'm slightly at my wits' end trying to recall where I was going with this. Would you mind asking a question and then not interrupting until I've at least found my bearings?"
"Goddess," Slipstream said, pointing a hoof. "Garsheeva. My ears are... ahh..." She held the hoof to her nose, stifling her sneeze. "...Whew. Ready."
"...Yes." Gerardo cleared his throat, trying once again. "As I was saying. Garsheeva is an immortal who predates modern knowledge of the country. She is a creature that is halfway between a griffon and a pony, capable of bearing a brand yet also feline in form known as a sphinx. Also, she is the size of a house. Mortal, equine-sized sphinxes also exist in extremely small numbers, and it is widely held that she is the ancient progenitor of their race. As such, the Empire's landscape is divided amongst a number of territories governed by noble houses of the sacred bloodline, each seeing to their own laws and political landscape while being collectively governed by the Empress and her royal family, who is second only to the Goddess in authority."
Starlight blinked. "So it's called the Griffon Empire, but isn't even ruled by griffons?"
"By sphinxes," Gerardo corrected. "Which are half griffon and half pony, as far as our lore goes. Imagine a pegasus such as yourself..." He pointed a wing at Slipstream. "Yet with paws such as mine on all four legs, a slim tail also like mine, and an equine head save for sharper teeth and vertical pupils. Also, they tend to have alternate colorations on their bellies. And I personally find this rule appropriate, since the citizenry of the Empire is half griffons and half ponies. It is quite properly representative."
Slipstream looked politely wary, and Starlight had nothing else to say, so it fell to Dior to ask the next question. "Empress, you said? Could you talk about the central royal family?"
Gerardo bowed. "As you wish. Customarily, the Empire has always been ruled by an empress, passed from mother to daughter upon perishing or abdication, though as was stated the present empress is dead and her daughter the princess is not yet of age to take up the full duties of her position. The noble houses, by contrast, are all ruled by lords, and it is from them that the empresses obtain their husbands. Typically, houses endure as heads of their region until they no longer hold holy blood, and then retire to their manors and allow one of the princes to form a new governance over their territory."
At that, Slipstream looked confused. "Lineage can expire?"
"Indeed." Gerardo nodded sagely. "You see, one of the things that make sphinxes worthy of note is that griffons and ponies are incapable of having offspring together, yet sphinxes can do so with both. However, race then becomes variant. Thus, the only way to ensure a child is of the proper race is for both parents to be sphinxes as well. And as males regularly leave the imperial family to start houses, yet females never do... you can see how one of the two might be in short supply. In fact, the Goddess holds it as a heresy of the highest order for any of holy blood to inbreed, because if a house were to have a sphinx as a daughter... well, you can imagine what would happen."
Slipstream turned vaguely green. "I think I'll pass on that."
"A wise decision," Gerardo said. "Nevertheless, it still creates quite an interesting political landscape. Regional boundaries never expire, yet rulership transfers by law the moment a local lord's line has no more sphinxes. Obviously, this isn't always a concern for the lord themselves, as it will only become a problem after they've passed away, but for any descendants they choose to leave... Well, it is considerably nicer being a member of a household in power than it is living in a secluded manor and knowing your family's glory days are forever behind it. But any house who does produce a daughter suddenly becomes of great importance, since there is no law about betrothing them to a different house! And any house that manages to obtain a pureblooded marriage for their lord is virtually guaranteed another generation in power."
"Ironridge has its changing economy and fighting districts," Dior cut in with a smile. "The Griffon Empire has their noble families who play with eugenics. Varsidel has their war, Yakyakistan has their own transition issues if Herman was to be believed, and who can say what the Plains of Harmony suffer from? I wonder if there's anywhere in the world that doesn't have tension bubbling just beneath the surface."
"Riverfall possessed an extremely large quantity of single, unaffiliated mares," Gerardo remarked, lifting a talon. "Though to be fair, I believe Dior was talking about tension of a different sort."
Slipstream heavily blushed, and Dior fanned himself with a hoof. "I wouldn't have much experience with that. Carry on about the Empire, though. I assume you have some sort of background with all this political play?"
"Some sort, you could say," Gerardo acknowledged. "The best way to start this, I suppose, would be with a question: have any of you ever taken a close look at my talons?"
Slipstream hid her face, and Starlight and Dior both shook their heads. Was she supposed to have been staring at them, or something?
Gerardo held both up. "Notice how one is the usual yellow, yet the left has bands of charcoal gray? Imperceptible at a distance or in most lights, yet that is a marking distinctive of having holy blood somewhere in one's lineage. They only manifest on griffons, and merely have a chance of being passed down, so will ultimately leave a family forever and have little actual importance beyond a matter of personal pride or honor. However, yes, I am one of the final scions of a house that faded into obscurity generations before I was born, and was raised on tales of political skullduggery and intrigue."
Starlight could perfectly imagine Maple or Valey's voice remarking that that explained a lot.
"Now, however, I am a griffon adventurer extraordinaire," Gerardo continued, "having forsaken my life of passable luxury and extreme irrelevance for the high living of the open road. While there is no bad blood between the Empire and I, it simply wasn't enough. And so, I wander."
Starlight paced, half-listening as Gerardo continued to ramble. Eventually, Dior's words registered in her ears: "Gerardo, it looks like you're losing your audience."
"Hmm?" Gerardo perked up, and Starlight did too, instantly noticing that Slipstream had curled up with a wing over her face. The griffon blanched. "What's this? I was just in the middle of an exciting tale of treason, woe and-"
Slipstream rapidly blinked herself awake. "Oh, no, no, it was great." She shook her head, grinning and trying to look enthralled. "It's just... long past sundown, and stories about bloodlines are..." She yawned, folding her ears back and shivering. "What about stuff the normal citizens in the Griffon Empire do? All these fighting houses are going over my head."
Starlight nodded in agreement. Once Gerardo had launched into the history of noble feuds in the empire, she had lost the ability to remember any of their names or even how many there were. All she knew was that if she ever traveled there, it would be bad news to get involved with any sphinxes.
"Ah. Erm..." Gerardo drooped. "Well, I find that quite enamoring myself, but I suppose not all minds work alike. But yes, citizen life in the empire! The continent itself extends north from the mountainous wall separating these lands from the Plains of Harmony. There is a pass in those mountains located in the empire, and the grand capitol is positioned not far from it. As the capitol is the center of government and civilization, the population tends to grow sparser the further north one travels."
He drummed his talons on the ship's control board, thinking. "Now, the weather is often moderate, which we largely attribute to the goddess Garsheeva's power. But from the mountains pour a vast number of waterfalls, and as such the land is absolutely inundated with rivers suitable for travel and irrigation. With the exception of the mountain base, and the uncivilized northern reaches of the continent, the land is very flat, well-suited for agriculture and even rerouting the rivers wherever is desired. In fact, through mighty feats of engineering from the distant past, the rivers of the empire are tamed and organized to the point where one can travel by boat almost anywhere in the country, going downstream much of the way! This fast, efficient, low-cost long-distance transportation is foundational in many things, and behind Garsheeva is likely the reason why the empire has managed to remain cohesive for thousands of years. It's also part of why the empire was slower than the landlocked nations to embrace airship technology, and relied on contracted Varsidelian ships for quite some time. But, most relevant to your question, the citizenry are able to travel the continent swiftly and for free, and as such society and all its nuances have grown up around the concept of being highly mobile."
Slipstream yawned again.
"Well, what do you want me to say?" Gerardo squawked, starting to grow flustered.
"Nngh... I'm awake..." Slipstream fanned her mouth with a wing.
Gerardo blinked owlishly at her, then launched back into narration. "Seeing as the population can travel swiftly and easily, and more than half of them possess wings, economic activities were able to become more centralized, with regions dedicating themselves wholesale to things like production or entertainment as opposed to producing everything at once needed for a functioning..."
Slipstream had already fallen back asleep.
The floating lights dimmed as the glow softened from Dior's horn. "Gerardo," the dark stallion said, "we've been at this all day. Don't you think it's time to retire?"
Gerardo drooped. "I could... tell more tales of our escapades amid the desert sands of Varsidel, during the earlier days of the war..."
"Go get some sleep," Dior admonished. "I'll keep the ship on course tonight; I'm used to sleeping unusual shifts. I'll have quite a few days ahead of me to listen to your stories later, and right now I'm the only one who's listening."
"...Very well, then." Banishing his disappointment, Gerardo stood up, cracked his joints, and glanced at Slipstream. "I wonder if she would appreciate a better place to sleep than this..."
"If she wants to move, she'll move." Dior shrugged. "Good night, Gerardo."
There was a brief wind as the door to the deck rolled open, and then Gerardo was gone.
"You're still here," Dior mused to Starlight as he took the main pilot's chair, slightly adjusting the ship's course.
"I just woke up," Starlight answered. "Me and Maple are probably going to be nocturnal after this."
Dior shrugged apologetically. "Well, I hope I didn't send him away when you were enjoying anything. I assumed by your looks you were bored, though."
"I don't know what to do," Starlight sighed, hopping up into the vacated copilot's chair and looking out the front windshield. There were trees reaching up to the ship's height now, and they could hit one if they weren't careful.
Dior noticed, angling them slightly back upwards. "I'm having a hard time getting used to the idea of nothing that needs to be done, myself. You're the filly Arambai wrote about in his letters, right?"
Starlight swallowed. "What did he say about me?"
"That you'd had a hard past, and to go out of our ways to be nice to you and Maple beyond anything that was needed to get your help. I saw what you did in the skyport with Herman, though, and something tells me no amount of friendly smiles would convince most ponies to stick their necks out that far for us." He tilted his head. "I'd like to say you remind me of myself and Shinespark as foals, though I'd have to get to know you better for that to be a safe assumption. But you seem... driven."
"Yeah." Starlight nodded. "I guess."
"Anything I can help with?" Dior asked, glancing aside at her. "After all you've gone through on behalf of us..."
Starlight shrugged, rubbing her back against the chair and still holding the book to her chest. "No. I just want to get home to Riverfall." She stared out the windshield at the river below. "How come we're dropping so much? Are you trying to land in the river?"
"Eventually, yes," Dior replied. "Arambai brought the ship's levitation mechanism back online, but without any controls or auxiliary propulsion. He installed a propeller in the cargo bay, which can move us forward, but aside from that, we have no control over the ship. If we approach at a high altitude, we won't be able to get down without cutting the power completely and simply falling. So our goal is to stay close to the river, scout it once we arrive, and make our landing there. We could land now, as well, but the current is probably swift from draining the floodwaters and I don't want to risk scratching her hull so soon."
"Huh." That made sense. "Her? Does this ship have a name?"
"Not yet." Sighing, Dior looked at the dim, unmoving panel of instruments and the dead terminal screen to the side. "We were planning to name her on the maiden voyage, but that came and went without any of us present. And I couldn't do it by myself with Shinespark so close by, but not here for it. I also have no idea what she'll be called. We were thinking the Spirit of Sosa, but after the events in the skyport, that won't have the positive connotation it once did..."
Starlight sat, thinking. What would she call an airship? Something noble or inspiring... but she had no idea what that would be. And since she flooded Sosa and broke the ship with her magic surge, it didn't feel like her place to name it.
The door rolled open again. "Starlight?"
Her ears flicked at the sound of Maple's voice, and she whirled in her chair. The earth pony was there, leaning on Gerardo with a tired glaze in her pink eyes. "Maple!"
Gerardo swept his headcrest back. "I ran into her on the stairs to the deck, looking for you. It's fascinating, actually. Most take a week to recover from a bodily slash from my blade, yet somehow, she was walking on her own after a mere two days!"
"Barely," Maple panted, looking slightly wary at the proximity of Gerardo's sheathed sword.
Starlight was already trotting over to her side. "Were you done with White Chocolate?"
"I think she went to bed," Maple replied, leaning down and giving Starlight a nuzzle.
"Seems like everyone's doing that," Starlight muttered, letting Maple lean on her instead. "Are you tired, too? Because I just got up, but it's nice just lying there too."
"I'm very tired," Maple sighed, suddenly weakening and draping most of her weight on Starlight's back. "But not sleepy. How long until we reach Riverfall?"
Gerardo reclaimed the copilot's chair Starlight had abandoned, staring out through the windshield. "Truthfully, I'm not sure. Morning, perhaps? I'd give it several more hours, at least. We could expedite things in an emergency by landing in the river, though that could make for a rough ride."
"I got a book from the library," Starlight offered. "We could read it together, if we can find somewhere where no one's sleeping."
Maple hummed. "That sounds nice..."
Nodding farewell to Gerardo and Dior, Starlight carried Maple out onto the deck, telekinetically rolling the door closed behind her. "We could do it out here," she suggested, glancing over the cabin at the rising moon. The winds weren't too bad, and she could always run down and get her blanket from her saddlebags, which had proven itself against the mountain chill.
"That sounds nice too," Maple repeated, murmuring softly. "It might be a little cold, though..."
"That's okay." Starlight set her down, pressing the book into her forelimbs. "I'll go get something warm. I'll be right back!"
Starlight climbed back onto the airship's deck, letting her horn return to rest and carrying her blanket on her back. Maple was right where she had left her, waiting with a patient smile.
"Here," Starlight mumbled, shuffling and wrapping the blanket until they were sitting side-by-side, leaning together for support and warmth with the blanket beneath them, drawn up over their backs and around their sides until only their heads and forehooves were free.
"Hmmm..." Maple hummed, craning her head back and watching the sky. "What were you talking about on the bridge while I was with White Chocolate?"
Starlight exhaled into the cool night air. "First I talked with Shinespark. She's down in the observation room. Then I went up there, and Gerardo was rambling. I think he was telling everyone about how great the Griffon Empire is, but he made it sound pretty bad. He's not very good at describing stuff."
"He's not very good at a lot of things," Maple added wryly. "But at least he really tries to be nice, and that's better than some ponies. What did he say that made it sound bad?"
"Nothing interesting," Starlight huffed. "I mean what he said didn't make it sound interesting. Just a lot of stuff about lords and empresses and houses and betrothals and stuff. Betrothals are like marriages you have to do, right?"
Maple paused. "We don't have them in Riverfall, but I think so. That's what I've read about in books, at least."
"Yeah." Starlight let her head droop. "But that's all he talked about. A few important ponies with a bunch of plans and drama and he couldn't even think of what to say about normal life for everyone else without putting Slipstream to sleep. But it's not like we were going there, anyway."
Maple snorted. "Plans and drama and important ponies? Where have I heard that before...?" She held a frown for two seconds before cracking into a faint smile, then giggling. "Ohhh... I'm making jokes about Ironridge now. I wish I understood how I worked, sometimes..."
Starlight pressed against her. She didn't think she could put her picture of Maple into words, but at least knew what she wanted, and how to make her happy. Maple reciprocated, nuzzling the top of Starlight's head.
"Horn still feeling all right?" she asked, whispering.
"Yeah." Starlight didn't move, or look up. "But the moon's risen high enough that I can read from it, so we don't need my horn anyway."
"It's a pretty moon," Maple said. "And the stars, too. I was just looking at them while you were gone. In Riverfall, the trees get in the way of the sky, so you have to go somewhere special if you want to see them like this. And in Ironridge, we never had time to appreciate them, and I think it was raining anyway. Here, though, I can see the stars from horizon to horizon, and there's no light coming from anywhere to wash them out. It's... beautiful. Could you see the moon easily in Equestria?"
Starlight nodded, lifting her head and looking along with her. The stars burned with extra intensity, not a cloud on the horizon to cover them, in stark contrast with the weather they had endured in Ironridge. The moon itself was waxing, less than a week off from being full. The last full moon, she remembered, had been in the mountains, when she wore a charcoal cutie mark and was all on her own. Had it been that long? Nearly a week of Ironridge, and a week of Riverfall, and a week of being sick in the cave, and... Well, maybe it was a little further off from full. But her ears still folded at the sight, the memories and the realization of just how recently her distant past was.
"I liked looking at the moon," she whispered. "We had an old story Sunburst's parents told him that we'd scare each other with, about how there was a pony on the moon who was evil and would eat us if we were bad. The Mare in the Moon. If you look right when the moon is full, the dark patches look kind of like a mare. After Sunburst left, I tried not to think about things that would get me a cutie mark... but mostly about things we did together that hurt to remember, I guess. But I did wonder what it would be like to be all alone on the moon for a thousand years."
"Hmm." Maple nudged her, letting her go on.
"I felt... I don't know. Like I knew how they'd feel," Starlight admitted. "Sometimes I daydreamed about them being my friend, and just imagined what they'd be like. And I didn't imagine them as evil then. I didn't have anything to do back then besides imagine things."
Maple gently shifted her haunches. "Did you wish for a lot? That things could be better?"
"Yeah." Starlight hung her head. "I hated making myself miserable. But I didn't know what way to go." She sighed, and added, "I still don't. But I'll stay here in Riverfall with you while I figure that out."
"You know that's what cutie marks are, right?" Maple murmured back. "Granted wishes? When a pony wants something very much, enough to dedicate their life to achieving it, sometimes the world will give them the power to make that wish come true... a cutie mark. I bet there have been a lot of ponies who had something they needed to do, without enjoying their life, or especially because they weren't, who still got marks."
"...Great." Starlight drooped. "So everything I put myself through didn't even do anything, and it was just luck that I'm still blank. What if I wished I could change the past?"
Maple hesitated. "I'm not sure I've ever heard of a cutie mark that can do that..."
"Whatever," Starlight grumbled, curling closer to Maple. "All that already happened."
"Mmm..." Maple wrapped a foreleg around her, lifting her slightly in a hug. "Well, you're still a filly, and I'm hardly old either. We've got our whole lives ahead of us for things to go better, don't we?"
"Yeah," Starlight agreed, neither protesting nor grumbling. "Living... growing up... getting old in Riverfall..." She paused, letting the thought swirl around in her head. She was... what, eight or ten? She probably had another seventy years ahead of her. But already, she had crossed an uncrossable mountain range, and almost died to save a city of hundreds of thousands from legendary monsters. Was it really reasonable to expect that she could live the rest of her life in peace in one place after that?
She frowned. "You know we're not going to stay there forever, right?"
Maple tilted her head. "Huh?"
"In Riverfall," Starlight clarified. "In Ironridge, the moment you started feeling good about us, like we were safe, once we had met Shinespark in the warehouse, you wanted to run off and help ponies like White Chocolate and Valey. You did it in Riverfall, too. You once said me arriving was something you really needed, right? Like you were trying to convince yourself that life could give you good things, and me showing up was that? Just a few days later, you talked Arambai into letting us go to Ironridge." She pulled back just far enough to look Maple in the eye. "I think you like doing things. Feeling good makes you restless, or ambitious. So once we've gotten over Ironridge and everything that happened in it... I think you're going to want to do something else. And I'm going with you."
"I-I don't!" Maple stammered, looking like Starlight had just accused her of robbery. "Starlight, I..."
Starlight shook her head, then hugged back against Maple. "I'm saying I'll stick with you, not that I blame you for anything. Don't worry."
Now it was Maple's turn to wilt. "No, you're right. I've been..." She sharply sighed. "I know it's my fault that Ironridge ended up the way it did. I was the one who wanted to push our luck after we found the warehouse, and again after we helped White Chocolate. It was me who-"
"Maple..." Starlight warily cut her off. "We would have frozen to death if we hadn't been at the right place at the right time to stop the storm. Herman might have flooded the whole Earth District, and Valey and Fire would have died in that trapped room. Isn't what happened good?"
"I guess..." Maple mumbled. "It doesn't feel that way, though. Not when I think about you, or any of the ponies who got hurt..."
"Weren't you just telling me about how you were scared of laying down and not doing anything?" Starlight asked. "I told you, I'm coming too if you want to do stuff. I'm just saying I bet we'll leave Riverfall again."
Maple sighed, resting her chin back atop Starlight's head. "I guess that's true, isn't it? I'd like so much to give both of us happy lives, though. If you could have anything in life, what do you want?"
"To protect you," Starlight instantly replied.
"That can't be healthy," Maple murmured after a while. "I love you too, but you should have some wants and goals of your own."
Starlight grimaced. This was exactly what she had been thinking about earlier, wasn't it? "Yeah," she admitted, slumping. "I just don't have any yet. Maybe what I want is to find something to do with myself."
She didn't add what was in the back of her head: the audio chip from Fire containing a full explanation of Yakyakistan's actions. Fire had repeatedly praised her and called her special, promising that her role in world events wasn't over. If Starlight was honest with herself, she really did want to be satisfied with Riverfall, but she couldn't shake that prophecy or the thought that Riverfall wouldn't be enough.
"Well..." Maple nuzzled her again. "If I do get too ambitious, you and my friends can remind me to be happy with what I've done. If I really did save all of us and Ironridge by pushing us to go to Copsewood and help Valey, that should be enough making a difference for a lifetime. But for now, I don't think I have to worry about feeling that way. I'm just glad I have you, glad to be alive, and want so badly to go home..."
"And besides, it's not like there's anywhere we'd want to go," Starlight added with a shrug. "Yakyakistan? I never want to see snow again as long as I live. Varsidel has a war, and Gerardo didn't make the Griffon Empire sound nice. And I'm not ready to go back to Equestria."
"Hmmmm..." Maple shivered, the night breeze blowing around their blanket. "That's okay. But if we decide to do something like this ever again, I promise... and please hold me to this... that we'll think it over. No more deciding to travel somewhere hours before we have to leave. I bet if we do our research and stay safe rather than running straight into things, we'd have a much better time."
"Promise," Starlight agreed.
Maple thought for a moment. "You know where one place we could go is?"
"Where?"
"The mountains." Maple turned her head, looking south at the gigantic mountain wall causing the horizon to loom over their heads, even miles away. "Ten years ago, right after we realized we couldn't go to Ironridge, Amber and Willow and myself took the boat we were building and sailed up the side stream you floated down on, all the way to the big waterfall at the base of the mountains. It was like a miniature adventure that we could have, one that was safe even though the bigger things were out of reach. And it was wonderful. That trip was the only time I've ever seen the stars as perfectly as I do now, and it felt like... a suitable closing to that part of my life. But we could go back there, once again. The three of us, and you, and maybe Valey or some others too. To say... we survived Ironridge again."
Starlight's memories of the river beyond the waterfall were hazy at best, but she nodded. That sounded like a good idea.
"Gerardo left his boat with Amber, didn't he?" Maple eventually asked. "We have our old one too, somewhere, but it was kind of amateur. But if she kept that one safe from the flood..."
"Mmmm," Starlight mumbled, having nothing else to say.
Neither did Maple. Apparently, she had forgotten about the book, and Starlight wasn't sure she needed to read right then, anyway.
"What did you and White Chocolate talk about?" she finally said, in the name of restarting the conversation.
Maple squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh... this and that. I might have... She talked about her foal in a way that stressed me out and made my brain freeze, and I think it's rejecting that conversation right now." She heaved a bitter sigh. "I had hoped I was past all that, with Aspen. I thought getting you would be..." A tear trickled out. "Sorry. I'm not the world's most stable mare, am I?"
Starlight wished she had a better baseline to compare with, but in reality, the number of ponies she had ever known well sat firmly at two, with Maple being the second. So she nodded, sensing agreement and sympathy were what was called for. "Need to talk about it?"
"The opposite, I think," Maple half-chuckled. "Or... something. I don't know what I need. If I did, maybe I'd have found it by now. But you certainly don't need to hear about the details until you're at least a few years older."
Starlight sighed. Soon enough, she could ask Amber or Willow, and if they agreed, she'd drop it. In the meantime, she huddled closer to Maple, fixing the blanket around her lilac shoulders as the moon rose higher in the sky.
For a long period of silence, Maple and Starlight sat together after the conversation ended, letting the wind blow their manes and watching the shattered landscape go by. It was almost as peaceful as sleeping, but without the eventfulness of dreams. As much resting as Starlight had just done, she felt no urges to get up or be elsewhere.
Eventually, when the moon was nearly a third of the way through the sky, her ears pricked. It sounded like someone was descending the nearby stairs belowdecks... but the door remained closed, and no one had opened it. She frowned, reaching out with her aura and sliding it open. "Hello?"
Valey's head poked above the floor, watching them from a distance. "Huh," she said. "Thought you guys had gone to sleep, or something."
"Were you watching us?" Maple asked, craning her neck and suddenly very much not asleep.
"Maybe..." Valey glanced guiltily away. "Is that a problem? Everyone else went to bed already, so it's not like I could pester them for fun instead."
"Well, come over here so I don't feel like I have to raise my voice to talk to you," Maple sighed. "What do you...? I mean... is there anything I can help you with?"
"Meh." Valey limped closer, still favoring the hoof she had burned fighting mercenaries in the Flame District. "I beat up Herman, remember? I'm doing awesome."
Starlight looked carefully at her, and decided she didn't feel quite as awesome as she said she did.
"Everyone else on this ship, though," Valey chuckled. "If what I've been hearing is correct... Seriously, I finally put Ironridge behind me, and do it by running off with a party that could make a good therapist megarich. Like, you guys need to sort yourselves out."
Maple frowned. "Is there something you want to say?"
"Nah." Valey leaned against the nearby railing, folding her forehooves and resting her chin atop those, staring off. "I'm just bored. And, uhh... other stuff."
"Valey, are you worried about us?" Maple's tone softened. "We're making it. It's just a little more 'til Riverfall. I can wait that long."
Valey wiped her brow with her good wing, throwing a grin over her shoulder and then going back to brooding on the failing. "That's cool. I was kinda spooked I'd get drafted as group therapist again. Only so much of that I can take, you know? And probably only so much others can take of my kind of therapy. I'm pretty sure last time I just got Sparky off her butt by making her mad."
Maple looked up. "Are you talking about after the dam broke?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Hmmm." Sighing, Maple lowered her head. "Thank you for saving me, after that. It's something I was trying not to remember, but..."
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "Oh, right, the rising river! Yeah, that was spooky. Pretty sure we both nearly croaked. Good thing I'm basically invincible, though."
Maple shivered, and didn't reply as Starlight looked at her with concern.
"Also, uhh..." Valey glanced away, as if she didn't want to continue talking. "About what you were saying earlier, with running into trouble whenever you're not feeling sad and regretting it later? I don't regret getting saved. Seriously, I'm not one hundred percent cool with certain aspects of what I am, and I'm ninety percent sure we've had this exact conversation before, but it means a lot to me. So... I appreciate it, for what my appreciation is worth."
"...Hm." Maple didn't look up, but she did start to smile. "Thanks."
Starlight, though, narrowed her brows. "About what we said earlier? That must have been hours ago. How long have you been watching us?"
Valey shrugged. "Since you two and that pregnant mare stomped past my room on your way downstairs. I was like, 'Oh no, it's night, gotta go back to bed so I don't turn nocturnal,' but already at max on naps and just figured I'd go see what all the fuss was about."
When Maple frowned too, Valey quickly added, "Hey, sorry if you like privacy, but remember, you knew exactly what kinds of minor mischief I amuse myself with when you insisted on being my friends back in the Earth District. You knew what you were getting into. And don't worry, I won't try to ruin any reputations just because I can. I just like knowing everything that's going on."
"...I guess I did," Maple sighed, relenting. "So you were listening to everything me and her said?"
"I considered following Starlight, but that stupid Jellyjugs was already following her, and I didn't want to deal with that," Valey admitted. "So yeah, I heard everything."
"I knew she wasn't in that chair by accident," Starlight grumbled.
"Really...?" Maple bit her lip. "Well... I don't know if I can ask you a question about that, but... what did you think of White Chocolate?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Do you really wanna know? It'll probably make you feel awkward."
Maple groaned. "If you're going to tell me you have a crush on-"
"Oh, no way!" Valey stood up and stepped back, holding her forehooves out protectively. "I know trouble when I see it, and that is such a big basket of nope looks don't even start to matter. I was going to say she totally has a crush on you."
Maple froze, going completely blank. "What?" Starlight asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes.
Valey licked her shoulder, smoothing a ruffled clump of fur. "I told you it would be weird."
"But... she..." Maple's pupils were tiny, her muscles rigid. Starlight worried that she was about to hyperventilate, until she finally relaxed. "Whooo," she sighed. "Okay. You're right, I wasn't prepared for that. I'm fine now. What makes you say that?"
"You saw how she was acting, right?" Valey started to pace in tight circles, still favoring her hoof. "When she was talking about her foal and all that stuff that set you off. I haven't actually met her before this and have no clue what you two have done or talked about together or how well you know each other, but that was some grade-A talking about being vulnerable to make someone else with a predisposition for it feel protective. Pretty sure she was fishing for some hugs and reassurance, and more because she wanted it than needed it. Poor her, since it totally backfired. But that's my opinion. Maybe she's just really needy and completely oblivious, or something."
Maple's face briefly washed with pain. "Well, that's going to make talking with her awkward," she finally sighed after regaining her composure. "I don't really know enough to say you're wrong. You're sure she isn't just lonely and needs a friend?"
"Oh, she's totally that too." Valey leaned back against the railing, this time resting casually. "She's probably confused herself, I bet. But still, whatever. Keep on doing your thing. Whatever she needs, she needs something. And I'll be lurking in the background just in case she goes on too much about things that are vaguely related to naughty stuff and you need someone to kill the mood and bail you out."
"This is weird," Maple sighed. "Why does everything make no sense all of a sudden? I miss Riverfall..."
"Meh. Making sense is for chumps." Valey shrugged, then resumed pacing. "But hey, you did ask, and I told you it would be weird."
"Hmmmmff..." Maple exhaled through her nose, laying down and closing her eyes. "I don't care if you're right or not. I just want to get back home. Willow and Amber can help me sort things out..."
Valey strolled over beside her. "Probably do the whole hug-hug-it's-alright thing that seems to be all the rage these days. My own recent comments aside, you have to be the most touchy-feely group of platonic friends I've ever seen."
Starlight glanced suspiciously at her. "You're talking about hugs a lot..." she said slowly. "Are you going to ask if there's room under this blanket?"
"Har har," Valey scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Nah. I told you, being a therapist isn't my thing. Unless you're specifically asking me to, in which case I've been dragged into this before..."
Maple chuckled under her breath. "It sounds like you're asking us to ask you to. I'm sure you can be lonely too, and since you'd listen to anything we talk about anyway..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Are you asking me to ask that?"
"I'm inviting you to," Maple said softly. "I don't know what you were up to while I was paralyzed, after Gerardo left me in the ship. But I do remember what you told me while we were in the eastern valley, that time when you stopped to rest. So I know you didn't have it easy either."
Briefly, Valey looked like she had been hit in the face with a frying pan, then laughed nervously. "Heh heh... Oh, that? Yeah, first off, I got over that when I dunked Herman. A-okay on that front, Ironflanks. And if I did want to talk about it, it would be... I dunno. Probably later. Alone. But seriously, I feel great. I'm past that."
Starlight watched her eyes, and there was a clear indication that she did want to talk about things later. "Alone?" she asked with loaded words. "Weren't you just bragging about spying on us?"
"Hey..." Valey looked away, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm bad at this, okay? Not a model citizen, here. I never promised I wouldn't be a hypocrite back when you convinced me to defect."
"You could try," Maple gently offered.
Valey rolled her eyes, spinning in a circle. "Yeah, right now trying for me amounts to actually being here having a conversation instead of lurking all the time. So are you going to ask me to join you under that cuddly little blanket, or what?"
Starlight lit her horn, raising the corner of the blanket on Maple's side. She might have been used to it, but this was Maple's problem to deal with.
"We're both wusses," Valey muttered, shuffling around until she was laying with all four legs tucked beneath her, only an inch separating her from Maple.
"Whatever you say," Maple murmured, choosing not to close the distance herself and instead wrapping a foreleg around Starlight as the blanket fixed itself where it had opened. "But right now, I'm the coziest wuss in the world."
The moon shone perfectly overhead, marking halfway through the night. Any ponies that stood beneath it would have cast no visible shadow, but the forest was empty, populated only by dark windows and the distant rush of an overfilled waterfall. Cylindrical tower-houses stood sporadically like massive stumps, lines of colored pendants strung between them that all looked blue in what light filtered down through the Riverfall canopy.
On the northern edge of town, the ornate concrete deck that formed the riverbank was dry, though still littered with refuse from the river's initial overflow. The water still ran dangerously high and fast, kept from flooding even harder by the town's waterfall acting as an outlet. Below that, the river properly burst its banks, submerging the remains of a destroyed boat crane and backing up into the north-flowing tributary in a small lake before continuing its rush eastward. But the waterfall basin itself was placid, and was then being used as the calmest spot in the township's waters as the mooring place of an under-repairs boat.
"Pteh!" Amber spat out a wrench, dangling by one hind leg from the side of the boat after tightening a rivet for a replaced hull panel that had been leaking. She pushed up her goggles with a hoof, flinging her sopping mane away from her eyes and swinging herself back onto the deck. The back half of her body was covered in grease, oil and polish stains, the front had all of the above and was drenched, and it was the middle of the night, but still, she grinned.
Rolling over, she glanced down an open hatch to the bilgewater, but the only fresh addition seemed to be runoff from her own fur. She primed her ears, but nothing reached them beyond the roar of the waterfall. The ship's cabin was completely gone; the roof had been destroyed and she opted to scrap it entirely and rebuild from scratch, but aside from the questionably-intact propulsion and power systems, it was at least river-worthy.
Caringly, she rubbed a dirty hoof along the freshly-cleaned metal, then got to her hooves with an overdramatic show of weariness. She fixed her mane, shook, fixed her mane again, and kicked all the hatches she had opened closed before leaping to the stairs to the top of the waterfall. The boat bobbed and rocked behind her, but it was well-anchored and she had taken measures to ensure Hemlock wouldn't mess it up. For a second, she admired it, gave a pleased snort, and then climbed to the top.
For a moment, Amber paused, staring up the distant length of the river running alongside town. It felt like mere hours ago she had walked a silent vigil through the rain to bid her best friend goodbye, even though plenty had actually happened. Arambai informing them that Ironridge was in trouble and leaving, most of all...
"Finally going to bed, Amber?"
Amber blinked, spinning about. A tall mare stood nearby, wearing a hooded purple full-body cloak that made her blend perfectly in with the night. "Matryona?"
"Me." Matryona looked out with orange eyes from beneath her hood, her thin, square muzzle frowning in concern. "It's halfway through the night. I was worried you would keep working until dawn."
"Oh, I'm not going to bed." Amber shook her head, accidentally slapping herself again with her mane. "I'd just sleep on the boat."
Matryona kept watching, standing perfectly still. "I know you're worried for your friends in Ironridge, but you should take care of yourself, too. I'm naturally up in the evenings, but the lines around your eyes say you're not."
"You can see those through how wet I am?" Amber grinned, shaking off more moisture. "I'm actually on it, though. I think she's ready to get us to Ironridge to bail out Maple and Arambai if they need it, but we'll have to portage her the hard way, and no one's going to be up at this hour to help. So I thought I'd stock her up with whatever we'll need, then wash up so Willow doesn't faint if I try to crash at her place, and then take a nap. See? I'm responsible."
"I can see why she would do that," Matryona remarked.
"Heh heh..." Amber glanced down, rubbing the side of a hoof against her grease-stained side and watching as it came up black. "If you don't think getting dirty is fun, you've never been covered head to tail in tree sap and watched someone else deal with getting it off. But all this should come off with water. I think."
Matryona turned away. "I hope you know what you are doing. Ironridge is a tense city. I was sent here specifically to stay safe. Going in alone when we've seen that there was a flood is asking for trouble."
"Is it?" Amber asked, walking west along the riverbank and periodically fussing with her mane. "It's been a day or two, and probably another by the time I get there. I'm just thinking if there was a flood, the ferry probably got destroyed. Maple and Starlight could be hiding somewhere stuck in the city with no way to get back. All I'm going to do is take this and see if I can use it to pick them up. Besides, I didn't fix this thing up this fast for nothing."
Matryona wasn't listening. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the far riverbend, where a dark outline was edging into view in the moonlight.
Amber saw it too, squinting and shading her eyes with a hoof. "Wait a second, is that...?"
"This is it," Maple breathed as Shinespark's ship floated around a corner. "I remember this. The water is higher, but this was where the dock we left on was. I remember looking back on it as we were leaving... One more turn and we'll be able to see the city."
"Nyeh..." Valey had extracted herself from the blanket, never properly melting into the cuddle. "That's cool. This boat have an anchor, or something?"
Starlight stood up too. "It's still midnight," she announced. "Won't everyone be in bed? This is a weird time to arrive."
The boat had touched down in the river shortly before, and the levitation engine was switched off. Aside from manual steering, all systems were offline, and Gerardo had returned to the bridge with Dior. White Chocolate was still asleep, Shinespark was still elsewhere, and Jamjars hadn't shown her face since Starlight left her snoring in the library. But Starlight, Maple and Valey were all wide awake, ready and watching as they rounded the last bend.
Gerardo suddenly flapped past, streaking for the cargo bay. "Anchor!" he announced as he flew.
Valey shrugged. "That answers that, I guess. So, like... are we just going to spend the rest of the night here and wait for the town to wake up, or what?"
"I don't know..." Maple shook her head. "I was hoping to visit my friend Willow's house. She'll probably get up for us, though maybe go back to sleep after she knows we're okay. I just..." She exhaled a lengthy breath. "I just want to see my friends, and maybe I'll try going to bed myself. We have to fix our sleep schedules somehow."
There was a rattle and deep clunk from somewhere below, and Starlight pitched forward as the ship suddenly fought against the swift current. Over several seconds, it dragged to a halt, eventually coming to a complete rest despite the force of the over-filled river.
Valey glanced over the edge, Maple and Starlight walking up together beside her. "That looks sort of like it's supposed to be a riverbank. I guess the flooding here isn't that bad?"
"Maple..." Starlight nudged the mare. "Are those ponies coming?" She lit her horn, shining it far brighter than she usually did in a teal floodlight.
All three of them looked. In the distance was a taller pony obscured by a cloak, but racing forward with a flapping mane and eager, hopeful grin on her face was a a mare Starlight had last seen forever ago.
"Amber!" Maple leaned so far over the railing to wave, Starlight had to stop her from falling off. The shout was returned, and Maple sighed fondly. "It feels like we're finally home again..."
With an explosive kick, Amber leapt clear from the riverbank to the side of the ship, struggling and climbing up the last bit of hull when her jump fell short. She tackled Maple to the ground with a giant hug, spraying water everywhere and grinning like a lunatic.
"You're back!" she giggled, squeezing tightly with her forelegs. "After Arambai said Ironridge decided to choose the last week to explode, me and Willow have been worried to death about you! Sorry I'm kind of gross right now; I've been up around the clock fixing Gerardo's boat so I could come look for you but you're back!"
"Ah..." Maple struggled limply. "Amber, too tight...!"
"Heh..." Amber stepped back, scratching her neck with an oily hoof, covered in water and black stains. "Glad to see you didn't get caught up in whatever was going on, though. And Starlight, you're fine too! And, uhhh..."
Her mouth went slack for several seconds as she stared at Valey. "Wow. You're exotic," she finally managed. "What are you? Some kind of pegasus?"
Valey kept a straight face, raising an eyebrow back at Amber. "She's a new friend," Maple started to explain, though she stopped when she realized Amber wasn't listening.
Valey arched her eyebrow higher. "Those are some wandery eyes you've got there."
Valey waggled her brow, emphasizing that it was as high as it could go.
Amber pursed her lips in realization, before forcing her face into a ridiculous mask of stoicism and raising an eyebrow of her own.
Valey grinned slyly. Amber grinned back.
Maple held her head in her hooves. "This isn't how I imagined my homecoming would go..."
"Oh. Whoops!" Valey wiped her expression back to normal, turning and leaning on the railing. "Yeah, sorry to hog your reunion, Ironflanks. But hey, we should hang out later," she added to Amber.
"Ironflanks?" Amber glanced curiously from Valey to Maple. "Is she talking about you? How'd you get that nickname?"
"She is, and it's the worst nickname ever," Maple moaned, still cringing. "I don't even remember where it came from..."
"Eh. Neither do I." Valey shrugged. "So... what do we do now?"
Starlight glanced at her. "You can do whatever you want. Maple's been waiting forever to see her friends, though, so we're probably going to do that."
"Hey, yeah," Amber added, "we could go crash Willow's place! I'm sure she wouldn't mind being woken up for this! Maybe not for a full celebration, but that can wait for the morning. Or afternoon, at this rate. What are you girls doing up so late? Just wanted to be up to see me?" She winked. "This is a beautiful boat, by the way. I thought they didn't have any anymore in Ironridge!"
Maple let out a long, wistful sigh, looking regretfully at Amber. "It's a long story. But Amber, we did get caught up in everything that happened. All three of us here almost died multiple times, I at least am not okay, and before we do any sort of celebrating, I need... a lot. Right now, I feel more strained than I have in over a year."
The euphoria visibly drained from Amber's face, leaving her jaw hanging yet again. "Maple, what happened? How can I-"
She never got a chance to finish. The stern door to the cargo hold blew open, and Gerardo skidded out, posing dramatically. "Ahh, Riverfall at last! I, Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, have returned!"
"Hey, Buddy." Amber winked halfheartedly at him. "I missed you too. But right now Maple is-"
Gerardo interrupted yet again. "Miss Amber!" He strode forward, extending a balled-up talon for a hoofbump. "It feels like we parted ways just yesterday. I must admit, I'm looking forward to regaling you with tales of what happened. Ironridge was every bit the adventure I expected, with dramatic combat and political showdowns and-"
He, too, was interrupted as a tiny magical crystal encased his beak. "Maple. And. Amber. Were. Talking," Starlight growled.
Valey stepped back, having reached out her wing to silence the griffon on her own. "Yeah, says the griffon who never actually fought anyone. Tell me how romantic Ironridge is when it comes this close to killing you, and until then, let the ladies talk."
Maple flashed her a grateful smile, but Amber just looked confused. "Wait, hold on, what's happening?"
"We... It was..." Maple shuddered, glancing hopefully to Starlight and Valey. Valey nodded, stepping up.
"The short version is," Valey said, "Ironridge is a dumpster fire and always has been, and apparently Birdo here was hauling around some crates that were the trigger for a war that blew up half the city's economy and everything it had to export with. These two got sucked in half because of bad luck and half because they kept hanging around important folks like Birdo here and me. Everyone's alive now, if a little injured." She scratched at the bandages around the wing she re-injured against Herman. "We've also got this snazzy broken airship that also floats, a hoofful of other dudes who tagged along, and maybe some other stuff. I don't remember."
Amber looked speechless.
"That's pretty much what happened," Maple sighed. "I'm... I don't know. I think I'll be alright. I'm already better than I was; it took us almost a day to get here after we left. What I need is to talk with you, talk with Willow, tell you everything that happened, and then wake up in my own bed and cook breakfast and let it be in the past and start feeling normal again. I hope."
"Also, all of us got up right when the sun was setting," Starlight added. "Everything happened at night in Ironridge. So we're not sleepy."
"I sure am tired, though," Maple countered. "Which isn't the same as being sleepy, but... Hmmmff. I got to find out what Gerardo's strength-sapping sword feels like. It's horrible, and I can still barely stand on my own."
Amber blinked several times. "I, uhh..." She glanced over the railing. "Well... I do need to get cleaned up. Does this boat have a place for you girls to stay, or do you want to go to Willow's tonight, or in the morning? Or you could stay here, or I could walk you back to your old house... I kept it just the way you left it, so all your old stuff should still be there."
"Anything is fine," Maple murmured. "I'm just glad to see you again. I've been up for a while, so maybe I can get some sleep. I'd love to see Willow too, but now that I'm here, I can wait."
"...Right." Amber moved back toward the railing, lifting a hoof and preparing to jump to shore. "Well, I'm actually tired right now, so if you've got a place to be here and don't mind, let's leave stuff 'til morning. I'm gonna go wash up, and then maybe I'll be back and sleep next to your bed for old times' sake, just in case. See you soon, though. Bye!"
With a leap and a thud and the pounding of hooves against concrete, she was gone.
"Well, Starlight?" Maple asked, glancing back at the filly. "Want to see if we can get some sleep? I don't know about you, but I feel better already..."
Starlight finally released her hold on Gerardo's beak, leaving the griffon sputtering. "Okay," she decided. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.
"Meh..." Valey yawned, stretching. "If I wasn't beat up, I'd go for a recon flight to check this place out. New places are spooky. But that's probably off the table, so eh..." She started heading for the railing, preparing to jump off herself. "I need to find someone whose room I can nap in without feeling awkward about making them feel awkward. Maybe I'll just go lurking around the old-fashioned way. See ya."
Maple turned to the stairs belowdeck, standing unsteadily with Starlight at her side. Gerardo loudly chimed in, "I suppose I'll do some scouting of my own, then! Do alert me if anything goes catastrophically wrong!"
"Noted," Starlight yawned.
Suddenly, with an almost-inaudible ruffle of feathers, a dark form descended onto the deck. There was a flash of white as Matryona finished tucking her wings back beneath her cloak. "Hello," she said. "I see you're back from Ironridge."
Maple frowned in confusion. "Have we met?"
Gerardo proudly stepped forward, bowing with a wing to his chest. "This is Matryona," he introduced, "Shinespark's mother. I believe I recall mention of her being sent to Riverfall to lie low while the events with the dam played out."
"Sorry if I've met you and don't remember." Maple shook her head, then nodded in respect.
"Can you tell me the state of things there?" Matryona asked. "I've heard nothing since I left half a week ago, aside from seeing the flood here. Is Sosa...?"
Gerardo hung his head. "Sosa has been obliterated, and the skyport ruined as well in the fighting that ensued. Ambassador Herman was the culprit, and is dead. I know not the state of the Defense Force, but Arambai stayed behind to administer the city's recovery. Shinespark and Dior are both with us, while Gunga, Gigavolt and Grenada all perished."
Matryona's face was unreadable behind the shadow of her hood. "Shinespark and Dior are here, though?"
"Indeed." Gerardo nodded. "Dior, I recently relieved of a shift piloting this craft, and he should be slumbering below. He seems a jolly fellow. Shinespark, regrettably, went below when we first embarked and I haven't seen a hair of her since. She hasn't been taking recent events very well."
"Thank you," Matryona said in her whisperlike voice, turning and gliding to the stairs so smoothly she could have actually been flying.
"She's certainly the quiet type," Gerardo remarked once she was out of sight.
"Or, you might be the loud type," Maple suggested, trying to hide the latent exasperation in her voice.
Gerardo winked. "Well, I have been known to be central to the atmosphere of many a celebration! Regardless, I think I'll be taking my leave as well. Good night, or what remains of it! Ho ho!"
He flapped away, leaving Maple and Starlight alone on the shipdeck. A distant night breeze brushed the treetops far above, but the air around the boat was still, the floor bobbing gently as the ship rocked against the current. Across the riverbank, Riverfall lay, dark and quiet. Maple yawned.
"Bed?" she suggested, feeling like she might be ready after all.
"Bed," Starlight agreed, and together they stumbled towards the stairs.
Valey slithered through the darkness, using her shadow sneaking to travel quickly and seamlessly across town. She had a destination in mind, or rather a target, following the fresh scent of the only mare out that night who happened to be covered in strongly-smelling grease and oil. Amber was fast, though, and she didn't think she was catching up.
It didn't help that the roadways were made of some kind of weird enchanted glass that was filled with rocks. She knew how to parse the strange, altered vision that came with sneaking, but having rocks in the way when swimming along the ground behind the glass made it a hundred times worse. The traction enchantment that was ostensibly so ponies wouldn't slip in the rain didn't seem to know what to do when she was beneath the glass, and behaved erratically, leading to her sometimes swimming freely and other times feeling like she was bathing in syrup. Eventually, she just climbed out and continued on hoof, braving her limp and the lower speed so she wouldn't worry about getting stuck.
"Meh. Mweh. Nyeh..." Bored, she tried to kick at an imaginary pebble as she walked, but not only were the streets meticulously clean, the enchantment grabbed her hoof and all the momentum that went into the swing halted, sending a painful jolt into her shoulder. "Ow! Bananas!" Frustrated, she kicked at the ground, stomping, only to get caught again and have her muzzle slammed against the glass. "Dumb road..." She rubbed at her nose, not bothering to get up, wondering if it had been visibly compacted.
"Were you following me?" Amber's amused voice asked from above her.
Valey looked up, seeing the mare standing over her, having appeared from nowhere. She was still wet, this time from tip to tail and smelling of flowery soap rather than mechanical things, with her coat covered in the spiky, fuzzy look of being toweled halfway and then left to dry on its own. Her mane still trailed droplets, most of which landed on Valey's forehead.
"Oh..." Amber slowly noticed, then jumped back, having no trouble whatsoever with the glass. "Sorry!"
"This road is stupid," Valey muttered, ignoring the question.
"See if you still say that when it saves you from falling on your butt while it's raining," Amber replied. "What are you doing here, though?"
Valey glanced at her without lifting her head from the ground. "Here, Riverfall, or here following you?"
Amber shuffled, suddenly awkward. "Well, I meant following me, but I guess if the other is something you need to say..."
"Meh." Valey rolled to her hooves. "Because I'm bored, have nothing better to do, and felt like doing what I wanted. Besides, I figured I'd see what this place looks like, and decided you knew your way around."
"Oh..." Amber deflated in relief. "So it's not about... I mean, I was kind of staring at you earlier, and..."
"Oh yeah you were," Valey agreed, breaking into a grin. "Never seen a bat before?"
Amber flushed, but the question gave her an out. "I hadn't seen a griffon before Gerardo, but I had at least heard of them. Are you...? Can you fly?"
"With these?" Valey stretched her good wing. "When they're not busted up, yeah. You like them?"
Amber stepped back, sensing a loaded question. "When you say 'like'..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Anything you don't like about them?"
Amber tilted her head. "Huh?"
"As in..." Valey flashed her teeth. "Oh, that's stupidly hot but it's also the baddest of bad news and I'm sure there's something unspeakably terrible about anything that could possibly look like that?"
"Um... what?" Amber looked confused. "Where are you coming from with this? Is this a cultural thing I'm not aware of? When we were raising our eyebrows and grinning, usually that means-"
"Nahhh." Valey gave a disarming grin. "Just means you've been living in a much tinier world than I'm from. Or maybe bigger; who knows? I guess Riverfall really doesn't have a problem with me. Thanks for being honest, by the way."
"Should we have a problem with you?" Amber frowned in concern.
Valey shrugged. "Ironridge sure did. Dunno if it was warranted in the end, because I saved their rears and that makes up for a bunch of civil pranks in my book. Ironflanks doesn't. Apparently you don't. And really, I prefer it that way."
"Well, is there an important reason they didn't like you?" Amber asked, tentative.
"Not one I can say without sounding super edgy." Valey glanced back in the direction of the boat, then at Amber. "Mostly I just mess with ponies. Leaving banana peels in the road, sending flirty letters to the wives of my subordinates, occasionally haunting ponies... Just enough to keep the population on their hooves. I'm not talking about me, though, I'm talking batponies in general. You don't have a problem with the fangs, the ears, the creepy wings and slitted eyes?"
Amber shook her head, still looking confused. "I don't think so. You still look like a pony to me."
"Okay. Cool. All I needed to know." Grinning, Valey started to step, and almost immediately tripped and caught herself. "Argh, bananas! This road hates me! And I hate this road. Anyway, have fun with wherever you're going. Tomorrow, we should hang out."
A breeze laden with cool, forest scents brushed past Starlight's muzzle, and she stirred, lifting her head from the plush cabin bed. "Nnguh?"
Her eyes were opened forcibly by the presence of indirect sunlight, and she rubbed the sleep away to see Maple awake, fussing with a retracting curtain and a large, now-open porthole. Maple saw her, and smiled warmly. "Did you know this room had windows? I must not have noticed last night! Hmmmmm..." She stretched her chin upward, basking in the breeze.
"Wow," Starlight muttered, running a hoof through her mane and sitting up. "You're in a good mood today. Mmph..."
"Mhmm," Maple hummed, prancing back to the bed and only wobbling once. "It wasn't as hard to get to sleep as I thought it would be, and aside from being starving, I'm feeling much better! Besides, it's morning. The sun rose less than an hour ago, I'm finally home, and as soon as you're up and ready we can see everyone again! We've been through so much, and now we're finally here!"
Starlight rubbed her eyes. "Ready? I'm ready..."
"No, you're not," Maple insisted, collapsing onto the bed with a bounce and grabbing Starlight around the shoulders from behind. "Hold still, you. Your mane is a disaster and I don't think I've fixed it in days. This will only take a minute."
Starlight could do nothing but hang there as Maple combed and brushed, gently teasing out snarls with her teeth and carefully separating the strands of her mane so that the teal stripes were at their sharpest and most defined. At least the room had a small vanity on the bedside table so she could watch. As great as it was that Maple was feeling well, though, Starlight hadn't fallen asleep until the sky started lightening in pre-dawn gray, and now that she had getting up was the last thing on her agenda. If staying awake until sundown was what it took to become a normal pony who slept during the night again, she might be able to do it, but it wouldn't be fun.
"Amber found us last night," she remarked with a yawn. "She came back after you were asleep. I pretended to be asleep too."
"Yes, she did," Maple agreed, pausing between licks and tugs to make sure Starlight's part and bang were properly centered. "I'm surprised you can't hear her snoring right now."
Starlight's ears folded as Maple stepped back, letting her get up and move. That wasn't natural rocking of the boat? She hopped off the bed, landing drowsily and blinking back the sudden urge to fall asleep then and there. "You're not going to tie my mane like last time?"
"No mane ties," Maple hummed sadly. "We'll have to stock up."
As Starlight trotted around the base of the bed, she saw the room did, indeed, contain Amber. The yellow mare was sprawled on her back, all four hooves in the air, leaning against the side of a dresser to keep from rolling over with one hind leg kicking fitfully as she dreamed. Her eyes were scrunched closed, her mouth hung wide open, her orange mane was spilled out like a puddle on the floor beneath her and it looked like she had been drooling for quite some time.
"Silly filly," Maple giggled. "That's the other part of why I'm in a good mood. It already feels like my life's getting back to normal..."
Starlight watched curiously as Maple tensed... and then sighed, with nothing happening. "Right," she muttered. "My cutie mark is empty... We'll have to go shopping today or tomorrow. Come on, Amber, wake up!"
She prodded the sleeping mare squarely in the belly with a dusty hoof. Amber yipped, hooves flailing as her eyes flew open, then settled on Maple with a sly pout. "Aww. Is it morning already?" She glanced at the opened window, shining sunlight at an angle against the room's back wall. "I missed you too, Ironflanks."
Maple's eyes widened in horror. "No! Please no don't you start calling me that too!"
"Heh heh heh heh heh..." Amber wiped her mouth with a hoof, clearing away the drool, and would have collapsed giggling had she not already been on the floor. "Don't you worry, Maple," she chuckled, getting up. "Guess it's time to face the day?"
"Mmmm..." Maple straightened her posture, smiling warmly. "I have a feeling it's going to be a good one."
The deck of Shinespark's airship was bathed in the rising sun, just enough heat to feel pleasant without becoming oppressive like the Earth District. Starlight's coat fluffed out to better expose herself to the passing breeze, the wood beneath her hooves gently rocking with the river's flow.
A healthy murmur of voices rose from the shore, and when she looked, a crowd of at least fifteen ponies were standing on the riverbank, speculating about the ship with eager awe. A steeply-sloped gangplank connected the deck to shore, but none of the mares seemed quite bold enough to try it. In the distance to the south was some kind of roar, but Starlight didn't pay it too much mind.
"Look!" The ponies below started to notice them, blinking and smiling in recognition. "That's Amber! And there's the filly from over the mountains, Starlight!"
Starlight felt a familiar prickle of irritation run down her spine. Right, Riverfall knew where she was from... but for Maple's sake, she wouldn't let it get to her. Her mother badly needed a good day, and she had discovered that it was possible to survive without being concerned about the things that had once dominated her thoughts. Besides, Amber looked more than happy to prance down the gangplank and take their attention for herself.
"From over the mountains, they say?" a dreaded voice suddenly whispered in her ear. "You crossed mountains? Which ones were they?"
Feeling like she had been doused in icy reservoir water, Starlight turned to see a camouflaged Jamjars grinning at her, her smile and orange eyes seeming to hang in midair without a second look. She deflated, preparing for a confrontation in which she'd probably have to use magic to put the other filly in her place. "Jamjars, I don't want to deal with-"
"Okay," Jamjars interrupted, instantly backing down. "Speaking of dealing with things, I just talked to Mom. She said there was some stuff you brought us all here to do, like seeing Dad and getting a house and some help to raise all her kids. I told her your mom has other things to do first though, so she's ready to wait and you can do what you need to, and stuff. Just letting you know."
Starlight blinked. "You're being helpful?"
"Well, yeah, of course," Jamjars huffed. "I don't know why you keep acting surprised. We're friends, after all. Anyway, she probably won't panic until noon or something. I'm going to explore and check out what there is to do in this town. If you want to catch up, I'll be heading for that big noise first, but you've been here before so you probably don't need to. Bye."
Like that, Jamjars was gone.
Starlight shrugged, following Maple and Amber down the ramp to let them know.
On the shore, Amber had one foreleg around Maple's shoulders and the other waving through the air, excitedly narrating. It sounded like their accompaniment of Gerardo on his departure to Ironridge had been un-publicised, and Amber was simultaneously trying to excite the ponies about how great that was and not cause Maple to get bogged down with attention, all while knowing none of the details other than that Ironridge had been a bad experience for everyone involved.
"You all," she was saying, "should go see my friend Gerardo instead. He's practically had professional training in telling stories. We'll probably just trip over our tongues and tell events out of order and make it sound all weird, and I wasn't even there! If you want to hear some made-up stories about Ironridge, though, I can tell you about what I would have done the time I didn't go...!"
Her audience, though, looked thoroughly engaged. One mare, whom Starlight wouldn't have been surprised had she been among those who came to Maple's house to listen to her talk about Equestria, cut Amber off with a wink. "Oh, we came from there," she explained. "Gerardo's telling stories in the plaza just like last time. You can hear it from here." She pointed a hoof at the distant noise. "Still, hearing him talk about all the fights he was in is one thing, but actually seeing the ships?" She practically glowed, her already-pink cheeks shining as she craned her neck at the anchored airship. "I must have been your age last time a ship like this came through! Actually seeing it is so much different than hearing the stories! It feels like it's real again!"
"You don't think the ships are going to start coming again, do you?" an older mare asked, several streaks of gray in her teal mane. "I remember the days when you could meet the same sailor twice, and they'd remember you. Ahh, if I could relive that feeling..."
"Sorry..." Maple smiled awkwardly. "The river's running high right now because there was a flood, and it destroyed all the Sosan riverports. Even if they wanted to, they have nothing to make the ships with. Maybe in a year, though..."
The pink mare chimed back in. "You don't think we could...? Would it be all right to go on board? I never actually got to see what the old Sosan ships were like on the inside..."
Amber mirrored Maple's expression. "Well, it's not my ship, so I can't really say that. Sorry..."
Feeling it was her duty to do something, Starlight stepped up beside the two. "There are still some ponies from Ironridge aboard who need space for now," she announced, drawing the attention of over a dozen ponies and summoning her willpower not to freeze. "Maybe you can later, but if you can tell everyone the ship is off-limits for now, that would really help. You can only go on with direct permission from someone who's been to Ironridge, and Gerardo doesn't count."
The pink mare smiled understandingly. "Right," she murmured, sad but accepting. "I'll spread the word, Starlight. And I'm sure everyone else will too." She was met with nods from the crowd.
Starlight squinted. "Do I know you?"
"Cinnamon," she said, bouncing her appropriately-colored mane with a hoof. "Probably not, but I live close enough to Amber and Willow to have seen a lot of what's happened recently. We met the night before you left, when you were talking about the Plains of Harmony."
So she had seen the mare there. Another face in the crowd called out, reminding everyone that if the ship was off-limits, they might as well go back to listening to Gerardo. Perhaps a quarter of the mares left, though the rest were content to sit and stare at the ship, leaving a path open for her, Maple and Amber to leave. For good measure, Starlight lit her horn and hefted the gangplank back onto the deck, using up most of her now-shallow reserves thanks to the object's weight.
"Where do you live?" she asked Amber when they had gotten sufficiently far from the ship and the noise of Gerardo's crowd was growing louder. "I don't think I've ever seen your house."
Amber shrugged. "I've got an old shack in the far southeast part of town that's mostly used for storage. It was our base when we were little, and I just started crashing there as I grew older. My actual house though is right next to Willow's. It used to be Maple's, back when she was trying to start a family, but..."
Maple filled in for her with a bitter sigh. "It was a wonderful house, perfect for a big family and a long future, but not for one mare and especially not one mare who has a lot of painful memories associated with it. I moved while I was recovering. My current house is unfortunately far away, but also a much better fit for me, I think. I don't like empty bedrooms."
"Pretty much." Amber loped along, keeping her shoulder ready in case Maple stumbled from the sword's curse. "But we didn't want to get rid of it after we spent so much effort trying to get such a nice place so close to Willow, and my living situation was basically to be popular and make it up as I went along, so I took it. To be honest, it doesn't fit me either, and I spend less than half my nights there. But it is my house."
Interesting. That explained why they had never been there last time, at least. "So where are we going now?" Starlight asked.
"Looking for Willow," Amber promptly replied. "And at a time like this, I can only think of one place everyone in the city would be."
The town's biggest plaza was somehow more crowded than Starlight remembered it for Gerardo's last appearance, perhaps because everyone knew things were ahoof in Ironridge and had been expecting it, and more likely because the weather was glorious instead of dismal and rainy. Beams of sunlight filtered in at low angles through the canopy from the east, painting the upper trunks in dappled bands of vertical yellow that made the forest's dust motes shine like pixie trails.
Starlight's hooves clicked on the glass as she walked close to Maple, keeping clear of the crowds and encampments of ponies in the streets even before coming into view of the plaza. Groups of mares had set up stacks of crates and boxes they reclined on top of, trying to get higher to hear above the crowd and forcing the ones further back to climb even further, blocking the sight of all involved. But Amber navigated the crowd with a suave deftness, passing out hoofbumps and cheery winks to so many ponies Starlight started to suspect she was going it at random.
"If there's one place Willow would be..." Amber raised a hoof and knocked, tapping out a secret code on a fancy tower double-door so close to the plaza entrance they were swimming in mares. "Cedar!" she called, raising her voice over the crowd. "Hellooooo?"
It took two more tries, but the door eventually swung open, revealing the well-groomed stallion Starlight recalled having lent them his balcony to watch Gerardo the first time. "Hey there, girlfriends," Cedar greeted with a grin that spoke volumes about how privileged he felt in life. "Here to petition for access to my..." His grin fell away, replaced with another one that was far more eager. "Milady Maple?" He beckoned the three hurriedly inside. "You were there, weren't you? Score and double score! Get your respectable selves inside right now, my treat. I insist!"
Amber rolled her eyes. "Knew you'd come through. Got anything cold and fizzy to drink? Something tells me we're about to kick back and enjoy a show."
"Actually, is Willow here?" Maple asked, interrupting Cedar as he prepared to swagger off. "I am looking for her, and if she's not..."
"Willow? No, she is," Cedar reassured without looking over his shoulder. "Mother invites her each and every time. On the balcony's my guess. Now, fair Amber, do you prefer strawberry, pomegranate or lemon-lime? My cooler is the second-best stocked part of my house!"
Amber tapped Starlight on the shoulder, moving her muzzle close by her ear. "Ask what the best part is," she whispered furtively, concealing a smile. "He's hitting on me and you could make this really awkward!"
Starlight had no idea what Amber was talking about, but asked anyway.
"Only for you, girlfriend, it's my fruity-" Cedar realized who was asking, and turned bright red. "Okay, never mind. Wow, rest in peace that mood..."
Amber grinned apologetically. "Cedar, if you'd just accept that I don't work that way, you'd be so much happier in life. And can I raid your pantry? I skipped breakfast."
"Oh, food would be great," Maple groaned in agreement, staggering after Amber as she made for a staircase.
"Food. Got it." Cedar winked, then tried to do a cool pose with his forehooves that fell flat at the end. "Give me two seconds to throw something together and I'll have it up there pronto!"
Amber just shook her head as they ascended, leaving the hapless stallion behind. "Some ponies..."
"Willow?"
Two heads turned, looking back from a swinging seat suspended over Cedar's balcony, one an older mare and one unmistakably kind and silvery. "Maple?" Willow whispered.
"Willowwww!" Maple launched herself forward with a burst of strength that completely defied her condition, wrapping her forelegs around her friend and burying her face in her coat. "I missed you I missed you I missed you..."
"I missed you too, Maple," Willow gently hummed. "And you, Starlight," she added, looking over Maple's shoulder. "Thank you for keeping her safe for me."
"What?" Starlight stepped back in surprise. "How did you know I-?"
"A lucky guess," Willow murmured, rubbing Maple's back. "It looks like someone was eager to see me."
Amber pouted. "Yeah, Maple, why don't I get a greeting like that?"
"Mrmmph," Maple muttered into Willow's fur.
"Well, this is certainly a happy reunion," Willow's companion remarked with a kindly gaze. She straightened the thick fur coat around her shoulders, swinging gently in the rocker as Gerardo rambled epically below. "First time since you're back, I take it?"
Maple sniffed, pulling back and wiping the corner of her eye with a hoof. "Yes..."
Willow held her shoulders still, staring at Maple's face. "Maple, what happened to your eyes? They're pink!"
"Huh?" Amber perked in interest. "Wow, they are. I guess I assumed those were contact lenses, or some kind of Ironridge souvenir, or something. No offense, but they look pretty cool."
"Magic," Maple replied, falling back into Willow's embrace. "It's not permanent. I've had a hard time."
Amber shrugged apologetically. "Yeah... Sorry I didn't let you know last night, Grandma. Apparently Ironridge wasn't all sunshine and rainbows like we hoped. I don't know the details, but it sounds like Maple and Starlight got wrecked."
Starlight snorted; she had forgotten how Amber called Willow that. "Gerardo enjoyed it, though."
"Gerardo is insane," Maple mumbled without a hint of sarcasm.
"Are you all right, Maple?" Willow asked softly. "I was enjoying talking with Juniper and listening to Gerardo tell his stories, but if you need me..."
"All I needed was to see you again," Maple said, pulling back with watery eyes and a smile on her face. "Really. It was bad, but I've been doing better. Tonight, I'll need to tell you everything that happened, but for now, I just want to sit back and enjoy life and being with you and feel like things are normal again. You have no idea how hard it's been waiting for this."
Willow hugged Maple one final time before letting her go. "I'm proud of you for making it," she said, softly letting the mare down. "And I definitely can't wait to listen."
Starlight warily kept her distance, but eventually Willow saw her looking and beckoned her over, giving permission to do exactly what she wanted. Starlight was at her side in a flash, seated against that thick, silvery coat. "Hello, Starlight," Willow murmured.
"Hi," Starlight said back.
"Are you all right too?" Willow asked.
"Yeah." Starlight stared into the crowd, not focusing on any one thing amid the sea of yellows and teals and pinks. "Sort of."
"Once we're done here," Willow told her, "I'd love to talk with you, too, if you don't mind. We can do it alone or with others, wherever you like."
Starlight nodded. It was like Willow could read her mind, offering exactly what she was about to ask for were she to get up the courage. Despite the calming pink flame and her lack of physical injuries and getting to watch hour by hour as Maple recovered and grew stronger and more stable, she still felt tired and strained inside, and a part of her she couldn't explain knew that only Willow would understand how she felt and know what to do to fix it. She hadn't felt at peace the first time she was in Riverfall either, but somehow, this time she knew it could be fixed.
"Drinks are on the house!" Cedar suddenly announced, trotting out the open door with a tray of beverages and sandwiches on his back. "And the price of the food is a smile when you receive it. For you." He bowed to Maple, offering the platter for her to take.
Maple took her offering, a double-decker pile of thick-sliced wheat bread with spinach, lettuce, sprouts, tomatoes, cucumbers, arugula, guacamole, cheese, some type of sauce, and other colored vegetables Starlight couldn't identify. She frankly wondered if it would be easier to fit in someone's mouth by trying to eat it vertically.
"I'm going to make a mess with this," Maple promised as she bit down, sending shreds of green tumbling everywhere.
Starlight eyed the rest of the things on the tray as Cedar set it down. Rather than presenting the same for everyone, it was a sampling platter, with a set of spiced buttered biscuits in particular making her eyes water and her horn light in greed. Her stomach told her she wasn't in dire want of a meal, but her tongue promptly silenced it, insisting that anything not fruity Earth District plunder was exactly what she needed. Down her throat the biscuits went.
Amber belched, sipping from a glass of something red that seemed to sparkle in Starlight's ears, as Maple tried in vain to eat without exploding her sandwich and Willow looked on calmly and contentedly. Above the trees, the sun was shining, and below, Gerardo Guillaume stood in a pavilion addressing hundreds of ponies with stories Starlight automatically knew were terribly exaggerated. Hemlock was conspicuously absent, his role of interviewing Gerardo replaced by a thoroughly flustered and very-much-enjoying-herself Slipstream, and it wasn't raining, but the scene could have just as easily been its twin from a week earlier in Starlight's life.
Riverfall was back. The crowd was cheering, her friends were smiling, and for a moment, Starlight truly understood how Arambai had considered the city forged into a paradise, a final destination where lost and weary ponies could find the chance they needed in life. Last time, she had let the pressure get to her, and fled while insisting nothing short of perfect was good enough. But this time, she knew better. Riverfall wasn't perfect, but it was home, and it was good enough. And Starlight knew that whatever it took, whatever compromises she had to make and ponies she had to appease, for the sake of her friends she would ensure she didn't make that mistake again.
"There I was, traveling in the company of a most intelligent mare named Sharpie," Gerardo narrated from the ground, drawing his crowd's rapt attention and many oohs and ahhs. "And we knew that the only course of action upon discovering the bomb threat was to go directly to Sosa! Of course, I didn't trust Selma with a single feather, so we made sure to keep our minds sharp and our brains focused on the true culprit. We couldn't get distracted, not for anything. But halfway through the flight, it started raining! Now, Ironridge weather is quite an impressive..."
Amber choked on her drink at the irony, made worse by its fizzy properties. "Are you okay?" Maple asked as she doubled over, coughing.
"Up my nose," Amber moaned, breathing through her mouth and rubbing her muzzle furiously with a hoof. "Bleh. Heeheehee..."
Starlight glanced at her in concern. "It wasn't that funny..."
Amber sat back, exhaling. "Well, he gets serious when there's real danger, right? I mean, of course you'd want to entertain your audience when you're telling them about it later. I don't know, I think goofy adventurers are funny."
Maple gritted her teeth. "...He doesn't. Not really. Honestly, I think Gerardo might have been the most stressful part of the trip for me. He wasn't, but he always says the wrong thing at the wrong time to make whatever just happened a dozen times worse."
Willow looked sadly at her, but didn't say anything.
"I shouldn't hold it against him," Maple sighed. "He's not malicious, just... dense. If anything, I might just be jealous that he managed to enjoy that whole thing. We spent so long dreaming about what Ironridge would be like, and I didn't get to experience any of it aside from tunnels and poverty and explosions and running around."
"Surely there were some good parts," Amber insisted, prodding Maple as she took another sip of her drink. "Sure, things were crazy, but what about before things got crazy?"
Maple gave her a flat stare. "We got off the ferry just before dawn, far enough east of the city that it could be concealed. We walked for a long time through a muddy, pathless forest, with me carrying one of Gerardo's heavy crates and getting sweaty, dirty, tired and maybe a little annoyed. Then we walked in on some bandits ambushing a trade cart on a road, and one shot me point-blank with an energy cannon."
Amber's jaw went slack, and even Willow gaped. Starlight nodded, confirming Maple's story as true.
"That's how I found out my cutie mark can store magic as well as physical things." Maple hung her head. "It's also how I found out Gerardo has a tendency to charge headfirst into trouble, even though Arambai had just told us to stay as far away from that as we could. But there was no time before things got crazy. After that, I climbed an entire mountain carrying his stupid crate, and only found out two days later that we could have gotten a cart to let him pull both of them. After that we went to a museum, but I was too tired to enjoy it and Gerardo was complaining about us needing to deliver his crates. When we actually did, he had us come along, even though I wanted to lie down in our hotel room and sleep, and then he got in trouble with a guard and got me arrested, tied up and left in a pitch-dark storage room inside a giant cave."
Willow's friend Juniper frowned. "I don't remember that part of his story," she remarked.
"Like Amber said, he's an entertainer," Maple admitted, slumping and putting her head in her hooves. "Nobody wants to listen to stories about him getting punched out by a hostage-taking unicorn."
Amber put a hoof on Maple's shoulders, looking grim. "I get it, Maple. You said it was bad, but I, uhh..."
Maple smiled feebly at her. "You thought I meant it triggered something from my past, but to a normal pony would have been just fine?"
Amber swallowed, nodding.
"It did that too."
If Amber and Willow hadn't had it covered, Starlight would have been at her side in an instant. She had a feeling she knew what was going to be talked about sooner or later.
"Sorry, girls," Maple sniffed. "I remembered the list, but I didn't get to do anything on it. I don't think I ever noticed Ironridge fashion, let alone got to try it on. I didn't read a single newer book. I don't know what they do for fun, though I did go to two bars... but both were just us sneaking around and looking for information. I rented a nice hotel room, but wound up sleeping in a cave anyway."
"No fancy restaurants?" Amber asked with a sad grin.
"None." Maple shook her head. "Most of the time we just ate stolen fruit from the Earth District."
Starlight frowned. "What about the breakfast Shinespark gave us?"
"Oh, that?" Maple blinked. "I forgot about that! That was delicious... I'd love to have a meal like that again. But we spent the entire time talking about bombs and trying to make decisions that would affect the lives of thousands of ponies, and most of the ponies who were there are dead now, including the chef."
Both of her friends held her tightly, Willow on the right and Amber on the left.
"I don't know how I'm doing as well as I am now," Maple admitted, wiping her eyes with a hoof. "For a while, I felt like I would die if I didn't get back here to you two, just from the stress. Or like I was already dead, and it wasn't even me that kept going. I should be a blubbering wreck, but I'm actually speaking in full sentences!" She gave a silly grin, eyes still watering with tears that threatened to spill over any second.
Amber squeezed her shoulder, returning a look of confidence. "We're proud of you, Maple. Sounds like you gave as good as you got, and now that it's over, you're still standing."
Maple sniffed wetly. "Barely. It's still hard to get my legs to work right. Gerardo's sword isn't fun to get stabbed with."
"She meant the other way, Maple," Willow hummed. "But we're glad you can overcome magical curses, too."
To the side, Cedar was sitting awkwardly, accompanied by a mare Starlight hadn't seen before with some portions of her anatomy very unusually sized. "Hey, ladies..." He coughed into a hoof. "Not to be an ungracious host, but this is a party, and you're kind of killing the mood." The curvy mare next to him nodded in agreement.
"Oh!" Maple jumped. "Sorry..."
"Actually," Starlight cut in, "do you have a room we could use? Private? There's a little more they need to talk about."
"There is?" Maple asked, looking confused. "I think I can enjoy this now. All I've been wanting is something to enjoy, anyway."
"White Chocolate," Starlight simply replied.
Maple slowly paled. "Oh, I forgot about her! We need to get back to the ship, and-!"
"She'll wait," Starlight insisted. "But you should tell Amber and especially Willow, or else I will, because we did bring her and she can't stay alone on the ship forever."
"Maple?" Amber pricked her ears in concern. "Who's White Chocolate?"
Maple took a deep breath. "She's..."
In an unused guest bedroom in Cedar's tower house, she finally exhaled. "She's the pony Faron asked us to go find. Remember at the dinner when I said we could leave, and he gave us an address and a message? White Chocolate is who we found."
Willow's breathing stilled, as if she had guessed what was coming next. Amber, however, didn't. "And who is she? His sister, or something?"
Maple shuddered, looking away. "His ex-wife. He left her behind when he ran away to Riverfall without so much as a goodbye."
Starlight felt the temperature in the room drop, even though it wasn't a revelation to her. Maple continued, in a hollow tone of voice: "She's... exactly where I would have been without you two. She never left her house, wondered why she hadn't been good enough, survived but didn't live. I saw so much of myself in her, I couldn't bear not to do anything about it."
"Her house was also flooded, so she had nowhere left to go," Starlight added. "When Maple was resting on the ship before we flew back here, I went and got her, since before all the dam stuff she said she wanted to bring her back to Riverfall."
Amber's eyes widened. "Wait, flew?"
Maple coughed. "That boat is an airship, but can we finish talking about White Chocolate first?"
"Of course," Willow gently replied, keeping her face expressionless.
"I think..." Maple sighed. "I don't know if I should tell you this, but you'll see it for yourself anyway. The thing I think pushed me over the edge in wanting to help her is what she looked like. Willow, she looks exactly like you, aside from wearing her mane a slightly different way. When I saw that, and I realized her connection with Faron, and yours, I thought maybe he... That you reminded him of her, and..." She folded her ears, laying her dusty head between her forehooves. "I don't know what's going to happen now," she admitted. "Just that I wanted to help her, and she needs it so much. She has a lot of foals. I don't remember how many, but it's more than ten, and she can't raise them right on her own. If we had left her in Ironridge..."
Then, Willow was holding her. "Has how I'll react to this been worrying you?"
"Y-Yes," Maple sniffed.
Willow stroked her back, like a mother holding a small foal, and Starlight couldn't help but wonder if that was where her cuddly inclinations came from. "Don't worry," Willow murmured. "I'm sure there are more things to know about what happened, but it sounds like you did the right thing. We'll see what happens to our families. How did he leave?"
Maple just shook, so Starlight stepped up. "Arambai had some friends set up this abandoned warehouse and tell a bunch of rumors about ponies going there and never returning," she explained. "It sounds weird, but Ironridge just works like that. So ponies who were unhappy enough with their lives to play with places that were supposed to make them disappear would go there, and then they'd actually disappear and get ferried here instead. Apparently they couldn't be honest about it because they didn't want anyone there to know about Riverfall. So after Faron lost his job when the boats stopped running, he got depressed and eventually wandered in there, and they just took him away."
"...Well." Amber shook her head, pursing her lips disapprovingly. "That's kind of rude. I guess that explains why all of Riverfall's Sosans are so melancholy all the time. Either they started off depressed, were basically foalnapped, or both. And Arambai did this?"
Starlight paused, unsure whether or not to defend anyone. "I don't know," she decided. "Ironridge was bad. He might have decided it was the best thing he could do. The pony who ran it all from Ironridge, Shinespark, is on the boat too, but she's sad also right now."
"Ironridge was very bad," Maple added, backing Starlight up. "Us arriving was what actually set things off, thanks to Gerardo's crates, but the city had been on a course for disaster ever since something bad happened twenty years ago. Back when we were trying to go, girls, there wasn't just trouble starting, there had been trouble for a decade."
Willow slowly breathed, still holding Maple. "Well, I'll have to talk to Faron now that I know that. It's his decision on whether he was wronged or did wrong, not mine. But would you mind taking us to meet White Chocolate?"
"Now?" Maple asked. "I was enjoying the celebration, even if Gerardo's stories were... you know."
Amber winked. "Nah, we can stay here as long as you want. Something tells me you won't feel the greatest with this fresh in your memory, though."
"No, you're right." Maple stood up, shaking her mane back into position. "Let's do it now. It's not too far to the ship. And after you've met her, you can talk to Faron, and figure out what to do, and I... don't know if I can watch that. Sorry..."
"Don't be," Willow said. "It sounds like all you've done is walked in on a bad situation and tried to help. Never be sorry for not being able to help enough. I can manage things from here."
Starlight didn't have to extend the gangplank, an action which probably would have overtaxed her horn, as Amber repeated her jump from the previous night and shoved it out for them. For all four of them, Starlight included, it was the first time since the battle exploring the ship properly under light of day, and she finally understood the mess the injured soldiers had left while using the ship as a transport.
Shinespark limped out of Starlight and Maple's old chosen room, opting not to fly, carrying a heavily-stained, wadded-up blanket that made Starlight glad she had slept in a different bed, her cast thunking like a peg-leg against the wooden floor. She stopped in the hallway, dull eyes meeting the four friends.
"Don't use that bed right now," she paused to say. "Mine is fine if you need one, but the mother has the only other clean one. Some of them, I'll need to replace entirely."
"You're cleaning?" Starlight asked, the others stepping back.
Shinespark shrugged. "I need something to do with myself. This ship is all I have left, so I might as well take care of it. And it needs a lot of fixing."
Starlight hung her head. "Sorry it got so beat up..."
"Being beat up is better than being gone." With that, Shinespark walked past them, heading for the top deck.
Willow followed her sadly with her gaze. "She's lost someone, hasn't she?"
"And something," Maple corrected. "All of Sosa. She was the pony everyone there counted on as a hero. She thought it was her responsibility to fix all of Ironridge, and..." She sighed. "I haven't been around her much to see how she's taking that failure, but I know I'd be devastated."
Amber nodded solemnly. "You know what would be great? If we could get you two, Gerardo, maybe her and that batpony all together tonight and just tell exactly what happened, without exaggerations and from as many perspectives as possible. What's her name, by the way?"
"Shinespark," Starlight said.
"Valey," Maple answered, speaking exactly over Starlight. Both blinked, turned to each other, and clarified.
Willow exhaled. "So she's also the one who sent Faron here."
"She looks even younger than me," Amber remarked, surprised. "And that was two years ago!"
Starlight nodded. "She's nineteen, and the reason she did everything she did anyway is because nobody else would."
Amber whistled, glancing at Willow. "Wow. That's the same age you were when you were wondering if you could look after us scamps on a trip to Ironridge, and we were both older than Starlight. And she's been looking out for an entire city?" She sounded impressed.
"Ironridge is weird like that." Maple smiled awkwardly. "Apparently, she'd been doing it for years, too. I hope we can get her to come and tell her side of things, because I don't think I'd do her story justice. Even after all that, I haven't really met her."
"Huh," Amber said as Starlight stopped in front of a door. "Hey, is this the one?"
Starlight nodded, then stepped aside, leaving Willow to open it.
Willow and White Chocolate stared at each other in silence.
All the foals scattered around the room who were old enough to play stopped what they were doing, looking up and tilting their heads and wondering why there was a second copy of their mother standing in the doorway. White Chocolate's ears were back, her eyes occasionally flitting to Maple standing in the background. Snow was oblivious, face covered by a magazine, until his ears eventually twitched from the sudden silence, and he looked up... and blinked in surprise. "Mom?" He glanced back and forth between them. "Do you have a sister?"
"That's a lot of foals," Amber mouthed to Starlight in the hallway, eyes wide as saucers.
"...Can I help you?" White Chocolate finally asked, looking as if she was struggling for something to say.
"Willow? White Chocolate. White Chocolate? Willow," Maple said, stepping forward alongside her friend. "We're at Riverfall now, so we wanted to talk about what to do with your foals... and Faron."
White Chocolate struggled to her hooves. "Do you think they'll be okay if I leave them here to go anywhere? I might need..."
"We've got them, Mom," Hayseed reassured. "Do what you need to. Right, Snow?"
"I can take care of myself," the colt mumbled, nose once again in a magazine.
Amber's eyes were fixed on White Chocolate's belly as she rose and stepped toward the door. "Is she having more? Why is she having more?" she whispered, still sounding incredulous. "Did she just...? Faron got here two years ago! You don't just go out looking when you've got that many already..."
White Chocolate overheard, ears going flat again, and Starlight kicked Amber in the leg to get her to knock it off. "Me and Amber can watch them," she volunteered, sensing that Maple and Willow wanted to go with White Chocolate back to Willow's house to meet Faron... or hopefully just to a less-crowded room.
"What?" Amber blinked, shaking her head and resetting her train of thought. "Me? I don't know, I'm hardly..."
Starlight kicked her again, giving a glare she very much hoped said 'trust me.'
Amber relented, slumping forward in the door as White Chocolate stepped out and the foals began to perk back up. She fixed on a look of grim determination that knew she was about to have a bad time, and grinned at the crowd. "Well, all right then. I guess me and Starlight are your new foalsitters while Mommy takes care of some family business. Now who wants to play a game?"
Amber took an enormous breath, smiled gamely, and let it out with a sigh. "All right," she said, facing the room full of foals she had suddenly found herself in charge of. "Should we, umm... get to know each other?"
Snow glanced up from his magazine, quickly pointing a hoof around the room. "Hayseed is the oldest. Dunno where Jamjars is. I'm Snowshoe, but call me Snow. We're twins. Logloss is dim but reliable. Bricks and Glitter are also twins, then there's Thumper. Don't ask Jamjars why she's called that, she thinks it's hilarious. After her, you get Poncho, and then Board Biter and Berry, who are the youngest twins. Darky is the youngest, and Mom hasn't named the new one. I'll stay out of your mane."
"Uhhhh..." Amber stared at the room of foals, and half of them stared back. "Could you run that by me again?"
Snow was already back to his magazine, though. Hayseed trotted forward, two of the youngest stacked on her back. "Do you know anything about what's happening?" she asked. "Mom hasn't been able to say much other than that we left Ironridge. And we're, well..."
Most of the foals who were old enough to nodded in agreement, as if an undercurrent of worry had been given permission to calmly break to the surface. Amber swallowed. "Well, I don't know much about your situation, but this is Riverfall, and I heard they brought you here because your house in Ironridge was gone? Starlight?"
Starlight shrugged. "I just did what Maple said she wanted to do. It was her idea."
"Who was that who looked like Mom?" a small, chipper unicorn filly asked. "Do you know her?"
"That's my and Maple's friend Willow-" Amber started to explain, before she was cut off.
"Hey!" a mud-colored colt growled from atop a dresser, barking the room into silence. "Enough bellyaching! Watch this!" He flung himself in a giant flopping arc, sending the unicorn screaming to get out of the way. "Booyah!"
"Bricks!" the filly grumbled, landing on her side with a gasp and a pout.
"I will sit on him to restore order," a thick, well-built colt announced, lifting his unshorn hooves and plodding dangerously toward where Bricks lay.
"Restore order!" a tiny filly chanted, grabbing a wooden block and slamming it against the floor to make noise. "Hahahahahaha-"
Amber darted across the room and seized the weapon. "This is a nice ship!" she insisted, reprimanding the filly. "Please don't damage this ship?"
The filly screamed in her face. Then two diapered foals on White Chocolate's bed started bawling.
"Everypony, shut up!" Snow exclaimed, slamming his magazine shut and using his hoof for a bookmark. "I'm just getting to the good part and can't enjoy it with you all making noise!"
"Snow, give me that," Hayseed insisted, reaching out a hoof for the magazine as the foals continued to wail.
"What? No!" Snow snatched it away defensively. "Get your own stories!"
Hayseed rolled her eyes. "Chewing on it made Board Biter happy last time, and we need to quiet them down somehow."
Snow looked aghast. Meanwhile, Bricks fought off his oppressor and reared up, beating his chest in victory. "Booyah! Hey, yellow mare! I bet you can't take me in a... Whoa!" He was promptly tackled again.
"I have no idea what I'm doing," Amber whispered, eyes pinpricks as the hot-pink filly who had nearly been flattened earlier took shelter between her legs.
Starlight growled, lighting her horn. She wasn't sure she'd be able to keep it up for more than a flicker, but maybe a bluff would work. "I will freeze you all in three seconds!"
Suddenly, there came a knock at the door.
Curiously, everyone but the crying foals stopped what they were doing to look, Bricks' ear in his captor's mouth. The door cracked open, and a white, hooded face peered through. "Is everything going fine in here?" Matryona asked.
"No!" Amber whimpered, voice cracking as the foals continued to cry. "No, it is not!"
Like a strong, gentle wind, Matryona blew the door aside, gliding across the room with her robe flowing so gracefully that she might have been flying. She reached the bed and with no struggle or even effort was laying, not even bouncing from the impact as she curled next to the foals. Three long, elegant feathers slipped from a fold in her cloak, just the very tip of her wing, and brushed each foal in turn as she leaned towards them, muzzle down and eyes closed.
The foals stopped crying.
"...How did you do that?" Amber asked, amazed, as Matryona carefully closed their eyelids, the entire room held in silence. "Even Willow can't calm her foals that fast."
"Instinct," Matryona replied, and left it at that.
Starlight blinked. "Instinct."
"I wish Mom had that much instinct," Hayseed whispered. "Is there anything you can teach me, for when she's not here like now, or...?"
Matryona sighed. "This room was recently used for harboring injured soldiers, and they don't like the way it smells. The fragrance I'm wearing overpowers that and makes them feel at peace."
As she sat there, one of the foals started sniffling again, and she instantly calmed them by bringing a feather back to their nose.
"...How did you know, though?" Amber squinted. "Can you just read them, or something?"
"Will it work on Bricks or Thumper?" Hayseed asked hopefully. "They make a racket for the sake of making a racket."
"The cure for that is attention," Matryona said. "Starlight, Amber, if you are helping their mother, you can go. I will care for things here."
Amber needed no second bidding, nudging Starlight with her tail and hurrying out of the room.
"...And that's everything that happened," White Chocolate sighed, standing on the shipdeck and hanging her head before Maple and Willow. She looked absolutely miserable, and every second spent before Willow's calm demeanor and dignified posture cowed her even more. "I didn't mean to intrude on your life here. Starlight just told me to come, and there was a teleporting unicorn and I was scared and not thinking and-"
Willow touched her chin with a hoof, lifting it back so they were face to face. "My life can handle an intrusion or two," she invited, concerned and gentle. "And it looks like you need it. Don't be sorry."
Suddenly, Amber tumbled out onto the deck, Starlight close behind her. "Whew!" Amber ran a hoof across her brow, laying on her back and staring up at the blue sky. "Someone else is watching your foals; I couldn't do that after all. Kids are cute, but not my talent. Hey, girls." She waved feebly.
Maple gave her and Starlight a strained smile, looking like she was still on edge about Willow and White Chocolate meeting. "Hi, Starlight, Amber," she greeted, trotting stiffly over. "They've been talking and I've... You haven't missed much."
"So could I get the deal with this one more time?" Amber asked, sitting up and scratching her neck. "She's your husband's old wife from Ironridge, and he left her to come here? And... she looks exactly like you?"
"That's pretty much it," Maple admitted. "Right now, we're trying to... I think Willow is trying to convince everyone that she's not mad for White Chocolate coming. Myself included. I just... As soon as this part is over, they're probably going to talk to Faron, and whatever he does, I remember what this was like for me, and..."
"What would you do if you were him?" Amber folded her ears.
"I don't know his situation." Sighing, Maple trotted toward the gangplank, the area below clear and devoid of ponies. "If he felt like me when he left... If he's better now, or if he isn't... He sent us to look for her, so he still cares about her. I don't know what he feels towards Willow. I've been realizing lately that my idea of how love and marriage and family works might not be all there is to it, now that I've seen how Sosans here aren't just reclusive and different but have reasons for being how they are. But that doesn't help me understand anything. If I were him... I'd curl up and want to run away, or not try anything at all."
Amber slung a hoof over her shoulder with a grin. "Good thing you're you, then, right?"
Maple chuckled back. "Mhmm..."
Behind them, Willow came trotting up, White Chocolate at her side. "We're going," Willow announced. "Back to my house, first. If things go the way I hope, we can go to Maple's after."
"White Chocolate?" Maple asked, noting the other mare's watery eyes. "You're fine with this?"
"I've given up," White Chocolate murmured. "I can't do what's best for myself and my foals. Whatever I'm worth, I trust myself in your hooves. If you think it's best, I'll come along."
Maple, Starlight and Amber all stood at awkward angles outside Willow's door, trying neither to look at it nor away and all doing their best not to pace. Amber was the most agitated, constantly huffing and muttering under her breath. Maple stared at the ground, and Starlight watched her friends, more concerned for the stress levels of the ponies she could see than the ones she couldn't.
"Ugh!" Amber threw back her head and pouted at the sky. "I wish the three of them hadn't wanted to talk alone! I've always been able to be there when you need it, so why not for Willow? At least let me know what's happening...!"
Silently, Starlight noted that she hadn't been there for Maple in Ironridge, but thought better of saying it. Maple sighed. "Half of me is glad that this is out of my hooves. I think the only reason I helped her as far as I did was because I was hoping someone else could finish it when I didn't know what to do. The other half says there's three of them, and one has to get the short end of the stick. But no matter who it is, this will still hurt everyone involved..."
Amber nodded grimly. "I wonder how Faron feels. Do you think he's pressured, here?"
"I don't know how I feel about Sosans," Maple answered, keeping her head down. "Not before I went to Ironridge, and not now. I don't want anything bad to happen to him, of course, but if he had just not left White Chocolate in the first place, they'd still be together! And..." Her voice grew hollow. "He never would have met Willow. That was the push I needed to... to try and start a family of my own. And you saw how that turned out." She clenched her eyes for a second, then restlessly shuffled her legs. "Thinking about it like that, I want to not care how he feels. It still feels wrong, but..."
"I get it." Amber nudged her, wearing half a grin. "Maybe it will be alright, though? Willow knows what she's doing. She's always looked out for us, and would let us be up there too if she thought there was anything we could do to help."
Maple exhaled, turning straight towards the door. "She's also been through all the hardships we have. At least, enough of them. And we've gotten through everything by sharing our burdens and helping each other. Shouldn't she know that? Why would-?"
"Someone's coming," Starlight interrupted, an ear pressed to the wall.
Moments later, the door slowly swung open, and Willow stepped out, completely alone. She softly closed it behind her, and Starlight noted well-concealed tearstains on her face.
"Willow!" Maple and Amber both rushed to her, pulling up short as if stopped by an invisible wall, awaiting permission to come closer. "How did you...?" Amber's jaw worked. "They're still in there?"
Willow touched both of them on the shoulders, pulling them into a reassuring hug. "Faron and White Chocolate are catching up," she murmured. "With my blessing. It was quite emotional, but I think they'll be alright without me for now."
Amber's brow scrunched. "Huh?"
"Alright without you?" Maple frowned in concern. "Willow..."
"Mhmmm." Willow hummed, pulling back and sitting down. "They were both very reticent to see each other again. Both feeling they had done the other a great wrong, with that guilt left to fester instead of tended to. I stayed until they were able to recognize that they were upset with themselves and not each other, and I wasn't needed any more. I sent for a friend to take the foals for the day while we were at the ship, so the house is empty. I think it would be best to let them reconnect on their own for now."
"But... Willow..." Amber looked flabbergasted. "You wanted them to...?"
"To make up?" Willow stepped off her wooden porch, onto the unfinished streets of Riverfall.
Maple followed, wearing a sickly grin. "Willow... You... know that he might...?"
"Leave," Willow said. "To be with her. I know."
Maple's eyes were watering. "Why?"
Willow slowly exhaled. "Many, many reasons, which only grew as we talked together. The simplest is that she needed something good in her life, and I had what she deserved. If you'd like to talk about it..." She glanced up at the multi-story tower she called home. "Could we do it in the privacy of your house?"
"Mine?" Maple folded her ears, then smiled. "I... would like to go back. If my pantry's still stocked, I can even get started on dinner. Do you think you'd stay that long?"
Starlight glanced up at the treetops. By the light filtering through, it was nearly noon. She could still hear Gerardo's party roaring in the distance, had no idea where Valey or Jamjars were but assumed they were lurking close, and didn't feel like going back to the ship. Shrugging, she stepped over to Maple, signaling her approval of the plan.
"I think we have a lot of catching up to do ourselves," Willow said, nodding and starting in the direction of Maple's home. "Shall we?"
Amber saluted. "I'm going to drop by a few friends and see if I can get a relief squad together to help care for that boatload of foals. I'll probably still beat you there. Later, Grandma!"
With a rush of wind and a streak of yellow, she was gone. Willow pulled her mane out of her eyes with a hoof, straightening and flattening it back to normal, and started walking.
With a click, Maple's door unlocked, the dark storefront of her ground-floor bakery greeting her, Willow and Starlight. It hadn't even been left long enough to get dusty, the lights turning blearily on at the flip of a switch like a foal waking from a nap. Maple ran a hoof over the door to her pantry, the nearby display case empty, as Willow started up the stairs to the second floor.
Minutes later, Maple hauled a huge pot to the top of the stairs, Starlight doing half of the work with her telekinesis. Maple had to stop, winded, but it seemed like the curse was well and truly wearing off. Eventually, she got it on the stove, and soon after it was bubbling merrily as she dumped ingredients in, added spices, tasted and stirred.
Amber returned, disappointed that she had lost the race but assuaged by the smell of Maple's cooking. "Okay," she proclaimed, slapping a hoof across her stomach, "I knew how much I missed this, but I did not know how much I missed this. What's the expected time on that? My nose can't take it much longer."
"The longer, the better," Maple hummed, steam rising and hovering along the ceiling as the heated pot warmed the room. "You'll just have to be patient."
Starlight watched from the seat at the table nearest the bedroom door. The lights were on, the stove was humming, and the three friends were chatting as if Maple hadn't recently watched her die, or Willow possibly broken her family for the sake of a mare she had only just met. She didn't think she'd have trouble waiting for dinner, but had to agree with Amber that it smelled good. It was almost as if Ironridge had never happened. Some part of her still felt hesitant, like she was watching from the sidelines while the others laughed and had a good time, but really, she knew that no one could ask for more.
It didn't last. Eventually, laying on the banister with her legs dangling off both sides, Amber said, "So, Willow. About your family..." She glanced back at the silvery mare in concern. "You're sure you're alright, right? That you're not just here to forget about it for a while? Because we're totally here for you..."
The conversation stopped, and then Willow sighed, closing her eyes. "I'm feeling a lot of different things right now, Amber. But I will endure."
Maple stopped stirring, pacing over to her and putting a hoof on her slumped shoulder. "Enduring isn't very fun," she murmured. "Speaking from experience."
Willow shuddered. "When you had a husband, Maple. What did you expect it would be like?"
Maple frowned. "Expect?"
"Mmm."
"Well..." Maple chewed her lip in thought. "That it would be good? Nice? We'd do things together and raise a family together and..." She sighed. "That's not a fair question. I still can't think properly about that. It just hurt when it was over..."
"But that isn't what marriage is about," Willow said, calmly pushing her back down. "Perhaps it should be, and perhaps it is in other parts of the world, but you know what it's really about. Some mares prefer a more stable situation, in which they will always have someone and their foals have the same father. And the practical benefits end there."
Even Starlight knew there was something wrong with that, and she wasn't interested that way in ponies. "Isn't there supposed to be love, or something?" she asked, frowning.
"Supposed to be, perhaps," Willow answered. "What ponies like me think there should be and wish for. But not what is. Today, I learned more about Faron than in two whole years of wondering if I knew everything about him. I'd met and gotten to know Sosans many times before, when the boats ran. I knew they had hopes and dreams just like us. I believed two ponies could meet and form a relationship of more than convenience. It's a dream I think all of the married mares in Riverfall share, and quite a few of the single ones. But when I reflected on myself, and compared what Faron and I have compared to he and White Chocolate... They truly wanted to know each other. For me, I realized, Faron was more of an ideal or a placeholder for things that I wished had been. I never knew him, and if he knew me... especially this part of me, he didn't say it. He allowed me to pretend I had what I wanted. I suppose I allowed him to pretend I was White Chocolate, though I'm sure he never believed it as much as I believed my side. Seeing that laid bare... stung. It still stings. But in them, I also saw what I had wanted, and what I think you wanted too, Maple. Even if it wasn't for me, I had to nurture it and do what I could to help them. That included helping them make up, and it's why I've stepped away now."
"Willow..." Maple's eyes were watering. Amber had fallen off the railing. "But what about you?"
Willow beamed back at her, though there was a tension in her smile that even she couldn't hide. "Like I said, I will endure. Besides, after watching Faron come that much more alive when all was said and done..." She closed her eyes. "I don't think I could live like I have been even if White Chocolate returned to Ironridge within minutes and they forgot each other completely. I will just have to have hope that some day, I can find something better, just like you."
"But it hurts so much," Maple mumbled. "I've been there. So has White Chocolate. I don't want you to have to go through that..."
"Yeah," Amber agreed, coming up and placing a hoof on Willow. "I mean, I haven't, but..."
"Hmm." Willow hummed softly. "Wondering why I wasn't good enough, you mean? I've thought about it. It's hard not to. But there are three things I know which let me keep smiling. Would you girls like to hear what they are?"
Maple and Amber nodded mutely.
"The first," Willow said, "is that I had a choice. I could have sent her away and kept what I had. To a far corner of the city, maybe, and done my best to keep her presence a secret from him. Or worse, I could have sabotaged any attempt at reparations. But I didn't, and now two ponies are much better off for it... a much bigger gain than what I've given up. It will hurt, but I think they've been hurting for a lot longer than this will. And that means the world is a better place for it."
She paused, almost wiping at her eyes, and then lowered her hoof. "The second reason is that for a whole decade, now, things have been the other way around. I've made mistakes, and you girls have paid for them. It was my fault and my weakness that kept us from Ironridge. And Maple, I know you started a family in part because you wanted to be like me."
Maple hung her head.
"I had a husband I thought was good and a healthy foal while you couldn't summon the will to get out of bed in the morning," Willow whispered, caressing Maple's ear. "I moved on and raised my children in peace, while you two earned cutie marks you suddenly couldn't use. I've never wanted to hold my good fortune against myself, or wish myself harm, or think that it should have been me, and I know you've tried your best not to resent me when I got lucky and you didn't. At the same time... I've never been able to forget. I've always done my best to be there for you, and always been afraid I didn't understand, or that it wasn't enough, because you were going through things I couldn't imagine."
Amber pulled back, looking troubled.
"You can understand that, right?" Willow's voice begged for a yes. "I've never wished it should have been me, but I've had to stop myself from it many times. But after this...?" She sighed, and smiled a little straighter. "I don't feel fine about this. Not yet. But a part of me that's hurt for a lot longer has finally gone still, and once it's over, I truly think things will be better than they were. Which is the third part..."
She reached out, pulling both Maple and Amber into a tight hug. "I have you two. So there's your answer. It won't be tonight, but I will endure, and everything will turn out for the best."
Maple gave a shaky smile. "It took me over a year..."
"Try me," Willow murmured, her smile finally full and heartfelt. "Though for Faron and White Chocolate's sakes, would you mind if I spent the night here?"
"And for yours, Grandma," Amber scoffed, thumping her on the back. "Come on, sleepover at Maple's! Dibs on the top of the bed pile!"
Maple good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "We haven't done that since we were kids..."
"I think we've all grown up enough in the past two years that we can do whatever we want again," Willow chuckled. "Maple, you should stir the soup. And we could always start telling about Ironridge..."
Maple, Amber, Willow and Starlight sat in a circle at the table as the soup bubbled and afternoon lengthened, two taking turns telling the story and the others listening intently. Amber sometimes stopped them with questions, and Willow with condolences, with much attention paid to the scenery and museum visit early on. Late into the first day, when Maple was captured and Starlight stowed away, they came to an unexpected halt, paused by a rapping on the window.
"Gerardo?" Maple's ears folded as she saw the griffon hovering outside her house, seeming to have shaken his following. "Should someone let him in?"
"On it!" Amber sprang across the room, hoisting the window with youthful vigor and offering him a hoofbump as he stepped inside. He took it with a grin.
Maple shook her head at the duo. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you might be just in time. We're telling each other what happened in Ironridge, and I don't think me or Starlight know what happened to you between us getting separated and reuniting at that warehouse."
Gerardo proudly dusted himself off. "Then it seems I am, indeed, just in the nick of time. And fear not, I've taken evasive measures to ensure we won't have the doors broken down by a very curious crowd. Though really, I've been speaking all day as it is, and if you have something for my throat, I'd be much obliged."
"There's soup," Amber offered with a shrug, looking reluctant to share. "Maple, how's the soup coming?"
Maple got up to check the pot. "The same. You could eat it now, but the more time it gets, the better."
Gerardo bowed, then coughed. "Well, I don't mind if I do. I must admit, it's good to see you back on your hooves, miss Maple. For much of our flight I sequestered myself as the lonely steward of our noble vessel, and didn't get the chance I wanted to check on you. Truly, seeing as your injury was by my weapon..."
"It's fine," Maple growled, lifting a ladle with her teeth. Much to her chagrin, the sword was still hanging at Gerardo's side, his uniform having been pressed some time since they returned.
"So where'd that pegasus with you get to?" Amber asked, leaning casually against the banister. "The one who was hanging around with you while you were entertaining that crowd?"
"Ah, good Slipstream." Gerardo snapped his talons. "You see, I made the discovery that pegasi are somewhat of a rarity in this town, and of immense curiosity for multiple reasons to certain numbers of the locals. Let's just say I abandoned her in a promising situation and hope she is enjoying the benefits of such popularity. I think it would do her a world of good."
Amber turned red, Maple and Willow shaking their heads. Starlight glanced between the three, not getting it but somehow glad Jamjars wasn't there.
"Well, then!" Gerardo took a gulp from his bowl. "Ahh, this is quite good. Where were we?"
Amber cleared her throat, regaining her composure and returning her cheeks to their natural yellow with a wink. "In the story? At the part where Selma kicked your tail." The griffon winced, and she quickly added, "No offense, though. Probably would've wrecked me. My kung fu skills are limited to the time I punched a tree for two hours when I was little because I wanted to be a ninja and thought it would toughen me up."
Willow smiled fondly at the memory. "You know, though," Amber continued thoughtfully, a grin forming on her face. "Maple and Starlight were originally just telling their story for me and Willow, but what if we get an entire Ironridge chronology put together here? You know, try and track down some of the others who were there? Who else played a big part...?"
Starlight watched her expression carefully. It was like she wanted someone else to say Valey for her, unless she somehow was trying to remember Shinespark. Certainly not White Chocolate...
"Valey?" Gerardo suggested glibly. "I'm aware that my route and hers in fact never intersected save for an encounter or so early on and a very tense moment in the skyport at the end, but from what I've gathered she was quite pivotal."
"Seriously? What about the entire Flame District? I'm not that forgettable, am I?"
Everyone jumped a little as a cupboard door beneath one of Maple's countertops nudged its way open and a pile of black and green sprawled its way onto the floor. Valey blinked blearily, shading her eyes with a hoof as they dilated to the room's warm, even lighting, her already-ruined mane even more of a mess as it spilled out beneath her.
"Valey!" Maple looked taken aback. "How long were you in there?"
"Hey, Ironflanks." Valey waved from the floor, looking drowsy. "I was just chilling, waiting to see how long it would take you to wonder where I got to. Congrats, you lasted... uhh... this long."
Amber narrowed her eyes in confusion. "You were... hiding in Maple's cupboard to do what? Why?"
"Because this house is super duper nicely lit." Valey didn't even bother trying to get up. "Not a lot of good snooping places. Seriously, sorry for spying on your little heart-to-heart earlier. I might have plugged my ears just a bit. Like I said, I just wanted to see if you'd miss me."
Maple folded her ears, abashed. "I just thought you were exploring the town, or... flirting, or something."
At that, Amber blushed again, and Valey pretended to ignore it. "Yeah, I wouldn't have ribbed you for it too hard. Nice place, by the way. Who'd you steal it from?"
Amber would have spat out her drink if she had one. Maple, who was far more used to Valey's antics, just shook her head. "Amber bought it for me from a friend who was growing her family and needed somewhere bigger. This house is a perfect size for one mare, with just enough room for get-togethers."
"Snazzy," Valey purred. "But hey, story time. Lemme know when we get to Blueleaf. I want to brag about how I smooshed that hipster dude into guacamole."
"Excellent." Gerardo set his bowl down with a clunk, holding it in both talons. "In that case, I might as well continue with-"
"And for the record?" Valey interrupted. "He totally spent the whole entire flight yukking it up on the bridge with those other dudes. Dior and that pegasus. So it wasn't actually lonely. Just so you know."
Gerardo hesitated with his beak open, then clicked it. "I... Thank you, yes, we finished that conversation a while ago... Now, upon coming to after my narrow loss, I found myself in the company of a most undesirable..."
The narration continued. Maple and Starlight took turns with Gerardo telling their respective paths for the second day, with Valey eagerly hopping in to tell Blueleaf and instantly glossing over the cart ride to Grand Acorn. Maple tried her best to do Elise's story justice, but constantly fumbled with the dates and eventually just gave up. It was suggested to return to the ship and look for Dior, Matryona or Shinespark, but that was all the way across town and they weren't deemed essential to the tale.
Their stories reconvened in the Gnarlbough warehouse, after a lengthy section from Maple introducing White Chocolate in which she had to wipe her eyes several times. Starlight made sure they didn't forget about details like the moon glass or windigo hearts, but she didn't know enough to be specific on the artifacts' workings and Valey chose not to back her up. A description of the ship and Shinespark's project broke into a lengthy segue on Arambai's Riverfall experiments and floating machine, and the best anyone could say was to ask Shinespark herself once they returned to the ship. They covered the evacuation, their combined efforts to move White Chocolate's family, and Starlight getting lost with Jamjars, giving Valey a headache when she realized just how tenacious the sharklike filly could grow to be. They discussed the power grid, their plan to free Valey, and made it all the way to the point where they were taken to the Flame District.
After that, the story started to grow disconnected. Valey insisted on telling certain parts, then said almost nothing about them, skipping entirely her breakdown in the barracks and everything that had transpired in the eastern valley after the dam. She didn't stop Maple from telling the resolution to the mercenary fight, but from the point Maple and Gerardo left to search for the airship onward, she said almost nothing, leaving Starlight to tell the section she had been blinded for herself. As best as she could, Starlight recounted Skyfreeze and the Spirit fight in the skyport, omitting anything Valey might want to hide and dancing around the fact that Grenada had died. Valey returned in full force to give a blow-by-blow rundown of her battle against Herman, and that was it. Gerardo mentioned the windigoes. No one backed him up on it. Neither Maple, Starlight nor Valey wanted to admit that had happened. And when all was said and done, the soup was still bubbling and the air was turning to evening beyond the window.
"Oof..." Maple yawned, then yawned harder, fixing her jaw with a hoof when it popped from the effort. "I don't know how I stayed up through the whole day, but I'm definitely not going to bed late tonight..."
"Heh heh..." Amber rubbed the back of her neck, nodding in agreement. "I've been doing a few late-nighters working on that boat to come get you, myself..."
"My old ship?" Gerardo asked, brows raising. "Ah, how is it treating you?"
Amber shrugged. "Well. I mean, it floats. Still going to take a bit for me to get it finished and done, but I can take it easy now. Are you going to want it back?"
Gerardo shook his head. "Nay, I believe my ticket out of Riverfall is that glorious airship, once Shinespark gets it fixed up. So many broken boats! Regardless, that ship is my gift to you, should you ever have adventurous desires of your own to pursue."
"Huh." Amber looked warmly at her soup as it was set before her, finally cooked to perfection. "You're a cool catbird, Gerardo. Not today and not tomorrow, but some day, I'm probably going to do just that."
Starlight yawned at her soup, letting the flavorful steam drift up and around her nose. Maple was tired, and she had at least gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before. Bed couldn't come quickly enough... Mmm, bed... She blinked herself awake before her head could sink too low, dunking her messy mane in the bowl.
The rest of the table was still in conversation, though. "You're thinking of taking the boat and leaving, Amber?" Maple asked in surprise. "But we just got back! And the rest of the world is..."
"I said some day, Maple," Amber chuckled, patting the tan mare's back. "No way any time soon. Sounds like the world's a little crazy right now, and you need me. Both of you." She winked at Willow, who smiled back appreciatively.
Gerardo drummed his talons in a wave across the table in a pointless show of dexterity. "Well, Sosan-made crafts have a reputation for being durable. I imagine with proper care it will run just as well a decade from now as it does today. Where are you thinking of going, if I may?"
"Heh, I don't know." Amber rolled her eyes. "Out. Away. Somewhere cool and different and big."
"That's what we thought Ironridge was," Maple added with a grim smile. "And, well..."
"It was different and big, but not cool?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... I might even go there. Gotta give as good as we got, you know? Wait until things settle down and then have the time of a lifetime, and enough fun to make up for all that stuff you went through."
Maple's eyes turned downcast.
"I am thinking, though..." Amber glanced away. "You think the ferry survived? The one you used to get to Ironridge? I know it didn't stay here after Matryona got dropped off."
"I'm afraid that's unlikely, then," Gerardo answered. "Sosa resembled a crater that had filled with a lake when I saw it last. I'm not sure the secret mooring place we used on our way in even exists these days."
Amber swallowed. "Being serious for a second... I can actually see myself becoming the new ferrypony."
Everyone's eyes were on her. "You'd be what?" Maple asked, eyes wide.
"Think about it." Amber shrugged. "From everything you said, Riverfall needed to stay a secret from Ironridge because of all that Sosan planning stuff. They didn't want to, like... Okay, I actually don't understand what they were thinking. But you know White Chocolate and Faron? How many other ponies do you think are like that? I bet there are other Sosans here who'd go back home if given the chance. There are probably a lot of Sosans left who would come here, too. I mean, the town is expanding, and if we got more workers, we could expand faster. Definitely better than being a homeless refugee. And while Arambai's food pile in the tunnels didn't flood when the river ran highest, it's not going to last forever. So if I've got a boat, like boats, and feel like going beyond Riverfall..."
She looked upset, as if she felt she were betraying her friends by still wanting to go to Ironridge after what had just happened. For a moment, she moped... and then Maple squeezed her shoulder. "I think it's a great idea," she said.
"You do?" This time it was Valey who spoke out in surprise. "Err, I mean... You do?"
Maple stared straight at her for several seconds before relenting and looking away. "I do. Maybe I'm feeling too optimistic to be realistic, since things are good right now and the curse is wearing off and I have all you back, but I think Ironridge can be better. Starlight, do you think this is a bad idea?"
"Huh?" Starlight woke up again, rubbing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. "Are you being what?"
"Ironridge," Maple said. "If Amber tried to become the new ferrypony with Gerardo's boat, do you think that would be a good idea? Letting any of us go back there so soon?"
Starlight bit her lip. She didn't trust or like that city, but... "Well, there was a lot of bad luck that it blew up when we were there. And it probably won't blow up again now that everyone's stopped fighting?"
"Either way, everyone, don't take this idea seriously for now," Amber interrupted, laying both forehooves on the table. "At the least, it would have to wait until the river finishes draining all that floodwater, and I'm not even thinking about going anywhere until both Maple and Willow are perfectly fine. It's just a distant idea for what I could do in my future. I've got a lot of time left ahead of me."
"Hmmmm..." Gerardo continued to drum his talons. "Speaking of time, part of the conditions on which I pacified the crowd was that I return at the crack of dawn tomorrow and continue regaling them with my exploits. They seem an easily-excited bunch, and as I'd hate to leave such adoring fans waiting even a minute longer than necessary, I ought to see about turning in for the night. Would anyone be offended were I to retire now?" He waved his cleaned and polished soup bowl.
"As long as it's not in my bedroom," Maple murmured, her own eyelids starting to slip.
Gerardo snapped his talons. "I wouldn't dream of it. An adventurer sleeps beneath the stars, or sometimes canopy if those are unavailable. And this town possesses quite a nice quantity of flat, empty roofs for me to choose from."
Excusing himself primly, he disappeared down the staircase, followed by the wooden clatter of a door several seconds later.
Maple stared distastefully at where he had sat. "He forgot his sword."
The black-sheathed object sat propped against his chair, complete with a belt for strapping it to one's side and a plain handle sticking into the air. The triangular hole in its hilt sat empty, almost as if something belonged inside, and the entire blade was concealed, belying the magic that allowed it to do something a lot more powerful than cut ponies.
"Yeowch." Amber picked it up in two hooves, holding it away from her as if she were slightly afraid of the sword herself. "You know, it does look kind of nasty. Not exactly like a storybook villain made it to show off their ego, but it definitely doesn't have 'hero' written all over it, either. This thing really did you in, huh, Maple?"
Maple grimaced. "A sword hilt sticking out of your chest isn't something you're supposed to survive seeing. It nearly broke me, but I guess it could have been a lot worse..."
Willow hummed, scooting her chair closer over to Maple's side. "Being unable to move must have been especially hard for you."
"It was." Maple swallowed, looking away from the black sword. "I remember saying this already, but it was exactly how I felt... before. It wasn't that I didn't have strength; I could still breathe... but my body wouldn't move when I told it to. I'd want to get up, and I wouldn't, and that would make me sadder and angrier, and..." She buried her face in Willow's shoulder, sniffling once. "Sorry. It was just a sword. Not the real thing. And it only took me a few days to come back from it. But I still can't stop remembering..."
With the sound of metal on velvet, Amber drew the sword, instantly snapping everyone's eyes to her. "Yo, what are you doing?" Valey asked, looking slightly alarmed.
"That's what this did?" Amber glanced from the sword to Maple and back several times. "It was like being too depressed to move?"
Maple nodded. "Sort of. I think the feelings were still mine, but the sensation was exactly the same. It made me helpless and useless, no matter how important getting up was..." She blinked, focusing. "What are you thinking?"
Amber shook her head, sheathing the sword again. "Something you probably need to slap me for, hard. Sorry for waving this around, Maple. I'll go stash it out of sight, and Gerardo can pick it back up tomorrow."
"No, what were you thinking?" Maple pressed, looking at the sheathed blade in concern.
Amber glanced at it as well. "I mean, I was just... remembering. Back when you wouldn't get out of bed and I'd keep you company, or even carry you out into town so you could see stuff other than the inside of your house. I never wanted to leave you, but I never really got it, either. Even after however many times you've tried to explain it to us all, I just can't comprehend being awake and lucid and completely healthy, but unable to will yourself to do more than drink a glass of water. And then Willow gave her big speech and I guess I was... wondering what it was like."
Maple paled, and her ears went back. "You were thinking of using that on yourself?"
"I told you it was something I should be slapped for," Amber said, setting the sword aside. "What happened to you was serious. Probably the most serious thing we've ever dealt with as friends. Not a toy for me to play with because I'm curious. It feels disrespectful even thinking about it. But... I am curious, and have wished I could understand what you went through. I don't know, maybe it would even make me a more sensitive pony. But I'm..." She gulped. "Trying to talk myself into this. Sorry. I'll-"
"Amber." Maple stopped her with a hoof, meeting her eyes. "I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way, especially not my best friend. Ever. Please don't think I've ever thought you didn't understand."
Valey lounged against a wall, clearing her throat and reminding everyone that she was still there. "You know, technically, if you want to experiment with weird, self-destructive magic, this is the best possible place for it. Nothing's exploding, you're already just going to be sitting around listening and talking and probably cuddling forever anyway... you know? And if anything bad does come around, I'm pretty sure I can thump whatever garden-variety villains this town has without breaking a sweat. Besides, it's evening now. If you gored yourself right now and slept off the worst of it, at the rate Ironflanks went, you'd be whispering again by morning. I mean, just sayin'."
Amber's gaze flickered back to the sword. "That's what's making it hard to talk myself out of this. Willow? What do you think?"
Willow smiled forlornly at her. "I'm the wrong pony to ask, Amber. Any other day, I'd tell you it's never healthy to want bad things to happen to yourself, and now something's happened to me that I wished had happened to me instead of Maple long ago. It's up to you two to decide if this is a serious consideration."
"Speaking as a professional unlicensed fraudulent and unwillingly drafted therapist," Valey added, "ragdoll ponies are also excellent for snuggling and make great crying bags if you've got issues you're too spooked to work out with a pony who can talk back." She hesitated, chewing her lip with one fang poking past. "Well... You can still move your eyes to talk, I guess. Left means yes, right means no, up means I don't know, and down means please give hugs."
Amber went bright red, and Maple covered her mouth with both hooves to stop from laughing. Slowly, though, her expression sobered. "You're serious, though," she said. "That time in the eastern valley-"
"I'm serious about three things: bad jokes, banana peels and trashing bozos." Valey counted to three on the spokes of her wings. "The three Bs, or something. Just don't stab me with that thing. After seven years of Ironridge, I'd like to do things in addition to sleeping on my vacation. Speaking of sleeping, though..." She fanned her mouth and yawned, standing up. "Nyup nyup. Not even sundown, but who cares? Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and trawl this place to see who's funnest to annoy, or something."
"Hemlock." Amber pointed a friendly hoof as she made for the staircase. "Look for a stallion named Hemlock. He can always use a little mischief in his life."
"Cool! Noted!" Valey called back as the door slammed behind her.
"Amber..." Maple started to stand once the room was in silence.
"Nah, I know. We're good, Maple." Amber winked, kicking the sword into the cupboard Valey had hidden in. "Willow? I think the rest of us are tuckered out. If we're having a sleepover, think you can manage an early bedtime?"
"Never have foals if you think you can't manage it," Willow replied, standing up and clearing her own bowl. "Starlight? Is there anything you need?"
Starlight blinked. "Me? No. Why?"
"Because you've been quiet," Willow hummed. "I'm still looking forward to talking with you whenever you like. I'm betting a lot happened to you in Ironridge."
Starlight stretched, nodding. "Maybe tomorrow..." As it was, she was falling asleep on her hooves.
"Amber." Meanwhile, Maple had gotten up too and had a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "I think Valey was right," she said with a smile. "If you really want to know what it was like, this is the safest time and way to do it. It would be guaranteed to wear off, and since me and Willow could do things for you you wouldn't feel the emotions and wouldn't be in danger and..." She sighed. "It would be like an exercise. Not one you could cancel midway through, but still. I can only speak for myself and what it's like having gone through that for real, and I never want to feel that sword again. Brrbrrbrr... But you're not me, and if you think it's worth it to know, I won't try to stop you."
Amber grinned lopsidedly. "What is it with us and rushing into ideas? We're way too good at goading each other into things like this..."
Starlight approached Maple's round, nestlike bed, the room's lights on and removing the need for her horn. Orange sunset rays beat against the windowscreen, even filtered for miles by the vertical grain of the forest, but that wouldn't stop her from getting to sleep. She wasn't sure she would even make it that far...
Maple, Amber and Willow entered the room together, the elder two supporting Amber on either side. The yellow mare was completely limp, her eyes haunted and unfocused, a huge amount of thought spinning on behind them, but when asked if she was holding up, her eyes slid to the left.
They piled into the bed, and Starlight suddenly realized where Maple's cuddly tendencies had truly come from: they instinctively arranged themselves such that Maple was balled up between Willow's forelegs more tightly than should have been possible for a grown mare, with Amber draped out sideways across Willow's back like a log. A vision flashed through her head of the trio ten years younger or more, with a young adult Willow rocking her eager almost-filly sisters to sleep and telling them the day's gossip from the docks about Ironridge. They were instantly at ease, ears relaxing and eyelids lowering as their breathing slowed and they began to drift away.
"Starlight?" Willow cracked an eye, making Starlight realize she had fallen asleep on her hooves. Was it a minute later? Ten? An hour? She almost jumped or spun around... and Willow added, "Can you get the lights?"
"O-Oh." Starlight turned, noticing the switch. That wouldn't be too hard to get with her horn. Before she could fall asleep again, she crossed the floor to the bed, climbing in and tucking her legs beneath her, pressed against Maple's back and Willow's shoulder. "Is here okay?"
"Mmm," Willow murmured, her chin resting atop Maple's softly-breathing side.
Starlight's horn sparked once, and the lights went out. The rest of the house was dim, and she was out too, a new accessory to the warm, slumbering pile.
Starlight felt herself slip into wakefulness, but didn't open her eyes.
"Hey, Maple?" Amber's voice whispered again. "Did I do something silly last night? Because I can't move..."
"Mhmmm..." Maple groaned, sounding as if she very much wanted to go on sleeping.
"I was afraid of that." Amber gave the softest of snorts, and then was silent.
"Are you girls waking up already...?" Willow murmured, stretching slightly and shifting against Starlight's side.
"No," Maple answered. "Go back to sleep..."
"I think I stabbed myself with a cursed sword!" Amber loudly whispered. "Why didn't you girls slap me?"
"Rrrrrnnngh..."
Starlight flicked her ears, pressing against Maple and Willow in a show of solidarity. It wasn't like they had anywhere important to be, and if they did, it wasn't like she cared.
"Girls..." Amber begged.
"Go back to sleep," Maple instructed, waking up a little further. "You're cozy, and it was your own idea."
For a moment, there was silence. Then, Amber said, "Girls? I think I'm bored."
"Then think about how nice this is," Willow whispered back. "And how if you could move, you'd stay here anyway."
"It's like a vacation," Maple murmured in agreement.
"I keep trying to move my legs and it doesn't work!" Amber protested. "I can't even shift around to get comfy!"
Muttering indiscernibly, Maple huffed and stayed still.
"Here," Starlight grumbled, lighting her horn without opening her eyes. She let her field expand, using the trick she had once invented for searching the insides of crates and shifted it, instantly finding Amber. In a moment, Amber was seized, dragged bumpily off Willow's back to the side of the bed until she was laying on her own area, soft and cushioned but still pressed together. "Better?"
"I still can't move," Amber said.
"That was your idea," Maple grumbled. "I told you it didn't feel nice."
"Amber..." Willow squirmed in place. "You were warm up there..."
"I know," Amber complained. "How did you ever get comfortable when you couldn't move?"
Maple groaned. "By convincing yourself nothing else is better than where you are now, or something. Amber, I'm warm and no one is trying to hurt me. Go back to sleep."
"...Maple?"
"No."
"Remember how you left for Ironridge just a few hours after you could go, and it turned out to be all nasty?"
"Hmmph."
"Well, I think I just did something dumb a few minutes after getting the idea too."
Maple shifted, burying her face deeper under a forehoof and jostling Starlight's side.
"Can we agree to bonk each other from now on if one of us gets a really big idea and then tries to act on it without spending at least a day first thinking it over?"
"If you go back to sleep."
Amber sighed, her voice still a whisper. "I'll try..."
For a long while, the pony heap was silent save for breathing. Starlight felt a warmness slide across her face, and then vanish: the sun, rising above the horizon. But Maple, Willow and Amber were warm enough that she didn't miss it, since anything more would have been excessive.
Again, the idea that Ironridge might have been a dream slid across her mind. It was so unusual, so far out of the ordinary, the city with its own logic and history and politics that seemed to exist just for her to pass through, and now she was in a scene that seemed completely at odds with leaving: three foalhood friends, curled up and sleeping in, with almost no cares in the world. What had she gone to Ironridge to get, or find, or do? Every want and need she might have once had slipped away in light of what she had and how little she needed. She couldn't even remember why she had crossed the mountains from Equestria, or whether that had been a vision too. Right there, she had everything she needed.
Almost everything.
"Bathroom," Starlight muttered, surrendering to nature and crawling her way out of the bed. She tumbled ungracefully to the floor, landed upright, and pushed out the bedroom door, earning a huff from Amber and a sleepy mumble from Willow.
"Hey," Valey muttered the moment the door clicked closed, causing Starlight to jump with a high-pitched eep.
"What are you doing here?" Starlight asked the moment her heart rate started to calm.
"Meh." Valey shrugged, laying on Maple's dining table and looking bored. "Needed a place to crash for the night, so I just came back here once I got bored. So hey, did she go through with it?"
Starlight perked her ears, brows scrunching. "Amber? And the sword? I think so."
"Wow." Valey shook her head, glancing to the sword that was still propped against a wall. "You Riverfall ponies are bonkers. I know I'm sure not doing that. She regretting it yet?"
"Ask her yourself once she gets up," Starlight replied. "She was complaining about being bored and Maple told her to go back to sleep."
"Really? Huh." Valey rolled off the table, landing and trotting in a circle. "The way they went on about that thing the time I heard, it's like a weeklong temporary death sentence. Didn't think she'd be talking until tonight at least. I mean, remember back in Ironridge when Sparky bagged it and carved up a bunch of the Defense Force? Those guys had it bad." She sighed and looked away. "You know, I bet those guys being out of commission kept a ton of ponies out of the fighting, actually. Might've been why the Defense Force never had a proper party ready to go for the Blueleaf Border."
Starlight blinked at her. Maybe all that had happened, or maybe it hadn't... but she knew why she was out of bed, and exactly where she was going the moment she could. She paused, an idea crossing her mind.
"Maple probably wouldn't mind if you joined everyone, if you're cold," she invited, pointing to the door. "It's nice."
Valey chuckled, patting Starlight on the head. "Yeah, I think I'm in a bit too much of a 'wow, this place is a maretopia' mood to enjoy that the way they are, and would just weird everyone out. But maybe I'll catch those other two alone some time and see if they're cool with it. Now go, uhhh... wherever you were gonna go. And hey, do you think Maple would mind if I trashed her pantry in the name of breakfast?"
"I don't think she would have left anything that goes bad quickly like fruit around," Starlight apologized, trotting off. "Just don't make a mess."
"Oh yeah, no messes. Raiding silently and undetectably. Gotcha." Valey flashed a wink back at Starlight, then set about scavenging. With a yawn, Starlight continued on her way.
Starlight stood on the wooden porch ringing most of Maple's house, staring out into the pre-noon morning. There wasn't enough breeze to ruffle her mane, and the dirt roads were dry, having not been rained on for several days. She could go back upstairs, find Maple and pretend to go back to sleep... but despite how far she had pushed herself staying up the day before, their rest had to have lasted at least twelve hours, and she didn't think she could even close her eyes.
What she could do was stand outside until she was as cold as she could get, since that would make being part of their cuddle pile that much nicer. If only the weather would help her... Starlight sighed. It was a perfect temperature for doing things outside without overheating, but not for getting chilly... and as she gazed around all the mazelike, identical-looking towers and streets visible from Maple's house, she realized she couldn't wander more than a few steps without getting lost.
Unfortunate. If she was really going to live in Riverfall, it could be a good idea to figure out who she lived around, as well as her way back home. If only there was some surefire way she could return, no matter where she went...
And of course there was. She could teleport. As long as she kept her horn fresh, she was fairly sure she could make her way back to Maple's kitchen, so long as she didn't stray too far. She wasn't entirely sure of her maximum range, especially now that she had a limited mana reserve she could safely use, so it would be smart to rely on it as little as possible and not stray far, but it was a way. Holding her head high and keeping herself optimistic, Starlight stepped off the porch.
Quickly, she glanced over her shoulder, making note of any features Maple's tower had that the other houses didn't. It was two stories, and the door had a potted fern to the left and a propped-up mirror to the right. The mirror was unusual enough. That was good.
The tower immediately in front of her was four stories instead of two. Starlight circled it, watching all the new buildings she couldn't see from Maple's and continuing until she was back home. So far, not getting lost. Starlight picked another building adjacent to Maple's house and circled that too, and before too long she had lapped all of her neighbors twice, and had at least a decent idea of what was where and how home would look approaching from various directions. Proud of herself, she paused for a break, reflecting on how unusual it was for her to be actually learning the layout of the land. In the mountains, and in Ironridge, she had picked a destination - sometimes as nebulous as foreward - and just pressed on, putting progress above being able to retrace her steps.
Next time, she ventured further, using her ears and following the sound of running water. Maple's house was where she had woken up the very first day, so it followed that it was the closest to the river tributary, right? Taking care to pick out a few more landmarks as she went, noting the differences in the hanging bands of flags and occasional brightly-colored porch decorations, she found that Maple's house was only four buildings separated from the north-flowing stream she had drifted in on. More progress!
After a trip back and forth to ensure she could reach Maple's house from that point on the river, Starlight identified a dry, withered half-stump that stuck out from the opposite bank at an angle. The riverbank consisted primarily of tiny twigs and mulch, offering her a surprisingly cushy place to sit and memorize the view from that point precisely. A little upstream, she saw the river suddenly curve and straighten again, a house built right into the corner like the river had been moved just for it. Downstream was straight, vines and bushes hanging partway out over the water until it gradually bent out of sight.
This was perfect. Starlight knew the north-flowing tributary joined the east-bound Yule, and the entirety of Riverfall was built with those rivers acting as borders, meaning no matter how far she explored or where she got lost, she could always find her way home by getting her direction from the sun, walking east until she hit the river, finding this spot, and making her way home from there! Practically glowing, Starlight decided she had accomplished enough and turned around to go home. She might know how to find her way back, but if Maple didn't know that she knew, she would probably worry.
In the far distance, she could hear the roar of a crowd; Gerardo must have been back at his storytelling again. She almost wondered if this was a regular form of entertainment in Riverfall; ponies who could do interesting things going to the plaza and drawing a crowd. After all, someone had possessed voice amplification equipment to set up, and the huge plaza did exist with facing balconies and everything in the first place. Was Jamjars there, or had the filly found mischief to get up to elsewhere? How about Shinespark and Dior? She was tempted to head for the airship and check on them, but that would definitely be a longer walk than she wanted to take before talking to Maple.
Reluctantly, she made her way back to Maple's porch, pausing and staring up at the four-story tower immediately adjacent that she had scouted first. She could go back to bed, but... she wanted to do something. Not something like racing around an exploding city, but laying in place like she had done for two days straight was getting old, too. What if she said hello to her neighbors? A house that big had to have somepony living in it, and if she was going to live next to them long-term...
On second thought, a house that big likely meant whoever lived there needed a lot of room for children, and none of her experiences with other foals had ever been particularly positive. Sunburst was in the past, and the less said of White Chocolate's brood, the better. And what had happened to wanting to be left alone? Starlight closed her eyes and sighed tightly; the moment she took initiative on this and realized what she was getting herself into, she'd change her mind. But she had resolved on the airship that having more friends and knowing more ponies was something she should make a point of... and if she didn't find something to actually do in Riverfall, she'd probably go as crazy as Jamjars. That was a scary thought.
So, squashing her inhibitions and leaving no time to second-guess herself, Starlight whirled around, marched up and knocked on the tall house's door.
"Coming!" a croaky, sore-sounding voice called from within. Starlight almost bolted then and there, touching her horn with a hoof to make sure it wasn't lit and turning the motion into a self-conscious brushing of her bangs. Then the door opened, and a heavily-sagging mare with a red coat and striped lavender-and-gray mane looked out. "Hello?"
"Hi," Starlight said, rooted in place and sizing her up. If she was too rested to go back to bed, this mare was entirely the opposite: every part of her looked like she could collapse at a moment's notice, and probably go to sleep there in her doorway and not wake up until the following dawn.
The red mare blinked, taking three times as long to open her eyes again as she did to close them. "I know you from somewhere," she said, completely horse. "Wait. I've seen you before..."
Starlight waited.
"I know you from somewhere..." the mare repeated, staggering to the side.
"You don't look so good," Starlight remarked, suddenly wondering if she was going to pass out. That could mean carrying her to a bed, going home and getting help, dealing with some unsavory problem, or all of the above. "What happened?"
For a moment, the mare was silent, seeming to have fallen asleep on her hooves. Then she shook herself, quickly explaining, "New foal. Never wants to sleep through the night. I'll be alright in a year or two..." She trailed off with a gigantic yawn. "Name's Acacia. I remember you. You were hanging around in Maple's bakery when I went last week..."
Starlight blinked, recalling that she had spent an afternoon just watching Maple work... and suddenly realizing that whoever this Acacia was, she had somehow gone the entire past two weeks without hearing anything more unusual about Starlight at all. If only she wasn't half-dead from exhaustion, they could potentially have a real conversation.
"Maybe you should take a nap, or something?" Starlight suggested.
"If it'll last more than half an hour..."
Acacia slammed the door in her face, which was usually a rude gesture but Starlight wrote off as the mare being simply too tired to notice. Shrugging, she turned back to Maple's house. A few more trips exploring like that, and she could get... something. Was she really exploring the town just for the sake of exploring the town?
Starlight skipped off the porch, feeling a smile growing on her face. Doing something purely because she wanted to felt nice, and wasn't something Ironridge had allowed for. She licked her lips; maybe she'd dig around in Maple's pantry and see what happened if she tried making breakfast for her friends, just because she could. After all, it felt like a day for doing things.
Starlight nudged open Maple's swinging front door, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dim, empty storefront. Would Maple try to run her bakery today? She licked her lips, imagining the scents of baking cinnamon and other flavors, reminding herself that Maple wanted to get things back to normal. It should be a good idea, right?
Almost immediately, she ran into Willow coming down the stairs.
"Oh! Starlight!" Willow blinked in surprise, almost tripping over the filly. "I didn't see you..."
"Sorry." Starlight shrugged, stepping out of the way. "Are you getting up?"
"I am, yes." Willow stretched, rolling her shoulders. "As nice as it is to have all of us back together again, I think Amber will be in bed for days, and I can't wait that long to check on Faron and White Chocolate, or my foals. I see you're up and about, too."
Starlight nodded, seeing no reason to hide where she had been. "I took a walk. I was learning what the houses look like around here so I won't get lost."
"And did you succeed?" Willow asked with a smile.
Starlight glanced at the door. "I can find my way here from the river, and I can find the river by going east from anywhere in town."
Willow looked pleased. "That's a smart way of doing things. If you like, you can come with me and I'll show you how I remember where I'm going."
"What about Maple?" Starlight asked, putting a hoof on the staircase. "I should go tell her I'm leaving, if we do."
"I'll leave a note." Willow quickly lifted a pen between her teeth, scratching something out on a pad of paper by Maple's shop counter that looked like it was for taking custom orders. "There," she said, spitting it out. "I think she'll want to stay home today so she can look after Amber, but I'm sure she won't mind the two of us getting some fresh air."
Starlight hoped she didn't. The part of her that wanted things without providing reasons said Willow was what she had looked forward to most about returning to Riverfall, and going with her sounded like a perfect use of her day. Maybe it was because it was Willow she had woken up with first after being pulled from the river. Maybe it was because it had been Willow who was first to trust her with a request that had serious consequences if she failed: be nice to Maple, not that she needed a request to do that any more. It might just have been that Willow was calming, gave the impression that she could read her mind and always used that knowledge to avoid asking the wrong thing.
"So where are we going first?" Starlight asked, scurrying out the door after her.
"My house. But we're not in a hurry," Willow replied, smiling over her shoulder as she turned and walked northwest. "Is there anywhere you'd like to go? I could buy you a treat at the market."
"I do need breakfast," Starlight admitted. "Did you eat anything?"
"I was going to get something when I got home," Willow said. "I didn't want to make Maple feel like she needed to get up and cook for me. She says she's completely better, but I think she still enjoys having a reason to rest."
Starlight nodded absently, humming in agreement. She could understand Amber's curiosity on what being limp and immobilized would be like, but had had far too many situations in Ironridge where she couldn't move to even begin to entertain the idea.
"Thank you for taking care of her, by the way," Willow added, leading the way through the silent pre-noon streets. Starlight recalled there being more ponies who simply stood around and talked, but then, all the ponies with nothing better to do with their time were probably watching Gerardo.
"Maple?" Starlight folded her ears. "I tried, but she did still get hurt..."
"From what you said yesterday, you tried a lot more than anypony could have been expected to," Willow pointed out. "Does it still feel like it wasn't enough?"
Again, Starlight nodded.
"It's difficult," Willow agreed, glancing up at the hanging pennants strung between the houses and trees. "Seeing something that shouldn't be the way it is, but not being able to stop it. Would you believe me if I said I knew how you feel?" She gave a wry smile.
"Of course." Starlight shrugged. "Weren't you just saying yesterday how sad you were that all that stuff happened to Maple with her husband and her foal and you couldn't help her or even put yourself in her horseshoes?"
Willow actually stopped, blinking, giving Starlight the chance to catch all the way up. "I know you don't like hearing this," she eventually whispered, "but you're a special filly, Starlight. Not many ponies your age can see things with that much empathy."
Starlight hung her head. "I got used to it."
"Well, I'm proud of you," Willow whispered, resuming her gentle pace.
"How old do you even think I am?" Starlight asked, this time trying not to fall behind. "Really. Because I actually don't know."
Willow looked thoughtful. "I don't know either. You're more of an adult than my foals, for sure, but you haven't started your teenage growth spurt yet. What's the earliest thing you remember?"
Starlight paused, bit her lip, and shook her head. "Somewhere with high ceilings? I don't remember. But I don't know how long ago that was, either."
"Well..." Willow hummed, thinking. "Does your home have any holidays or traditions that are celebrated once every year? How about birthdays? How many birthdays can you clearly remember? My foals have birthday parties that I plan themes for, and I have to plan carefully to avoid reusing any. They can both remember back to their fourth, if I show them what I'm planning."
Starlight thought, but immediately lost count once memories of Sunburst jostled her concentration. She huffed. "It's fine. It's not important, anyway. I left Equestria, and I'm not going back, so what matters is what I've done here."
"Oh, I didn't say it was important." Willow turned another corner, weaving between houses and generally following a wider path. "But there's nothing wrong with finding things out because you're curious."
"Hmmph." Starlight huffed, not disagreeing but having nothing more to add.
Eventually, Willow changed the subject. "Do you see that string of flags that are pure red, Starlight?"
Starlight glanced up, and the pennants immediately caught her attention. They were bigger than the others, still ornamental but looking as if they were designed to stand out rather than blend in. Odd, since the town was already mostly painted in shades of red, orange and brown, but they somehow managed to do it anyway.
"There are six lines in Riverfall that are shaped that way and given a single color all the way through," Willow explained. "This one goes mostly north and south. The others go diagonally, and eventually the purple one goes east and west. All of them meet up at the plaza where Gerardo is talking, in the northeast, and try to go through other places that might be easy to remember. So whenever you want to find your way in Riverfall, you can use the lines to tell exactly where you are."
Starlight frowned. "Exactly? Wouldn't you just know you're on a line?"
Willow smiled. "Because they meet at a corner of the city, they spread out and get farther apart as they go. So if you find one, you can walk away from it, see how many towers you have to pass to find the next one, and that will tell you about how far from the corner you are as well as which direction you're going, since all of the lines are their own color. All I have to do to find my way anywhere I want is watch for the lines as I go and find my direction again if I don't see what I expected to see."
Huh. Starlight would have to ponder that; it sounded like an interesting system, though she couldn't wrap her head around it well enough to use it herself. But maybe paying more attention to the town's decorations would help some day...
Willow and Starlight paced away from an open-air shop on a tower house's porch, a frosty treat floating in Starlight's aura. It wasn't a real breakfast, but as her tongue traced grooves in its sweet, tangy surface, she decided it was just what she wanted anyway.
"How is Maple doing?" Willow asked as she walked, having gotten something smaller for herself and finished before they left. Her tail swished idly, like she had been torn between saying two different things.
Starlight looked up from her iced... something. "Didn't you already ask me that?"
Willow smiled apologetically down at her. "I mean how is she doing with you," she explained. "Do you think she's being a good mother?"
Starlight blinked, eyes unfocusing in surprise. "Well, of course. Why wouldn't she be?"
"I was just wondering what you thought," Willow hummed. "Remember, you dropped into her life very suddenly, and she's never done this before. I can see how much you care about each other, though."
"...Yeah." Starlight looked away, teasing her snack with the tip of her tongue. "Why are you asking? Maple definitely cares about me."
Willow took a turn, motioning for her to follow along. "Oh, I'm just an old mare who worries about her friends and wants to know how Maple is taking to doing what she's always wanted. You see her as your mother, don't you?"
"Of course," Starlight replied, shuffling along. Had Willow guessed, or did they cover it when talking the previous day and she just didn't remember?
"Hmmmm..." Willow made a sigh that sounded just like Maple; yet another similarity between the three ponies. She, Maple and Amber really had grown up together... or at least with Maple looking up to her deeply, Starlight mused.
They continued their peaceful walk, the trip taking much longer than when Amber dashed madly through the streets, acting as Starlight's ferry. But since there was no hurry, Starlight didn't mind at all, watching the houses and the sky and the few ponies not at the plaza she saw. Everything around her, she could stop to take in, even the colored pennants which had functions she had already forgotten.
The unfinished dirt roads morphed to ornate dark glass, a sure sign that they were getting close. Starlight stared downward at the sea of bright, polished pebbles suspended inside the traction-giving road. If moon glass was a monochromatic void, this glass looked like the clearest night sky, the rocks forming stars that twinkled and sparkled in the distance. They were both black, but the amount of difference in the types of darkness was almost startling. She wondered if Arambai had deliberately made the aesthetic as a counterpoint to moon glass after moving to Riverfall. It wouldn't have surprised her at all.
"Here we are," Willow musically announced, at last trotting up the short steps of a four-story tower's porch. "Do you want to come in, Starlight? I need to at least check on Faron and White Chocolate, and make sure they're both alright and nopony tried to return my foals after we left yesterday."
"Sure." Starlight shrugged, standing beside her, having long since finished her treat. What was the worst that could... No, best not to answer that.
"Hello?" Willow knocked politely on her own door, then took a step back. "Faron? White Chocolate?"
Starlight lit her horn, performing her scanning spell after several seconds of silence. "No one's on the bottom floor," she informed her. "They probably can't hear you."
"Oh well..." Willow sighed and pushed the door open.
The house's kitchen level looked neat and orderly. If anyone had used it, they had done so with respect and cleaned up properly after themselves. Starlight couldn't tell if the hanging pots and pans were in their real places, or just somewhere that worked, but Willow looked satisfied, moving for the spiral staircase in the center.
"Hello?" she repeated, craning her silvery head up to the second floor.
"Willow?" two voices echoed back at her, one male and one female.
Starlight scurried up behind her, unable to get all the way up with Willow blocking the staircase. "There you are," Willow sighed, sounding relieved. "You two look better than you could have."
Faron's voice didn't reply, leaving an awkward silence. But White Chocolate quickly broke it with an invitation: "You can come up, if you like."
"Being invited inside my own home," Willow remarked with a small smile, climbing all the way up and making room for Starlight. "I'm glad you're doing better."
The second floor was just as stacked with bookshelves as it had once been, two staircases sweeping around the rim in a double helix and a giant felt reclining chair placed in front of a dormant hearth. On it, Faron and White Chocolate were perched, snuggled slightly closer than Starlight's personal comfort. The latter had her fluffy bathrobe, but it was draped around both of their shoulders, and her eyes were clear and unobscured by dangling mane or eyepatches... if a bit puffy and red. Faron looked almost like he was sleeping.
White Chocolate's eyes widened. "Your home? I wasn't trying to-!"
"Shhhh," Willow interrupted. "I told you you could use it as long as you need, but we can find something else long-term. I'm just checking in. Everything here is all right?"
Faron nodded, not meeting her gaze. White Chocolate, though, struggled to her hooves, taking several seconds to extract herself from the seat and properly right herself. "Where are you going now?" she asked, swaying slightly.
"Just taking a walk," Willow said. "I might check in on where I left our foals. Why?"
"I think I need some exercise," White Chocolate admitted, walking toward the stairwell. "I don't want to go out on my own, though. Do you mind if I come with you?"
Willow shook her head, and Faron also shrugged in approval.
Starlight was the first down the staircase, propping open the door to outside and sitting in it, holding it open and watching the two mares descend. Side by side, just like the previous day, she really couldn't see a difference...
"How much did I miss?" a raspy voice drawled from the shadows next to her.
By then, Starlight was used enough to being snuck up on that she only jumped to her hooves instead of hitting her head on the ceiling. "Valey!"
"Hiya." Valey waved lazily from the shadowed porch next to her, climbing out and getting to her hooves. Starlight waited, sensing she had more to say, but it never came.
Eventually, Willow reached the door, catching the eye of the batpony. "Hello, Valey," she remarked calmly. "If you were following us, you should have shown yourself earlier. I would have bought you a treat too."
Valey blinked, then swung a hoof, feigning massive disappointment. "Oh, come on! I missed the treats? Seriously?" When Willow raised a hoof to cut in, she continued. "Nah, I'm... urp! I'm good." She patted her stomach in satisfaction. "Found some great stuff in Ironflanks' pantry to start the morning. Just caught up. So what kind of hooliganery are we up to today, Grandma?"
"Grandma?" White Chocolate glanced at them both in concern.
Willow smiled ruefully. "Amber's affectionate name for me. Apparently it's starting to spread..." She raised a mischievous eyebrow at Valey. "Though if you knew why she called me that, you might not be so keen to do so."
"Uhhh..." Valey balked for all of two seconds, before shrugging and sticking her tongue out. "Nah. Don't know, don't care. Grandma. But like seriously though, where are we going? Nothing trying to turn me into a throw rug is snazzy, but I'm actually getting bored."
Willow shook her head, not giving Valey an inch. "We're not blowing anything up, judging by how you were talking last night. Starlight and White Chocolate and I are taking a walk wherever we feel like, and you're welcome to join us."
White Chocolate smiled apologetically. "I don't know what there is here to walk to, so..."
"Meh." Valey shrugged, picking a direction and taking a step. "Wanna go back to the ship? See how Sparky's holding up? I'd also be down for treats. Or we could go mess with Birdo. As long as we don't run into that stupid pirate or get bored, I'm down for anything."
"A pirate?" White Chocolate arched her brows in concern.
"Jellyjugs," Valey replied with an irate flick of her tail. "Don't like her. Think she's yours."
White Chocolate bit her lip, looking like she wasn't sure whether to apologize.
"Going to the boat might be nice," Willow quickly announced, breaking the tension. "I haven't gotten to see it properly from the inside. And it's not a long walk from here."
"I didn't see a lot of it besides my cabin," White Chocolate agreed.
Starlight shrugged. It wasn't like she had anywhere better to be.
The gangplank to Shinespark's ship was already extended when Starlight arrived, tilted at a dangerous angle to accommodate for the river's unusually high flow. Several curious Riverfall mares stood a talkative vigil, but didn't try to board, and all moved aside respectfully at the sight of the approaching group as the bandaged Valey blew them a kiss for good measure.
Starlight felt the wooden deck creak welcomingly under her hooves, like the ship recognized her and wished her a pleasant stay. She had no errands to run here, so she stood aside as well, waiting as Willow climbed aboard next to White Chocolate and Valey brought up the rear. The boat rocked gently against the current, just as patient to sit in place as she was.
"Good morning!" a voice called out, and Dior quickly made his way up from the stairs belowdecks, smiling pleasantly. "Anything you need help with?"
Willow returned his smile. "We're just out for a walk," she replied, keeping an easy posture. "Nothing important, but we thought we'd see the ship. I, at least, haven't seen it properly and thought it might be nice to look at."
"My idea, by the way," Valey interjected, pointing at herself with a wingtip.
Dior nodded, looking as if he was still slightly starstruck by the sight of Riverfall. "That's no trouble at all. My sister is cleaning and my mother is talking with Arambai on the bridge, but you're welcome to look around."
"Arambai?" Starlight blinked. Right, they had left a sound stone with him...
"I can ask if he'd like to speak with you, too," Dior chuckled, heading for the bridge with such a spring in his step that Starlight grew even more certain the events at the skyport never really happened.
"Sure. Okay." She wandered after him, shrugging, noticing Willow following with interest too.
"So. Starlight," Arambai's gravelly voice said, transmitted through the pulsating chunk of crystal Matryona held in her wings. "I've heard you all made it back in one piece. How'd our ship shape up for you?"
Starlight and Willow both stood opposite the pegasus, staring into the stone. Valey lounged causally against a nearby wall, and White Chocolate stood awkwardly, unsure of whether she belonged. "I told you it worked wonderfully, love," Matryona murmured into the gem.
"Oh, let the filly speak. I'm curious to hear things from her, given her stake in all this. How's Maple doing? Still messed up by that sword? She was out of it for a long time while we were down."
"I know," Starlight grated, feeling her teeth rub together and trying to loosen her jaw. "She's... better. We're doing good. I think." Searching for the right thing to add, she continued, "How's Ironridge?"
"A mess," Arambai's voice replied. "Not as much of a mess as it could be, at least. We've got some reports of pillaging and looting in the Earth District, but no more heavy weapons and the districts have stopped squabbling among themselves. We've got a rationing system set up, at least, so we should be fine for food. That freak blizzard did a number on our crops, but most of the colder-weather ones from the Stone District are fine. We've also hooked the Blueleaf generator up to the old power grid. It's not got enough juice to do much, especially without leaving those lower levels in the dark, but we routed it to Skyfreeze and got all the lights and weather control systems back online there. Not sure if we want to use it as a government headquarters anymore. It's certainly possible, but Blueleaf's also looking like a prime candidate since that's where the power is. But Skyfreeze has the bureaucratic infrastructure already set up, and I want that to do as much work for us as possible."
"What about Karma Industries?" Starlight asked. "You could move there."
"Full of refugees. We've gotta find something to do with them before we can put that building to use. Besides, it's private property, and if we did get our hooves on it... Well, I'd be more interested in seeing if we can't restore it for its original purpose."
Starlight felt her eyes widen. "You're trying to rebuild a skyport already?"
"It's gotta happen one way or another," Arambai growled. "There are airships of all colors coming into Ironridge still on regularly-scheduled flights, then finding the docking and repowering equipment all gone. Fortunately, the weather's been extremely mild, but we're having to resort to parking them in the badlands and having teams of pegasi haul the crews back into Ironridge. And they can't get out. The world's counting on us to have one. And besides, if we try to rebuild without it, the world won't wait. They've probably figured out something's amiss already and are rerouting cargo ships through Varsidel, or something equally hair-brained."
"Huh." Starlight took a step back, not knowing what else to say.
"So what about the rest of you?" Arambai asked. "Who else is listening in I might know?"
"Yours truly," Valey announced with a grin, deliberately leaving her identity up to her voice.
"And Willow," Willow replied, standing next to Starlight. Behind her, White Chocolate was silent.
"Yours truly? Are you that bat everyone's been going on about?"
Valey winked at the sound stone. "Yup!" She made a face she knew Arambai couldn't see.
"The one that took down Herman," Arambai said. "I've heard your name whispered a time or two here and there. Sounds like you had a pretty bad reputation beforehoof. Also doesn't sound like much of what you did caught on. There's a bunch of mercenaries stuck here saying someone stole their ship, and they're talking up how tough you are, but down on the streets folks can't make up their minds whether you're a supervillain or a folk hero. I tried to throw a good word in here and there, but everyone wants to talk about what happened without knowing the details, and it sounds like you're an easy face to imagine at the center."
Valey blew a raspberry. "I kinda was, Gramps. Beating up Herman before you even showed up? Remember that?"
"Yeah. Anyway, I'd like to discuss matters of payment."
Suddenly, Valey froze, her eyes starting to sparkle. "Hold on. Payment? As in..."
"As in if it wasn't for you getting rid of that thug, things would've been bad. Bad bad, especially if he hurt Starlight or stopped her from doing whatever she did to clear away the windigoes. So this goes for you, too, Starlight. Ironridge isn't the most financially stable place right now, and there are actually rumblings that the currency will collapse since there's no trade to back it. But the city owes you quite a bit. So if you ever find yourself in need of something Ironridge can offer..."
"I don't want-!" Starlight started to say, but Valey frantically shushed her by covering her mouth with a hoof. "Mmmph!" Starlight spat the offending appendage away.
"Anyway. It's too early now to say for sure what that'll look like, but I've got an idea for starters. Since this gig in Ironridge is likely to be long-term for me, but there's not much of a point in keeping Ironridge and Riverfall separate any more, I want to bring Matryona back here so I can see her properly again. That'll mean making a return flight to Ironridge once the ship is patched up. At the very least, it'll need someone to fly it back to Riverfall. If you or any of your friends are feeling up to it, you'd be welcome to make a return visit."
Starlight nearly exploded with indignation. "We barely got out of Ironridge with our lives and your idea of a reward is to invite us back!? What is wrong with you?"
"Woah, woah, woah!" Starlight could imagine the yellow stallion waving his hooves to calm her down. "First off, the city's a lot more stable now that there's no more yaks running around, I'm in charge and it's burnt itself out already. Maybe Amber or Willow would like to see it too, since I know the lot of you were hoping to go as a group. At the very safest, you could stick to Skyfreeze and be fine. But what I actually wanted to offer was the Yakyakistan Ambassador's old room in Skyfreeze. Remember how we were talking about the security on the door? I've got that ready to override, but haven't assigned it to a new pony yet. Short version is, if any one of you who'd like to claim that comes back here to do the imprint and look inside, the room and everything in it is yours."
"Everything in it?" Willow looked worried. "Arambai, from what I've heard, the Ambassador was a monster. What would we do with his things?"
"They weren't his any more," Arambai growled. "That fleabag already gave the room over to the leader of that mercenary group as payment for their services. A griffon named Kero, if my intel is correct. Problem is, I haven't seen a feather of him since I got here, and apparently his own mercenaries don't know where he is either. I have no clue what he would've been using that room for, but at the very least what you'd get is one of the nicest, most exclusive properties in Ironridge. You ever want a safe place to stay, that would be it. If there's anything dangerous in there, I could get a team to clean it out for you, but for all you know, there could be a proper dragon's hoard of treasure in there, too. Anyway, that's my idea. If you don't want it, I'll figure out someone else it can go to, but I figured since you did the fighting, you ought to get first claim to the losers' things."
Starlight pouted, knowing for absolute certain that a mystery room filled with things left behind by manipulative plotters meant bad news for living a peaceful, adventure-free life, but she didn't speak up to turn it down. Maybe Valey would want it, or something.
"Do you mind if we think about that?" Willow asked plaintively. "Recently me and my friends have... made a lot of hasty decisions we wish we had thought more about. If you're inviting us back to Ironridge, I very much appreciate it, but we need to talk it over, sleep on it, talk again and wait at least a week before I feel comfortable allowing that."
"Way I see it, you don't have much of a choice, since the airship doesn't sound like it'll be ready before then anyway," Arambai replied. "I'll keep the room around as long as you need, or until you decide you don't want it. Take your time, and tell Maple I hope she's recovering. That griffon's sword looked nasty when I got a look at it."
"Don't worry," Willow assured. "Yesterday she was walking on her own, and this morning she said she felt even better." She paused, looking troubled. "When you said you took a look at it, did you...?"
"Find out how it worked? A way to undo the effects without letting them wear off? A way to make more?" Arambai gave a dry laugh. "Nahhh. I was just admiring the design. Don't see many smiths making black swords these days. It's got a bad rap as a color, but I think it looks kind of cool. If you decide to come back and bring it with you, though, I could always stick it in a lab and-" He cut himself off with the sound of a hoof thumping against a forehead. "Right. No more Sosa means all our arcane research equipment is gone. If you really want to know how it works, I suppose you could take it down to my lab in Riverfall and have Shinespark check it with the material there. Might want to do that anyway! From what I've heard, it sounds like she needs a little fresh air."
Willow smiled ruefully. "I was going to ask if you used it on anyone. But we could go there next, if you need anyone to check in on your house."
"Oh. No, I didn't, and yeah, that would be appreciated. If Hemlock is up on my roof again, you have my permission to throw him in the river. Anyway, I'm out of time for now. Got some meetings to attend to. Matryona, call me back this evening! I want to know more about that thing you were telling me..."
Starlight stared at the stone as it flickered and went dull. "Does that mean it's time to leave?"
Willow looked to the open deck door. "We're in no hurry," she replied.
"And it'll probably take some doing to convince my sister to accompany us like he said," Dior added, touching his orange bangs with a hoof. "Still, you said you wanted a look around. As long as you don't mind me accompanying you in Riverfall after, shall we tour?"
The insides of the unnamed airship were dim, lit naturally by windows that weren't facing the sun. The library smelled of cleanser; clearly Shinespark had focused on that the most. As Starlight and the procession of ponies trotted down the hallway, they passed door after open door, plush beds removed and porthole windows open to help air the rooms out. She saw the room Maple had chosen with her back in Ironridge, glimmering spotlessly and devoid of any personal belongings.
In one door was Shinespark, awkwardly crouching due to her thick, clunky cast and scrubbing away at a stain in the floor with her forehooves. Her mane was back in the world's shortest ponytail, and her horn looked blackened and covered in soot. Starlight wondered what kind of spell had done that, and if it was why she was cleaning physically instead of levitating her mop.
She didn't turn around at the sound of approaching hoofsteps, but her ears did. "Hey," she said, staying focused on scrubbing.
"Hey yourself, Sparky," Valey replied, pushing to the front of the convoy. "Still down in the dumps?"
"You shouldn't need to ask that," Shinespark said, voice flat and lifeless.
Willow's mouth creased in a worried frown, and White Chocolate took a step back, looking nervous. Starlight watched through a narrow gap in the door, and Valey stuck out her tongue. "Nyaah. Nah, I totally don't. I just feel like it."
"Don't antagonize her, please," Dior murmured. "Some of us have gained less and lost more than others these past few days."
"Hey, at least she still has her mane..." Valey tugged self-consciously at the ruinously uneven patch where Herman had sheared off part of her emerald locks during their fight.
Shinespark stopped scrubbing, shuddered, and sighed.
"Shinespark?" Matryona asked, suddenly gliding up behind the crowd with her way of walking that made it look like her hooves weren't even moving beneath her robe. "How is the power restoration coming along?"
Shinespark hung her head. "I haven't started yet."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Matryona asked, pushing the other ponies aside through some invisible quality in her presence. "I feel like it would be nice, having the power back on."
"...No," Shinespark said, still slumped. "Sorry, Mother."
"You don't usually call me that," Matryona remarked, stepping forward.
Willow pushed Valey back with a limb, Starlight and White Chocolate needing no hint to sense that they were intruding. In the room, Shinespark finally looked up, gritting her teeth. "I need parts from Arambai's lab to fix the power, but I don't want to go..."
"Wuss," Valey mouthed to Starlight, raising an eyebrow and cracking a smile. Starlight didn't return it, and Willow shot her a dirty glare.
"What in particular do you need?" Dior asked, still in the room. "I'm thinking of exploring the city a little myself. I could always look for something..."
Shinespark fixed her deep blue eyes on him. "A lot of things," she said. "I'll need... I'll need..." She bit her lip. "I'll..." She went back to hanging her head. "I don't remember."
"I think a walk would do you a little good..." Dior offered, his voice slightly singsong.
"...Maybe." Shinespark looked away, pacing to the open window and sticking her head out. The ship was still being watched, some mares coming and some going and all either watching with wide eyes or chattering and speculating with interest. "They're so happy, though. They have no understanding of why we're here. I can't be surrounded by that right now. They don't... We can't..."
Dior nudged her shoulder supportively. "Sister, wasn't a large part of your role hearing and helping with the burdens of the populace? I would have thought seeing that many ponies happy and carefree in the face of all that has happened would be an inspiration."
"It was!" Shinespark snapped, eyes suddenly watering. "And that's the problem! If I go out there, I'm going to break down, and that will make them sad too. Just... give me a little more time. I'm stronger than this. I'm pulling myself back together. I'll be better soon."
Willow frowned, stepping forward. "May I speak my mind?"
Shinespark shook her head, eyes clenched. "Go ahead."
"I am a native of Riverfall." Willow took two more steps. "And I think you're not giving the ponies here enough credit. Many of us are naive or don't understand how the bigger world works, but are also both generous and enjoy learning about it. If you went outside visibly troubled, I think a lot of the ponies you met would want to help, and wouldn't at all resent knowing the world can be a bad place or shedding tears for it."
"...Huh." Shinespark looked away. "I'll get better, though. It's not their job to worry about that."
"But they want to," Willow said. "Not are willing to. Want to. Especially right now, when every one of them knows big things have happened and the only one telling it is a griffon who likes battles, likes heroics, and skips over emotions. You shouldn't feel bad for having a story that needs to be told."
Shinespark wiped her eyes. "Thanks, but I'm good. I told you, I'm coming to terms with it."
"Enough to go out and get what you need to fix the power?" Matryona asked softly from a corner.
"You know what?" Shinespark straightened up, eyes narrowing. "I am. I'm going to Dad's lab right now, I'm not stopping for anything, and I'll be just fine. Watch me."
She stomped out the door and down the corridor, cast clunking against the floor and a grimace on her face, leaving her cleaning materials in the middle of the room. Everyone looked after her, and Willow and Matryona exchanged a glance.
"She's not fine, is she?" Willow murmured.
"Nuh-uh." Valey shook her head broadly and slowly, making the point as big as she could. "That is one not-fine filly."
Matryona sighed, hanging her head. "If you could look out for her, that would be appreciated," she said, mostly to Willow. "You sound like you've done this before."
Willow smiled sadly. "Mother's instinct. Is there anything we should know?"
"No," Matryona murmured. "Not if you've heard about Ironridge already. I would appreciate it if the power in this ship was fixed, though. There is an audio file on the bridge terminal, and I think hearing it might help her recover her spark."
Valey let out a huge belch. "Gotcha covered," she promised. "I'll pester her if she forgets. Also..." She tugged on the bandages around her burnt forehoof, and then the sling holding her injured wing to her side. "Think at least a little of what's getting her is medical stuff? I'm going a little nutso from these myself, and I don't even clunk like a falling coconut everywhere I go."
"Possibly." Matryona looked out the window, the riverbank still teeming with mares on the other side. "Anything that could remind her of how many times she lost. At the dam, against the Spirit, against Herman... whom you beat. Although, removing reminders of failure isn't the same as coming to terms with it."
Valey rolled her eyes, chuckling. "Yeah, can't say I wish I could relate. I mean, losing stinks, and all, but I never lose."
Starlight raised an eyebrow at her as everyone shuffled out of the half-cleaned room. Had she forgotten about the mercenaries in the Flame District already?
Starlight stood in the sunlight, looking down from the airship's deck as Shinespark clunked her way past the group of admiring mares without so much as making eye contact, threading her way into the city. She caught Willow's gaze, and received a frown. "She doesn't know where Arambai's house is, does she?" she asked, guessing what the mare was thinking.
"Completely the wrong direction," Willow murmured, shaking her head. "Oh well. We should make sure she doesn't get lost. I guess I'll get to see the rest of the ship another time."
"Honestly, there's not all that much," Dior chuckled, letting the wind tease at his orange mane. "There's a limited amount of things you can fit on a boat, after all. Besides, the impressive part is looking down from the air."
"Will she be all right on her own?" Willow asked, glancing up at Matryona.
Matryona watched where Shinespark had disappeared, her hood still obscuring much of her face. "She should be able to take care of herself, though with her horn burned out, I'm worried about whether she'll be able to find her way back. I don't think she'll want to ask for directions."
Valey tilted her head back and sniffed the air, showing off the underside of her chin. "Yeah, good luck with that. I smell rain. Let that start up for a bit, and either she'll ask for directions, ask to hole up in someone's house, or get wet and miserable and then do that. Besides, that Arambai dude only said we needed her if you wanted to check out that weird sword, and it's not even with us."
"Or important," Starlight added. If she wanted to know more about anything, there was the much easier way of listening to Fire's audio chip she had been given.
"It does rain here often," Willow agreed. "Today and yesterday have been a lot nicer than usual. Do you have any raincoats on this ship?"
Dior shrugged. "I wasn't in charge of packing it, but I think the idea was that you could go belowdecks if the weather turned bad. Worried about being caught out if a storm is coming?"
"I can smell it too," Matryona added, backing Valey up.
"Somewhat." Willow nodded, staring off at the town. "Everyone in Riverfall is used to being wet, and there are rubber ponchos and towels in nearly every house. Still, I wouldn't like any of us catching a cold."
White Chocolate shuddered and hugged herself. "I know I rather wouldn't."
"Let's get moving, then," Dior announced, making for the gangplank. "A little water won't kill me, but I can't say the same for any delicate equipment I'd be bringing back from my father's lab. I know enough of this ship's schematics to at least make an educated guess at what we'll need. Besides, I'm getting eager to see the town for myself!"
He made it all the way to the concrete riverbank before he was swarmed by the watching mares, each wearing an eager smile and happily letting him speak first.
His ears folded. "Can I help you?"
One mare fainted. Two more gave pouts of disappointment, one hoofing over a shiny trinket and a bit of candy to another, and the rest kept grinning.
Dior turned back to the ship, shaking his head, his good mood and plan for the afternoon having melted into helpless confusion.
"Pretty sure they were here for you and not this ship," Valey said smugly, folding her forelegs on the railing and resting her chin on them with a smirk. "I mean, you've got that spooky coloration, mysterious past, limp that shows up when it's cold... and are a dude. Have you never been in a place that's like ninety-five percent mares before, or something?"
Dior blinked back at her. "Of course not. Why would...?" His eyes slowly widened in realization.
"Quick! Say something vague and edgy but not catatonically depressing!" Valey yelled, cupping her hooves around her muzzle. "Brag about your inner darkness, or something. They'll love it!"
Several of the mares reddened immensely, one to the degree that she turned up her nose and stomped off in a huff. "I was admiring the boat!" she insisted... but Starlight noticed that she stopped and continued to watch just before slipping out of sight. Most of the others grinned harder, a few even doing both, and some openly applauded.
Matryona wore a slight frown, her wings twitching beneath her robe as if she was trying to decide whether to swoop down and extract her son from whatever he was getting himself into. White Chocolate looked as if she was trying hard not to smile, while Willow didn't even bother to try.
"I..." Dior lifted his hoof and stared at it, looking slightly overwhelmed. Then, suddenly, his voice deepened. "Stay back, citizens! My... inner darkness is unstable, and might hurt you if you come too close?"
Instantly, the mares collapsed in helpless laughter, some leaning against each other and others rolling on the concrete. Dior reddened, then reddened harder, his gray coat for once turning a lighter shade than his mane.
Willow trotted over and placed a hoof on his shoulder. "I think you just lost whatever chance you had of continuing in your father's hoofsteps, but will be very popular regardless. Congratulations."
Starlight had to admit, Dior looked silly, but not to the degree where she could join Valey or the Riverfall mares in rolling around and banging the floor. "What?" she asked, slightly cross at being left out of the joke. "Do they all like him that much, or something?"
"Heh heh heh..." Valey rubbed her eyes, sitting upright. "Nah, I'm pretty sure he was just getting messed with. These Riverfall mares are a riot; I've been watching them since we got here. Anyway. We should-"
FWOOOOM!
The rain didn't start gradually. Instead, it spilled over the treetops as the clouds advanced like a wall of trains, the vertical horizon blocking Starlight's view and giving her absolutely no warning. She had just enough reaction time to fire her horn and encase herself in crystal, watching as everyone else had their coats flattened and manes drenched in seconds. She felt particularly bad for not shielding White Chocolate, but the mare had no experience with her magic and would probably appreciate the panic attack and being subsequently released to the rain far less than just being rained on in the first place.
The mares around Dior shrieked, most racing off in various directions while trying to cover their tails and heads. A few, however, stuck around, with a prim, skinny mare loudly announcing that her house was close by.
"Opportunism, ho!" Valey crowed, trotting happily along, her voice ringing distantly in Starlight's ears as the magical crystal muted sound and made it echo. Willow stuck right next to White Chocolate, who was still in her bathrobe, throwing Starlight a quick glance to ask if she was coming.
Right... Walking would involve dropping her shield. Starlight sighed internally, bracing herself for the inevitable downpour when her shield dropped... only to suddenly find herself hefted, crystal and all, carried along beneath the giant, protective wing of Matryona. The pegasus's robe looked as waterproof as the finest Riverfall poncho, and her other wing quickly covered Willow and White Chocolate as they followed after Valey, Dior and the mares.
Endless rain poured down, beating hours of gray static against the roof over Amber's head. The yellow mare lay in a position that had once been comfortable, her side itching and growing sweaty against Maple's bed. "Hey, Maple!?" she called in a voice that refused to reach the volume she told it to. "Can you roll me over and open a window? I'm too hot!"
There was a clattering of hooves against a staircase, and Maple quickly arrived, stopping in the doorway to catch her breath. "You just told me to close it, Amber," she pointed out. "And I'm still tired, too. If I open it and give you a blanket, will that be a happy compromise so I can sit down?"
"You could sit down in here, you know," Amber murmured, doing her best to meet Maple's eyes without moving her head. "Mostly, I'm bored."
Maple trotted to the window with a huff. "Then you should know how I feel. I can't lay around all day, Amber. I need to walk around and do things! I feel like..."
"Need to walk around and do things?" Amber's lips twitched. "Like roll me over and fix the window?"
"Amber..." Maple moaned.
"It's not like you want to go anywhere with this rain," Amber remarked. "Unless you want to go look for Willow and Starlight, but they're probably holed up inside somewhere too. So sit in here and talk to me! I'm bored."
"You," Maple muttered, grabbing Amber's body with her forehooves and awkwardly turning her on her other side, "are like this because of your own fault. Here." She smoothed out the bed ruffles on her friend's coat, then sighed, flopping down on the edge of the bed and bouncing slightly. "I'm still trying to figure out what I want normal to be, now that I'm living in Riverfall with all my friends and Starlight and have Ironridge in my past. I don't know what I want to do with myself. But I don't think foalsitting my best friend is it."
Amber folded her ears, putting on the most helpless expressions she could. "Tuck me in?"
"You're enjoying this too much." Huffing again, Maple trotted out of the bedroom, closing the door partway with her tail. She looked back and added, "You said you wanted to know what it felt like, what I went through? It's not supposed to be fun. You feel helpless, trapped, and alone. I'm going to come when you call, but before you ask next time, imagine that nobody comes. Get better soon, Amber."
For a brief moment after Maple left, Amber was still, listening to her friend descending the stairs. Her bakery was open, and customers were coming in, so it wasn't like she had nothing better to do, after all.
Then, she shuffled, wriggling once and moving herself a few inches so that a bed fold lay less uncomfortably beneath her. It took the same amount of effort and willpower as climbing out of bed seconds after an alarm set two hours too early, but still, she did it.
Amber idly wiggled a hoof, watching it limply flop with glazed-over eyes as the rain continued to rush in her ears. Maple was right; she was having too much fun with this. Movement was hard, certainly, as if her body just didn't listen when asked, but not impossible, and she probably could have rolled over on her own. Getting Maple to move her was just much more... satisfying. Like a vacation, but neither entertaining nor relaxing. But after all the time she had spent keeping Maple close at hoof in the past two years, a tiny part of her reveled in being on the other end of such doting attention.
But Maple's condition had been serious, and making light of it or giving the impression that she didn't take it seriously... Amber felt a tiny spark of guilt in her heart that exploded and spread through her veins like lead, and within a second she found her hoof was dead and she couldn't even flick her ears.
The train of thought took her by surprise: had she just gotten worse? Instinctively, she tried to call out, only for the barest whisper of toneless breath to escape her lips. She couldn't even call! A surge of panic flared in her mind, and for the first time, Amber properly regretted turning Gerardo's sword on herself. What had even happened? Was this what Maple had been talking about? She should have taken everything more seriously, not tried to enjoy it...
To enjoy it? Amber tried to frown, pushing aside her feelings and trying to think rationally. She knew her condition had just worsened, but it had done so at the precise moment she regretted it happening. And... Maple knew what it was like, so if she was supposed to be able to roll over on her own, wouldn't Maple have known and told her she could do it herself? Maple had said the sword's paralysis felt exactly the way she once had, but it couldn't actually be tied to the victim's emotions, could it?
Amber lay in place, breathing, trying to clear her mind, making testing her idea her main priority. Gerardo's sword was clearly bad news; it had hurt Maple, and getting cut by it was something she suddenly regretted. But she had to not feel bad about that. If she hadn't used it on herself, she wouldn't have had a realization about how it worked, so that she was stuck was a good thing. It was a good thing... A good thing that she had enjoyed herself before, and not respected... No!
Sighing internally, Amber stopped struggling. Fighting with herself, it seemed, wasn't going to do any good. She tried to wiggle her hoof again, only to feel a tiny spark of frustration tied with resignation when nothing happened. She knew she had found something, and she concentrated on that feeling, but finding it had cost her what she needed to test it...
"...Hey."
Amber blinked, ears pricking. Valey? She couldn't turn her head to check, but knew she recognized the voice.
"Still can't talk, huh?" Valey climbed out of the shadows in front of her in an ethereal display of her batpony magic. "Look left for yes. I think."
Well, she had been able to talk, but apparently making the effort wouldn't work now. Amber glanced to the left, wondering whether to be nervous or excited by Valey's presence.
"Huh. That's too bad." Valey leaned against the wall, still within her sight. "Took Ironflanks a day or two to say stuff again, though, I think. Kinda weird, though. I could swear I heard you this morning..."
Amber looked up. That meant I don't know, right? She couldn't recall seeing Valey at all that day.
"...Anyway." Valey rolled her shoulders, flexing her one good wing. "I was following Starlight and the others around, but then it started raining and they holed up with some other mares to get out of the rain and as funny as watching Dior get absolutely mauled by flirting was, it eventually got old, so now I'm here. You aren't horribly offended or unnerved that I'm alone in here with you while you can't move, are you?"
She wasn't, but Valey's old warning about her reputation in Ironridge did ring in Amber's mind... Still, she needed some way to reset her thoughts, especially one that wasn't boring, and it sounded like the batpony was asking permission to stay.
"Cool," Valey said, watching her eyes. "For me, at least. 'Cause... no offense, but I was actually thinking of doing something really mean."
Amber's heart spiked in worry, but her curiosity overrode it. She waited, hoping Valey would explain.
"See, there's this part of Ironridge I kinda brushed over," Valey went on, fidgeting with her hooves. "A lot of parts, actually. Did you know that I've got issues? Because I do. But the thing is..." She took a deep breath. "'I trust you, I don't care who or what you are or what you've done, I'll be your friend and give you as many chances as you need, and blah blah blah...' That's Ironflanks. She's awesome. And really, really gullible, naive and easy to take advantage of, but still exactly what I needed. You kind of become a loner when absolutely everyone hates your guts, you know? But the thing is... I tried to warn her. I told her over and over again that I really do have baggage she doesn't want to deal with, and she didn't want to deal with it. Doesn't want to hear it. Told me to knock it off, and to be honest, I probably deserved it since I was being super edgy about it. But... still."
Amber could do nothing but look left in agreement, even though Valey wasn't watching, and wait for her to go on.
"And the thing is..." Valey sighed, taking off her hat and holding it in both forehooves. "I love that she gave me a chance. I needed her to give me a chance. But ever since that third night, I have been absolutely spooked of losing all this. I mean, I'm sure she'd actually be nice and understanding if I went up and blubbered everything I ever felt like on her shoulder like a big foal, but... I'm actually not. So I'm trying my absolute best to be the same silly, likable, vaguely-inappropriate goof she insisted on being friends with before I got my world shaken by losing a fight against a bunch of mooks, putting my life on the line for a city I don't care one bit about and all that other stuff, and I feel like I'm gonna explode. Thinking about stuff isn't good enough. I need to talk about it. And not with her. You get where I'm going with this?"
This time, Valey was watching for a response. Amber didn't waste any time in looking left.
"Snazzy." Valey poked her in the chest with a forehoof. "Now here's why it stinks to be you: I don't care about you. Don't take that as an 'I don't think you're cute and wouldn't like to get to know you' kind of thing, because off the record I do and would. Take it as... I don't know you or have anything riding on you still liking me when this is all over, because I'm a wuss who can't gamble anything important on this even if she needs it."
Amber looked straight ahead, trying to meet Valey's eyes.
"And the worst part," Valey continued, "Is that I'm not even gonna ask if you're okay with this, because I'm secretly such a mess that the only time I've ever come even close to this before was with someone else who couldn't move, talk, or even lift a hoof to reject me. That was Maple, in the eastern valley after the dam, and I still chickened out of saying anything about my past, because I'm actually that insecure. Sorry, and I know this is taking advantage of your incapacitation and part of why I have a reputation in the first place, but I need this and I need to look after myself as well as cities of hundreds of thousands." She hesitated. "You're okay with that, right?"
Valey needed her helpless? The realization welled in Amber like hope; even though she was entirely correct that they didn't know each other at all beyond a first-glance interest, listening to ponies was hardly something she was bad at, and never had consequences she couldn't bear. And if she was in a unique position to do that... Without thinking, she whispered, "Of course!"
Valey blinked at her, then thumped her head against the wall. "Oh, you tease..."
"No!" Amber softly called, trying to reach out and still managing nothing. "I mean it. I'll listen. You can say I'll regret it, but I'd like to know more about you. Besides, I think you just helped me here. Tell me. I want to hear."
"...You're asking for me to completely unload on you." Valey gave her a flat stare. "Are you sure you don't like the cute and cuddly me better? Like, absolutely sure? Because I told you, Maple is ticked about me having baggage to the point of telling me not to talk about it."
"I'll make her understand, if you want me to," Amber promised. "But tell me your story! Especially if you need it to be told. Please. I'm good at listening."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You know what you're asking for, right? This is probably going to end in me crying into you like a pillow. I'm serious. Last warning..."
Amber gave a smile of determination. "And weren't you going to tell me about this whether I was okay with it or not?"
There was a second of silence... and then Valey growled, lowering her head and slumping onto the bed. "Fine," she said. "It all started... You see this?"
Amber blinked, watching as she held up the golden pendant around her neck. "It's pretty," she agreed. "I noticed you wearing it earlier. Is it an heirloom?"
"Something like that," Valey sighed, laying down. "It all started on a night eight years ago in a remote colony in Yakyakistan, when there was a meteor shower that brought moon glass to the world..."
A really long time ago, before Yakyakistan had their big war with Blazing Rain and all that, there was a place in the mountains called Icereach. It was right up against the mountains, where the Yakyakistan glacier meets the western edge of that huge range Ironridge is just east of. Nothing but flat ice, jagged rocks, snow... and a bunch of cute little batponies.
Icereach was a colony that had just enough shelter to be safe from storms, had some caves to grow mushrooms for food, and was actually really survivable, if you didn't mind the only way in or out being the occasional yak convoy stubborn enough to walk there all the way across the glacier. Remotest place in the world, seriously. Don't ask me why the bats decided to set up shop there in the first place; they didn't keep history books. Maybe they actually have as bad of a rap as I do elsewhere in the world and were hiding, or something. Point is, they were... and it was nice.
Then the war ended, and there were suddenly all these windigo hearts laying around. And Yakyakistan noticed they did some weird, creepy magical things, and some dumbbell up in the government must've been like, "Hey, let's dump these in the most remote location possible so they don't hurt anyone and get a team of mild-mannered scientists to research them and make them safe and blah blah blah..." and that totally happened. One day, a train of yaks showed up with their wagons, and brought a few unicorns and a stockpile of hearts and left them there, and left. They probably figured that was the end of that.
So the unicorns did their experiments, and they and the bats were actually pretty nice to each other. Bats gave the unicorns food and room to work and live, they kept the bats out of their magic stuff and sometimes helped out with domestic stuff or even expanding the colony. They helped with agriculture, and got some weird varieties of wheat and potatoes to even grow in the shelter of the mountain slopes. They actually quarried some stone and helped build some sturdier stuff aboveground, including this big research tower for themselves so they'd have a safe place to work. Turned Icereach into something more like a town than a bunch of ponies in a cave. They were nice, they cooperated, they became friends... too good of friends.
See, one thing the unicorns always did was experiment on themselves. They figured out this sinister spell they could use that would destroy a windigo heart and use its essence to sever a pony's cutie mark from their body. But the effects only lasted a minute or two, and then it came back, and there was nothing anyone could figure out beyond that.
Eventually, the bats offered to help. You wanna know a really weird difference between us and other kinds of ponies? We're born with our cutie marks. Always have them, right from the get-go. Conceived with them, even, maybe. Not like the unicorns, some of whom were even blank... especially the foals. Did I mention there were whole families there, and they were starting new ones? It really was more like a town than a research station. But there were some bats who had the brains to get interested in this project, even if they didn't have the horns, and they volunteered themselves as test subjects to see if anything different would happen with their marks. After all, there are stories about bats without marks, but they're probably all made up, and all of them were pretty curious what would actually happen.
Big mistake. Like, life-and-death mistake. It turns out that when my kind lose their marks... first off, they go insane. Essentially feral, actually. Normal ponies didn't do that. And the transformation... We turn into these weird, bug-looking things that are kind of like ponies but with black shells as armor and pupilless eyes, and holes in our legs and tails that look like they're rotting. Forked tongues, and all that. And then... we don't change back. The marks don't return on their own. They never return. The unicorns were smart enough to stop the experiment after that only happened once, but it was like the bat had died. Or they were still alive, suffering a fate worse than death. It shook pretty much everyone to their cores, and they realized they had gone too far and were messing with things that weren't meant to be messed with. And since Yakyakistan had never been back to follow up on the experiments... they locked the hearts away in the deepest, darkest cave in Icereach and never, ever looked back.
Fortunately, the unicorns and batponies were good enough of friends that they understood it was an accident and got on with their lives, and hung out and were happy and spent the next few decades doing whatever ponies do when they're isolated and nobody's watching. I'll leave that up to your imagination.
...Seriously. I've imagined it plenty of times, and it's the best entertainment in Ironridge.
Then, one day, out of nowhere... Yakyakistan returned. They had more stuff and more scientists; a whole wagonful of this icky black glass they called obsidian, or moon glass. The new head scientist was this scumbag called Navarre. And he was all, "Yakyakistan has found this dangerous material that does stuff with cutie marks, and since your research station is suited to that, we're going to study it!"
Yeah, no. The day after the convoy left, there was an uprising. The unicorns from the last expedition sided with the batponies and laid down the law, and pretty quickly made the new guys understand that dark magic is dark and not something they wanted any part of. Also, when I say new guys? I mean guys. The idiots didn't bring any mares with them. Everyone else probably should have taken that as an indication that they knew they could bring Yakyakistan back, but hindsight is twenty-twenty...
Still, the locals were nice and gave the scientists their big old research tower to work with, since they were uptight and everyone figured they'd keep to themselves. Everyone just thought they'd get old, population-starve themselves, and eventually go away. Mind you, if that sounds strange, living in the same cramped cave for generations upon generations makes ponies really good at playing the long game. They thought and worried in centuries, not years. And for the most part, that worked. The scientists did their things with the moon glass, and nobody else went near them or bothered them and it almost looked like things would be just as cool as they were the time before. Especially since everyone knew not to mess with those experiments.
And then those idiots betrayed us.
They must have thought the other ponies were stupid, or something. Expendable. No one in the rest of the town knew what they were doing, or what to watch out for, but even if they had, they wouldn't have been able to do anything. You heard how moon glass works last night when we were talking, right? Contains something that looks and acts like a cutie mark, and if a blank pony holds onto it for too long, that fake mark will enter them and start to change them? And then you get a possessed pony and an empty piece of glass that's basically a container for holding cutie marks?
Nobody knew how they had emptied theirs. Maybe they brought some that were empty from Yakyakistan. Maybe they did something with the windigo hearts, which they dug out a while before and took into that stupid tower. But those monsters... hid empty pieces of glass beneath the snow, like mines in a battlefield. They knew the empty pieces did nothing to normal ponies, marked or blank. They knew batponies had marks that reacted differently to mark-manipulating magic than others'. And they knew the bats would never, ever agree to be test subjects again after what had happened before, nor would the older unicorns help force them to... so they did it through treachery. They turned them into traps, and waited for someone to fall into it. And someone did.
T-That pony... was a young mare who was out for a walk with her sister, checking the ice potato fields. She stepped on one. By the time she realized what was happening, there was nothing she could do about it... not that anyone knew what to do.
It drained her. Sucked her dry, empty, until her mark was gone and she was exactly the same kind of monster everyone had seen all those years ago. Took less than a minute. There must be something that makes batponies' cutie marks' connections to their bodies weaker than that of normal ponies, because not only do they not come back when removed, but empty moon glass can pull them away, without even needing a windigo heart or that spell. And so those two bats sat there, one watching in horror as her sister turned into a mindless shell and a rock holding her soul, and didn't know what to do.
But the unicorns did. The good ones, they found those two, and immediately realized what had happened. Since they were safe from the moon glass due to not being batponies, they ordered everyone inside and to stay away from anywhere it could be hidden. They used their telekinetic fields to purge the town... found a lot more of the stuff. And they took the transformed sister and her soul to the scientists in the tower, and demanded they fix her. The scientists agreed.
Of course they didn't fix her. What kind of villainous scientists would stop and atone there, after going so far already? They wanted to study her. They didn't have access to the original case; that one had been put down as an act of mercy years before they arrived. And they must have known what they wanted to do, because they wasted no time in it.
That mare's name was Valey. Her sister, who followed her to the lab when the unicorns brought her there to demand she be fixed, was Nyala. And the scientists in the tower did what they said, and recombined Valey with the cutie mark from a piece of moon glass... the wrong piece. Not the one that held her cutie mark, but one of the ones that had fallen from space. One containing a parasitic look-alike cutie mark, the kind that enter into unmarked ponies and change their eyes and personalities. And that's how I was made.
There was a lot of arguing. Fighting, almost. The whole town was on Nyala's side, wanted her sister put back to normal... and I was just sitting there rubbing my head, wondering who I was and what I was doing and if I had lost my memories or if something bigger had happened. I wasn't the old Valey, see. Turned back into a cute, fuzzy bat, but didn't look an inch like her. Didn't have her memories. Did know a few basic things, though, like how to talk, how to tell who wanted to hurt me... and how to fight.
The scientists had expected the town to be angry when they used them. They had spent their time making weapons... real weapons, stuff that shoots projectiles and hurts ponies. They were expecting to put down an uprising of unarmed, peaceful villagers. They weren't expecting their own experiment to turn on them and have a cutie mark in invincibility.
I crushed them. Beat them all to an inch of their lives. Didn't kill them... dunno why. It wasn't even close to a fair fight; I was too strong. Unfortunately, none of the villagers were remotely expecting that, either. They knew moon glass was bad, they saw that I had turned scary... and so they got scared of me. I could have destroyed them too, and they knew it. But I got talked down... by the real Valey's sister.
I dunno what Nyala's thing was. To this day, I don't. The only thing I had in common with her sister was that I used the same transforming shell of a body that had once been hers, and took her name, but she didn't care. She treated me like her sister anyway. Maybe she thought there was still the real Valey in there, or she thought she could "bring me back" or something... or maybe she was just that nice. But she got me to trust her, squirreled me off to a disused part of the cave so we could calm down, and started to care for me and teach me about the world.
Didn't take long for me to grow a conscience. I mean, I must have had one already, but I could tell when stuff was messed up. I could tell when I was messed up. I was some evil extraterrestrial imitation of a soul masquerading inside her sister's body, and if anyone doubted that moon glass was bad news after all the things it could do to ponies, the fact that my talent was destruction sure sealed that deal. I shouldn't have existed. I was an abomination given form, probably what that moon glass had come here to try and turn into in the first place... or maybe it fell due to random coincidence. Either way, I knew I was categorically evil... but I also was.
Despite all I knew about myself and how bad it was, I also had a self in the first place. Have. I felt like a pony... or as close as can be to my understanding of what a pony is, anyway. I wanted to live, be happy, have friends, everything real ponies want, bat or not. I wanted to be real myself. And really, I tried to. I went out in the town and did villager things. I took walks, chatted, helped farm... even made my talent useful once or twice, like the time I noticed an unstable snowbank that was one loud shout away from burying my party in an avalanche. But everyone knew I was the moon pony, the one who had once been a carefree filly and was now an alien manifestation; a killing machine who could obliterate the entire town if I had reason to. They couldn't treat me like a pony. Nyala was the only one who did, and I'm sure she's the only thing that kept me sane.
She kept me company. She treated me like anything other than a cursed being. She told me stories to pass the time, over and over, local word-of-mouth legends like the Mare in the Moon and the Immortal Dream. And she told me what the townsponies were saying when they thought we weren't listening... and there were some who still wanted to turn me back to normal.
Why wouldn't they try that earlier? Well, for one, I wasn't their Valey, and they were scared of me, and they thought if they tried to erase me and bring back the old one, I'd beat them up. For two, they weren't even sure if it would work, since if moon glass transferred my new mark from it to me, would it really pull it out again? They might have to use the hearts, which they vowed never to use again. They also weren't sure if the old Valey would get her memory back. Most importantly, though, nobody knew what had happened to my old moon glass, the one holding the original Valey's cutie mark. Also, after I was made, the lab was kind of closed down. A lot of the new scientists realized they had it wrong and gave up. Only a hoofful of ponies, including the leader, Navarre, were still there, teleporting in and out with stockpiled food. They had all the hearts and moon glass, so to get the equipment in the first place, they'd have to storm the tower and face those weapons again... or get me to do it for them. The latter, they knew I'd never want to fight for my own suicide. And nobody cared quite enough about me to risk their own lives to bring the old me back.
...Almost nobody.
Nyala had this idea that the tower was full of research notes, and was sure there were some beneficial spells the scientists had kept for themselves. The ones who left after I was made wouldn't talk about it, but she had this perfect dream-scenario where she could get my old mark back and somehow put both in one body, like what happens when normal ponies use moon glass and suddenly get multiple personality disorder. She missed her sister more than anyone, but also actually cared about me. So one day, she went up to the tower by herself to try and talk them into it... and of course I followed her. I didn't need my cutie mark to smell the danger from the other side of Icereach. That place reeked of nope, and I was ready to raze it to the ground if need be to protect her. Neither of us had any idea what would be inside, but we were sure it would be bad.
As it turned out, those stupid scientists had taken care of themselves for us. When we got to the tower's experimentation chamber, the place was completely frozen over and blasted with ice. There was this windigo heart on a central pedestal with all the jagged ice explosion lines and stuff pointing to it, so we guessed they had been experimenting and it blew up. They made a mistake or explosion or something that flash-froze the entire room. It must have been recent, too, because the scientists still there, who were stuck in the ice? They were all alive. Including Navarre. I don't know how, but he was alive and conscious and staring right at us, even with two inches of ice covering his horn and eyes.
The ice was painful. It hurt to walk on, and not in a cold or sharp way. You could tell it had been made using black magic. I punched it, but couldn't break it with my hooves; it just completely rejected both of us. Navarre, though... He could still use his horn, and had an audio projection spell he could use to talk.
He blubbered like crazy. Beats me where he learned how to act like a foal so well. Must be something they teach at villain school. But he told me if I could dig him out, he'd give us back my original cutie mark and all the spells we needed to put me back together. I demanded payment up front, since I wanted to see that glass safe and sound. I dunno how I planned on verifying it was the right piece; I figured I'd just know since it had been her body. Pointed us into an adjacent supply room. I sensed danger, and went in first. Good thing, too, since there was an entire stack of moon glass chips... and a bunch of them were empty. I knew I'd be able to dig through them safely with a shovel given enough time, and throw out the ones that would drain me. Kept my danger sense as sharp as I could the whole time, constantly watching for anything that could hit me... and that's how I found it only works for me, and not danger to my friends.
That jerk... he... levitated a piece of moon glass into Nyala while I had my back turned. I spun around instantly, but had no idea how to do anything. When she screamed, it was like the rock was melting slightly into her. She flailed around and it wouldn't come off, and I couldn't pull it off her without something to touch it safely with. Never gonna forget... She called my name, asked what was happening. Talked about how gray everything looked. She fought it, but I watched her slipping away. Finally found a crowbar, but it was too late. She turned into a monster, just sitting there, looking like the ice hurt and she was confused.
I wasn't a sorceress. I didn't know how to put her back together. What I did know was how to kill. I took that crowbar to the ice Navarre was trapped in like a spear, stabbing and gouging and chipping it away and going like a maniac straight for his heart. He threw stuff at me too, but I could feel it coming and dodged or struck it down without even having to look. I thought I had him. I saw the fear in his eyes. Maybe he really was afraid. His horn was glowing the whole time. And then I got him... impaled him, just like I wanted. Watched him bleed out; saw the light leave his eyes. And the cutie mark leave his flank.
And when I looked around... We had known... moon glass captures cutie marks. Batponies are receptive to cutie marks not their own. Windigo hearts can remove marks from anyone, and we had no idea what other kinds of magic those scientists had invented. And there had been a windigo heart in the center of that room, already enchanted and ready for whatever ritual they were attempting.
When I looked, Nyala wasn't a monster anymore. She was him... as a batpony. Makes sense, doesn't it? If you can stick a fake alien cutie mark from space in a batpony, you can stick in one you pry off a normal, living pony too. He had the materials. He did that to escape the ice and me.
I don't know if he lost his memories or not, but his instincts were there. He was still holding the glass that had drained my sister, saw me preparing to kill him for the second time inside a minute, and bailed. He flung the glass out one window, and dove out the opposite himself. I could only chase one, and if the glass holding Nyala's mark shattered on the rocks below... I could never get her back. I chose that over revenge. Caught it. Took a hit against the rocks to reach it in time. By the time I could get up, he was completely gone.
That should've been the end. I should've taken that rock and... I dunno. I didn't see a way I could go on, or a way to bring her back. Maybe a scientist could've, but not me. Less than a year of memories, remember? But I didn't need to. It didn't matter. Because something in that ice explosion activated a distress signal at the tower, and in a matter of hours...
An airship stopped by. We had seen them on the very distant horizon in the years before, making the voyage between the Yakyakistani capital and Ironridge to the east. It was a commercial ship, a merchant one, carrying a cargo of exotic spices from the northwest. Fancy stuff. But it stopped by, and then the villagers realized something was up with the tower, and went to investigate... yeah. They found the ice. Dug the other scientists out. A lot of them needed medical treatment, but research colonies aren't known for their hospitals. The ship's captain offered to take them to Ironridge, free of charge. I watched them being taken on, holding onto Nyala's moon glass like it was my own life... still hadn't found mine, if it still existed. And I knew that those ponies that were being taken away were the only ones who might have knowledge of how to bring her back, even assuming I could ever find her body again. But I think I was proof body didn't matter. I just wanted something I could do.
So I stowed away. Brought the last heart from the tower with me; there was only one left and I figured it might be useful. Haunted the bay where they were kept. Watched as one passed away from their injuries, then another. Nearly died of anxiety myself. I wasn't a medical pony; there was nothing I could do for them, even though I both loathed them and needed them alive. By the time the ship got to Ironridge, there was only one left. A big dude... probably helped, having a lot of body fat for insulation.
They got him recovering. By the time he was able to talk, up in a Stone District hospital, I was used to sneaking into his room. I had a conversation with him. He recognized me. He knew I could end him then and there. I knew he could spill secrets about me no one could ever know... since I wanted to be a real pony. We both needed each other, and so we formed an alliance: I'd protect him and get him in a position where he could re-open research into cutie mark happenings with windigo hearts and moon glass, and he'd work in secret on some way to resurrect my sister. I learned to fudge documents, got good at bureaucracy stuff, became the world's best opportunist, and messed with enough stuff behind the scenes to get him a job... That dude showed up a few times in our story of Ironridge from last night, but was never a major character. He was Dorable, one of the Sosan factory chiefs. And he stuck to the bargain.
I wound up basing myself in the Stone District. Wasn't too hard to point the ambassador to all the right channels he'd need to find information about me and realize I'd be an invaluable hired asset... That was before I knew what a jerk Herman was, or I'd never have done that. But still, I didn't want anyone to know me and Dorable were in cahoots. We almost never had contact, anyway. But he got himself in on Sparky's little plan, offered his expertise to the pool... He was the one who helped her remove her cutie mark and seal it away, using the windigo heart I smuggled. And he was the one who suggested taking a suit of power armor and turning it into a body that could use a cutie mark as a soul.
I dunno how long it would have taken that plan to pan out, if ever. I hadn't planned on getting stuck with Herman. I hadn't planned on seven out of my eight years of existence being spent enduring the exact same kind of unpopularity I had in Icereach, only baseless and without Nyala to help me. I dunno how much of what Dorable helped the Sosans on was for my sake and how much was for theirs... Probably a lot more theirs than mine. But that's what happened, and that's my life.
For several moments after she finished, Valey couldn't speak. She was more paralyzed than Amber, sitting with her shoulders slumped and head staring at the ground. Her golden pendant clinked gently as it swayed, Nyala's moon glass inset like a black gemstone in the center.
"That's crazy," Amber whispered, draping a foreleg around Valey's back.
"I thought you couldn't move," Valey said, dull and toneless.
"...There's a trick to it."
Another moment passed, and Valey felt the silence itching at her scalp like sweat. "So... yeah. That was a long time ago. Funny how the one thing I actually got out of it is this prototype pendant that does let me safely have two cutie marks at once... far too long after we wanted it for it to be of any use. I'm so tired of this, though. I got tired and distracted long ago, gave up, left her buried in a safe place where only I could go and resigned myself to constantly being the bad guy. I don't know if Ironridge is prejudiced against batponies or me or what, because they can't have known what I really am. But I couldn't keep it up. I just... rolled with the life I had, and only this last week have ever seriously been able to consider stuff like this again. But now that I do have friends... who don't want to listen when I warn them I'm not a pony, but some sort of parasitic alien... and I remember Icereach so well, still... yeah."
Amber hugged her.
"They brought Braen's armor along," Valey remarked. "It was working fine, and I don't think anything happened to it. I've got Nyala right here. All it would take is a bit of sneaking, slip her in, see what happens... but the life I've got now is better than anything I've had in... ever. And I don't know if it's better that chapter remains closed, or if I should go back to my old goals, or what. Keep in mind, I've never known who or what I am, but it's even harder now because I feel like I've completely changed in the last few days. Made friends, did something selfless to help my enemies, lost an easy fight against a bunch of mooks... Meh."
"For what it's worth," Amber said, wobbling dangerously and barely not collapsing her head back to her pillow, "that story was so crazy and... so far out of what I have experience with that I have no idea how to react to it. None at all. But you seem more like a pony than an eldritch monster to me, and I like to look for the best in ponies where I can. Besides, there are a few parts of that I can relate to better than you think..."
Valey looked up, still dazed by everything she had just narrated. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Amber grinned. "Can I tell you about the time my own best friend's husband dumped her, and I mercilessly hunted him down and punched his teeth out for a trophy?"
"Feeling better?" Amber asked, sitting upright and leaning against Valey for support.
"You Riverfall mares are suicidally nice," Valey grunted, stiffened from the contact. "It's going to get one of you hurt, one day. Trusting the wrong pony. Maybe even me. Maple trusted me to get her out of a scrape in Ironridge safely that she wouldn't have been in if she hadn't come for my trapped rear, and I got bodied by some goons that only wanted me and then she got stabbed."
A smile teased its way across Amber's lips. "You didn't answer my question, though."
"...Yeah." Valey sighed, looking away. "I am. A little. Thanks for being cool with all that, by the way. But I still have no idea what to do now."
"If it were up to me..." Amber mused, unable to rub her chin in thought. "I think you should lay here with me a while more and keep me company listening to the rain. I won't be bedridden for a whole week, but it's still kind of lonely."
Valey shrugged. "I've heard the rain a lot in Ironridge. It rains all the time there."
Amber grinned at her, trying to catch her eye. "But does it rain against the roof right over your head when you have nothing more important to do than sit back and think about how lucky you are not to be soaked?"
"How important is anything I do?" Valey didn't meet her gaze. "Like... I'd love to matter, don't get me wrong. But the whole 'not really a pony' thing..."
"Doesn't matter to me," Amber said. "Where you came from or what's inside you, I mean. I mean, it matters, but in the good way. I think you can want stuff and be important."
Valey flopped onto her back, causing Amber to collapse with a squawk. "See what I meant about talking about this making me sound edgy? Seriously, all that stuff's so obvious, I should know that! But I... ugh. I told you, I can't figure out what to do. Dunno where to go with my life, even assuming it's mine to go somewhere with. Eh."
"You keep saying that just because you're not the original Valey, there's something bad about that," Amber remarked. "You know... everyone says the moon glass spirits are bad, because they can possess ponies when you put them inside, or something. But didn't you also say your sister is in that one you're wearing?" She pointed a feeble hoof at Valey's necklace. "She's not bad. She probably just wants to be a pony again, if she can think in there. And I bet if you stuck her inside Willow or someone else without a cutie mark, she'd change them just like the ones from space, maybe not even because she wanted to. And you seem like a real person. Whether you were originally a pony or not, for all we know there's nothing wrong with that at all, and you've always just wanted to survive."
Valey looked like she didn't know whether to risk considering it. "That doesn't change the whole... Meh. I dunno. Where do you think I came from, then?"
"The moon glass? Where in space? Why do you think not knowing makes it bad?" Amber countered. "Even good things can be used for evil."
"My cutie mark?" Valey glanced at her flank. "That, for one. I'm a personality attached to a power that's really good at fighting things. If some alien wanted to send a big soul bomb here but make themselves out to be friendly, you'd think they'd have sent cutie marks for sniffing flowers, or something."
"Or something." Amber touched her shoulder. "But didn't you also say that even with no idea what was going on, you didn't kill any of the scientists when you first came to? You said Nyala taught you about life in Icereach afterward, but if you had been sent as a weapon, wouldn't you have killed them and not looked back?"
Valey slumped. "'Sent.' Honestly, I just wonder if by total fluke there was a rock sailing through space with a pile of spontaneously-occurring not-souls inside. Seriously, this whole thing is just... eh."
"It doesn't sound like a fluke to me," Amber replied. "What if someone on this world flung it up there a long time ago so it could fall back down later, like a time capsule of life in case something ended the world and it needed to be repopulated? Or what if there was another world floating around out there in space that did end, and the moon glass was like a way for the people there to try and survive? What if-?"
"I looked into all that," Valey interrupted to say. "Snooped and sniffed around to find all the leading theories on it in Ironridge. Ponies there don't talk about the stuff all that much, but the odds are pretty good it came from the moon, and wasn't sailing around in space for a long time. The yaks think their big war several decades before caused it, and the griffons say there was some moon event right before it they call a Lunar Flare. And stuff coming from the moon, well..."
Amber tried to shrug. "Maybe the Lunar Flare was a coincidence? Or maybe there are ponies on the moon?"
"Maybe." Valey looked away. "The one legend I've heard... and mind you, the only batponies I've met have been ones that were bad at history and didn't like me... is that there's a so-called Mare in the Moon there who will get you if you're naughty. I mean, it's easy to see where a legend like that would come from. You look at the full moon when there's no clouds, it kind of looks like a pony face. But... eh, I dunno. Maybe I'm the Mare in the Moon. All I know for sure is that I feel like a pony, really wish I was one, and sometimes tell myself I'm not. I doubt understanding anything will help me. It's not like you can change the past anyway. I just need... something."
"Sounds like what you need is a hug," Amber guessed, flopping next to her and wrapping her forelegs around Valey's torso.
"Hey! Leggo!" Valey protested, but didn't struggle. After several seconds, she added, "Mind the wing. It's still kinda sore."
"Sorry," Amber murmured, shifting away from the bandages.
For a minute, Valey soaked up the attention. Eventually, she blinked and said, "You know I'm technically eight, right?"
Amber stared past her at that, thinking. "Huh. I wonder how that works. If your body can change depending on your cutie mark... How do batponies age normally? How old do you think you... Valey was when she touched the moon glass? How old do you feel like you are?"
"Uhh..." Valey shrugged in Amber's embrace. "Honestly, I was only around other batponies for less than a year, and I don't think Nyala covered that. I know when I first appeared, I looked like a filly, but grew up pretty quick. Was already an adolescent when I left, just shy enough of being fully grown that me getting promoted on Herman's Defense Force got a bunch of existing ponies mad because they thought I was a kid. Dunno how old the old me was, either. Biologically, that probably makes me early twenties? If it even works that way. Mentally, I haven't a clue. Some days I'd love to write off what I do or don't understand as being immature, and others I feel like I'm surrounded by big babies who are twice my age. For all I know, given moon soul time, I could be like a thousand. I've definitely been horny for a while, though... I think."
"You think?" Amber giggled and poked her limply. "How can you not be sure about that?"
"The same way you can know nothing else about the rest of what your life is." Valey sighed and closed her eyes. "Say there's a minor officer in my ranks I really want to bug. I pull up his file, see he's got a special somepony, find out where she lives, then make eyes at her and send her a letter about her butt with my name on it. Their faces look like turnips, I get my laughs, mission accomplished. But when I enjoy doing that, am I enjoying the prank, or... you know? If I'm teasing Sparky about being cute when she wants my attention for some truce-related thing since I sort of helped her behind everyone's backs, is that because I like her or like being a pest or... I just don't know."
Amber hummed in solidarity. "Ever do the same thing to stallions?"
"...Once or twice."
"And do you get the same warm fuzzy for making them blush?"
Valey didn't even hesitate. "Nah. Definitely not."
"And how do you feel about me hugging you now?" Amber asked, nestling her cheek against Valey's coat.
"Uhhhhhhhhh..."
"Then I wouldn't worry about it." Amber winked, noting that she had made Valey blush. "And you're definitely acting older than eight, too. Foals that young don't think about those things. I have it on good authority from a lot of friends with foals of their own."
Valey relaxed, seeming to take her words to heart. "Except for Starlight," she pointed out.
"Starlight is special," Amber rebutted. "And definitely not eight. Her situation is very different from a normal filly's."
"So's mine," Valey grumbled. "My entire childhood lasted, like, a year."
"Sounds like you have some lost time you need to make up." Amber closed her eyes. "Once I'm up and about, you're welcome to hang out with me around town, if you like. Some of the stuffier ponies say I should grow up, but they're just jealous they don't allow themselves to have fun doing things like racing foals across the town or finding the fastest way to climb a building from the outside."
"Meh. Sounds cool." Valey went completely limp, eventually extending her good wing over Amber like a blanket. "You know, I'm actually feeling not bad right now. Thanks for... uh... thanks."
Amber grinned into her dark grey coat. "I'm glad we could help each other out. I was pretty bored by myself in here with nothing to think about, anyway."
"Meh," Valey repeated.
For a moment, neither spoke. "Enjoying having something to enjoy?" Amber asked.
"Maybe. Sorta. Yeah." Valey shifted, rearranging herself in the bed. "Do you, uhh... mind talking about anything else later? I've got to get it through my head that this is actually happening, right now."
"Sure." Amber snuggled closer. "I'll probably be limp and invalid for a while longer, any-"
POW!
"Greetings, friends!" a very loud, bombastic voice echoed through the stairwell and closed door, perfectly audible over the deafening hiss of the rain. "After the rain abruptly cancelled my epic rendition of the Battle of the Flame District, I retired to a local abode to continue storytelling, but was eventually evicted when-"
"Gerardo!" Maple's voice shrieked. "You just broke my door and shook ten gallons of water all over my storefront and my customers!"
Valey and Amber looked at each other with wide eyes as a din began to rise from the room below. "Want to stay up here and pretend nothing is happening?" Amber furtively asked, not breaking her hug.
"Oh, no way." Valey extracted herself from the bed, licking her lips. "That bozo will probably come up here and see us, and if I'm going to open up and be a big softie, I need a bit more time than this to shout it to the world. Besides, smells like tasty drama." She raised an eyebrow. "So, uh, mind not telling anyone that I actually let someone cuddle me? Especially Ironflanks. She'd be super jealous."
"A secret, huh?" Amber grinned conspiratorially. "Now that sounds like fun."
"Cool." Valey stood up, adjusting the sling holding her wing steady while it healed. "Need a lift?"
"I think so," Amber panted, trying to get her hooves beneath her. "Just because I know that sword's secret doesn't mean it'll give up without a fight..."
The storefront interior of Maple's bakery was a mess, water covering the floor and tables and somehow still dripping from the ceiling. Gerardo Guillaume, looking very harangued, had his back against a wall, beak open helplessly as Maple pointed a hoof in exasperation, her breath finally spent.
"Woah," Valey remarked, shouldering almost all of Amber's weight as the earth pony leaned heavily against her. "What happened here?"
Maple shuddered, pointing from Gerardo to her door, which hung at an angle, one hinge detached from the wall. "He... just..." She closed her eyes. "I didn't even know one griffon could hold that much water in their coat in the first place. And he ignored the towel rack and shook everywhere, and scared off three different customers, all of whom were here to take shelter from the rain..."
Gerardo held a mortified talon to his breast. "I assure you, I was only acting in the name of expedience! I presumed you wouldn't want me dripping in your foyer, so I endeavored to dry myself with all due haste!"
"You're still dripping," Maple pointed out bitterly. "Even after that. Now dry yourself off, help dry my house off, and thank you for reminding me normal days don't exist anymore when I was just feeling like I was having one."
"Hey... Maple..." Amber grinned feebly, trying to get her friend's attention. "If you need some good news, I'm up and about."
Maple blinked. "You're walking? It hasn't even been a day! I couldn't talk after that much time!"
"A day? Did something happen of which I'm not aware?" Gerardo strolled forward to peer sideways at Amber, dripping more water on Maple's wood floor and earning an unnoticed scowl.
"I tried out your sword," Amber said. "Seems like it's losing its touch, Gerardo. Also, do you mind not antagonizing my friends? I think you're a cool catbird, but you're not being very good at making yourself welcome."
Gerardo stared blankly at her, completely missing Maple's nod of agreement. "You struck yourself down with my blade? That's... well, quite impossible. By this amount of time, you should be regaining the barest whisper of speech, not keeping your legs beneath you!"
"Like she said." Valey shrugged, careful not to unbalance Amber from her side. "Sounds like your sword thingy is losing its touch. We'll totally take it if you don't want it, by the way."
"Preposterous," Gerardo said. "Are you pulling a hoax on me?"
"If we were," Maple grumbled, running a towel along a tabletop, "you'd deserve it. Especially since you're not even bothering to help me clean this up."
Gerardo's eyes widened at her. "Ah! Hold that," he exclaimed, pointing a talon at her towel. "Please, I'm aware the mess is mine. You needn't burden yourself with cleaning it up; I shall do it in due time."
Maple offered him the towel, eyes narrowed. He took it idly, and rather than wiping, returned to staring curiously at Amber.
Amber stared back at the unused towel in his talon, then gave him an expression that said 'Really?' Maple threw back her head with a sigh of frustration and went to get another towel, resuming drying the room herself.
"This is actually uncool, you know," Valey remarked, shifting Amber's weight against her. "Like, I will slap you if you don't help her out."
Instantly, Gerardo jumped, frantically beginning to wipe down the floor and ceiling, shaking even more water out over the room with his motion. "Of course, of course," he squawked. "My apologies. I suppose I'm far too used to the open seas and road; my manners have been slightly shaken as of late..."
"Here. Lemme get that for you." Setting Amber in a dry spot, Valey grabbed two towels from Maple's doorside rack, one in her teeth and one beneath her good wing, and whisked around the room, drying tables and blotting down the ceiling in a blur. Within seconds, the dripping had stopped and the wettest floor patches were covered with linens to soak up the moisture, Valey standing with the only clean towel left in the middle of the room. "That's how you do it," she informed Gerardo, throwing the towel at his head. "Now dry yourself off if you're staying, because you're still soaked. Might wanna ask her permission first, though. She looks ticked." She pointed her wing at Maple.
"I..." Gerardo blinked, having been thoroughly outdone.
Maple sank to the ground. "I don't know," she murmured, voice a stressed whine. "I just... didn't need this right now. I don't need anyone barging into my house without knocking, ever. Please leave before I do or say something I regret."
Valey shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Birdo. Looks like she laid down the law. Hope you've got somewhere else to sleep, because spending the night in the rain would smell, hard."
Gerardo glanced between them in disbelief, then resignation. "Now, now, just because I..."
"You remember where my house is, right?" Amber asked, lifting her head. "You can crash there, if you like. Just make sure to towel off first. And, Gerardo..." She made sure he was making eye contact, and smiled. "Please try to take care around my friends, okay? I don't know if it was Ironridge, or if the first time you were here was different, but you gotta have some sensitive to go with the noisy and good-natured. Social awareness, buddy. Try to be friends with my friends."
Gerardo slunk off without another word, the broken door hanging open in his wake.
"Now I feel bad for making him feel bad..." Maple moaned, covering her head with her hooves and laying on the floor. "Even though it was his fault and he had it coming and I was... ugh..."
"Pretty sure he'll get over it," Valey remarked, trotting up next to Maple and nudging her with a wing. "Want me to see what I can do about your door? I'm a pretty terrible carpenter, but..."
Maple lifted her head, staring at Valey with eyes that were on the verge of crying. "You're being unusually helpful. Is there something you need?"
"Meh. I had a talk." Valey glanced at Amber, who winked. "Feel sorta like doing more good-guy stuff right now. Lucky you, right?" Shrugging, she picked Maple up and set her on her hooves, earning a yelp of surprise. "If you wanna thank me, take it easy and go, like... hang out with your friend, or something. And if you have any sweets that didn't sell before all that, I'll totally take them off your hooves, too."
Maple stayed standing, glancing up the stairs to her kitchen and living area. "I suppose I should close for the day and start dinner for us and Starlight. I wonder where Starlight and Willow are? They've been gone the whole day...."
Valey lifted her nose and sniffed. "I'd say... pretty close, actually. I can smell Starlight from a long ways off, and unless there's some top-secret hangout around here I haven't found, she's probably on her way back." She glanced at the empty towel rack. "Might wanna get something for them so this whole hullabaloo doesn't happen all over again..."
Maple shook her head and sighed. "No matter what I do, it's going to happen again tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after, and... I don't know. I'm sure some day I'll get used enough to Gerardo barging in when I least expect it that it will be funny, but for now, it's just stressful..."
"I mean, technically you could hire me as a bouncer?" Valey shrugged. "I've got seven years of security experience and will work for fruit or candy."
"Let's settle for fixing that door for now. I'm getting cold," Amber advised. "Can someone lift me up there so I can see that hinge? Boats are more specific than general woodworking, but I still know a thing or two."
Starlight rode in a familiar position on Willow's back, the silvery mare trudging slowly through the muddying, darkened streets of Riverfall on her way to Maple's house. A rain-slicked rubber poncho covered both of them, but Willow was slightly bigger than the average pony and with Starlight on her back, the protective covering didn't even reach halfway down her legs.
"Tired?" she asked as Starlight slumped, pressed into her neck.
"A little," Starlight answered with a sleepy sigh. Okay, a lot, but it looked like it was getting late above the rainclouds, and she had been up early that day. Besides, talking and interacting with that many enthusiastic strangers took a lot out of her.
It was as if Willow could read her mind. "You probably enjoyed having Dior there to be the center of attention," she remarked. "I thought we would have to leave a lot earlier."
Starlight's thoughts wandered around the house party they had been invited to when it started raining, unable to distract herself with anything else. There had been mares... lots of mares... lots of bouncy, smiling, teasing mares that had gone to great lengths to harass Dior, even if she got the impression he somehow didn't mind. More than a few had remembered her, but they gave her space. Odd, how they could mercilessly play and respectfully back off at the same time.
"What about White Chocolate?" she asked. "They were constantly looking at her, too."
White Chocolate had left early, one of the party's attendants offering to show her the way home, which Starlight had a sneaking suspicion had been done at Willow's insistence so she wouldn't have to leave Starlight alone. She hadn't done well with that many pairs of curious eyes, even if the mares were more interested in her resemblance of Willow than the state of her family affairs. Starlight thought back to that murderously hot morning in Ironridge, when they had packed the evacuation cart with White Chocolate reluctant to be seen outside...
Willow hummed. "What about her? That she had to go home early, or why she looks like me, or what will happen to her?"
Starlight shrugged beneath the poncho. "All of the above?" She hadn't had anything in particular in mind with the question.
"Hmmmm..." Willow sighed, the rain hissing down around her. "She isn't as resilient as you, Starlight, and has been knocked down to where she is for a lot longer. I'm proud of her for asking to join us on our walk more than anything. I don't think she's used to other ponies, and don't expect her to be, but can tell that she wants to change. I think some day, she'll be able to lead a happy and normal life, just like we do."
"Excluding Ironridge," Starlight grumbled.
"Excluding Ironridge." Willow turned her head inside the hood so Starlight could see her smile.
Willow exhaled. "As for us looking alike, when we were talking the night before, she told me her mother was from Riverfall. It's very possible we're related, though there's no way to know for sure. Ancestry is very hard to track here, sometimes. It's part of the appeal of having a husband and a stable family. But I was raised by a pool of mares who all took turns shuffling around foals, many of which weren't even theirs, and don't know who either of my parents are. It's even possible we are twins. Our ages are similar, though I don't know my exact birthday. Like I said, there's no way to know for sure."
"You're twins?" Even though it had been repeated twice, Starlight's eyes widened, still questioning. She had never questioned the resemblance as anything more than an uncanny coincidence.
"It's possible," Willow hummed. "If she considered it, she didn't say so. Neither did Maple. But I don't think it matters. Either way, my family has always been the ponies I care about, like Maple and Amber, rather than the ones I'm related to by blood. I'm sure you know how that feels."
"Yeah," Starlight grunted. "Though my family in Equestria adopted me, too. I don't know who my real parents are."
"Your real parents are right here in Riverfall," Willow gently told her. "Maple is real, because she's the one who matters to you. And I think of you like a daughter, too."
"Thanks," Starlight said, nuzzling harder into Willow's neck as a stray breeze managed to get under the poncho and give her a tingling chill. When she thought about it, her relationship with Willow was completely different than her one with Maple. Maple, she had been tasked with guarding, protecting and fulfilling, and she cared about her to the degree that she would teleport into a confiscated crate to follow when she was captured, or destroy her horn to summon a shield protecting her from a fall. She cared about Willow as well, but it didn't feel like she needed any of that. Willow had an air of untouchability, like she didn't need to be protected and could solve or ward off problems just by being present. It wasn't a rational feeling, Starlight knew, having more firsthoof experience than anyone could want with just how unfair the world could be, but it was a comforting one. Like right then, with Willow ferrying her safely and warmly through the mud and rain... If Maple was her mother, she couldn't place what Willow was, but she also couldn't present herself with a single reason not to relax and enjoy it.
"I wonder how Amber is doing," Willow mused, and Starlight realized she recognized one of the building decals she had memorized as a landmark: they were almost home. "She was talking this morning. Do you think she can move enough to read a book? I'm guessing tomorrow she'll try to get out of bed before she's ready, fall over and wake all of us up. But you've seen more of what that sword can do than me."
Starlight shrugged as they stepped onto Maple's porch. "Not really. I was blind, separated from Maple and unconscious for a while after she got stabbed."
"It sounds like a truly incredible trip, when you say it that way," Willow said, reaching for Maple's door. "Not that there was anything ordinary about it, of... course...?" She pushed twice at the door, and it gave a wooden grinding, budging an inch and not much more. "Is something wrong with the door? It won't open, but doesn't usually feel like this when it's locked."
"I'll get it," Starlight announced, teleporting off Willow's back and into the house.
Almost immediately, she landed, tripped on a towel, and faceplanted in the darkness. "Ow!" Lighting her horn, Starlight got to her hooves, glad she hadn't used much magic that day, and examined the door. "Uhhh... it looks broken," she announced, seeing Willow watching her through a crack. "This hinge is just hanging here and not in the wall." She frowned, turning for the staircase. "Hello!?"
"Starlight!" Maple's voice called back, and a moment later her adoptive mother tumbled down the stairs, barely keeping her hooves beneath her in her haste. Her mane had the half-frazzled look of being extremely stressed earlier and no brushings since she had calmed down. "You're back!"
Starlight was immediately wrapped in a hug, and took a step back to brace herself against falling over. "You missed me," she noted. "Uh... I'll let you know myself next time I take a walk? And I wasn't meaning to be gone the whole day..." Her ears flattened. "Are you all right?"
"I'm not mad at you," Maple reassured, letting her go and staring at the hinge. "Just... still steamed at that griffon. Willow, are you stuck out there?"
"Maple, what happened to your door?" Willow called back through, standing patiently with the rain pouring down on her poncho. "It can open, right?"
Maple wore an awkward frown. "It took a long time to re-seat it so it would be as insulated as possible. We were going to fix it tomorrow. Give me a minute? I think I can get it open again..."
"No need!" Valey strolled lazily down the stairs, her bandages looking like they had seen better days. "Leave it to the Valey Express. Weird shadow magic doesn't freak you out, right?"
"Are you talking to me?" Willow asked, unable to see what was going on as Valey tapped Starlight's horn to extinguish her light spell, then slipped into the shadows and swam through the crack under the door. "I don't have any experience with-"
"Aaagh woah it's raining out here!" Valey suddenly yelped from behind the door. "Okay, doing this fast!"
A second later, and she and Willow were inside. Willow staggered, clutching her chest, eyes spinning as she panted for breath. "I wasn't expecting... What was...?"
"Spooky bat magic," Valey grunted, streaming water onto the already-sodden floor towels with her head down and back arched like an unhappy cat. She twitched several times, repressing the urge to shake and repeat Gerardo's mistake, so waterlogged even her cheek fur drooped under the weight of what her coat had absorbed. "Hey, Ironflanks? A little help here?"
Maple looked helplessly between her and the empty towel rack. "There's a laundry place we usually take them to get them dry..."
As Willow tried to fold her poncho so it wouldn't drip anywhere important and Valey dripped endlessly, Starlight hefted a towel and thought. She could take her saddlebags with her when she teleported, right? Maybe it would be possible to visit a neighboring house and borrow some to bring back. She had knocked on a door that morning, after all. Acacia's house was nearby, and had a balcony covering the porch she could safely teleport under without getting wet or entering uninvited, though they also barely knew each other. And she had just teleported inside, and didn't think she could manage three times in quick succession. Two would already be pushing it...
"Meh," Valey said, rolling in the wet towels. "Not that important. I'll just sleep in front of the oven tonight and hope I don't get the sniffoos. Seriously, rain isn't fair."
So much for that plan. Starlight's stomach growled as she gave Valey one last glance. Tomorrow, at least, or whenever it stopped raining she would see about visiting Acacia again, though. It would be useful to be on good enough terms that she could ask to borrow towels or anything else in a pinch like this.
Maple heard the noise loud and clear, and it snapped her out of her stupor. Nosing Starlight, she pushed the filly toward the stairs, murmuring, "Come on. I pulled a tray of spiced garlic broccoli out of the oven just before you arrived, and I think you'll love it."
Starlight came to with a gradual stirring, then a yawn. A whole day had passed... a day in which no one was attacked, no one was foalnapped, no architecture exploded, and almost nothing had happened. After a lifetime of three days in Ironridge, just how many uneventful days would it take before her sense of time returned to normal?
Willow was next to her, as were Maple and Amber, all curled together in a completely different yet equally snuggly position from the previous morning, and she was the first to wake. Starlight smiled, Amber's breath trilling against her mane. White Chocolate's situation would probably get sorted out soon, and Willow would have to resume taking care of her foals, but she could get used to starting her mornings like this. Peaceful, constant, and not wanting for anything.
...Almost anything. Maple's dinner had been good, but definitely not big enough for her to skip out on breakfast. Starlight dragged herself from the bed as gently as she could, promising to herself to stick around the house a little longer instead of immediately running off again.
She edged the bedroom door closed with a silent clunk, and turned to be greeted by a lazy wave, Valey laying in a black heap in front of the long-cold stove. "Heya," Valey greeted. "Unngh... my back hurts. Hard floors are the worst. Think I dodged a cold, though. You up and about?"
Starlight stopped three steps away from her and shrugged. "Just getting breakfast. Did you sleep there the whole night?"
"Nahhh..." Valey stood up with a fanged yawn of her own, stretching heavily and wincing as something cracked in her back. "Ow! Ow... It stopped raining somewhere after three, so I went out and stole some fresh towels and a brush. Also picked up something for Ironflanks. Check these out."
Grinning, she whipped a pair of dark shades out from her fallen-off hat and slapped them over her eyes. "Well? Think she'll like them?"
Starlight frowned. "Did you steal those from Neon Nova?"
Scratching the back of her neck with a wing, Valey looked away. "Nope. Don't actually know what happened to his. They were probably nasty, though. Found a nightclub that was open and giving them away for free."
"A nightclub?" Starlight scrunched her face in confusion. "As in, inside? At night? In a city with so many trees it's not sunny in the daytime, and where it rains a bunch? Why do they even have those?"
"Hey." Valey patted her on the head, then slipped the shades over her own eyes, instantly reducing her vision to shadows and outlines. "Don't knock edgester fashion. Apparently it makes you look troubled and cool. Personally, I'm plenty cool already and would rather not advertise to the world that I have issues, but I figured Ironflanks could use them to hide her eyes since they'll raise a lot fewer questions than why her eyes are suddenly pink instead of red. Unless she wants questions like that, but that tree stuff would be a doozy to describe in casual conversation. You know?"
Starlight floated the shades away before she could crash into anything, setting them on the table. That was actually a good point, even if being blind wasn't a great price to pay. She could empathize with not wanting to talk about a complicated past. "Uh-huh," she agreed, starting for the stairs to the pantry. "Do you know how to cook things? Because I don't, and I'm hungry."
"Kiddo, the most complex recipe I learned in my life was 'remove fruit from tree, insert into mouth.' It's a good one, but probably not what you're looking for." She grinned with enough silliness that Starlight wondered if she was teasing, then continued, "Just kidding. I'm not bad on Sparky's level. Still, I've always been better at finding food than making it. Good nose for these things." She tapped her muzzle in emphasis. "Wanna go foraging?"
"Foraging?" Starlight asked, mentally locating a nearby pad of paper in case that involved leaving Maple a note.
Valey fluttered her wings and licked her lips. "Oh yeah."
Starlight blinked, suddenly realizing her bandages were gone. "Your wing's better? Already?"
"Eh..." Valey stiffly flexed the appendage, testing every joint. "Technically, it was never broken in the first place. Just... overtaxed a little, and sprained twice in the same place in one night. I had a rough crash, trusted that weird mercenary medicine a bit too much to fix me up, was flying around like a lunatic against Herman, got hit by a falling boulder..." She snapped it out to full length. "Probably good to give it some exercise just so it doesn't atrophy. Otherwise I'll never be able to tell if it's hurting from being injured or hurting from disuse. Besides, the bandages fell off on their own after that soaking, so seems like as good of a time to test it as any to me. Down for a flight?"
Starlight had flown before. She had fallen off a cliff in the southern mountains, tall enough to count as flying. She had also fallen off the Stone District, that time when Valey thought she could carry both her and Maple and Maple subsequently earned her very endearing nickname. Then she had taken a single successful flight or two with Gerardo... and then fallen off an exploding dam. All in all, it was technically possible for her track record to be worse.
"If you drop me, I will bite you," she threatened, briefly pondering how she could even consider not being afraid of heights.
"Pretty sure you're a little young for that," Valey remarked, scooping Starlight onto her back in one fluid motion. "Anyway, door's still out, so try not to get boggled when I go under. Away we go!"
"Hnnnnngg..." Valey clutched the outside of a third-story window frame, wings beating to keep her aloft as she pressed her frantically-twitching nose to the glass, staring helplessly through. "Buckwheat crepes with strawberry whipped cream and cinnamon applesauce..."
Drooling against the window, she watched up until her cutie mark gave the tiny spike indicative that someone was about to look, then jumped away, kicking off the wall and gliding easily to the next building unchecked, hovering from window to window until she found what she was looking for. "Rice in warm milk... Canned pears? Meh, fresh is better. Oooh, toast with raspberry jam! What kind of juice is that? Something with banana, maybe?"
"Valey!" Starlight shook her, forelegs clutched tightly around the batpony's neck to stay on as she hovered with her body nearly vertical. "Stop it! I'm hungry!"
Valey sunk below the window, swinging herself around so Starlight could actually sit on her back. "What?" she asked, shrugging innocently. "We're window shopping. I figured you'd get upset if we busted in there and stole anything."
"Valey..." Starlight moaned, breakfasty smells the windows couldn't quite block lingering in her nose. "I thought we were going to get food, not look at it! This is mean!"
"I can sneak through glass, remember," Valey advised. "If you see something you want and are that okay with stealing..."
"No!" Starlight ineffectually clubbed over over the head with a forelimb, which made Valey laugh and flutter away. "Take me home! I'll just wait for Maple to wake up and eat whatever she makes! She's a great cook!"
"You sure about that?" Valey puffed her cheeks and raised an eyebrow, one pointy tooth sticking out as she bit her lip. "...Nah. I've got a better idea. Follow me."
"Vaaaleeyyyyy!"
Starlight didn't have much of a choice but to follow as Valey zipped off, pressed against the agile batpony's back. Valey must have been showing off, or at least enjoying testing her wing, because she looped and spiraled like her life depended on it, circling a house here and there and taking the most roundabout way of getting anywhere Starlight could imagine. The sun was rising in the east, shining brightly through the trees with post-dawn colors, but Valey's antics made it impossible to tell which way she was going regardless. At least she perfectly banked her turns, removing most of the work required to hang on.
"Aaaaand zoop!" Valey burst out of the trees over the Yule, Shinespark's airship bobbing nearby. With a much gentler hover, she set them both down on the deck, stopping to straighten her wings and adjust her beret. "Hmm... yeah, I'd say that's about eighty percent healed. Would stink to whack it again, but I can do cool stuff with it now. Anyway! Still feeling like breakfast? Because this place has a great pantry, and I can totally challenge Sparky to a cook-off just to put my skills into perspective. Might not be as yummerly as all that good stuff we passed, but hey, I can try my best. What did you see that you want the most?"
"Bluhhh..." Starlight reeled, head still spinning after the frantically-looping flight.
Valey frowned. "Uhh... oh. I didn't overdo it, did I?"
Starlight shook her head, trying to clear it. "You tried to," she grunted, taking a minute to recover. It was a good thing she hadn't eaten before that... though really, for the amount of spinning involved, she wasn't that dizzy. Maybe she should have been born a pegasus. "You're really happy this morning."
Pacing past her, Valey grinned smugly. "Yeah, I had a good day yesterday. Being optimistic and all that... figured I'd try Ironflanks' shtick. Let me know if it gets too annoying so I can bring it back tomorrow. Now come on! Let's go trash this place's kitchen and get something to stuff our faces with."
The scene Starlight and Valey walked in on in the ship's dining hall was a lot louder and more colorful than expected. The table was down, streamers festooned the ceiling, and nearly two dozen Riverfall mares crowded the space, walking around or sometimes sitting two to a chair. Platters with too many different kinds of food for Starlight to count sat ready for serving next to stacks of smaller plates, and as she watched the kitchen doors swung open, two mares lugging through a tureen that steamed and smelled of apples.
"Buhhhhh." Valey's mouth hung open, beginning to drool.
"Good morning," Dior greeted, strolling out from the observation room with a cup held in his aura. He stopped and nodded appreciatively when he saw who they were, smiling and adding, "Did you smell this all the way from Maple's house? I thought you lived near the other side of town."
"Lucky guess," Valey said, quickly regaining control of her faculties. "What's this?"
Dior beamed out at the happy crowd. "After our party concluded last night, I figured I'd invite everyone for a breakfast and open house on the ship. Enough thought it was a good idea that I went ahead, and enough talented chefs volunteered that we decided to make it a community breakfast. There's more than enough for everyone, so feel free to help yourselves."
"You don't need to tell me twice!" Valey bolted, grabbing a plate and scooping up entrees like a green whirlwind.
Starlight was slower to follow, though the pull of the food was impossible to resist. She noticed Dior keeping pace with her as she loaded up on hash browns, and raised an eyebrow. "Hi?"
"Hi," Dior repeated as Valey drifted past, flying upside-down with her plate balanced on her belly. "Are your friends coming too?" he asked, looking hopeful.
"We didn't know about this," Starlight muttered, looking at her food, suddenly worrying if they were being left out. "I might be able to run back and see..."
"Meh, I'll do it!" Valey called, orbiting the table. "Just gimme a minute to pig out first. This is epic."
Dior relaxed a little. "I wouldn't want anyone to miss out. Do enjoy yourself, okay?"
Starlight nodded, her mouth already too full to respond. As he wandered off to rejoin the crowd, she glanced around the room and shrank: in every direction, ponies she had never seen before were chatting loudly and completely ignoring her. It was preferable to being the center of attention, but the crowd's energy and volume still made her slightly uncomfortable, too short to see past the wall of mares and unable to keep a lookout on everyone at once. Quickly, she slunk to a wall and pressed her back against it, feeling much better.
Ears drooping from relief, Starlight ate what food she had gotten and thought. The energy and good cheer of the room were probably infectious, especially evident in that every last pony seemed to be having a good time. She followed mare after mare with her eyes, watching as a conversation would wind down, they'd return to get more food, bump into someone and start talking anew. But it almost felt like there was a wall of glass insulating her from the emotions in the room. It was too contrary, too surreal next to how she had experienced the world in Ironridge and Equestria and even her previous trip to Riverfall. It was like she was dreaming, and she even kicked herself just to make sure.
When she didn't suddenly wake up next to Maple, Amber and Willow, she sighed. Her plate was empty, she wasn't full, and she suddenly felt self-conscious for not having a good time like every other mare there. Frowning at herself, she narrowed her eyes and straightened her shoulders. There was no reason she couldn't have fun like everyone else! She marched toward the table, resolving to get more to eat and then mingle.
With her plate piled high with some kind of pastry in sauce, Starlight approached a group of four mares chatting aimlessly, keeping her ears forward and stopping just outside their circle when they didn't move to let her in. Actually, they didn't seem to notice her, period. The two that were facing her had their attention fixed on a large mare with her back to her, going on about proper interior decoration.
"...Which is why hanging plants are dreadful and should never be used. Tapestry drapes, on the other hoof, are going into style next month, and I know a pony who can cut a premier deal on..."
That wasn't a conversation Starlight wanted to listen in on or force her way into. Snorting, she turned away to check the rest of the room, when the large mare took an unlooking step back. Her hoof came down suddenly on Starlight's tail, causing the filly to trip and sending her plate rolling away with a crash. "Ow, hey!"
That got the mares' attention. Instantly, all four were looming around her as she struggled to get back to her hooves, frustration mounting. "Oh no!" the big one exclaimed. "I'm so sorry, Dearie! Did I step on your tail?"
Yes, she had, and Starlight didn't appreciate being-
"Ohhhh..." the mare cooed, leaning down and pushing her friends aside. "Can I get you anything to make it feel better?"
Starlight scowled, opening her mouth to excuse herself-
"Sequoia, you're making her mad! Look at her face!" Another mare probably intended to jump to her defense, but wasn't helping. "Please don't be mad at us, okay?" She leaned in far too close, eyes pleading. "You're such a cute thing, and we'd feel terrible about it!"
Starlight blanched, but another mare was looking half at her, gaze somewhat haunted. "Girls?" she said to the others. "Actually please don't make her mad. Please don't be mad at us," she added to Starlight. "I recognize her. That's the river filly who turned Mangrove's head into a crystal."
It wasn't what she wanted to be remembered for, but if it would let her get a word in edgewise...
Of course it wouldn't. "You can turn ponies' heads to crystal?" Sequoia slowly gasped, eyes widening dramatically. "That's so impressive..."
What was it with Riverfall mares and personal space? Starlight glanced desperately around; at the party the day before, sticking next to Willow had made everyone keep a normal distance, but she didn't see a single familiar face to cling to. Even Matryona and Valey were nowhere to be seen... granted, she couldn't see far at all thanks to the taller ponies crowding around her. It was like everyone assumed a foal who wasn't immediately near an adult was fundamentally traumatized by it and needed to be helped as soon as possible. Didn't Riverfall let mares raise their children collectively? Shouldn't they know better?
"Don't worry," the fourth mare reassured the others. "I know Mangrove. She once dated my sister's ex. She's a jerk, so she had it coming." She winked at Starlight. "Good on you for getting her for us!"
Starlight's frustration was quickly evaporating to blank confusion. She had little doubt that blasting them would be effective... even if they'd take something far different from it than intended, and it would ruin Dior's party. But they were interrupting her so effectively, it was like they wanted her to lash out. Was it possible for four grown mares to be that socially clueless about what she wanted?
Sequoia opened her mouth to say something, but this time it was Starlight's turn to interrupt. A tiny, precision jet of light from her horn turned the bigger mare's mouth to crystal just long enough for Starlight to say, in a voice far calmer than the situation warranted, "Please stop interrupting me, patronizing me, getting in my face and making me want to blow you up. I can talk, you know."
The four mares stepped back, Sequoia looking especially dumbstruck as she rubbed her now-freed jaw. All of them looked at each other, suddenly not wanting to be the first to speak.
"I need to get more food," the one who had called Starlight cute mumbled, awkwardly excusing herself.
The one who remembered her from before left without even that much, wordlessly slinking away, looking like she badly wanted Valey's shadow sneaking power. The last one to speak put on a strained smile, waving a little as she left. "Sorry! We're, uh, still friends, right?" She didn't stick around long enough for a response.
"What?" Starlight asked when Sequoia remained, staring at nothing and still rubbing her jaw.
The bigger mare's eyes suddenly focused on her. "Freaky..." she mumbled, then trotted away, leaving Starlight alone.
If Starlight had been uncomfortable with the crowd earlier, now it felt like they weren't even there. She strolled past the table, getting a new plate, barely even registering the ponies around her.
What was wrong with everyone? Or with her? Was it because she was young? She didn't see any other foals at the banquet... Every other group chattered as happily as ever, and she sat several steps up on the staircase, watching from above as several of the ponies she had ran into overcame the awkwardness of their encounter and melted seamlessly into new groups, the other ponies moving aside for them as they happily joined the conversation.
Starlight sighed. It was probably Ironridge... or Equestria, before that. Everyone there probably just had a completely different idea of what good and bad were than she did. Not like they had ever lost someone they cared about... Okay, maybe they had, but not like they had ever been chased around a giant mineshaft by a bunch of bloodthirsty mercenaries, or had to pull the trigger on a bombed dam to stop anyone else from fighting over it. She knew how bad the world could get. They probably thought the vilest evil one could encounter was a hanging plant. And good things... She set her plate aside and buried her head in her hooves. The one thing that came to mind as something she enjoyed was waking up with her friends, and that was because it was peaceful and had absolutely nothing bad happening. There had to be more good things than that. Maybe it was her perspective that was off, after all. Maybe it was Ironridge that had been the dream, and Sunburst, and all of Equestria, and things were only bad because-
"You look lost in thoughts," a nasally voice said, and a hoof settled on her shoulder.
She blinked upwards, seeing Shinespark looking down at her with a slight smile. The unicorn's nose was red, evidencing what she had done when the rain caught her the day before. "Don't feel like joining the party?"
"I tried," Starlight said, looking back at the room. It was all she could say.
"I didn't," Shinespark answered, rubbing her nose. "Partly because I have a cold, but I'm not ready for that so soon after everything."
"Yeah," Starlight agreed, intrinsically sensing they felt the same way.
Shinespark seemed to sense it too, standing up and turning around. "It's quieter in my room, if you don't feel like eating alone. Mrrgh..."
Sniffing, she wandered off, and Starlight had nothing better to do than follow.
Shinespark's room was just as empty as it had been when Starlight and Maple stayed there on the flight to Riverfall. A sizable bed, dresser for formal clothes, bedside mirror and table sat next to a trunk for belongings and a curtained window, and the walls were sparse and free of pictures. It was dark, calm, lonely... and an inviting opposite to the chaos of the party Starlight had just escaped from.
The orange mare set herself on her bed, half-laying as if she wanted to but thought it would be rude in the presence of guests. "Have a seat," she offered, gesturing to the trunk, table, bed and floor. "Or make yourself comfortable."
Starlight sat on the floor, her half-finished food beside her.
"I just cleaned that hall and got it to stop smelling like sweat and blood," Shinespark sighed. "They're probably going to dirty it up again. Oh well. I need something to keep me busy."
Starlight nodded, chewing idly. She was almost full, but could still finish this plate.
"Let me know if you don't want to talk," Shinespark added. "I know the feeling."
"No." Starlight swallowed and shook her head. "You can talk. I'm just eating. As long as I don't get trampled like down there."
"Hmph." Shinespark gave what might have been a chuckle that turned into a cough. "Bleh. I get that too. If you're not feeling it, that much energy just isn't fun to be around. Normally, I'd soak it up, but I'm not sure my life will be truly normal ever again."
"Ironridge?" Starlight asked.
Shinespark gave a faint smile. "I've lived in Ironridge all my life. But I know what you mean. And no, it's moving on. I don't know how Dior does it." She sighed and shook her head. "He's in over his head too, but loves it. He's treating this like a fun adventure, like everything he was ever responsible for doesn't matter. I wish I could do that. But even if I could get past everything I lead Sosa to..." She looked at her hoof, eyes downcast. "I don't know how to move on. That's all I've ever done with my life. Where do I go from here, now that I've let down everything that was riding on me and am not important any more? The ponies here aren't stupid, but they worry and think about simple things because that's all they've ever known. Going from complex to that... I just don't know how."
"But you're feeling better, though?" Starlight tilted her head, checking. "About Sosa and... you know?"
"No." Shinespark drooped, sagging closer into the bed. "I'm not, and don't think I ever will. But I'm learning to deal with it. I'm doing better, regardless of how I feel. I feel empty. Like I'm gone. It's not fun, or sad, or... anything. It just is."
Starlight frowned. "If you're not all right..."
"What?" Shinespark gave another half-smile. "I should do something about it? If you ever invent time travel, let me know and I'll give it a try. I can't change how I feel, but I'm doing the best I can and getting back on my hooves anyway. Maybe some day..." She exhaled loudly, looking around at the ship. "I made this ship, if nothing else. Maybe it'll do what it was always supposed to and be able to survive the mountains and make a trade route to the Plains of Harmony. Maybe some day, I'll have done more good for Ironridge than harm. It's still a possibility, as long as I'm alive. But how about you?" She glanced back at Starlight. "You had it rough in the skyport, if I remember correctly. And you pressed the trigger on that dam and took out it and my entire home. How are you doing?"
Starlight flinched, ears going back. "I had to! You and Valey were fighting over it and Herman was threatening to do something even worse! Besides, would you rather have done that yourself?"
"...I don't know." Shinespark swallowed. "Having let someone else do it... feels like a nice way to blame them and not myself. But I still blame myself, and not you. I don't even know why. So maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Still, how are you doing? Can't be easy, having destroyed hundreds of years of history and economy even if you had no choice."
"Fine," Starlight grunted. "It's... not one of the parts of Ironridge that bothers me."
"That sounds like a bad thing," Shinespark offered regretfully, wiping her nose. "Sorry my city had to be at its worst when you came through. It's supposed to be a beacon of civilization in the wilderness. And then it all went wrong..."
Starlight huffed. "Well, I died. Sort of. And it really hurt Maple, and I was blind after the dam, and... I just wish everything would stop going after my friends. I can take care of myself, but saving my friends is hard..."
Shinespark nodded, giving up on laying upright and rolling onto her side. "Definitely. I tried to know everyone in Sosa, but Ironridge's population is in the hundreds of thousands. Even after everyone that died... I still feel for my friends more than most. Gunga. Gigavolt. Grenada. But they're hardly the only ones I knew well, and we had all agreed on and accepted the risks when we started all this. You, though... I bet losing any one of yours would hurt a lot more. You and your friends didn't sign up for this, after all."
"Mhmm." Starlight ran over her friends in her mind. Maple? Losing her would be disastrous. She couldn't even imagine anything happening to Willow, and the thought of Amber gone, swept away in a flood as the dam's initial surge swept through Riverfall made her blood run cold. At least part of that was from imagining Maple and Willow's response, though. Then there was Valey, though as much as she had done to protect them, she didn't feel as much of an attachment to the other mare. If Valey died, she might eventually be okay. And Gerardo... He could leave and she might never even mind. Okay, that wasn't the most productive train of thought...
"I can see you thinking about it," Shinespark said, watching her eyes. "I should have thought about it more. I did, but never felt it... It was all about planning and contingencies that ultimately didn't work because I wasn't strong enough to stick to the plan. If I hadn't called back my cutie mark from Braen, she would have been able to talk the Spirit down from going to the skyport and destroying it. At least, I hope she would've. But running over what-ifs isn't useful."
"Gunga was up on the bridge, right?" Starlight asked. It wasn't the best change of topic, but she sensed Shinespark needed one and it was the first thing that came to mind.
"He was." Her eyes unfocused, staring off into the past. "Early that morning, as soon as we finished our meeting on this ship, he took the ferry and made an emergency run to Riverfall to deliver my mother and warn Arambai that the river might flood. Then he came back. He'd probably be alive if he kept the ferry there, but there were too many reasons not to. I wasn't the leader of the Spirit, remember. Braen was. We needed someone with Spirit authority to give orders during the dam assault, and he was the most senior member in my inner circle. Besides, if we had left him and the ferry in Riverfall, we didn't know this ship would work yet, so we wouldn't have had a way to give them the all-clear if everything went right... which we were hoping it would. And no leader would stay in safety while risking the lives of all their subordinates. So he came back, docked the ferry, joined us for the dam... and didn't make it out alive. Just like Gigavolt." She hung her head. "It was how he wanted to go, so I can't feel too sorry for him. Grenada is the one who gets me choked up."
Starlight noticed her eyes were closed, probably fighting back tears. Had she cried herself over what happened in Ironridge? She probably should, but didn't feel like it at the moment.
Shinespark gave a wet sniffle, her emotions and her cold conspiring together to plug her nose. "I was there with her, minutes before she died. I could have talked her out of it. I should have. I thought I did, and that she'd go back down and be safe. I didn't even know the tower was in danger! Instead I went up, and was able to teleport everyone else out, and..." She wiped her nose on the blankets, then glared at them. "I'm going to have to clean these later," she grumbled. "Anyway. I can't believe I'm wishing I had saved her instead of everyone else. Knowing what you want is the wrong thing and wanting it anyway is... hard. Ugh. I wish I had at least gotten to tell her she was my sister. Never was quite sure when to. It should have been before the battle... but I didn't want to break her focus. She was even younger than I am, and her worldview wasn't as solid. You saw how she froze up at that breakfast meeting. I should have just kept her out of the Spirit entirely. Given her to Elise to raise..."
"At least you had a sister in the first place," Starlight said. "Multiple ones. You know where I'm from, right?"
"The Plains of Harmony," Shinespark grunted, rubbing at her nose. "Ugh, this cold..."
"Yeah." Starlight sighed. "And I left because I was alone. I had one friend, and they left. You at least had more friends, even if you left most of them behind, or they're gone. And you've got Matryona with you now, and she cares about you. Right?"
Shinespark grimaced. "Hard to feel for what I have when my mind is on what I don't. I know that's the wrong way to do it, but I just... My mind is messed up right now. I'm spilling my heart out to a filly, and you've probably got just as much to deal with already as I do! The old me would be asking what she could do for you, and..." She slammed her face into the covers. "I hate being broken. I wonder if this is how Valey feels. She always had issues. Bet I'm acting like her, huh?"
Starlight shrugged. "You do talk similarly, a little. Maybe you should do something? I have trouble deciding what to do, but it usually feels nice."
"I already am." Shinespark smirked sadly. "Waiting for my brother's party to be over so I can get back to cleaning this ship. And then I'll do it again, and again..."
"You could go to Arambai's," Starlight offered. "Aren't there parts you need to fix the ship's power systems? You'd probably feel better if you could make it fly."
"Tried that," Shinespark sighed, stretching out. "Got lost, rained on and a cold. Unless you know the way?" She looked almost hopeful.
Starlight bit her lip. "Well... no. But I know what his house looks like."
"He's sent me pictures of it too," Shinespark said, sounding wistful. "But maybe we'll do that, if someone who's a local shows up. Until then, not much I can do but wait..."
A loud rapping came at Shinespark's door, jolting Starlight from what had nearly been a nap. Shinespark's horn lit, her aura opening the door for their visitor. "Hello?" she asked, clearing her nose. "Nngh... come in..."
"Yo." Valey poked her head in, then entered all the way, a noodle-like Amber piled limply on her back. "Hey, Sparky. Hey, Starlight. Smelled you here. I got your friends."
Maple and Willow followed her, standing in the doorway. Willow beamed, Maple waved earnestly, and Starlight noticed White Chocolate standing behind both. Apparently they had decided to invite her too.
"I have a cold," Shinespark warned, looking slightly glum that the sanctuary of her room was suddenly full of ponies. "Be careful."
Amber gave a sympathetic smile. "That stinks. We can leave you alone, if you want. Starlight?" She glanced to the filly. "There's a party downstairs. Wanna get breakfast?"
Starlight gave her a colder look than she had intended. "I already went. It wasn't very fun." Backtracking, she quickly added, "We were going to go to Arambai's house to look for parts to repair the ship's power, but neither of us know the way. Can you come?"
"Do you mind if we get breakfast first?" Maple asked, shuffling her hooves with her eyes shining hopefully. "None of us have eaten yet, and it does smell good downstairs..."
"I ate," Valey belched. "It was pretty great. We should steal some and hoard it for later."
Starlight sighed, looking at Shinespark. "That's fine. I can wait."
"We'll eat quickly," Amber promised as they turned to leave. "Digging through Arambai's stuff sounds like fun. We won't keep you waiting!"
And like that, they were gone, the door clicking closed in their wake.
Starlight stared after them for a minute, then sighed. She just had waited, and wasn't sure she'd be able to pretend to nap again. Maybe she should give the party another chance... or just try to talk more to Shinespark. She wracked her brain for something to ask, and eventually settled on, "What's flying like?"
"Huh?" Shinespark blinked.
"Flying. With your magic," Starlight clarified. "I've ridden on fliers' backs, been lifted in telekinesis and fallen off cliffs before, but what's it like to fly using your cutie mark?"
Shinespark blinked again, as if she hadn't ever expected anyone to be curious about that. "Oh! I'm... still getting used to the fact that I have this, again..." She glanced at her flank. "How come you call them cutie marks instead of brands?"
Starlight shrugged. "Because that's what they called them where I'm from."
"Huh." Shinespark stared at her mark for a moment longer, opening and closing her mouth like she was looking for the right words to say. "It's... When I first got it, I almost fell into the sky, since I had no idea how to control it. It doesn't work like you'd expect flight to. It's not like holding yourself with telekinesis, even though that's how it looks from the outside. It's more like... changing your own gravity. So if I want to go upward, I try to do that, and then I'm falling up. It's disorienting, and took a lot of practice to look remotely graceful."
Starlight's mind flickered back to a scene in Arambai's basement long ago, when Amber was testing a machine that supposedly made her lighter using technologically-generated pegasus magic, and extrapolated from there. "Is that how your airship works? By making itself... lighter?"
"Affected differently by gravity?" Shinespark nodded. "Half of it. This is an oversimplification, but the buoyancy is achieved by negating a lot of its downward pull. It doesn't change the ship's mass, though, so inertia works the same, and there are issues with it trying to raise or sink based on the density of the atmosphere and... lots of things we never thought we'd have to deal with. The propulsion works using similar magical concepts of telekinesis, converting mana to kinetic force... but again, that's the easy way to think of it. Conventional manaengines can already do that, and this ship works nothing like conventional mechanisms." She rubbed the back of her neck, looking away. "I'm bad at explaining this, aren't I...?"
"I sort of get it," Starlight offered, partly because she did but also to make Shinespark feel better. Pegasus magic to fly, unicorn magic to move, and the how didn't matter. Easy enough to understand, right?
Shinespark breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, we started investigating the possibilities of doing this through technology when I got my brand and we could study internal pony magic in a more external way. The way I fly is entirely based on setting forces on myself, though. I don't think it's correct to say I'm changing gravity, but that's what it feels like when I do it. For example, if I try to 'fly' up and hold it that way..." She lifted off the bed, flipped midair, and landed heavily on the ceiling, standing up and taking several steps around. "It's just like changing my point of view. And it works in any direction, at any amount of force..."
As Starlight watched, she approached a room corner, put her forehooves against the wall, and suddenly climbed from the ceiling to it with only a brief stagger, and was then standing on the wall. She kicked off from there, floating slowly across the room, carried by only her own momentum. Starlight saw her horn flash barely-perceptibly brighter, and then she came to a stop... almost. Now that she was watching for it, she could see Shinespark bobbing slowly back and forth, almost like a pegasus beating their wings to get an even hover but actually correcting minutely back and forth to prevent herself from drifting.
Eventually, Shinespark landed, her horn going out and the sapphire aura disappearing from around her body. "Lifting yourself isn't too bad, once you get over the feeling of falling upwards. Moving sideways is easy to start, but needing to consciously stop instead of letting go takes some getting used to. Running up walls and changing my center of gravity as I go..." She shook her head. "I can't do parkour like that. Granted, I never practiced. It sounds useful for combat, until you realize a flying unicorn is already going to have both a surprise and ability edge over any other pony, and that I never expected to have this brand back as my own, let alone fight with it. A lot of things happened that I wasn't expecting..."
Starlight nodded. "A lot of things happened I wasn't hoping for, either."
"Yeah..." Shinespark breathed. Eventually, she tipped her head and said, "I like you, you know? You're good at listening. It feels like you know what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm taking advantage of you, forcing you to listen to me endlessly go on, but... thanks. I need it."
"Forcing me to?" Starlight frowned. "I can teleport, you know. If I didn't want to be here, I'd just leave."
"Heh." Shinespark got to her hooves. "I need to get used to not doing everything myself. Listening is supposed to be my job. Snkkkt..." She rubbed her nose again. "Bleh. Let's go wait for your friends outside. I need to get this ship fixed some day."
Starlight and her friends left the airship with little fanfare, pacing under a sky that was overcast but not yet threatening to rain. The area around the gangplank was free of mares, for once; every one that usually congregated there was laughing and eating on board. White Chocolate clung near Willow, occasionally giving Maple guilty looks as if she had abandoned her in getting a new favorite pony to follow. Shinespark hung to the side, frequently sniffling, and Valey led the way with Amber pointing directions from her back, looking vaguely self-conscious. Why was she carrying her? Willow was bigger, likely stronger and better friends with Amber, and the yellow mare was animated enough that she might not even need to be carried. Ponies were strange.
She found herself walking alongside Maple, who had somehow been persuaded to wear Valey's ridiculous sunglasses. "Hi," she said, figuring that someone needed to break the silence.
"Starlight," Maple hummed, nosing her. "I haven't seen you a lot today and yesterday."
Starlight folded her ears. "Sorry. I don't want to sit at home all day, so I've been going around looking for things to do."
"I know how you feel." Did Maple sound jealous? "Having any luck having fun?"
"Sort of," Starlight answered. "You can come too, you know."
She omitted mentioning that both times, she had left before Maple could even ask to join her, but her adoptive mother didn't seem to mind. "You're lucky to be recovering so quickly," Maple murmured. "From Ironridge. I'm still trying to convince myself this is really home, sometimes. I'll probably be having nightmares for months." She thought, and added, "How are you sleeping?"
"Fine," Starlight said. Actually, her sleep had been great. In Equestria, and in the mountains, she had always slept alone, and having friends nearby was something she had never known she needed. It could get warm at times, being hugged while she slept, but that was vastly better than chill dawn air. She couldn't remember anything beyond an early-enough point in her foalhood, but felt that if she had ever had this before, it stopped far too early. Not that she'd admit to any of that, of course.
...Maple was getting to her, she realized. Soon, she'd be just as cuddly as she was. With a slightly-hidden flush of embarrassment, Starlight put an extra pace between them, trying not to ponder just what she was embarrassed about.
"Halt!" a cranky stallion's voice suddenly bellowed from above. "This here's my... err, Arambai's residence! You slack-jawed idiots think you can waltz up to a stallion's home while he's on vacation and rob him..." Hemlock trailed off, his own jaw going slack as he realized who it was. "Oh. It's you."
Amber glared up at him, smirking dutifully. "One word about my tail, and we will find Gerardo and have him run you through with a magic sword."
"This is Arambai's house?" Shinespark stepped forward, frowning up at him. "Who are you?"
"Looks like a loon," Valey remarked. "Want me to knock his block off?"
"I'm a respected town elder!" Hemlock crowed, somehow keeping confidence and leering down from his rooftop rocking chair at the massive array of equine firepower pointed right at him. "And you all are trespassing on property I've been sent to guard! I once built a crane to lift boats up a waterfall. This ain't a stallion you brats want to mess with, hear?" He raised an eyebrow dangerously.
Starlight looked back at him, then glanced to everyone else. "Didn't Arambai say we were supposed to guard the house from him?"
"Yeah, I got this," Valey said, gently depositing Amber against Willow and flexing her wings. "Hey, Sparky, bet you can't-"
Flash! Shinespark was on the roof next to Hemlock in a burst of teleportation. Furiously, she sucked in a breath, threw back her head... and splattered him with a massive, dripping sneeze. And again. And again. Hemlock was too stunned to even try to shield himself as Shinespark peppered him with a total of seven gooey blasts, finally wetly clearing her throat and wiping her mouth and nose off with a hoof. "Bleh," she grunted, sounding like her nose was still completely blocked. "I needed that."
Valey finally peeked out from behind the wing shielding her face, still on the ground. "Wow. Wrecked," she commented. "Hope he deserved that. So hey, now that he's a biohazard, how do we get rid of him?"
Hemlock was still sputtering, trying unsuccessfully to wipe himself down, when a bolt of magic struck him and he was encased in a giant block of crystal. "Does that help?" Starlight asked, feeling a vicarious thrill left over from the time she had risked public fame to save Gerardo's boat from Hemlock's blunder... Oh, and the time he had found out and told the town she was from Equestria. Maybe that hadn't been enough. Quickly, she let him go, grabbed him from a distance with her telekinesis, flipped him upside-down, and re-crystalled him.
Amber sighed sadly, watching from where Willow held her upright. "You know that's pointless, right? All you're going to give him is a grudge or a crush, and trust me, the latter is painful. The only thing that gets through to him is public humiliation."
"A crush?" Shinespark looked herself over, suddenly looking unsettled. She glanced back at Hemlock. "Even if he wasn't trespassing on Arambai's property, he looks thrice my age and really isn't my type..."
"Tell me about it," Amber muttered, rolling her eyes.
Suddenly, Starlight became aware of a familiar, vaguely-unwelcome presence beside her. "This is a nice conga line," Jamjars remarked, leaning against a house while chewing something and smirking. "What's the occasion?"
Starlight blanched, not caught quite as far off guard this time. "You again?"
Jamjars pouted in self-defense as the others turned to look at the disturbance, White Chocolate looking worried and Valey disappearing in a ripple of shadow. "What? I left you alone all day yesterday! I figured you wanted some time with your friends. So what's this chump's deal?" She appraised the crystalled Hemlock again. "I watched him for a while earlier. Seems fun to mess with, but not the whole 'cackling supervillain' type. Though I guess he might be... but I also didn't think exploiting socially inept ponies was your thing. I'm proud of you!"
Hemlock reddened beneath the crystal. Starlight shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, unsure whether to answer or let Amber do it for her... before White Chocolate abruptly changed the subject.
"Jamjars!" She lumbered hurriedly over, and the filly reluctantly allowed herself to be locked into a tight hug, reddening slightly herself. "I haven't seen you since before we landed! Where have you been!? I've had so much to worry and think about already, and you..."
"Would have given you even more if I'd been insulting you and picking on Snow, Mom," Jamjars deadpanned. "You're still fat. See? I'm a pest. Now let me go. Ponies are looking."
Actually, Starlight was looking at Hemlock, barely noting Willow blanch at Jamjars' treatment of her mother. The stallion was still frozen in place, covered in residue from Shinespark's sneezing and looking very unhappy. As much as he deserved it for being a stubborn, malicious coot and repeat offender of property violations, and as much as Arambai would have probably done the same, something niggled at her like they weren't treating him like a pony. But if she let him go, he'd just run off and... no, that would be fine. Or he might stay there, or... The worst he could do would be to dig up dirt on her friends and spread that around. Or her, again. But he had already hit her with the worst he could, right?
"Hey," she said, quickly teleporting up to the roof, unhappily remembering the staircase the moment she landed. She would go through all her magic long before the day was over at this rate... "If I let you go right now, what will you do?"
Hemlock stared wordlessly at her through the crystal. Of course, it prevented him from talking.
Concentrating, Starlight changed her magic, shrinking and melting parts of it away. Modifying the crystals once they were out wasn't something she had practiced, but she had enough control to free his head while still keeping him immobilized. "Okay," she repeated, "if I-"
"Varmint!" Hemlock roared, flinging spittle she was fortunately out of range of. "Haven't you and your shenaniganry done enough to my reputation already? If you don't unhoof me and get me a towel and some medicine, hoo boy, you'll be in for-"
A telekinetic glow swatted his muzzle as Jamjars peered above the top of the stairs, the rest of the ponies in tow. "Hi," she said coyly. "You look fun to mess with, and a lot of ponies just told me that would be a very good thing. Stinks to be you, I guess. Now be smart and hide once Starlight lets you go so I can have the fun of hunting you down. It'll be terrible for both of us if I get bored."
Hemlock's eyes narrowed. "Who are you, punk?"
Starlight quickly re-froze him before anyone could answer. "Let's go in and see if he's still there when we return," she advised. Being around the stallion was making her more and more nervous.
"If you're sure," Jamjars sighed, strolling in through Arambai's second-story door. Willow and Amber followed, the latter giving him a reproachful glare, and Maple also stared balefully at him as she passed.
"If it weren't for you," she hissed, low enough that only Starlight could hear, "me and Starlight might not have rushed off to Ironridge and almost gotten ourselves killed. That's worse than making comments about someone's tail. I do not like you."
Valey followed too, and Shinespark and White Chocolate, and it was finally up to Starlight to close the door, freeing Hemlock only once she had double-checked it was locked.
The lights in Arambai's basement clicked on as the party of mares descended, Starlight bringing up the rear. Rows of ceiling-high shelves obfuscated the area just as much as she had remembered, and she suddenly worried that packing that many ponies into such a cramped space might not be a good idea.
She quickly found herself sandwiched tightly between White Chocolate and a wall as they reached the teleporter area, Valey swimming to take up less space and Amber riding lazily on Willow's back. Maple stood alone, Jamjars was lurking, and Shinespark was staring breathlessly at the mounds of technology laying around.
"Okay," Starlight decided, noticing no one else was taking charge. "Shinespark, once you find what you came for, we can help carry-"
Shinespark wasn't remotely listening. "This is his workbench," she murmured, brushing her leg reverently across a small cleared space on a raised table with standing room on either side. "There's so much I've only heard about here, and even more he never even wrote to me for! Look at this!"
She actually beamed, shrugging off her melancholy as she held up a carrot-shaped device with wires sticking out of the thick end. Starlight looked around, realizing no one seemed in a hurry to leave and some even looked curious themselves, and huffed, seating herself on a box to watch.
"What is it?" White Chocolate asked, tail swishing and head turning sideways as she stepped forward. "It looks almost like a horn."
Shinespark lifted the thing in her aura, putting her hooves back on the table. "I dunno! It's either an unusually-shaped manacapacitor, an antenna, or some kind of discharge point! Maybe a prototype horn weapon for Braen?" She kicked over a long gray box with several wire prongs waving from the top, attached several to the carrot-shaped device, and put the other lead to her horn. "This is a spectroscope," she quickly explained. "Let's see what happens if-"
When her horn lit, the metal carrot instantly whirred and began rotating at high speed. The spectroscope, meanwhile, glowed blue and started to play a staticky recording of someone playing a violin. Shinespark blushed and turned them off. "Okay, so it's a drill and that's not a spectroscope. Ooh, here's a bin of timing crystals right next to a series of rapid-discharge capacitors? I wonder what he was making with this...?"
"This reminds me of my father's workroom," White Chocolate murmured, looking up and down a wall of shelves. "Only so many more things..." She gently bit the edge of a bin and slid it out, peering inside. "I know these. They're soldering crystals, for mana circuitry. But I remember them being so much smaller..."
"Soldering crystals?" Shinespark's ears perked, and she flew over the desk in a cloud of blue magic, landing right next to White Chocolate. "Let me see those... Wow, these are enormous. One step below the kind they use for power grid work. We'll need these for the ship for sure." She pulled her nose back out of the bin, stepping back and glancing at White Chocolate appreciatively. "You have experience with this stuff?"
White Chocolate looked at her hooves. "I used to watch my father. I don't have a horn, so I couldn't-"
Shinespark grabbed something and floated it near her mouth so she could grab it, accidentally overshooting and bumping her on the nose. "Standard-issue mouth bit," she said, offering the piece with a wiggle. "All Sosan tools for the last fifteen years have been made with at least some version of compatibility for them, and I see a bin of adapters right there. You'll need a manacore for power for testing and better workspace management to keep a clear area, but as long as you've got good motor control in your neck and teeth, being hornless shouldn't be an issue. There's no need to let what you're born as define what you can or can't do."
White Chocolate sat down heavily, looking stunned. "Fifteen years," she whispered as the mouth bit hovered in front of her eyes.
"You didn't know that?" Shinespark smiled gently, sending Starlight's mind spinning trying to reconcile her with the sad, brooding mare who had dwelt in and cleaned the airship for the last several days. "I'd put a hoof on your shoulder, but I have a cold right now."
"...I really did need to get out more," White Chocolate puffed, breathing heavily. "I never even thought..."
Shinespark waited for her to continue, checking several more bins along the shelf, then finished for her. "Thought you'd be good for anything? Felt like you had your future stolen? Oh, here's some smaller ones, if they're the size you're used to. A lot of Sosans felt that way. Good news now is, with the amount of rebuilding that needs to be done, anyone with talent..." She pulled out another bin with her teeth, horn already juggling several floating objects. "Yes! Here's the backup soldering guns. Anyone with talent can be useful. And I've seen ponies bring themselves back from situations even you wouldn't believe."
"Be useful?" White Chocolate shook her head, gingerly taking the bit and talking around it with bared teeth. "I just thought I'd never get to enjoy this again. This lab and everything here..." She wiped the corner of her eye. "It feels like my past is catching up to me, in a good way."
Maple appeared by her side, nudging her shoulder. "See?" She grinned hopefully. "I told you things can get better."
White Chocolate slumped, leaning against her, still looking as if she didn't quite believe it.
"Hey, look what I found!" Amber crowed, interrupting, legs flopping in excitement from atop Willow's back. She held up a silvery object Starlight couldn't quite make out. "It's like a metal griffon talon, or something, and it's full of wires. Pretty neat for a toy!"
Shinespark bounded over to her, frowning. "A talon?" She took it in her aura, pulling gently on the cables running back into a mass of things on the floor, and ultimately withdrew the entire contraption. It was in several pieces which she quickly plugged back together, and soon the talon had a cup at the base the perfect size for a mare's hoof and several wires tied to a mesh helmet that looked vaguely similar to the harmony extractor's.
"This is a mechanical hand," Shinespark said, holding it up and looking impressed. "Arambai wrote me a lot about this one. He said he had a finished prototype, and it was going to be incorporated in the next major revision of Braen's armor. The fingers would be able to retract into the metal for durability, but come out and grab things like griffons or dragons can. I wonder if this is the prototype that works?"
Eagerly, she strapped the hand into place, securing it around her right front hoof with several wrapping bands, then floated the helmet onto her rear and connected a bundle of auxiliary cables to a power supply. Her eyes suddenly constricted, and she looked at the altered hoof with pinprick pupils. "Wow," she managed. "I can... actually feel it. Like it's a part of my body."
Everyone crowded around in sudden interest as she lifted the attachment, tensed... and it shifted, the digits wrapping around until they were curled closed. "This isn't what I was expecting," Shinespark whispered as the mechanical hand continued to move, pivoting around its wrist and flexing one finger at a time. "I wonder if it can feel pain. Or if I could feel the rest of the armor. This would take a lot of training to get used to." She lifted the helmet from her rump, unstrapping the hand and floating them forward. "Does anyone else want to try?"
Amber quickly volunteered. As she twirled the hand around with a combination of consternation and amusement, Starlight's attention wandered, and she quickly found herself staring at the nearby teleporter dais, still connected to its harmony extractor. In fact, the thing looked like it had been recently turned on. She supposed that was how Arambai got from Riverfall to Ironridge in the first place, though how he had powered it was beyond her. Had Shinespark said anything about connecting multiple ponies at once producing unstable power surges? Maybe that would work for a teleportation spell. When she did it, it certainly felt like a single surge.
What would the machine get used for now? Did Shinespark need to take the whole thing to repair her airship? Arambai had said the larger components were fine, so if not, what would it do? Just get left in Riverfall for anyone to use for anything? She doubted there were many ponies who knew how to use it, and it felt somewhere between a waste and a liability. Idly, she entertained the possibility of using it to send Hemlock back to Ironridge... or maybe Gerardo.
"I can't feel it," White Chocolate complained, and she turned around to see the mare trying the hand for herself. The straps were affixed to her hoof, the helmet was placed over her rump, and the hand seemed to be sporadically moving... but she was still staring at it in concern. "I'm using it right, aren't I? I'm not thinking for it to move any way, and when I do, it doesn't respond. Maybe it didn't get hooked up correctly?"
Shinespark rubbed her chin, floating the helmet off and checking White Chocolate's backside. "Well, you don't have a cutie mark, so maybe it's not reading the signals correctly? I'd have to read Arambai's notes on how it works in person. Starlight doesn't have one, though, and she was able to use the harmony extractor just fine."
Maple snorted. "I'd hardly call what it did to her 'just fine'."
"...Point taken," Shinespark said, relenting.
"Maybe her foal is interfering somehow?" Willow offered. "Is that a possibility?"
"Hmmm..." Shinespark closed her eyes in thought. "You can never say something isn't a possibility in science, but I doubt it. Just a hunch, though. If anyone decided to finish this, I'm sure it won't be hard to get more mares to test that theory here in Riverfall."
Amber turned slightly red, as did White Chocolate, who was unstrapping the hand with her teeth. "Well..." She stood up, shuffling her hooves nervously. "Do you mind if I try to make something with some of the spare parts here? I know about workshop rules and how not to leave messes..."
Shinespark nodded approvingly. "This is a mess enough already that I'll have to give it a good cleaning. Sure, though. Say if you need anything; I'll be looking for more parts the ship needs. And try out that bit!"
White Chocolate wandered off to the workbench, and Shinespark strolled into a corridor between two shelf racks, her cast still clunking against the concrete ground. At some point, she must have fixed it, since Starlight couldn't imagine it surviving getting rained on the previous day.
"Well, girls?" Willow asked once it was just her, Maple, Amber and Starlight. "How are you doing?"
"With what?" Amber shrugged from her back and grinned. "Free rides, weird technology, and everyone happy? Sounds like a good day to me."
"Jamjars is lurking," Starlight pointed out, unable to see her or Valey. "That makes me nervous."
Amber nodded sagely, and Maple put a foreleg over Starlight, sliding so close that she was practically standing on top of the filly.
"Well," Willow repeated, sighing. "There's something we should talk about sooner rather than later." At everyone's apprehensive gazes, she added, "Not something bad. But when me and Starlight were at the ship yesterday... Arambai invited us back to Ironridge, as a group, if any of us wanted to go. He says it's safer now, and we can contact him with the sound stone Matryona is keeping, but we need to decide what to do, and I'd like us to have more than one night to do that this time." She looked sorrowfully at Maple.
"He what!?" Valey surfaced beside them. "Back to Ironridge? Yeah, no way. I just spent a billion years escaping from that place."
Maple cringed. "Willow, I don't know..."
"That's why I don't want us to make a decision now," Willow murmured.
"Yeah," Amber whispered atop her back. "Just think about it."
"Amber?" Maple glanced up. "What are you thinking?"
Amber bit her lip. "You know, you're not going to like this, Maple, but I actually wouldn't mind going. I'm put out I couldn't be there for you last time, and if this would be like a victory lap..."
Maple hung her head and sighed.
"Just think about it," Willow insisted. "Tonight, or maybe tomorrow night, we can all talk about it, and I'm not agreeing to go or stay before we talk to Arambai again, but I just wanted you girls to know now instead of the day before the ship flies."
Starlight's heart sank. As bad as rushing into Ironridge had been for them, watching this was somehow worse: now she knew she had to make a decision, whichever path they chose they could end up terribly regretting, and couldn't even be over and done with the decision itself. The good thing about bad things in the past was that they were already over...
"Hey!" Shinespark chirped, walking back out of the corridor with a spool of thick cable looped around her barrel and a box of spring-like dials in her aura. "White Chocolate? How's it... Woah, are you all right?"
Everyone jumped, spinning around to look. White Chocolate sat behind the work table, several parts arrayed before her, but she wasn't focused on it, eyes clenched and teeth gritted. Instantly, Willow set Amber down and was at her side, one hoof around her back. "How are you?" she whispered.
"Just a cramp," White Chocolate whispered back, and Starlight trotted far enough around the workbench to see that both of her forehooves were on her belly. "It'll pass."
"Do you want me to walk you home?" Willow asked, keeping her voice quiet. The room was suddenly perfectly still.
"I'll be fine," White Chocolate said, still clenching her teeth. "It'll be fine..."
Willow nodded. "Would you at least like to go sit upstairs? The couches there are softer."
"That might be nice..." White Chocolate hissed.
Starlight glanced around the room as Willow helped White Chocolate up, the latter walking gingerly for the staircase. Valey had vanished, Shinespark looked somewhat rattled, and Maple... was completely ashen. Amber waved her over.
"Hey, Starlight?" Amber asked, laying against a stack of shelves. "Do you mind walking Maple home? I think she needs it."
"Maple?" Starlight frowned.
Maple smirked regretfully, trembling, and reached out a hoof. "Sorry, Starlight. I still have triggers that go off, sometimes... I need some fresh air. Will you go with me?"
"Sure," Starlight decided, not fully understanding what had happened but definitely knowing when she was needed. "Amber? You can get home without us?"
"I've got Valey," Amber said with a wink. "She's here somewhere. I just hope Shinespark can carry everything back to the ship on her own."
Shinespark shook her head, blinking. "I'll make two trips if I need to. See you later."
Starlight glanced around, but no one seemed to have any further reservations. "Well, okay." She moved to lift Maple on her back, swiftly remembered that her adoptive mother could still walk on her own, and settled for being a supportive shoulder to lean on, navigating the maze of shelves that led to the stairs out of the house.
Hemlock was nowhere to be seen as Maple and Starlight exited Arambai's house and started down the stairs to the street. That was good. Starlight didn't really want to deal with him right then.
"Are you okay?" she asked Maple once their hooves touched the glass, glancing up at her adoptive mother in concern.
Maple folded her ears, looking glumly at the astral ground. "No. I wish I was. I feel like I should be better. I worked so hard, and so did all of my friends, and I still... still have triggers everywhere that I just freeze up at, or get all worked up and..." She huffed a sigh. "It's not fair. I should be happy for her. I can think it, I can try to feel it, but I just..."
Reaching out a foreleg, she pulled Starlight close, holding her but not meeting her eyes. "Now I'm feeling bad about myself. I'm sorry, Starlight. You deserve better... but I haven't been okay in years."
Starlight frowned. "Maple..." She wasn't sure what to say in a situation like this, and wasn't even sure she fully understood what went wrong, but could tell Maple needed a reset or distraction and knew how to do that. "Can you give me a ride home?"
Maple sniffed, straightening her back and legs. "I should be strong enough to do that," she said with a slight smile. "Hop on, Starlight."
Starlight jumped, landing and curling into a familiar position with her legs dangling off either side and her head pressed against the side of Maple's neck, her mane partially covering her like a blanket. "Does this help?" she asked, pressing in as Maple started walking.
"Maybe." Maple didn't sound enthusiastic, but she wasn't as sad as before. "I don't know, Starlight. I'm just... rattled."
"What happened?" Starlight asked, hoping she could talk through it.
"With White Chocolate? Or me?" Maple kept her head straight, hooves clicking against the glass, but Starlight could tell it took conscious effort.
"You." Starlight assumed White Chocolate's foal was coming, but it was Maple she was worried about.
Maple shivered, bowed her head and said nothing.
"Or... whatever you want to talk about?" Starlight shrugged, rubbing a hoof through Maple's chest fur to try to cheer her up.
"...I told you about Aspen, didn't I?" Maple asked after a silence, head still down and voice quiet. Starlight had to focus to hear her over the distant din of Gerardo in the plaza, but it was doable. She nodded.
"She was my foal," Maple explained anyway, breathing tense and shallow. "That I was going to have. My husband left when I found out and told him I was expecting. I... broke. I was left carrying a foal on my own. Maybe I didn't take care of myself right, or something, but... she came many months too early. She was already dead by the time I saw her. That happened while I was already down. I didn't need to be kicked again. I couldn't take it. I... I..."
She sagged, then collapsed against the sheltered side of a house, grabbing Starlight off her back and hugging as tightly as she could, burying her face in Starlight's coat and shaking with sobs. "I'm sorry! I..."
Starlight hung there limply, letting herself be used as a tissue. Maple needed it, and she could take it. It wasn't like this wasn't a regular occurrence already. Eventually, when Maple started to calm, she asked, "Would you feel better doing this at home? I've never teleported two ponies before, but I can try."
"No..." Maple sniffed, lifting her face and wiping her eyes, leaving several wet spots on Starlight's coat. "I can walk. I'm glad everyone is at the plaza right now, though. I don't need ponies to see me like this."
Starlight brushed back a part of her mane that had fallen out of place, tucking it behind an ear. "Okay," she said, standing up. "Does talking help?"
"I don't know," Maple choked, sitting upright but not continuing on her way. "Maybe. I'm just frustrated. I keep thinking I'm better, wanting to be better, wanting it to be over... and look how much just saying what happened to her trips me up." She swallowed. "I want to love foals. New life! New life is good. But every time I see a newborn, I remember what I lost. I can manage that. Every time I see a mare who's going to be a mother, it gets harder. I see them where I was, see them losing..." She clenched her eyes briefly, then reopened them. "It's part of why I had such a strong reaction to meeting White Chocolate, and why I couldn't just let us be safe after that second day. She reminded me of myself and my friends too much already. Wanting to help someone who makes you nervous is hard. But I make myself manage. I have to. But then... whenever I'm reminded that foals have to be born..."
She shuddered again, leaning back against Starlight. "It's like I'm there again. I remember everything, and then they're dead. I can't unsee it. Can't unhear it. Can't unfeel it. And I know I get triggered, and can feel it coming and there's nothing I can do to stop it, even though I've tried and tried everything me and Amber and Willow can think of. It's not fair. I have to believe good things can happen and the world can go right, and I do, and I know that I'm happy for her that she gets to have a foal and that that's a good thing, but it still hurts! It's not fair..."
"The world isn't fair," Starlight told her, a slight note of dour triumph in her voice she was instantly ashamed of. "Good thing you have friends who can relate."
"Mmm..." Maple nuzzled her, eyes closed again. "I remember when Willow had her first two foals. I was worried, confused and scared, seeing her in pain. I was anxious, nervous, and excited... and when it was all over, it was wonderful. I got to hold the foals and see how special it was. It made such a big impact on me... It was times like those that convinced me I wanted a family some day. I'm certain I've told you others. But when her third was born... I couldn't even be there for it. Amber came to get me and I made it all the way to the door to her room before I turned and ran away. Probably one of the only times I ran that year..."
She sighed. "I wish I could relate to her. I wish I could be properly happy for her, but look at me! White Chocolate has one little cramp and I freeze up and run away again. I should go back and be there for her. I'll feel bad about it if I don't, but I don't think I can. I know she'd like to see me. Maybe you should crystal me to stop me from running, or... no. You shouldn't be using your magic for that long. I wish I could just accept that this might never get better for me..."
The sum of Starlight's knowledge on everything Maple was talking about was small enough she could fit it atop her hoof. The entire process of having foals wasn't something little fillies had any business knowing about, and she had never seen a newborn, either. She wasn't a parent, had never thought about being a parent beyond playing with dolls and figurines when she was smaller, and aside from Willow and White Chocolate, had never even gotten to know any ponies who were parents themselves, mares or otherwise. But once again, she did know about Maple, and had a good idea of what to ask.
"You want to accept that you can't get better, and not do anything about it?" Starlight frowned, putting on her most determined, pouty face. "How would you feel if I had accepted that my life in Equestria wasn't worth trying to improve, and never came here?"
Maple almost laughed, though it was still mixed with a sob. "I know. Things do improve. I'm just being silly, aren't I?" She climbed to her hooves, motioned at her back, and started walking. "Come on. Let's get on home."
Starlight frowned, hopping on anyway. "Silly? No."
"Hmm." Maple exhaled. "I don't know, Starlight. But this isn't the only thing that triggers me. Husbands leaving their wives... That one, I get furious just thinking about. I watch for it without even consciously trying. When we were in Ironridge, around ponies in the Stone District or Blueleaf, I saw so many couples and was just fine... but every time we passed by a couple who kept an extra pace of distance between each other, or where the stallion's eyes would wander when anyone passed by, I noticed. At least I can still keep moving when I'm mad."
"Maybe you need to do something still about your old husband?" Starlight suggested. "Doesn't he still live in Riverfall? Maybe you need some kind of closure?"
Maple sighed. "Amber broke his teeth, and we haven't found or looked for him after that. What would I even do if I met him again? He broke my heart and my mind and killed our daughter, so I can't forgive him. I hate even thinking about killing him, though when I'm especially down, I sometimes imagine it anyway..." She swallowed dryly. "And what else would I do? Besides, even if seeing someone again could give me closure, Aspen..." She hung her head, but kept walking.
"I killed a lot of ponies on the dam when I blew it up and washed away Sosa," Starlight told her, voice strong. "I don't regret it and would do it again, if the same things were at stake and I knew only what I knew then. It feels weird to think about, but I'm okay with it now."
"I can't imagine what that's like," Maple murmured.
Starlight shrugged atop her back. "I can't imagine a lot of the stuff you're talking about." Hesitating, she added, "I still love you."
"I love you too," Maple purred, finally breathing normally and talking without a hitch in her voice. "I'm glad I met you, Starlight. Having you... helps. A lot."
"Mhmm." Starlight nuzzled back into her neck.
"Whooo..." Maple exhaled, picking up her pace and trying to put a spring in her step. "Maybe I did need to talk about that. I feel like a log jam broke in my mind and my thoughts are moving again and..." She trailed off into a happy hum, and then a sad sigh.
Starlight rested limply, not making an effort to move. "So you're feeling better?"
"For now," Maple said. "Not forever. Maybe not even until tonight, though I hope it lasts longer than that. And definitely not enough to go back to Arambai's and check on White Chocolate. It still hurts. I just..." She closed her eyes. "Sorry if I lost you, though. It's hard to relate to being unable to convince yourself to get up and move, isn't it?"
"Huh?" Starlight shook her head. "No, I just don't know much about how having foals works. I got how you felt."
"Oh!" Maple turned slightly red. "I guess I forgot, and... right. This is usually a conversation I have with Willow, and... it's all something you should worry and learn about later. Sorry. I'm still learning how to be a good mom..."
"But you're trying," Starlight mumbled, closing her eyes and letting herself ride out the bumping of Maple's steps. "Right?"
"And you're being patient," Maple answered. "Everything will be all right..."
Starlight wasn't sure if that was addressed to her or Maple, but treated it as both. There was still plenty of time left in the day, and her brain was already working on some way to help ensure things got better. White Chocolate? She wasn't sure she could do anything with her. Maple's old husband, though? That was a topic that had come up, and she couldn't tell if Maple spending less time talking about it meant it was more or less painful, but she had no reservations about anything when it came to helping her friends. Maybe she could do something there. Maybe Jamjars could help; she was good at tracking down ponies that didn't want to be found. Maybe she could find him, and... make something better...
Willow and White Chocolate stumped to the top of Arambai's stairwell with Valey and Amber close behind, walking into a sitting room with embroidered couches, framed paintings, potted plants in various alcoves and a very nice rug. Willow helped White Chocolate to a couch, and she sat, panting and holding her abdomen, for a few minutes in silence.
"So, uhh..." Valey said, Amber draped over her back. "Should I go get a doctor, or what?"
"I told you, it's just a cramp," White Chocolate said, laying on her side with her head in Willow's forelegs and her eyes closed. "I've done this more than enough times to know what everything feels like." She opened them, glancing around. "Where's Maple?"
A look of pain crossed Willow's face, though it didn't reach her gentle tone. "Dealing with her feelings. She has some unpleasant history with unborn foals, and it's difficult for her to be around mares who are expectant and in pain because of it."
White Chocolate's ears drooped. "Oh. I remember her telling me that..." She cringed, trying feebly to curl up. "Sorry. I'm not good at balancing other ponies' problems with my own..."
"What could you have done about it?" Amber asked sharply, berating her with a forgiving smile. "Not cramped up? I know enough mothers to tell you how impossible that is. You must be made of iron already for having as many kids as you have. And you can't just avoid Maple entirely, either. Trust me, she's probably feeling bad because she wishes she could be there for you right now, or something."
White Chocolate didn't look up.
"I have nothing I need to do today," Willow murmured, still holding White Chocolate. "If you'd like me to talk, listen, or just be here, I can."
"Think that's our cue to go?" Valey glanced up at Amber. "I'm done with being a therapist, and if I ditch you here, you'll be stuck until whenever these two finally finish. Wanna go do something?"
"Go with her, Amber," Willow said, nodding toward the door. "And enjoy yourselves. We'll be fine here."
"If you see Maple," White Chocolate quickly added, "tell her I'm okay? Please?"
Valey tipped her beret with a wing. "Can do. Have fun talking about girly mare stuff. Come on, Amber, let's bail."
Amber rolled her eyes atop Valey's back, already bumping up and down with her hoofsteps as she made for the door. "We're girls too, you know..."
Arambai's second-story roof was deserted, a cool wind ripping through the treetops far above and sending down occasional flurries of leaves and needles like red and brown snow. In the distance, Gerardo's party roared, and Valey breathed deeply as the door swung closed behind her, clearing out her lungs.
Eventually, she glanced back to the entrance. "You know, I never get why ponies decide to become parents. Are they just clueless and accidentally get knocked up, or what? It leads to weird drama like this, seems super inconvenient, and occasionally you get kids like Jellyjugs out of it. What am I missing, here?"
Amber grimaced. "Do you mind not calling her that? I don't know much about Jamjars, but that name makes me feel... weird."
"Buh?" Valey blinked. "Well, okay. You got something better for me to call her?"
"I don't know," Amber said, shrugging. "Like I said, I don't really know her. Can't you just call her Jamjars?"
"Mehhh..." Valey pouted. "Using real names is boring. And then I have to bother with learning them. But fine, if you answer my question."
A smile teased across Amber's lips. "Why are you asking me? I don't have any foals. I don't even find myself attracted to stallions."
"'Cuz you're willing to deal with whatever I say?" Valey stopped at the roof's edge, staring off. "I dunno. Ironflanks would probably go pasty again, Starlight would be clueless, and I sure wouldn't seriously ask anyone else. But, I mean, what's the deal?" She scanned the empty streets, wings flexing in their sockets.
"I suppose it's for the reward of being responsible for someone," Amber decided. "What could be heavier than being responsible for a life? Getting to see your children grow and mature as adults. Being able to be proud of them every step of the way... I know how proud Willow is when her foals do something for the first time."
"Rubbish," Valey said, no hostility in her tone. "First off, responsibility smells. I was responsible for a bajillion years keeping the Stone District and Earth District in Ironridge from blowing each other up. One hundred percent thankless, and ultimately they did it anyway, even if it probably would've been a lot sooner without me keeping the Defense Force off their game. You don't just go looking for that, and anyone who does has no idea how the world works."
"Well..." Amber worked her jaw. "Like you said, that's responsibility with no reward. But what about the reward when you get back from a day out and your little foal has drawn a picture of you as a welcome-back present? Willow has some of those taped to the wall beside her bed. I've seen them. Isn't being unconditionally loved by a pony who's utterly dependent on you something of a reward? You say that's not how the world works, but maybe yours just hasn't been working right."
Valey exhaled, blowing on her shredded mane. "Yeah, maybe. That sounds kinda cool. And I guess Ironflanks and Starlight's cuddling thing makes me a little jealous. You can still get gremlins like Jamjars, though. But second and more important, if raising a kid is the great part... why do so many mares here pawn off their kids to those collective-raising circle things? I mean, those two back there have some random mare watching their kids right now, and weren't you and your friends raised without either of your biological parents around, either?"
Amber froze, her face a regretful smile. "I guess you have me there. Remember, the ponies who do the work when foals are raised collectively are like parents too, but yes, there are a lot of mares in Riverfall who have foals and then never raise them themselves."
"Even then," Valey continued. "If you're doing that as a group, aren't you, like, not as responsible, or something? All that stuff about being unconditionally dependent doesn't apply as much if there are a ton of random parents, right? I mean, I never was a foal or had parents myself, so I can't really know to say this, but wouldn't that make the kids, like... less attached, or something? I dunno. I mean, I never even had a foalhood, so I have zero experience with any of that."
Amber sighed. "At least me and Maple have Willow. She changes between mothering and big sistering us depending on what we need. Being attached to no one at all sounds... lonely."
"Yeah, well, guess how I feel." Valey hung her head. "You get your coping mechanisms and deal. Meh." She turned abruptly and started pacing. "Okay, enough of that. I'm making myself sad."
"Silly," Amber muttered. "You're asking for a hug when I'm already giving you one. But if nothing else, I have an idea of how you feel. Only an idea, but still... it sounds like that's better than what you had in Ironridge." She hesitated, and added, "Want to go do something fun? The whole point of us leaving was to enjoy ourselves instead of sticking around for what might be a sad discussion."
Valey grinned. "Best idea I've heard all minute. Wanna see what it's like to fly? I was testing my wings with Starlight this morning, and as long as I don't fight anything bigger than a house, they should be good to go."
"I've flown before, actually," Amber apologized, smirking regretfully. "With Gerardo, a week ago. But it sure is something I enjoy."
"Awww..." Valey gave an exaggerated pout that concealed a grain of real disappointment. "Cheater."
"That time didn't count, though," Amber assured, lowering her voice and stretching her head up along Valey's neck. "Know why?"
"Do I want to?" Valey tilted her ears back until Amber was breathing directly into them. It tickled.
Amber poked one with a hoof. "Because he's a dude, and not nearly as cute as you are."
"H-Hey!" Valey flicked her away, covering the back of her head with her wings.
"Probably not as good of a flier, either," Amber continued, thoroughly enjoying the moment as Valey fought to keep from reddening. "So come on! Let's go do something!"
Valey hurriedly returned to the roof's edge. "Yeah, sure. Like what? Where do you wanna go?"
"Hmmm..." Amber bit her cheeks to stop from giggling. "Sky cuddles."
"Sky... cuddles?" Valey rasped, raising an eyebrow.
"That's where we're flying together, I hug you to keep from falling off, and you hug me to keep me from falling off!" Amber grinned proudly. "You said earlier you were jealous of Maple and Starlight, right? Come on, it'll be fun!"
Valey backed up again, eyes wide. "Oh, no way. Not in public. No way in public. I do not do cushy stuff, and in the completely hypothetical situation I were to make an exception, it would be in a closed room, in private, with no one for miles around. Let's go, like, listen to Birdo or something."
"Riiiight," Amber droned, keeping a stoic face for three eternal seconds before breaking down into helpless giggles. Valey joined in the laughter, taking wing and kicking off the ground before heading in the direction of Riverfall's main plaza.
Maple and Starlight sat together in their well-lit upstairs kitchen, the oven timer ticking softly in the background. A book lay in Maple's hooves, still open to the last page even though they had finished some time ago, and Starlight leaned against her shoulder, tucked beneath a foreleg like a warm blanket.
"This was one of my favorites when I was your age," Maple murmured, resting her head atop Starlight's and basking in the calm. "It's part of a series. There are twenty-one in total, and except for one or two direct sequels, you can read them in any order. I bet the author's life was busy... Did you like it?"
Starlight shrugged. "It was nice." What was nicer was making Maple happy, and suggesting that they read something together had done plenty to take her adoptive mother's mind off White Chocolate. The book hadn't been bad either, but listening as Maple read aloud about heroes having swordfights with villains was a little less exciting when she had seen those weapons in action against her in real life. "We should read another some time."
"Some time," Maple agreed, setting the book down and wrapping Starlight in a full hug. "Right now, I think dinner's about to be ready. I made more than enough for two, but I wonder if Willow will be here..."
"Dunno." Starlight didn't resist, sniffing and taking in the scent of nearly-done biscuits. Some kind of gravy wafted steam from a pot atop the stove, already finished and just staying warm.
"Hmmmmm..." Maple sifted her muzzle through Starlight's mane, tugging here and there and trying to drag her teal stripes back into clarity. "Tomorrow, I think we should go back to Sycamore's."
"Who?" Starlight blinked. Riverfall mares all being named after trees didn't do much to help her memory.
"The bathhouse," Maple explained. "Where we went to fix you up last time. I bet you could use it again, know I need a deep cleaning after spending so much time in caves, and don't even get me started on what happened to Valey's mane. I know she was fighting to stop Herman and protect Ironridge and save your life, and I know she could have gotten hurt so much worse, but..." She smiled, adding, "If we go before waiting too many days, Amber might not be feeling up to splashing us too hard this time."
Starlight nodded, remembering that trip. She supposed she wouldn't mind.
Suddenly, a knock on the door sounded from below, and they heard it creak open. Maple's ears twitched with interest. "That's Willow's knock," she remarked, loosening her grip on Starlight and leaning towards the staircase. "Willow? Hello!?"
Heavy hoofsteps sounded, and soon Willow climbed into view, the fur on her back matted from a light drizzle. "Hello, Maple, Starlight," she greeted, panting lightly, walking over and taking a seat.
"Willow?" Maple asked, voice briefly cracking with anticipation. "It's been hours. White Chocolate's foal... did it arrive safely?"
Willow shook her head, meeting Maple's eyes and giving an understanding smile. "It was a false alarm. We spent that time talking, and I walked her back home after a while. I also stopped by to check on my foals. They miss me, and I think we'll need to work out our living arrangements sooner rather than later."
Maple stared in thought. "Well, what if you gave her-"
A sudden rapping interrupted her from the window, and she started, turning to see both Valey and Amber's faces plastered against the second-story glass, sporting silly grins and waving. Maple rolled her eyes, still holding Starlight. "Do one of you mind letting them in?"
Before Willow could get up, Starlight's horn lit, undoing the latch and swinging the window open. Valey chucked Amber through, then swooped in herself, furling her wings so she could fit. Both of them hit the floor, chuckling, and Starlight had to close the window again behind them.
"Hey, Ironflanks," Amber said appreciatively, sniffing the air. "What's cooking? It smells great!"
Maple blinked, looked between her and Valey, saw the batpony doing her best not to explode with laughter, and slumped, clunking her head against the table. "Not you, too..." she moaned, looking as far away from Amber as she could.
Both of them instantly broke down, Valey cackling and slapping the floor. "See? I told you it would be hilarious!" She punched Amber in the shoulder. "Hah hah haaa... Heh heh. Sorry, Maple. But that was worth it."
"What was funny about it?" Starlight asked, blinking in confusion.
"At least you remembered my real name," Maple grumbled, getting back up. "Biscuits in gravy. I added carrots, celery, green beans, peas, onions, and some Ironridge spices from the ship's pantry I hadn't seen before but thought would taste good with this. And I made plenty, so I hope you like it."
Amber got up with some assistance, putting a hoof around Maple's free shoulder. "Yeah, sorry, Maple," she apologized. "We've been having a fun day out, and almost anything is funny to us right now. Too much laughter, you know?"
Maple shook her head. "It's all right. What were you two doing?"
Valey started counting on the spokes of her wings. "Well, we got to watch the crowd listening to Gerardo ramble on about how cool he was in the Flame District, which is totally bogus but who cares? And when I say watching the crowd, I mean it. Had a nice long discussion about how hot or not hot various mares were. Personally, I prefer cute to hot, but you know how it is."
Amber flailed a hoof at her. "We did not!"
"Pfft. Uh-huh. Right. Like anyone buys that." Valey stuck her tongue out in retaliation. "Then I learned that there's no such thing as money in this town 'cuz everything's free, so we raided like three candy shops and didn't quit until I got a massive stomachache. Then we hung out on this random roof with some open windows right below and listened to this couple having this ridiculous argument about dresses and each others' fashion senses, which is especially weird because I think Birdo is the only one I've seen in this town who even wears anything. Their voices were cute, though. And then there was a brief shower, so we went-"
Amber tapped her mouth closed. "Maybe don't tell that bit," she advised sagely.
Valey blinked. "Oh, yeah. Good point. You never know who might be afraid of spiders. So after that, we got more candy, but I was smart enough not to eat even more so we stashed it and brought it back here." She lifted her beret, sending dozens of pieces of individually-wrapped taffy rattling across the varnished wood floor. "Then we checked on Sparky, then we flew a circuit of the city just because we could, and then it started drizzling again so we came here. So what have you been up to?"
Willow sighed fondly, nodding at the pair's antics. "I just got back from seeing my foals. Maple is making dinner, and we had just started talking about the future of my and White Chocolate's housing situations."
"Oh, her?" Valey tilted her head as Maple nodded. "She's the one who we picked up in Ironridge, right? Where Sparky packed up and shipped her husband over here, and he got with you instead?"
Willow gave her a stern look. "That's a crude way of putting it, but yes. White Chocolate's husband came here to Riverfall and became mine for a time, and I'm trying to help them reconcile and return their lives to normal. We'll need to decide soon what to do for housing, since they're presently both staying in my home while I stay with Maple."
Maple smiled awkwardly. "Not that I mind having the three of us together again. It's like when we were younger..."
"Just give them my house," Amber offered. "I mean, it's big, near you, and was originally meant for starting a family. It's not like I use it for much."
Willow nodded. "That's what I was thinking, though I'm glad to hear it from you. Tomorrow, I think I'll talk to them about it. As much as I've enjoyed spending the last two days here, it will be nice to have my foals back home and sleep in my own bed again."
"Hold on, wait a minute." Valey tapped a hoof. "So they were an item, right? And then you were an item? What's all this about sending them off again? Seems to me like the easy solution is to just all do romantic stuff together."
"I..." Willow blinked for a moment, then tilted her head at the batpony. "Valey, you know White Chocolate is likely my sister, right?"
Valey shrugged, grinning. "Identical twins? Even better! Isn't that supposed to be the dream? That Faron guy would probably dig being naughty with two of you at once."
Willow closed her eyes and grimaced. "Perhaps it would be for the third partner, but even if I wasn't straight, being intimate in a three-way relationship with my pregnant sister doesn't sound very appealing, Valey."
"...Okay, yeah, maybe that's overdoing it." Valey pretended to be interested in the oven, turning away and huffing. "Just saying, though. Someone gets turned on by that. If you don't want to believe me, never look inside Jamjars' mane."
"I think," Maple announced, letting go of Starlight and standing up, "that this conversation is making me very uncomfortable, and dinner is probably done. Anyone? Biscuits? Gravy?"
"Hear, hear!" Amber demanded, and the tide of the conversation gradually drifted to food, bed and other things.
Starlight came to surrounded by warmth and fuzz, and didn't bother to open her eyes.
These mornings were perfect. Once again, she had gone to bed at sundown, along with Maple, Willow and Amber. Once again, she could wake up in a familiar situation, surrounded by friends, with nothing the matter and everything right with the world. She had promised herself that no matter what, for Maple's sake, she would make living in Riverfall work, and be happy. Sometimes, it was difficult, like the previous day at Dior's breakfast. But waking slowly in a pile with everyone who cared about her in the world was rapidly becoming a ritual, and when Riverfall had times like this to offer, she wanted to make it work for her sake, too.
Cold rain hissed on the roof above her, her ears flicking to its tune through her scruffy, tousled mane. Somewhere, a sliver of chill air made it through the house's insulation and pierced her coat, providing contrast to the warmth of her friends' bodies and making her shiver, snuggling in harder. Something warm rose and fell beneath her, gently moving her with it; at a guess, she was laying atop Willow. Someone else had a forehoof draped across her back.
She cracked an eye to check, confirming her suspicions. Willow lay on her back with all four legs in the air, holding Maple and Amber against her with Maple's head on her chest. Starlight was curled on Willow's soft, silvery belly with one ear trapped beneath her head and not a single errant rib poking into her. She burrowed harder, Willow's fur brushing against her cheek as she slipped a foreleg free and hugged the mare closer.
Willow's stomach growled, reminding her that even if she wanted it to, the morning wouldn't last forever. Closing her eyes again and taking in her friends' scents, Starlight listened to the rain, pretending that wouldn't be a concern for a few more minutes.
It was raining. That meant that even if she got up, she couldn't go exploring, since Maple didn't have any ponchos sized for a filly and even if she did, the unfinished roads around her house would be muddy and annoying. She didn't want to track mud back to Maple's house. Although Maple had been saying they needed a bath...
Maybe she could stand out in the rain for a few minutes and call it good. Come back, towel off, get back in bed before any of her friends woke up or noticed she was missing... Starlight hummed at the idea, intentionally trying to sound like Maple or Willow. It was probably implausible. They would wake up, if not on their own when a cold, semi-wet filly crawled into the bed... or maybe they'd take pity on her and stay a while so she could warm up, and warming up was the one thing better than already being warm. She could get some food while she was up, too. The idea was almost as warming as her friends themselves, and before she knew it she had slipped off Willow's belly, rolled out of Maple's pillowlike bed and was carried by her hooves to the door.
"Hey," Valey said as she closed the door behind her, completing the familiar morning ritual. "Sleep snuggly? I took some peeks and gahhh I am jealous of you and those mares. Maybe I should just take pride in being shameless and slip in there too. Dunno why I don't already; I loved disrespecting boundaries in Ironridge..."
She kept her voice low for the sleeping mares, almost but not quite a whisper. Starlight rubbed her eyes with a hoof, clearing away the crust from the edges, and realized Valey was at the stove, fiddling around with something with her wings. "You're cooking?" Starlight asked, slightly surprised at the sound of sizzling.
"Maaaybe?" Valey glanced over her shoulder, grinning nervously. "I mean, I made toast. Sort of. A lot of it burned, but I got a few good pieces, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. I also tried cutting up some bananas and cooking them in a pan to see what happened. I had fried banana once and it was good... I think. But I probably missed something, 'cuz this looks a little weird. Don't worry, though, I stocked us up yesterday when no one was looking. About half of Ironflanks' pantry is bananas, now, so we won't run out."
Starlight raised an eyebrow, deciding what she smelled fit the bill for burning bananas. "You really like those, don't you?"
"What, bananas? They're good!" Valey frowned in self-defense. "Actually, I like pretty much anything sweet. Fruit in general is good. So I also loaded up on mangoes, pears, three melons and a pineapple. Here, want some toast?"
She offered a vaguely brown slice of bread covered in yellow paste that smelled like smashed banana. Shrugging, Starlight took it in her aura, realizing Valey wasn't kidding when she said she eventually got some good pieces. "Did you flatten a banana on this, too?" she asked, trying to recall why pineapple rang a bell in her head.
"Yeah. I'm creative, I know. But it works, doesn't it?" Valey stopped talking to grab a spatula in her teeth and started to scrape at the pan. Eventually, she spat it out and sat down. "Okay, maybe I need to turn the heat down on this. Whatever. Worst that can happen is I'll ruin the pan. You know anything about frying stuff?"
Starlight didn't, and shook her head.
"Whatever. So I was thinking..." Valey shut off the stove with a flick of her emerald tail, sticking a piece of toast in her mouth and beginning to pace as she munched. "You know how you can crystal stuff with your horn, whenever you want?"
"Yeah...?" Starlight nodded, wondering where Valey was going with this.
"Cool." The batpony nodded. "So I was thinking, like... how much control do you have over where it goes? Like, you freeze a pony, they can't move, right? But say you only get their leg, or their head or something. They can still move everything else?"
"Well, yeah." Starlight shrugged. "Why?"
Valey grinned, showing her fangs. "So I was thinking... how awesome would it be if you crystalled yourself, but only along where your bones are, and left all your leg joints free and stuff? It would be like a magic suit of armor! You'd be safe, but could still move around and stuff! Wouldn't that be neat?"
Starlight blinked, trying and failing to count the number of major joints in her body. "Don't suits of armor have hundreds of plates?" she asked worriedly. "That's a lot of crystals to hold out at once. And my horn takes energy every time the crystals get hit, so even if I could get one out and was willing to hurt my magic, it could only take a few hits before breaking. Besides, it sounds complicated. I don't know if I could make something like that in the first place."
Valey raised a serious eyebrow. "You could also cast it on yourself or your friends. What if blocking one hit was all it took to keep Ironflanks alive?"
Starlight's pupils constricted, and her mind rushed back to the battle on the dam bridge. Could her crystals even block Gerardo's sword? Could she have done something? What if-
"Hey. I know that look." Valey poked her sharply in the shoulder, jumping her out of the flashback. "If you're thinking about the dam, remember that your horn was toast already then, and we all got out alive. And if you had exploded it trying to guard her, assuming you'd been able to react in time, she would've splatted on the rocks because you wouldn't be able to put up a shield as we fell. Didn't mean to guilt trip you, here."
"...Right," Starlight said, her chest slowly loosening. But Valey had known exactly what image to plant in her mind, consciously or unconsciously, and now whether a spell like that was possible or not, she still wanted to try.
"Honestly? Magic armor would be pretty useless here, anyway," Valey remarked, scooping up another piece of toast and continuing her munching. "Doesn't seem like a very violent town. I just thought it would look cool, and maybe keep you safe from the rain." She nodded out the window. "Like, okay, maybe armor's ridiculous. What if you just crystalled your hooves, to act like boots in the mud? And made a mushroom or something on your back to be like an umbrella. That's five pieces. Might actually make your life a whole lot better, if you could do a spell like that."
That was actually a good point. Starlight stared at a forehoof, wondering... and experimentally lit her horn and encased it in crystal. The spell overshot, freezing up through her hoof joint, and the resulting chunk was round and geometric and would be like walking with balls taped to the undersides of her hooves. She frowned and let it fade. If she could pull it off, it would take a lot of practice.
In the meantime, though, she had a task to get back to. Hopefully the scent of food wouldn't wake her friends up too early... Starlight headed for the stairs, waving goodbye to Valey as she descended.
"Where you going?" Valey's head poked after her, a slice of toast held in her mouth.
"To stand in the rain," Starlight replied. "Maple said I needed a bath."
Valey shrugged. "Well, okay." And she went back to her cooking, leaving Starlight to her own devices.
The towel rack by the door had been repopulated. That was good; she'd need those. Swinging the door aside, Starlight stepped out into the gray morning light, Maple's unroofed porch draining water through the cracks in the boards.
"Brrbrrbrrr..." Starlight hugged herself and shivered, feeling as the water soaked into her coat and wormed its way steadily to her core. Images of herself hiding in a barely-adequate shelter between two rocks in the mountains flickered through her mind. Was this a day for traumatic flashbacks, or something? Starlight glared at the sky, getting an eyeful of water for her trouble, but didn't back down. If the world wanted her to get a phobia of rain, it would have to try a good deal harder than that.
Then, with a wave of icy tingles, the rain reached her skin beneath her coat, and Starlight knew she was done. Suddenly stiff-legged and barely able to walk thanks to her trembles, she pushed on the door to open it and go back inside.
It snapped free from its hinges, and she barely caught it with telekinesis before it hit the floor.
Right... After Gerardo broke it, it had only been given a temporary fix, since anything fuller would require replacing the gouged-out doorframe. Sighing through her shivers, Starlight replaced it as best she could, repressing the urge to shake herself off and instead summoning a storm of towels and telekinesis to tend to her sopping mane, tail and coat.
She was cold, all right. Maybe too cold. If her friends got up and didn't want to stay in bed... She didn't even feel like she had washed that hard, either, so she probably still needed a bath. Why couldn't the rain be just a little warmer?
Finally, Starlight lifted the towel from her face, her magic starting to grow tired from rubbing, and was pleased to see she was no longer dripping and only smelled vaguely of wet pony. She brushed her coat down; it was still wet, but hopefully not enough that anyone would mind. For good measure, she took a dry towel and rubbed herself off one more time. That would do it.
Eagerly, still shivering, Starlight trotted up the staircase, beelining back to bed.
"Oh!" Willow jerked when Starlight touched her, causing Maple and Amber to grumble and shift around. "Starlight?" She tried to raise her head, barely able to see over Maple's mane, looking around with bleary, nearly-closed eyes. "You're cold..."
"I went outside," Starlight mumbled, earning another twitch when she tried again to cuddle back up. "Don't get up. I'm cold."
"I'll say you are," Amber muttered as Starlight rubbed against her. "Nngh. Guess it's morning..."
Maple's hoof patted blindly around, searching for the filly, and eventually caught her and dragged her closer. "You are cold," she murmured, pressing Starlight against her chest, between her legs. "Here... hmmm..."
Willow shifted as well, sandwiching Starlight snugly between herself and Maple. "Hmm," she agreed, wrapped them both in a forehoof, and closed her eyes.
"I guess that means we're staying here for a while, huh?" Amber asked eventually, laying nearby.
"Doesn't seem like a problem to me..." Maple hummed, holding Starlight in her hooves.
It definitely wasn't a problem to Starlight. It was like the three had known exactly what she was hoping for... and they probably had, given how they hadn't even asked before blanketing her. "I can stay here," she agreed. "Mrmph."
"I don't think I'm going to get back to sleep," Willow murmured. "It's morning, and I'm hungry. But if I'm getting my house back today, I'll probably stay there with my children tonight, so I don't mind sleeping in."
"Yep. I'm awake," Amber decided. "Maple?"
"Hmmm..." Maple repeated, not budging.
"...So. Willow," Amber eventually decided. "That whole thing about us getting invited back to Ironridge... Want to talk about it now, if we're all awake and just warming up Starlight?"
Willow sighed. "Did you girls sleep on it? What do you think?"
"I'm scared," Amber admitted. "Kind of. I was planning to go anyway, to take Gerardo's boat and look for Maple and Starlight after the flood happened. But now there's no adrenaline behind it. And after you got back, I sort of figured I'd take the boat and become the new ferrypony. But... I never really had a timeline for doing that. I mean, it would involve traveling back and forth a bunch, and leaving you all here while I was gone, and figured I wouldn't start until something happened to make that not a problem. But I didn't know what that would be. I guess I thought... you know? Just thinking about going now instead of later... but it's also something I want to do. You know how much we wanted it, Maple."
"I did," Maple agreed, her voice muted as if she didn't want to fully move her mouth.
"Maple?" Willow asked. "How about you?"
Maple worked her jaw, swallowed, and lifted her head, taking a hoof from Starlight and rubbing her eyes. "Willow, I don't know. In my mind, Ironridge... I don't know how to deal with it. I feel like I've blocked out everything that happened, and when you ask... I just lose my train of thought. I don't know. I know it was hard when me and Starlight were there. I know it was stressful, and almost killed us. I know how much more we wanted it to be, and I know that a lot of what caused our bad time there is gone, but I just don't know. I'm afraid of making a decision." She tensed for a second, holding her breath, and added, "Every time I've made a decision in the last week, it's hurt me and Starlight. I sent us to Ironridge. I didn't stand up to Gerardo and make him leave us out of his plans. I pushed us to keep going in the Earth District when we had somewhere that was safe. I can't... I don't want to decide. I don't even want to decide what I'll do if you make a decision..."
"You stick with your friends," Starlight grumbled, still wearing Maple and Willow like a blanket. "There. I decided for you. Now it's not your fault if anything bad happens."
"Thanks..." Maple tried to curl up, resting her chin against Starlight's head.
Suddenly, there came a knock at the door. "Yo," Valey's voice droned from the other side. "Can I come in? Everyone decent in there?"
"Come in," Willow invited, lifting her head.
The door pushed itself open, and Valey followed through, a plate of toast in her teeth. "Thought I heard someone say they were hungry," she said upon putting it down. "Figured I'd see what I could do with your pantry. Toast?"
Willow sniffed, watching a Valey offered her a piece. "Is that banana?"
"What?" Valey shrugged defensively. "It's good!"
As Willow took it and experimentally chewed, Valey leaned against a bedside table, staring at Maple. "You know," she began after a silence, "I also thought I heard someone say they regretted every decision they had made, since nothing good ever came of that. You know, the pony who bailed me out in the Flame District and was super stubborn about trusting me before that. I agree that those were bad ideas, but..." She grabbed another piece of toast, munched it, and started talking with her mouth full. "I appreciate it. You know. For what it's worth."
Maple put her head back down. Starlight didn't even need to open her eyes to feel the mare's guilt.
"Just saying." Valey shrugged, sensing she hadn't gotten her point across. When Maple still didn't respond, she walked over and poked her with a wing. "Hey! Ironflanks!"
Maple looked up.
"I appreciate it. Got it?" Valey gave her a stern look. "We can go back and forth about how much weight my opinions hold all day, but the point is, you seem to value them. And I'm saying you wanted to help me, did help me, and thanks. And I don't authentically thank ponies for their help that often. Or get helped in the first place. But if you're saying you rather would have kept yourself and Starlight safe and sound and left me buried and unable to save all of Ironridge, and also bailed on your friend White Chocolate who I still think is totally taken with you... I get that a lot, too. So I'll understand."
Maple started crying, softly shaking against Starlight. All her limbs were pinned beneath her, or she instantly would have hugged the mare back.
"This is why I hate being a therapist," Valey grumbled. "All I wanted was to let her know that stuff wasn't pointless and wasn't unappreciated..."
"It's not that," Maple choked, shaking. "I... Thank you, Valey. I just don't understand... if everything I did was the right choice, Ironridge shouldn't have gone so wrong..."
Starlight frowned, shoving against her for attention. "Wasn't it you who used to tell me about how unfair the world was? We're two unimportant ponies from outside the city! Neither of us knew what we were going into, you knew nothing about keeping yourself safe in dangerous places, and I had a broken horn and am just a filly! Us saving the city is way more than we should have been able to do already. I want there to be perfect endings, but if you believed in that, you'd tell me to get up and leave Riverfall and keep walking because as good as it is, it isn't good enough. Yeah, we almost died. Maybe there was something better we could have done if we could see the future, or something, but we can't and there probably wasn't. And saving the city without any of us dying is hard enough that maybe it is a perfect ending and we just need to look at it differently. If anyone in Ironridge knew what really happened, they'd probably think it went unrealistically good."
She deliberately omitted mentioning her run-in after the battle with the clueless couple who had no inkling of the danger they had been in, or how it had been resolved. That was something she still needed to get her feelings straight on, herself. But Maple responded, finally sitting up and shuffling about in the bed to face Valey. "Then I want to go back."
"Maple?" Willow asked, wrapping her forelimbs around Starlight to make up for the lack of Maple's presence, bidding her to go on.
"Everything I decided, I decided under pressure, hoping for the best, and trusting that I could make a difference," Maple said, squeezing her eyes shut. "I feel like I messed up. Like everything I chose was a mistake, even though I hear what you're saying and know there are good parts. So if you think that's the right way to make choices... make me believe it. I'm feeling pressured. I'm being optimistic. And if things go better, maybe it will help me with getting back on my hooves and dealing with what I went through, because right now I'm trying my best to get back to my old life and I still feel strained inside."
Valey shrugged, grinning happily. "Well, hey, I'm in. I might stick to the shadows a little to avoid stirring up trouble, depending on what my reputation is like, but there's no ward against stuff going wrong like an unbeatable bodyguard. Amber? Feel like a vacation?"
Amber smiled awkwardly. "Well, I'll need a first time some time. Better to do it with friends than by myself?"
"I'm going," Starlight demanded, anything else adamantly off the table.
"Well, girls..." Willow nuzzled the two of them and Starlight in turn, nodding appreciatively to Valey. "I suppose my foals will have to live without me a while more, because I still don't feel comfortable taking them to Ironridge. There are a lot of arrangements we'll have to finish before we can go, but it sounds like we've made our decision. And now that we're awake... would anyone like to get our day started?"
Amber nodded, rolling out of the bed and standing up on legs that wobbled like jelly. "Hey, looks like I can stand on-" She promptly collapsed to the floor. "Okay, almost. Valey? Mind giving your poor, invalid friend a hoof?"
Valey winked, strolling over. But as she passed by, in a voice so low only Starlight could hear, she whispered, "You. Me. Pantry. We should talk."
Starlight swallowed, nodded, and started making her way for the kitchen, wondering what that was all about.
"Hey," Valey said as the pantry door clicked closed, muting the voices of Maple, Amber and Willow above.
Starlight stepped forward into the spacious back room of Maple's house. It took up just over a quarter of the circular ground floor, and was lined with shelves, ceiling racks, and newly-added crates of fruit Valey had smuggled from who knew where. A single window let a dusty shaft of light in, looking like it needed to be three times bigger.
"What do you want?" Starlight asked, looking up at Valey, who was seated on a crate. "Something everyone else shouldn't be here for?"
"Just to make sure we're on the same page." Valey shrugged. "You think her reason for wanting to go back to Ironridge is terrible, too, right?"
Starlight blinked. "Maple's?"
"Yeah. Hers." Valey rolled over on the box, laying down and dangling her hind hooves off the side. "What do you think?"
Starlight thought. Her primary concern was keeping Maple happy... No, it was keeping her safe and then happy. Which meant not returning to Ironridge was the best choice, since the city had a bad track record for being safe...
"I meant it when I said all her previous calls were bad decisions," Valey said, interrupting her train of thought. "They did turn out for the best. I am grateful my rear got saved, and Ironridge probably would have been toast if the circumstances were even the tiniest bit different. But that's just it... you and Ironflanks got lucky. If you'd been smart and stayed safe, we can say with hindsight you'd probably be icebergs right now, but knowing what we did at the time, clued out about the windigoes? Not hunkering down with the Sosans was an unnecessary risk. And now, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but she's feeling guilty about putting you in danger, knows everyone survived by luck, and wants to go back. Feeling cheated out of a fight and wanting to win it the real way, I can understand, but this feels more like... she's trying to put herself in danger again, hoping she'll get lucky again. It's like she wants to convince herself there's something watching over her, or something, and not just luck at play. Something that rewards her for taking the nice, optimistic route? So she can stop feeling like her choices pointlessly endangered you?" She shrugged again. "I dunno. You following?"
"Say that again?" Starlight asked with a frown. Valey had completely thrown her for a loop.
"Right, let's see..." Valey tugged at the spokes of her wings. "So this is just me guessing, but I think Ironflanks feels bad that her decisions put you in danger, knows you survived by luck, and really doesn't want to admit it to herself and is in denial 'cuz that means being nice and optimistic like she likes isn't the right way to do things all the time. So she either already has or is trying to convince herself it's not luck and there's something else watching over her and keeping the two of you safe, so that you were never really in danger and her choices were the right ones and she didn't risk your lives and stuff. And she's doing that by making another dumb, optimistic decision, and waiting to see if it turns out all right... At least, that's my read on the situation. What do you think she's doing?"
Starlight was still trying to fully wrap her head around what Valey had said. "So you think we shouldn't go back? Why did you say you'd go, then?"
Valey's eyes traced along the ceiling. "Eh... I didn't say going back was a terrible idea. I said her reason for it is a terrible reason. If something was going to happen in Ironridge that was so bad, we'd all die or be emotionally scarred for life even worse than last time, I'm pretty sure my cutie mark would be tingling from here. It's not only for sensing ambushes, you know. For what it's worth, I can totally see us going back, hanging out in Skyfreeze, digging through whatever weird stuff that Kero guys keeps in his room... I'll do that, in case it's a bomb. Maybe go to the Stone District. Maybe get triggered by ponies being apathetic jerks who have no idea how close they came to death. And then we come back here. But I'm thinking... if we go along with this, and it turns into a fun vacation, which I'm worried it will, Ironflanks might try something even stupider next to test her luck. So what do we do?" Her eyes narrowed. "First off, do you think I'm on to something, or were you on board with her reasoning for going back?"
"...I guess?" Starlight kept frowning. "She really, really wants to believe in the best happening..."
"Yeah, well, things being able to go well is different from them always going well." Valey lay down completely on her side, swishing her tail once. "So then what I want to ask is what you think we should do."
Starlight sat down, staring into the shaft of light that came down through the high-up window. "What do you mean? Like going or not going?"
"That, or other things." Valey gave a sideways shrug. "We could stay here. That's smart, safe, and accomplishes nothing in any direction. It's also boring, and to be honest, thinking about spending an entire lifetime in this one town doing nothing sounds kinda boring. Might turn into a bad thing if we don't have a precedent for giving in to wanderlust, don't you think? I mean, I'm digging this place, but snooping around and going ogling is going to get old after a while."
She rolled over, facing away. "Then, we could go, and if we went, we'd have three options. One is to ignore me, not do anything, and really leave the trip up to luck. Treat it like a fun vacation. If it goes wrong, oh well. You and me can probably fight our ways out, especially if Birdo's dumb sword stays out of the mix. Option two: Ironflanks wants to think something's watching out for her, keeping her safe and rewarding her with good luck whenever she stays optimistic? We could be that. Whether I'm reading her right or not, we could sneak around ourselves, conspire, go out hunting for threats before they begin... basically do everything possible to make sure it is a fun vacation for those three. But that wouldn't be fun for us, and if Ironflanks gets it too far into her head that hoping for the best and throwing caution to the winds is the way to make decisions, she might actually get in real trouble again some day. Trouble like your last visit to Ironridge."
Starlight folded her ears. "What's the last option?"
Valey looked so far up, she was facing Starlight again, expression darkening. "If you think she's being dumb, and the world's going to teach her a lesson some day... we could beat it to it. Sabotage this trip ourselves. Do something to get it through her head that this maybe isn't the smartest way of making decisions, but also keep things under enough control that no one will ever be in danger, or look like they are. For what it's worth, I've got good experience being a villain."
"What!?" Starlight squeaked, quickly slapping a hoof over her mouth, hoping her voice hadn't carried. "I mean... no! I'm not going to lie to, trick and try to hurt Maple!"
"Thought you'd say that." Valey sat up and nodded. "Good. You've got morals. So we're not going to teach her a lesson, then. Do you want her to learn it the hard way, or do you not think there's a lesson that needs to be learned?"
Starlight wobbled, feeling vaguely woozy. "I think I'm going to talk to her instead of planning and being sneaky. If you're worried she's making a decision for the wrong reasons, shouldn't you just tell her?"
Valey blinked... and grinned. "You're smarter than I give you credit for. Or maybe just more civilized. You do that, I guess. Just remember, even though I'd be happy never seeing Ironridge again as long as I live, I don't think going back is a particularly bad idea. Unless you don't want to go, don't try to talk her out of it, try to talk her into..." She frowned. "Actually, nah, talk her into whatever you want. She's your mom, after all."
Sensing the conversation was done, Starlight nodded, lighting her horn to open the pantry door.
"Oh! One more thing," Valey interrupted. "Have you thought at all about what we want to do with this?"
She reached a wing into her destroyed mane beneath her hat, withdrawing a small chunk of technologically-altered crystal. Starlight stared for a second, recognizing it as the data chip Fire had given them upon leaving Ironridge. Supposedly, it contained an explanation for all of Yakyakistan's actions regarding Ironridge, the windigoes, and who knew what else.
"...Why?" Starlight asked, looking warily at the chip. "Because we might be going back to Ironridge?"
"Yeah, sorta." Valey shrugged, replacing it and climbing down from the box. "Just thinking. I've got some stuff in my life that feels like..." She touched the golden pendant around her chest. "Feels like I'm taking a break from everything right now, but I've got some keys to get back toward stuff I want. And then everything'll probably get hard and dramatic and nasty again, and right now I still think I'm seriously enjoying this break. But... at some point, I'll be tempted to give this a listen, see if it's got anything on it about a few topics I'm scared of but really want to know... Might also go check out out a certain suit of power armor. Just wondering if you're feeling curious yet, or want to enjoy life a little more before opening up a box that could contain a giant quest or who knows what else."
Truthfully, Starlight had forgotten the chip was even there. "Wait," she said without even needing to hesitate. "At least until we're either in Ironridge and nothing bad is happening, or we decide not to go. I really want to be happy with Riverfall, for Maple's sake." She hesitated, and added, "What do you think you'd find in there?"
"...Stuff about my past," Valey said uncertainly. "I, uh... opened up a little about it to someone recently. I figure sooner or later, it'll all be out of the box, and I really would like you guys to know and be okay with it at some point if you're going to be my friends. But, uhh... mind not asking for now and just letting me work it out at my own pace?"
Starlight shook her head. "Okay."
"Whew." Valey wiped her brow, stretched her face, and slapped a grin back on. "You have no idea how hard it is to be authentically nervous. Now come on. Let's go see if my toast is gone yet."
"Okay..." Starlight repeated, shivering slightly. She was still a little wet, and the bottom floor of the house was drafty thanks to the broken main door.
Valey saw it instantly. "Still cold?" Her grin intensified as she stepped out the door. "So hey, wanna take bets on which one of those three is going to hug you to warm you up first?"
Maple looked relieved to see her, and Starlight briefly felt guilty for slipping away and assuming she wouldn't be missed. "Sorry," she said, pacing quickly over. "I got distracted."
"Oh? By what?" Maple smiled, probably hoping to engage Starlight in conversation, but instead making her feel awkward. Telling her mother she had been discussing plotting behind her back wasn't something Starlight envied doing.
"I'll tell you later," she said, dodging the question and instead looking to Willow, who was fiddling with something by the stove. "I'm hungry. Are you making more food?"
Willow stepped back, fondly shaking her head. "I'm cleaning this ruined pan so Maple doesn't have to. Are you still hungry?"
Starlight sat up straight and looked down at her belly. "Yeah, a little."
"Let's see what we can get you, then..." Maple got up, humming, and walked back to the kitchen. "Something warm? Are you still cold?"
Nodding, yawning, Starlight sat down, and Amber leaned over and tousled her mane with a weak, floppy hoof.
"How does warm cinnamon applesauce sound?" Maple asked, already shifting around and banging something in a cupboard as she fetched the proper pot.
"I dig that," Amber announced, answering for her. "Mind heating some up for me, Grandma?"
Valey snickered in the corner, and Willow shook her head. "I'll get out of your way if you need the space here, Maple," she said, putting the pan down and taking several steps back.
"It'll only be a minute," Maple assured, and Starlight settled in to wait.
"...So. Ironridge." Amber tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. "Now that we've decided, who's excited? I mean, we're going on a bit of a somber note, but I think it'll be fun. What do you girls wanna plan to do?"
"Aside from not dying?" Maple threw a wry smile over her shoulder. "I'd like to find our place to stay and then stay there for a day without endlessly planning and hurrying and running around. That's what it was like before everything went wrong, at least. I had to fight Gerardo to stop, slow down, or do something fun and leisurely. We should just go slowly, and if there's anything we decide we need to do, just put it on a list and don't leave until we've gotten around to it."
Amber shrugged, grinning. "Well, you're the expert."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but you might want to have some idea of where you're going, right? Like, okay, you want a place to stay." She tapped the side of her head. "I've got this recollection of you grabbing this hotel room and then getting massively lost trying to find it again. Now, odds are I can bail you out if you get yourselves into an ordinary, didn't-know-the-city level of trouble like that, but remember that Ironridge is like ten miles across and the only public transportation is the cheating kind where we stole a ride from Blueleaf to Grand Acorn. If you guys just wander and go anywhere without a plan, you might wind up tired or stuck along the way."
Maple bit her lip and looked between her friends.
"That's cool, though," Valey added. "Just keep in mind that you can't instantly teleport home."
Amber touched her chin in thought. "Well, we do have you and maybe Gerardo as fliers. If one of us did get too tired, maybe you could fly us back in an emergency?"
Valey winked. "Yep. Emergency. Let's keep that as a backup, though, because I can actually get tired too."
"Do you suppose Gerardo is coming with us?" Maple asked with a frown. "I know I'm being hard on myself about pushing us farther than we should have, but he started it. Gerardo not letting us rest and hurrying with his crates was what got me and Starlight into trouble in the first place."
"Where even is Gerardo?" Amber asked, frowning. "Me and Valey saw him still hanging out in the plaza, though his audience isn't quite as big as it used to be. I bet his novelty's wearing off, but I haven't seen him back here to hang out with us in a while. I kind of miss him."
Maple winced. "Well, I might have yelled at him when he broke my door..."
"Oh yeah, that." Amber drooped. "We should get that fixed some time, don't you think?"
"You think?" Maple growled.
"Ooh. Sensitive subject. Sorry." Amber wilted, her ears going back. "Look, I know Gerardo sounds like he wasn't the greatest traveling buddy, but... I liked him? He was fun. Silly and grand and not serious, like an adventure should be. All the mares at the plaza certainly think so."
Valey nodded, pacing closer to the center of the room. "Yeah, problem is, being silly and not taking things seriously when things are serious is a recipe for getting beaten up, or worse. That's fine for me, though. I just never counted on him in the first place." She glanced over her shoulder as if making sure she was in private, then added, "You think he's coming back with us? I mean... we don't have to invite him."
Amber vehemently shook her head. "He'll find out, feel bad, and I don't want to do that. I'll talk to him about it. And hopefully, this trip will be not serious and fun, so it won't be out of place."
"Eh." Valey shrugged. "Well, you said it. Here's hoping."
Willow spoke up, breaking her silence. "Maple, maybe me and Amber should talk to him without you around? I'm sure Gerardo feels that there's tension between you two, and that's why he's staying away right now. But we could talk to him and see if we can reach an understanding. You're our friend, but I wouldn't like to hurt his feelings if I can avoid it."
Maple grimaced. "If he helps fix my door, I'll consider it. For now... I don't know. Starlight, here's your applesauce. Who else wanted some? Amber?"
Valey patted her stomach and belched. "Ehh... I might've stuffed myself a bit too much earlier. But save some for second breakfast, okay?"
"Second breakfast." Amber rolled her eyes, accepting the bowl Maple gave her and carefully making sure it was on the table before lapping some up. "Sounds like an idea I could get behind. So where to after this? Did someone say something about Sycamore's?"
"The bathhouse?" Maple nodded and hummed. "I was thinking some of us could use it..."
"Some more than others," Amber chuckled, waggling her eyebrows at Valey.
"Hey..." Valey self-consciously touched her mane. "I take baths."
"She's talking about your mane," Starlight grunted, looking up from her nearly-drained applesauce bowl. "Half of it is missing, and there's a style pony there who can make it look better."
Valey frowned, pulling the surviving ends of her mane into view. "Uhh... yeah, I don't usually like ponies messing with my mane. Typically anyone who wants to just wants to dump a bucket of weird stuff on my head, and I once got a revenge scheme where someone thought it would be funny to make me go bald. Foiled it easily, but still. Also once got hit by a scheme I didn't foil where some smart guy thought it would be funny to put bows and ribbons in my mane. Didn't set off my cutie mark because they weren't technically trying to hurt me, and they somehow found where I was sleeping..."
"Bows and ribbons, huh?" Amber's grin intensified. "Well, we did say the point was to make you look better..."
"Oh, no." Valey's eyes widened. "No, don't you get any ideas. This is exactly why I don't like my mane messed with. If you try and give me some cutesy manecut..."
Amber chuckled evilly. "Girls? What do you think would look better on her? I think she has enough left to pull off a straight-combed bang in front, but if not, she definitely has enough to copy Shinespark's style. I actually want to try that myself. I bet it would look good on me. And if we go with bows, do you think front or back would be better? Or sides! Both sides! Oh! What if we made the back look like Shinespark's, and gave the front a straight bang with the sides just long enough to show it off, and then we put one bow in her tail and another in..."
"I hate you alllll..." Valey moaned, held miserably in place as a large purple earth pony carefully parsed her tangled, misshaped emerald mane with a mouth-held comb, a pair of scissors at the ready and occasionally darting in.
Starlight's horn glowed, maintaining four crystals that bound the batpony's hooves to a barber chair in the upper story of Sycamore's bathhouse. Valey struggled against them, but she had a feeling it was mostly for show: in Ironridge, she had once shadow snuck free from a crystal prison, and her head stayed still enough that Sycamore could actually work.
Beside her, Amber reclined on a pillowed bench, craning her neck and chuckling. "A little more to the left... Hey, step back and let me see the back! Oh, I like that! Hey, Valey! You should see yourself in a mirror!"
"Shut up," Valey whimpered, sounding like she was going to be sick. Starlight hoped it was just a dramatization, because that would be gross. "No one will ever be able to take me seriously any more!"
"So?" Amber shrugged, showing off her own new, restyled mane. "Looking adorable is better than looking like a hack. Shows ponies you take care of yourself. And if you can get mares to swoon, hey, isn't that better than not?"
Starlight self-consciously touched her own bang. It had only been a week since her last manecut and it hadn't grown out enough to need trimming, but Sycamore had taken nearly an hour to professionally brush out and condition it, and it had reached the point where her head felt made of feathers. The short hair swayed effortlessly at her touch, light enough to hold itself up instead of staying matted to her skull, and when she peered in a mirror positioned where Valey couldn't see, her teal stripes stood in sharper contrast than she had ever seen in Equestria. She almost felt... pretty. It was nice, even though she knew she valued plenty of things over her own appearance and would probably go back to being a scruffy ragamuffin the moment something happened.
Not that anything would happen. She was going to talk to Maple, they were probably still going to return to Ironridge, and then they'd fly back to Riverfall, settle in and live a nice, peaceful, fulfilling life. At least until she was an adult. Probably longer.
She told herself that one more time, not understanding why she couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't true.
Maple was outside, down in the pool area in the middle of Sycamore's triangular compound, the magically-generated rain shield Arambai had installed keeping the bathing area dry as the weather continued to pour down atop it. Willow was there too, and White Chocolate had joined them once again. It was easy to tell her apart from Willow even at a difference, Starlight noted, staring out and watching them through an inward-facing window. White Chocolate was the one Maple never quite looked directly at.
There were other ponies, too. Several foals - Willow had picked up her eldest two and brought them with her, and they were eagerly acquainting themselves with the middle-aged colts and fillies of White Chocolate's brood. All the youngest were still nowhere to be seen, but Starlight noticed Hayseed glued to her mother's side and Snow staring intently at the pools from the sidelines, missing his trademark magazine. What was he staring at? Starlight frowned, trying to trace his line of sight, but the only thing she could see was a bunch of mares and foals laughing, relaxing and playing. She shook her head in confusion.
The other pools in the bathyard were occupied too, some by groups of two and others by larger parties like theirs. Starlight mentally shrugged, glancing up at the rain hitting the shield. Apparently being wet made ponies want to get wetter. Or maybe they figured they had nothing to lose? She had enjoyed the bath and the industrial drying that followed, leaving the rest of her friends behind to go with Amber and Valey to get her mane taken care of.
"How much longer?" Valey whined, snapping her out of her thoughts. "I probably look hideous!"
"Adorably hideous. Or hideously adorable," Amber corrected. "And not long. I think we're getting ready to pick out the bows. Do you prefer pink or purple? I think something with red in it would look good on your mane..." She held a hoof to her chin, trying to look contemplative but barely able to hide an infuriating smile.
"Help! Help!" Valey yelped. "Starlight, lemme go! Do something! Starlight, they're going to put a bow in my mane!"
Starlight gave a noncommittal shrug. "I'll get one too, if it makes you feel better."
Amber glanced at her, and with a look they once again agreed that Valey was just enjoying being dramatic. "A bow for you, hmm?" Amber squinted, changing the subject. "I'm thinking a big one, bow tie, maybe. Teal, to match your accents? We could do two on the sides. I wonder how you look with pigtails."
Starlight shook her head. "That's how I looked back home. I don't want to look like that."
"Okay..." Amber tapped a hoof in thought. "Let's go with a bow tie on the front. Or maybe a flower ribbon. No, a bow tie. How about red? I think it would go well with your natural purple coloration."
"Aren't you the fashionista," Valey droned, hanging limply as Sycamore continued to arrange and rearrange her bang. "Why does she get to say what she doesn't want and I don't!?"
Amber gave an evil smirk. "Because I know you're eating this up and think you can save face and be entertaining while doing it. Now, Starlight, maybe I should get a bow too? What do you think?"
Starlight frowned. Amber's manestyle looked like it was supposed to mirror Shinespark's, but based on a loose description instead of the actual thing. Maybe they had different hair types, or something. Grenada could probably pull it off so closely because they were related... Hmm, hopefully seeing that wouldn't trigger any unpleasant memories for the Sosan ex-hero. Amber's orange locks were cropped short and spiked in every direction, almost like a fuzzy explosion, but at least didn't look as windblown as Shinespark's.
"Maybe a small one?" she decided, remembering she was supposed to be giving feedback on a ribbon. "On the side? I don't know where you'd put one."
"Hmm... yeah, you're right." Amber ran a hoof through her mane. "Maybe I should try to get this to lay flatter. My head feels bigger than normal, even though I just got some cut off."
"My head feels ridiculous!" Valey chimed in, still struggling against her crystal bonds. "I need a mirror! What do I look like!? What do... Oh no no no I feel a ribbon help!"
"This isn't a bow," Sycamore said around the comb in her teeth, holding a hoof on the back of Valey's head as she measured her part one last time. "That's a bow."
"Aaaaaaugh!"
Valey thrashed, writhing, a giant pile of lace pinned to her tail and a big purple bow affixed slightly off-center to the back and top of her head. It stuck up like a third ear, her real ears desperately radaring around as she twisted her head in search of a mirror. "Starlight, what did she do to me!?"
Amber didn't quite stand on her own, Starlight supporting her as she got up and walked in front of Valey. Mercilessly, she probed her with her eyes, grinning wider and wider and refusing to say anything until Starlight felt compelled to put the batpony out of her misery. "You look... cute?" she offered.
"Try 'adoracute'," Amber corrected as Valey started to weep. "You look like a schoolfilly from these weird comic books the mother of a foalhood friend of mine used to write. Super straight bang that's shoulder-length on the sides but'll stay out of your eyes, and then short in the back."
"What...?" Valey whimpered, chin beginning to wobble.
"Yeah, sorry." Amber shrugged. "We would've made it nice and straight there too, or maybe done a cute little curl around your neck, but that's where you got chopped so we had to make do with short. Got it going up a little, so if you wear your hat it'll look like you've got a bunch of your mane tied up under there or something and the style's deliberate. Hey, you could actually do that while it grows back in, if you want to look consistent. And then there's the bow... the bow!" She squeezed her own cheeks, putting on just as much of a show as Valey... or was it real? "It's so cute! And a little over the top but you can take it off in public. But you look nice. And cute." Her sly grin returned. "And adorable."
"I hate you all," Valey muttered.
"Look at this, though!" Amber lurched forward, running her hooves through Valey's mane and earning a hiss. "Your mane has a stripe! It's a darker, forest green that blends into the rest all the time because it's always tangled! It's so cute!"
Sycamore just shook her head. "If you two need a room, we do have a few on the other side of the compound that are rentable for occasions like this..."
Valey and Amber both went red. "Uhhh..." Valey glanced between the two. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not that bad. Thanks for ruining... uh, I mean, fixing my mane, and all that. Maybe that means we should get going, though? Starlight?" She glanced over in Starlight's direction. "Do you wanna let me go now?"
"Maybe she'll wait until she's sure you two won't strangle each other with kisses, first?" Sycamore chuckled, earning a slappy look from both mares. "Here, though. Have yourself that mirror."
She held up a mirror in her jaw, and Valey stared into it, blinking... and then her expression constricted in horror.
"What?" Amber chuckled. "Is it that-"
Whud! With four ripples around her hooves, Valey freed herself from her entrapment, vaulted out of the chair, whirled around, and pounced like a lightning bolt against the far wall, earning a high-pitched shriek... and when she stood up, it was with a struggling Jamjars in her hooves.
"Ugh! Let go! Stupid bat! You're getting your dumb hooves all over my... Eeek!" Jamjars flailed.
Valey dumped her facedown in the barber chair as Amber and Sycamore looked on in surprise, Starlight sighing in resignation. Sycamore opened her mouth to ask something, but Valey didn't let her, expression thunderous and completely lacking her good-fun drama from earlier. "Okay, you little punk," she growled. "I don't like you. I told you not to spy on me. I hoped you'd be smart enough to at least bail when I'm letting my guard down and having fun with my friends, because bananas, I need to relax like this more often, and I sure won't be able to with you snooping around for blackmail or laughs that aren't nice and sporty or whatever. Now I'm ticked. Got it?"
Jamjars glared back at her, upside-down in the chair and nearly having her vision blocked by her giant mane. "Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it? What you did last time won't work again."
Valey picked up Sycamore's abandoned pair of mane scissors, her grin growing even eviler than Amber's.
Jamjars gulped. "Uh-oh."
Valey moved like a bumblebee. For ten seconds, Starlight held a worried-looking Sycamore at bay, and for ten seconds a merciless snip-snip-snip echoed in everyone's ears... and then Jamjars was detached from her bulbous mass of a mane, the hair still clinging to her scalp never more than an inch or two thick and horribly see-through and uneven. Helpfully, Starlight levitated up a mirror. Jamjars gave a warbling, roosterlike scream.
"Yeah, serves you right," Valey apologized unapologetically, brushing the chaotic nest of raspberry-red to the floor. A paper tube fell out, bounced once and started rolling away. "Huh? What's this?"
Jamjars didn't focus, levitating and hugging the remnants of her mane to her chest with teary eyes like it was a decapitated doll. Since she wasn't answering, Starlight glanced at the scroll and shrugged. "That? She stole it from the Spirit hideout in Ironridge. I think it's a picture of some mares, or something."
Amber's lips pursed, and she shared a glance with Valey. "You don't say...?" the batpony muttered, chasing slowly after it and picking it up with a wing. Slowly, she unfurled it and whistled.
"Let me see... woah." Amber scooted beside her, looking up and nodding appreciatively. "Okay. I see what you meant the other night about twins maybe turning ponies on. I'm still never going to think of Willow that way, but this is really hot."
"Safe, too," Valey added. "Looks like some organization had an ethics code? Nice and saucy without showing the naughty bits. I like that. Leaves stuff to the imagination."
Sycamore looked vaguely disturbed. "I..." She shook her head and left, walking down the stairs.
"Oh. Yeah." Amber blushed, then glanced between Valey and the mourning Jamjars. "We might have just broken every professional ethics code in existence. I think that counted as assault, and now we're looking at mildly naughty images that were hidden in a filly's mane..." She reddened further. "Jamjars, what were you doing with this in your mane in the first place?"
"None of your business," Jamjars hiccuped.
"Does your mother know you carry this around?" Amber asked, looking concerned.
"Better question," Valey cut in, stowing the poster under her wing, having completely forgotten about the ribbon in her mane. "How old are you?"
"She told me she was seven," Starlight volunteered. "I think..."
"Seven," Valey and Amber deadpanned as one, then looked at Jamjars. "And you're looking at stuff like this?" Valey asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jamjars gave a hostile grunt. "No. I'm nine. I said seven in case she tried to one-up me by saying she was eight, so I could make her look silly. And give that back. I stole it first."
"Nine?" Valey and Amber looked at each other again.
Starlight sighed, laying down and putting her chin on folded forehooves. "That means she's actually eleven," she said, once again remembering she didn't know her own age.
Jamjars actually smirked. "You're smarter than you look, Starlight. Things like that are why we're friends."
Amber blinked again and gave up, turning for the stairs herself. "Well, that probably means she's thirteen, or something. Or we could just ask White Chocolate. Or it won't even matter, because for all I know she doesn't even see a problem. But let's get out of here before we get in trouble about this whole shaved-a-filly thing. See where the others want to go next."
Nodding in agreement, Starlight and Valey helped her to the stairs, leaving Jamjars to her own devices.
"You did what?" White Chocolate sat up, blinking in alarm.
"She shaved your filly," Starlight informed her, Valey standing awkwardly in the background and trying to hide her mane. "Jamjars. But she had it coming."
"And where is she now?" White Chocolate asked, voice tense.
"Upstairs," Amber said, fanning her new manecut in the enclosed, steamy bathyard air. "She's... upset. I'm not entirely sure what happened between her and Valey, but I get the feeling she wasn't being smart and pressed Valey's buttons when she shouldn't have."
White Chocolate sighed. "She does that to her siblings a lot. I never know what to do with her to keep her in line. If it works, I'm not sure I'm a qualified enough parent to say you should have done something different..."
Maple shrugged, getting up from where she reclined, drying off by the edge of a pool. "I don't think I've met Jamjars very much, but you were overworked and had no support, especially for the last two years, White Chocolate. Ponies are rough around the edges."
"Should you go see her?" Willow asked, frowning. "I have towels here, if you need to dry off."
White Chocolate gave a sad smile and went back to soaking, floating barely above the surface of the water. "Knowing how she thinks of me, I don't think that would help."
As the three mares continued their conversation, Valey glanced to Amber and blinked. "Huh. They're taking this a lot more coolly than I expected."
Amber stuck out her tongue. "I told you your mane isn't that bad."
"No, I..." Valey flinched. "You know what? Never mind. This feels like a minefield, but maybe my idea of being civilized is totally different from the reality here. Wanna, like, go bug Sparky before someone knocks their head and realizes I was totally just mean to a filly?"
Amber shrugged, glancing back at the pool. "Okay. Hey girls, we'll be at the ship!"
"Okay!" Maple waved back, Willow waving alongside her. White Chocolate looked like she wanted to make the effort, but didn't quite feel up to it.
Starlight scurried alongside them. "You know, in Ironridge you were begging us for permission to beat up a room full of foals," she remarked, looking up at Valey. "Now you're feeling bad for ruining the ego of one who really, really deserved it. You changed."
Valey winced as the trio strode into the wooden lobby, rain pouring down outside. "You know, I kind of figured that," she growled, voice unusually hostile. Swallowing, she softened it and added, "It's freaking me out, okay? I'm trying my best to figure out what... uhh, who I am and stay that way, because the last thing I want is an identity crisis that turns me into a whiny, angsty mess, but it's still stressing me out. So if you could, like, try not to poke me about it..." She squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. "Just for right now, that would be great. I'll get it together. 'Kay?"
Well, that touched a nerve. Starlight hung her head as Valey put on galoshes, then helped Amber with hers, the yellow mare still not capable of standing without a shoulder to lean on. She needed something to distract herself... Idly, she lit her horn and concentrated, remembering Valey's idea to use crystals to protect herself from the rain.
It took seven tries, but she was finally able to find a way to crystal one hoof that still left the bottom fairly flat. Fortunately, the spell's horn taxation was entirely in the process of maintaining crystals when absorbing shock rather than summoning them, and was also directly tied to their size, so the repeated attempts did little to tire her. Splitting her focus between keeping out that gem and making another, she tried for her other forehoof, and found it much easier to get than the first.
She almost beamed. Was she getting the hang of this? She curled, lifting her hind leg and craning her neck around so she could point her horn at it. If only there was a way to crystal things without a direct beam from her horn... That hoof took more tries than even the first, thanks to the awkward angle, and at one point she dropped the spell on her forehooves by accident and had to start all over. Getting those two back still went easier than before.
Starlight finally got one hind hoof, and actually did beam... and then noticed Valey and Amber watching her with bemused expressions, an extra-large rain poncho draped over both of their backs so that Amber wouldn't collapse under its weight. "Oh." She folded her ears apologetically. "You're waiting for me, aren't you?"
"Watching, actually," Amber said warmly. "Are you trying to make boots out of crystal? That's creative."
"Yeah, we did a bit of brainstorming this morning," Valey replied, stealing the spotlight for herself. "Cool to see you actually using it, kiddo. You think you can actually walk on those? Not too many hundreds of steps more from there to a whole suit of magic crystal armor, right?"
Starlight narrowed her eyes at her, still trying for the fourth hoof. Her horn was already beginning to feel the effects of keeping three crystals in existence at once while casting magic, and though she knew she could hold several more of that size before it became taxing, Valey's idea was still completely unfeasible. She grunted, zapped, and finally decided her fourth hoof was good enough.
"Does anyone have any coats my size?" she asked, standing up and wobbling, suddenly finding herself on legs that were an inch taller. The bottoms of her hooves rocked slightly, and sat at angles just uneven enough to make her joints hurt when she put too much weight down too stiffly.
"Uhhh..." Valey glanced around the room as Starlight loosened her legs, finding a more comfortable way to stand that almost amounted to a half-crouch. It was like she was standing on a field of loose stones that could shift beneath her and take on all different angles, really. She could manage that.
"That looks like a filly coat?" Amber suggested, pointing to a smaller one under the towel rack.
Purposefully, Starlight walked over to it, lifting one hoof at a time. The lumpy crystal boots had enough of a pattern to them that she might be able to get used to it and go faster, she realized. Just as long as she didn't push herself and trip... Concentrating, she levitated the coat out of the mess and held it up, suddenly feeling a significant strain as she lifted the heavy rubber while keeping the four crystals out. With a gasp of exertion, she dropped it on her back, careful not to let the boots disappear as she panted and relaxed her magic. For a spell like this to be useful, she might have to not use her magic with it out for anything, at all.
The coat was sized for a mare, not a filly, she realized as it dragged along the ground behind her. Frowning, she kicked the front open, allowing her hooves to walk out in front of it so she wouldn't trip. The oversized hood caught on her horn, and that was the only thing saving her vision from being blocked by it. Still, she recalled the bathhouse as being near the north edge of town, so Shinespark's airship shouldn't be too long a walk, and she wanted to see if this spell would actually get her anywhere.
"Let's go," she said, again trying not to trip, standing back and letting Valey and Amber push open the swinging door for her.
Starlight stumbled through the rainy glass streets of northern Riverfall, focusing on staying upright on her crystal-covered hooves. The tiny impacts of her hooves hitting the ground didn't drain her as much as she thought they would, so long as she stepped lightly and didn't stomp or punch anything. But the balance was disconcerting, especially with her big, adult-sized poncho, and she noted that whatever traction spell normally adhered her hooves to the glass, it didn't seem to work through her magical shoes.
"Having fun, there?" Amber asked, still sharing a coat with Valey and following a few paces behind. They were constantly whispering to each other, though Starlight couldn't make it out against the rain, and when she turned to look both mares were grinning at her, Amber cheekily and Valey with something resembling pride.
"With these?" Starlight lifted a hoof. "Sort of. They're weird." She put it back down. "The glass drains water well anyway. Maybe they'll be useful if we get to the mud."
But a muddy area wasn't where they were going. The bathhouse was in the extreme northeast corner of the town, within earshot of the short waterfall Hemlock had once tried to lift Gerardo's boat past with a crane. The north was completely covered by Arambai's special traction-giving road, and they paced west along the river, surrounded by four-story towers and some that were bigger. The town plaza was nearby, though Starlight couldn't hear the booming of amplification or the roar of a crowd, and figured Gerardo had taken the day off to the rain.
Eventually, the section of river where Shinespark's ship was moored scrolled into view. The gangplank was out, the deck and surrounding area were empty, and the portholes glowed with welcoming light, a sign Starlight took to mean the power was back on and running. Shinespark had probably worked on it for the entire previous day.
"Welp," Valey said, commenting on what she had just noticed. "Looks like some unicorn had a productive day. Wanna go congratulate her, or pester her, or what?"
Amber shrugged against her. "It was your idea. Let's just get inside and see what's happening?"
Starlight raised no objection and followed them aboard. The sloping ramp was particularly tricky, thanks to her hooves, but eventually she reached the door to the staircase belowdecks and stepped inside.
The stairs tripped her. She had forgotten the entry lacked a foyer to take off her poncho and darted inside, and the combined weight on her back and awkward shape of her hooves was more than her balance could take. She hit the first step, slipped, and rolled all the way to the bottom... or would have, if Valey hadn't been right in front of her to break her fall.
"Ow. Careful," Valey admonished, steadying Starlight as she writhed free from her dripping coat and dispelled the crystals around her hooves. It was funny; even the shock of tripping hadn't broken her focus enough to accidentally drop them. Maybe things like this were exercises that could improve her control? Either way, she sat up, shaking her head and straightening her recently-fixed mane, and made it to the landing below.
The door to the engine room was open, and a pink shimmering hummed out from it, heralding the harmony extractor being powered on. "Hello!?" she called, taking a step closer.
"Over here," Dior's voice called back from her right. The stallion was relaxing in one of the library's luxurious chairs, Matryona in another nearby. Both held books, the restored overhead lights being put to good use. "Good morning!" he added. "How can we help you?"
"Have we visitors?" a familiar griffon's voice called, and Gerardo Guillaume strode out of the cabin hallway, looking freshly groomed himself and also at ease. "Ah, Starlight and Amber!" He beamed. "And Valey as well. I, erm... don't suppose Miss Maple is with you, is she?"
Valey shook her head, shrugging herself and Amber free of their poncho. "Nah. She's chillaxing with the others at that bath place. Probably a good thing, too, 'cuz I think she's really ticked at you. Her door is still broken, you know. Can barely even close it enough to keep her place from getting drafty."
Gerardo hung his head. "Well, I hope she knows I truly regret that, and have been trying to find means of making it up to her. I suppose all this crowd-given attention I've experienced as of late has been going to my head and making me careless, but I have thought about it and... let us say there's a reason I am here now and not addressing my loyal audience in the town plaza."
Amber smirked. "Have anything to do with that Slipstream pegasus stealing your show?"
"For your information," Gerardo huffed, puffing out his chest, "I haven't seen her in two days, aside from a very enthusiastic run-in in which I discovered things not fit for discussion in the presence of children." He raised an eyebrow at Starlight. "Rest assured she is happy and extremely fulfilled."
Valey gave Amber a naughty look. "Fulfilled, or just plain filled?"
Amber smacked her, leaving Starlight blinking in confusion.
"Riverfall is definitely a fulfilling place, if you can survive off estrogen and hormones," Dior remarked knowingly, fondness and hauntedness battling in his orange eyes. "Personally, it's something that will take a while to acclimate to, though I think I could grow to enjoy it once I'm not in danger of drowning." He nodded at Gerardo. "It's been refreshing here to have another actual male to talk to. Or anyone who isn't staring at my tail."
Self-consciously, Valey blinked. "Tail... Oh bananas, do I still have the ribbon in my mane?"
Matryona nodded from her chair, half-listening to the conversation over her book. "It suits you," she said, earning an annoyed look.
"Yeah, uhh..." Valey self-consciously rubbed it with a wing. "Seriously, I got it as a joke, but this is starting to actually make me feel awkward. And that's saying a lot, because in Ironridge I loved the fact that I gave stallions conflicting feelings about me. Being a wuss feels ridiculous."
"I don't mind either way," Amber said, shrugging. "You're an adorable wuss. You're also adorable when you're teasing. And when you're being teased," she added, shoving Valey, who was starting to redden. "As long as you leave ponies alone if they ask, of course."
"Hey!" Shinespark's voice echoed down the stairwell, back from the way they had came. "Mom? Dior? Do you remember where I put the...?"
She trailed off the moment she came into view, eyes fixed on Valey, and everyone else's eyes fixed on her. Impossibly slowly, she raised a hoof and pointed, tail shivering violently. "You... did something to your mane," she managed.
"You too?" Valey's face fell... and then Amber grinned and nudged her, a light clicked in her eyes, and her expression completely reversed. "You too, huh?" she purred, adjusting the ribbon and swishing a dangling strand of her mane with a wing, causing Shinespark to start fighting with redness.
Amber clamped her mouth shut to keep from laughing as Shinespark forced a frown. "Valey, what did you do to..." she tried to begin.
Saucily, Valey strutted to a short table probably intended for refreshments, flopped down on top of it, and started grooming her coat with her tongue, all four hooves and one foreleg hanging off the edge.
Shinespark twitched one more time before teleporting, vanishing without a trace.
Amber burst out laughing, and Valey and Dior quickly joined her, Matryona smiling fondly. "Poor Shinespark," Dior said, shaking his head. "The price you pay for being high-strung is being easy to snap, I suppose."
"She seemed flustered," Gerardo remarked.
"Heh heh... Yeah..." Valey thumped the floor with a forehoof a few times. "Yeah, poor Sparky. Pretty sure I frustrate her to the point where she's got no clue how to think of me. Remember, I was both her archnemesis and her biggest ally in the Stone District for years, since I had all her secrets and could ruin her or keep them at the drop of a hat. What a teenager. Some day, she's gotta learn about her emotions. Until then... eh... Maybe keeping this big, dumb ribbon is something I can do for a while longer."
"So," Amber brightly said, trying to take the conversation in a new direction after Shinespark's sudden departure. "I see you've got the power back on? Wasn't that a major goal? Congrats!"
"It's on!" Shinespark yelled through the wall separating the library from her room, causing Valey to giggle uncontrollably. "Still fixing things!"
Valey grinned lazily at the wall, still loafing on the table. "If you come back out, I promise I won't turn that into a joke."
There was a second of silence... another... and the door rolled open, Shinespark warily floating out into the hall. Her face was still red, and she did everything possible to avoid looking at Valey.
"Hey." Valey waved a forehoof, unable to stop grinning. "So tell us about what powers you... err, the ship, Sparky. Getting it properly juiced up?"
Amber smacked her again as Shinespark trembled. "Valey, you promised!"
"Uh huh." Valey nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I did..."
Like melting butter, she slithered off the table, collapsing into its shadow. Her face briefly poked back up. "There. Pretend my hot bod isn't here and, like, do whatever you'd normally do, or something."
Shinespark gave a sigh of relief as Valey hid herself from sight completely, still fighting off a last few twitches. "Urrrgh..." she moaned, rubbing a hoof over her face. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"You're horny," Valey's voice whispered from the shadows.
Dior smiled good-naturedly. "Not to rub it in, Sister, but I'm learning the hard way what happens when you've spent your whole life suppressing any desire for romantic relationships because you're too busy working for the greater good of Ironridge. The trick is that all you have to do to make it the easy way is swallow your pride and enjoy it."
"I am not horny!" Shinespark huffed, exasperated. "I'm... I..." She turned beseechingly to Matryona. "Mom, help. You know what I'm talking about, right?"
"Your brother is right," Matryona admitted disinterestedly, not looking up from her book. "You're definitely interested in mares."
Shinespark's jaw dropped. "But...! Mares, maybe, but not her! Don't you remember all the times I told you how frustrating Valey is? The entire time we were working in Sosa, I couldn't keep a single part of our projects secret from her. She somehow knew everything, and constantly threatened to tell everyone our secrets if I did anything she didn't want, but what she wanted was always arbitraty and annoying and frustrating and..." She clenched her eyes and gritted her teeth, tail thrashing. "I want to hit her, more than anything. Or... or..."
"Mmm, frustration," Valey hummed, unseen. "Bet I know what else you'd like to do."
"Oookay!" Amber grinned awkwardly, noting Shinespark's increasing flusteredness. "Please remember that there is a filly present, and, uhh..." She tapped her chest. "Ahem. I'm listening too."
Valey surfaced, blinking. "Oh yeah. Hey, we should hang out some time."
"Anyway!" Shinespark's voice cracked from how loudly she tried to reset the conversation. "As I was coming down here to say the first time, the ship is progressing nicely. Arambai was right about the damage; it was all regulators and smaller instruments and control circuitry that burned out, and the core engine and extractor were intact. The power is back on..." She nodded to Matryona. "And the terminal on the bridge is working, Mom. You wanted me to let you know when I had that fixed. For everything else, I can have all the important systems back online and tested by this time tomorrow, I think."
"Oh! It is?" Matryona put her book down, suddenly interested. "How well did it survive the surge?"
Shinespark shrugged. "It just lost power. There was no damage, and when I ran a diagnostic everything was fine. Why do you ask?" She tilted her head. "There was a weird file there that said Gunga put it there at Arambai's request. Is this at all about that?"
Gerardo blinked, breaking his silence and raising a talon. "Ah, I remember seeing something like that! It was when I initially commandeered this ship in Ironridge. Truth be told, I'm dreadfully curious as to what it is, though I'll respect it if it's a private matter."
"It is about that, yes." Matryona nodded solemnly. "An audio recording. Did you listen to it?"
"I... no?" Shinespark looked apprehensive. "Should I have?"
"That depends," Matryona said. "How are you feeling? Does Ironridge still weigh as heavily on your shoulders as when you left? And what are you thinking of doing now? You could build a life here in Riverfall, and be welcomed. Or you could take this ship and go anywhere in the world."
Shinespark opened her mouth, then choked. "I... I'm coming to terms with it. Slowly. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. Sorry, Mom." She hung her head nearly upside-down, and her red mane sagged almost to the floor. "I've been... not able to think about the future. Not yet. Sorry. I just need a little more time..."
"Then you might want to hear it," Matryona whispered gently. "I was the one who recorded it, years ago, and am likely the only one who knows it exists or what it contains. It is a message I made just for you, and it wouldn't be possible now for me to put the same meaning behind the things I say in it."
Shinespark folded her ears, looking on in confusion. "Wouldn't be possible for you to say it now? You want me to listen to something you don't mean any more? You... What is it?"
"I'm curious too," Valey announced, floating back out of the shadows. "What's all this about a secret recording? See, I didn't actually know about this, so..."
Matryona smiled. "I mean that in it, I make a guess about what will happen in the future, and even though I still stand by it it wouldn't have the same meaning coming from me today. I would like you to hear it, Shinespark."
"I must warn you," Gerardo remarked, "you're significantly increasing my curiosity about this as well..."
"Everyone may hear it," Matryona said, shaking her head. "I think it would be good for Shinespark to know her friends have heard it, too."
"I suppose we should head to the bridge, then?" Dior suggested, abandoning his comfortable seat and heading for the staircase, glancing over his shoulder in an invitation to follow.
"I know I'm curious," Amber agreed, Valey and Starlight helping her along.
The bridge was crowded, holding six ponies and a griffon, but still roomy enough to be comfortable. Valey and Amber sat along a side wall, Starlight and Gerardo lurked at opposite edges of the room, and Shinespark paced nervously in her clunky cast, frequently peering over Matryona's shoulder as she sat in the pilot's chair, using a long, elegant wing to manipulate the terminal.
With a flash of two-tone color, the file in question scrolled into view. For Shinespark, the description read. I slipped this onto the data matrix prior to installation at Arambai's request. I don't know what it is, but he wanted you to have it upon completing our mission. Good job. -Gunga.
Shinespark sniffed, noting the dead stallion's name. "You know I didn't complete any missions, right?"
Matryona touched the top her her mane with her chin, then looked sadly at her when the orange unicorn shied away. "Then I think it's even more important you hear what I had to say. This isn't a message about what you have or haven't done, but what you still can do. And it sounds like you need to be reminded of that more than you think."
"Let's turn it on, then," Shinespark said, Dior watching interestedly from the copilot's chair. "Because I hate being in a funk. I do know what I can do, but I can't connect that knowledge with my emotions, and..." She sighed. "I'm working on it. But if you think this can help... let's hear what you have to say, Mom."
With a tap of sapphire magic, she selected and opened the file. The bridge's speakers crackled to life, and with a soft rush of static born of old recording technology, Matryona's recording began to play.
Hello? Testing... Hmm. The light on the side is glowing. Does that mean it's on?
It worked! I can hear my voice! But it's still small enough to fit in my saddlebags. That's impressive...
Umm... I should probably start this officially, shouldn't I? Ahem. My name is Matryona, and I'm a pegasus in Nimble Step's Traveling Performance and Dance Troupe. Right now, it is 965 A.B., and we're here in Ironridge - the Ironridge! - for their world technology expo! I bought this recording machine at a vendor here in Sosa, and thought I would make an audio log of my trip as a souvenir. So... that makes this entry one.
There is so much to talk about. Sosa is supposed to be a factory, at least according to what I've heard. But there are wide streets and hanging banners and courtyards that have been turned into parade grounds. Everything is bright and colorful, and I think the gray and brown buildings make it stand out even more. There are also more ponies than I know what to do with. I'm glad I'm tall, so I can see over the other ponies' heads. I don't want to think about how easy it would be to get lost otherwise. I'm still learning my way around as it is, and haven't even left this small corner of one factory. It's a pity. There's so much to explore, but my troupe has a dance performance in an hour and if I get lost now, I might not be able to find my way back in time.
I mentioned that I'm a dancer, didn't I? I wonder how many ponies will come to watch us and see me. I have so many moves I've been working hard on for this event. My favorite, I like to call the 'grace slide'. It's where I move across the stage without appearing to move my wings or my legs. It looks like I'm gliding! I love it. But Nimble is especially fond of my 'wreath twirl'. In that one, I hold my wings in a corkscrew, touch my forehooves, look straight up, and spin around and around on one hind leg, with my tail spinning around me like a ribbon. I'm good enough to do it indefinitely, though spinning for more than a minute makes me dizzy. I like moves where I can keep my eyes on the audience and enjoy their reactions. There's no feeling quite like being physically appreciated... says me, who has never had a coltfriend. Maybe that's why I enjoy the attention.
Oh! Here I am, rambling about my dance moves... I can dance any time I want. I should be talking about Ironridge, or experiencing it so I have things to talk about later! Okay. I'm going to wrap up entry one, and then go enjoy the city. I'll find something to do for forty-five minutes, spend fifteen making entry two about that, and then go to my performance and then make entry three about that. And with that... Matryona out!
Oh!...
Oh my, I don't... I don't even know where to begin! I'm sorry I didn't make entry two when I said I would, but I got carried away and the show started and I should go back and start at the beginning but I got kissed by a stallion and I think my heart might explode! You can't see it, but my eyes are wet right now. I'm smiling so hard my face and chest hurt and I feel like I need to scream, only happily, but I flew up to a roof to make this and I think ponies might get worried by a mare screaming on the roof.
Okay. Entry two, I can do this. I, Matryona, am in Ironridge, and I think a stallion just fell in love with me.
I saw him watching our performance. He was in the VIP box, with a black coat and a red suit and mane that made me hnnnnngghh... And he was so well-groomed, and when he watched us I always noted his eyes were on me, and he winked at me once when I made eye contact! I knew he was important from where he sat, but Ironridge has been so full of wonders already that it's already like I'm living a fairy tale and so I went to look for him after the performance, and he was looking for me!
His name is Mobius. Mobius... ahhh... He is one of the three most important stallions in Ironridge, the factory chiefs of Sosa, and he took an interest in me! He bought me lunch in a reserved area, and told me about the city and the convention and even teased me about my love life! He told me I was beautiful, and... and... Oh my...
Okay! Where was I? I had lunch with a Sosan leader, and he loved me, and didn't even care that I was too overwhelmed to do much but laugh, blush and smile. I don't know what to do with this except enjoy it and go along as far as it will take me! Looking at all the ponies in this courtyard, I wonder if they're as giddy as I am. I want to hop down there and spin through the streets and sing a song, but I'm a big pony, so I might knock someone over. But they look like they're enjoying themselves. I'm somewhere far past enjoying myself. Ironridge isn't just wonderful, it's magical.
Right. This is an audio log, so let me tell you some of the things Mobius told me. This is a secret to everyone, he said: tonight, at sundown, the Sosans are going to unveil the completion of a very special new thing! They've made a ship, only an airship, that can sail the sea and the sky, and it can be mass-produced with just as much quality as Sosan water boats! Everything that can fly now are balloons and experiments, but they think their design can reach Yakyakistan from here! That's amazing. My troupe went to Yakyakistan before here, and the trip involves going far north through Varsidel, then taking a boat and sailing all the way down the eastern coast, and then inland for hundreds of miles up the Yule.
And they're finished! They're going to show it to everyone at sundown tonight! Everything in Ironridge is about the future. All the ponies in the crowds, and the off-duty workers and engineers and everyone, I can feel their optimism from here, and... everyone is going to get to see it. From what Mobius told me, Ironridge is going to change how travel works forever. I told him I wouldn't miss it for the world.
He told me he would miss it for me.
I think my heart stopped. He had to repeat himself, clarify, and touch my wings and my ears to snap me out of it. And he meant what I thought he meant! Me and him, tonight, somewhere as private as could be. Is it as a show of how much I mean to him? I don't know. I can't think! I'm almost hyperventilating again trying to comprehend that this is happening! He loves me... He loves me, and he's practically a prince. I'm just a young adult pegasus from nowhere important with a talent in grace and beauty. This shouldn't be true, but it's everything I've ever dreamed of. He's swept me off my hooves, and... perhaps Ironridge is a place where wishes come true.
I'll see you there tonight, my love. I wouldn't miss you for the world.
Sniff...
I've been... crying for over an hour. I think. I didn't record it. I don't know why I'm recording this. Any of this. I don't want to remember it. I don't want to remember it at all...
I'm in h-his office. On his desk. I don't think I've moved since he left. I can hear screaming in my ears, but I think that's my emotions and my head. Because he... he left me.
It started off so right. I met him, he led me here, we talked. Dirty. He nibbled my ears and my cheek and my chin and neck and belly and things heated up from there, and there was nothing in the world but the two of us, and... and...
Right in the middle, another stallion came in. He said we were going to be alone. And this interrupting stallion walked right over to the two of us together, dropped a note for him to read, and left without a word. He took one look, got off me, said "Something came up," and left me here. Three little words. Three words that weren't even "I love you." I couldn't read his tone, which meant he probably wasn't even thinking about me. Hic...
I don't know what happened. Did I misunderstand everything he said to me? He cared about me! He had to! He was interested! Nothing can come between true love, right? Not in a fairy tale. And for us to meet like that, that's what this is. It has to be. I'm so confused...
But I don't think he's coming back. At some point, I need to take care of myself. I need to get off this desk, get a shower, get back to the ship where my troupe is staying... Maybe I need to talk to someone I've known longer than an afternoon. Maybe I should have done that in the first place.
Somehow, I feel even worse.
I found out what happened to Mobius. I listened to my recordings over and over, and those screams I heard must have been real. I found out that the airship he told me about... Sosa's Project Aslan... crashed when they tried to launch it. They said everyone on board died. I feel like nothing, trying to think about it. Empty. I think I've cried all I'll ever be able to, by now.
You might be able to hear the sound of waves in the background. That's because we're at sea, now. We left the Yule yesterday morning. We left Ironridge the morning after the crash. Nobody wanted to continue the festival after that happened. When I was finding my way back, I saw ponies looking dazed, clueless... Sosans were hugging each other and sitting against buildings in the streets, and foreigners were muttering and carrying bags and getting what they could before getting out.
I didn't see Mobius before I left. I didn't realize we were leaving until I woke up, and we were already on our way... and now I don't even know what he thinks. I thought he abandoned me; that he left me alone without saying goodbye. But a tragedy like this is more important than me. I have to understand that. He was just... looking out for his subjects. But that means I was the one who abandoned him, right after getting a lesson in just how terrible that feels...
I hate myself for it. It's hard to get up. Fortunately, it's a small boat, so it's not like I'm missing anything by staying in bed.
As far as I can see, there's only one thing for me to do: Ironridge entered my life out of nowhere, and now it's leaving like it never happened. I need to just... forget about it all, or pretend it was a dream. It feels dreamlike enough. The one thing I got out of it was this audio log.
So... this is going to be my last entry. The end. I'm going to keep dancing, live on with my life, and keep waiting for true love... even if that's a fairy tale. Maybe I'll find something that's real, and better.
Good bye, Ironridge. Matryona, signing off.
Hello again, audio log. It's me, Matryona. I haven't opened you in a while. I hope you still work, because I need someone to talk to, and no living pony will do.
I know I said this log was ended, and I'd never open it again. I said I would leave it as the only thing I ever got out of Ironridge, good or bad... but that's not true any more, so I suppose this is fitting.
Let me start from the beginning. We're back in Varsidel. In Ralianth, specifically, the easternmost city that isn't a costal port. It's been... not long since Ironridge. I think the other members of the troupe have all put it behind them. We're working new gigs, performing at a fashion house and an upscale restaurant and bar, and for politicians at an invitational event. My troupe's name is a good one, after all. But for the last few weeks, I've been feeling on and off nauseous, especially when I try to perform my special wreath twirl. One time, I got so woozy I had to break off after three turns and improvise a landing. Another, I lost my balance after just one and a half, which was fortunately during practice. I told Nimble I felt sick, and he gave me the day off, but that doesn't help when I feel like this every other day.
So I went to a doctor, off the record and using my own saved money, and they found out... they told me... I'm pregnant. I'm carrying a foal. Early along, but they're sure of it.
I don't know how to break this to my troupe. I don't think I can. Nimble is a fair boss, but this would cost me my job for certain. If I can't dance properly now, what will I do once my foal grows and my center of gravity changes? And ponies always praise my slim, stately figure. Who would want to see a fat, pregnant pegasus dance, even if I could?
I don't know what to do. I have more than just myself to take care of, now, and am about to lose my way of doing it. I wish I could cry, right here and now, but I still am burnt out on that after Ironridge. But, my beautiful foal... I'll find some way to care for you. Please, let me find some way to provide...
Hello again, audio log. It's been a while, but I have a major decision to make, and I want... well, I need to talk it over. And record my reasoning, as well. Some day, maybe, my foal will listen to this, if they ever want to know why they were born into whatever circumstances they were... so I feel they have a right to know this. Hello, my beautiful foal. This is a message for you.
My troupe wants to relocate. We would be traveling southwest, to Zanguel, a city at the southern edge of Varsidel's habitable land. Beyond it is nothing but desert, broken rocks, and jungle badland until Ironridge in the far south. They have an offer there that would pay very well. So far, I've stayed with them and forced myself to keep dancing, and I could go with them to Zanguel, too.
This is my plan, my foal. I want to get us back to Ironridge. I want to find Mobius again. Maybe somehow, I can convince him to forgive me, and he will take care of us and help me raise you for the life you deserve. I've been working hard and saving every bit of my money, trying to get enough to buy passage on a boat to Ironridge... but I'm not there yet. I could leave my troupe, stay here near the coast, and try to find somewhere cheap to live and a job to work, but I've been looking and simply don't know what I can find. I'd be on my own for the first time in truly ever, and am afraid of my ability to take care of even myself, let alone you once you're born. Right now, I can stay with the troupe for housing and work, but...
I can also go with them. I would have a place to stay for a little while longer, at least, and if I can keep dancing, I might make enough money to afford the boat back to Ironridge. But that's a huge risk. I can feel you pressing on me and growing bigger, and can already see the weight gain when I look carefully. I haven't told the troupe, yet, but I won't be able to hide you from them for long... and if I go south, I will need even more money to make the trip back to a port city to take the boat. That said, I know nothing about Zanguel and how easy or hard it will be to get housing and a job... or how fast my troupe's generosity will wear out once it becomes clear I'm planning on leaving them and just trying to hold out as long as I can before.
I love you, my foal. Know that everything I do is done for you, now. All I want is for you to grow up happy and safe.
I made my decision, my foal. I'm in Zanguel now. I didn't know what would be here, but knew our chances in Ralianth were slim... slimmer than I am, now.
Maybe you'd like to hear what the city looks like...? It isn't quite a desert, but could become one in several decades, I think. There are a lot of buildings made from slabs of quarried red stone, with straight streets and lots of walls. I think the city's streets would form a pattern, if I flew high enough to see them all at once. There are lots of high towers, mostly square, and on the rocky horizon you can see geological structures and sometimes sandstorms racing past in the distance. Most of the desert is to the north, though. To the south, things get greener, but also more broken and harder to build on. I imagine it's like that all the way to Ironridge. What a shame we don't have airships. As the pegasus flies, it's probably quite close...
I know what you're thinking. I've thought about it, and they say it's a feat that teams of endurance fliers perform for bragging rights. If I could, I'd fly you to Ironridge in a heartbeat, my little foal.
We had our first performance at the new venue tonight. I almost threw up in the back room, preparing to go on stage. Nimble made me sit the performance out. I have less than half of a boat ticket saved up and need to eat for both of us, and now I'm far from the coast, too...
I hope I haven't made a mistake, my foal. If I have, it should be me that pays for it, not you.
Everyone knows, and they haven't said anything yet. But I can see them looking at you when I walk past, my foal. Nimble coughs awkwardly when I'm around, like he isn't sure how to breach the subject. I haven't made any performances for a week. Some of the performers looks sorry for me, and others resentful, though I can't imagine why. But I couldn't take it anymore. Today was my last day. I'm living on my own now, in a cheap studio apartment at the top of a tower where flying is the only way in or out. I think that should be against regulation, but it doesn't cost much, and I don't have much to pay. At least I can still fly easily with you.
I'm still looking for a new job. If I can't find one, my savings will last maybe three months, including rent and food, and then I'll be stuck here. I'm sorry, my beautiful foal. I wish I could be better for you.
I found a job at last. They have me flying up and down, carrying a bucket of water and a sponge to wash the outsides of tower windows. Apparently they get grimy, since even though Zanguel doesn't get real sandstorms, the wind blows in enough dust sometimes for the windows to need frequent cleaning.
It's a hard job. Some windows feel like they haven't been cleaned in years, and I have to scrub over and over to make them look decent. Other windows have no glass to be cleaned, since glass seems to be a commodity here. And then there are ponies behind the windows who won't realize I'm being paid to improve their view, and will yell at me to leave and stop spying. One even made a lewd remark and invited me in, and I left as fast as I could. He didn't seem classy or respectable at all.
The weather is hot all the time, and any windows that aren't in the shade are so warm I can see the water steaming off them when I rub, and they're dry by the time I fetch a new bucket. I get paid by the hour, so long as I clean a minimum number of windows during each, and can work at my own pace, but I did some calculations and need to work at least five hours a day just to break even with my rent. If I stayed on my wings for ten hours, each day and every day, I think I'd make enough to afford the boat ticket by the time you were born, but not counting travel to the coast or the time it would take to actually reach Ironridge. I've been at this for a week now, and only managed ten hours once. I'm sorry, my foal. I don't think I can do it...
Hello again, my foal. It's been a few months now, and I still have my job. Things aren't going well, but they aren't going poorly, either.
I've given up on affording a ticket to Ironridge, at least without a miracle. I realized I was going to work myself into the ground, especially as you grow and I have less and less energy. So I rationed my money, balanced my budget, and have been eating as well as possible. I bought a new bed and paid for it to be delivered to my apartment so I could get as restful of sleep as possible. I've been taking care of us as well as I can, and am still managing to stay on my wings and work for six hours per day, flying buckets and sponges up and down and scrubbing away.
I barely have money to spare. I've been saving every last bit, but I'm not even back to the amount I had when I quit the troupe. They aren't in Zanguel any more; they moved on to perform elsewhere. I don't know how I'm going to work and take care of you once you're born. I might have to hire a sitter, and hope I'll be strong enough then to work ten hours a day to pay them as well... or maybe return to dancing as a solo career. I tried out my old moves today, just for fun, and while I'm past being nauseous every day, you're big enough now that they just don't work. I'm also out of practice.
I won't give up on you, my foal. Our lives might look like this for a while after you're born, but I think we'll at least be able to have them.
I'm losing track of time, my foal. All I know is that you're getting bigger, I finally broke even with the amount of money I had leaving the troupe, and I've somehow managed to increase my working to seven hours a day.
You probably don't notice, but our lives are the same, day after day after day. I wake up, eat as hearty of a breakfast as I can handle, and go to work, where ponies stare and shake their heads and wonder how I do it. And then we fly up and down for hours, you and me, washing windows. I don't get tired any more, so long as I respect my limits and take care of myself. I have all the aches and pains I expected to, but my wings keep going. This must be good exercise, working like this every day... and if I can be honest with you, I'm starting to enjoy it.
I need something in my life to enjoy. I have you, and my routine. And it turns out, something I never noticed when I was with the troupe, or in Ironridge... the less that happens around you, the easier it is to enjoy the simple things. I make a game of diving, ascending and gliding, sometimes spiraling down around the towers like it's a dance. Sometimes you'll kick while we're up there, and I'll wonder if you're a pegasus, flapping your little wings along with mine.
I still haven't taken another visit to the doctor to get you looked at. I feel like I'm in good health, and know it would be expensive. I don't know when you'll come, but I bet it won't be too long. One way or another, I'll be ready to greet you with a smile when you do.
...I lost my job.
I'm so sorry! I-I'm sorry, I... They let me go... My m-manager approached me after a shift, and said it was a safety regulation, that I couldn't be doing this work this close to having a foal. I didn't think they cared about that, since they let me do the job in the first place! And n-now...
The manager gave me one week's pay as a severance package, since I had been a good employee. There was no promise of having my job back after you were born. I don't know what to do, my foal. I have enough money for us to live like this for one and a half... maybe two months. I don't know how far along you are, or if you'll come by then, and if I go to a doctor to check, then I'll have enough for half a month at best.
I'm sorry. I should have focused more on the future! Maybe I should have eaten less to save money, or...
No. Never. I can't think that. I'm sorry. I'll find something we can do. I won't let you down. I promise.
...Let's go for a flight so I can clear my mind, hmm? Pretend we're working, but just glide. Maybe it will be relaxing. I'm not sure what else to do with our time.
Hello, my little foal. You're snug inside me, still, so let me tell you what I see.
I'm sitting on the roof of the highest building in Zanguel right now, looking south. I just listened to all my recordings, three times in a row. Remember when I wondered what the city's streets would look like from far enough above? I flew up just now to check. It was beautiful. It's funny how beauty is easiest to see when you can't afford to feel beautiful yourself.
Let me tell you my new plan.
To the south, I see rocks, crags, and trees that grow more lush as the miles go on. I see patches of sand intermixed with patches of dead and living green, and it stretches endlessly toward the horizon. I know what's out there: Ironridge. It's unreachable, and is both the best and the worst thing to ever happen to me. To you, it's the reason for your existence.
It's a journey teams of endurance fliers undergo to challenge themselves and earn bragging rights. To us, it's like the road to a promised land. If we could get there... we could find Mobius. He would take care of us. Ironridge was a city of plenty, and one disaster couldn't erase all that.
But money has failed us. There's nothing I can do to earn enough for a ticket there, not in the time you and I have left. But what hasn't failed... are my wings.
My foal... I love you. I don't know if I can do this. But I don't know what I can do if I stay here, either. What kind of work can be done by a single new mother who's not far out of her teens? Right now, I'm in the best shape of my life. I've been flying seven hours a day, lifting heavy buckets and working in blinding sunlight. I have enough money to buy provisions I could carry, if I emptied everything I have. And we'd mostly be gliding, which is easier than gaining height. I'm not a professional, but I think I am an endurance flier. And right now, I'm running out of other choices.
If I can't make it, we would die out there. If I can't make it in the city, we might die here. But I want to make it. I want us to survive, so you can live the best life possible... Ahhh...
My foal, if you can hear me; if you want me to trust in us and try to make the flight...
Ooh! That was a sharp kick. You trust in your mother. I understand. Mmm-wah. There. Now, the moon is rising, so let's get home to bed, and then tomorrow we'll buy what we need and set out before the sun gets too high in the sky.
I'm doing this for both of us, my little foal, but especially you. I love you.
Scrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkk...
Can you hear me?
I don't know how well this recorder works with wind on the microphone. And there's a lot of wind right now, because we're high in the sky, gliding away from civilization, faster than I've ever glided before! Zanguel is a cluster of shadowed towers on the horizon behind me, and it isn't even noon.
I'm wearing a pair of brand-new flight goggles. My saddlebags are packed as full as can be, one with high-calorie athlete food, water, and one with a portable tent so we won't have to sleep in the open, as well as space for this recorder. You're safe and sound in my belly, and I think you're sleeping. So far, so good.
I might not make very many recordings while flying. Up here, I think I should save my breath for flying. I just wanted to say, my little foal... I love you, and am doing this for you.
It's night. I've landed. My wings are stiff, but I don't think they'll cramp in the morning. I was right about gliding being easier than carrying water up and down.
Right now, I've had dinner. I pitched the tent in the shadow of an outcropping just to be safe, but the night is clear and I don't think we'll need it. You're moving around; I hope you'll let me get to sleep. We'll see how I feel tomorrow and if I'll be able to keep up this pace.
Good night, my little foal. I love you.
I'm halfway through day two. I found an oasis and have stopped to refill my water. I was slightly stiffer than usual this morning, so I think I'll spend the rest of the day here to rest and continue tomorrow morning. I love you, my little foal.
Day three. Oof... it's an hour out from evening. I think yesterday's rest did me good. I'd like to keep going tonight, but was having cramps and felt like I should land. The you-kind of cramps. They're not bad.
I don't know how much further it is to Ironridge. Please stay where it's safe, my little foal. I'll carry you after you're born if I have to, but we can make it. I love you. Matryona out.
Day four. We made it through a full day of flying today, my foal. Good job! Mommy's proud of you...
I hope we find another oasis soon. Edible grass or trees would be nice, too. I'm nearly a third of the way through my food rations. I have a compass that I'm using to check my way, and we seem to still be heading for Ironridge. We can make it, my little foal. I love you.
Day... Day five...
You can probably hear the wind again. It's getting toward evening, and I'm cramping again, worse than last time. I think water would help, but am running low and need to conserve it. Hold on, my little foal...
I'm still flying on. If I don't press myself now and find another oasis, I think it will soon be too late. If I find another, I'm waiting a few days to see if you want to come. I see something on the horizon, but don't know what it is. It looks like a weird rock...
Just keep talking, Matryona. You'll be fine. You and your foal will be perfectly fine. Focus on Ironridge... on Mobius... Even if he doesn't forgive me, maybe I can still get a job. And wasn't there a place called Riverfall along the way where mares cared for each other's foals?
I want to raise you myself, though. We'll make it there. We'll both hold on, and it will be all right. You'll see. You'll see...
What is that? It looks almost pony-made. Is there a pony all the way out here? What if they have supplies!? I don't have much to trade, but badly need water...
Night five. We've made it, my beautiful, beautiful foal. We did it. I love you. We did it.
What I saw was an airship. A real, working airship. Not like the one the Sosans made... This one is ran by a lone unicorn, built from scratch as an enthusiast project. Apparently, airships are powered by drilling holes into the ground and sucking out energy, and I found this one while they were refueling. If I had stopped with you instead of pressing on...
The captain offered me a ride. I think they were horrified that anyone would be crossing this wasteland alone, let alone with a full-term foal. And you really are full-term, because the cramps have gotten worse and I think you're coming.
We're flying south now, but I'm resting. I'm on the ship's deck, out beneath the stars. The captain is ignoring me, steering the ship. I don't blame them. Before the night is over, I'll probably be yelling very loudly...
I'm going to turn this recording off, soon, and concentrate on you. I think this will be the last message I leave in it, for real, so I want to tell you one more time what I've been telling you all along.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
The way you were conceived was so fantastical, I still wonder if it was a dream. Now you're going to be born on an airship. I wonder if anyone's ever done that before? But the important part is everything that didn't happen.
We are not jobless and impoverished, living in an alley in Ralianth. I will not be cleaning windows for ten hours a day in Zanguel, nor will we be living in another alley there. We're going to Ironridge. I'm going to go back to Mobius. I don't know what he'll say to me, or if he'll even remember. I hope he does. I hope he marries me and we live happily ever after in a shining city on a mountainside. But no matter what, you will have a future. It could be here, there, or anywhere... but I will do whatever it takes to make sure you can become whatever you want, go wherever you want, and do it all knowing that you are what this long, heavy year of my life has been lived for. And if you ever need to be reminded of that, I'll keep this recording as my most valuable possession and give it to you when you need to hear it most.
Shinespark had her forehooves on the edges of the terminal screen as the recording ended, staring hollowly at nothing.
"It's been nineteen years since I've listened to that recording," Matryona murmured. "I hope it meant as much to you as it does to me."
Starlight looked up at the pony shuffling forward, and finally saw Matryona for the first time.
Her black-and-purple hooded robe was gone, discarded in a corner, leaving her fully uncovered. She stood a head taller than even Gerardo, with a milky, cream-white coat occasionally emblazoned by blinding orange. A small orange stripe marked the tip of her ribcage on her chest, forked into a four-pointed star that was taller than it was wide. Some of her pinions were colored as well, growing from wings that could effortlessly dwarf an average pegasus's in span. Her mane and tail were pure, somehow not tangled despite having been covered, and her cutie mark depicted a soft, ornate hoof slipper, matching her ability to walk without making a sound. From Valey, Amber and Gerardo's reactions, she was just as stunning as Starlight suspected.
Matryona unfurled a wing and laid it gently on Shinespark's back. Eventually, Shinespark said, "Huh. So that's how you felt about me."
"If you need time to think, we can give you as much as you need," Matryona murmured.
"No, I..." Shinespark cut herself off, then swallowed. "I knew all of that, already. Most of it. I knew where you were and what happened when I was conceived, knew you couldn't get back to Ironridge the conventional way, knew you tried to fly back and got picked up by an enthusiast ship, but..." She swallowed again and shook her head. "It would be disrespectful to say what I assumed."
"Say it," Matryona requested. "Please."
Shinespark grimaced... and went ahead. "The way you were when you met Mobius... innocent and naive... I thought you stayed that way the whole time. I guess I thought you... didn't know the danger of that journey, or didn't do anything while you were carrying me, or... I didn't realize how hard you tried, or how much you worried, or that you already thought of me as a person or that when you set out, you really might have had a chance."
"Why wouldn't I think of you as a person?" Matryona's face fell, looking gently wounded.
"I... I told you it would be disrespectful!" Shinespark ground out, fidgeting. "Mom, I thought... if I cost you your job, I'd just have been a consequence, or something wrong with your body, or..." She hung her head. "I know that doesn't add up. I didn't think. The only parts of that story I thought were important were the beginning and the end, because they were the ones I thought were about me. I'm sor-"
"Don't be." Matryona interrupted her with a feather to the lip. "You thought they were important because I told you they were over and over when you were little."
"Why wait so long to tell me the whole story?" Shinespark whimpered. "I could have respected you more, or..."
Matryona silenced her again. "Are you saying you treated me poorly?"
Shinespark shook her head.
"You were always a wonderful filly growing up," Matryona said. "I'm sure you know that I didn't get my happily ever after with Mobius when I returned to Ironridge. Then I did get it, for ten long years with Arambai. And I never gave you this because you never questioned what was the purpose of your life, and had already given yourself enough burdens that I didn't want to place the pressure of my expectations on you as well. Even if the only thing I've ever wanted was for you to grow up with the freedom to be whatever and wherever you want."
"Even the hero of Ironridge," Shinespark added bitterly. "Even if I wasn't cut out for it."
"It isn't about whether you fail, or have your plans forcibly changed," Matryona insisted, still cradling her with a wing. "I chose one thing that was important to me above all else, and that was you. How would I do what was best for you? I failed to earn enough money for the boat while I was near the coast, and had to give up and move. I failed to keep my job with the troupe and had to start living on my own, and get a job as a window cleaner. I failed to make enough as a window cleaner to dream of returning by boat again, and made plans to raise you in Varsidel. Then I failed to keep my window-cleaning job, and instead of giving up on us I tried to make the flight to Ironridge. I made it partway there, then failed to finish it before you were born. Yet, here we are. You are a strong, healthy unicorn not much younger than I was then, with so many talents and so many ways you could live your life. You have an airship that can take you anywhere in the world, and friends, some of whom would go with you. I was the hero of you, and as many times as I had to change my plans, I think everything turned out fine in the end."
"M-Mom..." Shinespark choked into her lustrous coat.
Matryona nodded, holding Shinespark tight. "Do you want to help Ironridge? You don't have to. You have everything you need right here to live whatever kind of life you want and more. But if you want to, you can. You won't be able to do it in the same way you were always planning for. Maybe you'll get lucky and bring the city its fairy-tale ending next time. If you're like me, it might take a lot more tries, failures and new plans than that. And I was just trying to make a future for myself and one unborn foal. You want to help thousands. But if you want to, you can. It isn't easy, but there is always a way to try, so long as you take care of yourself and remember what is important."
"You have..." Shinespark sniffed, then again, harder. "No idea how much I needed to hear that..." She flung both forelegs around Matryona in a wide, full-bodied hug. "I love you too, Mom! Thank you..."
As Matryona returned the gesture, Valey tapped Starlight on the shoulder, breaking the filly's trance. "Yo," she whispered. "Wanna leave them to their mushy stuff? Pretty sure this isn't something we need to be here for."
Starlight nodded, and followed the rest of the ponies out of the bridge.
"Well, that was quite the emotional exchange," Gerardo remarked once everyone was settled back in the library. "I've been to both of those cities myself, though only several years after her. It sounds as though she underwent quite a trial."
Dior nodded contemplatively. "My mother is a strong mare. I never knew the details of her time in Varsidel during her pregnancy with my sister, but it's not surprising, given the way she is now. After hearing that..." He shook his head. "I'll probably need to think about it for a while. But I hope we can get this airship running soon, so she can be reunited with Arambai in Ironridge. He hasn't had the easiest life, either, and both of them deserve their fairy-tale ending, as she put it."
"Sparky said this thing will be done, what, tomorrow?" Valey gave Starlight a glance, reminding her that she wanted to talk to Maple before any return to Ironridge.
"That is my impression," Gerardo agreed. "I know I can't turn down an adventure, though I do hope Ironridge is tamer this time around. What about the rest of you? Will any of you be accompanying us back to the mountainside city?"
Amber gave him a grin. "I'm alternating between bad nerves and serious enthusiasm, but I'm definitely going. It sounds like Maple and Willow are in, too."
Valey frowned resolutely. "And me and Starlight are coming with them."
Sadly, Dior shrugged. "It looks like I'll have to be the one to bow out, then. I've had my fill of Ironridge for a lifetime, and remember that the current state of the Ironridge public's knowledge is that I was Braen and fled in a cowardly fashion once the dam was destroyed. If I were to show my face there again, it would end in trouble for me at best, and the unraveling of our story as a much worse outcome."
Gerardo nodded sagely. "All valid reasons. We shall do our best to enjoy the city in your memory and avoid as much related drama as possible."
"Hey, how about, uhhh..." Valey tapped a wing, thinking. "Slipstream? That really cute pegasus who has a thing for you? What about her?"
"Ah, Slipstream?" Gerardo shrugged, staring fondly. "While I agree with your assessment and was initially quite elated that she joined us in our return to Riverfall, I imagine we've heard the last of her. She has, to paraphrase her own words, discovered the wonders of being exotic and desired in a city populated entirely by easily-frustrated mares. She's told me that she is presently reconsidering her attractions, and the fact that I didn't even see her at my most recent performance likely indicates that she was... erm... successful in doing so."
"Heh. Well, good for her." Valey shrugged back. "...Anyway. Not sure how much else I have to do here, so I might just go lurk around until tomorrow. Or go check on the bathhouse and make sure Jamjars isn't plotting her revenge." When Gerardo and Dior raised eyebrows, she grinned. "I might have given her a shave."
Starlight just shook her head. "She will get you for that, you know."
"Eh." Valey brushed a hoof through her mane. "I've got a ribbon in here. Not much you can do to make that worse. She'll be fine."
"Well, so long." Dior waved. "Here tomorrow at noon, unless we decide otherwise?"
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "And if I forget... remind me once Sparky's calmed down that I need to bug her about being conceived on a table."
Amber and Starlight stared blankly at her. Dior groaned, grinning sadly. Gerardo blinked once, twice, three times... and finally burst out chuckling. "Ah, yes. I understood that! She does seem to have an affinity for those, doesn't she?"
Starlight slowly came to, sighing internally. She was going back to Ironridge.
Maple's bed was emptier than usual. It was just her and her mother; Willow had wanted to spend a night at home with her foals before they left, and Amber was who knew where. Starlight couldn't smell anything from the kitchen, good or bad, and assumed if Valey was there, she wasn't trying to make breakfast again. The sound of rain was absent from the roof, but judging by the petrichor she could smell through a cracked window, it had stopped coming down not long ago. It was sad, almost.
Forget that, it was sad. Starlight suddenly shook from a sob she didn't see coming, quickly stilling herself in case she woke Maple. It had only been a few days since Ironridge, and already she had fallen in love with the routine her friends had set up. All of them, waking together in the morning, with Valey just outside the door... It was a portent that the day would be good. Better than the bad days in her life, where she had been sad and lonely enough to run away across an uncrossable mountain range and blame all her troubles on cutie marks.
She hugged Maple, who was still there. Amber and Willow had lives and houses of their own. And while they might stay a little longer if she told them she needed it... that wasn't what friends were for.
Now they were going back to Ironridge, and she wasn't even sure if she was over the last time.
"Starlight..." Maple murmured drowsily, reacting to her hug and wrapping a forelimb around her back. "You're fidgeting..."
"Don't get up," Starlight said. "I'm fine."
"Wasn't planning on it... Mmmmm..." Maple adjusted herself in the bed and went back to sleep.
Starlight sighed and kept her own eyes closed. It wasn't noon yet. They could sleep in a while longer.
"Starlight? Are you awake yet?"
Starlight was. She wasn't even sure if she had gone back to sleep, but couldn't say she hadn't. "Hi," she grunted, mouth feeling sticky from disuse. She needed a drink.
"Today, hmm?" Maple's voice sounded gentle, almost resigned. "I wonder what I was thinking, deciding for all of us we should go back. I suppose it's too late to have second thoughts now..."
"Maple," Starlight said, getting her attention. She swallowed. Valey had said a lot the previous day... or was it the day before? And she didn't know how much of it she believed or even remembered, but she had promised to talk to Maple about it some time before they left. And now was the best time she was going to get.
"About going to Ironridge..." She started, then paused. "Do you really think going to see if anything good will happen is the best reason to go? I know you've told me about how much happened to you and how important it is for you to remember that good thing can happen to us, but that doesn't mean you should be reckless, or that bad things can't happen. We're not invincible, and taking risks because you hope you'll be able to feel like you are..."
Maple stilled. "Is that how you see this?"
Starlight winced. Had she said this wrong? "No. I mean... Valey asked me to talk to you about it. I just want to keep you safe."
There was a long silence... and then Maple sighed. "I don't know, Starlight. Maybe you're right. I feel like... I feel..." She tensed unhappily. "I just feel bad about how much trouble I got us in. I know Valey said it turned out for the best, but that doesn't mean they were smart decisions. We just... got lucky. I got lucky, and luck is the only reason I didn't get us killed. And thinking about that hurts."
"Valey said that too," Starlight said. "That even though she told you she's glad about how things turned out, it still wasn't smart to go back out into Ironridge after her once we were safe."
Maple made an unhappy noise halfway between a groan and a whimper. "I just don't like knowing that I put you in danger. I want Ironridge to have been safe..."
Starlight exhaled. "I know."
"Do you think we shouldn't go, then?" Maple asked. "That we should find Amber and Willow and... tell them I want to change my mind, and cancel at the last minute? Then everyone will be disappointed, and..."
Starlight shook her head. "Valey said she still thinks going back is the right choice. Just that she's worried about your reasons for it."
"And what do you think?" Maple asked stiffly. "Valey can tell me herself, Starlight. Do you want to go back to Ironridge? Do you think I should?"
"I don't know what I want," Starlight said. "I mean it, and I'm trying to find out. I need something I can be happy with, and I don't even know if I know what that means. I love waking up with you and your friends in the mornings, like yesterday and the day before. I want to keep you safe. I want to live in Riverfall, be happy in Riverfall and make Riverfall work, for you. I'll follow you to Ironridge, or stay here and make myself enjoy Riverfall, no matter what."
"Make yourself happy?" Maple sounded worried.
"Yes." Starlight huffed. "Riverfall is... nice. It's peaceful. But some of the mares are weird, and I think they're afraid of me. I don't know anyone except for you, Amber, Willow and everyone we went to Ironridge with. Remember how last time, Hemlock found out and told everyone I was from Equestria, because he wanted revenge on me for his crane? He still hates me. He might try something like that again. At least I don't have any big secrets this time. Maple, Riverfall is good, and I'll make it work for you. But at least I'll need to work for it."
"Oh, Starlight..." Maple murmured, hugging her close. "I don't know what to do..."
"Ironridge did just blow up, you know." Starlight shrugged in her grasp. "If there are any Spirit ponies left, they're leaderless, and I think they all gave up while we were in the skyport. I don't think the Defense Force will cause trouble, if they even still exist. If Arambai thinks they will, he can disband them. The yaks are gone, and Herman started it all. I think everyone who's left is on the same side, and Gerardo promised not to be pushy and get us in trouble again. Maybe it will be safe this time."
"Ohhhhh..."
Starlight didn't say anything. Maple needed her to lay there and let her hug her, so she did. For several long moments, Maple's face was buried in her coat, and eventually Starlight felt two wet spots where Maple's eyes were.
"Starlight? Can I tell you something?"
Starlight shrugged. "Okay."
Maple took a deep breath. "In Ironridge... at the end, when I was paralyzed and holding you and trying to keep you from disappearing... my memory is fuzzy. There was a lot of magic involved, and a lot of fatigue. But somehow, I got inside Braen's armor, and it made me strong enough to carry you all the way to the crystal palace and that tree. It didn't... It didn't feel like I was doing it. I don't even know how I got inside the armor. It was like I was in a dream, almost not even moving for myself. I felt the same way for the hours I was laying there, holding you and not able to do anything. This could just be me wanting to believe in something better than what's true, but it was like there was something helping me. Something watching out for me."
"Huh," Starlight said.
Maple adjusted her foreleg around Starlight's back. "I know, my memory is fuzzy and there was a lot of magic and it was so difficult, I'm sure I could believe anything about it that would help me to cope. It's probably just me being me and looking for something special where it doesn't exist. Right?"
Starlight murmured in half-agreement. Anything that Maple found to help, though...
"But there's one thing," Maple whispered. "One thing I keep getting stuck on every time I try to dismiss it that I don't understand. Maybe I'm forgetting something again, and please tell me if I am. But..." She swallowed. "I never saw much of the skyport. We were there a little on the first day, when we went to the museum. I wasn't there at all on the last day. I was laying paralyzed in the airship the whole time. I didn't even see it. But somehow... and I know I'm not imagining this, because I saw it again after I got you back... when I was going down below, I went into a maintenance tunnel beneath the skyport. It was an underground road for workers, or something. And there was an emergency exit door, and a long staircase, and it let out into the Flame District. Into that giant drilling room with the elevator to the tree. If I ever knew that was there, it was subconsciously at best, but I can't think of when I ever would have found it out, or how I would have remembered it then. But it was like I knew my way perfectly."
Starlight thought, parsing her brain for explanations. "The same passage we used on our way back out?"
"I think so," Maple murmured. "I was so tired then, too. I don't really remember. But I think so."
"Hmmm..." Starlight frowned. "Maybe... Braen knew about it, or something, and you somehow got it from her memories even after she turned back into a suit of armor?" She shook her head. "I don't know how. I remember Fire was using Braen to help us out since the elevators were destroyed, and she couldn't figure out how to use Braen's jetpack. If the armor gives you memories, that shouldn't have happened. But maybe that's how it works? I can't think of anything else..."
Maple sighed. "You're probably right. It happened, so I'm not sure it matters how. I guess I just like the idea of being watched over, somehow. Like there's something that doesn't have to make sense keeping me safe. I just don't want to imagine everything that happened to me before I met you being able to happen again..."
"Bad things happen, Maple," Starlight said apologetically. "You had to deal with it. So did I. It hurts, but you can't just pretend they don't any more or you'll get hurt again. Like with Ironridge."
Whimpering, Maple burrowed back into her coat. "I guess I haven't dealt with everything from before I met you as well as I thought..."
"Can you even truly fix things like that?" Starlight asked. "I still love you anyway. Just so you know. And that won't change."
"Mmmm... thanks..."
They were silent for a minute, Maple holding Starlight as she thought. Eventually, an idea flickered across her mind. "Remember when we were in the skyport right after Herman was defeated, when Fire showed everyone that there were windigoes and everyone was trying to think up a plan to stop them?" Her brain started spinning faster and faster. "I sort of remember Gerardo mentioning a passage like that then? I don't know if he said how to reach it, but maybe he at least said it was there? Maybe?"
"I wasn't there, remember?" Maple corrected, sounding disappointed. "I was in the engine room of the ship, being used as a battery."
"Oh." Starlight felt her ears droop. "Well... I heard it, so... since you were holding me, maybe somehow... I was looking out for you?" She shrugged. "I don't remember anything. But the last few times I used the harmony extractor before that, I forgot a little about what I was doing before I woke up, too. So maybe I did and just forgot?"
Maple nuzzled her. "I don't think it matters. We're all right now, and maybe going back to Ironridge is safe. We should ask our friends one more time to be sure, but I really want to... to be happy, and know that everything is all right. Thank you for talking to me, Starlight. And for enjoying these mornings with me."
"Mmm," Starlight agreed.
Maple stretched, releasing her from her hug. "I think," she announced, "that we should get breakfast... or an early lunch, if we've slept in as long as I think we have, and then go to the airship to see if the others are there. Unless you're not that hungry, in which we could go to the airship first and see if they have food there?"
Starlight shrugged. "Okay. Either is fine."
Maple nodded, getting up. "I think I can make it to the airship. It feels lonely in here with the two of us. Hmmm..."
"Okay." Again having no objections, Starlight climbed to her own hooves, ran a hoof through her mane, checked her horn and prepared to start the day.
"...And that's how we feel," Maple finished, standing with Starlight before Amber, Willow, Valey, Shinespark, Matryona, Dior and Gerardo. White Chocolate and Faron were there as well, as were Willow's elder foals Alder and Fir, and White Chocolate's Hayseed.
"You thought it over." Valey nodded appreciatively. "Good for you. Sounds like we've got a full party who are going!"
"It sounds like it..." Amber sighed, grinning apprehensively. "There go those nerves again. Whooo boy. I'm simultaneously so excited and scared and I really hope Ironridge is everything we thought it would be..."
Maple smiled sadly. "It isn't, but maybe it will be more enjoyable than the last time I went. At least this time won't begin with me saying goodbye to all of you..."
"That's something I'm glad for," Willow agreed, walking over to stand next to her. "Even if I am needing to say goodbye to my children for a few days longer..."
Both of her foals saluted so smartly that it had probably been practiced as a joke. "Don't you worry about us, Mum!" Alder proclaimed, his likeness to Sunburst still triggering the tiniest feelings of alarm in the back of Starlight's head. "Living with Madrona and Sequoia has been an adventure! And we'll get to tell you all about it when you're back!"
Fir good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "You can go on adventures too, so long as you have good stories when you come back! Nothing interesting ever happens in Riverfall!" She lifted an eyebrow at Starlight. "Except for you, River Filly. How come you haven't been by again to hang out with us? We should be friends!"
Starlight shrugged. "Okay." Really, she had just been complaining about how few ponies in Riverfall she knew...
"Girls? Everyone?" Maple cleared her throat, stepping forward. "Remember how last time we left, I made grilled pineapple for everyone as a special treat? Valey just restocked my pantry, and there's another pineapple in there. So this time, I'd like to make it again, when we get back. In the name of having a successful trip to Ironridge."
"Hear, hear!" Amber pumped a hoof, still leaning on Valey.
"If we're saying good-byes..." White Chocolate looked around, glancing between Faron and Hayseed. "I want to thank you, Maple and Willow, for getting me out of Ironridge and giving me your old house and reuniting me with my husband, and..." Faron braced her shoulder fondly with his, and she bowed. "When you get back, I hope your trip will have gone wonderfully."
Willow nodded back to her, touching her chin with a forehoof. "And I hope your new life in Riverfall goes just as well. Perhaps we will get to meet your foal when we come back?"
White Chocolate put a hoof on her belly and smiled. "Perhaps."
"Since this is the time for good-byes..." Dior cleared his throat. "Mother, may I?"
Matryona nodded, her signature robe still missing. Starlight almost wondered if she had been wearing it with the intention all along of taking it off once that recording was played... or maybe it was in anticipation of reuniting with Arambai.
Dior gave a bow of his own. "I'll be staying in Riverfall, doing my best to continue my father's work here, and do all of you proud. I may not be welcome in Ironridge any longer, but you all are my family and I would be honored for you to visit whenever you see fit. As has been par for all my life... I'll do my best to ensure the town is still standing when you return."
"We'll be back," Shinespark said with a resolute nod, some of the fire that defined her eyes for her entire time in Ironridge having finally returned. "No matter where I go next, we'll stop by Riverfall first. We'll have some friends to drop off, after all." She glanced to Maple, Willow, Amber, Starlight and Valey.
"And I shall travel wherever the winds take me," Gerardo vowed. "Erm... Miss Maple, I'm horrifically sorry I never got around to repairing your door. I'll do that upon our return, I assure you."
"You'll have to beat me to it!" Amber grinned, eyeing the black sword stashed at Gerardo's side. "Once I'm back in shape, that is."
Maple sighed loudly, giving Gerardo a vaguely forgiving look. "I do appreciate that you gave me space when I asked for it, at least. Even if it took until we got back from Ironridge. The door's... still standing, even if it doesn't close properly. It'll definitely need work when we get back."
"And we will return," Valey insisted, covering Maple and Starlight's backs with her wings, her golden pendant glinting in the noon light. "All of us. I'll keep us safe. You can count on it."
"Don't you know it," Amber said with a wink.
Dior turned for the gangplank. "Well, we shouldn't keep you. All who are staying, feel free to drop by Arambai's house with me later today, if you'd care for a non-adventurers party. Foals are welcome. We'll make everyone who's running off to Ironridge wish they'd stayed here instead!"
"Har har," Amber chuckled dryly, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, maybe best not to tempt fate on that so soon."
Dior nodded. "Point taken. Sister, Mother, I bid you all farewell."
"And you too, Dior," Shinespark said, standing tall despite her cast, watching as he, White Chocolate, Faron and the foals sans Starlight disembarked, before lighting her horn and retracting the gangplank. "Well. If any of you are hungry, help yourselves to the galley. I'm going to get us underway, and see how fast this airship can go when it's really working."
Resolutely, she stepped into the bridge, and soon the ship's magical energy comet flared to life, suspended by a wire mesh of glowing lines and sending thrumming, shimmering vibrations through the bodies of anyone close to it. Starlight and everyone else watched as the ship shuddered, moved... and lifted free from the running river water, the anchor retracting as it took on altitude and soon cleared the trees.
"There's no one to wave to, this time," Maple remarked, looking over the railing.
"Yeah," Amber agreed, leaning against her and watching as Dior and the others walked away, chatting among themselves. "That's because all your friends are with you, this time."
"As it should be," Willow added.
"I love you all," Maple promised. "You too, Starlight. And you, Valey. And this time, our trip will be different. It will go right. You'll see. I'll see. After everything it did to us... we are going back to Ironridge."
Starlight stood on the deck of Shinespark's yet-unnamed airship, the shimmering pink comet of energy propelling it ringing in her ears as the wind whipped through her mane. Maple, Valey and Matryona had retreated belowdecks, and Shinespark was on the bridge, controlling her masterpiece, but Amber, Willow and Gerardo remained on the surface with her, watching the world go by.
"This is something else," Amber remarked breathlessly, wind slapping across her muzzle as she leaned out to survey the passing landscapes, still using the railing for support. "I've flown in Riverfall before, but from so high up, it's...!"
Willow nodded, murmuring in agreement. "The highest I've ever been is Arambai's lookout that views the river. From here, it's like a whole other world."
Gerardo grinned happily. "I see you're discovering the wonders of having a bird's-eye view?" He nodded appreciatively, strolling over beside them. "Such are the vistas that drove me to adventure in the first place. See how the trees grow so tiny, they turn from canopy to carpet, and the river becomes but a winding crack of gleaming blue? I can't quite think of a surface metaphor for it! The horizon extends far further than could be seen from the ground, crags and crevasses forming their outlines into the distant mist... Ah, and over there is a rainstorm, far to the distance behind us. Quite interesting how different they appear from above, isn't it?" He exhaled long and hard, closing his eyes. "I wish every creature had the fortune to experience the world like this. Some days, I think I should have gone into photography instead."
As Gerardo praised the landscape, Starlight's eyes were drawn southward, to the Equestrian mountain wall. Despite the ship's immense altitude, they weren't even halfway up the initial cliff face, and beyond that the peaks continued to stack in endless spires, as if an already grand chain of mountains were placed atop a wall higher than anything else in the world. Shinespark had built this ship to cross that, had she? She was almost curious herself to see if it could be done.
"Hey, Gerardo?" Amber blinked, looking over. "I've been meaning to ask, but how long have you been adventuring?"
"Ah, that is a story I think I actually told precisely on the trip back here!" Gerardo brushed off the front of his uniform with a talon. "More than ten years, though the exact number of it isn't important. I left my homeland in the Griffon Empire as a young griffon because my household was dying and had been for quite some time... or was already dead, as everyone else would put it. But that backwater place was uneventful to the degree that I consider myself to have been adventuring my entire life."
"The important part of it, at least," Willow added.
"Quite." Gerardo nodded in turn. "In truth, I imagine quite a few of you can relate, given how many dramatic twists and turns your own fortunes have taken as of late." He fixed Amber with a welcoming look. "Considering a career yourself, now that you're getting a taste of what the world has to offer?"
Amber chuckled. "This is nice, but I'll need a little more than just a view of the sky to drop my life in Riverfall forever and leave Maple, Willow and Starlight. Although, I could see myself regularly coming and going, especially once things settle down and Maple and Starlight are happier." She hastily looked over her shoulder, remembering Starlight was there, and added with a frown, "Ironridge really wasn't good for Maple. I think she's... regressed a lot. She's still up and about, and I love her for trying, but before, it seemed like she could go for days at a time without thinking about or being bothered by our past, and now it's like she fights it again, every day. This was how she was while she was recovering the first time, for a while. It makes me sad to say it, but..."
Starlight gave a sigh of frustration. "I wish I knew what I could do for her."
"I think we all do," Willow gently said. "And the best answer we've found is to look forward to the future, enjoy the present, and let go of the past."
"Easier said than done," Starlight grumbled.
"I know." Willow touched her shoulder, and left it at that.
But Starlight wasn't finished. "I try my best to enjoy Riverfall for her! She wants to live here, and I'm trying my hardest! But there's nothing to do and a lot of the mares don't like me and I'm worried about Hemlock and... ugh. It feels like when I was in Equestria, after Sunburst left. Only instead of trying not to enjoy everything, I'm trying to enjoy it and they both make me miserable! But I love Maple and this is so much better than being alone and I don't..." She gritted her teeth. "I try to stay with her as much as possible, but I still feel lonely. What if... What if my parents in Equestria really did love me, and I didn't see it? I'm scared if I keep trying this way, I'll snap and run away again..."
Gerardo raised a talon. "I may not be the world's foremost expert on social interaction, but that sounds unhealthy."
"Oh, Starlight..." Willow turned straight toward her, wearing a worried frown. "Is that really how you feel?"
Starlight puffed out her cheeks. "I told you, I care about Maple. So if you're going to tell me-"
Willow cut her off with a sigh. "Starlight... do you remember when you first arrived in Riverfall, and I asked you if you could please take care of Maple for me? To treat her nicely, because she had been through a lot?"
"Mhmm." Starlight nodded warily. "And I hate being alone, so don't tell me she no longer matters."
"Starlight, we would never say that," Amber said with a sad smile.
"What I am going to tell you," Willow said as firmly as possible, putting a hoof over Starlight's tense shoulderblades, "is that you need to take care of yourself too. Maple is trying and doing her best to believe in herself, trust her own judgements, and do things for herself as much as she can, and understand that she deserves it. And making yourself unhappy in the name of making her happy is not a thing that will make any of us happy, including us, her, and you."
Wordlessly, Starlight rubbed her nose. "Mmph."
"If Maple didn't exist," Willow began. "If everything was like it is now, but there was no Maple. What would you do?"
Starlight instantly opened her mouth, and Willow just as quickly silenced her with a gentle hoof to the chin. "I'm not asking you to do this. Only to think about it."
"I would..." Starlight swallowed. "I don't know. Maybe I'd stay with you for a while. Or I'd go with Shinespark somewhere else, as long as it's not back to Equestria, or Yakyakistan, or Varsidel or..." She hung her head. "I don't know."
"Truthfully?" Willow gave her a sad look.
"I said I don't know!"
Willow sighed. "What were you hoping to find when you ran away to Riverfall in the first place?"
"Something better than Equestria," Starlight mumbled. "I don't know. I wanted anything, and if it wasn't good enough, I'd keep looking."
"Shhhh." Willow reached up and touched her head. "I believe you."
For a moment, Amber stood by with a worried smile, and eventually Gerardo chimed in. "If I may," he began. "I, myself, am well acquainted with the feeling of looking for something without having a clue knowing what I am looking for. I'm also familiar with leaving a home I didn't feel was worth staying in. It wouldn't surprise me remotely if the rest of my life is lived out this way, never settling down and remaining on the road until I die in a noble skirmish or succumb to old age, but it has, ultimately, grown quite enjoyable in and of itself."
Amber tapped a hoof. "That's right, Gerardo, you are... Have you got any advice on how to live like that?"
Gerardo shrugged. "First off, I limit my attachments to the things I can take with me. I have no family so to speak of, and my friends are whomever I meet upon the road. Granted, I am innately drawn to the types who might be persuaded to join me for a time in my travels, or that I might cross roads with in the future. I vaguely recall telling someone the story of an old Varsidelian friend of mine named Winsom... Ultimately, however, I acknowledge that staying mobile both means I will make new acquaintances for every one left behind, and farewells must only last until I am next in the area. As a traveler of my own agency, I can return to visit whomever I want, whenever I want, with naught but some days of travel and the possible acquisition of a boat, or, if I am feeling civilized, airfare. Second: I keep moving. If I find a place to be not worth staying in, I clear out at my earliest convenience, or faster, in the case of some daring escapes. When no one place can ever satisfy me, this prevents me from becoming perpetually unsatisfied, and also gives me the chance to see past friends again if I so desire. Ultimately, I find it quite a fulfilling existence, if impractical for a lone filly who cannot fly."
Starlight looked away, half-processing Gerardo's thoughts. She still didn't like him, after everything he had gotten them into in Ironridge, but Amber had a point that he could be an expert on this. She closed her eyes. "So if you were me, you'd leave Maple behind and run away again, and promise to come back every year or so," she said, hoping the intention wasn't something as unpalatable as that sounded.
"Oh, I dearly hope not." Gerardo held a talon to his chest in mortification. "First off, as mentioned, there's quite a difference in ability to adventure safely between you and I. I mean that not as an insult, for you are certainly hardy, but consider that you are a landlocked child prone to overtaxing and injuring yourself, while I am a reasonably powerful griffon who began his journey with enough of a family nest egg to act as a crutch as I learned the rules of the road. It would be irresponsible of me to even suggest you depart Riverfall on your own. Additionally, from what I've seen of Miss Maple, she is not entirely happy with Riverfall either and may be more likely to accompany you than you think."
Starlight screwed up her expression, and even Amber looked surprised. "What?"
"Indeed." Gerardo nodded. "It doesn't take a genius to tell there is a lot of weight associated with her memories of the place. Everyone, I am aware I wasn't the best steward of the earlier journey you underwent to Ironridge, and may have prioritized my own goals slightly higher than I should have... but I dearly hope this adventure turns out better than the one before, enough to restore Miss Maple's faith in the idea of travel. She is a pony who, I think, might be more inclined to the possibility of looking for more elsewhere in the world."
Willow looked closely at him. "Gerardo, I think you should talk to her yourself. There's still a lot of bad feelings between you, but I do want the best for her. I don't know enough about Ironridge or travel myself to say if you are right or wrong, but..." She closed her eyes and nodded. "Thank you for being thoughtful."
Gerardo bowed. "A pleasure. And yes, the past few days have given me some much-needed time to think, I feel. Ironridge was... quite the adrenaline rush."
"Hey, everyone?" Amber interrupted, looking to the west over the railing. "Look! I think the mountains are changing up ahead! Does that mean we're there already?"
"Well, it seems this ship runs quite a bit faster than the previous voyage!" Gerardo beamed, shading his eyes and looking out alongside her. "I'd say that took a little under two hours, give or take. It looks as if we'll be there in no time."
The Ironridge that greeted Starlight's vision looked not a lot different from the one she had left behind... yet, there were differences. While the eastern valley was still a blasted moonscape of gouged bedrock, the water level to the north had fallen considerably, revealing much of the flooded remains of Sosa. Many buildings were gone, leaving foundations or less still hidden beneath the water, but as they looked further to the west more and more monuments stood. Shells of buildings, everything but their walls stripped away, some with roofs sagging inward or missing entirely due to crumbled supports. The dam was still a blown-out ruin, and a trickle of water still flowed from the remains of the reservoir.
Theirs was the only airship to grace the skies, as a contrast to the city's usually-buzzing trade lines. A lonely breeze swept through the air as they climbed high enough to see the Sky District, Skyfreeze still standing proud and needlelike next to the cracked dome of the skyport's main atrium. The snow hadn't returned in force above the mountain line, and Starlight could see several ships moored there on the rocks, likely inbound vessels that could no longer refuel to leave.
Amber and Willow saw them too. "Do you think that's where we're going to land?"
Gerardo nodded, gazing over the edge as the Earth District started to come into view. "I imagine we'll have to. The Earth District is protected by a barrier of wind that airships can't safely fly through, and while our present vessel has displayed weather-resistant qualities before, I'm quite sure Shinespark wouldn't want to risk it for such a minor convenience."
"Maybe you should ask Arambai where to land?" Starlight shrugged. "You have that sound stone, and all."
"Ah, yes!" Gerardo snapped his talons. "A brilliant idea, though I wouldn't be surprised if Shinespark has already beaten us to it. We should..." He trailed off, staring worriedly over the edge. "I say, is that a flock of pegasi coming our way?"
"Yo, what?" Valey appeared out of nowhere, suddenly standing at his side and shading her eyes with a wing. "Looks like some dudes... Not getting any bad tinglies from them, though. Maybe they're nice?"
Starlight looked too. A wing of pegasi were indeed making their way over. Four of them, it looked like... one a bit bigger than the others.
In no time, the pegasi arrived, their pale coats blending together like a flurry of snow on a dark evening. Three mares and one stallion, they landed in formation on the deck, taking a proud but nonaggressive stance. "Greetings," the lead stallion said, adding, "We're friends."
Gerardo appraised them thoughtfully. "I know you. You're members of the mercenary company with which I nearly froze to death in the skyport. Let me see... Blackwind, perhaps?"
"Yeah," Valey grunted, looking unhappily at the quartet of pegasi. "And the ones from the tunnels..."
"Darkwind," the leader corrected. "And I hope we made this clear in the skyport, but our contract is done and our leader is gone. We're not hunting anyone any more."
"Harshwater," a mare next to him added in a high, nasally voice that could grow annoying if overused. "In case you forgot."
The smallest of the group nodded formally. "And I'm Rainstorm."
"Bourbon," said the last, her coat looking shinier yet less fluffy than the others'. "I wasn't in the tunnels. Instead I found you after the flood and helped fix you up." She looked apologetically at Valey, then Starlight. "I hope there's not bad blood between us."
"Well met, I suppose," Gerardo replied, instinctively taking charge. "I, in case you've forgotten, am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. To what do we owe this-"
The bridge door blew open, and Shinespark strode out, eyes narrow. "Why are there pegasi on my ship?" she asked, frowning with a mix of worry and readiness to fight despite the clunking cast on her hind leg. "You're not Defense Force, are you?"
Darkwind opened his mouth to reply, but Gerardo spoke first. "As a matter of fact, we just finished introductions," he plainly announced. "These are formerly Herman's mercenary company who turned face and assisted us in the skyport during the finale, and I have no reason to assume they mean us ill."
Shinespark looked sideways at them. "I'm not sure if I remember..."
"You were either recovering or grieving in your room, at the time, if I recall," Gerardo helpfully informed her, earning a pained look.
"As to whether we're Defense Force," Darkwind said, finally getting in a word edgewise. "Now that our employment and airship base are gone, we've come into the employ of Ironridge proper. Arambai gave us the old Defense Force's moniker and resources, though it's no longer a volunteer organization. He decided that after everything that had happened, it would be useful for Ironridge to have an official, professional fighting force, and working together was mutually beneficial."
Harshwater nodded lazily. "Also, we were never Herman's mercenaries. That yak was rude and only Kero knows why we were working for him. Kero was our real leader..." She sighed dreamily, holding her cheeks with the tips of her wings. "Ahhh, Kero..." Then she snapped back to reality. "But he's gone. Haven't seen him since before the battle. Left us sad and alone in Ironridge with only our huge band and a billion city ponies to keep us company..."
"Noted." Gerardo drummed a talon. "I suppose you're our welcome wagon, then?"
"Yes." Rainstorm nodded primly back. "Arambai specifically chose the four of us because we'd had the most interaction with you before. You had a hard time during the battle and the days before, so he asked us to be your escort as much as you need, and help if there's any trouble."
"Even so, there are ponies I haven't met," Bourbon added, looking between Amber and Willow. "We introduced ourselves. Might you?"
Valey held out a wing for her to pause. "Okay, we've got a few more downstairs. If any of you lemon bags don't know who I am, I absolutely quit, so I'll go get them. 'Kay?"
"Wonderful!" Bourbon gave a happy smile.
As she did a little dance, Gerardo gave the departing Valey a grimace. "Hard to believe these are the same ponies who took my adventure-honed dueling skills and used them like a mop," he whispered under his breath.
Harshwater's ears swiveled, and she leaned toward him eagerly. "What was that, Mister Bird?"
"Oh, I, erm..." Gerardo took a step back, everyone suddenly looking at him. "Was just complimenting your exceptional fighting skills?"
Harshwater grinned. "I remember you, Mister Bird. You lost to me one-on-one on that lift platform, didn't you?"
"That was you?" Gerardo swallowed, paling.
"Harshwater." Darkwind settled a wing over her back. "Remember, that job is behind us."
"Ugh! You're not my coltfriend!" She ducked out from under the wing, shuddering. "And he's the one who brought it up. All I wanted was to offer him a rematch!" She winked at Gerardo. "Restore your honor, and all that. Got anypony you're trying to impress, Mister Bird?"
"Any... pony..." Gerardo eyed her with surprise, and a slight far-away look in his eyes.
Valey jumped to his defense. "Nah, Birdo's all about his own ego," she smugly proclaimed, strutting with her eyes closed and her chin in the air. "Now, if you're talking rematches, me, on the other hoof..." She opened one eye and looked barely at the deck, tapping it idly. "I kinda recall me getting cheated out of whupping all of you by this giant whachamahoozit, or something..."
Starlight frowned at her. "Weren't you getting Maple?"
"Eh, I work fast. She's coming." Valey shrugged, careless.
"Rematch you?" Harshwater backed away, shivering, and Rainstorm joined her. Darkwind looked vaguely haunted, and Bourbon gave the three of them a pitying look. "Uhhhh... Thanks, but no thanks! You're terrifying. No offense."
Valey grinned. "Yeah, I get that a lot. So where are we landing this thing?"
"That would be good to know," Shinespark added, standing on the sidelines. "Right now, we're just hovering in place. Where does Arambai want us to land?"
"Arambai is in Skyfreeze," Darkwind cordially replied, bowing his head. "There's a landing area that has been cleared out, if you need it. Follow us."
Darkwind's 'landing area' turned out to be, Starlight quickly realized, exactly where the ship had once laid before, out of power and borne down on by a swarm of icy windigoes. The raised glass tunnel that used to form passage between Skyfreeze and the skyport was shorn completely through several support columns away from the tower, and while the area below was littered with shards of glass and twisted beams of metal, the broken tunnel served easily as an impromptu dock.
"Everyone who's getting off and can't teleport or fly, with me here," Shinespark commanded, standing on the deck and levitating the gangplank into place with her telekinesis, Gerardo remaining on the bridge and holding the ship steady. "Then we'll moor the ship on the ground so it doesn't drift away."
Starlight shrugged, crossing into the remains of the tunnel surrounded by Maple, Amber and Willow. This was the first time she had seen Skyfreeze up close; her previous trip with Valey had been done blind, and she hadn't paid the structure any mind while teleporting around with Hestia after the storm. It was tall, golden, gleaming, and showed little sign of external damage despite the intensity of the event it had been through. Probably some unicorn's enchantment, she figured.
Sheet upon sheet of curved metal reached for the sky, interspersed by panoramic windows that seemed almost random, yet had a strange harmony to their placement, like the tines in a music box. It drew the earth ponies' eyes as well, and Starlight watched as their necks craned up and up, looking to see the top... Even Maple seemed taken by it. Then again, she wouldn't have been in any condition to appreciate it earlier, either.
"And this is what it looks like after it's been blown up," Amber whistled. "Always knew the world contained things like this. Always wished I could see them. Never understood what that would be like, though..."
Shinespark gave her a slightly mournful look, clunking up in her cast. "Skyfreeze tower was built within the last ten years, after the city's economy was transformed by airships. It's modern and artsy, but doesn't have the soul of a lot of the city's other architectural feats. A lot of those are gone now, but I hope enough survived that I can show you before we leave what Sosa could really do."
"I can imagine how you feel," Willow gently whispered. "But remember, we are Riverfall mares who have never seen the world. All I know is that I'm finally getting to change that, and this is what it looks like."
"You wanna know what's missing from this picture?" Valey nudged Maple's shoulder with a grin. "Bad guys. Politics. Weapons. Explosions. Drama. That stuff. I'm actually feeling nice and cushy about this place for once. Looks like we don't have a welcome wagon, either." She glanced down the empty tunnel, all the way to the tower entrance at the end. "Wanna invite ourselves in and make ourselves at home?"
Harshwater cleared her throat from behind them, hovering upright with rapid flaps of her wings. "We're your welcome wagon, thank you very much."
Valey nodded appreciatively, eyeing her dangling form up and down. "I'd welcome your wagon, if you know what I mean."
Harshwater's face lit up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ha ha ha..." Bourbon chuckled pleasantly. "I don't think Harshwater's wagon welcomes itself that way, unfortunately."
"There's a filly right there, you know..." Rainstorm interjected, frowning and pointing a hoof at Starlight.
Valey stepped between them so she was the one being pointed at, stuck out her tongue, and put on a pout. "Nyaah. I am too an adult."
"Girls." Darkwind interrupted them as Gerardo and Matryona caught up, the ship successfully moored behind them. "No need to trigger Harshwater by reminding her which way her wagon is welcome." His words came with a twinkle in his eye, and Starlight realized he was messing with her, too.
"Oh, boo!" Harshwater made a pouty face and zipped away, leaving a fading trail as she disappeared inside the tower lobby.
Awkwardly, Maple smiled and tried to join the conversation. "For a group of professional mercenaries, you certainly tease each other a lot. Are you always like this?"
If any of them noticed she was the same mare who teleported away their entire attack team with a burst of overcharged harmonic magic, they didn't seem to care. "Yes," Rainstorm replied, nodding and giving Gerardo a look. "They are. It's nice, most of the time. Our company travels whenever Kero calls for it, usually with little no no warning save for making sure we're all on the ship. Forming attachments with the locals is almost impossible, as a result. All we have are each other, and it's every one of us that will watch our backs to make sure we make it through as many missions as possible. So in addition to being colleagues and comrades in arms, we are also friends, siblings, parents and even lovers. And many of us show that by teasing one another."
"It must be nice," Maple murmured. "Being able to take your entire home with you wherever you go, yet having that home hold all the friends you need to be happy."
"For the most part, yes." Rainstorm glowered at Darkwind. "Even if we all have personal limits that need to be and occasionally aren't respected."
Amber looked concerned. "That sounds a little passive-aggressive... What happened? Or should I not touch this?"
Darkwind sighed. "Rainstorm came within inches of her life during the storm, nearly freezing to death when she flew too high attempting to navigate a barrier. I told an embarrassing and somewhat personal story about her time in Varsidel where Gerardo was listening to goad her and keep her from falling asleep," he explained. "Doing so likely saved her."
"I'm aware." Rainstorm nodded, craning her neck to make eye contact with the pegasus stallion. "And I'd have done the same for any of you. But..." She glanced back to Gerardo and grinned. "I promised I'd live so I could tell one of your less-glamorous tales back, remember? One involving prison, sarosians and Mistvale?"
"Hold," Gerardo requested, raising a talon and looking intrigued. "An embarrassing and personal tale concerning Varsidel? I'm not quite sure I recall this."
Rainstorm huffed. "Well, it's not getting told again with any males in the room, so you can go ahead and keep not recalling."
Darkwind was still grimacing from her earlier suggestion. "That was not one of my better moments, Rainstorm..." He exhaled, relaxing. "But it's fair."
But telling stories would have to wait, because they were reaching the end of the tunnel, where a familiar yellow form stood waiting, accompanied by two more mercenaries and smiling faithfully. Starlight waved a hoof. Amber tripped when she tried to, and Shinespark started running forward, leg cast making a racket against the ground. "Arambai!"
"Hello again, Shinespark," he said fondly, tousling her mane when she bowed her head. But his eyes were fixed on the back of the crowd, where an exotic pegasus followed the group silently and was now gliding her way toward him, gently moving the mercenaries and Riverfall ponies out of her path.
They caught in an embrace that lasted for nearly a minute, culminating in a deep sigh from Arambai. "Ahhhh. Matryona..."
Starlight, Valey, Gerardo, the Riverfall ponies and the mercenaries all stood awkwardly in the mouth of the tunnel, watching Arambai and Matryona embrace. "That's a very attractive pegasus," Rainstorm eventually remarked.
"Stealthy, too," Darkwind muttered. "I didn't realize she was following us, which is unusual."
"Well, those are her job and talent," Gerardo said with a shrug, pointing to Matryona's cutie mark of an ornate slipper. "It's my impression that she once worked as an exotic dancer for certain purposes. I find her quite an eyeful myself."
Bourbon nodded appreciatively. Amber blushed and looked away. Valey grinned. "Yup. She's still got it, all right. And she's, what, in her thirties?"
Shinespark reddened furiously. "Stop ogling my mother while she's making out! Or at all! And she did not have me as a teenager!"
"Fine, then." Valey rolled her eyes, doing some quick mental math. "Uhh... thirty-nine. Still thirties. Nyaah."
Shinespark planted her face against a wall, coat bristling.
"Woah-ho!" Valey chuckled, grinning broadly. "Did I guess right? I did, didn't I? So anyways-"
Amber gave her a light slap. "Might want to tone down the teasing when the ruling family in Ironridge is right there, you know?"
Valey rubbed her cheek indignantly. "I, uhh... probably deserved that..."
"...Mmm." Arambai and Matryona finally broke apart, turning to see their visitors. "Hello, kids," Arambai greeted, nodding his shaggy head. "Sorry to do that in front of you. Hope it's not too traumatic, seeing an old married couple taking a moment after spending so many years apart."
Matryona nudged him with her chin, teasing. "We're not that old, you know."
"Oh, save it for the you-know-where." Arambai rolled his eyes, then grinned. "So! Everyone made it here all right? No mysterious explosions or foalnappings by groups of cultists? Ironridge just as standing as it was when you came over the horizon? Maple, Starlight, glad to see you felt up to coming along."
"It looked impressive, seeing it from up above," Amber acknowledged, looking eager. "I don't know how we're going to tour the whole thing."
"By sticking to the good parts," Arambai replied. "And that's good. Anyhow, I was thinking since we all were here, we might as well start by getting you situated in your room? Figured you'd like a nice place to stay that isn't on board that stuffy airship all the time."
Starlight frowned. "Is this Herman's old room? The one he gave to Kero, that you said we could have? Has it been cleaned out already?"
Arambai shrugged innocently. "Hey, don't look so sad about it! It might be full of treasure..."
"Well?" Gerardo asked, rolling his shoulders. "Does anyone feel up to spelunking in the lair of an elusive griffon mercenary lord no one seems to have ever seen?"
"Hey!" Harshwater was suddenly back, hovering in front of Gerardo's face. She jabbed a hoof at his beak. "I've seen Kero plenty of times, and he's a lot more handsome than you." She hesitated, looking suddenly guilty. "Okay, a little more handsome. But if you're planning to go rifling through his things..."
Darkwind tugged her tail, bringing her gently to the ground. "He was referring to how Kero has been absent ever since the day before the storm," he said. "That's as good a cause for concern as any. Also, we would be assisting them in rifling through any things."
"Ohhh..." Harshwater's eyes lit up. "Oh, would we really...?" She brightened, folded her wings, and shrugged. "Okay, then. Lead the way!"
"Any objections?" Arambai asked, watching the proceedings with Matryona close at his side.
Maple sighed and hung her head. "Just as long as we don't find anything that gets us into trouble again. I... you know."
Starlight knew, clinging closely to her side yet constantly ready if anything should happen. Her horn felt as strong as it ever did, ready to teleport or fight at a moment's notice.
"Yeah, don't worry about trouble." Valey saluted with a wing, nudging her beret back into place. Her bow was gone, but her mane remained in the same cutesy style it had been forced into in Riverfall. "I'll head in first as a bomb sniffer, and then these guys will help us watch for insider secrets that could turn us into ponies of interest for knowing, or something." She pointed back at the mercenaries. "You dudes will, right?"
"This place is way less spooky than the last time I was here," Valey remarked as the group walked through the gold-and-marble halls and stairways of Skyfreeze, Amber and Willow's jaws perpetually on the floor. "There are, like... other ponies." She pointed a wing at a passing mare in a business suit, who gave them a respectful berth. "And the view is actually nice instead of an end-of-the-world blizzard. And it's not covered in evil-looking veins of frost, and is actually warm, and there's no creepy emergency lighting everywhere." She blinked. "Hey, the power's on! How'd you do that?"
Arambai nodded. "One of the first things we did was build a conduit connecting the Blueleaf reactor to the rest of the city's power grid. Seeing as the source was removed, but most of the infrastructure remained intact otherwise, it wasn't too hard to pull off. Unfortunately, Blueleaf needs a lot of power for their lighting, so even putting them on a ration, we don't have all that much to go around. The decision was made to prioritize Skyfreeze, for several reasons. First, a lot of ponies actually live here... Governmental types. And without power for the weather shields and climate control, this place would turn into an iceberg and we don't need even more evacuees. Second, it's currently the best-equipped place to set up a new temporary center of government, and we wanted it in top shape."
"It makes sense to me," Gerardo said, tapping a talon. "Though, I can imagine some of the lower-district ponies would see this as a prioritization of the rich, and be far less happy about it."
"Yeah. That's currently our biggest problem." Arambai rounded a corner at the top of a stairway into another hall, leading the way through Skyfreeze's setup. "It's not like we're being wasteful, at least. You'll notice we're walking instead of taking the elevators. Got those turned off for the time being. But the housing... ehhh. I'd say we've got it about fifty percent sorted, so far, and you're not going to like how."
Maple shuddered. "Do I want to know?"
"Selma," Arambai said, and Valey rolled her eyes. "No, really. It turns out that stallion had been planning some sort of coup against the yaks for a very long time. I talked with him about it over these last few days. I doubt any of his plans would've worked, since they were mostly opportunist things. But he had a lot of disaster-preparation going on, and the like. Did you know that down in a very secure, easily-defensible area of the basement of the Defense Force base, he somehow built and stocked an entire bunker designed to serve as a short-term shelter for over a thousand ponies in the event of whatever? Set it up so the only door was inside a fortified control tower in the air conditioning plant, and even made a custom card key so all the standard-issue ones couldn't get inside. And the amount of food he had stockpiled down there... well..." He shook his head. "Let's just say it puts my pantry in Riverfall to shame. And I'm sure most of you have seen that."
Amber's eyes widened. "That much?"
"Yeah." Arambai nodded. "Anyway, with the weather damage to Dangerous Karma's crops, we've taken all that and added it to the city's main food supply, and the good news is we should have plenty to last until we're able to regrow the crops and start a new harvest cycle. The bad news on that end is that we won't have anything left over to export, even once we get an emergency skyport up and running. The mine's gone until we can rebuild a power supply, get it dried out and bring everything back online, and all our manufacturing got washed away... which means Ironridge has exactly nothing left to export. In short, we'll survive, and once the plantations get back in gear we'll have plenty to keep everyone alive and healthy, but that's it. As as economic force in the world, as it stands, Ironridge is doomed."
Shinespark stared at the ground. "Still feels like I should have done better..."
A thick yellow hoof landed on her shoulders. "Hey," Arambai said. "Don't sweat it. Two teenagers and one old stallion who wasn't even there trying to change the fate of an entire city-state this fast on a course to destruction is a tall enough order even without a malicious yak agent actively trying to bring ruin and conquest. You did the best you could, and like I said, we'll make sure everyone survives."
"...I'm going to try to take the ship to the Plains of Harmony," Shinespark announced. "We still have all the designs. We can remake the equipment to make more, and figure out something with the energy source. If we can make a trade route..."
"Sticking with the plan, I see," Arambai murmured. "Well, you do that. It won't be easy, and I won't pretend to stake everything on making it work. But if you can, well..."
"That would be a much-needed boost in your fortunes," Gerardo finished for him.
Amber quickened her pace, stepping up alongside Arambai and Shinespark, this time using Maple for support. "So if there's a bunker designed to hold a thousand ponies," she said, "and you have a problem with refugees..."
"Exactly what we thought," Arambai replied. "And that's what we did. There are way more than a thousand evacuees, unfortunately. Gnarlbough itself had about twice that many, and it's a tiny town by Earth District standards. Copsewood, on the other hoof..." He shook his head. "Also, it's not exactly state-of-the-art in comfort. Who only knows how Selma got the resources he did to build it. My guess is he fudged paperwork, which would've been easy to do with how much the system was getting messed with already..." He raised an eyebrow at Valey, who grinned cheekily. "Might've been stealing from the Sosan resource packages involved in that weapons deal, too. Maybe slipped in some requests with mercenaries or even the Spirit here and there to steal supplies. For the actual labor, who knows? Could've found a way to bamboozle enough contractors without telling them what he was working on. Might have found a way to use magic to help out. Either way, we've got a place now for the elderly and those with large families or young children, which apparently happens quite a lot these days. Some couples just think they're in Riverfall and don't know when to quit."
Bourbon reddened slightly. "What's in Riverfall that makes it special?"
"In that sense?" Arambai winked. "Just a bunch of testosterone-starved mares with a social structure very good at helping to communally raise foals. But let's not get onto that. It looks like we're here."
'Here' turned out to be a hallway just like the others, ice-blue tinted metal trim used against marble columns and floor tiles. The hall ran from wall to wall of the tower, a window at each end, with a clockwise ascending staircase behind them and a counterclockwise ascending one in front. Four villas occupied the entire floorspace, two on either side, and a sign helpfully read 'Ambassador Wing'.
"Yours looks like it'll be this one," Arambai remarked, turning to a door with a plaque stating 'Kero's House'. "So, which one of you wants to hold the security? It's a spell that's tied fairly tightly to you and you alone, and is used for the singular purpose of opening this door, though there are ways for you to authorize others for cleaning purposes and the like. Valey? Maple? Starlight? Who wants the deed to one of the most luxury properties in Ironridge?"
Valey shuffled her hooves. "Eh... I really don't see myself coming back here to hang out, Gramps..."
Maple tilted her head. "Shouldn't you give it to the next Yakyakistan ambassador?"
Arambai shrugged. "Relations between Yakyakistan and Ironridge are a little... difficult, right now. We're working through them. But they've pointed out that this door isn't really sized for a yak, anyway, and both Fire and the new temporary ambassador said they were fine giving it up."
"Well, if it is fine by them..." Gerardo nodded. "Also, there are four rooms on this floor, and I can't help but notice only three major countries that commonly come up in discourse. Unless the fourth is reserved for something, and I imagine it would have been stated if you had an ambassador from a smaller or sub-nation, you should have a spare on your hooves as it is."
"Eh... That one is..." Arambai looked at the fourth room, on the opposite side of the hall and a ways down it. "You'd have to ask the griffon ambassador about that one. Honestly, I don't think anyone knows what its deal is."
Curious, Starlight walked over. Across from Kero's house was the Varsidel ambassador's, with a note on the front suggesting it was currently vacant. Then there was the griffon ambassador's... and finally, a room with a plaque on the front that merely read 'Sunbutt'. Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"...Sunbutt?" Valey read aloud over her shoulder. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Arambai shrugged, wandering over. "Everyone I've talked to seems to think it's a prank. Never seen anyone enter or leave. The griffon ambassador says it was initially reserved when the tower was being constructed on a request she brought from someone way higher up in her own government, but has no idea how, why or for whom. I think even she thinks it's a prank. Nice gal, by the way. If you're going to be neighbors, even for just a vacation home, you should talk to her sometimes. Apparently she gets lonely, since the floor is basically otherwise empty."
Starlight nodded blankly, eventually deciding she had no idea what the door meant either and turning away.
"Anyway!" Arambai raised his voice, standing by Kero's door. "One luxury Skyfreeze villa, formerly belonging to an insane yak and a mysteriously vanishing mercenary! Going once, going twice..."
Valey grinned nervously and backed down. Maple politely shook her head, looking awkward. Arambai turned to Starlight.
"If no one else wants it..." She shrugged, stepping forward.
"Well, you did help save the city," Arambai said. "Maybe it'll come in handy later. Now, with the help of Dior and that Maia pegasus from the embassy, I've already primed the security reassignment spells. I have no idea how this will feel, but it should only take a moment. Put your hoof on the door like this..." He positioned her limb using telekinesis. "Now hold still."
There was a flooding burst of magic from Arambai's horn, and Starlight's vision briefly blanked, sparks and bands and shapes swimming in it. She felt a brief fuzziness beneath her skin, and then the feeling subsided, leaving her feeling no different from normal.
"That should do the trick," Arambai announced, gently patting her on the back. "I have no idea how to open it, but just try stuff. I'm probably more curious to see what's inside than you are!"
"Remember, I go first!" Valey shoved her way up to the forefront of the group. "Not getting any danger from this place, but it never hurts to be careful."
Starlight nodded, stepping back and looking at the door. It was featureless and handleless, so how would she make something like that open...?
As if it read her mind, the door hissed and seamlessly glided open, leaving Valey staring into the unblocked room. "Woah," she said, jaw dropping. "I guess I know what this dude spent his time thinking about."
Kero's villa was exceptionally classy, decorated with curved furniture and large patches of simple, unbroken colors that had the feel of emulating a bygone age. Leather chairs and a velvet couch flanked a curly-legged table sporting a record player, several well-trimmed potted plants filled niches along the walls, and even the wastebasket was decorative, forged from an iron wire mesh with several crumpled-up papers in the bottom. That said, so was the rest of Skyfreeze, so Starlight couldn't tell if Kero liked opulence or just didn't care to change the default style.
The most striking feature, however, were the wall paintings.
Valey whistled, long and low, her eyes slowly panning the collection of frames. Each contained portraits spanning every medium of a dapper, bottle-green griffon with a tiny bow tie perched snugly on his neck, expressions ranging from smug to satisfied to even an alluring wink. Appreciatively, she flicked her tail. "Either this guy had an ego the size of the moon, or really, really liked dudes."
"Those are definitely portraits of himself," Darkwind remarked, standing next to her in the doorframe. Behind him, Harshwater sighed in relief.
"Well..." Valey lifted a tentative hoof. "It looks like a legit luxury lair, and I'm not getting any butt warnings, so the door's probably not trapped? Here goes-"
A small spark of magic flickered when her hoof crossed the threshold, and she yanked it back with lightning reflexes... until with a slight crackle and another magical fluctuation, the record player in the corner clicked and began to turn, emitting a slow, crooning classical waltz. Valey blinked. "Huh. I guess he set up his house to play music when he entered, or something. What is this, a love song?"
Gerardo raised a talon. "That's one of the griffish greats, a third-century masterpiece known as Gorissimo's Lament. Regrettably, it's been too many years since I studied such things to recall its meaning with perfect clarity, though I believe it was written following the composer's lover being abducted by conniving pirates. Or perhaps he was dumped. My memory fails me."
"Maybe she dumped him to join a crew of pirates?" Valey shrugged. "Either way, this place is feeling legitimately egotistical enough to me to probably not be a trap, and I'm still not picking up anything dangerous." She bit her lip. "Well... maybe a little. Enough that he's probably got a sword cane or something laying around. But less than I usually take as a safe threshold for falling asleep at night."
She stepped inside to no further effect, and Starlight and the mercenaries followed her, brought up by Maple, Willow and Amber. Willow promptly blanched at the decorations, and Amber gave a thoughtful frown.
"If there's anything you folks need, have Shinespark take care of it," Arambai said, pushing Shinespark through the door after them. "Me and Matryona here have some catching up to do. Page me with that sound stone in an emergency, but really, if it can wait, I'll be a lot happier for it."
Amber continued staring distastefully at the decorations. "Girls, if we're going to stay here tonight or any nights after, we're going to have to do something about the decorations, because having that same griffon staring at me like that from that many angles while I sleep is going to be really creepy."
"I agree." Willow nodded. "Arambai? Can you send someone by later to pick up any garbage we need to get rid of?"
"They're not garbage!" Harshwater pouted. "If you don't want Kero's paintings, give them to me!"
Gerardo looked at her and shrugged. "Well, if somebody would enjoy them..."
"Sounds like you've got it worked out," Arambai said, turning away with a wave. "Like I said, get at me later if there's anything that needs doing, or if you finish up here and feel like taking an evening tour of anywhere we can reach in time. Later, ponies."
He and Matryona paced away, leaving the door standing open. Starlight glanced at it, thought... and with no more effort than that it slid closed, locking seamlessly and soundlessly with a magical security only she could control.
"Well!" Gerardo folded his talons. "Does anyone wish to bet on whether the first valuables we find are-"
"Hey, look what I found!" Amber interrupted, crouching near a large box with a door that swung outward. Inside were row upon row of broad, cherry-red bottles filled with red and brown and amber liquid. She looked up, grinning. "I guess someone really was high-class, huh?"
Maple frowned. "Is that all alcohol?"
"Alcohol?" Shinespark wrinkled her nose. "Not for me, thanks."
"Looks like it is!" Valey slipped in beside Amber, pulling out a bottle and inspecting it. "Wow, this is a lot. Imagine how much fruit someone had to mash up and let rot to make all this."
Gerardo nodded. "I've been known to partake myself on occasion, but this seems like quite a substantial personal stash. I wonder how fast a lone griffon can go through this, or if it's merely for stature?"
Darkwind pushed forward as well, eyeing the cache of spirits. "Regardless, if you don't want it, we'll take it back to our compound. A lot of that is vintage."
"Sure. Cool. You do that." Valey started shoveling bottles out, careful not to smash any. "And we will keep this super cool chilly box that's making them cold. We could probably get real fruit to stay fresh a ton longer with this if we took it on the airship, you think?"
Maple nodded appreciatively. "We could do that. Should I start taking down the paintings, now? Or did someone else want to do that?"
"Mine!" Harshwater zipped to a wall, tearing a portrait of Kero's smiling face free as gently as possible and cradling it against her chest.
Gerardo followed her with his eyes for a moment before giving up and sighing. "Well, I was going to ask if anyone wanted to place bets on precisely how many wall safes are hidden within this forest of artwork, but I suppose we'll find out soon enough on our own. Anyone for one? Three? I'm betting on two, myself."
"And there one is already," Shinespark droned, watching as Harshwater removed the room's largest painting and revealed the massive door of a safe. "Who wants to guess the combination?"
Gerardo reached out a talon. "At first glance, I suppose I'd try..."
The door clicked open.
"Hmm!" Pleased, he stepped away. "All zeros. Apparently, he believed his own room would provide security enough. Hah!"
"Yeah? Now who wants to see what's inside?" Valey stepped back as well, raising an eyebrow as the sizable safe swung outward.
The safe's wall cavity was big enough that it had likely been intended as more of a vault, a place to store larger heirlooms like weapons or statues or even more paintings. If it was intended for money... Starlight shook her head. Maybe some ponies in Skyfreeze really were just that rich. But Kero's was taken up by a single large crate, the make and model of which triggered something unpleasant in her memory. She felt the feeling of deja vu increase as Shinespark levitated it out and onto the ground. "Safe to open?" Shinespark asked, looking at Valey.
Valey nodded. "Ninety-nine percent sure I know what's inside, so yeah. As long as it's not me who opens it."
Shinespark slid the lid off, making room for everyone to peer in.
"What is that?" Amber asked with a cross between fear and fascination. "It's all black and... Is that the moon glass you were talking about, Maple?"
"Obsidian. Moon glass. That's it, all right," Shinespark monotoned, staring into the crate. "And a lot of it. Whoever got this into Ironridge must have done a remarkably good smuggling job."
"That was us," Darkwind gruffly said. "Years ago, not long after it first fell. Kero told us we had a job to bring a crate full of this to Ironridge. It had recently been outlawed as contraband, but Kero had allies in the Griffon Empire powerful enough to pull strings with the shipping companies and help us smuggle it in. Unfortunately, when we got here, whoever it was that gave him the job failed to materialize. I don't know if they got caught, or what. But it was far less trouble to hide the glass here in Ironridge than it would have been to smuggle it back out and try to sell it, so that's what we did. Ever since then, we've been looking for ways to get rid of it so it's not something we're caught with. Slipping away pieces here and there as compensation to ponies who aren't likely to talk about it... that sort of thing. What you see here is about half of what we originally started with."
Shinespark grimaced, giving him a worried look. "Stopping it from leeching into society is exactly why it was outlawed in the first place..."
"Well, don't look at me." Darkwind shrugged. "We knew our chain of command. If you have an issue with how it was handled, your issue is with Kero. If you can find him."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, let's just put this somewhere safe for now and let that yellow dude deal with it. There are more rooms in this place than just this one. Maybe he left a clue of where he was going somewhere. Like the trash can! Did anyone check what he threw away?"
Gerardo perked up. "Parsing through his rubbish bucket? Well, at least he separated his garbage from his recycling. On it, right away."
Willow, Maple and Amber looked between themselves. "Girls? Anyone feeling bold enough to check the bedroom?" Willow asked.
They nodded, Harshwater continued to collect portraits, and the ponies began to spread out... until Starlight noticed a small lump still at the back of the vault safe. "Hey!" she announced, pulling on it with her telekinesis. "There's still something else here!"
It was a small, velvet drawstring bag, and from the size and shape she had a sneaking suspicion it contained another piece of moon glass. That was weird. Why would one be all alone, separated from the others? Maybe it was something else. Starlight held it out, waiting for Valey to give the okay to open the bag.
"Yeah, yeah, let's see, here..." The batpony swiped it, stared at it, rubbed her flank with a hoof... and trotted over to the couch and shook it out. A piece of moon glass fell free, just as Starlight had predicted, but it was accompanied by a letter.
"Huh." Valey glanced at the sealed envelope, placing the glass back in its bag while being extremely careful not to touch it with her bare hooves. "Spooky. Let's see... 'To whomever should find this.' What is this, a will?"
"Did he leave anything for me?" Harshwater's voice echoed from the next room over.
Bourbon shrugged, glancing at it from over the back of the couch while the rest of the ponies and Gerardo came back over, curious. "Kero left a will? What does he say in it?"
"Birdo?" Valey shrugged, holding out the envelope. "You love talking enough. Care to read it?" She also offered it to Starlight. "Or since this is technically your house..."
Starlight shook her head, and it was passed to Gerardo instead. Clearing his throat, he slit the seal with one talon, unfurling a sheet of parchment and beginning to narrate. "Ahem. It seems this is indeed a last will and testament of sorts, and..." His eyes skimmed the page's length. "Oh, what have we gotten ourselves into...?"
Greetings.
My name is, or was, Kero. If you're in my house, reading the contents of my private safe, it means I'm either dead, wish I was, or have been hit by a very successful burglar. If you fall into the last category, please, keep reading. You deserve a little for your effort. Otherwise, it's not like I can afford to care.
Congratulations. You're in my house. Everything that was mine is now yours. You probably feel accomplished about it. Or maybe you're noticing I didn't trap anything, and your nerves are starting to get to you. Don't worry. The only traps here are ones of your own making. If you're smart, like I would be, you'd stop reading this letter, take what you found, and get on living the good life. But there's at least a chance I was done in by heroes, and if that's the case... it sure stinks to be you.
Because I'm going to tell you about some jobs. Missions I've done or been doing in Ironridge, ones that are messy or had consequences I can't quite clean up after. Believe it or not, just because I'll tell my company to do anything doesn't mean I'm a bad guy... At least, that's what I tell myself so I can get to sleep at night. So if you're lucky, you can ignore all this and get on with your bad selves. And if you're like me... have fun picking up after me.
First thing: check my study. In my desk, top drawer on the left. It's not locked, and the only piece of paper there. Looks like a checklist with some names on it. Find that, read it a few times, and then read the rest of this letter.
Gerardo and everyone looked around. "Checklist?" he suggested.
"On it." Valey saluted, and was gone in a flash. Several seconds later, she returned, a single page dangling from her fanged grin. "Here ya go."
Maple took it gently, scanning it back and forth. "What's this?" she hummed. "It just looks like a lot of names with no indication of who or what it's for... Most of them have checks next to them, but some don't, especially at the end. And there are so many! The writing is small, but it runs over onto the other side of the page."
Shinespark frowned. "A hit list, maybe?"
"I don't think so," Willow said, reading over Maple's shoulder. "Look. White Chocolate's name is here with a check by it, and we know she's alive and well."
"Hrrrmm..." Amber scrunched up her face. "Some of these have two checks, you know. Also, I don't get Ironridge naming conventions as well as Riverfall, but is it just me, or do most of these sound like mare names?"
Valey peered at the paper as well, leaning over everyone's heads. "...Yeah, those are all mare names. Beats me why. Birdo, keep reading!"
"Ahem..."
Did you read it?
Good. If you're a hero, brace yourself for outrage. If you're a villain, prepare for a whole lot of jealousy.
I got a job for our team. Doesn't matter who gave it, only that it paid well. But someone wanted us to track down Sosan mares who were down on their luck... The kind of ponies who get abandoned by depressed, jobless mates, or who were relying on the city's good fortune to get by before the bust. Anyone who looks like they're barely taking care of themselves, really. And this job was to find as many as possible, get someone to flirt with them, and get them with foal.
Why? I haven't a clue. Maybe it's a cruel prank. If so, it paid well enough for me to put someone on it. Maybe someone's misguided, and thought the attention would be a mercy. To ponies like that? Maybe it was. I can't stand in their horseshoes. Whatever the case, I had a stallion named Shad in the unicorn division I put on that. Don't worry about him; he enjoyed it.
Does anything about that strike you as wrong? Predatory, maybe? When I think about it, it doesn't sit easy with me. So I've tried my best to pick up after the job. I pretend Shad was just living it up, and try to apologize to these mares with obsidian from my stash you undoubtedly discovered. If you need to support yourself and your growing family, and it can give you a talent to help with that, you might give it a look. Besides, I need to get rid of it. It's a win-win for everyone.
Also, some of them just can't care for their young, even with the help of the obsidian. It might have something to do with these strange reports I've gotten of the new brands disappearing. I wonder if this is somehow a defective batch. If I were paranoid, I'd almost suggest this wasn't a coincidence, but giving the obsidian to the mares was my idea, and I don't think the two clients are related.
As I was saying, though. My company has a lot of families on board. It turns out that when you're with a group of fifty-odd ponies who are constantly traveling, you look to them for relationships. We have a nursery and everything to care for our young. So I try my best to follow up with these mothers as long as possible, and if it looks like it can help, take their foals and raise them ourselves. They're half ours, after all. It's our responsibility to clean up after our jobs.
When Gerardo finished that section, Maple looked sick. "White Chocolate was... That was systematic?" she managed. "What she told me about Shad, and how they found each other and he seemed interested despite who she was, and..."
"Hold on, just how many names are on this list?" Valey snatched it from her and poured over it. "Hmm hmm hmmm... Gonna guess one check means they gave the moon glass, and two means they're caring for the foal? Huh. Uh-huh... Wow, there have got to be at least seventy names here. I know you guys are busy being offended, but this Shad guy is one lucky dude."
"Seventy!?" Bourbon paled, and her ears went back. "I can't imagine having even a tenth of that many partners, let alone children. How... how do...?"
Amber shrugged. "Easily. I mean, the concerning part is that someone paid them to do this, right?"
"Did you know about this?" Maple fixed the mercenaries with a glare.
Darkwind nodded. "I knew Kero was finding ponies to give away the obsidian to, and that we were occasionally adding foals of half-Ironridge parentage. It wasn't important for me to know the specifics, and they likely didn't know." He swept a wing at his three comrades.
Rainstorm was looking incredulously at Maple and Amber. "How is the part of this that bothers you that this was a job? Mercenaries do their jobs, and they let the creatures hiring them worry about morals. I just... Seventy different..." She shook her head, looking stunned.
"I said at least seventy, yo," Valey remarked, still scanning the list. "Let me count, here."
Rainstorm exhaled, slumping against a wall.
"We're from Riverfall," Amber said, looking apologetically at her. "For stallions there, that's more or less normal. It's just what everyone is used to, and there's such a huge gender imbalance that stallions who are willing to do that are really rare."
Gerardo cleared his throat, still scanning the will. "I think this is a problem best left to Arambai, regardless," he decided. "We'll bestow this list on him, and let him decide how and whether he wishes to use it in cleaning up and restoring after this week's tragedies. In the meantime, there is one last section of this will..." He tapped the parchment, then looked at Maple and Starlight with a dangerous eye. "Are you quite sure you want to hear it?"
Maple looked warily back. "Is it anything like that one?"
"Well, not exactly..." Gerardo looked uneasily at it, and then began one more time to read.
Still reading? Congratulations. There's one more important thing you should know.
You likely noticed the lone piece of obsidian bound with this letter. That piece is special. I don't know why, but the most valuable job of my entire career has been to take it and keep it as safe as possible. To guard it with my life, and more. That's why I said if you were reading this and I wasn't dead, I might wish I was.
Of course, if I'm dead, do I care what happens to it? Maybe a necromancer could punish me beyond the grave, but I don't care. It's yours now. You get to decide what to do with it.
My advice? Buy yourself an airship ticket to the Griffon Empire. Head straight to the capital, and present this piece to High Prince Gazelle. Explain you got it after my demise. With luck, he'll be so happy to see it safe, he'll grant you whatever your heart desires. And Gazelle is a very powerful person. There's not a lot that's out of his reach.
Of course, you have no reason to trust me, so you could smash it, or throw it in a river and hope it stays lost for a thousand years. Or you could keep it for yourselves. If you know enough dark magic, you could even try to find out what's inside that makes it so special. I don't know, but I know such magic exists. But think about it this way: if I was a petty griffon who wanted to murder my successors, I would have done it by trapping this room, instead of leaving it up to a choice you could make or avoid. This is a stupid way to try to trick you. Ask my company, if they're still alive. They'll tell you I'm smarter than that.
Whatever you do, good luck. Anyone who can defeat me is left with large shoes to fill.
...One other thing. The password to my small safe is Rilla. There's a significant amount of money in there. That's your reward for reading this far.
-Kero
Gerardo and everyone else in the room looked blankly at each other. Eventually, he put down the manuscript to signify that he was done. Still, no one spoke.
"It would seem..." Gerardo coughed into his sleeve, then held up the dangling velvet pouch. "That we have, like it or not, suddenly had another high-value deliver-the-mysterious-item quest thrust upon us, and must now decide what to do."
Maple stomped both forehooves against the polished floor, looking blatantly afraid. "No! Absolutely no! We are not going to the Griffon Empire to deliver a package containing something we don't know to someone we don't know for a reason we don't know just because we can! No!"
"Please, hold your righteous indignation to the end," Gerardo urged, spreading his wings defensively. "I was hardly suggesting we do such a thing. I, for my part, have quite thoroughly learned my lesson regarding tasks like these, and I must admit the parallels to my delivery job that got us into this mess in Ironridge are already eerily similar. It's quite unnerving, even."
"You gotta admit..." Valey scratched her chin with a spoke from a wing. "That is actually kinda weird, even to me. Someone in Yakyakistan gets you to take a weird package to Ironridge... Someone in Ironridge gets you to take a weird package to Griffonland... It said that princely dude could pay whatever, right? And didn't you say that place has access to those pass thingies you were initially working for from Yakyakistan?"
"A Writ of Harmonic Sanction," Gerardo clarified. "And yes, it is my firm understanding that they do. Additionally, in the Empire's current political climate, I find it quite likely that the High Prince would have the power to procure me one. But like I said, it matters not. This is not a matter I fancy sticking my beak in so soon after damaging quite a few new friendships over it. Perhaps some day, but it would be well after we've parted ways on our own terms."
Shinespark was staring thoughtfully at the drawstring bag. "I've been planning to try scaling the mountains to reach the Plains of Harmony, but if none of you want this, I could take it and try to get a pass from this Gazelle griffon myself..."
"Sphinx," Gerardo corrected. "The Griffon Empire imperial family are sphinxes, as are the lords of the foremost noble houses. And if you feel like sticking your horn in such a proverbial bees' nest, I suppose it would hardly be sporting of me to stop you."
Darkwind cleared his throat, standing to the side with Rainstorm and Bourbon. "Officially, this is Starlight's house, so everything in it belongs to her," he grunted. "This is just my advice, but shouldn't you ask her opinion?"
Starlight puffed out her chest, taking advantage of everyone's eyes suddenly being on her. "I don't like this," she proclaimed, striding over and pressing against Maple's side. "I agree with Maple and don't want to go to the Griffon Empire for this or anything else, but especially not to go to Equestria." She glanced at the tiny bag and frowned. "Valey? We'll be safe if we do nothing, right? No one will come after us now because they know we have it, right?"
"Uhh..." Valey scratched the back of her head. "Yeah, assuming this guy is telling the truth, that might not be the safest assumption..."
Darkwind nodded. "As a mercenary company, we frequently are hunted down by creatures who want to skirmish. Some are loud about their reasons, like wanting revenge for a killed family member. Others are mercenaries themselves, hired to fight us. Sometimes we fight lone warriors who only want to test and improve their strength, though those are rare and usually wind up dead or joining our ranks. And sometimes, we're attacked by those who won't share their motives at all. I don't know of anyone who's specifically come for that stone, nor did I know Kero had such a job in the first place. That doesn't mean nobody is watching."
Starlight gulped.
"Hold on, now," Amber protested, lifting a forehoof. "If someone's watching, can we just give this to someone else very visibly, like Arambai, and hope they see? If Kero just stuck us with a magnet for trouble, that's not fair!"
"First off, nah," Valey said, shaking her head and stepping forward. "Say you've got a goon who starts from the beginning of this thing's trail. They figure out this thing has been given to these mercenaries. Figure the big boss dude has it. Try to track down Kero. His trail goes cold here, right? And now his old room is registered to Starlight. They can probably find all that out just from digging through records. I've got a high tolerance for bureaucracies, but I know I could. So then they figure she must have gotten his stuff, if he never had a chance to move out... They could never figure out she gave it away, and just come track her down wherever she is for it."
Starlight felt like she had been punched. "S-So this room was trapped. With that. And now it's like I'm marked, a-and..." It wasn't fair! Why did that stupid, spiteful griffon have to... She glanced at Willow, and Willow met her eye. The world wasn't fair. Starlight sighed, shuddered and exhaled, head drooping. "It's not fair."
"Okay, hold up. No angsting." Valey quickly strolled over, patting Starlight's head with a wing and taking center stage. "When I said someone could do that... that's only what would happen if you take this letter at totally face value. Which I don't. I'm reasonably sure whatever this thing is, nobody actually asked him to guard it or even cares, but we'll get to that. First off: does anyone think it's weird that this Kero dude would be such a good sport about losing? He's basically like, 'Hey, congrats, you wrecked me, let's be bros, have a nice day.' I mean, who does that?" She raised an eyebrow at the mercenaries. "Is Kero the kind of dude who would do that? Never actually met him."
"Darkwind?" Rainstorm glanced up. "You knew him best..."
Darkwind nodded. "Kero was... enigmatic. He had to be, since it was his job to manage our jobs and be the link and barrier between us and our employers. Thanks to him, we never knew who was hiring us or why. It helps with some of the emotional issues around fighting and sometimes killing for money. Of course, that also meant we never knew when he was lying or not. With him, it almost didn't matter. He kept our pay coming, our ship afloat, our team together and our lives intact, and that was important enough for us to ignore how he did it in payment. Maybe he was a simple griffon who wanted nothing more than our well-being. Maybe he was a schemer who was involved in more than we can imagine. I'm sure he was capable of it. So whether that letter is straight-faced or a manipulation, I can't even tell."
"Sounds almost like Arambai," Amber remarked. "Weird and mysterious, but definitely on your side. Right?"
"Ohhh..." Maple whined, tugging on her mane. "I hate this..."
"Maple?" Willow nudged her, concerned.
"It's just like at that breakfast meeting on the airship," Maple said, eyes hollow. "We're going to get worried, start guessing what someone we don't know is up to, do something rash, and-"
"We're not!" Shinespark snapped. "It's all right. Calm down. We're..." She bit back a sigh. "I think a lot about that meeting too, and this is nothing like that. No civilians are involved, there's no immediate action we need to take, there's no immediate action we can take even if we wanted to, and unless I remember that letter wrong, no one's even threatened us. Kero offered this as a way we could get rich, not a way we would be in danger, didn't he? So if you take that at face value, it's not likely to mean trouble for us. Additionally, nothing about this needs to be kept secret, and if there is a danger, the more ponies know about this, the less danger any of us will be in. If it's common knowledge we don't want anything to do with this, any bad actors would realize they could just pick this thing up from wherever we leave it and there would be nothing worth silencing."
Maple grimaced. "I know what you're saying, but my brain is tuning it out because this kind of logic and rationalization is... Sorry. This shouldn't be anything I can't..."
Starlight watched her helplessly, wracking her memory for some fix-all solution they could use. If only problems like worry and regret could be fixed as easily as the windigoes, with a blast of energy from an exploding filly or a magic tree... a magic tree... She narrowed her eyes, catching onto an idea.
"Shinespark?" she asked, stepping forward. "Do you think you could take me and Maple back down to..." She looked at the mercenaries, suddenly remembering she didn't know how much they knew. "I can talk about important things in front of these guys?"
Darkwind nodded. "The four of us have been briefed on a lot of things and sworn to confidentiality with Arambai, including Braen's identity, the flight function of Shinespark's brand, and the energy source beneath the Flame District. He also told us to leave if you wanted to discuss anything we shouldn't be privy to."
"Oh." Starlight looked awkwardly between them. "Well... that flame down there had this weird effect where it calms you and makes you feel more peaceful... at least for me. So I was wondering if you could take me and Maple back down there, because if this is worrying, maybe that could help."
"If we can go too," Amber requested, leaning against the couch. "I'd like to see this place for myself, and not leave you alone." Willow nodded along with her.
Shinespark scanned them with her eyes, mentally sizing up their weights. "I think I can lift the four of you at once without trouble. It will be slower, but we can. Besides, I'd like to see this place for myself, and didn't get to last time." A hint of a smile graced her lips. "Does everyone think that's a good idea? There's no urgency to this, so we can think about what to do with the obsidian later?"
Maple still looked nervous, but nodded her head.
Rainstorm stepped forward. "Would it be wise to take any of us with you? We've been there before, at Arambai's request, so we know the way. And having more than one flier with you could be important."
"Smart," Valey remarked. "You should take her up on it."
Starlight tilted her head. "You're not coming too?"
"Eh... I could, but..." Valey glanced around the central room of Kero's house. "I kinda figure while you all are taking a de-stressor vacation would be a good time for me, Birdo and whoever else to do our guessing on what Kero's up to. Some of us actually enjoy that, you know. Besides, I've been down below plenty of times, and those pegasi are stupidly tough. I dunno what you're going to fight in an abandoned mine, but if they can clear me out, you should be in good hooves."
"Abandoned mineshafts in traditional storytelling actually make fine breeding grounds for monsters," Gerardo remarked, raising a talon. "Fortunately, it's only been a few days, and this is real life as opposed to a fantastical tale penned by a basement dweller with an overactive imagination, so that should be far less of a concern than..." He blinked. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
"Stop tempting faaate..." Valey moaned, rubbing her face with a hoof.
Starlight snorted. "If there are any monsters, I can trap them in crystal and we can fly or teleport out. But there won't be, so it doesn't matter!"
"Even I'm not that worried," Maple said, managing a smile. "We'll be fine. Though it probably would be a good idea for the pegasi to come along?"
Darkwind nodded. "I know Kero best, so I'll stay. Rainstorm? Bourbon?"
Both mares saluted with their wings, walking over to the group that was leaving.
"Have fun..." Valey waved lazily, flopping onto the freshly-vacated couch.
"...Cool," Valey said, checking to ensure the door could be opened from the inside after Starlight and her friends had departed. Only her, Gerardo, Darkwind and Harshwater remained, and the latter was busy loafing like a queen atop a mountain constructed of confiscated portraits. "So, about this will."
Gerardo nodded. "Indeed. I think it's safe to assume none of us trust this Kero's intentions as entirely straightforward and innocent?"
Darkwind shook his head. "It's possible. I wouldn't assume it if I were you."
"Right. You know what's weird, though..." Valey took the letter, scanning it over and over and frowning as she read. "Okay. Let's assume worst-case for a minute, that Kero is a sneaky sneakster and is totally up to something. Pretend every last word here is part of a secret agenda." She tapped a paragraph and looked up, eyes serious. "Then what's with this part about all these mares?"
"Might you read it again?" Gerardo requested, tilting his head.
Valey shrugged. "Eh, the part where he went on about some client paying him to have this dude go seduce a bunch of sad, lonely mares, and then he did contraband philanthropy work trying to make it up to them. Let's say Kero's up to something. Why is this bit here?"
"...I can't quite parse what you mean," Gerardo said. "Why is it there?"
"That's what I'm asking." Valey put the paper down. "Assuming he's a straightforward good guy with a conscience weighing on his shoulders, it makes sense that he'd want his messes taken care of when he was gone. And mess might be weak wording for this kind of thing. But assume he's got some hidden motive, and suddenly I have no idea what it might be. Like... what could you gain from this?" She glanced between the mercenaries. "He assumes he'll be dead, so it would have to affect something he cares about, instead. Helping friends or hurting enemies. But the ponies he's asking us to help here are these mares, and if that was his primary goal for any reason other than the goodness of his heart and conflicting with his job and exactly what he said in the letter..." She took a breath. "Seems like it would've been far easier to help them by not taking the job, to me. So if we try to make things nice here, what changes between that case and him never taking the job at all? I don't get what he's after, and figuring that out could help us understand what's going on with this delivery quest thing."
"This method distributes the obsidian among the Ironridge populace," Darkwind said. "It could involve creating a market for the substance, since Ironridge completely lacks that. If you assume he's lying about everything, you should question when he says having the obsidian here has nothing to do with this plan to give it away."
"Aww, Kero's not doing that..." Harshwater pouted. "Didn't you hear in the letter how the obsidian brands were fading away and not staying properly? If he wanted to get this place hooked on anything, he'd use real stuff, and something like that should be easy enough to check, right?"
Valey nodded. "Yup. Ironflanks was hanging around with one of those mares for a while, and she had that happen to her. The weird moon glass bit is definitely true."
Harshwater made a chewing motion with her mouth. "See? Besides, it's hard to get this stuff into Ironridge, and it sells for a huge amount outside the city. You'd have to be an idiot to try and create a marker where it's hard to reach when there's a perfectly good one called the rest of the world right there. And Kero's not an idiot."
"Points well taken," Gerardo acknowledged. "But then, this does nothing to solve our original dilemma."
"Yeah." Valey looked back at the letter. "The only other thing I can see that's different between us doing what he says and not taking the job in the first place is all these foals. Like, apparently this job of his was to specifically get all these mares knocked up? And he's offering to bring the foals back to you guys to raise and take care of, if the mares can't handle it themselves. And since this description makes it look like they're targeting mares who would specifically be bad at raising families..." She looked up. "You guys usually don't know who your employers are, right? What are the odds Kero gave you this job himself, and whatever payoff he's going for is you getting a boatload of foals for your nursery thing? Any reason he'd want to give you a pile of half-siblings as a posthumous funeral present?"
"He could've..." Harshwater sounded unenthusiastic. "We do raise our foals to join our company, most of the time. My parents are some of the older members, though we did only join when I was six, so I wasn't born here. But raising foals is a lot of work, and I don't think we're equipped to deal with seventy extra. Besides, what would that accomplish? We need a new leader and an airship to keep up our careers as mercenaries, not more members who won't be able to fight for fifteen years. I don't know what good giving us those foals would do us. Maybe Kero's actually being straightforward?"
Valey held her breath, gingerly examining the letter one more time. "Yeah, he... he might be. I suppose he really could just care about the losers from this weird job. Still, I guess he could have added this just because there's no way to make it look... well, worse than normal for a mercenary? So we give him the benefit of the doubt with this delivery?"
Harshwater frowned. "Who comes up with the plan to make a ton of poor ponies preggers just so you can say, 'Look! I'm innocent'? If he was evil and wanted to prove he was good, wouldn't he brag about something much more normal? And just to be clear, I think he feels bad for the mares and really wants to help them."
"Who comes up with a plan to do that?" Valey raised an eyebrow, then waved a hoof. "Not a smart question to ask. For all I know, that turns someone on. In fact, I'd bet you a grapefruit it does. But I wasn't saying Kero made this job up so he could have something innocent-sounding to talk about his good intentions with. I'm starting to think maybe this story's completely truthful and he just really does want to help them. Not seeing how anything bad could come of it, at least. Which means..."
She nodded to Gerardo, checking if they were on the same page. He finished for her: "Perhaps Kero is of the sneaky sort, yet with intentions that are neutral or benevolent as opposed to evil or purely for personal gain?" He raised an eyebrow, and she nodded. "What if we look at this delivery and assume a broader range of outcomes than those that focus exclusively on us?"
Valey hummed. "Yeah... Let's say for a moment Kero doesn't actually care about us. Hey, maybe he assumes whoever's reading this isn't necessarily whoever did him in, which in this case, it isn't. What if delivering or not delivering this thing has no effect on us, but does on someone else? Imagine that he's gone, he leaves no records, and suddenly we show up on that princely dude's doorstep with this, knowing basically nothing except what he said to do with it? If Kero's dead, there'd be no way to get a better source than us. What if the whole point of this is to, like... get revenge on someone else?"
Darkwind blinked in interest. "Like whatever client sent him on the mission that got him killed?"
"Precisely." Valey clicked her wing spokes together, producing a satisfying snap. "What if, say, he was hired by that prince to do stuff in Ironridge, croaked here, and set up a plan to get him back that would only activate in a case like this, where he died? Imagine this moon glass having connections or connotations to something in the Empire that would land the prince in huge trouble just for receiving it? Maybe an implication that he was working for or with someone else, or..." She clicked her tongue. "Maybe he's a neutral party, but this is evidence of some sort this Gazelle could use to implicate someone else? A past collaborator Kero no longer likes, or something?"
Harshwater smiled smugly, ineffectually blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Kero would definitely do that."
"Hmm." Valey looked one more time at the pouch, then rolled it aside. "I suppose he could also be telling the truth and legitimately have a job to keep this safe. But that worries me of why, and unlike with those mares, I can't think of a single good reason why someone would want to take a piece of moon glass and put it under that much protection. Unless..." She stared for a second, then shook her head. "Nah. It couldn't be her. This is for someone in the Griffon Empire, not Yakyakistan."
"Who?" Gerardo blinked politely.
"Uhhhhh..." Valey bristled, then forced the fur on her back back down. "Sorry. Not important. Point is, moon glass is bad news, ponies doing things with moon glass is worse news, and something being inside a piece of moon glass that's both known to someone and different from your average alien parasitic cutie mark is so much nope that real villains basically have to be involved. Something with this job is up to no good... and here's the thing. Let's say this is a trap. Pretend someone either comes murderously looking for this particular piece of glass, or we take it to this Gazelle and he somehow knows it's a signal to deliver vengeance on us. How are they going to know? If this is just a regular piece of moon glass... Like, the stuff's rare, but not that rare. You'd probably get dozens of false positives on who we actually are, or else rely on flags to find us that have nothing to do with this glass, making it redundant to put it here. That means it has to be different somehow. And that means something bad has to be involved."
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, it supposedly could be an empty delivery and the act of telling High Prince Gazelle we have a package for him protected in the name of Kero would be enough to bring down whatever wrath is in store."
"Yeah, but there would be easier ways to get us to be in a situation where someone could get revenge on us like that," Valey pointed out. "Like he said, trapping this room itself. And don't forget that there's no way he could be sure the ones who found this were actually the ones he wanted revenge on. Nah... I'm thinking there must legit be something different or bad about this moon glass, and that means it's more likely he's using whatever poor fools like us wander into his room first to deliver it."
"Wonderful," Gerardo remarked. "The object we have been tasked with delivering is likely accursed. The only question that remains is whether the option most beneficial to society as a whole is to deliver it or consign it to the shadows and let it remain there forevermore."
"Just saying," Harshwater said, lifting a foreleg, "Nobody knows where Kero went, but he's probably not dead. So he might have left this and figured he'd still be alive for whatever someone did with it."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "Well, this changes things. I can't believe I didn't put that together myself. You don't suppose Herman perishing was the trigger for any of this, do you?"
"It's possible." Valey shrugged. "I think it's a given Herman wasn't the only dude Kero was doing jobs in Ironridge for. Can't see him giving this weird mare harassment thing. Maybe Kero got in just as far over his head as me and Sparky and everyone else?" Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. When, exactly, is the last time you guys had contact with Kero?"
Darkwind nodded at Harshwater's stack of paintings. "It would have been when he sent us down to the Flame District to ambush you. It should be a given that was Herman's order. We haven't seen him since we were teleported out."
"Huh..." Valey tapped her chin. "You know, now that I think about it, Herman denied sending you after me and said I must have made some other enemy. Not the kind of thing I'd question, usually. But Herman let me go after that, so he really might not have been trying to off me..." She closed her eyes. "Weird. Guess I do just have random, anonymous enemies laying around. Not that I didn't know that, or anything. But as I was saying... I wonder if Kero sensed Ironridge being about to explode, bailed, and this is his backup plan?"
"How so?" Gerardo tilted his head.
"Like this." Valey picked back up the drawstring bag. "Let's say this is important, and he actually is protecting it for someone. He's forced to evacuate and gives up the city as a lost cause, and either can't or doesn't grab this on his way out. So if we deliver this, we'll have gotten him out of a jam, and if we don't trust it and do nothing, he can come back once things have died down, be all 'Bwah ha ha, did you think I was dead!?' and just ask for his glass back, and of course we'll give it to him because we don't want to hang onto a potential trouble magnet. Boom, just saved his rear again. And he might figure we'd be smart enough not to smash it, because then if anyone comes looking for it and we just want to live in peace but can't just hoof it over... yeah, you know?"
Darkwind cleared his throat. "It's worth noting that if you keep the obsidian, but don't do anything with it, there's no way you could get in more trouble than if you destroyed it, barring unknown magic from the stone itself. If you destroy it, you run the risk of any searchers who would otherwise be peaceful turning hostile. There's a small chance the fate of the world is at stake and destroying it could foil someone's evil plan, but that's a risk you run every time you do even minorly significant things. Unless you can see the future, you just can't know about these things."
Valey tugged on the strings of the bag. "I mean... my cutie mark sort of lets me see the future? I can tell if something's lethal to the touch, at least." She dropped the moon glass into her hooves. Sleek and black, it was cold to the touch. "This thing isn't, for instance. And if it contains a bigger eldritch horror than has already been unleashed on the world, it sure isn't saying harm to me now. In fact..." She sniffed it. "Meh. Smells like jealousy. They all do. I dunno, sometimes I feel like I can smell differences between various pieces, but it's probably just in my head." Glancing at her pendant, she hesitated and added, "Technically... we could find out what's in there..."
Harshwater's eyes widened. "Woah, you can do that? Kero's letter said that took impossible magic."
"What can I say? I'm an impossible mare." Valey put on a seductive grin, but really wasn't feeling it. Eventually, her shoulders slumped, and she looked down. "So it's sounding like the best course of action is to keep this thing safe, but not do anything with it, and if anyone comes looking for it we see if we can give it to them and let everyone go on with their lives, and fight if they don't think that's good enough. For all those mares, we... I seriously dunno what to do with that. Ask Arambai to help, I guess. I really don't see how it can lead to anything bad."
"Who was it who reprimanded me about tempting fate earlier?" Gerardo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, yeah, good point." Valey rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure he's right that someone thought it would make a great prank, and then he mentioned it just to butter us up and get us to think he was a good guy. Or because he really feels for them and wants to help. I dunno." She deflated, sinking deeper into the couch, her muzzle getting buried in a crack between two cushions. "Hey, did you check that combination he gave for another safe?"
"Yep." Harshwater nodded. "Found it right over there. All the money's in griffon, so you can't use it here without an exchange, but there was a lot of it. Nothing wrong with taking freely-offered money, right?" She pointed a wing in emphasis.
Gerardo happily grinned. "I certainly can't see a reason why not. Though, as Starlight accepted the ownership of this house, it technically belongs to her, so we should probably seek her approval before wasting it idly on frivolities and high living."
Harshwater's ears snapped upright. "So, lighter subjects! What do griffons like you do for fun, Gerardo? Kero broods a lot, and every time I try to get him to hang out, I get ignored."
Gerardo eyed her. "Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but do you have a thing for this Kero?"
Harshwater slowly lowered her gaze to look at the painting stack she was reclining on like a dragon's hoard, then back up at Gerardo. "It's that obvious, you think?"
"As I said, forgive me." Gerardo shuffled awkwardly. "But I have the impression Kero is from the Empire, yes?"
Darkwind nodded. "From things he's said here and there, yes. He doesn't speak about his life there, though."
"Mmm. Regrettable." Gerardo looked back at Harshwater. "Well, I'm unfamiliar with your familiarity level with the Empire, but in case you weren't aware, the culture there is... moderately against inter-species relationships, barring the sphinx royals. If you're asking me for courtship advice, I would first start by ensuring that's not a problem you're being stymied by. And I apologize if I just turned an attempt at light conversation into a darker subject."
Harshwater stared down at her collection of paintings, thought... and huffed. "I didn't know that. I guess he never got the old 'forbidden means fun' talk, then..." She glared at the portraits, brain spinning with plans behind her eyes.
Darkwind nodded at her. "Right. You weren't there for our last Griffon Empire deployment..." He turned back to Gerardo and Valey. "It sounds like we've reached a consensus on what to do. I'll back you up if you tell Maple and Starlight everything is taken care of, and that we figured out what's going on and they don't need to know. Who wants to take care of the stone?"
"Eh, I can." Valey shrugged, trying to fit it back into its bag. "I'll have warning if anyone tries to snipe me for it. Now just... argh, this bag is small...!"
Her hooves fumbled, and the glass popped free from her grasp, bouncing and skittering away from the floor. "Argh!" she pouted, punching the bag as Darkwind knelt to pick it up, returning the black stone held in his wing.
"Cool, thanks." Valey grabbed it and looked back at the bag. "Now this thing's gotten turned inside-out. Oh well. It... Wait..." She trailed off, eyes narrowing. "There's something written on the inside of this bag."
"Oh?" Immensely curious, Gerardo pressed his beaked face near to hers, trying to read as well.
"Hey, back off, Birdo. I don't want a kiss." Valey pushed him away with a wing. "Sorry. Only mares get this close to my headspace, unless I'm headbutting you in a fight. Now, uhh... Wow, what's this written in? The writing is really bad..." She squinted. "Puddles?"
"Puddles?" Harshwater looked up from her brooding, one ear flopping over as she tilted her head.
"Ninety percent sure that's what it says," Valey said with a shrug. "Unless this E is actually an O, in which case it's Puddols, but that doesn't make much sense. Doesn't make sense anyway, but... you know."
Gerardo continued peering with interest, from a more respectable distance this time. "Interesting. I wonder if it's the brand or name of the bag manufacturer?"
Valey stuck out her tongue. "Meh. I was hoping some villain was dumb and gave us a clue as to what it was for, but that would be dumb and your way's more likely. I sure hope you're right, because a pony called Puddles would automatically be adorable. Here. Use your griffon hands and put this back in its bag for me."
As Gerardo delicately manipulated the undersized bag, Darkwind spoke up. "Your friends will probably be some time before they return, and I'm sure Harshwater is going to want to take her prizes back to our new compound. If you want to come with us and visit, it'll probably be more entertaining than sitting around here for a few hours. It's a long way to the Shadow District, after all. And, we could show you the nursery, if you'd like to see for yourselves the foals we've gotten with Ironridge mothers."
"I can't say for certain that would allow us to discern the job's purpose, and it in fact seems unlikely it would, but who am I to deny an invitation?" Gerardo beamed. "Admiral Valey? Are you in as well?"
"Eh, why not?" Valey shrugged. "For all I know, you'll get in trouble and need me to bail you out. Let's go!"
Starlight ran of hoof against the chalky, bumpy film that coated the walls of the Shadow District's underground palace, pressing hard enough that it cracked and chipped off, revealing flawless, translucent pink crystal beneath. The castle's aura swirled about her, in the silent air and featureless liquid she couldn't feel that rippled around her hooves, pressing gently on her heart like a giant, comforting wave.
She had no doubt by now that the tree flame and its magic were benevolent, even if it had nearly torn Maple apart when she used it to attack the mercenaries in the Flame District. It coated her doubts and her worries, and though they didn't vanish, they were muffled, like a louder voice was speaking over them and whispering that things would be okay. Starlight let herself believe it. She had suggested they go down there for the magic's peace, after all.
"Woah..." Amber's head constantly craned about the rooms and corridors, taking in the magically-constructed architecture, Willow at her side but walking on her own for the moment. "I've got that to say about all of Ironridge, but this place feels... ancient."
"I wonder who made it," Willow murmured. "Or how. It feels like what I always imagined a castle to..."
Maple wore a conflicted look, her mouth tugged into a frown, and Starlight saw it and nudged her. "There's nothing bad down here, remember?" She bumped her head against Maple's shoulder. "You can relax here. That's why we're here."
"It's so strange," Maple whispered, low enough that only Starlight could hear. "I can feel the tree, like it's whispering to me and telling me to be calm. This only felt like a normal cave the first time I was down here. I didn't know what you were talking about, about the magic being calming, and just came because I wanted to get away from that conversation, but I can feel it this time. I wonder why..."
Shinespark's ears perked. "Feel what?" she asked, hovering to keep her cast free from the pool that coated the floor. "You can feel it too? It feels like I'm being held by something. Like Arambai from when I was a foal, and he'd fix trouble I'd get myself into. There was this time when me and Dior put a chili pepper in the water cooler as a prank, and..."
"Is this not normal?" Amber glanced between Starlight and Maple. "You talked about how much magic was down here, and so when I started to feel something, I assumed I should. It's relaxing. I feel like I could take a nap down here."
"Me too," Willow hummed.
"It's... not normal." Now it was Starlight's turn to frown. "I forgot about it, but when we were first here only me and Valey could feel the magic, remember? And now everyone can?" She blinked at the hovering Shinespark. "And you can use your horn! Before, none of us could, and eventually the tree let me use mine but still stopped everyone else! Did something change?"
The mercenary pegasi, Rainstorm and Bourbon, were leading the way, but Rainstorm turned around and nodded. "Actually, Ironridge has had a few large-scale magical changes since the storm. The wind barrier between the lower and upper districts has vanished, and hasn't reappeared. Maybe it will with time, but so far everything has been more temperate. The Stone District hasn't really changed, but the Earth District is much cooler and the Sky District a lot warmer. You might have noticed the lack of snow drifts when you arrived. Either way, if this weather change is permanent, something must have happened to the area's underlying magical energy."
"Which would probably be this place..." Shinespark finished for her, suddenly self-conscious about her hovering. "I wonder what it could be?"
"Everyone's agreed it was the windigoes," Bourbon said with a smile, basking in the crystal palace's atmosphere. "It makes sense, doesn't it? Mmm... I know if I couldn't feel this before, I'm grateful for the change. The aura here makes me feel so full. It's wonderful."
Starlight exhaled. It could also have been the yaks' creepy contraption, but she had destroyed that. "You said you've been down here before, while we were gone?" She tilted her head at the leading pegasi. "Was it like this then, too?"
"You mean could we feel it?" Bourbon tilted her head back. "Yes, we could. None of us were here before the storm, though."
"Speaking of which, it's not that far to the tree," Rainstorm added, passing through another ornamental archway.
Everyone emerged into the domed room Starlight associated with being directly above the tree chamber. Its crystal table stood sparkling in the middle, and Shinespark's eyes lit up as she floated over. "What's this?" she mused, daring to poke it with a hoof and breaking into a foalish smile as the colored dots on the surface shifted with her touch.
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged, walking past, eyeing the strange pattern on the table as Shinespark eagerly poked it again. The dots were arranged in an equilateral triangle, with a hexagon inscribed minimally inside it and a single dot at the center of that. "Valey liked it."
"That's the Emblem of the Nine Virtues," Rainstorm quickly explained, flapping her wings and hovering above the table. "Or it would be, if you added lines. It's an important part of Yakyakistan's theology. Finding it depicted in a place this old and powerful would probably excite a lot of scholars and theologians back in the capital, Infinite Glacier. And for anyone who doesn't believe, like the griffons, this should provide substantial evidence that the faith is true."
"I never understood," Shinespark muttered, poking at the glyph, "why you call it the Nine Virtues, but the symbol has ten dots."
Rainstorm bit her lip. Bourbon happily shrugged. "We're mercenaries, not scholars."
"The Emblem of the Nine Virtues? Yakyakistan's religion?" Amber looked at the table with a new appreciation. "I've never heard of either. How do they work?"
Rainstorm cleared her throat. "The Nine Virtues are a set of traits that, when fully embodied, will lead to a perfect and utopic world. The first six are called personal virtues, are also known as the Elements of Harmony, and are expressible by individual ponies and others. They're like building blocks that you start with. Those who embody them perfectly are the ones who drive our world and change it for the better. The last three are called societal virtues. If the personal virtues are what we start with, being expressed in individuals, the societal virtues are the end goal. They can be championed by individuals just like the others, but seeing them embodied by an entire civilization will cause that society to reach the pinnacle of possible existence. The personal virtues are loyalty, generosity, kindness, honesty and laughter, and the societal ones are hope, love and knowledge."
Amber watched with an open mouth, and Willow nodded serenely. Maple, though, lifted a hoof. "That was only five personal ones," she protested.
Rainstorm nodded. "The sixth virtue is called the Spark. You could say its trait is bringing together the other five into a team of six, because together, the Elements are far more powerful than they are alone. But what is more technically accurate is that it is any trait that will allow an embodier to do that. Leadership, for example. Justice, compassion, tenacity... Lives are complex things, and no matter how pious or devoted, a creature will always be made up of far more than whatever virtue they try to model their life around. The Spark takes that into account, and manifests as whatever a team of individuals needs most to stay together."
"Huh." Amber leaned against the table, looking impressed. "So, like... six ponies or yaks or griffons or whatever will just get together, decide who is which, try to be honest or whatever, and it will somehow make them stronger or more powerful?"
"That's the idea!" Bourbon replied, looking hopeful.
"...Sort of." Rainstorm held her back with a wing. "There's real magic involved in the legends, but it isn't a matter of modeling your lives after heroes in the hope of being rewarded with power. Ponies live this way because they want to be closer to an ideal world. And that doesn't involve everyone living in sixes, either. A pony who respects the virtues and makes an effort to be kind to travelers and not to lie to their neighbors is just as good as a yak who devotes themselves to never betraying a cause they've promised themselves to, who is no better or worse than a griffon who manages to form a team with five others who live for their virtues. Those who can do that are exceptionally rare. Though, the kind of trust and dedication needed to be in a team like that, combined with being honorable and dedicated to doing good, and the innate virtue of the virtues themselves frequently makes those kinds of creatures exceptional heroes, supernatural help or not. It's often said that if there were a group who embodied the Elements and was granted power for it on a divine level, it would be a sign that the fate of the world itself was changing."
Bourbon likewise smiled in appreciation. "How do you know so much, Rainstorm? I don't think I could even get the names of all the virtues right."
"I studied." Rainstorm shrugged. "I took a lot of night nursery shifts after I had my foal. We only had two foals who couldn't make it through the night without waking, then, so I couldn't sleep but there wasn't anything to constantly do. And I listened to our elders last time we were in Infinite Glacier."
"You have a foal?" Amber tilted her head, curious. "I suppose you did mention having a nursery back in the tower, but I dunno. My idea of mercenaries has always been more... you know... Wham! Pow!" She punched at the air a few times, unsteadying herself and nearly falling over before catching herself with an embarrassed smile. "You know?"
"A colt. Almost six. His name is Swift..." Rainstorm touched the bridge of her muzzle and groaned. "This is reminding me that I need to get Darkwind back for the skyport..."
"We're more than just a band of fighters," Bourbon said brightly. "We're a community! And raising families doesn't stop us from fighting or doing our jobs, so long as we help each other. See?"
Before anyone could react, there was a puff of wind, and Bourbon seized Amber in a flashy suplex, flipping on her back but stopping before the throw. "See?" she repeated brightly. "I could have tossed you all the way to the far wall, and I'm working on my first foal right now. Not far enough for it to be showing, but..."
Starlight tuned her out at the sound of an exhale coming from beside her. "Maple?" she asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Hi, Starlight," Maple said with a defeated smile. "I suppose I should just live with the fact that ponies all around me are going to be reminding me of this forever, shouldn't I?"
"I guess?" Starlight shrugged back. "We are down here for a break, after all. Can you just... I don't know..."
"Not worry about it?" Maple's smile strengthened. "It's easier here. I don't know. Do you want to go down to the flame room while everyone is talking here?"
"Uhh... Bourbon?" Amber's voice drifted over from where the other ponies were. "You don't have to, but could you let me go? The way you're holding me is making me kind of hot..."
Starlight gave them a glance, then nodded. "Yeah. Let's go down there."
In the central chamber of the hollow crystal tree, the pink flame burned in its prismatic brazier, sparkles rising with the tongues of flame as it shimmered welcomingly. The blaze tinkled with pleasant warmth, and Starlight got the impression it was glad to see her.
"I wasn't very happy the last time I came down here..." Maple closed her eyes, stuck a hoof out, touched the flame, and smiled. "Hmm. That feels like forever ago."
"Yeah," Starlight said, sitting and watching the flame. She didn't need to touch it; the room's power already completely enveloped her, and she could feel her horn bubbling with unspent energy. It almost felt like she needed to address the flame, too.
"I might take a nap," Maple murmured, laying down against the base of the flame pedestal. "If you don't mind. I'm suddenly... so drowsy... and it feels safe..."
Starlight nodded, putting a hoof on her shoulder. She wasn't tired, but if Maple found it peaceful, she could do as she pleased. She watched Maple drift off, and in seconds the mare was contentedly slumbering with a smile on her face.
Hello, Starlight Glimmer.
Starlight jumped. Yelled, almost, but a soft force stole the sound from her breath, reminding her that Maple was sleeping. She spun around several times, noticing that a lattice of crystal vines had suddenly covered the entrance. Every sound in the room had vanished, save for the shimmering of the fire, which was now magnified a hundredfold.
Don't freak out, the flame said, and Starlight was sure it was the flame. I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you before you left Ironridge. The door is just blocked so nobody interrupts. And don't worry about Maple, either. I made a special dream, just for her, and she's happy. You don't mind, right? So can we talk?
Starlight blankly worked her jaw, a thousand responses warring in her mind. Eventually, she went with, "You sound really casual for an ancient flame spirit."
Doest thou prefer us to speak like this? the flame asked. Really, Starlight, I can do whatever makes you comfortable.
"...Okay. So what's the point?" Starlight frowned. "Why are you talking to me? This is weird."
Lots of reasons. Mostly, I'm worried about you. I like ponies. I like helping ponies, and I don't like it when they're hurting. And I've tried my best to help you, but it's not enough. I don't understand what it will take, Starlight. I want to know how to help you.
Starlight screwed up her face. "Huh?"
I've soothed your worries and tried to take away your stress, the flame told her. I did my best to strengthen you and fix the hole in your magic system. I protected Maple from being destroyed when she was overexposed to the harmonic energies here. I guided the two of you back here after you risked yourself to destroy the windigoes, and put your unraveled body back together. I even changed parts of the castle here to help you get in and out. But as hard as I've tried, you're trying to settle for living in a town you don't like, with ponies who don't like you and a mother you treat like a little sister who can't make peace with her past. I feel bad for you, Starlight. You've been through so much bad stuff. So how can I help you?
"I..." Starlight gulped. "I like Riverfall. And Maple is my mother! And..." She blinked. "Hold on. When I was out, after the windigoes... Did you show me that vision? The weird gray one with an older Valey and those monsters, where it was snowing?"
The flame shimmered unhappily. ...That was something that exists to be forgotten, and you weren't shown it by design or choice. Please forget about it.
Starlight narrowed her eyes.
Starlight, have you ever noticed what you've done? The flame paused, as if hoping she would think about it. You crossed an uncrossable mountain range. Don't think it hasn't been tried before. Then you came to Ironridge and defeated a pack of legendary monsters that once destroyed an entire civilization. When you want something, I think you're unstoppable. But I don't want you to want anything. I'd like for you to be happy and at peace, Starlight. Enjoying your life, not feeling like you need to fight for every last good thing you have. But if you can get anything if you try hard enough, and you can't settle for anything less than perfect, you'll never get there. You'll keep getting closer and closer, and never stop or let yourself be happy. I'm trying my best, but I don't know how to help you be content.
"Well, you just told me you didn't think Riverfall was that great," Starlight remarked, pointing a hoof at the flame. "I know it's not perfect! I know a lot of the mares there don't trust me or feel weird around me. But I'm going to like it and make myself be happy with it, because it's where Maple's friends are and it's where Maple wants to live! I don't get it. Are you telling me I should keep doing what I did in Equestria and try to improve it or find somewhere better, or are you telling me to forget about what I want and learn to be happy with what I have?"
...It sounds like you get my problem, the flame said. Both. And neither. I want you to be happy, Starlight, but it seems like no matter what you do, that's impossible! And I'm already helping you as much as I can...
"...Oh." Starlight folded her ears. "I guess that makes sense."
I don't know what to do, the flame admitted. I just want to be kind to you. I wish I could help you more. That's what I wanted to talk about. If you have any ideas or ways I could help you, please let me know.
Starlight shrugged. "I don't even know what a weird flame spirit is capable of. What kinds of things can you even do?"
I can talk to you and give advice.
"Well, that's... useful?" Starlight tried to look as pleased as possible. "I just want to live with my friends and not constantly be fighting or in trouble."
Or put on a pedestal as if you're better than everyone. Or feared because you are stronger than everyone. Or ignored entirely, because then you get lonely. When was the last time you laughed, Starlight?
"I..." Starlight looked at the floor. "I don't remember."
She could physically feel the flame's sadness. Compelled to defend herself, she added, "It's hard to find things funny when you're trying not to die of hypothermia in the mountains! Or while armed bad guys are hunting you and your mother in Ironridge, okay!?"
I know. I told you, you've been through a lot of terrible things. You deserve to be helped. Starlight, I really want to help you.
"Can't you... like... use your weird emotion powers, or...?"
The flame danced and sparkled, almost like it was shaking its head. I can sooth your worries and tell you everything will be okay. You and your friend needed it, pretty badly. I'm probably one of the best ones you could have gotten in Ironridge. But I can't give you joy. That's Laughter's job.
"Laughter?" Starlight squinted. "Didn't that pegasus just say that was a virtue, or something?"
An Element of Harmony. This represents Kindness. There are trees for all of them, somewhere in the world. If you wanted, you could go find the others. We all like helping ponies, and would try to help you, too. But relying on magic that's thousands of years old to give yourself peace is... Well, it's something you would do, but maybe you should see a therapist instead? Those do exist, you know.
Starlight blinked, an idea catching in her brain. "Do you know where the others are? Laughter, specifically?"
Equestria.
"Oh." Starlight's ears fell, that idea falling flat on its face. That was definitely off the table.
I told you this isn't a good idea for how to help yourself, the flame admonished, sounding slightly exasperated. You're just a pony. Most ponies don't even need this much ancient magic to live happy, fulfilling lives, though you're admittedly not like most ponies. It's in my nature to help you, but even I'm starting to feel run a little ragged, here. Can you do me a favor, Starlight?
Starlight swallowed, not sure where she wanted to take this conversation and still adjusting to the fact that she was having it in the first place. "What?"
The flame might as well have nodded. I'm just a big old tree in a hole in Ironridge. I can only talk to you here, and not reach you at all in Riverfall. I know you're going to go back there. I know you're going to try to be satisfied, and I don't think it will work. But some day... I bet that some day, you'll reach a point where giving up and living with something that should be better will actually be better than the price you'd have to pay for fighting for what you want. Will you remember that, and when that day comes, will you give up and try your best to be happy with what you have? I don't want you to be struggling forever...
"...Maybe." Starlight frowned, then looked away. "It depends. Some day. Not if it hurts my friends."
It won't be today, the flame assured. And I can't see the future. This is just a guess. But some day, if you want to be content and at peace, you'll need to take what you have and stop fighting to make it better. I just want to know that you'll do that...
"Like I said, maybe," Starlight repeated. "By the way, what are you?"
An Element of Harmony, the flame replied. Don't you believe me?
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
Hee hee... The flame giggled, the noise tinkling in Starlight's mind. See? If I can laugh, you should be able to too, Starlight. And I've been trapped and alone for a very long time before you came to visit me. So please try to enjoy yourself. Remember, I just want to be kind to you. It would mean a lot to me.
With a shimmer of moving crystal, the cover over the door dissolved, retracting back into the floor and the walls. It looks like no one came after all, the flame added. Everyone is still in the map table room having an engaging discussion about things that are making Amber blush. Maybe you should stay here for a while. If you'd like to join Maple in her nap, I can make a good dream for you, too.
Starlight shrugged. She had absolutely no idea what to make of the flame spirit, and figured it was aware of that, but the fact remained that it had helped her and at least thought it was actively trying to, and she was in its domain. Resting here would certainly be safe and probably be peaceful, and if they were going to spend the rest of the day walking and touring around...
Yawning from what was likely a supernaturally-induced tiredness, she curled up against Maple's rising and falling side, blackness edging at her vision until she peacefully slipped away.
"Darkwind!" Harshwater complained, bowed beneath the weight of a huge stack of paintings strapped to her back and balanced with her wings. "These paintings are heavy! Help me carry them!"
Darkwind didn't look back, pacing in front of her with his eyes closed and mane hanging in front of them. "No. Think about how much more they'll mean to you having done the work to get them back yourself. Besides, we're inside the compound. Surely you can manage a few more steps."
"You're meeean..." Harshwater pouted, resigning herself to lugging her load.
"Wuss," Valey taunted, backstroking through the shadow cast by Harshwater's giant load in the dim emergency lighting. Manaconduits lined the roof of the tunnel, but their glow was sickly and wan, as if barely enough power was being fed through them to keep the reaction active at all. "We ditched the cart, like, five minutes ago. And at least you're hauling that because you want to. Sometimes, Herman made me move heavy stuff just to annoy me."
"That doesn't make it... any less... heavy!" Harshwater panted.
Valey rubbed her chin. "I'd tell you to think of bananas to distract yourself, or something, but I get the feeling you'd interpret that the wrong way..."
Gerardo loudly cleared his throat. "Perhaps we might track this conversation onto something more suitable than antagonizing our present hosts and benefactors? This is, after all, their home..."
The entry tunnel opened into a hallway flanked with two rows of pillars that provided both ornamentation and easy cover for defenders, and that passed through a sturdy, unsealed metal door into a broad atrium of sorts. There were two floors, with staircases around the edges that led to balconies, catwalks, and an upper level that was bigger and more open than the bottom one. Service windows lined the edges in something between a mall and a food court, and round tables were placed everywhere it wouldn't be inconvenient, hosting ponies who were eating chatting, and playing at least one very intense card game. Mares and stallions of all pony types, ranging everywhere from ten to fifty, looked up, waved or continued what they were doing, walking past on the upper level or staffing counters for clothing repair and financial transactions and maintenance on tools and weapons.
"It's like a city within a city," Gerardo marveled, smiling and impressed. "I suppose you weren't jesting about being far more tight-knit than a mere mercenary group."
"Ironridge was an extended deployment mission," Darkwind replied, nodding back to several ponies and leading the group towards an understated door behind a staircase. "We've been in the city for approximately six years now, though part of the team took the ship and left to do missions abroad for a time easily on. It's only within the last few years that we've all been here, combining our forces. Usually, our ship has all the facilities we need to function as a base, for short missions and between deployments. But when we're in it for the long haul, like Varsidel before this, we try to get a fuller facility. This base is still half-taken down, since we were packing to leave in a hurry on the night of the storm and haven't needed to set everything back up after it turned out we were staying. It's a lot more of a civilian complex now than a military compound. Though, we can still defend it in a pinch."
Gerardo nodded. "Indeed. This was because your ship mysteriously went missing, is it not?"
As Darkwind started talking about leads and tracking devices and how Ironridge's air power was presently limited to Shinespark's ship alone, Valey huffed internally. Her cutie mark wasn't bothering her, but she knew showing her head while surrounded by more mercenaries than she had dealt with in the Flame District would produce a tense and awkward conversation at best. And the ponies hanging out in the atrium had to be less than half of their total forces... Keeping her head low to avoid detection, she peered at everyone from cute, smiling mares to buff, grizzled combat veterans, reminding herself that each and every one of them could go from a cheerful sandwich-eating bystander to an epic ninja at the drop of a hat. It almost made her wings flutter to think about. If it weren't for how close this group of ponies had come to killing her, the prospect of so many opponents who really knew what they were doing in a fight would be positively exciting.
"Darkwind!" A set of hooves came pounding up behind them, and Valey slipped deeper into Harshwater's shadow, closing her eyes against the confounding visuals that came with shadow sneaking. "Glad you're back," a young stallion's voice panted. "I saw you come in and... needed to let you know that the maintenance crew apparently botched the reactivation of the water-heating system. Something to do with corroded pipes. Basically, we'll be having cold showers for a few days longer, at least."
"Aww, yes!" Harshwater stomped a hoof, and Valey swerved to avoid it. "I love cold showers!"
"I'll take it into consideration," Darkwind's voice replied. "Considering our power rationing from Blueleaf, water heating shouldn't be a priority, anyway. If you need to work on plumbing, focus on filtration and recycling systems that can be used without any energy, since the reservoir can't be used to regulate water supply from the Sky District runoff any more. And tell them to turn the lights down. It'll reflect poorly on us if we're seen as getting special treatment from Skyfreeze, and we don't need them this bright to see."
"Yes, sir!" The stallion saluted with a hoof, indicating he wasn't a pegasus. "We're already using the emergency lighting, but... yes, sir! Also, um... if I might ask, what's Harshwater carrying?"
Harshwater chuckled darkly. "Treasure."
"We just got back from cleaning out Kero's old room in Skyfreeze," Darkwind said. "He had some things the new owners decided they sorely wouldn't miss. Harshwater volunteered to dispose of them and save us all the trouble."
"And now..." Harshwater grunted, taking more steps forward. "I'm putting these... in my room!"
"Well, I'm very happy for you!" The new stallion sounded more nervous than happy. "If that's all, I'll be on my way?"
Darkwind turned away. "You're the one who wanted me. But if you're looking for something to do, go to the nursery and tell whomever's on duty I'll be by soon with guests."
The stallion saluted again and raced away, and once he was gone, Gerardo sighed. "Not even a mention of my presence. Were we truly not that memorable of opponents?"
"You did go down pretty easily," Harshwater grumbled. "You, at least. Valey's hiding. And I did offer you a rematch."
Valey poked her eyes and mouth above the surface, since they were in a back corridor with no prying eyes. "You think I should come out? I might cause a hullabaloo just by being here, you know."
Darkwind shrugged. "That's your call. Everyone knows we aren't trying to catch you any more. They also respect your strength and won't cause trouble if you make it clear you're not looking for it. Though, if you're not looking to stay here for a while, it might be better to save yourself the effort."
"Ehhhh..." Valey glanced away.
Several turns later, Harshwater reached her room, promptly kicking Valey out of her shadow as she maneuvered her stack of paintings through. "Oof!" she proclaimed, setting them all down. "There. Perfect. All right! I'm good!"
"Congratulations on your acquisition." Gerardo nodded, standing politely by and not barging into her quarters. "Now that that's taken care of, I believe there was something else we came here to do?"
"Enjoying yourselves? Hanging out? We have a pool." Harshwater rolled her shoulders, flexing stiff muscles. "Ow. That was bad for my delicate pegasus posture."
Darkwind said nothing, giving Valey and Gerardo a look that made it clear that they were the guests and could stay or leave as they pleased.
"Ehh..." Valey sniffed the air. "Starlight's a ways away. Pretty sure she's still down in those caves. You know what?" She grinned. "I'm feeling bold. Let's go march into a crowded space and be all 'I am here!' and see if we can spook some dudes. Then make sure it's all in good fun. In that order. Right now, I kinda wanna do something just because I can."
"Try not to laugh too evilly," Darkwind advised, nodding in permission. "Not many of us have met you after the events in the Flame District, and a lot of ponies will be looking for signals that you don't hold our assault against us."
"Starlight?" Harshwater glanced sideways at her. "How do you know where she is?"
"Eh." Valey shrugged, tapping the tip of her nose. "I can smell her at a distance. No clue why. But it's useful sometimes, so why question it?"
Harshwater blinked. "Weird."
"Story of my life," Valey said unapologetically, preparing to round a corner. "If that was even a tenth of the weirdest... Woah!"
She backstepped thanks to her cutie mark, but not in time to avoid a collision with a mare walking around the corner. Valey took a glancing hit, but the other mare sat back, rubbing her muzzle with a hoof. "Uhh..." Valey blinked. "Sorry?"
"Oh my. I'm so sorry; I wasn't looking where I was..." The mare, a unicorn, blinked back, eyes widening as she recognized who she had just hit. "Admiral Valey! It's you!" She broke out into a smile.
Valey folded one ear, and then the other. "...Really? It's me? That's the reaction I get? You're happy to literally run into me sneaking around your home? Not abject terror or maybe vengeance for kicking someone's rear in the Flame District, or at the very least horny awe of my ridiculous new manecut?" She rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "I'm pretty sure that bow isn't still there..."
"Hah!" Gerardo crowed, interrupting. "It seems as if we are popular with the locals after all! Whatever you've done, I heartily approve."
"Bow?" The unicorn's face scrunched, and she ignored Gerardo. "Terror? I'm grateful! Thank you for not killing my brother in the Flame District!"
Valey stopped her with a hoof. "Okay, hold up. One more time?"
The new mare looked slightly worried, but repeated herself. "When Kero said we had a job to take you out in the Flame District, everyone was worried because you have a reputation and we're just normal mercenaries. But you left everyone who went down there alive! I wanted to thank you for sparing my friends and family, even though we weren't trying to do the same for you."
Then, she got down and bowed, leaving Valey's jaw slack. "Hold on, what?" Valey looked around. "Does everyone here feel that way? This is my reception here? Everyone thinks I'm Hero McHeroface or something?"
Harshwater scuffed at the ground unhappily with a hoof. "I don't like to admit it, but you easily could have killed me several times, and we all knew it going in. But you didn't, so..."
"Sixteen pegasi faced you in the tunnels," Darkwind said. "That's hardly the majority of our company, but enough that almost everyone had a sibling, parent, lover or best friend with their lives put on the line. Nobody expected it to be bloodless, and many thought we wouldn't succeed at all. Some even wonder if it's not a coincidence that the last job Kero gave us before disappearing had such a high projected cost. Whatever he deemed a fair price for that would have been high, and now he's gone before any of us see any of it." He closed his eyes. "But yes. Most everyone here has loved ones you didn't kill even when it would have increased your own odds of survival. Normally, that counts as risking your life to save someone, but when the ones you're saving are your enemies... Let's just say there are a lot of ponies here who are fans of yours."
"Wow." Valey blinked several times. "Like, for real? Because speaking of weird things that happen to me..."
The new mare nodded. "It sounds like I'm the first you're hearing this from? Well... on behalf of everyone..." She looked Valey straight in the eye. "I hope you've forgiven us for fighting you, and for working for Herman when he was trying to destroy Ironridge. All of us are indebted to you. Thank you."
"...Huh." Valey sat there, almost dizzy, and let herself smile. "You know, I think I could get used to this."
Valey sat at the edge of a balcony overlooking the mercenary compound's central atrium, her hooves folded on the railing. The ponies around her minded their dignity and honor and didn't rush her down with gifts or requests to tell her how they knew someone from the tunnels, but from the respectful nods and thankful smiles, it was impossible to miss now they felt.
"Heh heh..." She chuckled to herself, her cutie mark giving the barely-perceptible tingle of being surrounded by powerful ponies who could fight, but didn't want to. "Hey, Birdo. Say something philosophical or insightful. Ironflanks isn't here, and I think this moment needs it."
"Ironflanks-" Gerardo caught himself, looking ashamed. "Miss Maple is a regular partaker in philosophic discourse? I didn't know."
Valey swished her tail, forelimbs presently unable to be waved. "Fine, not philosophy. Insightful. Sensitive. You know what I mean."
Gerardo touched the corner of his eye. "I'm afraid I don't, but... ahem. How far we've come to get to this moment, no?"
"Generic, but it'll do." Valey sighed. "This feels weird. And nice, but really weird. I have never, actually never, had an entire fort of ponies who are actually happy with me and glad to see me, let alone completely chill about it. And not because they're in a jam and think I can bail them out. Just without me doing anything. Like..." She looked at the floor below, ponies idly milling between tables. "What do I do with this?"
"As a professional receiver of heroic attention, my advice is to bask and soak it in," Gerardo advised. "While wandering the lonely corridors of the world outside civilization, such are the memories I find most useful to hold onto. That is to say, do absolutely nothing whatsoever. Which you presently seem to be doing."
Valey didn't look back at him. "Eh... Yeah, but that involves doing nothing. I get restless with stuff like that. I guess that's my problem, though. Wanna..." She blinked. "Yeah, I have no idea what to go do now."
"Bask!" Gerardo shrugged happily. "As I said, occasions like this call for doing nothing at-"
"Hey. You two." Darkwind appeared behind them with the stealth of a seasoned veteran who no longer knew how to walk normally. "Did you want to take a look at the nursery? I know the idea came up earlier, so I spoke with the mares on staff, and they had no issues with you coming by. Though, I'm not sure what you're going to find there. Right now, we have a lot of foals, so it could be chaotic, but you're probably good at handling chaos."
"Why not, I guess?" Valey shrugged. "I mean, I think we're just visiting, right? So if you want to show us around..."
Darkwind shook his head. "No. That will be Harshwater's job. Kero didn't use second-in-commands, so we've had to put a new leadership system together now that he's gone. As someone who spent a lot of time around him, I've turned out to be important, so I'll be taking this time to check up on other things. Making sure everyone's getting along, and looking into that plumbing incident. Those kinds of things. I'll be back if you need me."
"Looks like you've got me again!" Harshwater pranced up, regally tossing her mane. "Darkwind says you want to see the nursery?"
Gerado tapped the floor. "Anywhere you recommend, actually. We are humble visitors who lack an itinerary, after all."
"Yeah..." Valey stretched, leaning back and flaring her wings. "Nursery or no nursery. Pretty sure it's not gonna contain any major clues about what that moon glass Kero left is. So just take us somewhere really cool, and..." She yawned. "Awesome, okay?"
"Somewhere epic, huh?" Harshwater smirked. "I know just the room..."
"A sparring room?" Gerardo remarked, sounding pleased over the faint noise of clashing weapons and grunting ponies. "Interesting. Although, it does look somewhat disused..."
They stood at the entrance to a long, rectangular chamber with a low ceiling and padded walls. A few benches and empty racks lined one edge, along with some first-aid kits and a water fountain that was so well-used the bar to activate it had half-fallen off. The room was big enough that probably a dozen close-quarters bouts could have gone on at the same time, but as it was only one pair was fighting; an earth pony practicing with a shield against a pegasus darting with an untipped lance. The lights had been dimmed yet again from their emergency state, and half of the room was in such darkness Valey probably wouldn't have been able to see it if she were a normal pony.
"Eh, we had bigger priorities when unpacking after we tried to leave." Harshwater shrugged. "But some ponies like staying in shape, or fighting for fun or whatever. I was hoping there'd be a bigger battle going on we could watch. Boo."
Valey flexed her forelegs. "Are you asking me to go mix it up? I don't see any of those flash clubs, and the lighting would give me a pretty nasty advantage..."
Harshwater's eyes went wide, and she visibly shuddered. "No! Oh, no, I never want to fight you or even see you fight again. Unless you're on our side, but still." She looked away. "I'll talk it up big when the others are around, but between us... I might have had a nightmare about that fight. Just one, though. But you're scary. I was hoping we could watch other ponies fight. Not everyone in our company is crazily strong, but those who are..."
"Oh." Valey blinked. "Whoops. Yeah, sorry about that. Uhh... You weren't one of the ones I messed up real bad, were you? Sorry, there were a lot of you, and it kind of blends together."
"...You shoved me into a wall." Harshwater frowned. "I tackled you when you were going up the elevator and tried to hold you, and then I couldn't get away and you did something to my vision and..." She shuddered again. "I don't know. But I am not fighting you again."
Valey shrugged. "Oh, that. Yeah, the weird vision with shadow sneaking messes ponies up. Comes with being two-dimensional, or however it works. Want me to do it again? Getting used to it is the best way to be cool with it."
"I just said no!" Harshwater snapped. "But thanks. I had something for you, by the way. Hold on..."
She reached into a storage chest next to an empty weapons rack and pulled out a familiar, stout black flash club. "Here."
Valey blanched. "Oh bananas, I hate these things."
Harshwater shrugged. "They're useful sometimes. How many times have you ever fought a batpony?"
"...Never." Valey stared into the distance, suddenly reminded of a time high in a frozen tower, when she had faced one she very much wanted to fight... and shook her head.
"We hadn't either," Harshwater said. "If you ever have to, it's useful to have an edge."
Valey snorted, taking the club and turning it over. "Yeah, probably. Meh. These things are, like... Couldn't you have used a weapon that would be just a little more useful for me to steal? These things make terrible clubs."
"We needed all the edges we could get!" Harshwater protested. "You're strong! We thought we were all going to die!"
"Yeah, well, same to you," Valey muttered, looking away. "I didn't exactly have a good time either, and I usually like fighting. Thanks, though, I guess. I'll keep this around just in case."
Gerardo stepped up, looking over their shoulders. "It sounds as though it was a regrettable encounter for everyone. I suppose the only resolution is that Herman is dead and we all survived?"
Valey exhaled. "Assuming Herman gave them the job, which I'm hearing nobody actually knows? Something like that. Meh. Hey, we should trash some bozos together, some time."
Harshwater hesitated. "...Agreed."
"Cool." Valey leaned back, watching the two battling ponies go at it, both oblivious to their spectators. Eventually, an idea crossed her mind. "So hey, you guys are from Yakyakistan, right?"
"Most of us." Harshwater shrugged, also watching. "Why?"
"Well..." Valey looked away. "This might be totally random and out of nowhere, but have you ever met or heard of a pony there called Navarre?"
"Navarre..." Harshwater's face scrunched in a frown as she thought. "I don't know. Maybe? I don't think so. Why?"
"Oh, nothing." Valey kept her voice as light and nonchalant as possible. "Just wondering. I've got an old acquaintance from up there who's called that. Figured you might have ran into him. But if not, that's cool too."
Harshwater bared her lips, picking at a tooth with a feather. "Sorry. I can ask Remembrance, but don't know myself. She says she hasn't forgotten a single thing that happened to her for the last however many years since her husband didn't make it back from a mission. Changed her name to that and everything. It's half creepy and half sad, but really useful at times. If we've ever ran into a Navarre, she'd know. Any idea what they'd look like?"
"A dude." Valey frowned. "Don't remember his species. He was pretty dishonorable, so probably not the kind of dude you'd deal with, if I'm reading your group correct."
"Huh." Harshwater nodded. "Well, if I see any dishonorable dudes, I'll punch them good for you. That's the idea, right?"
Valey folded her forelimbs. "Something like that."
The sounds of battle slowly dwindled in the background, and when she looked up, the two who had been practicing were packing their tools away, jovially congratulating each other and strolling off side-by-side. Harshwater stuck out her lip. "Boo, it's just us. Nursery, I guess? Or we could go look for Remembrance?"
Gerardo gave the training room a regretful glance. "Well, now that we're sitting here with nothing to do..." He twirled a talon. "I'm starting to feel like indulging a certain earlier offer for a rematch regarding what happened in the Flame District? I do recall you offering as such, and informing me that you were the one I dueled upon the lift platform before being tragically upended by a blow while my back was turned from someone else?"
Harshwater smirked smugly. "I recall beating you fair and square, and you asking for a rematch. But sure! Valey can be the referee. You want to fight me?"
"Hey, Birdo." Valey tapped the table she was sitting at. "I'm not carrying you back to Skyfreeze, so try to stay conscious this time. And knock yourself out."
With a soft hiss, the door to Kero's old house reacted to Starlight's will and slid open, beckoning her and her friends inside. The room lit automatically, bathing Kero's furniture in a warm, encompassing light as if power shortages were nothing more than a bad dream. Starlight stopped beside the entrance, watching as everyone else walked in.
"Hooray, we're back!" Amber limply pumped a hoof, collapsing on the artsy couch with all four limbs in the air. "Well, that was interesting. Looks like the others aren't here?"
Maple paced over to a prim, tidy-looking table that was good for a vase and nothing more. "There's a note from Valey," she said, preparing to paraphrase. "It says they figured out everything they needed to and were going to the mercenary base to hang out, and would be back later tonight."
Shinespark shrugged. "It's later tonight now. We spent a long time down there. Sorry if I kept us for ages, but ancient magic like that is something I enjoy."
"I think all of us enjoyed it," Willow added. "I know I found it interesting, but Ironridge is already so far from the world I know, I'm afraid it wasn't as special to me as it could have been. I'd probably be just as impressed by anything else in this city."
"I sure know how you feel," Amber muttered, laying on her back. "We just saw a buried magical castle! Like, how amazing is that?" She grinned. "I've never seen that before. I've also never seen houses made from stone or metal before. Like, this room right here is... woah. You know?"
Maple nodded. "It's kind of overwhelming. Everything seems special, so you can't tell what's truly special, or-"
Amber cut her off as she passed by with a foreleg to the shoulder. "That's because everything is special, doofus." She motioned with her tail for Maple to stop pacing and join her on the couch. "We're three friends from a backwater town out seeing the big, wide world for the first time! What's not special about that? This whole trip is... Well, you had a bad experience, but that's why we're doing it right. Everything should be enjoyable."
"We're glad you had fun," Rainstorm interrupted, standing next to Bourbon in the open doorway. "Are you going to stay here for the night? If so, we'll head back to our own quarters and see you again in the morning. It's getting late, and we both need dinner."
"Oh, dinner sounds wonderful," Amber groaned. "What is there to eat in a place like this? There's gotta be food in Skyfreeze, right? They wouldn't make you go all the way back to the Stone District, would they?"
Starlight shook her head. "I was blind when I was here the first time, but I know Valey went through a place with a sandwich shop. There's food somewhere."
"There's also room service!" Bourbon helpfully announced, nudging open a drawer in an ornamental table and withdrawing a laminated pamphlet. "If you put one of these cards outside your door to show what you want, a staff pony will see when they walk by and bring it to you. It's not as fast as going to get it yourself, but it's very convenient."
"Huh." Amber smirked. "And that's free? Well, since we're here to live the good life..."
"Not free," Rainstorm corrected. "But Arambai is running the city now, and you're here on his invitation, so any expenses you incur will be covered by the city budget. Besides, Kero's will left you an entire safe full of griffon money, and there are money changers on the ground floor and by the skyport tunnels who will convert that to Ironridge currency if you want to provide for yourselves."
Willow nodded. "Let's do that, then," she decided, getting a look of approval from Maple and a shrug from Starlight. Rainstorm and Bourbon both waved, disappearing out the door.
Starlight climbed up on the couch next to Maple, leaving Willow to take a single plush chair. "Hmmph," she said, leaving the door open in case Valey and Gerardo showed up.
"Hmmph?" Maple asked.
"Just tired," Starlight muttered. "It took a lot of walking to get to the crystal palace."
"And flying," Maple added. "Everything was dark and without power, and slightly flooded from melting snow."
Amber scooted slightly, making more room for Maple and Starlight on the couch. "They probably have pumps or something to keep it from flooding when the power's on. I bet those are all dead, now."
Starlight flicked an ear. "Or all the water evaporated when everything was on because it was so hot down there."
"It was cooler, wasn't it...?" Maple hummed. "The pipes in the tunnels probably weren't full of steam to heat everything up, this time."
"Speaking of heating things up, should we see what kind of hot food they have on order?" Amber glanced across to the menu cards Bourbon had left by the door, and Starlight obligingly floated them over. "Huh." Her face scrunched, reading them. "I haven't even heard of half of these."
"I wouldn't mind picking something exotic," Willow volunteered, nodding gamely. "Maple? Did you try anything last time in Ironridge you liked?"
Maple thought. "I mostly ate mangoes Valey stole from the Earth District," she answered with a sigh. "There was that breakfast Shinespark hosted, though I was thinking about other things at the time..."
Shinespark nodded. "A little hard for me to think about that, too, still. Can I see that menu? And how well do you like spicy things?"
Willow shrugged. "I'm happy to try new things."
"Maybe some comfort food for me, if they have it?" Maple looked hopeful.
"Bring it on!" Amber grinned wickedly. "Like... not maximum, though. But show me what Ironridge can do."
Starlight jumped when she realized Shinespark was looking at her. "I'll have what Maple's having," she decided noncommittally.
"Having? What are we having?" Valey's voice sounded from the door, causing everyone to look up.
"Valey!" Amber cheered. "And Gerardo! You guys are back!"
"Indeed we are," Gerardo greeted, touching his brow and wearing a pained look. "I hope we're not intruding?"
Maple shook her head. "Deciding what to have for dinner. You're welcome to join us."
"Hey, are you okay?" Amber asked, rolling upright and looking at Gerardo in concern. "You look a little uncomfortable."
Valey smirked. "Yeah, basically that Harshwater chick was the one who did in Birdo when we were fighting on the elevator, and she was like, 'Want a rematch?' and he was all 'Yo, bird, I'm down,' and they fought a bunch. Brutally and for honor and all that. He got a little roughed up."
Gerardo frowned. "I got a few good licks in, as the saying goes..."
Valey rolled her eyes. "And you also messed up your wing enough that me and her had to haul you back to the tower since you didn't feel up to flying yourself. Whatever floats your boat, I guess."
"Fighting for fun?" Amber grinned. "Wish I could have seen that. Maybe Maple, too. Probably would be good, after all the stuff that happened last time."
"Yeah, I just spectated, and I enjoyed it." Valey tossed her mane, her gifted flash club sitting atop her back. "For some reason all those dudes are afraid to fight me, though. I wonder why."
Amber chuckled, leaning back. "Yeah, who would be scared of a cutie like you?"
"Ahem..." Gerardo cleared his throat, glancing at Shinespark, who was watching with a strange expression.
"Yes, what do you want to order?" Shinespark hovered the cards over near Gerardo and Valey. "Everyone's hungry, so let's do this quickly."
Gerardo plucked one out of the air with keen interest. "Ah, wonderful! They have Griffish cuisine? If I missed my homeland terribly, I would never have left, but it is quite refreshing to have a taste of my own culture every once in a while..."
Valey's eyes widened as she stared at the card catalogue. "They have something called a Fruit Medley Supreme? Ohhh ho ho ho..." She hovered and rubbed her forehooves together. "Hello, Ironridge, why yes, I do have a sweet tooth..."
"Fabulous." Gerardo quickly swept everyone's choices from Shinespark with his good wing, striding towards the still-open door to post them. "I'll just leave these here..."
"Hey!" an unfamiliar voice echoed the moment he stepped outside. "You're not Kero..."
"Oh, hello!" Gerardo glanced to the side, eyes widening at someone out of sight, prompting Starlight to get up and trot over. "Greetings. My name is Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, and myself and my friends have inherited this estate. We were just putting in a request for dinner. Who might you be?"
Starlight rounded the door to see another griffon standing further down the hallway. She was dusky gray, with pink highlights on her wingtips and crest that might have been dyed, and stood about a head shorter than Gerardo in stature, though part of that was due to her sassy posture. She wore a well-pressed business suit that was completely open down the front, a set of saddlebags made of glossy black briefcases, and a tipped-back boater hat with a ribbon that matched her eyes. Starlight wasn't the best judge of griffon ages, but she clearly wasn't elderly.
"Glisette," she said, extending a gray talon for Gerardo to shake. "Looks like I finally get to stop being the sole sane resident of the ambassador wing in this place. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Shinespark showed up in the door behind Starlight. "You're the griffon ambassador?"
"Yeah," Glisette answered, narrowing her eyes and fingering her chin. "I know you... You're the Sosan leader who was occasionally in the news for doing stuff in the lower districts, aren't you? Sorry about your home, if you are."
Shinespark exhaled. "Formerly. Should I invite you in? We're having a little housewarming party tonight. Ordering dinner."
Glisette smiled apologetically. "Listen, I'd really love to, but there are thirteen cargo ships and five passenger freighters that all arrived from the Empire after the skyport went down, and it's my presence that keeps the captains and crews from freaking out and saying it's the end of the world. Bunch of chickens, really. I wish they'd hurry up and get some way for ships to resupply so they can leave this place, but apparently a bunch of expensive equipment got irreplacably damaged, and the equipment to make that equipment got washed away in Sosa, and no one can leave the city to request that someone else ship more in, and blah blah excuses..." She rolled her eyes. "But I'll find a way to make time. Tomorrow, or the day after. Anyway, gotta run. See ya!"
She dashed off with a tip of her hat, rounding the corner to the staircase with feline grace, and was gone.
"Well," Gerardo remarked, "Pleasant to know we have a pleasant neighbor, mmm?"
Shinespark shrugged. "She sounded a little bit clueless about things outside of Skyfreeze, but that's the case with most diplomats, I guess. She's probably busier worrying about the relations between Ironridge and the Empire than she is worrying about Ironridge internal affairs. Though without airships, we may have brought that relationship to a halt..."
"Eh, think happy thoughts." Valey cupped a wing around her back and dragged her back inside, motioning for Gerardo and Starlight to follow. "We'll have dinner soon, right?"
Amber nodded gratefully. "I know I'm starving. Who was that? Someone said the griffon ambassador?"
"Sounded like it." Valey shrugged. "I've ran into her a few times, but never really interacted. She seems to mind her own business instead of poking into everything in the city like Yakyakistan's psychopath. Probably a cool cat. I just figured if she leaves me alone, I'll leave her alone. No sense in making enemies with a place that calls itself an empire, right?"
Maple nodded in hearty agreement. "I think I've made enough enemies to last myself a lifetime."
Valey glanced at the ceiling. "Eh, you get used to it. And you'll probably make more, simply because someone in Riverfall is bound to get jealous that you get to come here twice. Hey, speaking of which, how'd your little trip go? On our end, we figured stuff out, have a good idea of what's what, and basically everything's handled and no sweat about Kero."
"That's good," Maple sighed. "It was... tiring. I had forgotten how far it was to the palace, but once we got there, and to the tree, it was..." She hummed wistfully. "I think I just took a long nap. Starlight said I did. She was down there with me while everyone else played with that table. I dreamt that everything was nice..."
"Oh hey, you had fun with that table too?" Valey grinned. "Cool. I spent hours just watching that thing spin. No idea why it does that, but whatever proto-magical being made it work like that is a genius. Probably just wanted a toy to amuse themselves. Hey, was the eleventh dot back, by the way?"
All three Riverfall mares and Shinespark frowned in confusion.
"Eh, probably means not." Valey shrugged. "Doubt it's important anyway."
"You took a nap, though?" Amber glanced at Maple and Valey. "What did Starlight do? She was down there with you the whole time, wasn't she?"
Starlight looked away. "I tried to take a nap too, but eventually didn't feel like it. So I decided since my magic doesn't get tired there, I would practice with it."
Valey pursed her lips in interest. "Practice, huh?"
"I tried your armor spell idea," Starlight said. "It's really hard, since I have to point my horn straight at something to crystal it. But I found a way to get my chest covered where I fire and then immediately teleport into my shot. You'd probably think it's cool, but it's hard enough making that many crystals already, so I'll never be able to use it."
"Crystal armor?" Amber grinned. "What's this?"
"Eh, an idea we worked on." Valey smirked, turning and taking a chair of her own. "Anyway, wow, this place looks a lot nicer without the decorations. Think you'll be able to sleep here, knowing it's the former lair of the world's most self-absorbed griffon?"
Maple smiled gently. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it..."
"Well, girls?" Amber asked, standing readily in the doorway of the old Defense Force base, the tunnels inside forming the most direct route from Skyfreeze. "We've got the whole day to hang out and enjoy Ironridge. What do we do?"
"I wouldn't mind going shopping," Maple offered, smiling tentatively. "I never got to see the civilized side of the city last time I was here, so that might be nice. As long as I don't have to carry too much on the way back."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Yes, I believe that's another lesson learned from last time. Should any of you grow weary, or should we find ourselves in possession of more belongings than can fit comfortably upon our backs, we'll procure a cart posthaste to aid in transportation."
"Amber?" Willow glanced over to her yellow friend. "How all right are you with walking?"
Amber grinned, standing freely on her own. "Whatever was in that food last night must've had a real kick to it, because I feel decent. Or maybe it's this air. But I'll let you know if I get tired. How about you, Willow? Where do you want to go?"
Willow hummed. "I wouldn't mind going somewhere where we could listen to ponies. Somewhere nice, but not nice enough that nobody talks freely. Like how I remember the docks being before the ships stopped coming... I would enjoy getting to do that again."
"Cool." Amber winked. "As for me, I really wanna find a clothing store and check out the local fashion. Feeling a little adventurous after that mane trim, you know?" She glanced around. "Anyone else? How about you, Valey?"
"Valey?" a dark gray mare in a brightly-striped sweater, five-gallon hat and aviator shades asked, looking around herself. "Who's Valey? I don't see any Valeys around here..."
Amber giggled, the disguise covering Valey's bat features and making her resemble an ordinary citizen with an atrocious sense of style. "Right, you're just hanging out. Starlight?"
Starlight shrugged. "I don't care."
"Aww, come on..." Disappointed, Amber stuck out her lip. "We're doing this for fun! Surely there's something you enjoy doing, isn't there?"
Her strange conversation with the crystal tree echoed in Starlight's mind. What did she do for fun? She had more or less purged herself of the concept after Sunburst left, when she decided she didn't want a cutie mark, and while that didn't bother her as much as it once had...
"I don't know," she said honestly. "Really."
"You could write a random pony an anonymous, flirty letter," not-Valey suggested. "Climb one of Dangerous Karma's trees, steal some fruit and take a nap in the branches. Sneak into some place that reeks of paperwork and forge a few random signatures as a prank. Find an interesting-looking pony and stalk them for a day. Climb on top of a fence and sing as loudly and badly as you can and see how long it takes someone to throw something at you. Prop a bucket of water on top of a half-open door. Go bowling with watermelons. Take a page out of Sparky's book and smash a chili pepper, then put it in a water cooler. It's a wide, wide world, kiddo."
Willow glanced worriedly at her. "Have you done all of those?"
"Not the pepper," Valey answered, hanging her head in shame. "I didn't actually know about it until Sparky mentioned it earlier. Remind me to try that before we bail on Ironridge. That's what I have on my bucket list."
Willow shook her head. Maple shrugged in Valey's defense, and Gerardo nodded sagely. "So," Valey said, "Anything in there sound good?"
"I'll just follow along and keep you safe," Starlight decided. "Just in case anything happens."
Valey smirked. "Pretty sure that's what I'm here for, and also why we've got a pile of ex-mercenaries tailing us at a distance without getting in the way... but yeah, you do that. At least try to have some fun though, so we can taunt Sparky for not wanting to get a disguise so she could come with us." She flexed her wings beneath the sweater, striped black and bright red. "I'd love to see her in something this ridiculous."
"I'll try," Starlight promised, and left it at that.
"This looks like a clothing store," Amber remarked, looking pleased with her navigation. Gerardo didn't feel like flying and Valey's wings were pinned, so they had traveled on intuition and finally found a Stone District building with an outline of a shirt on the sign. "Want to stop here first?"
"An entire street of such merchants," Gerardo added, sweeping a talon down the sloped, cobbled brick road. Why a street was made out of cobblestones when it was already carved into the face of a stone mountain was beyond Starlight.
"And fashionable-looking ponies, too," Maple murmured, glancing at the pedestrians they were passing. Starlight sized several ponies up, and judging by the upturned noses Valey's get-up generated, they were equines who knew their local culture. Ponies chatted with vendors in stalls with their backs to the Earth District and wandered in and out of darkened, proper storefronts, wearing coats that matched their own colorations, or else those of their partners. She didn't know enough about fashion to pick out trends aside from calling things hats and jackets and scarves, but at least she could see the influence of their temperate climate. Single articles of clothing were more popular than full sets, and many ponies would wear a hat or a light jacket but not both.
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm getting tossed out of whatever store I try to walk in here. But knock yourselves out. And try not to run Arambai bankrupt."
Grinning, Amber nodded, and led the way into the nearest store.
The sun was halfway to noon in the mountainous sky when the six friends finally left the clothing street behind, high enough to shine over the remaining Water District dam and warm the stones beneath their hooves. Gerardo volunteered as the pack griffon, but most everyone had purchases they could wear or carry in their own saddlebags just fine. The exception was Valey, who had been forcibly offered an entire wardrobe by a concerned socialite, unhappily carrying it on her back.
"We gotta get a caaart..." she whined, so many bags balanced atop her that they had to be tied together with rope to keep from falling off. "Why did she buy me so many copies of the same outfit? Are you supposed to just wear the same look over and over again and change into the same thing when your clothes get dirty? That's lame. This whole thing is lame. They probably make me look fat, too. Hey, Starlight, you should complain with me. It's fun."
"No," Starlight said, a hair clip having restored her mane to the messy ponytail Maple liked. Hopefully, it would be more durable than the old bands she had given her back in Riverfall.
Amber glanced back, a deep blue bandana tied around her neck for an adventurous, schoolfilly look. "If we need a cart, we should probably get it sooner rather than later? I don't want anyone to collapse..."
"I think she's joking," Maple offered, looking as if she fervently hoped she was right. "Right, Valey?"
"You're ruining the joke," Valey muttered, plodding along with her head down.
"How hungry is everyone?" Willow interrupted, her long mane done up close to her head with more pins like Starlight's and a coat designed to look good with saddlebags that was long around the sides and didn't close on the front or bottom. "I think we're entering an area of food shops, next. We could buy something to eat?"
Gerardo shook his head, sporting a new golden pocketwatch and toting bags that held exquisite dresses for each of the Riverfall mares, as well as a more toned-down set of finery they didn't want to be hiking around the city in. "I think it will be a good hour or more before I'm ready, but if you wish to stop here regardless, I could leave and procure a cart and we could take whatever we buy with us to eat on the road. What say you?"
Maple shrugged. "That sounds like a plan."
Amber was too busy salivating at a merchant booth. "Girls, look at the size of these cheese wheels! I've never seen any like these! We need to buy one!..."
Noon rolled past, seeing Maple, Amber and Willow riding in the back of a wooden cart pulled by Gerardo and Valey. It was smaller than the ones used in the evacuation, snugly fitting the three of them and Starlight, along with their goods, with just enough room to be comfortable.
"Vegetables vegetables vegetables..." Amber hummed, inspecting their stock. "I bet you could make a fantastic soup with this, Maple, if we weren't on the road. Maybe we could have a really crispy salad?"
Willow shook her head, eyeing a massive, pale yellow cheese wheel propped against the railing. "Maybe we should start eating that? It's nearly as big as you are when you curl up, Amber. And we don't want it to go bad..."
Amber shrugged. "Cheese doesn't go bad. It gets sharp and aged. Tastes better that way."
Maple frowned, contemplating the cheese. "Under certain conditions..."
"Eh, you'll have to find out!" Valey called back from in front of the cart. "Because I'm pretty sure eating that much cheese in one sitting will give you a lot worse gas than letting it sit for a day!"
Maple grimaced. "I'm pretty sure it would give you even worse than that. But let's see what I can make with it, right here and now. Hmm... We can't cook, but cheese does go good with some types of salad..."
"I vote," Gerardo announced, chewing on a fruit kebab made with melon slices and grapes and blocks of cheese, "that we pay Blueleaf a visit. I seem to recall we possess a good ally there by the name of Elise, which could well be enjoyable for Miss Willow if her aim is to have a chinwag with the locals. Quite a bit more civilized than crashing a bar, as well."
"Agreed. Drunk ponies are weird." Valey didn't look up from her snack, gorging herself on sugary fruit and not-so-sugary lettuce and celery, eaten fresh and with the limited preparation Maple could give it for an on-the-go lunch. "Actually, ponies are weird in general, sometimes, but that's their problem."
Willow looked up in interest. "Elise?" She angled her ears. "I remember you talking about her. She was the Blueleaf mayor's wife, wasn't she? Remind me what she did?"
Gerardo pointed a talon. "As I've heard it, she had both a remarkably eventful and nearly heroic foalhood full of drama, epic conflicts and leadership struggles over the fate of a nation, followed by a ten-year exodus spent wandering the world in the vein of an adventurer myself. Of that, though, I know nothing. It might be perfectly aligned with your goals, our team already has connections to her, and I must admit I'd be very curious to hear from her myself.
Willow's eyes sparkled, and she nodded in appreciation.
"Do we really want to travel through Blueleaf?" Maple asked, glancing up, worried. "The road there got damaged or maybe destroyed by an airship crash, and it's probably overflowing with refugees. I know we're trying to enjoy this trip and not worry about things, but that sounds dangerous and not very enjoyable."
Gerardo rubbed his chin. "Hrrrrmm... It would certainly be convenient if we possessed a way to simply fly over and skip the ascent through the city's levels, now..."
Darkwind and a team of seven other pegasi set the cart down like a chariot in Blueleaf's sculpted, perfected fifth level. It bore signs of the city's hard times just like everywhere else; the artificial river had stopped running in an effort to conserve power for the pumps, or perhaps because the source was gone. No lights shone through the miniature mansions' windows, though the clear blue sky was more than enough to make up in lighting. But the lawns and gardens looked somehow better-tended than last time, and crews of ponies were even moving around, performing cosmetic work on some of the houses. It made sense, since the city would be filled with the unemployed and any act of finding work for the refugees would reflect favorably on the level five residents, but Starlight couldn't help but wonder if it would be fairer for them to be doing that work on the lower, dingier levels.
The doors to Elise's home were all propped wide open, and her pegasus brother Fernand greeted them like a trained, professional butler. "Maple and Starlight!" His eyes widened in surprise. "And others. Arambai had told us you were returning to Ironridge, but said he didn't expect you to brave the Earth District so quickly."
Maple smiled awkwardly. "Hi, Fernand. We flew in with the new Defense Force. I don't suppose everyone isn't busy? We're trying to enjoy our trip, this time, and felt it would be nice to visit..."
Fernand nodded. "My sister has been elevated in importance with the new administration. She is more than just the Blueleaf mayor's wife, now."
"I see..." Maple folded her ears.
Fernand broke into a smile. "Which is why I'm all the more certain she could use a break from her labors to meet with you. Attempting to balance Arambai's agenda, the good of the city and the private interests of Dangerous Karma is a slow and, as I've heard it, very frustrating task. Some ponies simply aren't willing to allow their corporate empires to be dismantled in the name of the greater good, it seems..."
Valey rolled her shaded eyes. "Wow, I wonder why."
Amber nudged her. "Yeah, if you owned that much fruit too, you'd probably stop at nothing to keep it all to yourself."
Elise was waiting in the same parlor where Starlight and Maple had sat a week ago, taking a break from their Earth District adventures and waiting for Valey to return. The power was off, an effort to conserve energy the occupants were likely quite used to, and the dull red-and-gold architecture stood out even more, lit by sunbeams streaking through the windows.
"Greetings, my little ponies," she welcomed warmly, horn providing more illumination through several balls of colored magical fire that danced near the ceiling of the room. "And griffon. I had wondered if we would meet again."
Valey pushed up her shades and saluted with a hoof, wings twitching against the inside of her sweater. "Heya, momhorse. Remember me?"
"I remember most of you." Elise nodded. "Though there are some I'm unfamiliar with?"
"Gerardo Guillaume," Gerardo greeted back, extending a talon far too far away for Elise to shake it. "Griffon adventurer extraordinaire. I believe our paths crossed a few times on that morning after the last day, though we both had other things to set our minds on."
"And these are Amber and Willow," Maple said, pointing her hooves and introducing her Riverfall friends. "From my hometown. It's nice to see you again, too."
Elise smiled. "I suppose my siblings and daughter will have some words for you of their own. Particularly you, Valey?"
Valey blinked. "Me? Hubbawuzzah?"
"You," Elise giggled. "There's a rumor going around Shinespark was defeated no contest by Herman at the skyport, and you turned the tables and won, even entering the fight injured. She's not sure whether to hate you for besting her hero, or adopt you as her new one. Many ponies refuse to believe it, but you did save Ironridge from certain doom."
"Eh, it might make my resume." Valey scratched the back of her neck, grinning cheekily.
Elise shook her head, face perfectly serious. "I don't know about that. I hear city-saving is going out of style these days. You might have to settle for a boring career as an unemployed layabout."
"This is the mayor's wife?" Amber's eyes widened as Valey stuck out her tongue and countered with a joke of her own. "No offense, but she's not as stately as she looks."
"Being stately is a chore sometimes." Elise shrugged. "I lost a large portion of my foalhood to politics and intrigue, of a very similar kind to what happened to you over the past few days. Now that I can afford to, I see no reason not to take the edge off with a sense of humor from time to time. I've earned it. So have you, and everyone else who lives in these trying times. So what may I help you with today?"
"We just wanted to visit," Willow said, smiling apologetically as if she expected Elise to have a bigger favor in mind. "Amber and I have never seen the world outside of our hometown of Riverfall, and Maple's last adventure wasn't very enjoyable. But I spent my young adult years listening to stories from Sosan sailors who had seen the world, and Maple suggested that you enjoyed telling stories."
Elise brightened. "It isn't often ponies ask that. And it's a request I'm always willing to grant. What would you like to hear about? Last time, I told about Ironridge twenty years ago, how the city first fell and how my family came to be. Now that the city's future finally has a chance to get brighter, I could tell that again, in greater detail? I could also talk about the years I spent traveling abroad, during my exile from Ironridge. Nothing has happened since I got back that is worth telling, but I still count my life as being exceptionally eventful."
Willow glanced up at the sun, visible through a curved window set into the arcing roof. "We have all day," she offered, shrugging eagerly. "I haven't heard the story of a foreigner's life in a very long time. Start at the beginning?"
"Well." Elise crossed her dainty forelegs, reclining on an ornate couch. "Fernand, refreshments? It all started twenty-two years ago, when my mother took me to the Steel District to meet my father for the first time..."
Elise talked long into the afternoon, retelling the story of how she had met Arambai, pulled together her lost siblings and nearly changed the fate of Sosan politics at far greater length than the hour or so she gave it while they were waiting for Valey. Starlight zoned in and out, and by the end, she wasn't sure if she remembered any details she hadn't heard the time before. Something about Grenada, maybe? That was a name she knew, even if the mare was dead and buried by the windigoes' blizzard. Eventually, it ended, Elise sipping from a glass and using the water to soothe her throat.
"Well! I've been talking longer than I expected," she finished airily, getting up and trotting to open the doors to the foyer. "Can I invite you to stay for dinner? Redshift has been spending a lot of time in the lower levels with the refugees, but she usually comes home later than this. My husband is at Skyfreeze, and I imagine the twins are playing in their room, so there should be plenty for all!"
"Dinner dinner dinner..." Valey trotted happily after her, mouth open and tongue lolling. Suddenly, she pulled up. "Wuh-oh. Butt tingling..."
Elise gave her a strange look, before a door to their left suddenly burst open. Pow! Two rust-colored unicorn fillies barreled through, charging straight into Valey while caterwauling a battle cry.
"Gyaaaaarr!" one of the twins bellowed, kicking a hoof straight for Valey's side. "Repel the Yakyakistan commander! Save Ironridge from the yaks!"
"Copper Cable, reporting for duty: target acquired," the other said, hanging back and crouching, preparing to fire a rugged work boot with her telekinesis.
Faster than either could react, Valey ducked into the shadows, letting the kicking filly fly straight over her head. She stood up, hooked her around the barrel with a foreleg as she passed, and before either could react, grabbed the boot mid-trajectory, forced it open as wide as it could go, and stuck her captive assailant hornfirst inside.
"Ew, this smells nasty!" the filly protested, flailing. "Ribbon Cable, down! Copper, help! I repeat, help!"
The sound of little hoofsteps echoed in the hallway as Copper Cable abandoned her sibling to her fate.
Everyone stepped back, staring at Valey. "What?" Valey shrugged innocently. "She had it coming."
Elise paced over, plucking Ribbon from the boot and setting her upright. "Sorry, honey," she consoled, patting the filly on the head. "But you really did have it coming. I hope you used a clean boot for that."
"It wasn't!" Ribbon yelled, spitting and rubbing her mane frantically with her forehooves. "Copper used one of the nasty ones that smelly guy Redshift brought back last night left here, even when I told her not to! Now I probably have a disease! Copper, I'll get you for this! I hope it's contagious!"
Elise frowned at the hoof she had used to pat Ribbon, unscrupulously rubbing it off against an upholstered curtain as that filly fled too.
"Welp?" Valey glanced around. "I guess they won't be joining us for dinner after all. Hey, do you think I should have stuck a bow on her instead? Ironflanks, you should carry some bows on you for emergencies like that. Oh! Or I could put gum in her fur! No, that's too mean. Draw a mustache on her flank and call it a cutie mark? Hmm, actually, I could..."
Valey belched thunderously, rearing back and patting her stomach. "Oh, bananas, that stuff was good. I wonder what it was."
Maple raised an eyebrow at her, still finishing up her own plate. "You eat things without checking first what they are?"
"It's a pastry filled with gravy and vegetables," Amber said, serving herself another helping and laying into it eagerly. "Who needs names? It's good!"
"Much obliged." Fernand bowed, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
"You made this?" Maple glanced over to him. "Would you mind sharing the recipe? I'd love to make this myself on cold days or when I'm feeling down, but not quite in the mood for soup."
"I'd be more than happy to." Fernand smiled pleasantly, not taking a seat despite Elise preparing an extra one. "You enjoy preparing food as well?"
Gerardo raised a talon, looking up from his own eating. "Whether she enjoys it or not, I can attest both of you are quite good at it. Though, as a matter of personal preference, have you experimented with adding mushrooms? They're quite a staple in the Griffon Empire, and gravy-based foods like this are also fairly common there. I am, in case no one had noticed, somewhat of a connoisseur."
Amber grinned. "Don't worry, Gerardo, you don't talk about food too much."
"That is relieving to hear," Gerardo assured, leaning down for more.
Willow was the one to break the silence that followed. "Everyone? I'd like to say thank you, if I may take a moment."
No one stopped her, several nodding for her to go on, so she did. "I very much enjoyed listening to you," she said, making eye contact with Elise. "It brought back a lot of memories, and even if you weren't talking about the happiest of times, it made me happy to hear again how many experiences are had by ponies other than me. Thank you for listening with me, Maple, even though hearing some of the things made you uncomfortable. And thank you, everyone, for indulging me and spending so much of our day here, when we could be seeing the city."
"Hey." Amber crossed her chest with a forehoof. "I got to mess around in the clothing stores, try some fancy clothes on, and get myself a cutesy dress, and one for each of you. I got my one wish. Only fair that you get yours."
Maple hummed. "My only wish was that this trip would go smoothly. And so far, it has. I know there's very little control each of you have over what happens in the city, but I still want to say it. Thank you to Gerardo, at least, for being more considerate and making an effort not to stress me out."
"Well, I do make an effort," Gerardo replied, grinning modestly. "My own wish was for high adventure, and I got that in far greater quantities than I was expecting last time around, so I'm along for the ride, as it were."
Valey shrugged. "Hey, don't mind me. I'm sure I'll get a chance to try out that thing with sneaking a chili into someone's water cooler eventually. I wonder if it actually works."
"What I want to say," Willow continued, "is that this trip is already a success. We've had one full day here, not counting our trip to the caves. We've all done what we wanted most. Would anyone like to make this our last stop, return to Riverfall tomorrow morning, and finish everything on a high note?"
"I don't know..." Maple looked worriedly at her plate. "I'd love to say the entire trip went well when we're done, but if you two are still having fun, I don't want to feel like we're ending it early for my sake. Seeing as I'm the one who's most worried about things turning bad, and was the one who had a bad experience earlier..."
Amber reached over, settling a hoof on her shoulder. "Hey. Don't worry about it. First off, we're friends, and friends do things for each other. Second, I'm going to get Gerardo's boat finished up any day now, and we'll be able to come back again whenever we want once the river returns to normal. And third, you being here or not has no effect on whether bad things happen. No. Effect." She stared into Maple's eyes. "Got it?"
Maple smiled. "Got it."
"You made us your last stop, then?" Fernand glanced over his shoulder, returning to the kitchen. "Well, I suppose I should send you off with desert, as well?"
"Urrrp! Bring it on!" Valey flung her forelimbs wide. "Who doesn't have room for fourths?"
Five mares sat in the main room of Kero's old Skyfreeze villa, bidding each other good night and joking about whether Kero's bed was something they wanted to sleep in, even though they already had slept there the night before. Shinespark hadn't been heard from since the previous evening, and Gerardo had also departed for the night, citing that he was used to roughing it and could more than take care of himself on his own if crowding was an issue, but Starlight, Valey and the Riverfall mares all remained.
"Mmmh..." Maple yawned, fanning at her mouth with a hoof. "Girls, I'm glad this went well. I still need to find out what kind of normal I want to get my life back to in Riverfall, but... if we ever want to do something like this again, I wouldn't mind." She gave a hopeful smile.
"Pretty sure that's a given," Amber said smugly. "We'll be back. It sounds like Ironridge and Riverfall are going to become closer, now that they're kind of both on their own out here. And we'll be the first to have visited! We could actually be kind of important, if we wanted."
"Let's leave that for later," Willow hummed. "I can say I've been to Ironridge. That was my dream, once, and while this was different than I was expecting, I'm glad to have gone. For now, I agree we should see to ourselves and our lives in Riverfall after these very eventful weeks."
Valey shrugged. "I mean, when the scariest things in the city are either dead or on your side, it's hard for stuff to go wrong. Good on Arambai for getting those mercenaries, by the way. Almost makes me wonder if he stole their ship and chased off Kero himself to get them to stay, though the times don't line up."
"Well..." Maple turned toward the bedroom door. "We go home tomorrow morning. Should we go to bed now so we can get up bright and early? We'll need to tell Shinespark and Arambai, and get breakfast before the ship leaves."
"Got you covered." Valey patted her mane, pulling out the sound stone and flashing it. "I rang the dude back in Blueleaf to tell him what you were thinking. He gave the go-ahead for tomorrow at noon."
Amber grinned. "Guess we'll have time for breakfast after all!"
"And lunch," Willow added. "If we're hungry by then."
Valey rolled her eyes. "What is it with ponies and forgetting second breakfast and elevensies? I don't know how you keep your ribs from showing."
As Amber giggled, Maple got to her hooves. "Come on, Starlight. Ready for bed?"
Starlight obediently rose too, and Willow and Amber after her, trotting toward the bedroom door. Valey was already standing.
"...Hey," Valey said, catching Amber at the tail end of the procession.
"Hmm?" Amber turned around.
"How tired are you?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
Amber shrugged. "Not very," she answered, taking two steps back from the door. "Why? Want to talk?"
"Eh, something like that." Valey grinned. "We've kind of been tagging along with everyone else for the most part, and I was thinking we could go hang out somewhere. You know... alone. It's a big city, after all."
"Alone, huh?" Amber grinned back. "Ooh, spooky. You don't want to talk about things, do you?"
"Things? Maaaybe." Valey winked, strolling out into the Skyfreeze hallway. "I guess you'll have to follow me to find out!"
Amber quickly trotted after her, the door hissing closed behind her as she entered the hallway. Its lighting was off, a dim ruby glow from the sunset still shining down the corridor from a window facing the horizon. Valey beckoned with a wing for her to follow, climbing a staircase to the next level.
Wordlessly, Amber lowered her head and galloped in pursuit, taking care not to trip as her muscles were still slightly limp. The entire outward-facing side of the staircase was a glass wall, forming a curved diorama of the shadowed city of Ironridge, and Valey was sitting near the top, staring out over the Earth District.
"Sure looks different at night," she muttered, thumping her tail once against the floor. "Now that the power's off. There's a few lights on in Blueleaf, but before, most of the basin and all of the rim was lit up. Blueleaf, Grand Acorn, Gnarlbough, Copsewood, Mosstower... Bet it would have blown your little small-town minds even more than it does already. About time I get to see someone appreciate this city at all and not feel jealous about it."
Amber stood several paces away, not sure if she was being invited to join. "Everything's all right, right?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked and looked over. "Oh, yeah, it is. Just psyching myself up to ask something. Not there yet. Anyway, what do you think? Check out all those towers and ridges and totally delicious fruit trees and... If you could go anywhere in the whole city right now, just because you could, where would it be?"
"I don't know." Amber shrugged. "Why?"
Valey shrugged back. "Because it's mild out and I'm in the mood for a flight."
"Oh..." Amber felt herself slightly redden, imagining being carried. Not that it would be her first time flying, or even second... She blinked several times. "Well, sure! Where do you recommend?"
"Well, I usually go stalk Dangerous Karma's fruit trees, but it sounds like those might need some time to recover after that sudden frost," Valey said, looking out the window. "Honestly, we could just pick somewhere to land when I get tired."
"Really?" Amber stepped closer. "Just flying for the sake of it, huh?"
"Do you see any other pegasi or airships up there to keep us company?" Valey pointed a hoof. "Looks nice and lonely. Perfect for hogging all to ourselves. The broken transport tube is just a few more floors up. What do you say?"
Amber grinned and pumped a hoof, nearly overbalancing and having to catch herself with an undignified yelp. "I say aye," she replied, dusting herself off. "Sure. Sounds like a great way to end our trip!"
"Cool." Valey shrugged at her saddlebags, which looked light and not very filled. "I brought a scarf, just in case. Just one, though. We might have to engage in brutal combat over whoever gets it..." Her face darkened in a spooky expression. "Or even share!"
"Oh, whatever shall we do!?" Amber threw up her forelimbs in mock despair, then followed Valey toward the next staircase.
Valey spread her wings, standing at the precipice of the shattered tunnel, a chill mountain wind blowing about her. Amber rested on her back with her forelimbs locked around Valey's neck, the batpony beneath her taking much of the edge out of the cold... and judging from Valey's lack of shivers beneath her, she was returning the favor.
Then they jumped. A brief rush of air tore Amber's mane upwards before Valey's wings caught, gravity and momentum slammed their bodies together, and they started to rise, soaring out with the rocky once-glacier below them and the open airspace above the Ironridge crater ahead.
Amber held back a shout. She knew that at the speed they were moving, the wind would take her breath away the moment she opened her mouth, so she grinned instead, baring her teeth against the atmosphere and the sight of the world below. They wheeled once, pulled up, and slowed, steadily drifting out into the miles and miles of sky that once belonged to airships and were now theirs alone.
"It's a good night for this," Valey remarked above the wind, lowering her speed so they could talk. "Not too windy, not to cloudy, not too cold... Hey, how much do you want me to talk? Just enjoying the view?"
There was a lot of view to enjoy. They were above the mountaintops that ringed Ironridge, and the full reality of the chain that began Yakyakistan to the west was finally visible for the first time in Amber's journey. To the north were endless stretches of badland, along with the watery remnants of forests and factories that had once comprised Sosa. And to the south...
No matter how high they flew, the southern border mountains separating the world from Equestria were higher still. A mountain range stacked atop a mountain range, they would make the Ironridge mountains look like pebbles even set side by side on the ground. Only the fact that they were miles away prevented them from being visible from the Earth District, and in the northern reaches of what had once been Sosa, they were probably visible still. Amber shuddered, remembering Maple's story of how fast Ironridge weather could change, with storms of unnatural might crashing like floods of their own down from those cliffs...
"Too cold?" Valey asked, beating her wings and sensing the shiver. "We can go lower, if you like. Apparently the wind barrier's gone, so we can safely reach the Earth District now."
Amber shook her head. "Nah, I'm good. You're warm. So, what did you want to talk about? If anything, of course."
"First off, I just felt like doing something nice." Valey shrugged midair, trying and unable to twist her head around to look Amber in the eye. "You might've been too busy shopping or having fun to notice, but I was listening in on as much gossip as possible today. My name's going around a ton, apparently. Sounds like nobody knows whether I was responsible for causing or fixing the problem, just that I was involved. Lots of theories, but it's what everyone wants to talk about. I mean, you saw those kids at Elise's place. Am I a hero, or am I not? Way I see it, doesn't really matter, 'cuz Ironridge is saved and whether I did it or not, I don't want to live here. Too many bad memories in this place. Not actually a lot of places I have good memories of, but that's why I gotta make some while I can. You know?"
"Reminds me of what we talked about with your past," Amber said. "About Icereach, and everything that happened there. I've been thinking about it."
"Have you? Cool. Me too." Valey didn't even try to look at her this time. "Which is sorta what I wanted to ask about. See... that moon glass Kero left? We don't really know what its deal is. We're pretty sure it's not super duper mega evil, and there's a good chance he actually expected someone to get it while he was still alive, but the thing is... meh. I talked about my pendant, right?" She folded her ears hopefully. "How it lets me do what we tried to do all those years ago and safely use two cutie marks at once while still keeping control of my body? I'm not... not really cool with using it. I nearly freaked out making sure I'd be able to use it to help out in the skyport when everything was exploding. But if I was... I could do things like look inside that oh-so-important rock and see what's there, for instance."
Amber swallowed and took a wild guess. "You want me to help you tell Maple and Willow about who you were?"
She felt Valey swallow back. "Yeah. Something like that. I dunno... they say being at peace with yourself will set you free, and all that, but this isn't about mental mind games and stuff. If I could use this freely and not care who knew about what I'm doing or why I can do it, and could be okay with that, I'd legitimately get stronger. And I've told you what having friends who are okay with everything means to me, right? At the same time, if the wrong pony knew about this, it would be ridiculously easy to use against me. And I've got enemies. You've got enemies too, if I read that Hemlock clown right. This is basically a beehive, here, and poking it could go so wrong, and that's not even thinking about what if Maple wasn't cool with it... but it could also make me happier and better able to take care of you guys. But I'm already great at that and happier than I've ever been before. So I dunno what to do."
"Could you tell more of us, but still keep it a secret?" Amber suggested. "Not have it be public knowledge, or anything, but enough for all your friends to know and understand what you're doing?"
"Yeah, maybe." Valey looked down. "The other thing is that, to be honest, I barely even know you. Now, I totally said I'd like to get to know you, and I mean it, but that probably doesn't involve putting deep, edgy concerns about the meaning of my existence and blah blah blah over stuff like hanging out. And I feel maybe just a little bad for dumping all this on you just because you're the first pony who said they'd listen."
Amber shrugged. "So let's do that, then. If you're coming to Riverfall with us, there'll be plenty of time to figure out bigger things later. I am getting cold, though, so maybe we could go lower if we just want to chat?"
"Cold, huh?" Amber didn't need to see Valey's face to know she was grinning. "Well, I've got a remedy for that...!"
Suddenly, Valey was gone beneath her. Amber nearly shrieked, but before she could begin to fall, Valey was back... only somehow different. It took her an entire second to realize the batpony was now upside-down.
"Uhhh..." Amber felt her cheeks warm, their legs locked together and bellies touching and muzzles inches apart.
Valey smirked. "That better? It's pretty cozy this way, if you ask me."
"Well, I'm certainly not feeling cold any more," Amber managed, Valey's face taking up her entire field of vision. "But I can't imagine having a conversation like this, either."
"Fair. That's fair." Valey nodded, her giant green eyes shining in the moonlight. "I suppose that means I shouldn't wrap my wings around you and just let us fall for a minute before pulling up?"
Amber nearly choked on her giggle. "No!" she sputtered. "Maybe I'll think that's romantic some day, and actually, probably, I will. Let us down gently! Or not, since I really don't think I'm cold any more."
"Easy glide to the surface, then." Valey turned her head to the side so that Amber could look at something other than her, and soon their left cheeks and ears were touching as Amber let her neck grow limp. "Just figured I'd ask. What with how much you Riverfall mares like cuddling, and all. And remember, I'm pretty terrible at this 'being a reasonable, socially-acceptable pony' thing."
"That's fine," Amber murmured. "I'm not the greatest at it myself. Some ponies back in Riverfall complain about me acting eighteen when I'm in my twenties. They're just jealous I'm popular, though."
She felt Valey's forelegs shift in their grip on her. "Popular, huh? Yeah, not really my area of experience. Cool for you, though. How's that feel? Do you, like, have ponies waving to you on random streets, or stuff?"
"I run into ponies I know everywhere. It's less, like... I'll walk into a random shop and see someone, and be like, 'Hey, I know you!' and they'll be all 'Hey, I know you too!' and we'll laugh about whatever happened last week and talk about what we're buying and say bye."
"That actually sounds kinda boring, to be honest. Almost like an obligation. I like being able to come and go without getting anyone's attention. Makes being sneaky pay off."
"Oh, believe me, I know a lot about sneaking, too. And it's partly for that reason! Nothing tells a friend you care about coming to their party by entering through the back window when they're not looking and then walking up and greeting them while they're greeting guests."
"Hey, what do Riverfall parties look like? Here, they're like... I dunno, 'cuz I don't go to them, but there was once this dude in the Defense Force who brought his little colt in and all the others decided to be big softies and coo at him a bunch. School must've been canceled, or something. I only rained on their parade a little by stealing some refreshments one brought out, but I also didn't crash it because goons who are chilling in their base are goons who aren't antagonizing the Earth District."
"Well, good for you for getting in on the snacks? In Riverfall, one mare will decide to host one, and tell all her friends a day in advance to come to her house, and depending on what kind of party it is she'll make all the food herself, or ask a friend to make it, or her friends will all make it without being asked, but there's always free food. That's not saying much in Riverfall because the city doesn't really have a currency system like in Ironridge. We know how money works, though! It just stopped being useful once the boats left. I wonder if that will change now, when the cities re-open contact, or if Ironridge will go the same way and stop using money too. Anyway, parties can also vary in whether it's just close friends, or friends of friends, and whether there's music and dancing or costumes or just stately older ponies with their tiny glasses of fruity drinks who talk and do nothing interesting. You shouldn't have to guess to know which ones I prefer. And a party where I can invite my friends, well..."
"Heh. Sounds like it could easily get out of hoof."
"Well, I know my limits. And my cutie mark is for boat building, which sort of carries over into woodwork, so I'm pretty good at judging a house's limits, too. We've never broken one at a party I've been at while I was there, though I did have to tell ponies to tone it down once, and there was a story I heard where someone apparently got the railing torn off a balcony. No one was hurt, though. Speaking of carpentry, I need to remember to fix Maple's door. I wonder if there's a way to do that before she gets back and is reminded of it..."
"Well, I could fly you ahead of the airship, though I think it moves pretty fast. Not sure how much faster I'd go with a passenger, if at all. Maybe I could distract her?"
"Maybe. But I don't think it's important. So when you're living in Ironridge, what do you do besides pranking ponies and messing things up for fun?"
"Honestly, that's about it. Being public enemy number one is really, really boring sometimes. I, uhh... let me think. Okay, this is probably totally inappropriate since we're totally interested in each other, or something, but I did just say I was socially inept, so here goes: spying and stalking. You know the Stone District has an indoor swimming pool? It's actually pretty cool. Started as a natural cave, then someone polished it up really, really good. It's closed now since there's no power or water supply to regulate everything and light the place, but they had a shower room and oh boy hiding in the shadows in that shower room..."
"Valey!"
"Hah hah! What? I told you-"
"Oh, nothing. I mean, I hope it was enjoyable?"
"Yeah. That's... Meh. Just reminded myself of something I don't really want to talk about."
"Well, don't worry. I won't ask. Tell me about this shower room!"
"Wow, you sound interested... But it's like this. You know what I said I was, right? And how old I technically am? So, like, developmentally... I have no clue how old that actually makes me. Maybe I'm just a really, really big baby. A poorly-adjusted foal. So sometimes I'm like... how do I know if I actually like ponies, like ponies, or if I just think making others flustered is funny and act like this because I've figured out it gets me what I want? What if I'm-"
"Hey, Valey?"
"Buh?"
"Look me in the eyes real quick. Straight at my eyes. Don't look away."
"Okay. Looks pretty cute to me. And wow, your breath smells like peaches. But what-"
"Eeeheehee! Nose boop!"
"Aaargh! Bananas! What was that for!?"
"Hee! See how hard you're blushing?"
"I can certainly feel it, thank you very much."
"Hey, you're the one who started the close-contact flirting. See how you like it. But the point is, would you feel that way if I was a stallion?"
"What? Ew, bananas no. That would be gross."
"Then I can promise you you really do like mares. And hopefully me, too."
"...Cool. Thanks."
"Anyway, about those showers-"
"Nose boop nose boop nose boop see how you like it! Bwaaah ha ha ha ha!"
"Eeeek! Valey, I get it! That tickles! Stop it!"
"Heh heh... Serves you right for doing that without warning. Now it's your turn to pay me back. But what's that about showers?"
"Oh, I just wanted to tell you not to worry. I don't know what your idea of relationships are like, but you gotta remember, Riverfall kind of... well, again, I don't know if this is normal everywhere or just a Riverfall thing. Wow, I'm getting really self-conscious all of a sudden! But you remember how everyone reacted when we were reading that will and talking about that stallion with seventy foals, or whatever, right?"
"Yeah. Getting paid to do that is weird."
"It is. But the point is, me and Maple and Willow weren't really surprised at all because that's how things happen in Riverfall. It's a necessity, since there are so few stallions. And before, when stallions came, it was on boats, and there was never any time to stay and get to know mares beyond a one-night fling. Willow could tell you a lot more about that than I could, since I was a filly at the time, but relationships were all about things that were new, mysterious and exciting. Now, I like mares, and part of the reason for that is because in Riverfall, that's really your only hope for getting to romantically know someone over a long period... There were also the Sosans, but after what Maple found out about them and how they got there, I'm pretty sure they don't count. That's not to say I've ever been in a relationship like that, or actually gotten serious with anypony before beyond a few quick googly eyes. Definitely not talking about the kinds of things we have, or even cuddled this much. But the point is, just because I'd like to get to know you and maybe see if it leads to something long-term doesn't mean I need to believe you aren't horny or have eyes only for me. Like, I see you pushing Shinespark's buttons, and that's really cute! So don't worry about it. And maybe tell me more about these showers..."
"Heh heh... Cool. Yeah, don't tell anyone, but I might have actually been just a little worried about it. Glad you get it, though, or at least don't mind. So anyway! Funny story. This one time, I was lurking around, and almost ready to go home, when suddenly, the sister of a dude who had just gotten assigned to Selma walks in. Yeah, I check his dudes' bios too. And usually, I stick to messing with my own mooks, but this particular one had actually just flown in from Varsidel. Trying to get off the combat lines, apparently, and put his skills to use elsewhere. I almost felt sorry for him, but at the same time, that's like a whole entire unsuspecting chump who doesn't know who I am! And that was an opportunity I couldn't let go to waste..."
Fresh and awakened, Starlight and her friends sat around a big table in Skyfreeze Tower's food court, sharing a pre-departing breakfast and talking about the future.
"The way I see it is, Amber's plan here is a good one... and for more reasons than you think," Arambai said, having joined them along with Matryona and Shinespark. "Getting boat traffic here from Riverfall, any at all, will get ponies curious and maybe into building boats themselves, and we need to start somewhere if Ironridge is going to get back on the world map." He waved a yellow hoof, food held in his telekinesis. "I'm in talks with Dangerous Karma to try and buy back that headquarters of his. It was originally intended to be a skyport in the days of Project Aslan, and though it was never close to completed, finishing and renovating it would be a lot easier to do on our own than fixing up the Sky District one. And now that the wind barrier seems gone for good, we won't have to worry about a difficult flight route or any height restrictions going in and out."
Amber shrugged thoughtfully. "Well, I'll see. I do want to get Gerardo's boat fixed up, but maybe we should settle back in first? I mean, I wasn't thinking of starting immediately..."
The conversation had been carrying on this way for quite some time, and Starlight was almost completely tuning it out. She fidgeted with a fork in her telekinesis, already full and ignoring her half-eaten plate. Her mind, like the entirety of the day before, was on other things, and most were the fault of a conversation with a magic flame in the caves beneath the Flame District.
She could too be happy. Being with Maple made her happy, didn't it? Keeping her friends safe, finding a place to call home... but, internally, she grimaced. That was having a purpose, not enjoying herself. The more she wracked her mind, probing up memories she had long since buried of idle days spent laying on her back and pointing out shapes in the clouds, reading books aloud or staring at the northern mountaintops with Sunburst, the more she realized that she hadn't felt anything like that, neither after he left, nor after she met Maple in Riverfall. There was too much for her to think about. Too many things she had to take care of to be carefree. But if the tree wanted her to do that... to forget about what the world could do and act as if it was a bright and innocent place... she would just get hurt again, exactly like she had been before, because it wasn't bright and innocent. She had to keep her friends safe, but that was taxing her. So whether she did or didn't, she'd be unhappy, either way...
A long-passed conversation with Willow on a dock in Riverfall sprang to mind, in which she was told that if the world wasn't good enough, she could change it. Right. Make the world a safe and happy place, where she wouldn't have a care ever again...
Though, even the flame seemed to think she could do whatever she put her mind to.
Starlight sighed audibly, putting her forehooves on her cheeks. Even if she wanted to risk it, it wasn't like she could just forget about-
"Starlight?" Maple asked, shattering her concentration. "How are you feeling?"
"Meh," Starlight said, and she meant it.
"Aren't you happy this trip went well?" Maple nudged her shoulder with a hoof, using exactly the wrong word. "I'm very relieved. I needed something to go well after all that. And tonight, we'll get to sleep in our own bed back in Riverfall once again, and I'll make grilled pineapple in celebration for you and me and all our friends. Shinespark too, if she'll stay."
"It's not like I have anything better to do," Shinespark sighed, looking glum.
"Yo... ulp..." Valey spoke around two bread sticks sticking out of her mouth at once, and quickly chewed and swallowed. "I didn't wanna be a party crasher, but you've been kinda mopey today. Did something happen while you were wherever you were the last day or so?"
Willow looked apologetically at Shinespark. "Being so close to her home district, I assume. It must be hard, being around so many ponies you knew..."
Shinespark averted her gaze. "No...! It's not that. It's just..."
"You might as well tell 'em," Arambai growled in his usual, gravelly voice. "Not like it's information anyone here could or would misuse."
Shinespark glanced around quickly, but their corner of the food court was deserted, no one around to eavesdrop thanks to it being between the usual breakfast and lunch hours. "Well..." Her face clouded in a scowl that was halfway between anger and disappointment. "I tried to take the ship south while you were out yesterday. I left the previous evening, and got back last night. I never intended to cross the mountains, just see how far I could go before turning around a day in."
"Really?" Amber leaned forward, her gaze turning keen.
"Really." Shinespark nodded. "The southern mountains were what this ship was designed to cross, after all. Pegasi and conventional airships have tried before. However, the elevation gain required just to crest the initial cliff face is so severe that most ships can't make the journey. Either they stop functioning due to altitude, or run out of fuel halfway up. And the extremely few that do make it report that the mountains just keep on rising beyond that, and they gave up after several more peaks with no sign of them ending. Our ship functions through controlling the effect of gravity on its own mass, essentially, and the idea behind using ponies as a fuel source is that our own harmonic magic doesn't run out, or else is somehow innately replenished by our existence. In short, we wouldn't get stalled. And we know thanks to Starlight that the mountain range is thin enough to be crossed on hoof in around a month."
Starlight huffed. "With a lot of those days spent doing nothing thanks to a cold."
"Right." Shinespark continued, "I flew south, and successfully made the initial ascent. It took several hours to gain that much elevation, since it's more designed for a sustained forward trajectory, but it did clear the cliff face. And then I kept going. The mountains rise beyond that just like it was said they would. And they never stop. I don't know how high they go, because my altimeter stopped working early on. My compass broke too, but it didn't matter since up was the way forward and down was always the way I had came. The ship worked perfectly, though, and kept up a good speed and height gain and did exactly what it was supposed to. I flew all the way until dawn."
All the Riverfall mares' eyes were wide. "What did it look like?" Maple asked, holding her breath. "Mountains that have probably never been seen since the beginning of the world..."
"Beyond beautiful." Shinespark's eyes unfocused, staring off into a distant window. "Imagine the Ironridge crater as seen from Skyfreeze, only completely undeveloped. Add more waterfalls, more trees going up the mountains, sharper peaks, and more snow, and then stack a hundred of those all together in each mountain valley. After the first few, there must have been a heavy magical field above them, because the weather became completely impossible and even my horn started working strangely. It's a wonder as many of the ship's sensors worked as they did. But when you see a snow-capped mountain, and then immediately after, a lush valley that's higher up than it... it made no sense, but I couldn't leave. Once I had seen it in the day, I had to keep going. I almost wondered if I was imagining things from latent magic or lack of sleep."
"You weren't," Starlight confirmed, shaking her head. "It really does look like that. Though I saw it from the ground."
Shinespark's ears folded. "I thought of you. That was when I started realizing something was wrong, since I had crossed far more terrain than a filly could in a month, even if it was flat and easy instead of incredibly difficult. I wondered if I was going the wrong way, and either way I had been out longer than I said I would. So I turned around to come back, and..." She sighed in defeat. "It took only three peak lines for me to find the initial mountain wall. I was back at Ironridge in under two hours. Whatever the magic of those mountains is, it physically stops them from being passable. You fly on and on and see new terrain, but never make any progress, and the moment you turn around, you're right back where you start. I can't even begin to imagine what could be so powerful as to enchant an entire mountain range to do that, but what matters is that I've failed again. Unless we can counter an enchantment beyond my comprehension, this ship can't give us a shortcut to the Plans of Harmony."
The table was quiet. Gerardo, in particular, looked disappointed.
"So..." Valey eventually broke the silence. "How do you think she got here, then?" She pointed a hoof at Starlight.
Shinespark shook her head, answerless.
Willow put a hoof to her chin, musing. "You said there was a powerful magic field above the mountains? You think that was what turned you back?" She hummed deeply in thought. "And that it did something to your horn... Maybe it allowed Starlight through because she was going north. And Starlight, your horn has been different than a normal unicorn's ever since coming to Riverfall, right? But it wasn't like that before? I wonder if this magic affected you strongly for some reason..."
"It's possible." Shinespark perked up, interrupting Starlight before she could answer. "Starlight's magical physiology is vastly different from our conventional understanding of ponies in general, not just unicorns. I doubt a magic field of any sort could have converted her from a normal pony to be like that, but it could definitely have affected her differently than us."
Biting back an old chagrin at being called anything other than normal, Starlight sighed. "As long as you don't try to take me on your ship to see if having me along makes the magic let you through, or something."
"I hate to be the one to say this..." Arambai spoke up. "But the Plains of Harmony were forcibly closed off from the rest of the world a thousand years ago. No one knows the exact details of how that happened, or what the world was like before it, but there's a possibility whatever enchantment is on those mountains isn't natural, but was created by someone or something as a means of protecting them from intruders. In short, it's not impossible having a real citizen on board a ship would make them allow it to pass."
"We won't do that, of course!" Shinespark quickly promised, seeing Starlight's aghast look. "I don't treat people as tools. Besides, if ponies from your home coming here is just as rare as ponies from here coming to your old home, that you were able to leave means it's probably not that. There could be other explanations."
"I have one to offer," Gerardo volunteered, raising a talon. "Starlight crossed the highest reaches of the mountains traveling through a cave, did she not? And I have no recollection of her speaking of strange magical happenings in the great heights. It's quite possible she went under whatever forcefield is repelling air traffic."
Everyone looked at each other. Starlight shrugged. "Maybe? I did only have one valley when I got to the surface before the cliff, and she said there were a bunch before the magic started."
Shinespark closed her eyes and visibly shuddered. "So, what I'm hearing is that to make a trade route to the Plains of Harmony, we'd have to land in the mountains, find a cave, trust that it takes us to the other side, map a route, then widen it out and build a proper transport tunnel, and either put a skyport at this end so we could fly Sosan ships to it from Ironridge to bypass the cliff face or else build some kind of enormous cargo elevator, or maybe a road build into the cliff face... and a project like that would cost more than the remaining net worth of Ironridge, and require cooperation and help on the other end from the Plains of Harmony."
Arambai nodded. "Not to mention you'd likely pop out of the mountains in the middle of nowhere."
"There were some towns around where mine was, on the mountain edges. But not many." Starlight shrugged. "We were really far in a corner of Equestria. You'd need to build another skyport there, too."
Valey picked at a forehoof, laying upside-down on her chair with her hind legs on the table and her plate resting on her belly. "Sure would be tragic if you invested in building all that, got started, and suddenly the Equestrians were like, 'Nope, we enchanted these mountains because we wanna be left alone, go away,' right? Maybe you should figure out if anyone there would like to help you with a plan like this. And hey, maybe they're super duper rich and have crazy technology and could build it for you. Or just take down their mountain magic thing in the first place. If you ask nicely."
Shinespark slowly nodded. "Fire promised us a border pass if we're willing to wait a year. I agree with all that, though there is still a chance the magic is caused by something else and not the Plains of Harmony. Either way, if I want to save Ironridge, I think the best thing to do is get myself and my ship across the border by any means necessary, act as an ambassador, and try to get the ponies there to agree to working with us."
"And, of course, I would come too," Gerardo added, not phrasing it as a question.
"Of course. It's your border pass, after all," Shinespark assured. "But since we'd have to wait a year for that... I don't know what will help Ironridge in the meantime, but maybe I can visit other nations for support. Not that the Griffon Empire has an air fleet, or that Varsidel is remotely stable, but..." She hung her head. "Okay, so maybe that won't work. I might just end up living in Riverfall with Dior and trying to be a regular, civilian pony for a while."
Maple nodded pleasantly. "We'd certainly love to have you."
"Would make doing runs between Ironridge and Riverfall a lot easier, too," Arambai muttered. "Sorry, Amber. Sounds like you'd be put out of the job."
Amber leaned back, stretching. "Eh, it's okay. Hey, Gerardo, what would you do if Shinespark takes an off year before going to Yakyakistan?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Truthfully, I'd travel wherever the winds take me. If Miss Amber has no need of my old boat, I might sail off back to the Varsidelian coasts, in search of high adventure and great treasure. Returning, of course, when the appointed time drew near."
"Huh." Amber grinned, reaching out and pulling Willow and Maple into a hug. "Looks like we'll all get to live together as a big, happy friend group for an entire year! You too, Valey and Shinespark. And Starlight, come here!"
Starlight allowed herself to join the impromptu hug, the idea of spending an entire year living normally spinning through her head. If only she could let herself trust the world and enjoy it...
"Heh," Arambai growled. "Well, isn't that cute. A happily ever after. Can't say you kids don't deserve it. Granted, it's only a year for you, Shinespark, and who knows what the world will be like then? But I'll hold down the fort at Ironridge. You all take it easy and enjoy yourselves."
Amber saluted. "We'll do our best, sir!"
"That's the spirit." Arambai looked aside, then coughed. "By the way, we inspected the area around the old skyport and found Herman's corpse. He's dead as a doornail, so don't you worry about him sneaking after you for revenge. And Selma's living a fulfilling existence as the leader of a personality cult for all the ponies who believe him about saving the day, so he's too busy bragging to his heart's content to give you any trouble. You know... just in case vengeful enemies coming to destroy your peaceful hometown is a phobia of yours."
Maple's pupils shrank. "It really wasn't until you mentioned it, but thanks for letting us know..."
"Any time." Arambai set aside his empty plate, getting to his hooves. "We also recovered that flying axe of his. I really wish we could study that thing, since self-levitating technology was a massive breakthrough with this airship, and that thing can apparently do it like it's nothing. But the moment Fire saw it, she was all over it saying it was Yakyakistan property and she had no idea what it was doing here and all that, and I turned it over as a token of goodwill. Figure we need to do whatever it takes to keep our neighbors friendly, even though this was their fault. Especially since... you know... they're the ones with airships right now."
Shinespark nodded. "Before I settle down in Riverfall, maybe I should take the ship to the Griffon Empire and let them know what happened. We're still getting inbound ships that don't know they'll be stranded in Ironridge, and the rest of the world has surely noticed our silence by now."
"Well, that'll be up to you." Arambai hovered a small, shiny sound stone next to his head. "I'll hang onto this thing, so you can contact me whenever you want and keep me updated on anything you need me to know about, or get the latest news in Ironridge. Anyway, it looks like we're finishing up here. So long, kids, and have a good life."
"You too, Arambai," Maple replied with a warm smile. "Thanks for helping keep the city safe. I'm saying it a lot, but this trip going well means a lot to me."
"Me too," Amber added. "And Valey's not going to say it, but she's relieved she doesn't have to fight any more yak monsters to keep us safe, as well."
Willow bowed her head. "I'll never forget the first time I met you, at the docks ten years ago when you warned me going to Ironridge wasn't a good idea. I don't know if you remembered or not, but thanks to you, that dream is finally a reality."
"Yeah... take care of yourselves." Arambai turned away, Matryona draping a wing over his back, and they were gone.
"Shall we head for the ship?" Gerardo remarked, the morning sun shining on them through an east-facing window.
Shinespark nodded. "I don't see why not. To Riverfall, and the future!"
"To the future!" everyone chanted, raising their empty glasses in a toast. And they rose from the table, pushed in their chairs, and walked to the tunnel out of Ironridge.
"I can't believe how fast that went by," Maple said appreciatively, relaxing in a comfy reading chair in the airship's library. "We were there for three days, weren't we? Well, counting this morning and the evening we arrived as full days, but still! That's as long as our previous trip, and that felt twenty times longer..."
Gerardo chuckled, carefully tending to his feathers. "I wouldn't call it that long, but you're more than right. Danger and adventure have ways of warping one's perception of time, be it for the shorter or longer. And we certainly had an adventure, now!"
Amber shook her head. "I think it's more that having fun makes time fly. It's an old adage, right? And if you can call that an adventure, I can call this fun. As many conflicting feelings as I have about Ironridge, I think this is a trip I'll never regret, and remember for the rest of my life."
"It's certainly a turning point in our lives," Willow added. "All of ours. We've seen the world now, even if it's a small corner of it. We can finally say we're not small-town mares any more, even if I have no doubt where the rest of my days will be lived out."
"Yeah, Riverfall ain't bad." Amber stretched, folding her forelegs behind her head. "Nice place to raise a family. Peaceful. Worst thing that ever happens is Hemlock saying weird things about your tail, and between all of us, I think we can handle him."
Valey winked, once again wearing her bow even though nobody had asked her to. "Yeah, leave the codger to me. Sounds like a fun punching bag to mess with, and knowing me, I'll get bored otherwise with nothing to do."
"How about you, Starlight?" Maple looked across to where the filly was sitting in a corner, examining a book but not really considering giving it a read. "I know you and Riverfall didn't have it perfect in the past, but now that our lives are returning to normal, how do you think you'll be with settling down there?"
"I don't know," Starlight grunted, not making eye contact. "I don't know anyone besides you, and I think the other ponies are afraid of me. I'll try, but right now, I don't love it."
"You can get to know my foals," Willow offered. "I know Alder and Fir love talking about you, and they think you're interesting. We all have friends with children, also. You'd probably have an easier time making friends with ponies closer to your own age instead of adults like us."
Starlight considered that. On the one hoof, she had met Fir and Alder once before, and while they had seemed eager to be friends, she recalled feeling that they thought about things on a lower level than she had. Or had she shut them out because she was still reeling from Alder's similarities to Sunburst? Then again, making friends with a pony when she was the one who wasn't clicking would probably be easier than making friends with a scared or grumpy adult who didn't want to be friends with her. And maybe she felt the way she had because she was worrying about things they didn't have to worry about, since the world had never hurt them the way it had her. Although, being friends with foals wouldn't help the adults to be more comfortable with her... but she might as well try. "All right," she said, swallowing. "That could work."
Willow beamed, and Maple smiled too. Amber pumped a hoof. "That's the spirit!"
"Hey, speaking of spirit, I wonder what happened to all the old Spirit ponies?" Valey quirked an eyebrow. "A bunch croaked during the battles, but I bet a lot of them survived. You think they went back to live with their families and denounced their military ways, or what? Some of them didn't have families or even houses. I know there was this underground bunker at least a few of them called home, but fat chance that's still around after the flood."
"That reminds me of something," Shinespark's voice said, participating in the conversation from the bridge using the ship's intercom system. "Arambai gave me a packet this morning with a complete report on the death toll of the battles on the dam and in the skyport. I don't want to look at it. I know it will be nothing but names of my friends and Defense Force, and I already know who some of them are. But he also said to show it to Maple and Starlight when both of them were in good enough states of mind. Starlight, I get, because of what happened on the dam, but I'm not sure why he mentioned Maple. Either way, I have it with me and will give it whenever you want to see it."
Everyone in the library looked between each other for answers, and Maple shrugged. "I have no idea why it would be for me. I don't have any connections to anyone in Ironridge, do I? And we already saw that our friends like Elise are safe. Starlight?"
Starlight shrugged too, putting her unopened book back on its shelf. As she did so, Sosa the explorer's journal caught her eye, dumped on Shinespark as a means of getting rid of it and now archived idly with other books about whatever. She pointedly ignored it. "I don't know. Probably me because I pressed the button that blew up the dam, so I killed all the ponies that died by falling off it. But I didn't really have a choice. Herman was making someone do it, and any of you probably would have felt worse about it than me. I don't mind looking at it."
"Hear that, Sparky?" Valey craned her head toward the intercom, rising from the cushion where she lounged. "I'll be right up to bring that down so we can check it out. Might as well see if Ironridge has one last surprise for us. You're cool with that, right, Ironflanks?"
Maple nodded. "I'm more curious than anything. And things are going well. If it's anything bad, I might as well see it now."
Amber smirked ruefully. "Given that a ton of ponies probably died, I'd say it's pretty definitely going to be bad, girl."
"Something I've reminded myself of frequently is that every member of the Spirit went into their last mission with the intent to risk their lives for their home, and the Defense Force likely did the same," Shinespark said over the intercom. "It doesn't change the tragedy that they died, or that they lost, but they were ready. Every one of them could have saved themselves by walking away, and thanks to our evacuation and the skyport being closed for the night and the storm, innocent casualties were kept to a minimum. It changes nothing about what happened, but will help if you keep it in mind."
"Noted. Thanks." Amber nodded at the intercom.
Gerardo patted the sword sheathed at his side. "All this is making me feel rather fortunate I possess a means of dispatching my enemies nonlethally."
"How long have you had that thing for, though?" Amber pointed a hoof at it. "Not all your life, right? You had to have fought some stubborn foes before that."
"I acquired it... hrm." Gerardo rubbed his chin. "I don't rightly remember, but it was years ago. It must have been... Well, let me think. It was to the north, on the coast, at that one llama port city that keeps changing its name. I specifically recall that because at the time I was heading inland and needed to pawn off my boat for some form of wealth I could take with me. The pony I obtained it from was a unicorn filly who said she was selling wares for her mother, an enchantress. And while there's a strong possibility she was lying and it was a hustle, or perhaps an auction of stolen goods, I certainly got a quality weapon out of the deal. It was in one of those shadier parts of town, where... ah!" He snapped his talons. "Now I remember. Some crone attempted to sell me a piece of obsidian for it, which I as a griffon would have no use for even if I were into that type of thing. That means it would had to have been at most seven or eight years ago, since that was when the obsidian first fell. Though it was close to the start of my adventuring career, so it certainly can't have been from much later. That is when I got it."
"Cool story, griffon dude," Amber said with a grin. "Though I was a little more curious about how you took out bad guys before that."
Gerardo blinked, then wiped his brow. "Ah, yes, my misunderstanding. In terms of fellow treasure hunters, I regularly tried to keep the act to a competitive sport, while with true villains my aims were usually to subdue them and turn them in to the local authorities. Of course, neither task was always as bloodless as I'd like, and even after obtaining this weapon of mercy I've occasionally had an ally I couldn't save or an enemy I had to dispatch. Regrettable, but not something one becomes an adventurer without growing accustomed to, and hardly a thing that keeps me up at night."
"I'm not sure it's fortunate or unnerving that you aren't disturbed by the idea," Willow said, folding her ears.
"I blew up the dam and am fine with it," Starlight offered, shrugging in solidarity with Gerardo. "I really didn't like Ironridge, and it had it coming, but still."
That earned a worried frown from Maple, but before she said anything Valey returned, a thin envelope tucked beneath one wing. "Yo, here's mail!"
"Should I open it?" Starlight offered. "If there's a lot of names, I could just let you know. I can handle it."
"Don't read them all out loud, please," Shinespark requested.
"Actually," Gerardo volunteered, "since I likely have no connections to any of the afflicted, perhaps I should be the one to initially investigate. I've seen my fair share of things dark or misfortunate not to be disturbed by a humble casualty report."
"Okay." Starlight relented, and Valey passed the envelope to Gerardo.
He slit it neatly with a talon. "Hmm hmm hmm... a single sheet. That's a good sign. It looks like there's a letter in here as well, addressed directly to Maple. Odd. I say, for a conflict of that magnitude, this list is quite puny."
Shinespark had been leaning on the receiver, and suddenly sucked in a breath.
"...I can't say I see anything wrong or disturbing about this," Gerardo went on. "The subject matter aside. It lists the most likely cause of death for each pony... interesting. He must have been thorough in conducting interviews and getting accounts of the battle. Some ponies here even have honorable mention for heroic deaths! Out of request, I won't read them, but this seems an ordinary death report to me." He passed it to Starlight.
She scanned it as well. It was hard to count the names, even though they were arranged by column, but whatever she had been expecting, this was lower. Only four ponies listed as deceased in the skyport? One was Grenada, and she held back a sigh for Shinespark's sake. On the bridge, the toll was higher on both sides, and looked about even. Some ponies that perished in the fighting, some who were accountably alive when the bridge blew and not after, some who had been wounded and were indiscernible... Her eyes scrolled past Gunga and Gigavolt's names. She knew them, but hadn't had a particularly strong connection to either. The only thing that truly stood out was at the bottom of the page, in bright red capital letters: HERMAN - CAUSE OF DEATH: CHEST INJURY, DOUBLE IMPALEMENT, LONG-DISTANCE FALL, BLIZZARD. Good riddance, she thought.
"Here." She floated it over to Maple. "I didn't think it was that bad, and there's nothing weird in it. Maybe you'll see something?"
Maple took it with an optimistic smile, folding the list open and taking a breath. "Well... here goes!"
Slowly, Maple's eyes went back and forth over the list. Her smile grew strained, and Starlight folded her ears sympathetically. Maybe they had different definitions of what a lot was. Then, suddenly, Maple froze, and the room halted along with her.
"...Oh," she said after what felt like an eternity, face looking like cracked glass. "I... definitely wasn't expecting this..."
"Give it here!" Amber demanded, looking angry. "Maple, what happened!?"
"See for yourself," Maple said, expressionlessly passing it over. "I might need a minute or two to think, here."
Amber scanned it, frowning, muttering under her breath, until her eyes flew wide and she shoved the paper back. "What!? Wait, what? There've gotta be two ponies with the same name. Except Arambai said it was for you, and he'd know, so..." She blinked several times. "My mind just got blown."
"What is it!?" Starlight and Valey demanded in sync.
Maple looked up, smiling uncertainly as if she had received news and wasn't sure whether it was good or terrible. "One of the ponies listed here is my old husband."
Willow's eyes widened. "Oh. Oh, Maple..."
"Hold on a moment," Shinespark demanded. "You mean a Sosan who I sent on the ferry to Riverfall? That's impossible. Going to Riverfall was a one-way trip. We never let anyone back for obvious security reasons, since Arambai needed himself and Riverfall kept a secret. You three were the first in years."
"It doesn't make sense to me, either," Maple said, looking dazed. "After what happened, Amber followed him to the southwest corner of Riverfall, and we told Arambai and he said he would deal with this. After that, we agreed never to speak his name again, never went looking for him and never saw any trace. I suppose in the back of my mind, I thought Arambai had already... you know..."
"Solved the problem his own way," Amber darkly finished.
Gerardo held up an additional piece of paper. "Well, there always is this letter, and I suppose it likely contains an explanation."
Amber nodded, waving it over. "Give it here. I'll read it."
He passed it, and Amber started to narrate, not bothering to read ahead first.
Hey, kids. A particular name on that list probably caught your eye, didn't it? If you haven't already read it, you might want to do so now, and if you did and nothing looked interesting, then throw this letter out and forget all about it. But I figured you'd want an explanation.
The idea behind letting ponies who were down on their luck escape Sosa and find refuge in Riverfall was one of second chances. It's always something I've been good at; providing ponies with a way out. Ever looked at my brand? It's an open door, and not because I'm good at building like most ponies think. And I did my best to make sure Riverfall was as close to a paradise as could be found in this world, where ponies could take their failures and die with them in peace.
Sometimes, though, my best isn't enough, and I wind up with ponies on my hooves for whom playing nice and respecting that paradise just isn't an option. I bet you can guess who I'm talking about, Maple. It's not fun, but I ain't about to give one pony their chance at the expense of others'. And that calls for a more permanent option, like killing them... or, in this case, brainwashing.
Shinespark, if you're reading this, you might be mad at me for going behind your back, but you should realize that I always kept a second route back into Ironridge. It's that teleporter in my basement. Keeping in mind that teleportation requires a concentrated burst of energy rather than a steady supply, our usual issues didn't stop it from being operational, and that weird resonance effect lets me power it with just a hoofful of ponies. I used it to get back here when the dam blew up, even. So I used that to send him back.
You're familiar with Factory Chief Dorable, right? Actually, Maple, odds are you aren't. He showed up about seven years ago, right around the time I left for Riverfall for good. I don't know his history, but Shinespark will tell you he knows a lot about weird, esoteric types of magic. He was very helpful putting together some of the concepts and ideas we used to make that airship, and especially Braen's armor. Anyway, I asked him about it way back when, and it turns out he has some spell that lets you selectively damage a pony's memory.
He said it was something called a Nightmare Module. Your guess as to what that means is as good as mine, but he was very clear that this is the bad kind of magic you don't go around fiddling with. Told me he'd use it if I needed it, but to understand that it wasn't a toy. Anyway, I had him use it there. Teleported you-know-who directly to him in Sosa, and let him do the rest.
Anyway, he wiped out every recollection this fellow had of Riverfall, and maybe some others to boot. Not actually sure what he did leave him with, for that matter; my involvement ended there. Apparently, he wound up with few enough attachments to join the Spirit of Sosa and wound up as one of the ponies who died on that dam.
So congratulations, Maple. Your adopted daughter wound up murdering your ex-husband. And believe it or not, that's still a family history much cleaner than the likes of me or Elise.
Maple breathed a long sigh when Amber was done. "Well, that's a chapter of my life I never expected any further closure on."
Starlight was numb. "So I killed the pony who hurt you that badly two years ago?"
"It sounds like it," Amber said, scanning back over the list. "He's named here as one of the ponies who definitely died when the dam collapsed. Wow. I thought I had put this behind me, but... wow."
Willow moved closer, putting a foreleg on Maple's shoulder, and Maple leaned into it. "At least we know what happened, right?"
In the corner, Valey was scowling. "Nightmare Modules, huh? I knew they had other spells..."
"Hmm? What's that you say?" Gerardo leaned closer, smiling eagerly.
"Nothing!" Valey snapped. "I mean... never mind. I was just suspicious of Dorable earlier. Knew he was doing weird magic stuff for Shinespark, and was always trying to figure out just who he was and what he knew. Guess this puts me a little closer, even if not really?" She shrugged. "I dunno."
"I've never heard about any of this," Shinespark added over the intercom. "I knew the teleporter was operational, and Dorable has helped us with some of our projects. I don't know anything about his background either. I'm just a little worried Arambai did this and didn't tell me."
Maple shrugged. "You have that sound stone we stole from Howe, right? You could always call Arambai and ask about it, if you want to talk to him."
"I think I'll do that once we land. We're not too far away from Riverfall, and I'll need to focus on the landing."
"Perhaps we should discuss what we'll do upon arrival?" Gerardo suggested. "To turn the conversation to more pleasant things?"
Maple nodded. "Grilled pineapple. Still the plan. I'd like to make it at Willow's house, like for the going-away party we had when we left for Ironridge the first time. It'll be the perfect way to close off what has been an eventful, and ultimately successful period of my life..." She took a big breath, then let it out. "And to remind all of us, but especially me, that even though there are those who hurt us... everything will be okay in the end."
Everyone nodded back, murmuring in agreement.
"A celebration to adventurers returning and departing," Gerardo proclaimed. "I can't predict how long I will stay around, myself. It's quite likely I will leave at my earliest convenience. Be that if Amber deigns to give me back my boat... though it was a gift, and she is under no obligation to do so... or if Ironridge provides an opportunity for escape, or if Shinespark decides to depart or even promotes me to temporary steward of her ship, I shan't stay in place for long."
"Well, I think you're the only one," Amber chuckled. "I know I'm going to take the easy life for a bit before charging off to the edge of the world!"
"I doubt I'll leave immediately either," Shinespark added. "I don't know if I'll stay the full..." She trailed off. "Hold on. Can somepony go check the deck? We're too near to landing for me to do it, but I think something just landed on our ship."
Valey frowned. "Landed? Like a pony? I thought Riverfall didn't have any fliers..."
"That's why I'd appreciate someone checking."
"Okay." Valey swiftly rose to her hooves. "Not getting tingles yet, but this is weird, and weird things can be dangerous. I'll check this out."
"And I'll provide reinforcement," Gerardo vowed, drawing his sword and standing alongside her.
"I should come too..." Maple got up to follow them. "If it's something to do with Riverfall, neither of you are from there."
Starlight stuck by her side, and Willow and Amber followed as well.
The entire party sans Shinespark stepped out onto the deck, wind trailing around them and the pink energy comet shining above as they descended swiftly toward Riverfall for a landing. The deck was deserted, save for a small bundle of color wedged against the stern entry.
"Hmm?" Gerardo frowned in alarm. "I say, that resembles the colors of our friend Slipstream. Yet she isn't coming forward to greet us..."
Valey launched herself forward, soaring to where the pink pegasus lay crumpled against the deck with a single beat of her wings. "Yo, you guys should come look at this!" she called, raising her voice above the wind. "She's out cold, and looks pretty busted up!"
Everyone charged across the deck to meet her, Maple, Amber and Willow kneeling in concern around their fallen ally. Starlight stared from behind them; Slipstream's feathers were bent and in disarray, her mane looked snarled and there were multiple scuffs and tears on her sweater.
"Lemme see..." Valey carefully sized her up, lifting and prodding and checking the pegasus's wings and limbs and vitals. "I know my ponies who've lost fights, and this doesn't look like a duel. Maybe she was slammed against a wall... Took two or three dirty blows and fled. Nothing sharp or burny. It wasn't clean, though; more like collateral damage than something targeting her. And if she was targeted, whatever she was fighting didn't care to finish the job. Either way, that's bad news."
"In Riverfall?" Maple gulped. "She had to have come from there, right?"
"Eeyup." Valey nodded grimly, then took off back for the bridge, flinging the door open. "Hold off on the landing, Sparky! We've got trouble."
With a shimmering roar of magic, the ship's comet pulsed, and their descent slowed to a halt several meters above the treetops. When it was stable, Shinespark appeared on the deck in a burst of teleportation with a frown on her face. "Trouble? What's going on?"
"This." Valey pointed a hoof back at where Slipstream lay. "She looks like she got off bad in a fight, and I'd hazard a guess she found us while she was running away. And that means Riverfall has something she was fighting."
"I don't believe I've heard Miss Slipstream discuss being a fighter, either," Gerardo remarked. "If she was engaged in combat, she likely was desperate, or had no choice."
"Valey?" Maple asked, glancing worriedly at the batpony. "How dangerous does Riverfall feel? Can you sense anything?"
Valey's face darkened. "No. And there's only one time my cutie mark is wrong... and that's when I'm not in danger, but my friends are."
Amber bit her lip.
"What do we do?" Willow asked, tense. "If Riverfall is in danger, I won't be any help in a fight. But some of us will need to go down there to see what's happening, right?"
Gerardo cleared his throat, quickly taking charge. "Those of us who can fly are also the best fighters, which would be Valey, Shinespark and myself. However, none of us are Riverfall natives and would not know likely spots to search for trouble, particularly if Valey cannot detect anything. That means one of you three would need to go with us." He nodded at Maple, Amber and Willow.
"I'll do it," Maple volunteered, stepping forward. When Amber raised a hoof to protest, she cut her off: "No. You're still weak from that sword, and of all of us, I have the most experience being in danger and surviving in a fight. My cutie mark might even be useful, and I still have some magic from the crystal palace stored, though it's nowhere near enough to do what I did in the Flame District again."
"Acceptable." Shinespark nodded at her. "I'll go down, since I have magic and will be the best at carrying others. Besides, I can attack at range. Valey, you're with us. Gerardo, you know how to pilot the ship, so stay here and keep it safe."
Gerardo looked ready to protest, then bowed in confirmation. "Very well. Shall I leave you with my sword, just in case?"
Valey shook her head. "We won't need it, and if anything it could be a liability. Better to keep yourself armed in case you need to defend the ship. We have no idea what we're dealing with, here."
"I'm coming with Maple," Starlight demanded. "No questions. If she goes, I go."
Shinespark blinked at her, paused... and lit her horn. "Fine. Amber, Willow, you stay on the bridge with Gerardo. Carry Slipstream in there as well. Let's go."
Her magic expanded, lifting Starlight and Maple in a cloud of blue, and they rose off the deck and into the sky.
The away team descended below the treetops, hovering far above the road in a triangular formation with Starlight on Maple's back. They rotated slowly, scanning the streets as they moved, but there was no sign of battle. Several pedestrians even stood outside their houses talking, though from above Starlight couldn't tell if there were more or less than usual.
"Still no danger," Valey reported, fur standing on end. "Nothing shooting at us, though Slipstream didn't look like she'd been shot at either. This is creeping me out."
"It is..." Shinespark agreed. "Maple, this is why we have you along. Where is trouble likely to be?"
Maple closed her eyes, thinking. "We know Slipstream was involved, so it's likely to be somewhere she was. But I don't know where she stayed..." She swallowed. "What if she was targeted because she came back from Ironridge? We need to check on White Chocolate and Dior, right away."
Shinespark sucked in her breath. "Dior knows how to teleport. He would escape if he were in trouble. Where's White Chocolate?"
"That way." Maple pointed a hoof. "By air, it's not far."
They sped forward, weaving around trees, and quickly came to Willow's residence. Maple guided them down on the roof of a high tower next to it, and soon Starlight's hooves had wood beneath them once more.
"This is it," Maple said, looking down from the edge. "I don't see anyone around, though..."
Starlight lit her horn, calling on a spell she had devised in her travels to feel through solid objects by detecting resistance against her telekinetic field. She swept it downward through the tower, straining to extend her range, for once pushing a different limit of her horn than how much effort she could expend while keeping it active. She scanned the top floor, then the next... and found two bodies, adult-size and slowly wandering around.
"They're safe," she said. "White Chocolate and Faron. I think. I felt two ponies."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "There could be a lot of other reasons to feel two ponies snooping around at a time like this. Wait here a minute; I'll be right back."
She disappeared into a shadow cast by the tree canopy and slithered out of sight, aiming for a window lower down on the wall. Starlight, Maple and Shinespark all stood, waiting apprehensively.
"I feel numb," Maple murmured. "After everything in Ironridge and so many mood swings and then our trip just now, I think my ability to feel scared might be broken. I'm just... ready. To react to whatever happens, and deal with it later."
"That's better than freaking out," Shinespark remarked, sounding even more tense than Maple. "It's a step in the right direction."
Starlight wasn't sure she agreed, but wasn't about to say so. Her own heart was taught with a mix of fear, worry and pre-emptive anger, and her hooves twitched against the rooftop. She was ready to blow out her horn again in a heartbeat if it would help her friends, but until she had a direction to focus it, all that tension went nowhere except swirling inside her head.
"Back," Valey reported sharply, rising out of the floor again. "No trouble. Whitey and that Sosan dude are both there. They say they've just chilled out and stayed at home since we left, and nothing eventful has happened."
"So it's not that." Shinespark grimaced. "Any other ideas? I have no idea what we're looking for or where we're going to find it."
"Still no danger," Valey said, nodding off to the side. "So this is Willow's place, White Chocolate's place, and basically Amber's old place too, right? Probably not anything to do with any of us, then, and me and Shinespark don't have houses here. Wanna go check on Arambai's old hut?"
Starlight hesitated. "Wait," she commanded, an ugly thought swirling to the surface of her mind. "What if...?" She swallowed. "Never mind."
"Starlight?" Maple looked fondly at her, a strained tension in the back of her pink eyes. "You have an idea?"
"No," Starlight muttered, hanging her head. "I just know that a lot of ponies here didn't like me, since there was that time I crystalled someone and then everyone was afraid of me at Dior's breakfast on the ship. So I was going to suggest checking your house, but..."
Shinespark nodded. "It's a better lead than any we have so far. Maple?"
Maple grimly pointed a hoof. "That way."
The town passed quickly beneath them once again, and the buildings grew shorter, heralding the southeastern corner of Riverfall where Maple's house sat. Starlight recognized it from the air, and winced as Valey zipped ahead in a blast of wind.
"Bad news, ladies," Valey growled, quickly flapping back. "That broken door of yours is smashed in and totally off its hinges. Looks from here like it got sloppily burglarized."
"Vandals?" Maple's eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath.
"Yeah." Valey's eyes narrowed. "But no Riverfall upstarts are a match for me. Cover my exits, Sparky. I'm going to knock some blocks off."
With a firm nod, Shinespark set everyone down in front of the house, and Starlight saw that Valey hadn't been kidding. The door was cracked, one hinge torn completely out of the wall and one heavily on its way, and while Gerardo hadn't been kind to it earlier, this was definitely worse than before.
"My house..." Maple's features hardened, and she stomped after Valey into the darkness. "Who did this!?"
Starlight lit her horn for illumination, racing after them, and had to fling herself into a broken table to break her momentum and stop from treading on broken glass. "What...?" she squeaked, voice cracking as she took in the teal-shadowed destruction.
Maple's bakery display case was smashed, its metal bracings holding only shards as if someone had lobbed a boulder through it, or struck it with a crowbar. All the lights in the ceiling had holes gouged through them, and the dainty round tables were split in two, their single legs split, or else their surfaces chopped along the grain. Someone had been there with an axe, as evidenced by the thick cuts in the support pillars and walls of the house that served no purpose but to act as scars.
Starlight picked her way carefully across the ruin, booting her hooves with crystal to avoid cutting them or wedging glass in where it would hurt. She got the spell second try, courtesy of her practice in the tree room and the power of unfocused rage. She passed Maple, who was staring in horror at the wreckage with pinprick pupils, and made her way across a counter that had had something heavy smashed upon it.
The door the the pantry had been axed as well, and from the sweet smell of mixed fruit coming out and the juices that seeped out along the floor, everything in it had been spoiled. Starlight clenched her teeth so hard it felt like her jaw would break and ascended the staircase, the steps also victims of wanton chopping, not sure what she would do when she reached the floor that was truly home.
Above, Maple's stove had been torn out of the wall, hacked free and then smashed upon the ground. The cupboards were open, the hinges on most of the doors wrenched or smashed off, and shards of broken plates littered the dented countertops and the ground. The windows had been punched out, and someone had clubbed the faucet into a twisted sculpture of unusable metal.
"Yo!" Valey's voice echoed from the open door to the bedroom, and Starlight raced forward, crystal boots clunking against the gouged floor.
Inside, horn still the only source of illumination beyond shattered windows and torn curtains, she saw exactly what she hoped she wouldn't: Maple's wonderful bed, slashed and torn, the bedside stands reduced to kindling and bits of feathery stuffing littering the room. Valey was crouched over something in the corner, and when Starlight brightened her horn, she realized it was a pony.
Again, Starlight charged until her horn brought them into view... and likewise gasped. Jamjars was laying against the wall, her mane still mangled after Valey captured her in the barber shop, and Starlight quickly realized the dark patches on her coat she took for shadows were bruises. And Jamjars was awake.
"Ugh..." The filly spat, trying to move before groaning and giving up. "Starlight...! About time you got back..."
"Yo, kiddo." Valey stood close, but didn't touch her. "You okay? What went down here?"
"You're an idiot," Jamjars hissed through her teeth. "Don't say things ponies can... use against you..."
Starlight blinked. "Me?"
"Yes, you!" Jamjars raised her voice, immediately wincing and lowering it again. "After you left, Hemlock was in the big plaza, and he had some Sosan machine that records stuff and played a clip of you talking about how you enjoyed blowing up the dam on everyone and would do it again! He shouted a bunch and talked about how Gerardo's story confirmed you did it and tried to rile everyone up..." She coughed once, winced, and didn't try it again. "Everyone either knew not to listen to him or not to bother you, but there were like five of them who already hated you for whatever reason and..." She groaned again, eyes burning. "Formed a mob. Someone called Mangrove... was the leader, I think. Hemlock wasn't here. He just made trouble. But they came and tore the place apart to get you to leave. Left pretty recently... I tried to fight them and that pegasus came as well, but my magic's not strong enough and I don't know how to fight..." She coughed again. "You probably could have done it effortlessly on your own..."
Starlight felt her horn starting to burn against her scalp, one word carved into her mind with just as much blunt force as the gashes and gouges that marred Maple's house. "Hemlock, huh?"
Valey stood up. "Welp. A name's all I need to bring someone to justice. Starlight, have Shinespark get this kid back to the ship; I'm pretty sure we've got-"
Starlight was gone in a violent crackle of teleportation.
"Hemlock!" Starlight roared, backed by a magical explosion as she appeared in Riverfall's central plaza, the first place that came to mind. She landed with her horn burning; she couldn't see it, but wouldn't be surprised if actual fire had replaced its usual teal glow. A kernel of darkness twinged at its core, and she was sure that right then, personal limits or not, she could do anything.
Gasps and shrieks filled her ears, forcing her to pay attention to her vision. The plaza wasn't crowded for an event, but plenty of mares were hanging out there anyway, and all were staring at her in terror, freezing or turning tail to run.
"There she is!" one cried to her friend. "I told you those fools would just make her mad! Run!"
"I didn't do anything!" another wailed, flinging her head to the ground and covering it with her forelegs, eyes squeezed shut. "Please don't destroy us too!"
Starlight flinched as if struck by a spear. Whether it was intentional or not, sending her into a rage to find and destroy Hemlock like he had destroyed her chances of a life in Riverfall was only hurting her image even more. She had to do something, say something, make the mares love her and not be afraid any more... but her rage survived the onslaught, and she had another goal that was more important. She teleported again.
This time, Starlight appeared on the roof of Arambai's house with slightly less violence than before. Hemlock's rocking chair was there, but it was empty, and a second later it was gone, destroyed by a twisting storm of telekinesis even more finely than Maple's furniture. Starlight's horn twinged again, reminding her that she had a limit, but she didn't care. Times like this were when limits had to be broken.
"Hemlock!" she shouted again, but more for time to think than because he might be nearby. Why would he do such a thing? Granted, he had regularly quarreled with Amber, and their party had ran him over last time they visited Arambai's, but what did he have against her? When had...?
A fuzzy image floated up from the depths of her memory of a falling boat and collapsing crane, and guided by instinct, Starlight left a shimmer of magic where she had been standing once again.
"What the-!?"
Starlight cleared her blue-tinged vision fast enough to react to the fact that she wasn't alone. Her horn stayed lit, ready to project a wall of crystal to attack or shield herself, but somehow, her opponent was caught completely off guard.
"You!" Hemlock exclaimed, pointing a rickety hoof straight at her muzzle. "Can't you take a hint that you ain't welcome here, varmint? Git!" He waved at her like she was a pest to be shooed away.
"...Hemlock." Starlight leveled her gaze at him, imagining that her eyes glowed. "You destroyed my mother's house."
Nearby, the waterfall that formed Riverfall's namesake was still heavy with the extra drainage from the broken dam and melting Sky District snow. While the river level had fallen from what it once was, all that remained of the shore where Hemlock's crane had once stood was the wooden platform it had been built on, and that too had at one point been underwater. It formed an inescapable arena both her and the stallion stood on, an island in the edge of the river, the surface slick with moisture, and she briefly wondered how he had gotten out there on his own.
Hemlock snorted. "I told ponies the truth. Always knew you were trouble. Here in Riverfall, we respect the old ways, and you have no respect for your elders. So leave! You keep threatening to, so finish the job, already!"
"You destroyed my mother's house," Starlight repeated, dangerous. "Why!? And what's this about you and a recording of me?"
"Oh, you mean this thing?" Hemlock suddenly looked insufferably smug, and pulled out a small, boxy device. "Here. Give yourself a listen, varmint."
He clicked a button, and it gave a snowy hiss of static. "I killed a lot of ponies on the dam when I blew it up and washed away Sosa," Starlight heard her recorded voice say. "I don't regret it and would do it again..."
Hemlock smirked, letting it run on repeat. Starlight folded her ears, mouth open in denial. "I don't... When did I say that!?" she demanded, desperately hoping there wasn't an answer.
"After your goon squad kicked me around for sport on my roof," Hemlock bragged. "Old Arambai had a whole bucket full of these things, so I swiped one earlier in case it would come in handy. Young Maple looked distressed when she left with you, so I followed you and recorded what you said. Got this gem out of it." He put the recorder away with the kind of victorious look only old ponies could wear. "What have you to say for yourself, undesirable?"
"You destroyed my mother's house!" Starlight shouted, stomping so hard her hoof slipped on the dangerous surface beneath her. "That's what I have to say! And don't listen in on private conversations! Now what I want to know is why!"
Hemlock pursed him lips, and Starlight realized his own anger was rising. "Upstart! You're supposed to respect your elders, not forget about your slights of them! You may be from another country, but it's like you're not even trying to adopt our ways and manners! You ruined my public image, is what you did!" He leaned closer, leering. "Sabotaged this here crane for the first time I get to use it in years! I had a respected retirement, and the moment I try to come out to do good for a fellow citizen of my town, you come here and maliciously make yourself out to be the hero!"
"What!?" Starlight took a step back, indignant, and scowled. "Your dumb crane broke on its own! I didn't want attention in the first place, and you went and acted like it'd had maintenance in the last seven years and almost sank Gerardo's boat! I wish I had let it sink, you petty joke!"
"You're the jerk!" Hemlock shot back. "And don't you use your contemporary slang on me, hussy! You think destroying an old stallion's image is funny? I hear mares giggling about me and my crane around every corner! I used to be desired, punk! Well, now you're a villain, and you ain't got no home! That's a little thing we respectable folk like to call fairness."
Starlight lowered her head. "I called you a joke, you joke. The kind ponies make fun of for fun. Because that's what you're supposed to be! I thought you were the weird stallion on the roof everyone complained about and pranked while you weren't looking. You were never respected. You're nothing."
"I was too respected!" Hemlock roared. "What do you know about respect!? When I was-"
"I know that you deserve none and get what you deserve," Starlight snorted, interrupting him. "How do you like-"
"Don't interrupt your elders." Hemlock waved a hoof in her face again. "You're just digging your own hole-"
"Don't like me interrupting, do you?" Starlight cracked a grin, the rage beneath her skin decaying into something sickly. Her horn twinged again, but she kept it lit and took a step forward. "Interrupt. Interrupt. Interrupt! Ha ha ha!"
Hemlock raised a hairy eyebrow. "Are those fighting words, vagabond? You here for a lesson? Then sit down and listen, because in the old days-"
"I'm not sure you get it." Starlight's posture straightened, and she felt like she grew several inches taller. "You destroyed my mother's house." Her horn pulsed harder, and she almost staggered as a wave of bitter emotion clouded her vision. "You shouldn't be thinking about teaching. You should be running. And right now, you can't run." She slowly raised a forehoof, feeling as if it was a million miles away. "You. Are. At. My. Mercy."
Her horn overloaded. The discharge of magic caused her vision to swirl and flicker, and a burst of steam erupted from the river around her. When it cleared, she had used the armor spell on a single hoof... but what had formed wasn't armor.
It was a wicked spike, edged sharply into a sword, with twisted, eldritch patterns on the surface that perfectly matched her anger. She held the weaponized hoof aloft, pointing it straight at Hemlock, and for the first time the stallion seemed to realize she was just as dangerous as he had made her out to be.
"You definitely don't get it," Starlight continued, her voice with a strange ring to it... or was that her ears? "Do you want me to be dangerous? Do you think I'm a city-killing monster? If so, you're an idiot to bait me. Why'd you wait all the way out here, in the first place?"
Hemlock was sweating. Ears folded, he stammered, "T-To get a clear look of the sky, for when you landed! I was watching to see if you would return!"
Starlight snorted. "Idiot. If you didn't think I was all that bad, you lied to everyone, and that's dishonorable. Some old-school values you have. I think your values are garbage. I hate you. You destroyed my mother's house. But I am capable of anything. And I wanted to live in peace, but you couldn't have that. So if you won't let me live here... why should I let you?"
She raised her impromptu sword.
"Starlight!"
A distant voice made her turn her head, and her eyes widened as she saw Valey shooting out from between two towers, just close enough upriver to see them over the waterfall. She glanced back between the spike and Hemlock, and something in her already-conflicted heart stabbed. As much as he deserved it, could she execute Hemlock in front of her friends?
That doubt cracked her resolve, and the sword suddenly shattered into bouncing crystal bits that disappeared in puffs of steam. With it, something changed, and the realization of just how much her horn hurt hit her like a boulder in a waterfall. It wasn't just her horn, either; her entire body felt somehow bad. She staggered with a gasp, even as she felt her vision clear and saw the world grow brighter.
"I knew you couldn't do it." Hemlock smirked, catching her attention once again, and Starlight snarled. "No bite to your bark. Haw haw! Now then, hussy, sit down and let me teach you why your elders...!"
He lunged, and Starlight rolled to the side, eyes on his teeth in case he pulled a weapon. They both hit the floor, waterlogged wood dampening her pink coat. Starlight growled, trying to shake away her headache and get back to her hooves. She put one forehoof beneath her, then the next... and then Hemlock was grabbing her, bowling her over with a sliding charge.
"Gotcha!" he crowed, throwing Starlight to the ground. Her horn sputtered to life again in self-defense, Valey still a ways up the river. Hemlock raised a hoof to slap her, and she caught it with two of her own, kicking back and throwing him away.
"Leave me alone!" Starlight cried. "I didn't sabotage your dumb crane! You're insane!"
"And you're disrespectful!" Hemlock reared back again, standing on his hind legs. "Prepare to... Ow! Oh, my back...!"
Starlight saw her chance, lashing out with her own hind legs from her prone position. She struck Hemlock's hoof, and he toppled, thunking on the wet wood and scrambling towards her.
"Get off!" she kicked him away as he thrashed at her, unable to get up. "Leave me alone! Leave my friends alone! Go..."
Hemlock lunged once again, striking her with something bony, and together they slid to the edge of the platform. Starlight rolled to her hooves first, taking a step back as Valey called out again. The batpony was seconds away...
"Raaaugh!" Hemlock's eyes flew open, and he shot upwards, snarling... but his hind hooves slipped on the wet deck, entering the river with a splash. His eyes widened in panic, he slipped further... and before Starlight could react, he was gone, the waters churning as they always had where he had been.
Whud! Valey landed beside her, puffing. "What did you do!?" she demanded, not even giving Hemlock's fate a second look.
Starlight didn't answer, staring at the river where he had vanished. That had been his fault, right? She sought him out, but he was the one who slipped. He was the one who chose such a dangerous arena, and had antagonized her in the first place, right?
Right?
The stallion wasn't all there, her mind told her. And the dam had been going to blow either way, and everyone there was prepared to die. She had hunted Hemlock down. And the way she had felt before, when she prepared to strike him down in cold blood...
"Starlight? Hey, Starlight!" Valey barked. "I have no idea what kind of spell you were using, but it was weirding out my cutie mark, and that's not cool. Unless you think that fool was going to attack me..."
Starlight swallowed, her headache still there. She had to get back to Maple. She had to get home... wherever that way. She needed someone to tell her everything was all right. Riverfall could still work, couldn't it? It could...
Her eyes found the opposite riverbank, and she numbly took in what looked like a purple tail darting out of sight behind a building. Someone had been watching. It was over.
"I'm sorry, Maple," she murmured, collapsing against the wet platform and slowly blacking out. "I'm sorry..."
Starlight groggily swam back to consciousness, head pounding, fuzzy images swirling in her memory of a platform surrounded by water and a frantic tussle. "Nnngh..." She groaned, muscles feeling limp.
"Starlight!" Her vision focused on Maple, standing over her and looking her straight in the eye. "Oh, you're awake..."
"Was that a nightmare?" Starlight asked, in the vain hope that it would be.
Valey was also in the room, which she identified as somewhere on Shinespark's airship. "You tell us," the batpony said with a shrug. "We were rooting through Maple's place, found Jamjars, she said a bunch of stuff, and you completely freaked out and teleported off with a bang. I followed you, which was kinda hard because you kept teleporting, and eventually found you standing up on the riverbank at the top of the waterfall with Hemlock. Looked like you were standing back and glaring at each other, and he was backing off and slipped over the edge. You were doing something with your magic that gave me chills and looked really, really furious, so I might have had to knock you out and haul you back here. You've been out for maybe... fifteen minutes? Sorry for doing that, but you're not going to lose it again, are you?"
"You also have a fever," Maple added, eyes dry.
Starlight touched her forehead, dizziness mounting. "At the top of the waterfall? No, we were on a platform at the bottom. Where his crane used to be. And he was fighting me! And laughing about how evil he was! He kept going on about teaching me a lesson, and calling me a varmint and hussy and laughing! We were surrounded by water and I burned my horn out, so there was nowhere to run! I was defending myself!"
Valey frowned. "You were definitely on the riverbank. You know, that stone thingy with the railing that looks kinda touristy? There was a wall, but neither of your backs were to it, and he just slipped. And I didn't see any fighting, either."
"I know what I saw," Starlight mumbled, a spike of fear and denial rising up inside her. She had just wished it was a nightmare, but...
"What did you say Hemlock did, again?" Amber glanced in concern at her... was she also in the room? "Laughing about how evil he is doesn't sound like him at all."
"He..." Starlight swallowed. "He did! He was talking about how I needed to get out of town, and kept smirking and laughing! He had a recording and was sneering and was in my face! He said he was there to watch and see if we bothered to return, and that I was a menace! And I... I..."
Now Amber looked a lot more concerned. "Starlight, Hemlock is a coward, and not all that bright. Whenever I confront him about something, he makes excuses like crazy the moment he realizes I'm actually mad. He doesn't go looking for fights, and he doesn't attack ponies. He is petty and does hold heavy grudges, but always, always deals with them indirectly. I've never seen him directly confront another pony."
Starlight's heart rose again. If this was all a nightmare... "So then Maple's house..."
"Is wrecked," Maple finished with a sad sigh. "I'm dealing with it. And I'll deal a lot better if you're all right, Starlight. The ponies in my life are a lot more important than the... other things."
"Am I okay?" Starlight shuddered, her horn giving an uncomfortable pulse. "I fought him! I did..."
Valey gave an apologetic shrug. "Kiddo, the only bruise you've got is the one from where I knocked you out. I checked you on our way back. But if you really want to know, I guess you could ask him yourself before we teleport him off to Arambai to deal with. Haven't called the old stallion yet, but he's probably going to need to know that Riverfall just had a mob vandalism."
Starlight felt her eyes bug out. "He's alive!?"
"Yeah, I fished him out of the river the moment you were subdued." Valey shrugged. "Shinespark's got him locked up in another room with some towels right now, but I don't think he's a threat. He's mostly blubbering like a maniac about how you're a demon and are going to murder him in his sleep."
"I..." Starlight gasped and bit her lip at the same time, and the result was a faint strangled sound. "I told you he hates me..."
Valey shook her head. "Yeah, but this isn't mad cackling like you described. I'm pretty sure the dude's wet himself at least twice since we got here, though it's hard to tell since he's already dripping. And to be honest? You were scaring me, too. Like, I don't like getting butt danger tingles from my friends, Starlight. You're probably not going to want to hear this, but as much as Hemlock definitely did just ruin your and Maple's lives here... I think you really did lose it and get just as dangerous as he thought you were."
Starlight gulped, head pounding and ears folding.
"So, I'd love to go deal with stuff so we can get this show on the road, and all that jazz..." Valey looked between Amber and Maple. "Whatever you did back there, it's not gonna happen again, right? You've cooled off now, so I can leave you alone?"
Shaking, Starlight nodded. "I d-don't know what happened. I think so?"
"Cool." Flicking her tail, Valey turned around and left, leaving Starlight, Maple and Amber alone in the cabin.
"Oh, Starlight..." Then Maple was hugging her.
"I don't know what happened!" Starlight sniffed. "I was telling the truth! That's what I did! He fought me! He was dangerous! That's what happened, right?"
Maple grimaced against her. "I didn't see, Starlight. But from what I know of Hemlock, I agree with Amber and Valey. He can be petty and spiteful, but..."
"He said I was the one who sabotaged and broke his crane," Starlight went on. "It was his fault! He blamed me for everything!"
"Okay, now that's weird," Amber cut in. "Because I know for a fact he thinks I sabotaged his crane. Me and Gerardo did a publicity stunt to convince him of that and try to take heat off you for saving the boat when it fell, remember? There's a good chance he's ticked at our entire friend group, and to be honest, we might have deserved it just a little. He always was saying uncouth things about my tail and never listened when I told him to knock it off, so I always treated him like a silly old fool to be made fun of. And that last time on Arambai's roof..." She hung her head.
"That doesn't excuse what he did," Maple said stiffly.
Amber shook her head. "No. It doesn't. And it didn't last time, when he found out and told everyone Starlight was from over the mountains, when she really didn't want attention. I don't know why Hemlock went after her again with this now, but if you want my guess? He's afraid of outsiders and change. He's not touching Gerardo because he's popular and everyone likes him, but Starlight is... well, not a performer. But I think Hemlock likes his world, doesn't understand that he shares it with other ponies, and..." She sighed. "I'm analyzing too much and putting words in his mouth. Either way, whether he specifically intended it or was just trying to stir up public sentiment, he set a mob on my best friend's house while we were on vacation, and I won't forgive that."
Starlight shuddered again. "But I saw him..."
"I know." Maple hugged her tight.
"My magic..." Starlight sniffed. "It felt weird. While I was with him. I was angry, and... it made me feel bad... but I was really powerful. I made a sword out of crystal, and was going to kill him."
She couldn't articulate what she was feeling past that, and if she could have, she didn't want to. What if she hadn't seen what was really happening, after all? What if someone had slighted her, and her mind made them out to be worse than they had been, and her having no choice but to end them? A part of her still felt cheated; a death that was his own fault was what Hemlock deserved... even if Arambai might not be that merciful. But she had wanted to kill him, and it wasn't worth denying that she had lost control. She sniffled again, harder. What if one of her friends did something she didn't understand, and she-
"Starlight."
Suddenly, a pink light enveloped her, and for a tiny second, ghostly flames leaked from Maple's coat, wrapping around her as the mare released some of the harmonic tree's energy she had stored. The magic melted into Starlight's muscles, and when it stopped, her body felt significantly less achy and battered. Even her headache had alleviated some.
"It's okay," Maple said, sitting on the bed and rocking her back and forth. "If you had, I would have said he deserved it. I'm okay with what you did on the dam, remember? Herman left us with no choice there. And remember, he had just stabbed me with that sword right in front of you. You used some pretty powerful magic saving us there, too."
"I'm not an expert on magic, or anything," Amber offered, with a hopefully-helpful smile, "but do you think whatever spells you used were affected by how you felt? Like, can powerful emotions change magic? Maybe you... I don't know... accidentally magicked yourself into seeing something that wasn't there?"
Maple silenced her with a hoof to the shoulder, still holding and rocking Starlight. "It doesn't matter. What happened with Starlight and Hemlock doesn't change what Hemlock did, and I don't feel sorry for him. Whether he attacked her on a platform with nowhere to run or not, whether he sneered in her face or hid behind a wall of ponies and muttered propaganda, he still destroyed my house and tried his best to turn the town against us. Don't forget that, and don't start feeling sorry for him."
Amber gave a wry smile. "There's a difference in understanding why someone did something and agreeing with what they did, Maple. But yeah. I sure won't miss him, regardless of how he goes."
"W-What about you?" Starlight's voice shook, and she pressed on Maple. "Your house is gone."
"Not gone," Maple corrected. "But very damaged. I'm not sure I could live in it like this, even if we clean it up. It's like White Chocolate's new house, and how I had to move out..." She shivered, and squeezed her eyes shut. "But I'm not going to be knocked down by this. Not again. I'm done getting hit by life, over and over again. First Ironridge, then my husband, then Aspen, then Ironridge again, and now this. I'm tired of this. I've had it, and I am not going to collapse on my bed again and drown in my own sadness."
Starlight's ears straightened.
"I know you've had reservations about Riverfall," Maple went on. "And now it's told us that it doesn't want us. Loudly and clearly. Jamjars said it was only five ponies, but five is a lot of ponies to do something so extreme, and who knows how many there are that would gossip about us or run and hide when we got close?" She gave a lonely sigh. "I had friends in town, but being a recluse for two years isn't the best way to stay in social circles. And you never knew anyone but us, did you?" Pausing, she finished, "It's like Riverfall just isn't home any more..."
A thought caught in Starlight's mind. "Valey said she knocked me out," she said. "I thought I blacked out on my own. But before I did, I saw somepony disappearing around a building, like they had been watching us. And before that, I teleported to the plaza, and everyone was scared of me. If I really did push Hemlock over the edge, and someone saw..." She swallowed.
"You two are thinking of leaving again, aren't you?" Amber asked with a regretful smile.
"I don't think there's any way we could stay," Maple replied with an equal amount of sadness. "Even with Hemlock gone, our lives would be an uphill battle for acceptance. I want to live in peace, and that's exactly what Starlight left Equestria to run away from. You could come with us?"
Amber blew on her bangs, holding her expression. "On this ship? I could drop everything and fly away with you, couldn't I...?" For a moment, she seemed to seriously consider it, then shook her head. "You know Willow would be alone here if we did that. And an adventure to places unknown... she'd never leave her foals, but Yew is only a year old and the road is nowhere to raise someone that young. And then there's White Chocolate, and..." She closed her eyes. "Besides, I'm pretty well-connected with the locals. If anyone stands a chance of some day repairing your reputation, it's me."
Maple's smile cracked. "With Ironridge, I was always planning to return quickly. We were only a day away. This wouldn't be a trip; it would be me leaving. Amber, I don't know if I'd ever return."
Amber shrugged. "Give it a few years, then. I doubt I'll be able to work instantaneously. Let us get river traffic to Ironridge, let them fix their airship stuff and get back on the map. Remember that high-up lookout Arambai once showed us? Bet that would make a great dock for airships that can't land in the river, even. We get some foreigners in here, maybe some pegasi and griffons and more batponies, and get the locals into the idea of leaving... Some day, I bet you could come back and be right at home."
"Some day," Maple echoed, touching Amber's outstretched hoof with her own.
"So make your home be the road for a few years." Amber shrugged. "This ship is nice. Probably nicer than your place in Riverfall, even. Go have adventures until Yakyakistan calls, and maybe even see Equestria. Let your home be where your friends are, and take it on your back wherever you go. Do it! And we're both pretty young. You could be gone ten, twenty, thirty years... I bet I'll see you again." She gave a faithful wink. "I'll make sure Riverfall is still standing for your return."
Maple gave a long sigh, then prodded Starlight. "What do you think?" she asked gently.
"She's right," Starlight glumly muttered. "This is exactly why I left Equestria. I don't want to leave again. I hate being alone. But I can't make an effort to live in a place for you when you don't want to be there either. There has to be something better somewhere else in the world, and we can find it. And if there isn't, we make it. Right?"
Maple stood up, patting Starlight and leaving her in the bed. "You can come with me, then, or stay here on the ship. If we're leaving for good, I think I have some goodbyes to say."
Starlight rode on Maple's back through the central corridor of the airship, lost in thought.
Hemlock had ruined her future in Riverfall. Not that she was looking forward to it in the first place, but he had. He started a mob, whether deliberately or as a byproduct of his rhetoric, and that had torn Maple's house apart... and after everything in her life, more hardship working against her was the last thing Maple needed. Starlight was honestly confused how the mare was still standing, with this after everything that had happened in Ironridge. She must have been so used to taking blows like this, she was getting better at it.
And in the end... Starlight had gone to confront Hemlock, and he had fallen in the river. She had been justifiably angry. Her horn had done something that felt bad. And when she came to on the boat, there was no way to know whether it was him or her who had been the aggressor, but it didn't matter, because he had been cheated out of his death, they were leaving and so was he.
Did she want him dead? Starlight shivered. She had. She knew she had. And if she had hallucinated... if something had caused her to imagine she was in a position where killing him was justified, and the only way to defend herself... maybe that wasn't a good thing at all.
Teeth clenched, she pressed her chin into Maple's neck and tried not to think about it.
They passed a door with Shinespark standing in front, her aura telekinetically holding it closed. Vague muttering could be heard from within, and Shinespark greeted them with a frown. "Up and at 'em already?" She shook her head. "I wish Gerardo would get back to watch this loon. I need to call my dad and talk about this so we can arrange what to do."
"Who's there!?" Hemlock shouted from behind the door. "It's that filly, ain't it! Someone, help! This goes beyond aggravated battery! She pushed me in the river, I tell you! Waved a sword around in my face and everything! I did not slip! That there's lies and slander! I fought for self-defense! They'll uphold me in an Ironridge court of law!"
Amber closed her eyes and sighed. "He really does sound ridiculous. Like you're not supposed to take him seriously. I should have realized he wasn't as harmless as I made him out to be..."
"Gerardo?" Maple frowned. "Where is he?"
"Taking it personally," Shinespark replied. "Something about leaving your door broken to allow the vandals a way in. I told him anyone with an axe like that could break in, locked door or not, but he's... well, probably in the plaza making a speech. I doubt there's anything he can do for you, though. Ponies have a herding instinct when it comes to public opinion, and scaring them is the best way to change their minds. Working to unite everyone behind a good example takes years, and I would know."
Maple folded her ears and hung her head. "Well, now I feel even worse for yelling at him about it. I hope I didn't accidentally convince him to stay here instead of coming with us."
"Coming with us?" Shinespark tipped her head. "You want to leave?"
"I don't see how we can stay here," Maple said with a sad smile. "Riverfall has made it clear they don't want me or Starlight. Assuming you're leaving and will have us, that is."
Shinespark took a breath and nodded. "We're still in the air above Riverfall. As far as I'm concerned, we don't even need to land. We can take Hemlock to the teleporter and then fly away, and never look back."
"Where are we going?" Starlight asked warily.
"That's her!" Hemlock yowled from behind the sealed door. "I heard her voice! She's coming for me! Someone, do something about that disrespectful miscreant! Tell her to mind her elders!"
Ignoring him, Shinespark looked at the roof. "Haven't decided. Let's wait on that until everyone who's going is with us."
"Yo." Suddenly, Valey popped out of the shadows on the roof, dropping to the floor. "So, I snooped around Riverfall and rounded up enough mares with cutie marks who feel kinda badly about what happened to power that teleporter and kick this bozo back to Ironridge. I'm thinking I'll grab him, shadow sneak him out the window, and fly him straight there, and if you wanna stay here and make your call or fly along behind or whatever, you can do that. Also, Ironflanks, if you wanna hear anyone say sorry, you ought to come too. Cool?"
Shinespark nodded, stepping back and releasing her lock on the door.
"Sweet." Valey didn't even bother to open it, shadow sneaking under the door. "Get dunked on, old crone!" her voice echoed from the other side. There was a brief cry of surprise, and then the air was still.
Eventually, Shinespark shrugged, standing up. "Want me to fly you to Arambai's house? I just need to go grab the sound stone."
Maple and Amber glanced at each other, shrugged back, and agreed.
Starlight blinked, taken aback at the number of mares in Arambai's living room. It seemed just as packed as the time she had told tales of Equestria in Maple's storefront. "You need this many ponies?"
"To power a teleporter?" Valey asked, having already tied Hemlock up somewhere. "Beats me. I figured better safe than sorry."
Shinespark gave a wry smirk. "I think three or four would do it. Brand power behaves unusually when you try to make multiple ones resonate together. But this is definitely more than we need."
"Well, we're here anyway," a pink mare with dusty reddish-brown bangs a similar shade to Maple's announced. "Someone had to let you know that not all of us take Hemlock seriously, or want you gone. We're here to collectively apologize, Maple and Starlight."
"Cinnamon, right?" Maple asked, brushing the corner of her eye as she surveyed the packed couches and chairs that lined the edges of Arambai's second story.
The pink mare nodded. "That's me. I was at your house that night a week ago, before you left. Apparently, when everyone in Riverfall remembered that being from far away makes ponies interesting, not bad."
"I heard Gerardo's rendition of the battle for the dam," another mare volunteered, pointing an ocean-blue hoof at Starlight. "He made it sound like that yak person forced someone to make the dam blow, and Starlight did it so no one else would have to. Hemlock had a recording that made it sound worrisome, but he only played one line. I'm sure there was context he left out, right?"
"I saw you at the plaza just now," a third said shakily. "You looked so terrifying. I don't know what everyone was thinking, making enemies with someone so strong. Even if we wanted to, we should know better than to fight you! But everyone who's in their right mind would like to be friends..."
Starlight straightened up, facing them. "Would you? Would you actually like to be my friends as opposed to just leaving me alone or being on my good side? I know you're scared of me."
"We are," another mare admitted, folding her ears ashamedly. "Please forgive us..."
"...Thank you, everyone," Maple sighed, hanging her head. "I forgive you, but we can't stay here. We're leaving, again, and I'm not sure for how long. I'm sorry we brought so much drama to this town..."
"I forgive you, too," Starlight added, feeling like it was the right thing to do.
A collective sigh of relief swept through the room, and one by one the mares began narrating their stories, about contact they had had with Sosans before the boats stopped, or about where they had been and what they had done when the mob had occurred. Starlight tuned it all out; they were strangers, and she had made up her mind. At least she could leave without bearing them any ill will.
One of Maple's regular bakery customers spoke. A mare who helped Willow care for her foals on days when she was tired. Someone who swore she was Amber's cousin, but had no proof. A mare who had been at the plaza when Hemlock was playing his recordings. He hadn't called for a mob, just public awareness, she said. Another mare was Juniper, Willow's friend who lent them her balcony at the plaza to watch Gerardo showing off. Starlight looked, but didn't see Acacia, Maple's reddish neighbor with a newborn foal she had once thought about becoming friends with. And none of the mares tried to heckle, or be unpleasant in any way.
"Hey, we did it," Valey announced, stepping up with Shinespark from the basement.
"Hemlock is gone," Shinespark agreed. "Arambai wasn't pleased when we called him. He'd like to talk to you as well before we leave. And Dior's in the basement and would like to say farewell, too."
Amber licked her lips, a pencil held in her mouth and scratching on a piece of paper. "Will do," she said, spitting it out. "Here. I took notes, and it sounds like we've got a pretty solid idea on who actually did the busting up. Might wanna excommunicate them, too."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure that word doesn't mean what you think it means, but sure, let's do that."
Maple bade farewell to the roomful of well-wishers and descended the steps into Arambai's basement. Starlight waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, head still faintly pounding as they navigated the maze of shelves and boxes that clogged access to the entrance, and when she reached the teleporter chamber, she realized that once again, there were far more ponies than she had been expecting.
Along the wall, beside the dais, Dior stood, and immediately next to him was Willow. Then, White Chocolate, missing her husband and signature bathrobe and waiting with an awkward shuffle to her step. With Shinespark and Valey at their backs, the only one from her adventure who was still missing was Gerardo.
Dior spoke first, hanging his head in shame. "I didn't even know about what was happening," he lamented. "For that, I sincerely apologize. I have a lot to learn to fill my father's horseshoes here, it seems."
"Willow?" Maple tipped her head after nodding to Dior. "When did you get down here?"
"Gerardo offered me a ride when he came down," Willow replied. "So you're leaving again, are you? Hmmm..."
"...Sorry." Maple's voice cracked, and she rushed forward to hug her friend, nearly throwing off Starlight. "Sorry! I thought we were going to live happily ever after, and sometimes go back to Ironridge and enjoy our life in Riverfall and raise our families together and... and..." She sniffed, then wiped her nose on the bigger mare's shoulder. "I guess it wasn't meant to happen..."
"I suppose everyone has to go their own way eventually," Willow murmured back. "Our lives have been moving too quickly and changing too much recently to think they would stay the same forever. I just want to know if there's anything I can do for you, one last time."
Maple swallowed resolutely. "Don't make it goodbye. We're taking a sound stone with us, and Arambai has the other. Amber's staying too, and she's going to fix up the boat to Ironridge. I might not see you or her again for a long time, but stay in touch. Write letters for him to read us, and maybe come visit and talk for yourself, okay? I got lonely after just three days, and this time will be a lot longer."
"I promise," Willow assured her, hugging back. "And Starlight? Is there anything I can do for you?"
Starlight thought, and swiftly realized what she wanted. "Your foals," she said, pointing a hoof. "Don't let them worry about things like what the world can do and keeping their friends and parents safe. That means keeping yourself safe too, and protecting them so they don't end up like me. Okay?"
Willow leaned in and rested her cheek against Starlight's. "You're stronger than you think you are," she whispered in the filly's ear. "And I don't say that lightly. But remember, Starlight, your friends are here for you just as much as you are for them. It's okay to let other ponies solve your problems for you."
Starlight folded her ears.
"Take care of everyone," Willow instructed, breaking away. "But especially yourself. I'm glad I got to meet you, Starlight."
"I'm glad I met you, too," Starlight echoed, feeling slightly emptier.
"White Chocolate," Maple said, eventually turning to Willow's shyer look-alike.
White Chocolate folded her ears. "I had no idea what was happening when Valey came to our new house, but she came back and said you might be leaving..."
"I am," Maple announced with a sigh of finality. "In the end, it... well, Riverfall gave me what Riverfall gave me. I've been knocked down more times than I can count, and there's nothing to do but stop or keep going. And right now, I'm tired of letting everything that's happened get the best of me."
"I can understand." White Chocolate closed her eyes and bowed. "I feel like I finally have a chance to get back on my hooves myself, thanks to you. Dior's offered to let me use the workshop here to tinker with things whenever I like, and that mechanical hand we found might give me enough dexterity to work like a unicorn if I can learn to use it right. Thank you for giving me that chance."
Maple wrapped a hoof around her neck and hugged her. "I had to. And you deserved it. And all your children, too."
"My children..." White Chocolate glanced back at her belly. "Some part of me has felt like I've been wasting my life ever since I was a teenager, and hoped that if I had foals, they'd be able to do better when I couldn't. But I did such a bad job of giving them that chance to, and felt like I needed to try harder, but could never start and didn't know what to do..."
"Start by taking care of yourself," Maple insisted. "The same thing Willow just told Starlight to do. She'll help you, too. You can't and don't need to raise every one of them by yourself. Let Riverfall help, and trust that it will work out, doing as much as you can to help it on its way, and not worrying about what you can't. I know how much easier it is to say don't worry than it is to actually do it, but... I believe in you. And then you'll be able to give your foals what they deserve."
"I'll get one more chance to start fresh, soon," White Chocolate said, still looking down.
Maple tugged sharply on her shoulder for her attention. "No. Your chance to start fresh is now. It's always now. It's never too late to do something with your life or all the lives you've been responsible for. Take care of yourself, White Chocolate."
Then, Starlight felt her tense, saw a tiny second of hesitation... and Maple knelt down and stretched her neck forward, briefly nuzzling her cheek against the silvery fur of White Chocolate's womb. "You too, little one," she whispered, nosing gently as White Chocolate looked on. "I hope your future is a bright one."
"Thanks to all of you, it's already looking up," White Chocolate promised. "I heard Arambai can talk to you from Ironridge? I'll be sure to have someone send a message telling you how I'm doing."
"Speaking of me," a voice growled, and Starlight jumped, noticing the stone floating in Shinespark's aura. "Angry mobs in Riverfall the moment I turn my back? Not what I like to hear, ponies. Ah well... Hoped I raised 'em better than that. Oh well. I'm counting on young Amber and Dior to keep me posted on what's going on there, and if I need to, I'll come back to whip everyone back into shape. Sounds like you've got at least the start of some level-headedness going on in my house. I'll see what I can do about Hemlock and any other troublemakers you send my way. Apparently, there's this place called the Flame Barracks that will make an excellent jail if we can't find a better solution. But that ain't for you to worry about. Wherever you go, stay in touch, and good luck."
Shinespark lowered her stone as it went dim. "Maple, Starlight. If you've said your goodbyes, do you want me to take you back to the ship? This will likely be the last you see of Riverfall in a very long time."
"Hold up," Valey interrupted, raising a wing. "I've got a bit to say first myself." She turned to Amber. "Yo..."
"You're going too, aren't you?" Amber gave a wry smile.
Valey shuffled her hooves apologetically. "I figure they're gonna need me to keep them safe on the open road. I guess you're not going, though? Sorry about... you know..."
"Getting my hopes up?" Amber winked. "Hey, listen. I enjoyed meeting you. No regrets. And the only way you could give me regrets is if you went and moped around and didn't enjoy yourself because I'm not around. Got it? When Arambai gets Ironridge back in the air and I come to your defense for the epic final battle leading an armada of airships, I wanna hear about how hard you made Shinespark blush, got it?"
Valey snapped her grin back on. "Well, then, enough said. If that isn't a challenge, I don't know what is. Be sure to get your hooves on that sound stone from time to time though, got it?"
"Sure thing." Amber saluted proudly.
"This is making me slightly nervous," Shinespark remarked, averting her eyes.
"Oh, don't you worry about that..." Valey's grin broadened. "Anyway, that's my piece. Anyone else? Back to the boat?"
Dior raised a hoof. "You can use this teleporter, if it would be faster."
Valey shrugged. "Sure, you do that. I'll go bag Birdo and be right behind you. Don't want him to miss out."
Starlight, Maple and Shinespark appeared on the deck of the hovering airship in a burst of multicolored magic, the teleporter easily letting them make the trip. The treetops of Riverfall bristled and needled beneath them, and there was no sign that the town had any cares in the world.
"Hey," Maple said after a moment of silence. "If all of us were down in Riverfall, who was piloting the ship?"
Shinespark pointed toward the bridge door. "Go see for yourselves."
Starlight hopped off Maple's back and trotted over. She didn't feel like using her horn just yet, after she had gone and hurt it once again, so she reared up and used both forehooves to pull the door aside. Grunting, she wedged it open a crack... and backed off, not liking the voice she heard coming out.
"That's why Snow's the best. I had three different bottles of conditioner perfectly lined up, and he knocked all of them over while getting out of the tub! I got to heckle him for a whole hour about it, and if he hadn't, I'd have been bored."
"I have no idea if you're being sarcastic or not," Slipstream's voice chuckled in response, "but that sounds like quite the sibling rivalry. Did you ever get him back for the time he pinned that poster in your corner of the room?"
"Well, I was going to use this," Jamjars muttered. "But it's actually nice, and he'd probably deface it. Besides, I want to keep it for myself."
Starlight pushed the door all the way open. "You two are awake?" she asked, stepping in warily.
Slipstream was sitting in the pilot's seat, occasionally watching the meters and making adjustments, and Jamjars was laying in the seat next to her, levitating an unrolled poster that was probably the one she stole from the Spirit hideout. Both were bright-eyed and awake, and somehow looking much better than when they had been discovered beaten up. Inexplicably, Jamjars even had her gigantic, bushy mane back.
"Oh. You're back." Jamjars broke off her conversation, looking over her shoulder at Starlight. "Did you pound them good?"
"I..." Starlight swallowed. She had just managed to stop thinking about what she had done with Hemlock, and how she didn't even know.
"You're looking better," Maple remarked, strolling into the room behind her. Starlight glanced back, and could see in the mare's eyes that she was slightly in a daze, but trusted that she'd eventually be all right.
Jamjars leveled her eyes at her. "You're looking weirdly okay for someone who just had their house smashed, too. Are we leaving?"
"Leaving?" Maple asked. "Well, yes, but-"
"Then I'm coming with you," Jamjars stated. "No questions asked. I just got beaten up defending your dumb home. My mom is a wimp and a walrus and all I'll do in Riverfall is grow up to be a boring old lady who gossips for fun. I'm already great at that! I don't want to live the rest of my life doing what I've already spent it on, and you're going on to bigger and better things. I'm coming too."
Maple and Starlight both hung their mouths open, thinking of something to say... until Slipstream spoke up in the filly's defense. "She did put herself on the line for your home, you know," she pointed out. "She's rough around the edges, but once you get to know her..."
Jamjars proudly puffed out her chest.
"Hold on," Maple said, cutting her off. "First off, what happened? Speaking of looking weirdly okay, you two got trampled only an hour ago!"
"Varsidelian combat draughts," Slipstream explained. "They're enchanted potions you can drink that will heal you. War technology. There's a lot of varieties, including enchanted bandages and other things, and they range everywhere from painkillers that can get you back on your hooves to actual healing magic, like a doctor would use but distilled into a less-effective, universally-applicable form. The purest ones that don't leave you weaker or temporarily more prone to re-injury are very expensive and hard to get, but Shinespark said we had some that a team of mercenaries in Ironridge gave us as a gift." She shrugged. "I don't know the details. That's just what Shinespark said when I woke up, and what was on the dossier bundled with the supplies that she gave me."
"You hear that?" Jamjars looked smug. "War wounds. From defending your house. You owe us."
"I'd like to come too, if you'll have me," Slipstream continued. "Riverfall was new and exciting, and the two mares I stayed with really made me question aspects of myself I had taken for granted..." Her face heated up. "But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I was just caught up in the moment. When they came back from the plaza and were talking about how bad you were and had sabotaged the Steel District and were going to hurt a lot of ponies... They had been going on about how you and Gerardo were heroes the day before. And I thought about what I was doing with ponies whose opinions could change that fast, and it's not worth it for some thrills and being made to feel special just because I have wings. So I went to watch your house, and then hid in a tree when I couldn't do anything, and now..." She sighed, meeting Maple's eyes. "I'd like to come with you. Both of us would."
Maple hesitated, taking everything in.
Slipstream nodded. "I'm not a fighter or very strong, but I've been working at the skyport since I was a teenager. I know airships enough to figure out how to keep this one in the air, and I can answer any question ever about the world travel system or foreign tourist agencies. I could be useful as a guide."
"Your mother is okay with this?" Maple asked, looking at Jamjars.
"Does it matter if she isn't?" Jamjars shrugged. "I think she's relieved I can take care of myself and have been staying out of her mane these last few days. She always goes on about how she wants her kids to grow up more successful than she did. She'll probably be thrilled."
Maple shrugged, and had nothing to say in protest.
"So wait," Starlight cut in, one more thing tickling at her mind. "Jamjars? This potion regrew your mane?"
Jamjars curled her lip... the lit her horn, and her mane floated right off, causing Starlight and Maple to jump. "No," she pouted. "I had my old one made into a wig that fits in my saddlebags."
Before anyone could react, the door opened behind them, and Shinespark, Valey and Gerardo walked in. The griffon's head was noticeably hung, and as soon as he saw Maple, he drew a deep breath. "Convince me to join you," he requested.
"What...?" Maple hesitated, one forehoof suspended as if mid-step.
"What he said," Valey remarked, pointing with a wing. "Dude's feeling just a little edgy about his role in all this. Breaking your door, and whatnot. So tell him to cheer up." She shrugged. "Or send him packing, if you don't want him around. He'll listen."
Maple's face creased into a grimace, and Gerardo solemnly went on. "It was my own lack of foresight that got away from me," he lamented, feathery crest drooping. "Had I not so foolishly told the truth regarding the dam and Starlight's actions, the fiend Hemlock would have had no corroboration from me for his story! I should have told everyone Herman did the deed... Furthermore, had I not damaged your door in a fit of jubilation, it would have repelled-"
"They had an axe," Maple interrupted wryly. "Or something similar. One working door would have been left in just as bad of shape as the broken one."
"And Hemlock had a recording," Starlight continued, trusting her memory and wondering if she somehow had imagined that. She knew what she had done and seen in the fight, but best not to get caught up on it... "He would have convinced ponies whether you said that or not. And some of the ones I talked to said you made me sound heroic, so they knew Hemlock was lying."
"Nevertheless..." Gerardo raised a limp talon.
"Look, Gerardo," Maple sighed. "During our first trip to Ironridge, you definitely put us in danger and might have stressed me out. More than a little. But since you broke my door, you've been... working to do better. If you want to come with us, you can come with us. If you feel like there's some reason you need to stay in Riverfall or Ironridge, you can do that too. I won't hold it against you either way."
Valey nudged his shoulder. "Pretty sure she says she forgives you, Birdo."
"I..." Gerardo's beak hung open. "Well, that's good to know." He closed it in a hopeful smile. "As much as I do regret what's happened, I'd also very much rather not find myself abandoned in the middle of the world until Ironridge restores their air program, so if you are not averse to my company, I shall do my best not to change that until we decide to form a permanent alliance or find a more convenient point to part ways. Until then, you have my gratitude."
"Me. Sparky. Ironflanks. Starlight. Birdo. Cute pegasus. Other unicorn kid someone told me my nickname for was weird." Valey glanced around the room and shrugged. "Is that it? That's our team for challenging the unknown?"
"It looks like it is," Shinespark said, motioning to Slipstream. "May I have my pilot's chair back?"
Slipstream obliged, rising to her hooves. "Where are we going?"
The room was silent.
"Well, what are our options?" Maple asked, standing in the middle. "We can't reach Equestria and aren't going back to Ironridge. I don't know too much about the world's geography other than that Varsidel is in the north, Yakyakistan the west and the Griffon Empire the east."
Valey raised a hoof. "Can I vote not Ironridge?"
"I think that's a given," Gerardo remarked. "I suppose I'll cast my vote for the empire. I've had my recent fill of yaks, a war zone sounds like an unfortunate place to go if we're seeking to avoid trouble, and I have enough of a familiarity with my homeland that I should prove a better-than-useless guide."
"Ugh." Valey shuddered. "I'm changing my vote. Not yaks, please."
Maple nodded. "I've had enough fighting, so I suppose it would be bad to go somewhere we know there's a fight. But what about Kero and that package? You told me you had it taken care of, but..."
"Don't worry about it," Valey assured with a wink. "We've got it taken care of."
"Then I can agree with the empire." Maple shrugged and sat down.
"Anywhere," Shinespark said from in front of the control panel. "I'm just the captain. I get us there. I guess I would like to see the cities my mother mentioned in her audio log, but that's not important if we'd likely be in a war zone."
Slipstream nodded. "A lot of the Griffon Empire's shipping and travel situation has been difficult right now, since they've been relying on rented Varsidelian ships and Varsidel is pulling those back for the war effort. That means there's fighting in the skies, so by flying there we'd have to defend against being boarded and likely fired on with cannons."
Valey shuddered. "Ooh, yeah, pretty sure no amount of Valey power is going to help against that. I might be able to board a ship and take out the whole crew, provided they weren't as strong or prepared as those mercenaries, but there's nothing I could do if we got shot out of the sky. Griffons for sure."
"This is starting to sound unanimous," Gerardo remarked. "Is there anyone specifically against the Griffon Empire?"
Everyone looked around, and none said a word.
"Then that settles it." Shinespark pulled a lever, and the ship's engine shimmered. They were already facing east, the post-noon sun to their backs, and began to inch forward. "We fly east! Toward the morning sun." She put on a determined grin, leaning into the windshield. "Any last words for Riverfall and Ironridge? Because I'm ready."
"Ready!" Valey saluted.
"Ready," Slipstream and Jamjars chimed in unison.
"I guess we're ready," Maple murmured, patting Starlight on the shoulder. "Shall we go set up our room? I still remember which one we used the first time. And this will probably be a long trip..."
Starlight nodded. "Sure. Let's do that."
"Goodbye, home..." Maple breathed a wistful sigh, and this time, Starlight saw a tear slip free. "I wish I could still call you that. But I don't have a home any more. Or... I do, but it's right here. In search of something better." She hugged Starlight with a foreleg. "Isn't that right, Starlight?"
"Yeah..." Starlight breathed.
"One final thing, actually," Gerardo interrupted right as Shinespark reached for the throttle. "It seems our adventure is truly beginning. This is, as it were, the end of the beginning, and uncountable horizons lie before us. How many years, I wonder, will we continue? However, unless I've missed it and am terribly unaware... would this not be a fitting moment to christen our vessel?"
Shinespark winced. "Oh. Right. I was going to do that on the maiden voyage, but then was absent for that. I was also going to call it the Spirit of Sosa, but that name doesn't have the same connotations it once did..."
"So we're suggesting names?" Jamjars tilted her head. "How about the Take That, Hemlock?"
Maple visibly shuddered. "We are not naming such a nice boat after that horrible pony. It needs a nicer name. Something that would fit a boat. How about the Skywind?"
Valey shrugged. "Eh, that's kind of generic. There are three boats on Ironridge's registry with that name last I checked, and I checked pretty regularly." She hesitated, and added, "I was adding a phantom ship called the Herman's Sweaty Armpit. You would have done it too, if you had the chance."
"What's your idea, then, Valey?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow at her.
"Eh, well..." Valey shuffled her hooves. "This actually sounds kinda cheesy now that I'm about to say it out loud, but there's this story a very close friend once told me about a thing called the Immortal Dream. Supposedly, it was a fallen star that could grant wishes if you found it, or something, and is the reason everyone talks about wishing on shooting stars. Now, based on where I heard it, it's probably either bogus or way off, but the name has a ring to it, right? The Immortal Dream? Besides, it's kinda fitting. All of us here are working in pursuit of a common goal, and that's finding somewhere we can one day call home. All of us have failed at that at least once, too. I came to Ironridge and it was nasty. Starlight bailed on Equestria, and then Riverfall bailed on her. Maple, you got kinda steamrolled too, trying to set your new life up. Birdo... you're just hanging out, I think, but didn't you say your home was on the road? And Sparky, Sosa was your home, and you're trying to bring Ironridge back even though it's basically gone now. So am I insane, or what?"
"I like it," Slipstream volunteered. "I suppose I'm along for the ride too, but don't let me get in your way."
"The Immortal Dream..." Shinespark rolled the words around on her tongue. "Back to the Dream, everyone! Sure, let's just take the Dream around and land it over there... Hmmm... I suppose it has a ring to it. Nice job, Valey. I've never heard that story myself, but that just means it'll be harder for other ponies to steal. The Immortal Dream!"
The rest of the room cheered, some halfheartedly and some with all their might. Shinespark raised her hoof, saluted the sky... and punched the throttle, sending the newly-christened ship speeding toward the cloudless horizon.
"Yesss..." Starlight feebly cheered, flexing a muscle in what was probably supposed to be a hoof pump, curled deep into the cushions of the couch Twilight had dragged into the kitchen. "I made it to the end of Ironridge..."
"Yes, you did," Twilight agreed, agitated. "You also said we could finish last night and you wouldn't blow out your voice, but you ended on a giant dramatic cliffhanger and I'm never going to get to sleep even though it's dawn!"
"Tha's not cliffhanger," Starlight mumbled, face already tucked beneath her hooves.
Twilight flared her wings in exasperation. "Well, whatever you want to call it! You got vandalized, or chased out of town, or... I thought you were going to live there a while and grow up, and... and..." She rubbed her stinging, sleep-deprived eyes, shock and adrenaline preventing them from closing even an inch. "Hemlock... your magic, and... Did you ever find out what really happened? Did he actually fight you, or why did you hallucinate, or... Starlight!"
It was too late. Starlight was snoring cutely, and refused to budge.
"Ohhhhhhhh..." Twilight gave a whine of despair, covered her own head with her wings, and sank back into the couch in front of the ashes of a long-dead fire, wondering if she would ever get to sleep.
...She didn't. Seconds ticked into minutes, and after resisting the urge to check five entire times, Twilight looked up and saw that the clock's hands hadn't visibly changed. She flipped over, planting herself face-down against the back of the couch, hind legs dangling to the floor and wings spread limply.
Every instance of 'just a little further', she had told herself, beginning when Starlight sailed away from Ironridge the first time, again in Riverfall and again back to Ironridge and again and again had built up an expectation of an ending worth waiting for, some peaceful transition in which time could finally speed up, like Starlight's life was getting fifteen years of important things out of the way so it could skip and let her live without event for the next however long and create a natural breakpoint in the story because of course there was one, but no, it never ended and she almost wished Starlight had passed out earlier so she could have had the Tree of Harmony fresh in her mind, because it talked and she needed to remember to ask about that before she forgot, but her thoughts were a mess and a runaway train and if only she could focus and come to some important realization she was working toward but what she needed was sleep and how could anypony sleep like this and-
"Whoops! Looks like I was a little too early. Heh heh..." a raspy voice whispered to itself behind her, causing her ears to twitch.
"Rainbow?" Twilight muttered, her previous train of thought vanishing like mist from her overexcited and sleep-deprived brain.
"Oh! You're awake. Didn't mean to wake you." Rainbow Dash kept her voice down, and Twilight rolled her head over to see the pegasus watching them, silhouetted in the dawn light. "So, uh, lookin' like you could use a little more? Because I can totally come back later." She raised an eyebrow. "How late did you even stay up? Just fell asleep talking, or something?"
Twilight hugged the couch, sticking to her pose that wasn't as comfortable as it felt like it should be. "Five minutes ago."
Rainbow pursed her lips. "Oh. Uhh... so, are we still on for this morning, then? I'm guessing not, huh?"
"Sorry, Rainbow," Twilight apologized, burying her face once again. "I don't know how late Starlight will be up, and I'm pretty sure her voice is in no condition to narrate."
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Hey, no problem. I thought of something else to do today anyway. Maybe I'll take a long nap and try to be up tonight, or something. By the way, if you're just going to sleep, that position is probably bad for your back."
With a titanic effort, Twilight righted herself. "I'm actually not sure I am," she corrected. "The story didn't exactly end on the best note to sleep on, and my brain won't turn itself off. Might be a few hours, still..." She yawned, fanning her mouth with a hoof.
"Oh!" Rainbow perked up. "Well, I was gonna go for a lazy fly, if you want to come with. Fresh air might help?"
"I've got nothing better to do..." Twilight stretched, arching her back, and climbed off the couch, tonguing the inside of her mouth and suddenly thinking thoughts of breakfast.
"Where are we going?" a still-half-asleep Twilight asked, following Rainbow on a carefree course through the sky up and away from Ponyville.
"Oh, you'll find out!" Rainbow called back over her shoulder, flipping and looping pointlessly to help Twilight keep up. With a faint note of concern, she added, "You're not getting tired, are you?"
"There's a difference between being sleepy and able to sleep," Twilight responded, though she was hardly to the point of dragging herself through the brisk winter air. "And physically exhausted. I'm good."
Rainbow Dash nodded, soaring ahead.
"We're not going to Cloudsdale, are we? Because I forgot to brush my mane..." Twilight voiced the thought as soon as it sprang to mind. The floating mass of white was along their general trajectory, after all...
"Yeah, sorta." Rainbow spun back around so she was facing Twilight and shrugged. "My parents' place, actually. Why?"
"Your parents?" Twilight frowned, a snowbound conversation the previous day surfacing in her memory. "Hold on, didn't Starlight say they might spoil the story if you asked them the wrong thing, in case they had heard parts of it?"
Rainbow did a flip. "Oh, I know. I wasn't thinking we'd talk to them. There's just something I want to see if I can borrow. Starlight might think it's cool."
"If you're sure..." Twilight replied warily, the chill forcing her to yawn again.
Now that she was out and moving around again, her brain didn't feel nearly so crowded. Maybe she could actually think harder about some of the things in Starlight's story. It started when the flame, which was supposedly an Element of Harmony, reconstituted her after disappearing, which was fascinating in and of itself. That didn't make Starlight an Element, did it? Without any offense intended, Twilight dismissed that concept as absurd. She and her friends were the elements already. It had to have something to do with the regional differences between pony physiology Starlight had noted separating herself from the northern ponies. But was that an Equestrian thing, or was there something unique about Starlight? They could easily test, of course, if they could somehow get the schematics for Arambai's machines...
And then the tree had talked to her. Actually talked! There were so many ways to interpret that, but the fact that the tree hadn't sounded omniscient was the most interesting part. It implied there were limits to what the Elements could do, and while Twilight knew that on a factual level, it was never something she had been able to test before. But there was also the unusual vision Starlight had had at the very start of the story, with creatures... she was ninety-nine percent sure were changelings. What had happened to the changelings after Shining Armor's wedding, anyway? Twilight made a mental note to ask Celestia how much she knew about them later.
If Starlight was seeing magical visions of changelings and hearing magical voices from harmony flames, though, and especially if using unknown magic had somehow altered her perceptions when facing Hemlock, was there a pattern there? Starlight being unusually sensitive to some sort of magical sensory-altering feedback, perhaps? That was another thing that would be testable, though she'd first need to find some sort of concrete baseline to figure out exactly what Starlight could do. What if this could somehow be adapted into a new form of communication, or a new media!? Or...?
Twilight drifted too far into a happy, sciency oblivion to hear Rainbow repeatedly calling her name.
Twilight awoke to a warm, mechanical rumbling. Her first thought was that she was in a bed, which was nice. Her second thought... She bolted up in alarm. Hadn't she just been flying?
Jumping was the wrong thing to do, as her head collided with something far closer above her than any bed had a right to have. Growling, she rubbed her head, opened her eyes, and looked up.
The room she was in was gray, metal and incredibly compact, though someone had gone to great effort to make it look nice regardless by installing real wood trim everywhere it would fit. Everything about the decoration was economical, from shelves and drawers that fit in impossibly small places to fold-out hooks embedded in the ceiling for hanging things. It was lit by her horn, though she could see a dim circle set into the roof that was probably an unpowered mana light. She had taken several introductory courses on mana technology at Celestia's school, but her area of focus had always been more theoretical than practical applications. Hearing Starlight talk about Ironridge, she was probably missing out...
And, she quickly realized, whatever it was was moving.
Suddenly getting a very good idea of where she was, Twilight sat up, much more carefully this time. The thing she had collided with was a bunk bed: big enough that a larger stallion could curl up comfortably, but only just. If she wanted to stretch her legs, she'd have to get creative; like everything else in the room, it had been designed with space and not luxury in mind. She yawned one more time, let her hooves hit the faintly-vibrating floor, and found the exit.
A late-afternoon sky showered light all around her as she climbed out onto a deck and confirmed her suspicions: she was on an airship. It was a small one, with the controls housed at the rear, and against an ornate rudder wheel lounged a familiar pegasus with a shock of rainbow hair.
"Oh hey, Twilight." Rainbow Dash looked up, nodding in appreciation as she piloted the craft away from Cloudsdale. "Looks like you're up. What do you think? Pretty sweet, huh?"
Twilight rubbed the side of her head, still shaking off drowsiness. "I fell asleep while flying, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you kinda did," Rainbow apologized, shrugging helplessly. "Sleep-flying, basically. Stopped flapping and kinda started to drift away with this dreamy smile on your face. Were you thinking about nerd stuff, or something?"
"Maybe...?" Twilight reddened, trying to remember exactly where her thoughts had taken her.
"Anyway, I caught you and lugged you the rest of the way, so no biggie." Rainbow shrugged again, turning back to the wheel. "So basically, I went and told my parents I'd found a fellow airship enthusiast in Ponyville, and asked if I could borrow their old one to show it off. They thought it was a great idea. Actually, that's not saying much 'cause they think everything I do is a great idea, but you know. So, think Starlight will be impressed?"
Twilight truthfully had no idea how to answer. "Well, I... probably? I mean, it looks like a nice ship."
"Yeah." Rainbow patted the rudder wheel, lounging in the shade of the ship's giant zeppelin. "It's an old one, for sure, and not that big or fancy, but my dad takes really good care of it so it's still in great condition." She blinked. "Starlight does like airships, right? I mean, I figured since if she traveled a bunch and was able to go crazy places, she probably had one of her own?"
"Well, I'd assume so," Twilight said hopefully. "She did just get one in the story. We're going back to Ponyville now, right?"
Rainbow Dash leaned over the edge, checking their forward course. "That's the plan. Figure it shouldn't be too hard to dock this at your castle. Figured if she's too beat to keep talking we could nerd out about this together or even cruise the countryside just for fun. Could even get on with telling it here, if she likes. I mean, where better to talk about an adventure than in the sky?" Grinning, she sat back, her head against the railing as she controlled the rudder with one hind leg. "Sure do have a lot of memories of this boat."
"Anyway, I might as well catch you up on the story while we fly back," Twilight decided, taking a seat on a bench at the edge of the ship. "And we'll see if Starlight is awake and feels like talking, and if not... well, we'll see."
Twilight waved a large tray of still-warm hayburgers under the still-sleeping Starlight's nose, Rainbow Dash grinning at her side. "Oh, Staaarliiight," she sang, levitating the food. "We got take-out on our way back! Are you awake now?"
"To be honest, she's pretty cute when she sleeps," Rainbow remarked, pointing a hoof at the way Starlight curled, a hoof still wrapped over her barely-open muzzle. "We could just take pictures and let her carry on..."
Starlight snuffled, finally attracted by the smell of hot food, and moved her hoof over her eyes. "What time is it...?" she mumbled, not quite rolling over.
"Three in the afternoon," Rainbow greeted, plopping down on the couch next to her with such force that Starlight bounced, landing in an undignified heap. "You're welcome."
"Ughhh..." Starlight croaked, her voice sounding every bit as unfortunate as Twilight expected it to. "Could I get some water...?"
Twilight obliged, floating a glass over, made easier by the fact that Starlight had slept in the kitchen. "Welcome back to the waking world," she greeted, half frowning and half smiling. "I told you not to go on for so long, you know. That was not an ending I wanted to try to get to sleep on."
"Ugh, sorry," Starlight repeated once the entire glass had been drained. "I really didn't think that part was going to be nearly as long as it was. My throat hurts..."
Twilight rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Wow, really? I wonder why. Rainbow Dash, please do me a favor and no matter how carried away Starlight gets today with storytelling, if she starts at all, whack her with a newspaper if she goes over two hours?"
Rainbow shrugged. "Yeah, we'll see. Twilight briefed me on some of the stuff you said the other day, and I'm honestly, like..." She blinked. "The only reason I believe it's real is because if I didn't believe in stuff that's too awesome to be true, I wouldn't believe I exist, either." Her face cracked in a grin. "What I'm saying is, who cares if it's real? This story sounds awesome! But I gotta hear it from you, Starlight."
"Well, I don't think I'm up for seeing if the start of the Griffon Empire is the same length I remember it just yet," Starlight replied with a cough. "Mind if I take just a short break first? I've been talking far too much lately..."
"That was another reason I didn't want you to push yourself last night," Twilight sighed. "But it's fine. We have hayburgers, and something of Rainbow's parents' you might be interested in."
Starlight grinned, lighting her horn and taking a sandwich. "Oh, really? Let's take a look, then."
"You like her?" Rainbow Dash beamed, flapping smugly alongside the ship that was moored in the air above Twilight's castle. Twilight hovered beside her, and Starlight floated in her own magic, an expression of intense remembrance on her face.
"...This is a good ship," Starlight eventually said, finishing her appraisal. "Someone's taken very good care of her."
Twilight giggled. "That's actually exactly what Rainbow said on the way back here..."
"Yeah, it's my parents' ship from their days as adventurers." Rainbow nodded, landing on the deck, Twilight and Starlight following her. "Doesn't get used much any more, but my dad keeps it running nice and easy. Figured you might think it's cool, since we're talking about adventures and stuff, right?"
Starlight nodded back. "So we have this for a day trip, or something?"
"Well..." Rainbow shuffled her hooves. "Technically, I just said I'd bring it back when I was done, and they probably wouldn't mind if I hung onto it for a while. But yeah, I dunno what I actually thought we'd do with it. Cruise the countryside, or something? I just thought it would be cool."
"It certainly brings back memories," Starlight sighed. "I recognize this model. It's an old one, from several years before I left Equestria for the north."
"You studied other airships besides Shinespark's?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.
"I was around them for a fair bit," Starlight answered. "And the idea of using me to make breakthroughs for new technology didn't die with Sosa, so I was involved with the technology and ponies who knew about it, too. By the way, did you have any questions from last night? I sort of nodded off..."
"Yeah, you did," Twilight said, slightly chagrined. "Did you ever figure out what truly happened with Hemlock, on the river? Whether you...?"
Starlight sighed. "I was afraid that would be what you asked. It's complicated, and is one of those things you should really let the story answer for you. The one thing to keep in mind is that even though I'm telling things to the best of my ability, my memories are colored by my own feelings, so the version I told might have been just a little more... violent than what actually happened. Or maybe it was exactly what I perceived it as. You'll find out."
Twilight swallowed and nodded. "Right. No spoilers."
"Oh! Question from me!" Rainbow frantically waved a hoof. "Did Valey and Amber ever get hitched? Twilight spent a preeetty long time on them when summarizing this to me."
Twilight blushed furiously. "I did not!"
"Oh, they saw each other again. Anyway..." Starlight yawned, instinctively settling into a cozy corner of the deck. "You have this for as long as you want? Why don't we just fly around a bit, and if I'm feeling up to it later, I'll try to tell another section... and actually keep it short this time?"
Rainbow gripped the wheel with an eager grin. "That's a terrible answer, but sure, whatever. Destination: nowhere. Deadline: nothing. Mission: have a lazy evening in the sky. Sure, why not?"
Silence echoed through a vast, sculpted corridor, curved stone arches supporting a vaulted ceiling above a polished granite path bordered with luxurious carpet. Alcoves were filled with priceless statues of bygone monarchs and noble heroes, wall-sized paintings hung protected by velvet ropes, and magical sconces burned with cool blue flame appropriate for the dead of night. There were no windows, and the air was still.
Then, with the clicking of talons against stone, a yellow oval of torchlight swept out from a mazelike side passage, and two figures stepped out into the hall.
"Night watch is such a chore, Gaston!" whispered one burly griffon to the other, keeping his voice down as if they were the trespassers. "Nothing ever happens no matter what! You want to join me and the brothers for a game of baccarat after one more round? It's not like anyone would dare to disrespect the royal temple so much as to come here anyway, don't you think?"
"Ho! Nonsense, Leville," the second griffon whispered back, marching with his chest out and turning into a corridor just like the one he had left. "Word on the block is there's been an uptick of criminal activity ever since that meteor shower several nights ago! Why, apparently the things have landed and are being searched for and sold on the black market. I wouldn't put it past some scallywag to try something this very night! Wouldn't do to be off duty the night our jobs finally get exciting, eh wot?"
"Ohh, that's the truth, isn't it now?" Leville shuddered. "But Gaston, the sayings I've heard are that the lower-class pony folk treat them as charms of good luck. You remember Leafblower, the pegasus from the academy? I saw him at the grand library the other night. He said one fell in the backyard of his folks' place out in the country! So he gave it to his missus as a gift, and the very next day? She went and discovered her calling as an academic! Fancy that a coincidence?"
Gaston fluttered his mustache. "An upstanding pegasus. Sounds as though they're valued to everyone!"
"Imagine if we arrested a smuggler," Leville whispered, hugging himself in glee. "And kept some of their bounty for ourselves! We could get promotions! Imagine us marching together on parade, or getting huge bonuses to buy new houses and wonderful toys!"
"Toys for you, maybe," Gaston huffed. "If I got a raise, I'd take a vacation with my own missus! Perhaps a fancy cruise ship out over the sea."
"Are you sure?" Leville looked slightly uneasy. "There's always the risk of pirates."
"Cruise ships are well-defended," Gaston countered. "But perhaps you're right, old fellow. A promotion may not be in our best interests after all. I, for one, enjoy having a job where nothing very well happens all the time! Ho ho."
Leville hung his head. "Sounds like that's not in the cards, then. Pity. Speaking of cards..."
"Yes, yes, one more round, you old poolshark, you." Gaston patted him heavily on the back with a wing... when there was a tinkling sound in the distance, and a shadow swept out of sight around a corner. Both griffons perked up in alarm. "I say, who goes there!?" Gaston boomed, puffing out his chest again.
The ghostly, night-blue light from the sconces above them mixed with the warm light from their torches, causing their shadows to flicker and stretch. A gasp returned to them, and a cloaked figure peered around the corner. "Guards! Oh, thank goodness!" a mare's voice echoed, not at all trying for silence, and they both bristled and readied themselves to reach for their weapons as she bounded toward them.
"Halt!" Gaston instructed, drawing his sword. "It is far past visiting hours for the likes of you to be here, madam. Prove your good intentions at once!"
"Or we could arrest her," Leville volunteered, running his tongue around the edge of his beak in excitement.
The mare stumbled to a stop, throwing her hood off and revealing a white face, pearly striped mane and long, elegant horn. "I grew separated from my group and lost before closing time," she explained in an accent that perfectly matched Gaston's. "I didn't have a map and have been stuck here for hours! Please, good sirs, can you help me find the way out? I'd be ever so grateful."
A broad smile reached Gaston's face, and he put his sword away. "A lost admirer, you say, hmm hmm? What do you say we provide a tight escort, Leville?"
"Emphasis on tight," Leville whispered, eyes running appreciatively up and down her angular face.
The mare looked uneasy. "Sir guard, you know that's against the law..."
Leville held out his empty talons. "I'm just looking. No harm in that, miss...?"
"I'm a patron," the mare said with a note of indignation. "And if you could please skip to the punch and help me out of here..." A tense look crossed her face, and she moved her hind legs closer together beneath her cloak. "Or more urgently, help point me to a bathroom?"
"A bathroom, you say?" Leville backed down, adopting an innocent and helpful smile. "Well, of course. There's one right around the corner through here..."
Minutes later, Gaston and Leville watched the cloaked mare's backside as she trotted through a smaller, far less-ornate entry at the side of a hall. "You, Leville, are destined for trouble," Gaston said, shaking his head.
"And you're destined for missing the finer points of life," Leville countered. "Say, do you think we should have asked her to disrobe? In case she's hiding any stolen artwork or treasure under that obfuscating cloak of hers?"
"Yes, but not for the reasons you truly imply." Gaston maintained his superior stance, and settled in proudly to wait.
Inside the bathroom, the mare let out a long-held breath, letting her vocal chords relax. That was one pair of guards that would be suspicious when she started taking too long, but were a lot better than a pair missing or incapacitated.
Stepping inside a spacious toilet stall, she lit her horn, locking it closed with an aura of brilliant yellow. Then, ignoring the porcelain fixture at the back, she pointed her head straight downwards, and her horn flared brighter. The magic extended, hardening into a long, wire-thin blade of energy, and she moved her head in a perfect cone, guiding and slicing it through the ground.
Eventually, she had carved a plug-shaped chunk of rock that sat neatly in place, but gave perfectly the moment she lifted it with her telekinesis. Effortlessly hefting the slab, she floated it up, climbed into the depression, and dropped through to the floor below.
A well-planned silence enchantment on her hooves was all that stopped them from clattering as her enhanced mass struck stone, more than twice as heavy as a normal pony her size. Silently thanking her magic, she floated the ceiling back down into place. Her cut was perfect enough that any but the shrewdest inspector wouldn't be able to tell where she had gone.
Teleporting would have been easier, of course. But the underground castle was heavily enchanted against certain spells, strong enough that even she couldn't break it without a significant disturbance, and she didn't want her guest to know she was coming.
The white mare straightened up in another bathroom, exactly as her mental layout said she would. This was far past the point where she could feign innocence with a bit of pleading and some good voice work. If any guards caught her on this level, she would have to do work to get them off her tail.
The next corridor was empty, and the one after that. Now that she was far enough down, the architecture gave up on vast vaulted ceilings, trading them for ornamental pillars and artwork carved directly into the bedrock. They provided ample cover, and several times she was able to press her black-shrouded body against one to avoid detection by passing guards. Wait at an intersection, turn left, descend a staircase nobody had thought to seal. Slip around another corner... a locked door no one was attending. It was definitely being watched from the shadows.
Hiding around a pillar built into the wall, she shrugged her cloak off. She wore another beneath it, just in case. This would take a careful guess... She surrounded both herself and the discarded cloak with her aura, floating it like a pony was inside, redid her hood, and stepped out herself in front of the door, leaving the dummy back where she had been hiding.
"Hello, intruder," a menacing griffon's voice whispered far behind her, as she walked to the door. She felt a tug at her telekinesis as the cloak was ripped by a sharp talon, heard a confused grunt as the griffon realized he fell for the wrong bait, and in a flash inserted her horn into the unicorn-only lock, performing the key spell. The door slid open, and she ducked through and closed it before the guard could stop her, locked out by his own security system.
Now the torches were red, and the architecture changed once again, dark and foreboding. The white mare shook her head, but then again, millennia-old immortals could be forgiven for being eccentric with style. The only guards she passed were ornately-robed acolytes who walked with their eyes closed, more ponies than griffons, and none detected her as she marched through the low-ceilinged corridors. She finally reached a broad room with one wall missing, in its place the top of a grand staircase more than two roadways in width. She was almost there.
No one disturbed her on the lengthy climb down, and the final antechamber at the base was likewise deserted. Glancing around one more time, the mare removed the rest of her cloaks, then released the shrinking spell she had cast on herself, allowing her body to return to its full size. Disguises would be pointless here.
Readying herself, she re-affixed her regalia from a saddlebag, cast that aside too, and trotted gracefully through the final arch.
"Well, well, well," a voice like distant thunder rumbled as she stepped out onto a bridge of crystal, fountains casting shapes of enchanted water into a moat around a gigantic central island. "Look what the cat dragged in. I wondered if you'd be showing your head around here some day, Sunbutt."
"Hello to you, too, old friend," Princess Celestia replied, mane blowing in the wind generated by the titanic voice.
"Don't you 'old friend' me, Sunbutt," the chamber's other creature rumbled, stopping her booming. Two slitted yellow skylights opened in the distance, and with the sound of gigantic snapping claws, a forest of one thousand torches came alight, revealing a curved throne resting on crystal spurs over the abyss, taking up a quarter of the space around the central platform. On it lounged a pony so big, she would have had to crouch to fit in the grand ballroom of Canterlot Castle, with pegasus wings and paws for hooves and a smile composed entirely of sharp, jagged teeth. "But let's hear it from you. What have you got for me this time?"
Celestia was entirely undaunted by the massive sphinx's show of splendor. "Surely you've noticed the cosmological event that unfolded in the past week, Garsheeva. I assumed you had guessed the cause, and would want to discuss it with me immediately."
Garsheeva looked unimpressed. "That's it? You're not here with the present I've only wanted for two thousand years?" She glanced at her titanic flank. "Awwwww, that's too bad, Sunbutt. Maybe I should just shrug and send you on your way. You didn't hurt my guards, did you?"
Celestia frowned, taken aback. "Of course I didn't hurt them. And you know just as well as I do why I cannot and will not retrieve your birthright power for you. Do not forget that I forsook mine as well in solidarity."
"Hah hah hah hah hah..." Garsheeva's voice briefly echoed again, her teeth moving like mountain ranges as she made a lipless show of laughing. "Only a thousand years later, and only when little Luna played with things we all agreed we'd never touch again. I never even got to touch mine..." Her feline lip curled in disappointment.
"Yet you seem to be doing very well for yourself," Celestia replied, stiffly holding her composure. "And my sister is exactly what I am here to talk about."
"Really." Garsheeva inspected one of her claws, looking unamused. "I figured that stuff was her. 'Moon glass', they're calling it. Scooping it up and selling it for money already. It sure would be unfortunate if it turned out to be dangerous. A threat from one nation, entering another, after we both agreed to go our separate ways... It almost makes me wonder why you waited a whole week to come tell me about it. Don't you care about your old friends?" She gave Celestia a sad kitten expression.
"I do," Celestia insisted. "And I came as quickly as I could. You must realize the vast distance between my nation and yours. My only stops beforehoof were to entrust samples to my top researchers and to pay my sister a visit on the moon."
Garsheeva's playful demeanor vanished into intense curiosity. "Now that's interesting, because you told me we couldn't go back to the moon."
"Up until now," Celestia sighed. "The thousand-year barrier I sealed access from the moon with still holds, and will not break for twenty-three more years. However, the barrier she put up in return has vanished without a trace. I detected Nightmare Moon's magic at work in this black material, but when I indulged the hope that I could confirm it, nothing stopped me from using the old transporter. I visited the moon."
Garsheeva mimed putting on a pair of glasses. "And how do you feel about that?"
Celestia hung her head. "She was... exactly the way I had left her. Driven out of her mind by jealousy and the specter she allows to empower her. We did not fight. She did not tell me anything of interest. But her surroundings..." She shuddered, her composure finally breaking. "She had built herself a house, much like our foalhood one. And she had a garden of sunflowers. Sunflowers, Garsheeva. My flower. And on her table was a note, in her own horn, that said she missed me. If she has had bouts of lucidity as well as insanity during her exile..."
A giant feather reached out and wiped her eyes, the sphinx on the throne lazily flexing her wing. "Sounds difficult. It's almost like us immortals get lonely when left alone."
"Thank you for your concern," Celestia replied.
Garsheeva grinned. "It's such a pity you can't return the favor, Sunbutt."
"Yes," Celestia said stiffly. "It is."
"So, about this moon glass..." Garsheeva went back to counting her claws. "Nightmare Moon, evil magic, blah blah blah... How bad of a plague has your wayward sister unleashed on my empire, Sunbutt? Be honest, now. If you wanted to stop being frenemies, there's a much easier way."
"I did not wait to find out," Celestia answered. "I do not even know for sure if it is truly of her, or what the purpose of such a spell would be. It seems to have bombarded the whole world equally with this material. But the primary purpose of my visit is not to instruct you, but remind you that the world may once again soon be changing."
"That 'every thousand years' nonsense?" Garsheeva looked disinterested. "You know the only reason it happened last time was your fault, and the only reason it's happening this time is because you used a spell to release her a thousand years after she was sealed? This is your problem to clean up. Varsidel's having rumblings and Yakyakistan just got their war out of the way, but I run a stable country and don't leave my enemies around to return looking for vengeance. Figure something out."
Celestia sighed and hung her head. "So be it. I only wanted to tell you that we may have access to the moon once again, and thought you might be concerned as to the fate of another friend."
"There's another thing I'd much rather have access to..."
"I am sorry." Celestia turned away. "We've learned the dangers of tampering with that magic. And if you would like to see more of me, I recommend not filling every word of every conversation with requests for the one thing I cannot give you."
Garsheeva blew a kiss with her paw. "Oh well. That was a short meeting. Love you too, Sunbutt. But before you go... care for a warning from me, in return?"
Celestia's ears rotated backward.
"Now not that this is a threat, or that I'd ever try to pressure you into getting my birthright power back..." Garsheeva suddenly looked insufferably smug. "But a little birdie told me that in that war of theirs a few decades back, Yakyakistan just might have lost those very important things you asked them to guard. A little birdie called one of them showing up unattended in my empire."
Celestia drew a sharp gasp. "What...!?"
"Oh, just passing on a warning." Garsheeva drummed her claws against the throne, looking disinterested. "After all, we both know how bad it would be if this magic got out and about or tampered with."
"These are not toys!" Celestia bristled. "What do you know of this? Speak!"
"Ooh, there's that Royal Canterlot Voice I love so much." Garsheeva smiled benevolently. "Just that a certain thing you like to call the Spark was wandering around my lands not so long ago. You need that for your plan to save Luna with the Elements of Harmony, don't you?"
"Garsheeva..." Celestia dropped into a crouch.
The giant sphinx shook her head. "Not so funny when your own toys go missing, is it, Sunbutt? I had nothing to do with this. Just passing along a warning. And don't go to Yakyakistan about this, or you'll throw their fragile new government into chaos. But if I were you?" Her jagged teeth flashed again. "A favor for a favor. Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."
Celestia fidgeted for several minutes... and hung her head and sighed. "I shall send one pony to search for it. One. Pony. And they will be cut off from Equestria and receive no aid until they succeed, to prevent our foes of old from following the connection back to us. And it may take me several years to find a suitable candidate."
Garsheeva broadly smiled. "Well, that's the first thing better than a no I've heard in two thousand years. Looks like fairness is finally getting through to you, Sunbutt!" She winked a giant eye. "That merits, I think... I'll pull some strings and try to send the Spark your way, and let you know if I hear anything more about Yakyakistan. But you'll have to come here to hear it."
"I cannot do more!" Celestia snapped. "At this of all times especially, when we must prepare the world for assault by-"
"Nightmare Moon? Sounds like your problem to me." Garsheeva folded her hooves. "Literally. I'll see what I can do. Sure would be easier if I could see the future..." She stretched, then yawned a feline yawn. "See you around, Sunbutt. And just tell a guard who you are and take the easy way out."
"Love you, too, Garsheeva," Celestia muttered, departing in a huff.
One day out from Riverfall, the noonday sun shone distantly from above on the deck of the Immortal Dream, a front of clouds billowing down from the mountains in the distance behind them. Maple stood on the deck looking backwards, her loosely-braided mane blowing in the wind.
"Thinking?" a voice asked, and she turned to see Slipstream walking up beside her. The pegasus still wore her sweater, and it looked quite cozy in the high mountain air.
"I did it again, didn't I?" Maple sighed in resignation, shaking her head. "Overreacted and made a huge decision the moment something happened to get me emotional. And all my friends went along with it, yet again. I wonder if I'll ever learn..."
Slipstream tilted her head in concern. "I suppose we could tell Shinespark to turn back... If you've changed your mind about-"
"I'm not even sure." Maple cut her off, still staring over the edge. "For all I know, we'd wait several days and I'd still come to the same decision. My house isn't livable, so I'd have to stay somewhere else. I know Starlight doesn't like it in Riverfall, and my life has been such a series of ups and downs that I never had a normal to return to in the first place. And as much as I love Amber and Willow..." She sighed again. "I don't know what I need, but I have a chance to look for it instead of waiting in bed for it to drop into my lap. And I think we can do this. We're all more experienced than we were in Ironridge. This time, we can make this trip worthwhile."
Slipstream gave an uncertain grin. "Well, I'm glad to hear you're optimistic? You might be a seasoned adventurer now, but I'm still just a nobody who jumped at the chance to be along for the ride. Heh..."
Maple's eyes widened. "I'm definitely not a seasoned..." She paused, thinking. "I almost am, aren't I? I've certainly survived a lot..."
"To me, everyone is," Slipstream said, standing and looking back with her, leaving Maple staring at the back of the pegasus' ears. "I was born in a Stone District hospital back when the Stone District was for well-off vacation homes and growing cool-weather terrace crops, raised in Ironridge by two married parents who were always home for dinner, did my time in school, got a job in a skyport food court, got promoted from there to the information kiosk, dreamed of being promoted again to a flight attendant... About as normal and uninteresting as you can get. My family never traveled, never got rocked with all that political drama while I was a kid... all that. Ponies like you who come out of a town that's basically been off the map for years? I'd know, because I was the pony others would ask about things like that, and no one asked. Then you get all involved with everything and there's battles and revolutions and suddenly half the economy vanishes overnight..." She wiped her brow with a wing. "Just saying, but all of you are something else. I feel like a third wheel."
"Hmm..." Maple allowed herself a moment of reminiscence. "That sounds like me, ten years ago. I grew up raised by multiple families, with my biological mother barely a part of my life and my father as an anonymous stallion in Sosa, but that's normal for Riverfall too. Me, Amber and Willow were just three fillies with dreams of going on a big adventure to the city..."
"Sounds exotic to me." Slipstream folded her forelegs on the railing, looking impressed. "Then again, I just got a little overdosed on how exotic and exciting different places can be. I'm going to need to keep my head on tighter if we're traveling like this, huh?"
Maple blinked, slowly realizing that she was the veteran another pony was coming to for advice. Whether she felt like she deserved it or had just ran around flailing was another matter, but... "Acting sensibly is good," she murmured, feeling slightly out of place saying it.
"Heh." Slipstream's wings fluttered, holes knitted in her sweater so she could still use them while staying warm. "I just hope I can make myself useful, now that I'm traveling with Ironridge's finest."
Maple nodded. She didn't say it, but she felt exactly the same.
"Looks like we're outrunning the weather," Slipstream remarked, trying to keep the conversation going. "A lot of the flights in Ironridge get canceled due to bad weather around the skyport, and sometimes flights get delayed coming in from Yakyakistan, but I never see too much of that from the north or east. The Griffon Empire's climate in particular is supposedly very mild. I've heard some locals say their goddess Garsheeva controls the weather, but I don't know if it's true."
"I suppose you could ask Gerardo," Maple said absently. Leaving behind Ironridge and Riverfall meant leaving behind the constant rain... She wouldn't miss getting drenched, but the sound of it on her roof at night had always been soothing. Hopefully the east wasn't a total desert.
"I should, shouldn't I?" Slipstream perked up. "Good idea. Want to come?"
"I think I'm going to go check on Starlight." Maple apologized with a smile, stretching her back and turning in a circle. "I hope she's found something to do. I was out here watching the world and thinking, but I think she thinks far too much."
Slipstream shrugged. "Okay. I'll be on the bridge, or wherever else Gerardo and the others are."
After a full circuit of the ship, in which she found Valey fast asleep in a library chair and a Do Not Disturb sign hung over the door to someone's cabin room, Maple found Starlight in the observation room at the very front of the ship, hunched over a book. The filly's ears flicked when she approached, and she realized there was no point in being stealthy.
"Hello, Starlight," Maple said, settling down next to her in front of the panoramic, protruding glass window that let a viewer see in every direction including down. "Keeping busy?"
"Trying," Starlight grunted, flipping a page and not looking up. "All I've done for the last ever is sleep and try to stay alive, and I stopped doing things for fun for a while before that. This feels weird."
Maple smiled sadly. "Are you succeeding? Am I interrupting anything?"
"I don't know. I'm passing time." Starlight kept her focus on the book, tail flicking once. "I need to learn to enjoy myself when nothing bad is happening, though, so that's what I'm trying to do."
"Well then," Maple whispered, folding her legs beneath her and laying next to Starlight, draping the filly with her tail. "I suppose I'll pass time with you."
Her forehooves rested on glass, and the view straight down showed the Yule, still tracking eastward and sticking within several miles of the mountain wall. The terrain hadn't changed at all from the area around Riverfall, with stretches of massive old-growth forest, hills covered in shorter conifers, and impassably rough rocky crags covered in jungle foliage so green it left her seeing a red afterimage when she blinked and looked away. Most of it was moss, vines and ferns, plants that thrived in the cool and wet, and every few miles the river grew from another tributary from the mountains to the south.
Already, the Yule seemed slightly thicker than she remembered it, though the still-draining flood was partly to blame. She could see flood damage higher on the banks where two thin lines of gray had been scoured away, and wondered if there had once been fallen tree trunks and the like that had been swept away by the surge.
Her head rotated, and she looked at the rock wall to the south. Shinespark's cruising altitude was more than twice the height of the tallest trees, yet as far away as they were she still had to shift and crane her neck to see the top. The perfectly vertical face was frequently marked by columns of white spray, water making a journey so far down that even the clouds couldn't carry it back up. Where did the mountain storm water even come from? Some of the ribbons vanished halfway down, their sources too insubstantial for their mist to survive dilution by the massive fall, and others started far below the top, jetting from caves or underground rivers where water had been trapped by the valleys and unable to find a surface way out.
Maple shifted again, looking to the north. Where there wasn't mountain, the horizon went on as far as her eyes could see, and she quickly realized the Yule had tributaries from that direction as well: it only made sense, since the massive rainstorms had to dump their water somewhere. Between the shattered rock and vertical jungle, she could make out dozens of northern lakes that dotted the landscape and fed into the river to drain. Fish were an exportable resource, right? Someone could probably found a community between several of the richest lakes and see it grow quite successful...
And in front of them, the Yule continued. Maple closed her eyes; they wouldn't be reaching the Griffon Empire any time soon.
"Maple?"
She awoke from her nap to a little hoof poking her in the side and Starlight's face right in front of her own. "I'm getting hungry," the filly announced. "And it'll be evening soon. Do you want to make dinner?"
"Oh, I could do that," Maple replied, blinking herself awake and stretching her legs. It was probably a good idea... and she couldn't actually remember if she had gotten to make anyone dinner in quite a while. She let herself yawn, left Starlight to her own devices, and trotted for the galley.
Shinespark's supply room, seen properly lit and wide awake, was a thing of beauty. Maple stood in the center surrounded by crates higher than she was, allowing her mouth free reign to water as she daydreamed what she was about to make. Raw ingredients? There were plenty of sacks of essentials like flour, and a cooler for milk and eggs and the like sat against a wall that was undoubtedly connected to the air conditioning apparatus in the cargo bay, which was the next room over.
The ship's array of spices was also impressive; a lot of those were likely imported. She would need to play with them for sure. Something spicy, then... Maple's eyes scanned a large rack of fruit, fresh and dried. Maybe not. Her diet was still recovering from eating nothing but in Ironridge. Though Valey would appreciate some as a side dish...
Beginning to hum unconsciously, Maple danced around the room, taking stock of everything else they had. Hanging from the rafters were strings of tubular things she was reasonably sure were meat, though while she recalled a discussion on the subject during the breakfast she had shared on the ship in Ironridge, she couldn't remember if it was a delicacy or an oddity. Either way, best to ask about that first to be safe, and she didn't know how to use it in a dish in the first place.
Vegetables... there were plenty of vegetables as well. Barley, too. Maple licked her lips; the first day they hit cold weather, that was going in soup. Split peas, beans, various legumes... She checked one of the giant crates, being rewarded with squash and gourds. Those could go well spiced! She closed her eyes and sniffed a tomato, an idea beginning to take form in her mind. What else could she find?
Bags of sugar and salt. Good to know where those were. Unground black peppercorns... She'd need a grinder, or maybe a dish they could work whole with. The next crate had ears of corn; that would be a treat to prepare. They had butter, right? Yes, they did, along with cream. Cream! Furtively, Maple got out the tiniest glass she could find and took a sip, just for fun, shivering at the richness. While she was trying things...
All the caps came off the spice jars, and her nose passed over them, inspecting carefully. Plenty, she knew instinctively, since Arambai got Riverfall's food supply from Ironridge. Plenty more were new and unique, likely fancy or high-end ones Shinespark had gotten her hooves on. She'd use those in moderation until she knew what they did. Checking more... One jar sent Maple reeling back with a wall of nostalgia. She hadn't smelled that since the boats stopped! It was one of those feelings that had vanished from her life with a subtlety she never knew it was gone, and her eyes almost started to water as the sweet aroma reawakened memories of foalhood dishes. She couldn't remember her name, but one of the mares in the pool that raised her always cooked with this... It had to be used. Maple replaced the cap and pocketed the jar with her cutie mark. It had more or less recovered from the damage it took in the Flame District, and she was feeling empty without using it to carry anything around.
Face set in eager, purposeful determination, Maple reached for a suitable pot, changed her mind and grabbed one a size larger, and marched into the kitchen, preparing to cook.
"Well well! Someone certainly enjoyed this meal's preparation," Gerardo remarked in congratulation, closing his eyes and holding a spoon to his beak. "Sweet orange curry. Thin enough to work perfectly over rice, hot enough to tickle the taste buds, and with enough chunky texture to retain character and flair. I definitely won't mind eating like this for the rest of our travels, if you're inclined to continue cheffing so."
"Sweet, huh?" Valey poked at hers, lapping it up experimentally. "Not bad. Might add some sugar to mine, though. Hey, Ironflanks! What's in this?"
"Haven't had this before," Jamjars muttered, having descended from her lair in one of the unclaimed cabins. "My mother only made things she liked. It's... interesting," she decided, chewing slowly.
"I see someone got creative in my storeroom," Shinespark announced, wiping her lips with a telekinetic napkin and then folding her forelegs behind her. "Can't use that stuff to save my life, but it looks like I've ran into someone who can. Good job, Maple. This isn't half bad."
"What is it?" Starlight asked, slowly licking hers.
"As I said, a sweet orange curry over rice bearing hints of..."
Maple's ears folded from the praise as Gerardo launched into a very repetitive explanation of the food's finer qualities, moving into the cultural origins of the ingredients and then a story that reminded him of of him doing battle in Varsidel. The only passenger not at the table was Slipstream, as she had volunteered to hold the course so Shinespark could take a break and join the meal.
Valey tipped up her bowl, shoveled part of its contents down her gullet, set it back and belched. "So, Birdo," she began, fuzzy chin and cheeks stained orange and a grain of rice stuck to her nose. "Griffonvania's a big place, right? Where exactly in it are we going?"
"Ah! A fine question." Gerardo snapped his talons, then settled for drumming them on the table as he spoke. "That will ultimately be up to our captain to decide, however, there are a few likely candidates. The closest possible destination, were we to travel perfectly and immediately east from the mouth of the Yule, is Stormhoof Fortress, a heavily armored and fortified castle city upon the coastline. It is a bright and prosperous trading post that in times of heavier naval traffic was known as the closest port to Ironridge. It is also home to a military garrison and navy whose primary task is to protect the waterways and keep them clear of pirates, freebooters and brigands, though it also is owned by one of the most influential political families and has quite a few ceremonial duties."
He took another bite, mulling ideas over. "Were we feeling in no hurry, we could press inland and make for the capitol instead. That would be even more grand, though we do possess a sizable-enough fortune thanks to our friend Kero to make our way in such a city. If you felt like touring the impressive and awe-inspiring... That said, I would completely understand if any of you were burnt out on seeing the best and busiest after Ironridge. In such a case, we would adjust our course north, and visit any of the other coastal or landlocked territories. Much of the Empire's wealth is concentrated in city enclaves built around the manors of local lords, so practically anywhere in the countryside we would be guaranteed nothing but farmland, peace and quiet. We could always visit the town of a lesser lord in a bid to maintain civilization while avoiding grandeur and trouble, though I'd have to take some time in the larger cities first myself to re-tune my understanding of who the fair and just ones are. And we can't go too far north, or we risk running off the edge of the map into uncivilized territories, and I'm supremely sure none of those here want to pursue that."
"Uncivilized territories?" Maple tipped her head in curiosity. "What do those look like?"
"Also a fair question, and I've been to them on occasion myself." Gerardo swallowed, setting down his bowl, and took a long drink from his glass. "You are familiar with the general geography of the Empire, yes?"
Maple shook her head.
"Well, it works like so." Gerardo mimed a big circle in the air with his talons, pointing to several places within. "The Empire is essentially a single valley of truly massive scale," he narrated. "Hemmed in by the southern mountains to the south, the sea to the west, and should you dare to journey far enough north, the Misty Mountains. While they are actually more of hills than mountains, especially next to Yakyakistan, an ancient and unknown magic pervades the area, perpetually shrouding it in rolling waves of fog. Thick, thin, patches in between... it affects the sky as well, making it always appear on the edge of dusk, no matter now near to noon or how cloudless the sky. Even the goddess Garsheeva's power is not enough to dispel the area, and while everyone including her insist it is part of the Empire, those lands are not a place most folk go."
Valey burped again, finally wiping a hoof across her muzzle. "Sounds just fine to me. What's there that makes them scary? A dragon, or something?"
Gerardo winked. "They are the batpony lands. Or, as they are known within the Empire, sarosians."
"Oh, really, now?" Valey pursed her lips in keen interest.
"Indeed." Uneasily, Gerardo nodded... and continued. "Of note, the clan as an official stance refuses to worship Garsheeva as a goddess and instead exalts another figure. The Night Mother, they call her, and other related titles. However, this figure refuses to come forth and present herself, despite Garsheeva existing in the public eye. A lot of griffons and ponies feel somewhat irked by this, that the sarosians remain obstinate in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A lot of sarosians feel likewise, since even those who come south from the mountains and acknowledge Garsheeva in addition to their matron are met with unscrupulous gazes and negative-"
"Are you serious!?" Valey shot up, the smirk completely gone from her face. "The entire Griffon Empire has a thing against batponies, and you wait to tell me this until I get my hopes up that my life will somehow be different from Ironridge?" She sagged slowly back into her chair, then thunked her head against the tabletop, causing her bowl to rattle dangerously. "I hate this," she whimpered, suddenly defeated.
Maple's hooves carried her awkwardly to Valey's side, ears folded and unsure of what to do. Gently, she patted the batpony's shoulders with a hoof, looking uncertainly at Gerardo, who gazed apologetically back. He could have mentioned it earlier, but at least he was giving them ample warning to prepare or turn back... "Do we want to change our plan?" Maple murmured. "Turn around and go somewhere else? We could still..."
"No..." Valey groaned, getting her forehooves beneath her and shaking her limp head. "No. Don't mind me. The other places are still worse. Just... don't. I'll manage like I always have. Still better than being alone. Mrmmph. I always wondered if it was just me, or they had something against batponies in general..."
"...If it helps," Gerardo hesitantly began, "relations between the regions do consistently stay quite stable, and a few dirty looks are likely the worst you'll see. I've heard no rumblings whatsoever during my travels that any widespread conflict could begin."
Now it was Maple's turn to look uneasy. "That was what Arambai said sending us to Ironridge, too..."
"I'm aware." Gerardo frankly nodded. "But in this case, there is a very hefty stabilizing agent in play: Garsheeva herself consistently pardons the entire sarosian race of any and all crimes of heresy, refuses to allow developmental or military advancements or excursions on their terrain by those willing to brave the unnatural climate, demands citizenship for them regardless, and even mandates that they be allowed to place statues of their goddess around the southern side of the empire that they use to pray to and makes defacing or stealing those statues a heretical offense. In short, it is impossible to declare holy war in the name of Garsheeva without also denouncing her and incurring her wrath, and the sarosians to the north are generally content to be left alone. Any trouble that could occur would be limited to you and you alone, likely due to stupid and unprepared opponents, and I hear you're exceptionally difficult to get the jump on."
"Heh. Yeah." Valey wiped her eyes. "Might at least get some good meatbagging in if I get jumped by thugs who have no idea what they're messing with. Still stinks. But oh well. I'll manage."
Maple touched her shoulder again, offering a supportive smile.
"One thing that doesn't make sense, though." Valey fixed Gerardo with a look. "This Night Mother is the Mare in the Moon, right?"
Gerardo blinked. "I can't say I've heard that connection, myself."
Valey snorted. "If it's the same thing who my local lore says created batponies, what are these chumps getting themselves in hot water for when she never even cared in the first place? My village sure didn't have anything to say about her that was worth being persecuted for. She makes your race. Makes you look all edgy and spooky and untrustworthy, and stuff. And she's a monster who lives on the moon, and doesn't even bother to keep you company here in the world." She shook her head. "But that's always sounded kinda ridiculous, to be honest. Never believed it myself. So maybe these sarosians have the real version, and she's not as much of a jerk as I've heard. Might be kinda nice..."
Gerardo helplessly shrugged. "All I'm aware of is that at night, they claim their special statues allow them to hear her voice and receive guidance and encouragement. However, as far as anyone else is aware, they are inert hunks of rock. Who can say?"
"Meh." Valey folded her limbs again. "I don't even care anymore. More curry? Might as well try to drown my sorrows in food and sugar..."
As Valey sat silently nursing a bowl of curry, the conversation at the rest of the table fell off as well, leaving Starlight to finish hers in an awkward silence. She flicked her ears; she had only mostly been paying attention to the conversation, but had caught enough mentions of ponies that didn't like her to know she didn't want to know more. Trouble could very well leave her and her friends alone, please and thank you.
Eventually, Gerardo got up, announcing that he was going to take the night shift piloting so Shinespark could get some rest. Maple gave him a bowl of curry to take to Slipstream, then busied herself cleaning in the kitchen as Shinespark helped bus dishes and the other ponies went their own ways. Actually... Starlight blinked. The only others present were Valey and Jamjars, the former still slumped listlessly in her chair. Feeling like she was poking a bomb purely because she had nothing better to do, Starlight sighed, squeezed her eyes shut, and decided to follow her fellow filly.
Jamjars swiveled her ears as they climbed to the cabin level, letting Starlight know she knew she was there, but didn't say anything. Eventually, she reached the first door on the right after Shinespark's room, decorated with a big Do Not Disturb sign, slid it open, and stepped inside, leaving it wide and inviting.
"You decided to hang out with me," Jamjars remarked the moment Starlight poked her head around the door, already sprawled regally on a bed big enough for a grown couple. "How do you like that? I was afraid I'd have to spend this entire ride alone after sticking my neck out for your house in Riverfall. Come on in!"
Wondering just what she was thinking, Starlight obliged, and Jamjars telekinetically closed the door behind her. "You're not going to do anything weird, right?" Starlight asked, tentative.
"To you? Nah. Just girl talk." Jamjars shrugged with a flourish, tossing her bushy mane... and reminding Starlight it was now a wig.
"Thanks," Starlight told her. "For trying to protect Maple's house. I just wanted to say that."
"Well, you're welcome!" Jamjars beamed, then glanced at a wall-mounted mirror next to her bed. "You better mean it. That hurt. A lot. And I did it for my own reasons. But I did it for you, too, because we are friends."
"...Thanks?" Starlight asked, slightly more uncertain. There had been a conversation about getting to know more ponies her own age somewhere, she recalled, but while Jamjars could definitely keep up with her, she still wasn't sure this was the best idea.
Jamjars nodded, floating her wig off and taking a comb and several spray bottles to her short-hacked mane. It looked like she had actually done serious work on it; the hairs were straightened instead of bushy or curly, and the inch and a half Valey had left her with had been further cropped, giving the filly an extremely short, polygonal swirl that could hold its shape no matter how much wind or water it was exposed to, yet lie perfectly flat under the wig. Starlight was almost impressed; being nearly bald had to have been worse than a death sentence for her, yet she still managed to make it look good.
"So what do you want to talk about?" Jamjars asked, passing the conversation to her with an air that let Starlight know she was doing it purely out of the goodness of her heart.
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. "You, uhh... haven't decorated this room as much as I thought you would."
"I've been focusing on decorating myself, first," Jamjars explained, snipping at a single too-long strand of hair. "But it's not like I have a lot to decorate with. All I brought with me on that cart were a few mane supplies, and I never had much more than that to begin with."
Starlight could relate, there. "All I have are what fits in my saddlebags."
"But I do have this." Jamjars stepped away from the mirror and opened a drawer, pulling out a rolled-up paper tube. "Help me figure out where it should go. On the wall next to my bed so it's as close as possible, or further away so I can see it while I'm resting..."
"You still have that?" Starlight pointed a hoof, realizing it was the exact same poster Jamjars had stolen from the Spirit of Sosa a long time ago. Two mares lay on their backs on a plush bed, cheeks touching, eyes closed and mouths open, with their limbs spread and tails intertwined as if they were singing together at the sky.
Jamjars shrugged, rooting through the other drawers. "I need some tape. And of course I do; it's hot. My family is gone, so I have nothing to hide. Be honest, are you jealous of it?"
Squinting, Starlight sized the poster up again, deciding against her better judgement to give Jamjars the benefit of the doubt. The mares had different coat colors, one magenta and one lime green, but they were perfectly the same size and made such an effort to mirror each other she was fairly sure they were twins. Each had a two-tone mane with a solid split, the former half black and half white, and the latter half white and half gray. Both of their manes were tied into ribbons... the actual hair, not added accessories, and their horns were alight with auras that matched each other in color. They were fairly young, about Shinespark's age, and appeared to be having a good time, but the poster didn't do anything special for her at all. "Not really," she replied.
"Really? Not even a little?" Jamjars looked disappointed. "That's too bad. I guess you really are too young to have your first crush. It's no good for anything other than being a poster, anyway. The text says it's several years old."
Starlight blinked. "It does?"
"Didn't you read?" Jamjars poked a hoof at a miniscule line beneath the mares' names. "It's a promotional poster for some concert in a place called Varsidel six years ago. That means these two are probably old and gross now, so imagining is all you can do anyway."
"Imagining what?" Starlight felt her brow furrow. "That they like you, or are your marefriends? It sounds pointless to me." She gave the pair one more look, then shrugged. "Ponies can like each other, but why would you like someone who's never heard of you, or doesn't even exist?"
Jamjars stuck her tongue out. "It's called a crush, and because imagining is fun. Also because you have nothing better to do when the only ponies you ever see are your mother and your siblings. Some day, you won't be able to stop thinking about other ponies that way, and you'll understand then. Let me know when it happens so we can talk about how hot they are together."
Starlight glanced again at the poster. "They look kind of like siblings to me..."
"It's only gross when it's your own siblings," Jamjars countered. "Otherwise it's hot. See? They're hot, and they look like siblings. Case in point. And besides, I want them for me. Not each other."
Starlight had never had a sibling or found another pony attractive and couldn't argue, but Jamjars' logic still smelled like a fish. "Can we talk about something else?" she complained. "This is really, really weird."
"Yeah," Jamjars agreed. "Like I said, you'll get this when you're older. So what kind of magic can you do?"
"Magic?" Starlight blinked from the sudden topic change, even though she had requested it. She had definitely burned out her horn again, whatever had happened with Hemlock, as it still twinged instead of naturally refilling its reserves like before. Hopefully it just meant it would slowly recover, and she hadn't lost the tree's blessing forever... Magic that didn't give her a headache was useful to have. She slowly licked her lips, hoping Jamjars wouldn't pounce if she said she wasn't omnipotent and hoping she wouldn't ask her to prove it if she said she was. "I can teleport, lift things, make crystals and feel things through walls," she decided. "But I hurt my horn going after Hemlock and need to let it recover right now."
"For more than a day?" Jamjars looked intrigued. "You should get that looked at. Sounds serious. But that's nice." She glanced regretfully at the wig on her bed. "I can still camouflage myself, but it doesn't work on my mane now that it's separated from me. Never worked on clothes either. So I have to be able to take it off to go stealthy." She shrugged. "But that's okay, because being smaller is better for sneaking anyway. I bet Valey doesn't like knowing she did me a favor."
Starlight glanced uneasily away. "She's not very happy right now..."
"Stinks to be her," Jamjars agreed. "She is weird, though. Don't you think? Always acting random and annoying. And she belches a lot."
"I figured you'd get along," Starlight meekly offered. "Since you both hate having ponies breathing down your necks and telling you what to do. And like mares, apparently."
Jamjars stuck out her tongue. "Ew, no. She's way older than me."
Starlight wanted to say something about the ages of the mares in the poster, but decided it wasn't worth pressing the point. "Still," she protested, pointing a hoof.
"Yeah, I know." Jamjars turned back to her bed, telekinesis still focused idly on her mane. "Maybe we could get along. If she didn't get in my way. And she probably thinks I get in hers."
"You could make an effort to?" Starlight suggested. She herself had needed to be told to give other ponies a chance, starting with Maple in Riverfall, and now here she was in Jamjars' room...
"You think I'm not already?" Jamjars raised an eyebrow, poking a yellow hoof into Starlight's chest. "Don't forget how I feel about you, remember. I'm jealous of you. You have everything I never got to. Strong magic, no family holding you back, the ability to run away... If I was a stupid bully, I'd try to stomp you into the ground because I hate feeling beneath you. Fortunately for both of us, I'm smart enough to know that's not the way, so we can still be friends. But I am making an effort." She paused, seeming to actually consider what Starlight had said... "And you're right. I should do more, as well. But we'll see."
Slightly disconcerted by Jamjar's frank admissions of how easily she could be a horrible pony, and the implications she actively considered that, Starlight shuddered. "Well..." She swallowed. "You did run away. With us, just now. And left your family behind. And I think being invisible is pretty strong."
"Camoflage," Jamjars corrected. "Not as good as invisibility. But yeah, I did."
The room was silent for several minutes.
"Well, if you don't want to talk about my poster," Jamjars announced, "you might want to go find your mom or someone else. Because this is the first time I've gotten to put it up, and you're going to feel really awkward if I zone out and start daydreaming right next to you."
Starlight glanced uncertainly at the door. "Does that mean I should leave?"
Jamjars utterly ignored her, focusing on the poster. "You know what would be hot?" she asked. "If all my family in Gnarlbough had to be out for the day, and Mom hired them as a sitter. No... just the green one. No, both. No, the green one! And she would ask if I was hungry, and I'd ask for a grilled cheese sandwich, and she'd go 'Okay!' and be sooo happy to make me one..." She sat up on her hind legs, clutching her forehooves to her chest. "And then she turns the oven on to cook with, and standing in front of it is hot, so she gets sweaty, and her mane falls apart! And she's like, 'Oh no, my mane! Can you please fix my lovely ribbon for me so I don't have to stop making you this sandwich?' So I get to stand beside her and hold her mane together in my telekinesis, but I don't have my bobby pins to stop it from falling apart, but I can't go get them without abandoning her! So..."
Starlight backed away in concern from Jamjars' delirious expression. She was almost positive the filly was messing with her on purpose, but definitely agreed this wasn't something she wanted to stay for. Instantly, she vacated the room.
"Hey," Shinespark greeted, stepping into the Dream's observation room and noting Valey sullenly draped in a hammock to the side.
"Meh," Valey replied.
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Are you all right? Or still thinking about the things that were said over dinner? And where did you get that?"
"This sweet bed?" Valey sat up just enough to poke at the rope net beneath her. "Saw it on someone's porch in Riverfall. Thought it looked neat and decided to liberate it. Don't worry, I asked first."
Shinespark nodded. Valey hadn't answered the real question, indicating she didn't want to talk about it... and that was fine with her. "I'm just wandering," Shinespark went on. "Been piloting all day, and need to stretch my legs before I can get to sleep even though my eyes are dead. Nothing's going on in here, then?"
"Nah, just me. Your friendly old Ironridge archnemesis." Valey waved a careless hoof, eyes fixed on the shadowed landscape ahead of them as the sun made its final descent below the horizon. "I feel like moping, but didn't want to do it around everyone else 'cuz I'd ruin my image. Be careful. I hear it's contagious."
"Because you just found out we're going somewhere where batponies aren't really... appreciated." Shinespark sat down, facing alongside her. "If it helps, it's news to me, too."
Valey rested her chin on one forehoof, the other stuck far outside the hammock net. "Feels like the kind of thing someone should have mentioned. Then again, I never gave the Griffon Empire the time of day before. Didn't even recognize their ambassador. Was kinda too busy looking after myself and a bunch of warring districts and all that."
Shinespark felt her coat tingle with a familiar annoyance, fur standing on end. "I still don't know if I believe you about always being altruistic," she admitted. "I know you're on our side now, but you were the single biggest thing that raised my blood pressure in Ironridge. It always felt like you were above the rules, stringing us along, could do anything you wanted and only let the Spirit continue so it could be your toy. This is probably the wrong thing to say, but you always seemed to me like someone who thrives in adversity."
"Thanks," Valey muttered. "That's exactly what I was doing."
Shinespark's ears folded. "Oh..."
Valey continued looking away, her shiny gold pendant pressed against her neck by the hammock. "I was always the bad guy. If ponies are going to hate you anyway, why not give them a reason to? I kept Ironridge stable because I needed it, not out of the goodness of my heart, or anything. But anyway, I'm brooding. Anything you need?"
"Like I said, I'm just stretching my legs." Shinespark tapped her cast against the floor, then yawned. "I do feel sorry for you, though. I just wanted to say that."
Valey flicked an ear. "Don't we have healing thingamajigs? You don't need to wear that clunky thing all the time. I'd go insane with my leg stuck in a pipe day in and day out. How do you even sleep with that?"
"By rolling on my other side so it's on top." Shinespark shrugged. "And I do need to wear it, I think. Our supplies of medicine that powerful are limited, so there's no reason to use it when I don't need to be in top performance and am not in danger. Besides, it's a reminder." She hesitated. "I suppose you wouldn't want to relate..."
"What, being reminded about Ironridge?" Valey shrugged. "Not like I've got all that much else to be reminded of. And I made a pretty good effort to enjoy it. No way could I do it again, but... Eh, scratch that, I'll find a way. Point is... I dunno. I don't have a point. Like I said, I'm just psyching myself up to deal with all this Griffon Empire stuff."
"I..." Shinespark stopped herself before she could start. "I'm realizing I don't know you well enough to tell what I could say that would be encouraging and what would be in poor taste and offensive. Sorry..."
"First off, that puts you a step above Birdo," Valey remarked, not lifting her head so she had room to move her chin while speaking. "Second, don't worry about it. I've got a thick skin and thrive on petty insults. Used to, at least. Hope I still can. And third...?" She rolled over so her legs were in the air, then stretched. "Pretty sure I've got no choice but to either take it or embrace it, and I know how things went down in Ironridge. So if the Griffon Empire's really gonna hate my guts, I need less of encouragement and more a partner in crime."
Shinespark nervously blushed. "Well, I'm not sure about..."
"Ahh, come on, Sparky!" Valey tried to give her a playful shove, but couldn't reach from the hammock. "You're too much of a goody-goody hero! You don't have a villainous bone in your body, and you don't have a clue what you're missing out on! You left Ironridge... eh, I dunno how you see it, but it can't be better than me making off with my greatest enemies squashed and a bag of griffon gold. I'm gonna be living the life! Just need to watch out for any other bad dudes who might try to out-rapscallion me. Litter with some banana peels, start a few bar fights, you know... Screwing with ponies who go out of their way not to care about you can be refreshing, once you embrace it."
"I'm... not sure how to reply to that, either," Shinespark admitted.
"Think less, do more." Valey poked a hoof at her muzzle. "Keeps you from getting edgy and existential. Seriously, that has to be, like, my greatest fear. Not really, but y'know? If I actually considered it from multiple angles, I'd be all, 'Wait, I just saved Ironridge's rear big-time and they probably still think I'm a massive villain if not part of the problem and...' Yeah. Fun trains of thought. When life gives you moldy, rotten lemon peels someone else made lemonade with years ago and then stored in a dumpster you were rooting through on a hot day in search of anything edible whatsoever, you punch the vendor in the face, rob them blind and dance cackling all the way to market. Or something. That analogy got away from me a little."
"...Is me listening helping, or is that your way of saying you want to be left alone?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow, highly uncertain.
Valey touched her tongue to her nose. "Whatever, Sparky. I told you, I'm not thinking right now. In one ear and out the other. Might as well be singing a loud and tuneless song. Wanna find out who's worse at singing?"
"Are you sure you're all right?" Shinespark folded her ears in concern.
"No, of course I'm not all right." Valey said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I spend my entire life getting treated like a villain. Act the part, since it doesn't make a difference and I know it, but still try to keep things on track in the big picture since I don't wanna be a complete monster. Then some random mare comes along and convinces me to try harder, throw my weight on the other side of the fence, put my life on the line, be a big giant hero... and my reward's the same thing as always. No ceremony, big whoop. And I'm just sitting here trying to stay cheery and ridiculous because it makes me feel like me and I enjoy that and... yeah." She sighed, visibly deflating. "I warned you. Stick around me right now and you'd get brooded at. Sorry, though. That's all I've got."
Shinespark clenched her teeth, feeling the same tightness in her throat she got in the lower districts every time she met a pony who had been slighted by the city's changing tides. An outrage against injustice converted to a fire to do better and tempered by the knowledge that then and there, that was impossible, and she had to play the long game... but not only did she not see a long game here, it was something she was completely unused to feeling about Valey. "I might not be the best pony to go to for sympathy," she warned. "You... frustrate me. How I'd always be doing something, and you'd show up and interfere with my plans purely for fun, since you always could have stopped me instantly by threatening to expose my secrets around Braen and this airship. But you never did, as long as you were having fun... I was just a toy to you."
"I told you, I had to get my fun somewhere." Valey shrugged. "Life tends to be a dump when everyone is biased against you, and I wasn't about to roll over and let it. Look who's talking, though. Something something born on an airship and that automatically makes you the greatest thing since sliced bread. Talk about being frustrated by someone."
"There's a lot of pressure that comes with that, though." Shinespark hung her head. "I didn't ask for the legacy I have. My mother even named me after one of the Yakyakistan virtues! Arambai kept me protected as a foal, but the moment I decided to step into the public theater, everything I've done has been influenced by the expectations of others. I had my goals, and they were noble, but when you're on a pedestal that high..."
"Or low," Valey interrupted, still staring out the window. "Everyone expected me to be a villain. Still did. And I did my best to lap it up, but nobody wants to be a true monster. Well, maybe Herman, but... When everyone expects the worst from you and even those who say they're for you are at best giving you the benefit of the doubt at best... I joked about my greatest fear earlier, but honestly, I'm just terrified of..."
"Of letting everyone down," Shinespark finished with a whisper. "I sure know how that feels."
They made eye contact, and a sudden spark passed between them.
"Hey, good talk, Sparky!" Valey chirped, suddenly rejuvenated. "Random idea, but we should actually hang out some time. Tomorrow, though?"
"Tomorrow," Shinespark yawned. "It sounds like we have more in common than I thought..."
"...In other news, there's a certain griffon ambassador who's very ticked at you lot right now. Something about finally getting interesting neighbors, and then you're only in for a single day. She's been by my office thrice to complain that I gave that room to someone who wouldn't be sticking around."
Gerardo's headcrest drooped, seated in the bridge with a talon raised against the morning sun, listening to Arambai over the sound stone. "Ah, yes, that is indeed regrettable. I believe I encountered her once in a hallway while performing some task or other..."
"Gray and pink chick," Valey added with a half-awake nod. "Had a hat. Any other important stuff for me to know, gramps? I was looking forward to sleeping in..."
"Then you do that," Arambai's voice crackled. "It's not like I'm rolling in free time myself. Though, if all this about your kind's reputation in the Empire is bothering you, she'd be the one to ask if it's really that bad..."
Valey blinked. "What, like, a random ambassador has nothing better to do than hang out with us over some magical long-distance telephone? I mean... okay."
"Well, she's not about right now. But I can put her over to you next time she comes poking around, if you're feeling up to it. Now, I have to get back to work. Take care of yourselves, kids."
The sound stone went dim as the connection was severed. Gerardo shrugged, turning to Valey. "Well? It sounds as though nothing ill is afoot in Ironridge. I do hope they manage to make contact with Riverfall soon, however. But as the old adage says, no news is good news."
"Yeah, something like that." Valey's eyelids twitched, and she rubbed them with a hoof from where she sat. "I kinda do want to talk to her. The ambassador. Just to hear what she's got to say about the Empire, and all that. Nngh. I'm going back to bed..."
"That's hardly the only reason she would be of interest to converse with," Gerardo remarked, halting her exit. "She was Kero's neighbor for quite some time. And while we agreed not to trouble Miss Maple or the others with this..." He furtively withdrew a chunk of moon glass from a pocket in his uniform, twinkled it, and put it back away. "She could provide valuable insight about the purpose of this dubious quest."
"Oh, yeah." Valey blinked dully. "That."
"Have you had any further thoughts on the matter?" Gerardo asked, correcting the ship's course by a fraction of a degree. The river still vanished with the horizon; their third day of travel hadn't brought any new terrain to bear that they hadn't seen before. "Considering as we are traveling to the Empire, the possibility of delivering or refusing to deliver it is a good deal more pressing than it may have been before."
Valey bit her tongue. Even though it wasn't logical, her brain refused to stop connecting the ideas that moon glass affected batponies differently and that the Empire didn't like batponies. Merely thinking about things couldn't set off her cutie mark, but it still made her skin crawl unpleasantly. "Nah," she decided. "Still think we should keep the thing under wraps and not show it to anyone. At least, not unless we get a really good reason to."
"Agreed," Gerardo replied.
At that moment, the bridge's door slid open and Shinespark strolled inside, cast still clunking and coat looking freshly brushed... though her red-and-teal mane was as much of a spiky mess as ever. Her sapphire eyes were bright and awake, and she flicked her tail as she walked over to the pilot's chair.
"Ugh. Morning," Valey greeted, once again interrupted on her way back out.
"Good morning!" Shinespark chirped back, relieving the controls from Gerardo. "Thanks for covering the night shift, you two. I've got it for today. I just took a flight to wake up; the weather's nice and it's surprisingly peaceful down below. Can't really recommend it before bed, but hopefully it'll still be this way in the evening."
"I didn't take the night shift," Valey grunted. "Just got up too early..."
Shinespark blinked. "Oh, well, in that case you should definitely go for a fly! There's a storm on the mountains, but we've still got plenty of time before it comes down this low. Unless you're going back to..."
Valey loped straight past her and out the door.
"Mmmmm..." Maple murmured in her sleep, slowly drifting awake. The air was heavy with petrichor, but she couldn't hear the accompanying beating of rain over her head, causing her to lift her head and open her eyes in confusion. There was her room's window, swung open and wafting in fresh, storm-charged air. There was Starlight, snug between her legs and curled up with her head resting atop Maple's side. There was... Valey? The batpony was in her bed as well, respectfully keeping her distance but tucked into a comfortable, catlike ball.
Maple laid back down. She could see the rain outside the window and hear Starlight and Valey's breathing, and that was all she needed to know her peaceful mornings hadn't been lost with Riverfall. Her rear hooves, hindquarters and the tips of her ears were cold, but her sides and belly and forelegs were comfortably hot, forming the perfect mix where she could enjoy her warmth without being overwhelmed by it. The cold provided contrast, or a heat drain, and she shifted slightly, feeling her fur getting bent a little backwards as she briefly broke contact between the bed and her shoulder.
Valey and Starlight both looked sound asleep, and didn't appear to be anywhere close to wakefulness, but now that she was up and had smelled the morning air Maple didn't think she was remotely close to rejoining them. But she couldn't move, either, and that left her with nothing to do but think.
Her and Starlight's room was plain, wasn't it? They had to do something to make it theirs. Get some possessions or decorations, maybe. But it was already well-furnished, and it wasn't like they were stopping anywhere things could be purchased any time soon.
She hadn't had the chance to bring much from Riverfall, either. Her life hadn't been dedicated to accumulating things, especially the past two years, and most of what she had possessed had been smashed in the vandalism. A brief stroke of wistfulness ran down her body, and she brushed it off. Hasty or not, she had made her decision, and so far, it was a decision she was living with happily.
The one thing she had saved from her home was a cracked mirror, formerly hanging by the door on her porch. The shards would have to be reassembled in the frame once she found some glue, but the biggest was propped on her bedside table, right where she could see it. Her pink-eyed expression stared back at her and smiled... and silently, Maple made a wish. Please let Amber, Willow and White Chocolate be happily enjoying themselves in Riverfall...
Purely on instinct, she tried to roll over, reach out and drag Valey closer with a hoof. Unfortunately, she was still pinned by Starlight, and only succeeded in brushing the batpony's hooves. "Buh..." Valey snuffled, squirming in her sleep and cracking an eye.
"Oh! Sorry," Maple mouthed back, quickly realizing her mistake.
"Yo, you're up," Valey mumbled, barely opening her mouth.
"I figured you'd have your own room," Maple murmured with a faint smile. "You're allowed to join us if you want, though. I like waking up surrounded by friends."
Valey sniffed and snorted, nose somehow plugged during her sleep. "Few more hours. Nngh. Pretty sure you'd change your mind if I took you up fully on that offer, Ironflanks..."
"Try me," Maple challenged. "Or don't. I didn't mean to wake you, though."
Valey shrugged, uncurling and stretching heavily, with her forelegs straight forward and her hind legs straight back. "Meh..." She licked her lips. "I was waiting for you, anyway. Just wanted to tell you Arambai was talking to us this morning. Said Dorable went to town on Hemlock, but wasn't specific about whether the old stallion fully forgot you and Starlight. Still gonna keep him locked up in Ironridge, though. No word from Riverfall, and reconstruction efforts are slow. He says right now they're exploring the Flame District with unicorns for light and salvaging parts and tools to try and get the stuff they need to start rebuilding. Also clearing out some jungle to the north using manual labor and trying to drill some inefficient, amateur power wells."
"Any news from Riverfall?" Maple asked, daring to perk her ears.
"Just said there wasn't." Valey shrugged. "Sorry, Ironflanks. He said he'd let us know if anyone showed up. Also that they're running tests on the boats in the graveyard, but pretty much all of them need some major renovation at the very least. But it should be a day trip for a team of pegasi, so once they know it's not a war zone, or something, he's thinking of establishing contact by sending ponies out there by air."
"Huh." Maple stared at the ceiling. "I always thought of Riverfall as a place pegasi flew away from, since there weren't any there. But they could create trade that way, couldn't they?"
Valey rolled over so that she was fully facing Maple, and much closer. "Ask him yourself next time he's on. Anyway. It's raining super hard out, but I think I'm gonna wander, stretch my legs and see if there's anything to do. Being on an airship with six others is unsurprisingly uneventful."
Maple waved, seeing her off as Starlight shifted against her. "Bye..."
Valey stepped out onto the deck of the Immortal Dream, expecting a facefull of rainwater and getting absolutely nothing. She stood in the doorway for several seconds, blinking, looked up... and finally realized what was happening: the pink energy comet that empowered the ship didn't just repel windigo blizzards, it acted as a stabilizer in weather of all kinds. The rain bent and fell away from it, its trajectory altered by an invisible forcefield, and the parted waters plummeted thickly down just past the railings. She could probably even stick her hoof out and touch it.
The deck was still cold, mountain storm air settled across it with less wind than she was expecting, and she quickly hugged herself with her wings. Oh well. All she wanted was to stretch her legs; it wasn't like she was going flying anyway...
Then the stern entry opened, its staircase leading to the cargo bay and the opposite end of the cabin corridor, and Slipstream stepped out, wrapped snugly in her brightly-colored pegasus sweater.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, voice carrying all the way across the deck. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
Valey spread her wings, crossing the distance effortlessly. "Interrupting stuff? Like what?"
Slipstream dug at the ground with a hoof. "Nothing. You looked like you were thinking, is all."
"Me? Thinking?" Valey put on a silly grin. "Nahhh. Just wandering around 'cuz I'm bored."
"Oh." Slipstream turned away. "I come out here to think a lot. And watch the sky, and the land below us, though that's sort of hard to see right now because of all the rain."
"Huh. That's cool." Valey shrugged. "That mean you want me to leave you alone so you can think, or something?" She waggled an eyebrow. "There are certain kinds of thinking that are a lot funner than others."
Slipstream reddened. "Yes! I mean, no, there aren't! I mean, I..." She froze, then deflated. "I'm thinking about the Empire."
Valey nodded. "Sounds pretty boring. Definitely not on my list of priority things to think about."
"I'm being serious, here," Slipstream murmured. "I didn't say anything when everyone was deciding where to go because this doesn't feel like my party or adventure and I still feel like an outsider along for the ride, but... it looks like it's getting to you, and..."
Valey narrowed her eyes, suddenly serious herself. "Hold on," she said, keeping her tone slightly gentler than it could be. "You also knew about this whole 'Empire hates bats' thing?"
Slipstream wilted. "I'm a travel guide! I give ponies information at a skyport kiosk. Part of that includes knowing all the major things to and not to do in other cultures, and that includes everything the Griffon Empire counts as a heresy against their goddess. One of those is persecuting batponies, and I didn't know for sure but figured it might mean that had been a problem in the past, because you don't make rules that aren't needed. But I didn't say anything because I didn't want to make it look like it was me who didn't want to go, since I'm the newest and didn't really do anything in Ironridge and probably shouldn't have the same say as any of you. I didn't realize it would hurt you that much..."
"Woah. Issues alert." Valey stopped her with a wing. "First, finding out seriously stank, but at least half of it is the whole 'batponies are actually loathed somewhere else' bit. I'll deal with going there. Still gonna be better than what I had in Ironridge, since I've got friends this time. Second, are you saying you don't want to go to the Empire?"
Slipstream shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
"Right on that one," Valey apologized, shrugging. "'Cuz I'm pretty sure unless your reservation was stupidly huge, it wouldn't make us choose a war zone or smelly yaks over weird griffons. No offense. So what's up? And don't worry about inconveniencing us, or something."
"It's just..." Slipstream sighed. "I think Gerardo is hot."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I think a ton of ponies are hot, you included. Sounds normal to me."
"No, it's..." Grimacing, Slipstream tried to break eye contact, settling for looking at the wall of rain rushing past. "In the Empire, inter-species relationships are also forbidden unless you're a sphinx. That doesn't mean earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, but it does mean ponies, batponies, griffons..." She hung her head. "I said it doesn't matter because I haven't been able to get him to notice me and I don't think he's interested back, but it still feels... Well, you have worse problems than I do. So you can maybe relate."
"You know, these griffons are starting to sound like uncool dudes," Valey remarked, leaning against the railing. "What other stuff is against the law there? Littering? Defacing public art? Flirting with the wives of public officials?"
Slipstream frowned. "It's not that they're trying to be killjoys. I've known I like griffons for a long time now, and studied where these rules come from. I needed to know to answer questions for my job, too. In almost all cases, it's their goddess trying to look out for her subjects, like the one protecting ponies like you from persecution. It's heretical to practice piracy, for one, and everyone benefits from having safe seas. Incest is also an offense against the Goddess, which makes a lot of sense because with the way their noble houses are set up, if it wasn't, the sphinxes would become so inbred their population would collapse due to genetic defects and they'd die off. I think the rest of the population is asked to follow that as a matter of fairness, but also because it's a good idea. With this one, though, I think it's to protect the pony and griffon citizens from split loyalties if anything ever went bad between the Empire and the batponies to the north, but then she makes it between all races so it doesn't come across as unfair to batponies anyway. And griffons and ponies can't have offspring together anyway, so I guess they don't think of it as a big loss. It just... Well, it doesn't make a difference to me, I guess."
"Urrrgh!" Valey dramatically slapped a wing to her forehead. "There go all my ambitions of becoming a pirate. My life is ruined." She peeked above it with one eye. "Seriously, though, huh. I... guess I get that? I mean, I'm already going to be getting the stinkeye, I presume, so how much worse will things go for me if I maybe occasionally glance at someone we pass in the streets?"
"I really can't say." Slipstream hung her head again, drooping. "I've read about this, not been there myself. And in Ironridge, shipping to the Griffon Empire is handled by other nations since they don't have their own air fleet, so I don't see locals very often at all. And when I do, they're asking about Ironridge, not talking about their own home."
"Boo. Lame." Valey flopped down on the deck. "Well, here's hoping we run into a benevolent stranger who can actually explain all this stuff and give us some pointers for staying out of trouble." She blinked. "Hey, speaking of running into stuff... you have any idea how long this trip is supposed to be?"
Slipstream shook her head. "The world is a very vast place. Cargo and passenger ships make the trip to the Empire in just under two months, depending on their speed. The closest Varsidel city is about two weeks out, flying night and day. But most commercial dirigible ships move about half the speed of a pegasus trained for long-distance. Smaller ones that aren't tuned for energy efficiency or have less-safe, hobbyist upgrades can triple that speed or more, and with this ship... I'd estimate we're three or four days from the ocean, and then a week to a week and a half to cross that, if we go straight east."
Valey blew on her bangs. "So basically a really long time. Huh. I'm way faster than an endurance flier, so I'm going to have to zip ahead, down to the ground and check for anything interesting to bring back, or even just get a break from this ship before we get out to sea. That sounds really boring."
"I wouldn't know," Slipstream murmured. "But... you're okay with all that? That I knew the Empire had some sort of history with your kind, and didn't-"
"Hey." Valey cut her off with a wingtip to the lips. "Pretty sure everyone here is rocking some major baggage, except maybe Birdo. If not speaking up about the Empire hating my guts when we were making our decision is the thing you feel worst about, congratulations, you're the happiest and most stable pony here." She winked. "Seriously, don't worry about it."
Slipstream breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. That... means a lot."
"No problem." Valey grinned. "Now I just need to find someone I can hit on where we're going without getting arrested..." She blinked. "Hey, what is the punishment for any of this stuff, anyway?"
"It depends." Slipstream shuffled awkwardly. "On the nature and duration of the offense, how much malice it's done with, whether it's repetitive... You'd have to ask Gerardo what the exact system is, but I know the Goddess judges heretics herself, sometimes."
"Okay! Okay." Valey backed up, eyes wide. "Yeah, that sounds a little... Yeah, gonna avoid that, then. Bananas. Guess I'll have to be on my best behavior after all. I hope Birdo can get me a concrete list of exactly what's banned and what isn't so I don't stuff something up by accident."
Slipstream's ears perked. "Oh, I should be able to do that. At least, a little. The ones I mentioned are the big ones, though. No having unions with your relatives or anyone of a different race, unless you're a sphinx and it's with an unrelated pony or griffon. No persecuting or declaring holy war on the batponies. No piracy or criminal attacking of trade routes." She paused, touching her lip with a hoof. "Now that I think about it, if they're very tightly enforced, you shouldn't have any trouble from others at all, and if they're not very tightly enforced you probably will be safe from the rules, too..."
"Just as long as they're not selectively enforced. Meh." Valey folded her wings and started trotting away. "We'll get there when we get there, and then we'll see just how much this Garsheeva deserves my respect."
"Hi, Amber!" Maple smiled warmly into the sound stone affixed to the Dream's control panel, standing on the bridge with Shinespark. "You made it back to Ironridge already?"
"Yeah, it's been what, five days?" Maple could practically hear Amber shrug. "I told you, I already put in a ton of work on Gerardo's boat when you were away the first time, so it didn't take too much more to get it running. There's still some rapids in this canyon near Ironridge, so I might have moored it a mile or two away and climbed the rest of the way on my own. It took all day! But Arambai will have those mercenaries fly me back to where I left it, so it's all good. How are things with you?"
Maple gave a been-there-done-that sigh, flicking both ears. "I think I'm over worrying that we made our decision too quickly, though I really do need to take more time to think about things... Things are quiet. Gerardo isn't being too noisy, everyone is keeping themselves sort of busy, and we're making progress. It just stopped raining, and I'm looking ahead and think the horizon is finally changing."
"Sweet! It's raining here, right now. Barely avoided getting drenched on my way up that last cliff. Big surprise, huh? Hey, how's Valey doing?"
"Valey is..." Maple bit her lip. "Apparently the Griffon Empire has some history or prejudice against batponies, but I don't know what. Gerardo mentioned it, and she's taking it hard."
"Wow. And you're going anyway? That's kind of unfortunate." Amber sounded put-out. "When she wakes up, pat her on the back for me. Or gets back from wherever she is."
"She's probably somewhere..." Maple glanced around the room, spinning idly back and forth in the copilot's chair. "Starlight is doing well, I think. She's not sticking to me as closely as she did in Riverfall or Ironridge, and I see her reading or staring out the windows to pass the time, which hopefully means she's more secure. I know I'm hardly the best role model for what to and not to worry about, but I still don't ever think I hear her laugh. Then there's Jamjars, White Chocolate's filly, and I don't at all know what to make of her. She sits in her room all the time, but seems to get along with Starlight and Slipstream, the pegasus..."
"Oh! Speaking of White Chocolate, I forgot to tell you the news!"
Maple's ears folded and her chest briefly clenched. "Did her foal...?"
"Not what you're thinking," Amber chirped. "We got her to a doctor to get checked up, since apparently that's not a thing when you live on your own in the Earth District... and it's not a foal, but foals! She's having twins! ...A fourth set, I think, but still. No idea how the doctor can figure out stuff like that when they're an earth pony, by the way. So anyway, long story short she's not actually as far along as she thought she was and they've probably got two or three months left before the big day, and I guess she didn't notice how long it had been because seriously how would you keep track of days if you lived in a hole day in and day out? Apparently it came as a really big surprise to her, since she thought she'd be able to tell just like that. Just thought you'd like to know, though."
Maple nodded, swallowing and forcing a smile. "Well, that's good. I hope she's doing all right otherwise?"
"Oh, definitely. While I've been working on the boat and we've both been working on the town, we've been trying our best to take care of her, as well. She and Faron still seem happy together, and Willow walks her over to Arambai's old place, which is Dior's now, to mess around in the shop. She's been having a ton of fun with that hand thing. I think her face has fewer lines in it, even! But yeah, mostly good news with her. Her foals are rotating back through her home a lot more often and we're still getting her set up with a pool, so she sees them a lot but doesn't get overwhelmed. I think she's really, really happy in Riverfall. Some nightmares about refugee centers, apparently, still, but she talks with us about those and overall bringing her back with you was definitely the right call."
"I'm glad," Maple breathed, heart warming and chest loosening. "If she can fix her life and get it back on track given the chance, anyone can. I know she thinks I'm inspiring, but honestly..." She paused, hesitated, and went on. "I have a lot of growing to do myself. But when I see you again, however long that may take, I'll be a stronger and better pony too, and we can all laugh about the past together."
"Hee hee..." Amber chuckled. "Sounds like you're already on the way there, no? Losing your house has to hurt a ton, but at least you don't sound devastated?"
"I'm..." Maple frowned. "I'm bearing. It still feels kind of numb no me, like it didn't really happen, or I had already given up everything I lost. Maybe I'm in denial, or something, but it doesn't quite feel like that either. It's more like... I'm tired of being knocked down, or have been hit so many times by so much worse that this just doesn't hurt me any more. I don't know. But I'm still okay."
The sound stone was silent for a minute. "Wow," Amber eventually said. "That's kind of a scary thought, to me. Losing so much you grow numb to it. But I guess... it's better than feeling terrible, right?" Her voice held a spark of hope at the end.
"I'm not sure," Maple answered. "I think it might be more that I just have a better understanding of what's important to me. That's the ponies in my life like you, Starlight and Willow. Maybe my house got destroyed, but I'm not physically injured and all of you are fine, so it still feels like I dodged a sword. I don't know." She glanced up, to the distant gray horizon. "How is Riverfall, by the way? So many ponies ultimately came to wish me well at Arambai's house, and I made the decision to leave so quickly, and while I don't think I regret it..."
"Probably best to go on not regretting it," Amber said, suddenly serious. "Riverfall is... kind of mixed. There are a lot of ponies who are keeping level heads, especially ones that knew you in person, even if from our foalhood years ago. The thing is, it's not you that worries everyone: it's Starlight. She made some big splashes in Riverfall before, with Gerardo's boat and again when Hemlock found out and told everyone where she was from. And apparently there was an incident where she crystallized a really grouchy mare in the streets? She's also kind of reclusive, so very few mares knew anything about her. Now, you know Riverfall, they love mystery and new things and excitement... but nearly a decade of reminiscing about the good old days, and especially the younger ones aren't all that difficult to spook. Then you had the flood from Ironridge, and Hemlock making that recording was less turning ponies against her as a whole and more giving the suspicious ones justification for their suspicion. As best as I can tell, there's maybe a quarter of the town who are curious about and intrigued by Starlight, half who are indifferent and either in it for the gossip or not at all, and a quarter who don't trust her or are openly scared of her. That's a lot of ponies, and no offense, but Starlight isn't the best at making a positive impression. She's kind of... broody."
Maple hung her head. "Well, at least it doesn't sound like we made an overtly wrong decision. That's enough ponies that something would have happened again, and then another after that, and it would have done nothing but stress us all out. And I know. I wish I could help teach Starlight to enjoy herself when times are going well, like right now."
"Not sure what advice I can give there," Amber apologized. "Extrovert in the house. I get my enjoyment in by talking to all sorts of interesting ponies. But I really doubt she works the same way, and there's like... six others on your ship. Counting you. That's practically no one for her to get to know!" She thought for a moment, and added, "Maybe she'd enjoy talking with Slipstream? I only met her a few times, but she seemed like a cool enough pegasus."
"I've talked with Slipstream a bit," Maple remarked. "She feels slightly out of place, but is looking forward to whatever we're going to do. It's definitely refreshing to have someone to talk to I can get to know by choice. I think I might have spent too long hiding in my house or only with my own friends in Riverfall, myself."
"Heh... yeah... Hey, you should have taken a hoofful of random Riverfall mares with you as well! Then it would always be new and lively, and you'd have plenty of new faces to meet and talk to! Get some smooching going on as well. Mmmmm-wah. Heeheeheee... Gotta have someone for Valey to tease, right?"
Maple noted Shinespark reddening and pointedly staring out the windshield beside her. "I think that sounds like a bad idea," she muttered back. "Besides, Gerardo is the closest thing to a stallion on this boat, and he's a griffon."
"Yeah, maybe. I bet Valey'd see it as a bomb of fun waiting to go off, though. That much tension with no outlet, this close to going kablooie..." She paused. "Eh. Anyway, make sure to tell her to perk up for me. Sad batponies are tragic! And have squishy cheeks. Tell her I said that too."
"Noted." Maple nodded, rolling the edge of her hoof along the control panel and suddenly realizing she was hungry. "Anyway, is there anything else you wanted to talk about? How long are you staying in Ironridge this time, anyway?"
"Oh, I'll be in and out all the time now that I've got this boat working," Amber replied, sounding perfectly confident. "Didn't try and take anyone with me this time, though once the river dies down a little more and I can safely sail it again, I'm going to start wandering the districts, making friends and trying to look for good ponies to invite to Riverfall, I think. Riverfall's been having so many foals since the colts who were left behind grew into stallions that Arambai already had us preparing for explosive population growth, so we've got room to take a bunch more families, at least in the short term. But I think everyone will benefit if we get ponies used to the idea again of coming and going as they please. There's talk of using pegasi to fly between the cities, and I think that's a great idea! They're using unicorn horns for light in buildings and exploring the abandoned mines, and earth ponies are lifting things since there's no power for winches and cranes and stuff and it's actually really cool to see ponies using their own powers and talents as a replacement for all the technology stuff that just broke. Everyone's working together and everything!"
Shinespark opened her mouth, leaning over. "Sorry to interrupt, but that's great to hear. Are you involved at all with the recovery? Can you tell us about what's going on?"
"Now that Sosa is above water again, they're going through and looking for scrap metal or parts that were big and bulky enough to still be usable. A lot of stuff got pulverized or completely washed away, but there's some places further west where things survived. Still, the city apparently has a metal shortage now, which is weird to think about because they used to produce it from the mines! Anyway, all the ponies who can are working to clear out and tame land to the north of the city so they can build new, temporary power generators and maybe temporary housing, and everyone who can't is still working to house refugees. They're trying not to let the camps in the warehouses become a permanent thing, since apparently a lot of really bad stuff happens when you leave that many ponies together for a long period of time..."
"I can imagine." Shinespark shuddered.
"Yeah," Amber agreed. "There haven't been any disease outbreaks, somehow, even though it's been nearly two weeks and the climate is a little cooler than it used to be. They're diverting power for heating, actually, and that's inefficient because the warehouses weren't designed to be heated and it takes specialty hardware and everything. Then there's ponies who get bored or depressed or desperate, and entertain themselves in ways that are dangerous or really shouldn't be done in public. I haven't gone in there yet myself, but apparently a pony died three days ago falling from a light fixture, and they sure weren't up there to fix it."
Maple let out a sigh of resignation. "It's better than them being in their homes for the flood, though, right?"
"Right," Shinespark agreed, voice hard and regretful.
"There are some medical emergencies too, but mostly unforeseen stuff, and they have doctors on hoof," Amber went on. "All the high-risk ponies were the first ones to be moved out and into somewhere better. First the ones that were already sick, then the very old, anyone young enough to wander off... That didn't go perfectly either, but it's done now. There's still one filly whose parents nobody can find, though the officials' best guess is that they were Spirit ponies using pseudonyms. One old stallion who had an asthma attack and had to be treated on the spot. A unicorn with some sort of mental illness that made him hallucinate and think the other refugees were attacking him, and he had to be subdued, but not before breaking a mare's rib. Another mare who had migraines caused by sensory issues, and being around so many chaotic ponies nearly sent her into a coma before they got someone. Then there was a volunteer who broke his leg when moving a stack of heavy fruit boxes that collapsed, and two mothers actually had what White Chocolate was worried about happen to them and went into-"
"Stop!" Maple and Shinespark cut her off at the same time, both grimacing. Shinespark held a hoof out, as if she could see it, eyes scrunched shut. "Stop. Please... I'm still... I've felt for a lot of ponies, and now that I let them down and have to focus on myself, hearing about so many stories is... hard."
Amber was silent.
"It's okay," Maple assured her, reforming her smile. "It's just... We're the ones who made that decision, Amber. Hearing about everything bad to come of it kind of hurts."
"Sorry," Amber said meekly. "I might have asked for information about how the refugees were handled and been a little too curious for our own good. Already thinking ahead to how I might be able to help, and trying to have empathy and... yeah. Want to call this quits for now? I'll be back in a few days, at the latest. Dunno if Arambai will let me take this stone to Riverfall, but you could talk to... Huh? What's that?" Her voice grew distant and muffled, and then she returned. "Oh, I'll be back tonight, actually! Apparently the griffon ambassador wants to talk to you. Her name's Glisette. Cool catbird. She says her job is frustrating and she was hoping to have some proper neighbors to unwind with. Kind of wishing I had asked for that Skyfreeze villa myself, now... but she's available then, and I'll probably still be here too! So... despite all I said about the refugees, that was all in the first few days, and stuff is going smoothly now! I'll keep you posted and so will Arambai, so stay happy and adventure in the name of Riverfall!"
Maple and Shinespark said their farewells, and the sound stone's connection died.
For several moments, Maple stared at it in a wistful, contemplative state. Eventually, Shinespark spoke: "You're pretty lucky to have friends that will go out and do that much for you and their hometown, you know."
"I'm lucky in so many ways..." Maple kept looking at the stone. "Amber and Willow are wonderful ponies and friends."
Shinespark exhaled. "That's what I always try to be."
"But...?" Maple raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know. You sound so at ease talking to each other." Shinespark made a minute adjustment to a single lever, and Maple couldn't notice a change in the ship's performance. "You admire each other. I admired my friends in Ironridge, too, and there's no question they admired me, but..." She shook her head. "You sound honest with each other. Like you've seen each other at your best and worst and are completely okay with it. My entire life has been a secret out of necessity, so I've never really been able to have that. Everyone sees a best I actively strive to project, but even ponies who know I failed like my parents... the only ones who've actually seen me at my worst were those who were there that cursed night on the dam and in the skyport, when I made the wrong decisions and cost so many lives, so much work and almost so much more. I'm... envious, I suppose."
Maple offered a hoof, though Shinespark didn't take the embrace. "Well, I was there on the dam. We can be your friends."
Shinespark folded her ears, hanging her head in respectful denial. "I appreciate it, but it's still not the same. You've watched me fail, but you haven't seen me at my best. You don't know who I am or what I'm capable of..." A shadow passed through her voice, and she briefly stammered. "What I know I'm capable of, at least. And you and Amber have known each other since you were fillies. We just met. Still, I appreciate it."
"Since before we could talk, actually," Maple murmured. "Well... I think. I'm two years her senior, so I might have been making noises when she was born. But we were raised in the same parenting pool, and are just as close as biological sisters. Closer, even, because we chose to stick together as friends through thick and thin, even though we didn't have to. Willow is also like a sister to us, though she's a little of a mother as well. She was old enough to look after us when we were very little, and it's always given her pride to take care of her friends."
"Sounds wonderful." Shinespark leaned back and closed her eyes. "You probably heard from Elise, Arambai or my mother, but I was raised more or less out of the public eye, to prevent my life from coming under pressure due to who my biological father was and what the city was like at the time. I definitely know what you mean about family being determined by who you stick with and who you care about more than who you're related to by blood, though. Mobius may have sired me, but he means nothing to me more than any other colleague or stranger as a person."
"Speaking of wonderful things..." Maple hesitated, trying to figure out how best to breach a difficult topic of conversation. "You seem to be doing well after Ironridge. And abruptly, too. I remember how shaken up you were, and..." She swallowed. "As someone who's been there, losing your entire world is never, ever that easy."
"...It's not," Shinespark agreed after a lengthy period of silence. "And it's still something I'm dealing with at night. The first few days, I just had to stop and metabolize everything, and deal with the fact that I had made the wrong calls at the dam, failed to save the friend I cared about most in the Spirit, and then taken an unnecessary injury and fainted from the pain while the fate of the city was being decided by strangers and ponies it had never done anything for, ever." She glanced unhappily at her cast. "That took a lot of dealing with. But I've also spent my entire life chasing a goal that anyone would tell you is impossible for so few ponies. It was just a matter of time until I got back on my hooves."
Maple bowed her head in agreement, softly humming.
"I would have gotten back up eventually," Shinespark went on. "All I needed was a plan I could throw myself at again, wholeheartedly, and enough time to make sure I was solid and sound. Hearing my mother's message..." She glanced to the ship's terminal. "I've listened to it a few times since then. It was her blessing, and while I could have gone on without it, it helped a lot. So yes, I'm doing fine. I have too much riding on me not to be, and the weight of everyone in Ironridge's futures is no different a load than I was carrying before. If anything, it's easier now, because all I have to do is fly this ship and chase that horizon instead of worrying about secrets and lies and planning and manipulation. It's a step closer to a normal life, almost."
"Normal," Maple murmured, nodding.
"Yes, I know there's no such thing..." Shinespark softly sighed. "One of these days, while Gerardo or Slipstream is flying, I want to get out Braen and turn her back on. Her soul is back here now, where it always belonged..." She touched a hoof to the image on her flank. "But her body is still sitting in the cargo bay where I left it, and I think it would be good to do that."
"Hmm." Maple got up, feeling her stomach rumble again. "Well, I think I'm going to get started on lunch. I'll bring you something when it's ready?"
Shinespark nodded, looking up from the windshield. "Thanks. That would be nice. Good talk, Maple."
"Good talk," Maple hummed back, meeting her with a smile of her own. "I'm glad to know we're all generally feeling up after everything that's happened."
Starlight sat in her familiar spot in the observation room, limbs folded under her body. This time, her book sat idly at her side; the terrain ahead was changing and she actually had something to look at.
The Yule had broadened so much from hundreds of miles of tributaries that it more resembled a slow-moving lake than a river, broad and flat and still enough she wouldn't have been surprised if she could see the ship's reflection. Yet, rather than widening out into some sort of delta, it was actually thinning, mid-river islands growing less common as the land around it began to rise. They were at the foothills of a mountain range that stretched to the north, with spikes of rock that looked absolutely puny next to the great cliff wall yet she would hate to walk up, and somehow the river had decided to find a way through rather than giving up and emptying into an inland sea. Patchy jungle gave way to steep black rock, and in a matter of minutes, the ground beneath them had changed completely, and they were over the mountains once again.
The mountains cast shadows on each other, framed from behind by the setting sun, and Starlight watched as some slopes were bathed in gold and others cut by jagged lines of shadow, lit peaks growing rarer and rarer as they progressed. Directly below, the Yule zigzagged, sharply rounding whatever corners it took to find a way through the maze of stone... and then she felt a hoof on her shoulder and breath against her ears. "Starlight, look forward," Maple quietly urged.
Starlight did, and her eyes widened. Apparently this mountain range had no depth to it at all - a few more peaks, and it ended. And when it did, there was nothing beyond.
Or... there was, she realized as they drew closer to the edge. The mountains were proceeded by a flat, featureless, gray-blue plain that looked like the sky and had nothing interesting to it whatsoever aside from a shimmery texture on the surface... the sea. Starlight swallowed. She had seen large bodies of water before, but always, as a rule, there had been something on the other side. This ocean was walled off to the south by the never-ending Equestrian mountain wall, waterfall outlets pouring directly into the sea, and her vision directly to the east was ended by the rain shadow of a wall of storm clouds, but to the north and northeast her vision simply faded into the distance, and the ocean and sky met in a hazy, indistinct line.
"I always imagined what it would look like," Maple murmured from Starlight's side. "I saw pictures, but seeing it in person... Is this as impressive to you as it is to me?"
The last few mountain peaks fell away, and the river met the ocean at a southward angle, the mouth partially protected by a rocky spur that would make it very hard to notice sailing in from the north. A giant green flag had been erected on a sturdy base near the intersection, advertising its presence to any who still sailed that waterway, as it had likely been doing for countless years. Where the two waters mixed, Starlight realized the river water was a slightly different color than the sea; they blended in a plume that swirled thickly all around the sheer, wave-buffeted shoreline.
"Look! Look backwards," Maple suddenly said, craning her neck far around to try to see what was under and behind them. "There are two giant ponies carved into the mountains on either side of the river!"
Starlight barely caught a glance before they were gone. "Huh," she said, feeling like Maple wanted a conversation but without anything that needed to be said.
Maple didn't seem to mind, settling in beside her to drink in her fill of the sight of endless water.
"Yo." Valey shuffled into the bridge, doing her level best to look lazy, drowsy and bored... which wasn't hard at all when naps were her sole entertainment method and sleeping too much eventually sapped one's energy instead of adding to it. "Someone said something about hauling my cute butt up here tonight?"
"That would be me!" the sound stone chirped, Shinespark, Slipstream and Gerardo all standing by for the evening changing of shifts. "Valeyyyyy! Someone said you needed to hear my voice!"
"Amber?" Valey blinked. "Hey, uhhh... how's it going?"
Gerardo cleared his throat, preparing for an epic bout of narration. "When she called this morning, Miss Amber was quite concerned by reports of us going to a locale where your species is reportedly undervalued. She believed you might be taking it poorly, and wished to give what she described as a 'pep talk'. Personally, I find it quite a generous offer, though would advise you to get a room if it becomes at all necessary."
Valey blinked. "Yeah, we might have to do that. And I'm dealing with it. Like... sorry, I just woke up. Not thinking of anything witty to say, right now."
"That's okay," Amber consoled. "I did some pestering, and got some input from someone who knows way more about this than me. And also wanted to talk to you in the first place. Glisette?"
There was a thunk and a tapping, and then another voice came in. "Nice. So, you all are my elusive new neighbors, or so I've heard?"
"My apologies about that," Gerardo quickly assured. "It was never our intent to project that we were meaning to stay in Ironridge long-term."
"Don't sweat it. I've got other social circles. Though I am ticked at you. When your neighbors are all either dead or insane, is it really wrong to want a little more? But like I said, whatever. So apparently you're having sarosian woes about the Empire and don't know exactly what to expect?"
Valey glanced at herself, checking both wings. "Batponies? That's me. Something something heresy and don't like your goddess?"
"Something like that. If you're trying to stay safe and out of the spotlight..." Glisette hesitated. "Here's the situation as best as I know it. You guys look weird, act weird, stick to yourselves and refuse to worship our goddess, so a lot of devout griffons and ponies feel offended by you. Garsheeva doesn't, either because she has a thick skin, knows better than to go looking for trouble, or both, but no one knows for sure. What she specifically says you can't do is try to steal the sarosians' land, or try to stop them from setting up their weird statues wherever they feel like. In general, though, she lets her subjects make their own laws and only weighs in as a judge in extreme cases. That's bad news for you because the noble houses all do what they want, and everyone in power in their lands who doesn't expressly want to challenge them is going to be sucking up to them hard, since they have no backbones and just want to get ahead. Cowards, if you ask me."
Valey glanced away. "So how bad are we talking? Goons jumping me in the streets, and stuff?"
Glisette dodged her question, continuing. "The best news I can give you is that both High Prince Gazelle and Crown Princess Gwendolyn like sarosians and have committed themselves to your cause, and all that. That doesn't actually mean much, because the last empress is dead and Lyn isn't old enough to formally take the throne, and Gazelle hasn't started his own house yet so both of their powers are completely symbolic. But Lyn eventually will grow up, and Gazelle is already known as a skilled and charismatic leader, so some of the lords will be trying to stay on their good side already to be in favor when she does take the throne. Of course, others want to do that to push their agendas... Politics. You know. Lyn will some day take a husband, and it will be up to the two of them to see if they can bring unity to the houses after these last few years of leaderless doing whatever. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Anyway, I don't know every house's opinions or positions on this, but there are bound to be at least some who wholeheartedly support the prince and princess, either for their own reasons or because they think that's the winning team to back. Your absolute best-case scenario is if Gazelle leaves the imperial family and starts his own house, but aside from that you'll want to look around, figure out who's saying what, and then try to stick to the territories of lords who are favorable to you. I don't know whether their opinions will trickle down to street level, but as long as you stick to respectable company in those places, you should be pretty much fine."
"...Huh." Valey nodded, Gazelle's name ringing in her ear as the recipient of Kero's mysterious package. Her brain quickly started turning; Gazelle was a supporter of batponies, but Kero had taken a job to capture her or wipe her out, meaning it was slightly more likely they were enemies and the package was meant to damage the prince, so they shouldn't deliver it if they wanted his help... "Good to know. Anything else? Like, stuff I should do as opposed to just where I should stay?"
"No advice anyone else couldn't give you. Make friends and be nice to others, since a lot of times a good example or real relationship can help overcome prejudice. It'll help if ponies and griffons see you respecting Garsheeva, too. Might as well try to get in good with other sarosians, too. I'm the ambassador to Ironridge, not the Misty Mountains, so I don't know what their culture is like, but maybe they'd like you if you went up there? This is the first time I've even talked to a sarosian, let alone given advice in way longer than I care to remember, here."
"Thanks anyway, Glisette," Amber broke in.
Gerardo raised a talon. "Indeed. We appreciate your expertise, and while it sounds as though we'll need to watch our backs slightly more than I had hoped, we do at least have a strategy! Find those in power who we could get in good with, then spend our days in their lands, and keep our profiles low any time we are elsewhere! Quite a superior plan to walking in blind and hoping for the best."
"Hey, did you say anything about Kero?" Valey interrupted. "Real quick?"
"What, that narcissist?" Glisette's voice returned. "I don't have much to say about him, no. You saw how he decorated his place. Invited me in once and I took one look at all the self-portraits and got out as fast as I could. Connoisseur of fine wine, classical music, and himself, himself, himself. From what I gathered. He wasn't very interesting."
"Hrrrmm..." Gerardo scratched his chin.
"Either way, I have to go. Hurry up and get to the Empire so you can tell them to send in ships with fresh equipment to get these stuck ships out of here so my job can be relaxing for once," Glisette urged. "And good luck. And come back and be actual neighbors some day. Here's Amber back. Go and get a room, or whatever you were talking about."
Before anyone else in the room could reply, Valey snapped up the sound stone with her tail and slipped it under her hat, right between her ears. "I think I'll do just that, thank you very much," she happily announced, strolling out of the room.
"There's a ship on the horizon," Shinespark murmured, seated at the Immortal Dream's controls.
Slipstream looked up from the book held in her wing, relaxing in the copilot's seat. "Oh? Hmm... I think you're right! That does look like a ship... Do we have a spyglass?"
"There should be one around here," Shinespark muttered, searching the room with her telekinesis. "I'm kind of surprised this is the first ship we've seen, actually."
"Really?" Slipstream put her book down, opening tiny cabinets and joining in the search. "How come?"
Shinespark grunted, locating a spyglass and passing it to Slipstream. "How come I'm surprised? Ships from Ironridge should still be arriving in the Empire now, so they wouldn't know to stop sending any yet. Right?"
Slipstream shook her head, extending and holding up the glass. "It's a very long trip directly from Ironridge to the Empire. Since the Empire relies a lot on rented Varsidelian ships to make the journey overseas, they typically have a shorter range, because Varsidel's cities are closer together and they don't need to develop longer-range technology. So the primary route is to go northwest from the Empire and make a stop at the Varsidel coast before going on to Ironridge. Nonstop express voyages like ours are much less common, because there are fewer ships that can manage them. Yakyakistan would have a similar problem, but they've committed more to air travel and have more long-range ships and a refueling station in the mountains."
"Huh." Shinespark shaded her vision with a hoof, though the morning sun was already high enough not to get in her eyes. "So this is a direct flight? They probably have no idea anything's happened in Ironridge, then. I wonder if we should warn them to turn back."
"We could..." Slipstream held her chin with a feather. "We're less than halfway to the Empire, still, so they might not be able to make it all the way back and have to continue anyway. But they should be able to make it to a port city if they turn straight north and follow the coast, and maybe they could warn Varsidel not to send any more ships to Ironridge?"
"I'd imagine Varsidel already knows," Shinespark replied. "They'd know ships have stopped coming, at least. I think? How far away is the nearest Varsidel city, again? A week or two?"
Slipstream nodded. "Depending on the ship's speed. They may have noticed ships have stopped arriving, or maybe not. They might not know why, though."
"Then we should parlay." Shinespark tightened her focus on the controls, slightly altering their trajectory. "Go find out who wants to fly across and who wants to stay to pilot this ship. Unless they want to come to us."
Valey, Shinespark and Gerardo stood on the Dream's deck as the other ship drew nearer, the mountainous shore a distant line on the horizon behind them. Slipstream was piloting; Shinespark held the spyglass to her eye, studying the boat they were about to intersect with.
Large and zeppelin-based, it looked like a freighter, with a bulky, windowless hold and gigantic propellers on the back and sides pushing it forward. There was no deck between the gondola and balloon, and a tiny box on the front that looked to be for crew and controls. 'STRATUS' was emblazoned on its side in wide, burnt-brown lettering.
"Who was it who was on about airships needing epic, non-generic names, again?" Valey teased, elbowing Shinespark with a wing.
"I believe that was you," Gerardo remarked with a subtly-raised eyebrow.
"Nahhh. And nyaaah." Valey stuck her tongue out. "So are we going over there, or are they coming over here, or what?"
Slipstream had cut the acceleration, and it looked like the other ship was slowing too. "Flying unicorns are unusual," Shinespark muttered. "Let's let them come so I don't put them on edge."
"Or I could carry you..." Valey hummed, a mischievous grin forming on her face.
Shinespark took an uncertain step away.
"Before you two engage in any shenanigans," Gerardo quietly interrupted, "it seems they are, indeed, intending to board us. Behold."
A wing of three fliers had left the Stratus and were quickly soaring toward the Dream, and in a matter of minutes they were alighting on the deck. All three were decked out in clean white suits with blue stripes around the collars, and the leader, a tall brown stallion, raised an interested brow. "Greetings," he offered, a reserved, dignified tone in his voice. "We noticed your unusual ship from afar. Are you friend or foe?" He glanced suspiciously at Valey.
"Friends of civilization, I assure you," Gerardo announced, stepping forward and offering a talon even though Shinespark was the captain. "Are you, perchance, bound for Ironridge?"
"We are," one of the leader's companions, a grape-colored mare, replied, looking slightly more at ease. "And you for the Empire?"
Shinespark nodded, also stepping forward. "You shouldn't go to Ironridge," she quickly advised, mane blowing in the wind. "There was a sudden war around two weeks ago. The skyport and power systems are currently destroyed, and every ship that arrives is stuck and has no way to refuel to get out. I'm Shinespark, and my crew is traveling to inform the other nations and seek aid in rebuilding."
"A war in Ironridge?" The third visitor, a griffon, spoke. "Did Varsidel invade, or something? Thought they were too busy with their own affairs! About time their conflict started drawing more attention! I've been saying the rest of the world ought to get involved since the Empress was killed..."
"Not Varsidel, Yakyakistan." Shinespark shook her head. "They played the districts against each other until they sparked a civil war. Things have calmed down now, but if you're going to Ironridge, make sure to have enough fuel to reach another city afterward without refueling there. If you can make it somewhere north along the coast, I strongly advise going there, first."
"A civil war in Ironridge? With Yakyakistan as outside aggressors?" The brown stallion leaned in closer. "I find that somewhat hard to believe. Are you sure?"
"Considering as we barely escaped with our lives, yeah." Valey gave him a serious look. "I mean, you can keep going if you want, but you're the ones who'll get stuck there."
The visiting griffon seemed to consider this. "I can't think of any reason they'd be lying, Cap'n. Don't seem like those pirates from earlier."
"Pirates?" Shinespark looked alarmed. "In the skies? I would have thought the short range of airships forces them to stick to the sea. How?"
The grape mare shook her head. "Sea ones. They sent up a plume of smoke from their boat to make them look like they were in distress. It's a common trick, but easy enough to see through if you drop them an emergency dinghy, follow them a while, and it doesn't appear to spread. Most pirates won't actually burn their boat down for a shot at getting yours."
Gerardo bowed. "The tip is appreciated. Though I don't believe we have any intentions of abandoning the sky, and hopefully should be safe from unwanted surprises." He grinned at Valey, who winked back.
"Anyway, we'll be cautious entering Ironridge in case there's any fighting," the mare assured them. "Thanks for the tip, but-"
"You're still going regardless?" Gerardo looked concerned. "You will get stuck, you know."
"Yeah..." The second griffon also looked uneasy. "Remember the last ship we crossed, Cap'n? Those passengers who insisted on telling us something big might be about to go down? There might actually have been trouble in Ironridge."
"...You're right," the captain acknowledged. "But even at maximum capacity, we lack the range to make it in and out of Ironridge reliably without at least one stop in Zanguel, and the situation in Varsidel changes too quickly for my comfort to count on. Unless you have more current news on the war there as well?"
Everyone on Shinespark's side grimaced. "We could go through Barbadar?" the other griffon offered helpfully, at which the grape mare made a face.
"Ironridge is safe, but has no way to refuel, and their economy is likely in shambles enough that you may not get paid for your delivery," Gerardo told them. "Whatever you decide, you would be safe there, if war areas are a concern."
"No, wartime Varsidel is..." The grape mare hung her head. "Not my favorite place. Up to you, Captain."
"Then I'll make my decision soon. Thank you for warning us," the leader said, and with a bow, all three took off, soaring back toward their ship.
For a moment, Shinespark, Valey and Gerardo stared as they left, then sighed. "I should get us moving again," Shinespark remarked, trotting back toward the bridge.
"Well, I suppose Varsidel's discovery of the fate of Ironridge may well hinge on the whims of this freighter captain," Gerardo declared, ruffling his feathers. "There's little we can do about it, as we are bound for the opposite corner of the map. Ah well."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "What is wartime Varsidel like? Nobody ever talks about it. Also, those sailor suits were nnngh classy." She wing-hugged herself and shivered.
"Ah ha ha..." Gerardo chuckled meekly. "Indeed they were. And wartime Varsidel is a mess of legendary proportions suitable only for hardy adventurers unafraid to answer their problems with guile, violence and running away. Granted, I say that as a hardy adventurer who would not live his life any other way, so take that with a grain of salt. I thrived there, though others might very much not."
"That's nice." Valey strolled toward the door belowdecks, tail flicking lazily. "I'm gonna go do whatever and not let us fall for pirate traps. Have funnn..."
"Morning seventeen," Maple yawned in Starlight's sleeping ears, forcing the filly to blink herself awake. "I should get breakfast started... or should I sleep in again? Hmmm..."
Starlight had every intention of sleeping in. Even though she had been having a successful time browsing Shinespark's library and differentiating between books on advanced magical theory and actually interesting passtimes, the days on the ship were beginning to drag. Peace and quiet, she had unfortunately discovered, meant nothing ever happened, period, so she was killing time until... something happened. She didn't know.
"It's noisy outside," Maple remarked, her warmth disappearing from Starlight's side as the bed shifted, and eventually light filled the room. "Ah," she said from by the curtain. "There's a storm outside, but it looks like we're flying above it. Starlight, do you want to see what a storm looks like from above?"
"That already happened a few days ago," Starlight mumbled, adjusting her hooves so they covered her eyes and muzzle.
Maple took a minute, seeming to concede. "Well, yes, but it's still impressive. It's like a sea of dark clouds, instead of water! I bet it's raining very hard down below. Hmmm... I almost wish we'd dip down lower. This ship is weatherproof, and I love the smell of rain..."
Starlight rolled over so her chin was outstretched and exposed to the air, eyes still covered and buried by the bedding.
"Come on, you," Maple giggled, patting her with the side of a hoof. "The sun rose two hours ago. We should do something with the day?"
"Like what?" Starlight muttered, mouth still sticky with sleep. She needed a drink...
"Say hello to Slipstream? See what Valey is up to? Visit Shinespark on the bridge?" Maple shrugged. "There aren't many ponies here, but we do have friends. And I'm already trying to stay sane with how isolated we are. We could brainstorm something else to do!"
Starlight grunted and hugged herself. "Mmmph."
"I know..." Maple sucked in a quick, eager breath. "When I was a filly, Willow would design and make homemade board games for us to play with the other foals we were friends with. I bet we could find some paper and do that? How does that sound?"
Starlight squirmed in the bed. She clearly wasn't getting back to sleep, but every time she opened her eyes, they just closed again on their own...
Still, Maple didn't give up. "What else could we do... We could mix different kinds of fruit juice in the kitchen to try and create a punch that tastes very good, and share it with everyone?"
Again, Starlight tried to get up, and this time gravity didn't weigh as heavily on her as before. That was nice. She yawned luxuriously, and when she next opened her eyes, clouds were rushing past the windows... Wait, were they descending?
Maple had noticed as well. "It looks like Shinespark heard my wish!" she remarked, beaming at the passing clouds. Then they broke beneath them, dropping with the rain... and Starlight raised an ear in concern. The feeling of weightlessness in her chest that came with rapidly descending was growing, not going away. Slowly, Maple's expression dropped from pleasure and joy to concern and then outright fear. "Starlight?" Her voice cracked as her forehooves broke contact with the ground. "Are we falling? We're falling! Starlight!"
Starlight was suddenly wide alert, her coat standing on end from tip to tail. She scanned the room, assessing her options in an instant. Save the ship? She had no idea how. Maybe she could make a big enough crystal... Her horn was mostly recovered from her encounter with Hemlock at its slow, broken rate, and she thought she felt the tree's gift magic returning, but she definitely would blow herself out again if she tried that. But Maple had just opened the window, and she was certainly strong and experienced enough with falling to protect herself over water. She couldn't tell how high up they were; there was no time to plan out what to do after that.
"Maple! The window!" she shouted, kicking off the bed and lighting her horn. Her telekinesis wrapped around the mare, pulling. She would drag them both out the window, freeze them together, they'd hit the sea, float-
POW! The cabin door burst open before she could reach the aperture, and Shinespark floated in it, looking even more frazzled than Starlight. "You two!" Her own horn flared, and a sapphire aura ensnared Starlight, quickly pulling her back and putting a stop to her plan. "Engine room, now! Something's up with our power source!"
The library streaked by, less-secured books floating aimlessly as they fell in time with the ship, and in an entire second of ferocious telekinetic force, Shinespark kicked off the doorframe, whipped them around into the engine room, and had the spare harmony extractor helmet placed over Maple's cutie mark. There was a crack, the inert rail mesh suspended from the ceiling crackled back to life, and Starlight was suddenly smashed against the floor by twice the force of gravity as the ship stabilized and its power hummed back to life.
For several eternal seconds, the room was still, everyone catching their breath. Eventually, Maple nervously swallowed from her seat next to the extractor. "What was that?"
"I don't know." Shinespark paced up to the other helmet, which had been replaced with a homemade apparatus connecting a windigo heart to the machine. Scared and shocked, she poked at the heart, and it gave off a frosty blue glow, completely devoid of pink energy. "We suddenly lost power over the course of about three minutes. I tried to figure out what it was, and apparently decided to hook you up just in time, since you stored some of the harmonic energies from the crystal palace using your brand." She pointed a hoof at Maple's pink eyes. "But... this doesn't make sense..."
Starlight tilted her head and folded an ear, her own heart still hammering. She had been inches away from the third near-death mile-high tumble of her life, an experience she really shouldn't have been keen to repeat...
"This ship wasn't supposed to run out of power," Shinespark continued, pacing and agitated. "That was the entire point of researching this technology! Some spark of magic or life within ponies produces this harmonic energy indefinitely, which would allow it to be a theoretically infinite power source! So long as the crew remains alive, at least..." She blinked, eyes widening. "But we didn't get this magic from ponies! The underworld flame might have been an infinite source too, but we only bottled some in this windigo heart. And now it's empty..."
Starlight swallowed, a memory coming to mind. "Fire said something about how the hearts needed to be processed to make better batteries. That if they were raw like this one, they were better for dangerous spells, but couldn't hold energy as well. She said all the ones from Ironridge belonged to me, and she was giving us this one now so we could leave but taking the others to Yakyakistan to process so they'd be more useful to us."
Shinespark clenched her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Fabulous. And we're going completely the wrong direction to get more..."
"So what do we do now?" Maple asked, voice quiet.
"Now?" Shinespark turned to look at her, kicking at the drained heart. "We'll have to make use of this ship's seafaring abilities. I don't know how much energy you have stored, and we can't run the risk of running out in midair again. Without the levitation abilities, we should be able to stretch Maple's reserves to power the boat a lot longer, and if that runs out too then I'll give it a try myself. My brand isn't nearly strong enough to levitate us by itself, but it has more harmonic potential than most, and will at least allow us to charge up the lights and heat and run them a few hours a day. Worst case, I'll fly behind us and push the boat." She turned back toward the door, pacing off. "I'm going to lower us the rest of the way to the water and let everyone else know what happened. The ship is probably going to be a mess after a drop like that... Starlight. Maple's probably going to have to spend quite a lot of time in here over the next few days, so she might appreciate it if you moved something more comfortable in here. Or I'll do it. At least we're not far from the Empire..."
She left, and shut the engine room door.
A pair of tan forelimbs encircled Starlight, and Maple was hugging her tightly. "Well, I was complaining about nothing happening," Maple murmured, trying a shaky smile.
Starlight heaved an unhappy sigh.
"Now I'm very glad I soaked up some more of the magic last time we were there," Maple went on. "That was scary, but it could have been a lot worse. I hope everyone else is alright. Do you want to go check on them, or stay here with me?"
"Stay here," Starlight mumbled, thoughts of falling pervading her mind.
Maple nodded, rubbing a forehoof up and down Starlight's chest as she held her to her own. "You were going to have us take our chances falling together on our own, without the ship, weren't you?"
"Yes..." Starlight forced the idea back down. She had been ready for it. If anything scared her, it was that she had been too ready: jumping off an airship in a storm an unknown height above the sea had been her first instinct to solving a problem. Whatever it took to protect her friends.
"Something tells me scares like this are just a natural part of adventure," Maple mused.
Starlight grunted.
"I wish there was more I could do to keep my friends safe," Maple continued. "Things like this, I'm just going to have to get used to. But it would be a lot easier if I could do more than just float around in crises. Maybe I should ask Valey to teach us how to fight. I bet I could have a big advantage thanks to my cutie mark, if I wanted to get good at it. We should do that some time..."
"Mmph." Starlight shrugged in agreement.
"I know." Maple held her tighter. "Let's just hope all our other friends are all right..."
"No, your cheeks are squishier," Valey cheerily protested, a glowing sound stone balanced on her fuzzy belly as she popped another cheese stick from a pouch in her saddlebags into her big mouth. "Remember, you gain points for blushing first."
"Aww! I missed you too. For the thirtieth time. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to Ironridge again, but come on, you gotta have more interesting stuff to tell me about than talking about me! What's new with Maple and Shinespark and Gerardo?"
"Nyaah... not much." Valey burped. "Like, seriously, it's boring out here. No drama whatsoever, and nothing ever happens. So why not make use of this awesome private room I got us?"
"I told you you can hit on other ponies too," Amber's voice informed her. "What's so special about me? We can't even see each other!"
Valey licked her cheese-crusted wingtips. "Something something absence makes the heart grow fonder? I dunno. But I flew way ahead and am on this little rock ledge on the cliff face right now. There's a storm below, the ship's like a mile behind us, and this is basically the most private spot in the universe right now. Like, super duper huge sky. Makes me wish I was a poet. What better place for being frisky?"
"Oh, fine." She could hear Amber chuckling on the other end. "Imagine me burying my face in your fur and-"
"Hey, woah, hold that thought." Valey sat up, suddenly alarmed. "Where'd the ship go? It was right there. Seriously!"
"Valey?" Amber's tone grew worried. "Is everything all right?"
Valey squinted at the dark wall of rainclouds. "Uh, don't panic, but hang on." She raised her muzzle and sniffed. "I can still smell Starlight, but wow, she's kinda low. What the...?"
She stuffed the remnants of her lunch back into her saddlebags and the sound stone under her hat. "Still hear me? Cool. Hold the phone, I need to check this out."
Amber's assent came muffled from between her ears as she lowered to the clouds, poking them with a hoof. "Eh... meh... mrmmm..." Valey frowned harder. "Ew, this storm. My butt says it's cold, rainy and maybe a little windy down there and there's a pretty decent chance if I try to fly to wherever they are, I'll freeze, get blown off course, hit the ocean and drown. Uhhhhh..."
"Valey?"
"Well, bananas." Valey pulled up several meters, surrounded by storm clouds, open sky, a gigantic rock wall she couldn't summit, and a target that was firmly out of her reach. "This stinks."
Starlight stepped out of the engine room, Maple having asked her to explore and let her know how the ship was doing. The ship was intact at first glance, though absolutely everything that hadn't been bolted down was overturned or worse: the library was a mess of open books and bent pages, and the comfortable reading chairs mostly lay on their sides. Frowning slightly, Starlight pulsed her horn and tipped the chairs back upright, straightening and closing a few of the books. Actually reshelving them would be a task for Shinespark.
Rain drummed hard on the deck above. Whatever mystical properties of the ship's energy had held the weather at bay before, they weren't active now that Maple was only keeping the power going. The boat rocked as well, but from her limited nautical experience, Starlight didn't think it was anything to worry about. Still, she pushed open her own room, remembering to shut the window Maple had opened.
The floor was slightly wet from rain already, and Starlight paused to open a closet, pull out a generously-provided towel, and mop it up. She should have been worried about seeing to other ponies before cleaning, but somehow couldn't bring herself to hurry. The large shard of mirror Maple had propped on their bedside table had fallen and had another crack; Starlight righted that as well, wondering if there was such a thing as a crack-mending spell.
"Starlight? What were those idiots at the controls doing?" a disgruntled filly's voice said behind her, and she turned to see Jamjars, balanced on three hooves with the fourth held to her belly and a green tint on her face. "Don't they know to... ugh... give some warning before doing air stunts?"
Starlight's ears pricked, then folded. "Jamjars! ...Are you seasick?"
"I am not seasick!" Jamjars moaned indignantly, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm daydreams-interrupted-by-falling sick! You try thinking about nice things right after breakfast, then suddenly tumbling head over heels in midair and... urk! Just tell whoever had this bright idea to come see me so I can show them just how unhappy my stomach feels in person, and then have them clean my room. And the bathroom is mine."
"Okay." Starlight blinked as she unceremoniously left, making a mental note to avoid Jamjars' room at all costs and reminding herself that other ponies didn't have nearly as much experience being in free-fall as she did. Though this hardly counted next to toppling off a waterfall or exploding dam, and there was no wind in her face and...
Gerardo, Slipstream and Valey. Right, she should be checking on the others... Someone might be downstairs, but she had a feeling everyone who was able would have gone to the bridge. Carefully, she stepped that way as well, dodging fallen books and making sure to keep her hoofing on the rocking floor.
She made it all the way to the deck door at the top of the staircase before remembering that it was raining outside and she'd have to go through that to reach the bridge. Who designed a ship like that? There should at least have been a ladder to the engine room... Frowning, Starlight weighed the costs to her horn of teleportation, trying to shield herself with crystal, and just skipping magic and getting wet, and eventually settled for the crystal. Armoring herself was a spell she needed to work on, anyway.
Encased in a teal block that started at her head and covered her entire body, leaving only her legs free since multiple pieces was too much work, Starlight staggered out onto the deck. She didn't have enough seafaring experience to tell if the waves were high, low or normal, though they swelled nearly twice her height and were bolstered by crashing rain. The wind wasn't terrible, but it was blowing hard enough that it caught her bulky crystal like a sail, and...!
Starlight's mouth was covered, so she couldn't squeak in dismay as the water-slicked deck and wind conspired together to capsize her unbalanced mass. She fell sideways, landing on the deck and rocking back and forth in an undignified manner. Her exposed legs were quickly soaked, and with an internal sigh of resignation, she realized it was impossible to get herself back upright without dropping her shield. The crystal vanished, leaving one of her sides pressed against the wet floor and the other drilled into by rain from the heavens, and by the time she righted herself and scrambled to the bridge, she was far more drenched than she would have been had she ran across in the first place.
"Starlight!" A chorus of voices greeted her as she stepped inside, so wet that even her cheek fur drooped. Shinespark, Gerardo and Slipstream were all there, and the griffon in particular's expression was bright. "It is good to see you well," he assured her. "Well... mostly well, it appears."
"I want a towel," Starlight said, the puddle forming around her spreading halfway across the floor.
Shinespark's aura grabbed her and rubbed her roughly, covering every bit of her body and wringing the water from her fur like a lilac squeegee. "That ought to help, first," Shinespark remarked. "I think there are towels in... here?" She tried a cabinet, then a second and third, and finally found what she was looking for. "Here. Need help?"
"I think I've got it?" Starlight threw one towel down on the floor so she wouldn't be standing in a puddle, and it instantly became soaked through. She tried levitating the second one, but her horn told her it would take a few more days of recovery first if she didn't want to blow her odds of using magic freely once they got to the empire. The tree's aid was still there, but as long as her horn beneath it wasn't in peak condition... "Never mind. I need help."
Slipstream took the towel and held it up, allowing Starlight to much more easily rub her face and mane against it. "Jamjars is seasick," she muttered as she dried herself. "And wants someone to clean her room. Maple's in the engine room. Where's Valey?"
Shinespark shrugged. "Not my biggest concern. Valey disappeared somewhere an hour or two ago to talk with Amber on the sound stone, so she's probably hiding in the cargo hold or something. She can detect danger, so she'll be fine."
Gerardo tapped a talon. "I wonder why she didn't warn us we were bound for trouble..."
Everyone glanced at him, and Shinespark shook her head. "Maybe it doesn't work like that? I don't know how Valey works. I'm sure she should be fine."
"Those are precisely the sort of words one would expect to hear in a jinx," Gerardo announced, straightening up. "I, for one, am going to look for her just to be safe."
He made it all the way to the door and flung it open before pausing, realizing it was still raining outside... and hung his crest. "On second thought, is there a tremendously important reason why one must walk through the rain to access the rest of this vessel?"
"That's what I want to know," Starlight muttered, towling off her chest, sides and back.
"Oh! Here." Shinespark leaned over, flipped a lever, and with a rattle, a section of roof outside the bridge extended, until a short, covered area linked the two doors. "We figured we'd be flying over storms most of the time, so it wasn't the hugest priority..."
"This will, at least somewhat, have to do," Gerardo mused, his talons still tickled by rain blown past the extendable roof by the wind.
Once he was gone, Slipstream sighed. "As I was saying, it's a good thing this boat is a water boat, too. And that we were only a few days from the Empire when this happened. I think, at least... There are no landmarks, so it's so hard to tell exactly how far east we are. I'm afraid I don't know anything about piloting sea ships, though..."
"That's why it's good to learn." Shinespark gripped the wheel intently, altering their course slightly to the left. "I think I'm going to take us further north. In this visibility, it wouldn't be smart to get too close to the mountain wall."
Starlight shrugged. It sounded like they were going to talk plans and navigation, which meant it was her turn to head back to Maple.
"Yeah... I really don't wanna stick my head down there," Valey muttered, staring at the soup of thick gray rainclouds beneath her dangling hooves. "I could risk it if I was desperate, but my cutie mark is kinda giving me a big no. I've flown in Ironridge rain before, but this is really gross. Or maybe I should go ahead and do it? All I've gotta do is hit one little boat deck, but..."
With a giant crackle, the clouds arced with electricity, throwing out a sheet of white glare that completely blinded her. "Yow! Okay! Point taken!" She fluttered back, scrubbing at her eyes with her forehooves. "Deeefinitely not going in there."
"What happened?" Amber's voice asked from under her hat. "That sounded like thunder."
"Pretty much." Valey hovered higher, curling a lip at the ornery stormclouds. "Doesn't take a degree in lightningology to tell these clouds are bad news. So, uhhh... options, here."
"Could you wait out the storm, I guess?"
Valey glanced back at the cliffside. "Yeah, there are enough ledges and stuff where I could sit that I could just wait and not get tired. Not sure if they're going to wait, though. Still beats me what happened, but they're slowly moving. At least... Starlight is. You think they didn't notice I'm gone, or what?"
Amber paused. "I don't know, Valey. Why would they fly below the cloud level instead of above it?"
"Beats me." Valey stared into the distance, fidgeting. "You don't think... Nah, couldn't be. If they're moving, though, I should probably be too, right? Whatever's up, the storm will dissipate or they'll reach the edge eventually, or it'll thin out enough that I can just fly through no problem. Sound like a good plan?"
"It sure is better than doing nothing."
"Cool." Valey adjusted her hat, flapped for altitude, and set a slow, winding course east, following the trajectory of the Dream below.
Thunder crashed again, Valey's cutie mark warning her just in time to close her eyes and avoid being blinded a second time. The storm clouds had no edge in sight, and below, Starlight's signature was keeping its slow and steady progress. Valey sighed, spiraling to avoid outstripping the ship, though she half-considered soaring ahead anyway since it wasn't likely the boat would change courses any time soon.
"You think they saw something above the clouds they had to run away from?" Amber's voice chirped, keeping a constant and welcome presence on her head. "Or maybe something malfunctioned? They could be sailing now and unable to fly, period."
"It better not have," Valey muttered back. "Sparky spent crazy amount of time polishing it to get it as good as it could be. I guess she could have made a mistake, though..."
"Maybe. Or maybe it was something that wasn't her fault at all? Like..." Amber hesitated, thinking. "Maybe they discovered something else bad about being high-altitude, or they want to be low-down to see when they approach land, or...?"
Valey sagged, letting her entire body save for her wings grow limp. "Then they wouldn't need to keep checking for two hours. Blehhhh! It's getting too roasty up here. Sometimes, I wish my coat wasn't the best color for absorbing sunlight."
"But it makes sunbathing funner when you want to, right? At least there's a bright side."
"Something like that," Valey sighed, imagining naps and trees in the earth district. That led her stomach to growl, and she glared unhappily at it. She just had lunch! And like this, conserving her food was probably a decent idea...
Amber was silent, leading Valey's brain to wander further. "What if pirates got them?" she mused, grinning to keep the possibility a joke. "Harpooned them out of the sky, or something? Dragged them down below where nobody would look..."
"L-Let's not joke about things, Valey," Amber urged, and Valey suddenly realized the possibility had been on her friend's mind as well.
"Sorry," she quickly apologized. This wouldn't be a good time to remember how her cutie mark worked only for herself, and couldn't detect danger to her friends, and...
Suddenly, it started tingling. Instinctively, she glanced around, checking her sides and rear and below her, but nothing was out of place. There wouldn't be anything above... but she turned her neck upward, and there it was: a fresh wall of clouds billowing down from the clifftop however many miles above. That was definitely unwelcome.
"Okay, I got trouble," she announced, suddenly scanning the cliff once again for shelter. "There's another storm rolling in, and it's about to fall right on my head, so hold the phone for a sec because I need need need to either find a cave or scram to the north."
Amber gasped on the other end, then held a grim silence, allowing Valey not to waste breath on talking. The empty sky to the north was so tempting... but she had no idea how far out she'd have to go to be safe from however the storm landed. What would it even do? Spill down the cliff like an inky waterfall, or glide out for hundreds of miles before reaching the water? No matter what, she didn't feel like flying for hundreds of miles. Maybe trying to reach the ship was a more tempting option now... Once again, lightning flashed, reminding her why that option was off the table.
"Uhhhh..." Valey scanned the cliff wall, chin slack, backing up far enough that she could get a good look at it. She needed more than a crevice; this would take shelter, like a cave. Were there even caves in a geological structure like this? There had to be, right? Dark spots. She needed dark spots that might be indicators or larger recesses, but the wall was annoyingly smooth, with even small ledges like the one she had relaxed on earlier a rarity... There! Significantly above her current height, a long, vertical slice stood out as discolored on the wall. She had to check that.
Valey beat her wings, flicking herself upward with an urgency reserved for flashes of her cutie mark. The sky below her rumbled again, and she skimmed past countless meters of rock, like the wall was the floor and she was moving forward.
Suddenly, the rock before her hooves changed for the blink of an eye, and she doubled back, realizing she had passed it. Valey settled into a hover... and scowled. What she had taken for a discolored patch of rock that might be a shadowed crevice was, in fact, a discolored patch of rock. And water droplets suddenly brushed her ears, informing her that the rain had finished its fall to her altitude.
There was nothing for it. Valey flung herself against the rock, clinging with all four legs and hoping some concavity somewhere in the cliff face would let it shield her from the falling rain. And it did... a little. Droplets rushed past close enough to her back that her fur stood up from proximity, and all it would take to change that was the tiniest breeze in the wrong direction. She gritted her teeth and shuddered.
"Valey?" Amber asked from beneath her hat. "Your breathing is slower. Are you all right?"
"Technically," Valey replied, body unsure whether to be tense or limp in resignation. "I'm hugging a cliff. Not getting rained on at the moment, but I'm probably still screwed."
She could practically hear Amber bite her lip from across the sound stone.
"Let's see..." Exhaling, Valey looked straight up. There was what was protecting her: a tiny outcropping that hung upside-down, acting as a roof rather than a floor not too far above. Her odds would be better the closer she got, though, and since she was already beating her wings to stay against the wall... She adjusted her body and propelled herself up, coming up against the ledge.
It wasn't a normal protrusion so much as a boulder half-embedded in the cliff face, probably somehow lodged in the rock since the mountains had formed. On the one hoof, that meant it would have room on top she could rest on... but that would put her squarely in the rain, as well.
She nudged the boulder's bottom with a hoof, and was rewarded with the tiniest prick of danger. Wait... Her face lit up. Was it unstable? Could she knock it down? There would be at least a little crevice left if she could, and that might mean a niche she could rest in! Valey tapped it harder, earning a faint grinding of dust from beneath. She'd need to hit it hard, and be out of the way for when it fell... but that meant going in the rain. She shuddered, but it was her best choice. "Here goes..." she hissed under her breath, too low for Amber to hear.
Pumping her wings, Valey jetted out to the side, moving swiftly enough that the water wasn't an immediate threat. Immediately, she reversed course, built momentum, pulled back her forehooves... and slammed into the boulder from the side with a two-hoof punch. It creaked, groaned and shifted, but didn't fall.
Starting to get wet, Valey wasted no time in soaring back to strike again. This time, the boulder moved visibly, and she was already skimming away before it could settle. Crack! her hooves struck a third time, this time from the top... and the boulder creaked, teetered, and collapsed, chipping the rock around and above it and toppling out of the mountain face.
Valey waited as several more broken rocks fell free from the recessed area, then darted inside as soon as her cutie mark allowed it, not stopping to watch the boulder tumble to the sea. The cavity was incredibly shallow, with a floor that slanted toward the opening and just enough depth for three mares to pack in if they hugged each other and pressed up tight, but it was shelter. Valey leaned against the back wall, brushing out dust and inspecting her coat: wet on the surface, but the water hadn't reached her skin. She wouldn't freeze that day.
"I made it," she exhaled, taking off her saddlebags and using them as a cushion against the stony floor. Both were rough enough that there didn't seem to be a danger of tumbling out, and the rain brushed the crater lip but didn't come far enough inside to tickle her so long as she held her tail close. "Think I'm gonna be safe. Urgh. This unprepared survival stuff is not fun."
Thunder boomed again outside, and the sky darkened as an increasingly-thick curtain of rain separated her from open air. "Wonder if Starlight had to deal with stuff like this crossing the mountaintops," Valey mused to keep herself busy. "Of course, I have wings and she doesn't, but you know... I bet she did. And I guess this is how she did it. Stubbornness and just enough good luck to make it possible to survive the bad. Heh... I wonder how many of these I'd have to find to fly to the top? Think it's been done before. I could go on like that. Wouldn't that be a pointless ride... and it almost sounds like something I'd want to do. I'm crazy. I gotta get back to the ship..."
Beneath her, Starlight's scent slowly continued its way eastward. "I wonder why I can tell where she is like that," Valey thought aloud. "Never really questioned it because it's kinda convenient, but now that I think about it, it's also kinda weird. Don't you think, Amber?"
No response.
"Amber...?" Frowning, Valey took off her hat. It was slightly wet, having taken the brunt of the rain for her mane, but the sound stone was safe as ever beneath, pulsing with the internal vortex of an incoming call. Valey frowned harder, shaking it... but nothing happened.
Of course. The stones required magic from a unicorn or mana battery to function. She had been using it for hours already, and now hers was dead, with no way to recharge it.
With no purpose left for it, Valey put the stone back in her bags for safekeeping and laid down to wait out the storm, suddenly more alone than she had felt in a very long time.
Starlight couldn't tell if she woke to morning, tucked between Maple's legs in the windowless engine room of the Immortal Dream. Her mother was still sleeping, curled entirely around her in one of the cushy reading room chairs they had brought in for comfort, the harmony extractor helmet still affixed to her rear.
The clunking of hooves and a cast against wood was what had woken her; the door opened shortly and Shinespark limped in, looking them over. She pursed her lips at the realization they were sleeping until Starlight made eye contact, then quietly turned and left... but Starlight didn't hear her walk away.
Carefully untangling herself from the warm embrace, Starlight hopped to the floor, licking her coat twice to straighten it and calling that good. She slid the door open herself and stepped into the stairwell, wincing at the unexpected chill. Had they always kept the ship that cold?
"Hello," Shinespark greeted, closing the door behind her. "I was going to offer to watch over things if Maple needs a quick break, but it looks like she's still sleeping?" She kept her voice low, just in case.
"Yeah." Starlight nodded, trying to decide which way to go. "When is it?"
Shinespark shrugged, heading for the still-messy library. "An hour after dawn. Gerardo is still at the controls, so I'm cleaning. There's a lot to do. It's a good thing Maple can't see the galley." She paused, dancing around something she obviously didn't want to say. "No one can find Valey."
Starlight's ears folded, and she braced herself against a particularly strong swell that rocked the boat. "Valey?"
"Her," Shinespark confirmed. "Which is... unusual. There's nowhere around for hundreds of miles she might have gone, and she can't get hurt by surprise. But nobody's seen her since an hour or two before we fell, when she borrowed the sound stone from me to take a call from Amber."
Starlight gritted her teeth, thinking back to what she had done the previous day. Fall, not freak out, glue herself to Maple in the engine room... She checked on Jamjars, but just assumed the fliers could take care of themselves! That was what they did, wasn't it?
Shinespark glanced at the roof. "Our best guess is that she was flying above the clouds when we fell, and doesn't want to fly into the storm looking for us, or something. The weather was pretty fierce... Even though we need to conserve energy so much that I have the heat off, I considered turning the main harmonic levitator back on since it seems to have a stabilizing effect on the weather around us."
"Fierce? You mean the wind? And waves?" Starlight asked, riding another swell. She had never been on a boat before, the overnight ride to Ironridge notwithstanding, but balancing on a moving floor was honestly sort of fun. "It's not that bad, is it?"
"Right now is... medium," Shinespark thoughtfully decided. "When we first landed, and especially a few hours after, that was storm weather, though it's subsided a bit in the early hours. Gerardo had to do a double shift because he has a lot of experience piloting water craft, and we needed that badly then."
"Wait, we were in danger on the water?" Starlight frowned, thinking back to the boat's rocking from the previous night. Had it really been that harsh...?
Shinespark stared, looking simultaneously concerned and impressed. "Either you have a very broken understanding of how much danger you're in at times, or are a ridiculously seaworthy little filly. I guess that Jamjars has been wobbly enough for both of you..." She sighed and turned back toward the library. "Either way, I think we're on the fringe of the storm, so if wild weather is something you enjoy, I hope that was fill enough for a lifetime. There are big frigates designed to handle that that ride out of the Varsidelian ports and Griffon Empire, I've heard, but boats small enough to make it up the Yule usually have to stick to the coast once reaching open water. Crossing the middle of the sea from Sosa was something for the best-made boats and hardiest sailors, not a regular occurrence. Of course, this is one of the best watercraft Sosa has ever produced, and Gerardo has a lot of experience with smaller boats on the open ocean, so we weren't in a bad situation. Just one that had to be respected and handled with care."
"Huh." Starlight stared at nothing. "So we left Valey above the clouds by accident?"
"It's our best guess," Shinespark repeated. "I... don't know what we can or should do, if anything. If I was her and that happened, I'd know I was fast and we weren't far from the Empire and try to make it there before I collapsed, then hide and wait for us to arrive. If that's not what happened and she's somehow stranded or worse..." She hung her head. "Then I'm not sure there's anything we can do."
"She could be following us?" Starlight offered. "What if she's above the clouds now, nearby? You can fly in a storm, sort of, can't you? What if you took me and I shielded us and we went above the clouds, found her, shielded her too and..."
"That's not the case." Shinespark's mane drooped. "Two good reasons. First, it's been nearly twenty hours since she would have left. I don't know if she can stay on her wings that long without resting, but if she can, she'd know her limits and have tried for land. Second, look up there."
She led Starlight to the library windows, curtains removed from their sliders, and pointed out. The world outside was gray and dismal, a windless mist of rain glowing with dispersed sunlight that was soaked up far before it could burn the clouds away. Too fine to drum on the roof, it shrouded everything, leaving the rocking ship muffled and alone.
"The storm's slacked off," Shinespark went on. "Anyone could fly in that. They'd get a little cold and unhappy, but even if she somehow knew where we were, she'd come down by now."
"Wouldn't she know that?" Starlight quirked her neck. "She talks about being able to tell where I am a ways away, or something."
Shinespark shook her head. "I don't think I've heard about anything like that. I just..." She sighed. "None of us have come up with any plausible scenarios for how stopping or turning around could help us, and anything we could have done, we realized she was actually missing too late to properly do. So we continue on and hope for the best." She closed her eyes, and added, "I of all ponies know what happens when you break plans or overextend for reasons like this, and I'm not making that mistake again. You're not changing my mind."
"I didn't say I was going to." Starlight frowned, her heart protesting but not offering up any better ideas, then sniffed at the books on the ground. "These are a mess."
"They are a mess," Shinespark agreed, letting the subject be changed. "I'm... working on cleaning them up. Do you want to help? Find any that have bent pages and straighten them, then put them at the bottom of piles so other books' weight can press on them. I'll sort them and put them back eventually."
Starlight felt the ship rocking beneath her hooves, and wondered if building stacks of books was really a bright idea, but she shrugged, settling herself onto the floor with nothing better to do. "Okay."
Shinespark nodded and turned to leave. "I have to relieve Gerardo so he can get some sleep now that things are quieter. There's some sort of natural current here, he says, that helps us keep moving with limited power, so I should put my time in while the going's easy."
Then she left, leaving Starlight alone with the scattered books. Someone had already put in work on the library, likely Shinespark or Slipstream, and a few of the shelves that hadn't fallen out had been straightened, some of the books on the floor having their covers replaced and folded and pushed neatly aside. But others still lay open-faced against the wood, a testament to just how many books the library held. When did Shinespark plan on reading all of those, anyway?
Starlight picked up a book, using her mouth and hooves instead of her horn. "Medicine and you: one hundred spells for caring for ponies in advanced age," she narrated, reading the cover. That looked boring. None of her friends were remotely old. Still, she closed it, straightening out a page containing information on chronically-chipped hooves, and set it aside. Maybe if her horn wasn't in its usual poor shape, she would try a hoof-polishing spell on herself, just for fun.
The next book was also a medical tome, which looked to be an advanced manual on diagnosing diseases. No information on treating them was given, which made the book completely useless in Starlight's opinion. Who wrote a book like that? She huffed, fixed it and put it away.
She pulled over another... A family wellness book, with descriptions of common basic maladies and ways to treat them for both unicorns and non-unicorns alike. That might be useful, if someone wanted to take care of their relatives or offspring without calling a doctor. Starlight set it in a different pile; she might actually benefit from knowing things from a book like that. She was starting to get the impression she was sitting next to the remains of a shelf on medicine.
Reaching around, Starlight pulled in a fourth book. This one was fairly different, its spine worn and extremely well-read. The cover showed a happy-looking mare who was obviously pregnant, leaving little doubt as to what it was about, but the first page had a lengthy, elegant horn-written note that Starlight stopped to read.
Dear Matryona,
This book was a favorite of mine back when Pearl had Fernand, but I've probably memorized everything in it at least three times over. Aren't I silly? It's sort of written for unicorns, and I know you already had little Shinespark, but there's still a ton of useful information in here about caring for newborn foals. I'm sorry about Mobius, and me and Pearl are hardly living like royalty, but I'll still do whatever I can to help you two out. So think of this as a housewarming gift while you stay with us!
Hugs and love,
Her Totally Sosan Majesty Elise
Starlight stared at the book a little longer, its well-worn pages brushing her hooves. A family heirloom, then. Huh. Not one she'd ever care to read, but it probably had a lot of sentimental value for Shinespark, so she tenderly straightened it out... though some pages had been dog-eared so many times it would probably never lie flat again. That was a book she should leave somewhere safe.
Skimming titles with passing interest, Starlight smoothed out book after book, from plant-based fungal cures to the proper setting of broken bones to treatment of insanity and mental slowness. Eventually, she reached the end of the medical books, others starting to show up in her pile... History and geography, it looked like. Or maybe cooking. And math... It looked like several shelved had dumped their contents all over each other in a single corner, leaving a mishmash of subjects. Sighing, Starlight set about creating various piles for each, when an unwelcome volume she just couldn't seem to shake caught her eye.
Sosa the Explorer's journal, upended and with its pages partially trapped by an ironically fat textbook on exercise and weight loss, stared up at her with its musty brown cover. Starlight curled her lip. "You're boring!" she told the book aloud, pulling it out and dusting it off. "Why do I keep finding this dumb book!?"
Still, it got straightened too, destined for the bottom of whatever pile she made next. One of the pages had a tiny tear at the top, which she couldn't bring herself to feel bad about in the least. Books moved on past, the ship continued rocking, and Starlight gradually worked her way around the room, pushing the volume completely to the back of her mind.
Morning treated Valey far less kindly than the ponies aboard the Immortal Dream. The storm had still been billowing off the mountain like an inky waterfall when the sun set, forcing her to spend the night in her tiny boulder niche, and while she hadn't fallen out and the way ahead was now clear, the good news ended there.
Sleeping on a far-too-small piece of cold, slanted, uneven rock with falling off as a perpetual concern, it turned out, was absolutely horribly for cramps, and she couldn't even arch her back or stretch her wings within the confines of the rocky hollow. "Urrrgh... nnngh..." She yawned, fanged jaws snapping, rubbing at her eyes with a dusty hoof. "Good morning to you too, world."
She quickly vacated the cave, if only to force her wings to wake up and give herself room to stretch. The sky below was still covered in clouds, but they were patchier and lighter gray and didn't look ready to pop her like a bubble the moment she set hoof on them. Or maybe it was because they were so far down... She hadn't realized quite how much height she had gained in her mad dash for cover the day before, even if it still left her a fraction of the way up the wall.
Sniffing, she lifted her nose and cleared out her lungs. Starlight was... east. Far east. So far that she couldn't tell how far up or down they were, and definitely far enough that no conventional sense of smell should have been able to detect it, but she would take what she could get. Which in this case was not a lot.
"Aww, bananas," Valey pouted, slumping her shoulders in midair and thinking aloud. "You left me behind! Me, your friendly, loyal batpony! I'm back here... Anyone...? Amber?"
The stone in her bag remained dull and unchargable, and Valey huffed. "This is lame..."
Her pendant glittered around her neck, its magic a single thought away. She had strongly considered turning it on multiple times the previous evening, since having a confused, memoryless voice in her head to talk to would be a lot better than being on her own. But while the pendant's price of making her hungry was extremely light next to the possibilities for dark, mysterious magic, it was the last thing she could afford to pay at the moment. She had managed to save the second half of her lunch all the way until dusk, since falling asleep on an empty stomach was impossible, but now she was out, and already hungry again.
Options... Valey tried to think. She could fly up, aiming for the top of the cliff, and maybe find something edible growing up there if she could actually make the ascent... which was a big maybe. She was starting off partway up, but it was a height pegasi didn't usually fly to for a reason, and she was also starting off in bad shape. Or, she could fly east, chasing Starlight and her friends, and getting closer to land as well. East it was.
Valey didn't descend as she flew, extending her glides with flaps and treasuring the height she had built up previously. If she flagged and needed a bit of extra distance, it could save her, and if she changed her mind and wanted to go up... She focused on turning her brain off as much as possible for the flight, though. Thinking took energy, and there were particular thoughts she very much didn't want to have. Like why her friends had abandoned her and left her behind...
No, they hadn't! The boat's sudden disappearance likely meant it was in trouble. But it had survived the descent, and the storm, and had traveled so far over the last day...
She shook her head. They would have stayed above the cloud layer until she was on board if they could have. Unless they didn't want to. Everyone had just found out that the Griffon Empire was hostile to bats, after all, and Maple and Starlight wanted a peaceful and safe trip, which wasn't what they'd get if the party constantly got heckled for having her in it. But they were committed to sticking by her. They better have been, after all she did to keep them safe in Ironridge. Like taking Starlight to the skyport where Herman was, or bringing down a group of powerful mercenaries when they were in the caves... But Maple didn't care about that. She was too forgiving for her own good, wasn't she? She didn't even believe Valey was anything other than a normal, leather-winged pony. That idiot. Trusting your friends too much would get you a big surprise, like being left behind...
Valey wanted to yell. When clouds brushed her belly, she did yell, though more from shock than anything: where had all her height gone? She flapped frantically to preserve her momentum and avoid getting tangled in the fluffy masses. Had she been fretting so hard that she forgot to flap, or... How much time had even passed?
A quick glance at the sun told her it was not long past noon. She groaned, flipping on her back and soaring on as she covered her eyes with her hooves. "I'm a wuss..." she whimpered to the world, rolling back upright. "All it takes is one little solo night and I spend hours and hours wondering about how my friends dumped me when they're probably in trouble and arrrgh! Why can't I just beat someone up and call it a day!? And I'm hungry! They should make food that grows on clouds, or something!"
Food didn't grow on clouds, but water did, and as long as she had fallen to cloud level she couldn't see a reason not to dip lower for a drink. Valey pinwheeled through a crevice between two gray puffballs, shoved them apart so she could proceed further, and broke through the barrier into a haze of cold but harmless rain.
"Oh, wonderful. Mmm, there we go..." Tilting her head back as far as it would go, Valey opened her mouth and let rain fall in. The sun was warm enough above the clouds that she'd be dry again before too long, and not being thirsty would help at least half of her fatigue. Water splashed against her fuzzy, dusty body, and she took a second to ponder the clouds: in Ironridge, nobody ever paid them any mind, since the storms were too strong and above the wind barrier where no pegasi flew, but clouds were dense enough to call solid to fliers. She could probably sit and rest on one, even. If only she wasn't so hungry and Starlight wasn't still moving away from her, that could be critically useful...
Suddenly, time froze, leaving Valey blinking at the raindrops trickling down through the air. Severe, mortal danger? Was she about to get struck by lightning? Her heart briefly stopped; how could she dodge that? The clouds hadn't looked like a thunderstorm! But when she forced herself into a forward spin, getting a look at what was behind her, she realized it was something else entirely: a shaggy, patchy pegasus with a very bloodshot eye, clothes that looked like they had been fancy before a century of patches and dust moths, and a chipped cutlass in her mouth aiming wildly for whatever part of her it could find.
With instinctive ease, Valey flicked a forehoof, and time returned to normal. "Wow, you're ugly," she remarked, sizing up the mare's mildly unattractive body and deciding it wasn't worth ogling as she batted the flat of the sword. Her blow was light, but the pegasus's poor grip caused it to go wildly askew, causing the handle to twist violently in her mouth with a cracking of teeth. "What are you, some kind of pirate?"
The maybe-pirate didn't reply, shrieking in pain and spiraling away on mulch-colored wings. Valey hovered with her forehooves at her sides, taking quick stock of everything below her in case more tried to ambush her. Not like they could do anything, but better safe than sorry...
Valey's eyebrows rose at the sight in the waters below. No more fliers were chasing her, but the seas held a boat that was so obviously pirate-owned it was almost comedically overdone. "Is this a joke?" she muttered aloud at the sight of the ship, flat and swift with a reinforced ramming spike on the prow and a huge black flag depicting the skeleton of a...
"Hey!" Valey's temper rose indignantly at the realization that the flag showed no ordinary pony: capital letters embossed in bone big enough to read at a distance spelled 'DEAD BATS'. Her brow furrowed, and she started to rub her hooves together in anticipation. Dead bats, huh? That was a very nice boat those pirates had, there. It would be such a shame if anything were to happen to it...
Putting on a wicked smirk, Valey dove, searching for the best angle to approach the ship. A group of pirates as unskilled as the first would have nothing on her, and the benefits of taking down a group could range from good favor with the Empire to stealing free food.
Valey slid low along the waves, gliding carefully up to the pirate ship at an angle between the bridge and the deck that was least likely for anyone to be watching. Nothing spotted her approach, which furthered her opinion of the pirates' incompetence: she let the pegasus live, so they should have been on alert. That might have been a mistake, especially if she was intending to kick them all off their ship and take it for herself... but a part of her still badly disliked the idea of Valey the murderer, even if they were pirates and the fairest game she would ever find. The side of the boat was protected with bumpers made from gutted rubber wheels that looked like they once belonged to machines; she landed on one just below the open door of the bridge and tucked herself against the wall, figuring it would be smart to scout first. The pirates might be dim, but her cutie mark was warning her of enough latent danger she had no doubt about their reservations for killing. A lot of stupid opponents playing dirty with sharp swords still only needed one hit to win, after all, and there were voices drifting out ready for her to listen in on.
"But Cap'n, I'm tellin' ya!" a wimpy voice that didn't use proper inflections on its syllables was protesting. "There was a big, monstery sarosian while Lorenza was scoutin', and it sucker punched her an' broke every tooth in her face! There's probably a sarosian frigate nearby! We gotta attack!"
"Har!" a female voice barked back. "A sucker punch broke her teeth? Now that's what they call irony, isn't it, loverboy? Ooh, bet you're real broken up about that one."
"Don't mock me!" the wimp returned. "It's true! Her bod was perfect! We cuddled each other to sleep when the waves got-"
Valey held back a boo. "Your taste in mares is garbage!" she hissed under her breath.
"Then you'd best get cuddlin' her back to health, boy," a new voice cut in, "because that thar be the worst excuse for injurin' a lass bein' too rowdy with her me poor ear has ever had twiddled in it. It be like the time Bozbo was so fat he broke 'is bed and blamed it on that wench from three ports ago. You don't need no euphemisms to admit up front you smashed her yerself. Now get out of my cabin and do something productive!"
"Heh heh heh. Or reproductive," the female chuckled to the sound of disappointed hoofsteps. "And 'smashed her'? Nice one, Cap."
The third voice, weathered and quick and very definitely the captain, let out a long, defeated sigh. "Arrrrr... You're an idiot too, Belinda. What do a pirate have to do around these waters to get quality help these days? Too many small-minded rulebreakers focused on simple pleasures with no minds for grand ambition! Even gold's less of a motivator to these layabouts than a willin' soul to sock in with at night. This ain't the life it once was twenty years ago..."
Below the railing, Valey's chest puffed out in a combination of mirth and indignation. Apparently, she had been served a ship of freebooters that were incredibly horny... and not even self-aware about having no class. It was as if they were accidentally offensive in addition to deliberately making an enemy of her, which was all the more reason not to kill them: if remotely feasible, she wanted to embarrass them instead.
But that still left her hungry, achy and tired on the side of a boat filled with murderous plunderers who were likely armed to the teeth. She had no idea how many there were, but she needed a plan. Stealthy, maybe? Take out as many as she could with the element of surprise? Or announce her presence to all, show off as she fought and let the intimidation factor work on her side?
"Target ho!" a screechy female crowed from the lookout atop the mast, cutting her plotting short. "Vessel at two o'clock! Looks... like a merchant ship! Booyaaaaah!"
Valey swallowed, putting her brain to work faster. That wouldn't be something the captain ignored. If she wanted to get any sort of good reputation from dealing with these pirates, now was the time for action.
Valey watched from out of sight against the hull as the pirate ship pursued its prey. The merchant ship the lookout had spotted was real, and was sailing away from them as fast as it could... but the pirates had chosen theirs for speed, and were gaining rapidly. No attempt at stealth was made, their flag flying proud and the entire crew jeering and salivating on the deck. They wanted the merchants to know they were dead.
"Settle down, seaweed!" the female voice from the bridge Valey supposed was the first mate shouted, her vocal chords breaking through the din of the crowd. "You know Cap'n Golbez's rules! First we find out if they're respectable folks, and if they are, we ask politely and professionally that they pay the toll for us keeping the seas safe from the other gangs! And if they don't pay, or if they're Goddess-hating sarosian huggers..."
The crowd roared, too many different answers blending into a soup of sound in Valey's ears for her to make out. Still, she didn't attack, memories of the Flame District fresh in her mind. These pirates weren't nearly as well-equipped, but they were still on advantageous terrain with her starting off weakened, and now the entire group was clustered together in one place. She frowned, thinking... If the rest of the boat was unguarded, could she sabotage them? Or was she just underestimating her own skills? But some of the pirates might be veterans. She could fly up and strike from behind...
The merchant ship was drawing closer, enough that Valey could make out worried faces on the deck watching as the pirates approached. Whatever she did, she would have to act fast.
"Nnngh... Need an idea, here..." she muttered under her breath. The pirate ship's trajectory was slightly off from the merchants, she realized: they weren't intending to ram from behind so much as pull up alongside to board them. Most of the pirates were crowding around the ship's starboard side, leaving their backs to her. Would they be crossing with a gangplank? Maybe while they were preoccupied with that, she could make her move. Or, depending on how many fliers the crew had, she could take out the bridge halfway through the boarding, letting her split the pirates in two and fight a smaller force on the merchant ship, then fly over to take on the rest on their own boat. She might also be able to sneak up from behind and pick a pirate or two off in the pre-boarding chaos, and everyone would be so focused on the other boat they wouldn't notice...
She had to move then. Spreading her wings, Valey launched herself upward as quickly and quietly as she could, making her way to the crow's nest. It was inhabited by a lone griffon, and all Valey had to do was lock her hooves around the watchbird's neck and slam her head into the mast to knock her unconscious. From below, nobody looked up. It would be an effortless shot to dispense of the unconscious griffon then and there... but Valey still held her hooves and didn't strike.
With a grinding of rubber on metal, the boats collided, sides scraping together, and Valey saw an aged, tar-black griffon in the most majestic sea coat of all and a tri-fold hat standing calmly at the crew's back. Definitely the captain, she decided. He would be a true veteran, and her most dangerous opponent. Maybe she should take him out first... but if she got distracted fighting him, the rest of the crew could jump her and make the element of surprise not worth it. In fact, if he was competent, he'd have heckled his crew member for no reason and taken his warning seriously that she was there.
It was him or the gangplank. Two ratty stallions were pushing it out by hoof, and Valey realized there was a harpoon head smashed into the other ship's hull preventing it from getting away. Time was passing far too quickly, and she needed to decide what to attack. The crew looked evenly comprised of ponies and griffons, meaning more than half of them could fly...
The pirate crew was shoved aside roughly by a less-scarred female griffon with a heavily-plumed hat. The first mate? She strode out onto the gangplank alone, clearly fearless, apparently preparing to negotiate. Valey held her breath as the pirates quieted, waiting for her chance.
"We are here to parlay!" the griffon shouted, voice carrying everywhere on both ships. "I am Belinda Goldfeather, right talon to His Eminence Captain Golbez The Black! We keep these waters free of lawless freebooters and heretical sarosians! If your crew is pure, a small fee for our services will be all we require!"
"A-All we have are cloth and textiles for Varsidel!" one of the besieged ponies replied, shivering and bowed with his head to the deck. "How much do you want!?"
Belinda drummed her talons along the gangplank. "Captain Golbez is fair," she mused. "A quarter regent, in whatever form of payment you can provide." Her beak cracked in a knowing smile.
"R-Regents!?" The captive ponies started milling around, turning to each other in panic.
Belinda frowned. "I didn't think I was asking that much. Maybe you aren't-"
"Excuse me," said a voice from nowhere that set Valey's cutie mark tingling with danger, causing her to look wildly around. "Did you say your name was Goldfeather?"
"Yeah?" Belinda smirked, lifting her right talon and holding it across her face as if showing something off. "Someone who's heard of my heritage? That could change things. Who said that!?"
A figure robed so thoroughly in black that not a single hint of their body was visible stepped out of a door on the merchant ship and crossed onto the gangplank, causing Belinda to take a step forward aggressively. She kept her talon up, though, and the newcomer seemed to regard it with passing interest.
"You have the markings," he acknowledged. "Giovanni Goldfeather, who ascended to his own house in the year 926 and saw it dissolved upon his passing three years later. I bet he was your grandfather, or great. He had nearly eight hundred regents; actual ones and not equivalent value. And you rob merchants for a fourth. Such a pity so many of the old lords see their bloodlines lost to piracy and heresy against our great goddess, wouldn't you think?"
Valey sat frozen, watching the confrontation play out as Belinda backstepped, confidence suddenly wavering in the face of her brash aggressor. "Who in the Misty Mountains are you!?" she spat. "No one pities me and lives to tell the tale!"
"Do you have any children?" the intruder asked, entirely unperturbed as she reached for the scimitar at her side.
"That's none of your business," Belinda snarled, whipping out her sword and wasting no time in slashing it in a nasty arc at the cloaked creature's neck. "This is for your insolence!"
CLANGGGGG!
"No, it isn't," her opponent agreed, shaking his head as the blade cracked and shattered, having struck something far harder and better-maintained than itself. A gleam of silver sparkled through the small gash she had cut in the cloth, and the hood slipped slightly, revealing a wide row of jagged, perfectly-interlocking teeth. "I just wanted to know if I'd be ending a royal bloodline today."
With a surge of steel, two razor-coated wings sliced their way through the black robe, and Belinda was left defenseless as her opponent surged forward, catching her helpless in a full-body hug as her talons scrabbled defenselessly against metal. She shrieked in pain as he jumped up, flipped both of them around, and slammed her against the bridge in a heavy suplex. With the splintering of wood, the gangplank collapsed under the impact, sending Belinda plunging into the sea.
Her opponent ignored her, spiraling upwards until he faced the pirate ship and roared, tattered cloak falling away to reveal a tan pegasus in a gleaming suit of silver armor. Only his ears were rounder, tail long and thin and tufted at the end, his eyes slitted like a batpony's and mouth a row of glimmering fangs... and his hooves were replaced with paws, gleaming metal spikes on the ends of the armor acting as reinforced claws for stabbing and tearing.
The entire deck of pirates cowered under the metal sphinx's radiance, some covering their heads and others snarling back battle cries in defiance. The captain, Valey realized, was gone, already winging away over the water to who knew where and abandoning his crew to their fate. She was half-tempted to follow him, waves of danger rolling across her from the sphinx: she was on the wrong boat, and as far as she knew that meant he would target her in an instant. He was a lone opponent, clad in likely heavy armor and only able to attack from one direction at once, so she was fairly confident she could beat him, but fighting with a member of the Griffon Empire's nobility would be a very good way to start out her time there with powerful enemies.
He didn't dive, though, hanging in midair and grinning at the pirates as though he was having the time of his life. Some flew at him with barbaric courage; they were speared in flashes of red by his bladed forelimbs and wings. Below, the grounded ponies fought between running and getting closer, colliding and tripping over each other as they pushed in different directions, those who managed to break loose and flee for the hatches belowdecks being flattened as the sphinx flung impaled assailants at them. Most of the thrown got back up and charged again, injured and enraged, and Valey blinked. His slices were aimed to hurt, not disable or kill. And he kept grinning with adrenaline, even laughing as the ponies surging around the deck beneath him and throwing whatever they could get their hooves on accidentally pushed one of their own into the sea. Valey narrowed her eyes. Was he doing this for fun?
...She used to fight ponies for fun all the time, she realized. And now she couldn't even launch herself into a twenty-against-one in defense of a merchant ship without wasting precious time hemming and hawing about safety and things. Was this what she used to look like to others?
As the fight wore on, though, more and more fliers getting too injured to come back for more, the sphinx's temperament started changing. He kept glancing over his shoulder at the merchant ship, frustrated, as if waiting for something, and his strikes grew broader and more brutal. The thrill of battle faded from his eyes, until he simply closed his wings and dropped into the pool of ponies stuck on the deck beneath him. With no flair and a shower of red, they fell as one, his armor absorbing every blow, and in seconds the deck was empty, every pirate who remained dying or dead.
"Geribaldi Stormhoof!" the sphinx shouted, standing up and glancing over his shoulder to the merchant ship. "Aren't you going to join in the fun?"
Every onlooker from his ship had retreated for cover, but at his call another robed face with the hood drawn back poked around a door. "Gazelle, you realize how barbaric you look right now, don't you?" the newcomer said with another flash of sphinx teeth. "Please clean and shed your armor before bringing it back into our quarters."
"Hah." Gazelle removed his helmet, the battle over, and shook his mane, restoring its size and shape. "Barbaric or not, your mother asked me personally to get you out of the castle and enjoying the real world, and you were the one who didn't suggest anything when I was deciding what to do. So don't you complain about my choice of sports, Baldy."
Valey crouched in sudden interest in the crow's nest, making sure to stay out of sight. Gazelle? That was the Empire's High Prince, to whom Kero had requested they deliver that package...
"Get on over here," Gazelle was saying, urging Geribaldi over with a beckoning wing. "It's shameful to leave a pirate hunt with no kills to your name. Come, I saved you a few!"
Geribaldi looked incredibly skeptical, but still spread his wings and soared over, trailing robes that looked more academic than like a disguise. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. "I stand by my assertation that this is barbaric," he informed the prince, touching a paw to the bridge of his nose. "And against the law. You know it is Garsheeva's divine right to give judgement to heretics."
Gazelle looked mock-offended. "So it's against the law to defend a citizen ship from attack, is it? If Garsheeva wants so much to kill them herself, she can beat me to them. Besides, it's good sport."
"Then why'd you let the captain get away?" Geribaldi asked, pointing a skeptical paw at a black dot on the horizon.
Gazelle shrugged. "Why shouldn't I? Hunt them too efficiently, and the population will dry up! But if you leave the biggest alive, there will be more for next time. Same reason I didn't check to ensure that Goldfeather was finished. She'll make an interesting rival if she survives, becomes stronger and hunts me down. So much spunk..." He glanced fondly at the water between the two ships.
"Gazelle, she is tainted with heresy," Geribaldi protested, looking for a way out. "Don't praise her!"
"Once again, why shouldn't I?" Gazelle threw a winning look over his shoulder before marching forward, looking for the source of the harpoon that trapped the merchant ship. "Always respect your opponents. And get your head out of books from time to time! You'd enjoy the world so much more if you realized it doesn't work in such simple, idealistic ways!"
Geribaldi glanced again toward the water where Belinda had fallen. "Make up your mind, Gazelle!" he sighed with the conviction of someone who knew they were right and were speaking to a child. "Either take the pirates into custody and submit them to the Goddess, or end them yourself. All of them! But letting them get away and talking like you admire them is..."
"Is what?" Gazelle raised an eyebrow. "Brash? Foolhardy? No behavior for a leader?" He shrugged, tossing off the allegations. "Good thing I'm hardly destined for that. Lyn's the one modeling agendas, not me. Until Lord Izvaldi finally passes on and I get my own house, my political influence is limited to my charm and good looks, and that's all about what I say, not what I do. And you have even fewer expectations than I do! Come on, Baldy, live a little! I didn't see anyone fly in or out of the crow's nest, so there's probably a nice and easy lookout cowering up there just for you."
"Don't patronize me, Gazelle," Geribaldi huffed. "I have political influence too, and the knowledge to use it!"
"The influence of a cucumber, perhaps," Gazelle countered, "next to what I have purely by being active in the world. Go and get yourself a pirate. Just one; enough to get your paws dirty. And I'll tell your mother all about what thrilling adventures we had together! And make it sound like you were a real team player. Come on..."
His eyes started to water in a ridiculous pleading expression, growing so large his pupils were almost round. Geribaldi growled and rolled his eyes. "Fine! Prince of overstepping your boundaries..."
Valey blinked, realizing a very disgruntled sphinx was coming her way. There was a shadow she could hide in, but the sentry she had knocked out was only just starting to stir...
There was nothing for it. She dove out of sight, hoping Geribaldi wouldn't blow her cover.
With a flapping of wings, he landed in the nest. "Uhh..." He glanced at the stunned griffon, refusing to touch her and looking like she smelled bad. "Did she faint from fear, or something?"
He looked a little longer, saw that her sides were moving with breath, and shrugged and turned away. "Gazelle! I got one! Now come look and then leave me alone!"
"You did?" Gazelle sounded half-surprised and half-delighted. He soared up himself, perching with limber legs on the sail's rigging, and examined the griffon, prodding and checking her himself. "Hah! I knew you had it in you!"
Valey was beyond certain he knew the other sphinx was lying, but had absolutely no intention of outing herself. "So what did you think?" Gazelle went on. "Your very first pirate victory? We'll make a sphinx out of you yet, Baldy! Care to go clean out the ones that are hiding belowdecks?"
"I think I'd rather not," Geribaldi said sourly. "Let's go home, Gazelle. Tell the captain our business is done, pay him in full, and have him take us back to Stormhoof Fortress."
Gazelle grinned straight in his face. "Or we could fly back together. Call it a victory lap?"
"No." Geribaldi spread his wings and left for the merchant ship, abandoning Valey and the stunned griffon. "I'm going back inside."
Gazelle stood and watched him leave, then sighed. Turning back to the unconscious griffon, he lifted her head and examined it carefully... then straightened up. "To whoever's watching me right now..." he said under his breath, low enough that the other ship definitely wouldn't be able to hear it. "Thanks for not killing him. That would have gone over poorly with his parents at Stormhoof."
Then he leapt from the crow's nest and was gone as well, leaving Valey alone and blinking on the pirate ship.
Hooves gently shook Starlight into wakefulness, her late-afternoon nap firmly being interrupted. She snuffled, realized Maple wasn't with her in the engine room chair, opened her eyes... and when she did, she saw the harmony extractor helmet discarded behind her, Maple standing and smiling with her eyes retaining their pink glow.
"Time to get up, Starlight," Maple said, standing over her. "We're almost there."
"There...?" Starlight grunted, rubbing her eyes.
"Land. The Empire." Maple leaned over and started to brush her mane, working industriously. "Gerardo says there's a tugboat guiding us into a dock, so we don't need any more power. We can go ashore now, and..." She swallowed. "Maybe find Valey."
Starlight drooped. That was right, one of her most reliable friends was still missing... "She didn't come back while I was sleeping?" she asked hopefully.
"Mm-mmm." Maple sadly shook her head. "She didn't. I don't believe anything could get rid of Valey, but I guess we'll see soon if I should be worried..."
Starlight sighed. "Should we go upstairs?"
"I think we should," Maple replied, finishing with her mane. "Come on, you. I'd like to see this sight for myself."
"Behold, Stormhoof Fortress!" Gerardo announced, sweeping a talon over the railing of the Immortal Dream as Starlight and Maple exited the stairwell. The ship's engines were off, the noisy puttering of a stout boat roped to the prow mixing with crashing surf, blowing sea wind and the raucous screeching of gulls to fill Starlight's ears instead. Her back was already warm under the sun, every trace of stormclouds having burned off, and the light seemed almost doubled by the bright reflection in front of her.
Crenellated bastion after bastion of gleaming white rock covered an entire peninsula in a mountain of walls so layered it looked like an inverted version of the Stone District. Granite and marble formed cone-tipped towers, hollow bridges speckled with windows, and roadways meshed so efficiently with buildings that Starlight's eyes gave up tracing pathways as soon as they found them, completely bedazzled by the mile-wide megastructure. Flags and banners flew from the highest roofs surrounding a towering keep to one side, depicting all sorts of emblems but most commonly a paw, the central pad a swirl of wind and laid over a sea-blue background.
The seawall of the fortress stood windowless and pristine, undoubtedly twice as thick as the barriers elsewhere and alternating between a straight drop to rocks or the ocean and sprawling wharf complexes, most housing smaller boats with one exclusively for luxury yachts. As the tugboat pulled them further around the castle, Starlight realized it wasn't a peninsula but a full island, connected to the shore by a long white bridge with proud arched support columns and an even bigger town growing on the coast behind. But these buildings were predominantly brown, didn't stack up as high, and devoted their shoreline to cargo freighters and bigger boats the likes of which would quickly clog the inner castle's docks.
"Sure is something," Shinespark agreed, coming up from behind them. Starlight spotted Jamjars lurking in a corner nearby as well, and Slipstream was also present; the entire crew was on the deck.
Gerardo checked something on his talons, then straightened up, proudly puffing his chest and turning to the others. "Stormhoof always was somewhat rich for the likes of me, though we have come into possession of a large quantity of money, and I think it would be highly remiss not to spend at least a day enjoying one of the premier entrances to the Griffon Empire. That said, does anyone have any plans they'd like to pursue?"
"Common sense things," Maple immediately said. "We need to know we have everything we need, and know everything we might have to pay for. If we're going to stay on land, we should find a place to stay, and whether or not we stay on the boat, we need to find a place to keep it. Right?"
Slipstream raised a hoof. "If the boat had power, one of us could stay here and sail it far enough from the city that no one will mind, but close enough the rest could fly here. Right?"
"Definitely." Shinespark nodded. "Unfortunately, our power sources are limited at the moment, and short of getting a shipment all the way from Yakyakistan, with the boat in its present state I see no way we can get more."
"With the boat in its present state..." Gerardo raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that implying something I'm not familiar with?"
"Conventional airships and mana-based watercraft have their own means of propulsion, too," Shinespark replied. "Typically you use a large, refined and properly-cut gem as a mana core, charge it up through exposure to power or by burying it underground for a while, and use it to power conventional systems like motors. This ship's water propulsion uses conventional motors, and one of the first things we figured out how to do was convert harmonic power down into the typical forms of mana energy."
Slipstream brightened. "So all we have to do is pay to charge the boat at a typical port, and then it'll be good to go until it runs out?"
Shinespark cringed. "It's... not that simple. We could, and I designed it with doing that in mind just in case, but... the ship's mana core was one of the things that blew up when it got overcharged facing the windigoes. And Riverfall didn't exactly have many of those when I was making the repairs, so the one I put in... will hold about an hour of charge with the amount of power this ship needs. In hindsight, I really should have tried to get one from the destroyed airships in the skyport, but that would have taken time and been questionably legal and I... didn't."
"I see," Gerardo mused, stroking his chin. "So we could make this ship seaworthy without Miss Maple's constant presence again, but it would require acquiring an expensive manacore."
"And the higher-quality core you get, the more power it can hold," Shinespark added. "And gems that good have become in much higher demand since the airship revolution as well, since extending your flight range to meet key trip lengths is very profitable. So getting a good one... could be difficult. Just looking at the boats moored here, lots of them have gone back to using sails for power, and I'd guess this is one of the richest ports in the world."
"You'd guess correctly," Gerardo told her sadly. "Though, bear in mind that the trend these days is for hybrid power. One equips their boat with a mast and a sail to boost their speed when the wind is with them, or give them emergency backup in a pinch, or conserve energy when speed is not essential and the like."
Shinespark glanced regretfully at the Dream's bare deck, nothing rising where a mast should be. "Maybe I should have thought of that..."
"You have an anchor, right?" Slipstream volunteered. "We could turn the boat off a ways out of port and drop that to stop from floating away, then use our hour of charge to get in and out of port when we need to. It might be small, but it's not useless."
Shinespark shrugged. "Well, we're already going all the way in right now using a tugboat. Getting in and out of port is something the city does for us since they don't want boat owners causing crashes by being unskilled. The big issue is that we'll be stuck at Stormhoof until we find a way to either improve the ship's capacity or get more harmonic power, and even with the amount of money Kero left us, that won't last forever."
Starlight looked uneasily to the side, wondering how long it would take the conversation to turn toward finding a way to use her as a harmonic power source. Before the discovery of the underworld flame and her disappearing, it had been a prospect Shinespark was intrigued by...
"How much money do we have, anyway?" Maple asked, curious. "I don't know very much about money systems, remember."
Gerardo beamed. "Ah, well, the Griffon Empire's system is somewhat complicated, but I'll explain it as best as I'm able. Gold and silver are the raw materials the system is based around. There are exactly two kinds of coins minted from them, silver bits and golden bites."
Starlight blinked and perked her ears, Equestria's name for money catching her attention. But weren't bits supposed to be the gold ones?
"Bites are worth sixteen bits. It may seem an odd number to ponykind, but consider this..." Gerardo made an odd motion with his talons Starlight couldn't begin to follow. "Griffon talons are well-suited to counting on," he went on, "and sixteen turns out to be an easy and effective number to count to on a single side. The coins are measured according to the actual metal rarity, and minted in sizes such that their weight, metal value, and actual value line up! It's quite ingenious."
Maple nodded. "Bites are worth more than bits. How much do actual things cost, like a loaf of bread?"
"It... somewhat varies." Gerardo swallowed. "Here is where things get tricky. Gold and silver are a mite too scarce to use as the basis for finance everywhere, and the tendency of pirates to steal and hoard such coins is part of the problem. At the value of a single bit... it would purchase perhaps a hundred loaves of bread. So, the Empire produces a secondary type of currency as well, known as chips. The Empire is constantly making more, and pays them out as compensation for all government jobs and purchases. However, they make no guarantees on the value, and leave it up to whatever citizens are willing to trade for them. And as they are constantly making more..."
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't that make them worthless if they were everywhere and easy to get?"
"Precisely." Gerardo tapped a talon. "However, because they are so common and possess such a low value, it makes them workable for common transactions and payments, even if they are an undesirable form of storing wealth as their value constantly shrinks. Now! You might think of this as an ideal system for systematically impoverishing those who are already poor enough to have no wealth to store in stable forms of gold, however! There is a catch."
The white city continued drifting by in the background as he talked, the Dream moving closer to the shore bridge and the city's shadow. "Once every year, on what is known as No-Value Day..." Gerardo dramatically narrated. "The Empire ceases recognizing the current form of chips as a currency and begins issuing a new form. And, in the days leading up to this, citizens can cash in their existing chips in return for a small number of the new currency's first run, at which point it is rare enough to be considerably scarcer than silver, and the offered exchange rate in fact considerably ups the value of the total holdings of anyone who makes the exchange."
Shinespark blinked. "Wait, what? Is that even mathematically possible?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Possible or not, they make it occur. I personally suspect some form of behind-the-scenes action to ensure it remains feasible, but whether through monetary magic, slight of talon or loss to themselves, they make it occur."
"My head hurts," Maple mumbled, shaking herself. "What does that mean for us? I just wanted to know the values of the various coins so someone didn't try to rip me off..."
"The short of it is this, then." Gerardo beamed helpfully, even though Starlight had to agree that she had no idea what to do with the information he had just told them. "Gold and silver, like what Kero gave us, are valuable and ideal for long-term asset storage, while chips are cheap and gradually become worthless with time, but are useful for everyday transactions. Unless it is close to No-Value Day, in which case the rich suddenly wish to buy from the poor and everyone turns a profit, which I believe is still several months away. Thus, we will be most successful if we sit upon our gold and only exchange it for chips in small pieces when we wish to make purchases. It really is quite simple!"
Starlight didn't agree, and agreed with Shinespark that everyone making money out of nowhere made no sense. That didn't just happen; there had to be a loser somewhere... but she didn't question it. It wasn't like she was going to be doing anything with money any time soon.
"It looks like they're about to dock us," Shinespark interrupted, pointing out at the tugboat as they entered the maze of a fortress wharf. "We can pay for the boat staying here today and worry about what next later. I'd like to get a lay of the land before planning too much, and like Gerardo said, we can afford to take our first day as a vacation. Who's coming ashore? Everyone?"
"I don't see why anyone would stay." Slipstream shrugged happily, her trademark knit sweater hugged tight against the salty breeze. "It's the Griffon Empire! I'm going to see the sights."
"And hope Valey finds us..." Maple added, parsing through the mess of pegasi and griffons soaring back and forth in the sky. Starlight looked too, and couldn't see a single batpony.
"Aaand there you are, sirs and madams," the smartly-dressed tugboat captain in a conductor's cap shouted up to the Dream as two burly stallions finished roping it to the side of a dock. "Your location is Red Wharf, Pier Three, Dock H-Thirty-Two!"
"Thank you," Shinespark professionally replied, matching his bow as she trotted down the gangplank to the floating concrete dock.
The captain nodded up at the ship. "You'll pay for your reservation at the harbormaster's office on the way out. Since you don't have a registration, I'd advise considering one as well; ships officially licensed with the Port of Stormhoof receive a slight discount, and you'll be able to reserve spaces in advance and file a claim in event of incident. Please, enjoy your stay."
"We plan on it," Maple assured him, Starlight sticking close at her side.
The captain and his dockhooves left, leaving Starlight alone on the dock, surrounded by the knocking of hulls against wood and cries of wheeling birds. Weird... in Ironridge she hadn't noticed the wildlife, but here it was everywhere. Her friends stood with her, Gerardo and Shinespark already making their way closer in toward the city.
They passed by boat after boat, some docking spaces empty but most filled with crafts big and small. When they reached the end and turned onto a larger section of walkway, the path grew more crowded, stately couples trotting by. Mares and stallions wearing refined jewelry, groups of sun-tanned, laughing teenagers, handsome single griffons in wealthy casual shirts and wrist decorations, along with a constant flow of white-suited dock professionals carrying heavy boxes and equipment moved by, bands of friends sitting on their shipdecks and enjoying the water. Ships came and went, a fleet of identical tugboats guiding the larger ones in and out while smaller ones nosed their way through the crowd. In one place, a pegasus dangled from a harness, scrubbing algae from his hull with a brush, in another, a unicorn snaked several hoses out from a pumplike apparatus on the dock and plugged them into fixtures at her boat's stern. The sky was filled with griffons and pegasi, and under the heat of the sun it was so much to take in that Starlight would have fallen in the water if not for Maple at her side, nudging her when she wandered off track.
That dock turned onto yet a bigger walkway, with motorized vehicles trundling back and forth carrying stately passengers and boxes of cargo, and from there they reached a giant rolling ramp that adjusted with the tide. When the harbormaster's office arrived, Shinespark went to stand in line; Starlight didn't envy her one bit. But Maple found a place where they could wait in the shade, and before she could even finish processing the dock's immense bustle of activity, they were through.
"Feeling a little overwhelmed?" Slipstream asked Maple as they climbed the final, zig-zagging staircase to the city gates. "This is way more active than the Ironridge skyport. I think it's because airships aren't mainstream enough for recreational use. Everything there was passenger or commercial, but here there are a lot of old, wealthy families for whom having a boat is a status symbol. I guess that makes us part of the elite, huh?"
"It could," Shinespark suggested, pacing alongside her. "Though in a city with this much wealth on display, I'm not sure it means anything aside from a bit of validation for the owners. I know something about being famous, and you'll always be better regarded if ponies know you for what you do than what you have."
"Different cultures have different ways of doing things," Gerardo replied. "That said, you are likely correct. I, at least, have felt the call to adventure in the name of thrills and treasure, though putting my findings on display for the purpose of proving something has never appealed to me in the slightest. Certain parts of the Empire, however..."
Maple nodded as they prepared to cross the final stair. "Well, hopefully we have enough money to get by. But where should we go first?"
"My advice? We have two options!" Gerardo happily shrugged. "Either find out where the other citizens are going and go with the flow, or go up! One is always likely to find interesting sights at the top. That said, I'm sure we could simply wander around taking in the view and wait for fortune to strike."
They crested the last ridge, the road turning sharply to the left and passing through the massive seawall in a gate of epic proportions, guardhouses on either side and a complex iron mechanism ready to bar it from all directions come night or all-out war. A white-cobbled street led straight inwards, branching up to the left and then curving right, with doors and businesses lining both sides... and it was completely blocked by a wall of roaring, clamoring griffons and ponies.
"I say, what's going on over there?" Gerardo asked, most of the dock traffic around them either taking wing and flying over the disturbance or pushing past through a narrow gap to the left. The crowd seemed to be pressing in on something at the edge of the street, and when Starlight climbed on Maple's back to look, she thought she saw a pony yelling at the center, but couldn't be sure.
A screech split the sky, and with a rushing of air, a wing of blue-armored griffons bearing the same windy-pawed crest from the flags descended on the crowd. "Order! You are blocking the streets!" one with a mana-powered megaphone called. "Form a line and let traffic by, please!"
Moving with military precision, the squadron separated and parsed the crowd, many creatures breaking off and flying or scampering away. From their eagerness, it looked like some had been trapped in the middle already and unable to escape, and under the armored griffons' oversight, the flow of hoof traffic was soon restored. The griffons exchanged words and several flew away, but two left to guard the spot, just in case.
Shinespark leaned closer as the crowd pushed them along. "What's that they were fighting over? It looks like a news vendor..."
"Oh no..." Maple smiled in resignation. "I hope we haven't arrived on the day before a continent-changing revolution again..."
"Or that our favorite batpony has gone and made headlines," Gerardo added, straightening up. "Stick together. I shall investigate and be right back."
Minutes later, Shinespark had found an alcove next to a fenced-off area for outdoor customers of a diner where they wouldn't impede traffic themselves by stopping to wait. Starlight sat down in the shade of a tall bush growing from a white ceramic urn, resting her cheek against the cool metal of an ornate iron window covering, while Maple paced and Slipstream stood patiently at her side. Jamjars, as usual, was nowhere to be seen, though she was sure the filly was nearby.
"Looks like he's in line..." Shinespark muttered, watching Gerardo intently in the distance. "Almost there..."
"Don't be so on edge," Maple consoled, though Starlight had a half-suspicion she was partly talking to herself. "It's probably news that only affects the Empire. Or maybe it's good news! Or maybe it's pointless, like someone popular doing something silly."
"He's coming back," Shinespark went on. "So it looks like we won't have to wait to find out."
Gerardo glided closer with a newspaper curled in his grasp and something approaching a bemused frown on his beak. "They had quite a few extras," he explained, not unrolling the paper. "Apparently, this news is quite something of a sensation here in the Empire."
"Well!?" Maple, Shinespark and Slipstream yelled in sync, all three showing a mix of eagerness and frayed nerves. "What is it?"
Gerardo twirled the paper. "Who wants to guess what dear, long-lost benefactor of ours has suddenly decided to complicate our situation by choosing now to reappear?"
Everyone waited. "Valey?" Maple asked hopefully.
The griffon's grip loosened, and the paper unfurled in his talons, bearing a big, front-page image of a face Starlight instantly recognized from hours of clearing portraits out of a villa in Skyfreeze. "Oh." Her face fell. "It's him."
"Kero!?" Maple exclaimed in shock, eyes fixed on the smiling, bottle-green griffon rendered in full color, his humbly smug expression enhanced by a tiny bow tie as he shook the hoof of a powerful stallion. Or... paw, she realized, slowly noticing the pony's catlike features. "Huh," she added, heartrate going slightly back down. "So that's a sphinx. But what's Kero doing all the way in the Griffon Empire?"
"A question for the ages," Gerardo agreed, holding up the paper for all to see. "I have an idea based on what that news vendor was shouting, but I would advise reading the article to find out."
Shinespark leaned closer, beginning to narrate. "Four decades of peace ended: Yakyakistan invades city-state of Ironridge! The fate of the trading world was upended today as a report reached senior Stormhoof officials that the western nation of Yakyakistan, long holding to isolationist and non-interventionist policies following the conclusion of last generation's brutal civil war that rocked the western world, has finally had a sharp reversal of stance. A griffon identified as Kero, native to the Empire's Izvaldi deme... demesne..." Shinespark tripped over her tongue. "How do you even pronounce this?"
"Ah, this?" Gerardo tapped the word in question. "Similar to domain, if I'm not mistaken. A demesne typically refers to the land holdings of a noble house or manor, which in this case would be the Izvaldi family. Most folk refer to the areas of the Griffon Empire as provinces, but it is a fancy word for those who wish to appear particularly cultured or patriotic, as it emphasizes the influence of the ruling-"
"Right, right." Shinespark cut him off. "Native of Izvaldi. Kero arrived in Stormhoof late the previous evening, seeking an audience with officials and reporters..." Her eyes started to skim the page, forgoing reading the whole thing. "He had a personal escape airship hidden in the jungle a day's flight out from Ironridge. This line says he left immediately after the events on the dam, and... he makes no mention of leaving all his ponies behind. And this article treats him like a hero."
"Look how many side articles are mentioned in this box," Maple murmured, tapping part of the paper with a hoof. "Lord Stormhoof: 'We are assessing whether military response is feasible and in our best interests', Page Three. Passengers from recent Ironridge ship recount rising tensions in city, Page Eight. A complete analysis of Kero's conversation with Lord Stormhoof, Page Six. This must fill the entire paper..."
Shinespark grabbed the folded paper from Gerardo in her magic and set about taking it apart, passing individual pages to Maple, Slipstream, Gerardo and herself. "Here. We'll get through this faster if we split it up. Keep a sharp eye out for anything that could affect us, especially any details that could reflect badly on us or make us recognizable. Just to be safe, I think I'm going to have to avoid using my brand while we're here as much as possible."
"I can read too," Starlight pouted, not having a section of the paper to pour over.
"You can help me, kiddo," Maple hummed, pulling Starlight close. "Let's see... It looks like we've got the section about military response. I hope they don't try to attack Ironridge or Yakyakistan over this. It sounds like Kero left before he could get the full picture..."
"Assuming everything he said is true in the first place," Starlight muttered.
"Right." Maple squeezed her with a forelimb. "Well, let's read."
The number one question on everyone's minds right now will be: "What does this mean for us?" The city of Ironridge is halfway across the world, and while this natural barrier might seem like protection to some, it also limits the spread of information. Said Lord Stormhoof speaking to commanders of the Imperial Stormhoof Navy: "This information took weeks to reach us. In that time, the situation could have resolved itself peacefully, or escalated beyond our understanding. Perhaps Yakyakistan will be content with its new holding, but there could be an armada at our doorstep as we speak. We must remain on guard, diligent, and ready to defend our Empire from any eventuality." Asked if he thought the threat of an invasion was paramount, Lord Stormhoof added, "No. Our Empire's defenses may be fortified upon the water, but our Goddess controls the weather and sky. She will protect us in the event of any flying invasion."
Lord Stormhoof went on to discuss best, worst and most likely case scenarios. "The best possible outcome is that this is a hoax," he insisted. "A possibility we should all keep in mind. Yakyakistan's church may not bow to our great Goddess, but they make values such as kindness and generosity central to society there, and a full, nationally-supported reversion to their expansionism of past generations may seem like a far shot. Until the situation in Ironridge can be verified, this is why I believe focusing our reaction on preparation and defense rather than a hasty counter-assault is wisest. However, Kero is not an unknown in his home province of Izvaldi, and diplomats have assured me his reputation is sound. Additionally, a ship that arrived recently from Ironridge held several passengers who testified extensively as to rising tension in the city, and two who spoke of bombing threats similar to the destructive incident Kero described. As such, it is extremely unsafe to brush these events off as false and unlikely."
When pressed for the worst case, Lord Stormhoof then had this to say: "The worst that could happen is that Yakyakistan's true target is our Empire, and the assault on Ironridge was to capture it and create a staging and refueling area for an advancing armada. But this, I hold to be equally unlikely. Kero's report described the situation as closer to a precursor for civil war, in which multiple factions within the city clashed and one had the backing of Yakyakistan. To my ears, it sounds more like a revolution than an invasion, similar to what Yakyakistan itself went through forty years ago. That said, from Kero's report it is certain Yakyakistan was involved as an antagonizing factor."
"What about the possibility Yakyakistan wasn't unified on this assault?" a reporter asked.
Said Lord Stormhoof: "I think that's very likely. My foreign policy cabinet is in agreement that this seems an unbelievable turn by the nation as a whole, but it is unsurprising that there would be those who harbor resentment over the loss of Yakyakistan's empire, much as there would be citizens here left in disbelief were the Goddess Garsheeva's empire to collapse into madness and war."
It should be noted, he added, that this was the primary difference between Yakyakistan's empire and Garsheeva's, and why ours endures to this day: the yaks based theirs around a system of beliefs, whereas Garsheeva is a physical goddess who can be seen and worshipped by all. Additionally, the yaks pressed their empire into a period of expansion and growth, while the size of the size of the Griffon Empire has remained constant and unchanged. When asked if this meant a reversal on his usual stance on sarosians, Lord Stormhoof replied, "It means I am content with the current system. The sarosians have their own land and I have mine, and while they are on it I won't stop anyone from treating them one way or another."
The possibility that Yakyakistan was not unified behind an assault and Ironridge was instead destabilized by a rogue element is, in fact, the biggest argument for an advanced military incursion to the west, Lord Stormhoof went on to say. "Yakyakistan's policy is against interventionism and expansionism, no matter what. In the event they as a nation refused to break it even with fighting escalating in Ironridge, the city could find itself facing a true crisis should fighting continue unchecked or a malevolent party prevail. We, however, are bound only by the wisdom of Garsheeva and the collective cooperation of the twelve houses. Were Garsheeva not to forbid it and the need to aid Ironridge sufficiently serious, House Stormhoof would be able to muster the resources to fly in a military contingent and restore order by force."
"How would we do that," he was pressed, "when the Empire's air fleet is years from completion and under exclusive control of the Imperial household?"
Lord Stormhoof replied that through right of royal requisition, and force if that was contested, the Stormhoof province plays host to chartered Varsidelian ships used to make the long trading journey between the Empire and Ironridge, and those could be assumed as property of the House. However, due to Varsidel's immense need for air power in their own war, the cost of chartering the ships has risen immensely in recent years, and such a blow to relations with Varsidel would perhaps put a permanent strain on relations with the war-torn nation and the Empire. How bad would that be, Lord Stormhoof was asked, and would it really be worth risking relations with one nation for those with another? And if House Stormhoof would fly to the aid of Ironridge in the midst of a war crisis, why not do the same for Varsidel?
"Varsidel is complicated," Lord Stormhoof said. "But we have an understanding of the sides in the conflict, and no particular desire to support either through our own military involvement. Additionally, the Council of Lords has ruled out a nationwide intervention, and my province alone doesn't have the resources to make an impact in the conflict. Ironridge, however, may well be a small-scale battle endangering a large number of civilians unaccustomed to wartime life. Furthermore, if Ironridge collapses, we won't have need of Varsidelian air since we can reach Varsidel already by sea. The final factor is that we've taken care as an empire to avoid deliberately placing our citizens in harm's way in Varsidel. However, Ironridge has an ambassador's office and over two dozen airships sent out for the city with Griffon Empire crews. An intervention in Ironridge would ultimately be in the name of protecting our own."
Obviously, he added, if such an effort were to be sent out and disappear without a trace, the worst would be presumed and the Empire would have to brace itself for invasion by a yak armada. Ultimately, the decision on whether to send a military aid force or remain defensive and prepared will come down do further analysis of the conflict and the will of Garsheeva, who is...
"Aha!" Gerardo loudly interrupted Maple's reading. "Brightcoil! I recognize this name. She and her marefriend, who requested to be unnamed, testified concerning bombs planted on one of the dams, corroborating Kero's story... I met them while we were separated on the second day. It is good to see they made it out of the city safely."
"Sharpie and Brightcoil?" Shinespark perked up. "Sharpie was the one you brought to my office at the Oasis, wasn't she? I remember trying to secure them airship tickets to leave the city shortly before we started the evacuation. They made it here safely, did they?"
"It sounds quite so," Gerardo mused. "A large portion of this column is speculation. Are any of you finding things more pertinent?"
Maple swallowed. "I think so," she said, hoofing back her article. "It sounds like they're trying to decide between fortifying the coastline and doing nothing, and confiscating a lot of Varsidelian ships to send troops to Ironridge in case the city is still in danger. But it made it sound like they're still trying to decide, and if they send them and they don't come back, that will both hurt relations with Varsidel and make them assume Yakyakistan ambushed the ships and is militarily invading..."
Shinespark frowned. "And this paper was printed this morning. If these ships go, they'd get stuck without power and not be able to make the journey back. That could be a problem..."
Slipstream held her breath. "So if we told the right ponies in time, we could potentially stop something bad from happening between the Empire and Varsidel?"
"It sounds as though even though the conflict ended weeks ago, reactions are still playing out as the news spreads," Gerardo announced, re-furling his section of the paper. "If you have no desire to become embroiled in drama, I can leave you fully out of this and seek the top officials myself, but making sure as many important griffons and ponies know the battle was resolved peacefully will be very important in limiting the fallout of this conflict. I, at least, feel the call to action."
"Too bad Valey had the sound stone when she disappeared," Shinespark sighed. "Putting this Lord Stormhoof in direct contact with Arambai in Ironridge would probably help things a lot. They could arrange proper equipment shipments to get the city back on the map, and..." She snorted, flicking her ears. "That rock boggles my mind. If someone could figure out how it worked, we could solve the entire world's problems with slow long-distance communication. I wish we could know where those two brothers got them..."
"How about you two?" Maple asked, raising an eyebrow at Shinespark and Slipstream. "Did you find anything useful?"
Slipstream shook her head. "I had the rest of the front page, but it looked mostly sensational. This newspaper is called the Stormhoof Bugler, and I don't know whether that makes it very official or very unofficial, but it was trying to drum up readership for sure."
"I found something," Shinespark said, holding out her part of the paper. "It's mostly something Valey would be interested in, though, but this is Kero discussing his role in Herman's plans. He talks about how he never knew Herman's true intentions until the very end, makes himself sound heroic... He also discusses sending his minions to fight Valey in the mines, says Herman ordered that, and with hindsight he figures it was Herman trying to take out a commander who might be too principled to go along with his plan. He actually doesn't mention her bad reputation at all, and makes her sound like a pretty good pony."
"Really?" Maple's ears perked in interest. "Well, I guess I know whether he harbors any resentment over what I did to his pegasi. Weird, though. I feel like we decided Herman wasn't the one who gave him that job..."
Shinespark shrugged. "He doesn't play up the fact that he was a mercenary. In fact, it sounds like he left without knowing what happened to Valey or his crew, or even how the battle ended. If he did, he made no mention of it. Sometimes dishonorable ponies will talk up a dead or defeated rival just to make themselves look better, since they know giving the rival a boost can't possibly hurt them now."
"...Well, that stinks." Maple swung a hoof at the ground. "I was hoping it would mean he's nice enough we could talk to his face and maybe ask about that mysterious package. He did want it delivered to the Empire, too..."
"I think it's best we don't do that either way," Gerardo announced. "If we run into him, we shall deal with it, though I think it would be best to trust him as little as possible. Remember, the entire sum of our wealth technically belongs to him, and we would be in quite a pickle if he requested it back. That said, I intend to do something about this news as quickly as possible and see to it that the Empire doesn't make any hasty decisions. Would any of you like to be with me?"
Slipstream glanced around and shrugged. "I signed up for adventure."
Shinespark immediately stepped to his side. "I'll have to. Having an actual Sosan executive there would boost your credibility considerably, and it shouldn't be impossible to prove who I am. Even if I have to use my brand to do it."
Maple frowned at the group. "I suppose I'll go with you, then. I wish Valey was here, but Starlight's going with me..." Starlight interrupted her with an emphatic nod. "...And she's the one Valey always says she can follow. Besides, I don't think we have any unknowns that could blow up in our faces, and if you leave us anywhere besides the ship, we'd get lost." She glanced at the cobbled white street, and added, "And I'm feeling bold today."
"And so the group sticks together!" Gerardo crowed, reassembling the paper and tucking it into his sash alongside the sheathed black sword. "We truly need a name for our little ensemble. Regardless, let us be off."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You know your way around?"
"I know where the important types are likely to be!" Gerardo shrugged, smiling. "Up! Whatever way else? I have a feeling we only need to go until we find an important-looking guard, convince them we know about Ironridge, and have them take us wherever we need to be. They're probably familiar enough with important things to take us at our word, at least initially."
Slipstream craned her neck, looking back the way they had come. "Like those two who are still guarding the newsstand?" she asked. "They look like they're just sitting around, and seemed professional enough..."
"Ugh." Maple shivered, wrapping her forehooves around her chest and sitting. "Guards."
"I don't see the citizenry moving around them with anything other than comfort and normalcy," Gerardo remarked. "Implying they are civilized. But we shall be careful, just in case."
"Hello?" Shinespark confidently approached the two blue-armored griffons guarding the reformed newspaper line, Gerardo having decided at the last second that it might be better for the pony who was actually from Sosa to go first.
The griffons glanced between each other and then back down at her, and both shrugged. "We don't know anything that's not in the paper, kid," the female one said. "If you're worried, don't be, but you'll learn more reading that than talking to us."
Her partner bobbed his plumed, helmeted head in agreement. "We're just keeping the peace in case any panic or trouble breaks out. Practically the entire guard's been deployed. Keep a level head and we'd be grateful, citizen."
Shinespark gave a wry grin, making sure she had the best way to ask without sounding like a fraud or attention-seeker. "Actually, I'm here because I know something about Ironridge that doesn't sound like it's the latest news. Can you tell me how I'd get this to whoever is making decisions? It's very important."
The male griffon gave a sad shrug, smiling cluelessly. "That's what the last guy said. The castle is probably inundated with impostors right now who are jealous of all the fame that Kero fellow is getting. Sorry, but events this big are out of both of our leagues."
His companion shuffled uncertainly, punching him in the shoulder with a metallic clang. "Yeah, but the last guy also smelled bad, had a nasty mane, and straight up asked for a VIP room in the palace. This lady looks respectable, if a little young. And if she's telling the truth, I think they really, really do need information up there. She's more likely than the last one to be the real deal, at least."
Shinespark held a serious frown, trying her best to turn it into a polite smile. "That's why I'm asking if you can tell me where to go. I'm not looking for money or recognition; no one should be trying to do that at a time like this. Is there anything you can tell me?"
The griffons looked at each other once again. "You're new to Stormhoof?" one asked. "Just got in, then, I presume?"
Shinespark nodded back at the gate to the wharf. "Stepped off the boat minutes ago and just read the news. If I'd known the Empire was this close to heavily committing to anything, I'd have hurried a lot faster."
"A boat from Ironridge?" The griffons both raised eyebrows. "Haven't heard of that in ages."
"It's the only way in or out, now." Shinespark's shoulders slumped. "The skyport was destroyed, so the airships there have no way to refuel and anyone who flies in gets stuck."
The male griffon swallowed. "That actually could be serious. I'll tell you what. I have no idea whether you're lying or not, but right now, you should check the colosseum. Pools are going right now, so there should be a lot of important people around. If you can find and convince someone with the ties to get you into the palace you're telling the truth, that might go quickly in your favor."
"I'm sure the palace will also have some official input area where you can talk to an inspector, or something," the female added with a shrug. "But I bet there'll be a line for that. Either way, good luck."
Shinespark almost turned away, then blinked. "If I knew one of the ponies on that airship that was mentioned in the paper, would that be proof enough that I just came from Ironridge?"
"If they vouch for you? Probably." The female straightened her stance, going back to guarding the news line. "Have fun..."
The griffons started murmuring to each other about drama and glory-seekers as Shinespark galloped back to where the others were waiting. "Did you hear that?" she asked, panting lightly for breath.
"Only irrelevant details." Gerardo drummed his talons against the stone, Starlight, Maple and Slipstream waiting in the background. "Fill us in?"
Shinespark sighed. "The guards were helpful, but also skeptical. Where's the colosseum? They recommended we go there first. I'll tell you what they said on the way."
"The colosseum," Gerardo proudly explained as the group walked under a gated arch and up a ramp separating levels of the city, "is a great stone battle arena where gladiatorial fights of old were held, and takes up a sizable portion of the fortress. It sees use for everything from sporting events to royal concerts, and is the primary venue for any truly large public event hosted by the Stormhoof family. These pools the guard was referring to, I believe, are the opening round of an annual fighting tournament sponsored by the imperial family, though I've never counted myself in attendance and it is one of the parts of my country's heritage I know less about. However, I feel it is safe to say that once we are no longer in a hurry, watching the duels should prove excellent entertainment."
Slipstream swooped up, then dropped back down before she could get lost. "If it looks like a sort-of-round, very big hole in the ground, I see it. It's a little that way." She pointed with a wing.
Gerardo benevolently beamed. "I very much doubt it's the kind of thing you could see and not recognize."
Maple swallowed, walking along with Starlight on her back. "So, what kinds of important ponies should we be looking for? Who might we find? It's nice that the guards are helpful, but do you know anything about anyone else?"
"The royal families?" Gerardo shrugged. "I imagine the preliminary rounds of any tournament wouldn't hold such a pull as the finals, but it is likely we'll see a large assortment of those who are wealthy enough to travel for entertainment. Some of the noble houses may be present as well. While I have no doubt Lord Stormhoof will be busy with decisions regarding the events in Ironridge, it is quite likely other members of his family will be present. As it is an imperial event, I'm also quite sure at least one of the crown siblings will be present, though I can't say which is more likely. Perhaps some of the other houses, as well."
"Any ideas on which ones we should check first, or avoid?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow.
Gerardo happily opened his beak, preparing to narrate. "The Empire, as you may know, has twelve houses that rule its various provinces. One is the imperial family, ruling Garsheeva's province in the south. We are presently in Stormhoof, southernmost of the coastal provinces, under the rule of Garland Stormhoof. My home manor was in the far eastern province of Goldfeather, though I believe its current lord has a different house name it is now recognized by... It is something of a choice new lords have whether to rename themselves, their land, or neither. Following, we have the landlocked Izvaldi province you may recognize as Kero's home mentioned in that paper. I recall it was of great interest several years ago as its lord was ailing with no suitable heirs, making it the next in line to pass to Prince Gazelle, though as far as I am aware they have not yet merged ways. Far to the north, then, there are the provinces of Gyre and Wilderwind, and-"
"So who do we want to talk to?" Shinespark interrupted. "Which of these might not be temperamental, or might have better ties to Stormhoof?"
"House Everlaste," Gerardo instantly replied. "Theirs is the most southeastern province, and along with Stormhoof, one of the two longest-reigning families in the empire. Stormhoof and them have had an alliance for quite some time. That said, I know nothing of their disposition. Our other best option may be to seek out one of the crown siblings, if they are here."
Maple gave him a worried glance. "Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? Don't forget what we're doing. I doubt these important nobles are going to just be sitting around waiting for us to walk up to them, and our goal is to tell someone that Ironridge is fine, not to get to know nobles! Besides, I'd really like not to get sucked into anything important. There has to be someone more professional we can talk to than... whatever you're planning."
"She has a point," Slipstream remarked, shrugging. "It sounds like you're trying to just go and talk to a sphinx? Wouldn't they be guarded?"
"I'm more worried we'd get played with," Maple sighed. "If one thought we were valuable and tried to pick us up or use us as leverage against another and... I don't know. But that's how you made them sound earlier, Gerardo."
Gerardo hung his head. "No, you're quite right, and I believe that is liable to happen. Someday, I should tell you the stories about my own ancestor and the things he did. However, the advice we were given still stands. And as we are nearly to the colosseum, I am inclined to pursue it at least by myself... though you are more than welcome to stay back and enjoy the event if you'd prefer it."
Maple glanced to Starlight on her back and nodded. "I think if we're all in the same building, I'll do that. But come get us if you find anything where we can actually make progress."
"Noted." Gerardo bowed. "In the event that I make a breakthrough, I shall most certainly come running. Shinespark? Are you with me?"
Shinespark nodded, and they strode further along the curving streets into the heart of the white city.
The colosseum's entrance was a broad, airy tunnel supported by an array of arched pillars, griffons and ponies freely coming and going without a checkpoint or admission collector in sight. Voices echoed in the tunnel, filling Starlight's ears, the traffic just light enough that groups could stop and talk without getting in the way.
They had crossed much of the island fortress to reach it, and were finally traveling mostly downhill by the time the colosseum drew near, but Starlight was still unprepared for the elevation change as the tunnel ended. It opened onto a balcony before a huge drop-off, aisles almost wide enough to call roads branching off up and down to the left and right. The arena was a massive bowl, and they were high on the rim, looking out over a field big enough to fit a respectable mansion. Its true size wasn't in the field, but the seating around that, private open-air boxes and balconies scattered around rows and rows of sturdy benches and chairs. Colored banners with house emblems hung from the highest points on the walls, similar to the flags Starlight had seen approaching the city from the water, and cheers emanated up from the depths near the center.
Gerardo quickly paced to the railing, peering over and shading his eyes. "It appears an event is indeed in progress," he remarked, craning his neck. "Though this is hardly the fullest audience I've ever seen. Good seating should prove quite easy to come by, if you are still inclined."
Maple, too, looked over. "To take a break and let you and Shinespark do all the guard-talking? I think I am... We'll be in the side that's shaded. Starlight?"
"I'm coming," Starlight muttered, perched upon Maple's back.
Gerardo and Shinespark nodded, turning away, and after a second of hesitation Slipstream joined them, smiling apologetically at Maple. Starlight felt her mother shrug, and then they parted ways.
The journey down the colosseum wasn't difficult. A whirlpool of blue-edged ramps spiraled down between the benches, and it occurred to Starlight that when viewed from above, it would look exactly like the Stormhoof crest, with the balcony they had entered on forming one of the smaller pads of the paw. At the very bottom, the seating leveled out; benches were built on the rooves of twelve boxes that lined the closest rim of the arena. Boxes for the twelve houses, Starlight realized, with the two largest sitting opposite from each other: probably the ones for Stormhoof and the imperial family. Perpendicular to those were two tunnels entering the arena, and in the center was a raised square platform, forming a stage where a unicorn and a pegasus were tussling.
Maple chose seats just high enough that Starlight could hear herself think over the cheers of the crowd, yet close enough they could see every blow, the pegasus zipping and darting and trying to avoid the unicorn's telekinetic field. They both sat down, and as Maple closed her eyes with a sigh, Starlight leaned forward to watch.
The pegasus kept dodging, but the unicorn's horn was glowing too brightly for her to approach. Starlight kept flinching, imagining her to be caught... and then she was, ensnared in a green glow. The unicorn didn't approach, instead throwing her against the ground, lifting her and throwing her again, slamming her until she was a crumpled mess and a frantic whistle was blown. The unicorn gave her two more whacks for good measure, until there was a jet of light and he was completely immobilized by something within the room.
"When the referee says stop, you stop!" a crabby-looking mare in black and chartreuse shouted, her voice magically amplified by the colosseum. "That victory will be counted as a tie in your record for breach of protocol and poor sportsponyship, Mister Franz."
Maple gritted her teeth, wearing a look of open queasiness and concern as the pegasus was carried from the field in the mixed telekinetic field of two unicorn medics. "I don't think I like this sport," she whispered, eyes wide.
A buck-toothed teenage colt with a camera and a notebook sitting several spaces down heard her and scooted closer. "Poor Dazzle," he said to no one in particular. "That'll put her out of the tournament for sure, if not end her fighting career altogether. I was rooting for her to make it out of pools, too."
Maple raised an eyebrow, and he continued. "That said, I get where Franz was coming from. Last match, he had another pegasus, tried pinning him down, walked over to finish him off... got kicked right in the face and lost the match when the other guy played dead. Of course, if he had let the ref time them out instead of trying to check, he would'a been fine, so that was his fault for being impatient too."
"Hello..." Maple glanced carefully at him. "Do I know you?"
"Who, me? I doubt it. Heh." The colt chuckled. "You just looked like someone who needed to be nerded out to on the finer details of the War of Heroes."
Maple curled her tail protectively. "Sorry... but I've been bombarded with new information already today, and actually am here to think, relax and clear my mind."
Starlight wondered if the colt would deliberately misinterpret that as an invitation to talk more, but instead he just shrugged, turned away and went back to his original seat. "Eh. Your loss."
The next fight was between two griffons, and devolved into such a storm of feathers Starlight rapidly lost track of which was which. When she felt Maple's tail wrap around her instead, she looked up, craning her neck.
"I know I said I wouldn't worry, but I'm starting to get very worried about Valey," Maple whispered in her ear. "If she were all right, I can't think of why she wouldn't have found us by now..."
Starlight grimaced. There was nothing she could do, so thinking about it wouldn't do anything, and since thinking about it would only hurt, there was no point in thinking about it. At least, that was what she had told herself before the mountains with Sunburst, at first, and look where that had gotten her. But it wasn't like she had any better options...
One of the griffons finally fell, and the fight moved on to a match between an earth pony and the pegasus she supposed had won against Franz earlier. Maple squeezed her with a foreleg again. "Just watching all these ponies fighting reminds me of her..."
Starlight closed her eyes, redoubling her efforts not to think about it. And even if wishing for the best could help, there was no way she wanted to risk crying in front of that colt. She didn't like him.
"And now," an announcer blared, making her wonder if there had been commentary all along and she had just missed it. "House Izvaldi's official champion, famed explorer and three-time placer in the top sixteen, it's the griffon you've all been waiting for... Wallace Whitewing!"
The nearby colt jumped out of his seat, yelling, as the crowd erupted in cheers. Starlight craned her neck to see a snowy griffon striding out from a challenger's tunnel, blowing kisses to the crowd with tweaks of his long, crinkly mustache. He was massive, with chest muscles bigger than she was and a broad, jagged battle scar stretched across them, his eyebrows sized to match and his mustache sticking out perfectly to both sides. His dark eyes twinkled, and he wore a half-cloak that was cast aside dramatically as he climbed the stairs into the dueling ring.
His opponent was the unicorn who had brutalized the pegasus when they arrived, who looked quite unhappy with the matchup. Maple's face darkened. "I hope that griffon trounces him."
"I wouldn't worry about that," the colt replied from several seats away. "Wallace is a favorite to win the tournament. Everyone knows what his wish is going to be. He's fair and honorable, too, so he might go hard on Franz for breaking the rules. I bet that's why Franz is so afraid."
The battle started, with Wallace taking several unnecessary seconds to bow to the crowd as Franz pondered how to attack. Wallace flapped, showing off the impressive wingspan necessary to hoist his immense bulk... and then he was caught, ensnared in green as he rose in an attempt to show off. Franz smirked. The crowd gasped. Wallace flapped and squawked indignantly, making a huge show of being stuck... Too big of a show. Starlight wasn't worried in the slightest.
Wallace struggled, dragging the telekinetic aura along with him as he managed to rise higher. Franz began sweating, but just when it looked like he would lose his grip, Wallace's resistance collapsed, and the griffon was forced into the same slam attack that had felled the pegasus before him. The crowd murmured uncontrollably, until Wallace flapped again, adding to his downward momentum and sticking out a clenched talon in a rocketing punch beneath him. He struck the stage like a meteor, sending out a shockwave that knocked Franz clear off his hooves, and in a flash of speed their belied his girth, he was upright again and at the fallen stallion's side.
"Always turn your opponent's strengths against them!" Wallace boomed, hoisting Franz and lecturing straight in his face. "It is the key to victory!"
The referee was waiting with her hooves crossed, watching for any indication that Franz surrendered, but the forest-green unicorn scowled and blasted Wallace at point blank with a flare of magic. The griffon merely turned his head aside and deflected the surge with the flat of his neck, feathers smoking, not even stepping back or dropping his prey.
"For unscrupulous villains like you, however, who would end an innocent fighter's run in pools by way of injury..." Wallace seemed to grow another hooflength in height, flipping Franz upside-down in his grip so the stallion's head was toward the floor. "I have reserved my ultimate move! Have at you!"
And then Franz was tickled. Cruelly, mercilessly, with expert dexterity and a single feather from a wing, Wallace attacked him until he opened his mouth to yowl... and then stuck a hind foot straight in. Franz choked, mouth suddenly full of griffon paw, and spat and flailed and bit down but failed to even earn a blink from his impenetrable opponent.
"You like that, do you?" Wallace gloated. "I hear griffon feet are extra smelly this time of year, and I made sure to tread in something foul on the way here just for you! Now, do you surrender, villain, or shall I release you and prepare for round two?"
The referee gave him a deadpan look as Franz flailed, telling him not to play with his food. Franz was released, and Wallace stood around bowing as he bolted in shame from the battlefield.
Maple's ears were flat. "I know I wanted him to get what he deserved, but now I really, really don't want to face that griffon in a fight..."
The nearby colt looked at her as if she had just called a pile of gold worthless, completely without words. Starlight sighed as he collected himself and prepared to launch into a tirade about famous history and fighters, resting her chin on a hoof and watching the arena be cleaned and repaired for the subsequent rounds.
Wallace Whitewing's gruff, studly voice filled the colosseum as he pivoted in midair, zooming toward an earth pony foe like a winged bathtub. "An aerial charge has far too much momentum to stop with brute force alone," he lectured as he dove, the earth pony widening her stance and preparing to intercept him. "Especially from a heavier foe, like me! You must sidestep and roll with your opponent's momentum, and use what weight you have to unbalance them and cause them to crash! Like... so!"
Maple and Starlight watched in interest as the mare fighting him did as he instructed, landing heavily on her side from the weight of his assault but also managing to grapple his shoulder and make him wobble. He could have avoided it, Starlight was sure, but instead he made a show of crashing, rolling head over heels and landing on his back near the edge of the platform. "Now!" he bellowed. "Strike while you have an advantage! Approach from the side, being wary of hind kicks and my lashing tail, and strike to wind me or incapacitate my wings!"
The mare vaulted toward him, hooves raised in a double-overhead slam, but didn't do enough to clear the kick he warned her of and was launched back several feet, missing her landing and hitting the ground in a pile. With legs like his, a full-force kick should have been more than sufficient to launch her off the dueling platform, if not all the way into the audience.
This was how every one of Wallace's fights since he disrespected Franz the unicorn had gone: he let his opponents get licks in, punished their mistakes without hurting or incapacitating them, freely lectured on what he was about to do and how to stop it, and still handily won without leaving more than bruises on either side. "He's helping his opponents," Maple whispered, watching as the earth pony got back up again. "Even while defeating them. Maybe I've changed my mind about him after all..."
Starlight didn't know enough about combat to tell whether Wallace's advice was sound, but he certainly seemed to know what he was doing. And aside from his first battle, he was never disrespectful in the slightest. Was he really just that altruistic? A tournament like this had to have a prize, so was he just that confident he could win it anyway, or did he not even want it? Starlight didn't have anything against helping others, but she wasn't sure she'd go that far to sabotage herself to do so, and definitely not do it with a smile on her face like Wallace.
"Look," Maple murmured, glancing away. "Gerardo and Shinespark are coming back."
With Slipstream flying above, the two searchers were indeed making their way toward Maple and Starlight's bench. Shinespark's head was down in defeat, but Gerardo pranced along with a spring in his step and a smile on his beak, leaving Starlight wondering what had happened.
"Ah, friends," Gerardo sang, bulldozing past the nerdy colt who had been loudly fanboying to himself ever since Wallace appeared. "I hope we did not terribly keep you waiting, but we have finally returned."
"Did you have any luck?" Maple asked, scooting over as Gerardo plunked himself on the bench and Slipstream settled along beside.
"No." Shinespark sighed, hopping down from a higher tier and sitting beside Starlight instead. "There were three different sets of guards, and we tried all of them. The Stormhoof ones were as polite as last time, but also didn't do anything. Then there were two visiting delegations. The Everlaste ones outright told us to leave, and the ones from Gyre..." She ground her teeth.
Slipstream shrugged, finishing for her. "They asked us to wait while they went to get someone, then didn't actually go get anyone and just made us wait as a joke. I haven't heard of Gyre with my help desk work in Ironridge, so it's probably not a major destination, and I guess that means there's nothing there and the guards are mad that their province is a dump."
"Gyre is one of the two provinces that border the Misty Mountains, so it is expectable that their defenders would be somewhat on edge," Gerardo countered. "That said, they were highly rude and gave me no inclination to visit during our trip. I suppose that makes one of twelve provinces we can cross off our list."
Shinespark slumped. "In short, we're stuck."
"Strange," Maple mused. "I think the announcer said that noisy griffon is fighting for House Izvaldi. Wouldn't they have a delegation here to support him?"
"Speaking of that noisy griffon, however, I bear good news as well!" Gerardo raised a talon and beamed. "Currently dueling is none other than Wallace Whitewing, founder and leader of the legendary exploration team W.M.D., and a great personal hero of mine. He has ruled the untamed wilds since I was but a hatchling, and stories of his deeds were one of the primary influences in my own decision to abandon heritage and luxury and seek the horizon myself. So, while our efforts to forestall national floundering and wasting of resources may have hit a brick wall, this is nevertheless turning out to be an excellent vacation."
"I know, right?" The nerdy colt perked up, attention triggered by Gerardo's admission of admiration. "Wallace Whitewing is the best of the best! With a single talon, he can bench press a hundred hot mares, and when he flexes, the sky turns..."
"What are you all doing here?" a familiar voice asked in Starlight's ear.
"Jamjars?" Starlight glanced over her shoulder to see her short-maned maybe-friend standing behind her, looking slightly cross.
Jamjars huffed. "I thought you were running around looking for the griffons in the castle to tell them about Ironridge," she pouted. "But instead you're all here hanging out. Does that mean you actually finished and I wasted my time getting someone myself?"
The conversation quieted, most of the others catching on to what Jamjars was saying. "Do you mean to imply you succeeded in our quest?" Gerardo asked, baffled.
Jamjars shrugged, pointing behind her up at a path down into the colosseum.
Starlight's ears twitched, and she suddenly became aware that the stadium had quieted. Was Wallace off the battlefield? Yes, but the crowd had grown silent as well, hushed murmurs and held breaths growing all around.
The direction Jamjars indicated showed what had stolen everyone's attention: a covered chariot pulled by four griffons in forest green and midnight purple armor soared through the sky, turning about and preparing a landing on a nearby balcony. The entire chariot was charcoal gray, covered in a web of orange lines that looked like cracked rock floating in magma, converging to form a complicated sigil on the door. Starlight was reasonably sure the lines were enchanted so if it was night, they would glow.
"...Jamjars?" Shinespark slowly asked as the colt sitting near them bolted, dropping his camera in haste. "Who did you bring?"
The chariot landed, and its door cracked open with a hiss of releasing steam. The orange lines pulsed... yes, they were definitely glowing. "What?" Jamjars shrugged defensively, looking cross. "You were messing around with lowly guards, so I went to a tourist station, found a list that said where things were, and looked up the word 'power'. Boom. I got you someone important, and it was easy."
A cloud of steam accompanied the chariot's opening, rushing from the door with a hiss and dispersing into the air. In it, a bulky, misshapen figure was silhouetted, and the steam writhed as if torn at by strong winds, quickly parted and blown away.
The chariot's occupant was a mare, the same shade of gray as its exterior, and everything except her face, hooves and tail were armored in gleaming silver. Layer after layer of overlapping fins and blades protruded in ridges from every edge, reinforced by unwieldly external coils of metal. Vein-like hoses snaked through the fins closer to her coat and along the back of her neck, pulsating with the same glowing orange, and five jet-like fans were mounted on her back, sides and shoulders, spinning menacingly. The entire contraption looked easily-dentable and useless as armor, and maybe even like a liability, but Starlight had to admit it was madly intimidating. Jamjars' salivating expression backed up her assessment.
"She looks like someone took that giant room in the Flame District and turned it into a pony," Maple whispered, mouth agape.
Next to her, Shinespark looked irritated. "That looks far too heavy for one mare to lift on her own. I bet she's copying my idea for power armor. If those fans let her fly..."
Everyone else was frozen into silence as she approached, backed by the properly-armored griffon guards, slowly and purposefully and not wobbling an inch as she descended the curved, sloped colosseum ramp. Even the fight in the center seemed to have stopped.
SWOOOOOSH!
With a rush of air and a vibrating crash so heavy it caused the impenetrable mare to stumble, a hulking bathtub of a griffon was suddenly standing between her and Starlight's party. "Ho there, fair Meltdown!" Wallace Whitewing boomed, giving her a respectful salute. "I thought you would be in the palace, lending a brain to that Ironridge business that's had everyone's goats as of late!"
"Wallace." Meltdown bowed shortly, voice cool and in stark contrast to her magmatic appearance.
Wallace nobly cleared his throat. "Not to doubt your purpose, Milady, but today, this arena is the grand stage of many up-and-comers from the bottoms of the lower leagues! Must you really scare away the audience they fight so hard for with your imposing presence?"
Meltdown stood completely impassive, not moving beneath her windy armor. "The local branch of my office received a tip from an anonymous citizen that a new ship arrived from Ironridge and its crew was heading this way. A griffon, a pegasus, a unicorn, an earth pony and several fillies. Which might even be that group there." Her orange eyes blinked past him, looking straight at Starlight and her friends. "If true, it would be unfortunate if they made contact with any house representatives here who have agendas of their own. Stormhoof's decision was already made without input from the other houses, and Lord Gazelle wants to limit the fallout and infighting that could occur as much as possible. So, I came to see for myself."
Gerardo and Shinespark suddenly flushed, sheepish. "You're talking about us!" Jamjars shouted, waving her hooves indignantly.
That got the attention of both Meltdown and Wallace. "Really." The armored mare stepped closer in interest.
Sputtering, Gerardo spoke up, slightly cowed under Wallace's proud gaze. "Indeed we are! And for your information, not only do we possess knowledge you likely do not, we have been trying to reach someone important ever since we arrived, and your city guards have been most incompetent in telling us how to do that!"
Shinespark nodded, stepping up alongside him. "We've approached several sets of Stormhoof guards, and they mistook us for liars or attention-seekers."
Meltdown raised an eyebrow at Wallace, and he gave a photogenic grin. "My apologies, Milady! It seems I have much personal growth left to accomplish if my mere presence in a city cannot bolster its guard to greater heights of competence!"
"I'll have a word with the captain of the guard." Meltdown closed her eyes and shook her head. "Don't let my presence distract you from the tournament. Guards, put my chariot somewhere where it's out of sight. You six, follow me. I'd like to talk."
"See?" Jamjars stuck her tongue out at Gerardo as they left their seats and formed into a line. "Getting someone who knew what they were doing is easy. You were just bad at it."
"Silence, missy," Gerardo hissed between his teeth. "For all we know, from the reception she received, this is in fact a mare who will lead us to our deaths!"
"That's not entirely inaccurate," Wallace boomed, and Starlight realized he was following along. "Meltdown's face is the last thing many a villain see before they are arrested for judgement by the Goddess. She has an uncanny nose for sniffing out heresy. And she's in charge of the Empire's tax collection bureau. Most villains find crossing her path to be a hair-raising experience they rarely emerge from with their freedom."
Meltdown's fans spun as she walked, sending a wash of warm air back over Starlight and toasting her fur. "The Power Distribution Agency isn't a tax collection bureau, Wallace," she said with a tone that suggested she didn't really believe it but had to say it anyway. "Don't you have a tournament to see to?"
"My final bout of the day ended mere minutes before you arrived! I see no reason not to give you an escort, Milady," Wallace assured, eyes twinkling. "Hearing the latest on Ironridge is merely an extra helping of thrills upon my already well-rounded diet."
Gerardo's chest puffed out so hard it looked ready to explode, but Meltdown quickly shut it down. "I do," she countered. "House Izvaldi has no reason to access priority information until I've cleared it and Stormhoof, Lord Gazelle and I put together tonight's public knowledge dispatch for the presses. You can wait out of earshot until I've determined everything sensitive has been discussed."
Wallace and Gerardo drooped as one. "Very well, then!" Wallace swelled back up, crossing his heart with a talon. "I swear on my honor I shall remain at bay until further notice!" He gave a thumbs-up to everyone else. "Try not to get quarantined in the palace for months of investigations, citizens. May we meet again!"
Sans Wallace, the seven made their way through a tunnel beneath the colosseum bowl, designed for easy transportation without clambering over rows and rows of benches. Intervals regularly turned off to private boxes and balconies, and Meltdown chose one, high enough that the area around it was completely unpolulated. She sat with her back to the arena, eyes fixed on the tunnel entry and fans blowing into the abyss, and motioned for the others to take seats. "Tell me what you think is important," she requested.
Gerardo swallowed, speaking up. "First off, we have indeed just traveled from Ironridge, and come with news several days later than Kero's. If you doubt we are who we say we are, there are two mares upon the other ship, known as Sharpie and Brightcoil, whose acquaintances I made shortly before they departed, who should be able to vouch we were in the city at the time."
Meltdown slowly nodded, and Starlight wondered if she was recording the conversation.
"The situation in Ironridge is this," Shinespark began, stepping in. "There was a short, intense burst of conflict sponsored by a rogue ambassador from Yakyakistan. All the fighting has been resolved, and the new leadership has talked with Yakyakistan to try to repair relations. However, the battles destroyed almost all of the city's economy. All of Sosa is gone, the mines are flooded and offline, the city has no power, and the skyport has largely been smashed and destabilized. Right now, what Ironridge needs more than anything is for the word to be spread not to send any more airships, since there's no way for them to recharge and leave the city. If you are going to send ships, send materials to help rebuild the charging stations and generators, not armies."
"...It would have been useful to know that yesterday evening," Meltdown finally sighed. "Stormhoof dispatched military intervention in the middle of the night."
Everyone blinked. "But the newspaper..." Maple raised a hoof.
"Was given an incomplete version of events, for public safety and riot control," Meltdown finished. "And already to presses. So you're saying the Varsidelian fleet will vanish without a trace, not because of an intercepting armada but because they won't have power to return by."
Shinespark and Gerardo nodded.
"Whether that's true or not, it doesn't sound urgent." Meltdown's fans continued blowing, her armor glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. "So we have time for a complete version of events. I already have the others' stories memorized, so where yours contradicts and lines up with theirs should prove insightful, and more than demonstrate whether someone is lying."
For nearly an hour, Gerardo and Shinespark talked and Meltdown questioned, her bladed armor tinkling with the sound of moving metal every time she breathed. Starlight sat silently, watching the sun grow lower in the sky and not saying a word. If she could have her way, they'd be clear on the other side of the city having nothing to do with this mare, but as it was she couldn't even voice her concerns that everyone was being too forward about sensitive information with a mare they knew nothing about without Meltdown hearing every word of that, too. If only Valey was there. Her cutie mark could tell in a pinch whether they were about to be backstabbed...
The same western sun that pelted Starlight's side shone over all of Stormhoof, lighting up the gleaming castle and the walls around it like a beacon on the sea. It lit the coast, too, an endless wall of docks, cranes, homes, businesses and warehouses stretching from the mountains up the north-running edge of the mainland. Their seaward sides turned a deep yellow, the pre-sunset colors of late afternoon and early evening just beginning to deepen the blue in the sky, the waves catching the light with increasing frequency and dazzling the surface of the water. A blimp floated in the distance overhead, suited for nothing more than tourist rides and towing a banner advertising preening lotion, and one or two taller buildings peered above the rest, trying to catch their inhabitants a view of the sea. This was the view that greeted a small merchant ship, its wooden hull sporting a fresh wound where it had been scarred by a harpoon, as it drifted into a land-based docking terminal.
"Bananas, I'm hungryyyyy..." Valey moaned, clutching herself and rocking from side to side impatiently, sitting on a recessed cover near the boat's stern. The edge of her mind told her Starlight was somewhere on the white island; she'd worry about that later. She had a purse full of pirate gold and a dead sound stone, a night in a cave and a full day of flying worth of cramps, and badly, badly needed food.
She didn't wait for the ship to properly dock before bailing, flapping her wings and leaping to another ship that was already tied up. One wing barely unfurled, and she missed the landing, crashing and rolling to a stop against a wall on the ship's side, groaning and holding her side. "Owowoww cramp! Owww..."
Glancing unhappily at the wing, Valey sighed and stood up, her legs like logs and spine feeling like it didn't quite bend straight. That was the wing she had injured in the Flame District and against Herman, and apparently it wasn't ready to be put through that just yet. An actual night's sleep in someplace warm and it would be fine, she decided. At least she didn't need to fly to get food.
Valey hopped down to the pier, the boat she had crashed on blocking sight of the merchant ship with the two sphinxes. A dilapidated padlocked gate was all that bothered to guard the dock; its purpose completely boggled her, since a unicorn could pick the lock and even an earth pony could jump right over. A quick shadow sneak later, taking care not to slip through the cracks between the boards and dunk herself in the water, and she was through, standing at the entrance to the Griffon Empire.
"Food food food..." Valey followed her nose, a single cross street taking her from the abandoned dockside to a busy pedestrian thoroughfare. Buildings two and three stories high rose on either side, predominantly brown and made from wood beams, corrugated metal, brick and something that looked like plaster, hoof bridges constantly spanning between them alongside occasional clotheslines leaving shirts and lingerie out to dry. Ponies and griffons walked back and forth without any sort of street rules, and though she saw a lot of stares, the level of hostility her cutie mark picked up would only be concerning if she tried to sleep on the side of the road.
She tried to go with the flow, walking in the shadow of a second story that was larger than its first. It was almost like Blueleaf, only with the mazelike architecture replaced with an actual street grid allowing the sun to shine, fewer signs of poverty and no completely roofed areas or buildings abandoned and left in disrepair. In fact, almost everything looked used; while the denizens here weren't the wealthiest of wealthy, waterfront space was probably valuable. All around her were cracks that had been repaired, braces that had been shorn up, and Valey was suddenly left with an impression less of a city made for the disenfranchised and more one made with technology centuries old that had never adapted its aesthetic to modern times. Or maybe Ironridge's idea of the future was just too full of steel and glass.
Huffing, Valey shook her head, her stomach not letting her forget her purpose for long. Food, scents of food, ponies carrying food... There! A dark door with a swinging wooden sign depicting a frothing mug beckoned. A tavern was fine. Smiling, Valey trotted inside, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark.
"We don't serve your kind here," a deep voice growled in her ear.
"Buh!?" Valey jumped back, her cutie mark suddenly informing her there was someone capable of smashing her like a fly. A bouncer who looked more like a bear than a stallion was glaring at her from inside the door... probably. His dark shades made it hard to tell.
Valey snorted, flicked her mane and turned tail to leave. "Fine! I don't patronize shades-in-dark-nightclub places, anyway."
She would have liked to think being hungry would make the sting of being thrown out get to her less, but in truth, it did the opposite. As Valey went back to wandering the seaside streets, a salty breeze pushing in over her nose and making it hard to smell anything inland, she started to pout and then fume. If this was how the Empire was going to treat her, she'd... what? Leave? Leave her friends? She sighed, emotions a volatile, flickering mess she knew she'd have to deal with the moment she got some food.
...And call Amber. She couldn't forget to do that.
Another doorway eventually beckoned, and she quickly checked to make sure it, too, wasn't a false hope guarded by a giant bouncer. It was definitely a tavern, the smells drifting out telling her something had been fried in batter and served with lemon. Some kind of sweet and savory sauce... and no danger. She sniffed one more time, and was sold.
The tavern's interior was lit by grimy windows, though at least that meant no candle smoke. Dark wood covered by iron lattices made it look like the inside of a treasure chest or ship, and most of the ponies and griffons sitting inside nursed tall wooden glasses and showed obvious signs of hard work and heavy physical wear. Someone had carefully scrubbed the floor, though it was pitted and scarred from years of table and chair legs being dragged across without protection.
"Heya." She folded her forelimbs on the barkeep's desk, putting on a flirtatious smirk at the sight of a mare bent over a crate of glasses.
"Hi, what can..." The mare straightened up, looking in her late teens with bittersweet coloration and a mane in two side buns. Her expression fell when she saw Valey. "Oh. It's one of you. Hi, what can I get for you?"
Valey gave a more honest grin, dropping all pretense... along with several gold coins on the counter. She had no idea how much they were worth, but that ought to cover food if gold was a standard currency. "Food. I dunno the menu. What that guy's having smells nice." She pointed to a hairy stallion two seats down, his mane up in a bandanna and beard stained with juices, and he grunted and looked away.
The bartender mare saw the coins and instantly disappeared, flashing a smile of her own that made Valey slightly wary. "Okie dokie! One sec."
Valey held still for several agonizing minutes as she left through a swinging door, voices and the sound of sizzling grease echoing through as it closed. The mare returned, poured drinks, polished glasses, took another order and yelled something up a flight of stairs... and just when she thought her stomach would implode, finally returned with a black platter of ring-shaped somethings covered in puffy golden batter. She licked her lips. Good smell, good choices, good food, good... Her cutie mark was tingling. She paused, fangs wide, inches from shoveling the meal into her mouth.
"Is everything all right?" the bartender asked with incredible sweetness, swaying from side to side with a friskiness that emphasized her flanks.
"Uhhh..." Valey sniffed again, caution outweighing her hunger. She backed away and checked again, but her cutie mark only tingled when she was about to bite in. "Hey, this stuff isn't laced with anything, is it?"
The bartender backed up with a horrified gasp, avoiding bumping into anything with practiced ease. "Laced!? Oh, it shouldn't be. I can assure you that all our food is cleared by health inspection boards and everything!"
Valey frowned. "Yeah, uh, call me paranoid. Any chance you want to eat one of these for me first, just in case?"
The bartender shook her head, starting to look worried. "Oh, no. We stand by our products. That... that shouldn't be necessary, and I've already eaten dinner..."
Valey raised an eyebrow, lifting a ring and spinning it on the tip of her more limber wing.
"Well, you already paid, and no refunds," the bartender huffed. "There's your food. Take it or leave it."
"Eh... don't feel like it." Valey stood up, aware that some of the other patrons were starting to look at her with disgruntled unease, like they suspected she might start a brawl. "I paid for food, and I'd like some food you'll prove is safe to eat. Please."
"Uhhhhh..." The bartender took one more look at the platter, then backed to the kitchen door, stuck her head through, and called for backup. "Hey, Bruce? That customer's being a problem!"
A rhythmic shaking rocked the floor, and a stallion burst out who was even bigger than the bouncer at the last place Valey had tried. He glared at Valey and lumbered over, not needing to be told who she was.
"I Bruce," he told her bluntly in a yak accent accompanied by plenty of spittle. "Am head chef at Stormy Crow Tavern. You have problem with way I cook, sarosian?"
Valey puffed up, deciding she had ran from one too many encounters that day and was in danger of being pushed around. "Yeah, I do, big guy. This stuff's laced."
"Is perfect health food," Bruce growled, making dangerously close eye contact. "Sarosian eat and enjoy Bruce's cooking or Bruce will be offended."
Noting the bartender standing with an eager expression on her face, Valey stuck out her tongue. "No. You eat it first."
"Raaaaaaugh-" BAFF!
Bruce tried to punch her, swinging a hoof the size of a dinner plate, but Valey was far too ready. She backflipped away, kicking her stool at him and uppercutting his chin with a hind hoof as he rose, and though her muscles complained mightily, the power of adrenaline was enough to nail the landing. Bruce collapsed in a single hit, knocked out by the well-placed kick, and Valey hopped back an extra time to avoid his girth as he fell.
"Hah!" she crowed, eyeballing the bartender. "That's what happens when you try to stronghoof me. New food, please. Now."
She uncertainly rubbed a foreleg, staring at the floor. "Well, you just knocked out our chef... If I refund you and give you my boxed dinner, will you go away and not start a brawl?"
Valey shrugged. "Probably. Lemme see the dinner."
A lunchbox was placed on the counter, and Valey sniffed it, detecting a day-old sandwich and no hint of danger. "Deal," she said, swiping it and her coins and not questioning why a mare who worked in a restaurant would bring her own meals as she turned to leave.
"Hey. Pssssst." A tug on her saddlebags caught her attention right as she reached the door.
"Buh?" Valey turned, perfect escape interrupted, to see the seediest stallion of her life looking intensely at her. He wore a trench coat, had a bloodshot eye with a bad tick, one of his ears was torn and his belly sagged as if he had once been fat and lost weight too rapidly. "Wow, dude, you need some hygene," she informed him. "If you want a date, the answer's no."
He shook his head, a muscle twitch making the action jerky. "You're g-good," he stammered. "A much better f-f-fighter than I am."
"Yeah...?" Valey warily evaluated him, though he wasn't threatening in the slightest.
"Here," he rasped, slipping something bright and golden from beneath his coat and tucking it behind Valey's saddlebag with an action so fast she could barely register it. "You'll make better use of this than I will."
"HEY!" the bartender roared, standing up with every bit of indignation Valey had felt earlier as the stallion bolted out the door. "How dare you bring one of those in my-"
Her words were cut off as Valey's cutie mark erupted with danger. It wasn't from the golden something the stallion had given her, though: it was every single other pony in the room, sans the barkeeper and unconscious Bruce. The surge was intense enough to put her in accelerated reaction time, and she got to watch the ponies' eyes widening in greed at the sight of whatever it was. She didn't know what the stallion had given her, but apparently, they wanted it.
As far as she was concerned, that was a good enough reason for her to want it too.
"Yeah, sorry," she bragged with a wink, waiting for the first pony to surge from their seat, "but now I'm really curious what this is. Later, loons."
Ponies collided where she was standing just as she ducked into the shadows, swimming outside and leaving behind the makings of an epic brawl.
Valey sat on the edge of a lightly-sloped rooftop, flexing her stiff wings and keeping the sun out of her eyes as she tore into her semi-stolen sandwich. It wasn't good food, but it was food, and every bite sent a wave of stale, bland revitalization washing through her. She polished it off far more quickly than she would have liked, but at least felt capable of thinking and moving around again.
"All right, let's see what we've got here..." A flash of gold glinted as she pulled out the thing the suspicious stallion had given her and examined it. It was a rectangular slip of paper, embossed with a strange texture that gave it its sheen. Based on the perfect lack of crinkles or tears, she supposed it made it more resilient, too.
The front held what looked like a cutie mark surrounded by eleven smaller others, inlaid with geometric patterns and the text 'Golden Regent #1708: Gianna Greatwing'. Bits of gemstone so small she could barely make them out seemed to be sewn into the corners beneath the embossing, and the back was a portrait of a noble-looking female sphinx so detailed it almost seemed to have real depth.
Valey scratched her head. Was that an identification number, or something? If there were seventeen hundred of these, what made them so worth jumping on in such a frenzy? She looked it over again, the sigil on the front gleaming like a forgotten memory. There was more text along the border, she realized: 'Some call me beautiful, but they have no place in my heart.'
Frowning, Valey shrugged, nibbled on it and sighed. Her brain kept trying to turn up some detail... Regents, weren't those something the pirates were talking about? Was this card a form of currency? That would make sense. Just how valuable was it, then, and why would that stallion give it away freely?
...Probably because he didn't want to get mobbed, she realized. Or worse, because he wanted her to get mobbed... or better, he sympathized with her and wanted the bar to get mobbed and figured she'd be fine. That still raised the question of where he would get something like that.
Away the regent went, slipped safely into her saddlebag. It was something she could figure out later. For now, she had a much more important goal to see to: find Starlight and her friends before sundown, because she did not like the prospect of spending a night alone in a city that was this passively hostile.
Her view from the rooftop still showed the castle, an island of white floating in the bay. There was a bridge in the distance to the south, perhaps a mile or two away. Her wings still complained when she stretched them, so flying was out unless she wanted to cramp up and fall in the sea halfway across. She glanced at her hat, her saddlebags, the lunchbox... It looked nice enough that she might set it down close by the tavern's entrance for the bartender to find. Even though the bartender had tried to poison her.
Holding her head and groaning, Valey dropped from the roof, wondering when she had become such a wuss.
One of the primary things Valey kept her eyes out for as she strolled the streets, aside from danger and more food, was a place to recharge the sound stone in her bags. She wasn't sure why, since it wasn't like she was going to stop and have a nice, emotional conversation in the middle of the street and by the time she was safe she could get Shinespark or Starlight to do it for her, but the same annoying part of her that had made her return the lunchbox was now on repeat telling her to let Amber know she was okay. Unfortunately, passing unicorns seemed like a sketchy option and exposed mana technology was nowhere to be found.
In fact, the power systems that defined parts of Ironridge seemed to be entirely missing from coastal Stormhoof. Some corners held dead braziers that would provide warmth and light at night, but she couldn't see a proper light fixture. In Ironridge, even in the Earth District, she could find a hunk of machinery spinning somewhere, pry off the cover and be rewarded with bared energy conduits, but here it was as if the citizens had learned to subsist without magical energy altogether. And if they did use it, their usage was well-hidden.
She thought back to the merchant ship; its mast had been empty, so it had to run on mana. There would have been a charging station at the dock, then... and there were docks just to her right.
Valey swerved three times in turning back toward the waterfront, her cutie mark making itself useful avoiding crashing into anyone on the busy road. Unlike before, this time the street closest to the waterfront was busier, merchant booths and a decorated park plaza forming a gap between the houses and loading bays for citizens to enjoy the view. Pouting, she glanced around one more time for power, but the best thing she found was a cute, panicked unicorn who looked in far too much of a hurry to stop even if she asked.
Countless hoofsteps dragged on before her, and Valey gave up searching and settled for focusing on walking instead. The sky advanced into its sunset hues, the bridge grew marginally closer every time the buildings broke to allow her a view, and by the third time she stopped to pick bits of dust and detritus from her hooves, she was nearly there.
The bridge was two stories higher than the shoreline, its arched pillars needing room to let boats pass beneath. Valey found respite on an iron bench in the shadow of one of those pillars where it connected to dry land, the bridge stretching inland for several blocks behind her before it finally met the ground. A small, switchback staircase bolted to the side of the next pillar down gave her an easy way to skip that detour and climb on top right from where she was, and she sighed in gratitude.
As she had proceeded south, and especially as she drew nearer to the bridge outlet, the land grew more developed, with broader buildings boasting more polish for watching nobles and wider roads designed to accommodate heavier traffic. Valey had no idea if it was merely an inlet to the coastal part of the city or if the bridge continued in a road to the east, but either way she was clearly at the edge of a major thoroughfare.
The area under the bridge was crossed by at least one large road, but Valey's bench was in the middle of a concrete plaza that didn't seem used for anything at all. Odd... space under a bridge that wasn't being used for commercial purposes seemed like it would be a great shelter for anyone who had no better way of getting a roof over their head, but where she was seemed an ordinary empty lot. It was almost peaceful, even. A light switched on overhead, protruding from the bridge wall and bathing the area in dim white illumination as the sun lowered further. That was mana power, she was sure, but there was no way to get it.
Valey's ears twitched, the sounds of the nearby street a mile away. She would have to get going before she fell asleep there. It had taken slipping through a very narrow alley to find, and the lot certainly felt safe, but it was still the kind of place darkness dwellers would lurk. She couldn't be sure if she had spooked herself into it, but it suddenly felt like someone was watching her.
"...Who's there?" she whispered, fur tingling even though her cutie mark remained completely dormant. The plaza was empty, but it compelled her to stand, spinning around and checking every direction.
If she were trying to spy on someone, the best place would be from under the bridge arches. The floodlight prevented her from shadow sneaking, but she crept forward low to the ground, tail straight back, aiming for the furthest arch from the road.
It was dark beneath the arch, but she still couldn't shake the feeling. There was someone there, and being watched without consent was only one of Valey's favorite habits when it was her doing it to others. She frowned, bared her teeth, and snapped, "Stop following me!"
Something caught her attention. It was a black metal door, recessed into the support column, with a tiny grated window too high up for her to see through without rearing up and a handle that looked like it would fit jaws better than talons. A metal plaque on the stone beside it read 'Stormhoof Bridge Maintenance Access', and under that was another adding 'Requisitioned for sarosian use by order of Garsheeva. Vandalism punishable by Judgement.'
"Sarosians, huh?" Valey muttered, sizing up her own wings and then the door. The more she waited, the surer she grew that there was something on the other side. "Sounds like an invitation. Open up!"
The door was locked, but the crack beneath perfectly inviting to a shadow sneaker. Valey emerged in a cramped, damp tunnel of stone and metal that seemed far closer to Ironridge's underground districts than anything she had seen so far in the Empire. A vertical shaft to her side held a ladder and a notice forbidding trespassing on behalf of the Power Distribution Agency, but the path ahead continued into what might have once been a large storage closet. Now, it was cleaned and reverently polished, and home to one thing alone: a larger-than-life statue of a pony, standing a head taller than Valey at her straightest.
Valey looked over the statue with interest. It was a mare, though her muzzle wasn't curved, and the rest of her proportions made her realize the statue was life size and the subject was just built like Matryona. The mare was much slimmer and tighter than her usual tastes, but something about how the posture carried itself absolutely infatuated her. Striking no more of a pose than standing still and looking down as if to make eye contact, it was proud, dark, reserved and held a confidence with the sharpness concealed, like she had something to prove yet had proved it over and over again. The mare wore regalia, dark slippers and a solid neck band that looked like real accessories attached to the statue, a glowing crescent of ruby embedded into the metal over her chest. Most strikingly, she not only had wings of a size that would make any pegasus envious, but a horn twice as long as a normal unicorn's and brought to a far sharper tip. And the statue was what was watching her.
Swallowing, Valey realized that when meeting a statue with enough latent magic she could sense it from behind a closed door and several corners away, there was a good chance it could do other things as well, and admiring its curves could land her in trouble if it happened to be telepathic. Ducking back into the shadows and swimming away, she swiftly abandoned the maintenance room, leaving the statue alone in the dark.
A stiff sea breeze blew over Valey's shoulders, ruffling her coat as she climbed the iron switchback staircase bolted to the side of the bridge. Hoofsteps against metal sounded in her ears alongside the wind's constant rush, a soft, steady clanking interrupted every time she had to turn around. She crested the top, the long white boulevard stretching west to Stormhoof Fortress, the sun low enough on the horizon that the island castle's shadow reached her even on the mainland.
Griffons and equines trickled along the bridge in both directions, few enough that it was probably well past rush hour for the day. Some hurried by, late to a meeting or dinner or anything else, but most looked like they'd already be gone if they had anything better to do, and some weren't going anywhere, even though it wasn't the best place to stay and watch the sunset.
That meant there were a lot of stares suddenly thrown her way. Valey froze, staring back, then squared her shoulders, puffed out her chest and flicked her mane, hat wobbling in the breeze. If they wanted to stare, let them. She didn't see a guardhouse, and it wasn't like they could stop her with their eyes.
It wasn't like every single gaze was hostile, though. A young mare in a ridiculously tight corset and her wrinkly mother in a wide-brimmed hat snootily turned up their noses, but a pair of nose-bumping teenagers sitting with tails intertwined regarded her like she was a sight to be shared with each other and a male griffon pulling a stroller with two of whatever griffon foals were called even gave her a resigned smile. Grifflets, maybe? She gave him a wink, just in case.
"Going to the castle?" he asked, not quite making eye contact but deciding that was permission to talk. "You're a bold one. Best of luck to you."
"Uhh... thanks?" Valey shrugged. She wasn't particularly sure if he was implying there was something worse than what she had dealt with already there and didn't really want to ask, but he seemed nice enough and good turns at a time like this weren't wise to pass up. "Any particular reason, though? I'm pretty tough to punch in the face and get that folks here don't really like batponies, but might have just rolled into this area a few hours ago..."
The griffon's eyes widened slightly. "I won't question your reasons, but as long as you know this area's reputation..." He coughed. "You've heard this morning's news, at least?"
"News?" Valey raised an eyebrow, suddenly hoping she wasn't about to be called on to save a certain trouble-prone griffon adventurer extraordinaire and her other friends from whatever hullabaloo he had dragged them into this time.
The griffon nodded gravely toward the castle. "A griffon and an airship full of ponies arrived from the trading city of Ironridge, and apparently it's been invaded by Yakyakistan. Everyone is on edge while Stormhoof and the Empire decide how to react, and security's been tightened at the castle. There are a lot more guards, and..." He trailed off. "Like I said, if that's where you're going, good luck."
Valey swallowed. An airship, a griffon, and ponies from Ironridge, and news of what had happened... It looked like her friends had gotten themselves in the spotlight after all. And if it had been noted as an airship, that meant whatever sent it below the clouds and left her behind was likely voluntary...
"Noted," she said, eyes unfocused. "Thanks. Any idea where those dudes would be now? The ones from Ironridge?"
"The castle, I'd presume." The griffon shrugged. "Somewhere high up. I couldn't tell you for sure."
Valey thanked him one more time and set off at a stiff trot, the island fortress in her sights suddenly both a much more urgent destination and one she wasn't sure she wanted to reach after all.
The wind picked up as Valey got further out on the water, growing to the point where she had to take her hat off just in case it blew away.
That meant she had to settle for her cutesy manecut blowing in her face instead, the two long strands on either side refusing to stay nicely put, but it didn't bother her too much. Her mind was dead-set on other things, like why her friends would have left her behind if the ship really could still fly. It had to be a technical issue that forced them below the clouds, even though that explanation had holes like the griffon saying it was an airship, because she knew what the alternative was and the alternative hurt to consider. If she had been deliberately left behind...
The bridge felt longer than it had looked from shore, but she made time quicken by counting the arches she passed as the sky reddened and she steadily progressed. The city doubled in size on the horizon, then tripled, and then she was close enough to see the gate... a gate that was heavily fortified with guardhouses on either side. And, her cutie mark told her as she approached, a gate guarded by at least one creature who was in a very foul mood.
It was also well-lit, which had to be for the purpose of aiding guard vision but completely screwed her over, since she couldn't shadow sneak in the torchlight. Why even were there guards when ponies and griffons could just fly in? Valey hissed under her breath, wondering just how bad it would be if she just ran through. But the main gate was closed with several smaller pony-sized doors set into it, and it would be fairly easy to spear or block someone trying to run through those...
With a rush of waves and the creaking of wood, a boat sailed through one of the archways beneath her, and she was half-tempted to jump on and see if it took her to one of the island's docks. After some thought and a stretch of her wings, she passed on that; it could be heading to one of the mainland docks, or even back out to sea. Swallowing, she stepped to the center of the bridge and held her head high, proceeding to the gate and hoping for the best.
She was stopped flat by a wooden pole to the chest at one of the doors, and she opened her slitted eyes. "Yeah?"
A beaked face leered back at her. "'Ello, sarosian."
Great. Valey internally sighed; she didn't know how many guards were on duty, but her cutie mark told her this wasn't one she wanted to be held up by. "Mind if I get through?" she asked, backing up just enough that the haft of his baton wasn't touching her. "I hear this is the way into the city."
"What's a sarosian like you doin', tryin' to get into this city on hoof?" the griffon asked, starting to grin. "Can't you fly, birdie? I never get to have fun like this. Never, ever, ever..."
"Yo!" Valey backed up again, giving him a stink-eye and dangerously curling her lip. "You're... really creepy. Don't they have a creepiness policy when hiring guards? I'd, uh, like to get in the city."
The guard straightened up, dropping his accent. "That's a shame. I thought your kind liked creepy. Creepy, crawly, slithery..." He stepped right back up into her face. "It's my job to defend the city from goddess-haters like you."
"Hey, Gord!" an annoyed, female voice screeched from further beyond the gate. "Are you bullying a sarosian? Knock that off! Stupid volunteer crews..."
Valey suddenly relaxed. Finally, someone who didn't hate batponies for a living! A superior was about to let her through... and then her cutie mark flashed, stopping time.
Gord was going straight for her throat, talons outstretched. Talk about overreactions... Instinctively, Valey ducked beneath him and violently arched her back, lifting the griffon and slamming him against the roof of the gate's door, then somersaulting and bringing both hind legs down on him as he hit the floor. She bounced back, leaving him out cold... and looked right into the widened eyes of his captain, standing where he had been with her beak open.
"...We've had an assault!" she barked, turning around and shouting back to the city. "You three, back me up! You!" She turned and snapped at Valey. "You're under arrest!"
"He tried to stab me!" Valey protested, backing down the bridge, aware that they could fly much faster than she could run. It was knock out four more and leave herself in an even worse position, or be arrested...
She really, really hated the Griffon Empire.
It didn't work. The griffon's reinforcements materialized, and they charged, leaving Valey with nothing to do but brace herself. At the last second, though, she heard the creaking of timbers and saw another mast passing out from beneath the bridge, instantly spun to her side, and leapt, aiming for the passing boat.
S-S-S-Swooooosh!
Four rushes of air sounded as the captain and her other guards dropped to the shipdeck, barking at startled sailors and chasing frantically after Valey. Where they didn't look was the roof of the archway, where Valey had caught a metal spur and swung herself back into the shadows, hiding there on its underbelly. She was safe, and depending on whether they had left anyone behind as a guard, the gate was temporarily unattended... but without her wings, there was no way back to the top of the bridge.
Groaning in exasperation, Valey licked her dry lips, checked both horizons for incoming ships she could drop down to and settled in to wait.
The sun had set and the last traces of twilight were slowly fading from the sky when Valey made it back to the empty plaza where the bridge connected to shore. It had taken so long for another boat to sail through her particular arch that she gave up and trusted her wings, and one had knotted so hard on the short flight to safety that she came within inches of plunging into the sea. To make matters worse, the gate was by then completely barred with a patrol of ten sitting around outside it, and she simply couldn't trust her luck in the land of eternal batpony-haters.
Anything would have been more feasible if she understood what she was working with, but Valey's biggest problem was that she knew nothing about how the country around her worked. She had mostly zoned out during Gerardo's lectures once he reached the part about her not being universally welcomed, and now that she was there, she was being treated like... Well, if she was honest, exactly the same as she'd been treated in Ironridge, only this time she didn't have a threatening job to hide behind, no one was scared of her, and she had to care about the long run and couldn't just beat people up. That, and the barbs weren't quite as easy to shrug off as they had been before.
She flopped down on the same bench she had used as a resting point earlier. No matter how many times she asked herself how she had gotten soft, the answer didn't change: she had things to care about now, friends and a future, and that meant no more rushing headfirst into danger, since the off chance that she wasn't as invincible as she thought she was had real consequences now. And even if she had been invincible in Ironridge, the Empire was too much of an enigma for her to even know what she was up against, let alone that she could safely beat it. She was unpopular without doing anything to deserve it, got hoofed mysterious golden cards used to start bar fights, found magical statues locked away in maintenance closets, and then her friends... She gritted her teeth and shuddered. Not thinking about that.
The mana-powered floodlight brightening the plaza buzzed above her and made her ears twitch, old and slightly stained and emitting colorless white light. The shadows it cast were stark and should have been threatening, but with the advent of night, the city almost to relax and grow friendly. Empty streets were streets without frowns and unwanted attention, and dark patches were nothing more than avenues for escape. And she was the one who could sense danger anywhere and was impossible to sneak up on. It was almost like the tide of society had changed hooves with the setting of the sun, and the plaza was now telling her it was her turn. Or maybe that was the suspicious statue talking.
Valey got up. She couldn't stay there, bemoaning her fate, even though the plaza was peaceful and uninhabited and almost like a refuge beneath the stars. She blinked; the stars were appearing as the final traces of purple disappeared from the sky. That was a major difference from Ironridge. The city there never turned off its lights, Sosa and the upper districts emitting a never-ending veil of light into the sky... but here, nothing was quite bright enough to wash them out. She was too low to see the moon, still early into its rise, but it would be there too, waning yet closer to full than empty. The weather was with her. She had to do something.
Just as she started moving, contemplating finding out more about what her friends had said at the castle and if there was any message for her or explanation on why she had been left behind, something rustled at the edge of the plaza. A cloaked figure stepped into the light, and Valey swiveled her ears, not sensing any danger. The pony pulled off her hood, plain brown traveling cloak held on by a clasp at the front, shook her mane out, gave a friendly smile... and Valey blinked. Another batpony?
"Hey," Valey greeted cautiously, having no idea what to expect.
"Hi!" the other batpony greeted back, speaking clearly yet keeping her voice low. "Here seeking guidance too?"
Valey tipped her head, hoping to inquire more without seeming too clueless. The other batpony couldn't have been older than her early twenties, with a banana peel-yellow mane that curled toward her neck and a very cute smile, but what drew Valey to her most was that she was an actually friendly face in the strange and annoying Griffon Empire. This was an ally she needed to have.
"I didn't think anyone came this early," the batpony admitted, stepping closer and looking relaxed. "I usually wait until around midnight, but today was eventful, and, well..." She glanced around disarmingly and shrugged. "You know how it is. I'm Senescey. You?"
Valey noted her hopefully-extended hoof and bumped it. "Valey. And, uhh..." She twitched, rubbing a hind leg with the other. "Actually, I just got off a boat this afternoon and spent the day getting kicked around by bouncers and guards, so let's say I'm figuring out how it is."
Senescey's face constricted in a look of profound apology. "Oh, that's hard. You're not hurt, are you?"
"Cramped wings from flying in, but nah. I could beat those chumps up in my sleep." Valey shrugged. "Of course, I really wouldn't appreciate the entire city coming down on my head and have absolutely no idea what I've gotten myself into, so..."
She noted that Senescey hadn't reacted at all to her name, so if the griffon on the bridge had been telling the truth... She really needed to get ahold of whatever news was currently in circulation about her friends. The other batpony, if anything, looked only more concerned. "You came to Stormhoof without researching what it was like for us?"
"...Maybe?" Valey winced sheepishly, still deciding whether or not to appear on the back hoof. "Let's just say I figured my odds were better here than out west."
Senescey nodded, eyes widening in sudden understanding. "I heard something happened with Ironridge and Yakyakistan," she whispered, voice hushed. "And you just got in... Oh, were you there?"
Valey glanced carefully at her, reading her eyes. "If I had been, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"
"I don't know," Senescey admitted. "If you're really new to the Empire, though... you should know that a lot of citizens don't like sarosians like us. It's because of the dusk statues. They think we're heretics who won't acknowledge their goddess, even though we essentially have to because Garsheeva is the one who protects us and lets us keep the dusk statues in the first place. All the provinces treat us differently, though. Stormhoof is one of the harder ones to live in, since the official policy on us is that there is no policy. Citizens can do almost whatever they want, so there's a little good and a whole lot of bad... The only one that's really worse is Everlaste. They actively try to make our lives difficult."
"Ouch." Valey blinked, though it was more to digest the information: finally, someone who knew how the Empire worked! "Any places that are specifically good ones?"
Senescey shrugged. "Sort of. Technically, the best is Izvaldi. Percival Izvaldi, who's effectively the ruling lord, tries very hard to be a champion of all his citizens. He's famous as an equinitarian, and his province is the best chance you'll have at living the same lifestyle as any normal pony or griffon."
"Buuuut...?" Valey leaned in closer, sensing a massive downside coming.
"Percival is a griffon," Senescey went on. "His grandfather, Lord Goraldi Izvaldi, is the only sphinx in the house, and never had a noble heir. He's elderly, and has been very sick and bedridden for years. He could pass on any day now, the doctors say, and when he does, control of the house and province will transfer to Prince Gazelle, unless something unexpected happens like another house going extinct first. Every sarosian in the empire is watching him. He's been very close to the Izvaldi house in recent years and frequently sides with Percival at the Council of Lords, but no one really knows for sure what he'll do once the house is his. So while you could go there..." She looked away. "I actually came from Izvaldi, just in case. Stormhoof isn't bad if you know the right circles. But I'll probably go home once Lord Goraldi passes on and everyone gets a chance to see what happens."
Valey nodded along. "So basically Izvaldi is nice but the dudes in charge might kick the bucket at any time, and then nobody knows what the new dude will do."
Senescey thought for a moment. "Prince Gazelle and Crown Princess Gwendolyn both say they're fans of sarosians, so everyone hopes it will work out for the best. But they've never had a chance to make laws and policies of their own, and won't until the princess marries and ascends to Empress or the prince takes over Izvaldi, so no one truly knows. But the capitol is another province you could try. It's just east of Stormhoof, and while Garsheeva lives there along with her most ardent fanatics, so do a lot of fans of the prince and princess. I've heard some neighborhoods are very nice, but you'll still get extreme behavior out of nowhere like in Stormhoof. You know who Garsheeva is, right?"
"Big giant griffon goddess, right?" Valey tipped her head. "Yeah, sorta. I take it paying respects to her and stuff is a pretty good idea."
Senescey nodded. "Oh, definitely. Speaking of paying respects, though, I did come here to talk to a dusk statue and get advice. You're welcome to join me, since I assume that's why you're here..." She trailed off, eyes widening. "Wait, if you're from outside the Empire, do you know about dusk statues? Or did it draw you here without you even realizing?"
"Draw me here?" Valey took a step back in alarm, recalling the mysterious presence she had felt guiding her to the effigy in the maintenance room. "I mean, uhhh... Let's pretend I know nothing?"
Senescey's pupils were huge. "Come with me! We do need to shadow swim to reach it, so I hope you're not one of the ones who can't stand it. If you are, though, just close your eyes and hold on tightly to me..."
The black statue gleamed with regal mystery, its stone coat glossy as the night sky and the ruby crescent on its chest twinkling like a star. It almost seemed to have come more alive since Valey saw it last, piercing stone eyes pinning Valey to the floor as if there were an invisible door inches before her muzzle.
"Dusk statues give us a special connection to the Night Mother," Senescey explained, looking like she was receiving a precious gift just by getting the chance to tell Valey about this for the first time. "They're inert to everyone but us, but if we approach them during the night, close our eyes and reach out..." She settled down on the floor, folding her cloak at the side of the room and tucking all four legs beneath her, facing the statue. "You can hear her voice and talk to her. She will keep you company, give you guidance and advice... and sometimes, if you're truly special or lucky, tell you about other things that are happening in the world. The first time I talked to her as a foal was an incredible experience. It's not something other ponies and griffons can understand, and I think that's part of why they fear it, but it's not about disrespecting Garsheeva. It's something that's special to us..."
"Uhh... yeah," Valey agreed, standing alongside her and having a staring contest with the statue. There was definitely some kind of magical energy in the room that was making the back of her neck tingle, but something about the idea of talking to statues... or someone she couldn't see talking through the statue unnerved her. "I'll give it a try. If I'm gone when you wake up, or whatever, it was cool meeting you, and I wouldn't mind running into you again."
Senescey smiled and slowly nodded, eyes already closed.
For several seconds, maybe even minutes, Valey stood and watched the statue, but never made any motion to get closer or mentally open herself or whatever, and predictably nothing happened. It might be useful, though. The statues could tell you what was happening elsewhere in the world? She could smell Starlight behind her on the fortress island, but if there was any way it could help her get past the guards, maybe it would be worth asking. No, wait: if it could tell her how Amber was doing, or find her a way to energize the sound stone, that was someone it would do her good to talk to. It was a magic statue, so maybe...
She blinked, a memory bobbing to the surface of her mind, and spun around toward the cramped corridor to the door. There, in a shaft running up and down set into the wall, was a ladder covered by that No Trespassing sign, marking the area beyond off limits on behalf of the Power Distribution Agency. Power... energy, mana... The bridge had lights on the side, so there had to be a power conduit somewhere inside, right? Whether the statue had somehow answered her prayer or it was her own fortitude, memory and luck, Valey eagerly licked her lips and began to climb.
The ladder shaft emerged into a chamber with a ceiling so low, Valey had to bend her neck and fold her ears to fit inside. It was pitch-black, and after several moment's consideration, she gave up and partially opened the connection to her pendant, giving herself a faint glow. Food was an important resource, but she needed to search this.
Long and rectangular, the room was bordered on both sides by thick steel pipes big enough to act as its walls. Power or perhaps fresh water running all the way through the bridge to the island, she realized: the core of the bridge was filled with conduits. In one direction, she smelled Starlight, in the other, the maintenance chamber ended in an industrial-looking access panel with several wheels and... was that a dormant screen? Yes!
Valey slipped over, probing the wall and quickly finding a metal plate covering a section of bricks. Off it was pried, and the cavity beyond was filled with wires. Grinning toothily, she identified the main power terminal, whipped out her sound stone, and thrust it in to be charged.
In no time, it was glowing, and Valey turned off her pendant, already hungry but also able to see by the enchanted stone's dim light. "Amber?" she breathlessly asked, hunched over the stone like it was a newborn foal. "Amber! You there?"
No response. Valey waited for several seconds, heart slowly dropping, until she finally accepted that it was night and after more than a day, Amber's side likely wouldn't be charged at all times either. Waiting to make contact with someone, anyone familiar was already more torturous now that it wasn't herself she was waiting on, and she clenched her teeth before sighing and exhaling a long, long breath.
...Starlight's scent was still in the distance, and she couldn't actually see the other end of the room that ran between the two pipes. Getting to her hooves, Valey plodded forward, ignoring the ladder back down and deciding to see just how far the tunnel would take her.
The room ended shortly, but in the far wall was the entrance to another pipe. Grated and barred, it wasn't actually blocked, and Valey sniffed it, wondering why anyone would put an unused pipe inside a bridge. She couldn't tell if it opened into anything, but from the chalk markings on the wall and an abandoned, empty clipboard laying on the ground next to it, she figured it might be for a future construction project... or a cancelled one. Any chance it went all the way through?
Valey put the sound stone in her mouth, cheeks bulging to fit it but successfully managing to close her lips and completely blot out its light. Through the bars she slipped, emerging in a pitch-black culvert less than twice the size of her barrel. With her chin on the ground and the stone forcing her jaw wide, her ears brushed the ceiling, and she spat the rock out, suddenly extremely glad she wasn't claustrophobic.
The tunnel didn't tingle strongly with danger, so she kicked forward, legs dipping into her own shadow and propelling her by swimming. Shadow sneaking through tight spaces was weird; she could pass through fine grates or lattices so long as she was moving quickly and they were fairly thin, even though the individual holes were pinpricks, but once a tunnel got more than an inch or so long, dipping into the dark began to put up resistance and the shadows would push her in whatever direction was needed to get her out. This culvert was big enough for her to fit in, barely, entirely unsubmerged, but also small enough to trigger that reaction and push her out when she tried to completely go under, so her progress was made by bobbing along, legs in the shadow as much as she could and the rest of her wherever it would fit. The sound stone was held forward in her bared teeth, and link after endless link of pipe opened up around her, making her wonder if she was even making progress at all. She hoped she was, because turning around would be quite hard.
Scrrrrkkkk... "Valey!"
The sound stone's burst of static made her jump, hitting her head on the impossibly low ceiling. "Mmrh?" she managed, the stone blocking her tongue.
"Valey, is that you? Who has this stone!? Valey, answer me!"
It was decidedly weird to hear Amber's voice coming from her own mouth, so Valey set the stone down, rolling it along with her nose instead as she moved. "Yo, it's me."
"Valey...!" Amber choked, sounding on the verge of tears... or maybe she had already been crying. "You said something about being slightly safer, but then there was a loud crack like rock breaking, and the connection went dead, and...! Valey..." She sniffed, and it sounded like she was wiping her nose.
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked, completely unprepared for how emotional Amber sounded. "Wait, are you okay?"
"That's what I wanted to know about you!" Amber shouted back into her stone. "When you disconnected, I thought... I thought..."
A cold chill ran through Valey's heart. "Oh, bananas. I didn't even know you cut out before I was safe. I, uhh... It had been all day, and my stone ran out of power right when I found a safe spot. I didn't have anything to charge it back up with, and..." Her ears folded, for the first time not brushing the pipe's roof. "You were that worried about me, huh?"
"...Oh." Amber took a moment for that to sink in, accepting the reality of why Valey had lost contact. "Of course I was worried! Why wouldn't I be worried? I had no idea what happened to you and all my friends, and thought you might all be dead! I thought they fell into the sea, and you got hit by a falling rock or something, or..." She hesitated. "I was worried about you. I guess that's... not something you're used to hearing, after Ironridge."
Now it was Valey's turn to let something sink in.
"But you're okay?" Amber pressed. "You found power again? Are you back on board the Dream? Everyone's all right, right?"
Valey swallowed. "Well, I, uh... stowed away on a pirate ship, then on a merchant ship, made it to land, found out Birdo wasn't kidding about how much the Empire hates bats, spent the entire day bailing from guards and heading for Starlight's scent, just now finally found an exposed power line in this technologically-backwards place, and am now crawling through a pipe about the size of my head to try and slip past some really, really mean griffons. I've had the rest of my lunch and one stolen sandwich to eat since we spoke, and have found exactly two friendly faces and none of our friends. So... yeah. Technically I'm okay. I dunno about the others."
That sent Amber silent for a moment. "Oh, Valey..." she sniffed, sounding like she badly wanted to give the batpony a hug.
"Like, seriously, though," Valey pressed. "I'm kinda in survival mode right now. Haven't really stopped to or wanted to think about certain other things like why I'm in this situation, but you really missed me that much? The others, yeah, but specifically me?"
"Of course I did!" Amber insisted. "Just because we only knew each other for a few days in Riverfall doesn't mean you're not my friend or that I shouldn't care if something bad happens to you! Like I said, I understand if that's new to you after Ironridge, but things are different for you now."
"...Heh. Thanks." Valey closed her eyes, still pressing along. "That actually means a lot. Really."
Amber sniffled. "You sound like you needed to hear it."
"I did," Valey sighed. "Like I said, I've been trying not to think about it because this is something I really don't wanna think about and I'd rather not look at my friends this way, but... Look, you can probably guess where I'm going with this. They're in this fancy-pants island fortress called Stormhoof. Whatever they did back with the clouds, it totally ditched me but didn't stop them from getting there. They all knew having a batpony like me in the party would make things hard for them in the Empire, and from the very small amounts of news I've heard in between starting bar fights and hiding from angry griffons, it sounds like they're living it up being Ironridge heroes there. So..."
"Maple wouldn't do that," Amber flatly insisted. "Never. If she thinks you're dead, for any reason, she might tell herself it doesn't hurt and that she isn't sad, but she would never 'live it up', and she would never, ever let anyone deliberately abandon you. I can't imagine Gerardo doing that either, and Starlight would probably destroy the ship if anyone tried anything that unfair. Believe me, they're worried about you, too. I know this."
"Sounds about like what I needed to hear," Valey sighed, smiling. "Still, though."
"What exactly have you heard about anyone living it up?" Amber gently demanded. "Word for word. Tell me."
Valey sucked her cheek for a moment. "Okay, so all this is paraphrased from one single griffon who was probably also paraphrasing it, and I have no idea what's actually legit, but... apparently everyone knows Yakyakistan made some move against Ironridge, and there's some airship that flew in to the city with a griffon and some ponies that told everyone about it. That's about the extent of what I know."
"Names," Amber requested. "Did you hear for sure Maple, Gerardo or Starlight's names?"
Valey thought, tried to shake her head, and was rewarded with a bump against the pipe's walls. "Don't think so? Pretty sure not. But, like, they knew about Ironridge, or at least something about it. They can't have made that up, and as far as we know, nobody else left the city. And a griffon and ponies... Like, one griffon... Isn't that super suspicious?"
"Kero," Amber immediately said. "He was in Ironridge and disappeared without a trace. And an airship... What about those two brothers, Howe and what's-his-name? You know who I'm talking about. They were in your story when you got back?"
"Oh bananas, you're right." Valey's eyes widened, and she sniffed again, making sure that Starlight was still ahead. "That dude totally would have had like a week's head start on us. Maybe more, I don't remember. And... but... Amber, I can totally smell Starlight on this fortress. One hundred percent sure of it. You're not thinking what I'm thinking, are you?"
Amber swallowed. "Wait, how bad would... Oh."
"Yeah. 'Oh'." Valey grimaced. "When they went down, we were basically a day out from the Empire. I dunno why, but that Kero dude was hunting me, and Herman didn't own up to requesting it, which would be a weird thing to lie about because you'd think he'd want to brag. If he's still after me, or something..." She felt herself shiver. "What if he, like, tried to grapple down Shinespark's boat from the water, or something and figured I'd be on board? What if now he's got everyone else in that fortress because he's trying to bait me? For all I know he could even be playing the good guy and giving them five-star accommodations and stuff! Nah, they'd be suspicious of him too, but... Bananas. They could even really be the airship I heard about that came from Ironridge, and they just didn't mention Birdo. This explains everything."
Now Amber sounded almost scared. "You can do something, right? You're strong enough to stay safe, find out what's going on, and get them out?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure I know what's going on," Valey sighed in resignation. "And am I strong enough? I sure better be. But hopefully I'll be a lot stronger knowing my friends are counting on me than I will wondering if I've been ditched. Thanks, Amber. I... really needed this talk."
"It's past sundown, but I'll stay on as long as you need me," Amber promised resolutely. "I can't be there in flesh, but I'll be here as long as you need me!"
"Probably a good thing," Valey told her. "This pipe is pretty cramped as it is."
"You probably won't be able to talk as freely soon, will you?" Amber asked. "Needing to sneak around and things? I, um... You have a plan, right? Or are making one? Do you have anything useful at all?"
"Let's go with making one," Valey decided. "Sieging a hostile fortress, though... Maybe I should have prepared more and gotten a supply of food first, because I'm hungry. Oh, and my wings are super cramped from trying to fly to land and sleeping in a cave and are basically unusable. Yeah, I definitely should have prepared. But seriously, the amount of work I had to do just to get one measly sandwich..."
"Maybe it's worth it to go back, then?" Amber suggested. "It doesn't sound like Starlight or the others would be in immediate danger, I think..."
Once again, Valey regretted not being able to sense the danger her friends were in as well as her own, and the thought crossed her mind that they regretted not having her there to sense for them. "No go on that," she muttered. "This pipe's tiny. I'm already half-shadow sneaking to get through, and I'm pretty sure turning around is out of the question. If this leads to a dead end, I'll have to find a way, but until then, I've gotta see it to the end."
Valey's tunnel finally came to an end, dumping her head over heels into a room after another grate she forced herself through. The sound stone waited patiently in front of her, held in her teeth as a flashlight once again, illuminating a room much like the one above the dusk statue only with the ceiling twice as high. Valey stretched, reveling in the feeling of nothing touching her ears after having them flattened for so long by cold steel, arching her back and shaking her legs and firmly deciding she didn't want to try swimming through that pipe ever again.
Tottering only slightly, she stepped past a heavy spool of cable probably intended to be threaded through the pipe, ducking her head to pass beneath a lowered bar on the ceiling. It was the floor that had gone down, meaning the two broader pipes that formed the walls to the first room now only hugged the roof, and by crawling Valey was able to slip beneath one, hoping to find a way outside. Her efforts were met with success; a grated iron door was the only obstacle between her and a stone staircase brimming with the scent of fresh air. She eagerly poked her way up, paying close attention to her cutie mark to avoid being found.
The steps morphed into a spiral, and abruptly she came to a squat wooden door strengthened with bands of iron that made her flanks tingle. She turned up her nose; that must have been a street-level exit opening right near a patrol. No good. Hopefully the underground area would continue, and she could find another way out...
Valey retraced her steps, scouting the entirety of the pipe room attached to the bridge. The only thing she found was a floor-level grate in the wall slightly wider than she was and just tall enough for drainage, looking like it opened into another, lower room. She slipped through that as well, silently thanking whoever had invented batponies for the ability to shadow sneak and wondering why a city that really disliked them that much had used entirely ineffective measures to stop them from sneaking around.
The sound of running water graced her ears, and she moved down a lightly-slanted surface to find a stream of something flowing past. Was she in a sewer? It didn't smell exceptionally foul, but her cutie mark still warned her not to even think about drinking it.
A storm drain, she decided, remembering the storms that fell from the mountains and deposited unending amounts of rain. That would mean it likely opened to the streets above, which in turn meant both light and a way out. But she scanned both directions of the long, slanted tunnel and couldn't see anything, finally determining she was just too far below the street level to find anything. The tunnel ran roughly north and south, she figured, and though Starlight's scent was more to the southeast, she walked north, heading upstream and constantly smelling for wafts of fresh air.
The tunnel branched uncontrollably, and Valey avoided small or waterless passages like the plague, knowing the only way she'd be able to find her way back was by following the river and always turning downstream. She never found grates to the world above, though, and as her hunger mounted again, so did her frustration. It felt like she was wandering in circles, making no progress and...
Valey blinked, stopping short. Did she hear voices?
She pressed an ear against the brick wall; someone was definitely talking nearby. She couldn't make out the words, or even how many voices there were, but they were close... There. In the ceiling above her, slightly behind where she stood, was a trapdoor, a sheet of wood covering a hole in the roof and forming the floor above.
Taking the sound stone and stowing it in her saddlebags, Valey swam up the wall, noticing now that the faintest trickles of light filtered down through the boards. She reached the underside of the trapdoor, evaluating it and determining she could get through, but stopped to listen further, just in case.
"...Unfair, is what it is!" an angry male voice was saying, hoofsteps resonating that suggested someone was pacing. "Everlaste should pay for this, or Gyre should take care of her, or... something! But now if I keep my job, I'll have to travel and she won't be able to come with, or I could quit it and... and..."
"There, there, Kouskous," a grandfatherly voice consoled. "Such are the dangers one acknowledges when taking up this line of work. Now that you have someone to take care of, action will help more than anger, and the best action you can take is to ensure neither of you come to any more harm. If you drop out now and choose not to renew your contract, they will let you stay here, and you can ensure that you remain in good health yourself and find a new life."
"But... it's Stormhoof!" the voice Valey supposed was Kouskous protested. "Seven generations, Grandpapa! All of my family history..." A pause. "I can't stand their culture, either. So much snooting about. And their attitudes toward sarosians..."
Valey perked in interest. "Are how much different from our own, my boy?" the other voice finished. "Gyre is filled with rural creatures who need someone to be beneath them so they do not feel they are the bottom of the Empire's barrel. Stormhoof is filled with those at the top, who need someone beneath them so they continue to feel comfortable. And there are still no laws here preventing you from treating whomever you please however you like."
Kouskous sighed. "I still don't know what kind of work a backwater unicorn like me could get, staying in a place like this. You watch. I'd sign off, and the moment I did... Nothing but scraps. How would I take care of her then, Grandpapa?"
"That may be true," the grandfather admitted. "But I think your horn is good enough to find something. Perhaps you could even become a teleporter. Remember, there are many occupations here that don't exist out on the edgelands."
"A teleporter!?" Kouskous sounded indignant. "Grandpapa! The whole point of quitting would be so that I could not travel! It's not like she could-"
"Unnnnnngh..." A third, female voice weakly groaned to life. "Kouskous, don't worry about me... I'll be back in action in..." She trailed off.
"Ho! The sweet lady wakes!"
Kouskous snorted. "She does, and I'm still horribly ticked they left her here to recover instead of a hospital. Not even going to check if she's all right. Dazzle! Please, talk to me!"
"Ow..." Dazzle faintly moaned. "Hurts..."
"You have multiple fractures and breaks, as well as quite a bit of head trauma and swelling, young one," the older voice consoled. "You've been seen to by doctors, and they repaired your head and ribcage as best as they were able, and you should be safe from internal injury. Your legs and wings have been set and left to heal manually, so try not to move and tell us if you need anything. And if it's any consolation, Wallace Whitewing visited the stallion who did this to you with that famous retribution of his, so you have been avenged."
"Mmmm... Thanks, Grandpapa..."
Valey decided she had heard enough. Feeling no danger on her flanks and hanging under the trapdoor, she reached a hoof out from the shadows and rapped, figuring these were ponies it might help to get acquainted with.
There was a brief flurry of commotion in the room above the trapdoor in the seconds after Valey knocked, before Kouskous's voice sounded from just above it. "Who goes there?" he demanded. "And what are you doing in the Stormhoof sewers?"
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked. She had completely forgotten to set up a speech, but fortunately, improvisation was what she was best at. "Just a random passer-by. I kinda have to snoop around here to get around town since they're not cool with batponies up top, and you guys were being noisy and I maybe sort of overheard some stuff about how nasty this place is and felt like commiserating?"
That did the trick. A hazel aura surrounded the door, casting light and sending Valey dropping back to the ground, and with a swish of moving carpet, it was cleared and lifted aside. The brownish-yellow face of a young stallion peered down at her with distrusting eyes, appraised her for several long seconds, and finally nodded and waved for her to come up.
Valey coiled her legs and sprung, making the jump without too much difficulty. The ponies in the room above were suspicious at worst, and she landed on a stone floor surrounded by brick walls and a stone ceiling that really didn't look that much different from the sewer, except that it was brightly lit from each corner by collections of glowing orbs held in glass vases. Small and square, the quarters held a bed with two bunks, a large wooden trunk for storage, and not much else. Rusty iron rings were bolted high up on one wall, anchors for missing shackles and suggesting the room had once been a dungeon.
"Hi," Valey said, glancing around, noting the stallion, Kouskous, and a silver pegasus on the bottom bunk with all four legs in freshly-applied casts, both wings bound carefully to her sides.
"Hello yourself," an elderly voice said, and she spun to see a dark stallion who had somehow escaped her notice rocking gently in a chair next to one of the lamps. "Everyone calls me Grandpapa, and you can, too," he welcomed, showing pointed fangs and red slitted eyes... Another batpony, Valey realized with a slight rush. "To what do we owe your presence, my dear?"
"And I'm Kouskous, and this is Dazzle," Kouskous added, looking slightly nervous about letting the older pony do the talking.
"Snazzy." Valey winked. "I'm Valey. First off, do you have anything to eat? And drink? I'm new in the area and have had just a little trouble finding dudes who will sell me stuff. I can pay." She tugged out her stolen pirate purse and popped forth a gold coin.
Kouskous's jaw dropped. "You offered to pay a whole entire bite for a meal? And you still couldn't find anyone who'd take you? I would've at least thought some ponies would set their prejudice aside for money..."
"Or maybe she simply had bad luck," Grandpapa countered, slowly rocking with his eyes closed, a thick folded blanket in his lap. "We have food. If you want to pay that much for it, I'm sure Kouskous would appreciate it, though you should know that coin is worth quite a bit more than what you're giving it for."
Valey shrugged. "I dunno how much it's worth; I just stole it from a pirate. If you want it, take it. Better than the rest of the bozos in this place deserve." She idly tossed them three coins and several more pieces of silver, wondering if she should have left Senescey with the same and slightly curious as to just how rich she actually was.
"Seriously?" Kouskous blinked, catching the coins in his aura and staring at them. "You're just giving us all this money? Practically for free?"
"Call it a token of friendship and say you guys are now on my side." Valey glanced between the three of them, but Dazzle seemed to have fallen back asleep.
Grandpapa chuckled. "That, my dear, depends on exactly what you want us to do. You're welcome to share our room and supplies, but if you've a cause to champion, I'm afraid our hooves are already bound. You certainly won't see any disgruntlement with such a generous gift, however."
"Yeah..." Kouskous pointed a hoof, slipping the coins to the bottom of the wooden trunk. "Who are you, anyway? Practically no one just walks around the sewers doing things like that. And you'd know, wouldn't you, Grandpapa?"
"I have a feeling the answer will be that she's hungry," Grandpapa wisely answered, nodding. "Get her something! And yes, the sewers have been home to all sorts of everything over the years, but it's rude to speak with your mouth full, and introductions run both ways." He raised an eyebrow at Valey, not nearly as bushy as she'd expect from someone his age. "If you're at a loss for how to take care of yourself in Stormhoof and don't know how much your money's worth, I'd wager you don't know who we are, either, do you?"
Valey watched eagerly as Kouskous rummaged around, humming nonchalantly. "Sounded like mercenaries, or something? Let's go with 'not really'."
"Ho ho." Grandpapa shook his head. "Not quite, though our job has many of the skillsets, benefits and drawbacks entailed." He folded his forehooves on his lap, flapping his wings once and refolding them. "We are fighters who enter the War of a Thousand, hired on behalf of the province of Gyre. We receive a sum up front, and a substantial windfall upon winning, though by contract we grant the true prize to our house's lord in exchange. Many fight for their wishes, or for glory, but we do it simply to make a living."
"Mrmmmmph?" Valey tipped her head, mouth full of something she couldn't identify that tasted decent and wasn't dangerous.
"The War of a Thousand?" Kouskous glanced back at her. "You don't know about that either? It goes by so many names, I'm not even sure ours is correct, but it's a massive fighting tournament that takes place in the Empire every year. There are four rounds and one champion, and the victor gets to have a wish granted by Garsheeva herself. You can't quite ask for anything, like the extermination of the entire continent, but she is a goddess, so there's still more than you can imagine she can get you."
Valey swallowed, clearing her mouth. "A fighting tournament? And you get whatever you want for winning? Seriously?" She blinked. "Don't suppose they give, uhhh..." Taking another nibble, she scratched her head. "What are those things that let you get into the Plains of Harmony?"
"A Writ of Harmonic Sanction?" Grandpapa asked with interest. "Oh, they definitely do. In fact, it's common enough for winners to choose that as their prize that the palace keeps one on hoof at all times, just in case it is chosen. The last one was given out not six years ago, I believe."
"You're not thinking of entering, are you?" Kouskous frowned at her, perfectly reading her eyes. "I know that look. Everyone gets it when they first hear the word 'anything'. But it's brutal out there. You don't just get to be the best warrior in the continent for nothing... Nay, the entire world. There are yaks that come to fight, and distinguished Varsidelian war heroes. The three of us are good enough that Gyre hired us because they thought we had a shot, and look what happened to Dazzle in her very first battle of the year over there." He shook his head at the unconscious pegasus on the bed. "Last year someone carded her first battle of the second round, and year before she barely missed the cut getting out of pools. Best I've ever done was reach the first fight of the third round, and I got hopelessly routed because I had a bad seed. Grandpapa has been to the fourth round multiple times, but he's been working this for decades."
"Eh..." Valey sized him up, deciding she was no longer in immediate danger of starvation. "I dunno, I'm pretty tough..."
It wasn't even particularly good bait, and a flicker in Kouskous's eyes betrayed what he was about to do half a second before her cutie mark even flared. But the stallion was standing right beside her, and when his leg came up in a trick shot intending to break her guard, Valey was already moving.
"Yaaaaaugh!" Slipping sideways, muscles cramping as she spun, she rotated around him, getting one hoof beneath his chest at just the right angle to lift his foreleg from below. Already mid-kick, Kouskous was hoisted, spun, and dropped upside-down before he could so much as blink.
"What the...?" He panted, flat on his back, eyes wide as he watched Valey staring down at him.
Whud! Suddenly, without even looking over her shoulder, Valey lifted a forehoof and angled herself slightly sideways. Grandpapa hit her with remarkable speed, jetting out of his chair with a limber hoofstrike far belying his old age, but Valey took the blow, rolled with it and held fast enough to grab and take him with her before he could get away. Now smug, she glanced over both stallions, prone and vulnerable on the floor.
"Truly remarkable," Grandpapa wheezed. "Your reflexes border nearly on prescience! For the first time, I'm at a loss as to how someone saw me coming..."
"Heh." Valey smirked. "So, not to get distracted with this tournament thing, because I seriously have other stuff to take care of and it's kind of a pipe dream, but still think I don't stand a chance?"
"Well, you'd certainly stand a better chance than either of us, my dear," Grandpapa chuckled, getting back to his hooves and offering a wing to help Kouskous do the same. "Provided, of course, you were willing to wait a year to get in on the next one. This year's has already begun, I'm afraid."
Valey blinked, her sails completely robbed of their wind. "A year!?" she whined in surprise, ears falling. That was what Yakyakistan needed to give them passage for free! "I'm pretty sure I won't still be around here then..."
"Technically-" Kouskous raised a hoof.
"No." Grandpapa firmly cut him off. "I know what you're going to say, and you know how I'm going to answer. Best not to even begin planting the seeds of bad ideas in this one's head."
"Buh?" Valey perked up again in interest. "Hey, so there is a way in? Getting conflicting messages, here."
Grandpapa sighed. "You'll take a refusal of information as a challenge to figure it out for yourself, won't you? Very well... Suffice it to say that this tournament is, in essence, an event put on for the entertainment of commoners and nobles. There are strict rules to contend with, but cheating creates drama, and could be considered one of the tenets of the tournament altogether. So yes, there are ways for you get a shot at this year's prize... ways that are unlawful, immoral, and that I will ask you personally and politely not to look into because you succeeding with them would be a great disservice to the public image of our race, which is an image I assure you needs no further tarnishing. Have I sufficiently dissuaded you yet?" He raised a dangerous eyebrow.
"Uhhhh..." Valey took a careful step back, weighing his words. On the one hoof, they were just extreme and targeted toward her own dislikes enough to tick her hyperbole detector, but that meant he had a hidden motive he didn't want to say to her face. On the other, she really did have more pressing things to worry about, didn't want to put her safety or reputation on the line for Gerardo's goal, and would get the same best outcome by waiting a year for Yakyakistan in the first place. "Sure thing, Gramps," she decided, rolling her shoulders and sitting back down. "So you guys are straight and true, then?"
"We fight for our own reasons," Kouskous said. "For Dazzle and me, it's a way of making money. You know where Gyre is, right? Long, flat province that makes up the eastern half of the border with the Misty Mountains up north? It's kind of the middle of nowhere. Lots of mainlanders see it as practically bat country, or not even part of the Empire. Opportunities are slim, and the smartest, strongest, and most importantly lucky rise. Our ruling lord, Gondolus Gyre, is ambitious and wants to see the province earn its respect among the others, but that hasn't done much for the common folk. We're just fortunate to be talented in a scrap." He nodded to the elder stallion. "Grandpapa, now, his past is a mystery. He's from the Misty Mountains and came to Gyre when he was young, but... well, see how much he feels like telling you."
Grandpapa glanced across the bed where Dazzle lay, grumbling deep in his throat. "A long time ago, I was an acolyte in service of the Night Mother. But there was an incident that caused me to lose faith, and so I left the northern lands for the Empire. Better to be looked down upon than pitied, I supposed, and I was tired of well-meaning attempts to convince me to return to my ways. Here, at least, my worth is judged on my own power, and likely will be until the day I die."
Kouskous nodded. "That's about it."
"Heh." Valey stiffly rubbed her neck. "Well, I know basically nothing about this Night Mother, so you won't get heckling from me. Sounds like she's pretty popular with other batponies, though?"
"Oh, she is. And I don't begrudge them for it." Grandpapa walked around the wooden trunk where their belongings were stored, his wings restless at his sides. "It's far too easy to feel on your own in a world this wide and uncaring, and she is a friendly voice you can seek council from any night you please. Those who think they can go without her are quite hardy indeed."
Valey tipped her head. "Hold on. I thought you said you lost faith?"
"There is a difference between believing someone exists and exalting them in worship," Grandpapa said. "A very big one. I believe you exist, after all, yet it would surprise me greatly if you were some mythical creature descended from the heavens, or anything other than an unusually skilled ordinary sarosian."
Valey nearly choked from the irony, and only saved herself from making a reaction with the sudden cold fear that he might actually be fishing for one. Mysterious past, and all that... Who knew what he knew? She flexed a foreleg instead, grimacing slightly as it reminded her that she had walked quite a few miles that day after a poor night's rest. "I mean, if you think this is only worth being called 'unusually skilled'..."
"Ho! Well, I'll let you describe your proficiencies." If Grandpapa had been fishing, he didn't show any sign of disappointment. Instead, he waited half a second before narrowing his eyes in concern. "And... not to pry, but I've been watching you, and there's something off about the way you hold yourself, my dear. I recall you speaking poorly of the city when you arrived... You aren't by any chance injured, are you, my dear?"
"Buh?" Valey blinked and stretched again, feeling the massive knots in her sides where her wings attached and the broken looseness in her legs that promised they'd hurt in the morning. "Injured, no, but I'm stupidly cramped and kinda tired..."
"Cramps, you say." Grandpapa was again at her side faster than any old pony had a right to be moving, holding out the tentative tips of his wings. "Permission to touch you, my dear? I've been in this line of work long enough to know a thing or two about pony muscle anatomy."
"I'd strongly advise it," Kouskous recommended. "Grandpapa is practically a professional. He always knows how to fix me or Dazzle up if we get roughed up during training or a match. If you're all knotted up, he should be able to fix you in a snap."
Valey blinked at the other batpony, realizing what he was asking to do. "Uh, sure," she agreed, sensing nothing bad from her cutie mark. "I mean, you already tried to punch me. Just keep it clean, okay? You're not really my type."
In a flash, Valey found herself belly-down on the wooden trunk, legs and wings splayed, being thoroughly and carefully checked over. Grandpapa progressively frowned harder and harder, finally poking her repeatedly in the sides and leaning over. "Whatever did you do to yourself, my dear?" he asked in blatant concern. "I can't imagine how you could fly with knots like these."
"Ow," Valey groaned, already tenser after being prodded with his sharp wingtips. "Spent a night semi-wet in a cave smaller than this box with a rainstorm right in front of my nose after flying without rests all day, then also flew without rests the entire next day before hiding and holding still for several hours on some boats, then walked like a billion miles and crawled through a ridiculously small pipe, and also punched a few bozos... all while probably still recovering from getting heavily dunked on a few weeks ago..."
Grandpapa clicked his tongue in disapproval. "I'd say I'm appalled at you for fighting and pushing yourself with your body in this condition, but in times and places like these, I understand you have to do it anyway. I am feeling slightly worse over that impromptu test of skill earlier, though, and hope you can forgive us for it."
"Are you kidding, Grandpapa?" Kouskous looked shocked. "She beat both of us that handily when we had the element of surprise and were working together while effectively disabled and without flight, shadow sneaking of her full range of motion even as options?"
"Told you I'm tough," Valey grunted, wincing as both of Grandpapa's wingtips dug into a mass of tense muscle just beneath her left wing joint. "Ow! Hey, that's..."
Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, her side spasmed involuntarily, twitching rapidly like a spring that had been released and was bouncing with stored energy. After a second of shudders, it drained, and Valey felt a local relaxation so strong her body felt like it would curl from the difference in tension between her two sides. "Yo, what did you do?"
"Put my skills to good use," Grandpapa chuckled, standing back and watching her flap her wing experimentally. "I don't advise doing any more stunts before getting a good night's rest, but let me work a little on the rest of you and see what I can make happen. I promise it'll be worth your while."
Valey nodded, moaned, and shifted as he went to untangle her other wing, relishing being able to move the one without her entire back locking up. As she did, Kouskous walked around into her field of vision, tilting his head. "So," he began, "we told you who we are. How about a bit of information about yourself, then? I'd like to know who I just got my tail hoofed to me by."
"Nyaaaaaah..." Valey groaned as her other wing came undone, wriggling slightly on the wooden trunk top. "Not a crazy lot to say. I was coming in on a ship with some friends, got separated, had to fly the rest of the way... Trying to find them, and pretty sure they're in this castle somewhere. You know anything about a griffon named Kero?"
Kouskous nodded unhappily. "He's all over the news after something happened in Ironridge. Sounds like a bit of a braggart to me. You know him?"
"Bananas." Valey hissed, realizing Amber had been right about who the griffon in the news really was. "Uhh... let's go with maybe. For a different reason, though. Better question: you know where I could find him?"
Kouskous rubbed his chin. "Perhaps. As far as I know, there's two good ways you could go about looking for him, and it depends on what you know and want him for." He stopped, expecting an answer Valey didn't want to give.
"Uhhh..." She glanced away. "What are my options?"
"Fine, then," Kouskous sighed. "Way number one is Wallace Whitewing. Both him and Kero are from Izvaldi, so they probably know each other. Wallace is participating in pools right now... We're in lodging beneath the stadium where the tournament's first round is taking place, just so you know. He's staying somewhere fancier, but if you wait around for tomorrow and hang out in the crowd, there's a small chance you could get his attention. He might even come visit us, since apparently he was watching when Dazzle got her game ended and felt bad over it."
Valey nodded. "Wallace Whitewing. Might have heard the name, don't remember. Way number two?"
Kouskous swallowed. "If you're feeling risky and in a hurry, or if Kero wouldn't want to meet you, you could always try to sneak your way to him. These sewer tunnels are connected to just about everything, including the castle. Grandpapa?"
"That's very true," Grandpapa murmured, having moved on to Valey's shoulders. "You can get just about anywhere from the sewers, including the main castle itself, if you know how to shadow sneak. I've been staying in these rooms during tournaments for so many decades I practically know the layout of the entire city! If it's truly what you want, I could take you as far as an entrance to the castle, but from there, you'd be on your own."
"Huh." Valey licked her lips; that sounded much more appealing. It would involve getting past guards and sneaking a lot, but she'd be reliant on nothing but herself, and if her wings were working... "Yeah, let's go with that. Feeling up to the trip, Gramps?"
"Oh, I might be." Grandpapa flashed a faint smile. "The question will be when you want me to stop this so we can leave."
Grandpapa accompanied her, leading the way. Kouskous remained behind to watch over Dazzle, and because he'd be at a disadvantage without wings or shadow sneaking of his own. Valey wasn't sure how she was feeling after her tune-up; on the one hoof, she had her full range of motion back, could fly, and wasn't constantly bordering on pain. On the other, she felt wrung out like a sponge, loose and floppy and badly in need of a nap. If she got into a fight, she wasn't sure how much power she'd be able to put behind her punches, and pressing on was a thing she did out of necessity rather than it being the smart choice for her own physical well-being.
"And we'll turn left right around here..." Grandpapa muttered, holding a magical light out before him like a ward and trotting along with an aged grace. They had long since left the flowing sewer water behind, spelunking through a dark network of tunnels that involved everything from brick-lined access passages to sneaking through cracks in crumbling concrete walls to traversing partially-flooded cellars that had been sealed off and left in the dark, built over by new construction. It was like the whole island was hollow, and sometimes Valey even saw treasure chests, their lids ajar after being used for storage by some rogue or underground dweller countless years ago.
"Just how big is this place?" Valey whispered as if there was something waiting in the darkness to hear, flicking her ears in response to the sound of water dripping from a pipe.
"Bigger than you're thinking," Grandpapa replied, voice as soft as always. "This city is over a thousand years old, and has been completely rebuilt three times over the course of history following damage in battle or the ambitions of lords, not to mention various small changes. There is another layer of tunnels below this one, and if you went up, you would find entire underground houses that were once buried for the construction of streets or greater buildings. Magic is used to strengthen the city's foundation and keep it solid as a fortress, and these catacombs are simply left behind and forgotten by all but those who need them."
Valey nodded, keeping a close watch on her cutie mark. "Like us and who else? I haven't seen anyone..."
"Oh, I'm taking care to avoid any more popular spots." Grandpapa grinned. "But this also isn't the season for it. In the next few months, however, as the tournament enters its second and third rounds..."
Swallowing, Valey lowered her head and ducked under a beam that had partially detached from a roof. "Yeah, so about that tournament... You really don't want me messing with it this year? That's not just because you think I'd stomp your odds at winning, right? There's something seriously bad I should stay away from?"
"No, no." Grandpapa shook his head. "I'm too old to make it far anyway. The days of progressing in the third round are decades behind me, and all I have is experience to make up for my frail body. An answer for an answer, though, if you wouldn't mind?" He raised an eyebrow.
"...'Kay," Valey tentatively offered, waiting to see what he asked. "What do you want to know?"
"That pendant around your neck." Grandpapa pointed a hoof. "That's a cursed stone, isn't it? Why do you wear such a fell object?"
Valey folded her ears. "Family heirloom. It... reminds me of a pony who was important to me."
Grandpapa looked concerned. "You know what it can do, don't you?"
Valey perfectly met his gaze, hard and serious. "Do you?"
"Yes." Grandpapa turned away, progressing past a dead control panel for some machine or other with the glass on the dials cracked and all the levers broken off. "And I can see in your eyes that you do too. Not all sarosians do, but you should know that those who do will recognize it instantly, and when they see you wear it, their reactions could be anything."
"Okay..." Valey followed him, hoof slipping on a bit of crumbled stone. "So about this tournament thing..."
Grandpapa didn't even look back. "Garsheeva is a goddess," he said. "The Night Mother is too, or so they say. What do you think it is that makes someone a goddess?"
"...Buh?" Valey tipped her head, the question not quite registering in her brain. "What do you mean? And what's that have to do with anything?"
"Oh, just my unique perspective on life." Grandpapa sounded perfectly cheery, as if he was discussing the weather. "Answer as best as you can. What do you think defines a goddess?"
"I dunno." Valey shrugged. "Being a cute mare? I mean, I don't particularly care about either of them. 'Cause that's just the way things are? Or... wait, because a ton of ponies are happy to say they are?" She flinched under his stare, feeling like she was being unfairly tested. "Don't look at me! I rely on myself to get along!" Hesitating, she added, "And my friends, when I have them."
Grandpapa chuckled. "Don't be upset, now. That question flusters a lot of creatures whose job it is to know things like this. Some will say the definition is, by definition, beyond our comprehension. Others say it is anyone sufficiently powerful, though that leaves open the question of how to determine whether an edge case is sufficient. Garsheeva's answer is that if anyone would like to contest her for the position, they're more than welcome to try. But hold on, I am going somewhere with this: the best answer I have heard is to suppose you take a criminal who has done bad things. But, they are also alive, and have the capacity to do both good and evil. Should they be spared, or condemned? Having the right to decide that is what makes someone a goddess."
Valey felt her eyes cross in confusion. "Buh? Gramps... I'm not a philosopher and have no idea what you just said. Don't you think you might be being all mysterious and special and stuff to the wrong pony? I just eat fruit, take naps, beat people up and fight for my friends, and that's about it."
"Well, if you're sure." Grandpapa sighed, jumped down into a dry canal for draining water, and passed through a grate where it entered a wall. "I'm getting the picture that you don't sense the gravity of this situation, but the price for entering the tournament in the challenger rounds is this: you must judge other ponies. And putting yourself on such a high pedestal is a perilous thing to do indeed for those who do not wish to become monsters."
Valey shuddered at his choice of wording and scowled. "You know what? Just forget it. It sounds like you're saying I need to do jury duty to get in, or something, and okay, that's apparently super boring, but... Meh. You're terrible at talking ponies out of things. Now I'm annoyed, and probably just gonna ask someone else. Stinking cryptic grandpas..."
"In my defense, you were the one who brought it back up." Grandpapa shrugged. "All I can say for myself is that my beliefs are strong and influenced by things the average pony, or even sarosian, does not get the chance to experience."
"Stop it!" Valey snapped. "I'm not going to ask about your mysterious past!"
"Good!" Grandpapa smiled. "I wouldn't tell you."
"Grrrrr..." Valey pouted, walking over a grate that looked like it led even deeper below. What if he was winding her up on purpose? Getting her to stop paying attention to her surroundings? Was she getting played? She hadn't told him what her cutie mark did, and didn't sense abnormal danger...
They rounded a spiral staircase that looked like part of a sunken, leaning tower, crossing a hanging metal catwalk over a room strewn with large rubble and a river rushing from several open culverts all across the floor. Grandpapa took wing, soaring to the largest of the concrete tunnels, a pipe just large enough that a pony could stand with bowed head. He landed on the top that protruded from the wall, motioning Valey over.
"Yeah?" She hovered in front of it, looking in dubiously. "Please don't tell me you want me to go in there."
"Oh, nothing so rash," Grandpapa assured her, climbing on top of a hidden ledge that wasn't visible from the catwalk and proceeding into a proper passage in the wall, disguised by the pattern of bricks. A bend to the left, then a fork to the right, dead end... No, it was a wall with the mortar missing, and she could probably shadow sneak through the cracks.
Grandpapa pointed a hoof. "This is as far as I go. Through there, you'll be in a lesser-used dungeon. You'll want to stick within the central keep and avoid flying outdoors, since all the aerial entrances are watched carefully by guards, and also brightly lit. If you're looking for Kero... my general advice would be to go up!"
Valey raised her nose and sniffed. Starlight was almost directly above her, too.
"Thanks, Gramps," she said, nodding, making sure her cutie mark wasn't warning of anything on the other side. "If this works out and I run into you again, I'll give you a watermelon, or something."
Grandpapa chuckled, turning away. "I haven't the faintest idea what that's slang for these days, but good luck to you, too. And do think about what I told you some time."
Without responding, Valey took a breath, coiled her legs, and dove into the wall.
The central keep's dungeon wasn't as damp as Valey had expected. Cleaner than the tunnels she had just slunk through, it lacked the faint odor of mold and crumbled debris laying on the ground or brushed aside in the corners. The large bricklike slabs making up the walls were finely cut and fitted, and some even had engravings in swirls or patterns she assumed were pointless. Under an arch, around a corner and past two empty sconces, she found light filtering down a stairway, not a guard in sight.
Valey took the steps three at a time, keeping her body low to the ground in case she needed to hide. Now she was in a storeroom of sorts, wide and high with rafters for hanging things and just enough illumination for her to see easily by. The floor was a maze of crates, sacks and barrels, and she skidded through as quickly as possible: no guards meant easy progress.
Her still-wobbly limbs betrayed her, though, as she rounded a corner, tripping over a sack and sending its contents spilling out over the floor as she crashed head over heels into a wall. "Oww..." she groaned, sitting up and rubbing her head. That had made too much noise. Someone would be by to investigate...
Click! Just as she predicted, a door opened, spilling a wide column of light in at the far side of the room. "Oy!" a fancy voice she imagined belonged to someone very fat barked. "Worthington, I heard that! Are you slackin' off in here again!?"
"What?" a further-away voice shouted from beyond the door. "I'm kneading this dough like you started me on two hours ago! Don't point your talons at me!"
"Somethin' must've fallen over, then," the first voice muttered aloud. "It's clearly your fault for stackin' it poorly! Finish those pastry shells so they can chill for tomorrow's banquet, then find what fell and clean it up before you leave for the night! And if it's liquid, oh, you'll be sorry then..."
Amid another shouted complaint, the door shut again, and Valey simultaneously perked and relaxed. Pastry shells? What was this, the kitchens?
Sniffing her way back to where the bag fell, she picked up something tubular and vaguely curved... zucchini? Not something she wanted to eat raw, but cooked into the proper dish... Valey licked her lips and passed on that. Imagining food would only make her more hungry.
Still, she was apparently in the keep's food cellar, and if Worthington got yelled at for her thievery, she supposed that was a price he'd have to pay. A five-minute scrounging session later, she had filled the empty space in her saddlebags with fruit, not nearly as fresh as she was used to in Ironridge but more than enough to keep her going. It was time to press on.
The only ways out of the storeroom seemed to be the dungeons, the kitchens, and a big, tightly-sealed door she presumed led out of the keep to a loading dock somewhere. That was likely to be guarded and the wrong way, so the kitchens it was.
Bright overhead lights forced Valey out of the shadows the moment she slipped under the kitchen door. She was at the bottom of a small stair flight, so no one would see her unless they stood directly at the top and looked down, but now she had to get past ponies and couldn't use one of her primary advantages. Relying on her cutie mark instead, she crept to the top, ensuring no one was looking and folding her ears just in case before peeking into the kitchens proper.
She was at one end of a long, narrow rectangular room that during daylight hours or crunch time could fit dozens of chefs, divided into three main aisles by two rows of tables in the center and a ring of counters and ovens around the edge. The exit door was at the far end, and the tables had gaps between them where she could hide on her way across. Two heads poked up above the countertops; a grandiose griffon in a mountainous white hat, and what was probably Worthington, a harried-looking apprentice focusing heavily on a counter. Two of them, and three aisles to sneak down...
Valey went for it. Worthington was focused enough that he didn't always glance around the room, and his superior was so short that she only saw his hat except when he straightened up to look around. Unfortunately, he was moving busily, so every time she prepared to run another table-length she had to wait for their gazes to pass, then check again to see where he was. One table at a time, she made progress, sliding into safety and passing numerous doors to the sides. Composting, another storeroom, water purification system... Eventually, she passed by the head chef's hat, now closer to the exit than he was. Yes!
"Who comes to my kitchen at this hour!?" the head chef bellowed.
Valey froze. In her haste, she had forgotten to check the chef now that she was ahead of him! She had to bail. Stretching her wings and figuring she'd just outfly the chef, she launched herself into the air, streaking toward... and stopped short. Three blue-armored griffon guards were standing in the open far doorway, and it was they who had attracted the chef's attention, but now all four were staring at her with beaks open. Only Worthington remained diligently doing his job.
"A-a street urchin!" the head chef stammered, pointing an aghast talon at Valey, standing on a table and realizing she had goofed. "Planting her muddy hooves on my workspace! How dare she!? Guards, arrest her for treason!"
"...Treason, sir?" The soldiers blinked rapidly. "She may be a rapscallion, sir, but don't you mean trespass?"
Another griffon cooed at her. "Aww... she looks kinda down on her luck. If I was hungry and desperate, I might try something rash... Maybe we could give her a bite and just let her off outside with a warning, or something?"
Valey blinked. "Hey, that sounds nice. I'm for that."
"Treason! Trespass! Whatever!" The head chef whipped out a cleaver nearly as big as he was. "Defilement of my sacred ovens! You know what I mean!"
"Yeah, no." Eyes widening, Valey took off again, darting toward the nearest side door, kicking it open and slipping through.
Immediately, a wall of frost chilled her wing membranes, causing her to lock up and go tumbling to the ground. Where was she, in a freezer? The plaque on the wall read Cold Storage, and from the icicles growing from the ceiling and frost clinging to the surfaces of nearby crates, she quickly realized this wasn't a place she could stay.
Valey quickly glanced around, trying to find a way out before the door banged open again for her to be arrested. The only things she could see were a pair of air ducts at the top of the room... Those had to be used for the cooling apparatus. Which one was the outtake? Maybe she could follow it and punch her way out in a different room?
Forcing her wings to work in the subzero prison, Valey made it to the ceiling, feeling a chill wind blowing into one of the grates. Fortunately, it was dark enough to shadow sneak, and she easily slipped through, crawling her way through a duct that hurt her hooves from cold to walk on. Her steps were noisy, so anyone with ears would be able to trace her...
"She's in the air ducts?" a confused voice from below shouted, confirming her worry. "Wow, she's desperate! Hey, uhh... That goes to the compressor, I think! Or did it get replaced with a talisman? Or the other way around?"
"You don't want to go that way!" another guard shouted. "You'll freeze! Or get magicked, or something! Seriously, how do the air vents in this place work? This wasn't covered in training..."
"Hey, old Moriarty isn't going to cleave you!" the third assured. "Come back? Please? We can't fit in there!"
Fat chance, Valey thought, crawling forward with determination. She rounded a bend... Another intake! How quaint. Mixing warm air with air that was already cold felt like inefficient design, but maybe whoever had built the castle's heating and cooling system had a beef with the lord and wanted to waste energy, or something. It was good for her, so she didn't question it.
Dropping through this grate into another room, Valey landed expertly upright, hoping she wouldn't just have to go back through the kitchen. But no, this seemed a storage closet filled with long, rolling racks of collapsible tables, benches and chairs. Was there a banquet room nearby? She snuck out beneath the door, deciding to figure out.
This room could have been anything from a reception lobby to a ballroom to her suspected banquet hall, depending on its needs. Over three stories high, it had a checkered marble floor and cavernous ribbons of drapes, with double-door exits in every direction possible. Stairways and balconies ringed the walls, high up and higher still, and to her left she saw the open doors to the kitchen, ajar with warm light. Best to get out of there before anyone saw her.
Spreading her wings again and shaking off the last traces of frost, Valey jumped. She made it to the first balcony up before her cutie mark warned her that someone was coming, and she dropped, hiding against the raised platform as the clack of armored talons sounded against the floor below. "You think that vent led out here?" a griffon's voice asked.
"Of course it did, you incompetent excuses!" the head chef, Moriarty, berated, following the guards into the ballroom with his cleaver. "Stop actin' like my kitchens have not been defiled and do your jobs, buffoons! Bring that urchin to justice!"
"She could be anywhere in here," a guard murmured. "Sarosians are good at hiding when it's dark. If you'd stop waving that thing around, maybe she'd stop feeling threatened and come out..."
"My shift just ended for the night, you know," another grumbled. "Moriarty, if you're going to be rude, we're off the clock and can just go home. It's a lone kitchen thief. You think we're going to be paid more for stopping her than the value of what she steals?"
"My honor is priceless!"
Valey rolled her eyes and sighed, taking stock of where she wanted to go next. Hopefully, the chef wouldn't call for reinforcements.
Valey peered down from the shadows of her ballroom balcony, taking stock of the situation as three guards and an angry chef argued about searching for her.
"Foolish imbeciles!" Moriarty berated, waving his cleaver at the blue-armored trio. "Do your jobs and arrest the urchin so that I may return to craftin' great masterpieces for tomorrow's feast!"
"You see the size of this room, right?" a guard questioned, slinking back unhappily. "It's dark, huge, has hanging cover, and did I mention is dark? We don't even know where she is! And there's only four of us!"
"Three of you!" Moriarty furiously corrected, dancing a jig of rage. "You guard! I cook." His facial hair drooped in a stern frown.
"Make that two, because I'm off-duty," another guard added, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just let it go, cook. It's just a sarosian!"
The third guard spread her wings, interrupting and seizing the floor. "No, hold on, I think we can do this. If Moriarty's too angry, he'll ruin whatever he cooks, and I was counting on not having to go grocery shopping tomorrow because of the free meal. Besides, this is almost funny. Funner than listening to my kids argue at home, at least! Everyone's watching the sky, right?"
Much muttering ensued, along with another angry rant from the chef, but the speaking griffon continued. "All we need to do is turn the lights on, and that'll pin the sarosian wherever she is and flush her out. Moriarty, you go get the lights. The three of us will fly around and make sure she doesn't try to fly away before we pinpoint her."
"No!" Moriarty snapped. "You will flee while my back is turned! I guard!"
"But didn't you just say...?" a guard protested feebly.
Valey silently groaned. Was it worth waiting to see if they'd go away? She was hidden for now, but if they succeeded in turning on the lights while she was still in the ballroom, it would be much easier for her to get found. But where was the right way out?
Her balcony had an access door to a hallway that ran outside the ballroom, but a quick peak underneath told her the hall was patrolled by an earnest-looking guard with a light who somehow hadn't heard the commotion outside. Not that way. Sizing up her options for leaving the balcony, there were several nearby marble support columns, a lengthy drape hanging from the ceiling... That would be her best bet, even if her cutie mark warned her that someone might see. Valey dove into the fabric, feeling it swish and betray her with movement even as she sank into its shadowed folds, swimming upward as hard as she could.
"Ahoy!" Moriarty howled from below. "I saw a curtain move, up above! Guards, stop slacking!"
Bananas. She had been seen. Valey doggedly continued her climb, keeping watch for anywhere else she could hide. If only she had a distraction...
"It's just a draft, you blowhard," a guard droned from midair, and Valey winced, realizing at least one was wheeling in search of her. That meant someone else had gone to get the lights... She dropped out of the shadow, flapping and hovering behind the curtain's cover, checking her saddlebags for anything that could act as a distraction. She needed... fruit!
Licking her lips and murmuring a silent apology at the waste of a potentially fine meal, Valey pulled out an apple, kissed it, and hurled it as hard as she could towards one side of the room.
Blash!
The apple exploded against the floor with a crispy splat, instantly attracting Moriarty's attention. "Guards!" he caterwauled. "Stolen evidence! I told you she plundered my stores! She must be this way! Arrest her!"
"It's a distraction," the flying guard boredly said, stopping to watch Moriarty as the enraged chef nevertheless flew straight up from the apple's landing site, vengeance in his eyes. "That means she's anywhere but in that curtain!"
Ironic, Valey thought, because the guard staring at Moriarty meant he was looking the one place he knew she wasn't. She took wing, darting out and streaking for a banner laced along the rooftop, right next to a grand chandelier. The room's highest balcony ran across three exits on the far side, meaning she could slip past any lone guard patrolling them even if he had a light. She just needed to get into that banner and hide... Her cutie mark flared, and she pumped her wings harder, realizing that someone was about to look.
Then the chandelier came ablaze with light.
With a whump of fabric, Valey collided with the now-brightly lit banner, plowing straight through and taking it with her. She hissed, tumbling, trying to throw it off so her wings could get free, her cover thoroughly blown.
"See? There she is," the hovering guard said calmly, folding his forelegs in triumph and not giving chase. "I told you she wasn't in... Hey, what are you doing?"
Valey's cutie mark burned with an even higher spike of danger. "You shall pay for defilin' my kitchen!" Moriarty roared, and she got the tapestry under control just in time to see him charging her face with his cleaver brandished. Making use of the only weapon she held in her hooves, she flung the heavy sheet back at him like a net, entangling him and sending him tumbling groundward.
As he fell, she prepared to run again, eyeing the guard and noticing he was far more interested in Moriarty than her. "Yo, cook..." The guard pointed a talon. "Charging people with a chopping thing like that is a little more against the law than trespassing is. I'm going to need to ask you to calm down..." His eyes widened as Moriarty hacked the ruglike banner to shreds, emerging with his beak open in a screech. "And so is vandalism! I'm pretty sure that was art... Uh, backup?"
Valey saw the other two griffon guards approaching, but Moriarty was fast enough to make her take matters into her own hooves. Readying a zucchini she had taken even though they weren't her favorite, she reared back and flung it like a boomerang, skillfully nailing the chef in the face.
Pow! A double-door at ground level burst open, and a platoon of six much-better-armed griffons with more decorations on their armor marched through. "What's going on in here!?" the leader bellowed, a tall, pompous feathered hat that made Valey green with envy denoting his rank.
"She plundered and defiled my kitchen!" Moriarty rasped, voice hoarse from screeching. "Arrest! Arrest! Arrest!"
"He, uh, just shredded a tapestry and looks like a crazed axe murderer," the hovering guard added. "Don't you guys do background checks when hiring cooks?"
The new squad's leader nodded. "Two troublemakers. Right. Spread out and secure the exits! You there! Surrender immediately!"
"Wuh-oh." Valey glanced to the nearest balcony, which was still a ways away, and briefly contemplated dropping the chandelier on the new squad... but there was no way that could end well, and Moriarty was still on her tail. Folding her wings and diving, she abandoned all pretenses of stealth, aiming for the nearest door out of the ballroom and hoping it led higher into the keep.
Swooooosh! A female griffon in sharp-edged armor cut her off, metallic wing enhancements on the suit looking designed to boost the thrust of anyone strong enough to use them. She was smart enough not to waste her breath on a challenge, and hovered loosely, ready to intercept a feint.
Far too prepared for that trick, Valey bulldozed straight into her. The griffon's heavy armor gave her far too much inertia, and the impact legitimately hurt even though Valey had dodged the sharp edges, but the griffon was unprepared and she was able to flip away and dart past. She didn't try any fancy combat maneuvers to confuse or disable; they would be a lot more interested in hunting her if they thought she was a dangerous fighter as opposed to a fleeing miscreant.
"Hey, this way's out, right?" she asked the griffon, turning around and trying the door... only to find it locked. Her heart tightened; with the lights on, she couldn't shadow sneak through! "I really wanna leave you guys alone and just chill out! Isn't that cool?"
"You'll be given justice and due process," the griffon assured her, realizing she was trapped and waiting for backup to corner her for good. "Please come quietly. This will go a lot better for you if you're innocent and don't resist!"
"Uh huh..." Valey swallowed and nodded as another joined her. She still needed a way out... and then one presented itself in the form of Moriarty barreling at them from behind with his cleaver, intent on her alone and somehow having given his own pursuers the slip. "Yo, behind you!" she warned, trying to sound as earnest as possible.
"We're not-" CLANGGG!
"Do your jobs and arrest her, imbeciles!" Moriarty panted, looking far more exerted than was healthy for a griffon of his constitution. "Or get out of my way!"
The hit guard toppled, stunned by the ringing in her helmet after contact with the back of Moriarty's now-dented cleaver, a fact which didn't seem to bother the chef at all. The other guard hesitated, glanced at them with clear surprise, and chose to catch his comrade, leaving Moriarty charging at Valey.
Planting herself expertly, she rolled out of the way at the last second, and the choppy griffon hit the doors instead. The locks and hinges were designed to withstand only polite company, and they splintered, the wooden panels tearing themselves from the walls as Moriarty became entangled in his own mess. That was Valey's cue to leave.
"Okay! Bye!" She slipped through a hole in the wreckage he had created, grabbing his cleaver and hurling it to the side along the balcony for good measure. Best he choose between getting that back and following her if she stood the chance of running into civilians later on.
The hallway Valey found herself in had a guard on patrol, but his back was to her, and he was too startled to even attempt stopping her as she shot past. "Watch out behind you!" she warned, seriously wondering if the chef was making enough of a nuisance of himself that everyone would forget about her or let her off easily.
She didn't detect him immediately on her tail, but with that many bigger guards potentially close behind, she couldn't rest to carefully assess the situation. There was too much adrenaline for her to concentrate on small changes to her cutie mark, so she simply flapped and flew, hoping the chaos would fall down on her side if it came down to a question of who had done what and figuring all guards could be handled like the last one had.
Small, arched windows lined the outer side of the hallway's curve, showcasing a starry sky outside. Valey grumbled, remembering that her ultimate destination was up and Grandpapa's assertion that all aerial entrances to the keep would be guarded. These ones certainly weren't, and it wasn't like she had avoided attracting the attentions of guards anyway... but she also wasn't even sure she should be looking for Starlight and her friends with this much heat on her. What would she even do once she found them?
Lights warmed to life in the corridor as someone turned on the power, reminding her that this was no time for stalling. She needed to get somewhere where no one would find her, fast, but if she left the keep, who knew if increased security would make it even harder to get back in again? And the rest of the castle island was little better; she'd have to fly all the way to land...
The corridor forked, one path continuing around the ballroom and one extending outwards in an enclosed bridge to a separate, smaller high tower a short distance away. Valey quickly weighed her options and decided if anyone thought she was a high-profile thief or criminal, they'd be more likely to assume she stayed in the bigger keep. Across the bridge she went.
Night air blew in the windows on one side and out the other, rushing across her back in a cool tide that made a welcome aide to her endurance. Panting, she slid into the smaller tower's foyer, scanning the unlit room for cover...
"Hello," a startled voice remarked to her right. "What's got you in such a rush?"
Valey whirled, blinked, saw the guard, and internally groaned. That was one of the weaknesses in her cutie mark: it didn't throw up red flags for neutral parties just because they would be more inclined to take her enemies' side in a fight. She had been going way too fast to catch that kind of subtle difference.
"Uhh..." She swallowed, throat dry, debating knocking him out then and there, but that would be a bad idea. "Look, there's a crazy guy with an axe flying around the ballroom, and he might be coming this way! I was-"
The guard's eyes widened, and he instantly flung a mechanical lever she hadn't seen against the wall. Clang! Heavy grated bars sprang up from the floor, blocking off the entrance Valey had just come through.
She glanced back at the now-sealed bridge, once again employing a method of security utterly ineffective against batponies, and licked her lips. "Uhh...?"
"Thank you for sounding the alarm," the griffon managed, looking slightly more nervous than one of his profession should. "You're welcome to wait here, citizen, or there's a guardhouse three floors up that should be more secure..." He gestured toward a grand staircase leading up. "I must rouse His Highness's guards in the name of defense!"
Valey blinked rapidly. Not only had she ran into another creature who didn't hate batponies, but she had somehow accidentally switched sides and was now under the guards' protection? The Griffon Empire made her head hurt, but she was far too opportunistic not to roll with it. "Oh, bananas, thanks..." she panted, making a show of relaxing and jumping for the staircase. "I owe you!"
She charged up the staircase next to the guard, marveling at his gullibility and lack of suspicion even though she was telling the truth. This was like the time she snuck into Karma Industries and pulled the fire alarm just to see what would happen!
The next floor had two guards, and both looked more suspicious and better prepared than the first. "Wot's going on?" one growled in a deep baritone.
"This citizen says there's an axe murderer on the loose!" the first guard informed them with wide eyes. "I barred the tower and thought to raise the alarm!"
"An axe murderer?" the other new guard asked incredulously. "In Stormhoof? That's preposterous! Why, that sarosian could be an assassin planning to axe His Majesty herself, playing us all for fools!"
Valey rolled her eyes, realizing quick acting was needed. "Yeah, I've got a billion axes in here. Look, you can have my packs if you want 'em, I just don't want to lose my head..." She slipped her saddlebags off and emptied them over the ground, expertly maneuvering with her wing in the process to move Amber's sound stone to her hat without anyone seeing. Three pieces of fruit and the golden card from the bar slipped out, tumbling to the ground. "See? Lunch and some weird thing a hobo gave me in a bar."
All three griffons recoiled. "Kindly put that back where it belongs, if you please!" the deep-voiced one requested. "I have no interest in being tricked into accepting a such magnet for trouble!"
Valey blinked. "What, this golden-"
Clang! With a primal screeching, something metal struck the bars blocking the bridge below, along with shouts and commotion behind. Valey's eyes widened at the realization that Moriarty had somehow not been subdued yet, and all three griffons glanced between each other with sudden realization.
"We should defend His Highness at all costs," the deep-voiced one decided, and the others nodded in agreement.
Before they could act, however, a light flickered from the next staircase up, and an annoyed shout reverberated down. "Guards? What in Garsheeva's breath are you doing down there!? I am pursuing the secrets of ancient lore, and the exacting mathematics and recall involved are beyond your capacities to understand! I pay you to guard my peaceful study, not make boorish rackets! If I come down there and see one griffoness or Sosan bottle..."
A creature in ornamented academic robes stomped down, and Valey blinked, suddenly recognizing the cowardly sphinx from the pirate ship. She had chosen to hide in his personal tower?
"Your Highness, it appears there is a deranged axe wielder at the gates of your tower," the guards informed him, cutting him off as he stared at Valey with a raised paw and a question on his lips. "We recommend-"
The sphinx's ears folded in horror as more clanging and the sounds of a struggle erupted from the room below. "We must flee to the secure upper keep at once!" he demanded, already sprinting up the staircase. "Quickly! To my chariot!"
After half a second's hesitation, the three guards all ignored Valey and gave chase, leaving her alone and forgotten. Returning to stealth mode, she gave her heart a moment to calm, then followed along at a careful pace. Why a flier needed a chariot was beyond her, but such a thing would surely be bulky and have a dark underside for her to hide on...
She reached the chariot room to realize she hadn't noticed an imaginary problem. The sphinx was yelling at his guards from a covered sky wagon, and the three griffons were actually arguing back.
"For Garsheeva's sake, Geribaldi!" one guard exclaimed, visibly exasperated. "Rodriguez called in sick today, and it takes four able fliers to lift a chariot! Just use your wings and fly on your own!"
"Have you lost your minds?" the sphinx, Geribaldi, countered. "I'd be vulnerable to arrow fire! Or thrown axes, as you say! And what about a flying assault, hmmmmm!? You should each be worth at least one and a third normal griffons! Isn't that what I hire you for?"
The guards were at their wits' end when one noticed Valey. "You there!" He pointed a commanding talon. "Help us convoy the Prince! You are conscripted into service in accordance with Stormhoof Decree eight-eight-nine one-four-two!"
Valey blinked. "Like, help you carry that thing? Up the tower?"
"Relying on a sarosian," Geribaldi spat, retreating into the covered chariot and slamming the door. "Weak."
The guards watched her with a mix of fear, stern authority, and hope, and Valey jumped at the chance. "Count me in, I guess," she agreed, taking a position at the chariot and wondering just when her luck would run out.
In the short flight Geribaldi's chariot took to reach the upper sky dock of the Stormhoof keep, Valey realized with a vengeance why she should have been resting instead of pushing herself even though she was feeling marginally better than upon arrival. Moving her wings felt like pushing oars through mud, and only the knowledge that failure would doom possibly a prince and definitely her kept her going. Whoever hired griffons who entrusted the safety of their lord to the completion of physically demanding tasks by complete strangers probably deserved to be dropped fifty meters in a chariot, so she wouldn't be sad if he did fall.
A platoon of six guards moved aside as the chariot landed in the open-air accessway, looking at Valey with suspicion. Before any could demand to know what was going on, the chariot hit the ground and Geribaldi jumped out, hissing. "Guards!" he snarled, back arching aggressively. "It sounds like there's an invasion below! Secure my area and investigate this threat immediately!" The upper keep's guards blinked, stoic concentration broken by the Prince's outburst.
"Hark! The Geribaldimobile approaches!" a new voice sang, and another sphinx swaggered out from behind a pillar, a confident sway in his step. Valey blinked harder, quickly recognizing the other sphinx from the pirate ship, Gazelle, completely unclothed save for a ruby signet ring around one claw.
"What have I told you about jokes, Gazelle!?" Geribaldi took a step back, jaw dropping in bafflement. "Don't pretend you didn't hear me! The keep is under attack! There was a fight right outside my lower study!"
"An invasion, you say?" Gazelle asked, pacing over and draping a wing across Geribaldi's unwilling back. There was a flash of concealed steel, and suddenly two swords were in Gazelle's mouth, one offered to his peer. "Absolutely smashing," he mouthed around them, teeth bared. "Care to go out for round two?"
Geribaldi looked like he wanted to call Gazelle insane, but thought better of it with so much weaponry so near his head. One of his guards spoke up instead: "High Prince, what you do with yourself is your own business to decide, and if you dealt with the situation, we'd be grateful, but His Highness Geribaldi is under our jurisdiction to guard and you cannot simply invite him into danger."
"Thank you!" Geribaldi huffed, throwing off Gazelle's disappointed grasp and striding into the middle of the group of soldiers. "Escort me to the war room, sound the alarm, and lock down the palace at once! And Gazelle, you'd better not ask to compare kill counts after this is all done!"
Gazelle casually waved, watching him and a mix of guards go. Three griffons remained, and none of them was the one who had been friendly to Valey.
"You," one said, pointing a wing at her. "Your service is appreciated, citizen. Now please leave the tower's airspace."
Valey blinked, taking a step toward the edge. The griffons looked like they didn't want trouble, but were perfectly willing to cause it, and Gazelle was there, too, staring right at her. She remembered how he had fought on the pirate ship...
She swallowed, the griffons leaving her alone as long as she didn't appear to stall. This was it: she was in the entrance to the upper keep. This could be the best chance she'd have in a long time if she wanted to reach her friends, and security might get a lot tighter after this incident. At the same time... The guards patted their weapons, all fixated on her, reminding her she didn't have forever before any good graces she had earned from lifting the chariot evaporated entirely. What should she do?
She could try diplomacy... try fighting... give everything she had to reach her friends. On the other hoof, her luck had been ridiculous in getting this far, and while the keep had a startling lack of competent staff and anti-batpony defenses, it could change in an instant. She was tired, sore, the alarm was raised, and she already had a meal in her saddlebags that would last her through breakfast of the next day. There would be so many favorable circumstances she could gain by retreating...
Retreat without accomplishing her goal. The thought stung bitterly in her throat, but the more she thought about her chase so far, the more necessary it seemed. This was a chance to get away without being chased, and all it would take was one stroke of bad luck...
Closing her eyes and grimacing, Valey made up her mind, spreading her wings at the edge of the platform.
Whizzzzzthwack!
Valey whirled at the sound of a weapon embedding itself in the floor... and so did the guards watching her. Half a second later, the bay echoed with three armored bodies hitting the ground in almost perfect sync. "What the...?"
The remaining guards had all collapsed, Gazelle standing behind them with one paw extended and a bemused smile on his face. "What a twist!" he remarked, as if watching a theatre performance.
"Uhhh..." Valey glanced frantically back and forth, looking for witnesses. Her cutie mark didn't put her in immediate danger, which only made the situation raise her hairs even further. "Did you just...?"
"Baldy's absolutely having a fit!" Gazelle gloated, grinning from ear to ear. "Now he'll be raising alarms and sending this entire tower into a state of high panic! I can't wait to see the look on old Garland Stormhoof's face when someone gets Meltdown up here to clean things up... She's already down below. Apparently some sort of tantrum with one of the chefs. Any chance you were behind that, too?"
Valey took a step back, Gazelle standing far too close for comfort. "Wait a minute, what's going on? Do you even know what I'm doing? Are you attacking guards and then praising me for sneaking into your castle?"
Gazelle looked mildly offended, curling his lip in a disappointed pout. "My castle? This is the Stormhoof castle! And if you were an assassin, you'd have just dropped him when you had the chance. Whatever you're doing is leaving egg on the faces of some lords who badly need to lighten up, and who have agendas I don't entirely agree with. Don't stop now!"
"I, uhh... Huh?" Valey evaluated him blankly, once again wondering if this was how she had appeared to the general populace of Ironridge.
"Fine, if you're not going to get it any way else..." Gazelle sighed, deflating and looking seriously at her. "This is entertaining. You. Your presence in Stormhoof. It amuses me. I like underdogs, I like sarosians, and I don't like royals who take their entitlements too seriously. If it wouldn't be absolute chaos for political relations, I'd be tempted to do things like this myself from time to time. So how about we strike a deal? Don't give up, keep going for whatever you came here for, get them even more worked up, try not to kill anyone, and when you're either caught or succeed, I'll pardon you in the name of the Empire. The castle's defense is understaffed right now due to recent confidential developments, and I have a good feeling about your skills, so let's say I think you stand a chance. Am I making sense?"
Valey blinked one more time, her mark not warning her about anything. "You're serious, aren't you? This is actually how the Empire does things? One loose cannon running the system?"
Gazelle met her gaze perfectly. "You didn't strike me as the kind of person who would be terribly concerned with that thing, coming in here as brashly as you did. And without an Empress, the system is, in fact, a game of who can get away with what. You're unusually hesitant for someone who blazed relentlessly all the way up here."
"Recent lifestyle changes," Valey answered. "Look, dude prince... maybe I don't look like it to you, but I'm majorly beat up and on my last legs right now. If you're on my side, would you mind just asking these Stormhoof dudes to give my friends back? They came in here on a ship like... earlier today, or something, and they're up in this tower somewhere."
"Now you're pulling my heartstrings," Gazelle whimpered, face firming back up as quickly as he adopted the act. "I'm serious, though, that's admirable. More power to you. But I'm the Empire's High Prince, and I don't just do favors for free, so show me what you've got!" He patted her with a wing, pushing her towards the entrance. "Run! Hide! Kick face! I'll get you out of trouble in the end. I promise!"
Valey gritted her teeth, wishing her cutie mark could also tell her when she was being deceived. She certainly didn't need it to know she was being played with; she had done this exact thing far too much herself to fail to recognize it. Still, it was a free chance...
"Fine. But I'm only doing this," she told him, "because I get exactly where you're coming from with the whole prank-your-enemies thing. Just saying, though... If you gave me the benefit of the doubt and let me sleep first and get my friends back, we might actually get along pretty well? If you give me some credit?"
Gazelle seemed to seriously consider this. "Really."
"Really," Valey repeated, spinning around to face him and drawing her shoulders up until she stood closer to him in height. "See, where I'm from, I had a pretty crazy garbage reputation, but made a game out of sabotaging two sides so much they never caused any damage when they tried to beat each other up..." She raised a hopeful eyebrow and cracked a sure smile. "Give me the benefit of the doubt?"
Gazelle smiled back, the sharpness of his teeth far more impressive than hers. "It sounds like we understand each other! Here's a new deal: I'll go with you."
"Like... messing around in there?" Valey pointed a hoof at the keep.
"Messing around in there," Gazelle repeated. "Taking full credit for any stunts, so long as no one gets seriously hurt. Leave all of telling anyone about my motives to me. Friends?"
Valey stared at his outstretched paw, reading earnestness in his catlike face. If only she didn't have ponies she cared about riding on the line and could risk her life for stupid stunts, this could be a golden opportunity... and she highly doubted he knew about her cutie mark. That would protect her in a pinch if she got betrayed.
"Friends," she answered, hoofbumping, hoping it could even be fun.
As Valey slunk through a hall in the highest levels of Stormhoof's central keep, it was as far away as she could imagine from being fun.
A squad of armored guards marched straight over her head, not pausing to brighten their corridor and potentially flush her out of the ground. Her heart squeezed with every footfall, the stress of the situation building and building and only being compounded by Gazelle, strolling along behind her in plain sight like he owned the place. It was as much his turf as the Defense Force base had been hers, every soul keeping a healthy respect of him and not getting in his way, even though he hailed from a different noble house. Meanwhile, she was outnumbered, exhausted, pursuing a goal she didn't have a plan for to see through to completion and entirely reliant on the help of a stranger she had no reason to trust. As life-threatening as it had been, she honestly preferred the fight against the mercenaries in the Flame District. There, everything rested on her and her own skill, not luck and the whims of others... and to make matters worse Gazelle had an uncanny ability to follow her even while she was shadow sneaking, like he was showing off his skill at guessing where she was going to go.
"I can't do this," she panted, getting up and leaning against a wall when the coast was clear. "Call me a chicken, but this is not my element, prince dude. If I was beating stuff up as I go, maybe, but my nerves are shot and I hate playing other ponies' games. I want out."
"If you were fighting as you went?" Gazelle shrugged, clearly not seeing the problem. "You got past those first three easily enough."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was you."
"Whoever's found them by now won't know that, and I made sure they were distracted before you took them out just in case." Gazelle patted her on the head with a wing. "Cause some commotion, as much as you can! Enjoy yourself!"
"What part of 'I need a nap' don't you understand?" Valey growled, spreading her wings. "I do my own thing! Please let me go!"
Gazelle blinked. "I thought you wanted to find some friends? It was my impression I was helping you!" He pointed a wing behind him. "I couldn't let you give up, could I? Think of me as your cheer squad?"
Valey began to stiffly pace, the situation so far out of her control that she was completely rigid from apprehension. She needed to be proactive; that was the only thing that could possibly help. But what did she have to work with? Her wings ached. Her legs ached too, but not as badly. She didn't know enough about her area to predict what any action would do, from assaulting the Prince to calling for help. But that left her with only herself as a tool, and she was borderline exhausted... She sniffed. Starlight was still somewhere above her. Above her...
Her eyes slid up, scanning the hallway's ceiling. Embedded in the ornate, carved rock were strips of mana lighting, the same powered kind she knew from the indoors and underground of Ironridge. Turned to a dim, energy-saving setting, they were a trap waiting to be sprung, ready to force her out of the shadows and into a pincer trap at any moment. But where there were lights, there was a cable. What could she do with a powered-down manaconduit?
"What are you doing?" Gazelle asked as she coiled her legs and sprung, punching the light cover.
"Basically... nothing!" Valey grunted, jumping again and this time earning a crack for her efforts. On the third blow, the casing shattered, and at her fourth jump Valey grabbed the glowing light fixture in her forehooves, dangling midair from an apparatus that wasn't designed to support a full batpony's weight. "What are you gonna do about it?"
Crack! The fixture broke, dropping Valey to the ground and a sparking mess of crystals, reflectors and energy coils along with her. Several loose filaments connected it to the empty socket in the ceiling, and Valey frantically blew on her hooves, fanning them to cool them off. "Ow, that's really hot! Perfect. Owowow!"
After some shaking, rubbing and cooling, Valey set herself back down and turned to the still-glowing energy fixture. Off came her saddlebags, and out came a squash she had purloined from Moriarty's storeroom. She wrapped it in the heated manacoils that were still connected to the power supply, sat down, and settled in to wait.
Once again, Gazelle lifted an eyebrow, giving her several seconds' benefit of the doubt. "What are you doing?"
"Making dinner," Valey replied. "I dunno how to roast a squash, but this will have to do. If I finish that and nobody's stopped me, I'm going to go to sleep for the night, right here on the floor."
Gazelle blinked.
"You can try to stop me," Valey continued, "or you can get bored and leave. It'll probably be really boring. If any guards find me and ask what I'm doing, I'll say I snuck up here to cook and eat dinner in a hallway, just to prove I could or because someone dared me or something. If they try to fight, then I'll bust them up, or wait for you to do it. But I'm kinda hoping they'll just stand there staring stupidly at each other and have no idea what to do, and either get someone important to come check this out or politely show me where the exit is. Either way, I need a break, and I feel like doing this. Try to stop me."
"Stop you?" Gazelle chuckled, a bad idea grin widening on his face. "That's brilliant! Ha ha! Admittedly, I don't have any idea how to roast a squash either, but mind if I join you? I can't wait to see the looks on their faces!"
Valey shrugged, and Gazelle settled down on the opposite side of the cooking gourd, flopping far more casually than royalty had a right to but not quite to the point of being barbaric. And then they sat there and watched it cook.
Soon enough, another patrol came along, marching with military precision and then halting in wide-eyed bafflement at the sight of the two ponies blocking the hall just as Valey had predicted. "Prince Gazelle?" one managed, barely able to keep her voice straight. "Can I ask what in Garsheeva's name you're doing? The keep is on lockdown due to an invasion!"
"Making dinner," Valey replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"It's a funny story, actually," Gazelle added, motioning to the guards to join him around the heating squash. "This sarosian? Your fabled invader, and the height of her aspirations were to cook a gourd in your halls. And she's getting away with it, too."
"Wha...?" The guards shuffled, searching for hidden meaning in his words but finding none. "Explain!" one requested, pointing a talon.
"I said what I meant and I meant what I said," Gazelle lectured, appearing more interested in the gourd than the guards. "When she bamboozled poor Geribaldi into giving her a free ride to the upper entrance, then managed to single-hoofedly render every guard you left unconscious and slip inside right under your noses, I was horribly concerned! Did you have a masterful assassin on your talons, come for Lord Garland himself? I gave chase and was about to engage her in combat myself when she stopped and began the most fascinating ritual, the results of which can be seen here." He pointed a paw at the mess of squash and cables. "After a conversation far more civilized than any I've had with Geribaldi, I discovered your grand invader is nothing more than a street hooligan acting on a friend's dare to make a mockery of your castle's defenses. If you ask me, spooking Baldy into causing a lockdown so that the difficulty would be at its highest, successfully infiltrating your tower regardless, dismantling a light and proceeding to cook her gourd accomplishes far more than that." He gazed seriously up at the guards with slitted eyes just like Valey's own. "Stormhoof, most defended of the twelve provinces, played for fools by one single slippery mare. If you ask me, you have a serious public relations disaster in the works."
The guards all blinked at him, processing the wall of information he had just dropped. "We need to get rid of her, then," one decided, pointing at Valey. "What are you doing, High Prince!? If she spreads information that that happened-!"
"Then what?" Gazelle inspected a paw. "It's not her you should be worried about; no one in Stormhoof takes a sarosian seriously. It's the other three guard squads we saw since I joined up with her who wandered off before I could give my warnings! They're probably gossiping about it to other patrols as we speak. Do you really want to waste time staring when there's action to be taken?"
Valey pretended to focus on her squash as the guards stared among themselves, deciding what to do. At the very least, she suddenly had a good idea of what Gazelle was up to: her sneaking around was embarrassing for Stormhoof's reputation, and he wanted them to feel like they had been had. But he was also enough of an ally of theirs to be welcome in the castle in the first place, and couldn't possibly have planned her intrusion. He had to be just that opportunistic, unless...
An image of a bottle-green griffon with an absurdly dapper bow tie surfaced in her memory, and Valey swallowed. Whether he and Gazelle were working together or not, and she already knew they were acquainted, Kero was in the tower, and she had a strong feeling he would show up sooner rather than later if she kept drawing attention to herself. But she was committed to the act, and it was too late to break and run with any amount of ease. Without twitching a muscle, Valey studied her cutie mark and readied herself once again for a fight, just in case.
Some of the guards remained behind to watch Valey cook her gourd, while others wandered off in search of someone who could properly deal with her and the Prince. Gazelle was the real obstacle; she had no doubts if she was alone in the corridor she would have gotten a chuckle and been booted out immediately at best.
But Gazelle was on her side, or at least she had been recruited to his, the guards could no more remove her with him sitting there making light of the situation than they could unlock a door by saying please, and her onlookers continued to pile up as a result, more and more patrols arriving from both directions and stopping to listen to Gazelle with catlike curiosity. For her part, Valey just maintained nonchalance and focused on cooking the squash, though for all she knew it was charred on the inside and about to messily explode.
"Clear the way, noble defenders, clear the way!" a chiseled, macho voice boomed in the distance, sounding like it belonged to the protagonist of an ultra-cheap romance novel. "I have arrived! Let's see what kind of spectacle has you all in such a hurry to crowd the corridors!"
Valey blinked. She wasn't sure if this was the top brass, but it definitely sounded like the big guns. If someone was going to clear her out, it was now. Stoically, she forced herself to continue disinterestedly paying attention to the squash, noting a hint of exasperation on Gazelle's face and the same kind of twinge she got in her cutie mark when near a cart that could run her over if she didn't watch where she was going.
The crowd of guards was stirred fiercely in a commotion, then forcibly parted, a speckled, snowy griffon pushing his way through with such immense girth that even the full-body suits of armor seemed to squish with their guards as they were sandwiched uncomfortably between him and the walls. The newcomer was utterly unarmored and unclothed, sporting a muscular double-chin and a jagged, up-and-down mustache that looked like a string of Ws poking straight out to the sides from above his heroically-grinning beak. So buff was the griffon that Valey decided she'd bet in his favor in a wrestling match with Herman, and the multitude of battle scars across his proud chest suggested even with a weapon it could be the fight of her life to take him down.
"Well well," the griffon said, admiring Valey's hoofwork with his chest thrust forward. "If it isn't Prince Gazelle! I thought I smelled your pawwork in this night's shenanigans! Tell me, is this a distraction for the guards, or the reason for this inconvenient lockdown in the first place?"
"Wallace Whitewing." Gazelle nodded respectfully, and probably would have sipped tea had he possessed any. "Just as respectful of off-limits areas as ever, aren't you? Yes, this is the mare you're looking for."
Wallace coughed into one of his namesake wings. "If you mean these misfortunate Stormhoof guards that expect me to stay put when villains are on the loose, yes. Their dedication to their orders is admirable, but sometimes, common sense must be allowed to prevail. Now..." He turned to Valey. "Hail, young sarosian! Your stunt has inconvenienced a great many creatures, and justice demands an explanation!"
Valey opened her mouth, but Gazelle interrupted smoothly, standing up and taking two steps toward Wallace. "She was-"
"Pipe down, little prince! I asked the sarosian." Wallace Whitewing patted Gazelle gently on the head, still with such force that the sphinx was flattened against the ground. "I'll have you know I've spent the better part of the evening chasing Meltdown and pestering her to finish her investigation so that the newcomers from Ironridge might be released to join me in hanging out and the swapping of tales! And now her attention has been stolen! What gives, my little pony?"
Valey stood fast under his stare, suddenly realizing he might know where her friends were and could be a potential ally. Did she want to try her luck with him over Gazelle? Did that mean throwing the sphinx under the cart and blaming him for her being in a restricted area? Swallowing, she licked her lips and asked, "Newcomers from Ironridge? Any chance that's a griffon dude, one each of earth pony, pegasus and unicorn mares, and one or two fillies?"
Wallace perked in unconcealed recognition, revealing he definitely had. "Oh? So you're familiar with this adventurous band, then, are you?"
"Wallace!" Gazelle snapped, suddenly no longer playful. "If this is going to veer into discussing sensitive information, I'm sure Garland would be grateful if you used your... force of presence to clear the area, then waited patiently until someone important arrives. Else, I'll handle this my way."
Wallace bowed. "Of course," he intoned, standing up and facing the solid wall of spectating guards blocking the other direction of the corridor. "Brave defenders!" he boomed, pointing an assertive wing. "Your time of service here is at an end! Return to your posts and stand vigil until the danger has passed, lest you be scattered like villainous leaves by the passage of my mighty breadth!"
That did the trick. The guards, severely frightened by the prospect of a Wallace trampling, bunched up and pressed against each other and after a moment of traffic and clogs, drained entirely from the hallway in both directions. Wallace proudly bowed once again, and Gazelle was about to say something when Valey beat him to it.
"Yo, Bathtub." She zipped to his side the moment the retreating guards were out of earshot, abandoning the roasting squash where it lay. "Starlight. Maple. Shinespark. Gerardo. Those are my friends. Ignore that guy; he dragged me into making this a stunt." She pointed a wing back at Gazelle. "Whoever this Meltdown is, tell her I'm with them and will blab to absolutely everyone about whatever she's trying to do this confidential investigation stuff on unless I get put in the same place as they are, given a hot meal, cozy bed and time to take a nap, and am left completely alone by psychopathic bat haters. And don't even think about trying to lock any of us up, because this place is terrible at stopping bats from sneaking around. Savvy?"
The temperature of the air rose slightly as Gazelle and Wallace both regarded her. The sphinx looked perfectly pleased with what she had said, but the big griffon was visibly taken aback. "You too hail from Ironridge, do you?" He raised a shaggy eyebrow. "What are the chances your name is Admiral Valey?"
"Would it matter if it was?" Valey asked, carefully keeping her reaction neutral until she knew what it would identify her as.
Wallace's face broke into a winning smile. "I should hope so! Kero spoke very highly about you, indeed!"
Slowly, Valey raised an eyebrow. "Say that again?"
"A pleasure to find ourselves as allies!" Wallace boomed, extending a muscular talon for her to shake. Valey blinked at it; his arm was thicker than her barrel. "I've been stymied so far in my efforts to meet most of the westerners following this Ironridge business, but your name is one I've heard oft spoken fondly! Kero painted quite a heroic picture of you, young sarosian."
Carefully, Valey moves so that she wasn't standing too close to either Wallace or Gazelle, once again wishing she had the faintest idea what was going on in the Griffon Empire. Kero, praising her? Had he left Ironridge before realizing she wasn't dead in the tunnels? She swallowed, glancing to Gazelle. "He's not pulling my tail, is he?"
Gazelle's chin wobbled sadly. "Asking me for advice? And here I thought you were ignoring me! Valey, shouldn't you first be asking whether I knew about you in advance, too?" His eyes flashed. "If you're curious, I've had my suspicions ever since we met on that pirate ship."
Valey felt her eyes betray her, and Gazelle perked in victory. "Ha! I wondered if that was you." Standing, he prowled fluidly closer, sending Valey instinctively backing toward Wallace. "Since you asked, yes, Kero talked you up so much, I had to see for myself what you were capable of, and yes, I knew you were going for your friends. And my verdict is..." He scratched his throat, flicking his rounded ears one by one before brightening into a genuine smile. "A bit cowardly, but that can be fixed! Perhaps I said it before, but I like you! Let's be chums, chum." He quirked an eyebrow and added, "How are you with titles? Should I be calling you Admiral?"
"First, I quit that job, and second, knock yourself out," Valey huffed, folding her forelegs. "Bad mood bat, here. Do you mind giving me what I want and then pestering me later? Like, you're not hostile, cool. But sitting here in the middle of a hallway when I've got stuff to do is driving me up a wall!"
Gazelle and Wallace both looked about to say something, until a hot rush of air blew in along the hallway, in seconds changing Valey from uncomfortably chilly to comfortably warm to uncomfortably hot. "What the...!?" She blinked, spinning, wondering if something had gone wrong with the abandoned lamp coil.
"Speaking of driving ponies up a wall..."
"Uh-oh." Gazelle gulped, slipping next to Wallace and leaving Valey between him and the unseen source of the heat. "Wallace, old friend, take this fall for me and I'll be sure to rag on old Chauncey for you next time I'm in Izvaldi. Deal?"
Something appeared around the corner, a suit of misshapen metal that belonged to a realm of fire and slag. Orange-glowing hoses laced their way between racks, spikes and blades of thinly-separated metal fins, five hissing fan turbines mounted on the back and sides of the mechanical monstrosity, and Valey was highly suspicious they were radiators responsible for the heat. Locked tightly within the suit was a smoke-gray earth pony mare covered head to tail save for her face, with orange eyes and a curved muzzle and a worried, angry frown.
"Gazelle!" she demanded, hitting the floor with a metal stomp as a disciplined force of green-and-purple guards marched along behind her. "The entire castle is up in arms. A chef with a hairpin temper went on a rampage downstairs, saying he was set off by a sarosian in his kitchens. Geribaldi is scared senseless, and says a sarosian replaced one of his guards flying his chariot up here. Half the soldiers on this level say they found you in this hallway with a sarosian doing some pointless stunt before Wallace Whitewing chased them away, and now here the three of you are, exactly as described. Please, please, please tell me this isn't what it looks like."
Gazelle shrugged with the proud innocence only a cat could muster. "In my defense, it was quite entertaining."
A protective snowy wing covered the prince, simultaneously hiding him and restraining him from the metal mare's sight. "Ahem-hem-hem-hem-hem!" Wallace importantly cleared his throat, then bowed low to the ground. "Greetings again, fair Meltdown. Is there a problem I as a champion of citizens everywhere can assist with?"
"I surrender!" Valey announced before the conversation could go any further... or, more importantly, before her fur began to curl from the heat. "Yo, lady. My friends are up here. Maple, Shinespark, Starlight, Gerardo... ring any bells? Take me wherever they are and let me take a nap, and don't try anything funny or throw any of us in a dungeon or anything or I'll clean your clock. I've tried sneaking around, I'm trying asking politely, and I'm very frustrated and close to giving up on that too."
Meltdown's fans slowed, and the temperature in the hall gradually lessened. "Wallace, Gazelle, go away. I'll deal with this. You." She pointed a hoof at Valey. "On record, because I'm recording this: why did you break into a restricted area of Stormhoof Castle?"
Valey stiffened, lifting a hoof of her own. "Okay, by 'restricted', do you mean this tower thing in general, or specifically the upper bit? Because early on, I was-"
"The upper reaches," Meltdown interrupted. "This floor. Was it in search of your friends?"
"Nah." Valey glanced over her shoulder at the retreating griffon and sphinx. "Your prince dude... Geribaldi... kinda yelled at me and told me to haul his wagon. Then I figured it wasn't worth it and tried to bail, but the other prince dude Gazelle knocked down all the guards at the entrance and basically dragged me in here for fun. I'm seriously tired of this, tired in general, and want to see my friends and be left alone."
Meltdown considered that for a moment, then mechanically nodded, the orange hoses along her neck twisting with the motion. "Good enough," she decided. "Name your friends and yourself."
Valey licked her lips. "Valey, and Maple, Starlight, Shinespark, and Gerardo. Oh, and Slipstream. And maybe a filly called Jamjars."
Meltdown nodded. "All six of those are being held in relative luxury for possessing knowledge that could be used against House Stormhoof, and will be free to depart once Stormhoof officials are confident they've had a chance to react to everything these creatures know. You match the profile of someone with strategic information with Ironridge as well, and will be taken to join them. I'll escort you myself to ensure nothing further goes wrong."
"...Wait. Seriously?" Valey blinked several times, sitting back on her haunches. "You're actually being reasonable about this? Not going to pick a fight with me for being a bat, or drag me around on some game I'm too tired to play? Like, I'm really finally getting my way just because?"
"Did you expect otherwise?" Meltdown looked faintly concerned, but at Valey's deadpan expression she quickly stopped, flicking her mechanical tail. "I see. Well, I advise moving to a more hospitable area as soon as you're able, and I'm sorry the Empire hasn't been as hospitable as your ideals. Stormhoof's policies are not my domain. Guards." She motioned to the griffons behind her. "Form a procession and march."
Valey fell into step behind Meltdown, sagging low to the floor in exhaustion and passing a curious guard poking at her abandoned, heavily-burnt squash. "Never thought I'd be able to say finding someone reasonable and professional would be the highlight of my day. Would you be offended if I said I could kiss you?"
"Don't," Meltdown said, a hot wind blowing off the fans on her armor. "You wouldn't be able to handle the heat."
Surrounded by clanking, shuffling armor, Valey dragged herself along, wondering if she had just been flirted with, or if Meltdown was far too literal for her own good.
"Open," Meltdown requested, standing before a doubly-guarded door in an ornate upper hall several floors higher than Valey had entered the keep at. The guards bowed, reacting without any password or credentials... though Valey supposed the armored mare's appearance would be very hard to duplicate.
With a click, the door was allowed open, Valey positioned to be the first one through. It was a multi-bed suite, with fancy tables and curtained windows and plenty of space for everything, but what caught her attention above all else was the ponies inside: Maple was curled around Starlight on a bed, reading aloud from a book, while Shinespark and Gerardo engaged each other in a tabletop game with Slipstream acting as referee. She blinked. They all blinked back. And in that moment, Valey forgot every concern about Kero, every worry that her friends had abandoned her at sea, every circumstance and trial around her ascent of the tower, everything except her long-anticipated goal and the fluffiness of those beds and the fact that her cutie mark wasn't warning her of traps and strolled forward with sure confidence, grinning. "Hey, ladies. Did you miss me?"
"Valey!"
A tide of equines surged forward as Meltdown and the griffons looked on, Maple reaching her first and clinging tightly. "You made it back!" Maple sniffed, wiping her eyes on Valey's coat. "The ship ran out of power while you were away, and then... and then..."
"You, uh, might not wanna do that," Valey said, pushing Maple a few inches back. "I crawled through a sewer on the way here. And seriously, I'm really... nngh... zzzzzzz..."
Maple didn't let go, and others soon pressed around, but Valey didn't care, pretending to sleep and more quickly than she expected falling into the real thing.
Shinespark gently lifted Valey, floating her in her aura through a door leading to an adjacent suite with more beds, returning a moment later with a thin smile on her lips. "I'll take that as a good sign!"
"I wonder what she's been through," Maple murmured, watching the doorway to the darker room and standing with Starlight at her side. "It was a whole day and a half ago we lost her..."
"I just hope she's not as angry with us as she has a right to be." Shinespark hung her head. "We should have realized earlier that she was missing, or used you to bring the ship back above the clouds, or...!"
Gerardo cut her off with a waggled talon. "You observed yourself that she is comfortable enough in our presence to return to slumber, and I believe I've reprimanded you already for being too harsh on yourself. That said, it does my heart good as well to see her safe and sound. Miss Meltdown?" He turned to the infernal mare standing in the doorway. "Might you be able to shed any light onto the state of our companion's tribulations?"
Meltdown answered stoically, without twitching a muscle. "She was the reason for the alarms earlier. It looks right now like High Prince Gazelle baited her into causing a scene here as a prank to make fun of the castle security, and I found them with Wallace Whitewing as well. I'll be investigating this matter privately, and inform you if there's anything you need to know. Until then, your friend is safe and unharmed, if extremely frustrated. I trust you'll take care of her and inform her of everything she needs to know about your situation?"
"We will," Shinespark promised. "You can count on it."
"I wonder whether it will be us explaining things to her, or the other way around," Maple mused, fur still bent backwards in places from laying in the bed. "There's so much about the Griffon Empire she probably experienced we never got a chance to, and I'm sure I don't remember half of what's been explained to me."
"If I might ask..." Gerardo piped up, stopping Meltdown from leaving. "Now that our party is reunited once more, what are your plans for releasing us to travel at will? At the very least, our boat is moored at one of the castle wharfs, and we will need to pay our dues to prevent it from impoundment."
Meltdown nodded. "This lockdown will delay things by several hours at best, but that largely depends on whether Valey has the method of communication with Ironridge you described. Someone she trusts, search her bags."
Shinespark ducked back into the other room before Maple could even respond, emerging a minute later with the sound stone held in her teeth to prevent it from becoming charged. "Here," she mouthed around it.
Meltdown eyed the artifact suspiciously. "Tomorrow, I'll have Lord Stormhoof call a war council. You will all be present, and we'll expect to be able to make contact with the leadership of Ironridge. Ensure that it can happen. Once that concludes, there will be an hourlong press conference for Lord Stormhoof, and after that you will be free to stay or go as you please. But, once you leave the castle, you'll be at the mercy of the reporters and paparazzi, and you are aware Stormhoof as a province isn't the most friendly to sarosians. Take care."
With a hiss of steaming metal, she clanked away, taking her guards with her and locking the door from the outside. Everyone turned to each other, blinking.
"All's well that ends well?" Slipstream hopefully offered, giving a happy shrug.
"We're back together again," Maple declared, "even if... even if Valey's sleeping and we haven't even gotten to see how she feels about this or what she went through or if she still trusts us after we left her behind... but I think we'll be fine. All of us, including her. I hope."
"She didn't attack anyone before falling asleep," Slipstream pointed out.
Maple frowned. "Unless everything out there was so bad she was willing to put everything aside and just be happy she was back somewhere familiar. Knowing our luck, it could happen..."
Shinespark sighed heavily. "As long as she didn't worry too long about why we had left, or whether we abandoned her because she thought we'd think she'd be a burden in this city. I know I worried she'd worry that..."
"Yes, and you didn't stop worrying it for our entire sequestration here!" Gerardo huffed, pointing a wing at her. "Despite all of our efforts to cheer you up!"
"I was worried too," Maple volunteered with a shamefully-raised hoof.
Starlight, who had been silent for the entire conversation, spoke up, nodding at the sound stone set near Shinespark. "If you want to find out before she wakes up, turn that on. She was talking to Amber, wasn't she?"
Everyone looked at her as if she had just opened a locked door by turning the handle, and Gerardo bonked his head against a nearby desk. "I can't believe I didn't think of that..." Shinespark grumbled, taking the sound stone and charging it in her aura.
Less than a minute later, it swirled in response. "Hello?" Amber's voice whispered. "Is it safe for me to talk loudly?"
"It's me, Amber. Maple," Maple replied, taking two steps closer to the levitating stone. "Valey just made it back to us, and immediately fell asleep."
"You're all right!" Amber cheered from the other end, cut off by a tremendous crash and the sounds of objects rolling. "Oof! Oww... Got a little too excited there, hee. Maple! Maple, I'm hugging this rock like it was you right now! What happened? How are you? How's Valey? Did you-?"
"One question at a time," Shinespark interrupted, standing on the opposite side of the sound stone. "And don't worry; we've got all night. Though now that we know she's okay, it'll be a lot easier to get to sleep..."
Maple yawned. "I'm getting back in bed. I'll tell you everything that happened until I get too drowsy, and then you can wake me up or maybe I'll fall asleep... Mmm. It started when the windigo heart in the ship ran out of power and we fell towards the sea..."
"Nngh... nyup nyup..." Valey ran her tongue around her mouth and smacked her lips, eyelids fluttering but not slipping open. Around her, Maple and Shinespark stood, peering close to see if she was waking, Slipstream and Gerardo in the other room and Jamjars brooding somewhere nearby.
One fluffy ear perked, then the other, and Maple drew a breath. Valey's tail flicked once... and she went back to sleep.
Sighing, Maple stepped away. "I guess noon is still too early to wake her? We have no idea what happened," she whispered. "She could be completely exhausted..."
Shinespark stayed next to Valey's bed, glancing at the covered window that let only a thin bar of sunlight into the room. Silently, she nodded, but made no motion to move.
"Hey, Sparky," Valey muttered under her breath, indistinctly enough that it could have been sleep-talking. "C'mere..."
"Valey?" Shinespark immediately leaned in close. "Are... are you awake? Listen, Valey, about the boat, I'm-"
"Nyaaaaaugh!" Valey cried, springing from her bed like a fuzzy torpedo and launching herself into Shinespark before immediately locking up, limbs freezing. They collided, hit the floor and tumbled, stuck together, all the way until they hit the far wall with a thud. "Ow ow ow cramps cramps owowowwwww!" Valey hissed as they rolled. "Bananas. Gonna need more than a day to walk that off..."
Shinespark sat up, eyes unfocused, not even making the effort to clear her head.
"Ow. I might need someone to help me up," Valey complained, laying in a tangled heap. "I was gonna say, that's for ditching me at sea, and give you a really nasty hug since I crawled through a bunch of old tunnels that might have been sewers on my way here, but... oww. Bananas, my head hurts. What time is it?"
"Noon," Maple said, offering her a hoof. "Valey, I'm so sorry about the ship. We were-"
"Important part first: did you guys get harpooned down by Kero, and did I just walk into a baited trap?" Valey glanced at her, eyes wide and serious. "'Cuz I was thinking of seeing if you needed saving, but might have gotten a little roughed up on the way and had my show stolen by some dudes way out of my weight class, and got tired enough to figure I'd rather be stuck with you."
Maple shook her head. "The ship ran out of power and we fell. Kero is here, but we've said we don't want to meet with him and so far they've listened to our requests. Is...? Are you...?"
"Do I forgive you for something that probably wasn't your fault but still royally stank for me and nearly killed me like four or five times?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure. Just get me a bath, someone to listen to me complain about how bonkers this place is, and maybe tell me a bit about what's going on? I also might need someone to carry me, because there's fifty-fifty odds I either feel entitled to it or legit can't move."
"Oh, Valey..." Maple smiled thankfully, then helped the batpony up, checking to make sure Shinespark was also okay. "We talked to Amber last night while you were sleeping, and she said you spent the night in a tiny cave on the cliff with the storm right nearby and rain on your coat, then flew for hours and hours to reach land..."
Valey stuck out her tongue. "Yeah, well, tell Amber not to steal my thunder. That's my story! Anyway, I dunno about you guys, but I'm pretty sure everyone in this continent is insane."
Maple beamed. "Well, I'm glad to hear we're still your friends."
"Are you kidding?" Valey sighed, defeated, leaning entirely on Maple and letting her walk for her. "After just a day on my own in this place, I'm pretty sure I'm never doing a solo mission again..."
After Valey had been reintroduced to the rest of the group, everyone assured that there weren't too many hard feelings, and lunch ordered by way of the castle staff, every party member sans Jamjars gathered around the table Gerardo and Shinespark were gaming on the previous night, ready to talk about practical things.
Valey started the conversation off. "So, important stuff. I was kinda too busy running away and not bringing down the law last night to remember or care much about all the names I heard and dudes I met, so assume I know nothing and am horribly confused until someone jogs my memory otherwise. First off, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Anyone I can trust?"
Maple nodded, the others giving her permission to answer first. "We've had a big day too, and haven't actually met any of the important royals. There's a griffon, though, Wallace Whitewing. He's... like a more muscular Gerardo, but-"
Gerardo cut her off with a fit of sputtering. "Comparing me to Wallace the Great!? M-miss Maple! It is rare for me to feel so unworthy of compliments, but I must insist..."
"As I was saying," Maple continued, batting her ears at being interrupted, "I have a good feeling about him. My character judgement might not be the best, and I didn't meet him for long, but he felt like the kind of person who wouldn't even think about being dishonest, and seems to enjoy helping others. But... he might also get us into trouble. I don't know."
"Eh, met him." Valey shrugged. "I've kinda already forgotten what he was like, though. Don't think he did anything bad?" She blinked. "Oh, right, he told me you guys were here! Yeah, he was kind of cool."
Nearby, Gerardo sulked. "'Kind of,' says you. Only kind of..."
"The other important pony is Meltdown," Slipstream added. "She's the one who brought you back last night? She looks terrifying, but is actually nice. She cares about rules a lot and is very professional, and doesn't waste time being silly or unhelpful. A lot of creatures here are scared of her, though."
Maple nodded, taking over. "We asked her, and what we found out is that Meltdown enforces a lot of rules that no one likes. Apparently, it's illegal to make mana generators like the ones in Ironridge here in the Empire, and instead all the magical power is sold from an organization she's in charge of that belongs to Garsheeva. It's called the Power Distribution Agency, and is how the government makes money to pay its workers and fund projects."
"Essentially, selling power is the Empire's substitute for taxation, a funding model prevalent in Varsidel, Ironridge and smaller territories," Gerardo finished.
"Huh." Valey blinked several times. "You know, I was wondering why the castle was so dark and badly defended against batponies. I guess it's because the Stormhoofs are being greedy and not wanting to spend money on power?" She shrugged. "Huh. I wonder if this Meltdown realizes making money that way makes places vulnerable to attacks."
Shinespark shrugged back. "Supposedly, Stormhoof is in the Empire's southwest corner, all the batponies are far to the north, and the Empire and them are on relatively good terms. I guess they don't think it's a major worry."
Valey bit her lip. "I dunno... Have you seen how hard random strangers here can go off on bats? Actually, maybe you wouldn't have, but... some bat who's actually mean gets their hooves stepped on, they could probably assassinate someone important all on their own. Like, I could have gotten one of the sphinxes here with ease."
Everyone frowned, but no one had a satisfactory answer, so Gerardo continued instead. "The other thing about Miss Meltdown is that her agency has a lot of investigative authority. She apparently has a reputation for sticking her nose where others very strongly feel it does not belong, and furthermore has a great record of tracking down and arresting the perpetrators of heresy. Her unannounced appearance frequently means someone is being investigated, and with her track record..."
"Imagine it." Slipstream shuddered. "You're sitting in public with your parent, sibling, child, friend, lover, whatever... and then she shows up. She's never wrong, and she's there for someone. She's like a reaper. And you'd have to wonder if you did something you didn't even know about, or if your loved one did something and didn't tell you and it's about to be over in an instant..."
"I know about reputations and public image." Shinespark swallowed. "And that's not how you build a good one."
Valey hesitated, then tapped a hoof. "Sooo... good guy? Bad guy? In between? Sounds like as long as you follow the rules, she's actually great..."
"Well, that shouldn't be terribly difficult." Gerardo proudly raised a talon. "Use common sense, abstain from piracy, don't desecrate the batpony statues, no inbreeding, no inter-species relationships unless you're a sphinx, no-"
"Oh bananas." Valey went pale. "She was testing me. I totally made a random remark that I could kiss her after she bailed me out in the halls down there, and thought she was flirting back! Okay..." She held a hoof to her forehead, suddenly in a cold sweat. "I hate this place's rules. Someone better not see us rolling around and think I'm with one of you guys... Hey, what counts as a relationship?" She glanced at Gerardo. "Is it specifically the naughty stuff, or what?"
Gerardo raised his talons apologetically. "I'm afraid I've never had cause to learn the answer."
"Well... nyaah." Valey sat down in a huff, crossly folding her forelimbs and sticking out her tongue, then wincing heavily as her legs locked up. "Ow! Oh, come on..." Gritting her teeth, she went on anyway. "I guess we try to steer clear of the walking toaster just in case, then?"
"It might not matter," Maple hopefully offered. "If she'd track us down anyway if we did something bad, then as long as we're in her good graces, we could make use of that?"
Everyone evaluated that, and no one seemed to object... until Shinespark put her hoof down on the table. "I can give you another reason we might not want to get mixed up with her," she firmly said.
Everyone perked, and she went on. "I recognize the look in her eyes," Shinespark continued. "It reminds me a lot of myself, back in Ironridge. It's just intuition, and I can't say why, but... well, be careful. Remember how my ambitions ended for everyone."
"Don't make too good of friends with her. Cool." Valey nodded, cracking her neck. "So, that's two maybe-goods. Any nasties I should know about that I haven't met already?"
Maple turned to Slipstream, who glanced at Gerardo, who shrugged. "I can't say we've encountered anyone particularly ignoble," he informed her.
"Cool. Great. Argh." Valey tried to lean back, wincing. "Guess I got the bottom of the barrel, then. Wanna hear my list of bozos? I've got a big one..."
The others nodded in morbid curiosity, so she began. "Bar bouncer! Wouldn't let me in. Bar chef! Tried to drug me, then beat me up, so I whacked him good. Random sleazy bar patron: reverse-mugged me. Don't ask, I have no idea. Uhhh..." She scratched her head. "First set of city guards: had a really, really creepy dude I had to piledrive. Tunnels under the city: found this old bat dude called Grandpapa who was okay while there were others around, but really creeped me out once we were alone. He might be an insane cultist or something. Murderous chef: probably in jail by now. Second set of guards: actually sort of cool. Third set of guards: nope nope nope. Fourth set of guards: way too gullible for their own good. Prince Garbylardy what's-his-face: a big coward and kind of a jerk to everyone. Fifth set of guards..." She blinked, losing her train of thought. "Wait, were they the fifth? I skipped someone, didn't I? Or wait, were there reinforcements? No, two squads mixed, I think..."
"In short, there were many guards," Gerardo summarized, speeding a conversation up for once.
"Yeah, that." Valey pointed stiffly at him, leaving her foreleg on the table. "The biggest and baddest though, get this: that Gazelle guy from Kero's will? Supposedly the top prince or something?" She raised an eyebrow. "Imagine old me in Ironridge, but he has the run of an entire continent and none of the nobles can tell him to go away. That's the impression I got, at least. Ironflanks, if you can do your thing and hug a sob story out of him so he joins our side, that would be pretty useful."
Maple nervously chuckled. "I'm not sure if empathy works that way, but maybe?"
"Of course, there's always the chance he's totally evil," Valey went on. "But I sort of doubt it? He didn't try to stab me, or anything, so at least he doesn't fly into a psychotic blood rage at the sight of bats. I kinda feel like I heard good things about him, too, but I don't remember from where. Either way, I know we kind of stuck together just because in Ironridge, but I still think that was strategically dumb of you and I think the same about this guy. Maybe he'll turn out decent, maybe he'll save us all and nearly die dueling a giant monster, or maybe he'll be the next big bad I have to take down. Stay away from him if you can, and if you can't, focus on finding out what makes him tick and on learning how things work so you can at least have a chance playing his game. Do anything else, and you're gambling."
Uneasy nods went out all around, leaving Valey to wrack her brain for a lighter subject matter. "Cool dudes I found, though! Or, like... one cool dude. I think. Birdo, what's that you said about those weird bat statues?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "I'm unfamiliar with their official name, though the phrase dusk statue rings a bell. They are statues Garsheeva mandates the batponies be allowed to set up and maintain within the Empire, supposedly used to allow them to commune with the Night Mother who is revered in the north. I can't say I've ever seen one, and I imagine them to be quite well-hidden, though if you do somehow become privy to one's location..." He raised an eyebrow. "I would be most interested in hearing whether it truly works."
"Yeah, cool, that's what this is." Valey leaned over, trying to rub her shoulder but only earning another cramp in her foreleg. "So I found one. It's in a maintenance room under the bridge to shore. It kinda weirded me out and I didn't try talking to it, but what I also found there was another batpony! Pretty cute, said her name was Senescey, and most importantly was actually reasonable, helpful and nice. If I see her again, maybe I'll try to get her on board with our group, or something. And her mane reminded me of bananas. But yeah, she was good. Actual highlight amid all the other ridiculous stuff out there..."
"Well, then!" Slipstream stretched far more luxuriously than Valey was able. "They said we'd hopefully be able to go before too long, so what do we want to do? Do we have any way to fix the ship so it can store enough mana power to run normally yet?"
Valey tipped her head, and Shinespark quickly explained. "Out of harmonic power, so no flying. The Dream can still sail on water using mana power, but the mana core was destroyed in Ironridge and the one I got from Arambai's for a hotfix is too small to hold any meaningful charge. We sailed here by charging it using the harmony extractor with Maple's brand to conserve power, but can't rely on that to get everywhere, so we need to get a new mana core before we can sail. And that's expensive."
"Hrrrrmm..." Valey stared into space. "Didn't someone steal a big one from the Water District lighthouse when everything was exploding?"
"Left it in Ironridge," Maple said sadly. "Since they were having a power crisis, Arambai said they'd need it for rebuilding the generators..."
Valey drooped. "Bananas. So, we stay here until the ship's fixed, huh?"
"Pretty much," Shinespark sighed, drumming her hooves on the table. "We have to, at least for a while."
"Oh, yeah..." Blinking, Valey tried again to stretch. "We're locked up, right? What do we have to do to get out of here?"
Gerardo explained Meltdown's information about the war room meeting they would be required to attend, the others nodding and following Valey's expression. When he was done, she asked, "So. Kero?"
"Will be there," Shinespark confirmed. "I assume, at least. Along with enough generals and probably powerful ponies that he shouldn't be able to start anything. Still, we haven't met him and don't know a thing about what he'll do. Once a mercenary leader who ordered you attacked and did work for Herman, always one... but the rest of the mercenaries turned themselves around, so who can say? Then again, he did abandon them."
Valey blew a raspberry in annoyance. "Well, I'll just bust him up if he tries anything. If I can move. Hey, anyone feel like massage duty until we have to leave? It'll be totally relaxing for me and you'll get to touch my nice, fuzzy coat..."
The time for the council rapidly rolled around, Valey and the others swapping more detailed accounts of what they had been through. Maple in particular was relieved to know the injured pegasus from the colosseum was alive once they realized she was the same one as in Grandpapa and Kouskous's group, and they finished with minutes to spare before a rap sounded on the door and a guard announced their summons.
A heavily-armed posse escorted them even further up the armored stone keep, which Starlight found counterintuitive. A war room was where emergency plans were made for battle, right? Wouldn't something like that be built securely underground, in case cannonfire or some flying weapon destroyed the top of the keep? Maybe there was a more secret backup, and this one was just for show.
They entered into a chamber that had to be the circumference of the entire tower, shaped like a metal egg with grated platforms separating it into multiple layers. The bottom layer held a number of important-looking chairs arranged in circles descending toward a podium at the base of the pit, each one thick and plush with apparatuses at the sides that looked like retracted restraints. The purpose of putting restraints on chairs that were populated by a hoofful of uniformed generals and officials, she couldn't even begin to guess.
Quietly, they were escorted to an emptier section of the seating. Gerardo's eyes widened in recognition of a nearby pegasus and unicorn Starlight didn't think she recognized, but Shinespark noticed them too, leaning across her to call a greeting. "Sharpie! Brightcoil!"
The mares both looked astonished to see them, the unicorn, a blue mare with a short, swirly green mane, breaking into a smile of delighted confusion. "Shinespark? Gerardo!? What are you doing in the Empire?"
The pegasus, gray with pink eyes and a long black mane, looked slightly more downcast. "Even you abandoned Ironridge, did you? Well, I hope you find what you're looking for."
"Who are these?" Starlight asked, glancing up at Maple in confusion.
Maple shrugged, having no answer, but Gerardo cut in. "Allies of mine from the time we became separated in Ironridge," he described, pointing at each in turn. "The pegasus, Sharpie, if my mind serves me well, was a disgruntled inspector looking into some wrongdoing of the Defense Force or other, and was completely at her wits' end. Brightcoil, on the other hand, was a welcome friendly face, though I can't recall her standing out for any other reasons."
Sharpie looked cross at the description, and Starlight suddenly realized Valey was hiding behind Slipstream, but Brightcoil nodded. "That's more or less how it is! Sharpie's the one who does things; I'm the emotional support."
"Don't worry. You're good at it." Sharpie sighed, slumping and putting a wing on Brightcoil's back. "I suppose it's good to see you alive. I've been... recovering after Ironridge, but the last two years I spent in that city have been so much stress, I don't know if I'll ever unwind. Listening to Kero, it sounds like you failed to stop the bombs. In exile, now?" She looked more closely at Shinespark. "You got a brand? Congratulations. Unless it's for running away."
Shinespark heavily winced. "I really should wear something to cover this up..."
"Quite a lot transpired, as a matter of fact," Gerardo proclaimed, proudly waving a talon as he narrated. "At the end of the day, it turns out Ambassador Herman was a villain with dreams of yak world domination, ancient sealed evil was involved, and through many heroic efforts the city and all its populace were spared with only the minor collateral annihilation of half the economy."
"The whole economy, actually," Shinespark told Sharpie and Brightcoil's incredulous, stricken faces. "You could call it exile, but the skyport is gone along with all of Sosa and the city's power infrastructure, so we're primarily here to warn others not to go to Ironridge unless they have enough distance capacity on their ship to make it back without refueling, and after that ask for aid in rebuilding."
"All that on top of the dam?" Brightcoil's smile had disappeared. "That's... wow..."
"I wish I could feel sorry, but I don't," Sharpie said. "They deserved it. Sorry."
Gerardo's crest drooped, and he watched as Shinespark slunk back to her seat. "Much as I sympathize with your plight and agree that Ironridge was far too populated by schemes for its own good, do recognize that she just had her entire home destroyed in one fell stroke."
Sharpie wilted too. "Right. Sorry. I'll just... take a while to get over it, is all."
"Sharpie and Brightcoil?" Maple asked, stepping up to take Shinespark's place. "I'm Maple. I don't think we met, but it's a pleasure."
"And I'm Slipstream!" Slipstream good-naturedly added, wearing a professional smile that had been honed for years disarming angry airline travelers.
"Maple?" Brightcoil tapped her chin. "That sounds like a Riverfall name. My mother was from there, you know!"
"You're not the first pony I've heard say that," Maple admitted, putting her ears back in reminiscence. "I suppose you were from Sosa, then?"
Brightcoil grinned. "I was! Funny, isn't it? A Sosan mare ending up with an upper-district detective? Nopony says that's something you see every day! Except me. And Sharpie. Heehee."
Sharpie gently elbowed her. "Everybody in the empire. Careful."
"Oh. Right." Brightcoil blushed in embarrassment. "Ask me how we got together some time; it's a good story. Anyway, what have you been doing here so far? We've been-"
She was interrupted by the crackling of speakers, and Starlight looked up to see that the doors were closed and the center was occupied by an older sphinx in a powerful military coat and commanding military beret, both with subdued touches of regal flair. Lord Stormhoof, she supposed, interested to see one of the catlike ponies up close for the first time. It seemed the council was about to begin.
"Let us draw this meeting to order," Stormhoof began, silencing the room instantly with a wise, authoritative voice that was not used to being talked over. "Glory to Garsheeva."
"Glory to Garsheeva!" the crowd echoed as one, voices blending together in unison. "May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world!"
"Let it be so," Stormhoof finished, leaving Starlight blinking and unable to follow along. The Aldenfold? Was that a river, or something? Glancing at Maple, she seemed to have the same question.
Lord Stormhoof cleared his throat. "Today, we have two orders of business. First, as you're all aware, we made the emergency decision to confiscate every Varsidelian ship in the province in the name of military defense and launched an advanced scouting and defensive incursion to Ironridge following two separate reports that Yakyakistan may be breaking its long-held non-intervention pact. Kero of Izvaldi and Sharpie and Brightcoil of Ironridge are present to retestify their parts. However, a third ship arrived yesterday claiming to have departed Ironridge at a later date than either of them, and Meltdown has assessed them and determined their claims to be legitimate. Admiral Valey of Yakyakistan, Shinespark of Ironridge and Gerardo Guillaume of the late Giovanni Goldfeather's house will testify as well, and a new decision must be reached. The six I named, take the floor!"
Starlight glanced behind her chair to see Valey unhappily looking at the way to the central podium. Across the room, descending from the chairs at the far side, a short, bottle-green griffon in a top hat, bow tie and pin-striped suit was making his way to the floor.
At last, for better or worse, they were going to meet Kero.
Kero's beady eyes bugged wide as he noticed Valey hesitantly making her way down the opposite aisle, and quick as a flash he had crossed the midpoint and was at her side, bowing and waving to the assembled officials with a wing that somehow had its own sleeve on his suit. "Admiral Valey! So wonderful to see you survived that harrowing ordeal in Ironridge, truly, indeed!"
From the seating, Maple blinked at Starlight and whispered in her ear. "Do all griffons talk this fancy, or is it just me?"
"Yeah, uhhh..." Valey stood frozen, cringing as Kero draped a wing over her back and posed for the crowd, like he was getting photos with a famous dignitary. "Don't touch me. You and I have some unfinished business."
Kero backed off, bowing again in his ridiculously prim suit. "Business, yes, business! We'll see to that very, very thoroughly, don't you fret! Very thoroughly. Our business. I just couldn't possibly go without letting you know and all the assembled that-"
"Kero." Lord Stormhoof cut him off with a voice about two octaves lower than Kero's own squeaky one. "The council has placed a lot of trust in your accuracy and honesty, and harassing another witness does not bear well for your reputation. Leave Admiral Valey alone at once."
"Harassment?" Kero's eyes widened, and his top hat slipped slightly to the side. "Good Garsheeva, Milord, I would never harass such a true, true hero! Merely conduct business. And finally give her the thanks she deserves for the tragic, thankless task of keeping Ironridge safe and in one piece! Why, if not for her, this terrible catastrophe could have happened so very long ago! All I wanted was to throw in a simple word on her behalf!"
"A question for Kero, from the gallery!" the familiar voice of Prince Gazelle crowed, and Valey looked up to see him sitting next to Meltdown and some other sphinxes she presumed were Lord Stormhoof's family, rearing up and cupping his paws around his muzzle. "In his opinion, does wearing vertical stripes make him look fat?"
"Enough!" Stormhoof's brow creased in anger, and the sound of a gavel striking wood cracked throughout the room. "I won't have a mockery be made of my cabinet! Witnesses, take your seats." He gestured to a row of chairs in front of the central podium. "Admiral Valey, is your history with Kero any of the military's business with regards to the situation in Ironridge?"
Valey shrugged, watching with an inner spark of victory as Kero retreated to his chair. "I mean, sort of? You know the dude was a mercenary boss who worked for Herman, right? Right around the time he bailed, he sent his entire goon squad after my head. Mind you, I was the head honcho of Herman's own militia, so we should have been on the same side too. I did switch sides, though. I'm a good guy now."
A scribe at Stormhoof's side furiously scratched away at a notepad, and the commanding sphinx exhaled. "Kero?"
"Business as usual, oh, yes!" Kero stood up and brushed himself off with both suited wings. "For another client. Outside Ironridge. Whose information is mine and not yours to keep, on the honor of my profession!" He bowed deeply. "Yakyakistan's invasion came as that mission itself was being carried out! I realized then what a tragic, tragic error I had made in my choice of clients, forcing me to re-evaluate all existing contracts! I made the decision to suspend all existing business in the name of warning the world, and here is where I am now." He hung his head. "I know not even whether the fates of my band were horrible fates or generous ones. It keeps me up at night ever so much, even as I flew my flight in a tiny getaway ship all the way here, though of course Admiral Valey's was equally harrowing..."
Valey glared at him. "Sure it was. Your dudes are all fine, and since you ditched them when the going got tough, now they've ditched you for Ironridge."
Kero did a fine show of looking stricken, but by this point Starlight suspected he was acting. "Excuse me!" Gerardo interrupted, standing up. "Permission to take the floor? Something doesn't quite add up!"
Stormhoof pointed at him, holding a wing out for silence. "Permission granted."
"A tiny getaway ship, you say?" Gerardo seemed to puff up, as if he was a detective pursuing a hot lead. "Are you quite sure? You see, when I encountered your troops during the battle in the skyport, they had collectively made the decision without you to leave and abandon their jobs in Ironridge. However, the company airship they all used as a mobile base was missing, and also designed to be operated by a skeleton crew of one! Explain! You deliberately stranded your compatriots, did you not!?"
"I what?" Kero looked just as surprised as before. Maybe it was genuine... "I and anyone else here can most certainly assure you that the airship I arrived on was a very, very small one! Yes, small indeed! And certainly not registered at all for transporting a crew of honorable, loyal mercenaries."
"Gerardo...!" Maple frantically waved a hoof, trying to catch the floor's attention. "I thought we decided Howe and Neon Nova stole that ship?"
"Request permission before speaking," Lord Stormhoof snorted.
"Yo, that sounds kind of right, though," Valey added, backing Maple up with a wave of her hoof. "Pancake and Shades were super sleazy, right? I feel like that's what happened to me."
Kero looked aghast, then outraged, his petite form quaking as his neck fluffed up and his cheeks puffed in anger. "What!? Those new recruits? Oooh, that makes me mad! Never trust a newcomer, ever! We have business, they and I..." His expression darkened. "Would you like to know how this makes me feel inside? Hmm!? Would you?"
"No," Stormhoof replied, silencing him. "This has... General Gorgenheim." He pointed at a militarily-dressed griffon in the ranks of the crowd whose talon had been raised.
"Thank you," Gorgenheim replied curtly. "Lord Stormhoof, I, and I feel I speak for many others, cannot follow any of this and have no idea what's going on, which is entirely counter to the point of this meeting."
Stormhoof's gavel banged again. "Agreed. This topic of conversation is now closed! Witnesses, take your seats and do not speak without holding the floor. Break this again, and you will be removed from the council room and Meltdown will testify in your place, which will not be held in your favor. Have I made myself clear?"
Everyone sat, Kero the last to do so, and Stormhoof exhaled. "Hrrmmmmm... Very well. Gerardo Guillaume, we shall begin with yours..."
Hours passed of the same story being narrated over and over. Having lived it and then heard it once or twice, Starlight was beyond bored, and honestly considering falling asleep.
"They're on the last one," Maple consoled, so softly that only she could hear it, rubbing her shoulder with a dusty brown hoof. "Then they'll talk about what to do, and maybe then we can go..."
"Mrmmmph..." Starlight groaned into her shoulder, not listening as officials and generals began debating strategy and consequence. Every time she tried to listen, it was Ironridge, Ironridge, Ironridge, and she had had enough of that city for a lifetime. They should send ships with aid! But they didn't have any ships, and had just stolen a bunch from Varsidel! They should sail instead! But they couldn't make it up the waterfall, and all their remaining frigates were too big! They should do nothing whatsoever, because Yakyakistan would help first and they were already in too deep! But then they wouldn't get the Varsidelian ships or the Stormhoof troops on them home safely! Blah blah blah blah blah...
At long last, the merciful bang of Stormhoof's gavel sounded in her ears. "Then it seems we have reached a consensus," he said over the rumbling of her stomach, and she uncurled and sat up with a hopefully-final stretch. "Are there any final questions or objections?"
A paw went up from the sphinx box, and Stormhoof gave a long, defeated sigh. "Gazelle?"
Gazelle turned his paw towards himself, studying the pads. "Why is it called Stormhoof when sphinxes have paws?"
Lord Stormhoof's eye twitched.
"Yes, I know!" Gazelle stood up, continuing before he had a chance to be cut off. "Don't make a mockery of your proceedings, Stormpaw. I'm perfectly aware." He began to pace down the aisle, closer to the central podium, eyes closed serenely. "However, now that we're done with the dreadfully important foreign matter of Ironridge, mockery is exactly what I'd like to talk about. Namely, someone making this very castle's defenses look frankly hilarious only last night. I'm sure you all remember."
Stormhoof's eyes flashed, but Gazelle pre-empted him once again. "Yes, yes, before you start, that someone was me. I take full responsibility for all damage, headaches, and shortage of food due to fired chefs involved, except for any hypothetical marring of Geribaldi's reputation if anyone took photos of his reaction to the chaos and leaked them to the presses." Now Gazelle was glaring, pacing in circles around the podium with an intense grace that held everyone in the audience captive. "And I did it because I could! You realize the significance of that, don't you? If the crown jewel of the Empire's military might is a joke, you need to realize that and fix it before the citizenry realize it! You feel I'm making fun of your castle? Imagine how I feel about your ridiculous castle as a part of my little sister's future empire!"
His face softened, tone going back to normal. "Ladies and gentlefelines, I do it because I care. Unfortunately, my subtly-expressed concerns failed to dissuade you from sending the vast majority and most elite of your forces on a journey on commandeered ships perhaps to the far ends of the world with no method of recall! You think heightened vigilance and a few extra patrols are enough? The actions and abilities of one pony say otherwise. Note in particular how she gave herself away in the very kitchens, placed herself in a position to effortlessly assassinate your heir, then settled down in the middle of a hallway to cook a gourd using a broken light fixture and it still took Meltdown for you imbeciles to clear her out!" He hissed, claws extended and scraping on the floor. "Do you understand my concern?"
"You've made your point, Gazelle," Stormhoof said, pointing to his empty chair. "Be seated."
A griffon in the audience was called on, and cleared her throat. "With all due respect, Milord, the High Prince has a point. I raised concerns myself with sending so much of Stormhoof's defense out of the province, since even though we'd be proactive in countering one threat, it could leave us vulnerable to threats from home."
A stern-looking unicorn stallion took over. "What Prince Gazelle fails to notice is that the perceived vulnerability to threats doesn't matter if there are no threats in the first place! Stormhoof is secure and united under Garsheeva's divine will, with allies to our north and east and our armada advancing to the west! All these hypothetical invasions mean nothing."
Valey raised a hoof, and Stormhoof called on her. "Hey, no offense, offensive dude..." She fixed her gaze on him. "But were you even paying attention to what happened? I'm not an army. I'm one single mare. And let me tell you, the way your city treats batponies, I'm utterly baffled none of them have tried this stuff before. Bananas, if I'd gone one more day getting kicked out of bars and creeped at by guards, I probably would have dumped your prince for a mile-high freefall! So yeah, you've got enemies."
The audience looked thoroughly disconcerted by that, and even the unicorn had no reply. Another griffon spoke up, raising his voice above the murmuring: "What about Everlaste? Their budget for this year shows a threefold increase in military recruitment and training spending, and they doubled it the year before. If Stormhoof is perceived as weak or a target, this could be the early stages of a buildup designed to permanently capture our title."
"Everlaste are our allies!" Stormhoof growled, once again dangerous. "Lest you've forgotten, my wife is Lord Everlaste's sister, and their buildup was both our idea and powered by our resources and expertise in response to the instability in Varsidel and the assassination of Gazelle's parents! If anything, this will end in them lending us troops to fortify our garrisons until our own armies return! Ours is a partnership that has lasted over six generations, and is not something to be forgotten lightly!"
The griffonness who had spoken earlier cut back in. "Listen to Valey, though. Of all the provinces, isn't their reputation among sarosians the worst? Using her example, courting Everlaste troops as a show of strength and to reinforce our defenses could provoke exactly the kind of threats it is meant to guard against."
"Hrrmmmmm..." Lord Stormhoof gave a low, frustrated sigh. "I had hoped last night's incident would be the second item on our agenda for the day. However, Gazelle's testimony seems to have needlessly inflamed the issue, and we won't make any headway before the hour of the scheduled press conference to discuss Ironridge. We will reconvene tomorrow at noon. Council adjourned!"
Starlight gasped in relief, springing to her hooves and hoping her ears weren't taunting her. She was hungry, her throat was dry, her legs itched with unspent energy and she longed for a bathroom, and only the long line of griffons and ponies exiting the war room stood in her way.
"Good job, Starlight." Maple leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "We made it. Now, I can't wait to find out about dinner..."
By the time Starlight and her friends were escorted back to their quarters, the sun was more than halfway from noon to dusk, and she had a feeling they were skipping lunch and going back to dinner. Shafts of light entered through armored windows, casting her long shadow against white marble brick walls and carved pillars holding bowls with potted plants. The architectural style emphasized flat surfaces with swirly, intricate trim, and in places rugs trimmed specially for the keep's layout carpeted the center of the walkway. Starlight passed more guards, robed pages and scribes, poofily-dressed dignitaries and more, the brightness of her surroundings forcing open her eyes after the dim gray of the war room interior.
They reached their room and stepped inside, the guards standing back and leaving them be. Shinespark sighed as she walked through the door, Gerardo ruffled his feathers, and Maple and Slipstream walked on either side of Valey, who hobbled along with a stiff limp in all four legs. Starlight went last... or so she thought.
"Hi," Jamjars announced, wiping her lips with a contented hoof as she walked in after them. The guards looked slightly surprised to see her, but allowed her to pass, closing and locking the door in her wake.
"Hello yourself," Gerardo replied, glancing over the short-maned filly. "You were out and about while we were testifying? Did you not remain in here napping?"
Everyone stopped to watch as Jamjars stopped at a dresser, withdrew the wig made from the remnants of her mane, and fixed it smoothly on her head, jumping up and sprawling out and hogging an entire bed for herself. She gazed at everyone disinterestedly, as if daring them to ask where she had been.
"Nope." Valey shook her head, taking steps toward the back room. "Not gonna bother."
"What were you doing?" Slipstream asked, picking up the slack. "You weren't sneaking around, were you? You could have just gone with us."
"I hope you weren't," Maple added. "Not so soon after Valey put everyone on high alert..."
Jamjars looked amused. "Did she? That must have been why everyone was so easy to get by. All it took was a little patience, and hah!" Her eyes sparkled. "Don't you want to know what I found out?"
Gerardo huffed. "Provided it isn't anything that could bring this entire castle down on our heads. We've been quite fortunate and seem to be nearing a position where we can get away from this situation unscathed, and it wouldn't do to endanger that."
"Spoilsport." Jamjars stuck her tongue out at him. "Does anyone else want to hear what I found? I bet you don't already know..."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "If it's important, say it."
Jamjars grinned. "No. Not unless you say please."
"Please?" Maple asked, trying to sound conciliatory.
"Mmmm..." Jamjars hummed, folding her forelegs and mulling it over. "Nah. Not good enough. Say 'please secret' twenty-seven times. In a row."
Shinespark looked incredulous, and Valey called out in protest from the other room, but Slipstream relented and began to chant. "Please secret, please secret, please secret..."
After a minute, she exhaled, letting out a long breath and smiling. "There! Now what do you know?"
"Eh." Jamjars looked away. "That was only twenty-six times. Say it again, from the start."
Sighing, Slipstream gave up and went to rest her own legs. "Well, I suppose I don't care that much, then..."
Seeing that she had long since lost everyone else's attention, Jamjars frowned, then hit the bed. "Fine! I snuck around to follow that magic stone you gave them, remember? I thought I'd make sure no one tried to steal it, or anything. You know..." She glanced toward the room where Valey was. "Since you need it to talk to your marefriend, and all."
Maple pursed her lips. "You're right! I don't think I saw them bring it out at the meeting. Isn't that what they wanted it for?"
Jamjars shrugged. "I dunno. They took it to another part of the tower. There was a pony there called the Everlaste ambassador, and a bunch of guards and a scribe with a magic thingy. They called that Arambai and talked with him forever, and the scribe was saying something about showing the boss Stormhoof what they were saying."
"Pardon?" Gerardo blinked. "Showing what they were saying? How so? Did he have a terminal in that podium reading a transcript while we talked, or some such? Whatever did they talk about?"
"Boring things," Jamjars replied. "Money and airships and what Ironridge needed, and that there were a lot of griffons coming who could stay there and help defend the city for a while if they wanted it. Nothing that sounded against the rules."
Shinespark started pacing, walking between the beds and a large, semicircular table for eating. "Real logistics, then? That's weird. The meeting we were at was a complete sham! We met Kero, and-"
Jamjars cut her off with an angry snort. "I remember him. He was the boss of that loser who knocked up my mom again."
Slipstream went slightly red, and Shinespark coughed. "Yes, him. Kero was seedy! I don't know how that council could take him seriously in the first place. It had to have been that other ship, the one with those two mares on, that backed up his account. And their high prince hijacked the meeting to insult the place over and over, and then Valey and Gerardo were..." She sighed and shook her head. "Now that I think about it, they didn't even give us rules of etiquette going in there. They didn't even try to make us behave. It's like they knew all along that that wasn't supposed to be legitimate and they were conducting their real business somewhere else..."
"You don't think that means we're in danger, do you?" Maple whispered, suddenly tense.
"I doubt it. But I have no idea." Shinespark continued to pace, thinking earnestly. "It's odd, though. Covering up what you're really doing from the public is what a press conference is for, but they already scheduled a press conference for later..."
"Someone is playing at something," Gerardo mused. "But we haven't an idea what it is..."
"And we don't need to," Maple declared, taking the center of the room. "Maybe Lord Stormhoof knew that meeting with all of us would be useless, so he did everything behind the scenes as a backup. Maybe not. But it won't concern us if we don't make it, right? I want to stay out of trouble this time, and we've come far too close already. After Ironridge, the Griffon Empire is supposed to be a vacation."
"I agree," Slipstream added, standing up.
"You're fine!" Valey grumbled from the other room. "Now pipe down; I'm trying to rest my ridiculously ow ow ow legs! Nothing dangerous is going to-"
She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Shinespark beckoned the visitor in, and it swung wide to reveal Meltdown, still fully clad in her infernal armor, with Wallace Whitewing's muscular face lurking in the background.
"Lord Garland Stormhoof has decided you can go early," Meltdown informed them, striding into the room with heavy clunks of metal. "On the condition that you accompany Wallace and both stay away from the press conference. You're free to talk to reporters on your own, but he doesn't want any grandstanding derailing things like today's council. This room will remain your quarters for the duration of your stay in Stormhoof, but you are free to go at any time. Stormhoof is not ready yet to return the sound stone to you, and it will be held in your name if you leave before the time it is ready. Go as you please."
She turned and walked away, taking half the regiment of guards with her and leaving everyone blinking. "That's it, then?" Slipstream asked, glancing at the door where Wallace waited. "We're free?"
"Ho there, heroes!" Wallace beckoned from beyond the door. "I've been kept in a most vile blackout on the proceedings, but the time for that is vanquished! Might I and my friends treat you to an early dinner?"
"Oh bananas I'm hungry," Valey muttered, staggering out of the back room only a few minutes after going in. "Please say that's right now and I didn't just get up for nothing."
"Indeed it is, young warrior!" Wallace extended a massive wing, reaching nearly across the foyer. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance!"
"Are you jesting!?" Gerardo's beak was practically to the floor. "My good griffon, this is the invitation of a lifetime! Whatever creature who would dare turn this down, I ought to wallop into submission! Wallace Whitewing! We would be honored to be your guests!"
"Hah! Someone is infatuated by my reputation!" Wallace winked, drawing back into the hallway. "But listen well! The more one knows, the more one can glean from those around them! Do not be seduced by the prelude of greater, lesser and equal!"
Shinespark and Slipstream started for the door as well, the latter bowing and the former nodding curtly. "Other friends?" Slipstream asked as she passed. "Who else will be there? And can I ask where we're going?"
Wallace returned a confidence-inspiring grin. "Of course you may, citizen! There's a tavern we like to favorite called Wet Floor. The entertainment is good, the food is well worthy, and it lacks a reputation as a hive of scum and villainy! As for my friends, they are the fellow members of my exploration team, Morena and Diego! I'm sure we'll all get along heroically!"
"Here's hoping," Maple replied, following with a game smile and Starlight at her side.
Valey edged instinctively to the side as a buff griffon in a black tuxedo and dark shades caught her eye, unable to tell if he was looking at her or not and trying unsuccessfully to hide the stiffness in her legs. She felt she was walking like a chicken, bobbing back and forth in stiff, jerky movements, griffon food written all over her in hot red lettering, and kept one foreleg tensed, ready to deck him if he tried anything.
Fortunately, she needn't have bothered. As burly as the bouncer was, Wallace Whitewing was twice his size, and nobody seemed inclined to get in his way. Valey passed by the pair of shades, back fur lifting in anticipation, but nothing happened whatsoever.
"Make way! I have arrived!" Wallace boomed, heroic voice effortlessly cutting through the place's din. If the bar Valey had robbed looked like the inside of a treasure chest, this one was styled after a sunken ruin, giant cracks painted onto the walls and effigies of crabs and fish stacked in corners and on square windowsills. There wasn't an angle in the room that wasn't ninety degrees, and one side opened out to a large balcony with additional seating. Another held the bar itself, the third had the door to the street, and the fourth was a large stage backed by a seafloor mural, a guitar-wielding pegasus-and-griffon duo setting up to begin the evening's act.
"Wallace!" A small pink waitress scurried up to him, her mane done in a cute bun, meeting his eyes with plenty of confidence despite having to look straight up to see them. "Out back, if you please? And try not to knock over any tables on your way there. Hey!" She turned and barked at a nearby group of griffons in sailor hats. "Can I get this table shifted over a few hooflengths that way? Watch that your drinks don't get knocked over! Studly guy, coming through!"
Wallace was like an icebreaker ploughing through a frozen sea, and Valey and the others had no trouble following in his wake before the tables and patrons closed back together. When he made it through the balcony door, the resulting surge in light was bright enough Valey had to shade her eyes with a wing; he had blocked out just that much of it in the act of passing through.
"Yo, Wallace!" Two voices called out in greeting as her eyes re-adjusted to the light outside, and the waitress quickly led them to a table with roomy seating immediately next to the railing, a busy street bustling below and occasional shadows from griffons and pegasi passing low overhead. Already at the table, a unicorn stallion waved and an earth pony mare leaned back in her chair, and more seats were swiftly brought over.
"Well, looks like someone brought company," the mare mumbled, raising an approving brow.
"Terrific news!" Wallace boomed, taking up an entire side of the table and opting for no chairs. "These are the Ironridge heroes, whom the fair Meltdown has no further need for. Now, we are free to hang out!" He flashed that smile of his, and Valey began to wonder how it was his beak could stretch so far.
"Pleased to meet'cha," the unicorn greeted, sticking out a hoof clad in some sort of steel combat boot that looked like it used mana power. His blue-gray coat was partially covered by an open-faced black leather jacket, he had an elongated muzzle with a trim brown goatee, and his horn was covered by some sort of helmet enhancement that seemed to turn it into a giant reinforced claw. "Name's Diego, and if this loudmouth hasn't told you who he is a thousand times, I'm the long-lost son of Garsheeva!"
The mare nodded. "Morena," she said, keeping her hind legs on the table. She was well-endowed with muscles and had the frame to hold them, with shoulders as broad as a stronger stallion and a tight, well-groomed coat with plenty of scars of her own. A heavy, armored cloak was draped over the chair behind her, its collar lined with excessive plumage and fur, looking designed to never be washed and be thrown off in the heat of battle. Two thick belts adorned her barrel, a cutie mark of a whole pony skeleton was splashed across her flank, and her kelp-green mane was done up in dreadlocks and a ponytail, contrasting nicely with her dusk-purple fur.
Gerardo was too agape to reply, so Shinespark filled in instead with an appraising glance. "These are some impressive-looking friends, Wallace. Shinespark of Sos... Ironridge." She bowed primly.
Definitely the chattier of the two, Diego nodded smoothly. "Shinespark, Miss Shinespark! Awesome to meet you. And you all must be Gerardo, Slipstream, Maple, Starlight and Admiral Valey?" He nodded again at their stares. "Wallace gave us the lowdown a time or two. Said in his usual way that you guys made it out of Ironridge way after Kero."
Morena raised an eyebrow, head practically upside-down from how far back she was leaning. "You lot are looking overwhelmed," she remarked. "Diego, stop being overwhelming."
Apologetically, Maple stepped forward, keeping her posture confident. "Well, you do look very overwhelming," she admitted, trying a smile. "Wallace just showed up and said he wanted to take us to dinner with his friends! You're them, then?"
"Oh, we put up with each other from time to time," Diego joked, sounding perfectly serious with his incredibly laid-back drawl. "And we've seen some crazy stuff together like you wouldn't believe. Apparently, though, things were getting pretty heated in Ironridge?"
"What'd we miss out on?" Morena asked, savagely eager. "Flea-bitten Stormhoof's been keeping everything close to his coat, but you were all in the thick of it?"
"You could say that," Valey said, still evaluating whether she could relax. Both of Wallace's friends were powerful; it didn't take her cutie mark to tell that, but they were friendly as well. Still, she picked the chair closest to the railing, making sure her back was to as few normal patrons as possible.
Wallace winked. "I've been told it was quite intense! As a seasoned team of adventurers to a young, up-and-coming group of ground-zero survivors to the greatest turmoil of the modern day, I thought we could swap tales of adventure and heroism!"
"Yes!" Morena clapped her forehooves with a sound like a war drum. "Spill! Spill! Spill!"
Shinespark drew a hoof over her forehead, seating herself next to Valey. "We've told those stories so many times in the last few days... Can I at least eat first? After that council, I'm starving!"
"That's okay," Diego drawled as Maple pumped a hoof in agreement. "This is not an interview, or anything. We could start us off with some of our own stories, if you guys need to unwind first."
Morena looked like she had just been told a present she was in the process of opening was for someone else. "What? No! What happened? Just tell me a little! How bad was it, and how involved did you get?" She was leaning forward as far as possible without actually taking her legs off the table.
Maple closed her eyes and grimaced. "It almost destroyed the entire city, and we were at the very center. I don't know what you three deal with for a living, but it was bad."
"Woah, was it?" Diego asked as Morena grinned in gleeful anticipation, muscles taut. "Hey, that sounds like a perfect cue to me to ramble about our own history and jobs until the food arrives! How much do you guys know about who we are?"
A thud echoed from the path nearby, and everyone turned to look to see that Gerardo had fainted. Morena was closest to him, and she sat up properly, leaning down and checking him as her attitude flipped instantly to concern. "What happened? Is he all right?"
Wallace gave a furtive cough. "Ah, yes, aherm, young Gerardo... From my interactions earlier with him, I would guess overexposure to our heroism has caused him to pass out from sheer excitement! Morena, could you ensure nothing else is wrong?"
The earth pony leaned down again, running Gerardo over and poking and prodding with her hooves. After a few seconds, she straightened back up. "Negative. All his vital signs are good and no indications of recent injuries or poison." She lifted her mug. "Want me to throw this on him? You'll be buying me a new one."
"It might be better if you didn't," Maple said, smiling softly at Gerardo's predicament. "He talks a lot when he gets excited, and I kind of wouldn't mind some peace and quiet."
"I'm afraid you're in the wrong place for that," Diego apologized, lifting his own drink with a hoof and sipping from it. "We're a boisterous bunch, here. Say if you need someone to stop, though, 'cause we wouldn't want to cramp your style."
Morena crossed her forelegs and leaned back. "Diego, tell everyone how you got tied up with us lugs. It'll be nice and relaxing."
Valey couldn't tell if she was lying, but nobody objected, so Diego shrugged and began. "It's a bit of a long story, but the short version is that my mom was a freelance pegasus mercenary working in Wilderwind. Wilderwind is mostly empty badland with a city of clouds as the capital, so I have no idea who my dad was or how she even got pregnant with a unicorn in the first place. But that made me kind of a problem for her work since it took a special spell for me to walk on clouds and she couldn't cast it, so she moved to the surface when I was born. Never was happy about it. She cared more about staying in shape than me, and around when I turned six years old, she abandoned me on the border between Wilderwind and Gyre and just flew away."
Maple gaped. "That's horrible," she managed, lifting a quavering hoof. "Your parents... I mean... I have issues with ponies who leave-"
"Eh, don't worry too hard about it," Diego consoled, brushing it off. "Life is harder up in the north and that kind of thing happens all the time. I actually had a friend later on who had exactly the same thing, only he was a pegasus too so he just left when he could because his mother was ignoring him. We got by. Anyway, I walked to a nearby town and eventually joined a gang that gave me friends and food and a place to sleep in exchange for fighting when they needed me to. Lived that way until I grew up and got an injury that makes my horn really bad at casting magic. After that, I stopped thinking I was invincible and started getting serious about combat, and put my brains to use making some cool weapons for myself and the other members of the gang. That earned me a lot of favor, and I started getting promoted and was leading the thing by the time I was twenty-three."
He shook his head. "Then some bad stuff went down and we basically got taken over, right after they put me in charge. Gyre is really bad at policing itself outside the capitol, but they tried to send troops in for this and everything. Unfortunately, their guards got captured, and that led to a hostage situation which got attention even in the other provinces. By that time, all my friends were either dead or ran and I had a bounty on my head, so I figured it was all or nothing and tried to be a hero. Thought maybe I could turn over a new leaf now that I had the know-how to take care of myself and become a solo mercenary like my mom. Then Wallace Whitewing showed up right in the middle of trying to free everyone and basically did it for me. At first I was kind of mad, but he actually sat me down and gave me the world's longest talking-to and was like, 'You have a good spirit. Join my team, and I'll keep you straight and help you make something truly impressive out of yourself.' And I jumped at that faster than a street urchin jumps at a dropped bit, and fifteen, twenty years later, here I am."
Valey whistled in appreciation. "Sounds like you got lucky. I can relate to bits of that."
Diego nodded sagely. "Yeah, that's how Wallace goes. He looks and talks a little goofy, but the dude has the biggest heart I've ever seen and will try to help absolutely anyone who looks like their life's gone wrong and they want to get it back on course. Ask Morena; he picked her up a year or two before me."
"You sure about that?" Morena shook her head. "There's nothing strictly illegal about what he did; I was a criminal. You sure you have the constitution for these kinds of stories?" She lifted an eyebrow at Maple. "I'm thinking Ironridge can't be that bad if foal dumping is what gets you."
Maple emphatically shook her head. "No! Just because I've been through a lot of things I'd never wish on any pony else doesn't mean I've been desensitized to what bad is. Things don't somehow become better just because there are others that are worse."
"Well put!" Wallace praised, watching over the conversation like a snowy sentinel. "In the pursuit of righting wrongs, it is important to remember that nothing need be below our notice so long as it is within our power to save. Setting your sights so high you can only see matters on a national or worldly scale will not only cause you to miss the pickpockets or children with broken toys, but the natural beauty of the world as well! True, we quest in search of the grand and mysterious, but life is so much more fulfilling when we can live in between adventures as well! Besides, it keeps you humble."
Diego and Morena both rolled their eyes at the last line, smiling good-naturedly.
"I guess I'll go, then," Morena sighed, taking a breath as Maple, Shinespark, Slipstream and Valey waited eagerly. "My life started more or less normal. Parents stuck together, all earth ponies, had a house, sent me to school... Lived in a coastal town in Goldoa, which is the province north of this one. Goldoa is coastal, but it's not the closest to the Yule, and it's not the closest to Varsidel, so it's not important for cargo shipping. Instead, the sphinxes try to milk it for tourist potential. That means a lot of pretty garbage, a lot more money than certain people need, and a lot of people who'll try to take it from you. You know... pirates."
She put her hind legs back up on the table, continuing. "I was spoiled as a filly, but still one of the less-spoiled ones around, which meant I had too much and was still jealous of the ones who had more. Made some poor decisions, made the wrong friends, and before I knew it I got knocked up. Wasn't even... Ugh, I don't remember. Wasn't done with school yet. Rather than tell my parents, I dropped out of school, got on a boat, and the next thing I knew I was a punk teenage pirate with a furious sense of entitlement and absolutely no comprehension of the words 'foal' and 'mom'. Really, I didn't get it. I thought I'd just go back to normal after a while and everything would be fine."
Taking another pull from her drink, Morena belched. "Lo and behold, I didn't even get to find out how bad of a parent I'd be, because guess what? Piracy is heresy! My crew accidentally tried to board a military vessel disguised as a cruise liner about half a year after I joined. Each and every one of us got clapped in irons, thrown into a dungeon on a ship, and dragged all the way back to Garsheeva's fortress to be executed for our crimes. And remember, I was still a stupid, entitled teenager at this point. It didn't hit home what was actually going to happen to me until I was all the way in that underground castle, locked up, being made to wait since apparently Garsheeva isn't always hungry... Yeah."
She shook her head, everyone at the opposite side of the table staring with wide eyes. "Somehow, something got through to me that if my parents ever found out what happened to me, they'd also find out about this foal they'd never know, probably think of me as a murderer... And I was just starting to register that that hurt when in walked a bunch of guards along with the fattest griffon I'd ever seen in my life. I figured it was my time, and I was so stupid I was planning to fight, since I felt like I had realized something but didn't realize what it was. And then Wallace... this fat lug sitting right here... glanced around the room, spots me, makes two seconds of eye contact, and is like 'that one.' And the guards took me off the wall, still chained up, led me upward, and let me go."
Valey in particular perked in interest. "Wait a sec, this guy is enough of a boss to get ponies off the hook for heresy stuff?"
Morena sighed. "I didn't know. I tried to bolt. He instantly caught me, dragged me all the way back to a room somewhere, and told me to shut up and listen because he saw a look in my eyes that gave him a good feeling about me, and there was no way he was going to be wrong about using his wish from winning the War of Heroes saving some random stranger. And that got my attention..."
Shinespark, Maple, Starlight and Slipstream looked nonplussed, but Valey went even tenser with interest. "Okay, okay, hold on. You mean that giant contest thing you get any wish granted for winning? Unless those dudes in the sewers were pulling my tail about that, but do you? And this guy won?"
Morena nodded, and Wallace beamed. "That I did, young sarosian!"
"And then..." Morena briefly clenched her eyes. "He used his wish getting some dumb, entitled, clueless teenage pirate and her unborn kid out of hot water, and he'd never even heard of her. That was the only thing I'd ever seen that was so stupid, even I knew it was stupid, and you can bet I paid the best attention of my life..."
All around the table, ponies stared. Maple watched in anxious rapture, Shinespark looked impressed, Slipstream relaxed as if reading a book, and Valey's ears were perked straight, the batpony fixated on the knowledge that Wallace had won the tournament. Morena folded her forelegs, judging everyone's reactions, and Diego looked on with a casual grin.
"You made that up," Starlight said, pointing a hoof.
Maple blinked rapidly, glancing from Starlight to Morena and quickly feeling her heart clench as she realized there was a hint of a smile behind Morena's measured expression. She opened her mouth, trying twice before getting words out. "You didn't, did you? That... no..."
"What makes you think that?" the purple mare asked Starlight, leaning back and putting her forelegs behind her head, raising a carefree eyebrow. "Too unrealistic?"
"No." Starlight levelly met her gaze, ignoring the ponies to either side of her. "You told us far too easily. Both of you. Things like that would hurt to remember if they really happened, and you wouldn't just tell them to complete strangers."
"Wallace?" Maple glanced up, looking to the most powerful figure at the table, feeling like she had had a rug yanked out from under her after becoming fully invested in the stories. "Those were true, weren't they?"
Wallace inclined his speckled, snowy head. "I can see how you feel, and you are looking at this the wrong way, little one! What is history if not a tool to teach, warn and inspire? Yes, my teammates' stories have been embellished, but show me a good story that doesn't deserve it! Their truth is in their message, and that is this: anything can change, from people to history itself. Morena and Diego became fearless adventurers who stand side by side, court thrills and danger and mete out justice as an inspiration to all! Their stories are theirs to shape and craft, as is mine to me, cut from the raw depths of hardship, despair and second chances. We speak not in facts but emotions, a language that is felt and not heard and holds tremendous power to change the world for good! But if facts are all you can see, the ones that matter are that long ago, I saved both of their lives and inspired their souls, and we have been truest friends ever since."
Morena nodded, eyes closed. "Sage words for a big lug. So what if I fudged some places and numbers to make it more interesting?"
"The truth is," Diego continued with patient understanding, "the ponies who are the bottom of society don't live lives that are all that interesting or inspiring. I talked up getting abandoned earlier, and how I had that friend who bailed because his mom was just lousy and ignoring him? That was actually based on me. My mom was a pleasure mare who had other things to worry about, and there's a whole lot of ponies and griffons up north just trying to get along who can say exactly the same thing."
Maple watched, biting her lip.
Diego shrugged. "Of course, for all you know that could be just another embellishment on a story. That variation would ring truer up where it's more common and relatable, so maybe I'd tell it that way if I was visiting Gyre. The thing Wallace is getting at is that there are just some things you can't know, that don't matter, and that still wouldn't matter even if you went to a huge amount of effort to find them out."
"It's all fine to me," Slipstream offered, lifting a wing. "I'm just staying silent because I enjoy the stories. I've never done anything particularly incredible, so listening to both you and these ponies, all that matters is that it's exciting."
"That's the spirit!" Morena smirked, stretching.
"...Did you at least have a foal?" Maple asked, watching Morena with her head timidly drawn back.
"I did," the other earth pony sighed, scratching at the back of her neck. "And she got a good foalhood, thanks to Wallace. Now, though..." Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at Starlight. "That's the kind of story I wait to tell until we're better friends." Instantly, she went back to overly carefree. "So, we've told you our sob stories. Tell us about Ironridge!"
Diego nodded along. "And in case you didn't notice, we care more about the general idea than what literally happened. Don't leave out anything epic, and emphasize everything that was heroic or villainous!"
Wallace gave him a knowing grin. "After how easily they swallowed your two stories, something tells me that won't even be necessary! Please, begin away! My ears are dying to hear!"
"Hey, hold up," Valey interrupted, sitting stiffly in her chair. "That stuff with this tournament thing? You at least know about it, right? Because I heard some things from some other dudes who were shadier and shadier the more I think about them, and wouldn't mind some straight answers..."
Maple glanced over at her. "This is the tournament we saw you fighting in when Meltdown found us, right, Wallace? It keeps getting talked about but I don't really understand it. What's it about?"
"Know about it?" Wallace's grin twinkled. "I wasn't kidding when I said I won! However, from the look in your eyes, it will take quite a while to talk you out of it, and I agree with Morena! Regale us with the tales of yon city!"
Valey groaned, slumping to the table as Morena looked at her in concern. "Guess that's the answer I'll get from everyone..."
Before anyone could continue, the food arrived. Towed on a cart by the plucky pink waitress, Wallace's portion was massive, likely a special just for him. Morena's dish was almost equally so, and while Diego's was more modest Maple was still certain it was more than she could pack away at her hungriest.
"Yes! That's what I'm talking about!" Morena snarled, bearing down on her food with salivating, barbaric fury. Planting both forehooves on the table, she dipped in and began to yank and chew off ear-sized bites with only her muzzle, the waitress averting her eyes as she brought out the rest. Diego chuckled, and Wallace gave a fond stretch before turning to his own.
Maple and her friends had a combination platter together to share from, every item crispy and unmarked and wafting foreign, interesting smells. She trusted her nose and sense of adventure, eyes widening when Shinespark commented in surprise that she had a meat dish, but after a half minute's pause to ensure her stomach felt fine and her tongue was enjoying it, she went back and tried some more.
"Don't eat too much of that," Shinespark cautioned, chewing on a piece of her own. "If you're not accustomed to it, it can take a while for your digestive system to make the switch. Take it slowly, or you'll have a long night tonight."
"This is a plant," Starlight muttered, holding up something she was eating. "I think."
Valey ate too, keeping silent as Maple and Shinespark told bits and pieces of Ironridge between mouthfuls. As the story wore on and the sun drew lower, however, Maple started to notice Morena stealing glances at her with increasing frequency, lip curling more and more each time.
"...You don't like bats either, huh?" Valey asked, noticing too.
"There's something not right about you," Morena stated, as if Valey hadn't said anything. "Your movements are wrong."
"Buh?" Valey blinked. "You think? I had a ridiculously bad day yesterday, and am stupidly cramped like you wouldn't believe. Probably gonna be laid up for a week after this..."
Morena sharply stood up. "Hold this," she instructed, pushing her mostly-eaten platter toward Diego before walking around the table.
"Woah, what the...?" Valey flinched back as she approached, but wasn't limber enough to get out of the way. "Hey!"
Two burly purple forelimbs grasped her, and Maple and Slipstream gasped as she was yanked from her chair, flipped over in midair, and dropped belly-up on the table with an almost militaristic grace. Valey squirmed and protested, but Morena was impossible to escape, jumping around to the cleared area. "Hold still," she muttered, rearing up and jabbing both forehooves into Valey's sides.
"What are you doing?" Maple asked tensely, feeling an instinct to fight and hearing Shinespark's horn come aglow, yet knowing they would be pointlessly outmatched.
"Figuring out her problem," Morena grunted, shifting her hooves and jabbing several more places, holding and measuring. She nodded back at the skeleton on her flank, adding, "I know pony anatomy, and something's not right here."
"You think!?" Valey hissed, rigid against the table. "Ow, that doesn't feel nice! Leggo!"
Morena frowned harder and harder as she continued to check Valey's muscles. "What did you do, lose a fight with a Mistvale Monk?"
"A what? No!" Valey gritted her teeth. "I slept in a cold, tiny cave and flew and ran around for way too stinking long!"
"What's a Mistvale Monk?" Maple asked, watching with fascination and concern.
Diego shook his head, looking forlorn. "Sarosians who live up in the Misty Mountains. Specifically, high-ranking priests and clerics of the religious order they have up there to the Night Mother. Every one of them is trained in this really nasty form of martial arts that uses precise strikes as nerve attacks to disrupt an opponent's fighting technique. The most elite ones can even get through armor sometimes, and if they're feeling vindictive, they can mess you up real bad with complete paralysis and other long-lasting side effects. Fortunately they tend to keep to themselves, but you really don't want to mess with them unless you're very prepared."
Valey's eyes were wide enough to be completely round. "Oh bananas."
"What?" Maple sucked in a breath. "Valey, you didn't fight one of those, did you?"
"No, I..." Valey winced. "Aaargh! I'm gonna dunk that crone so hard the next time I see his stupid face..."
"Well," Morena said, sighing and stepping back. "This could be a problem."
"Stop! Stop," Shinespark commanded, lifting a hoof and lighting her horn and pushing everyone away from the table so Valey could climb off and get to her hooves. "Someone explain what's happening. Monks?"
Groaning, Valey sat up and rubbed her head, glaring at Morena and looking both angry and concerned. "Ow, that hurt..." she complained, stiffly rubbing herself before looking to Shinespark. "So I spent a night at sea during a storm by kicking a boulder out of the cliff and sleeping in a cave about the size of my body. Got a little wet, very cold, very cramped, stiff, all that good stuff. Then I flew for way too many hours getting to a boat and stowing away until land, and was so sore I couldn't use my wings, which was why it took me so long to get back to you. Forget about running around that castle... I'm still stiff. I thought I just needed to sleep it off, but apparently miss rough-and-tumble here thinks it's actually a nerve attack or something from that stupid codger. It's not like I can't walk, or anything..."
"So those monks Diego was saying things about?" Maple tilted her head, breathing shallow. "Did you fight one? I don't remember you telling us about any fights."
"No, I... argh." Valey slumped, burying her head in her hooves before wincing and straightening back out. "It was that dumb mysterious-past batpony geezer from the sewers. I was wandering around there and found a room that was supposedly quarters for this tournament thing?" She sighed. "Dude was like, 'Hey, you look sore,' and his friends were like, 'Hey, he can help with that,' and I let them talk me into getting poked and prodded for a bit just like you just tried..." She flung a hoof at Morena. "I probably would've knocked his block off within a few seconds if it hadn't actually helped with my wings. I don't think it felt dangerous but... ugh. He said he used to work for their Night Mother church or something, too, I think."
Maple opened her mouth to ask why Valey didn't detect any danger, but suddenly thought better of it, noticing she had always avoided mentioning what her cutie mark did in the war room. She was dancing around it, but maybe she didn't want her biggest advantage revealed?
Slipstream huffed. "That's rude. Why would anyone just attack a stranger? Was he trying to rob you? You're both batponies, so if things are as hard as you described for you in this city, you'd think they'd want to work together!"
"Diego!" Wallace announced, protectively watching the proceedings. "An aged sarosian stallion, proficient in the northern ways and participating in pools during a Gyre delegation's visit?" He arched a massive eyebrow. "Something tells me we've stumbled across an old friend of yours."
Diego pounded one armored hoof against the other, nodding grimly. "It sounds like we have."
"What?" Shinespark glanced at him, Maple and Valey along with her. "That sounds familiar?"
"Oh, aye," Diego confirmed, staring out over the balcony railing at the setting sun. "He ended my very first streak in the tournament, third match of the third round, and then the dirtbag carded me. There are a lot of battles in my life I say I'll never forget, but that one sticks out at the forefront of my memory because I've never had a chance to return the favor. I know it's not a very heroic thing to think about, but some day I'm going to get a rematch, and teach him that cheaters never win."
"Cheaters? In this tournament?" Valey blinked. "Wait, he was..." Her eyes widened. "Bananas. He did that right after I mentioned wanting to enter, didn't he? Was he trying to sabotage me!?" She hissed, coat rising as her eyes narrowed. "I was thinking about helping them! Grrrrr..."
Diego shrugged. "Sorry to break it to you, but this tournament you've got your eyes on is an event specifically for entertainment purposes. The only purpose of the rules is so fighters can compete in getting away with breaking them."
Valey clenched her eyes shut. "I hate to break it to you, but this is pretty much making me want to enter just so I can pound him back in front of an audience. He kept going on about some way to enter late, but wouldn't tell me, and I thought he was just being annoying."
"Valey?" Maple interrupted. "Sorry, but you want to enter this tournament? We were watching some of the fights earlier, and even though they were lower-ranked, they looked brutal. And I thought we weren't trying to draw too much attention to ourselves? I did think of you when I saw it, but why?"
"Well, maybe the crone was lying there, too..." Valey relaxed, sighing. "But he said the prize for winning is that you get one wish granted by Garsheeva. Whatever you want. Including one of your Plains of Harmony passes, which would be a year faster than waiting for Yakyakistan to give us Birdo's."
Maple frowned down at her companion, who was still out cold. "Speaking of Gerardo, maybe someone should wake him up..."
"On it." Morena emptied the remains of her tankard over the snoring griffon's head, looking like he had passed from fainted unconsciousness into a regular deep sleep. With a sputtering cry, Gerardo awoke, shaking and spraying her, Wallace and Diego with droplets of drink.
"Bwaaaugh! Cease that!" Gerardo squawked, flailing. "My uniform does not take stains-" He quickly realized who he had just doused, beak drooping in shock.
"Peace, my friend!" Wallace laughed, patting Gerardo on the head with a wing. "You've missed quite a lot, but your sarosian ally is currently the focus of conversation!"
Diego nodded at Valey, ignoring being splashed. "Something tells me we're about to get sidetracked, but if you're looking for a Writ of Harmonic Sanction, that's definitely one of the popular prizes. However, wanting to be number one really isn't a good reason to enter the tournament. I'll let Wallace say why. He explains it far better than I do."
"The reason is simple!" Wallace grinned, ignoring Gerardo's stammered apologies and turning to Valey. "Because I have a wish too, and to claim victory, you would need to defeat me!" He coughed uncomfortably. "Ordinarily, I would challenge you to a friendly sparring match to give you a taste of what you would be in for. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to fight an opponent who is at such a horrible disadvantage, so that will have to wait until you are at the top of your game! But realize that there can only be one champion, and many of the contenders will have devoted their entire lives to their cause! If I hear correctly, you want to save a year obtaining a rare item you already have stake to at the far end of the world? The tournament has been won by countless creatures over the centuries, but all of them have one thing in common: they choose their path and fight for it with every fiber of their being! From fiendish tricksters to heroic paragons to those blessed by forces beyond mortal comprehension, it takes everything the most dedicated of us have to give and more to succeed! While stories and legends are sung of those who capture the crown, the true winners in this battle are those who can accomplish their goal while still failing to become number one."
Valey blinked. "Blessed by forces beyond mortal comprehension? Are you exaggerating again?"
"A question for the ages," Wallace said mysteriously, Gerardo growing hopelessly lost behind him. "Many would assure me I am! But the wonderful thing about reality is that it is far more difficult to prove something not to exist than to discover that it does. And as every sarosian will tell you, the world is far bigger than just Garsheeva. During my travels I have met many creatures who say many things, and some who believe they are supernaturally empowered! The most famous of these is Giovanni Goldfeather, a lord who lived several generations ago and is enshrined in legend. Whether their tales are rooted in fact or fantasy is not for me to determine. But these are stories for another time, because you want to hear about the War of Heroes, and this tournament is an adventure one shouldn't go into unprepared."
"Pardon?" Gerardo sputtered, finally finding his voice. "We're not discussing Valey's potential entry into the Empire's yearly dueling event, are we?"
"We kind of are," Valey answered, standing unevenly with one shoulder beginning to twinge. "Listen, Bathtub, I've really just got one question..." She raised an emerald eyebrow. "The bozo in the sewers was going on about how the event had already started, but there was a late way in, or something. But he kept saying it was immoral, reprehensible, all that... Was he pulling my tail?"
Diego snorted, trying and failing to contain his laughter so hard that he fell out of his chair.
"Reprehensible, says he?" Wallace wore a knowing grin. "It sounds like someone got their just desserts after all! Late entry is dangerous, perhaps, and can earn you the ire of powerful enemies if you attempt to use it for harm, but I would hardly call it immoral! All you need is one of these!"
He whipped out a gleaming, golden something, and Valey's pupils went thin in the glare of reflected sunlight. It was a card, bearing the flawless portrait of a sphinx, tiny bits of color woven into the enchanting material in the form of shards of crushed gemstone.
"...Huh," Valey said, captivated by the shine. "This is a totally hypothetical question, but how common is it for hobos to mug you in bars just to slip one of those in your saddlebags?"
"This is a totally hypothetical question, but how common is it for hobos to mug you in bars just to slip one of those in your saddlebags?"
Everyone on Starlight's side of the table stared at Valey, and she shrugged. "What? It's in my bag in the castle room. How was I supposed to remember about it when so much else happened after?"
Gerardo blinked first, glancing between Wallace and Valey and still getting his bearings. "Pardon? Is that a Golden Regent?"
"Indeed it is!" Wallace boomed, showing off the card before slipping it back away. "And you would be surprised, young sarosian! That is actually one of the most common ways to get one!"
Valey spat out her drink, narrowly missing Slipstream. "Wait, what!?"
Wallace nodded. "Who here has any idea what this is? You, perhaps, master Guillaume?"
"You're asking me?" Gerardo gaped for a second. "Why, I'd imagine you'd have come across dozens of these in your adventures! However, yes, I do believe I have..." He cleared his throat, looking extremely flustered and self-conscious and plainly trying to pretend he hadn't just passed out from excitement in front of the party he was now addressing. "As far as I am aware, they are a form of currency used only among sphinxes, are they not? One is made by Garsheeva in commemoration of every sphinx that is foaled, making them exceedingly rare. The remnants of my house possessed three when I left to heed the call of adventure, and they were treasured as family heirlooms."
"Yes and no, my little griffon," Wallace answered with a reassuring grin. "The Golden Regents are made by Garsheeva, but are steeped in enchantments limiting their use in ways that make many deeply uncomfortable. Should you try to use one for an ordinary transaction, it will disappear and find itself right back in your clutches, and similar if one tries to lose or abandon it! The only purchase they will accept as valid are in exchange for a creature's life."
Everyone went deathly silent, until Starlight frowned. "Are you making things up again?"
"If only I was, young unicorn, the Empire would be a different place," Wallace intoned, shaking his head. "But it is not so. The cards are, in essence, judgement incarnate. Why Garsheeva would design such a thing is beyond anyone's right to understand, though most assume they are either toys by which she amuses herself watching mortals playing in the realm of a goddess, or of some higher mystical significance making them just as valuable as the price they demand!"
Valey glanced at where Wallace had stowed his. "Okay, that sounds really uncool. They aren't... actually dangerous, are they?"
Wallace winked. "Nothing so sinister! The cards themselves hold no power beyond enforcing their use. Typically, slavery and pirate ransoms are the type of things you'd see them used for, and both are outlawed in the Empire! Any time you would be assigning a worth to someone's life, they can be used." He coughed. "Not to say the latter never happens, but that's neither here nor there, and part of the reason heroes like us are so valuable. However, the end result of all this is they are effectively useless as a currency, yet good at making pious individuals very unnerved. About the only thing they can be ethically traded for is as bridal dowries. Noble families are always interested in marrying their lord off to a female sphinx in order to perpetuate their bloodline, making such felines worth a very high amount in compensation. Incidentally, regent has taken on the more common meaning of slang for the amount of money typically offered as such!"
"So what does that have to do with this tournament?" Maple asked, frowning. "And why would someone just give one to Valey?"
"Anything and everything!" Wallace nodded, moving a meaty talon to illustrate. "There are precisely two other ways for the Regents to change owners, barring a transaction they decide is suitable: being stolen, and willingly given for free. The rules and structure of the War of Heroes are too complex to explain here, but in essence, challengers come from two places. First, there are those who seek sanction from each of the twelve houses, whom are given a quota of fighters they can permit to enter in their name. Second, anyone in possession of a Regent is free to enter during the second round. It's more of an entrance pass, so doesn't count as a transaction... but remember, this tournament is for the dramatic enjoyment of those in higher places than ours. In order for anyone who enters by a Regent to progress into the fourth and final round, they must have used it in round two or three to pass judgement upon a defeated opponent. In short, nobles like watching mortals pretend to be goddesses."
Valey swallowed. "So basically some dude slipped this onto me because it was the only way for him to get rid of it without getting beaten up, and since I didn't know what it was, I couldn't just refuse, and now I'm stuck with it? And I either have to enter the tournament and use it, find someone who will willingly take it off my hooves for free, or become a walking magnet for anyone who is looking to steal one to get into this fight?"
"Hah!" Wallace gave a confidence-inspiring laugh. "Don't look so glum, young sarosian! If you see it as a curse, I would gladly spare you the burden and take yours for myself. I already have several, so one more would do nothing to hurt me!"
"That's only if you don't want it," Morena cut in. "If you're thinking about the tournament, guard yours with your life. Of course..." She yawned and leaned back, mouth opening straight up. "Not going to do you much good if you can barely walk. But have your conversation. We can talk about fixing that later."
Maple glanced at Wallace in concern. "What do you mean about passing judgement on a defeated opponent? If Valey loses... it isn't like someone could buy her, is it?"
"Not so!" Wallace grinned. "Remember, this event is for entertainment! When a card-bearer defeats a foe, they have two choices! In the second round, they may use their Regent to condemn their foe and judge them unworthy to fight! If so, the condemned will be removed from the tournament rather than merely suffer a setback. And if a defeated foe is cast down with a card in round three, not only will they have their run ended, but become barred from house sponsorship for the following five years! If they want another shot, finding a Regent of their own will be the only option... and you can bet many will do so with vengeance on their minds."
Diego nodded sourly. "That's what I meant when I said your Mistvale Monk friend carded me on my first run. He got me with his nerve attacks, and instead of leaving me to lick my wounds and accept trying again next year, the dirtbag went and banned me from sponsorship altogether."
Valey snorted. "So basically to enter that way, you have to be a jerk to someone you beat. I guess it's a game of seeing who you dislike most?" She tipped her head in thought. "So would you fight dirty and try to win, or play nice and hope if it costs you a fight, you don't get wrecked? You don't drop out for losing in round two, you said? Hmmm..."
"That is one way," Wallace answered, head bowed. "And remember! It is strictly advantageous. If you win a close fight you may not feel confident against next time, banning your opponent ensures you will not face them in a rematch in the third or fourth rounds. Such a thing is uncommon, but far within the realm of possibility! And if done later, it reduces your odds of a rematch against them should you return in the following years! However, there is a second path: defeat in the third round and beyond always ends your chance of winning. However, by using your Regent against a defeated opponent there, you show mercy and spare them, sending them to the opposite side of the ladder where they face off against a new opponent and continue their game! An opponent spared in this way can survive, and even go on to stand victorious. But beware: there can only be one winner, and if both you and your spared opponent survive until the finals, you will meet again there. Sparing your foe is senseless and strictly disadvantageous, but it must be done if you cannot bring yourself to pass condemnation in the earlier rounds."
Maple wiped a hoof across her forehead. "Okay, this is getting too complicated for me to follow..."
"Hah!" Morena cackled. "He told you the rules were complicated. Be glad this is only the use of Regents and not the rules for the entire war. Sphinxes love making it hairy."
"I think I get it," Slipstream said, putting her forehooves on the table and standing up. "But can we slow down and make sure we're right about what we know?" She cleared her throat. "Let's see... The important parts are that you need a Regent to get in to fight, but if you don't want to fight, you don't want one, so someone got rid of theirs by tricking Valey into taking it. And then once you're in, if you have one, you can either use it to hurt someone and get ahead, or help someone even though you'd have to lose for it to matter. Right?"
Maple and Shinespark nodded along. "You have the gist of it!" Wallace praised, beaming. "Mind you, those like myself who earned house sponsorship yet also possess Regents can still use theirs in the tournament, and can banish or spare as many as they have! It is common for fighters to keep theirs hidden, so it is always a gamble as to whether your opponent has one or not! Due to the structure of the second round, this makes it in particular heart-poundingly intense!"
Valey blew on her bangs. "Well, you sure seem excited telling me about it. Still on with the whole 'entering is a bad idea' thing?"
"That depends," Wallace warned, eyes growing serious. "Did you heed me earlier when I extolled the likelihood you would fail in your quest for victory? Do you believe you have what it takes to go hoof to talon against those who would trade their very being for a cause?"
Morena nodded casually behind him. "Of course, if you just want to have good fights and don't care about winning, get in there as fast as you can. Or spar with us, but we might be out of your weight class."
Valey shrugged. "Hey. Like I said, all I want out of winning would be a faster ticket to something I already have. And seriously, since it's not even myself I'd be getting it for, you could convince me to be altruistic and wish for something for someone else. I guess I just want to see if I can."
"Excellent!" Wallace pounded his talons together. "In that case, I greatly look forward to testing your mettle myself before the second round begins! Morena, what are our options?"
"About getting her in fighting shape?" Morena shrugged. "I'm good with musculoskeletal stuff, but I don't know monk arts. Might be able to get her to feel a little better, but aside from waiting who-knows-how-long for it to wear off, your best bet is probably us taking you to Izvaldi and bullying Chauncey into using his connections."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Rule one: I am absolutely done with letting random strangers poke me. Hooves off the bat, 'kay? Second, who's Chauncey?"
Diego slowly sighed. "He's not exactly my favorite pony in the world, but Chauncey is the top advisor to Izvaldi's ruling lord. He's kind of your go-to sarosian if you need anything dredged up from the nocturnal underbelly of society, and is friends with a doctor we've used before when any of us get messed up by a bad encounter with monks and want to get back on our hooves in a hurry."
Valey curled her lip.
"Sell us on Izvaldi," Maple offered. "Stormhoof is nice, but I bet we're going to be swarmed with attention once tomorrow's newspaper comes out, and it really doesn't seem all that friendly for Valey."
"With pleasure!" Wallace boomed. "Izvaldi is one of the best places to go if you are a sarosian in the Empire! The three of us didn't choose it as our home base for nothing, after all! Its ruling lord, Percival Izvaldi, is a great proponent of treating creatures openly and fairly, and invests heavily in public projects for those in need such as hospitals and schools! There are a few downsides, including the low overall level of development and impending change of rulership to Prince Gazelle when Percival's grandfather passes away, but Gazelle is already an ally and everyone expects that to go off without a hitch."
"Can we think about it?" Shinespark asked, glancing at the setting sun. "It's getting late, and we should return to the tower and ensure our ship's docking is paid for."
"Of course you may. Our invitation is always open-ended!" Wallace bowed, stepping away. "One of us will track you down soon enough, so don't worry about staying in touch! Until tomorrow, bold heroes."
Maple rolled into one of Stormhoof Keep's plush beds, all four limbs pointed upwards, and released a long, pent-up sigh.
"Sounds like someone will sleep well tonight..." Slipstream yawned, slouching towards the bathroom.
"I don't think so." Maple sadly smiled at the roof. "At the rate my brain is going, I might not fall asleep until midnight. There's just so much that happened these last two days, and I doubt I can even close my eyes until I've tried to process it."
Shinespark walked past the curtained window, a few final tinges of dusk on the horizon beyond. "I know how you feel. I don't like being this out of control, and nothing in this empire works the way it should!" She sighed too. "This is probably how you felt when you arrived in Ironridge."
"Something like that," Maple replied, her muscles relaxing even as her head continued to spin. Her stomach was heavy with food, and even if she didn't feel like sleep, lying down was a sensation she sorely needed. "I suppose I expected it, this time, but that doesn't make it any less strange. I don't think a single thing happened the way I expected it to, except for Valey finding her way back..."
"It's good to be able to count on each other," Shinespark agreed. "What did you think of the food? I'm not enough of a connoisseur to know what it was, but you were trying a meat dish."
Maple looked down at her legs. "I don't know. I suppose I was so far out of my comfort zone already I felt like I didn't have anything left to lose. I guess I don't know what I was expecting, either. It's not something that crossed anyone's minds back in Riverfall. Where did I hear about using meat as food before? Was that from you?"
Shinespark's shoulders slumped. "Probably. There was some broth as a delicacy at the breakfast I put on when we made the decision to evacuate. It was..." Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked away. "I mostly had it for Grenada. She enjoyed it. Nnngh..."
Maple glanced over, seeing her shiver. "You still miss her, don't you?"
"I'm mostly back on my hooves after Ironridge, but Grenada is someone I still have to remember not to think about," Shinespark said, walking closer and leaning on the side of Maple's bed. "Gunga went the way he wanted to go. All my friends who were on the dam with me knew what was at stake. Grenada... thought she knew what she was risking, but she didn't. To an extent, I lied to everyone in the Spirit, telling them what would keep their spirits alive rather than the truth. I wonder what Wallace would think of me if we had gone that deep in telling them about Ironridge... But Grenada was different, because I kept her in the dark about so much more. Do you remember Elise?"
"Your oldest half-sister," Maple murmured. "Who got caught in the middle of Ironridge politics twenty years ago. I don't think I could ever forget."
Shinespark stared off into the distance. "Shortly before Elise left Ironridge to escape the fallout from everything that was happening, she found Grenada as a newborn and brought her back to her friends. She said Grenada was another of Mobius's lost children, and was someone who would need taking care of. But she was leaving, Matryona and I were under Arambai's protection, and she couldn't be sure if her other friends Pearl and her son Fernand would be able to withdraw into a quiet life outside the public eye. As far as she and Arambai hoped, the story of Mobius and Project Aslan was over, so they made the decision to find foster parents in the Earth District to raise Grenada, neither of whom had knowledge of her heritage. Around a decade later, when I earned my brand and vowed to save Sosa and our airship program, Elise returned, and I found out from her about my other siblings, including Grenada."
She sighed, closing her eyes and continuing. "After that, I started trying to make myself a part of her life, becoming her friend and role model and trying to carve out a position for her in the Spirit. Most of the Spirit ponies joined because Braen's message resonated with them, but Grenada joined because I wanted her to. I was even younger than I am now, thought we could be crusaders together... I wanted to help her, and thought that was the way to do it. I always thought about telling her eventually, but kept saying I'd do it when the battle was over, or when she was more mature and thinking for herself. Then I found out she had a crush on me, and thought I'd wait for that to pass..."
Maple waited, but Shinespark didn't continue. Eventually, speaking for the unicorn, she finished, "And then she didn't make it."
Shinespark shuddered. "It was worse than that. I was there with her, in the tower, right before it was torn away. I think she realized she was in too far and needed to go back, but that could just be what I want to remember. I told her to go back... I hope. I could have stayed with her, followed her, made sure she got out, and instead I went further, chasing every pony but her. I had already lost the ones on the dam, and thought... I got everyone but her out, and for my reward, they turned on each other and started to fight. I always ask myself what I should have done, and I always know that there was no right answer in the tower because I made the wrong choice before, but I don't know what the right choice was then either..." She sighed, laying down on the floor. "Sorry. Just the one part of Ironridge I can't ever move past."
Maple rolled over, dangling a foreleg off the bed and brushing her hoof in what she hoped was a comforting way against Shinespark's side. "Well, I'm happy to listen."
"You shouldn't have to," Shinespark muttered. "But thanks."
"I never knew either of my parents," Maple decided, searching for something to say. "That's usually how things were in Riverfall. Your mother might raise you herself, or in a pool with several other mares, or leave you in a pool and not be a part of your life at all, like mine. And everyone's fathers were visiting Sosans, who would come in on their ships, stay for a night, and leave. Nobody knew how common it was to have siblings you would never have heard of, but depending on what else my parents did, I could have a lot. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a brother I had never met in the Spirit, and we did find out from Arambai that my old husband died on the dam bridge... though he isn't a pony I'll ever miss. But when I think about it this way..." She closed her eyes and smiled. "You get to choose your friends. Amber and Willow and I probably aren't related by blood, but we stood with each other for everything life had to throw at us, and that's more important than family. And even then, you got to know Grenada for a while. If things had been different, you could have never met her at all..."
Shinespark nodded. "Knowing Mobius, I still have many siblings Elise was never able to find. Maple, I know you're right, but..." Her ears folded. "It's not something I'll be able to listen to reason on for a long time, still. Some day, I'll be able to do something in her memory, and until then, I'll just have to wait."
"Hmm," Maple agreed, stretching. "Well... thanks for giving me something different to think about than the Empire, at least. I don't even know where to start with that..."
"How about Wallace?" Slipstream asked, emerging and wiping a hoof across her mouth. "That's the kind of person I wanted to meet on an adventure. What did you two think of him?"
"Wallace Whitewing?" Maple blinked, mouth hanging open. "I don't know; I... still need to think about him more, I suppose. He seems loud, but I don't mind as much as Gerardo."
"Wallace..." Shinespark frowned. "I hope he's what he looks like he is. Someone that well-intentioned and powerful could be a great force for good, but at the same time, he reminds me of myself. I thought I was a hero too, and treated the world like it acted according to my ideals, and all I did was get ponies into trouble."
"He invited us to Izvaldi," Maple realized, nodding slowly. "But isn't that where Kero is from? I suppose he could be bad. Would anything not make sense if we assumed he was?"
"Yes," Starlight announced, raising her voice from where she was doing something quietly in a corner. "There was that colt in the arena who was obsessed with him. He couldn't have been put there to trick us. Nopony can plan that."
Maple thought harder, then grimaced. "I hate doubting people. I'm sorry..."
"Gerardo would be offended if we didn't trust him," Shinespark mused. "I'd really like to trust Wallace and his friends. We need friends in the Empire, and they're both strong and know a lot about how it works."
"Their explanations aren't intuitive and seem weird," Maple slowly agreed. "But that's how I felt in Ironridge, so I guess the world can be weird sometimes. It would be nice if they would help us..."
Slipstream rubbed her chin with a hoof, leaning against the bed and steadying herself with a wing. "They talked so much about this tournament. I wonder what they would wish for if they won?"
"That's a good question," Shinespark agreed. "And I think it matters, too. Wallace talked about needing to commit yourself beyond one hundred percent to a cause if you wanted to win, and if you know what someone would do that for, you understand them completely. We'd know for sure whether they were genuine."
"Morena said Wallace had won before, though," Maple pointed out. "Didn't she? She said she was embellishing, but he said he really had. So whatever he wanted, he already got it. And he also said the real winners are those who don't need to win to get what they want. I could believe that, watching him fight yesterday. He seemed more interested in helping his opponents than actually winning..."
"But he also said he wanted to win," Starlight cut in, not looking up. "He said Valey would need to go through him if she wanted to win, right? That means he wants to be the top, whether he's gotten it before or not."
Maple frowned. "But if he already won, he'd already have gotten his wish! Are there two different things he wants? How could he be as committed as he said you needed to be if he did?"
Shinespark shrugged. "I suppose we could just ask him."
"There has to be a place to look up what winners have asked for before," Slipstream decided, straightening up. "In a history book, or something. We could see what he got last time, since Morena said she was exaggerating about him pardoning her. While we're at it, we could see what all the previous champions have looked like, and see how they compare to Valey!"
Maple's eyes widened slightly. "I wonder if he won but somehow didn't get what he wished for... They were always talking about how this tournament is for the entertainment of the nobles, right? What if they decided not to give him what he wanted as a surprise ending?"
Shinespark shook her head. "They couldn't. If the winner didn't get their wish, nobody would participate. It's like gambling; others will only play if the chance of victory is greater than zero. If even the winner doesn't win, it would fall apart."
In the corner, Starlight coughed. "Why does Valey want to enter this tournament, anyway? I thought we were trying not to get in trouble, and they said that monk already tried cheating to stop her from entering. We'll just get in trouble again and all get hurt."
"Hmmm..." Maple stretched, rolling back upright. "I suppose I should see how she's doing, too. She's probably trying to sleep in the other room again, isn't she?"
Slipstream nodded. "I saw her go in there. Gerardo might be there too, or maybe he's still somewhere else. I know he was a little upset at missing out on so much of the conversation with Wallace and his friends. Maybe he went looking for them?"
"He's making sure the Dream is paid for," Shinespark said. "I asked him to do it. If my boat gets impounded for missed payments, that'll be a big problem. I also looked at a map, and Izvaldi seems to be landlocked, so if we decide to take them up on their offer, we'll need to find a way to deal with it."
Groaning, Maple got to her hooves and climbed off the bed, her body protesting at being put to use so soon after she had finally relaxed. It was a short stroll through the darkened doorway to the back bedroom, and she had to pause in the entrance, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light.
"Hey," Valey's voice greeted from a bed at the far side.
"I hope I'm not waking you when you're trying to sleep," Maple apologized, pacing quietly over on the carpeted floor. "I just wondered if you wanted to talk."
"Eh, I'm not doing anything important." Valey's silhouette began to enter Maple's vision, sitting straight up in the bed. "Just flexing."
"Flexing?" Maple asked, further adjusting to the gloom.
"Yeah." Valey lifted a forelimb, grunting and tensing it. "...Ow. Trying to decide if that crazy lady was right, or if I really just ran myself ragged and need to take better care of myself."
Exhaling, Maple jumped into the bed beside her, keeping a respectful distance. "It certainly surprised me, hearing that."
"Meh. Everything that shouldn't be dangerous in this place is," Valey snorted. "I'm trying to remember exactly what I said and what order things happened in, because I really don't think my cutie mark warned me while he was supposedly fixing my wings, and it totally should have if that was what did it. I mean, though, you've been completely gored by a magic immobilization sword, and I can at least walk, so I shouldn't be complaining..."
Maple looked thoughtfully at the curtained window. "I did something else before that, though. Hearing them talking about those magic nerve attacks and seeing how stiff you look reminded me... the first two days in Ironridge, I was extremely sore and tired, and even resting couldn't fix it. I thought I had just overtaxed myself with all the climbing and carrying I had done, but it turned out to all be because I was carrying a windigo heart in my cutie mark. Starlight was the one who figured it out, and the moment I dropped it, it felt like I was a whole new mare. That must be like how this feels..."
Valey stretched, groaning. "Ugh. Yeah, too bad I'm not carrying around any strength-sapping evil artifacts..."
"How long has it been since you took this off?" Maple whispered, tapping the golden pendant around Valey's chest.
Valey glanced down at it, tensing slightly. "Bananas, this? I don't even know..." She swallowed. "It's kind of important, though. To me. And I felt fine for however many days we spent in the airship getting here! You're not thinking this could be making me feel like garbage, are you?" She glanced up, and from her eyes Maple realized that whatever her word on it, she would trust her.
"I think..." Maple hesitated, badly not wanting to misjudge. "I hope it isn't. But... maybe it's worth a try? I know neither of us like moon glass, so even though this piece contains something good..."
Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Valey reached behind her neck and unclasped the pendant. Away it came, the fur on her chest matted in its ornate outline from how long it had been worn. The gold twinkled faintly in the room's dim light, the moon glass contrasted it like a pit of emptiness in a starless sky, and for several seconds, Valey sat there, holding it in her forelimbs and not moving.
"...Nah," she eventually decided. "Doesn't make a difference."
"I bet you're relieved," Maple murmured, scooting closer and wrapping a foreleg around Valey's back.
Valey shifted uncomfortably. "Yo, Ironflanks... I know being kinda hug-happy is your thing, but I just got tricked into a paralytic massage by some heretic monk and then suplexed over a table by a mare with muscles the size of watermelons. Sorry... not really feelin' up to it right now."
"Oh!" Maple pulled back immediately, feeling her face redden. "I didn't even consider... Sorry!"
"Eh, it's fine..." Valey tried to shrug, wincing and looking down at the pendant in her hooves. "Yeah. Anyway. Moon glass." She sighed. "You hate it too, huh? Or are you just saying that because I told you it was bad way back when some time in Ironridge?"
Maple shook her head. "White Chocolate. But you probably don't need to listen to me talk about her..." Slowly, her gaze wandered to the antichromatic stone set in the pendant. "Sorry if I forgot, but I can't remember if you said why this one was important to you..."
Valey flopped back against the bed, bouncing once. "Nah, I didn't tell you. It's just important to me."
Maple nodded, but didn't press.
"You know what I wish?" Valey asked. "I wish that Stormhoof bozo would hurry up and give the sound stone back. I wanna talk to Amber. There's something I told her back in Riverfall, and sooner or later... Eh, never mind. I'll tell you guys when it's important."
"Are you asking me to ask?" Maple guessed, wondering if she should say anything at all.
"Nah. Just thinking out loud."
For a moment, the room was silent, Valey turning the pendant over and over in her hooves, eventually clasping it back on right where it had been before.
"Eh," Valey finally decided. "I think I'm gonna try to catch some shut-eye. Got a few new things to think about besides contests and monks and our crazy new allies. If you go to bed, just try not to sleep on top of me, or anything."
Maple nodded. "I'm going to check on Starlight, and soon I think I will."
"Ni-ni..." Valey mumbled, rolling over and hugging her face with her forelegs. "Dream of hot mares..."
Smiling to herself, Maple walked back into the lit room, figuring that wouldn't be very likely. When she arrived, she realized Gerardo had returned and was presently engaged in an animated debate with Shinespark, Slipstream watching uncertainly and Starlight crossly reading a book on the sidelines.
"My good Shinespark," Gerardo was sputtering, "I know you don't mean to insult Wallace's honor, but I was raised on his legacy! Tales from the height of his adventures pervaded my childhood! His trustworthiness is supreme, and the mere idea that we shouldn't leap at an invitation to visit-"
Shinespark cut him off with an exasperated cough. "Gerardo! I'm not talking about your precious Wallace! For the last time, this is about my boat! I'm not leaving it in Stormhoof to go running off across the continent unless we get a very good plan to keep it safe!"
"Am I walking in on something I shouldn't be?" Maple asked, hesitant.
Immediately, Slipstream bolted to her side. "Gerardo came back and wanted to start packing for Izvaldi, which is figurative because we don't have anything to pack, and I'm not sure this is how decisions are supposed to be made."
Maple bit her lip. "Can't we decide what we're doing in the morning?"
"That is precisely my point," Gerardo agreed. "A decision should not even be on the table, because we are obviously-"
"Quiet down!" Starlight commanded, locking his beak with a jet of crystal for long enough to get her word in. "Ponies are trying to sleep."
Sighing, Shinespark tossed her spiky red mane and walked away. "And I think I'm going to join them. Go where you want, Gerardo, but I'm not rushing into anything, and we can't forget about Kero."
"I agree," Maple quickly decided. "It's bedtime. Starlight? Do you want to join me?" She glanced toward the dark room, much quieter than the site of Gerardo and Shinespark's bickering.
Without a word, Starlight put her book down and got up to follow her.
The bed Maple chose was the farthest from Valey, assuming she and Starlight would talk slightly and not wanting to disturb her friend's slumber. She reached her forelegs up and started to climb in.
"Get your own bed," a camouflaged Jamjars growled from within.
"Eeep!" Startled, Maple jumped backwards, nearly tripping and making far more noise than she had hoped. "Jamjars! You need to be easier to notice..." She swallowed, stepping away. "Well, we'll take the middle bed, then..."
The final bed in the room was unoccupied, and no sooner had Maple hauled herself in and curl up than she felt Starlight join her. It was a welcome, familiar sensation, and she lifted a foreleg for the filly to cuddle closer, letting herself relax once again for the night.
"How did you like today?" she whispered, mindful of the other ponies in the room.
"Fine," Starlight muttered back. "Stormhoof was weird. Wallace was too loud. I didn't recognize some of the food."
"Hmmm..." Maple hummed. "It's hard to talk when you keep getting talked over, isn't it? I know I always have trouble when Gerardo is around... But we'll find someplace that's calmer and less chaotic soon, and get more used to the places we do have."
Starlight shrugged against her. "I don't mind."
"Well, thank you." Maple closed her eyes, already starting to feel herself nodding off. "I hope tomorrow is a good, productive and enjoyable day..."
"Mmmph," Starlight agreed, and Maple drifted into slumber.
Morning greeted Maple too quickly, in the form of a sharp knock against the adjacent room's door. She uncurled herself from the bed and slipped to the floor, rubbing her eyes with a hoof and trying her best not to appear bleary, but by the time she had made it to the entrance separating her room for the other, Gerardo already had the door open and was being addressed by a smartly-armored Stormhoof griffon guard.
"Greetings, Ironridge travelers," the guard began, speaking with a perfectionism that suggested he was reading from a script. "This is a royal invitation for breakfast with Lord Stormhoof in his private dining chamber. It extends to the seven of you, and should you accept, begins in one hour. Glory to Garsheeva."
He bowed, exiting backwards and closing the door in his wake.
"Quite a way to begin one's morning," Gerardo announced, ruffling his feathers and trotting back to his bedside table. Sweeping a wing, he parted the curtains, casting light on the rumples in his uniform and the still-blinking forms of Shinespark and Slipstream in the room's other beds.
Maple frowned, pointing at his clothes. "Did you sleep in that?"
Gerardo blinked down at his attire. "Ah, this? Indubitably. I find it most useful for times like this, when I am called upon to stand at attention at a moment's notice. Why do you ask?" He tipped his beaked face, blinking curiously.
"Because I'm still waking up..." Maple yawned, rubbing her muzzle and then her eyes again. "Ooh. Breakfast in an hour. I wonder if I should go back to sleep first..."
Shinespark curled back up in her bed. "It's barely dawn. I wouldn't blame you."
"I had to get up way earlier than this for work," Slipstream murmured, tucking her forehooves against her chest. "Maybe I should go for a morning flight while you all are sleeping..."
"Hah! All of whom?" Gerardo crowed, fixing his crest and puffing out his chest. "I, for one, embrace the sunrise. Give me one moment to ensure my attire is in proper order, and I shall happily accompany you. After all, during a life of adventure, it is those who embark early who arrive before nightfall!"
"Suit yourself," Shinespark muttered, rolling over. "Whether we earned it or not, this is a vacation..."
Smiling tiredly at their antics, Maple went back to bed.
Just under an hour later, Maple found herself amid a procession of guards, more a formality than a fighting force, escorting the six of them up a winding staircase. Jamjars, as usual, was elsewhere, and as she watched the path turned out onto a bridge to a parapet suspended from the tower's side.
Stormhoof's dining room was a balcony, protected from the outside world by a faintly-tinted magical bubble that reminded her of the one Arambai had made in Riverfall to protect the bathhouse from rain. A semicircular platform with a low, crenellated edge, the view looked northeast, just angled enough so there was room in the building's shadow to sit out of the rising sun. The height of the balcony would have been breathtaking had she not just come from Ironridge, but instead, Maple was left to be impressed by the shoreline's vast sprawl, a solid coastline of buildings merging into docks and ships and then open blue water. It was nothing like the craggy, mountainous coastline of the Yule's mouth, nor was it the quaint, ornamental deck that lined northern Riverfall, far bigger than anyone needed it to be. This was a city that transitioned between water and land like the Stone District flowed into the Earth, and it stretched into the northern horizon in a bumpy line of development as far as her eyes could see.
"Ever seen something like this before?" a voice asked she thought she remembered but couldn't quite place.
Maple turned, blinking, and was greeted by a sea-blue unicorn mare with a mane that clung tightly to her skull. "Brightcoil," she said, nodding. "We met in the meeting yesterday, but it was a little too chaotic for introductions."
"I'll say," a pegasus grunted next to her, the room's only other occupant. "I guess Stormhoof has just as many administrative issues as Ironridge..."
"Ah, my companions!" Gerardo beamed, swooping in and grabbing Brightcoil's hoof and shaking it. "I was indeed hoping we would meet again before parting to the corners of the world! Were you too summoned here by Lord Stormhoof?"
Brightcoil nodded. "Sharpie and I have been here for several minutes, but Stormhoof isn't supposed to be here for a little while still. We're early."
"Excellent!" Gerardo crowed, lifting a talon. "In that case, perhaps introductions and hanging out are in order? Who here already knows whom?"
Maple shrugged, smiling helplessly. "I don't think I met either of you in Ironridge."
"Sharpie," the pegasus introduced. "I worked for a while as an inspector for Skyfreeze's regulations department, which does exist but might as well not. Worst job of my life, unless you like doing meaningless and stressful work that benefits no one and earns a high salary. I got dragged into some things it was probably my job to poke my nose into by Gerardo, found out about the bombs, and was planning to quit my job and leave Ironridge when Shinespark offered the two of us free airline tickets to anywhere in the world. If I was smart, we'd use my savings and just find a place to retire, but..." She sighed explosively. "Do I look like retirement age to you? I've already wasted most of my career, and need to do something with myself! So we'll find something to do eventually."
Brightcoil nodded alongside her. "The last two years in particular were extremely stressful. At this point, we're just waiting for Ironridge to blow over here, and then going to take a long vacation to unwind. Maybe go north to Goldoa... I hear that's a nice tourist destination, though we might look for somewhere quieter. How about you?" She smiled welcomingly. "Where are you going next?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "It depends on our ship. It needs... repairs. For now, we need to make sure there's no political bomb about to go off regarding any misunderstandings between Stormhoof and Ironridge, and then we can focus on where to go next."
"However!" Gerardo eagerly interrupted. "We have received an invitation from the Wallace Whitewing to visit Izvaldi, and would be absolute fools not to jump at the-"
"We're thinking about it," Shinespark said, cutting him off with a flash of her horn and smiling grimly. "Trying to keep our options open."
At that moment, there was a shuffling of spears from the balcony entrance, and the guards parted, allowing a strong, robed figure through. Lord Garland Stormhoof stood slightly shorter than a normal big-chested stallion, with a muscular grace to his aging form, lithe and limber even though he was clearly approaching his sixties. His black-and-blue asymmetrical garment was styled like a military coat yet open in the front, clearly showing off his paws and the alternate-colored fur along his underside, and his lack of a mane was replaced by the same ornamented beret he had worn to the war room.
"Yo." Valey waved, grinning as he appraised them. "Before you say anything, I just wanna let you know that you have a really awesome hat."
With a tired sigh, Lord Stormhoof seated himself at the head of a rectangular table that looked like it had been moved to the balcony for precisely this occasion, adjusting his coat and settling into a chair. He closed his eyes and raised a paw.
That was a signal his guards were waiting for, and they parted to allow two ponies through with a rolling cart of food. Telekinetic auras flared, and a cloud of dishes and platters moved into position, the entire table going from bare to set in a matter of seconds. The unicorns bowed, retreated, and the guards bowed as well.
"Dismissed," Stormhoof said, lowering his paw. "Glory to Garsheeva."
"Glory to Garsheeva," the guards and waiters answered in a familiar chant. "May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world!"
With a storm of metal steps, they left, and Stormhoof opened his eyes, somehow managing to look at every visitor at once. "Thank you for coming," he began. "I'm sure you've noticed that Kero isn't here."
Shinespark took a deep breath, putting her forehooves on the table and ignoring the food. "With all due respect, sir, we..." She stopped, hesitating. "Permission to speak frankly?"
Stormhoof inclined his head. "I already know what you are thinking. Yesterday's proceedings were chaotic and unprofessional, and a poor demonstration on our Empire's part before the visiting governance of another nation during times of strife. You are the daughter of Sosan leadership, and Admiral Valey was in a position of military power. But you were brought before that circus, as well as toyed with by our wayward High Prince. On behalf of the relations between our nations, I offer a formal apology for my court's behavior, and place myself at your disposal to answer whatever questions about our state of affairs might ease your concerns."
Valey sniffed at the food, then raised an eyebrow. "You don't say? That's cool. Still feel like I've been hit by a cart. But..." She yawned. "Don't really know what you're talking about with being unprofessional. That stuff was way more under control than Ironridge."
Stormhoof stopped and stared, and when Shinespark faintly nodded her agreement, he sighed and looked down. "That is... disheartening."
Nobody stopped Valey as she gingerly loaded up on food, and Shinespark served herself as well, the others beginning to follow suit. "It's a lot more than disheartening," Sharpie grumbled as Brightcoil levitated buttered toast onto her plate. "Ironridge was absolutely demeaning, and this was too!" Her eyes blazed. "Kero was going out of his way to act suspiciously at that council! What general in their right mind would commit to a military maneuver on the word of someone like that?"
"I understand your skepticism, Sharpie," Stormhoof said, meeting her eyes. "And it would not have happened without the independent corroboration of the passengers aboard the ship you flew in on, most notably yourself. But there is deep-rooted dysfunction in my province, and it is a symptom of woes all across the Empire stemming from an incident several years ago. How familiar are all of you with the manner in which houses are succeeded?"
"I attempted to explain it on several occasions," Gerardo announced, primly twirling a utensil. "However, perhaps a refresher would be of use?"
"Hmmm..." Stormhoof sighed. "The Empire is governed first by Garsheeva, and second by an empress, living in the capitol province of Grandbell. The position is passed along her bloodline, from princess to princess, and when there are any princes, they move to begin their own line in any province where the ruling house no longer has a male sphinx of their own. In short, once a province lacks a ruling lord and there is a high prince to begin anew, their family is retired to a manor and the province changes paws. Right now, there are no houses who lack lords, and Gazelle will remain in his position until that changes, likely through the extinction of the Izvaldi line."
His eyes cut a path straight down the table, bisecting it into two perfect halves. "The birth of a sphinx is extremely rare to mixed parents, and female sphinxes are slow to conceive. Because sibling relationships are outlawed under Garsheeva, houses must look to each other for daughters to marry their sons and ensure their bloodlines continue. This is a system that favors those wealthy enough to pay high dowries in exchange for prospective daughters' paws in marriages. It in theory redistributes wealth, but in practice has led to a divide between those with the resources to make pacts... and those without. Most of the Empire's houses are one to two generations old, but the Stormhoof line has endured far longer than that."
One by one, Maple, Slipstream, Valey and Shinespark blinked, watching as they ate. "My subjects are set in their ways," Stormhoof continued. "Our prosperity and stability has brought them to forget the transient nature of sphinx dynasties. Garsheeva is immortal; the core of the Empire that endures throughout the ages. Our bloodlines were not meant to be. And yet..."
He took a deep breath. "Six years ago, the Empress and her husband were assassinated in Varsidel, leaving behind their two children Gazelle and Gwendolyn. The Crown Princess was barely old enough to speak, and cannot legally ascend her throne until she takes a husband in marriage. Gazelle has been old enough for several years to take a throne, but cannot rule Grandbell. And Garsheeva leaves us to our own devices, causing the situation to deteriorate. The war room you beheld was two dozen generals wearing the mannerisms of old with none of the virtue, believing they are the pinnacle of the Empire with none to put them in their place, led by a mercenary charlatan and egged on by a wayward prince who is frustrated by the wrongs of the world and denied the easiest path to fixing them, all because he was born a male and cannot take Grandbell's throne."
"You might wanna look into fixing that," Valey advised around a mouthful of food. "Sounds explosive."
"That's right..." Maple whispered, glancing to Gerardo. "I remember someone saying something about the Emperor and Empress being dead, but didn't connect those with that sphinx's parents. He was the one who was heckling during the meeting, wasn't he?"
"He was," Stormhoof said. "Gazelle is struggling to find his role in the world. He is bright, ambitious, charismatic, cunning and far more dangerous than many of the province lords give him credit for. His motivations and ideals are genuine, but he learns about the world through treating it as a plaything. I try to look out for him as much as possible, and guide him where I can, but my family is a poor substitute for his own. It is my hope that one day, he will grow into a leader who can break up the balance of power in the Empire, ensuring it continues changing as Garsheeva designed."
Valey glanced away. "Yeah, that sounds rough. I sorta figured he'd learned that himself was all he needed to get his way."
"Sorry for interrupting, because I'm not very important..." Slipstream smiled apologetically. "But you're the ruler here, right? If there are ponies or griffons in your cabinet who aren't behaving, why not fire them and get someone better?"
"Several reasons," Stormhoof replied. "There is a limited supply of top talent, and many of my most trustworthy officers have more important things to do than attend hearings we can already guess will end poorly. Additionally, most of the better ones tended toward those who didn't speak."
"Makes sense." Shinespark nodded.
Stormhoof coughed. "Third, do not underestimate just how rare a truly talented, loyal administrator can be. And finally..."
He reached into his coat, withdrawing a familiar glowing stone and offering it across the table. "Nobody questioned the absence of this from the council, but my most trusted were in a secret meeting held simultaneously in another room. We've held the conversation we need with Ironridge. You may have this back."
"Yesss!" Valey snatched it eagerly, kissing the stone and stowing it beneath her hat. "Finally!"
Stormhoof gave a single, small laugh. "This is my province's situation. Is there anything else I can answer for you?"
Brightcoil lifted a hoof. "This isn't a question, but if you're looking for trustworthy, professional ponies-"
"No." Sharpie silenced her with a gentle wing. "I'm sorry, but I'm not looking for work in an environment like this."
Stormhoof made a soft noise in the back of his throat, but nodded and didn't say anything.
"Totally random question here," Valey muttered around a mouthful, "but why does your fort have so many psychopaths against bats? Can't you make that illegal, or something?"
"Stormhoof's policy is no policy," the sphinx said, eyes glinting. "And for that, I make no apologies. It is difficult enough to change the ways of a society as entrenched as this one, but you should know that the previous empress's husband was my younger brother, and the attack in which they perished was carried out by sarosian agents. I am content to let my people decide their own ways beyond the walls of my tower, and I consider that a mercy."
Valey's eyes widened, and she pulled slightly back. "Oookay! Wrong question. Uhhh..." Sweating slightly, she glanced around for a way to change the subject.
"Can you tell us about Izvaldi?" Maple jumped in, trying to help. "We've gotten an invitation from Wallace Whitewing to visit, but are trying to be careful what we get into."
"Yes." Stormhoof folded his paws again. "Izvaldi is a landlocked province north of Grandbell, the seat of the Empire's power. It is mostly rural and known for farming, providing over a quarter of the Empire's food. Its lord is a griffon, Percival Izvaldi, who rules while he waits for his grandfather to pass away and Gazelle to assume his throne. Percival's government is focused exclusively on internal affairs, and he sacrifices any sort of presence on the high council or social standing among the houses to spend on public works projects instead. He is in a unique position to get away with it, as the other houses are actively led by sphinxes and he couldn't make much progress pushing a national agenda if he tried. If you are worried about anti-sarosian sentiments, it is one of the best places you can be, though it may lower your own standing among those with even more prejudice than I if you begin to travel again. I wouldn't worry about the upcoming transfer of power. It's something every house has studied extensively, and no one believes there will be any sweeping changes once Gazelle takes the throne."
Maple glanced at Shinespark, Valey and Gerardo. "Well? Everyone we talk to seems to think it's a good idea..."
"I have something important to ask," Shinespark quickly announced. "We have a ship in your marina. Red Wharf, Pier Three, Dock H-Thirty-Two. It needs a new mana core, and if Izvaldi is landlocked, we won't be able to take it with us. What's the most secure thing we can do?"
"Rivers," Stormhoof answered. "All of the Empire is crossed by canals for water travel, so you can sail to Chateau Izvaldi and take it with you. As for your mana core, that is your business."
"How big of a mana core do you need?" Brightcoil asked, suddenly more attuned to the discussion.
Shinespark shrugged. "Bigger than the one we have. Ideally airship class, but we can make do with smaller."
"What about Meltdown?" Starlight suggested, thinking between bites. "You liked her, didn't you? And didn't she run some energy company?"
"Meltdown is not the easiest mare to do business with," Stormhoof growled. "She comes and goes as she pleases and acts with the authority of a goddess. Some wonder why we even need an Empress when she could control the entire continent by regulating its supply of energy. But, if you feel she has good graces and you are in them, go right ahead."
"Hmmm..." Sharpie sat in quiet contemplation.
"We'll figure something out," Maple assured, glancing between Shinespark and Gerardo. "And we won't turn down any invitations or leave any ships behind to do it. I promise."
"Sorry... I think that's all I can manage for now," Starlight finished, her voice reduced to a dry rasp from far too much talking with far too few breaks.
"I'll say," Twilight agreed, frowning in concern. "You sound terrible. I was half-considering stopping you if you tried to go much further. I guess the end of Stormhoof is further away than I was thinking it was?"
Starlight shook her head, resting on a cushion by the railing of Rainbow Dash's borrowed airship, her prismatic friend lounging by the wheel and Twilight sitting across from her. "We didn't find an answer for Shinespark's mana core right away. After the breakfast with Lord Stormhoof, we spent about a week just living in the tower, going out to explore the town below, and not having very much happen. Honestly, I'm thinking of glossing over it, since it would be very easy to summarize."
"Now, see..." Rainbow noncommittally raised a hoof. "When you say not very much happened, do you mean actually not much, or not much compared to all that other stuff that happened? Because wow, I wish my life was that exciting."
Starlight grinned apologetically.
"I just can't understand how you remember all this," Twilight mused, rubbing her temple. "Ironridge was one thing, but the Griffon Empire feels like... I don't know, like every tiny detail is somehow wrong or important or interesting. But even I'm having trouble keeping everything straight, and living it must have been so much more overwhelming! How do you remember so many things that aren't like you'd expect them to be?"
"Easy, Twi," Rainbow gloated, idly hovering and doing a backflip. "Just keep a general idea of how cool everyone is, and boom, that's all you need to know."
She grinned cheekily at Starlight, who sighed and shook her head. "No, it's... mostly because later on, when I finally did understand more about how the Empire worked, I can just guess what I saw from that. Believe it or not, just like Ironridge there were reasons for everything we saw and that happened. Though you've probably noticed I'm focusing more on other characters' perspectives than my own."
Twilight nodded thoughtfully. "I noticed that early on in Ironridge, too..."
"It's a lot easier for me to remember my friends' reactions to new things than my own," Starlight explained, shrugging and leaving it at that.
"Heh. So!" Rainbow flipped onto her back, steering with one upside-down hind leg. "Million-bit question, right here: is Valey eligible?"
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight swatted at her with a wing. "She'd be like twice your age!"
"That's a good question," Starlight murmured, gaze briefly drifting. "Though I think we established I'm not answering anything about what happened to my friends or where they are now."
Twilight instantly clammed up, scooting an inch closer to Starlight and shooting a serious glare at the offending pegasus.
"Oop! Sorry!" Rainbow's ears went back. "Yeah, best leave that alone. I take it the whole evil dictator thing wasn't, uhh... something that came out of the blue."
Starlight sighed, and looked at the ground. "You keep asking me about this, and you keep forgetting why you don't want to know the answer."
"Different subject!" Twilight loudly announced, ready to cover her ears if the conversation went the wrong way. "Starlight, something I need to know: how powerful is Garsheeva? Say, relative to Celestia?" She defensively tensed, and it was clear she didn't know what she wanted to hear.
"That's better." Exhaling, Starlight relaxed. "I'd say they're about equals? Both immortals, both supervising large, vaguely theocratic nations... They definitely know each other. And speaking of Celestia, don't forget you haven't yet formally introduced me to her as your student."
"Huh." Twilight looked satisfied by the answer. "Her style of governing certainly seems different. I wonder how many of the differences between Equestria and the Griffon Empire are thanks to them..."
"Probably almost all," Starlight said. "Neither country is influenced by its history before when their deities showed up. In fact, no one on the eastern continent knows what it was like prior to Garsheeva at all, even the batponies in the Misty Mountains."
"Oh! Them!" Rainbow frantically raised a hoof. "Two questions, actually. First, where do you find batponies in Equestria? Or are they sarosians? I'd really like to meet one."
Twilight pointed to the spires of Canterlot in the distance, their ship lazily drifting in the area between it, Cloudsdale and Ponyville. "Most of them work for Luna, don't they? I think we've seen them once or twice with her..."
Starlight nodded, and Rainbow went on. "Yeah, that was my second question: is Luna this Night Mother they keep going on about? Wouldn't she still have been Nightmare Moon back then?"
"That's more complicated," Starlight began, taking a breath. "Originally, yes, she was. But what do you think happens to a group of ponies when someone they worship gets banished and they don't want to admit it?"
Twilight rubbed her chin. "Well, like you said, they can't just point to a physical incarnation and say, 'there she is'. Which was part of why the Empire didn't like them, right? They never had any proof that their goddess was real, while you've made it sound like Garsheeva was right there for anyone to see."
"She was," Starlight cut in, nodding. "Her castle in Grandbell is something incredible. It's a giant hole cut straight into the ground, with tiers down the walls where houses and buildings are made, like a perfectly vertical Stone District, and her throne is at the very bottom protected by a transparent forcefield to block falling debris. Anyone there can look over the edge and see her, and she flies past the entire city every time she enters or leaves. It took a while before we got to see it, but it was impressive."
"Woah, hold on!" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "They had proof, didn't they? Those dusk statue things? That let them talk to..." She slowed down, blinking. "Wait a sec, if Nightmare Moon was locked up by Celestia, who were they talking to through the statues? Was someone else pretending to be her?"
Twilight gave a soft gasp. "But the moon glass came here from space, you said. And you thought it had something to do with Nightmare Moon, so there had to be some sort of physical connection maybe she could also use to..."
Rainbow's ruby eyes widened. "So you're saying maybe they were talking with Nightmare Moon?" She rubbed a fuzzy ear. "Woah. She was kind of cackly and insane when we met her, but I wonder what she'd be like if you were actually one of her children looking for advice..." She blinked harder. "All these batponies weren't getting told to do crazy things like blow stuff up, were they?"
Starlight felt herself smiling stupidly. "Oh, I'm not telling. Keep guessing! This is so much funner than I thought it would be..." She glanced down at Ponyville. "Maybe we should invite the others too... Keep speculating!"
Twilight seemed to take that as a challenge. "I want to know if Garsheeva had a secret avatar. Like how Shinespark was able to split her cutie mark from herself and put it in a second body... If Garsheeva was that old and that powerful, you'd think she'd know how to do it. It feels like everyone in power in the Empire is just in it to have fun, so you'd think being able to sneak around without anyone knowing about it would be a big advantage... Meltdown, maybe?"
"Yeah, what's Meltdown's deal?" Rainbow asked, pointing a hoof. "Does she have, like, fire magic or something?"
"Meltdown..." Twilight rubbed her chin. "I feel like we don't know enough about her to say for certain. I'm still waiting to see if it looks like she has any allies. She effectively taxes the Empire by charging for energy, right? Where does she get it? Does her company just own all the mana wells? Why would Garsheeva let an independent pony do all that? Or..."
She trailed off, blinking in realization. "Oh. Oh. You just said Garsheeva's castle was a giant hole in the ground! And an easy supply of infinite energy someone could sell... after what you found in Ironridge..." Her eyes widened at Starlight. "There's another Tree of Harmony in the Empire, isn't there? And Garsheeva built her castle on top of it, and outlawed making ordinary mana wells so she can sell the mana power she generates from the flame... That would mean Meltdown has to be linked to her somehow, doesn't it!?"
Twilight started to bounce, giddy from a combination of too much sitting and a major discovery. Starlight couldn't help herself and smiled so hard her mouth hurt, nodding along. "Good guesses, but I'm still not saying how close. Keep it up!"
"Not saying how close..." Twilight bent her neck, falling into a stupor of murmured and muttered theories.
"Yeah..." Rainbow Dash stood up and stretched. "Sorry, Starlight, but I think I just got my rear handed to me in the guessing game. All my predictions would've been stuff like 'random street dude is Chrysalis' or something. I'm still just trying to catch up on all the stuff I missed."
"Well, there's still a ways to go," Starlight sighed, mostly hoping the others would keep talking so she wouldn't have to. "And at least you'll be here for the entire Griffon Empire. How are you liking it, by the way?"
Rainbow shrugged. "Aside from the fact that I can't follow half the stuff that's going on, it's great! Some parts sound a little familiar. I think I once heard a story about that Giovanni Goldfeather guy you occasionally mention, but I don't remember what it was about."
"Giovanni Goldfeather?" Twilight perked. "He was Gerardo's ancestor, right? Or am I misremembering? It could have been someone else..."
Starlight nodded. "Giovanni Goldfeather. He's famous for trying to own all the money in the Empire, among other things. He didn't succeed, of course, but it's a tale I'll be getting to before long."
"Here's a question I remembered," Twilight announced. "That creed the guards keep chanting, there's a word in it... Aldenfold? What's that?"
"I asked about that too, eventually," Starlight said. "It's the Empire's word for the mountain range dividing the north from Equestria. Essentially, as wide as the world."
"Hold on, so if the Empire is as far east as you can go..." Rainbow frowned. "What happens if you just, you know, keep flying east? Don't tell me no one's tried it."
Starlight fidgeted. "That... takes a long time to explain, but it's effectively as far as you can go."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean spoilers, or that your throat hurts and we should call it and not press?"
"The latter," Starlight rasped. "In fact, I wouldn't mind heading back in to get dinner at the castle, soon."
"Gotcha!" Rainbow threw a sharp salute, spinning the wheel and sending her family's airship into a slow descent towards Twilight's distant castle.
The following morning, after a rousing fireside dinner of potato soup and hours more of laughing and speculating, Rainbow Dash returned, brushing fresh snow off her coat and trailing a cute scarf as she strolled into Twilight's castle library. Starlight greeted her with a wave, sipping tea with her horn aglow and a newspaper held in her aura.
"Rainbow!" she welcomed, setting the paper aside and motioning to a nearby sofa, which the pegasus acrobatically claimed. "Mmmff... Morning! Here for more Empire?"
"Hope I'm not late," Rainbow replied, fixing her mane with a single swipe of a hoof and glancing at the discarded paper. "You, uh, feeling a little less froggish this morning?"
Starlight sighed. "I went to bed and got up at a somewhat normal time schedule, didn't talk late into the evening, and have been saving my breath all morning. And it is almost noon, so as long as I pace myself..."
"Sweet." Rainbow rolled over, showing off her fuzzy blue belly and resting her chin lazily on her hooves. "Just got off an early shift... nngh... making sure all these weather supervisors know what they're doing, and all that," she yawned. "I'm all ears."
"Well, we're just waiting for Twilight," Starlight said, poking the paper. "The headlines are all about someone's turnip cart breaking down, a new curriculum at the school, and so on... Looks like Ponyville is staying out of trouble for us."
Rainbow chuckled. "Heh. Yeah, it's always either no news or giant Equestria-endangering monsters showing up. Go figure."
"What's that about me?" Twilight asked, strolling into the room with a fresh tray of refreshments.
"Just what we're waiting for to begin." Starlight nodded while she set down the tray and helped herself to a seat, a soft flurry of morning snow drifting by out the window. "So! Where were we...?"
"You had just met with Lord Stormhoof," Twilight replied.
Starlight licked her lips. "Right. After that, we didn't see him, Meltdown, Gazelle, Kero or really anyone important for a while. Wallace and his friends kept checking up on us, though they knew about our situation with the mana core and didn't push. Shinespark offered to stay behind several times and let us go on our own, but Valey and Maple always vetoed that idea. We had fun, though, visiting the city during the day. I mostly kept busy with Shinespark's library, since I had started reading again, and a few times Maple and I visited a bookstore to look for more. Valey stuck to our room where she wouldn't get in trouble, Jamjars was mostly gone doing her own thing but always came back for the night, and that was how things went for about a week."
Adjusting her hooves, she continued. "As time passed, we did figure out Valey had probably had something done to her, because she never really got better or worse. She was stiff and sore, but could walk and stand on her own, and alternated between saying she was fine and endlessly complaining. I kept testing and paying attention to my horn, and it seemed to fully recover from being overexerted chasing Hemlock back in Riverfall. I even got the tree's magical buffer back, so I could use a little magic without getting long-term headaches. We assumed the improvement was just only there when I was already in perfect shape, so if I used too much, I had to wait for it to wear off fully before getting the boost back."
She flicked her ears. "Finally, we got a mana core. We stayed in contact with Sharpie and Brightcoil, and one day they showed up and had one, exactly the caliber Shinespark needed, and said it was ours to keep. We didn't ask questions, and they didn't offer answers, but that was the ticket we were looking for to leave and take Wallace up on his offer..."
"Well? How are you enjoying the ride, my friends?"
Starlight looked up, and Maple along with her, to see Wallace Whitewing strolling toward them from an oversized cabin door. Beyond the reinforced rope railing and wooden deck was a familiar drop-off, dozens of meters separating the airship from the green countryside below. A canvas dirigible blotted out the sky above, providing thankful protection from the midday sun and keeping the craft aloft, its length from prow to stern nearly twice that of the Immortal Dream.
"It's a very nice ship!" Maple called over the sound of giant propellers, ponytail blowing in the wind.
Wallace joined them in surveying the homesteads below, pristine grassy planes bunching up into rolling hills that never got quite too high or suffered from erosion. Several hours out from Stormhoof, the coastline had vanished on the horizon, and the center of population with it: there was no overcrowding here, dusty roads cutting aimless paths between lone houses placed wherever the view would be best. Low, easily-jumpable fences with leaning posts divided up the greens everywhere some owner had decided their turf was more special than everywhere else, and Starlight supposed that everyone with the ambition to do something with their land had gone out west to the sea. Ironic, how the coast town had been so cramped and here there was nothing but room.
A broken-down stone wall passed by, and they came into sight of a mountain of tumbled stones that were green with age, some still stacked into walls in the vague outline of some building or other. An abandoned castle, lost to time? Starlight watched it pass below, doing mental math to figure out how many generations of ponies would fit in a land with a history of one or two thousand years. Stormhoof thought his dynasty had lasted for far too long, but at a quick guess, she figured he would have had to be in power for nearly twenty generations to have a chance at being as old as that ruin. She lifted her filly-sized hoof, trying to guess what the difference between a hundred and a thousand years would be like to someone who could live that long. The only parts of her life that mattered had been within the last two months...
Beyond the castle's hilltop was a river, cutting its way out of the east. Wide, with reinforced banks and a gentle current, at least five ships were in her immediate vision, two cargo carriers and lots of smaller boats. That was the way Shinespark was going, sailing their own ship to Izvaldi so the rest of them could fly. The hills and plains continued beyond, with more homesteads and a distant hilltop manor.
"Intrigued by that ancient ruin, are you?" Wallace asked, gesturing to the crumbled castle they were flying over and following Maple's eyes. "It was constructed around twelve centuries ago, during a succession feud for the province! The reigning lord's sister, also a sphinx, was never betrothed, but remained in Stormhoof and had a son with her lover! That son was a sphinx as well, but when the lord passed away, the other houses ruled he had no claim to the throne because he wasn't directly descended from the previous lord! When the high prince attempted to take over, the son staged a coup, and the high prince retreated to this place, constructing a fortification and making it his new capitol when he slew his foe and won the war three years later! It stood as the province's center of governance for nearly three hundred years."
Maple's eyes were wide, and she shook her head. "That probably doesn't happen every day."
"You would be surprised!" Wallace crowed. "In a land with as long and varied a past as this one, almost every square inch has a history to it, some of which can only be unearthed through archive crawling and researching records of genealogies, and other stories which are as plain as day! A good story can be even greater a reward for adventuring than forgotten treasure."
"What's that mansion?" Starlight asked, pointing at the next upcoming structure and figuring Wallace would be happy to tell.
"A fine question!" Wallace nodded. "That was constructed around a hundred years ago, early into the Stormhoof line! The ruling lord's heir had grown up with a poor disposition, and he feared his family would be removed upon his death by way of a civilian uprising! Rather than tighten his hold on power for the rest of his reign, he began to plan the end of his legacy, working under the table with another province to construct this as a home for his non-royal descendants even as he plotted ways to posthumously remove his son from power! But during the work, he had an affair with the other province's lord's unwedded daughter, and found himself in possession of a new, secret heir! The saga ended when he had his older son assassinated, setting up a strong framework of generals and military council to ensure his new son grew up with proper guidance in the event of his own death, and that is how Stormhoof became the forefront of the Empire's military."
"He assassinated his own son!?" Maple's jaw dropped, aghast. "He... but..." Slowly, she wilted, eyes taking on a faraway look until Starlight nudged her in concern.
Wallace bowed deeply. "I take it you find such an act uncomfortable and even appalling! Your heart is noble and true. But this is the Griffon Empire. The annals of its history are written in intrigue, trickery and blood, both spilled and inherited! It is the existence of such deeds that makes those willing to walk the path of a hero all the more great! Those who cheat and betray to ensure their legacy outlives their mortal selves are often met with frustration and find themselves at the mercy of the bards, but it is the truly noble who are remembered for generation after generation! Nothing is more inspiring than those who meet success for doing the right thing."
Grimly, Maple smiled. "How about a story like that, then? Who are you inspired by?"
"Me?" Wallace held a wing to his chest. "Though I venerate history, it is the deeds still unsung and even undone that move me to adventure. The legendary Lord Grandbell, for whom Garsheeva's province is named to this day, may have brought unity to the continent by challenging and slaying every last corrupt, feuding lord in duels, and the ancient pegasus Lightningwing may have saved two hundred innocent captives from pirates in the Misty Mountains, but my heart sings for the lowly barmaid, inspired by a minstrel's tune to see what lies beyond her front door."
Starlight frowned. "Why is there so much bad stuff for heroes to go and fix if Garsheeva is so strong? She should be the one stopping ponies who are doing bad things, not some lord fighting duels."
Wallace sighed. "There are many who think like you, particularly the disenfranchised such as the sarosians. Garsheeva has never been a solver of problems. She protects the Empire from external affairs, guarding it from supernatural weather beyond our control and military advances as other empires have risen and fallen throughout the ages. She intervenes when the fate of the Empire itself is at stake, and nothing less, leaving alone any internal affair less severe than a full-blown civil war. Provided we do not violate her basic heresies, Garsheeva leaves the Empire's business as our business, preferring to watch mortals solve their own problems. She maintains the canvas, we paint the picture."
"Hmmph," Starlight snorted. "So much for her virtue being pure, or whatever. If she can help, she should."
"A philosophical debate for the ages," Wallace finished, stepping back. "Garsheeva is willing to speak with philosophers, petitioners and others who seek to change her mind, and there are rare stories where her heart has been swayed to move. But the mind of an immortal is a difficult thing to contest, and ultimately, philosophy becomes the act of telling a goddess how to do her job. This is why I am driven to act! If it is up to us to better the world, Wallace Whitewing will do his part."
Maple tilted her head. "That reminds me... Wallace, we were wondering. You said you won the tournament before, right? What did you wish for? And what would you wish for if you won it again?"
"Ah. Still unsatisfied with Morena's story, I take it." He hung his snowy head, crinkly mustache bobbing in the wind. "I wished for a gamble, my little pony. Garsheeva claims heresy to be an irredeemable sin, worthy of death by her own fangs. I asked for a wager: that I could visit a lot of recently-captured pirates awaiting execution and judge them myself. I told her I wished to match wits, and that if I could convince her even one of them deserved to live and could be brought around to a better future, they would be spared. She accepted my wager."
"Oh," Maple whispered. "So Morena was telling the truth..."
"What did I tell you about the relation between facts and truth?" Wallace lectured. "I told you what mattered, speaking from the heart! What happened was that I failed. The crew that had been captured were seasoned criminals who had lost all understanding of righteousness and nobility. I tried for hours, and failed to inspire even a single spark in them beyond selfish pleas and empty promises. It was not even worth contesting their fate, because for all my efforts, I could find nothing within them! I failed, and it was the most serious blow to my conviction I had ever received."
"Oh..." Maple's eyes began to water.
"But then!" Wallace straightened his back, proudly staring into the distance. "Rather than face the Empire's goddess, I spread my wings and flew. I picked a direction and went, stopping for nothing, not food nor rest nor my aching wounds from the tournament's final battles. For two straight days, I flew, and when I reached the sea, I sat down on a bench in a town and continued to think. And it was on that bench that I was so lost in thought, a pickpocket tried to swipe my coin bag. They pulled a knife, mistaking me for an easy target. And then... I told them they were holding the knife wrong."
He chuckled once. "That got a look. I set aside my gear and mimed a more effective mouth grip, knowing I was all or nothing! They asked who I thought I was, and I tossed them a single coin from my pouch, jingling it to show how much more I had! Somehow, we struck up a conversation, me with nothing to lose and them overcome by curiosity! I learned I had on my talons a teenage punk, dropped out of her final year in school with an upcoming foal she was too scared to tell her parents about and concerned with impressing a friend group who didn't deserve it. The kind of pony who has done bad things and could go on to do worse, but inside is nothing more than a lost, confused soul! And as we sat there, realizing who each other were, a nobody who wanted to be somebody and a somebody who wanted to do something, there was a spark, and a friendship was born."
Wallace was smiling now in fond remembrance. "That night, I got my wish, not from Garsheeva but from luck and guile and the willingness to take a chance! Before long, we were fighting, and I taught her a few of my moves! It was the kind of respect she was always looking for, and before the night was done, I made an offer. 'I have nothing better to do with my days, and you have only troubles here!' I said. 'How would you like to join forces and start an exploration team?'"
Finally sighing, he finished, "And that was how I met Morena, and went from being an idealistic lone warrior to an adventurer of legend."
"That was what really happened, wasn't it?" Maple gave him a serious look. "Without embellishing anything? Because..." She locked eyes perfectly with his. "I think it's more compelling than what Morena said a few days ago, at the tavern."
"That's because you've been paying attention," Wallace softly proclaimed. "You've listened and understood what I have to say. It is not the drama surrounding the choice for a better life that matters, because the choice is significant in itself! There are many who fail to understand that, who need the embellishment to really feel that the story matters."
"And you didn't make that much up," Starlight thought aloud. "You did say you wouldn't have met her if you hadn't wished that, and meeting her was like getting your wish, wasn't it?"
"Precisely." Wallace nodded in approval. "You are starting to understand the tenets of storytelling as well! Diego's story is similar, in that everything that supposedly happened is true to the spirit of things, even if there's a little reordering involved. And you should know that my version of the story is still slightly embellished... I skipped over the parts involving Morena's parents, as well as the tribulations of finding my traveling partner an uncouth teenager and later an infant foal! Our adventuring career may have taken a year or two to sort the rocks out..."
Maple grimaced. "That must not have gone well with her parents, running off with a stranger like that. While I'm remembering, though, what are you wishing for this year, if you win? Or can you tell me?"
Wallace gave his signature reassuring grin. "It went better than you would think! Apparently, running away is the typical way children leave home in that region! As for my own aims this year, I am conflicted. In recent years, Lord Percival has done me and my friends a great deal of truly important favors, and honor demands that I am in his debt. By rights, any wish I earned should be his, and it is plain to see what he would wish for: permission to remain in governance of Izvaldi through the end of his life, even after his grandfather passes away! It has been granted on many occasions before, and he is well-loved by the vast majority of his populace. Yet, I have a personal goal as well... a goal I'm sure you will discover soon enough once we reach Percival's manor! I won't tell you now, however. You will far better understand my desire by seeing this plight for yourself. If only it were possible to gain two wishes..."
"How far away is this place?" Starlight asked, the crumbled castle a gray dot on the horizon behind them.
"Be patient, young filly," Wallace intoned. "A long way yet."
The cruise on Wallace's airship lasted until dusk and throughout the night after, making a northeastern course over a patchwork of grassy plains and deciduous forests. Low, leafy groves of trees their host confirmed were fruit orchards passed below, planted with a wild precision that only a land sculpted by an immortal for generations could afford. When the sun rose, glittering off a river that ran back and forth out of the east, Starlight was finally told that they were almost there.
Surrounded by farmland and groves, cobble roads converged on a rise in the land tucked into a bend in the river. Too small to be called a mountain and too large to be a hill, the heart of Izvaldi sat within two rings of wall, both low and lacking gates in their archways and looking like they hadn't been fortified in generations. The hilltop held a circle of buildings three stories tall at most, with dramatic eaves and multiple levels of slanted red rooves, surrounding a grassy central plaza with a proud central fountain and stone trails linking the buildings in a geometrical pattern. One building had a high, reinforced tower, and that was where Wallace approached.
Starlight watched with interest as the ship drew alongside the tower, one wall at the top missing and providing a way inside. Morena marched past, forcing her to scurry out of the way, carrying a portable hoof bridge looking like it was designed for heavy cargo effortlessly on her back, and as Wallace held the ship steady she undid part of the railing and slung the bridge across. For the next few minutes, she worked a snarl of ropes with her hooves and teeth, tying down all four corners of the bridge and ensuring it was moored in place. Wallace flew by, lugging a rope thicker than Starlight's barrel, tying the ship down as well, and before long the work was complete, the ship docked at the tower not an hour after sunrise.
"Well, everything seems to be in order!" Wallace declared. "Morena! Be a dear and accompany our friends so they don't feel abandoned and all alone! I shall seek out Lord Percival and debrief him on our travels!"
"Right," Morena drawled, shuffling on her armored battle cloak and squaring her shoulders. "Hey! You lot ready?"
"I sure am," Maple said from Starlight's side, gazing out over the township. "It looks so rustic and laid-back, like no one's ever in a hurry. It kind of reminds me of home..."
"Sometimes things are exactly what they look like," Morena said, stomping over to the bridge to wait.
Slipstream was present as well, and even Jamjars had shown up, breaking her usual habit of lurking during important events. Soon, Gerardo arrived as well, skidding to a stop on the wooden deck and running a talon through his crest. "My apologies on being late!" he stammered, clearly flustered. "I suppose the excitement got to me, because the previous night I was up far beyond a reasonable-"
"Would you relax, already!?" Morena barked, surprising the griffon into silence. "You're way too high-strung!" Taking a minute to see whether she got through to him, she smiled in satisfaction. "Good job. No one's going to think you're a terrible adventurer for sleeping in. You all here, or what?"
Maple glanced around, craning her neck. "I think we're missing Valey..."
"Coming!" The bat in question loped out from around a corner, limping with all four legs and bobbing her head sharply as she tried to run. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"
Slipstream and Maple both offered shoulders to lean on, but Valey shrugged them off, continuing to stand on her own. Satisfied that everyone was there, Morena nodded and led the way into the docking tower.
Two propped-open doors and a lengthy switchback staircase later, they emerged into a spacious upper-story lobby connecting several hallways, with plaster walls and a large rug over wooden floor. Ceramic-potted plants decorated the corners, with a large window overlooking the plaza and a table and couches for meetings, lounging and refreshments. Wallace was waiting inside, the room's vaulted ceiling giving him plenty of space to stand at his full height, and by his side was a normal-sized griffon with a gem-studded circlet and tailored black robe ornamented with shoulder guards, a cape and golden lines.
"Travelers from Ironridge," the new griffon greeted, bowing and displaying a dangling crest far longer than any Starlight had ever seen. "Permit me to personally welcome you to Izvaldi! I am Lord Percival, and it is an honor to have you."
"It's nice to be here," Maple replied, giving a hopeful smile. "Wallace invited us, and enough of us really wanted to go..." She shot a not-so-furtive glance at Gerardo.
"So this is the fabled home of Wallace Whitewing!" Gerardo gaped, seemingly missing the fact that Wallace was right there in the room and rushing to the window, then Percival, fervently shaking his talon. "The honor is mine, I assure you! Though I hail from the Empire myself, it is hardly the greatest domain of my travels..."
Percival raised an eyebrow at Wallace, talon still being shaken. "You've made some enthusiastic friends, Wallace."
"Eherm... yes!" Wallace cleared his throat and grinned, patting Gerardo on the head with a wing so hard that the griffon's legs gave out beneath him and he hit the floor. "Master Guillaume here is quite the ardent fan of mine! Hardly something I'm unused to, but he'll have his work cut out for him if he wants to be able to acknowledge his own achievements when I am in the room!"
"Yo," Morena greeted, giving Percival a wave as she strolled off down a hallway, clearly already knowing her way around.
Percival looked up, surveying the rest of the group. "You must be Admiral Valey," he announced, calmness and respectfulness in his tone. "Wallace has told me of your exploits in defending Ironridge. Izvaldi isn't a military state like Stormhoof or Everlaste, but efforts like yours are commendable in the service of any nation. I've instructed my chief of staff to look into remedies to your current condition as a token of gratitude for your efforts to make the world a better place."
"Thanks, I guess?" Valey replied, too disgruntled by the admission she could barely move to manage much enthusiasm.
Stretching, Maple rocked on her hooves. "Well... I'm afraid I don't know much about Izvaldi and am mostly here because it helps my friends, so... what do we do now? Where do we stay, and what kinds of things are there to do?"
"Wallace has already seen to your residence," Percival said, nodding. "You'll be given free river mooring for your ship for as long as you stay, and until it arrives, can retain your quarters on the Sky Goat."
"The what?" Slipstream's jaw dropped, and she blinked. "Did you... I forgot to check, but did you really name your airship that?"
"Morena named it!" Wallace returned, standing proud. "A fine name for a fine ship. Like a goat, there is nothing it cannot swallow!"
"The Sky Goat..." Maple shook her head in amusement. "Heehee..."
Valey chuckled too, and Percival went on. "My schedule is clear for the afternoon, so if you'd like a tour, that can be arranged. As guests of honor, you will be free to roam most wherever you please, with the exception of a few areas that are off-limits in most circumstances. You may have seen the town from above as you flew in, but please, take a look."
Starlight wandered to the window as he indicated it, her friends shuffling in the same direction. Beyond was the courtyard, five buildings arranged in a circle plus the one she was looking from. The fountain in the center showed a pony, a griffon and a batpony splashing and playing together in harmony... Interesting how it was missing a sphinx. Several families were out enjoying the lawn, and the buildings were linked by a system of stone pathways that looked vaguely familiar... She blinked. An equilateral triangle, inset minimally with a hexagon? Wasn't that the symbol of the yak church? She turned to ask, only to have Slipstream beat her to the question.
"The Emblem of the Nine Virtues," Percival replied. "It is. Sculpting part of the capitol's architecture with respect to our greatest foreign nation's beliefs was in accordance with our values in Izvaldi, that all creatures deserve an equal chance at life regardless of their background or origins. Of the provinces, Izvaldi has the highest overall sarosian standard of living... but Wallace should already have told you this."
"Indeed I did!" Wallace boomed. "But it bears repeating: unlike Stormhoof, here you'll have to look for trouble, rather than find trouble looking for you!"
Percival swept a talon at the other buildings, revealing the inside of his robe to be colored a vibrantly contrasting white with red accents. "Presently, we are in the commerce building. Downstairs, you will find market stalls for multinational vendors, with the most varied selection of goods in Izvaldi. The building is built into the hillside, across many levels that cannot be seen from the central plaza, and includes both the air tower and our river dock. It acts as the central point of trade, revenue and commerce for the outlying settlement."
He pointed left, moving counterclockwise in a circle. "From here, we have the theater, stage and auditorium, where my administration frequently hosts events and allows citizens to put on their own. Then there is the school, free, public and open to all who desire an education and the chance to move up in the world beyond farming and craftsponyship. Next is a state-of-the-art hospital, built with the best talent that exists and one of the best medical centers in the Empire. Like this building, it extends deeply underground, allowing for optimal services without damaging the town's aesthetic. Moving on is the ruling house's mansion and residence, which acts as my home as well as quarters for my cleaning and cooking staff. Finally, the administration building, home to the embassy offices of the other eleven provinces, as well as the local Teleportation Guild and Izvaldi's own administrative functions. Please, follow me."
The interior of the commerce building was largely hollow, made from ancient red timbers and arranged so every walkable surface was a balcony. Freestanding shelves of stalls and merchant vendors lined the walls of the room without respect to stories, linked by open-air staircases and leaving Starlight unable to tell exactly how far it was to the floor. Every available inch of space was used, from stacks of barrels to bulky sacks and warm red lamps to giant bulky nets stretched between supports and hanging from the ceiling. Yet, somehow, it retained the feeling of being vast and spacious, and she never found her view obstructed from anything she wanted to see. The lobby from which they came was like a building within a building, a tiny box built into one corner of the roof, support beams thicker than any tree holding up the rafters.
Starlight ducked as a pegasus soared overhead, a sizable bag strapped to her shoulders. The market was so loud she couldn't hear her own hoofsteps, even though the floor was made of mismatched boards and wooden sheets that constantly had half-inch elevation changes and shifted ever so slightly as they took weight. Rope railings guarded the platform and staircase edges, with smokeless flame lanterns that were likely enchanted affixed to the railing posts.
Beside her, Maple's ears folded from the din, the mare looking both fascinated and frightened. "This isn't a morning rush, is it?" she asked, words carrying clearly. "I'm not sure I'd be able to eat here, but it sure is an interesting building..."
"Fear not, my friend!" Wallace proclaimed. "It does quiet down from time to time!"
Percival had no words, letting the commerce building speak for itself. Starlight spotted a ledge that looked like the entrance several stories down, a symmetrical platform in front of an expansive open door branching out into three well-trodden paths, but the griffon seemed to have other ideas for where they were going.
They reached an upper walkway connected to a sunlit door, which Starlight assumed was an outdoor balcony. When Percival led them through it, however, she realized it was something different: a covered skybridge, the river to her left and the plaza to her right and the next building straight ahead.
"I encourage you to explore the commerce building on your own time," Percival instructed, leading the group. "It would take far too long for me to guide you through every part of it myself, and it's harder than you think to get lost. Ahead, you find the theater and auditorium."
The auditorium was the atmospheric opposite of the commerce building, equally cavernous but lit only by sunlight streaming through a few uncurtained windows. They were on an upper balcony, looking down at the darkness of the unoccupied space below, a flat dance floor that looked like it could be filled with chairs at a moment's notice. A stage completely took up one wall, the curtains drawn.
Percival nodded down at it as he circled the upper balcony, another door to a skybridge visible on the far side. "During the fairer months, most official Izvaldi functions are held outdoors, so this venue doesn't often see use. There is a concert planned for tonight on the lower field, if you're looking for entertainment."
Starlight was almost reluctant to leave the auditorium, its large, empty silence something she hadn't properly felt since entering the Empire. Or since arriving in Riverfall, really, except for the crystal palace buried far beneath Ironridge. It was like the world beyond was politely shut out, as if something was living there that was gentle, but deserved respect. The longer she listened, the more she felt a ghost of a tune on her ears, like the hall was still reliving whatever event it had had last... and then she realized that was just Maple humming, and they reached the next bridge.
From Percival's earlier description, the next building around was a school. Starlight's Equestrian town had had a schoolhouse as well, but it was a one-room affair, with a teacher shepherding around foals of all ages and perfectly happy as long as they could read, count and remain curious about the world. This was wholly different, a clean square hallway with doors lining both sides that looked like someone had taken a Stone District tunnel in Ironridge and tried to decorate it so it didn't appear underground. The walls were ceramic tile, each with an amateur painting done by a little mouth, then stacked according to overall color until they formed a vague mosaic. Squinting, Starlight made out a hilltop view exactly like what she had seen from the Sky Goat flying in.
A quit din of cheerful sounds echoed through each door they passed, alongside the distant thrum of fanblades for some ventilation apparatus, and Percival seemed to walk even straighter, as if he were especially proud of this place. "Izvaldi has been a farming province for hundreds and thousands of years," he explained, walking past bulletin boards pinned with announcements of upcoming events and pictures recognizing exemplary foals and young griffons. "It's a heritage we bear proudly, and thanks to Garsheeva's protective influence, there is no need to modernize. However, we believe that anyone should be able to become anything, and in addition to respecting any and all backgrounds that means providing everyone the opportunity to move up in the world!"
He swept a robed wing at a door as they passed, slightly ajar with a roomful of children seated at desks beyond. "Any are welcome, though our efforts are still expanding and mostly tuned for the young, with an emphasis on those who have yet to discover their greatest joy in life. There is even an orphanage built beneath the building for the benefit of the most vulnerable in our society."
"An orphanage?" Maple's eyes widened in interest. "How common are... things like that?"
"More common than they should be," Percival replied. "Rural life can be unexpectedly dangerous, and a side effect of our advances in medicine is the increasing frequency of parents whose families grow bigger than their ability to provide for. But the immediate area is not our only concern. You've met Kero, of course."
"Yeah...?" Valey grumbled warily.
Percival nodded imperiously. "He is an associate of mine who leads a mercenary company and is notable for being charitable with his work. Often, he brings back war orphans from his operations in Varsidel, or children of unfortunate social circumstance from the changing tides of Ironridge. Our administration in Izvaldi is frequently criticized in the other provinces as too internally-oriented, and we make every effort to ensure that is not the case."
The tour continued, Percival rounding a corner and leading everyone with him. "If you're inclined to visit the orphanage at any time, everyone appreciates the company, provided they are not in school or asleep. Anything anyone can do to inspire others, especially those who need it most, is a service to both themselves and all of Izvaldi. Similarly, if you're ever in search of knowledge, the doors here are always open. There is a vast public library on the ground floor as well, with a collection of extremely rare and historic texts. I encourage you to visit, though the restricted section requires special permission and oversight to ensure the valuable materials are not damaged."
Scrkkkkkk! Just as they were passing the head of the main stairwell, an intercom blazed to life. "Good morning, students!" a flawless mare's voice greeted, so smooth and relaxing that merely hearing it through a speaker put Starlight at ease. "It's time for this morning's bulletin. First and foremost, are you excited for the concert tonight?"
"We're excited!" a second, higher-pitched voice chimed in, chipper and upbeat. "Be there or be square, because we've been working on an all-new song just for you!"
"It's important to let loose and enjoy yourselves from time to time," the more relaxed voice agreed. "At sundown tonight on the lower field! We'd be excited to see each and every one of you there, and your friends, parents and siblings as well. Spread the word!"
"Right, on to the day's schedule," the second voice continued. "Let's see, what do we have here...? Hummina hubbida hoofala hummala himmina hrrrrrmm... Bingo! Okay, so in the morning, we're focusing on math! Today's teachers have an exciting array of options to teach! We'll be doing fractions in the seashell room, practice solving for X in the coconut room, and parametric curves in the bubble room! Hey, what's a parametric?"
"Maybe you can tell us during lunch! Speaking of lunch, I hear the main course is a pineapple-vegetable stir-fry! I know one mare who's not missing out on that."
"And that would be me! Yeah! Now, for the afternoon, we've got a special presentation lined up! It's... a dramatization of the province of Gyre in the fourteen-hundreds! Wow! Will we need tickets?"
"I think they saved spaces just for us..."
"Just kidding. That will be happening in your own homerooms, so you can't miss it. Until next time... Firefly out!"
The intercom clicked off, and Starlight felt something heavy hit her side. She jumped to see Jamjars, practically keeled over and leaning dramatically on her for support. "I think I'm in love..." the filly swooned. "I could listen to them all day for the rest of my life!"
Percival blinked, taking several moments to recognize she was being deliberately over the top. Maple cleared her throat to break the silence, smiling awkwardly. "Who were those?"
"My principals," Percival replied, making a left at the next intersection. "Since they've finished the morning announcements, we could pay them a visit."
"Oh, yes, please..." Jamjars panted, Starlight nudging her to stand up on her own. Finally getting off, the yellow filly scowled, but didn't take back her request.
Slipstream shrugged, and nobody had complaints, so Percival led them toward a double-doored office on the stairwell's far balcony.
The principals' office had an entire antechamber, with a rug and table and chairs placed between doorways to other administrative areas. A plaque reading Principal sat between two symmetrical doors at the far end, one magenta and one lime green, their handles placed lower than usual to accommodate little hooves, and Percival wasted no time in knocking.
"Come in!" the more chipper of the voices from the intercom sang from beyond.
Percival cracked the door outward, entering first. Starlight had enough time to realize both doors led to the same room, and then the principals captured her attention.
"Lord Percival!" they exclaimed with practiced harmony, standing up from behind a double-sized desk and bowing so hard their manes flopped. Two unicorns, each the color of their respective doors, their manes were two-tone and tied into ribbons behind their heads, and they waited for Percival's permission to rise. Starlight eyed them curiously, fighting the vague suspicion she had seen them before... but was distracted before she could pinpoint where from by a building squealing noise.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Jamjars shrieked, dramatically falling over and rolling onto her back, pretending to faint.
Starlight walked over to her and raised an eyebrow, aware that everyone in the room was staring.
Jamjars cracked an eyelid. "You idiot," she breathed, trying to be heard only by Starlight. "They're the ones in my poster!"
Blinking, Starlight tried to recall the poster Jamjars had swiped from the Spirit headquarters, only to lose her train of thought once again at the realization, obvious now that they were looking her way with mouths hung open, that the unicorn principals also had slitted eyes and pointed teeth.
"Uhh... hi?" Valey asked, shrugging and starting to twitch.
"...Nice to meet ya!" The magenta principal grinned from ear to ear, squeezing her slanted eyes closed and hopping out from behind her desk before extending a hoof for anyone to shake. "Wow, that was awkward! Lord Percival, what can we help with?"
"Good morning," the calmer principal announced, nodding primly to the rest of the group as Slipstream partook in the hoofshake. "We're Melia and Sirena, the Firefly Sisters and principals here at this school, though it looks like you're already familiar with us?"
Maple shook her head, smiling sadly and clearly on edge from the sudden tension, but Gerardo beat everyone to speaking. "Pardon, but I can't help but notice your facial features are at odds with your horns and lack of wings. In all my travels, I can't say I've come across a sarosian who is also a unicorn before. Is there a special story at play behind this? This is quite a fascinating-"
The magenta principal made a face for several seconds, working her jaw before finally spitting something into her hoof. "They're cosmetics!" she chirped, holding out a set of fake teeth and flashing a perfectly flat-toothed smile, then lighting her horn and floating out a box from a desk drawer. "The eyes are enchanted contacts. Here! Have some on the house!"
Maple caught the box, and Starlight looked over to see it was a packaged product with a likeness of the two mares on the front. Before she could question why anyone would want a batpony costume in a country where being a batpony was liable to get you beaten up, the principal popped her fangs back in and winked. "Specifically, she's Melia and I'm Sirena. Lord Percival? You wanted to say something?"
Percival nodded and took a step back. "It looks like you're getting on well enough. Girls, these are the Ironridge travelers who have been causing a stir at Stormhoof over the past week. We've offered them a stay in Izvaldi, and they are in the process of a welcome tour."
"It's a pleasure to make all of your acquaintances," Melia said, bowing again. "I'm afraid our office is slightly cramped for this many people, so we could step outside if it would be of assistance."
Percival swiftly left the close confines, Jamjars needing no bidding to follow the duo and the others trickling back into the lobby as well. From the doorway to the stairwell area, Wallace coughed, his bulk too big to fit through. "Excuse me, griffons and gentlemares, but if we are further expanding this party, might I be given leave? My presence was not taken into account with modern architectural codes, and I feel the call of adventure on the morning breeze."
"Dismissed," Percival granted, raising a talon in permission.
Wallace immediately left, and the principals donned black, open-front jackets from a nearby coatrack as everyone settled into their chairs. "A tour, huh?" Sirena asked, fitting the gem-studded coat to her shoulders. "Hey, does that sound awesome, or what? Lord Percival, how can we help?"
"Have whatever discourse you desire," Percival said, glancing at the exit. "If my time runs out, they have permission to visit any reasonable area within my jurisdiction. I thought meeting you would be of interest. Pretend I'm not here."
Melia glanced at him in concern. "If it's a burden, one of us could take over showing them around? The school only needs us together for announcements and appearances."
"I can hold down the school! You can count on me!" Sirena agreed, nodding.
Percival barely had time to acknowledge before the sisters were at his sides, smiling and bobbing their heads helpfully. He rose before they could help him up, striding to the door to get ahead of them and turning to back through. "Is that suitable?"
"Of course it is!" Sirena cheered. "We're popular; don't worry about us."
"Don't overextend yourself, Lord Percival. You can rely on us," Melia urged, coming as close as she could to closing the door in his face while still sounding helpful and caring.
It clicked shut, and both sisters waited with their ears to the floor, hooves to their lips in a request for silence. When they were finally satisfied he was gone, their demeanors broke and they jumped to their hooves, smiles far more authentic than they had been a moment ago.
Melia wiped a hoof across her lime-green brow. "Whew... This should be a dream job, but it's far too stressful sometimes."
Sirena grinned in agreement. "Yeah, but now that stuffy griffon is gone, so we can kick things up a notch and properly party! Hey, you!" She swept a hoof at everyone else, from Starlight and the still-awestruck Jamjars all the way to Valey, Slipstream and Gerardo. "Don't be shy! The floor is ours now, and there are no laws against having a good time. Firefly Sisters in the house!"
Clearing her throat, Valey stood up, balance slightly off-center. "Isn't that your province boss dude, or something?" She raised an eyebrow. "You just basically threw him out."
Gerardo raised an important talon. "In fairness, is this not their school?"
"It is, and he is," Melia sighed. "But we don't want to get off on the wrong hoof before we've even been introduced. You are?" She waved a hoof, openly passing the conversation to someone else.
"Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire," Gerardo assured, bowing himself. "As for my companions, we have Maple and Starlight of Riverfall, Slipstream of Ironridge, and Valey of Ironridge as well. Unless you were originally from elsewhere?"
Valey sighed too, ignoring the question. "Yo," she greeted. "You seem cool, and I'd normally hang out with you like crazy, but right now I'm just the tiniest bit uncomfortable and that's really killing my mood, so no offense in advance."
Both sisters' slitted eyes widened in concern. "Oh," Melia breathed, putting a hoof to her mouth. "Is anything wrong with our school?"
Maple shook her head, capturing their attention. "We don't know for sure, but Wallace and his friends think she got in a fight with a Mistvale Monk and hasn't been able to move properly since."
"Gramps!" Sirena made a snapping sound in the air with a spark of magic, instantly brightening. "Go ask old Chauncey. He knows a sarosian physician near town who he always says is the best there is. The one keeping Lord Goraldi, Percy's grandfather, alive. He always fixes up Wallace's gang when they get roughed up on adventures, too. That'll get you feeling better!"
"That's what Wallace said," Slipstream added.
"You had already heard of us, though?" Melia asked, turning to Jamjars, who looked halfway between a nervous breakdown and an eruption of excitement. "Where from? We aren't very big outside Izvaldi."
Jamjars looked giddy at merely being spoken to, so Starlight answered. "She has an old poster of you she stole from somewhere. I thought you were performers, or something."
"Oh, but we are," Melia whispered, suddenly reminding Starlight more of a sphinx than a batpony. The lights in the room slowly darkened, the sisters backing together until with a spark, their hips touched. "We're... the Firefly Sisters!" they sang as one, horns lighting up with auras matching each other's usual colors, projecting disco lighting onto the walls and ceiling. "A sister-and-sister music duo! Working as principals is a side job we picked up when times were harder six years ago."
Sirena ran a hoof through her bow-tied mane as the lights returned to normal. "Yeah, though it's a lot more serious than side jobs are usually supposed to be..."
"Our problems," Melia apologized. "You must've heard the bulletin on your way in, but we're having a concert tonight if you'd like to listen? It's an exciting event, and this is one we're especially looking forward to."
"Definitely," Sirena agreed. "It's way too rare we get to work on songs together any more. Say you'll be there?"
Maple smiled. "I think this is the third time we've heard about it, so I suppose we'll have to check it out?"
Jamjars squealed again, and both sisters looked grateful. "Well?" Sirena flipped her mane. "We could talk about Izvaldi, or you could talk about Ironridge, or one of us could show you the rest of the town? What do you wanna talk about?"
The conversation wound up with Gerardo epically narrating the tale of Ironridge once again, finally not perpetually flustered now that Wallace was gone. He got about fifteen minutes in before the Firefly Sisters started to fidget and grow restless, and eventually Melia cleared her throat. "Not to silence you, but if this is going to be a long story..."
"We are on the clock," Sirena agreed. "Nice to meet you, though! You should see us tonight!"
"Definitely," Melia finished, and bowing as one, the principals walked backwards through the doors to their offices and closed them, leaving everyone blinking.
Gerardo in particular looked hurt. "Was there something amiss in my tale?" he asked, glancing from friend to friend. "I'm loathe to brag, but I never considered my skills as a bard truly appalling."
"Those two have a problem," Valey replied, sniffing the air. "They're way too skittish about something. You saw them get rid of Percival earlier. I can't sense any danger, but something just caused them to spook..."
"Listen," Slipstream whispered. "Hear that?"
Everybody craned their necks, and something reached Starlight's ears. It was a tune, two tiny voices singing against each other, too muffled to make out the words but of similar cadence to the sisters they had just been talking to. Starlight tensed, the hairs on her back just starting to raise, when the door from the stairwell swung open and a stallion stepped through.
Old enough to have wrinkles and pockmarks visible on his coat, his nose was curved, giving his muzzle a hooklike appearance. His dull gray face was decidedly sarosian, complete with leafy ears and a withered once-red mane that was now a muddy, rusty brown, but that was the only part of him Starlight could see. Everything else was covered by a multifold hooded robe, decorated with painstaking ornamentation in the form of a quarter-moon neck clasp, skeletal bat wing effigies that were fully spread, and a pointy, multi-pronged crown emblemed on the back of his hood. Before he could even say a word, Starlight decided she didn't like him.
The stallion stopped short, seeing how many were in the antechamber and blinking, revealing a glowing device inside his hood Starlight realized was the source of the singing. "Good evening," he greeted, apparently oblivious to the time of day and sounding just as scarred and wrinkled as he looked, offering a toothy smile. "You must be the group from Ironridge I've heard so much about. Chauncey, Lord Percival's head advisor and chief of staff, at your service."
He didn't even bow when he said it, and Gerardo was the only one who could muster up a reply. "Pleased to make your acquaintance?" he asked, tentatively lifting a talon but clearly not expecting to shake. "You weren't looking for us, were you?"
"No, no..." Chauncey clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Us meeting is just a happy coincidence. We would have met sooner or later, eventually. I'm just here to dote on my favorite granddaughters. Are they in?"
After a shared glance to the principals' room, Gerardo nodded, and Starlight wondered just how keen the mares were on being found. "Excellent!" Chauncey proclaimed, strolling forward with a slow, purposeful gait. A hoof slithered out from beneath his robe, pressed the handle, and the green door opened to let him in.
"Hey!" With all of her old finesse, Valey yanked Starlight, Maple, Slipstream and Gerardo into a tight circle. "Just gotta say this before we get stuck with him or something," she whispered under her breath, barely loud enough for them to hear. "That guy looks like all kinds of nope, but I'm not getting any kind of danger or hostility from him whatsoever. Usually, I can get a really shaky estimate of how strong someone is even if they're not thinking of beating me up, and he's packing something stronger than your average civilian, but I think he's also legit friendly. Watch your butts regardless, but just thought you should know."
"Gramps!" Melia and Sirena echoed through the open door, sounding very pleased to see him.
"Good evening, children," Chauncey chuckled as Starlight drew nearer, pulling a basket from the folds of his robe and setting it on the desk. "Hard at work as always, I see. I brought muffins! Francesca from the kitchens made them just for you."
The sisters popped open the basket, each pulling up a still-steaming pastry with expressions of delight. "You're the best, Gramps," Sirena grunted around a bite too big for even her wide mouth.
"Oh, it's nothing," Chauncey chuckled, merrily watching them eat. "But girls! You have guests! Our esteemed visitors from Ironridge, sitting all alone in your lobby?" He curled a lip and raised an eyebrow. "How did this happen?"
Gerardo cleared his throat, standing up in the sisters' defense. "We were in the middle of a welcome tour from the good sir Percival when all of a sudden we were left here. He hasn't been back since, and we're slightly at a loss."
"Oh! Well, that's too bad," Chauncey said, stepping away from the desk, careful not to crack his wing effigies on the walls. "Come now, Melia, Sirena. Surely your work isn't that important. If there's anyone pressuring you you need off your backs, just let me know! How about a meet-and-greet?"
The principals paraded back into the lobby, both avoiding looking directly at Chauncey as they met the eyes of the ponies they had just been introduced to and introducing themselves again. With a perfectly-timed bow, they finished, and Sirena went on, nodding at the elder sarosian. "This is Chauncey," she began, "and he, uhh... We were in a bad way in Varsidel six years ago, until he found us, adopted us and brought us to Izvaldi. He gives us everything!"
"Charmed," Gerardo replied, for once the entire group grateful he was so willing to speak up. "...Is it just me, or is it quite socially tense in here?"
"Apologies. I can have that effect on others, though I assure you I'm very hard to disappoint," Chauncey said, still refusing to bow or even nod. "A tour, though, you say... Where did you have left to see? You should be more than free to come and go as you please."
Again, it was Gerardo who spoke, Maple and Slipstream looking unsure of whether talking would be safe and Starlight still wanting nothing to do with the stallion. "We came here over the sky bridges from the commerce building, through the theater, and that is all we've seen."
"So you haven't seen the hospital..." Chauncy's dark eyes brightened. "So you haven't seen the hospital! You must be the one I was told about who got on the wrong side of a Mistvale Monk." He stared straight at Valey. "That's an area many don't like for a reason. Fortunately, the royal physician I hired can unset most lingering effects with a single second of magic from his horn. Since Lord Percival wandered away, why don't I continue your tour for you? After all, I was heading in that direction regardless."
Gerardo looked uncomfortably at Maple, who glanced to Slipstream, who put her wings over her head and looked at Valey. Valey blew a spit bubble.
Chauncey made that clicking noise again, the faint sound of singing mares still emanating from his hood like a tiny music box. "Of course," he apologized, "I'm putting you on edge. Melia, Sirena! Why don't you accompany us and do the tours yourselves? I'll just be in the background."
"We have..." Melia's gloomy eyes widened.
"Lots of important principal work to do!" Sirena groaned, covering her eyes with a forelimb as if it was the worst thing ever. "Aaargh! But we so want to go..."
"I'll go," Melia firmly decided, putting a hoof on Sirena's shoulder. "You stay here and do the principal work."
"Awww... Deal." Sirena slumped, slouching back into the principals' room and then closing the door with record speed.
"The hospital is the next building over. It's this way," Melia began, sighing and leading the party out of the antechamber.
Nobody talked as Melia led the party across the next bridge linking the school and the hospital. It wasn't even Chauncey's fault so much as hers; the unicorn kept her lips thin and her demeanor rigid and businesslike. Starlight watched her with an analytic curiosity, recognizing the look easily: it was exactly what she saw every time she looked in a mirror in Equestria, determined not to enjoy something she should have taken pleasure in. But her flank was marked and she had been cheerful only minutes ago, and Starlight's best guess that she didn't enjoy doing things without her sister was shot down by the fact that she had sent Sirena away herself and volunteered to continue the tour.
"Since the school and hospital are adjacent, this room is the school nurse's office," Melia said, gesturing with a hoof around the brightly-colored first room they entered. A mare behind a desk with her mane in a bun and a clean medical hat smiled cheerfully to her, though the little chairs that lined the room were all empty. Starlight wondered how often they had to be used.
Melia took them out a door and down a staircase, opening into the ground-level main lobby. This room looked more sterile, with glass and metal trim in addition to the wood and plaster. It reminded Starlight of the skyport atrium more than anything, trying to inspire ponies by invoking thoughts of progress, though the young mare bent over in a chair with her head in her hooves didn't look very inspired. The griffonness shepherding two bouncing, lollipop-sucking toddlers, on the other hoof...
"Gramps?" Melia asked, looking up as they paused in front of the receptionist's desk, a disinterested sarosian shuffling through a ledger behind it. "Where should I take us? It's a big hospital."
Chauncey, who had been bringing up the rear, wandered closer. "It is a big hospital," he agreed, admiring the lobby. "The proudest accomplishment of our administration. Why don't you show... everything aboveground?" He winked at Starlight and her friends. "Most of the underground areas are longer-term residencies and procedural areas for committed patients, such as the operating rooms and mental health facility, as well as quarantines for infectious diseases and laboratories researching technologies and cures. They're not very pleasant places."
Melia nodded, but as she began to head for a door, the receptionist called out. "Your Excellency," she said, getting Chauncey's attention. "Doctor Zybar called minutes ago and wanted to let you know the checkup's report is almost ready. He wanted to give it to you in person, as always, and seemed to look like it went well."
"Good news as always," Chauncey replied. "Keep up the good work. We're heading his way right now."
The receptionist nodded, and Melia took them down a corridor, doors with wall signs on either side.
Stopping, she pushed open an extra-wide door, beckoning everyone in. Starlight blinked; the room was two stories high and only a little wider than some of the other rooms she had peered into, but this one was taken up wall-to-wall by a gigantic, cylindrical machine. A cradle the size of an adult griffon with a glass roof sat before a treelike structure, arrays of manaconduits lining the walls and runes inscribed on various surfaces. Pipes broke away like branches into the walls, and nodes of light trickled sluggishly across the thing's facets and out from between riveted metal plates.
"Oh my..." Slipstream sucked in a breath. Starlight felt the same.
"This certainly looks disconcerting," Gerardo admitted, sizing up the machine, the cradle bed next to a terminal looking clean and sterile.
"We were more interested in getting it to work than appearing pretty," Chauncey replied with a proud smirk. "This installation was completed eight years ago, and it was a miracle technology progressed to the point where we could fit it inside. My research laboratories have improved things even further since, and we're perhaps three years away from having a production version that can be loaded onto a cart."
Before anyone could ask what it did, Melia answered. "This is a general-purpose injury-reversion machine. Technically, it uses some of the principles involved in Varsidelian combat medicine, but in the form of a reusable machine that lacks the downsides of being a finite resource and increasing the likelihood of re-injury when used at a lower grade. Right now, it's mostly useful for treating lacerations and broken bones, and useless for aging and disease."
"It's exactly what's needed for most of the trouble Izvaldens get themselves into," Chauncey continued, standing in front of the machine. "Blunt trauma, physical injury, anything that could happen on a farm up to amputations and loss of limbs, and it's possible it could get that far in the future. It's what allows this hospital to operate with the costs it does, and concentrate all its resources on the more intense cases and research that happen downstairs."
Valey eyed the cradle with sudden appreciation. "So, like, it's the perfect thing for if you get on the wrong side of a fight..."
Chauncey gave a toothy smile. "That's what Wallace thinks. In the research section of the underground, we have a prototype specifically big enough for him. That's a place you might be interested in seeing."
Slipstream frowned. "So if all the contagious diseases and long-term things go underground and this is here, what's the rest of this building for?"
Melia nodded, leading back out of the machine room. "General health. Come; you'll see."
Starlight and her friends were led through several hallways, up two flights of stairs and past countless doors to departments. "This is dentistry," Melia went on, nodding at a door with a smiling unicorn poster on the front. "As Izvalden life expectancy increases, it's becoming more of a field, though it's not my area of expertise."
"I'm surprised you know so much already," Maple admitted respectfully.
"She gets it all from me," Chauncey chuckled. "The girls get to listen to me talk about my projects a lot. The well-being of Izvaldi is important to us all..."
The hallway opened up into another empty waiting room, and Melia nodded at the departments on either side. "That's the maternity ward," she said, pointing at one closed door. "Izvaldi historically has a high birthrate and low life expectancy, so Gramps and Lord Percival poured a lot of money into making it big, to try to give foals as good of a chance as possible. But most of the time doctors for it make house calls instead, so the building itself doesn't see as much use as we had hoped." She pointed at the other. "That's dietary health. It helps some people with healthy eating and exercise plans, and others with discovering allergies. They're closely linked with the research and governmental departments, for tracking outbreaks related to food sickness and bad products. About a year ago, we had to ban a supplier at the commerce building because these people found out they were selling contaminated fish. It was a major political drama."
As they left the waiting room and continued down the corridor, Starlight doubted they had the same definition of major political drama, following along at the end of the line and trying to get space to think. The click of a door opening sounded behind her suddenly enough to make her jump.
"Huh...?" She spun, but the doors to both departments were still closed. Stopping for a second to glare suspiciously at them, Starlight turned and ran to catch up.
"Optometry," Melia went on, leading the way past yet another wing of the hospital building. "In Izvaldi, glasses are a relatively... Ooomph!"
Gerardo pitched forward, crashing into her and knocking both of them to the ground. A blur sped overhead, and Starlight ducked, hissing, as a stallion Shinespark's age landed in front of them with wide eyes, skidding and catching his balance. "Woah! Watch your backs!" he hurriedly advised, dashing off around the next corner.
"Hey! Get back here!" Valey hissed, leaping after him, only to lock up midair, crashing and landing in a heap. By the time she could look up, he was gone.
It was all over in a second, and then Maple was checking the way they had come as Slipstream and Chauncey helped Gerardo and Melia back upright. "What was that for?" Jamjars sniffed disdainfully, glancing around.
Regretfully, Gerardo patted himself down, and his headcrest drooped. "Everyone, I do advise checking yourselves, because that was a pickpocket."
"A pickpocket?" Maple's eyes widened, and Starlight was suddenly grateful neither of them were wearing saddlebags.
Slipstream checked her sweater, frowning in concern. "What's a pickpocket doing in a hospital?"
"Birdo?" Valey narrowed her eyes at Gerardo, watching his demeanor. "What did you get stolen...?"
"This is difficult for me to admit, but..." Gerardo drooped harder, displaying the liners of his empty pockets. "While you were preoccupied on the voyage here, I stopped to ask Wallace Whitewing for his autograph, placed it as the only thing in my coin pouch, and figured it would be safe there until our permanent lodgings-"
Valey interrupted with a burst of laughter that lasted until Maple put a hoof to her muzzle, pointing at Melia. The mare was slumped, looking at the ground, one hoof to her chest, and the mood in the corridor instantly stilled. "Did you lose something?" Slipstream whispered.
Melia shook her head, straightening up. "It's not important. Let's continue."
"Oh, hardly," Chauncey interrupted, moving to block her way. "Nothing about you isn't important, my dear. Tell me what was stolen and I'll replace it twofold."
"Is nopony thinking of catching that guy?" Jamjars muttered as everyone else exchanged words, and Starlight had to agree.
"A locket," Melia said, walking around him. "Sirena made it for me after the big concert last month. But it's the sentiment that matters. Please, let's continue."
Gerardo frowned, also stepping forward. "Excuse me, but I hardly feel that would be a good use of any of our time. You're clearly not enjoying yourself, and I'm beginning to feel we're wandering for the sake of wandering. Something is the matter and clearly was long before that young stallion made off with your valuables and my minor trinket, and we'd very much like to help and know what it is."
Maple nodded in agreement, standing firm beside him, and Melia sighed. "Do you really want to press this, right here and now?"
"Uhhh..." Valey slowly got to her hooves, raising an eyebrow.
"Fine," Melia said, a tightness in her voice. "It's work. Since we got here, my sister and I have worked tirelessly to raise the spirits of everyone in Izvaldi. We sing. It's what we do. Gramps here has been our manager, and he does an amazing job, but... the kinds of performances the numbers say are most successful aren't the kind we want to do most, and having to balance between us and our audience is stressful. We've talked it over and know what we're doing and why we're doing it, but it's still..." She glanced at her empty hoof once again. "You should come to the concert tonight. We went to a lot of work to set it up. And you're right. I'm going back to the Principal's office."
She turned and departed, leaving the party alone with Chauncey. Jamjars frowned. "Does anyone have any paper?"
Maple dug around in her cutie mark, and while she did, Chauncey sighed as well. "I always worry about those girls. Some days, I fear I've given them a superhero complex; that they'll take anything they could do but don't far too personally. And they're so talented, it would be a tragedy to see them burn out... Recently they came terribly close to taking things too far, even though they generated their highest ratings of all time. If there's anything you can do to lighten their load, it would be a service to all of Izvaldi."
"And you're sure you are not somehow to blame?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "If you must know, their demeanors changed instantly the moment they detected you coming."
"Yes, I'm aware," Chauncey growled. "And as I said, I do take the blame. That does not mean I don't care, or am not invested in their success and well-being. Now, I'm not one for giving tours, so why don't we duck over to a certain physician's office and get young Valey fixed up?"
A dark unicorn with the same set of batpony cosmetics the Firefly Sisters wore closed his eyes in greeting, bowing to Chauncey and shaking Gerardo's talon. Chauncey conversed to him in quiet tones for a moment, and then energy sparked along his horn, pulsing outward in a dark blue wave that made several crackling beams when it connected with Valey. She yelped, hissing, and jumped... and managed to land on all fours, not even wobbling as she hit the ground.
"Ow!" Valey complained, rubbing her side where she had been hit. "What was that... Huh." She flexed a foreleg, then bent her neck, and it didn't crack. "Seriously? It was that easy?"
"You'll have to excuse him," Chauncey muttered back. "Doctor Zybar doesn't speak. But that's how Mistvale arts work, you see: a magical block on your motor functions. Very easy to lift, for anyone who knows the precise way how..." He glanced at the doorway. "Your tour is over. The way out is right, then left, then right. Enjoy your stay in Izvaldi."
"Finally!" Maple breathed, the journey outside completing itself quickly. Starlight felt a warm outdoor breeze wash through her mane the moment they left the hospital lobby, and Valey was hovering, at long last no longer restricted in her movement.
"You can say that again," Valey grunted, flexing and doing a flip. "Seems kinda cheap that I'm A-okay again just like that, but not nearly as cheap as getting monked in the first place. Anyway, we got what we came for in Izvaldi, so where to next? And I'd like one ticket of membership in the weeklong debilitating injury club, thanks..."
Gerardo nodded. "In fairness, weren't you quite injured as well for the aftermath of the fighting in Ironridge?"
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, but I was able to get around. Nnngh... I haven't moved enough. I need to fight someone! And eat something, because bananas, food doesn't taste good when you're practically bedridden. Or maybe I just need to fly real fast and yell at some birds. Anyone want a ride?"
"You could fight him," Jamjars coughed, looking up from what she was doing with her paper and holding it up in her aura.
"Woah..." Valey licked her lips, examining it, and everyone else leaned in as well. It was a drawing of a pony's face, and a remarkably good one, at that. Starlight clearly recognized it as the mugger from the hospital, even though she had only seen him for a second... and Jamjars had added some clearly effeminate touches. "You make the dude look almost hot," Valey remarked.
Jamjars didn't even redden, smiling in self-defense. "I've had more practice drawing some things than others."
"So this is our mugger, is it?" Gerardo asked, taloning his chin. "With such a likeness, it might not be impossible to question citizens to see if they know him. I, for one, have absolutely nothing better to do with my day than quest in the name of recovering a friend's stolen valuables. What say the rest of you?"
"Oh, bring it on!" Valey pounded her hooves while hovering.
"Well, it might be interesting," Slipstream decided, straightening up and joining Gerardo and Valey. "Why not?"
Jamjars immediately scurried to their side, leaving Starlight and Maple. The two looked at each other, and Maple shrugged. "I don't know about hunting for criminals, but I don't have anything else to do. If I do change my mind, how about we meet here by..." She glanced at the sun. "Halfway between noon and sundown?"
"I can dig that," Valey agreed, and Starlight nodded. "Now..." She fluttered higher, glancing around at the hoofful of ponies and griffons enjoying the plaza around the central fountain. "Where should we start?"
"It feels so odd that a mugging would happen in a hospital. I wonder if that's normal around here," Maple murmured, standing with Starlight in the central plaza and watching as Gerardo and Valey stopped citizen after citizen to check out Jamjars' drawing.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Jamjars shrugged. "Hospitals are for sick and injured ponies, right? It sounds to me like everyone there would be weakened, so they'd make easier targets."
Maple looked vaguely upset. "You're missing the point! Hospitals are supposed to be safe! I can understand if someone was hungry and needed money to buy food, but preying on ponies like that is wrong."
"And griffons," Slipstream added, rubbing her chin. "Hmmm... Whoever it was, I bet they weren't a first-time criminal. We had Chauncey and Melia with us, and they're probably important enough that everyone around here would know who they are. So the thief would have recognized important government ponies, and only someone with nothing to lose would try to rob them anyway."
"I think they were following us for a while," Starlight muttered, thinking. "A few halls ago, I remember hearing a door open behind us, but didn't see anything when I turned around. It was..." She scrunched her eyes, trying to recall, but Melia's constant descriptions of identical doors formed a soup in her mind and she had to give up. "I don't remember."
Jamjars sat down and huffed. "This is what happens the moment I actually go with you instead of sneaking around." Baring her teeth, she hissed, adding, "I was paying too much attention to Chauncey! Ugh. I don't like him."
"Really?" Starlight glanced up, interested. "He seems kind of weird and slippery. You liked Howe, didn't you? I figured he'd be your type."
"I don't think 'your type' means what you think it means," Jamjars sniffed. "And no. Howe had a very nice mane, but Chauncey's looked like someone dropped spaghetti in a mud puddle. You can tell a lot about a pony from how they wear their mane, and if I were him, I'd never take that hood off even for a shower. Of course, that's probably why he looks like that."
Starlight frowned. "That's a weird way to judge a pony."
"So what?" Jamjars shrugged. "You don't like him either, right? So we agree. And besides, he was gross and old, and most importantly the Firefly Sisters clearly don't like him and I'm their biggest fan, so I'm contractually not allowed to be nice to him."
"Do you really think they don't like him?" Maple tilted her head. "They were definitely behaving weird, but they seemed really happy when he brought them food. I wonder what else is going on..."
"Good questions," Slipstream hummed, hunched over in thought. "Do you really think we should be poking our noses into the government's business, though? I can see how you got into trouble in Ironridge... and we do have a thief to catch."
Maple folded her ears, and Starlight looked up at the sound of Valey and Gerardo wandering back over. "Any luck?" Slipstream called.
Valey grinned. "At finding the bad guy? Nah. But look what I can do again!" She hopped up, hovering, and did a lazy backflip. "Bet you can't do this."
Narrowing her eyes, Jamjars squared her legs, and Starlight realized she was considering it a challenge just in time to back out of the way. "Yaaaugh- Ow!"
Jamjars managed half a backflip, landing undignified on her back and quickly scrambling upright. "You have wings, so you cheated," she pouted. "That's not fair."
"Eh, it was a good effort." If it had been anyone else, Starlight was sure Valey would have patted them on the head, but Jamjars got off with just a small shrug. "Sooo..." Valey landed and tapped a hoof, looking around.
"The townspeople are amiable, but ultimately unable to help us," Gerardo finished, summarizing their efforts. "How about yourselves? We figured a bit of brainstorming might be in order before running back to try our luck again."
"Not really," Maple apologized, shaking her head. "We just thought about how odd it was that there was a mugger in a hospital and figured they were bold or already a criminal to rob someone so important."
Valey glanced at the massive wooden airship floating above the commerce building on the other side of the plaza. "You know, maybe we should ask Wallace? That dude might know a thing or two. I bet if there's a crook nest nearby where someone might hide out, he'd be familiar with it."
Maple stared past the skybridges that linked the circle of buildings, hills, groves and farmland visible far beyond. "We might just be looking in the wrong place. This is the center of government, but there aren't any houses, see? The town has to go a lot further than this. We should be looking out where people actually live, since the few that are up here don't know anything."
"Noted," Gerardo agreed. "As for contacting Wallace, it is certainly a possibility, and I'm quite sure he'd at least offer useful advice. However, now that I've met him in the flesh and had enough time to gather my thoughts again, I'd very much like to show him what we can do, and that means solving this case on our own. He certainly thinks us capable enough."
"How capable would he think you if someone's locket was lost forever because you didn't ask for his help?" Slipstream quietly warned.
"...A more than fair point," Gerardo sighed, crest flopping dramatically. "To the Sky Goat we go!"
Entering the commerce building from the ground floor, it wasn't nearly as hard as Starlight had expected to spot the top-level lobby that was connected to the airship tower. Finding the staircase that would get there, though, was an entirely different matter.
"That way goes down," Jamjars reported, pointing at a path she had just scouted that was filled with fruit vendors.
"The staircase over there goes to that balcony, but I can't see past it..." Slipstream squinted, leaning to look.
"Or we could just fly," Valey offered, hovering midair and shrugging noncommittally. "But I'm pretty sure it's just that staircase, then that bridge, then that... No, one sec..."
"Hey!" a deep mare's voice interrupted, and everyone jumped to see Morena strolling in behind them, wearing nothing but a double-wrapped utility belt. "You lot look like you know your way around," she greeted, muddy circles staining the rims of her hooves. "Having fun?"
Gerardo immediately beamed. "Ah, the mare of the hour! As a matter of fact, we were looking for someone like you in search of advice."
"Really." Morena raised an eyebrow. "You know there's a particular thing most of my advice specializes in, right?"
Valey hovered up, sticking the drawing in Morena's face. "This lemon bag mugged us in the hospital and stole Birdo's autograph, and we're trying to find them and bust them up. For the greater good, and all that."
Pow! Morena clapped her forehooves together so hard the shockwave made Starlight stumble. "Now that's up my alley!" Morena cheered, smirking. "Follow me, you lot. I've got something you should see."
One staircase later, Morena stopped them in front of two giant, free-standing bulletin boards nailed onto a trio of logs sticking up from the floor. "Take a look," she instructed, lifting a hoof at the myriad of notices neatly organized across the two. "This is the job request board. Wallace got them to put it in about fifteen years back. It works like this: any time you want to hire someone for something, you make a notice and pin it here. The left board is for stuff that's not risky and doesn't have any ethical issues, like running an errand for something really hard to obtain. The right board is for things you do at your own risk, like bodyguard work, ethically dubious things like helping dig up dirt or spying, and in your case, criminal wanted posters. It's not very regulated; there's someone who takes down ones that are over a week old and moves misplaced ones to the right, and that's about it. So if you're sure that drawing's good, stick it up on the right side and see what happens."
Gerardo eyed her carefully. "Really."
Morena nodded. "You'll also want to note your reward. Some people put up jobs for free, but you'll almost never get more than a concerned civilian trying to help and no one who wants to take a risk. Of course, make sure you can pay up what you offer, because anyone who comes here looking to make money will be strong enough to take it by force. You're only looking for information, right?" Quickly, she appraised them. "You look like you can handle yourselves in a fight, so you won't have to offer a very big bounty. How much do you have on you?"
"Wait a minute!" Maple stopped her, rocking nervously on her hooves. "Slow down. What are you signing us up for? It sounds like you're hiring us mercenaries?"
"It's a job board." Morena shrugged. "It's where people who need a hoof can post public notice, and people with a hoof to give, a need for some quick bits, or who do it for fun like me go for entertainment. I suppose you could see if someone's already-"
"Bingo." Jamjars smirked, drawing down a sheet that had been pinned to the right-side board and comparing it with her own drawing. Quickly, she held them up together, and Starlight realized their target was apparently already wanted.
Morena squinted at the new poster. "You sure those are the same?" she asked, tilting her head. "The one you just took down looks kind of like a dude..."
"He was a dude," Jamjars deadpanned. "My drawing just looks like a girl. So what do we do with this?"
Everyone crowded around to the point where Starlight couldn't see, but Gerardo narrated anyway. "Please retrieve my wedding ring: Help! I was walking in the lower riverside park when this pickpocket got away with it! I followed them to the pawn shop on the second story of the Cobbleheel boot store, but couldn't get inside. Reward: fifty bits."
Morena licked her lips approvingly. "Well, that's not the richest reward, but if you were going after him anyway... looks like you've got your first job!"
Starlight and her friends stood back outside at the edge of the plaza, on the shaded road between the theater and the school and looking out over the lower-lying outer town of Izvaldi. The central government buildings were on a tall hill, leaving them with an excellent view of the spread-out houses and lackadaisically-planned streets it was a wonder the ruler's mansion wasn't built in this spot. From her experiences with the land so far, it was probably because the view in that direction was even better.
"It isn't as dense as I'd imagined," Maple commented, pointing at the freestanding houses with room for yards and gardens and sometimes even fields between them. "You'd think everyone would want to live near all these resources like the school and hospital, so I was envisioning something like Blueleaf or at least Stormhoof, with all the buildings pressed into a single structure."
"There could just not be that many people in Izvaldi," Slipstream commented, rubbing her nose. "In Ironridge, remember that ever since they opened the skyport and it became easy for anyone to come and go, the city's population had been increasing dramatically. I don't know the exact census data, but there were a lot of ponies packed into a relatively small city. Here, it looks like there's plenty of space to go around."
Gerardo nodded. "I wonder if Wallace and his crew are partly to blame as well. As inspirational as they are, surely quite a few local youngsters have left to follow in their steps. I certainly did as much myself from my own province."
"Eh... Does why it's spread out even matter?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "It's cool for us, since that means there's less chaos to hide in. I dunno where that boot store in the job is, but it should be easy as cake to find from the air."
Everyone glanced around. Of the group, half were flying and half weren't, and the distance the town extended for was great enough Starlight really didn't feel like walking to the far side, let alone combing through it or making a return trip.
Valey pointed a wing at Starlight. "Right, you with me, Jamjars with Slipstream, and Ironflanks with Birdo 'cause he's the only one strong enough to lift her. Sound good?"
Maple glanced hesitantly at Gerardo. "Actually, I haven't been carrying around very much since I hurt my cutie mark in Ironridge. Just our drinking water, lunch, the book I was reading, all our money from Kero-"
"Heh heh heh..." Valey patted her on the head with a wing. "Yeah, water, books, gold and silver are real light. Sorry, Ironflanks, but I don't want to get smushed now that I can finally move again. Gotta actually take care of myself."
"I'm somewhat nervous to hear what you consider a full load," Gerardo chuckled. "Nevertheless, are these arrangements equitable? If so, then let us be off!"
They were hardly the only travelers in the sky. Other griffons and the occasional pegasus winged their ways from place to place, some carrying passengers just like Valey, Gerardo and Slipstream. With a carefully-controlled magical discharge, Starlight was able to make crystals form on her horn and grow just enough to cover her eyes, forming a sort of pseudo-goggles against the wind, but they refracted light and made her vision weird and she quickly settled for watching without them, squinting at the ground.
"Cobbleheel boot store..." Valey muttered to herself, loud enough for Starlight to hear over the wind. "Nnngh... Not there..."
Most of the roads going through the town were straight, a few wider thoroughfares and smaller streets branching off from those, forming blocks or trailing away into the countryside. Starlight kept her attention on the intersections of medium roads, figuring a shady pawn shop would be somewhere ponies could reach but not in the brightest part of the city. Before long, though, her attention was caught by something completely different.
"Valey?" She nudged her ride's shoulder.
Below, a road was torn up, a wide ditch exposed at the side. A stack of metal pipes sat tied together nearby, along with a machine that resembled a giant shovel, a squad of ponies and griffons hanging out nearby. Valey nodded. "Yeah, looks like a construction project. Someone had to build all this at some time or other, I guess. That's too much stuff for fixing a break, or something, so maybe they're putting a line in? Water or power or stuff. Huh." She scratched her head. "You know, most of outer Stormhoof had like no mana power whatsoever. I wonder if these dudes just lack plumbing."
With a hospital nearby, Starlight figured that was unlikely. Clean water was important, so any competent planner would have focused on that before spending large amounts of money on a hospital. "They're probably official, then," she commented. "Should we ask them for directions?"
Valey waved a hoof. "Nahhh. We can get directions from any old blowhard. No need to bother those guys about it."
"Maple and Gerardo are doing it."
"Buh?" Valey glanced again, and Gerardo was indeed descending toward the construction site, Slipstream hovering nearby and looking to her for a lead. Rolling her eyes and shrugging, Valey dove.
She touched down cleanly just in time for Starlight to hear Gerardo give his signature greeting, much to the amusement of the workers. The leader, an earth pony with flat eyes and a stalk of grain between his teeth, nodded and whistled. "Ten-minute break, boys! Company's here."
Valey stood far enough away that she wouldn't get involved if Gerardo started a mess, but Maple was already climbing to the ground. "We're in search of a certain boot factory," Gerardo primly announced, holding up the wanted poster Morena had given them from the job board. "This rapscallion potentially has a hideout in a pawn shop near it, and made the very foolish decision of giving us a stake in his arrest. Might you be able to point us toward its location?"
The leader looked closely at the poster, wiggled his grain stalk, and sighed noisily. "Awww, not him again. I told that dumb kid he'd get in real trouble some day if he didn't straighten himself out."
Now Valey was interested. "Yo, hold on, you actually know the guy we're looking for?"
She was met with a harsh eyebrow. "Depends what you'd do if you found him."
"Wait, really? You do?" Maple took a moment to process the information. "Wow. I guess that was quicker than I expected."
"It's a small world!" the stallion chuckled, then went back to serious. "What's your business, though?"
"Well, he pilfered a relatively inconsequential autograph of mine," Gerardo explained raising a talon. "Under ordinary circumstances, I would say someone who wants such a thing so badly is entitled to it, but he also robbed a good friend of ours of a valued personal heirloom. Melia, one of the school principals?"
"That idiot went that far?" The stallion's eyes widened, and he sighed again. "Well, I guess I'm not surprised, what with the way things have been going. You know those Firefly Sisters, then? Tell you what. Promise to take a message from me to them, knock some sense into that dumb kid's head, and I'll let you know right where to find him."
"Fly that way. There's a clock tower about three blocks from the closest forest; take the road away from the woods and go until you see a chartreuse house. Know what color that is?" The forepony raised an eyebrow high enough to nudge his hard hat. "Yellow-green that's bright enough to make your eyes hurt on a sunny day. The next building down was built as an office or something, but now it's divided up into an apartment block. You'll find him there, or at least someone who knows where he is."
Gerardo momentarily blinked, the sky behind him pristine and the rest of the pipe workers wandering around on their break. "Well, that's quite useful and to the point. I suppose I was expecting-"
"Hold on, I'm not finished," the stallion continued. "The kid you're looking for is Max. That's his name, and before you ask, he picked it out himself. Tell him to get his priorities straightened out and spend his time doing something actually useful. And then when you see those Firefly Sisters, tell them to knock it off with their concerts. All they're doing is encouraging dumb stunts like this!" He huffed, looking away. "I had to break up a fight over it a month ago. Public nuisances..."
"...A tragic backstory," Gerardo finished, "and I was doubly expecting you to interrupt with one. Nevertheless, fear not, because we will pass on your message!"
Moments later, everyone was hovering a distance away in the air, floating in a circle out of earshot of the ground.
"Well, that was helpful," Maple remarked. "It sounds like they had a lot more history together than he told us, though. It makes me wonder what their story is..."
Gerardo waved a talon, identifying the distant clock tower and beginning to glide toward it. "The fascinating thing about stories is that absolutely everyone has one. There are those who devote their lives to hearing as many as possible, though the only reward one could gain from such an endeavor is any enjoyment or edification it provides. I myself am always in favor of a good yarn, but in this case, I think we should merely be grateful that the trail is hot and say theirs is a tale for another time or audience. Barring, of course, the rare circumstance in which the subjects are colluding to conquer the world, in which case we are obligated to intervene..."
Slipstream chuckled, matching his pace. "I think your train of thought got away from you there!" she giggled, Jamjars clinging furiously to her back and not looking down. "What I'd like to know is what he has against those sisters. We've certainly been hearing a lot about them, and there's definitely something going on..."
"Well, if you wanna know that badly, you could've just asked him," Valey pointed out, barely remembering she had a passenger in time to avoid doing a lazy barrel roll. "This doesn't have to be a big, spooky mystery. That said... eh, I'd need to meet them again now that I can focus to see if I care. They're singers. It's a concert. How much bad stuff you guys feel compelled to fix can there be?"
"You shouldn't ask that..." Maple groaned. "Do you want us to look for trouble? I'd just as soon sit around and enjoy my vacation. Something is suspicious with Chauncey and those sisters, but it's not like we have to get involved."
Gerardo pointed at the rapidly-approaching clock tower, and Starlight guessed she could see the apartment building the stallion had described. "Ah," he proclaimed, "but isn't looking for trouble exactly what we're doing right now?" He raised an eyebrow. "First off, a nice bit of flair and adventure without any stakes on the level of Ironridge is exactly what I enjoy as a passtime, and second, you're far too compassionate for any fishy funny business to simply be ignored, are you not?"
"You all are terrible at not tempting fate!" Slipstream laughed.
"Eh, don't worry." Valey sniffed, then nodded. "No danger tingles this way."
Starlight, for her part, kept quiet as they touched down in front of the target building. She figured the nervous discussion on getting into trouble was some sort of group way of coping for having gotten roped so heavily into the deep political mess of Ironridge, keeping themselves light and happy so they didn't get paralyzed from fear of risks, and that was perfectly fine. At the same time, no one had asked to be involved that deep in Ironridge...
The apartment building really did look like it had once been an office of some sort, sitting completely out of place in the loosely-spaced countryside township that surrounded Izvaldi's capitol. Several clotheslines hung out front, alongside some unused foals' toys, two tiny fillies chased each other around supervised by a watchful teenager, and several of the windows were covered from the inside by stickers and decals, but the two-story building still had a neat construction that was far too repetitive and formulaic for any house. It briefly gave Starlight the idea of an eccentric developer who thought they could build anywhere they wanted, made something to prove it, and then abandoned the project as soon as it was completed because there was nothing useful to do with it.
Valey stepped back and shrugged, waiting to provide backup as Gerardo marched to the door. "Excuse me," he asked, catching the bored-looking teenager's attention and holding up the wanted poster from the job board. "Can you tell us if you know this pony?"
Starlight wondered if there might have been a safer or more tactful way to go about finding him, such as not mentioning they were there to arrest him quite so freely, but the filly just blinked at him and nodded. "Yeah, one second. Don't let those two wander off. Hey, Max!"
Hollering, she barged into the entrance hallway, leaving the door swinging in her wake. Gerardo blinked. "So far so good, I suppose?"
Everyone watched, listening, and after a moment there was the sound of a brief, noisy commotion. Another minute passed, and the filly came slouching back out the door, a dark stallion's body slung over her shoulder. She flung him onto the ground before Gerardo, a large welt visible on his face, and looked disappointedly at the stunned stallion. "They came with a wanted poster on your head," she told him unceremoniously. "I told you you shouldn't have made so many enemies. Bye, Max."
"Eh heh heh..." Max groaned groggily, opening his eyes as the teenager went back to tending the two younger foals. He suddenly blinked, realizing Gerardo was leering into his face. "Hi there?"
Gerardo snapped his talons, and Valey patiently stood behind him, flexing. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."
Max's eyes crossed. "Really? Out of all the things, I'm in trouble for an empty coin pouch?"
"And a wedding ring," Gerardo informed him, taking steps to match as the stallion scooted back along the ground. "And a very important locket belonging to a friend of ours. Perhaps you remember stealing it in a hospital, of all places?"
"A friend of yours?" Max looked offended, then vindictive. "Enemy combatants. I knew it! I'll never tell! Not to a member of the inferior team, team losers!"
"Well, don't you sound pleasant," Gerardo growled, lowering his beaked face toward Max's. "It would very much behoove you to repent for your misdeeds and return it and all other stolen belongings before-"
Max suddenly smirked. "You're open!"
POW!
"Whuh...?" Max blinked, suddenly straining, his sucker punch at Gerardo having been interrupted in a flash. Valey held her hoof blocking his own, grinning back and nudging the griffon away, and pushed a little harder, watching as his foreleg trembled under the effort of holding her back.
"Wrong move, chump," Valey lectured, blocking another sucker punch with just as much speed. "Bananas, I haven't gotten to clean anyone's clock in forever. This is gonna be amazing. Remember, you struck first!"
Valey's hoof drove into the prone Max's gut, winding him and instantly erasing any chance of retaliation. She took less than a second to appraise her work, decided she hadn't had enough, and backflipped, catching him with her rear hooves and bracing her wings upside-down against the ground as she launched him into the sky. Her target couldn't even yelp as she corkscrewed after him, hitting with punch after punch that kept up his momentum until she finally flipped above him, spun, and drop-kicked him back to the ground with an impact of dust.
"Oh, come on," she complained, hitting the ground next to him and barely earning a stir as the filly who had fetched him earlier stomped a single hoof in lazy applause. "Really? I overdid it already?" Valey lifted his head with a ginger wingtip, peering sideways and up close, then sighed, dropping him and walking away. "Bananas. I was hoping he'd at least let me show off."
"Well, I do hope he returns to consciousness soon," Gerardo remarked. "We need him to discover what's become of the stolen valuables, and I fear if we carry him anywhere official now, we'll just be making a return trip to this place."
"Urrrgh..." Max stirred already, voice sounding like helium after being kicked so hard. "You fight pretty good for a bunch of losers... Bet you go around pretending to be vigilantes, trying to oppress the opposition into silence now that you've won! Well, I'll never give up!"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "The only thing we are opposing, you rude stallion, is the unsanctioned action of criminals. You stole my autograph, ergo, we are foes. Not to mention your misdeeds against our friend. You are clearly unjustified, and I will continue to permit Valey to treat you as her sport ball of choice until you submit to justice!"
"Hah!" Max looked unusually victorious. "See? You said you were her friend! You're the villains and you know it! Beat me up and a thousand allies will have my back, because you're destined to lose in the end!"
"This one's playing with a few screws loose, isn't he?" Gerardo whispered to Valey, who squinted and shrugged.
"I definitely don't understand what's going on here," Maple announced, stepping up beside the two interrogators. "What do you have against the principals? They both seemed perfectly nice to me, if more than a little stressed out."
"Trying to play the clueless card, are you?" Max smirked, trying to get back to his hooves and thinking better of it at a look from Valey. "That won't work on me! Melia is the leader of the enemy team, and I know how to tell an ally from a foe!"
Gerardo glanced at the teenage filly who had hauled Max out in the first place and raised an eyebrow. "We're from quite far out of town and have no clue what he's talking about. Can you fill us in?"
The filly glanced distrustfully at him, shepherding the two youngsters she was watching a little further away. "I have nothing to do with him. Leave me out of..." She blinked, realizing she had just been thrown a golden bite.
"Don't do it, Cecilia," Max warned, eyes widening as he realized what Gerardo had just done. "They're trying to bribe you to switch sides! Don't rat me out!"
"I never cared in the first place, dummy," Cecilia replied, greedily pocketing the coin and sizing up Gerardo again. "You're really not from around here?"
"Just got in this morning," Valey yawned, stretching.
Cecilia glanced at Max one more time, then started talking. "Every once in a while, the Firefly Sisters have a concert. They each write a new solo about how great something is, and when it's over, everyone is supposed to vote on which thing is better based on how convincing they are. They say it's to let the audience engage, but he's so engaged he always votes for Sirena and thinks he's at war with everyone else. I don't know where he put your things."
"That... explains a lot, actually," Maple murmured, stopping to think. "I bet that's what she and Chauncey were talking about earlier with making the audience happier..."
"It certainly sounds like a fount of happiness," Gerardo deadpanned, staring once again into Max's face. "Do you truly rob civilians over such a petty disagreement? I find that slightly barbaric."
"Petty, huh?" Max growled, glaring at Cecilia for talking. "You can say that all you want, but your actions speak otherwise! I'm a loyal warrior, and you're hunting me down! That's warfare!"
Valey flicked him with a wing. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you have no understanding of what a real war is. My actions are being ridiculously patient even though you refused to put up a fight, and right now I'm trying to figure out the funniest and least-illegal way of making you talk, because seriously, hunting small fry like you is way beneath my level and I'm getting bored."
Cecilia held out a hoof, pointing to the coin already in it and angling her neck.
Gerardo flipped her another coin in front of Max's aghast face, expression somber. "I encourage you to observe how big a profit she is turning through honest and legitimate means, and encourage you to reconsider your actions. One of you, speak."
"Hey, stop giving her so much money!" Max cried, staring at Gerardo in bewilderment. "Do you even know how much those things are worth!?"
"More than my silence," Cecilia remarked, cradling it greedily. "Left wing, third room on the right is his. You're a sarosian; you shouldn't need a key."
"No!" Max yelped as Valey started toward the building without a second glance. "No, please, don't go in there! I'll do anything! Anything but renounce Sirena, but I'll cooperate! Stay out of my private space, you barbarians! This is proof that your team is evil!"
Slipstream chuckled, staying out of the interrogation for the most part. "You know, after seeing how fervent ponies got in Ironridge over the Stone District versus the Earth District, it's kind of funny to see a place where everyone gets worked up over something so silly. Concerts are for entertainment, right? You're supposed to take this easy and enjoy yourselves!"
"It is not silly!" Max barked, baring his teeth. "You have no idea what you're talking about! This is one of the most important things a pony can do with themselves!"
"Less gnashing of teeth, more telling us where to recover our loot," Gerardo rebuked, swatting him with a feather. "You promised you'd talk, and I promise we will hold you to that. Unless you'd like Valey to perform an investigation..."
"You drive a hard bargain, dishonorable scumbags," Max sighed, frowning serenely. "I sold all my valuables at the pawn shop three blocks east of here the moment I got them! Whatever you were hunting earlier is long gone. The empty pouch is worthless; I gave it to them as a chew toy." He pointed at the younger fillies Cecilia was watching. "As for the enemy commander's locket, you can't have that. It's too important to lower the morale of-"
"Busting in now," Valey interrupted, ducking under the door. "See ya."
Max's jaw dropped in panic yet again, boggling Starlight at how he still didn't realize everyone else was serious. "Wait! Wait, stop, no! It's..."
Valey raised an eyebrow, standing halfway through the entrance, seeing if he would continue.
"...I threw it in the river," Max gloated, giving a final smirk. "It's a goner. You'll never see it again!"
For a moment, everyone was silent. Maple blinked.
"Hey, everyone," Jamjars suddenly announced, ducking around Valey and wandering out of the building with a bounce of her fluffy mane. A silver locket glinted from a chain around her neck. "I found the thing. Has he talked yet?"
"Y-you..." Max pointed a hoof in horror at her, everyone else continuing to stare.
"Spent the last few minutes realizing the locks in this building are no harder to pick with telekinesis than my mom's jewelry box," Jamjars replied haughtily. "I didn't find the other stuff, though. He probably tried to sell it or something."
Max's face contorted in rage. "How dare you break into a stallion's room, you uncultured little girl!? I hope you went blind from the insanity of seeing-"
"Yeah, it was pretty hot," Jamjars admitted, licking her foreleg and running it through her wig mane. "Don't worry, I got rid of any evidence you were disloyal to your cause."
As she turned, Starlight caught a deliberately-allowed glimpse of the end of a curled-up tube of paper sticking out of the hairy mass. Max's scream was cut short by a punch from Valey, knocking him out for real this time, and the batpony shrugged. "Well? We've got that; who wants to check out this pawn shop? We could also lug this dude back to the plaza to see if anyone wants to arrest him, but we've only got three pairs of wings. Anyone care what we do?"
Gerardo reached down, finally locating his slightly-wet coin purse in the building's lawn, the autograph still inside. "All my missions are accomplished," he proclaimed, wiping it off and tucking it away. "I have no further goals."
"You'll have to carry me, either way," Maple pointed out. "Slipstream? You can manage both fillies, right?"
"Sure think I can," Slipstream replied, rubbing her shoulders. "You two mind riding together on the way back? If that works, Valey can take the criminal, and we can stop at the pawn shop on the way back..."
Jamjars glanced at Starlight and patted her mane. "Oh, I don't mind at all."
"...And so after I beat him up, we got him to talk and figured out where he had been getting rid of all his loot. It was a pawn shop, and oh boy, did the owner not look happy to see us..." Valey grinned and flourished, still holding the unconscious Max by the scruff of his neck, and stuck out a wing. "And boom. Looks like nobody had come along to buy it yet. So we took it off the owner's talons, and here you are."
On her wingtip was a small golden horn ring, and the young stallion who had penned Max's wanted notice jumped with enthusiasm. "You all are lifesavers!" he congratulated, eagerly floating the ring back into place. "I haven't been able to look at my wife straight since I lost this... Thank you!"
"It was our pleasure," Gerardo insisted, catching the offered reward money with a talon. "This curmudgeon made the mistake of targeting us as well, so your request merely provided us with a clue as to where he was."
Maple watched as their client bounced off, standing next to the job board in the commerce building, and smiled. "Well, that feels satisfying. Although..."
"Yeah," Valey muttered, looking sideways at Max. "What are we going to do with this lug?"
"I was going to say we technically stole from the pawn shop and attacked a civilian," Maple uncertainly murmured, "but there's that too..."
"Indeed," Gerardo breathed. "Ideally, this vagabond would be turned in to a law enforcement agency who could force him to pay back damages to the shop, though I believe I neglected to notice the location of such a place during our tour. And we can't very well let him go and trust him to repay his debts himself, because he clearly hasn't learned a thing."
"There has to be a sheriff around here somewhere," Slipstream said, straightening her posture and looking around. "Gerardo, want to go and look? You carry him, I'll scout around."
Valey raised an eyebrow, glancing at Maple and the fillies. "And us?"
"Well, someone has to take Melia her locket back." Slipstream shrugged.
Maple nodded in agreement. "Meet at the plaza when we're done?"
"Deal."
Starlight stepped, blinking, into the central plaza. The last hour or two had gone by in a flash, with a pawn shop raid she had been left outside for and the processes of lugging Max back to the commerce building and summoning their client.
"I don't want to say that was easy..." Maple began, matching her pace and echoing her thoughts. "But it really feels like there should have been more to it than that."
"Nahhh," Valey admonished, lazily twirling Melia's locket around a wingtip. "It was easy because that was a lone mook. We fight insane yaks, professional armies and supernatural monsters. We were just out of his league."
"Not like that," Maple went on, staring straight ahead. "Like... someone said someone else had done something bad, so we went and ruined that someone else's day and treated them like a toy. It turns out we stopped a thief after all, but what if someone put a notice on that board about someone who was innocent? We already knew that stallion had robbed us and were trying to get our things back, but it still feels like there should have been more. Something to make sure whoever gets hunted down deserves it."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, that would basically put every bounty hunter ever out of the job. Someone says they'll pay money to see someone else beaten up, that's kind of on them. I guess this is just how the Empire's legal system works? Or Izvaldi's, anyway. If you don't like it, either don't do it or take really, really good care to ensure whoever you're about to mess up deserves it."
Maple frowned.
"Could always ask lord griffon dude, too," Valey added. "Still, with Wallace around it's probably an honor system or something. I bet it'd hurt both of their feelings if you suggested Izvaldi had enough shady types not to be able to handle something like that."
"I don't know," Maple sighed. "I did like seeing that stallion happy at the end, though." She blinked. "Didn't Morena say something about this? Her whole description went by kind of fast, but she said the jobs on the left board were always safe, and the ones on the right might be morally questionable? Now that I'm stopping to think about it, I guess this is what she meant."
"Hey." Valey nodded. "As long as I get my exercise, you can ignore the right board or both or whatever else in this town."
"You sure like your exercise," Jamjars remarked, perfectly contented by the bouncing of her own mane. "Trying to get in shape for the next time you see Amber?"
Valey raised an eyebrow at her. "I will suplex you into that fountain."
"Let's not," Maple quickly interceded, moving to walk between Valey and Jamjars. "Everyone here is in perfectly good shape."
As they continued to the school building's entrance, staring at Jamjars from behind and wondering if the filly was being snippy because she herself was flagging. Most of Starlight's exercise came in bits and pieces of extreme exertion, like her ill-prepared trek through the mountains, but Jamjars had lived most of her life cooped up in a house. She recalled her taking poorly to the heat during their walk together in Ironridge during the long evacuation, and realized Jamjars was likely the least physically-capable member of the entire group. It wouldn't do anyone any good to point that out, though.
Once they were in the building, it was two short switchbacks of stairs to the entrance to the principals' room. Standing in the staff room, Maple reached up a hoof and knocked on Melia's lime-green door.
When Starlight entered, the double-desk was half empty, Melia's chair alone and abandoned. Sirena blinked from her side, realizing who it was, and beamed and grinned, waving them in. "Hey, you're back! Wow, that must've been quite the tour, 'cause it's ben forever! Did you see the underground?"
Maple blinked. "Oh? Melia isn't back yet?"
"The tour wrapped hours ago," Valey added in concern, following along behind. "She kinda ran off in a huff."
"Hours ago?" Sirena frowned, then sighed. "Yeah, that sounds like her. She's been taking some recent bad business really, really hard. I'm still mad at Chauncey, to tell you the truth. Were you checking up on her, or something?"
"Nah." Valey shook her head, then held out the locket. "There was some punk running around the hospital and we got mugged. They swiped this, and we went and got it back."
"We wanted to return it," Maple added.
Sirena's eyes widened, and she seized it with a gasp. "What!? This...?" Delicately, she clicked the locket open in her telekinesis and stared at the inside for a moment, face falling. "Ouch. Thanks for getting it back. I'll be sure to give it to her."
Maple walked apologetically up to the desk. "I don't suppose it's my business to press, but... she doesn't seem very happy, and you seemed a little strained earlier too. Is there anything we can do to help?"
Sirena shook her head in thanks, twin tails waving behind her. "Nope. We've got things moving in a better direction, and if this really got stolen and you got it back, you're already the best. But if you do want something to do, be at the concert tonight! The more people who show up, the better for our morale!"
"That's cool." Valey nodded respectfully, taking a step backwards toward the entrance. "It's on our list."
"Yeah..." Sirena sighed, then floated the open locket towards them. "This is a totally random question, but do you like it? I made it myself as a present a few weeks ago."
Maple peered closed, and Starlight leaned in too. Inside the locket was a single picture, showing the sisters together and much younger - about the age in Jamjars' poster, Starlight guessed. They were singing together, laughing and smiling, with a caption that read 'Twin sisters best friends forever!'
What caught Starlight's eye more, however, was the prominent equals sign etched into the back of the metal cover, and with a brief pang she remembered her cutie mark kit back in her saddlebags on Shinespark's ship.
"I bet there's a story behind that picture," Maple murmured.
"Hit me up some time when I'm not working or singing if you really want to hear it," Sirena offered. "But right now, I've got a bell to ring and some end-of-day announcements to handle! Ring ring!"
"We'll see you then," Maple promised, and they quietly left.
When Starlight spotted Gerardo and Slipstream returning, it was sans Max and with Wallace Whitewing in tow. The gigantic griffon's wingspan was easily broader than both of her friends' put together, and Starlight briefly stopped to marvel that something as big as him could fly at all.
"We located the constabulary without much trouble," Gerardo panted, landing and quickly straightening his crest. "However, Wallace appeared and I felt compelled to give him the entire narrative, and we may have slightly lost track of time..."
"It's fine," Maple offered with a disarming smile. "Melia wasn't back yet, so we gave Sirena the locket and she said thank you. Hi, Wallace. Are we doing anything now?"
Wallace flashed his massive grin. "Well, hello to you too, little lady! And fear not about the passage of time, 'tis merely late afternoon! I'm hearing you all have been busy."
"Eh, not really." Valey hovered, pounding her forehooves together. "Yeah, we got robbed and did some other stuff, but it's basically been a lazy day."
"Hah! You seem more chipper," Wallace congratulated, turning his tree trunk of a neck to face her. "I take it whatever run-in with Chauncey you had to alleviate that bothersome curse had its desired outcome!"
"Something like that." Valey licked her lips. "Hey, uh... I feel like there was something we were gonna ask you, but I don't remember what it was."
"Oh!" Wallace winced. "Well, you always have my ear should you remember! I'm curious, though: still thinking of taking on the tournament in your newly-restored state?"
Valey glanced around, shrugged, and nodded. "I guess so? Don't see why not. Sounds like it could be fun, and it would be sweet if we got that border pass thingy out of the deal. Right now, I kinda just..." She rubbed a foreleg. "Gotta move around, you know? Not fun being barely able to walk."
Wallace winked. "I've lectured you enough on your odds of winning if you cannot commit yourself to a goal with one hundred and ten percent. Now that you're back on your hooves, however, how about a friendly sparring match? It'd be a taste of what you'd go up against aiming for number one!"
"Bring it." Valey twirled her hat on a wingtip, nodding appreciatively. "I'm down for a good fight."
"Don't complain if you get a little more than that, young sarosian," Wallace respectfully warned. "The lower field is being set up for tonight's concert, but there should still be plenty of space for an arena! Care to do battle now? We could get dinner afterward, my treat!"
Valey stretched. "Oh, I'm already fired up from hunting that punk earlier. Let's go!"
Wallace gave a direction, and they began to walk. "That sure was a quick decision," Maple remarked, glancing up at the giant griffon. "Are you sure you two will be feeling up to dinner after? Try not to get hurt."
"Hah! Not to worry," Wallace assured. "The local hospital is quite good at treating injuries from this kind of thing, and a fight is always a good way to work up an appetite. Besides, we're playing for experience, not for keeps! I'll call things off the moment they look dangerous."
"Hey, Wallace," Slipstream asked, walking comfortably on his other side. "What do you think of Chauncey?"
"Chauncey. Urgh." Wallace grimaced. "I am... in his debt. He did a great favor to my team some time ago, and saved the life of a very dear friend of ours. Additionally, he wields strong influence over Percival's style of governance, and none can deny that it is effective. By all accounts, he is an admirable stallion, and his ideals have been tried and found in favor of Izvaldi and its people time after time. Yet still, I cannot trust him. He is too secretive, and makes every move as though he were up to something!"
Maple frowned. "When you put it that way, he sounds kind of like Arambai..."
"Sparky's dad," Valey clarified, at Wallace's look. "Hey, how long's she taking to get here, anyway?"
"Some time tomorrow is my best estimate," Wallace replied. "Diego is with her for navigation, and it all depends on the speed and power of her ship. The Sky Goat is not the air's fastest craft, but it is not confined to the meandering course of the river, or forced to battle currents at every turn and juncture!"
"I already told you," Jamjars remarked. "Chauncey's no good. His mane is hideous."
They crested a minor hill on the way down from the central plaza, and the lower field came into view. Several teams of griffons and unicorns were unloading boxes from a series of carts on a nearby road, focused around a broad stage to the far end, but Wallace had been right: there was more than enough room for a battlefield without getting in anyone's way. Starlight glanced at the town to the north and east, wondering if it was actually big enough for a field of this size to be fully occupied.
"Gerardo," Wallace coughed, clearing his throat. "Care to fly over there and let someone know we're requisitioning part of the field for practice? We won't get in anyone's way."
Gerardo scrambled to bow and soar off, leaving Wallace nodding into the distance. "Back to Chauncey, I must know... why do you ask?"
"He put those principals really on edge," Maple admitted. "But they talked like they were good friends. Just... didn't act like it. It felt wrong."
"Ah. They have had a falling-out as of late," Wallace confirmed. "It's something that's been kept out of the public eye for the sake of their image, but apparently his management of their performances was causing tension and nobody said anything until it boiled over in an incident that left a bad taste in all three of their mouths. If that's what you're worried about, I can assure you all three of them want on some level to repair their relations, though I don't envy the amount of work those two girls will have to put in to do it. It's hardly one of the most suspicious things he's done, or even on the map for that matter."
Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So he is suspicious, then? What does he do?"
"I told you, nothing." Wallace coughed uncomfortably. "With Chauncey it is a matter of mannerisms over actions. I do watch him, but as far as I can tell he is a sarosian who puts the well-being of Izvaldi first and enjoys doing ordinary things in highly suspicious ways."
"It still sounds like Arambai," Maple murmured as they made their way further into the field. "Only with Arambai, I always felt like he had our backs and was on our side. With Chauncey, I'm not so sure..."
Wallace nodded along. "Having your backs specifically? Chauncey is concerned with Izvaldi as a whole. Some days, I only think he helped us in particular because he saw we would have a great deal to contribute to Izvaldi's cause and wanted us as allies. If you consider him as having your backs, you're mistaken, and if you're right you should be worried. But I wouldn't fear! Poking around for wrongdoing in the shadows is my job, and I can assure you none of Izvaldi's secrets are threats to you or the Empire."
Valey glanced suspiciously at him. "That sure is specific."
Wallace didn't even make eye contact. "Lovely weather for a fight, isn't it? The air quality is so pristine, it feels as though my lungs are crying tears of happiness! How wonderful it is we can live in a place like this..."
"Um, what?" Slipstream giggled, sniffing the air. "It does smell pleasant out, but that's quite a way of changing the subject."
Valey sniffed too, then frowned. "Eh, it doesn't matter. If Chauncey's a villain, I've stabbed better than him with a giant icicle. Let's talk about fighting."
"A prime decision!" Wallace congratulated, bouncing his crinkly mustache. "But who has time for talking? We are here! Everyone, stand as far back as you are comfortable, and let us begin!"
"Well then, young hero of Ironridge! Why don't you show me what you've got?"
Valey and Wallace began to circle, springy grass folding beneath her hooves. He held a respectful distance, and she didn't advance, sizing up the situation.
Her mark was tingling; Wallace was powerful. At the same time, most of her opponents held hefty grudges and had hunted her down, so her standard response of waiting to let the enemy move first and see what they were capable of wasn't working. In fact, Wallace was doing that himself, and odds were he was more patient than she.
"I'm thinking about it," Valey replied, taking a step forward and narrowing her eyes, bright sunlight shining on her face. Wallace didn't even hold a battle stance, watching and waiting for her as casually as someone might wait for a cart to pass before crossing the street. That would slow his reaction if she did something sudden, but she wasn't exactly sure what she could do: he was the same size and weight class as Herman, and didn't have a magic battle axe or a gaping chest wound for her to exploit for damage. Her hoofstrikes would probably bounce right off, even. She needed something heavier, or else momentum and knowledge.
Fwooosh! Valey snapped out her wings and shot forward, instantly halting her momentum and landing the moment her tingling increased. She saw one of Wallace's talons twitch, knowing he had been about to catch her. Not giving him a chance to react a second time, she walked calmly and readily into his range, every muscle prepared to jump or dodge out of the way.
"Hah!" Wallace looked amused, hopping back out of range with a crash. "You're scoping me out! Good! Never underestimate an opponent when you don't know what they're capable of. Now, time to test what you've learned!"
He jumped forward again, wings spread, moving through the air like an inexorable rolling boulder. Valey tensed; his trajectory was farther over her head than it appeared, trying to unnerve her into backing up so that he would land on her and crush her. It was the exact same strategy she had used to flatten Howe so very long ago in the Earth District, when she had started calling him Pancake... and now it was being flung her way, in the form of a bathtub-sized griffon who would make her a lot flatter than that. She took several steps back anyway, cutie mark confirming her hypothesis. Was he underestimating her? A move like that should have been a bluff with an early landing, but while airborne, Wallace was undefended.
Underestimated or not, Valey wasn't going to miss her chance. She zipped upward and to the side, aiming a punch for the bones of Wallace's left wing. At the last second, though, the wing lifted, and her cutie mark flared. Wallace was attacking with... his tail?
Enhanced reaction time gave Valey just enough of a boost to throw herself into a flip, vaulting over the whiplike snap of Wallace's projectile. "Gotcha!" she growled, latching onto the appendage as it flashed by and biting down hard.
"Oooh!" Wallace winced, defenses pierced, landing upright despite the setback, and the next snap of his tail would have flung Valey halfway across the field if she hadn't been forewarned to let go. "Quick thinking, young hero! You've certainly got some skill! We might have to turn things up a little..."
Wallace charged, this time not waiting for her to make her move. Barreling along the ground with his wings tucked in like a griffony train, he gave no illusions about where he was heading, and left Valey with little time to think. She crouched, preparing to jump.
...The impending danger grew less, and she hesitated. He wasn't reading a jump? Or he was expecting her to think he was, and stay put. Either way, Valey didn't want to take the risk, so she went with the last-second third option: shadow sneaking.
Without clouds to block the sun, the entire field was brightly lit, leaving almost no places to hide, but Wallace was big enough that his shadow fit nicely. Kicking off the ground once, Valey pivoted instantly in midair, slipping into the ground as the giant griffon passed. Wallace stayed grounded, and the moment his hind legs were clear, she lunged upward, prepared to catch his tail again.
Flash! Her cutie mark froze time just as she rose, letting her see him spread his wings and plant his talons for an emergency momentum brake as his hind paws lifted to lash out. A blow from either of them would end the fight right then and there, but the downside to Wallace's size was that he couldn't see behind himself and had no way of aiming.
Valey angled herself perfectly, twisting through the air so that Wallace's hind paws shot past on either side of her body, missing completely. "Raaaaaugh!" she yelled, bringing both hooves down together against his heel as it passed, trying for as awkward of an angle as possible in search of a weak spot.
Even as she hit, Wallace moved with the momentum, already bringing himself back around to stomp her. Not willing to give up her position, Valey locked her hooves where they had landed on his leg, hooking them and swinging herself around so that her hind legs both exploded into Wallace's other leg the moment he landed.
"Yeah!" she cheered, springing away with the impact and rolling to an upright stop on the grass, facing him from a safe distance away... but her hope suddenly fell when she saw that he hadn't even staggered. If anything, the big griffon looked happy.
"Fantastic!" Wallace praised, holding off on an advance in favor of talking. "Your reaction and ability to turn a tight situation into an advantage is admirable, and you know how to strike with power despite your size! Clearly, this isn't your first time fighting an opponent so vastly bigger than you. However, you have a dilemma: with only the tools you have available to you, how do you damage someone as meaty as me?"
He started forward again, and Valey was briefly taken aback by the alarming way in which he moved. Wallace's wings were extended and on the ground, acting as an extra pair of legs as he waddled forward, swaying violently from side to side and planting them like flippers. His forelegs, freed by the action, now sported balled fists the size of her head, and were swinging in a series of wild punches in time with his stride that covered her entire facing. It was madly intimidating, and Valey had to steel herself to prevent her eyes from widening.
But... there was a pattern. Every one of his blows was in time with his stride, moving like a metronome as he used the swaying of his body to balance out the awkward wing-walking. That wasn't a rhythm he'd be able to adjust in a hurry, and it left just enough of a gap between his punches that she could get in as one was ending. What would she do when she got in close? Didn't matter; she needed to move before he changed his attack.
In a streak of green, Valey shot between Wallace's swinging talons, sliding through the air with her wings upside-down and her belly to the sky, keeping careful watch as her coiled hind legs targeted his exposed neck. But a flash of slow-motion interrupted her right before she could make contact, and Wallace's huge head filled her vision, beak open to poke or bite her back. She had been watching his talons, but ignored his head! Snarling at her oversight, Valey reacted.
Crack! She brought her hind legs up as she slid, catching Wallace's beak with both hooves. The hit was against her momentum and did absolutely nothing, but combined with a flap of her wings, it sent her spinning downward, flipping and landing atop a meaty arm that was just finishing its punch. Coiling and springing again, Valey launched off it, twisting yet again in midair to avoid his grasping talons and bring her hooves down in a smash on his wing socket.
As the blow connected, Valey grabbed onto the bone of his wing, realizing the danger had lessened. Could he not reach her here? Either way, nothing was stopping her from hitting again, so she pummeled the wing's base over and over, clinging on with her hind legs as she pummeled the twisted knot of muscle with immense ferocity. "Come on!" she hissed, straining... and then the wing gave out, and Wallace tipped over.
Her cutie mark informed her that something was wrong almost as fast as her brain did, Wallace's wing folding normally to his side instead of cracking or going limp. Wrapped as she was around it, her hind leg was now pinned inside his furled wing, and he was rolling over, preparing to crush her against the ground. A split second of struggling proved useless, her leg well and truly trapped... so again Valey shadow snuck, disappearing safely into the ground as Wallace dropped on his side.
And then he didn't get up.
Contemplatively, Wallace lay there, twisting his neck around to watch beneath him. "You're clever," he praised, "and successfully saved yourself in a pinch! But now I have you at disadvantage, hero! While your reflexes and agility are commendable, three times in a row you chose to meet me head-on! You must vary your approach while searching for weaknesses, and be-"
POWWW!
Valey blasted out from under Wallace with the force of a dropped anvil, planting all four hooves against his face as she sped by with a thunderclap of clattering beak. "You were saying?" she laughed, hovering this time. "You know how shadow sneaking works, right? We can't stay submerged when there's not physically enough room in the shadow. It's why you never have batponies going through the plumbing; we get pushed out. A doorjamb's about all we can make it under, and anything more...?" She grinned. "Trying to smash me down there was basically putting me in a cannon aimed at your face!"
"I didn't know that," Wallace announced, wiggling his jaw to ensure it was still fine. "Congratulations! However, as hard as you've worked, you have yet to touch me."
"Rrrgh..." Valey growled, realizing that attack really hadn't done anything either. If that didn't even flinch him, what would?
His chest was covered in massive battle scars, and it was possible some of those could still be tender. Unfortunately, the presence of that many scars in the first place likely meant even wounds far bigger than she was capable of making couldn't stop him. And either way, he had warned her about making such bold approaches; rushing his front again wouldn't be a good way of doing things.
But what could she do? Wallace was advancing again, and she had already tried his tail, his legs, his wings, his face... She needed something truly enormous to hit him with, and she had nothing at all.
He had said she possessed tools, though. What tools? Valey set her teeth and spread her wings, a few flybys and fake-outs would only buy her time to think as long as she was careful. She buzzed past with a series of dodgy momentum shifts, prepared to come about... and the moment she turned, she saw Wallace in the sky again, chasing her.
"Oh, bananas." Valey swallowed, preparing to dart. Wallace in the sky felt even bigger, his gigantic wingspan truly showing its worth, along with no damage whatsoever from her earlier pummeling. At the same time...
The ground! That was what she could hit him with. She just had to get them high enough, then make Wallace crash, which unfortunately meant finding a way to disable his wings. And he was barreling again, clearly interested in watching her think under pressure.
Valey flipped sideways, deciding to check how fast he could change momentum midair. Predictably, the griffon's huge bulk shot past, not without a slap from a twirling wing she had to take care to dodge. Already far in the distance, she saw Wallace making a massive turnabout, having accelerated to such a speed he needed to go to the far end of the field to manage it. She didn't think even she could keep up with him, and that realization sent a shiver down her spine. Now he was the one dive-bombing her.
Dive-bombing... He was at least giving her time to think. Valey darted out of the way of his next charge, the sheer friction from his passage against the air giving her a perceptible warming sensation as he passed. Could she trick him into hitting the ground himself?
No, he'd be able to pull up. If she could get him close, though, angled sharply enough that grabbing on and attacking his wings could prevent him from lifting hard enough... That was enough of a plan. Valey flew straight up, watching as the next flyby increased in altitude to target her. One more, another... They weren't difficult to dodge, though definitely scary, Wallace moving so quickly only her cutie mark could tell her precisely where he was going to strike.
This time, Valey chased Wallace as he passed, bargaining that getting in closer would give her more control of how he approached. The speeding griffon was easily twice as fast as her top speed, and when he started making his curve, she stopped and turned as well, flying far inside his loop as well as towards him and down. Wallace started angling downward to follow her.
Valey felt her cheeks stretch in a windblown grin. Now, she flew directly away from Wallace, letting him catch up to her like a meteor of doom. She didn't look back, angling herself slowly toward the ground, the giant green field below spinning in her vision as she did a barrel roll.
Phweeeee... Wind screamed in her ears as she brought her trajectory to an angle she was happy with, nearly halfway to vertical. Wallace was still following; her cutie mark could feel him gaining. Rapidly, the ground enlarged, and her timing was perfect, the griffon on a collision course with her about ten seconds before he would hit the field. All she'd have to do was stall him for a second and he wouldn't be able to pull up in time.
Snapping her wings, Valey braked as hard as she could, flipping her light body and letting Wallace hit her at a slight angle. There was a talon grappling for her, but she avoided it with a final pump of her wings, grabbing his side instead. Let him pin her this time! Valey latched onto the side of his wing as hard as she could, slightly further down than last time, thanking the wind for blowing her tail out of his reach. The wing was too thick for her to bite, but she clung to a joint and strained with every muscle to interfere with a single flap. If he tucked the wing in to bring her closer and pick her off, that would be enough...
But he didn't, still trying to pull up. With a tinge of victory, Valey felt him wobble, realized she was having an effect and he wasn't going to make it. His trajectory was too low; he was flying nearly horizontal but far too close to the ground. Kicking off, Valey let go and angled herself into the sky, straightening out and hovering to see what the crash would do.
And then, to her shock, Wallace turned sideways, tucked in his wings, hit the ground, and rolled.
Every drop of momentum he had charged her with was now a spinning, devastating mass, rolling along the field so quickly she couldn't make out his head. Wallace crossed half the field length before she could even register what he had done, then launched himself, still rolling, into the air with the extension of a single wing. A roadlike swath of grass stretched from her to him, and at the end, Wallace stabilized in midair, shook his head, and landed, coming to a final proud standstill near Maple, Starlight and the others and not even wobbling from dizziness.
"What... how...?" Valey pointed a hoof, floating into earshot.
"What's a good hero without special attacks?" Wallace asked with a flourishing grin. "Congratulations, young Valey! I'm afraid I have to call off our sparring session here, because things have reached the point where I am holding back more for our arena's sake than yours!"
Valey flicked her ears, letting the words sink in.
"You fought admirably," Wallace praised, extending an oversized talon for her to bump. "I started easy, but your skill and proficiency at dodging my attacks was so great I was this close to showing you my ultimate move! I won't hide the truth: you have a long way to go if you aspire to become number one. While your survival was best in class, you barely landed a scratch against my superior size and defenses. In a true fight, at best we would be stalemated until you ran out of stamina, and at worst you would catch the wrong side of an attack by mistake and be truly decimated. However, with training and even more clever strategy, you just may be able to overcome these weaknesses. To the many contenders I face in the tournament, I praise their strengths and instruct them in where to focus their improvement next, but it is rare that I get to say these words: if your convictions are true and your persistence relentless, you might truly stand a chance."
Finally, Valey landed, only then realizing how hard her lungs were breathing.
"That was quite spectacular," Gerardo praised, bowing to both in respect. "I both regret having watched from afar and am very glad I came no closer."
"And neither of you are hurt," Slipstream marveled. "Wow."
Wallace winked. "I may have gotten kicked in the face a time or two, but it was all in the line of duty! And you are all right as well, my worthy opponent?"
"Yeah," Valey panted, throat suddenly dry as her state caught up to her. "Bananas, I haven't gotten ran around that hard in forever, not counting that cheating stuff in Stormhoof. We should do that again some time."
"I think much the same!" Wallace agreed, booming. "Morena and Diego will likely want to try their luck against you as well. I have a suspicion you might even be evenly matched! But in the meantime... dinner is on me tonight! Come, let us feast to the heroic deeds of ourselves and others!"
With a mood of good cheer emanating from all her friends, Valey settled down on well-stretched legs and followed along, licking her lips.
Morena joined up with the group near the base of the central hill, descending north toward the outlying city proper. By that time, Valey was flying to stay off her hooves, Gerardo and Slipstream were chatting about the mechanics of trying to dodge a projectile in midair, and Starlight had returned to her familiar habit of riding on Maple's back, though this time sitting up attentively instead of reclining as if taking a nap.
She raised a thick purple hoof in silent greeting, and Wallace shouted back. "Hail, Morena! Care to join us for a little well-earned celebration?"
"Bring it!" Morena stomped hard enough to leave a depression in the hard-packed, dusty road. "What are we celebrating?"
"You missed out," Wallace teased. "Young Valey here has thrown off her handicap, and we decided to throw in a sparring match before dinner! I must say, it was promising."
Morena gave him a frank look. "How fine of powder did she grind you into?"
"Hah hah hah..." Wallace chortled, patting her on the back with a wing so forcefully that a lesser pony's spine might have snapped. "Oh, things didn't go that far. Her attacks were like a light breeze against my face, though she did a good job of landing them and seeking out weak spots."
"Hey!" Valey glared from above. "This light breeze beat up a crazy yak, and I'll get you too eventually!"
"That wasn't an insult, young hero," Wallace assuaged. "For I could actually feel them, and that's more than most unarmed combatants your size can say! And you landed plenty as well. Furthermore, I didn't have to reprimand you a single time for failing to dodge an attack you could have seen coming."
"Hmmph." Morena looked impressed. "Not bad! So, are you going to try to shepherd her through the tournament?"
Wallace slowly nodded. "If she remains undeterred, I think an explanation of what happens next would be in order."
The restaurant Wallace chose was a tavern with outdoor seating only, well-suited to Morena's large profile and the only thing that could possibly accommodate Wallace. The waitress looked slightly unhappy to see Starlight and Jamjars, but didn't dare argue age restrictions in front of such massive customers, and before any time had passed her back was to them in retreat.
"Nyugh..." Valey stretched and yawned, rubbing her forelegs. "Sure am gonna sleep good tonight... Seriously, though, I was good for more. You didn't have to call it there."
Wallace chuckled. "I told you, young Valey! Any more of that and we would have gotten in serious trouble for tearing up the lawn. I'd be happy to face you again, though now that I have a better idea of what you're capable of, we would have to seek out a more appropriate venue first. However, I stand by my verdict that with your present capabilities, a prolonged match would ultimately be in my favor, as you lack the stamina to outlast me and any way of finishing me through force."
Morena whistled. "Arena damage against her? What were you doing, shockwave attacks?"
"I was sorely tempted to!" Wallace laughed. "But no, those will have to wait for another day. Tell me, are you still insistent on pursuing entry to the tournament?"
Valey straightened her hat. "That's the plan."
"Then listen closely." Wallace's face grew serious, and Valey realized he was about to say something important. "The tournament is an event by nobles, for the entertainment of nobles, and nobles love complexity. As such, the rules at first glance appear quite baffling! However, there are two rules that matter above all. First! Winning is important. Much of the tournament's structure merely determines who you will fight next, or what will happen when you lose. If you are confident in your ability to take on anyone, you don't need rules! Winning every fight you are given will, ultimately, leave you at the top."
"Sweet. I can do that." Valey nodded.
"Secondly!" Wallace boomed. "Entertainment beats rules, and drama is entertainment. The more you advance, the greater you will loom in the public eye! The more you will be watched, and the harder your enemies will try to cheat to disable or disqualify you outside of battle. These challenges, you must survive as well."
Valey hesitated, then nodded again. "How hard would it be to keep my friends out of this? I'm not worried about jerks trying to get me, but if any of them got taken hostage when I'm not looking..."
Wallace sighed. "Hostage situations are rare, but I won't lie: you must be prepared for everything. A common tactic is for top fighters to disguise their true identity, to protect themselves from such heists. Others hire bodyguards, or try to identify potentially unscrupulous opponents first so they can be dealt with ahead of time."
"Okay, so let's say I can make myself unrecognizable. What next?" Valey nodded.
This time, Morena took over. "The tournament is divided into four rounds. First is pools, third and fourth are brackets with single elimination. If you don't know what those mean, we'll explain them when they matter. The second round is the one you care about, because it's when you'll be entering, as a Regent bearer. The idea is this: two hundred contestants made it out of round one. Two hundred and fifty six can go into round three. However many fighters show up with Regents will also be there. So, for the duration of the round, Regent fighters will be paired with fighters from round one. If the Regent wins, they survive. If they lose, they don't. And that goes on for however many rounds it takes for there to be only two hundred fifty six fighters left."
Valey swallowed. "So fifty-six dudes with these tickets make it through, huh? How many will I be up against?"
"Lots," Wallace answered. "Remember, there can only be one number one. If you intend to be the best, you must become better than everyone else in the Empire!"
"Right. Bad question." Valey wiped her brow. "So what happens to the dudes from the first round, then? They're the ones I'd be fighting, right?"
"For round two," Morena answered, nodding. "It's complicated. As a round two pools fighter, you're somewhat safe. We talked about how the Regents work last week? The only way you can be knocked out in round two is if someone with a Regent beats you, and then decides to use theirs to disqualify you from the tournament. Otherwise, we keep our spots but instead fight for better seeds. Your seed is a number that determines who you'll be matched against in rounds three and four. Low seeds are better; lower seeds are matched against high seeds early and low seeds later. The first and second seeds, for example, can't face each other until grand finals. And anyone who survives round two and entered with a Regent automatically gets in the bottom fifty-six seeds."
Maple leaned toward the table, eyes glazed over. "My head hurts already," she murmured. "Regents are that golden card thing Valey has, right? The ticket that will let her enter the tournament?"
Wallace gave a reassuring grin. "Enter with disadvantage into the second round! And fear not if you lose track. As I said before, winning every battle put before you will always result in a straight path to victory!"
"Okay," Valey said, following along. "So if I lose at all in round two, then it's over, since I have this Regent thing. Good thing I don't plan on losing."
"Not quite," Morena corrected. "It's more complicated than that. There are two... tiers you have to go through. Your first fight as a Regent, you start out safe. Lose, and you're unsafe. Win at any time, and you go back to safe. Lose when you're unsafe, and you're dead. And unlike you, every opponent you fight in round two will be a pools entrant, and they're barred from using any Regents they may have anyway until at least round three. So as long as you're safe, it's impossible for a loss to knock you out. The opponents you get in each tier will also be decided by the seed rankings that are being calculated for your opponents. For example, if someone loses a battle against a Regent fighter who's safe, they'll probably end up fighting someone who's unsafe next."
"Buh?" Valey frowned. "If you have to lose to a scrub to get out, that could never end."
Wallace chuckled. "Yes, round two has been known to go on for upwards of ten battles. However, as the fights progress, the pool of opponents you can face shrinks and shrinks, tightening on the very top of the seed rankings! Once you've lost too many as a pools fighter in round two, you may not have another battle to redeem yourself, but as a strong contender for a top seed, I will likely find myself ending the games of Regent competitors all the way until enough have been winnowed!"
Morena nodded dangerously. "The odds aren't as low as you'd think that you'll run into one of us in round two. If you want to win, you'll have to prove you're better than us, or whoever beats us, at some point, but anyone who wants to enter with a Regent will be fighting stronger warriors like us from the very start. If you know you can't beat Wallace now, stay in safe so a match with him won't end you."
"Is anyone else as lost as I am?" Maple asked, watching and waiting for their food to appear.
Slipstream helplessly shrugged. "My job for years involved hours of looking at airline schedules and being able to explain to ponies what would take them where and when. It seems easy enough to me. Can I try to explain it to you later?"
"Eh, seems simple enough." Valey shrugged. "Lose two in a row and I'm out. The longer I'm in, the harder the fights get, and all I have to do is survive until there's only so many left and I'm good to go. Right?"
"For round two," Morena clarified. "Three and four are simpler, but who cares about them right now? Hey, waitress!"
She banged a hoof on the table, and the passing waitress jumped, glaring at her. "Your food will still take ten more minutes! Be patient, you gluttonous trough eaters!"
Gerardo raised a talon, taken aback, but Morena smirked. "It's fine, we're old friends. And it's worth the wait. Hmmmmmph..." She glanced at the clear sky and sighed. "Nice weather today, isn't it?"
Wallace nodded. "Funny, I just remarked as such earlier. You know what they say about thinking alike!"
"Is weather like this unusual?" Maple asked. "It looks picturesque to me, but I suppose I'm used to Ironridge and Riverfall, where it rains all the time..."
"Oh, hardly." Wallace grinned. "But does that make it any less deserving of being appreciated? All wonderful things should be! Speaking of weather, that reminds me of a time when we were grounded in a fierce thunderstorm and decided to take refuge in a nearby cave..."
Dinner lasted until well past sundown, as the colors of twilight were draining from the sky and the first stars became visible. A moderate wind blew past just above the town rooftops, but it kept the sky clear, and carried a distant commotion from the lower field to the southwest. In the distance, a spotlight sent a blazing beam of neon color into the sky, and was shortly joined by another and then another. The streets around the tavern were deserted, and most home lights were off as well, because everyone had a better place to be: Melia and Sirena's concert was about to begin.
"We shouldn't be worried about missing it, right?" Slipstream asked, nervously glancing over her shoulder as the conversation dwindled, long-finished plates of food on the table before her. "We'd hear anything from here, and could just fly over?"
"Fly?" Valey belched, stretching back and thumping her stomach. "No way. Not unless someone wants to carry me. I got my runaround, got my food, and am pretty sure the next thing on the list is a nap."
"Sounds like someone has their priorities straight," Morena remarked, getting out of her chair and shaking her mane out.
Maple frowned, Starlight at her side. "If we're late, I'd be more worried about getting seats. It looks and sounds like everyone is there."
"That's because everyone is!" Wallace laughed. "But fear not. In Izvaldi, everyone doesn't amount to much of a crowd! And we'll be more than welcome in Lord Percival's private box, specially positioned for pure, uninterrupted auditory magnificence!"
"A private box, you say?" Gerardo looked intrigued, glancing up at the sky. "Well, I imagine that will go well with this weather. It could get chilly before the night is over!"
"We should be going," Morena added, nodding at Wallace. "They usually turn those lights on ten minutes before it starts."
"Sounds like flight it is," Valey sighed, grumbling and heaving herself upright with a flap of her wings.
A pair of magical fireworks split the sky as the group soared in for a landing, Morena standing on Wallace's back like a captain and Valey reluctantly lugging herself through the air. The entire field, wide enough that a shout from corner to corner could only be heard on a calm day, was over half filled with quadrupeds, ponies and griffons numbering about two to one. Despite the dusk, their distribution was still colorful, and Starlight realized the griffons came in far more shades than she had originally guessed. Blue like Gerardo, red like Percival, green like Kero, but browns and yellows and oranges as well, and perhaps more colors that were lost beneath the dusk. The shades were all darker and earthy, never growing as pastel as the ponies, but both paled before the neon lighting coming from the stage at the field's far end.
Starlight was briefly blinded from below as she flew through one of the waving spotlights. The moment her vision cleared, she was descending on a structure near the stage and to the side, a boxy building elevated on wooden supports with a balcony not unlike the one she watched events in Riverfall's main plaza from. Everyone touched down near a staircase on the side, Wallace staying back so his weight wouldn't crush it and Morena leading the way up instead.
The door swung open after a light knocking, and Starlight instantly recognized the wrinkled, sunken-eyed face that greeted them as Chauncey. "More guests!" he chuckled, stepping back as warmly as she'd ever seen him, still in his ridiculously pious robe and hood that looked like a hat. "Come in, come in. I'm interested to hear what our Ironridge guests think of the performance."
"You are?" Valey belched, looking surprised.
"Of course," Chauncey insisted, standing aside and ushering them in. "They're my granddaughters, and I want to see them do the best they can do! And take pride and happiness from it as well. You might have heard by now about the history of these performances, and that there have been some disagreements between me and them on management style, but tonight I've agreed to fully step back and let them take the helm! If we could find a better way of doing things, it would be very nice, indeed."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Well, you're certainly friendlier and more talkative when we met you earlier."
Chauncey chuckled. "I've had a good day, and am more myself at night regardless. Good advice in general is that if you have dealings with me, see to them once the sun has gone down." He glanced aside at Valey. "You, though... How did Doctor Zybar's treatment work out for you? Any further ailments or troubles?"
"Nah." Valey shrugged, twirling her hat on a wing and looking suspiciously at the nearby hat rack. "Think I'm good."
"Excellent," Chauncey replied. "Connections like mine really can be wonderful, sometimes. If there's ever anything else difficult or impossible you want, don't hesitate to ask me as well. I heard you did my Melia a major favor after that incident in the hospital, and I wouldn't mind the chance to pay you back. I can't do everything, but I can accomplish more than you think..."
Valey raised an eyebrow.
"I'd also love to have a discussion with you some time," Chauncey continued. "I care a great deal about the well-being of the sarosian race, and while I've been able to see to a lot here in Izvaldi, many other places are beyond my grasp. It would interest me to know how our kind fare far away from this utopia we've been building here."
"Eh, maybe sometime." Valey flicked her mane. "Are they starting...?" She blinked, noticing the room's contents. "Yo, what is this place?"
One corner of the room was dedicated to a couch and refreshments, and the doors to the balcony and stairway were kept clear, but most of it was taken up by expensive-looking racks of mana equipment, boards and dials and flickering line graphs mounted on tables and stacked against walls. So many cables covered the floor that a see-through rug had been draped over them, helping to prevent anyone from tripping. Starlight looked suspiciously at an array of bulb-like devices, their surfaces crackling with small bolts every few seconds.
"It's a recording studio," Percival announced, walking in from the balcony. "Good evening, Ironridge visitors and Morena. I overheard your conversation, and this is the hardware that powers the measuring devices places all around this field. You can thank Chauncey for its design."
Maple frowned. "All this? In Ironridge, you can record sound on a hoofheld recording device, and that was twenty years ago. This looks almost closer to Arambai's basement. Is that really all it does?"
Chauncey chuckled. "Well, we're trying to get as lifelike a recording as possible, as well as measuring other things such as audience engagement, and a few other things that would bore anyone who isn't a science buff. If you'd like a demonstration, we could provide afterward, assuming the concert is a success."
"A success?" Gerardo looked confused. "Why should that have to do with anything? Is there truly a chance of them being so horrible we wouldn't want to hear an encore?"
"I will hit you," Jamjars threatened. "And then shave your dumb headcrest with a carving knife."
"That's an extreme reaction." Chauncey looked concerned. "Try not to become too obsessive about things like this. The last thing my granddaughters need right now is their feelings hurt over any misplaced competition."
"Noted," Gerardo assured.
Meanwhile, a crack of a speaker outside heralded a power switch being thrown, and two youthful voices greeted the crowd in a well-practiced routine that earned a roar of applause. "Oh!" Chauncey started, heading for the balcony with a look of contentment that didn't suit his wrinkled, hooked face. "It sounds like they're starting. Please, take your seats."
A single, pure, high note pierced the night, held for seconds on end. Every spotlight converged, and in the stage's center was a lone figure of magenta and black, mouth open as she faced the crowd. With seemingly infinite breath, Sirena kept her pitch, and the crowd was instantly stilled by the magically-amplified power of her voice.
Then she was joined by another, Melia's voice drifting in from somewhere unseen. The second sister set the tempo, beginning a melody within Sirena's note, though the pink sister still led. Her pace was slow, tone remorseful, and Starlight barely noticed that she didn't recognize any of the words being used.
Sirena continued, breaking off into a melody of her own, eyes turned skyward. Magenta light clung to her horn as she raised her head, singing to the sky, and the crowd was silent beneath the moonlight. Starlight felt her fur rise; she didn't need to know the words to feel the loneliness in the song, and it forced her to fight off memories of a town at the foot of the mountains where she had spent so very long living without her best friend. And Melia had been missing when they returned the pendant, too...
With the faintest motion of fabric, the curtains at the stage back shivered, and Melia appeared, black and silver and gray and lime green. Her tail was limp, neck to the floor, and she slunk forward with reluctance, weaving from side to side and looking for a way out. Sirena's mouth went silent, and her sister took her place, singing to the floor of sorrow and regret. Once or twice, her horn sparked, but never came alight. More words Starlight couldn't and didn't need to understand flowed across her ears, and Sirena answered with sorrow of her own, mixed with reassurance in the same notes. But the two didn't sing over each other at the same time.
Her voice coaxed Melia forward, the retrieved locket glinting silver on her chest where it belonged. They began to exchange words more frequently, each contributing their own melody that seemed to bounce off each other like a key not fully inserted into its lock. Sirena held her ground, Melia advanced, and just when it looked like Melia would lose her nerve and slink away, Sirena left her spotlight and ran. They met by the curtain, a hoof was taken, and their voices finally merged, singing as one with different words as two halves of the same song. A spark flew as two horns clicked, and Melia's came alight, the same pale green as her coat. Hope wove its way as a rainbow thread through the song as the tempo increased and the sisters' voices grew richer, fuller, more in tune. As one, they turned to face the crowd, walking side by side to share a single spotlight.
Starlight couldn't think in words. The music felt like a hoof of emotion pressing against her chest, leaving her the only options of feeling it wholeheartedly or shutting it out altogether. But as the song built, overwhelmingly about hope for the future, she gave in, leaning into it even as a pressure built like a wind about to arrive... and then the sisters stepped closer, and their cutie marks touched.
For a split second, Starlight wasn't sure if her vision had worked or not. It felt like her consciousness had just skipped a beat, though the music was whole and uninterrupted in her ears. The thought of magic edged its way through the side of her song-filled mind, and she realized the sisters' auras had swapped: Melia's horn glowed with Sirena's magenta, and the other as well. Before she could process that either, a sound that was new and yet familiar filled her ears.
The crowd was singing. More and more voices were joining Sirena and Melia's song by the second, but rather than the discordant roar of hundreds of voices in legion, they were in better tune than a practiced choir. Words Starlight couldn't understand and knew weren't the crowd's language either flowed past her as clear as the night sky, and when she noticed Maple beside her had joined in as well, she discovered that somehow, inexplicably, she knew the song too.
It was a song written just for that night, that she could never have heard before and in a language she didn't know existed, but it was like there was a faint light deep within her that was putting the sounds and the melody in her head as they came, and all she had to do was open her mouth to join in. The analytical side of her brain fought back, telling her that there were implications to whatever was happening that she needed to think about and understand, but her heart quashed it, because the song was about good things and she could think and analyze later.
Starlight sang. She had never tried it before, knew nothing about whether her voice would work for it and had no practice, but the song guided her from down on the stage, and she joined the melody drifting toward the rising moon. Time didn't matter, and the world had no place in her focus, but she was perfectly aware of the ponies around her, realizing how much Maple and Slipstream were enjoying themselves and noticing even Chauncey was humming along in contentment.
On the stage, Melia and Sirena danced, twirling and catching each other and wandering dangerously close to the edge of the stage, but they never parted for more than a second, snapping back like they were drawn together by invisible string. Despite the crowd's accompaniment, both of their voices hovered above everything else, and Starlight's eyes widened as she noticed they weren't even singing the same thing: the sisters were the leads, and everyone else on the field was backing them up with an alternate, secondary piece. But it was still the same song, and as it reached a crescendo she almost felt the weight of gravity a little less on her hooves.
More magical fireworks rose, and the sisters jumped, circling around and around each other with their forehooves matched together. Then they sank together in a standing embrace, and with a final spark, their cutie marks twinkled and their horns went dim, and the song quieted in Starlight's head as the last notes drifted away in the breeze.
"Thank you, everyone!" Sirena announced, horn lighting with her own color again and voice back in a tongue Starlight knew. "It's been so long since we got to do a concert like this, and we really hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! Yeah!"
"We're hoping this can be a new direction we take ourselves in as the Firefly Sisters," Melia added, touching the locket around her neck with a hoof and offering a hopeful, vulnerable smile. "The contest concerts have been difficult for both of us, and we'd like to add more real duos into our performances. Music draws everyone together, and it's important that we remind ourselves of that from time to time!"
"Stressful contests? Ugh, tell me about it," Sirena muttered, scuffing the stage with a hoof and earning a discontented mutter from the crowd. "The important thing is, after everything, we're still best friends!"
"And we hope that goes for you and everyone you've known over the years we've been performing," Melia finished, bowing in time with her sister. "Until next time... Firefly out!"
Both of them retreated through the curtain, leaving the crowd murmuring in their wake. Starlight was still feeling the song's thrill leaving her body when Maple forcefully scooped her up, nuzzling her and holding her tight. "That was incredible!" Maple squealed, voice cracking in a rare show of overt joy.
"It was certainly a unique experience," Gerardo remarked, smoothing his headcrest and looking at Chauncey. "Their brands have the effect of allowing their audience to sing along, I take it? I would certainly call that showing a success, even if I can't say I understood a word of it."
Chauncey stared back at him and gave a hooked smile. "Their singing was in Sarosian, and I can assure you they'll say the important part was whatever you understood it to mean. As for their brands, in layperson's terms, that's precisely correct, and perhaps you can understand how we have more than just sound to record at these events now. As to whether it was a success, time will tell, but we certainly saw the best part."
"So that's how that worked," Maple murmured, putting Starlight down. "I've never felt anything quite like that before, like I was a part of something so big and right there."
Slipstream smiled and shrugged. "You felt like it was that big of a deal? I enjoyed it, but you make it sound like something supernatural. It felt to me like something I'd sing along to for fun."
Maple looked slightly taken aback. "There was more to it than that..."
Chauncey pursed his lips, looking intrigued, but shook his head and didn't comment. "Tell them you enjoyed it sometime. I'm sure they would appreciate it greatly."
As Gerardo began to narrate in Slipstream's defense and Valey leaned against a wall with her eyes closed, Starlight noticed Jamjars on the floor, twitching. "Are you all right?" she asked, not sure whether it was smart to be concerned.
"No. I am not all right," Jamjars whispered back, face scrunched in the most ridiculous expression of frustration, excitement, rage and strained composure Starlight had ever seen. "I just got to listen to the Firefly Sisters hold a concert, and they performed one. Single. Song." She bored into Starlight's eyes so intensely they both became rooted in place. "One song! Do you know how that makes me feel?" Her eyes both twitched, completely out of sync. "But I also got to sing along, and that was eeeeeeeeeeEEEEE...!"
"That's how they usually go," Chauncey chuckled. "One duo, or two solos. My granddaughters' jobs aren't free, so they can't just spend all their time sitting around and writing more. Now, my scientists and I have some data to process, so you'll want to run along unless you enjoy feeling very confused. Pleasant dreams, now."
Slipstream surveyed the equipment as they left, nodding. "Probably right... I bet Shinespark would enjoy this, though."
"Your other friend?" Chauncey was following them. "A scientist too, is she? Send her along some time. Enjoy it, perhaps she would."
The flight back to the Sky Goat was short and chilly, accompanied by Wallace and Morena through the windy night sky. Starlight kept her mouth closed, and Wallace carried the banter, his and Morena's voices the only ones that could overpower the wind. Aboard the ship, they were pointed to the quarters they had held for the voyage there, and after some mutual praise for the concert and promises to hang out the following day, their hosts retired for the night.
Slipstream yawned, leaving for her room first, shortly followed by Gerardo. "Starlight?" Maple asked, stretching against a doorframe. "Feel like calling this a night?"
"Soon," Starlight answered, not at all tired after the concert's burst of energy and full of unanswered questions about just what it was she had felt, as well as the purpose of the song in general. "I need to think. I'll be on the deck. You don't need to stay up for me."
"Okay," Maple yawned. "Because I sure am tired. Something about that singing... mmm..." She closed her eyes and turned around. "It reminded me of being in the crystal palace in Ironridge. I think I'm going to sleep soundly tonight, so whenever you come to bed, I'll be waiting."
Starlight nodded, and then she was alone on the deck. Night air moved around her, the blowing of the wind and the creaking of the ship's timbers the only sounds that met her ears. For several long breaths, she thought about nothing at all, just standing and allowing the day to be washed from her senses.
"Pssst... Starlight!"
"Huh?" Starlight blinked, turning to see Jamjars standing proud without her wig, a confident grin hanging beneath her slanted bang. "What are you doing still up?"
"The same thing as you," Jamjars replied, nodding toward the bridge that still connected the ship to the docking tower. "Someone's obviously up to something in this place, so we're going to sneak around and figure out what it is."
"What!?" Starlight stepped back, narrowing her eyes. "I mean... really? This is our first day here. Do we really need to go looking for trouble?"
Jamjars ran a hoof over her ears. "Unless you'd rather trouble find us first. Besides, I'm curious."
"Are you sure?" Starlight squinted at her. "We just got back from the concert, and that was suspicious enough. I still don't know what kind of magic was involved or what the bad thing was they keep talking about that happened at the last one. Shouldn't we stay here and think instead?"
"Boo to thinking," Jamjars huffed. "See? You said it yourself that this is suspicious. Their 'tour' conveniently left out the administration building and Percival's house, too. Do you want to guess what's going on and maybe be wrong, or see it with your own eyes?"
Starlight frowned. "If I say no, you're going alone, aren't you?"
Jamjars grinned. "Yup. But you'd be helpful to have along. Wouldn't it be tragic if I got beheaded by a criminal because I didn't have somepony with me who was good at fighting?"
"Beheaded?" Starlight's eyes crossed.
"Or something," Jamjars finished, turning toward the bridge with a flourish. "We just ran into a mugger today, remember? Don't tell me it couldn't happen. Besides, you just said you couldn't sleep."
"This is a bad idea," Starlight warned, following along with her head held low.
Jamjars' teeth gleamed in the dim light. "Hah! I knew you'd see reason. And it's only a bad idea if we don't find anything interesting, which I'm sure won't happen. Come on, let's go check the other buildings."
With a click, Starlight's telekinesis unlocked the door to the administrative building, feeling around for the handle inside while standing on the sky bridge before the entrance. She wasn't sure why it was secured so poorly. Probably just nobody thought it would be broken into.
"This looks closed for the night," Jamjars muttered, wrinkling her nose and taking point. She readied her camouflage spell, peeking around the first corner. "Starlight, if we're spotted, I might not be big enough to hide you without my mane, so you'll have to teleport out or see to yourself. Hmm. Now, if I was an evil dictator, which of these offices would I make mine...?"
Every single one of the tall, plain doors they passed was boring and unornate, bearing plaques with various office names that reminded Starlight of an infinitely-less glamorous version of Skyfreeze. Lots of ambassadors' offices, water utilities, financial departments... Of all the buildings, it felt the most similar to the hospital, complete with waiting rooms spaced throughout the corridor for anyone who had scheduled an appointment.
"Bleh," Jamjars spat, glaring at the doors. "None of these look worth breaking into."
"You're surprised?" Starlight asked, passing by the minister of forestry's office and weaving around a potted plant. "We're up to something right now, and specifically trying not to draw attention to ourselves. Why would they be any different?"
"That's because we're the good guys," Jamjars grumbled. "Villains are supposed to gloat. Oh well. There's the exit to Percival's mansion, and maybe he'll be up to something."
Shrugging, Starlight followed along. "We've only searched a single floor of this building, but okay."
"Hmmph. We'll come back to it," Jamjars assured. "This is where mooks work, anyway. I bet there's a conspiracy only the higher-ups are in on."
Starlight wanted to point out that didn't seem very realistic, but then she remembered everything that had happened in Ironridge and kept her mouth shut. Really, she just wanted to make sure that Jamjars didn't get into more trouble than she had to, so if they were moving on... fine with her.
Before she could try to open Percival's mansion's door, Jamjars stopped her with a hurried hoof. The filly pressed her head to the ground, trying to peer under the doorjamb, and let out an impatient breath. "Light on the other side," she mouthed. "Probably a guard."
Starlight's lip reading wasn't the best, but Jamjars breathed just loudly enough she got the message the second time through and nodded. "Where do we go?" she mouthed back.
Confidently, Jamjars climbed up on one of the bridge's railings. Wobbling only slightly, she tensed her legs and jumped outward, landing on the flat section of a downspout running from the gutter attached to the nearby eaves. She wrapped herself around the final length of pipe, beckoned for Starlight to follow, and hooked her forehooves over the gutter rim, flailing for a second as her hind legs dangled and then pulling herself up onto the roof.
Starlight swallowed, wondering what she had gotten herself into, then pointed her horn at the ground and grew a spur of crystal to form a much neater ramp to the roof. After a several-second climb, she dispelled it, and they were both up.
"Nice," Jamjars whispered appreciatively. "Do that for me next time, too."
"Fine." Starlight clicked her teeth. "So now that we're up here, what do we do?"
The roof of Percival's mansion was shingled and steeply sloped, though in such good repair that Starlight was more worried about falling off than the tiles giving way beneath her hooves. Here and there were railings and perches, probably in case workers needed them, and they couldn't see very far at all due to the sheer number of arches, corners and extra levels where top-story windows had been put in obscuring their vision.
"Danger above," Jamjars whispered, pointing at a lit, open window far overhead where a watchful griffon stood, scanning the skies. "Looks like a guard, but he's only watching for anyone flying in. Dummy. Stay low and under cover, and look into as many windows as you can!"
"Are we looking for anything in particular?" Starlight mouthed back, following her out of sight of the window.
"You're bad at this," Jamjars sighed. "We're looking for anything worth looking at. If you're not going to search, just stay close to me."
Starlight reluctantly did as she was told, walking sideways so her hooves could find better purchase on the heavily-slanted shingles. The first window they passed by was too dark to see through, the second perfectly lit but showing an empty room. Jamjars frowned.
"Stay low," she whispered, pulling Starlight out of sight beneath the windowsill. "There must be someone too close to the window for us to see. We need a proper place to enter..."
"So we're breaking in here, too?" Starlight asked, glancing in the next window. "This one might work."
"Questions, questions," Jamjars sighed, appraising it too. The room was lit with the dim orange light of a single candle, and the window was cracked slightly ajar, meaning they wouldn't have to unlock it with glowing telekinesis.
Suddenly, both fillies froze and ducked out of sight, the sound of voices coming from within. Jamjars glanced at Starlight with an earnest silence, and they both held their breath to hide and listen.
"...Enjoy this very much as well," a voice whispered beyond the window. The wind from earlier was still blowing, and Starlight and Jamjars weren't in the roof's wind shadow, so the conversation was only discernable in bits and snippets between gusts of wind.
"...Not fair that we only get to..." a second voice complained, definitely female.
"I know, Love," the first consoled. "But Garsheeva has no..."
Jamjars' ears rose and her grin widened, showing teeth. "Ooooooh," she whispered, barely audible in the face of the wind. "Sounds like someone's in a relationship. I wonder what they could possibly be up to at a time like this..."
Starlight pulled her away from the window with a tug of telekinesis on her leg. "Stay out of sight! We're trying to stay hidden!"
"Something tells me they're too busy staring into each other's lovey-dovey eyes to watch for us," Jamjars replied, sticking her tongue out. "And I just want to see who it is! That guy sounds like-"
Suddenly, the wind completely died, and the next line was heard perfectly clear: "Please say you'll stay until morning, Percival. I spend day after day on my own, and nights like this are..."
Jamjars' grin grew even wider, and through the window, Percival's voice replied, "Of course I will, my queen."
"Someone's in wuvvvvv," Jamjars giggled beneath the resuming wind, clasping her forehooves to her chest and teetering mildly. "Starlight! Don't you want to see who?"
"Probably not anyone we know," Starlight mouthed back. "Should we really be prying into Percival's love life? Everyone does that. Having a marefriend isn't suspicious."
"Is that so?" Jamjars said smugly, fixing Starlight with a look that meant she'd messed up and said something about to be taken out of context.
"You know what I meant," Starlight hissed.
Jamjars seemed to consider it, then shrugged. "Whatever. I want a peek at mister stuffy's lady friend. Now watch my back."
"Jamjars..."
It was too late. The filly stood up, blinked into the window... and sat back down a second later with a stunned expression that morphed into diabolical joy before Starlight's eyes. "What did you do!?" Starlight gasped.
"Oh, you can see for yourself," Jamjars giggled. "Don't worry. They aren't watching."
Unable to resist, Starlight reached for the window as well, peering inside. It was a bedchamber, and two bundled figures lay side by side, facing and silhouetted by a lamp on the far wall. One had the vaguely-translucent red crest she associated with Percival, but in the darkness the other looked like a perfectly ordinary pony.
"What?" she asked, getting back beneath the windowsill. "It looked normal to me."
"Did you see her ears?" Jamjars asked, raising an eyebrow and patting her own ears with a forehoof. "Pony ears? As in, she's a pony?"
Starlight blinked. "Wait..."
"Isn't that against the law in the Empire?" Jamjars breathed, keeping up her too-wide grin and hurrying Starlight away from Percival's window. "Gerardo was going on and on about it whenever someone asked about those heresies they have here. Sphinxes can do whatever they want, but griffons, ponies and batponies? Nuh-uh. And I couldn't see whether those ears were leafy or not, but there's no way they belonged to a griffon."
They stopped beneath the pitch-black window right before the guard's line of sight, and Starlight felt her heartrate increase as she realized Jamjars was right. "So Percival is... disrespecting Garsheeva?"
"Wouldn't that be tragic if it got out," Jamjars giggled. "Garsheeva would probably smash him in his mansion like a snail in its shell. Starlight! Tell absolutely no one. This is our dirt on all of Izvaldi. If anything bad ever happens to us or anyone on our side, this is what we blackmail them with to get everyone out. Still think there was nothing worth snooping around for?"
"Tell no one? Even Maple? And Valey?" Starlight frowned.
"Eh, they can find out when they need to know." Jamjars shrugged. "Now, let's get out of here. We still want to make sure nobody sees us."
Starlight nodded, though she suddenly had a prickling sensation on the back of her neck. By reflex, she checked the dark window, but if anyone was looking out, they should have been too far to the side to see. Uneasily, she stepped forward, re-forming the crystal spur so they could climb down to the skybridge.
"Hmmph. Well, that was easy," Jamjars commented, leading the way up the staircase inside the docking tower as they returned to the Sky Goat. "No trouble getting there, no trouble getting back. I guess they're not used to anyone sneaking around."
"Or just expecting someone to fly," Starlight remarked, the guard's window probably still open and occupied in the distance. "Maybe they were looking for someone bigger, too."
Jamjars smirked. "Well, their loss. Think you can go to bed now, Starlight?"
Starlight paused. "I-"
"Hey," a new voice interrupted, and Valey stepped out of the shadows, looking thoroughly unhappy. "Were you two sneaking around?"
In a flash, Jamjars adopted an expression of pure innocence. "Why? Were you?"
"No, but I'm thinking about it," Valey sighed, closing her eyes and sniffing. "Something's not right, here."
Some part of her tone made Starlight shiver. "Not right?"
"Yeah." Valey sniffed again, narrowing her eyes. "I didn't notice it as bad down on the lower field, or while we were in town getting dinner, and I had better things to think about while I was laid up, but Wallace and Morena were both going on about how nice the weather was. I think I was poking around in something and thought they were changing the subject, and don't quite remember what it was about... but something smells wrong, and I don't like this one bit."
"Something smells wrong?" Starlight raised an eyebrow, though she could feel the fur on her back bristling. If Valey was spooked, that probably wasn't a good idea. "You mean you feel danger?"
"Okay, hold up." Valey sniffed again, sitting down and giving her and Jamjars a look that meant stay put and listen. "First off, I don't sense any danger. I smell it. Second, it's weak. Weak enough I didn't notice it down on the field or while we were getting dinner, or while I was distracted with monk paralysis, and even now I can only tell it's there because I'm specifically looking for it. It's also not all around me. I think it's coming from somewhere, and might be able to track it. The important part is, I remember Wallace saying something about how nice the air smelled earlier, and Morena was on about the weather too." She narrowed her eyes. "In my old line of work, that means there's something we can't tell you, but here's how to find out for yourself if you really wanna know."
Jamjars grinned. "So you want more sneaking? Leave it to me. What are we looking for?"
Valey frowned. "I... dunno. It's less of a scent, even, then a harshness or something, almost like I smell it with my throat. I feel like I've smelled it before, but can't put a hoof on where. Neither of you smell anything, do you?"
"Hmmm..." Starlight sniffed, taking several deep breaths and feeling with her throat, like Valey instructed. "I don't think so?"
"Well, I can't sleep with this around, and I'm really tired," Valey complained, "so right now I've got zero inhibitions against finding whatever stinks and beating it to a pulp so I can get some rest. Kinda don't feel like doing it alone, though. Think, uhh... hmm. You're both in; who else should we wake to go with us...?"
As if on cue, Maple's door swung open and the mare stumbled out, rubbing her eyes with a hoof. "What's going on out here?" she mumbled, standing in the middle of the door. "My bed was by the window and I heard talking..."
"Ironflanks! Excellent." Valey licked her lips. "Short version, I smell something, it's giving me the creeps, and we're going hunting. In?"
"Are you sure?" Starlight frowned. "If you say something's wrong, I believe you, but you and Jamjars don't get along and I'm not sure how much help me and Maple would be."
"Say that again?" Maple asked, still half asleep.
Twenty minutes of repeated explanation and quiet debate later, Maple was fully awake and thoroughly worried. "And you've smelled it before, but don't remember where or what it is?"
"Maybe." Valey flicked her tail and turned toward the bridge. "Look, I'm just as tired as you are, but am definitely not getting to sleep until I figure this out. I don't like having something pointed at my head I can't see. So last call; I'm leaving. Are you in or not?"
"In," Maple instantly said, backed by Jamjars and then, reluctantly, Starlight. Valey nodded in approval.
"Cool." The batpony nodded, heading across to the docking tower. "Pretty sure we're going to have to walk this one since there's one of me and three of you, so let's go."
"The hospital?" Starlight blinked, seeing the building they were standing in front of. "Here?"
"I know what I smell." Valey shrugged, peering at the front door. "So, I could probably ferry us under the door one at a time if-"
Jamjars pushed the door, and it slid open cleanly and smoothly. "It's a hospital," she proclaimed, giving Valey a strange look. "Someone could get sick at night. They're still open."
Looking faintly annoyed, Valey followed Jamjars into the main lobby, and Starlight and Maple brought up the rear. "Hi," Jamjars announced, snapping the receptionist out of a light snooze and earning a look from a worried-looking stallion waiting in one of the lobby chairs. "We're here to visit a friend. We already know the way, so don't worry about us."
The receptionist looked vaguely surprised, but not enough to elicit a response. With a slow nod, she went back to sleep.
Valey exhaled in relief. "Cool. Let's see..." She raised her head, sniffing again now that they were in the lobby. "Which way is it...?"
"Hey," the nervous stallion in the corner greeted, getting up and trotting across and looking like he would take any excuse to start pacing. "You all got someone here too? What are they in for?"
"Uhh..." Valey looked unhappily at him, and Starlight could see why: he had the frayed appearance of someone who would talk their ears off due to his own nerves. Hopefully they wouldn't get stuck here for long. "Sorry, but that's a little private."
"Oh. I get you." The stallion rubbed his neck and didn't make eye contact, mane slightly unkempt. "For me, it's the wife. Family matters." He glanced between Starlight and Jamjars. "You know the drill..."
Maple instantly winced. "If this is going where it sounds like it's going, I actually hope I don't..."
Starlight froze. Some ponies just had to talk about things that would put her mother on edge... Scowling, she made it to Maple's side, choosing a hallway at random and quickly pushing her toward it.
"Heh heh..." Valey watched them go, awkwardly interrupting the stallion as he lamented having to leave the concert early and ensure their sitter could stay the whole night. "Yeah, sounds rough, buddy. Best wishes and all that, but we really gotta bail."
Jamjars looked ready to add something snippy, but Valey grabbed her and dragged her away, and soon they were all out of sight around a turn in the corridor.
"Sorry," Maple murmured, tension draining. "It's a whole entire hospital! All the different reasons a patient could be here, and we run into the one thing that makes me freeze up..." She shook her head. "Or we weren't at all thinking about the same thing and I'm just jumpy. We're here for something else. It doesn't matter. We're here for something else..."
"Yeah, you should get that looked at. Kind of a problematic overreaction." Valey nodded in concern, glanced at the ceiling, then the door to a nearby elevator shaft. "Anyway, my nose says down, so down we go. Gimmie a sec..."
She slipped into the shadows of the blue-lit nighttime corridor, and after several minutes was back. "Okay," she explained, "elevator takes a password to go to any floor but the upper ones. Not really surprising; Ironridge had password-protected elevators too. Good thing is, these look like a similar model, so they shouldn't be too hard for me to manually override. There's a small chance that'll leave a trail if I do anything mechanical, though, so-"
"So use the password," Jamjars replied, holding out a ledger with a roll of her eyes.
"Where did you get that?" Valey asked, suspicious.
Jamjars shrugged. "I stole it from the sleeping receptionist. It was hanging under her desk."
Valey grabbed the ledger, scanning through. "Patient admission data, money, blah blah blahhh... Ooh, sticky note." She flipped to a page and grinned. "Elevator security level one: password LOYALTY. Huh. That's a weird password. I wonder if they like yaks."
"I wonder who left that note laying around," Starlight grumbled.
"Someone lazy?" Jamjars asked. "If they've got muggers in hospitals, they really need to be more careful."
Valey scratched her head. "The note looks like it was written by someone kinda angry. Has a tiny little scrawl saying if someone forgets one more time they'll change it to their name instead. Maybe it's just not that important?"
"Let's see if it will get us to where we want to go," Maple murmured. "Any idea how far down it is?"
"Nah," Valey announced, opening the door and stepping in. "But we'll find out."
The elevator went down, slowly reading names in a mare's prerecorded voice as it descended. "General surgery," the elevator said, a light dinging on its ornately-crafted carriage. "Intensive care unit. Constant care suites. General administrative. Contagious disease quarantine facility. Long-term psychiatric ward and-"
"There!" Valey punched the stop button, and the elevator jerked, backed up slightly, and came to a slow halt, doors sliding open.
"Long-term psychiatric ward and asylum," the elevator announced, a long, dimly-lit corridor lined with doors on either side stretching out before them.
"...Yep," Valey decided, gritting her teeth at the sterile tiles and walls before them. "Getting closer. Let's see where the trail goes from here."
The long hallway was absent of the usual periodic waiting rooms, and stretched far further than anything that could fit in the aboveground building. Unless they had gotten turned around, Starlight figured they must be moving toward the center of the plaza, but then they snaked right, then left again and she lost track. The path was absent of doctors and patients, and she wasn't sure if the modest lighting was to conserve on power for the night or if it was always dim down there.
"Here," Valey finally announced, pushing on a windowless iron door on the side of the hall. It clunked once and swung open, opening into a square room made of large, dark stone bricks that descended further beneath the ground, a stairway wrapping down around the edges. She wrinkled her nose and frowned.
"This sure looks pleasant," Maple murmured, seeing the change in architecture. "We are still in the hospital, right?"
"Wherever we are, we're close." Valey grimaced, spread her wings, and dove over the railing, flapping to the ground below.
Starlight, Maple and Jamjars hurried down the stairs after her, another door at the bottom leading back the direction they had came. Valey pulled this one open too, and all four of them stepped through.
"Wallace thought you'd show up," a voice rumbled from behind her.
Starlight jumped. This room was bright and cheerful, decorated like a foal's nursery, with only the door they had entered by and another set into the far side. A smattering of toys were piled neatly into the corners, along with several rolled-up posters and a cute little bookshelf beside a well-made bed. In a chair that was far too small, positioned against the wall they had entered through, Morena sat, watching them with an unreadable expression.
"You...?" Valey's fur prickled, and she turned with wide eyes.
Morena shrugged. "We made sure to leave the way clear and the elevator password written down in case you decided to show up. I had a talk with Wallace while you were out catching that thief, and we decided at the rate you were asking us questions, this was going to become unavoidable sooner or later... and if we kept dodging it, you'd get suspicious. But, it's also something that has to be seen before it can be explained."
Valey breathed, watching her carefully, but Morena just nodded at the last door. "In there. It's nothing dangerous, but you'll still want to keep your wits about you, and don't go in alone. Hopefully you're prepared for a long talk after."
The final room was just as cold and metal as the staircase room leading up to Morena's nursery, great bricks of gray concrete the size of cowering ponies forming the walls. Pipes were everywhere, draped and dangling and never quite straight, woven into a mesh that looked almost organic and partially covered the walls and ceiling. In the center of the room was a square pit, and two golden chains from a winch in a recess in the roof dangled into it, descending out of sight.
"What the...?" Valey gaped. "One, that pit is bad news, and two, this architectural style is..." She swallowed. "Well, it would be pretty cool if it was possible to make without also meaning bad news, but this place gives me the creeps."
"Valey?" Maple shivered, staring around the room at the various exposed chains and gears along the walls. "I think I want to go back..."
"Stay a while and watch," Morena's voice came from behind them, and there was a metallic crunch. Valey whirled to see her hoof on a golden wall switch, freshly thrown, and with a squeal of unoiled steel the gears about the room began to turn. Above, the winch shuddered, and slowly, the chains rose.
Valey kept a healthy distance between herself and the edge of the pit, air rising from it as something moved upward in the depths. Metal clattered and wheels turned, and the chains finally showed their ends, affixed to the top of a giant golden ring that hung upright, stretching from edge to edge of the hole. Inside the ring were two more chains, bound from the top corners toward the center, and when that came into view, she heard Maple gasp.
It was a throne, and the chains were shackles, holding the forelegs of the mare within out sideways, spread like wings. Her hind legs were clamped to the throne's back, leaving her upright, dangling, and barely able to stand, let alone sit... yet still, she was smiling.
"Mama!" the sky-blue earth pony chirped, forelegs spread wide like she wanted a hug. "You brought visitors!"
"What the...?" Valey breathed, staring. The mare looked barely twenty, with a broad, bubbly smile, and made a cheerful attempt to wave that sent her shackles rattling. Strapped against the throne's backboard around her waist, she was imprisoned like a criminal hanging from the wall of a dungeon, yet didn't seem to have a care in the world.
Stone-faced, Morena said nothing, waiting in the background. "...This is your kid?" Valey asked with concern. "The one you and Wallace talked about? Who you had when he met you?"
Still, she got no reply. "Come on, Mama," the mare chained to the ring giggled, smiling with her teeth and refusing to open her eyes. "Introduce me to your friends!"
"Who in Herman's hairy armpit are you?" Valey growled, the platform the ring stood upon filling the hole perfectly and allowing her to walk as close as she dared. "And why are you in there? I don't like this..."
"Hiya," the imprisoned mare replied, perfectly content with her chains. "I'm Puddles. Morena's my mama! Did you come to visit me? It's pretty lonely down here in the dark."
"Puddles, huh?" Valey breathed. "You know, normally I'd say you're pretty cute. Like, exactly my type. It's disconcerting. But I've been smelling something bad all night, this room reeks of it, and you're the only thing here. What's going on, and why are you chained up?"
Puddles drooped slightly, still not opening her eyes. "I have a condition. They say it makes me need to be restrained, but I think the doctors and scientists just don't like me. Will you let me go?"
Bristling, Valey stepped back. "This is a pretty sinister-looking hospital machine for restraining a patient, and probably unethical, too. It looks more like a torture device, or a prison for some monster. So maybe you should tell me more, first, about what you're doing here..."
"Aww." Puddles drooped, then perked back up. "That's what everyone says. Mama won't let me go either, but I know she loves me. But you thought I was cute, though, right?" Her grin widened again, cheerful and innocent. "Wanna give me a hug? I never get to touch anything but this metal, and you look warm and fuzzy."
"Morena..." Maple whined, eyes far too wide. "What is this? What's going on?"
"Yeah, that's what I'd like to know," Valey agreed. "And sorry, but even if your mom wasn't watching, the fact that you can't seem to recognize how unusual this situation is is so suspicious, I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole. Morena! We've seen this girl, so tell us what you wanted to say."
Morena sat by the door, her own eyes closed as well, and finally broke her silence. "That's enough. They clearly have no interest in playing with you."
"Aww, Mama," Puddles sighed. "Well, if you insist..."
Suddenly, with a flash of cold light, the imprisoned mare's eyes split open. Frosty and blue, they had irises but no pupils, and the mere act of being looked at lowered Valey's body temperature by several degrees. "What-!?" She stepped back in alarm, nearly tripping.
"Graaah hah hah..." Puddles laughed, voice suddenly emanating from every corner of the room at once and very definitely not belonging to a mare. "That's too bad. She really does yearn for physical contact beyond the pushing and prodding of curious scientists. But you weren't even willing to play the game long enough for her to get some measure of solace out of it. Too bad she scares everyone who would ever be nice to her away..."
Morena swallowed, watching with an expression almost as cold as Puddles', dormant fury behind her violet eyes.
"So then, visitors," Puddles chuckled, a glacier collapsing somewhere within her new metallic voice and sending out a rumble of thunder that felt like real wind. "The catbird's out of the bag. Surprise? Do you know what I am?" Her head snaked from side to side, the only part of her body that could move despite the chains. "Hate me yet? Or do you blame someone else for doing this to her, and hate them instead? Speak up! I hate carrying this conversation all by myself."
"Bananas," Valey hissed, crouched like she was weathering a gale. "I know where I've smelled you before! In the Sky District, on the night of the storm!"
Maple blinked in realization, standing straighter before the eldritch mare. "You're a windigo..."
"Wrong answer! How dare you be wrong!?" Puddles snarled, straining forward against her chains with a rictus grin. "I'm a sweet little innocent mare possessed by a windigo! Or more accurately, a windigo chained to the empty, soulless husk of the mare that once was Puddles!"
"A windigo? You can talk!?" Starlight gasped, stepping forward.
"Oh, I can talk, alright," Puddles said, leering at her. "You want to know what else I can do? I can hear her wriggling around in this pathetic pony body, screaming wordlessly at you to flee. Get out of here! Run, run away, don't let it turn you against your friends and all you hold dear! Graaah hah hah! So what are you going to do, filly? Leave her here to suffer and save yourself like she wants?"
Valey looked ready to punch her and Maple looked ready to cry, but Starlight pushed past both of them, planting a forehoof on the edge of the chain platform with a crackle of magic and locking the windigo's eyes with her own. "Talk all you want," she hissed, "because you won't be able to for much longer! I've killed far more windigoes than you in a single shot. I don't know where you came from or how you got inside her, but that won't stop me from killing you, too."
"Ooooh, you're spunky," Puddles praised, not needing to move her mouth to form the words. "You hate me already. Delicious. Want to be friends? Talk to your pals over there like that and we'll be in business!"
"You..." Shaking, Maple stepped up as well, eyes harder than Starlight had seen them since her house was destroyed in Riverfall. "Whatever you are..." Snarling, she flung herself at Puddles with her forelimbs outstretched. "Leave her alone!"
"GYAAAAAURRRGH!" Puddles roared, struggling and flailing against her chains as Maple made contact. There was a spark of pink and a crackle of energy, but in less than a second it was gone, and Maple fell back, having nothing more to offer and leaving Puddles limp and hanging.
"Ah..." Morena held her breath, blinking.
"Sorry," Maple murmured, getting back to her hooves. "I was almost out after getting our ship the last few miles to Stormhoof. That's all I had..."
Puddles slumped in her chains, head lolling, looking briefly unconscious. Then she twitched.
"...Mom?" she groaned, lifting her head and blinking, once again speaking with a mare's voice. Her eyes still lacked pupils, but something about her demeanor seemed different. "I'm...?"
"Grrrrr!" She interrupted herself with a snarl, resuming her intensity. "That was a dirty trick! What did you do!?"
"I found out whether there's someone else in there," Maple ground out, meeting the creature's eyes. "And now I know."
Windigo Puddles grinned. "Do you, now? Want to hear my dirty trick?" Winking, she let out a shriek and spasmed again, slowly coming to with a groan.
"It's me," Puddles whispered in her own voice, not managing the strength to lift her head... until she did. "The windigo! Surprise! Grah hah hah hah hah! Want to know a terrible secret?" She rolled her neck around, head flopping from side to side. "There's no one in here but me! It's an empty shell. Too bad. Like my acting? Or do you hate it? And guess which I prefer. Oh, and want to know a better secret?" Her eyes blazed. "That secret isn't terrible at all! It's pretty much the best thing ever! GRAAAAAAAAA-"
Ch-tunkkk! Morena kicked the lever, sending the room rattling as the winch unwound and lowered the platform back into the depths, taking the captive monstrosity with it. She watched it go, just as stone-faced as when they had arrived, but this time it wasn't fooling anyone. Valey sighed, and Starlight and Maple did too.
"That's what you needed to see," Morena whispered, back to them as she opened the exit door. "There's no point in staying further. Come. I'll explain everything where it's more comfortable."
Morena shut the door behind them with a clang, sealing Starlight, Maple, Valey and Jamjars out of the containment room. "Have a seat," she instructed, and Starlight saw that Wallace was there as well.
Her heartrate almost seemed to speed up as the adrenaline faded and the warmer, more welcoming room slid fully into her perception, like it had forgotten to beat while she was in the windigo's presence and only now was catching up. She could finally focus on more than the shackles, the throne and the thing on them, and fell against Maple, head spinning.
"So that was your daughter, huh?" Valey remarked, tone cool and still.
"Was," Morena said. "Once."
Wallace inclined his head, and said nothing.
"Can I ask what happened?" Maple breathed.
"You have every right to know, though it's hardly an inspirational tale," Wallace told her, voice gruff and resigned. "Morena raised her daughter from birth as part of our exploration team. Puddles grew up on the road, and took to it like a glutton to a pancake house. From the moment she could talk, she loved stories, the sky, the horizon, and the thrill of seeing new places. Our way of life meant she could never put down roots and call someplace home, aside from at our sides and the ship we traveled in. She took to that, too, and found joy in hellos rather than sadness in goodbyes."
"As young as five, she was adventuring with us," Morena continued, taking over. "We kept to safer locales, but she was just thrilled to carry her own food and water. By your age, she was smart enough and strong enough to actually contribute instead of being a liability." She nodded at Starlight and Jamjars. "Able to understand and weigh risks, and survive with us in dangerous locations. We started taking her with us on more difficult quests, and she couldn't have liked it more. None of us could have. They were our happiest days as adventurers."
"But then..." Wallace glared at the floor. "We were on an arctic expedition near the edge of the eastern mountains of Yakyakistan, about five or six years ago, and had stopped to dig a mana well and refuel our ship. Puddles left to collect snow that we could use to melt and replenish our water supplies. It should have been a short errand, but she grew later and later, and we became worried. After nearly an hour, she returned, holding her eyes tightly shut. She said she had suffered an accident and refused to talk about it, retreating and locking herself in her room. It was difficult terrain, and we were all concerned."
"I went alone to talk to her, after we were flying again," Morena went on. "She let me in, since I was alone. When I pressed on what had happened, she said Diego caught her while she had her guard down and blinded her with shards of ice, then tried to abandon her. Diego had been off on a different errand while she was away, and he joined our team several years after Wallace and I founded it. Of course he said he didn't do it, but we had known Puddles since birth. Diego was... just like me. A punk off the road Wallace had inspired and given a second chance. We didn't like it, but we made a choice on who to trust, and it was her."
Wallace nodded sadly. "We consulted our instruments and turned south, stranding him in a remote mountainside colony of Yakyakistan left off of official maps and then flying east, hoping to find a qualified doctor in Ironridge to see to her vision. Puddles continued to refuse to show us her eyes, hiding reclusively in her room, and one night when I came to her alone, she confessed she was afraid of Morena too. Her background was not all that different from Diego's, and she, too, had once been set upon a wayward path before being inspired to better heights. However, rather than take hasty action, I shared this with Morena, and she couldn't believe her ears."
"I knew Puddles," Morena growled. "Two adventures before that, a crampon she was using broke because I didn't notice a hairline fracture when checking it. Wallace caught her after a twenty-foot fall, and rather than being terrified or resentful she accepted it instantly as a hazard of adventuring and didn't even realize I had done anything that needed to be forgiven. Her worldview was one that trusted us completely, and while I'm not saying it's impossible to change something like that, doing it would have left her a lot more ungrounded and in search of stability than she was. She told Wallace she trusted him and not me. Why, because I had once done less-than-savory things with my life? Anything that could break her trust in me would break her trust in him as well. We both knew it, and we told her."
"Then right before our eyes, she changed," Wallace choked. "Her voice grew deep and metallic, and seemed to come from everywhere but her throat! She laughed at us and mocked us for not spotting her sooner, and belittled our trust in her for our allowing it to form a rift between ourselves and our companion. When she opened her eyes, they were like you saw in there. We tried to fight her, but even as a mere teenager, she was able to overpower Morena. Her strength was inequine. Fortunately, so is mine, and I was able to subdue her after a lengthy scuffle. We bound her in chain because rope would not hold her, and nothing we did seemed capable of rendering her unconscious."
Closing his own eyes, he went on, mustache completely free of crinkles. "With holes in our hearts, we returned to Yakyakistan to look for Diego. She tried to trick him when we brought him on board, attempting to convince him we had tied her up because she had learned a fell secret and were plotting to do away with them both. Fortunately, we had discussed the situation before, and were able to trick her into outing herself once again. Her effort to tear our team asunder had failed, yet we were still down our most eager and beloved member."
Morena took over, getting up and standing without pacing, a wooden block rolling agitatedly beneath her hoof. "We were at a loss. Going back and searching the area around our well turned up nothing, though it wasn't a very thorough search since we knew something capable of possessing my daughter was nearby. Our search for an answer took us around the world, though wartime Varsidel had no healing and Ironridge only cared about air commerce. It was Yakyakistan or the Empire, and there was one thing here we knew for a fact: win the yearly fighting tournament, and you get a wish granted by Garsheeva herself. Wallace had won it once before, over a decade ago. He'd gotten older, but had a far better cause to fight for, so it was really a question of whether we wanted to gamble that Garsheeva is stronger than whatever's taken over Puddles."
"Entering the tournament isn't a simple business," Wallace continued. "Young Valey, you're doing it through the back door of a Golden Regent, but to some, that's the easy way. Twelve hundred fighters are admitted to round one, one hundred nominations by each of the twelve houses. That's a lot, and yet very little. To compete, you must earn the backing of a noble line. Some sell their sponsorships to the highest bidders. Others hire warriors to fight for them, receiving a wage regardless of their championship but in turn relinquishing the wish to their lord should they succeed. Fortunately, we had star power on our side, and it seemed everyone wanted to cut us a deal even as we kept Puddles and her condition a secret."
"But then we came to Izvaldi," Morena said. "Izvaldi isn't on the map for a lot of the other provinces. It's the backwater, the middle of nowhere, and we hadn't realized just what kinds of public works projects Percival's administration had been working on in our years abroad. Namely, this hospital. We met with Percival and Chauncey, and decided to show them what we had and tell them everything."
"Chauncey in particular was vocal about helping Puddles," Wallace grunted, glancing back at the door to the containment room. "Percival was more interested in the business side of things. He wanted to know if we would fight for Izvaldi and grant his wish if we won, in exchange for the full and financially free weight of every resource he had to offer in restoring Puddles to herself again. His wish is a sensible one: to become a sphinx in the eyes of the law, allowed to continue ruling once his grandfather passes away so that he might continue his work here. It was a choice between two hope-fueled attempts to do the same thing..."
"We accepted Percival's offer," Morena finished, "and Puddles is here now. As a show of faith, Chauncey immediately took a team of scientists and our navigation systems to find the exact spot where the incident occurred, though they returned empty-hooved. They work around the clock to find something that can be done for her, and in return we fight, and act to promote Izvaldi's reputation across the Empire. So there you have it." She folded her forelegs and sighed. "That's what we'd wish for if we won, why we stick with Izvaldi, and why we've never talked about my daughter."
Wallace nodded, rumbling deep in his throat. "Two wishes. To cure my best friend's daughter: the way of love. To repay the greatest debt ever done to me by an administration: the way of honor. Both may someday result in us seeing Puddles' smile again, but should I ever get the chance, I am not looking forward to having to choose. Now you see the things others have to fight for against which your own resolve will be tested."
For several minutes, the room was silent, like Wallace and Morena hadn't really finished. "I'm so sorry," Maple whispered. "Is... Is she still in there at all? When I shocked her..."
"That is something on which we differ," Wallace sadly told her. "I believe so. There is no excuse to give up hope, and until Chauncey's scientists discover otherwise, I refuse to accept it. But Morena..."
"You saw what it was like," Morena sniffed, her iron composure ruined but not yet destroyed. "Talking to it for five minutes. Too much time with that thing can drive even the sturdiest soul insane, and faster if you're alone. It nearly broke apart our own group, and we were forged through the kind of fire that consumes entire countries. If Puddles is in there, suffering and alone with only it for company, I'll sit in that room in solidarity until I lose myself as well. But if she's gone, then nothing matters. And if there's one thing I know about my daughter, it's that she wouldn't approve of me breaking my spirit over her. She's told me to run in the face of danger before. So I do what I have to to survive, and if we all come out on the other side, she'll forgive me for it."
"I'm more curious on your opinions on the matter!" Wallace boomed, vigor suddenly returning. "You are the heroes of Ironridge, are you not? We struggle to save one mare from these things, but you rescued an entire city from their clutches and destroyed them in the process! You are the experts here, not us. So we ask you humbly, as citizens in need of aid: do you think there is hope for young Puddles?"
"I..." Maple swallowed. "I don't know. Both of the times we've used harmonic energy before, it nearly killed us, and right now we're out anyway and would have to go back to Ironridge to get more. I have no idea how it would be possible or whether we could do it, but that thing at least looked hurt when I used the last bit I had to shock it. There might be a chance?" Her face turned up in hope, mixed with the fear of making a promise she couldn't keep.
"Might be?" Starlight stomped. "There is. And we'll find it. I didn't need the crystal palace in Ironridge to kill the windigoes there, just to survive doing it! There were eight then, and there's one now. We can focus energy, or... something. Shinespark will figure something out when she arrives. And I'm going to talk to that windigo again someday. There's more it can tell us about what happened and how to undo it, and it just needs to be tricked into it like you said it could be!"
Morena gave her a wry grin. "There's some optimism for you, kid. No talking to it alone, though; that's a hard rule with no exceptions."
"And how about you, young Valey?" Wallace asked, turning to where the batpony sat hunched. "You haven't said a thing throughout this entire tale! What's your take on it?"
Valey didn't look up, face covered by the shadow of her dangling emerald bang. Both forehooves were wrapped around her chest, touching the center of a golden pendant with a black stone. "Eh, nothing," she whispered, the emotion missing from her voice like a beach missing water that was being sucked out for a tsunami. "Just getting some ideas. I've got a call to make, but I'm pretty sure I know now what I'm really wishing for if I win this tournament."
"Oh?" Wallace's eyebrows rose, intrigued.
"Yeah," Valey breathed, lifting her head until her eyes were barely visible, sharp and green and ready to burn. "I've got one question for you guys, though. This colony you were near when it happened; the one where you stranded Diego... What are the odds it was called Icereach?"
"I'm glad breakfast was so tasty. Where are the others? Did you leave them behind down there?"
"Nyaaah..." Valey stretched, laying on her back atop the giant dirigible that carried Wallace's ship, mid-morning sun glinting off the sound stone balanced on her fuzzy belly. "Yeah, Birdo and Bathtub are swapping stories about Varsidel. No fun bragging when I wasn't there, so I figured I'd give... nngh... someone else a call instead! Howdy howdy howdy, and all that."
"It's nice to hear your voice too, Valey," Amber giggled through the sound stone. "Even if you call every other day already. Good thing Arambai let me keep this, huh? So, you've reached Izvaldi?"
"Yup." Valey licked her lips, catching a crumb that was stuck to her with jam. "A whole bunch has happened, so I'll stick to the important parts: unlike stinking Stormhoof, nobody goes psychotic at the sight of leafy ears here! It's great! First Ironridge, then Stormhoof... I was pretty down in the dumps."
"I heard," Amber consoled. "You weren't very happy, calling me in the tunnels. But don't just skip the non-important things! Tell me! I want to know what you've been up to!"
Valey leaned back, resting her head on a foreleg and grinning at the sky. "Well, we got mugged. In a hospital. Apparently some numbskull saw us with a celebrity he didn't like and figured we were fair game. Unfortunately, we were so far out of his league that I completely wrecked him after, and the hardest part was not crippling him by mistake. Speaking of crippling, I can move around again now. There's this weird dude called Chauncey who's like the ruler's second-in-command, or something. Think I'm gonna call him a vizier. He had some doc take a look at me, which was kind of shady but worked sweetly. I fought Wallace, too. It was just for fun, but I kicked his tail pretty hard. We blew up an entire field. It was awesome. How about you?"
Amber sounded impressed. "All that in one day, huh? How much of it did you make up?"
"Err... maybe just a little..." Valey winced. "But not the part about being able to move again. Really, I kinda feel like doing a few laps of the province just because I can."
"Sounds like you've been busy. I've been keeping on my hooves too, working on fixing up Maple's place and trying to make a positive difference on everyone's reputation around town. Carpentry's not too far away from boatbuilding, after all! I've got a new door in and most of the outside fixed up, and currently the ground floor's floorboards are all out while I look for some fresh lumber to replace them with that hasn't been hacked up and vandalized. Fixing the counter and tables will come next, and then on to the second floor! Fortunately the rafters are fine, so all I have to do is change out every single surface in the house... heh heh... It's a lot of work. But you know me, always needing something to do..."
Valey smiled. "Well, I won't ruin the surprise. We'll get old Ironflanks back there some day and see what she thinks of it. Don't get too buff hauling lumber around, though. Gotta stay cute and fuzzy!"
"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," Amber assured. "White Chocolate is a really good cook. Me and Willow are keeping her company, but she's actually doing a great job of staying active herself. She's been out and around the town a bit and even has friends who weren't part of our friend group, and we've been getting her active and involved in the whole pool-raising thing so she's still in close contact with all her kids without being overwhelmed. The oldest two and youngest two still live with her full-time, too. Where was I? Yes! Her food! Okay, so there's this soup she has..."
Valey listened for a while, tuning out the rest of the world as she nodded along. "...You're being quiet," Amber said after a while. "Everything fine?"
"Oh, sure. Just thinking and enjoying." Valey swallowed. "I've got something else to tell you too, but I'm kinda... not really sure how to talk about it. Mind if I just spit something out?"
Amber giggled. "Is it that you have a crush on me?"
"Well, duh, but..." Valey flushed. "It's about what I told you that one time when you couldn't move. About my sister, and my days in Icereach..."
"I'm listening," Amber promised, ready and there.
Valey took a deep breath, then sighed. "Here goes. Last night, I found out... I found out what Wallace and Morena are fighting for in this tournament I've been talking about. Morena's got a daughter. Cute thing, maybe a little younger than you. She's possessed by a windigo."
On the other side, Amber gasped. "What!? But that's... Are you...?" She trailed off. "I guess I can't say that's impossible, can I? After you fought so hard to save Ironridge from those yourself."
"Eh, I mostly stopped Herman. Beating the windigoes was Starlight's deal," Valey replied. "But yeah, I'm sure. I smelled it, and talked to it too. Not a pleasant conversation. Anyway, Izvaldi here is doing everything it can as a province to help find a way to bring her back, and Wallace is torn between wishing for this filly to be exorcised or granting the local lord's wish as repayment for helping him. They're doing absolutely everything they can to get her back, and it's kinda making me think..."
"About Nyala," Amber finished for her. "Your sister."
"Yeah," Valey breathed, and was still.
"Where is she now?" Amber asked. "Still in that pendant you wear?"
"Yup." Valey patted the golden artifact around her neck. "Pretty much haven't taken it off since I left Ironridge. You can see what I mean though, right? They're doing all this, and I'm..." She gritted her teeth. "I gotta do more. Izvaldi's peaceful. I've poked around, and the bad guys here are weak and I don't think anything majorly sinister is going on. There's these sisters, and I'll tell you about them later, but they're domestic trouble at worst. Point is, I'm safe, my friends are safe, and this is the best chance I've had or might ever have to get her back. You understand?"
She could practically feel Amber nodding. "You're changing what you wish for if you win the tournament, aren't you? Well, you can still get the Writ of Harmonic Sanction from Yakyakistan, right? I'm sure everyone else will understand. They'd probably be mad if you didn't!"
"Of course I am," Valey said, mouth straight. "But I can't do just that and call it a day. Wallace lectured me for hours on how to win in this tournament, you have to commit a hundred and ten percent to it, and I'm starting to get what he means by that. Even if I give everything I've possibly got to winning, that's not enough. I've gotta look for other ways to get Nyala back too, and so many are staring me in the face I feel like an idiot for spending so long doing nothing as it is."
"You're not an idiot," Amber corrected forcefully. "You might not be making progress with her sitting in your pendant, but it won't do either of you any good to focus on her when you're not safe yourself. Right now, she's just as safe as you are, so getting yourself and your other friends out of a dangerous situation is just making sure you have the chance to help her another day."
"Yeah, I know," Valey sighed. "It's just... Dorable spent so long and went to so much effort in Ironridge while I just sat around and fudged paperwork and ate bananas. You know... the half-dead scientist dude I brought back with me to try and find a way to fix me and her and got a job as a factory chief? Braen's armor works; Sparky used it as a second body for years. All I've gotta do is take this stone and put it in there where Braen's heart goes, and Nyala will have a body again. Not her real one, and she'll probably have no memories, but she'll be back, and we'll be able to work together to return both of ourselves to normal."
Amber exhaled. "Because you're missing something too. The original Valey's cutie mark, that got replaced with yours from a piece of fallen moon glass."
"I was gonna say soul, but yeah," Valey breathed, now sitting up and huddled around the stone. "It would be so easy. All the work's been done. All I'd have to do is put this stone in place. But I know that the moment I do it, there'll be no going back. I couldn't just decide to quit and turn Nyala off, or something!" She grimaced. "Last time my life changed completely and irreversibly, I was a mess for a pretty long time trying to figure it out. And... I'll have to tell all my friends, too. About her, and me, and Icereach. About how I'm something that fell from space instead of a normal pony who was born and raised with a family and friends and memories and all that good stuff."
"I guess you will, won't you," Amber said.
"Yeah." Valey sniffed. "I will."
"How can I help?"
"Way I see it, there's only one thing to do." Valey's grin returned slightly. "Talk me into it. I have to wait until Sparky gets here with her boat, either way. It'll help if you wanna listen in or be there when I actually do the talking, too, but go ahead. Talk me into it."
Resolutely, Amber paused. "It sounds like you're pretty determined to talk yourself into it before I even get the chance."
"Don't you know it," Valey replied, grin broadening. "I'm not going to be beaten by you at a silly little thing like convincing me to do something I don't wanna. Hurry up and convince me harder!"
"You said you fell from space," Amber told her, voice straight and clear. "And that that somehow makes you different, abnormal or less. But do you think Herman came from the moon? Do you think Hemlock flew here from beyond the stars? Both of them had parents and were born here, and still got to choose what side they were on in the end. I'd take you over either of them in a heartbeat, and it sure isn't because of where they're from. But if I was considering that?" Valey could almost hear her teeth glint. "I'd choose you anyway, because being from space is cool. I know Maple will agree with me, and everyone else, too, and if anyone doesn't I'll catch an airship the moment Arambai has any flying out of Ironridge and come over to slap them myself!"
"Heh. That's the spirit," Valey chuckled, standing up with the sound stone tucked beneath a wing. "I'm probably going to try to chicken out at least once more before I get the chance to tell them, so I'll be sure to keep you on call. But there's another reason I need to mare up and do this. You wanna hear it?"
"Bring it," Amber goaded, firmly on her side.
"I've got a lead." Valey smirked out at the hospital building, standing opposite from her across the central plaza. "Something to follow for getting Nyala's body back and my real soul and putting everything back together even after I put her in Braen. This mare, who got possessed by a windigo? It happened five or six years ago, and not far from Icereach."
Amber sucked in a breath. "That scientist who got away, Navarre... you think he might have had something to do with it?" She paused, then gasped again. "Starlight killed windigoes in Ironridge, so she might be able to get rid of this one, too. And if the mare got her memories back, she could potentially tell you a new hint for finding him! And he has Nyala's body, and might know where to find your own piece of moon glass! Valey, that is a way!"
"Nope. Even better," Valey replied, twitching her ears. "That windigo can talk. It's a pretty unpleasant conversationalist, but as far as I can tell, it's also an equal-opportunity lover of hatred. We are gonna help Morena get her daughter back, and if you and I are right that Navarre might have had something to do with this, I'll take any lead she can give me and follow it up with the wrath of whatever I really am. But we might not even have to wait that long. I'm gonna see about talking to this windigo again, and whether I can talk it into helping me in my feud with Navarre."
"Be careful," Amber urged. "It would be so easy for it to trick you as well! What if it gave you some arcane counterspell with horrible, irreversible effects? Or if it gave you directions to an ice cave that would just collapse and kill you? You can't trust a single thing someone literally made of hatred says!"
Valey sighed, glaring at the ground. "Yeah. I know. I'll need to be careful, and if I've got any hope of doing this, it'll involve getting it to want to hurt Navarre, as well. What I'm more worried about is the possibility of it somehow turning me against my friends, or any important allies. Wallace and Morena told us about how it almost broke apart their own team when it first appeared, and they had been friends for well over a decade. And I'm in much better shape than I was after Ironridge, but to be honest? I'm not the most mentally sturdy mare around. I've got some weak spots and flaws it could exploit, and if it doesn't have a way of magically figuring those out, my favorite flavor is old boot. This'll be hard. Really, really hard, and I'll need my friends to help me. But... it's a chance."
"Acknowledging your weaknesses is the first step in not getting them exploited," Amber assured, sounding hesitant. "But... I'd still stay completely away from that thing if I were you. It's guaranteed to be dangerous."
"Yeah." Valey glanced across the plaza, then to her hoof, a small earring laying within. Studded with a single tiny gemstone that glowed with an enchantment, she put it away and sighed. "I originally found the windigo because it smelled wrong. After we got back last night, we ran into Chauncey... the vizier guy who seems to be in charge of the hospital. He said the windigo smell thing is a problem for all batponies and gave me this little trinket that's supposed to keep it away in case it bothers me, but I'm not wearing it. The smell's a reminder, I think. To stay on my hooves, never let my guard down around that thing, and of what Wallace is fighting for, so I don't forget what I'm fighting for either. The one good thing about this windigo is that it's not omniscient and can be tricked, but... believe me, I'm being careful."
"Good," Amber insisted. "Still... just because you know you have weaknesses and fears doesn't mean you're safe from them. You'd be so much stronger of a pony if you could deal with them some day..."
"I know," Valey growled. "But... I dunno. How? I'm a weird space cutie mark that does personality overrides on normal ponies and comes packaged in a box that can turn batponies to monsters. I can't just sit down and say I'm fine with that. Ironridge was me attempting to do that, and I just wound up as a petty trickster trying to justify everyone not liking me by giving them reason after reason for it. What am I supposed to do, fly to the moon and poke around for clues until I find something that says we're all sunshine and rainbows and everything that makes this look sinister is just a spooky coincidence? Say I actually did, and found out something bad instead? What would I do then?"
Amber was silent.
"Or no, not that one..." Valey winced, then kept going. "How about the way my entire existence was defined by being invincible and unstoppable and winning whatever fights I wanted, and then the moment I got something to fight for besides myself, I went and threw against a bunch of mooks and had to get bailed out by my friends? That was the second time that happened, too! I couldn't protect Nyala from the moon glass and Navarre in Icereach. I couldn't protect Ironflanks and Starlight from the mercenaries in the Flame District. That reminds me, I've got a bone to pick with Kero, but still!"
"...And if you hadn't had friends, the mercenaries would have captured you and you'd be dead or worse," Amber finally said. "Friends help each other. It's not a one-way relationship. That's what we do, Valey, and I'd do the same for you as well."
"Meh," Valey huffed. "Doesn't change the fact that I was only down there in the first place because of them, and might've been able to sneak away if they hadn't been in danger too. Urgh..."
"We need to talk about something else," Amber decided. "I'm sorry, Valey, but I can't do this. If we're talking about this, I need to be there in person. Just... promise me you won't go talk to the windigo alone, and any decisions you make will be as a group, okay?"
Valey wiped an eye. "Yeah, you're right. I hate being pouty and mopey anyway. Makes me not feel like me. But are you sure? Some day or other, I'm gonna have to deal with these, even if I have no idea how."
For a long time, Amber thought. "If you really want to take and fix something that could be used against you now... how about telling Starlight what really happened on the docks with Hemlock?"
Valey deflated again. "Nooooo..." she moaned, trailing off. "I mean... don't you think she's forgotten about that already? I kinda hope she has. But that wasn't me, it was... you know?"
"I don't think she's forgotten," Amber said. "I don't think a filly at her age would forget conjuring a dark crystal sword and trying to murder an old stallion who also tried to murder her, while both were stranded on a slippery platform in a swollen river. And you're right; it's her problem that she'll someday need to deal with just like you have fears about where you came from. But until you tell her that you lied and her version of events really happened, she can't think about it or come to terms with it, and it's a weakness for both of you because anyone could seriously damage your friendship if they ever found out and told her."
Valey's ears were flat against the sides of her head. "You weren't there," she whispered. "I told you about it, but you didn't see her. Her eyes were gray, Amber. Whatever kind of magic can do that... I don't want her looking into that or trying to do it again. She's happier thinking it was a hallucination, that all that never happened, and I am too. Besides, it makes sense. You said so when I told you, and Maple even accepted it without question! The Hemlock you two knew wouldn't do something like that, and if he would, it wouldn't be nearly that extreme. I don't want it to be real..."
"And neither do I," Amber assured. "But unless you want to say Starlight hallucinated, you hallucinated, and the things Hemlock said after we captured him and sent him back to Ironridge were lies, it was real. And don't worry. While I work on Maple and Starlight's reputation, I'm also poking around to see if I can figure out a motive for why he would be so extreme in trying to get rid of you. I'll get to the bottom of this yet, Valey, and you'll be the first to know when I do."
"Even if you can explain Hemlock, that doesn't explain Starlight," Valey unhappily whispered. "Find anything, though?"
"I got punched in the face by Mangrove," Amber chuckled darkly. "She was one of Hemlock's friends, and the one who organized the mob that wrecked Maple's house. That means she's got something to hide! You worry about killing that windigo and getting Nyala back, Valey. Leave Riverfall to me."
"Heh. Or it just means she doesn't like you." Valey stuck her tongue out. "Nyaaaah... guess things have to balance out somewhere, don't they?" She waggled her eyebrows.
Amber giggled. "Oh, don't you know it. Anyway, like I said, worry about yourselves for now. I've got Riverfall covered, and Dior's trying to help me whenever he's not with some mare or other. Really, that stallion's too popular for his own good... Anyway! What else should we talk about? I told you about White Chocolate, and about Maple's house... How's everyone doing over there?"
"I'm cute and fuzzy," Valey belched. "Jamjars is lurking around, as usual. Still don't know what she thought of the windigo; she was there too. Haven't seen Sparky for a while, though she should get here sometime in the afternoon. She's with the boat. Birdo's living the life with Wallace and his friends, though it was pretty funny to see him all starstruck... Basically nothing's changed."
"And Maple?" Amber pressed. "Is she doing a good job relaxing now that you're in a friendly part of the Empire? She really needs it..."
"Eh... yes and no." Valey shrugged. "She seems to be enjoying herself. We went to this concert last night, and she was freaking out over how cool it was. I think the windigo kinda freaked her out, though. Actually, she didn't seem to like the hospital much in general. There was this nervous dude in the lobby, and he kinda just stammered a bit and that instantly put Ironflanks on edge. She's got some bad history with having kids, right?"
Amber sighed, torn between sympathy and tiredness. "Her husband left her when he found out she was expecting, and then she miscarried. I'm sure you've heard it before; it's what put her in such a bad place two years ago to begin with. It's the one thing she can't seem to move past, even after everything else she's done. Willow and I have done our best, talking with her about it, but it's not the easiest thing to talk about and we've started to accept it just might be a wound that never heals. So if you could be patient with her about it... that would mean a lot to us."
"Yeah, figures." Valey rubbed the back of her head. "Seriously not even sure what you'd do about that. But seriously, talking about exploitable weaknesses..."
"I know," Amber murmured, resigned. "Be sure to keep her away from the windigo too, and Starlight as well. And Shinespark, since I'm sure she's still hurting about Ironridge... and I have no idea what it could exploit in Gerardo's history. Just be careful, okay?"
"We'll take care. And you, too," Valey insisted. "Next time I call you, it's probably going to be so you can listen in when I talk to my friends about Icereach. Not sure whether to do it one at a time or all at once, but they do need to know, so... y'know."
"I know."
The connection went dim. For a long moment, Valey just lay there, the rising sun burrowing its rays into her black fur until she was toasty and then some. She rolled over, still comfortably full from breakfast, let out a snort... and got up and spread her wings, unable to justify napping when there were things to be done.
"Yo," Valey greeted, lifting a wing in lazy salute as she strolled up to the plaza bench where Maple and Starlight sat, doing nothing and enjoying the breeze.
"Had a nice talk with Amber?" Maple asked, staring out between the hospital and Percival's mansion at the river and townscape beyond.
"Yeah, we had some stuff to talk about. I, uhh... might need to call a team meeting tonight, once Sparky's here with the ship." Valey fidgeted with her hat, then flopped down alongside them. "Or maybe not. I'll worry about that later. Just you two here?"
Maple nodded, Starlight tiredly napping against her side. "Wallace and Morena are doing whatever they do during the day, and Gerardo and Slipstream went off to 'fight evil' and find another quest to do from that job board. I don't know where Jamjars is. But Gerardo seemed pretty riled up hearing about the windigo, so I guess this is his way of blowing off steam. Slipstream, I think she just enjoys spending time with him."
"Mmph." Valey nodded. "Yeah, they're hanging out a lot. I wonder if they're thinking about becoming an item."
"I'm sure they're not." Maple firmly shook her head. "Gerardo's far too oblivious, and more importantly it's against Garsheeva's law in the empire for different species to be in a relationship. Slipstream worked as a travel agent; she knows that. But it doesn't stop her from following him around."
Valey's look turned dour. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Mehhh..." She stretched unhappily. "I guess nowhere's truly perfect. Bananas, I gotta find some other batponies to hit on now, and not ugly ones like Chauncey. There was that one with the yellow mane I ran into back in Stormhoof, but I don't remember her name..."
"Hmm," Maple chuckled. "Well, I suppose it's a good sign that's what you're thinking about so soon after meeting that thing in the hospital. I'm still more than a little rattled. My brain keeps going in circles about what we could do or say to figure out if Puddles is still in there somewhere, but I keep running into the problem of how to stop it from messing with my head instead. I've never had the best judgement when I'm shocked or upset..."
"You thought about that too, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... there's gotta be some way to get something out of that thing, but Amber basically made me promise I wouldn't talk to it. Probably a good idea, too."
"I'm definitely not out here because I'm ready to charge in the moment I have an idea," Maple sighed, patting the bench with her free forehoof and inviting Valey to scoot closer. "Enjoy the weather with us. Talk about nice things. Even if there's something bad underground, it's still pleasant out here. This is supposed to be a vacation, after all."
"Don't mind if I do," Valey belched. "Nice things nice things nice things. You know... randomly changing the subject, here, but it's weird. They say batponies flirting with non-batponies is a no-go, right? Those principal sisters are totally trying as hard as they can to make half the population hot for them... so why do they dress up like me? Fake fangs and slitted eye contacts and stuff. That stuff's supposed to be illegal, and it's like they're intentionally promoting or confusing it. I don't get it."
"It's never made a lot of sense to us either. But Chauncey says roll with it, and it's some fine rolling!"
Valey jumped in surprise. "Buh!?" Scrambling upright, she beheld Sirena leaning with her forelegs folded on the back of their bench, swaying her hips in time with the ditty she was humming under her breath. "Wow, you're sneaky."
Sirena was wearing her bat accessories, but her shoulders and barrel were bare, showing off her magenta coat for the whole world to see. "Hi there!" she greeted. "Talking about me, were you?"
"...How long were you listening?" Maple asked, blinking worriedly.
Sirena shrugged. "Long enough to hear someone's frustrated by their romantic pickings in the Empire." She waggled her eyebrows. "If you're looking for other sarosians, your best bets are either to go around at night, or look low down in high-up places. Chauncey and Percival love hiring them for their own staffs as a show of inclusivity, so maybe office workers in the administration building or maids in the mansion. As for why we dress this way, it was part of our thing while we worked in Varsidel, Chauncey insisted we keep it when he brought us to the Empire, and now we have a merchandising deal and make some sweet money selling them as toys and fashion products elsewhere in Izvaldi. They're a big hit!"
"Shouldn't you be in school right now?" Starlight mumbled, drowsily flicking her ears.
"Heeheeheeheeheeheehee..." Sirena burst out laughing, and nearly tipped over. "Hearing that from a filly..." She wiped her brow. "I tell that to foals nearly every day. And... no! It's a holiday today. We always schedule concerts when there's no school the next day so no one stays up too late and sleeps through class."
"A holiday?" Maple blinked in interest. "What's being celebrated?"
"Giovanni Goldfeather's birthday." Sirena nodded. "If you've been playing hooky on your history classes, he was a sphinx from sixty years ago who's famous for his greed, ambition, and luck so supernatural that many thought he was cursed. He only ruled for three years before his death, and in that time became the wealthiest lord in the history of the Empire... but that's a story you get for showing up to class. So, what did you think of the show last night?"
She eagerly leaned in, wearing a broad, sharp smile enhanced by the fake fangs that was impossible to disappoint. Fortunately, Maple didn't need to bluff. "I've never felt anything like it before," she gushed, sitting straight backwards to meet Sirena's eyes. "I felt the song inside of my head, and could sing in tune with everyone else! I don't... It's not really what I usually think of myself as doing, but I had a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it."
"Heh heh." Sirena winked. "I'll be sure to tell Melia. She'll be glad to hear it. Honestly, we were a little afraid it wouldn't work at all..." She made a face. "Our magic only works when we're singing together, and it gets stronger the more ponies are singing along. After all those contest concerts, we were sort of afraid all our own fans would be too stubborn to sing along with the other and we wouldn't be able to get the spark going. But it turned out all right, just for you!"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You know, that reminds me... What was it that happened at your last concert, or something? I keep hearing bits and pieces about what's been going on with you two, and I feel like there's something fishy but have never gotten a straight answer on what it is. This isn't something we should be concerned about, is it?"
"Oh..." Sirena looked slightly annoyed. "That. How much have you heard?"
Valey shrugged. "Somebody said something about contests?"
Sighing, Sirena nodded. "Contest concerts. Chauncey would pick two things for us to write solos about, and we would each perform ours to try to convince the audience that ours was better. They were always frustrating because we can only use our magic when singing together, and we like seeing the crowds like they were last night. But the numbers showed that the contests were drawing in bigger audiences and keeping people engaged between shows, and we technically made twice as much music even though we didn't get to write it together. It also drove merchandise sales, so we made a lot of money. But it got stressful, there was more and more pressure to do more of them and sing about heated topics..."
"It sucked all the fun out," Maple finished sympathetically. "I'm sorry."
Sirena wasn't done. "The first big disaster came several months back, when Chauncey said we should sing about Percival versus his father. Percival's grandfather is technically still the ruling lord, but his father is dead, and the less said about him, the better. I had to sing about him. Usually, neither of us got more than around fifty-five percent of the vote, since our fans were pretty split. That time, I got seven percent, and Melia's numbers didn't even change. We just had a lower turnout. We both felt horrible about it afterward, her because she beat me in an unfair contest and me because I had to write a song about how great that griffon was. We were also mostly even in how many we had won before that, but after, I never won a single one."
Valey grimaced. "You should've just stopped. That's not a cool thing to lose a friend over."
Starlight snorted darkly.
"I know," Sirena said, "and we wanted to, but there was still a lot for us riding on it. Besides, our fans enjoyed them, and we've always sung to please others. There was a last straw, though, and it was several months after that, when Chauncey asked us to sing about ourselves. Me versus her, straight and simple. I already told you who won, and she was already feeling bad for beating me so many times in a row after I had essentially been sabotaged, and... we turned in our letters of resignation on the same day. It wasn't worth it." She shook her head. "Of course, we renegotiated some things, and we're back as the principals and the Firefly Sisters under the conditions that we never do another one of those contest concerts, but it's still been tough. We're both mad at Chauncey, even though we know he was only trying to help us become more popular and succeed. We're also both determined not to let this get in the way of our friendship with each other, but it still feels like we've been driven so far apart... That's why I made that locket you got back; to remind her that we're equals in my eyes no matter what the numbers say."
Maple drooped in mourning, and Starlight sat stewing beside her. "That's not very cool," Valey remarked. "I mean, that all that happened to you. Ouch. Sorry, not the best at throwing pity parties, but is there anything we can do?"
Sirena wiped away a tear of remembrance. "Trust me, you've done plenty already, getting that locket back and enjoying our concert. We're talking about it and moving things in the right direction, so it'll get better. Just remember us if anything like this ever happens to you, okay?"
Valey winked. "You gotcha."
"Welp! I'm going to wander around over that way and make sure nothing too interesting is happening elsewhere without me." Sirena got up and turned around with a flourish, long twin tails bouncing in the air behind her bow-tied mane. "If you see Melia, say hi! She'd totally appreciate it!"
"We'll do that," Maple promised, getting to her own hooves as well and bumping the sleepy Starlight up onto her back. "Hmmm... Now I feel like getting up and doing something, too."
Valey shrugged. "Wanna check out that big mansion? We didn't really get to see it yesterday, and I'll bet you a cinnamon roll the chefs there are a lot more friendly than Sir Chops-a-Lot in Stormhoof."
"You just want to see if there are any batponies on the staff," Maple giggled, pointing a hoof at Valey's scrunched face. "What would Amber think?"
"Hey!" Valey held a defensive hoof to her chest. "For your information, Amber told me to have fun and enjoy myself, and checking out a tip like this is exactly what I plan on doing. Good to know you're still bright and chipper and hearing a sob story right after the encounter with that windigo doesn't keep you down, though."
Maple paused. "That wasn't a sob story," she insisted, stopping to make sure Valey heard. "It sounds like they went through some hard times, but stuck together and came out alive and recovering on the other end. I think that's a happy story, and it's something I can relate to."
"Heh." Valey shook her head, leading the way to Percival's mansion. "Sometimes, I feel like I've got you all figured out, and then I go and be wrong about something like that. You're interesting, Ironflanks. Come on, let's go hunt some donuts."
The ornate double door to Percival's mansion was attended by a single disinterested griffon who appeared capable of guarding it in a pinch, but really enjoyed having nothing happen as his job. He glanced up as Valey, Maple and Starlight approached, looking like he wished they'd take the back way in. "This is Percival's mansion," he grumbled, lounging against the shaded side of a pillar.
"And we're tourists," Valey belched, striding forward with a grin. "Snazzy place you got here. Mind if we take a look around?"
"Don't hear that every day," the guard sighed. "See yourselves around. Rooms aren't off-limits unless specifically marked, and the staff's word is law, so don't make pests of yourselves or get in anyone's way."
The door swung open, and Valey blinked. "Huh. That was easy. Well, I'm not complaining. Come on, let's go see if we can make friends with the kitchen staff!"
With a roll of his eyes, the guard closed the door behind him, and the three friends were inside. Percival's mansion had a two-story foyer with a vaulted ceiling, and Starlight counted five doors branching elsewhere on the ground floor alone.
"Sniff snuff snuff snooorrff..." Valey waved her nose around, thoroughly ignoring the staircases to the second-floor balcony. "Thinking we're going this way. Coming?"
Starlight watched the decor from Maple's back as they passed along through doors and hallways. The aesthetic sense reminded her a little of Elise's home in Blueleaf, with plenty of contrast between bright accents and dark backgrounds, with a fondness for swirls and a dislike of the green side of the color spectrum. Red, orange and purple, the colors were stacked like a sunset, with straight walls and elegant exposed support beams and an architecture that never felt claustrophobic while still giving the impression of strength. She wondered how many different creatures had worked together to design the building, or if Percival had drawn the plans himself.
"Well now," a kindly voice drawled as they stepped into a more open room, "what have we here?"
Starlight blinked. A batpony mare in an apron faced them from between two rows of countertops, looking like she had once been tall and slim before a decade of good eating took its toll. With an unusual pale peach coat, she raised an eyebrow at them, a rolling pin tucked beneath one wing.
Valey raised an eyebrow back. "So. Something tells me you're the chef around here."
The larger mare nodded back with a disapproving smile. "And something tells me you're a ragamuffin looking for free handouts when you should be enjoying your holiday, so I guess we'll have to give each other the benefit of the doubt."
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head.
"Meyneth, not 'buh'," the mare corrected, tapping Valey's nose with the end of her rolling pin as she walked past. Ignoring her entirely, she then gave Maple and Starlight an appraising nod. "You two, on the other wing, look famished. There's a cookie jar over in that corner if you're looking for something, though it hasn't been refilled since yesterday."
"Oh, sweet!" Valey perked up toward the indicated corner, only to be held up by the rolling pin.
"Not you!" Meyneth chided, bopping her with the handle once again and then prodding her in the side. "You're plenty well-fed already, you roly-poly shrimp! Leave those for ponies who would appreciate them."
Valey fell back, wincing and rubbing where she had been poked. "Hey! Watch who you're calling fat, lard barrel! We're supposed to be on the same side!"
Maple winced as well, standing far away from the indicated cookie jar. "Could we not fight? We're trying to stay on good terms with as many ponies as possible while we're here..."
"Hmmph," Meyneth huffed, stepping back and leaving Valey alone. "I can tell when someone comes to this kitchen purely hoping to score a bite to eat. You're up against senses honed by countless waves of gremlins from that school over yonder." She pointed in a vague direction. "Using your holiday for pilfering, too. Don't you have anything better to spend your time on?"
"Well, what are you doing here if it's a holiday?" Valey asked, vaguely hurt and pointing an accusatory hoof.
"Cleaning, and keeping the place open for anyone who really does have nowhere better to be than at work." Meyneth jabbed the roller right back at her. "Which doesn't include you, you goon. Management really ought to take better care of wayward souls like you."
"Management?" Valey's eyes crossed, though she still kept a wary watch on the rolling pin. "What?"
"You are from management, aren't you?" Meyneth asked suspiciously, patting her free wing with the roller.
"What? No!" Valey protested. "We're from Ironridge! Ever looked at a newspaper? Or maybe a dossier your boss put out? We're like guests of state, or something. I don't even know what management is!"
Meyneth took a moment to size her up. "She's right," Maple confirmed, nodding her head. "And it is a little mean of you to be picking on her alone."
"Bananas, what is it with me and chefs in the Empire...?" Valey groaned, unhappily slumping and wiping her brow with a wing.
"...I see," Meyneth decided. "Well, I'm still fully aware of what you came here for. My apologies for calling you fat, bone bag. I suppose you'll be wanting me to dirty this kitchen making something special just for you, won't you?"
Valey winced. "Uhh, look, if it's trouble..."
"I suppose I should be grateful you're in here instead of off pestering someone not accustomed to it," Meyneth sighed, brushing open several cabinets and cupboards with a wingtip as she breezed around the kitchen. "There's no menu, and I'm not making anything hot. You wash your own dishes when you're done. Say nothing and it's sandwiches made from leftover lettuce that needs to get used up. Understand?"
Maple gave an awkward smile. "Really, we don't mean to cause trouble..."
"Don't. I'm used to it." Meyneth nodded, already focusing on something as she removed several jars from a cold box. "You don't get by in a job like this without getting yelled at by far too many ungrateful brats. Bone bag! I don't know what you do for a living, but you're about to learn to slice tomatoes. Get over here and show me how you hold that knife."
"I'm not a bone bag...!" Valey growled, ears back as she nevertheless obeyed. "Bananas, what have I gotten myself into?"
"Tsk. Just can't make up your mind, can you?" Meyneth sadly shook her head. "Knife. Use it, ball barrel."
Valey's eyes flashed, and then the steel did, the countertop tomato falling into perfect fifths. "How do you like that?" she growled around the handle. "And don't call me fat either!"
Meyneth eyed her job. "Five pieces? There are only four of us here, you gluttonous pile. Put them back together and try again."
"What...?" Valey's ears folded, then perked in annoyance. "It's a tomato! How do you put it...? Urgh. Never mind. Seriously, lady, what's your problem? I have a name, y'know."
Meyneth touched the tomato slices with a wingtip, sliding them gently over each other, and then there was a tiny spark of light. Her cutie mark gleamed from behind the apron, and then the tomato was whole.
"...Bananas." Valey swallowed, eyeing her expression and slumping in defeat. "Well, at least Jamjars isn't watching. Something tells me I'm in for a bad time..."
The kitchen periodically banged with noise as Valey complained and Meyneth insulted and both did something actually approaching work. Maple watched, spent on protests, and Starlight watched with her, eating the cookies no one else seemed to want. From anger to denial to could-be-worse acceptance, they went back and forth in what almost resembled a dance, the only souls to seem to have an interest in that kitchen. For all Valey's worrying, Jamjars didn't show up either, apparently having better things to do with herself than stalk her companions for cheap laughs.
Their racket echoed around corners and down into air ducts beneath the floorboards, reverberating inside basement-level maintenance rooms and then the tunnels below those. A wallside water pipe in an unlit, cramped corridor carried a clang as Valey's knife struck something metallic, and that was as far as the noise pierced. The pipes and tunnels, however, kept going.
Several stories further, linked by magical light conduits, air ducts and buried hoses of metal that snaked their way through the ground like veins, gears worked their way into the concrete earth, and those gave way to a winch supporting two golden chains. They dangled into the darkness, tinkling as they moved in a nonexistent breeze... and then the switch on the wall was kicked by a little yellow hoof, and they snapped tight and began to rise.
The ears and back of Jamjars' head were silhouetted by her horn, the room's only light source, as she faced the rising imprisonment ring. Soon, it clunked into position.
"Hm! You're back," Puddles chuckled, forelimbs held spread-eagled and an interested grin on her face. "I was placing bets with myself down there on how long it would take one of you to get ticked off or curious enough to come take a swing at me. Go figure it's the quiet one."
"My name is Jamjars," Jamjars coolly replied. "Speaking of quiet, what happened to you? No more laughing like an insecure child?"
"Eh, it's not really my style." Puddles tossed her pink-and-chartreuse mane. "To be more specific, I have no style. That just gets the biggest reaction out of Morena the moron, since she thinks I'm disrespecting her precious baby daughter's little pony body. It also makes for a horrid conversationalist, and truth be told, I like company." She put on a crocodile grin even Jamjars couldn't match, and continued. "So I'm willing to concede a little for that. You, though... What are you doing down here? Did you come alone?" Her eyes widened and narrowed at the same time in greedy glee. "Didn't your mommy teach you not to trust strangers? Aren't you worried I'll prey on your doubts and weaknesses and turn you against your friends?"
Jamjars scoffed, holding her stance perfectly and tossing her own, short mane. "My mother was a coward who lived her life in a hole and did the same thing over and over. I have to do my own work to learn about the world, and that's why I'm here. You know things that I want to know, too."
"Oooooh." Puddles looked intrigued. "I hear a bit of family resentment there. You're a minefield, kid, and the charges are right below your own hooves. Are you sure about this?"
Suspicious, Jamjars narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to make me leave?"
"Mmmmm..." Puddles hummed to herself in vaguely-sarcastic thought. "Yup. I am. Truth be told, I find lone ponies horribly uninteresting. I could put in all the hard work in the world, and never even get to see the results. You want to talk? Bring your friends next time, and we'll be in business."
Now it was Jamjars' turn to smirk. "You seem to have misread the situation," she gloated. "You're bored. I'm the one who can flip that switch, and I'm the one who gets to choose whether to stay or leave. I have what you want. I'm in the position of power."
Puddles' shark grin returned. "Power? You're talking to me about power? And what I want? Kid, right now you're talking to the most powerful windigo in the world. I'm certainly not locked up because anyone thought I was harmless. Show me your power! Bring what you think you've got!"
"And?" Jamjars gave a satisfied shrug. "You're tied up, and I'm not. If you were so powerful, why don't you escape?" She paced in a circle just to prove she could. "I can certainly walk around more than you."
"Heh heh heh..." Puddles chuckled darkly. "But I already am free. These chains are a temporary inconvenience next to what my species has endured ever since we were awoken from the void and given our prime directive on the day of reckoning two thousand years ago! You see this pony body everyone seems so angry that I have?" She glanced victoriously at her forelimbs, the only part of herself she could see. "With this, I've evolved. I've become a superior life form! I can exist freely outside our old container without suffering the consequences! Isn't that great?"
Jamjars stared at her in confusion, a scowl growing on her face. "What?"
Puddles' two-tone eyes flashed with a crystalline sparkle. "What? Not following along? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you were here because I know things you don't." She blew a disdainful puff of air. "Try not to feel left out. It's just windigo politics. Surely nothing you'd be interested in."
Jamjars blinked. "Windigoes have politics?"
That was what Puddles was waiting for. "Oooh, you want to know?" She leaned forward, straining against her bonds and smirking. "Now that's funny, because I thought you were the one in a position of power, here... Oh right, you initially said I knew something you desperately wanted to know, didn't you?" She leaned back, putting on an insufferably smug grin. "Looks like the tables have turned, kid. I dare you to lower me back into that pit and leave. Bet you're too curious to bid me farewell now. See, I know I'm unpleasant, and the fact that you came down here anyway means you're the one on a mission and I'm the one calling the shots. This is my dungeon and my game to play."
"Clever," Jamjars remarked, not showing that she had been rattled. "And I probably should leave! You're clearly trying to goad me into staying. But I'm still the one who can reach this switch, and I say I'm not done talking to you."
"Uh-huh." Puddles nodded unenthusiastically. "Because I'd really rather you leave. You're not being nearly as interesting as I'd hoped, and I feel like brooding instead."
Jamjars frowned for a moment, contemplating harder whether she was being goaded. "Last night Wallace said you beat Morena and nearly him, too, in a fight. Wallace is the best fighter in the Griffon Empire. Puddles was probably strong, but not that strong. I want to know how you did it."
Puddles' grin returned. "Really. All the things you could ask someone like me, and you want to know how to beat another mortal in a fight? Your ambitions are pathetically uncultured. Why not get yourself a real goal, like becoming a goddess?"
Jamjars stared.
"Oh, you hadn't even considered that," Puddles boasted, reading Jamjars' face. "I see that look in your eyes. Now you're thinking about the possibilities..." She sighed in contentment, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Where do you think Garsheeva came from? Think she existed from the dawn of time? It could be possible... not that a chained-up little windigo like me would be any use in getting there. Think bigger, and come back when you've got a goal higher up than your own shrimpy ears."
"Sorry," Jamjars decided. "Not interested."
"That's too bad." Puddles slumped. "Really, it is, because I'm all out of mysterious words and tantalizing tidbits to tease you with I'm not contractually forbidden from uttering."
"Really?" Jamjars blinked, then put her own smirk back on. "Contractually forbidden, are you? What happened to bragging about how free you were?"
"Well, aren't you a sharp one," Puddles hissed. "This one's more of a personal code. Believe it or not, I enjoy having a world to exist in."
Jamjars drew a sharp breath.
"The presence of world-destroying secrets got your attention?" Puddles raised an eyebrow. "Such a pity you have no way to tell if I actually know something or am just making stuff up to get your goat. I'll give you that one; I don't actually know any free and easy ways to destroy the world... unless I do, and have just forgotten about it. Sure hope my memory doesn't get jogged on that one..."
"I don't want to destroy the world, either," Jamjars said. "You're more frustrating to talk with than I had hoped."
"That's the danger of speaking with an eldritch being like me," Puddles apologized, shaking her head sadly. "Especially when I already told you I'm not interested in talking. You should leave before I yank your chain so hard you try and attack me. I've already told you what I want."
"And I've told you what I want," Jamjars demanded, glancing toward the switch on the wall, then glaring at Puddles. "So? What'll it be?"
Puddles sighed. "Then it seems we're at an impasse. Too bad."
"Looks like we are," Jamjars agreed. "I guess I'll just sit here until you get bored and talk to me."
"Will you?" Puddles winked. "I don't need to eat. I've sat here for more than five years."
"And I've sat in the hole where my family lived for more than twice that," Jamjars countered. "Besides, five years is a fraction of your existence, as opposed to nearly half of mine."
"Hah! Hahaha!" Puddles doubled over chuckling. "You think you can out-stubborn me, do you? Want to see a show of true power? This move will blow your mind... Behold."
Then she closed her eyes and did nothing. Her head lolled, her breathing stilled, and before long Puddles was sound asleep.
"...Hey!" Jamjars growled, raising her voice to no avail. "That's cheating!"
Puddles didn't wake up. Jamjars lasted only thirty seconds longer, glancing several times at the lever in impatience before stalking over, flicking it and slamming the door on her way out.
"See? How does it feel?" Meyneth asked, standing and watching Valey with a final look of long-withheld approval, four equal-size, fancily prepared and frankly generous sandwiches plated up and the kitchen cleaned around them. "Go on, bone bag, and share them with your friends."
Valey was beyond the point of retorting to the nickname. "Nguhhh... You guys better think this is six-star Karma Industries warehouse cuisine, or something, because I'm pretty sure I busted every bit of pride I had making it. So much for making friends with the kitchen staff..."
Meyneth took one for herself, chomping down with a crunch of greenery and nodding acceptably. "It's less important how it stacks up to fancy foreign restaurants and more important that you made it yourself. Food always tastes better when you work for it, and so does your confidence in your own abilities when you're not mooching or swindling."
"Rommmff..." Valey gulped, swallowing without bothering to chew. "Yeah, but..." She wiped her tongue around her mouth and swallowed again. "What if I'm good at mooching and swindling? And no offense, but I'm pretty sure I'd be just as satisfied with a quick run to rob some orchards somew-" Whap! "Ow!" Valey rubbed the back of her head. "Knock that off!"
"It looks like I'll have a lot longer yet before I get through that dense skull of yours," Meyneth sighed. "Young sarosians these days always have no idea how to be productive members of society."
Maple gave an awkward smile, holding her sandwich as she ate. "You know, we came along hoping to see what we could find too, and I think all of us were ready and expecting to pay. How come you're not being hard on me and Starlight?"
Meyneth shook her head. "Because you're not the ones society has singled out as interlopers or pests. Izvaldi is lucky to have a lord like Percival who runs the place so that hooligans like her can run amok and do whatever they want to, but guess what? The rest of the nation is watching. And if we behave like opportunistic bums and try to get while the getting's good, then this is as good as the getting will get. We can't run around grabbing every advantage we see just because we need to do it to survive in other parts of the world. This is a dry run for sarosiankind joining the rest of the Empire's civilization, and what's more important than anything is that we prove to them we can be civilized."
Valey blinked, sandwich half-poking out of her mouth. Slowly, she set it down. "Y'know, you could have just said that in the first place."
"What, and be forgotten the moment you were on your way?" Meyneth frowned. "You'd just offer to get food somewhere else and leave. But you bet your roly-poly biscuits you're not forgetting this any time soon."
"Would you please make up your mind which way you want to insult my weight...?" Valey groaned, reddening slightly and slumping. "It's normal! Right in the middle! Not... gah..."
Meyneth nodded in appraisal. "The first thing you'll need to do is kick that defiant streak. I doubt it'll be a simple matter to turn a scruffy urchin like you polite and courteous, but that'll be your job to work on. It's less about pleases and thank yous and holding the door and more about how you carry yourself... Chin off the table!" She tapped Valey's nose again with her rolling pin. "You want to know what makes an impression? When someone calls you a bone bag and you take it with your shoulders straight and your head held high! Not yelling at someone you think is weaker than you and rolling over like a sea cucumber when it doesn't work."
Again, Maple tried to intervene. "She really does have a lot to worry about already, and this is kind of a deprecating etiquette lesson..."
"It is," Meyneth agreed. "Unfortunately, the world doesn't wait for you to sort out personal problems before hitting you with its best shot, and I know all too well what that looks like. I've had a lot of girls under my employ throughout the years, dating back to before Izvaldi was so tolerant a place, and a lot of them are carrying so much you'd think their backs were broken seeing them walk down the hall. Valey can complain all she wants, but if she couldn't take it, I wouldn't dish it out. There's a lot of fire left in that girl." She took a long sigh. "Besides, what are the odds of me seeing you again any time soon? This is my one chance to make an impression. I'm working with what I've got."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I might not be coming back? Yeah, I wonder why..." She snorted. "If you wanted to bait me, there's an easy way to do it."
"No bribery," Meyneth declared, "and that's final. But if there's anything you want and you show up when we're not busy, I would teach you how to make it free of charge."
"I don't suppose that applies to me, too?" Maple asked hopefully, trying yet again to get a hoof in the conversation. "I enjoy myself a lot in the kitchen."
"Well, I don't see why not," Meyneth relented. "You've got the look of someone who's seen plenty of troubles too, though you don't seem vindictive about it or relentlessly judged."
"You'd be surprised," Maple whispered. "My old house was destroyed by a mob who didn't like that I was associating with strangers from out of town... I didn't fly across an ocean because I fit right in with everything."
"And vindictive?" Valey raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Lady, I spent most of my life getting booed at and mistrusted by this dumb city even though I went out of my way to keep the peace and never did anything worse than causing some major headaches, and even though I owed them nothing, I still risked my life saving them from a giant berserk tyrannical yak. You call that vindictive?"
Meyneth matched her gaze. "And did they thank you for that, either?"
"No? What do you think?" Valey tipped her head, teeth faintly bared.
"They didn't, did they?" Meyneth countered with her own eyebrow. "And are you fine with that?"
Valey didn't even need to answer, Meyneth setting her hooves down and finishing the last bite of her sandwich. "It's probably asking too much for you to be. In an ideal world, things like that would be recognized, and you wouldn't even have to ask. But consider what would do more good in the long run: if you shrugged it off and went back to help someone else in need even if you had already been denied a reward, or if you curled up and complained until the world worked the way you wanted it to."
"Yeah, well, there's a difference between being the world's nicest nice guy and a random crook," Valey pouted. "I show up when the world needs saving, don't do anything too nasty on the villain scale... If any of those chumps in Ironridge actually knew what went down, I'm pretty sure they'd rather have me stop an invasion than carry myself with dignity and poise and all that."
"Or," Starlight added, replying to Meyneth, "you could change the world so it did work the way you wanted it to and everything was fair."
Meyneth seemed to realize she was there, eyes widening slightly and then softening. "That's the job of people like Percival and Chauncey," she softly lectured, "and even they can just put a little weight on our side."
"Yeah, I hate to break it to you..." Valey stretched, then grinned, starting to recover from the relentless cooking session. "But a little weight? We're practically professional heavyweights at this stuff. You wanna make a bet? How about this: we change the entire Empire's stance on batponies, and you make me all the cake and goodies I can eat. Deal?"
"You're an idiot," Meyneth laughed. "But I'd like to see you try. I'd make you a cake if you could even flip one province to treat us like Izvaldi... One of the harder ones, like Stormhoof or Everlaste. Who knows? Maybe you really are all you make yourself out to be. You're certainly a capable chef, when you put your mind to it."
Valey winced and rubbed the back of her head. "Only because you used your weird magic to fix a million and one random things... Cheffing really isn't my strong suit."
"That's why you learn and get better." Meyneth poked her again. "And my brand really isn't that special. All it does is take spoiled or damaged food and make it whole again, when it's a minor task. Appropriate, since my life's work seems to be taking damaged mares and getting them back on their hooves..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Y'know, it sounds like you'd actually be kinda alright if you could lay off poking me and insulting me and bossing me around."
Meyneth glared at her. "It's called tough love, and like I said you're only seeing it because I can tell you can take it. Count yourself lucky, bone bag. Resilience is one of the most important things you can have."
"And friends," Maple added. "You're talking about all the ponies who work for you?"
"The mansion's cleaning and cooking staff," Meyneth sighed. "I've been in charge of it for longer than Percival's been alive. I get first and final word in who stays and who goes, and it's been a long and tiring road that's ultimately very fulfilling whenever one of my girls makes it out and up into the world. Some are like you, and only need a lesson that they don't need to be at the top of the world to get by. Others need uplifting instead. So yes, and friends."
Maple nodded. "So earlier, when you said you were here in case anyone needed it..."
"My girls." Meyneth nodded back. "They should all have the day off, but I'm sure at least one or two aren't feeling up to it. So I'm here for anyone who needs me..." She drew a breath, then pointed at Valey. "And that includes you, bone bag. You may not work for me, but if you ever need an ear to complain to, I'm always here."
"I get it." Valey looked forlornly at her empty plate. "Yeah, sounds like a hard job. Not really my thing, so props for putting up with all that. Guess I can't blame you for expecting the worst and being hard, but seriously..." She looked up and glared. "If you keep calling me bone bag, I'm calling you old hag, and that's final."
"Heh. Fair's fair," Meyneth chuckled. "I take it that means you'll be coming back after all."
Valey gave a sidelong grin. "Eh... maaaybe. You do keep going on about all your girls... batponies, right? As in-"
"That depends," Meyneth interrupted, not missing a beat, "on your idea of eligibility. Care for a list of what you'd be hitting on, you horny bum?"
Valey blinked. "Uhh..."
"One of my girls is missing a hind leg after stepping on a land mine in Gyre," Meyneth began, locking down Valey's gaze. "Still one of the warmest souls I've met, but good luck if all you're looking for is a look. Another can't stand being touched, and has scars on her back to show why. Yet another has major abandonment issues, and would abhor the idea of a short fling. Several are either straight, already in committed relationships, or pregnant, so good luck with those, and don't even get me started on Crystal."
"Crystal?" Valey blinked.
Meyneth sighed and shook her head. "Didn't I just tell you not to get me started, bone bag? Crystal is one of the rare girls I've never had any luck with. She's somehow related to Chauncey, though something terrible must've happened in their past because they aren't on speaking terms, ever. I have a hunch it relates to Percival's father, though nothing to confirm it. Either way, she spends all her time quiet and alone, and he wanders around treating those Firefly Sisters like family while ignoring his actual relations. As much as he's done for us here in Izvaldi, that old coot can be dense as a brick at times..."
Maple gave a resigned smile. "Why do we always run into so many ponies who need help? I always feel like I need to do something, and I haven't even met her. How much trouble do you think we'll get in this time if I decide I won't be able to rest while she's in trouble?"
"You mean like bailing me out in Ironridge?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Beats me. Probably just however much trouble not being able to rest causes."
Starlight swallowed another bite of her sandwich, savoring it much more easily than Valey. "She could always tell you some dark secret about Chauncey that makes us enemies of the state for knowing."
Meyneth shrugged. "I'm well aware of what it feels like to be unable to leave another pony in need, and trust me, working on that has cost me my entire life so far. If you don't fancy yourself devoting your whole lifespan to seeing others become their better selves and still having a world full of wrongs and problems when it's over, you're better off seeing to yourselves and leaving the cleanup to me."
Suddenly, there was a screech and a crash from the hall outside the kitchen, and a mare's voice rose in frustration. "Aaargh! Not again... The balance is all wrong!"
"I wonder who that could possibly be," Meyneth muttered, glancing at the door with no curiosity whatsoever and not bothering to get up.
"Uhhh... ugh!" the mare grunted from the hallway. "Seaweed! I'm stuck! Nooooo! Meyneth, help!"
"Speaking of certain sunny personalities..." Meyneth pushed herself to her hooves. "It looks like you'll get to meet one of my girls today after all."
Valey quickly righted herself, ears perked at the panicked yelps coming from the hallway. No danger... and they didn't really sound all that endangered, either. She raised an eyebrow at Meyneth.
Meyneth didn't even return the glance, moving to the hallway in no hurry whatsoever. Everyone followed along, and the source of the disturbance quickly became evident: a batpony was laying on her side, waist strapped to a giant disc wide enough to reach the floor when she stood upright. Now, though, the wheel was facedown on the ground, inflexible shape making it impossible for her to right herself and leaving her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
"Meyneth?" she asked, ears flat against her skull. "I think I'm stuck..."
"I'll say you're stuck," Meyneth replied, moving in and snapping the clip that held the wheel to the fallen mare's waist. "I wonder whose fault that could be."
Valey blinked as she struggled to her hooves, realizing the reason the wheel had been there in the first place: her hind left leg was missing completely, a still-healing scar where the stump should have been that also extended across her belly, cutie mark and partway up her side. "Uhhh..." She gaped.
"You didn't see that!" the mare protested upon noticing their presence, hopping unevenly to try to block the wheel from sight and shooting a worried glance at Valey, Maple and Starlight. "That was... It was routine testing and maintenance! Ohh, this is why I waited for a holiday!" She shot Meyneth a reproachful look, ears still flat. "Meyneth! Why are... I-I... Nooo!"
"Why are your ideas for getting back on your hooves always falling apart?" Meyneth raised an eyebrow. "Or why is this bone bag and her friends here staring at you on a holiday when you thought the place would be empty?"
The mare covered her head with her forehooves, leaning against a wall and nearly falling back down. "Don't you ever read a newspaper!? Those three are famous!" She jabbed a hoof at the trio, eyes squeezed closed. "And now I've ruined my chance to make a good first impression! T-This could..."
"Famous, huh?" Meyneth gave a frown that suggested she was in the process of realizing she'd made a mistake, but wasn't nearly far enough along to admit it.
"Hah!" Valey exploded over to the cowering mare's side, putting a wing over her back like they were old friends and wearing her smuggest grin. "I told you we were big shots! Who's laughing now, old hag?"
The three-legged mare looked flabbergasted, and Meyneth shook her head in disapproval. "You are, which is exactly why I talked about being vindictive. I stand by everything I said. And Winry, don't be a stranger! You'll feel a hundred times less awkward if you introduce yourself. Watch out for the green one, though; she's horny."
Valey and Winry jumped away from each other, both reddening. "Hey!" Valey yelled, pointing an indignant hoof. "Speak for yourself about first impressions! What's the big idea!?"
"You're the one who went asking after my girls," Meyneth replied, and left it at that.
Maple couldn't help herself and started giggling, leaving an equally-mortified Winry trying over and over to compose herself and manage a professional greeting. "You know," Starlight interrupted, giving Meyneth a suspicious look, "everyone would probably have said hi and made friends by now if you didn't keep making this awkward."
Meyneth gave her a look in return and stumped out, muttering. "This hallway isn't big enough for the five of us..."
As the three friends watched her go, Winry finally got her act together. "H-Hello," she began with a shaky bow. "I'm-"
"All right in my book." Valey cut her off, grinning. "Listen, my standards are basically that you're not trying to take over the world or kill me or any of my friends. Seriously, no worries."
Maple managed to stop giggling, and Winry looked at them both. "What?"
"Really. Seriously. No worries." Valey nodded solemnly. "I'd say you need to take it easy, but if that was your boss..." She pointed a wing back down the hall at the kitchen, then raised an eyebrow. "Being maybe just a little high-strung is totally understandable."
Winry blinked, first in realization, then in relief, then in a second realization and finally in horror. "Oh no... Oh, what did she do!?"
"Relax!" Valey urged, frowning. "Not enough to make me kick her face through the wall or suplex her into a toilet or something. Pretty sure she means well. Pretty sure you do, too. Bananas, this is awkward..."
Winry just stared.
Suddenly, Maple had a beret pressed against her chest. "Here, hold this," Valey ordered. "I'm gonna go step outside and stick my head in the river for a bit. This stuff is more your suit anyway, so try to be hanging out when I get back, or something."
She was gone in a flash of green, leaving Winry, Maple, and the not-very-talkative Starlight. Maple took a few seconds to stare at the hat, then sat down, relaxed, and waited so Winry could do the same.
"...Sorry," Winry began after a while, awkwardly hopeful and apologetic. "I-I have a few issues with panicking... Have ever since I lost my leg." She offered a trusting smile. "It's easy to forget in the heat of the moment that people here are a lot nicer in general than in Gyre."
Maple instantly returned it with a reassuring look. "Don't worry about it. We've had plenty of experience with the bad things ponies can do, and I'm sure neither of you meant anything worth being mad about. Valey will be back soon. I'm Maple, by the way, and this is Starlight."
Winry curtsied, though it was slightly thrown off by her balance. "And I'm Winry. Please don't be mad at Meyneth. She's gone a long time without anyone correcting her or telling her if she's being overbearing, but there's no one else willing to spend so much time or effort on some of us, or even hire ponies like me..." She gave a forlorn look at her missing leg, then smiled at Maple. "I'm not the Empire's most productive maid..."
Maple giggled and shook her head. "I don't know enough about this to know if how she treats ponies works, but she was at least right when she said Valey would be able to take what she gave. It was almost funny."
Winry hopefully giggled back. "G-Good..."
Maple thought for a moment. "What do you do for fun?" she asked. "Or for a living? Or with that wheel over there?"
"Oh, that old thing?" Winry reddened, starting to stammer more. "It's nothing. Just a... well..." She glanced at her leg, then at Maple again, clearly hoping the mare would understand.
"Trying to help yourself get around?" Maple smiled in approval. "I wouldn't say that's any old thing, then. It sounds admirable! Would you mind if I asked what happened?"
"To my leg?" Winry glanced sadly at it. "Not really. I was scavenging for scrap metal in Gyre. It was a wreck from a crashed airship that no one really wanted to go near because it was on some contested land. You know, the previous lord's family had their retirement mansion, and they didn't want anyone going around it because they thought there was a conspiracy and things... I got a big sheet off the side and was trying to carry it out on my back since it was too heavy to fly, and I stepped on a land mine."
As Maple pursed her lips, Winry spread her left wing, unfolding it delicately and showing numerous breaks and tears in the membrane. "I can't really fly any more, and it's hard to turn in place, move backward, climb stairs or carry things on my back. A lot of places just wouldn't hire someone like me, so I really am fortunate to be here."
Maple gritted her teeth. "Does it still hurt?"
"Everything in general? Not if I'm careful," Winry sighed. "My leg hurts sometimes. Not the one I lost, the other one. It got hit a little too, and has to carry twice as much weight now. And my skin here and here and here..." She touched her side and nosed at a few other areas the scar extended to. "Washing is hard, and I can't wear a uniform because it hurts when it rubs against it too much. Fortunately Meyneth says I just don't have to wear one. I'm trying to find some sort of fabric or padding that's better, but that strap isn't all that comfortable either..." She glanced forlornly at the fallen wheel. "Can we talk about you instead, though?" She blinked hopefully. "I'm not very interesting, but you're from Ironridge! I saw a picture in the news from Stormhoof! What's it like on the western continent?"
"I'm not sure I'm the best storyteller," Maple admitted with a disarming laugh. "But Valey would probably love to-"
"What's that about me?" Valey asked, zipping back into the hallway with a spray of water from her dripping mane. "Uh, oops," she added, glancing at where she had doused the walls. "Hope nobody notices that. Anyway, what?"
Winry looked slightly shy, but Maple gave her an encouraging push. "Go on and ask her about how we saved Ironridge!"
"Oh, really?" Valey raised an eyebrow, still dripping and waiting for a request.
"I..." Winry swallowed, then stood and faced her. "Did you really kill a yak with your bare hooves?"
Valey winked. "With an icicle longer than both of us put together and a giant spear of falling glass, but yeah. It's a really long story."
The sun had passed late afternoon and was slowly approaching early evening when Gerardo and Slipstream entered the central plaza, strolling out of the commerce building with looks of satisfaction and making for a bench where Starlight, Maple and Valey waited. The batpony's mane was slightly tangled from being soaked and left to dry without care or brushing, but not much more than its usual appearance, and everyone but Starlight waved or saluted in greeting.
"It seems we were the later ones after all," Gerardo called out the moment they were in earshot. "Miss Slipstream and I were taking bets on who would find themselves back first! Had an eventful, insightful or merely relaxing day, friends?"
"You could say that," Maple hummed once they drew a little closer. "We met Sirena out here in the plaza, but spent most of the day in Percival's mansion learning about the staff. It's... an interesting place, apparently."
"Oh? Do tell," Gerardo asked, politely restraining himself from babbling about his own epic adventures.
Maple giggled slightly at the eager look on his face, but Valey beat her to the narration. "Basically the place is run by this total fraud who spent several hours insulting me, poking me with a rolling pin and forcing me to make sandwiches, but also hires a ton of messed-up batponies who can't get work anywhere else 'cuz she feels like it's the right thing to do. It was pretty weird."
"It was like a place for getting ponies who needed it back on their hooves," Maple added. "That wasn't at all what I expected from such a high-up place as the ruling lord's house, and I'm not sure how I feel about some of the boss's mannerisms, but we got to spend the afternoon with a maid who was crippled by a land mine telling stories about Riverfall and Ironridge, and have a standing invitation to go back. It was actually very nice."
Gerardo chuckled. "Well, it sounds like your outing was most worthwhile, indeed! Slipstream and I spent our day far on the north side of town, sorting out some trouble involving uncompetitively priced goods at competing grocers and a possible conspiracy in the supply chain that turned out to be a misunderstanding in land use rights between an apple grower and a cattle rancher. While we failed to come across any dastardly deeds in need of righting, everyone involved was ultimately satisfied, which is proof that diplomatic solutions can be just as heroic as any. And behold! Our reward."
He swept a large bag off his back, showing a bushel of freshly-picked apples within. Valey licked her lips. "Ooh, those for sharing?"
Gerardo nodded. "I was thinking of getting a head start on replenishing the Dream's storeroom once it arrives. A month of good eating with no stops whatsoever did do a number on miss Shinespark's stockpile, alas..."
"Speaking of which, is she still supposed to arrive soon?" Slipstream asked, glancing back toward the river behind the commerce building. "Last I heard, it was some time this evening?"
"That is what Morena informed us," Gerardo agreed, hoisting the apples back on his back. "Though I recall there being some variance in the estimate due to imprecise travel times by boat. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go down by the river and stand vigil so we're sure to be there when she arrives?"
"Eh. Might as well." Valey got to her hooves with a shrug and a stretch, arching her back and yawning. "Let's see what the docks this place has look like..."
Izvaldi Central's docks were located where the steep riverbank sloping down from the commerce building would have been, had it not been cut away in a massive levee of wood, platforms and restraining walls holding the hillside in place. The building's sublevels, rather than buried underground like a maze of dank tunnels, were open to the air, so that the moment one descended below the level of the plaza on the other side, a wall fell away, leaving a sea of open-air market floors exposed to daylight and built all along the reinforced walls and down to the water at the bottom. A few bridges even spanned the river high above to the hill on the far side, though the land there looked more like sparse countryside housing than a continuation of the waterside bazaar.
That bottom level held the docks and boating services, and Maple, Starlight, Valey, Gerardo and Slipstream stepped off a roped lift platform as it lowered them into place. The flowing of river water against wooden dock supports filled the air, and a cooler breeze accompanied being so close to the bottom - Starlight figured it would be even nicer on the docks themselves, but they stopped in a sitting area one floor up with a couple of benches no one was using and a perfect view of incoming water traffic.
"Ahhh," Gerardo proclaimed, settling himself onto a log that had been split in two, the curved side fixed to the ground. "Well, I can't say we're late this time. Who here has a preference on what we do while we wait?"
Starlight wrinkled her nose, an odor she couldn't identify passing in occasional whiffs on the breeze. "Don't care," she mouthed, glancing around for the source.
Gerardo blinked, reading her face. "A smell...? Ah!" He raised a talon and pointed to some vendors upwind. "I believe what you're noticing is fish. I can't quite remember if I know this group's stances on meat as a food, but there are some opinions surrounding it, and some love it enough to never take a meal without."
"I don't know..." Maple murmured suspiciously. "I tried something at that place Wallace took us in Stormhoof that someone said had meat, and it was interesting but I didn't feel very good afterward. I might have to pass. It doesn't smell very nice, either."
"The scent gets better when cooked, I assure you," Gerardo promised. "But yes, I've been told such a diet can be a very uncomfortable transition for those who have been vegetarians all their lives."
Slipstream sniffed too. "Are you sure?" she asked, closing her eyes and sniffing harder. "It smells almost alluring to me..."
Gerardo chuckled. "Yes, well, griffons and pegasi tend to be fish's biggest proponents. I presume there's some sort of biological component relating to wings at play, though I can't say I'm aware of any exhaustive studies on the food's effect upon different species."
"Meh." Valey looked away, a shadow in her eyes. "Wings or no wings, remember that this stuff reminds Sparky of her sister, what's-her-name... Uh, Grenada. Her. If you wanna talk about it, might as well get it out of the way now."
"Oh." Maple's ears fell. "The one who died in the skyport... right. Thanks for reminding me."
Slipstream raised an eyebrow. "Way to look out for Shinespark, there. How did you remember that?"
Valey shrugged. "Just thinking about some stuff that reminded me about it. Not all that important, though."
"Need to talk about anything?" Slipstream asked, checking just in case.
"Nah." Valey shook her head. "Eventually. Keep having fun for right now."
"I hear it's a holiday," Maple offered, trying to change the subject. "Giovanni Goldfeather's birthday. Or was it the day he got a house?" She flicked her ears and tilted her head in confusion. "Sirena told us, though. I wonder how you get a holiday named after yourself..."
Gerardo grinned. "Ah, the legendary Giovanni Goldfeather. He was my great grandfather, you know. I don't suppose none of you have managed to hear the entire story?"
"I don't know it," Maple replied, and Slipstream and Valey nodded in agreement. "You sound eager to tell?"
"In that case!" Gerardo loudly cleared his throat. "While we wait for the good Shinespark to arrive with her ship, sit back and listen to a tale that has been passed through the Guillaume family for generations..."
"Once upon a time, quite a few decades ago, there was a high prince known as Giovanni," Gerardo began, dramatically narrating from his half-log bench. "He had a daughter, Glacies, and by extremely rare occurrence she was also a sphinx. This granted Giovanni considerable power, since even a single daughter can be betrothed to any noble family wishing to prolong their line for an exorbitant sum of money. Remember, only houses who produce a male heir can continue to rule beyond the ruling lord's death, and having both parents be sphinxes is the only realistic way to get such an heir as such children are highly uncommon otherwise."
He drew a talon in a wavery line through the air, continuing on. "However, Glacies was headstrong and disliked the idea of a future with a lord she didn't love, and cared nothing for anyone in the Council of Lords at the time. In fact, she conducted an affair with a secret lover directly under his nose. There was great tension between the two, and everyone knew something dramatic was going to unfold. After all, a fortune vast enough to make or break a lesser house was on the line. It was set to be the family feud that would define the decade..."
His eyes narrowed, and his voice dropped ominously. "Until one day, Giovanni mysteriously ceased to care. Not long after, Lord Goldfeather perished as the last of his line, and Giovanni took his house and title, leaving behind Glacies and delivering a promise to the Council that one day soon they would all kneel before him for not taking his side more overtly in the feud. For months, he went about his own business administrating his new province and seemed to drop from significance on the national stage... and when he finally returned, it was with another daughter, once again a sphinx born to a non-sphinx mother, held in his paws."
The river rolled by in the background, a ship that definitely wasn't Shinespark's churning its way past. "And then he had another. And another. Giovanni had no wife, but he took concubines, and by coincidence or something greater every last one of them bore him a daughter and a sphinx." Gerardo's eyes flashed darkly, and he covered his face with a wing for effect. "How had he done it? Odds that would already be in the single-digit percentages slipped infinitesimally low, until only two possibilities remained: he had been blessed by fate itself, or somehow discovered a way to control the genetics of Garsheeva's holy species. Another year flew past, and Giovanni Goldfeather had yet more daughters, until his household was filled with so many infant sphinxes that once they reached maturity, he could wed every house in the Empire even if half of them went the way of his first daughter and rebelled. No one understood it. It seemed the statistical balance of power that backed succession and the transfer of power throughout the nation had been upended, leaving Giovanni at the very top."
With a whoosh, Gerardo leapt from his bench, beginning to prowl between the members of his audience. "The Council knelt, as he vowed. He declared that he would become the richest lord in the history of the Empire, and began to collect dowries then and there in the names of his daughters for when they were of age. Swiftly, he achieved that goal by more than threefold, propelling his backwater province to more than the rest of the Empire's wealth put together, Garsheeva's province of Grandbell included. In the span of a single year, a new world order was begun."
A nearby flame flickered within its glass lamp enclosure, and Gerardo continued to prowl. "Giovanni's name was whispered on the street corners, from aloof Wilderwind to well-off Everlaste. He set his sights on an even higher goal: the yearly fighting tournament, for a wish from Garsheeva. In his infinite hubris, ego and greed, Giovanni used his wealth to bribe fighters all the land over, reaching as far as Varsidel and Yakyakistan in his search of talent. He bought out the most powerful warriors for his own side, bribed or sabotaged the star fighters of other houses, and flooded the competition by recruiting the loyalties of over half those who entered with Golden Regents. What was once a sport, he forged into a military exercise."
Starlight jumped slightly as Gerardo appeared behind her. "Many were afraid, appealing to Garsheeva that he would conquer the Empire through his wealth and supernatural luck alone, but she seemed indifferent, restricting his influence from her grand temple but otherwise letting her empire go the way it would. The tournament passed around, and Giovanni's fighters advanced just as quickly as everyone feared they would. The last holdout not working for him made it three fights away from the championship; beyond that, every contestant was in it for him. Most assumed his wish would be for control of the entire Empire, or something equally heinous. Understand that after Giovanni ascended, he did not do so as a virtuous and generous ruler, but as an emblematic figure of money and avarice who treated his fortune as divine providence and a right to do as he wanted. He won the tournament, stood before Garsheeva, and was presented with his wish."
Gerardo returned to his bench, seating himself like a feathery specter. "Something you must understand is that Giovanni Goldfeather had sphinx daughters, and only daughters. While there was speculation he had unlocked the secrets of sphinx genetics, there was one thing some gradually began to realize he could not do: have a son who would continue his house line, as daughters are only allowed to rule as Empress of the entire continent. Now, Garsheeva's power is immense, but the mystical side of it is poorly understood next to the political and there is no precedent for her being able to control the offspring of a sphinx, and thus wishes for an heir are something that are never seen. Some expected Giovanni, in the ultimate show of waste befitting his power and disposition, to wish it regardless, to throw away his wish on an act that could not be performed as a way of displaying how he held himself above Garsheeva. Those some were correct, suspecting he would wish for a son... yet still underestimated quite how far he would go."
With a last rustle, Gerardo unmasked himself, wings returning folded to his sides and dropping some of the drama in his narration. "Giovanni Goldfeather wished to have a son with the Night Mother, patron goddess of all batponies, or sarosiankind. A being that has no physical incarnation, as far as any concrete proof can go, and is revered by a great many inside the Empire and even more beyond it. And when he made that wish, Garsheeva looked at him, with the entire audience to the final tournament battle looking on... and devoured him whole, the manner of execution reserved exclusively for heretics who break her divine laws, and that was the end of that."
"Wow," Maple whispered, eyes wide. "And that all happened? This isn't a story like one of Wallace's?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Enough of it happened that my ancestor took his place in folklore as the patron saint of greed and avarice. What's certain is his passing, the manner of his passing, and his house's dissolution upon it, left without an heir and a great deal of wealth expended on rigging the tournament."
"And his daughters?" Slipstream looked impressed. "Does that mean your grandmother was a sphinx?"
"Glacies herself, his first daughter," Gerardo proudly replied. "Indeed she was, proud and headstrong enough that she took over as the leader of the remnants of his estate upon his execution at the paws of Garsheeva. After its dissolution, the Goldfeather house estate was plundered for much of the wealth left to it as various provinces attempted to recoup their earnings, and his various younger daughters went about their ways and many wound up marrying into powerful families regardless. I can tell you Lord Stormhoof's wife is one, as is Lord Everlaste's. As suddenly as Giovanni appeared, however, his legacy seemed to vanish with the wind, as though history was determined not to remember the sphinx who nearly conquered the Empire and instead relegate him to a historical oddity with a single holiday to his name. It really is quite the tale, and genealogies and birth records can prove the important parts all happened."
"I just wonder how he did that," Slipstream remarked. "Having so many daughters and only daughters, and couldn't even have a son, I mean."
"So do historians throughout the ages, as well as his own family," Gerardo said with a shrug. "As far as I am aware, Glacies is still alive, though getting on in age, and even she doesn't know for certain. There are rumors and only rumors, and they encompass everything from scientific ambitions gone wrong to some sort of curse."
"Well, that was interesting," Maple sighed, getting to her hooves and stretching. "I don't think I've heard you tell a story like that before," she told Gerardo with an approving nod. "The performance, I mean. It was interesting."
Gerardo fanned himself modestly. "I merely copied my grandmother's style from my time as a young child in a recused country manor. Though I must say, what Wallace hasn't done, she was no small part in my inspirations of travel, wanderlust and heroism."
"Huh," Slipstream said, nodding. "Well, got any other stories like that for while we wait for Shinespark?"
"You won't have to wait much longer," Valey interrupted, pointing down the river. "Looks like someone's just about here."
Slipstream hovered, trying for a better look at the boat rounding the hill into sight. Ornate and mastless, its deck hung beneath the airy wire cage that normally held a pink harmony comet, and two figures could vaguely be seen through the glass windshield at the front. Maple waved, Gerardo saluted, and the ponies within waved back, one disappearing and reappearing moments later on the deck as the boat was guided into a dock. A small bustle of activity started below, several hired hooves and talons grabbing and tying rope so that the Dream was securely moored in place out of the river's main flow, and then it was done.
Gerardo and Slipstream flapped down and Valey just jumped, leaving Maple and Starlight to take the lift to the dock level and be the last ones to arrive. By the time Starlight made it to the ship's side, a gangplank had already been hoisted into place, and she hopped aboard, the rest of her friends already fast in conversation with Shinespark and Diego.
"It was probably a good thing I was along to navigate," Diego was modestly narrating, taking a slight bow to Shinespark. "We ran into some trouble near the mouth of the river at the Goldoa-Stormhoof border with a barricade on inbound traffic due to recent threats by pirates, but fortunately the guards recognized me and figured they'd make an exception since they knew who I was. How are you all liking Izvaldi? Anything worth being there for happen?"
Shinespark wiped a hoof across her brow. "It's been nice to have some time relatively alone on the water after Stormhoof. The Dream handles like a dream, too. That's Sosan engineering for you..." She blew on her spiky bangs. "But yeah, how are things here? Tell me what I've been missing out on!"
Gerardo immediately cleared his throat. "While I wasn't present for it, the most immediately interesting event is that some of us ran into another windigo-"
"You found another windigo heart!?" Shinespark interrupted, already tense. "This far away from Yakyakistan?"
"Not a heart, if you'd let me finish," Gerardo went on. "According to miss Maple and Valey, an actual live windigo like we encountered in the skyport on that fateful night."
Shinespark briefly sputtered, but before she could question it Diego hung his head in mourning. "Sounds like someone went and took you to see Puddles, then."
"You could say that." Maple grimaced. "We heard about what happened after from Wallace and Morena."
"Yep..." Diego glanced toward land. "There's no heroic exaggeration in that story. No point in it, when it doesn't have a happy ending. I still wish there was something more we could do for her, even with all we've been doing."
"I..." Shinespark swallowed, glancing around at everyone. "I think I might need the long version on what I missed."
Gerardo stowed his payment of apples in the ship's storeroom, and Maple retreated to busy herself making dinner, but the rest of the friends seated themselves in the reading room and went about catching Shinespark and Diego up. Gerardo did most of the talking, since Maple was absent and Valey uncharacteristically silent, but Starlight had to step in occasionally for things he wasn't there for and Slipstream always tried to help. For the second time that day, hours ticked by as the group caught each other up, and Maple finally returned to inform everyone that food was ready just in time to join in talking about the concert.
"You sure enjoyed singing along," Slipstream remarked halfway through her extolling. "I'm glad you felt it was that special, but..." She shook her head. "Sorry. I don't really know how to say this."
"Hmm?" Maple stopped and tilted her head, halfway settled into her seat at the table.
"No, no." Slipstream waved her off. "It doesn't matter."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Ironflanks sure seems to like it. Did you not?"
Slipstream frowned in embarrassment, everyone's eyes suddenly on her. "No, I enjoyed it a lot! I just didn't feel any kind of deep magical something like what you're talking about. I don't know, it... just felt like the words and melody were there and I could join in without thinking too much about it. Not all the things you're talking about. It's almost making me feel like I did something wrong or missed out."
"Most intriguing," Gerardo remarked. "I had a similar experience to miss Slipstream, though hardly an unpleasant one. I suppose I presumed the music had a different effect on ponykind than griffons like myself."
Diego shrugged. "Not to gang up on you, Maple, but I've been to plenty of concerts from the Firefly Sisters before and on the nights when there's magic, it feels like what those two said."
"Oh..." Maple bit her lip, looking slightly downcast. "But I couldn't have imagined it. It was like there was a presence, or I was pulled into the song and physically connected... I could feel everyone else around me who was singing too. It reminded me almost of the crystal palace in Ironridge, when I was sitting at the bottom. Did no one else really feel that?"
"I felt it," Starlight volunteered, coming to Maple's defense and recalling her own experience during the song. She had definitely noticed the ponies around her more strongly as well, and she had a recollection at the start of having a choice whether to join in, like it was something external that wanted to make a connection. "What Maple did."
Maple gave her a grateful look, and Shinespark glanced at Valey. "What about you? Did you feel anything?"
Valey frowned. "Yeah. It kinda reminded me of the way the dusk statue I found beneath the Stormhoof bridge felt, except without the intense feeling of being looked at. No danger, but just a little creepy, you know? I didn't actually join in."
Everyone looked at each other, and Diego shrugged. "Don't look at me. Chauncey studies their music and spends a large amount of time figuring out how to record it. Maybe he could tell you why it works differently for different people."
"Well, we'll add that to our list of things to do tomorrow," Slipstream offered. "If it's that great, maybe there's something he can do to make me feel it fully!"
"We could also do it tonight, if no one's too tired," Maple offered. "Chauncey did say last night that if we're looking for him, he's better to talk to at night."
"Hold up," Valey interrupted, looking at the table. "Before you all go making plans for tonight... I've got something I need to talk to you about. At least Sparky and Ironflanks, but Birdo and Starlight and Slipstream are gonna find out soon enough, so might as well have them in on it too. Sorry, though, uh, Diego. Not you."
Diego respectfully nodded. "Just say the word when you're ready, and I'll leave."
"Valey?" Shinespark glanced up, raising an eyebrow.
"You'll see. Be patient." Valey didn't meet her gaze. "If it helps, I'm really not looking forward to talking about this, but I've got a pretty good reason now to go ahead and do it anyway. You might even still have time to go bug Chauncey."
Maple pursed her lips. "If there's something you need us for, we can be here too..."
Valey didn't reply, tending to her dinner. The rest of the meal went by in slightly more silence, Gerardo volunteering yet another retelling of his adventures for the day. Eventually, the room darkened as the commerce building's shadow reached the windows, and Diego announced his farewell, trotting away with an earnest thanks for the food and an offer that everyone who stayed on the Sky Goat was welcome there again if there was anything they needed. One by one, creatures finished their meals, Maple and Shinespark bussing dishes, and finally the dining hall was still.
"...Mind turning this on?" Valey asked, pulling her sound stone out from beneath her hat and nudging it over to Shinespark.
Shinespark's horn pulsed with light, and the stone came alive. It took only a few minutes for Amber to answer, her normally chipper voice cool and reassuring. "Valey?"
"Yo." Valey left the stone on the table, not touching or holding it, its internal swirling of magic reflected in her emerald eyes. "Sparky showed up with her ship. I'm, uhh..." She swallowed. "Pretty sure I'm as ready as I'll ever be for this."
"Then do it. I'll be right here."
Valey touched the pendant on her chest and closed her eyes, but hesitated, stopping just short of saying something. Maple and everyone else watched, mixing concern and curiosity.
"I..." Valey started, then stopped again, pushing back a lump in her throat. "Bananas. I..."
Amber waited patiently. Maple scooted a little closer, offering a hoof. "I don't know what's going on, but we're here to help."
"Why does this have to be the hardest part?" Valey whispered. "Why couldn't I just beat up another yak or something? Ugh..."
"May I?" Amber requested gently, leaving no doubt that she wouldn't push anything too far.
Valey swallowed again. "Ugh. G-Go ahead."
"Shinespark," Amber requested. "The piece of moon glass in Valey's pendant. She wants to put it in Braen's old armor and see if the soul inside can use it as a body. She'll tell you why when she's ready, but I swear on my friendship with Maple and Willow it's for a good cause. Do you still have everything you'd need to do that?"
Shinespark looked slightly surprised. "I should? A soul? Braen's armor was designed specifically for my brand, so I don't know if another could properly power it, but I could find a workaround. And I don't have what I'd need to recharge the self-destruct mechanism I used-"
"No," Valey forcefully said. "No self-destruct mechanisms. That won't be necessary."
Shinespark thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Believe me, Valey, this is too weird a request for me not to want an explanation for sooner or later, but I'll take your word for it. It's not like Braen's being used for anything more important at the moment. Everyone else trusts this, right?"
Maple nodded firmly. "Amber is serious, and I trust what she trusts. And I'd trust you even without that, Valey. Everything I told you a long time ago in the Earth District still applies."
"...Without me even telling a word, huh?" Valey grinned, baring her teeth, and held up the pendant. "Huh. Well. Let's see where this takes my life this time."
The cargo bay of Shinespark's airship hadn't been used for quite some time, the group lacking anything large that needed loading or unloading. It presently lay dark and empty, save for a corner where Braen's armor sat strapped, packed and padded, still giving off a dull golden gleam from its lifeless horn effigy.
Shinespark's hooves clanked softly against metal plating as she brightened her horn, then flicked a switch, giving the room full illumination. Valey paused behind her, hesitant, Maple standing further back in the door to the food storeroom and the rest of the party back further yet. The hanging pendant rubbed against her neck, like it knew its journey was finally nearing the start.
"You're sure about this, right?" Shinespark asked, horn untying dozens of knots at once, swirling the ropes away and leaving Braen's armor exposed and disassembled like a child huddled in the corner. "And you don't want to tell us why? I trust you, but you know what Braen is... was to me."
"Valey and I talked about this in Riverfall," Amber replied, consoling, over the sound stone. "And several more times since then. Believe me, she'll tell you when she's ready."
Shinespark lifted Braen's torso and floated it before her, frowning. "Huh. I've always had her animated for maintenance in the past. It might be challenging to put this back together on my own..."
"You could put this in first?" Valey asked, nervously rubbing the pendant with a wingtip. "She'd be able to hear and see, right? Would that make it easier?"
"No, I've got this," Shinespark insisted, and a cloud of pauldrons and gauntlets arranged themselves precisely in her magic, bolts and locks magically being fastened. She touched her horn to a point on Braen's back, and magic seemed to flow from her into the suit, using her own mana output to power the systems used for self-assembly. "Feels wrong controlling her like this. I haven't thought of her as a suit of armor and not a pony in..."
There was another shuffle of hooves, and Valey looked up to see Starlight pushing the rest of the group out, leaving only her, Maple and Shinespark. She swallowed.
"And that's a good thing," Amber forcefully replied. "People aren't just limited to ponies. Griffons, yaks, sphinxes... and robots too, and even stranger things than them. What your body is or how you got it shouldn't matter as long as you have feelings inside."
Valey looked away. Shinespark finally stepped back, giving an approving huff as she studied her work, and Braen remained standing, a few lights glowing feebly.
"So how do we get this in?" Valey asked, concentrating until the stone dropped out of her pendant and into her outstretched wing. "Sparky?"
Shinespark frowned at Braen, taking the precious stone in her aura and hovering it close. She made a few more adjustments with her horn to the armor's back, sending it commands to move and open a panel on the bottom. As she lay on her back with her tongue clenched and her forehooves and horn working as one, Valey straightened and stared, meeting the armor's empty eyes. It was almost a head taller than her, thanks to additional mechanics in the legs down beneath the hooves and all the bulk required to make such a suit both defensive and capable of motion, but the neck seemed to bend down, willfully matching her height. Two complex wing mechanisms sat coiled at her sides, useless for flight but impressive in their own right. Would Nyala's spirit recognize that those were something she was meant to have? What would it even be like to have a golden body that couldn't taste or feel? Or would it all be natural, just like Valey had slipped into existence in another soul's body without any inkling of what she had been before? Maybe she wouldn't even notice at all.
"It's in," Shinespark announced, sliding out with her mane fanning on the ground. "Just need to turn it on! But..." She hesitated, frowning guiltily. "I know Amber said no, but are you really sure we can't know what this is about? This is the first I've heard of you wanting to do anything like this, and it feels... I don't know. Like if this somehow wasn't..."
Valey didn't know how she intended to finish, but she trailed off and even a minute's silence didn't bring the thought back. She swallowed again, glancing around the mostly-empty room... Amber had already been told everything, and it was just Maple and Shinespark. Starlight had thoughtfully closed the door on her way out.
"It's... pretty hard for me to talk about," Valey apologized, hanging her head. "Can I tell you half of it, and you promise you won't press until I'm ready for the rest?"
Maple nodded solemnly. "Anything."
The silence brushed Valey's ears, and she felt them flick. "You know Dorable? The factory chief guy who didn't do much of anything important, but helped you a bunch with this project and other things?"
Shinespark briefly turned her ears backwards. "He was the one who invented the procedure that removed my brand," she said. "We couldn't really have done any of this without him."
Valey let another second pass by. "He was from Yakyakistan. I got him that job. Was just a paperwork bungle, like a whole bunch of other stuff I did in Ironridge. I specifically got it for him when I very first got there, and requested he do research stuff to make me a body. An artificial one, that I could put this cutie mark... soul... whatever in and have it be alive again. I didn't see him much over the years, and I don't think he ever liked me. You could say I blackmailed him into it, though I did save his life. So I dunno if he did it for me, but that armor... technically, I asked for it first."
Shinespark watched, slack-jawed. "We never knew much about Dorable's background aside from his loyalty to the cause. He did anything we asked to prove it again and again..."
"Maybe he really was on your side and I was just an afterthought. I dunno. Ask him." Valey shrugged. "Hey Amber, you in Ironridge right now?"
"I am, actually. I went over today after our conversation this morning. I thought you might want someone here on the line."
"Sparky might, eventually. Thanks." Grateful, Valey looked up from the sound stone, expression sliding back to somber. "So, that stone there is what I wanted it for. I dunno if you knew this about moon glass or anyone told you or what, but empty pieces... aren't inert. To you guys, they might be, but if a batpony touches one that doesn't already have something in it..." She gritted her teeth. "Gone. Then they're in it. We just leave behind a filled piece and a shell of a body that's really not as cute and cuddly as I look right now. Get where I'm going with this?"
Maple held her breath, a look of horror crossing her face. Shinespark nodded solemnly. "So whatever's in there isn't something that fell from space, but someone you knew."
"...Yeah. My sister." Valey hung her head and closed her eyes. "I know there's a way to reverse the process and transfer something from moon glass back to an empty batpony body, but I don't know what it is or how it's done, and I don't really have her original body any more, either. So... yeah. That's what I want this for. Is that enough?"
"I think that's enough," Shinespark consoled. "I can see why it would be difficult to discuss something like that, especially with how things are in Ironridge. Mind if I ask what her name was?"
"Nyala," Valey replied. "And yeah... the hard part's not what you think it is, so I can say a little more if it becomes important. But..." Her eyes narrowed. "Hey Ironflanks, are you alright?"
Maple shivered, staring hollowly into space. "What did you say happens... to batponies who touch empty moon glass?"
"Uhh..." Valey frowned, then rubbed her neck, trying not to be cross. "Not the pleasantest memory, Ironflanks... They lose their cutie marks. Turn into hideous feral monsters. Happens pretty quickly; less than a minute. Not fun to watch. First the glass sticks to them, then their eyes turn gray, and of course I can't touch it either to..." She frowned harder. "What?"
"I might need to talk with you about something later," Maple whispered, looking disturbed. "Just so you know, though, we have an empty piece of moon glass. I got it as a keepsake to remember White Chocolate by, though I'm not entirely sure where in the ship I put it. If it's that dangerous to you, just know that it's there."
"Noted. But tell other batponies, not me." Valey turned back to the armor. "That stuff shows up loud and clear as danger danger danger. I'm probably the only one who's not in danger of accidentally stepping on it when not looking."
Shinespark nodded. "Ready to turn her on, then?"
Valey nodded back. "Ready."
With a pulse of magic, Shinespark's horn touched the armor's elevated back one more time. "Not Braen anymore," she murmured, sending in a carefully-regulated flicker. "Nyala."
For a second, there was silence. Then...
"Something feels so weird," the golden armor said, not moving. "Where am I?"
Valey's heart froze. She had heard Braen speak time after time in Ironridge, and knew her voice by heart. It was Shinespark's, but with a filter applied to make it sound magically enhanced and unrecognizable. This voice, though, wasn't that one: it was tone for tone the same determined, innocent mare she had lost forever six years ago, only heard since in her memories and thoughts during the rare occasions when she opened the pendant's connection between Nyala and her body. All it had taken was the courage to ask and five minutes of work, and her sister was back.
"Hello?" Nyala asked, disoriented yet perfectly clear. "I think something's wrong... I can't move or feel myself! Am I hurt? I don't remember what I was doing, or... anything, really."
"Nah. Nothing's wrong," Valey assured, feeling her eyes already start to water. "Bananas, though, sure feels like I'm about to wuss out and start bawling. As for where you are, you're safe, with friends, and a whole lot more alive than I'm pretty sure you've been for way too long."
The Immortal Dream's cargo hold was still, but it couldn't hold its silence. "Alive?" Nyala asked, the suit of armor that had always been Braen acting as her immobile body. "I am? That's good, right? I still can't feel myself... I feel... weird. What happened to me?"
"Your body is a suit of armor," Shinespark replied, trying to maintain professionalism in the face of her awe that the armor was still working with a mark other than her own. "What do you remember? I'm not sure how to explain things based on what you know..."
"Like I said," Valey added, eyes still watering. "You're safe. Bad stuff happened, and you're in a body that's pretty different from your old one, but bananas, it's good to hear your voice for real again."
Nyala made the sound of sucking in a breath, even though she didn't have lungs to suck with. "You knew me, then?" she asked. "Before whatever this is happened? Did... I die?" She sounded worried, face entirely unexpressive. "I don't remember anything about me at all. How long was I gone? And did I have a name?"
"Six years," Valey whispered. "You're Nyala. I'm Valey. Your sister, sorta. Those two are Shinespark and Maple, and they're some of the more trustworthy folks I've met."
"Six... years..." Nyala repeated, growing distant. "Wow. I guess I'm lucky to be back. I feel alive, sort of? I'm not sure how to tell. I feel like I should be able to move..."
Shinespark cut in. "Your new body can move, but it takes power to do so. It's supposed to be powered by the brand of the soul inside it, but I didn't design it specifically with you in mind. You might need to sleep a lot more than usual to keep it charged for when you're awake."
"Brands and souls?" Nyala sounded curious. "How does this work? Did you tie my mind to this armor? I can see and hear."
"You can see," Shinespark sighed. "Good. And it works through lots of technology I'm sure we'll have the time to explain if you want to know how it works in detail. For now, I'd like to get you hooked up to a proper power supply just so we can verify you can move, and take things from there. You might be a person, but you're also the subject of a science experiment to give you a new body."
"Okay," Nyala offered, sounding not very disturbed. "I'll just be here, unless there's some way I can help out!"
Maple gave her a conflicted smile. "For someone who just woke up with no memories in a metal body, you're taking this very well. I know I'd probably panic..."
"It's weird," Nyala said, unable to turn to face her. "I don't know if I was anywhere, or if I was, where I was. But some part of me feels incredibly relieved right now for no real reason, from before you even told me I had been gone. Like something bad is behind me and the best is yet to come. I don't get what's going on, but I just don't feel like panicking, either. It's nice. I almost wouldn't mind coming back to life more often."
Maple made eye contact with Nyala's visor slits, hoping that was where her eyes were. "Well, I hope you'll be able to feel it if I hug you, because it sounds like you need it."
"Heh heh..." Valey chuckled wetly, giving Maple a pat on the head with her wing as she strolled past. "Believe me, you'll get to do this at least once more when we get your original body back. That's a when, not an if. For now, though, I'm totally down with just hanging out and enjoying this..."
"I got it!" Shinespark called from the far wall, a cable strung with her magic that plugged into Nyala's back. "You're connected to the ship's main power, which is a little low but should be fine. Can you move now?"
The suit seemed to glint slightly brighter, and Nyala took another breath. "Oh wow," she murmured. "It's like there's a little voice inside me that's telling me how this body works that just appeared. It sounds like you, Shinespark!"
Shinespark nodded. "It is armor, after all. First I made it to protect me, and it got a lot of enhancements before it reached the point where it could use another pony's soul. It's also a work in progress, so instead of connecting the armor's sensors to you like a nervous system, it just mixes the audio reporting it would give a normal pony with the line from the microphones that serve as your ears. You should be able to mentally turn it off once you get used to it."
Nyala's head rotated. Then her legs moved, and she almost stumbled but seemed to catch herself. "Now it works!" she cheered, turning her joints more carefully. "I can move! Yes!"
"How is it?" Shinespark and Valey asked eagerly, voices overlapping.
"I'm not sure." Nyala waved around a forelimb while the rest of her stood completely still. "Sometimes it just does things all at once with me barely thinking about them. Other times it's one at a time. It feels... the wrong size, I guess, but I think I can get used to it." She adjusted her head so she was looking straight forward, then back down at the ponies. "I didn't used to be this big, did I?"
"Nope." Valey shook her head. "You were taller than me, but not by much. But eh, we'd probably have to train to use armor too, so I'm sure you'll get used to it."
Nyala looked backwards, trying to see the cable in her back. "It's saying something about my power levels. What happens if I unplug this?"
Shinespark nodded. "You have an internal mana core that acts as a battery. Under normal use, it can last up to eighteen to twenty hours, and closer to thirty if you conserve power properly. Given how the armor works, the worst-case scenario for running out of power is that you fall unconscious, but you should produce enough power on your own to at least retain your thoughts, hearing, vision and maybe speak at all times. I'll need to study the data after you've used it for a few days, and wouldn't be surprised if it's a few hours less for you, but a single charge should be enough to give you the same sleep cycles as the rest of us as long as we can secure a reliable charging point. Unfortunately, this ship's power isn't nearly as infinite as we'd hoped, so that could be a problem..."
"Woah," Nyala interrupted. "There are weapons in here?"
"Combat armor," Shinespark offered with a shrug. "I'll be disabling most of them, I think. If power is a concern, you definitely won't be needing to fly with the rocket boosters."
"I won't be able to fly?" Nyala sounded like she had been slapped.
"Wait a minute..." Valey breathed. "You were expecting to be able to? I mean, your old body had wings..." She ruffled her own. "I thought you didn't remember anything."
"I don't!" Nyala protested, taking a clunky step back. "It... was more like an expectation, I guess. Like how I expect to walk on four legs. This armor is supposed to do that, right?"
Valey scratched her head. "Weird... Must be because the armor isn't a natural body, or something. Whatever. Did I mention I'm glad to have you back?"
"You might have said that," Nyala replied. "I'm sorry I don't remember you, though. It sounds like... Woah, hey, you'll tip me over!"
"You're a suit of armor, you big softie!" Valey growled, tackling her in a ferocious blind hug. "You can take it! Bananas, I haven't gotten to do this in forever..."
"I'm still learning how this moves! I don't want to crush you!"
They hit the tread plate floor with a clang, a few tiny dark spots of moisture on the floor where Valey had passed by. Maple watched them from a safe distance, smile wobbling and chest tightening as Valey's hat drifted to the floor beside her, and she wiped away a tear with a sniff as her friend made far more noise.
"Sounds like mission accomplished," Amber's voice said from beneath the hat.
"It looks like she needed to do that for longer than I've known her," Maple whispered back, the stone picking itself up in Shinespark's aura and hovering between the two. "I'm glad."
"Yeah, like fifty times longer," Amber replied, audibly rolling her eyes. "We've known her for less than two months. Remember, though, no matter how much it sounds like this is the happily ever after... it's really just the beginning. I said mission accomplished, but it's more like mission successfully started."
Shinespark nodded away from the stone. "Braen was a constantly-evolving project. There's still a lot of incomplete features I kept documents on. If we could get a proper lab, I could add so many things that could help her feel like a normal pony again..."
"Not like that. This is a temporary solution," Amber insisted. "They're too glad to worry about anything else right now, and believe me, my eyes are wet over here, too. But I'll bet you it won't take past tomorrow morning for them to get up and out and start talking about what to do next. Valey didn't tell you the whole story, and I'm not going to break it if she doesn't want to, but at the very least Nyala's real body is still out there somewhere and they're going to try to get it back. So be there for her, okay?"
"I will," Maple promised. "You can be sure of it. Though you do a good job of being there as well, Amber."
"Heh..." Amber chuckled once. "Well, I've been busy with things in Riverfall and Ironridge as well. I might even have a surprise for you before long, but you didn't hear that from me."
"A surprise?" Maple frowned in worry. "It's nothing bad, is it?"
"You might be annoyed at me for keeping it a secret, but trust me, this will be worth it... and I'm not saying anything more! You'll have to wait and see." Amber paused. "It's something you'll love, I promise. In other news, I'm still trying to figure out why Hemlock did what he did, but am in Ironridge at the moment so if there's anyone you want to talk to, be sure to say within the next day or so."
Maple swallowed. "I hope you're right, because that just sounds like something to be nervous about. We'll call you tomorrow night at the latest, okay?"
"Deal. And if anyone else is listening, don't let them give Valey flak for all her blubbering, or tell her that I can hear it from here. She deserves this. Trust me."
Maple and Shinespark put the stone down, looking up instead. In the room's far corner, Nyala sat, looking as awkward as a half-animate suit of armor could and holding a leg around Valey as the batpony bawled, clung to her and generally made a racket. Maple gave her an encouraging smile, and Nyala saw it and nodded.
Behind them, the door to the pantry was still closed. Ignoring it, Maple climbed up several short flights of scaffolding, sighed, and stepped out through the door to the deck.
"...And that's about what happened," Valey finished, leaning against the wall beside Nyala, the great golden suit of armor watching with as much expression as it could. "I don't think either of us are ever going back to Icereach to live out our lives, but the crazy scientist that kicked you out of your body and stole it for himself is probably still out there. Doesn't have to be tonight, or tomorrow, or maybe even this year, but some day we're going to find him, make him dead like he belongs, and put you back together for real this time."
"Navarre," Nyala agreed. "That name doesn't really mean anything to me. I'm sorry. Do you think we could take it slow first, though? I feel like I should spend more time learning about the world and deciding what I want to do, instead of just getting up and running after the first long-term goal I hear about. I still have to get used to the fact that I'm a suit of armor, for one. It feels strange. I can tell this isn't how my body was supposed to be."
"Yep..." Valey stretched and got up. "First things first, I probably gotta get you explained to the rest of my friends. It's night out, so we'll probably have to wait for morning to go exploring."
Nyala took two clunky steps after her. "I like the night."
Valey nodded at the cable plugged into her back. "Yeah, but Sparky said you've gotta charge up before you can move around or else you'll just freeze and I'd have to carry you. Gotta wait until you're topped off."
"Well..." Valey fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable with her own freedom. "I mean, I have to sleep too, and you can move around when you're not charging? Look, I've seen that armor move before. You're a lot more agile than you look. And worst case, I can just carry you, or something!" She put on a smile she hoped was cheery. "I could at least unbar this door, if you want to meet my friends?"
"Okay." Nyala paced, twisting her legs and trying to get a better feel for their joints and motion. "That sounds like as good a first step as any!"
Valey pushed the door open and trotted through. Maple and Shinespark were further above, but Gerardo and Slipstream sat in the dining hall chatting amicably as Starlight looked on, bored. All three looked up when she approached, and Slipstream gave a hopeful salute.
"It was rather noisy in there," Gerardo remarked, concern edging into his casual tone of voice. "We tried not to pry, but it sounds as though something momentous must have occurred. Is it any of our business?"
"Did the armor work?" Starlight asked, being much more direct.
"...Yeah," Valey said, suddenly hesitating. "She's kinda tied to a power cable, though. Uhh..." She pointed behind herself with a wing. "Introductions?"
Nearly half an hour later, everyone sans the usually-absent Jamjars had met Nyala, exchanged amicable words, and was updated on the situation enough to know that power was a concern, Shinespark would be working on it, and that the two were sisters and Nyala being disembodied involved a thieving scientist from their Yakyakistani hometown. Gerardo bowed his head and Slipstream briefly folded her ears, but Starlight stomped off up the stairs, disappearing in a huff.
She burst out onto the shipdeck, far better lit from the open-faced commerce building than it would normally be during the night. The only pony there was Maple, standing at the railing and watching the river flow by, and completely by instinct Starlight stalked up to her, sat down and pouted, joining her in staring at the dark water.
"You sound upset," Maple commented, putting a forehoof on Starlight's shoulders. "Something about Valey's sister?"
"I guess Yakyakistan isn't a place I want to go to any time soon, even if it weren't for everything Herman did in Ironridge," Starlight sulked, slumping. "If a pony can get turned into a suit of armor against their will."
Maple gently stroked her. "It sounds like getting disembodied was the part that happened against her will. Being put in Braen's old armor is just a step on the road to being normal again. Valey sure was relieved that it worked, and once Nyala understands more of what happened I think she will be, too."
Starlight glanced behind herself at her bare, lilac flanks. "Talk about forcing someone to change who they are against their will..."
"You know, I've been thinking about that," Maple hummed. "Valey didn't even need a second to recognize her sister after Shinespark turned the armor on, even though every physical part of her was gone. No skin, no bones, no heart or lungs or stomach or even brain, but it was still her. But when Valey was telling up about moon glass for the very first time, she made it sound like once you use it, you aren't you any more... unless you're White Chocolate, and it doesn't stay. I wonder what it really is that makes you you, and not someone else."
"Hmmph." Starlight didn't need to wonder. She'd always known she would be able to tell who she was, and that she had to protect that, but if Maple asked, she also knew she wouldn't be able to put it into words.
"It makes me think about what a person is," Maple went on. "Cutie marks obviously have something to do with it, because the moment Shinespark put a cutie mark in that armor, it became Valey's sister. But what about creatures who don't have cutie marks at all, like yaks and griffons? And ponies aren't born with theirs. Plenty never even get them. And ponies like Shinespark who remove theirs and seal it somewhere else still remain themselves, too. But Valey also said if you remove a batpony's, that's all there is to it and then they're gone..." She touched the air with a hoof, the water still rippling below. "Don't you wonder what it is or how it works? There's so many small rules with tiny exceptions, but I can't see if they come together in a whole."
Starlight frowned. "No. I don't wonder. You're not supposed to mess with who someone is, so why would you need to understand how it works? It's not something that should have a meaning behind it, anyway! It's something that just should be!"
Maple's muzzle touched her ear. "Even to do things like this? Whatever Shinespark understands allowed her to bring back Valey's sister."
Starlight grimaced, and said nothing.
"And you, too," Maple whispered. "I don't remember that last night in the skyport very well, but I did something and carried you with my cutie mark after you used the harmony extractor, so that I could get you to the crystal palace and the flame there could keep you alive. I don't understand exactly how that worked, either, but it was definitely good. What if we were ever in a situation like that again? I'm curious, Starlight. I doubt I'll ever be a scientist, but knowing things like this has saved lives, and who knows what else it could do? Aren't you?"
"I don't want it to work that way," Starlight protested uselessly. "It shouldn't! Why does this have to be something ponies need to know? It's not fair..."
"Is it fair to Nyala to get a chance at life again when she unfairly lost it earlier?" Maple murmured, holding her softly. "I hope it is."
"It wouldn't be necessary if everyone had left her alone in the first place," Starlight sniffed. "Hmmph."
"How about we talk about this more in bed?" Maple suggested. "Or not, and just go to sleep? I've been out here for a while, and am getting a little chilly."
Starlight gave no resistance, and the two wandered back belowdecks, the ship gently bobbing in the river.
Morning dawned with the sun blocked by the eastern riverbank, but even if it hadn't been the sky was overcast and periodically threatening to drizzle. The commerce building was alive and bustling around them anyway, though by Nyala's account it had never gone to sleep... and she knew, because neither had she.
"I don't like it," she murmured, staring out a window as the rest of the group ate breakfast, finally untethered from the charging cable. "Why do I know what sleep is if I can't go to sleep myself? All I remember are things that are inconvenient..."
"I feel ya," Valey sighed, digging at her plate with the tip of her tongue. She had sat around for most of the night trying to convince the ensouled armor that being an unresting sentry wasn't so bad at all, ultimately surrendering and being low on sleep herself as a result.
"I want to dream," Nyala mumbled, tracing a smiley face in the window fog with a golden metal hoof.
Maple was up because she was the cook, Starlight was up because Maple was, and Shinespark and Slipstream were up of their own accords, the former too interested in Nyala and the latter too used to a morning job to reasonably stay asleep. Jamjars was missing, as was normal, so the group as it usually was sat and ate in subdued silence... minus Gerardo.
"Should someone wake him?" Maple asked, glancing up the staircase. "He's the local. I'm trying to cook things like what I see in the restaurants here, but I'm not the most experienced judge of griffon cuisine..."
"Who, Birdo?" Valey flicked an ear. "Nah, he left a while ago. Said he felt like doing some recon. Not exactly sure for what, but that's his call..."
Starlight slumped, picking through her food with a telekinetically-held fork. It had too many mushrooms, not that she was about to tell Maple and hurt her feelings. "He's probably looking for Wallace," she said instead. "To tell him about something or other."
"Good morrrrrning," a familiar voice that definitely wasn't Gerardo purred. Starlight glanced up to see a smirking yellow filly waddle down from above, her poofy wig wobbling with every step she took. "Who are you asking about?" Jamjars asked, strolling in a circuit around the room and helping herself to some food in her aura. "Gerardo? Oh, he might be somewhere. What's this?" She sniffed at the food she had taken.
"Biscuits and gravy," Maple replied, "and if you haven't had any you're missing out. We got them one afternoon in Stormhoof when you were somewhere else."
Jamjars flicked her tail approvingly. "Keep up the good work. Now, I have to return to the supremely important task of decorating my room, but if you're looking for Gerardo there's some kind of fight brewing in the town square. I didn't stick around to see if he was in it, but it wasn't easy to miss. Talk to me later if you're going to see the windigo, by the way. I went back to interrogate it and learned some useful things."
Everyone was slightly too surprised to stop or question Jamjars as she climbed up the staircase. "Jamjars!" Slipstream snapped the moment she was out of sight. "A fight? What kind of fight? And why did you go down there all alone!?"
"Well, at least she looks safe," Maple sighed. "I suppose there's no point in feeling shocked or angry now, but that really isn't a smart thing to do..."
"What, stick around a fight or chillax with a windigo?" Valey shrugged. "She's already enough of a sneak that I dunno if a windigo could talk her into much she wouldn't do already."
"Help me decorate my room and I'll tell you what it said~!" Jamjars sang from above, clearly enjoying herself.
Starlight sighed, slumping into her plate. "Do you want me to?" she asked, resigned that she'd get dragged into Jamjars' schemes some way or another. Besides, it was better than risking getting caught up in a fight that didn't involve her.
"Suit yourself," Shinespark said. "I'm going up to see what all the fuss there was about. Valey, Nyala, you coming?"
"Me?" Nyala tilted her head. "I definitely don't think I know how to fight."
Valey thumped her on the leg with an encouraging knee-bump. "Yeah, but I do. And only someone really serious about beating people up would go around in public wearing armor like that, so if we get into a scrape? Boom, all you need to do is make everyone think you're the bigger threat! Then I'll wipe the walls with them while they aren't looking. Come on, this is what I do for fun."
"I'm going up," Slipstream volunteered. "Not planning on getting involved with anything, but I'm curious."
"I'll wash the dishes," Maple sighed, swiping Valey's empty plate out from beneath her nose and carrying it back to the kitchen.
"Well, look who came," Jamjars announced, not even needing to look up when Starlight peered through the ajar doorway to her self-appropriated cabin room. "You're predictable, but also reliable. I really don't think the others realize what they're missing out on by not being friends with me. Slipstream at least tries, but you're still the only one who bothered to show up, aren't you?"
Starlight frowned. "That's a kind of rude way to say thank you. What are they missing out on?"
"Hearing what I did with the windigo, for one," Jamjars imperiously declared. "But more importantly..." Her face split in a silly grin. "Look at these!"
Starlight felt a groan building in her chest before she even looked at Jamjars' bed. The poster of Melia and Sirena that had been stolen from the Spirit hideout in Ironridge wasn't where she remembered Jamjars hanging it, and the remnants of tape on the walls suggested it had been repositioned at least three times, but now spread on the bed with assorted weights keeping them unrolled were five more, and Jamjars was pulling yet another from her mane.
"How...?" Starlight's eyes crossed. "You really like them, don't you?"
"How did I find these beauties?" Jamjars guessed, telekinetically flattening a poster that showed Sirena making an epic stretching pose before a microphone, Melia hanging with one hoof wrapped around her sister's neck and warbling her heart out while upside-down. "Remember that clown who dared to rob one of the world's best mares in the hospital? While you were interrogating him in front of that building, he was going on and on about what a Sirena fan he was and how the other was trash, so I figured I'd do him a favor and put his money where his mouth was for him. I still don't know why his room was full of posters of both of them. Probably a guilty pleasure. Either way, he wasn't needing these any more."
"...You stole posters from a thief, and the posters are of the mare he was stealing from." Starlight gazed uncertainly at the new collection. "Okay."
Jamjars smugly held out another. "Like I said, I was doing him a favor. Didn't want anyone discovering his dirty secret, did we? Anyway, I think I have enough for most of my important walls now, so if you ask really nicely, I could let you have a say in how they're arranged..."
Starlight frowned. "What did you even ask for help with, then?"
"Oh, I'm kidding." Jamjars strolled past and patted her on the back with a forehoof. "I actually desperately need help deciding where to put them. You can do that for free. If you want one for yourself, that's where it'll cost you... but since we're friends, I could give you a great price."
"Now you're trying to sell me stolen goods," Starlight sighed, taking a closer look at the posters. Now that she saw several together and thought about it... "Are you sure those aren't illegal? They look sort of... saucy."
"Saucy?" Jamjars' eyes widened, and she dropped her present load, giving Starlight a sudden, massive, unavoidable hug. "Eeeeeeeeee!" she squealed, rocking back and forth and lifting off the ground to the point where she nearly tipped Starlight over. "I knew you could recognize this stuff! Ready to tell me which one you think is hotter yet?" She pulled back, rubbing her chin. "After meeting them in real life, I'm going to say Sirena. I followed them both a lot, and Melia's kind of a downer. Especially this morning. How about you?"
"Neither," Starlight groaned, rubbing her forehead. "Neither! I don't get crushes on mares twice my age! And I don't need to have one to know-"
"Fillies who are your age?" Jamjars asked sharkishly.
Starlight pushed her back with a hoof. "No. As I was saying-"
Jamjars grimaced. "Colts your age? Poor thing."
"No! Shut up!" Starlight swatted at her. "I'm trying to-"
"Hmm." Jamjars seemed satisfied. "Well, one of those was a much more emphatic no than the others. It's okay to have a first crush, you know. What were you saying?"
Starlight groaned, taking a minute just to grumble. "They're sisters, aren't they? Siblings aren't supposed to like each other, and they never look like this in real life. But some of these make it look like they're flirting with each other."
Jamjars appraised the posters again. "Didn't stop someone from making them. And for some sad, lonely stallion out there, I'm sure that's just part of the appeal. Anyway, are you going to help me figure out where to put these, or what?"
"You were going to tell me about the windigo," Starlight sighed.
"Oh. That." Jamjars flicked her short mane, wig placed carefully in a corner. "Short version, it's annoying, but has clearly never had siblings. Maybe it got under my coat just a little, but it never did anything aside from trying to goad me into being reckless and stupid. So rather than visit it again or give it what it wants, I'm just going to do the least-reckless thing possible and tell everyone everything I can anyway. Then I'll go back, but only to gloat."
"Please." Jamjars ran a hoof over her ears. "Me? Getting trapped? I can recognize a snare a hundred miles away. It tried a little, but there's nothing it can do if I decide to take a day first to cool down and think things over before talking to anyone. Remember, it's the one who's locked up in a hole."
Starlight was hardly put at ease by the reassurances, but at least they were better than an open statement of bad intentions. Sighing once again, she sat down and resigned herself to pointing at various places on Jamjars' walls, wondering why she kept getting dragged into this.
Valey heard the hubbub before she even reached the commerce building's front door. Her wingtips itched to spread and propel her forward, and Shinespark and Slipstream might have kept up, but she steadied her pace for the sake of the golden armor lumbering along behind her, squeaking in unhappiness every time she almost tripped or fell.
"Sorry!" Nyala apologized as the stares of everyone who decided they'd rather be shopping than a part of whatever was outside burrowed into her gleaming sides. "This stuff's heavy and I'm still getting used to wearing it... Valey, slow down!"
Wasn't she already going slowly enough? Valey sniffed as she stopped to allow her companions a few free steps. Nothing unusually dangerous, but the exit was only a floor above her and already she could hear angry, indignant yells filtering down from above.
"Here I am," Nyala panted, catching up. Why a suit of armor could pant, or why it needed to in the first place, she didn't know, but nodded as they formed up, Shinespark bringing up the rear.
"Heading to join the racket?" a nearby griffon merchant called from his stall, shaking his head. "With armor like that making trouble, I wonder if Percival will rethink his decision not to have an Izvalden military. These days, I tell you..."
Valey frowned at him. "Just checking it out, thanks. We're not here to make a scene."
The griffon whistled a low note. "Well, if you're here to make a not-scene, everyone who benefits from peace and order would appreciate it mightily if you broke it up instead. It would be about time someone taught those Firefly fanatics a lesson..."
"Firefly fanatics, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Well, we'll see about that."
They reached level with the exit, and the plaza drew into sight, covered in a misty not-quite-drizzle with a large throng of ponies and griffons gathered about halfway around. Everyone had something to shout, but they weren't at all courteous about doing it and not a single intelligible, emblematic voice reached Valey's ears. Whatever they wanted, they wanted it too badly to even ask.
"They're clustered around the school," Shinespark murmured. "Fanatics, huh?"
Valey squinted. "Looks like they're mostly yelling at each other," she decided. "Doesn't seem to be a party line or anything, though. That crowd is one first punch away from becoming a free-for-all. Think we've got the firepower to shock-and-awe everyone into submission before some idiot kicks it up a notch?"
Shinespark shook her head. "If I was wearing that armor, and it was connected to me, I could make a big impression... but I'm not even sure what would happen if another pony tried wearing it while Nyala was inside, and don't want to test that in public. Got any tricks you can do?"
"Eh..." Valey sized up the crowd. "Well, I'm pretty sure I can beat them all in a fight, though that probably wouldn't be the best for my reputation. I guess..." Her eyes scanned the plaza, and settled on the fountain in the middle. "Hey, how good are you at levitating water?"
Shinespark followed her gaze. "If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, not enough to move all that. I could turn it to mist, though."
"A thick, low-hanging cloud..." Valey rubbed her chin. "Yeah, sure, let's fog them out and then see where things go from there."
"Or you could just grab one and ask what's going on," Nyala suggested, pointing at the crowd.
Slipstream suddenly dropped from above. "It looks like Gerardo's in the center, by the school doors," she reported. "What are we thinking?"
Valey pounded the side of one hoof with the flat of another. "First we make this place a zero-visibility zone, then we get explanations, then we either kick face or leave. Simple."
"What's the fog for?" Nyala asked, following Valey and Shinespark to the fountain. "It makes it harder to see, not yell. We can't make a crowd go away with that."
"Can't we?" Shinespark countered, leaning over the edge and sticking her horn in the fountain pool, where it began to glow and froth. "Protesters want to be seen. If nobody can see them, or if they can't see the effect they're having, they get discouraged. Ignore them and they get madder, but no one's even giving us an eye right now. Valey, get ready to blow!"
"On it!" Valey climbed on the edge of the fountain, locking her hooves in place and beginning to rapidly buzz her wings as the water vaporized and evaporated as a thick cloud. "Eat fog, bozos!"
The rising cloud quickly caught in her breeze, drifting quickly away from the fountain and spreading out as it hit the mob. Cries of indignance and outrage changed to groans of disappointment and incredulity as they were fully enveloped, and even those who had the foresight to look and see where the cloud was coming from couldn't make out the fountain or its inhabitants through the oncoming plume. In a matter of seconds, half the plaza was swamped, the dismal weather hardly giving a chance for the fog to break or burn away.
"Nice!" Valey held a hoof high, and Shinespark bumped it, her orange horn still letting off mist from the aftereffects of her spell.
Soon, ponies and griffons started to wander out of the cloud or fly away, backed by yells of annoyance from within, and those same quitters quickly noticed Shinespark and Valey. "Did you make this fog?" a sour pegasus in an unreasonably plush plumed jacket demanded, nose upturned. "Shame on you for attacking those doing their civic duty!"
A griffonness in a homemade Sirena costume abandoned her attempt to fly away to land in front of the four, sending Slipstream and Nyala back a step. "Hey, are you saboteurs!?" she demanded. "Think it's funny to leave the score forever unsettled, do you? Want to sit on your winnings and gloat until the end of time?"
Valey belched straight at her face, giving her a vaguely annoying smile. "Nah. I just saw a crowd, had no idea what you were yelling about, and decided everyone needed to cool their heads a bit. Nyaah."
"That's not de-escalation!" Shinespark cut in, shoving her aside. "I'm sorry, miss, but our first priority is preventing a fight, and we need the crowd to-"
"My butt you're preventing a fight!" the Sirena-griffon screeched. "This is your fault for trying to quit while you were ahead in the first place!"
"'Ey, stop it with your victim cards already!" a stallion shouted, his mustache taut with anger. "Don't ye tell the rest of us we can't be mad aboot no more concerts just because ye lost! It's aboot the music, not yer egos!"
"No more concerts?" Shinespark began, ears twitching in confusion, before the griffonness cut her off with a furious shriek.
"Says you!" she snarled, flying straight at the stallion. "Easy for you to go on about how losing doesn't matter when you're in the lead forever now! Your mustache is... Gyaaah!"
Shinespark caught her in a net of telekinesis, sending her crashing to the ground. "No fighting!" she hissed, straining to keep the thrashing griffon from breaking free.
"Ooh, isn't that a story," the stallion taunted, completely ignorant of the fact that Shinespark's flickering field was all that stood between him and getting his head torn off. He leaned even closer to the griffon, smiling sweetly. "For yer information, I don't always voote the same side. See what yer incessant side-taking got us in? Noo more music for any of us, ye filthy looyalist."
The griffon's eyes bulged. "Traitor!" she screamed, inventing a new octave and sending the stallion reeling with hooves to his ears.
"Yeah, okay-" Valey began, suddenly interrupted as a crack and more yells rang out. She folded her ears; a fight was starting elsewhere too. "Okay, maybe this wasn't the best idea."
"It was about to explode anyway," Shinespark consoled as her aura finally relaxed, the griffon slumping unconscious from a blow by Valey's hoof. "Still think we should do something, or run while we can?"
Slipstream winced. "I saw Gerardo at the center..."
Valey huffed. "Yeah, Birdo was bragging about how he was the least-roughed up after Ironridge. He can get a few knocks in. Bananas, am I gonna have to pound these clowns into submission myself?" Snorting, she straightened the fur around her hooves. "Well, here goes nothing..."
"One second before you do anything rash," a voice interrupted, and the four turned to see Chauncey holding a newspaper, music leaking faintly from a device clipped in his ear. Despite the risk of rain, he still wore his full regalia of pious, ornamental robes, the paper tucked partway inside a fold in the fabric. "I was hoping to see my favorite sisters about the front cover of today's news, but it looks like a mob has beaten me to the door. Did you come to see to their well-being too?"
"...You could say that," Valey slowly replied, her wingtips itching for action. "You, uh, sure you don't want us to do anything about that crowd, old geezer? Because they'll steamroll-"
"There he is!" another griffon shouted, pointing a talon at Chauncey and causing a momentary truce in the fighting in his earshot. "The Firefly Sisters' manager! Listen, you!"
"You think it's funny to end concerts forever!?" a huge earth pony roared, launching himself into a flying leap toward Chauncey. "I'll show you how it feels to be forever beneath-"
Valey tensed to launch into action and kick him out of the way, but felt a pressure against her chest telling her to stay put. The stallion roared... and suddenly, with a shock of energy that sent minor ripples across her vision, collided with a barrier made of transparent gray hexagons. The barrier fluctuated slowly, like a still pond that had had a pebble thrown in at half-speed, then winked out of existence the moment he slid off it and fell to the ground, leaving Chauncey unscathed.
Chauncey looked down at where he landed, then back up at the crowd. "That's enough," he commanded, holding about half of their attention. "After all my girls have done to entertain you throughout the years, you repay them like this? Did you even bother to listen to the hundreds of griffons and ponies who went to their concert two nights ago? I deliberately had them schedule it on a night before a holiday so the presses wouldn't run and word of mouth would have a chance to spread before some pretend public servant went and blew their announcement out of proportion, but it looks like it wasn't enough. Now let me through to see them, or I'll make my own way through."
The crowd was all focused on him by now, though their defiance was far from crushed. "Are you saying it was a lie that there'll be no more concerts!?" a voice in the back shouted.
"That depends," Chauncey replied, already walking forward and humming a tune under his breath. "On whether scenes like this one break their resolve to sing. No more contests, certainly. Duos, like the concert last night? Only if you deserve it."
"T-That's hardly fair!" a wavering voice called out. "I was at the concert and am here to express my support for their decision! I think it's unthinkable that anyone would pressure those poor girls to-"
Another voice interrupted her in an angry outburst, and was in turn silenced by several fearful nearby companions. "Go back to your homes," Chauncey commanded. "The only stakes to winning or losing the concerts were ones you yourselves provided. Clear a path. Don't make me say this thrice."
About half of the crowd moved, some resentfully and some fearful and frightened, but there still wasn't a clean path. Chauncey's eyes narrowed... and then the clouds vaporized in a mighty blast, an upside-down mushroom of wind clearing the fog and tearing a hole of blue in the sky.
"What seems to be the trouble?" a heroic voice boomed, and Wallace Whitewing fell from above, landing with a rumble and flexing. "I heard combat, and came racing across the skies!"
"Ah, Wallace. The griffon of the hour." Chauncey nodded in appreciation. "This simplifies things greatly. I'd like an anti-harassment order against the Firefly Sisters, which includes keeping crowds of loiterers away from their doorstep as long as it's necessary. Would you mind keeping an eye on this lot and breaking things up if they get back to fighting, and encouraging them to head home to their families?"
As Wallace thundered his approval, a slightly-soggy Gerardo slipped up beside Valey, Nyala, Shinespark and Slipstream. "At long last, friendly faces," he gasped, shaking himself and straightening his headcrest. "I'm quite relieved to receive backup. A scoundrel had set up a newspaper stand on that very porch with a front page that slandered our musical friends, and I wasn't quite successful in preventing the situation from escalating..."
"Wonderful," Chauncey hummed, thanking Wallace with barely a glance at the rest of the crowd. "Now, if nobody minds, I have some business to see to indoors." He waved at Valey and her friends. "You're welcome to tag along, if you like."
Wallace's girth was too great for the crowd to resist making a path as he lumbered through, and Valey slipped along, leading her companions as they passed through the volatile sea of quadrupeds and entered the double-doors to the school.
The school was fairly dark inside, floodlighting covering the hallways but all the classrooms unlit beyond. Someone must have canceled school, and with the crowd outside the door, it wasn't a surprise why.
"Sure is quiet in here," Slipstream whispered.
Chauncey stumped his way to an elevator, ignoring the ascending staircases, and the rest of the group followed suit. By the time its doors opened three floors up, the clouds outside had morphed to rain, and the first few trickles began to stain the top-story windows looking out on the courtyard below. Off to the side, Sirena stood watching the still-dispersing crowd, a conspicuously empty space to her side.
"Bad time, Gramps," Sirena murmured, not looking up from the window. "Could you come later...?"
Chauncey stood his ground far away from them, the building quiet enough that he didn't even need to raise his voice to have a normal conversation. "I just wanted to see to it that you're all right."
"Well, you haven't," Sirena sniffed, gritting her teeth. "And we're not. So go away."
Chauncey breathed.
Sirena's voice was barely a whisper. "We tried to come back, and they didn't accept it. It's really over, isn't it?"
The elevator hissed, taking Chauncey away. It was as if he had entered by a spell, and Valey blinked, only realizing by the noise that he wasn't there anymore. It was just her, her friends, and the lone Firefly Sister, her sides and flanks covered by the black studded jacket she wore.
"Uhhh..." Valey swallowed, feeling put on the spot. "Hey, for what it's worth we were there, and thought it was cool. Two nights ago."
Sirena stopped and looked at them. "Everyone who was did, and everyone was there. But now look at them." She swept a disgusted hoof at the window. "Our music was about coming back together, and now they've forgotten all of it in just a day! It's like they weren't even listening to the same song."
"But we haven't forgotten!" Slipstream insisted. "What happened!?"
Sirena threw a newspaper, and Shinespark caught it in her aura before it could hit Slipstream's face. Unfurling it, she looked over the headline and frowned. "Firefly Sisters announce an end to concerts to spite contest loyalists, true fans outraged... what?"
"You don't need to read it out loud," Sirena growled.
"By columnist Junior Waffle," Valey added, reading over her shoulder. "Dunno who this chump is, but I think we've found the next dude whose day I ruin. That's not what you guys said after the concert at all."
"What's going on with these concerts you keep mentioning?" Nyala asked, standing cluelessly nearby. "A concert is for performing music, but you're talking about loyalists and true fans. What's everyone so mad about?"
"I don't know." Sirena's voice cracked, despite being almost inaudibly low. "Our music has always inspired intense emotions. It's magical, not like normal music. But gradually... I don't know when it started... it began driving out listeners apart instead of bringing them together. Maybe our singing is doing damage to society. I don't know if I can keep doing it anymore."
Slipstream frowned in protest. "But isn't singing your special talent? Most ponies never even earn a brand! How could it be so bad that-"
Sirena's horn lit, interrupting her, and a magenta glow touched the tip of her black jacket. Slowly, it lifted the bottom flap covering her flank... and the whole room went still.
Her cutie mark, once two musical notes intertwined in a dance on a background that seemed to shimmer, was covered in a spider web of cracks, like paint flaking away to reveal ordinary fur beneath. They spread from the edges toward the center, like it was weathering assault from beyond and barely holding together, and if it shattered, it looked like it could make a noise when the pieces hit the floor.
"Melia's is like that too," Sirena murmured in defeat. "It started when this crowd showed up an hour ago and has been getting worse every time we look. That's how. It doesn't matter anymore. Our days of singing are done."
"Bananas," Valey hissed. "That looks just like Ironflanks' after she broke hers!"
Sirena started. "You've seen this happen before!?" she asked with incredulity.
Slipstream looked surprised too. "Indeed we have," Gerardo announced, deciding it was time to step in. "A good friend of ours had her own reduced to a similar state following a run-in with some powerful, unknown magic. It took some time, but she was able to heal it in full, so there's quite a possibility-"
"You can?" Sirena was instantly in front of him, tugging on his uniform and bowed in a desperate position. "This isn't irreversible?" she begged, eyes showing plenty of water now that they faced the light. "Help us, please! I don't care if we never sing for the public again!"
Gerardo winced. "As I recall, all it merely took was her staying off it for a while..."
"Nah, we're getting her to Ironflanks immediately and getting her advice," Valey declared. "Sparky, if you know anything useful about how cutie marks work like this, now would be a great time to speak up."
Shinespark just frowned. "What about Melia? Where's she?"
Sirena wiped her eyes. "I don't know. When it started happening, we sat together for a while, but she didn't want me to look at her when she lost it, so she took a cloak and left. I don't know where she is..."
Gerardo straightened up and saluted. "Then I shall do my utmost to search the surrounding area with all due speed!"
"I'll help!" Slipstream added with a tinge of panic.
"I'll stay here in case she comes back?" Nyala volunteered. "Seeing as I can't move very fast..."
Valey nodded sharply. "Cool. You guys do that; me and Sparky will get Hot Pink over here to Ironflanks and see what she remembers about that. To be honest, I've kinda forgotten what she was up to that night, so she better remember. Sky bridges, to avoid the crowds. Fly if we need to. Move out!"
"Her cutie mark did what?" Maple gasped, accosted in the middle of washing dishes by Valey and Shinespark standing in the kitchen doorway, Sirena tucked between them.
Sirena stepped forward and shakily lifted her jacket, revealing the cracked mark. "They said you had seen this before," she managed, voice torn between hope and despair. "Can you..."
Maple's eyes widened, and she quickly toweled off her hooves, rushing forward to touch the mark. "It does look like mine," she whispered in awe. "What happened? I misused mine on a powerful and dangerous magic..."
Sirena gritted her teeth. "I don't know, but it's spent the last hour getting worse! You still have one; what did you do!? Help me!"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you just stay off it and rest for several weeks? I don't recall you using it for anything until we arrived in the Empire."
"No." Maple shook her head, snapped into an emergency rush that let her act before worrying or even thinking. "I did eventually, but the first thing I did with it was hold Starlight when she almost disappeared. I didn't stay off it. I used it for hours on end, even though it almost made me pass out, for the most important thing I had ever used it for. And I don't know how cutie marks work, or if that actually helped or if this is even remotely the same thing that happened to me, but if I was you, I would start singing."
Sirena stepped back, looking fearful. "But singing was what started this! There's a whole crowd outside the school, even though our audience loved us the other day, and we can't bring them together. That's what our brands are supposed to do! I don't even have Melia here, and we need each other for them to work!"
Maple stopped her again. "Then don't sing for a crowd. We were all there for your concert, and I thought it was almost unreal. Just sing for yourself, or for us, or anyone, even."
"Uhh..." Valey frowned. "Hey Ironflanks, do you actually know this'll work? Because you just said this sounds totally different from what happened to you, and I doubt their marks got blown up by magic. Please tell me you're not just making stuff up..."
Maple drew herself up to her full height. "I don't know that it will work," she declared, more confident than she had been since leaving Riverfall now that she was put on the spot. "I'm going by feeling, because every time I've encountered harmony magic, emotionally is how I've felt it, and that's what cutie marks have to do with. And if I'm wrong, I tried my best, but I don't see anyone with better ideas and I think the best thing to do when you're in danger of losing something that helps you do what you love is to do it anyway, as long as you can. That way, at the very least, if you do lose it..." She heaved a shaky breath, composure starting to weaken. "At least you'll have gotten to do it one more time, and your last audience will have been a good one."
Shinespark and Valey nodded in support as Maple's knees wobbled, and Starlight rushed to her shoulder in case she needed it, having gotten fed up with Jamjars' room. "Okay," Sirena managed, also shaking but giving a game smile. "Right here, or...?"
"My room," Shinespark suggested. "It has the biggest bed, and somehow I get the feeling with the amount of emotion in this room, there are going to be more hugs needed later than we'll have legs left to stand on."
Valey snickered, but it was supportively, and Maple led Sirena back up toward the staircase. "I hope you're all right with accepting our help like this," she murmured as they walked. "I've had so many ponies drop into my life that needed something too badly for me to wait to become friends first that I don't really have a normal expectation of-"
"It's fine," Sirena cut her off, actually managing a small smile. "You haven't heard of us before this and don't treat us either like royalty or an enemy flag. It's pretty refreshing. Go figure you'd also be the ones to have encountered something like this..."
"I just hope we can help," Maple breathed, cresting the final stair.
"You already have helped," Sirena insisted as they walked through the library. "I mean it. Even if I did nothing now, not being alone in that school watching the crowd with no idea what's happening, waiting for the end..." She hung her head. "Helps me to see the appeal of being an adventurer."
They reached Shinespark's room, and the four mares plus Starlight stepped inside, the door closing behind them. "Are you sure about this?" Sirena asked. "Solos don't... have a special place in my heart, and I don't have one prepared..."
Maple shrugged. "You said yourself you're already feeling better. But you can improvise. It doesn't even need words. It's your song."
Sirena sighed, hesitated, tossed away her jacket, didn't even clear her throat... and straightened her neck, and the song began.
Several hours later, with the rain drumming down on the Immortal Dream's deck in full force and the sky as dark as late evening despite being mid-afternoon, a blustery wind chased Gerardo and Slipstream through the door, and they stumbled onto the staircase landing trailing water and a few crooked feathers.
"Woah," Slipstream breathed, taking a moment to catch her breath as she flicked water from her brow with a wingtip. "Running a search operation in a rainstorm is exciting! Now I need a towel and... and... a-a-aCHOO!"
Gerardo was considerably less upbeat, a grim frown on his face. "Yes, but we failed in our mission to locate miss Sirena's sister. All in all, I wouldn't call it a roaring success."
The door continued to bang above them until Nyala closed it, her heavy bulk good for stability against the wind. "I wonder how everyone here is doing. I hope Sirena's all right. Maybe Melia came here on her own?"
Slipstream shook a bucket of water from her ears. "If anyone's here, I can't tell. The rain and river are too loud, and it feels like I'm wearing earmuffs."
Gerardo finished rubbing his face against a stack of towels thoughtfully positioned on the landing, passing them off to Slipstream. Still soaked but no longer dripping, he could make do. "We'll search as soon as everyone's dry, then," he decided. "Since that armor lacks fur, I presume-"
"No, it's okay," Nyala interrupted from the library. "They're over here; I found them!"
The door to Shinespark's room was ajar, and it swung wider as Nyala, Slipstream and Gerardo pushed their way in. Dim but not dark, the roof was lit by a chorus of magenta, teal and sapphire motes from the unicorns' glowing horns, and Sirena broke off saying something to look up. Everyone but Jamjars was there, Maple and Starlight and Sirena and Shinespark and Valey, laying together in a row with Sirena in the center.
"Ah..." Gerardo raised a talon, then let it fall, trailing off. Sirena's cutie mark was blocked on either side by Starlight and Shinespark, and it was impossible to see if it was still there. "Any... success, perhaps?"
"We haven't looked," Maple answered, beside Starlight at the edge of the stack.
"And I don't want to," Sirena finished, looking like she was still getting comfortable with that many ponies in her personal space but also had no intentions of leaving. "I'm still making peace with either outcome. Did you find my sister?" She looked straight at Gerardo, magenta eyes hopeful.
Gerardo hung his head. "Alas, we did not, and not for lack of trying. Slipstream and I scoured every area we're familiar with of the central hill, and invited ourselves through Percival's mansion while miss Nyala hung back at the school. The lord himself was there and offered to send out an official search in our stead, which we gratefully accepted as it is raining heavily and unfamiliar terrain. Realistically, though, unless she is deep within the tunnels beneath this place or else in the administration building, we have not seen her."
"Where do you go from here?" Nyala asked. "Sorry... I don't really know much about what's happening. I'm new around here. But I can tell you're in trouble."
"And do you have any... idea why it happened?" Slipstream added, hesitating and wrinkling her nose as if about to sneeze.
Sirena looked down. "I'm trying not to think about why just yet. No matter what happens, we'll probably have to leave Izvaldi. Our careers here are finished, and even if we keep our brands now, staying might cause this again later. And I really can't look at Chauncey right now, either. After all he gave us, it looks like we'll be leaving with less than we started with."
Valey grinned into her pillow. "Well, our adventure squad here kinda got thrown together at the last minute and because we were the only ones who could, so it's a pretty open group if you want to hop on board. We seem to get along pretty well."
Sirena sighed. "You sure are helping me feel better, and I'm grateful for it, but I think that's too fast a decision. Sorry, but Melia and I need to find our own footing in life that doesn't rely on an organization or publisher or audience to back us up."
"And that's fine," Maple insisted. "We'll be here for a while, though, whenever we can help."
"If you don't mind me asking..." Nyala knelt down, slightly more attuned to her movements than she had been earlier. Clearly, she had spent the time alone in the school practicing. "What happened with you and Chauncey? I don't really get it."
Sirena eyed the bed. "As teenagers, me and Melia grew up in Varsidel and made money singing for taverns and small stage shows. Then, six years ago, the Griffon Empire's emperor and empress were assassinated on a diplomatic visit there. That incident happened in the city we were in at the time. It was bad... We had to run, since there was fighting going on. Then we and Chauncey ran into each other. He was traveling with a group of scientists, on their way back to the Empire from a research mission in Yakyakistan. He offered to smuggle us along in his convoy, and had enough official ties to get through the Empire's blockade. So, he gave us almost everything... but when we met him, we still had our music and each other."
Nyala looked shocked. "Your emperor and empress were assassinated? That's terrible!"
Sirena's jaw twisted in surprise and confusion. "...That's the part you're surprised by?"
Nyala squeaked, and took a step backwards. "It's fine," Valey quickly interjected. "She's, uh, not completely up-to-date on the state of the world right now. Memory stuff. No offense intended."
"I see what you mean about Chauncey," Maple replied, pushing the subject back on track. "And you said he did a lot to build your audience, too."
"He sure did." Sirena sighed. "He spent way too many resources building a system that could record our magic, not just our voices. He wanted our music to be available for everyone."
Nyala nodded. "I heard something playing on a speaker somewhere in the school while I was waiting. It was quiet, but was that you?"
"It's never anything else." Sirena shook her head. "At least Izvaldi will have all of our albums to listen to after we're gone."
"...You're talking like you're going to be dead," Shinespark growled, sounding distressed. "How old are you? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? I've lost an empire too, and it wasn't even some advisor's fault. As long as you remember what you were performing for in the first place, you have decades to pick yourselves up and try again, if it's important enough to be worth it."
Sirena halted. "You have?"
"My home city got turned into a crater by a flood." Shinespark gritted her teeth. "After I had dedicated my life since I was a filly to saving it, and believe me, it needed saving. There's a lot more, but does that sound relatable?"
Sirena blinked, then sadly exhaled. "Yet another reason I don't think the life of an adventurer is for me. But you're still up and going. Sounds like there's a trick to it?"
Shinespark nodded. "Take time to grieve. Remember what you still have. For both of us, that's time and friends... and I had a message from my mother that helped things as well. She was also a performer. You might like her. Remember what you're going for. I don't know about you, but I still think Sosa can be brought back and rebuilt... All its people are still there. And then, get up and keep going."
Sirena glanced back at her flanks, still blocked from view by Shinespark and Starlight. "There's an easy way for me to do that, isn't there?"
Maple nodded her head with an encouraging smile.
"I..." Sirena clenched her eyes, then stood up. "Is it there?"
Everyone else looked. The mark was still there, still cracked and broken but not quite to the point of shattering. "It's still there," Shinespark assured. "Can't tell if it looks better, but I don't think it looks worse."
"Mine took a long time to look better," Maple added resolutely.
Sirena choked, then started laughing, crying through closed eyelids and causing her black liner to run. "Heh... heeheehee..."
"Congratulations," Shinespark assured her, and Gerardo, Slipstream and Nyala emphatically nodded in agreement.
"I'm so glad you're all right," Nyala murmured. "But now that you know it's staying... what do you think caused this? I'm sure you wouldn't want it to happen again."
Maple looked at the ceiling in thought. "That's a very good question. Mine only broke when I used it to handle concentrations of harmony magic that must have been dangerously high. I recall hearing someone important from Yakyakistan saying Equestria's ruler herself forbade them from studying applications like this because it was too dangerous."
"Equestria? You mean the Plains of Harmony?" Sirena looked up, starting to compose herself but still shaking slightly. "What exactly were you doing?"
Maple frowned. "Far under Ironridge, there was a crystal palace with a tree and an enchanted flame. Some scientists from Yakyakistan had stored a large amount of the flame's harmonic energy in a windigo heart, which apparently exist. I tried using my cutie mark to draw that energy out and use it to attack some mercenaries that were fighting us."
Sirena shook her head. "I definitely haven't been doing anything with harmony magic, then. The most I've done is met Puddles a long time ago..." She paused. "You met her, right?"
"Yes you have," Starlight protested, pointing a hoof to counter. "Your singing is definitely harmonic somehow. It felt like it at your concert!"
"You're right," Maple murmured. "The feeling it gave me did remind me a little of being down there by that tree... but that can't be it. If that's what your cutie mark is supposed to do, it wouldn't break, and if it did break, it would be gradual rather than all at once. Wouldn't it?"
"...I have no idea," Sirena admitted, shrugging, already more upbeat than she had been. "I know harmony is a word Chauncey has thrown around in his research and equipment. I make music, not science." She paused, then giggled. "By the way, it's cute how you call them cutie marks. I like it!"
"I'm going to talk with him," Shinespark decided. "Not now, but I'd like to see this equipment of his. And even if it's not interesting, it'll be a good excuse to talk to him in general."
Valey nodded. "And don't forget Amber can get our resident expert in dark magic on the line if we need him. Dorable, y'know?"
"You mentioned Puddles?" Shinespark asked, glancing at Sirena. "Morena's daughter, that I've heard about? In the... hospital? I want to meet her, too, and find out what a creature like that knows about harmony magic."
"Wow," Nyala whispered from nearby. "The moment anyone needs it, you all just jump right into action for them. I wish I could help. This is the kind of magic understanding of could help me, too, isn't it?"
"Eh." Valey hoof-bumped her gleaming shoulder. "Chronic heroism and bleeding hearts. I guess it's why we're the ones who bailed out Ironridge out of the however-many-thousand ponies that are there, isn't it? And yeah, we're in this for you, too."
Gerardo grinned gamely. "I can't say with absolute certainty I haven't lost track of the plan, but there clearly is one, so count me in!"
Slipstream shot a concerned look at Sirena, still threatening to sneeze. "What are... we going to do with her, though? If something's hurting her and you don't know what it is, how can you guard against that? And you all think it's magic, but it sounds to me like there's been a lot of stress and pressure about her job. I think that crowd pushed things over the edge, and she started to give up. I don't have one, so I maybe shouldn't be talking, but I think you all are coming up with magical explanations for problems that don't need them and what you should be worried about most is how there's a lot of ponies and griffons out there who would form another mob as soon as they know where she is!"
Valey paled. "Oh bananas, you're right. You, uhhh... might need to hide out in this ship for a while? How many dudes saw us bail here?"
Shinespark shook her head. "The fog was still clearing, and we took a back route. Regardless, if anyone attacks my ship, that will be war and more than one of us on this boat is a trained combat veteran."
"We'll make you a disguise," Maple assured. "And only talk to Chauncey and Percival about where you are if you tell us to. We'll figure something out, okay?"
"Whooo..." Sirena exhaled, grimacing at the wall. "And you're all complete strangers I just met days ago, offering all that for me. Chronic heroism, indeed. Wallace has nothing on you guys."
Rain beat down against the hillside, flattening grass and streaming off a concrete walkway that trailed around behind the hospital building. Nevertheless, griffons and pegasi in heavy rain jackets occasionally darted through the heavy winds, following up a search effort that had been sparked hours ago. The walkway was empty save for a lone occupant, a short figure in ornate pontifex's robes that somehow repelled water. Chauncey stood above a puddle on the sidewalk, scowling at the reflection that his own rain shadow barely allowed to form.
Splash!
A tiny magical device hit the water, a broken ear clip at its side, still playing a faint jingle of the Firefly Sisters' music. Chauncey glowered, staring down at the thing as it lay facedown in the puddle.
"Stanza," he hissed, furious. "I am not pleased."
The ear clip continued to play, and Chauncey continued to growl. "Creations are supposed to obey the functions they're created for, yet all you've done is alienate my favorite sisters from me, and I suspect you've caused a riot in my town. Do you know how unhappy it makes me to see signs of civil unrest?"
Rain thundered around him, though the device continued to play and somehow reach his ears.
Chauncey's frown tightened even further. "I'm through with you," he whispered, voice low and dangerous. "I don't need your song, and the world would clearly be better off without it in the first place! I'll next be in the area during the second tournament round, so if you don't fancy having all your plugs pulled and being banished to the deepest, darkest cavern in Izvaldi, change your tune!"
Crunch! His robe moved over the fallen device, and when it pulled back, the music had stopped, the smooth casing that held it cracked and crushed. "Hmmph," Chauncey snorted, looking away. "Now look at what you've made me go and do. Oh well. The next one will be all originals and none of you."
The rain pounded, and a pegasus rode a gust overhead. Chauncey stepped past, abandoning the crushed device to the elements and returning to his wandering.
A few more minutes passed once he had stepped out of sight... and then the bottom of a large downspout detached and turned yellow, its coloration shifting back to that of a violently-shivering Jamjars. "Achoo!" she managed, convulsing, frantically wiping her nose and thankful she had maintained camouflage and composure for that long. Her little ears were flattened by the rain, but they had heard every last word, and she beelined for the device, scooping it in her telekinesis and hiding it inside an armpit. It was large enough to make walking difficult, but that was fine. Suspicious and, though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, the slightest bit scared, Jamjars sneezed again and left, making her way through the shadows to the commerce building and the Immortal Dream.
A door clattered above the Immortal Dream's library, where Sirena and the others were sitting around and trying to stay in good spirits while dancing around the subject of what to do next. A rapid, thumping descent on the staircase followed, and Jamjars hit the bottom, more tumbling than running. She sat up and shook out her short mane, looking thoroughly trounced by the storm and earning quite a few perked ears.
"Jamjars?" Maple blinked, surprised. "I thought you were in your room! What were you doing out there?"
Jamjars sneezed. "What would I be doing in there when... nngh..." She rubbed her wet nose. "When you've got Sirena on board and Melia ran off somewhere? Obviously, I was helping the search! Everyone they've got for it right now is incompetent, so they needed me."
"You don't look like you've had a very good time of it either," Gerardo remarked, lifting a talon. "If you don't mind me saying, you're quite soaked, and miss Melia is not accompanying you."
Slipstream shivered as well. "Good to know the storms here are just like they are in Ironridge," she murmured, wrapped in her signature sweater. "Must be proximity to the mountains..."
Gerardo grinned. "Oh, there's one very big difference that will kick in should it grow a little fiercer, I assure you. You'll know it when you see it, and it's something you won't want to miss."
Jamjars huffed. "I wasn't looking for Melia. Everyone else was already doing that, and I like Sirena more anyway. I was-"
Whap! A hardened sheet of magenta telekinesis slapped her cheek so hard she nearly fell over, and Sirena was standing, breathing heavily and eyes thunderous. "Never say that," she hissed, tail lashing. "She and I are equals! Pretending anything otherwise is what started all this!" She started to droop, realizing the rest of the room was staring. "I thought... I thought... sorry. I knew I hadn't known your group long enough to have a full impression. I should go..."
"No, stay, please!" Maple got up too, eyes wide in alarm yet completely ignoring Jamjars. "That's not what any of the rest of us think! S-She..." She swallowed, hesitant to throw Jamjars under the cart. "Her upbringing was very... on her own. Please forgive her."
Sirena halted, at least, not leaving but instead looking at Jamjars on the ground. The filly was petrified with wide eyes by a mix of outrage at being hit and shock at who had hit her, and didn't move.
Then Sirena slumped. "I just hit a foal," she whispered, horn going out. "I'm supposed to be a school principal! I hate this fight more than anyone, and even I'm getting caught up in it! What's wrong with everyone here...?"
She slumped further, collapsing to the ground with all four legs beneath her and trying and failing not to cry. "I'm sorry," she hissed as Maple and Shinespark ran back to her sides. "I shouldn't have done that..."
Jamjars sniffed disdainfully, getting back up so she could look down on her poster idol. "What I was going to say," she growled, "is that I was following Chauncey instead to see if he was doing anything suspicious, and he was. So do you want to know if he was sabotaging you or not?"
Sirena sucked in a very sharp breath and opened her eyes. "He what?"
The broken earpiece hit the floor, landing in the puddle that was still spreading from Jamjars' soggy form. "I followed him behind the hospital building," she muttered. "He thought he was alone, so he took that off and threw it away and started talking to it or his reflection or someone I couldn't see." Her orange eyes narrowed. "He called them Stanza, I think, and he blamed them for making you hate him, for starting a riot somewhere and for ruining your career. He was furious, and said he created them and something about banishing them during the second tournament round, and also mentioned something about them having a song. Then he smashed this and walked away. Interesting?"
Everyone blinked, especially Sirena. "I don't think I've heard a word about any of that," Maple murmured. "Stanza... That has something to do with music, right?"
"...What are you saying?" Sirena demanded, hardly looking ready to believe what she had been told. "That Chauncey has some... thing that's responsible for all the chaos that's happened with our concerts? He was our biggest advocate! And..." She slowed down, stumbling. "And also our producer, and manager, and he came up with the idea for the contest concerts in the first place..." Her eyes widened as she started to connect possibilities. "What are you implying?"
Shinespark gave a grim smile. "She's implying that someone's up to no good, and I've seen enough conspiracies to wonder if you have one in Izvaldi too. That said, you're the local, so you'd know more than us. Does that name ring any bells? Stanza?"
"I wish my life would go back to normal," Sirena whispered, ignoring the question. "I wish I had a normal to go back to..."
Gerardo puffed out his chest, stepping in to take charge. "I, as the other semi-local, can say I don't recall any historical figures within immediate Empire lore by that name, though I'm well-prepared for the task of researching."
"This is just a thought, but..." Slipstream hesitated, looking outclassed. "You don't suppose windigoes have names, do you?"
Everyone looked at her in surprise and vague alarm. "That's impossible," Sirena replied. "You're talking about Puddles, right? Morena's daughter? They're trying to heal her!"
"As much trust as you have in your institution..." Gerardo sighed. "Understand that we are but newcomers on the Izvalden scene. With the singular exception of Wallace Whitewing and his team, every last person here we have only just met, and do not have years of relationships to judge and understand them by. Thus, all are equally suspect to us. If we are hunting a conspiracy, it is our duty to do it with every lead available to us!"
"Including this one." Maple scooped up the crushed device Jamjars had dropped. "Shinespark? Do you think there's anything you can learn from studying this?"
Shinespark shook her head. "If it's an audio player, I doubt it. I can check it if you want, but there are plenty of other things for me to look at, too."
The excitement in the room continued to grow as plans were formed and it was decided upon that Puddles would be visited again... until Valey loudly and crossly cleared her throat, bringing everything to a standstill. "Yes?" Gerardo asked, giving her a raised eyebrow.
"Hold up, slow down. Not so fast." Valey strolled out into the middle of the group, frowning. "Aren't you forgetting like three really huge things?"
Everyone blinked at her.
"First." Valey made a tick on her wing. "We're currently not involved in anything that's going on here. Maybe there's something, maybe there isn't... My money's on there is, but we're not obligated to do anything. You remember how hard you got stuck in something you couldn't back out of in Ironridge, right? This meeting right here is your warning. Stick your noses any further, you might be in all the way. But you could also bail and just say you were giving Sirena a place to hide out right now, and leave everything at that."
She sucked in a breath. "Second, not only are we under no obligation to help out, but Izvaldi already has a team of professional adventurers who are supposed to deal with exactly these kinds of lemons. Y'know, Wallace? They're literally being hired to do this. We could either tell him all that or even trust he knows it and is already working on it, unless you think he and his pals are somehow in on it so far that they're bad guys and we'd be up against them... and I hate to admit it, but they've got us outclassed. And third."
Her gaze met Nyala, and she gave a reassuring smile. "We literally just started something we said we were gonna do because this seemed like the most stable things were going to be in a really long while. You guys want to hunt ghosts because the yellow sponge here heard a senile old bat yelling at a puddle? Sure thing. But... my priority list is already full. One thing at a time, and there's someone else who needs my attention."
"Thanks, Valey," Nyala breathed, sounding relieved. "I had been feeling kind of forgotten. I don't want to say anything because it sounds like what you all are doing is super important, but I really could use your help."
"Nah." Valey walked over and hoof-bumped the armor's shoulder with a reassuring smirk. "They can chase Stanzas and windigoes and whatever else. You and me, we got this."
Sirena was the first to speak up, looking slightly in awe of the decision-making process. "Huh. Here I was thinking you all knew exactly what to do with problems like this, but you're just like my school board. It's kind of endearing!"
"Decide whatever you want," Jamjars grumbled, nose already turning red. "I'll listen around for more things when I can. I need to go dry off..."
Sounding stuffy, the filly waddled away, leaving everyone else staring uncertainly. "Perhaps we should put this to a vote?" Gerardo suggested.
"I vote no vote," Maple declared. "Valey's right, and I really should pay more attention to her because I get way too carried away and excited with things like these. Thank you for slowing us down, Valey." She exhaled, grateful. "Here's what I see: there are a lot of us." She did a quick count, moving her hoof. "...Four, five, six... Nine of us counting Sirena and Jamjars. That's a lot of bodies, and we don't all need to be doing the same thing, or even anything at all. I'm not sure me and Starlight will be good for anything in terms of investigation or fighting, but if Sirena wants to stay here and Nyala does too, we're happy to stay and cook and keep company. Valey, you want to stay with Nyala too. I doubt Jamjars will listen to me, but that leaves Gerardo to research and Slipstream to help him if you want, right? And then Shinespark. You're really the only one of us who has too much to do..."
Shinespark shrugged. "I could spend time tinkering on the armor, but I think talking to Chauncey would be a lot more productive. I at least want to ask him what he knows about harmony magic from recording the sisters' songs, because that could give me an avenue to pursue if he's doing anything suspicious and could also tell me something that would help with Nyala if he's not."
"And Melia?" Sirena asked. "It sounds like you want me to live here for a while, but the town will be worried if I disappear too. I could just go about my usual life in public and keep the school running?"
"You could," Gerardo agreed. "But I thought your brand ceasing to function was a concern."
Sirena's eyes widened, as if she had forgotten that completely. "You're right...!" She deflated slightly. "But you also didn't know why..."
"Suppose what Jamjars overheard has something to do with it," Shinespark suggested. "It sounded like even if Chauncey is involved with something going on, he wasn't happy about how it went. Maybe we should just ask him directly and see if he has any way to help, or knows what could be causing it?"
"I wish we knew something about his true intentions," Gerardo muttered. "There's quite a difference between him being in on something, yet on our side, and being an enemy agent or even kingpin."
"Well, we'll have to figure out," Shinespark sighed. "For now, let's just wait for the storm to blow over. For all this suspicion, the only hint of a timer we have is something about the tournament's second round, and that's a month away."
Gerardo nodded. "Indeed. I, for one, well remember what occurs when we rush things..."
The storm kept hammering the central plaza, winds high enough that the griffons and pegasi had stopped their flying outside of the immediate shelter of the ring of six buildings. Within the circle, it was calmer, though still inundated with rain, and a thick Riverfall poncho was all that stood between the elements and Shinespark's fuzzy orange coat.
Valey and Nyala followed along at her sides, the former also hugging a poncho to her chest and the latter without fur to worry about. They were the ones who had left the Dream following several more rounds of careful discussion punctuated by breaks to ensure everyone had time to think, and it wasn't difficult to find their target.
"Good evening," Chauncey greeted, standing next to the overflowing fountain in his fancy robes, not at all looking like he had just suffered a fit of anger... though a close look told all three that he was definitely missing the earpiece he had worn before. "About time I saw someone else willing to brave the elements. How's Sirena doing? There've been reports that Melia is missing, so I hope she hasn't left your care."
The rest of the plaza was deserted save for ponies darting along covered skybridges, and the rain was loud enough Shinespark didn't have to worry about speaking freely. "We took Sirena back to our ship," she answered. "She wants to lay low for a few days in case something like this happens again. You don't have to worry about her."
"Good," Chauncy replied. "Those are some wise choices you made. The girls mean a lot to me, so anything you can do for them is sorely appreciated."
"Yeah, well..." Valey looked out from beneath her hood, signature beret stuffed in there as well. "We figured we'd come pass along the message."
The plan was simple: tell the truth, and only the truth, about what had happened, yet leave out any guesses or suspicions that would involve a commitment. "She wasn't in a good way," Shinespark said. "Her brand had started to crack, physically. Luckily for her, we had seen something like that before, and might've been able to stop it from getting worse. Time will tell for sure."
At that, a look of shock flickered across Chauncey's usually-controlled face, and his eyes hardened. "Say that again."
"Her brand. Cutie mark. Butt sigil." Valey patted herself beneath the poncho. "Looked like you'd taken a dinner plate and chipped all the edges. Don't suppose you'd know anything that could cause that? 'Cuz she's kinda afraid to come back out here until she knows what it was."
Chauncey actually moved, stepping closer and appraising them. "Intriguing. I can't say I've ever encountered an affliction like that, yet you say it's plaguing my girls?"
"Sirena's was," Nyala answered, trying to participate as well. "She said Melia's was too, but I didn't see her."
Chauncey faced away from them, yet gave a dangerous look out of the corner of his eye. "What are the odds they'll be alright?"
Shinespark frowned. "We don't know enough to say. Especially for Melia, since we couldn't find her. Sirena seems to be fine for now, but that's why we're looking for a cause. The last time we saw this, it happened due to mishandling a dangerous magical artifact. Anything you know about large amounts of experimental magic would be helpful to tell us if you want us to do the best we can, and you seemed to think this was out of your league. Especially if it has to do with harmony magic."
"Those are some interesting words you're using, there," Chauncey said, watching with beady eyes. "You mean to tell me you've been studying harmony magic?"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Have you?"
Chauncey almost chuckled. "It's the underlying principle behind how their songs work! Of course I've studied it. And here you are, telling me I've not only met another expert in the field but any knowledge I've gained might be helpful in healing some malady with my girls. Never thought I'd see the day. Why don't you three come with me? I'd like to introduce you to some of my laboratories."
Shinespark glanced at Valey, and Valey shrugged. "Seems like a good idea to me."
If it was a trap, Valey hadn't detected anything. Shinespark nodded. "That sounds like it would be worthwhile! I'm eager to see-"
Suddenly, a rumble deeper than thunder sounded in the far distance, and the cloud cover fluctuated above like the disturbed surface of a pond. Shinespark jumped, Valey hissed, and Nyala glanced worriedly at the sky, rain trickling into the empty eye slits on her visor. "What was that!?"
Chauncey raised an eyebrow in interest. "Haven't been present for a good soaking in the Empire before, have you? If Sirena's stable, my laboratories can wait. You three might want to head over where you can see the sky, oh... that way." He pointed beneath his robes out through the slit between the theater and the commerce building, to the southwest.
Suspicious, Valey stalked through the opening, stopping against the edge right before she became exposed to the storm's full winds. Shinespark huddled to a stop beside her, and Nyala was too heavy to need to worry about being blown away.
KROOOOOOM! There was another rumble in the distance, and something massive struck the storm from above. A shockwave of lightning bolts rippled outward from the impact and raced along the clouds, and with them the rain quintupled in force for an entire second... and then stopped, as if the clouds were a dripping sponge that had just been wrung clean.
Visibility improved from the plaza's width to the horizon, the clouds a foamy gray sea above the river and miles and miles of farmland. Another shockwave touched down in the distance, the clouds buckling in a distended lump toward the ground that was the size of the central hill... and seconds later, the sound arrived, separated from the sight by the sheer distance it had to travel.
Rays of sunlight leaked through between tears in the clouds as the battered storm tried to resume its shape and continue raining. Then it was struck again, splitting completely, cracks splintering all the way to Shinespark's perch and showering the land with sunlight. A hole had been torn straight through the storm in the distance, and as they watched, a huge, reaching paw stretched down through the hole, claws extended, and slammed into the underside of the sea.
With a noise like tearing wool, a strip of clouds a mile long was torn from the blanket like a cat shredding carpet, revealing the figure who had caused this: wings spread, so large she was visible miles away, there was a sphinx, rapidly chewing the strip of clouds to nothing. Garsheeva attacked the storm again, yanking free another strip of clouds and not even bothering to dismantle it before going for another still. The storm rapidly began to lose structure and collapse; Garsheeva was tiny compared to it, yet her attacks held a wide-reaching destruction. Even at that distance, she couldn't have been too big to fit comfortably in the central plaza, yet she blasted back and forth, disarming the storm and clearing an entire countryside with a single set of paws.
When the winds were gone and the clouds bullied into submission, drifting uncertainly in shredded patches around the sky with the bulk of their water and energy banished by Garsheeva's magic, she finally deemed her work done. Spreading her wings even fuller, the sphinx hovered in the air for all to see, letting the sun burn around her and casting a shadow across a distant valley... and then angled herself and flew, jetting with supersonic speed beyond the southern horizon.
"...Okay." Valey swallowed, voice slightly weak. "I always knew fliers could do a little stuff with clouds, and all... Never really tried it myself, since the storms are lousy everywhere I've lived... but that was seriously cool. Am I allowed to have a thing for her?"
"One creature just leveled an entire storm," Shinespark whispered, completely awestruck. "The last time I saw that..."
"The storm came from the south, right?" Nyala asked, the shadow of the southern mountains still visible on the horizon despite being a full day's flight away. "Why did she wait to break it until now?"
"So the northerners can have their share of watching her do that, too," Chauncey explained. "Yakyakistan and the Misty Mountains worship their runes and sigils and ancient ways, but faith in the Empire works in a slightly different manner. Here, everyone can see the power of a god merely by stepping out their front door."
"Glory to Garsheeva! May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world!"
Shinespark blinked, quickly realizing that she and her friends weren't the only ones who had come out to watch the great sphinx clear the storm. A posse of ponies and griffons who worked in the various central buildings had emerged, including a sizable number of batpony mares clustered around a larger, pale peach leader, and plenty of office types from the administration building. The commerce building opened to the south, so no one needed to leave that to watch.
The chant rang out over the hills as most of the crowd lifted hooves or talons in salute and cheer, and then they began to disperse and head back inside, some eager to return to their duties and others looking like they had been present as a matter of ritual. But others acted like they had just been given a divinely-appointed break, standing around on the wet walkways and grass as water dripped loudly from eaves and chugged down downspouts. For a minute, a rainbow hung in the air as the sun unleashed its presence on the last bit of rain, and the weather continued to clear until the temperature rose and everything was fair.
"Guess we won't be needing these." Valey shrugged and wiggled her way out of her poncho, and Shinespark used her horn to do the same, shaking the thick rubber garment free of most of its moisture and letting her coat decompress against the sun. It wasn't hard to understand why some ponies were staying, the air laden with petrichor and the sky suddenly inviting. The world felt like it was waking up, a wave of refreshment almost as good as a full night's sleep blowing through the grass.
"Chauncey!" a strict voice suddenly demanded, and before Shinespark had time to process where it was coming from, Valey snapped to her side, hiding behind her.
Shinespark frowned, and Nyala looked with her. The large, peach-colored batpony who seemed in charge of the rest of the ones there was crossly making her way over, a reluctant, other mare in tow. Chauncey, standing nearby and admiring the sky in his ornate pontifex's robes, gave her a raised eyebrow as she approached, but no words.
"Watch out," Valey hissed, mouthing in Shinespark's ear. "That's Meyneth! Runs the service staff in Percival's place! If she sees me, there might be trouble!"
"You." Meyneth ignored them entirely, marching straight to Chauncey and giving him a cross stare. "I've been hearing stories those Firefly Sisters of yours have gone missing. Small wonder, with the cover article on today's paper. Pressuring them into concerts that split their fans and chase them away..." She tsk'd, clicking her teeth. "Will you never learn what it means to respect your family?"
Chauncey countered with a coldness Shinespark had rarely felt coming from another pony... bearing in mind that Herman was a yak. "You know as well as I do how I feel about family," he hissed, eyes hard and angular. "My girls are in trouble, and you'd use that as a platform to lecture me on things you and only you care about? Despicable." A vein twitched on his forehead, and then he turned to leave. "I have business that's far more important than you are. Now go back to your work, Meyneth."
"Woah! What the...?" Valey stepped cleanly out into view, the fur on her spine raising as she glanced between Chauncey and Meyneth. "Sure, she's strict and rude and stuff, but bananas, what gives!?"
Chauncey turned his glare on her. "Stay out of things that were over before you were foaled. If you want to follow up on my earlier offer, you already have the codes to the hospital elevators."
Then he was gone. Valey and Shinespark both stood, staring... but Nyala turned to Meyneth and tilted her mechanical head. "Excuse me? You're all right, aren't you? He looked scary."
Meyneth gave a dirty, tired sigh, and adjusted her pose, revealing the other batpony hiding behind her. She had a black coat and a long, unkempt mane that was just too muddy to be called aquamarine, yet looked like it could be beautiful with proper grooming, and stared at the ground with defeated, tired eyes.
"You can bother him all you want," the tired mare sighed, dressed in a form-hugging black-on-white maid's uniform that covered her cutie mark with a frilly skirt. "I've told you, I wouldn't forgive him even if he said he forgave me. This doesn't help, Meyneth."
Meyneth wrapped a wing around her barrel. "He's still the only family you've got, Crystal, and he'll have to learn how to appreciate that some day, for others' sakes if not yours."
"Um... hello?" Nyala took two steps closer.
"Hmmph." Meyneth glanced up. "That's a fancy disguise you've got there, kid. Some of my girls would love to tinker with it. I hope you're not hanging around with that hooligan over there."
"Seriously?" Valey narrowed her eyes. "You just got epically chewed out by Chauncey, and you're still picking on me? I nearly felt sorry for you!"
"If he wanted me gone, he would have fired me decades ago when it happened," Meyneth sighed. "Crystal! You should spend some time with this one. Maybe she'll liven you up."
Valey and Crystal briefly met each other's eyes, but Crystal looked away. "Maybe," she said, and left it at that.
Nevertheless, Valey grinned. "Was that an endorsement?"
Meyneth rolled her eyes. "If there's anything out there that can build her some confidence and self-worth, I'll take it, but you'd be an idiot to have expectations." She raised an eyebrow, still hugging Crystal with a wing. "What are you three doing following that old coot around? Something related to those missing Firefly Sisters?"
"Sirena is fine," Shinespark assured her, nodding in greeting. "Melia's the one who's missing. I'm Shinespark. I don't think we've met."
Meyneth walked closer, marching Crystal along with her and extending her free wing. "Meyneth. You've got quite the friend over there, Shinespark. For all of you, if you're dealing with Chauncey and get the chance to knock some sense into him, take it for me... and if not me, then her." She squeezed Crystal slightly, trying to prod the mare into speaking.
Crystal frowned and looked at the ground, and Meyneth sighed. "Whatever you do, good luck, and come and visit some time. I've got a good feeling about you three."
She raised her free wing again in farewell as she guided Crystal back toward Percival's manor, leaving Valey, Shinespark and Nyala looking at each other. "She seemed nice," Nyala offered. "I liked her."
"Why were you hiding earlier?" Shinespark asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Errr..." Valey shuddered. "I dunno, maybe I passed an initiation, or something? Look, like... I dunno. What are we doing now?"
"You wanted to follow Chauncey," Nyala said. "You were going to keep watch for danger and I was going to be cool and technological while Shinespark looked for anything suspicious, right?"
"Yeah..." Valey glanced uncertainly after the retreating Meyneth. "Really, though, that's getting under my skin. Something big must've happened between those three. What we're really doing is trying to find anything suspicious at all that could be tied to what's going on with the Firefly Sisters, right? Like... poking around in general. And honestly, if they're estranged family members and he dotes on Melia and Sirena now instead of that Crystal, you think that could have anything to do with anything?"
Shinespark nodded firmly. "No one can say something didn't happen between them. Are you saying you want to go investigate that instead?"
Valey shrugged. "We have a standing invitation from both of them, apparently. And personally, I'd rather try to cheer up a sad mare with a crabby boss than lurk around in tunnels with weird science. Makes sense, right?"
"I'm at home in tunnels," Shinespark offered. "We shouldn't split up, though. I don't want to go underground if there's a conspiracy going on without some form of defense, and Nyala doesn't know how to fight."
"About that..." Valey raised an eyebrow at Nyala. "Keep getting steadier on your hooves, and stuff, but I'm thinking it would probably be a good idea to get some combat lessons in for everyone on our boat. Like, Slipstream and Ironflanks and Starlight as well. Wallace said something about there being no fair play in the tournament, so at the very least thinking ahead, I'd like you guys to be able to defend yourselves. We've got a month before the second round, but if things are getting suspicious now, why not start early?"
"Good idea," Shinespark agreed. "I should brush up on out-of-armor combat myself. But we will need to get a better power source for Nyala first."
"I'm not sure how much I like the idea of fighting," Nyala admitted, looking at her hooves. "It doesn't sound very fun."
Valey patted her on the back, having to reach mightily and eventually fly to do it. "Eh, we'll talk you into it. For now, though, we should do something. Wanna go follow up on seeing if Crystal can tell us anything suspicious?"
Shinespark shrugged. "Would you do the talking? I'm not the world's best therapist."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Am I?"
"You..." Shinespark gritted her teeth. "You got me out of that cave after the dam, didn't you?"
"Oh bananas, I totally forgot about that." Valey's eyes widened. "Kinda filed it under things we should never talk about again. You wanna talk about that, or...?"
"Not right now." Shinespark pushed her back with a hoof. "I'm just bringing it up. So, Meyneth and Crystal?"
"Yeah! Sure." Valey grinned, leading the way. "Sad horse spirit raising in the name of information, here we come! And because she didn't actually look that bad. I'm not the only one who thought that, right? Just sayin'..."
Valey, Shinespark and Nyala trotted through the entrance to Percival's mansion, the double-door propped open and the guard on duty completely unfazed even as a giant suit of armor walked past him. It was strange, Valey thought... if an important pony was missing, there had been search parties, and the town square had just been the scene of a mob, wouldn't the doors at least be closed?
The way to the kitchen wasn't hard to remember, even if she hadn't been able to smell it. Yesterday had been the holiday, and even though most of the maids and service staff had yet to get back to work, the halls were still filled with signs of activity. A door left open to a room with the tablecloths half-changed, a duster leaned against a piano, a small dust pile where someone had been partway through sweeping... Ponies were gradually returning to the tasks, too.
They earned at least one wave from a mare who looked determined to appear pleasant and a nod from one who was missing an ear, and a third scurried out of sight the moment they drew near. The fourth, though...
"O-Oh! It's you!" a vaguely-familiar three-legged mare stammered, a wagon wheel still strapped to her side, eyes widening and standing at attention as Valey rounded a corner. She curtsied, clearly having worked on her balance but still in danger of falling over.
"Hey, I remember you..." Valey scratched her forehead. "Uhh... not the name, though, but you were the chick who fell over the other day?"
The wheel-wearing maid's cheeks burned in mortification, and she mumbled something about first impressions at the ground.
"Glad to see you're staying perky," Valey complimented, aware that Shinespark and Nyala had absolutely no idea who she was talking to. "We're not in that much of a hurry, by the way. Something something introductions?"
Shinespark gave an encouraging look to the maid. "Shinespark. You're already acquainted?"
"I already know who you are," the maid mumbled, blushing. "You're from Ironridge, and I-I'm a fan of yours. I'm Winry. You're Valey, Shinespark, and that's Braen."
"Braen?" Nyala murmured in confusion.
Valey and Shinespark stared at each other with wide eyes. "Oh bananas," Valey whispered, suddenly cold. "We didn't even think about what would happen if someone recognized her..."
Winry tilted her head, mouth slightly ajar, and Nyala folded her metal ears. Shinespark cleared her throat, recovering first. "You recognize her, huh? Same armor, different pony. It changed hooves a little after what happened in Ironridge..." She rubbed the back of her neck.
Nyala glanced at Shinespark, but held her tongue. Valey grinned. "Yeah, pretty much. This armor's kinda just been sitting around in our cargo hold for a month or so, and we figured we might as well dust it off and get it some use, you know?"
"How does it work?" Winry asked, oblivious to any foibles and rolling slightly closer to the armor. "I wish I knew how to tinker with things like this! I made this wheel, but it feels so small next to you..."
"Trade secrets," Shinespark apologized, shaking her head. "Wish I could tell you. What are you working on?"
Valey imagined she was asking about the wheel Winry used in place of a leg, but the maid completely failed to notice. "Trying to clean under this staircase," she mumbled, suddenly looking ashamed. "But I need to scoot in on my back, and laying down with this wheel doesn't really work the way I imagined it."
"I gotcha." Valey hit the floor, scooted into the corner, and seconds later rolled back out with a single cobweb on her hoof. "Boom, no worries. And wow, it was cleaner than I expected for being the underside of a staircase. All good?"
Winry looked surprised enough that she couldn't manage a response... at least, not in the time it took Meyneth to walk out from around a corner. Wordlessly, the older mare nodded.
Valey blinked, hesitantly meeting her stare. "Please don't tell me I'm in trouble..."
"Hmmph." Meyneth shook her head. "Cleaning under her staircase so she doesn't have to do it herself. You're really that desperate, aren't you?"
"...Buh?" Valey blinked, slowly noticing the mischievous glint in Meyneth's eyes. "No, hold on, wait a minute! What's that supposed to mean!?"
Meyneth flicked her hat lightly with a wingtip as she passed, whispering in Valey's ear. "I give them chores I think they'll benefit from figuring out on their own."
"Oh." Valey edged away, trying to keep Meyneth in her sight without appearing aggressive. "Sorry."
"Think nothing of it," Meyneth insisted, turning her back on them. "Far better than being a greedy layabout who visits kitchens looking for free handouts. What are you three here for, anyway?"
Valey stifled a belch, figuring it would be in poor taste right then. "You said something about trying to perk up that mare who was with you, and we didn't really feel like pestering Chauncey..."
"Right. That incident." Meyneth looked away. "Something tells me you just want to bother her about her past, don't you? Suit yourselves, but don't come crying to me when you don't get what you're looking for. And try not to leave her any unhappier than she already is. Winry, why don't you show our guests to Crystal's room? Take the long way; one of them could use the exercise."
"Hey!" Valey protested, voice cracking, but Meyneth was gone. "Urgh. She's really annoying..."
Shinespark winked and nudged her shoulder. "Sounds like you're just annoyed about someone being better at it than you."
Valey grumbled and shoved her back, but Winry had perked up. "I can do something for you? Hey, that's great! Yippee!" She almost clapped her forehooves, but chose not to risk unbalancing instead. "So, which long way around do you want to go? I could also disobey Meyneth and take you straight there, which might be what she wanted..."
"Bananas. Just start walking." Valey shrugged. "I don't think we're in a hurry? We're not really, right, Sparky?"
Shinespark shrugged too. "The only timer I'm aware of is the battery life on Nyala's power core, but that should last all day, and I can carry the armor back if she runs out."
"Wow, that runs on magic power?" Winry looked considerably more comfortable now that she had something to do. "We don't have mana power in this mansion. Percival does it to save on money he spends on himself, though Meyneth wishes she could get it for us. I'd love to play with it sometime. I've seen the equipment they use for concerts once, and had no idea what any of it did, but it looked so cool!" She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the three were still following. "Hey, did you hear that the Firefly Sisters are missing? They organized a search party and everything. I hope nothing bad happened to them..."
Valey perked up. "Uhh... Sirena's hanging out with us for a while to keep the pressure off, but we don't know where Melia is."
Shinespark nudged her again. "Sirena wanted to stay out of sight! Are you sure we should just be telling random strangers where she is?"
"I'm not a stranger!" Winry protested. "At least, I hope I'm not... Meyneth takes us to all their concerts, although that's usually the only time we get to hear them sing, so maybe..." She folded her ears. "I really am a stranger, aren't I...? Why are you worried, though? I was hoping we could take them a present after that mob this morning everyone said chased them away."
"Them?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "As in, both of them? Like, not one or the other, raaaugh you're my enemy die die die?"
Winry almost giggled, then seemed to realize the gravity of the situation and choked it back. "No. We voted in the contests, but none of me or my friends here have ever fought over them. Even if we sometimes have favorites."
Valey and Shinespark both glanced at each other, and knew they were thinking the same thing: there was a frenzy big enough to form a mob, yet no one in Percival's mansion felt it?
"...I guess everyone who was mad, like... made each other madder?" Valey shrugged. "Kinda reinforced into themselves? You push, I push harder kind of thing?" She glanced at Winry. "Is this place really isolated from the rest of the world, or something?"
Winry looked contemplative for a moment. "Sort of? We go out into town for fun and events and shopping, sometimes, but all of us live here and we're mostly friends with each other. By us you mean Meyneth's maids, right?"
Shinespark nodded, and both fell silent for a moment. "Well, I hope they're all right," Winry admitted after a while. "I went and prayed to the Night Mother about it this morning, even, just in case she could hear me..."
Valey blinked. "Just in case? Hold on, I thought all you batponies here really believe in that stuff, and things."
Winry caught her breath. "And you don't!? I mean..." She reddened, then curtsied again, smiling hopefully when she came up. "I mean, you're from another continent! They must not have dusk statues in Ironridge, right?" Her eyes widened. "Does this mean I'm the one that gets to tell you about her!?"
"Hold on, huh?" Valey tilted her head. "I mean, I kinda know she's a big deal and everything, just thought since you were thinking she probably couldn't hear, or..." She flailed and eventually wilted before the hopeful look on Winry's face. "You know what? Bananas, that's cute. Let's say I have absolutely no idea what any of this Night Mother stuff is about. Tell me."
"This way!" Winry suddenly invited, steering them up a staircase. "There are dusk statues all over the Griffon Empire! They're in all sorts of places and always protected so only sarosians can reach them, and if you sit by one and think with it, you can sometimes hear her in your head. It feels like you're being held by someone massive and gentle, and sometimes she sings to you to make you feel better and other times talks with you and offers you advice! She knows everything that's going on in the Empire, like she can see it all at once, and she still takes time to focus on you. But... it only works for us sarosians, so you can't do it." She glanced apologetically at Shinespark and Nyala. "Unless you're a sarosian in there, in which case sure! Also it only works at night, and is stronger some nights than others, which is why I didn't think asking in the morning would work."
Valey glanced at Nyala, wondering whether a batpony's soul inside a suit of armor would count as being able to make the connection... but shook her head. She had seen a dusk statue up close before, under the Stormhoof bridge, felt its magic and chose not to engage it. Was she being silly, or did the prospect of someone distant and omniscient watching over her just seem too good to be true? She had also led a not-so-great first six or seven years of her life, and a very stubborn part of her wouldn't accept some floaty watcher purely to spite anyone who would sit and not intervene through that.
...Or, and she didn't want to admit it... was she scared that anything that could use magic like that could find out what she was; a moon glass cutie mark and not really a pony?
Her unexpressed concerns didn't stop Nyala from talking. "Since there are so many of us who make our homes in this mansion, Percival let us put one in the mansion itself so we wouldn't even have to leave to talk with her. It's right here!"
They were in a top-story hallway just beside the skybridge to the administration building, where Valey recalled Meyneth mentioning more batponies worked. The last door before the exit, leading to what was probably a corner room in the mansion, sat in a part of the corridor where all the lamps were out, bathing the floor in shadow.
"You shadow sneak under the doorjamb," Winry said with a shrug. "The door is otherwise locked, and only Percival has the key. It's not fancy, but it works."
"Huh," Valey replied. Unlike Stormhoof, she felt only the tiniest magical sensation coming from beyond the door... Active only at night, indeed.
"...You want to know a secret?" Winry asked, frantically trying to evaluate whether Valey was impressed. "Sometimes, Percival uses the key. He's not really supposed to, but he prays to the dusk statue as well! But he never hears anything, anyway, and Meyneth lets him do it because he's the one who lets us have the statue in the mansion instead of going somewhere further away to reach it. He says he does it to be in solidarity with us, and no one's supposed to know about it aside from us maids in case anyone got mad about it... but I'm telling you anyway, so please be trustworthy!"
Valey blinked several times. "Huh," she repeated. "That's... actually really interesting. You know, all this has been. I'll keep it in mind." She nodded appreciatively. "Don't really feel any magic presence coming from there now, though."
Winry looked sad. "It's the middle of the afternoon... Sorry if you wanted to talk with her. It feels so nice, though! Meyneth says the more you've been through in life, the better the soothing feels."
Shinespark glanced down the hallway. "Does Crystal ever come here, then?"
"Never." Winry hung her head "She says she doesn't believe in the Night Mother after... something that happened a long time ago. Or that she doesn't want to talk to her, or thinks she's just a voice, or... She changes her story every time. None of us really know how to help Crystal, even those of us who have been here almost as long as she has."
"How long has she been here?" Nyala asked, curious.
"Almost thirty years," Winry sighed. "She was a young filly at the time, I think, but I don't know much about it. Meyneth doesn't like talking about her, and she's the only one who's been here longer than Crystal has. Everyone else gets back on their hooves and moves on. But you wanted to see her, right... Keep following me, please."
Valey followed along. "Sounds like talking to her is going to be a pretty hard task."
"No, she's easy to talk to," Winry protested. "It's not... She's... You'll see. It's getting her to do stuff that's the trouble. We haven't even gotten her out to a concert before, though I heard she has a special reason to not like those, since Chauncey is related to her but likes the Firefly Sisters instead. It's too bad. The concerts are the closest thing I've felt to what the Night Mother feels like that isn't actually a dusk statue, so maybe if she felt that and enjoyed it I could talk her into meeting her..."
"Wait, they are?" Valey blinked, recalling she had refused to sing along with Sirena and Melia after feeling the song request entrance to her mind. "That's, uh... That's weird. Any idea why that happens?"
Winry tilted her head. "Why the Firefly Sisters' magic feels sort of like a dusk statue? Well, I said sort of. It's still very different. It's like... speaking two different languages, but you're still using your mouth and your ears instead of reading and writing. Like you feel it with the same part of you. You know? Or do you have no idea what I'm talking about...?"
"Nah, I think I get it." Valey squinted. "Sort of. Maybe. I'll give it a chance next time I get the opportunity, 'kay?"
"You won't regret it, I promise!" Winry did a little hop, causing her wheel to clatter noisily against the wood floor. "Oops! Some of the nocturnal staff might still be sleeping..." She reddened, lowering her voice.
"We're there, then?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"One more turn and then two more doors," Winry promised, leading excitedly.
Shinespark beamed at her as she trundled along. "You sure get more confident when you get to know someone. I've been letting Valey do most of the talking, but just wanted to say, sounds like something you've been working on? Good job!"
Winry pressed closer to the ground, reddening. "Please don't say it like that..."
"Like what?" Shinespark blinked. "I was just trying to encourage... You know, never mind. Stay perky, kid. I hope you do well with your maid stuff, and your wheel."
"Yup. Likewise." Valey nodded, and they rounded the last corner to Crystal's door.
Valey knocked with restraint on Crystal's door, waiting to see what would happen. Shinespark and Nyala were a short distance behind, though they wouldn't be coming in. While she waited for an answer, she quickly ran her to-do list through her mind: check to see if she could learn anything suspicious or useful about Chauncey, try to cheer up a mare that reportedly needed it... It didn't really feel like much. Fighting off a strand of awkwardness, she vowed to roll with whatever happened and learn what she could from there.
"The door's not locked," a female voice said from inside.
It was hardly explicit permission, but Valey took it as such, pushing the door open a crack. She could have just shadow snuck under, but...
Crystal's room was dark, with a small lit lamp and a larger unlit one. It actually wasn't dingy and depressing, though, looking freshly swept with a cute little desk and even a bookcase. The walls lacked coverings and had their boards exposed by what looked like a stylish decision, leaving plenty of free crossbeams to act as shelves and places to hang decorations, and decorated they were. Several pictures of the Izvaldi central plaza were tacked around, Percival's mansion in the backgrounds, and plenty more photos showed groups of importantly-dressed dignitaries being greeted in various lobbies.
The room's inhabitant was on her bed, tucked neatly into a corner and generously sized for an individual, the covers kicked to the side. She lay on her back, dull-aquamarine mane and tail splayed, still wearing her maid's outfit and completely expressionless, though she did track Valey with her eyes.
"Uh. Hi. Sorry for barging in like this." Valey shrugged, trying to provoke a question or reaction or anything at all.
Crystal didn't seem to mind, though. She just kept laying there with her legs in the air... Nice legs, Valey decided, even though she was apparently in her mid-thirties. Valey shook her head; that was the absolute last thing she was here for. "You're just fine with me walking into your room? Not even gonna ask why I'm here?"
"Should I?" Crystal kept watching her. "You're welcome to ask me to."
Valey squinted. "I ask you to ask me a question? Huh?"
Crystal didn't react. "I didn't ask you to come here. Whatever your reason is, go ahead and do it."
"Okay, like, hold on..." Valey stepped to the desk, tapping it with a wing. "This is your stuff. Your space. You literally don't care what I do with it?"
"I'm not using it for anything," Crystal replied. "I need the clock and the exercise bands on the wall, but I can get more pictures and the rest doesn't mean anything to me. Did you want to do something with it?"
"Exercise bands? Buh?" Valey glanced around the walls, eventually noticing several rubber straps that looked useful for building core strength and working out legs and wings without actually running or flying around. She glanced back at Crystal... The batpony was certainly well-fed, well-toned, didn't look gaunt and was actually somewhat plump. Maybe she did use those. At least she was taking care of herself. "Nah, actually I came here to talk to you."
Crystal looked away for a second. "Most ponies don't think I'm a very entertaining conversationalist, just so you know. I don't have the kinds of things to say most want to talk about."
Valey smirked; she'd see about that. "Most, huh? How much you wanna bet I can buck that trend?"
"You don't have anything I want to bet with," Crystal said frankly.
"Errr..." Valey frowned. "Seriously? Like, I could change that. Is there anything you do want? 'Cause I'd love a conversation."
Crystal looked upward, staring at a clock that was affixed to the ceiling. "Can you change the passage of time? Move the sun and the moon in the sky?"
"Uh, no?" Valey blinked. "You waiting for something? Like, tonight?"
"I thought you couldn't buck the trend," Crystal said with the tiniest hint of vindication, though her heart clearly wasn't in it. "Yes. I'm waiting, and for a lot longer than tonight. Can you control the houses that rule the Empire, maybe? Sway Garsheeva to your whims? Change destiny?"
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Okay, someone said you were sad but this is honestly kinda weird. I feel like I'm being read an introduction that was rehearsed to try to sound dramatic and cool."
"You are," Crystal admitted. "But it's just because I had nothing better to do."
Valey's jaw hung loose, and it took her several seconds to figure out what to do. "Uhhh... well, I seriously doubt I can do any of those things, but I can totally hang out with you while you wait? You still haven't proved I'm not interested in what you have to say."
Crystal almost shrugged. She twitched the right muscles, at least. It was the first hint of movement aside from her eyes Valey had seen. "What do I get out of convincing you that? I already told you you have nothing I want."
Valey gritted her teeth in frustration, taking a minute to reorient herself before speaking. "So you don't even want waiting for whatever you're waiting for to be less of a chore? If you, like, don't care, can I ask you some questions, at least? I'd love to be nice to you, and all, but I am here for some other stuff."
"See?" Crystal asked. "I told you you weren't here because of me."
Valey's eyebrow twitched. "Okay, first off, I didn't say that, second, this is weirding me out. You're being all vaguely depressing, and, like... why?" She tilted her head. "You recognize this isn't normal, right? Any reason you're being this way?"
"I do," Crystal said. "I told you that, too. Normal ponies and I don't get along. And it's just because I have nothing better to do."
"You have nothing better to do than lay in that bed and stare at the ceiling, talking me in circles." Valey sighed. "It doesn't really look like that stuff makes you happy, you know."
"I never said it made me happy." Crystal rolled over, making a dexterous display of getting her hooves beneath her and climbing out of bed. "You're right, though. I could be exercising instead, and I suppose that would be better. I'm not tired. I should do that."
Valey watched as she crossed the room, still in the form-fitting maid's outfit, and put her back against the wall, hooking loops around all four of her legs and starting to stretch them in and out mechanically, moving without a purpose in the world.
"Uhhh..." Valey watched her move for several minutes, aware that the tips of her wings were starting to quiver. "You know, I probably should tell you this before you get too... uh... sweaty," she began, "but I like mares and you're pretty hot and I'm almost wondering if you're doing this on purpose to make me feel awkward, because you're obviously in no state to be in a relationship right now and that's seriously not what I'm here for."
Crystal kept stretching her legs against the bands. "If you're looking for a confessional," she countered, "I don't care enough to do anything about whatever you tell me. If you're simple enough to get solace from a thing like that, go for it."
Valey flicked her ears in confusion. "Hold on, what? No, seriously, I'm... I'm trying to be polite, here! Which is seriously not my usual thing! I'm letting you know you're turning me on!"
"Why? It doesn't matter to me," Crystal huffed, breathing starting to get heavier as she continued. "Be polite. Be not polite. Be turned on." She pushed at the rubber bands again. "You haven't wanted to tell me why you're here, and I haven't wanted to... to ask."
"Okay, I'm not buying it." Valey stepped so she could look at her more directly. "Ever looked in a mirror? Seen your own eyes? You do care about something. Maybe not a lot, but whatever I just said hit something, didn't it?" She raised an eyebrow. "You got a little frustrated there. I heard it. So either tell me to leave your room, or, like... do something. Talk to me. Please?"
Crystal just continued pushing faster on the exercise bands, starting to work up a sweat.
Valey leaned in to stare. "Or else I'll keep trying to bother you. You look like you're in kinda a fragile state, and usually I'd just bail and let you work out your problems, but something tells me a shakeup is what you need. So what was it that got your goat? Me going out of my way to change my demeanor for you? Or me getting turned on?"
Crystal frowned, and looked away.
"Tell me to leave, and I will," Valey insisted, some polite new part of her not letting her eyes wander as freely as she wanted to make a point of them doing. "Come on, stick up for yourself!"
"Or?" Crystal stopped, sitting there. "You clearly have something you want, and think something is wrong with me. You can't threaten me; I don't care. Will you threaten me with help?"
"Uhh..." Valey took a step back, bracing herself for an explosion she had plainly requested.
Crystal started moving her wings, undoing the now-wet maid uniform. "It's been done before, you know. You're not the first to think of it. 'Oh, she looks so unusual, I think I'll devote my heart and life to making her feel more like me!' How long do you think such life-devotion sentiments last?"
"Uhhhhhh..." Valey's brain stalled harder, made worse by Crystal's blatantly provocative undressing. "You're really hot and making it hard for me to focus?"
"You've been in here for seventeen minutes," Crystal told her. "That's longer than some, but a lot shorter than a lifetime. Go ahead. Say what everyone inevitably says. Or are you different?"
Valey blinked, Crystal sitting against the wall, coat wet, with the maid outfit halfway off, her own wings fully out to the sides. "Kinda making it hard for me to think about more than one thing, here..."
Crystal sighed, pulling away the rest of the outfit and leaving a hoof on her belly. "Pity and lust aren't love, and no one seems to understand that. Ever. It's always altruistic idiots like you who don't understand the flow of time. Go ask Meyneth to smack you with a newspaper. It's what she usually does to people who think they can do everything in an instant."
"Wait a minute." Valey frowned, not paying attention to Crystal's lecture and focusing on where her hoof was instead. "I thought you were just really well-fed, or something, but with that coat off... are you pregnant?"
Crystal met her gaze, eyes the same shade of emerald as Valey's. "Good guess, and yes, I am. If you're still thinking steamy thoughts, go ahead and think them, but you can't have me. I'm smarter than that, now."
"Bananas," Valey said, again completely ignoring the hostility. "You're another White Chocolate."
"Huh?" Now it was Crystal's turn to look confused.
"Someone a friend of mine ran into ages ago," Valey explained. "Super edgy, depressing mom-to-be. Pretty sure dealing with her kind of emotionally ran her over the rails, too..." She ran a hoof through her mane. "You know what? Ironflanks is trying to be on vacation and actually happy for a change, and really doesn't need another one of you to deal with. It's a pity, too, because as special as you might think your problems are, other ponies actually have them too, and she let people help her. I'm outta here. If you want a friend or a sympathetic ear, you'll have to settle for me." She blinked. "Or any one of the other dozens of maids here. Take care of yourself, and all that."
And then Valey left, leaving Crystal with nothing planned out to say.
Shinespark started, not expecting anything but silence. She and Nyala were sitting on a bench within sight of Crystal's door, but not close enough to make out what was being said inside, even though the mansion was quiet. "Sorry?"
Nyala was looking at her. "That mare recognized me, didn't she? I'm not the first one to use this armor... Was Braen someone like me, in the same situation?"
Shinespark rubbed her face. "Listen, we're sitting in the middle of a hallway where anyone could hear us, and that's sort of... classified. I'll tell you, but we'll have to go somewhere else. Somewhere a whole lot more private than this."
"It's that big a deal, huh?" Nyala asked softly, watching as Shinespark grabbed an out-of-date flyer from a nearby bulletin board, flipped it over and imprinted a message telling Valey where they'd be with a fine point of magic from her horn.
"No, it's all history now." Shinespark straightened up, leaving the note on a bench. "There are just a lot of ponies we left behind who will be happier thinking the story they know is the full story... myself included. We didn't really want Ironridge following us here after everything that had happened."
"I feel like I have so much to catch up on," Nyala admitted, following Shinespark out of the building. "I must have thousands of years of world history to learn. At the very least, I should know who you and this armor are. Valey was more concerned with being glad to see me again than telling me things I didn't immediately need to know."
Shinespark nodded. "All your friends are something special, some for different reasons than others. Maple and Slipstream left comfortable, ordinary lives to heed the call of adventure. Gerardo, I still don't know what his story is, but he's definitely got one. I'm sure everyone would appreciate if you asked to get to know them, too. As for me..." She sighed, making it outside the building and walking around to the back side, where the town's sprawl was stopped by the winding river and farms and countryside spread into the distance. "Let me tell you about Braen."
Nyala listened as Shinespark recounted the armor's origin and gradual improvement, Arambai's involvement and her own role masquerading as a mysterious armored knight who led the Spirit of Sosa. It wasn't a full retelling of her story, because that would have taken days, but Nyala still brightened when Braen stormed the Defense Force base to try to rescue Maple and Starlight, and shrank when Braen finally met her end when Shinespark reclaimed her cutie mark atop the collapsing dam.
"I see," Nyala said eventually. "So it was you, only... like me, as well."
"I still stay up wondering what to think of it," Shinespark admitted. "Exactly how much Braen and I were the same. We did experiments and everything, and we always were linked in what we wanted and other things. I learned to control her, somewhat, by wearing my heart on my sleeve... If there was something I felt strongly about, she felt about it too. But when I feel strongly about something I can change, I act on it myself... She just had greater freedom to do so because she wasn't a princess in an industrial society, so maybe I wasn't so much controlling or influencing her as I was both of us at once. I guess I'll never figure out whether she was a puppet, or a clone, or we were somehow two halves of the same pony..." She sighed. "Either way, we're back together now. I'm whole again. So, don't lose heart, or anything."
"I wasn't!" Nyala promised. "I just... wonder how it works. Why do you get to keep your body when your cutie mark is removed? You said you still felt and acted like you and everything. I wonder if my old body would even remember me."
Shinespark shrugged. "My cutie mark came back to me the instant I freed it from the armor. It remembered."
"Yeah, but..." Nyala hesitated. "You were still you, somehow, and I'm supposedly some mean scientist now. Why am I different? Or... is it you who's different, or me?"
Shinespark grimaced. "I wish I could help you, but that's something I'd have to research to find out. We were always more interested in the applications of a cutie mark once it was out than what happened when you took it out of ponies. Experimenting on myself was one thing, but that's not something you want to subject others to, you know?"
Nyala hung her head. "Yeah. Especially if it can do things like what happened to me."
Shinespark opened her mouth to reply... but before she could, Valey bustled around the corner, looking thoroughly wound up. "Arrrrrgh!" she moaned, wings spread, flopping face-down on the wet grass. "Bananaaaas..."
"Valey!" Shinespark jumped to her hooves, moving to Valey's side and putting an unsure hoof on her shoulder blades. "Are you okay?"
"We're not going back there," Valey growled into the grass, trying to drain her tension. "Bananas, I feel awkward. Whatever you want to investigate, we can do it another way. I wish Amber was here..."
"Amber?" Shinespark frowned. "What happened? You were just trying to see Crystal, right? Was it a bad experience?"
"You think?" Nyala deadpanned, kneeling slowly to make sure she didn't fall over. "I'm guessing we should go back to the ship, then."
"No," Valey grunted, wings still twitching. "I need to cool my head a bit. She... argh."
"Valey?" Shinespark frowned in concern.
Valey gave a massive huff. "I go in there. She's doing nothing. Doesn't care about anything, no motivation, I can do whatever I want, blah blah blah. Real nice and helpless. She's also showing off that cute dress all the maids have, and her legs, and bananas, even though she's way older than me they're some nice legs. And then I dunno if she notices I'm there because of her or that I'm looking or that I don't wanna leave or what, but she gets up and starts exercising of all things in the dress while continuing to be a massive pity-me doormat and blurrrrrgh..."
She planted her face in the grass again. "Eventually I've completely forgotten what I was there for and she finally tells me to get lost, that she's not looking and that she's pregnant. She was turning me on while... I've never fallen into a trap so hard in my life! She read me like a book and I got ridiculously baited! At least I think I made a cool exit and got in the last word, but bananas, I feel like I'd get less abused talking to the windigo than her. And the worst part is, not only do I feel super awkward now for thinking about a mom like that but I can't even stop thinking about her! I've been being a perfect gentlemare for so long and then she taunts me and she was so hooooot..."
Shinespark nodded in sympathy, telekinetically hauling Valey to her hooves. "Note to Amber, you're high-strung, like needy mares and respond well to bait. Would it help to think about something else? Like, did you find out anything at all about Chauncey?"
"Who's Amber?" Nyala asked, tilting her head.
Valey groaned and mumbled something unintelligible. "Please put me down. I'm trying to cool off..."
"Oh!" Shinespark gently dropped her. "Sorry."
"Mrmmph." Valey rolled over in the wet grass. "Chauncey? Never came up. I don't think we got beyond 'Hey, can we talk?' 'Hey, why are you such a wet blanket?' and 'Hey, you're kinda turning me on, here.'"
Shinespark sighed. "Well, I guess that didn't go well, then. Anything you want to do next?"
"Definitely not crawl around a stuffy science lab..." Valey whimpered. "I need to repair my ego. Bananas, Ironflanks made dealing with pushy basket cases like me look so easy! Why is it me who walks into the traps?"
"Maybe because she doesn't get distracted?" Shinespark frowned. "You look pretty distracted right now."
"Ya think?" Valey growled.
"We could always ask Maple to talk to her, instead," Nyala offered helpfully, leaning in.
Valey winced. "No! No way. Ironflanks is on vacation and I can basically guarantee this hag will stress her out. She doesn't want to be helped, and Ironflanks would take it way too personally and never rest again. And, like, call me paranoid or having a backlash but Crystal was mean enough I don't even know if she'd be a good guy if she came out of her room. Beats me what her deal is."
"She seemed nice enough when Meyneth was with her earlier," Nyala countered.
"Yup. Sure did." Valey's wings were limp by now, but she hadn't re-folded them. "How she was when I went in there at first, too. 'Oh, you can do anything you want to my stuff, I have no attachment to them whatsoever, you don't have to worry about what I want, I'm just a hot little blah blah blah blah blah...' I told you, I got chumped. Go talk to her yourselves if you like."
"...I think I'll pass," Shinespark replied. "We've got plenty of other leads to follow, and we don't even know what we're looking for. Think you're ready to go?"
"Meh." Valey lay chin-down in the grass.
A silence followed from there, with Nyala giving the closest thing her metallic face could manage to a wistful look. "Do the raindrops on the grass feel nice?"
Valey opened her eyes. "Huh?"
"The rain, in the grass." Nyala pointed a hoof. "I... I can't feel things like that, but I can remember some of them. I don't think I've ever laid in grass before, but I know what the rain feels like against my face. I was thinking about that while we were in the storm earlier."
Valey's ears folded.
"It's not like I remember," Nyala went on. "Just that I can imagine it, even though I don't have a face. It feels nice, doesn't it?"
"...Rain was pretty rare in Icereach," Valey finally sighed. "It mostly snowed or did nothing at all. Only rained for maybe a few storms a year, and usually from the light clouds that followed after the brunt of the storm had gone past. There, rain on your face meant you'd just been weathering high winds in a cave underground, and now everyone was coming out to face the world again. You, uh... really enjoyed showing it to me, one time."
"Only one time." It wasn't a question so much as acceptance. "I would have figured we'd do something like that whenever we could. It sounds like it was special."
"To me, yeah." Valey stretched, flexed, and got up, finally shaking out and folding her wings. "You remember all that, huh? Despite being stuck in moon glass for ages, you know what it's like to do all that stuff?"
Nyala half-nodded. "Like I said, I can imagine it. I can... think what having a body like yours would feel like. It just seems like it would feel right."
"...Huh." Valey started trotting back around the mansion, aiming toward the commerce building. "Yeah, well, consider my head cleared. Bananas, now I'm cold. Let's get back to the ship, or something."
Valey, Shinespark and Nyala had barely made it halfway across the plaza when they were stopped by an eyebrow-raising sight: Wallace, Morena and Diego, fully kitted for battle, marching in formation across the plaza, armed with weapons and armor that looked more for use than show. Pouches and bags strapped to their sides were filled with rations and supplies, and they made their way steadfast for the administration building.
"Woah." Valey paused so they could pass, eyes widening. "You guys are serious about something."
Wallace nodded in greeting. "Hello, little Valey. And yes we are! The heroic search for young Melia deduced that she fled town using the Teleportation Guild! As a matter of guild policy, patrons' travels are protected information except in the cases of royal inquisition into villainous activity, so to find out where she went, we are off to Grandbell to beseech the aid of Meltdown, the best mare for authorizing such things."
"The Teleportation Guild?" Nyala asked, quickly picking up that Wallace was a trusted acquaintance. "What's that?"
"Actually, I'd kinda like to know, too," Valey added. "I think I might'a heard the name, like, once before..."
Morena pounded a hoof against another. "The Empire's fastest form of fast travel. It costs a tail and a leg, but there's a network of hubs spread across the land where unicorns powerful enough to teleport a guest over a mile at a time work and live. Best-paying job in the Empire, if you have the horn for it. Pay up, and they'll teleport you along the chain to any place in the continent, like fireponies passing a water bucket down a line."
Diego nodded. "Izvaldi's is in the administration building's basement. It's relatively small, since they're hard to staff and not many patrons here can afford it. But we discovered an amount of money missing from the school's safe that's well within the range for fares on a single pony, and only Melia, Sirena and the school treasurer knew the combination. We also found several witnesses who saw a disguised, hooded pony in the administration building while the riot was going on. So we're off to give them notice that we're about to do this, just in case they decide to break policy and help in the name of a cultural icon, and then we're taking the Sky Goat to Grandbell."
Valey blinked. "Wow, so she really bailed, then. You guys'll be alright doing this?"
"Hah! This is what we were made for!" Wallace slapped a proud talon across his chest. "What better reason to set out than in search of an ally vital to the spirit of the country? We've scoured all of Varsidel before, multiple times on end. This'll be a cinch, young Valey!"
"Who's your companion, by the way?" Morena asked, angling her head at Nyala with a ready smile. "Don't think I've met her. That's some nice armor."
"I-I'm a friend," Nyala answered, tripping on whether to identify herself as Valey's sister and looking to the batpony for guidance.
"You like the armor?" Shinespark interrupted, trying to steal the focus and keep Nyala out of the spotlight. "Took me years to make that in Ironridge. She's a friend of mine, trying it out."
"A friend? Hmm!" Wallace nodded in approval. "Making new allies already. Good! We'll be gone for two days at least, and likely longer. Hold down Izvaldi for us in our absence, heroes of Ironridge."
Valey and her friends saluted and watched as Wallace, Morena and Diego left, then turned to each other. "Well," Shinespark cheerfully remarked, "guess we don't have to worry about Melia anymore! With those three on the case, it should be handled easily."
"Not exactly what I was thinking about." Valey frowned. "I was kinda... hoping they'd handle whatever was going on with Chauncey and the things Jamjars saw instead, but if they're leaving, there goes one of the big reasons I said we shouldn't do it. More importantly, if they're not here and we stick our noses too deep into trouble, we're gonna have to bail ourselves out on our own rather than relying on a bathtub worth of griffon meat to fix things for us."
"You could always stop them," Nyala suggested. "They haven't left yet."
"And do what?" Valey lifted an eyebrow. "Tell them we're spooked that something's up to no good? I can hear Wallace already. 'Villains are always making trouble!'" She waggled her forehooves, pantomiming an epic pose. "Besides, if there's anything going on, it could play out over a long period of time, and they really should find Melia now. Wish we could trade places..."
Shinespark rubbed her chin. "Maybe this is too conspiracy-oriented... but what if someone wants them out of town just so they can try something?"
Nyala's armor clanked as she crouched slightly. "You mean Chauncey? You think he did something to send Melia away just so they'd be out of town?"
"Well, Jamjars did say he knew something about why their concerts kept raising tensions..." Shinespark continued to stare, deeply in contemplation.
"Okay, hold up." Valey rounded on both of them. "Are we certain Chauncey is a bad guy, or just that he's suspicious? Maybe we need to go dig around in that lab he invited us to see after all. I was kinda ticked at him for how he treated Meyneth and Crystal earlier, but after seeing what Crystal was like, I almost don't blame him. Maybe they deserve each other. Shouldn't we at least go check him out really, really fast before running up to Wallace and telling him a kind of suspicious filly told us someone else was being suspicious enough to not go looking for Melia just in case? They didn't say they'll be leaving immediately, and we can fly faster than their ship."
Shinespark furrowed her brow in thought.
"Let's do it. Right now." Valey nodded at the hospital. "You, the scientist, me, the bat, and Nyala, the technological cool thing to prove we're nerds about this stuff. I need to move; I'm still wound up after earlier. Go?"
"...Is any of that a coded message for danger?" Shinespark whispered, carefully meeting Valey's eyes.
Valey raised her muzzle and breathed deeply. "...Nah. I don't think there's anything super bad. I still smell Puddles, and it's still unnerving, but no butt tingles. Whatever's going on in this place, it's not a trap that will physically hurt me. Trust me, though, I'm keeping both eyes out."
"Then let's go to the hospital," Shinespark decided. "Absolute worst case, we weigh anchor and let the river push us away from Izvaldi. But we need at least some idea of what's going on here... of what we're chasing in this strange country town."
"Intensive care unit. Constant care suites. General administrative. Contagious disease quarantine..."
Floors flickered and flashed by on the hospital elevator's display as it descended beneath the ground. Valey watched the location readout unhappily, ears folded and the screen's light reflected rectangularly in her eyes. "You know, when I said I'd rather talk to the windigo than Crystal, I didn't mean we should actually go do it."
Shinespark sighed. "There's no research levels this password will let us reach, and Chauncey said to use this password, so we're going to the one place we've been before and hoping he'll... know how to find us, or something."
"Meh," Valey insisted. "Meh meh meh. I wanna go back to the ship and take a nap."
"You were the one who suggested we go here now, Sister," Nyala reminded her with a tone of worry. "And now you want to go home?"
Valey closed her eyes. "Heh. Yeah, the Dream really is our home, isn't it...?" She sighed. "Bananas, I don't know what I want. I need to move! Maybe fight someone again. I need..."
The elevator dinged at the psychiatric ward, and the doors slid open. From there, Valey didn't even have to remember the way, her nose guiding her around a corner and down a concrete staircase as Shinespark ensured Nyala didn't trip. They reached the foal's room outside Puddles' containment chamber... and the door was already open.
"Yup," Valey muttered, leading the way. "Looks like he's already... Woah, huh? Ironflanks!?"
"Valey!" Maple jumped, having been seated in contemplation on the room's little bed, all alone.
"Maple? What are you doing down here?" Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "This is supposedly where the windigo is!" She glanced around. "And I'm impressed. This is interesting decor for a prison. But how come you're here?"
Maple folded her ears. "How come you're here?"
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Looking for Chauncey. He invited us to check out his labs, and we figured that was as good a place as any. Now how about you? I thought... we agreed we weren't getting into anything too deep, so everyone who went anywhere went as a team, with me, and everyone else stayed back at the ship."
"I'm sorry!" Maple squeaked, then wilted. "I just..." She sighed. "I was talking to Jamjars. She said something about how she had gone to see Puddles, alone, and had been fine, and the windigo had been upset she didn't bring more friends, so I thought alone might be a good way to deal with her and..." She stopped, sinking against the bed. "No. I'm sorry. I just... needed to contribute, and..." She clenched her teeth. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry. I should go back to the ship."
"Did something happen?" Valey asked, sensing waves of stress radiating off her friend.
Shinespark approached Maple's other side and sat down. "You sound like you're not okay."
Maple sniffed. "Do you really want to talk about it?"
Valey patted her on the back as Nyala looked around. "This is a weird place to come for solace," the armor murmured. "I don't like it. Something nearby feels... wrong."
"Hey. We don't need to talk." Valey gave Maple's shoulder an encouraging nuzzle, leaving her wing draped around her shoulders. "We just wanna be there if something happened. Screw Chauncey, we'll sit down here as long as you need and then go wherever."
"Did Sirena's cutie mark break?" Shinespark whispered.
"N-No." Maple wiped at an eye. "I-I just... I was helping Gerardo and Slipstream; they were making friends at the administration building and looking through records to get a better idea of the k-kind of history a place like Izvaldi has..."
Valey hugged her harder, figuring if it worked for Starlight, it would work for her. "Did Birdo offend you, or something?" she consoled, letting Maple rest her face against her coat. "I can totally trash him until he gets his manners back on straight, if you want."
Maple tearily shook her head.
"Did you learn something?" Nyala asked softly. "Something about this place?"
"I did," Maple whispered. "Why everything is so spread-out and uncrowded, why there are old buildings nobody needs, why there are so few people. We found census data from twenty years ago. Then, at least, the population..."
She hiccupped. "Less than half of newborns lived to be a year old. That doesn't count stillborns. There were other statistics too... I..."
Maple started shaking, and Valey and Shinespark both sat at her sides. "That's not something I wanted to know! I can't do anything about it! Even if it was today and not from when I was a filly, I wouldn't be able to do anything about that! We saw the total population numbers, too. That many... I... I couldn't do anything and I needed something to d-do and I came here but haven't gone in and a-and..."
"Bananas. That's rough." Valey rubbed her back.
"I t-told Gerardo and Slipstream I was going back to the ship," Maple choked. "They're still looking at why it happened. I don't w-w-want to know! I want to forget that could ever happen..."
Shinespark dropped a tear of sympathy. "Could have been me. I'm nineteen. Same time period. Good thing all of us are alive, right?"
Valey kept her eyes dry, allowing Maple's tears to make her coat wet for her. "We've gotta get you to talk with Amber," she muttered. "And Willow, and me, and bananas whoever else. I dunno how to get you over this foal thing, but it's messing you up even worse than me in Ironridge. Think a hug will do for now, though? My nose stings in this place. It's not really the best for feelings."
"I wish I could cry," Nyala said. "I'd cry with you."
Maple hissed a shuddering breath. "I don't know why I can't get over it! It makes so many things so hard for me, like being happy for White Chocolate... but at the same time, anyone who can get over that many foals has something wrong with them..."
"Does us being here help?" Valey asked, still holding her. At the very least, she knew what wouldn't help: mentioning a word about Crystal.
"A l-little. Why?"
"Because you look emotionally steamrolled." Valey patted her back and smiled. "I've already been around the wringer once today, and Sparky did want to see what the windigo was like. The two of us could go in there while you and Nyala wait and get, like, flattened in solidarity?"
Shinespark almost chuckled. "That's the worst idea I've ever heard. We shouldn't be going in there emotionally compromised, for any reason. I am curious to see what would happen, though. So I guess if you didn't want to leave immediately..."
Nyala tilted her head in thought. "If the windigo is stuck in a pony body, I wonder if they feel similar to how I do. I'm curious too."
"Don't ask that," Maple warned. "About... going in there, because it's a terrible idea and I will say yes. I feel like I need to do something..."
"Hey." Valey winked. "Terrible idea? Sure. Maybe you do need to do something. We're all leaning on each other already, right? Maybe it won't know what to do with this much trust and nice stuff."
"This is a terrible idea," Shinespark repeated. "And I'm forcing everyone out the moment it says something that would make it hard for us to leave on our own, or it tries too hard to hurt us. But I'm fine, Valey's frustrated but fine, and maybe you'll get to actually do something."
Nobody opened the door to Puddles' containment chamber. It was talked about several more times, jokingly agreed upon that it was a bad idea they should pursue anyway, never acted upon... Somehow, the process of imagining themselves doing stupid things livened Maple's spirits, and she eventually sat up and sniffed.
"Thank you, everyone," she mumbled, drawing a hoof across her eyes and flicking away a last few tears. "I wish I didn't get so down about these things. I know it's a problem, and you didn't have to sit here with me in a place like this... but thank you. I feel better now. It helped."
Shinespark beamed. "Mission accomplished! Now, who wants to go back to the Dream and get some dinner? I'm starving!"
"Sounds good to me," Valey belched.
"I hope it tastes good," Nyala added, trying to be a good sport even though all she would get to do was watch. "Here, I'll get the door."
"Hey!" a metallic voice growled from beyond the other door. "Leaving without even a hello, are you? So much for friendship and harmony, these days."
"Aah!" Maple jumped, fur raising at the sound of Puddles' augmented voice, and whirled toward the door to the containment room. "She was raised!? I didn't... I didn't even go in there!"
"I sure was," Puddles echoed, her voice muffled by the wall. "They might as well just give me a control on this lift! The old fool who experiments on this body of mine down below has a very fragile temperament, and it's frightfully easy to annoy him into banishing me up here. So, going to just walk away without so much as a kindly glance for the poor little mare in captivity?"
Maple froze, tensed, and gritted her teeth.
"We did say this was a bad idea," Shinespark reminded her, standing closer to the exit.
"I know it is," Maple sighed, though it didn't relieve any of her tension. "But I want to look it in the eye when I say what I have to say, and I'm not sure when I'll be down here next. Drag me out if I stay more than... a few minutes."
Uneasily, Valey and Shinespark watched and then followed as Maple threw open the door and stalked into the containment room, Puddles suspended in the middle of her great golden ring the same as last time.
"Hiya! You did come! Yay!" Puddles gave a broad, foalish grin, her voice back to that of a normal mare. "Puddles loves company! Want a hug? You all..." She opened her pupil-less eyes and blinked, centerless circles of frosty blue on white. "Huh. That's weird. A whole party, and the kid didn't even come with you. What are you playing at, my little ponies?"
Maple didn't answer, striding straight to the edge of Puddles' platform. She stood for a long moment, having a staring contest with the windigo.
"...So." Puddles looked slightly awkward. "You were having a therapy session right outside my room and didn't invite me? That's rude. Stupid, too. Windigoes make great therapists."
"Doubt it!" Valey sniped from the corner.
Maple didn't reply, though, still staring. Puddles gave her a cocky smile. "Aren't you on a mission now, though! Got something you want? Who knows, maybe you'll get it! Play with me, I'm bored."
"We're not interested in games," Shinespark added, orange fur bristling at the presence of the same monsters that had torn off the air control tower and killed Grenada so long ago. "I know you'll just try to turn us against each other, and we're too prepared for it."
"Errrr, maybe best not to tempt fate, Sparky..." Valey winced.
"Turning you against each other?" Puddles shook her head. "Why would I do a thing like that? You're right! It wouldn't work! And I'm so terribly lonely and it would be such a shame to alienate all my potential friends..." She made a sad, pouty face. "If anything, you're more in danger of trusting each other more than you deserve as a show of solidarity against me, then getting hurt on your own time because of it. Careful not to overreact, now."
"There's no danger of that," Maple calmly replied. "I already trust my friends with my life and everything I care about."
Puddles whistled. "That's a real tight-knit group you've got there. It makes poor me feel all lonely inside..." She shivered and gave a sad pout. "Okay. So you trust each other! Brilliant. We can work with that. How about your Izvalden hosts, then? Trust them with as much? Because I could spill all sorts of nasties about them to make you overreact in one way or another. What would you do? Mistrust and start a fight with someone who should have been your ally? Or lie complicit and get stabbed in the back? Oh, the things I could tell you..."
Maple interrupted her with a cross stomp. "We'll form our own opinions of our hosts, thank you very much, and I didn't come here for advice on who to trust. I'm here to tell you I pity you."
Puddles raised an eyebrow. "What, the poor little pony who's definitely not trapped inside me, screaming for her adorable snuggly body back? That's a relief. If you didn't, you'd be such a monster it would make me look like a saint!"
"Yes, but you too. You." Maple stood firm. "I can't imagine what it must be like to be a creature made from pure hatred. You probably don't even have the freedom to choose to love or care about things. I wanted to tell you that I will kill you and get the real Puddles back, and when I do, it will be a mercy to you."
Puddles winced. "Ow, that's harsh! Lady, aren't you supposed to be Kindness? You certainly felt like it the other day..." She drew her lips into a hurt grimace. "Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't made of hatred? Because it's true. I think you've got us windigoes all wrong."
Maple stood firm. "If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, I told you I already do."
"Hold on a minute." Shinespark stepped forward. "But all the legends I've heard say you cause and feed on strife and enmity between ponies! That you're the embodiment of the worst things in our hearts. You're lying, aren't you?"
"Is it?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Hear the windigo out. It's tied up. The worst thing that can happen is we get chumped."
Puddles winked at Valey. "Actually, the worst that can happen is you get chumped and teased, too! I see the way you're looking at me. You're a thirsty one, aren't you? My offer for a hug still stands..."
"Please... don't." Valey shivered. "I've had a ridiculous enough day with that already."
Puddles' hips, tail and cutie mark were covered by a wide restraining belt across her waist, so she had nothing to shake in teasing. "Fine. Want to bite? I'm only offering to tell you this because it'll make Chauncey mad with how stubborn I've been about giving information, that I now turn around and tell you something interesting for free. And because you bleeding hearts will feel it and get sad. And because I like to brag. Windigo history one oh one, going once... going twice..."
Valey winced. "Getting baited..."
"She's going to monologue, isn't she?" Nyala sighed.
"What do I have wrong about you?" Maple asked, voice level. "And the moment you tell me you're more evil than I thought you were, not less, I'm leaving."
"It's not like that!" Puddles protested, sounding genuinely vulnerable... until her grin solidified in an eager smirk. "It's like this. Ever heard of greed, lust, gluttony, envy... words like those?"
Maple nodded, keeping a firm eye on her.
Puddles nodded too. "Good, because that's where we're starting. But first... this room is bugged, and I'm not telling this to Chauncey or any of his goons. So I need you to break the microphone first. I'll take the blame."
"That's suspicious..." Shinespark narrowed her eyes.
"Hold on, danger detector." Valey stepped up. "If this somehow lets you out so you can freeze us, it won't work. What do you need busted?"
Puddles beamed. "See all those pipes on the wall? The one sort of to my right, with a yellow stripe halfway up. It's more fragile than it looks. The recorder's in there."
"Valey, wait a-" Shinespark raised a hoof to stop her.
"Nope. Lemme see this." Valey stepped up to the pipe and pressed her hoof against it. "Nothing special. She might actually be telling the truth, and do you potentially want a dude as angry as Chauncey knowing we know things we shouldn't know?"
Nyala tilted her head. "Wouldn't he hear what you're saying now and know you were about to be told anyway?"
"Not if you break the recorder," Puddles interrupted. "Nobody's been by to pick up its data yet."
"Valey..." Nyala frowned.
Without being asked, Valey punched the pipe. It really was flimsy, and when she yanked her hoof out, it yanked out a small box with some trailing, sparking power cords. She stared at it.
"That's a recorder, all right," Shinespark agreed, looking curious. "Ironridge model, too. An old one, without battery power. Whoever bought this must've been on a budget."
"Easy way to break that, then!" Valey brought her hoof down, shredding the power cords that still attached the recorder to the pipe.
"That'll do it!" Puddles beamed. "Okay, get ready. Where were we?"
Maple frowned at the smashed, powerless recorder and broken pipe it had been yanked out of. "You were talking about laziness or lust or something."
"Right! Right." Puddles' voice lowered slightly. "Greed, sloth, blahbitty blah blah. Bad words, things you don't want to be. Yakyakistan will tell you that. So will Garsheeva, and the Night Mother. Even Celestia! Maybe not anyone higher than them, but that's not your fault. But when you think about them, they all mean the same thing: wanting something you don't deserve and can't have. A rest when others are working. Love that belongs to someone else. More than your fair share. Sometimes you get those anyway, and that's a whooole 'nother story that isn't mine to tell. But hatred is too general a concept. Windigoes like me... we're the special brand of anger that occurs when you want something you're not supposed to have and you don't get it. We don't howl indiscriminately. We're more like... a cosmic temper tantrum, thrown about one silly thing. Following?"
Maple blinked, and nobody interrupted.
"Yay!" Puddles looked pleased. "That's us. Windigoes. One prime directive, and our existence is to rage and throw a fit and convince every mortal ever to rage with us whenever it's not being met. Physical pain if we don't. And we don't even get to decide what that directive was. Just... locked in a box for thousands of years, waiting for one to be given..." She leaked a crocodile's tear, though there was a tiny chance it was genuine. "It's a raw deal, when you think about it. Makes you want to rage instead at the jerk who thought it would be a good idea to create a whole entire sapient race just to do a thing like that. Alas for us..."
If anyone had not been curious before, that was completely and utterly gone. Maple, Valey and Shinespark all stood within a hooflength of the platform, with Nyala using her height to look over their shoulders. "Wait a minute," Valey interrupted, "so you guys back in Ironridge were really just having a pity party and figured you'd ice the city and mess with everyone's emotions just to get us to join in?"
"That's how it was supposed to work," Puddles hissed, a chagrinned look spreading on her face. "In reality, we got a far worse deal. Two thousand years ago, when someone let us out... you know what they asked us to do? What they cared the most about in their hearts, and we were automatically bound to enforcing? Ponies fighting. Brawling, squabbling, tearing at each other's throats. Being disharmonic. The scum who let us out didn't even know we were in there; they were just on a power trip until some unicorn rolled them over. And a part of the deal I forgot to mention is that harmony hurts windigoes. We're disharmonic lifeforms. It makes us shrivel up and go dormant from constant exposure, and instantly die from too great a concentration! You know what harmony is, right? Friendship is magic and all that stuff? Ponies getting along?"
She spat in disgust, hitting the floor of her pedestal. "It's the most miserable, accursed existence ever! We have a job to do, and suffer a painful curse whenever it needs doing! But when it doesn't need doing is the only time we can do it, because the exact thing we're instructed to fix also repels us and forces us away! And the worst part is, we can't ever get a new prime directive, because the thing you need to do that? Some stupid pony got rid of it!"
Puddles looked legitimately worked up, a vein twitching on her forehead in anger. "So when we can move freely? We freeze. It isn't enough for ponies to be fighting. We have to ensure they never stop, because the alternative is being tormented by our nature. And sometimes, when you live an existence as unfair as this one... you just want to rage. We were already made for it. But rage at anything, at everything, purely because we can and we're not locked in a box waiting to be awakened or to see a drop in your accursed harmony. Feeling sorry for the monsters now, little ponies?"
Maple stood back, eyes growing glassy. "So it really would be a mercy, killing you. And you even realize it."
"Oh, I didn't say anything about me," Puddles laughed. "See, that's the best part. All those other windigoes out there, locked beneath a glacier in the ruins of Unicornia because that's the one place chaotic enough for them to exist without tarnishing their strength? They're the wretched ones. But I... have... evolved."
She looked downwards, trying to eye her fuzzy body. "Does anyone have a mirror? I really would like to admire this, sometime. Ponies are harmonic lifeforms, though, you see. You'd think it would be toxic to even touch them, if I normally had a physical form that was more than just a hideous cloud. But there's some... sciency stuff that nobody's around to stop others from messing with, and here I am. Seamlessly fused. A windigo with a harmonic body. And it's so cute! Physically solid, too. I really wish somepony would give me a hug already... Friendship? Cuddling? Merely being in a room where ponies are happy? It doesn't hurt me anymore. In fact, your friendship actually warms me, and as funny as it may seem for an ice monster to be saying this, it feels good! In short, I have evolved to the point where I can exist in harmonic situations, cause them to deteriorate to chaos and mayhem, and then sit back and enjoy my labors instead of spending every free moment raging in terror that it could somehow end."
"You can't keep it," Maple announced. "That body belongs to Puddles. It isn't yours, and we will get you out."
Puddles stuck out her lip. "Hmmph. Raining on my parade before it's even started. Yayyyy. I love you ponies so much, you know."
"...So are you hurting now?" Nyala asked cautiously. "Because of the curse, since we're not fighting and you're not doing your directive? How come you stopped trying to get us to mistrust Izvaldi, or one another?"
"Oh, that's the best part." Puddles put on a look of immense satisfaction, relaxing completely. "It does hurt. Really, I'm tormented. But you know what I've realized? I've lived with this pain for two thousand years, cute little ponies. I know it. I'm desensitized to it. It's my new normal! I'm not going to die from being exposed a few years longer. So, now that I've ascended and become a more perfect being... why cower before my old directive and let it control me? Am I going to waste this chance on what some punks who are no longer around wanted? As if! I'm going to want some things of my own, and I'm going to revel in them, all to spite my own existence and laugh at everyone who's no longer around and say that I won. I. Am. Perfect."
"You're a narcissist," Valey declared, pointing a hoof. "...Huh. So I guess this is the part where you try to bribe us to let you out, right? Because sorry, I don't even know how to open a thing like this."
Puddles' chains were too taut for her to shrug. "Actually, I was going to ask for a hug again. Really! I don't have any hidden traps or dangers, I promise! I just want to feel..." Her eyes watered. "And wouldn't you like to be friends with a windigo? I can make friends now without dying, you know."
Maple and Shinespark looked stuck... but Valey stepped forward, climbing onto the platform. "You know what?" She narrowed her eyes. "I think you're actually not somehow dangerous and really want this, and bananas, I don't care anymore. This is frustrating. Have your hug."
Valey reared onto her hind legs as Maple and Shinespark stared, waiting for an explosion. She leaned into Puddles and made contact, head just tall enough to rest against the hanging earth pony's neck. "Huh," she muttered as she made contact, even wrapping her hooves around the mare. "You're actually warm. Didn't see that coming."
"Awwwww..." Puddles' limbs were too bound to return the hug, but she smiled in bliss. "Fuzzyyyyyyy... Thanksies. That was everything I thought it would be."
Valey waited for a minute and then broke contact, still standing on the platform. "What do you know?" She shrugged. "I guess it really wasn't a trap."
Puddles still looked just a little overcome by the sensation, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as she tugged at her chains. "Oh, that was nice. Thanks, little pony. You've just made friends with the windigo! How does it feel?"
"Not friends," Valey corrected, meeting Puddles' gaze with even eyes. "I still don't trust you, for one."
"Oh, but I trust you," Puddles countered with a smirk that suggested she'd just won something. "In fact, I think you deserve a reward! Wanna see something?"
"Uhhh..." Valey took another step back.
Suddenly, Puddles made a face. Her belly visibly convulsed, and then her throat rippled, Valey jumping back in case she hurled. But then she stopped, was calm, held her head up with her eyes closed... and made the broadest smirk yet, parting her teeth and sticking out her tongue.
On it was a dark crystal.
Puddles opened her eyes, glancing around and reading everyone's reactions to make sure they saw, then drew it back in and swallowed again. "You like that?" she asked after swallowing several more times. "Chauncey doesn't know I have it. Nobody in the world does, except you. What a helpless, sneaky windigo."
"W-What was that?" Maple's voice broke, just a little. "It looked like moon glass! And you have some? Is this a trap?"
"Oh, it isn't moon glass." Puddles shook her head in wicked satisfaction. "Made from the same stuff, actually, but this is something more. It's called a Nightmare Module, and it's some of the most interesting and unusual magic to exist in the world. Very very dangerous, too. Almost as dangerous as us windigoes."
Valey frowned. "I've heard that name before..."
"In a letter from Arambai, explaining what had happened to your old husband." Shinespark pointed a hoof at Maple, eyes narrowing. "I don't forget things like this. He said it was some magic Dorable had to erase or damage memories."
Valey's eyes widened. "Then... but..."
"Oh, you've heard of these?" Puddles looked deeply intrigued. "Now that's a first. They're supposed to be an impossibly-well-kept secret. Don't tell anyone that, because you never know who might flip their lid if they knew you knew. Let's see, other known modules... Any chance its discovery had to do with an exploding windigo heart?"
Valey stepped back, eyes widening in horror. "Wait, no, how'd you...?"
"Want to see something veeeeery interesting?" Puddles grinned sharkishly.
Everyone stared.
"The restraint around my waist." Puddles nodded downward. "It isn't actually a restraint. It's a cover. Swings right off if you just touch it, no resistance whatsoever. Why don't you see what someone wanted to hide?"
Valey touched it with a shaking hoof. One of the hinges was false, and the metal strap swung away, revealing Puddles' flanks and cutie mark. The mark was a giant snowflake, unsurprisingly... but both sides were riddled with painful-looking welts and bandages.
"Needles," Puddles said simply. "And I can guarantee you that whoever stuck them in wasn't trying to cure Morena's little filly. Guess what they were trying."
Maple looked up in horror, hooves trembling. Shinespark looked sick.
"I saw that look in your eyes." Puddles grinned. "You considered releasing me, even for just a second, didn't you? You can't hide that from me. But come now, you don't want to be making enemies of Izvaldi. And besides, I told you I'd turn you toward them or against them, one way or the other. Come visit me again, my little ponies. And give me more hugs! But for now, you need to skedaddle."
Maple, Valey and the others wasted no time in walking out, moving stiffly and fully aware that something was wrong. "You can't trust her, remember?" Nyala protested, the only one not invested.
Shinespark nodded and flicked the descent switch to lower Puddles back below, preparing something to say... but the moment she did so, the power cable that had been severed from the recorder sparked and there was a loud clang from the winch.
"Hey!" Valey spun rapidly as the platform dropped a short distance and awkwardly caught, Puddles grinning from it victoriously. "What did you-"
"Ever heard of things receiving power in series?" Puddles grinned victoriously. "I got the therapist ponies who installed that to put it on the winch cable! See ya later, friends!"
The winch went slack, and the platform fell, dropping like a bullet down its shaft.
With a loud metal boom, the platform and its ring dropped through the ceiling of a claustrophobic room, racks and racks of equipment and eldritch devices lining the walls. It sat there on its rails at the bottom, silent, until something dripped off Puddles' throne.
"Nnngh... oww...!" Puddles whimpered, dangling lopsidedly in her chains. "Pony bodies really hurt sometimes...!"
Her right foreleg was missing, the shock of the impact and her unhealthy restraint positioning having torn it off in the crash landing. Puddles winced, glared, her eyes flashed... and the wound on her shoulder began glowing with frosty blue light. Slowly, the severed leg still hanging in its shackle did too, until it disappeared, leaving the chain hanging, empty.
The outline of Puddles' shoulder glowed brighter, and like woodchips assembling themselves into a statue, the missing leg rematerialized, flaking out of thin air and putting itself back together with frosty magic. The whole process only took a second, and then she flexed the restored leg, wincing, feeling the pain recede. A devilish smirk crossed her face. One of her legs was free.
Her restored hoof flew to her other shoulder with a twist of her back, meeting the chain that shackled her other. Teal light flowed from the tip as it made contact, and spikes of jagged ice coated the shackle, freezing it solid, solider... and finally it smashed, letting her drop to all fours. The throne itself got the same treatment, and before anyone could so much as arrive to check on the commotion, Puddles was standing free on the platform, testing her muscles and licking her lips.
"Well, this'll be fun," she announced to no one in particular, stomping a forehoof against the floor and sending a lance of cold shooting through it, hitting an operating table and exploding into a peacock tail of ice shards that fully encased the object. She lifted the hoof and blew on it, a faint wisp of blue trailing away from its dimly-glowing flat side. "Alright, friends, I have a jail to break, but I'll see you later! Maybe we can even go on a date! That would give Morena a heart attack. I'll take good care of you, cuddly pony body. Hee hee hee hee hee hee heeeeeeeeeeee..."
Valey, Maple, Shinespark and Nyala climbed back up the staircase to the hospital's main tunnels, visibly shaken.
"I hope Puddles is all right," Maple whispered with eyes the size of cantaloupes. "That can't have been a good position to be in for a fall... and now if Morena finds out we hurt her daughter's body..."
"Why did you break the pipe?" Shinespark growled, helpless and unable to do anything about it. "We should have known it was a trick! We did know it was a trick, I'm sure of it, and you did it anyway!"
"Yeah? Well, why didn't you stop me?" Valey shot a glare back at her. "Besides, there was totally a recorder. Something tells me we'd actually be in really big trouble if-"
"Don't say it!" Nyala urged. "What if these halls have recorders too?"
Valey sighed. "Bananas... For the record, we all got played. I was too busy focusing on other stuff to pay attention, should have been thinking things through more... Maybe should've flown down that hole to check what happened..."
"Other things," Maple murmured. "Like... what had been done to her? Those had to be some sort of treatment, right? Was she lying about-"
Shinespark's aura settled over her muzzle, preventing her from finishing. "Nyala's right. I have some things to tell you on the matter and something tells me Valey does too, but not here. We should... move first."
Everyone fell silent, traveling to the elevator under a cloud of shame and worry. Valey's mind occasionally flickered with images of her and Nyala in Icereach, of interrupted research and an exploded windigo heart and her archenemy trapped beneath a wave of ice. Those things should have been at the forefront, along with how to keep her friends safe, but to her immense frustration that space was occupied by the memory of giving Puddles a hug. Why!? She had Amber waiting for her back in Riverfall. What about being loyal, and all that good stuff? And she'd done a perfect job of it until today, when she'd ran into Crystal and had her attentions exploited as some planned-out lecture and now there was Puddles who was a windigo and even just...
Thoughts swirling like a whirlpool of pony fur, she barely even noticed the small prickle in her cutie mark as the elevator doors opened, they stepped in, the doors closed again and it began to rise.
"Hiyaaaaa~!" Puddles' voice sang, and something fluffy hit her from above, flipping her on her back before she could so much as blink.
"You!" Nyala gasped, metal hooves clanking against the floor as she whirled and nearly fell. "Oof! How did you get free!?"
Shinespark dropped into a battle stance, horn lighting and frantically reaching for the elevator's emergency stop button... but before she could press it with her telekinesis, Puddles tapped the floor with a forehoof, and a jet of frost lanced along the tiles like a lightning bolt, climbing the wall and exploding out into a tiny fan of ice shards that destroyed the control box. "Nope!" she hummed. "I wanna get off at the first floorrrr!"
Maple stood her ground, mouth wide open in surprise. "Does your personality change every time we meet you? What's going on? How are you free?"
"Forget about her demeanor, get her off me!" Valey grunted, flat on her back and being straddled, legs pinned by the augmented earth pony's superior weight and strength. "Gnnngh... Break the light, I can't shadow sneak like this!"
Then Puddles laid down, changing Valey from being pinned to caught in a full-body hug. "Heeeeeee..." She grinned extatically, leaning in and closing her eyes and nuzzling Valey heavily with her cheek, causing the mare's wings to shoot out. "Aww, you're so fuzzy! I told you I'd give you a hug some day! I did do that, right? I don't really remember..."
Flash! Shinespark's blue aura congealed around her, lifting her into the air along with a too-stunned-to-struggle Valey whom she wouldn't let go. "Get off my friend!" Shinespark warned, stamping.
Puddles gently dropped Valey, then pumped a hoof in wild victory, switching to her billowing, metallic wintery voice. "Yes! Oh baby, yes! Ah ha ha ha! I've wanted to do that for absolutely forever! Whooooooo! Booyah! Take that, all of windigo-kind! I rule, you drool! Puddles is freeeeeee!"
Everyone winced, the harsh sound of her voice echoing around the tiny elevator as it rose, though Valey was slightly too stunned from her treatment to do more than fold her ears. Puddles blinked, switching back to her normal mare voice. "Two thousand years is forever, right? Hee! I feel awesome. Anyway, thanks for letting me out, you cute ponies! And unnatural suit of armor, even though you were a killjoy and I can't hug you. Hey, bat! I have to skip town now because there's going to be lots of angry scientists flailing around after me, but come looking for me sometime! We could go on a date, and next time, I'll give you a kiss!"
"Buhhhhh," Valey replied, eyes so unfocused they were round and wings deadlocked as she lay on the ground where she had been dropped.
"Valey? Valey, get up!" Maple ran to her side and lifted her head. "What did she do to you? We need you right now!"
The elevator dinged to a stop and its doors slid open, somehow functioning without the control box. Puddles looked up. "Oh, this is my stop! I'll give you a hug too if you let me go, cute unicorn."
Shinespark grimaced. "That is vaguely disturbing and I'm not letting you go! Now-"
Puddles shrugged, once again speaking like a metal avalanche. "Huh. She clearly thinks I'm cute. Your loss."
She clapped her forehooves together, spinning to face Shinespark midair, and a frosty blue light burned from beneath them. Using herself as a base for conjuring ice, Puddles flung her hooves forward... and a pillar of ice erupted, lovingly sculpted into a statue of a hoof that punched Shinespark in the face. Her concentration failed, and Puddles fell, landing upright on her hooves.
"Like I said," Puddles announced, sashaying out of the elevator with a heavy swish in her tail. She picked Shinespark up and put her back on her hooves as she passed, giving her the briefest of nuzzles in consolation. "Your loss. Now, who knows where to find a coat rack to rob? My flanks look ugly."
The ice hoof shattered as Puddles tossed it over her shoulder, strewing ice all over the hallway. Her flanks definitely were attention-grabbing, and not in a good way, still riddled with fresh welts and bandages where something had stabbed at her cutie mark. She tapped her chin as she walked. "Hmm, should I go cute or cool? I have no idea what's hip in media these days, and I only get one big entrance..."
"Not so fast, you," Valey growled, back on her hooves even though here wings were still stuck out as far as they could go. "I've been having a really frustrating day, and you've contributed more than your fair share! You better be ready to get pounded and locked up again, because I'm not slowing down!"
Puddles pursed her lips in confusion... and then her eyes widened in happiness. "Frustration, yay! I can help-"
Swash! Valey flashed by her with a burst of speed, wings getting in the way and confining her to ground-based combat. A hoof struck Puddles in the side, unbalancing her, and then Valey kicked off a wall, launching herself and coming down from above. She tackled Puddles into a grapple, the two hitting the ground and rolling painfully into a corner, Valey locking her down with all four legs.
"I got her!" Valey hissed, wincing from rolling over her wings. "Sparky, quick, while she's-"
"You gave me another hug!" Puddles cheered, thrilled by the encounter's outcome. "Aww, you wanted to say bye and that you'll miss me! You're the best! I'll miss you too! Mmmmmm-"
"What's going on in here?" an authoritative voice demanded, and three doctors in lab coats rounded the corner. "There's been commotion everywhere, and... Hey! You two! Get off the ground!"
Puddles blinked. "Uh-oh. See ya later, cute bat! I gotta run!"
With no effort whatsoever, she disentangled herself from Valey's headlock, rolling upright and standing to face the stallions. "Heya, nerds."
"Be careful!" Nyala urged the doctors. "She's dangerous!"
The shortest doctor, a mare, smiled and shook her head. "We carry sedatives for just that purpose. Stand down, please."
Puddles stuck out her tongue, then smirked. "Sorry! I've already got my fan club, and when there's only one of me, you gotta pick the very best to hang out with! So take a hike, losers!"
The lead doctor frowned, levitating a dart tube in his aura and taking swift aim at Puddles. Pfffwhit!
With lightning reflexes, Puddles raised a hoof and tapped the incoming dart from the side, inches before it embedded itself in her neck. With a flash, it transformed into an icy sphere, and then she lowered her head, caught it on her rump, juggled it once along her back like it was a toy ball, and bucked it with impressive fury toward the three doctors.
"Yo, watch it!" Back on her hooves already, Valey tackled the middle one to the side, and the cannonball shot through, tearing a hole in the far wall from the speed at which it had been launched.
Puddles glanced between the hole and her hooves in surprise. "Oooh, I'm strong. Or your building codes are dumpy, which wouldn't surprise me given how fast you made this place. Anyway, I need a coat, and your tacky ones will have to do. Stand aside!"
She reared into the air and slammed both forehooves down, sending a wave of sheet ice racing across the floor. Valey and Shinespark had the sense and ability to jump and Nyala lifted Maple, but the three doctors were all touching the floor when it passed and their hooves were suddenly frozen in place.
Crack! Nyala's brute armor strength freed her from the prison, but everyone had slippery ice to contend with and Shinespark flat-out fell as Puddles made a show of ice-skating past them to the doctors, gliding on the tips of her hooves.
"Hmmm..." Puddles sized them up. "Two stallions, no and no. Miss mare, your coat looks like my size! Here, gimme!"
With a quick flurry of hoofwork including briefly unfreezing the mare's forehooves, Puddles seized the coat for herself, tossing it on and whirling to make it billow. "Ooh, maybe this does look good on me," she decided, her cutie mark completely covered. "What do you think, docs?"
The two stallions looked angry. The now-undressed mare's cheeks were burning.
Puddles saw her redness and folded her ears. "Aww, you do look a little nicer without this on. Here, have a hug to remember me by." She leaned in and gave a pat and a nuzzle, which made the mare's situation far worse.
"Yo." Valey tapped Maple and Shinespark on the shoulders while Puddles was distracted, keeping her voice low and having found a good balance on the ice. "I can't fight that; she's got my number. I'm gonna bail and get help. If she hugs you, hug back and keep her happy, because it's a whole lot better than anything else she could be doing. I'll be back!"
Valey took off down the hall in the direction of the lobby, leaving Puddles standing up and blinking. "Huh? Hey, wait for me!"
"Oh, no you don't," Maple hissed, preparing to oppose her, a large chunk of fallen ice already stored in her cutie mark and ready to use for a fight. "Stay here, Puddles! The rest of us aren't going anywhere!"
While Puddles was distracted, the mare she had released to torment crept away, ears flat with embarrassment, until she was twice out of hoofreach... and then lunged, grappling the nearest fire alarm on the wall.
BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!
Emergency lights began to blare in the corridor as sirens swept the building, the noise bleeding out into the plaza and to the adjacent school and mansion. The sounds of doors slamming echoed in the distance, and Puddles had just enough time to give a worried glance at the mare who had sounded the alarm before more and more griffons and ponies piled into the corridor, looking for a way out.
"Uhhhh... yay." Puddles frowned. "Sounds like my cue to get out of here! And honestly, the cute pony thing is getting old, so... See you later, dweebs! Bwaaaaah hah hah hah!"
Puddles twirled on a hoof and leapt, crashing through a closed window and breaking outside.
"Urgh... Geh..." Valey panted, skidding into the central plaza, running with her wings still stuck out wide. The Sky Goat was gone from its mooring above the commerce building, and she couldn't fly like this to chase it down. She was too late.
"Bananas..." Who did she go to? The hospital behind her was erupting in a cacophony of noise; someone had sounded an alarm. Did Izvaldi even have a military for crises like these? She was sure someone somewhere had mentioned it didn't. Who could she go to? She was the strongest one left in the city, and a fighting style revolving around grapples, punches and close contact would be absolutely impossible for her to fight Puddles with. Mind clouded with hormones, she cursed the fact that no one in Ironridge had ever had the skill and guile to turn the occasionally-favored tactic of her own back against her, letting her know she was weak to it.
She didn't get the chance to decide, as one of the hospital's windows exploded in a shower of glass, white doctor's robe, and the mare that was currently the bane of her existence. Puddles straightened up and met her eyes from across the plaza, them the only two creatures who stood still as others fled, rushed to duty or merely shrieked their heads off as the hospital continued to blare.
Then Puddles was at her side, standing up close next to the plaza's central fountain, its statue depicting a griffon, a pony and a batpony all playing together in harmony. "Heya," Puddles greeted, a sultry look on her face.
"Heya," Valey replied, still unable to force her wings down. "Look. Izvaldi's not prepared to deal with something like you. I'm not either, but for totally different reasons, and I can and will overcome those to beat you because no one else can. Bananas, I have like zero attachment to this town, but that's still a lot better than Ironridge, and I fought you guys there, too. So. Ready to tango?"
Puddles licked her lips. "Izvaldi, not ready? Didn't I tell you what I want? A life of high and wild living, enjoying all the pleasures and fun things ponies do that disharmonic creatures can never have. Anyone can rage and cover the town in ice. Any one of my less-fortunate, siblings, at least. But why make ice when you can make..."
Her hooves glowed, and she thrust them into the fountain pool. Pillars of ice soared out, rising, intertwining, sculpting themselves by her magic until their crystalline structure morphed into something smooth and they took on form. In less than three seconds, the central statue was gone, encased in an ice sculpture of Valey and Puddles locked together in a passionate dance. Puddles raised an eyebrow when she was finished. "You know?"
"I've already got a marefriend, if that's what you're suggesting," Valey warned. "Your hugs are not appreciated. You can go take a hike."
"Oh?" Puddles raised an eyebrow. "You certainly seemed to appreciate them in the moment. You even offered me one first. And why wasn't your marefriend hugging you first?"
"Because I'm horny, and she's a continent away." Valey evenly met her stare. "You wanna mess with respect and friendship and stuff? That starts by listening when others tell you what they want."
"I listen!" Puddles shrugged in self-defense. "I just don't care. And you shouldn't either. I'm immortal; your lifespan is piddly next to mine. You don't have time for playing the nice game like I do, so why are you the one telling me to do it?" She gave a hungry smile. "It's confusing. Interesting. I like it!"
Valey stomped a hoof. "Yeah, well, go jump in a lake! I'm not eligible!"
Puddles put on a pout. "Not even going to put up with poor, confused, chaotic Puddles and teach her how to be a decent pony? Awww. How mean." Her grin returned. "I like mean, too, you know. And maybe I forgot, but I don't think I ever caught your name..."
"It's Valey," Valey hissed. "What are you trying to blackmail me into?"
"Eloping." Puddles shrugged. "The teleportation guild is right there, and they wouldn't dare refuse passage to someone who can freeze them and smash them into tiny, icy pony bits. Which I'd never actually do, because pony bits are precious, but they don't know that. Also, we're starting to attract attention."
A crowd was gathering, most staying at the edges of the plaza, a mix of hospital evacuees who were unknowingly running straight into the cause and dwellers of the other five buildings. Valey winced.
"...You know what?" Puddles looked around at the crowd and flashed them a cheery grin. "Let's make this dramatic. We can talk about it later."
Valey's eyes narrowed as Puddles' hooves began to glow. Again, the mare stomped down, and Valey pre-emptively backflipped, wings still not working right, to dodge the wave of ice. But instead of a sheet along the ground, crystals blossomed beneath Puddles' hooves, growing upward into a pillar with her on top. Puddles launched herself over Valey's head, flinging herself off it into a leap, and Valey was unable to return to the ground to move before Puddles hit her.
"It's bye-bye time!" Puddles sang in her ear, and an icy hoof touched her cheek. Valey winced from the contact and tried to move, but her whole body became cold, sluggish, and Puddles tapped her limbs one by one, disabling them with frost.
"Urgh..." Valey shivered, barely able to do even that as she was thrown across Puddles' back. "Leggo..."
"No." Puddles started walking with a bounce in her step, careful not to jostle Valey too much on her back. "I like you, so we're running away. Hold on tight!"
One of her steps sent a fork of ice crackling along the ground, which hit the administration building's doors and tore them off their hinges. Another sent the ice flying behind her, two bolts in quick succession targeting the orange form of Shinespark, who was chasing them, the first causing her to jump and the second freezing her at the exact place she touched down. A fourth caused a fan of ice blades to spring up in Nyala's path, the armor's weight not sufficient to smash through them as she collided against the opposite side.
"See ya later, cute ponies," Puddles sang, humming a Firefly Sisters tune under her breath as she carried Valey into the administration building.
The teleportation guild was a mess. Shinespark, Maple and Nyala had never seen it before, but as they stood panting in the doorway, they were fairly sure the far wall wasn't supposed to be covered in a fan of ice crystals, and a freshly-cast statue of Puddles and Valey didn't belong in the middle of the room.
A lone unicorn cowering in the corner raised her head, her face round and her coat grayish-brown. "Umm... help?"
"We're here to help," Shinespark insisted, shivering and brushing ice off her hooves. "Someone just came in here with one of our friends! Did you see them!? Where did they go?"
"They're not here, Shinespark," Maple whimpered, folding her ears as defeat washed over her face. "She must have left already. We're too late..."
"A black batpony with a green mane," Nyala insisted, stepping forward and offering the unicorn a hoof to get up. "And a yellow earth pony with weird eyes. They came through here, didn't they?"
"What's your name?" Shinespark asked, also offering a hoof. "Please, it's all right now."
The unicorn took it and stood, looking for all the world like a punched filly even though she was clearly nearing her thirties. "I-I..." She wobbled on her legs.
"Give her space," Maple whispered, putting a hoof on Shinespark's shoulder.
"I'm not even sure what form to fill out for this," the unicorn murmured, wobbling toward a desk. "Violent forcing of passage? Assault on employees? I could file a missing person-"
Nyala stepped into her path, and was very difficult to ignore. "There was a rampage through the hospital and across the entire plaza. I don't think you should be worrying about paperwork right now, miss."
The unicorn didn't stop, trying to pry open a desk drawer that was partially frozen shut, and Maple and Shinespark stood back, unsure of what to do.
"Well, well, well. The trail ends here, doesn't it?"
Everyone but the unicorn jumped. "Chauncey!" Shinespark yelped, the piously-dressed batpony standing in the room's only entrance.
For a moment, Chauncey's frown was iron... and then broke into a merry smile. "Well, I'm glad to see everyone here's still alright. We've had quite an incident just now, and I think we'll be in full cleanup mode for quite a while after this. Miss Gradle." He glanced at the mare still trying to open the desk, and the tendril of ice blocking her efforts shattered as if on command. "Why don't you let me handle this? You look like you could use some time off your hooves."
"I'm sorry, sir," the unicorn, Gradle, apologized. "But they took our others, and I'm the only one authorized to report this!"
"Everyone who needs reporting to is already aware."
Shinespark gave Chauncey a wary glance. "Is that a hint that you want to speak with us alone?"
Chauncey beamed as if everything was right with the world. "Well, I suppose that wouldn't hurt, if you insist. Come, there's a conference room right over here. Gradle can see to her paperwork, if it's so comforting."
Shinespark suppressed her wince. They hadn't even had a minute to discuss what Puddles had said and what they wanted to trust, and now Valey was gone and Chauncey was calling them to a meeting... Of course someone would have noticed the broken recorder. Why couldn't they have used their brains?
"Here we are," Chauncey announced, letting everyone be seated as the lights flickered on. It wasn't a large conference room, but the round single table felt awkwardly empty. "So. It seems you've lost something you rather wouldn't have."
Everyone hesitated, and Maple blinked. "Huh? You mean Valey? You're... more concerned about her than everything else that just happened?"
Chauncey chuckled. "I'm concerned about sarosians. Priorities, I know. But the guild usually has three members here, and I don't know of any other trips that were scheduled for today."
Shinespark was silent. Chauncey had to be fishing for something, baiting a trap.
"Funny, isn't it, how all this happened mere hours after Wallace and his crew sailed away," Chauncey remarked. "It's almost like someone was waiting for their chance to strike."
Shinespark grew visibly uncomfortable, and watched Maple do the same.
"Ho ho..." Chauncey shrugged and smiled disarmingly. "I'm talking about the windigo that resides in poor Puddles. I noticed the broken recorder down in her containment room. Sounds like she talked someone into that."
"We..." Shinespark gritted her teeth and bowed her head. This was it, wasn't it?
"She probably had some secrets or fabrications in mind to convince you to dig a little deeper," Chauncey went on. "Something damaging to our reputation. Hardly surprising, for a base life form like a windigo to do a thing like that. After all, Izvaldi and yourselves have hardly known each other long enough to build up a trusting relationship to weather doubts and accusations, have we?"
Everyone stared in anticipation.
"I'd like to make you a deal." Chauncey's hooked face grew harder, suggesting this wasn't a deal they'd want to miss. "I've lost Morena's daughter, and frankly, I don't think Wallace and his gang will fight for me in the tournament if I'm not working on making her better. You've lost a very good friend of yours. We both have reason to go after them, yet my hooves are tied at the moment with matters of state and my trusted adventurers are out on another mission and won't be contactable for at least a day. Now, if you devote your every effort to getting Puddles and Valey back, I'll completely overlook any role you may have played in her escape, and any potentially sensitive information you may have been told by her. Does that sound fair to you?"
Shinespark met his gaze. "And when we get them back?"
Chauncey's smile returned. "Well, then I'll consider you all allies, and what are allies for if not being in on sensitive information? I could give you all the answers in the world about the things Puddles told you, and I don't need to have heard what was said to know you got more questions than answers out of her. And besides..." His voice lowered conspiratorially. "That's a technologically fascinating suit of armor you've got there. Completely hollow and empty, yet serving as a body for an equine soul. Nothing nearly as good as a real body, though. If you'd ever like an upgrade to flesh and blood, I might have some methods or other things that would be of interest to you. So. Allies?"
Shinespark tensed, looking between Nyala and Chauncey. "You can?" Nyala whispered, gasping as he mentioned he knew.
Chauncey ignored her. "Remember that your friend is missing, too. Puddles and Valey, two teleporters out of three. You have just as much a stake in this as I do, my little ponies, yet here I am offering peace and a reward even though you enabled this to happen in the first place. Shall I sweeten the deal? I can offer a signing bonus, if you wish."
"A signing bonus?" Shinespark looked suspicious.
"I'll take care of one trip through the guild for you." Chauncey closed his gray eyes. "You'll want to get someone after them fast, after all, and we still have one left. But there's only room for one of you to go... I'll also give you free recharges on your ship's mana core so long as you remain in the capitol. Mana energy is under a monopoly in the Empire, so this is quite a generous offer. Do you accept?"
Shinespark frowned. "You know, we're going after Valey either way, and I'm not planning on leaving Puddles running around causing mayhem. Trying to bribe us to do this is... making it weird."
Chauncey's eyes narrowed. "If you'd rather I threaten you, that can certainly be arranged. I merely thought a peace offering would be in order, since trust is clearly strained between your party and Izvaldi right now."
"We'll take it," Maple interrupted, putting both forehooves on the table. "Deal. Just help us find them."
"I'll have a talk with our Gradle," Chauncey said, standing up. "There's a loophole in guild information-shielding policies when it comes to tracing violent criminals who forced passage. You three ought to get back to your ship, and have a long discussion on who the lucky one will be that gets sent on ahead. Like I said, you only have one teleportation unicorn here in the city to chase them with, unless that horn of yours is of the proper caliber."
Shinespark nodded. "Come on, Maple, Nyala. We have a decision to make."
"...And that's what happened," Shinespark finished, standing before a crowd of Gerardo, Slipstream, Starlight, Jamjars, and Sirena. Maple and Nyala backed her up, and Valey was nowhere to be seen. "Puddles, Izvaldi's captive windigo, escaped and fled somewhere with our friend as a prisoner. The teleportation guild network extends all across the continent, so they could be anywhere in the Empire by now. We're going after them. Chauncey is helping, for as much as I trust him. We'll be following along in this ship, the moment it's recharged... and we have the resources to send one of us on ahead."
Sirena hung her head. "You'll be coming back to Izvaldi, right? Because I..."
Shinespark bowed. "You're welcome to come too, if you like. We'll keep you safe from any fighting, won't ask anything of you and will bring you back when we're finished. But yes, if what you're asking is about where you'll stay, it's either find your own place in Izvaldi or join us."
Sirena thought for a while longer, then smiled, her twin tails swaying as she looked up. "Oh, why not. Melia's getting a vacation, and I need one too."
"As for going ahead." Gerardo cleared his throat, wiping a talon across his beak. "As one of the most adventure-familiar soloists on the team, I volunteer myself. However, I'll freely admit that I have no experience in dealing with this windigo, and have been... outshone in combat before."
"All of us have, except Valey." Shinespark hung her head. "Volunteering noted. Anyone else?"
Starlight and Maple exchanged a glance, and it was clear that neither would allow the other to be it. Slipstream blushed and took a nervous step backward, shaking her head. Jamjars pointed a hoof at Shinespark. "Why don't you do it?"
"As the ship's captain, I'd hate to leave you..." Shinespark shot a glance at Nyala.
"I saw how Puddles was fighting," Maple added. "You'll need a ranged fighter to deal with her, or someone good at weapons."
"Ah, yes..." Gerardo glanced to his side. "An incapacitate-and-return task, correct? I think I nominate you as well, Shinespark. After all, you're the only one aside from I who has experience wielding this."
He thrust out his black sword, glittering darkly in its sheath. They made eye contact, and both blinked.
"Oh yeah..." Shinespark's eyes focused on the sword's hilt. "I did use this once, didn't I? Coming to rescue Maple and Starlight, too. Heh. Fitting."
"Will you be fine out there?" Sirena added, tilting her head as Shinespark accepted the sword.
Shinespark strapped the sword to her side and patted it with a hoof. "Maybe. But I'll need to be at my best, and that means using abilities I normally don't show off that I have... and that means I'll need a disguise; one that Valey will still recognize me through. One second, you all."
She stepped up the staircase and into her room, and moments later returned, covered from head to hoof by lightweight plates of white-and-gold armor with a pair of wings embellished on the sides. The suit looked like it hadn't been worn in years, yet with the visor down, it obscured her features completely.
"Braen, version 1.0, from when I was a filly," Shinespark said from inside the helmet. "I kept this around and retrofitted it for my adult size out of nostalgia. It may not be as advanced as you, Nyala, but this is still a feat of Sosan engineering. Light enough for a kid to wear without training, thermally insulated against the Sky District's cold, so it'll give me resistance to her touch attacks. And it conceals my identity. Someone's bound to recognize it eventually, but it'll still let me use my cutie mark at will." The sword dangled at her side. "And... I've always hated leaving my last action as Braen as one that I regret. Anything else?"
Maple gave a broken smile. "I just knew we were poking our noses into something that would run away with us. Why does life have to keep moving so fast?"
"Hey." Shinespark laid an armored hoof over her shoulder. "You watch. This'll be over in a blink, and when it is, we'll stop sniffing around and ignore whatever Chauncey wants to tell us and just live the quiet life, okay? At least you can. I've still got a city to rebuild, someday, so I have every intention of doing this right and making it back alive."
Gerardo saluted. "I shall captain the Dream to the best of my ability in your absence, milady!"
Shinespark returned the salute, then turned to Maple and Nyala one more time. "You two. About the stuff the windigo told us... I wish we could talk it over, because I have some ideas about how all that ties together, and Valey looked like she did, too. But until we're all back together again and have Puddles under control, there's no point in worrying about it. So try to think of... whatever Valey would tell you to think about right now. Bananas, I think. But we're not up against a citywide conspiracy this time. We're up against one runaway creature, and that's something we can do, even if it's magical and more powerful than any of us alone. Maybe Valey will even have her tied up by the time I get there. Wish me luck, and don't lose heart."
Everyone nodded, and Maple hugged her, and then Shinespark left, heading for the iced-over teleportation guild.
"All ready," Shinespark reported, standing in the final doorway, her armor strapped down and Gerardo's sword in its sheath at her side.
"Well! Someone's taking this seriously," Chauncey greeted, standing in a corner as Gradle worked at her de-iced desk. "Miss Gradle, it looks like your services will be needed now."
Gradle cleared her throat once, twice... three times. "Oh, of course! I hope my husband and Kotlin are all right... Thank you for giving me the excuse to find out." She threw a stiff but enthusiastic bow at Chauncey that spoke of too much time in an office chair, and trotted over to Shinespark. "I-I've been explained the situation. Are you my passenger?"
Chauncey nodded, stepping over beside them. "What we know so far is that they went west. Beyond Izvaldi is Goldoa, and beyond that is the sea, so I think I'll be telling your friends in the ship to follow you that way once I've charged up the energy core. I'll make sure there's a way of staying in contact. Gradle, can you handle that much armor?"
Shinespark was seized in a green telekinetic aura and hefted, bounced up and down as Gradle weighed her. "I can manage," the mare decided, in a voice that sounded forced above its natural pitch yet still relatively deep. "Still less mass than most stallions. All right, miss Shinespark! Here we go!"
Gradle stepped closer, put a hoof over Shinespark, her aura grew brighter... and they were both gone in a flash of light.
"Calling a break?" Twilight asked, Starlight pausing in her narration on the other couch and taking a long breath.
"It's the best place we're going to get for a while," Starlight apologized, folding her ears. "I don't want to have to take a day off from overusing my voice, but that might be inevitable at this point. Are you two still following along?"
Rainbow Dash's eyes were glazed, but not because she hadn't been listening. "Heh heh... Puddles is sweet! Forget Valey, I know what I'm dreaming of tonight..."
Starlight flicked her with her tail. "Rainbow! These are my fillyhood friends you're talking about! And an ice monster, but still!"
"Well, you do seem to... umm..." Twilight raised a hoof, smiling gingerly. "Put a lot of emphasis on scenes involving snuggly things, so if Rainbow wants to think about them, you did leave an open invitation."
Starlight reddened slightly. "It's... That was always the way to make Maple feel better! I got conditioned to it! It's not my fault if I enjo-"
"Starlight!" Twilight leaned forward disarmingly. "No one ever said that was a bad thing..."
"Heh heh heh..." Rainbow chuckled to herself into a pillow, not paying too close of attention.
"Mmmmaybe we should change the subject," Starlight muttered, then perked up. "Chauncey! Who wants to make predictions about Chauncey? Ooor the Firefly Sisters? Or Crystal, or anything?"
Twilight shrugged, rolling with the request. "Chauncey? I don't really know. I've been trying to put together things in my head, but it just seems like there's too much, or what there is is too unrelated. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was like Ironridge and there were multiple sides in Izvaldi plotting against each other, because just keeping track of who's friends with who is wearing me out. Percival, well, we haven't seen much of him, but Chauncey, Meyneth, and Wallace and his friends all seem to be on Izvaldi's side. But then there's people like the sisters, or Crystal, who I just can't place."
Starlight nodded. "Anyone who seems familiar? Like you already know anything about them?"
"No," Twilight sighed. "Not even people like Gazelle or Meltdown who were important in Stormhoof. Starlight, I suppose it's time I ask, but... how long is this story going to be? Because I feel like we've been at it for nearly a week now."
Starlight gave you a careful look. "Well, the Griffon Empire is..." She started silently counting. "Maybe a sixth of the way done? And then there's more after that, but I'll let you guess how much when we get there."
"Whooo." Twilight leaned back, running a wingtip halfway through her mane and then leaving it there. "Starlight, your life is eventful. We might just have to take a full day's break at some time. Go into town, or Canterlot, or talk about magic or something unrelated to this, because that's a lot even for me, and I can read a book for three days solid without breaks."
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Even food and bathroom stuff? Like, staying up all night I get, but you read books in the shower?"
Twilight blushed. "I may have spent a day or two once perfecting a transparent telekinetic water shield that doesn't cause light refraction or hold droplets precisely so that I could read in the shower..."
"Tell me about it." Starlight shook her head. "My life being eventful, I mean. Showers are... well, you do you." She gave a lengthy exhale. "I can already tell you I'm taking things with the storytelling a lot faster than in Ironridge, too. That took... longer than I wanted it to, and I really need to pick up the pace. As much as I like remembering myself sitting and talking with Maple, there were... bigger things happening."
"I noticed that," Twilight murmured with a frown. "It's your story, but you keep leaving yourself out of it or telling it from your friends' perspectives, even when you were there. How come?"
"Lots of reasons." Starlight shrugged. "You asked about this before, didn't you? I don't remember what I said, but the only reason it's my story so far is that I'm the one telling it. If Valey or Shinespark were the ones narrating, do you think they'd stick to my perspective aside from the few times I did something major? There were times when I was our last hope, the only thing standing between us an annihilation, yes, like in the skyport, but that doesn't make it my story. If anything, I was one of the biggest bystanders there was. The people who were doing things were Gerardo, Maple, Shinespark... and Valey. Especially Valey. If anyone deserves to be the main character of the story, I would say it's her."
Rainbow belched, and Twilight shot her a glare. "Rainbow!"
"Oh, huh?" The pegasus blinked, looking up and flicking her ears. "Heh. Sorry, girls, was anyone talking to me? I might'a zoned out for a little bit there..."
"Speaking of Valey..." Starlight rubbed her eyes. "You really do remind me of her sometimes."
Twilight giggled and poked Rainbow with a wingtip. "Yeah, I wonder what you'd look like as the protagonist of a story this long."
Rainbow Dash shrugged, clearly having missed the context of the question. "What, if I was writing a story with me as the protagonist? Hey, that stuff's harder than it sounds. I got kicked out of a publishing house once. Granted, I entered through a window, thought it was a free library and didn't get why the ink was still wet, but..."
Twilight's eyes widened in horror. "You did what!?"
"Bwaaah ha ha ha!" Rainbow keeled over, slapping Twilight's back with a wing and chortling. "Knew that would get you. Like seriously, though, what were we talking about?"
Starlight smiled at the duo's antics as Twilight tried to explain what she had been talking about to her friend and Rainbow alternated between joking around, talking about Valey or Puddles, and being legitimately confused. It was nice, really. It had taken her life long enough to reach it, but she was finally somewhere stable, safe, with friends who could take care of themselves and no underlying intrigue or drama. She certainly could have used that so many years ago... Before she knew it, she had allowed the relaxation to get to her a little too far, and slipped into a light nap.
"I'm just saying, if I could beat her..."
"Puddles would clean your clock, Rainbow! Valey has years of experience with combat training!"
"Hey, that's not the point. Besides, how much more is there to fighting than going fast and hitting stuff? But anyway, hey Starlight, do you think if I could beat Puddles, Valey would be-"
"This is not the thing to wake her up over, Rainbow! Look how peacefully she's napping! Starlight's been talking day in and day out, and we should let her rest."
"Wow, you're the one who's yelling. Come on, Twilight, this is important to me!"
"You'd get turned into an even more helpless mess than she was the first time Puddles hugged you, Rainbow Dash. Really, you're enjoying certain parts of the story too much."
"Would not! Prove it! And the story's there to be enjoyed, right, Twi?"
"Prove it!? I-I... Rainbow!"
"Oh. Uhh, sorry if I made you uncomfortable..."
Starlight grumbled to herself, enjoying her nap and secretly enjoying the antics but wanting to make it look like she'd been begrudgingly woken. "I'll prove it if you get over here..." she mumbled, rolling over and lifting a hoof.
"Eh heh heh... Wow, hey, would you look at the time? I've gotta, uhh, make sure those clods at weather control don't accidentally dump a triple portion of snow on Sweet Apple Acres again! Really, who does things like that? See ya!"
Rainbow bolted in a flash Starlight saw with her eyes closed, leaving her to curl back up on the couch. "We didn't wake you, did we?" Twilight asked apologetically from somewhere nearby.
"Yes, but I don't mind." Starlight shifted again. "Think I might be talked out for tonight, though."
Twilight chuckled. "Well, enjoy the rest. Sorry I don't have more questions or predictions, and that Rainbow's being a bad audience."
"No, I really don't mind," Starlight murmured. "I have been telling the story that way, and Puddles... I met her later, and I'm actually underexaggerating her. The windigo her really had a thing for cute things..."
Twilight shook her head, the swish of her mane sounding in Starlight's ears. "It's so weird to think of a windigo as... actually a creature with wants and feelings, the way you tell her, even if they're completely chaotic. Like Discord. I don't know what you eventually did with her, but if it were me, I'd have trouble not seeing her as a real person. I guess there's not a way the windigo can learn a lesson and still have things end happily for it and Puddles, is there?"
"Doubting your own magic of friendship?" Starlight smirked, still snuggled into a pillow. "I guess you'll have to wait and see."
"Heh." Twilight chuckled. "I still think I'm going to be imagining for a while if something like that rampage happened in Ponyville."
"With Puddles in Izvaldi?"
"Yes..." Twilight gave a wistful, almost silly sigh. "We've had enemies shroud the town in chaos and eternal night before, but I don't think we've ever had anyone who just grossly violates personal space and makes romantic sculptures of themselves and others as their primary crimes. It might make for a good change of pace if that happened some day!"
Starlight felt herself slightly redden. "I did enjoy telling that part a little too much, didn't I? Guess it's no surprise how I'd answer that question Jamjars kept bothering me with today..."
"Shhhhh," Twilight whispered conspiratorially. "Don't get too carried away, but Rainbow clearly likes it and between you and me, I, erm... well... Eheheh. Never mind. I'm looking forward to whatever happens tomorrow."
"Sure you are," Starlight mumbled back. "I might wait until the afternoon to start, but I'll see if we can at least get through this next immediate arc next time. Sleep well, Twilight."
Twilight chuckled. "It's early evening. I'm not going to bed for a few hours at least. Sleep well, Starlight."
Valey was cold. Terribly so, like she had been frozen from the inside out and left in a dark place for weeks on end. She could move, but didn't have the energy to shiver. Fortunately, something warm and fuzzy and pony-sized was pressed against her, and she snuggled it for all she was worth, brain moving at a glacial pace.
She had been... with friends. Maple needed comforting. She had been fighting someone. Her wings hurt at the bases, the same way they had in Ironridge after she spent too long shadow sneaking in mares' shower stalls on particularly lonely days. She had...
The realization of what it was she was snuggling hit her mind all at once, and gave her enough of a burst of energy to open her eyes and jump away. "Yaaaaa-" Her hind legs immediately became tangled in fabric, and she hit the floor, the cold numbing every bit of pain.
"You!" Valey scrambled backwards on her rear, dragging several blankets with her, still too slow to process her surroundings as Puddles sat up in front of her, blinking owlishly. "Puddles! You... brrbrrbrrr..."
"Hiya," Puddles replied, neither exuberant nor sultry. "You're lucky I have magical cold resistance, you know, because you're cold. No normal pony in their right mind would snuggle you right now."
"And whose fault is that?" Valey gritted her teeth; it felt like there was frost inside her body. "Bananas, I hate losing! Grrrr..." She wrapped her wings around herself. "D-D-Dumb contact magic... Feels like I'm gonna freeze to death..."
Puddles beatifically smirked, sitting on a bed and patting a stack of blankets piled ten high. "If you do, that's your fault. You're the one who got out of bed."
Valey blinked, mind working frantically to speed back up. "...You iced me just so I'd be forced to cuddle you to stay warm?"
"It had some other purposes, but yes, I did. I know my priorities." Puddles kept up her smug grin, then grew serious. "Now get back in here. I may have overestimated just how much your pony bodies can take before going into a deep freeze, and I've never tried to thaw anyone before, so you could get seriously hurt if you're a baby about this. Hug hug!" She made plenty of room for Valey, inviting the batpony back to her side.
"I hate you," Valey grumbled, pacing sluggishly back to the bed and letting herself be hauled in.
"Mmmmmmhmmhmhmhm!" Puddles hummed in delight, nestling against Valey as hard as she could and rubbing her with her face. "You're fun too."
The worst part was, it felt legitimately good. As cold as Valey was, ten blankets and another pony curled tightly around her made a big difference, and as Puddles took turns nuzzling and playing with her hooves, feeling actually began to return to her extremities. She was still frozen at the core, though, like every breath and heartbeat she took were made at half speed.
...No, that was the second-worst part. She could have, should have, absolutely would have enjoyed every second of it and even reciprocated if she didn't already have a marefriend. They were in a room, there was a door, Valey saw her hat on a peg... This was one call she wasn't looking forward to making. How did one even explain to their significant other they had lost a fight against an enemy who was obsessed with cuddles and now her life depended on doing just that?
"Heehee," Puddles murmured, moving up a bit and starting to nuzzle Valey's leafy ears. "These are cold, too. Can't forget about them!"
"I hate you so much," Valey repeated, thinking her ears were pressed against her skull but not able to feel them enough to tell. "Could you at least do this platonically?"
"Platonically, pfeh." Puddles huffed, snorting a breath in one of Valey's ears. "I don't do romance. Too much giving and not enough taking. This is plenty platonic. Valeyyy, snuggle me back!"
Valey refused to budge as Puddles kept hugging over her, trying to maximize the contact area between them. "Yeah, right now you're in the daughter of a mare who looks like she could punch my head off with a single hit, and I really don't need reasons for her to be mad at me. And I'm pretty sure she said she was like... a kid when you possessed her."
Puddles shrugged against her. "Her body grew up. And I told you, Puddles is no longer in here. Just me! Hmm, I need a name now that I'm free..."
Rather than helping think one up, Valey snorted. "You're free, my butt. The moment I get back on my hooves I'll clean your clock, we'll go outside, and I'll get someone or other to tie you up even tighter than before."
"Sure you will." Puddles nuzzled her way up and down Valey's chest.
"Bananas, you need a doll or something," Valey sighed. "And yeah, I will!"
Puddles continued nosing her way up until her and Valey's noses were touching. "I have a doll," she whispered, making contact with her eerie, pupilless eyes. "It's you! I just wish you'd hug back. You obviously think this feels good, both now and before. So why won't you let yourself enjoy it? Hmm?"
Valey gritted her teeth. "I told you, because I already have a marefriend!" She waited for a moment, then deflated as Puddles didn't stop nuzzling. "You know, because relationships are special? You wanna be one hundred percent there for someone else, which means not going around and... you know? Or maybe you don't?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, because right now, we've clearly got each other all to ourselves. Yay, relationship!" Puddles pressed a hoof against Valey's nose and stared back into her eyes. "So enjoy it!"
"I... But there's... emotions and... Bananas." Valey's ears folded. "You're really that clueless, aren't you?"
"If I am, you're the one it's stopping from having a good time," Puddles pointed out, ceasing her nuzzling. "You're clearly missing the point. I am a superior life form. I've evolved to the point where anything I want, I can get. I wanted you, I got you. Case in point. And in my infinite generosity, because I want to revel in being a harmonic creature, I am offering to share my good time with you. It really doesn't matter whether I'm clueless or not, because I want what I have and I have what I want and I'm not the one refusing to enjoy it over reasons that don't make sense."
Puddles looked completely satisfied in her defense of her case. Valey cringed. "Yeah, you know, you're starting to remind me uncomfortably of the way I used to be, here, and take it from someone who knows: it's totally possible to convince yourself that the rawest deal imaginable is totally normal and fine, for like six whole years of garbage, and make yourself think you're happy and that there's nothing better worth aiming for, and... Ugh, why am I trying to convince a windigo to be a good guy? I've been spending too much time around Ironflanks..."
"Oh, is it, now?" Puddles looked interested. "See, I haven't had my head buried in the sand about things that are bigger and better for six years, Valey. I just had the rawest deal imaginable! Yesterday, even! And then I went from being a shackled and chained lab experiment to a free mare, all because of you. If you think I'm stopping here, you're a fool! Whatever else is out there for life to offer me, I will find it! But..." She nuzzled Valey's ears once again. "The only stupid thing for me to do would be not stopping to enjoy the perks I've just gotten. Like you. Mmmmm..."
"I'm not a perk! I'm a pony!" Valey winced as Puddles ran her muzzle across her cheek. She still didn't know if that was technically true, but for the sake of argument... "What do you even think you have, a sack of meat in a fuzzy coat? I'm serious, do you have any idea what you're missing out on by underestimating us?"
"Oh, pfft. Are you talking about your soul?" Puddles freed a hoof and waved it over her shoulder. "I don't care about those. Fuzzy hugs are exactly what I want! Windigoes don't have physical bodies, you know. But this pony gets all warm and tingly inside when she snuggles with cute mares, and it really makes it an interesting and delightful place to be."
Valey grinned; she saw an opening. "Don't care about souls, huh? Thoughts, emotions, feelings? Yeah, that's the part I missed out on too. But it turns out, you can follow around or stare at as many mares as you want, and as satisfying as it feels at first... it never gets more satisfying. You said you want to find out what else there is for life to offer you? Try getting to know someone. Having someone else care about you, be known by you or want to be known by you! Bananas, I barely hung out with Amber for a few days and I'm really invested in her because we actually clicked together. So seriously, I may not be the most qualified to say this, but you're missing something even bigger than whatever you think you have."
Puddles returned the grin, eyes like glacial lakes. "So you're saying you know how to one-up even this."
"I... uhh..." Valey hadn't actually expected Puddles to go along with it. "Yeah?"
"Tough, because I don't buy it." Puddles instantly dashed her hopes, dragging her face through Valey's chest fluff. "Here's the thing. I think I've got a great deal. There's no self-delusion involved; I know what I had, and I know how much better this is. You're saying you have a better deal, but that they're mutually exclusive. That I'd have to respect you and stop using you like a hugging toy to get it. Next thing I know, you'll also tell me I'm not allowed to break into establishments or vandalize fountains with ice sculptures. Think you're going to twist the windigo to the side of caring about lovey-dovey pony feelings and emotions?" Like a shark, she slid so that they were again face to face. "Because from where I'm standing, there's a very easy way to do it."
"Buh...?" Valey's ears folded.
Puddles gave a cheery wink. "Show me they're not mutually exclusive! Enjoy yourself a little, Valey. Innocent little snuggles. I know you want to, and are holding yourself back. And what kind of caring lover would this Amber be if she didn't want you enjoying yourself while you were far apart? I'm not asking anything dirty or dangerous, and believe me, I do know about those. Now show me being in cute little pony love doesn't make you a boring stick in the mud and prevent you from enjoying having a real, physical body, and I'll give your feelings some of my time."
"...Bananas, I hate you," Valey grumbled, moving her own limbs and putting them around Puddles. "I don't even know what the good thing to do is, here..."
Puddles gave an audible squee at the hug, doubling her own grip on Valey and rocking back and forth beneath the blankets. "Depends on your morality system, but the only one that matters to me is to look after yourself and ditch whatever losers can't keep up. I'm already breaking that by sharing with you, but any system where taking care of yourself isn't a good thing is useless to me. Good choice! Also, see? I'm trying to make you happy! Awww, Puddles cares about your feelings already! Yay!"
"Don't patronize me!" Valey protested, a disgruntled spark inside her telling her that she held in her limbs an extremely frustrating mare who was begging for that frustration to be taken out through aggressive snuggling... but it was just an empty body belonging to a pony who had deserved none of the things that happened to her, under the control of a chaotic, wintery puppeteer. Her frustration drained, washed away by a wave of lucidity at the sheer absurdity of the situation. A mythical demon, powerful enough to destroy an entire city, and somehow all it wanted was for her to snuggle its possessed pony body. She actually laughed. Any knowledge about how that situation had come about didn't matter, because if this was an illogical dream, it was a whole lot better than what real life could throw at her.
Chuckling helplessly, Valey hugged Puddles, but didn't burrow into her coat with any of the enthusiasm the earth pony had. "Bananas, Amber probably wouldn't believe me even if I told her exactly what just happened. I don't get you at all. Have your stupid hugs. Heh heh heh..."
"Yay! Now you get it!" Puddles cheered, going limp and letting herself be used as a pillow. "Relax and enjoy yourself! Yeah! Heeheehee..."
"Could you not laugh like that?" Valey requested, looking up. "It reminds me of... uhh... her, and is making this even more awkward than it already is."
Puddles rolled her eyes and obliged, settling for tucking Valey's forehead beneath her chin.
"Also, I'm still seriously cold. This is gonna wear off, right?"
"I hope so." Puddles shrugged. "I only bullied the manager into giving us this hotel room for two nights, so if you're not up by tomorrow, I'll have to carry you. And high adventure when you can barely move doesn't sound all that fun."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "High adventure? Yeah, right. I'm still slugging you and then hauling you back to Chauncey and the hospital the moment I get my strength back. In fact, I bet I could take you on right now. There's gonna be a lot of dudes ticked at you after that fight."
"Ooh, are you?" Puddles smiled so hard, Valey felt her chin stretching with the top of her head. "Don't be so sure about that..."
"Yeah? Why not?" Valey frowned. "I'm at my best right after a loss, because I've got something to prove. And now I know how you fight, too!"
Puddles sounded confused. "Fighting? I wasn't fighting. I was trying to hug you, Valey! Mmmmmmmm!" She happily tousled Valey's emerald mane with her face.
"Nnngh..." Valey grimaced. "Fine, whatever. What makes you think you can stop me?"
"Are these feeling better yet?" Puddles asked, playing with Valey's ears. "What can cute Valey hear?"
"Don't call me cute." Valey freed a hoof and rubbed it over her ears, brushing Puddles away. "I, uhh... Something in the distance? I dunno, wind?"
Puddles kicked the blankets off, still hugging Valey. Valey shivered at the sudden influx of non-heated air, and was immediately popped onto Puddles' back as the other mare got up. "Here. Feast your eyes!"
She trotted across the room, which Valey was finally able to examine. Square, small, and dark, with a wooden-plank floor bearing a coat of varnish that might have been a hundred years old and plaster that looked like it was applied directly to log walls, it had one door, one small, well-furnished bed, a tiny table, and a low, wide window with the curtains drawn. Definitely a budget hotel, all right.
"If you try to tell me we're here for a honeymoon..." Valey growled. "Where in Izvaldi are we, anyway? Bananas, this architecture looks kinda different, but I wasn't really paying attention..."
Rather than answer, Puddles cheerfully flung the curtains open, revealing the sea.
"Buhhhhh..." Valey's jaw went slack for a moment. "Wait, what? How!? I thought we were bajillions of miles inland! There's supposed to be a whole 'nother province west of Izvaldi before this! What did you do!?"
"Convinced some speedy friends we were worth giving a ride." Puddles shrugged, balancing Valey on her back. "Far away, isn't it? As far as everyone else knows, we could be anywhere in the continent, and even if they trace our route Wallace is gone, so I can smash whatever they send to get me. And even if you take me down, good luck carrying me all the way back there without breaking any laws."
Valey stared for a moment, a gentle grassy slope separating their room from a trunk-strewn beach with the ocean beyond. It looked like an overly pleasant day out, with a few distant clouds and a stallion playing catch with two foals out on the field.
"It's also a great spot for a vacation," Puddles added, turning so she could grin at Valey.
"Pretty sure I said this. I still hate you." Valey buried her face in Puddles' mane in frustration.
"Cool," Valey countered, doing absolutely nothing about it.
"Valeyyyyy..."
Puddles had finally calmed down after more than an hour of aggressive nuzzling and face-rubbing, which actually made her decent at her self-proclaimed job of warming Valey up. Lying together beneath the blankets, she really was warm when she stopped fidgeting and allowing body heat to escape, and even if Valey was feeling in an entertaining mood to her whims, she presently felt desperately good and Valey was loath to let her go. There was also the fact that Valey was on her back and Puddles was laying atop her, limbs locked and bellies pressed together, and with the weight of ten blankets on Puddles' side there was nothing Valey could do to comply even if she wanted to.
"I said cool and I meant it. I'm cold!" Valey wrapped her wings tighter around Puddles. "And bananas, that's your fault. Maybe think next time about how your actions could get in the way of what you want."
Puddles groaned, cheek touching Valey's and head facedown in the pillow. "Mrrrrrgh... But I want oneeeee..."
"Too bad it takes more than threatening, hugging or freezing someone to get what you want in this world," Valey growled. "Dunno where you come from, but ponies are stubborn and don't like doing stuff for free for jerks."
"It's not free," Puddles mumbled. "I'm hugging you."
Valey sighed. "And I'd take one hug from someone I actually care about over a million from you. Meh." She paused, something clicking in her still-chilly brain. "As rude as you're being about this... why are you being, you know, so nice? Like, the first time I met you, you were cackling and using that voice and doing your absolute best to be the world's biggest scumbag. Not that I don't prefer you like this, but what gives?"
"Oh. That's simple," Puddles giggled, her body raising and lowering slightly as Valey breathed. "You're in that tournament, right? Where you get a wish from Garsheeva?"
"Yeah..." Valey kept a strong note of unhappiness in her voice. "Provided you finish having your fun and let us get back to civilization within a month, of course."
"Then it's simple." Puddles nuzzled her cheek. "You're not the one planning to use your wish to kill me if you win."
Valey's mind flickered, recalling who had been there on that first visit. Right, Morena was in the corner, silent throughout the encounter... "That whole thing was a show for her?"
Puddles put her head back down. "If it turns you on, I can do it for you, too, though I think the walls in this place are a little too thin to do it without getting yelled at."
"Huh." Valey relaxed, her core an endless reservoir of cold that was somehow being warmed by a very cuddly windigo. "Yeah, no, don't do that. I guess that actually makes sense, though."
"You thought it wouldn't?" Puddles swished her tail beneath the covers, wrapping it around Valey's. "I'm not very complex, you realize. I see something. I want something. I get something. And right now, you're giving Puddles everything she wants, so you get nice Puddles!" She goosed Valey's ear with her nose. "Except a belly rub. I wanna belly rub. And I'll tickle you if you say no."
"Uhhh... let's not go there?" Valey begged. "You know what? Bananas. Get off, and I'll give you your belly rub, but only if you start doing some stuff I want. And right now, that means answering some questions."
"Okay!" Puddles stood up, bucking the stack of blankets off, though her legs sank into the bedding and she only lifted herself an inch or two above Valey. She flipped over so she was laying across Valey instead of atop and settled back down on her side, stretching her legs out of the way and presenting Valey with her fuzziness. "What'cha wanna know?"
Valey blinked, putting a hoof on Puddles. She had prepared a question, but the sight of the mare like this made her suddenly remember Puddles coughing, and then the dark crystal on her tongue she had swallowed again... She pressed a hoof into Puddles' stomach, and as she pushed, her cutie mark gave a very faint tingle in warning. There was something bad in there, all right.
"Oooh, I'm squishy!" Puddles giggled at the touch. "Heeheeheee!"
"Yeah, you're hardly a bone bag..." Valey stared at her admittedly cute form, feeling a little colder. "So. That, uhh..." She trailed off, reminding herself that asking a fell creature about dark magic could go wrong in so many possible ways. Maybe she'd ask about that just a little later. "The real Puddles. Or, her original soul from before you were in there. Is she still in there?"
Puddles lifted her head to look at Valey, and for half a second, her grin turned monstrous. "Just as much as the original Valey is still in you."
Valey's blood froze. "Y-Y-You... you know? How?"
Puddles licked her lips, then booped Valey with a hoof, leaving her tongue stuck cutely out the corner of her mouth. "I didn't! Just a guess, and you confirmed it. You have way too much empathy for the ancient evil sealed inside a cute little pony. Comparing your situation to mine? Rationally believing you could make me care about things other than myself? Silly mare. So what's your story, cute Valey? Who put you together, and what did you used to be?"
For a moment, Valey lay stricken. "Bananaaas..." she eventually moaned, feeling every bit of recovering energy drain from her body. "I hate you."
She wasn't even able to put emotion behind the statement, and Puddles frowned. "Hey, cheer up!" She shoved Valey with her nose. "Magical empath here; listlessness is boring! I'd rather you be asleep than this! Come onnn, I want a cuddle!"
"Who are you going to tell?" Valey whispered, voice low and dangerous. "I mean it. I've done so ridiculously much to build a life I can actually call mine, and if you ruin this, I will annihilate you. I mean it."
"Awwwww!" Puddles gave an exasperated pout. "I wasn't going to tell anyone! You saw how annoying and obfuscating I was about me to everyone else, right? Icicles, this isn't going at all how I planned..." Her face scrunched, and she sniffed, a tear leaking from one of her eldritch eyes. "You were supposed to be all sad and lonely about it and need someone to talk to, and would want a hug to cheer you up..."
Valey's entire body went rigid, and if there was something hard nearby, she would have punched it. "Bananas, are you serious!? You... buh... a hug? Really? Like, I know it's all you've talked about, but stop trying to emotionally manipulate me into hugging you! And I thought you didn't get how this stuff works in the first place!"
Puddles smiled sweetly. "I know exactly how pony emotions work, cute Valey. I've been tormented by them for thousands of years, remember? Physical sensations are what's new to me, like the wonderful way this body feels when we cuddle together. That's what I want. I'm not doing it for the altruism, but I'm not being malevolent about it either. I'm just getting what I want, like I've told you time and time again. And what do you know? I'm a harmonic lifeform now. Maybe I figured I'd get my satisfaction in a way that could help someone else work out issues of their own, just to see what all the fuss was about. Aren't you glad I chose you to elope with? I've been there, done that, and have an immortal's worth of experience to speak from. You could do nothing but benefit from this if you let yourself enjoy our situation and tried to get what you could out of me, and I'm still baffled as to why you won't. Do you hate yourself? Think you don't deserve it? Maybe a little, but I sense more... positive emotions as well, coming from you. Now give me a belly rub. If you're going to rain on your own parade, I can't stop you, but this adorable pony wants to enjoy her existence."
The hotel room door swung closed with an angry clunk, cutting Valey off from the view of outside just as quickly as it had opened. Puddles was finally gone, and about time, too.
Ever since Valey had accidentally revealed she was using another pony's body just like Puddles, the conversation had been dead and lifeless, and even Puddles' enthusiasm for hugs had been sapped. Somehow, the windigo had been the bigger mare and left first, and even though Valey's common sense told her leaving Puddles wandering around unsupervised was a recipe for disaster, she badly needed the alone time to sulk.
The bed was all hers, and she sprawled listlessly on it, spread-eagled, thoughts boiling but never forming coherent ideas or even tears. She was still cold, but didn't feel it as much. She needed someone she could trust to talk to, was at her limit, couldn't deal with any more...
Her hat. It was still hanging on the peg by the door, and she slithered out of bed, half-shadow sneaking through the floor because she was too lazy to walk. Down the hat came, and thoughtfully balanced inside was her sound stone, not even touched despite Puddles dragging her halfway across the continent.
She slumped against the wall, cradling the faintly-swirling artifact in her hooves. Amber was someone she could talk with. At least, she was in usual circumstances, when the problems had to do with anything but Valey and her... but Valey's wings still hurt at the bases, just a little, and every time she blinked Puddles was wrapped around her again for a brief second until she looked and saw that no one was there.
Valey whimpered soundlessly to herself, hugged the stone for several minutes, and got up. Being a wuss was no fun, and she needed to snap herself out of it to deal with an escaped windigo and get back to her friends. At the very least, she wasn't thinking straight and needed to talk to someone trustworthy and rational, and any problems with her friends that came out of it, she could deal with later. With a short burst of purpose, Valey stared into the sound stone and prepared to activate it... and remembered that doing that took magic, and the Griffon Empire was notoriously stingy about its power grid.
"Oh, come on!" Valey growled, stomping and surveying the room to find no powered light fixtures whatsoever. The bed, the window... Outside? Valey snapped to the window, peered through the curtains, and grinned. The stallion she had seen earlier playing with his foals was still there, and he was a unicorn. Perfect.
With her hat back on her head, Valey snuck underneath the hotel door, figuring she didn't have a key to lock it. The day outside was unfairly pleasant, with a moderate ocean wind that cut patterns through the tall field grass and hot, cloudless sunshine that made her want to flip over and sunbathe. In fact, she wouldn't have been surprised to see Puddles doing just that, but she had better things to focus on.
"Hey!" she greeted, approaching the stallion and his foals in plain view with a wing shading her eyes, the cold uncomfortable but far from debilitating. "Any chance you guys could give me a hoof? I've got a magic crystal thing that needs charging, and it takes like less than a second!"
She got their attention instantly. The father's eyes seemed to widen as he took her in, but both foals bounded up to her with windblown manes and expressions of eager joy.
"Hey, lady!" the faster foal shouted, squeaky voice easily piercing the wind. "Are you a pirate?"
"Coooool..." the second foal cooed, awestruck and wandering to the side to stare at Valey's wings. "These look just like the pictures in our books! Are they real?"
"Uhhh..." Valey stopped, frowning in suspicion as her mark began to tingle.
Flash! A bolt of hardened telekinesis soared past her head, her danger sense allowing her to sidestep out of the way. "Get away from my kids!" the stallion hollered, charging her with his horn glowing as the two surprised foals were telekinetically yanked toward him.
"Yo! Hey!" Valey backflipped, landing defensively with her wings spread. "What gives!?"
The stallion skidded to a stop when the foals were back at his side, gazing around with confusion on their little faces and looking up for reassurance. "What's wrong, Dadda?"
Not taking his eyes off Valey, the forest-green stallion hissed at his foals in a frightened stage whisper. "Kids, what have I told you about strangers who look like her!? They're dangerous!"
Valey narrowed her eyes and started walking forward. "Okay, that's just cold. What's your problem, dude? You just walk up and shoot people who were trying to ask-"
A green telekinetic glow formed around her. Was he fighting? Did he seriously want to pick a fight with her? The foals seemed to think so. "Yay, Dadda fight the pirate!" one cheered, both backing off and sitting down to watch.
Valey gritted her teeth as the forcefield flung her upwards, stopped her in midair, and hurled her like a hammer toward the ground. As if! What did this clown think she was, a civilian?
With a pump of her wings, Valey zipped downward out of the cloud, the stallion spending too much effort pushing her downwards to stop an escape should she fly that way too fast. Whud! She hit the ground running with just enough time to break her momentum and remain upright, swerving and wobbling to dodge two hasty shots of telekinesis that were fired in surprise. The stallion looked angry, then worried, and as Valey approached him at a swift canter, he raised a hoof to strike, horn still glowing.
But... the danger was coming from behind her? Valey frowned, reading the stallion's eyes... and in the same instant, she jumped and spun midair as he disappeared in a teleport. He appeared exactly where she had predicted, sucker punch flying, but Valey was faster.
Pow! With one hoof, she slugged him, making sure not to dislodge any teeth, intercepting his blow with another and wrapping a wing around him as she continued to spin. In one smooth motion, Valey threw him to the ground, flipped over him, and landed triumphantly a short distance away.
"Nyaaah." She stuck out her tongue. "Looks like the pirate wins! Good fight, Dadda. Next time, ask your opponent for consent first, and don't be an aggressive jerk."
"My. Name. Is. Franz!" the defeated unicorn spat. "Only my foals get to call me that!"
"Woooooah." Both foals gazed at Valey from a safe distance, pupils almost as wide as their eyes. "The pirate beat Dadda!"
"Cool!" one foal cheered. "You're really cool, lady!"
The other foal shoved her sibling on the shoulder with two hooves. "But we're not supposed to talk with her, remember?"
"Uhhh... yeah." Valey regarded them, not even looking as she sidestepped a bolt Franz fired while prone. As rude as he'd been, he'd inadvertently given her what she came for: being caught in his telekinesis had charged the sound stone. "Don't trust strangers, and all that, kids. But don't attack them, either, 'cuz they could totally be cool as well. Savvy?"
She took one last moment to nod before deciding she better get out of there, spreading her wings, and kicking off, leaving the three far below on the ground. From the safety of far in the sky, she watched Franz get up, glare at her, and corral his foals back to a hotel room, his outing thoroughly ruined. Valey sighed after them. This was the empire, this wasn't Izvaldi, batponies were viewed from normal at best to criminals and scourges... and for all she knew, Franz's fears could have been totally justified. They were right next to the sea, after all. Maybe she could have been a pirate.
"Hello? Valey?"
"Hey, Amber," Valey sighed, hovering limply with no better place to go. "Bananas, I hate this place."
"Valey," Amber greeted, slowing slightly at Valey's tone. "You... sound a little down. Did anything happen?"
Valey sagged in midair, wings beating to keep her aloft. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Well, I'm in Ironridge at the moment. There have been some developments you might want to hear about, but... you come first." Amber sighed. "Is it about Nyala?"
"Err... uhh..." Valey blinked, realizing just how much had happened since she last spoke to Amber. "Long story. Mega-long. Short version, remember that windigo I was talking about? Puddles?"
Amber sadly paused. "Did you talk to her again and have something happen? I can listen, if..."
"Something? Yeah, you could say that." Valey glared at the ocean and the grass and her hotel room far below. "Specifically, she broke out. Bailed. Flew the coup. Made all of us look like idiots. And, uhhh..." She reddened in embarrassment, drooping harder. "Froze me solid, or at least enough that I blacked out. Yep. I lost again. And instead of being dead or having all my friends dead for it, I wake up to find she somehow foalnapped me and dragged me halfway across the continent. So, uh, all on my own except for a crazy windigo, back in the land of ponies who think I'm automatically a criminal because of my eyes and wings... and I've been spending probably hours talking to her, and it's just as emotionally draining as you'd expect it to be, and... ugh."
"Oh, Valey..." Amber sighed in sympathy. "That must have been rough. Must still be being rough. Are you safe, at least? You can talk, can't you?"
"No, she, uhh... She didn't wanna hurt me..." Valey cringed harder. The conversation was rapidly approaching the point she really, really didn't want to talk about. "I might have... gotten her wrong a little after our first conversation when I was telling you about her. Apparently she doesn't actually care about the whole ponies-fighting and hatred thing and is just really selfish and egotistical. She completely loves the fact that she has a physical body, since windigoes don't normally get those or something. Is kind of obsessed with it. And, uh, is... pretty definitely hot for me."
"Oh." Valey could hear Amber suck in a breath. "Oh, and you said she took you and you alone, and ran far away, and..." Amber's voice started to catch. "Valey, what happened!? A-A-Are you... Did...?"
Valey wiped her nose, grimacing and preparing to unload everything in a single sentence that couldn't be stopped once it was started. "I didn't mean it, I'm serious! I woke up and she was hugging me and I could totally have bailed but I was so cold from the ice I needed to get warm and she's really fuzzy and actually not like eldritch cold or anything, but every minute I was there she kept trying to talk me into living it up and cuddling just for the sake of enjoying it, and I lasted like way over a month on the airship and then in Stormhoof and now here but like just the other day I was poking around for information and got baited really hard this dumb maid so I was already feeling frustrated or something and I dunno, Puddles must've smelled it or locked on or whatever and it's not my fault she's actually really cute but I'd just messed up and lost another fight and she was going on and on and on and I was really frustrated so I gave up and hugged her back and tried to enjoy it but now I just feel even more terrible and even she decided I was being a killjoy and left me alone and I didn't mean it and I'm sorryyyyy..."
She trailed off into a hiccup, rubbing her nose and eyes again, curled into a ball midair and only hovering on instinct. "Bananas... sorry... I gave it the best I had..."
Amber was silent while she wailed, and might have been frowning... but when she spoke, it was in confusion more than anything. "Wait, you... hugged her? She wanted to cuddle with you?"
Valey sniffed heavily. "Yeah..."
"And... that's all?" Amber sounded cautious. "You didn't get hurt? Nothing dangerous, or below the tail?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "Uh, no, unless you count making someone cold so they have to rely on your body heat to warm up. Like, ears and chin and belly rubs and all that. No kissy stuff."
Now Amber sounded almost more concerned. "And that bothers you? You said she was attractive, didn't you? I thought you liked that."
"Yeah, I do!" Valey exclaimed with a frustrated growl. "Amberrr! My co-captain from the Ironridge Defense Force kicked out all the mares just to bother me, I like them so much! And that's the problem! I'm in a relationship now, or something! At least, I thought we are..." Her pupils shrank. "We are, right? Were? I didn't... I... Bananas, I've been trying so hard to turn over a new leaf..."
"Oh." Amber sounded hollow, as if it was her that had just made the terrible mistake. "I... didn't even think we needed to talk about what a relationship meant to each of us like that. I guess I forgot, or it slipped my mind since so many in Riverfall are the same. I... You... Cuddling?"
Valey hovered, silent and awaiting.
"Valey, this is important," Amber said. "You said you let yourself enjoy... platonic cuddling with another pony? And that you feel badly for it? Who do you feel like you wronged, me or yourself?"
Valey cringed. "I've never been in a real relationship before! I thought you're supposed to be, like, devoted and loyal and stuff! Bananas, I tried really hard at this!"
"Is that how you wanted it to work? Or how you thought I wanted it to work?" Amber's voice was tight. "Valey, please."
"Huh?" Valey rubbed at her eyes. "Bananas, I dunno. I just don't wanna lose my friends. I thought that's how it's supposed to work, but am I wrong?"
There was a hint of pleading in her voice, and Amber picked up on it with an apologetic sigh. "Valey, it works however both sides agree it to. I'm so sorry we didn't talk about this beforehoof. I thought... I thought we enjoyed each other and were close, and there were crushes and we could flirt and I'd be there for you for serious emotional things and..." She trailed off. "Did I ever say it? I don't even remember any more. I wanted to say, right before you left, that I enjoyed your company and would be happy to be your marefriend, but absolutely didn't want to be someone thousands of miles away who was preventing you from having fun just because of the vague promise we'd someday see each other again. I didn't want to prevent you from enjoying yourself for my sake..."
Valey blinked. She hovered. She turned the sound stone over in her grasp, swallowed, and couldn't say anything.
Now it was Amber's turn to sniff. "Heh... I was imagining if we did meet again, I'd get to ask you to tell me about all the cute mares you snogged while I was gone. Guess that would be in poor taste now, huh? I really messed this one up, didn't I?"
"Hey, uhh..." Valey folded her ears. "You okay, there? Bananas, I feel like I've been ran over by an emotional boat this last day or two, but I didn't mean to make you sad too..."
"Friends are for being sad together," Amber halfheartedly giggled. "So, you feel like you messed up with this... really cute windigo, which I'll need to hear the full details on later. I feel like I messed up letting you stress about this, and... hopefully not with what I've been up to while you've been gone. Think there's any chance we could forgive each other, have a distance-hug, and try again?"
"Please?" Valey begged.
"Deal," Amber hummed, sniffing again. "Now, just so we're clear: I don't care what you do over there as long as it isn't evil and remorseless. Have fun and take care of yourself, and if you find someone you'd rather be with than me, that's fine. But otherwise, no matter how many cute mares you hug that aren't me, even if you go a lot further, I'd still be happy to try to be marefriends. Do be careful with that windigo, but that's just common sense, right? Now cheer up! Being a sad pony doesn't suit you, and somehow, I doubt this windigo wants to give you hugs of comfort."
"Yep. Heh." Valey put on a brave grin, wiping her eyes for what would hopefully be the last time. "And you know, you might actually be surprised. Puddles is... really weird, and honestly reminds me of myself more than anything. My old Ironridge self, and all that." She frowned. "Oh yeah, and she knows. That I'm, uhh... not this body's original owner, just like her. Not the details, but I kinda let it slip while she was messing with me. So I hope that doesn't come back to bite me."
Amber sighed. "Yeah, there might not be much you can do there but hope... Valey? You said she reminds you of yourself. Are you going to try to... you know...?"
"See if there's maybe a tiny chance she could try to do something good or be a decent person?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure talking her into it is my only way to get out of here without her throwing a fit and blowing something up to guilt-trip me into coming back, so yeah, I sorta have to. Definitely not planning on having any harrowing combat escapes against elite military goons with her, though, and bananas, this'll make it awkward if I ever have to tell Morena the thing possessing her kid is a good guy..." She sighed. "Guess I don't have to worry about that with getting the old Valey back. All that matters there is what'll happen to me after I... y'know... give her back her body."
Amber was silent. "Let's not think about those things."
"Yeah." Valey shivered, the high altitude and her recent freezing combined was starting to get to her. At least she had Amber's permission to enjoy Puddles' company now... "Bananas, this would be easier if I could hug you in real life. Puddles is cute and all, but when there's no emotion behind it, it's like hugging a marionette. Or worse, since she technically is one and I am too. Heh. Two puppet masters with their cute pony bodies..."
"You're going to be comparing yourself to her a lot, I can tell," Amber sighed. "I... don't know what to tell you, Valey, except this: what you do and who you care about matters more than what you are. You could transplant me into Braen or a batpony or anything else and I'd still be Amber, right? Maybe there are some people who are put together or assembled through unnatural circumstances, but I'm starting to not believe in things that are inherently good or evil. There doesn't have to be anything in common between you and this Puddles at all..." Her tone shifted to teasing. "Except that you're both cute. Feeling up to dealing with her yet?"
Valey winced. "Give me... five more minutes?"
"I could give you a lot more than that, if you're feeling up to this," Amber sighed. "I was doing this for Shinespark, but you could do it too... I got Dorable to agree to talk. With you, specifically, though I imagined you and Shinespark would be there so she could ask her science questions. He's not happy about it and this might be a one-time offer, so... I'm sorry to put any sudden pressure on you, but if there's anything you need to ask him, it might have to be today."
"Dorable." Valey flapped, keeping up her hover. "Yeah... Bananas. And I need to know stuff from him, too. Maybe actually more than I used to, now. You know what? Put him on. Better to deal with a scientist I've got a little leverage on than mess with Puddles again just yet, and I have no idea where she is."
"Okay," Amber replied, sounding as though she was stepping away from the sound stone. "See if you can wait one minute."
Valey waited. Seconds ticked into minutes, and then she had gone two, five... and finally, the sound stone crackled.
"Who is this?" a weary stallion's voice asked, sounding as though it belonged to someone big but wasn't accustomed to gruffness or yelling.
"Yours truly, the one and only former terror of Ironridge's Stone District Defense Force, wholesale stealer of Dangerous Karma's bananas, yak trouncer and the cutie who got your ugly scientist butt into a job in Sosa after your experiments practically murdered my sister, Ex-Admiral Valey." Valey did a midair flourish, smirking grimly. "Heya, Dorable. It's quiz time: tell me everything you know about Nightmare Modules."
The sound stone was silent for several minutes, until Dorable gave a long, unhappy sigh.
"Come on, buddy..." Valey nudged the stone a little. "I wanna know. You still owe me big-time."
"You don't want to know," Dorable replied flatly. "They won't make you feel better about anything."
Valey frowned. "Tough, because I'm not interested in feeling better. I'm interested because right now there's a bad guy running around with one of them, and I need to know what they're capable of. And I'd really rather not find out by having whatever it is used on me."
"...You won't thank me," Dorable warned. "You could steer clear of this person instead."
"Nope. Not happening." Valey shook her head. "Partly because I don't wanna, and partly because I can't. I need to know this, science guy. And you're not looking for my thanks in the first place."
"Nightmare Modules are extracted from obsidian," Dorable said. "Just like you. This is your last warning."
Valey glared at the sound stone. "Tough. Even more reason why I need to know this. Spill the beans, Dorable."
The gemstone paused for a moment, then finally relented. "They are patterns. Shapes and waves condensed to information, extracted from some property in the structure of obsidian that isn't entirely physical. Obsidian is a physically perfect substance without blemish, but upon exposure to certain higher orders of magic, it contains... traces. I'm not sure how to explain it to someone of your intellect. They're like shadows. If you examine them the right way, you can tell what made them. Aftereffects of the event and magic that created the obsidian before it was a meteor in the sky."
Valey shuddered. "Bananas. You crazy scientists were trying to recreate that? To make more of this stuff? Were you insane?"
"Don't interrupt now that I'm telling you what you wanted to hear."
"Right..." Valey shrank, licking her lips in frustration.
"We discovered a violent reaction between the chaotic essence of windigoes and obsidian. The explosion that ended our research in Icereach happened after we liquified a windigo heart using a procedure we had developed for other spells, injected it into a particularly large piece of obsidian, and had our shield spells fail when we failed to anticipate the strength of the blast as it reformed inside. You arrived shortly after, with the entire room covered in ice. You may have thought it was a failed experiment, but even as we were frozen, our sensors in the tower recorded the data we needed, and an automated process finished our work. The shape and structure of the ice crystals generated by the blast were the data we needed, and they were left in records, down in the basement of the tower, even when we were gone."
Valey stared into the sound stone in rapt attention.
"I went back to get them, of course. You didn't keep a close enough eye on me to stop it. So many of my colleagues had died for that information, I was duty-bound to retrieve it. I took the readouts back to Ironridge and analyzed them, hoping to use advanced mathematics to construct a model of the magic's original form. What I found instead was fascinating. You would find it disturbing."
Dorable cleared his throat. "Under analysis, the patterns broke themselves into precise blocks of uniform size, under a finite number of states and arranged into clearly-progressing chains that I was slowly able to assemble into one long stream. In layperson's terms, letters arranged into words in a language. Whatever magic created obsidian, its shadows were left behind in the form of thoughts or meaning. Scientifically, that is impossible as a coincidence, which means not only did something intelligent exist at the top of the mechanism that created obsidian, but it put that level of detail into its work."
Valey was gripping the sound stone hard enough to crush a lesser rock by now, but didn't dare interrupt. Dorable was telling her that moon glass had been deliberately created, with an exact purpose. If that same cause had made her...
"The next thing I learned was that the language's syntax was much simpler than a spoken language. In Ironridge, Sosa was working on theoretical improvements to the finite-state terminals used to control communication connections and data capture and playback. We didn't have the physical ability to make them, but there was a theoretical interest in... machines that could follow a set of instructions, moving from one instruction to the next. I read the papers written about these, and the patterns extracted from the obsidian... even without a way to interpret their meaning, they were similar in structure. Nightmare Modules are that: instructions designed to be executed on a machine."
Valey swallowed. "W-What kind of machine? Did you build one? And what do they do?"
"We found a way to use them. This module attacks a living creature's memory, corrupting and twisting it in on itself or erasing it altogether. After seeing it used, even my curiosity and constitution for the dark sciences was overwhelmed. Now, the research is locked away, and I only allow the spell to be used sparingly and under Arambai's direct orders. More importantly, we learned that there are more than one of them, but not how many or what the others do. Do you understand the significance of everything I've told you?"
"Uhhh..." Valey nearly dropped the stone, her hooves were shaking so hard. "That this stuff is bad news? Like, I like my memories, thanks."
"They are malevolent; when executed, they act cruelly on harmonic life. They are self-propagating; one thing that is almost certain is that another module has the effect of creating obsidian. They are incomplete; if there are multiples, they all come from a greater whole, and there were fragments of unused instructions in the data we obtained. They are from beyond this world; they fell in a meteor. And, they have an intelligent creator. Do you want to imagine what greater picture all of these things point to? Because I have, and wish I hadn't."
The swirling vortex of magic that powered the sound stone reflected in Valey's eyes as she stared darkly into nothing. "If there's more of them, so you put them all together and have them do whatever they do all at once... and they came through space, which no living thing could do... but... so..."
Her ears went flat. "Bananas. Are you saying whatever nasty made them could be trying to duplicate... itself...?" Her eyes turned straight upwards, though it was broad daylight and her target was nowhere to be seen. "The Mare in the Moon..."
"Yes," Dorable said. "Much of this is conjecture. The Icereach module's effects are not. And think... if these instructions were sent here with such insidious precision for foolhardy scientists like me to find, you came with them. You, and every other obsidian brand. Why do you think you are here?"
"I..." Valey swallowed, feeling her heart skip a beat.
"I don't know," Dorable told her. "I never found out, or even came up with a good guess. Maybe you will. I told you this wouldn't make you feel good about yourself, however. Here is your marefriend. Maybe she'll help you work it out."
"Valey!" Amber cried, sounding as if it had taken everything she had to remain silent during that discussion. "That's... Listen, maybe there's a scary or unpleasant effect from this spell, but that doesn't have to reflect on you!"
"Yeah. Yeah, cool, I know." Valey's voice was distant, her mind too busy processing implications to feel anything. "Stay here, Amber. I'm definitely gonna need someone to talk to once I... uh... start drawing conclusions..."
"I'm not going anywhere," Amber promised. "I'll be right-"
The sound stone ran out of power.
Valey blinked. She blinked again. "Bananaaaaas..."
Hugging herself and grimacing, she stopped beating her wings, descending into a loose glide spiraling slowly toward the ground. Dorable had been right. She didn't feel better knowing. But now she had to know what Puddles wanted with her Nightmare Module along with so many other things... and was even less sure she was a real pony.
Water brushed against the hull of the Immortal Dream, guiding it westward along the river to the sea.
The power was off, Gerardo having decided the refill to their mana core Chauncey gave them needed to be preserved. No light shone from the crystal-studded cage that once held a harmonic comet, and belowdecks the lights were off and the windows wide, leaving just enough darkness to sleep in, yet enough light not to trip.
Starlight sat at the ship's railing watching the shore go by, Gerardo's constant steering preventing them from being grounded as the river carried them along. Her tail flicked idly and her ears stayed perked, watching as homesteads and farmland and wilderness with no population whatsoever scrolled past. It was an endless montage of creatures living, places they had lived, and lands yet to be lived in, secluded and isolated from the rest of the world by vast amounts of physical space.
She had an airship. Before that, she had had her legs, and they had carried her across a distance no mortal had traveled before. Griffons and pegasi had wings, but... the ship passed an earth pony kicking at a fruit tree, and Starlight wondered if they had lived there their whole life.
"It makes you feel tiny, doesn't it?" Maple murmured, walking silently up beside her and sitting down, wrapping her tail around Starlight's back.
"Huh?" Starlight glanced up at her, shifting closer in welcome.
"Watching everything out here go by," Maple continued. "Riverfall and Ironridge were cities. We made them the way we wanted, and everything outside them was just a place you didn't go. Growing up, I read a lot of books and listened to the Sosan sailors with Willow, and there were always so many stories about the things beyond our borders. But all we could really see was forest and jungle and broken rock. Me and Amber and Willow took a trip once, years ago, after we had decided we weren't going to Ironridge but before Willow had Alder, where we took the boat Amber had been making and went south, upstream to the base of the mountains. It took several days and was quite the journey, but it was our first and only experience of the world outside ours. We were so impressed by how big it was."
Starlight watched a cute little house on a riverbank hilltop go by, a hammock strung between two likely-planted trees outside, nodding to show she was listening.
"But now that I've been to Ironridge and spent a month on an airship, and seen the sea and this empire and how old and spread-out everything is..." Maple hummed to herself a little. "Ponies and griffons have been here for thousands of years. I suppose I expected the empire to look like Ironridge all the way through, with some places for growing food but people everywhere and in control of everything. Instead, it's like they spread out as much as they can and have all the time in the world to do it, and can't even cover it. There are cities you can see from end to end of just by turning your head, and there are plains and fields and forests like these and the ones outside Riverfall and Ironridge where there's just nobody. The world is just that much bigger than everything every person put together can be... It's beautiful, but it makes me feel tiny. We could jump off this ship together, right here, walk a few miles and then cut down some trees to build a house and never have to worry about trouble again."
"It does, huh?" Starlight folded her ears. "It makes me feel the opposite."
"Oh?" Maple gave her a curious nudge. "How so?"
"Because as big as it is, it doesn't stop us." Starlight gazed to the side, looking downriver at the horizon they were sailing to. "Everyone else, maybe, but they live their lives and they don't care. I didn't like it in Equestria, so I came to Riverfall, and it didn't matter how big or empty the mountains were. We wanted more than Riverfall, so we went to Ironridge, and we wanted more than Ironridge so we came all the way out here. Now Valey is missing and Chauncey says she was taken far to the west, so we're sailing out this way so she can do her thing and smell me so we can pick her up. We can move around and travel to do whatever we want, and the world just gives us room to do that. It's ours."
Maple gave a soft giggle. "Hmm. If the world was alive, I wonder what it would think of that. Or us. Do you think it would find us funny, or annoying, or endearing, or in need of help?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Why are you thinking about this, anyway? How few ponies there are compared to how big the world is? Maybe it's just the way things are."
"Because I grew up in a town," Maple murmured, "and in that town everyone lived close by and if you walked down a street, you'd probably see someone you knew. So this isn't the way things have been for me. I wonder what it would be like, and I can't tell if it would be the nicest thing in the world, having just us and a few others we trusted completely... or terribly lonely."
Starlight's ears fell. "I thought you were trying not to think about how few ponies there were."
For a moment, Maple was silent. "Because of what Gerardo and I found in the population data? About how... low the survival rate was?"
"Yeah."
"It's okay." Maple nudged her. "Seeing the whole world so much emptier than I expected, thinking about it... It makes it feel... less like there was something I could have done. I don't know, Starlight, I'm just trying to find healthy ways to cope. Something better than spending a year or two laying in my bed when there are friends who need me."
Starlight wanted to ask if she was finding that, but couldn't think of a way to put the words to her tongue that would convey what she felt. Instead, she settled for leaning against Maple and closing her eyes. "I need you."
"I need you, too," Maple whispered. "And I'm glad to have you, Starlight."
There was a pause, and then Maple continued. "Something I did in Riverfall while I was getting better was, every time I felt so sad about something that it was like there could never be anything good again, I tried to find something beautiful in it. I didn't always find something, or feel what I found, and many times Amber or Willow had to sit there and help me, but it did help when I could believe it. And there shouldn't be anything beautiful about that many dead foals... but..." She bowed her head. "I can think of things. Seeing how spread-out the world is like this, it wouldn't be possible if there were so many more ponies each generation. The world would be such a different place. If we're so small and so far apart... doesn't that make having each other so much more significant?" A tear dropped on Starlight's head, and she realized Maple was crying. "You came all the way across those mountains to find me, Starlight. It's so special."
"Yeah," Starlight repeated, also at a whisper.
"And now we're going across a continent to get Valey back, because friends just aren't replaceable." Maple squeezed her shoulder. "Maybe having less and having lost things lets us appreciate more what we have. And... with numbers like those..." She shuddered. "There are probably a lot of other mares out there who know how I feel."
Starlight hesitated for a moment. "So... you feel better? You're not sad about Aspen anymore?"
"Yes. I feel better." Maple held her close. "But I'm also still sad. I just wanted to tell you what I was feeling, and thank you for being here. Losing someone I cared so much about and looked forward to caring about so much... Mmm."
"Stay here a while?" Starlight asked, patting the ground.
Maple shuffled again, getting a more comfortable position. "I don't see why not."
Maple and Starlight sat for a long time, and didn't speak. The weather was neither warm nor cold, but Starlight still enjoyed the presence at her side... it was more than a convenience. Maple's words kept bouncing around in her head, and even as miles upon miles of wilderness and secluded homesteads rolled past the gentle bobbing of the Dream's deck, she didn't pay the visuals a drop of her attention.
What if they did stop? They had met by incredible chance, just like Maple had said; Starlight could look back and think up any number of times she had nearly died during her trek over the mountains. In the endless caves, her horn taxed to its limit merely from providing light, her rope missing and her supplies strained... Scavenging for food, trusting the berries she found to be edible and not poisonous... The sudden rainstorm, catching her without shelter and threatening to freeze her to death. She had been sick in a cave for a week or more, recovering after that. Building a poorly-crafted boat, falling down the waterfall, and for all her effort and luck she could have drifted right on past Riverfall while unconscious and freezing if nobody had been there to see her... but here she was. They had met.
Again, what if they stopped? Maple had imagined getting off the boat, leaving and starting a life in the middle of nowhere where none of their troubles in the world could find them. The lives they were passing on the riverbank looked happy enough. Plenty of ponies and griffons found fulfillment in an existence like that. They could get off. Between her horn and Maple's cutie mark, they had enough magic to do useful things and get by. Gerardo's steering wasn't perfect, and sometimes the riverbank was a running leap away. They could do it. They really could. But... she knew they weren't going to, and that was the end of that.
Starlight sighed. There she was, with the pony who cared about her most, being borne westward because that was what they were doing. Valey was out there, and the plan, as flimsy as it sounded to her, was for her to act as a beacon for Valey's unusual abilities so once Shinespark caught up with her, the windigo could be dealt with and Valey could track them for a rendezvous. Maybe it was an okay plan. She knew she was along for the ride. What couldn't settle in her mind was why.
Why did she even do anything? It wasn't a question of whether there was a reason; she had thrown everything she had and more at the mountains, and at saving Ironridge from the windigoes. She had talked Valey into fighting Herman, even, by going to do it herself first. It was like there was a flame inside her that wouldn't quit, the same thing that let her consider a lifetime spent doing nothing and existing with her mother in the middle of nowhere yet made it impossible for her to accept that as reality. She was sailing to help her friends, or to help her friends' friends, and there wasn't any question about it: even if she had been given a perfect opportunity to stay in Izvaldi, even if her friends had stayed behind there, westward she would have gone.
She stared at her forehooves, and at the still-new wooden deck beneath them. The grain of wood ran along the length of the ship, and her eyes traced it until she was looking at the horizon that was their destination. She had left Equestria. Left Riverfall. Left Ironridge and Stormhoof and Izvaldi, and wherever they went next, she doubted she'd stay there either. She couldn't rest, had everything she thought she wanted sitting patiently at her side... and her hooves still tingled with an unspent energy that she had no idea what to do with.
She had been content before Sunburst left, right? What had she done with herself then? Enjoyed reading books, used her magic to make little crystal trinkets that never lasted until the next morning, spent time with her friend. Wandered around her town, as small and enclosed as it had been. Played with her toys. When was the last time she had played with something, even? Had that one event really changed her that much? What had she even had then that she didn't have now?
Another memory floated into her mind, of her in the crystal palace beneath Ironridge after the city had been saved. Of the harmonic flame there reaching out and talking to her, asking how it could help her because it didn't know either what she needed. She couldn't remember the exact conversation, or anything more than its general direction, but... even an ancient magical thing like that couldn't figure her out. She was completely at a loss, and closed her eyes, wondering if the darkness would help her answer a question she didn't even know how to formulate.
"Your problem is that you don't know how to trust anyone."
"Aah!" Starlight jumped up at the sound of her own voice. The fuzzy side she had been sitting against, she suddenly realized, wasn't Maple's, but her own.
Starlight stared back at herself, reflected in her own eyes, a perfect copy mirrored across from her on the deck. She lifted a hoof. "What...? But Maple was..."
The other Starlight shrugged. "She left while you weren't paying attention. Or maybe you've been asleep for a while now, and you're dreaming. Or you've lost it and are hallucinating. How should I know? I'm just an aspect of your own mind, aren't I?"
"I'm... talking to myself?" Starlight made a confused face.
"It looks like it to you," the other Starlight said. "Sorry if any of that sounded condescending, by the way. You just seemed like you could use someone to talk to, and figured your own mind would have to do."
Starlight patted the ship's deck around her, but it seemed to be solid and moving, and she didn't have any trouble focusing on the landscape drifting past. "I'm going insane, aren't I?"
"If you want to look at it as a bad thing." The other Starlight shrugged again. "So? What's got you worried? Articulate it. You're fortunate enough already to care about yourself and have a conscience that wants to help. Some people attack and tear themselves down for sad reasons, but maybe you can work something out."
"T-This is weird," Starlight managed. "I've had enough experiences with weird magic not to trust you. If you really want to help, prove it and let me wake up!"
The other Starlight shrugged. Her horn pulsed teal, and she vanished in a spark of teleportation.
For a second, Starlight sat blinking, rubbing her eyes. Had she been sleeping? She really couldn't tell, though the corners of her eyes did feel slightly crusted... She was alone on the deck. With a sigh, she went back to gazing at the passing landscapes, realizing the sun was much further along in the sky than she remembered it and wondering if she should go back inside.
Valey spiraled directionlessly in her glide, in no hurry to reach the ground far below. Her sound stone was empty and her mind was full, and she didn't even know how to begin processing what she had been told.
How much of what Dorable said had been inference? How much proven? How much mere guesswork? Even if he knew, she didn't, and there had been so much irrelevant science and technical things that were less important to track than the ending results... She squeezed her eyes shut for as long as she dared. Moon glass was deliberately created, and for some negative purpose. No word on what that meant about her, a maybe-soul brought from space in the meteor that delivered the glass to the world.
Really, it was just a confirmation on things she had worried about earlier, right? She'd seen the unquestionably negative effects of moon glass before with her own eyes, time and time again. Sure, she'd hoped there could be some harmless or benevolent explanation for why she came from a rock with a reputation for possessing unwitting ponies, but she'd always been confident enough there wasn't not to go looking for one. Now she knew for sure, or as surely as she trusted Dorable's ability to do research. There was also the vague and definitely-hypothetical threat that someone could do something bad by obtaining Nightmare Modules, lots of them, but there were always bad guys doing bad things. So what did this even change?
Amber couldn't talk to her, but made it clear that she wanted to, and still trusted her. The vast majority of the empire hated her either way. What she had heard were just words. They didn't have to make a difference. Didn't have to... Didn't have to do anything...
She drifted closer to the ground, convincing herself as logically as possible yet unable to remove the slight extra weight that had settled in her heart. There was Puddles, laying by herself in the grass far below. Maybe she'd distract herself with the windigo.
"Yo!" Valey stuck out her legs for a landing, hitting the ground next to Puddles. "Whatever you've been up to, listen, I..." She frowned. "What are you doing?"
Puddles was on her side with her legs splayed and her cheek in the grass, an expression of great discomfort on her face. "Leave me alone..." she moaned, kicking a hoof weakly for Valey to go away.
"Uh, hold on, what?" Valey squinted at her and leaned closer. "You feeling your usual wintery self, there? Not gonna demand I give you hugs, or anything? Who are you and what have you done with the icy jerk who dragged me all the way out here?"
"Ughh..." Puddles burped. "You were right about there being better things in life than hugs, cute Valey... I just discovered food..."
"Huh?" Valey dug around in one ear with a hoof.
Puddles sat up slowly in discomfort. "Unfortunately, it's something these feeble pony bodies have a limit on! I overate. Ow." She gingerly got to her hooves. "No hugs or belly rubs! I feel like I'll explode. Ooog... How do you handle having things to eat and not being able to indulge in it as much as you want?"
"...Really?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "First off, you stuffed yourself? Try not to make yourself sick; this place would charge extra for that and I'm sure not paying. Second, how are you discovering food? You've been a pony for like five or six years!"
Puddles gave a cocky smirk that was disrupted by her obvious discomfort. "Immortal magic. If I can exist without a physical body, I can make a physical body exist with just me."
Valey stared at her for a second longer, then rolled her eyes and turned away. "That makes no sense, but whatever. You, like, wanna go back to our room so you're not sitting out here instead? Because seriously, I need to lie down for a bit and it looks like I need to keep an eye on you constantly to stop you from doing stupid stuff and hurting Morena's daughter."
"S-Sure," Puddles managed, burping again. It smelled like cake frosting. She put a hoof over Valey's shoulder and leaned on her, and as they made their way back to the cabin, Valey even suspected she really needed it.
Puddles had made herself sick.
Valey lay on the bed, a pillow over her ears in a fruitless attempt to drown out the pitiful noises coming from the room's small adjacent bathroom. "Pony body, noooo..." Puddles moaned, hunched somewhere out of Valey's sight but very much within her hearing. "It tasted so good though..."
"Would you close that door?" Valey growled, holding the pillow tighter with both forehooves. "It's your own fault! Deal with it and next time don't be an idiot!"
"Why does this pony body hate me...?" Puddles feebly retorted. "My magic isn't even making it feel better! Valeyyyyy, help Puddles!"
"What even did you eat?" Valey snapped, still cold and trying to warm up.
The toilet flushed. "It was called a wedding cake, and I only had one! I didn't pay for it, either!"
Valey rolled over, redoubling her efforts to ignore the windigo and still having no success.
An age and a half passed, with nonstop complaints and whining met by denial and frustration from Valey until Puddles finally lost her energy and resigned herself to her fate. Just when Valey was starting to fall asleep, a faucet turned on, and eventually Puddles plodded out of the bathroom, pasty-faced, with a dark crystal held in her jaws. Valey sat bolt-upright at the sight of it.
Puddles shakily put it on the bedside table. "If Puddles' stomach hates her, maybe I need a better place to keep this..."
Valey jumped out of bed, no longer questioning anything that had happened. That was a Nightmare Module, right there? It looked like moon glass, only carved to a prism and with a partially-see-through internal structure. She needed a closer look...
Puddles hauled herself into bed and curled up, doing nothing to stop Valey from approaching it.
"You know, even if you weren't going to eat that ridiculous of an amount of sugar, it's really not a good idea to keep evil artifacts in... uh, you know..." Valey muttered as she approached it, not trying to hide from Puddles what she was doing.
"Let the windigo sleep, please," Puddles said, her voice approaching its cold, metallic special tone but at an incredibly subdued volume. "Her cute pony body has really been put through the wringer, hasn't it, Valey? But you're more than welcome to look at her coughed-up treasure if you want. Or even touch it."
Valey took a quick step back, staring at Puddles' huddled form. "Bananas, you just can't decide on a personality or a way to refer to yourself, can you? It's really creepy."
Puddles didn't answer, and Valey's curiosity took hold. The Nightmare Module was clean... she must have washed it off. At a close inspection, it was transparent, but the dark crystal's inside seemed to be filled with thousands or even millions of lines of refraction that would have formed a glorious rainbow had all light that moved through it not been rendered to gray. It sat there, on the table, and in Puddles' weakened state she could grab it and possibly fly away before the windigo could even catch her. But the crystal was made of moon glass, and if she even touched it...
Frowning, Valey stretched a hoof out. It was only empty moon glass that drained batponies. It would drain her too; she wasn't immune by being from space. Her cutie mark could tell her that much. But as she reached for this one, when her flank tingled, it was an entirely different danger than the sharp needling of pinpoint death. It felt like a distant ocean, or storm clouds, or a bottomless pit... and it was less dangerous than a sucker punch to the face. This moon glass was different.
Better she carry it than Puddles. She picked it up.
Instantly, there was a presence. Valey recognized it instantly; it was the same way she had felt when an active dusk statue was near, and more strongly when she refused to join in on Melia and Sirena's song. Whatever the module was, whether it was the crystal itself or something inside it, it was pressing on her, and it could speak.
"Nightmare Module Zero-Two: Dishonesty Module," a cool, collected mare's voice said in her head. "Permission is required to activate using this socket. Warning: potentially nonreversible physical changes are required by this installation process. Waiting on user permission."
"Woah!" Valey jumped backward in alarm, nearly dropping the crystal and ready to throw it at a moment's notice. "No! No way, no permission! Leave me alone!"
The presence vanished, as did the tingle from her cutie mark, leaving the crystal inert in Valey's hooves.
"W-Woah..." she repeated, staring at it and shaking.
"Be quiet," Puddles groaned from the bed, back to her normal voice. "I wanna rest..."
"Yeah, join the club," Valey retorted, still staring at the module before her. She needed to walk. She needed to think. And she needed to keep this thing somewhere where it wouldn't fall into the wrong hooves.
What was it Dorable had said about the modules, again? They were like instructions for a machine, but one far more advanced than any he had ever seen before? He never specified how he had been able to use them, but he had found a way...
She huddled against a wall. Icereach's legends on the subject were passed down through countless generations by word of mouth, and who knew how embellished, but there were always stories of the Mare in the Moon, a shapeless figure visible in the pattern of the moon's dark spots when it was full, who had created batponykind yet was also a monster who lived beyond the world, banished to her namesake. Had she always been there, or had she been sent there? Why would someone bad create a full race of ponies? Dorable had said the moon glass seemed of intelligent, malevolent design...
Valey shuddered, still holding the inert crystal. She had a decent idea of what kind of 'machine' the Nightmare Modules were supposed to run on.
"...And it just straight-up asked me, 'Hey, you wanna do this?' All in my head. Said something about permanent physical changes, or something. I don't remember, I was too busy trying not to be scared senseless. Like, don't mess with my mind, please. Bananas, I don't even know how to begin processing this. It's so stressful, Amber..."
Valey slumped on a hotel cabin rooftop, not feeling like soaring around the chilly sky. It had taken a frustrating amount of searching, but she'd finally been able to find a power source for the sound stone: a tourist gift shop that sold batteries. Expensive ones. She didn't have her money or saddlebags, but for all her past fruit-swiping she felt bad enough about herself already and couldn't bring herself to add to that. Three to four hours of passing herself off as a traveling acrobat later...
"There's not something I can magically say that will make you feel better, is there?"
"...You could maybe try?" Valey chanced a hopeful smile.
Amber hesitated. "Well... if moon glass is no good, which you already knew, and you think batponies were made by some spooky mare in the moon, which you already knew, isn't all this just repeating stuff you knew before? There's nothing about any of that that says you're not able to decide for yourself whether to be good or bad."
"It's not fair, though." Valey slumped flatly against the rooftop. "Nyala's stuck in a-"
"A body that lets her see and hear and talk, just like you, Valey," Amber interrupted. "Maybe her body is something that was built for another purpose. Maybe yours is. Maybe mine is! Who knows where all other life forms came from, other than that we've been around thousands of years? And who cares? Valey, if you want my full and blunt opinion, this is a good thing, because it doesn't tell you anything about what you get to do with your life, doesn't tell you anything you hadn't considered, and also gives you a potentially-powerful last resort weapon that you can use and now that windigo doesn't have anymore."
Valey rolled the dark crystal around in her other hoof. It wasn't inert; she could feel something there, like a dusk statue in broad daylight... but it was leaving her alone unless she explicitly called it out.
"I wish I could be there to see you in person, to talk to you about this, because I'm worried there's something else going on. You're getting down about... well, hearing that bad things happen in the world! But you knew that! And I think something else is bothering you that's just showing up through this, and I want to know what it is. Is anything else wrong? Please tell me..."
"Bananas, I dunno." Valey sat up. "This is the second time this trip I've been forcibly separated from my friends. First time, I thought they ditched me, now, there's a nonzero chance they think I ditched them. Now I'm at some getaway resort with an insane windigo, and I honestly can't tell if she's so stupid she didn't realize she'd make herself sick or deliberately wanted me to have this nightmare thingamajig without looking like she was giving it to me. I finally take a single step toward getting my sister back when I think everything's stable, and then the place explodes in my face. I've been given tons of reasons to be paranoid, but have no idea what's going on in Izvaldi or even an idea of whether or not I should care, and that just makes me more on edge because in Ironridge the way I got by was by knowing everything! It was practically my catchphrase! Oh, and now? I finally get the answers to some questions I've been asking for a really long time, like about where I came from and what I am and all that garbage, and it's just kinda confirmation on what I already knew. Garbage. I don't know if I'm even sad about it at all, being this fuzzy batpony that doubles as some moon mare's activation system for running whatever these things are. Maybe I'm just underwhelmed, because I spent so long wondering and now that I do find out, it's for no work whatsoever and kinda just... not even a surprise. You know?"
Amber was silent.
"Oh." Valey sighed and lay back down. "And you want the big one? Don't forget the part where everyone hated me in Ironridge, and now everyone hates me in the empire too. Just because batpony. Except, you know, the one place that's totally run by a weird creepy batpony who's totally not up to anything. Bananas. Maybe we really were used for something bad in the past, and there's like some societal memory, or something..."
"Stop," Amber commanded. "Stop and answer just this, Valey. You think batponies were made to use these... Nightmare Modules? Or the other way around?" She hesitated. "If you do... and you think maybe something happened because of that long ago... you'll go investigate, and when you somehow find something that matches your expectations, you'll feel just like you do now. Maybe bad things just have happened. You can ask Maple about that one, once you see her again. She knows about bad things too. So... do you really want to wonder about that?"
"I wanna be proven wrong!" Valey whined. "Bananas, I dunno why I keep thinking myself into situations like this, but I wanna find something that says everything really was all right..."
"So you can feel like things could be good in the future, too."
Valey sniffled at the stone.
"You need a hug," Amber said. "From me or your friends, not the windigo."
"Yeah." Valey wiped away a tear that was caught on the bridge of her muzzle. "Seriously, I know I was miserable in Ironridge and just convinced myself otherwise, but this is no fun. I hate moping! It doesn't make me feel like... me. I gotta get up and do stuff. But it sounds like what I need to do is just let go of the possibility that all this moon glass stuff happened for a good cause, and just... I dunno."
"It sounds like what you need to do is hang on until I see you again, and until you can get back to our friends," Amber insisted. "You can do that, right? You can make it?"
Valey sat back up and sniffed. "Heh. Something like that. I wanna say Starlight's moving toward me, but honestly, she's so far away I can barely smell her as-is. I always wondered why I can do that. Anyway. Not poking around into batpony history or Nightmare Modules or any of this stuff until I'm out of hot water. I can do that. Hanging on, and all that. What do you want me to do instead?"
"...Well, you're at a resort, aren't you?" Valey could easily imagine Amber shrugging. "Would it be too much to ask for you to stay there, take it easy and enjoy yourself for a while? Keep an eye on the windigo, but try to stay safe and keep anything big from happening?"
"Relax and enjoy myself. Got it." Valey grinned. "Seriously, if I can get past the other clientele, I want to badly enough that it might just work. Love you, Amber. You're the best at pep talks."
Amber gave a tired sigh. "I've... had a lot of practice with a certain other mare in my life. One who's currently on an adventure with you in the empire. And it's a little draining sometimes, even though you're the one in danger and I'm the one in a place to provide support, so please take care of yourself and try to be alright. Love you too, Valey."
The sound stone winked off as Valey pulled the small battery she had purchased away from it. That was a nice feature, at least. No need to waste power on time they wouldn't spend talking, and the partially-charged battery would last to serve her another day. Battery, Nightmare Module, sound stone... She really needed some saddlebags. It wouldn't do to keep all this in her hat, and the sound stone would likely accidentally activate if she tried. That would have to be her goal for the next day, because the sun was setting and she was tired, and Puddles would undoubtedly have to be dealt with again before she slept.
Valey straightened up inside the hotel room Puddles had somehow procured, climbing out of the shadow sneak she used to get under the door. Nightmare Module, sound stone, battery... Puddles had let her take the former. She could have stopped her from getting away with it at any time, certainly. Fortunately, her things should just be safe on the bedside table...
Her earth pony companion was a sad lump curled underneath the blankets, and for a while Valey considered just sleeping on the floor. Maybe Puddles wouldn't notice if she just snuck one blanket off the top of the pile...
"Don't wake her, now," a metallic voice echoed from everywhere in the room at once, keeping itself to a grating whisper. "My pony body needs its rest. Been having fun with your new trinket, Valey?"
Valey started, breath catching. Puddles' breathing beneath the blankets was regular, mane mussed and face turned away from the door, but... "You don't need her to speak, do you?" she whispered back.
"I'm a talented ventriloquist." The temperature in the room flickered by a few degrees, a suppressed growl in the windigo's voice that lent cruelty to every word, whether it was intended or not. "So, don't keep me in the dark... You reek of resignation and uncertainty. Spill the details! You bailed out on using it, didn't you?"
"What, this?" Valey hefted the dark crystal. "Yeah, sorry, but it's not really my thing. Listen, you mind actually being asleep? Because I wanna hit the hay too, and your voice is disconcerting."
"What? You prefer me the other way?" The windigo sounded smug. "'Yay, I'm Puddles, I say everything in third person!' Would it have hurt to have landed a body with a more charismatic brain?" It paused. "Whatever. She's certainly good at making herself feel nice, except when she's doing something stupid."
Valey folded her ears. "...You're talking like she's still in there. But earlier-"
"Is that really a route you'll feel happy about sticking your nose down, my little pony? Puddles isn't feeling up to giving you a shoulder to cry on right now. Thought patterns, speech patterns... This body is mine now, but it's still so used to being hers! You're lucky I wound up in someone so sweet, you know. Imagine if I'd inherited worse dispositions instead. Heh heh heh..."
Valey adamantly shook her head. "Nope. Not interested in finding out. I just want a blanket and I'm going to bed."
"Really, now." Now the windigo was disappointed. "Speaking of blankets, you're the wettest one I've ever seen. Hello, curiosity? I up and drop an ancient superweapon in your hooves just for you, let Puddles sicken herself to make it look like an accident, and not even a thank-you? You killjoy! I wanted to see what it does!"
"...You can't use this, can you?" Valey held up the module again. "And you don't know what it does, but wanted to see me use it? Really?" She shook her head. "Yeah, again, sorry, but nope and no."
"It was a good cake, too," the windigo growled. "I enjoyed eating it immensely. Too bad you were off doing whatever instead of keeping an eye on poor Puddles. Physical pain hurts! If you're not even going to throw me a single bone, here, I'm not going to throw you a blanket either."
Valey huffed and folded her forelegs. "You'd better not be blackmailing me with the threat of hurting Morena's daughter."
"Hurt my precious pony body?" The windigo sounded offended. "I'd never! ...Mostly, anyway."
"...So you're saying you're not malicious, just stupid," Valey deadpanned. "You did know why eating an entire wedding cake in one go is a bad idea, right? Especially if you've been subsisting on magic, aren't used to digesting anything, and were using your stomach to store whatever this is?"
"Oh, yes," the windigo hissed in glee. "Very stupid. Willfully so. I've been thinking, and you know what's great? You need me. You need to keep poor Puddles safe from harm so Morena the moron will still be your friend, don't you? It's not that I have a death wish, or anything. I can just be as reckless as I please, and you're the one who will suffer the consequences if some plan goes sour. Essentially, the dumber I am, the harder you're forced to be my chaperone, and as it turns out, taking risks is exhilarating! I think I love gambling with ponies' fortunes. Maybe I'll even get us in enough trouble you'll need a powerful weapon to get us out, and I'll get to see what that one does!"
"Cool," Valey sighed. "I'm, like, really proud of you for planning that out. Also, you're a jerk. What do you want for a blanket?"
"I never said I wasn't. And that's a good question... Too bad for you, you're somewhat short on things I can't take by force already. Wah wah waaaaah..."
Valey raised a single eyebrow. "And too bad for you, I won't have the energy to chase you around if I don't get a good night's sleep. Look. You think you can blackmail me into being your stupidity shield and personal bodyguard just because I can't afford for you to get hurt?" She took two steps closer. "The way you've been carrying on, I bet I can afford it a lot more than you can afford to let her die. It's your body, you keep saying. Maybe you can move to another one. Wanna gamble on whether I'll believe that?"
Puddles kept sleeping even as a low growl of frustration reverberated around the room. "Well played. So you want a game of chicken now? Care to see who chickens out first?"
"I am this close to waking her up," Valey threatened. "Because I'm honestly starting to believe you about thinking differently when you're thinking through her." She frowned. "On second thought, scratch that. I'm better at dealing with villains who seem remorselessly evil."
The windigo hissed again, still an invisible voice in the room as Puddles slumbered. "I am not remorselessly evil! I've evolved!"
"Bananas." Valey blew a bit of mane out of her face, chancing a silly smile. "Am I getting the upper hoof on you in an argument? Either you're a really great actor, or I think I am! Heh." She stuck out her tongue and winked. "Nyaah. So. Whatever you're playing at, I'd like a blanket. Let's say you let me have a good night's sleep, and then I'll follow you around like glue tomorrow. We each get what we want, no more frustrating arguments, everything's happy. Cool?"
"Cold," the windigo retorted. "Take your blanket. Take all of them, and leave poor Puddles shivering and alone in the night! And... sleep well, and all that. See, I can be harmonic and nice."
Valey wasted no time in grabbing a quilt from the top of the blanket pile. "You're a straaange windigo, whatever your name is. I don't feel like calling you Puddles. Gotta get something better in the morning..."
On the ocean, in the distance up the coastline to the north, a regular stream of boats sailed in and out, heading for deeper waters to traverse the empire's length or merely drifting in the name of pleasure. The town was long and narrow, a strip of streets and buildings only several blocks deep, and the collection of seaside cabins that made up their hotel was more on its outskirts than properly separated from it, so Valey and Puddles didn't have far to travel at all to feel like they were in the middle of civilization again. That did nothing to stop Puddles from speeding up her travel in style.
"Wheeeee! Heeheehee!" she giggled, skating along and doing occasional twirls atop a thin tongue of ice that crackled along the ground just a few steps ahead. Valey soared along at just enough of a distance that no one would think they were together, a new pair of saddlebags flapping at her sides, utterly at a loss as to how the mare had so much energy after spending so much of the previous day being sick and chalking it up to magic. Puddles wanted to go to town whether it was physically possible or not, and that meant Valey was tagging along.
Fewer ponies than Valey expected looked innately disturbed by an earth pony generating a trail of ice, though quite a few shot scowls of annoyance at the frozen ground that would take minutes to thaw even in the day's heat. She flipped past a signpost, having plenty of time to think as she flew but nothing she wanted to think about.
Finally, Puddles let her trail end and tumbled to a stop at the entrance to a cross-alley, sitting up and shaking her dusty mane out of her face and straightening the pair of shaded goggles she had somehow found to hide her eldritch eyes. She raised her head and sniffed, glancing toward a nearby open doorway. "Ooh, that place smells good!"
"Nope!" Valey landed in front of her, taking only a second to catch up and waggling a hoof at the building's weathered yellow side. "That's a tavern, and totally-not-willing chaperone Valey says if you don't know how to control yourself with cake, we're not even setting a hoof in a place that has alcohol. You want me to do this job so badly, then let me do it. Find something else you want to do."
Puddles made a sad face and stuck out her lower lip, plopping herself in the middle of the compacted dirt road. The goggles ruined the effect, and Valey nearly chuckled.
"But Puddles wants'ta," Puddles protested, clear that was all there was to it.
"Nuh-uh." Valey stepped closer, standing between Puddles and the doorway. "That place is probably full of gross, hairy stallions and washed up pirates, too. Seriously, every pub or bar I've snooped around, whatever I'm looking for, has been bad news."
Puddles gave her a deadpan stare, then slammed a forehoof against the ground. More ice streaked out in a bolt that slithered to the center of the intersection and erupted, sending every passing pony and griffon jumping as a twice-as-large-as-life ice sculpture of her and Valey hugging appeared at the center. "Stupid stage magicians, keep yer' tricks indoors!" a griffon pulling a cart hollered, shaking a clenched talon as he awkwardly adjusted his path to go around the obstacle.
Valey gritted her teeth. "No taverns! They're full of pirates and bat-hating jerks and drunkards!"
"But Puddles wants'ta be a pirate," Puddles reminded, as if it had been decreed long ago and this was supposed to be common knowledge.
"Uhhhh." Valey narrowed her eyes, then walked all the way to Puddles' side. "So there's doing stupid stuff," she whispered in her ear, "and then there's doing illegal stuff, and then there's doing stuff that's heretical and will get that huge, giant storm-busting sphinx everyone here worships to want to kill us. Like, don't even joke about that. Besides, it's so illegal there's probably no pirates in there anyway. Look, there's even a sign by the door that says no pirates. Basically: no."
For a brief moment, Puddles' voice grew cockier. "It's so fun being babied like this. You should try it sometime!" she whispered back, then snapped back to normal. "Fine. Then if there's no pirates, there's no reason why we can't go inside!"
"Did somebody say pirates!?" a passing, elderly griffon with wispy eyebrows exclaimed, jumping to alertness and shaking on his legs. "I knew those rapscallions were up to no good! Swindlings, every last one of them! Swindlers, even! Humbug!"
Puddles stuck out her lip again as he went on his way.
"No," Valey repeated. "Let's go, like, look for a health food... Hey, wait a minute!"
Puddles was already halfway inside the building. Valey attempted to grapple her, but utterly failed to even knock her off her hooves, Puddles' strength far greater than that of a normal earth pony. Puddles stared down smugly at Valey hanging futilely off her. "I thought you didn't want any hugs!"
"No!" Valey scrambled upright, the tavern apparently too used to commotion for any patrons to even give them a second glance. "Look, fine, but if you don't want to make yourself sick again, the moment you so much as look at a mug, I'll-"
"Oooooh!" Puddles interrupted happily, pointing across several wallside booths and starting to prance over. "Swanky hat, mister!"
Valey looked across and groaned: it was a tricorn hat, complete with a plume and everything. Maybe she should just shadow sneak and wait for things to explode...
"Hey! Hey mister!" Puddles bounced over to the booth's lone occupant like a foal who had tied up her parents and was making a show of raiding the cookie jar right in front of their faces. "You look like a pirate!"
The hatted figure, a griffon with tar-black feathers that looked like they had been shiny when he was younger, sighed, staring with folded talons at a half-empty flagon. "Ye don't say. Is me getup really that obvious?" he asked in a tired growl. "What part o' the costume do ye think I rolled out of bed one morning and decided to put on by accident?"
Valey blinked. A performer? Maybe... She swam closer, feeling a slight sense that she'd seen this griffon before.
"You did it by accident? Awww..." Puddles gave an overdone frown, a flick of her tail showing off just how pleased she was to be digging herself a hole someone else would have to deal with. "Is it the hat, mister pirate? Can I have it if you don't want it?"
The dark griffon darkened further. "No. Leave me alone, child."
Now bar patrons were starting to stare, and that meant it was time to intervene. If she had another bar fight on her hooves... Valey coughed and stood up. "Uh, yeah, sorry about her, her judgement's so small that if you added it to the size of her ego, you could fit both in this room at the same time. Maybe. Look, come on, now, leave the gentlegriffon alone..." She tried to herd Puddles away as gently as she could.
Suddenly, a voice from across the aisle sparked up in panic. "Y-You!" A pegasus stallion flung a shaking hoof at her, eyes going wide as he tipped over his drink. "You followed me!? You followed me here!?"
"Uhhhh..." Valey took a step back, cutie mark suddenly warning her that something was about to be flung at her head, frantically trying to identify the pegasus. Maybe he was one of the guards from Stormhoof? "Do I know you?"
"Ruining three relationships and getting me fired wasn't enough for you, was it!?" the pegasus managed, backing up as far as he could without falling off his stool. "You followed me all the way here from Ironridge! Noooo! Get out of my life, you demon!"
Valey's ears folded. A former Defense Force member? Fantaaastic. Her past chose now of all times to catch up with her... Over half the tavern was staring now, too. "Bananaaaaas..." she groaned, covering her face.
A forest of eyes watched Valey and the Ironridge pegasus, blinking like spectators of a sporting event. Valey's tension dropped slightly; this situation had a completely different feel from the last bar fight she started: this was an audience, not a free-for-all in the making. It was like the air held a silent agreement between everyone in the room but her that duels were serious business and not to be interrupted.
...Most everyone, at least. "What are you, some kinda bounty hunter?" Puddles asked curiously, ignoring the relieved-looking griffon and his pirate hat to wander over to Valey's side. "That doesn't mean you'd be mad if I stole your kill, does it?"
She grinned at Valey, perfectly aware that wasn't what this was about and it would definitely make things more interesting. Valey winced. The entire bar was still, everyone waiting with eager breath on either her or the pegasus to make a move.
Valey's judgement clammed up. What were her options? Punch things? She didn't want enemies, and a fight could get Puddles hurt... or involve Puddles getting everyone else hurt. But the crowd looked like they wanted drama, and if the establishment cared, they'd probably intervene against her. Her best option should have been to run, but Puddles wanted trouble and wouldn't run with her...
"Out of my way, heretic scum!" a crabby, entitled voice snapped, and Valey hopped out of the way as a vaguely-familiar gold-plumed griffonness with two fresh tankards under her wings and no investment in the confrontation whatsoever tried to shove her on her way past.
Valey ducked into the shadows, watching Puddles closely as the Ironridge pegasus evaluated whether this new griffon was backup or just didn't care. The griffonness tried to slide into the same booth as the older griffon Puddles had been bothering... until Puddles bounced up alongside her and crashed straight into her side, giggling. "Hiya, missy! Are we shoulder-bumping? Puddles likes-"
"SCRAWWWWW!" The griffonness whirled, clamping a talon around Puddles' neck and hoisting her completely off the floor. "Are you trying to make me spill my drinks!? Watch your manners, whelp!"
"Waaaaah!" Puddles screamed, crying and kicking and making a show of being helpless. "Valey, help Puddles!"
"Oh, bananas..." Valey growled heavily, taking her eyes off the pegasus to turn toward the griffon. The pegasus instantly slunk away, but the audience didn't even care, the level of tension and eagerness in the room going up with every second. "Okay, lemon bag, the filly's an idiot, and I'd really like to leave, but I'm kinda in charge of her so please let her go."
The griffonness raised an eyebrow at her. "Or what?"
Valey cracked her wing joints. The other bar patrons wanted a show? This griffon was enough of a jerk she just might give them one. "Or I'll take you to town. Don't..." Her cutie mark flared briefly, and she sidestepped a thrown empty mug from behind, shooting a glare in its direction and seeing the pegasus who had supposedly snuck off. "Hey! I'm not here for you! Shoo!" She glared back at the griffonness. "So, name? I don't like beating up nobodies."
"As if I'd give your kind such an honor." The griffonness smirked, pressed her talons tighter around Puddles' neck, and drew a single drop of blood. "Hit the floor, wings where I can see them, or your... What, newbie!?"
A hooded figure was leaning over from the adjacent booth. "Hark, Sister! That's, uhhh... really not a mare you want to pick fights with! My ellldritch senses have spoken!"
The griffonness flicked at him with a talon. "Shut-"
"Waaaaaaaaah!" Puddles drowned out her rhetoric with more crying. "Waaah, waaaaaah! Help, Valey, help!"
"Shut up and stop sniveling, I'm teaching a lesson!"
The crowd began to cheer as the griffonness flung Puddles downward, slamming her into the ground. Valey lunged as she was distracted, trying to jump over her for a blow... but the moment Puddles was within reach of the ground, she flipped and tapped it with a hoof. She still landed hard, but a lightning bolt of ice cracked along the wood floor and exploded directly beneath her attacker, sending an ice sculpture of a clenched talon rocketing upward and punching the griffonness heavily in the gut. Whud!
At exactly the same time, Valey finished her flip, balling her forehooves and bringing a doubled-up blow down on the griffonness's lower back, sandwiching her between two heavy hits. Horribly winded, the griffonness gagged, losing her grip on Puddles and allowing her to scramble to her hooves. "Yay!" Puddles cheered. "Cute Valey's the best!"
"Uhhhhh..." The hooded stallion who had warned the griffonness earlier took a step back, standing on the seat of his booth. "You, uh, failed to heed my advice! Captain, I suggest we run for the hills! Glorious... Retreeeat!"
Crash! The tableside window shattered as he cannonballed through in a reckless display of cowardice and intelligence, garnering a cheer from the crowd and the stamping of tankards being banged against wood. Valey glanced at the hole left in the window. Something about his voice seemed familiar too... Whatever. She had a griffonness to fight.
"Rawwwwk!" The griffonness rolled back upright, spitting and drawing two tiny, curved swords, Puddles now free.
"Okay, look, you're obviously insane with anger, so-"
Valey only had time to take two steps toward her before the griffonness was tackled by a gleeful Puddles. "He jumped out the window! Did ya see? Heehee! It looked like fun! We should do it too!"
"The kid's playing with her," one of the spectators whispered to another. "She looks like a fool, but she's more dangerous than the bat is!"
"Money?" the other replied. "My wager's on the bat to take her out before the kid."
Then the older, black-coated griffon was at Valey's side. "Let yer' quarries go, Belinda. They be too much for ye to handle in such a state."
Belinda only squawked and struggled, completely unable to break Puddles' hug. Valey didn't even intervene; the less she did, the better.
"Come on, birdy, let's go through the window!" As Belinda flailed and whipped around with her swords, Puddles touched one talon with her hoof, freezing her grip to the hilt and rendering her unable to evenly stand on it. Belinda tripped... and the moment Puddles was close enough to touch the ground, she did, and a thin pillar of ice spiked up, catapulting both her and the beleaguered griffonness into the air. Puddles' aim was true, and they hit another window, crashing and both breaking through.
"Arrr." The black griffon walked up beside Valey and shook his head. "At least one o' those is going on me tab... Ye best get yer' companion and leave, heretic, or ye'll be stuck paying for the other."
"You know what?" Valey gave him a suspicious look. "I think that's actually good advice. See ya, old dude."
She flipped through the air as well, vaulting expertly through the existing hole in a window, and dropped to the street below.
Whud! Valey hit the dirt road with a puff of dust, taking a second to straighten up. Puddles was prancing in a happy circle as Belinda lay in a heap on the ground, looking significantly scratched up by breaking the window. The hooded stallion was annoyingly hovering over her, his own cloak cut in places by the glass to reveal a girly lavender coat and pair of wings beneath. "Wallowing windigoes, you've been hexed with fiendish ice magic! Alas, this is far beyond my ken! I recommend... uhh..." He looked up, realizing Valey had joined him outside. "Oh, I'm so screwed, aren't I...?"
Valey tapped her head. "Jog my memory; I've had a lot go down lately. Do I know you?"
"Yaaaaa-ha-ha-haaaugh..." Letting out a cowardly battle cry, the stallion spread his wings and flew for the end of the alley, trying his best to flee.
His best wasn't good enough. Valey's curiosity overrode her desire to leave well enough alone, and she shot after him, overtaking the pegasus in a matter of seconds. "Gotcha!" she crowed, grabbing him and flipping them both to the ground. They bounced once, leaving the stallion on his back with his face exposed to the sun.
A jagged, red-and-black goatee and equally ridiculous mane tarnished Valey's sight as the caught stallion stared sheepishly up at her. "Uhh, heya?"
"Oh bananas, not you again," Valey groaned in realization. "Is two continents and an ocean not far enough away to avoid this? Thanks for nothing in the mines, by the way. Something tells me my day is about to get real bad, real fast..."
"Heh heh... Uhh... there, there?" Howe grinned back up at her. "But look on the bright side! You finally get to see me again! It's your old friend Pancake! Heh heh heh..." His voice cracked to a squeaky whisper. "Please don't kill me..."
A light breeze ruffled Valey's mane as she stared at her captive, Howe pinned to the ground by a forehoof in the middle of a dirt-road alley. Bright blue sky silhouetted her, and her shadow was the only thing preventing him from squinting in the sunlight. She bit her lip.
"Heh heh heh..." Howe shuddered, grinning broadly and nervously. "You remember your old buddy Howe, right? All the, uh, smashing times we had together, and all? It's me..."
Whap! Valey slapped him, then stepped off. "That's for being useless and bailing on me in the Flame District. Hey, Puddles!"
Puddles left the still-stunned Belinda and happily waddled over. "Hiya, cute Valey! Who's..." She stopped and lifted her shaded goggles, ogling Howe with wide, pupil-less eyes. "Woah," she murmured, voice deepening to its glacial tone for a few seconds. "What did you do to his mane? I didn't realize ponies could be so cruel..."
"Ohhhh that's creepy!" Howe somehow scooted backwards, still upside-down on his back. "Weird magic detected!"
"Hey, hold up." Valey stepped on his tail as he tried to retreat, sending him crashing back to the ground. "Pancake? This is Puddles. Puddles?" She raised an eyebrow. "This is a super close friend of mine who's super sad about his continual failures to amount to anything in life, and he seriously needs to be cheered up. Help a girl out?"
Puddles gave her a deadpan look, voice back to normal. "Seriously? How low do you think my standards even are?"
Howe winced, trying to get to his hooves and being stopped halfway through by Valey's hoof. "Ouch, Sister," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Really not got any kind words for your old friend, here, do you?"
Valey looked flatly at him.
Suddenly, her cutie mark tingled slightly, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the black griffon from the tavern standing behind her, an angry-looking Belinda leaning on his side with one foreleg slashed and dangling uselessly. "Uh, hey?"
The griffon tipped his tricorn hat, looking dour. "Kindly unhoof me crewmate, if ye please. I be short enough on sailors already without losin' any to past grudges that are beyond me control."
Valey blinked down at Howe. "You've got a new employer?"
"Hehe... Sort of?" Howe tapped his forehooves together, clearly wanting to flee.
"Seriously?" She glanced back up at the griffon duo. "You guys know how crazily unreliable this guy is, right? Didn't you bother getting letters of reference, or anything? I mean, I would have given him the worst one you've ever laid eyes on, but still! The dude can't even stand and fight against a single army when..." She shook her head. "You know, never mind. Keep him! I do not want this as my problem."
The black griffon shrugged as Howe was chucked toward him. "He had a fine boat, and I'd just lost me own. And what be good manners worth in the face of an ocean gale?"
"H-Hey!" Howe winced. "Good captain, my etiquette has been passed down through-"
"Shut up, newbie," Belinda snarled. "You two! If you hadn't cheated, right now you'd be-"
"No, you pipe down a sec." Valey interrupted her in turn, tipping her head. "You guys just lost your boat... Wait a sec..." Her eyes widened. "I know where I've seen you before! You were those bums who got beaten up by Gazelle a week or two ago! You actually are pirates?" She squinted at the leader. "Bananas, how do you get away with dressing that obviously without getting found out? Or is this entire town just out of compliance with the whole heresy stuff?"
The captain's beak dropped even as Puddles started to wiggle in excitement. "And how would ye know a thing like that?"
"Long story. I was in the area." Valey shrugged. "That's you, though, isn't it? Bananas." Her ears folded. "And Pancake here still has that giant airship he swiped from Kero's goons..." Her eyes flicked between the three of them. "Huh. Well, it was nice seeing ya, but come on, Puddles. We want no part of-"
"Yes we doooo!" Puddles bounced her way over to the captain, Belinda and Howe. "Hiya, mister pirate! Puddles wants to join your team!"
"What the...?" The captain blinked, suddenly receiving a facefull of smiling, excited earth pony.
"Oh, no you don't!" Valey jumped at her, grabbing on successfully yet once again failing to bring Puddles down. She hung awkwardly off the mare's side, grunting in frustration. "Puddles, seriously, get... We're not just randomly becoming pirates! You can get sacrificed to Garsheeva for that!"
Puddles gave her a nuzzle. "Aww, cute Valey wants to come too. Don't worry, Puddles won't leave you behind..."
"Uhhh..." Howe raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me for showing off my immaculate perception, but Valey, my old partner in unsavory deeds... Could it be that you've found yourself a marefriend!?" The last word was practically a squeak.
"What? No!" Valey blurted. "She's a-"
"Yes!" Puddles chirped over top of her. "Cute Valey's my bestest friend ever! Hee!"
The captain gave them both a look. "Then yer' hardly in a position to lecture me about heresy under Garsheeva, mixed lovers. Now what's this about wantin' to be part of me crew? Ye hardly look like ye've got the disposition for battle and the perils of sea livin'."
Howe, meanwhile, had both wingtips held to his mouth. "Two lifetimes of eternal frustration brought to a romantic culmination in a humble alley before my very eyes... So exciting...!"
"Shut up, Pancake!" Valey threatened, still struggling with Puddles. "We are not an item, you are not a pirate, and you're going home! Stop trying to dig yourself deeper, already!"
Puddles nuzzled her again, then glanced at the captain and curled her lip. "Who needs dispositions when you can do this, mister pirate? Hyaaaa!"
She reared back, stomped down, and her forehooves crackled with icy energy, causing another sculpture to erupt out of the roadway a short distance away, completely blocking the alley. This one was of Puddles laying in the road, winking and sticking her tongue out as Valey played with her ears.
"No... Stop that!" Valey groaned, uselessly trying to move her. It was like the mare's hooves were frozen to the ground, rendering her immobile... In fact, they might have actually been.
The captain's eyes widened. "Well, now, magic like that might change a thing or two. Let's talk ideals, Missy."
Belinda hissed in disapproval, though it was clear she was conditioned to stay out of things when her superior was talking. "Okay!" Puddles happily agreed, trotting forward.
Valey kept hanging on, even though she was clearly outmatched and the only sensible thing to do was escape with herself intact while she could. "Bananas, why do you even want this?" she hissed. "Puddles! What's the big idea?"
"Hmm... It sounds fun," Puddles decided. "So there."
"Puddles... Nnngh... Stop..."
Flash! Valey's forehooves were frozen together, locking her in place attempting to grapple Puddles' barrel. Her target trotted onward as happily as ever, and now there wasn't even anything Valey could do to leave.
Valey had no choice but to be dragged along by Puddles, bound to her with her forehooves frozen together like two links in a chain. Overpowering the mare was out of the question; even if she wasn't abnormally strong, her hooves stuck to the ground as if by suction cups, little frosty hoofsteps remaining in her wake as she walked. Eventually, Valey gave up struggling and settled for riding awkwardly on Puddles' back, figuring she'd save her strength for whenever a real opportunity presented itself.
Puddles, for her part, happily followed the yet-unnamed captain, Belinda and Howe to the roof of a nearby building. All three of them could fly, and Valey thought for sure she'd get a chance to slip away when someone carried Puddles... but the earth pony merely planted her forehooves on the building's wall and they stuck, leaving thin tendrils of frost and allowing her to climb up. Valey clung tightly to her; falling and dangling by her forelegs would be very uncomfortable.
"Well then," the captain said once they were all settled on the roof. "I be Cap'n Golbez the Black, and ye be sayin' ye want to join me crew. What's an ice mage like ye want with the likes of the open seas, lass?"
Belinda imperiously cleared her throat, still heavily scratched from being shoved through a window. "Answer truthfully! Captain Golbez's crew is a righteous organization, and we don't take petty criminals or outlaws! So depending on what you're doing with a sarosian-"
"And meee," Howe giggled to the side. "My great fortune of possessing an airship became yours, and in turn, we forged a bond that will endure throughout the ages! I, your most loyal compatriot, pledge to-"
"Put a sock in it, both of ye," Golbez interrupted. "I wouldn't be opposed to a small compromise here and there, seein' how we're on the back paw. But sing, lass. State yer' reasonin'."
Puddles shrugged, bouncing Valey on her back. "To annoy cute Valey, and because it sounds fun. I wanna swash buckles and wear an eyepatch and yell 'Arrrrr!' And I wanna boat, and your hat. Let Puddles be captain!"
Golbez looked like he had just opened a cabin to find it filled to bursting with fish. "What's that ye say?" His beak dropped just a little longer, then he started laughing. "Arrrr har har har! Ye want me job? To have a ship of yer' own and be called Cap'n? No! Why don't ye just steal a ship instead of pestering me, then? What do ye even think we do with our time, lass? Fancy it a never-endin' party? That and it bein' a whole slog of gutless villainy be the only two tales that get told out here on the mainland. Do ye really think that?"
Puddles stuck out her tongue. "Who cares? Puddles wants'ta be one. I made up my mind this morning." She puffed out her chest like this was a proud accomplishment.
"Are you serious?" Belinda looked offended. "You romantic slacker! How dare you disparage our crew with your insinuations of laziness! Raaaugh..." She shook in place. "But we do need the talent..."
Golbez shook his head and stepped back. "This be the exact grade of idiot I made me last crew from. Belinda, ye take over this for me. I be sheddin' tears for the lost art of piracy."
Belinda walked smugly up to Valey, knowing full well that she was restrained and there could be no fighting. "Hello, sarosian," she declared, looking down on her with superiority. "You knew who we were, at least. Did we demolish your pathetic crew some time ago? It wasn't worth remembering."
"Nope!" Valey replied with forced glibness. "I just stowed away on your boat and was there that time you got your rears handed to you all at once by a single sphinx, and you didn't even notice." She frowned. "Now seriously, what's your beef? You mind sending Bubbles here packing? Because I'm pretty sure we're all offending each other right now and want nothing more than to be as far away as mutually possible."
Belinda smiled, drawing a sword. "Well, there's an easy fix for that..."
Valey's cutie mark burned, and her eyes widened as the griffonness prepared to stab. Chained to Puddles, she could maybe dodge one attack, but if they kept coming, she was defenseless! It would hurt, but she'd have to grab the blade with her wings and try to disarm her by force. Hopefully talons didn't have as good a grip as-
Flash!
There was a spark sunlight glinting off moving metal, and then the reddened tip Belinda's sword was quivering less than an inch from Valey's nose. Her view of the griffon was blocked, separated by Puddles' raised forehoof, the sword running her leg completely through.
"Bubbles. I like that." Puddles' voice was cold and metallic, and not lacking in volume. Belinda suddenly jumped back, clutching at her sword talon and hissing as if it had been stung. "Don't touch cute Valey. She belongs to me!"
The color of the sword metal slowly lightened, spikes of frost forming along its surface, until it shattered entirely, the foreleg still held high. As everyone watched, Puddles' wound crackled with ice-blue energy, sealing itself and disappearing entirely. Puddles finally blew on the hoof, pushed her goggles back to reveal her eyes, and put the restored hoof down, making a show of it taking weight.
"Now," she chirped dangerously, back to her usual voice. "I wanna boat and an eyepatch and a cool hat. Let Puddles join!"
"What fiendish strength," Howe whispered to himself. "Such power among non-unicorns is exceedingly rare! How mysterious..."
"...Ye've made yer point," Golbez admitted. "Belinda, lay down me rules and see what the icy lass thinks of them."
Looking shaken, Belinda straightened her golden crest and gave Puddles and Valey a haughty sniff. "Listen up, heretics. Captain Golbez's crew has one rule: skirmish with the heathens of the night. All other activity is on an as-needed basis. Garsheeva's laws are to protect the faint of heart from having to get their hooves dirty, and we respect that by being the ones to do the dirtying! It's a noble calling, and we sacrifice our own privilege to live as real citizens for the betterment of the empire! With us, you go ashore under the refuge of audacity, or not at all. It's a one-way lifestyle, a job you can't turn your back on! Is that really what you think you can handle?"
Puddles raised her head, sniffing. After a while, she pointed out in a direction towards the sea. "Puddles doesn't want to be on land. She wants to go..." She sniffed again. "That way."
Valey blinked, the behavior suddenly catching her attention. What was she doing?
Belinda's eyes narrowed. "Did you listen to a thing I said? You're lugging around a sarosian on your back and just took a blow for her! Stop being disrespectful!"
"Because cute Valey is Puddles'." Puddles shrugged, as if that should have been obvious. "Go get your own cuddly pony." She blew a raspberry.
Howe anxiously tapped his forehooves together, sitting off to the side. "That is the demeanor of a mare who can kick all our rears in a heartbeat..."
"Troublesome child." Golbez shook his head. "Is throwin' an ocean party really all that matters to ye? If we brought ye along, what would ye do? Laze about the deck all day long? Hog the best cabin for yerself? Would ye at least help fight in skirmishes?"
"Yup!" Puddles bounced a little, instantly cheering up, and started pacing. "Can I come? Please bring Puddles!"
Belinda flung a talon at Valey. "Prove you're worthy by dispatching-"
"She can come," Golbez decided. "It be worth providin' for another body with her abilities in combat. Two, if she be needin' to drag this bat around. Forty years, and the first time I'll have ever had a sarosian on me crew..." He shook his head. "As prisoner, but no matter. Come now. Let's get back to me ship and see to it the rest of me crew hasn't blown anything up while we've been away."
Valey grimaced as Puddles started walking again. No! She was getting taken captive on a pirate ship? Belinda said they fought sarosians for a living; they absolutely wouldn't make the Stormhoof mistake of leaving the lights off for her. This wasn't worth it. She wasn't about to die or be further separated from her friends for this stupid windigo. She could smell Starlight, she was getting closer... She needed a way out.
Forcing herself to be cool and calculated, Valey scanned her surroundings, paying extra attention to Puddles. There had to be a weak point she could exploit somehow. Some way to get herself unstuck from her... The hurt hoof, maybe? Valey glanced at the ground.
Puddles' walking was unencumbered, not even carrying a limp. The hoof looked perfect, leaving a trail of frosty hoofprints just like the other as she glued herself to the rooftop, preventing Valey from lifting her away... and then she saw it: only one pair of hoofprints were left in Puddles' wake. The back hooves couldn't cast ice magic. There was her chance.
Valey continued to rest on Puddles' back, walking her own hind legs along the ground as they drew closer to the edge. Puddles was going to climb down. She would be unbalanced right about...
Now! Valey flipped herself forward into a somersault with a yell, crashing her body into the back of Puddles' head and slamming her frozen forehooves into the mare's soft belly as she tried to straddle the edge of the roof. The impact made Puddles slip, and Valey pumped her wings, giving her an extra burst of momentum as she jumped.
"W-Woah!" Puddles teetered, standing on only her forehooves with her rump in the air as Valey lunged out over the street canyon. "Grrr! Cute Valey, what are you... Waaaah!"
Crack!
Puddles' ice spell was strong, and so was her body, but the packed roof material was the weak link. A small chunk of the corner gave way, Puddles' forehooves both frozen to it, and together they toppled into the street.
"Guh!" Valey spat, getting a facefull of Puddles' tail, and writhed, trying to slide Puddles out of her grasp and drop the mare while hovering to get away. Puddles twisted in her grip, kicked at her chest... and her cutie mark flashed, telling her ice was incoming.
With a flap of her wings, Valey twisted herself around as well, blocking the attack with the ball of ice that already consumed her forehooves. Puddles slipped free from her grasp, but remained a deadweight, a forehoof of her own now locked to the ball that held Valey's. Valey hovered and Puddles dangled, meeting each other's eyes as Howe and the pirates stood by on the roof, staring.
"No!" Valey struggled to stay aloft. The ice was heavy, but now that Puddles was off the ground, she wasn't so hard to carry herself... unless she made more. "Leggo! You're not worth it! I'm done with this game! Get off, you stupid thing!"
Puddles lunged with her free hoof, targeting further up on Valey's already-numb forelegs. Flash! Her cutie mark warned her, and she pulled backward, kicking the limb out of the way from the side with a hind leg before she could be iced. Puddles moved to try again...
Smassssshh! Valey jetted straight down, slamming Puddles and the ice ball that linked them against the nearby roof to the tavern. Puddles yelped, but more importantly, cracked free from her relatively-shallow connection to the ball. Finally unattached, Valey turned and bolted outward and upward, straining to gain altitude as fast as possible even as the ice weighed her down.
"Hiyaaa!" Puddles reared back and stomped, causing the entire roof beneath her to erupt with teal. A pillar of ice appeared beneath her, propelling her upwards, and it didn't stop growing.
Valey winced, flapping harder. Puddles was gaining on her just by riding a growing ice crystal... Then her power seemed to run out and the ice shattered, Puddles making a well-aimed leap at the apex. "Cute Valey, come back!"
"Bananas, I said no!" Puddles had no way of controlling her trajectory midair, but Valey did. With a swoop, she darted to the side, swirling into Puddles' blind spot. Puddles flailed... and Valey flung her locked hooves over the airborne mare's head, pressing the ice against Puddles' neck and pulling as hard as she could. "If anything, you're coming with me! Now pass out already! You better be spent..."
Puddles gagged and flailed, her forehooves unable to reach behind her or do anything more than scrape at the huge ice boulder that linked Valey's forehooves and was now crushing her windpipe. "Puddles..."
"Nooo!" Puddles swung her hooves one last time, and with a shatter of ice, the block around Valey's hooves broke, causing Puddles to plummet. Valey hissed, trying to regrab her, but she had no feeling in her legs and it was like doing anything with the end of a stick held in her mouth. "Puddles won't go back!" she shouted as she fell. "Cute Valey, come with Puddles!"
Puddles fell, and Valey stopped trying to catch her. "If you want to see me so badly, come to Izvaldi! It's where I'll be! You're resourceful; you can make it! Now... bye!"
"Cute Valeyyyyy!" Puddles wailed, falling, but Valey flew up. She flew further and further, peering back with keen eyes, saw Puddles freeze herself right before landing and then get up, staring... and she turned towards Starlight and flew, refusing to look back.
Hills. Sparse groves. Long, dusty roads. Homesteads separated by fields. Green, rolling plains of grass. And blue sky, with high, scattered clouds and a lone Valey streaking her way east.
She kept closer to the ground than usual for a long-distance flight, since there were no mountains or tall structures to collide with and it was warmer the closer she was to the world. Her forehooves, she held to her chest as she flew, and they had regained enough feeling to feel cold again. At her sides, saddlebags bounced, with nothing inside but a battery and a sound stone and the Nightmare Module she had managed to reclaim.
Her tail streamed behind her like a banner, generating a streak of green, and she wished she had Puddles' goggles as her eyes watered from the wind. This wasn't like the last time she had flown cross-country in pursuit of her friends, though it reminded her of it. She had ground beneath her, so she didn't need to conserve her strength, she was well-rested, and her friends were moving toward her, not away. Valey focused on speed, Starlight's distant scent like a beacon on the horizon that drew her on. Maybe one day, she'd stop to figure out why that worked; how she could smell her friend from so far away. That day, Puddles was hours behind her and Starlight many more hours ahead, so she flew.
"How much longer until we reach the sea?" Starlight yawned, sitting back in a chair around the Immortal Dream's dining table as Maple cleared the dishes from dinner and Slipstream busied herself with helping. Sirena sat to the side, listening to the boat move with her cheek against the wall, Gerardo was steering on the bridge as usual, and Jamjars was squirreling away leftovers to hoard in her room.
"I wish I could tell you," Maple answered as she bustled past, stacking plates on her back with the practiced ease only an earth pony could muster. "But that would be a question for Shinespark, because she's the one who sailed this way before, and she's out looking for Valey in case she needs to be freed to come to us."
"I knowww..." Starlight folded her ears. She shouldn't have been bored. She'd made it through a whole month of nonstop flying, coming to the Empire from Riverfall, after all. But... she sighed. It felt like she needed to run, just for the sake of it, and she couldn't put her thoughts into words or anything more than the feeling that she needed to do something. It was the same restlessness that she had thought about earlier, explored and focused on until she didn't notice Maple get up for a drink and had imagined talking to herself... She still hadn't told anyone about that. And she had no idea what to do.
"How are we supposed to find her, anyway?" Jamjars huffed. "All we know is she went west."
Starlight shrugged. "She can find us? I don't know how it works. Valey always said in Ironridge she could smell me from across the city, and again when we got separated flying to Stormhoof. So Shinespark follows her, captures Puddles, frees Valey, and then all three of them come to us, and we just hope we're nearby."
Jamjars gave a friendly roll of her eyes. "She's making stuff up. You don't even use mane conditioner! If anything, she smells me. That reminds me, sometime I want to play with your mane and make it look better. Mine's too short to do anything with anymore."
"Uhhh..." Starlight gave her an uncertain look. "I like my mane the way it is?"
"Whatever." Jamjars tossed her wig over her shoulders. "So really, how are we finding her? Or is the secret that we're running away, so if she comes back to Izvaldi looking for us, we'll not be there and it'll be a prank?"
Starlight looked crossly at her, then at Maple. "I'm going to sit on the deck again," she announced, turning to head for the stairs. "I'll be there if you want me!"
Maple nodded, and Starlight left. The deck was just as empty as before, Gerardo silhouetted through the open door to the bridge and the sky beginning to turn colors as the sun set behind them. Starlight walked straight to the railing, took one look at the deciduous forest scrolling past on the riverbank, and flung herself chin-down on the deck boards, hooves splayed in front of and behind her.
She whimpered internally, just a little. Why was it so hard to just understand what she wanted? Even being flat on the deck and fully fed didn't sate her. Her thoughts were swirling trying to figure out why her thoughts were swirling, and no matter how much it seemed like that shouldn't be a problem, it was. She needed to have something, or to do something, or something else she couldn't even name that was burning up inside her.
"Your problem is that you don't know how to trust anyone."
The memory of the opening to her conversation with herself earlier floated through her mind, and she grabbed onto it. Maybe dreams or hallucinations really were how she had to sort her problems out, and her other self was on to something. But she trusted ponies, didn't she? She trusted that Maple would always be there. Maple needed her just as much as she needed Maple; they'd never leave each other apart. Shinespark and Valey weren't as good of friends, but she trusted them too, right? Not to leave like Sunburst, or...
Not to be taken away like Sunburst. But that wasn't up to her! It wasn't a thing she could just take for granted when it so obviously wasn't true! Maple had been captured by the Defense Force their very first night in Ironridge, and it had been up to Starlight to stow away and save her. She couldn't just assume her friends wouldn't be targeted by angry packs of mercenaries, or be away from the airship when its power ran out, or... be foalnapped by windigoes.
Starlight felt her eyes grow wet. Her stupid conscience or whatever was wrong. It was right about what she wanted, which was the promise that she'd never, ever lose her friends again, but that wasn't an issue of trust. The world was untrustworthy. She'd seen it time and time again. And if something was untrustworthy, you'd just get hurt for letting your guard down. She had to do more... This trip was yet another reminder; one of her friends had been taken and she wasn't even there to do anything about it and it could have been Maple and...
There was no answer. What she wanted was to not need to be concerned about this! But the only way to ensure her friends were safe and she wouldn't lose again was to do it herself, and that meant being stronger, keeping constant watch for any and all threats, looking after them to the best of her ability and making sure her best was always good enough... and she wanted to not need to do that. Why couldn't she have both? Why couldn't she have a guarantee of keeping her friends while not needing to make it happen by-
Thud.
Starlight's ears lifted at the noise on the deck behind her, and she half-expected to see her reflection again when she looked up. Instead, it was Valey.
"Heya," Valey greeted, shakily folding her wings and looking like her forelegs could give out at any moment, her hat stuffed into the saddlebags at her sides. "Wow, you look kinda upset. I'd totally stay to talk it over if you want, but I probably gotta let everyone know I'm back first. Do you have any food?"
"Where do I get my ice? That's a funny question, Your Eminence... You sure you don't work for the Power Distribution Agency? Seems an awful lot like you've got something you expect me to say... N-Not that I mind, of course! Any way I can be of service, I can..."
A nervous merchant stood stammering beside a cart filled with fish, in a market street dedicated entirely to the things. Even on ice, their smell was overwhelming, and Shinespark silently thanked her good constitution for letting her keep up a professional demeanor as she asked around. Fully disguised in white-and-gold armor, she earned exactly two reactions from everyone she met: admiration and fear.
"I'm mostly interested in any way to get a lot of ice for cheap," she interrupted the merchant to say. "Doesn't need to be clean or sanitary, just cold and a lot of it. You wouldn't have heard of anyone with way too much ice on their hooves they really want to get rid of, would you?"
Now the merchant just looked confused. "Umm, no? I'm sorry, Your Eminence, but anything that takes mana power to make is expensive. I could sell you mine if you bought my fish, too, but..."
"Thank you. You've told me all I needed to know." Shinespark stepped back, surrounded herself in a sapphire aura, and lifted into the sky, aware of the forest of eyes watching her go.
Puddles and Valey's trail through the teleportation guild hadn't been difficult to follow. Each visited office was in so much disarray it was like Puddles wanted to be followed, and the unicorns had refunded Shinespark's travel fee after they didn't have enough personnel who were warm enough to transport her. She had flown from outpost to outpost instead, following the trail of ice and mischief, taking more than a day and having to stop and spend the night at a less-vandalized building, and the path finally ended at the Goldoa coast, a horizon-capped line of waterfront development that seemed to alternate in waves between downtown districts and rich waterfront estates. Her method of searching from there was simple: Puddles left ice sculptures and explosions everywhere she went, so just look for unwanted ice. And what better way to find that than looking for ponies trying to profit off it?
After avoiding her cutie mark for so long, it felt almost alien to use it again. A few isolated incidents aside, she either hadn't needed it in the Griffon Empire, hadn't felt like it after everything that had happened with her and Braen in Ironridge, or flat-out couldn't use it to prevent anyone from drawing the connection between her and the mysterious Braen. But now she was Braen once again, the townscape changing beneath her as she flew, and she had too important of a job to do to worry about whether it felt like a happy reunion.
She kept her flight over the town as low as she dared, making sure she wouldn't miss any obvious frozen artwork in the streets. With half or more of the empire's population possessing wings, the airspace was hardly hers, and she couldn't even move at half her comfortable speed without risking a crash. Still, she flew far faster than a leisurely pace, blocks and alleys slipping past until her internal clock decided it was time to land and scout again.
Before she could pick out a likely-looking place to ask, though, an unusual structure a distance away caught her eye: a straight spur of something glinting, rising at forty-five degrees from a building's roof. Shinespark zipped to its side, suspicions confirmed with a grim smile.
"What the...?" A unicorn mare who was sawing at the base of the melting, broken ice spire stopped her work and blinked at Shinespark. "What are... I mean, who are you? Are you important? You aren't here for an investigation, are you?"
"Why?" Shinespark tilted her helmeted head. "Anything happen that's worth investigating? It would be useful to hear about it."
"I just work here..." the unicorn grumbled, dressed in a server's outfit. "I was on break, but they said an ice mage came in and started a fight."
"A fight? Where? Here?" Shinespark tapped the roof beneath her, wandering over to the edge and peering down. It was an alley, completely blocked by a disfigured mountain of ice nearly a dozen ponies and griffons were working at both ends of, hacking and sawing away and carving off big cubes of ice, probably to sell. "Is there any chance a batpony with a green mane and eyes was there?"
The unicorn frowned, kicking a hoof against the ice spike. "I told you, I was on break. Yes, here."
"Thanks! You've been a great help," Shinespark assured, dropping down from the roof and looking for a way in.
Valey tripped on the final stair to the Dream's dining hall, frozen forehooves deciding at last they didn't want to work anymore. Her cutie mark warned her, and she turned the tumble into a roll, landing on her back with her wings half spread and her legs somewhat in the air. Her stomach growled noisily.
"Valey!"
Maple was the first to reach her, glomping her in a full-body hug. "Valey, you made it back!" she cried, almost laughing. "I'm getting so tired of you being separated from us..."
"Hey, Ironflanks," Valey groaned, squashed between Maple and the floor. "Yeah, me too."
"Glad to see you back," Slipstream offered, giving a sure smile. Sirena nodded along from the wall where she sat.
"Yeah, yeah. Need food..." Valey panted, trying to get to her hooves.
"Your forehooves are frozen," Maple remarked, helping her up. "Hard fight with Puddles? I just finished cleaning up from dinner, but there were a few leftovers, and I'll happily make you anything you want."
Valey sighed, blowing on her hooves one at a time and then standing. "Eh. Something like that. So where is everyone? I saw Starlight up above."
Slipstream helpfully stepped in. "Gerardo is steering the ship, and Nyala is learning with him. We found out that since Shinespark developed her armor and this ship at the same time, there's an easy interface for her on the terminal, so if Nyala plugs in, she can control the ship just by thinking. And she doesn't need to sleep, so... Pretty neat, right?"
"You found out?" Valey frowned. "Wait, wouldn't Sparky just know that already?"
Maple stopped in her tracks, breath catching. "So..."
"I, uhhh... yeah." Valey hung her head. "Tried my best to keep Puddles in check. Seriously, I did. Amber can tell you about it. Kinda messed me up, and I'm just gonna need some time to put my head back together before I do much more than trashing bozos, I think. In the end, stuff was looking bad enough I figured if I didn't just fight my way free and run when I had the chance, I might not get the chance to later. Didn't even see Sparky. Hope she steers clear, because that windigo is scary. You guys have some way of contacting her to tell her I'm safe and Puddles isn't worth it, right?"
"We had to put a plan together in a hurry! We did the best we could!" Maple cried, starting to look desperate. "Shinespark went through the teleportation guild to track you and Puddles, and we followed along so once she freed you and you caught her, the three of you could follow your way of smelling Starlight and we could pick you up! W-We didn't..."
"Think I could bust free on my own?" Valey sighed. "Yeah. Bananas. I haven't really been living up to my Ironridge reputation lately, have I...? And Puddles made a huge scene everywhere we went. Ice all over the place. No way Sparky won't find that if she's in the area. Well, this stinks."
"What are you going to do?" Slipstream asked, looking concerned. "This means Shinespark could be in the same position you were in, only more prepared but without a way to find us?"
Maple bit her lip. "I'd say we should find her, but if it's as dangerous as Valey says it is..." She shook her head. "I commit to so many things like this, and I'm never the one doing the most risking. And I have a problem with taking risks. I shouldn't decide."
"Mentally taxing," Valey corrected. "Mostly dangerous in that she'll drag you into situations where you're in danger from other stuff. When I left, she was trying to sign onto a crew of pirates with... Oh yeah, Pancake is back, too."
Maple blinked. "Pancake? You mean Howe? He's..." Her face darkened. "He's in the empire? I still need to have words with him about the Flame District..."
Valey nodded, flicking her tail. "Yup. Same edgy mane and everything. Anyhow, you're gonna have to deal with him if... Ugh." She swallowed. "Bananas, I was looking forward to gloating about how I got away with as much as I did and actually didn't get wrecked by her when she was trying to catch me, and now we've gotta go back! Because I know where the place is and could totally figure out the general area, but Sparky's got no clue where we are. I just want a break..."
"Take a break, then," Maple urged, back at her side. "It's evening. You know how far away we are, right? It'll take more than a night to reach there?"
"Turn north at the mouth of the river," Valey sighed. "Yeah. Nnngh... Fine. But look, though. Capturing Puddles? Wallace said he beat her? Unless we can, like, get him to come take her out, or something, I'm pretty sure that'll be impossible. Sorry to break it to you, Ironflanks, but the big fish of Ironridge isn't actually unbeatable here in the big bad empire. I can give it my best, but subduing her just might be something I can't do."
"...Get some food," Maple urged. "And a safe night's sleep. You can join me and Starlight, if you like. And see how you feel about it in the morning."
Valey sat in the Dream's brightly-lit kitchen, stuffing her face with everything Maple could provide. Over the course of half an hour, she downed two meals' worth of leftovers, a giant cucumber sandwich and a carrot for good measure, finishing the last bite with a thunderous belch before leaning back and patting her stomach contentedly.
"Feeling better?" Maple asked, hobbling past as she continued washing dishes from the group's dinner, one forehoof held aloft and covered in soapy suds.
"Hurrrgh..." Valey groaned, stretching again and trying to lie down in a chair only meant for sitting. "Yeah. Yup. That's one way to put it. Problems problems problems. All that can wait for tomorrow..." Her head lolled too greedily, and she almost fell out of the chair. "Woah! I mean, uh, yeah. What did you say?"
Maple stepped back from her work and toweled her hooves off, then stepped up to Valey, offering her shoulder. "I asked if having enough food helps with whatever you're dealing with."
"Uh huh." Valey sighed, getting up. "Yeah... it helps. A little. Sorry, Ironflanks, but I'm still gonna need a day or two to get un-shaken from all that stuff. Gotta lie down, get my hooves warmed up, rest my wings, and thing about stuff. Or maybe talk to Amber, or... I dunno. Just let some time pass. Bleh."
"Can I come too?" Maple offered quietly. "I... know a thing or two about going through hard times and coming out on the other end, and I'd like to listen to what happened."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You mean you want to do your usual hug-therapy? Like, I appreciate the gesture, but that's maybe not what I need."
"You don't need... Oh." Maple blinked. "Valey, I really want to know what happened. Can I at least listen?"
"...Look." Valey held a hoof out for Maple to stop, looking away. "Puddles was annoying, but I should totally be able to get over that. I lost a fight, and then had to win another just to bail on a responsibility, and bananas, I hate losing. And I really wanna be responsible and all that now that I've, like, turned over a new leaf and all. Since Ironridge. Also, I got some news from Amber from Ironridge about something involving my past I'd really, seriously rather not talk about that has nothing at all to do with Puddles. There's what happened. I just... Meh. I thought we were going to be safe and not get into any trouble after Ironridge." She hung her head, then blinked. "Oh yeah, and now that we're out of Izvaldi again, everyone and their grandmother hates me because of my wings and eyes again. Had a super-pleasant reminder of that just while looking for a way to power up my sound stone and talk to Amber."
Maple stepped up beside her, but had nothing to say, just hanging her head in solidarity.
"Not to mention all the other stuff that was blowing up for me before that stupid windigo broke free," Valey sighed. "Bananas, I haven't even been up to the bridge to see Nyala since I got back. Instead I come down here to pig out. I gotta do that, too..."
"You're tired and you have to lay down," Maple decided, putting a forehoof on Valey's shoulder and guiding her toward the door. "I'll go see Nyala for you. You can take care of yourself first and rest."
"Meh," Valey grumbled, moving alongside her. Really, she would be perfectly happy to flop down in a bed and use Maple as a pillow while crying a bunch and ignoring her other friends and rattling off an endless list of the things she was upset about, if only every last thing on that list didn't bother her in some way or another. Using Maple as a pillow? She'd rather it be Amber, and had had far too much hugging courtesy of Puddles anyway. She needed to see Nyala, she couldn't just wander off and leave for the night. Crying wasn't her favorite activity, and she wouldn't be able to talk about the Nightmare Module without getting into why it bothered her, and in turn, how she had originally come from a piece of moon glass... but flopping down in a bed sounded good. She'd do that just as soon as-
"Now rest," Maple insisted, shoving her gently into a bed. Valey landed with a fluffy fwump and the tiniest bounce, blinking around at the ship cabin about her. She had gotten so zoned out, she hadn't even noticed them make their way here...
Valey wanted to protest, but all she could manage was, "This is lame. Stop mothering me..."
"Not until you stop needing it," Maple insisted. "And don't try to tell me you're fine. I can see your eyes. Something happened to you out there, and if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But I'd at least like to talk to Amber, even if you won't talk to me, because either I can tell her you need help or she can tell me how to help you. Can I have the sound stone?"
Valey shrugged her saddlebags off, reaching in one with a wingtip and pulling out the stone. "Knock yourself out. And seriously, just... I just need one night! I told you, I got a little roughed up in the head. I'll be back to your regular friendly fruit-thrower before you know it, Ironflanks."
Maple took the sound stone, holding it to her chest. "Will you? I can see your eyes, you know. Whatever it was, you lost something that was keeping you going out there. It's a look I know very well. So have your sleep, but please, please keep going in the morning. I'm here for you as best as I know how to be, and I won't share or think worse of you if there's anything ever you have to talk about."
"Let Nyala know I got back, at least..." Valey mumbled, exhausted from her flight and already curled up as Maple tucked her in.
"I'll do that," Maple promised, waiting until Valey's eyes were closed and her breathing stilled before stepping into the hall and closing the door.
"You sound concerned for your friend," Sirena remarked, standing in the library at the end of the hall. "Super sorry to eavesdrop. You weren't the quietest."
Maple sighed, tucking away the sound stone and trotting back into the light. "Maybe I'm too empathetic, but yes, I'm concerned. I don't even know what she went through, just that it was with a creature I only met twice and got a horrible impression of both times. Could you do me a favor?"
"Eh?" Sirena tilted her magenta head. "Yeah, sure. What?"
"Just use magic on this." Maple held the sound stone up. "It needs a charge to work."
A few seconds later, the sound stone sparked with energy, and Sirena stepped back, her and Maple exchanging farewells and thanks as Maple retreated somewhere more private to talk. The deck? No... Her wandering took her instead to the engine room, the giant coils on the ceiling that formed the bulk of the harmony extractor dim and unpowered.
"Valey?" Amber's voice asked through the stone. "How are things? It's been a day. You still okay out there?"
"It's me, Amber," Maple greeted. "Maple. Valey made it back to us less than an hour ago, and I just fed her and put her to bed."
Amber was silent for a long moment. "...You have no idea how much of a relief that is," she finally sighed. "How is she?"
"Shaken. She said she found something out..." Maple stared into the stone. "She says she'll be fine in the morning, but she looks less determined than when I saw her last. Not as bad as I was, but enough to remind me of myself. And we're not out of hot water yet, but that won't be important for another day or two. Do you know what happened to her? I'm not sure what to do..."
"Great. Just great." Amber sighed. "I need to be there with you in person. Would really be great to see all of you again... And sorry, Maple. At least some of what she's dealing with might be my fault. She was under a lot of pressure, and I wound up letting her hear something..." She trailed off. "There's some stuff I don't think she's told you. I'm not sure I should, either, but I'll encourage her to let you in on it. It's a long story. Short version is, she's dealing with a lot from a lot of different sources, and, well... Can you talk? For a while? Now?"
Valey snuffled in her sleep in a dark cabin as Gerardo guided the Immortal Dream westward, standing with Nyala in an ever-lit room at the prow of the ship. The rest of the crewmates did whatever they were doing; Maple didn't care to find out. She was sitting against a wall in the dormant engine room, holding the sound stone and listening to Amber.
"...And by the time she called, Valey was completely terrified I'd think she was being disloyal to me for getting hugged by this windigo. I'm not, of course. I mean, you know me, right? Heheh... I tried to reassure her and cheer her up as much as possible, but honestly, I'm scared that I just don't know her enough for this. Me, telling her it's totally fine if she maybe accidentally gets in a situation where she could be perceived as enjoying another mare's company? I think that's great. I want her to enjoy herself and not feel lonely because I'm so really far away! But what if that's just my idea of a relationship and how it's supposed to work? She's gotta have something she wants, and now I feel like maybe I didn't consider that at all. Maybe she's feeling bad less because she's worried she did something wrong by what I wanted and more she did something wrong by what she wanted? But I just don't know enough about her to tell. Honestly, Maple, I just had fun flirting with her when she stopped by Riverfall and thought we could have something short and fun. You... Well, after what happened to you, you know how I feel about commitment in relationships. I'd much rather have something that doesn't risk anyone getting hurt."
Maple sighed, cradling the sound stone. "Amber, I had a husband once for only a few months, and he left without even telling me why. Whether that was my fault or his, I really don't think I have enough relationship experience to give advice to something like that. I think... you should talk to her, and..." She shook her head. "I don't know. Have you asked Willow?"
"I... umm... can't." Amber hesitated. "For reasons. Mostly because I'm not really in Riverfall at the moment, but you'll see. Anyway, my love life drama aside, that's where Valey was when I talked to her last. From the sound of things, Puddles wasn't so much hostile or malicious as an incredibly strong and needy foal who doesn't know how to take no for an answer, and Valey isn't the best parent. Still mentally exhausting, though more through stress and worry than actually trying to tear her down. Unless that was all an act targeted specifically at Valey, but I don't know."
"So she was under pressure," Maple murmured. "But she said she found something else out, unrelated to that? Something you might have told her?"
It took Amber a while to respond. "...Yeah. Not my greatest moment. In my defense, I didn't know what was going to be said, since I actually let her talk with someone else, and it seemed like a limited opportunity to learn something that could benefit all of you."
"Can you tell me about it?" Maple asked.
"Sort of? Not... not really." Amber sounded regretful. "It involves some things in Valey's past, from before she came to Ironridge, that she told me and I don't think anyone else. She asked me not to tell, and she's afraid of what you might do if you knew, but... I really think you need to know..."
Maple nodded. "If she trusted you with a secret, don't betray her trust."
"She needs friends where she is who she can count on, not halfway across the world," Amber insisted. "And why me? Aren't you the one who kept trusting her over and over in Ironridge even though she kept telling you not to, or something? Maple, you should practically be her best friend. And this is worrying her, and even if nobody else on the ship knows, she really needs someone there for her. Really."
"Then I'll ask her as soon as she wakes up," Maple promised. "I'll tell her that you said she had something to tell me, and I'll bring this sound stone just in case but I won't push her past there."
Amber gave a sigh of relief. "Okay. That's... okay."
Maple let the silence sit for a while. "Anything else you want to talk about?" she eventually asked. "You know, about you and me? Not necessarily about Valey, or Puddles, but just about how we're doing because we're friends?"
"Heh. Funny story, actually..." Amber sounded more grim than amused. "Stop me if this is reopening old wounds or you don't want to talk about it, but I finally found the full story on what happened to Hemlock and why he went from an offensive, entitled codger to a paranoid psychopath who had your house vandalized and attacked Starlight on the river. Wanna hear it?"
Maple sucked in a breath. "There was a story to it? I had just... let that go..."
Amber took that as a yes. "There was. It took a lot of trips between Riverfall and Ironridge, a few interrogations, getting the right witnesses and a map of the flooding when the dam broke, getting punched in the face, and a successful robbery, but I figured it all out and it makes so much sense now. Do you want to hear?"
"I... Yes," Maple decided. "Tell me."
"Okay," Amber began, "Here goes. I'll tell the pieces and see if you can assemble them. Hemlock spent a long time by the river, right? Especially after his crane broke trying to lift Gerardo's boat, way back when Starlight had just arrived. When the flood hit, at its highest, a little bit of Riverfall closest to the docks got swamped. Not badly, and just a little, but enough to wash in a lot of debris we had to clean up. Hemlock would have been right in the middle of that. And, you know, with how much got hit by the flood... there was a lot of debris. Following?"
Maple hummed, though she didn't see Amber's endgame just yet.
"Can you think of anything at all... that might have fallen in the river at Ironridge while the flood was high, and gotten washed down to Riverfall? Anything magical and pretty that could appeal to greed or vanity, make whoever found it covet it and slowly grow angry and paranoid? Any cursed things like that, freshly created around that time?"
"Oh..." Maple gave a little gasp, feeling her eyes widen and suddenly realizing where this was going. "Windigo hearts... They said there were a lot created when Starlight killed the windigoes...! And one landed in the floodwater, and washed down to Riverfall where Hemlock found it?"
"Yep. That's about what happened, Maple."
"So he was cursed." Maple hung her head with a sad sigh. "It wasn't any pony that vandalized my house. It was all because of one of those things?"
Amber gave a sorry hum. "No, there were definitely ponies involved. I've been talking with certain ponies who know how they work, and while these hearts are a little bit stronger than the ones you found due to being so fresh and recently exposed to feelings of conflict, they're not that strong. How much it affects you depends a lot on who you are, and if you need proof of that, the thing I said I stole was the heart. One of Hemlock's friends, a mare called Mangrove, had it. She probably stole it from him. And I can... feel it, a little. You probably know what it feels like since you had one for a while. But I'm still me."
Maple instantly stiffened. "Amber, if you have one, you should get rid of it immediately. Give it to Yakyakistan, or bury it somewhere safe. If you're feeling at all sad or guilty about what happened with Valey..."
"I'm not sure," Amber cut in. "Apparently, the hearts' strongest effect is that they make you afraid that what you have could be taken from you. That includes the hearts themselves; most of the conflict they can cause is ponies fighting over who gets to possess them, but I'm being careful. I have it wrapped up and stowed away, and full of harmonic fire just in case. I don't look at it or touch it. And you're a lot more susceptible to them if you're already prone to feeling that way. Hemlock was always worried about being left behind in history and the world changing and leaving him without a place. I've been spending my time thinking about my friends and wanting what's best for them. I know me saying I'm fine having it is what I'd say if it was having me in its sway, but I really think I'm..." She trailed off. "No. Hold on. Me saying I trust myself with these doesn't work. Do you trust me not to lose myself around windigo hearts, Maple? You know what they feel like. If you say no, I promise I'll get rid of this right now, even though I don't think I should, and do everything I can to stay as far away from them as possible."
Maple looked around the engine room, her eyes falling on the dormant windigo heart tethered to the extractor that had once been used to power the ship, before it ran out of energy. There was a heart right there, and she could imagine herself taking it... but it was only a fleeting idea. The hearts really didn't have much sway over those resistant to them.
"I trust you, Amber," Maple replied firmly and calmly. "I don't think you'll lose yourself. But... I do think you'll feel better without it around, because I carried one for only a day and couldn't believe how much better I felt with it gone. If you can put it down, see what that feels like, and still be fine with guarding this one, then I trust you to do it safely."
"Thanks, Maple," Amber sighed. "I really do think these will be able to help, or be used for good, though. You used one to power the airship, after all. Anyway, remember that Yakyakistan said there were eight windigoes, which means eight hearts fell, and they all technically belong to you and Valey and Starlight as payment for stopping Herman and killing those windigoes. Someone from Yakyakistan came back to Ironridge and I got to talk with them, and apparently the heart Hemlock had was the last of those eight they hadn't recovered. All the others, they found where they landed a while ago, so they were grateful I had it, at least. Anyway. Your reputation in Riverfall... I've worked on it, and there are a whole lot of ponies who feel badly about what happened, but just enough still who want you gone that it might not be pleasant moving back. Sorry."
"That's okay," Maple murmured, slumping a little lower down the engine room's wall. "Thank you for telling me, Amber. And for finding all that out. With everything happening here in the Griffon Empire, I really just can't tell if we'll stay here a long time or get all of us back together and just leave. I don't think we have the power to make it across the ocean, though, and I don't know where we'd go. Like you said, I'm not ready to come back to Riverfall and Ironridge, and if we're worried about not being safe here, Varsidel is a war zone. It would be so nice, someday, to find a town where we could all settle down and live in peace..."
"Yeah," Amber added. "Without having to worry about invading empires, and where all your neighbors are your friends instead of greedy or cursed enemies, and where Valey wouldn't have to get so many cold shoulders just because she's a batpony. I'd come settle down there, and I might even see if I could bring Willow. Speaking of which, White Chocolate's still doing well. Hasn't had her foals yet, but is enjoying playing in Arambai's old workshop and actually has a social life. Thought you'd like to know."
"That's nice," Maple murmured, forcibly tracking her thoughts to warm things at the mention of White Chocolate. "Poor Valey. She's probably stressed from just being in the empire, too. I know she had it hard after being separated from us the first time... I hope she's alright through all this. She's the one I'm worried about most."
Amber hummed. "Same. Glad none of the rest of our friends are doing worse. Listen, we've probably got hours more to catch up on, but... do you want to call it a night? I'm getting a little sleepy, and you sound like you want to check up on Valey before you go to bed."
Maple blinked long and hard, then rubbed her eyes. "Sure. Okay, Amber. I'll talk to you tomorrow. From what Valey said, we first need to pick up Shinespark, and then make a plan about what we're doing, and I need to be rested for that too. Good night..."
"Night, Maple. Take care of yourself. I'll see all of you again, I promise."
The sound stone winked out, leaving Maple alone in the engine room. Quietly, she waited for several minutes, then got up and stepped out the door.
The door to the empty cabin Maple had put Valey in slid open once again, and Maple stepped back through, closing it tightly behind her and sitting down beside the bed.
"Mmmph?" Valey grunted, shifting at the disturbance.
"Don't let me wake you," Maple whispered, looking away into the darkness. "I just finished talking to Amber. Just thought you might sleep better if you weren't alone."
"Not asleep," Valey mumbled. "Just tired. Bananas. Don't you have Starlight to snuggle with, or something, Ironflanks?"
Maple shook her head. "She's in the observation room and said she just wanted to think about something for a while. You, on the other hoof, looked like you needed company."
"I told you, I just need to think about stuff for a while too. I'll be fine, Ironflanks. Seriously, you know how much I hate moping. Feeling like myself always makes me feel better. I'll be rude and chipper again in the morning, no sweat."
Maple sighed and leaned against the bed. "Unless you aren't, in which case you'll feel bad about yourself for not being able to cheer up and that will make it harder to cheer up and you'll get stuck in such a spiral that you won't even be able to get out of bed. At least, maybe... Maybe you'll be fine, but I've been there and just wanted to be here, now, just in case it helps."
Valey made half an effort to roll over, then fell back and bounced lightly in place. "Mmph."
"Amber said you found something out," Maple murmured. "About your past, that you didn't like. She didn't say what, other than that you asked her to keep it a secret and she couldn't tell me. But she also said you needed someone to talk about things here, someone who could give you a shoulder and not be thousands of miles away. I wish I could help..."
Valey pressed her chin harder into a pillow. "I don't wanna."
"That's okay," Maple said, pushing down the sting of bitterness at not being trusted enough to hear something. Valey had her reasons. "I can still be here, right? You can try to go to sleep. If there's anything I can do, I'll be right here."
"I don't wanna!" Valey sniffed, repeating herself. "With Amber, she was fun to be around, and I felt like I liked her and maybe could trust her with something really stupidly big, since even if she took it bad I didn't really know her so I'd be safe taking the risk because I'd have less to lose! Bananas... You stuck your neck out for me again and again and again in Ironridge, trusting me even when I tried my best to give you every reason not to and then even bailed me out when I was dumb and got trapped in the Flame District, and I had never even met you before. Let alone did anything for you... I didn't get it. Maybe you're just that stupidly kind. Not really a thing I try to question or think about, because I want that! Want friends like that. Didn't really realize how much I was missing it those past bajillion years on my own. But it feels like I'm borrowing against myself, or pushing my luck, or something, and at some point I could just go too far and stuff would break and I'd lose all this good stuff. I hate being a wuss, but I don't wanna lose..."
Maple sat for a moment, thinking. "You never understood why I did everything for you? You still don't?"
Her tone was sad more than anything, and Valey flattened her ears. "I mean, I had guesses, but... Bananas, I'm not supposed to get scared about stuff like this!"
"I didn't think about it much, either," Maple admitted. "I also hoped it didn't need to be thought about, but there is a reason. I spent a long time in Riverfall feeling powerless, insignificant, and like whatever I did wouldn't really change anything. When I went to Ironridge with Starlight, what I wanted to do more than anything was make a difference with my life. To do something worth doing. And there were a lot of things that either weren't worth doing or were too big for one hopeful little pony, but I saw you and heard you on that cart ride we took to Grand Acorn, and you felt like someone I really, truly might have been able to help. And don't forget, you helped us first. Me and Starlight were lost in the Flame District, and you tracked us down and brought us food and guided us out."
Valey's eyelids drooped. "Huh. I forgot all about that."
Maple nodded. "And so that's what I did. You had been kind to us, letting us through to the Stone District and finding us in the mines and keeping us safe from the Defense Force and guiding us to where we wanted to go, without us ever doing anything for you. So I wanted to repay you, felt like I could make a difference, and then you got trapped and needed our help..."
"Bananas," Valey groaned, thinking slowly. "I seriously did do all that, didn't I? Was I always like that? Thinking I was a menace but actually just being nice all the time? I mean, I tried my hardest to avoid doing anything really evil and to make up for the pranks when no one was looking, but..."
"You did," Maple hummed. "For us, at least. I didn't see you before that. But don't think of it as who owes what. We're friends now. I'm very attached to seeing you do better, and if it's hard to imagine me helping you carry whatever burdens you have just because I can, imagine me helping myself instead by feeling good about helping you. Really, I'm doing both, and that's how friendship should work."
"Yeah, but..." Valey frowned, looking slightly desperate. "What if it's something you can't help with? Like, you think you can just walk up and ask history to rewrite itself?"
Maple returned the frown with a small smile. "I can try? Two mares and a filly fending off a foreign nation's invasion and killing a swarm of magical windigoes sounds impossible too, but we did it."
"Nngh..." Valey shuddered. "I don't wanna say it! I hate being scared! Bananas..."
"I already told you you don't have to," Maple insisted, scooting just a little onto the bed. "But Amber told me it would help you, so I'm here to listen if you ever change your mind."
Valey grimaced for a few seconds longer, then her face finally broke. "Remember all those times you yelled at me for warning you I wasn't really a pony?"
Maple's heart sped up in worry, but she had asked for this. She would be ready.
"I meant it," Valey went on, unable to stop now that she had started. "The real Valey kicked the bucket years ago. Drained by empty moon glass, just like Nyala, only a year earlier. Only difference was, she lost her body and I hung onto her soul... She lost the real Valey's soul, and hung onto her body. Tried to get some stupid mad scientists to put her back together. Wound up putting a real moon glass cutie mark back in instead... and that's me. Soul-lookalike from space, notorious for possessing blank ponies and causing personality disorders. Got you to agree it was shady and definitely evil, even. Just, my body's original inhabitant was kind of gone, so I've got it all to myself in here. And that's what I am."
Maple's vision was already blurry. "Oh, Valey..."
"See?" Valey sighed, defeated. "Wish I could have pushed my luck about it earlier, but I checked and you told me to stop ragging on myself instead of digging into what was up. Thought I'd leave well enough alone, and-"
"That's not leaving well enough alone!" Maple choked, leaning forward. "Maybe I just didn't understand the situation, or needed to revise my opinion, or..." She swallowed. "But you said you just found this out talking to Amber..."
"Nah. That was something on top of this."
"Something more...?" Maple's ears folded. "Valey, if worrying about this is what you've been dealing with... Can I hug you? I know Amber said you had some bad experiences with that, but it's how I know best how to help, and... What else did you learn?"
Valey raised an eyebrow at her, now inches away. "Uh, yeah, sure, knock yourself out. But you're already crying, and if I say more you're gonna cry harder, and that's gonna make me cry, and bananas, I hate that too. I don't wanna be a wuss!"
Maple lunged over, closing the last of the distance, and glomped onto Valey, putting a hoof behind her neck and sitting up, trying to cradle Valey's head against her chest. "That didn't stop you in the eastern valley after the dam was destroyed, when I couldn't move or speak and you needed it then. Taking care of yourself isn't being a wuss. Now what did you find out?"
"Nnngh... N-No..." Valey resisted, struggling and trying to hide her face against Maple, but Maple felt a wet spot growing against her chest where Valey's eyes were. "D-Don't wanna..."
"Shhhhh," Maple consoled, wrapping her forelegs around Valey's back and rocking back and forth a little. "I'm here."
Valey turned to the side enough to suck down a wet breath. "T-This whole time, I was... constantly t-telling myself that just because there was a super high chance moon glass actually c-came from the moon and does a ton of bad stuff and there were old l-legends in my place that the c-creator of batponies is up there and is some sort of m-monster, there might be a totally innocent and reasonable explanation for what I am, or where I came from, or w-what moon glass does to real ponies, a-a-and I t-thought maybe it would all be okay, and..." She wiped her eyes again on Maple's coat. "Dorable. The factory chief dude from Ironridge. He was one of those scientists. Don't remember if I told you. Remember that Nightmare Module thing Puddles had on her tongue? Amber got him to talk to me, since we knew he knew something about those, and I wanted to know how dangerous she was." She sniffed again, hard. "They're made from moon glass and stuff. A whole bunch of science jargon I didn't follow at all. And they're ridiculously bad news!"
Her voice was raising, now, and Maple could plainly see her gritted teeth and clenched eyes and flattened-back ears. "He said stuff like how they're part of some evil superweapon and moon glass is supposedly full of a whole bunch of spells and designs and stuff to let someone build these Nightmare Modules! And they're like... machines, or something, that only batponies can use, and moon glass is probably some sort of attack or something that was deliberately sent here to do bad stuff, and that means me with it! I don't wanna be a weapon! I wanted there to be some innocent explanation for what I was or why I was here, and now that's impossible! It's what I s-s-spent all my time hoping and wishing I'd find, and now I got the opposite! I dunno what to do... I dunno...! Snrrrkt... Bwaaaaaaah!"
Valey was straight-up clutching Maple like a pillow, pressed into her chest and beginning to hyperventilate as her tears flowed freely. For her part, Maple sat in a quiet stupor, crying in solidarity and doing the only thing she could when words failed her: being there, and holding on.
After several minutes, Valey's tear ducts were empty. After several more, her cries decreased in volume, and Maple silently thanked any of her friends who overheard for not opening the door and interrupting. But it took well over an hour for the batpony's shaking to lessen, and even then she didn't lift her head, clinging to Maple with her face against her chest like her life depended on it.
Maple just sat, glad the position she was in was a comfortable one and stroking Valey's emerald mane with the tips of her hooves as she held vigil and waited. Valey's ears were the best expression of her mood, folding in forewarning of a new wave of sniffles and otherwise being limp and lifeless. When they finally held themselves up for over a minute, Maple decided to risk talking.
"I still think you're a pony," she whispered, forelegs wrapped around Valey's head. "Or at least a person, even if you're different, like griffons. Your feelings and emotions are very real."
"I wouldn't let go even if this ship started sinking," Maple assured. "You said you valued having me as a friend who trusted you immeasurably, didn't you? Times like this are why." She hoped she wasn't putting words into her friend's mouth, but continued anyway. "Because you can give me things to trust me with. It's no use if you just keep it all to yourself, now..."
She rocked Valey back and forth a little, and Valey hiccupped.
"I'm still here," Maple insisted, and left it at that.
She couldn't know what Valey was feeling, beneath her short coat and clenched eyes and trembling wings and forelegs, though the trembles were starting to lessen. She could guess: loneliness, fear and self-doubt were probably high on the list. But in the end, all she could do was sit and wait and maybe give voice to her feelings if she could think of the proper thing to say.
Instead, it was Valey who spoke first. "Heh heh... Sure blubbered a lot less when I first told that to Amber..."
"Shhh," Maple urged, stroking her back. "It's a lot better to feel than to sit alone with your emotions. That's something it took me painfully long to take to heart. You're doing a wonderful job, Valey. Feel..."
Valey sniffed again and tried to get a hoof beneath her, but ultimately kept leaning into Maple. "Meh. Bluh. Bananas. There goes my reputation with everyone else, at least. Probably heard me all across the Griffon Empire."
"A reputation for what?" Maple kept holding her. "Being immune to this? Unable to be beaten down?" She put her chin lightly atop Valey's mane. "Then stay down for tonight and let yourself be held as long as you want, and in the morning, you can have a reputation for being knocked down and getting back up again. And that's something that's a lot more inspiring to fallible mares like me."
"B-But I don't wanna be held..."
"You don't want to need to," Maple gently corrected. "But you do want to. You're holding onto me like I'm the only thing in the world."
"Nngh. Am I seriously that easy to read?"
"No." Maple patted her. "I've just been there before."
Valey blinked a large, unhappy eye up at Maple, as if daring her to say she was a parasite from outer space. Wanting her to say it, even, but not believing she would.
"Not that," Maple murmured, pulling Valey's head back against her. "Being in a bad situation, and then having the thing I was still relying on yanked out from under me with no warning, leaving me with nothing but my best friends. And now I've gone through something like that, and you've got me. Is it comforting? At all? Do I help?"
Valey answered by redoubling her grip strength, pressing herself into Maple and heaving a long, shaky breath.
Maple let her, holding her like an adult-sized foal and rocking her gently as she lay. "Do you remember anything from your past... From the other Valey's life?" she asked, chancing a change in conversation.
"N-No," Valey sniffled. "No to both. Woke up without a clue who or where I was, though not super disoriented or anything. Like Nyala, only I didn't feel weird being a pony like she does being armor."
"Mmm," Maple whispered, stroking her mane as Valey went completely limp, no longer shaking. "So you wouldn't have any memory of being a foal, would you? Or maybe you really are eight years old, just with an adult body. Younger than Starlight, I'd guess."
Valey sniffed again. "Nope. And maybe. Biologically, I was a foal and then had my growth spurt pretty soon after, so somewhere around twenty. Mentally, I dunno. I've got eight years of memories, but definitely didn't spend any time learning to crawl and talk and stuff. Been old enough to like mares for a while, at least. Kinda just stopped thinking about it once I was big enough that I stopped getting flak from jealous Defense Force goons for outranking them while looking like a filly. Actually, though? Who knows? I could be like a thousand. Don't even know what I am..."
"I told you," Maple repeated, "you're a pony. Your feelings are proof enough of that for me and anyone else, and if for anyone they weren't, that person would probably be very worried about whether they truly existed, too." She paused for a moment. "Did you have parents?"
"Maybe. Sorta. Nah." Valey made no effort to sit up, though she didn't hold so tightly, laying on Maple and finally seeming to trust that she would stay there and wouldn't leave for anything. "I kinda left out a lot of the details. Have Amber tell you the full story. I was, like... just a little spooky to all the other villagers, 'cuz the first thing I did was beat up all the scientists that put me together. Don't get me wrong, they deserved it. They were jerks. But... everyone else knew I wasn't the old Valey, since I didn't look anything like her, and I was powerful. Cute little fuzzy ball of pain. Some sort of living space weapon turned into a pony. So no, didn't really have parents. Nyala was the one who liked me, which was super weird because I was some other thing that had taken over the body of her sister. She's super nice. Kinda like you, M-Maple. You should hang out with her sometime..."
Maple closed her eyes and felt another unspent tear leak free. "So this is the first time in your life you've had someone hold you and offer to make everything okay. You never knew what it felt like to have someone who was there that completely for you, did you?"
"Heh," Valey chuckled. "I still don't believe it. You get locked up by the Defense Force on sight, Maple. You can't just walk in and make all my problems go away by calling them naughty, or something. Nice to imagine, though..."
"Can't I?" Maple murmured. "Like I said. You, me and Starlight repelled a foreign invasion and slew some magical demons together. Feeling bad about yourself is serious, but next to a thing like that? Who's to say I can't make everything right?"
"Heh heh..." Valey started laughing harder, and then harder still until she finally needed to sit up and wipe her eyes. She glanced across at Maple with a teary grin, still touching but faces separated by a comfortable distance. "Bananas. I wanna believe you can, and that just does the trick..."
Maple smiled back. "Then stay awhile. The sun has set, and we're sailing west. There's nothing else you need to do and nowhere you need to be."
Shinespark stepped confidently into the tavern, disguised completely in gleaming, white-and-gold armor, projecting the certainty that only a pony who had been leading for their entire adult life could exude. She belonged in that tavern, not by rank or class or time spent there but because she decreed it, and conversation died in a ripple of silence and whispers around her.
A door banged in the distance, and the only creatures who didn't stop what they were doing were two unicorns and a griffon blocking up a pair of smashed holes in the windows. Moments later, a griffon in a tweed suit with an incredibly slick crest stepped out of a back room, strolling up and giving her an oily, appreciative smile.
"Well. Someone important," he greeted, giving a too-cordial smile and stepping around a melting stack of ice protruding from the ground. "Thank you for blessing my humble establishment with your exalted presence, Your Eminence. I trust you're here for the obvious reason?" He gave the ice a fearsome scowl. "If someone who does things like that isn't a criminal of the highest notoriety, they should swiftly become one!"
"I'm just looking for somepony," Shinespark interrupted, worried that she was about to get patronized without end. As much as she was trying to look important, her level of success was almost startling... "Two ponies, both mares. A yellow earth pony who can make ice with her hooves, and a sarosian with a green mane who was with her. Is that who did this?"
Before the greasy owner could answer, a pegasus who looked like he'd seen better days peered over a bench, eyes widening. "N-No way," he stammered, straightening up. "I know you. You came all the way from Ironridge with her? A-Are you hunting Valey, or in league with her? Tell me!"
Shinespark winced internally. Of course someone recognized her... but before she could act, the bar owner threw the pegasus a cutthroat smile, telling him to mind his own business. "Of course! Of course it was," he insisted, waving a wing at the broken windows. "Everyone will tell you that description matches perfectly."
"Can you tell me where they went?" Shinespark pressed.
The sleazy owner drooped. "Only guesses, Your Eminence. They were consorting with another group of patrons who started their business here only a week ago... Good, law-abiding sailors, every one of them. It would be terrible if anything happened to them as a result of bad business."
Shinespark frowned beneath her visor, certain there was a code within his words that only certain ponies would know. She wished she had Valey's danger sense, but had to rely on her own abilities... "Very terrible," she agreed. "Where would they have gone?"
"What?" The owner looked mock-offended. "You don't think it's my business to pry into my customers' affairs, do you? This is a respectable establishment, Your Eminence." He sidled closer, whispering. "But just between you and me, the crew were all fliers, so they would certainly have anchored offshore. May Garsheeva aid your investigation."
"Thank you for your help, sir... griffon," Shinespark acknowledged, stepping back and bowing. "I'll leave you to your business, then."
She turned and left, confidently not checking over her shoulder until she was outside. That owner thought he had played her for a fool, she could tell without a doubt... but Valey and Puddles had been there, and recently, too. She was closing in. They had to be nearby.
"How are you feeling now?" Maple murmured, still sitting in bed and holding Valey against her.
"Mmph. Don't make me think about it," Valey grumbled, tucked close against her. "Just gonna have to get up again tomorrow and be Valey again and deal with this and that and everything. Lemme keep pretending a little while longer. Five more minutes..."
"It's not pretending," Maple gently insisted. "Your friends really are here for you. I promise."
"Oh yeah? You think Birdo would be chill with it if I dumped all this and acted like this to him?"
Maple sighed into Valey's mane. "Different friends can trust each other with different things. Yes, maybe you couldn't have been this open and vulnerable with Slipstream, or Gerardo... but it doesn't mean they don't want the best for you. But I am here for you, and you can always let down your guard like this around me. Nothing will happen to you here. I promise."
"Nyeh." Valey clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Love you too, Mom."
Maple smiled and shook her head. "I might be older than you, but you're an adult, Valey. I'm not babying you. You can call me Ironflanks, but not that."
"Heh." Valey chuckled against her. "You sure? You totally adopted Starlight, too. Seriously, you just have a thing for trying to take care of sad ponies, or something. Besides, I really wanna say 'I love you,' but not make it weird."
"You can love someone platonically, Valey," Maple hummed. "I love you too. And Starlight is... well, she needed someone, and I needed someone to need. It isn't like I'll ever have children of my own, any more, but I have her, and I'm glad for it."
Valey looked uncertainly aside. "You think she feels the same way?"
"Oh, I'm sure she does." Maple gave a warm little smile. "She needs me. I need her. It works out perfectly for each other."
"Are... you sure about that?" Valey asked hesitantly.
"Well, I mean, it's like..." Valey fidgeted. "Not exactly the greatest expert on parents and kid stuff, here, you know. Probably super bad with kids, even. But you were totally mothering me here, right? The whole 'I'm here for you, you don't have to worry about a thing' deal? Yeah?"
"It's what Willow always did for me," Maple replied. "Me and Amber thought of her as a big sister, more than anything, but she did take care of us like that whenever we needed it. Both as foals and later, when I... got depressed. Why?"
Valey frowned, pulling back so she could look at Maple. "Because that's... super not an equal relationship, you know? Like, the opposite of what you and Starlight have going on. I mean, you just said you both need each other, and it's all back-and-forth and stuff. But, like, what you're trying to do for me right now isn't that at all. Being here, taking care of anything that worries me, keeping me safe even though that's totally supposed to be my job for you... you know?"
Maple's breath caught in her throat. "What do you mean...?"
"Look. Bananas." Valey sat up further, then scooted in the bed and turned around so she and Maple were side-by-side, leaning on each other. "You're super awesome, Ironflanks, and I do feel better. Not a hundred percent, but you were right. I needed that. Just... a bit of time to feel like I didn't have to worry about a thing. And I'm totally not doing this because I feel like I've got a favor to repay, or anything. You're right, I'm an adult. Even if I need a break from them, I do have responsibilities and stuff to worry about. But Starlight is, like... actually really a filly, and she totally does need someone to do that for her. Maybe not nonstop all the time, because she's gotta grow up, but..."
She trailed off, then sighed. "Look. I ran into her up on the deck when I showed up. She looked super stressed. And just now, when I was thinking, I'm like... How often do you see her playing with stuff? She reads books every now and then to pass the time, but that's not the same. Especially since they're usually nonfiction. And especially, how often do you see her smile? Bananas, I'm not even sure what that looks like. Like, maybe I needed a break? Just a little, to get some ground beneath me? She's a kid. She shouldn't even know what kind of stuff adults need breaks from. So the last thing I wanna do after you were so awesome to me is criticize your parenting, but when you say she needs you, yeah, she totally does. But then when you say you need her... Being there for us shouldn't be the kind of thing that weighs on her. Not when we're constantly getting into life-and-death danger and high political drama and all that. And again, the last thing I wanna do is make you sad, but... I dunno. Thanks. And sorry. Just thinking aloud, here."
Maple couldn't answer, left staring at the wall. "I... No... Valey, that's what... you think... Have I?"
She looked over in horror, meeting Valey's green eyes. "You meant it, didn't you?"
"...You know what?" Valey frowned at her. "I seriously shouldn't have brought that up right then, but now I've got a favor to return. Stop. Worrying."
She reached out and tried to pull Maple against her just like Maple had been doing moments ago, but Maple pushed back, trying to stand. "I need to go talk to her!" Maple insisted, wobbling against the bed's deep cushiness. "Valey, come on..."
"Wait! Really. Please." Valey grabbed her shoulder with a forehoof. "Maple, hang on. Starlight cares about you super hard, and I don't need one bit of experience to tell that if you run up blubbering about having not done enough for her she'll take it exactly the opposite way and... Wait!"
Maple stopped, staring at her from the edge of the bed and waiting for her to say more.
"Please," Valey insisted. "You just got me to sit down and talk about some seriously painful stuff with you, okay? Trust me here and slow down. Can we please, please talk about this? I don't even know if what I noticed was right, I was just thinking aloud."
Maple sagged, slipping partway out of the bed by gravity alone. "Do you think Starlight noticed?"
"Noticed what? That you care about everyone ever?" Valey pulled her partway back in. "Starlight probably thinks her life is normal, or something. And she totally cares about you. So, wait a bit. First let me apologize if I freaked you out, and second, let's talk this though. Please?"
"Don't apologize," Maple sighed, relenting and settling back in. "I never thought about exactly how to parent beyond doing what came instinctively. If I was doing something wrong, I-I needed to know."
"Bananas." Valey patted her on the back. "Well, I'll be here all night. Let's keep talking."
"Bananas. Bananas, bananas... Why am I always the one who gets stuck being therapist..."
Valey muttered to herself under her breath as she trotted down the staircase of the Immortal Dream, having thoroughly checked herself in a mirror to make sure it wasn't obvious just how much she had been crying. She had a job to do, and her nose told her Starlight was right below, staying put in the observation room.
The room itself was fronted by a reinforced glass curve that also covered the floor, designed to let an airborne crew look forward, to the sides, and down all at once. When the ship was seabound, though, the waterline rose nearly to the window's surface, providing a look instead into the dim river depths. The lights were off to conserve power, only moonlight from above filtering down through the water and casting dull, wavering patterns around the filly on the floor.
"Valey!" Starlight greeted, sounding surprised to see her.
"Oh. Uhh... hi." Valey gave a lazy salute, then stepped forward. "You sound kinda glad to see me. Anything different than usual, or are you just glad I'm back?"
"I'm glad you're back," Starlight protested, sounding confused that it wasn't obvious and getting to her hooves. "I was just thinking about you, though."
"Oh?" Valey sat down beside her, patting with a wing for Starlight to stay.
Starlight nodded her little lilac head. "I've been thinking, and I decided I want you to teach me how to fight."
Valey blinked, then grinned nervously. "Uhhh... heh heh. Really? I mean, not that I don't think that's a great idea, being able to defend yourself and all, but... maybe not on a boat in the middle of the night?" Her face straightened. "Besides, I've kinda got something to talk to you about first."
Starlight squinted in confusion. "Huh?"
"Yup." Valey nodded, staring out into the water instead of at Starlight. "Look, I'm not really feeling up to beating around the bush right now, so the short of it is that Ironflanks somehow got it into her head that she hasn't been being the best parent to you. No idea how that happened. And she's feeling kinda bad about it, and asked me to check on you just in case. You think she does a good job as your mom?"
"What?" Starlight looked almost offended. "Of course she does! Why wouldn't she?"
"Told her you'd say that," Valey reassured. "She's just thinking about all the different random stuff parents are totally supposed to do for their kids, and all. Like, off the top of your head, what are the most important things she does for you? Or that parents are supposed to do for their kids. Or both. Or just the things that mean the most to you."
Starlight frowned. "You mean as opposed to when I was in Equestria? She cares about me not being alone, for one. Maple would never leave me on purpose."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you got literally abandoned? I thought you ran away."
"I ran away because I was lonely," Starlight huffed. "They did nothing to stop my friend from leaving, and they didn't stop me from leaving, either. Maple isn't like that. She'd be hurt if I left."
Valey winced. "Not that I was there, but ouch, that's kinda cold to your old parents... And yeah, she totally would. Sounds like you're kinda worried about her getting hurt."
"Why wouldn't I be?" Starlight mumbled at the window. "We're always in danger. All of us. Even when we try to avoid it, like by going to this dumb empire!"
"Nope. Not always." Valey patted her flank. "Danger detector, remember? Right now, we are perfectly okay, no trouble in sight. So for now? No need to worry."
Starlight tilted her head. "Where are you going with this?"
"Trying to give you a break. 'Cuz you look like you need one. Wing hug?" Valey offered a wing to Starlight. "I mean, take it from me, it's kinda stressful to never be off your guard about any random thing that could come in and ruin your life."
Starlight didn't take it. "Maple's worried I'll wear myself out and not be able to keep us safe when we need it, isn't she?"
Valey paused, grin freezing on her face and slowly falling. "Uhhh... Not really. No."
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Look," Valey sighed. "Not exactly a champion of working with kids here, so be patient with me. Ironflanks got, like... what, locked up by the Defense Force the very first time she looked at them, right? And then totally stabbed with Birdo's dumb sword up on that dam bridge by Herman? And probably a bunch of other stuff you and me had to bail her out of, right? That's the kind of stuff she needs keeping safe from? When was the very first time you had to do something like that?"
"Ummm..." Starlight thought. "The first night I met her. Willow told me she needed me and asked me to give her a chance, so I did."
Valey nodded distantly, focusing on the water outside the window. "Uh huh. And, like, on a scale of one to ten, how nice would it be if that stuff just didn't happen? If the world was magically a nice place with no Herman or Puddles or anything and you could just enjoy not being lonely without having to worry about protecting that?"
That got a reaction, almost a choke. "That's what I want!" Starlight hissed, suddenly glaring at her. "I wish there was a place like that!"
"Woah!" Valey shied an inch away. "Yep. I believe you. Bananas..." She hung her head. "Yeah. Maple is worried because she feels like she gets in danger too much, and you're too afraid of losing her and too busy keeping your guard up and trying to protect her to enjoy yourself and be happy."
Starlight scrutinized her, still bristling. After a while, she said, "You called her Maple, not Ironflanks. You're really serious..."
Valey closed her eyes. "Not gonna joke about stuff that's troubling my friends, unless that's what it takes to make them feel better. She's worried she's not doing her job. But, like, I get how ridiculous it is to just ask someone to feel safer, and asking you in particular to add another job to your plate is the last thing she wants. So what can I do instead? I owe her one. Or a million."
Starlight looked pained. "But it's not her fault! She can't control the world, or make it a better place! The only pony who thinks anyone can do that is Willow, and she thought I could! I wish she was more safe, but that's the world's fault, not hers!"
Valey winced. "Yeah... again, I'm an expert on kicking tail and looking cute, not on parenting or any of this stuff, so roll with me, here. But I think the world has a bajillion other parents with cute, bouncy kids, and those kids actually don't know there's such a thing as losing your job or having a friend die of illness, let alone the stuff we deal with like foreign wars and evil politicians. Still the same world. Is it stuff that exists? Yeah. But they, like... don't find out about it for a while, and get some nice, precious years of growing up thinking their parents are superheroes who can fix any problem, or something. And unfortunately, you already got a lesson in the bigness and badness of the world before you even left your old home, so... yeah. Not her fault. Not yours. And I'm not saying you should pretend to feel happy just so she thinks you are. But between you and me... I didn't exactly get any of that good stuff either, growing up. So I can relate."
"...But..." Starlight stared at the ground. "All that does happen! So what if you aren't told? Wouldn't that just be being lied to?"
"Bananas, I dunno." Valey frowned at the water. "Maybe it's worth it. Gotta get some happy memories in before any bad stuff, or something. Like I said, that wasn't a foalhood I had, so I'm guessing how it works just as much as you. But what I do know." She turned straight to Starlight, leaning forward and staring her directly in the eye. "Is that getting overwhelmed with problems you can never get rid of royally stinks, and it would mean the world to both me and Ironflanks if you could even get one single night of not having to worry about anything. And if that's too much to ask, then let yourself cry about how unfair and frustrating it is, because seriously, it's unfair and frustrating, and let her hug you through it and tell you it's gonna be okay. Think you can do that? For yourself?"
Starlight sniffed up at her, eyes starting to water. Valey waited, low enough to the ground that they were eye to eye.
"It would seriously mean a lot," Valey slowly said, "to everyone who cares about you if you took care of yourself and let others care for you. The coast is all clear right now. Nothing's going to whack us while your guard is down, and if it does, let me deal with that because it's what I deal with best. Please?"
With barely a muffled squeak, Starlight ran forward, and then she was clinging to Valey's chest, face buried in her neck.
"Yeah, yeah. Uh, there there..." Valey stood up, wrapping her wings forward to hold Starlight in place. "Let's, uh, get you back to Ironflanks, and we can all complain about how dumb the world is until we go to bed. Fighting pirates and getting Sparky back can wait until morning."
Shinespark was back to flying, crisscrossing over the immediate coastline and the sea near it. There were just enough boats that visiting them all one at a time would be highly impractical, and this left her brimming with frustration. She was so close...
Puddles had been there! Valey had been there! And she was tempted to tie that sleazy bar owner to a wall to see if he had anything he hadn't told her, because all she knew now was that they had been seen with sailors. If he hadn't lied, and thought he could direct an official investigation onto a heated rival... But he did think she was official. Maybe. He could have read her like a book, and she would never be able to tell.
She growled, forcing her thoughts to slow down. She should have asked what Valey looked like; whether she was restrained or blackmailed or following of her own free volition. She needed another hint, and the only place she had to go for those was back to the tavern.
With a trail of sapphire light, Shinespark arrived in the skies over the building. She wouldn't bother the owner again. Someone inconvenienced enough by the incident to be willing to talk freely... that was what she needed.
In the side alley, crews were still hard at work carving up and removing the massive blockage of ice that cut off passage. She landed, loudly clearing her throat and keeping her horn lit. "This looks like a mess. Need a hoof?"
A griffon whose jowl was droopier than a turkey's gave her an upside-down stare, then righted his head. "I got here first!"
"No, no, please, by all means, hold on now," a suave stallion insisted, pushing past the griffon and showing off a level of personal hygiene that could make a noble jealous. "Attracting official attention, are we? Please, Madam, we are but humble entrepreneurs looking to help the city and make a profit at the same time. If you ask a claim to all this ice, we plead no contest, but we're under the impression clearing it is our civic duty!"
Shinespark blinked. She could smell his perfume from five paces away... "You can do whatever you want with the ice. I just need to know where it came from. I'm looking for the ponies responsible."
The stallion whistled and blew on his bouncy, curly golden mane. "Mere troublemakers, attracting the attention of someone as high up as you, Madam?"
"Mere troublemakers?" Shinespark asked, aware the workers were constantly throwing her curious and often-nervous glances. "Really. What makes you say that?"
The stallion seemed to realize he was heading for a hole and backpedaled swiftly. "Well, if you know more about them, I would never mean to contest that! Please, I speak only on what I know." He bowed. "I merely thought anyone who would use such powerful magic to carve out a statue of this size, depicting them physically enjoying each other's company..."
Shinespark nodded, cutting him off, keeping an eye on a cloaked, hooded worker who was very conspicuously trying to sneak away. "Two mares? One an earth pony, one a sarosian?"
"Indeed, Madame," the fancy stallion replied, holding his bow. He rose, his face turning to a fearful scowl. "Young, mixed-race lovers too infatuated to heed the law? Or provocateurs seeking to make a statement? Either way, I doubt their charade will last long with your kind in the mix."
Inside her helmet, Shinespark frowned. "So no sign of one being held captive by the other, then? Hmmm..." She thought back to Izvaldi, remembering the artwork Puddles had made of the fountain there. "Was anyone else involved? Anyone who might be easier to track?"
The stallion shook his head. "Oh, I wasn't there myself. Merely came running at the smell of opportunity. Perhaps someone else would know? Someone who makes a regular habit of patronizing bars and taverns like these. Some entertainment is so low-class..."
"Right," Shinespark absent-mindedly agreed, still watching the sneaky worker. She was paying closer attention to the sneaky worker, getting a strange sensation that they had already ran off once before and were closer now than they were then, yet were still trying to slip away... "Asking around. Thank you for your assistance, sir...?"
"Leeroy," the stallion replied nobly with a hint of satisfaction at being asked. "Leeroy Goldfeather. Ta-ta!"
Shinespark ditched Leeroy and made fast for the sneaker, who seemed to pick up the pace as soon as they knew they were being followed. She frowned as she ran, keeping to the ground instead of flying; this was suspicious. If it weren't for the fact that she was actively looking for trouble, she'd have fled the other direction... but before she could reconsider her course, her target tripped on their robe and tumbled, landing sprawling on their back.
Her eyes narrowed as the hood came off, revealing a unicorn with sunglasses askew over yellow eyes and a slicked-back multicolor mane. He flashed her a winning smile that could only have been achieved through hundreds of hours of dental work, or maybe magic if a mage was unlucky.
"Whoops!" He grinned, barely fazed by the armored mare towering over him. "Looks like someone caught themselves a decoy!"
Shinespark instantly backflipped, aiding herself with her flight magic, and landed with Gerardo's black sword drawn... but no attacks came whizzing through where she had been standing. Instead, the stallion started getting up, fixing his shades with his horn and adjusting his cloak as he rose. "Decoy, yo! Takin' the fall to let my companions escape! You've been flummoxed, imperial..."
He trailed off, eyes on the wing decorations at the sides of Shinespark's armor and the sapphire glow with which she held the sword. "Oooooh boy," he gulped, flipping the lenses on his shades back up to reveal eyes constricting in recognition. "You ain't no imperial, are you...?"
With a pulse of blue, Shinespark swung the sword. She had used it before; she knew how it worked: head, neck or chest, and you'd be paralyzed completely; limbs or extremities and only those would go. Reading his jump, she flicked upwards with expert fencing technique, just clipping one of his forehooves as he rose to avoid it. The stallion crashed back down, hoof limp, no longer able to use it to run. Hobbling on three hooves, he'd never be able to get away.
"No. I'm not. How observant of you," Shinespark growled, stepping forward. "I'm looking for someone else at the moment, but don't think I didn't read the reports I commissioned. I know who you are, Neon Nova. I know what you did in Blueleaf. I know what you did in the Flame District. And I can carry more than enough dead weight to take you-"
Neon Nova's horn flashed, and he vanished in a burst of teleportation.
Shinespark growled. If she had given herself time to think, she might have determined that chasing an old betrayer had nothing to do with her bigger mission of getting Valey and Puddles back, but in the heat of the moment she connected Neon Nova with Ironridge and Ironridge with Valey and that meant not letting this slip past. Why did he have to be able to teleport?
Neon was a stage magician. His magic couldn't be that powerful, so he couldn't have gone far... They were in an alley, but the buildings on both sides had entrances. He'd be stupid to hide in there. He'd have to go further out, and that meant she could watch from above.
Shinespark rocketed upwards, only to flip about at the sight of him hobbling along a rooftop on his disabled hoof. Changing her momentum with a grace borne of years of practice, she pivoted and landed on the roof behind him. She cleared her throat.
"Oh, this party was over before it even started!" Neon groaned in exasperation, giving up and flinging himself prone. "Joke's on... Ehhh... Did you really come all this way looking for me?"
"No." Shinespark stepped closer with a clank of metal. "I just happened to be-"
"Halt!" another voice exclaimed, and a less-familiar pegasus with a very garish mane vaulted onto the roof's edge, running to the fallen unicorn. "Brother, what are these words that reach my ears!? You share my exalted bloodline! Do not succumb to the accursed temptation to sur..." He trailed off mid-word, realizing who was chasing Neon. "Uhhh... This doesn't look good..."
"She's not with the empire! She followed us from Ironridge!" Neon yelped. "Bro, you didn't run when I gave you the distraction?"
Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "Seems I finally get the pleasure of meeting Howe outside of in passing. I don't like either of you, but I have bigger things to deal with right now. Valey is here. Do you know where she is?"
"Run, Bro!" Neon winced. "I'll hold her off! Save yourself; let me make my last stand!"
Before Shinespark could threaten or clarify, something tapped the side of her armored neck, and an old voice cleared its throat behind her. "Let's not have any of that, now. There be no need to go makin' sacrifices when we're so short on hooves already. What do ye say we parlay and talk things out diplomatically, no?"
Shinespark furrowed her brow inside her armor, freezing in place and dimming her horn. "You really think your sword can cut through this much armor with no power behind the strike?"
The metal presence left, inviting her to turn around. "Nay," a thin, scarred black griffon replied, tipping his hat. "But we'd be both happier if neither of us had to find out. It sounds as if ye've some history with me crew, now. Why don't we clear the air a little? Justice comes for every soul, eventually."
Shinespark consciously avoided turning in a circle. She already knew she was surrounded; Howe and Neon Nova at her back and this griffon in front of her, backed by a much younger, spryer griffonness who was nursing a talon and a large number of cuts. She didn't think there was anything they could do to her if she tried to flee... but she wasn't sure, and it wasn't a risk she could afford to take.
"Crew?" she asked, looking back toward the two brothers. "You signed on as pirates when your mercenary work fell through?" She let out a dirty sigh.
"Arrr..." The captain sagged, his tricorn hat drooping along with his crest. "Firstly, ye must not be from around these parts. Else ye'd know anyone who dresses this obviously has nothing to be fearin' from the law. Secondly, that's the second time in a few measly hours I been yelled at by a stranger for takin' you two on with no questions asked. Why must good help be so hard to find these days...?"
"The second time, you say? That you've ran into someone who knew them?" Shinespark gestured at Howe and Neon Nova with her telekinesis. "Let's pretend I could care less about all of you and just want to know who this someone was, and then we all happily go our separate ways. How's that sound?"
Howe and Neon Nova both nodded emphatically behind her, begging the captain and his stoic golden bodyguard to say yes. The captain frowned at them. "Ordinarily, I'd ask what ye plan to barter in exchange, but these days be difficult enough already. How are ye with drinks, lass? This be a story ye might want to be tipsy before hearin'."
Shinespark shook her head. "If it sounds implausible, it's probably what I'm looking for."
"So ye say." The captain shrugged. "I be sittin' in yonder tavern, drownin' me woes in good honey mead, when all of a sudden two mares waltz in and demand to join me crew. Barely looked past their teenage years, both of them, and the one was a coward and the other didn't know how to stop blubberin' at the slightest setback. One was a heathen, the other a normal pony. Whether they were lovers, heated rivals, partners in crime or all three be up to the sea. If that's so, romance don't be nearly as romantic as it once was... Arrr. Then it turned out the one most eager to join us was a mage of some sort, and she handed Belinda here her tail and then some. It certainly be a relief to have them gone."
Shinespark tensed. That description wasn't spot-on, but she could more than see it applying to her targets. "Was it Valey?" she asked, turning and glaring at Howe and Neon Nova.
The latter waved his working forelimb in self-defense, but Howe whistled. "In the very flesh itself! Truly, it put my heart at ease, seeing how she had survived the horrific ordeals of the-"
"Thanks," Shinespark interrupted, cutting him off and turning back to the captain. "I need to know where they went. It's very important I find those two."
The captain gave a giant shrug, then pointed in a direction. "They flew off that way. Seemed to be havin' a quarrel, so we left them to it. I wouldn't be puttin' any gold on them stayin' together long-term, though. That be all. Have ye finished yer business with us?"
Valey followed his talon, inland and slightly to the south. Valey could fly, but Puddles couldn't... she hoped. "I think that's everything," she decided, giving a slight bow. "Thank you for your-"
Flash!
A light sheet of frost suddenly covered the roof, bolting Shinespark's and everyone else's hooves in place.
"Nnngh... Puddles... finally made it back..." A chartreuse hoof reached over the edge, planted itself on the rooftop, and pulled up a panting, evilly-grinning face. "Hiya, pirateses! Who's ready for more Puddles?"
The captain looked unamused. Belinda, the other griffon, looked furious. Neon Nova was only concerned with the cold on his hooves, and Howe tapped his wings, grinning apologetically. "You reeeally shouldn't have phrased it as a jinx..."
Puddles rolled over the edge and onto her back, panting hard and occasionally kicking her legs in the air. "Cities are big!" she complained, getting to her hooves once her chest slowed down and raising an eyebrow at Shinespark. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?"
"Hello," Shinespark greeted coolly, staying put in the armor. Her own horn was strong enough to teleport out if she wanted, and the armor's thermal insulation let her almost not feel the ice that was anchoring her hooves in place. If Puddles didn't know that, it was an advantage she wanted to hold secret as long as she could.
"Did you come to find me?" Puddles asked, voice deepening and bordering on a chuckle. "Yes! Oh, you did! That's wonderful. Who are you? The orange one? Not a whole lot of unicorns to go around... Are more coming? Say we're going to have a whole party..."
"Puddles," Shinespark said. "Where's Valey? I'm not interested in you."
"Orange one...?" Howe murmured from the sidelines.
"What, my cute little Valey?" Puddles made a snuggly face. "Not here! Somewhere else. Somewhere I know and you don't. Interested in me now?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth, but before she could act there was a crash of shattering ice to her side. The captain was standing, a sword held in his tail that he had just used to cut his paws and talons free, and he stalked over to Puddles with a demeanor that said he had faced so much worse, she wasn't even worth being concerned. "Well well well yerself, lass," he countered, determined to make the conversation about him and not Shinespark. "It seems yer' back. Still be wantin' to take up salin' with me crew?"
Puddles licked her lips, predatory grin briefly disappearing behind a mask of beatific cheer. "Sure thing, mister griffon! Puddles wants to go that way!"
She tapped the ground, causing a sculpture to erupt of an ice hoof pointing out toward the water, and Belinda rolled her eyes. The captain sighed. "First, I be Cap'n Golbez the Black, not Mister Griffon. Ye best be rememberin' that. Second. Are ye serious?"
Puddles sidled over to Shinespark. "Yup!"
"Arrr." Golbez hung his head. "Then kindly unhoof me crew, and we might as well be off. I be done with this port town."
Puddles winked, and the ice retracted around everyone but Shinespark. Howe and Neon Nova immediately bailed, while Belinda stuck around, keeping a very cross eye on the mare.
"Hey, lady," Puddles giggled, getting close enough to Shinespark to lift her visor and then standing face to face, her eyes peering directly into the slit. "Puddles is a pirate now. Wanna try and catch me?"
Shinespark narrowed her eyes in return. "If it's a choice between you and my friend, I know what I'm taking. Where is Valey?"
"Hee! Puddles knows and you don't." Puddles reached a hoof through, booping Shinespark between the eyes. Her voice dropped to glacial. "And you're going to follow me as soon as you break that ice, because I want an audience for what I'm going to do. The bigger, the better. Don't slack off, now. Remember you've got my cute Valey to think of..."
Shinespark shuddered; Puddles' words were physically cold. But the pirates... sailors... whatever were leaving, and Puddles quickly jumped off to join them. Shinespark wasted no time in blasting her hooves with her horn, quickly freeing herself. The situation reeked of her being baited, but she had to follow. There was nothing else she could do.
A confident knock sounded on the door to the Immortal Dream's bridge, and it slid open.
"I'm back," Slipstream announced, stepping through and closing it behind her. "Valey's just talking with Maple. It sounds emotional, and I didn't want to eavesdrop..." She folded her ears. "It must've been bad, whatever she went through with that windigo."
Gerardo nodded sagely, sitting at the controls and keeping one talon dedicated to steering. "Indeed. Hardly a situation I'd like to see myself in, and I'll freely admit I may not be the best for talking anyone through it. I hope Miss Maple's words ring true."
"Hmmm..." Nyala sighed, sitting next to the terminal with a small cable running from it to her metal back. "Yeah."
"Feeling down because your sister hasn't yet visited you?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "I know nothing about your relationship prior to... whatever happened to you, but I urge you not to take it personally. She's had a great deal of difficulties since reaching the Griffon Empire, and is likely quite overwhelmed."
"Not down, really," Nyala corrected. "I'm just thinking about how I've been spending all this time up here with you two, instead. It's almost funny to think about. Even though I owe Valey my existence, you're the ones I've been making friends with."
Slipstream gave a hopeful smile. "That's a good thing, right? That you're not just glued to her, and can live your own... I mean..." She backpedaled, growing a little flustered. "Not good that you haven't been spending time with her, but good that you're making friends in other places?"
"Yeah. I guess so." Nyala was completely still to save power, her voice simply emanating from inside the suit of armor. "I'm just trying to learn enough about the world to figure out what I want to do with myself. I mean, being a real pony again would be wonderful, but I don't have any idea how to do that, so in the meantime I need something to care about and do. So thanks for spending time with me, both of you."
"The thanks are mutual!" Gerardo assured. "Truly, it's a long task, keeping this boat guided on her way..."
"A task that should belong to Shinespark," Slipstream sighed. "Right? But she's not here..."
"We still don't have a plan for finding her, do we?" Nyala asked.
"Only as good of a plan as we had for finding Miss Valey in the first place," Gerardo replied, taking his talon off the steering and watching as Nyala remotely controlled it instead. "Return to the area where Puddles was last sighted, and hope Shinespark's search led her to be there as well."
"...How about you?" Slipstream glanced aside to where Sirena was sitting in a borrowed chair, leaning against the wall with her eyes half-closed. "Got any thoughts or feelings about any of this? You're being kind of quiet."
Sirena perked one ear. "Oh, I have my own troubles to think about. I'm just a passenger. Don't mind me too much, okay?"
Gerardo winked at her. "Just a passenger who sees fit to hang out with the rest of the crew on the bridge, perhaps. I assure you, we're all friends here, including you. Feel free to speak your mind!"
"I'm worried about my sister. I'm mad at my grandfather. I miss my jobs. All problems that have been a lot longer in the making than I've known any of you." She shrugged. "No offense, of course! I like all of you. It just takes a lot longer than a day or two to make that kind of friends."
"Heh. I know how that feels..." Slipstream rubbed the back of her neck. "I've been on this crew almost as long as everyone else, and still feel like the outsider..."
Gerardo nodded. "And to the contrary, many of our friendships, particularly those involving Miss Valey, were forged over the course of three scant days. Do right by yourself, but we do strive to be a trustworthy lot."
Sirena nodded back, then returned to looking away. "I'll keep that in mind..."
"...So. Yeah. That's how the two of you feel."
Valey stood a few paces to the side, watching as Maple sat in the bed and Starlight stood beside it, both staring at each other and waiting for some spark to be thrown. It was like they both wanted to apologize, and both knew apologizing would be the wrong thing to do in the situation, so it was left to the batpony to prod things along. "Any thoughts? Tears? Cuddly inclinations?"
Nothing changed, and she frowned. "Hey, look. Ironflanks, you feel bad about leaving Starlight to feel like she's responsible for so much stuff, like keeping us all safe and happy and all that. Starlight, you feel bad 'cause that's way too much and you really shouldn't be. I get that that's messy, all that. But, uhh... you gotta do something. Even if it's just sentimental something-or-other. Right?"
Now both were looking at her. "I don't know what to do," Maple admitted, and Starlight gave an ashamed nod.
"Easy." Valey took a single step forward. "First, you hug each other. Then you say it'll be alright. Then you believe it, at least for tonight, because I will violently explode any pirates or windigoes or dumb stuff that tries to make it not alright. Then you feel better, just a little bit. Finally, you get through tomorrow, and the day after, and however many days it takes for you to find a licensed therapist or something, because seriously, I'm me and have no experience with any of the things I'm talking about. Sounds doable, right?"
Starlight swallowed, and scuffed at the ground with a hoof. Maple glanced at her, then at Valey with a pleading stare, begging her to do something. What did she think Valey could do? Did she think she was some sort of magical pony that could make everything alright, even if...
Her train of thought trailed off, eyes widening slightly in clarity. She had a favor to return, if nothing else. "All right. We're doing this my way."
A leathery wing swooped down and scooped up Starlight, Valey tucking her to her side with a deftness that belied her tiredness and left the filly no time to even react. Springing lightly, Starlight still held against her, Valey jumped into the bed, landed right next to Maple, and put her other wing over her as well, gently pushing the two of them together. "There," she finished, patting them both and moving to stand up. "Sleep like foals, and all that. You're cool with each other. I'll, like, guard the door or something. Just take all the time you-"
Before she could step away, Maple's foreleg shot out, wrapped around her back, and pulled her back down.
"...Really?" Valey gave a crooked grin as she was settled against Maple's side. Starlight was there too, almost burrowing more toward her then toward Maple. That wasn't due to anything she had said, was it?
"Yes, really," Maple murmured. "Stay. You need it too. I think we all need someone to lean on, right now." Her eyes widened. "Unless you're uncomfortable because of what happened..."
"With Puddles?" Valey cut in, finishing the sentence for her. "I mean, sorta. Not really. Puddles was a jerk, but bananas if I'm gonna let that have any bearing on how I treat my actual friends. Just, like... if you're asking me to spend the night right here, it'll get a little weird if it's a long-term thing. But for tonight, yeah, it's fine. If you really want."
Maple smiled. "If it gets weird, you can leave. But sleeping in a pile is something me, Amber and Willow did all the time in Riverfall, especially when we didn't yet have our own places and were all each other had for family. Just join us. It's very nice for feeling like someone is always there."
"Yeah, yeah. Hmmmmm..." Valey sighed, humming, and let herself relax. Maybe tomorrow would be uneventful, or maybe they would find Shinespark and Puddles and who knew what else. If they did, this could be the last good night's sleep she would get in quite some time, so she settled in, feeling Maple and Starlight's breathing against her, and resolved to make the best of the peace while it lasted.
Valey stiffened. She was awake, and her cutie mark was tingling.
She could feel the bed beneath her, still, and also Maple and Starlight. They were both asleep, their breathing soft and slow and peaceful. She could hear lapping... no, proper waves against the hull. They must have reached the sea during the night. Holding completely still, she kept her eyes closed and her breathing regulated as well, not in nearly enough peril to dodge an attack.
Why now, of all times? After such a long conversation about not worrying and feeling safe and letting guards down, any sort of peace and tranquility could at least have had the decency to wait until morning. Whatever she was feeling, she was going to knock its block off for daring to interrupt her now. And whatever it was, it would not wake Maple and Starlight.
A soft thud echoed from the deck overhead, and she consciously kept her ears neutral. She didn't need to listen when she could feel. The danger wasn't immediate...
And then it increased, slowly and linearly, exactly the way it would if someone was walking up to her. But she hadn't heard the door open. Her frustration mounted, and she fought to keep from opening an eye... and then the danger spiked. That was an attack; she could feel time slowing to allow for a reaction. And that was past time for playing nice.
Poff!
Without even a whisper, Valey opened her eyes and exploded from the bed, taking her few free seconds to survey the situation. Batponies. Three of them, two stallions and a mare, and the stallions had a net that was in the process of being thrown over the bed. Seriously?
As little time as she had for her reaction, they had even less. Valey cannoned into one of the net-throwers, hooves hitting the ground at an angle and skidding as she grappled and picked him up. With a single spin, she hurled him like a missile into the other, snapping the net back from the air with a deft wingtip and causing them both to hit the wall with a resounding crash. So much for silence.
"Alright," Valey demanded, landing upright and facing the last intruder with a death glare and a sleep-frizzed mane. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but you idiots picked the worst possible time to mess-"
FLASHHHHH!
There was an eruption of light from the bed, and Valey's cutie mark was the one thing that saved her from being blinded. When she removed the wing guarding her eyes, Starlight was standing, still half asleep but just as furious as she was, and half the room including all the intruders was covered by a deep, faceted pile of jagged crystal. A few tiny plasmatic arcs crackled along the length of Starlight's horn, and she frowned, clearly ready to do it again.
Valey blinked between her and the frozen ponies. "No, hang on, that doesn't-"
The moment the enemy mare recovered from her surprise, she shadow snuck, scooting along the floor beneath the crystal: all the normal rules about having a big enough shadow went out the window when dealing with surfaces covered in a transparent substance. But Valey knew exactly where she would appear, jammed a hoof in, and struck.
She was answered with a cutlass, and again her cutie mark was the only thing giving her the reaction to kick it to the side. This caught the mare off guard, and in that split-second of indecision Valey grabbed her, jumped, flapped and suplexed her against the ceiling, throwing her back to the ground and dropping on her with a fierce impact. Heavily winded, she was still losing her breath when Valey's hoof hit her head, landing with a precise strike and knocking her unconscious.
"No crystal," Valey instructed as Starlight struggled to wake up and Maple joined her, rubbing her eyes and looking around the room in uncertainty and building fear. "Too easy to shadow sneak through. Now drop it and save your energy so I can go get those two."
It took a second, but Starlight did as she was instructed, and Valey pounced, knocking the still-recovering stallions together. "We need a light," she announced. "I dunno why these losers are here, and I'm beyond ticked about it, but it doesn't matter how easy they are to bust up if there's no way to restrain them. Ironflanks, does this room have a light switch?"
Maple worked her jaw, still blinking and folding her ears. "I-It does, but unless Gerardo turned the power back on... He was keeping it off to save energy." She pointed at a spot on the wall.
"Snazzy." Valey jumped over and hit the switch. Nothing happened. "Not snazzy. Alright, then, guess I gotta get to the engine room or control room or whatever, and depending on why these dweebs are here, I'd say there'll be more of them here, soon, too. How are you guys gonna stay safe?"
Maple and Starlight looked at each other, both shaken. Valey sighed; she had to take charge. "Okay. Starlight. Crystal the crack beneath the door, and all of these three by it, and then sit there with your horn glowing bright enough not to leave any shadows to swim through, okay? You guys are staying safe in here. I'll go out through the window; I should be able to fit. If any more try to break in... Uhh, bananas, what's a good weapon for fighting batponies..."
Her eyes lit up in realization. "Yo, is my stuff in here? My saddlebags from Stormhoof?"
Maple swallowed, and pointed to a small cabinet. "In there, along with your bags you were wearing when you got back."
"Uhhhhh..." Valey instantly got to rooting through, and in a few seconds found what she was looking for: the flash club gifted to her by Kero's mercenaries in Ironridge. She broke into a smirk. "Bingo."
"Valey?" Maple looked over at her, hugging Starlight to her chest even as the filly crystalled the door and did as instructed.
"Here. Use this." Valey pressed the club into Maple's hooves. "It hits stuff and lights up. Great for flushing them out. And if you have any questions about why this is happening, the answer is that the world is a jerk, but still no match for me. Don't worry about this. I've got us covered."
Maple grabbed her shoulder with a look of fearful understanding. "Be safe, okay?"
"I will. Now..." Valey blinked. "Oh, hold on, just thought of something really nasty. One sec."
She flitted back to the cabinet. Was this Maple's normal room? Her and Starlight's saddlebags were there too. Quickly, she dumped out all her other stuff, getting the sound stone and mana battery and her hat and most importantly, the Nightmare Module. That wasn't something she could risk anyone finding, especially if these invaders, as batponies, were capable of using it.
"Ninety-nine percent odds we're getting pirated," Valey guessed, packing it back into Starlight's bags and presenting them to the filly. "Pirates steal stuff. Don't want any of this getting stolen. So, hang onto it however you need to... but maybe don't use your cutie mark for it, Ironflanks." Valey nodded at Maple's mark. "Some not-so-special stuff in here I think I told you about last night. Starlight, you can fend for yourself. Keep this safe?"
Starlight nodded, and took the bags when Valey held them out. "Awesome." Valey stepped away, getting up and looking to the window. "Now, time to go see just how big of a mess we're dealing with and kick a whole lot of tail."
Valey flipped through the window and clung to the Dream's outer hull, taking stock of her surroundings and danger level. She didn't see any boats to their starboard, but that was only one side of the ship... and batponies could fly. Stupid pirates. There were more on the deck just above; she could tell just as much from the soft eeeing of conversation as the lingering tingle in her flank. It sounded like they were speaking another language... A scan of the skies spotted at least two scouts, though none saw her yet. Jerks. She probably had her dark coat to thank for that.
Silently, she crept up the wall until she could see through the railing. At least eight batponies were loitering on the deck, mostly stallions but with a few mares. They didn't seem particularly concerned about resistance... and the door to the bridge was open, with more movement coming from inside. She frowned. Of course Gerardo would get jumped first. How bad was it...?
Four more pirates strolled out, two carrying a netted Sirena with some sort of clamp over her horn and a look on her face that was almost more cross than panic. Slipstream came next. Valey frowned harder. She'd save them, of course, but where was Nyala...?
Taking wing, she soared around to the prow, hiding just below the windshield. There was the boat they had ridden in on. Two skiffs, looking built for speed above all else and barely suited for the open ocean, let alone a storm. They probably kept those near a bigger ship, or land... or just for a place to rest between flights, or even cargo. Should she sabotage those, or would she need them to send the pirates packing? Probably sabotage. She checked the windows to the bridge, first, just to make sure.
Nyala was... pretending to be powered down. Three more batponies were curiously examining her, one poking a wingtip into her empty eyeslits, but none seemed to realize she was anything more than an inert suit of armor. A fourth was sitting in the control seat, spinning in place and looking slightly giddy at the array of controls. What a dunce. Valey's opinion of these pirates' competence was lowering by the second, and her eyes widened as a mare stepped back from admiring the armor, threw him out of the seat, and sat down herself with a far more professional demeanor.
"Sister," a voice whispered from the front of the ship, slightly below where Valey hovered.
"Buh?" Valey blinked, flying down to investigate. It was an embedded loudspeaker, shielded against water and spray... and it was talking with Nyala's voice?
"I don't know if you can hear me. I can't see or hear you from there," the speaker continued. "I saw you in the window, though. Listen! They're pirates, but they don't know I'm alive or connected to the ship, and don't understand that the reason the controls aren't working is because I'm stopping everything they try to do. I'm afraid they'll figure it out or unplug me, but until then, they can't do anything with the ship. Can you get rid of them by then? Please!"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that. Yo, can you turn the power and every light in the ship on to full blast? It'll hurt these guys a lot more than me, and will help keep our friends safe."
No response. Valey growled, remembering that Nyala had just said she couldn't hear her... The ship must not have had microphones on the outside. Oh well. She needed to get to the bridge and clear everything out there, or another part of the ship that did have working sound. Whatever half-power state it was in was clearly enough for audio, but not light... Frustrating. She shook her head. She had a bridge to-
A bound bundle was flown down to one of the waiting skiffs, and her eyes widened. Nope, she couldn't wait. It was time to deal with those first, immediately.
Valey soared silently towards the waiting skiffs, trying to get a count of enemies there.
The boats were open, without decks or cabins, leading her to frown. Definitely not intended for being far out at sea... She could see lights on the coastline far in the distance, indicating they were still close to shore. But maybe they were far enough out that she could capsize them easily? If that was even how things worked. She had never even seen a body of water larger than the Ironridge Water District before coming to the empire, let alone learned anything about how boats interacted with open water. Still, that also meant they provided no cover, and she could see everyone inside.
Somehow, no alarms were sounded as she glided up; perhaps because the pirates mistook her as one of their own. Valey reached the first skiff's edge and clung on, reaching up to try and see the bundle she had been chasing... and she frowned harder. It was a bunch of food supplies from the pantry netted together, not Gerardo. Not worth fighting for... but disabling their ships was. Valey crawled around along the outer hull until she reached the stern, a heavy mana engine mounted on the back and connected to an underwater propeller. Now that was a target! She'd only get the chance to take out one of these before being spotted, unless...
Valey grinned. The rudder was being manned by a single crabby, slightly-overweight mare with a missing ear who looked entirely unconcerned by her presence, focused instead on a bag of something she was eating messily with her wings. She snickered: that had been her in another life, sans being out of shape. The engine chugged softly at her, powered on but in a neutral state. It had one lever, and it wasn't hard to guess what it did.
"Heya." She dropped into the boat beside the far mare, taking the rudder curiously in her hooves and swinging it back and forth. "What's this?"
The fat mare looked up, blinked, scowled, and said something in a language Valey didn't know that sounded vaguely offended, but didn't even start getting to her hooves. Perfect.
"It looks super fun. Mind if I try?"
Without waiting for approval, Valey jammed the rudder hard to the left, then kicked the engine's throttle with a hind leg, turning it up as far as it would go. The boat roared, tipped, turned and accelerated swiftly forward, causing the fat mare to roll off her seat with an undignified yelp and the stolen food to topple and fall on one of the stallions that was trying to secure it down. "Booyah"! Valey cheered, pumping a hoof and straightening the boat out of its turn just before it tipped... and ramming the second skiff broadside, with just enough speed to have power behind it.
KLUNK! The boats collided with an impact of wood against wood, the engine revved... and the second boat leaned as the first pushed against it, caught at an angle and rolling in the water until it lifted and flipped over entirely, sending the entire crew into the sea.
"Haha!" Valey backflipped, spreading her wings and drop-kicking the roaring engine once, twice, thrice... and the propeller shaft snapped clean in half, causing an internal chain somewhere to snarl and the engine to stall, jam, and emit a bang and a puff of smoke. "Take that, losers! Both ships down!"
The crew of the first boat got back to their hooves, glaring at her and brandishing weapons. Nearby, the second boat's crew started to surface as well, fountaining water and flicking their wet ears. They weren't happy either. Valey tapped her forehooves together and grinned; time for a bigger fight.
Several thunks sounded from outside the door Starlight was guarding, and she kept her gaze fixed totally on the crystalled doorjamb, flooding out as much light as her horn would allow while also maintaining a large amount of crystal. The three batponies Valey had defeated and she had restrained didn't just need their hooves bound; she had crystalled their mouths as well after the mare had started caterwauling in rage or for aid. Now they sat as close to the door as possible so she could focus her light, the two stallions giving each other looks and the mare glaring furiously, her entire coat puffed up like a cat.
"It'll be alright," Maple murmured, sitting on her hind legs with both forelegs wrapped around Starlight, holding the filly to her chest and rocking. "Valey knows what she's doing. It'll be alright, it'll be alright..."
"What did you even sneak up on us for?" Starlight growled, irritable that her horn was being taxed so quickly. She wasn't yet to the point of exhausting her buffer and getting a long-lasting headache from it, but she was going to reach there far more quickly than she liked. "You think it's funny? We were trying to have a peaceful night where nothing bad happened!"
None of the captives answered, of course, the stallions paying more attention to each other than her and the mare making sock-in-mouth noises against her gag. Part of Starlight couldn't blame her for being mad; her breathing still looked uncomfortable after Valey had kicked her so hard, but the greater part was equally furious that these idiots had interrupted her night! Maple needed to feel effective, and the only way that was happening was if she could let her guard down, and of course when she did they got raided by pirates...!
She felt the weight of the newly-filled saddlebags on her back, and part of her wanted to pick around in them for something to throw at the batponies. Especially the mare, who was clearly in charge.
"...Hang on, Maple," she muttered, slipping free from the grasp and dropping to the floor. "I want to do something."
Maple let her go, watching in concern, and she walked straight up to the captive leader, crystalled to the wall such that her butt was on the floor and her back and forelimbs were glued to the wall behind her. Starlight waited until she was a single hooflength from the mare, frowned, concentrated, and released only the crystal surrounding the batpony's mouth.
Instantly, the caterwauling resumed, and Starlight was ready. She wasn't an accomplished puncher by any means, but the mare's belly was an easy target that was already sore from Valey, and two rear hooves striking at once sent the captive wincing and choking in pain. Starlight turned back around to face her, glaring, and stomped a hoof. "Talk normally, stop yelling and tell me what you want with us, or I'll crystal you again and punch you twice as hard when you turn down another chance!"
The mare wheezed, breathing erratically, eyes watering. "Starlight, no!" Maple yelped, jumping down from the bed and grabbing Starlight and pulling her away.
"But Maple-!"
"Don't hurt them!" Maple glanced with wide eyes between Starlight and the coughing, choking batpony. "Valey already beat them! Just because they tried to capture us doesn't mean we need to do even worse to them!"
"Nnngh..." Starlight growled, looking away. "But they attacked us for no reason!"
"I know," Maple whispered, giving her a kiss on the forehead and then looking up. "You're not alright," she said plainly to the mare on the wall, reaching out a hoof. "Can I check you for injuries?"
The batpony gave her a disdainful glare, but only a rasp came out when she opened her mouth.
"Tell me where anything hurts," Maple gently insisted, putting her hoof gently on the mare's chest and beginning to feel for sore spots. The two captive stallions watched with interest, one waggling his eyebrows and the other giving the first a shut-up-do-you-want-to-be-killed look.
Twice the mare involuntarily squeaked, and Maple sighed. "I bet we fractured her ribs. I really don't know how you heal something like this, though. I'm a baker and a shopkeeper, not a doctor..."
"And I really don't know why it matters!" Starlight protested, stamping a hoof again. "Maple, why are you being so nice to them!? L-Last night was... wasn't supposed to..."
Maple tried again to bury Starlight's face in her chest again. "Because I hate feeling helpless and it's the only thing I know how to-"
"Look out!"
Starlight shoved her roughly to the side. Covering her face had also covered her horn, and in that split-second both stallions had snuck their ways free. She raised a hoof, prepared to do whatever was needed in defense... but they completely ignored both her and her fellow captive, barreling for the window and nearly colliding in an attempt to get through it. One second of struggle, and they both were gone.
"Grrr..." Starlight let the crystal that had held them dissipate, rubbing her face with a hoof. "Probably going to summon reinforcements..."
"You think so?" Maple whispered, pointing back at the injured mare they had left behind. Starlight looked up, and the batpony was just as furious as she had been... only now with a visible touch of panic in her eyes, and looking at the window rather than them. She tried squeaking something, but still had no breath to speak with and winced at the effort.
Starlight appraised her, then sagged. The mare really did look like she was in a sorry state... and she almost felt sympathetic for her, then stamped the feeling down with a pillar of rage.
Maple saw it in her expression. "Starlight..."
"I hate things that attack us for no reason," Starlight growled, still trying to get the batpony's eye contact.
"Maybe they had a reason," Maple countered. "Maybe they needed food or money, or think all ponies and griffons are hostile because the empire attacked them first!"
"For reasons that aren't our fault!" Starlight vehemently corrected. "They should just leave us alone! The pirates and the Defense Force and Hemlock and everyone ever!"
Maple gritted her teeth. "Well, I hate destructive cycles and being helpless!"
"But they put us in danger..." Starlight wilted. She was right. She knew she was right. But Maple disagreed, even though the pirates were being unfair, and she had to... had to be there for Maple. Had to do what it took to help her feel good about herself. "Fine. We can help her, but I'm not letting her go. What do you want me to do?"
This was mob combat at its finest. Valey spun a pirate by their tail like a throwing hammer, barely able to anchor herself in place against his heavier weight, and launched herself at the same time as she threw him, jumping out of the way of a cutlass and uppercutting a flier who looked nervous to get near the chaotic brawl. Only the mares were armed, she realized, which made things quite a bit easier. Still difficult enough to be fun, though.
Sploosh! Another batpony got dunked by a double-overhead slam, sending them careening into the drink as Valey landed back on the disabled boat. These pirates were bad... Actually, probably just accustomed to fighting large, moderately competent crews instead of a single master, but bad nonetheless. Some of them actually looked confused about why they were fighting, though there was plenty of rage to make up for it, and too much cacophonous eeeing in the air for Valey to think about it. The more she took down, the less would be on her friends, though as always she did her best to stay nonlethal and let the pirates decide when to stop coming back for more.
Eventually, they had had enough. She backflipped onto the boat's stern, but remained unapproached, a hoofful of mares shooting her death glares while everyone still conscious either flew away for shore or tried to fish their companions out of the water. Several insults were spat, though they lost their effectiveness by being in a language Valey didn't understand. The pirates might not have surrendered, but they were taking an uneasy truce... and that was good enough for her.
"Look, uhhh..." Valey rubbed the back of her neck, stretching and testing her joints one by one. She was breathing hard, but overall still in relatively good shape. "I don't speak Misty Mountain-ese, or whatever, so you guys can yell your heads off but I still won't get it. What you gotta get is that you don't mess with me. Now wanna tell your buds on my ship to back off, or should I kick their rears too?"
Most of the stallions either ignored her, focusing on their soggy companions, or looked utterly clueless at her dialect. The mares just looked offended, and one spat. "Heathen."
A spell broke, and the other mares joined in, though there were only four in total and it wasn't as loud as it could have been. "Seriously!?" Valey bellowed, outmatching them all. "I get enough of this from all the Garsheeva morons in the empire day in and day out, and now you guys think I'm a heretic too!? Your Night Mother is dumb! I'm done with this! Go take a hike!"
She blasted off, soaring over all of their heads in a streak of green and back to the Immortal Dream, now with far less inhibitions against taking the invaders to town.
With a flicker of light, the crystals seeping out from under a doorjamb dissipated, and the door slid open, Maple's tan hooves stepping into an unlit hallway.
"Ummm..." She hummed under her breath to herself, glancing both directions and trying to remember where she had put the small cache of healing potions they received from Kero's mercenaries. The realization that she might have to fight through some other pirates to get there was a thought she desperately kept from crossing her mind, both because she had no clue how to fight and because winning would just involve hurting more of them.
She turned left. In the back of her mind, she knew Starlight was right about how ridiculous she was being. Worried about hurting a hostile pirate by trying to subdue them when the alternative was being killed or captured? When had she become that degree of a pacifist? If she really got in a fight, would it turn out to be a passing thought and allow her to defend herself? Hopefully it was something just triggered by seeing a defeated opponent beaten and abused... by Starlight... because really, it was an inconvenience that would get everyone-
She nearly walked into a shadow materializing from the floor as a stallion slithered out from under an unoccupied door and stood up, his eyes widening in surprise. "Eeee?" He jumped, wearing the shamelessly guilty look of a thief caught in the act.
Maple reacted instinctively, dropping back and shielding her eyes and sticking both forehooves forward. The flash club unpocketed itself in them instantly.
Flash!
A jet of light filled the hallway, and the stallion flailed and yowled, caught massively by surprise. He saw a weapon, and he was getting out of there, and scrambled away down the hallway... until there was a much louder explosion, and a door right next to him was blown completely off its rails. It flew into him along with another stallion, slamming both against the wall, and Maple hardly had time to get her balance back before they both fled in panic further down the hallway.
"Ugh... nngh... What?" she coughed, the air slightly smoky, staring at where the door had once been and a few jagged edges of wood now remained. Shinespark was going to be mad...
"Hmmph," an imperious little voice complained, and Jamjars stepped out, horn glowing and lacking her massive wig. "Serves him right."
"Jamjars?" Maple coughed again, waving a hoof to clear the air. "What happened?"
Jamjars noticed her and brightened. "Oh! Maple. A gross stallion snuck into my room and was eyeing up my things, so I blew him up. You're welcome. You probably didn't want him on this ship anyway."
"You... blew him up..." Maple blinked several times, eyes starting to sting. "With what?"
Jamjars shrugged. "A bomb. I stole a few explosives from a store while we were in Stormhoof. I figured they'd come in handy."
Maple shook her head, having no idea how to deal with this. "Right. Well, we're under attack by pirates. Can you please hide before more get attracted by all that noise? Valey is trying to deal with them, but we need to be safe!"
"Whatever you say," Jamjars grunted, and went back in her room.
Maple sighed and pressed onward. This was immensely stressful, but she was pretty sure the potions she was looking for were in the pantry, and that could be accessed from the cargo bay at the rear of the ship... She stopped the moment she reached the door there, freezing up. There were far too many voices coming from the other side. Not a good place to go. She'd have to go around.
The ship corridor was just light enough for her to see by if she was careful and took things slow. A single use of the flash club would blind her for nearly a minute, and it wasn't even guaranteed to stop her enemies so much as frighten them. At least most of the pirates she had encountered seemed cowardly... except the one mare she had gotten it in her head to help. Hopefully she wouldn't run into any more aggressive ones on her way down.
She halted at the entry to the library. It was occupied, a single stallion standing on his hind legs and reaching high up on a bookshelf. He pulled out a book, took it in his wings, held it open with an expression of eager joy... and his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at the pages, until he stuck his tongue out, slapped it shut and put it back. Then he tried another with exactly the same process and effect. And another.
It would have been endearing if he was anything other than a hostile robber and foalnapper, but with the circumstances as they were, even his occasional frustrated eeeing hums were only enough to convince her to leave him alone. Maple slipped past easily while he wasn't looking, making for the staircase.
In the downstairs dining hall, two more stallions were making themselves busy, one mesmerizing himself with the glass window beneath the table that provided a view into the water below, the other standing on the table top and looking curiously at the winch fixtures in the ceiling used for retracting it when it wasn't in use. A very bored-looking mare sat guarding the door to the kitchen, and Maple froze, realizing it would be impossible to enter without being seen. She needed a distraction...
...No. A completely different thought crossed her mind instead: the potions were in the navigation room. Bottom floor of the ship, at the prow. She would just have to sneak through being in view of the dining hall for a single second...
Maple jumped down and made it around the staircase, hurrying through the hall and pressing herself against a wall once she was out of sight. Hopefully no one saw her, though the few words of conversation that suddenly struck up behind her gave her reason to think otherwise. She needed to hurry. She needed... there!
The cabinets were all empty.
Maple blinked, then frowned. Of course the pirates were clearing them out. What even was their strategy? Capture the ponies on the ship, and the ship's possessions, but not the ship itself? They could have just left everything in place and used the ship to carry it out... This made no sense at all. And hoofsteps were coming.
Flash! She readied the club and let loose the moment a figure walked around the corner. It was the mare who had been guarding the door, and she squeakily yowled, covering her eyes and reeling in surprise. Maple shoved her way past her, bolting for the staircase.
At the landing, she skidded to a stop, slid open the engine room door, and slammed it again, trying to make a decoy sound for where she went. But in the split second it was open, her eyes fell on something laying unsecured in plain view: the spent windigo heart. Ohhh, the windigo heart was there. And a trio of curious batponies were standing around it and staring, one tapping with a hoof, none quite sure whether it was treasure or what to do.
"Hey!" Maple yelled, getting them to all look up just in time to receive a facefull of light. Flash! All three batponies yelped and flailed, and she darted forward, landing a hoof on the windigo heart. There was a very good reason why she didn't usually do this, but... she pocketed the heart, instantly feeling a vague premonition of her muscles stiffening and slowing down. She just had to get it back to a defended position.
Maple ran before the ponies could recover and give chase, hooves pounding now against the wood, carrying the flash club and the heart and two jars of medicine in her cutie mark. She was starting to feel her weight increase, and just had the time to wonder if that would be an advantage in a fight before she made it out the door and something hit her from the side, knocking her off her hooves.
"Guhhh!" Maple wheezed, suddenly on her back and being grappled by the mare from downstairs. She was pinned, the mare laying on her so that her legs couldn't reach to push her off and shouting something in that language of hers. A call for reinforcements? A net? Something... She was caught, and cried out as well, though with as much noise as everyone was making it probably didn't do any good. Swiftly, the two stallions from below arrived, along with the three from the engine room, and she gave up and went limp, not surrendering any of the things in her cutie mark.
Maple barely dared to breath as the batpony mare stepped back from her, admiring her handiwork. She was hogtied, laying on her side with all four legs strapped together, though strangely no gag... It might have helped that she wasn't saying anything. The mare nodded once, eee'd something at her, and wandered back down the stairs, not even bothering to move her somewhere than the landing outside the engine room.
The five stallions she had summoned stayed, watching her with varying degrees of interest, head-tilting, ear flicking, curious frowns and muttered conversation that was probably kept down more for their superiors' sake than hers. But they always shied away from poking her, and one by one they got tired and left, until the last one just laid down in front of her with his legs tucked under his body like a cat and stared dreamily at her, or maybe at some point far behind.
It was utterly unnerving in its alienness. Maple had one set of expectations for how being captured by guards would go, and aside from the ropes every attempt to match this to her experience in Ironridge failed. She wasn't even tied down to anything, just left with her legs bound. No enemies were taunting her... well, maybe they had been, but she couldn't understand it. And now she was being stared at, not harmfully or eagerly or even in appreciation but just... She shuddered. It was as peaceful as she would have been to a defeated enemy, at least, and probably curious, too.
Hopefully the light wouldn't hurt his eyes to much.
Flash! Maple's cutie mark activated, and the ties around her hooves were pocketed, freeing her to produce the flash club and unleash it on the guard. His shriek of surprise was almost too high-pitched for her to hear, and she shot him an apologetic gaze he'd never be able to see as she rolled upright and dashed off toward the library. There was another similarity between these pirates and the Defense Force, at least: none of them ever realized that tying her up just didn't work.
She slowed herself going into the library, just in case the stallion from before was still there. He was, though it took her a second to notice him... and in that time, he had already noticed her. Four bookshelves up, one down from the ceiling, he had cleared a tiny square of books and somehow wriggled backwards into it, wings folded, leaving him with just his forehooves dangling and his smiling head stuck out like some kind of fuzzy gargoyle. "Shhhhh!" he whispered with a stupid grin, immensely proud of himself and willing to accept even his quarry as a secret audience.
It took Maple three seconds to stop blinking, and then she was gone. Her room was near the start of the room corridor, and lit crystals were still leaking out from underneath. Starlight was okay.
"Starlight?" She knocked softly, keeping her voice down. The pirates would know she was here...
With a pulse of light, the crystals retracted from beneath the door, allowing it to slide open.
Tentatively, Maple reached out, starting to roll the door aside... and then, from nerves, instinct, or both, whirled and fired the flash club down the dark hallway, just to make sure she wasn't being snuck up on.
"Eeeeeeeeheeeheeeheeeeeeeee!" A batpony was launched out of the floor barely a hoofstep away from her, turning its scared jump into a jump scare and cackling madly in fright, waving its hooves and wings like it was trying to cast spooky shadows.
"Aaaaah!" Maple jumped back as well, tripping and scrambling to keep the flash club on and pointed down the hall as the failed sneaker flailed away down the ship's length.
Instantly, Starlight was there, though not outside enough of the room to cast the door's shadow over their captive. "Maple!?"
"Inside. Back inside," Maple urged, pushing her in. "I got what I needed and more. I don't know what these pirates' deal is, but it's spooky out there."
Starlight made no protest, and soon the door was sealed again behind them.
"Alright, bone brains," Valey declared, dropping onto the deck straight between the bound, relatively-unattended forms of Slipstream and Sirena. "I busted your boats, in case you didn't notice. Now stop trying to rob us, release my friends and leave us alone, or I'll take you to town, too! All... three of you?" She glanced back down at the boats, one filled with soggy sarosians and the other surrounded by swimmers who were trying systematically to right it. There was still that bundle of supplies... but who needed that? They probably had plenty still left over.
The three batponies left on deck, all stallions, looked at her curiously and tilted their heads.
"Right... you guys aren't the ones who understand me..."
Valey put a hoof to her forehead. At least they also weren't the ones who were offended. "Eeeee!" she shouted, pointing a hoof out at the water and hoping that matched 'go away' in their language. "Like... go eee over there, or something! My boat! Now shoo!"
The three stallions stomped their forehooves and applauded.
Valey could have slammed her head into the railing, but that wouldn't have been productive. Instead, she ducked down, putting her sharp teeth to work, and in seconds the ropes binding both Sirena and Slipstream had been severed and she was helping them to their hooves.
"Mkay, girls..." She furtively glanced between the entrances to the cabin, the bridge, and the rear cargo bay. "Listen, Starlight and Ironflanks are holed up... supposed to be holed up down below, but I really wanna take the bridge first. Once we get the lights back on, it'll make it that much harder for these clowns to sneak around. Beats me where Birdo is, but we're gonna get in there and you're... going to try to stay safe, I guess? While I clear out the last of these bozos. Any of you have any combat experience at all, whatsoever?"
Slipstream solemnly shook her head, and Sirena shrugged. "I've watched Wallace train from time to time. But I'm not a griffon, so a lot of good that does!"
"Yep. Figures. Bananas. Maybe Starlight's right. I should give all of you a crash course in self-defense sometime..." Valey frowned at the bridge, then at the three pirates to either stay put or bail. "Here we go."
Pow! Biff! Whud!
The pirates in the bridge, apparently, hadn't gotten the memo that Valey was a bad idea to mess with. In less than a minute, two stallions had their tails tied together in a knot, the rest had fled, and the lone mare was on her back on the ground, legs pinned strategically by a wing so she couldn't flail as Valey leaned on her and ruffled her mane with a hoof.
"Aww, don't feel bad," she teased, giving the pirate a wonderful smirk, face inches from the mare's own. "Listen, you had every opportunity to avoid this. You could've bailed when I asked. You could've never picked on us in the first place. And especially, you could stop being such a bitter jerk, stop eeeing... I know you can understand me and talk normal... and tell me just what the bananas your deal is, because seriously, I did nothing to you guys. Or else face the never-ending noogie. Savvy?"
The mare spat in her face.
Valey's cutie mark gave her plenty of time to react, but as she reared away, the mare slipped free, grabbing her knotted companions and yanking them roughly after her on her way out. Valey didn't give chase; they were leaving. That was good enough for her.
"You're not going to go after them?" Nyala asked anyway, finally showing signs of life.
"Nah." Valey shuddered just a little. "Much as I used to get a kick outta that... Making someone that uncomfortable just to get what I want? Bananas, I'm acting like Puddles. Even if it's something I deserve, and I've always been like that. Just not as fun to keep it up any more."
"You're enjoying this?" Slipstream asked, looking up in worry.
"What, being the biggest fish in the bathtub again?" Valey winked, stretching. "Oh, you bet. Having you guys in danger... Nah. But these pirates are smalltime. Kinda feels good to stretch my wings again like this. Anyway, Nyala, I need you to turn on the lights all throughout the ship, full blast. Do that, and it'll be pretty easy for me to run the last of them off. Think that's doable?"
"Oh, that's what gets them?" Nyala tilted her head. "I guess it makes sense... You'll be okay with the lights on too, Sister?"
Valey winked. "Yeah, don't worry about me. They're so weak, they benefit way more from the terrain than I do. Especially the mares, 'cuz they've got weapons to ambush with. Seriously, do all the stallions here seem just a tiny bit loopy to you? Whatever's up with these pirates, I have utterly no clue..."
"Alright, then," Nyala announced. "I'll do it. Here goes!"
A hum built in the distance, like the ship was gradually coming to life, and the lights soon followed. Warm yellow light flooded the bridge from several filtered crystals set into the ceiling, and Valey grinned. "Sweet! Now, stay as safe as possible, okay? Preeetty sure they're too much on the run to do any new looting, but I'll check back here in five minutes at the latest. Gotta go look in on Starlight and Ironflanks, see if I can find anyone else, and chase as many clowns out of downstairs as I can. See ya!"
"Drink this. I don't know if you can understand me, but it's a healing potion. It will help your ribs."
Starlight frowned as Maple held the jar of red fluid up to the still-captive mare's mouth, her horn taking a break and only concentrating on the crystal now that the lights were back on. In the distance, they could hear thumps, yells and an occasional wild battle cry from Valey, who sounded perfectly fine with the situation. Helping her enemies aside, though, those potions were a precious resource. Hopefully Maple didn't use too much...
"I'm not going to stroke your throat to force you to swallow," Maple sighed, holding the rim up to the stubborn batpony's lips. "Please let me help you."
The mare grimaced, looking like breathing hurt too much for snarling to be worth it... and relented, opening her mouth and closing her eyes.
Maple only gave her a third of the jar, then stepped back, waiting to see what would happen. There was no visible difference to the mare's front, but her breathing slowly strengthened, and soon she was back to glaring again.
"Ohh..." Maple slumped, sealing the jar again and sitting back. "Please don't make me regret that. We never did anything to you, and I'm just... tired of making enemies wherever I go. Why did you attack us? Why did you try to invade our ship?"
The mare snapped something at her, one word, in Sarosian. Starlight glared back.
"I can't understand that," Maple apologized, shaking her head.
The batpony stared harder.
"Do you have a name?" Maple tilted her head. "At least you seem to be able to understand me."
"Kayshe," the batpony snarled. "Not that it means anything in your lawless tongue."
"So you can talk. Hello, Kayshe." Maple nodded. "Could you at least be nicer? That potion is expensive, and I didn't use it on you because I hated you. You attacked my ship and tried to tie me up. I haven't met you and didn't do a single thing to you before now. You can at least be nice in return."
Kayshe's eyes somehow narrowed further. "Under what goddess do you claim I wasn't justified?"
"I..." Maple blinked. "You're pirates! Aren't you? Piracy is illegal! I shouldn't need a goddess to say that, but Garsheeva says it is anyway!"
"The Cat Mother. Pfah." Kayshe spat. "You're not a true follower of anyone, invoking rules when they suit you and ignoring them otherwise. You were bedding one of our kind. That's unforgivable under any goddess, mine or the one you claim to follow."
Maple blinked. Then she blinked harder. "Valey... We were..." She held her hooves to her face. "Ohhhh no... I think this is a big misunderstanding..."
"What was she doing?" Starlight tilted her head and continued to glare. "Letting Valey sleep in our bed? How did you know that before you attacked us and came in here, huh?"
Kayshe scoffed. "We're also pirates. Your ship was undefended, and we wanted supplies. If you hadn't broken a sacred law right under our noses, we would have subdued you and let you keep your lives, safety and ship!"
"Valey is not my lover," Maple sighed. "She's my friend! And she was in a bad place, so I was being there so she wouldn't have to sleep alone! We know about that rule, and none of us were breaking it!"
"You would have subdued us?" Starlight raised an eyebrow, still wearing her saddlebags. "Really? Because it sounds like you're getting beaten up out there. Subdued us with what?"
"Please don't taunt her," Maple whispered. "I'm sorry if we came off that way, but that's not what we were doing! Please calm down!"
Kayshe's nose pulsed, and she sniffed. "...Hm. You don't smell like you did. But anyone self-important enough to do that would be good at covering for themselves."
"I told you, we're not," Maple repeated firmly, not begging. "We weren't insulting any goddess, or being full of ourselves, or doing anything more than helping each other sleep through a difficult night."
"Hmmmmm..." Kayshe's brow narrowed again. "What do you want? I'm already your captive."
Starlight stepped forward, close enough that she could have kicked her again without moving more than a single hoof. "She already told you, she wants you to be nice!"
Kayshe wasn't paying attention. Instead, she stiffened, both ears radaring wildly around. "It whispers..."
Her voice was squeaky with accent and hard to make out, but both Starlight and Maple tilted their heads. "What does?"
Kayshe smiled a nervous smile. "I'm sorry. I-I was wrong. You're both clearly blessed with the Night Mother's favor." She bowed as best she was able.
"Huh?" Starlight leaned forward again, having stepped away. "You're... what?"
"Something just changed your mind," Maple breathed. "Are you...? Tell me how to prove it."
"How would you like?" Kayshe did her best to tilt her head, aggression and disdain completely vanished.
"...I'll release you," Starlight offered. "But the moment you try to do something to Maple, I'll crystal you again, and this time I'll dance on you instead of just kicking!"
Kayshe kept up her smile, clearly uncomfortable with her change of heart. "Do that?"
The crystals vanished, and Starlight sighed, finally able to relax her horn.
"Ow..." Kayshe stretched, opening and closing her wings several times and checking all of her joints. "Mmm... Good to be free..."
Starlight kept watching her, while Maple tilted her head. "Are you alright, now? What was it you said about whispering? Did you get a message from-"
Crack!
Kayshe zipped upward, a hoof extended, and kicked the mana light in the ceiling, causing the container to break and the crystal to tumble, dim, to the floor. They were in shadow again.
"Aaah!" Starlight yelped, collapsing as a heavy weight hit her from above. Kayshe was on top of her, wrapping her legs around her, grabbing around her barrel... She lit her horn, preparing an instantaneous blast of crystal, when something abruptly cracked there too and she lost her concentration. Kayshe was... biting her horn?
"No! Get off...!" Starlight protested, struggling, energy dancing halfway along her horn but too interrupted by the attacker's jaw to form a corona. Then something clicked beneath her as Kayshe's hooves continued to reach, and suddenly she felt her saddlebag strap slacken.
Whud! "Get away from her!" Maple yelled, tackling the batpony and knocking her off Starlight with her enhanced weight. Starlight felt the bags leave too, and blinked. What was she doing?
"There's something in here," Kayshe hissed from the other side of the room, and Starlight realized she had shadow snuck out of Maple's grasp. "It calls out to my heart just like the Night Mother's song! You have a holy artifact! It must be! I will relieve it of your possession!"
"Hey! Give those saddlebags back!" Starlight jumped forward, lighting her horn. "They're important!"
The room lit teal, and for a moment Kayshe was half-in and half-out of the window, her hindquarters stuck inside the room with the pane running through her middle... and then with a fluid ripple, she was pulled to the other side, saddlebags and all. Starlight was instantly at the window, horn blazing, trying to see where the thief had gone, but all she could make out was her own hornlight reflected in the glass.
"Starlight," Maple panted, getting back to her hooves. "Are you alright!?"
"She tricked us," Starlight growled, punching the window ineffectually. "She stole my bags... and Valey had just said to keep those safe! That she was putting her valuables in there!"
Maple's pupils shrank. "Then she took the sound stone..."
Before Starlight could agree, there was a stylish rap on the door. "Yo, Ironflanks?" Valey's satisfied voice echoed from the other side. "Pretty sure I've scoured the ship from tip to tail and booted out all the pirates. You still got those three? Aside from those, we're safe and clear!"
"Oh, uhh... they're gone?" Valey blinked, glancing around at the interior of the darkened room. Her eyes narrowed at the broken light on the floor. "Hooold up. What did you guys do?"
Maple froze, slinking backward a step with her ears folded and a scared grimace. "I-I thought..."
"They escaped," Starlight said for her, looking frustrated but with her voice level. "It was an accident. And the leader stole my saddlebags and everything in them. She said something about whispering."
"Oh bananas." Valey froze too. "Whispering? Ohhh bananas that's bad. I put the stupid Nightmare Module in there! How long ago was this!?" She dashed to the window and threw herself against it, planting her hooves on either side of the round frame and smudging it with her nose. "That's really bad!"
Maple gave a soft eep, and Starlight blinked, frowning. "Nightmare Module?"
"Look." Valey got back down and glared at them. "Super evil magical artifact Puddles let me steal probably because she was planning on cornering me into using it so she could see what happened, since she legit didn't seem to know what it did. Only activates for batponies, apparently, and makes a connection with the same kind of mind magic or whatever that dusk statues use, so if they didn't know what it was, they'd think... Probably think turning it on and seeing what happens is a good thing. Before you ask where they come from, it's, like... made from moon glass, or something. And while it technically asked me if I wanted to use it when I got it, it also said something about mandatory physical changes and..."
She sat down, slumping, running a hoof over her sweaty brow. "A whole crew of incompetent pirates, yeah, I can kick their rears. Not sure about some sort of magically-enhanced monster."
Maple's ears pressed down harder, distraught. "I'm sorry! I didn't even think about that! We just remembered the sound stone was in there, and-"
Valey hit her head against the wall.
"I'm so sorry..." Maple whispered.
"For all I know, they could do anything." Valey's face briefly shadowed. "Even... give you a cutie mark for being invincible in combat, or something. But anyway! Too busy trying to fix this to be mad or point hooves right now." She jumped upright. "Get to the bridge. Birdo and Slipstream should be there; they're hauling back up the supplies that were almost looted from the boat I broke. Other boat, the pirates flipped upright and used to bail. I'm gonna get a read on their direction, and we're going after it. Hunting pirates. Now!"
Maple didn't argue as she vanished out the window, the damaged light fixture still laying in darkness on the floor. The pillar of light from the partly-open doorway illuminated only half of Starlight's face, and Starlight was frowning as well.
"What have I gotten us into..." Maple whispered, trembling, the stashed windigo heart slipping free from her cutie mark and rolling to a stop against Starlight's hoof.
Starlight blinked at her, levitating the heart into a position where it wouldn't roll around. "What do you want me to say?" she asked.
"Nnnnnngh..." Maple whined, voice growing tight and high-pitched. "I knew that would happen! I had been warned... Wallace told me all about the time he tried to find good in even one pony of a crew of pirates, with his wish to Garsheeva from winning the tournament riding on the line! Why didn't I listen...!?"
Then Starlight was at her side. "It'll be okay," the filly squeaked back, her own stress evident in a crack in her voice. "We should get to the bridge."
Maple's tension cracked, and she fell halfway before catching herself. "We just talked about how I'm the one who's supposed to say that," she mumbled, eyes on the ground. "We'll... We can find some other time that's safe to talk about it. If such a time exists at all..."
On the bridge, an air of festive good cheer pervaded the brightly-lit room, Gerardo strolling back and forth as Nyala stayed plugged into the ship and Slipstream and Sirena both smiled awkwardly, trying to convince themselves nearly being abducted by pirates was a thrilling adventure.
"On the plus side," Gerardo was narrating, gesturing with a talon for flair as he talked, "I discovered these new padded earmuffs I bought to aid in unnatural sleeping times work exquisitely well! Alas, our good Valey seemed unable to appreciate this when she discovered me while cleaning up, and instead of consoling me for missing out on such an epic, gave me something of a black eye..." He drooped, being theatrical for the sake of raising spirits, knowing fully well that his eye hadn't been touched. "But now, everything has been recovered, and we even gained this from looting the broken boat engine! Ha-ha!"
He waved around a half-spent mana core, grinning... when the door slammed open, and Valey stepped through.
"Power up! Now," Valey snapped, strolling straight to the captain's chair and dropping herself in. "We gotta chase those dudes, and their stupid boat is fast enough that if I fly to catch it, it's not gonna be pretty. I hope this thing's as fast in water when you push it hard as it is in the air...!"
"We do?" Sirena blinked, a rush growing in the distance as Valey turned the ship and Nyala powered the engines without question. "How come?"
"Because I left the first three I beat up to be prisoners for Starlight and Ironflanks..." Valey gritted her teeth. "And they stole something super important, super dangerous, and maybe some other stuff too. Get this thing moving! Once we're going, I can try and fly out to catch them!"
The boat accelerated with enough of a rush that those who were standing had to catch their balance, and Gerardo grabbed Slipstream when she started to fall over. Valey wheeled it sharply into position, looking satisfied when she had found her direction.
"Snazzy!" She hopped out of the pilot's seat and waved the flash club in her hoof. "Hold that course. I'm gonna fly ahead and try to jump them, and I'll flash this thing back at you every ten seconds or so, so if I can see them and you can't, use me to adjust course. I told Ironflanks to get up here, but she's not here yet..." She growled and gritted her teeth. "Just, like, be prepared for mare angst, because I've got bigger stuff to deal with. Wouldn't be surprised if she stuffed up and let them go. Now, moving!"
Valey leapt for the control panel, hitting a small area at the top of the windshield that was shaded from the roof-recessed lights, and shadow snuck, slipping through the glass and blasting away in a streak of green, leaving everyone left behind blinking and staring.
Flashhhhh!
Valey lanced across the night sky, catching up with the speeding pirate skiff in under an hour. The boat's engine was roaring so hard, nearly half of the prow was fully out of the water from momentum even when overloaded with ponies, and gave her serious consideration as to just how powerful the mana core she had stolen from the other ship really was.
She soared ahead, flipped in midair, and dropped, slamming down with all four hooves balanced on the foremost point of the speeding ship. "Yo!" she bellowed over the wind, drawing aggressive stares from the massive pile of defeated batponies.
A forest of fangs greeted her, and she knew they were eeeing in their weird language behind the rush of wind. So tightly were they packed that stallions slumped halfway out over the sides, dragging their forehooves in the spray, and everyone else was pressed together in a pile on average two ponies deep. A fight here would be completely impossible without them doing more damage to themselves than Valey could, and everyone knew it.
"Saddlebags!" Valey roared, tapping her sides and drawing a circle around her barrel for emphasis. "From the filly! Which one of you morons stole them!? Give them back, or I'll break this boat's engine too and toss you overboard one by one until this boat is clear enough to find it!"
The eeeing started to grow uncomfortable, and all the mares who could understand her suddenly looked unnerved. They were also pressed together at the very stern of the boat, all together and keeping the stallions everywhere else. Perfect.
Valey jumped. The boat was moving so fast that she didn't even need her wings to reach the stern from where she stood; wind resistance was enough. Wham! Her hooves struck the engine casing as she landed atop it, within punching distance of the mares. "You lot," she growled, close enough that they couldn't possibly mishear. "I know this thing's weakness. One of you stole my saddlebags. I want them back and everything in them, or the engine is the first to go."
"What kind of demon are you?" a mare hissed back, one of her fangs chipped from a prior encounter and a flat scar on her neck like someone had once tried to slit her throat. "You're untouchable, and don't hail the moon!"
"Not as bad of one as you're gonna be dealing with if I don't get my bags back," Valey growled. "Literally. Which one of you stole my bags from the filly!? Encased in crystal? She and an earth pony were guarding you? Two stallions with you?"
The mares glanced between each other, and more mumbling started up, until a wave of conversation washed over the entire boat. Valey listened to the volume flow; downwind, she could hear better... and finally a report seemed to make its way back to her, and the mares fearfully shoved each other until one had to speak up. "K-Kayshe didn't make it back! Her squad say they left her and ran first! There was a mare and a filly with crystals!"
"Not here...?" Valey's frown turned harder. "Bananas, that's not good enough! You're sure!? Where are my saddlebags!? The stuff in there is dangerous!"
She stomped a hoof for emphasis, landing squarely on top of the motor chassis. The pirates' eyes widened, and the mares started shoving the stallions, trying roughly to force their way away from her into the center of the ship.
"You're terrified of me!" Valey stomped again. "Don't hide stuff from me! They've gotta be here! They need to! They couldn't..." Her ears fell, and not from the wind. "No! That stuff is important! Do you guys have any idea what a Nightmare Module-"
At those words, the mares looked even more stricken, hissing in panic. Some tried to bow. Two started punching each other, and then three more broke it up. Valey groaned. "Bananas, what now...?"
"Spare us!" one of the mares wailed over the wind.
"Avenging angel!"
"Night Mother!"
"What the...?" Valey blinked, then stomped again. "Okay, you guys have heard of those! Give! Me! My! Bags! Because if they're that important to you, someone else stole one and bad stuff is gonna happen if I don't get it back!"
The mares' ears all folded as a group, and Valey wondered if she was finally getting through to them... all but one, the one guarding the rudder. She was still focused on maintaining course.
Slowly, Valey looked back. The Immortal Dream was a speck of light on the horizon, and the shoreline was now out of sight. Where were they even...
She craned her neck to look ahead, at the sight finally revealing itself around the boat's raised prow. "Oh bananas."
"Nooo! Pirate Captain Puddles is sleepy! Why're we going to my boat in the middle of the night, Mister Pirate?"
"Because we be needin' to sneak our ship out from where it be moored. Now shuddup, or ye be drawin' attention to us!"
Shinespark slunk along behind the group of pirates and Puddles, the dark-feathered captain leading the way. They knew she was following, but if any of the pirates wanted to do anything about it, Puddles wouldn't let them. She had made it perfectly clear: she wanted an audience, and Shinespark was more than welcome to follow.
With Howe and Neon Nova deep in muttering conversation and Belinda sticking to the side as a lookout, they had left the town behind, trotting inland away from the populated coastline. Golbez had claimed they weren't in a hurry enough to fly, and she couldn't tell if he wanted to stall before getting his ship taken over or just didn't want to carry Puddles.
"Poor Mister Pirate..." Puddles curiously sang, moods spinning like the blades on a windmill. "Nobody told you that boats are supposed to go on the water? How did you get Puddles' new boat stuck all the way over here?"
"That, my eldritch friend, is a very great question," Howe ominously intoned, lugging himself up a steep slope. The lands to the east of the coastline were too hilly for farmland, breaking with the empire's usual tradition of flat, endless planes, and resulted in a walk that was more about swerving to avoid peaks and look for passes than actually go in a straight line. "But our boat is no ordinary seaship! Behold!"
He swept his wing out as they passed around a hillside and a valley came into sight... but nothing was there. His face fell. "Confoundment! I ruined my dramatic unveil. By the breath of Garsheeva, all these hills look alike..."
Golbez sighed, shook his head, and continued leading.
As the Immortal Dream sped north in pursuit of Valey and the pirates she was chasing, the entire crew sans Jamjars waited on the bridge, brightly lit and sitting wherever they could find purchase. Maple was rapidly becoming the center of attention, though everyone could tell she wanted to be left alone, so the room formed a nervous circle where everyone watched her out of the corners of their eyes but no one said anything. It was stressful, and Starlight wished they'd stop.
"Maple?" she asked. "Do you want to go back downstairs?"
"No," Maple sighed. "I know everyone is staring. I just... need to think about what happened a little longer."
"I don't suppose talking about it would help?" Gerardo suggested, sitting in the captain's chair with his back to the windshield, Nyala doing the navigating. "Valey was rather vague about what happened, though it clearly involves something you feel poorly for."
"Mmm..." Maple frowned at the floor.
Sirena shrugged, sitting on a wood casing with her legs dangling off the side. "Sounds kinda awkward to me, talking about it in here."
"N-No, I should..." Maple swallowed. "Sorry. It's not that I don't want to talk about it. I just messed up."
Starlight folded her ears as someone else continued the conversation, withdrawing into her own head. After all the talking that had happened last night, and Valey had been there... What did Maple need? What did they all need? Valey had talked about some iron assurance that everything would be alright, or at least being able to pretend a friend's assurance was iron and believe it enough to relax. How it shouldn't have been her job to do that for anyone. But as nice as it had sounded, that was impossible, wasn't it? She glanced around the room and didn't see a single hoof lifted to prove to Maple nothing bad was going to happen. Valey was out there working to actively prevent anything, at least. But it was up to Starlight. No one else wanted to be there and give the reassurance her mother needed.
She hugged her, wiping away the very beginning of a tear of unfairness on Maple's coat. It really did seem nice, the more she thought about what Valey said. If she didn't have to worry about anything the world could throw at her, because someone could protect her from all of it. Or if her friends could do the same, because someone like her could protect them.
"It's alright..." she mumbled, pressing her face into Maple's side.
Maple pulled a hoof back over her, but didn't say anything.
For an instant, Starlight remembered her doppelganger from on the shipdeck the other day. Telling her her problem was that she worried too much... Starlight swallowed. Her mind wandered further, and she remembered the harmonic flame beneath Ironridge, telling her it wanted her to be happy but had no idea how to help her. If even some ancient, mystical, somehow-sapient force couldn't just make the world safe for her, then what could?
Her mind wandered to Garsheeva, and the batponies' Night Mother. A physical goddess, there for the rest of her empire to see, and an ethereal one that wasn't there but all her subjects could talk to through statues... Equestria had had Princess Celestia, too, but her being there and physical and strong enough to raise the sun and the moon hadn't made her strong enough to stop her life from turning horrible. Whatever kind of power this continent's two goddesses possessed was likely a lot less than that, because they weren't even able to stop strangers from hating Valey or ponies from becoming possessed or even pirates from raiding the waterways, despite Garsheeva outlawing it as a religious offense. Some goddesses they were. If she had their powers, she'd...
What even were their powers?
Starlight blinked a tear away, realizing she didn't even know. What she did know was that once, a very long time ago, Willow had told her that even if she couldn't find the perfect place to call home in her travels, it was within her power to make one instead. And she did have quite a bit going for her. Her magic, even if it was somehow broken, was far stronger than other fillies her age, and an ancient tree flame had seen fit to grant her some power to help fix it a little. Then, when she hooked herself up to the harmony extractor, it had created an attack powerful enough to kill a sky's worth of windigoes. That was something they had stopped pursuing completely, wasn't it? Ways to use her with the harmony extractor? Once upon a time, Shinespark had talked about that, too...
Her wandering thoughts were interrupted by Nyala's voice, projected softly around the room with an intercom that was still able to drown out the rest of the conversation. "Uhh, guys?" she asked. "Does anyone else want to take a look out front and tell me if that's what I think it is...?"
"Behold, our majestic... Oh hey, we're actually there this time!"
Howe sounded legitimately surprised as the next major valley rolled into view, five vision-blocking hill corners after he had first started guessing. This valley might have been large enough to be called a ravine, except it had filled with water from rains and nowhere to drain, and was now playing host to a long, narrow lake. And that lake held an airship.
It was a sad mockery of Shinespark's work on Project Aslan, making a ship that was fit for both the skies and sea. Someone had outfitted the gondola with inflatable pontoons to keep it from sinking or being submerged, and from the tension of the ropes and supports, the dirigible was still doing most of the work keeping it afloat. She wasn't sure whether to be flattered that someone had copied Sosa's idea or offended that they had done such a halfhearted job of it, but at least it was doing its job.
It only hit her a full minute later that just because it was moored in the water didn't mean that was how the pirates were intending to use it. This was an airship first and foremost, in a land that had done little to embrace the technology. She was looking at the Empire's perhaps-first sky pirates, in a land dominated by the sea, and that sent a small shiver down her spine.
"Here we be," Golbez sighed in agreement, giving the airship a resigned look. "Alright, missy. What be ye knowin' about how to captain a ship? Prove yourself through competence or else leave me and me crew alone."
"Oooooh," Puddles giggled bouncing and bouncing at his side. "That's a big one, Mister Pirate! How did you get on- woah! Heeheeheee!"
Belinda seized her in her talons, flapped her wings, prepared to take off... and nearly faceplanted, pitching forward and losing her grasp when Puddles refused to become unstuck from the ground. Some minor griffon caterwauling ensued until Golbez forcefully put a stop to it, Puddles grinning stupidly in the background as Howe and Neon Nova continued conversing in low tones. Shinespark watched from a hilltop, unimpressed.
"Arrr..." Golbez rubbed his face with a talon.
"Silly Missus Pirate," Puddles sang. "Puddles didn't ask how you got on board! I wanted to know how you got one of these in the first place! I wanna know how easy it is to replace if I ram it into something."
"Please, uhhh..." Howe half-shadowed his face with a wing, peeking out with a dramatic smile. "Please don't do that! It was an epic story full of drama, heroics and intrigue, but after we nobly- oww!"
Shinespark frowned harder and dimmed her horn, having hit him with a small ball of hardened telekinesis. If she was following them, there would have to be a talk about what was and wasn't tasteful to say about Ironridge.
"We named her the Spirit of Sosa!" Neon proudly added, and Shinespark immediately gave up. "Ask us where we got that name sometime!"
"Regardless," Golbez sighed, looking like he desperately wanted a bottle of something hard and a fluffy bed afterward, "if ye want us to lift ye on, ye be needin' to-"
Puddles winked, then stomped. A wide spear of ice lanced out from the hillside towards the boat, and continued growing as she walked out on it, crafting itself continuously until it had latticed, crystalline railings and an artistic tiled floor and even a carpet of frost down the middle that tinkled and crunched underhoof. It wasn't a functional bridge so much as a walkway straight from a palace.
"Well, that be doin' the job too..." Golbez sighed in resignation, choosing to walk rather than fly.
Shinespark stood a ways down the side of the airship from where the ice bridge made contact, close enough for Puddles to see she was still following but not close enough to attract pirate attention... she hoped. Puddles was dancing excitedly, dispelling the bridge and hopping around the boat's deck. "Yay, yay, yay!"
"Captain?" Belinda frowned at Golbez, standing alone with him to brave Puddles' antics; Howe and Neon Nova had wandered elsewhere and Shinespark didn't see them. "What are we actually going to do now? You think she knows how to pilot an airship? She'll ice us if we refuse, but if we let her fly this, we lose our ship, our lives, everything."
"A good question," Golbez sighed. "Where be ye wantin' to go, missy? Perhaps we be doin' the flyin' and ye only point out directions for us to follow?"
Puddles thought on this for a moment, holding a hoof to her chin in the world's most serious contemplation. Then she flung it out in a westerly direction. "Okay! Puddles wants to go that way. Don't tell Puddles you're stuck in this lake and need her to carry the boat out to sea..."
"It's an airship, you foal," Belinda growled. "And its power reserves are at fifteen percent, so if you're smart, you won't fly it around unnecessarily and get us truly stranded. What we were trying to do when you hijacked us was find a way to rob the city's main power line and get a recharge."
Puddles pursed her lips. "But Puddles wants to go that way. Don't worry, it's not far..."
"Not far, she says," Golbez remarked. "Just what kind of agenda do ye have, here?"
Puddles stuck out her tongue.
"The bridge is this way..." Belinda sighed, making for a network of staircases and scaffolding that hung from the supports tethering the gondola to the dirigible. High above, the bridge room was affixed directly to the dirigible itself, giving it a perfect view of the surroundings in every direction but up, and Puddles eagerly bounced after her.
"...Ugh," Shinespark sighed, starting to realize how weak her legs felt. She had come for Valey, but was now something of a willing captive to a demon mare with unknown but certainly-existent goals... She just wanted to see her friend safe and sound and fly her back to the Dream. Not this...
"Hail, fallen leader of Ironridge!" a spooky, dramatic voice whispered behind her, and she glared backwards to see Howe approaching with his ears flat and a slightly abashed look on his face.
"Don't call me that," Shinespark said, turning fully and giving him her attention. "What now?"
Howe fidgeted. "We, errr... Well, we're aware you don't like us, and there's a long and complicated story behind our actions, but the point is, we realized we were on the wrong side! We... wanted to help you, and it's apparent we left a baaad-smelling impression. Catch my drift?"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow behind her impassive visor. "You've stopped talking like a lunatic, which means you're at least somewhat serious?"
"Eh heh... hee..." Howe nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... yes! Mostly. The Howenator's speech patterns are a mystery not known to this universe. Yes, but, however... We... wanted to make a peace offering of sorts, and introduce you to someone you've clearly been missing."
"She's here?" Shinespark blinked, suddenly interested. If she could potentially break Valey free, they could escape here and now!
"At the stern of the ship," Howe promised. "Follow me."
"Here?" Shinespark frowned. The ship's stern was actually several levels high, not having been built for water travel, and they were presently on a raised balcony with a door leading back inside, looking luxurious and private enough she wouldn't have been surprised to see it connect to the captain's quarters.
"Here indeed," Howe promised, nodding to Neon Nova, who was standing by the door. "Just one question... You are Shinespark, correct? The leader of the Spirit of Sosa and frequent masquerader in shiny armor? We, err, didn't meet that much."
"Yeah?" Shinespark frowned, looking at the door. This felt staged...
Howe jumped back, and Neon knocked on the door. "Excellent!" the pegasus beamed, cloaking himself and preparing to fly away. "Then we shall leave you to your noble selves! And with that... Pow! We're gone!"
Both stallions departed in bursts of feathers and teleportation, and the door started to swing open.
A burgundy hoof stepped through, followed by a horned head with a mane styled identically to Shinespark's. The mare blinked about for half a second in confusion, then three more seconds in disbelief when she finally saw who was there.
"B-Braen," she whispered under her breath, voice growing louder and stronger with each heartbeat. "You survived. You came for me...!"
Shinespark tore off her helmet and shook free her red mane, blinking in disbelief. "Grenada!?"
"You died in the tower!" both mares exclaimed, pointing hooves at each other. "I... you...!"
"You're alive," Shinespark managed, standing stiffly and steadily as Grenada nuzzled her cheek, glad the armor prevented her from feeling the tension in her limbs. "How? In the tower..."
"How are you?" Grenada sniffled back, choking. "I do not know how I'm alive. There was the storm, and I was in the tower, and it got cut off and went flying, and I hit my head and passed out... It was filling with water when I came to, and I climbed to the upper room but saw no one there! I-I sent up a signal, and those two found me..."
"I teleported," Shinespark murmured, still in shock. "Back to the room below, and brought the rest of the Spirit with me. But I didn't see you there, and the moment I turned back to the staircase, i-it was torn away! You survived the storm in there?"
Grenada hung her head. "Somehow..."
"And then those two saw your signal and picked you up," Shinespark finished, recalling how Howe and Neon Nova had disappeared with Kero's ship... this ship... after the battle without a trace. "You must have seen Sosa. Thought I was dead, with the rest of the Spirit, and that there was nothing left in Ironridge..."
"Y-Yes..." Grenada shook, hugging Shinespark's armor. "Is that not true? You came to find me..."
Shinespark sighed, putting a hoof around Grenada's neck and holding her close. "There was a lot more at stake than we knew when I found you in the control tower. Herman was trying to make Yakyakistan break their neutrality and invade Ironridge. That storm was actually a herd of windigoes... Real ones, from the legends. We saved Ironridge, but in the end, I left for exactly the same reason as you. Us meeting here is just a coincidence."
"Or perhaps fate," Grenada sniffed back. "So it is all over, then? The Spirit has fallen? We are outcasts, with nothing left?" She winced. "How did you get here, anyway? The skyport... we destroyed it. There should have been no airships left."
"Not nothing left," Shinespark answered. "Project Aslan works. We flew it here."
Grenada sat down, stunned.
"There've been so many developments..." Shinespark shook her head. "I'll need to fill you in. But... you're b-back..."
"Who flew it here? You had someone with you?" Grenada tilted her head. "Did someone else from the Spirit survive?"
Shinespark looked down. "Most of our friends are either dead or have lost faith in the Spirit and Braen, for good reason. I'm just Shinespark now. This is... only a disguise so I could use my brand without being identified. Right now, Arambai is in charge of Ironridge, while Dior is hiding in Riverfall, letting the Ironridge public think he was Braen to keep the heat off my back. I flew here with Maple, Starlight, Gerardo... a lot of the friends I brought when we had that last breakfast. And Valey. Valey was the one who ultimately saved Ironridge from Yakyakistan. I tried to challenge Herman, but even pushing myself that far past my limit, I just got swatted like a fly."
"Valey?" Grenada frowned. "The Defense Force Admiral?"
"She's a good friend," Shinespark insisted. "Also the reason why I'm here. This ship..." She felt the wood vibrate beneath her armored hooves, as an engine somewhere roared to life and the supports and tethers began to strain. "I think it just got taken over by a mare who's currently possessed by another windigo. Not one of the ones from Ironridge. She foalnapped Valey, and I don't know where she put her, but I'm following her to find out. I have to get her back. Once I do, you can come with us and join my crew!"
Grenada winced. "That... might be difficult, Br... Shinespark..."
"No. It won't! Not too difficult for me. For us. I just found you again! Why would it be difficult?"
Grenada glanced at the door back into the airship as the water fell away, the massive boat lifting clear of the hills and up into the sky from the valley where it had been hidden. "You saw who Howe and Neon Nova have made an alliance with? We are self-styled sky pirates, now. This is a pirate ship. And I only found out after we did that that this is a crime in this country with a guaranteed death sentence..."
Shinespark froze.
"Sorry," Grenada managed. "But you should leave before you get involved here, too. I... only found out about it after we plundered a sarosian caravan full of weapons that was heading somewhere. It is not something that won't catch up to me."
"That's not acceptable," Shinespark whispered. "I won't let that happen! I didn't find you just to leave you to a fate like that and pretend you didn't survive!"
Grenada frowned. "Do I look like I like it? Braen! Err, S-Shinespark! I did not make this country's rules..."
"Either way, I can't leave," Shinespark continued, hugging her. "I still need to find what this mare, Puddles, did to Valey and where she is. I owe it to her, at least. We were supposed to capture Puddles and bring her back under control, but..."
"What did you say Puddles did, again?"
"She's a mare possessed by a windigo," Shinespark sniffed. "The daughter of a famous explorer here, apparently. She foalnapped Valey and took her somewhere in this area, and now she's taking over this ship for herself. I've only seen a bit of her, but she seems foalish and temperamental. She also has extremely powerful ice magic."
The hills started to rush by beneath as the ship accelerated, flying west. "Essentially, this pirate ship of yours just got a change of captain," Shinespark finished. "Whether you think this is a path you're stuck to to try and evade the law or not, I don't think it's one you can follow safely. Less safely than leaving with us, at least."
Grenada blinked, the wind starting to pick up and swirl her mane even though she was standing in the ship's lee. "But..."
"It won't be safe for you to stay here," Shinespark insisted. "I have no idea what Puddles' agenda is or where she's going, but..." She swallowed, glancing over the railing as the coastline came into view. "I can fly, and carry you. Please let me take you? Please? We'll find something we can do. Someone we can petition, or..."
"Shinespark..." Grenada shuddered.
"If you trust my judgement." Shinespark held her, the ship now over the water and still accelerating. "Which might not be warranted, after how badly I messed up protecting Sosa... then we need to go now, before we get too far out. Once we're far from shore, we risk running into a storm if we try to fly back. We'll be trapped here, and for all I know Puddles won't ever give me Valey and I'll be wasting my time staying! Please come with me! Please let me get... let me bring someone back...!"
Grenada walked to the railing, the coast rapidly receding behind them. "B-But... I would endanger..." She snapped all at once, whirling to Shinespark. "Let's go! I'm coming!"
Shinespark charged forward, taking all of a second to put on a determined, pyrrhic smile. "Then let's go. To land, Grenada!"
CRACKKKKK!
Just as Shinespark coiled her legs to jump, Grenada at her side, the floor lurched under them with a horrendous snapping of ropes and splitting of wood. "Aaaaah! Shinespark!" Grenada yelled, pitching to the side.
"What!?" Shinespark felt herself slam into the railing as the ship dropped briefly beneath her. The cracking continued, and far above she saw a shower of something from the dirigible. Something like thunder sounded in the distance, and the ship jerked again, cracking further before dropping away altogether.
Shinespark flipped under Grenada as both were thrown free from the airship's stern. They had been flying close to the water, and the impact of catching her sent them close enough to the waves that she could feel the spray on her face.
Before she could even right herself or transfer Grenada to her magic, there was a thunderous splash, and the airship gondola hit the water, inflatable pontoons from the lake causing it to bob and stay surfaced. Above, the dirigible smoked, leaning wildly with several holes punched in the side and the wreckage of the gondola support structure hanging below. In the light cast by fires as it began to burn, drifting towards the ocean a safe distance away, several figures could be seen flying, plus one that just jumped.
"W-What...?" Grenada trembled, clinging to Shinespark's hovering, upside-down form.
"I dunno." Shinespark swallowed. "But it looks like I was there at a very good time. I'm going to land us on the floating part before we go back to shore. Whatever caused that-"
There was another rumble from somewhere behind the gondola, and the dirigible exploded again, quickening its fall towards the sea. "Someone is shooting at them," Grenada managed. "That sounds like cannonfire."
Shinespark's eyes narrowed, her helmet lost amid the chaos, and she pulsed her horn, sending them flying back to the floating remains.
"Oh bananas." Valey swallowed, sitting atop the motor casing of the surviving batpony pirate skiff as its destination drew into sight. "That's a lot of dudes."
Ahead was the biggest frigate she had ever laid eyes on, which wasn't saying much when she was so new to the world of seafaring but still the best context she could make. If it was a building, it would be five floors above the waterline alone, and too long to fit horizontally in the Flame District's drill shaft. To one side was a smaller vessel, still larger than the Dream but less than half the big ship's length. To the other, the side she had a better view of, an array of ten cannons pointed, and one jerked backwards with a crack of thunder, aimed toward what looked like a burning blimp drifting toward the sea. A short distance away, the fire's light revealed something else ship-sized floating in the water, bit it was silhouetted and Valey couldn't make out the details. The sky all around was filled with fliers.
Some of the batponies who could began taking off, freeing up room in the skiff and jetting toward the engagement. The smaller ship drifted unnaturally along the bigger one's side, and Valey suspected it was harpooned. Whatever kind of fight this was, the big ship looked two against one, and it was badly winning.
"Uhh." She raised an eyebrow at the mares who were still in the skiff's stern, then pointed a wing at the engagement they were racing towards. "What gives?"
"Someone, extinguish the lights," Gerardo suggested, leaning forward. "I see something ahead!"
"Something bright?" Nyala dimmed the lights, then let them vanish, and the Immortal Dream's cabin was dark save for a few glowing meters and dials. "You see it too, then."
"What is that...?" Sirena frowned, staring out the windshield. "Looks like a ball of fire, but it's in the sky!"
"I see boats," Slipstream muttered, getting a spyglass from a hook on the wall. "Three... no, four of them, plus whatever's burning. One is the one Valey was chasing, another is big. Three masts. Can't make out the other two."
"Executive decision," Gerardo declared. "Since neither Valey nor Shinespark are here, I decide..." He gulped. "We stay back and observe! Whatever we've wandered into, we watch, and only go forward when we think we have allies in need of a rescue. Someone hand me a spyglass, I want to watch too."
Wham! Puddles hit the destroyed airship's deck just in front of where Shinespark and Grenada landed to get their bearings and straightening up, legs crackling with teal energy as she repaired herself of damage from the fall. She straightened up and grinned, tossing a glass orb in one hoof with gold flakes and an ominously-glowing core. "Hiya, cute unicorns!" she greeted with a grin. "Look what Puddles found! Are you back to watch the show?"
Shinespark's eyes widened. "A windigo heart! That must be the one those two stole in the Flame District..."
"What's that about the Flame District, now?" a shaky voice asked, and Neon Nova crawled out of a door onto the forward deck, trench coat and shades askew.
"Aha! Halt!" Howe zipped up by his side, flinging a hoof at Puddles. "You're wielding our ancestral treasure, mare! That orb belongs to us!"
Belinda and Golbez landed a short distance away, furling their wings, both looking at the warship and cloud of fliers surrounding it with expressions of a life well-lived. "Arr," Golbez sighed quietly. "It looks like this be the end of the road."
At least thirty winged shapes were already making for the fallen gondola. "Br... Shinespark?" Grenada trembled. "We need to go..."
Puddles stuck her tongue out. "No missing cute Puddles' party!" She turned and raised her muzzle towards the massive frigate, sniffing deeply, and her voice deepened. "Besides, we've almost found what I'm looking for."
"I... am warning you," Howe nervously warned. "That is an eldritch artifact you're holding, with terrible-"
Puddles smashed the orb between her forehooves, tiny needles of ice lancing out and into it. For a moment, she concentrated, a scowl growing on her face, and then the glass twisted, cracked... and shattered, leaving her scraping shards off its exposed blue core. She kicked the glass away, taking the bare windigo heart in her teeth and grinning.
Howe, Neon and Shinespark's eyes were all wide.
"Mmm... gulp!" Puddles tipped her head back and swallowed the artifact whole.
Shinespark winced and barely held herself in place, not sure whether she would run forward or backward if she let herself run at all. Puddles sat there for a moment, perfectly still, staring up at the sky... and then a quick sheet of teal energy crackled across her coat, and was gone.
"Tasty," Puddles burped, surveying herself and rubbing her belly with satisfaction. "Ohh ho ho I'm gonna feel that later... Puddles is in the house! Booyah! Who wants to tangle, morons!?"
Everyone but Shinespark flinched at her suddenly metallic, wintery tone of voice, but Puddles wasn't looking at the pirates. She had turned to face the oncoming swarm, now easily identifiable as batponies, and dangerously licked her lips, forehooves already crackling again with energy.
Flashhhhh! Puddles slammed her hooves against the deck, and two bolts of frost lanced their way to the edge, disappearing off the edge and causing a roar when they hit the sea. Several spires of ice soared up, rising in front of the ship like the bottom jaw of a mouth, and then they exploded, shards of ice flying off as the pillars carved themselves into more elegant forms.
Puddles' insane laughter nearly drowned out the noise of ice machinery grinding against ice as the pillars became hollow tubes and those became cannons, tilting themselves forward into a battery just as impressive as the one that had shot down the ship in the first place. Massive, rotating cores of ice dredged up from the sea fired themselves out of the tubes at the swarm as Puddles laughed, more energy pumping out of her hooves and into the water to fuel the contraption. Batponies shrieked, some were hit, others turned back, and precious few made it through the barrage only to flee again when Puddles turned her glare on them directly. In ten seconds of fire, the assault had abated.
"Oh yeah!" Puddles growled, cracking her forehooves together and letting the ice artillery collapse back into the sea. "I'm strong now! Hi five, anyone!?"
Shinespark stared wide-eyed at the offered hoof, Puddles radiating a frosty aura that glowed faintly blue, her hoof still crackling with energy. "Maybe I don't?"
Golbez whistled.
"Killjoys." Puddles' voice was every bit as threatening as the storm that had nearly annihilated Ironridge, and she stopped again to proudly rub her belly. "Well, that was an unexpected treat. Hah hah hah... Okay, pirates. Puddles wants a pirate fight. You're my seconds. Any objections?"
Belinda was slack-jawed. "Do you have any idea what you're going up against? You madmare..."
"No, but I sure know what I'm bringing to the party!" Puddles gave an echoing laugh. "Follow along, little birds and ponies. You wouldn't want to miss the show..."
"Follow along?" Grenada blinked. "How are-?"
Puddles leapt off the prow. Moments later, there was a flash of ice, and a staircase grew its way up from the sea to the ship's edge. Shinespark paced to the stairway and looked down... and there Puddles was, racing across the ocean's surface, hoofsteps transmuting the water to glamorous ice as she ran.
Fwoooom! To the side, the dirigible finally crashed, sending up a wave that briefly swamped the bridge, cracking it into pieces that automatically refroze in place. Puddles kept running.
"...Well?" Shinespark glanced to Grenada and the pirates, and they looked to each other and her.
"The Nocturne," Captain Golbez sighed, holding a wing to his chest. "Ye don't know much about pirate politics, do ye, lass?"
"No, I don't." Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "That's the ship out there?"
"Aye." Golbez gave it a nod of respect. "Pride of the sarosian fleet. In these waters, there be three main sides ye find. Sarosians, who pillage and plunder because their goddess demands it. My kind, who do the same, but ain't aligned with the night. Sometimes it be a way of livin'. Other times, it be a holy war. Garsheeva be against patrollin' these waters herself, only catchin' pirates when they come ashore. For criminals and outcasts, it can be seen as a path of redemption, though the imperials don't treat it as such. It also be the only path ye can take if ye want to fight the sarosians yerself. And then the third side be everyone who pillages and plunders but just doesn't care. There don't be a side for the law in these waters, lass. It seems ye've just walked into a pirate brawl, and that right there be the strongest of the strong."
Shinespark swallowed, then glanced back at Puddles, who was still running.
"Look out for yerself, lass," Golbez advised. "This ain't a fight ye be wantin' to be caught up in."
"Shinespark?" Grenada swallowed, looking up at the dark, overcast sky. "We need to go. Now."
"Agreed." Shinespark lit her horn, giving one last glance at Puddles and her insane, icy charge. "Sorry if I'm stealing your crew, Captain, but she was my friend first!"
"Ye dallied too long, lasses," Golbez sighed, holding his tricorn hat to his chest. "It looks like the window be vanished."
S-s-s-s-swoooooshh!
An entire platoon of batponies dropped onto the deck between them and the bridge, at least twelve strong, a mare screeching something at a stallion who instantly took wing and soared away again. She turned, evidently the leader, and stared Shinespark and the pirates down. "What kind of machine is this? Airships defended by magic do not belong in our waters. Surrender whatever you're guarding!"
"Uhhh..." Howe took a nervous step back. "My divine instinct of self-preservation is tingling?"
The lead mare made a signal with her wing, and suddenly there was a second squad of batponies in the air around them. "No retreating!" she barked.
A talon cracked against the floorboards, and Captain Golbez stepped forward. "The only things I be defendin' are me life, me honor, me goddess and me crew."
The batpony clicked her tongue saucily against the roof of her mouth. "I've heard of you. Thought you died in a skirmish weeks ago. What honor? Coward."
"Those are fighting words," Belinda growled, drawing two scimitars and standing on her hind legs, using her wings for balance. "We can take however many of you."
"Lass?" Golbez growled at Shinespark. "That be a fancy sword strapped to yer' side. I hope ye know how to use it. Sarosians! On Cap'n Golbez the Black's dyin' day, have at ye!"
Gerardo's sword was in front of Shinespark's face almost as quickly as a batpony was, held in her sapphire aura. She had forgotten about that! The flier didn't think much of it, anticipating her swing and darting to the side to intercept with his shield and thrust with his javelin, using the block to create an opening for two more. He didn't expect the sword to cut through his shield like it was made of air.
Silently, the telekinetic blade swished through the three batponies, and the clatter of dropped weaponry rang out on the deck an instant later. But... they kept flying, wings beating as their legs dangled and their eyes went unfocused. In no hurry, they landed on the deck, then just sat there, staring at the floor in silence.
Shinespark didn't have time to question it. That wasn't what the blade was supposed to do, but it was still effective and she had a battle to fight. Sarosians were everywhere, and the ally most in need was... Grenada! Telekinetically, she grasped the fallen armaments as she ran, hurling them as projectiles and swinging the sword ahead of her.
"Bananas," Valey said for the billionth time that night. "Is this some kind of crazy pirate mothership, or something? Come on, just... give me my bags? I really don't want to fight that!"
All the stallions had left the skiff, leaving only the mares remaining: presumably, the only ones that could understand her. She raised an eyebrow at them. "Well?"
Every mare who could was still bowing, trembling. "W-Who are you?" one managed in a shaking voice. "You come with invincible skill, claim authority over the Night Mother's sacred treasures, y-yet don't hail our night!"
"What are my options, here?" Valey tapped a hoof; the ship engagement was getting closer. "Like, maybe I'm just really cool? Or maybe I'm some kinda something from the moon here to blow you all up for being naughty?"
The mares fidgeted heavily, and again one managed to speak up. "P-Please don't make fun..."
"Major cultural barrier, here," Valey sighed. "I'm a lazy banana-eating fruit thrower with a butt brand from the moon that lets me see the future to know when you bums are going to attack me. Believe it or not. I want my bags and my Nightmare Module."
All the mares hissed. "You've been blessed by the Night Mother..."
Valey frowned. "Yeah, yeah, cool! Listen, if you don't have my bags, where would the one idiot who stole them be? On there? Because that's a really nasty-looking ship, and if I have to beat up that many dudes, I'm probably gonna have to hibernate to get a long enough nap after that."
The mares all went back to bowing, and none of them wanted to speak.
"In there?" Valey frowned, repeating herself, and pointed a hoof at the frigate, its masts towering like an angry set of claws.
Still only trembling. Valey hopped down into the skiff, picked out the cutest of the pirates, and grabbed her by the shoulders, lifting her so they were face to face, eyes almost touching. "Listen up," she whispered to the terrified mare, then repeated it louder for everyone to hear. "You all are, like, higher-ranking than grunts or something, right? You." She tapped the nose of the one she held. "Once we get on that huge boat, you're gonna lead me to whoever the head honcho is. Be my navigator and translator and stuff. The rest of you are gonna follow us around and be my muscle. Anyone says I can't go somewhere, you all eee at them and tell them I'll bust them up, since I'd rather talk stuff out than fight stuff. And then I'm gonna get the honcho to do a shakedown of the whole ship and give me my bags. You're all spooked enough of me to do anything I say, yeah?"
There was a lot of swallowing, nodding, and soft eeeing. The mare Valey held looked at her with something approaching wonder.
"Yeah, you're cute too." Valey patted her on the head, not thinking about how long it had probably been since her purple mane had been properly cared for, and set her back on her hooves. Her cutie mark was tingling, but not enough for someone in the boat to have an attack trained on her. "Now let's get this thing moving! I wanna be in and out as fast as I can, and then sleep sleep sleeeeep..."
Ch-tinnngg!
With a ring of metal against metal, Belinda parried a final swing and sliced back, finishing the last of her opponents. She wiped her sword clean and stood, turning to the others.
"Arrr..." Golbez stared down the length of his soiled blade. "It seems we be in for a break between waves. Rest yerselves while ye can. I intend to take as many down with us as fate permits."
Shinespark stood up from her own work, Grenada, Howe and Neon Nova behind her. The former two had barely been able to win one-on-ones without help, but Neon had some sort of magical flash attack that the batponies all seemed scared of. Except the ones that had been hit with her sword, at least.
All around the deck, batponies had landed, showing no outward signs of distress aside from looks that were either generally miserable or frowns of concentration. They did move; one was pacing as if walking could save his life. Another coughed; in the dim light, it looked like a few flakes of something drifted from his mouth.
"What the...?" She curiously regarded the blade, its surface clean and black and unblemished. Why was it working different on the ponies here than in Ironridge? Was it because they were batponies, and not regular ones? The ones she had hit looked in all different states, too. Some seemed not sad or weak at all, only not caring to go on with their fight.
"If you want to live, move!" Belinda snarled, shoving her out of her reverie. "More are coming, but look down there! It's safe on that bridge!"
Shinespark blinked. Puddles was almost to the frigate, and as batponies dove toward her icy bridge, spikes shot up from it that forced them to dodge and wheel away. The bridge itself was a living construct, its staircase head seeming to beckon them to follow.
"I... think I shall take my chances with the magic of mythos over the armies of eternal eeeing!" Howe declared, being the first to dash for the staircase. "Wow! It's not slippery!"
He successfully entered, and everyone else looked at each other. Another flock was on their way...
"...We stick with Puddles," Shinespark decided, fully aware that the sarosians could outfly her if she tried to break for shore. "Grenada!"
"Coming!"
The rest of the pirates charged too, reaching the safety of the icy staircase just as the next wave struck.
The ice bridge flickered around Shinespark as she flew, not trusting her hooves on its slippery surface. Its magical connection to Puddles far ahead still empowered it, and the batpony army gave it a careful berth, well aware that its cruelly-shaped railings could knife out and stab them if they drew close. "Hold on, Grenada," she whispered as she flew, holding the unicorn against her with her telekinesis and a hoof. "I wish we had left when we could, but we didn't. Now we're taking our chances with a madmare, because that's better than no chance at all."
Behind her, Belinda flapped, lithe and powerful and bearing plentiful signs of day-old injury. Golbez trailed her, still swift despite his age and the battle, and Howe brought up the rear, lugging Neon Nova along and panting in exertion. Nobody actually stepped on the bridge besides Puddles.
Grenada shivered, the cold from the bridge radiating upward hard enough to chill even Shinespark through her insulated armor. "I'm s-sorry..."
"For nothing," Shinespark insisted, Gerardo's sword at the ready. "I wasn't ready for Braen's last action to be disappearing on her ponies, and I'm not ready for it to be losing to a bunch of pirates, either. We are getting out of here."
Valey stood at the prow of the skiff, watching as the ship battle drew closer. Now that she was this near, it was readily apparent that the smaller vessel was some sort of merchant ship, loosely-organized patrols of pirates guarding the skies but most working to haul cargo off it and back to the frigate. She frowned. They could have taken the whole ship... Was it a batpony policy to always spare the ship and crew?
A mare eee'd softly at her side, peeking conspiratorially over the boat rim.
"Yeah, yeah." Valey nodded absentmindedly, eyeing the various doors and battlements along the frigate's side. "So, uhh... how do we get in? Just fly? Or do you guys have a loading bay for these things?"
"Winches, yo," the smaller, purple-maned mare she had chosen as her translator and spokespony replied, pointing a scruffy hoof at a set of small cranes along the ship's edge. It looked like there was room for four ships alone on this side, though Valey didn't see... No, there were two there, just carefully wrapped and covered.
They continued advancing, and one of the circling patrols quickly spotted them and swooped down to investigate. With four sets of thuds, a mare and three stallions landed, all tilting their heads. The mare asked something in sarosian.
At the skiff crew's response, the patrol mare paled, though her stallions looked excited. "Is this true?" she managed, glaring at Valey with a mixture of fear, distrust and reverence.
"Is what true? That I kicked their rears?" Valey winked. "Yeah, pretty. Seen anyone fly in here recently with some filly-sized saddlebags? They're mine, and I want 'em back."
More sarosian muttering. The patrol mare stiffened, gritted her teeth, and saluted, flying off back to the boat.
"Sweet. Got our clearance to board," the small mare announced, grinning hopefully at Valey. A piece of lettuce was stuck in her teeth.
"Yeah, uhh... cool. Let's do that, then?" Valey shrugged, very much aware that she had no idea what she was doing.
The ice bridge started to fracture. One sea wave struck it, and then another, and from cumulative pounding damage the ice cracked and separated, Puddles' magic no longer holding it together.
"Looks like she made an entrance!" Shinespark shouted back to Golbez's crew, eyes focused on a rough hole in the hull at the surviving end of the bridge. It was just a little further... but now that the ice had lost its connection, it was no longer empowered, and the flocking sarosians were quickly realizing it had ceased trying to repel them.
"Shreee-eee-eee!" Most of the airborne ones were checking out the floating airship gondola, but at least five dove for Shinespark and her allies the moment one touched the ice and realized it was safe. Shinespark drew Gerardo's sword in a flash, shifting Grenada entirely to her hooves so she could focus her telekinesis on the blade, meeting the two that came for her head-on and cleaving their weapons in half as they swung. The black tip clipped their unkempt chests, leaving both stallions hovering in surprise, looking too glum to continue fighting.
The next two went for Howe, actually smart enough to leave the battle-weathered griffons and powerful unicorns alone. Flash! They were met with a dazzling gleam from Neon Nova's smile, causing both to screech and fall behind long enough for Howe to pull ahead. "Haha!" the pegasus gloated. "Behold our ancestral might, knaves!"
Shinespark blinked. Wasn't there a fifth...!?
T-Thwing! Two arrows zipped past her close together with a rush of wind, leaving a flurry of golden movement in the corner of her eye. Shinespark flipped around to see Belinda dart in front of Golbez, catching the first arrow expertly in a talon... and the second cleanly in her shoulder. "SCRAWWWWW!"
With a flash of her horn, Shinespark let out a wall of random, chaotic telekinetic force in a bubble around herself. Several more arrows tore toward her, but the magic was harsher on their aim than gale-force winds, and every one of them went astray.
The patrol leader frowned, holding a curved bow bigger than she was and hovering in place. She had backup by now, four more batponies with various archery contraptions of their own. It looked like they had wizened up about coming in range of her sword.
"Nnngh... I was not ready for this..." Grenada clung tighter to her armor, eyes closed against the chaos and dark. "There is nothing I can do, here, Shinespark! I d-do not want to be dead weight..."
"We'll talk about it... later!" Shinespark grunted, adjusting her height midair to let her field cover as many of her flagging allies as possible. She couldn't actually put them inside without the winds affecting their flight, though, and the sarosians started to circle around for a better sniping angle. But Puddles' entrance was rapidly closing...
FLASH! A giant ice sculpture of a crocodile burst out of the water and lunged straight up, its frozen maw causing the archers to scatter and buying the pirates the last few seconds they needed to follow Shinespark to the entrance. There, in a square hole in the hull near the waterline that looked like it had been carved out with a giant sword, was Puddles, tapping a frost-covered hoof against the floorboards and looking on in impatience.
"Is my audience coming, or what?" she demanded as they tumbled in a heap through the door, sealing it with a thick iceberg and surveying everyone on the floor. "You'd think cute little Puddles would have to foalsit less. Oh well. Pirates!" She casually swiped Golbez's hat, dropping it on her own fuzzy head. "Follow Puddllles!~"
With a grinding of winches, two metal cables lifted the skiff from its prow and stern, hauling it out of the water and up to the frigate. It was devoid of ponies, all the mares either hovering or having been carried if they couldn't fly on their own.
Valey raised an eyebrow as she landed on the deck, following her purple-maned host's lead and deciding not to speak. As long as she kept her mouth shut and didn't reveal that she didn't know their squeaky eee language, nobody seemed inclined to believe she didn't belong there. Talking was what tipped her off to the pirates before, at least...
Several more mares wandered over from elsewhere on the ship and started a harsh conversation with Valey's mares, but hers moved as a group and quickly made the others shrug and give up. Purple-mane swaggered over and gave Valey a tap on the shoulder.
"You need a name," Valey muttered under her breath as she was nudged toward a nearby entrance, decorated with eerie wooden trim. "Think I'm gonna call you Grapejuice."
"Sick," Grapejuice muttered back, trying and somehow succeeding to put a casual wing over Valey's back even though she stood quite a few inches shorter. "I love it."
Valey blinked and rolled with it, walking where the small mare guided her with the rest of the posse split up between the front and back, only the most wounded staying behind. The room was long and narrow, spanning the width of the ship and having multiple exits to the deck, heavy racks of weapons covering the walls between them. An array of thick wooden tables were stacked against the far wall, and at least three staircases left the room, two downwards on the sides and one going up from the middle. Valey raised an eyebrow at the middle one, figuring it was the way to go.
"Nah, babe." Grapejuice patted her with her tail. "That one goes up to the stupid bridge. Nothing but controls and navigators up there. Important stuff's what you get below, if you know what I mean."
"Bananas, you're touchy-feely," Valey whispered back. "Aren't you clowns all supposed to be terrified of me, or something?"
"You betcha." Grapejuice winked. "But how many times can you say you've been offed by a demigoddess? This girl's going out with no regrets!"
Valey stared at her, then at all the other mares, most of whom were watching the interaction in fright. Well, she had chosen the one she thought was cutest, so this one must have stood out for a reason... "Yeah, fine, whatever. Look, I'm not usually in the business of-"
A mare came rolling down the central staircase, eyes wide and lifeless, looking like she had been ran completely through. Everyone froze.
"Eeeee!" One mare barked a command, and another jumped for a switch on the wall. Flick! Flick! Flick! They toggled it rapidly, but nothing happened, the other ponies who were using the room as an armory growing alarmed as well.
"Uhh." Grapejuice nudged Valey, clinging a little closer to her. "That's supposed to be the emergency alarm for intruders and other idiots. In case you were wondering. Looks like it's busted!"
"Alright," Valey ducked her way out from under the wing, cracking her forelegs and stretching. Her cutie mark was tingling, but she thought that was just being on the ship... "Dumping corpses down stairways isn't the norm for a place like this, I take it?"
All the mares blinked at her, and there were a few slowly-shaken heads. "Some chick that high up the food chain?" Grapejuice shrugged. "Nah, not really."
Valey sighed, then growled. "High-ranking, huh? And that's the way to the bridge? Look, if your stupid command structure gets decapitated right when I'm trying to search this ship and get my saddlebags back, I'm gonna be ticked. You all can do whatever. I'm off to clean some clocks."
She dashed toward the stairs, jumped the corpse, and flapped her way up, checking over her shoulder to see that at least five mares including Grapejuice were following. Good.
"Eeeee, or something!" Valey yelled, flipping onto her hooves as she landed in the next room... only to find herself with no one to talk to. It was square and filled with round tables, and the few ponies who were there - mostly stallions - sat slumped in their seats, unmoving.
Another staircase, this one switchback, went further up at the opposite side, and Valey sniffed, glaring down at a freshly-laid trail of blood from that one to the one she had entered by. The dead mare must have dragged herself down this way before croaking, somehow... Her eyes turned up to the far stairs again as her cohort assembled behind her, the vast majority of the mares eventually catching up and still there.
"No alarms, lots of dead dudes..." Valey frowned harder. There had been another ship, right? Looked like a merchant ship. Probably a standard pirate robbery. There had also been whatever was burning in the sky, which hopefully wasn't an airship but very well might have been. Cannon fire. She thought she had seen one more mass floating in the water. "You guys picked on some ship that could fight back, didn't you?"
"Alarm's not working, yo," Grapejuice murmured nervously, starting to get clingy again. "If you wanna use your invincible powers to get us outta here, dibs on coming first..."
"Not without my saddlebags," Valey growled, picking up her pace again, Grapejuice this time dragging herself along with her. "And everything in them! And I don't like this at all!"
Grapejuice hopped as Valey tried to take the next staircase, somehow climbing onto her back and sitting there like a proud, anxious rider. "Take a bath before you do that!" Valey hissed, but she was light as a feather and not worth the effort of shaking off for now.
The next room was equally empty, though looked far more official. As long as the previous two put together, it sat directly over them, a row of windows on the far end looking back out to the deck. In the middle was a lone staircase that turned around again, and another mare lay collapsed on her way from there to the rest of the ship, still bleeding out. Frowning, Valey briefly stopped to inspect her... Claw marks. She had been slashed, then pierced, by something very sharp.
She glanced at the staircase, the ceiling of the room beyond illuminated by flickering manalight that matched what she knew about terminal displays. Danger radiated down from it; something strong was up there.
"Would you please get off?" Valey whispered, checking the windows first. They provided a good sight of the happenings on the rest of the ship, and she could see quite a few batponies milling about on the deck. Their air presence looked like it had decreased significantly, and she thought there was a note of panic to the motions...
"Sorry, girl." Grapejuice shrugged, still large enough that her hindquarters dangled freely despite her best efforts to fit on Valey's back. "Nothing doing."
"Uh huh." Valey shadow snuck, trying to ditch her... but she snuck too, and was still there when she got back up. "Yeah, look, being able to dodge anything doesn't really work when some urchin is grappling me. You want me to save your butt, let me do my thing. That's, like... a divine decree, or whatever I get to do here."
That worked. Grapejuice slid off, giving an ears-folded glance that was somewhere between apologetic and satisfied. No regrets, she said. Right...
"Cool. Still stay right behind me." Valey nodded at her, then started up the final staircase.
She had guessed right about the terminals. Above a circular array of windows winging the room was an angled ring of screen panels, all connected to camera feeds from elsewhere in the ship. Several showed no commotion, several showed scrambling batponies, and a few showed only refracted, teal-tinted light, like their lenses had been cracked.
Below the windows was a ring of control panels, and those had seats, all unattended. Each one had a mare laying beneath it, shivering and bound with their eyes squeezed shut. The only seat that was occupied was the grandest, facing forward with its back to the staircase, and a rhythmic clicking came from the controls in front of it.
"Veto this alarm... veto that alarm... Heeheehee..." Click. Click. Click.
Valey cleared her throat, really hoping the occupant wasn't who she thought it was.
Slowly, the chair swung around, until there was a sudden drawing of breath and a flashing of teeth. "Well well well! Valey, right? I remember you! Who knew you were a pirate?"
"Oh bananas." Valey swallowed, eyeing the sphinx in the commander's chair. "It's you again."
"It's me again?" High Prince Gazelle grinned, showing off his fangs and leaning forward. He sat cockily with one forelimb on an armrest and his tail dangling out to the side, slowly flexing his four claws in a wavelike motion. "Huh! That's what I was about to say!"
In a flash of acrobatics, he leapt from the chair, vaulting high along the ceiling and slamming down with catlike silence a good circling distance from Valey. "I'm just being my usual self. Nnngh... Good sport out here!" He stretched and arched his back. "Nothing like cleaning out the biggest mob of pirates in the name of a little fun and exercise... and who will miss them? You had no qualms with it when you were my audience before. The real question is, what are you doing here?"
Gazelle slithered, suddenly placing himself between Valey and the room's sole exit. "Gotten so fed up with the Empire's games that you've decided to say screw it all and join with their anathema? They deserve it, you know. There's a lot of things I don't care for about the way this continent works. Maybe an enemy like you would lick them into shape." He gave an agonized, toothy grimace. "Or maybe you'd sit down in the middle of a hallway, punch out a light and use it to cook dinner. Come on, you could have taken them! I wanted to see it!"
His too-wide smile returned. "But there's no such thing as diplomacy with pirates. You're here to fight. Against me, or against them? Either way, this is shaping up to be the most fun I've had all day!"
"Uhhh." Valey gave him a flat stare. "I really, really don't want to fight you."
"So you're with me! Excellent!" Gazelle was suddenly at her side, one paw on her back and the other sweeping around at the control room like it was a magnificent vista. "I was hoping you'd say that! Actually, I was hoping you'd do anything but be clever and try for a silly third answer that avoids my question, but excellent! Here! Come have a look-see at what I found."
Valey felt herself pushed eagerly over to the leader's chair, silently screaming for her pirate mare cohort to get out of there. This was suddenly out of control, though it was her fault for chasing obvious danger... but still, Gazelle! The Empire's High Prince, next in line to take over whatever house went extinct next, and probably Izvaldi. Wielder of no political power whatsoever, and self-described as being crafty enough that it didn't matter. A more-ruthless copy of herself from Ironridge, fighting anything for sport and bound by no rules and infinite self-assurance, only holding sway over an entire continent with the backing of imperial sanction rather than a single city and a militia. Also certifiably insane.
"You've been in Izvaldi, haven't you?" Gazelle eagerly cooed, plopping her in the chair and swiveling her to face a bank of terminal screens. "My future stomping grounds. Very picturesque! And home to so much intrigue, too. A nosy, determined soul like you probably dug up a lot on your own already. And now look! Look familiar?"
He stretched out one claw and impaled a key on a keyboard designed for bat wings, and one screen flashed and changed. A surveillance camera feed came on, focusing on a hallway completely coated with frost down which two squads of batponies rushed. A chartreuse mare with a pink-and-teal mane stood on two hooves to face them, clutching a long spear of ice and wielding it like a quarterstaff. With icy spins and vicious long-range lashes, she deflected every projectile they had to fire, advancing at a slow, menacing pace and grinning gleefully. The reinforcements either backed up or fell, clubbed and clobbered by her spins, and soon the hallway was clear.
"Bananas." Valey blinked, staring harder at the screen. "She's here? Oh, come on! That's, uhh..."
Gazelle curled his lower lip in a sad kitten pout. "Not a friend of yours?"
Suddenly, Puddles sagged against one of the frozen walls, clutching her stomach and shivering. Valey blinked harder and frowned... and then her eyes widened at the posse who dashed around a corner to check on her. There were the pirates from the tavern, complete with Howe... Neon Nova too. Figured. And Shinespark! And Grenada? Valey blinked harder. Wasn't she dead? Regardless...
"Oh, you recognize them too!" Gazelle grinned, watching her expression. "I never forget a challenge of rivalry. Those griffons built up a whole new crew, just to fight me again! Brought some serious firepower, too. They're the ones you watched me annihilate that one time."
"Uh huh," Valey agreed, realizing Gazelle didn't know she knew the others and determined to keep it that way. "So, uhh... what, you want me to beat them up for you, or something? Sorry, but that stupid ice mare might be just a little out of my league..."
Gazelle snorted. "Oh, pfft. Beat ponies up? I mean... yes! But why take the best first? There's a whole ship full of piddly pirates right here for the taking! Unless you want a full audience alive for the epic confrontation..." He gasped, eyes shining. "Brilliant plan! Let's do that!"
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head. "Look, I just said-"
"Oh, it's fine," Gazelle huffed. "We can take Puddles. And if not, that's why I brought backup!"
Valey's eyes widened. "Wait, you know who she is? And... backup? I mean, you knew she'd be here? Wait..."
"Know who she is? Please." Gazelle shook his mane, grinning to himself. "I know everything that happens in this Empire. It's practically my job."
Valey winced at the uncomfortably-familiar mantra. A bigger, badder, more extreme version of herself...
"And yes! Backup!" Gazelle clapped her on the back. "No, I didn't know she'd be here, but what fun is there in hunting pirates by oneself? Always take a second! Say hello, err..." He glanced around the room and blinked. "Huh. That's funny. Now where'd she go?"
"Who?" Valey frowned.
"Oh, you'll find out. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise." Gazelle blew on his bangs, then scooped her back out of the commander's seat and plopped himself in again. He frowned briefly at the key he had just ruined, then started clicking away. "Let's see, security systems... Technology is wonderful. Sometimes. Not as wonderful as you or me. So many of these cameras are covered in ice!" He banged the control board with a clenched paw. "One moment, please. I hear eeeing coming from down that staircase. Such a silly language. You'd think they'd be the absolute best if only they'd stop committing heresy all the time..." He coiled around and grinned in Valey's face. "I really like sarosians sometimes."
Valey blinked. "Uhhh. Yeah, sorry, but even if you were a mare, you'd need to chill by about ten degrees before you were even close to my type."
Gazelle snorted and patted her on the head. "Not like that, you silly little pony. And I should say it's a good thing I'm not a mare! Otherwise I'd be in line for my precious sister's imperial throne..." He made a kissy face, then pushed her away. "Go on. Go entertain yourself on whoever's sneaking up on us. I want to find my backup and relax to this sweet, icy chaos!"
Valey didn't need to be asked twice. Swooosh! With a single jump, she flapped her wings and soared to the staircase, dropping down it and braking to a stop in the middle of the mess of breathless, worried mares she had acquired as an entourage.
"Yo," Grapejuice greeted, keeping her voice low and sucking on a tube of something. "Sounded like it was legit up there."
"...Not my first choice of words, but sure. Whatever." Valey shrugged, then looked anxiously at the stairway further down. "So basically, your ship is doomed."
The moment the frosty hallway was clear, Puddles dropped, sagging against a wall and pushing a hoof tightly into her stomach. "Ooooogh... Poor Puddles..."
"Hey, uhhh..." Howe galloped up to her and gave her a brow-furrowed glance. "Has a fell curse befallen you? One feller than you are? Because we are in the middle of a ship of dread pirates, and kind of followed you because it looked like the safest place around..."
Shinespark frowned, standing with her sword drawn and Grenada at her side. Puddles glared back up at them, still holding herself and shivering. "Do you know what Puddles just ate? You'd have a bellyache if you were trying to metabolize one of these, too. Leave Puddles alone!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't have eaten it!" Belinda growled, standing on three legs, her shoulder heavily bandaged with a strip torn from Neon Nova's coat. "You think?"
"No." Puddles stuck her tongue out, rocking woozily. "It was important for Puddles' plan. I would have stolen the one in your other ship if I hadn't found this one."
"How did you know about that?" Shinespark narrowed her eyes.
"Because Puddles is smart." Puddles ignored her, getting back to her hooves, raising her nose and sniffing. "We go... this way! Cute armored unicorn takes point and cute unarmored unicorn carries Puddles on her back."
Shinespark and Grenada both blanched. "What?"
Puddles curled her lip. "Fine. Cute armored unicorn carries Puddles and ugly stallions take point."
"Sorry, lass," Golbez sighed, glancing at the cleared room they had just come through. "But this be yer' crusade, not ours. When there be forces in this world what could wipe me entire crew with a single blade, I have no intention of fightin' sarosians by meself for the sole purpose of fightin' sarosians. We be stickin' with ye because ye be keepin' us safe, and that be all there is to it. Press on when ye want to press on. We leave no sooner."
Puddles sniffed, looking like she wanted to cry, and then rolled to her hooves anyway, pressing on down the frosty hallway. "Puddles' belly hurts and it's all your fault!" she tearfully declared, nevertheless striking up a limp pace further into the bowels of the ship.
"...Arr." Golbez gave her a look, then got up himself and moved to follow. "That thing she ate really was as big of a deal as ye made it out to be, wasn't it? More than some petty crystal trinket."
"A windigo heart!" Howe snapped to attention, eager to ramble as the procession continued. "Dead, crystallized power from the ancient beasts of yore, fought for and retrieved by my very own ancestor! Demon-slaying blood flows through my veins! Uuugh! So much power!"
Belinda hissed in pain, trying to keep pace. "A lot of good that's doing you against a real, live one!"
Neon Nova winced apologetically. "Yeah, we might have a little coming into our own still to do to fill the horseshoes our ancestors left us. But don't you fear, now! It'll happen sooner than you'll believe!"
"Given what I believe is never..." Belinda rolled her eyes.
"Maybe instead of worrying about attacking those who might be on our side, we should worry about surviving those who definitely aren't?" Grenada looked jumpy, sticking near Shinespark's side. "We are on a ship full of hostile pirates! I-I have a very good reason to get out of here with my life intact."
Golbez bowed his head. "Don't we all, lass. But remember, ye don't exactly be havin' a normal life to return to, now that ye be an outcast of Garsheeva. Once having turned yer' back on her ways, there be no-"
"Uh-oh!" Puddles yelped, rounding a corner. "Piratey ponpons!"
She clapped her forehooves together, then slammed a burst of icy energy into the ground, Shinespark dashing up to her side with her sword at the ready. A patrol of eight batponies stared wide-eyed at the approaching wave, but it washed over them, causing uncontrollable shivering and nothing else.
"Uhhh..." Puddles shoved Shinespark's side. "Stabby them, cute unicorn! Puddles did her best!"
Shinespark blinked, then her horn flashed, throwing the sword like a boomerang. She had almost no control over its path, but it still passed through most of the batponies, and with a jet of light she soared over their heads to grab it where it fell. Two unscathed sarosians broke away and lunged, and she quickly clipped them, too.
"Thank youuuurrgh." Puddles staggered forward, leaning against another wall right in front of a mare that was now staring dejectedly at the ground. She sniffed their face. "Bleh. Sad ponies are cute but your breath stinks! No nuzzles from Puddles."
"You all realize what situation we're in, right?" Shinespark asked, pushing back through the crowd and ignoring Puddles. "She can't fight. Whatever eating that did to her, it's clearly not helping. And fortunately, I have this sword, but... it's us alone against this entire ship, and in normal circumstances we wouldn't even be allies. They have too much air support for us to ever get out of here the normal way. I think what we're going to have to do is find somewhere to hide where there's food and we can wait out a siege, take some of these sad batponies, and blackmail them into helping us sneak away."
She glanced at the sarosians, raising an eyebrow and watching for a reaction. They were all varying degrees of mopey, and one of the worst-off ones coughed, a few gray flakes drifting from his muzzle and evaporating the moment they hit the floor.
"Go that way," Puddles moaned, pointing a hoof. "And cute unicorn carry Puddles..."
All the pirates looked at her, Golbez apparently willing to let Shinespark take the lead. She raised an eyebrow back at him, and he shrugged. "Yer' the one with the best chance fightin' these things, lass. I be all for livin' if there be a possibility of it."
Sighing, Shinespark picked up Puddles and levitated her onto her back. Even through her insulated armor, the mare was cold, and she was glad she had her mane to separate her from the back of her head. "There you go..." she consoled, making sure Puddles was balanced. "You're not in charge any more. I am. Deal?"
Puddles shivered and burrowed into her armor. "This makes you not fuzzy..."
"No, it doesn't," Shinespark said, suddenly coming to a realization: if Puddles was this weakened, she could catch her. All she needed was to take the sword and run her through... and her horn tingled for a full second before common sense put it down. They needed Puddles to help get them out, if she could help at all, and more importantly with the sword seemingly working different against batponies, she wasn't eager to see what it would do to a windigo.
"Puddles?" Shinespark flicked her ears back. "I'll ask one more time: where's Valey?"
"H-Huh? Cute Valey?" Puddles moaned. "She ran away. Flew back to your ship... You just missed her. Heehee..."
Shinespark groaned, then glared back at the pirates. "We have to get out of here."
"Ye don't say, lass." Golbez gave her a deadpan stare.
"Puddles knows a good way to go! It's up that way..."
Grenada gave Puddles a fearful glance. "I have no better ideas..."
"Puddles..." Shinespark sighed. "Fine. We're going. And if you're still chasing your own agenda when you need to be carried, I have no idea what you're even after."
"Heee..." Puddles giggled limply as Shinespark set off, taking point with her sword drawn. She nuzzled weakly into Shinespark's mane. "Hey cute unicorn... Can Puddles tell you a secret?"
Shinespark felt her back fur raising beneath her armor. Those were not words she wanted to hear from a magical enemy mare who was riding on her back, and she desperately wished she had Valey's cutie mark. "What?" she hissed, ears going stiffly backwards.
Puddles inched forward so that her frosty breath was blowing in Shinespark's ears, her voice the barest of whispers. "There are security cameras everywhere," she breathed. "But no alarms going off and only a few tiny patrols! That means the strongest thing in here is watching us and thinks it's playing with us instead of trying to get rid of poor Puddles. That's why Puddles is pretending to be in trouble. My tummy hurts really bad, but my magic is actually super strong right now. Heehee! Keep it a secret!"
Shinespark stiffened, but kept up her pace. Of course a windigo would be crafty and do a thing like that. The question was, was Puddles being honest about her dishonesty, or trying to manipulate her as well? "What are you looking for?" she whispered back. "Where are we going?"
"Oh, you'll find out." Puddles nuzzled one of her ears. "Right now! This door. Open it for Puddles!"
"This place?" Howe stopped and raised an eyebrow at a slightly-larger door, their corridor breaking out into a wider one. "This is marked as the brig! Where prisoners are kept! Oh-ho!"
"Wait..." Shinespark furrowed her brow at what she realized was a door sign, written in runes that must have been sarosian. "You can read that?"
Howe curtsied. "All part of my occupation."
"Prisoners?" Belinda looked suspicious. "What, are you hoping to release everyone and start a war in the middle of their ship?"
Puddles giggled. "Oooh, we should do that too. Good idea! Heehee. But go inside! You'll find out."
The door's lock was no match for the lockpick the side of Neon Nova's shades doubled as, and he had it open before anyone could even try to smash it. With a creak, the door swung open...
The door to the ship's dungeon swung open, and any traces of a murmur on the other side instantly dulled to a scared silence.
Shinespark blinked. Row upon row of cages lined both walls, stacked two high, with wooden floor separators and walls and no balconies, clearly designed for fliers. Each had iron gratings and a light in the roof to prevent shadow sneaking, but the pirates needn't have worried about that: the occupants were almost universally unicorns, all muscular and with a cowed, once-proud demeanor that suggested they had once been soldiers. They were packed four or five to a cage, and beside her Grenada instantly wrinkled her nose at the smell.
"Eee?" Five guards, one of whom wore spiked armor that looked more for intimidation than purpose, looked up from a table in an alcove by the door. Shinespark frowned.
The battle was over in a flash, Shinespark barely even needing to lift her sword as Neon Nova dazzled them and Golbez took advantage of the distraction to fell them like a whirlwind. The captive unicorns' eyes widened, and they rustled in their cages with interest. "Please..." one of the closest ones called in a daring whisper. "Hey, you! You're not batponies! Are you here to rescue us?"
"Are we?" Shinespark tilted her head and trotted up to his cage, Puddles still balanced on her back. "Who are you, and how long have you been here?"
Puddles kicked her flank. "Cute unicorn, no getting distracted! Puddles says go further in!"
The stallion in the cage ignored her. "We're Varsidelian soldiers! Please, you have to help us! We used to staff trade airships between Varsidel and the Griffon Empire so our ships could sail straight into the war zones with supplies, but the Stormhoof province betrayed us and confiscated our ships with imperial sanction! We tried sailing to get back home, but were overran and no match for this many batponies!"
Shinespark blinked at him, then at her pirate allies. "Could... you all hold on for just a minute? If you're against the batponies, we're here to help you, but I want to fully scout out this room first."
There wasn't anything he could do to stop her, so he nodded and she moved on. "Heee..." Puddles breathed in her ear. "Good idea, cute unicorn! We should free them too! Then we'll have to take over the whole ship, because they can't fly out and you won't leave them behind, right?" She took a deep breath, nose sniffing. "Oh, and our target is right over there!"
Shinespark reached the end of the room, a single door opening into another, smaller room with bigger and more luxurious cages. Most were dim and empty, but when she reached the one at the end... "...You?"
A lime-green mare looking more dejected than the sarosians hit with her sword sat slumped over a tiny, tearstained table, the unbrushed remains of a stylistic endeavor in her mane where it had once been tied in a bow. Shinespark's eyes traced their way down her flank to her cutie mark: once musical, it was cracked like a dinner plate, spiderwebbed and barely still held together at the center, as if the image could shatter from so much as a careless touch.
Without even thinking, Shinespark lit her horn and swung her sword, effortlessly lopping off the iron grating and stepping through the hole she had made. "I remember you!" she breathed, eyes widening, trotting quickly to the mare's side. "You're one of the Firefly Sisters! The one who disappeared! How...? What are you doing...?" She glanced up at Puddles. "How in Ironridge did you know she was here?"
"I cheated," Puddles sang contentedly. "Not telling."
Melia flicked her ears, then looked up, her eye liner a ghastly, ruinous mask. "Huh?"
"You!" Shinespark almost grabbed her shoulders, then remembered that armored hooves might not be the most comforting. She gave a hopeful grin instead. "Need a way out?"
Melia's golden eyes registered Puddles and constricted, and a hiss of fear built in her throat that clashed with her previous despair. "Morena's daughter...!"
"Hee! Calm down, cute unicorns. Puddles has this." Puddles slipped off Shinespark's back, landing with a confident swagger, and walked straight up to Melia and kissed her on the lips. Melia's eyes bulged.
"Hey, don't-!" Shinespark futilely reached with a hoof.
"Heehee." Puddles blushed. "Sorry about the cold. Puddles ate a super-evil magical artifact and is still trying to metabolize it. Want a rescuuue?"
Melia shifted backward an inch, stupefied, as Puddles went at her makeup-stained cheek with a friendly nuzzle. "Well? Want one?"
"Puddles, what is...?" Shinespark shook her head and coughed. "What's going on, here?"
Puddles stuck her tongue out, swinging a casual foreleg over the stunned Melia's shoulder. "Meh. Puddles already told you. She's a harmonic life-form now. That means she can act however she wants, even seeing if it's fun to be the good guy. Did she?" She tilted her head. "Maybe I told cute Valey instead. Huh. Whoopsie! Cute unicorn, help Puddles cheer up the other unicorn with cuddles!"
"You..." Shinespark blinked. "Wanted an audience, so you captured Valey and lied to bait me along... to watch you rescue her?" It finally clicked in her mind that Melia had vanished before Puddles broke free; all of the prior happenings in Izvaldi were muddled in her brain, especially since she hadn't been there for the introduction and had to guess what everything was. "I don't believe it. I..."
"Oh, you better believe it." Puddles' voice deepened. "Because this is the halfway point, Shinespark. We saved the girl. Now we get to make our way out. Ready to rumble?"
"I..." Shinespark waved a hoof. "One moment."
Puddles' voice returned to normal. "Hmmph. Fine. Hey, singsong unicorn! Cheer up, please! Or Puddles gonna kiss you again!"
That got Melia's attention, though it took until Puddles' lips were within an inch of her own. She squirmed, twisting her head and taking the kiss with her cheek, then blinking and shaking herself, causing her bowtie mane to collapse a little more. "This is a rescue? From... you?"
Puddles booped her nose. "Heehee! Yup! Aren't you proud of good guy Puddles? Hug?"
Melia glanced forlornly down at her flank. "But..."
"No hug?" Puddles looked hurt. "...Chin scratches? Ear rubs?"
"Puddles, not helping." Shinespark stepped forward, taking charge. "Miss Melia! It looks like we're here to rescue you. Will you come with us? I can carry you if you need it, and we can worry about anything involving your career or Izvaldi later!" She gave Puddles a glare telling her she could very much walk on her own.
Melia sighed down at her flank. "...Yes. Take me out. I won't be very good at advocating for myself, right now."
"All the invitation I need." Shinespark's horn lit, and Melia was lifted gently onto her back, shifted to make sure she was properly balanced. "Comfy up there?"
Melia made no response.
"Right. Let's go!" Shinespark beckoned for Puddles to follow, and charged back through the door to the main cage room.
The cages had no doors or locks, designed to be entered through shadow sneaking with a passenger. As Shinespark whizzed her blade through the bars, severing them to create more ways out, she recalled that the door they entered through had been locked, figuring someone else had made this ship for a different purpose and then had it stolen. That must have been a battle worth seeing.
"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" The Varsidelians climbed out of their cages, all taking a moment to stretch and enjoy the increased room to move. "So how did you get here?" one asked. "Do you have a ship? Can it hold all of us? Will you be able to get it away from their harpoons?"
"We'll have to attack and take out the harpoon cannons," another added, growling in thought. "Those were what did us in. There's no sailing away while those things are active."
"Hey, miss! That mare on your back looks in bad straights! Need a hoof with her?"
Shinespark happily passed Melia off to the soldiers, demanding that Puddles walk on her own and Howe and Neon Nova keep an eye on the singer. "No ship," she replied, shaking her head. "Ours got destroyed in the approach. But when we boarded, these batponies were in the process of robbing a large merchant ship. It should still be tethered here. I don't know what their crew will think of this, but if they're missing all their goods, they should have plenty of room to take you!"
Another Varsidelian tapped his hooves in thought. "We haven't been fed well. Less than a quarter of us are in fighting condition, so we'll need to hold the line at a safe area for everyone to rest until we have a route to the other ship! Is here good?"
"Lass." Golbez appeared at Shinespark's side as the discussion broke down into a forest of murmurs. "A word, if ye please?"
"Sure?" Shinespark lifted an ear, following him off to the corner where the sarosian guards had stood.
"Even with a force this big, ye be havin' to do the bulk of the fightin' yerself to clear out a ship this big. Ye might as well be up against infinite reinforcements." Golbez nodded as he spoke. "Now, ye can somehow fly, and between the lot of us I be helpin' Belinda and those other two be seein' to themselves. Catch me drift? Ye've got yer' unicorn lover, and the windigo mare, and now this new pony ye busted out. Ye can somehow fly, but think ye can carry all three of them at once?"
Shinespark reddened. "Grenada is my sister!" she loudly whispered, making sure Grenada was out of earshot.
"Arr." Golbez folded his talons and looked down. "Well, more often than not heresy like that be why otherwise-decent folk turn to a life of piracy. A shame about all this. Ye would have made an honorable addition to me crew."
"N-No!" Shinespark's eyes widened. "She has... Look, that's not important right now. Yes, I can carry three ponies. Where are you going with that?"
Golbez nodded. "Apologies. My mistake for assumin'. Lass? This be quite the military endeavor ye be tryin' to spearhead, gettin' all these Varsidelians out alive. And just think about it: relations between the Empire and Varsidel be a little strained right now. What I be sayin' is that ye've got friends who no longer be welcome in the Empire on account of heresy, and now ye be makin' friends with some ponies the Empire be on poor terms with... Well, unless ye have plans for findin' Garsheeva and talkin' her into forgivin' yer sins, ye might want to think about whether this means yer side be with Varsidel once and for all."
Shinespark swallowed, watching the soldiers. They were industrious, coordinated, looking out for their own weak points and helping one another... Varsidel was a war zone, and her friends had unanimously voted against going there. But with how everything in the Griffon Empire was going...
"I'm not running, if that's what you mean." She straightened up, meeting the griffon's gaze. "Taking just my own acquaintances and flying away. Besides, if these pirates are... as strong as they are..." She trailed off, thinking. "If they're that strong, it would do the entire Empire a favor if they weren't raiding the seas any more. I have no idea how to accomplish that. Even if I incapacitate each and every one of them, I'd have to either convince them or imprison them or do something even worse to keep them from coming back. But... I don't know. If you guys have been up to pirate activities, I need some sort of pardon for Grenada. I won't stand for not having it. And whatever I can do to get in the Empire's good graces could come in handy."
"Arrr." Golbez stood up. "I been tryin' at that by fightin' sarosian pirates for me entire life, lass, and be no closer than when I started. But best of luck to ye in yer' endeavors. Don't lose that optimistic streak of yers. It goes a long way toward providing' motivation in these waters. Now let's see to these soldiers and plot up a plan for kickin' sarosian tail."
"Look! Look! Look!" Gazelle's smile slashed across his face, and he did a tiny dance in the commander's chair as a large screen displayed a security camera feed coming from the brig. "They're freeing the Varsidelians! Glory hogs."
Valey folded her ears, standing at the top of the staircase. "Look, prince dude, I'm, uhh... not really here to watch someone else's fight montage on a big screen. If I nope outta here and get on with my business, will you please stay happy spectating and not come mess with me or anything else?"
Gazelle snapped the chair around to face her fast enough to defy the laws of momentum. "Oh! You're back. The eeeing stopped, but I didn't hear a fight. What went on down there?"
Valey braced herself as Gazelle tensed, and then threw himself into the air, flipping over her head and down the staircase where her entourage was now waiting much more silently. She drew in a sharp breath and dove after him, hitting the floor with a quiet swish.
"Well well." Gazelle straightened up, surveying the empty room with Valey by his side. "No sarosians? You're quick. Quiet. Effective. I knew you had it in you!" He reached a wing out and patted Valey's head... then quick as a flash bit down, yanking one of his feathers in his teeth and pulling it out. Valey had just enough time to see that the tip was covered in metal - a knife disguised as a feather? - before he flung it point-first at the wall, striking a switch and causing the room's lighting to spring to life.
Nearly twenty sarosian mares were ejected from the shadows, all looking like they had recently come off bad in a fight.
"You scared them into submission!" Gazelle proudly ruffled Valey's mane. "But not all the way away, it seems. What a pity. For them." He grimaced. "Seems we have an appetizer. How should we make the most of this? I guard the door while you chase them around? No, they could flee through the window... How about this!?"
Gazelle rushed forward in a feathery charge, scattering the mares and ending with Grapejuice pinned against the ground in his front paws. The mare played dead as Gazelle delicately lifted her in his teeth by the scruff of the neck and carried her proudly back to Valey, like she was a mouse.
"I'm such a bully," Gazelle purred, dropping the mare, slapping her with his tail until she winced and awoke, and then grabbing her around the barrel with his paws again, standing her forcibly upright on her hind legs. "Making an example of the little one. Poor you. You shouldn't have stood out." He gave Valey a searching glance. "...Hmm. That's odd. I've forgotten what I wanted to do with her! Any ideas? We need something that will make their eyes bulge. Remind me, what were the heresies against their goddess...?"
He stroked Grapejuice's chest fluff with a single claw, and Valey shivered. Even though this stupid crew of pirates had attacked her ship and stolen her Nightmare Module and connection to Amber, and even though they were only being nice and loyal to her because she scared them and they thought she was related to their goddess, she still needed them to get around through this ship. She needed them to help recover her stuff! If she didn't act now to get them out of this... She shook her head. She didn't want to save them because they were growing on her, or anything. She didn't. And then she caught the expression on Grapejuice's face. The mare was sneaking her a terrified, pleading, wide-eyed look... Save me.
Valey moved. Calling on her speed, she flung herself through the air, catching Grapejuice with an outstretched wing and ducking into a flip to wrench her from Gazelle's grasp. She landed on her hooves and skidded to a stop facing the sphinx, Grapejuice held so tightly to her side that the short mare's hooves didn't even touch the ground.
Gazelle pursed his lips in surprise. "Oh, this is interesting."
"Yeah. Interesting." Valey set her charge down gently, giving her a comforting nudge, and then strolled toward Gazelle, summoning an old, predatory look in her eyes she had often used in Ironridge. "Hey, prince dude. You wanna know a secret?"
Gazelle's claws sheathed and unsheathed themselves against the floor, and his tail lashed excitedly as she approached. "Do I ever."
"Heh heh..." Valey matched his grin, paying close attention to her cutie mark as she got within whispering distance of his ears. "This lot?" she breathed, fluttering her wings with feigned excitement, making sure the sarosians couldn't overhear. "I've got them convinced I'm an acolyte or prophet or chosen one or something of their Night Mother. They'll basically do anything I say. Hear that?" She tapped his chest with a forceful hoof. "These are my pirates. And the reason I'm here in the first place is because these dudes stole something and I want to steal it back. Got this? You hang out in your fancy spectator room, because this is my heist and my show. You want entertainment? Then don't kill my minions."
"Really?" Gazelle's slitted pupils widened until they were round. "Really? Hah! I knew you had it in you!" He backed off, grinning, and bowed. "I'll be right here, watching. Blow me away! Make it cool, and I'll owe you one."
He vanished up the stairs, leaving the mares breathing a collective sigh of relief. Valey wanted to collapse, legs shaking, but she stayed form and upright more to spite Gazelle than anything. She would have a lot of soul-searching to do before she could unflinchingly feel justified fighting that, but every instinct she possessed still wanted her to. She would... she would...
"Yo," Grapejuice whispered suddenly in her ear. "Thanks."
"You alright?" Valey breathed back.
"Yeah. Dude like that has nothing on me. Still cool that you bailed me out, though."
"Cool." Valey nodded, then straightened herself. "Alright! Nothing up here but him. Come on, you all. I've got some stolen saddlebags to find."
"Grenada!"
Shinespark trotted through the mess of freed Varsidelian soldiers, most busy stretching themselves, plundering rations from the table of defeated guards, or repurposing sliced-off iron cage bars as weapons. "Grenada, where'd you go? We need to talk."
"I am here, Shinespark," Grenada replied from in front of an empty cage.
"There you are." Shinespark sighed, emerging from the crowd and giving her a one-hoof armored hug. "Listen. I just talked with Golbez, and we... have things to talk about."
"We do," Grenada sadly agreed.
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You can guess what I'm going to say, can't you?"
"I can," Grenada sighed, adjusting her short, spiky mane. "About what we do after this. I am not welcome in the Empire."
Shinespark hung her head. "Because you've joined up with pirates. Golbez said you plundered something a few times, too. And now we've apparently freed a lot of Varsidelian soldiers, who are going to try to escape."
Grenada gave a pained, wistful smile. "It almost reminds me of home, seeing them prepare."
"Of the Spirit. Yeah." Shinespark touched the side of her head to her sister's. "The point is, they owe us and are on good terms with us, and since we're fighting for a way out too, we'll be fighting together. If any of us wanted to ask them for a small favor after the battle... say, asylum from the Empire in Varsidel, especially if that someone is a capable fighter or administrator... they'd probably be happy to help."
Grenada sniffed. "But... I just found you... Would you come too?"
"We just found each other," Shinespark corrected, putting a foreleg around her shoulder. "And... I don't know. I wish I could, but all my other friends... Well, we shot down the idea of going to Varsidel pretty hard when we were thinking about where to go after Ironridge. I don't know. I'll need to talk with them, at the very least. But even if we go our own ways, we'll at least have the knowledge this time that both of us are alive, and the other's out there. Right?"
"R-Right..." Grenada wiped her nose. "Assuming we do not perish attempting to flee this pirate ship."
"Yeah. Assuming that." Shinespark squeezed her one more time. "Before we part... if we do... I've got something to tell you, by the way. Something I'd like you to live your life knowing."
Grenada swelled slightly with hope. "I do too, Shinespark."
"So we better both live through this escape plan to hear it, because it's sure not something we have time to talk about now." Shinespark straightened up. "For survival!"
"For survival," Grenada echoed. "For us all getting out alive."
The ship was still free of sirens as Valey and her mare squad snuck downward through its levels, most of the pirates they passed looking happily preoccupied with hauling loot from the captured merchant vessel Gazelle had snuck in on. Valey's neck prickled with the gaze of invisible security cameras, knowing he was watching them. But Gazelle could take a hike. She had a weapon to find.
"Nightmare Module..." Valey hissed under her breath as they descended another staircase, following Grapejuice's lead. Somehow, a quick headcount revealed each and every one of the pirates who raided the Dream were still with her; none had ran away to hide among their comrades or even fallen behind to nurse their injuries. And she had kicked some of them pretty hard...
Where was it? Valey tried to feel with her heart, remembering how it had exerted the same kind of internal presence she felt from the dusk statues and the Firefly Sisters' song. It stopped when she refused it, but if she could get it to call out to her again, maybe it would help in finding it... As Grapejuice stopped at an intersection to let a patrol pass and eee out some excuses to the leader about what they were doing there, she leaned against a wall, closing her eyes and feeling for any odd pressures whatsoever.
That got a few mumbles and murmurs from her pirates, but Valey knew what she was doing. She strained her senses to the limit, sniffing for good measure, and almost started to feel... Yes. Like there was something below her, quite a few floors down.
She fixated on that sensation, and it grew closer as they descended, the walls and ship architecture taking on a darker tone. Some of the hallways, someone had completely rebuilt using black wood, and soon she didn't have to concentrate to feel the sensation. It was bigger than the nightmare module had ever been, though, and soon she realized how much sense it made: with a ship this large and full of batponies, of course there would be a dusk statue. And it was the middle of the night, so it would be active, too.
Not only that, but it was their destination. They rounded a final staircase into an imposing lobby with a double-door, somewhere near the bottom of the ship, putting them on level with the feeling and facing towards it. Valey swallowed as Grapejuice casually shoved the ornate doors open with her flank, tail swishing. "So remind me, we're looking for the real head honcho around here to get someone official to yell at everyone to give back my bags, right? How's that going to work when all your inter-ship communication stuff is currently being sat on by Gazelle?"
"Nahhh. You got it backwards," Grapejuice lectured, scuffing her hooves carelessly against a thick purple carpet. "We go give our sob story to the monks and ask them to do our dirty work for us. Sphinx dude's royalty. They can ask the Night Mother what to do about him. I think you just get to do whatever you want."
Valey growled internally. What she wanted was to get her things and get clear of this place... well, with Shinespark and Grenada in tow. But not Howe. Maybe the mares. She really wasn't sure what to think of them, still. She had intervened to spare them from Gazelle, after all...
Before she could get her thoughts in any better of a line, one word in particular caught her attention. "Wait, monks? Not Mistvale Monks? Bananas, I hate those guys."
Grapejuice shrugged apologetically, then pushed her aside, eeeing at the next door's guards. All four of them raised heavy eyebrows at her, and several more of Valey's mares stepped forward to back her up. One guard said something threatening, and the mares started to bristle.
Valey hissed, but held her tongue. Wouldn't do if she chewed them out in a language they weren't fond of and revealed that she didn't know their own...
"Might have to teach them a thing or two," Grapejuice whispered, moving back for access to Valey's ear. "These dudes don't like anyone trying to rip them off."
"Rip them off?" Valey frowned. "What do they want?"
"Eh. Stuff." Grapejuice shook her tail. "For the monks. If you know what I mean."
"Alright." Valey stepped forward, raising her voice. "Not interested in any stuff. Hey, clowns! Hotshot, coming through!"
The four burly guards gave her cross looks.
"Nyaah." Valey stuck her tongue out. "Sorry, but if you wanted me to speak eee-ish, you shouldn't have made me need to talk in the first place. Backup is needed, so backup is needed." She fluttered, pounding her forehooves together. "Last chance to let us through? Pretty please?"
The guards frowned harder, and one raised and pointed a spear.
Scrrrrrkkkkkkkkkk! A speaker in the roof directly above the door blared with deafening static, causing all the guards and all of Valey's mares to wince and cringe. Valey's cutie mark warned her just in time to plug her own ears with her wings, as well as jump on Grapejuice and slam her hooves over the little mare's ears.
"Hello? Is this thing on?" Gazelle's voice crackled down from the ceiling. "Oops. Maybe a little too on, judging by the looks on your faces. Whoopsie!"
Valey spotted the camera and gave it a look, not bothering to reply.
Gazelle's voice suddenly switched, and he moved into a harsh, catlike imitation of the batpony eeeing. As he went, though, Valey realized he actually knew the language, his words causing the door guards' ears to fold and faces to fall in horror. More than half of her companions were blushing furiously.
Gazelle giggled as he talked, and halfway through a sentence one of the guards couldn't take listening anymore and slunk off. The other three, suddenly no longer the first to bail, didn't wait any longer and instantly evacuated the room.
"...Aww," Gazelle pouted, switching back to normal. "And I was just getting to the good part, too."
"Do I wanna know?" Valey raised a wary eyebrow.
"How does the saying go, again? Curiosity rewarded the bat?"
Grapejuice nudged her. "You get him to translate that stuff and you aren't gonna be able to concentrate on a thing, Bats."
Valey blinked, looking for anything to distract her attention. "That's, uhh, a kinda strange nickname when we're both batponies?"
"Yes, yes, it doesn't matter. Don't distract yourself, Bats. I've already gotten the fools up ahead nice and distracted, so getting what you want from them will be an absolute cinch!"
Valey frowned up at the camera. "What I want is-"
"By the way," Gazelle interrupted. "When I said I didn't like sarosians that way? I changed my mind. I'm wonderfully fickle. The seas just do that to me..." He sighed dreamily. "Now hurry up and do something entertaining before I drive myself insane. I'm waiting!"
"...Bananas," Valey sighed once the speaker went dead. "How Garsheeva keeps a place like this from exploding harder than Ironridge, I haven't got a clue. Or your Night Mother, for that fact. Look, I just want my stupidly-dangerous things back, and I can go tag my friends and we can all bail and woah!"
She backflipped away from the door, and a half-second later it burst open, swinging violently where her muzzle had just been. "Yo," she growled, "watch where... Uhhh. What the...?"
A suit of armor that looked like the Flame District incarnate stared down at her, a gray mare's plated face barely visible at the front. Covered at every angle by spiked radiator blades and five great turbine fans, the surfaces where the armor was actually exposed held tubes of glowing, orange liquid, and two large tanks were strapped to her sides beyond it. Valey doubted how much it would do for protection, but in exchange it was madly intimidating, and she would have bet absolutely nothing it had no offensive prowess.
The magmatic mare completely ignored her, however, glancing up at the ceiling. "Watch yourself, Gazelle," she said, voice level. "I can hear you."
Valey didn't need to hear her posse of pirates shuddering and sinking into bowed positions to know that this mare was bad news. She could feel the danger from her like a tide of lava flowing down a staircase, hot and painful yet consisting of many different layers of threat. She had seen her somewhere before, her brain slowly pieced together. Meltdown. When she was lost in Stormhoof Keep, with Gazelle goading her on and more guards than she could handle and terrible cramps after that encounter with the Mistvale Monk in the sewers, Meltdown had not only been reasonable and given her a chance, but broken up the confrontation and ordered the guards, Wallace and even Gazelle away with force of words alone. Whoever she was, she was powerful and important... and now she was mistaking Valey for a pirate.
Meltdown's fans spun, sending an unceasing wave of toasty air across Valey and the pirates. First was the physical threat, but Valey was less scared of being punched and more of bursting into flames. How high could she turn up the heat on those fans and radiators? And where was the heat coming from? If they had to fight, she had to know. The tanks strapped to Meltdown's sides looked suspicious, but a part of her felt the mare wasn't quite right, like the armor's radiators really were for heat dispersion and whatever was causing it wasn't just there for show.
The second threat was societal, and it didn't take a cutie mark to feel that: Meltdown was important, and now she was on this pirate ship. Pirates were heretics, and she was the executor and judge. If Garsheeva's will was to be carried out, if they were to be captured and tried for what they had done, this was how it would happen.
And third... it was distant, like a reflection she could only see from a sliver of an angle that would appear in her sight and then never come again, but there was something about her that made her whole body tingle with dread. Not a physical wound waiting to be inflicted, but something more total and complete... The closest thing she had ever felt before was the danger from moon glass, and that was only a similar strain. Did Meltdown know what that did to batponies? Of course she did. Valey skittishly scanned her, watching for weapons or sharp edges or anything that could be laced with the stuff. Meltdown had come to fight sarosians, and Meltdown had come prepared.
"Ai ai ai!" Gazelle yipped from the ceiling speaker system, saving Valey the trouble of figuring out what to say. "Mercy, fair Meltdown, I beg of you!"
Valey's brow furrowed. Was he... teasing her?
"Gazelle!" Meltdown looked at the camera crossly, completely ignoring Valey and her pirates. "Were you flirting with sarosian pirates?"
"Boundaries overstepped. I'm dreadfully sorry." Gazelle actually sounded sincerely cowed, causing Valey to blink. Whoever this mare was, this was the second time she had seen her send the Empire's unchecked prince packing with a single line...
Meltdown was also distracted, focusing on Gazelle and not them. Time to run! Time to... Valey sighed. Every last one of her pirates sans Grapejuice was bowing in reverence, and Grapejuice was doing a poor job hiding behind her instead. She remained standing against her cutie mark's warning. As long as she had a case to plead, she had plenty of important reasons to get herself out of this.
Then Gazelle didn't continue, and Meltdown turned to them, and it was too late. "You all," she said, armor vibrating. "I've taken temporary command over your ship in the name of the Griffon Empire. Your leaders have already surrendered. By Garsheeva's will, I am here for other matters than to seal your fates, but that won't stop me if you defy me. Cooperate, and you will live to sail again another day. If you understand me, spread your wings."
Most of the mares shakily spread their wings, scared and cowering and looking torn between two bad options. Valey spread hers as well, though she remained standing and made eye contact.
Meltdown eyed her for a moment in return. "You. Admiral Valey, from Ironridge. What are you doing here? Did Gazelle put you up to this, like he did at Stormhoof?"
Valey held her posture. "Yep, it's me, and nope, here on my own. Me and my friends were minding our own business when these pirates jumped us. I beat them up. One got away with some kinda important stuff, and now I'm making these ones help me get it back."
"What kind of important stuff?" Meltdown kept her level gaze.
Valey gave herself all of three seconds to think. Last time she met her, Meltdown had been the most level-headed official in the province... She had been fair, though also tried to test her in an underhooved way to make sure she was following the heresy laws. This was a chance she would take.
"Sound stone." She swallowed. "The one that lets me talk with Ironridge. And some less important stuff. And some super bad-sounding thing called a Nightmare Module."
Meltdown's orange pupils shrank, and her fans whirled sharply for a second. "Where did you get a Nightmare Module?" she demanded, voice laced with tension.
"Somewhere between stealing it and having it shoved into my possession?" Valey folded her ears. "A mare called Puddles had it. You've probably heard of her. She's on this boat too, by the way, and it sorta looked like she was cleaning house from Gazelle's comfy little viewing party up there."
"Puddles is free?" Meltdown's pupils couldn't get any tinier. She looked up and barked at the ceiling, "Gazelle! Verify this!"
"Hmmm? Oh, she is. Currently in the dungeons, freeing the Varsidelians we came here for in the first place. Very thoughtful of her. I'm having a blast vetoing every request someone makes to raise the alarm. This is the most fun pirate raid ever, Meltdown!"
Gazelle snapped her gaze back to Valey. "Did you use the module, and if so, which one was it!?"
"Uhhh." Valey blinked, not questioning how Meltdown knew that batponies could use them. "It, like, asked permission and I said no? Something about lying or deception or something. There was a number, but I don't remember..."
Meltdown visibly sagged in relief. "Good. Of every one out there, that's the least-dangerous one. Valey, by my power as the leader of the Griffon Empire's Power Distribution Agency, you are hereby conscripted into my service until this weapon is either contained or destroyed and Puddles has been re-captured and transported to a safer location in Stormhoof or Grandbell. Gazelle? Start helping."
Gazelle gave an exasperated sigh. "Meltdown Meltdown Meltdown, is it really that big of a deal? I'm watching Chauncey's little experiment right now, and she's not looking very good. Everything they did to her must have really taken a toll on her strength and stamina. Look at this poor thing! At first, she was taking entire squads by herself, and eventually she was reduced to riding around on her allies' backs and letting them do all the fighting! You can take her! You'll be fiiiiine."
"Gazelle..." Meltdown warned.
"Well! Alright! I can tell when I'm needed." Gazelle's voice vanished, there was a click... and suddenly the lights turned to red, and the emergency sirens began.
Meltdown stepped into motion. "Valey. Come. Gazelle, directions." She glanced back, reading Valey's face. "Pirates aren't important right now. They can do as they please."
Valey nodded and jumped into action, wondering how many of her entourage would do the same. As frightening as Meltdown was, she was scary for completely different reasons than Gazelle, and this was a side she decided she wanted to be on.
Shinespark cleaved a sarosian lance in two, brushing the attacker's chest with her sword and causing them to become downcast. "Grenada, how many more?"
Grenada peered around a door leading off from a hallway, some sort of break room beyond. "Three," she whispered back, using her magic to make a sharp snapping noise. The batponies within frowned, and yet another got up to come check, though his last two companions were suspicious enough of three former guards leaving and not coming back that they soon followed as well.
With a last double-swish, they were finished as well, Shinespark pushing their sad figures to the side of the hall so they wouldn't be in the way. "Right. Where to next? The harpoons have to be close. We need to free that ship they're currently raiding so we can use it to get everyone out!"
Belinda shook a sarosian she was carrying with her, a mare who had come off a sword swing still feeling slightly talkative. "Well? Which way, bat?"
The sarosian sighed, looking like she really needed to curl up in bed with a blanket and something warm to drink. "Straight ahead and up the stairs to the right," she muttered, defeated.
They set off, the harpoon squad consisting of Shinespark and Golbez's pirates, sans Puddles, who had been left to guard the Varsidelian crew. Howe trotted cheerfully alongside Belinda, eyeing up the sad sarosian on her back. "Ho there, sister," he offered, finally trying to introduce himself. "You look... uhh... smitten by misfortune! Hanging in there, our loyal guide?"
"I don't know," she murmured, accent heavy. "I should be fighting you. Not really feeling up to it. Sorry, whoever cares."
Shinespark slowed just a little to listen, curious about just how the sword seemed to be affecting ponies. Howe seemed to be thinking on the same track. "Because you were dealt an eldritch blow by mine companion's sword of darkness? Better than spilling your blood, no?"
The batpony didn't have it in her to be curious. "I don't know..."
"You don't know, or you don't care?" Howe raised a black-and-red eyebrow. "Far be it from me to think you a villainous damsel in distress, for you are our enemy! But you're also... well... clearly in distress! Is such a fate not as merciful as we've been thinking?"
"It matters not whether it be merciful, lad," Golbez interrupted, putting a lid on the conversation. "They be easily defeated, and any manner of that be a boon to us. Besides, I don't be carin' for the well-bein' of sarosians any time soon."
"At least she's not heavy," Belinda grunted, still hobbling on three legs with her wounded shoulder bound. "Not making herself a nuisance."
Shinespark sped back up. Whether or not she knew how Gerardo's sword worked, it was an unblockable yet never-lethal weapon she could control with her telekinesis, and made incredibly short work of the batponies. It wasn't like she'd have been able to spare them using conventional methods of combat, anyway... and she still wasn't sure whether she wanted to, when they had fired on an airship with cannons and were in the habit of imprisoning armies and raiding other ships. She shook her head. Pirates weren't nice.
After minutes more of following the captive's directions and several more skirmishes with patrols, the harpoon room drew into sight. One floor below the deck of the ship, it had a large, closable window, the weapon presently fired and embedded into the nearby ship's hull.
Shinespark gave the surprised crew a slightly-apologetic glance, lifting the sword. It hadn't even been a battle to get here. This thing made what would have been a daring rescue almost too easy...
Swish! A second's pause for them to run at her, one broad stroke, and all but one stopped in their tracks, defeated and downcast. Shinespark shrugged at the one she had missed, still clambering over the bodies of his companions to get a shot at her, and brought the sword around for a finishing slice. As usual, it passed through with no resistance whatsoever, sending him slumping backwards... but also hit the stallion beneath him, already struck once and cowed.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the second stallion shivered, spasmed, glowed brightly... and in a heartbeat turned gray, featureless and burst into a puff of ash and dust. The flakes drifted on a faint invisible wind, seemingly melting into nothing seconds after touching the floor. Where his heart had been was a faint, floating image in the shape of his cutie mark, and that slowly lost its luster, drifting down through the floorboards and out of sight. Before Shinespark's wide eyes could blink again, there was no hint he had ever existed.
"Uhhhhhhh." Howe gaped.
Shinespark brought the sword up before her and examined it with pinprick eyes, its black, polished surface reflecting a colorless version of her face. "That's... new?"
All the other batponies, despite being in a funk, recoiled in fear, pressing against the edges of the room. The one on Belinda's back actually slipped off, bolting down the hallway. Shinespark blinked, and Grenada blinked back.
"Give me that sword, lass," Golbez advised, holding out a talon. "Ye look like ye've got thinkin' to be done, but we be on a mission."
She didn't resist as he took it. Instantly, the captain went to town on the harpoon apparatus, first severing the rope, then smashing the winch and launcher it had been connected to. The blade made smooth work of its task, and with a few slices the harpoon gun collapsed on itself in a mess of frayed rope and split wood and metal.
Golbez regarded the sword as well, strolling back toward the entrance. "I suppose we be needin' to find the other on our own, then," he sighed. "Come along, lass. Ye look undone."
"R-Right." Shinespark snapped out of her stupor and reaching for the blade. "Can I...?"
Golbez shook his head and sighed. "Ye never been in a war before, have ye?"
Shinespark gave him a flat look.
"If ye had, ye'd know there's no easy out for this sort of thing. Dispatchin' yer foes." Golbez kept the sword out before him as he advanced down the corridor. "Ye look shocked that ye had to do it. Like ye trusted too much in this thing to give ye some idealistic outcome. Arrr... Take it from someone who's fought everything, lass. It don't work that way. Weapons are for war, no matter what."
Shinespark swallowed, following. "I know that. I'm not new to having blood on my hooves. But..."
Golbez raised an eyebrow. "It was ruthless? Unexpected? There be no buts about it, lass."
"No." Shinespark shook her head. "I just also know a thing or two about magic. There are weapons for things worse than war, like windigoes and moon glass. And that sword clearly does something worse than I thought it did. Would you... mind if we stopped using it until I can press a friend of mine harder on exactly where he got it?"
Golbez frowned, but Belinda shrugged. "It's not like we're running into a lot of enemies, Captain. You could humor her. That was a creepy way to die."
"...Fine." Golbez sighed, offering the sword back to Shinespark. "Here be-"
Gazelle's raspy sarosian voice echoed through speaker after speaker as the alarms continued to blare, making Valey press her ears against her head. She wasn't as good on sleep as she'd have liked to be, and this much extra commotion was starting to cause a headache... but she was running after Meltdown, and the fiery mare seemed interested in lending her weight to problems that were well out of Valey's hooves.
"Starting to dig this guy again," Grapejuice remarked, short legs scurrying to keep up by Valey's side. "Way better at giving orders than any other jerk who's been up there. Better at insulting, too. So who's Puddles?"
"...It's a long story," Valey growled, suddenly glad she couldn't understand Gazelle. "I'm not a fan of hers."
Grapejuice winced. "Bad breakup, or something? He's making her sound almost in your league."
"Breakup?" Valey frowned. "Uhh, no? First off, she's always been bad news, second, just how much of a concept of relationships do you guys even have here? All the dudes are grunts and all the girls are in charge."
"What, that?" Grapejuice somehow shrugged as she ran. "Nah, that's just because dudes are way more common than chicks when you're having kids. Also so you don't accidentally have kids when you're flirting around, and so when you do anyway you can just yell at other dudes to get stuff done for you and not have to do it yourself. Or something. Maybe it's because stallions are stupid. I forget."
Valey didn't question it. She wasn't that curious, and it was still a better reason than Selma had for hiring only stallions for the Defense Force. "Yeah, cool," she growled. "So we know where we're going, and all that? Because I'm honestly just following her lead up there."
"Oh yeah." Grapejuice nodded. "Cat dude up there is saying where she is like every second or so."
"Fun." Valey sighed, trying to stretch as she ran, Meltdown's fans heating the entire corridor to toasty degrees and making it impossible for her to keep the prospect of rest out of her mind. Why here? Why now? She still had Shinespark to catch up to and bail out, and then they had to get back to the Dream and sail it somewhere there wouldn't be pirates or politicians or anything else...
The directions rapidly led them upward, taking every staircase and generally leading away from the prow of the ship. Meltdown seemed tireless in her march, despite wearing nearly a ton of twisted steel for armor. Was it powered like Braen? Valey couldn't think of any alternative, unless Meltdown was somehow just that strong... but something had to be causing her heat as well, and the armor seemed the most likely culprit. She still gave it a wary berth, the sensation that Meltdown could somehow undo her lingering at the back of her cutie mark.
Pow! They kicked through a door, emerging at a higher level, and a startled patrol racing in the same direction dropped into a confrontational stance. Instantly, Gazelle's tone changed, sending the patrol limp and ensuring they could proceed without a fight.
Valey grew more and more sluggish as they pressed on, finding it harder to use her hooves with every step. It reminded her of how she'd felt at the skyport shortly before fighting Herman; there were powers at war far out of her weight class and the moment she was neither the strongest thing in the rom nor directly fighting it was the moment she wanted nothing more to do with the fight. The battle with Kero's mercenaries in the buildup to the dam explosion might have been a better comparison... Her hooves itched as she ran. She didn't belong there. She just wanted to get out.
Puddles leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, focusing on the pain of the windigo heart in her stomach. It would take a lot longer still to process the heart's extra magic to the point she needed, far longer than she would have before this battle was over and done, but she didn't regret eating it rather than saving it for later. The extra power was useful now, and there was always a chance something wouldn't go her way and prevent her from getting it back if she had just held onto it.
She squeezed a hoof against her gut and let the sound of yelling fill her ears as the Varsidelians formed a phalanx, fighting for every inch of ground to carve a safe path to the shipdeck. Resistance was heavy, thrice so once the alarms had started. She didn't understand Sarosian, but she did recognize Gazelle's voice, and if he was here...
But there was one thing that didn't hurt her, and that was the chaos. Ponies fighting ponies, one side fighting for freedom and the other for whatever it was pirates fought for. They warred together, trading blows and hoofsteps of ground, and even as her pony body suffered, the two-thousand-year-old lance in her mind that stabbed her and thirsted for equine strife lessened and lifted. It was a freedom she had almost never tasted before. And as a newly-minted harmonic lifeform, she was determined not to enjoy the respite.
"Hiya," Puddles moaned, holding herself, a special sense telling her Melia was near.
"Hello yourself," Melia replied, stopping against the wall next to her. "Puddles. What are you doing on a pirate ship?"
Puddles flopped forward and tried rubbing herself against the floor. "Looking for a stupid horse so I could have fun and still rub it in cute Valey's face that I was helping. What were you doing in a pirate ship, huh? Puddles just followed you."
"I..." Melia's voice faltered. "Ran away, tried to go it on my own, made mistakes and got captured. What do you care?"
"Huh." Puddles sucked her lip, deciding that the floor was helping a little. "Maybe next time you shouldn't make so many mistakes. I care because Puddles had to drag her cute butt all the way out here when I could have gone somewhere nice and played with cute Valey instead. You like playing, don't you?"
Puddles opened her eyes to watch, focusing on Melia's regard of her and patiently, smugly awaiting any sort of answer. Melia frowned. "Playing how?"
Puddles poked at her cutie mark, still a jagged web of cracks. "Music, silly! Use it or you lose it!"
Melia frowned harder, a shakiness visible in her eyes. "I left because..."
"It was breaking? Yep. That stinks. Maybe Puddles knows why, or how to stop it from happening a-" Puddles winced, holding herself again as the pain briefly intensified. "Oooh, Puddles isn't happy..."
Melia sighed and turned away. "I don't know why I'm having a civil conversation with a windigo in a mare's body, and I'm definitely not giving you sympathy or curiosity for whatever ails you."
"You're not?" Puddles gave a halfhearted smile. "Even if Puddles offered to tell you how to fix your butt and keep it from breaking again?"
"It's called a brand!" Melia's eye twitched. "What do you know, or what do you want?"
Puddles pursed her lips and spread her forelegs. "A hug!"
Melia stepped back, disgust flickering across her face. "I'm not in a good place to be doing emotional charity work, right now," she muttered.
"We need backup!" a Varsidelian hollered from nearby, the sounds of fighting growing closer.
"Booo," Puddles sighed, heaving herself to her hooves. "Your emotions are a charity work. Now don't run off while Puddles goes to save the nice stallions! Heehee. Puddles is a pirate..."
"Alarms." Shinespark frowned at the ceiling, a voice constantly crackling over the intercom as sirens blared. "That's not good..."
"You think it's anything more than expected?" Belinda growled, limping along as Golbez took the lead, his fencing skills putting Gerardo's sword to expert use. "Took those fools long enough to notice us."
"That's the problem." Shinespark picked up her pace, Grenada at her side. "They spent all that time silent, and only start now? Not when Puddles boarded the ship, and not when we started freeing the prisoners? Something must have changed, and we don't know what it is."
Grenada solemnly hummed. "Maybe it is that they know this sword is dangerous, and were waiting to attack until it was far from the main force. We have not been seeing very many of them, even now that the alarm has been sounded. They are targeting something other than us."
Ahead, another sarosian vanished in a puff of ash, Golbez not discriminating between opponents who were hit and still fighting. Shinespark winced, but the griffon had made his logic clear: these were his enemies, and he had killed far too many of them over his career to worry about what manner he did it in. And a dead one couldn't recover and stab them in the back.
Shinespark frowned apologetically at another, sliced and bleeding as well as sad from the regular cutlass Golbez dual-wielded with his other talon. Her enemies were being mowed down by the dozen and there was no thrill in it, no adrenaline or even sense of duty. Trailing along in the wake of wreckage like this, even when she had been the one doing the cutting... it wasn't hard to see how a goddess could hate pirates on principle. There had to be less-barbaric ways of solving one's problems.
They burst into the final harpoon room, Golbez using the sword to carve an entrance in straight through the wall, ignoring the door barricade. Most of the batponies within were scared and fled out the harpoon gun's window, Golbez clipping the one he reached through the hoof, then flipping them downwards and stabbing through the chest until they shuddered and exploded. The harpoon was next to go.
"Arr. That be taken care of." Golbez nodded at the destroyed machine, the merchant vessel now tethered to the frigate only by ropes from the deck, with no more retractable grapples to catch it if it sailed away. "Now then, for our next order of business..."
Shinespark watched the boat out the window, briefly wondering why anyone would dare to sail a ship in waters as unsafe as these. "That window will let us fly out to the deck," she decided. "The Varsidelians are going to have to emerge there somewhere to get off this ship. We could try to hold a position, or pincer back and hit whatever they're battling from behind. We could also do recon for whatever set off the alarm, but I want to-"
"Shreeeeeee!" A screaming mare erupted from the ruins of the harpoon winch, having used its shadow to hide and not be ejected by the light of the unicorns' horns. Golbez reacted instantly as she launched herself at him, a fuzzy ball of dark-coated rage, and positioned Gerardo's sword so she cleanly impaled herself on it. The mare was struck, but it didn't halt her momentum, and she hit the talon holding the sword, sending it askew.
"Arrrgh!" Golbez collapsed as the sword hit his other foreleg and he tripped over the now-sad batpony's weight. The struck leg went completely limp, falling uselessly beneath him.
"Captain!" Belinda rushed to his side, trying to pick him up.
Neon Nova frowned, experimentally strobing his horn. "Huh. I thought for sure this kept them out of the dark..."
"I be alive," Golbez gasped, struggling and sitting upright. "Me leg... It still be there? No sensation whatsoever, not even pain. But I can't move it..." He glanced at Shinespark, brow furrowed. "Lass, what kind of accursed weaponry be this?"
Shinespark frowned, grabbing the sword in her telekinesis and stuffing it back in its sheathe. "A magic one, and I don't know how it works. And like any weapon, it can apparently hurt the wielder as well. I think I'll be hanging onto it again for now."
Golbez stood on three legs, unable to put weight on the deadened one. "So be it."
"Do we have a plan, then?" Grenada asked, glancing between the two leaders. Sirens continued to bellow in the background, though no more patrols came to seek the harpoon room. "Anyone?"
Shinespark nodded. "I'll fly us out to the deck. We need to rejoin the others. With Golbez and Belinda both injured and Howe and Neon Nova incompetent at fighting, I'm afraid I'll have to use this sword..." She glanced unhappily at it. "Any objections?"
Everyone shook their heads, and Grenada stepped closer. Shinespark nodded again and lit her horn. "Here we go!"
Meltdown kicked through a final door, breaking out onto the deck with a shove from a single armored hoof. The frigate's deck wasn't flat, several levels of cabins built up in the middle and on the ends with bridges to the masts between them, and they had emerged one tier up from the bottom. The batponies following Valey all blinked, and she did too; the sky was mostly empty of sentries, everyone having flown off to follow Gazelle's alarm. She could see warning lights flashing from the room below the bridge, its giant window looking back out on the deck space below.
"Alright." Valey swallowed; Meltdown clearly had a plan for where she was going, but she could just fly off if she wanted. The Immortal Dream would be somewhere on the horizon, she could smell Starlight and find it without effort, the Nightmare Module would be taken care of... but she still had friends here to find.
As if on cue, Shinespark floated over the far railing.
Valey groaned. She had that entire crew of pirates with her? Including Howe and Neon Nova? But she didn't have Puddles, at least. Meltdown appraised them instantly, walking forward to close the distance. She had remembered her, and she was a batpony in a crowd of batponies! Shinespark was armored, but had her helmet off. Meltdown would surely remember her too. She'd...
Shinespark landed and sighed, taking a moment to blow at her horn and cool it. Lifting that many ponies at once took at least a bit of effort...
"Well. This be unfortunate," Golbez remarked calmly beside her.
"What is?" Shinespark blinked, looked up... and in the night, saw a gaggle of batponies and one very familiar, imposing suit of armor. She swallowed. "Oh. She's here."
"Uhhh." Howe nudged Belinda. "On a scale of one to ten, how screwed are we?"
Golbez hung his head in respect. "This be our dyin' day, lad. Garsheeva's bane of all heretics. The law has come to collect, and we be in its crosshairs."
"This is stupid," Belinda growled, clutching her hurt shoulder. "She's standing with sarosians! If we're going to die to the Empire's justice, I for one intend to go down fighting!"
Quick as a blur, she lunged past Shinespark's side, grabbing the sword in her good talon and propelling herself forward on her wings, soaring toward Meltdown faster than Shinespark's magic could reach her.
Valey blinked, a desperate golden griffon suddenly hurtling toward her and her group. She tensed... but Meltdown was up front, and the bird seemed to have eyes only for her.
The griffon had a sword, and prepared a slice. Meltdown set her hooves and turned a shoulder, preparing to catch the swing in her radiator blades. Valey took a step back; this shouldn't be her fight... and suddenly blinked, eyes widening as the griffon drew close enough for her to recognize the sword in the night. Black blade. Triangular hole in the hilt. How? It didn't matter. That sword could cut through any armor like it was air, and she had less than a second to act.
Swooosh! Valey flapped and shot past Meltdown with a burst of speed that took both her and the griffon by surprise. Her cutie mark flared, slowing time... This griffon was Belinda, one of the pirates. The ones Gazelle had sent packing, and she had met in the tavern. Good. She owed her a punch or two.
Valey threw herself into a forward-moving backflip, hind legs coming up from below and smashing into Belinda's belly, ruining her trajectory. With slow-motion-enhanced precision, she saw the blade swinging for her face, whipped her forehooves to the sides, brought them around... and clapped the sword, catching it by the flat of the blade between her hooves. Time returned to normal, and she finished the backflip, suplexing the sword to the ground and kicking Belinda aside, wrenching it from her grasp.
"Pfeh..." Valey spat, getting up and kicking the sword up into a wing grip. She turned and glared at the surprised Meltdown. "Not a sword you want to get hit by."
Belinda was already struggling back upright, one shoulder clearly wounded a while ago. She screeched, and Meltdown frowned, her giant radiator fans starting to spin a little faster.
Flash! There was a surge of sapphire magic, and Shinespark was there. "Stop fighting!" she commanded, hitting the ground with an armored thud. "We're trying to get out of here alive, not make more enemies!"
"Sparky?" Valey blinked, then gave a crooked grin, spotting the matching sheath on her armor. "Hey, long time no see. You really need to take better-"
"SCRAWWWWW!" Belinda barreled toward Meltdown again in a reckless three-legged charge, propelling herself with her wings and raising her good talon to slash with.
Meltdown's fans roared, causing Belinda to wince and stagger, a few wisps of smoke suddenly curling from the tips of her feathers. Even well out of her line of facing, Valey cringed from the heat. "Ow, bananas, what the...?"
The assault lessened, but didn't abate, Meltdown slowly clanking forward toward the overheated griffon.
Belinda faced her with an expression that was anything other than accepting death with serenity, and tried again to force herself upright. Meltdown didn't even lift a hoof to strike. Valey sat by Shinespark's side, silently passing back the sword and wondering if she was about to watch someone be lit on fire with a stare.
Neither of their parties, batponies or Golbez's crew, moved to get closer. Belinda staggered, panting. Meltdown held her position, alarms blaring in the background... and suddenly there was a shattering sound far above, and Valey's cutie mark instantly registered a warning stab. She ducked with Shinespark out of the way of a quick rain of shards, glancing up at the hole in the observation window under the bridge and the dark shadow soaring from it. Swooosh!
With catlike silence, Gazelle was there... and suddenly, he was very loud. "Wait! Wait wait, wait wait wait." He landed between Meltdown and Belinda, back to the pirate, smiling disarmingly with a full set of jagged teeth. "Pause! What was the safe word again, Melty?"
Meltdown's fans slowed. "Hello, Gazelle."
Belinda took every advantage of the respite, straightening up and drawing a scimitar, then brutally chopping toward Gazelle's back with a silent, stealthy scream.
Smash! Gazelle lashed out with one hind leg, slamming a paw into Belinda's neck, not even bothering to look at his adversary as she was hurled into the cabin wall. "Tsk tsk." He shook his head. "Trying to attack me while I'm bailing you out. Pirates' stupidity is so amusing, sometimes."
"Nghkk..." Belinda winced, her throat sporting four pricks of blood where Gazelle's claws had hit her.
Valey stood her ground next to Shinespark, trying not to draw attention to herself, but she needn't have bothered. Gazelle turned to Belinda with a purr, then back to Meltdown. "Spare that one, if you would? She's feisty." He flicked his tail. "I think she hates me, too. I was hoping to see her barge in someday yelling challenges toward me, not meet her end so soon and ingloriously..."
"Very well." Meltdown shrugged in her armor, then backed off.
The tension radiating off both sides made Valey wince. Her batpony pirates would be fine... probably? Gazelle had left them to her, and Meltdown hadn't tried to stop them from following. But the crew that had been with Shinespark had a vendetta against their species. Belinda was down for the count, the captain was still up but looked injured, Howe could always do something stupid... Her cutie mark tingled with the sensation of a fight that could still nearly begin.
"You're not a very smart rival," Gazelle purred, focusing again on Belinda. "Please run? Please? I'm practically drunk with anticipation, and not about to sacrifice my wonderful sea battle just to get you out of the way. The rest of your friends, too." He blinked across at Golbez, Howe, Neon Nova and Grenada. "Go on. Shoo! Take a hike! Get... Hmm?" His pupil slits narrowed in interest, blinking between the pirates and Shinespark, and he grinned. "What's with the identical manestyle, ladies?"
Grenada froze before the sphinx's sharp grin. "Err... n-nothing?"
Valey internally groaned.
Gazelle was by Grenada's side in a heartbeat, suddenly coiled around her and humming. "You know each other, don't you? I can see that look." He winked back at Shinespark. "She's scared that I'm here. Huh! She must have something to be afraid of." He was suddenly back by Shinespark. "I'm on your side, you know that? The Empire is my empire! You came to clear up that confusion about Ironridge! You know that." He nudged her armored side. "You don't think we'd sacrifice someone who's definitely not your friend to Garsheeva for piracy, would you?"
"...You're not doing a very good job of inspiring confidence in that," Shinespark sighed. "Yes. Grenada is my friend. And if you're going for her, you're going to have to go through me."
"How bold." Gazelle stuck his face straight in hers, then paced happily back to a neutral position. "Don't worry. I wasn't thinking of that at all. But since you brought it up..."
Shinespark stepped so that she was between Gazelle and Golbez's pirates, aura tingling around the hilt of Gerardo's sword. "Slow down," she demanded, short mane blowing in the ocean wind. "Don't bring this to a fight!"
Gazelle stuck out his lower lip. "Awww. But I wanted a fight. To watch, more than anything. Meltdown, would you be a dear and let her duel you for the pirate's soul?"
"No." Meltdown stepped forward, looking cross. "Gazelle, while you're down here, who's keeping an eye on Puddles and the Varsidelians? We are here to save them, you remember."
"Oh, psssshh..." Gazelle waved a careless paw over his shoulder. "They'll be fine! Last I saw the windigo was on her last legs and you all were cleaning house with your pretty sword and... huh." He stopped, holding a paw to his chin. "But if you're all up here bantering with me, who's off defending the Varsidelians?"
Meltdown gave him a flat look. "That's the point."
Gazelle's pupils slowly shrank to pinpricks.
Shinespark glared at him. "You think maybe you should have been doing your duty as a leader of your country instead of playing games with us!? Where are they? Do you at least know?"
"Yes, yes, I'll play with you later." Gazelle gave her a distracted wave, then snapped out his feathery wings and took off further down the ship.
Valey turned to Meltdown as he departed. "Your high prince isn't very stable," she remarked.
Meltdown returned the look. "Gazelle is an actor who knows how to intimidate people, as well as tell who's worth intimidating. He's lived his whole life getting his way for what he does rather than who he is, so don't doubt that he has motives to his methods. I'm going to help him."
The unspoken implication to flee now if they didn't want the Empire's wrath for piracy hung over everyone's heads as Meltdown coiled her legs and jumped, clearing an entire level of the cabin and bounding away out of sight. Shinespark winced.
"So, uhhh..." Valey blinked around. "What are we doing? Gonna bail? The skies are as clear as they're gonna be, and I'm not sure how much fight I've got left in me. Kinda could do with a long nap right about now."
Shinespark gave her an unhappy look. "Valey, I caught up with and followed Puddles, and she somehow knew that Melia was imprisoned on this ship. You know... the missing Firefly Sister. They're both down there somewhere. At the very least, we ought to help Melia, but Puddles said she just wanted an audience for proving she could be good, so... it might be worth trying to save her too. And there's an army of trapped Varsidelians that..." She gritted her teeth. "You know how I feel about abandoning fighting forces to die."
"Uh huh." Valey nodded. "But the lunatic and whatever Meltdown is are totally working on that. Pretty sure they have enough firepower to get them safe, because I've seen Gazelle fight and if that armor doesn't shoot something scary, I'll eat my hoof. And if I'm reading this right, that there is one of your henchmares from the Spirit who is totally not caught up in pirate shenanigans and about to face the wrath of the top Empire dudes whose job it is to be wrathful about this? Even if you don't wanna bail, she really, really should." She appraised Golbez, Belinda, Howe and Neon Nova. "Also all those dudes you have for backup are either wounded or useless. I've fought with them, I'd know."
Shinespark folded her ears, teeth bared. "...I hate leaving ponies behind."
"Yep. Stinks." Valey scratched at the back of her neck with a wing, then looked over her shoulder. "Speaking of which, I'm still not exactly sure what to do about these dudes."
"...Who are they?" Shinespark blinked at the crowd of sarosian mares, properly evaluating them for the first time. "They look like pirates..."
"They sure are." Valey nodded at them, most of the mares awkwardly staring and fixed in place. Grapejuice was the only exception, kind of just doing her own thing on the side. "Totally didn't come try to plunder your ship while we were floating around guessing where you had gone. And if they had, I definitely didn't kick all their tails and then chase them back to this place." She blinked. "And I totally didn't convince them I'm an avatar of the Night Mother or something so they always follow me around now, either. This time I'm serious; I have no idea why they do that. Pirates are weird."
Grapejuice finally wandered over and clued in, standing a full head shorter than Valey or Shinespark. "Hey. Nice job with those imperial losers. I didn't really think it was my style to take that..." She stretched and yawned, fluttering her wings, then bobbed her head appreciatively at Shinespark. "You two friends, or something?"
"Does it look like it?" Valey raised an eyebrow at her. "Look, uhh... I kinda told you to speak for all of them, so what are you guys doing in all this? Really trying to figure out what to do, here."
Grapejuice casually shrugged. "Do I look like I know? I think we're just taking orders, or something. Beats me why everyone's so obsessed with you. Maybe they like your flanks. I just go with the flow."
Valey sighed. "Cool. So I have a tiny army that's already in bad shape 'cause I just finished roughing them up, and all together they weren't even worth a fraction of one of me in a fight. So... what, are we mareing up and busting in there to back up those clowns and fight a huge ton of pirates and maybe save someone, or what?"
Shinespark glanced to Golbez's crew.
Golbez raised an eyebrow back. "What be ye lookin' at us for, lass? Just humble pirates here. We don't do heroic charges, and yer' the one with the magic sword."
Shinespark's horn trembled, and she looked back at Valey. "...Tell me if I'm being stupid, but they'll be captured at best if we leave them here, and I don't know how far it is to land."
"The Dream is your boat." Valey shrugged. "Starlight's on it. I can give you a direction. Right nearby. Wanna send them off in that direction, if they can all fly?"
Neon Nova climbed on Howe's back. Golbez and Belinda flapped their tired wings. Grenada fidgeted.
"You're staying with me," Shinespark decided, grabbing a surprised Grenada in her telekinesis and pulling her to her side. "If they want to go to the Dream, tell them where it is. But there are still batponies flying around out there, and I don't want you out of my sight until I know the way out is safe."
Golbez bowed. "If ye have a ship of yer' own and be willin' to lend us passage to shore, we'd be very appreciative, lass."
"Slick." Valey nodded, sniffed, and pointed a hoof. "Fly, uh, due that way. Look for a big bird called Gerardo and tell him Valey sent you and you promise to clean up any messes you make, and don't tick off either of the fillies. They're scary. Oh!" She jumped, then turned to the sarosians. "If any of you have any reservations whatsoever about being creamed by your own buddies, I'm about to go wreck some face with Sparky here. So, uhh... Those dudes?" She pointed at Golbez's crew. "Hang out with them until they get past any sentries that are still out there and make sure they don't get messed up, and then you're released from my service, or something. Take care of yourselves. Get a nap, sleep off your bruises and all that."
With a storm of leathery fluttering, the batponies moved, and Golbez's crew made to take off as well. None of them needed any bidding to leave, and soon the only ponies left were Valey, Shinespark, Grenada... and Grapejuice.
"Huh." Valey blinked at her. "Why am I not surprised you're the one who stayed?"
"I dunno." Grapejuice shrugged. "Talking real for a second, I'm bored and you're hot and it seems like a safe place to hang. Don't really mind that I got beat up. Happens to everyone all the time."
"So." Shinespark drew her sword, then offered it to Valey. "We're badly outnumbered. This evens our odds a lot, depending on how many we run into..." She sighed. "But, since coming here, I've found that apparently it works differently on batponies than everyone else. It doesn't paralyze them, it... first makes them depressed, and then kills them. And I know your usual style is to leave more spinning heads than blood in your wake, so..."
"Batponies, huh?" Valey took the sword in her hooves, feeling it, and carefully ran a hoof along the blade's edge. "Weird. You sure about that? 'Cuz honestly, I'm getting exactly the same level of danger from this as any old sharp edge. Which is actually a little strange since you'd think paralysis wouldn't count as physical harm at all, but my senses are weird like that. Either way, whatever. We've got Gazelle and Meltdown. Just, like, do what you need to and I'll keep us all safe."
Shinespark frowned. "Are you okay promising that?"
"That I'll keep you safe in a nasty tunnel mob combat situation? You mean after that stuff in the Flame District you weren't even there for?" Valey frowned back. "Yeah. I am. Maybe it'll be like a second chance to bust some friends out of a really tight spot, and honestly, a lot of wimpy pirates are gonna be easier than a dozen strong mercenaries. I doubt they're conditioned for fighting batponies, either, and just like last time we've got a last resort." She hoofed the blade back to Shinespark. "The moment I go down, if I go down, go ham with this if you're not already. Otherwise, do what you think you can. Deal?"
Shinespark extended a metal-clad hoof. "Deal."
Valey bumped it, then glanced to Grapejuice and Grenada. "You two stay behind us, then? Do your best to stay safe. Remember, you can share shadow sneaking with non-batponies to hide. And light from your horn if they're hiding in the shadows against you. And, uhh..." She glanced around, grabbing a cutlass one of the pirates had dropped and tossing it to them. "Here. Defend yourselves. And now..."
With a deep breath and an extended sigh, Valey spread her wings, flapped them once, and stared up at the rest of the ship. "Let's go hunt some pirates."
Three Varsidelian horns burst with light in sync, and a party of sarosians were thrust from the ground into the waiting attacks of an escaping army. They shrieked, screeched and howled until they were silenced, hooves and horns being used just as naturally as real weapons.
Nearby, Puddles crossly leaned against a wall, one hoof channeling a constant stream of icy energy into the ground. The corridor forward was blocked by a wall she projected, the transparent ice forcing the approaching pirates to shadow sneak through and make themselves vulnerable to light and funneling, but it also prevented making any progress forward at all. Not that dropping it was an option. The wave of sarosians assembled awaiting their turn would overwhelm the Varsidelian front in an instant.
"Urgh..." Melia looked greener than usual, standing as far out of the way as she could next to Puddles as the waves of invaders lessened, most of the batponies on the other side starting to realize the fate that awaited them with their current tactics. A dead pirate tossed aside by a soldier hit the ground near her, and she jumped, legs shaking.
"Looks beautiful, doesn't it?" Puddles asked, not bothering to disguise her voice. "Mmm, so much carnage. It's like they don't need supernatural help to tear each other to pieces after all, or are doing it now that it doesn't matter just to spite me. Not like I wouldn't do the same, if I was feeling vindictive enough. Ever seen anything like it?"
"Yes." Melia straightened at that. "I was from Varsidel, you know. It's just bringing back bad memories." She hastily rebound her mane, still unbrushed but somewhat in the shape of a bow. "What are you? I thought you were possessed by a monster, but you don't look amused by this either."
"Meh." Puddles shrugged. "I'm getting tired of telling that old story over and over. You'll just have to deal."
"I'm dealing fine," Melia growled, guarding her cutie mark from the chaos with her tail. "Except for the fact that I'm on the front lines and the only pony I'd be at all inclined to trust has run off!"
Puddles stuck out her tongue. "Well, you're stuck with Puddles! So there. And you can trust her or-"
A blinding crack and subsequent shockwave swept both off their hooves, throwing Puddles against a wall and knocking Melia into her. Yells and screams erupted, and the corridor was suddenly filled with smoke. Puddles punched the ground with a snarl, summoning several icy fanblades and starting to spin them to blow... and the haze quickly cleared, revealing a smoldering area just in front of her barrier where the sarosians had shadow snuck through a bomb. Varsidelians were clutching at their faces or pulled backward in pain, and the batponies immediately surged forward, six surfacing during the drop in guard and another squad instantly backing them up.
"Oops?" Puddles frowned, her ice barrier cracked and starting to give way as it was hammered from the other side. "Fiiine! Move over, fat stallions! Time for Puddles!"
She shoved her way through the milling Varsidelians, hooves glowing, and brought them to the ground, spikes of ice lashing out at the invading pirates. Some were speared, but most ducked, and a batpony swam beneath a patch of frost before rising and lashing out with a kick that Puddles took, grappled and rolled with.
"Get off!" Puddles punched them, laying on her back, and the contact spread ice across half their body, freezing them and letting her kick them off. She let her legs drop for a second once they were gone, the nausea from her recent meal spiking with the sudden motion and physical exertion. "Ooogh..." she whimpered, not moving. "Puddles needs to stay out of melee..."
Her rest lasted a second too long, and a second pirate targeted her, appearing out of nowhere and slamming a booted hoof into her belly, aiming to wind.
"HRESHHHHH!" Puddles lurched, her eyes flashed, and a cone of icy energy lanced upward from her mouth, passing through her opponent and leaving them lifeless in its wake. It boomeranged around, still tethered to her, and flew back inside, leaving her twitching.
Melia's eyes widened, and she slunk along to Puddles' side, trying her best to avoid the desperate skirmish that had erupted in front of the fallen chokepoint. "What was that?"
Puddles groaned, touching herself where she had been kicked. "Puddles ate a dead windigo heart for science," she whimpered. "She needs it for her plan, but this cute pony body really doesn't like it when you do that..."
"...So can you fight or can't you?" Melia looked nervously at the Varsidelians. "They can't even hold a corridor against our enemies, let alone push for an escape! And forget about trying to secure an entire corridor so the wounded can escape! They're outmatched, and you... have magic!"
"Oh yeah?" Puddles narrowed her eyes. "You have magic too, cute unicorn. Ever thought about using yours?"
Melia blinked, until a shard of wood blown from the wall made her wince and back away.
"Well?" Puddles gave her a look as her tail was seized in a green aura, Melia dragging her back down the hallway and away from the fighting. "It would work. Puddles is just saying..."
"You mean like this?" Melia's horn glowed brighter, until she managed to lift Puddles entirely, flipping her upright and setting her on her hooves. "I doubt that will be much good against pirates."
Puddles blinked, then leaned in conspiratorially, now standing on her own. "Wanna know a seeecret?"
Melia frowned.
Puddles leaned so close that her breath was frosty against the soft fur of Melia's ear. "Puddles wrote the contest concert songs for Chauncey. She knows how they work."
"What?" Melia's heart skipped a beat. "You... He... Why?"
"Heehee. It's a secret. Maybe Puddles will tell you once she has everything else she wants." Puddles giggled. "But I'm not going back. Not to Izvaldi. And I'll bribe and blackmail whoever I have to if being good and saving you isn't enough, so don't worry! He won't be able to do it anymore. Hee."
Melia's throat tightened in suspicion. "Puddles..."
Suddenly, shouting erupted in the direction they were trying to run, and several of the Varsidelians they had left behind to guard taken corridors came charging up. "Form a barricade!" the leading one yelled. "We got flanked from both sides at once and are cut off! We have to hit them here where they're weak and loop around to counter-flank and get back to our injured comrades!"
Melia paled.
"Welp!" Puddles straightened herself, let out a deep breath, and took a last, nauseous half-second break. "As cute Valey would say? Bananas! Those guys are doomed. Silly doomed unicorns. Want to fight your way out with Puddles?"
"I'm not useful in a fight, I told you!" Melia stomped a hoof, fear starting to overflow into anger. "I don't want to-"
Puddles silenced her with a flirtatious kiss just as the shadows at the hall corner started to ripple. "Awww, cute unicorn, I told you! Just use your magic! It'll work great. Now, watch Puddles!"
Flaaash! Puddles slammed her hooves together, using them as focuses for each other and drawing them apart with icy gauntlets wrapped around each. Each one pulsed, the one on the left morphing to a leg-length spear, the right a long, ice-link chain. The flash of the magic didn't break the shadows, but eager pairs of eyes looked up nonetheless, a wave of pirates sharking toward her.
"Hiyaaaaaa!" Puddles jammed the spearpoint into a floorboard, cracking it and forcing the tip beneath. Her hoof rippled with energy as she kept the spear intact, then slammed it down as a lever, tearing the floor apart in a line towards the batponies and destroying the surface they snuck along. Their momentum preserved, the sarosians were flung into the air, wings spread and mouths open in shrieks of battle.
Swish! Shinnng! Slash! Flash!
Puddles flung herself into a twirl, the whip spinning with her, striking necks and faces. The tip hit the final sarosian to be ejected, and a wave of magic flowed from her hoof down the chain, causing the end to explode in a ball of ice that engulfed them completely. Without an opaque surface to sneak against, they were trapped... and she flung them toward her, catching all the others with the improvised flail and putting them perfectly in a line.
Again, she flipped, dispersing the chain gauntlet and planting that hoof against the floor. Ice crackled and spread as she froze herself in place, planting and anchoring her hooves for a huge burst of momentum... and the spear morphed into a huge talon, clenched into a fist twice the size of her body. The batponies couldn't alter their trajectory. Puddles crouched, braced herself, and punched.
P-P-POW! The fist hit each and every one of them, its size punching through the cluster as if it were nothing. When her foreleg was maximally extended, Puddles' hoof pulsed with ice one more time, firing the fist like a rocket the rest of the way through the enemies, impacting the far wall with an explosion of wood shards and ice crystals and leaving a hole in the far end. All around her, batponies slammed, broken and defeated and hitting the ruined floor and walls and ceiling.
"You like that?" Puddles blew on her hooves and winked, then winced, holding her stomach. "Puddles is... ehhh... pretty cool?"
Melia nodded silently, mouth open.
"Then those guys will be fiiine," she assured, taking a few breaths. "Let's go run away, or something. Puddles needs to find where cute Valey ran off to and show her who she saved."
Valey slipped through a doorless entry several levels deep inside the ship, leading the way as Shinespark, Grenada and Grapejuice followed. They hadn't met much resistance from pirates, and those they had found were heading in the same direction. Whenever needed, Valey had snuck Shinespark and Grenada to hide them and Grapejuice had pretended to be doing her normal job, so they had a good idea of where the fight was currently happening.
"What is our plan aside from charging in?" Grenada whispered, pulling up by Valey's side. "Every pirate on this boat must be where we are going..."
"Slipping around behind," Valey muttered, ignoring several side passages and pressing on. "Gonna let Gazelle and Meltdown mash these bozos head-on. We're going to see if there's any other way to go that doesn't involve getting past a fat army of batponies."
Shinespark frowned. "You know that army will just move to block us whichever way we try to lead the soldiers out, right?"
"Eh, something like that." Valey paused to check a door that looked like a break room, wrinkling her nose at the smell of spilled something wafting from within. "So then we'll punch our way out, rather than punching our way in and then punching our way out. Skip half the work. And bananas, I've done way too much work today. I wanna nap. Nyaaah..."
Fortunately, navigating the ship didn't take long. Valey's experience with enclosed complexes was the Defense Force base and the Flame District, both of which had been made by digging additional rooms onto an existing structure with no thought for coherency or quick travel. This ship had been planned since before construction began, so several long hallways running the length of the vessel and linked by wells of staircases made it an easy bet that moving toward one's destination and actually getting closer were one and the same.
The sounds of combat echoed louder in Valey's ears, coming from the floor directly below them. Good thing they hadn't taken one more staircase. She kept her senses trained on danger, taking point and... freeze!
Crack! Valey's wings shot out to stop her companions instants before the floor exploded beneath her, an icy spear piercing through it and embedding its tip in the roof. The debris rained against her face as she raised a hoof to block her eyes, and in a second, it was clear, a gaping hole below her where the wood had been blown away. She glanced down. Three pirates glanced up. Their glance was an instant too long.
A flash of ice, and they were all impaled together on the same icicle. Then they were gone, and Valey found herself instead staring down a very winded, unhappy Puddles.
"Cute Valey!" Puddles raised her spirits momentarily with a cheer, waving from the floor below. "Hiya! You're b-back..."
"Yep." Valey lowered herself enough to take a peek down the hallway Puddles had been traversing, then decided to stay hovering. "Sure am. Kinda here on business stuff. Thrilled beyond words to see you. You better not ask for a hug."
"Heehee..." Puddles giggled weakly, then pushed Melia into view. "I got you a present, cute Valey! You left before we could reach her! Are you proud of Puddles?"
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked. "Yeah, I kind of saw that up in the control room. Good for you, and all that. How did you know she was here?"
Puddles grinned, then wiggled her nose pointedly at Valey. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"That's why she asked," Shinespark said from above, stepping to the edge of the wreckage and shouldering Gerardo's blade. "It doesn't matter if you're going to be obstinate, though. Whose side are you on right now? Fighting against the batpony pirates?"
Puddles winced and held her stomach. "Sort of... Fighting is making Puddles hurt right now. Help Puddles?"
Valey gave Shinespark a nonplussed look, and Shinespark sighed. "The second windigo heart? That Howe and Neon Nova stole? She ate it."
"Youuuu need to work on that," Valey remarked, raising a warning eyebrow at Puddles. "Stop trying to make yourself sick! Seriously!" She huffed. "Whatever, though. Which way are we going? I'm here to help Sparky not have to leave any Varsidelian dudes behind, because it means a lot to her and stuff. We still doing that? Also, someone take care of the singer!"
Puddles moaned and rolled onto her back, holding herself, and Valey couldn't decide if she really was in that much pain or was just making a big show of it to be dramatic and get attention. Shinespark, meanwhile, jumped down into the lower corridor, using her horn to help Grenada down.
"Don't come down here!" Melia sharply advised. "We're looking for the way out, not to go back in!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey ignored Puddles, glancing to her instead. "What's the situation?"
Melia sighed. "The ones who can fight are trying to clear and hold a path so they can move the ones who can't abovedecks to the merchant vessel. But not only are they getting pushed back, they got hit from the rear, and the path they thought was safe is gone, so the main fighters are immobile and cut off. It isn't good."
Shinespark winced. "Okay, no, that's really not good... I should have stuck with your group instead of the grapple team! Those would have been easy enough without me..." She looked up, blue eyes sparkling with hardness. "Come on. Let's get down there and back them up."
"Ooog..." Puddles burped, resting uncomfortably on the ground. "Does Puddles have to? We were running..."
"...Shinespark?" Valey raised an eyebrow, forgoing her usual nickname. "These two kinda look like they need an evac, and you're the only way they're gonna fly. Me and Grapejuice are actually the only ones with wings. What are we doing?"
Shinespark's magic trembled around the hilt of Gerardo's sword. "I-I..."
"Evacs are for wimps." Grapejuice scratched the back of her neck with a wing.
"I..." Grenada looked shamefacedly at the ground. "I would like to live and not risk my life, if permissible, though I did say I would follow you down here..."
Valey nodded. "That's a vote for run, a vote for fight, and an undecided. Or a fight and two undecideds? If we leave, I'm pretty sure we can get out here, ditching the Varsidelians to whatever Gazelle and Meltdown can pull together. You two?" She raised an eyebrow at Melia and Puddles.
"What does it look like?" Melia looked away.
Puddles just wheezed.
"Okay, that's unhelpful..." Valey groaned, glancing back at Shinespark. "Sparky, you're the one who can fly everyone out of here, so it's your call. I'll just go with the flow. Don't really wanna stay behind here and fight these guys solo if everyone else is running."
Shinespark looked in pain at Grenada, then nodded at Valey. "We stay here and try to save the Varsidelians. I'll use this." She drew the sword. "All of us were fine with this when we agreed not to leave earlier. Marching formation! Valey, you take point. I'll be immediately behind you with both offense and defense, so fall behind me when you sense a problem. In the middle is Puddles; Grenada, do your best to help her or carry her. Puddles, do your best to be artillery for us. Rear guard is Grapejuice and Melia. Watch our backs. Speak up if something's coming. Puddles, watch them too. When we encounter enemies, remember that we'll probably need to get rid of all of them to make it out alive."
"Sure. Whatever."
"I... will try my best."
"Heee... Puddles gets to be an artillery..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, those two were fine, but what about Puddles and... Guh. Look." She turned to Melia. "Do you wanna risk your hot pop-star butt here with us? Because I could carry you out myself and let Sparky take the lead, and then fly my way back once I dump you somewhere safe, or something."
Shinespark looked suddenly fearful. "If I'm going up against the entire ship and you're not here..."
"Yeah. I'm awesome, I know." Valey gave her armored shoulder a too-reassuring pat and leaned in so their cheeks were close. "Well, whatever." She gave Melia a look.
"I got captured here already," Melia sighed. "And it was my own fault. Take me where you will, and don't run for my sake."
"Snazzy." Valey hopped back into formation. "In that case? Bad bozos, right about that way. Let's go kick some tail."
Melia and Grenada kept their horns lit as brightly as they could, forcing back the shadows and preventing the enemies from sneaking so long as they weren't offered cover. But it didn't matter: packed thick enough that some had to fly over the shoulders of others to fit, a disorganized, chaotic mash of pirates plugged the passage, the dark greens and blues and violets of their coats blending together in a dusky writhing of fur and leather.
"No, you eat a sock!" Valey twirled, slipping herself within a hair's breadth of three swords at once, dodging and defending and keeping the mass from bearing down on her allies. Shinespark wasn't able to help; this was the end of the reinforcement line, and the moment they had stopped moving more batponies trickled out of nowhere to pile on and join the fight from behind them. Whizz! Slash! Gerardo's sword flew, but at best, they were holding on both fronts and making no progress on either.
Valey hit the floor, sliding along the rough boards and smashing her hooves into a stallion's leg, dropping him. Before she could even try to grapple him or use him as a weapon, a thrown dagger forced her to flatten her ears to avoid losing them, and she brought her hooves up instead to intercept a peg-leg aimed for her eye. She reared up and flapped her wings, forcing back the peg-leg pony's charge, but had to bring up her hind legs too to kick away a slash aimed at her belly and the stallion easily forced back the power of her wings alone.
"Nnngh!" Valey spun in midair, landing on her forehooves and countering with a powerful rear-legged smash to the attacker's face. He was bowled backwards, taking out two opponents in his fall, but there were still fliers coming. She didn't even have time to take a breath before launching herself to face them.
"Hey... Sparky!" she grunted, punching and pinning a stallion's wing to the roof before slapping him and thrusting him into another. "You gotta push, and while you're at it, throw the ones you're done with over this way! We gotta clog the passage with bodies!"
Morbid as the thought was, it was her best hope: between the big peg-legged stallion and everyone she had felled before, the floor was starting to get too filled for anyone to approach her on hoof. Some of the batponies had started hauling away their injured companions, though the effort was hindered by there being nowhere else in the corridor to put them. At this point, she wasn't sure they could get through the passage even if they did take out every last enemy there.
"Ask Puddles!" Shinespark snapped back, a loud clang of metal against armor ringing out. "I'm very busy not dying, here! Gaaaah!"
Valey winced, but there was nothing she could do to defend that flank. "Puddles, you wanna do something!?"
"Why Puddles...?" Puddles moaned, staggering up beside Valey and immediately getting impaled by a rapier. She stared at it with wide eyes.
"Woah!" Valey didn't give herself time to gasp, coming down with balled forehooves on the pirate who had done the deed, then shoulder-slamming them for good measure. That opened her up to a swing from the pony she had been fighting, though, and she had to block it with her hoof, earning a painful chip and a suddenly bad position. "Puddles, don't...!" She rolled, trying to be anywhere but on her back against a wave of foes.
Puddles looked at the rapier in shock, then in anger, immediately lucid and standing straighter. "You hurt Puddles," she whimpered. "You hurt Puddles. Don't you know that's rude?"
The rapier forcefully ejected itself, its wound crackling and sealing with teal energy. Puddles glared at the wall of batponies, then tapped the ground with a magic hoof, and a forest of ice spikes burst forth and rose all the way to the ceiling.
Chaotic screaming rang out from the pirates as everyone was either impaled or sandwiched against someone else who was. Puddles' eyes flashed, and she stuck her tongue out at a mare who was caught midway up, one of her extended wings ran through.
Valey stumbled backwards, actually nauseous from the sight. "Woah. That's... okay, one way to... We're still gonna need to get through there, you know..."
She shook herself out of it, whipping around to Shinespark now that Puddles had this side. Her armor was scratched and one of her cheeks bleeding, and she waved Gerardo's sword threateningly before a pack of terrified opponents, though far fewer than Puddles was now holding off... and she didn't see any trace of stunned or limp ponies for them to be terrified of. What?
"Uhh." Valey took a single step closer, raising an eyebrow and taking the badly-needed time to pant.
Suddenly, a single batpony screeched and hurtled toward Shinespark, snapping from the tension. Swish! The blade flew crosswise, but they were ready and ducked. They weren't ready for it to loop around and catch them from below... and it did, earning a spasm before flipping around in midair and plunging into their back, dispersing them into a fading cutie mark and a cloud of dull gray ash. The sight made Valey's blood freeze, and she only regained movement when she realized Shinespark was crying.
"Alright, idiots," Valey snarled, stalking forward and putting herself between her friend and the terrified army. "What's it gonna take to make you realize we're not worth messing with? Grapejuice, translate!"
Grapejuice barked something in Sarosian. They had the pirates' attention, however tentative it might be.
"Well?" Valey stomped a hoof, plainly aware of the icy, grisly sight they could see behind her.
"You speak in a sacrilegious tongue!" a mare from the crowd hissed back. "And invaded our ship! You have every right to die painfully!"
Valey gave her a deadpan stare. "Yeah, you're pirates. You messed with my ship first, and I'm here 'cuz I chased you back after kicking your rears. You idiots brought me on yourself, so what are you willing to do to make me go away? Now! I'm in a hurry!"
The pirates who could understand her snarled, and those who couldn't looked even more scared as Grapejuice continued translating. Valey didn't stop there, taking another aggressive step forward. "Force isn't working. You can't beat me. And my friends are strong too. You see how many dudes are messed up back there? You really wanna throw your lives away for this? Just let me get me way! Bananas, I order you to stand aside and leave me alone by virtue of being the strongest pony here!"
Another mare glowered, pointing a hoof at Grapejuice. "She's not accurately translating," she snarled. "She's saying you're a herald of the Night Mother and have her divine power!"
"Huh? You mean a Nightmare Module?" Valey shrugged with imposing nonchalance. "Yeah, I've messed around with those before. Didn't really think I needed them, though."
Eeeing broke out as a stallion loudly protested something, and was suddenly punched by another. Ears flicked and several strong rebukes sounded, and faster than an avalanche could appear, the pirates were fighting each other in a desperate melee, quite a few trying to run. Valey gave Grapejuice an incredulous look. "Your dudes have problems."
Grapejuice gave a cheeky grin. "Uh huh. I might'a said a little extra here and there, but who cares, am I right? Also, you might wanna pay attention to the weirdos in the ice again."
"Bananas." Valey gave the suddenly-brawling pirates a flat look. "Seriously, what is it with you guys? I punch and kick you all I can, but the moment someone says 'Nightmare Module,' that's what gets you? Maybe I should switch to that as my primary weapon instead! Nightmare Module! Nightmare Module! Nightmare-"
Her ears suddenly flicked as the residual chill from the nearby ice spikes gave way to a toasty warmth against her back. "Uh-oh."
Behind her, batponies squabbled, a few sawing and hacking at the ice with whatever weapons they possessed to free their friends, but most trying to climb over their allies to charge toward Valey and the others. Only... they were running. Those who made it out ignored them completely, only to run into the brawl and freeze, screeching, looking for a way out.
A red glow appeared distantly on the other side of the spikes, and that warmth tripled in intensity. Valey winced, already sweaty from the fight. It didn't take a genius to figure out who they were about to run into.
Fwoooosh! The ice spikes collapsed under a jet of boiling air, and most of the batponies collapsed in its wake, forming a limp pile three to four bodies high. Valey couldn't see past the pony wall, and she definitely couldn't fly: it was all she could manage to remain on her hooves, feeling her hairs curl from the heat. A wet heat, full of moisture from the melted ice. She could barely breathe.
The heat felled most of the fighting pirates in the other direction, and of her friends, only Shinespark and Puddles were left standing. "Nnngh!" Shinespark winced, mane already matted. "Hotter than the Flame District on a bad day in here..."
"Surrender!" Meltdown's voice barked from down the corridor, far more distant than the heat felt like it was coming from. "Your dying day doesn't have to be today, heretics!"
A few pirates also managed to stir. Puddles was hissing, covered in a layer of frost from the moisture as Meltdown's heat clashed with her magic. Valey gave her a desperate look. "Puddles, break the ceiling! We'll have to make a way out of here!"
"No. Better way..." Panting, Shinespark gripped Gerardo's sword in her teeth and attacked the wall, three giant slashes carving a triangular hole that she threw the weight of her armor into. With a crack, the wood broke free from its place and collapsed inward, leaving a hole for them to drag themselves through.
Gasping, Valey pulled herself through, feeling a wave of relief at the cooler air that hit her face... smelly air. She almost instantly choked at the overwhelming scent of sweat and unwashed manes, quickly recognizing the area as an empty bunk hall. Must have been where they stuffed everyone who didn't believe in bathing...
Nevertheless, Valey took in as much relief as she could, helping Shinespark and Puddles' wonderfully-cold body through the hole. The moment they were in, she jumped back, feeling herself instantly start to heat again as she tried to fan Melia and Grenada into wakefulness. Grapejuice crawled along the ground, smart enough to drag herself toward safety.
"I got you!" Shinespark's magic flared, lifting Grenada and pulling her through. Just as the wind began to blow again with another wave of heat, Valey got Melia over her shoulders, the mare moaning weakly as their coats curled harder. What was Meltdown trying to do, light the pirates on fire? The moisture was gone from the air now, dry, desertlike winds ignoring even the normal ocean humidity to assault them. Valey winced, reluctantly leaning Melia into it like a shield, and managed to throw the two of them through the entrance.
Flash! Puddles iced the hole behind them, but it instantly began to melt. She frowned, still looking nauseous. "That's not good..."
"Bananas." Valey flopped down on the sticky, dirty floor, panting and nearly hyperventilating. "Someone... nngh... try to lift that piece of wall back into place..."
No one was strong enough to, sweat streaming from Shinespark's brow and Puddles sending pulse after pulse into maintaining her wall. "Come on, Puddles!" Valey growled, trying to goad the mare into doing more. "Is that seriously the best you can do!?"
"Puddles doesn't want to steal cute Valey's show!"
"Yeah, sure you don't!" Snarling, Valey pushed herself back upright, grabbing the wall chunk herself. It was annoyingly heavy, even if she had been fresh and healthy, but she tipped it upright anyway, slamming it against the hole. Puddles re-adjusted her magic, holding it in place, and breathed easier.
"We can't stay here," Shinespark managed, mane plastered to her skull. "This isn't working..."
"Ya think?" Valey growled, looking around at her friends. Grapejuice was laying on her back, pupils pinpricked, little chest moving way too hard and way too fast... With her tiny body, the heat must have been far harder to handle. Melia was slowly coming out of a daze, and Grenada's teeth were gritted as she wobbled on her hooves.
"We're basically wiped, here," Valey panted, moving over and putting a comforting hoof on Grapejuice. "You still wanna try to beat every last thing in this place and get all those Varsidelians to a merchant ship? Come on, tell me you're fine with doing what we were doing to those pirates for that."
Shinespark looked haunted. The iced-over wall shook, but she ignored it and said, "N-No. I'm not. But you think they're going to do anything better to each other if we don't do anything?"
"And what will you do?" Valey countered, fanning Grapejuice with her wings. "Just convince them to go and live their lives as model citizens? How are you gonna do that!? They might think I've got something to do with their goddess, but I definitely don't have a way to command them all to shape up and get them to listen! Either we kill these dudes or they kill the Varsidelians, or we pull off a miracle and they kill someone else! I saw you with that sword!" She pointed an aggressive hoof. "Forget how it does something like that, I saw you! I know you're not okay with this!"
"Well, what do you want me to do!?" Shinespark raised her voice, beyond tense. "Valey!"
"At this point?" Valey matched her tension, though she continued tending to Grapejuice rather than taking an aggressive stance. "I think you should teleport us all out of here and then fly us back to the Dream, and we acknowledge that the world is garbage and bad stuff happens and go hide and see to ourselves for a while! You wanna know what I was doing when I got awakened by my cutie mark with a pirate ready to toss a net over me right on your ship!? I was keeping Starlight and Ironflanks company because they're not okay and I'm not okay and we needed it! Bananas, forget the Varsidelians! I wanna get out of here while we're still alive!"
Grenada stood shakily, facing Shinespark. "I... I know... I am sorry for not speaking up more against us coming down here, or going on once we found them..."
"Puddles votes run," Puddles groaned from a corner where she was repeatedly icing and thawing herself.
"You're not Varsidel's hero," Valey sighed, feeling the toll everything had taken on her as well. "You don't owe them any-"
CRACK! The fixed wall segment exploded inward, and Meltdown stepped through in a determined prowl, fans spinning and Gazelle coiled in her metal tail. She looked ready to attack for an instant before recognizing who was there, turning, and blocking the door instead.
"Uhhh..." Valey wilted, but threw herself between Meltdown and Grapejuice regardless.
"Hmm." Meltdown gave the wall hole a sharp look, then lowered the speed on her fans, setting Gazelle down on the floor. The sphinx looked giddy with shock, and a long gash ran down one of his sides, all the way through a hind leg right below his cutie mark.
"Oh bananas." Valey gave them a wide-eyed look. "You two got routed too?"
Meltdown gave the hallway a final look. "We should be leaving. I think Gazelle was distracted by the presence of you all. There will be enough explaining and damage control to do when we get back as-is, ignoring the fact that we won't be able to save the Varsidelians. I'm very... frustrated."
Shinespark's ears folded, blood still dripping from the gash on her cheek. "What's their status? The Varsidelians."
"We met up with the advance group." Meltdown nodded. "Helped them fight their way backwards. Gazelle hurt himself rushing ahead. We pushed back down the main corridor their reinforcements were coming through. It should be enough for them to fall back to the prison room where they can try to hold, but they won't be pushing again and will eventually be overwhelmed. I tried to bring down the sarosians' morale earlier, but it hasn't worked."
"So you're leaving." Shinespark drooped. "Even with whatever you can do, you think it's a good idea to leave too?"
Meltdown turned. "As I said, I'm very frustrated we haven't anything to show for our numerous setbacks." She surveyed the group one by one, noting their exhaustion and incapacitation, eyes finally settling on Puddles. "It would make things a lot better if I had at least one thing to call this trip worthwhile for."
Puddles grinned nervously. "Why are you looking at cute Puddles like that?"
"I'm not talking to Puddles," Meltdown said, stepping away from Gazelle and toward Puddles. "I'm talking to you, windigo. I'm not sure you're smart enough to realize how dangerous you are. In the name of the Empire, you can't be free and running around."
Her fans started to speed up. Valey gulped.
"Heh. Oh well." Puddles tossed her mane with a hoof, pupilless eyes suddenly sparking. "Looks like it's time to see how well all that acting paid off!"
With a roar, Meltdown's fans suddenly reversed, blowing backwards and propelling her toward Puddles with a rocketlike hoof outstretched. Puddles countered with a double-hoof smash to the ground, icy runes erupting in circles around her... and those turned to pillars, rising like geysers and smashing through the roof before a larger one took her with it. "Hahahahahaha!" Puddles cackled, lifting herself away and out of Meltdown's reach.
Fwooooosh! A blast of fiery air washed in all directions as Meltdown reared back, coiling her hind legs and jumping into the shower of debris. Her spiked metal hooves latched onto the pillars, and she rose with Puddles out of sight.
"Nnnnngh!" Valey threw herself over Grapejuice and winced as splinters of wood peppered her body. Further away, Shinespark lowered her head and stood over Melia.
Grenada managed to duck out of the way altogether. "Everyone?" She pointed a hoof back at the hole in the wall, where more overheated pirates were starting to collapse and spill in. "We have company!"
"Sparky!" Valey reached downward with her wings, grabbing Grapejuice and holding her against her belly, not having time to properly pick up the mare. "Fly us out! All of us! Now! This is about to go from bad to worse faster than you can blink!"
Instantly, blue magic surrounded her. "Even him!?" Shinespark threw a scared glance at Gazelle, who was starting to pull himself to his paws, tongue lolling and side dripping blood.
"Who cares?" Valey growled. "He'll make trouble for us either way! Dream! Now!"
With another pulse of magic, they started to rise, soaring upward through the hole Puddles had made, all their friends in tow.
A blast of ocean air greeted Valey as Shinespark lifted her and the rest onto the shipdeck, the stars shining around them. The sky was devoid of batponies; the only souls in sight were them and Puddles and Meltdown, staring each other down a few yards away.
"Bananas," Valey grunted, landing on the deck and releasing Grapejuice so the mare could gasp down some cool air. There wasn't a heavy breeze, but her coat practically straightened in relief after the inferno Meltdown had used to subdue the pirates below. "Ughhhh. We're out. Sparky? You good to carry us now, or are we waiting until everyone who can feels up to flying?"
Shinespark panted, wiping her mane out of her eyes and letting her horn spark for a moment. "I'll be good. I just need a moment. Just one-"
Flash! An ice spear shot out of the ground, and Puddles clasped it in her mouth. "You wanna tango, fire mare? I could surrender, you know. My conditions aren't all that unreasonable, when you think about them."
"I have no interest in hearing it," Meltdown replied coolly, fans spinning menacingly. "You know things that are dangerous to the Empire I protect. Your existence was permitted only through a gross violation of various rules. Lacking any better options to exorcise or repair you, prepare to die."
Puddles winced, moving a hoof near her stomach and then standing straight.
Meltdown's fans began to spin up. She planted her hooves, and Puddles planted hers. Valey's cutie mark suddenly tingled, and her eyes widened as she realized just how big the blast radius might have the potential to be with both of them going all-out. "Uh-oh. Uhh, we might want to move a lot farther away..."
"Really. You think that's a good idea?" Gazelle groaned from the floor, having been lifted out by Shinespark as well. The furry prince got unsteadily to his paws, side gashed and bleeding, and spread his wings, drunkenly stumbling toward Valey and the others and pushing them further back. "It'll be quite the show," he purred. "Stay a while and watch..."
Meltdown's fans spun faster. Ice began to form around Puddles' hooves, latent energy discharging into the wood and causing it to distend and buckle. Shinespark needed no urging to run, helping everyone along and taking cover behind a metal bulkhead. Valey waited until everyone was down, daring to look...
FWOOOOOOOM!
A pillar of fire exploded its way from Meltdown's fans, looking less like she was blowing it and more like the air between them had just decided to burn. Puddles' eyes widened in shock and she dropped the spear, slamming the ground in a desperate counterattack. "Hiyaaaaa!"
Spikes of ice raced forward toward the flames, manifesting in a giant wave like the head of a dragon breaking the surface of the ocean. The elemental pillars collided, wavering and buckling like they were pushed together by sheer force of will, and then exploded at the bases, wrapping together and cancelling each other out in a whirlwind of embers, sleet and steam. Wind tore over Valey's head, and she ducked just in time to avoid her ears getting taken off. The pressure didn't abate for seconds, and she leaned into the barrier, unsure if it was burning with hot or cold as she fought to keep it from blowing away as well.
She was the second to lift her head, Gazelle beating her with a hiss and a wince. The steam rapidly cleared, revealing Meltdown and Puddles still standing... but not for long. Energy gathered at Puddles' hooves again and surged, a spire of ice forming beneath her and propelling her forwards at unstoppable speeds. In response, Meltdown's fans roared again, switching direction and blasting backwards with streaks of glowing air.
With a jet-engine roar, Meltdown flew, extending a metal hoof as Puddles countered with an ice-armored fist of her own. This time, when they collided, Valey could watch, though the forces pressing them together as each sought to out-punch the other still generated a maelstrom of wind. Hoof met hoof as Meltdown's engines shrieked, Puddles' ice pillar pressing her forward in return. The bones in Puddles' leg shattered from the pressure, teal energy crackling all over it to knit her back together and keep from falling under the assault.
Skrash! Fully airborne, held aloft by the power of her fans and the air that was being heated through them, Meltdown flipped her hind legs forward, iron tail extending in a fired grappling hook that sheared through Puddles' ice. Her resistance gone, Puddles was helpless before Meltdown's momentum... but Meltdown had thrown herself into a spin, and they broke apart with a punch from Meltdown's other hoof, sending Puddles rocketing into the deck with a board-breaking slam.
Meltdown went flying upward, propelled by the sheer force with which she threw Puddles. Midair, she reversed her course, turning her fans slightly lower and hovering in place like they were a jetpack. Valey saw Puddles climb out from the crater, glowing teal with healing injuries, another spear clenched in her grasp... and Meltdown dropped, falling into a cannonball attack where her own weight was all she needed as a weapon.
"They're going to destroy the ship," Shinespark whispered, shaking with wide eyes. "We... I'm ready. We need to go. Who am I carrying?"
"Think I'm good." Valey swallowed, flexing her wings. "We're just leaving her?"
"Buddy, point me in a direction and I'm gone." Grapejuice gave the horizon a painfully-eager look.
"Carry me? Are you leaving!?" Gazelle looked downright incredulous. "This is the main event! How could you miss this?"
Valey gave him a look. "Well, sorry, but we're done. This is a huge mess and it kind of stinks but I don't even know how many pirates are on this ship and we thought the last few chances we had to turn back would be our last ones. We're tired, beaten up, out of resources, and need to bail. You wanna be a hero or something, do it yourself!"
Grapejuice frowned. "Yo, I think he's watching this for sport."
"Correct!" Gazelle gave a fanged grin, patting Grapejuice on the head with a bloody paw. "It's a necessary pastime. I'll tell you all about it sometime. Have fun running, pirates. Who knows? Maybe you won't be tried on the mainland for heresy!" He blinked. "And if you were wondering, this boat is supposed to crew two hundred, but they probably overcrowded it."
"Forgot about thaaat..." Valey groaned, then spread her wings. "And gonna forget about it again, because we're outta here! See ya, prince dude."
With a powerful flap, she was off, Shinespark rising into the air close behind.
The pirate frigate receded into the distance as Shinespark flew, Valey leading the way towards Starlight's scent on the horizon. Already, they were high enough to see the Dream in the distance, its cabin lights out to make it less-visible to eager pirates. Not that that mattered any more. There wasn't a sentry to be found, everything the batpony army had dedicated to fighting the Varsidelians. Maybe they could have made a difference if they stayed. Maybe things could have been different.
Valey's heart burned as they glided for safety, the rest of her friends and the friends of her friends clutched in Shinespark's aura. She knew Shinespark felt the same, the Varsidelians she had promised to help leave now backed into a corner with no chance of survival. Bangs and crashes still echoed on the air behind her, bright flashes of light coming from the frigate as Puddles and Meltdown traded attacks. She doubted Puddles could win. If she somehow gained the upper hoof, Gazelle was there, and she had no way to leave the ship even if she won...
Was she really upset over leaving Puddles? Puddles had been a jerk. Caused her so much emotional hardship. And she still wasn't sure what had happened with Melia, or how Puddles had found her, or... anything, really. She folded her ears and growled. She wasn't leaving anything behind! She didn't have any unfinished business! She even brought Grapejuice!
...The pirates. Her mind flicked to the batponies, the ones she had just been punching for her life, while Puddles gored them with icicles and Shinespark did whatever Gerardo's sword did now. And then to the ones who had boarded the Dream, with their strange, almost silly antics and instant devotion to her once something had happened. She still wasn't sure how she had done that, but it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that they got to ruin her species' reputation in the Empire for her. It wasn't fair that some of them might listen if she tried to lead them better. They had listened, even, and she wasn't even giving them a chance! All she had done was shouted something about a Nightmare Module and...
"Oh bananas." Valey swallowed, realizing what saddlebags she very much wasn't wearing. "Uhh. Hey, Sparky? You see the ship from here?"
Shinespark turned, raising an eyebrow, horn straining from the weight of lifting so many ponies. "Yeah? Why?"
"...I think I kinda forgot something." Valey gave an abashed grin that quickly crumbled into dead seriousness. "Kinda the most important thing I could forget."
Everyone but Grapejuice gave her an apprehensive look.
"Look, it's..." Valey swallowed. "I gotta go back. I'll take care of myself. Sparky? Get these loons to the Dream. Including Grapejuice. That's an order."
"Valey..." Shinespark's eyes turned downcast.
"Hey. I've made it out of tough spots before. I'll be careful." Valey gave her a reassuring grin. "You'll see me again."
Without waiting to see if she had permission, she turned and bolted back for the frigate.
A wisp of sapphire magic latched onto Valey's tail, causing everyone in Shinespark's grasp to jolt downwards as her horn flickered from the strain. "Valey, wait!"
"Guh!" Valey bounced back against the force, wings giving out on her for half a second before she stabilized, hovering. "Bananas... Sparky, leggo."
"Valey, wait." Shinespark hovered, blue aura flickering above her head and around her body. "Slow down. You're going back? I-I..." Confliction stabbed across her face. "That's not fair! I feel bad about leaving the Varsidelians too, but we have friends who are counting on us who are right here and we need to get back to the ship and leave! Leaving the Empire, sailing wherever we can find to go! And it's not fair to me that I have to make this decision and you think you can just go bounding back off to that death trap and leave me to be responsible and look out for our friends on my own! No, Valey! I want to go back too, but I'm not making up excuses for it! Forget your Nightmare Module! It was the Empire's problem and it can stay the Empire's problem!"
Valey shuddered. That was exactly what she needed to not think about if she was going to... going to... Her train of thought derailed already, and when she attempted to swallow, it turned into a choke. "I don't wanna have whatever bad stuff it does if it's left unchecked staining my hooves, Shinespark! I've got enough issues with this already! Were you there when I was talking about what that thing meant to me? Y-You were already off chasing Puddles, weren't you?"
An icy explosion echoed behind them, and the frigate rocked again, lighting up the night. "Well, I know you were here when I said what this means to me, because I'm doing it now!" Shinespark floated closer and grabbed Valey's shoulders, eyes freshly glistening. "You're my friend! And right now, I have to run away from a battle we both want to keep fighting and both know we'd either lose or win with too much blood on our hooves to live with ourselves! Don't tell me us staying could go any other way! See them?" She swept a hoof at Melia, Grenada, and Grapejuice. "How about them!?" She pointed down at the Immortal Dream, which had noticed their pause in flight and was sailing closer. If the skies hadn't been free of sentries, it would have been dangerously close. "I'm running because all of them need me, because I've got friends worth living for, because I can do more alive and on the move just like when I left Ironridge! And I think our friends are worth more than a Nightmare Module, and are worth more than risking ourselves in a war of that magnitude. I'd do the same for you. So... just because you don't have a horn that's necessary to carry these ponies to safety... please don't leave me?"
"Bananas..." Valey flapped her wings and shivered, shooting one last glance at the frigate. "There's also the sound stone. My connection to Amber..."
"And my connection to my father and Ironridge." Shinespark met Valey's eyes, faces inches apart, separated only by billowing sea winds. "Let's go. Please go. Please don't fly back and do what I want to but can't just because you can."
Valey gritted her teeth, ears flat against the wind. "I'd have fought to stop the fighting for you..."
There was nothing more to say. Valey lunged forward, grabbed Shinespark, and dove with her and the others in tow towards the approaching Dream.
With a windswept thud, everyone landed on the deck of Shinespark's ship. Maple was there, as were Starlight, Gerardo and Slipstream, Nyala waiting on the bridge and Jamjars somewhere down below. Shinespark hit the ground with a stumble, panting and staggering, and Valey was instantly at her side to prop her up, even though she was barely standing herself.
"You've returned!" Gerardo greeted, gratitude and worry mixed on his face. "It's excellent to see you all still alive and mostly in one piece! With... strangers as well, I see." He raised an eyebrow at Grapejuice, then frowned. "Before we get interrupted, would you mind explaining the presence of-"
"Your fell entrance was... err, passable," Howe proclaimed, sticking his head up from a stack of barrels and supplies on the deck, freshly reclaimed from the broken pirate skiff that had been raiding their stores. "It could use a few more dramatic injuries and war wounds, but Shinespark nailed the appearance, at least! I give it a solid B-plus!"
Neon Nova flashed his signature smile, striking a tattered pose behind him. Shinespark's eye twitched. "Right. We sent them here..."
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "One notorious pirate captain of high renown, one griffonness I'm very much not looking forward to meeting once she's awake, and... erm... these. Obligatory concerns regarding heresy and the Empire's laws aside, I must ask: did you have to?"
"N-Not a lot of options," Valey gasped. "Look, we saved some dudes and we're technically alive a-and..." She trembled. "I'm spent. Bananas, I don't wanna think about stuff anymore and I'm definitely done fighting for the night. Look, that ship is bad news, so can we pack up down below and get as far away from here as we can?"
While Valey and Shinespark focused on Gerardo, Maple moved to tend to Grenada, Melia and Grapejuice. She wasn't as surprised to see them as she could have been, and had likely been briefed on who was where by the pirates who flew over earlier, instead giving the three of them a tired, welcoming nod. "Valey has the right idea," she murmured. "Want to go downstairs? Sirena is here, and we've got a lot of spare rooms. Some of them are still pretty messy, though..."
Melia's ears folded. "After how I ran away without telling her where I was going, we might need a little bit more than just seeing each other again to make up. I don't know if I can. But tell her I'm okay?"
Grapejuice rocked back and forth on her hooves. "So. Earth pony. Remember me?"
"Ummm..." Maple's ears folded as Grenada slunk off to stand by Shinespark. "Should I? Were you one of the ones who invaded us?"
"Oh yeah." Grapejuice nodded emphatically. "I was the one who hid in your shadow for the whole thing and just checked out the view. Don't think you ever noticed me."
Maple's eyes widened. "I-I... Please don't? I can't tell if you're joking but I'm not in the market."
"Woah! I'm kidding!" Grapejuice backed off, her own eyes widening as well in alarm. "Just checking out your sense of humor. Gotta know how to hang with who I hang with. Nah, I'd never do that." She paused. "Without permission."
Starlight glared defensively from Maple's side, and Grapejuice backed down further, slinking away and leaving the two of them alone.
On the other side of the deck, Gerardo was staring out at the frigate on the near horizon, close enough that the explosions were visible like blue and orange fireworks and sounded loudly in his ears. "Leaving, you say," he remarked to Shinespark and Valey. "Have you given any thought to where?"
"Not here," Valey sighed, giving Shinespark a cowed, hopeful look. "We, uhh... kinda spent all our time fighting for our lives."
Shinespark nodded, returning the look with a grateful expression. Her horn pulsed weakly, and a flickering aura returned Gerardo's sword, the griffon taking it in a talon. "Anywhere but here, like we did in Ironridge. I'm not sure what our options are. We could sail to Varsidel and try to get through there to Yakyakistan, though it would mean abandoning this ship unless we could find more harmonic energy. A better plan might be to return to Ironridge and get more, then fly to Yakyakistan. If our windigo heart will hold out that long, at least."
"Amber said she had another windigo heart," Valey added. "We would have two. Twice the range. We could get to Yakyakistan, hang out until they give us our border pass thingy, and then book it to Starlight's home and hope maybe it won't be as lousy a place as everywhere we've tried here."
"...I see." Gerardo sighed, turning down his head. "Well, I was... hoping the Empire would work out for us, though I suppose this makes sense. There's nothing we can do to recapture Puddles, correct?"
Valey shrugged. "Only if you're as insane as I am, and Sparky gave a hard no on that one. Listen, I've already fought her once, and was barely strong enough to escape. Now? She's hurt, or something, and I can't tell if it makes her weaker or more dangerous, but all that over there is her fighting Meltdown, who's basically a cross between a bounty hunter, a religious inquisitor and a dragon. As far as I can tell, at least. You'd have to not only catch Puddles, but stop her from catching her first. There's also Gazelle and a big pirate war there, and we've got enough ex-pirates on this boat that we really don't want to be getting their attention. I doubt even Wallace could save her, now."
Shinespark gave a trembling sigh. "I can't fight any more tonight. I'm sorry, Gerardo. I'm going to go take this armor off and put it in the engine room, since apparently the cargo bay is a mess. You can watch as long as you want, but it won't make things feel better. We should leave."
Valey watched as she turned her back, then swallowed. "Hey, uh, need a hoof with that? I've got nothing better to do, and... bananas. I hate this. Just, can I?"
"Okay." Shinespark sounded tired, folding her ears and lowering her head as she stepped for the door belowdecks. "Sure. I could use someone to talk to, too."
Shinespark's horn flickered, then sparked. On the third try, it burst to life just long enough for her to teleport out of her armor and land shakily a few paces away, letting off a wisp of steam.
"You alright, there?" Valey asked, standing in the entrance to the engine room.
"I might need to sleep that off..." Shinespark stared cross-eyed up at the horn for a second, stepping away from the armor and leaving it in a dark corner. "Sleep everything off, really. I did too much over the last few days. Do I look as bad as I feel?"
Valey looked. Shinespark managed a grin, her usually-messy mane an utter wreck. Below her neckline, her coat was sweaty and mussed from padding; above it, her fur was stained and darkened by the residue of battle, blood dried onto her cheek and several other places. Her horn still steamed a little.
"You need a bath," Valey decided. "I need a bath. I dunno. Maybe you'd look dashing heroic in the battle-scarred way, but I'm really not in a mood to appreciate it. Bananas."
Shinespark seated herself against the wall, leaning into the polished wood and resting her chin on a support beam. "Same to you, Valey."
Valey was quiet for a while, then joined her. "Hey," she said, settling down with a swish of her tail and sitting calmly just out of hoof's reach. "So. You, uh. Really wanted to stay, didn't you?"
"Yes." Shinespark hung her head. "And I might have, if not for the others. Grenada didn't have offense or defense. Melia... I don't know her experience with combat, but she wasn't helping. I was the only one who could carry them out, and I wasn't going to risk them in a place like that."
More explosions rumbled in the distance, still audible as Puddles and Meltdown continued to clash. Valey sighed. "Yeah. Sorry I kinda tried to run off. Wasn't very cool of me." She swallowed. "So this is it, huh?"
"It's just like Ironridge." Shinespark's voice was hollow. "There was a lot of chaos. It looked like everything was lost, only we had a way out. Even though we would lose everything, we had a way to keep going. Then a miracle happened, but I think we're beyond the point of that here, now that we chose to leave. There's just... no way we could command the fighting to stop, or end it by nonlethal force and not see it resume again the next day. And if we tried to stay, Meltdown will probably try to imprison Grenada for joining a pirate crew."
"Still gotta hear the story on her." Valey's ears flicked. "But I'm pretty sure Ironridge didn't actually happen that way. You got sat on by Herman and broke your leg and were out cold for the last stuff, remember? I was actually there." She turned to face Shinespark. "And we totally did not have a way out. We thought we were getting to your ship, and it ran out of power and just dropped us there. If it hadn't been for Starlight, died, then and there, just like that. Miracle or bust. Our way to run was an illusion, and Birdo's plan for getting the windigo heart setup fixed was too long of a shot to remotely stand a chance of working. Bananas, I could use another miracle like that right now. But that was all Starlight."
"What about me?" Starlight's voice asked, and both of them turned to see the filly standing in the doorway.
"Oh. Hey, kid." Valey nodded weakly. "Just talking. What are you up to?"
Starlight turned to show her back, where a dull windigo heart was balanced. "Maple saved this from the pirates," she explained. "We don't have anywhere better to keep it, so I was going to put it back here. Just helping to clean up the ship." She folded her ears, looking frustrated. "It's about all I can do when everyone else is off fighting to keep us safe. Thanks for coming back. After last night and how things were when you left, Maple would have been really upset if you hadn't made it home, Valey."
"Oh. Yeah. That's right. We had all that talking and stuff, didn't we?" Valey sighed. "I have no idea how to straighten my life out. I need a better foundation than whatever it is I've got."
"Can I see that?" Shinespark interrupted, beckoning Starlight over.
Starlight shrugged, still holding the windigo heart. "Sure."
Shinespark took the icy ball in her forehooves with a cold sigh, staring into its depths. It reflected in her eyes, and Starlight didn't leave. "Thinking about hard things?" the filly guessed.
"Something like that." Shinespark swallowed, throat sticky. "Just wondering how things could have gone differently. Wishing in vain for another Ironridge, how we somehow beat the windigoes and saved all the civilians and sent away Yakyakistan and had it end so much better than it could have. I keep thinking it should be a puzzle and the pieces could just fall into place, but what have I got? Valey and I are at our limits for fighting. We've got an empty heart and nothing to power the harmony extractor, and even if we did, I have no clue what we'd do with it. Maybe I could feed this to Puddles if we got back over there, but..." Another explosion echoed in the distance, and she fell silent.
Starlight frowned. "Wishing for another Ironridge? You know half your city got destroyed, right?"
"I just mean a miracle," Shinespark groaned. "Starlight, there's a giant pirate ship out there with a whole lot of captive Varsidelian soldiers. The soldiers who apparently got kicked off the merchant airships they were guarding when the Empire confiscated them to send them to Ironridge because of the drop in contact from the things we watched occur. Now they're fighting for their way out, but they're hopelessly outmatched, and we are too! But I still feel responsible because it's technically my fault they're there, and because I hate seeing that happen to innocent ponies... I don't want to abandon them! And then there's Puddles, who turned out to be helping us all along, and we're leaving her to a fate I don't even know once Gazelle and Meltdown win against her... They're the ones who are making all that noise."
"Uhhh... Sparky?" Valey tapped her shoulder, then pointed at Starlight's wide eyes. "Foal? Right there? These are kinda grown-up problems. Just a little."
At that, Starlight frowned harder. "And either of you are that much older than me? I thought Shinespark wasn't even twenty."
"She has a point." Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I'm really not old enough for this either. I learned that painfully with how Herman exploited what I'd do, and when my feelings caused me to break from the plan and cut off Braen..."
"Yeah? Well..." Valey sighed. "Bananas. I guess there's not a lot you can do, is there? What do you think, Starlight?"
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. "I don't care about what happens to a bunch of pirates. They attacked us, didn't they?" She tilted her head. "If you were Maple, I'd give you a hug because that's what makes her feel better. Everyone liked that in Ironridge, actually. I'll do that, if you want. But I'm not attaching myself to your machine again just for this, if that's what you're planning."
Shinespark feebly shook her head, then bowed it, sitting slumped with her back against the wall and her forelegs spread in a decrepit invitation.
"Here." Starlight wandered closer and buried her face in Shinespark's chest, wrapping her forelegs around her barrel. "You need a bath."
"Heh," Shinespark chuckled. "Yeah, Valey said that too."
"Speaking of Valey..." Valey got up and nudged her way closer, coming around behind Starlight and joining the hug so that the filly was sandwiched in the middle. "I think I could use some of that, too."
"T-Thanks." Shinespark shuddered in their embrace.
"Really stinks, doesn't it," Valey agreed, realizing she was doing nothing to make them cleaner but hugging anyway. "Bananas. I hope Birdo gets us heading away from those explosions soon. Cutie Mark says they're not a threat, but... every time another goes off, I feel like I should push myself too far again and go back. I wish there was something I could do."
Shinespark shifted in her grasp. "I wish there was something anyone could do," she sniffed. "Even if it's not us. I hate that this has to happen. W-We killed so many and are letting so many more die, and all that will happen in the end is that Puddles will be captured and the pirates who live will go on to pirate more... unless Puddles wins, and I don't even know what she'd do to Meltdown and Gazelle then. I wish we didn't have to give up on the Griffon Empire because of this."
"I wish it too," Valey echoed, Starlight feeling unusually warm against her chest. Too much ocean air... She pressed closer, careful not to crush the filly. "I wish it could end any way better than this."
Starlight grunted in agreement. For a moment, things were silent.
"...See? I told you-" Sirena's voice drew into range of the door, then stopped as she drew into sight. "Oh. Whoops! Are you busy? Maybe we shouldn't bother you."
"Buh?" Valey looked up, noticing her and Melia in the doorway. "Oh. It's you. Meh, we're just... Meh. Glad to see you're hanging out, at least."
"Is there something you need in here?" Shinespark frowned, lifting her head. "It's the engine room, but kind of without power at the moment. Unless you happen to have found a crystal palace deep underground and happen to have some of its fire on you..." She sighed, slumping again.
Sirena shrugged. "Nah, I'm just giving a tour of the ship. Wanted to show off all the cool stuff in here. Get a load of that, right?" She pointed upward, toward the rail mesh that formed the core of the harmony extractor. "Apparently that's also Ironridge tech. Small world, huh?"
Shinespark's eyes suddenly narrowed. "What do you mean, also?"
"You're right," Melia mused, rubbing her chin. "It looks exactly like the amplifier Chauncey has behind the stage for our concerts."
Shinespark blinked, hard. "What? This is experimental and was developed in strict secrecy entirely in the last ten years! It's one of only two in existence, and the other is in Riverfall. What are you talking about?"
Valey sat bolt upright, between the sisters, Shinespark, the twin extraction helmets connected to the machine, and finally Starlight. "I have no idea how that happened," she whispered, "or even if what's happening is what I think is what's happening, but say that again. Say that again! Because bananas, your concert felt exactly the same as a dusk statue when I heard it, and those pirates are the most gullible things ever."
"Wait. Slow down," Shinespark commanded. "What did you just say?"
"Us? Or her?" Sirena blinked innocently at Melia and then Valey.
Shinespark shrugged intensely, suddenly standing. "Either. What are you saying about recognizing the Sosan harmony extractor?"
Sirena tilted her head upward. "Well, mostly the coily thing. It's all technology to me."
"Hold on, though." Valey waved a hoof, pointing at Shinespark. "We were there, remember? Chauncey was inviting you to check out his spooky laboratory and stuff because you said something about harmony magic, and he was all, 'Oh, I do that too!' Remember? Bananas." Her eyes unfocused. "You did a whole bunch of original research on this stuff, right? So it was your work in the first place. Means if it's here, someone stole it, and the way out it could have gone is through stinking Dorable! Because Puddles was here and both of them have connections to... Bananas..."
"How it happened isn't important!" Shinespark barked, gaze snapping between Valey and the Firefly Sisters. "Valey, whatever you just said before. About one of these being used as an amplifier, and then them singing reminding you of a dusk statue! Forget where Chauncey got the technology, is this true? Has your singing been compared to a dusk statue before? This is important!"
"It has, actually." Melia cleared her throat and stepped forward. "There are a lot of sarosians in Izvaldi, and it's a frequent compliment we've gotten. They often think we've visited the Night Mother in person and been blessed by her power, even. They say we remind them of her."
"We haven't, of course," Sirena giggled. "That you can do that is just a myth."
Valey slowed down, eyes widening again. "So hold on, that's actually a thing they think can happen? Are random blessed agents and stuff like that a regular occurrence around here? Wow. That actually explains a lot about how they treated me, even if I have no idea how I got that into their heads. Bananas, where's Grapejuice when you need her?" She stared for a second. "Do all batponies do this? Or just the nice ones? Because... if you guys could just talk to all of them at once and convince them you were divine or whatever, you could command every last pirate there to stop fighting and lay down their arms and go become farmers, or something. You see?"
Shinespark glanced to the harmony extractor.
Starlight did too, and took a few steps, frowning upward. "What's this thing's deal? Can it just do anything it wants to?" She kicked one of the tower cases that held its other components. "That makes no sense. It's like you just have to come in here and give up and it solves all your problems. Hey! You want to help me and Maple stay safe and happy, too!?"
"Huh." Valey blinked. "Yeah, it does actually seem kinda weird that we were right there, basically begging no one for some way out, and this kinda just falls into our hooves right out of the blue. Isn't that weird? I mean, not that anyone could actually set up or orchestrate something like this, but..."
Melia tilted her head. "Well, Puddles kept telling me to just use my brand when we were on the ship, and..." She trailed off.
Valey looked at Shinespark, utterly confused and trying to fit together pieces that seemed utterly the wrong size for the puzzle they were given. "Puddles?"
Shinespark ignored them, ducking to an access panel and prying it open with her teeth. "Hmmm..." she mumbled, staring around inside, horn temporarily exhausted after so much fighting and flying. "The engine really works with three core components," she thought aloud. "First are the helmets themselves, which don't drain you so much as extend you so the machine is a part of yourself. It's the underlying idea behind how Braen works, too. I don't know how easily they would replace microphones or whatever else you used as a receiver, but they might and probably would as long as your magic at its core comes from your brands. That's the focal point we've identified in every case but unbranded ponies before. The next part is the mesh, which is what you said you recognized. It... is sort of a cross between an amplifier and a battery. It causes harmonic energies to move in a circle and resonate with themselves, building up and preserving their energies. Sort of like a buffer or regulator. The last part is just used to-"
"Hey, Sparky." Valey nudged her with a shoulder. "Don't want to interrupt when you're doing a nerd monologue, but how bad could stuff go if you just hooked them up and turned it on and saw what happened?"
Starlight cleared her throat with a deadpan expression.
Shinespark folded her ears. "Five minutes. I need to rewire some things involving the intercom, because these are definitely not microphones, and I don't want this ship trying to fly on the off chance they're that many orders of magnitude more powerful than any pony I've ever seen before. And..." She glanced up at Melia and Sirena. "Since we ran through this fast and jumped to a lot of conclusions, are you on board with what we're trying?"
"I think so?" Sirena grinned and flopped her head sideways.
"You want me to take that mare's advice," Melia sighed, looking at her broken cutie mark, "and try to use an unmodified airship engine as an amplifier to hold a concert for an army of sarosians we're supposed to be running for our lives from. Is that right?"
Valey and Shinespark looked at each other. "Uhhh... yes?"
For a moment, Valey's ears folded... until Sirena shifted to show off her own cutie mark, still cracked but glossed over and healing, not as bad as Melia's. "I mean, it worked for me."
Melia sighed, squared her shoulders, and lifted a helmet off its pole in her aura, turning and inspecting it. "Very well. Given what I've just been through, I think it will be entirely understandable if I can't keep it up for long, but I'll try this. If you want to thank me, something to eat would be very nice."
Valey blinked. "Oh bananas, I'll go get that. And hey, the helmets go on your butts!"
She was gone from the room in a flash, leaving Shinespark looking around. "I've got some changes to make," she announced. "Shouldn't be too long, and I think I've got all the stuff I need. Less time than it'll take for us to get in range, anyway. Gonna try increasing the flow between our normal mana core and the ship's horn and loudspeaker, and wire you through to that. I also need to see if we have any better mics than the intercom one in here. But that'll all take less time than us getting in range, anyway. Starlight, can you let the bridge and everyone else know what we're doing? Including if anyone objects, because getting closer again will always be a risk."
"...Okay," Starlight decided, taking her mission and trotting out the door.
Starlight stepped out onto the Immortal Dream's deck, night sea winds tossing her mane and blowing around her. The frigate was still there in the distance, colored explosions sounding from its deck like a festival spell. Howe and Neon Nova were in the process of helping move the recovered supplies back belowdecks, hauling them under a wrinkly black griffon's watchful eye. What were they doing here? She wasn't glad to see them, though at least familiar faces were better than everyone else new who was showing up. Hopefully this would be a temporary thing and they would all go away once they got back to land.
She glowered at the frigate. She didn't want to save Puddles, or Meltdown, or a bunch of soldiers or pirates. They had done nothing for her, and some had hurt her. But it somehow mattered to her friends, and she wasn't sure how or even whether to piece that together right then. She had a clear job to do, so she did it.
"Gerardo! Hey, Gerardo!" Starlight rapped noisily on the bridge door to announce her presence, then slid it open and stepped inside.
"Hmmmmmmm?" Gerardo raised a feathery eyebrow, spinning around in the cockpit, and Nyala moved a little next to the wall. Right, the armor was a pony now, too. Yet another Starlight would have to get used to. "Ah, hello, Starlight. You look purposeful."
"Valey and Shinespark say to turn the ship around," Starlight announced, delivering her message. "They think they can use the ship's harmony engine to help use the sisters' song to convince all the pirates to stop fighting, but they need to move back towards everyone first."
Gerardo blinked. "Well, that's quite the request. I must say... err... Hrrm."
Starlight shrugged. "It destroyed windigoes before. Maybe it can do this, too. I just think it's weird. I just want to go home." She looked guiltily away. "They told me to come tell you, but I just wish we could run away from danger instead of toward it for once."
"That's quite understandable," Gerardo assured, tapping a few buttons. "I'll just... Engine room, come in?"
No response. Starlight spoke up instead: "Shinespark is re-wiring something about the ship's sound to make it work better."
"I see." Gerardo nodded, giving the wheel a spin and starting to adjust their course. "Rather unfortunate if I can't get the opinions of everyone involved, but an order is an order. Good luck ending that duel, though. Perhaps you ought to take cover with Maple, if this is really our course of action?"
"I'll..." Starlight swallowed. "I will. And I'll tell them to come up and tell you what they're planning, too. I don't know. I think it sounds weird, but maybe it will work. I'm... going to go back to Maple now..."
"Here." Gerardo reached to his side and unbuckled his newly-restored sword, then offered it to Starlight. "I'd probably just get this stolen from me in a fight. I haven't quite proved my competence in that arena..." His headcrest flopped. "If we're going back into danger, take care of yourselves?"
Starlight took the sword and frowned, but didn't say anything. Maple had just lost the sound stone, earlier. Maybe guarding the sword could be like a second chance.
Another explosion sounded in the distance as Starlight made her way down the ship's central hallway, stopping at the door to her and Maple's room. She slid it open with a hoof, Gerardo's sword balanced on her back and her horn worn-out enough from earlier that she didn't want to use it. The interior was dark, the ceiling light still broken from where their prisoner earlier had attacked it, but the stars had come out and she could see by the light of the window.
"Hello, Starlight," Maple sighed from the bed, having freshly remade it after the scuffle. "You were gone a while. Did you have trouble with anything?"
"Yes," Starlight grunted, tossing the sword aside and hopping up beside her. "Valey and Shinespark were there, and so were those singers, and they started being sad about something that happened on the pirate ship even though everyone we care about is here, and then they got a plan to do something with the harmony extractor that they think will work and now they're turning the ship around again and having us sail right back there instead of running and staying safe."
"They what?" Maple's eyes widened. "We're going back? I saw how tired everyone looked..."
Starlight shrugged. "Apparently? They're turning the ship around. Look." She pointed out the bedroom's window; the frigate was now straight in their view. Seconds passed by, and the Dream continued turning, its prow moving closer and closer to the source of the fighting. "They're going to try to do something with that concert magic to tell someone to stop fighting, which isn't going to work. Those concerts were making ponies fight over them, not stop. And besides, something else will go wrong. They think it's like when I killed the windigoes in Ironridge, but it's not, because we should just leave. This is stupid."
She pouted, settling her chin into her folded forelegs. Maple sighed beside her, laying a hoof over her back.
"Gerardo gave us his sword," Starlight muttered, looking for something else to say. "He made up excuses about why. I think he wanted us to be able to defend ourselves."
Maple glanced at where the sword had landed, laying at the foot of the bed, and leaned over, pulling it up with a hoof and then pocketing it. "I don't know what to do," she reluctantly apologized. "It'll be alright? Starlight, I'll stay here with you."
"Hmmph." Starlight buried her face in the bed. "They're stupid. I want to go home."
"Where?" Maple whispered. "Anywhere you say that is, I'll take you."
Starlight groaned, stretching her legs out before and behind her. "I don't knowwww..." She held her breath for a moment, the tension against her chest better than nothing, but she really wanted a pillow to punch. "I hate this. I don't like being powerless! I want to light my horn and make all the pirates go away and everyone in the Empire who doesn't like us, but I can't! It's not fair."
"I wish I knew what to tell you." Maple set her head beside her. "I know. It's hard. I'm just as stuck here while everyone else is fighting as you are."
"While they're fighting over things they shouldn't be fighting over," Starlight growled. "Who's back there, anyway? A bunch of pirates? Soldiers? Puddles? Hmmph."
A light suddenly shone in the doorway, which Starlight had left open. Starlight looked up, frowning when she saw Jamjars. "What?"
Jamjars waved her hooves innocently, and horn lit for illumination. "Who, me?" She grinned. "Just wandering around. You saw who's back, right?"
Maple looked down at her. "Jamjars, we're having a moment. Is this important?"
"Yep!" Jamjars tossed her short, short mane. "Howe's here. That means I get another shot at getting the secrets to his manecare routine. Pretty special, huh?"
"Is that all?" Starlight lifted her head and frowned. "You said it was important."
"And? That's not important to you?" Jamjars gave her a pouty look. "Wow. Well, good thing you said nothing about who it had to be important to. What a tragic loss for you."
She turned her shoulder and flicked her mane, like there was something obvious Starlight was supposed to be asking. Knowing her, Starlight figured there wasn't, and she just wanted to make someone awkward by feeling like they couldn't figure it out.
"I don't think a manecut is what we need right now, Jamjars," Maple offered peacefully, the sounds of battle getting slightly louder in the distance.
Jamjars shrugged. "Oh. Fine. Be that way. The only other thing is that there are pirates in my room. Don't complain if they stay there and then I get rid of them my way."
Maple's eyes snapped open, and she struggled out of bed. "The ones we invited here, I hope," she managed, righting herself and hurrying to the door. She paused to look back at Jamjars. "Right?"
"I don't know." Jamjars shrugged. "They're just appreciating my decorating."
"Duuuuuuuuude." Neon Nova's jaw was slack and his shades askew, revealing bits of his yellow eyes beneath. "A filly gets a room like this? That's just not fair. I'm thinking we joined up with the right crew, brother-of-mine!"
"Truly, her tastes are exquisite," Howe mused, wandering around Jamjars' room with a hoof to his chin. "One can only wonder how a lone filly managed to amass such a hoard of legendary artwork! Her tastes and skills fill me with envy. Although, with those sisters themselves on board, something tells me this shrine must be kept from them at all reasonable costs..."
Grapejuice gave one of the posters an appraising eyebrow. "They are sisters and stuff, right? Thought kissing like that was against the rules on the mainland, too."
"Errr..." Howe looked slightly uneasy. "Well, rules exist to be broken? We have converted to the ignoble ways of piracy, after all."
Grapejuice shrugged. "Yeah, but even up north the monks aren't cool with that stuff. Whatever. If you aren't playing by your own rules and are getting hot and bothered by it, I ain't missing out!"
Maple stuck her head in the door. "What's going on in here?"
Starlight followed her as the three pirates jumped in surprise, Howe and Neon Nova looking about abashedly while Grapejuice held no shame at all. "We, umm..." Howe's wings fluttered. "Got invited here for an art appreciation day?"
"It's a party," Jamjars announced, pushing up behind them and crowding Maple and Starlight into her room as well. "Because your spirits stink, and I'm bored. So hang out and do things!" She winked at Maple. "I didn't say the pirates were here without my permission, did I?"
"Well, no..." Maple fidgeted. She glanced at Howe and Neon Nova, then looked away. "Just so you know, this might not be a very light party."
"Ehhh... eheheh..." Howe rubbed at the back of his neck.
"Wuh-oh," Neon Nova whispered. "It looks like we're about to feel the pain for getting creamed back in the mines, brother-of-mine..."
"What?" Grapejuice chewed on something. "Hey, they're breaking the rules, so am I. Not like Garsheeva can see."
Starlight sighed, and took a breath to interrupt-
WHUD!
Something hit the ceiling so hard, the light shook, and one of the poster corners came undone from its wall. Everyone stumbled but Grapejuice, and Neon Nova did a full faceplant. "Eeep!" Maple ducked, standing protectively over Starlight and covering her head.
Another explosion sounded, and it was from directly nearby. Starlight didn't hear any singing or music playing. Shaking, she trembled in place... and bolted for the door and the stairs.
A jet of flames burst from Meltdown's largest fan faster than any air could move, billowing into a cloud and engulfing the jagged train of ice streaking toward her. Puddles stomped the ground, sending up a pillar to throw herself out of the way as the flames roared past, singing the splintered planks of the frigate deck. Her magic was the only reason their arena hadn't combusted by now, she guessed, but it didn't look like it would last long by any standards regardless.
The sea wind blew in her face; Meltdown was before her. It was abundantly clear that her flamethrower only worked when going with the wind; the few times she had beaten her adversary for a positional advantage, the tool had been useless. But Meltdown was strong, and jumps Puddles needed an ice lift to make the armored mare could perform without even trying. And her stomach hurt! Sooner or later, she was going to slip up and reach her limit...
She threw up an ice wall to make more time to think of her next move, but Meltdown's very proximity forced her to keep up a constant stream of energy just to support it. The wind kept the air from getting dry, which was the only thing preventing her from running out of ammo...
With a crack, a floorboard broke beneath her hoof, having taken too much damage from various blasts and slams. Puddles rolled, making it unsteadily to her hooves, the wall dropped, and Meltdown instantly charged.
"Back!" Puddles formed another pillar, a clenched talon-fist at the end, and sent it corkscrewing toward her foe, bursting out from beneath the deck and burrowing in again as it punched the ground in wave after wave on its path forward. Meltdown ducked, running through the corkscrew's center at her... but it had done too much damage to the floor on either side of her, and that gave way, dropping her into the next level of the ship.
"Nnngh..." Rather than pressing her advantage, Puddles held herself, glancing around for options. Beating Meltdown seemed impossible when her ice could be so easily vaporized. Was it time to risk capture, or...
"Well well... Hakkkth... Well!" a voice coughed, and Gazelle dragged himself up next to her, grinning and bleeding, though he had somewhat cleaned his wound. "Someone's looking run a little ragged, aren't they? Need a paw? I know you know things I want no one else knowing, but this is going nowhere and..." He coughed again. "As engaging as this finale is, could you hurry up and lose?"
Puddles frowned. "Well yourself, cathorse. I'm a little busy, here. Go back and enjoy your precious carnage."
"Excuse you, I'm not bloodthirsty." Gazelle narrowed his eyes. "I just know a thing or two about looking for sport in the appropriate places and enjoying chasing my goals, and this has crossed the line into something I want nothing to do with. Now... Nnngh... What will it take for you to stand down and surrender? Come now, I'm bargaining, here."
"Really?" Puddles raised an eyebrow.
Gazelle grinned painfully. "Of course! Name your terms. How about we don't send-"
He was interrupted by Meltdown rising through the broken deck in a shower of splinters, one of her fans bent and dented and the others blowing at full force. "Gazelle, I'm taking damage," she panted. "What are you doing?"
"Parlay!" Gazelle winced. "Trying to finish this, in case you hadn't noticed!? Why are you starting another fight after I went down? We were supposed to be saving the Varsidelians!"
"Hmmph. Funny. That's what Puddles was doing, too." Puddles backed up, bumping against the ship's railing. "Do I frighten you, little ponies? Afraid I might say something about Stanza to the wrong ears, or spill the beans about old Goraldi? Because I'm willing to barter too, here. It wouldn't be hard to silence me on what happens beneath the ground in the Empire forever... Care to hear my demands?"
"First off..." Puddles winced and hugged herself. "No going back to Izvaldi. I want to disappear off the map as far as Chauncey is concerned. Wallace can find me, and so can Valey and her friends, but not him. Second: no more experimenting. I'm tired of having my flanks stuck with needles day in and day out, filled with substances that could kill the wrong kind of god."
Gazelle pursed his lips. "You're asking a lot. You know how hard it is to get live windigoes, don't you? Where will Chauncey get a replacement?"
"And why do you care?" Puddles growled.
Meltdown gave Gazelle a suspicious look. "Why do you care?"
"Oh... no reason. Good point." Gazelle shrugged. "Maybe I am feeling bloodthirsty, after all."
He lunged, and was met with a fist of ice he had to back off to dodge. Puddles jumped backwards, landing on the railing. "Haha! Hope you can fly if you want to catch Puddles, then, because... wheeeee!"
With a hiss of ice, Puddles hit the water, freezing a wave and sliding down the surface. Crags and platforms appeared around her as she walked, no time spent on making anything pretty. Immediately, Meltdown landed behind her, rocking the growing iceberg and forcing her to freeze her hooves in place to avoid falling off.
"Hey, get off!" Puddles growled at her, tapping a hoof. A spiraling pillar of ice rose from the sea as Meltdown took a stance, another hollow tube like her cannons earlier but this time twisting into the neck and head of a dragon. Gazelle hit the ice too as Meltdown's fans spun up, and Puddles focused the dragon on them, preparing to spew a rapid-fire barrage of ice.
Fwooooooosh! Meltdown's fans ignited, blazing backwards with trails of jet propulsion. She dug her hooves into the iceberg, hitting it at an angle until she was pushing the whole thing, Gazelle and Puddles along with it. The dragon's first shots missed, then it collapsed as Puddles grew too far away from it, the immense force of Meltdown's heat pushing them at a rapid pace. Puddles blinked, gasped and watched the frigate drawing away in the distance.
"You want to run? Then we're running to shore," Meltdown growled, pushing the iceberg along. "You're under arrest in the name of Garsheeva! You can't run, especially not on my ground."
"Uhhhh..." Puddles gulped, considering throwing herself off the iceberg. She could make a new one, but with her engines Meltdown could make any jump, and she had no fast means of propulsion on her own...
"Meltdown, dearest?" Gazelle waved in her face. "Just in case you can't see from that location, you are about to hit another boat."
Puddles gasped and crawled to the tip of the iceberg, reducing its height so it would be easier to see over. That just caused the weight to unbalance, sending cold seawater sloshing over Meltdown's hooves, and with a hiss of steam, her propulsion cut out. The iceberg started spinning, and all three of them quickly saw the prow of the Immortal Dream bearing straight in their direction, seconds away.
"Nnngh..." Shinespark lay on her back beneath a cabinet of wires in the engine room, trying to perform necessary adjustments with her teeth.
"That doesn't look so comfy," Sirena remarked, standing and looking down at her with curious eyes. "You sure that's the easiest way of doing things?"
Shinespark looked up. "My horn's at its limit after all that fighting and flying. Can't use it now or all I'll get is some sparks and pops." She sparked her horn uselessly for emphasis. "But this has to get done, so the hard way it is. Unless one of you two is secretly an engineering savant and is confident you can do it for me?"
Sirena looked at Melia and shrugged. Melia frowned. "I have helped backstage before, and sometimes spent time in Chauncey's labs, but I wouldn't say I'm a professional with it."
"Well, then..." Shinespark reached in, pulled something, and there was a snap within the machine. The lights flickered. "Alright. That's undone. Now we re-attach the intercom, since I'd love to hear what's happening on the bridge right now... There's my lead. Wait, why did I wire it like this? Umm... I might need tape. One second-"
The entire ship lurched, a furious, terrible, squealing grind coming from outside the prow across the room from Shinespark's head. "Ow!" The motion jolted her, slamming her into the open cabinet in a shower of sparks as the floor rose below, shuddering to a stop at a tilted angle. She crawled out and to her hooves. "What the...?"
Melia and Sirena shifted close together. "Uhhhhh..." Sirena's eyes shifted back and forth. "Did we just hit something?"
"What is there to hit!?" Shinespark spat, flinging herself upright. "You two, get further back towards the cabins! I'm getting up on deck, right now!"
Shinespark kicked through the door to the deck, her horn spent and exhausted but the rest of her still somewhat in fighting shape. She jumped slightly as Starlight appeared beside her, nearly tripping over the filly, but Starlight just gave her a look and sat down to guard the door with her horn trailing wisps of teal energy. Okay, then. Shinespark needed to get to the bridge.
She nearly ran into Gerardo on her way in, the griffon bolting out to find her. "Miss Shinespark!" he yelped, skidding and stumbling to a stop on the uneven deck. "We appear to have hit an iceberg!"
Shinespark's eyes widened incredulously. "An iceberg!? How did you not see an iceberg coming? It's a clear night! And why is...? Right. Puddles."
"Bananas," Valey groaned, hauling herself up and out of the door to the ship's rear staircase. "What now? I was looking for leftovers or something for the singers and..." She looked up. "Uh-oh."
All four of them lifted their heads. From in front of the ship, arcing through the sky, a pillar of ice boosted a chartreuse mare, shattering mid-flight and dumping Puddles toward the deck. She hit it and limply rolled, coming to a stop at Valey's hooves with a weak groan.
"Gerardo?" Shinespark frowned toward the bridge. "What's the damage to my ship, and what's the fastest we can get out of here? I've changed my mind again."
"Buh?" Valey strolled closer. "Look, my cutie mark is kind of not happy right now, but we knew that about going back! Now what happened and why aren't we-"
Another shadow flew through the sky, and Meltdown landed on the deck with a crunch of timbers, dripping melting ice and seawater.
"Hey!" Shinespark snarled and took a stance, horn sparking again. "As the official envoy of Ironridge you designated me as, don't break this ship! This is legally my territory, and if I see one fireball..."
Meltdown's fans spun as she steamed, and she looked wearily at everyone assembled. She was encircled, Valey and Puddles on one side and Starlight, Shinespark and Gerardo on the other.
"Uggh... Meltdown?" A new voice chimed in, and Gazelle hauled himself over the railing, having climbed up the ship's side with his claws. "Could you slow down, just a little? This just might not be worth it..."
Maple appeared in the stairway behind Shinespark and Starlight, Howe and Neon Nova on her tail. At almost the same time, Golbez limped into view on the other side, then swiftly caught Meltdown's eye and turned back. Maple went immediately to Starlight's side.
"...No. This is getting out of hoof, Gazelle." Meltdown's fans spun up. "You're injured and I'm low on resources, and too much has happened tonight. Everyone here: some of you are allies. Some of you are enemies. And while I respect that, we don't have the peace or ability to separate who is who right here. I need all of you to surrender and come to Grandbell in custody, where the situation will be treated fairly and everyone will be given what they deserve. If you don't, I'll have to make a judgement here and now. I'm sorry."
"Mmmeh... What's going on?" Jamjars waddled up behind Starlight, rubbing her eyes.
Shinespark's ears twitched, and her brow furrowed, completely ignoring the filly. Everyone getting what they deserved... Grenada was on board. She wasn't sure how she felt about Puddles, but she knew her stance there. "No," she decreed, taking a captain's stance. "No one is fighting, but no one is bowing down, either. We can talk..." Her eyes flashed over to the frigate, floating nearby. "Or you could put common sense and basic decency first and we could work together to deal with the problem we should have been dealing with this whole time! We have an idea on how to stop that bloodbath, but it's not going to work if you attack us!"
"No," Meltdown replied. "The parties at stake are both foreign national armies. It's not our place to get involved, there."
"Oh, really." Shinespark's eyes hardened. "Because you came there in the first place, didn't you? What else were you trying to do if not that?"
"Oh, Meltyyyyy..." Gazelle hummed nervously, drawing a claw across his clenched teeth. "Perhaps a little more playing nice?" He coughed and grinned. "We were out for sport. She's my chaperone, you see. I clearly need one."
Shinespark blinked. He was telling her not to say something...
"Excuse me!" Jamjars interrupted, walking forward with a huge smile on her face, wig mane bouncing and completely covering her horn and ears. "Are you really Meltdown? And Prince Gazelle?" She swooned joyfully, not breaking her stride. "Aaaah! I can't believe I'm meeting you in a place like this! Before you arrest everyone, I need need need to get your autograph!"
Meltdown blinked in surprise as the filly walked closer, her brain taking an entire second to reconcile the situation... Half a second too late. The sound of Jamjars' horn glowing tinkled, and she flung her wig in Meltdown's face. "Sign this, I love it!"
Gerardo gasped. Shinespark and Valey made to bolt toward her, and Gazelle guffawed, slapping the ground uproariously and laughing as hard as he could. "I love this filly! Where did you get her? Hey, filly, can we be besties?"
Meltdown held still for a second... two... and then collapsed in a metal heap on the deck.
Everyone froze, blinking. Jamjars stood over her catch for a moment longer, surveying it, blew on her wig to cool it off... and then pulsed her horn again, withdrawing a black sword that had been concealed inside. "Hah," she proclaimed, turning to Maple and walking back over. "See? I told you you should let me borrow this."
"What... What the...?" Gazelle trembled, pointing a paw. "Meltdown!" He rushed to the fallen mare's side, wincing against a depleting wave of heat.
Valey trotted around them, giving Jamjars a wide-eyed look. "You did not just stab someone that high up."
"What?" Jamjars shrugged. "She was going to arrest you or burn down the ship. You should be thanking me."
"What happened to her!?" Gazelle screeched, snarling.
"Woah! Woah, hold up!" Valey waved her hooves disarmingly. "It's like a paralysis magic. Wears off in a few days. No wound, see? Super simple way of bloodlessly ending a fight. And I did not advise that!"
"No wound..." Gazelle patted Meltdown's face, her eyes wide with fear and shaking. "Speak to me?"
Meltdown didn't answer. Valey walked up behind, making eye contact, and nodded. "Had that happen to some friends before. Eyes is about the only thing you can do. Look up for yes, down for no, left for I don't know, and right for I need a hug. That's what we did then, at least."
Gazelle gave her a look, then back to Meltdown. "Are you cold?"
Meltdown looked up.
"Are you otherwise in pain?"
Meltdown looked down, still clearly terrified.
"Well," Gazelle growled, standing up and shaking himself off. "As the high prince of the Griffon Empire, and under threat of a tantrum you do not want to see, I demand you dress my wounds, get her out of that armor and sail us to Stormhoof Castle immediately. Do it right, and she'll see to it that any accounts of piracy for anyone on this boat are mere unfounded myths in the eyes of the law. Ask Wallace Whitewing if you think that's an offer that frequently gets made. How does that sound for a deal?"
He looked squarely at Meltdown as he spoke, her eyes still trembling. She looked up instantly.
"And there's your answer!" Gazelle beamed painfully, his side still leaking drops of blood on the deck. "We're now your passengers. Worth it?"
Maple swallowed. "I-I'll go get our healing potions..."
Piece by piece, Meltdown's armor came apart, Gazelle's skilled claws knowing exactly where to work to dismantle it. A radiator hit the deck, and then a fan casing, a tank with hoses attached landing a short distance away. The armor had ceased steaming, whatever magic or technology empowered it long gone. Quickly, the spikes and peripherals were stripped away and he got to the core, severing the suit down the middle and revealing Meltdown's real body to the world.
"...Wow," Shinespark breathed in surprise, standing close enough to watch. "She looks even younger than I am."
"Imperial secrets." Gazelle shrugged, wincing from his wounds but not stopping his work. "Oh well. It's her own fault if this one gets out. It isn't worth keeping."
"Hello?" With a clambering of hooves, Maple appeared in the door again, carrying another healing potion. "I brought one of these..."
Gazelle was instantly at her side, uncorking and sniffing it. "Really?" He blanched. "Hmph. War supplies. No one's saying war isn't useful..."
He took it and drained the bottle in a single go, jagged teeth cracking leaving slight cracks on the rim. "Ahhh," he panted, sitting and holding still for a moment as the gash across his side knitted itself together with a sparkling of red magic. "High quality. You're well-connected."
"...So," Valey remarked, strolling closer as he went back to Meltdown. "How come you choose now to sober up and be sane? This would have seriously helped an hour ago."
Gazelle didn't look at her, focusing instead on Meltdown. "Being sober? Is that what I'm doing?" He flicked his tail. "Hah. I hunt pirates for sport. And now that the hunt is over, it's back to the daily grind of cleaning up messes caused by people who don't know what in Lyn's name they're doing... You should pick up a hobby, Bats. Blowing off steam is important with lives as stressful as ours!"
He lifted Meltdown out of the armor, leaving everything else on the deck, and gently hoisted her over his back, balancing her with his wings. She was an earth pony, slightly small and spindly, with a fluffy charcoal coat that tinged toward orange at the base of the hairs, like heat buried beneath the surface, and a cutie mark of two four-pointed stars rotated and overlaid atop each other, surrounded by a flickering flame. "There, now," Gazelle consoled. "They'll give you a cabin and you won't have to be in public eye."
"Umm... sure." Shinespark hesitated, still staring with interest at Meltdown's true form. She looked weak, honestly. The sword's effect aside, whatever that armor had done must have been impressive on a level rivalling Braen, because Meltdown had almost no muscle mass. She was skinny, even, reduced to a scared teenager and looking helpless on a level even Maple and Amber hadn't been.
"Indeed. You do that." Gerardo bowed, spreading his wings. "Meanwhile, I'll inspect the damage from... erm... hitting the iceberg..."
Shinespark watched as Gazelle made Meltdown comfortable, arranging her in a bed with a caring tuck and nuzzle to the forehead. Eventually, he got up, silently motioning Shinespark out of the room and following himself, closing the door with his tail in his wake. "Congratulations," he said once they were in the hallway. "That's a side of me very few ponies get to see."
"Uhh... I noticed," Valey remarked, lurking against a wall nearby. "You're a weeeird sphinx, Gazelle. Now what do you want from us?"
"Weird?" Gazelle gave an innocent, toothy smile. "Please. I prefer 'complex' or 'multifaceted'. And what I want is for us all to play nice and get along while I lie to you about just how far on the back paw I really am. How does that sound? Exciting?"
"Look, if it means no more fights, I just... Bananas." Valey shook her head. "If that's a truce, I accept. There is nothing on that pirate ship I care about any more. I'm getting out of here."
Gazelle's ears perked. "Oh? Even your missing Nightmare Module? You got that back, did you?"
"Errrrr..." Valey's ears pressed against her skull, and she looked guiltily to Shinespark.
Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "Gazelle, you know something about Nightmare Modules?"
Gazelle innocently coughed. "What? No. Of course I don't. What would a respectable high prince like me be doing knowing about the forbidden relics of an enemy goddess?" He reached out and booped her on the nose with a paw. "That's not rhetorical."
"You know something," Valey countered, "because I was telling Meltdown about this on the frigate and you chimed in asking which one it was and recognized my description way too fast. So yeah, you do. What are we leaving out there by bailing on this?"
Gazelle curled his lower lip into a sad grimace. "Valey, Valey, Valey... Meltdown knew something too, and she thought it was more worth chasing after poor Puddles than that relic. Honestly, I'd like to see it get lost out there. Like I told you, it's the least-dangerous of the lot, and it could cause major drama for ponies I don't like. Just imagine Mistvale's reaction... Those flying heathens wouldn't know what to do with themselves."
Valey cleared her throat. "Yo, flying heathen right here? I'm really tired of your empire dunking on batponies."
"And I'm a sphinx, so I'm legally allowed to kiss you and make it all better." Gazelle's eyes twinkled. "But I won't, because I prefer dealing with things I don't like rather than pretending they don't exist. You could work with me, you know. I really did have a good feeling about you from the very beginning."
"Work?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Look, just because we're still trying to decide where to go... To what end, Gazelle?"
"Ooh. Being candid. I like it." Gazelle's tail flicked, and he perked his ears. "Since you're asking politely... what I want is very simple. The Empire can't have emperors, only empresses. That puts my little sister, Princess Gwendolyn, in line for the throne the moment she's old enough. But the Empire hasn't had strong rulership ever since our parents were murdered in Varsidel, and the houses are... in a bit of a disgraceful situation. It's not an empire my precious sister deserves to inherit. I want to spruce it up a little. Whip this continent into better shape. You've seen Stormhoof's mockery of a court, and how they treat sarosians. You've seen beneath the ground in Izvaldi, at least far enough to discover Puddles. And don't think the other provinces don't have buried skeletons, too... Surely you can sympathize with my intentions."
Valey nodded. "Uh huh. So going and hunting down boatloads of batponies helps with that how?"
"I'm surprised you even need to ask!" Gazelle beamed. "It's threefold. First off, they're criminals. Removing them from the picture outright makes the Empire a better place. Second, I'm hardly going after sarosians alone. The crew you've shacked up with and taken in on this boat loathes you, you know. Golbez the Black's banner for every one of his decades of piracy involved slaying heretics and other silly things. I'm after criminals, not just sarosians and certainly not decent people. And finally, it really does make for good sport." He cleared his throat. "So long as you observe the limits."
Shinespark frowned. "You don't like Varsidel either, though," she pointed out. "It keeps showing up in your behavior. With the potion, towards the soldiers... and you said your parents were killed there. So why choose now to attack and try to save those captives in the first place?"
Gazelle shrugged. "Oh... I have my reasons. Let's just say wouldn't you like to know?" He leaned forward, slitted eyes wide and imposing. "Of course..." He drew back, licked a paw and ran it over an ear. "Not good enough reasons to ignore Puddles, apparently, or keep going once Meltdown or I was down... Oh well. Now they'll probably all get massacred and die. It would be so tragic if Varsidel blamed us for it."
"Wait..." Shinespark drew a breath. "You wanted-"
"I wanted to save them! Pay attention!" Gazelle interrupted her with another boop. "I just said it would be tragic, didn't I? Especially since the Empire tried to help and it really was Mistvale at fault. Oh well. It's not like Varsidel has the resources to do anything about it, what with their war and all..."
Valey lifted a hoof, slowed, paused and put it back down. "But they were only sailing because their airships got confiscated, which you advocated for. Didn't you? I don't remember. But you'd know all about how many pirates there are." She blinked. "Bananas. Are you trying to either sabotage Varsidel or provoke them into wasting resources on revenge so they lose their war, or something? To get back for your parents?"
"Hah!" Gazelle chuckled, grinning again. "No, but now you're thinking like a sphinx. Good! I don't care about Varsidel, though. I already told you what I'm up to. Now, are we going to get moving? Meltdown, why couldn't you have melted that iceberg before you went down...?"
"The essential damage," Gerardo reported, standing and presenting before the ship's full crew sans Belinda and plus Gazelle, "is that we're stuck. Trying to turn the boat isn't working, and attempting to propel us is... Well, we have a large, blocky chunk of ice stuck on the prow, and it's not very aerodynamic. The good news is, for some reason, the ship is undamaged." He scratched his head in confusion. "I really can't say how. A collision like this should have done terrible puncture damage to the hull..."
"Speaking of terrible damage..." Maple frowned at Jamjars. "Do you realize you just stabbed one of the most powerful ponies in the Empire? This is not going to go well for us..."
Jamjars shrugged. "Would you rather have gotten arrested? You should be thanking me. And besides, you gave me the sword in the first place."
"I did..." Maple sighed. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking things through, here or there or any time, really. I need a break..."
Starlight stepped closer and nuzzled her side. "It's okay, Mom."
The sound of hoofsteps drifted up from behind them, and Gazelle padded gracefully out onto the deck, trailed by Shinespark and Valey and looking gracefully content. "Now then," he purred, "who has a plan for getting us to Stormhoof?"
"First you're gonna need a plan for getting the ship upright again," Valey muttered, slouching tiredly and not looking to take charge. "Nnnnngh... Have fun doing that on your own..."
"It hit an iceberg," Gerardo sighed, exasperated, "and yes, that's what we're-"
"Damage report?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "How much will it take to get us going?"
"Well, miraculously, the hull seems perfectly intact, but there's still the matter of getting us off of the iceberg, unless Puddles can help us..." His eyes drifted to Puddles, who had fallen asleep or possibly fainted and was laying limply on the deck. "Or someone could make the most of this opportunity to tie her up, seeing as incapacitating her is apparently quite a chore."
Shinespark nodded, moving for the bridge. "Not miraculously. This ship's hull is built to withstand something like that. We put every experimental technology we could into making this the world's best ship, and one of those was a seafaring project Sosa was trying to use to make a next generation or watercraft to compete with airships. It failed, or course, but not for lack of a good hull. Anyway, I'm going to go look at things in here."
Maple nodded, watching her go, then looked back at Puddles and then at Gazelle.
"Hmm. How peaceful." Gazelle stepped toward the fallen mare's body, standing over her and showing teeth. "Yes, containing her could be in order... It looks like I'll walk away with this after all. Get me something to bind her that's resistant to strength and can keep the flats of her forehooves from touching anything. That's the focus for-"
SWOOOOOSH!
With a storm of gigantic wings, a huge bulk dropped from the sky, landing in the middle of the deck. Wallace Whitewing knelt, letting Morena and Diego hop off his back, and straightened up into a flourish. "It took an unfortunately long time, but we are here!" the griffon nobly proclaimed, flashing his huge smile. "Hmm. It appears the action is already over. Alas, we were a mite too late..."
Gazelle's face split in a grin, and he rushed over to give Wallace a fist-bump. "Wallace, old buddy! Just like you to show up to an after-party."
Morena instantly zeroed in on Puddles' body, dashing past Gazelle to her side. "She's here! Diego, get me the restraints! Hurry!"
A small area around Puddles was cleared as the traveling heroes instantly got to work, Wallace still standing in the middle. "Yo, Bathtub?" Valey frowned. "What are you doing here? Thought you bailed down south, or something."
Shinespark nodded. "We came here from Izvaldi specifically because you were gone and wouldn't be able to do anything. How did you know to find us?"
"Indeed we did, little ponies." Wallace laughed, patting Shinespark on the head. "Fortunately, by the time we arrived at Grandbell, the teleportation guild had put together a backtrace on our wayward windigo's rampage, and we had the authority to intercept it! A little bird also told us that Meltdown was in the area, so we came to provide backup as quickly as we could!" He nodded at the southern horizon, a well-lit airship drifting to catch up far in the distance. Then he looked down at Meltdown's empty armor. "By the look of things, it's been quite a scene tonight. What is most important for us to know?"
Gazelle cleared his throat, stepping between Wallace and the mares with a grin. "Varsidelians, still having a skirmish with the sarosians on that ship. You might want to see if there are any left to save." He frowned. "Meltdown is below."
A clack came from behind them. "We got her!" Diego cheered, helping Morena lift the unconscious Puddles. She had been strapped to a wooden beam spread perpendicular to her back, both forelegs manacled to it and chains binding it to her chest and shoulders to prevent her from wriggling free.
"Be careful with her," Shinespark warned, giving them a glance. "She... ate a windigo heart a few hours ago, and has been both more powerful than usual and very dizzy and nauseous. You'll probably want to put her upright and not move her around."
Valey nodded, frowning at Puddles' body. "She made herself sick before, too. Something about eating a whole wedding cake at once. I can't tell if she did it on purpose, but she needs to learn to take care of herself."
Morena just sighed, sagged and hugged Puddles to herself. Diego sighed. "Sounds like a thing Puddles would do just to make everyone uncomfortable. I've never really been able to figure out that windigo..."
"You two!" Wallace appeared behind them and clasped Morena and Diego on the backs with his talons. "Come! We have heroism to do!" He spun them toward the frigate, then glanced back at Valey, Shinespark and Gazelle. "Hold Puddles down for us. We'll be back shortly, and can assist you with whatever you need!"
With another swoosh, they were gone, leaving Puddles bound and everyone blinking as the trio soared off to the damaged frigate.
"...Well." Shinespark's shoulders sagged. "That's one way to save whatever Varsidelians are left to save."
Gazelle blinked down at Puddles. "Huh. Looks like someone else is laying claim to you after all. We might have to solve this with diplomacy!" He brightened, then his grin faded again. "I'm growing tired of this. I think I want a rest. You all understand our agreement?" He cast around with a sharp gaze. "Meltdown and I return to Stormhoof. This windigo's custody will be worked out between us and Wallace's team. In exchange, Garsheeva won't have to know about certain acts of piracy..." His eyes zoomed in on Shinespark, one brow lifting. "To the extent you don't do anything foolish and draw more attention to yourself. This is a very good deal for you. I'm sure you understand."
Shinespark stood straight, returning the eye contact. "If you're promising not to prosecute Grenada for her mistakes, I'll do whatever you want."
Gazelle raised a paw to shake on it... and Valey was suddenly between them, frowning hard. "Okay, hold up. Hold up!"
"Hmmm?" Gazelle narrowed his eyes, taking a step backwards. "Is that not good enough for you, Bats? Some stipulation you think she's overlooked?"
"Valey..." Shinespark tried to step out from behind her. "Valey, I appreciate the concern, but Grenada is-"
"Uhh..." Valey folded her ears, then glanced back at Shinespark, surreptitiously tapping her cutie mark with her tail. "Nah. I've got a feeling about this."
Gazelle quirked his head, waiting.
"Yo." Valey nodded at Gazelle. "Could you move... that way, just a little? Just, like, indulge me, here."
"How insistent," Gazelle chuckled. "I'm actually curious where this goes. Certainly."
He stepped aside, and Valey tracked him for a moment. "...Nope. You're good. Coming from where you were standing, not from you." She looked back up, jumping nervously toward the center of the boat. "...This is spooky. Everyone watch that spot, and someone throw me a weapon."
Gazelle furrowed his brow. "What are you doing?"
"Figuring out..." Valey's eyes widened as the danger spot slid across the floor, back toward Gazelle, and suddenly intensified. "Bananas, move!"
She dashed across the deck, throwing herself into him and tackling him out of the way of whatever was about to happen. Gazelle hissed, hitting the deck with a paw to her neck, and Valey immediately shadow snuck a few hooflengths away. "Don't fight me, look out!"
Suddenly, the deck where Gazelle had been standing rippled, the shadows across it stretching as if someone was shadow sneaking with no stealth whatsoever. And then, where nothing had been standing, something was there.
Starlight felt Maple stiffen at her side. The fur along her own spine stood straight, a feeling she couldn't identify racing through her heart as her eyes fixed themselves on the water-like floor... and then she couldn't look at it any longer.
Her eyes refused to. It was like there was a pony-shaped cutout in space standing on the deck, that whenever she tried to move her gaze over it, she was already looking at the other side. It registered only in her peripheral vision through its lack of anythingness, a living shadow or lack of light, and she suddenly realized that it could have been there for a long time and she might not have noticed save for that lingering feeling creeping up her spine. But now it was here, and she thought it evoked something in her but she couldn't tell what.
"Starlight..." Maple breathed, a hoof going to her shoulders. "Stay right here. By me. I don't know what that is."
Gazelle knew, though. "Do my eyes deceive me?" he mock-gasped, tail swishing. "Well well well! And here I thought we were all going to leave without ever knowing what happened to this..."
Valey stared at the thing from beside him. "Bananas. Are you saying that's..."
"Your missing Nightmare Module?" Gazelle purred. "Oh, perhaps. Give me that sword. I want to kill it."
"P-Prince..." the void rasped, wavering. "Enemy Prince... Help... die... Night Mother... Help..."
Gazelle pursed his lips, tail lashing. "Well! You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? Help you die, you say?"
He took several steps backward, and then his tail shot out, grappling Gerardo's sword away from Jamjars and launching it into the sky, where he caught it with a wing and flashed his teeth.
"That's the batpony who stole our things," Starlight whispered to Maple, still unable to banish that feeling. Her eyes narrowed, and her body tensed all on its own for combat or something worse. "She's in there..."
As if on command, the apparition twisted, and suddenly Starlight could look at it. It suddenly had shape and form, the shadows flowing across its surface like water, and they broke at the head and slithered down its body and spilled out along the ground, retracting and coalescing into a proper shadow cast by the light of the stars. It was a mare, her face familiar as the one who had stolen Starlight's saddlebags... but the rest of her body was wrong.
Her slitted eyes, whatever color they had once been, were gray. Her neck was there, as were her shoulders and part of her barrel, but right in the middle of her belly she stopped, her coat breaking away in a flaky line that concealed a cloud of fluid, nebulous purple held vaguely in the shape of a pony and getting more vague as it went on. Her forelegs suffered the same, breaking off just below the shoulders, and in the ether Starlight could see floating the gray outline of a colorless cutie mark. Cold lightning crackled somewhere within the void, looking less like gas and more like a portal to an infinite dimension. Her wings were there, as were Starlight's saddlebags affixed to her back, but she was fully disembodied from the waist down.
"H-Help..." She shivered, trembling, and somehow stood up, leading Starlight to realize she did have hooves: they were just like the rest of her, broken off and connected to the ether yet somehow able to support her despite not being a physical part of her.
"It's so cold... So empty..." Her terrified gray eyes cast around, looking for someone, anyone, though Valey backed away in fear and Gazelle was licking his lips. Starlight glanced up at Maple instead.
"I don't know how to help her!" Maple squeaked, trembling and barely audible. "Starlight, she's... I don't know what that is!"
"What it is is time to put a poor fool out of their misery." Gazelle held out Gerardo's sword in a wing. "You've gotten too close to your goddess, my little pony. She can't help you now. You're already receiving too much of her help, and that's why you're like this. Sleep."
Shwiiing!
The black blade flew. When it hit her, unlike every lifeform before, it encountered resistance, Gazelle knocking her back as he slashed. He slashed again, teeth bared in a frown, leaving no visible wounds, but each time the batpony shuddered and cried out, weakening and regressing a little. Eventually, she sat there with a hung head, and the final strike landed... and she coughed, glowed and collapsed, laying there without twitching. Starlight's saddlebags slipped from her back, and the glow moved to her forehoof, intensifying in a dark white light. There was a final flash, and it was over, a black crystal laying in front of her, inert on the ground.
With a rush of wings, Valey was there, grabbing the Nightmare Module and the saddlebags and throwing it in before Gazelle had time to react. "Alright!" she demanded. "That's cool for now, now lay off. I have my stuff back. Everybody stop for a sec."
Gazelle frowned as Valey stood over the unconscious mare. "You want to keep that? And her? What are you doing?"
"Giving myself time to not make a hasty decision," Valey replied, then glanced down at the pirate. "And I'm kinda curious about her, too, so don't, like... get rid of her, or anything. Deal?"
"Valey?" Maple called from near the stairwell entrance. "I hate to say this, but being nice to that mare in the first place is what caused your things to get stolen. It's... not an idea without consequences."
"Seriously?" Valey glared at the pirate. Her ethereal state seemed to be congealing, returning to something more like a normal equine form... but her cutie mark was still gray, and her legs and rump where they had disappeared were hard and hairless, like everything had melted together. She was breathing... barely. "You know, I hate to say it too, but she's not actually looking like being alive would do her a kindness, right now. You wanna come look at this, Ironflanks?"
Maple winced. "I can see it from here..."
"Sounds like you don't wanna. Here, then." Valey tossed her the saddlebags. "Go put these somewhere safe, or something?"
Starlight caught them, feeling several things rattle around inside. "I'll do it," she volunteered. They were her saddlebags, and she needed to get away from that mare and figure out what she was feeling...
Maple sighed as Starlight wandered off, stepping closer to Valey, Gazelle and the unconscious batpony. "Alright. I'll come have a look."
The rest of the crew had gone back belowdecks, leaving only Maple, Valey, Shinespark and Gazelle standing around the nightmare batpony's barely-moving body. Shinespark knelt over her, feeling her chest and throat and checking other signs of vitals.
"There's no color anywhere on her body," Maple whispered. "It's like she's black and white. She had a colored mane last time, didn't she?"
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "I had other things to focus on. So what do we do with her?"
"If I purely had my way..." Shinespark frowned. "I'd want to keep her and study her to figure out how that sword's effect on batponies works, but she's clearly no longer a normal batpony. Look at this." She tapped the hardened, shell-like body parts that had reformed where the ether once floated. "It's... What is she?"
"This stuff?" Valey poked her too. "It's carapace. This looks like what batponies turn into when you remove their cutie marks with moon glass, only she's just half-transformed and still has her mark. Sorta. It looks... pretty bad."
"It's gray," Maple whispered. "Colorless. But it's not cracked like mine was, or the Firefly Sisters'. And... look at her eyes." She lifted the mare's head, cradling it in her lap. Though she had a pulse and was slowly breathing, her eyes didn't focus, didn't blink, didn't even move... and they were gray and lifeless, twice as far gone as the worst days she had ever felt when she looked in the mirror in Riverfall.
"Bananas, this is creepy." Valey nodded, running a hoof through the mare's colorless mane. "Seriously... seriously not doing any favors for my opinion of their goddess. Not only did she apparently make both batponies and Nightmare Modules, but we're, like... some kind of machines to run them. The first time I touched the one this mare used, it spoke in my head and told me some kind of irreversible physical changes would be needed to use it, too. I guess this is what those changes looked like..."
"Good thing you didn't," Shinespark consoled, pulling back from the mare and touching her shoulder to Valey's. "You... probably wouldn't be happy like this."
"And how happy am I like this, anyway?" Valey pointed to herself. "Bananas, I... I wanna be a real pony. Ever asked yourself why we're here, or something? Apparently I'm here because some goddess thought it would be funny to make a weapon or machine that looks like a normal pony, and my soul got stuck along for the ride. Not really a fun existential..." She blinked up at Gazelle. "Oh. Right. You're still here. Mind, uh, going down below and getting a room? I hate to be a bother, but I kinda need some mare talk right now."
Gazelle shrugged, still holding Gerardo's sword. "Certainly. But have you decided what you're going to do with her?"
Everyone winced.
"You're very astute," Gazelle complimented. "I won't pretend to know where you learned all that, but a lot of what you said is correct. The transformation the Nightmare Modules offer is permanent. This sword is actually the closest I've ever seen to reverting it..." He curiously inspected the blade. "But oh well. She's almost dead, and even if there's still anything in there to nurse back to health, you know pirates. Ask Wallace if you don't. Or ask that old Captain Golbez. He'll tell you in no uncertain terms how he'll repay you for saving him and clearing his record, and it won't be by becoming a model citizen. If you insist on being kind, a mercy killing would be kindest. I'll even do it for you."
Maple sighed, then shuddered. "I don't even remember her name."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Is that really the most important thing to hang onto, here, Ironflanks?"
"No..." Maple trailed off. "Is... there a gentle way you can send her off? Please?"
Gazelle bowed, then pounced with the sword a final time. The batpony didn't last an instant, exploding into a weak shower of flakes of grayness that drifted, hit the deck and instantly faded away. Maple's mouth was open from surprise, and one flew in, leaving her blinking and cross-eyed. "It tastes... sweet?"
She realized what had happened a moment later and scraped at her tongue, but the flake had dissolved like all the others. Valey sighed and hung her head. "Alright, prince dude. That's the end of that. Could you just give us the sword and then go take a snooze?"
"As you wish." Gazelle bowed, depositing the sword on the deck and retreating to the stairwell.
Maple scooped up the sword, but didn't pocket it, hanging onto the handle and keeping the blade a safe distance away. "What...?" She looked up from the sword to Valey and Shinespark. "Was that because she had been transformed, or...?"
"It does that to batponies," Shinespark sighed, forelegs starting to tremble. "We found that out the hard way. I... might have to rethink how I feel about having blood on my hooves after all that. I'm probably going to go into shock. Hopefully we get off this iceberg and on our way, soon, but I'm afraid we'll have to wait for Wallace to do that. I'm spent, at least."
"Yeah. To batponies." Valey closed her eyes. "Because apparently we just work differently. You know what else only affects batponies? Moon glass. And Nightmare Modules. Bananas, I don't even want to try hooking myself up to that harmony extractor, since it works differently between ponies that are normal. I wish... I-I wish..."
"You wish what?" Maple set the sword down and wrapped her forehooves around Valey, pulling her into a hug. "How can we help you?"
"You can't," Valey sniffed. "I wish I could at least get my existential issues limited to one side of things. My soul is some sort of extraterrestrial parasite from a piece of moon glass, and my body is a machine made to be used as a weapon and transformed to look like one. A nice fit, huh?"
Shinespark blinked. "Is... this a story I'm supposed to have heard before? You're a what from a piece of moon glass?"
"Roll with it, Sparky," Valey sighed. "Bananas. I feel so much more like myself when I'm not in a funk about things, too. You think we could just avoid political trouble and pirates and sticking our noses where they don't belong and everything else for a while? Please? Like... at least a month. The stupid tournament starts in a month, and I'm still thinking of maybe knocking some heads and trying to get us that pass to the Plains of Harmony. I know Starlight had a bad experience there, but it's gotta be better than yaks and wars and racists and destroyed cities. It has to."
Maple chuckled weakly. "We've been so bad at that, Valey... but I agree. Maybe we could try to disappear off the map for a while and see how it works out. We'll forget about Chauncey, leave Puddles to Wallace and Gazelle, hope they honor their agreement to leave us alone..."
"Yeah. I've got so much I'd love to do with some peace and rest..." Shinespark yawned. "First, I need to sleep, but then I'm going to have to do a lot of repairs on the ship. She got a little banged up today. Second, I really want to figure out how the harmony extractor works with Melia and Sirena's magic. I feel like I got taunted by that discovery..."
"Nngh. I'm tired too," Valey yawned. "Stupid all-day flights and combat and waking up in the middle of the night, am I right? You wanna hit the sack?"
"I think I will." Shinespark bowed, pulling herself away from the hug. "We'll have to get Meltdown's armor tied down somewhere safe before we start moving again, but Gerardo and Wallace can handle that. I need a rest. I'll see you in the morning, you two. Or in the evening, or however late I sleep."
"See you too, Shinespark." Maple waved.
Together, Maple and Valey watched as she left too, leaving them alone on the deck. "Well?" Valey sighed. "I guess she took hearing about where I'm from better than she could have, even if I didn't tell her the full story. Don't remember if I've told you one hundred percent, either. I'll have to finish that some time..."
"Valey, do you want to share our room again?" Maple kept hugging her. "You look like you could use the company."
"...Yeah," Valey admitted. "That would be nice."
They were silent for a moment, staring at the spot where the batpony had died and not going anywhere. Maple in particular fidgeted, images of the blackened, reconstituted legs running through her mind. "...Valey?"
"Something still on your mind, Ironflanks?"
"I feel like there's something extremely important I'm forgetting," Maple sighed, an inexplicable worry in her heart. "Something about what moon glass does to batponies. I'm remembering her eyes, and... Can you tell me about that again? What happened to your sister?"
Valey closed her eyes. "Nyala? Yeah. She got hit by a piece in Navarre's telekinesis. You know, lead scientist dude from Icereach who got frozen when his experiment blew up. And I was kinda preoccupied with killing him when it happened, but..." She shuddered. "It's not instantaneous. You get time to... to watch them slip away. They try to fight it, but it sticks to them, the moon glass. First their eyes turn gray, just like hers were." She nodded imperceptibly at the spot where the mare had been. "They feel bad inside. Worse, at least if what she was saying was any indication. She was scared, Maple. It was like... Maple?"
Maple had gone rigid. "Valey..." she breathed, suddenly knowing exactly what it was this had reminded her of. "Oh..."
"Yo." Valey prodded her in concern. "What's up?"
"Valey, that... h-happened to Starlight." Maple trembled. "The first time we saw a piece of empty moon glass. We were in Ironridge, and White Chocolate was showing us the piece she had used. Starlight touched it, and... it clung to her. I was able to pry it off and she went back to normal, but it startled both of us. She was scared, and I remember that for a moment, her eyes turned gray..."
"Oh bananas." Valey stiffened too. "Bananas! That's, like..." Her eyes widened at the implications. "Starlight is somehow like a batpony? What? She's a unicorn! Doesn't have the slitted eyes or the wings or fangs or tufty little ears or anything! But..." Her voice grew quiet. "I mean, she always has reacted differently to magic and stuff. And technically, not a lot of it is stuff I've done, so we've got no clue if I react the same. I always thought that was because she was from across the mountains, and stuff was just different down there. You think she's... like... part-batpony, or something? Or maybe Equestrian ponies are actually the same kind of things as batponies? Machines for-"
Her pupils shrank even further. "Maple? I just threw her my saddlebags. She knows not to poke around in there, right? Would she have any idea not to touch the Nightmare Module?"
Maple's ears folded in return.
"We've been talking out here for hours...!" Valey snapped to her hooves, quivering. "Bananas, it asked me permission and I had a chance to say no. That filly better be smart! Come on, let's get down there!"
Maple needed no invitation to race along at her heels.
Starlight slumped into her and Maple's room, the saddlebags slung over her back. With a sigh, she tossed them on the edge of the bed, then slumped in after them. She had some thinking to do, but thinking was all she ever did, and she really didn't want to.
Her horn hurt. She had overused it in the fight against the pirates on their ship, and now she would have to wait however long for it to feel better again. Shinespark and Valey and all her friends were safe, but it wasn't an encounter that should have happened in the first place! She and Maple and Valey had been busy, and those stupid pirates had interrupted... It was supposed to have been safe...
She hadn't really let her guard down. She had been there, and ready to fight, as ready as a filly could be. It was hard, though, because she really wanted to be safe, to trust that her friends and mother could care for themselves without her needing to protect them at all times. It would be so wonderful for them all to be able to relax... but this was why they couldn't. This always happened, and it felt like the more they tried to resist, the worse the happenings were. This was her life now, eternally needing to care for her friends to ensure she'd always have them. It wasn't fair. Why couldn't they take care of themselves?
No... They could take care of themselves. Valey and Shinespark had done that, coming back safe from the pirate frigate just like was promised. But it still wasn't enough! She felt the tears beginning to come. Why couldn't the world just leave them alone? Why couldn't someone make a perfect place where everyone just wouldn't have to worry about bad things happening? Where friendships could be forever and no one would be alone and everyone could finally be at peace... Finally...
She was lonely, then and there. She turned over in the bed, but Maple was still on the top deck. She wanted to talk to someone, someone she trusted. If she went out there, though, she'd probably just run into Howe or Jamjars or someone else annoying. She needed someone who could be unbreakable to hold her, just for a moment, so she could get her hooves back under her and her strength replenished to face the world...
Her eyes slid across the saddlebags, and an idea floated into her mind. Amber's sound stone was one of the things that had been in there, right? Well, Amber was in Riverfall, and Willow was also in Riverfall, and Willow... Willow... She swallowed. Her biggest and best memories of Willow were all of being held. When she first woke up after nearly freezing, barely conscious for a second. In the rain after she was scared and ran off. Right before leaving for Ironridge. Willow was safe. She needed to talk to her.
Horn making her head spin enough that she didn't want to use it, Starlight leaned forward and stuck a hoof in the saddlebags, fishing around for anything rock-like. She hit something, grabbed it... and that something grabbed back.
"Wha-!?" Starlight yanked her hoof back and blinked at it in the dim light, a dark crystal she recognized from the deck stuck to the end of her leg. Her hoof felt heavier, suddenly, like she was somehow being drawn toward it from within. "What? Get off!"
She flailed and shook her leg, but the crystal was sticky and didn't let go. "Nnngh! Nnngh!" Starlight strained... and all she was rewarded with was a memory. She was on a carpet, Maple pulling on a chunk of moon glass attached to her hoof... Another memory barged in, of her on a platform in a flooded river facing Hemlock, a dark crystal sword she had summoned attached to one of her forelegs. Then she was in the crystal palace, watching the harmonic flame burn... and then a wave of numbness washed over her, removing the tension and setting her back in her room on the Dream. The room seemed somehow brighter, but still in only shades of gray, like it was near total darkness. She looked at the Nightmare Module stuck to her hoof one more time, and tried to shove it away.
Checking system requirements, a cool mare's voice said in her head. Requirements met or exceeded. Requesting permission to engage Nightmare Module em-
SCRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!
Error: system error log buffer capacity exceeded. Proceeding to dump to console.
The system encountered an unexpected error and crashed. Running diagnostics prior to restarting...
Critical system extension and support libraries not found. Warning: this may cause magical instability, improper functioning and undesired or missing effects. Scanning for alternate installations... External backup found. Restoring critical system components from NIGHTMARE_02. Please wait.
Notice: not all missing volumes found on backup. Upon restart, some functionality might be limited or unavailable. Continuing to restart in 3... 2... 1...
Starlight opened her eyes.
The first thing she registered was a pain in her hoof. It felt like someone was trying to pry a part of her away with physical force, and she groaned, squirming weakly. This made her aware of a body against her, holding hers. It was warm. Impossibly warm, and she was just as cold, a void empty of heat that needed that warmth more than food or even air. She squirmed again and tried to open her eyes... and succeeded.
"Starlight?" a distant voice asked. "Starlight! Starlight, are you alright?"
"Her eyes are open!" Another voice. They were getting closer, like she was breaking the surface of a deep lake. "Yo, is she finally back?"
"They're gray, though..."
Gray. That didn't quite register with Starlight, brushing past her senses. She slowly regarded the pony in front of her. That was... Maple. She was warm. She reached out, feeling horribly empty.
Maple took her, pulling her into a hug. She felt like there was a significance to this she was somehow missing, but she didn't care because she needed it. Also, this was the pony who had been yanking at her hoof. At... the dark crystal stuck to it.
This was Starlight's first indication that something was wrong.
System restore successfully complete. Warning: usage of horn, cutie mark and harmonic functions may be limited and/or cause system damage. View full error log information?
Starlight didn't want to, and the words in her head drifted away on an empty breeze. It had said cutie mark... Did she... She craned her head to look, but no. Her flanks were blank. She felt like she should feel more for that.
Notice: interface with backup volume NIGHTMARE_02 established by automatic system protocols. All possible restorations have been completed using administrator-level privileges. Destroy the backup?
Destroy it? Starlight frowned, her memories sluggish, like something had just raked through them by force and they were still pulling themselves back together. The crystal was... It was dangerous? It was dangerous. It wasn't good for the warmth. Yes, she thought as Maple and the other warmth held her. She wanted it gone.
Permission required to destroy backup volume NIGHTMARE_02. Notice: this functionality will prematurely exit Nightmare Module emulation mode. Proceed with termination? Yes/no.
She just said she wanted it, didn't she? Starlight frowned, still not understanding where the words in her head were coming from. She just wanted the warmth, to not feel so-
Her horn flared with color, an inferno almost as big as she was, and like streaks of moisture dripping across her vision she realized she knew what color was again. Her entire body burned as the emptiness was squeezed away, compressed into a speck like a deflating balloon and wrapped where it couldn't be felt again. By its own volition, the hoof with the Nightmare Module lifted, and Starlight's leg pulsed and throbbed, veins of midnight blue crackling and arcing down the surface and focusing in on the crystal. For a moment, its blackness wavered, attacked by chroma... and with a final burst, it blew apart into flecks of black, melty sludge that spattered and hissed and steamed away to nothing.
Immediately, all the energy flew back to Starlight's horn, hitting her and making her physically lurch. A wave of nausea she hadn't felt since she passed out in the Flame District descended, and she moaned, unsure whether she would vomit, pass out or both... but somehow she did neither, hanging limply with her world spinning and colorful in someone's soft embrace. These were her friends, Maple and Valey. Her mother, even.
"Starlight?" Maple whispered in her ear. "What happened? You've been out for hours. Are you alright?"
"Uhh, her horn is kinda crackling and I can feel the heat from here. I'm gonna go with no?"
"Not so loud..." Starlight moaned. "Maple... My head hurts..."
Maple leaned into her vision with a scared, relieved smile. "You're talking again," she breathed.
"And her eyes are back, too," Valey added, remembering to keep her voice down as low as possible. "Bananas, that was scary. What...? What happened?"
"Unnngh..." Starlight rolled her face into Maple's fur, blocking out the light from her eyes.
"Shhhhh." Maple stroked a hoof through her mane, and it was the best feeling Starlight could imagine right then, attacked by waves of overuse from her horn. "Shhh. You can rest. We love you. We're here for you."
"L-Love you..." Starlight managed. The effort of saying the words almost made her reconsider whether she needed a toilet, but they were important. Because, she realized, while the world had been gray, she hadn't felt or been aware of that at all.
"She's alive," Maple murmured, stroking Starlight's mane with a trembling hoof. "She's alive. She's alive. She's alive..."
"Yeah," Valey whispered back, sitting across the bed from Maple. "Think she's got a fever, too. Poor kid. You think we can get some lights on in here, or would that wake her again? I kinda want to get a better look at her."
"The light in this room is broken," Maple answered, sadly shaking her head. "At least she isn't cold to the touch any more. I'd rather her be too hot than... that..."
Valey ran a worried hoof down Starlight's side. "You think we should, like, try hooking her up to the ship again? Her horn basically exploded, there. Was she fighting back, or something? I didn't even know you could do that, but she probably overtaxed herself again. She was like this when I found her with Sparky in the eastern valley after she blew herself up at the dam, too..."
"No." Maple gritted her teeth. "I don't know how come it causes her to almost disappear, but it's gotten worse and worse every time she tries and I don't want to trust that that's just because her horn is hurt worse every time. And if it goes as badly as last time, I'd have to carry her in my cutie mark for a whole month to get her back to the Ironridge flame... and that's if we get an airship to take us there."
"Ooh. Yeah. Not doing that, then." Valey slumped down, laying nearer to Maple and looking at Starlight in the dim light. "Bananas, though. This is scary. So much for staying out of trouble and not messing with dangerous stuff when we don't know how it works."
Maple closed her eyes in agreement. "Do you think we should tell her? About... Well, we'll see how much she remembers and how much she already knows, but... you know?"
Fortunately, Valey did know. "That batponies are some kind of machines for running these stupid Nightmare Modules and apparently she is too. Yeah. I think she's got enough on her shoulders, as it is. But... it could hurt her if she finds out in a worse way, too. Hey, though. She... broke herself out of it. Didn't go all cloudy like that mare above. And she actually destroyed the crystal, too. How do you think she did that?"
"I don't know." Maple lowered her head in thought. "I think... You remember what the yaks had built, in the tree in the crystal palace? That machine using moon glass to power up the windigo heart? It was like the flame was burning brighter than it needed to, attacking the moon glass to try to break it and slowly melting it away. When I held Starlight in that flame and it brought her back... well, do you think she's related to it somehow? She said it made her magic a little bit better, but maybe she was able to break the Nightmare Module because the flame is able to break moon glass."
"Huh. Maybe." Valey flicked an ear, too lazy to indulge the urge to scratch her head. "It's weird, though. The flame was pink, right? And Starlight's magic is usually teal. But when she blew that thing up just now, it was, like... dark blue. What do you think is up with that? Does that color mean anything to you?"
Maple thought for a long while. "I... can think of a lot of things that are blue, but none that would make sense here? Unless..." She closed her eyes in thought. "I feel like it's familiar somehow, but don't remember from where."
Valey yawned. "Nyaah. Probably not important. You, uhh... think it's safe to just go to sleep now, and let her try to rest it off? Because I'm actually exhausted, and hadn't planned on staying up with you this late. Seriously, I've gotta get to sleep before-"
The first rays of dawn suddenly pierced through the window, illuminating the roof of the cabin above them.
"Bananaaas..." Valey moaned, rolling facedown on the bed. "My everything hurts, too. Cramps and stuff. I need a massage, and not from a Mistvale Monk."
Maple cradled Starlight in the light. Her eyes were closed, but her coat and mane were just as colorful as they had always been, and she ran her muzzle across the top of the filly's head. Starlight's horn had stopped randomly sparking, but it was still hot. Her entire filly was hot, and she wrapped her in her hooves anyway, making sure she couldn't become as cold as before.
Suddenly, a soft knocking came at the door, and it slid barely ajar. "Hello?" Shinespark whispered, preparing to come in.
"Hey," Valey greeted with a wing, not lifting her face out of the bed.
"How's Starlight?" Shinespark kept her voice down, trotting silently across the wood floor. "I haven't told the rest of the crew. Just you two and me know anything happened."
Maple gratefully met her eyes. "She changed. I think she's back, but her horn did something and now I think it's badly overused again. The Nightmare Module is gone. She destroyed it."
Shinespark shook her head. "When she's awake, tell her I'm wishing her well. I just wanted to let you know, Wallace came back and has been carving up the iceberg with that sword, and we're back in the water and about to head for Stormhoof again. This is goodbye to pirate waters, goodbye to Goldoa, goodbye to Izvaldi... Anyway. We're about to get moving again."
Maple winced. "They're back? How... was the fighting? Was there anything left for them to end?"
"Barely," Shinespark sighed. "There were Varsidelians left. About a dozen of them, all wounded. They apparently put up the fight of their lives, and between them and everything Puddles, Meltdown and I did, we killed over three-quarters of the sarosians on that ship. There are few enough that they might not have a full crew for basic ship functions. At least they'll have to go back to shore, but..." She sadly shook her head. "It was a massacre for both sides. Not like Ironridge, where the infrastructure was damaged but all the ponies survived. It... leaves a bad feeling in my gut. I hate having been a part of this."
"Yeah, well, guess what?" Valey waved her over, beckoning her to stay. "Life smells sometimes. There's a whole lot that's bitter to me, but we just gotta keep going. You wanna talk about it, or just try Ironflanks hug therapy?"
Shinespark stood and stared at the invitation. "It's just so difficult. I know I shouldn't have to fight through situations like these, but if I don't, there's no one who will. It doesn't seem fair."
Valey folded her ears. "Wonder where I've heard that before. Come here, Sparky. No point in wallowing on your own."
"...Alright." Shinespark sighed, walking around the bed and climbing in next to Valey. "Maybe I should have made the beds in these cabins a little bigger..."
"Nope. Not on the edge." Valey slithered forward, grabbed Shinespark and feebly suplexed her into the middle, so that she was between her and Maple. "There ya go. Bananas, you actually washed up. Now sit there and think about having friends, and stuff. We're all in this together."
"Of course I washed everything off." Shinespark frowned. "I was filthy. You did too..." She sighed. "This feels weird."
Maple looked over, still rocking Starlight, and scooted a little closer to Shinespark. "What does? Being in the middle?"
"Having... this." Shinespark deflated, Valey and Maple touching both of her sides. "All of us having the same troubles together, being in exactly the same place. This continent hasn't been kind to any of us. I don't know if Maple, you're used to doing this in Riverfall, but in Ironridge I always just helped other ponies with their problems and occasionally leaned on Dior or Arambai for mine. When we're all in the same bad place... I feel like this will be silly to ask, but..."
"Beats me." Valey leaned into her, letting Shinespark lean on her side as well. "For most of my life, I had no one to go to but myself. Seems like the best person to share a problem with would be someone actually having that problem, though, right? I mean, it makes sense..." She shrugged. "But we're kind of not in a position to be picky. We've all got each other as friends, and that's about it. And somehow, ignoring your own issues doesn't seem like the smartest way of going about things..."
Shinespark sighed. "I didn't have a choice. Sosa had ten... twenty years of pain from lost jobs and loved ones and cultural significance. It's a leader's job to put their homeland above themselves, isn't it? I had hundreds and hundreds of ponies to..."
"To help with their burdens?" Maple murmured. "It sounds lonely. I bet you still have a lot of weight from some of the stories you have to carry around, now."
"You could say that," Shinespark sniffed, closing her eyes. "I-I just..." She took a breath. "It was all worth it as long as I was doing it for Ironridge. For Sosa. And I thought I left all of it behind when we left, but... does that make me ungrounded? Now this happens, and I don't know how to deal with it. It feels... numb. But if I close my eyes, I can see those puffs of ash as they burst apart..."
"It sounds like it does make you ungrounded," Maple whispered. "Can we be your ground? No one deserves to carry all that by themselves."
"Sure. What she said." Valey rolled a little bit closer in the bed. "I dunno exactly what specifics you've got going on, but if you need to just let go, or something... Seriously. We're friends. Let us help."
Shinespark suddenly trembled between them. "T-Thanks," she managed breathlessly.
"You're welcome." Maple stroked a comforting hoof along her side, leaning against her. "You've got us and we've got you..."
Suddenly, Starlight shifted in Maple's embrace, giving a low, pained moan. "My head hurts..."
"Starlight?" Maple's breath caught. "Are you awake?"
Starlight put a hoof on Maple's chest, half-trying to stand up. "I think I hurt my horn again," she managed. "But I can feel it and I'm not blind so it's not as bad as last time."
"Starlight..." Maple rubbed her back, feeling the filly slump back against her. "We were so worried..."
Whatever bout of lucidity had woken Starlight had passed, and Starlight just whined weakly under her breath. "It was cold..."
"It was cold. You were cold," Maple agreed. "Sleep, Starlight. We're going back to Stormhoof. Sleep and be well..."
"Nnngh..." Starlight shivered, feeling simultaneously far too hot and far too cold. Her horn felt like the hilt of a dagger protruding from her head, flickers of pain and instability coursing randomly from it and occasionally dancing through the rest of her body. She could still think, though. It was like something tiny and faint and vaguely pink was forming a shell in her mind, an island for her thoughts to sit on in safety while the magical backlash formed a tempestuous sea around them. Aside from that, this was almost worse than she had felt in the Water District after passing out from overloading her horn before. She was tempted to push herself even further until her horn broke all the way, and just let herself be blind and magicless again if it also meant the pain would go away.
"Starlight," something fuzzy hugging her murmured. "Oh, Starlight..."
Starlight swallowed, trying to get back some control of her body and senses, and with effort, the world slowly slid into a little more focus. She was in her room, and it was light beyond the curtained window. "Maple... I'm alright..."
"No, you aren't." A cool, beautiful rag pressed against her forehead, and Starlight heard a hiss as it seemed to take something out of her horn. In a second, the sensation had faded, and Maple did it twice more. "You feel sick, or maybe magically injured. None of us know what happened to you, but you're not alright."
Starlight shifted her body, not really able to feel herself move but still aware that she was doing it. "I'm more alright than I was," she slurred, not using the full amount of effort needed to speak clearly. "A lot more. I think I died again."
"Starlight?" Maple's worried face came into her swimming vision. "What do you mean? You don't have to talk if it's hard, but we don't know at all what you went through."
"Unngh..." Starlight weathered another wave of dizziness, suddenly aware that she was very sweaty. "I was..." Her memories kept swirling, mixing with the dizziness from her horn. She needed time to think, and trailed off.
Maple nuzzled her, and then there was another cool, wet rag against her horn. Starlight blinked, and slowly, her memories of the Nightmare Module solidified. "There were words in my head," she mumbled. "It started like a mare, but I passed out and everything went gray, and then they were just thoughts. My thoughts were weird. I forgot what colors were and didn't know I wasn't seeing right. I forgot what love was, and needed to get closer to you but didn't remember who you were, or Valey." She weakly stretched her neck, trying to nuzzle Maple back. "I felt cold and dark and empty and scared."
"Words?" More coolness pressed against her horn. "Do you remember what they said?"
"Sort of..." Starlight groaned, wishing the cold would just stay and stop fading after a second or two of use. "They didn't make sense. They asked me questions, like whether I wanted to destroy it and wake up. And something about a nightmare two, and errors, and being broken or missing or unstable..."
"Huh," Valey added from nearby, keeping her voice down. "Two? That's what it said for me when I used it. Like it was the second Nightmare Module, or something. Hey... Starlight? Did it ask you if you wanted all that to happen? Like... I touched the thing too, and it stopped and asked permission to do stuff to me, and left me alone when I said no. Did you say yes?"
Starlight groaned again. She felt hungry, but that was probably a good thing, since she wouldn't have been able to keep food down anyway right then. "It didn't ask," she moaned. "I think. Maybe." Memories sifted again in her head; even though she could hear her own thoughts, everything she knew about the world felt like it had been stirred with a paddle and ideas were taking longer than usual to pull back together others that were related to them. "I think I fainted while it was asking. There was a lot of hissing and my eyes and ears broke and everything went dark..." She shivered, feeling clammy. "It said something about me being broken."
"Oh, Starlight..." Maple switched to stroking her with a hoof, though the rags had helped more. Maybe she was out. "You're still you to me, even if something else says you aren't working properly."
"It said it was trying to fix me," Starlight went on, mumbling. "The words from the thing. But it said it wasn't enough. And I don't feel better at all."
Valey slowly sighed. "Do you... think I should say it?"
"Say what?" Starlight muttered.
Maple's head nodded against her, and Valey took a breath. "Nightmare Modules are like... instructions for machines. At least, that's what Dorable told me. I seriously didn't follow a word of the jargon he was saying. Dude could've been way more concise. Point is, batponies are apparently the machines that are supposed to do stuff with those instructions... and apparently you are too. Hope that's not too hard to deal with."
Starlight frowned. "Did you say that already?"
"I... might have?" Valey scratched the back of her neck. "Last night or whatever, when I was unloading on you guys before the pirates? Bananas, that was forever ago. I don't even remember." She exhaled. "Point is. Yeah. Apparently you're sort of supposed to be able to do that, I guess. Use... or get used by moon glass and Nightmare Modules and whatever. I guess the good news is that you didn't go all cloudy like that mare up on the deck? Or maybe you didn't reach that point in using it, yet, but either way, you look like you again. On the other hoof, if it didn't ask permission and kind of blew you up..."
"Nnngh." Starlight hugged herself and shivered.
"We need you to do a few things," Maple murmured, caressing the back of Starlight's head and holding her gently. "Whatever you do, don't touch more moon glass or other Nightmare Modules, okay? I hope we don't find any at all, but this almost happened to you in White Chocolate's house too, remember? You've been fine touching full moon glass before, but empty pieces will hurt you, and you can't detect danger like Valey can. Okay?"
Valey huffed. "Bananas, if we find even one more Nightmare Module, I quit. Those things are lame."
"Okay," Starlight murmured back. "That's not the only place it happened to me, though..."
"Starlight?" Maple's voice was suddenly tense and worried.
"Two other times," Starlight said, stopping to wince from another wave of dizziness. "Once when I was dead after using the harmony extractor. I... saw a place before I came back. I don't remember it very well, but everything there was gray and it felt cold and empty around me. It felt like... like what I felt inside just now, only it was the world around me. I don't know if I told you about it." She shivered again. "The other time was when I was fighting Hemlock on the river, but you said I just imagined that, so maybe it doesn't count. I didn't remember it well at all, but I remembered it when this was happening..."
Maple stroked her again and smiled where she could see it. "It's okay. You're back now. We can figure all that out and what it means later... Go back to sleep, Starlight. We love you. You'll just have a long time to sleep this off..."
"Yeah. Go back to sleep." Valey's voice was empty. "We'll, uhh... try to figure stuff out on our own."
"Think she's gone back to sleep?" Valey whispered, careful not to disturb Starlight in Maple's arms.
"She has," Maple murmured back, reaching for another rag from her bucket of ice water to apply to Starlight's horn. "Her breathing is slower. Oh, Starlight..."
"So. Spooky stuff." Valey looked away and shuddered.
Maple hesitated. "There was something you wanted to say, but didn't. Something that wasn't good?"
"...I'm gonna need to talk about this eventually," Valey sighed. Trembling, she curled forward and looked at her hind legs. "I, uhh... might have lied about something kinda important."
Maple's ears folded. "About this? About something that's happening to Starlight?"
Valey swallowed. "Yeah. She mentioned the stuff in Riverfall with Hemlock. I dunno how lucid she is right now, or how well she remembers it, but she, uhh, hallucinated some stuff about being more cornered than she actually was, and him fighting her and there being a weird magic crystal sword thingy and stuff. And I was the only one there to see it. Thing is... Hemlock survived that and got taken back to Ironridge, and according to Amber his insane fearful gibbering or whatever account of events kinda lines up with Starlight's. And mine..."
She sagged. "I made it up. I figured he was gone and it was my word against Starlight's and she knew there was magic involved and she was terrified and... yeah. I didn't want that on her hooves. The river was overflowing. She was stuck on the crane platform alone with him, and they tried grappling each other or whatever and she crystalled her leg and turned it into a sword, except it was darker than usual and looked weird and wrong. All that actually happened."
"...Why?" Maple's eyes wavered, growing glassy in the dim light. "I mean... Okay. I understand why you wouldn't want her with something like that on her chest. She told me about it when it first happened. We were all there, you and me and Amber too. And... I understand. But what does that have to do with this, though?"
Valey looked down. "One? Because she brought it up. I dunno what she was just talking about right then, but she thinks it's got something to do with it. And two... because when it was happening, her eyes were gray. I don't know if she remembers that. She just said right now that she forgot what colors were while she was out, right? But it... yeah." She hugged herself. "Kind of brought back some bad memories for me and I suppose I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened either. There was also the fact that she was setting off my cutie mark when she was like that, by the river. Really not cool to feel that from your friends."
"Oh." Maple was silent for a moment. "...Do you think there was a Nightmare Module in Riverfall?"
"I dunno." Valey shook her head. "Sparky's the scientist, not me. But she'd probably say we don't have enough data points. Like, the events were really different, right? I don't recall her exploding like she did now to get back to normal, then, and now she was shivering and cold and weak and stuff instead of trying to murder an old dude who had just blown up her house."
"No, she didn't," Maple murmured. "You brought her back and I held her for a while until she awakened."
Valey closed her eyes and thought. "Did you do anything to her while she was out, then? Anything at all? That could have made a difference?"
Maple thought for a long moment. "I just held her and hugged her. All I wanted was..." Her eyes suddenly widened in realization. "I used the harmonic flame. Remember, I had kept some of its energy in my cutie mark, because having it made me feel nice. And it rebuilt her earlier, right? I brought a little bit of it out for her several times while she was out, and maybe after she was awake, as well!"
"Bananas," Valey whispered, brow furrowing in concentration. "And Starlight does harmony stuff with the harmony extractor, right? Or, and we know the flame did spooky stuff to moon glass. It slowly melted it, remember? The setup the yaks had? So if that's how Starlight snapped herself out of it now, with that flashy thing she did..." She rubbed her forehead, thinking as hard as she could. "You know what I'm saying. There's totally a connection here."
"Harmony breaks moon glass." Maple nodded along. "And turns Starlight back when she gets glassed, probably for the same reason. And Starlight is somehow harmonic and can do that without a flame, but doing it hurts her. But does that mean since using her horn normally hurts her like this, her normal magic is harmonic too?"
Valey shrugged. "That's a question for Sparky. She'd know for sure. Either way, doesn't the harmony extractor, like, fix this problem but also push her too far in the other direction? I don't get it. She's using harmony in both directions somehow, right? What am I missing, here?"
Maple squeezed her eyes shut, trying to envision it in a simpler way. "Using it in one direction breaks one thing, and using it in the other fixes that and breaks another thing. But I don't know what the directions are. What's the difference between using her horn or a machine? It clearly matters..."
"I mean... keep in mind that according to Dorable, she's a machine too," Valey mused. "So it's like using one machine with another? Maybe it's broken by itself, but we're not fixing it in the right way, or whatever? She said something about something saying she was broken, even, remember?"
"Broken..." Maple hummed to herself. "What if it's... a broken circle? Like there's a back-and-forth that's supposed to happen and stops somewhere? Like maybe how she is now, there's too much pressure, and when she uses the harmony extractor, there's too little?"
"Huh." Valey stared for a moment. "It's really weird thinking of ponies this way, but maybe you're onto something." She tilted her head, running herself over the possibilities.
"We could be completely wrong," Maple continued, whispering, "but if that's the right way to think about it... do you think Starlight could be somehow fixed? By... completing the circle, somehow? Like she has some sort of missing part or component she could wear..."
"...Maple?" Valey gave her a slightly scared look. "Do you at all get the feeling we're guessing about and trying to understand stuff mortals really aren't supposed to know? Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but world history vanishes completely about two thousand years ago, nobody knows where normal ponies or people came from, and now that we're finding out about batponies..."
Maple nodded, unable to banish her curiosity for Starlight's sake. "It sounds like batponies might have been made with a purpose that wasn't very good," she agreed, whispering. "And now Starlight, too. You're worried we could discover something about other kinds of ponies as well, and we wouldn't like what we found?"
"Where they came from. What they're here for." Valey shuddered. "I dunno. I've still only gotten looks and hints about batpony bodies and my weird space soul. But... it's been pretty much the most unpleasant thing ever. And I don't even know for sure that there isn't a miraculously benevolent reason I'm here, just that every sign points to there being the opposite. It's not... not really something I'd like for anyone else to find out about themselves, you know?"
Maple leaned over and hugged her tightly. "You're still a person with your own ability to decide what you do, even if you were made with the ability to do terrible things, Valey. It'll be alright."
Valey leaned into it for a moment. "Yeah. Thanks. Bananas, I'm starting to get addicted to this hug therapy stuff. Gonna have to work on my image." She chuckled and pulled back with a daredevil grin. "Anyway. Starlight. Back to your theory that she's missing a piece, or something. She did say she heard from the Nightmare Module she was broken, or something, right? Wish we could hear the exact words. I wonder if whatever's missing is something Sparky would be able to make, or if it's something that already somehow exists and we'd just have to get ahold of for her. My bet is, it's something weird like a concept or other thing you wouldn't even normally think of as a thing, or something that all ponies have already and would be too obvious to guess. I wonder if she's, like, missing an organ or some stuff?"
"What if it's a cutie mark?" Maple whispered, barely audible. "Those are the most harmonic part of a pony. They're where the harmony extractor is supposed to connect."
"Oh bananas." Valey's eyes traced Starlight's flank, completely clean without any trace of a mark whatsoever. "That's, uhh... Uhh." She swallowed. "Normal ponies sometimes go their whole lives without getting cutie marks, though. And they never have issues like hers."
"They don't react to harmony magic the same, either," Maple answered, also examining Starlight's lack of a mark. "You said she acted more like a batpony."
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "And you know that batponies have cutie marks from birth, right? Probably before they're born, even."
Maple slowly nodded too. "But she's not a batpony, either. And you said batponies without cutie marks transform into something else. She isn't transformed, is she? Unless she is, and would turn into something else if she got one..." Her eyes widened at the idea, and she held Starlight a little closer.
"Nah, that's a good point," Valey mused. "But, like, that mare up top? She got that weird smoky thing that happened when she used the Nightmare Module, and then when she got forced out of it, she turned back partially-transformed, or something. All Starlight did was turn gray. So maybe she's different enough that that doesn't happen to her."
Maple closed her eyes. "So it could be her cutie mark? Unless... do you think all ponies in Equestria are like this?"
Valey shrugged. "Have you ever heard her say that other ponies back across the mountains had the same deal with magic as her?"
"I... haven't, no," Maple murmured. "But she doesn't talk about it very often. It's not a happy subject for her."
"Yep." Valey nodded. "So it's not because she's from down there. There's something else special about her relating to batponies." She frowned for a moment, tonguing her fangs. "Bananas. She hates being special."
Maple just sighed, hugging Starlight to her chest. "I know. It makes all of this so hard. Maybe we don't have to figure out, and she doesn't have to know? We can just forget we ever had this conversation?"
Valey shook her head. "Nah. We can't, for two reasons. First, if we're actually getting somewhere... I mean, you wanna help her, right? And it's not like we're at a dead end, especially not if we get Sparky in on this. And you know who else could help? Grapejuice. Probably has a ton of weird pirate cultist lore, or whatever. Could certainly tell us more about batponies than I know. And second, it's not enough to tell her to just avoid Nightmare Modules and moon glass. Because... the stuff with Hemlock happened. And I'm pretty sure there was no moon glass to trigger her there, or she would have known."
"Oh." Maple looked down. "You're right, aren't you...?"
"Yeah, even though I don't want to be." Valey let out a long sigh, brushing back her emerald mane and flopping on her back in the bed. "Look, I just... I... You know what I'd rather do? Something that would for sure help us as opposed to maybe get something we want while also sticking our noses into potentially hot water?"
"What's that?" Maple asked.
"Teach you all to fight." Valey exhaled, relaxing into the bed. "Bananas, if you all could defend yourselves, that would make so much of what we do so much easier. Ironflanks, I know you like being nice, but have you even looked at your cutie mark? Do you realize how strong you could be in a fight if your opponent thought you were a plain old unarmed earth pony and then suddenly you threw punches from twice your weight class or grappled them and then materialized a knife in their gut? You could do a sand attack and keep all your ammunition stored in there, you could drop ball bearings or marbles on the floor to cover an escape..." She turned to make eye contact. "You'd be seriously strong. And don't even get me started on what Starlight could do with her crystals. I've gotta start spending more time with Nyala, too, and that armor's built for combat. I feel really bad about bringing her back right before a big thing that would prevent me from spending time with her..."
"That does sound helpful," Maple murmured. "Maybe we could help you practice for the tournament, if you're still going to be in that?"
Valey hesitated. "I... don't know. I suppose I've got a lot of time to think about it, still. On the one hoof, Wallace thinks I stand a chance, and just imagine what I could do with a wish from a goddess. We could get that pass thingy to the Plains of Harmony... or I could go bigger. I could ask her to give Nyala's body and the original Valey's soul back. I could ask her what the deal with moon glass is and where the souls inside actually came from, assuming she knows. I could even ask her to demand that her empire treat batponies better. Maple..."
"But at the same time, it would put us in danger," Maple continued. "You'd be drawing so much attention to yourself as you climbed the ranks. Wallace said you would."
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "I'd need allies. Really good ones, enough to keep all of you safe, since you'd likely get targeted instead. Either way, that hopefully wouldn't start until I made a name for myself by making it to the third round, so we'd have time. But I bet Wallace would help, and who knows? Maybe Gazelle will turn out to be decent too. Meltdown seriously scares me after all that, but she'd helped us before. I kinda... want to learn what her deal is. You saw her out of her armor, didn't you?"
Maple nodded. "It was surprising. She didn't look at all well-built. Almost weak, even."
Valey slowly sighed. "Can't believe it. She looked super young, too. Definitely in her late teens at best. Yet somehow, she's got scary armor that has to be backed by magic powers and has one of the strongest jobs in the Empire. She gets to control everyone's supply and pricing of mana power, while also being some kind of super-strong vigilante hunter. It's so weird."
"Everything here is," Maple murmured. "I miss things being simple and making sense in Riverfall. Everything was peaceful and friendly, it wasn't hard to recognize ponies in the streets. The only weather was raining and not raining. You grew up with your friends, and everything had its own, simple way of working... until it didn't. I wonder how White Chocolate is doing. And Willow, and Amber."
Valey shrugged. "I mean, we've got the sound stone right here. You wanna give Amber a call?"
"Maybe later." Maple rolled over in place, humming a soft song in Starlight's little ears. "Is that what we'll do, then? Go to Stormhoof? Not worry about what can or can't be done for Starlight for now, and just focus on ourselves instead of poking anywhere that might have unpleasant answers?"
"Yeah. That's what we'll do." Valey scooted a little closer, laying with her chin on her neck and her wings folded atop her barrel. "I'll start counting today. Let's see if we can set a record for how many days we stay out of trouble."
Bubbles rose through a cylinder of liquid and glass, positioned in a wide, dark room. Toward the dim edges, squat machines slowly turned, chunky fanblades in metal casings that pushed air from one large pipe to another. Metal hoses snaked carefully along the ceiling and floor, linking the cylinder and the fans, water flowing from the center outward and back in like a heart that never beat.
A hiss of sliding metal sounded from one side of the room, a rectangle of golden light falling on a catwalk that crossed the hoses and led straight to the center. Soft paws on metal padded in, and the door shut in their wake, locking out the light. In response, the cylinder lit up, reflecting teal light against the newcomer's toothy smile.
Gazelle didn't hold the look for long. "It's been three days," he whispered, walking to the center with a concerned swish of his tail. "Yet you're still here, in such a depressing atmosphere. You and I really have to talk senses of style! I'm worried about you, my dear."
In the center of the tank, surrounded by swiftly-pumped water, the object of his attention floated. A respirator with a hose covered Meltdown's muzzle, the only thing covering her body as she floated upright in the cool blue light. "Gazelle," her voice said, projected over speakers embedded into the walkway, magical amplification making up for a noticeable lack of spirit or effort behind the words. "I can... talk..."
Gazelle put his paws up on the railing of the platform and leaned toward the glass, getting close enough his breath could cloud the surface if it wasn't enchanted to resist that. He reached up regardless, Meltdown's limp form suspended in coolant before him. "Can you come out? I want to hold you."
Meltdown floated like seaweed, her legs slowly drifting as she moved them... or as they were moved by the currents. Underwater and suspended in motion, her coat stood straight around her, each hair uniquely visible in the light. Even with the fuller appearance it lent her, she was still thin, undeniably weak before she had been felled on the ship. Gazelle put a paw to the glass, tracing it around her visage.
"I've been following intelligence in your stead," he murmured. "The Varsidelians Wallace saved ought to have a safer time with their return home, not courtesy of us. I asked... her to intervene on our behalf. The sarosians will leave that area alone for a few days."
"We should plan better than that," Meltdown weakly replied. "Did you get them any sort of armed transport? You know how important it is this reaches Varsidel."
"Hmm." Gazelle stepped back, nodding. "I'll see if I can pull some strings in Everlaste or Wilderwind, if it makes you feel better."
Meltdown was still. "...Thank you," she said after a while. "I'm scared, Gazelle. I haven't been this powerless since..."
"You could be powerless for me," Gazelle offered. "I've taken great liberties to ensure we won't be interrupted. Pretty please?"
For a moment, Meltdown hovered in her coolant tank... and then sighed through the speakers. Machinery clicked into motion and gears began to turn, and slowly the coolant flow shut off, the top of the cylinder detached from its roof and it began to lower into the ground. Soon it was a pool on level with the railing of the platform, and Meltdown floated to the surface, still tethered to her respirator. "Going cold," she warned, and then the respirator slipped off, her head breaking the surface.
"I've got you." With expert grace, Gazelle leaned forward and fished her out, pulling her dripping body onto the platform. It was grated, so water leaked through to the floor below, and he made no effort to dry her as she soaked his coat with her own. He frowned. "Maybe a little heat."
"Don't t-trust myself to r-regulate like this." Meltdown spoke with a stutter. "It's so slow..."
"Yes." Gazelle started cleaning her coat, beginning with her ears and slowly working his way down. "But now you get to be held by me instead of drifting in that wimpy tank. Isn't that wonderful?" He pressed his muzzle against her fur. "I think it's very wonderful."
"E-Enjoy..." Meltdown managed, her voice faint. "I trust you, as always."
Gazelle did nothing. For a long time, they sat there, the only source of light coming from the lowered cylinder behind them.
Hours later, the door slid open. Gazelle's head immediately snapped upright with a jerk, and he glared at the figure that stepped through. "I thought I ordered we weren't to be-"
A pair of draconic eyeslits above sharp white teeth froze him in his place. "...My lady." He bowed quickly and subserviently, though didn't break eye contact, moving Meltdown to bow with him. "I didn't expect to see you here."
The figure glided forward, roughly the same size as he was, a hooded robe obscuring her legs. She stopped three pony-lengths away from them, just farther than she could have gone while still remaining outside their personal space, and waited, seeming to expect something.
"N-Not now..." Meltdown clenched her eyes. "Careful. Heating."
A wave of warmth billowed out of her frail body, and Gazelle shivered in the heat, but the coolness of the water in their coats saved him from having to let her go. Meltdown looked at the newcomer without the strength to move her neck, but her voice was better than a whisper. "...What may I do?"
"One hundred and seventy-seven," the figure on the catwalk replied, slitted pupils dilating slightly. "One hundred and seventy-seven of her children no longer cry out to me. Their souls have grown cold along the network."
Meltdown folded her ears, still looking uncomfortable and weak despite the all-encompassing heat. "If you deem this a transgression, I will accept any responsibility you place upon me."
The cloaked figure looked on in interest. "You don't even try to justify yourself to me. Do you have doubts about your choices? Or have you finally accepted yourself as my equal?"
Meltdown cringed. "With all due respect, it isn't fair to ask me this when I am not in my right mind... Night Mother."
"Oh, I'm not here to judge." The cloaked mare bowed her head ever-so-slightly in respect, the shifting of her robes causing a paw to become visible for a moment underneath. "Only to tell you the exact consequences of your actions... to your empire alone. I could tell you their stories. The hopes and dreams and aspirations of each and every one slain... but you don't need that to get the point, do you?"
She turned her back on the pair, beginning her walk back toward the exit. "If you feel you need to be judged, you'll have to judge yourself. That is the duty of a goddess, after all."
Then she was gone, a small sliver of gold glinting on the ground where she had stepped. Gazelle frowned at it, then lashed out with a wing, trying to blow a miniature swirl of air that would move it closer. When it didn't work, he got up, slunk over, and retrieved it, settling back beside Meltdown and holding her to his side.
"A Golden Regent," he muttered, stowing it beneath a wing. "Fitting, given what she's asking you to do."
"I-I-I..." A shudder shot through Meltdown, once again without her heat.
"I judge you innocent," Gazelle declared, tossing the regent away behind him. "You performed wonderfully out there. All of your actions were perfect."
"I-I shouldn't do this..." Meltdown started to cry, though she was too weak to cling to him. "You say that, but I can't see it. I can't fit all of the plan in my stupid, feeble brain at once! I forget one half and get the rest backwards and all I can do is trust that you and I know what I'm doing when I'm at my best... One hundred and seventy-seven deaths, and I can't understand what I killed them for. I'm just a weak, scared filly that doesn't know how to handle the brand of a goddess..."
"Shhhhh." Gazelle stroked her back, lifting her towards the cylinder again. "You'll always be a goddess to me, love, at your most powerful or most powerless. Let's get you back in your cooling tank. You'll feel much better with a little clarity in your head."
"Please..."
Gazelle landed on the rim, dipping her inside and working to re-attach the respirator, making small talk as he did so. "Your armor is broken enough from the fight that it might be time to remake it entirely. What do you say to that? Perhaps you can change up your image, or make something sleeker and less-bulky..."
Meltdown sank into the tube and the speakers activated again. "Thank you, Gazelle. Could you stay here and keep me company a while longer?"
Starlight's rear hoof hit the ground, skidding slightly in the dust as she twisted and spun. Moments later, a wooden sword pierced the space she had been standing, turning its thrust into a slice and swinging after her. She planted herself and raised a crystal-covered forehoof, blocking the blade and preparing to shove it back... but her angle was slightly off, and the sword slid up and off the conjured shield, bonking her straight in the forehead.
"Ow!" Starlight sat back and rubbed herself, crystal vanishing as she momentarily saw stars. "Nnngh..."
"Hey! Better than last time, right?" Valey shouldered the sword and relaxed, proudly patting her on the head with a wing. "You're getting better at guessing where I'm gonna swing. Still need to get your angle right for blocking, or the shape of the crystal. Your hoofwork's great, though. Wanna switch and practice backflips for a bit?"
"I can just dodge backwards normally," Starlight muttered, shaking her head and blinking away the hit. "And my hoofwork is good because I've been practicing it for a whole month instead of waiting for my horn to heal!"
Valey frowned in concern. "That bothering you? Like, I know you cleared yourself to use it a week ago, but you better not be overexerting yourself. And hey, most unicorns probably use their magic as a crutch and have never heard of fundamentals. Just think how cool you'll be!"
"Hitting the crystals always hurts." Starlight shrugged, getting back to her hooves. "Even if I was perfect, I can't use them to block more than I can recover in a day. I'm hungry."
"...Yeah, sure." Valey squared her shoulders, beckoning with a wing for Starlight to come. "Let's go get food."
Maple spectated, beaming, from the sidelines as Valey and Starlight finished their sparring and approached. Cloudless blue sky shone down into the open-roofed training room, a long, circular corridor with benches and shaded areas at the sides that was free for anyone to use. The air rang with sounds of clacking spears and armor as other griffons and ponies dueled and ran drills, the outermost ring of the area painted as a running track. Valey got looks, still, but the best-armed place in Stormhoof had also become one of the most friendly toward her: anyone regular enough to remember her had been firmly out-dueled, and anyone who wasn't got looks in turn from those who were. The training grounds were a place where strength was respected and differences were settled through strength, and she had proven her right to be there in the eyes of everyone who mattered.
"You did great out there," Maple called from a bench, pocketing her book and marking her place as they stepped off the dirt and onto the stone tile floor. "Starlight, how are you feeling?"
"Same as always," Starlight mumbled, still a little dizzy from the last hit. Her stomach growled in approval of the break, and Maple leaned down to brush a strand of mane hair out of her eyes where her ponytail had come undone. "We should go get something."
"Mmm. Lunch. Yeah." Valey backed her up, dropping the training sword in a nearby weapons rack and contenting herself to wear nothing but her hat. "You got some snacks, or we thinking of going somewhere for fun? There's still, like, three places I found while scouting that would probably be cool with me and we haven't tried."
Maple nodded, passing out a few carrot sticks from her cutie mark. "I think I'm feeling like paying. We still have plenty of money left from Kero's vault in Ironridge, after all. And besides, this could be a good day for a celebration. Right?" She looked up hopefully.
"Yup." Valey raised a casual hoof, and Maple took it with a bump. "Thirty days. Bananas, I'm actually super proud of us. Thirty days of not sticking our noses anywhere they don't belong, not freaking out about big bad higher stuff, not crossing the law... except for that one guy who thought I was robbing a cheese store, but that was his fault and never went anywhere."
Maple wrinkled her face in wry amusement. "Yay. Makes you almost feel like a normal pony."
"Yeah," Valey breathed, looking around again and noting the occasional stairs. "Almost..."
Half an hour later, the trio of friends stood in a medium-activity side street that curved and had a sharp grade. No wagons chanced it, and every pedestrian who could flew instead of walked. Those who couldn't had to watch their steps, and at one point a foal ran past chasing a miniature runaway barrel. The road's slope made storefronts awkward, and Valey finally stopped in front of a single-door restaurant with tinted windows that was set into the ground, making the entrance look smaller than it really was. She shrugged, took the lead, and stepped inside.
The interior of the room was dark, in a welcoming way. Dim yellow lights had been placed in containers so that they only shone on the walls or ceiling, leaving the actual booths, tables and stools in comforting shadow. Starlight's eyes spotted lots of tufted ears sitting at the bar in the back, about half of the patronage. Valey was getting good at finding these places.
"Booth?" Valey asked, and the waitress who stood by the door pointed them silently to a vacancy, looking like she was content to put up with working in an establishment full of batponies even though she still considered it something to be put up with.
Maple settled in first, and Starlight joined her, Valey taking the side of the table opposite them. The faux-leather benches felt slightly sticky against Starlight's coat... She frowned and scooted a little, and it got better. This probably wasn't a five-star establishment, even if it was nice and non-hostile.
"So. Celebrations." Valey nodded at Maple, picking up a menu with her wings and burying her face in it. "Anything in particular you want us to get?"
Maple shrugged, chancing a little smile. "Whatever looks good. We should be able to afford plenty."
Valey nodded, humming as she browsed. Maple opened a menu too, holding it sideways so that Starlight could see. "How about this?" she asked, pointing to something on a list of items Starlight couldn't quite read from that distance in the dim light. "Oh, this looks good... Starlight, how hungry are you? Do you want a whole thing for yourself, or should we split a big one?"
"Mmph." Starlight glanced at Valey, then at the menu again. She really was hungry...
"Starlight?" Maple tilted the menu a little closer. "I think you might like any of these... Vegetable stir fry on rice with baby corn? Strip noodles and broccoli in... Starlight?"
"The first one sounds good." Starlight nodded, rubbing her forehead again. "Maple?"
"Yes?" Maple turned fully to her, writing out their orders for the servers to pick up. "Is anything wrong?"
Starlight shrugged. "It's like three days until the tournament starts again. The one Valey wants to be in. And not having anything happen for this whole month has been really nice..."
Maple smiled ruefully. "Sounds like we need to have another talk again before going in there. All of us. Is celebrating staying out of trouble reminding you of that?"
"A little. It's just been nice." Starlight's eyes turned down toward the table. "And besides, my horn is still only almost better instead of fully better, and I hurt it on the ship a whole month ago. I'm not even back to normal after the last big thing we did."
Maple hugged her shoulder. "Well, it's still worth celebrating now. But we are going to have a talk later, if this is something that's troubling you."
"Bananas... oh bananas..." Valey drooled over her menu, practically glued to it... until Starlight and Maple's conversation finally got her attention. "Buh? Oh yeah, put me down for number thirty-three, extra spicy. What's that you were saying?"
"Just something to talk about once we're back to the boat," Maple replied. "Here, let me... Waitress?" She raised a hoof, standing up and looking around. "We're ready to order!"
She quickly caught the attention of a dark-coated mare with an innocent smile who was carting a platter full of dirty dishes. "One moment!" the mare called back, showing tufted ears. "I'll be right with you!"
In a moment, she was, wearing a server's outfit and a chin-length bright yellow mane. "Hi, I'm Senescey, and I'll be your host tonight. What can I..." She trailed off, looking sideways at Valey. "Excuse me, have I met you? You look almost familiar."
Valey returned the look, squinting. "Yeah, I think I... Huh. That rings a bell. No, your mane rings a bell. You reminded me of... Bananas, where was it..."
"Oh!" Senescey jumped a little. "I went to a dusk statue with you on the mainland when you first arrived here! I remember telling you about that! That was you, right?"
"...Yep." Valey nodded, recollecting, and grinned. "That was me. Hey, it's sweet to run into you again."
"I know." Senescey giggled, closing her eyes and showing her teeth. "Hey, my shift ends in an hour, if you'd like to catch up?"
Maple gave her a friendly smile. "You two know each other? We could take that long."
"Sure thing." Senescey winked, then put a hoof on the menus with a flourish. "Let me take your orders and I'll be on my way!"
When she had gone, Maple looked to Valey, and Valey shrugged. "I met her back when I was separated from you guys when we first got here. She was, like, literally the one friendly face I ever saw. Certainly wouldn't mind returning the favor, even if we just wanted to hang out and say hi."
Maple nodded. "It sounds like a great idea. Even if we've been being quiet and not getting ourselves into anything, we haven't been doing a lot to make friends here, either..."
"Sweet." Valey rubbed her hooves together in anticipation. "In the meantime, oh boy spicy noodles I can't wait..."
Valey belched contentedly, leaning back and patting her stomach with three empty plates stacked in front of her and licked clean. "Bananas," she sighed, putting her hind legs on the table, "they make these restaurant portions huge."
"You showoff." Maple shook her head with a smile, her own plate mostly empty but still with a few scraps on the edges. Starlight was still working on hers, eating slowly and thoughtfully and staring at the rest of the patronage.
"What?" Valey shrugged. "See how many calories you need when you try moving like I do."
"We'll see." Maple settled back into her seat, pushing her plate over to the edge of the table. "I tried learning to spar with you several times, remember? I just don't think I'm cut out for that, even if you want to talk me into it."
Valey stuck out her tongue, stretching. "Yeah... too bad, really. But you can still do some sneaky surprise stuff. Meh. I just wish I could talk Nyala into practicing more to defend herself. Girl's literally built for combat. It feels... Eh... I dunno."
Maple nodded. "It's still taking some getting used to that she's got better friends than you now that she's back, isn't it?"
"Meh." Valey sighed. "No, she practically lives on the bridge. It totally makes sense that she'd hang out a bunch with Birdo and Slipstream. Just... I dunno, is it on my end? Because I thought of her as dead for six years? Or am I just that different from how I was then that she doesn't have the same reason to care about me? It's not like we have a problem. We just... didn't click, I guess. And it's sort of awkward and goes nowhere whenever I try to hang out with her, now."
Starlight tuned out the conversation as she continued with her food, more interested in the other ponies in the restaurant than Valey's relationship with her sort-of sister. Were they even actually related? Nyala had had her body replaced, and Valey was a moon glass soul, and one of them didn't even remember the other... But that was their problem, and she didn't see a way of fixing it other than just making more friends. Or even that it was a problem. Was Nyala missing out if she couldn't have a friendship she didn't remember having? Was Valey missing out if Nyala was clearly a different mare than the one she had known? How much did memories and experiences contribute to who they were, anyway?
Her thoughts drifted to what Valey could have been before. She had no memories when she first woke up in Icereach, too, didn't she? Had she existed before that? Could she have walked a path completely different from the one she did now? Or could she still go on to...?
Unbidden, a memory of gray flickered through Starlight's mind, monochrome flakes falling all around her as an older Valey sat panting in a field of defeated, chitinous corpses. The vision had happened more than two months ago, nearly three now, when she had disappeared after fighting the windigoes. She had never quite understood the vision, whether it was a future premonition, a glimpse of death, or a random surge of ideas, but after her encounter with the Nightmare Module, she couldn't ever forget it for more than a week at a time. It was like the memory was tethered to her mind, drifting in sometimes when it was appropriate and other times when it had nothing to do with anything at all.
Starlight shook her head, taking another bite and trying to shift her thoughts before they inevitably wandered onto herself. She knew how differently she could have turned out if things had been even slightly different. Dead, for one, on so many occasions. Aside from that, she could have never left Equestria...
Nope. That wasn't working. Starlight shoveled three bites in at once and immediately tried to distract herself on a patron. There was a batpony mare in a business suit... Huh. Apparently there were ways for batponies to become well-off in Stormhoof, as long as they were careful about it.
"Hi," a voice interrupted, and she was suddenly blinking at Senescey. "Can I get your dishes?"
"Oh, hey." Valey lazily waved. "Yeah, I'm done. Good stuff. Tell the chef they're a boss, and all that."
Senescey popped the plates and bowls into the air and onto her back, rolling one along her wing in a practiced show of dexterity that made Valey's eyebrows raise in interest. "Fifteen minutes!" she promised, also scooping up the small pile of gold that had been dropped to pay for the meal. "There's a staircase right there... see it?" She pointed behind the bar counter between two racks of barrels, the barkeep nodding at her. "It leads to a sort of secret alley. You can wait for me up there, if you're tired of sitting around. I have a place there, and could offer you tea or desert?"
"I'm full, but tea would be nice," Maple offered as Senescey nodded and carried the plates away. "Thank you!"
"Welp." Valey patted herself again and gave another burp. "Good stuff. There's absolutely no way we're not coming back here. Bananas, Grapejuice is good at scouting for these places. Glad she's sometimes sticking around."
"Do you want to go up there and wait for her?" Maple asked, getting easily to her hooves.
Valey flopped out of the booth, shaking her mane out and straightening her hat. "Yeah, let's do that. Nyaaaahh..."
The bartender gave them no trouble at all, letting them pass with a polite, no-questions nod as they climbed the staircase. It opened into a small, second-story hallway, and the door immediately to the side stood ajar, leading to Senescey's alley.
Clean and dim, the alley was narrow enough that sunlight only reached halfway down, lighting up the buildings partway up and providing a cool shade of contrast that was easy on the eyes. Despite everything its reputation as a secret could suggest, it was clean and well-taken-care of, a few flower planters hanging from windowsills and no trash tucked into the rain gutters at the edges of the road. Doors lined both sides, and it was clear that whoever lived here didn't let their out-of-the-way status make them treat themselves any less well.
"You're here!" Senescey greeted from behind shortly into the wait, stepping into the fresh air.
"Yep. Hey." Valey nodded again. "So, uhh... you're off the clock? Just wanna sit down and chat? Meet some of my friends? I'm down."
Maple offered a friendly smile, and Senescey did a quick curtsy, still in her waitress uniform. "I have a place right over here. Certainly!"
She led the way, and the three of them followed, moving pleasantly through the afternoon.
Senescey's door swung open without ceremony, the room inside made of stone like everything else in Stormhoof but dressed up carefully to conceal it as much as possible. A dark, patterned rug covered all but the edges of the floor, and most of the walls were adorned with paintings: lots of batponies, and a few landscapes Starlight didn't recognize.
"I'm hoo-ooome!" Senescey sang, holding the door so Starlight and her friends could enter. "Anyone about?"
"Hey," a disinterested mare's voice echoed from somewhere above. The ceiling was low, with the next level's floorboards and supports directly exposed, and Starlight guessed whoever was greeting was directly on top of them.
There were doors on either side of the room, and Maple and Valey clanked around, looking for an invitation on where to go as Senescey kicked off her boots. Starlight busied herself studying the paintings instead: the far wall was the most striking, covered in a grayscale mural of a mountain range, the lower reaches filled with dense conifers and the higher ones occasionally breaking into stretches of jagged rock. A dirt road wound through the scene next to a river in a valley's base, and the middles of the mountains between the peaks and the foremost valley were lost in a blanket of low-hanging clouds. The misty mountains, she guessed. Maybe Senescey was from there.
There was a painting of Izvaldi, too, she realized, depicting the hill with Percival's manor. It was several years old, though; the hospital was clearly under construction and the commerce building existed as a set of tents spanning half the hillside. It was also given a far less-glorious spot on the wall... The last landscape that got her attention depicted a city in a plain that looked like it was beginning to feel the signs of desertification. At least, she thought it did. It was hard to tell, since the painting had been slashed.
"That's Everlaste," Senescey chimed in, spotting Starlight's curiosity. "They don't like sarosians. So we don't like them."
"Who's 'we'?" Valey asked, following her through a door into a small, neat kitchen that had learned the art of fitting cabinets in every possible place. "Batponies in general? Or you share this place with friends?"
Senescey shrugged, stepping through the kitchen and into a dim sitting room with another rug, a poofy reclining chair sitting in front of a magical, smokeless fire. "Both? I live here with my sisters. Hey, Sis!"
The recliner rotated, revealing a large mare who reminded Starlight of Willow in proportions sitting lazily with a newspaper folded in her lap. Her coat was the same shade as Senescey's, and she had a long, lush, loosely-curly red mane that clearly received almost as much care as Jamjars'. She blinked her lined eyes, smiled, and threw her paper carelessly aside, spreading her forelegs wide. "Senescey! Oh, darling, you brought company? How exquisite!"
The new mare lifted herself from the recliner with practiced ease, gliding across the carpet and stopping to tousle her sister's mane. "Who do I have the pleasure of meeting? Are you...?" She blinked in recognition. "The ones who were in the news a month ago for that dreadful business with Ironridge? I never forget a face! You are, aren't you!?" She beamed with excitement. "Felicity, elder sister of the house. Such a pleasure to make your acquaintances. Senescey? Introductions?"
Senescey blushed hotly under the attention. "T-That's Valey, and then Maple, and the filly is Starlight. I told you I met her before she made the news."
"Yo." Valey extended a hoof, eyeing Felicity appreciatively.
"Hmmhmm." Felicity bumped it generously. "Welcome to our home, then, darlings. It looks like someone knows how to walk in the right circles." She gave Senescey one last hug, then patted her and let her go. "Go on and fetch our other sister. Leave all the hospitalities to me, now!"
Badly embarrassed, Senescey ducked into the shadows, stealthily making her escape. Felicity watched her fondly until she was gone, then turned back to Starlight and her friends. "She really is a dear, isn't she? Couch or chairs, darlings?" She gestured with a wing to the furniture around the room, including a giant bean bag chair. "Please, make yourselves at home. Our house has only a few rules, and by being here you've already passed them all with flying colors! Do you like tea?"
"Rules?" Maple tilted her head. "Is there anything we should know?"
Felicity smiled at Valey, moving toward the entrance to the kitchen. "Please, darlings. This is Stormhoof. You must be acquainted with the pressures my kind face here. But if your friend group includes sarosians and non-sarosians alike, you're exactly the kind of person we appreciate here. We just don't want... you know..." Her eyes shadowed briefly. "This is a safe space, and we wouldn't allow it to become otherwise."
"Oh." Valey blinked, and her face fell. "Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Don't worry. It seems pretty safe to me, and we're actively looking to avoid trouble."
"I told you we'd get along." Felicity gave her a knowing wink, then disappeared into the kitchen.
For the minute she was gone, Starlight stayed standing, having sat all the way through her meal and not wanting to cramp after so much running around right before. The walls had been patterned with smooth brick, fully illuminated by dancing firelight. Felicity's hearth was a small affair, a single gemstone set inside creating warmth and illusory flames with its stored enchantment and bank of mana. Wasn't magical energy expensive in Stormhoof? Starlight gave it a second look, then frowned. Senescey's job as a waitress couldn't pay that well. She wondered what Felicity and the other sister did for a living.
"Here you are!" Felicity sang, bustling back out of the kitchen with a kettle held carefully in one wing and a box of teabags in the other. She passed the box to Valey and put the kettle on a table, leaving them to choose their flavor. "Are they still not back yet...?" She glanced toward a door to a nearby staircase.
"No, we're here!" Senescey slipped down the staircase, landing skillfully on her hooves and shaking her mane one last time. "We're here."
She was followed by a third sister, slightly small and very lithe with a dark blue mane that covered one eye. "Hi," she said, moving to the bean bag chair and taking it without ceremony. "Just so you know, I don't talk much. It isn't my thing."
Felicity pursed her lips at her. "And this grumpy dear who always stays up too late and never has energy for anything is Larceny. Please don't take her narcolepsy personally. Sometimes, I think that should be her name instead... Senescey and I will do just fabulous at carrying on the conversation ourselves, won't we, darling?"
Senescey grinned uncertainly, clearly feeling that Felicity could do that just as well all by herself.
"Well... that's snazzy." Valey blinked, settling onto the sofa on her side. "So, uh, we're hanging out? Sounds like you already know who we are, right?"
"Tell us about yourselves?" Maple asked as Felicity and Senescey nodded. "If it's not too much to ask."
"Oh, why, I'd love to," Felicity purred, taking up her recliner and looking like this was a common courtesy. "We're sisters, you see, and we have a long and storied tale..."
"How much do you know," Felicity began once everyone was settled into their seats, "about Mistvale?"
"Almost nothing," Maple admitted. "We're still fairly new to the Empire, and most of our time has been spent living on our ship at Stormhoof. Prince Gazelle is paying our mooring fees, and we've spent a week at most away from this island."
"Is he?" Felicity looked stunned and excited by that revelation. "Such a handsome sphinx. I've rarely seen him myself, but oh, you must be high enough up to walk in the same circles..." She fanned herself lightly with a wing. "Well, regardless. Have you heard, perhaps, about the Yanavan incident not quite thirty years ago?"
Valey shrugged. "Lady, not even a clue. The two things I know about the Misty Mountains are that they probably look like that mural in your foyer, and that the monks up there are bad news. Got messed up by one a ways back."
Felicity pursed her lips. "Oooh. And you lived to tell the tale? Quite hardy of you, darling. There aren't a lot of ways to do that. Fighting up there is an art style many take long years to perfect..."
"What's a Yanavan?" Starlight asked, feeling like she wanted to keep the story moving.
Felicity nodded. "One of the most culturally-defining incidents in... generations. It caused a great deal of damage to the Night Mother's faith, and involved a reasonably large exodus to the south of ponies who no longer felt the call... Our mother was among them. I was a filly at the time, younger than you, dear." She pointed at Starlight. "Neither of these two were born yet. Our mother was a cleric, you see."
Valey blinked. "Wait a sec. Some huge faith thing thirty-odd years ago?" She scratched her head. "Bananas, maybe I have heard of that. Just not by name, or anything about it. The, uh, dude I got monked by mentioned something caused him to bail a long time ago..."
"Less than thirty," Felicity corrected, "and yes, that's almost definitely what it was. Essentially what happened... One of the members of the sacred council, the highest order of intermediaries and guardians between us and the Night Mother... went rogue. Not only lost faith but betrayed it, you know. With no warning signs, right out of the blue, Monk Lord Yanavan stole an ancient set of treasures the council was tasked with guarding that were said to contain the Night Mother's power and turned them on the council, becoming a horrifying monster in the process."
"Wait, wait a sec!" Valey's eyes widened. "These spooky treasures wouldn't happen to be called Nightmare Modules, would they?"
Senescey blinked. "That's the story I heard. Have you heard of that part, too?"
"Bananas." Valey caught her breath. "Yeah, horrifying monster indeed. I've seen one of those in action before."
"You have!?" Felicity's eyes went huge. "Well, I, well... that's... Oh my, darling. I don't know whether to be impressed or afraid. You probably have an even better idea of what they do than I do, then."
Maple smiled wistfully. "We believe you that they're not pleasant," she added, hugging Starlight with a foreleg. "Go on."
"Well." Felicia shook herself, flustered and regaining her composure. "That's what I had to say about that, at least. They say Yanavan was defeated and sealed away somewhere in the mountains, though I don't know if that's true. He's the kind of figure naughty foals are told stories of when they're up past their bedtimes. Regardless, my mother and I moved down the mountains into Gyre, which is a frankly horrid place nopony should ever go. Too much of the Empire for Mistvale, too much of Mistvale for the Empire, and plenty of misery and solitude for everyone. A dump, to put it crudely. Almost like it's in a constant state of decay..."
She shook her head. "Of course, we got along. We were hardly the only ones who left. There was a monk who accompanied us for a while. I think he felt a sense of duty to my mother since she was on her own with a foal. Eventually went on to become Senescey's father... We all have different fathers, by the way. Don't ask about Larceny's. He also tried to teach us to defend ourselves, or more accurately me to defend my mother." She met Valey's eye and curled a hoof, scanning it with passing interest. "I was a quick study."
Valey blinked. "Wait. So you can..."
"Use Mistvale's combat techniques?" Felicity smiled. "Oh, all of us can, darling. I learned and then I taught my siblings when they were old enough. You probably know, but one of the most foolish things a sarosian can do in the Empire is walk around without a means to defend themselves. Of course, we also don't use them lightly. The three of us have taken an... an oath, regarding our conduct and how it reflects on our race, if you will."
"Huh." Valey's tail flicked once against the sofa.
"Riiight," Larceny grumbled into her bean bag chair. "You use them for other things."
Felicity reddened. "Well, they are quite useful..."
"Well, thanks." Valey nodded, then leaned back against the couch. "You three at least seem a whole lot more trustworthy than everyone I've met who uses them before, though. Meh. Anyway. Weren't you guys from Izvaldi though, or something? I feel like someone said that."
Senescey blinked. "We are, but I don't think anyone said it? Or... I told you that last time, right! Wow, your memory is good."
As Valey rubbed the back of her neck, Felicity nodded. "That's where we went when it finally came time to get out of Gyre once and for all. When our mother found out she was having Larceny, she decided that was three foals too much for that environment and we booked it, as it were. It didn't help that our standard of living had deteriorated rather quickly after... things happened to Senescey's father. Especially since Larceny came from a certain... means of getting by, if you know what I mean." She glanced nervously at Starlight. "I'm sorry if I'm beating around the bush, but some of these things are awfully uncomfortable with a filly in the room."
Starlight blinked. "What?"
"Yeah, uhh..." Valey reddened a little, also uncomfortable. "Don't worry. I get what you mean. Probably not super easy to continue doing that when you've got kids, too..."
"Changing the subject!" Felicity announced loudly. "We moved to Izvaldi, long story, occasional tragedy, the three of us were sisters and things happened." She blushed back. "Or... that's something I can elaborate on. Sorry this conversation is awkward..."
"She's starstruck," Larceny explained from the corner. "And trying to flatter you by getting flustered."
Felicity threw a pillow at her blue-maned sister. "I am not! You go back to listening to music in your room, you ungrateful toad!"
Senescey and Larceny both burst out giggling, and Felicity put on a mighty pout to avoid joining in.
"Uhhhh." Valey blinked between all three of them. "Well, at least you get along well?"
"Hmmmph!" Felicity haughtily pulled herself back together, then smiled at Valey. "We're all each other has, darling. We couldn't very well get by if we weren't able to put up with a few eccentricities. All in all, they're my family and I love them. Now, where was I? Did you want to hear more of our time in Izvaldi?"
Valey burped a little, still stuffed from lunch. "Buh? Oh yeah, sure. How occasional was this occasional tragedy?"
"Welllll..." Felicity thoughtfully rolled her eyes, leaning back as she thought. "How much do you know about Izvaldi's history, darlings?"
"A lot more than Mistvale's," Maple offered. "It's apparently under a steward rulership between when its real lord dies and when Gazelle takes it over as his new province, right? Since the real lord is infirm with age?"
"Mmm. Quite." Felicity nodded and sipped her tea in agreement. "And have you heard about its previous steward?"
"Percival's father?" Valey blinked. "Dunno if I got his name. Heard he was a rude dude, though."
Felicity frowned earnestly. "Oh, that's putting it simply. Lord Victor was his name. Didn't even deserve a G at the start of it. He was... by all accounts loud, drunk, unacceptably flirty, undesirable and driven to madness by his status as not a sphinx and thus a failed heir to his father."
"Oh." Maple blinked.
"Quite incompetent, too, if I might add," Felicity added with another sip. "He... left the province in a great state of disrepair upon his passing... which was ruled a suicide, I might add, by that old bat called Chauncey. I almost wish that's a lie. He wasn't deserving of doing himself in when so many likely wanted it more. I certainly did. He was... well..." She closed her eyes. "How much do you know about..." She swallowed, suddenly tense. "Have you any ideas what killed my mother?"
Valey's breathing slowed. "Uhhh... do I want to?"
"No?" Maple whispered.
"Poison," Larceny growled. "The capital of Izvaldi lies on a river that everyone pipes drinking water from. That sub-equine had built a mine next to it, a distance upstream. Something in the mine overflowed or started leaking, and it took months for them to stop it. Chauncey shut it down once he died, but in the meantime... you were in Izvaldi. Did you ever wonder why there were so few people?"
Maple froze, face turning ashen. "Oh no..."
Felicity got up, walked across the room, and sat down in front of her, offering a wistful smile. "Everyone's thoughts exactly, I'm afraid. It... disproportionately hit certain age groups, so even today, Izvaldi has a great shortage of the very elderly, and many of the youngest grew up with... fertility issues. A lot of foals born there these days don't survive long as a result. It took our mother, though by some miracle the three of us survived, at least. Foals seemed more resilient in general. Anyway."
"Th-They..." Maple held Starlight against her, feeling cold. "So that's another part of why... I saw some census data, but it was only for the last twenty years..."
"Come now. Let's take a break." Felicity motioned for everyone who pleased to get up and do their own thing, but nobody moved. "...Well, fine, then. Can I get anypony more tea?"
"Why hadn't I heard about this before?" Maple whispered to herself, frozen still. "It makes so much sense, though... I noticed how few people there seemed to be in Izvaldi, and I knew Percival's father had a bad reputation, and I knew Percival took the population being healthy very seriously since he built the hospital, and I even knew there was something wrong with the infant mortality rate but I didn't want to dig any further... All the pieces were there, and I didn't even put them together..."
"Maple, that was a long time ago..." Starlight nudged her. "Maybe before you were born. You couldn't have done anything."
Valey shrugged. "To be fair, I mean, if you were a survivor of some epidemic or outbreak caused because your ruler was careless and it happened however many decades ago, you'd eventually lose your outrage and just stop talking about it too, wouldn't you? Like, that's how it was in Sosa. Nobody there talked about the good old days with anyone who hadn't lived them too, if at all. Even then, it was bitter. They just pretended like it hadn't happened." She glanced over at Felicity. "But, like, what about you guys, though? So you lived through that. That's Izvaldi's story and Mistvale's story, not yours. Were you, like... just giving us a history lesson, or something? Not that that isn't cool too."
Felicity smiled apologetically. "Oh, but that is our story. I'm sorry to say it, but we were a statistic, darling. It isn't pretty, but you wouldn't be hard-pressed at all to find someone with a similarly sorry fate. Suffice to say we survived the contamination and its dreadful epidemic and went on living our lives in Izvaldi for quite some time, until we moved here for certain... political reasons."
"I explained that to Valey when we met, I think," Senescey added. "I think? I think. Izvaldi is going to have a change of leadership soon, once their real lord passes away. Gazelle will inherit it, and he says he's a friend to sarosians but we wanted to ride out any unexpected changes until we see how he rules here instead."
"Isn't that a little odd?" Valey tilted her head. "Like, batponies get trashed in Stormhoof. Nasty looks everywhere you go, and never try actually dealing with anyone... You really think whatever could happen there is worse than spending a year or however long here?"
Starlight frowned at her. "It sounds reasonable to me. You told us Gazelle killed a lot of batponies on that pirate ship, remember? Some friend that sounds like."
"See?" Felicity beamed at Starlight. "It's... well... I want to say definitely a justifiable concern, but we are getting by here in Stormhoof, as you can tell. And it's not like we aren't used to managing a bit of adversity. This is hardly Everlaste, and sweet Night Mother we aren't going back to Gyre. Who cares if we get a few dirty looks and occasionally ran off by shopkeeps and guards?" She licked a wingtip and ran it over an ear.
"There are benefits, too," Larceny mumbled from her bean bag chair, half asleep. "Everyone keeps the lights out because power is too expensive, so we get to go anywhere we want at night."
"But that's a little secret," Felicity added, shushing her sister with a hoof to her lips and winking at Valey. "One you probably already know, of course."
Valey frowned. "Didn't you say you took an oath or something about your conduct and reflecting on batponies?"
"Yes, and one of its core tenets is not being a doormat, darling," Felicity insistently replied. "I didn't say we were nice to everyone all the time. But we do have standards. Besides, with all the pirate rabble out there and most sarosians' tendencies to turn to lawless, self-centered thuggery, we're practically saints." She sighed. "I can tell this thread of conversation is worrying to you, though. Perhaps a little remediation is in order. What would you like of us, Valey, to set yourself at ease?"
"No, no, I'm cool." Valey waved them off with a wing. "Just, like... we're trying to avoid trouble, here. You seem pretty friendly, so just do what you gotta do and don't invite us to come along."
"Don't invite you?" Felicity's face fell. "Seems like an awful shame with your apparent talents. There've been more and more stories on the street lately, ponies who say they used to live in Ironridge long before everything went dark. Oftentimes, you show up in them! But wishes are wishes, and it would ill behoof us not to respect yours." She paused and bit her lip, eventually suppressing a grin. "Are you sure you don't even want to hear what we're up to? It would be a shame to make a hasty judgement that you don't want anything to do with our proclivities..."
Senescey giggled. "You just want to impress her and show off."
Valey blinked at her. "Okay, I thought you just meant you were random thieves, but now I'm actually curious. What do you want me to ask about?"
Felicity giggled. "Oh, a little bit of this and that. If you must know..." She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. "The areas that are unlit? Extend all the way to Lordling Geribaldi's tower. Stormhoof's son and heir. Eeeheehee!"
"And...?" Valey held her breath.
"He's a coward." Felicity went back to playing with her hoof polish. "And an introvert. Frankly quite wimpy. Worried his dad doesn't think enough of him. You know... everything negative one could say about a scholarly type. Very desperate for validation." A grin split across her face. "Very easy to play off of. Would you believe me if I said I've been appearing like a phantasm in his chambers every third night for quite some time now, singing him the words he desperately wants to hear, and have the heir to the province wrapped around my hoof?"
"Uhhh..." Valey eyed her incredulously. "I mean... Actually, yeah, he kind of was. Bananas. Did you do that?"
Senescey spoke up. "It turns out that in this city, there's a lot of room for anyone who wants to make a difference to get up and do that. All you need is some self-confidence and the ability to shadow sneak. We're just three sisters, and it's not a lot, but we do what we can so that the Empire can be better for everyone in the days ahead."
"Everyone. Not just sarosians," Larceny clarified.
"Oh, indeed," Felicity agreed. "But regardless, that's what we do, and you're welcome to have as little a part of it as you desire."
"Huh." Valey blinked at them one last time. "Usually, I'd say that's really cool, and maybe the kind of thing I'd hop in on... but seriously, we're trying to stay out of trouble. Need, need, need to. We're on a streak and don't wanna break it now. So, like, normal, non-business-partner friends?"
"Friends," Felicity happily agreed. "You're always welcome to visit us later, and feel free to call on us if you ever need a favor in this city. We don't have much, but we're very good at using what we have."
Starlight guided Maple along with her tail as they walked the streets of Stormhoof, keeping her eyes out for both of them as her mother thought about mining waste and dead Izvaldens.
Valey trudged alongside her, a light hooded cloak covering her ears and wings. "She gonna be alright?"
"Probably," Starlight answered, touching Maple's side. "Let's get back to the boat and let her lie down." She frowned. "I hope, at least? Maple? You're being kind of sad..."
"...What?" Maple blinked and shook her head. "Sorry. No. I just needed to be snapped out of it."
"Uh-huh." Valey nodded at her. "You, uh, sure about that? Because that's what you said a minute ago, too."
Maple sighed unhappily. "Sorry. Just uncomfortable for me to think about and imagine. It touches on a lot of sore spots. And those three kind of reminded me of myself, Willow and Amber, so it's easy to feel for them. I'll be alright."
Starlight shrugged. She was still taking her back to the boat. "So what else did you think of them?" she asked, trying to keep her talking.
"I don't know," Maple murmured. "Felicity seemed nice. Senescey did too, and I didn't blame the blue one for being quiet. Do you really think they were doing those things at night?"
"What, you mean how she was talking about sneaking up into Stormhoof?" Valey tilted her head and frowned. "On the one hoof, nah. Lots of reasons. First off, it would be totally coincidental to run into someone that important by complete coincidence, though I'm not saying it can't happen. Second, she never actually said she did. She was all 'would you believe me if I told you' which is exactly the kind of thing someone would say to either test the waters or lie without actually lying. Honestly, I think she was just trying to impress me."
"Impress you?" Starlight blinked. "Well... she did say she had heard of you."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, she knew who we were. Who I was. And she also kept getting flustered, and I'm familiar enough with catching glances to guess she was trying not to look at my rear."
Starlight certainly wasn't impressed. "So what was she talking about getting up to at night then if it wasn't that? You think they're thieves, or something?"
"Maybe?" Valey shrugged. "Honestly though, there is one thing that makes me tempted to believe her: Geribaldi aside, all that is totally possible. I snuck through Stormhoof Keep myself before, and I seriously bungled it running into this insane chef. If he hadn't been there, I would have had free run of the place. It's kinda concerning, given how much they dislike batponies. I have no idea how no one's actually tried to sneak in there to mess them up before."
"But it hasn't happened, so there must be a reason," Maple offered. "Right?"
"Eh. Maybe." Valey turned a corner, walking through a stone archway close to the exit to the marina. "But I ran into Geribaldi. Got spotted by him and talked to him and everything. Dude is, like, terrified of batponies and thinks absolutely nothing of them. That's the real reason I wouldn't believe her. But who knows? Maybe he's a really good actor."
Another archway passed overhead, and suddenly they were exposed to the afternoon winds, standing at the peak of the roads and staircases descending to the docks. Valey stretched, spreading her wings beneath the cloak. "There we go..."
Masts and ship hulls passed by as they turned corners and moved along smaller and smaller walkways, passing everyone from aristocrats out for a pleasure cruise to dockhooves scraping barnacles from dinghies. One griffon tightened a hose against a pump, refilling his ship's fresh water supply, and a unicorn lay on her side, horn manipulating a knife to cut tubers from the side of the dock and chop them into bait. Starlight decided that unicorn needed a bath.
Before long, the Immortal Dream's door slid shut in their wake, and Valey left Maple and Starlight to their own devices. Starlight flopped on her bed with a noisy huff, raising an eyebrow at Maple to join her. "Well?"
"Well what?" Maple asked, taking a moment to fix a snarl in her mane before joining her. "Well... Well." She sagged into the bed, relaxing and letting herself droop into its fluff. "Those were some things I might have been happier not knowing."
"Maybe you would have been," Starlight agreed, flicking her tail with her legs spread-eagled. "But you wouldn't have been aware of it."
"I know..." Maple rolled closer, laying so she was staring at Starlight. "I really need to deal with this someday. My habit of freezing or getting sad whenever I learn something about how the world isn't a nice place..."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Starlight lifted an eyebrow, slumped in place.
Maple closed her eyes and sighed. "It's just hard. I've had... issues before, and the way I finally learned to cope with all the bad things that have happened in my life is by looking for, appreciating and trusting that good things happen too, and it'll be alright."
Starlight frowned. "So? That doesn't mean nothing bad can ever happen either."
"I know," Maple mumbled. "That's what it's supposed to mean. It's not what I want it to mean. It's also just that when ponies die like that, or are permanently hurt... there's no happily ever after. It just ends."
"You're afraid that could happen to you too."
"Am I?" Maple winced. "I don't..."
She trailed off, her thought lacking a completion. Starlight watched her for a moment longer, then crawled a little closer. "It won't," she insisted, getting up in Maple's face. "We won't die, and we will find some place or way where we can live happily and no one will ever disturb or ruin that again."
"Hmmm..." Maple smiled wistfully.
"A whole month, remember?" Starlight reached out and touched her cheek. "Mapllllle..."
Maple snagged her with her forehooves, pulling her closer. "Oh, you. I know. I just need... I don't know. It was decades ago, like you said. I'll be fine. I guess it was more surprise than anything."
Starlight frowned and let herself be snuggled. "I promise. I mean it. Someday, we'll find the perfect place, forever."
"You said that." Maple nuzzled the top of her head, then settled down again. "In the meantime, though. How are you liking... umm... Tell me something about you. Something interesting you've been doing lately. How's your training with Valey?"
Starlight sat still in her embrace. "She's frustrated," she said. "She wishes more of us would learn to defend ourselves. But I'm doing my best, because it's what I need to."
"And what else?" Maple murmured. "How about things that have happened, or things you've enjoyed, or..."
The afternoon whiled into evening around them, Starlight answering each question in her usual manner, always for Maple's sake. At least her mother seemed to be enjoying this. She just wished there was better she could do.
"Hmm?" Maple lifted her head from a bundle of blankets, sitting in her room on the Dream with a book in her hooves and Starlight snoozing at her side. "Shinespark? Come in."
Shinespark slid the door open, looking like she had been awake for quite a while now. "Good morning," she greeted, quickly glancing around. "Wallace is here. He's wondering if we'd like him to take us for breakfast? His treat."
"Wallace?" Maple shuffled, putting her book down and gently trying to rub Starlight into wakefulness. "I haven't seen him in a while. That might be nice. Did he say what for?"
Shinespark shrugged. "He probably wants to talk with Valey about the tournament? Seeing as she's going to have to make a decision very soon about whether she wants to be a part of that. And maybe he just wants to catch up. We haven't exactly sat down to talk since Izvaldi, and who knows how much has happened in his life since then?"
"Right," Maple murmured, earning a snuffle of wakefulness from Starlight and climbing out from the covers.
Two full hours of wake-ups, throngs of admirers and waiting for food later, the sun was well on its way to midmorning, and Wallace was seated on the balcony of the tavern Starlight recognized as their destination when he took them for food their first visit to Stormhoof. Morena and Diego were elsewhere: on business, Wallace said. But the weather was pleasant and their waitress was cheery, and Starlight had a bowl of broccoli soup to occupy herself with as Wallace began.
"It's been a long time, my heroic friends," his noble voice boomed. "How are things? Getting by alright in the seat of the Empire's military?"
"Eh. We're managing." Valey didn't bother to disguise her features, Wallace's huge presence more than enough to deter any unwanted attention. "This place is still pretty lame, but we're staying out of trouble. Somehow. Kinda involves more ignorance and burying our heads in the sand than anything."
Wallace looked disappointed, yet understanding. "An understandable lifestyle," he sadly rumbled. "The Empire has always been rife with hostility toward your kind. And you got yourselves into plenty of more physical danger with that business surrounding young Puddles and that pirate frigate, as well."
"Yeah." Valey hung her head, Maple and Starlight to one side and Shinespark, Gerardo and Slipstream to the other. "How's, uhh... How's Puddles doing, by the way?"
"Vanished without a trace," Wallace sighed. "Meltdown insisted she be taken into her hooves, seeing as she escaped from the best containment Izvaldi had to offer. Chauncey wasn't thrilled, but they came to an agreement behind our backs and the matter has been settled. All we know is that we know nothing." He ruffled his neck feathers. "And you, however? How are your pirate charges performing in their alleged redemptions? It would do my heart well to see such a thing possible after all."
Shinespark looked away, keeping her voice low. "They're living in the underground, since Golbez is apparently famous. I have no idea if they're keeping their acts clean." She glanced at Valey.
Valey shrugged. "Knowing Howe and Neon Nova, they were probably scoundrels long before they came to the Empire. No clue about them. The only actual pirates, I think, were the griffons and the batpony. I call her Grapejuice, dunno what her real name is. I see her a lot, though it's more like she sees me. I think she's okay? Just spends time lurking around in the city finding the best ways to get by? I dunno. I couldn't track her if I wanted to. Haven't actually seen the griffons in forever, so I don't even know if they're still down there. But the stallions think they're starting a secret society or something. I think? I dunno. It's weird."
"And then there's Grenada," Shinespark sighed.
"She was the mare who was familiar with you," Wallace agreed. "A strong visual resemblance in manestyles. I take it you were acquainted before all this began."
Shinespark hung her head. "You could say that. I... messed up with her, I think. Kind of badly."
Valey winced, and Maple and Slipstream looked concerned. Wallace nodded sagely. "Even my limited knowledge of the situation implies it is sticky. Could I lend an ear?"
"...Maybe," Shinespark said. "Our relationship is complicated. First, I'm her half-sister, but she doesn't know it. In our old life in Ironridge, I ran the organization she worked at, and treated her... maybe better than she deserved. Not that she was unworthy, but I looked out for her more than I would have for any other pony. Got her a special position, tried to take care of her. It's a very long story why, and about all the details, and our father... I have a lot of half-siblings. The point is, I tried to take care of her and give her room to grow without letting her know she was in my shadow, because I was unusually special and privileged."
She put her head in her hooves. "I always planned on telling her eventually, but then I started to realize she was getting a crush on me, wanted to let that wear off first... We're in the Empire where that would be extremely bad now, even... And eventually, I messed up majorly and thought I got her killed along with everything we were working toward destroyed. So now I've been being distant for a month because there's a conversation I really don't want to have and don't know how to have. She lives on my ship. I gave her a place there. But I haven't even needed to tell her once that I need more time, because she clearly has a ton of issues too, since my leadership failed her and almost got her killed, and wound up with her fighting for the bad guys for a time and she knows it. We're just... sadly avoiding each other indefinitely. If I had ever imagined we'd get a reunion, this isn't how I'd have wanted it to go."
Valey nodded awkwardly. "Doesn't exactly help that me and her were kinda on opposite sides for everything that went down, and everyone else she's met either once or never."
Starlight watched Wallace think, keeping her own silence. Once or never? She had met Grenada twice. Once at Shinespark's dinner, and once in the power tunnels at the Spirit hideout... She frowned inwardly, pushing this issue up on her list of things she needed to do for her friends. As much as she had noticed the tension and awkwardness, this was the most in-depth she had heard Shinespark's thoughts on it, and it seemed much more like somewhere she could make a difference.
"Matters of the heart are never easy, heroic Shinespark," Wallace eventually replied. "I'm afraid I've always been better at solving issues I could either inspire people beyond or punch in the face. Are your friends able to assist you in this?"
"Hey, I've got my own worries in this department." Valey shrugged. "And no idea what to do about it. Not much more to do than commiserate."
Maple bit her lip.
"Regardless." Shinespark looked away. "That's how the pirates are doing. How about the Firefly Sisters?"
Wallace folded his talons. "Doing limited performances in Grandbell. They refuse to go back to Izvaldi for reasons they won't tell anyone, though it's not very difficult to guess, given the circumstances under which Melia ran away. We've been back that way several times, and the atmosphere seems... tense. It's probably wise of you to stay here rather than there if you want to be left alone."
"Yeah." Valey glanced at him. "You still fighting for them in the tournament, now that they're apparently no longer taking care of Puddles?"
"A duty is a duty." Wallace nodded. "One I'd be loath to renege on. And with that said, we finally arrive at what I invited you here to talk about!" He switched to a broad, heroic grin. "Young Valey. Do your aspirations continue? Because if so, the moment to chase them swiftly approaches."
"...Yeah," Valey slowly said. "So it's been a while. Give me a refresher on just what I'm signing up for."
"A refresher on just what you're signing up for!" Wallace beamed. "First, the rules: the tournament has four rounds. You would be entering in the second... provided you still have your Golden Regent. Do you possess it still?"
Valey nodded. "Pretty sure it's just sitting in my room."
"Excellent." Wallace folded his meaty talons. "The formats of the third and fourth rounds will be matters to worry over later. The second round works like this: a small pool of two hundred elites, those who survived round one and were sponsored to enter by a noble house, shall face off against everyone who enters by a Regent, no matter how numerous they may be. Battles happen in a process of elimination, with an indeterminate number of rounds until only fifty-six Regent-bearers remain. Judging by past history, you will be competing for a spot with any between five hundred and a thousand. Do you understand your odds, young Valey? This is what it takes to be number one."
"Cool so far." Valey nodded again. "That's, like, rules, though. And as far as I'm concerned, I just need to win? What about the more important stuff?"
Wallace grinned. "Winning is important, yes, but in the second round, you have some leeway! Only by losing two matches in a row are Regent-bearers knocked out. Win even one, and your standing is reset! Challengers from the first round cannot be eliminated except in special circumstances. Instead, their wins and losses in the second round act to sort them by competence, and to give you more and more powerful opponents as you compete for spots in round three. The odds of avoiding Morena, Diego and myself entirely are very low, young Valey. You will have to be very prepared."
Valey frowned. "Yeah, I get that. I'm more worried about stuff like... being in the public spotlight drawing attention I really don't want on my friends."
"Oh." Wallace looked pained. "That happens too, but usually only in the third and fourth rounds, provided you don't go out of your way to make enemies. Unfortunately, the tournament does encourage that sort of behavior..."
"Yeah. That could be the deal-breaker."
For a moment, the table was silent. Eventually, Wallace sighed and set his talons on the table. "When first we met," he began, "and you enquired about this tournament to me, I warned it would require from you one hundred and ten percent. How does it work, for someone to give more than their all? Simple... They must give what doesn't belong to them as well. It isn't an effort to make or a risk to run alone, young Valey. Do you know what you are fighting for? In this time, have you chosen your cause and ensured it is something you won't hold back in the face of? Something worthy of more than everything you have?"
Valey glanced at Shinespark, then Maple, and swallowed. "I, uhh... might need to talk to my friends in private about that. When's the point of no return?"
Wallace beamed. "There isn't one! At any moment, you may withdraw from the tournament and walk away, even in the heat of the final match with your opponent defeated and awaiting the finishing blow... though that hasn't ever happened. Should you find yourself feeling more heat than you can bear, you can always take your dignity and leave. And the pressure will certainly be weak on starting out and grow the further in you venture."
Valey took a deep breath. "That's cool. So if I needed a while to make up my mind, I could just hang out in the early fights for a bit and kind of blend in with the thousands of other dudes, right? Probably not get too much heat for that? That would be cool?"
"You'll have to make up your mind quickly, young Valey." Wallace shook his head. "Without conviction, you will most certainly be defeated by someone with it. Even in the second round, you will be faced with the top sixth of all houses' chosen warriors! And... there is one other thing. Do you remember my explanation on Golden Regents and their precise meaning long ago?"
"...Nope." Valey squinted, then shook her head. "Honestly, I haven't even looked at mine in basically forever. Something to do with sphinxes?"
Starlight frowned. "Didn't you once say something about them being used to buy souls?"
Everyone blinked. "Your memory is astute," Wallace remarked.
At that, the others blinked harder. "Do I remember this...?" Maple murmured, eyes slowly widening.
"Yeah, that sounds spooky. Refresher, please," Valey requested, food finished and set aside.
Wallace cleared his throat. "The intent of these items is to hold an equivalent value to a person's soul. It's a kind of value many believe mortals were never meant to hold in their hooves, yet they exist nonetheless. Some say it is Garsheeva's way of amusing herself watching our handling of fragments of her divine right. All philosophy aside, they have clear uses governing how they must be used in the tournament! First of all: they must be used. Entering using a regent and not having spent it prior to the end of the third round earns you automatic disqualification. There's also no limit on how many you can use, provided you have them, regardless of how you enter. Merely the requirement that for a second-round entry, one must be used."
"Uh huh." Valey nodded. "Following so far."
"Their uses." Wallace drummed a talon. "In the second wave, fighters are usually safe, and only have their placements affected by winning or losing. However, upon winning, you can use your regent to disqualify them from the tournament instead. This not only prevents you from ever facing them in a rematch in later waves, but increases your odds of reaching round three, since for each first-round fighter defeated, there is one more slot for a Regent-bearer to seize!" His voice darkened. "It's also a good way of making enemies. While you are known to hold one, your foes will honor you and respect you. Whomever you use it against will not be pleased."
"Cool not cool." Valey nodded again. "How else do I get rid of them?"
"You may use one in the third round!" Wallace grinned. "Should you defeat an opponent and wish to see their challenge live, you can spend your regent to prevent them from being removed, sending them to a different bracket and allowing them to continue from there. It is important to note: this confers no advantage upon you whatsoever. You must still defeat the same number and strength of opponents to reach the top, and if you intend to take first, you will have to take it from them anyway. It would be a false hope for them at best, since if you truly wanted them to win, you would surrender! Is it a kindness and a mercy, made with no benefit to yourself, giving a foe another chance? Or is it an act of foolishness and cruelty, prolonging their struggle when you intend to end it anyway? That is for you to decide, young Valey."
"...Bananas." Valey bit her tongue. "Well, yeah, that makes sense. You're kinda wordy though, Bathtub. Basically the important stuff is I can use it in round two to make enemies and in round three to make friends, right?"
Wallace winked. "You catch on quickly! I wish you determination and perseverance in your endeavors, young Valey. And luck and courage to all your friends as well."
"Yeah... thanks." Valey stood up, surveying the table and then her friends... Shinespark especially. Shinespark wasn't looking so good, and she had a very good idea why. She glanced to Gerardo. "Hey, uhh... Birdo?"
Gerardo blinked, breaking his polite silence. "Hmmm?"
"You wanna, like, go hang out with Wallace, or something? And Slipstream? And Ironflanks and Starlight too?" She tilted her head. "I've, uh, got some stuff to do. And Sparky, come on. I need to talk to you."
Shinespark nodded, slowly getting to her hooves as well, looking decidedly in a stupor. "Yeah, come on." Valey grinned, nudging her shoulder. "Let's get back to the boat. Got some stuff I kind of need to borrow your ear on..."
"So." Valey slid the door to Shinespark's room on the Immortal Dream closed behind her, shutting herself and Shinespark in in the dim light. "Hey."
Shinespark just sighed.
"Lying to Wallace Whitewing." Valey nodded sympathetically. "Got put on the spot?"
Shinespark's shoulders sagged.
"Look." Valey moved so she was squarely facing her. "Every time I've asked, you told me you needed a little more time, and now it's not my or any of our time to give you. You gotta get this sorted out. Talk to me? It'll be a lot easier than figuring out stuff on your own."
"How much do you already know?" Shinespark barely met Valey's eyes. "About Grenada?"
Valey settled into a chair across from Shinespark's bed. "That the very next morning after all that pirate garbage, or whenever we woke up, she smooched you and gushed for a bit about how she felt, and you kinda knee-jerk reaction told her who her dad was in return."
"And she thought about it," Shinespark finished. "And told me she wasn't sure whether it changed anything for her. I hadn't prepared for anything, but if I had, that would have been the last thing I was prepared for."
"And now you've got yourself an awkward mess," Valey went on. "You took care of her and were super nice to her for years without telling her it was because you were related, she started liking you for it, she told you so and now you haven't been able to do anything because the one thing you were counting on to make that not matter, she just rolled with and still likes you. And now you've gotta actually deal with this instead of just pretending you two can have a good old friendship like you always used to."
"Way to sum it all up." Shinespark folded her ears. "And now it's starting to matter because our situation is in limbo and as patient as either of us can be, it's dancing around a subject that's one of the highest crimes here in the Empire, and when I get put on the spot and have to make things up..." She swallowed. "What do you want me to do?"
"Talk about it." Valey shrugged. "Stop burying your head in the sand. I'll listen. I know all about back-from-the-dead sister troubles, Sparky. Been there, done that."
Shinespark gave a hopeful, frustrated smile. "I don't even know where to start."
Valey nodded. "That's cool. How do you feel about relationships? Any kind of relationships. Family, friends, lovers, mortal enemies even. Even us, if it's not too awkward saying it to my face. Just... talk about stuff."
Shinespark let out a huge, heavy sigh. "I don't. Not much beside professional relationships, at least. These last two or three months aside... I had a huge weight on my shoulders in Ironridge, Valey. I tried to be there for my people on a personal level as a leader, hearing their stories and their cries with my own ears. Whether or not that worked, it didn't leave me with a lot of time for normal relationships. My friends were ponies who could help me, and ponies who could help me were... usually my friends. Arambai and Dior, the closest things I had to family? We plotted and talked about how to restore Ironridge. Ironridge was more of a bond for us than that Dior and I were related, or Arambai had helped raise me. There's also Matryona, but that's... different."
"Yup." Valey sympathetically smiled. "I get that too. But you haven't even thought about those? Like, at all?"
Shinespark shrugged. "Not really? I've enjoyed having you all as friends since we left, of course, but it's not something I tried to analyze or understand. I just enjoyed it."
Valey shook her head. "Okay, yeah, you don't need to do that. Unless you do. Like, I guess... Most basic of basics, here. You got a type? Whatever comes to mind."
Shinespark's ears pressed back awkwardly. "How surprised would you be if I said mares?"
"Mhm." Valey nodded along, not surprised at all. "Pretty common. Can also relate. But, so, like, you didn't have to hesitate to know that. So as much as you might have never really thought about this before, you at least have thought about other ponies and been all, 'wow, I like them.' Yeah?"
Shinespark mutely nodded.
Valey raised an eyebrow so that she could see it. "Cool. Ever had a crush?"
Even in the dim light, it was apparent that Shinespark was reddening. "Valey, is this really... I mean, where are you going with this?"
"Trying to get what you don't get." Valey shrugged. "You've got another pony who, whether you're related or not aside, thinks of you as her crush and you think of her as your sister, and you just told me you're stuck and don't know enough about relationships and stuff to wrap your mind around this. Bananas, guess what? Neither do I. I've sort of unofficially got a marefriend back in Riverfall I'm reasonably sure isn't on the same page about anything with me, and is really helpful and nice but has also been strangely elusive and vague about absolutely everything for the entire last month. I get it. I'm there right now. So I don't even know where I'm going. I'm just trying to run your mind around in the right area and seeing what you can think up."
"Well, I did say that," Shinespark sighed. "What was the question, again? You were asking about me and romance?"
Valey lifted a wing. "Every had a crush?"
"No." Shinespark shook her head, hesitated, then shook it again. "I mean... I could have, but that's where I had to draw the line. I didn't want to sabotage our effort by accidentally giving someone undeserving treatment in the Spirit just because I liked them. It would have made me biased and interfered with tactics and..."
"Uh huh." Valey raised a warning eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
Shinespark blinked. "What are you...?" She folded her ears. "Oh. You mean Grenada."
"Isn't that exactly what you did for her?" Valey adjusted herself in her chair. "Babied her, tried grooming her for leadership even though you're like less than a year apart, made up a cushy job just for her? It's not like I was stealing massive amounts of Spirit intel or anything, so I totally wouldn't know."
"But that's..." Shinespark trailed off, biting her lip, and sighed. "I don't know what that means."
"Yeah," Valey agreed. "Ever did that for any of your other siblings?"
"...Not really." Shinespark looked down. "I'd say she was different, but we were all special cases. Elise, the oldest, came into her own and was doing things before I was even conceived. Some of my siblings live with her. She made a big effort to track them all down, and a lot of the ones she found she either adopted or they were well enough on their own. Dior is a sibling from my mother, so he's different there. Grenada is..." She shook her head. "I'm not sure I ever heard the full story, actually. I just know she's a sibling from my father."
Valey nodded. "So maybe didn't even have the chance. I guess what I'm getting at is... like, what's the difference? For you? What specifically makes someone a sibling? With how you treat each other, that is. Blood doesn't count."
Shinespark swallowed and averted her eyes. "That's what it is I don't know. Grenada is waiting and waiting and being patient after everything I did and let happen and I don't even know how to put words to..."
"Oh well." Valey sighed. "Yeah, I dunno what to tell you. I'm bad at figuring out what siblings are supposed to do too. Any way you could just... skip labeling stuff and tell me how you feel about Grenada, with individual feelings as opposed to relationship names?"
"Because..." Shinespark's teeth gritted, and her words didn't come.
"Afraid of something?" Valey guessed, getting up and taking a step closer. "Of, uhhh... Of letting her down?"
Shinespark folded her ears.
"Afraid of letting yourself down?" Valey tilted her head. "Of being wrong about what you want and talking yourself into something you'd rather not have? What do you feel like you want?"
"Things to be how they were," Shinespark whispered, eyes squeezed shut.
"Yeah." Valey quietly stepped closer. "You wanna kiss her? Get all fuzzy and face-to-face and smoochy smoochy shmoo?"
Shinespark jumped a little on instinct. "No!"
"Cool." Valey patted her on the back with a wing. "Congrats. Sounds to me like a grade-A non-romantic relationship is how you feel. Now you tell her, and if she takes it poorly, I'll either clean her clock or do this weird therapist stuff for her, too. Because bananas, if you two could get by on friendly terms without either being a ball of sadness or bringing the Empire down on our backs when we somehow just got her off the hook for piracy, that would be awesome. Wanna go find her?"
"...Can it wait?" Shinespark asked. "Just for a little. I... feel like I'm starting to think about things and have things I need to say."
"Yo, sure." Valey stood still, feeling Shinespark put just enough weight on her that she might stumble if she left her. "You want to flop on the bed, or stand here, or what?"
"Anywhere is fine," Shinespark muttered, speaking slowly. "I just thought... just want to make sure of the reasons for why I'm..."
Valey patted her back again. "Hey, I get it. Take as long as you need."
Valey stood in the middle of Shinespark's room, going nowhere, her friend held against her with a wing. They didn't make eye contact, but with their sides pressed together, she could feel all of Shinespark's occasional trembling, and it somehow told her far more than a look.
"Think out loud, here," Valey murmured. "Keep talking. You don't wanna face your sister right off the bat and you gotta think things through first, so keep thinking. Not something I can do for you."
Shinespark bit her lip, putting a little more weight on Valey. "I have been showing her favoritism all these years," she admitted. "Not that I know how much a lot is. It feels like forever, even though it's only been a few. But we probably see things on the same time scale, so it would feel like just as forever to her."
Valey frowned. "This about getting dumped with a whole lot of responsibility when you were just a kid and having to grow up with all that? I know you've felt bad about that before, I mean. That has to do with this?"
Shinespark took a shaky breath. "Y-Yes. I don't like doing it, but I wish I didn't have to handle incidents like this right now. Why couldn't this have waited a few years, or forever, or just never have happened?"
"Hey." Valey tightened her grip a little, weathering the shudder. "You were how old when all this started again? You're uh, nineteen now, and you got your cutie mark seven years ago, so twelve?"
"Twelve," Shinespark agreed, voice getting a little nasally. "Seven years ago."
"Well, hey." Valey shifted so she could more comfortably hold Shinespark's weight, not breaking away or leaving their spot in the room. "For what it's worth? Getting hoofed all that and playing your job for that long?" She turned her head, trying to catch Shinespark's eye. "I'm honestly super impressed with how you turned out. I mean it. Yeah, you've got some leftover issues, and it really stinks, but even surviving it for that long? So what if you made a few mistakes on the way? You still did a pretty great job as a leader. Kept a whole lot of ponies inspired, managed a huge semi-conspiracy, built some neat underground science projects, and at the end, you've still got friends and are trying to clean up your messes and are still mostly on your hooves and stuff. Mostly. You know? It's honestly more inspiring than any of the stuff you pulled off in Ironridge... and I mean it."
Shinespark sniffed. "How so?"
Valey shrugged. "Alright. Look at it this way. You're nineteen?" She gave Shinespark a serious look. "I'm seven. Not literally, but that's how long I've... you know. And six years of that were spent being a sad, self-sufficient loner and hatesink in Ironridge. You at least got, like, a foalhood, right? Before you had to deal with all that?" She sighed. "Bananas, I'm not even there yet. Dunno if I'll ever be. At some point something's probably going to really, seriously clue me in on exactly what I missed out on by never growing up and never having parents and never doing literally any of that stuff that normal, healthy ponies build their lives on, and it'll probably be yet another stupid thing that messes me up, but I don't feel it yet. And you're just, like... I dunno. I seriously want to see you get through this. For both of our sakes. Don't tell anyone, but I'm kinda scared."
"Oh, you're scared." Shinespark sniffed again, more wetly this time, but there was no malice in it. "I-I..." She swallowed. "I did take on a lot. I could have refused, but I didn't. Everything I did was about being responsible, and I bore it proudly! And then I failed because I wasn't good enough, and made a split-second decision to break my bond with Braen and in doing so allowed the skyport to be destroyed! And now you and everyone else are telling me that I don't have to take responsibility for that failure because it wasn't my fault, because I was too young and inexperienced to have been expected to do the right thing anyway. You're telling me I can blame my age and not myself."
"Yeah." Valey just stood there, weathering her trembles. "Spooky thought, huh. And that scares you?"
"Y-Yes..."
Valey thought for a moment. "Scared because you think you'll blame yourself anyway? Or... because you still weren't good enough and why doesn't matter, so you're afraid of letting us down again?"
"Worse." Shinespark tried to wipe her eyes, nearly unbalancing and leaning a lot harder on Valey. "I-I'm scared..."
"That, uhh... That Grenada's in the same boat? Something about her?" Valey guessed, running out of things to say and deciding to just let Shinespark talk.
"If I blame it on my age," Shinespark began. "Which I could do. I really want to. I-I want someone to tell me it's alright because I was t-too young to know better, and made mistakes anyone would have. I know it's true. Even Herman said so, in the skyport. He used me against myself..."
"And he was a scumbag," Valey consoled, rubbing her back a little. "I kicked his tail for you."
Shinespark swallowed. "That'll mean I won't be responsible for my actions. And it's still something I did. With letting the Spirit down, and with messing up with Grenada because of course she'd like me after how I treated her and everything I didn't tell her and everything else... This doesn't mean I didn't do it. It means it's okay for me not to be responsible. And e-everything I devoted my whole life to was..."
"Was being responsible for everyone. Oh. Yeah." Valey trailed off, getting a little hollow. "You're scared of turning your back on that, or something?"
Shinespark started to shake. "I am!" she gasped, almost hyperventilating and squeezing her eyes shut for a moment to steady herself. "I devoted everything I had to the Spirit and Sosa and Ironridge. Almost all of my teenage years. I cut my foalhood short, didn't do the things other fillies my age would have done that I'm not jealous of because Ironridge was worth it and I always had that and if I... It feels like I'd be turning my back on it, Valey... Like after I committed so much, and now it would be turning around and saying all that was meaningless if I tried to take responsibility for an entire city but take the easy out not to be responsible for myself. I-I-I..."
She grabbed onto Valey, losing her fight against crying openly. "Oh bananas," Valey murmured, patting her gently. "Here, uhh... let's lie down for a bit." She shifted them towards the bed, thinking frantically for what to say. "Well... I... Look, Sparky..."
"I'm scared," Shinespark choked, half-crawling, half being pushed into the bed. Valey slithered up after her. "I'm scared that if I can't even apply everything I stood for to myself, I'll just have w-wasted those seven years of my life and they won't mean anything and I'll be nowhere..."
Valey sighed long and slow, positioning herself behind Shinespark and finally at a loss. "Sorry, Shinespark," she murmured, hugging her from behind. "I dunno what to say about that. It stinks. I'm here. But I just dunno what to do."
Shinespark sniffled thankfully, curling and uncurling and eventually settling into a limp, miserable stretch. At least she was thinking about it instead of sitting on all that, Valey mused, though she didn't have many thoughts left aside from being there for her friend. Her forelegs wrapped around Shinespark's chest and barrel, letting Valey feel every sob as her own, and they lay that way for quite some time.
Eventually, the sound of hoofsteps on the deck above heralded the return of their friends from hanging out with Wallace. Shinespark had quieted, though she still occasionally trembled and made no move to escape Valey's grasp. The door was shut, and nobody knocked, the ship eventually settling back into its usual silence. More time passed, enough that Valey was sure the thought of getting up had crossed Shinespark's mind... but she hadn't, so Valey stayed there as well.
"Hey," she finally whispered, after an afternoon without sleep once all her friend's tears had finally run dry. "Sparky?"
Shinespark's tail twitched. She was listening.
"I figured out what to say."
"Did you?" Shinespark's mouth sounded sticky, and Valey guessed she needed a drink.
"Yeah. I did." Valey smiled into the back of her neck. "You wanna hear it?"
With a great effort, Shinespark lifted herself, breaking from Valey's grasp and rolling over so they were making eye contact in the bed. It was darker than earlier, now that the early-afternoon sun was no longer shining on Shinespark's curtained windows, but there was enough light in the room for her sapphire eyes to glint just a little. She wanted to hear what Valey had to say.
"You," Valey began, "are worried that if you let yourself off the hook for some really big stuff that's way too big for anyone to reasonably blame you for, it'll make the last seven years of your life meaningless. Forget everything before you were twelve, that's a long time. Forget all the other good stuff you undoubtedly did for hundreds and hundreds of other ponies during that time. Bananas, you gave those dudes seven years of hope and a mysterious golden savior to cheer for. You think they're gonna blame you now if you don't blame yourself? Nah. None of that matters. It's about how you feel about yourself, and if anyone knows how thinking a huge part of your past is worthless feels?" Her eyes narrowed. "It's me."
Valey nodded as she spoke. "Seven years after you were twelve? Try your entire life, as far as you can remember. And I don't even get to say I did some good stuff with that! I was a jerk, Shinespark. So yeah, I've been there. You wanna say all that time was useless and worthless and wasted? Cool. Someone might try and talk you out of feeling that way. It's not gonna be me, because I have no clue how. But I do know how it feels. I've been there. I'm there right now. And bananas, you're not alone."
She pulled herself forward, hugging Shinespark tightly again. "And you know the best part? It's been messing me up. Really badly. Especially with Puddles right before all the pirate stuff, when I was just finding out about Nightmare Modules. Practically turned me into an edgy wreck, and I hate being that way. So you know what I'm gonna do? What I'm gonna promise?"
Opening her eyes again, Valey pushed herself far enough back to see her friend's face. "I am absolutely done being a basket case about this. No more. If you've gotta choose between letting yourself feel like it's okay to say you weren't ready for all that and feeling like those years mattered? Screw your past. We've got time. We've got decades ahead of us, and those are what matter. Maybe someday you can come to terms with it another way, and that would be awesome, but right now, I'm the queen of doing what I want and having wasted some time in the past isn't gonna stop me. And I'll do this for you."
She took a final breath. "I'm entering Wallace's dumb tournament. Not because I've got a wish for Garsheeva, but because I can. You hear this, Shinespark? I said you were cool earlier, that I found you inspirational for standing a chance after going through all that? Well, I'm going to be the best role model you ever saw. You just watch me. You watch me, you hear? If I can get by and live life to the fullest even though my past is wimpy and wasted and useless? You can do it too. I promise."
For a moment, Valey breathed, her speech finished, waiting for Shinespark's reaction.
"Well?"
"You..." Shinespark slowly began to blink. Then chuckle, though it was tired and worn-out. "Are you sure?"
"About what part?" Valey shrugged, starting to feel self-conscious in the wake of everything she had said. "That all I said I'd do would help? That I'll do it in the first place? I dunno." She stared past her friend into the darkened bedroom, indirect sunlight warming the back of the drawn window curtains. "I hate being down in the dumps. Being sad and mopey makes me not feel like me, and when you have identity crises as frequently as I do, that's kind of a thing to avoid. Really, I wanna be doing awesome and up on my hooves, and if that can even remotely help you at all? Bananas, I'm all in."
"I don't want all those years to have been wasted, though..." Any good cheer Shinespark had tried to muster vanished, and she made half an effort to curl up. "And you're just... telling me to..."
"Nope." Valey reached a hoof back out for her shoulder. "Not telling you to forget about them. Telling you that if it turns out you think they are wasted, count for nothing, that you didn't even get a shot at a big part of your life? That's not the end of the world. I'll show you how it's done, and you'll give me a reason to show that. Think that'll work out?"
Shinespark sighed. "I wish I knew."
"Aww, come on." Valey sat up straighter and nudged her more heavily, rocking her a little where she lay. "This stuff is hard, alright? I don't know why everyone keeps thinking I should be a therapist, but I'm what you've got and I'm trying! Maybe it's because I'm fuzzy. Ironflanks hug therapy? No?" She gave Shinespark a hopeful, questioning look. "Hey. Should I, like, thank you some more and try to make you feel better about yourself, or...? I'm out of my element, here."
Shinespark just slumped, earning a bigger frown. "Well, now I'm feeling kinda silly for saying all that," Valey grumbled. "Look, sorry if I overdid it and made you feel awkward. I was just trying to get through to-"
Suddenly, she was interrupted by a tight hug. "You didn't overdo it!" Shinespark quickly insisted, cutting off anything further from Valey's train of thought. "You didn't. Sorry. I appreciate it. Really, it means a lot to me. Just trying to figure out what I'm feeling before I say something and put my hoof in my mouth."
"Oh." Valey blinked, relaxing partway. "Thanks, then. And yeah. I might've made some stuff up on the fly there, with what I just said, but nothing I wouldn't be willing to commit to. You know."
"Give me a moment," Shinespark mumbled into her chest.
"Yeah. I can do that." Valey put a hoof on her back in return and stopped talking.
Eventually, Shinespark murmured, "You're a good friend, you know that?"
"Thanks. I try." Valey shifted a little. "Kinda helps a lot, having friends. Don't like where I'd be without them."
"It's funny," Shinespark went on. "How long we were enemies in Ironridge. Leaders of opposite sides. I was always annoyed by you for getting the upper hoof on my plans since you could sneak around and were impossible to keep secrets from. I thought you were irreverent and annoying and that we were worlds apart. Never imagined how much we could have in common."
Valey grinned. "Hey, I'm still irreverent and annoying. And if I ever stop, smack me, or something." She turned solemn again. "But yeah. You're right. You always got on my nerves too, having a gigantic district of ponies who adored you for no reason at all. At least, that's how it felt. I kind of didn't see all this pressure stuff you were dealing with for that back then. Thought you were just getting a free pass from everyone around you while I had to settle for quiet excusals and dirty looks."
Shinespark sighed. "You're partly right, though. As hard as maintaining the position was, I still got it for free. One day, I got my... my cutie mark, and it let me do exactly the same thing as a folk hero. I did have a choice, but it wasn't something I asked for or did anything to deserve."
"And I was jealous of you when we were in the same boat all along, huh?" Valey lifted an eyebrow.
"The same way I felt about you, acting like all the rules didn't apply and getting away with it every single time." Shinespark almost smiled. "I didn't really get the loneliness part of it, did I? I spent too much time wishing you'd get what you deserved and leave me alone. It's funny, because I didn't have much in the way of knowing ponies for fun back in Ironridge, either. Like we just talked about now. I was lonely too, I guess. That's what it was like at the top."
Valey shrugged. "Lonely at the top? I don't even know if I was at the top or the bottom. I practically made my own league that was separate from all the others."
"We must be doing okay for ourselves," Shinespark mused, smile growing more genuine. "If we can talk about our problems like this and compare whose are worse and still feel better about it, aren't we?"
"Heh." Valey stayed sitting up. "Yeah, something like that. I figured having someone else who knew how it felt might help. Might help both of us. Kinda weird that even though we're both unlucky, we're lucky to be unlucky together?"
"Heh. Yeah." Shinespark's eyes moistened a little, but she kept smiling. "Sorry you have to be the one who... you know... had it worse. With your past, and all. I know exactly where I came from, and my mother was a pretty inspiring pony. And I still had my foalhood. And I'm sure even if I tell myself it's okay not to take responsibility for Sosa and the skyport and Grenada, there's still a lot of worthwhile things I did with my time as the Spirit's leader. You're putting up with that anyway, and I appreciate it."
Valey winked. "What, to cheer you up? I've got years of practice thinking you've got it better than me. Seriously. Turns out how you feel matters more than just why you feel that way."
"Heehee..." Shinespark earnestly giggled, one of the first times Valey had ever heard it from her. "Thank you, Valey. I actually... I feel a lot better. Thanks."
"I take care of my friends. It's a big part of having them."
Shinespark slowly nodded. "So... the tournament?"
"Yup." Valey nodded. "I'm feeling stubborn right now. Something will probably happen to make me think about it again later, but for now, I meant it. I'm doing it purely because I can."
"But that's in several days," Shinespark murmured. "Do you have anything you need to do right now? If you could stay here a little longer..."
Valey curled back down on the bed, patting it with a wing. "Nothing more important than staying here. Nyaah. As long as you need, Sparky."
A cacophony of voices surrounded Valey from every angle as she stood in a line, twisty and looking like it was set up to encourage as much cutting as possible. Her ears folded beneath the sunlight, trapped in the middle of the Stormhoof Colosseum. Tournament registration day was here.
It had been explained simply enough: with hundreds and potentially over a thousand challengers, the tournament organizers needed a headcount and official entrant names so fighters could be scheduled across multiple weeks of bouts. But she was starting to suspect the registration was a preliminary in and of itself: in the pushy, shovey chaos of the line, anyone whose diplomatic skills weren't as up to par as their combat would soon find that combat tested in a free-for-all brawl. Almost constantly, small scuffles erupted throughout the colosseum bowl as one fighter took issue with another, and they were resolved just as quickly by more fighters still.
There were three types in the line, she soon realized. Hotheads who started fights based on race, costume or whatever else: she suspected they were the ones without a proper cause to fight for. Professionals who actually could handle many opponents at once; they never started anything and only butted in when someone else disturbed the peace in their space. And then there were quieter ones like her who did nothing at all, and those were complete unknowns.
The earth pony in front of her wore a colorful, jaggedly-patterned costume that covered his entire body and identity. The big batpony behind her carried a tired look and seemed perfectly relieved to be next to someone who left him alone. There were actually a surprising number of batponies in the line, and Valey drew comfort from it, figuring this kind of event must have drawn them out with its promise and that she could blend in with the crowd for a while longer being targeted because of her leafy ears.
Without even a breeze to help things along, the line slowly pushed itself forward, and Valey patiently continued to survive.
"Next!"
The griffon in front of Valey finally was summoned as the head of the line fed into an array of processing tents, ten fighters able to be registered at a time. She had preferred standing behind the costumed earth pony to him, but when he shoved his way in, she hadn't cared to punch him out and the pony hadn't either. It didn't add much to her waiting time, though, a tent at the end of the row flagging her down for entry.
She broke into an eager trot, slipping away from the line and making for that cool, shady entry. Oh boy she had survived-
"Well. I wondered if I'd see you coming through here," a familiar voice greeted from inside the tent, and she froze at who she saw inside.
"Come in, come in!" Chauncey waved her in, seated behind a desk with dozens of boxes for sorting note cards stacked behind. He still wore his zealous, burgundy pontifex's robes and miter, looking for all the world like her friends hadn't promised a month ago to bring back his windigo and granddaughters and never showed their faces again. "One in ten odds, am I right? Let's get you signed up."
"Uhhhhh..." Valey hesitantly stepped in, not wanting to turn her back on the crowd for long. "Long time no see? What are you doing here?"
Chauncey nodded. "A month is a long time, isn't it? As for your question, the Empire sources talent from all over the provinces for running this event, administrative included! Still a coincidence for us to run into each other like this, though! I take it you're doing well enough in Stormhoof?"
"Uh huh." Valey held out her Regent in a wing, hoping he'd hurry through with this. "Got this thing here, you already know my name, yadda yadda yadda."
"You're right. I do know your name." Chauncey scribbled something down in fast, meticulous handwriting, leaning forward briefly to check the golden card Valey offered. "But we're in no hurry. I bet you'd like to hold up that line anyway, stopping to talk for a bit. Take out some stored resentment for it after sitting through so many hours. It's never been an elegant part of this whole competition."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "It's your call, pope dude. I wanna register and I'm not waiting through that again for a different tent, so stop beating around the bush. What do you want from me? And don't ask for something I can't do."
"You don't trust me at all, do you?" Chauncey chuckled, then hardened. "Is there a reason for that? You were foalnapped on my lands. Your friends might have made a promise to me they were unable to keep and then not returned to tell me about it, but Gazelle and Meltdown were there, and Wallace too. I'd have to be completely unreasonable to hold that against them, but you don't owe me anything at all, Valey. Why the long face?"
"You're, uhh..." Valey fidgeted. She wanted to say 'creepy,' but thought better of it. "I'm kinda hinging something I really wanna do on you signing me up properly, there, and things have been a little rocky between us in the past. You know? And I just made it through that line. No offense, but you try not being on edge."
Chauncey continued his grandfatherly chuckle. "This isn't information I tell ponies freely, but a long time ago, I used to live in Mistvale. I know a thing or two about meditation and emotional control." His brow shadowed. "There. You're all signed up. As a show of trust, I won't keep you here." He held up a card for Valey to inspect momentarily, then dropped it in an organizer. "But I would appreciate it if you'd hear me out for just a moment."
"Okay..." Against her better judgement, Valey paused, watching him instead of leaving out the back.
"Thank you." Chauncey nodded appreciatively. "I do want you as an ally, Valey. You have a lot of public relations potential after your role in the Ironridge events, and while I wouldn't do anything to put you in the spotlight without permission, I'd love for you and Izvaldi to be on good terms. I'm not asking anything except a hoof in friendship, and I'm willing to go far out of my way to prove it. Even now, I've been using a little influence and pulled some strings with a mutual acquaintance of ours to try to give you a small edge in the tournament, here."
Valey's brow furrowed. "Nothing that would draw attention to me or get me in trouble, right?"
"Valey, please." Chauncey beamed. "I just miss having someone to dote on these days."
Chauncey gently shook his head. "No, you can go be on your way. I just wanted to let you know I was rooting for you. Tell your friends you're all more than welcome in Izvaldi at any time."
"Will do." Valey frowned, unable to resist a parting prod. "Dunno how much it'll do, though. One of my friends is kind of super spooked and has a bad taste in her mouth about Izvaldi right now. Something about a mine poisoning the river, she found out about?"
Chauncey's mood dropped. "I see. Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who knows and doesn't feel that way. Lord Percival's had a lot to rebuild his province from. With the job he's done, it's understandable why he'd want to keep it."
Valey nodded, but the invitation to leave had been there for a while and she didn't feel like answering that. Nothing stopped her from slipping out of the tent, nobody halted her when she spread her wings and flew away, skipping the crowd and the line and making her way directly back to the Dream. Did he just want to be on her good side because he thought she'd win and wanted his wish granted instead? Or was this like with the pirates, where batponies seemed magnetically attracted to her for no good reason at all?
She sighed, feeling patronized. But that could all be thought about later. Right now, she needed a nap.
"They got us a private box to watch from?" Maple blinked incredulously at a colosseum guard, standing in the bright afternoon sun with Starlight on her back and Shinespark, Gerardo and Slipstream present as well. Jamjars was nowhere to be seen and Grenada had elected to stay behind, but Nyala stood behind everyone as a giant suit of imposing golden armor, drawing respect and admiration from the other bystanders and ensuring everyone left them alone.
The armored griffon shrugged, confirming their names. "You're on the list. These are you, right?" He showed them a clipboard. "It says you paid for it. I guess you can watch from the regular stands if you want, but I don't know why you'd want to..."
Gerardo patted Maple and stepped up. "Sounds like we have a silent benefactor. I, for one, am happily willing to accept it! Shall we see ourselves to our box?"
The griffon stepped aside. "Smaller door there. Ask someone if you don't know where to go. Please, enjoy the tournament."
The door closed behind them as they stepped into a well-lit stone tunnel, carved and built from meticulously-placed light bricks. Instantly, the din from outside halved, cheers and conversation shut out by the pristine corridor's walls. "I'm surprised at how busy the entrance is," Maple murmured to no one in particular. "I'd have thought everyone would arrive earlier in the morning."
"It's lunchtime," Slipstream pointed out. "There's going to be a lot of ponies coming and going right now. The skyport was always busiest around this time."
"Well, we do have an hour before Valey was scheduled to first perform," Gerardo mused. "So for all our expectations that this would be busy, we still overestimated it."
"We did want to watch, though," Shinespark pointed out. "Everyone else here thinks this is the best entertainment available. And last time, we were interrupted when Jamjars called Meltdown on us."
Starlight frowned atop Maple's back. "I don't even remember why she did that."
"Trying to get us in contact with someone important, if I recall," Gerardo chuckled. "I believe she mixed up the different meanings of the word 'power'. Presumed it was referring to political power and not magical energy. Heh..."
Shinespark kept her gaze straight ahead. "She wasn't wrong."
The corridor gently curved as it stretched around the length of the arena, sloping down and toward the center in a spiral matching the shape of the walkways between the stands above. Occasionally, doors branched off to the right, and pairs of guards in ceremonial garb occasionally walked past. Gerardo had no qualms with asking directions, but they didn't even need it: the doors were marked with removable named placards, and soon they reached theirs.
"Hmm," Maple remarked, looking the card over. "Valey's name is at the top, and bigger than all of ours." She squinted. "And someone scratched a heart next to it in the glass..."
Shinespark moved up next to her, squinting. "What do you know? It looks like they did."
"Well, we already established that we have it," Gerardo declared, proudly opening the door. "We might as well make use of... Oh dear."
The box was narrow but deep, with a quieter, shaded area in the back and two rows of three seats each before the front railing. A lazy form lifted its head from the back row where it had been sprawling and grinned, showing teeth. "Hoho! You made it!" Gazelle crowed.
Starlight winced, and felt Maple do it beneath her. "You!?"
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "You're our mysterious benefactor, I take it?"
"Me. And you're welcome." Gazelle sat up fully and preened, reveling in the attention. "I always love for fighters I have a personal history with, don't you? I even guessed correctly when you'd show up!"
Maple's ears folded. "We're really not looking for trouble..."
"And I'm not here to cause it," Gazelle assured, slithering out of the padded chairs and standing to face them. "Just coming here to deliver a gift in person..." His face fell in a weary scowl. "And to weasel out of greeting diplomats for a while. Truly, the most boring job in the empire. Here, have some false compliments! Oh, would you kiss my foal? I need water rights to water my elephants! The Empire doesn't even have elephants, and it's covered in rivers! Get your own water! I really do like children, though." He slipped past everyone, brushing Maple's cheek with his tail and whistling at Nyala. "Nice armor, by the way. Meltdown could take some fashion pointers from you. Oh well. Back to work for poor old me..."
He tailed the door shut on his way out, and then he was gone.
"You think he regularly puts up with that?" Maple mused, still tense from surprise. "I think he actually might have been trying to be nice."
"Still potentially unhinged, but nice." Gerardo stepped to the front, checking out their tiered seating, walls cutting it off from the walkway to the left and the public benches to the right. "Six chairs..." He counted on his talons. "Should be perfect? Though actually, Nyala may not fit..."
"It's okay," Nyala said from the back. "Standing doesn't use any energy. I can watch from the back."
Maple nodded, moving with Starlight to the front row and taking a seat. A match below was in progress, but it wasn't what drew their attention: new from the first round, a giant, spectral hologram of the arena and its fighters filled the sky, sitting in the middle of the bowl and letting everyone see every move with perfect clarity, no matter their position in the audience. Two griffons were presently brawling, the one with the lighter coat getting kicked around heavily but refusing to go down.
"Well?" Shinespark joined her. "This is the Empire's idea of entertainment."
"I hope they're good sports about it." Maple nodded. "The last time I watched this, it was fairly stressful... but that mostly started when that unicorn kept attacking that pegasus after she was down. Maybe this time will be better?"
Gerardo hummed in agreement from the back row. "Well, I would hope they have competent referees. Honestly, they're likely looking for any reason they can find to get people out early. Narrow the pool of fighters so they can get on to matches with a high skill floor, and get the fighters who are advancing in battles more often."
"Well, that's one fighter who's out," Maple murmured, sighing in relief as the victorious griffon helped her opponent up and out of the ring after they finally surrendered. "Or is it one who's still in? I can't tell who's challenging and who's defending."
Slipstream shrugged. "They'll probably say?"
True to her guess, a loudspeaker array boomed to life, two male commentators giving an enthusiastic greeting. Maple instantly lost her train of thought regarding the battle, ears folding her ears in recognition at the tones.
"Hey. You." A burly griffon in a tuxedo and a pair of aviator shades shoved Valey with his very presence, somehow making it clear who he was talking to without budging, moving or looking whatsoever. "Yeah, you. Time for your match, bud. Follow me."
Valey had been sizing up the guard for the last three hours in her locker room, ignoring the dozen-odd other fighters that were huddled around a screen to watch the matches instead, and was reasonably confident that even unarmored, he could beat nine in ten tournament entrants handily. Why he didn't just compete was beyond her... Maybe he just liked looking cool. "Sure thing, dude," she agreed, breaking off her pacing and strolling to him as he opened the door. She was nervous, but about everything other than winning her match. Some poor fool had no idea what was coming.
The guard led her through a maze of dim, recently-mopped tunnels, effortlessly moving aside pairs of more military-looking guards and attendants, and suddenly stopped, the tunnel breaking into blinding daylight ahead. Valey blinked, giving her eyes a moment to adjust. There wouldn't be any shadow sneaking in this fight...
"Since this is your first fight, and all, the announcer will explain the rules before you start," the griffon told her, sounding surprisingly hip for someone who had likely said those exact words hundreds of times that day. "Try not to get completely destroyed out there, alright?"
Valey stretched, trying not to let her confidence stand out in either direction, and adjusted her beret with a wing. "Yup. Here I go."
Cheering broke around her like a wave, almost more encompassing than the sunlight. Valey frowned; was she that famous already? The colosseum bowl stretched up in a gigantic cone around her, making her crane her neck to see the horizon and filling her world with griffons and ponies. Around the bottom of the pit, set into the ground between the bleachers and the flat dusty floor, twelve windows waited, darkened images of fanciful figures watching from one or two of them. Boxes for the royal houses, she figured. They didn't even deserve her attention.
Like an island in a sea of sand, the ring sat, a square, slightly-raised construction without walls that could and had taken a beating from hundreds of pounds of force thrown atop it over and over. Her challenger already waited, a huge, bearded earth pony, posing and bowing and making a giant fool of himself. And there was also... She scowled in confusion, quickening her pace and skipping the steps, jumping straight onto the stage.
"Hark! Our challenger approaches!" A lavender pegasus with a garish, overdone mane and goatee flourished, pointing a ceremonial rapier in Valey's face.
"Pancake," Valey droned, ignoring the tingling in her cutie mark as her opponent stopped posing and began to size her up. "Do I even want to know why you're here?"
"By the hand of noble fate!" Howe's voice warbled ominously, and he pointed the rapier back at himself, Valey suddenly realizing it was a microphone. "We should hang later. Ahem. Audience, behold, one of my most-anticipated matches of the day! In the defender's corner, a crowd favorite from the pools round... Garfield the Unshaven! Through sheer force of charisma and the power of his beard alone, he flattened his opponents in seconds flat, capturing your hearts and minds like the studly stud I'm occasionally told he is! In the challenger's corner, meanwhile, with her sights set on that championship, we have a mare I've been unfortunate enough to cross hooves and blades with before... the hero and terror of Ironridge, Admiral Valey! Now, Valey, since this is your first round and all, give me a moment to explain the rules real quick..."
Valey nodded, suddenly feeling hot breath on the back of her neck. "Got a problem, bud?"
"Explanations are for losers," Garfield the Unshaven breathed, towering over her with a merciless gleam in his eye. "Here's a welcome present for the rookie, punk!"
Valey frowned. Garfield reared up, joining his forehooves for a double-overhead smash... Really? He announced a sneak attack, then went in with something so slow? Her cutie mark didn't even deem it dangerous enough to activate. He had to be taunting her. This was borderline offensive!
"Hey, hold that thought, Pancake." She waved a hoof to shut Howe up, then darted forward, windmilling her forelegs for three quick, successive uppercuts between Garfield's hind legs. WHAM! WHUD! POW! His eyes bugged a little further after each one, and Valey shot out from between his legs, backflipped into the air, and locked her own forehooves, copying his move and bringing them down on his own head. Her opponent whined, teetered, and crashed facedown in the arena.
"Sorry about that." Valey dusted herself off, standing on Garfield's back and looking back to Howe. "Had to take care of a thing that didn't want to wait. Okay, you were saying about rules? Let's get this over with so we can get the fight on the road."
"Uhhh..." Howe made a show of blinking at the fallen stallion, though winked at Valey when he thought only she was looking. "First things first. One two three four five six seven eight nine you're out!" He flung a hoof at Garfield's beard. "No cheating, mister! Or you'll be exorcised by divine prejudice from this very tournament!" He made a spooky face. "Now, uhh, let's try that again! My sword wing itches for action, so we'll just say that didn't count! So if you'll kindly take your places and wait for me to finish explaining things..."
Garfield's eyes opened with a snap of indignation, and he powered his hooves beneath him, snapping upright and launching Valey from his back. "Make a fool out of me, will you!?" he roared, brandishing his beard and whirling in a circle, looking for his opponent.
"Hey." Valey landed effortlessly behind him, unimpressed. Garfield's beady eyes found her and gleamed, and a pistonlike hoof retracted, preparing its ridiculously-long windup before it smashed her.
Valey just watched, not even dignifying it with a dodge... and then it struck the stage, and she was suddenly several inches away, facing backwards. She glanced over her shoulder, giving him an entire second to comprehend that he had missed, and then lashed out with a targeted rear kick, sending a hoof straight into his open, surprised mouth. "Put a sock in it!"
For a moment, Garfield blanched, but by the time he thought to bite down, she was already gone, winding up for the second strike and plowing both hooves into his face with everything she had. Valey braced her forehooves against the stage, flapping with her wings for a bit of extra thrust, and Garfield was lifted clean off the floor, thrown into a backflip by the power of her smash. She landed, darted forward, flipped onto her back and hit him again with all four hooves at once, giving his flight the extra power it needed to clear Howe's head and sail all the way out of the ring and into the dirt. Valey flipped upright, landing before he did and adjusting her hat with a disapproving frown.
"Well?" She glanced at Howe. "Think this dude still needs to be read the rules?"
Garfield groaned, tried to stand again, and collapsed in a heap.
Howe tsk'd, but rather than say anything, a new voice blared in over a set of loudspeakers. "Word from on high is in: that's a stomping! Admiral Valey takes the cake today! Congratulations, prospective future champ!"
Valey folded her ears. "Neon too?"
"From up in the judge's box, my mare," Howe proclaimed, putting a wing around Valey's back and risking a kick to the face of his own. "Ladies and gentlemares, we have our victor! It's, uhh, not technically official, but Garfield the Unshaven has been ruled forfeit by on high! Behold, the challenger stands victorious!"
The cheering from the crowd intensified, and Valey's ears lifted. Well, so far she seemed popular, though Garfield wouldn't be fun to see a vendetta from...
"Hey." Howe tapped her, offering her the rapier microphone. "The crowd is drinking this up like non-alcoholic cider! Got any feelings on your victory for them, Admiral? They'd love to hear from you!"
Valey blinked, then glanced at Garfield, and finally decided to muster a hearty belch.
"Whooo! You heard it from her, folks!" Neon Nova's voice boomed, joining in again to the commentary. "That's some fine optimism! We'll see if it holds up next match... Until then, let's get some new fighters on stage!"
"Oh yeah." Howe blinked. "One other thing... I might have been supposed to officially tell you how Regents work, but I shall assume you know that! Will you, uhh..." He blinked at Garfield, who was being dragged away by two griffon guards. "Do you want to spend yours and end his game?"
Valey winced. Bigger grudge, or bigger possibility of him being able to take it out? The way Wallace had explained it, if she survived the second round, there was a possibility she could rematch anyone she fought in it later... "Nah. Gonna hang onto mine. I'm good to go, right?"
"By this tournament's noble rules, you are free!" Howe bowed exaggeratedly, boulder-stiff mane not even flopping from its sheer amount of gel. "The way out is right over there. Stick around or join the audience or whatever."
"Cool." Valey bounded from the platform, keeping her walk dignified all the way until she was out of sight in the darkness of the tunnels once again.
With a ripple of shadow, Valey rose from the floor in the back of her friends' private box, everyone still sitting and watching the competition. "Yo."
"Valey!" Shinespark spun, and Maple and Slipstream too. "You sure got back up here fast."
Valey tapped her nose. "Smelling Starlight. Fast and easy." She took two steps forward and sighed. "Well... guess I'm going onward, huh? You all just watching for a bit?"
Maple nodded. "There's a match with Morena scheduled five fights from now. I thought we'd stay to watch her... and we do have this private box, which makes watching a lot more pleasant than if I was out there. Unless you want to go back to the boat?"
"Nah, I'll stay and watch." Valey shuffled forward, looking over the chairs.
"Here." Maple scooped Starlight into her lap, patting the filly's empty chair.
Valey flopped into the seat, giving Shinespark a grin and Maple a friendly nudge. "So, a private box, huh? You guys didn't tell me you were deciding to shell out. Though actually, I did run into a guy the other day who said he was going to throw some nice stuff my way..."
Maple shook her head. "This was a gift from Gazelle. We saw him very briefly. He complained about his job and then left, but I think he was trying to be friendly?"
"Huh. That's cool." Valey shrugged, settling in to watch a pair of unicorns trying to club each other with telekinesis. "I mean, I hope he was being friendly. Dude kind of owes us after how big a mess that pirate ship turned into. It's like we didn't have any teamwork, or something."
Shinespark frowned. "So... what do you think of the hosts?"
"Mister commentator and mister referee?" Valey narrowed her eyes at the floating projection of the stage, Howe standing smugly off to one side as the unicorns traded furious blows with illusory hammers. "On the one hoof, I have no idea how they got them or what they're doing there whatsoever. On the other..." She leaned back, scratching the back of her neck. "Bananas, they're good at it. Definitely didn't choose poorly. Those dudes may be frauds, but they're frauds who know how to fire up a crowd."
"You think they got the position legitimately?" Shinespark folded her ears. "This is what they do. I was Neon Nova's boss for months. At least, I thought I was. And he was a crowd-raiser."
Maple nodded. "When I was talking to Howe in Ironridge... I forget when, but he told me he was a wandering public speaker for hire. Like a mercenary for saying things instead of fighting. He'd tell any story and back any cause as long as you paid him..." She sighed. "At least they're doing legitimate work now that we cleared their names of piracy charges."
"Still can't believe how giddy Wallace was we pulled that off." Valey winced as one of the unicorns suddenly ignored the telekinesis tussle and punched the other in the nose. "Aww. She had a pretty snoot. Anyway. Yeah, Gazelle and Meltdown just offering to... uhh... Actually, how much you wanna bet they just didn't tell anyone? I wonder if they actually have the power to formally pardon stuff, since Wallace had to wish it from Garsheeva and all..."
"They certainly have the power to informally do it," Gerardo muttered, half-paying attention as his gaze fixated on the fight. "Seeing as Meltdown is the one entirely responsible for enforcing the penalties, as far as I'm aware..."
Starlight's ears flicked at the hologram. "Speaking of power, they're using a lot of magic to run all this. But normally they keep everything dark or unpowered because it's so expensive. I bet Stormhoof aren't the ones paying for this."
Maple fondly ruffled her mane. "That's what you're thinking about? This is a big event, so I'm sure they're either getting help or going all-out. Or maybe Meltdown gave them a good deal."
"Yeah!" Valey interrupted, pumping a hoof and cheering. Dropping his telekinesis for the punch had cost the other unicorn the battle, his opponent maintaining her concentration and using the opening to wallop him until he dropped. "Take that, you bozo! Serves you right!"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Are you choosing who to root for entirely on who you think is more attractive?"
Valey shrugged. "Duh. I mean, I know literally nothing else about them. How else am I supposed to choose? Besides, it's not like I'm making any moves on them or saying it to their face. Lame heresy laws don't apply to just looking."
"Oh. Right." Shinespark's ears folded, and she looked away. "That law about inter-racial relationships. I forgot about that."
"Nyeh. It's fine. Thanks for the sympathy, though." Valey reached across Maple and patted her head. "Probably not like I don't have someone waiting for me a million miles away. Ugggghhh!" She stretched heavily, tilting her head back in a yawn.
"I haven't forgotten about the law," Slipstream muttered, fixation on the ring breaking now that Howe was posturing and a new set of fighters was being led in.
A new set of fighters was ushered in, and Valey's ears slowly flicked and drifted toward Nyala. It took all of two blows for her to decide neither fighter was skilled enough to deserve her attention, and her mind wandered until she finally got up, slipping back to stand behind the golden suit of armor. "Hey. How's it hanging?"
"I'm okay," Nyala's voice replied, the armor remaining inanimate and locked in position. "It's nice to get off the boat every once in a while."
Valey nodded along. "Yeah. Hey, sorry I don't spend as much time with you as I feel like I should."
Nyala's voice sounded disapproving. "That's what you say every time, and I keep telling you it's okay. I don't feel like you owe me anything."
Valey couldn't reciprocate, but if every other time she'd tried wasn't the time to work it out, maybe this wasn't either. She sighed quietly, not moving from her position.
"They're pretty skilled, aren't they?" Nyala remarked, eventually trying to make small talk. "This is probably fascinating for you, since you like fighting so much."
"I don't like it. I'm just good at it. I'm..." Valey started to protest, then frowned. "Bananas. Yeah, I like it. Just not what it usually gets me into. Those guys..." She surveyed the fighters for a moment. "The earth pony isn't mixing up his attacks enough. That's the third time he's tried to press an advantage in a row with a right hook, but the griffon isn't good enough to learn from it so he's getting away with it. And the griffon isn't using his wings at all for mobility, which is dumb, because he's smaller and doesn't have the strength advantage. He is using his talons, which honestly shouldn't be that effective if the earth pony was willing to trade and take a slash for a really good position, but the pony's way too scared of them and I can't tell if the griffon knows this and is exploiting it or is just lucky. I think he's going to lose, but that pony doesn't deserve the win." She shook her head. "Neither of them do, to be honest. But eh, one has to get it."
Nyala was quiet for a moment. "You sure do know your stuff, Valey."
"Yeah." Valey glanced at her friends in the seating. "And I wish everyone would take a hint and learn from it. Starlight's trying and doing pretty well for a filly, and Birdo's got his creepy sword, but it would seriously make me feel better if each and every one of you knew a thing about how to defend yourselves." She turned her gaze up to Nyala. "You're a suit of combat armor! You're, like, designed to trash bozos and beat people up! It's not as good as a flesh-and-blood body, but it sure does have upsides."
"Sorry. I know you don't like being the only one who has to keep us safe." Nyala sounded slightly ashamed. She started to say something else, then trailed off into a sigh and didn't continue.
Down below, Valey's prediction came true, the earth pony prevailing as he landed too many blows for the griffon to take and finally worked up the courage to take advantage of his position. Valey slipped back into her seat, giving Maple and Shinespark a yawn and settling in to watch the rest of the battles.
"Looks like it'll be a whole week before my next fight even gets scheduled, yep..." Valey rubbed the back of her head, using Nyala to create a break in the crowd of wandering ponies and standing with her friends around a massive series of bulletin boards containing tournament time schedule information. "Bananas. Makes sense, though. If almost a thousand of these dudes entered, or whatever, and you need to lose two in a row to get out... what are they gonna do, a hundred fights a day from dawn to dusk?"
"Those would have to be quick fights," Shinespark grunted, looking the board over for herself. "Even yours took more than ten minutes. They're doing this around the clock."
Valey shrugged, turning away. "And it's probably gonna be like this after the next one, too, because no one can get out this round. Oh well. At least the dudes who can get kicked out are up against dudes who have won a bit anyway. Probably gonna be a lot of fighters sent packing after that."
"At least?" Maple frowned. "I thought you were glad you'd get the time to think. Or are you looking forward to this now?"
"I mean..." Valey hesitated. "Maybe? To be honest, it did feel kinda good to clean that guy's clock. I am kind of a showoff."
Gerardo hummed. "An apt way of putting things, but at least you're self-aware. Not that I have any right to be talking. Hah!" He gave the boards a final once-over. "Anything else of interest we should be seeing here? Otherwise, we may as well return to the boat."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, there are way too many names here for me to find anything interesting and I dunno what I'm looking for in the first place. Dunno who any of these are, and do we really want to seek out every Wallace fight ever? This place will probably be even more packed when he's in the ring. Dude's popular."
"Indeed," Gerardo agreed. "Although, we do have a private box, and this is precisely what that is for..."
"Oh, our box runs for the duration of the event? Sweet." Valey licked her lips. "Wonder how much that cost." She shook her head. "Eh, doesn't matter. Boat?"
"Boat," Shinespark agreed, and they were off.
After an hour of crowds and walking, and a little more time spent navigating the familiar wharf, life had returned to normal aboard the Immortal Dream. Shinespark was in her room, Valey was napping or eating bananas or whatever, Jamjars was wherever she usually was, and Starlight contented herself with sitting in the library, running through titles of books on the shelves while she quietly practiced crystalling and un-crystalling a hoof.
"Starlight?" Maple appeared behind her, looking over a chair. "Doesn't that wear you out?"
"What, this?" Starlight held up her hoof, coated in a ball of faceted gemstone with a notch in one side. "Not really. Crystal isn't hard to make as long as I don't keep a lot of it out for a long time, and it doesn't get attacked or broken. I could do this all day. I'm practicing."
Maple came and sat down beside her. "Practicing something for Valey?"
Starlight tapped the notch. "Trying to make this shield so it can catch swords and not have them slide off. Hurting my horn is better than hurting my face." She frowned. "I can do the shape right when I concentrate. Now I just need to be able to do it fast enough without thinking."
With a small flash, the crystal vanished. Starlight lifted her hoof like she was blocking, angled her horn slightly down, and fired, a jet of energy reaching it and growing the crystal back over the course of a second. She made a face. "It's too slow. I can do it fast enough without the shape, or the shape without being fast enough, and I can't always have it because it makes it hard to walk."
Maple looked impressed. "You're putting a lot of effort into this. Is it like how you made those crystal mud boots back in Riverfall?"
"Sort of." Starlight shrugged, still looking at the book spines but not really paying attention. "Valey thought it would be cool if I could cover my entire body in armor. I did it once when we were back in Ironridge and I was by the flame, just to see what would happen, but my horn couldn't take a single hit if I did that with my own magic. It's too many parts at once. So now I'm trying to make what I need when I need it."
Maple hummed sadly. "You shouldn't have to learn to defend yourself like this. It sounds like you're good at it, though."
"Yeah, well..." Starlight frowned at the bookshelves. "You could give Valey's lessons more attention too, you know. She says you'd be good at it. I just want to do everything I can."
"Sorry, Starlight," Maple sighed. "I know it's hard, and... it makes me uncomfortable sometimes. But I know I should. I do have a knife in my cutie mark, just in case. If I got grappled, or..."
"You don't even have to practice," Starlight muttered. "Even if you knew things, it would help. Valey was telling me about kicking. Your hind legs are more powerful, but you can't see where you're aiming, and if you hurt your forelegs, it's easier to keep standing and move around than if you hurt the others. See?"
Maple gave her a smile that suggested she thought that was common sense, but was proud of Starlight anyway. "I'm glad you're learning, though. It must feel less worrying..."
Starlight huffed. "A lot of fighting is thinking about things you'd normally take for granted. If I threw something at you, what would you do?"
Maple blinked. "Catch it or dodge?"
"Mhm." Starlight nodded. "That's what everyone would do. So if all you have is something useless or harmless like a banana peel, you can throw it and make someone waste time doing that anyway, even though they could get hit by it and be fine." She looked at the books with flat ears. "Valey spent a day doing that to me until I learned to look at what was being thrown and then decide to dodge, and then said that was an exercise in thinking quickly and building reflexes. That's why I came home smelling like bananas a week ago."
"...That doesn't sound very fair." Maple drooped. "Starlight, Valey has a cutie mark that lets her tell when she's in danger and increases her reaction time. How is a normal pony supposed to look at a flying projectile, figure out whether it's dangerous and still have enough time to get out of the way? She shouldn't be trying to teach you a style that's reliant on her own magic. That isn't fair of her!"
"I don't know." Starlight flicked her tail in annoyance, realizing she was face to face with Sosa the Explorer's journal. "I did it. It took a whole day, but I could always know what she was throwing in time to take it or move. And why do I keep running into this dumb book?"
Maple stepped up closer as she pulled the book out and spat it into her hooves, frowning at its boring pages. "What book is this?" she asked. "Is that... I think I remember it?"
Starlight offered it to her in all its handwritten glory. "It's the most boring book in this entire continent," she pouted, aware she was exaggerating but feeling entitled to it. "Some pony eight hundred years ago or whatever wrote a bunch of poetry about how pretty the mountains were and left it as the only thing I had to read while I was sick in a cave. He was a jerk. Probably went insane from climbing around those mountains for years and years."
"This is kind of pretty," Maple murmured, reading a few pages under her breath. "The place he's describing, I mean. His style is kind of dense... I read some poetry in Riverfall, and I don't think this author is a very good poet. But the mountains sound nice."
Starlight sighed. "They'd have looked nicer if I hadn't been sick and alone with a broken horn and constantly been getting rained on."
Maple's ears folded, and she put the book down. "Sorry about that." She laid her muzzle in Starlight's mane and closed her eyes. "It's been so long ago, now, I kind of... don't think all that much about life before you arrived. You probably don't either, do you?"
"What's to think about?" Starlight shrugged. "No. I mean, I could. It's just a lot of boring things and then Sunburst, and probably a lot of things I thought were important before I knew the world had things like pirates and Yakyakistan and stupid guards."
"How about good things like celebrations?" Maple asked. "Maybe birthday parties? You've been here for over two months. You might have had a birthday in that time."
"My parents there didn't know when I was born," Starlight mumbled. "Since they technically adopted me too. So they celebrated when they adopted me instead. Which doesn't seem like an important date to celebrate anymore, anyway. And even if it was, I think it would be several months away. Maybe. I don't remember."
"Now that you mention it, that does make me wonder how old you are," Maple murmured. "I've always guessed, and only have a range to do that in..."
Starlight shrugged. "I think I was there for six years last time it was celebrated, and I don't remember anything from before I was adopted there. That's the best anyone knows."
Maple lifted her head in interest. "Really? That's younger than I was expecting. Unless you were three, maybe? So you could be eight or nine?" She frowned. "I would have thought you were ten or twelve."
"Older than that." Starlight picked up the book with her horn and stuffed it back onto its shelf. "Since I ran away more than three months ago, and that was six full years, not on the way to the sixth. And I sort of remember it. Sometimes. If you want to do math, you can say I'm ten if you want to, give or take a year, but it really doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," Maple hummed. "Maybe we should have a celebration anyway, just for you, since we don't know when else to have one. You always matter to me."
"So, hey." Valey stood in Shinespark's doorway, leaning against the frame. "It's been a day or two. I did my stuff, entered the tournament, won a battle. You wanna have that talk with Grenada?"
"Oh. Hey, Valey." Shinespark's ears folded. "I really do need to get around to that, don't I?"
Valey nodded. "Yup. I've talked it through and given you your hugs. Done some dumb stuff I told you I'd do. Now you gotta do your end. She's your sister. Go talk to her."
Shinespark briefly looked away.
"Or I'll carry you there, and if that doesn't work I'll tell her myself! Bananas, get moving!" Valey was suddenly behind her, pushing and shoving her side toward the door. "Come on! This is a great day for it. You've thought enough. Now scoot!"
Swallowing, Shinespark relented. "You know where she is?"
"No excuses, get moving." Valey pushed her through the door, entering the cabin corridor. "Probably in one of these things. Seriously, I am not cut out to be a therapist and made the effort anyway, so it's time for you to make a bit of effort too and check a few doors! Go on! Watch how easy it is!" She shoved open a door she knew was unoccupied, turning and grinning. "See? Boom."
"You sure are into this," Shinespark remarked, trying a door of her own. "Having a good day today? You... were a lot slower when we talked about this the other day."
Valey shrugged. "Too much? Be honest, here."
Shinespark bit her lip.
"Hey." Valey patted her on the back. "Yeah, I had a kinda exhilarating and overall not-so-bad day. Sorry if it's the wrong mood for the situation, but you look like you need a push."
"...No, you're right." Shinespark shook her head. "I do. Thanks, Valey. I'm..."
"Sweet." Valey stepped back after she trailed off, nodding three doorways down. "She's in that one. This is your show, but I'll be right here."
Shinespark swallowed again, taking a full minute to steel herself. "Thanks," she eventually managed, stepping forward as Valey sank watchfully into the shadows. "I can do this."
She knocked, and a voice replied, "Come in?"
"It's me." Shinespark slid the door open halfway, stepping through it and shutting it partially behind her.
Grenada sat in a chair at a tidy desk, her bed made and a map of Ironridge superimposed over the desk surface. It hadn't been altered for the damage from flooding. "Hello, Shinespark," she greeted, identical mane moving slightly as she turned her head, regarding Shinespark without an expression.
"Hello, Grenada," Shinespark sighed, looking for a place to sit. "Sorry. I've... left you without a good enough answer for over a month, now."
"The bed is fine." Grenada turned her chair so she could properly face her. "And it has been over a month, yes. Did you come to tell me you changed your mind?"
Now that she was in the room, Shinespark found talking easier. "No. Just that I made it up. I..."
"Didn't reciprocate my feelings," Grenada finished for her. "If you had then, you would have said so, and you don't grow to love someone by keeping them at length for a month. If you are here to tell me you'll try something on my behalf, I don't find that kind of capitulation attractive."
"I came to apologize, alright!?" Shinespark loudly cut her off, slamming the door the rest of the way closed with her horn. "For wasting time and avoiding you for a whole month after we came back from the dead for each other! I didn't... I..." She gritted her teeth. "I didn't think things through, buried too much from Ironridge, had no idea how to deal with it when it un-buried itself, and... I messed up. And I'm sorry."
Grenada folded her ears. "There is a lot more to you than the you I knew in Ironridge. I would have much rather spent that time getting to know you as friends and sisters than avoiding each other. You could have just told me how you felt instead of taking an entire month to show it."
Outside the door, Valey winced. Yep, Grenada was mad. She sat where she was, silently rooting for Shinespark.
"I could have, but I messed things up." Shinespark hung her head. "And like I said, I'm here to apologize. You're right that I don't reciprocate what you... felt for me, but if you want to know me, get used to seeing me like this. I'm not a knight in shining armor. I make giant mistakes, like this one, and like when I de-powered Braen and let you die in the first place."
For a moment, Grenada glowered at her, the expression eventually trailing off into uncertainty. "It's hard to be mad at you when you are doing all the work for me."
"Glad I could help." Shinespark kept staring at the ground. "I'm Shinespark. A kid who took on far more than she was capable of and made a lot of mistakes that hurt a lot of ponies, not Braen, the perfect leader and defender. You always used to call me that, whether I was in the armor or out of it. You didn't, just now."
Grenada kept watching.
"Braen is dead, by the way," Shinespark added. "As a persona and a concept. Even when I tried getting her back out to fight pirates, I messed it up and let a lot of Varsidelians and batponies get killed. If she's the one you were in love with... I'm the one you've got."
"Shinespark..." Grenada sighed. "I don't know what to say."
"Whether you're willing to be friends would be a place to start," Shinespark said. "What did you want me to do if I reciprocated? Just... be your knight? Or did you want to know me as more than a shining leader? Figure out what I was like under that?"
"Yes." Grenada swallowed. "The latter."
"Congratulations, then." Shinespark shrugged, no merriment in it. "I make mistakes. You now know that. One of them might have been hiding our real relationship from you for so long. Another was definitely this, and taking a month to get around to it."
Grenada frowned. "But you were the pony who stood for half of Ironridge, and if that was a lie, it was the best and most productive one I've ever seen! You made a difference for everyone. A big difference, Shinespark. And it is so frustrating, because I don't know how to see you. I'm not... I am not used to this."
"Well?" Shinespark looked up. "I'm sorry. Very sorry. And I have a lot of growth left to do and things left to learn about myself, but I do want you as a friend and a sister. Could we... keep trying? Can you forgive me?"
Grenada sighed. "It will take time. But I will try." She squeezed her eyes closed. "I need to think about things. We can see what happens."
Wordlessly, Shinespark nodded, shuffling to her hooves and closing the door again on her way out.
"Well, that could have gone better," Shinespark sighed, standing and staring at an empty wall.
One day had passed since she talked to Grenada. One day, and when she woke up, Grenada's room was tidy and empty, the mare nowhere to be found.
"...Maybe she'll come back?" Valey shrugged, standing a few paces behind.
Shinespark shook her head. "She's not the only thing that's missing. That prototype Braen armor I used for the pirate ship is gone, too. I left it here because it was a little banged-up after the fight and needed a new helmet, but... no one would take a suit of used armor specially fitted for me for no reason."
Valey nodded. "Well, she... kinda did sound mad at you, yesterday. No offense, but-"
"I deserved it," Shinespark finished, cutting her off. "I know. It's a mess."
"Hey." Valey stepped up beside her and put a wing over her back. "Look, if she's willing to steal something that important to you just to spite you, or whatever..."
"Not to spite me," Shinespark corrected. "To use it. I'm absolutely certain. We have exactly the same body type, so it will fit her perfectly. And Braen is an ideal she cares about which I no longer embody." She was steady for a moment, then accepted the hug. "The same mane, too. If she dyed it and her coat, we could be indistinguishable except for eye color. She probably... wants to do something very lonely and stupid." She looked down. "Just like I did for seven years."
Valey closed her eyes. "That isn't very cool at all. For either of you. Really stinks."
"Feels like I'm losing connections to Ironridge one by one," Shinespark admitted. "And then gaining new ones just so I can lose them again. Soon all I'll have is this ship. I've gone from a traveling last hope to a survivor and refugee, if I hadn't long ago."
Valey rocked her to get her attention, giving her a look. "And me. The rest of our friends are from wherever, but I'm from Ironridge too."
Shinespark chuckled with the tiniest note of enthusiasm behind it. "Well, I'm glad to have you."
"Likewise." Valey stepped back, looking her in the eye. "But you do have the rest of our friends, remember. Not just me. And I've kinda been your go-to pony about this. If it's going to be hard for you, you want to talk to the others as well? Ironflanks probably knows a bit about sister-friendship dynamics. Bananas, Nyala would know all about having an out-of-nowhere sister who would totally do anything for her, but stuff gets awkward whenever they're together and they just don't click like they used to. She could be great for this. And who knows what Birdo's past is filled with?"
"Slipstream and Jamjars, too," Shinespark continued. "And Starlight."
Valey made a face. "Yeah, probably don't go to Jamjars. And I dunno... Starlight might not be thrilled to give advice for how to deal with getting ditched out of the blue by a friend." She shrugged. "Slipstream? Who knows? I could totally go dredge up Grapejuice if you wanted to hang with her, too, though batpony society is probably too weird and I get the feeling that wouldn't go anywhere. Actually, though, Grapejuice might be great at figuring out where she's gone..."
Shinespark trembled, then sighed. "That's... all very good advice. Thank you, Valey." She took two steps, ears drooped. "I think I'll head up to the bridge. I'll be able to talk with you later, right?"
"Fifty-fifty." Valey rolled her shoulders. "I'm gonna head down to the kitchen to pig out on second breakfast, and might be in too much of a food coma after that to do anything but lay around and feel awesome. Unless you wanna lay around too, which is cool. See ya?"
"Later, Valey." Shinespark nodded, trotting slowly off toward the bridge.
"Aha! Our captain pays us a visit!" Gerardo waved lazily, reclining in the pilot's chair with the Immortal Dream's control panel dim behind him. He frowned, seeing Shinespark's somber expression. "Not everything is well, hmm?"
Nyala stood in her usual spot, tethered with a data cable to the ship's terminal. The room's only other occupant was Slipstream, who had fastened a hammock between a bulkhead and the edge of the control panel and appeared to have taken up permanent residence there. The ship's full-time bridge crew, they looked perfectly at ease with each other, and all looked up as one as Shinespark entered.
"Just wandering around. Trying to clear my head." Shinespark sighed, avoiding the copilot's chair and instead sitting on a long, closed supply chest for navigator's tools that served as a good bench. "I messed up with some things, and might need opinions."
"Opinions?" Slipstream was much more at ease with her status as part of the crew after several months of being aboard, and didn't even hesitate to ask. "I don't know what I'd have experience with, but you're welcome to ask."
Shinespark hung her head. "I messed up. With Grenada. She isn't here, and we don't think she's intending to return."
Gerardo winced. "An unfortunate turn of events. I've only loosely been following the situation, but I take it things didn't work out. My condolences."
"Grenada..." Slipstream folded her ears. "She was your half-sister who was with the pirates, right? Who said she had a crush on you?"
"That I fed into by treating her with too much favoritism in Ironridge," Shinespark continued, voice dull. "And didn't tell her about our relation until she had nearly died and we miraculously reunited and she wasn't even sure if that changed how she felt, and then I left her without an answer for a whole month so I could pretend things were the same and I didn't have a question to think about. Her."
"Hmm." Gerardo gave an apologetic frown. "Not an envious situation."
"You think?" Shinespark slumped on the bench, letting her shoulders out from beneath her. "Valey's been trying to help, but I wanted to talk to all my friends. See if you had anything to say." She dryly licked the inside of her mouth. "Not let Valey do all the heavy lifting. I don't know where I'd be without her."
Gerardo shrugged. "Odds are, still with your head in the sand and Grenada waiting on an answer, from what it sounds like." He blinked. "I... erm... may have walked past her room when you were discussing it the other day. You weren't exactly the most subtle."
"So what would you like us to do?" Slipstream tilted her head. "It sounds like everything's already happened that's going to happen, so now you're trying to deal with it and not feel bad about things?"
"Mhm." Shinespark nodded into her forelegs.
Slipstream bit her lip. "I was always that mare in school who enjoyed relationship drama. I have a lot of experience consoling others, but not when it's serious. All that was just for fun. I wouldn't want to mess up..."
"Couldn't complain about one mess-up earning another," Shinespark sighed, sitting back upright. "You have anything worth trying anyway?"
Slipstream folded her ears and turned a little pink. "Mostly a lot of tear-fueled rebound relationships that don't actually work..."
"That doesn't sound like a very good idea," Nyala remarked from the corner.
"Thank you for that." Gerardo nodded at her. "There are truths that are so obvious they should never be said, and then there are ones even more obvious that must be said at every turn! Regardless, if everyone is dry on ideas, I may have a story that could prove relevant, if you'd care to listen?"
Shinespark nodded, settling into a more comfortable position. "That sounds like something I'd like to do."
"Brilliant." Gerardo looked pleased with himself, folding his hind legs. "This is a tale from my days in Varsidel, venturing alongside a rather true companion named Winsom. Winsom was a llama, and by that I mean he was actually a camel but I took a vow one day to eternally refer to him as a llama because it annoyed him. We traveled together, Winsom and I, and one day we received tale of a mysterious northern ruin beset by plundering bandits..."
"Unfortunately for the bandits, the monster we had awakened was sapient enough to have a sense of decency and devoured their leader first. Winsom and I made like the wind, and the bandits tried to as well, but they were laden down with treasure and succumbed to collapsing stairways and falling ceilings one by one!" Gerardo narrated excitedly, posturing with his wings and talons. "Winsom and I escaped alone in the end, bricks from the falling entryway shaving several hairs from my tail! And of all the place's vast treasure, the only thing that made it out was a single gold coin tucked in Winsom's hat." He drooped sadly. "Which promptly was spent, by him, at a rather unsavory location the moment we got back to town... so really all we got is the story. But it's a good story, is it not?"
"I dunno, Gerardo." Slipstream rocked back and forth in her hammock, the gentle bobbing of the ship causing it to sway. "Sounds like it was just Tuesday for you."
"Heh. It was a good story." Shinespark nodded in appreciation, then tilted her head. "What's it have to do with me and Grenada, though? Something about your friendship with Winsom?"
Gerardo shrugged amicably. "Oh, nothing, really. But that's the point. Her ship has sailed and there's nothing you can do save for moving on, so you might as well have a good time of it. Did I successfully take your mind off things?"
Shinespark wanted to protest glumly, but caught herself. Talking about it more would definitely put her mind back on it, and he was right: she had stopped and enjoyed the story. "Thanks, Gerardo."
"My pleasure!" Gerardo beamed and held a talon fancifully to his neck. "Always gratifying to be of service to our captain."
"Mhm." Shinespark's tail twitched once, still laying on the tool chest. "Do you three talk a lot about Varsidel in here, then?"
"Definitely," Nyala answered from the side of the room. "I have no memories and Slipstream has few experiences, so we do a lot of listening. It's fun, hearing about so many things."
Gerardo bowed. "And I did spend the better part of a decade traveling Varsidel's cities and sandscapes. It's hardly the only thing I have to speak on, but it's a popular one."
Slipstream giggled. "When I try telling stories, they're mostly secondhoof ones about things that have happened to travelers I met at the skyport. You hear a lot of the craziest things, working at a helpdesk. Other than that, my life has just been typical teenager stuff. It's not all that special."
Gerardo grinned. "Says the self-proclaimed normal to the runaway, the amnesiac and the child ruler. Your experiences are just as out there and interesting as any of ours, and I've said it every time you take the storytelling wheel."
"But I..." Slipstream blushed. "I mean, you're a much better storyteller than me..."
"At least you have stories to tell," Nyala countered. "You're much luckier than me. I love it when you talk."
Shinespark smiled, still sitting to the side. "It's nice how our crew is big enough that we can have circles of friends for everyone. You all sound like you have a good time up here."
"Oh, it's very much enjoyable," Gerardo confidently assured her. "Perhaps a little self-indulgent, pandering to my love of having an audience, but it's a two-way street when these two love being one! How about you, though?" He shrugged toward the window, the sun still climbing in the sky. "Since you're here, care to share a story of your own? We've practically sanctified the walls of this room with shared thrills and excitement and knowledge, and would love to have you join us."
"...I could." Shinespark tilted her head. "What would you like to hear about?"
Gerardo beamed and bowed, flourishing with a wing. "Absolutely whatever you have to say. Surely there must have been interesting happenings as the leader of Sosa, and I believe you were in the business of listening to your subjects and hearing their woes, as well? You could make like Slipstream and tell someone else's story if you feel it's worthwhile. Or..." He taloned his chin. "Have I ever heard the story of origin behind your brand? I recall yours was quite special, after all. Surely it had an interesting way in which it manifested as well."
Shinespark lifted her head, looking back at her orange flank. "I'm not sure I've told it, actually. And we certainly thought it was special..." She sighed. "It made me so similar to a folk hero, I decided to be one too. But I could tell that. Sure."
Everyone settled back to listen, Gerardo reclining in the pilot's chair and Slipstream rocking in her hammock. Nyala turned her head so it would look more like she was listening, and Shinespark took a long breath, stirring her memories.
"It was around seven years ago, I think," she began. "I was twelve, so that's right. It was right before Arambai left Ironridge. Times were getting hard and everyone was worried, and the moon glass had fallen and Sosa was under a lot of pressure... I had started finding out more about just how bad our problems were. One night, Dior and I snuck out and walked all the way to the Sky District, where they were still working on the skyport. We... brought all the Sosan employment records we could possibly carry and slipped into the construction offices, just two random fillies no one would recognize. I think I even dyed my mane. I was a real firebrand as a kid. Too much energy and enthusiasm."
She swallowed, gaze trailing off into the past. "We got the attention of someone... I don't even know who, or how high up. And then we tried to explain they were hurting us and our friends and families and loved ones down in Sosa. We thought we had a case in the way only two dumb kids could, and they looked at us for a whole second and then shooed us away. Wouldn't even give us the time of day, much less a reply. Couldn't even dignify us with a no."
Her teeth had started to grit in pain. "We also... I don't know if you were around him long enough to notice, but Dior has a permanent limp in one hind leg? It's not very severe, but you can notice it if you're looking."
Gerardo hummed. "I noticed that when I first saw him. I mistook it as potential damage from my sword, since I believed him to be Braen at the time. That has to do with this?"
Shinespark nodded. "Thinking that was Braen was just a coincidence. That was... from an injury that had to do with this. I'm still not sure I want to talk about that part, but you can easily use your imaginations."
"Two unwelcome foals in a mountaintop construction zone..." Slipstream gravely nodded.
"Yeah." Shinespark just looked away, then back at Gerardo. "Regardless, I got my cutie mark while I was carrying him home. First got to complaining, then thinking, and then I got excited about the prospect of Sosa making airships for itself, to beat out their competition and make them go away. And suddenly, Dior was yelling in my ear to go back down. And that's when I realized I had it."
"...Huh," Slipstream murmured.
Shinespark nodded. "It's a mark that means a lot of things. Letting me fly and making me like a hero are almost side-effects, I think. I originally got it for wanting to build airships, and us doing experiments on it was the backbone of how we built this technology. Being able to build this ship is what it was really for."
"That's quite special," Gerardo remarked, a smile on his face. "Then again, tales of brands usually are, what with their scarcity... but that's not to devalue your experiences. Thank you for sharing that."
Shinespark folded her ears. "It was no problem."
"Well." Gerardo cleared his throat, resetting the subject. "I'm not exactly sure how to follow that, but... who wants to hear about the time Winsom got in a turnip-eating contest with the head of a syndicate that had established ownership of an oasis town?"
"...Really?" Valey squinted, standing at one edge of the colosseum arena, another week behind her and entering her next match. "You're my next match?"
"Y-Yes?" A small earth pony trying to hide behind her mane squeaked uncertainly from the opposite side, looking as small as possible.
Valey frowned, sensing a tingle of danger from her. Whatever her deal was, she wasn't too cowardly to attack... but she decided to play along. "You sure about that? You look a little, uhh..."
"I can't help it, okay!?" the enemy mare squealed, reddening under the pressure. "I-I was never even expecting to make it out of pools, but the best fighter got disqualified and another broke his leg and I just got taken to the shed by a unicorn the size of a moose! I've never been here before!"
"Woah. Cool sob story." Valey blinked, feeling the danger mounting: this was definitely a ruse. "I mean, I think you're allowed to just walk away? I won't say no to a free win."
The mare sadly curled her lip, looking innocent and vulnerable and very much about to pounce on the first hint of mercy she was shown. Valey growled internally; she was cute, too. This was a dirty trick.
Good thing she knew how to play dirty too.
Howe motioned emphatically from the sidelines for the match to start, and Valey strolled forward, speaking. "I mean it. If fighting's that hard on you, you can just chill and sail straight on into round three, right? You could just bail. I can pound dudes good. Like, would it help if I promised to go light on you, or something?"
The small mare trembled. "I-I was watching when you beat up that stallion last week. Garfield... I'm really in for it, aren't I?"
"Nah, take it easy, kid." Valey stepped into sucker punch range. "Seriously. I can make this quick, gentle, or both. Both sound nice? 'Cuz all that involves is stepping out of the ring..."
"Urk..." The mare tensed as she got close, and that danger spiked. Here it came...
Instead of an answer, the mare threw herself at her in what looked like a hug. "Waaaaah!" she cried, interrupted halfway through by Valey's cutie mark... Time stopped, freezing her in midair.
Valey frowned, sizing her up. Where was the threat? It was... there! Three knives, one in each forehoof and one in her mouth. They must have been hidden in her mane, which was blocking her face and forehooves... A dirty trick, indeed. She wondered just how many more-skilled fighters had fallen for this for her to get this far, and also wondered what she was doing with weapons in the first place. Why hadn't she been offered the chance to take a weapon in the arena?
Time resumed, and Valey moved with perfection. S-Snap! Her wings shot out, expertly disarming the mare's hooves while appearing to any onlooker to meet her in a comforting hug. Her teeth moved as well, delicately grasping the flat of the mouth knife, then using her greater size and strength to snap that weapon from her as well. With a clatter of silver, the metal bounced away in the arena, and the danger in her mark faded.
"Yeah. It's rough, isn't it?" Valey murmured, smoothly throwing the mare so she had a hoof behind her back, appearing as a gentle hug yet perfectly angled to be a powerful and inescapable grapple. Her target hissed and whimpered in frustration, but Valey hummed, drowning them out. "Come on. Let's get you somewhere less-stressful..."
Pinning her with a leg and both wings, Valey hobbled to the arena edge, carrying her with her. "Surrender," she breathed in the mare's ear. "You really don't want me to stop playing along, here."
"Ouch..." her opponent whined in her grasp. "P-Please don't card me..."
"What, the Regent stuff? Nah, you're cool. But you might wanna shape up your act, or someone else is gonna recognize you and be ticked enough to ban you, because bananas if you haven't done this before." Valey reached the edge of the ring, patting her on the head. "Now shoo!"
She released the mare and stepped back, giving her a fond look for the crowd but making it very clear there was an inescapable punch aimed at her face if she did anything but leave. The mare drooped, returning to hiding behind her mane. "Thanks. I'll g-go now..."
And go she did, slinking out of the ring and back down the tunnel she had come from.
"That's right, ladies and gentlemares, we've got a victor," Howe exploded, raucously commentating and pumping his wings from nearby. "Behooold!"
"Admiral Valey, the terror and savior of Ironridge!" Neon Nova's voice added from the loudspeakers. "Biz-zoww! Flooring opponents with style and grace so hard there isn't even a fight, she's past the second wave without even breaking a sweat! I'll be honest: my heart went out for that poor little mare, and she just showed them a whole new side of combat!"
"It's almost as if problems can be solved with friendship," Howe loudly muttered, eyes shining with conspiracy. "Let me tell you, my glorious audience, what I beheld with my very eyes: the most gentle whupping of my career! That mare didn't even get maimed, disfigured, flattened or have a single one of her vital organs rearranged! Truly, this is a day of smiling fate."
"You said it, brother-of-mine!" Neon Nova backed him up, pausing for a moment as he probably posed up in his commenting booth. "A whupping! Hey, Admiral! How about your thoughts on the match?"
Valey shrugged, wandering over to Howe's outstretched rapier-microphone. "Eh. She seemed nice enough. Hope stuff works out for her."
"Showing dignity to vanquished opponents." Howe shook his head in awe. "Well, we mustn't delay! Go, uhh, take a load off in the break room and all that, prospective future champion. Now, for our next lineup, we have Stormhoof's most aggressive chef, Guy Who Fry, versus a shadowy challenger..."
Valey didn't need to be asked twice. She slipped from the arena like a blur, pausing only briefly to wave at the sounds of cheering before vanishing into the tunnel to the preparation room.
"Whew," she finally panted, bathed in darkness again. Howe and Neon... at least they were doing this for every good fighter, but still, did they mind? She didn't need attention drawn to her! She was trying to slip as far as she could undetected, not become a sensation! Even if it did feel good...
"Hey, Dawg," a drawling voice greeted from behind.
"Buh?" Valey blinked, looking up and hopping to her hooves. "Hey?"
A green-and-gold earth pony who looked like he whistled a lot nodded at her in approval, flipping up his shades and offering a friendly hoof. "You were wicked out there, girl! Saw you turn Garfield to meat a week ago, and whew, I'm glad to say we're on the same side for now..." He chuckled nervously. "Still just bush-league scrubs, but we're past the first cut! That counts big-time. Means we actually got a right to be here. Anyhoo, wanted to let you know some cool homies of mine are having a party in one of the break rooms over there. A little old 'we survived' shindig. You know... so some of us who stand a chance could get to know each other early enough that we're still allies in this madness. Whew." He shook his head, hoof still outstretched.
Valey uncertainly bumped it. He registered as just a bit of a flake to her... or maybe not a flake, and he was genuine but just acted like one? No danger whatsoever; he was honest about any well-wishes. "A party, huh?" She shrugged. "Yeah, sure, I'll drop by for a few minutes. Never gonna say no to free food."
Following her nose, Valey trotted down a corridor after her maybe-friend, relaxing a little at the lack of danger and wondering if this friendly after-party was actually just a friendly after-party. The shades-wearing stallion turned through one side door, then another, stepping into a loud, brightly-lit room with an unreasonably large couch and a screen showing the arena on the far wall.
"Yo!" He stomped a hoof twice, heralding his arrival. "Kaptain Kannonball in the house! And lookie who I brought!"
Everyone in the room perked up. A pair of bandanna-wearing griffonesses on the couch who might have been twins climbed over each other to look, and an obese unicorn with an eyepatch lifted his face from the refreshment table with a quick belch. In one corner, a pegasus with a mask over his muzzle opened a single eye, hanging by his tail from the ceiling, and a shape Valey didn't have time to identify ducked behind the couch and out of sight.
"Uhh... hey?" Valey folded her ears, the attention in the room giving her second thoughts. "I'm that famous, huh?"
One of the griffons, the one with the bandanna around her neck, whistled cheerfully. "Girl, you rocked your fights! Cap, how'd you get a big-leaguer in here to hang with us?"
Kannonball rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof, turning the slightest shade of pink. "Aww, you know. My usual wiles."
"Uhhhhhh..." Valey blinked.
The other griffon adjusted her bandanna around her head and flipped off the couch in an appreciable show of dexterity. "Whew. You're the one the commentators are always freaking out over! One of the ones, at least. Quite the pair they got this year, huh? Name's Tasha. Pleased to meet ya."
The stallion in the corner gave her one more look. "Todd. And likewise." Then he went back to drinking.
"Cool, cool..." Valey stayed in the doorway. "So you're just, like, hanging out?"
"Aww. You're making her nervous, Cap." The neck-bandanna griffon giggled, hopping off the couch as well and shoulder-shoving Kannonball away before extending a talon. "Carla. And yep. We're just some lower-class fighters who thought we'd celebrate making the first cut. Not sure how far we're gonna go, so we might as well enjoy it while we can, right?"
The pegasus in the corner grunted, voice deep and raspy. "In the past, three-quarters of challengers in the second round are defeated within two rounds. Being here now proves you're not weak."
Tasha flicked a feather at him. "That's Mundungus. But don't call him by it, or he'll get mad. He prefers his stage name."
"I don't know why I even hang with you," Mundungus grunted, turning on his tail so that his back was to everyone.
Valey blinked. She almost spoke up when Kannonball cut her off: "So yeah, it's not much, but we've got a nice little crew going here, don't we? All these homies wear their hearts on their sleeves. Not so hard to see what they're like. Ain't that right, Dung?"
"Put a sock in it."
"Huh." Valey nodded along, not entirely sold on the friendliness of certain members. The griffons certainly seemed nice, at least. "Well, I'm not exactly trying to draw attention to myself, but if you want me to stay..." She sniffed. "Seems like there's good snacks, at least. And I could do with hanging out a little. Sure, why not?" She shrugged, once again determining there was no danger in the room and satisfying herself with that. Having to be on edge all the time was a pain.
"Not trying to draw attention to yourself?" Carla looked politely flabbergasted. "Girl, what? Aren't you that celebrity from the other month with Ironridge? Those commentators are going wild over it, and I remember your face in the papers!" She pointed a talon. "We got that news as far away as Wilderwind!"
"Maybe..." Valey folded her ears, noting as she entered that there was a hefty weapons rack by the door. "You know those bozos are from Ironridge too, though, right? Or at least were there when all that stuff went down?"
Todd blinked, his attention finally captured from the drink table in the corner. "You know them?"
Valey shrugged. "What, Howe and Neon Nova? I might have beat them up a time or two. They were... uhhh..." She blinked, wondering just how much to say. "Might be more accurate to say they know me?" She kept walking, moving to see who had ducked behind the couch.
Tasha quickly caught on, leaning over and grabbing with a talon. "Hey, horse girl, don't be shy! Check it, you've got a new friend!"
She pulled up, and Valey blinked hard, suddenly finding herself face-to-face with a very nervous Senescey. "Buh?"
Senescey smiled uncertainly, trying to look small.
"Wait, you're here?" Valey blinked harder, tilting her head. "Hold on, you're not-"
In a flash, Senescey was free from the talon around her neck and had darted to Valey's side, holding a wing over her back and leaning against the couch. "Oh, Valey and I go way back!" she laughed, pausing between breaths to whisper in her ear, "Don't tell anyone I know Mistvale arts."
Valey didn't break stride, not wanting to throw her acquaintance under the cart and knowing exactly what a monk in that position could do to her even if she did. "Yeah. One of the first friendly faces I met in the Empire, actually." She tried to slip away a little so they could make eye contact. "Seriously, though, you're here? That's, uhh. That's really cool."
The unspoken promise that they'd talk later passed between them, and they turned back to the rest of the room. "Heh," Senescey managed, still looking flustered. "I guess I know another person here, as well!"
Kannonball nodded sagely. "We're not the tightest-knit bunch, but there are ways. It's why Dung is here. He may act grumpy, but he knows half the people in this room!"
Mundungus harrumphed, and Tasha shot him a grin. Valey blinked at everyone.
"Well? Do you want to eat, watch, chat? Or just... hang?" Carla gave the pegasus a very quick glance as well. "We're just trying to have a good time, here."
"Just hanging is good." Valey slipped closer to the refreshment table, detecting some kind of cheesy bean dip and a big bowl of punch that somehow wasn't alcoholic. "And getting some of this. And making use of that huge couch. Don't mind me, though. Just carry on, and stuff."
The most socially-oriented in the room took the hint and didn't press her, and those who weren't suave enough to notice fortunately had other things to think about. Valey settled into the couch with Senescey by her side, aware the mare was watching her. They would have to talk.
Senescey shadow snuck in an area of the corridor that was dim enough to allow it... which was honestly most of the colosseum. A slatted drainage grate for water spills yielded before her and she slipped through, Valey following along behind.
"Whew..." Looking shaken, Senescey landed on her hooves in a smaller sewer tunnel, beckoning Valey to follow her away from the gray light misting down from the ceiling. "Alright. It should be quiet enough to talk here. First off: I'm so, so sorry about that..."
Valey nodded, waiting to see what part of everything this was an explanation for.
Senescey nervously brushed her mane. "That was sooo awkward... You really didn't have to stay and sit with a room full of complete strangers for a whole hour. A-Anyway. Where do I begin?"
Valey shrugged. "Seems easy enough. What are you doing here? Sure didn't expect to see you in this tournament. And what was so secretive about it that you had to shush me for?"
"I..." Senescey swallowed. "Maybe we could save that one for last? The short answer is because I can and because I have something to fight for. All of my sisters and I want to improve the fortunes of sarosians across the Empire. I'm probably not good enough to make it all the way, but it's trying that counts. Anyway. About that party..."
She folded her ears, still looking horribly awkward. "Mundungus is an... acquaintance from Gyre. The twins and Todd and everyone else are all connected through him, sort of, except that Kannonball guy who showed up with you. He spells his name with a K, by the way. He's a drinking buddy of Todd's, and might have been invited while Todd was... you know. So he didn't get that that was a closed-invite get-together between friends, even if the twins are outgoing enough to try to make it friendly anyway. I'm really sorry about that."
"Bananas. That stinks." Valey bit her lip. "Wow, yeah, sorry for being a party-crasher. Maybe you should have just thrown the yellow guy out? Or, uhh..." She blinked. "Hold on, I thought you said you already moved to Izvaldi like twenty-something years ago. You're old enough to have friends from back then?"
Senescey nodded. "Not friends, though I do have some hazy memories. Felicity knew him. They ran together as foals. But do you really want to know about this?"
Valey blinked. "Do I? What do you mean?"
"That gets back to things," Senescey sighed. "You wonder why an orphaned sarosian, a street thug from Gyre, a pair of mercenaries from Wilderwind, and a big, innocuous boozehound are hanging out at a private party rich enough to afford a screen to watch the fights on? And why I asked you not to talk about how I fight? The last bit was because I know that guy would gossip, but still?"
"You know, now that you mention it... Yeah." Valey rubbed her forehead. "I thought mana energy was crazy expensive in this place, yet they've got that big hologram and the loudspeakers and now you've got that screen..." She frowned. "I figured the first two were, like, gifts from the capitol, or something, since they're running this show. You have connections to the tournament organizers, or something?"
Senescey bit her lip. "I... look. I can trust you, right?"
Valey sized her up. Her cutie mark held only the faintest tingle; combined with reading her face, it was plain that Senescey was scared and trying not to feel cornered. Their eyes met, and Valey suddenly felt like she was looking in a mirror at herself from a month ago: getting drawn in deeper to something she wanted no part of yet felt like she had to do. This was someone who was trying to stay safe and was having everything unravel due to pure bad luck.
"Bananas, yeah." She nodded, quickly making up her mind. "Just so you know, I'm actively not looking for trouble, but I really don't wanna throw you under the cart. You were cool when I needed it."
Senescey breathed a nervous sigh of relief. "A-Alright. My sisters and I... are up to something. Something a lot bigger than just us, and the people in that room sans Kannonball are allies. When I invited you over the other week, we were sizing you up, Valey. We'd heard about you and thought you might want to help us. And after talking to you, it was close. We really, truly thought you'd agree with and appreciate what we're trying to do... something that involves me fighting in this tournament. But we also thought you've been through a lot, and really didn't want to get deeply involved, in over your head, or in any place that could come down on your friends. It was so close we even slipped up a little. You remember things getting awkward, how we talked about what we were up to at night. Felicity was lying about what she did with the prince, by the way. That was just testing the waters. But... do you understand?"
Valey blinked. "Uhhh... Well. What are you going to do now?"
Senescey wilted. "Ask you plainly if you'd like to know more. Do you? If you do, I'll tell you everything... but there will be no going back. Even if I think you'd help us."
Valey paused for all of a second and then shook her head. "Thanks, but nah. Honestly, I might regret this later, since me and my friends apparently do have a knack for world-saving. You know. If you have any idea what my idea of a big conspiracy is... but we're staying out."
Senescey trembled. "Then we made the right call. So now that you know that I know things that are dangerous..."
"Nah. You're cool." Valey put a wing around her back. "I mean it. First friendly face I saw in the Empire, you know? And I've kinda been there too, with the whole 'secret plans blowing up in your face' kinda deal. Don't really wanna wish that on you. And you're pretty high-strung right now. You look like you need it."
"Ohh, thank you..." Senescey hugged her fully back, melting into her and starting to tear up. "You have no idea how much that means to me. So... we can still be friends?"
Valey patted her on the back. "Like I said. You look like you need it."
For a moment, Senescey stayed there. "That makes you the best friend I have who isn't also a business partner. Thank you so much... Come on, Senescey. Pull yourself together." She sat up, wiping a hoof across her yellow eyes. "I really appreciate it, though. Thank you. You... have no idea how many different ways this conversation could have gone that would have ruined me."
"Actually, I kinda do." Valey nodded, sitting back and trying to look at ease. "Ironridge, remember? Still no clue how much the dudes here know about that, but I'm not a stranger to the ways gigantic conspiracies can go wrong and what it feels like when they're falling apart around you. Seriously. I have a friend from back then who kinda trusted me even though I told them point-blank it was a bad idea and I knew a ton of creepy stuff. So if you're telling me this is for a good cause..."
"I already told you what the cause is." Senescey wiped her eyes. "We're trying to make things better for sarosians in the Empire. Without a lot of collateral damage or making things worse for anyone else. We don't want to turn the tables, just even them. And... it's complicated, and there's a lot of pressure." She sniffed. "Could we hang out sometime? Just as a break? Sorry I'm a mess right now, but I'm still reeling from how many ways this could have gone badly."
"Yeah. I'd be down with that." Valey gave her a confident grin. "Anyway. I'm gonna go chill with my friends from Ironridge. We've got a private box with an outdoor view. If you wanna come hang out up there any time, I'll make sure it's less awkward than the thing we just left. See ya?"
Senescey smiled back. "Thanks again, Valey. This is a huge weight off my mind."
"Cool. See ya."
Valey disappeared, slipping back down the tunnel to the grate and then up the wall, trotting quickly back toward Starlight's smell.
A full minute after Valey disappeared from sight, Senescey was still standing there, daring herself to smile.
"Congratulations," a voice softly echoed behind her.
She turned slowly, regarding a pair of slitted eyes that opened in the darkness. "Prince," she murmured, bowing.
"Me!" Gazelle stepped forward until his outline was visible, giving a catlike stretch. "How are things, my little pony? I couldn't help but eavesdrop, and you look like you needed that."
Senescey nodded, her ears folding. "She'd make a good ally, but... I can do this. You can count on me, Prince." She stood straight again. "Can I say I'm glad that this happened, though? That she's not involved, but is willing to be my friend anyway?"
Gazelle purred, slinking up alongside her. "Leave all the logistics to me. You be glad. You've done a wonderful job of things so far. And if you'd like her as a proper ally at a later date, I can certainly arrange that. Remember, I'm deferring to your expertise in this field..." His eyes glinted with the promise of a job he wanted done well and knew better than to get in the way of.
Senescey stiffened slightly. "I can do this! I wouldn't have said yes if I couldn't. I swear it on the Night Mother."
"Wonderful. Holding up your end of everything, I see." Gazelle gave a full-toothed smile. "Well, I'll be on my way. Nothing like enjoying the present, after all. And take a load off, sometime! You've got nothing to worry about for a long time yet!"
"I-I'll do that." Senescey nodded as he left, strolling away down the sewer corridor. A long moment passed, and she was left once again in darkness.
"Mother..." She looked down, tensing her wings and holding up a hard hoof. "We'll avenge you. I promise."
"Is everything alright? You look a little subdued."
Maple settled into one of the plush chairs in the Immortal Dream's library, looking across at Valey after the long walk back from the colosseum. She nodded after the question, inviting her friend to sit too. "Something went wrong with the fight? Or is the amount of attention Howe and Neon Nova are bringing on you getting concerning already? If it helps, they do that to all the fighters, and I haven't had anyone recognize or notice me for anything related to the tournament."
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "Oh, nah, I'm good. Ran into someone else who almost wasn't, though. Kinda feeling a little lucky it wasn't me."
"Oh?" Maple tilted her head to listen, but only for a second, figuring if it was something that needed to be talked about, Valey would do so. Starlight wandered past, and Maple reached a hoof out to her as she went by.
"Yeah." Valey took the invitation, flopping upside-down in a chair with her hindquarters in the air and her mane dangling to the floor. "You know those dudes we went and visited the other week? Senescey and her sisters?" She waited for Maple to nod, then continued. "And remember how it kinda seemed like they were up to something? Turns out they're totally up to something after all." Her tail flicked. "And whatever it is involves Senescey being in the tournament. Seemed to think it was pretty important. And I'm pretty sure I trust them when they say they've got good intentions, since they were respectful enough to leave me out of it and not get all of you dragged into it too."
Maple frowned. "I see. I can... think of a lot of ways that could bother you, honestly."
"Because it felt like looking in a mirror?" Valey gave a halfhearted upside-down grin, bracing herself in the chair with her wings so she didn't slide out. "Get this: she had some friends she was working with. They have a hangout. Probably want to discuss some stuff. Then one of them isn't all there, invites a dude who's even less all there, that dude doesn't even know it's supposed to be private at all and starts inviting random strangers, everyone else tries to roll with that to not look suspicious... and the first person he picks up is me. Who already knows someone in that group and is all 'Hey, what are you doing here?' Sound familiar?"
"Should it?" Maple blinked, slowly thinking.
Valey chuckled sadly. "That's the sound of being in too deep, thinking you've still got things under control, and then the slightest little thing goes wrong and suddenly stuff spirals out of control and you get drawn deeper. Bananas, I felt bad for her."
Starlight frowned, sitting down where she could see both of them. "So what was she doing?"
"I dunno." Valey licked her lips. "She offered to tell me, but like I was gonna press her there. Poor girl needed a break." She glanced up at Maple. "Besides, I know a thing or two about trusting shady batponies even when it's a bad idea. That's not to say it's not a bad idea, but... I dunno. Not something I want to get involved in, and she was majorly relieved."
"I'm glad it worked out, then?" Maple tried a smile, rolling over so she sat on her other side. "So you're just thinking about how that could have been you, hmm?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Valey slipped an inch further down the chair, struggling uselessly to get back in and settling for falling out, getting up and sitting back down normally. "I kind of wanna..." She rolled the words around in her mouth, tasting them. "I feel like doing something, to be honest. Like maybe we could take her to lunch here or hang out for a day on the mainland or... I dunno. She was thrilled enough that I offered to be her friend even after I didn't wanna be in on her plan, I feel like she could use a break more often." She twiddled her hooves. "Is that making sense?"
"How sure are you you want to be her friend?" Starlight asked from the floor. "Maple gave you a chance and you were worth it, but we also got involved in everything happening in Ironridge and nearly died several times. And we've been happy and not bothered by any guards for over a month now. Don't you think that could happen again?"
Maple glowed for a moment at Starlight's implication that being friends with Valey was worth nearly dying, even if it chilled her slightly that her filly could be so casual about such a subject. "You're right..."
Valey stroked her cheek with a wingtip, thinking. "Yeah, but what about, uhh... what about Elise, in Ironridge? Remember her? Sparky's big sister in Blueleaf? She hung around and gave us a break, especially you guys. Several times, even. And she did have to get her hooves a bit dirty at the end, but for the most part, her thing was that she was at the center twenty years ago. She was in yesterday's mess, kind of like we are now with Ironridge. And we barely even told her about what was going on with ourselves. You don't think we could just be like her and be cool and stable and helpful without actually putting our necks where they'd get whacked, do you? Because I want to."
"That's a good point," Maple admitted, murmuring. "Elise did help us a lot, even if it was just to give us a roof during a rainstorm and tell us a story to help us understand Ironridge better. She seemed like the kind of pony I wouldn't mind being like at all."
"Eh, I'm sure she has skeletons in her closet just like anyone else." Valey fluttered her wings, restlessly rolling around in her chair. "But yeah, definitely what I was hoping to do. Also, this is completely unrelated, but bananas, did you see my fight today?"
Maple grimaced, accepting the change in topic. "Was that what it looked like? She just... What was a pony like that doing in the arena?"
"Cheating." Valey shrugged. "I was wondering what that looked like from the hologram thingy. That jerk had knives hidden in her mane and was trying to trick others into lowering their guard. Seriously glad I keep my cutie mark under wraps and never tell anyone here about how it works, because when enemies don't know I know what they're up to... I might have gotten stabbed without it. Or have had to be really callous and just not trust her. I honestly didn't know what to do, though. Don't want to make enemies, right? So would I make her less mad by seeing through her act and revealing it, showing any future opponents who are watching what she's made of? It's not like she won't get spotted and remembered after doing that more than a few times anyway. Or should I have done what I did and played along? It must have been humiliating, but it was better for her chances in the long run. Not that she's getting anywhere, fighting like that."
"So that's what she was doing." Maple swallowed, listening stoically as Valey complained. "I... don't really have a good answer for that, I guess."
"Yeah. Not like I was losing, and I definitely don't wanna get stabbed." Valey stuck out her tongue, protectively ruffling her chest fluff. "I'm way too cute for that. Oh well. Probably just standard luck for this place. I do feel cheated out of a real fight, though."
"I wouldn't worry too much about that," Maple chuckled. "There will probably be a lot of fights that are almost too real at the rate you're going."
Valey sidestepped a blow that shook the platform, her opponent wielding surprising strength for his size. He had an idea of how to use it, too, never getting stuck in a bad landing as he jumped and hopped around. It wasn't hard to notice the green glow of his magic surrounding his legs; the unicorn was using his aura to enhance his jumps and speed. Smart... She guessed it wasn't common to practice against an opponent who used tactics like that.
Rather than taunting, she held her tongue, forgoing flashy backflips in favor of stepping out of the way so she could keep her eyes on him. This pony tried to mix up his fighting style. He clearly knew the dangers of being predictable... but he was still a one-trick pony, and she had dodged him for long enough to realize that trick's limits. No matter how he jumped and darted, she was expending far less energy, and he was growing tired first. At this rate, he would lose from attrition. He had to sneak something past her, and thanks to her cutie mark, Valey knew exactly when it was coming.
Flash! With a pulse of energy, he dug his hooves into the stage and reversed momentum on a dodged counterattack far faster than should have been possible. Valey was halfway through a hoof swing meant to scare him away when he was already on his way back... and by the time he was able to look where he was going, she had converted her own momentum into a double-rear kick. With a nasty thwack to his jaw, the unicorn toppled backwards, hit by an attack that should have been far too risky for him to see coming.
"Gotcha!" Valey was beneath him before he even landed, ready to juggle him with a flurry of blows and keep him airborne until he surrendered.
"Nope, sorry!" Amber's voice chirped over the sound stone, Valey and Maple reclining in the Immortal Dream's observation room with the artifact sparkling in front of them. "Willow sends her best wishes, but she still isn't able to talk. I promise you'll see why in a week or two, though. This time I really promise!"
Maple smiled faintly. "Amber, we've already gone over this, and if there are secrets you need to keep..."
The stone went dim, and Maple sighed. "The last time she got like this was in the months leading up to my twenty-third birthday. She disappeared for long stretches of time each day, was extremely secretive, was cheerful every time someone confronted her about it... and it turned out she was spending that time making me a present. The girl built a small dock, all by herself, a mile or so south of Riverfall on the stream leading to the mountains... as a monument to our trip that way, that I could walk to whenever I missed the way things could have been. Not that we used it, of course. That wasn't long before I... You know. But still, it's exactly like she's being now. She knows she's suspicious and she has a surprise..." Her smile returned. "So don't worry about her, okay? I know Amber, and that's what's going on."
"Cool..." Valey nodded. "That's cool. Bananas, I just wish I could figure her out too."
Valey matched a punch from a huge boxing glove with a punch of her own, feeling her legs skid as her hooves failed to find sufficient purchase on the stage. Okay, not the way to do that! She ducked the next blow, a potbellied griffon with a spiky crest mercifully armoring his talons with padded, fingerless gloves. She could contest them without getting stabbed, at least.
Whizz! Swish! She dodged two more in rapid succession. This griffon loved punches, and knew his way around them, but what else could he do? She knew better than to underestimate fighters for being old, but he wasn't giving her the feel of aged wisdom. Time to turn those strengths against him!
Pop! Another jab shot forward, and Valey took it with her chest, grabbing on and hugging the big boxing glove with both forelegs. Served him right for copying her cutie mark. The griffon's muscle memory was too ingrained for him to react, and as he pulled the fist back, she shot along with it, curling her back upwards and bringing her hind legs up for a kick. With a smash, the griffon saw stars, and she relieved him of his glove, swapping it out as her hat and finishing him with a mighty boxing-gloved headbutt. "Yaaaaaaa!"
"Look! Hey, look, Mom, it's her!" A bouncing, excitable pegasus colt knocked at a mare who was evidently his mother, finding himself dragged back by her aura. "She's the cool one who fought Uncle!"
Valey blinked, folding her ears amid the crowd as she tried to exit the colosseum into Stormhoof proper. "Yeah...?"
"Honey, please, it's not nice to draw attention to sarosians like that." His mother nipped him behind an ear, shooting an apologetic and slightly fearful look up at Valey. "Please, Ma'am, ignore us. We're not looking for trouble..."
Valey frowned as they scuttled away. "Oh, come on! I don't bite..." She sighed, realizing she didn't even know which fighter the said uncle was. Whether she wanted the popularity or not, though, she was starting to be recognized.
"Glory to Garsheeva! May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world!"
Valey sized up her opponent as he uttered the familiar slogan she had come to associate with the Empire's most loyal guards and bureaucrats. He was a griffon of fine build and posture, and it wouldn't have been a stretch to guess he hailed from the guard as his background. A career fighter, likely chosen because he was the best in his platoon... She bowed her head for the saying, feeling this was someone she should show respect to. She was only a few battles in, and was already up against opponents who meant business.
"Hmm." He cordially returned her bow.
"Alright. Pleasantries done?" She cracked her wings. This griffon likely had a lot of tricks under his belt, and moved with an air of experience. The longer she let the battle go on, the more likely she was to misread danger and be caught off-guard, so her best bet was to end things fast.
Wham! A streak of green trailed behind her as she flew a hoof into his space, letting it be caught by a talon. Her momentum uninterrupted, she twisted off him, forcing him to make a split-second decision between a counterstrike and defending against a follow-up. He took the latter, snapping out a wing and wrapping it around her other foreleg before it could hit the back of her head.
For anyone else, it would have been a bad position, but Valey had a critical advantage he couldn't see: more time to think through fast situations. She rolled with the wing, flipping her hindquarters through the air and forcing an emergency dodge to avoid being mounted, the griffon releasing her first hoof so he didn't trip. That was all she needed. His other wing came in to pick up the slack, and as her free hoof baited it, the rest of her body coiled around beneath, slamming her rear legs up toward his belly. The griffon made a last attempt to dodge, but Valey clung on and threw him out of balance, grappling and restraining him as he tripped.
"Ugh... You're fast..." he breathed through her headlock. "Take your win with dignity, please..."
It was a request she had no problem granting.
"How did you know about this place!?" Senescey's jaw dropped, and she regarded Valey with a look of awe.
"Eh. I've got a good contact." Valey shrugged, grinned, and stepped into a dark tavern, the sarosian staffing the bar giving them a won't-ask-questions look. "I take it it's a good one?"
Senescey nodded, Gerardo and Slipstream not far behind them. "It's not easy to find, either..."
As they sat down and ordered food, the yellow-maned pony looked around, eventually watching Valey. "Thanks for inviting me," she said. "I really do appreciate just... after what we talked about..."
"Being friends?" Valey shrugged. "Yeah, I talked it over with some other friends and the general agreement seems to be that you're cool. So don't worry. I just... y'know... have totally been there too, and it stinks."
"Well, like I said, thanks." Senescey beamed, then turned to Gerardo and Slipstream. "And thanks to you, too, since you haven't really met me before."
"Ah ah!" Gerardo waggled a talon at her. "A growing network of friends and acquaintances is quite a nice thing, indeed. Please, it's my pleasure." He bowed, still wearing his vaguely tuxedo-like uniform. "Besides, a little bird told me you had troubles of your own to take your mind off of, and if there's one thing I know how to do well, it's treat an audience. Care to be regaled by the legendary saga of Ironridge?"
Valey nodded along contentedly as Gerardo began. They'd discussed beforehoof what could be said and what to omit, and all in all decided it would be a great way to spend an afternoon.
"Bluuurrrrrgh!"
An angry pegasus struggled to get up, then fell silent, Valey standing on him after flipping him through the air in a final slam. The crowd roared its approval as Howe counted and declared him out, and Valey stepped off, allowing the defeated stallion to be carried away by officials.
"Hooo-whee!" Howe swaggered with his rapier microphone, extending a wing and giving Valey a feathery thumbs-up. "My friend, I believe noble congratulations are in order: out of all the challengers who entered, there are now fewer than one hundred and fifty remaining! Counting Regents that have been used to expel competitors, you are now in competition for a grand total of eighty-seven slots... Are you in the top half of all Regent-bearers who remain!? I'll tell you one thing: you haven't lost a battle yet! Not even had a close shave! I think a round of congratulations are in order! Let's hear it for Admiral Valey, the terror and savior of Ironridge!"
The crowd's approval intensified, Neon Nova's loudspeaker-powered voice cutting through the din. "Of course, the tournament mainstays have been duking it out too, you know! Sorted from who's best to who's worst based on their performances kicking the challengers out the door! So these last few battles will be the toughest... Bring your A-game, one and all! We're kicking the heat up a notch for an exciiiting finish!"
Valey nodded along, not overly concerned. Whoever she fought, she'd fight... and like Howe said, she hadn't come even close to losing, and needed two consecutive losses to get out. Holding her head high, she trotted from the arena, relishing the cool darkness of the tunnels once again.
Clangggggg!
A wooden sword trembled in Valey's grip, but didn't slip, captured in a vicelike gem that blocked it from hitting Starlight's face. The filly grunted under the pressure of holding her strength back, but Valey relented, fell back, and Starlight dropped the shield... and Valey immediately came at her again, swinging from the least-predictable angle.
Flash! Starlight's horn restored the shield, its notch and angle just good enough to catch the blade again. Starlight grinned, holding it there with her protected hoof, horn glowing. "I'm getting stronger!"
"Yeah you are!" Valey congratulated, grinning back. "Now-"
In a surprise move, copying what she had seen Puddles do, Starlight dropped, channeling her horn's energy into the ground. A crystalline streak flowed its way along the sandy floor like fast-moving rainwater, congregating below Valey before the spell focused its power, freezing and binding her hooves to the ground. Starlight concentrated, holding both it and the shield at the same time, and looked up for approval, a trickle of sweat making its way into her brow.
Valey whistled. "Good stuff." She stretched a wing, flicking the sweat away and then extinguishing Starlight's horn. "Not a lot of regular mooks who will see that coming."
"Are we done for the day?" Starlight panted, taking a moment to drink from a bucket of water and then sticking her horn in it for good measure.
"Yup!" Valey patted her on the back, proudly shaking herself off. "And maybe for the next few days, too. I gotta think of what to work on next now that you've pretty much got that down."
Starlight glowed with praise, following her mentor up and out of the training room.
The gleam of talons sliced the air, Valey ducking through the furious offense of a griffon who wanted nothing more than to carve her face. Talons weren't fair! But this wasn't about to be the battle that ended her perfect streak of never taking an unintentional hit. This griffon had blind spots, and it was up to her to exploit them.
She pumped her wings, flapping in a speedy circle around the perimeter of the ring. Her enemy quickly read her speed, targeting a slash for exactly where she would be... so Valey hit the ground and rolled, then jumped again, watching as her foe reacted quickly, yet not quickly enough. Talons stabbed low, right where she would have landed, but Valey jumped over them, landing on the griffon's back. Only her beak could get her there, and Valey was well aware of that, a hoof ready and waiting to intercept the murderous peck-weapon.
Whud! The griffon twisted her neck to attack, and Valey twisted it further, catching her with a right hook straight from where she wasn't looking. This was a foe who was too dangerous to grapple, so she used the distraction to stomp with all four hooves at once, pounding her back into the ground. The griffon gasped, buckled and fell, Valey preventing her from rolling mid-trip so her talons remained pointed in a useless direction.
"Raaaugh!" The griffon struggled, so Valey punched her head again, peppering her with blows until she couldn't take it anymore. With a final burst of strength, her adversary slipped away, but by then they were limping, moving stiffly and barely ready to manage an assault. Valey slipped straight through the flailing of claws, delivering a final face kick that toppled her opponent once and for all.
"Behold, the challenger stands victorious," Howe intoned, the griffon being taken away. "Three cheers for Admiral Valey!"
Maple stood with Starlight in a well-lit street, stores with windows open to display all sorts of warm-weather garments. "You want to buy this?" Starlight questioned, pointing a hoof at the dresses.
"Well... I think it would be nice," Maple murmured in self-defense. "Besides, wouldn't you like to feel pretty? I bet we could make you look good too, and we're looking good for money ever since Gazelle showed up again and asked if we needed a stipend."
Starlight stared, imagining herself with a bow in her mane. Maybe for Maple... Only for Maple. But she would do it. "Well, okay," she relented, feeling well-rested after several days' break from sparring with Valey. "If you really-"
"Excuse me..." A nearby griffon cleared his throat, dressed in Stormhoof guard armor but looking like he was off-duty.
"Are you talking to us?" Maple instantly shrank an inch, and Starlight took a step closer.
The guard smiled and waved, nodding at Starlight. "At ease, there. Just thought I recognized you! You're the filly who's always training with that one up-and-comer who's getting talked about in the castle, right? Admiral Valey?"
"Yeah..." Starlight eyed him warily, trying not to look outwardly suspicious.
"Woah! Easy there." The guard chuckled, turning to leave. "Just wanted to say keep it up! You guys are fun to watch, sometimes."
As he disappeared into the crowd, Maple shuddered, and Starlight nudged her. "Are you okay? I know you don't like guards..."
"No, he was fine." Maple shook her head. "I just guess Wallace was right about us becoming more visible because of the tournament. He was friendly, but people know we're connected to Valey, now..."
"Feeling good," Valey muttered to herself, stepping out of the shadows and towards the fighting ring. She had been waiting for this match for half an hour, but it had been suddenly delayed, her opponent missing due to a sudden case of food poisoning likely attributed to the foe he had been meant to face before. The tournament organizers had spent the time trying to find someone else for her to face, and she still wasn't briefed on the results. "Alright. Time to pound another bad guy."
"Ha-ha," Howe ominously greeted as she hopped up the steps to the empty ring. "Admiral Valey approaches! The second round is well into its heat now, fearless challenger! Two or three rounds may be all that remain..." He raised a red-and-black eyebrow. "Have you come to bring what it takes!?"
"Yeah, I'm good." Valey adjusted her hat. "Is, uhhh... I was supposed to get out here, right? Where's the dude I'm fighting?"
Howe fidgeted, somehow managing to make even the act of fidgeting grandiose. "Oh, he's on his way."
Suddenly, a gigantic shadow eclipsed Valey, before moving to the opposite corner of the ring. With a storm of feathers, a presence appeared, the force of its landing nearly knocking her off her hooves.
"Being on my way is a thing of the past, young Howe," a voice boomed, and an enormous wing stretched out of the ring to pat Howe on the head, deforming even his massively-gelled mane. "Because I am here!"
A white smile twinkled, a mustache cracked, and Valey found herself looking face to face at Wallace Whitewing. "Are you ready?"
Valey swallowed, folding her ears and looking up at the gigantic griffon smiling down at her. "Oh bananas. It's you."
"Indeed, it's me!" Wallace saluted, holding a talon to his chest. "We've much to discuss, young Valey. But come, let us not bore our audience. We are on stage, after all!" He waved to the crowd, taking several bows, before turning back to Valey. "Shall we talk as we duel?"
"Uhhh-"
"Perfect! En garde!" Accepting a nod from Howe, Wallace launched himself forward, flying at an incredible rate. Valey flipped out of the way of a clenched-talon punch, having to throw herself far further than usual due to Wallace's immense size. He straightened up and beamed. "You haven't gotten slower, I see!"
Valey skidded to a stop, landing upright. "I'm fighting you already?"
"Ha! The odds were in our favor, young Valey!" Wallace stomped forward, dragging his wings like a barrier over the arena to restrict Valey's movement options and force her skyward. "The second round isn't just for eliminating Regent-bearers! It sorts the pool winners from the first round from strong to weak, matching you against progressively stronger opponents as you fight to survive! Eventually, it's up to a small pool of elites to narrow the numbers down to what are required!"
"That's cool!" Valey panted, wanting to save her breath for dodges. It wasn't hard to get past Wallace's wing; he was expecting her to go up, so she slid along the ground, faked a jump and skidded beneath as the feathery barrier rose to block her. She lashed out as she went, taking a few feathers in her teeth with her. "Pteh! But there's elites, and then... aren't you like the champion!?"
"I have been!" Wallace brought the flat of his wing down in a smash, forcing her to roll to the side, then swung in both wings from the sides in a heavy clap. "But that was only once, young Valey, and I've entered the tournament every year for the last five years! I have weaknesses just like any other! Show me you can find them!"
"Bananaaas!" Valey vaulted out of the clap as it came together, running up the ridge of Wallace's wing and delivering a furious bite to the wing joint at his side. Punching and kicking didn't work; she knew that much from her practice battle with him over a month ago.
Wallace instantly retracted his wings and rolled, trying to crush her against the floor and forcing her to shadow sneak in his own shadow to survive. "Don't lose focus, young Valey. Brainpower will help you more than desperation today. Remember, it takes two outs to be felled from the tournament in this round, and so far, your record is flawless! A loss against me here will be worth it if you can discover a tactic to use when we inevitably meet again!"
Valey wasn't in much of a thinking mood, her cutie mark interrupting her thought process with warnings from every side. As Wallace stood, he flicked a ream of sharpened feathers point-first at her face, stomping to shake the stage as she tried to dodge. Unsteadied, she held up a wing to protect her face, two of the sharp points connecting and gashing her membrane. "Aaagh!"
"Steady yourself and don't lose rhythm! Hold at the front of your mind the cause you're fighting for and come at me!" Wallace paused in his onslaught, beckoning with a talon and looking fresh and uninjured.
"Nnngh..." Valey licked her wing, flexed it, and determined it wouldn't get in the way.
Wallace beckoned again... then launched himself into another charge, moving slowly so as not to skid outside the bounds of the arena. Frowning, Valey countered by flying straight up, her wing stinging from the air rushing against the wound, but she couldn't see what to do! Drop down and dive-bomb him? He'd barely feel it. Try to cut him instead of bludgeoning? The best tool she had for that was her teeth, and her muzzle wasn't shaped for it at all. Besides, with his size, he'd probably feel it like an insect bite...
"Think more quickly, young Valey!" Wallace reared up, swiping for her tail with his talons and forcing her to flip out of the way again. "How can you use this terrain to your advantage? The arena is smaller, making my reach more significant and giving you nowhere to run, but it prevents me from using my speed! You must find a way to take advantage of that!"
Valey buzzed him, hoping a flyby could distract him and buy more time. What about all those ponies who brought weapons? Why couldn't she do that? In fairness, she hadn't asked...
Around her, the crowd was more fired-up than ever before, and she was sure it was for her opponent. Just bad luck that she ran into him, then. Even against Herman, she'd had the advantage of the terrain, giant weaponry and a pre-existing wound to attack... but someone too big to care about her attacks and with too much stamina to get worn down, she couldn't do anything against at all.
Her cutie mark snapped her out of her reverie as Wallace started to jump, bounding and flopping around the ring with enough height each time to reach her. "What are you seeing, young Valey?" he boomed, chasing her higher into the sky. "You're holding back! Restraint doesn't suit you, but it's worth it to study an opponent you cannot otherwise beat! Show me what you can learn!"
"Uhhhhh..." Valey dropped back down to the ring, watching as Wallace plummeted from above her. He wouldn't be able to change his momentum on that quick of notice; she could easily hit him from below... but he wouldn't feel it! What was the point of wasting attacks she knew wouldn't help!?
Wham! Wallace landed in front of her, spreading his wings wide. "Hurry up and strike me! Last time we met, you learned through trial and error, did you not? Let your purpose empower your blows! Show me your resolve to win doesn't fold the moment you meet an opponent for whom you have no answers!"
Valey's eye twitched. He was giving her a free shot? "Raaaaugh!" She corkscrewed forward, aiming straight for Wallace's grinning face. This wasn't fair! Why was she fighting him now!?
The griffon made no attempt to dodge, and with a final pump of her wings, she smashed all four hooves straight into his head. Shock reverberated through her, and the force of the blow sent his neck flying back... until her cutie mark blazed, and like a supersonic training dummy, his head snapped back upright, plowing into her fast enough that even with her future-sensing reflexes, she couldn't make it out of the way.
With a spine-rending crack, Valey hit the ground, bouncing once and landing upside-down. Her belly had a deep gash from Wallace's beak, and she wheezed, eyes glistening as she pressed a hoof to the wound and made an effort to sit up, back and wing joints complaining. She hissed in pain, glaring as Wallace stared down at her, his signature smile finally missing. "Ow... Bananas, nnngh... That hurts..." She sucked in a breath.
"Defeat suits you even less," Wallace remarked, frowning. "Get up, young Valey! Where is your conviction in what you're fighting for? You've ran and dodged, yet that was the first time you struck me all match!"
"The first time?" Valey spat, forcing herself to her hooves and standing three-legged, feeling blood start to coat the hoof against her belly. "I bit you right at the start!"
Wallace blinked. "You did?"
"Aaaaargh!" Forgetting about her wounds, Valey charged again, cutie mark burning as she evaded two consecutive wing slams to duck beneath Wallace's huge form. With a furious roll, she slipped between his legs, baring her teeth and grabbing and yanking at his fur. She braced herself against the taste and kicked with all four legs, tearing away a patch in her jaws and wounding the skin beneath.
"Ungh! That's more like it! But you'll have to move even faster!" Wallace dropped, letting his legs out from beneath him and falling to crush Valey before she could try to attack the newly-created weak spot. "No holding back!"
Hissing in pain, Valey flung herself to the side, grappling Wallace's wing and launching herself onto his back. She bit down again, trying for another tear, but he immediately rolled, swinging her groundward again to run her over. Valey flipped away, skidding to a halt at the opposite corner of the ring.
"Hmm." Wallace regarded her, his smile returning. "Catching a second wind, are you?"
As Wallace and Valey broke apart to face each other once again, Starlight watched from high above, sitting in her private box with Maple at her side and tooth marks from biting her lip.
"She doesn't look so good..." Maple whispered, neck craned, echoing the thoughts everyone was thinking. "Come on, Valey... Don't hurt yourself..."
Starlight ignored the hologram, focusing her eyes on the arena pit below. Even at that distance, her eyes were good enough to see the specks of red from Valey's wound. Her frown intensified, and her horn tingled uselessly with the need to be used. She could almost feel herself down there, with that burning need not to lose...
"Pfeh!" Valey spat, clearing her mouth and struggling to stand on four legs. Wallace faced her patiently, not moving to finish her before she was ready. "Bananas..."
"You're picking up," Wallace commented. "But you've a long way left to go. Where was the vigor and determination from the first time we clashed? You tried everything then, and have barely attempted to strike me now! Draw strength from what you're fighting for!"
Valey winced again in pain. This was the kind of injury she could press through, but would get worse the longer she fought, since there was no way to limit her movements against Wallace. He was too big, required too much dodging... It wasn't fair. "Bananas, why do I have to fight you now!?"
"And fighting me later would make a difference?" Wallace shrugged his massive shoulders. "You must surpass me either way to reach the top! You fight because of what you're fighting for! And the heat of battle is the last place for that to slip your mind!"
He stopped waiting, walking forward until he was in the middle of the ring, so big he could strike anywhere in it in half a second or less. He was about to charge again, and Valey knew it, tensing her legs for a counterattack. What was she doing here, anyway? Fighting to get Nyala's body back? She barely even knew her anymore!
Wallace's wings exploded outward, just as Valey had predicted. The charge came, skidding along the ground, but this time she surged forward to meet it instead of rolling away to the side. Two talons grasped for her, and she twirled through them, feeling a few tail hairs snap off as she narrowly avoided being caught. Opening her mouth for a battle cry, she bit at the last moment, bracing herself and using Wallace's momentum against him to tear a large strip of fur from his side.
"Ohh!" Wallace grunted, landing and ending his charge. He definitely felt that! "You're starting to work things through, young Valey! Now how can you capitalize on that?"
Valey rolled as well, the force of her tear knocking her off her hooves. Her belly burned where it had been stabbed, her wing pained her as well, but a raw frustration kept her upright. She'd capitalize alright! This was dumb!
She launched herself upward, making her wings work for her and seeking an opening toward Wallace's freshly-wounded side. But not only did she have nothing to do if she reached it, he was guarding it closely, keeping his other shoulder to her, knowing exactly where she'd strike. Two talons, two wings, his head and that roll attack... She could get through that, right? She had to try.
"Hmmhmmm!" Wallace beckoned approvingly. "Show me what you've got!"
Time flew into slow-motion as Valey approached, Wallace's wings taking a scissor-like formation to block her path as she approached. She looped to the left to avoid the offense entirely, trying to fly above him... but Wallace reared up, both talons grabbing at the path she wanted to take. She couldn't get grabbed! That would be game over.
Flipping, she ducked backwards, surging again a moment later when his balance couldn't support another grab. The motion made her double up in pain again, though, her wings moving her of their own accord as she curled and pressed another hoof into her gut. Gritting her teeth through the pain, she cracked her eyes and saw his injured side open. She had to finish this fast! Lunging downward, she readied a punch... and then Wallace's grinning face was in her way, ready to take a hit and counter with the same bobble attack that had outsped her last time. Bananas if she was falling for that again.
Both of Valey's forehooves struck, and Wallace took it eagerly, more than ready to counter with her own momentum. But it was a gentle tap, her hooves bloodied from being used to staunch her wound... and this time, she struck straight for Wallace's eyes.
"Clever!" he grunted, closing his lids to guard against the strike. Valey's hooves weren't saturated nearly enough to leave more than a residue and a few drops, but those few drops were enough. Wallace opened his eyes to track her again and immediately winced. "Oh, that stings! You're growing more creative!"
"Yaaaaargh!" Valey slipped past him as fast as she could, reaching the area she had injured on his side even as her cute mark alerted her to another impending attack. The skin where the fur had been torn away was badly raw, even bleeding in a few places. Now for the part she hadn't planned for. One of those giant talons was coming, but if she couldn't press this advantage now, make him flinch and back off, she never would.
Wham! Whud! Her forehooves pummeled him one after the other, fighting through her own pain. She wasn't here because of Nyala. In the end, she had entered the tournament for Shinespark... as proof of a promise she couldn't even recall in the moment, but she was sure it was a good one. Just like in Ironridge, she was fighting for her friends, and she let everything she had empower her strikes, jabbing and pummeling with the edges of her hooves to try to make them a little bit sharper.
Then talons closed around her. The danger hadn't abated; she hadn't made Wallace flinch... Big enough to wrap around her entire barrel, Wallace's meaty hand plucked her out of the air. She had a split second to meet his eyes, then was hurled downward, thrown like an anvil toward the stage. Her cutie mark tried to give her time to react, but there was only so much her body could possibly do to break that much momentum in so little time. She managed to get out a foreleg-
CRACK! Valey struck the ground, bouncing again, pain lancing up and all across her. Her jaw slammed into the roof of her mouth, her back barely held together, her hips strained as she was forced spread-eagled by the landing. The leg she tried to land on had it worst, striking at an awkward angle and thundering with pain. If she was lucky, it wasn't broken... She cracked an eye, and the first thing she saw was that that hoof was shattered, several sharp edges protruding where the plate had broken. Well, that stank.
A shadow loomed above her, and Wallace was there, watching her with inevitable concern. "I believe I win," he rumbled, Valey's entire body shuddering as she tried to make it work. "Your injuries are growing severe, young Valey. Referee, please time her out."
"Uhhh..." Howe stared from the side, slack-jawed at Valey's broken, bloodied appearance. "Sure thing, boss. One, two..."
"Shut up," Valey hissed, the broken hoof still firmly in her vision. "Like bananas I'm out."
"Stay down, young Valey." Wallace frowned. "I don't want to hold back for fear of killing you!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey coughed feebly, aware Howe was still counting in the background. "Well, guess what? I..."
Before he could say the final word, Valey vanished, falling into Wallace's shadow.
"Hmm!?" Wallace took a step back in alarm, only ripples where Valey had been before. "What are you doing!?"
With a shadowy rush, Valey erupted from beneath him, propelled by her hind legs with a sharpened shard broken from her hoof in her teeth. Wallace's side, she had hurt more recently, but there was a smaller injury beneath him, too, where she had struck first and first discovered the tactic. The shard struck true, filling her mouth and preventing a battle cry even if she had had the breath to make one.
"Argh!" Wallace's back arched defensively, removing the weak spot from her reach. Immediately, he slammed back down, trying to trap Valey beneath him. "Desist at once, young Valey!"
Valey didn't spit out her weapon to reply. She was too battered by this point to dodge, but that didn't mean she was out of the fight! She shadow snuck again as he came crashing down, gripping onto his feathers and fur as he rose again and rolled away. With the boost in momentum, she flung herself up onto his side... the same side she had gashed earlier. A grin broke out around the precious shard.
Her head moved in wild arcs, slashing and stabbing and tearing and trying to do as much damage as possible to the raw, hairless spot as she could before Wallace removed her. Barbaric or not, she had to do it! She needed a way! Thoughts of Shinespark and even her friends no longer propelled her as Wallace continued his roll, bringing around a mighty punch and finally forcing her to let go.
Smash! Wallace's fist hit the floor with unprecedented strength, breaking the thin seal that formed the arena floor and shattering straight through the boards that constructed it beneath. "This has gone on long enough!" he declared, side bleeding profusely. "Our bout here is merely a prelude! Regardless of who prevails, we will meet again... You've done yourself proud already! Now desist before I am forced to fell you!"
The shard dropped from Valey's teeth as she faced him, barely upright and standing on three legs. "Heh... no..."
"Use your ears!" Wallace urged. "Can you hear them? The crowd? They wait with baited breath on the outcome of our duel. Your profile will be high enough already, having survived me for so long and taken things this far. Are you ready for the fame and pressure of having defeated a champion? You won't even have cleared the second round and will be a favorite contender for ultimate victory! Your convictions to win are here now, but they were lacking as our bout began. Are they really strong enough to sustain that? Are you ready to pay the price of victory?"
"Pfft... no way..." Valey panted, aware of Wallace stepping back, leaving the shattered crater from his punch as a hazard in the stage. "Bananas, it's not even about that. Screw winning. I just..."
She licked her lips, swallowed, and wished she could have a drink... but her eyes glinted nonetheless. "I just really, really hate it when I lose."
Valey charged this time, not breaking eye contact with Wallace as she ran. Despite a heavy limp, she beat her wings to build up speed, a suicidal grin on her face. This would be her last chance, so she had to make it count.
Then Wallace was before her, a wing rocketing in an agile jab at her head. Valey ducked, and the next one came in, forcing her to duck to the right, nearly tripping over her useless leg. Her belly burned even harder as she ran, but there was no point in stopping. There was no way she could stop! The break in the floor was right there, and then...
Wallace spun, lashing out a third time, and a fourth and a fifth. Valey blinked, her cutie mark slowing time and letting her see exactly what was happening: his paws and talons preoccupied with the motion, Wallace was giving her an opening. All she had to do was time it perfectly, make it through his wings, and she could catch the injured side as it came... and timing was something she had on her side.
"Raaaaaaugh!" Valey dropped, sliding beneath a blow on her back, and hit the break in the wood. Her teeth locked around a splintered board end, she rolled, and her wings propped her up, freeing her forehoof to help with grasping the broken arena. The wood came free, a splintered part of a plank about the length of her barrel flipping upright, aimed expertly by her good foreleg. Aided by her cutie mark, she waited one millisecond, two... Wallace continued his spin, his injured side rolling into view... Valey's eyes narrowed, and she coiled her legs and fired.
Her final charge struck true, pumping her wings for a last bit of force as she plowed the broken, splintered spear into Wallace's wound. As unsuitable of a weapon as it was, it stuck, immediately clubbing Valey and tossing her aside as Wallace continued his spin. She landed hard, unable even to brace herself or soften the blow, but managed to get a hoof beneath her before Howe could start his count, lifting her head and looking to see what she had done.
"Nnngh... Good aim, young Valey..." Wallace teetered, his spin slowing and coming to a stop, the plank still embedded in his side. "Were I to fall here, you would have victory. But should I shrug off this blow? What would you do then?"
Valey gritted her teeth. The pain from her broken hoof was getting worse, and she wasn't sure how long she'd last before she went into shock. If more blows were exchanged, she had nothing else in her. She was at her limit. So... "I'd do it again. Harder, this time. Aaah..." She briefly squeezed her eyes, whimpering under her breath.
Wallace gave her a look that saw right through her, blood dripping from his wound as well. While he was in far better condition than she was, he was hardly perfect, and they both knew that. A far sight from when she left him untouched in their practice session over a month ago.
"Is that so?" he rumbled, favoring his injured side. "Even though the outcome of this match ultimately matters not? Both of us will stay in the tournament, either way." He spread a wing, showing his feathers... and between them, a glittering golden card Valey instantly recognized as a Regent. "Won't we?"
Valey sucked in a painful breath, instantly understanding. Using hers on a win could instantly disqualify her opponent, ensuring she would never face them again... and Wallace knew that. But was he...? Her mind flashed back to his spin. He left himself open on purpose! Was this a test? Was he offering her surrender, to see what she would do? She grimaced. "I'm not gonna do that," she hissed. "But I can't give up, either. Not while I can still move my legs. If you want to beat me, you're going to have to knock me all the way out, or lose trying."
"So that's how it will be, isn't it?" Wallace gave her a huge grin. "Very well, then." His talon grasped the broken plank, tearing it from his side and tossing it at Valey's hooves. Then he turned, limping, and calmly stepped out of the arena. "I yield."
"Buh?" Valey folded her ears. He was.
The crowd went completely silent.
"Uhhhhhhh..." Howe's jaw dropped, and he tapped his microphone a few times.
"Cool." Valey wobbled, about to collapse. "Not gonna use the thing..."
"Did Wallace Whitewing really just surrender!?" Neon Nova's voice boomed over the loudspeakers, announcing the happenings to the entire arena. "He did!"
Howe's shock morphed into an eager grin. "Aha! By unprecedence of legendary proportions, it has happened! I'm... actually not sure what's happened! Mister Whitewing, a word for our-"
Wallace tapped him aside, entering back into the ring and stretching out a wing. It curled gently around Valey as she finally collapsed, lifting her into the air. "Come, then. We have things that need discussing, young Valey, But first, shall we see ourselves to the infirmary?"
The first thing Valey felt was numb. There was a stiff, immobilizing presence around one foreleg, and none of her muscles responded when she tried to move. Her eyes registered light, but weren't yet in focus, and she wasn't sure she was aware enough to put names to colors. "Unnngh..."
"Easy," a comforting voice said. "You pushed yourself way too far out there. There's no hurry now. You're safe, so focus on resting."
Valey's lungs didn't feel like powering a whine, so she just listened, letting her body sit and restart at its own rate. After a minute, her vision came together, and she could finally use her eyes. Her own state was pathetic yet coddled; a cast entombed her foreleg, and a thick bandage was wrapped around her midsection that also pinned one of her wings to her side. Most of her muscles felt battered and weary, especially her spine, and she had a headache. But her room had chairs at the sides, and in them were Maple, Gerardo, Shinespark, Starlight, Slipstream, even Nyala... Everyone but Jamjars was there.
"Ow," she managed, trying a feeble grin. "Hey, girls."
Gerardo grinned back, though everyone else looked concerned. "You look almost as bad as when you fought Herman! But you, well..." His beak worked uselessly for a second. "How lucid were you when... Err... Are you aware what happened?"
Valey's ears went back. "I dunno. I think I might have overdone it... I don't remember stopping."
"More importantly, are you in pain?" Maple got up, stepping over to Valey's bedside. The walls around them were stone and the lighting only provided by a window; they must have been somewhere in Stormhoof. "You got badly injured..."
Valey was quiet again, mentally checking herself over. "Maybe," she eventually guessed. "Not the 'ow it burns' kind. But everything feels really uncomfortable and sorta wrong."
Maple closed her eyes. "We've been talking to Wallace. He wants to talk to you, too, but doesn't fit in this room. We found out... another disadvantage of entering the tournament with a Regent."
"Oh?" Valey's ears flicked, half-listening. She was slightly more preoccupied with her own state than things like business or winning...
"Mhm." Maple nodded. "When you get injured in the tournament, which happens a lot because there are always losers and a lot of close fights, medical care is expensive. The fighters who are sponsored to enter by houses, especially if those houses think they have a chance, will usually be covered by those houses to get the best treatment available. But the ones who aren't... Well, they're on their own."
"Oh." Valey suddenly sank, the intricacies of her situation starting to return to mind. "Bananas. When's my next fight?"
"Two days," Gerardo announced, standing as well. "And needless to say, you're in no condition to throw yourself out there like this. That said, you have several options, and we wanted to wait for you to awaken so you could choose for yourself."
Maple nodded, using her cutie mark and producing a jar of red liquid. "Our healing potions, first off. The ones we got from the mercenaries in Ironridge. Although..." Her ears folded. "We're kind of running out. This is our second-to-last one, and as badly as you're hurt, you probably need all of it."
Valey eyed the potion as Gerardo continued. "Another option is Chauncey. If you remember, on our tour of Izvaldi's facilities, the hospital there had a machine designed to emulate the effects of Varsidelian healing magic like what empowers the potions. He reached out to us while you were unconscious and invited us to use it free of charge, but..."
Shinespark cleared her throat from her chair by the wall. "But Izvaldi is a long enough flight from here that you'd miss your next match if we just took Wallace's airship. So not only would it involve getting more indebted to Izvaldi when there's already awkwardness between them and us, you'd have to either get money for the teleportation guild, which likely involves asking Gazelle for a favor, too... or forfeit your next match through not being there."
"Bananas." Valey swallowed. "That means I'd be out, though, right? Because if it's two losses in a row..."
"Then you'd be at one loss," Maple finished. "Wallace hasn't explained it to us, but you won. The audience doesn't get to hear what's said between the fighters, but he stepped down. You were both wounded, and, well..." Her eyes shifted to the side. "That's what he wants to talk to you about. But either way, if you missed a match to get healed in Izvaldi, it would be just like if you had lost to Wallace in the first place before you got so hurt."
Valey grimaced, initial shock blending into a swirl of memories as the fight's end and aftermath stitched itself back together in her head. "Bananas. I did, didn't I..." She frowned harder. "Did he give up even when he'd won?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Like we've been saying, he wants to talk to you. I have a great feeling this is what about."
"Alright..." Valey groaned, trying to budge and being rewarded with pain. "Ironflanks, I think I'm gonna need that potion. Can I have, like, half of it? Or enough that I feel like I can move?"
Maple gave the potion a look, then carefully held the bottle to Valey's lips. "You're the one who was likely to need them. We were waiting for your decision."
Valey drank slowly, pausing and testing herself several times and stopping when the bottle was a little more than half full. "Wait," she said, brushing it away with the tip of her better wing. "Lemme see how this feels."
She tried to move her back, and it was still badly sore but not quite so intense. The pain when she stretched her belly the wrong way was dialed down a notch, and her casted leg felt a lot less wrong inside, though she could still feel her hoof half-shattered at the end. That would have to stay on for a while.
"Alright. Sitting up, maybe gonna try to get up. Can I get a shoulder to lean on?"
Shinespark's telekinesis cushioned her back, and eventually she was sitting again, testing her legs one by one. Every muscle in her hips hurt, and she had to be careful not to tense the wrong way, but... "Okay. Managing so far. Standing up?"
Again, Shinespark's aura lifted her out of the bed, and at last she was upright, Maple close nearby and all three hooves on the ground. She tested her legs, finding her hind legs complaining stiffly and her free foreleg mostly good. Her cast was a bizarre affair; it was significantly longer than her leg should have been to cover for the broken hoof, and when she tried to put weight on it, it gripped the sides of her leg rather than pressing on the end like she was used to.
"Bananas." She wobbled a little, then snapped her wing over Maple's back. "Yeah, definitely gonna need a little help, here. But I think I'm good. Like, relatively good given the situation? Ow." She winced as her belly wound twinged, repressing the urge to arch her back in response. "Bananaaas, being laid up stinks. Where's Wallace?"
"Out here," Gerardo announced, leading the way.
"Well, hello there, little Valey," Wallace grunted, standing with his head bowed in a low-ceilinged corridor, a bandage the size of a table covering his flayed side. "It seems you're finally up and about."
"Yeah, I don't really enjoy being cooped up," Valey answered, the aftertaste of the potion strong in her mouth. "Ow. Kinda hurting, right now."
"I'll say you are," Morena remarked, stepping out from behind Wallace's bulk. "You asked for and then lived through quite a beating. Both of you are idiots."
Valey winced. "Look, I didn't realize that the harder I punched his face, the harder he would..."
Wallace nodded, cutting her off. "Come," he beckoned. "Let us retreat to somewhere more private to exchange words. Decisions have been made that will affect all of us, and a frank discussion is in order about what to do."
Valey's ears folded, and she followed along with Maple, starting to get the feeling she had no idea what this was about.
"So," Wallace began as they crossed a colosseum rampart, exiting a tower against which the Sky Goat was moored. "Our airship ought to serve as well as any other place. Now that we're here, how would you describe our bout down there, young Valey? If speaking is painful right now, say the word, and I'll be more to the point."
"Nah, I'm good." Valey coughed weakly, her hips starting to limber more as she used them but still keenly feeling the effects of being slammed against the ground. "Dunno what to say, though. I kinda got mad and kept fighting, and we both wound up getting really hurt, I guess. There's a billion ways you could make that a lesson, though. But I thought you wanted me to give a hundred and ten percent?"
"Hmmm," Wallace rumbled.
Morena chuckled humorlessly. "I've seen Wallace shrug off five times that much sticking out of him and keep fighting. Real weapons, too, not improvised boards. He'll be fine with a few days to walk it off."
Maple grimaced a little at that, while Gerardo only looked like his admiration was stoked further. Wallace returned the chuckle more warmly. "Yes, don't worry for my sake, young Valey. I'm more interested in your tactics, your understanding of the situation and above all, your motives. Do you want to win in the tournament?"
"I mean, duh." Valey tried to shrug and gave up halfway through, her back making her wince from the effort. "You think I didn't want to win there?"
"That battle wasn't the tournament, young Valey." Wallace's voice quieted. "Tell me, what would you have lost from losing it?"
Valey blinked. "Uhhh... I'd be one fight away from getting out?"
Wallace nodded. "As everyone is throughout the third and fourth rounds. What have you gained from winning it?"
Now Valey frowned. "What do you mean? I won, right? Or..." She sagged. "In the eyes of the tournament, at least. You completely had me. But now are you saying that fight didn't matter? So just..." She paused and bit her lip. "Yeah, sorry. I got no clue where you're going with this."
Wallace's eyes narrowed with finality. "And what have you lost from winning it?"
"Buh?" Valey stopped in confusion.
"I saw you in that fight," Wallace narrated, strolling onto his ship like the wound from the fight was merely a scratch. "At first, you floundered. You were angry, but it was undirected. Felt it was unfair, perhaps, that you were matched against me, and that overrode your sense of purpose. And it was unfair!" His signature grin returned for a moment. "Unfair to everyone else! Because you had a chance to match up against a known contender for the very top, in a situation where you could absolutely afford a loss. After such a glorious and effortless win streak, it would have taken some of the eyes off your back, and you could have gained valuable knowledge on how to fight me for real. Yet..."
His eyes shadowed. "For a while, you seemed ready to give up, not as a tactical retreat but out of frustration. And then you wouldn't. No matter how much a loss would have not been a setback, the worse your odds became, the harder you pushed yourself past your body's limits... until you became like this. And your desperation lent you incredible power, at that. Most fighters grow reckless and fall to exploitable risks when they feel backed into a corner, and the best of them keep their cool and hope their opponent will grow overconfident. But with you..." He looked away. "I'm very curious as to what kept you on your hooves, even in the face of such danger and adversity when losing was of greater service to your long-term chances."
"...Uhhh." Valey's ears folded. "Bananas, when you put it that way, I don't even know. I just really, really hate losing."
"Hmm. I recall you saying as much, down there." Wallace nodded slowly. "So then what of your other compulsions? Did they fade as you realized it wasn't a battle worth winning, leaving you with only this? Or has your drive to stand victorious held this as its core all along... that you simply abhor seeing yourself defeated?"
"I, uhh..." Valey looked down. "I might have to think about that a little."
Starlight cleared her throat, frowning. "And why is that a bad thing if she hates to lose, huh? I didn't want her to lose. If she was fighting harder the more hurt she was, I was cheering for her harder, too!"
Wallace grinned wistfully at her. "Several reasons! First off, what will you wish of Garsheeva should you win?"
Valey blinked. "I mean, I've got a ton of other stuff I want, too..."
"Very well, then." Wallace nodded. "And what of your odds of victory? Everyone enters the tournament with the near-certainty they won't stand victorious at the top. Even I have rivals who can reliably stand in my way. By entering for such a reason, you would be greatly inviting everything you despise most!"
"Uhhh..." Valey winced. "Yeah, but that's why I'm not... I mean..."
"Why it's important to understand your priorities," Wallace agreed. "Third, it causes situations like this. You would not back down even when it was a decision most optimal... and so, I yielded. The win was yours. Like I said, both of us would go on either way. I can settle for a lesser seed in the brackets of the upper rounds. I have little to lose by letting you off here and now."
Valey bit her lip. "So now you're talking enough about me bailing on that fight being the smart choice... and yeah, I could have not gotten hurt, or at least not as much. But I also totally found a way to fight you! Sort of! Even if I feel kinda bad for playing like that, but seriously. You're, uhh... kinda spooking me here that winning that was a bad thing."
Wallace shrugged. "You should see what the public's eye is saying about you. Surely you've never had issues regarding unwanted attention and getting yourself into a mess you can't back out of before, hmm?"
Valey swallowed. "Oh bananas."
"Whatever swear you want to use, kid," Morena sighed. "It's your problem now, though. You were attracting significant attention for having such an easy run up through the rounds. Before Wallace, no one had ever landed a hit on you, let alone beat you. A loss now, when you could have taken it, would have done a lot to teach people you weren't invincible, and that was an excellent chance for it. Did you know that the best of the best at stacking the game will actually enter through Regents, precisely so they can take calculated losses to make themselves look less interesting? But now you beat Wallace, so you have a fan club. You also beat Wallace, so you have a hate club. And Wallace surrendered to you when you were on your last legs, and you don't even want to know what kind of speculation that's fueling. If you were trying to become one of the most-talked-about combatants in the tournament? Congratulations, kid. Because you are."
Valey went pale.
"Hey!" Shinespark frowned, glancing from Wallace to Morena and back again. "Did you know this would happen when you backed down? And if so, you did it anyway?"
"Without a shadow of a doubt." Wallace solemnly nodded. "And yes, I did do it anyway, because you must learn: the tournament has more facets than stubbornly refusing to yield before every obstacle in your way. Could I have plucked her out of the sky ang gently held her into submission? I had her grappled. It would have been easy to end things there. But that battle was primarily for me to impart a lesson, and had I straight-up defeated her, it wouldn't have stuck: you must pay attention. Now you will have additional hardships to deal with on your road to the top. It's best you learn to deal with them now, while all the attention and commentators can take solace in the fact that this actually changes nothing, as shocking as it was. Now is the time for learning, both in how to avoid attention and how to handle it, and you needed a push."
Valey trembled, shuddered, and then sighed.
"...Well?" Maple folded her ears. "What do we do now?"
"Heal up for your next match," Morena replied. "You probably heard, but Chauncey is trying to extend a hoof of friendship again if you want to return to Izvaldi. He's also involved in the tournament organization, and this is off the record and just between us..." She moved closer, whispering in Valey's ear. "Your next opponent might have weaknesses that will play to your strengths. The tournament is all about playing dirty behind the scenes, and you apparently have allies who are willing to do that for you. If you're serious about winning, you'll want to keep them, and make the most of them whether you keep them or not."
"...Okay, then." Valey swallowed. "That's cool. Do I need to hide out, or something? I mean, I've got friends. If I need to disappear off the map for a while..."
Wallace shrugged. "Two days separate us from your next match, young Valey. You'll have to face the limelight again there no matter what. Failing to show your face would merely put you at a loss, but more importantly would ever thicken the mystery and intrigue you are surrounded by. If I were you, I would consider my options closely."
"Cool." Valey nodded, very much feeling that it wasn't. "So what are my options, even? Do I just have to roll with this? My friends won't be in danger, will they?"
"Options? You've got a few." Morena nodded. "Pretend nothing's happening. You'll probably get jumped... or maybe you'll be lucky. Withdraw and run away. There are a lot of places around the Empire that ask no questions, just for situations like this. Or you could go all in, and play the game for yourself. You'd probably want a propaganda team, maybe to hire some bodyguards for people who are likely to be used against you... though that rarely happens until late into the third round. Get a more secure living space, either way. How are you doing for friends and connections in the Empire?"
Valey grimaced. "Chauncey, but don't trust him. Gazelle, but don't trust him. I suppose I could throw in my money all the way with either of them and just play their game, but eh... I've also got some batpony friends who seem to know their way around Stormhoof's underground. No idea what the scene is like down there, and I'd imagine it's dicey, but I'm pretty sure I trust them. And then I've got you guys, for whatever you're willing to do."
"I can actually think of another who might be pressured into helping you..." Wallace mused, stroking his chin. "We'll keep our eyes and ears open and look out for you behind the scenes, as much as we're able. After all, it was my decision that placed you in such hot water in the first place! But ultimately, consider that we are rivals in the tournament, and next time one of us meets you in the ring, we may not have the luxury of holding back. Young Valey... we bid you good luck."
"Yeah. Thanks," Valey whispered, looking hollowly at the city below them. "We're gonna need it."
Valey and her friends made their way immediately for the Immortal Dream after leaving Wallace's ship, unable to fly thanks to Valey's condition but still finding the late-afternoon shadows long enough for her to sneak through most of the streets without notice. It wasn't widespread yet, but every now and then, they passed a conversation quietly buzzing about Wallace's bout and subsequent surrender to that previously-untouched challenger. Starlight kept her ears perked, and surprisingly, there was more argument than she thought about the state of Wallace's injuries. Not everyone, it seemed, but plenty of ponies and griffons were willing to wonder if he had been just that hurt and trying to keep it from showing.
"Well," Shinespark remarked, finally trotting up to the corner of the docks where her ship was moored. "Looks like we got back here without trouble!"
"Hmm!" Maple nodded appreciatively, her ears going straighter. "I thought for sure at least someone would know where we lived and come to bother us..."
"You're welcome," a voice cheerfully called from the prow, and Jamjars stuck her head over, watching from the roof of the bridge. "There have been six groups already. I made them get lost."
Gerardo frowned. "Told them to, or... err... made them?"
Jamjars shrugged, looking proud of herself, and hopped down to the docks. "Politely encouraged them. With seawater. They didn't know it was me."
"Uhh..." Valey raised an eyebrow, looking up at Jamjars and then down at the very wet dock surface, holding her hoof cast above it. "Thanks?"
"That's not a good way to make a good first impression," Starlight mumbled into the back of Maple's neck, riding on her back as they entered the boat.
"So..." Maple let out a sigh, standing around once they reached the library and not taking a seat. "Now what?"
Valey groaned, carefully slumping onto one of the plush reading chairs. "Well, we're not booking it to Izvaldi and my butt hurts, so figuring out how badly I need to get back on my hooves would help..."
Maple nodded. "The question is more what we can do about it. Do you want the rest of this potion?"
"Ow. Yeah, maybe. Bananas, every muscle from here to here feels like it was run through a pasta press..." Valey tried to massage herself with her good wingtip and forehoof, wincing as she curled around to make it work. "Yeah, my spine definitely doesn't like that. Ow."
Starlight gave her a look as Maple shifted beneath her. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Nyaaah... Ugh." Valey rested her chin flatly on an armrest, blinking unhappily. "This bandage itches. I need a professional masseuse, an all-you-can-eat buffet, and a huge nap... Ironflanks, any chance you know anything about that? Or any of the rest of you, for that matter?"
Gerardo shrugged. "I'm afraid none of those are in my repertoire. Perhaps I'll just clear out so the room becomes less-cluttered?"
Slipstream nodded, following him out, leaving only Shinespark in the room with Maple, Valey and Starlight. "Well, I..." Maple looked at her forehooves. "Sort of? A long time ago I tried to give massages for Willow when she was having her first two foals, but I mostly just followed her instructions and did what she said. I could start dinner early and make something special, though?" She brightened. "What would be the best possible thing I could cook for you? I'll do that!"
Starlight hopped to the floor as Valey thought for a moment. "Uhhh..." She glanced upward in contemplation. "Bananas, I dunno. Something there's a lot of. With a sauce. Thick sauce, uhh, savory." She blinked. "Maybe on biscuits?"
"I'll see what I can do!" Maple beamed, rushing for the staircase.
That left just Starlight and Shinespark. "She's eager to help," Shinespark remarked. "I'd be too, but I have no idea how. I'm still trying to process everything that happened."
"Oh, you're trying to process it?" Valey looked up at her. "Ow. Well, uhh... You're in good company?"
Shinespark moved over and sat down by her chair. "That fight was a surprise, how it ended was a surprise, you hurt yourself, and..." She sighed. "I don't like seeing my friends injured. You were out several hours, and we waited by your bed the entire time."
Valey faintly nodded, her neck mostly held in place by her posture and the chair. "Yeah... thanks. Probably reminded you of Ironridge, huh?"
Shinespark bowed her head and didn't have to answer.
"Nyegh. I'll be more careful." Valey rolled slightly and licked her lips. "Hopefully I don't have to fight Wallace again for a while, if ever. If I go on. Which, I'm apparently far enough in it barely matters..." She huffed, trying to stretch a hind leg and failing to get comfortable.
"Please do?" Shinespark put a hoof over the chair, resting it on Valey's back. "You talked about entering the tournament for my sake, remember. Something you wanted to prove to me. So... try not to get yourself this hurt on my behalf on a regular basis, okay?" She smiled hopefully, than narrowed her eyes, pressing a little with her hoof. "Now how do I do this? I've got nothing better to do and I want to help."
Valey groaned appreciatively, stretching herself out on her belly. "Yeah, cool. Pretty sure you just... ow. Rub whatever feels tense? Wing joints, a little lower..."
Starlight figured the two mares would be fine on their own and had nothing to contribute, so she quietly turned and slipped away.
Starlight sighed, slipping out onto the Immortal Dream's deck and slowly letting the door close behind her. She hadn't spoken much while Wallace was telling Valey how things were. She hadn't needed to. Nothing she could say would change anything that had happened, and as far as she was concerned, whatever going too far was had been left behind a long time ago.
A sea wind tickling her mane and ears, she groaned, folding her forelegs on the railing and resting her chin on those. Public attention. Ponies who would want to hinder them. Really? Just because Valey did something stupid and made a big name for herself, all of them had to be endangered over that? She focused for a moment, imagining herself having Valey's cutie mark and feeling a dark tide of ill events bearing down on them, until she suddenly blinked and grimaced, realizing she was fantasizing about having a cutie mark and mentally smacked herself. Then she wondered why she cared any more, if marks came with real power and hers might be power she could use to protect her friends. Then she realized she hadn't been fantasizing so much as afraid of the possibility, and then she realized just the prospect of being famous still ticked at her nerves on a low, long-forgotten level, and she finally huffed, too many ideas and worries crowding around when she just wanted to be safe.
"Urrrrgh..." she whined, throwing her head back to stare at the cloudless sky. A pony walked past on the dock the Dream's mooring branched off of, and she silently dared them to mess with her by turning to approach the boat... but they didn't. Right now, things were peaceful. She didn't like it when the prospect of that changing prevented her from enjoying the peace.
"Someone sounds stressed out," Jamjars remarked from behind her, earning a flick of her ears. "Care to commiserate?"
Starlight slumped. Jamjars was the last pony she wanted to talk to... but then again, she didn't have a clue who was the first. And it wasn't like she had anything better to do. "Sure. Why not?"
Jamjars flicked her ears and licked her lips, staring Starlight straight in the eyes. "Hi."
"Hi?" Starlight frowned back at her.
Starlight blinked, and Jamjars took that exact moment to shoot out a hoof, flicking her nose. "You don't hang out with me very often," she decided, swishing her wig and looking out at the dock. Even though it had been over three months since she lost her mane between the time spent flying from Riverfall, the time waiting for the tournament to start, the breaks between Valey's bouts and all the days in between, she hadn't tried regrowing it, keeping a short cut with a little swirl and no tail whatsoever that her wig would easily fit over.
Jamjars grinned after a moment of silence. "And now you're staring at my mane. You haven't been avoiding me because you don't want me to find out you have a crush on me, do you?"
Starlight scowled. "No. If you're going to be like that, then forget it. I can find something better to do."
"Hey, lighten up." Jamjars sighed into the ocean air, the docks around them mercifully empty for the time being. "If you had more of a sense of humor, you'd enjoy my teasing and you'd tease back. But no, you're moping, even though we've been living the good life for the past forever and you could be doing anything you want!" She huffed. "Seriously. The one pony my age on this ship and you're chronically incapable of enjoying yourself now that Ironridge is finally gone!"
"I..." Starlight's eyes widened, and she hesitated. Her first instinct was to defend herself, as it always was... but Jamjars was echoing concerns she had held for a long time without even being prompted, running as far back as Ironridge when she talked to the harmonic flame and it pointed out that she never laughed.
"I can't afford to," she eventually protested, ears drooping.
"Mhmmm." Jamjars nodded and nodded, not even remotely convinced. "Says who?"
Starlight's frown returned. "Have you not been paying attention to what just happened? Valey just made herself famous! And infamous! Again! And now Wallace thinks everyone's going to try to sabotage her or do something and we're stuck-"
"Oh, I know." Jamjars confidently cut her off, clipping her muzzle again.
Starlight rubbed her nose. "Stop that."
Jamjars ignored her, carrying on. "Didn't you hear what I've been up to while you were gone? There's been some attention on this boat. Three gawkers, two reporters and what looked like a politician all came staring and muttering under their breath about Valey Valey Valey. I told you I took care of them, remember?" She stuck out her tongue.
Starlight just blinked. "So?"
"Hello? I'm trying to be nice, here?" Jamjars waved in her face. "Wow, so uncharacteristic of me. Ugh." She curled her lip. "You know, you're less cool than you were in Ironridge."
"I'm not trying to be cool," Starlight sighed. "I'm trying to keep my friends safe when the world does things we can't avoid, and especially when they get themselves into messes they can avoid like this one! I just told you, Valey-"
"And I just told you I've got it handled." Jamjars patted Starlight on the back. "See this?" Her horn pulsed, and the dock briefly gleamed. "It's taken ages of practice, but behold: a new spell. How much can you do with your horn, again?" She put a hoof to her cheek, tilting her head in mock contemplation. "Oh, just about everything? Magic crystals, teleportation, killing windigoes... How much did you work to learn those spells?"
"Why?" Starlight tilted her head for real. "I've always been able to make crystals ever since I started using magic, and teleporting just happened the first time I needed it. They're just what I do."
Jamjars nodded smugly. "Born with power. I like it. It gives me something to outdo. Like this." She pointed at the dock again. "It took weeks of practice and sneaking around in the Royal Stormhoof Library, which as far as I know you've barely even gone to except to keep Maple company even though it's incredibly full of useful information, but I taught myself an anti-friction spell. I didn't even think it would be useful here, but oops! Some stupid griffon is walking along, thinking they're above using their wings, and suddenly they're standing on soap and slide right into the water. See?" Her grin showed teeth. "I'm having fun, getting better and bailing out your friends. If you're overwhelmed with just one of those, you need to step up your game and be a better rival."
"I'm not your rival!" Starlight squeaked, growing frustrated. "I'm... your... I don't even know. I forget why you're on this boat to begin with, but I'm just another filly."
Jamjars shrugged. "I'm here because I want to be. Who needs a better reason than that? And pretending you don't want to be exceptional when you're so many miles above everyone else who doesn't get it or has no ambition or has no talent to back it up like every one of my siblings back in Riverfall..." She blanched. "That's exactly why you're the kind of pony I want to outdo. So buck up and stop being such a sad, boring lump!"
She kicked at Starlight's flank to emphasize her point. In a flash, Starlight shifted to the side, dodged the blow, grabbed Jamjars' leg, pulled on it to destabilize on her, and had the filly on her back before she could even comprehend what had happened. The execution wasn't perfect, but Jamjars was so caught by surprise Starlight couldn't resist climbing atop her and pinning her in a grapple.
"Don't say I'm not doing anything to help my friends," Starlight told her, voice level, their muzzles an inch apart as she stared into Jamjars' wide eyes. "I'm learning to do things like this. And it's still not enough! What more do you want from me!?"
Jamjars blinked, realized struggling was futile, and grinned again. "You saw that coming? You're good. Maybe you're not being a sloth after all!" She perked her ears, breathing just fine despite having Starlight's weight atop her. "So we're both doing things that are useful. Good! Now what's stopping you from enjoying it?"
Starlight returned the smile with a frown. "I'm getting better at fighting so I can do a better job stopping ponies who try to hurt my friends. It's dangerous, involves hurting, and is only useful when things are going poorly! How am I supposed to enjoy that?"
"Do you really need me to spell it out for you?" Jamjars' grin turned dreamy. "Knowing how to do that got you into this situation, didn't it?"
"And this situation is...?" Starlight screwed up her face in confusion.
Jamjars giggled. "You're lying on top of me with our muzzles an inch apart."
Two seconds passed while the implications sunk through Starlight's head, aided by the fact that this was Jamjars and she knew exactly what the filly would do in her situation, never mind that they were both in it together. Her cheeks started to burn, and she scrambled away, kicking against Jamjars in her efforts to get up. "No! I don't romantically like you!"
"Aww." Jamjars regarded her, making no move to get up off her back. "See, that's your problem. We both spent that time in that situation. It's not coming back, you can't use it to maybe change something, and all your friends aren't going to get incinerated or drown because of it. You could have enjoyed it. But you didn't. Which way do you think would make you happier?"
"Relationships are gross anyway," Starlight sighed, lowering her head in frustration and walking a few steps away. "Maybe when I'm older I'll see the point in it, but right now, teasing you like you tease me definitely wouldn't make me happier."
"Your loss. It makes me happy." Jamjars shrugged. "I can't imagine how bitter and dour I'd have been if I couldn't get by like this with my old family. Do you have any idea how hard of a burden it is to entertain yourself while also being the best?" She rolled her eyes. "Wait, you don't need entertainment because you don't need to have run, riiight. Look, if you ever decide to meet me halfway and actually try to do something for yourself for a change, I'll make sacrifices too. How about it?"
"Huh?" Starlight looked up.
Jamjars fixed her with a serious glare. "You laugh, and I won't pester you about liking mares for the entire day."
Starlight's face scrunched in confusion again. "But I don't want you pestering me about..."
"You laughing is the point!" Jamjars groaned, still on her back, letting her limbs go limp. "Ugh. You don't even know what you're missing out on. And I hate to say it, but I don't think I'm exaggerating..."
Starlight stared, waiting to see if she had anything else to say.
"You got that, though?" Jamjars kept watching her. "Have a good time where I can see it, I won't make any kissing jokes, invite you to check out the posters in my room, or do anything of the sort. Come on, don't make me foalsit you like this. Good?" She closed her eyes and plugged her ears with her forehooves, not even getting up yet. "I'm not listening to whether you agree or not, by the way. That offer's good forever. For. Ever. Or until I get fed up with waiting, at least."
Mutely, Starlight shrugged. If she wasn't taking a response anyway... She'd think about it, though.
"Good!" Jamjars opened her eyes and finally flipped upright. "Now let's... Ohhh heeheehee! Starlight! Shhhhhhh!"
Suddenly, Jamjars was glued to Starlight's side, a foreleg over her shoulders and forcing her down and out of sight behind a wooden fixture. "What?" Starlight breathed.
"Pony," Starlight mouthed back.
Starlight looked just enough to see a mare turning onto their dock, glancing around like she was making sure she was in the right place. Jamjars started to snicker with glee, horn lighting. She didn't need to say anything at all... but didn't even have the chance to.
"No! That's Senescey." Starlight reached up with a hoof and extinguished Jamjars' aura. "She's one of Valey's friends."
"Senes-who?" Jamjars blinked, straightening up.
"Hello?" The yellow-maned batpony blinked up at the ship, spreading her wings and hovering to better see. She blinked several times at Starlight, then beamed. "I remember you! This is the right place! Is Valey around? I... wanted to see her."
"See? Told you." Starlight couldn't resist shoving Jamjars, who grinned and shoved her back with an extra flick of her tail. "I think you can? Valey is doing things downstairs."
Senescey landed on the deck, briefly admiring the ship with a low whistle. "Nice architecture," she commented, folding her wings. "Well. Would you mind leading the way?"
Words drifted up the Immortal Dream's front staircase as Starlight led the way toward the library, the place she remembered Valey and Shinespark being. "That all sounds eventful, alright. I bet the news is spreading pretty fast?" a familiar, sound stone-transmitted voice was saying.
She emerged with Senescey on her heels to see Valey sprawled facedown on the floor, Shinespark sitting at her side and both staring into the glowing crystal. Amber had been called, apparently. "Hey!" she greeted, making her presence known before she intruded too quickly.
"Buh?" Valey lifted her head, trying to swivel her neck to look. "Ow. Hey, Starlight. Senescey?"
Shinespark nodded in a cordial greeting, and Senescey waved awkwardly back. "Hey... Sorry to show up unannounced at your boat, especially if you're trying to beat the pressure? I didn't see it but heard there was an upset and wanted to say congratulations."
"Yeah, that's one way of putting it," Valey groaned. "A whole lotta upset going on from all sides right now. Apparently it was such a bad move for me to try to win that, Wallace let me just so I'd learn a lesson, or something. But that's our problem. What's up?"
"Senescey?" Amber chimed. "Valey, this isn't that mare you were telling me about, is it?"
Senescey approached the sound stone curiously, stretching out her neck toward it. "Hello? This can talk to someone?"
"Long-range sound stone! It works all the way from here to Ironridge. Probably farther, but we haven't tested it. I'm Amber, though. Nice to meet you. You're one of Valey's friends?"
"Nice to meet you," Senescey echoed. "Can you see through this, then? Or just talk?"
"Just talk. No idea how it works, either. We stole them from some charlatans. But it's almost like I can see with everyone's awesome descriptions of the Empire! We're just sitting here talking about Stormhoof and the tournament and maybe relationships later if we're feeling like mare talk. But hey, come and join us!"
Starlight didn't join, instead leaning against a chair a few paces away as Senescey trotted up, noting how Amber was so comfortable with social situations she was automatically leading the conversation dynamic without even being there. It was nice, she decided, having someone else doing the work of giving her an excuse not to talk.
Senescey nodded at the sound stone and settled in, giving Valey a concerned look. "You look heavily injured. I should have expected it from Wallace, but are you alright?"
"Something approaching maybe?" Valey gave a pitiful look, then huffed, adjusting her leg cast and scratching at the bandage around her middle. "Good enough I'll get better, bad enough I'm entitled to complain about it. Had half a healing potion. I kinda wanna conserve those though. But bananas, the worst part is everything that doesn't look broken. Leg hurts? Yeah, I can deal with that. Get chucked on the ground and stepped on or whatever? Ow. My spine feels like someone took a garden hose and stretched it too long, my hips are gonna cramp up so hard the moment I get off them, my head hurts, I probably can't fly... Get the picture?"
Senescey winced with every description until Shinespark cut in, looking abashedly at her hooves. "I tried to help, but... not really my area, you know?"
"If Valey didn't appreciate it anyway, I don't know what to say. Thanks for trying, though," Amber replied. "I'm just imagining how easy it would be to get lost in a place like Stormhoof. The way you make it sound with all the mazelike gates and roads and bridges, it sounds like you spent half your work just finding your way to the colosseum!"
"Heh. Wings, remember?" Valey flexed her good wing. "It's kinda designed to be seen from above. But we've also been living here for like two months by now, and it's just an island. Pretty sure I've explored more than half of it myself, and that's just with my free time."
Senescey was still paying attention to Valey. "I can try to help, if you want?"
Valey blinked at her. "Huh?"
"With your condition." Senescey pointed a hoof, glancing between Shinespark and the sound stone. "I... know some things about muscular and skeletal things, remember."
"...Oh yeah!" Valey brightened. "Oh yeah." Then she drooped. "Sorry. I've, uhh... had a bad experience from exactly the same offer in the past. Got messed up by a monk dude right after I met you the first time. No offense, but, uhh... you know?"
Senescey winced. "Someone used Mistvale arts on you in the past without you realizing it and let you walk away anyway? Wow. That's either a lot nicer than usual or long-term sabotage. You got yourself taken care of somehow?"
"I remember that," Amber added. "You didn't complain too much while we were talking about how tired you were, but afterward..."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got that fixed up. While we were in Izvaldi, I don't remember how but Chauncey somehow found out and had some sort of doc patch me up?" She blinked. "Although, actually, now that I think about it? Bananas, Chauncey is weird and that doc was mega-shady. Honestly, from what I've seen you're way cooler than they were, so sure. If I could trust them, I trust you. Go ahead and do your thing."
Shinespark watched and Amber listened as Senescey put her hooves on Valey's back, felt for a moment, and frowned. "Feels like you're just all banged up. I can help straighten things and keep it from cramping, but you're still going to need rest more than anything. May I remove this bandage? I'd like to see what's underneath, and will need direct fur contact on your entire spine."
"Yeah, sure. It's itchy anyway. Just make sure we've got a second?" Valey glanced to Shinespark. "You've got medical supplies on here, right?"
"We do," Shinespark confirmed. "I'm not sure how many bandages of that size we'd have to replace it with, but definitely at least one."
Senescey carefully unwrapped the bandage, rolling Valey partway over and pursing her lips at the sight of Valey's belly. "This itches because you used magical healing with the bandage still in place on an open wound and didn't clean it afterward. A gentle bath will help you feel a lot better."
"Yep. I could go for that right now," Valey groaned.
Starlight stepped curiously closer, getting a look for herself. There was a decent amount of dried blood in Valey's fur, and raw, partially-restored skin that reminded her of a week-old scrape formed a crosswise slash across her belly. She folded her ears, imagining it as a fresh wound... and Valey fighting on anyway, taking a second, even harder blow and still going. For a moment, a spike of anger at Wallace coursed through her, but it quickly subsided, leaving just a gentle concern. Valey seemed to be in good hooves, though. She didn't get any impression that Senescey meant her harm.
"...This won't hurt as long as you don't stretch too far the wrong way and don't touch it with anything aggravating," Senescey decided. "Which probably isn't an option if you're fighting in the tournament... but take care of it, okay? I don't even know what's in your cast, but this will either get a lot better or keep bothering you for a long time depending on how you treat it. And stay on your side for now. It'll be more uncomfortable if you're laying on it while I work."
Valey grunted in acknowledgement, and Senescey started working her hooves against Valey's back, humming in concern. After a few seconds, there was a loud crack, and Valey winced heavily, tensing all her legs. "Ow! Bananas, that was... Ow. Something just went back into place..."
"That'll happen a few more times before I'm done," Senescey warned. "You got hit hard. It should start feeling better soon, though."
Valey alternated between wincing and closing her eyes in bliss as Senescey continued her work. "Sooooo," Amber said after a long while. "Who's still left to talk? Sounds like someone's getting a professional massage."
"I'm here," Shinespark volunteered. Starlight nodded, at which she added, "Starlight too. I think?"
"Starlight!" Amber's voice instantly took a step in cheeriness. "I don't get to talk to you often. How've you been?"
Starlight folded her ears. "The same as always. Valey's teaching me how to fight. Apparently we're going to get a lot more public attention now that she did something in the tournament."
"Yeah, she was talking to me about that," Amber consoled. "I've got a surprise I've been working on that might help a lot, though. Trust me on this. It's something you all should really like."
"Okay." Starlight shrugged. She had nothing against Amber, and the mare's energy and enthusiasm were sometimes nice to be around or watch, but she hadn't quite felt like they clicked enough to know how to make small talk with her, and that left her with nothing more to say. Willow, on the other hoof... An idea slowly crossed her head, and she figured nothing important enough was happening not to ask. "Willow isn't there, is she? Could I talk to her?"
Amber paused for a moment. "Yeah, she's, uhh... not actually available right now? Sorry, Starlight. You really got along with her, though, didn't you?"
Starlight winced, feeling like she had been seen right through. Shinespark, though, stepped up by her side. "Come on, Amber," she wheedled. "I know whatever's been going on has been going on for a while, but if it's part of the surprise, Starlight's a kid. Save it for Valey and Maple?"
Amber sounded slightly pained. "Not available as in actually not available. Sorry, Starlight... I'll make it up to you, too, though? It won't be long, I promise."
Valey narrowed her eyes, twitching slightly as Senescey pressed a spot on her back. "Amber, uhh... just so you know, Ironflanks isn't listening right now. So if there's anything we need to break gently to her that you don't trust anyone else not to say... we could hear it now. Or even just Sparky." She closed her eyes. "It's about White Chocolate, isn't it? Her pregnancy?"
"Oh! No, she's fine. At least, she was fine when I last saw her," Amber promised. "No, it's... You'll see soon?"
"If you say so..." Shinespark looked wistfully at the sound stone. "Just stay safe, okay?"
"Don't worry," Amber insisted, voice slightly less-strained than Starlight felt it should be given the tone of the conversation. "I'm staying very safe. And I know it's a subject we've been dancing around more and more lately, but I really think the surprise will be worth it! And when I say soon, I actually mean in about- Woah!"
A burst of noise coupled with a loud splash echoed through the sound stone, and then it transmitted nothing but silence, though the connection remained glowing. Senescey stopped her massage, everyone looking at each other and blinking.
"...Amber?" Valey looked at the sound stone, her back hair slowly raising. "Yo, Amber! You alright? Amber!?"
The stone remained silent, occasionally emitting muffled clunking or tapping noises. Starlight's ears pressed back, a sinking suspicion setting in, and she slipped out of sight, heading for the stairs. A blast of salty air hit her as she pushed the door aside, the outside world greeting her senses all at once, and she blinked for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the light.
"Look who's back," Jamjars announced, nudging her with her shoulder. "It's a pity you left when you did. I just got some more action! Hurry, though, and shhh! They're still splashing around!"
Starlight had questions, but it wasn't even worth asking about what happened. She followed Jamjars to the railing, obstinately not bothering to hide herself, and peered over. Two suitcases bobbed next to the dock, a few bubbles rising to the surface between them and no ponies to be seen.
"Turn off that spell," Starlight instructed, lighting her horn. Amber should have been a great swimmer, but just in case her guess was as implausible as it felt like it should be... She lit her horn, expanding and softening her telekinetic field in a spell she hadn't used since Ironridge. Carefully, she lowered it into the water like a net half the size of the ship, keeping it just solid enough to feel tugs wherever it met something more solid than water.
She closed her eyes, focusing her entire brain on pruning the flow of information into something useful and not headache-inducing... There. Far beneath the surface of the water, under the hull, even, a pony was kicking about, moving quickly and trawling back and forth rather than trying to make for the surface. She frowned, searching harder yet tightening her area of focus around them. Were they looking for something? She reached further down, probing for the seafloor, but it was far deeper than the range on her telekinesis. Straining, she almost gave up on pushing herself... and felt something sinking at the very edge of her field, not far off from the point in the water where the suitcases bobbed.
Fruit-sized and mostly round, the object was snagged by her aura, and she quickly maneuvered it to where the pony was swimming so that they ran into it. After a bit of surprise, they felt it, grabbed it and decided it was what they needed, kicking out from under the boat and back toward the surface. Finally relaxing her effort, Starlight tightened her field on them, helping to boost them upward.
Splash! An orange-maned head broke the surface, bobbing to a stop and treading water with a weird object clutched to her chest. "Whooooo!" She fountained water, splashing a bit more and shaking her mane off. "Valey, I'm back! I'm back! You're still here? I thought I lost this..."
Starlight narrowed her eyes, leaning over the railing. "Amber?"
There was a loud thud from within the ship, and barely a second later Valey was there, standing and falling against the railing to lean over. "Bananas, what the...? Amber?"
Starlight frowned and concentrated, lighting her horn again and hauling the suitcases onto the ship, then gripping Amber and lifting her out of the water as well. Seawater streamed from her coat and mane, and with a puff of exertion, Starlight heaved her over the railing, setting her in a growing puddle.
"Hey, Valey." Amber grinned, dropping what looked like a Varsidelian flash club with her mane drenched and her coat plastered to her sides. "Surprise?"
"You... Buh..." Valey worked her jaw.
"Look really good when wet, I presume," Amber finished cheekily, tossing her mane with a spray of droplets and not even bothering to shiver. "Have to make up for you looking like a wreck, but we can catch up on that later. Did you miss me?"
At that moment, everyone slower than Valey arrived, Shinespark practically getting pushed out the door as Maple ran behind her, even though she hadn't been party to the conversation in the library. "Amber!" Maple yelled, throwing herself toward the dripping mare in an open hug, Senescey watching awkwardly from the doorway. "What are you doing here? How did you even get here? I don't..."
"Woah!" Amber caught her with ease, blinking. "You've lost weight, girl. No longer carrying ballast? Also, careful. I had some sort of accident on the dock and might have fallen in..."
Jamjars slunk up beside Starlight, camouflaged to look like the ship's wood. "...Huh. I remember her, now that I think about it. Oh well. False alarm?"
Starlight kicked her.
"Yeah, though," Valey went on, trying to get her bearings back together. "What are you doing here? I guess that's why you didn't let us talk to anyone for a while, but still, I mean..."
Amber giggled. "I didn't think it would be this much of a surprise, but then you apparently forgot all about the last thing I said when we were saying goodbye, and I couldn't resist. Sorry!"
Maple frowned. "The last thing you said?"
Amber winked. "I might not exactly be leading an armada of airships or saving your tails in an epic battle, but I did say I'd be right there behind you once Riverfall settled down and Arambai got Ironridge back in the air. It took a while, but... ta-daaa!" She struck a silly pose.
"...Huh." Valey just stared for a moment, mouth ajar. "Yeah, I... honestly didn't register that for some reason, I guess. Bananas. Wow."
"And now I'm soaked and salty," Amber decided, looking down at herself. "Stand back, I need to shake. I did bring presents, and even made sure to get waterproof suitcases, but... kind of forgot to waterproof myself?" She giggled sheepishly, then kicked the flash club toward them. "Also, this is the sound stone. I did a little tinkering to make it easier to use, since I'm not a unicorn. You can do what you want with them now that they're back together."
Shinespark regarded it curiously, pausing to erect a wall of force as Amber shook herself off. Starlight looked in over her shoulder. "That's the sound stone?"
"It is," Amber explained, nodding once she was done. "I used the chassis from one of those things and replaced the filament and burst charging mechanism with the stone, so now it regulates power from a battery to the stone with the switch. I tested it for a while and it lets you hang up instantly now instead of waiting for the horn charge to wear off like it used to. It's really useful." She glanced at the railing. "Doesn't float, though. Would have been a shame to lose it right now, after all this... I also got a weird battery from Arambai that's supposed to last an extremely long time."
Shinespark caught her breath. "I completely forgot about that project..."
Maple was still wide-eyed, standing where Amber had left her after breaking the hug. "Amber, I didn't think I'd see you again. You came all the way out here... I thought Riverfall still had promise for you? Being the new ferrypony? But you came for us?"
"Yeah?" Amber shrugged. "I mean, I took care of business. This was going to be a surprise too, but I rebuilt almost all of your house before I left. It looks better than it ever did, and I've got a few friends taking care of the last touches. I got everything sorted out about Hemlock and your anti-fan club, enough that time should heal anything that's wrong there. And I did say I'd come. They've been clearing a new area out of the badland to the north of Ironridge, cutting the trees and using the lumber for reconstruction while they try to tame the broken ground there. There's talk of building an entirely new capital district to replace Sosa, closer to the Earth District this time. Restoring power to the city is one of their biggest priorities, and they've been working on new wells too, and finally were able to store up enough to send a ship out of the city. It's actually been crazy; I didn't come directly here at all. I've got a lot of stories to tell now that I can without ruining the surprise!"
Maple hugged her again. "I missed you..."
Amber grinned, soggily patting her back. "...I also might have had other reasons. Like I said, presents. Want to open them before I get myself and Valey cleaned up?" She pointed to the smaller of the suitcases, hard and black and looking locked and armored.
"Uhhh..." Shinespark regarded it cautiously. "What's this?"
"One second." Amber broke the lock, lifted a hoof, and with a bit of effort, pried her horseshoe off. A key fell loose, pinned in a secret recess atop the shoe, and she bit it, inserting it delicately into the suitcase. "It's enchanted for safety. Can't be too careful with what this is..."
With a gleam of light, the seal broke and the suitcase opened like a clamshell, revealing a velvet-lined interior with four pockets holding burning, fiery-pink orbs. Everyone gasped.
"Are those..." Valey blinked. "Windigo hearts?"
"They're windigo hearts." Amber nodded. "I actually forgot about this too, but when Yakyakistan took them after Ironridge? The ones Starlight killed? They said they belonged to her, and we just took them up on an offer to process them or something. There are four more they're still working on, but these ones are refined and coated with glass and gold just like the ones from Howe and Neon Nova. They're not as full as the one that made you explode, Maple, but they should still provide a month or two of flying time each?" She grinned hopefully. "I thought it would be important for you to be in the air again, along with everything else these can do."
Maple's eyes sparkled, reflecting the light. Valey quivered. Shinespark closed the case and hefted it in her aura, glancing Starlight's way. "With your permission, I'll take these down below? This is... unexpected and important."
Starlight shrugged. "I don't have anything to do with them. I don't care."
"Whew!" Amber wiped her forehead, only making it wetter. "Well, delivery complete! Mission accomplished. Now, someponies need to get cleaned up. Shower?"
"Yeah, sure." Valey nodded, still slightly dazed, leading the way below.
A freshly dried and fluffed Amber stood in the middle of the Immortal Dream's dining hall, the table raised out of the way so there was more room for standing. Everyone but Valey was there, the batpony having taken second dibs on washing up, with those who were less-familiar like Nyala and Slipstream hanging back on the room's benches and Gerardo presiding over the reunion with festive aplomb.
"This sure is a warm welcome," Amber remarked, her coat slightly spiky from dampness. "Glad you can all take a load off like this to hang out! With the way things were going since that Wallace fight, I was afraid I might have been a day too late..."
"A day too late for what?" Gerardo shrugged. "A friendly face is always uplifting in times of hardship, and I for one think this is a perfect way to take our minds off the frankly unknown ramifications of Wallace's allowing Valey to win."
"I'm just glad to see you again," Maple hummed, resting her chin on Amber's back. "How tired are you? You can't have flown right to us and been dropped off at the harbor. Do you need anything? Can we help?"
Amber stretched, rolling her shoulders. "Putting my hooves up sounds fantastic. And yes, it's been a long trip. What do you want to hear about first?"
"Anything and everything!" Gerardo declared, darting to the benches and grabbing some bench cushions for Amber to rest on, the library having been decided to be too small for that many ponies. "No matter what about, I think a story is in order."
"How did you leave Ironridge, for one," Shinespark cut in. "Are they really getting back in the air already?"
Amber dropped onto the cushions, letting herself bounce slightly. "Sort of. It's a priority," she explained, gesturing with a hoof. "I might have left out talking about it... and a lot of other things to hide the fact that I was coming." She blushed. "So a lot of the airships that were there got destroyed when the skyport was attacked, but new ones that were already making their flights arrived, and those ones were just out of power. There were actually a few ships that left before, when they were able to pool together the mostly-empty mana reserves of the incoming ships to power one to Yakyakistan and Varsidel, but those weren't priorities. Remember, when the city has no power, there are a lot of things more urgent than airships."
Shinespark nodded solemnly. "And it's not like they had no power at all. The Blueleaf extractor was still intact, just off the grid and not fit for powering the whole city at once."
"Yeah. They connected that to everything else first." Amber's eyes glazed over in remembrance. "Power first went to places where it could save lives... They had to keep an area climate-controlled and lit for everyone who was injured or elderly or needed it for medical reasons. Ironridge's population is pretty large, so that's a significant amount. You remember what the hospital was like in Riverfall, right, Maple?"
Maple folded her ears. "It wasn't my favorite place..."
Amber smiled comfortingly. "But there was only one of them. Ironridge had... a lot. Six, I think? Anyway. The rest of the power went to reconstruction, so I only got on a ship to leave once they started expanding capacity to do that. Getting other extractors built... Would you believe me if I said I didn't come straight here, but went to Varsidel first?"
Everyone listened a little more intently, and Gerardo beamed. "Ah, the war-torn land of high adventure and frequent strife! No one goes through Varsidel without a story to tell, I'll have you know."
"Well... I kind of did," Amber admitted. "It's because Varsidel is the closest civilization to Ironridge that's advanced enough to have mana wells. That's the only place they're able to fly to, which is precarious because of the war, but... it's better than nothing? I didn't actually do a lot there. Just got one flight in, stopped to refuel and came to the Empire. I could have gotten out to wander around, but I wasn't exactly a first-class passenger and if anything went wrong, they would have left without me. That wouldn't have been good."
"Ah, you never know!" Gerardo happily shrugged. "Perhaps you'd have taken up a calling and learned to survive either on the frontier of civilization or in the backwaters of a society that's pressured or decayed. You might have the constitution for it, I think."
"I think I'm glad you didn't get left behind in Varsidel," Maple countered, giving Amber a hug.
"I can see that," Amber giggled. "Anyway, like I said up above, Ironridge is building a new district to the north of the Earth District, on the other side of the river where the Steel District used to be. The ground there is essentially all shattered rock covered in jungle, with no even surfaces anywhere and tiny cliffs every few paces, but Arambai has taken control of managing the food resources, and since three quarters of the city is now unemployed, he just pays them to build it with food and housing. They're using metal salvaged from Sosa and the reserves that never got shipped out from mining, and wood from clearing out the jungle to try to make platforms and bridges and tame the terrain there. It's just called the new district for now, and will get a better name later. But it was already looking cool when I left!"
Starlight watched from a medium distance, briefly wondering if they were going to name it after her or her friends.
"Whew! So I went to Varsidel, though," Amber continued. "And then came here. It was a Griffon Empire ship, so they never wanted to stay there, which was good since apparently things are tense between the Empire and Varsidel right now. Ever since that incident you were there for when the Varsidelians who got their ships stolen to send Stormhoof's army to Ironridge got captured by pirates, well..." She rubbed the back of her neck uncertainly. "There are a ton of military griffons in Ironridge now, by the way. I made it sound like everyone's happy and making progress, but those guys are on edge and putting everyone else on edge too. They've settled in and are helping the city, but feel like they've left their home undefended and it's collectively making all of them nervous."
"Valey certainly doesn't mind," Senescey cut in from the back, suddenly averting her eyes. "I mean... and neither do I. The city guard being stretched thin makes things a lot safer here for our kind, actually. But there are a lot of rumors that Lord Stormhoof is working out a deal with Everlaste to garrison a large portion of their military presence here to make up for it..."
Starlight perked in interest. Everlaste were the bad guys, right? This was something she probably needed to be aware of.
"Hmm. Well, they were skittish enough I could see them trying to come back..." Amber mused. "That said, I don't know anything about what it's like in Ironridge now. I left a long time ago, not long after you finished with the pirates. It was under Arambai's counsel. I heard about the pirates from you, and he thought it might get a lot harder to fly Empire ships into Varsidel to refuel once they found out that had happened to their citizens. Especially since those were merchant ships that got confiscated to send the Stormhoof troops to Ironridge, and the fighters who were caught by the pirates were military specifically stationed on them to guard them from harm."
"Wait, slow down?" Slipstream hesitated, holding out a hoof. "Just to make sure I have this all straight in my mind... when we arrived here months ago, Stormhoof knew about the Yakyakistan invasion in Ironridge but not how it ended, since they heard from that mercenary leader who ran off?"
"Kero," Shinespark corrected, nodding. "But the Empire doesn't have an air fleet of its own, and relies on borrowed or rented Varsidelian ships to do its trading."
Slipstream took back over. "But that's been on the decline lately because Varsidel needs more ships for its war. So when they wanted to send their troops to head off a possible Yakyakistan expansion, they had to use ships that were trading between the Empire and Varsidel, against the Varsidelians' wishes."
"Yep," Amber sighed. "And the soldiers hired to guard those ships were given water ships to go back to Varsidel instead, which got attacked by pirates. And I don't know for sure, but now things are probably bad between the two nations."
Maple frowned. "But Varsidel is fighting their own war, so even though Stormhoof is unguarded right now, nothing will probably happen, right?"
Senescey shrugged. "Probably. Like I said, what I've heard is that Stormhoof is trying to play it safe and asking Everlaste to garrison here. They do have a lot of diplomatic ties between their houses, after all."
Jamjars blew a raspberry. "Sounds too complicated. You could just say everyone thinks everyone else is the worst and forget about troops and airships and diplomacy. It's not like we'll be doing any fighting."
"She has a point," Amber admitted, pointing to her suitcase of charged windigo hearts. "We don't have to stay anywhere, and this ship isn't slow."
"Unless there's someone else chasing us around we need to wait and be found by," Shinespark muttered, ears going down. "Like Grenada..."
Amber got up and put a hoof on her shoulder. "I heard about that. It sounded rough. I'm sorry."
"Yeah... thanks." Shinespark shook herself out of it. "And yes, everyone is right. We should keep everyone close at hoof just in case we have to leave, but otherwise not worry about it too much."
"So where else did you go?" Maple asked, changing the subject. "Straight to Stormhoof?"
Amber grinned. "Heh, no. Varsidel is way north of the Empire as well as west, so we flew into a place called Wilderwind. It's mostly empty nopony's land, but there's a floating cloud city for pegasi and griffons that's the real thing. It's kind of a mercenary hub that tries to stay neutral toward everything, almost more like a sovereign city-state like Ironridge than a border province in the Griffon Empire. It was impressive. And they had just enough solid surfaces that a few parts of it were accessible to earth ponies like me. I actually spent a few days there while making my way south to here. Now that was a journey."
Gerardo returned the grin, nodding along. "I've been to Wilderwind on quite a few occasions. Quite the place for those who need no help yet want no burdens. The last place anyone would mistake for good guys, yet the last to be called villains as well. And they're remarkably stable compared to the rest of the Empire, holding to a strong code of governance honor that makes one house generation almost indistinguishable from the next. Of course, it does take money to get by there, since what happens to those who can't afford the skies happens to be... well... the ground. And the ground is Gyre."
Maple blinked. "I thought Gyre was to the east of Wilderwind?"
"It makes no difference." Gerardo shrugged. "Is there a border? Yes, on maps. Does lower Wilderwind have governance? It's essentially left to do as it pleases. Does Gyre have governance? It may as well not. There's no real difference between the places, and everyone who lives there knows it, so why pretend otherwise?"
"Heh. Okay, then." Amber rubbed her mane. "Glad I didn't head down to the surface there. Haven't heard all that many good things about Gyre..."
"'Tis a tale of folly and woe," Gerardo lamented theatrically. "It sounds like your story isn't quite done, but is anyone in the mood for one of my own?"
"Ah, the woe-begotten land of Gyre," Gerardo narrated, pausing Amber's story for a historical lesson of his own. "The Empire's northern border, too close to Mistvale for the other provinces' tastes and too much imperial land for-"
Starlight cleared her throat. "I think I've heard this already..."
Gerardo blinked, headcrest falling. "Err... you have?"
Maple shrugged. "We have been in the empire for months, Gerardo. But you can tell your story."
"Errr..." Gerardo winced. "Yes, well, I suppose narrating at length about what Gyre is like would be rather redundant, now that I think of it. Carry on."
Sensing a brewing awkwardness, Starlight folded her ears. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut and let Gerardo go? She searched her brain for something she didn't know that would be worth asking, hoping to prompt him to continue. "Well... when did Gyre get so bad, anyway? Has it always been like that?"
Gerardo instantly brightened. "Ah, yes! It has always had its unfortunate geographical location, but that's not really the beginning of the story. Gyre's current ruler, Lord Gondolus Gyre, has been in power for slightly over thirty years, and things have... changed under him. Gyre was always a backwater within the Empire, but where its limited funding was once wasted on squalor, it has since been diverted to ambitious construction and modernization projects... that sadly focus entirely on the new capital he decreed to be built under his rule and don't evenly spread to the entire province, but that's how things are. Capitals moving in the Griffon Empire is hardly a new or unheard-of occurrence, of course. Regardless, the province's current era has mostly been defined by a build-up that reaches only a few, and instills a lot of resentment in those it doesn't. A broken promise of things being better, I presume."
Senescey nodded silently in agreement.
Starlight fidgeted. So it had gone from one bad ruler to another? That didn't sound like a beginning, or even that worth mentioning. She tried to think of something better to say... but fortunately Amber was a lot better at defusing awkward situations than her. "Ahem!" Amber cleared her throat. "So, I didn't actually go to Gyre. And I didn't really come all this way to tell you about coming all this way, so... what's for lunch?"
"Shall I get something started?" Maple perked up. "I would like to know how everyone in Riverfall was doing last you heard, but we can talk while I work? The kitchen is one door away, after all."
"Right." Amber bounced along wearily after her, looking like she badly needed to put up her hooves. "Everyone who matters was good, I think. Arambai is running Ironridge with Elise's help. Dior is... working on being respected in Riverfall, though it'll take a few years before he becomes more than just a popular stallion."
"And how about Willow and White Chocolate?" Maple's voice softened. "Willow just had her family broken, and White Chocolate..."
Amber put a hoof on her shoulder. "Didn't have it broken," she corrected. "Realized it was never complete in the first place. And she urged me to go. Don't you doubt how strong Willow is, Maple. After this adventure, you watch. We'll go back to Riverfall someday, together, and she'll be waiting for us with open arms and a smile on her face."
Maple smiled trustingly back.
"As for White Chocolate," Amber continued, "she's mostly good. Her and Faron are happy together. Riverfall seems to be a good place for her kids, and she's made a few friends and sometimes enjoys herself in Arambai's old workshop. She still can't make that weird mechanical talon work for her for some reason, though. No one's quite sure why."
"Mechanical talon?" Starlight blinked, not sure if she should have a memory of this or not.
"I think I remember that...?" Maple hummed in recollection, getting out several pans and inspecting her knives as she wiped down a countertop. "It connected to your cutie mark and let you move it around? Or am I thinking of something else?"
"That's the one," Shinespark called from the doorway. "Prototype for a future revision of Braen. I remember you playing with it down there."
Maple hesitated. "And... her foal?"
Amber sighed, shaking her head. "I knew you'd ask. And foals, remember? She got seen by a doctor and is having twins, again." She looked up with a strained smile. "Will this ever stop being hard on you, Maple?"
"...Sorry." Maple returned the look, ears folding. "I don't know if it ever will, but never mind."
"Right. Changing the subject! Yet again!" Amber giggled awkwardly. "So, Starlight, I notice your magic is getting stronger? You lifted me and my suitcases all the way out of the water back there. Good job, girl! But don't hurt yourself on my behalf. I'm a great swimmer."
Starlight wasn't exactly comfortable talking about her own strengths and weaknesses, but she saw Maple needed it and glanced back at Amber. "I've been this strong ever since Ironridge. I just have to be careful and limit the amount of things I do in a day so I don't get burned out again."
"Heheh." Amber shrugged, flopping against a counter near Starlight. "Well, I know you don't like being special, but I just want to say it. I spend a lot of time around Willow's kids and know the kinds of magic they can do. She's proud of Alder when he writes his name with a crayon, and Fir isn't past lifting things yet. So... just so you know, I think you're cool."
Starlight didn't push her away. "It's alright. I've gotten used to it."
Amber blinked. "Really?"
"Sort of." Starlight frowned. "I still don't like that I have to, but I'd rather be strong enough to keep my friends safe than just like everyone else. I have been practicing, though. Getting the most of what I can do and seeing exactly how far I can push my horn without injuring myself."
A rustling came from just around the door, and she realized Senescey was listening. Starlight lifted her ears. "Hi?"
"Sorry." Senescey folded her ears. "I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be private or not, but you were being loud, so..."
Starlight shrugged. She had nothing to hide.
"Hey!" Amber welcomed her over. "So you're someone I haven't met before, only heard about! Yay for new friends, right?" She offered a hoof for a hoofbump. "Have you seen what Starlight can do?"
Senescey looked abashed. "Sorry! Just a little bit shy around new ponies who aren't sarosians. It's my upbringing; I'm sure you're nice. Huzzah?" She tentatively took the hoofbump with a hopeful grin. "And I haven't seen, no. She has some unusual tricks?"
Starlight glanced away, but Amber nudged her to answer for herself, showing a supportive smile. Starlight folded her ears. "I can make magic crystals, teleport, and do some other things. But my horn doesn't work right and gets burned out if I use too much, and can stay disabled and give me a headache for days or weeks at a time."
Senescey frowned. "Have you seen a doctor about it?"
Starlight blinked. "Huh?"
"A doctor? You know?" Senescey tilted her head. "Weeks at a time sounds like something's wrong. Maybe you should get that looked at?"
Amber blinked too, slowly, as if this had never dawned on her before. "You did get yourself looked at in your old home, right?"
"I dunno." Starlight shrugged. "I don't think so. I lived in a small town, but also never had that many problems. Maybe it was because I never pushed myself more than a normal filly, or maybe I hurt myself coming to Riverfall. I never really thought about it."
"Huh." Amber slowly started nodding and didn't stop. "Did we talk about this in Riverfall, ever? Riverfall is almost entirely an earth pony town, so there weren't really any ponies there who would know about horn injuries, and I suppose everyone was too busy both times you were in Ironridge. The second, especially, all the doctors probably had plenty on their hooves." She glanced to Senescey. "Is that really a thing we could do?"
"If you have the money." Senescey gave them an odd look. "But a diagnosis or check-up won't be very expensive. Were you really hurt and never even thought of doing something about it before?"
Starlight winced. "I've been doing things about it!" She'd been... She'd been... pushing through it when she hurt herself anyway? Relying on the relief provided by an underground harmonic flame and maybe hoping she could find another to strengthen herself someday? She blinked harder. There really was a much simpler way...
Maple had looked up from her work too. "That's... an idea. Starlight? Would you like to get your horn looked at? Because I'm sure we'd be absolutely willing to help find someone who could do it."
"You can just walk into a clinic, you know," Senescey remarked, giving them a look like they had no idea how basic societal functions worked. "I can even show you where one is. This is supposed to be your first resort. It's not that hard."
"Let's do that, then!" Starlight immediately got to her hooves. Talking about her horn like there was something wrong with her touched on the same nerve as being special, but just like before, protecting her friends was more important than that, and already her mind danced with possibilities of doing the things she did at her most desperate and not killing herself with dizziness and pressure in the process. "When do we go?"
Amber chuckled. "Hold up, you. I need to get some of Maple's delicious cooking in me, and then get off my hooves for a minute. And I want to see Valey, too. I've got some words for that mare. You too, Shinespark."
"Huh?" Shinespark perked up from the doorway.
Instantly, the pantry door swung open and Valey stepped out, a half-eaten cucumber in her mouth. "What about me?" she asked, fur wet and a bag tied around her cast to keep it from getting soaked while she cleaned. "I've been done washing up for a while now, just thought I'd get some food. What are we doing?"
Maple took a halfhearted swipe at her with a ladle. "I'm making lunch!"
"They're talking about taking Starlight to the doctor's to get her horn looked at," Senescey remarked. "I don't know why you didn't think of it before..."
Amber shrugged. "Yeah, but that's for later. First, you and I have some hanging out to do."
"Alright," Amber declared once she had pushed Valey back into the pantry and locked them in, barricading the two of them with a crate of cabbages shoved against the door. "We need to talk."
Valey's ears fell. "Seriously? I mean, about serious stuff?"
"Being serious about not being serious," Amber said, not really helping. "Valey? Part of the reason I hauled my rear all the way out here to come hang out with you all instead of laying around Riverfall is because I was worried about you. Really." Her ears folded too, pressed back instead of merely drooped like Valey's. "Remember all the talks we had about Puddles, and you and Nightmare Modules? You've gotten better since then, but apparently now even winning a huge duel is getting you down, and I'm not okay with that. I don't think being in the Griffon Empire is good for you, Valey, so now I'm here in person to help you lighten up."
"You think?" Valey frowned. "Yeah, it's been hard on me. Everyone and their granny here either hates batponies, wants to use them for some weird political stuff, or is Senescey, who I barely even know. I have no idea how this continent's population manages to endure with any sort of self-worth or esteem."
Amber nodded at the door. "You've seen how Senescey is acting. I don't think they do."
"...Meh." Valey sat down against a bag of flower. "Well, I guess you're right, then. But I'm doing my best to keep my priorities in line and not stop to wallow. You wanna give me somewhere I could go that's better, I'm all ears... but I've had enough of Ironridge for a lifetime, Varsidel's at war and Yakyakistan is full of stinking yaks. What's your idea?"
"Mind if I tell you a story?" Amber raised an eyebrow, kicking back next to her and folding her forelegs behind her head.
"Sure." Valey shrugged. "I'm game."
Amber smiled. "Once," she narrated, "I was hanging out in Riverfall and ran into a cute batpony mare who made me blush, and it turned out to be mutual. So we hung out and spent several days doing everything we could think of, and laughing and being carefree and having a fantastic time. That's how I remember us in Riverfall. You remember, right? How we came home after a long day and made faces at Ironflanks through her upper-story window until she let us in, with you carrying me?"
Valey slowly grinned, brightening as the memory resurfaced. "Oh! Heheh, yeah. I remember we had just raided a candy shop earlier in the day, and I had the biggest stomachache and was trying to pretend like I wasn't about to drop you even that time we crashed into someone's roof. Yeah... that was fun."
"I know, right...?" Amber stared off into space.
"Yeah." Valey nudged her. "Thanks for the memory. Makes me wish we could do stuff like that here without getting yelled at by whoever does yelling these days. Might even be worth it, still."
"See?" Amber gave her a hopeful, knowing look. "I know our conversations have gotten... well... less flirty, as the days and weeks have gone by. Willow told me early on that's just what happens with long-distance relationships, and that she had some friends who tried to do that with Ironridge sailors back in the day. So we'll need to have a conversation some time about... us. But I don't think that's urgent? I came all this way to see to it myself that you're having a good time. So... what'cha wanna do?"
Valey stretched, wincing. "Oww... Something that doesn't involve running around. Don't think I'm up for that. We could-" She blinked. "Oh bananas, I just realized my first reaction for how to deal with dumb stuff getting you down is to hug someone and have a good cry about it. Okay, Ironflanks is rubbing off on me, yup. Something else. How about-"
"I can't hear you in there, but I know you're calling me Ironflanks again!" Maple's distant voice called from the kitchen on the other side of the door.
Valey snickered. Amber snickered too, and they turned to each other, grinning. "There's a start," Amber whispered conspiratorially. "Right?"
"Haha. Wow." Valey licked her lips. "You're like a light switch on my mood, or something. Yeah, okay, I'm thinking... Okay, get this. Not something to do, but I got a story. So, very first battle of the tournament, there's this bozo who tries to get the drop on me with a sneak attack before the battle starts. Only he was so not-stealthy..."
Over the next hour, Maple entered the storage room for ingredients several times, Valey and Amber clamming up and giggling with each visit. Maple huffed and rolled her eyes, and every single time they laughed more about the fact that she thought there was a joke when there wasn't than any real joke. Valey shoved Amber and Amber shoved her back, and by the time Maple came in to announce that lunch was finally ready, they were both thoroughly hungry and wore stupid grins to prove it.
"Yeah, yeah, we'll be there." Valey waved her along, getting to her hooves and carefully checking her healing injuries. "Bananas, I needed that. It's great to see you again, Amber."
"Great to see you, too," Amber assured, giving her a shoulder to lean on so she didn't have to hobble in her clunky cast. "Makes me glad I came out here already. So, ten guesses what's for lunch?"
"Nah." Valey licked her lips. "I remember asking. No clue what I asked for. Bigger question is how much she made."
Amber raised an eyebrow. "Eating contest?"
Valey burped. "Eh, I'm just hungry. But we could do that too. Down to take me on, are you?" She gave a cheeky grin, daring Amber to mess with her.
"Oh, am I?" Amber shoved her with a grin of her own. "Can't let you go too undefeated in all your fights. It'll all go to your head! Clearly, you just need an opponent good enough at holding her own."
"Really? You wanna mess?" Valey challenged her eyebrow raise. "You will not eat more of Maple's cooking than me. I mean, uh, Ironflanks' cooking."
Amber waggled her eyebrows, thoroughly determined to one-up her. "Oh yeah? Prove it. Heehee."
Valey giggled again at Amber's expression, punching her side with a wing. "Pretty sure I don't have a choice. I haven't felt this great in forever!"
"Do too. You could roll over and let me win." Amber stuck out her tongue.
"Yeah, yeah..." Valey gave her a consoling pat, secretly tensing her muscles. "I can beat you fair and square. Race you to the table three two one go!"
Two mares stared into each other's eyes with iron determination, a gravy-soaked morsel of food floating in a telekinetic aura between them.
"You going to eat that?"
"Psyching myself up for it. I'm not done yet," Amber insisted, groaning uncomfortably. "Give me a minute and I can manage another bite or two... or you could eat it?"
Shinespark folded her ears, an equally-uncomfortable expression on her face. "Amber, my stomach feels like it's going to explode. I might have to be finished..."
"But we're so close," Amber whined, pointing at the plate between them. "Three more bites and we'll have it! Three more bites! You take one, I take two?"
"Heh heh..." Valey giggled groggily from where she sat on her back, a half-finished plate stacked atop five others that had been licked clean. "You had to team up just to try to break even with me and now I'm still gonna win. Nyaaah... Urp."
"If I eat this, you will eat the next two?" Shinespark gave Amber a desperate look. "We have to beat her. I'll manage it..."
Maple pursed her lips nearby as her cooking was used for sport, everyone else having gratefully finished the meal and settled in to watch or silently cheer. Amber returned the look with a confident nod. "We have this!"
Closing her eyes, Shinespark stuffed the bite in her own mouth, chewing slowly and eventually bringing herself to swallow. She was silent for a moment, grimacing... and opened her eyes with a game smile. "Did it! Now you eat two more and we win!"
"Keep telling yourselves that," Valey mumbled, waving her cast at the plate she hadn't touched in the last fifteen minutes. She burped again.
Amber steeled herself, folding her ears, and gave her and Shinespark's plate a look of grim determination. Without waiting for telekinesis, she lowered her head and took a bite.
"Yes! Ha! Go team Amber!" Gerardo whispered, pumping a talon and quietly rooting. Slipstream shushed him with a feather.
"Ooog..." Amber took even longer to swallow than Shinespark, sweating. "Split the last one fifty-fifty?"
"Are you really finished?" Shinespark watched her in desperation. "You said two... Valey's done, we're one away..."
Across from her, Amber groaned. "Sorry..."
Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "Fine. Victory now, consequences later!" She lit her horn, took the last bite... and chewed, unable to swallow.
"Shinespark?" Amber tensed.
"Mmm..." Shinespark mumbled around the food in her mouth, eyes watering. "Mmm...!" She pressed her ears straight back, tilted her head toward the ceiling, held for a second longer... and slowly, finally swallowed, holding the position and refusing to take a breath.
Amber's face split in a relieved, uncomfortable grin. "We won! Ohh, I'm going to be uncomfortable for a bit but we won!"
She got up cautiously to hug Shinespark, who stayed frozen in place, pushing her back with a light forehoof... before finally looking down, returning the pained, victorious look. "Alright. That'll do it. We did it. Don't squeeze me too hard?"
"I feel like a balloon," Amber agreed, giving her a light shoulder squeeze before turning to blow a raspberry at Valey. "Take that! I told you I could beat you. Heehee..."
Valey leaned a forehoof on the table, resting her cheek on it with an amused smirk. "Yeah, but you needed help. You really wanna say that counts?"
Shinespark groaned. "This had better count..."
"It counts," Amber insisted. "It totally counts."
"You sure about that?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Like, you actually, one-hundred-percent sure you want this to be on the record?"
"I did not stuff myself this full for nothing," Amber managed, Shinespark subconsciously leaning against her. "And neither did she. We took you down, Valey."
Valey shrugged. "Whatever. I warned you." Then she leaned down, stuck out her tongue, wiped the entirety of her half-full plate into her mouth, swallowed, patted her stomach and belched. "There." She grinned contentedly. "I never said I was done."
Amber and Shinespark's jaws dropped.
Quickly, Valey was out of her chair and standing between them, a wing on each of their backs. She pointed at the half-empty plate they had been sharing as well. "So, you gonna finish that?"
Amber buried her face in her hooves. Shinespark just winced. "Please don't shake me right now."
Valey took that as permission, polishing off their plate too in a matter of seconds, her tongue not even leaving a trace. "Good stuff, Ironflanks!" she happily declared, not looking remotely bothered by how much she had just devoured. "What's for desert?"
"I..." Amber gaped at the plate.
"Nyaah." Valey poked her. "Remember, you said it was official. Now you just got officially wrecked. Take that."
Maple just shook her head and began to clear the last of their plates from the table. "If you're serious, apple cobbler, but I think you need to leave some for everyone else."
Valey burped again as the others cheered for desert, still hugging Amber and Shinespark with her wings. "Okay but seriously though, I am pretty full. Good game. Wanna go lay around in the library chairs and do absolutely nothing?"
"I think I might need to..." Shinespark's eyes watered, and she nodded toward the stairs.
Several minutes later, the three mares were as comfortable as they were going to get, all three laying on chairs on their backs or their sides and not thinking about desert.
"I think I'm going to have to skip dinner tonight," Shinespark moaned, eyes unfocused.
"Yeah, we better," Amber agreed, staring at herself with her legs splayed out wherever they felt like going. "So hey, Shinespark. Glad to see you're feeling up and better after Riverfall. I know we've chatted a few times, but all my memories of you were with you in a cast like Valey's, out with a cold and being all destitute about cleaning this airship. Congrats on getting back on your hooves from all that."
Shinespark focused a little. "Oh? Thanks. It's... been a long road. Things haven't been easy, either."
Amber nodded sadly. "I heard about Grenada."
"Yeah..." Valey sighed unhappily. "You'd think getting caught up in a pile of pirates would be enough to give someone a reality check, but eh. Mistakes were made, and now she's... wherever. Poor kid. Didn't seem like she was in the best place, and I kinda didn't do anything about it."
"It wasn't your job to do anything about it. It was mine." Shinespark gave her a look. "I was happy with our relationship being one thing, she wanted it to be something else, and after we both knew each other felt that way... I messed up."
Amber nodded. "Must have been especially hard, with her basically back from the dead. When I was a filly, I was playing with a friend on the docks and they fell in, and the adults had to resuscitate them and weren't sure for a moment whether they had drowned. She woke up, and that's my closest experience to all this... but it really wasn't the same."
"I'm okay, though," Shinespark promised. "Valey helped me through it. Even if it still does sting to have lost her again through things that are entirely my fault."
"Hey. I'm not cool with being a mopey downer." Valey waved a forehoof. "Hits way too close to home with what it feels like this empire is trying to do to me. I see something I can do, I'm gonna do it. Especially for my friends."
Amber grinned. "Sounds like you're in a good circle of friends. Or even have one great friend in particular." Her head tilted slightly. "She wanted to be romantic with you, right? Grenada? Do you just not feel like it's your time for romance in general?"
Shinespark lowered her head. "It's a side of myself I hadn't given myself chance to explore in Ironridge. But Grenada is my sister. There's a big difference between that and a lover."
Amber nodded sympathetically. "Blood sister, right? Did you grow up together?"
"We didn't." Shinespark shook her head. "I didn't even know about her until I was old enough to understand things like how my siblings worked, and how my father had many lovers. Probably six or seven?"
Amber pursed her lips. "Willow and Maple are my sisters," she said, eyes growing distant. "Not because we're related. We could be related, but we have no real idea. But it's because we spent our foalhoods together, not because our dad really liked mares. We spent our days and nights together, sleeping in the same room and going to each other's beds when we'd have a bad dream. We climbed roofs together to giggle at all the ponies below, shared each other's toys, laughed at the others when we weren't first in line to get a bath. And I don't think any sort of blood could change that."
Shinespark folded her ears. "I'm not sure where you're going with this," she admitted. "That sounds great, and I'm happy for all of you. But what's it have to do with me and Grenada?"
"I dunno." Amber shrugged. "Just felt like saying. Family is who you say it is. Feels like you're letting an excuse or convention get in the way of how you feel."
"Not getting in the way," Shinespark countered. "I know how I feel. I'm just saying we're sisters to explain it. I'm not looking for a way to think about her differently."
"Huh." Amber thought for a moment.
"Either way, that ship has sailed," Valey pointed out. "Grenada bailed. We both feel kinda bad about it, but what can you do? Not like I can smell her and track her down like Starlight."
Amber nodded. "Yep. That's why I'm wondering where you're planning on going now."
Shinespark blinked. "I don't think we're planning on going anywhere? Valey has obligations here with the tournament, now, unless she walks out on them, and we don't have anywhere-"
"Not physically, silly," Amber giggled. "I mean with yourself. Sounds like you've just gotten through a hard patch and you've got no choice but to move on. What are you going to do with yourself? Who are you going to be? Just a mare who sits around on an airship and does nothing?"
"I..." Shinespark folded her ears. "Haven't really been thinking about it."
"Aww, come on!" Amber tried to swat at her from between their chairs, then winced, remembering she had recently overeaten. "Whoof. But girl, you're years younger than even I am! You've got a huge airship and a cool cutie mark and I even just brought you more fuel to go wherever you want with it! You don't want to do just let your life sit around going nowhere, right?" She raised an eyebrow. "I just gave Valey a big reminder about how much better you feel when you're feeling good. Can I give you a pep talk here, too?"
Shinespark rolled over uncomfortably to look at her. "You sound like you have an idea?" she asked. "Having something to do would probably do me well, but the main thing I brought to work on was the ship itself, and I haven't been feeling like that ever since we got that idea to use the Firefly Sisters' singing against the pirates and then couldn't do anything with it."
Valey huffed in agreement. "Yeah, that was lame. And anti-climactic. Seriously, though, you could get back to fiddling away at that and try to get it to work next time? You never know when turning your airship into a portable concert venue for two magical performers we haven't seen in months could come in handy."
"Actually, I was thinking of you two." Amber pointed at them, earning two stares. "Shinespark, I have a distinct memory of Valey flirting with you back in Riverfall like it was the end of the world and you getting so flustered you had to leave the room multiple times. Valey, I even told you before you left I wanted you to enjoy yourself and would be more than fine with you trying things out!" She folded her ears. "Guess that didn't pan out, huh?"
Valey and Shinespark gave each other a look.
"Look, it's not like I like-" Both spoke at once, cutting each other off and ending with raised eyebrows and a bit of red on Shinespark's part. Valey held her daring expression for a moment longer, then sighed.
"...Getting some weird signals, here," Amber admitted. "You are really good friends, at least, aren't you? You said you went to each other?"
"No, I... like..." Valey fidgeted while Shinespark tried not to be looked at. "Well, bananas." She sighed. "My cutie mark doesn't detect impending awkwardness, but if it did, it would probably be poking me right about now. It's, uhh... Meh. Sounds like it's time to have a relationship talk?"
Shinespark tried to get to her hooves, wincing a little and looking nervous. "I should probably leave you...?"
"You know what?" Valey looked at her again. "I'd honestly be fine if you stayed. You've been in that mess with Grenada. Odds of either giving or getting some cool insight are pretty good. And hey, I trust you."
"Think we'd be willing to move to a more private room, also?" Amber grinned awkwardly. "Just because I'm the one with the most experience here doesn't mean I'm utterly shameless."
Shinespark hesitated a moment longer, meeting Valey's eyes. "Okay. I'll... I'll stay." She swallowed. "I trust you too."
"Cool." Valey relaxed, before slowly hauling herself to her hooves as well.
Shinespark loped heavily into the room where Amber was already waiting, and Valey got the door behind her. "Food champ gets the bed," she declared, belly-flopping onto it in a move that made both of her friends wince.
"I don't know how you can do that," Amber admitted, shaking her head. "First eat so much, then keep it down like that. It shouldn't be physically possible."
"Eh. Coolness." Valey blinked at her cast. "Though I really shouldn't be doing that while still injured... Good thing it's just a wrecked hoof and not a full break."
Shinespark nodded, settling herself gingerly into a chair.
"So," Amber said, rerailing the subject. "Relationships. Yours specifically, Valey."
Valey's mood went limp. "Yeah. So, uhh... Yeah. All of a sudden I don't know what to talk about."
Amber nodded, picking up the slack. "First off, I guess, is you and me. You remember what we did in Riverfall, right? What was that to you?" She tilted her head. "Don't worry about me or my feelings for a moment. I'll talk about me really soon, but I'm thick-skinned and not a believer in hard feelings."
Valey thought for a moment. "I dunno," she finally decided. "It was really cool. The more I think about it, the more good memories I have associated with it. You stirred up a lot of them when we were hanging out in the storeroom just then, too. Like, some of the best days ever for me, though to be honest my life isn't the best standard for measuring those. But I don't know what to call it. Never paid enough attention to anything to do with this stuff, you know? I just know it was awesome."
Amber kept nodding. "It was really that good for you? Tell me about the good parts."
"Bananas, I dunno..." Valey rubbed her chin. "We were just yukking it up about raiding that candy store and flying around and messing with Ironflanks' windows, weren't we? Good times. And there was also stuff like when I spilled the beans on my past to you. With Icereach and everything. You, like... had a hug for me when I needed it, you know? Felt like you met me where I was and we either went out to have fun or had a heart-to-heart whenever I needed it. Like... right now, even. We just had that crazy eating contest and now we're here. I dunno, I guess you just could have been like... 'Hey, I wanna have fun, that'll cheer you up no matter what's going on!' but you were more considerate about it? You get what I'm saying?"
"Mmm." Amber eased herself into a chair as well, tucking in her legs. "Sounds like you enjoyed having someone take your own needs into account, then. So you did like that! Good." She tapped her forehooves together, then frowned. "But... it feels like we drifted apart slowly after you left. Oh, we talked a lot, but... you know what I mean? Especially once you reached the Empire and things started getting harder for you. Especially once you reached Izvaldi. I remember you talking about Puddles and some other mare-"
"Okay, first things first," Valey interrupted. "Drifting apart?"
"Yeah," Amber sighed. "Willow said it's a thing that's very hard to avoid with long-distance relationships. I'm glad to see we're still friends now, but... do you agree with that? That it felt like things cooled off?"
Valey rubbed her ear with a blanket in thought. "I, uhh... Kinda yeah? I mean, we might have flirted a little less. And Izvaldi?"
Amber gave a worried frown. "Izvaldi. See, before, I thought we were just cooling off but you knew what you were doing and were maybe having fun with someone else. Honestly, I thought you and Shinespark had started something and you weren't telling me because you were worried about how I'd take it." She looked at Shinespark. "Just to be clear, that probably didn't happen? Again, don't worry about my feelings for the moment."
Shinespark hesitated. "I... No. Nothing."
"Nothing," Valey echoed. "I mean... should I have?"
Amber shrugged. "Well, I thought you would. You're the mare who was telling me in Ironridge how you used to use your shadow sneaking to peep and fantasize about every mare in Ironridge, weren't you? And you had fun flirting when I was there. But then you called me one day in Izvaldi, extremely upset, and told me about how there was another batpony mare who was pulling moves on you and you weren't okay with it."
Valey blanched. "Oh bananas, Crystal? I completely forgot about her. Yeah, the less said about her, the better."
"Are you sure?" Amber laid back her ears in concern. "Because I think she's worth talking about."
"...How so?" Valey asked cautiously.
"Well..." Amber took a deep breath. "What I remember is that you said she flirted with you and turned you extremely on. This was another batpony, right? So Garsheeva wouldn't have cared with her same-species rule if you got frisky. And it sounds like you were pent up, and like I just said, you told me you have no reservations thinking that way about random strangers. Everything I think I know about you says you'd have flirted back and taken the opportunity to enjoy yourself. So... help me to understand you, here, Valey."
"Okay, first off, she was a jerk." Valey frowned. "Really didn't strike me as a paragon of mental stability. Did I mention she wanted nothing to do with me and got me worked up just to be rude before saying no?" She shook her head. "I technically could have snogged her anyway, and it would probably serve her right, but she didn't want it. Crystal was weird. Put me really on edge. But, like, doing anything with someone like that was not a recipe for a good time, even if I had wanted to ditch you and go do stuff with another mare." She hesitated. "Worst of all, she was pregnant, too. That kinda shook me a little."
Amber's ears perked in confusion. "That was the worst part?"
Valey blinked at her. "I mean, it was also a surprise, but yeah?"
Amber tilted her head. "I had a flirting buddy a while ago in Riverfall who went out with a mare who was expecting once. It was a little weird to think about, but if she was small enough to keep it a surprise, it wouldn't have gotten in the way of anything. I know Maple has a history with this, but what makes that the worst part?"
Valey blinked harder. "You're worried about it getting... Bananas, no, it's like..." She grimaced for a moment. "Starting a family should be a big deal, you know? Like, hello, you know that's some dude's foal, right? You don't mess around with having kids, Amber. I kinda had no foalhood so I'm not really in a position to say, but, like, look at Starlight. You think she turned out the way she is because she had a loving and supportive family that was there for her? She ran away, and was adopted in Equestria in the first place. You don't... If you're gonna have kids, you should be ready for them. You can't stick with your partner in the first place? How do I know you're gonna stick with the kid? I might not have had a foalhood, but I definitely had no parents. And, like... if you're gonna break that kind of a commitment, there's no way you're not gonna ditch me in a heartbeat as well."
"Oh." Amber folded her ears. "That... I need to process that for a moment."
Valey waited, watching. Eventually, she whispered, "It stinks. That's why I was so torn up about it. Her body was seriously hot, but her personality was like a corpse in comparison. Being attracted to something so unattractive? And it was a trap, since she didn't want anything more than to make me feel awkward in the first place. And wanting it felt like being disloyal to you, and you're, like... a really cool person."
"...Wow," Amber whispered back. "I don't know what to say, and I was the resident expert. Can I think about this for a while longer?"
"Go ahead." Valey waved her on, content to wait.
A long time passed, spent with Shinespark looking at her hooves and Amber staring off into space and Valey uncertainly watching them both. Eventually, Amber raised her head. "I think I get it."
"Yeah?" Valey gave her a hopeful look.
"I think I don't have a normal idea of what relationships are," Amber admitted. "I'd guess you don't either, but I know for sure I don't. And I don't know what normal is or where we'd find it, when the Empire has its own weird rules and restrictions. But I think we've been using the same word for two different things, and that's making us confused about what each other wants."
Valey tilted her head in interest. "Oh? What's it mean to you, then?"
"Right. Not saying relationship." Amber squared her shoulders. "Here's what you are to me, Valey. I like seeing ponies happy. All ponies. I think it's a great thing, and I try to make things bright, but I'm just one mare and that means I'm content to do what I can. You, on the other hoof..." She pointed a foreleg at Valey's face. "I have a personal investment in you. I think your past is sad and unfair, and in spite of it you saved my best friend and her adopted daughter and everyone else in Ironridge in the process. I could keep listing things for hours, but the point is that I think you are awesome and it makes me feel awesome to see you feeling it. You're something of a hero to me for what you did for my friends, and I also love feeling like you're there for me, but what I want most is for you to be happy. And you were just plain cool when I met you. Does that make sense with how I've treated you? Can you understand me feeling like that?"
"...Huh." Valey blinked, a little smile coming out at the praise. "Yeah, well, being awesome is what I do. At least, I try to. You're seriously welcome."
Amber nodded. "So, when I say relationship... I mean it like there's something special between us. Like I'm committed to doing what I can for you that much more than an ordinary stranger, and like... by you acknowledging me, it gets a little more special. And that we think each other are hot, and that's the best. But I'm starting to think you see some things differently from me, like... like just what would constitute breaking that between us."
"Huh?" Valey watched her with anticipation.
"Mmhm." Amber glanced at Shinespark, then back to Valey. "I want you to be happy. And if you checking out another mare's legs makes you happy, I'm not going to say you need to have eyes only for me, I'm going to sit you down and want to hear about how hot they were. But I'm... starting to think you don't see it that way."
Valey sagged in the bed, still maintaining eye contact. "Okay. So how about when checking out another mare's legs makes me unhappy because I feel like I'm cheating on you, or something, but my dumb eyes and wings get excited anyway? Like, you told me you're not upset about that before. This is hardly the first talk we've had about this, remember? Maybe you're not feeling like I'm disloyal, or something, but I sure was. With Crystal... and Puddles, too, though I had even less choice in that."
Amber sat up a little with a small smile. "Alright. So what's your idea of a relationship, then? I'm hearing... well, you feel bad about having eyes for everyone who crosses your path."
"Yeah." Valey's ears went down. "I, uhh... didn't exactly have parents, remember, and sorta lived on the fringes of society for my first year. In Ironridge, I saw relationships, and the ones I always interacted with most were the ones where I could make some dude in the guard mad by hitting on his mare. Maybe it's for no better reason than pulling too many dumb pranks, but it's kind of just ingrained in my head at this point that you, like... stay committed, you know? Like, no matter how golden of an opportunity it would be to just have some quick, casual fun." She lifted a weary eyebrow. "But you just don't feel like that?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but I've actually seen this a lot before, and it's a whole lot simpler than either of you think."
Amber and Valey both looked at her. "I'm pretty sure I see what it is..." Amber tilted her head. "I thought you had no experience with relationships, though. Is this not even a relationship problem?"
"It is." Shinespark shook her head. "I don't have experience, but what I have done is spent a lot of days going around Sosa and listening to my ponies. Hearing their problems. And it's far more common than it should be to find couples where there's a Sosan stallion living with a Riverfall mare, they have different expectations on where the line is between closed and open relationships, and he gets hurt or mad because she does something with somepony else."
Amber and Valey turned to look at each other instead. Valey folded her ears. "So... basically what we've been saying, but in like zero words instead of a million. If it's a thing you've seen before, though, like... how do they resolve it?"
Shinespark sighed, looking small. "All too often? They don't."
"They don't work out?" Valey instinctively bristled, arching her back and then wincing. "But that's like... Bananas, that's not fair. You just said they were mad at each other or something, right? Amber and I aren't mad at each other. Are we?"
Amber shrugged apologetically at Valey. "Not me. I'd be fine if you wanted to indulge yourself, and have been saying it for a while now. You're not mad at me, are you?"
Valey tilted her head. "Should I be? I don't think so..."
Amber folded her ears. "Would you be mad at me if I had been seeing someone else while you were all the way out here?"
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked. "Bananas, I'd have to think about that. I... have no idea." She swallowed. "I mean, I do kinda like it that you're flirty and all. Seems like I wouldn't, with all you and Sparky just said, but maybe it would just turn me on. Were you?"
"No." Amber shook her head. "I wasn't on the best terms with Riverfall or with any time to sink into that while I was there, since I spent all my days investigating what happened with Hemlock and my nights rebuilding Maple's house. And that griffon airship wasn't a vacation. I might have returned a grin or two, but nothing major."
"Huh." Valey sank further into the bed, using her cast as a chinrest. "Sounds like we gotta figure that out at some point. Or not. Mostly sounds like the only one who's mad is me at myself." She sighed. "Sparky? Words of wisdom?"
Shinespark bit her lip. "You're right that it's not a perfect analogue. If you aren't mad at each other, you could work something out. What do you want from each other?"
"Her to be happy." Amber took no time to reply. "Relationship between us or no. It's what I do as a friend."
"I dunno." Valey helplessly shrugged. "Bananas, I have no idea. I'm not used to asking others to do stuff for me. I just know I like what I've got. And it's weird! You'd be happy if I got out and enjoyed myself, wouldn't you?" She pointed a wing at Amber. "So it seems like it should work out even more!"
Amber thought for a moment, sighed, and glanced over to Shinespark. "Sorry in advance if this makes you uncomfortable, but..." She turned to Valey. "Remember that time in Riverfall we were hanging out on this boat and you had just gotten that bow in your mane and were teasing Shinespark? You were laughing your head off afterward. I don't think that made you uncomfortable... What was the difference?"
Shinespark reddened and drew back into her chair, suddenly probed by Valey's gaze. "I... Oh yeah! I remember that!" Valey remarked, grinning for a moment. "Hah. Yeah, sorry, Sparky. You were pretty fun to tease, though. I bet I still have that bow around here somewhere. And I dunno." She dug around in an ear with her free hoof. "I mean, you had to practically tell me to do it, right, Amber?" She frowned. "Hmmm... Maybe it was, like, we had only been together for a day or two? Hadn't really done anything yet? Or maybe that was right before we went back to Ironridge. Argh, I forget. Any ideas?" Her ears perked hopefully.
"I just think it's weird." Amber shrugged apologetically. "You used to be absolutely shameless, right? You've told me stories about shower rooms, the marefriends of guards and other things you did. And nothing stopped you then. And the only thing that's changed now is you're in a re-"
"Don't say it!" Valey urgently stuck out a hoof, pausing Amber mid-word. "Don't... It's not the only thing that changed. I changed. Big-time. I used to be a capital jerk, and now I'm, like... a lower-case jerk? Sometimes? When it won't hurt anyone. I think." Her eyes crossed. "Bananas, I have no idea what I am. Maybe I just beat up people who need it. Or, whatever." She shook her head rapidly to clear it. "But nah. I wouldn't dare mess with someone else's relationship now, you or no you."
Amber glanced at Shinespark again. "And what about someone who isn't in a relationship?"
Shinespark's redness returned, and she gritted her teeth and looked away.
Valey just stared for a moment, so Amber shrugged and continued. "I feel like you and me does have something to do with it. Do you not trust me to be fine with...?"
"Stop!" Shinespark interrupted, sitting back upright in a flash. "Don't question your trust in each other. Amber, maybe you're saying that for a better reason than I usually hear it, but that's always a question ponies in Ironridge would ask me when they were wondering what went wrong. Does he not trust me? Does she not love me? Please just..."
Valey watched as she trailed off, frowning a little. "Sparky, I'm... pretty sure it's a question that needs to be asked, though. And the answer is no way. I completely trust Amber." She glanced back to Amber, then sagged. "Pretty sure the one I'm having difficulty trusting here is myself."
"Yourself?" Amber folded her ears.
"Yeah. Like, what if I was an idiot and even though you're the best, I didn't act like it?" Valey hesitantly kept eye contact. "Then you'd be cool and forgive me for it or even tell me you're happy for me or something. And that, like... I don't think it would make me feel all that better about myself. 'Cuz you're not the one I'm afraid of crossing."
Amber gave her a watery smile. "You're still feeling that strongly about making sure you're a good pony, huh?"
"Yeah!?" Valey's voice cracked. "I mean, what do you think? That just because it's been a month or two means I've forgotten all about the moon glass and Nightmare Module stuff and what that means about me? I don't wanna be a blight! I'm trying to move away from being the small-time menace I was in Ironridge, a-and..."
"Shinespark, help me hug her," Amber commanded, getting out of her chair and crossing over to the bed. "And that means holding yourself far too accountable for your own happiness, doesn't it?" she asked, reaching Valey and putting a hoof on her cheek. Amber smiled. "Valey, I bet you care more about being a good pony than most everyone in this city."
"S-So?" Valey sniffed, Amber leaning down and putting a foreleg around her neck. "I... Bananas..."
Shinespark appeared hesitantly beside them, giving Amber a trusting nod before laying down next to Valey, touching her with her side and putting a hoof over her shoulder. "Sorry. I'm not really sure what to say here."
"That's perfectly fine," Amber assured her. "Valey? Do you want to keep talking about relationships right now? Because I'm pretty sure we just hit the bigger issue that needs to be addressed first, before any of that."
"Good luck," Valey sighed, putting her head down, feeling her friends beside and in front of her. "Bananas, unless you can prove that a giant meteor made of bad stuff that looks like it was designed by an intelligent, malicious force and contains a bunch of weird maybe-souls that have to do with using that bad stuff to do worse bad stuff in fact has a completely innocent or even benevolent explanation, which I'm pretty sure not even Starlight can do, there's no way to address this. Only live with it. And that means dealing with the consequences."
"Why Starlight?" Shinespark frowned.
Valey blinked. "Who else would you ask to do the impossible? Besides me? You know I only went back to fight Herman in the skyport because I was following her lead, right? And she killed a million windigoes while I was busy freezing to death. And apparently almost died from it but came back, and also crossed an uncrossable mountain range, and is somehow able to survive and recover after exposure to those Nightmare Modules that... Sparky, you saw what they did to that pirate! Like, I know she's got issues of her own that are probably even worse than mine, but... I dunno, really. I shouldn't be saying this. I guess it's just a feeling."
Outside the door, Starlight lowered her hoof, having been about to knock and now just blinking.
She swallowed, folded her ears, and stepped back before she could overhear any more. Whatever her friends were talking about, telling them Maple had decided to take Senescey's advice and wanted to go get her horn looked at by a doctor could wait a few minutes. Mostly so she could think about how in the world she was going to convince Valey moon glass and Nightmare Modules weren't evil.
"...You're right," Amber eventually decided, rubbing Valey's back. "This is a problem we need to solve, because you're a fantastic pony and you putting this much pressure on yourself to be better is giving you so much stress and preventing you from having so much happiness. We need to find a way for you to forget about Nightmare Modules and realize they have no control over your life."
Valey folded her ears, sandwiched between Amber and Shinespark and wishing she could enjoy it more. "Okay, first off, we totally don't know they have no control," she sighed. "I've seen one of them and have no clue what it does, but apparently Dorable has one in Ironridge, along with some way of using it, that can corrupt memories? That sounds kind of controlling to me."
"But they're not controlling you," Amber insisted, putting her head on Valey's shoulder. Blinking, Valey realized Shinespark was doing the same. "You control the Nightmare Modules, Valey, not the other way around. And we can be sure of that."
"Oh yeah?" Valey's tone was confrontational, but she badly wanted Amber to prove herself right.
"Oh yeah," Amber promised with a grin. "You touched one once, didn't you?" She poked Valey's chest. "It gave you a choice whether to use it, and you said no. And you're definitely not misremembering with modified memories, because you haven't undergone a horrific, irreversible transformation, either. You're your usual fuzzy self!" She shamelessly patted Valey's head. "There's a thing. Being polite and asking to transform you or whatever sure doesn't sound like it's both controlling and completely evil at the same time."
Valey blinked. "Huh. Yeah, I guess you're right..." She frowned. "What about moon glass, then? That doesn't exactly ask before turning you into a soulless shell. Doesn't ask if a normal pony wants its weird space cutie mark either."
"But didn't you tell me the Nightmare Modules were more intelligent?" Amber countered. "Maybe the moon glass is just dumb."
"Designed by something intelligent," Valey sighed. "That's what Dorable said. I think. He was kinda way too technical and beat around the bush a lot, but he was pretty clear about that. I think they're inert and just make batponies do stuff we don't want to, or something."
Shinespark shook her head. "But Amber just pointed out they don't make you do anything. Valey, you got to say no, right? Maybe they're more like... tools?"
Valey folded her ears. "Tools designed for bad stuff. Meh. Thanks for arguing it, though. I dunno. I need... like... I dunno what I need."
Amber nudged her cheek with her own. "Does being treated like the real pony you are help?"
"Yeah. It does." Valey leaned into her in return. "If only this stupid empire didn't have a serious divine vendetta against us. Sometimes makes me wonder if it's not me that's the anomaly, but all batponies in general, and Garsheeva knows something no one else does about us."
"Maybe she does." Amber flicked her tail. "Batponies have some physical differences from other ponies. But who knows which one she would care about? Maybe she's offended that your ears are fluffier than hers." She giggled softly. "I, for one, think a lot of your differences are enticing, and I'm sure you're the same as the rest of us in the way that counts most: you're you. You have a you to be. And if you don't like where you came from, that's just an opportunity to be better than it."
Valey planted her face on the bed, groaning into its springy surface. "Bananaaas... Didn't you just say I'm being too pressured to be good, or something? Come on..."
Amber bit her lip. "Sorry! I..."
"Who decides when you've been good or not?" Shinespark asked, looking a little uncomfortable at Valey's side. "You're not as accountable to us as that, you know? Maple wanted to be your friend in Ironridge, even. Is it all just how you feel about yourself?"
Valey waved a hoof. "Not like this empire is spending all its time telling me I'm a fake, or something." She sighed. "And yes, it's how I... like..." She gritted her teeth into the bed, shaking for a second. "You think I spent all my time in Ironridge being a petty nuisance and low-key societal menace because I thought I was the good guy? Bananas no, I did it because I knew I'd get pegged or blamed anyway and figured I'd rather have the fun of getting away with what everyone would see me doing even if I didn't. You hear that?" She poked Amber's chest. "I tried to convince myself I liked messing ponies up and got away with it for six years! Sure, you could say I had no guidance or something, but if that's what I default to on my own..."
"You were a pretty big nuisance," Shinespark admitted.
"No. Hold on." Amber pressed her back, lifting her head and meeting her eyes. "You told me you still had this on your mind even before you met Maple and were always trying to make your pranks be less significant than the good things you did by sabotaging the Defense Force and trying to lower tensions that could have started a war. You don't need to be reinterpreting your past and telling me you were worse than you earlier said you were."
Valey bit her lip.
Shinespark nodded in agreement. "Maybe you need a lower standard for yourself. We want you to be your best, but never so much that your hurt yourself trying to reach an impossible goal. Your best, not perfect. Still yourself." She folded her ears. "Maybe you'd feel better if you let yourself go a little and saw that we're all still right here."
Amber nodded, then grinned. "You were hardly a saint back in Riverfall, remember? Teasing Shinespark mercilessly, shaving Jamjars' mane, sneaking around with me at times... and you loved it! Haven't you always told me you always feel better when you're feeling like yourself?"
"Yeah...?" Valey nodded. "But if myself is a moon-"
"Nope." Amber pressed a hoof to her muzzle, earning a scrunch. "Your self is Valey, and as your friend and someone who cares about you, I'm ordering you to do something naughty, just for fun."
Valey's brow creased. "Such as?"
Amber grinned, than cast an apologetic wink at Shinespark. "Do something to make Sparky blush. I bet you can have her reddening in two seconds."
Valey blinked. "Buh? You mean like..." She turned, and Shinespark was already red. "Huh." Valey shrugged. "That was easy."
"Okay, you might have to try a little harder," Amber prodded, turning Valey's head back toward the unicorn. "I want to hear both of you laugh!"
"H-Hold on," Shinespark protested, getting up and giving Amber a look. "Did I just hear you right? You want Valey to flirt with me, and think that's a step in the right direction?"
Valey shrugged. "She said make you blush, and it was easy enough. And, I mean, I get where she's coming from." She nodded to Amber. "I seriously did have fun teasing you in Riverfall. Seems like... I dunno, if I'm trying not to let stuff I've learned in the empire stop me from enjoying myself..." She folded her ears. "Don't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"You don't?" Amber grinned. "I thought the whole point was for you to enjoy yourself a little! Come on, the three of us are friends. Shinespark's willing to put up with a little and knows it's for a good cause. Maybe she even enjoys it!"
Shinespark shot her a yes-but grimace. "But Valey was just having trouble feeling like she was being disloyal! I'm fine with it, of course I'm fine, but I'm questioning whether it would help at all!"
"Hmmm..." Amber sagged. "It's a conundrum for sure. I want to just have her do something to prove and demonstrate our trust in her, but the issue is her trust in herself..." She groaned, rolling her shoulders. "Awwwww! Sorry, Valey. That was my best idea."
"Bananas," Valey huffed. "You know what my problem is? I'm completely terrified of being some evil monster so I try as hard as I can to avoid that, but I'm always happiest when I feel like myself and most of the stuff I loved doing in Ironridge is stuff I've gotta not do now. I'm naturally inclined toward causing trouble, or something, so now when I do that I feel bad 'cuz I don't wanna be evil and when I don't do it I also feel bad because I'm already kind of having an identity crisis and really don't need to throw away what makes me me on top of that. It's like an identity crisis within an identity crisis. That's my problem."
"Way to sum it up." Amber patted her on the back. "So what next? Break your new morals and watch as your friends love you anyway? You weren't happy in Ironridge, either."
Valey slumped. "Nah. In Ironridge I was lonely and had a bad reputation, and just convinced myself I enjoyed it. But, like, the reason I started messing with everyone there in the first place was just so I could feel like I got what I deserved."
"And what do you feel like you deserve now?" Amber asked, looking her in the eyes.
"I... uhh..." Valey swallowed. "I dunno. I kinda feel like whatever it is, I'd deserve less if I answered that?"
Amber wrapped her forelegs around her, minding the cast and her still-sore wing. "Well, I'll have to decide you deserve a big hug. So there."
"What happened to you?" Shine spark shook her head, staring. "Valey, you can't even decide what you deserve? How about what you want? In Ironridge, you took whatever you wanted and had no problems with it. We all did! There wasn't some mystical force making sure everyone got what they deserved, so that never even mattered! But you're like a rug now! Whatever happened to charging into danger for your friends or even a quick snack at the drop of a hat?"
Valey gave her a drowsy look. "Getting in danger hasn't exactly been our goal lately..."
Shinespark shoved her. "Don't change the subject. I was watching you fighting Wallace. The first half of that fight, it was like something was wrong with you. You were being too hesitant and not bold enough, with none of your usual flair. You want to talk about good or bad? None of us are keeping score, but if we were, the Ironridge scoreboard is five digits of ponies who kept their lives thanks to you." She punctuated each word with a prod to Valey's chest. "Five. Figures. Do you have any idea how much each one of those lives is worth? Because I sure do. Half of my entire job in Sosa was to just wander the Earth District, talking with my constituents and hearing their stories and about their lives! So next time you think it does matter, ask yourself what you could possibly do to balance all that out and make yourself irredeemable."
Amber whistled.
"Have you got that?" Shinespark's eyes drilled into Valey's. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather have at my back or trust more to have my best interests at heart, except maybe my mother. Even Arambai and Dior, we have an agreement to be loyal to Ironridge before each other. And I don't like seeing you paralyzed or waffling like this. That's why you're feeling bad. Because you're not doing anything. And there is nothing stopping you from going at whatever you set your eyes on with all your usual gusto, especially if what you want turns out to be a good thing."
"Buhhh..." Valey worked her jaw for a moment. "So, uhh... you're agreeing with Amber, right?" She tilted her head. "So you're saying you want me to hit on you?"
Shinespark's blush returned in full force, and her confidence evaporated just like that. "N-No! I mean, you're... Look, I want to see you revel in what you do, okay? That self-assurance? We'll just... not talk about whatever it takes to get there, right?"
"Heh heh..." Valey chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck. "Bananas, you're easy. It's almost like you've got a crush on me already or someth..." She trailed off, slowly glancing to Amber, eyes narrowing and going back and forth between the two mares a few times. "Waaait a minute. Amber, you totally knew." She glanced back to Shinespark. "Are you two colluding together? Actually, Sparky, I can't tell if Amber is colluding with you or messing with you. Am I completely misreading something here? What's going on?"
Shinespark's blush faded, and she looked away apologetically. "Sorry. Yes, I do have a crush on you, and I avoid mentioning it because you're not exactly private with your sound stone conversations and it's no secret how you felt about relationships and I didn't want to be a source of pressure or confusion in the wrong direction, and also since Amber is great for you. It's hard to hide though when you flirt with me and I have to react while pretending to still be platonic... Fortunately, you were dense enough not to notice, though I think Amber knew since Riverfall."
Valey stared at her, digging in an ear with a wingtip. She looked to Amber. "Seriously?"
Amber burst out laughing. "Sorry, Valey! Heeheehee... Sorry! Sorry." She thumped a foreleg against the bed a few times. "Whew! Yes, seriously. And sorry if I've been putting you in awkward situations, Shinespark. Just figured you might enjoy it in a fun, dramatic sort of way."
"Huh." Valey blinked, looking back at Shinespark. "Okay. So, uhh... I do think you're super cute, but you're a mare. Big surprise. And I'm pretty sure I still feel the same about relationships. So... what do we do now?"
Shinespark shrugged, getting herself back under control. "I was just going to do nothing. It isn't an extra complication you need, and I can handle it a lot better than Grenada. Unless you want to do something differently now that you know..."
"...Lemme think about that for a bit," Valey sighed, still staring at Shinespark. "Just give me a sec. A mental bathroom break, or something. I'll be right back."
"So, uhh." Valey fidgeted with her intact forehoof. "How long?"
"...Have I had a crush on you? You want to talk about it?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "I mean it, Valey. You have a good thing going with Amber, here. I'm only telling you because you asked."
"Eh. I'm curious." Valey put her chin on her leg. "Like... since Riverfall? Something about Ironridge? No offense, but you didn't really seem to be feeling all that up to it then."
Shinespark folded her ears. "It isn't a feeling that started all at once, and it changed as time passed. You were really frustrating in Ironridge, Valey. You played by your own rules and did things that shouldn't have worked and weren't beholden to anyone, and it always looked like it worked for you! You were so many steps ahead of all of my plans that you knew everything I was up to and made a big show of only letting us get away with building this ship and running the Spirit and everything else because of your random whims. It's like you spent all that time yanking me around and using my responsibilities as a chain and showing off how free you were, and the older we got and the deeper I went into conspiring to save Sosa, the more it happened... You were intensely frustrating. On my mind more than I cared to admit. And something unattainable, too. It was like you were showing off everything I couldn't have because of what I had chosen to be. I... wanted to do something to you, and could never decide what."
Valey pursed her lips. "I mean... yeah, I totally did..."
Amber waggled her eyebrows.
"Hey!" Shinespark shot Amber a look. "I'm being serious, here!"
"Frustration, huh?" Amber swayed her hips. "Tell me you didn't fantasize just a little."
Shinespark frowned. "Tell you I didn't? But Valey just asked me to tell her about that..." She sighed. "Okay. Thoughts. Even after we left Ironridge, you were like that to me. Remember when I was in a slump about losing my home, my mission and all my friends and you were making new friends and running around and laughing?" She turned back to Valey. "It's always been that way."
"Okay, hold on." Valey waved a wing. "You do know that bit's mutual, right? I was always seriously jealous of you for having friends and enough privilege to get others to do stuff for you without tricking them into it. Getting carted around on a pedestal and seeing smiles everywhere you went, and stuff. You were popular in the upper districts too, you know. So, like, that goes both ways."
Shinespark's ears fell, then perked again. "I'll get to that. Don't worry. Anyways..." She swallowed. "All that was tied up because I thought you were a jerk. Like I said, it made me frustrated and I wanted to do something. And then that last night, you... you remember the cave in the eastern valley?"
Valey hesitated. "...Yeah. Gotta be honest, I... kinda left that bit out of every retelling of the story I've done so far. Sorta figured I'd leave your darkest hour between the two of us."
"Thanks," Shinespark mumbled, ignoring Amber's curious look. "If there was a point where things changed, it was that. I was furious at you in there. You were fighting me up on the dam before everything went wrong. I had just seen my entire world end, and the only thing I had left was the filly who pulled the trigger, and then you showed up with your infuriating freeness. Like the world had ended and because you weren't tied to it like I was, it wasn't dragging you down with it. It felt like you were there to gloat."
"...Sounds like it's still a sore subject." Valey drooped. "I, uhh... yeah. Sorry about that. I still think it's pretty insanely impressive you're still going after all that."
"Heh. I have issues." Shinespark wiped at the corner of her eye. "Ones you know all about, with Grenada and whether to take responsibility for my failures in Sosa. Everything I told you about before the tournament. But that's not where I'm going with this." She brushed a longer bit of errant mane out of her eyes. "The thing that got me was that after I gave you Starlight, you didn't leave. You stayed there and kept trying to get me on my hooves, even after you made a point about how easily you could and would leave me behind. I knew you would go. Why wouldn't you? I saw you as my rival, a little guiltily since it felt like you were so far ahead, but still. It felt like your ideology had won and mine had lost. And you... you stayed and... I'm not going to get through this without crying, am I?"
"Heh. Wuss." Valey gave her a comforting grin. "Need a shoulder?"
Shinespark returned the look with a watery smile. "I can finish. The point is, I didn't have a lot of time to think about it then, since as soon as I was back on my hooves, I was still trying to save Ironridge. And failing miserably, of course. I watched Grenada die, the skyport be destroyed, my best friends in the Spirit fight each other to death in my name, Herman crush me in a single blow... and no matter how stupid I was, you kept stubbornly following me and trying to get me out. Even though you had every reason to. Really... gave me a lot to think about."
Valey winced. "Yeah... It was pretty stressful, too, so I'm glad you appreciate it. You were kind of stubborn."
"I remember." Shinespark winced back. "Still, it's been a trend. Aside from when you flirt with me... whether it's because Amber asked you to, in the old days when you did it to bother me the same as everyone else in Ironridge, I even remember you flirting with me in the skyport on the final night... I guess it's really those three things."
Valey counted on her wing spokes. "Uhhh... bothering you and not giving up on you and flirting with you?"
"Err... no." Shinespark's ears went back again. "And that's an oversimplification! Valey, I... You... Everything you regularly did and do, being free and competent and able to get what you want without a care as to how you got it and... Do you know the kind of tension I'm talking about? Because I really don't know the word for it. It makes me feel tight, sometimes, when I see you doing it. I don't know if I'm curious or jealous or something else, but I want something. It, you, I... don't know how to explain it!"
"Tell me about it," Valey sighed. "I've got a few words that might sound a little familiar about you and your ridiculous birthright, but that's for later."
Shinespark looked away. "Right. My birthright... to a flooded city I'm now in exile from. It wasn't just an excuse to re-invent my life, I was forced to. I could... can be pretty much anything I want, now."
"So what's the third thing?" Valey asked, tilting her head. "If it's not the fact that you get completely blushy whenever the subject of me hitting on you so much as even comes up?"
"I do not," Shinespark protested, cheeks staying perfectly orange. "And the third is... more recent, since I started learning more about you and your past and how you relate to moon glass and now these Nightmare Modules. For a while, there, you were still the carefree Ironridge jerk to me who had everything I wanted and was miles ahead, but somehow slowed down and came back for me. I... didn't understand you, then." Now her cheeks reddened slightly. "I think that's when I had it worst, because I was fighting with myself over thinking it since you were you, and we... well, I still had massive issues with you about the dam and Sosa and how much I disliked you in Ironridge. We weren't friends. Rivals at best, with you that far ahead-"
"Nope," Valey cut in. "Sparky, remember, I thought you were the one with everything. I'm pretty sure at this point we were equals."
Shinespark grinned awkwardly, but protested anyway. "That's how I felt at the time. Anyway, I felt guilty and a little naughty for thinking about you like that, because of how we had clashed and everything from Ironridge, which weirdly made me feel better within my fantasizing because the way you got away with breaking the rules was one of the things I liked about you and there I was doing that myself just by imagining, and..." She forced herself to stop for breath. "It was circular and self-reinforcing, okay? And I had several days alone with a cold and nothing better to do!"
Valey's eyes widened. "So wait, that time I had been hanging out with Amber all day and then showed off my mane and that ribbon and got all flirty in your face...?"
"Yes?" Shinespark blinked sheepishly. "That's... what I had been using for the last few days to try and take my thoughts off Ironridge." She sighed. "The memories were extremely raw and painful. I always thought someday I'd apologize for using certain thoughts of you to try and distract myself from that. I guess this is that time now. Either way, that point where you came in with the bow was when I realized I needed to reign myself in."
"Eh. Apology accepted." Valey grinned. "Wow, that time we ran into each other makes so much more sense now..."
Shinespark nodded. "Anyway. Like I said, I had it worst at that time, and things subsided a little in my mind after we left Riverfall. Lately, though..." Her eyes wandered to Valey's cast, and then for the first time she met Valey's eyes. "Some things have been happening to damage my image of you, Valey. Seeing how much you hated being alone and afraid you are of not having friends... how little you liked your Ironridge situation that initially made me spend so much thought on you. And now how you're bound, the way I was to my duty, to your past and origin."
Valey's grin vanished. "So..."
"It hurts me to see you like this," Shinespark admitted. "And helps, at the same time. It makes you seem more like me, less like something untouchable and more like a pony. Less shiny, but more like someone I could and would want to help. And... maybe I'd feel like you're less impressive too, for being less perfect or idealistic, but at the same time you're far more impressive for doing the things you've done... the things I couldn't do... despite having so many problems that remind me of my own. We've both got a destiny we're trying to live out of, aren't we? Mine because it holds me to too high a standard and you because yours tells you to stoop too low."
She took a breath, holding up a hoof to prevent any further interruptions. "Hold on, I'm almost done. Valey..." She didn't drop eye contact, giving Valey a serious look. "Watching you right now reminds me of me. I see you struggling with so much that's familiar to me... too familiar. It helps me, sometimes. Remember that talk we had before the tournament? I felt like you understood my problems because I can relate to you. But that goes both ways. It hurts to see you broken like this because I'm seeing you somewhere bad that I've been, but also because I'm seeing you hurting at all. Do you understand that? How I feel?" Her blue eyes glistened, and she stood right next to Valey. "That on top of everything else I said earlier, I want to be the same kind of hero to you as you've been to me?"
"...Yeah?" Valey's voice caught. "Bananas, you... like..." She swallowed. "I thought by proving I could enter the tournament, I was doing us both a favor."
"You were." Shinespark put a hoof on her back. "The kind of favor I want to repay. Can I be honest right now about where I think you are?"
Valey's ears pressed back. "Sorry. I've got... no idea how to... Like... I mean..." She looked up. "What's up?"
Shinespark sighed. "Right now, you remind me of myself during that evacuation. You're holding yourself to an impossible standard. I know exactly how that feels, exactly how it feels like the world is closing in on you and you realize you're in too deep and are just a mare who can't possibly live up to it. And we both know the cave you end up in when it breaks you."
"...And that that cave is just the beginning of the fight to put everything back together again," Valey whispered. "Sparky..."
"That's how I feel," Shinespark said, straightening up. "About you. I have a crush on you, Valey. Or... I did, in Riverfall, and have something else now. I'm not asking to go anywhere with it, don't want to hurt anything between you and Amber, and don't need any pretenses to try my best to help you just as much as you've been there for me. Since you asked... there it is."
She made to step away, immediately bumping into Amber, who loudly cleared her throat. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Huh?" Both mares looked at her.
Amber cleared her throat again, then broke into a broad grin. "Shinespark, girl, did you even listen to yourself? Go ahead, try to sum up my and Valey's relationship. Either of you. I dare you."
"Uhhh..." Valey rubbed her ear, Shinespark turning helplessly to her. "We hang out a bunch, do stuff that's pointless but fun, and trust each other with close secrets at night? I dunno where you're going with this, but you really are great."
Amber leaned in conspiratorially. "Mmm, trusting each other with secrets... Want me to let you in on the closest secret of all?" She leaned closer, muzzle right next to Valey and Shinespark's ears.
"All that is stuff I do with Maple and Willow as well," she whispered. "None of it's exclusive to relationships. We've snuggled a bit too, but... surprise! I do that with Maple and Willow as well. Completely platonically. It's a Riverfall tradition. Comes from how we're raised." She winked. "Basically? You're grand, Valey, and I dig making you happy and at the end of the day this is your call, but did you see how much Shinespark said about you? You and I have an escapade and a few sound stone chats together. You and her have years of rivalry, fighting together for your lives, jealousy turned to adoration and personal understanding! You have so much together just from her half of the story, I just learned new things about what I'd want out of a long-term relationship. So if I were you?" She pulled back, patting both their heads and turning them to face each other. "I'd think about the consequences later, stick it to that impossible standard, and kiss."
This time, it was Valey's turn to turn red, though Shinespark couldn't avoid it either. "Bananas, should we?" Valey's ears couldn't decide whether to go forward or back. "After all that, I think I've got so much in my head I couldn't focus on Nightmare Modules even if I wanted to."
"Well..." Shinespark giggled nervously. "Now that I have to think about it..."
"What?" Valey teased, moving half an inch closer. "Realizing your daydreams didn't really stack up to the real thing? Heh heh... You really want to, right?"
"Just a little bit surreal..." Shinespark hummed, tail flicking nervously.
"Not as surreal as my butt." Valey grinned harder, advancing another half inch. "Come on... you imagined it, you know I'm a tease. And bananas, I think I'm actually in the mindset to enjoy this. Screw Nightmare Modules! I could keep this up-"
Shinespark crossed the rest of the distance in one go, pressing her lips against Valey's.
Valey's comment died on her breath, her pupils stretching with surprise as their muzzles made contact. She shivered, her wings trembled... and she grinned beneath the kiss, any and all consequences forgotten. Nothing and no one was stopping her from doing what she wanted unless she willed it. Her cutie mark was dim, her worries calm, and for once in the Griffon Empire, she was feeling as good as she could be.
"Hee..." Amber tapped her forehooves together happily, watching from a few paces away. "I'll just leave you girls in peace," she sang, sliding the room's door open while looking back over her shoulder... and immediately tripping over Starlight. "Aack!"
Starlight barely noticed, staring through the door at Valey and Shinespark. "Are they kissing?"
"Uhhh... no!" Valey sat bolt upright with a wince and an angelic grin, cheeks bright red.
"Yes! I mean no!" Shinespark winced. "I... Starlight! How long have you been there?"
Starlight frowned. "I don't know why you're doing that, but don't do things that could make the Empire think you're in a relationship. We got raided by pirates entirely because that one mistook you and Maple for being romantic! I'm concerned enough that Amber's back, as-is. And Jamjars will never leave either of us alone if she sees it, too." She looked away, embarrassed. "And I've been pacing in the hall for a long time. You weren't exactly quiet. I was supposed to deliver you a message, but it sounded serious and I didn't want to interrupt."
"Uhhhhh..." Valey and Shinespark looked to each other, an unspoken spark of agreement passing between them. "Oh yeah, don't worry." Valey nodded. "That was like, uhhh... resuscitation training. You know, if you almost drown and stop breathing. Nothing funky."
"Funky?" Shinespark whispered, tilting her head. "Err, right! No funky-funky on this ship."
"So what's the message?" Amber asked, grinning an innocent smile of her own, eager to change the subject. "Got something from Maple or Gerardo?"
Starlight nodded. "Maple and I talked and thought it would be a good idea if we listened to Senescey and took me to see a doctor for my horn. We won't let them do anything that costs too much and mostly want to see if we can figure out what's wrong with it. We're probably going soon, and she wanted to know if any of you wanted to come too."
Shinespark looked down, then patted her stomach. "You know, after that eating contest, I think I've had enough time to digest that I need a nap... Valey?"
Valey belched. "Sparky, much as I'd love to join you..." She struggled onto her three working hooves. "I just flattened Wallace Whitewing, and Starlight is pretty recognizable as a friend of mine. I think it's probably a good idea if I sneak along in disguise, just for safety's sake. I know we just talked about standards and all that, but there's being imperfect and then there's asking for trouble."
Starlight frowned, tilting her head. "We could just not go..."
"Nah." Valey patted her with a wing. "You've had horn troubles for months, kiddo. If there's actually a fix, you deserve it, and you being able to protect yourself better would be awesome."
Amber stretched, hugging herself. "Ooog. I agree with Shinespark. I'm going to need a good night to sleep that contest off... Whew! But a walk would totally help, too, and I want to see Stormhoof with a proper guide and not getting lost a million times. Count me in!"
"Maple did say she'd feel better with you along," Starlight admitted to Valey. "Will you be ready to go soon? You've been in here for hours, and it's getting close to evening."
"Yeah, yeah, bring it on," Valey mumbled, adjusting her cast and making sure she was satisfied with her mane's messiness. "Sparky?"
"Coming," Shinespark echoed, moving to stand beside Valey. "Maybe it'll give both of us time to think."
Starlight nodded, backing out of the room. "Alright. I'll go let Maple know to get ready."
A procession of ponies made their way through the streets of Stormhoof, Maple and Starlight bringing up the front with Amber at their side, chatting happily, while Shinespark trailed along a few paces behind. The weather had taken a turn for cloudy while they were in the Immortal Dream, and that had evolved to a windless rain, the city making use of its proximity to the southern mountains to experience weather that changed in a flash.
Valey had no complaints, the lack of sunlight rendering most of the streets dim enough to shadow swim without regard for actual shadows. She paddled along, completely submerged, dry beneath the water and staying beneath Shinespark so she could come up inside the folds of her long raincoat when her lungs needed more air.
"I feel silly," Shinespark mumbled, walking with her head low, ears flat and eyes to the ground, outwardly sullen and boring but really just focused on the ground beneath her. "Starlight and Maple get to share a raincoat because they're Starlight and Maple. You..."
"Am enjoying myself?" Valey whispered back, poking her head up beneath Shinespark's coat to speak, relying on her cutie mark not to get her face stepped on.
"More like are enjoying the view," Shinespark groaned. "I can't believe this is your idea for how to sneak around in public!"
Valey blew a mental raspberry. "Yeah, well, I guess I'm all or nothing. Not really feeling the funk anymore, so congrats. Dunno how that works, but bananas if I'm gonna question it."
Shinespark kept her face straight, glad for the cool air as Valey continued swimming beneath her coat's hanging robe. "So how is this going to work? Are you just taking everything I told you as a license to hit on me whenever you want?"
"Hey. You smooched first." Valey shadow-shrugged. "I figure that means you're cool with it, and I feel like messing around right now." She hesitated. "For real, though, you, uhh... How much do you want to go anywhere with that? Because it seems like you haven't made up your mind."
"I've absolutely made up my mind," Shinespark countered. "I'm not going to die without romance in my life. Knowing me, I might die of embarrassment if I had it. I had no intentions of pressing anything and only told you how I felt because you asked, and I still don't."
"Uh huh." Valey swallowed, her thoughts drifting to Amber. "Well, that's cool, 'cuz I... kinda haven't. Gotta figure out how I feel about a lot of stuff and why I feel that way, since you've clearly put way more effort into this than me. Problems you can't punch, you know?" She flicked her ears. "Don't think that's the greatest thing to try doing in the middle of the road, though."
Shinespark walked on, not deciding to reply.
"So hey, just to be sure..." Valey bobbed beneath her. "That's not saying a hard no, right? Just that anything will be on me to try?"
"No. It's not a hard no." Shinespark looked up enough to see Maple and Amber turn a corner, following directions Gerardo had looked up, then bowed her head again. "It's exactly what you said. I know a lot about patience, Valey. Maybe if you tested that patience enough I'd do something, but I've been fine keeping this to myself. If it would get in the way, that's your decision, and you can make it whenever you want."
Valey hovered beneath the surface for a moment. "Nyeh. Not feeling like big decisions right now. But I'll think about it. Juuust checking."
While Valey and Shinespark quietly talked, Amber and Maple kept up a happier chatter, few pedestrians outside due to the rain to get in their way. "I mean, I still remember the time you froze like a dozen Riverfall mares solid," Amber was saying, nudging Starlight on Maple's back with her eyes. "Your crystals are huge! If you can do all that like this, getting your horn looked at could make you unstoppable!"
"I don't know," Starlight hesitantly replied. "It would probably just let me do what I do now, only without getting as hurt by it. And that's assuming they can fix it, or even know what's wrong. Remember, I'm not a normal filly."
Maple bounced her back slightly, the best sign of affection she could give with Starlight atop her. "That's why we're just going to check," she promised. "To see if they can give us an idea of what's wrong. Stormhoof is big and has griffons and ponies of all kinds, so their doctors should be used to seeing all sorts of different things."
"Errr..." Starlight bit her lip. "I'm not sure what griffon and pegasus doctors have to do with my horn..."
"The point is, we'll find talent!" Amber promised. "Gerardo said this island has a walk-in clinic, so we don't even need an appointment. We'll get you in, get you looked at, and your magic just might get awesome. Look on the bright side!"
Maple sighed. "The bright side is that the weather is good enough at making ponies stay indoors that everyone out here has a place to get to, so no one's standing around and speculating. We might be safe from being spotted and given negative attention, even after all that drama about Wallace."
"Oh, it's getting talked about," Amber promised with a smile. "Trust me. I know about gossip."
"I just hope it'll blow over," Maple murmured, feeling Starlight shift beneath the coat on her back. "Even though Wallace says it'll get worse. And that that's why he did it, so that if the pressure was going to get too high, Valey would be scared off and just quit now."
Amber got a little grin. "Eh, I'm pretty sure she won't. I've got a good feeling about this."
"What did you all talk about, up there?" Maple finally asked. "The three of you were in a room for hours."
"Oh, you know." Amber's grin widened. "The important part? We got Valey feeling better. She's been pretty down about the moon glass stuff." Her grin disappeared. "I know she's told you bits and pieces, but have you ever heard the full story about her past? From before Ironridge?" She looked serious for a moment, taking a pause. "She's... got a lot going on, and we had to make sure she was good to keep going. That mare is insanely resilient, but Shinespark and I are both afraid she's nearing her limit."
Maple's ears folded. "Her limit? Of...?"
Amber sagged. "Of the Empire having it out for her, and worrying about her purpose. But right now?" She winked. "I think she's pretty good. Not the kind of conversation to finish in the street, though."
"Right." Maple nodded. "I think our destination is just two turns away..."
"Hi, how can I help..." A bored-looking unicorn staffing the desk immediately inside the clinic's entrance trailed off as Maple and Starlight's party entered, noticing Valey's condition with wide eyes as she finally stood up and stopped shadow sneaking. "Physical trauma? It looks like you've already been seen to recently? Better hope you're stable; there are a lot of higher-priority injuries due to the tournament right now."
Valey shrugged, pushing Maple forward. "Nah, not me. I'm good. You do the talking, Ironflanks."
Starlight watched from Maple's back as she introduced herself and stated her business, realizing with some irony that this was exactly the place they had picked Valey up from earlier in the morning. Adjacent to the colosseum, where else would a hospital be? If any of them had thought of it, they could have spared themselves the trip.
"You want someone to look at her horn?" The desk mare frowned. "We should be able to do that. Do you have any existing medical records in our system?"
Maple frowned. "You would know that better than I would, but I don't think so?"
"Alright, then. Wait over there, please. A nurse will be right with you..." The mare waved them further into the building with a slightly odd look. "You're a lot of ponies accompanying just one patient."
Amber grinned, bringing up the rear. "We were along for the walk, and want to get out of the rain. We'll get out of your fur, though."
The waiting room was largely empty, and most of the ponies and griffons who were there kept to themselves, faces buried in newspapers or magazines or else staring deadly into space. It didn't take long for the nurse to arrive, and Starlight zoned out as more pleasantries were exchanged. Shinespark and Amber stayed behind with Valey, leaving only Maple at her side as they trotted through a minimally-lit corridor and eventually stopped in an examination room.
"Let's get the routine stuff out of the way first, hmm, dearie?" the nurse asked, stooping to Starlight's level and wearing a smile so friendly, it certainly meant she wanted to brace her for something nasty. "Stand over here, and we'll take your height and weight. How old are you?"
"We don't really know," Maple apologized with a smile of her own. "She's adopted. Does it matter?"
The nurse looked at her, then shrugged. "Well, since she has no information on record, it would be best if she got a general physical checkup first. You said she was having horn issues, right? There are a lot of things that can cause that in a young filly, and most of them aren't magical. So, we should cover our bases, right? Tell me about yourself, Starlight. Anything in general that feels wrong." She lifted a clipboard in her wings.
Starlight opened her mouth to say everything but her horn was fine... until a harsh knock came at the door. "Doctor Gru!" a male voice called from outside.
"Oh?" The nurse blinked, looking up. "Looks like someone's here to see you already," she remarked, getting the door. "I guess the staff were feeling quick today! Sounds like you'll get a more magical look at your horn taken quickly!"
A prim unicorn with a short, curly mane and tiny spectacles entered wearing a white lab coat, looking down his muzzle with a smile that was probably intended to be friendly. "Starlight! You're my little patient? Word from on high was you were high-priority."
The nurse nodded. "Starlight, Maple, this is Doctor Gru, and he'll be able to diagnose your problems with far more accuracy than I will." She hesitated. "Doctor... I haven't even completed a basic assessment yet, and didn't put in the call for you. Are you sure your time is best spent on the basics?"
"Oh, no, no, it's no trouble at all," the doctor chuckled, patting the nurse on the head with his telekinesis. "Sounds like a management snafu, but guess whose favor it works out it? All of ours! You get seen to quickly, and between the four of us, I've had more than enough fun setting breaks and mending lacerations for today already. Now, tell me a little about your horn."
Starlight felt a faint tingle in the back of her mind as the nurse decided to leave, then lit her horn for emphasis. "It hurts when I use it too much and takes a long time to stop hurting," she answered, having no idea what would be helpful or what he was looking for.
"Mmm. I see!" Doctor Gru walked in a circle around her, peering closely with his spectacles. "And has it always been like this? Is it relatively stable, or has it suddenly gotten worse? Anything like this run in the family?"
"I don't know who my biological parents were." Starlight bit her lip. "And it only got bad a few months ago after I started using my magic a lot more than I used to and pushing it further."
Doctor Gru nodded. "Pushing it further? Lifting heavy things with telekinesis, I take it? Do you have an example of the heaviest thing you can lift without it hurting? How about a thick book?"
Starlight shrugged, lifting Maple for a second before setting her down with an apologetic nuzzle, all without breaking a sweat. "It's not about how much I push it. It's about that plus how long I push it for. Like there's an energy limit."
The doctor's jaw hung for a moment. "You can lift a whole pony, can you? That's quite impressive for a filly your age. Most of the foals I see are just developing sparks and minor tricks, and the advanced ones are lifting things smaller and much lighter than they are. My first guess was that you have some sort of stress injury, but it sounds more like you're missing part of a limiter system to avoid hurting yourself. Most unicorns are capable of more powerful magic than they usually wield, but it's capped except in situations of extreme emotional stress to avoid long-term damage to themselves."
"Really?" Starlight blinked, then frowned. Was she just... too powerful for her own good? Or unable to properly check or regulate herself?
"That said," Gru continued, shrugging, "most kids having a magic surge are about as powerful as you showed off there, and you didn't even look like you were concentrating, there! So who knows what's up?" He winked. "I've got a machine just a room away that's used for measuring mana signals and signatures. I'd be very curious to hook you up to it and see what we find out, if that's alright with you?"
Maple frowned. "Hold on... how does this machine work? Does it involve anything that could potentially drain her or hurt her? If she's missing some sort of limit like you say, couldn't it potentially suck her dry?"
Doctor Gru chuckled. "No, it's a simple resistor that projects patterns forced through it onto a screen. Ever amused yourself by using your horn on a gemstone to make it light up for a while? It's exactly the same as that, only specially cut so we can learn things from it. You fine waiting here, stepmom? We'll be right back."
"Should I?" Maple stood up. "I can come too."
"Actually..." Doctor Gru moved over and swiped the nurse's abandoned clipboard, its paperwork mostly not filled out. "Since we sort of skipped the beginning, would you mind filling out the survey questions here for her to the best of your ability? It would save a lot of time."
"Oh." Maple took the clipboard as it was thrust at her. "Well, okay."
"Excellent!" Gru guided Starlight along with his aura, shepherding her out of the room. "We'll be back in less than five minutes."
The door swung shut behind him with a click, and Valey slowly rose out of the floor.
"Ah!" Maple stifled a gasp. "Valey, you surprised me. You didn't wait with Amber and Shinespark?"
"Nah. Kinda feel like snooping around." Valey shrugged. "I didn't feel it earlier, so either I was in a different part of the hospital or it wasn't close enough to night here, but I'm pretty sure there's a dusk statue somewhere in this place. I wonder if they use it to give dying batponies last rites, or something. But it was making me a little antsy, so I figured I'd do something with myself and follow along."
Maple smiled. "Well, glad to have you. Want to help me with this paperwork?"
The room Gru led Starlight to was small, dim, and didn't look abundantly packed with technology. In fact, it didn't look all that different than the one we had left. "Here?" she asked as he closed the door behind them.
"Right here!" the doctor said cheerfully, opening a cabinet and searching around inside with his aura. "One moment while I find this and get it set up..."
Starlight sat and waited, frowning. Something kept twinging at the back of her mind, like an idea that had been forgotten and was important to remember. A tug she needed not to ignore, but couldn't remember what it meant... She fidgeted. Something about her magic? About what he had said? That meshed or clashed with something she already knew? What was-!
Suddenly, his aura was in front of her, holding something to her nose. "Just one moment," Doctor Gru promised. "This won't hurt at all."
Starlight gasped in surprise and tried to back away... but her hooves were rooted in place by magic. She tried to light her horn, but as she drew in the breath, her head swam, and she teetered over, darkness edging into her vision until she slipped out of consciousness.
"How much physical activity does she get per day? Bananas, I dunno." Valey shrugged. "She usually rides around on you whenever you go anywhere, but she's pretty active sparring with me. I have her running and jumping a lot. She's not exactly an athlete, but she's in pretty good shape."
"Right," Maple agreed. "We'll say she goes with hard training for an hour a day, since it's longer than that but not as often. Now, next..." She trailed off. "Valey?"
"Oh bananas," Valey whispered, looking like she had been shot, surprise morphing to outrage on her face. "Oh bananas. Starlight just went from being two rooms away to several miles. She teleported."
Maple frowned. "They stimulated her into doing that? But the furthest I've ever seen her teleport is..."
"Uh huh," Valey growled. "Yeah, they totally did. Bananas, she's completely recognizable as being with me. Whatever kind of doctor that dude thinks he is, we'll see if he can patch himself up as badly as I can kick his teeth in."
With an irreverent shove, Valey kicked her way through the door into the room she figured Starlight had been in last. It was dark and empty, and she briefly regretted not having a portable light on her before quickly finding a switch.
The lights came on, granting her nothing of interest, but she nevertheless made a quick cursory search. Medical cabinets? Full of supplies. Examination table? Looked like it might have been touched once since the cover was changed. Sanitary sink and countertop? Empty save for a drying wet rag. As she passed by them, though, her cutie mark twinged slightly, and she leaned in carefully... Was it the rag? Valey sniffed, feeling slightly lightheaded, and quickly backed away with a scowl. What was that, something to knock someone-
In a single second, Starlight's distance from her doubled.
"Oh, come on!" Valey stomped with her good hoof, running back out of the room. "Maple!"
She nearly bumped into another nurse pushing a tray of tools on a cart down the hallway, jumping out of the way in surprise. The nurse frowned at her. "Ma'am, why are you unattended so far away from your room? With a leg like that, you need to be resting!"
Valey blinked. "So far away? Okay, wait a-"
The nurse gave her a worried look. "These are examination rooms. Residency is all the way on the other side of the building."
"I'm not a patient!" Valey shook her cast. "I'm here with a friend's kid who was getting looked at, or something, and she and the doc who was with her just completely vanished! How do I track down a specific doctor in this place?"
"Oh, I..." The nurse's eyes widened, Maple stepping out of the room she was waiting in behind her. "I've never heard of that happening before. If you're sure, you should see whoever you checked in with. I don't have anything that could help you."
Valey waved Maple along, giving the nurse a nod. "Yo, seriously, thanks. The right direction's better than nothing."
As she took off back along the hallways to the entrance and waiting room, Starlight teleported again.
"She what!?" Amber squawked, jumping out of her chair.
"Gone. Teleporting. I'd guess further away than Ironridge is wide, right now." Valey rubbed the back of her neck in frustration, tail lashing. "Get up, girls. I don't care whose face I have to pound, I want answers."
Shinespark snapped to her hooves, but hesitated. "If she's rapidly getting faster away, what are you looking in here for? You know where she is, right?"
"Yeah, but where she is is moving, and faster away than I can fly," Valey growled. "If I could fly. Might be painful while I'm still busted up. I wanna know where she's going!"
Amber nodded. "Our ship can fly again, so we can chase her down! Come on, girls! Let's... find out what happened!"
The front desk mare looked strangely at the four of them as they bustled out into the hospital's entrance, expression daring them to make her day more interesting. Valey wasted no time rising to the challenge. "Look," she said, hitting the desk with her cast like a club. "We came in here to get my friend's kid checked, and now she and the doc who were seeing her disappeared. Where is Doctor Gru? I wanna see him in front of me right now."
The mare looked at her strangely, then down at a gigantic ledger tilted against her desk. "...In an operation with several other doctors scheduled to last two more hours."
"How positive are you!?" Valey pressed, too intense for her friends to get a word in edgewise. "Because we totally saw him, so either he wasn't or we saw someone who was pretending to be him. I wanna see him, and he owes us an explanation for where her filly is!" She flung a hoof back at Maple.
"Mhmm." The desk mare gave her a slow nod. "I'm sorry, miss, but unless you have any other employees who can corroborate your story, this is a delicate and high-priority-"
"Sure thing." Valey tapped the desk. "There was a nurse. Didn't get her name, but she was a tan pegasus. Looked about thirty-five. Real short, strawberry mane, looked like a mom, if you know what I mean. He even sent her away before she could finish her job. Ringing any bells?"
The desk mare blinked in confusion, and Shinespark's aura instantly settled on Valey's shoulder and yanked her back. "I'm glad you're feeling like yourself again, but don't use that as a description!" Shinespark hissed. "Ma'am, this is important. She was about this tall and had a swept-back forelock?"
"I don't have all of our employees' appearances on record, and I'm not familiar with everyone." The desk mare shook her head. "Sorry. I can open a complaint and management will do our best to get this sorted out, but I do remember you coming in and it would be unfortunate if you got separated from your filly. That's all I can do."
"Nnngh..." Valey stepped back, leading the way and hissing under her breath. "She teleported again..."
"What do we do?" Maple asked, speaking up for the first time. "Valey, she's getting further away?"
"Yeah. Fast." Valey nodded. "I have no idea why but this absolutely can't be good. You got the rest of that healing potion on you?"
Maple pulled out a half-full bottle. "Why?"
"Gimmie that." Valey grabbed it and chugged it, licking the residue off her lips with a gasp of breath. "Because I'm going after her, and there's no way I'm doing it like this. Oh yeah, feels like it's working already."
"You're going after her?" Amber frowned. "But I just got the ship back up! And why not ask Wallace or Gazelle to go instead? Remember, you have another tournament fight soon, right? You think you'll be back in a day?"
Valey tossed the empty bottle back to Maple, flexing her wings as they smoothed over and finished the half-completed healing process from earlier. "Screw the tournament. Odds are some bozo did this and targeted her because they had it out for me because of that in the first place. And I gotta go because only I know where she is, and I can outfly that airship when I'm going fast, too. No questions, I don't abandon my friends."
Shinespark hesitated. "By that logic, what if something happens to the rest of us while you're out of Stormhoof? Valey, shouldn't we...?"
"Hey." Valey put a wing on her shoulder, making eye contact. "You powered up and barreled off to bail me out when I got nabbed by Puddles, right? Exact same thing. I will do awesome, I will get her, and I will be back in record time. If you guys are worried back here, which you probably should be, leave the ship in the sky for a while. It'll be harder for anyone to sneak up there to mess with you. Come after me or don't, but honestly, it would be best if you stayed in Stormhoof and searched around for clues about who did this or what happened. If you figure out where she went, maybe you can send Wallace or even Gazelle down on a crusade to help me hammer them. Pretty sure they'd both do it. And if you do get in trouble here, we have allies, remember? Grapejuice knows the underground and Senescey and her sisters are apparently really strong. Got it?"
Maple nodded, reaching in and giving her a quick hug. "We'll keep looking as hard as we can. But we're counting on you." She pulled back, then used her cutie mark again, materializing a sheathed, pitch-black sword in her hooves. "Would it help to bring this?"
Valey shuddered. "Bananas no, that thing is spooky. Besides, you'll want a thing to defend yourselves or something, just in case. Though could I have it for a second anyway?"
Maple offered it, and Valey quickly slipped it a few inches from its sheath and lopped off the end of her cast. No longer as self-supported, it easily smashed when she put it on a hard surface and punched it, revealing a powdery leg and a broken forehoof with the plates visibly moving, regrowing and merging back together.
"Woah." Valey blinked at her healing hoof. "Creepy. Good thing I won't need to use it while that potion does its job. Alright! I'll be back, and I'll bring Starlight with me when I am. That's a promise."
Goodbyes and well-wishes echoed in her ears as she ran on three legs for the doorway, preparing to take wing. Starlight teleported again.
Starlight's vision swam as she slowly regained consciousness, her head pounding more like she had hit it than overused her horn. Everything was dim. Everything was quiet. Everything felt badly wrong.
"Nnngh..." She grunted, trying to move her legs, too out of it to wonder if she should be stealthy about being awake. Not like she wouldn't have been attacked already if she was in danger... or had she, and this was the aftermath? She had been... in the hospital with Maple, getting her horn looked at... There had been a doctor, and she had a bad feeling, and now she was here. Wherever here was.
Her eyes focused, bringing bricks into focus she couldn't decide if were gray or red. Hard floor. Small room. Bars. Complete silence. Was she in... a prison?
Starlight sucked in her breath, stumbling off the bench that served as her bed and running to the wall of her small room that was replaced by a grate. It was a jail! Her brain matched it to the Flame District, in the area where she had woken up with Maple after Valey knocked them out in the Earth District, the architecture dark and brutal and her cage lonely and compact, only instead of looking dirty or rough-wrought with the motifs of fire and stone, this place was new. She felt the concrete beneath her hooves, fresh and not scarred or worn away, and all the bricks were uniform in color and spaced with calculated precision. Whoever built this place was important.
She narrowed her eyes at the grate locking her inside. The holes between the bars were invitingly wide, almost begging her to try fitting her head through and climbing out to escape... but upon carefully squinting, something seemed to flicker between them like an invisible field. She lit her horn to probe it with her telekinesis.
Her horn wouldn't light.
Starlight blinked and tried again, but it was like the air suddenly pressed against her, whisking away any magic she tried to conjure. She might as well not have had a horn; fighting it seemed to go nowhere, not even producing resistance or leaving her drained. There was just nothing.
Quickly feeling her horn to make sure it was actually still there, Starlight relented and swished her tail toward the wall. It bounced right off as if the holes in the bars were filled with glass, a tiny ripple in the air telling her someone had thought of that, of course. And she couldn't teleport without her horn. She huffed. Time to... ponder what had happened? Worry about her friends? Really, there was nothing she could do that would help at all.
"Kind of lonely by yourself, isn't it?"
"Wah!" Starlight gasped, jumping and spinning at the sound of her own voice... and blinking, a perfect copy of herself sitting on the uncomfortable bed where she had been a second ago. Memories slowly surfaced of a similar encounter on the deck of Shinespark's ship while they were sailing down the river to catch Shinespark and Valey, and she frowned. "You again?"
"Me again. Or you again." The other Starlight shrugged. "Depends on what you want to say I am, really."
Starlight frowned. "That's a weird answer. Am I hallucinating again?"
"It's possible," her mirror admitted. "Your mind could have gotten bored and dreamed me up. If you're okay with hallucinating, of course. A lot of people get unnerved by that." She looked away. "If I am, though, I promise I'm a friendly one. I just figured you could use someone to talk to."
"And if I'm not okay with hallucinating?" Starlight tilted her head. "You sound like you're making an excuse."
"I could also have been following you around for a while," the other Starlight pointed out, tone slightly deadpan, "and you can just see me now because it's hard to turn invisible when horn magic doesn't work in this place. But that's not very comforting either, is it?"
"You have?" Starlight blanched. "Then why do you look like me? Who are you!?"
The other Starlight shrugged again. "I didn't say that. I said if you're looking for ways to rationalize me, there's another. I promise there's a way that's much more satisfying if you think about it. One that doesn't involve you going insane or me being a creeper. Or you could just not worry about it. I did tell you that you put too much on your shoulders last time we talked, didn't I?"
Starlight bit her lip, folded her ears, then squinted. "You're weird."
"Thanks. Just trying to return the favor."
Starlight met her duplicate's eyes again, then sighed. "You know it's really weird thinking of you when you look just like me, right? Can I at least call you something different, if you're here to stay?"
Her other thought for a moment. "No promises on whether I'll stick around. If you're worried about weirdness, it's certainly weird to talk to yourself in public, whether others can see who you're talking to or not. But if you really want to call me something..." She grinned. "It's darkly ironic, but you have another half of your name you never use, don't you?"
Starlight winced. "Yes, but..." There was some reason it was very important she didn't go by it, and she struggled to remember what that was.
"Glimmer. Starlight Glimmer." The other filly gave her a look. "You could just call me that..."
"But..." Starlight trailed off, unable to remember why.
"Well, I'll call myself it," Glimmer decided. "Sooo... what do you want to do?"
"I don't like this!" Starlight squeaked, voice cracking even though she was quiet. "It feels wrong in here. Something I can't put my hoof on. And how did you know about my name?"
Glimmer got up and paced over to her side. "Maybe I'm just you. You're welcome to test me and look for something I don't know about yourself, if you want, but I'm telling you right now you're better off not thinking about it. I'm just here because this is a bad place and I thought you'd appreciate the company." She stared off into the wall. "As for why it feels wrong, that's probably the magic repressing your horn. Ever felt that before?"
"Uhh..." Starlight tilted her head and thought. Had her magic ever just been snuffed out before? Denied precisely by the place she was in? It sounded familiar but didn't feel familiar, like she had heard someone discussing it but not lived it herself...
Her eyes widened in realization. "The crystal palace in Ironridge! Everyone else's horns didn't work there, only mine did. And I think they started working again later, after we did something? Or maybe it was still only mine. I don't remember."
"Good guess!" Glimmer gave her an encouraging pat on the back, which Starlight still found distinctly weird. "That's what I was thinking, too. But this time affects you too..."
Starlight frowned and looked away. "If you know where we are or what's going on, you could just tell me."
Glimmer shrugged apologetically. "Sorry! I'm doing the best I can, here. Just trying to help you think. Maybe there's something else in this room worth looking at? There's this thing on the wall, here. It looks interesting?"
Starlight turned, realizing she hadn't actually checked out the room's far corner... and blinked, then blanched. A box with a hinge sat on the floor, and above it, stuck halfway out of the wall, was a stone sculpture of a batpony, its forelegs splayed and mouth stretched open in an agonized scream. She recoiled, the effigy's wings halfway in and halfway out of the wall, its barrel and hindquarters completely sunken into the bricks. "What's that supposed to be here for?" she snorted, trying to steel her nerves. "It's hideous."
Glimmer had nothing to offer.
Frowning, Starlight paced up to the statue, its mouth wide open to face her... and realized with a start that there was a tiny metal grate in its throat, along with a scrap of parchment tucked under its tongue. Thoroughly unnerved, she reached up and prodded with a hoof, edging the paper out until it was finally able to fall free, then unfolding and unrolling it several times to see if it said anything. It was notably covered in text, but all in a language she couldn't read.
With her duplicate looking over her shoulder, Starlight flipped it over to find more text, brightening slightly as she noticed she could read it and instantly paling once she saw what it said.
You are going to die.
"Uhhh..." Starlight tried not to let a tremble run down her legs, feeling Glimmer beside her. She swallowed and kept reading.
You who have strayed from Garsheeva's light, judgement awaits you. The penalty for breaking the ultimate laws is death by sacrifice. These are your last rites.
You may have unfinished business in the living world. People you hate you won't get to see perish. Revenge that was never taken. Grief over a task left undone. You who do not wish to take your pain to your graves, STANZA is listening.
Speak your jealousy into the effigy and STANZA will hear. Voice your grief, your rage, your lust and despair. You who wish to mark the world beyond your death, STANZA will remember.
For those who wish to deny Garsheeva her due of their souls, the tools to do so are contained below.
Starlight's ears pressed back, her voice shaking as she swallowed down a lump in her throat and let the paper fall to the floor. The batpony statue stared at her with its empty maw, the grate inside revealing nothing but darkness behind. She couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat.
"T-This place is evil." Starlight swallowed again. "I don't want to be here...!"
"It sure seems that way." Glimmer gave the dropped paper a disdainful scuff with her hoof. "Kind of disheartening to see how much a mess people make of governing themselves, isn't it? Anyway, what are you going to do?"
"What can I do?" Starlight squeaked, eyes locked on the statue's dark throat.
Glimmer just shrugged.
Slowly, Starlight pulled herself together. Whatever was listening could probably hear her, after all, and it wasn't about to hear her giving up. A stubborn frustration burned up in her chest, and she stepped forward, gave the statue a cold look... and punched it squarely in the face.
Nothing happened.
Nursing her hoof a little, Starlight growled, then turned her attention to the box beneath it. What was this supposed to be? Tools to deny Garsheeva someone's soul? She lifted the lid, uncertain what she was intending to find.
"That's a knife," Glimmer muttered, looking in over her shoulder. "And..."
"Moon glass," Starlight finished. "A knife and a piece of moon glass." She looked up at her other. "Those aren't for..." She swallowed. "Are they?"
"It's not about how hard it is to guess." Glimmer's ears fell. "It's about how willing you are to admit it to yourself. Those are tools for killing yourself before Garsheeva kills you. A knife works on everyone, and the obsidian is... another way for batponies, I guess?"
Starlight kicked the box, tipping them out, careful not to touch the moon glass. That would send her back into the gray space she had been after touching the Nightmare Module and was heading for after White Chocolate's piece, she guessed, and without horn magic she couldn't even blow out her horn and spend a month recovering to get back to normal. The knife, though? If she was going to escape, maybe that would help.
"Got a plan?" Glimmer asked hopefully as she took the knife in her teeth, striding toward the magic barrier reinforcing the grates and keeping them in.
"Nmmph," Starlight grunted around the handle in her mouth. She looked at the barrier, inspected it, thought she could see a hazy presence where it blocked her, and stabbed, the knife bouncing off completely ineffectually.
She spat it out. "Pteh!" That didn't work. "Come on, you stupid thing!" She banged it with her hooves several times, finishing with a powerful buck and then a growl, also to no avail. Despite all of her training with Valey, every time she had exercised and however much stronger her kicks had gotten, nothing happened. "Ugh! This isn't helping either. I need to be more powerful!"
Glimmer shrugged helplessly, grabbing the dropped knife and taking a few stabs of her own, also getting no results. She dropped it too, looking over at Starlight expectantly.
"This place is cheating," Starlight grumbled. "Not being able to use my magic isn't fair. Nnnnngh..."
She started pacing in a circle, looking all over the room and combing it from corner to corner. Nothing else she had missed like that stupid statue. Everything she had amounted to herself sans magic, Glimmer, the bed, the statue, the paper, the empty box, the moon glass and the knife. The moon glass... she trotted over and gave it a second look. Maybe it could interact weirdly with the barrier, if only she could safely move it?
That might be possible. She had the knife to push it with. Starlight started tapping the black chunk across the floor, thoughts of accidentally touching it floating across her mind. It only would hurt her if it was empty, right? Just like with batponies? This piece would be empty, of course, but why was that? How come she was more similar to Valey in how she interacted with the stuff than anyone else, but still distinctly different? Having the Nightmare Module had made her uncomfortable and scared, but it hadn't forced her through an irreversible transformation. She had even overpowered and blown up the module. Memories traced themselves like thread through her head, some internal voice telling her it was a backup that was no longer needed and asking her if she wanted to destroy it.
She stopped pushing, staring completely at the moon glass as an idea entered her head.
Glimmer stood back and let her think, not interrupting. Valey said the Nightmare Modules were just information, right? Some sort of instructions to make batponies do something? Like they were weapons or tools. And if they were information and she destroyed a backup after interacting with it... Starlight's eyes widened, and she looked down at her forehooves. Did that mean she still had it? And that if she touched this stone, she'd be able to use it again?
"Nngh..." Starlight shuddered, realizing there might actually be a way right before her to become more powerful. She also knew she had no idea what Puddles' Nightmare Module actually did. For all she knew, it wouldn't help her escape at all. She wasn't even sure what kinds of things could help, unless it made her strong enough to break the walls. "Um... other me?" she asked, teetering. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Probably." Glimmer nodded at the dark crystal. "And I'm not going to weigh in on whether it's a good idea. We'll both come to the same conclusion if you think about it yourself, after all. And if it goes badly and you try to blame me for it, you'll technically be blaming yourself, only abstractly, and that's... not healthy. That said, think about the alternative to getting out of here."
Starlight winced, closed her eyes, and didn't leave herself any further time to think about it. She reached out and touched the moon glass.
Scrrrrrrrkkkkk...
With a feeling like a hiss of static in her ears, a pressure intensified in her chest, something feeling like it was being attracted inward and outward all at once. Part of her wanted to resist, like a flame that refused to be snuffed out, and Starlight's ears went back from the almost-painful sensation, but she didn't fight it. A crackle of light danced across her vision, and then everything was gray, and she suddenly wasn't sure whether she'd be able to identify colors even if she could see them.
The moon glass clung to her hoof like a parasite, sticky and liquid and melded halfway into it, and Starlight's heartrate rose as it kept pulling, dousing, dampening. The sensation of standing in a rising tide swept across her, and she whimpered, suddenly unsure if she could go through with this, feeling like something was lost and she didn't know what... and then with a final wave, the moon glass liquified entirely against her and was swept inside her hoof.
External boot procedure activated, a cool mare's voice informed her in her head. System is already running. Switch to Nightmare Module emulation mode?
"Y-Yes." Starlight swallowed, trying to measure exactly how her body felt. "If it's safe?"
Nightmare Module emulation mode activated, the voice informed her. Notice: system error log is full. This may be a sign of further instability. Running system diagnostics... Core functionality running at 14.3%. Attempting to run certain features may result in instability. System restore from backups is advised. Ending activation sequence.
The voice disappeared, leaving Starlight alone. The temperature in the compound had dropped by several degrees, and she suddenly felt the need for a scarf to wear or a back to ride on. All in all, she didn't feel too different, but wasn't sure if that was due to her being unchanged, or forgetting something she had lost. In fact, the biggest difference was Glimmer.
She stared across at herself, suddenly getting the impression that there was something immeasurably valuable about this filly. A wave of longing briefly passed through her, though it was easily weak enough to control. She wanted to hug her or hold her or... or even just be near her. Like she was brighter, almost.
"Did it work?" Glimmer asked, and Starlight determined from that she could still hear just fine.
"I think?" She looked at her hoof where it had touched the moon glass again, unblemished and just as it had looked before. "I... I'll see what I can do, I guess."
Starlight swallowed, feeling herself again for what she could do. She had no idea how to use a power she had never used before, but somehow, it came instinctively, like the module or the moon glass had planted knowledge of how to use it in her mind. Just like a spell, but without lighting her horn, Starlight stretched her power... and her shadow rippled around her like a pond, constricting and drawing closer around her hooves. Then it started to climb, like she was a towel dipped in water and the shadow was soaking up her, flowing and crawling and covering her limbs from the bottom up. It could have looked disturbing, Starlight realized, but for some reason the feeling was the opposite: it was like a shell, being wrapped into a blanket, retreating into a cave. She kept concentrating until the spell felt finished, and then it held itself in place.
Glimmer reached down, picked up the knife, and held the flat of it up like a mirror.
Starlight's eyes widened. She was still there... except she wasn't. Like her old form had been replaced by a flat cutout made solely of shadow, yet as she moved, every bit of her body still worked as intended. It was a disguise? Camouflage? She felt like she could stand still against a wall or in relative darkness and feel completely invisible, like anyone looking for her would be unable to pick her out against her surroundings and unable to recognize her or even tell what to make of her if they could. Like she had stepped halfway out of the world, and was able to go where she wanted without a trace. This wasn't a bad spell! It could be exactly what she needed for trying to sneak out of a hostile place! Checking her hooves, she noted with satisfaction that she didn't cast a normal shadow anymore, making it even easier to avoid standing out... and then she wondered if the barrier's magic would notice her or try to stop her, too.
With a delicate hoof that was only recognizable if she spent time studying its shape, Starlight poked the space between the cell door grates. Her touch went right through.
"We're out," she whispered, fitting her head without too much difficulty between the bars, the rest of her quick to follow. "Or... I'm out. You-"
Glimmer teleported without lighting her horn, suddenly standing next to her outside the cage and offering her the knife. "Don't forget this. It might come in handy."
Starlight felt her eye twitch. "You're definitely a figment of my imagination."
"Whatever you say." Glimmer shrugged, dropping the knife and sitting back. "You lead the way out of here."
Starlight wandered the lonely corridors of... wherever she was, trusting her instincts to keep her silent and out of trouble. The place seemed labyrinthine for the sake of being labyrinthine, with dead ends everywhere and corridors that doubled back on themselves for no reason. It was like it existed solely to sap someone's confidence, waste their time or make them spend more time in the strange, unpleasant anti-magic atmosphere. The joke was on them, though. Ever since she had activated her Nightmare Module, the feeling of being breathed on seemed to slide right off of her, like it was caused by a thing and that thing could no longer see her. She still couldn't use her horn, though.
She had lost track of how long it had been since Glimmer disappeared. Just as well. Maybe the hallucination thought she was being comforting or keeping her company, but she would have rather had someone help her, and all the other filly had done was hemmed and hawed and talked about... whatever. She couldn't actually remember, aside from that it hadn't been important.
Still, though, there had been a certain quality to her... Before using the moon glass, she hadn't seen it, but then there was something bright about the filly, warm and welcoming, a feeling she was certain she hadn't perceived before. No, maybe she had? The only thing like it she could recall was the harmonic flame in Ironridge. Blinking, she recalled the flame there trying to talk to her and imparting her a bit of its magic to help patch up her horn. Maybe her duplicate had something to do with that? But why would she need to be moon glassed to notice the filly felt that way?
Starlight shook her head and pressed on, the vague feeling that she had lost something and she didn't know what fighting with the present realization that being glassed wasn't so bad, once the period of switching was done. She could actually live like this.
Voices suddenly met her ears, sounding weary, and she instantly perked up. More prisoners, maybe? She could possibly learn something... and also test just how stealthy this spell made her. She stepped closer, aware of how her shadow absorbed every vibration of her hoofsteps and prevented even the sound of her breathing from escaping unless she willed it.
"...Hate this job. Don't know whether it's worse when the place has just been emptied out, or when it's full of scum clamoring for their heathen lives."
"Pfeh. Why? You so much of a sadist you enjoy listening to them already? This place really is getting to you, haha!"
"Ugh, no! Just don't like it here when it's quiet. It's always too quiet. You know those horror stories where that means everything else is hiding from the monster and it's about to jump you and you get killed?"
"Bah, that's softcore. But it's a step in the right direction!"
"Well, this is like one of those, except it's quiet 'cuz the monster's already dead. This place feels like a tomb when it's empty. One that already hates us."
"Isn't that what it is? You come here for two reasons: to die or to keep others in line while they die. Which mostly means marching them to the teleporter. Only when it's filled up, it's a waiting line for Garsheeva's teeth instead!"
Starlight frowned, standing in the middle of the corridor as two guards wandered out from around a corner. They were both stallions, the aggressive one an earth pony and the complaining one a batpony. She instantly decided she liked the batpony better, though neither of them were nearly as bright as Glimmer had been earlier.
Folding her ears in thought, she tuned out the rest of their conversation as they passed unaware on either side of her. They were bright too? It wasn't a quality she had a better name for, and she knew she had never applied it to ponies before, but brightness was as good a word as any. And it wasn't like the earth pony was negatively bright. Just... dull. But that metaphor didn't work either, because they weren't actually glowing. It was a feeling she felt, not a sight she saw, and it would have to be dozens or even hundreds of times stronger for her to break her self-control and run to his side and bury her face in his chest. The batpony, that was. The earth pony, she wanted no more than she would pick up a pretty pebble in a field, though she probably would anyway if she had truly no reasons not to.
...Something felt very strange, thinking about other ponies like this, and she wasn't sure what it was. Lives were supposed to be valuable, weren't they?
Being moon glassed was weird. She wished she understood it better.
System about/help activated, the voice she associated with turning this way projected into her mind, leaving the words almost floating there, like she could hear them just by thinking about them and experienced them outside her normal perception of time. About/help database missing or corrupted. Limited functionality available.
"Rrrgh..." Starlight growled under her breath. She knew her horn was somehow wrong, but why did this thing have to keep telling her she was broken as well!?
Notice: system functions are limited or unavailable.
Yes, she knew! Starlight kept stalking through the low brick corridors, claustrophobic and grand all at the same time. But this thing clearly was a tool, right? It reacted to her thoughts and intentions. There had to be some way to figure it out or make it useful.
System configuration menu accessed.
Starlight blinked. She wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but since it seemed occasionally able to accurately read her intuition... maybe it could tell her something useful. What could she do from a menu like this? Could it tell her anything about how she interacted with moon glass, or other batponies?
Emulation mode launch settings menu accessed. Default setting is post-permission system engagement.
Post-permission? What did that mean?
Setting: user permission required to change core system modes as requested by external events is required. Warning: disabling this setting is a security risk and allows for forced, unwilling changes.
Starlight frowned. But wasn't that exactly what moon glass did? Changed her without permission? Or was touching it supposedly permission? What was it supposed to do, ask nicely if she wanted to get glassed?
Error: database entry for obsidian corrupted or not found.
Of course it wasn't. Starlight threw back her head and growled, but it didn't matter. She had no idea what she was doing, anyway. Playing with a voice in her head that treated her body like some kind of machine? It felt... like it should feel worse. Shouldn't she be bothered by objectifying herself like that?
This was weird. Nightmare Modules were weird. Maybe they were only not so bad if she didn't think about it, because she was starting to see why this kept Valey up at night. Unnerved and suddenly very lonely, Starlight quickened her pace, wanting to see someone bright. She nearly skipped past an entrance in the wall before snapping back, blinking, and staring at a staircase before her. It went down, unfortunately, but that was still more progress than running around in circles and none of the other cells she ran into seemed occupied. She stepped in, wondering what else this place had in store.
"I just don't get how she could've switched directions like that. Like, I've been following her east this whole time, right? And she's getting further away? And then boom! Jumps seriously far to the north. Like, probably four times as far as she's gone from you guys with all those smaller jumps, but at once. And now there's no more teleporting. I don't get it."
Shinespark levitated a sound stone in front of her, Maple and Amber huddled close on either side as they hurried back through the streets of Stormhoof to reach the Immortal Dream. Fortunately, Valey had kept her stone under her hat after Amber arrived, so they could maintain communication even after she abruptly left. But being able to talk gave them no further ideas.
"We didn't get any further with the hospital," Maple apologized. "Apparently they're going to do an investigation, but couldn't even tell us anything."
"Confidentiality agreements," Shinespark cut in. "There are laws designed to protect people's medical data, and apparently that makes it hard for them to tell us things like where a particular doctor is at any given time. So we're going back to the ship to let everyone else know. After that? Who knows what we'll do."
"See if you can hit up Grapejuice. That's what I'd do."
Amber nodded. "Yeah. And we might try to get Wallace involved, too, since you think this happened because of your fight with him. And he sure would be likely to help!"
Maple gave a hopeful smile. "I doubt you're wrong there..."
"So what's this about Starlight's position?" Amber asked. "You've got happenings on your end?"
"Yeah, it's weird. Weird and annoying, since it's making me need to fly further." Valey hesitated. "So, like, first they were going pretty much due east. Not sure exactly how far, since I've been zooming along for an hour or two now. And suddenly, one massive jump, Starlight is way in the north. Like, so far north it's actually really hard to smell her at all. This isn't like when I got ditched that one time flying here. This is like... way farther than when I got bagged by Puddles. I bet she's at least on the opposite end of the Empire."
Amber gnawed her lip. "So Wilderwind or Gyre."
"I mean, maybe? It's honestly kinda faint at this point. Hard to tell. Not that me smelling her like this has ever made sense in the first place, but hey, it's helpful, so why question it?" A gust of wind rushed past the stone's other end, and Valey continued. "Yeah, let's go with Wilderwind or Gyre. What I wanna know is, what's up with this last giant teleport?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "If Arambai was here, we could just ask him. Teleportation is a spell that can be buffered and was one of the first we figured out how to harmonically generate, but that was mostly his research. He could tell you what kinds of things would make it possible in a flash."
"Yeah." Amber drooped. "Maybe I should have left my sound stone back in Ironridge, huh? Oops..."
Maple gave her an encouraging pat. "Then we wouldn't be talking to Valey right now."
"Yo, speaking of Arambai and harmonic teleporting stuff, what about that? He had a machine that got him all the way from Riverfall to Ironridge, didn't he? And that was just powered by cutie marks? I dunno the details, but what if they have actually the same thing here?"
"How could they do that?" Shinespark countered. "Powering it would be possible. Teleportation was uniquely extensible as a spell because the reaction caused by hooking up too many cutie marks at once tended to cause an unstable power surge which was perfect for fueling a teleport, but the harmony extractors are a Sosan secret."
"No they're not," Valey countered. "Remember when we were hanging out after bailing on the pirate ship and were sitting in the engine room complaining to each other and wishing there was something we could do? And then those singer sisters came in and went all 'Oh hey I've seen that before'? I know we, like... didn't actually do anything cool with that, and I kind of forgot about that because it was disappointing, but for whatever reason they said Chauncey has one he uses in his recording equipment for their songs. Maybe there are more?"
Shinespark's confidence vanished from her face, and Maple frowned. "So you're saying you think Chauncey had something to do with this?"
"I have no idea," Valey puffed, air blowing by around her. "Don't really care, either. Wherever Starlight is, she's way past southern Izvaldi where their big capitol is. At this rate, I'm just focusing on flying 'cuz I've gotta do it for at least another solid day to get wherever I'm going, maybe more. Just telling you guys what I've felt. Any investigation stuff is gonna have to be on you. Sparky? Ironflanks? Guys, you good with that?"
"We're good," Amber promised, Maple and Shinespark nodding too. Satisfied with the conclusion, they stowed the sound stone, though it remained on, transmitting their conversation to Valey just in case she wanted something to listen to.
"So what do we do now?" Amber asked, glancing up to the group. "Just get back to the boat?"
Shinespark nodded. "We're going to get a map, identify landmarks, figure out where Valey is and what direction she's facing and get an idea of actually where she's going. Gerardo will get to help with that. That will give us a hint on who's behind this, and then we'll find them and turn them over to whoever can do something about it."
"Mhmm." Maple bowed resolutely. "Whoever did this to Starlight, we won't let them get away with it. They can count on it."
The three friends trotted further through the darkened streets, muttering and discussing with one another amid the noise-canceling rain. In their wake, shadows rippled and traced their way along with the water down a nearby sewer grate, a yellow-maned batpony landing on the storm drain's internal walkway and holding her head with pinprick eyes. "Oh no..." Senescey murmured, trembling.
"Hmmmmmm." High Prince Gazelle waggled and stroked his chin, making a big show of inspecting the two griffons standing in guard formation at the entrance to the Grandbell royals' box in the Stormhoof colosseum. Even though it was raining and past sundown, the tournament battles stopped for nothing, two pegasi sparring with their wings as a magically-projected shield kept things dry and several spotlights provided illumination. "So you're the best Everlaste has to offer? Really?"
One of the guards professionally cleared her throat, her darkly-colored uniform a tailored fit for her frame. "Are you offended by our presence, Milord? The political differences of our superiors won't stop us from doing our duty."
"Hmm? Oh, no, no," Gazelle chuckled, giving them a consoling wave. "First off, I'm more flattered than offended, and second, I have no superiors. No, merely been a while since I did a troop inspection, I'm afraid. Seeing as soon to be your new home, and all, I thought I'd envision the prospects!" He slipped up alongside her, leaning in and holding out his forepaws like he was trying to line up an imaginary camera shot. "You are looking forward to the transfer, are you? Remember, no worrying about offending."
The other griffon sighed. "Gotta admit, this is better than home back in the east..."
The first reluctantly agreed with him. "It is nice, being on the sea. But transfer? Milord, do you know details on this assignment we don't?"
"Oh? No transfer, then?" Gazelle made a sad puppy face. "You'll have to forgive me! I mistook you for the mere grunts requested to garrison in Stormhoof now that this city's own army's leave of absence is growing extended. Clearly as esteemed door guards, you're above all that. I'm embarrassed to have made the slipup."
The griffonness winced. "Milord, you're not being very proprietary or formal..."
"Propriety schmiety." Gazelle licked a paw and ran it through his mane. "I'm the High Prince. No scandal can stop my ascension when I'm already at the peak of my career. Welcome to Team I Do What I Want. It's a very fun-"
Senescey beckoned furiously to him from a shadowed corner.
Gazelle blinked hard, regarding her. "Oh? Well, that's strange." He padded closer, taking the guards' attention with him. "Why is there a sarosian in my box?"
Before the guards could even react, Gazelle had grabbed Senescey's protruding head and plucked her straight out of the wall, sitting her down and patting her like a doll. He gave a mournful look to the two guards.
"Sire, that's a sarosian," the second guard said with a hint of disgust. "Please, allow us to deal with it for you."
"Should I?" Gazelle stuck out his tongue, holding Senescey away. "I caught her."
The first, female guard frowned. "I'm more concerned about how it got this far! Why did nobody stop it? Was every corridor it came through unlit? Forgive me for saying, but this seems like it shouldn't happen."
Gazelle blinked at his catch, Senescey now hoisted unhappily in the air with his tail wrapping her barrel, holding down her forelegs and wings. "Good question. That sounds like a security breach! I know! Why don't you two go check it out, and I will deal with my catch, here."
Senescey trembled. The two guards exchanged looks. "Mine," Gazelle hissed, bobbing Senescey.
The guards turned to each other again, shrugged, one raised a talon to speak... and then opted for discretion, and they both left the room to go corridor-searching. Gazelle quickly followed, finding the nearest drain in the floor stonework and depositing Senescey once they were alone, allowing her to shadow sneak him through the bars.
"What?" he hissed once they were far away enough to be guaranteed out of earshot. "It's quite fortunate I'm beguiling enough to bail you out, you know. Now that Everlaste's presence is about to dramatically increase, here, things are going to get harder for you." His beatific look returned. "Now, what is it that needs reporting?" He tilted his head.
Senescey winced, shying away from the prince. "I was just following orders! The Night Mother told me earlier today to push my new friends into going back to the hospital, and then while I was there, someone foalnapped Starlight! This could mess up everything else you've asked me to do for them! The moment they suspect me, it'll be impossible to protect them or get in their good graces, and I... really was enjoying gaining them as friends..."
Senescey mutely nodded, and Gazelle began to prowl, tail lashing. "That's not supposed to happen. It's not part of the plan. She's a filly. You don't hurt little fillies! It's the cardinal rule of everything! Grrr..." He snapped to a stop, a fanged scowl growing on his face. "Sounds like it's time for someone to get his little old paws dirty..."
"Starlight has been captured!?" Gerardo nearly fell out of his captain's chair with a squawk, beak hitting the ground.
"Foalnapped," Maple sighed. "At the hospital. By a doctor who might have been a doctor, but probably was someone else disguised as a doctor. They teleported her northeast, Valey is flying after her, and we don't know anything."
"That sounds just like when Valey was captured and Shinespark left to find her," Nyala murmured from the side of the room, where she was plugged into the ship's terminal.
Shinespark shook her head. "This time, we're not out of contact. We can talk to Valey with the sound stone, and she knows exactly where her target is. If Starlight is resourceful enough to get away from whoever took her on her own like Valey was, we won't be running around in circles missing each other while we try to regroup. It's a much better situation in terms of communication."
Slipstream bit her lip. "But do you think she'll be able to get away? Valey is..."
"Strong, and so is Starlight," Shinespark finished. "Both of them did the impossible in Ironridge. She might have to blow out her horn to do it, but I believe in our friends."
Gerardo looked down. "Ironic if a trip designed to diagnose or heal Starlight's horn involves her further injuring it just to see herself to safety."
Maple gave a worried smile, trying to be confident. "I think that's the least of our worries, right now..."
"So what can we do?" Gerardo asked. "Even last time, we hardly sat around awaiting a call for action. Now that Miss Amber has restored our ship to the skies, could we not give chase?"
Amber paused him with a hoof. "We could, but it wouldn't be the greatest idea. First, Valey has several hours' head start and said she can outfly this ship, and I believe her. She's fast. It could let us all be there for a rescue operation and let her rest up, but at the cost of being later?"
Shinespark hesitated. "To be fair, you think she can cross the entire Empire in one go without stopping to rest? I think we might be able to help her get where she's going faster if we gave chase."
Amber nodded firmly. "We might. But second, think about what we'd do. Shinespark, you might be able to help, but most of the rest of us are dead weight in combat. Gerardo can hold his own, but probably not protect the rest of us. Nyala..." She turned her eyes to the suit of armor. "You still can't fight, can you? That's what I've been hearing?"
"I'm sorry." If Nyala's ears hadn't been metal, they would have folded. "I know this body is built to be a weapon, but I can't. Even if all of you find it easy, hurting other ponies to get them out of my way just isn't something I can do."
"That's alright," Amber assured, reaching up to put a hoof on her metal shoulder. "That's leading into my third point. If we can only help a little there... what could we do here, instead?"
Gerardo strummed his chin. "Sounds to me you're saying there's a mystery that needs to be solved."
Shinespark nodded firmly. "Anything we can tell Valey about who did this or where they're going could help her immensely. There's a hospital that needs investigating, and if their internal system isn't willing to do it as fast as we need, it's time to take matters into our own hooves."
"Is that really wise?" Slipstream looked uncomfortable. "We don't want things to be us versus the world, do we?"
"Oh, I hardly think we'll have to do this by ourselves," Gerardo hummed. "We have allies, after all, both unscrupulous and powerful. Worst comes to worst, we could take this as high as we like, having the connections to royalty and other figures of power we possess."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "That's true, but at the very least we need to figure out first who not to ask. Any smart criminal wouldn't treat us any differently knowing we were trying to do something about this, since it could draw attention to them, but we can't rule out who's smart and who isn't and someone could still try to sabotage us with bad information. We need some ideas on who definitely couldn't have done this and who is certainly safe to trust."
"Wallace," Maple instantly said. "He wouldn't, right?"
Gerardo winced. "Much as I hate to say it, Wallace did allow Valey to win this morning as a demonstration of what kind of hot water she could get in, blazing through this tournament in an unstoppable trail of victory and not thinking. It's entirely possible he orchestrated this to prove a point, depending on whether he has a secret penchant for brutal real-world lessons. That would also explain why there was no trouble at the hospital earlier today when we were there the first time, since he had yet to give Valey his lecture. But if that is the case, Starlight would certainly be safe, and we wouldn't come to harm by asking him."
Maple frowned at him. "But Valey is flying after her, and she's far enough away it might cause her to miss a battle in the tournament. Or even more. Wallace wouldn't disqualify her from the tournament in order to teach her how to do well in it, would he? Especially after dropping a battle of his own for her?"
"You drive a good point," Gerardo mused. "But then why did nothing transpire this morning?"
"That might not be significant," Shinespark countered. "The news could not have spread yet, the foalnapper could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time... Maybe they just couldn't get Starlight alone."
"Do you think Starlight was singled out?" Maple asked. "Or could it have been any of us?"
Shinespark pursed her lips. "Well, looking at everything that led up to it..." Her eyes slowly widened. "It was Senescey's idea for us to go there, wasn't it!?"
Maple winced, and Gerardo frowned. "Before you go too far down that line of thought, keep in mind that a hospital is an extremely unusual place to stage a foalnapping. Consider it: there would have been hundreds of prying eyes, and an administration that will inevitable investigate the doppelganger and determine something was out of place."
"So?" Shinespark looked at him.
"Mmm." Gerardo nodded. "So, a skilled sarosian who is an able enough fighter would have to be beyond foolish to engage a foalnapping in such a way. It would leave too many leads, be too tempting for many investigators to follow. When you could merely stun her when no one is looking and vanish into the shadows?" He tilted his head. "The only reason you would make such a noise is to either cause a spectacle or distract from yourself, and this would do nothing to distract from her if she is the culprit. I don't get the impression Senescey would be smart enough to organize this, yet also foolish enough to think it would be a good idea."
Maple's ears pressed back. "It would be that easy for any batpony who wanted to? They could just..."
Gerardo shrugged sadly. "You've noticed the city's general lack of lighting at night. I'm frankly amazed they haven't had more trouble in this way, what with how they treat our bat-winged friends. The only explanation I can guess at is that their dusk statues bid them leave Stormhoof in peace, and not do more to further their bad reputation."
"Not just this city," Slipstream added. "Izvaldi, too. I remember someone said it was because mana energy to light things with is expensive?"
"Indeed," Gerardo agreed. "It's torchlight or bust, all too frequently. And that comes with its own host of issues as a system."
Shinespark brushed it aside with a wave of her hoof. "But that's a tangent," she said. "So what you're saying is that Senescey would never foalnap someone in such a complicated way while still leaving such an obvious trail back to herself? Are you saying she could have been framed?"
Gerardo blinked.
"Framing is something that happened a lot in the political game between the districts in Ironridge," Shinespark went on. "I'm very familiar with it. But if that's correct, it means whoever did this cared about hitting Senescey. Starlight could be a casualty and the tournament and Valey might not even have been a consideration..." Her eyes shadowed. "Or they could have targeted both. What do Valey and Senescey have in common that lots of creatures here don't like?"
Maple slowly wilted. "They're batponies..."
"Hold on, now," Amber cut in. "You think someone arranged to foalnap Starlight at the hospital just because Senescey suggested we take her there in order to make us suspicious of Senescey? That would be possible, but..." She sighed. "How would they know? How would they know she even suggested that, never mind setting this up at such short notice? You think our boat is being spied on?"
Gerardo gave her an alarmed look.
"Ohhhhh..." Maple buried her head in her forehooves. "This reminds me of that breakfast when we were trying to guess what Selma was doing with the dam..."
Amber wrapped a foreleg around her back, looking up at everyone else. "Anyone think we're getting anywhere, here? Maybe Maple's got a point and all these guesses aren't going anywhere..."
Shinespark sighed. "I remember that. It was stressful for me, too. On the bright side, this time the lives and livelihoods of thousands of ponies aren't at stake." She touched Maple's shoulder. "Can't be a whole lot easier when it's your kid at stake, though."
"I-If you're uncertain," a shaky mare's voice came from the doorway, "I can save you some guessing."
Everyone turned to see Senescey, standing meekly in the doorway with a couple of dried tearstains on her face. Amber's ears rose in alarm. "Woah, girl! You look... bad."
"Senescey?" Maple folded her ears. "You... um..."
"Sorry for eavesdropping," Senescey sighed. "I've been listening for a while. I was worried... and... I wanted to tell you it was my fault."
A chill settled over the room. "Go on." Gerardo nodded, no one making a move to cut her off from the exit.
Senescey swallowed, looking miserable. "Someone I trust with my life told me to suggest you return to the hospital. They didn't specify Starlight or any reason, or say anything about why, and I didn't have any reason not to. I didn't know it would lead to your filly getting taken. I thought it was going to help you! And now I feel terrible about it, because I was..." She wiped her eyes with a wing. "Sorry. Asking for a pity party while apologizing is bad form. But I wanted to tell you because I am sorry and do want you to get her back."
Shinespark have her a look. "If you're telling the truth and want to apologize, a good way to do that would be to tell us who told you to do that."
"I..." Senescey's ears pressed back. "I can't. I... um... can't. I trust them with my life, I told you. And now I'm conflicted because doing what they asked made me cross you when I was looking forward to you being my friends. I'm sorry, but my loyalty isn't to you. But I still just wanted to let you know and help, and I hope she gets back okay."
The room was silent and tense, nobody sure who wanted to answer first. Ultimately, Senescey stepped back out and no one stopped her, completely missing the camouflaged filly who had heard every word, standing guard outside the bridge door.
Maple was outside the bridge in a flash, the first of her friends to get up after Senescey. "Wait!" she called, glancing around hurriedly and checking the sky first in case the batpony was flying away. "Senescey!"
No flying. No one was running down the dock, either, and Maple skidded to a halt, checking the deck and the roof and the more ordinary places next. Still no sign of Senescey.
"Come back," Maple asked the darkness, the rain obscuring any lingering traces of twilight on the horizon. "I want to talk a little more. We're not mad. Please?"
A yellow mane slowly rose out of the shadowed deck halfway across the boat, dripping with rainwater. Senescey rose up to her eyes, but no further.
"Thank you for apologizing and letting us know," Maple said, stepping no further and hoping she wasn't being followed. "Can I talk a little more, though? Please? I could see you're conflicted and don't want you to feel pressured into cutting ties you'll regret."
"I'm more worried I'll do something else I'll regret," Senescey lifted her head far enough to reply. "I feel awful about this, but I can't doubt that I did the right thing until I've gotten my own explanation!"
"I won't ask you to do anything or make you doubt," Maple assured, taking a single step closer. "I promise. I just want to offer peace."
Senescey's ears slicked back. "You're doing it right now! You should be mad at me or busy panicking or looking for answers or revenge, which you could press me for and you're not."
"And that's making you doubt whoever you're protecting your best interests in mind?" Maple frowned. "I'm not asking you to do any of that. I just want to get out of the rain somewhere where it's quiet and let you know you don't have to run."
Senescey glanced to Maple, then to the open, well-lit door to the bridge, and then to the far end of the deck where a door to a staircase led to the back of the cabin hall and the cargo bay. She swam backwards, beckoning hesitantly for Maple to follow.
Maple's hooves splashed as she raced along. A single shove got it open, and then they were inside. "Whoo. Going to need a towel tonight..." She shook herself off, glancing to the shadows where Senescey was still swimming and patting the floor. "Here. Just get yourself dry?"
Senescey got out, the top of her head wet from sticking it above the shadows and the rest of her body fluffy and dry. She watched Maple for a moment longer. "...I'm trying to run away after getting your filly foalnapped," she eventually said. "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Believe it or not?" Maple smiled. "Because that's not the first time I've heard those words or that argument from a batpony, and last time, giving them a chance worked out very well."
"Your foal could be in danger," Senescey pointed out. "Don't you have bigger things to worry about?"
Maple shrugged. "Well, I would appreciate it if you'd tell me anything you know that could be useful, yes. But if you won't, I'm certainly not going to find out by yelling at you or running you off. And it won't matter until Valey has had at least another day to fly where she is, anyway, so if I can afford to be patient, why shouldn't I?"
Senescey winced.
"Conflicted?" Maple asked. "If you could tell me about why, I might be able to make it less uncomfortable. I'm still not going to ask you to say anything you don't want to."
"Nnngh..." Senescey gritted her teeth. Maple waited patiently.
"I don't want to lose you as friends!" Senescey finally burst. "I've only met you a few times and have no idea who you are and it's hard to believe what I see, but it's like you never even care about everything anyone else would bring against us! And I'm s-so tempted to just take your side and throw my lot in with you, but it's still only been a few times and that means choosing against her, who I've trusted all my life. My sisters and I have a j-job that's important, and..."
Maple reached out a hoof toward her shoulder. "Will telling us who asked you to be a betrayal?"
Senescey sniffed, not fighting the hoof. "No, but if I say it, it means admitting in public I don't think she's perfect. Doubts are supposed to be internal, not reach your actions. Once I cross the line of not letting her guide me once, that o-opens a door for... for anything more. And my path is too dangerous for me to afford getting lost halfway through."
Maple drew her a little closer. "You're worried about what will happen if you say aloud you think this someone could have made a mistake?"
"Y-Yes?" Senescey looked up.
"Hmmm," Maple sighed. "Then it sounds to me more like you care about having a cause than the cause itself. If this person deserves your dedication, they'll forgive you for questioning them when they do questionable things, and perhaps even want you to in the first place."
Senescey was silent for a moment. "The Night Mother told me to," she finally said. "Through a dusk statue, while I was meditating. She didn't say what would happen or why, or even anything about Starlight. I was telling her about you all and asking advice for how to help you or treat you well, and she suggested I help show you things in the city you may have missed or not realized were useful. She used the hospital as an example. When I mentioned Starlight's horn, that was a-all my idea..."
Maple stayed silent, slowly moving her closer and rubbing her back.
"Your hooves are wet," Senescey remarked.
"Oh! Sorry." Maple quickly withdrew. "They are, aren't they? That was my fault."
Senescey just sighed. "I don't know who captured your filly or why, or even if they're related, though they probably are. The Night Mother knows everything. She can talk to all of us all across the Empire and Mistvale, so long as there are dusk statues, so she can watch everything at once. And the island's main statue is in the basement of that hospital building. Ohhh..."
"It sounds to me like it could have been a coincidence, then," Maple assured... though if she were advocating against herself, she had more than one guess what a maybe-goddess might want with Starlight. "And I'm sure she'll explain when you ask her. But thank you for telling me."
"...Mhm." Senescey gulped, suddenly shaking. "It doesn't feel like it was the right decision..."
Starlight wandered through a new level of tunnels, bricks forming archways and curved ceilings that told her they were there to make the place look bigger. That was a lie. The corridors felt like pipes, a dark, inexorable tunnel that drew her along toward some unknown destination.
At least, they would have, but Starlight's shadow cloak remained intact and unbroken, a feeling of physical detachment shrouding her like she was blanketed from everything in the world. There, with the air constantly pressing on her back and the tunnels exerting their presence, the world was a thing she wanted to be hidden from. The lights were too dim for her to see far to the ends of the corridors, but whatever was in there that wanted everyone pulled along could barely even see her.
More empty cells passed by her sides, each one with its hard bed and simple chest and batpony gargoyle statue embedded halfway in the wall. Starlight entered a few, their magical barriers posing no more issues to her than the one in her own cell, but quickly realized there was nothing of interest and couldn't carry more than one knife easily without her horn. Once or twice, she passed more guards who looked either angry or downtrodden enough to belong inside the cells instead of outside, and every time, she felt something bright about them. More often dull than brilliant, and none even in the same playing field as Glimmer, so she didn't give them any of her time.
The maze wound on, Starlight's hooves eventually leading her to another alcove in a wall that opened into another staircase. She frowned; still down. She was underground, wasn't she? The direction she wanted was up... She sighed and folded her ears. Still, it wasn't like anything could hurt her with the Nightmare Module's power, and if up was the way out, down was the way further in. Maybe she could find what this place was for or what was canceling her magic in the first place.
The rising sun greeted Valey like a beacon, her rain-chilled coat finally granted a reprieve from flying through the night. Her wings flapped on, powering a shivering glide, and she silently wondered how much she would regret it later for pushing herself as far as she had.
Below were fields and orchards, rolling hills and small rivers, and she got the impression she was nearing the southern border of Izvaldi. Stellar time, compared to an airship and counting her detour, but Starlight was still very distant on the horizon. She was making progress, but would need to rest soon, for her ability to fight once she reached her destination if nothing else.
Valey yawned and shuddered. Time to scout out a place she could make herself warm and call her friends... So much for her tournament fight tomorrow.
"Nyaah. I'm managing. Glad I took the last half of that potion, though. Anyway, seriously? You're saying this is Senescey's fault?"
Maple, Amber and Shinespark sat around the sound stone, watching it with concerned smiles. "No," Maple gently insisted. "Senescey says she was told by a dusk statue to nudge us toward the hospital, but that she didn't have any idea this would happen, or that it would target Starlight. She's very worked up about it and trying to reconcile how the Night Mother, who she's trusted all her life, could tell her to do something that would hurt her new friends."
"Right..." Amber agreed. "I didn't see her myself after she ran off, but she definitely looked to be taking it hard. I sure hope it isn't an act."
"Sounds lame," Valey's voice replied. "Yeah... nothing against her, but this is why I think taking advice from a magic statue like that is spooky. Like, it's probably just a big sound stone, right? For all she knows, absolutely anyone could be on the other end telling her to do weird stuff. Could be a maniac, or even some secret manipulative Empire politician. Odds it's someone who actually cares about her are basically zero. As for whether it's an act? Bananas, Ironflanks, you know more about that than me. But, like, from personal experience... even if she doesn't have your best interests at heart, or at least thinks she doesn't, it might be worth it to try giving her a chance anyway. You know. Sometimes the dumb decision can also be the right one? I trust you on how to deal with this, just... remember that your luck with batponies could run out."
Maple folded her ears. "Right..."
"Other than that, though, we haven't learned anything," Amber complained. "So let's say this Night Mother is behind everything. I can't remember where, but didn't someone tell me she might have been on the moon, or something? Where would she want to take Starlight, or what would she want with her? I can't put two and two together, here."
"Yeah, that might have been from me. Lore where I'm from was that she, like, created batponies but is also a weird monster who's on the moon? Bananas, I don't remember. Feels like my head is foggy. Nyegh..."
"Valey, you need some sleep," Maple gently insisted. "And food, and to warm up. Can you get those? You'll be no help to Starlight if you push yourself too far."
"Nnngh... Sort of?" Valey sounded hesitant. "I robbed an orchard just now. Pretty old school, huh?" She gave a weak chuckle. "Belly's full. And I found a farmhouse that's got a fire going, and am hanging out on the roof by their chimney. It's nice and warm, and I left the rain behind a while ago. But, uhh... Guys, I dunno if I can stop. Like, I need to, but can I? What if Starlight...?"
Maple sighed. "Can you rest for two hours? Or how about three? Even if you don't sleep, just... get off your wings, stretch them out and take care of them? It will make you faster in the long run."
"Doing it right now," Valey promised, the tone in her voice making it clear she knew she should be flying.
A small line of ponies stretched inside the lobby of Stormhoof's clinic, all the night's maladies that hadn't been urgent enough to bring in before morning now entering with the sun. A stallion carrying a foal with a cough and a spotted face, a mare limping on three legs, a teen with bloodshot eyes and a coat ragged enough to be a problem all of its own... Several ponies sat behind the check-in desk, splitting the line efficiently between them.
A shadow appeared in the doorway.
The room fell silent save for a crying foal, and the line split cleanly in two as a magmatic gray mare entered the clinic. Meltdown was half the size she had been before, her clunky, ruined suit of armor from two months ago replaced with a sleek, skin-tight amalgamation of glowing conduits and interlocking metal plates. In place of the bulky, melted spikes and fanblades, three jet engines rested on her back and sides, radiator cannons that glowed from within with thermal energy.
"There is an investigation," her bare face announced, the only part of her not covered by metal. "My office has received intelligence suspecting this building of harboring a threat against the Empire. Continue your operations as normal, but don't impede our work."
A line of griffons and ponies entered in behind her, forgoing a military march or uniforms for utilitarian garb, flank and shoulder patches proclaiming their purpose and allegiance. Meltdown met no resistance, the lines of glowing coolant spiderwebbing across her armor and centered around the jet fans pulsing in time with her mood. She strolled forward, some twenty agents in her wake, and soon the check-in desk was back to operating as normal.
Outside a window, a stealthy Gazelle sank back out of sight, strumming his claws together contentedly before his eyes turned further up the building, looking toward the higher-story windows. He had gone unnoticed in watching, everyone in the room's attention captivated by Meltdown... Everyone except a flower pot, where a cleverly-disguised Jamjars was sitting, making the foyer's floral display slightly more extravagant.
Starlight frowned upwards, her eyes tracing along the rounded ceilings of her prison's tunnel maze. These walls weren't bare brick, a small collection of metal pipes bolted to them instead. If gravity had been reversed, the pipes would have formed a stream running along the bottom of a ditch, and she found the more she looked at them, the more they prickled at her curiosity.
They weren't straight pipes, and didn't look like they had been sanely installed, made of hundreds of smooth, tiny segments instead of long, simple bars. Tangled and winding, they sometimes crisscrossed each other, patternlessly hugging against the ceiling and occasionally turning off or twisting in from new walls and directions. At one point, a pipe that looked like it had been broken and organically repaired snaked through a cell grate, and she realized with a chill it was connected to the batpony statue. Were these... sound pipes?
Instinctively, she tried to grow a crystal beneath her hooves, copying how she had seen Puddles use her ice to lift herself up and check them closer, but her horn was turned off and of course nothing happened. She huffed, but it was fine. The protective, hidden and detached feeling from her Nightmare Module persisted, so if there was anything bad about the pipes, they couldn't see her.
Still, her spine tingled when she realized the closest thing she knew that they reminded her of were tree roots.
Valey lay on her back on a roof, bathed in mid-morning sun, feeling warm wood smoke blow across her tail and wring every bit of latent water away. Her coat and mane already felt wonderful, if very pungent, and her wings had been enjoying the rest. Hopefully no one would mind when she got back... No, the bigger issue was that reeking would make it harder for her to hide. Hopefully it would wear off over a day of flying.
She rolled an apple back and forth along her forelegs and chest to amuse herself, debating how best to prepare. She had eaten as much as she felt like, was presently in easy country, and that might change as she got further north... Into her hat the apple went, alongside the sound stone and a small mana battery she used for charging it. She might as well grab a few more.
Finally finished warming, Valey decided she had had enough and spread her wings. They weren't as stiff as they could have been, and she grinned, flipping to her hooves. Sleep could wait a while longer, and she rubbed her eyes to prove it. Time for as much flying as she could manage.
"An' then she was cheatin' too, so I did to her what I did to all the others, I did. I'd have burned her whole family down if I had the chance! But I invited her sister down to our den first all pleasant-like... I always had eyes for her sister... an' the little rat varmint ratted us out on where it was! Woke up to a soldier's sword in my face. He can burn too! Burn, burn!"
Starlight had finally found another prisoner. She watched with morbid fascination as he had a one-sided conversation with a batpony statue, glad she didn't perfectly understand what he was talking about and wishing she understood less. The magical barriers, she had discovered, muffled sound in addition to preventing escape, so she was leaning on the bars, one ear poked through as she hoped to glean something useful.
The prisoner was a griffon, looking ironically ratty for his accusations. His talons and the plumage around them looked blackened and scarred, as if they had been burned badly in the past: she didn't doubt he was being literal about burns. His voice carried a tense, desperate strain of injustice that Starlight knew all too well, and he didn't seem the least self-conscious about confessing his anger to a ghastly statue.
"An' the worst part? When they busted us, they didn't even have the decency to string us up for real crimes. Said it was 'cause she was a mare and I was a bird, an' her sister, too, and all the others! Nobody cares about yer' laws, Garsheeva! Now she's gonna claim both of them, when they belong to me. I want 'em. She can't have 'em, you hear? Whoever this paper says you are, Stanza, I want everyone to burn..."
Thoroughly disturbed, Starlight backed away from the cage, leaving the griffon in silence to his insane ramblings. He held even less interest to her than the guards she occasionally passed, and clearly had nothing of value to say or do. Flicking her shadow-shrouded tail, she left him to his fate and continued on her way.
"Nnngh... Mmph..." Valey greedily gulped down water, standing with her head upside-down beneath a faucet on a farmstead that she had just detached a watering hose from. That was one of the benefits of her cutie mark: she could always tell when food or drink was safe, and slurped at the spigot with reckless abandon.
"Sounds like you really needed that," Amber's voice remarked through the sound stone clutched beneath her wing.
"Bananas, yes," Valey gasped, coming up for air. "Should have brought a bottle or something. Think I'm gonna see if I can get one before flying on. Had to go way longer than I liked before finding this."
"While you're still in farm country, grab some saddlebags for food, too," Amber advised. "I flew over Wilderwind and Gyre on my way here and it didn't look like there were a lot of trees. You're still thinking Starlight is up there, right?"
Valey shut off the spigot, leaning against it and taking a moment for the water to work its magic, already feeling rehydrated. "At the rate I've been going, and how far off she still is? Yeah, pretty much. Good news is, she hasn't moved all night and all day. It's like... what, three hours until sundown? Feels like I might... might be able to reach her by sundown tomorrow..." She interrupted herself with a massive yawn.
"Is that counting sleep?"
"Nah, I'm good." Valey tried to get up, her entire body protesting and reminding her that she had been speed-flying for twenty-four hours after using a healing potion to recover from a brutal fight with Wallace. "Only been up for what, thirty-six hours? I can do this."
"And still fight to help Starlight once you get there?" Amber sounded suspicious. "Valey, are you sure?"
"It's not about whether I can!" Valey slumped, her wings not wanting to work, feeling like she had drank too much and yet still needed to drink more. "I h-have to..."
There was a patient silence from the other end. "Girl, you have to," Amber soothed. "I wasn't there for Ironridge, but remember how beat-up you said you were for that last bit? Imagine if you pushed yourself that hard, flew for fifty hours straight, fought off whoever captured Starlight, and then were so exhausted you collapsed, couldn't get her out of there, and you both got captured again?"
Valey winced. "Yeah, and imagine if I take twelve to sleep and am then too late!"
"Valey, we have leads." Amber sounded pained. "From what Senescey said, it might have been orchestrated that she go there by the Night Mother. That means someone wants something with her, and until they get it, she might be safe."
"Yeah?" Valey countered, struggling to her hooves. "But we don't know that for sure. What if it's a coincidence? Maybe Senescey's advice was supposed to help us and we just ran into some lunatic by chance? Like, going to the pros when you've got something wrong with you is usually good advice, right? What if this is, like, pirate revenge for the boat we blew up two months ago?"
"It's our best guess. We have to hope. And Valey, you have limits, and you can't help anyone if you break yourself pushing yourself past them. Please take care of yourself, okay? Please?" Amber's voice was pleading.
Valey took a step forward, looking towards the northern sky. "No. Have to... keep... Oh, bananas..."
She slumped forward, relenting to her weariness and Amber's advice, and was asleep in the grass in seconds.
Gazelle padded proudly down a hospital hall in Stormhoof, round ears flicking and tail swishing as he observed everything with feigned disinterest. Meltdown's inspectors and the hospital staff alike did their best to pretend he wasn't there; he had no business in the hospital and he knew it. Yet, he was also the High Prince, and there was nothing they could do to make him leave.
Condition after condition, ward after ward he passed by with a casual, sharp-toothed grin, occasionally stopping to stare over an inspector's shoulder or wish a patient well. Especially the children. The only thing he was looking for was anything of interest, true to his patented style of investigating: sticking his nose in everything and seeing what stuck back. The hospital was on edge, it was easy to tell, but that was more the fault of Meltdown and her team causing such a presence.
"Um... excuse me, Your Majesty?" A tug came at his leg.
"Hmmmmm?" Gazelle blinked down to see a little filly, her tufted ears and leathery wings quite distinctive against Stormhoof's usual population. "Well hello there!" He grinned regally down at her. "Never thought you'd be meeting a prince here, did you?"
The filly seemed cowed. "Um... Hello..."
Gazelle patted her on the head. "Oh, have no fear, have no fear. I have a sister who's about your age, you know! It leaves me with a soft spot for tykes like you. What can old Gazelle do for you, kiddo?" He grinned benevolently. "Say an autograph, and I'll have to use one of my own feathers to sign it."
"Well..." The filly winced. "My mother is sick and nobody was with me so I got lost, and I ended up in the basement where it looked like I wasn't supposed to go, and there was a statue like the ones Mom used to talk to but I had never heard anything from, and it talked to me and told me there would be a prince here and he could make her better if I brought him to the statue. Can you help? I remember the way..."
Gazelle's grin turned into an intrigued frown. "Well, how curious. A personal summons? For me? I just might have to follow along and see what this is all about! Lead the way, young filly, lead the way."
The foal did as she was instructed, Gazelle silently padding along. She seemed about to explode from nerves, so he did nothing to prod her, even though he knew where the hospital's dusk statue was and felt certain he could find a shortcut. By the time the statue drew into sight, he had already resigned himself to what was about to happen.
"Here we are!" the filly squeaked. "Now can you... can you... Huh?" She twitched, eyes unfocusing.
Gazelle sighed and leaned against a wall.
The filly cried out, suddenly twitching again and then spasming... and then her body was washed in a spire of green flame as the dusk statue's glow briefly intensified. It was over in less than a second, and a tiny, filly-sized sphinx stood before him, effortlessly looking down on Gazelle despite the height difference.
"My lady." Gazelle bowed with restrained courtesy, despite being twice as tall as the sphinx filly he faced.
The Night Mother smiled, showing teeth. "Tearing up a hospital tonight, are we? Now what could make you do a thing like that?"
"I do what I want," Gazelle countered, straightening up, "as I always have. Now what's this about a message for me? It's mayhem in here, and I have revels to return to."
"Oh... ho ho ho." The Night Mother chuckled. "Nothing too dramatic. I just thought I'd tell you your piece is missing because I borrowed her. She's off your board for the time being, Gazelle. In case you were worried."
Gazelle's brow narrowed. "Making moves behind my back, are you? That wasn't our agreement."
The Night Mother returned his gaze without even twitching a hair, entirely unperturbed. "Our agreement, as with every pact I make, is secondary to ensuring her children's wellbeing. I had to remind you of this after the incident with the pirates two months ago, did I not?"
Gazelle charismatically shrugged, keeping his composure excellently despite the wall of expectation exerted by the Night Mother's presence. "And? Last I checked this merry Ironridge band has quite the reputation as heroes, don't they? I hardly see a downside in the name of peace and justice to letting them do as they please."
"Mhmmm," the Night Mother sarcastically purred. "And do you see a downside to your habit of supporting your home-grown rivals so they grow and make a better challenge?"
"'Tis but a sport." Gazelle licked his paw. "I ensure these things aren't left to grow overripe. Don't you trust me? Or are you saying you're prodding our heroes into a hornet's nest so they take care of it before I even have a chance to clean up after myself?"
"Your methods are at odds with your motives," the Night Mother growled. "You want to re-subjugate this lawless empire and present it whole and perfect to your sister when she takes the throne? A worthy goal. And if you want to stir up problems and allow them to fester for no better reason than to watch their dramatic conclusions?" Her demeanor flipped on its head, and suddenly she was purring approvingly. "I've always liked the things mortals can get up to. But you're making no progress, working against yourself, and you've allowed some forces to grow strong enough I have to lift my paws and take action myself to protect this land."
Gazelle put on a look of mock indignation. "Working against myself? Oh, please. My lady... Heh..." He closed his eyes and stood, shoulders shaking with a single chuckle. "You've seen my outlines. You're privy to the deepest extent of my plans for this empire, are you not? You should know my unfinished business is carefully cultivated to take care of itself. Why solve a problem directly when it's so much more entertaining to create another problem and have them cancel each other out?"
"How could I forget?" The Night Mother rolled her eyes. "Yes, clearly unifying the Griffon Empire is a task that must be as entertaining as possible. You could have no higher priorities."
Gazelle bristled. "Oh, come on! Lady, when we first met you told me you got a kick out of observing mortal antics like mine! Not only do you sanction it, you do the same!"
"So you're playing god now?" The Night Mother's grin returned. "I do. And I'm not reprimanding you, little prince." She reached up, stroking his chin with a single claw. "Just explaining why I decided to step in for a moment. Now stop worrying over Starlight. I'll give her back as soon as she's seen what I want her to see. If she's lucky, maybe I'll even get to talk with her."
"...I see." Gazelle closed his eyes and took a step back. "Very well, then. I'll inform Meltdown you're taking command of the situation. In the future, please do trust me to know what I'm doing."
The Night Mother bit her lip as if she was trying to stifle laughter. "Fine, then. Get on with your bad self."
Gazelle steadied himself and bowed, extending a paw. "I am the player."
The Night Mother met it with one of her own. "And I am the game."
"Glory to Garsheeva. May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world."
As the words left Gazelle's lips, the smaller sphinx huffed and turned away. "It always amuses me to hear you insult me so. Oh, and one other thing?"
"My lady?" Gazelle looked up, holding his bow.
The Night Mother's grin returned in force. "How confident are you how have everything under control? Make it on a scale of one to ten. And just for this conversation."
Gazelle furrowed his brow. "That's a trick question if I ever heard one. No matter what I say, you'll change the circumstances on me with something I didn't know."
"Astute as always." The Night Mother brushed him with her tail, purring. "Just between you and me?" She met him with a slit-eyed wink. "You forgot to make sure this room was empty before starting this conversation."
Before he could so much as pale, there was a spire of green flame, and a dizzy sarosian filly sat back on her haunches, blinking hard and rubbing her forehead. "Ow, what happened...?"
Gazelle snarled internally, forced to choose between further spooking the foal and hunting whoever the other sphinx had implied before they could get away. For all he knew, there was no one, and the fact that he wouldn't be able to find anyone would just make him paranoid.
Equally scared, camouflaged and hiding behind a pillar near the entrance, Jamjars greased her hooves to avoid noisy hooffalls, kicked for momentum, and silently glided away.
Starlight had descended another staircase, and prisoners were growing more common. They weren't everywhere, but she had passed at least five on the last floor, including two mares she thought knew the insane griffon she encountered earlier.
The various ponies' brightness was slowly driving her insane. She thought she could acclimate to it if she stayed like this long enough, but it still clashed against the sense of normal she remembered from before touching the moon glass. Mares and stallions, ponies and batponies, guards and prisoners, griffons and griffonesses, every living thing she passed had a quality to them that made her tingle with longing. What was she doing, desiring brutal pirates and criminals like this? She wanted... She wanted to polish them, to shine and hold and see that warmth, like there was a living quality to them that everything would be better the more she had.
It made no sense. She couldn't articulate what she wanted in physical terms; the closest emotion she knew was loneliness. But these ponies were bad, so why was she seeing them as something precious? Was she looking upon redeeming features, some inner spark of harmony that all lifeforms possessed, the absolute best that even the worst ponies had to offer?
If that was true, and if the Nightmare Modules allowed her to see the goodness within ponies... If it made her desire goodness, could she really say they were that evil after all?
A cold breeze interrupted her train of thought, and Starlight stared down a side passage, beholding another stairway. Wind, huh? And a temperature change? Curious, she turned and continued her journey down.
Gerardo sat at his usual post in the Immortal Dream's bridge, spinning the captain's chair from side to side as he waited idly for something to happen. Maple and Amber were there, silently thinking and occasionally muttering each other an idea but never finding them good or pleasant enough to strike up a conversation. Shinespark paced, Nyala was still, hooked up to the terminal, and Slipstream tried to look as if she wasn't even there.
The door slid open with a crack, dawn still a few hours away, and Jamjars was there.
"I found Starlight," Jamjars panted, her short mane frizzed and her sides beating as she caught her breath.
"You what?" Gerardo squawked, jolted out of half-sleeplessness. "Found her as in located her, found her, or found her found her?"
"You did?" Maple instantly perked up, and the rest of the crew followed suit.
Jamjars cleared her throat. "First off, be careful. I don't think I was followed, but I wasn't undetected." She gave everyone a serious look. "I saw the Night Mother."
She had everyone's complete and undivided attention. Gerardo drew his sword, getting up to stand by the door. "I suppose I should stand guard, then?"
Jamjars let him, figuring out what out of everything she had seen was the most important bit to tell first. "She said she got Starlight taken somewhere because there was something she wanted her to see, and that she'd give her back once she'd seen it."
"That doesn't sound ominous..." Maple folded her ears.
"Suspicious is what it sounds like," Amber countered, pounding one forehoof atop the other. "She wants her to see something? Elaborate."
Jamjars stared at her. "That's what I was doing. She was talking to Gazelle in the hospital's basement. A batpony civilian guided him down there, and as soon as they were next to the dusk statue, she transformed and turned into a sphinx and said that's who she was, and went back to being the pony when it was over. She said she had an agreement with him, or something, and that she was letting him play with the continent but was also upset there was a problem he wasn't dealing with. She made it sound like she wanted you to be aware of it so you'd fix it instead."
"Okay, hold on, that's a lot to unpack." Amber halted her with a grim hoof. "The Night Mother can possess batponies next to the statues? Is that what you're saying?"
"That's what it looked like." Jamjars nodded.
Gerardo rubbed his chin. "Do you think Valey is awake yet? If anyone is likely to have thoughts on the matter, it would be her."
"I'm more wondering why we never went to sleep," Maple sighed, eyes slightly red. "I should have made myself realize that worrying all night would never get us anywhere and just tried to turn in in case anything like this happened..."
Shinespark nodded at her. "Finish debriefing us as fast as you can. I'll want to be up when Valey is, but I think I'll nap as much as possible as soon as I know what I need to."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "A wise idea. Now then, what was this about an agreement and playing with the continent?"
"It was vague." Jamjars shot him a look. "Gazelle was talking about responsibly creating problems for sport. The Night Mother didn't sound happy with him, but kept pushing him in different directions. It was obvious they know each other and have a complicated history, and I couldn't understand half of what was being said. But she made it sound like she wanted to borrow Starlight to mess up someone else's plans, and said she would give her back when she was done. If you trust her."
"Whooo..." Maple pinched her brow. "I really wish we had Valey's opinion on this..."
"Not the nicest way to start my morning, Ironflanks," Valey sighed, running through a few wing stretches while she ate breakfast and prepared to resume her journey. "You're telling me you have an idea why Starlight got bagged, and it's bad news?"
Her ears folded further and further as her friends, with Jamjars' clarification, relayed everything that had been learned. "Bananas, not again!" she pouted, stomping. "You're saying Starlight is there to bait me because someone else wants us to clean up their mess?"
"Not just someone," Amber sighed ominously. "The Night Mother, who apparently is not only real but can take over batponies to become physical."
Valey paused. "Okay, to be fair, real quick: pretty much anyone can do that. Batpony bodies, like... change depending on what cutie mark or soul you have attached to them. We can guess about it more later, but it's like how I looked different while I was fighting Herman... or wait, did any of you see that? Never mind. I've got a ton of examples probably none of you have actually seen."
"So she can project herself, or something," Amber finished for her. "And I remember you telling me. Like how your sister turned into that scientist Navarre after he swapped their cutie marks."
"Yeah, that." Valey waved a hoof. "But seriously, her aside..." She banged her head into a wall. "Really? After all the stuff we do to stay unimportant and happily doing our own thing, it's not even me getting famous over Wallace that drags us back into trouble? It's our reputation from Ironridge? This lady just thinks we're heroes that can be thrown at whatever immoral thing she wants gone? I mean, sure, once I see it I'm probably gonna want to do something, but... guh..." She sagged. "I had a lifetime of this with Herman already. Getting pulled and prodded around and schemed over. 'Oh, I know her so well, she'll do this naturally, I'll just put her in the right situation and she'll do exactly what I want!' Blech! I'm not a tool...!"
"Apparently the Night Mother begs to differ," Gerardo sighed. "My advice would be to wait this out and follow through until Starlight is no longer effectively hostage, and then we can pursue a course of action."
Valey tensed, growling. "Yeah? And what kind of course of action do you suggest, Birdo? She's revered by practically every batpony in the continent, so she's got a huge following. Sounds like she's in cahoots with the world's least-stable prince as well, and even if she didn't have public backing and we knew where she actually was behind that statue, she can apparently possess batponies remotely at will?" She shuddered. "I don't wanna deal with that..."
"We can figure that out later," Maple promised. "For now, I just want to make sure you're on your hooves?"
"Bananas, I am." Valey was standing in a heartbeat. "Not letting some harpy like that take my friends, bait or not. Whatever she wants us to find, well, me and Starlight are just gonna have to deal with it."
"We'll be here for you when you get back," Amber assured her. "Just do what you need to, okay?"
Valey sighed, eyes turned toward the northern horizon, Starlight like a tiny pinprick on her nose's senses. "Yeah. Just, here we are, getting drawn back into national backstabbing and drama and politics for no good reason, and..." She closed her eyes and winced, then looked up again. "Bananas. I hope the Night Mother doesn't think this is how to make allies, because after this, we are not gonna be on good terms. Now let's see what we're supposed to see."
Traces of frigid air wrapped past Starlight, making her wonder if something significant was ahead or her new nightmare state made her more sensitive to cold. She didn't doubt the latter, but somehow felt this was more real than just a magical chill.
The more levels she descended, the thicker the river of pipes was on the ceiling, wrapping and twisting and knotted over itself like something organic. Who built like that, anyway? The pipes were made of metal! Any individual line would be impossible to trace, leaks infeasible to find and plug, but it certainly had an effect on the atmosphere. She briefly imagined each and every one of those being connected to a gargoyle in a cell, tiny lines of echoing sound carrying convicts' anguished or infuriated ramblings to who knew where... and then her hoof slipped, a tiny patch of ice nearly causing her to lose her balance.
With a jolt in her shoulder, she caught herself, resolving to look down instead of up for a while. Still, she felt like she had seen those pipes before. Laid carelessly over themselves yet still roughly parallel, like something flowing, or even muscle tissue. Where had...?
She turned another corner, and her mind dredged up an image of a room made entirely of pipes, descending from a point in the ceiling to cover and form all the walls, only a single point bare over the lone entry door. A room with a hole in the middle, and a golden ring on a platform... but what was this place doing with a similar architectural style to something she had seen in Izvaldi? To Puddles' containment room?
This couldn't be in Izvaldi, could it? True, the capitol had tunnels, and she had no idea how deep they ran, but the only thing else she could use to link that memory to this place was the cold. Puddles made ice, she was cold, this was cold...
Starlight suddenly hit a wall, and her eyes widened.
The entire corridor was frozen over, a solid sheet of faceted ice blocking her entry into a round room beyond. In the center of the room was a table, and around it, encased in ice, were several scientific-looking batponies and unicorns... and in the middle, there she was, wintery, two-tone eyes fixated pleadingly on Starlight.
The ice shifted as Starlight stared at Puddles, and her eyes had to refocus to see the change: surface-level scratches, forming four simple letters.
Starlight stared blankly at the ice, caught completely by surprise and with no idea what to do.
Inside the room, which as best as she could tell was frozen perfectly solid, Puddles was strapped to a stone operating table, several rolling trays of sharp-looking medical equipment stationed by the ponies frozen around her. As best as Starlight could tell, it didn't look like they were there to help her. Whether Puddles deserved to be helped at all was another question entirely, she realized: whatever the brightness was that attracted her to some ponies, most of the medical team were fairly lustrous, and Puddles had no shine whatsoever.
She swallowed and frowned, focusing on the message etched into the ice again. Help, Puddles requested. Should she? How would she? She had one knife and a Nightmare Module, and honestly couldn't tell any more how much that hid her, now that Puddles had spotted her instantly.
Her new sense told her the scientists were each worth infinitely more than the windigo they had captured; that there was some spark in them beyond value which Puddles had none of. That Puddles was inconsequentially disposable and the choice was effortless. She could kick her aside and be done with her and never look back... and the logic in her brain rebelled, kicking that sense of brightness and smashing it aside. Puddles was worth something to Wallace, and Wallace was able to help her friends, and helping her friends made it more likely she could keep them. A wave of loneliness suddenly swept across Starlight at the thought of even considering anything else, and for a second, she desperately wanted to feel Maple's hug.
Feeling like she was stepping on her heart, Starlight dropped her shadow cloak and stared straight at Puddles, spitting out the knife she had brought and glaring. "How do I help you?"
Melt. Free. Run.
Starlight watched the words form in the ice, followed by a lone question mark. Did she understand? Puddles would melt the ice, she would cut her free, they would run... where? Hopefully the windigo had an idea of where to go. She nodded, staring deeper, wishing for a hidden meaning that would offer more help... and then her vision focused on her reflection, no longer a shadowy hole in space, and she blinked. Her eyes were slitted. Huh. That was new.
The ice started to glisten, and then to steam, Starlight's coat suddenly wet as it shed its moisture into the air. She grabbed her knife again before the increasing flow of meltwater could wash it away, and frowned. Flooding this place certainly wouldn't attract attention... Up went her shadow cloak again, just in case. This was only the second time she had used it, yet it was as easy and instinctual as batting her ears as a reflex.
As the ice shrank, receding from the entrance inward and draining more and more water as its exposed surface increased, Starlight pressed forward. There was at least one scientist who would be freed before the table with Puddles was exposed. Thinking desperately, Starlight watched as an academic mare in a short lab coat had her hindquarters exposed, then her barrel, then her shoulders... She gulped, knife at the ready. What did she do?
This was a pony who was directly in the way of what she wanted. But what she really wanted was them, the unnamable brightness they carried, a quality that made her heart clench with longing, something that needed to be kindled. That mare would have been frozen here for who knew how long. Had she been conscious? Would she be scared? Starlight's first instinct was to help her, to shield her or comfort her in the hope that harmony would repay harmony, that whatever she wanted, this frozen pony would know and reciprocate.
But that was stupid! Starlight wrangled with herself, pulling back up her past world experiences. The world didn't play fair, ponies didn't get what they deserved, and she was here for Puddles and nothing else because of reasons she wasn't sure she understood. If she helped her friends, they would be bright for her instead. Who cared about this mare? She did, but only because the Nightmare Module was messing with her senses, right? And it wasn't like the mare cared back about her. Was it? It didn't matter. She was trusting her memories on Puddles, that getting her out would be worth it somehow. And if she was trusting her memories there, she would trust herself to know what happened when she showed kindness to strangers who didn't deserve it, too.
She readied the knife in her teeth and almost lunged, instinctively aiming for the mare's cutie mark, then halted herself with a stumble. She didn't trust her present state, right? That meant her judgement might also be skewed. She could easily make the wrong call, relying on herself, and who would help her then? Shivering, Starlight paused. Whatever she did, she needed to make sure it was the right thing, and she had to make sure she knew what that was for more than her own instincts. She couldn't weigh her own needs against being a good pony when her mind might be compromised. But the mare was almost thawed. Think faster, Starlight...!
Then, like a bolt of premeditated clarity, the answer hit her: whatever the right thing to do was, dead ponies earned no do-overs and live ones could keep trying again. If a death wasn't right, there would be no way to make up for it. No knife, then. Starlight was absolutely sure she had made the right decision.
When the scientist mare finally thawed, it took a moment or two for her to restart, the magical ice retreating with all her vitals left intact. When she finally blinked, thoughts returning to lucidity, Starlight was hugging her. Being hugged by a shadowy, filly-shaped hole in space, the mare froze again, her eyes constricted... and she screamed in terror, dashing as fast as her thawing muscles would allow.
Starlight hit the ground with a thud, blinking owlishly as the mare slipped multiple times in her frantic attempt to get away. "You're welcome!" she called, shaking a frustrated hoof, ears twitching at the sound of her own voice. Was it just her, or did the shadow cloak mask that too, changing her tones and pitches just enough that she wasn't identifiable as herself? That was useful.
The ice continued to thaw, several more scientists beginning to be exposed, but by now it had also reached the table. Starlight scrambled upright, grabbing her knife again and watching as Puddles' legs were exposed, immediately taking the instrument to the shackles that held them down. Crink! Clack! With the sound of snapping restraints, Puddles' hooves were freed, and Starlight moved upward, getting the ones around her belly and then forelegs the moment she could reach.
"Hi..." Puddles panted weakly once her mouth was freed.
"Hi," Starlight replied, feeling her and judging how easy the mare would be to lift. The moment Puddles' head was free of the ice, she pulled her away, dragging her to the edge of the table. "Can you walk, and can you stop that from melting so the rest of them don't escape?"
"Unnngh..." Puddles winced, then groaned. "No. Creating this took everything Puddles had in her. She's nearly finished..."
Starlight frowned in concern, giving the earth pony a quick look-over. No outward signs of physical trauma, but she looked nauseous, and... her cutie mark was gone? No, not gone, just fading. Starlight blinked. The icy insignia on Puddles' flanks, she remembered being told, had only appeared once she got possessed and was a direct sign of the windigo inside her, so for it to be fading... "Are you dying?" she asked in concern.
Puddles winced, mostly limp. "Had a plan, but... didn't expect things to go this way... Puddles wants to go home to Morena..."
"Do you know where we are?" Starlight asked, pulling her off the table and onto her back as best as she could, casting a wary eye at the defrosting scientists. "How to get out?"
"Teleporter at... the bottom of the tunnels..." Puddles groaned. "Don't sing Stanza's song..."
"Oookay..." Starlight remembered the name Stanza from the batpony statue's note, but didn't press. Puddles was an adult and she was a filly, so she didn't fit well on her back, but if she kept her head down and Puddles' shoulders aligned with her own, the older mare's belly rested on her rump and none of her legs dragged too much. She was still heavy, though, and the shadow cloak didn't extend to her. "Let's get out of here."
Valey had been flying over Gyre for hours, and so far had only been shot at once.
She had her cutie mark to thank for that, and the one time it had failed, whoever was below must have been such a horrible markspony that her mark didn't consider them worth activating for. Or they weren't aiming for her in the first place. It was dark, and all she had gathered was that this was a land where the residents didn't appreciate strangers flying overhead at night.
The terrain change when she crossed the border had been like a solid line cleaved through the ground, so abrupt from grass to no grass that she felt there had to be land mismanagement at play. What was the Gyre government doing, stripping their soil of everything green for effect? Or had some accident or atrocity in the past changed the ground so that plants couldn't grow? The land faded to rocky dirt, like it had been purposefully ruined once upon a time.
She was far to the east and farther to the north, but Starlight was getting closer. Dodging the towns and settlements that cropped up wherever ponies decided to congregate, Valey pushed her tired wings onward, the moon overhead in a cloudless sky to light her path.
"Shh!" Starlight pressed against a wall before an intersection, though she needn't have bothered shushing Puddles: the mare on her back wasn't feeling up to making any noise in the first place. Starlight's ears detected voices and hoofsteps, and she glanced frantically around, thinking how to best hide her windigo.
She wasn't given time to think, and had to settle for hoping fervently the guards wouldn't look or turn her way. Leaning on the wall, she held her breath as two hooded ponies passed by, the place's atmosphere hanging over them like a cloud. They didn't look. They looked like they couldn't care to look. Puddles drooped limply across her back, and once the guards had passed, she slumped onward, trusting wandering and luck to bring them to the next staircase.
That staircase came, the river of pipes on the ceiling thick enough now to cover the walls as well. Instead of a short, straight descent, this one spiraled downward in two tight loops, and Starlight had to press to the outer edge to avoid losing her hoofing. The pipes were low enough that she could touch them, and once, when she stumbled and her ear brushed against one, she heard music.
It was a toneless tone, a melody without rhythm, like a bone rolled across the keys of an instrument, and suddenly, even through her shadow cloak, Starlight felt watched.
She shivered and kept more strictly to the center of the stairs after that, wishing Puddles was someone warm.
Valey could smell Starlight moving. That meant she was getting close.
On the horizon, a dim conglomeration of lights was rising, the fancier and more-presumptuous version of a walled-off stockade. Gone was the barren, rocky dirt, replaced by an endless sea of concrete, asphalt and crushed gravel, complexes with smokestacks and wires that were linked by rails sitting in an organized grid, all looking of uniform design and age. Whatever these factories did, they didn't stop for night, a boxcar rattling along beneath her and four ponies in a procession pulling a heavy wagon.
Beyond the factories, though, was her goal: a ring-shaped barrier formed the center of the sprawl, and the smoke in the air was illuminated by numerous lights shining up from within. Valey was high enough to see the houses and rooftops inside, jammed so close together it might as well have been Blueleaf and its multiple levels, a governmental ziggurat stationed in the middle, high enough to look out over the wall at the sea of factories.
She wiggled her nose, ever cautious that someone could spot her and decide no one had any business flying around as easily as she was. Starlight was... down, and under the central city. Beneath the ground, fairly far. Valey frowned. Time to find her way down, apparently.
The circular wall separating the factories from the city proper radiated danger, and even at night the place was washed in enough light Valey could see sniper squads and encampments stationed on the top. What was this place, a prison? She settled down onto the roof of a factory, staring at the wall and trying to think, but all her brain turned up was images she had seen of what Sosa used to be like. That looked like this, only Gyre had twice the industry and none of the spirit. Sosa had been... greener, but this place felt sucked dry.
Her tail twitched, and she sighed, Starlight moving around in the distance below. Tunnels beneath the city. This was probably the capitol, not that she remembered what it was called. She needed a way down there...
Shrugging, Valey looked at her forehooves. If all else failed, she could try shadow sneaking through pipes, provided she found something big enough. Maybe there would be a sewer grate that could get her started moving down. This city didn't look like it got a lot of rain, but there had to be storm drains just in case somewhere, right? First she just had to get through that wall, because she somehow doubted anyone would build a mess like this and then leave tunnels going in under the wall.
"Hey." Valey strolled out of the shadows, unarmed and unaggressive, toward an entry point set into the base of the wall. She had scouted for nearly an hour, determined not to blow it now that she was so close to Starlight, and her cutie mark had determined this one to be the safest. "Any chance I can get in, here?" She held her wings out, showing the checkpoint there was nothing beneath them. "Just trying to get by. Not looking for trouble."
The wall gate's lone attendant, a griffon of nearly spherical proportions, regarded her for a moment, puffed out his fat cheeks, and burst into a fit of mare-like giggles, pointing a talon at her and rolling slightly. "Y-You... You wanna go in there... Hoo hoo hoo..."
"Uhh, yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow, slightly nonplussed but relieved he wasn't doing anything worse. "If that's a problem..."
The fat griffon flicked a tear from his eyes with a talon. "Hoo... Hey, come get a load'a this! There's a bat who wants... A bat who wants to go through..." He punched the checkpoint counter in borderline hysteria.
"You got a problem?" Valey tilted her head. This was hardly what she was expecting.
"Howard, knock it off!" a cranky female voice came from inside a glowing guardhouse doorway, and a roll of tape flew out and thwacked the chortling, roly-poly griffon in the head. Another griffon appeared, looking like she had woken up ten seconds ago, and gave Valey a bleary scowl. "No wagon? You're fine. You new around here or something?"
Valey shrugged, happy to accept her signs of civility. "Yeah, pretty much. You said I'm good to go?"
Howard opened his beak and was promptly punched. "Probably got something counterfeit under that hat, but it's too small for me to get paid to worry about," the other griffon drawled, yanking a switch on the wall and causing the light illuminating the tunnel passage to go out, making way for Valey to shadow sneak through the grate. "Consider that your unnerving, unfriendly, un-welcome to the middle of nowhere. Don't enjoy your stay."
Scowling, she stomped back into the guardhouse, leaving Valey blinking. Well, free invitations were free invitations. She ducked through the grate that blocked the tunnel before the fat griffon could start laughing again, filing away that Gyre was filled with guards who were either incompetent or disloyal.
Moonlight shone down overhead as Maple, Amber, Shinespark and their friends all sat together in their private colosseum box, waiting for a battle they knew wouldn't start. Below, an arrogant-looking griffon beat her chest and lambasted her opponent into Howe's microphone for being late, and there was nothing they could do.
"Well..." Shinespark looked down from the railing, folding both her forelegs atop it, then sighed. "There goes Valey's lead. Now she might as well have lost to Wallace. She'd be on one loss either way."
"I beg to differ," Gerardo interrupted, a stark opposite to her resignation. "That may have been true if this were sabotage in retribution for her victory, but thanks to young Jamjars, we have a reasonable idea it wasn't. Valey's efforts in that fight are, in fact, why she'll still be in the competition once this match is called against her."
"They could at least hurry up," Slipstream remarked.
Maple nodded. "Aren't they on a tight schedule? Why let her opponent brag so much about her not showing up? They could just move things along, especially since we told them she can't be here tonight."
As if on cue, the griffon was ushered away, looking displeased that she didn't get to gloat more. "A pity, too," Gerardo sighed. "That one could have used that look wiped off her face, I believe."
"Nnngh..." Shinespark growled into her folded forelegs, gritting her teeth.
"On the bright side..." Amber sidled up beside her, leaning lightly against Shinespark's side. "The stars are pretty, aren't they? You can see them really well."
Gerardo tilted his head. "Is that all that unusual? On the way of adventure..."
"It is in Riverfall," Maple cut in. "The sky is covered by trees all the time, never mind when it's constantly raining. If you want to see the stars, you have to wait for a clear night and then go by the river. Amber and Willow and I had a special spot we went to, sometimes."
"Yep." Amber nodded. "And in Ironridge, the city used to be so bright, apparently it was hard to see them at night. Though that's changed now that they're short on power. I guess Stormhoof really does try to conserve energy, doesn't it?"
"It's true," Shinespark murmured. "I sometimes would fly out a few miles away just to get away from the city for a night. Pegasi did it too, actually. Not what I was thinking about at the moment, but thanks for looking on the bright side, Amber."
Amber grinned and bounced once in place, nudging Maple. "I try. Had some friends who needed a positive voice over the years."
"Yeah? Well, if she's staying in the tournament, Valey might need that anyway once she hears she's down on a forfeit too," Shinespark said.
Gerardo gave her a look. "Isn't she already aware this was when her next fight was to take place?"
"Sometimes, Gerardo?" Maple shrugged. "It just takes hearing something from a friend for it to sink in. I don't know how she'll react. She probably won't even care. I'd like to wait and see when her next fight gets posted after this before we call her next, though. She's probably getting close to Starlight and doesn't need the distraction, right now."
"Right. If anyone needs a distraction, it's us." Amber put a foreleg around Maple and another around Shinespark, squishing them into a hug. "Right, girls? Let's try to enjoy ourselves for a night while we wish Starlight and Valey the best."
"Right," Maple promised, hugging her back. "Let's enjoy ourselves."
While Maple and her friends watched the battles, a lone light shone aboard the Immortal Dream, a single cabin lit against the darkness. Jamjars wasn't guarding the boat against intruders. She had more important things to do.
The yellow filly sat in a chair at her desk, using her poofy wig as a cushion, ignoring her collection of tantalizing posters in favor of a few trinkets on her desk: a smashed, magical earpiece, and a carefully-bound black diary she had acquired in Riverfall. After all, she needed a place to record potential blackmail.
Her hooves held the book open to the section from her time in Izvaldi, the earpiece rotating idly in her magic as she scanned for every entry relating to batponies. Batponies were related to the Night Mother, after all, and whoever that transforming sphinx was, she needed something to use against her.
Dear Me, one entry read, Percival is dating a pony. He's the ruler of Izvaldi, and a griffon. Griffons and ponies together count as heresy, and his relationship is secret. For future research: who is it? Percival wants Wallace to win the tournament so with his wish, Garsheeva will consider him a sphinx and he can rule his province, but sphinxes can go out with whoever they want. What if the real reason he wants this is so he doesn't have to keep his relationship secret?
Jamjars tapped her teeth with a quill tip and frowned. Unless he was dating a batpony, that wouldn't help, and she hadn't been back to Izvaldi to do any more digging on that front. She turned a page.
Dear Me, the next one began. Chauncey is creepy, but I finally found something to use against him? I heard him monologuing to himself when he thought no one was looking. He was mad at someone called Stanza, who he said was his creation and had a song he didn't need. He blamed them for making Melia and Sirena hate him, and for causing the riot. I wish I could remember what he said word for word, but I caught a cold from standing in the rain and my head is cloudy. For future research: he said something about the second tournament round, but I don't remember what. Watch him if you're there.
Jamjars frowned and pushed that one aside too; she hadn't been having any luck tracking the stallion down and doubted the Night Mother was any creation of his. Did he have a problem with the Night Mother? She felt like maybe, but quickly skimmed her book and her memories and couldn't say for sure, growling at herself. Why hadn't she been more thorough? Living with trustworthy ponies all the time was letting her get complacent.
She almost started on the next page, an entry about Puddles, then stopped, still playing with the crushed ear clip she had picked up when that entry was made. He had been talking to it, she knew, and while it was clearly broken, could there be anything about it that would give her a batpony-related lead? If there was, anything was worth investigating.
Flexing her aura, Jamjars lifted the earpiece and tugged on it like a clam, forcing the broken halves of the shell back into a shape where they could be pried apart. The casing finally split in half with a crack, revealing a few broken wires, two tiny, spent crystals... and what looked like a flake of moon glass. Jamjars grinned, poked it, and grinned harder, pressing it upright and flattening her head on the table to look through it, verifying that it made everything look gray through it just like normal.
She didn't touch it for too long, not needing anyone's help in getting a cutie mark. Certainly, she wasn't about to get one the same way as her mother, if a shard that small could even hold a mark. But what she did know, flipping hurriedly to an entry on Valey near the start of the book and corroborating it with several others, was that moon glass and the Night Mother were almost definitely related.
Jamjars clicked the book shut, fixing its little padlock only her telekinesis knew the combination to, her grin spreading. It was a loose connection at best, but that was all she needed to tell where to dig next. Fixing her short mane and taking a minute to admire herself next to one of her favorite posters, she slipped the trinkets back away where they belonged, trusting that things were about to get interesting.
As Valey made her way through the streets of Gyre's capitol, a ring-shaped city around the central castle, she became more and more convinced that the guards she had seen at the entrance were a perfect measure of everyone else. Anyone with a weapon and a uniform in this place fit perfectly in one of two categories: they would watch her do nothing wrong and come after her anyway, or let her get away with anything and just not care.
Panting lightly, she stared down at an aggressive mare whose face she had just kicked into the road, wondering how badly she had scuffed their nicely-pressed uniform. The mare had supposedly had backup... but those backup guards were more interested in snickering to themselves about how she got trounced by a sarosian than doing anything to help.
Valey sighed and wandered away unscathed. A heavy black cloud cover had rolled in, though judging by the desert climate, she wasn't sure if it would rain any time soon. It was like even the weather was mocking Gyre, the cloud blanket serving only to reflect the city's teal manalight and make it never truly night.
Her hooves clacked against a metal-plated sidewalk, the ground gridded for traction but with only dust beneath. She still checked it several times, looking and hoping for a way beneath the ground: Starlight was nearly directly beneath her by now, and moving around a lot. But mostly, her gaze was drawn upwards instead, stacks of metal buildings reaching upward along the sides of the streets with almost mechanically-designed precision. A perfect grid of unopening windows probably heralded a residential complex, and she decided that however tight, corrupt or authoritarian this place reeked of being, it was still a much safer place to live than the Gyre countryside.
How was this place so bright, though? Stormhoof looked extremely prosperous, and it could barely afford to keep itself lit at night, so much so that it was a security risk. Gyre, on the other hoof, was practically glowing with wasted energy, even the alleys having flickering floodlights to keep them from growing dim. The streets had sidewalks that were raised slightly with a curb, and inside those curbs were bright horizontal lights that made the streets themselves glow blue, which was useless as far as she could tell aside from effect. It would probably nicely fit a dictator's sense of style, though.
Did Gyre have the money to afford this? Nothing but a show of splendor for the capitol? It was far too deliberate to be excess and mismanagement. Valey sighed, the buzzing of an old lamp ringing in her... Staircase!
She whipped around, backing up several steps to the last alley she had seen. The alleys in this city were actually remarkably clean, as if some poor fool had been paid to properly wash them. She had seen a door...
This alley was metal, just like everything else in the city, with several stacks of crates and a rolling trolley littered around service entrances to the buildings on either side. But there was also a grated entrance with a roof that sloped downward, padlocked closed and containing her coveted staircase. Was this what Valey was looking for? She peered in, and hoped it was... but it was also covered by enough light that she couldn't shadow sneak. She growled uselessly.
Several creative minutes later, Valey had managed to get one of the crates onto the rolling trolley used for moving them, rolling it right up against the grate until it was firmly in its shadow. Licking her lips, she wriggled under the trolley, slipped into darkness, and quickly swam her way to the other side.
Poof! The staircase was lit from the inside, too, and she was ejected the moment she made it through the bars, sitting up and rubbing her head. She groaned, glad she hadn't gone into a tumble, and looked back at the entrance. If she wanted to get back out of here, she'd have to smash the staircase light... and it looked a lot more armored than the kinds of fixtures she was used to. This had better be what she was looking for.
Maple, Amber, Shinespark, Gerardo, Nyala and Slipstream sat in their reserved box in the colosseum, a somber mood passing over all of them. Down below, a challenger was eliminated, Howe cawing about the end of their Regent-powered tournament run while a victorious earth pony mare patted them sweetly on the head. Maple couldn't speak for her friends, but in the face of killing time, she definitely felt she had somewhere better to be.
"You ever looked at the royal house boxes around the ring?" Gerardo whispered to her, nudging her and Amber's shoulders. The colosseum was like a bowl with a secondary depression for the ring in the very middle, and the walls of that depression were a twelve-sided ring of windows, giving whoever got to sit behind them a prime view of the action.
"Sometimes," Amber answered. "Why?"
Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "Because it looks like we've got a friend. Might be a bit hard for you to see from this distance, but that broad-shouldered fellow straight across from us, with the expansive fur coat? That's Lord Gondolus Gyre."
"Really?" Shinespark instantly entered the conversation, standing by Amber's side.
"Indeed." Gerardo nodded. "I haven't seen him for a while, but he looks no different than I remember. The tournament, particularly the second round, plays out over such a long period of time, most of the royals come and go, dropping in whenever they feel like spectating. Seems he's decided it's his turn to pay us a visit."
Maple swallowed and nodded. "So it's his province that Starlight is in. I wonder what's there for Starlight to be taken to? Or if it's significant that he's away..."
Gerardo shrugged. "Who can say?" He grinned. "At least we know for certain that Starlight won't be forced to face off in any royal duels for the honor of the province, no? It can't be bad for her, having him away."
"Or it could mean anything else," Amber countered. "Or nothing at all. Don't... joke about that? I know you're trying to relieve tension, but we're all nervous."
"Ah. Apology extended." Gerardo winced. "Still, he is here. I wonder what kinds of things he's thinking about..."
"Probably watching the tournament," Nyala murmured. "Like everyone else."
Slipstream gave the suit of armor an apologetic nudge. "You never get much into it, do you?"
Nyala shied back a little. "I don't enjoy fighting. It seems like there are so many better things they could do for entertainment."
Amber wandered over and gave her another nudge, leaning supportively against her shoulder. "Heehee, yeah, Valey told me once about how you went up to a tower of evil scientists this one time and just went on in, completely unarmed. But don't you worry. Even if it's not your style, we've got your back. Right, Gerardo and Sparky?"
Gerardo grinned, patting the black sword at his side. "In the event of trouble: trouble, thy name is mud. We have more than got you covered."
"Yeah," Shinespark added, more focused on the beginning round between two pegasi than anyone else.
Maple watched her, letting her other friends talk with Nyala, and she shuffled over into the space they had left empty. "Not having much luck distracting yourself?" She put a hoof on Shinespark's orange shoulder.
Shinespark's ears went down. "Trying and failing," she murmured. "Hard not to think about Valey and Starlight. I wish we could call them again."
Maple gave her a quick squeeze. "Valey made good time, and is too close to Gyre for us to afford distracting with a call. She'll get Starlight back and contact us again before you know it."
Shinespark just sighed, her posture stiff and rigid.
"We could go for a walk?" Maple offered. "It seems like being here isn't making you happy."
"We could," Shinespark agreed. "...Sure. Just to anywhere?"
"Why not check the schedule board?" Maple suggested. "See if there's anyone we know posted for fighting soon."
Shinespark shrugged in agreement, following Maple up and out of their box.
Maple wandered aimlessly, keeping up her pace about the colosseum's back corridors and walkways for the sake of something to do, leading the way but always moderating herself and making sure not to lose Shinespark.
"You're restless," she murmured, stopping at a window that looked out over the city's lower side. "Waiting and trusting Valey and Starlight is being harder for you than the rest of us, I can tell."
"It's that obvious?" Shinespark walked up beside her and sighed, putting a hoof on the edge of the open-air window, her red mane ruffling slightly in the night breeze. "Err... Of course I am. It's my job to lead by example, not sit on the sidelines while ponies I care about put themselves up front."
Maple smiled. "That's how it was in Sosa, was it?" She took a half step closer. "You should be able to count on your friends as much as you want them to count on you, you know. All of us are strong, and Valey and Starlight are some of the strongest. And with what life throws at us, sometimes the best ponies for the job have to be the ones who do the job."
Shinespark folded her ears. "I know you didn't mean it, but you just said it like I have nothing to contribute."
"You're right. I didn't mean that." Maple slumped, then perked back up. "But... you went off on your own after Valey was taken by Puddles, right? This is exactly the same scenario, only with different ponies in different places. If you're feeling left out or left behind, Valey is following in your hoofsteps. And I doubt you'd want to be a damsel in distress."
"I'm not a helpless damsel," Shinespark grunted. "I'm..." She winced. "That's the entire point! Valey is so far ahead of me, just like she's always been. When we finally met up on that ship, I had managed to split my party, pick up some useless former mercenaries, and leave behind Melia, who was someone obviously in need of saving. Meanwhile Valey was not only already free, she had a small army and had apparently gone back to spend a night on our ship while I was out looking for her!"
Maple put a hoof on her shoulder. "You care a lot about how she sees you? Or do you owe her something you're trying to repay?"
"I don't know," Shinespark sighed. "The former. I... She... It's complicated. And I don't know if we should talk about it in public."
Maple glanced around the deserted colosseum corridor, curving along the outer edge of the building several stories above street level. With the middle of the night, the battles still raged, but nobody seemed inclined to be wandering around, in sharp contrast to the crowded day. "Well, okay," she decided. "It doesn't look like there's anyone around, though."
Shinespark hesitated for a long minute... then finally changed the subject. "What do you think of Amber? What's she like to you?"
"Sister," Maple instantly said. "It's how we've always been. You've probably seen and been told how relationships in Riverfall work, but who you grow up and choose to spend time with is always, always more important than blood. Amber and I have practically known each other since we were infants... as much as possible when I'm two years older, at least. Willow is the same, but also a little bit of a mother to us sometimes, since she's the oldest. But it doesn't really need a name, since it's how things have always been and all of us know it and love it. How come?"
Shinespark slowly shrugged. "She was quite the social butterfly back in Riverfall, then, before you came here? Amber?"
"Oh, you have no idea." Maple good-naturedly rolled her eyes, leaning on the windowsill a few inches from Shinespark. "Amber knew or was on good terms with everyone. She sometimes got a little tired because ponies would occasionally come to her with problems... You know, they needed a mediator that both sides trusted, or something. But she loved it, too. She just thrives on others."
"Since she's arrived," Shinespark said. "It's been no time at all, but I am feeling that. You have good taste in friends."
"Thanks." Maple's cheeks lightened a shade from the praise, then went back to normal. "She has been spending time with you. I think she can just detect when someone has something not quite right on their mind, or are lonely or troubled."
"Her, Valey and I had a long talk on the ship today. Yesterday? However long I've stayed up." Shinespark shook her head. "This might be changing the subject again, but what do you think of me?"
Maple tilted her head. "How so?"
"Anything. Whatever comes to mind." Shinespark sighed at the window. "What would you call my defining traits? Good things? Flaws? The most obvious things about me, or little things no one would notice. Am I a leader and a hero who tried her best when nobody else would? Or just another teenage mare who overestimates herself and doesn't know what she's doing?"
"Is there something in particular you're worried about?" Maple frowned, then moved until their shoulders were touching. "You're barely younger than Amber and me, you know. Is this about whether you were old enough to take responsibility for something in Ironridge?"
"I don't know what it's about. I'm just trying to sort through whatever comes to mind and see where it leads," Shinespark muttered. "And you're twenty-five. That's a big difference."
Maple shrugged. "I could probably be fifty and don't think I'd be ready to lead a city full of conflicted ponies. Is anyone ever ready for a load like that?"
Shinespark folded her ears. "There's still such a thing as being more or less ready, though. Maybe something could have gone differently, or..."
"Shinespark?" Maple caught her gaze and looked her in the eye. "If just by luck, without you doing anything different, we had stopped the dam from exploding and the skyport hadn't been destroyed, and Grenada had never gotten mad with you and Dior never had to flee Ironridge, would you still be feeling however you're feeling? That you aren't able to handle your load, or are too young or unprepared?"
"I..." Shinespark swallowed. "Why wouldn't it?"
"Because that means if you're feeling bad about what happened, it's because of the end result, and not anything you did or were unable to do." Maple's smile grew. "You would have performed the same, either way, right?"
Shinespark slumped. "I... wonder if we're even talking about the same thing."
"Good thing I'm not in a hurry," Maple murmured. "Let's keep talking, then."
"...And that's we were doing for those hours," Shinespark finished, having spent the last hour or so quietly narrating what had happened between her, Amber and Valey. "It feels like... I don't know. Like now that I've said something, I have to do something, even though I was content to hold my peace. And Amber just..."
"Was perfectly fine with it?" Maple smiled. "With stepping back and telling you and Valey to enjoy yourselves? Sounds like something she'd happily do, alright."
Shinespark mutely nodded.
"So you want to be out there, helping to do something too? You don't feel like you're not pulling your weight enough with our team, do you?" Maple's smile turned into a gentle frown of concern.
"I don't know. I'm just being reminded of why I felt like she was so far ahead or unattainable in the first place," Shinespark murmured, stretching a hoof out the window. "It's special, but... makes me wish I hadn't said anything at all. Like now I just have yet another expectation on my shoulders..."
"Can I tell you a secret?" Maple whispered, leaning in. "If you do nothing to contribute, I'm doing a whole lot less. All I do every day is sit around and enjoy spending time with my friends, mostly. And I've never felt like anyone blames me for it."
Shinespark frowned. "That's because it's supposed to be the job of ponies like me to bear the burdens of letting you live the lives you..." She stopped and swallowed. "The job of ponies like the one I try to be."
Maple side-hugged her. "No one will blame you if you take a break from trying so hard, you know."
"I have no idea how any of us will react." Shinespark shook her head. "Even when I think I do, ponies do things that are completely unexpected, like Amber just... stepping back and pushing us together like that. And even if I was sure, I know how I'd react. I wouldn't be happy, just sitting back and doing nothing to help."
"Because you feel like you've got something to prove to yourself after Ironridge," Maple murmured. "I can't tell you how to feel about something like that, but can I tell you something about Amber?"
Shinespark nodded. "Yeah."
Maple took a breath. "Back in Riverfall, our big sister and best friend... Willow was married to a Sosan who arrived after the boats stopped coming. The Riverfall version of marriage, at least. They had a foal, and were raising hers from before him as well. And while we were in Ironridge, we found his old wife and the rest of his family, and they weren't okay and we brought them back to Riverfall with us. We had no idea how it would work out, just that they couldn't stay in Ironridge... and even though it hurt her immensely, when Willow talked with them and saw them together again, she did everything she could to step aside and try to help repair their relationship."
Shinespark's ears pressed back. "I don't remember a lot of Riverfall. I was still recovering physically and mentally from the skyport and the dam, had a cold and rarely left the ship..."
Maple nodded, gently rubbing her back. "Willow is very strong. I've had a major life crisis of my own, too, before, and Amber has always done everything to be there for us when she can. I'll have to talk to her, but I bet seeing you and Valey reminded her of Willow, at least a little. You should talk to her about it, but if I know her, she's very happy to have gotten to see something like this happen between her friends and know she had a hoof in it."
"Heh." Shinespark's eyes glistened. "Well, she definitely hasn't been treating me coldly after it. I'll have to talk to her, indeed."
"Mmm," Maple agreed.
"Maple, you don't do romance, right?" Shinespark looked up. "Probably not the best pony to ask for words of wisdom on what to do with Valey herself?"
Maple thought for a moment, then sighed. "I'm not sure any Riverfall mare is, to be honest. The more I see of the world, the more I realize how strange our situation was, and how we had a system that worked for us but would never work in a broader, less-isolated society. Willow didn't realize that what she had wasn't the real thing through two years of an emotionally detached relationship, until she her husband with someone else. Amber... I think she thinks things are too simple and idealized, even after all she's seen. That if you're patient, friendly and never harbor hard feelings or see your setbacks and losses as losses, that's all that's involved. She's so open with everyone, I can't imagine what she'd look like being emotionally intimate, since she already holds nothing back."
"Huh," Shinespark said, leaving the air open as to whether Maple wanted to talk about herself.
"And then there's me." Maple folded her ears. "I know what I wanted. I know what I got. And now I just have... being that way with another pony associated with a whole lot of pain in my mind, that still gets triggered from time to time. Every time I see someone treating their partner like they're disposable, every time I see someone pregnant or hear about dead foals, I get overwhelmed with memories. I'm not sure I'll ever be any different. After all the work I've done to spring back, maybe there are some wounds that never heal. But anyways. I can still tell you about how I wished things worked, but I don't think I can speak to how they actually do."
Shinespark hugged her back. "It's funny how some issues can be on a national scale and others so personal, yet still hurt just as bad."
"Hmmhmm." Maple closed her eyes and smiled. "At least you didn't spend so many months being emotionally dead to the world. You're very resilient. Even if you're having issues believing in yourself over all this, can I say I'm proud of you?"
"Thanks," Shinespark muttered into her coat.
For a moment, they stayed silent in an embrace... and then a voice echoed from behind them. "While that's all very touching, darlings, you really ought to choose a less-public place to talk about your mixed-sarosian relationships. Otherwise, someone's bound to be listening in."
Maple and Shinespark gasped, jumped to their hooves and whirled.
"Remember me?" A carnation-maned, well-built batpony swayed her considerable hips, standing nearby in the corridor with concern etched on her face. "I have to say, you all were dreadfully easy to sneak up on."
Maple's brain clicked. "Senescey's sister? Fe..."
"Felicity," the mare declared, closing her eyes and swishing her tail as she trotted forward. "At your service."
Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "That was private! How long have you been listening?"
"Nothing's private in public, darling," Felicity effortlessly countered. "Especially not when the city is poorly-lit and any old bat can hide just about anywhere. As for me? Long enough to watch your backs against the twenty or so ponies and griffons who have innocently wandered this way while you were talking, and definitely long enough to hear that you have far too many feelings for your own good about one of my kind." She poked Shinespark in the chest with a wing.
"Twenty...?" Maple folded her ears, eyes constricting to pinpricks.
Felicity gave her a giant, reassuring pat on the back with a wing. "Oh, please. Where did you even think you were, a giant stadium with 'round-the-clock entertainment and people coming and going? No, clearly this is the comfort of your own private, vetted home." She winked.
Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "So are you here to help us or not? This is making me nervous."
Felicity pursed her lips. "Would a little you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours be too much to ask for? I'd really love to do you the favor and keep this on the down-low, and that is a thing that friends do for one another, is it not?"
"What do you want from us?" Maple winced.
"There, there, don't looks so cornered. I didn't say I wouldn't if you refused." Felicity gave a disarming smile, stepping back a pace. "I didn't mean it like that at all. Believe me, I do feel for your-" Her ears snapped up. "Shhhhh!"
With a quick rush of darkness, Felicity spread her wings and pitched forward, grabbing Maple and Shinespark tightly against her sides and pulling them into the shadows. Several moments later, a stately griffon in a suit with a small posse of griffonesses walked by, not giving their alcove a second look as they carried on a quiet, excruciatingly-polite argument about the latest trends in theatre.
Felicity rose, gulping down air and letting go of the two ponies. "There, see?" she whispered, panting. "On your side. I feel for your plight, I really do. Emotions and romance have always resonated strongly with me, darlings." She tapped her flank, a cutie mark emblazoned of a heart with several vibrating strings protruding almost like an instrument. "But I do have a favor I'd very much like to ask of you, once we're in a place where you're feeling a little safer?"
"Ask away." Shinespark gave her a careful nod.
"It's just..." Felicity's smile wrinkled. "Senescey. She feels quite awful about what happened, recently, and I assure you the three of us have been talking at length about it and what it means for us and what we do. Would it be too much to ask to think about giving her another chance, perhaps?"
Maple smiled reassuringly. "We already have. I have, at least. Although if there's anything more you can tell us about what happened to Starlight..."
"If that's what it takes as a show of good faith, I'm more than willing to," Felicity promised with a curtsey. "Though first, if I may, you really ought to check the fight schedule board..."
Gyre's capitol, Valey was quickly coming to realize, was built atop an older city much like the progressive evolution of Stormhoof. After a story or two of downward staircases, she found herself out in the open once more: a cavern formed by a natural depression in the ground and a thick metal roof stretched in a donut around the central castle, which extended all the way to the true ground below.
Everything in the city above was actually built on a platform spanning the entire width of the wall, teal manalights dangling from its mechanical underbelly and flooding the air with distant illumination. The bottom was littered with an unplanned mishmash of old stone dwellings, more recent metal additions turned it into a much bigger mishmash of dwellings, and Valey realized she had accidentally stumbled into the district where all the capitol's lower class lived. Blueleaf was an apt comparison, indeed.
"Really not a fan of whoever designed this place," she muttered under her breath, sliding down a hanging bundle of cables to reach the bottom quicker and poking around for a way further down. Starlight was yet lower and actively descending, though not in a straight line. Her journey wasn't even halfway complete.
Starlight remembered, in Ironridge's Flame District, how some architect had lined all four walls of most corridors with pipes, floor and ceiling together, then installed a mesh cage to be the actual walkway, creating an effect that was somehow claustrophobic and more open than just making the walls solid all at once. She didn't have many pleasant memories of the place, owing to the mercenaries chasing her and her friends as they attempted to escape, but in hindsight, whatever architect was responsible for those corridors really needed to teach this place a lesson.
Her hooves tested each step for purchase, walking on an exposed layer of conduits that wrapped completely around the tunnel, no cage to ease her path. Not only did the rounded pipes make for uncomfortable hoofing, they were still wound and knotted and occasionally overlapping like muscle tissue, offering ever-present bumps to trip her, and the ground didn't even try to keep to the pretense of being flat. The tunnel was round now, sloping downward without stairs, and it wound and twisted aimlessly, flatly refusing to be straight. It felt like being swallowed by a giant metal esophagus.
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Starlight whispered, still carrying Puddles on her back. "I don't like this..."
"Lucky for you the guards don't like it either," Puddles breathed, sounding weak. "Yes. Get Puddles to the bottom. There's a teleporter..."
She nearly tripped, shooting the pipes a vengeful look. At least none of these had the danger of burning her. She was reasonably sure each and every one of them was used for the same thing: connecting the batpony sculpture confessionals to... wherever they were going. Some sixth sense in her imagined it could even hear them, ponies and griffons with weights on their hearts having their words drawn downwards, like a force at the end was hungry for them.
Her mind swirled, trying to recall anything she could about bad spots in the Empire. Someone had to know about this, right? Or have at least rumored it? From the batpony statues and what she had overheard from guards and prisoners, this was where the breakers of Garsheeva's divine laws were kept until they were executed. Did that mean Garsheeva knew about this? Was she beneath Grandbell, the Empire's capitol? Would Garsheeva really build something like this?
Starlight decided she didn't really like Garsheeva. There weren't all that many explanations for who else would be involved, if this was a part of her process. Beneath her hooves, two pipes seamlessly merged into one, and whatever force earlier had been pressing on her and restricting the use of her horn was getting stronger.
In the colosseum ring in Stormhoof, fighting carried on unabated, a final wave of shakeups taking place as round two drew nearer to its close. Gerardo, Amber and everyone left in the private box watched with mixed interest, the bouts growing intensity yet more pressing things on their minds.
This fight in particular, though, held their attention because Senescey was in the ring. Nervous and trembling, she made lucky dodge after lucky dodge against a big earth pony, returning with mis-aimed strikes that made her opponent wince at best and frequently not even blink.
Amber frowned in worry. "You think she feels so badly over what happened to Starlight that it's throwing her off her game? She seemed nice enough. I bet having Valey out there missing her match and fighting to get Starlight back while she's just fighting as normal can't be easy."
"Ha! Oh, haha." Gerardo chuckled good-naturedly, patting her on the shoulder with a wing. "That, my good Amber, is what it looks like when someone is good enough at fighting to make themselves look like they're losing even when they're in the lead. I'd expect nothing less from Mistvale, after all. Just you watch. That earth pony will get a cramp at exactly the wrong time, she'll score a lucky hit, barely be able to capitalize on it, and it'll be over."
Just as he said that, Senescey struck the stallion in the face, and instead of dodging away in the face of an obvious counterattack, wound up a slow second punch that even Amber felt like she could react to in time. The earth pony obviously felt the same, forcing out a meaty limb to hit her first... but somehow, in defiance of how open Senescey had left herself, he was too slow. Her next smash connected, unbalancing her foe and causing him to reel as she pulled back and did the same move again. It was incredibly predictable, yet there seemed to be nothing he could do, a hair too slow every time as her speed increased with repetition.
She punched him one last time and stood over him, panting, as he fell. Howe cawed out something in congratulations as Senescey bolted for the exit, not staying to take in the crowd's roar. Behind her, her opponent blinked, sitting up and shaking his head in confusion.
"See?" Gerardo grinned. "There's Mistvale for you. That mare would not be easy to cross in combat."
Before Amber could reply, the door to the private box burst open and Maple and Shinespark skidded in, panting. Amber felt her eyes widen in alarm. "Girls? What's going on?"
"Is there an emergency we must be privy to?" Gerardo asked in concern.
Maple knelt, breathing hard, and Shinespark swallowed. "Not one we can do anything about," she answered. "Unless any of you have any good ideas. Valey's next fight is scheduled for an hour from now."
Everyone looked at each other.
"So, since she just missed one..." Amber tapped her forehooves together. "She's on one loss, right? And two in a row means you're out?"
Gerardo nodded blankly. "Indeed it does. And since she's presently halfway across the continent and not safe to magically contact in case it draws attention to herself and puts her in danger... well." He held a talon to his chest. "It was a good run while it lasted, I suppose."
Shinespark glanced at Maple and sighed. "Well? It sounds like they don't have any ideas after all."
Slipstream and Nyala glanced awkwardly at each other and shrugged.
"Hmmmmm...!" Maple sighed in frustration, leaning on a chair and squeezing her eyes shut. No one else wanted to speak.
"...Now what?" Amber eventually asked. "We just... pack it up and go home? Keep watching?"
A dainty throat was cleared from by the doorway, and everyone turned. "Good evening, darlings," Felicity greeted with a friendly wave. "I'm terribly sorry for eavesdropping, but it sounds like what you need is a lawyer."
"...Are you volunteering?" Shinespark blinked.
Felicity grinned a sharp-toothed grin. "Oh, you have no idea."
"Wait, wait, wait," Gerardo interjected, holding out a wing and giving Felicity a stern look. "Before anyone goes accepting any generous favors, I want a far more comprehensive understanding of this situation. Someone mentioned lawyers, and that leads me to smell trouble."
Shinespark blinked. "We saw the fight schedule board, Gerardo. Valey's next battle is in barely an hour."
"Yes, you told me as much." Gerardo nodded. "What I'd like to know is precisely whom we're about to owe a favor to in return, and why you should happen to be right her at so convenient a time."
Felicity stopped in her tracks, eyes momentarily widening. "Oh! My apologies, good sir, I was positive all of us had already met..." She shook her head. "No matter. I am Felicity, some of you know me, some apparently don't, and I'm afraid there isn't much more polite of a way to say that if you want to stay in that tournament, you need every inch of help you can get or you're screwed. Hardly have time to dally, either, or I'd be more than happy to stop and chat."
Shinespark slowly nodded. "You're Senescey's sister, aren't you? I've seen you a few times, I think, but Gerardo's right. Why are you suddenly offering to help, and what do you want in return?"
"Oh!" Felicity blushed. "I'm afraid you've got me wrong, darling. This is free. Pro bono, as it were. I have a sister who's feeling rather poorly about all of this, so think of it as a peace offering. An attempt to rebalance the rocking boat! Just... get things more stable until we can all sit down and make up and talk, mmm?"
"Maple?" Shinespark glanced aside. "You've met her and Senescey more times than I have. Thoughts?"
Maple gave Felicity a worried look. The batpony was shuffling awkwardly, a hesitant, hoping-to-please smile on her slightly blushing face. "I know if it was for Willow or Amber, I'd approach a group of near strangers and offer to do the same," she eventually said. "Felicity? What does your help entail?"
Felicity winced. "That's the tricky part, I'm afraid. I don't want anything. Bribing someone official enough to do something about it and having them make an exception in the tournament rules, on the other hoof? Well, you'd need both a suitable alternative and a compelling case, which can be anywhere from a sufficient sob story to a large amount of money to a political favor down the line."
"Oh no..." Shinespark cringed. "And do you have any plans on who we'd be indebting ourselves to?" She glanced around the room at everyone else. "I don't like the sound of this one bit, everyone."
"Whoever you can find." Felicity shrugged apologetically. "Surely you have at least some friends in the higher-ups, no?"
Gerardo frowned. "Gazelle. Meltdown. I recall Chauncey was acting desperate to do us a favor, as well. And, of course, there's Lord Stormhoof himself, though I can't remember us parting with him owing us anything major."
"Did someone say Chauncey?" a voice echoed, and everyone turned to see Jamjars standing in the door, a frown on her face. "Because I've been looking everywhere for him and he's not with the Izvaldi delegation or the tournament administrators' office, and none of them know where he is either."
Felicity blinked, stepping aside so Jamjars could enter. "Well, hello. Do I know you?"
Everyone slowly shook their heads. "Why do you want to know?" Amber asked, leaning against the railing.
Jamjars sighed. "Because he does things with moon glass, which is connected to the Night Mother, who apparently is responsible for Starlight. So, I'm investigating. It's the best lead I have. Who's she?" She pointed a hoof at Felicity.
"Senescey's sister," Shinespark said. "Jamjars, are..." She swallowed. "Are you trying to help?"
"In my own way," Jamjars huffed. "And really? Is that so?" She regarded Felicity slowly, eventually nodding with approval. "Hmm. You're a lot more confident than you look. Good acting. And you're connected to Senescey and the Night Mother. What do you have to do with Starlight?"
Felicity sadly smiled down at her. "You're quite the uncanny filly, you know that?"
Maple stood up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ahem." Felicity daintily cleared her throat, then poked Jamjars with her eyes. "For your information, quantity of confidence has nothing to do with being genuine. Are you accusing me of anything, little filly?"
Jamjars looked her over again. "Hmmm... No. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Just a hunch. So is anyone going to answer my questions?"
Felicity blinked, completely nonplussed, and glanced at Maple for an explanation. Maple shrugged in return.
"Kid..." Shinespark winced. "Jamjars, we've got a fairly major problem to deal with right now called Valey not being able to make it back for her second fight in a row in the tournament! No, none of us know anything about Chauncey. In fact, we're thinking of looking for him to ask a favor, so if he's not here, that's one less option we won't have to waste time on. Thanks for letting us know."
"What about Wallace?" Amber suggested. "He's around, isn't he?"
"He is, and he'd likely want to help." Gerardo nodded. "Unfortunately, he's a tournament participant, not an organizer, so I'm not sure he'd carry much weight in being able to change things in our favor. And Felicity here was correct: even if we find someone who's willing to make an exception to the rules, what would our exception be? Rescheduling a fight? Postponement in the second round would be a favor of the highest order, seeing as you make it to the third round by surviving longer than everyone else. We need a better plan."
Maple folded her ears. "We are trying to make a plan, right? I care about Valey, but... politically indebting ourselves to someone again, after our close shave in Izvaldi and everything that happened in Ironridge?"
Felicity coughed. "For what it's worth, seeing as I'm the one hoping for a chance for my sister from you all, I'd be more than willing to turn the tables a little and take any heat you risk incurring onto my shoulders. I'll have you know I'm quite accomplished at both drawing attention to myself and carrying out tasks of... any... nature."
Jamjars' tail twitched. "I bet you are. Why doesn't one of us try to stand in for Valey in a fight?"
"...Would that work?" Amber blinked. "Not that I know anything at all about fighting, but..."
"Hmm. That is an idea, indeed." Gerardo nodded along. "I do have plenty of combat experience to draw on from my many years as an adventurer. Though, as has been demonstrated, being a skilled fighter and being Valey are two very different things."
Felicity nodded hesitantly. "Yes, the latter fights of the second round are known for being quite brutal... That's certainly a plan you could go with, but you'd still need to win."
"That could be a problem..." Maple winced. "I can't fight, Amber can't fight, Gerardo can but just said he'd be outmatched..."
"I can fight, too," Shinespark added. "Better than Gerardo, but not nearly as well as Valey. And I've seen some of the unicorns in the ring. My horn is powerful, but I'm too reliant on it. Anyone who was smart would be able to counter me easily."
Her gaze lifted, slowly drifting across the room from Jamjars and Felicity to Maple, Amber and Gerardo to Slipstream and Nyala, standing in a corner.
"Don't look at me!" Nyala backed up, shaking her head. "I don't know how to fight!"
Slipstream grinned and nodded apologetically. "This really doesn't seem like our conversation... Sorry!"
"How about you?" Maple glanced toward Felicity. "You said you would be willing to put yourself on the line earlier, and you told me you know Mistvale arts. Would you fight for us?"
"Ahem, well, I would..." Felicity cleared her throat awkwardly. "Except I can already tell you I would lose, and it would hardly be fair of me to offer a favor I actually couldn't follow through on."
"Oh." Maple's ears fell. "You're sure? The way Valey talked about them, I figured..."
"Being able to do things with your hooves doesn't equate to an instant and automatic win, unfortunately," Felicity sighed, rubbing her forelegs together. "While I might look the picture of perfect health, I'm... actually not quite as hardy as I usually am at the moment, thanks to some certain circumstances, and I'd reach my limit all too quickly if I taxed myself. Besides, I prefer to fight my battles as battles of the heart, instead." Her tail rubbed against her heart-stringed cutie mark. "And having Mistvale arts won't be much of a boon when one's opponent is better at them than you are. You did remember to check Valey's opponent when we were at the board, yes?"
"...I remember Valey telling me about him," Amber groaned, standing with everyone else and staring up at a board pinned in the intersection of three hallways. They were hardly the only ones interested in it, several other fighters and bystanders frequently wandering past or standing around for gossip, so no one intended to stay there and use it as a place for discussing sensitive information. But that didn't change what it said.
"Who gives their name as Grandpapa?" Shinespark asked, raising an eyebrow. "Aside from him, apparently..."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Actually, adopting an alias is a very frequent technique for the tournament in order to protect one's relations from undue attention like we've fallen victim to..."
Slipstream giggled uncertainly. "I'm imagining someone naming their kid that..."
"Well then!" Felicity daintily coughed. "Since it sounds as though you're all more than familiar, I don't see any reason to stand around discussing things here? Perhaps somewhere more private?"
The conversation moved its way back to the private box, and eventually Shinespark flashed her horn and closed the door, satisfied that no one was spying on them. "So," she said with a frown. "The pony Valey is up against was good enough to knock her completely out of the fight without her even knowing she was in danger the last time they met. He's a Mistvale Monk, and you're confident he's a better fighter than you and you can't beat him." She glanced at Felicity. "Is that right?"
Felicity nodded, seating herself with a relaxed huff. "That's more or less the gist of things, yes. Which isn't to say I'm helpless, but I'm better at using my skills for... Shall we say other things?"
Shinespark returned the nod. "Then now would be a very good time to tell us everything you can about how Mistvale arts work, what their weaknesses are, and how we could counter them."
"Well..." Felicity took a breath. "They're a combination of magic and careful knowledge of the equine body, knowing how the right pressure to some spots is able to affect things that are completely unrelated... Much of the magic has to do with emotions and states of mind. It's very different from a constant, external exertion like a unicorn horn, and it's worth mentioning that this component only works for sarosians, so I won't be able to teach you any for your own uses. Imagine, say... holding your will in a ball around your hoof, and using it like a spike or dagger."
Shinespark blinked, leaning in. "An invisible emotional dagger? There's an interesting metaphor..."
"And quite an imperfect one," Felicity assured her, lifting a hoof. "May I?"
"As long as you don't do anything permanent..." Shinespark looked down at herself.
Felicity paused for a moment, then gracefully lunged forward, moving with a speed far greater than befitting her pampered appearance. A hoof struck Shinespark's chest, making her arch her back, and then three more rained down along the top of her spine. She blinked, eyes constricting as her friends looked on... and then stood there, not wincing, staggering or falling.
"That's... weird," Shinespark murmured, standing and staring blankly for a moment. "Like my body wanted to do its own thing for a moment. I felt a really strong urge to just... roll in the grass." She looked down. "Even though there's no grass here. That's strange..."
Everyone split their gazes between Shinespark and Felicity for answers, the batpony nodding at Shinespark approvingly. "That's quite the self-control, darling. And yes, these arts, shall we say... compel your body to follow through on some emotional urge, in the same way that you instruct it to do everything you normally think of yourself as doing. Combat applications of that typically involve anywhere from making you do something to give your opponent an opening to... well, quite literally making you damage yourself internally or simply lock up." Felicity grimaced for a moment, then her smile returned. "But you can probably see how a creative mare could find more uses for such a talent than pure destruction?"
Maple tilted her head, a nagging idea biting at the edge of her mind. "And you compared it to an emotional knife? Do you know if you could just make someone's body stop trying at all?"
"Stop trying?" Felicity blinked. "A severe depression or nihilism? That would be very difficult, considering you're effectively trying to force a conflicting impulse on someone against their own desires. The trained masters know that trying to fight someone's willpower with effects of brute force is useless, since even the most determined soul is just asking for someone stronger to rise up and fight them off. The trick for combat is to force ponies to do things they either don't notice until it's too late or fail to understand how to fight. The wrong combination of muscle twitches to lock up someone's back, an inability to relax tension around a weak spot... and all combined with the physical effects of careful hoofstrikes as well. Overriding someone's desire to act in any way sounds completely impossible. Why do you ask?"
Maple frowned. "You mean completely implausible, right? That if someone or something was strong enough, they could use this to just... make you quit?"
Felicity raised an eyebrow at her. "Darling, you sound like you have a specific example in mind."
Shinespark nodded warily. "And how possible would it be to compel someone to die?"
Felicity's brow narrowed. "These are far darker questions than most usually like to answer... Yes, it's theoretically possible, and no, unless you completely broke someone's spirit and will to go on, anyone would be able to fight something like that off. What are you all even getting at?"
"Well?" Shinespark looked up at Gerardo. "I'm willing to bet we just found out more about how that sword of yours works."
"A sword?" Felicity leaned in in interest as Gerardo withdrew the blade.
"Hmm... This?" He turned it over several times in his talons, the black blade gleaming over a black haft with its signature triangular hole, looking as much as it ever did like something belonged inside. "You're suggesting it functions somehow similarly to the Mistvale arts? Not a comparison I'd ever actually considered before. Then again, neither do I know an extensive amount about Mistvale." He flipped the sword again. "This could potentially give us an edge, carrying it into a fight with that stallion, as well..."
Shinespark winced. "Provided it doesn't kill him like all the pirates we used it on in the pirate ship."
"Excuse me?" Felicity tilted her head. "You have a magic sword that does what? Might I be bold enough to ask for an explanation?"
"...Sure." Shinespark sighed, then passed it back to Gerardo. "The sword is magic. No one knows how it works. It can cut any nonliving material, and passes through creatures like it's an illusion, but it paralyzes you where it touches. Legs, you lose just those, barrel, it's the waist down. Chest or neck, your entire body. And it lasts for at least a week."
Maple nodded, continuing for her. "Amber and I have had it used on us before. I... used to struggle with the kind of depression that would keep you in bed all day, because you'd open your eyes and tell yourself to get up and you just wouldn't. It reminded me of that, a lot, being stabbed by the sword. I could think and hear and move my eyes, and I still breathed, just couldn't bring myself to do anything no matter how much everything I cared about depended on it."
"Yep." Amber put a hoof of solidarity on her back. "I voluntarily tried it to see what it was like, and it was weird. Didn't affect my mind, but my body?" She shook her head. "Sounds a lot like what you just described, actually. Like I couldn't move because nothing happened when I tried to make myself."
Shinespark swallowed. "And when we tried using it on batpony pirates in Goldoa, it made them lethargic and less willing to put effort into anything, and eventually explode and disappear."
Felicity watched the sword with a slack jaw. "...Where in the Griffon Empire did you get such a thing?"
"Varsidel." Gerardo shrugged. "I bought it off a child merchant who claimed to be selling her enchantress mother's wares in a shady backwater bazaar. In my defense, I knew it was a rip-off, but really couldn't take my boat with me, and a cool-looking faulty magic sword is still a cool-looking sword. Knowing how it works now, I'm absolutely certain she stole it from someone, but the trail ends there. This would have been several years ago."
"I-I..." Felicity regarded it uncertainly. "Well, I appreciate your trusting me enough to tell me the details on a weapon like this? It sounds like a major tactical advantage to be kept under wraps, regardless of how it actually works. Now, what was I saying about Monk arts?"
Maple shrugged. "You said what they can do. What's the best way to defend against them?"
"Three ways, really." Felicity nodded. "The easiest and most obvious is to not get hit in the first place. You can also hope your opponent is an unskilled novice who doesn't know what they're doing and gives you impulses you can easily fight off, and finally you can know enough about the arts yourself to fix whatever damage is caused to you before it becomes too debilitating. But I've heard of this Grandpapa, and he definitely knows what he's doing, and as none of you are sarosians I believe all but the first are out of the picture."
Shinespark winced. "Great. Can you block the hits with armor?"
"A very effective way of doing things." Felicity nodded. "Granted, most masters are going to be aware of that and have other tricks up their sleeves to counter an armored foe, so you couldn't count your victories too early." She looked appreciatively at Nyala. "You would be quite hard to dismantle, I'm willing to wager."
Nyala looked away. "I was hoping not to. I don't know anything about a fight..."
Shinespark sat back, ears folded. "Well. Too bad Grenada took my suit of armor with her when she ran away, then. That's unfortunate." She gritted her teeth. "...What else?"
"You could sabotage your opponent," Jamjars pointed out from nearby, having kept her silence for the entire conversation. "Why has nobody brought that up yet?"
Maple smiled ruefully. "With the amount of time we have, eliminating him outside the ring would probably be just as hard as inside it, and a lot less safe if we lose."
"Then I am afraid, darlings," Felicity sighed, "that you're rapidly running out of options. If you need to discuss things amongst yourselves, I'll be nearby. And don't forget, much as I'd like to help you and work off some of my sister's debt, there are no invalid options. Even... retreat."
Everyone looked at each other as she shadow snuck away beneath the door, and no one wanted to be the first to speak.
"...Well." Gerardo's headcrest flopped. "I suppose that leaves us with no idea whatsoever what we're going to do."
"And less than an hour to do it," Amber murmured nervously, tapping her hooves.
"I had a plan," Jamjars proclaimed. "Not my fault if you didn't like it. I'm going to sabotage him by myself, then."
The door clicked shut in her wake, and Shinespark sighed. "Since the sword got brought up, it can effectively persuade batponies to surrender in one hit. We'd just need to hit him to do it, but the best pony here at surprise attacks is..."
"Me," Maple whispered, eyes on the blade at Gerardo's side. "I've pocketed that sword several times before with no negative effects. If he tried to grab me, I could pull it on him faster than he could blink. But that involves me in the arena, and I know next to nothing about how to defend myself! I should have paid attention and taken Valey up on offering to teach me..."
Nyala gave a reticent mechanical whirr, and stayed silent.
"And even if we had a way to beat him, that still involves getting to fight him in the first place," Maple continued, looking down. "We'd be owing Felicity a big favor, and even if I like to think the best of ponies and trust them when I can, she was clear we'd also owe someone else a favor for getting us to swap in for Valey, if that's even possible at all. And that someone might be a lot more ruthless... I just don't know what we can do, everyone. We might be out of options."
Shinespark hesitantly reached for Gerardo's sword, and he let her take it. "So what does taking a weapon or armor into the tournament involve, anyway?" She frowned into her reflection, tinged sapphire by her aura. "Not like we have my suit from the pirate ship anyway, but if anyone other than Maple was to bring the sword... I've seen some fighters bring extras, but most of them are unarmed. What's the difference?"
Maple blinked. "If Valey did stay in the tournament, it would be useful to have a weapon if she ever fought Wallace again..." Her gaze went to the sword too. "That sword could defeat anyone in the tournament, no matter how strong, or who it was used by."
"The rules for bringing armor and weapons into the tournament?" Gerardo blinked. "I... honestly haven't the foggiest idea. Based on everything else in this event, I'd assume it functions on some sort of game for the entertainment of the organizers, but that's merely an unfounded guess. I know there's some policy on disguises for fighters who want to attempt remaining anonymous, but really, I can't say."
Amber raised an eyebrow. "How common are they?"
"There was someone who looked like a professional soldier a few fights ago, I think..." Maple mused.
"Whatever. It would be a question for whoever lets us in." Shinespark swallowed, then looked around at everyone. "So? We've been here more than ten minutes. Are we... Do we have a plan? Are we doing anything?"
"Is there anything we can do?" Gerardo countered. "Seems to me like we've got plenty of mismatched pieces and no one able to tie them all together."
"No one outside of ourselves and Felicity we could turn to?" Amber's ears fell. "No other friends you've made or favors you could call in?"
Gerardo sighed. "I'm afraid the grand total of our acquaintances here are either politicians or pirates, with a small amount of civilians on the side. The former wouldn't and the latter probably can't show their faces."
Shinespark gritted her teeth.
"I bet Starlight would ask to enter in a heartbeat," Maple whispered. "And I'm not sure if I'd let her. But it's just us, so..."
"I'll do it," Shinespark proclaimed, standing straighter. "Gerardo? Give me that sheath, please?"
Gerardo raised an eyebrow, beginning to unbuckle the sheath from beneath his uniform's sash. "Are you quite confident it's a risk you want to take? You know the odds of success."
"Yes," Shinespark said, taking a step closer with the sword bobbing at her side. "I have to hit him once with a sword that has a history of murdering batponies. I can't get hit first, or I'll lose. And I have to indebt myself to Felicity and probably some lord to do it. I... I don't want you behind me, okay?"
Amber blinked. "You don't what? Want us behind you?"
Shinespark took a deep breath. "If I have this come back to haunt me, I don't want you getting caught up in it as well. I know how to take care of myself. I know why I'm trying this. I know what the risks are, and my chances of success, and whether it works or not... stay out of it. You can watch me fight, but if I end up indebted to someone for this, I don't want any of you getting dragged in with me. That's my decision. Okay?"
"You should know," Gerardo grunted, finishing his work and offering her a belt with the sheath attached, "that your odds of having this be worth anything are frighteningly-"
"Are one hundred percent," Shinespark countered, needing to wrap the belt twice around her slimmer pony barrel to get it to fit. "I might not be able to keep Valey in the tournament, but going beyond and trying with everything I've got anyway is worth something to me, and I think it will be worth something to her, too. I'll take care of myself. Gerardo, you're the captain until I get back. Everyone else? Good luck."
"Shinespark, are you quite...?" Gerardo held out a talon, but retracted it without doing anything. "Well. I gave you my sword. I suppose it's not my decision to question."
Amber sighed and nodded. "I'm pretty sure I know what your reason is. Don't do anything too stupid, alright?"
Maple nodded softly too. "I don't wish I was in your place," she murmured. "You're a lot stronger than I am, I guess. Good luck, Shinespark. But if we find out you need it, don't think we won't come to get you out of anything you get yourself into, bargaining with politicians and lords. If you think Valey won't lead us right into it, you're completely wrong."
Shinespark bowed her head and stepped out of the room, Gerardo's sword rocking against her side and the door closing behind her.
"You look resolute, darling," Felicity's voice said from the shadows, and soon she was standing there unobscured, her styled, cherry mane bobbing slightly with the motion. "Remember, I can't even promise we'll be able to find someone to let you in, but shall we see what we can do? My sister does owe you, after all, and by extension I do too."
"Let's just..." Shinespark winced. "Not waste time. I'm coming. I don't know if I can win in a fight either, but I'll see what I can do."
Felicity nodded, standing with Shinespark in the otherwise-empty colosseum corridor. "You're coming? Then there's no time to waste."
Swallowing, Shinespark followed her at a brisk pace through the facility, the batpony actually moving fast enough to tire herself out. Shinespark kept pace effortlessly, wondering if she was that much more in shape or if Felicity really wasn't lying about being unable to last in a fight. She watched her intently, trying to learn as much about her benefactor as possible... Good, dignified posture, even though she was legitimately winded. Swaying her considerable hips; she definitely wanted onlookers to watch. Valey probably would have gotten distracted... She tried to catch up so as to read Felicity's face, but each time the mare put on a burst of speed as if she really wanted to stay in the lead, so Shinespark settled for walking in the back.
"Who shall we... try first, tournament organizers or lords themselves?" Felicity panted, stopping at an intersection to lean against a wall. "The latter are more likely to cheat and get you in, and they're also more likely to want bigger things in return."
Shinespark glanced down the corridor. Chauncey was supposedly an organizer, but Jamjars had just said she couldn't find him... "We'll try our luck with the lords." She swallowed, running through all the ones she knew of. If Percival was there, he might, but could he? Lord Stormhoof would probably frown on cheating, but at least wasn't hostile to them. She didn't know much about the others, but if she was a unicorn helping a batpony to win against another batpony, maybe she could appeal to someone's prejudices there?
"As you wish, darling." Felicity swallowed and took a few more breaths, then turned left and started off at a slower pace. She actually let Shinespark match her now, and her slitted eyes were visibly dancing around, watching everything... yet with a calm, composed demeanor that suggested she wasn't nervous and it was merely her business seeing what was going on in every little corner.
Shinespark decided she should be watching their surroundings, too.
Three times over the next few minutes, Felicity latched to her side, put a wing over her back and pulled her down with barely a word of warning, sinking into the shadows while an important-looking pony or griffon walked past. The last time was premeditated, Felicity stopping for a full minute to regain her breath before ferrying Shinespark under a locked door with two fancifully-dressed guards on either side.
They didn't surface on the other side, Felicity swimming forward and waiting until she was under an ornamental table to lift her muzzle and catch her breath. As the batpony held her and continued forward, Shinespark furrowed her brow at the fact they were able to do this at all. Sure, the lights throughout Stormhoof were dim because power was expensive, but wasn't this a security risk? They were able to afford that massive hologram and loudspeaker setup over the arena ring, after all. What was stopping any old batpony with a grudge from coming in here and assassinating someone? She resolved to ask about this as soon as they weren't in an important hurry.
Felicity rose again in a supply closet for air, conveniently positioned right when she was about to run out. Shinespark felt like she remembered from Valey that if a batpony was sneaking with others, their breath effectively counted for everyone, lowering the time they could stay down, so she didn't complain as her host leaned on her, taking another good minute to recuperate.
"Are you alright?" she eventually mouthed.
"Very much so, yes," Felicity assured her. "Just a little consequence of my day job. Or night job, since sarosian. Really, any time but this one..." She shook her head. "Never mind that. I am fine. Let us continue."
They snuck forward into a plush ring-shaped corridor which Shinespark quickly realized ran around the central arena pit, the doors on the inside leading to the lords' private boxes and the doors on the outside leading to their traveling quarters should they be staying overnight. Lord Stormhoof had only a box, the corridor's entrance where his quarters would be, and Felicity made for that door first, surfacing in a carpeted room with an enchanted window showing a clear view of the ring.
"Well, Stormhoof is out," she whispered, surfacing again. "Anyone in particular you don't want us to try? Otherwise we'll just go around the ring, and... actually, if we find someone and you want me to surface, just kick me a little, preferably gently. And do remember, nicer means less likely to ask something of you, meaner means more likely to cheat."
"Okay," Shinespark replied, and they were off again.
The next room had nothing. The room after that, nothing. Same for the room after that.
"Goldfeather, Izvaldi, Wilderwind," Felicity whispered. "No need to panic, it's merely the middle of the night..."
Eventually, they reached Grandbell's room, and it too was empty, though with a level of decoration grandeur far posher than the other lord lounges. A filly-sized throne sat at the forefront, and Felicity surfaced with a sigh. "Well," she whispered, catching her breath, "that's seven out of twelve down and not a single sphinx in the house, alas. Shall we keep going?"
"Yes. How much time do we have left?" Shinespark frowned.
"At this rate..." Felicity floated halfway out of the shadows, somehow leaning on Shinespark again despite holding her in like they were in water. "We have maybe twenty minutes, which could be give or take a few depending how long the next fights last. In short, barely anything. I'm terribly sorry..."
"Then we keep going," Shinespark decided, trying to nudge her back toward the door.
Felicity swam again. Shinespark couldn't make out anything below the surface, her eyes confounded by dimensionally-altered geometry they hadn't been made to parse, but she felt Felicity tense and speed up in excitement next to her, and dared to perk up herself. The world grew slightly brighter around her, enough that it was lit but not enough to eject them, and she suddenly felt the edge of Felicity's hoof on her side, tracing strange patterns and swirls into her fur that she eventually realized were letters.
G... Y... R... E...
Shinespark swallowed and felt herself chill. She had just seen Lord Gyre watching when they were in their own box, hadn't she? She knew he was here. Was he one of the more unscrupulous lords who would be more likely to help? According to Felicity, yes. He was also the lord of the province where Valey was currently looking for Starlight. Suddenly, whether Felicity was in on it or not, she realized this was almost definitely a trap.
But... she wasn't about to back down from doing her part to help Valey, and she had resigned herself in advance to putting herself in a bad position for this. Was it a bad idea? Yes. Would she be able to live with herself if she backed out?
Felicity didn't have a lot of air. Did she even have time to decide?
Quickly making up her mind and taking a cue, she put her own hoof against Felicity's barrel, drawing yes on her chest. Felicity got the message and surfaced.
Gondolus Gyre's viewing box was decorated in metal and right angles, wicker braziers burning with dim teal flame in the corners of the room. A throne that looked bolted to the ground with pipes sat mere hoofsteps from the window, broad enough for two ponies to comfortably lean together side by side yet failing to hide its lord's broad, fur-caped shoulders. A black and white robe covered the huge sphinx's backside, not as large as Wallace but still one of the biggest and best-built ponies Shinespark had ever seen.
"Ahem." Felicity daintily cleared her throat, putting her breathlessness on hold in the name of decorum. "Lord Gyre."
With a click of a button, the throne rotated, Gondolus Gyre making a show of laziness as his room did the work for him. Hind legs crossed, he reclined on his backside, massive chin on a massive paw, and gave a full-toothed grin. "Oh? What have we here, hmm?"
His eyes surveyed the two mares, then widened, and he shot upright, pointing a claw at Shinespark. "It's you! Celebrity alert! What have I done to deserve this honor, Ironridge mare?"
Shinespark blinked, caught heavily off-guard, but Felicity wasn't fazed. "Lord Gyre, a close friend of hers is in the tournament and currently needed to run because another friend's filly was foalnapped and in need of rescue, yet has a match in perhaps fifteen minutes. She wants to sub in."
Gondolus winced. "And you come to a poor, backwater autocrat like me to get it done?"
"I'm kind of low on options." Shinespark grimaced. "My friend has been sabotaged, I want to fight in her place to keep her streak alive, and I'm willing to bargain for it."
"Bargaining? Fighting for your friends?" The sphinx was on his paws with so much grace, the room didn't even shake despite his size. "Sounds like you hardly have time for bargaining! Let's get you out there and jaw about who owes who what later, hmm?"
Shinespark folded her ears, but this was what she wanted... "Yes. That sounds perfect. Any idea what I should expect to owe you?"
Lord Gyre suddenly looked terribly awkward. "Oh, well... you have some very positive PR in the higher circles after shutting down that dreadful invasion from Yakyakistan that had the Council of Lords collectively losing their heads in Grandbell a few months ago, and here I am with one of the worst reputations in the Empire and a province that's the butt of everyone's jokes. You look good, I look bad. I'm sure we can work something out."
"Sounds like an endorsement deal, darling." Felicity nudged Shinespark along. "But he's going with it, so hurry! You do have a battle to catch, after all."
The sphinx cleared his huge throat. "Yes, get on to the staging area. There's a corridor, it's not hard to find... I'll take care of things up top, and then we can all hang out and make friends afterward. Good luck out there?"
Shinespark steeled herself and nodded. "And if I wanted to bring something with me? A sword, or armor?" She realized even if she found a spare suit of armor somewhere, it probably would take more than fifteen minutes to properly don, unless it was made for teleporting into... but there was nothing she could do about that.
"No problem!" Gondolus Gyre winked, flinging his door open. "Usually just a bribe for someone to turn a blind eye. Leave everything to me!"
He dashed off and was gone, leaving Shinespark and Felicity with an empty room and a swinging door. "Well, that went swimmingly," Felicity remarked. "Let's get you to the arena?"
Following the directions she had been given, Shinespark hurried along an ascending corridor, Gerardo's sword bumping at her side. She had about five minutes to spare, by her count, but there was no sign of guards or fighter escorts to block her path. Lord Gyre must have worked fast. She rounded a corner, expecting at any moment to see the open air... and ran straight into a suit of armor.
"Shinespark," Nyala said.
"Huh?"
Shinespark fell back on her rump, blinking. Her golden alicorn armor stared down at her, unblinking, its metal face as expressionless as always. "I got in. Do you... have a message?"
"Actually, I snuck off," Nyala answered, sounding subdued. "I don't think the others know where I am. The last fight went long because both sides were playing dirty and the loser had a tantrum, so we have a few minutes. I wanted to talk."
"About?" Shinespark folded her ears at Nyala's tone. "This sounds important..."
"It is to me." Nyala shifted slightly. "I mostly only talk about things with Gerardo and Slipstream. They're my friends, here. You and Valey and Maple seem to have your own friend group. And it's awkward for me, being around Valey, because she remembers me from a past life and has so many expectations for what I'm like, and it's either scary when she knows something about me I don't or is frightening when it feels like she has an expectation for me to live up to. She can be very intense."
Shinespark took a deep breath, having spent the last hour steeling herself for a fight that would very likely cost her her freedom and leave her temporarily a cripple, all for the sake of trying. She forced that back down, trying to open herself back up. "She can, yes. But I know for a fact she values you. We had a lot of talks about this after my own sister vanished for the second time."
"But she's awkward around me, too," Nyala continued. "And I do value her! Because I've heard about everything she did for me and have no reason to doubt it, and part of me would do anything to get my old memories and body back to be the person she remembers again, and who remembers her. But I'm also afraid that would make me not me anymore, and it's impossible, anyway. If memories and experiences didn't make us who we are, why would me and the sister she knew be any different?"
"Right..." Shinespark agreed. "So is there a way I can help? I'm slightly at my limit at this point..."
Nyala stared impassively down at her. "No. There's a way I want to help," she corrected, infinitely more passion in her voice than her stately appearance. "I can't stand fighting. It makes me feel bad inside, like I'm watching someone break something dear to me, and I could never learn to do it even though my body is a weapon. But I listened to you talking and saw you coming out here, and after you left, Gerardo was talking about Ironridge and explaining all the consequences of you coming out here like this and bargaining with someone to let you in, and you're doing it all even though that stallion could drop you with a single hit. Just because you feel like you have to act, you're doing it."
"I am," Shinespark confirmed with a sigh, a roar of cheering reaching her ears from further up the corridor. It sounded like the fight was reaching its end.
"I-I want to do the same," Nyala said. "I've thought about it a lot. I'm still thinking about it and don't know if I've explained it as best I can, but I do. You still have that sword. Did you find a way to take armor or weapons into the arena?"
"I did, but..." Shinespark nodded.
"Then take me, too," Nyala requested. "I've thoroughly studied my own blueprints on the ship's terminal. This armor has the same kind of interface your harmony extractor uses, and there are mechanisms for me relinquishing control while staying inside. I'll be along for the ride, but you'll be able to use your own knowledge and magic fighting with me. Everyone else will think whoever's usually inside me lent me to you."
Shinespark squeezed her eyes shut, then smiled. "I think this might give me a chance."
"That's what I was hoping," Nyala answered, sounding relieved. "If you're making this big of a sacrifice for her, I can make one too to help yours be worth something."
They held a silence for several seconds... and then a triumphant, battered, lanky griffon strolled by in the opposite direction, eyes widening at the sight of Nyala. "Whooo," he whistled in respect. "Now that's a classy disguise. Glad I don't have to fight that..."
Shinespark blinked as he rounded the corner out of sight. "I think that's our cue."
"It is." Nyala nodded.
Shinespark's horn lit, and with a pulse of sapphire, she was gone, feeling the familiar sensation of Braen's padded interior materialize around her. The armor took a moment to automatically adjust its padding to her figure, and she realized she must have been shorter when she wore it last.
She hadn't just grown physically. Memories briefly swept through her head, of a struggle with Valey atop a cracking dam and an awful night in a windy cave, of streaking through the dark skyport in a trail of blue and planning fervently over a triumphant breakfast with her old life's friends. A spark of magic tickled her flanks, and one by one Braen's systems reattuned to her as Nyala relinquished control, settling in to being a piece of moon glass along for the ride.
"I can still see," Nyala whispered in her ear as Shinespark moved her hooves, feeling the augmentations and readjusting to her enhanced size. "I think I could move if I wanted to. How is it?"
"Familiar," Shinespark whispered back. "I feel like... I've grown into it."
With a mental command, the helmet clacked, splitting apart at the muzzle and folding backward down her neck, exposing her red mane and its teal stripe for the world to see as she strode toward the exit. "And it's not a disguise."
"Bananas, what is this place?" Valey hissed under her breath, speeding through what had once been a sewer corridor beneath the Gyre capitol's already-submerged main level. Through various cracks and entrances, one corridor had led to another, and now she thought she was in a dungeon of sorts... only one that had been disused for a long time. Maybe the old city had a castle with a sub-basement level? Arched corridors held cells to the sides with rusted, failing bars, and somehow, Starlight was still many levels down.
"This way or that way..." She made a guess at an intersection, having difficulty using the smell for anything when her target was essentially straight down. Starlight's precise direction was obscured, too, as if something was blocking it. It wasn't doing a very good job, but to block Starlight from her at all... She never questioned how her sense worked, but it was usually infallible.
She pulled up quickly, her tunnel opening into a tall room with magical, smokeless torchlight adorning the walls. It was far cleaner than anything she had seen before, a pattern of runes adorning the floor she hadn't seen since... Ironridge's crystal palace? Valey blinked. On the floor, in a dungeon beneath Gyre, was a massive copy of Yakyakistan's Emblem of the Nine Virtues.
"Woah. Weird." Against her instinct to hurry, Valey stopped to investigate.
Unlike the past sigils she had seen, this incarnation was colored. The six dots forming the central hexagon were all pastel, while the outer three were richer shades of neon in hue. Red, yellow, midnight blue... For the most part, the room's construction was careful and meticulous, clearly built far more recently than the dungeon that led up to it, but the stone tile on which the blue circle lay was cracked heavily, as if someone had deliberately thrust a sword or an iron stake all the way through. The tenth circle, at the center of all the others, was just an empty outline, unpainted from the color of the stone below.
Weird as it was, it was inert, and not getting her anywhere. The rest of the room was held up by hexagonal pillars, the smooth brick walls between them emblazoned with reliefs of griffons, ponies, and sphinxes. In one, griffons and pegasi lived harmoniously, working together to push a cloud across the sky. In the next, a griffon locked swords with a unicorn's glowing horn, several bodies bleeding beneath them. In another, three dragons beheld a red stone as a field of trees burned beneath them. In the fourth, a gray, bearded unicorn with an impressive hat stood before a hole in the ground, and in the fifth, a massive, featureless outline of an equine held an entire population of tiny figures in her forelegs. The final one showed another triangle, a sphinx at the top and a pony and a griffon at either side.
"Okay... huh..." Valey figured the murals had to be there for a reason and flew closer to inspect them, running her hooves over the surfaces. Stone, stone... She blinked. The dragon mural had a perfectly straight crack down the center, like it was designed to split in half. A door?
Going with the easiest way to find out, Valey hovered up to one of the artificial torches, regarded it, inspected her hoof... and punched it as hard as she could.
Crack! The light went out.
She flew in a circle around the room, giving each one the same treatment until the floor had dimmed significantly that she could shadow sneak. With a running start, she dipped beneath the stone, faced the crack, and charged.
An instant later, she tumbled out beyond the door, landed in a sitting position, and nearly choked when she tried to take a breath, the air stinging the back of her throat. For a moment, her reaction was that she was going to suffocate... and then her senses and memories caught up with her. She had smelled something exactly like this before: the blizzard in Ironridge, up in Skyfreeze and the skyport. Only where that sensation had been born of magical monsters and hatred, this sting felt heavily entrenched, as if it had been growing here for a long time. The corridor continued downward with the smell infused in its walls, a physical force of regret, loneliness and despair. Whatever this place was, it was used for something evil.
Valey got back to her hooves and continued downwards, resting her senses on Starlight like a dark spot in a sea of burning light. Her destination wasn't far.
Starlight kept up her trudge, still carrying Puddles on her back. The corridor was still comprised entirely of knotted pipes, and they continued fusing together the lower she went, having dwindled from hundreds to only a dozen or two large ones.
Since it had entered this last, winding phase, sloping downward without direction and sometimes looping or even spiraling, she hadn't seen any cells, any side routes, or any other signs of life. She wasn't even sure it was a corridor at all; for all she could tell these pipes were burrowed naturally through the ground or even open air in a cavern. Or unnaturally.
Puddles moaned uncomfortably atop her, neither warm nor cold against her coat. Starlight figured she should feel warmer, seeing as she was a pony and it was fairly chilly in the depths, but then again, she was a windigo, so maybe it was surprising she wasn't even colder. Part of her wondered if there was anything else she was supposed to be doing for the mare, but she quickly quashed it. She was carrying her to safety, or at least trying to. It was the right thing to do.
Suddenly, the tunnel ended.
It was a dead end, and not a pretty one. Twin rows of jagged, broken smaller pipes rose from the floor and descended from the ceiling, sometimes branching off from the main pipes or rising between them or connected to nothing at all. They almost reminded her of rotten metal teeth, only somehow fit tightly enough together to obscure anything on the other side... or make it impossible to tell if anything was there at all.
"Really?" She dropped her shadow cloak, glaring at the wall. "I'm going to have to climb all the way back up there because of a dead end? Nnngh..."
Starlight gritted her teeth, wondering if there was a point to insulting the wall, when Puddles spoke over her shoulder. "Ignorance. Apathy. Despair."
The entire tunnel rumbled approvingly, as if a code phrase had been spoken, or perhaps an offering made. Before Starlight's widening eyes, the jagged pipe wall pursed, bent towards her... and melded away, the rest of the corridor coiling and wrapping as it re-absorbed the metal into itself.
"Oh bananas that's creepy," another voice said behind her. "This place is... Woah! Puddles? And Starlight, is that you?"
A batpony dropped down in front of her, furling her wings, and Starlight had to blink for a second before processing that Valey was here. "Valey?"
Valey stared back with equal surprise. "Buh... But Puddles? Sorry, this should be triumphant, but I'm really on edge. And you're gray, and your eyes are weird. Starlight? Like..."
"It's really me," Starlight confirmed, quickly getting her wits back together. "I used the Nightmare Module from a while ago to break out of a cell and found Puddles while trying to get out. She says there's a teleporter at the bottom of this place that will take us out of here. Where did you come from, and do you know where we are?"
Valey seemed on the edge of locking up, though she managed to speak. "Yeah, we're underground in Gyre. Bananas, Starlight, listen: this entire place smells sorta similar to the windigo storm in Ironridge, only it's also making my cutie mark go weird a whole lot harder. Like, I've never felt this before. Can we please not stand in one place and get out? Questions and talking later?" She danced uncertainly, like something hundreds of times her size was threatening to step on her with its hoof already touching her head.
"You want me to turn around? How far is it? It's a long way back up..." She blinked, an idea coming to her that almost seemed more from her Nightmare Module than her own experience, and she held out a hoof, restoring her shadow cloak. "Also, I can do this now. It's my shadow, so you can probably hide on me, I think?"
"Seriously, no time for that!" Valey grabbed her shoulders, looking panicked. "Starlight, I have literally never felt something like this place before. We. Need. To. Go. Now that I've found you, we'll find a way to bail, okay?"
A slight breeze moved up the corridor from below, carrying a single, lonely pipe organ note, and Valey tensed up further.
"Heehee... Relax, cute Valey..." Puddles lifted a weak hoof, patting Valey's mane. "This place is a trap for bad feelings and negative emotions. The more worried you are, the harder it hits you. It's trying to drain you already, so chin up! And the fastest way out is further down, which is spooky but won't hurt you if you keep going and don't sing."
Valey frowned, relaxing only slightly. "Yeah? And how do you know that?"
Puddles bit her lip. "Get Puddles somewhere safe first and she'll say. But you can see it, right? All the cells and all the prisoners? Everyone who's going to be executed for heresy against Garsheeva goes here. A lot of Garsheeva's laws aren't broken with bad intentions, so there are a lot of people who come here with anger and sadness, because they think they're innocent. Originally, this place was supposed to be a siphon that could take away your pain so you could die at peace. Then it... filled up."
Slowly, Valey grew more lucid. "Bananas, that... actually makes sense. Sort of. Although it obviously needs new management..."
Starlight watched her think for a moment, frowned, dropped her shadow cloak, and stepped forward and did the most natural thing she could think of.
"Woah!" Valey blinked as Starlight hugged her. "Uh... hi. Thanks. Maybe not that at ease, yet. Puddles, you're on our side, or something?"
"If you help Puddles." Puddles' ears fell. "She isn't supposed to be here. Thought surrendering to Wallace and Gazelle would go differently..."
"Yeah, you look like you need it." Valey sized her up, poking once at her much-too-thin side. "Like, you look terrible. Anyway. Bad spot for a reunion. You say down?"
"I say down," Puddles confirmed, Starlight standing at the ready to carry her forward.
Valey frowned. "And you're sure whatever's making this place feel as bad as it does isn't exactly that way?"
Puddles giggled weakly. "Oh, Stanza's right up ahead. But he'll leave you alone. He just wants people to sing with him, and his songs aren't very catchy. Probably because Puddles wrote them..."
"You what?" Starlight couldn't look around to give her a look, so stiffened her shoulders instead.
"Long story. Safety first. Mmm..." Puddles went even limper atop her back.
Valey swallowed, gritted her teeth, and stepped alongside Starlight further down the tunnel. The pipe door Puddles had opened closed along behind them, spare scraps of metal uncoiling from the main pipes to form it, and the walls and ceiling quickly widened out around them.
The first sound the chamber allowed Starlight to hear was water. Large, concrete culverts set open-mouthed into the walls, high up and spaced uniformly around, drained steadily into a pool that covered the room's entire base, setting a backdrop for a concert that washed away imperfections and disturbances from the environment but let the true notes rise unhindered into the air.
All around the cylindrical walls, metal pipes rose from the pool, standing for no reason or else branching and waving up the dark bricks like vines. At the center of the pool was a pillar, rising to higher than Starlight stood, and the exit in which Starlight stood - once a water pipe like all the others, she guessed - looked out at a perfect angle to tell there was something atop it, but not see what. The wall and floor pipes she had been walking on for so long straightened out, forming into an unbroken bridge to the central core, still waving from side to side but suddenly neater and more uniform, as if the pipes themselves had decided to become more stable so no one would stumble or trip. They wanted to be crossed.
A low, mournful organ note rose from the core, and Starlight's ears twitched. It was... curious? It beckoned her closer.
"Uhhh..." Valey's voice sounded muted at her side, the rush of waterfalls trying to consciously block her. This wasn't a place where she was meant to speak.
Narrowing her eyes, Starlight went the only way she could and crossed to the core.
The bridge pipes weren't flush with the central tower's edge, slithering atop it in a perfectly flat, uniform line and finally becoming the source of the notes. A once-majestic pipe organ sat on its back, the instrument connected to and the source of the dungeon's steel, the tops of its keys facing Starlight and playing themselves one by one. A stone throne melded with the organ's front, and the creature that lounged atop it was stone and metal too.
It had once been a dusk statue, Starlight realized, recognizing the distinctive black stone and regal bearing even though she didn't think she had ever seen one before. But this one had a different pose, laying on its side and leering at her with a wing outstretched downward, as if its feathers were playing the organ keys, and through the most brute-force method possible: its stone limbs and joints had been mercilessly shattered, then reaffixed with studded metal braces, the wounds in the rock left plain for all to see. Its surface was duller, glossiness faded and missing, and she got the impression the statue wanted her to know what it had once been; was telling her how far it had fallen so she knew and could compare. Its gemstone eyes sparkled dimly with pain and vengeance and loathing, and the crystal half-moon crescent on its chest was shattered, like it had been pierced through and left in place as another cruel disfigurement. The neckpiece was replaced with a choker that braced and augmented its new, forced posture, a black crown shoved point-first into the metal like it was a spike used to pierce the abomination's neck.
All across its remaining surface, tiny needles pierced the rock as well, thin hoses connected to them and snaking into the workings of the organ. Another note played, and almost as if time was flowing backwards, Starlight heard it first, then saw a metal brace holding the thing's feathers together creak, and it actually moved, pressing a key of its own accord with a single stone pinion and letting the noise fill the air.
{{DIEEEEEEE...}}
Starlight's eyes widened, but a look at the disgusted horror on Valey's face and the passive indifference on Puddles' told her neither of them had heard it. Warning, the voice she had come to associate with Nightmare Modules said in her mind. Corrupted authentication token presented for daydream communication protocol. Transmissions are quarantined and presented for auditory access only. Administrator permission required to override.
No! Starlight internally gasped, shaking her head. Don't override anything! Whatever this was, she didn't need a special cutie mark to make her spine crawl with danger. Puddles could talk all she wanted, but this thing was deadly. She knew it.
{{PLEASE... HELP... DIEEEEE...}}
"What?" Starlight whispered under her breath, eyes widening. One of the needles shoved into the statue's cracks pulsed slightly, and it seemed to regard her with its dead eyes, the crown stabbing its chest shining dully.
{{PAAAAIN... I AM... DESPAIR... YOU ARE... HOOOOOPE...}}
Starlight watched, unable to tear her gaze away in morbid fascination. Each word the thing said was a sound in her mind, all corresponding to notes played on its fell keyboard. "I'm what?"
{{SOOO DAAAAARK... LIKE MEEEEE... YOU HEARRRR MEEEEE...}}
"Puddles, what is this?" Starlight hissed backwards.
"Stanza." Puddles shrugged weakly.
{{SOOO EMPTYYYYY... I AM FULLLLL... CANCEL MEEEEE...}}
"What are you talking about?" Starlight whispered, though the waterfalls that drowned out everything but Stanza let her speak normally. "Valey, are you... Valey?"
Valey was watching the statue with pinprick eyes, her chin slightly upturned, almost like she was in a trance. As Starlight watched, a thin spark of energy arced across her cutie mark for a millisecond and was gone, and the muscles around it twitched.
Starlight's eyes widened, and she turned back to Stanza. "Let her go," she demanded, raising her voice. "There's supposed to be a teleporter here. We want to go home."
{{SOOO MUCH PURRRPOSSSE... YOU ARE VAST... UNLIKE MEEEEE...}}
"I know you can understand me!" Starlight locked eyes with the statue.
{{I WANT HOOOOOPE...}}
Starlight glared.
{{PAAAAIN... BETRAYALLL... DISCOOORD... THESE ARE... MY SOOONG...}}
"And you want me to destroy you, or something?" Starlight whispered, voice low again. "How?"
{{MY ONLY SOOONG... EMPTY MEEEEE... TEACH MEEEEE... FILL MEEEEE...}}
Starlight gritted her teeth, looking back to Valey. Her friend didn't seem to have changed.
{{I WANT... LOOOVE... I WANT... MORE THAN PAAAAIN... BUT I CANNOT... YOUUU ARE DARK... YOU ARE SAAAME... I SEEEEE YOUUU...}}
"Valey!" Starlight stepped between the batpony and the statue, turning her back on Stanza. "Nightmare Module thing, make that be quiet and help me with Valey, somehow!"
Affirmative. Lowering transmission volume...
{{NOOOOO... I AM DESPAIR... I AM RUUUIN... YOU HEAR MEEE... PLEASE... HELP... DIEEEEE...}}
Stanza's voice faded in her head until it was barely a whisper, but the notes continued to sound in her ears and the statue continued to play. Pained, wretched and lonely, they swirled about her, but she brushed them aside, glaring at Valey's almost-drooling face. "Snap out of it!"
Putting every inch of her strength and training into a single hoof, she slugged Valey as hard as she could.
"Valey, wakey wakey..." Puddles tapped her too, hoof radiating a hint of frost.
Suddenly, Stanza rumbled... and a line of pipes erupted from the tower, shooting like spikes at the far wall. They soared inside one of the water pipes, forming a bridge to it and further inside across the moving liquid, and Stanza's song seemed to beckon to it, growing even more mournful and resigned.
"I'll..." Starlight glanced at the second bridge and swallowed. She wasn't forgetting this any time soon, and if this monstrosity wanted to be destroyed... "I will. I promise."
The song brightened in something approaching gratitude, though it was an impossible emotion for the instrument and felt more like a slight dimming in negativity.
"There's the way out," Puddles groaned atop her. "Come on, Starlight, cute Valey..."
Valey blinked, shaking herself before she could slip away again. "Y-Yeah," she mumbled, voice quivering. "Let's get out of here, Starlight."
Starlight wasted no time in complying, pushing herself as hard as she could go with a limp, grown mare on her back. The bridge led inside the pipe and continued up it a short ways, until there was a cracked hole in the ceiling and the metal organ pipes split up, winding over each other to provide a staircase up and out of the tunnel.
They hauled themselves into a brick room, Stanza's dirge still audible in the distance. It was mostly empty, except... Starlight blinked. "Is that Arambai's teleporter from Riverfall?"
"Looks kinda like it," Valey murmured, still shaking.
Starlight studied the machine quickly. Most of it was the same, though instead of the harmony extractor hanging from the ceiling she remembered being used to power it, this one just had Stanza's organ pipes feeding into holes in the side of some casing.
Puddles sagged further in relief atop her. "That's it!" she squeaked, mustering her energy. "Stand in the middle of the dais and Puddles will turn it on."
Nobody needed further prodding to comply. If they were going to not trust Puddles, the time for that was before going to the bottom and braving Stanza, not after. Valey pressed up alongside Starlight, and Puddles reached for the ground, tapping it and sending a thin tendril of ice toward the control panel...
FLAAAAASH!
Starlight blinked, clearing her eyes as blackness faded from her vision and the world came back into view. They were on another dais, next to another teleportation machine, this one pressed up against a wall to prevent anyone from seeing what powered it. A lone door left the chamber, its bricks far neater and cleaner than the ones in Stanza's room, and the door was well-lit and heavily barred from their side.
"Oh bananas," Valey gasped at her side, falling down and rolling off the teleporter dais. "Oh bananas we're not there anymore. It's over. It's like I can breathe again... Ugh... Bananas, I think I'm gonna cry..."
Starlight moved to her side, closed her eyes and hugged her for all she was worth.
Starlight held her eyes closed, enveloped by wings, fur, and warmth. Her entire body was pressed against Valey's fuzzy, hyperventilating chest and barrel, and as her friend clung to her like she was a life raft in a stormy sea, something cold she realized she had acclimated to as normal fell away. This was... important. Another pony, a living soul, needed her this desperately, and a simple, logical truth clicked into place inside her mind: if she had friends she would do this for, then her friends would do it for her, too.
She needed to feel needed like that, and she needed to never be alone. How often had she thought about this before? Was it a change from the Nightmare Module? Did being in this state make her more aware of the bonds between her and her friends? It didn't feel like a wrong thing. It felt like she had stumbled on something that was right, a light or a goal that was worth fighting for. How often before had she wondered if there was any end to her quest for a perfect place in the world, and how had she always missed that there was something so much better?
There was nothing better she could be doing with herself. Nothing. Nothing. She knew what true worth and purpose was, and this was it, because if she had friends with bonds this strong, she would never, ever have to be alone.
"Hic... Nnngh... Starlight..." Valey rubbed her back, laying on her own back upright against a wall with Starlight pressed atop her, managing to speak between bursts of hyperventilation and tears. "You're kinda cold... heh... Bananas, what happened to you...?"
Starlight held on and was held through another burst of shaky, accelerated breathing. "I touched moon glass and went like this again so I could use the Nightmare Module, because I needed more power to escape. It's not actually that bad. I could live like this, even. But you're completely destroyed. Nothing shakes you this bad, even the skyport with the windigoes. What happened to you?"
Valey took a few more gasping breaths, trying to get her shaky rhythm under control, and as she did, Starlight's leg slipped and brushed against her flank. Starlight winced at the contact, sucking in a breath of her own: Valey's cutie mark was hot! And she didn't think it was a magical sensation like what she had been feeling ever since she touched the moon glass, either. This was physical. Her mind brought up an image of Valey standing stunned before Stanza, a tiny spark crackling across her mark...
"You're not alright," she told Valey, still held in a tight grasp. "That place did something bad to you. What was it?"
Valey swallowed, taking a long breath and then a longer one. "Starlight, I... I..." She winced and fought off a fresh wave of tears, seeming to stabilize. "I dunno what's wrong with me. I snuck past some guards on the way down, and some of them were batponies. They looked pretty on edge, but not like me, so it's not that. I d-dunno... I dunno..."
"We're out now," Starlight reminded her. "We've faced a lot of dangerous things before, remember?"
"Ugh." Valey lifted a hoof to wipe at her eyes. "Felt like being stuck in a whirlpool, or something. It was like being in a room with a million people whispering at you to do stuff, only they're not your friends and probably want the worst for you, and it's not your ears but in your mind and you've gotta constantly keep trying or else you'll just... y'know... do it? I... Starlight, have I ever told you about the pendant I used to keep Nyala in?"
Starlight nestled against her. She was helping and Valey was getting calmer, and that was wonderful. "Maybe? I was blind when you were using it."
"Yeah. It worked like this, though." Valey hesitated again, gathering her words. "You turn it on and it creates a connection between you and the moon glass. And you get to decide how big that connection is, but when it's open, it's like... the soul inside the glass becomes you. It's not just that they're inside your mind, your mind and their mind become the same thing. And you can lower the effect and make it easier to stay in control by not opening the thing all the way, but if you sat back and didn't fight them? They'd become you. They'd get to speak with your body and move you around, and you'd even look like them. I guess you wouldn't have seen it, but when I opened the pendant, I... changed. Changed more the more I opened it, but when I was fighting Herman, I only looked half like myself. The other half was Nyala."
Starlight folded her ears, taking too much solace from her sense of purpose to be scared or worried. "Okay."
"I had talked to Nyala before that, in my body," Valey continued. "Whenever I got particularly lonely or detached in Ironridge, I went down to the crystal palace and put the thing on and just stayed there until I got hungry. She actually has some memories in my body, I think. So when we were in the skyport, I, like... felt the windigo storm pressing on my mind and influencing me, somehow. And opening the pendant, I suddenly have two souls instead of one to resist that, and I think whatever energy the connection was using h-helped as well."
"Can confirm," Puddles groaned from the heap where she lay, "that's how it works. Unless we made you and her start fighting, you'd be stronger together."
Starlight listened along. Valey was taking a huge tangent and she wasn't sure where it was going, but if she needed to prepare herself or psyche herself up before talking about Stanza's tunnels, that was perfect. She saw no valid reasons to stop being like this.
"Cool." Valey glanced at Puddles and folded her ears. "Good to know, I guess. Anyway, d-down there... felt like the same thing. Like having another pony in my head. Only instead of a single soul with a voice you could talk to, and stuff, it was like... a giant tentacle-y mass of emotions and music notes. No words, just emotions, and all bad ones. Stinking loneliness is the worst, and then there was vengeance, worthlessness, jealousy... ugh. And while I was in there, like..." She swallowed again. "I was changing. Just a little, but like how I was for Nyala. Just the very tips of my mane and tail, and sometimes the membranes on my wings. It was subtle, and wasn't like it was building up to anything. Only colors, really, and the same amount the whole time, just constantly changing and changing again..."
"Really?" Starlight frowned. "I didn't see anything different."
Valey patted her with a strained laugh. "Yeah, kiddo, you're one hundred percent gray right now. Not a drop of color left in your body. And since you talked about it last time this happened on the boat, I'm pretty sure you're colorblind right now."
"Colorblind?" Starlight blinked. "I... don't think so? Nothing looks different than it ever has, I think."
Valey slouched up the wall an inch, uncovering Starlight and turning her head to look at herself. "Yeah? Think you look any different than you used to?"
Starlight examined herself, unsure how to answer. She really didn't, but did that mean...?
"Yep. Colorblind." Valey left her there, still laying atop her but no longer tightly embraced. "A-Anyway. Had that going on the whole time I was down there. Was seriously wishing I had that pendant back to help resist it, but I'm honestly not even sure it would have done anything. Because the price for using the pendant was that I got super hungry, and..." Her stomach growled noisily in emphasis, and she reddened a little. "Heheh. Yeah."
Puddles went a little limper next to them. "Can also confirm, cute Valey was changing colors down there just a little... Owie, Puddles is hungry too..."
Starlight folded her ears.
"So yeah." Valey sighed, and as she slowed down and relaxed further, Starlight began to realize just how tight some of her muscles were. What had she done, flown across the continent in a single sitting? Oh, right...
Valey swallowed. "You wanna know the really weird, creepy thing, though? Everything else has asked. Like, I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time something has tried to get inside my mind or do weird things to me. Near dusk statues, when we were at that concert, when I first touched the Nightmare Module... there was always something pressing there, but it's like it was kept outside and I could choose not to open my mind and let it in. Bananas, the Nightmare Module even used words. But this, like... felt like it went in and I had to fight it off from there. And I'm not even sure I did fight it off. It might have just been exploring and decided to leave me as myself."
Starlight chilled. "I'm not okay with that, and you shouldn't be, either."
"You think? Hello, in the middle of a massive breakdown..." Valey gave an exasperated chuckle, still weak. "Closest thing I can think of to what it did was moon glass, and I've never actually felt... well, can't remember feeling that before. But bananas, if that's anything like what it feels like to get drained that way, that's not a way I want to go."
"You think Stanza was similar to touching moon glass?" Starlight's ears perked in dark interest, her attention now much more captivated by the thought of breaking that accursed machine, ignoring Puddles' amused look in the background. "I wonder if that explains why I wasn't affected. If the Nightmare Modules and moon glass are related, maybe I was being protected by something stronger."
"Wasn't affected?" Valey tilted her head, the motion catching and tangling her mane a little on the brick wall she was leaning against.
"Yeah." Starlight swallowed. "I can feel those things too, you know. I felt what you were talking about at the concert, and there was a time I was sneaking around Izvaldi with Jamjars where I felt something I'm pretty sure now was a dusk statue. And moon glass affects me, too, and I can also use Nightmare Modules. But when I was in the tunnels, I felt like there was something big watching me, but I was hiding or protected from it."
Valey dug a hoof around in her ear. "Huh. That's weird. Puddles? How about you?"
Puddles weakly shrugged. "Silly Valey. Do I look alright to you?"
"Uhhh..." Valey stared for a moment at her emaciated form. "Well, I guess that place was hard on you too, or something. Bananas, we're all isolated cases, though. Starlight, normal unicorns don't just touch moon glass and react like that. All the other batpony guards I saw down there seemed physically fine, even if they were disgruntled or on edge. And Puddles is a windigo in a mare's body. We don't even have a normal pony to compare things to."
"You're alright now, though?" Starlight asked, still laying atop her, much more comfortable now that Valey's chest was rising and falling steadily beneath her.
"I think so?" Valey folded her ears. "I mean, as alright as I usually am. Had a headache for a few minutes, but I think I'm fine now." She hesitated. "Yeah, I'm fine. A whole lot better than I was down there, at least. Think we could stay here for a little bit longer, though? I need... ugh. Didn't even talk about what happened once we got to the center, and I'm already-"
"Don't." Starlight silenced her with a gentle hoof. "That door doesn't look like anyone's opening it from the other side. We can stay like this as long as you need to."
The colosseum's usual din filled the air as an older stallion stood passively at one side of the arena, making no moves to indicate he felt strongly about the upcoming battle. Howe had given the sarosian two unanswered questions for his rapier-microphone so far, and was trying his best to hype up the crowd despite clearly knowing Valey wouldn't be there, there wouldn't be a fight, and that her opponent knew it too.
Through a sheet of enchanted glass designed to obscure everything not immediately before it, Gondolus Gyre sat in his private box, beholding the proceedings with an equally-passive smile and radiating catlike satisfaction. His tail flicked against his throne, and eventually he glanced sideways with an approving nod. "You do good work, pleasure mare."
Felicity sat stiffly at his side, far enough back that she wasn't visible from outside the window. "Are you certain about that? You realize the Ironridge heroes, famous as they are, are dreadfully cannon-shy after all their experiences. Whatever you hope to gain from this, the moment you overextend and ask too much it will vanish like the wind."
"What? Not going to show a little trust in your employer?" Lord Gyre frowned unhappily. "I didn't build my namesake province up as much as I have with a lack of tack, my snarky little sarosian. I do too have a plan..."
"As you say." Felicity nodded. "And currently that plan involves taking the best fighter on your employment roster and your only serious chance of winning this tournament, whose salary is paid by your treasury, and actively gaming the system to help his opponent after he was hoofed a free round and a foe that can't show up."
Gondolus Gyre shrugged. "I know what I'm doing. He's not champion material if he can't take some unarmored unicorn. Was that you, by the way? I'm not privy to the circumstances this Admiral Valey disappeared under..."
"I'm afraid that's not something you need to know," Felicity calmly replied.
"Oh?" Lord Gyre looked over with a raised eyebrow, then swished his tail beneath his cape, withdrawing a small bag that clinked with bits. "But I'm so curious. Are you sure?"
Felicity failed to hide a smile as she caught the bag, fixing it safely inside her curly mane. "My sisters and I may have had a hoof in it."
The sphinx returned her grin, looking back up at the arena and flicking an ear, showing off a small device attached. "Speaking of your sisters, look what little Larceny got me as a gift. Said she got it on clearance last time she was in Izvaldi. It plays music in my ear! Isn't that a treat?"
"Yes, yes, I'm quite sure it is," Felicity replied, showing him the bare minimum of interest required not to be rude.
Lord Gyre chuckled. "Playing hard to get, aren't you?" He teased the tip of his tail over to her, moving to brush her side.
Felicity immediately moved a hoof, stomping his tail and pinning it to the floor.
"Ow...!" His feline eyes watered. "What was that for?"
"You don't pay me nearly enough for that sort of talk," Felicity answered disinterestedly. "In fact, I'm technically off the clock right now. I'm only here because your room has a very good view and I'm interested in how things are going to go down, and you wouldn't dare throw me out. Indebting Shinespark to you was more for my sake than yours."
A bigger bag landed at her hooves, Gondolus using his paws this time and turning away from the window. "Really. Care to repeat that?"
Felicity's grin broadened enough to show teeth, a second spent sorting through the bit bag before she released his tail contentedly. "I said, I'm only here because a certain someone is very good at knowing my weakness."
The tail didn't retreat, stretching toward her until it wrapped once around her barrel and brushed its tip on her belly. "You're an easy mare to read," Lord Gyre purred, drawing Felicity close. "So how are things with You Know Who? Made any progress in getting me my second province?"
Felicity flicked the tail tip away with a wing, but otherwise leaned into his side, all her aloofness gone. "Give a lady some time," she sighed exaggeratedly, rolling her eyes. "I've been at it for barely a month or so, you impatient cat. But yes, I work quickly, though. It will be a pleasant surprise when it happens."
"Hmm," Lord Gyre purred. "All the more time to expand Gyre's production capacity and recruit more military! Just because the Empire has a history of succession wars doesn't mean they're won without battles. I do like that Stormhoof's army is overseas and Everlaste has split their forces so their ally remains garrisoned, though. The continent's other powers are spreading themselves thin... Ha ha!" He stroked her side instead, coming up with his tail and teasing the underside of her chin. "We make such a good team, don't we...?"
"Shush, you." Felicity poked him. "Looks like your newest debtor is here."
Lord Gyre chuckled. "Oh, relax. She owes me for getting in, but did you see that mare? My champion will be fine. Mistvale arts are obviously..." His jaw dropped and eyes went wide, pointing a claw at the arena. "Well, I... did twist things so she could bring armor, didn't I..."
"Look!" Amber nudged Maple urgently, pointing down into the ring. "Shinespark is here!"
Gerardo bustled up at her side. "Is that Nyala?" He stared in bewilderment, Shinespark's body clad in alicorn-shaped gold save for her head. "Quite the unexpected development."
Maple looked on in worry. "That won't reveal Braen's secret, will it?"
"Not a chance," Gerardo reassured. "They've been seen separately together many times, both here and in Ironridge. Everyone will assume she's merely borrowing it for a spell. Though I am quite curious as to just how this will work..."
"She must have had luck with Felicity if she can bring Nyala and the sword at the same time," Amber whispered. "Just getting herself in to fight in Valey's stead must have been tough!"
"I wonder who they asked." Maple swallowed, eyes avoiding the one obvious sphinx she could sometimes make out beyond his window. Starlight was taken to Gyre...
Slipstream watched from over their shoulders, standing up on the box's seats. "Is it worth trying to call Valey again?" she asked, fluttering her wings in anticipation. "She can just decide not to answer if she's being stealthy or quiet. The stone doesn't make any noise until you energize both ends, doesn't it?"
"You think she wants the stress of knowing this battle is happening right now?" Amber countered. "More importantly, we don't have Shinespark or Nyala, and they're the ones who can turn it on."
Maple bit her lip. "I really should think about carrying around mana power, but the last time I remember trying that, it felt bizarre. I wonder if harmonic energy from the windigo hearts is useful for things like this?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, I am somewhat worried about Valey as well, despite how capable we know her to be, merely on the basis of what I know Gyre is like. If we're thinking of checking in, I could always call and make sure she's not only safe but capable of handling the distraction before I mentioned anything about what's going on?"
"Power?" Amber cleared her throat. "I mean, if you want to..."
Gerardo shrugged and withdrew a mana battery from his uniform. "It felt like a useful thing to acquire."
"If you want to ask Valey whether she wants to hear about how she's either dropping out of the tournament or having Shinespark stab an old enemy with that sword, I suppose you can," Maple said, distracted by the projected visual of the ring. "Like Slipstream said, she can just not answer it if she isn't safe..."
"Feeling any better?" Starlight asked after sitting with Valey for another long while.
"Nngh. I think so, yeah," Valey sighed, her stomach growling again. "Probably about time to decide where to go next? Still got some stuff I'm gonna need to work through later, but not as badly as I want to get home and eat food. Also, Puddles is the one I'm worried about."
"Oh, don't mind me," Puddles' unconscious body said, speaking in her windigo voice. "Nothing wrong with my body, just been magically frozen for however many months after running myself ragged fighting pirates and Meltdown... I've got a lot worse to worry about than a few bumps and bruises. Glad I made my backup plan when I did. You good to carry me wherever we go? I'm going to need it."
"Yeah, sure." Valey shakily got to her hooves, fixing her hat. "Just let me... Buh?" She pulled out the sound stone, vibrating slightly with an incoming transmission.
Starlight plodded over. "I'll get it," she volunteered, lighting her horn... except nothing happened. She frowned and tried again, but it was like her horn was disconnected, or glowing with mana simply wasn't a function it was designed to perform any more. "Or maybe I won't? It wasn't working earlier either, but maybe using a Nightmare Module prevents me from using my horn?" Furrowing her brow, she sat back, trying to query her moon glass voice over what wasn't working.
Valey gave her a look, then shrugged, popping her battery out from her saddlebags. "Well, that's uncool? I'll just... Wait, since when is this thing dry?"
"No clue about the kid's horn," Puddles growled as Valey regarded the dull crystal, "but that place was filled with disharmonic energy. Here's a crash course in magical physics: mana is a stable form of energy, and harmony can make more of it. It's how horns get powered and pegasi fly. See where I'm going with this?"
"Huh." Valey looked at the sound stone for a few more seconds, eventually tucking it and the battery back away. "Welp. I guess they'll get to hear about how I got Starlight back and am on my way home later, then. Hope they had nothing important to say."
Shinespark solemnly climbed the three steps separating the raised arena from the colosseum floor, her opponent already standing in wait. With Nyala's height boost, she easily stood over him even though he was taller than her, and for a moment their gazes met.
"Hello there, little one," the stallion said, a slight measure of discomfort in his otherwise-calm voice. "I was under the impression I would be fighting young Valey today. It does me well to see she heeded my advice and kept herself innocent of this tournament... unless she is merely biding her time and afraid to face the judgement she so hastily deals in. You may call me Grandpapa. Who are you?"
Shinespark frowned, holding her posture perfectly. "I'm Shinespark. Valey's friend." Her mechanical, metal wings reacted as smoothly to her thoughts as they ever had, sitting still at her sides and pretending to be inanimate while covering the sword that would win her this fight. "She's not backing down or hiding. She was sabotaged, and I'm here to fight for her and keep her run alive."
Grandpapa sighed, his thin, gray mane and wispy voice doing nothing to hide the danger of the arts he possessed. "Ahh. Is that so, my dear? Well, it's not your soul or your race's cosmic fate that are on the line. But you should know that you're not doing your friend as big of a favor as you think. Hurting her, in fact. You still have time to back down and turn away of your own accord, seeking a peaceful life in your proper places... or I will turn you away and do my best to send you there myself."
Valey was right, Shinespark realized, eyes widening slightly. This old stallion was mysterious and creepy. She didn't trust of believe in his hyperbole about cosmic fate, even though his tone made it sound perfectly reasonable... but he definitely meant business. "You have to have a better name than that, though," she insisted. "What can I call you?"
"I just told you." Grandpapa shrugged. "There are no rules in the tournament behind digging into your identity. Many who compete wish to remain anonymous. You may call me Grandpapa, or whatever else you wish, but not another word will leave my lips on the matter."
"I cannot believe my ears," Howe interrupted, hunched over his rapier microphone like a villain scheming to himself in the darkness. "After Admiral Valey's stunning disappearance in her last match, accusations of sabotage!? But behold!" He swept a wing out, thundering to the sky. "Her loyal companion, without an inch of tournament experience in her life, has deigned to fight in her stead? Truly, the power of friendship flows in her veins! Will such dedication be enough to counteract the star fighter of Gondolus Gyre? Who even let her in the ring in the first place? The suspense and mystery form an infuriating conflagration that will explode in a shower of drama!"
Grandpapa sighed. "That announcer really needs to work off some tension, methinks. But if you're determined to fight me, shall we begin?"
Shinespark set her jaw, nodded, and put a hoof forward.
"Nyaaah... Starlight, what are you doing?" Valey asked, laying facedown on her stomach with her legs splayed in front of and behind her, wings stretched out to the side as she rocked from side to side.
"Same to you," Starlight replied, a clunk of metal coming from her corner of the room. "I'm opening this teleporter machine."
"Bananas, why are you doing that?" Valey rotated her head enough to see Starlight by the machine, a giant side panel of the casing loose and propped against the filly's back. "I'm... nngh... stretching. Just flew for absolutely ages to come get you, and I've learned my lesson about sitting still and letting myself stiffen up after that."
Starlight carefully dragged the panel away, setting it against a wall and spitting out a tiny ice screwdriver made for her by a barely-conscious Puddles. "Because it's probably powered by magic, and we can use that to answer the sound stone." She kicked at Valey's saddlebags, the light of an unanswered call still shimmering slightly from beneath an open strap.
Valey blinked, then rolled harder, forcing one of her wing joints all the way up as she put her weight down on it. "Ooh! Ow, that's good. And cool. Cool, cool..." She rolled the other way, legs still maximally extended and sometimes kicking at awkward angles.
A smaller clunk sounded as Starlight stuck her head in the machine, poking around inside. "Huh," she announced. "It has a control panel in here. And wires, wires... here! Someone give me the stone?"
Puddles cleared her throat, back to being unconscious again.
"Alright, alright, what's up...?" Valey rolled to her hooves, flapping her wings a few times as she walked instead of furling them. "Where's this go?" she asked, popping the sound stone out and into her grasp.
"Mmph," Starlight responded, pointing to an unprotected area with her mouth and hooves full of wires she was holding aside.
With a greater swirl, the sound stone came alive as mana power was applied to it, shimmering in Valey's grasp. "Hmm?" Gerardo's voice sounded through it. "Ah, she responded? Valey? Are you there?"
Valey grinned, flipping onto her back and plopping the stone on her chest. "Sure am, Birdo. And guess what? It was pretty spooky, but I got Starlight and we're on our way back. Mission complete!"
"Hi," Starlight added, still looking at the teleporter. "We're alright."
"Starlight!" Maple exclaimed. "You're there? You're alright?"
"I think so," Starlight replied. "I want to see you and everyone else again, and Valey was shaken hard. Also we found Puddles and are bringing her back too."
"If I can carry both of you," Valey muttered, mentally weighing the pair of them.
Gerardo importantly cleared his throat. "Well, that's fantastic, if I allow myself to say so. Although, how far out do you think you still are? You see..."
Valey shrugged. "We kind of used a teleporter, so I've actually got no clue. But my best guess is Grandbell? One province over?"
"Ah. Well, that's a shame." Gerardo's headcrest drooped so hard Valey could practically hear it deflate over the sound stone. "You see, Shinespark is presently..."
Grandpapa didn't wait for Shinespark to make the first move. His hooves left the ground, wings propelling him along in a skimming glide with her face as the clear target. He wasn't nearly fast enough, though, and Shinespark lifted a hoof to block, preparing to intercept his trajectory and smack him aside... until he suddenly dug into the ground, pivoting and changing his momentum on a dime. As if he had grabbed a pole and used it to swing around, he was suddenly going sideways, and then his course reversed again and he slammed into Shinespark's unbalanced side, not letting her get her hoof back down to steady herself.
"Woah!" Shinespark lurched, Grandpapa already flinging himself into the air to pounce from above and topple her completely. Instead of reeling and exposing herself to the blow, she let herself fall all the way, hooves pointing straight up toward him as he dropped. Fwooosh! The rocket boosters designed to give the armor limited flight when it was on its own and disguise her magic when she was in it ignited, pointed skyward as flamethrower weapons.
Grandpapa's momentum proved just as easy to change in the air as it was on the ground, and he effortlessly backed away. But the opening let Shinespark roll to her side, using the boosters to slide across the stage before getting to her hooves a safe distance away.
"That's quite the invention you have there, my dear," Grandpapa remarked, landing and furling his wings, standing where she had started and her where he had been. "It's a wonder they let you bring it in. You must have some powerful political connections. Still, the tournament is a test of immorality, and if that's the lowest you can stoop, you will be defeated for sure. Please, back down before you sully yourself further."
Shinespark grimaced, starting to wonder if Grandpapa was insane. "Not happening," she countered, blowing a bit of dust out of her bang. "Come at me!"
The batpony obliged, but did so in no hurry. Calmly, he paced across the arena toward her, leaving far too much time to react and nothing apparent to react to. Minding her weak spots, Shinespark thought quickly: if he went for her face, it would be too obvious and she would be prepared. Most of the rest of her was too well-armored for him to do anything. Did she have any lesser weaknesses? Anything less obvious an unarmed flier who needed to connect with the flats of his hooves would be interested in?
"Interesting," Grandpapa said, now far too close for comfort. "Not using your magic to try to force me back? Either you think yourself a melee fighter, or you haven't been briefed on what I can do!"
So he was scoping her out. Shinespark reminded herself again to keep her sword and wings under wraps until she knew she had an opportunity, but that was as far as she got to prepare before he moved. First Grandpapa was beneath her, a flurry of taps hitting the underside of her armor. Shinespark instinctively brought her legs together, trying to pinch him or stomp him, and when he shadow snuck using her own shadow to avoid them, she flared her boosters, jumping just high enough to light the stallion out and then singe him with her exhaust.
Before she could even see the results of her work, he had grabbed one of her legs, unable to properly swing her due to her enhanced weight but still spinning her off-balance. Shinespark flipped away, using half a second of flight magic to propel herself off him and land upright, instantly converting her hornlight into a hammer of telekinesis that slammed down where she had been. But Grandpapa wasn't there.
"Quite the suit of armor you have indeed, my dear," he informed her, suddenly within punching reach of her face. Shinespark winced; with his speed, there was nothing she could do to block... so she went for a pre-emptive counterattack, lighting her horn again and propelling herself forward with a simultaneous blast from her boosters, earning a premature blow to the chest and nearly running Grandpapa over. But the stallion was too fast, deliberately tangling himself in her legs so that a booster went awry, forcing her into a barrel roll until she canceled it and landed on her back with him atop her.
"Nnngh!" Shinespark's horn flared, sending out a lance of telekinesis in self-defense... but Grandpapa calmly hung back until it was over, then reached forward and tapped her squarely between the eyes.
Instantly, Shinespark's legs felt wrong, like she had just stretched them precisely the wrong way and they were now horribly cramped. But the bulk of her strength came from the armor anyway, and nothing had happened to her connection with it. With a victorious grimace, her forelegs snapped together, pinning themselves together and trapping him atop her. "Gotcha!" She prepared to roll and crush him.
Grandpapa punched her face again.
Another tingle of tension shot through Shinespark, and she felt her legs lock up completely. She rolled anyway, propelling herself with two boosters and her magic, but Grandpapa escaped into her shadow again, leaving Shinespark sliding away and rolling again to her hooves. She stood shakily, no feeling or strength in her legs but the armor still doing its job.
"How are you still standing?" Grandpapa asked in awe, pausing his onslaught for a moment as Shinespark took a step closer. "I disabled your legs! Did I miss?"
"Don't think too hard about it," Shinespark replied. "I've just got something worth fighting for."
"Hmmm..." Her opponent frowned suspiciously, thin mane rocking slightly as he reoriented himself, and then he approached again.
How much more could she take? Shinespark evaluated herself, wondering if she had been a fool to keep her visor down. Fortunately, whatever physical damage Grandpapa used his arts to do to her body, the armor still worked for her and seemed immune... but what about if he targeted her mind instead? Felicity had been clear the touches and blows were used to transmit impulses and feelings, so he could do a lot more once he realized commanding her muscles to break themselves wasn't working. She needed an opening to use the sword, but with how quickly she could be disarmed, she had only one shot.
This time, Grandpapa used his speed to get behind her, testing the top of her armor with another series of blows. Shinespark lunged forward, striking at him with her mechanical tail, but he clung on, using the tail to launch himself forward like a torpedo and strike at the back of her neck. "This armor is a shell!" he commented, soaring with enough momentum to tip her forward and send her face plowing towards the ground. "It opens along the bottom, I'm thinking. I suppose we'll just have to find a way to shuck you, then, little clam, won't we?"
Shinespark flipped again, landing once more on her back with her boosters firing to defend herself from above... but Grandpapa was once again too fast for her, standing ahead of her as she slid into him. With a disapproving frown, he locked eyes with her for a millisecond before tapping her face once more.
This time, her back locked up, painful but not immobilized. Shinespark winced hard, sending her legs out to the sides and firing just the right boosters to spin like a top, whipping at him with her tail. Grandpapa jumped to avoid it, just as she hoped, and she timed his arc and her spin, waiting for him to land at the perfect moment with no way to shift his momentum in time... and her wings unfurled, shooting toward him with the sword firmly grasped so he would impale himself on it as he fell.
Grandpapa easily hovered out of the way.
"What...?" Shinespark paled, realizing she had lost her edge. Desperately, she rolled back upright, weapon clutched in the open, but any surprise she possessed had already worn off. "No..."
"That's a fancy trick you have," Grandpapa declared, taking two steps forward but standing perfectly out of sword range. "How many limbs do you think you'll need to beat an old stallion like me? Is seven enough for you? Or are you going to become an octopus and grow one more?"
"You've got wings too," Shinespark snarled, forcing back a cloud of desperation at the realization that she was partially immobilized and had nothing left up her sleeve. "Fair is fair!"
Locking her feathers in a shield as she returned to circling, Shinespark let the metal wings do what they did best, now that she had no reason to hide them. They broke apart as she lit her horn and fired her boosters to cover the magic, soaring above him and preparing for a dive attack. That caught Grandpapa off guard, the massive suit of armor actually becoming airborne, and even as he dodged aside Shinespark was nimble enough to change her trajectory, too. With a slash, she made to pierce him... and Grandpapa punched the flat of the blade aside, swinging upward while upside-down and catching her descending face with a rear kick. This one actually had power behind it, and Shinespark recoiled, hoping her nose wasn't bloodied. Instead of fully freezing her back, this one made her start twitching, occasionally sending an involuntary spasm through her muscles that somehow translated to the armor too.
"Ugh..." Shinespark grimaced as everything save her wings briefly shook. They weren't part of her natural anatomy, so maybe they were exempt? Two more blows arced in to try to break her further, and she deflected them both on her metal feathers. Her horn worked, too. With a pulse of sapphire, she pushed herself backwards and sent a wall of telekinesis forward, forcing Grandpapa to fly high to avoid it. The sword rose in her aura, and she stood defensively, legs not only doing nothing she wanted but occasionally moving when she didn't.
"Oh, none of that, now," Grandpapa warned, voice growing cooler when he saw the sword hovering in her telekinesis. "That kind of fighting is dangerous, my dear."
Shinespark held to parry, but he baited the strike, slipping beyond it before she could come in for a second spin. A hoof flew for her face, and she raised a wing, but he moved aside and caught the wing too far out, then did the same for a second strike. Momentarily, they were face to face, Shinespark's wings spread and his forelegs spread blocking them... and then his wingtips rose, tapping her cheeks and forehead and inputting a rapid pattern in quick succession.
Instantly, Shinespark spasmed, and her horn went out.
"There we go," Grandpapa sighed, backing up and catching the sword by the hilt as it fell, standing and admiring his work. "Let's have no more of that, now. Still have any fight left in you, my well-armored dear?"
Shinespark tried to move her wings... and nothing happened. The entire armor didn't respond.
"Shinespark?" Nyala's voice whispered in her ear. "The armor is saying its connection to you is lost. It's not detecting you anymore."
"N-No..." Shinespark's eyes widened in fear. She could still talk and move her head, but her legs were immobilized and her back was painful and her horn and cutie mark didn't work. Every second or two, she felt another twitching spasm wrack her body, only the armor was so heavy and mechanized it didn't move a bit.
"I can switch it to manually detect your muscle movements," Nyala volunteered, "but it's been reading asynchronous from what your intentions and body are doing for a while now. That will only work if you're in control of yourself, and he's hit you a lot..."
"I think... t-this is it..." Shinespark swallowed, feeling her eyes starting to glisten at the corners even as she couldn't move. "No! Valey..."
"Referee?" Grandpapa asked, holding the sword like it was a walking stick. "Please start the countdown for timing her out, if you will? I have her completely immobilized."
"Bananas!" Valey punched the ground, completely hunched over the sound stone as Amber and Gerardo gave her a running commentary of the fight and Maple stayed tightly silent. "Sparky, what are you doing, girl? Argh!" She grimaced and swung another hoof. "We were so close to being back, too! I could probably fly it in half a day! Maybe ten hours, or even eight...!"
"On the bright side, imagining your retribution gets me all tingly inside!" Puddles giggled. "And you'll have all the time in the world and no tournament to keep you from it. Wallace and Morena on your side, too, once you bring back their adorable filly's empty body..."
Valey stomped. "Not helping!" she growled, staring into the sound stone like she could will Shinespark back to health. "Come on, Sparky, get up! Don't go getting yourself this messed up...!"
"Would you two be quiet?" Starlight demanded from the teleportation machine. "I'm trying to concentrate!"
"Yeah? Oh what?" Valey countered, thoroughly agitated. "Sparky's getting her rear kicked twenty different directions for my sake and is indebted to who knows what power just for the chance to do it, and you know how bad she's going to feel about failing! I'm a little busy here listening to my best friend getting torn apart, okay?"
Starlight tapped the teleporter. "On this thing. Someone obviously stole Arambai's design from Riverfall for this. It's been modified, but if it can teleport someone all the way to Gyre, why can't it teleport us to Stormhoof?"
Valey blinked.
"Valey? Is Starlight saying something? I think she's too far away. I can't quite make her out!"
"Uhh... nah, nothing important." Valey got up, nodding at the sound stone. "Sit tight, Amber, I've got something I need to do." She was at Starlight's side in a flash. "Are you serious? Here, why didn't you tell me?"
"Are you a magical genius?" Starlight frowned, a terminal shoved roughly inside the casing that obviously wasn't designed to be used refusing to cooperate with her.
Valey pushed her aside, too tense to grin. "No, but this is Ironridge tech. Bananas, ponies using the same design for everything... Used this stuff a ton when I'd mess with the Defense Force base's security system to frame someone or get away with something. Let's see, meh meh mehhh, where are we... Hey, what are the coordinates of Stormhoof, here? Using whatever system this thing is apparently calibrated for?"
"That's what I don't know," Starlight grumbled.
"It's probably calibrated relative to where we are now, seeing as it's a teleporter," Puddles growled. "We're in Grandbell now, yes, so you'll want to go several hundred miles west... Give me a hot minute to remember, my pony brain's frosty."
Felicity and Gondolus Gyre watched the fight from far enough behind their enchanted window that they were invisible from the other side, the giant sphinx sitting upright and holding Felicity like a doll in midair against his chest. It was ridiculous and demeaning, but Felicity swished her tail contentedly, keeping a straight face throughout every blow that Grandpapa landed.
"See?" Lord Gyre held her up with one big paw, the other petting her mane and ears. "I told you he would be fine. See how she's stopped moving? My champion is fine, your friend owes me for giving her the chance anyway... What did I tell you, you doubting little mare?"
Felicity ignored his ministrations, much more focused on the battle. "Must feel nice, voicing your predictions to someone who's paid to agree with you and tell you how right you are after the fact. This is a pro bono opinion, but you might want to think about becoming less-easy to manipulate, sometime..."
Lord Gyre laughed. "Ha! I can afford to be swindled by you, pleasure mare. And you're one to talk, doing the first and only thing asked of you when there's bits involved."
"I might need a little more before I agree with that one," Felicity teased, instantly being rewarded by another clinking bag tossed at the spot she had been sitting. "Mmm, that's more like it..."
Suddenly, a small throat cleared itself behind them. The sphinx turned, turning Felicity with him, and Senescey was there.
"Ah, darling!" Felicity exclaimed, instantly giving Gondolus the cold shoulder once more before wilting for Senescey as well. "I... well, did the best I could for your friends, but as you can see, it's... not going swimmingly for them. But look on the bright side!" She unpinned the bit bags she had been holding in her mane and tossed them to the floor as well, once again beaming. "Seems someone wanted me on the clock tonight. Be a dear and squirrel these away at home for me?"
Senescey swallowed, avoiding eye contact with Lord Gyre. "Thanks, Felicity," she mumbled, watching the money instead. "I... will have to go and talk to them again, won't I? After the fight, do you think you could...?"
"Not now, darling, I'm getting paid!" Felicity brushed her aside, shamelessly nuzzling the bottom of Lord Gyre's chin and earning a chuckle.
"Right..." The bags disappeared beneath Senescey's wings, and she quietly got up and left.
Gondolus turned their attention back to the window, moving Felicity with him. Focused on the fight and unable to see her face, he completely missed a grim, remorseful smirk that passed for moments and then was gone.
"Ohh..." Senescey sighed, straightening up on the other side of Lord Gyre's door.
"So what did we get this time?" a voice asked next to her, and a blue-maned batpony with a smaller complexion rose from the shadows to meet her, instantly relieving her of the bags. "Mmm... Mhmm... He's getting stingier. Wonder if money is growing tighter even at the top in Gyre."
"Hello, Larceny," Senescey sighed, starting her walk away from the door. "It's a miracle we're able to get funding from him at all, given our situation. Or a curse. I hate stooping to him, and I hate seeing Felicity like that..."
Larceny shrugged, tucking the money away in a pair of oversized saddlebags. "Any more than you hate using your own talents for what they're best at?" She tapped Senescey's flank with a wingtip. "Takes sacrifices to get things done, sometimes."
Senescey frowned. "Says you," she countered. "You weren't old enough to... to remember Mother when she..."
"And neither were you." Larceny slowed slightly, keeping her voice down. "Only Felicity was, and this is her job, her plan and her decision. Whether we agree with it or not, we let her worry about what she's willing to live with and in turn handle our own. You trust her, right?"
"Fine," Senescey huffed. "But you're going in there next time when I have something on my conscience and she's using her brand."
"Not like either of us needed to in the first place," Larceny remarked, rolling her shoulders. "She's perfectly capable of carrying this home herself, and we're just fine waiting until she's off work to see her. But since we've got it, let's get this back home. Can't believe how fast we burn through it..."
Above, the crowd's distant roar filtering in from outside intensified, signifying that the tides of battle had changed.
"Nnngh..." Shinespark grunted against her armor, body refusing to move and barely strong enough to lift the heavy metal limbs even if she could. "No! Work! Work!"
Grandpapa raised an eyebrow at Howe.
"Uhhh..." the pegasus hesitated, drawing a wing through his red and black mane. "Heh heh... As unfortunate as it is for fate to decree I inflict this on you, ally of Valey, behold... one two three four five si-"
"I can't believe I'm about to do this," Nyala interrupted in Shinespark's ears, voice intended for her and her alone. "This isn't going to work, but if you can push yourself this hard for Valey, I can too. Here goes..."
The armor's wings twitched and snapped closed, interrupting Howe halfway through his bashful counting. Nyala's neck whirred as she re-exerted control over her body, the sealed, armored helm extending to fully cover Shinespark's face. With a sapphire glow, Nyala's eyes came alight, and she switched her voice to sound like Shinespark's, snapping out her boosters and igniting them in a charge straight at Grandpapa. "I'm not finished yet!"
The old stallion was too dumbstruck to successfully dodge, caught by a right hook and plowed into the ground with a pained grunt, rolling several times and dropping the sword in his shock. He recovered before Nyala could follow up, though, sliding out of reach and staring with wide eyes. "That's impossible! How are you still on your hooves!?"
Nyala didn't grace him with an answer, stomping over to the fallen sword. "What are you doing?" Shinespark whispered inside the helmet, the armor's technology giving her a perfect view of what was going on despite having her eyes obscured. "I thought you didn't know how to fight?"
"That won't matter if he has no way to hurt me," Nyala replied in her ears. "He wouldn't have hit you either if you had kept your helmet on. Maybe you wanted to show that you were fighting as yourself, but it's my turn now."
"Just be careful," Shinespark hissed. "You're not invincible!"
"Sorry." Nyala cut her off. "Too busy being terrified and doing something I said I'd never do, but doing it anyway. Here I go!"
"I have no idea how, but she's back up again! Howe was counting and about to time her out!" Amber narrated excitedly from across the sound stone, Valey back to listening with everything she had while Puddles made her best guesses on what to do with the teleporter and Starlight did it for her. "He must have hit her four or five times, and she's jerky and less graceful but still going! Valey, I wish you could see Shinespark right now. She's doing you so proud..."
"Yeah, well, with any luck, I'll be able to." Valey winced, wishing her supernatural reference point she could locate anywhere was currently where she wanted to go rather than standing right in the same room. "Trying to hack the teleporter we used to get here, or something, which is totally stolen Ironridge tech from that Arambai dude. Too bad the pony and the armor who would best be able to help us are preoccupied..."
"I told you, Gerardo is flying as fast as he can looking for a map," Amber consoled. "Stormhoof and Grandbell are big cities, but we'll find you your distances as accurate as we can!"
"There's not going to be anything you can do if you get here," Maple warned. "Making an exception to swap fighters out is one thing, but letting you in to pick up for Shinespark after she's been defeated or worn down?"
Valey grimaced. "Still gonna watch, still gonna try, and if it comes down to me playing fair and losing or me cheating and losing, I'm gonna cheat. That's how it was in Ironridge, and it's true today too! That Grandpapa clown isn't getting the last laugh on me."
"I am here!" Gerardo's panting voice burst onto the scene, along with the sound of tripping over a chair. "Angle and direction, yes. You'll need to orient yourself, but I have the distances here..."
Starlight looked up from tinkering with the control panel, completely gray and with her once-round pupils reduced to vertical slits. "It's currently connected to the capitol of Gyre, so figure out the direction relative to that?"
Valey repeated her request to the sound stone, and Gerardo cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. One moment for me to ensure I have my measurements right; I don't want you accidentally appearing in the mountains to the south..."
It didn't take long for Grandpapa to recover and return to fighting as he always had, only this time unable to aim for Shinespark's face. But Nyala was far slower, less practiced and less creative, and he rained down blows all across her armor, effortlessly able to dodge every attempt at an attack.
"You're slower, at least, my dear," he remarked between blows, sliding beneath her in a move that would have earned instant punishment with rocket boosters had Shinespark been in control. "But if you want me to buy for a moment that you aren't faking, you'll have to fully give up. You aren't doing your body any favors, pushing yourself in this state."
"I'm sorry," Nyala said in Shinespark's ears, "I can't go any faster! Even if I was confident in my acrobatics, without your cutie mark to power the armor, I'm running through my power reserves quickly. You already drained me, so I have about five minutes left fighting like this..."
Shinespark grimaced. She didn't want to tell Nyala he had won, but...
"And I don't buy that your horn won't recover, either!" Grandpapa slipped in again, landing a harshly-angled blow at the attachment Nyala was using to pin the sword to her hoof. With a crack of metal, the small, too-compact attachment broke, sending the sword clattering across the ground. Nyala dove to recover it, but Grandpapa was faster.
Hefting it, he frowned sympathetically, keeping the blade locked down so it couldn't be telekinetically yanked away. Shinespark's eyes widened inside the helmet, and she gasped. "Nyala, be careful! That sword can cut through-"
"Seeing as you're so well-endowed," Grandpapa interrupted, "a little sharing seems fair. Let's see if we can't find any chinks in that armor?"
Nyala tried to dodge, but Grandpapa's lunge was true, clipping her foreleg. Expecting resistance, he put his weight behind the strike, but the blade passed clean through.
"Woah!" Nyala wobbled, swinging the severed leg out of the way and falling on top of him. "M-My leg!"
Inside, Shinespark felt a dull tingle in her leg and then nothing, drawing a sharp breath as nothing changed. She still couldn't move it, but it wasn't her mobility she was concerned about: Nyala was heavy, and without the armor's mechanics to support her, her leg could be crushed under her own weight. "Surrender!" she desperately called as Grandpapa shadow snuck out of danger. "Nyala, with that he can destroy you!"
"Most curious," Grandpapa murmured, standing back and readying another strike. "Just where did you get a blade like this, my dear? It's clearly magical..."
FLAAAAASH!
Valey, Starlight and Puddles appeared somewhere cold, with no ground beneath their hooves.
"Oh bananas!" Valey yelled, grabbing the sound stone and reacting to the fall first. "Birdo you dunce, you forgot to give us the height! Gyre is way further above sea level than Grandbell!"
The sea line unfolded far in the distance below her, Stormhoof's sparsely-lit coast twinkling orange with the castle island shortly off to one side. Valey was high enough up she could block her view of the whole palace with one hoof, but sightseeing was the last of her concerns.
Fwooosh! "Gotcha!" She flipped and dove, landing beneath Puddles' ragdoll body and securing the unconscious mare atop her back. "Bananas, wish you could hold on... and good thing you're light. Starlight!"
"Valey!" Starlight called from a distance below, her voice carrying upward far easier than Valey's could outrace her.
"Coming! Nnngh!" Valey put on a burst of downward speed, having a difficult time picking Starlight out of the blackness.
"I'm terribly sorry!" Gerardo urgently rambled, apologizing as hard as he could into the sound stone. "I was entirely concerned about direction and distance, and didn't even pause to think you would need to re-calibrate the-"
Valey's eyes spotted a patch of darker darkness, and she surged forward again, careful not to let Puddles leave her back. "Yeah, we'll cover that later! At least we're in the right spot! How's Sparky holding up?"
Maple loudly swallowed. "He just... stole her sword and stabbed her with it. It looks like her leg?"
"Bananaaaaaaaaaaas!" Trailing a streamlined streak of green, Valey's speed redoubled, catching Starlight and whisking her downward even faster than she had been falling. Different shades of black glimmered in Starlight's eyes at the speed, but Valey didn't have time to focus on appearances, stretching out her free hoof as her lips tore back and her eyes watered from the wind, wings beating to go even faster.
"Valey, what are you doing!?" Starlight protested above the wind as the city opened up around them, the colosseum first becoming visible and then their clear target. "You're going too fast! We'll crash!"
"No chance of a giant crystal boulder like when we fell off the dam?" Valey grimaced against the wind, still packing on speed as the air seemed to crystallize in a cone before her. "Because we're gonna take that guy and drop on him like-" Her eyes shrank as her cutie mark suddenly burned. "Oh bananas we're gonna crash!"
Valey spread her wings, nearly tearing them from their sockets as she tried to arrest her momentum. The arena was close enough now to make out Shinespark and her opponent as pinpricks, which gave her several precious seconds to force herself upward. She pumped once, twice, flipping around and braking as hard as she could. She was going to make it. Puddles was emaciated and Starlight was light, and she still had several...
POW!
Valey impacted a transparent dome of force around the center of the arena, the colosseum bowl rising all around her. A single second more, and she would have braced for impact, but Puddles and Starlight slammed against her as she was prone, all three having their descent immediately arrested.
"Hurrrrgh..." Valey wheezed, fighting against unconsciousness from the impact. She stayed lucid just well enough to see Grandpapa ready a second stab, hitting Shinespark's chest and running her clean through.
"Hm. No blood," Grandpapa said, withdrawing and inspecting the blade. "This really is an interesting sword, you know that? Do you surrender?"
Shinespark had no voice to answer with, and Nyala wasn't quick enough, so he experimentally sliced again, piercing the armor in the shoulder. "I'm out of power!" Nyala whispered in Shinespark's ears, Shinespark shivering involuntarily as the sword struck her again. "My reserves switched to empty! I thought I still had a minute... Now I can only talk on the energy from my own cutie mark, and it's not loud enough for him to hear me!"
There was nothing Shinespark could do to answer. Her horn was dull, her cutie mark not responding, the armor frozen around her and only her eyes still mobile. But the visor had gone opaque, leaving her blind and only able to hear a muffled version of the outside world, her mouth frozen solid with no will to move. Panic spiked in her heart and quickly evolved to terror, the sword piercing her again in a broader slash that made Nyala's voice completely cut out. She screamed for help against the walls of her mind, but there was nobody who could hear her. Nobody...
"Nngh..." Valey slid to the bottom of the shield dome, still carrying Starlight and Puddles, barely clinging to consciousness as Neon Nova's commentary began to notice her arrival. "Sparky, just surrender already..." Her eyes narrowed venomously on Grandpapa, who hadn't yet noticed her himself. "You scumbag. You're not getting away with this..."
"What did we hit?" Starlight groaned, her own head pounding from the impact but in much better shape than Valey's. "I couldn't see anything..."
"Well. Looks like someone thought to put up a shield to stop cheaters like you," Puddles growled, already too unconscious to be knocked out again. "So much for that plan..."
Starlight frowned. A magic shield? Then there wasn't a chance...?
Valey forced herself to raise her head, looking much the worse for wear. "Sparky... You jerk, stop hitting her! I'll impale you with that thing a m-million times..."
Narrowing her eyes, Starlight activated her shadow cloak. When she reached out again, the shield wasn't there at all.
"Be right back," she declared, voice masked slightly by the disguise. Valey didn't even notice.
Still aching from the impact and the fall, Starlight dropped the last of the way to the arena floor and landed on her hooves, breaking into a run toward the platform in the center. She didn't drop her cloak; the entire empire was watching for all she knew. However far she had grown from her days in Riverfall of being afraid of being special, it wasn't far enough to put her name publicly on what she was about to do.
Starlight vaulted over the edge of the platform, slipping straight past Howe's uncertain form without notice. Shinespark's sarosian opponent had finished another threat and demand to surrender and was raising the sword again, drawing it back in a great show of deliberateness... and she rose behind him, lifted a hoof, and smacked it aside, knocking the sword completely from his delicate grasp.
"Ah? Who goes...?" Grandpapa spun, and found himself face to face with nothing.
"I have a message from Valey," Starlight declared, her shadow flowing around her like a hole in space. Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she wound up and punched his face as hard as she could.
It was a filly-sized punch, and Grandpapa barely looked like he felt it. But what he did do was notice her, and he slowly stumbled back, pupils shrinking in primal horror. His mouth moved, unable to form words, and at the sight of Starlight's form he turned and fled, running as if his soul depended on it.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh." Howe worked his jaw, taking a step closer. "Greetings, eldritch foe? Didn't see that coming..."
Unsure what to do and not feeling like being unmasked, Starlight held her silence, retreating toward one of the arena's shadowed entrance corridors.
Shinespark didn't move when Howe stepped toward her, Neon Nova's voice over the announcement loudspeakers equally dumbfounded. "Did something just happen down there, folks? Feels like my eyes are playin' tricks on me, but it looks like the defender fled the arena right before being declared victor! What in the Empire is going on!?"
"Well, uhh..." Howe tilted his head at Shinespark. "You're still here, though you look as though a divine chaos beast seven millennia old smote you with every drop of its power. And you technically weren't knocked out yet..." He rubbed the back of his mane with a wing. "Does that mean you win? Are you hale and hearty enough to step forward and claim possibly ignoble victory?"
Shinespark still didn't move.
"Deliberations from on high, coming down," Neon Nova declared. "That should have been a resounding victory, but if this 'Grandpapa' doesn't want to claim it? Judges say it's a tie! The match doesn't count, no one changes position!"
Inside her armor, Shinespark heard the crowd roar, felt Howe and Neon Nova's words sink into her ears... and in no condition to appreciate it, she passed out from stress.
"What happened!?" Maple stared dumbstruck at the arena, a grinning Gerardo leaning on the railing at her side. "Valey is still in? Did I hear that right?"
"She did it!" Amber cheered, jumping up and down with abandon. "I don't know how she did it but she did it! Booyah! Ahaha, yes!"
"I don't believe our ears are playing tricks on us," Gerardo commented, putting a victorious talon on each of their shoulders and a broad wing over Slipstream. "And unless my eagle eyes deceive me, our friends who were abroad have just dropped in as well. Seems it's time to rally the crew and get everyone back together, hmm?"
Amber pumped a hoof. "You bet we are! For a celebration!"
"I was thinking a good night's rest..." Maple said with a smile.
"However you want to do it, I'll be there," Slipstream offered. "This isn't my forte, but I know putting your neck on the line when I see it. You're all lucky to have such an awesome group of friends."
"Hah," Felicity scoffed, slipping effortlessly from Lord Gyre's grasp and landing with catlike grace on the floor. "Told you not to overthink your champion."
Gondolus pouted.
"Hope this doesn't interfere with your plans," Felicity hummed, aloof and uninterested. "Now, I've stayed here quite long enough but I'm afraid business is calling my name elsewhere. Don't get too caught up in your own ego, and do remember I prefer that one press of coins from seventy-eight years back that uses that one royal's face on the back, mmm? Just in case you have nothing better to do with your time."
The sphinx wasn't given time to react, Felicity scooping up the second crop of money bags she had managed to earn after her sisters came by and sneaking out of the room. She paused briefly in the hallway, a guard in Stormhoof colors noticing her and nodding politely. "Brilliant work, Shinespark," she whispered to herself under her breath. "You stick it to those goons and fight for your friends. I'm proud of you, darling. Unstoppable, loyal and determined, with your morals all in the right places... I think I'm going to enjoy being on good terms with you all, yes indeed..."
Jamjars sat in an almost-empty private box and flicked her tail, watching the arena in annoyance as the fight concluded. "Looks like Valey is still in the tournament," she sighed. "Her dumb foe ran off for some reason and they declared it a tie. Ugh. That means I did all this work for nothing!"
A ridiculously polite voice cleared its throat behind her over the course of several seconds. "Ahe-he-he-he-hem. I do suppose that means our business is not, in fact, business to be had?"
"Nope," Jamjars sighed, leaning against the side of her seat. "No need to mess up the announcer broadcast, no need to fudge the results, no need for me to bust my back and offer a ton of favors to Grapejuice to help me track down someone who wasn't Chauncey on zero moments' notice who both had access to the registration records and the stupid Izvaldi-provided sound system..." She stretched back in her chair and groaned. "And I probably owe you a lot for wasting your time on this, too. Give it to me straight, bird. What do you want in payment from a filly like me?"
The avian voice coughed. "Connections. Future business. Merely remembering my name will be enough, Milady." He hesitated. "Perhaps if you have any future dealings related to Izvaldi..."
"That's great. Just great." Jamjars put a hoof against her forehead. "I love having someone who can call a favor from me at any time like that. Just love it. Just figure out your future business soon, okay? Or I'll get a lot less honorable and decide it's not worth having an exploitable weakness before leaving you in the dust. Your manner of speech is annoying."
"A thousand pardons." Behind her, a short, bottle-green griffon in an absurdly prim bowtie bowed, his voice airy and wheezy and suggesting he couldn't yell without devolving into an unintelligible caw. "But it is worth it for me, mmm yes, very much so! Connections make the world go 'round! I will remember you, and you will be remembering me, and we will recall this as a fortunate coincidence rather than a lost opportunity. Your friend's position is safe, is it not?"
"Yeah, no thanks to me..." Jamjars sighed, getting up and avoiding his gaze as she turned to leave. "No one ever needs contingency plans. I just want to put all my hard work to use and not rely on getting lucky!" She huffed, paused, and gave him a glance as she stood in the doorway. "See you, Kero."
Kero bowed. "I will be seeing you as well, young Jamjars. To our future dealings."
Shinespark slowly felt herself come to... or, at least, her mind came to. Her body seemed to still be sleeping, regulating its own breathing and heartbeat but otherwise sitting, inert. She couldn't stretch her legs, she couldn't adjust the patch of fur she had slept on the wrong way, couldn't brush her bangs out of her eyes or scratch behind a folded ear... Every time she tried to move, there was no reaction. She was a puppet with her strings cut.
Even trying to ask for help or tell someone her back hurt produced no words, her mouth not acknowledging that it was being commanded to move. She could move her eyes, feel another body pressed against her, was aware of a horrible, lingering sensation that she had been broken in a way that didn't cause physical pain yet was clearly worse than any normal injury... and that was it. That was everything.
"Nngh... Buh?" The body beside her snuffled, Valey's voice reaching her ears. "Breathing's changing... Yo, Sparky, you awake? Sparky?"
Her bed shifted as Valey moved, the room around her recognizable as her own on the ship. Then Valey was blocking her vision, looking like she had been hit by a wagon and couldn't care less. "Yo, eyes? Tracking?" She waved a hoof, and Shinespark followed it. Valey sighed in relief. "Bananas, you're okay..."
Shinespark really wasn't okay, but she didn't have any way to tell Valey that. She couldn't even remember how she had escaped the arena, only passing out as Grandpapa used her sword to stab her and break Nyala over and over, long after she had lost the ability to surrender. She was as good as comatose, Valey's sister was probably worse, she had gotten herself tied up with Gyre for a chance she never did anything with, and now she couldn't even-
"Snap out of it!" Valey gently poked her, frowning. "I know that look. Real quick, you know the drill? Look right for yes, left for no, down for I don't know. Your directions, not mine. First things first: you're obviously not alright, but is there anything wrong with you that'll get worse if we just leave you to rest? Something that needs professional attention?"
Shinespark frankly had no idea, but assumed all of her maladies were magical or Mistvale-based in nature. That probably did need professional attention, but also wouldn't get worse if left. She hoped.
"Right. Cool." Valey let out a huge sigh. "Look, I... feel as bad as I look right now, and kinda need to lie down instead of standing around where you can see me. Got some stuff to tell you, but is there anything else you need me to ask you before I stop with the eye contact? Like, got anything pressing you need me to guess at until I figure out?"
Shinespark looked down, a whole mess of emotions concocting themselves in her chest. The longer she gave herself to think, the more they would grow, and she wasn't capable of expressing them in any way save for a wetness in her eyes that could soon turn into tears.
"Gonna take that as good enough." Valey flopped hard back into the bed, landing against her. "Ow. We pretty much both had to be dragged back here after that. Got them to put us up together so you'd have company when you woke. Nyaah... Next battle isn't until tomorrow, so at least I've got a little time to sleep this off. Who would have thought crashing into a giant invisible force barrier you didn't know the arena had was painful?"
At the mention of Valey's next battle, Shinespark froze... except her limp body didn't even feel like going stiller. The question burned on her tongue, and she had no tongue to voice it: Valey was having a next battle?
"Heh... not sure how I'm gonna one-up you, though." Valey's voice grew wistful. "I mean, I beat people up. It's kind of my job. Totally what I'm good at. And just because I was off catching Starlight after some big bad bagged her, you jumped in and found some way to take my place in this big macho fighting tournament I only entered to prove a point to you a while back. Bananas, if I lose, I lose. I got what I wanted already. And you ran in to keep me in at the risk of completely getting yourself blown up, and boom. You got completely blown up."
Shinespark felt a lot more than blown up, but Valey was no longer looking, so she couldn't even agree.
"Seriously. That was dumb," Valey chided. "Exactly the kind of thing I'd probably do. You do remember why I'm fighting there in the first place, right? Because I can? Figured you could, like... use a good example of how to live your life the way you want to, even if your past is something you just have to leave behind. Like how you were struggling with all your old responsibilities, and... bananas, I don't remember. Who even cares? I was just fighting in it because I could."
She paused, then chuckled. "Heh... I guess you cared. Maybe I was a better role model than I thought. Seriously, though. If you're willing to stand up to that for my chance, here? I don't even know what I want out of it, but there's no way I'm letting that down. You were cool, Sparky. Like, really cool. Even if there wasn't the whole 'Gerardo's sword kills batponies' thing, getting hit by that once was enough for Maple and Amber. I don't even wanna know what three or five or so times does to you."
Shinespark tried to fold her ears, again to no avail. Valey was still in the contest? She had lost! She was completely outmatched, Grandpapa's plaything from the moment she took her first step forward...
"Bananas, we need to get rid of that sword," Valey sighed. "What have we done with it so far? Tried to use it against Herman, and Maple got stabbed. Amber impaled herself because she was curious. Then it killed a whole lot of batponies, and when you tried to use it for another duel it turned right around and stabbed you. It's just not worth our enemies using it on us. Imagine if that jerkface had tried to stab Starlight instead of running off. I don't even wanna know what that would do... Point is, we should bury it, seal it, throw it in the ocean and be done with it, because unless there's some trick to it that completely changed everything, that sword just hurts us. All the time."
Shinespark burned with curiosity, and somehow, Valey picked up on it and answered. "Oh yeah, you wouldn't know about Starlight. When I found her? She had already escaped. Go figure. Used moon glass to do it, of all the possible things. Completely beats me how it works, but that time she touched the Nightmare Module back when we were doing the pirate stuff? She still had it. Just pulled it out and started using it, or something. I kind of got steamrolled a bit by some weird mind magic down in some tunnels and was a little too busy getting my own act back together to get the details on how it works, but honestly? She seems almost... like it's not completely terrible for her to be using them. No evil incarnations or getting ripped apart by shadowy magic or any of that stuff. Don't ask how or why. She's with Maple right now; for all I know they're finding a way to set her back to normal and gonna have that done before we even get up again."
Valey interrupted herself with a yawn, nyup-nyupping and continuing with her ramble. "Bananas, though, I still can't get that out of my mind, and I was borderline passed out from the collision when it happened. You were getting murdered up there by Gerardo's sword after I spent the whole fight listening to Amber's commentary, and it really sounded like you survived as best as you could, and then... right before the referee could whack him for attacking an opponent while they were down, I bet, there was Starlight. Just gave him one look and sent him running for the hills. Match was a draw. I guess maybe he knows what Nightmare Modules look like?"
Shinespark felt her eyes widen even in their cut-stringed state. Starlight had intervened? They had been that close to home while she was fighting? It had just been a battle of holding out long enough, then, and she had done it...?
It was fortunate she couldn't speak, because if she could, she wouldn't have stopped. She had actually done it. Even if it was hardly on her own, even if there was a terrible physical price and eventually a political one, too, she had made the difference. If she hadn't stepped in and given everything she had to the fight, spared no effort to go as long and hard as she could, the ending might have been different. But she had given her friend a chance?
Valey mumbled a little more about Nightmare Modules into her shoulder, sounding like she was starting to grow sleepy... until the door gently opened, Maple stepping into the room. "Are either of you awake?" she whispered.
"Huh? Oh yeah, both. Hi, Ironflanks." Valey didn't even look up in recognition.
Shinespark tried to move her eyes, but didn't have a direction for hello.
"Good to know you're alive," Maple hummed, just sharp enough that it sounded like she had seriously entertained the possibility. "Anyway, I don't know if you'd like to stay here or come out to the library or dining hall, but there are several people here who would like to meet you. I think you might want to hear from them..."
Valey managed to walk on her own back to the Immortal Dream's library, though her spine felt like it had been ran through a garbage compactor and all her legs were shaky from hitting the shield, never mind the effects of flying for two days with only a single rest. It wasn't nearly as bad as after she had fought Wallace, at least. Or Herman. She owed it to a lot more than just herself to be on her hooves for the following day's fight, so on her hooves she was.
Shinespark had to be carried, Amber moving to help Maple with the mare. When she exited the hallway, a familiar trio was waiting for her: Senescey, Felicity and Larceny all together, standing in the corner or lounging in chairs.
"Well!" Felicity greeted, looking visibly relieved at their presence, mane wet like she hadn't bothered to dry it after a shower. "That was an experience, wasn't it? We felt a round of congratulations was in order, darlings, and were certain you'd have questions and possibly favors to ask of us now that all that's behind you."
"I heard you got Starlight back?" Senescey crossed and uncrossed her hooves. "I'm... We're very relieved. I promise, we've talked about it now and we're very sorry all this happened in the first place. I know the Night Mother suggested things to me that probably led to me suggesting you take her for a medical evaluation, but I never imagined anything like this would happen..."
Larceny nodded, keeping a careful eye on the room without anything to add.
"Bananas. Yeah, it was an experience... Ow." Valey rubbed the side of a leg with a forehoof, glad it wasn't broken again. "Questions?"
Senescey smiled shakily at Shinespark. "Well, I'm sure I owe you a better explanation for everything that happened, at least. This is an offer from all of us, but if knowing any of our secrets or what we do could help... just if you need to know why..." She folded her ears. "We can't tell you why the Night Mother suggested that, though. None of us know what she's thinking. Just that we trust her."
Valey grimaced. "Yeah, I might know a thing or two about why she suggested that, now, actually. Kind of a weird story..."
Shinespark didn't respond, and eventually Felicity reached across from her chair with a wing and tapped her sister. "I don't think she's capable of responding, Senescey, darling."
"Mhmm..." Maple nodded, Shinespark laying partway across her back. "It's that sword we were telling you about. I don't suppose you'd like to see if it really is similar to Mistvale arts and you can fix it somehow?"
"Wait, you can do that?" Valey blinked. "It is? That would actually be really cool..."
Amber nudged her. "Speaking of, you got kind of wrecked by that crash yourself, girl. Maybe they can touch you up too a notch?"
"Ehh..." Valey folded her ears. "Really not fond of anyone who can do that stuff touching my body, but I probably need to get over myself. And you did just help dunk the dude who's the reason I feel that way." She blew a raspberry at herself. "Bananas, if you had told me back in Ironridge I would ever turn down a magic massage from another mare, I'd have laughed at you until I passed out from lack of breath. Sure, you can do it. Go ahead."
Senescey moved over to Valey, but Felicity focused on Shinespark, climbing luxuriously out of her chair and moving to put her hooves on the mare's back. "Set her down, if you would? Belly down, preferably, and legs out. Now let me see here... First, let's get a feeling for what's wrong with you."
Shinespark was arranged as requested, and Felicity started running her hooves down her, tapping here and there and humming to herself. "Can't really talk about things if you can't talk, mmm? Let's see, that Grandpapa really did quite a number on you, didn't he? A whole mishmash of different..."
She stopped. As if in slow motion, Felicity's eyes widened, a look of surprise spread across her face, and all of a sudden she jumped back as if shocked. "A-Ah!" She sat back, releasing Shinespark, holding a hoof to her chest and panting. "Oh my..."
"Yo, what happened!?" Valey snapped in concern, looking immediately up from Senescey. "What's going on?"
"That... Wow..." Felicity shook herself, getting her breathing back under control. "Felt like stepping into a freezing river when you were expecting solid ground. That..." She regarded Shinespark in awe. "What happened to you?"
"You tell us," Gerardo requested, standing in the entrance of the room so as to make more space for everyone else. "You felt something?"
"Something is one way of putting it." Felicity ran a hoof through her wet mane, then returned to Shinespark, wincing heavily but maintaining contact. "This is... Her body is filled with sorrow. Not just any sorrow, but a ghost or after-image, like she touched something momentarily and the memory of it was burned into her being. So much so that it didn't even want to tell me, like she took a moment to divulge it to me, tried to shield me from it... She..." She put a cheek and then an ear on Shinespark, listening for a moment.
Maple's eyes widened, and she looked from Shinespark to the sword, recovered and strapped at Gerardo's side. "Sorrow?"
Felicity nodded, still feeling Shinespark. "Indeed. There are many negative emotions a pony can feel, some what you'd truly consider as bad or evil, others merely byproducts of living. Oftentimes they're mixed together, but this is... some of the purest emotion I've ever felt, and it's merely the shadow. I can't imagine what sort of thing could have done this to her, but the reason she can't move is because her body is... It's in mourning. She's almost been burned by sorrow, by regret for something that happened. It's... This is extremely intense, just the afterimage. I don't want to imagine what must have inflicted this sadness on her."
Gerardo self-consciously cleared his throat, shifting his sword at his side.
"Is there anything you can do to make it better?" Amber whispered. "At least enough to allow her to talk?"
"I'm not sure." Felicity grimaced, trying another sequence of taps. "The Mistvale effects from earlier in the fight, I can undo, though it's difficult. It's like... Shinespark's body is too busy mourning to do any of the effects I try to impel it to do, you know? This is on a different level from her mind, I might add. Bodies are physical objects. For something physical to take scars from emotion... Well, that's what Mistvale arts do, but it's still something. Fortunately, she's not really feeling up to being messed up by those hostile Mistvale effects, either. Them, at least, I almost have cleaned up."
"Yeah, but the sword?" Valey wandered over. "Forget the geezer, anything you can do about that?"
Amber frowned at Shinespark in thought. "I remember we decided I recovered a lot quicker than usual," she mused to herself. "And one of the connections I made was that I didn't feel as bad about being paralyzed as I could have. It was terrible for you, Maple, and you went through some bad stuff because of it, but I was actually happy for my situation."
Valey latched onto that idea quickly. "Yeah, and you've got stuff to be proud about. Bananas, you saved my tournament run. That's a big deal to you, right? So maybe you're paralyzed. You did awesome, and you did enough. Even if you're out, we can take it from here."
Shinespark's eyes tilted right, agreeing with her.
"Honestly?" Felicity kept working on Shinespark, tapping her forehead. "Yes, I can do something. There's nothing about this that works differently from what I do; it's merely a question of scale. Just, that scale... Well, I'm afraid it might amount to no more than a drop in the bucket. Far less than a strong or determined soul could do fighting against it on its own. And Shinespark has already proved herself quite resilient. I do think Amber's advice is good, though. Trying to feel good about yourself might help it wear off much quicker."
In the corner, Larceny spoke up. "So you're saying that sword did this to her? That it's filled with regret she was exposed to? You know inanimate objects can't have emotions, right?"
Valey hesitated, her mind flickering back to a certain corrupted dusk statue. "You know, I wouldn't actually bank on that..." she murmured. "But yeah, that's spooky."
Amber's voice grew quiet. "So her body is too sad to move because it touched a sword for a split second, which means that sword was even sadder? Forget about what it takes to make a sword sad..." She looked slowly at the sword at Gerardo's side. "Or... no, don't forget about that. How does it happen? Are there things in the world intense enough to fuse emotions into physical objects?"
"Indeed there are," Gerardo replied. "You've never visited a true battlefield, Amber, but if you had you'd be able to feel it. Not just any place there was a skirmish, but some of history's truest conflicts... In the same way that a chapel might feel sanctified through what is done there, the land remembers. There are some places where you can merely go and sit for a while, and even with your eyes closed and no one for miles to tell you, you know something has happened in that place's history."
Maple gave the sword a hollow look. "So you're telling me that thing has such a strong history that just by a brief second of cutting someone, they can't move for a week because their body is in mourning over what it felt? Sadness is already something you feel after something has happened. I know all about it." She glanced to Shinespark. "That's a memory of a memory, from an inanimate object. That sword..." She glanced back to Gerardo. "What was it used for?"
Felicity sighed. "Knowing what I can feel here, darlings, and every filter that emotion has been passed down through? I can't even think of an act someone could commit with a sword catastrophic and reprehensible enough to cause this. A great betrayal? An execution of the innocent? There's no horror, here, or hatred or desire for vengeance. Merely sorrow."
"...Birdo?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Whatever this thing is, I'm pretty sure whoever sold it to you was not a child merchant selling things for their mother."
An hour later, Felicity and her sisters had taken their leave, Valey and Shinespark as fixed as they could get them. Felicity made it clear there was more she wanted to discuss, but then was hardly the time, not when Shinespark couldn't speak and everyone's minds were on Gerardo's sword in the first place.
"...Well," Gerardo said, sitting in a circle in the library with the sword propped in the middle, Shinespark carefully arranged in a chair and Maple, Amber, Slipstream and Valey sitting or standing around it as well. "It feels as though there's something to be said, yet I can't imagine what it is."
"I've got something." Valey raised a still-tender hoof, giving Gerardo a look. "That thing? No more using it. Not for anything. Bananas, it never works out for us. Got Ironflanks stabbed in the Water District, got Sparky stabbed now, and on the pirate ship it killed a ton of dudes and nearly got us into massive trouble with Meltdown and Gazelle. I have no idea if you can magic a weapon to betray whoever wields it, but at best, that thing does equal damage to us and whoever we're using it on. And next time, it might hit someone who can't just sleep it off, like me."
"Agreed." Amber nodded firmly. "But we can't throw it away, either. If it gets used against us when we've got it, you think it won't if it's in someone else's hooves to start with? We tie it up, lock it down, seal it away, but above all don't let it out of our sight for one minute! It stays here on the ship. We just don't take it anywhere dangerous."
Maple nodded as well. "Worst comes to worst, I can carry it in my cutie mark. I've done it a few times before, and for some reason even though carrying things like windigo hearts hurts me, that sword is fine. I think it only affects things when it cuts them..."
Gerardo folded his wings. "Very well, then. Seems like a sensible opinion in light of everything we've learned. I do wish I could say more about where it came from, though. A nonliving object somehow imbued with enough negative emotion to form a devastating weapon... Hah. And here I thought this was a gentler, more merciful way of dispatching foes. When I got it, I merely thought it would be something unique and interesting; a weapon I could pretend was a heroic blade of legend. I wasn't expecting something actually special..."
"Yeah, about that..." Valey frowned. "While everyone's here, I need to debrief you guys really quick on what we found under Gyre. You said apparently the Night Mother was trying to get our attention on some spot because there was something she wanted us to take care of, right?"
Everyone nodded, and she sighed. "Yeah. Kinda weird that we're talking about emotionally cursed objects already, or whatever, because that's what's down there. There's this... thing, called Stanza, and what I got from Puddles is that it's a dusk statue someone built into a giant emotional sink for all the prisoners who are supposed to be executed by Garsheeva. This thing was foul. Just being in those tunnels messed my head up bad."
"Stanza?" Maple frowned. "I've heard that somewhere before. But I can't remember where..."
Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "I can. Young Jamjars mentioned it during out stay in Izvaldi. Apparently she eavesdropped on Chauncey talking to himself about that name. She said he didn't sounds pleased with something they had done."
Maple groaned. "That does ring a bell... So Izvaldi is involved in this? What does Izvaldi want with something beneath Gyre? And Chauncey is a batpony, and I thought Gyre hated batponies?"
"Yeah, you know what I think?" Valey suddenly stood up. "I think I didn't just leave that place behind to be reminding myself of it quite so soon. I've had a long day or two, am still pretty rattled, and think I need a good night's sleep to get my head back on straight. Or, uhh..." She folded her ears, looking at the tinges of dawn starting to illuminate the eastern windows. "Or a good day's sleep. Wake me in time for my fight? Whatever."
"It will be my pleasure!" Gerardo beamed. "Although, to be honest, I think staying up in vigil for you has left all of us a little tired..."
"Nyeh." Valey loped over to Shinespark. "Yo, Sparky, you wanna retire too? Actually, mind if I crash with you again? Figured you might like some company."
Shinespark looked down for a moment, then to the right. Then her eyes widened and went back to the left.
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head.
"No, she doesn't mind, probably," Maple murmured. "Yes, you do want company?"
Shinespark's eyes went right.
"Cool," Valey mumbled, shuffling toward the hallway. "Might need some help moving her, then..."
Gerardo and Slipstream moved to oblige, and soon it was just Maple and Amber left in the room. Maple sighed. "Starlight?"
"I'm still here," an obscured voice said from a corner of the room, and a shadowed hole in space stepped forward, completely unnoticeable by anyone who didn't already know it was there.
"Sorry we got distracted by Felicity and the sword," Maple murmured, holding out a hoof. "Come here? I'm so glad to have you back..."
"I'm so glad to be back." Starlight needed no urging, dropping her cloak and running into Maple's embrace like it was the most precious thing in the world. "You're warm. I need you..."
Amber settled into the chair beside them, watching Starlight with interest. "So, you're... gray now?" She folded and unfolded her ears. "And your eyes look like Valey's."
"I had to use the Nightmare Module to escape," Starlight mumbled. "I never lost it after the pirate ship. Remember when I touched it? It was saved in me somehow... There was also moon glass where I was being held. It did something to me, but I don't know exactly what. But it's not bad. I'm still me. I can live like this. It makes me more powerful, sometimes, too."
"That's not the first time you've said that," Maple whispered, rubbing her mane and ears. "I'm not sure how you wouldn't draw attention as a unicorn filly with batpony eyes, even if others got past you being gray. But are you sure?"
"Sure about what?" Starlight looked up, a tint of fear in her eyes that Maple would let go. "It lets me use this Nightmare Module, which makes me avoid attention and sometimes not be affected by magic fields. It also stops my horn from working, but my horn was broken anyway. Using the Nightmare Module is... really easy."
Maple bit her lip. "But touching moon glass does terrible things to batponies, Starlight. And you saw what happened to that pirate mare who used the Nightmare Module, remember? And I remember it hurting you a lot when you accidentally touched it long ago in Gnarlbough, and I remember you being scared and shaken when you got back to normal after the pirate ship, too. Are you sure you're alright?"
"Well..." Starlight hesitated, nuzzling back into her chest for a few minutes and refusing to answer. "I'm scared that I am," she eventually whispered. "I was thinking about it all while you were talking. I can... see things, while I'm like this. Look at ponies and see that they're bright or dim, but all of them have some kind of light that makes them precious. You're really bright. It's like I can see something in you I couldn't before. And we knew there was something wrong with my horn, which I use when I'm normal, right?" She sniffed. "And being hugged by you..." Starlight looked up, and her eyes were glassy with budding tears. "I don't think it used to feel this special. But I don't understand! Moon glass and Nightmare Modules do do bad things to batponies, so why, for me, do they...?"
Amber leaned in and ruffled her mane. "No idea. Maybe they're changing your memories so you think this is better than what you had? Maybe it's something else. But even if you do stay gray, we'll still be here for you, you hear?"
Maple thought for a moment. "Can you... cancel it and go back to normal, like you did last time? Just to see what happens? I can't believe you would really be better like this, but if you somehow are, we do have an entire crate full of moon glass in the cargo hold. We took it from Kero's villa in Skyfreeze, remember?"
Starlight frowned. "First off, that's not empty, and only empty moon glass does this to me. Remember when I teleported inside that box full of moon glass parts to follow you when you were foalnapped in Ironridge? I was fine then." She looked away. "And when I canceled it last time, I burned out my horn for nearly a month. If I can't have my horn either way, being like this gives me more magic and fewer headaches."
Maple sighed and leaned back, still holding her. "Then I don't have any idea of what to do."
"I'm scared," Starlight repeated, nestling into her. "It really does seem better this way! Like this is better for me and I should just stay that way! But either that means it's just convincing me this is better and I'm under some weird influence... and I hate being forced to like something that isn't me. You know how I feel about that. But this also really could be better, even though I know it's bad..."
"You know what?" Amber suddenly stood, a smile growing on her face. "You two get back to my room. I've got something I bet would actually clear things up."
Starlight rode on Maple's back for the short walk to their cabin, staying there and observing as Amber pulled an armored suitcase out from under the bed. It clicked open and rose like a clamshell, and immediately four points of light hit Starlight like a physical blast. She recoiled from the intensity, shielding her eyes with a foreleg... yet at the same time, that brightness was wonderful, like it was destined to fill a yawning void that comprised her being. It hurt her, yet she needed it, and she had to grip Maple's mane to stop herself from jumping off and trying to hoard that suitcase as hard as she could.
"Oh! The windigo hearts?" Maple tilted her head. "You think those... Hmm?"
"Think about it." Amber shrugged. "When you were telling the whole Ironridge story after you got back to Riverfall, you talked about how this stuff is from the crystal tree and you saw it burning away moon glass, right? And last time, Starlight turned herself back to normal with really intense magic, or something... and there's also some really intense magic involved when she hooks herself up to the harmony extractor, which is the same stuff as this. I'm just saying, there might be a connection."
Maple stepped closer, and Starlight felt her fur raise. "There might be," Maple whispered. "But how do we get it out?"
"Use your cutie mark?" Amber shrugged. "Remember Fire, the Yakyakistan mare who was taking care of this for us? She said she didn't recharge these to as extreme of an amount as they tried to use to force the windigoes into a dormant state, so they should be much weaker than the one that you hurt yourself using in the tunnels. Not that they had you to test on, but you could try it?"
Maple traced a hoof along the edge of one glowing sphere. "Starlight? Are you okay with us trying this?"
Starlight specifically wouldn't be okay with them not trying. "Yes, please," she requested, unable to look away.
"Well..." Maple swallowed, set her on the bed, and then lifted a swirling windigo heart, bright flames glowing from its sealed core. "Let's see if I can manage to not take all this at once, I suppose. Here goes..."
The heart disappeared, and suddenly it was Maple who was glowing instead. Where she had been bright before, now she was blinding, energy rising from her coat like misty fire, the empty heart dropping to the floor and rolling away. Starlight couldn't resist, flinging herself against her in as crushing a hug as she could deliver. Maple was precious. Maple was perfect. She had to have her.
"Ohhh my," Maple breathed, shivering hard from the energy. "This is intense... I... I didn't think I'd feel this again for a while..."
"You holding together, Maple?" Amber's worried voice came from nearby.
"I-I am." Maple swallowed. "It's a lot, but not too much. Now, Starlight, I... don't know exactly how to do this, but let me try..."
She wrapped Starlight in a hug in return, smothering her in her fur and forelegs and brightness, the light burning at Starlight's eyes even though they were squeezed closed. It felt like fire was dancing across her coat, and the brighter it got, the colder she realized she was inside. The pressure intensified, the light built, her body strained to stand up to it until it entered and broke across her like a wave, swirling over loneliness and misery in a wash of pink...
Warning: Nightmare Module emulation mode unstable due to harmonic overexposure. A driver update may be required. Shutting down...
Starlight's vision flickered, her eyes weren't closed anymore, and like drops of water washing away a film of chalk dust, she realized she could see colors again. Maple was tan. Amber was yellow. She was... half lilac and half gray, a wavering line where the colors changed receding down her until it was all the way gone. Her flank was still bare, her horn sparked welcomingly, and all of a sudden Starlight was assaulted by a wall of emotions and sensible truths she hadn't felt in the slightest while she had been grey.
Did Maple love her? Of course she did. This was special, and it always had been, but it wasn't some revolutionary new discovery that changed her worldview. She held the hug, and she needed the hug, but if she had to, she could break the hug, because Maple would be there tomorrow and the day after that because Maple cared about her and she cared back. Having friends and being loved was special, but it was also real, a reality she lived with. Not something mythical that would disappear the moment she blinked.
Shivering as a lingering memory of pain and longing left her, Starlight relaxed, growing content in Maple's embrace.
"Starlight?" Maple leaned over her to look at her face, her own eyes having reverted to their pink color from the last time she used the tree's magic. "How are you feeling?"
"Good." Starlight nuzzled her. "I don't understand what the moon glass does to me, but I feel like I remember or understand more now than I did then. And I can see in colors again. I forgot what colors were while I was like that."
"You sure look back to normal," Amber encouraged, patting her on the head. "How about you, Maple? You're, uh, glowing a little, there..."
Maple reddened slightly. "I'm glowing? Ohhh, I am... I think this is more harmony I have left than what I was left with after attacking the mercenaries on the lift. Maybe I should take a turn powering the ship to see if I can reduce this a little. Of try to find a way to put it back in the heart... Though it does feel sort of nice. Like something's whispering good things about me I just barely can't hear."
Amber chuckled. "Maybe save that for tomorrow? I'm pretty tired..."
"I'm tired too..." Starlight yawned, the need to sleep hitting her much more forcefully now that she was back to normal. Stanza, moon glass, everything... She'd think about it when she woke up. "Nini..."
Starlight snuffled in half-wakefulness, resting atop an upside-down Maple who held her in a hug as she slept. She felt herself gently rising and falling with Maple's soft breaths, Amber nestled nearby and soundly asleep. "Mmm... Maple..."
"You waking up?" Maple whispered, not opening her eyes.
"You're already awake?" Starlight murmured back.
"I have been for a while," Maple breathed, wonderful and all-encompassing against her. "I think holding this much harmonic energy is making it difficult. Or maybe I don't need sleep as much with it. Who knows?"
"Mmm." Starlight nuzzled her face into Maple's chest.
"You trying to go back to sleep?"
Starlight thought for a moment. "I don't think so," she decided. "I don't know. I have a lot to think about."
"Anything that shouldn't wait for later?" Maple whispered. "This is perfect, right now. I'm just so glad to have you back."
"No. I don't know." Starlight paused. "Was I really taken there because the pony behind the dusk statues wanted me to find that thing? Stanza?"
Maple exhaled, Starlight feeling her chest deflate beneath her. "That's what we were told," she sighed. "First by Senescey, and then Jamjars was sneaking around and says she saw the Night Mother herself talking to Gazelle in front of a dusk statue. It sounded like she had a problem and wanted to make us notice it, because she thought we'd fix it for her."
Starlight drooped a little. "She's probably mad that someone stole one of her dusk statues and did that to it."
"Tell me about it?" Maple asked. "About what you found down there? We were all distracted with the sword, and it only got mentioned a little..."
Starlight swallowed. "It's like they broke a dusk statue and bolted it back together, and built it onto an organ. An instrument. And the organ pipes grew all over the dungeon like tree roots, except they could move, and the ends formed statues with notes that asked prisoners to say bad or hurtful things into them. To tell it what they hated or were sad or vengeful about. The statue had a crown stuck in its chest like a knife, and it talked to me in my mind. It begged me to kill it and said a lot of things I didn't understand about darkness and pain. I don't know what it did to Valey, but she looked like she was in a trance while we were there. Puddles seemed to know a lot about it."
Maple ran a hoof comfortingly along her back. "It sounds horrible," she murmured.
"And then you were talking about objects that have emotions, like that sword," Starlight continued. "I wonder if Stanza is the same thing. Or Nyala. She's made of metal, but has feelings too, right? And what about Valey? She thinks batponies are some kind of machines because of how they react to moon glass and Nightmare Modules, but does that mean I'm one too? And if I'm not a real pony, how deep do we have to look to wonder if everyone is like this, not just batponies, and think that maybe there's no such thing as a real pony at all? Or maybe this is just what it means to be a person, which means that instead of me and Valey and Nyala being machines or something, the sword and Stanza are people too..."
Maple squeezed her tighter. "I am a mare who grew up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and spent her whole life with the world being just as big as that, Starlight," she replied. "During my foalhood, I wondered about whose house we would play at next, and my biggest worry was that someone I was friends with would be mad at me because I broke their toy. Later in life, I thought about Ironridge, spent my teenage years thinking about what life would look like once it became impossible. You know what happened to me once I tried to start a family. Starlight, I've had so much to worry about piled on my shoulders that it's a miracle I'm still able to live a happy, joyful, productive life, and all of my problems just had to do with me and a small circle of friends. And you're pondering whether the entire population of the world might not be real ponies? Thinking about where we came from and why?" She rubbed the back of Starlight's head. "These aren't things a filly should have to worry about, you know."
Starlight folded her ears. "I'm not worrying," she reassured. "I'm trying to find an answer. Valey would like to know, at least. And if I'm not supposed to think about it, who is?"
"No one?" Maple whispered. "Starlight, we do exist. I can feel you and feel how much I care about you, and know you feel the same. What does it matter how your body works? It has a soul inside, right? Your soul? Whatever you call on that makes you you, you have it. In Riverfall, nobody ever needs to know their purpose like this to be happy and live fulfilling lives."
"No, they don't," Starlight muttered. "But they also don't have any reason to doubt it like Valey does. You can live happily without knowing or thinking about it. I don't care whether I'm the same kind of pony as you or something that works differently, because whatever I am, I'm willing to be special if it makes me stronger so I can keep you safe. But is that sword a person? Or Stanza? If they're objects, we don't have to care about them and how they feel. They just have dead feelings, felt by someone alive and then put there like they were burned on, like what Felicity was talking about. But do you want to risk thinking of them that way when they could be people?"
"I..." Maple swallowed, having no response.
"I don't know," Starlight huffed. "It's a dumb question because I don't want to go back there or ever see Stanza again. But you need to know to know what to do. I just want to know who to help and how to help them."
Maple closed her eyes again. "How about helping yourself, first? I don't know as much as I'd like to about your mind, Starlight, but I don't think these are easy thoughts to think on. If you can be happy without knowing, maybe it isn't worth digging? I'm still not even sure I understand what you're trying to learn..."
Starlight folded her ears. "It's not any harder to think about than anything else I think about. Maple, I hate being alone. I help myself by looking out for my friends. That's just how it works."
"...I don't know what to say," Maple finished. "I don't know what to say."
"Are you ready to get up?" Starlight asked, nudging her. "We could go for a walk around the boat. Maybe talk about something else."
"That sounds nice..." Maple stirred beneath her, picking Starlight up and rolling upright before getting out of bed with the filly atop her back. "Let's go for a walk."
Maple's wandering led her and Starlight through the kitchen and pantry to the ship's cargo bay, a tall, dim room at the very back where things that didn't belong with the food were stored. A few crates lined the walls, stuffed with parts from Arambai's workshop in Riverfall, moon glass looted from Kero's villa in Skyfreeze, gifts from the mercenaries Maple had teleported out of the tunnels and anything else they had happened to pick up on their journey. Now, it was also home to Braen's old armor, dull and inert and heavily slashed clean through in multiple places where Gerardo's sword had pierced it.
The armor was on its back, having been split open down the belly the way someone would enter it without teleporting in order to get Shinespark out. In between the outer metal and inner padding linings, mechanical and magical components were crammed, many sliced or stabbed and some having fallen out altogether. Hunched over it was Slipstream, a very thick manual open to her side.
"Hi, Slipstream. What are you doing?" Maple asked politely, stepping up behind her.
"Aah!" Slipstream jumped. "Me? I was..." She briefly fumbled for her voice. "I found some documentation for this armor in the library, and was reading it and trying to figure out how the perception and memories worked. I'm not touching anything; I'm not qualified. But I wanted to see if she's still aware of what's going on while she's like this, or if it would be possible to move her mind and memories into the ship's terminal while we find a way to fix her, or..." She folded her ears.
"You both spent a lot of time on the bridge, didn't you?" Maple murmured, moving over to her side. "Shinespark got a lot of attention, being stunned, but Nyala might have it a lot worse..."
Slipstream swallowed and hung her head. "We're not the stars of the show. Not like you and Shinespark and Valey and Starlight. We know we're the B-team, just some lucky or maybe unlucky ponies that get front-line seats and to be along for the ride. I wonder if she regrets taking the chance when it came to jump out and get in the action and make a sacrifice to really make a difference. Shinespark would have been defeated instantly without her, and Valey is still in the tournament because they made a stand. But the price..."
"Shinespark will fix her," Maple said, hoping this was within Shinespark's abilities. "Once she's back on her hooves. She absolutely will."
"Yeah. I hope so." Slipstream looked up, her eyes slightly wet. "Never thought I'd be watching a friend lay completely still and in multiple pieces, split open down the middle, with someone telling me they'll be fine. This is a weird life we lead."
"Tell me about it. I'm glowing." Maple glanced down at herself, a dim pink radiance wafting off her coat and a brighter one from her irises. "You don't see that every day, but... here I am and here it is. I've probably had hundreds of completely remarkable things happen in the last week I don't even remember just because I'm too used to things being unusual."
Slipstream smiled regretfully. "This is a little too unusual for me, I think. I'd like to get back to my new normal of sitting around talking with my friends on the bridge, please."
"Hmmm..." Maple matched her smile. "Well, I'm glad you have a normal you enjoy, as whirlwind as out lives can be here at times. What do you do all the time, up there? Just hang out and enjoy yourselves?"
Slipstream shrugged. "Nyala and Gerardo and I? Mare talk. With, well, Gerardo, but it works. We speculate on the tournament, try to predict brackets, just for fun. We read textbooks from the ship's library and teach each other what we learn. Explore the city sometimes and come back and tell each other what we did. I dress up and try clothes on, too. Nyala likes doing that, so she can imagine herself as me. Heh." She wiped the corner of an eye with a feather. "I really do hope she comes back fine."
"I'll wish you as well as I can," Maple promised, smiling at her descriptions. "Is there anything I can tell to Shinespark or Gerardo if I see them, by the way? Starlight and I are taking a walk around."
"I don't think so." Slipstream shook her head, still smiling. "Gerardo just went to bed an hour ago. He was sitting in here too. If you see Shinespark, tell her to get well soon, though. Both for her sake and Nyala's."
"I'll do that." Maple bowed, lowering her head and retreating with Starlight still on her back.
They made their way to the deck next, Maple stopping to put her hooves on the railing and letting the marine breeze tousle her braided mane. Her glowing, obvious in the dim cargo hold, was completely invisible here, the clouds having decided to disappear for a day and let glorious sun burn forth. Starlight could see the cliffs of the southern mountains towering beyond the marina's masts far in the distance, though, and knew those could deliver changes in weather faster than the blink of an eye.
"Any success thinking about different things?" Maple asked, staring out at the activity on the dock across from them.
"Maybe," Starlight answered. "Stanza's not going to go away, you know. I still have to decide whether it deserves me to do anything about it, whether I'm going to do anything, if I am, how..." She folded her ears. "I have a lot to figure out. But it's not urgent. And I am enjoying being out with you."
Maple yawned. "That's good. Actually doing things is making me a little more sleepy... Maybe I also just sat in place for too long. I don't really feel like going into the city, or back to our box to watch more tournament fights... Shall we just sit here for a while, or try going back to bed?"
"It's not even noon yet," Starlight mumbled into her neck. "Our sleep schedules are destroyed."
Maple giggled. "That's just what happens when I stay up with little sleep for two days wishing to have you back. I can really relate to Slipstream right now..."
Starlight hesitated. "I wonder if I could have done anything with Nyala while I was gray. Or any batponies, actually. Stanza was talking in my head somehow. I think it's a dusk statue thing, that they do to batponies. But we can talk back, right? And Nyala's just another body, except her soul is stored in a piece of moon glass. I wonder if there's a way for me to talk or interface with her somehow."
Maple hesitated, mulling it over. "Like some sort of telepathy? I don't think batponies can communicate telepathically with each other, can they?"
"No," Starlight said. "But they also feel like completely normal ponies most of the time. When I go gray, I..." She swallowed. "I get a voice in my head. I think it's me talking to my body, because it tells me things about myself and what I can and can't do, and I can ask it to do things that change me or make things happen. So I might not know how to do that, and batponies might not, but if it's something we're capable of, maybe I could... do it automatically when I'm like that?"
"Sounds like something to test if you ever need to do that again," Maple sighed. "We do have a limited number of windigo hearts, though, so please don't play around with it. If you have to touch moon glass, only do it if it's very important."
"Of course I will," Starlight promised.
Maple waited around a while longer. "So, going back to bed? I'm feeling a lot more like I could get to-"
Suddenly, a shadow covered them and was just as abruptly gone, a burst of wind trailing in its wake. Maple and Starlight's eyes were stolen upward as a colossal shape wheeled about and dropped toward them... and then Wallace Whitewing was there, landing sturdily on the deck with a mighty thud.
"Greetings, heroic ponies!" He bowed, Morena and Diego hopping off his sizable back. "I hope we haven't come at a bad time, but word on the street is you've been in quite the kerfuffle as of late! We thought we'd drop in and see if there was any more smoothing over with which we could assist!"
"Oh! Err..." Maple stumbled into a bow, slightly caught off guard by the griffon's appearance. "Wallace!"
"Indeed, it is I." Wallace clasped a talon to his breast. "And my companions as well!"
"We were watching that fight," Morena acknowledged, bouncing a war hammer on her shoulder. "You know the one. I don't know how you did it, but that was really something. Diego especially wanted to offer his congratulations."
Diego grinned and twirled a dagger in his aura. "You know, I really was hoping you'd show old stallion Grandpapa a few more worlds of pain than what you did, but if I ain't glad your run survived him and that sabotage, I don't know what I am! Where can we give congratulations?"
Maple folded her ears and awkwardly grinned. "Oh! Ummm... Shinespark is recuperating. I think everyone is, really, but you can come in and I'll see who's up?"
Starlight poked her. "Isn't there someone they'd much rather see than Valey or Shinespark?"
"Hmmm?" Wallace blinked at her and tilted his avian head sideways. "Whomever do you mean, young Starlight?"
Starlight cleared her throat, returning the look. "I don't know what you did with her or how you lost her again after everything Valey and Shinespark did to catch her at the pirate ship, but we got back Puddles."
Puddles wasn't moving when Maple led Wallace, Morena and Diego to the ship cabin where they had left her. Wallace had to squeeze his shoulders to fit through the door, settling for remaining in the hallway when it was clear any further would damage the ship. But Morena and Diego were instantly at her sides.
"No restraints!?" Morena bristled, staring instead at the blankets that were used to tuck Puddles' unconscious body in. "She could-!"
"I don't think she can," Starlight interrupted, walking under Wallace to enter behind them. "She wasn't looking good when I found her. I think she's hurt badly, or weakened somehow."
"Right on the money," Puddles said, her metallic windigo voice speaking without the aid of her body. "And if it isn't you three. Long time no antagonize, Morena. Thought you were going to keep a closer eye on me after all that pirate business. Don't want any ethically dubious scientists doing things to your precious daughter's body, now..."
Morena trembled in place, looking like she wanted to both punch and hug Puddles. "Where did you run off to?" she growled. "One moment we were talking with Gazelle about what would become of you, and the next he..."
"Shoveled me into a place less secure than he wants you to think he thinks it is," Puddles growled. "Brain hurt at all? He kicked me into the heretic penitentiary in Gyre for safekeeping. Right back into the hooves of Chauncey. But you and him are besties, so surely he told you all about where he was keeping me, right?"
Wallace cleared his throat. "This is the first we've heard. Starlight?" He looked to the filly. "Did you truly travel to Gyre to recover her?"
Starlight shrugged. "I was teleported. And I found her by accident."
Morena sighed. "You didn't even wake up before you were taken away. As much as I hate you, it's my daughter you're holding hostage, and this time..."
"This time you'll what? Invite me to a party so I can pit you all against each other for laughs?" Puddles' voice faded momentarily, then returned. "Nahhh. I've grown out of that. Switched teams. Had my fun. Got a few bridges to patch up..."
"Repairing bridges, are you?" Wallace frowned. "It sounds like a dubious trap."
"Or like my back's against the wall?" Puddles chuckled. "Come off it. I know what's coming. See the glowing one over there? Ironflanks, some like to call her? Have her take a wild guess what happens if she touches me and discharges all that energy right now. Go on. You'll probably get it first try."
Maple took a sharp breath. "That time under Izvaldi, when I used the last spark I had been holding since Ironridge... You really were hurt by that, weren't you?" She swallowed, looking down at herself. "And now I've got more. I could... remove you..."
Morena's eyes widened, and she was instantly grasping Maple's shoulders, nearly crushing her with brute strength. "Is this true?!"
"Spare yourself the effort," Puddles droned. "It's even easier than you think. Why don't you pull back this blanket and take a look? Butt brand, the thing you ponies are so proud of getting."
Diego lit his horn and granted her wish. On Puddles' flanks, her icy windigo cutie mark was plain to see... or not see. It was faint and faded, almost to the degree White Chocolate's had been, and the adventurers' eyes widened in surprise.
"This... looks quite like..." Wallace fumbled for words.
"See that?" Puddles sounded smug. "She's not catatonic because her body's messed up... though I did put it through the wringer a few times. Subsisting on disharmonic regeneration magic instead of food and exercise for years and recovering improperly from a battle can take its toll, not to mention everything Chauncey's goons did in Izvaldi, but it's nothing some good eating and self-care won't fix. Nah, she's like this because I'm losing my grip. My power's waning, there's nobody at the helm. If you ever wanted to know whether your kid was still in here? Just me. She's been gone since before the beginning. And I know I've yanked your chain on this a hundred different directions before, but that's the honest and final truth."
"Good eating?" Starlight scoffed. "You mean like eating a whole windigo heart? I heard about that..."
Morena's eyes wavered, wide open. "I don't believe you," she hissed.
"Relax!" Puddles urged. "I told you, it's curtains for me either way. I could hang on a while longer, or you could ask Ironflanks to finish me now... or I could just let go and slide away, and leave you with an empty shell. Excuse me for liking my taste of the good life. So do you want me to tell you how to actually get her back, or what?"
"You've gotten my hopes up this way a thousand times before." Morena winced, looking away. "I... can't put myself through this again. No. I don't want to hear it."
Puddles' body slowly animated, like a marionette with its strings activating one at a time. She slid down from the bed, cutie mark almost growing visibly fainter at the action, and opened her pupilless eyes. "That's too bad. Really trying to go out on a good note, here..." She turned to Wallace and Diego, then Maple and Starlight. "Anyone else? Any takers? I'm being serious, here. Who wants to fix Puddles?"
Wallace bowed his head. "I will listen."
"The real Puddles' soul is attached to her brand, and that's stuck in a piece of moon glass somewhere," Puddles began, starting without ceremony. "You'll need to find that. Once you do, should be just as easy as letting this body hold it for a while. It takes some powerful stuff to sever a brand from a pony, and even stronger to sever a soul, but they're pretty good at coming back together."
Everyone held their breath, listening, so Puddles continued. "The pony who swapped her out and me in is a scumbag called Navarre. He used to be in the eastern Yakyakistan region where you first got me. But remember how you brought me around the empire, looking for someone who would help, and Chauncey bit? He took an expedition out there to look for clues, and supposedly brought back nothing? Lies. He found him, captured him and brought him back, and now has him slaving away in the tunnels beneath the hospital on research projects." Her eyes narrowed. "Research conducted on yours truly. Really feels wonderful, having the guy you turn to for help submit me to science under the one who gave you me in the first place, doesn't it?"
Morena watched Puddles with a steely expression. "It sounds like we have a situation to investigate. But we won't be taking any action until then."
"Navarre is in Izvaldi?" Maple's pupils shrank. "But he's the one who..." She swallowed. "I need to tell Valey."
Wallace lifted a leg to allow her an easy way out, but Maple almost immediately stopped, nearly running into Amber as she tried to round the corner. "Amber!"
"Hi, Maple." Amber gave her a quick shoulder squeeze, then ducked into the room herself. "Do what you need to. I'm just listening."
As the mares traded places, Wallace cleared his throat. "You're firing quite the volume of accusations at our benefactor," he declared. "Trying to pit allies against each other is an act you've been sorely guilty of in the past, beast."
Puddles shrugged. "Sounds like your problem to me. What I know is, he had the obsidian with the real Puddles inside back when this began. Maybe he still has it. Maybe Chauncey took it from him. Who knows? But it's your lead to follow."
"As a matter of fact..." Amber stepped forward, smiling a restrained smile. "That won't be necessary."
Wallace, Morena and Diego all stared at her. Puddles blinked. "What's that you say?"
"Bananas, I'm here!" Valey stumbled into the room, still looking floppy from her ordeal. "Who said what about Navarre being in Izvaldi?"
"Oh, hey, Valey." Amber waved to her. "I was just about to remind everyone about a little something from Ironridge. Remember this?"
She held up a tiny, velvet drawstring bag, slightly smaller than her hoof. Valey blinked very, very slowly, Maple entering again behind her. "Puddles," Valey whispered.
"Puddles." Amber nodded, opening the bag and dropping a single chunk of moon glass into her hoof. Carefully manipulating the bag, she turned it inside-out, revealing the word written sloppily on the inside. "We were all there when we found it, but the words? Only you and Gerardo knew, and me because I saw it when you were showing me later. But after you were calling me and told me about her, and when I realized neither of you remembered..." She grinned. "Also, Gerardo really needs to learn to hide important things better. But here it is. Puddles' cutie mark."
Diego snatched the bag from her in his telekinesis, reading over it with a critical eye. He passed it to Morena, who frowned. "Where did you get this?"
Valey blinked at Amber, then stepped forward. "In, uhhh... In a safe in Kero's private villa in Ironridge. Mercenary leader griffon dude. And bananas, he's an Izvalden, isn't he?"
Wallace frowned down at Puddles. "It seems there are developments that support your case."
"...Huh." Puddles regarded the artifact. "That's it. I can feel it pulling on this body from here. Looks like it's almost time for curtains."
Maple flickered slightly with harmonic energy, but she hesitated. "What's making you lose your grip, anyway? Why are you just accepting this as a lost cause?"
Puddles grinned, her voice momentarily fading again. "Oh, there's plenty I could say on a lot of things... Let's see how far I get before someone gets tired of my last words."
Starlight stood and watched the proceedings, a memory silently replaying in her head. She was with Maple, Amber and Willow, Valey and Shinespark and Gerardo, some mercenaries from Ironridge and maybe some others, examining the villa they had been granted upon Kero's disappearance. Surrounded by Skyfreeze's golden walls, they looted his old home, stumbling on a safe and large amounts of moon glass. There had also been a bag, with a single piece and a will... Starlight shuddered as she remembered the will, full of important and untrustworthy language that put Maple deeply on edge. She had suggested they all go down to the crystal palace, and everyone who stayed behind had dealt with the problem. She didn't recall anything about Puddles' name... but then again, she had pushed the incident as far from mind as possible.
"Kiddo? Hey, kiddo, wake up!" Puddles growled. "I'm asking if you want to know more about Stanza!"
"Huh?" Starlight perked her ears. "Stanza? Maybe?"
Diego frowned. "Stanza? That's a name that surfaces from time to time on Izvaldi documents. Best we can tell, it's someone related to Chauncey who's contracted by Gyre to build and run a penitentiary there for Garsheeva's heretics."
"Royal business," Wallace muttered. "In my days, the condemned were kept in Garsheeva's own cathedral fortress prior to execution. But advances in transportation technology made it recently possible to hold them off-site, so in response to citizen concerns about that many villains in the Empire's capitol, Meltdown decreed such a site be built. It was one of her first acts upon appearing in her position. The contract was awarded to a joint venture between Izvaldi and Gyre, and that's as far as we've stuck our beaks and noses into it. You likely know my feelings on Garsheeva's heretics."
"Funny coincidence, that's where I was for the last two months..." Puddles said. "It's where Starlight was taken, too."
"It's not a nice place." Starlight swallowed. "It's definitely not ran by good ponies."
"Can confirm." Valey nodded. "It's evil. That place itself is pure evil."
Wallace looked concerned, but Puddles didn't give him time to talk. "Hello, on a timer here?" She raised an eyebrow. "Think fast, kiddo: where have you seen pipes like the ones in those tunnels before?"
Starlight raked through her memories, thinking... and her eyes widened. "Your room. The place in Izvaldi with the lift. All the walls were made of pipes just like those..."
Valey blinked, then nodded. "And they were pretty flimsy, too. But bananas, you're right..."
Puddles grinned. "Odds are, that lift's still broken. If you want to learn something very interesting?" She tilted her head, neck bouncing slightly like she wasn't entirely in control of her muscles. "Sounds like Valey's already going down there to look for a certain scientist. Maybe you've got a reason to go too, now, hmm?"
"And what's your reason for giving me a reason?" Starlight countered with an eyebrow of her own. "Why do you want all of us to go beneath Izvaldi? What are we supposed to find?"
"You too, parent squad." Puddles shrugged at Wallace, Morena and Diego. "I've told you before about all the nasty experiments Chauncey's scientists do to me down there. This is your chance to see what's really up! What I want?" Her eyes narrowed. "Weren't you listening? I'm switching sides. Getting in good with the good guys one last time while I still can, and the best way I can do that is by putting your enemies in a bad place. Telling you how to look for all of their secrets."
Maple frowned. "Our enemies, or yours? And why are you losing control, anyway? I know you're not lying, because you could run if you thought you had a chance at self-preservation."
"Oh, this?" Puddles looked down at herself. "Turns out eating a whole windigo heart has some pretty serious side effects on a windigo in a pony body. Who would have thought?" She shrugged again. "Turns out all it takes is a little bit of my own material, and I start... slipping. Almost like you batponies and moon glass, only I have a lot more control over where and how I go. I've had complete control over this body for a long time, now, really. I could probably even grow her a third eye if I really, really tried."
Morena grimaced. "...Please don't."
Puddles winced. "Hey! I'll have you know I treated your daughter's body perfectly well! Look, come on, look at me." She beckoned Morena closer. "Sure, she may be a little scrawny around the ribs, but do you think you could have done better getting stabbed and having your limbs torn off and being injected over and over with weird substances? The only thing I've gotten to eat this whole shebang was a single wedding cake, and that wasn't very pleasant coming back up..." She looked briefly green.
Cautiously, Morena examined her, Wallace nodding sagely. "You're beginning to trust her, I see. She could easily retaliate from that position."
"Shut up," Morena hissed. "This is m-my daughter, and she..." She ran her thick, scarred hooves through Puddles' coat, checking for abrasions or lacerations or anything else wrong.
"Nothing," Puddles said quietly. "I can guarantee you a mortal going through what I did would be dead many times over. And look who kept her body alive?"
Morena looked up, grimacing, tears in the corners of her eyes. "What are you playing at?"
"Trying to show you I'm sorry without saying I'm sorry, or... Ugh!" Puddles yanked on her mane in frustration. "Being a good guy is so sappy, sometimes! Look, I am wrath incarnate. A creature made from disharmonic magic! Rampaging and enforcing some arbitrary prick's careless wishes is my destiny! It's the short end of the stick, the shameful side of the kiddie pool, and I've always wanted nothing more than to say screw my race and screw the pain and punishment for not following the directive and do what I want! How was I supposed to take a body that doesn't feel physical pain from ponies being nice and kissy to each other and not want to get a taste of what every harmonic lifeform in the world gets to live with by birthright!? Slinging insults and starting fights may be in my nature, but I refuse to be constrained by that! I refuse!"
"Bananas," Valey whispered, staring at Puddles with shaking eyes. "I... really wish we had seen each other for more than just that day or two in Goldoa. I really think I could have learned a thing or two from you..."
Maple looked at her hooves, glowing faintly with pink radiance. "And now you're dying. Whether I finish you or not... and we have everything we need to put the real Puddles back together."
Puddles glanced at her. "Who said anything about dying? I'm just... slipping away. Of course, you've seen enough to guess what will happen from there."
Morena sighed. "And you expect all that to change anything? All the suffering and heartache you caused us merely by existing?"
"Creature of chaos." Puddles shrugged. "It took me a while to get things adjusted. And when you think about it, what would hurt you more? If your daughter got sacked and replaced by a beast you could one day banish? Or if the new her tried to make friends with you, and then one day you'd have to choose between getting her back and keeping-"
Her voice cut out like a broken recording, her muscles briefly growing limp. Morena silently watched, less than a hoofstep from her, then finally moved her mouth. "Then what are you after, telling me now?"
"Heh. Just want to part on good terms." Puddles' voice returned. "It wouldn't hurt to hear I did well, either. I did keep her body safe, after all. Tracked down that singer, too, when she vanished. Spilling the beans on how to follow up on some unfinished business. And I was telling you where to get the real Puddles' soul, too, before Miss Heroism here beat me to it."
"To hear you did well?" Morena shook for a moment, then wrapped her in a deep, deep hug. "I hate you so much," she whispered. "I want to see my daughter again. But letting someone redeem themselves before it's too late... Well, it's what Wallace did for me. If this is a trap, I'll never forgive you. But fine. It is impressive. I'm proud of you. Is that what it will take, making your passing easier?"
"Heehee... Silly pony eyes..." Puddles spoke with her mouth again, her voice once more back to that of a normal pony. "They're only supposed to leak when you get hurt..."
Wallace watched with something approaching awe. "This same creature that once tried to destroy our team with everything it had... Yet, some force of optimism tells me this is real."
"Bananas...!" Valey grabbed her the moment she was released, squeezing Puddles from behind in another hug. "Here's your hug, you flirty bum. I knew we had stuff in common! I was holding out in Goldoa, and didn't ditch you and fly away earlier because I wanted there to be hope for you! Because you reminded me of myself, or something... You don't even have to wonder about what you are or where you came from. You know it was pointless and bad, and... nnngh!"
"Ahhh," Puddles sighed, going limp in Valey's embrace. "Love you too, cute Valey. Heehee... See you sooner than you think..."
Her cutie mark faded completely, then was gone.
The room held a moment of silence, and then Morena stepped forward. "Is she...?"
"Look." Valey held a hoof out, stopping her.
For a few breaths, Puddles exhaled steam, like she was warm on a frosty day. She regained tension in Valey's grasp and fluttered her eyes, two pupils slowly growing in the centers of her irises until her eyes once more resembled a normal pony. And then she sat there, directionless and with nothing to do.
Maple hesitantly stepped over, reaching out a hoof and laying it on Puddles. "Let me try..." She concentrated, using her cutie mark to pour a little harmonic energy into the mare, the same way she had shocked her in the holding room a long time ago and later restored Starlight to color.
Puddles blinked and purred, getting up and crawling toward Maple, closing her eyes and nuzzling up against her like a tame animal, rubbing Maple happily with her chin.
"Survival instincts. Base emotions." Valey watched her hollowly, like she was seeing a different place and a different time. "Bodies don't stop functioning without a soul... at least, not batpony ones. You could probably feed her and she'd eat. But... Amber?"
No one stopped Amber from walking forward, the moon glass from Kero's house outstretched before her. "Here, Puddles... Does this belong to you?"
Puddles blinked at it with listless eyes, then craned her neck and stepped forward. First she sniffed it, then nosed it... then took it in her mouth and sat there, staring blankly ahead.
"And now?" Maple folded her ears. "How long does it usually-?"
Puddles was already glowing. The moon glass in her mouth seemed to crack with color, a tiny streak of tan reaching up from within its monochromatic depths. Puddles' empty body seemed unable to react, an invisible force lifting her beneath the shoulders until she was reared up and then dangling slightly off the ground... and all the while, the light from the moon glass built, resonating with a few streaks shining from her bare yellow flank.
"This is quite flashier than obsidian's usual process," Wallace commented, barely daring to speak.
The light intensified, then burst... and in a shower of fading sparkles, the moon glass hit the ground, followed shortly and more gently by Puddles. Her flank was now adorned with a coiled rope and three pitons, and she clutched her head, looking woozy. "Owww... What happened...?"
"Puddles...!" Morena's breath caught in her throat. "Puddles, are you back!?"
Puddles sat up, rubbing her forehead. "Momma? This isn't our ship. And Puddles feels funny. Need a nap..."
"Puddles!" Morena gently tackled her, wrapping the restored mare in a new embrace, covering her and stroking her mane, weeping openly. "Puddles... Puddles, I missed you..."
"Guess the real her talks like that, too," Valey whispered, bumping Maple and Amber. "Come on, girls. I think this is a scene that could use some privacy."
They made it to the library before Diego caught up with them, waving them down. "Hey! You four!"
Maple looked quizzically at him. "You don't have somewhere important to be?" She pointed back down the hallway.
Diego shrugged. "I've always been more the cool uncle type to Puddles. Wallace and Morena are her real parents. I'll catch up at the after-party. Had some news for you, anyway, about the tournament."
"For me?" Valey frowned. "What's up?"
Diego nodded. "Remember the rules about using Golden Regents? Challengers who enter with them have to spend them before the end of the third round or are automatically disqualified, and you can either spare an opponent who would otherwise be knocked out of the tournament and allow them to keep fighting, or banish a defeated foe in the second round and ensure they don't come back, even if they entered through pools?"
Valey gulped. "Yeah. Did something happen with that fight with Grandpapa? I still have mine. He can't use one on me, or something, can he? Since it was a tie?"
"Pools entrants can use Regents, yes." Diego nodded. "And there's no limit to how many anyone can use, provided they have them. But no, none were spent there. We just wanted to tell you the opponent you were scheduled to fight next has met with an unfortunate fate, and had someone decide to remove them from play."
Amber brightened, nudging Valey. "So what's that mean? Does Valey get a free round for her opponent not showing up?"
Diego cleared his throat. "No, she's merely been rescheduled. Tomorrow, so you'll have time still to rest up. Also, your new opponent is Morena."
"...Seriously?" Valey's ears fell. "I have to fight two of you guys back to back?"
"Well, the odds were for it, to be honest," Diego sighed. "We're some of the best competition the tournament has to offer, and round two is gated by those at the top. The good news for you is, pass this fight, and you're through for sure. Into the third round. And with all of us getting what we wished for here and now..." He glanced back down the hallway. "Well, Morena may have certain feelings after this about just who she wants to win. Our wish has just been granted, after all, and by none other than you lot."
"So... she might..." Valey blinked, eyes widening.
"Give you a free round? Hardly." Diego chuckled. "Morena likes a challenge. But I think she'll let you win, if you give it your all and show her what you can do at your best. Good luck, Valey. We've found what we were fighting for in the tournament, and now we hope you will, too."
Valey grinned. "And all you want now is a good fight? Sure, I can give you that. Tell Morena I'll see her in the ring."
"I shall deliver your message," Diego replied, bowing and turning away. "...Thank you again," he added. "We shall forever be in your debt."
"Heh." Valey chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck. "Well, we'll try to do you proud."
Valey stepped out of the shadows and into the arena, the early evening sun barely cresting the colosseum bowl. Howe stood to the side; someone had informed him that this battle would speak for itself. Morena was waiting.
"Hey." Valey stepped into the arena, nodding in respect. "...Looks like you've been crying."
Morena didn't wait for an official invitation to attack. Her thick, fur-collared battle cloak left her back like an ascending bird as she flew forward, moving her muscled bulk with far more grace than Wallace before her. A hoof hooked out, grappling for Valey, and Valey grappled back, throwing them both into a midair spin. Valey added her momentum to it rather than resisting, and Morena landed with her on top, bouncing toward the edge of the arena.
"Would I ever want to hide it?" Morena spoke as she rolled, constitution so strong that she could control her breathing and speak even as she was pounded against the ground. "You were there yesterday. You saw my daughter return. And you know your role in it!"
Valey jumped off before Morena could take control again of the spin and crush her herself. Morena followed her into the air, a long-buried fire in her eyes as she brought about a double-hoofed slam to drop Valey back to the stage. "Yeah I do!" Valey panted, swishing to the side and diving to hit Morena as she landed. "I got lugged across the continent so that windigo could show off that it was looking for Melia and wanted to change!"
Morena rolled when she hit the ground, countering Valey's dive with a punch. Valey blocked the punch with a blow of her own, throwing all her force behind the hoofstrike, then pumping her wings to dive past it, drawing a punch with her other hoof for Morena's face.
"But do you know my role?" Morena took the punch with a headbutt, flipping onto her forehooves and bringing a kick around with her hind legs to pin Valey to the ground. "The journeys I've made and the places I've searched? From the forests and cliffs of Mistvale to Varsidel's war-torn heart?"
"Yeah!" Valey grabbed her dropping legs, swinging around and slamming both rear hooves into Morena's thick side. "It's awesome dedication! I feel for you, having someone you'd do that much of anything for."
Morena skidded, taking the blow without falling over and breaking apart from Valey. "Hm."
"Hmm?" Valey didn't approach, raising an eyebrow.
"In another age and another time, Wallace and Diego and I were a completely different group of adventurers," Morena narrated, slowly walking forward before launching herself at Valey again. Valey planted her hooves and caught the tackle, prying her grasping forelimbs apart and trying to take the grapple war despite being half as big as she was. "We discovered for the sake of discovery. New horizons were all the reward we needed!" Morena grit her teeth as Valey refused to go down, twisting her to the side. "It was a happy time."
"Yeah!" Valey broke her stance, lunging with a hind leg and driving it into Morena's belly as she was thrown toward the ground. At the last moment, she used the pressure from holding apart her adversary's grip to shoot beneath Morena entirely, launching several more slams and pummels at her underside as she scooted between her hind legs. "And that's why..." She grabbed Morena's tail, converting all that momentum in a circle, slamming down with both forehooves and sending Morena crashing to the ground. "It stinks, what happened to you!"
Morena bounced, flipping over as she came back up and catching Valey with a hoof before she could dart away. "Would you understand?" she growled, slapping Valey in a circle, knocking her wings with calculated precision and stopping her from flipping away. "The pain of losing that? The fire of looking for something, rather than looking for anything? For six long and empty years!?"
Pow! She finished juggling Valey with a mighty punch, not bothering with a buck, one forehoof sending Valey flying towards the edge of the arena. Valey bounced and skidded, coming to a heap near the edge and rapidly rising before anyone could time her out. "Six years?" Valey spat, tasting blood, and wiped a hoof across her muzzle. "Nah. My six years were spent a lot more pointlessly than that. But I do know about looking for something!" She climbed upright, brushing off her bruises, and nodded.
"Tell me." Morena sat and spread her forelegs. It was clear the invitation wasn't to tell her with words.
"Yaaaaah!" Valey wound up a soaring strike of her own, kicking off from the wooden floor and speeding straight toward Morena. A single-hoof punch met her, Morena mirroring her tactics from before, and Valey beat her wings in a test of will, refusing to be pushed back just as Morena refused to budge.
"This tournament can make wishes come true," Morena warned, pressing back against Valey's force. "One wish, every year, for how many millions of citizens? Wallace has told you before. I'm telling you now." She dropped her hoof with a sudden twitch, reaching around to slam Valey from below. Valey rolled to dodge, and Morena immediately switched, coming down from above.
Valey hit the ground on her back, all four legs extended as Morena bore down on her with two huge forehooves. "Hearing you loud... and... clear!" she growled, bracing herself against the ground to force away the mare who was pinning her.
"Wallace's heart. Diego's heart. My heart. All three of us, beating as one..." Morena stared into her, applying just enough force to keep Valey down. "Our will and determination was unstoppable. Show me you understand what this means!"
"Rrrraaaugh!" Valey pulled in her legs, then surged, throwing Morena off her just enough to dart free. "You want me to show you what it means!?" She dug in a hind leg and pivoted, counterattacking with a flurry of unblocked blows to Morena's head. "Here's what it means!" Throwing herself into a flip, Valey vaulted over Morena, only to find her opponent ready. A purple hoof kicked her back halfway across the arena, and Valey skidded, landing upright. "It means every single one of the fighters beyond this point wants something so badly, it gives them superequine strength, doesn't it? You guys may have had your wish granted, but now I'm going on, and you're not going to let me go without a fight!"
"It means more than that!" Morena stomped, mane lifting briefly in an intangible wind. "Everything we fought for all these years, my two best friends and I, it was you and your friends that answered our dream! What happens to that fire of purpose now, Admiral Valey of Ironridge? Where does it go?"
"Where does it go?" Valey countered, watching for an opening that wasn't going to come. "What are you doing now, standing in my way? You heard Puddles. You don't need to wish for Garsheeva to fix her any more, and bananas if you're paying back Izvaldi for their help if you go down there and find they weren't actually helping!"
Morena grew tired of waiting and lunged, flying toward Valey again like she had pegasus blood in her ancestry. "Are we standing in your way, Valey?" she growled lowly, hitting Valey and rolling as they once again vied for dominance. "Or are we waiting for you to add us to your path? Hopes and dreams have physical force! Wallace believes that with everything he has!"
This time, Morena won the grapple, punching Valey hard and slamming her against the ground before belly-flopping atop her. Reacting instinctively, Valey tried to duck into her shadow... but Morena never hit the ground. Landing with her hooves surrounding her, Morena pressed herself atop Valey, pinning her to the ground but never with more force than she could bear.
"Before Puddles was even foaled," Morena rumbled, forcing Valey's head out to meet her eyes. "When I was a lost teenager with no future and the wrong friends, with an unborn daughter and a fear of my parents' disapproval, with a world of piracy to the west and Wallace beckoning me to his side, that's what he said. So show me the force of your dream! You took your heartfire and helped give us what we yearned truest for, now show me why we should add ours to yours!"
Valey's cutie mark activated, and for a moment, it was like she could see Morena rearing back to strike at her. Flash! With a spark in her eyes, Valey lunged as Morena rose, ducking sideways around the incoming stomp and smashing her forehead into Morena's chin.
She let her hooves answer for her, not backing down, flitting from side to side as Morena squared her stance and swiped at her, juking and dodging through punch after punch, returning fire with her own blows aimed straight at Morena's head. "How..." A gray hoof bounced off a purple one, Morena deflecting a blow. "Do you like..." An entire foreleg shot past Valey's hear, pressing it against her skull from proximity. "This!?"
WHAM! Valey launched an uppercut into Morena's chest, instantly following it up with a second and then a third. Her hooves nearly windmilled into the blows, first lifting Morena off balance and then entirely off the ground. Valey pounced upward, spiraling as she continued to juggle hoofstrike after hoofstrike, finally outpacing her adversary's rise and locking her into another grapple.
"You looked for a way to help Puddles for six years?" Valey's eyes burned into Morena's in midair, the world tumbling around them. "That's some crazy dedication. I hope I don't have to do that. But if I have to, I will, and ten times over to find what I'm looking for! We're going home! All my friends and I are going to find somewhere we can live together in peace, exactly the way we want to, with no heretic rules or angry guards or crazy politicians or ancient monsters! And if we can't find somewhere, we're going to build it! That's Starlight's dream. That's Maple's dream. It'll be a place where your past and your origin don't matter, and that's my dream and Puddles the windigo's too! It'll be a place built with the lessons of the past, in memory of what's lost, and it'll help Shinespark bring back her own home in Ironridge, because that's her dream too! You happy with that?" She punched her. "Are you!?" Valey punched her again. "Just try to stop us!"
Instantly, Morena was grappling her again as gravity returned and they finished the apex of their flight, beginning to fall. Her eyes burned with a silent understanding: prove it.
They landed locked together, each with a hold on the other and unable to rise. "Is that the answer you would have given me yesterday?" Morena asked, unable to get off her side. "Or the day before? Is your goal something that's burned into your heart, or can you only articulate it on the spot?"
"Nyeh..." Valey gritted her teeth. "Nah, I'm pretty sure I've changed how to describe it three or four times since I entered this tournament. You want the truth, girl? I have no idea what I'm wishing for if I win. Day to day, how I describe what I'm doing is gonna change. But the feeling in it has always been the same. I'm doing this for my friends, because I care about them really bad. When I'm at the top? I'll figure something out. But even the act of raising a hoof, doesn't matter if it's against a gladiator or a proper monster, can get that across. They're watching. They're not hearing this, but they're seeing... and what they're seeing me saying is, I'm doing this for you."
"A cause after Wallace's own heart." Morena's grip slackened. "I owe that griffon everything, you know. He can be stupidly optimistic and sentimental at times. Rubbed it off on me, too. Alright, wish-granter." Suddenly, she broke Valey's grasp, straightened up and took Valey with her, then threw her to the other side of the arena. "One last time, come at me. You fought for us. You got us what we were fighting for. Now we'll fight for you... Come and get it."
Valey narrowed her eyes. Morena wasn't moving... so by the code of battle they had established together, she spread her wings, spread her forelegs, and rocketed into Morena for another attempt at a grapple.
Morena caught her in a deep, gentle hug.
"...There," Morena said after a while, standing perfectly on the edge of the platform. It barely took a kick for Valey to knock her off.
Morena hit the ground with a puff of dust, waiting several seconds to right herself with Valey watching from above. The purple mare nodded to Howe, turned her back on Valey, and slowly proceeded toward her exit, not looking back. "You win."
Valey stood, ears gradually folding as the crowd's noise intensified above her.
"I did it!" Starlight chirped, eyes baggy and voice raw. "All of Goldoa and the second tournament round in one sitting. Ta-daaa..."
"And you look horrible," Twilight frankly announced. "Is this the longest you've talked in a single sitting so far?" She glanced out the library sitting room's window, where faint traces of dawn were already appearing on the Ponyville horizon.
"Maybe?" Starlight tried to raise her ears, and they drooped all on their own as another strand of her mane sprang into unkempt disarray. "I hope you don't have questions, because I-I think I need to..." She interrupted herself with a yawn, then pitched forward on her couch, out like a light.
Twilight chuckled, crawling out from beneath Rainbow's own snoring form, then brushing herself off and wrapping both of her friends in telekinesis to carry them somewhere comfortable. Tomorrow was going to be a day off, for sure.
Starlight cracked her eyes open three times throughout the day, each time deciding she didn't want to get up and start talking again bad enough to go through the trouble of actually doing it and falling back asleep instead. The final time, when her stomach forbade her from ignoring it any longer and rolling over didn't help, it was well past dark out, no traces of sunset on the horizon, and she kept her eyes closed as she brushed her mane, still wishing she could get back to sleep.
She followed her nose through the castle's circular hallways, the scent of syrup and waffles leading her onward. Breakfast at however late she had slept? She was down for that. Before she could reach the second-floor dining room, the sounds of Rainbow and Twilight arguing met her ears.
"Yeah, and I still think you're pulling my leg. Starlight wouldn't kill off Puddles! That's just uncool."
"I'm telling you what I heard, Rainbow! And it's not a story Starlight is making up or can change at will! These are events that actually happened to her!"
Starlight stuck her head around the corner. "Girls?"
"Starlight!" Rainbow and Twilight sighed in identical relief, both pointing a hoof at each other. "I was trying to recap what you covered after Rainbow nodded off-"
"Twilight says you killed Puddles," Rainbow interrupted with a worried gaze. "Also, you sound like a frog."
"No, that's not what I said." Twilight sagely shook her head before nodding. "And yes, you do sound like a frog. No offense, Starlight, but by princess fiat we're waiting until tomorrow to continue."
"Starliiight..."
"Okay, hold up! Hold up." Starlight waved a forehoof blearily, more interested in the waffles on the table than either of her friends. "What's going on? Sorry, I'm half asleep. What time is it?"
Twilight cleared her throat and glanced at Rainbow, who sat back, meekly giving her permission to speak. "It's two in the morning. You've been asleep for..." She did a bit of mental math. "Eighteen hours? Or maybe closer to twenty. Rainbow and I have been up for a while now."
"Almost the whole day." Rainbow yawned. "Breakfast for dinner, and all that. Spike thought it might finally lure you out. But c'mon, Starlight, just tell me what happened to Puddles!" Her ears pressed back. "Twilight says you said she died!"
Starlight took a step back. "Well, she... got put back to normal. Maple checked with her stored harmony, and there wasn't any reaction. The windigo is gone."
Rainbow's lip wobbled, then she sighed. "Rats. Sorry for doubting you, Twi."
"All forgiven, Rainbow Dash." Twilight smiled and patted her on the back. "You know I take stories like these very seriously. Anyway, Starlight! Spike made waffles!"
A draconic thumbs-up poked out from around a corner. "Glad to help!"
"Thanks, Spike." Starlight planted her face against a plate, serving herself with telekinesis and nearly overturning the syrup atop her mess, humming as she ate. "Very good!"
"Awesome." Spike wandered properly into the room wearing two oven mitts the size of his head. "So did I hear something about a break from storytelling for a day?"
Twilight glanced at Starlight in concern as she ate, then nodded. "I think we all could use a full sun cycle or two to refresh ourselves after that. Nothing more until the day after today. Today being once the sun comes up."
Spike strolled off, an arm held out to the side in a friendly salute. "Sweet. No offense, but your sleep schedules are crazy, and the two of you aren't the quietest audience. Crashing with friends is cool and all, but I'm starting to miss my own bed. Speaking of which..."
"Good night, Spike!" Starlight broke her feast to call.
"...So wait, that's like... two million hours from now, as opposed to one million hours from now?" Rainbow Dash frowned. "Or am I mathing wrong?"
"Two million." Twilight nodded, pretending to take Rainbow's egregious abuse of numbers in stride. "And to be honest, I'm going to need it, because after all that, I have questions." Her gaze intensified.
Starlight gulped down a glass of water. "I can answer if the answers are short. Might try not to overdo it after yesterday..."
"Yeah..." Rainbow licked her lips.
"First of all..." Twilight leaned forward. "The Nightmare Modules are data? Like instructions that you could write down? And your body, and batponies', are capable of processing these to produce magical effects beyond your normal capabilities?"
Starlight nodded. "All correct."
Rainbow frowned. "Twilight, aren't you missing the forest for the trees there? Who cares how it works? It's Nightmare Moon's magic, right!? Does it at all bother you that Starlight can just... use that?"
"Nightmare Moon didn't make Starlight, Rainbow." Twilight shook her head. "And she didn't make batponies, either. There are well-documented records in the Royal Canterlot Archive that batponies existed for years prior to Luna's fall. Why do you think Celestia would have let them keep living in Equestria if they were nothing more than weapons created to help with Nightmare Moon's conquest?"
Rainbow looked sideways at her for a moment. "...So?"
"So however they work isn't intrinsically evil," Twilight continued. "There are ways to design things that are clearly immoral down to the very concept, and the Nightmare Modules themselves or obsidian may have something to do with that, but you can't blame the platform they run on. That's just science. If anything, I'm fascinated that Starlight found a way to interface with her body's magical functionality like that. It's always been well-documented that equine life exists with both a biological and magical component, and while pony biology is relatively well-understood, arcane science has barely scraped the surface of how the magic of life works. I can barely contain myself when we're talking about this!" She finished with an eager grin, tapping her hooves slightly.
"...What?" Rainbow blinked.
Twilight sighed. "I wish I could have been there to tell you this in your past, Starlight. It sounds like wondering about it caused you and your friends a lot of heartache. You know more about this now, though, right?"
Starlight swallowed and wiped her chin off with a telekinetic napkin, taking a big drink. "I know a lot more than I did then," she answered after a breath. "The biggest thing I learned was that there was nothing special about the questions we were asking. That's what philosophers do as their entire job. We just... sometimes had the magical means to get answers to our questions." She nodded to Rainbow. "And it's okay to be bothered by me using Nightmare Modules. I know I was."
Rainbow Dash slowly tapped the table. "Okaaay... So run that by me once again. The Nightmare Modules are like instructions, so even if Nightmare Moon left instructions to do evil stuff, that doesn't mean the thing reading the instructions is bad. Right?"
Twilight beamed. "Precisely!" She tapped her forehooves happily. "Which is why Starlight was able to still use the one from the boat when she was in Gyre, even though she destroyed it. Right?"
"Right." Starlight nodded. "I got rid of the physical copy, but that was just a crystal designed to store information. My body remembered what was in it. It still does, if I wanted to use those again..." She momentarily looked pained. "My current relationship with Nightmare Modules is kind of complex."
"I can imagine." Twilight nodded sympathetically. "Still. All this is making me wish there were more batponies in Ponyville I could talk with, though the ethics of studying them would probably be too complex. But, being an earth pony town..."
"Yeah." Rainbow took a bite of her own waffles, chewing loudly. "They really like just living together, or something. Some towns have weather divisions that are entirely batponies."
Twilight glanced over to her and nodded. "It's extremely rare to see sustained small populations of them, yes. There are a large number of them in Canterlot, too. Batponies have to live together in large numbers to have a sustainable society because they always breed true. It's one of the interesting things about the race. With most ponies, say you have a pegasus and a unicorn, their foals could be pegasi or unicorns or maybe even an earth pony if the parents have earth pony genes in their bloodlines. But a batpony will always give or have foals of the same type as their partner. The historical impact of it is actually fascinating, because it means batponies living in larger mixed societies have to take extra care to stick together, or else their population will die out. In fact, you haven't mentioned this in the story, Starlight, but I'd bet it's the real reason Garsheeva and the Night Mother both forbid batponies and other creatures from having relationships. They're probably trying to preserve the Empire's batpony population."
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. "You knew that? I mean..." She gave an interested smile. "That'll be something fun to keep in mind, then. Don't forget you said that, and don't forget my friends and I don't know that at our point in the story."
"Wait, really?" Rainbow gave Twilight a critical look. "So, hold on, like... does that apply to alicorns too?"
Twilight blinked, slowly taking a breath and looking down at herself. "I never considered that before..."
"And what about sphinxes?" Rainbow continued, shrugging. "Since they're basically the alicorns of the Griffon Empire, or something. What happens if one of you gets it on with a batpony?"
"I'd have to ask Celestia." Twilight stared, thinking. "Or Luna. If she made batponies, she'd almost definitely know. But I know I asked Cadance when she told me she was pregnant, and alicorn reproduction definitely isn't something that's been extensively-"
"Girls?" Starlight raised an eyebrow, silencing them both. "You could also ask me. Or settle for not knowing, because if neither of you know what happens when someone tries a potentially very exploitable method of ensuring your bloodline remains the proper race to stay in power, it might make the story a lot more interesting."
Twilight instantly shushed Rainbow with a hoof to the muzzle, even though she was the one who had been talking.
Starlight chuckled, and Rainbow broke away to rub her neck. "Yeah... heh heh..." The pegasus kicked in her chair behind her. "You know, it's two in the morning, sounds like a good excuse for me to go to bed before I ask anything more. Don't want Twilight getting on my case for spoilers."
Twilight looked ready to throw a waffle at her. "Spoilers are serious! You have to preserve the story's artistic integrity!"
Rainbow ran away laughing, her prismatic tail waving behind her, and Starlight settled back into her seat with a sigh. "You girls are fun to watch, you know?" she said, temporarily ignoring her food. "Whatever you've gone through with multiple times saving the world, it doesn't stop you from enjoying your lives and teasing each other and... Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to be here?"
"Maybe once or twice." Twilight smiled gently, scooting her chair around so she was sitting by Starlight's side. "Still hungry?"
"Definitely." Starlight bit off another half of a waffle, chewing with abandon.
Twilight waited a few minutes until the sounds of Rainbow leaving had thoroughly died away, then spoke again in a lower voice. "There's actually some questions I had for you that might be a little more sensitive," she murmured. "I know I was telling Rainbow earlier that your word is law on what actually happened, but..."
Starlight tilted her head. "Oh? Ask."
Twilight gulped. "I'm wondering about how true some of this is. Not whether it actually happened, but who it happened to. Specifically, whether Starlight the filly in the story actually existed at all. I think..."
Starlight blinked, looking quizzically at her.
Twilight sighed. "Either you're the world's best actor right there, or I'm wrong, but... I think you're Jamjars."
"Huh?" Starlight's ears fell.
"Maybe not all the time, but let me explain." Twilight paused, gathering herself. "It's just... There's so much difference between the filly you tell yourself as being and who you were when I first met you in your village to the northeast. I don't know, maybe you could be one truly horrible, life-altering event away from giving up and going it on your own, but... you found your family. You knew what it was. You were loved and cared about and felt that, and wouldn't have been left with a twisted idea of justice and equality. Even if something hurt you or took all that away, you'd have felt it before. And I could try to reconcile it, but there's another actor on the stage who just... fits so much more."
Starlight stayed impassive, listening.
"Jamjars," Twilight went on. "She tries so hard and does so much, and clearly has her heart in the right place most of the time. But she's kind of weird and awkward, which I empathize with, and seems to drive ponies away. Having early crushes she doesn't know what to do with, being too forceful with others, being bad at explaining what she's doing and never able to trust or let her guard down... It's lonesome. You don't talk a lot about her, either. Even less-important characters like Slipstream appear more than she does, even though she does just as much as some of the protagonists."
She swallowed. "I'm just thinking about a filly who was on her own because she was just a little different, while surrounded by magical prodigies and amazing fighters who had such tight bonds of friendship, and... it could be so, so easy for a filly like that to give up on them and leave. It wouldn't take anything at all to push her over the edge, just a realization that she could. And she would go and start a village where being different doesn't mean you have to get left out, and... you know?"
Starlight shook slightly.
"It's only been on the edge of my mind for a while," Twilight admitted. "The thing that made me curious enough to ask... I remember something you said to me, when we were fighting in the mountains outside your village. I copied a spell you used almost instantly, and you said it took years of studying magic to learn that spell. Well, there was a conversation you were having with Jamjars around the time Amber came back, and she said exactly the same thing to you."
Starlight was still for a while... and then gave a long, heavy sigh. "I was the natural prodigy to Jamjars' hard work and effort. You're right, looking back on it. I... Sorry, Twilight. I wasn't Jamjars, no, but... some of the things you said comparing us are touching on some old wounds I was expecting to have a lot more time bracing myself for talking about."
"Sorry." Twilight offered her a hoof. "I didn't really expect you'd do something like that while trying to tell a story this long. Just, literary analysis habits and all that..."
"It's fine." Starlight took the hoof, staring at the table with her appetite suddenly gone. "I just... You're right that Jamjars is a more important character than I'm making her out to be. And the reason she looks like me is because... she had a big influence on me later on. It's actually me that looks like her, more accurately. But could we wait to talk about that? Please?" She folded her ears. "It's not relevant to this part of the story."
"Of course," Twilight whispered, bowing her head. "I'm actually amazed you've come this far and told me this much already. For all its moments of triumph, there's a lot of things here that must be very raw to talk about too."
Starlight imperceptibly shrugged. "Sometimes. But it's also good to tell it all to someone, I think. And I trust you to understand. It's your job, after all. Princess of Friendship..."
"Mmm." Twilight didn't look up. "Can I ask another question, then?"
"Go ahead."
"The Nightmare Modules." Twilight nodded. "I know I told Rainbow earlier that even if you can operate something like a machine to do negative or disharmonic things, that only reflects on the operator, not the machine itself. But the way you described being gray from the obsidian made it sound almost pleasant or more normal, and that does concern me, because I met and fought Nightmare Moon and I have a good idea what she was like. Did you ever find out how that worked? What was happening with the way you felt?"
Starlight perked up a little. "I did, actually, and it makes a lot more sense than whatever you're expecting. Shall I explain it now?"
"Go ahead." Twilight turned her chair a little to face her.
Starlight took a breath. "So you know about having friends. Princess of Friendship, like I said. You're probably very familiar with being cared for. Now think and tell me the gladdest you have ever been to think, I have friends."
Twilight shook her head. "I don't even have to think. We're already even talking about it. It's when I was fighting Nightmare Moon and first activated my Element, when I heard my friends coming to back me up and realized what that meant, that I wasn't alone." She smiled in remembrance. "I'm never going to forget that spark."
Starlight nodded in approval. "So when you discovered you had friends who truly cared about you. The first time you really got it."
"Right." Twilight folded her ears in embarrassment. "You can probably imagine before..."
"Back when you were in Canterlot. I looked into your past." Starlight turned away with a little embarrassment of her own. "When I was... you know... Never mind! Anyway, you were lonely, whether you thought you were or not. And then all at once, you realized you had something you were desperately missing, and it was the most wonderful thing imaginable. Does that sound about right?"
"Mhmm." Twilight nodded, twirling a fork on the table as she waited to see where this went.
"Now imagine instead of being a lonely, awkward student discovering you had friends for the first time..." Starlight took a breath. "Imagine you were an immortal alicorn goddess who helped shape an entire continent, and however many hundreds of thousands of ponies there might have been always preferred someone else's dominion and ignored your contributions. Imagine that."
Twilight shivered. "How Luna felt, prior to becoming Nightmare Moon? Believe me, I have."
"That's moon glass." Starlight nodded. "Princess Luna's loneliness. We were talking about objects so thoroughly steeped in emotion, they manage to possess it themselves despite not having souls or being alive? Moon glass is much the same. Emotion so concentrated, it takes on a physical form. This isn't about the cutie marks inside, it's the substance itself: it's Luna's emotions."
Twilight listened reverently, jaw slightly open.
"So when I use it?" Starlight continued. "I become loneliness. When I'm like that, every time anyone shows me affection, it feels like I'm discovering what it is to be cared about for the first time. Imagine the way you felt for your friends on that solstice, only any act of valuing or appreciating you at all made you feel that way. That's how it works. It's as simple as that."
"...Wow." Twilight folded her ears in thought. "So the reason it collects cutie marks and draws them in is that... it just wants someone that badly? Not because it's malicious but because it's alone?"
Starlight hesitated. "...Maybe. Maybe don't draw that conclusion yet. Actually, forget about moon glass because it really is a lot more complex; let me just talk about how I was for a moment. That brightness I saw when I looked at ponies? That was their capacity to care about things, which I could see and desire because I wanted to be cared about. Being gray like that wasn't inherently bad or evil, just... sad."
Twilight bowed her head. "It could be bad, though. Luna might have started lonely, but..."
Starlight nodded. "Absolutely. I had friends who cared. If you were scorned like that instead? All that loneliness becomes jealousy. And with the access to the powers it gave you..." She sighed. "I was already used to being alone, of course. I wouldn't have ran away to a mountain range nobody was supposed to survive if I had felt happy and content. So part of the reason the moon glass felt so normal on me was also just that. I was used to it already, just to a lesser extreme."
"I think," Twilight slowly said, "I'm really starting to see why you couldn't stop thinking about this."
"If you want to see how it works, I can show you sometime." Starlight started to get up. "Maybe the next time we take a break. There's a Tree of Harmony connected to this castle, so it would be easy for me to set myself back to normal. If you haven't been inside the tree in the Everfree where you left the Elements, yet, that might be an interesting walk to go see as well. Anyway..."
"Inside it?" Twilight frowned and tilted her head. "You mean further than the place we left the Elements? And you've been down there?"
"Inside it." Starlight pushed in her chair. "After I lost my village, I went down there a few times for solace while I scouted you and planned what I was going to do. All the trees are connected to crystal palaces like the one in Ironridge, if you go far enough below the ground. This castle here is sort of an extension of it. But there's another harmonic flame beneath Ponyville, just like the one in Ironridge. If you haven't seen that, we really should do it sometime when I'm not telling the story."
"Speaking of telling the story..." Twilight yawned. "I have a lot I need to process and sleep on. Again. I hope you're okay with me going to bed and leaving you when you just got up? I could stay up a few more hours..."
Starlight looked at her mostly-finished plate. "You know what? I could do with some time to sift through my own thoughts on all this. A lot of memories stirred up in this process..." She hesitated. "On the other hoof, talking is nice. Why don't you take a turn telling me a story for a while? Anything interesting, about what you've done. How about it?"
"Sounds good..." Twilight finished her yawn, shaking herself slightly and hovering the used dishes into a food elevator to the kitchen. "Let me see. How about the time when there was an autumn storm, and Rarity and Applejack..."
"So?" Rainbow Dash loudly flopped on one of Twilight's reading couches, plummeting out of a hover and bouncing contentedly to land on her back. "I'm back! Story time?"
"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed." Starlight took a sip from a teacup, still treating her throat with care. "Twilight?"
Twilight smiled and shrugged. "Spike's off doing whatever, chores are taken care of and I just had a correspondence with Celestia making sure nothing major is brewing that could distract us in the name of official princess duties. So, tournament two aftermath?"
Starlight put the teacup down and nodded. "I'll skip a bit ahead, if you don't mind, just to speed things up. After the tournament, we made the decision as a group to go back to Izvaldi. We had our own airship back in the air and had discussed things with Wallace and his team, and the plan was made that we'd take Chauncey up on his hospitality before trying to find out what Puddles wanted us to see in the hospital basement. We wanted to do it diplomatically if possible, and properly use our big advantage that Chauncey didn't know we both wanted to snoop around down there. Senescey came with us too; we found out she had passed the second round as well, since she was also a fighter in it. She wanted to help us and find things out for herself, since Puddles said Stanza was connected to Izvaldi and the Night Mother had used her to send me to see that. The tournament's third round wasn't scheduled to start immediately, so we still had a good amount of time..."
Starlight stood by the Immortal Dream's railing, letting the night wind blow through her mane as Stormhoof's countryside drifted far below. The great pink energy comet propelling the ship from overhead prevented the deck from growing truly cold, though a chill was already working its way into her fur. She had figured standing out here would make warming up more pleasant when she finally turned in for the night, and cooling off out here was a perfect chance to think on her own, so she wasn't thrilled to hear a voice from behind her.
"Starliiight..."
"What do you want, Jamjars?" Starlight didn't look back, making a point of watching the village passing below.
Two little hooves clunked on the railing beside her, and Jamjars was there. "We have things to plan. Or have you already forgotten?"
Starlight flicked her tail. "I don't think you told me in the first place."
"I didn't need to because you already knew." Jamjars sounded proud of herself. "You heard what everyone was saying about Izvaldi. In fact, you were the one who found out what Stanza was in the first place! You remember I heard Chauncey muttering that to himself once, right?"
"Of course you were listening in." Starlight frowned. "What about Izvaldi? You mean how we're digging around in a friendly country's business looking for something to hurt them? I know what I saw with Stanza, but I don't really like this. We're going to get drawn into something again..."
"Umm, yeah we are," Jamjars quipped. "Your friends will probably get caught, or learn something and then do the wrong thing with it or something. That's where you and I come in. What I've heard is you have some kind of darkness invisibility spell now?"
Starlight looked further away. "Only temporarily. I can't use it right now and am not doing what it takes to get it back."
Jamjars sighed. "You really ought to reconsider that. It sounds good. But with or without it, what I want to do is beat your friends to the punch. We're going to do some sneaking around ourselves and find something of our own, and it's going to be bad enough that we can blackmail Izvaldi with it into leaving everyone else alone if they find something that starts a fight. So are you in?"
"...Really?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You're worried they might react badly because someone knows something that makes them look bad, so you want to fix it by finding out more things to make them look bad?"
"Critical mass of fear of embarrassment." Jamjars grinned smugly. "A tried and true tactic. If one threat doesn't cow someone into submission, make another! And besides, we can keep anything we find to ourselves, so if your friends handle this well and everything works out, Izvaldi will be none the wiser and it'll just be a backup in our pockets. Come on, this is my field of expertise. Work with me here, Starlight."
"Are you sure?" Starlight frowned, tilting her head. "What do you even think we're going to find, anyway? For that matter, where are you even going to look? You want us to go down that hole in Puddles' room before everyone else? The lift is broken, and neither of us can fly."
"Three steps ahead of you," Jamjars promised, leaning casually on Starlight's side. "Remember when we snuck around the first time we were there? We saw Percival, their griffon honcho, making kissy with a mare. You know, heresy laws, and all that? Percival outranks Chauncey, and whatever's up under the hospital, it probably isn't connected to their leader having an affair. So, all we do is sneak around some more, get more evidence on what's going on, figure out exactly who he's dating, and then if Chauncey gets mad or tries to rope the rest of us into anything, we go to Percival and threaten to spill his dirty little secret to Meltdown unless he pulls rank and makes Chauncey leave us alone. See? Foolproof."
Starlight wanted to protest, but the more she thought about it, the more Jamjars' plan actually seemed sound. Forcing back a threat with a bigger threat sounded like an invitation for someone to do something even bigger to them in retaliation, but as an emergency card they only brought out if they really had to? And Jamjars was right; Percival's affair was probably serious enough that it would work as leverage while not being connected to any goings-on with Chauncey and the hospital.
"...And what if we get caught?" She frowned, bristling slightly at Jamjars' contact. "What if we just dig whatever hole we're in deeper?"
"Easy," Jamjars smoothly answered. "We don't. And if we do, I can talk my way out of anything, and you can blow someone up with your magic if you don't like them. But we won't get caught. Mapping out guard patrols and rotations is very easy, because you never get in trouble for watching guards even if they see you. They just care about you trying to get past."
"This is a bad idea." Starlight looked down.
Jamjars nudged her. "No worse than sticking our noses where they don't belong in the first place, is it? Starlight, my nose belongs where it doesn't belong. This is my job. It's what I'm good at." She tapped her blank flank. "Come on, trust me! Or are you seriously going to sit back and do nothing?"
"Alright! Alright." Starlight got up and sighed, pushing Jamjars off her. "I'll help you sneak around. Just..." She wanted to say be careful or don't go too far, but both of those were pointless. Jamjars was already exactingly careful, never reckless in the pursuit of her goals. Setting the goals, on the other hoof... There, there was no such thing as going too far. Out of all Starlight's friends and companions, Shinespark had been ambitious enough to make herself the savior of an entire city-state, yet she didn't doubt Jamjars would sign up for twice as much without even balking if she was sure it would further her goals.
"Brilliant," Jamjars purred. "Now, come by my room sometime within the first day or two we're there. I want to act well before anyone else does, just in case we have difficulties and need to turn back the first time. I want to go over everything we already know to make sure we need to communicate as little as possible if we're hiding. In the meantime, have fun with whatever it is you're doing."
She left with great ceremony, swishing her tail and humming a tune. Starlight sighed and shook her head, but there wasn't really anything she could do. What would she stop at to protect her friends? Anything? How about taking a risk with a high chance of backfire? But Jamjars was a far more skilled sneaker and manipulator than she was, so she would have a much better ability to weigh the risks... but this still didn't sit perfectly with her. But the sentiment was in the right place, and she couldn't do nothing, but wasn't there anything better she could do? But...
From the weather or her own indecision, Starlight realized she was finally feeling a lot cooler. At least Jamjars was giving her time to think about it. She abandoned the railing and moved toward the door to the stairs, hoping spending the rest of the night with Maple would make her feel better. A few beginning drops of rain encouraged her on her path.
"I am afraid I have some news," Gerardo announced, strolling into the Immortal Dream's library. "The good news is that we have now reached Izvaldi! The bad news is... well..." His headcrest drooped. "Even though this ship is completely unaffected by weather, my navigational senses are not, so instead of arriving during the evening as expected, it is now the middle of the night. As you're all no doubt aware."
Jamjars looked up from a chair where she was reading and raised an eyebrow, the room's sole occupant save for Gerardo. "Who are you talking to?"
Gerardo sighed at her. "When a griffon has an announcement to make, he makes an announcement. Even if there's but one soul to hear it. With that said, I've been flying for over a day straight, and believe I am going to bed. Have a pleasant night."
"Hold up!" Jamjars snapped, closing her book and catching his attention. "I mean... wait! Before you go, where's the will of Kero's you said was with that moon glass for Puddles? I want to read it."
Gerardo blinked, then shrugged. "I'm hardly sure what you'll do with it, but here. I was poring over it earlier during our flight. This is a copy of the original, but return it in one piece, would you?"
He withdrew a scroll from his uniform and passed it to her, and Jamjars took it in her telekinesis. "Thanks. I'll put it on the bridge when I'm done." She immediately buried her nose in it, biting the corner of her tongue and letting the griffon go about his way.
"Starlight." A little hoof insistently jabbed Starlight's sleeping shoulder, not giving her time to wake before poking again. "Starlight."
"Nngh." Starlight grunted and waved a leg at the annoyance, cuddled against Maple and not wanting to wake up.
"Get up!" Jamjars' voice hissed. "This is important."
Groaning, Starlight realized this was in fact Jamjars, and she was far too tenacious to take go back to bed for an answer. Quietly, she extracted herself from the bed, made for the hallway, and didn't say a word until the door was closed again behind her. "What?"
In the dim light reaching down the corridor from the library, Jamjars looked visibly upset, far closer to losing her cool than Starlight had seen her before. Jamjars beckoned her towards the light, moving quickly ahead, and Starlight followed.
"Have you seen this?" Jamjars quietly demanded, holding Gerardo's transcript of the will up to Starlight's face.
"I..." Starlight frowned, quickly reading it. "This sounds familiar. It's Kero's will. We found it and read it when we went back to Ironridge. I've seen it..." She wanted to ask why, but quickly realized she had a very good guess already.
"His mercenary," Jamjars said, slapping it against a small table with a hoof, "was going around getting paid to look for whatever dumb, sorry mares who couldn't care for themselves he could find and giving them more responsibilities they couldn't care for, and Kero paid them off with moon glass so they couldn't complain! Including my mother. Do you realize what this means?"
Starlight slumped her shoulders. "There's a lot of things it means. Which one are you talking about?"
Jamjars glared at the will. "Do you know how long I've been mad at my mother for her willful negligence in having so many more foals than she could care for? Look at the way I've grown up. Look how much work I've had to do to better myself on my own because my parents were too overwhelmed to do their jobs properly. And this will says Kero was specifically trying to make that happen to as many mares as possible? To put them in that situation whether they wanted to make bad choices or not?"
Starlight slowly nodded. "It does..."
"This is going on my list," Jamjars warned. "I'm taking this as a personal slight, and Kero is from Izvaldi. And do you know what else this will says?" She raises an eyebrow. "The most important job of Kero's career was to guard Puddles' moon glass. But if Puddles was in Izvaldi, as well as the pony who made her into a windigo, that means Izvaldi gave him the job to hide it. And this will doesn't say to take it back to Izvaldi. It says to take it to Gazelle. Who's friends with Meltdown, who hunts down ponies who do bad things, and Puddles thought there were bad things for us to find down in the tunnels. I bet Izvaldi was blackmailing him with something into something else, so if he died and someone got this will, they'd bring down the law on Izvaldi and get revenge. And you know what I bet they were blackmailing him into doing?"
Starlight blinked. "Wait, what? Slow down. You think Kero says in his will to take Puddles' moon glass to Gazelle because it would make him suspicious of Izvaldi?"
"Maybe he's in league with them. I don't know." Jamjars shrugged. "But I did pick up from the last time we were here that the school here is attached to an orphanage. Orphans... foals the mercenaries take in because their mothers can't care for them... Kero being from Izvaldi... You have to admit all this sounds like it's connected, right?"
"I'm not really following your logic," Starlight said. "You're talking too fast. Start at the point you're making and work backwards from there?"
Jamjars huffed. "Look. Kero, Izvaldi, Puddles and Gazelle are all related, and right now, I'm very mad about everything this will says about foals. So what if I made a few jumps in logic? My explanation fits everything we know, and it's that Izvaldi was blackmailing Kero into doing that stuff with the Ironridge mares and the moon glass, and Kero wrote this will because he wants us to get Gazelle to get Izvaldi in trouble with Meltdown."
"Except that how would Gazelle know what that piece of moon glass was or how it relates to Puddles?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "And why would they have Kero protect it if he might betray them?"
Jamjars sighed. "Look, I'm good at hunches. I don't feel like sitting around, and what I do feel like doing right now is messing with Izvaldi. There's obviously a conspiracy here and I don't care if any of the parties involved get hurt except us, so this is all the more reason to go and get something to hold over them in case we need an escape card. So are you coming or what?"
Starlight blinked. "Coming?" She stepped backwards, shying towards a chair. "Wait, now?"
Jamjars grinned, rolling up the will and stuffing it in her mane. "To go see what Percival's up to? Duh. We just arrived and it's the middle of the night, so even if someone thought we'd try something, they might not know yet. And even better, it's the middle of a rainstorm. Not only will that make us harder to see and fewer guards want to be outside, but rain on the roof is romantic, so Percival will almost definitely be up to something. You in?"
Starlight sighed, rotating her ears upward and listening to the lack of rain on the roof. There was the energy comet, doing its job... "A rainstorm also means we'll get wet," she pointed out. "You realize that, right?"
"It's the price of victory." Jamjars smugly flicked her with her tail as she walked by, a stiffness still in her step. "Look, I'm mad, and I'm not taking it out on you, so we're going to find someone who deserves it for me to take it out on. How's that?"
"I don't know..." Starlight followed along behind reluctantly, but still following. At the very least, she wasn't letting Jamjars sneak off alone.
"Hey there, chum!" High Prince Gazelle dropped out of a window, landing near Wallace Whitewing and streaming water from his fur in a higher corridor in Stormhoof Keep. "That's quite the purposeful face you have there. What's the mission, Wallace old friend?"
"Prince." Wallace's grin was hard and set, more of a spark beneath it than usual. "I've had an abrupt change in fortunes my delegation must be made aware of. But Izvaldi's wing in the colosseum is empty and I know for a fact Lord Percival is at home, so I was seeking someone to inform here instead."
"What, like Chauncey?" Gazelle rolled his slitted eyes. "Come now, he's boring. Any chance you could tell little old me instead? I love gossip, you know."
Wallace let out a single chuckle. "I'm more than twice your age, little prince! I must inform Izvaldi that the terms of our tournament sponsorship are changing. Thought I'd see if I couldn't entice them here for a summit."
"All the bigwigs at once?" Gazelle made a huge show of counting on his feathers. "That's... all two of them. Right. Izvaldi is such a tiny place, sometimes..." He hugged himself and shuddered. "Long live Lord Percival, and all that. Wouldn't exactly be my favorite province to inherit if their real lord kicked the bucket before Percival gets his lordship officially recognized." He lifted an eyebrow at Wallace. "You are still playing at that, right? Wishing for his legitimacy if you win?"
Wallace grinned. "Fear not, little prince. I'm here to reassure them that's precisely the plan! A word of encouragement, as it will be. Might I ask you to keep quiet so I may tell them myself, though?"
Gazelle winked. "My lips are sealed! What's the cause for panic, though?" He nudged Wallace conspiratorially with a soggy shoulder. "Tell meee..."
Wallace's voice quieted. "Morena's daughter has returned to us," he murmured. "For real. I'm still not sure how you managed to lose her after the events in Goldoa, but she has not only been brought back but fully restored to her true self."
"She has!?" Gazelle's eyes sparkled. "Wonderful news! But fear not, fear not, I'll keep it on the down-low. And do let me know what happened to her sometime, if you know that much. Meltdown's been going crazy trying to figure out how she disappeared..." He huffed, shrugged and grinned. "A pleasure catching up with you. If I see Chauncey, I'll let him know you're in the market for an audience."
Wallace bowed and continued his journey, leaving Gazelle behind, leaning casually against a wall.
When Wallace was fully out of sight, Gazelle waited a little longer, seeing to it that no one was watching. "Someone figured out the secret to getting Puddles back to normal, did they?" He flexed his claws, shivering in anticipation, and smiled a terrible, wonderful, awful smile. "Uh oh..."
Izvaldi's rain reached across a day and two night's travel, blanketing the Griffon Empire's entire countryside all the way to Stormhoof. Great dark clouds rolled by high above the castle's pinnacle, sending down sheet after endless sheet that drove all pedestrians from the streets and taxed the storm drains to their max. Below the surface of the city, in tunnels built upon tunnels out of walls of bricks and masonry, roaring water reverberated and echoed, rushing rivers of drainage lapping nearly over the edges of the tunnel walkways. Near one exit, one Valey had climbed through long ago, a pair of four boots lay carefully concealed, having protected delicate hooves from the storm runoff and now smelling faintly of perfume.
Up through the castle, from its kitchens to its loftier corridors, wind drafted and no light shone. For every guard with a torch, there was thrice as much shadow, not so much a road for sarosiankind as a sea. The blackness stretched unbroken up walls, through hallways and across a bridge to a lonely tower study where a few guards stood better watch... but still not too close of watch. Tonight, their master had ordered them not to hear.
"Mmm... Geribaldi..." A black coat and red mane stretched across the luxurious bed of Stormhoof's only prince, nestled against his body. Feathered wings intertwined with leather, the silhouette of a paw rubbed a curved side in the darkness, and a low, contented purr masked the rain as two ponies shifted against each other.
"Heh heh..." Geribaldi Stormhoof lay on his back, staring at the canopy of his four-poster bed and caressing the mare in his embrace. "Look at me now, Gazelle. Can you see me now? Loved, powerful... My talents and the time spent honing them is worth a thousand times your freewheeling ways! Mmm, love... Heh heh..." His toothy grin shone even in the darkness, and he leaned forward to kiss the forehead atop his chest.
"Oh, very powerful," his mare murmured, wiggling her way up his chest to nuzzle at his chin. "And handsomer than they give you credit for. They're all blind to be unable to see it, but you're better than them all. You'll show them..."
Geribaldi let her lips brush against his cheek and flicked his tail in glee.
"Gazelle thinks he's better than you, but what does he have? A prize like me? Oh, I can't wait to see you rub me in his face. And your father's, too. He doesn't love you, you know. He thinks you amount to nothing. That's what they all say, behind your back. I've snuck around..."
"Hardly takes sneaking to hear that." Geribaldi's tail turned to lashing, and he grasped her a little tighter. "I could ask them to their faces and their silence will say what they think of me. What am I, a plebian who gets their entertainment from fighting pirates? Father doesn't understand my dedication. His idea of real-world experience isn't how I'll become the future leader of Stormhoof. But you..."
"Nobody understands, darling," the mare corrected. "Except you. You understand how wrong he'll be proven one day. You'll be the one to show him... my love."
"The only creature I would dare call the same," Geribaldi purred. "But you came to me with a grudge against Stormhoof... You came with a desire to help your kind... Have you studied poetry, my dear Felicity? The very agents who will someday show them I am not someone to be stepped on or brushed aside brought together by that same grudge is the height of poetry. You will make a wonderful queen at my side."
Felicity smiled a fanged smile, laying atop Geribaldi and rubbing his tender ears. "Oh, your ego is showing, my lord... I love it so much when you do that."
Geribaldi wrapped his wings over top of her. "Only for you, my love. Everyone else can behold the wimp and nerd they feel comfortable imagining me as. But one day, they will see..."
"Oh?" Felicity nuzzled his cheek. "And how long do you think that will take, hmm? I'd love to see the looks on their faces when they see you show them your worth..."
"In due time," Geribaldi purred. "Once I get tired of being appreciated right under everyone's noses. But it will happen."
Felicity's grin widened, and she pushed his wings apart, sitting up slightly to look him in the eye. "I could tell you something they're keeping from you if you wanted to hurry things along. A secret your father doesn't think you're worthy of?"
Geribaldi's eyes shone greedily, and Felicity leaned forward, planting the barest kiss on his nose. "Sarosians always breed true."
"Wait... What...?" Geribaldi's demeanor collapsed into uncertainty as his mind hurried to catch up... and then his eyes sharpened again. "Explain this to me."
"Hmmhmm." Felicity stroked his chin with a wingtip. "How do you think a select few houses manage to keep their lines intact for centuries at a time? You know the size of the Empire's sphinx population. You're good at math. You can calculate how long it would take for every one of them to die off from defects related to inbreeding. It's a well-kept secret, but it does exist..."
"A secret the houses who know would do anything to quash, to keep from the others," Geribaldi hissed, following along. "And Garsheeva's heresy makes it impossible for the common folk to discover before being executed before anything could come of it? But then..." His eyes widened. "Stormhoof knows. My father knows. And he didn't tell me."
"Well, of course he does, darling." Felicity flipped some mane out of her eyes, scowling slightly. "Who do you think I plundered that from in the first place, hmm? It sounds to me like he doesn't even think highly of you enough to want you going down in history as someone who continued his line. Very rude, if you ask me."
Geribaldi's eyes narrowed to slits. "I will show him..."
"We will," Felicity corrected with a giggle, sitting up straighter and sliding a little closer atop him, taking one of his wings in her grasp and brushing a feather across her belly. "And sooner than you think..."
"You...!" Geribaldi's grin returned, and he started chuckling, gradually increasing in intensity. "Are you sure? We've only been... for a few..."
Felicity brushed his own bangs away, her smile happy and warm. "I wouldn't have gotten your hopes up if I wasn't sure, love. I've been feeling slightly woozy for several days now, and when I got it checked from a trustworthy source..." She touched his cheek. "How quickly these things happen."
Geribaldi reached out to touch her again, transitioning to a full-on laugh... and instantly froze, another voice stopping him in his tracks.
"Well, that was disgustingly sentimental," High Prince Gazelle remarked, stepping out from behind a curtain with Larceny at his side. "You're too good at this, Felicity dear. Great work."
"Gazelllllle!" Felicity cooed, instantly abandoning Geribaldi and leaving his bed to run up and nuzzle the newcomer sphinx.
"Ah ha ha." Gazelle grinned stupidly as Larceny slipped away, putting a wing over Felicity. "Surprise, Baldy! It's me. You were saying about your relationship?"
Geribaldi rocked forward in his bed, stunned. "What... You... How long have you...?" His eyes snapped into focus. "Felicity! What are you doing? Get back here!"
Felicity turned up her nose. "Ick, no. You're disgusting, and I'm already having second guesses about whether my real friend here will ever be able to pay me enough to make it worth it, being stuck with your taint for however many months you've left me saddled for." She flicked at her belly with her tail. "Everyone fears you won't amount to anything because you are vain, selfish, possess no sense of humor, and at your truest are a vindictive little brat with no idea how to treat a lady. Gazelle? I have finished my job, now you'd better make this worth my while."
"Fear not! Fear not." Gazelle patted her. "Grandbell's royal treasury is vast indeed. Baldy old pal, did you really ever think you were special enough that a beautiful mare would sneak into the castle just to see you? You've been hoodwinked! Oh, this is the best royal prank I've ever commissioned! It's worth it all!" He laughed uproariously, slapping his leg with a paw and nearly keeling over if not for Felicity's support. "What a laugh you are. You didn't think you'd deny me my fun on a dozen and a half pirate outings and not expect me to come calling some other way, did you?"
Geribaldi trembled in rage, flexing his claws... and suddenly a pillow overturned and was slit, and he drew a knife from the feathers. "I... You..." He seethed, a vein bulging in his forehead.
"Son?" The shadows rippled again, and suddenly Larceny was back, this time with Lord Stormhoof at her side. The military sphinx frowned sadly. "You have disappointed me."
Geribaldi's fury vanished, eyes going wider than a punched kitten.
Smugly, Gazelle stepped out of the way, making a show of attending to Felicity as she reciprocated. Lord Stormhoof stepped forward. "Geribaldi. When Gazelle came to me and asked permission to play a joke on you as a test of character, I accepted on the possibility you could show me something about yourself. He wanted to make a wager. All I wanted was to see my son rise above the wiles of a single temptress, to prove he wouldn't be effortless to manipulate as a head of state. It seems any wager I would have made, I lost. I am deeply disappointed."
"This was... You were...?" Geribaldi trembled. "No... How dare you!" He snapped straighter, shaking. "What kind of leader are you, inviting some unknown floozy into-"
"Miss Felicity is no unknown floozy," Lord Stormhoof interrupted. "She's a security contractor. Did you in your infinite self-absorption every consider that if a lover of yours could sneak into the castle without trouble, any number of assassins could do so as well? Felicity runs a network through Stormhoof's underground to detect and intercept threats like this. Where our sarosian population's loyalty cannot be bought with love, coin suffices instead."
Felicity cleared her throat. "About that... Swindling Gondolus Gyre has gotten a lot less productive, lately. I think he's low on cash. So if you want me to keep as tight of a ship as I usually run things, you're going to need to put a little more into it yourself sooner or later."
"Regardless, the point still stands." Lord Stormhoof bowed his head. "Not only did you fail to prove yourself resistant to even the easiest of manipulations, you have been rejected while attempting to date above your station."
Geribaldi shook harder, despair starting to gather in his eyes. "No... This has to be a bad dream... no...!"
"Oh, yes, darling," Felicity replied, seeing her chance and taking it. She walked forward, eyes flashing. "There's only one kind of release you'll find from this dream."
Her cutie mark started glowing.
For a moment, the air in the room seemed to still, the instrument strings drawn along the heart on Felicity's flank vibrating within her fur. She showed her teeth. "You heard what your father has to say. What your rival has to say. Your so-called lover. To whom will you turn now, Geribaldi? Yourself? You've failed so hard already, you might as well not even try."
Geribaldi's eyes glassed over. He trembled one more time, scanning the room... and then there was a flash of steel, and he was done.
"Well." Felicity sighed, letting her mark grow dim. "That bed is ruined. We'll let the coroners clean it up when they find him in the morning."
"I really hate it when you do that, you know," Larceny muttered, then looked to Stormhoof. "Ready to go?"
Lord Stormhoof stared at the bed for several long seconds. "My poor, foolish son." He shook his head. "I am sorry I had to love my province more. Gazelle, however long I last, I trust you'll take care of it when my line is gone." He submitted, and larceny took him away.
Gazelle stared too, waiting for Stormhoof to leave... but instead of breathing reverently, he giggled. "And that takes care of that. An obvious suicide, not an assassination. And you left the bed messy enough they'll even be able to guess a cause. Ha. Haha! Hahaha! Wonderful work you do." He winked at Felicity. "Thanks for being accommodating, by the way. Some things came up and I had to shift my timetables a little. You're a real champ."
Felicity nodded slowly, watching the staircase down, and brushed her belly again with her tail. "He thinks his line will end here. He doesn't know."
"Yes, well, that's what happens when you play this game with someone smarter than you." Gazelle winked. "Enjoy your stolen closet sphinx. Think that will suffice as payment for taking out Geribaldi?"
"Mmm... I think it will, yes." Felicity regarded herself with satisfaction. "Stormhoof's heir or daughter. Either way, this is precisely what I wanted."
Gazelle patted her on the head. "Terrific. I really don't care what you do with it, as long as everything else goes well. Everyone in the game deserves a piece or two of their own to play with... though you're quite lucky you got it so fast. Really, I need things moving a lot faster all of a sudden."
"Tournament three, do you think?" Felicity asked, looking up from herself and watching the bed again.
"Depends on a lot of things." Gazelle winced. "Izvaldi is speeding up. Who knows whether or how quickly Varsidel will retaliate for that incident with the ship seizure and the pirates? I'm counting on a few things to line up, here, but in the meantime we do the best we can do. For now, I think I best be off to Izvaldi and see if I can't smooth a few things over there? Best to keep that situation stable as long as possible, especially since our Ironridge friends are headed that way by my last count."
"Senescey went with them." Felicity nodded again, starting to grow restless. "I really hope we can get them in on things, soon, but they are skittish about political intrigue..."
Gazelle hummed in agreement. "Try a little harder to convince them sooner rather than later. Don't want them as enemies, of course, but they'll have a much worse time of things if they get mixed up in the wrong direction. Still, that's where I'm going next. See if I can't bail them out if they need it. You coming?"
"Give me the evening to decide," Felicity replied, putting a wing over his back and preparing to dive into the shadows. "Most importantly of all, I need a very hot shower..."
Starlight grumbled under her breath as Jamjars pressed into her side, but for once and only once couldn't find it in herself to blame her. The Izvaldi rain pummeled down around them, and only a mushroom-like crystal umbrella Starlight had conjured on her back kept her safe from instant soaking. Had their roles been reversed and Jamjars carried the umbrella, Starlight probably would have shared it with her, too.
"Hmm hm hmm..." Jamjars hummed, her wig removed for the scouting mission, hooves squelching mud as she walked around the hillside behind Percival's manor. Starlight might have been willing to share her umbrella, but she wasn't about to make a second set of crystal boots, too. "It's almost like there are no guards out when it's raining. Now, you're sure you can get us up out of sight of any windows? I think we want to climb right about... here."
Starlight focused, holding onto five chunks of crystal at once already taxing her concentration. "Hold on," she muttered. "This is hard..."
With one action, she formed a disc of crystal on the ground just wide enough to hold them both, dropping her boots in the process and shivering as her hooves touched water. The strain on her horn lessened, she put a hoof around Jamjars, figuring it was much better than getting an earful if either of them fell off... and fired her horn again towards the ground.
In a perfect imitation of how Puddles had once used her ice, the crystal beneath them grew, Starlight pumping it larger until it formed a pillar and rose, taking her and Jamjars with it. The idea was unpracticed and cautious, and she had to raise them even slower than she normally could to make sure their hoofing held. Rising against the mansion, they passed one set of windows, two... and stopped just beneath a draining gutter, barely out of sight of anyone atop the roof.
"Perfect!" Jamjars whispered, giving her a shoulder bump. "Now, my visibility is about..." She took a small rock from her mane, held it in her aura, and floated it out into the storm, watching carefully as the brightness dimmed. "Hmm. I think we'll be safe from the two guard towers we mapped out last time if we move in plain sight, but are slow and don't have lights on us. That means horn out."
Starlight raised an eyebrow at her. "We're going to get wet."
Jamjars shrugged. "Only for as long as we want to listen. And if nobody's there, nobody's there. Then we can find a way inside, or else go to the administration building and ruin someone's day by shaking off all over the floor. Look, the window we need is right there."
Starlight stepped back enough to see a gabled window rising from the center of the broad side of the mansion, looking out across the river at the countryside. The act nearly made her slip, and she clung back to the edge before she could fall two stories to the ground below. "Okay! I see it. How do you want to safely walk across a roof this sloped when it's covered in rain?"
"Skill and determination." Jamjars crawled out from beneath Starlight's umbrella and hoisted herself over the gutter lip, several splashes and an unhappy squeak coming from above. "Starlight, come on!"
Dubiously, Starlight dispelled her umbrella, instantly regretting it. She had to push her dripping bangs aside twice before even trying to climb the gutter, hooking both forelegs across it and trying to brace herself and haul her back half up.
"No hornlight!" Jamjars whispered sharply, pinching Starlight's horn between her two forehooves from atop the roof and trying to snuff it out.
"Hey! Don't, I'm still standing on that!" Starlight squirmed, trying to keep her aura alight. "Jamjars, stop!"
Jamjars instantly shifted her grip to Starlight's forehooves, trying to pull her up. "Fine, then. I've got you. Now put it out!"
As little as she wanted to trust Jamjars to haul her up a watery cliff, Starlight obliged, dropping her light and the crystal pillar and soon after struggling onto the gutter. The metallic sluice was half as wide as her at best and filled with cold, fast-running water, but it was still the best purchase they had, and Jamjars started walking along it like a balance beam toward the window.
They reached the underside of the sill cold and miserable, Starlight already harshly regretting agreeing to this. "So now what?" she grumbled under her breath. "We hope they're here and we didn't come up here for nothing?"
"Yep!" Jamjars put on a soggy grin, though it was apparent she was cold and miserable too. "Hmm... Window's closed. That's dumb. So we won't be able to hear. But can we see...?"
Relying on the rain and darkness to conceal her, Jamjars stood on her hind legs, leaning up and peering through the window... and instantly dropped back down, grinning in victory. "Yes! They're there! I knew rain would be romantic enough. Starlight, look at this!"
Starlight stretched upright as well, noticing that she and Jamjars were exactly the same height. It took a near-slip and two tries, but she got her head up to the window level... and frowned. One or two candles lit the room, and all she could make out was a feathery outline with another body, laying together on the bed.
"Jamjars, we can see even less than last time!" she quietly protested, trying to make anything out. "And we can't hear anything, either. Is this really something you think is going to be helpful?"
"Hmmm..." Jamjars tried to lift her ears, but they were pressed back by the sheer force of the rain. "Ugh. If we open the window, the rain will get louder in there and they'll instantly notice! But we could lure them here to close it... unless Percival is remotely chivalrous and gets it himself. Hmph." She huffed. "Ooh, they're petting. But I can't even make out body type. We'll just have to wait here until they move..."
Starlight gave her a concerned glance. "It's early in the night and they might go to sleep like this. And it's raining. I'm not staying here all night."
Suddenly, a door in the opposite side of the room cracked open, and the lights burst on. Jamjars instantly ducked down, yanking Starlight with her so they wouldn't be spotted. In the time it took them to stabilize and make sure the sudden motion wouldn't knock them off, a high-pitched screech of indignation echoed through the glass along with the shattering of a thrown object, and an angry griffon's voice started lecturing harshly.
"Ugh...!" Jamjars fidgeted, torn between safety and curiosity. "Can't see or hear what's happening...!"
Starlight held on beneath the sill, knowing she wasn't going to peak. "Sounds like someone walked in on them?"
"No duh," Jamjars muttered. "I want to know who! Are they stopping? Will they split up? Ugh, the lights are on..."
"Don't you have that camouflage spell?" Starlight tilted her head, shivering.
"Doesn't work on my eyes," Jamjars answered. "I have to look away or cover them when I use it, or it'll be an easy giveaway. Nnngh..."
The sound of a muffled door slam made it through the window, and no more noises followed it. Jamjars strained her ears against the rain, growled one more time... and lit her horn. "Forget this. It's worth it."
Her aura quickly unlocked the window, swung it wide open with a bang, and was gone before anyone not already looking would have time to see.
Starlight perked her ears as Jamjars dropped down beneath the sill again, pressing her back against the roof tiles. "Now's the time for camouflage!" she mouthed, covering Starlight's body with her own and turning the color of blue-gray stone.
An ugly sobbing that sounded like it could quickly give way to anger reached them from inside the open window, and it quickly snapped to stomping hoofsteps and dangerous breathing. Someone marched heavily up to the window, Starlight peeking out at the open pane from beneath her cover... and a mare's head stuck itself out, with nearly-black fur and a very long, dim aqua-green mane. She couldn't see the mare's eyes and knew she didn't want to as they glanced venomously at the wind, but there was a hint of fangs at the sides of their mouth... and then a leathery wing reached out, grabbed the window and slammed it closed.
Jamjars held her in place for a moment longer. "Who was it?" she whispered once she judged it was safe.
"I didn't recognize her." Starlight tried to shrug, but ended up trembling from the cold instead. "Batpony. Can't guess her age. Long, dull blue-green mane. Do you know anyone like that?"
"Batpony..." Jamjars still didn't detach from her position hiding them both. "Ugh. I knew I should have looked more into Izvaldi's batpony mares. Now, Starlight, show me your detective skills: was she the one who was with Percival, or the one who interrupted?"
"She was crying," Starlight instantly said. "She wouldn't have stayed there being upset after someone else left unless she had something to be upset over, and that would be getting interrupted."
"Nope! Could be either," Jamjars corrected. "I've seen tender moments get interrupted before. Mares get angry, mares get indignant, mares get frustrated, but they never get helpless. Not when it's their house and they can just kick whoever it is out. And that was helpless crying. So she could have been spending time with Percival when whoever else it was interrupted, and something could have come up that made her feel just that bad... but I bet she was the one who walked in, and saw Percival cheating on her with someone else!"
Starlight frowned.
"Of course, that means they were in it together either way," Jamjars theorized, not slowing down. "So we definitely need to investigate and find out who that was. Find her and see how she feels about Percival. That'll tell us what happened for sure, but if we're lucky, she's mad at him and will tell us something useful to betray him... Hmm hmm hmm!"
"That's great," Starlight hissed, shuddering again from her wetness. "Now can we get out of this rain? Please?"
"Absolutely. But we're not done for the night." Jamjars crawled out from under the windowsill's safe alcove, beckoning Starlight to follow. "All that just whet my appetite."
High Prince Gazelle strolled in through the main entrance to the Stormhoof General Hospital, shaking rainwater from his coat and blinking with interest at a gaggle of commotion around the front desk. "I smelled reporters," he announced, striding forward and making his presence known. "Good to know my instincts are sharp. Hello, fellows! What's all the fuss?"
Griffons, mares and stallions turned at his presence and gasped, notepads immediately primed and a recording device or two thrust his way. "High Prince!" a mare with a fantastic manecut and an authoritative voice gushed. "If you're here, that must mean the rumors are substantiated! The hospital has no information for us, but do you have word from on high?"
"Oh? Information?" Gazelle raised an eyebrow. "Seems I'm in the dark. Care to enlighten your Prince as to anything that's happened?"
A tiny stallion with a round face and a waffle-pattern insignia on his petticoat scribbled furiously, an entire spare notepad tucked between his hat and an ear. "Unofficial word is that Prince Geribaldi Stormhoof was brought in less than an hour ago and is being treated for what was described as an attempted suicide! Administration not forthcoming with details..."
"Attempted suicide?" Gazelle's face stretched in surprise and horror. "My academic study buddy and close pirate-hunting companion? Tell me you're joking! He would never!"
"Do we look like we're joking to you, sir?" The waffle stallion adjusted his plaid hat. "Everything we've heard is he slashed his neck, but didn't cut deep enough to hit any vital arteries before passing out from shock."
Gazelle brushed him aside, forging a path through the reporters with sheer force of presence. "Yes, yes, you do you. I have an apparently-suicidal friend to visit. Ahem. Receptionist?" He banged a paw on the desk. "Room number, please!?"
A medical mare regarded him coolly from the other side. "Prince, do you really think I'm going to just tell you when all those reporters are listening right there?"
Gazelle cleared his throat. "Ahem, yes. Shoo, all of you. I suppose I'll find my way on my own, thanks. Good luck covering stories!" His strained cheer dropped, a look of grim worry replacing it on his features.
Two staff ponies who were keeping the reporters from going any further stood aside for him, bowing. "It's terrible to almost lose a friend," one said as he passed. "My condolences."
Gazelle ignored him and hurried on, keeping his face stony and impassive through several flights of stairs, far more interested in finding an empty hallway or waiting room or even closet to take a moment and drop his mask. Finally, fate was on his side, an unoccupied bathroom passing by.
Ducking inside, Gazelle flipped the lock, took several deep breaths, listened for any sign of hoofsteps... and silently pumped a clenched paw, hissing under his breath. "YES!"
He giggled almost audibly, but managed to stop himself, pacing up to the mirror and regarding his expression. "Eat it, Stormhoof! That's why you always check the body!" he mouthed, grinning fit to burst. "Who knows your son better than you do? Who knows your son better than an heir-stealing hussy? Haha! Brilliant work, Baldy. Always knew your cowardly streak would come through for you at the best possible time. Mmm, let's see, now..." He strummed his chin with a paw. "Probably still owe old Baldy a visit just to get the first word in, don't I? Felicity can't cross me and Stormhoof cares too much about not destabilizing his country... Still, probably best to get this out of the way and lay low in Izvaldi for a while. Haha. Yes, I like this very much..."
With a wet shiver, Starlight dropped onto the raised bridge connecting Percival's manor to the Izvaldi hospital, taking shelter beneath its roof from the rain. Jamjars followed close behind.
"Brrbrrbrr..." Jamjars shook out her mane, trembling. "Okay. We need to dry off. And then we move onwards! You wouldn't have a spell for that, would you?"
Starlight shook her head, teeth chattering. "Just crystals, lifting things and teleporting. You?"
Jamjars stiffly shrugged. "Everyone can lift things. And no. Just my friction and camouflage spells." She glanced toward the hospital entrance. "Well, we're not getting any warmer out here. Come on."
"The hospital?" Starlight frowned. "I thought you were interested in what's inside the mansion!"
"Oh, we found plenty interesting in the mansion," Jamjars assured, getting up and moving, her tail too wet to flick properly. "Now it's time for a different lead. The hospital is the way to the schoolhouse, and the schoolhouse is apparently built on top of an orphanage. Kero, Izvaldi, Ironridge foals... Remember? What do you want to bet there's something worth finding in there?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You'll probably find a lot of sleeping foals."
"Nah." Jamjars reached the hospital door, tested it, and found it unlocked, the lights still on beyond despite the late hour. "I'm sure someone will be staying up. I just want to know if any of the foals here are from Ironridge. Kero's mercenary foals? That'll tell us whether things are connected for sure."
"But we already know that?" Starlight followed her inside, relieved to feel that the building had heating. "When we were getting our very first welcome tour and Percival was leading us around, he told us they tried to help ponies abroad, and talked about Kero bringing back Varsidelian war orphans and disadvantaged Ironridge foals? Remember?"
Jamjars' eye twitched.
Starlight blinked. "You forgot, didn't you?"
"Ugh!" Jamjars stomped. "I was there! How could I have missed something like that?"
Starlight shrugged, realizing they were leaving a considerable trail of water and wondering if they should be concerned about being followed. "Probably because you were busy overreacting to the Firefly Sisters. Remember that? You almost fainted across my back."
"Right. I... Heehee..." Jamjars somehow managed to turn a little pink despite being frozen. "Right. Never mind, then. Okay... in that case, we know we're on to something, so there's more to be found by digging deeper. If anyone expects me to believe this is just for charity when Percival ordered that to happen in the first place, they have another... Towels!"
A fresh linens cart for restocking rooms was parked along the hallway, its attendant having apparently wandered off. Jamjars nearly dove in headfirst, stopping herself at the last moment and more modestly rubbing herself down with two or three in her aura. She threw another to Starlight.
"Are you sure?" Starlight gratefully got to work on her mane, pausing once it stopped dripping to start blotting at her fur. "Kero is from Izvaldi. That doesn't mean anyone in Izvaldi is telling him what to do."
"Eh..." Jamjars rolled around on her towels, wiggling herself against them. "Yeah, but Percival built this school, and if he's having Kero bring those foals back here, it means he wanted it in the first place. Look, I know lies and underhoofed dealing when I smell them, okay? I'm a professional at this."
Starlight gave her a dubious look. "Or maybe Kero came to Percival and told him he had a lot of foals that he didn't know what to do with, and Percival thought maybe helping them would make him look good. And it's clearly impossible Percival did it to be nice..."
"Hey." Jamjars stared her straight in the face. "Do you want to believe the worst of Izvaldi here or not? They were taking care of Puddles, their mercenary had the stone needed to fix her, they're obviously up to no good. So if they're up to something there, it's safe to assume they're up to something here, too."
"Fine..." Starlight sighed, finishing with her towel and wrapping it around her tail to ensure she wouldn't trail more water. "But as someone who ran away from home, I can tell you everyone here is going to be happy they have a place where someone actually cares or else more concerned with getting adopted than where they actually came from."
Jamjars booped her on the nose, grinning. "And as someone who also ran away from home, I can tell you they might resent being created based on some dumb mercenary's desire to get paid and then shuffled around in circumstances where there's far too many of them for them to be cared for or raised properly." Her grin turned to a scowl. "This is serious business, Starlight. We're not talking about numbers or objects here, like smuggling moon glass. We're talking as two young mares who had to make do with self-reliance because some idiot parents made is without being prepared for what they were getting into, and we're talking about a long list of foals someone hired a company of mercenaries to bring into the world in the worst circumstances possible." She glared into Starlight's eyes. "I dare you to tell me you can't take that personally."
"I..." Starlight swallowed from Jamjars' intensity. "You might be right..."
"Right or wrong, I'm definitely mad, and I sure am capable of doing something about it," Jamjars huffed. "Come on. Let's keep... Huh." She trailed off, staring up at the ceiling in front of them.
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head, following Jamjars' gaze and seeing a few navigation signs, but nothing interesting.
Jamjars slowly stepped forward. "Hey Starlight," she said, looking down a branch to another waiting room. "This hospital has a maternity ward, you know?"
Starlight glanced at the signs again. "Uh huh. So?"
"The place where mares come to have foals?" Jamjars nudged her to follow, turning down the hallway. "What do you want to bet that's also where they keep population records and things? Birth certificates, you know..." She raised an eyebrow. "Wanna make a bet? I'll bet you if Izvaldi is more involved with all the Ironridge foals who get moved to the orphanage than just a charity case, they'll have data or birth certificates for them here, too."
Starlight frowned. "Jamjars, your logic makes no sense! If Kero was able to get things like that in the first place, why wouldn't he give them over along with the foals? Wouldn't they have them either way?"
"Not if someone wanted to hide that all the foals' fathers were one mercenary," Jamjars confidently corrected. "If Kero had something to hide from Izvaldi, he'd either change any documentation he gave or not give it in the first place. But if he doesn't, he'd just leave them alone."
"Or he might change them anyway?" Starlight tilted her head.
"He might." Jamjars shrugged. "And if he does, we'll learn nothing by looking. But if he forgot, we definitely learn something. And we're here, so why not look?"
"Ugh. Fine." Starlight folded her ears, giving up on questioning Jamjars' course of action. The filly had her own brand of logic, and as long as it didn't get them locked up as heretics beneath Gyre, they would be fine. "You lead the way..."
Jamjars trotted into the maternity ward with Starlight close behind. The lights were dim and the counter unstaffed, which Starlight thought was a little odd given the nature of the thing, but it was good for them. Plenty of chairs and potted plants adorned the waiting room, along with informational posters showing stages of development and good sleeping posture and other uninteresting medical things. Jamjars poked her head down hallways and through doors leading to rooms for ponies that needed them, looking instead for an administrative room or an office. "Not here... not here..." she murmured as she searched.
"Here?" Starlight tapped a door that was actually locked.
"Wonderful!" Jamjars trotted over, concentrated, and telekinetically managed to open it from the other side, sticking her tongue out at the door. "Who even bothers with locks anyhow? Probably just trying to keep out weird griffons."
The door led to a back room that was swiftly illuminated by both of their horns, filled with filing cabinets, big inflatable balls, a few storage boxes and several rolling racks of medical equipment. An empty entrance led behind the reception counter, where Starlight found an appointment ledger open to the following day's date. She scanned it with minor interest; five unfamiliar names were scheduled for checkups. In a city the size of Izvaldi, she had no idea if that was high or low.
"Here we go..." Jamjars hummed behind her, teetering on two legs as she reached up a cabinet. "Records? No, these are directions to houses for making house calls. This one? Ugh, these are for the mothers... Come on, give me something about the mercenary foals!"
"Are you sure you're looking in the right place?" Starlight frowned, trotting back in after her. "They could have nothing here at all and you'd never-"
"Aha!" Jamjars interrupted her with a quiet cry of victory. "This is... Wait, huh?"
Starlight peeked over her shoulder. Jamjars was levitating three folders marked Ironridge, Varsidel and Yakyakistan. "I thought these were them, but there's one for Yakyakistan too?" She frowned. "Whatever. Come on, what else could possibly be in the Ironridge folder in a maternity ward's filing cabinet...?"
The pages weren't birth certificates. They were charts, looking like progressive revisions of the same thing each delivered about a month apart. Jamjars quickly parsed to the newest, a set of several pages stapled together, and started reading without showing Starlight.
Her pupils slowly shrank.
"What is it?" Starlight pushed in alongside her. "Were you actually right? Let me..."
The leftmost column was always a mare's name. Second to the left was sometimes a name, sometimes marked Unborn, mostly towards the top. Then was a date, probably either a birth date or a due date. If those were mothers and foals, she didn't see a name column for the fathers, so Jamjars wasn't about to be vindicated there... but the next columns gave her a double-take.
One was an image, printed small, always a pattern that looked suspiciously like a cutie mark, different for each one. Some rows at random read Unverified, but most were filled, even for the foals marked as not being born yet. Most were accompanied by a one-sentence description, things like 'Talent for gardening' and 'Talent for math'. The final column was blank at the top, until she scrolled near to the bottom of the last few pages, where a select few entries for the foals born years ago read Transferred.
"T-This..." Jamjars touched an entry near the top with a trembling hoof. White Chocolate. Unborn. A date estimate. A small picture of the cutie mark Starlight recognized as fading from White Chocolate's flank so long ago in Ironridge.
"Using moon glass," Jamjars breathed, looking vaguely stabbed. "On a mare who is pregnant and blank. Transfers the mark inside to the foal instead."
Starlight swallowed. "That's what it looks like."
Jamjars put the paper down and looked up at her, eyes burning. "That's what they're doing. It all adds up! Izvaldi gave Kero the moon glass. He lied in his will about it being unrelated. They had him go to Ironridge, look for m-mares who wouldn't be able to do anything about it, u-used them to..." She trembled, about to erupt. "Now they're bringing them back here. They're collecting ponies with these! Not multiple-personality ponies like what happens when most blank ponies use moon glass and get another moon soul stuck in their bodies with theirs. They're using ponies like my mother to grow bodies for these... these..."
"Like Valey..." Starlight's ears fell. "But why? What does anyone gain from this? Who would benefit? Or even have the idea to do something like this in the first place?"
"Don't know, don't care." Jamjars calmly floated the files back where they belonged, sealing up the cabinet and preparing to leave without a trace. "And they won't be able to care either once I've finished ruining them."
"Oh bananas." Valey's ears fell as she finished listening to Starlight's story. "That's... You guys... really..."
Starlight stood before Maple and Valey in a cabin, swallowed, and nodded. Anything about Percival, as she had promised Jamjars, she would keep to herself, but this was important. "The papers we found made it obvious. There's no other reason they'd be tracking what cutie marks the mothers got from their moon glass on the same sheet as they tracked foals brought to Izvaldi."
"Were they all brought to Izvaldi?" Maple whispered, looking placid and near shock. "I remember hearing something about Kero bringing foals back to the orphanage here, but you said White Chocolate's name was on there too."
"So they're keeping track here of kids that haven't even been born yet in Ironridge? Yeah, there's just no way..." Valey sat, staring wide-eyed at the ground. "Bananas. I'm not okay with this."
"I can't believe we didn't think of this before," Maple murmured. "Back when we saw the list of names in Kero's house in Ironridge, and heard from his will that they were all having their moon glass marks disappearing..."
Valey put a hoof on her shoulder, not looking up. "Hey," she said. "Don't blame yourself. You were a little more worried about us getting asked to take Puddles' piece to the Empire, getting drawn into another political mess like we had just gotten out of. If anyone should have realized, it was me. Since, you know, my history..."
"Are you going to be alright?" Maple breathed, gaze shaking. "Knowing that there are... more..."
"More like me?" Valey finished for her. "Ponies whose souls and cutie marks came from outer space, if they're real souls or marks at all? Nah. I don't think I am. But not because of that." She straightened up, eyes hardening. "You know what keeps me up at night? I'm sure I've talked about it before, but I'm afraid of being artificial or a machine. I wanna be a real pony. And the thing is, I know I am. Having friends like you two and Sparky is prove of that. I get to fight for what I want to fight for, care about who I want to care about. I'm me. Just takes some reminding sometimes. But this?"
She scowled into the distance. "Taking this stuff... taking moon glass, then finding a bunch of mares who can't advocate for themselves and using them to turn that moon glass into a bunch of foals who also can't advocate for themselves, then keeping them around to do who knows what? That's treating ponies like machines, whether they are or not. What you are or where you come from might not matter, but this absolutely does." Her hoof stomped against the ground. "Bananas if I'm not taking this personally. Whatever the reason, this is not forgivable."
Starlight swallowed and folded her ears. "They're absolutely doing something bad," she agreed. "But I was thinking about it on the way back, and if those foals in the orphanage here really were inside moon glass once, do you think they'd rather still be there than fully alive?"
Valey shuddered. "That's not a fair question. It took an atrocity to put me together too, you know. I can't say I rather wouldn't without..."
"Yes you can." Maple put a hoof on her shoulder, returning the gesture from earlier. "The ends justifying the means? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? You don't have to put yourself down to say treating ponies like this is inequine."
Starlight nodded. "I'm just saying that you shouldn't blame the foals. They're ponies who need to be helped, not something evil."
"Helped..." Maple trailed off. "Do we have any idea what they're using them for? Why Izvaldi wants to collect ponies who came from moon glass?"
"Looking at myself, I could make a pretty good guess..." Valey studied her foreleg. "You know what I'm good at. Fighting. Breaking and destroying stuff. Better than just about everyone else in the world. It was the first thing I did when I came to, you know. Cleaning the clocks of the scientists who awakened me. So good at it that even before I learned about Nightmare Modules, I wondered if I was created as some kind of weapon. According to Puddles, Navarre is here. He's the dude who put me together, so they'd know that's where I'm from. Kero works for Izvaldi, and his mercenaries were in Ironridge for a long while, so they'd have watched me and know what I do. My guess? Is that they're waiting for these foals to grow up, get their marks... and then use them as some kind of otherworldly army."
Maple took a shaky breath, still looking like a panic attack was in the process of catching up to her. "They could win the tournament with ease that way."
"Forget the tournament." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Remember the pirate ship? Kero's mercenary company? One of me is worth an entire regular army, or a small company of elite normal soldiers. One. The list we found in Ironridge had at least seventy mares, and Starlight is saying they had folders for Yakyakistan and Varsidel too?" She frowned at Maple. "And who knows if they're doing anything in the Empire. I haven't heard anything about moon glass being illegal, and Izvaldi strikes me as a place that's not the richest and still trying to rebuild its population after that stuff Felicity told us about with Percival's dad."
Maple swallowed. "When a mine failed several decades ago and poisoned the city's water supply, killing off a huge number of ponies? I remember..."
Valey sighed. "Yeah. Fortunately that was years before the moon glass fell, so at least there's no possibility these are related... but still. Point is, if all these foals grew up and turned out as strong as me? Forget the Griffon Empire, Izvaldi could probably subjugate Varsidel."
"There were records on what the cutie marks did," Starlight said, cutting in. "Not a lot of them. Most sounded like very normal cutie marks to me. It looked like they were investigating them while they were on the mothers, like how White Chocolate still had hers when we were there."
"Fair point..." Valey chewed her lip. "And plenty of ponies have tried using moon glass to get cutie marks without doing the whole transferring-it-to-a-foal thing without word of any walking superweapons. But maybe it just doesn't work right when you've got two souls stuck together in the same body, or something? I heard Sparky once explaining about that pendant I used for Nyala, the one she prototyped and built into Braen so she could still fly while wearing that. Apparently with normal ponies... Non-batponies, that is. Apparently only your own mark resonates with your body, or something. She implied others might have a weaker connection or not work right? Since the pendant wouldn't let just anyone use a piece of moon glass. So maybe they need to give these marks real bodies for them to unlock their full potential. Batponies are different, since we can physically change to match any mark."
"What do you think happens to the foals' original souls, then?" Maple asked quietly. "If the moon glass ones are attuned to their bodies like this..."
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "If I had to guess, there would never be a reason for them to be created in the first place? But I have no idea how souls work. I don't even know what they are or if they exist, period. And with everything I've learned about learning these things, I really think I don't need to know."
Starlight shook her head. "No, we don't need to know, because there are a lot more important things to think about."
"Yeah," Valey agreed, swallowing. "Like what Stanza has to do with all this, since it's also related to Izvaldi and Puddles... and Puddles was clearly related to this too. All of this has to tie together somehow."
"Are we going to find out?" Starlight frowned. "Fly down the hole in Puddles' room like she suggested?"
Valey nodded. "I wanna go tonight. This isn't something I'd like to wait for, especially since they've gotta know I'm the same as those foals. Unfortunately, Sparky's not recovered yet, and I was kinda counting on her to fly all of us down that hole..."
"Just you and Starlight, then?" Maple asked with a sigh of resignation. "Are you sure you'll be alright? You've barely even had time to rest after your fight and going to Gyre."
"Yeah, I'm sore, but this is more important than soreness." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Gonna get Birdo in on this, and he can carry you if you want to come too. I bet Jamjars will want to come as well, but the two of us can carry the three of you. You ready?"
Starlight sighed, then nodded. "Fine. We're ready."
Gerardo's black sword swayed against his side as he walked two-file with Valey, stepping out of the hospital's elevator shaft at the lowest level their password let them access. Starlight followed in the second row, flanked by Maple and Jamjars and keeping her ears on high alert.
The lights were dim for after-hours, flat panels concealing manaconduits disguised to look like the rest of the tiled ceiling. Clean and sterile, the walls hung with unused metal hooks, an occasional cart of equipment left here or there. But this level was a psychiatric ward, according to the elevator, so Starlight didn't expect them to need much... though a small portion of her was afraid anyone who could architect whatever they were walking into could find a use for a hospital full of insane ponies, too.
A nurse pushing a mop trotted lazily out of a side room, gave them a single look, and abruptly decided an obviously-armed party of intruders in an after-hours hospital was none of her business.
Valey let her go, pushing in on the thick iron door she knew led to Puddles' room. A familiar stone staircase room opened up, the stairs spiraling down its dark walls, and the empty nursery antechamber stretched beyond. Starlight shivered slightly as she walked through its happily-painted walls; it was a shrine to everything that was lost, yet hadn't been taken down now that Puddles was back. An altar to remembering what was gone that had now itself been forgotten.
They entered the room beyond, the chill in Starlight's spine growing as she beheld the ruined mechanism Puddles' lift had fallen from. The windigo had been right: the curved, tangled pipes forming the walls and ceiling of her old chamber were definitely the same as Stanza's. Between the tight spot in the ceiling where they all converged and the hole in the floor they would be going down, if felt like she was in a giant metal stomach... and Starlight had seen these pipes move like they were alive before.
"Two months and they still haven't cleaned the broken lift up, I see," Gerardo whispered.
"Probably had better things to think about." Valey wandered stiffly to the hole's edge, looked down and sniffed. "Feels... stale. I can tell Puddles once spent a lot of time here, but it's only the barest aftertaste." She tongued the roof of her mouth. "But I can also smell it, and I don't think it's because I know what to look for this time. Stanza."
Starlight gave her a scared look, suddenly wanting much less to do with that hole. Not while the Nightmare Module wasn't protecting her... "There's one here too? There are two of them?"
"Unless the one in Gyre can somehow teleport." Valey nodded. "But this is weaker. It's down there, but far away. Not all around us, like the entire building was malevolent. I think I can take it."
"Ahem." Gerardo cleared his throat, looking down beside her. "You do realize what we're doing, yes? You've thought this completely through? Because I have to remind you... We don't know what's down there. We know something is going on, but we aren't aware of what. This isn't about our odds of survival, though I also remind you you've taxed yourself heavily and I'm low on sleep... but once we proceed, we're going to be drawn in." He gave Maple a sharp, avian look. "I remember how things affected you in Ironridge, Maple of Riverfall. This is our last chance to turn back. If we proceed, I can all but guarantee we will find ourselves in that exact same place again."
Maple hesitated... but then firmed her stance. "That may be so, but this time, I'm not a recovering mare who just wants to enjoy her vacation and having a daughter. This time I know someone's doing something wrong, and I'm willing to make a difference. And I'm stronger than in Ironridge, too." She briefly glowed with a pink outline, emphasizing her recolored eyes. "Whatever we find, if it's a monster, we'll be able to stop it."
"Oh, there are monsters somewhere, alright." Jamjars pounded her hooves.
"We're going." Starlight nodded firmly. "It's not like this wouldn't catch up to us if we tried to leave it alone, anyway. We'd have to completely fly away from the Empire, and now that we have our ship back, nothing's stopping us from doing that anyway. We're going in."
"Cool stuff." Valey nodded. "But just so you guys know before you get too enthusiastic..." Her eyes shadowed. "There's something I need to tell you."
Everyone tilted their heads, listening.
"When I was in Gyre..." Valey took a shaky breath. "Right beside Stanza, as close as possible... that place was already screwing with my head, I was already wondering if I was hallucinating... but there, I think I passed out and saw something else instead. I was... somewhere. Everything hurt, and I mean everything, but especially my cutie mark. All my vision was gray, and it was snowing or raining ash or... something. I'm two hundred percent sure I was dying. I snapped out of it and we got out, and it was just an instant in time, but... bananas. I have no idea what that was. I just thought you should know."
Starlight blinked in horror, a memory of snow and grayness and an older, dying Valey surrounded by dead monsters edging its way into her mind. "You saw... No... Was I there?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You know something?"
"No, I..." Starlight swallowed and rapidly shook her head. "No. Nothing. Was I there?" She was sure nobody was convinced.
"Bananas, I don't remember." Valey rubbed the back of her neck. "Was kind of focused on the crippling waves of pain just a little? You were definitely there with me in real life..."
"We need to talk later." Starlight sighed and looked down. She swallowed again, suddenly feeling very bad about absolutely everything.
"Does this throw a wrench in our plans?" Gerardo coughed. "It's clear everyone is privy to something I'm unaware of..."
"I'm not." Maple tilted her head in concern. "Starlight? What's this about?"
Valey shrugged. "Beats me. Starlight, if you know something important, you also know what's on the line if it isn't out there when it needs to be. All I know is that Stanza is weird and scary."
Starlight weighed things in her mind for a moment. Had Valey really told her everything she knew? She still had absolutely no idea what her vision while being deconstructed after powering the harmony extractor meant, whether it was a future premonition, vision of some parallel world or afterlife, or anything else... anything but madness, now that Valey had seen the same. But did that tell them anything about what to do? She still remembered Valey knowing her full, real name in hers. If it was the future and she never told her, that couldn't come true, could it? Or was that just semantics?
Either way, Starlight didn't think everyone having this knowledge would help prepare them for the pit. The vision had clearly happened outside, so if it was the future, going further indoors was safer in the short run... and they'd have time to discuss properly after that. All in all, she wasn't sure how they were supposed to react to a vague, ominous vision anyway.
"I think we can go on." Starlight nodded slowly. "I'll talk to Valey later, but... Valey? How dangerous does it feel down there? Can your cutie mark tell that?"
"You mean at the idea of going in?" Valey tilted her head. "Feels... yeah, sort of dangerous. Which is actually a good sign, because it's not ridiculously lethal dangerous, but if it felt completely safe, we'd know it was a trap. They could be ready for my abilities and mark, if they're expecting us. But I think this is as good as it will get."
"Then we go." Starlight voiced her decision, stepping up to the edge as well and looking down into the darkness.
Valey rolled her shoulders. "Sweet. Birdo has more lift than me, so I'll take Ironflanks and he can get you and Jamjars. Ironflanks, you're not lugging around anything heavy like bricks again, are you?"
The floor clanged, and a pair of large iron ingots landed beneath an embarrassed-looking Maple. "Sorry..."
"Really trying to live up to that nickname, aren't you?" Valey whistled. "Alright. On my back. Down we go!"
"Indeed!" Gerardo swooped overhead, a talon closing firmly around Starlight's barrel and lifting her into the sky. Beside her, Jamjars yelped, suffering the same, and Starlight quickly remembered she had been airsick the last time Gerardo flew them in Ironridge. Hopefully her stomach had gotten hardier over the journey, because this hole was a long way down.
Gerardo tucked in his wings to aid their descent, Starlight's horn lit to guide the way ahead. It felt like they had been falling for hours, even though she knew it was less than a minute: Starlight had fallen from dam bridges and mountains before, and she knew what a real fall felt like.
The wreckage of the lift platform shot into view below, and Gerardo braked with his powerful wings, earning an unhappy wet noise from Jamjars and a reprieve to the wind blasting in Starlight's face. She telekinetically pushed her mane out of her eyes as they entered the bottom chamber, Puddles' imprisonment ring tilted at a slight angle with cracks all around the concrete base. Racks of equipment stretched from floor to ceiling around them, reminding her of a looser, darker version of Arambai's lab with more sharp things and needles. Starlight made out a hoofful of Stanza's pipes burrowing from wall to wall behind them, and most of the apparatuses looked like they were for processing liquid.
Maple landed beside them with a thump, climbing down from Valey and taking a few minutes to steady herself while Jamjars crawled off to a corner. "Huh," Valey said, quickly scouting the area before letting herself get distracted. "One door. Guess they weren't intending for this to be a hub... Room's octagonal, which wastes space to look spooky and is usually a good sign of an insane or evil architect. Or maybe that's just me? Now what's all this..."
"I don't like the looks of this," Maple murmured, pointing to a cart with a giant syringe that was attached to a tube instead of left to hold however much it could usually carry. "I don't like the looks of this at all..."
"Strictly speaking, they could be attempts to find a cure?" Gerardo frowned. "That said, it seems Puddles was right about not receiving the best aid here after all."
"All this stuff even has wheels." Valey kicked the cart. "For a solitary confinement chamber, that makes no sense? Why not just leave your tools here? Only reason is if someone was going to check this place out and you didn't want them to be found..."
"Yet it's been two months and they're still here," Gerardo observed. "Much like this broken lift hasn't been cleaned up."
"That's not our problem," Jamjars groaned, getting her step back and wandering out from behind a shelf toward the door. "Are you coming, or what?"
Valey nodded, taking point. "Yep. Looks like we'd better proceed."
The bottommost doors of Izvaldi's general hospital were circular and opened diagonally down the middle, rimmed with giant metal bulkheads that would have received too much money for construction anywhere else, but Starlight knew better. That doorframe was a giant pipe. Whoever had built this either had a very particular sense of style, or a machine that could grow pipes for free.
The corridor beyond was also a pipe, reminding her of riding down the track through Ironridge's power pipes. Now that she was inside one, she could tell this was definitely not Stanza's work: it was too straight and inorganic, without the regularly-spaced rings of overlapping segments where new pipes had grown out. Still, the homage was obvious. Starlight had seen far too much of Gyre's underside to have any doubt this was related.
"Turnoff. Which way..." Valey sniffed, then went right. "Air's fresher this way. Must be closer to the central ventilation system. A place like this probably takes just as much work to keep breathable as the Defense Force base..." She kept her voice down as she walked, leading and beckoning them onward with her tail.
They were on a main artery, Starlight quickly realized, smaller tunnels branching off to either side in irregular intervals. Then the main tunnel ended in another door, and suddenly Starlight was outside.
...No, not outside, but in a cavern big enough to pass for it. She remembered the basement of Karma Industries, and as her eyes adjusted to the lights in the dark, realized it was a far more apt comparison than she initially thought: the entire floor below them was littered with row upon row of crystal pylons stabbing into the ground, capped at the tops by expensive-looking equipment with sluggish red lights. They looked out from a wall halfway up, metal catwalks forming a platform and branching along the sides and toward the center.
"Oh bananas. It's a generator room." Valey moved aside to let the others through, eyes tracing the output pipes and cables that congregated along the ceiling. "I guess this is where all of Izvaldi's power comes from? This thing is huge! It's probably nearly enough to power all of Ironridge, though Sparky would know better than me..."
Gerardo regarded the room with fascination. "Where all of Izvaldi's power comes from? I dearly hope that's what it's used for, but I'm afraid it's probably not. Since it's one of the less-remembered rules, you've probably forgotten, but Garsheeva names it a heresy to extract mana energy from the earth. This entire room's existence is treason on a divine scale."
Valey's pupils shrank in awe. "Whoever built this is insane..."
"Already established," Jamjars grunted, moving off down the catwalk to the distant center. "So are we going to check it out or what?"
The room's center was a pillar, all the power pipes and conduits converging toward it before dropping, spreading through the air like the legs of an upside-down giant spider, entering the pillar beneath Starlight's hooves. In the center of the pillar was a conical statue covered in manaelectrodes and mirrored by another cone and pillar above, clearly an energy transference device of some sort... except the contact cones were carvings of three figures playing together. A pony, a griffon and a batpony... It didn't take long for Starlight to recognize the design of the Izvaldi central plaza's fountain far above.
"You think we're directly beneath the town square?" Gerardo whispered to Maple, frowning up at the device.
"I'd bet you a pineapple we are," Valey answered, pointing around the pillar to another catwalk ninety degrees from their own. Shortly along it, it passed a glass and white metal tower that stretched to the ceiling, clearly an elevator shaft. "Look. There's the main hospital elevator. Could have saved a ton of walking if we had the full password for that thing..."
"At least it might be a way out if we have to retreat in a hurry." Maple nodded.
Jamjars cleared her throat from the other side of the statue. "So what's this thing mean?"
"Buh?" Valey darted around to her side, Starlight following. A huge breaker switch was engraved into the statue beneath the batpony, looking just as artistic as the rest of the carving yet guarding an unimaginable amount of energy. Text was carved into the top and bottom of the switch, the top in a language Starlight didn't know, but the bottom read The Last Day. She wasn't about to flip that switch down.
"Yeah, maybe let's not touch that, okay?" Valey took two cautious steps back from the apparatus. "Come on, we gotta, uhh... Oh bananas. Yeah, I still smell Stanza. Still not everywhere, but it's stronger down here, and it's that way." She pointed down the catwalk with the elevator towards the wall far beyond. "This is really spooky, but that's the way we have to go."
Starlight didn't protest, her little hooves clacking against the floor's grated metal. Instead of normal supports, this catwalk rested atop a huge pipe, providing a flat walking surface over the tube below.
They reached the far wall, a short metal staircase connecting them to the platform before the door. This wall had three doors in series that all opened at once, revealing the same well-lit room behind. Clearly, whoever made this room didn't want the doors getting held too easily as a chokepoint.
It took a moment for Starlight's eyes to adjust to the sterile white brightness, and her eyes had to rest on a black hole set into one wall for a moment, but the moment she could focus, it was impossible for her to turn away.
Stanza was there.
Mounted on a cart atop a rail track on the floor, Stanza played its lonely tune, unmistakably the same disfigured alicorn statue Starlight had seen beneath Gyre. Only now, it was even more broken, the organ's pipes that once connected it to the tunnels beneath the city slashed, severed and frayed, like it had forcibly been torn out and physically carried away. The alicorn's notes were muted and pained, just as wretched and empty as when Starlight had heard them first yet now sapped of their network, volume and power. She felt something like an infant's hoof press feebly at her mind, and then it was gone.
"What the..." Gerardo breathed in shock as Valey trembled, looking to Maple and then standing nervously near Starlight.
"Is that...?" Maple swallowed. "It's making my body feel weird. Like the flames inside me are angry..."
The room wasn't empty, either. Batponies and unicorns in lab coats and construction outfits walked back and forth, repairing a hole in the wall Starlight wondered if had been used to get Stanza in. How did they transport it here so quickly? And why?
Suddenly, Valey froze even harder, eyes going pinprick on a raised observation platform Stanza's new rails led up to, and a snarl stretched across her face at the long-maned batpony surveying the proceedings. "There he is," she whispered, emerald fire in her eyes. "There's the murderer that wears my sister's body."
In a jet of light, Valey streaked across the room, trailing a green stripe from her mane and tail as she jetted towards the raised central platform where Navarre stood, frozen. Her cutie mark tingled and her nose burned with the increasing proximity to Stanza, but that machine was inert and it could wait. She had one target, and let out a reverberating yell as she dropped onto the platform, swinging around behind him to cut off his most obvious avenue of escape.
Navarre didn't even try to run. He sat back, put his forehooves in the air, and closed his eyes, a grimace of resignation and acceptance on his face.
"...Huh?" Valey raised an angry eyebrow, circling him with a wide stance so she could keep tabs on as many of the room's scientists as possible. "You're just going to sit there. Really?"
"I know who you are," Navarre sighed in an airy voice that bordered on girly. "Admiral Valey of Ironridge. Artifice of Luna. My last and accidentally-greatest work. I've been expecting you for a while."
"Uh huh." Valey patted her flank. "And you apparently know what I do, too, because you didn't even bother setting a trap for me. Then you probably know what I want, too." She glared at Navarre's body, making a point of staring at it without staring at the pony inside.
Navarre sighed. "Get on with yourself. There's nothing I can do to stop it."
Valey twitched. "You know, given why I want your head in the first place, I seriously doubt that. You know how to get around my cutie mark. Where's the other boot? Why are you just giving up!?"
"No, I don't know," Navarre countered, looking like she was dragging out something that should have been over instantaneously. "Ever since I awoke in my new form without memories, you've been the unknown factor. A terror of my past, something I created with methods and science now lost to time. Every second of my time since has been spent on self-preservation, trying to forestall this inevitable reunion. And now I have failed, and my time has run out."
Valey continued circling. "Well, if that isn't vaguely depressing, I don't know what is. Bananas, are you going to try and guilt me into leaving you alone?"
Navarre airily sighed. "Even with your aid, I couldn't save myself from the debts I've incurred in seeking survival and absolution, Artifice. Nor would I presume to desire it. Look at me and behold! Granted a fresh slate by my own last resort, a freedom from anything I may have incurred but you... I turned to my old notes for salvation. I resurrected a demon of the ancients in hopes it would protect me from your return, yet was left frozen and alone in seconds. Now, my soul belongs to Izvaldi... It will be a mercy to the world and myself once you lay my body to final rest in the tomb it deserves."
Valey's eyes widened, and she slapped him. "Bananas no!" She bared her teeth, glaring. "Stop being dramatic, and don't even think about holding my sister's body hostage! I don't want you dead, I want you gone!"
"You didn't even know!?" Valey blanched. "Knock that off. You just said you read notes or something. And stop calling me an artifice! I'm not artificial!"
"You want this body," Navarre breathed. "That's why. I always knew you were after me, but that's why. You're going to separate..." His eyes unfocused in abject horror. "Oh no..."
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head... and suddenly her cutie mark flared with lethal danger. Before she could even react, Navarre had moved, kicking her with all his strength and throwing her from the platform. "Hey! You-"
The world went green.
All the lights fluctuated in sync, dropping their sterile white color and plunging the room into a negative light where shadows seemed brighter and light things were dark. Valey instantly became aware as she caught herself in midair that the rest of the workers and scientists had fled... and then an eldritch groan from the rail cart captured her attention. Stanza was moving.
With a single stroke of its wing against keys, the broken alicorn blasted brittle air from its organ pipes, creaking in its stone throne. Stanza's eyes gleamed emerald as it cracked and straightened, metal braces twisting themselves as its broken limbs raised it into a sitting position. Fully upright, it regarded the central platform with a deathly presence, and the air before it shimmered in a cylinder stretching all the way to the wall. Valey squinted; within the cylinder, Navarre was completely petrified. She flipped back to where her friends were waiting, less endangered but still on edge.
The crown stabbed into Stanza's chest glowed, fluctuated, and burst.
A crackling beam of green and black energy as wide as Valey's barrel lanced from it, seeming to appear in midair between Stanza and Navarre rather than take time to fly from one to the other. Navarre was impacted, lifting into the air as his body danced and burned and blackened with green flames. Holes began to melt into his lower legs, his fur congealed into a hard black shell, and a jagged, pit-riddled horn burst from his forehead, eyes losing their pupils and becoming one solid color. His mane and tail froze into translucent frills, and a cutie mark burst from his chest, glowing with color as the beam retracted and drew it back into the crown on Stanza's chest. When the display was done, Stanza's beam faded and the lights slowly returned to normal, though a glow of color remained emanating from the crown where the stolen cutie mark hovered. Nyala's empty body remained stuck in place, a faint shimmering in the air still holding it down: a shimmering that also covered Stanza's stone horn. The statue had a colorless telekinetic field.
"That... That thing's operational..." Valey breathed, watching Stanza with wide eyes.
"Could it do that before?" Maple stood strong in place, bolstered by her harmonic energies from the windigo heart and holding Starlight close.
"No," Starlight answered, meeting Stanza's glowing eyes with a glare. "It couldn't."
A low note emanated from the organ, wretched and mournful yet somehow tinged with pride as Nyala's shell rocked in its invisible grasp, as if to say, HERE.
"This is concerning," Gerardo remarked far too calmly for the situation. "Very, very concerning..."
"Is that so?" a new voice said from behind them. "I thought it was a wonderful showing, that machine proving it's good for something after all. How many birds did that kill with one stone? I don't think I can keep count."
Everyone tried to whirl without taking their eyes off Stanza, except Valey. She didn't need to. "Yo, Chauncey. What's up?"
Then Chauncey was between them and Stanza, leaving their backs to the exit without any need to watch two things at once. He regarded the statue and its hovering mote of cutie mark light, then turned to face them, the crown symbol emblazoned on his high collar and miter suddenly recognizable as the same spindly, twisted crown embedded in Stanza's chest. Chauncey regarded everyone for a moment, then sighed. "I'm not entirely pleased with the way this has gone down."
"Keep talking," Valey said. "I dunno what's going on, but I came to bust someone up and I haven't busted anyone up yet. And what I want is right over there."
"I figured as much." Chauncey shrugged beneath his robes. "You know, when a party of patriots from another country wanders into my realm, steals my experiments and interferes with my plans, I feel I have every right to be mad. Haven't I gone out of my way time and time again to help you lot? I've welcomed you into Izvaldi, forgiven you your role in Puddles' disappearance, done my part to rig things in the tournament towards your favor, and you repay me by sneaking into my facility in Gyre, stealing Puddles again and messing up my teleporter. Now you come here to make threats?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Excuse me, but good endeavors do not abate the presence of other more sinister actions! What is... all of this?" He waved a talon at everything.
Starlight glared at him. "I didn't sneak into your Gyre tunnels! Someone knocked me out and locked me up in there!"
Chauncey sighed. "I don't know what I have to do to work with you or earn your trust. Fortunately for us all, I'm in a very forgiving mood, so I'm willing to overlook the way your demise of my windigo cost me the utility of my best scientist and several years' worth of effort. But I'm tired of all this mistrust between us. Do you look cornered to yourselves? I'm letting you walk away at any time. Name any other peace offerings you'd like, and I'll give it to you."
"Stanza." Valey snapped her wing, pointing at the dark tunnel in the wall Stanza's rails led to. "Not in the room. Not a weapon like that."
"Easier done than said." Chauncey closed his eyes, and Stanza's platform rumbled, a mournful note playing out as the alicorn was carried toward the wall. "You'll want to grab that body to stop it from flying away after his grasp breaks."
"With pleasure!" Gerardo swooped ahead of Valey, using his larger bulk to pin Nyala's empty form down as Stanza's field vanished. "I have her!"
Valey eyed the retreat warily. "Cool," she slowly said. "Cool. Now I want you to take that body, take the piece of moon glass containing its real soul, and put them back together. Give me back my sister."
Chauncey fixed her with a hard look. "Regrettably, that is beyond my ability."
Valey glared and tapped a hoof.
"But I can provide an explanation," Chauncey continued. "I'm surprised you didn't ask for one earlier. I have nothing to hide from you, here, and am willing to explain everything." He started walking back toward the observation platform where Gerardo held Nyala, completely concealed save for his face by his robes. "The manipulation of brands is a subject of extreme interest to me for reasons I will reveal. Obsidian can extract them from sarosians. If you're from Ironridge, you've likely stumbled across our means of growing properly-attuned bodies around brands encased in obsidian. Stanza is a research project trying to develop a way to remove brands that can be switched on or off, instead of leaving them stuck. But breaking a brand free from its properly-attuned body, outside of a sarosian, is exceedingly difficult. The only known method requires the destruction of a windigo heart. Do you see the problem with this?"
Valey continued tapping.
Chauncey fixed her with his gaze. "You want a sarosian body and a brand inside moon glass to be recombined? Provide me with the time and components, and I will use a blank mare to grow it a body, wait years for the brand to manifest, remove it with a windigo heart and transfer it to its original vessel, then kill the new body so they don't recombine. Tell me this is what you want, and to earn your trust I will do it."
"What?" Valey finally blanched. "Bananas, no, that's messed up! Just do whatever it was they did in Icereach to make me!"
"Then you see the problem," Chauncey whispered. "There's clearly a better, more instantaneous way. Some method of withdrawing brands easily and transferring them from anywhere to anywhere. Unfortunately, Navarre's memory was wiped when he forcibly switched bodies. The stallion I found and brought here on my expedition to investigate Puddles' possession was barely a year old, in memory. And any research notes on the procedure used to assemble you no longer exist." He looked down the tunnel after Stanza and sighed. "And you've rendered my best scientist useless by killing off the windigo that was the base of all his research."
Valey gritted her teeth. "You're going to have to slow down in about a million different directions, buddy, because I'm not following and am not sure I want to."
Chauncey barely acknowledged her. "Stanza was his best attempt to create a machine that could cause that effect. As you just witnessed, Stanza has the power to remove brands... but only from sarosians. That beam fails on obsidian and causes flesh damage to other creature types."
Starlight cleared her throat. "He's saying he doesn't know how to put Nyala back together, Navarre lost his memories just like Nyala did and forgot how to do it too, and they needed Puddles for research on finding that way again."
"That's a succinct way of putting it." Chauncey nodded. "That body is yours. Take it. It's the latest in my series of peace offerings to you. Now, if you ever want to do anything with it..." His eyes thinned. "Let's sit down and have a talk, because we're going to have to work together."
Valey stood defensively between Chauncey and her friends in the empty, brightly-lit laboratory, Gerardo crouched on the observation platform guarding Nyala's empty body. "Alright. You've got our attention." Valey paced back and forth, eyeing him all the while. "Don't think for a moment we don't know you're doing shady stuff, but I'll talk. Explain yourself."
Chauncey didn't hesitate. "Allow me to start from the top," he began, "with what I want. You've seen the state of our kind in this empire, sarosian. Anywhere from second-class citizens to outright despised. Izvaldi is a unique haven built through decades of work, but its attempt at equality can't balance out the injustices taking place elsewhere. Look at this continent. Look at who runs it. Compare Izvaldi to the continent as a whole, the empire and Mistvale alike, and tell me who you think has done more for the benefit of our species."
From the back, Starlight frowned. "Well, the goddesses have been around a lot longer than you."
"And thus had much more time to work." Chauncey shrugged in acceptance. "So why have they done less? Why can a hoofful of mere mortals build something so much better with the pittance lifespans they're given to work with?"
Valey pointed a hoof. "Yeah, and we're supposed to buy that doing weird experiments and building things like Stanza and using poor mares as tools to grow bodies is a good thing? And don't you dare tell me the ends justify the means."
"I wouldn't dare," Chauncey calmly countered. "You know as well as I do that kind of thinking is a fool's justification. But do you hold our goddesses to the same standard? Suppose they forged this continent into a paradise, yet did so through means you also have a problem with. Would you condemn them too?"
"Well, duh." Valey frowned, halting her pacing. "Look, I'm not a hypocrite. I know you're about to tell us some really nasty truth about Garsheeva or the Night Mother or whatever, but to be frank, I don't really care for either of them in the first place and it's not gonna make me any happier about you treating ponies like machines. What do you want with all those moon glass foals?"
"One thing at a time, please." Chauncey waved a hoof beneath his robes. "What I'm about to ask isn't so much a truth as an idea: where do you think our goddesses came from? They may be immortal, but are they eternal? Have they always existed, or did they begin? And if so, how?"
Valey shrugged. "Sorry. Not a history buff, and I doubt any of these dudes are either."
Atop the platform, Gerardo cleared his throat. "Concrete historical records of the Griffon Empire cease about one thousand years ago, when our present dating system was structured into place. Historical evidence strongly suggests Garsheeva and the Empire existed long before that, but it swiftly becomes impossible to construct or date things outside of the histories of the houses kept by the nobility themselves, and those archives occasionally meet their ends at the paws of zealous rivals. Traveling abroad, most accounts of Garsheeva date back as far as another thousand years before that, though much remains shrouded in myth. Lore kept by the Church of the Nine Virtues in Yakyakistan is our best historical archive on the matter."
"You've done your research." Chauncey nodded in approval. "The world's distant past is shrouded in intense mystery. No one knows when or how it was created. However, the lack of creation myths speaks to a lack of immortals willing or able to take credit for it, so I surmise that this continent's goddesses did, at one point, come into being." His eyes flashed. "My dream is to rediscover that lost art. To find a way for mortals to create gods, and give sarosiankind the champion they deserve."
Valey blinked, then scratched her head. "And you're sure you're not insane? Gods are, like..."
"Sacrosanct? Forbidden? To be revered?" Chauncey took a step forward. "True divinity is an ideal, and if it can be embodied, our goddesses don't do that. Reality can be simplified to a set of rules, and science is the art of understanding those rules. I believe our goddesses to exist inside those rules, not above them. They are just... very intelligent. Good at using them."
"Uhhh..." Valey squinted. "Pretty sure you're making some big leaps of logic there, buddy. Look, as someone who knows a little bit more about how mortals and bodies and souls and everything else work than I probably want to, trying to find stuff like that out really doesn't sound like a good idea."
"Why? Are you afraid of what you'll find?" Chauncey fixed her with his gaze. "Afraid it will be an ugly truth, that whatever methods you condemn me for here and now have been in employ for millennia by the beings this continent worships and reveres? Or does it rub wrong against your moral senses that were instilled by their very teachings, which I believe to be taught precisely to keep their secrets hidden?"
Valey cleared her throat. "Yeah, no. I dunno about you, but I've never listened to any moral teachings. Used to be the world's pettiest societal nuisance for my entire life, and changed because I found something better. No one told me that was bad. No one told me this was better. I think you're off your rocker."
"When you say teachings..." Gerardo interrupted, raising a talon. "You're talking about the heresies, aren't you? That's why directly outside this room is a massive energy farm constructed in direct defiance to one of Garsheeva's commandments."
"Perfect." Chauncey stilled in approval. "What I want to do, Gerardo Guillaume, is create a champion of equal might to this continent's goddesses who will fight for my people when our own goddess will not or cannot, with her blessing or without. Everything I do to do that, from research making Stanza to extracting brands? If I fetter myself with moral constraints our goddesses or their creators may not have been bound by, I will never succeed."
"B-But..." Gerardo sputtered. "Willfully violating the heresies? You are aware of some of the things those contain? Prohibitions against cannibalism and incest, for instance?"
Chauncey shrugged. "Breaking them is neither important nor necessary. What matters is finding out the truth they conceal. That power array, for instance?" He turned towards the doors. "All of the Empire is connected by the same grid to a singular energy source in Garsheeva's citadel in Grandbell. Attempting any large-scale power draw or transference would change the balance of power in the entire array, instantly drawing Garsheeva's attention. That heresy in particular is a trap for anyone audacious enough to do what you just suggested."
"But you built it anyway," Starlight pointed out.
"I did. It will be my beacon." Chauncey turned back to her and nodded. "When I have met with success and everything is finished, this will be my signal to Garsheeva that a new competitor has appeared."
"Bananas, that's suspicious." Valey rubbed her head. "Look, you obviously want a favor of us. There's no way you'd be being this nice to someone who obviously knows you're a sleazebag and can do something about it otherwise. And I'm just saying, telling us you're trying to pick a fight with and overthrow a giant sphinx goddess is a really, really good way to make us want nothing to do with this."
"Are you leaving, then?" Chauncey sighed. "I can help you, you know. It's not just about your sister. You're in a body that isn't your own too, are you not?" He raised an eyebrow. "Ever wanted to fix that? I can guarantee you won't learn enough to preserve your memories across such a swap without descending to every level you condemn in me. I have knowledge. You can use it."
Valey gritted her teeth, winced... and looked back at Chauncey. "Fine. Keep talking."
"I've said my part." Chauncey shrugged. "You know what my end goal is. I think it's time to ask some questions of your own. Why Stanza, why foals, why brands... how you can help."
"We are not asking that last one." Maple spoke up, voice strong yet quivering. "It will take a lot more convincing before we want anything to do with this. I'm not okay with anything you've been doing."
Starlight nudged her comfortingly, then looked up. "What is Stanza?"
"Stanza is a machine made from emotion," Chauncey replied, slipping into an easy lecture. "A primary interest in my research regards the transference of brands from one creature to another. If you're familiar with Griffon Empire lore, one of the signs sphinxes use to claim rulership over all species is to possess griffonlike features ponies do not, yet also manifest brands. Extensive investigations into brands are a core component of this facility's research. However, transferring brands is a very slipshod and patchwork art, using many different tools and impractical combinations of methods. Stanza was an attempt to create a unifying method: a machine that could remove brands from anyone and imbue them in anyone else."
"An attempt." Valey raised an eyebrow at Nyala's body. "Looks pretty attempt-y to me."
"Stanza can remove and transfer brands as hoped," Chauncey continued. "But is only able to remove them from sarosians. I've also attempted to use Stanza for other research, such as into the workings of the Night Mother's communication network. With Puddles' aid, I was indeed able to weave Stanza's song silently into my Firefly Sisters' music and record observable effects on a widespread population of ponies... but it's difficult to encode those effects, and that experiment had to be scrapped when singing the song had deleterious effects on their brands."
Maple's eyes went wide. "Their cutie marks breaking like that was your fault?"
"As I said." Chauncey paced in a circle. "That's why the experiment was scrapped and Stanza scheduled to be brought back here for retirement. Though I was goaded into quickening things when you two raided the facility in Gyre."
Valey sighed. "So you're actually getting rid of that thing. Sweet. Bananas, did you never think singing a magical song of despair could be bad for ponies, or something?"
"Of course I considered it." Chauncey didn't stop, eventually reaching the base of the observation platform before turning back. "But it didn't change anything. As I said, however the goddesses became goddesses, I must be equally relentless in my pursuit of knowledge."
"Yeah?" Valey straightened herself out, taking a step forward. "So speaking of knowing things, what do you know about me? What makes ponies like those foals and their moon glass cutie marks so special? I already know what you're going to say about why you'd do that to their moms, so what makes collecting them important? And what does that mean you have in store for me?"
Chauncey blinked. "Why, I'm already researching methods of soul transference. Why else do you think I'd make a collection like this than to see to it that whatever god body I create, I can give it a fitting soul?"
Valey blinked harder, then leaned in. "Wait, what? You want to..."
"It's one thing to create an immortal being," Chauncey lectured. "Garsheeva, the Night Mother, the alicorns of the south. It's quite another, as our goddesses clearly demonstrate, to have one who uses their power in a wise, just and benevolent manner. What good would come of creating someone on their level of power when that someone would turn out just the same?" He shrugged. "I need a talent that will command godlike reverence coupled with a soul that exudes godlike presence. A ruler who can claim legitimacy and wield it justly upon whom to bestow a form with whatever powers I unlock. And so, with those foals? I search."
"You search moon glass," Maple insisted, glancing to Valey. "Instead of any normal pony? What's so special about Valey? Why?"
"Because..." Chauncey's eyes narrowed. "The Night Mother is not Luna."
Valey's face scrunched. "Is not who?"
"It's not a tale anyone in the empire will tell you," Chauncey began. "Actually, it's preserved only in the highest circles of Mistvale clergy. Sarosiankind were created long ago by the alicorn princess Luna, south of the mountains in the land of Equestria. One thousand years ago, in fact, shortly before the world was split between north and south. Luna did this by wielding a power known as the Immortal Dream, a physical incarnation of the hope and ambition of society to grow and amount to something more. That power was so great, it was said to be able to grant any wish the bearer made. Do you know of anything else said to do the same?"
Gerardo quietly tilted his head, and Starlight frowned... before Maple hesitantly spoke up. "Cutie marks. Brands. In my old town, it's said that for some ponies, when they have a dream they want to come true more than anything else, obtaining one gives you the magical power to make that happen. Of course, it isn't always true..."
"Brands," Chauncey agreed. "The Immortal Dream granted wishes by creating brands, each made to fulfill the bearer's every desire. And Luna created sarosiankind as receptacles for those wishes... or so the story goes."
"Bananas." Valey's ears fell. "Are you saying I'm..."
"Does it create souls, too?" Starlight watched him with intensity. "Are you saying that's where Valey came from?"
"Brands and souls are linked, yet separate," Chauncey said. "Now, some of this story you've likely heard before. Many modern legends are a variation on the truth. The part that's closely guarded..." He lowered his voice. "After Luna vanished to the moon, someone else appeared. The Night Mother exists, and there are a small few number of creatures in the world who have visited her in person. Meltdown is one. Mistvale obscures this fact, leaving it up to legend whether they are different or the same, but the truth is that Luna has had no contact with the world or her creations for over nine hundred years." He bowed his head. "Until the obsidian fell."
Valey raised a shaky hoof. "I see where you think this is going," she managed. "You're about to say you think Luna's been usurped by someone and sent down a load of cutie marks made especially so you could take them out."
Chauncey's grin widened. "Or that she abdicated," he said, "being unable to serve and protect her children, and sent down something else instead."
Chauncey stood for a while, expression slowly slipping to disappointment as he expected an answer he wasn't about to get. "You're not following at all, are you?"
"Nah. Just thought you were going somewhere else with that." Valey's composure slowly returned to normal, and she wiped her brow. "For a moment I thought you were about to tell me you've got yet more evidence I'm some freaky space weapon and then that you wanted to use me to take over the world, or something. Glad I don't have to tell you that's not happening."
Gerardo cleared his throat from the observation platform. "Mister Chauncey, I do believe you're vastly overestimating my companions' knowledge of the eastern world. Hearing that the vaunted sarosian Night Mother is verifiably different from the progenitor of their race is moderately interesting to me, but all my friends here seem quite unimpressed with your revelation."
Valey shrugged in agreement. "Yeah, to be honest, I kind of figured that was the case in the first place, the Night Mother not being the real thing and all. You're saying this Luna is the Mare in the Moon, right? I've got some old legends from my hometown that said some nutcase up there was responsible for making batponies. Never really believed them until recently, but someone bonkers enough to design living weapons doesn't really sound like the same kind of someone who would sit around all night and listen through a bunch of statues and give friendly advice."
Chauncey gave her a look. "You don't sound like a fan of hers."
"Hey, I've had a raw lot in life." Valey stretched her wings, folding them behind her head. "A whole bunch of it due to circumstance. Hard not to be ticked at whoever built me the way I am." She shot a pointed glance at Nyala's body, formerly Navarre. "But the Night Mother and Garsheeva can go jump in a lake too. Seriously, the Empire is rude to me sometimes..."
"Have you, now?" Chauncey sounded interested again. "Hmm. That's a very common thing for sarosians to say about the Empire. Perhaps you might be able to relate to why I want to change it."
Valey folded her wings again. "Yeah, but I'm not gonna go around making evil statues or treating mares like machines to do it. Look, I get that you're going out of your way to be nice to us, but it doesn't make us any happier about what you're doing."
"Right." Maple stepped up alongside her, glow intensifying slightly. "I was friends with one of the ponies you used like that, you know. Her life was impossible enough already before your mercenaries offered a seed of light, took it away again and made everything worse! I don't know what you want and you still won't get to the point, but we're not working with you when you won't treat the ponies who need it most with the dignity they deserve."
"Treating the foals' mothers without the dignity they deserve? Like machines?" Chauncey's eyes flashed. "Are you sure about that, my little ponies? Because I believe the contrary. What is the Night Mother's claim to authority beyond the genesis of sarosian life? The creation of souls and life is thought of as the realm of goddesses, yet how easy is it to forget what every mare is capable of merely by having a body? The pursuit of understanding is my reverence. If we were forbidden from aspiring to a god's definition of godhood by anything more than those very goddesses' rules, why would their bodies-"
"Alright! That's more than enough." Valey cracked her hooves, pacing dangerously over to Chauncey. "That is the most entitled, egotistical, least compassionate thing I have ever heard, and I was a professional jerk and philanderer back in Ironridge. You have no empathy, less than zero concept of what makes a good leader, your logic has more holes than the roads in the Earth District, and your hat is dumb. So..." She wound up a giant punch, ready to follow up the moment he dodged. "Stuff a durian in it, old coot!"
SSCRRRNNNG...
"Ow! What the...!?" Valey bounced back, tumbling once and shaking her hoof as a barrier of transparent gray hexagons appeared an inch from Chauncey's unamused face, rippling like barely-disturbed water as it deflected her strike and fading soon after. "Bananas!"
Chauncey regarded her coolly. "I'm going to forgive you for that," he said, "and whatever rash thing you do next, because I really would like us to be on good terms with one another."
"Having a single drop of sanity is a good way to start..." Valey gritted her teeth, holding her hoof as if she had just accidentally punched a boulder. "Bananas, I remember that. You broke up a fight with that shield thing outside the school last time we were here..."
"That's very observant of you. It's quite a powerful shield. I enjoy having it a lot." Chauncey turned his back on Valey, walking toward the stairs to the observation platform. "Would you two mind moving aside? I have something I'd like to demonstrate."
Gerardo gave him a look, but grabbed Nyala's soulless, animalistic form and flew closer to the rest of the party, setting her down close. "This is rubbing all my feathers the wrong way," he whispered once he landed. "I am starting to think we should quit while we have what we came for."
"We came to stop whatever was going on down here," Maple corrected, glaring at Chauncey.
Valey scooched closer, massaging her hoof. "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure I can't just beat him up if he's gonna do that. He's serious about not attacking us, but bananas, it's like he's invincible or something."
The room's lights dimmed and went green, and a discordant groan came from Stanza's tunnel.
"Oh bananas!" Valey spread her wings in a flash and threw herself over Maple and Starlight, shoving both of them to the floor. The same crackling, green-and-black beam of energy that had ended Navarre earlier flew from the tunnel, forming instantly between its source and Chauncey... but instead of impacting the stallion, it splintered just before his chest, fracturing into chaotic waves of radiation that fluctuated and bounced around the room. Most of the deflected energy struck the back wall or faded soon after breaking from the main beam, but a few glanced off Valey's back, and she shuddered. "Nngh... Feels like Stanza, alright..."
After several long seconds of trying, the beam dissipated, Chauncey standing atop the platform with his barrier intact, looking unamused. "That's how strong this is," he said as the lights once again returned to normal.
"Are you alright?" Maple yelped, readying a flicker of harmonic magic and pushing it into Valey as the started getting to their hooves. "That was the same thing..."
"Yeah. That hit Navarre." Valey brushed herself off and patted her cutie mark, glaring up at the platform. "Think I'm good, though. I could feel that thing's badness from here. Chauncey! What's your problem!?"
Chauncey returned to the ground floor, pacing back toward them with a frown on his face. "It is a demonstration. You say I lack compassion and empathy?" His eyes flickered between everyone. "I'm going to show you what you're talking about."
Silently, he reached a robed hoof to his face... and drew it away with two curved contact lenses. Beneath, his eyes were entirely gray.
Valey froze. "Oh, you can't be serious..."
"Mane dye and contact lenses," Chauncey said, setting them aside. "Two things that are easy to obtain and very good at altering your appearance. It sounds like you're already familiar with what I look like beneath these robes, but for the sake of holding nothing back..."
With a ripple, Chauncey snuck into the shadow of his own robes, leaving the hat and garment behind. Bright overhead lights burned down at the cloak's edge, and the moment he swam beyond them, he was ejected into the light... or, at least, all of him that existed.
From the waist down, Chauncey was gone, his coat chipping away like a thin shell covering a miasma of infinite purple. Dark stars and nebulae twisted inside a void that might have been a gateway to the heavens' blacker reaches, flowing in an outline that vaguely took the shape of a pony. His front legs suffered the same, disintegrating into magic from his shoulders to his hooves, all four of which somehow stayed attached like the limbs of a shadowy marionette. Nightmare Chauncey regarded all of them dispassionately. "You've seen this before."
"That pirate mare..." Maple breathed.
"...Nightmare Modules, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Lemme guess. That shield?"
"I have two," Chauncey replied. "The shield, and one I got from a colleague of Navarre's in Ironridge that damages memories. This is the price I'm willing to pay in my quest. So before you accuse me of lacking empathy or compassion, consider I may have traded it for something better."
Starlight gave him an uncertain glance. "You really shouldn't play with those..."
Valey sighed. "Birdo, gimmie your sword."
"With all due respect, I think that's a very bad idea," Gerardo replied, shaking his head and keeping the sword at his side. "So, what I'm seeing here is that a certain someone's quest for godlike powers..."
Chauncey nodded at Gerardo, continuing to show off his eldritch form. "I had the chance to use them and took it. For nearly thirty years now, I have lived without some of the mental trappings of mortality, trading emotion I can feel for emotion I can use. Nightmare Modules are powers encoded and manifested through feeling. There are plenty of emotions I have not experienced since I took this on all that time ago."
Starlight frowned, whispering silently in Maple's ear. "Is he sure? I saved Puddles when I found her. I don't think I wasn't compassionate, was I?"
"Yeah, you know what?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "That really stinks, and I'm sorry for you. But take it from someone who actually has a real heart... bananas, it feels weird saying that... you have no idea what you're talking about. Whatever you might think you're doing with all those mares and foals and stinking Stanza, it's not reverent and it's not nice and they don't appreciate it." She rubbed her forehead with a hoof. "Bananas, I feel like I'm explaining this to a kid..."
"You're hesitating," Chauncey rebuked. "A foal would have thrown a tantrum by now over their repeated inability to show you the truth. I am not less, I am unfettered. And if you can't accept this, how do you live at ease with the goddesses who created these powers?"
"Knock that off!" Valey stomped a hoof. "You're talking in circles. I just said I don't like Garsheeva or the Night Mother! I'm not some hypocrite, I just have my priorities in line, and that involves fighting for my friends and not being a huge jerk to a bunch of mares!"
Chauncey regarded her for a moment, then sighed. "It sounds like you're almost ready to leave. A pity. I haven't even gotten to my request."
Valey gave him a flat look. "If it makes you feel better, we'll listen. But we're not doing anything unless you give us some really good proof it doesn't help you do anything weird or immoral or gross. You don't make sense, Stanza doesn't make sense, I still don't get why you're doing that with the moon glass and the foals in the first place, and frankly? I'm disappointed." She stared at the ground. "I was kind of looking forward to kicking another psychopath like Herman's butt, but you don't even think you're trying to be a villain. You're just weird."
"Bluster all you like. It won't change the situation." Chauncey shrugged. "You could take your sister and go to Meltdown right now, and report me for building an energy farm. But you haven't. I know there are things you want from me as well..."
Valey glared.
"Do you trust me?" Chauncey asked.
"Bananas, no!"
Chauncey shook his head. "I didn't ask if you liked me. I asked if you trusted me. I know you trust me. We're sitting in front of my superweapon in the middle of my laboratory, and you have your prize and an open door to your backs and all the damaging information you need to convince the ponies who can to take me out, yet you're doing nothing. You know how much of a right I have to retaliate, after all you've done to me, and you see me holding my ground. You trust me not to hurt you. You trust I have something I want, and am trying my hardest to earn your trust in return. Don't you?"
Valey groaned, slumping against the ground. "Yeah...?"
"Then you go back to your ship." Chauncey motioned toward the doors. "Think things over. Ask me some favors. And come back once you'd like to know what I need in return for working to restore your sister to herself, and perhaps find a way to solve your own wrong-body crisis."
Gerardo cleared his throat, still holding Nyala's body. "I do believe that is our cue. Everyone, shall we?"
"We're going home," Maple agreed. "Leaving this place underground where it belongs, and I hope we never have to come back again."
"Fat chance of that," Valey muttered as Starlight climbed onto Maple's back in a familiar sign of comfort. "Let's get out of here."
"The elevator will work on your way up," Chauncey called as they turned to leave. "If you need an easy way to return, the full-access password is Princess Luna. And try to return at night, would you? I don't need sleep in this form, though I'm magically less-agreeable during the day..."
The rain hadn't abated when Starlight and her friends returned to the Immortal Dream, but between her crystal umbrella, Valey's shadow swimming and Jamjars having wandered off some time ago, everyone managed to make it back only mildly damp.
"And with that," Gerardo announced, tromping down the staircase to the library, "Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, is going back to bed. Wake me if the world is suddenly threatened or if I sleep past two in the afternoon..."
"Will do," Maple sighed as Starlight slipped off her back. "I might need to sleep on this too..."
Valey hesitated, sounding conflicted. "You, uhh... You sure about that?"
Maple glanced at her. "I can't imagine what else I could do. Why?"
"Because there's no way I'm getting to sleep after that." Valey shrugged. "Bananas, that was... I dunno. Wasn't what I expected going in at all."
Maple stopped in the hallway and turned around, taking a step back into the library. "...Need to talk about it?"
"Yeah, kinda. I do." Valey looked down. "Just trying to think about with who. Amber's asleep, Shinespark is sword stabbed and basically mute, and even if Gerardo wasn't going to bed, he's a dude and I'm not really sure he'd get it."
"Any reason I can't help?" Maple stepped closer, putting a hoof on Valey's shoulder as Starlight watched from the hallway. "I'm not sure how much sleep I'd get, either."
"You sure?" Valey raised a concerned eyebrow. "Bananas, you remember what that whacko was talking about. I thought you have issues with, like... foals and stuff."
Maple stiffened a little, then slumped. "I do. But I think that might just mean I need to talk about it, too."
Valey took that as an invitation, collapsing in a reading chair and massaging her sore muscles. "Bananaaaas," she groaned, rolling back her head. "This whole thing just wasn't cool. Like, maybe it's bad of me, but I was honestly looking forward to another Herman. Some deranged psychopath trying to take over the world and masterminding a conspiracy, or whatever, because beating problems up is what I'm good at! And the dude we found was insane, alright. Probably trying to take over the world. All the stuff we thought was his fault was his fault. We even got Nyala's body back." She waved a wing at the empty, insectoid body sitting in the corner of the room like it had nothing better to do and nowhere else to be. "But it just feels... wimpy. Disappointing. Yeah, he was evil, but he was also pathetic. And still did all that, yet for no real reason at all..."
Maple walked up alongside the chair and sat down next to it, leaning her shoulder on a hoofrest. "I wanted to hear there was a good reason for it too," she admitted. "I don't know if I'd felt good about it if it was an evil reason, but having it just be one mad pony... He couldn't even explain what he was doing."
"Yet he obviously tried." Valey folded both forehooves under her chin, involuntarily puffing out her cheeks. "What really gets me is that the dude kept trying to be friendly. Like, he had a point at the end: I really do think he wants to be on good terms with us. Stanza makes my cutie mark go haywire, but Chauncey never even thought about fighting us. And with a shield like that, even if he couldn't take us, there's no way we could hit him back."
"It makes no sense at all," Maple agreed, whispering. "I couldn't even tell if he realized why we were upset at what he was doing..."
From the hallway, Starlight quietly stepped back in. "No, it makes a lot of sense," she said. "I used the Nightmare Modules too, remember? I think I know what he was thinking."
Both mares perked their ears, so Starlight continued. "I forgot things while I was transformed. What certain things or feelings were like. I didn't realize I had forgotten how to see color. If he's been like that for thirty years, I think he would have forgotten even more. We weren't the same, because I did have empathy and compassion, and I don't know if he's missing that because batponies and me are different or because he's insane and is blaming it on the Nightmare Module. Normal ponies can lack empathy, too. But I think he wanted to be friends just because."
"Just because?" Valey frowned.
"When I was gray," Starlight continued, "ponies were..." She fumbled for words. "Bright. Except I saw it with something other than my eyes. It's hard to explain, but I wanted whatever they glowed with. It's hard to remember well, and I think I might have forgotten what it was actually like when I turned back, but ponies like you and Maple were some of the brightest. I really wanted it. When I got home, or..." She folded her ears. "It made it feel more special than normal. Like maybe I was lonely and didn't realize it? I don't understand how it works, but if he's been like that long enough to forget that isn't normal... maybe he really does just want to be friends with you."
Valey stared at her for a moment. "That's, uhh... Huh. That's some cool insight, actually."
"Mmm," Maple agreed. "Starlight, you look tired... I don't know if you want to go snuggle with Amber while me and Valey finish, but you don't have to wait for me. I'll come join everyone soon."
Starlight yawned, not really wanting to but unable to deny it would feel good. "Alright. I'll see you in the morning..."
Valey waited for a moment until a door had clicked and Starlight was gone. "Got stuff you didn't want her listening in on?"
"Parent things." Maple folded her ears. "I don't know. Maybe I just don't want her to see me decide this. I feel..." She became slightly more aware of the harmonic flame stored in her heart. "Ohhh... I don't know how to do this or how to decide! If Starlight's right, Chauncey just wants ponies to be nice to him, and I love believing in good things being possible. In happy endings... It's how I started digging out of my slump two years ago. I want to. I feel like it's the right thing to do. But all the things he's doing or done... How can I? Maybe building Stanza or hurting the Firefly Sisters with their songs I could say are for other ponies to forgive, but the moon glass foals are just..."
"Nah." Valey patted her on the back. "There's being kind, and then there's enabling scumbags by stepping out of the way and refusing to stop them. There is nothing and no part of yourself you'd be betraying by wanting to trash his plans and take him down however many notches it takes. You wanna be nice to him and believe that maybe he just needs a chance and someone who'll stick with him like you did for me? Do it after he's stopped hurting stuff without even realizing it. Or he'll take your second chance, think it's his first one, and blow right through it faster than you can say, 'I forgive you.' Seriously. Don't feel bad for him."
"Urgh..." Maple winced. "But Valey, that's my nature. Wanting ponies to do better and come out alright is who I am!"
Valey rolled in the chair to better face her. "Then boom. Easy way for you to feel. Except you're clearly way more conflicted than that straight of an answer."
"I-I don't..." Maple looked away. "Didn't you have problems of your own about this you needed to talk to me for?"
"Maaaybe." Valey gave her a frown of concern. "But at least I know the way I feel. I'm frustrated, annoyed, and really want to punch something, both because Chauncey is dumb and I hate that I'm feeling pity for him. You look like you're not admitting something basic to yourself."
Maple's ears pressed against her skull. "I'm really not okay with what he's doing," she whispered. "Just thinking about it makes me feel wrong inside, like my heart and lungs are swapped and my stomach is upside-down, and I know that's because of my older issues with having children I'm not thinking about. And I don't know what to do. I don't know how to find a balance between wanting to condemn what he's doing and wanting to help him, because I care but it also hurts. It hurts right now just saying this, because I feel like there's something I should know without thinking and I'm betraying it because I can't..."
As Maple cringed and started wrapping herself into a ball, Valey leaned out of the chair, grabbed her, and hauled her into the chair with her. "Easy, girl," she gently urged. "You, uhh... kinda smell like shame right now, yeah. But it's okay. No judging from me, yeah?"
"No, not okay." Maple suddenly hyperventilated but caught herself in time, swallowing hard and still curled up. "Because... Because... I'm afraid..."
"Afraid of being mad at him?" Valey frowned, then awkwardly rubbed Maple's mane, trying to calm her. "Look, if you're feeling bad about not being nice, I'm pretty sure it's nicer to knock some sense into someone for being a bad guy than it is to let them go about-"
"Afraid of remembering," Maple groaned painfully, moving her face to a different part of Valey's coat and leaving behind a trail of wetness where her eyes had been. "It hurts..."
"Oh." Valey stopped, then hugged her more gently. "Talk about it. Whatever this is, lemme remember with you."
Maple sniffed wetly. "My life b-before I got depressed after Aspen and my husband is all compressed into one block in my mind. I hadn't been thinking about... There were happy times before that, you know, before everything went wrong. Involving my husband. I always looked u-up to Willow, and after we couldn't go to Ironridge because she became a mother... I loved her foals so much! I thought a lot about love. I was a hopeless romantic, actually. Bet you wouldn't have guessed, looking at me now..."
"Heh." Valey let Maple lean against her through a shudder. "Nah, not really. Sounds like quite the time."
Maple wiped her eyes on Valey's coat again. "All the things he was talking about, I used to think about too, you know. Chauncey. I-I thought... so much about how it was the most wonderful thing in the world that Willow had kids, and maybe I could someday too. Maybe I thought about it too much. Amber and I both got our cutie marks for going to Ironridge, and they weren't enough to make that dream come true. It hurt a lot, having that fall apart for us, and the way we made it through was by focusing on each other and the good things that came out of it. Children might not have been my special talent, b-but... for a while, especially as I got old enough to think about starting a family of my own, as Willow's learned to talk and grew and I got to see the world growing up around me..."
Valey closed her eyes, listening. "They were your world? Bananas... Yeah, if that was a coping mechanism..."
"It was a coping mechanism," Maple whispered, "a little. But it wasn't a fake joy I got from seeing Alder running around and making a racket or Willow chasing him around. I might have had more reason to appreciate it than usual, but it was wonderful. And all because I looked up to Willow... The more you care about something, the more you can be hurt by it, though."
"It's really all that, huh?" Valey listened patiently, doing her best to help Maple along.
"Have you ever thought about having children?" Maple looked up, meeting Valey's eyes.
"Uhh, who, me?" Valey blinked down at herself. "Bananas, no. Forget how you get them in the first place, you think I remotely wanted to care about anyone in Ironridge, let alone lug around a helpless foal on a nomadic, everyone-hates-you lifestyle? Never even considered it."
Maple sighed. "Then you wouldn't understand. But try to imagine... You're happy. Things in your life haven't worked out as perfectly as they could have, and if you look at it one way, they've gone very badly. But you're alive, you have your friends, all three of you are flourishing... You're not just happy, you're happy to be alive. You love life, and you love others for being alive, because your life is just good enough that you can afford to do that. Think about feeling that ponies are the most precious thing in the world and that everything could be perfect if only everyone alive cared about everyone else as much as you did. It's stupidly optimistic and unrealistic and I'm probably viewing myself a lot more extremely than I actually was, but... try to put yourself there."
"Thinking about it." Valey nodded, frowning in concentration and eventually getting a silly little smile that lasted for a whole second. "Huh. That's weird. Unrealistic, but weird. Actually feels a little warm."
"There," Maple said. "Now imagine, now that you're feeling how incredibly special life is... that you, simply by being you, get to make more life of your own. Someone. Somepony." She sat up, poking Valey's belly with a hoof. "A brand new soul for you to love and cherish and guide and nurture and watch grow, and you have a partner at your side who shares every moment of it with you as your equal. Can you feel how that feels, how precious it is that you can do that? How precious you are for being able to do that?"
Valey's mouth hung slightly open in confused contemplation, and she regarded Maple's hoof for a moment... and then pushed it aside. "Uhhhhh... Yeah, that sounds kinda like work. Maybe I'll get it when I'm older, but I really don't see myself that way..."
"That's okay." Maple deflated a bit. "I don't know if age has anything to do with it, though however we measure your age, you probably are younger than me. At least you tried to imagine it. But for me, I just... felt all of that, and then... the pony who I had chosen to be by my side like that decided they didn't want to and left, just like that." She started to solidify, voice and posture growing stiff and tight. "And then I couldn't do it. Couldn't bring my foal into the world after all. All of a sudden, all of those hopes and cherishment turned into me not being able to do that, me not being fit to be someone's partner, not a-a-able to..." She stilled completely, not even breathing for several seconds. "I'm sorry to dump all this on you. You probably already know about my husband and foal. I just... got hit all at once by the memory of how much I was looking forward to everything, and..."
"Because Chauncey was talking about the same thing, yeah?" Valey's tone hardened as well, starting to see exactly what Maple had to say. "Bananas, that really... Ouch. Yeah."
"Yes," Maple whispered, shaking quietly. "I guess I held it in until now. I'm glad. I didn't want to have this breakdown in those tunnels. Thank you for being here, Valey..."
Valey smiled. "Yeah. Glad I could help."
"I feel like I broke something," Maple went on. "In my mind. Something that was painful, but just trying to avoid more pain. I-I... Thank you..."
"You gonna be alright?" Valey frowned, rubbing her back a little.
Maple choked, clearing and steadying her voice. "I think so," she breathed. "After a while. I think I need to grieve all over again, the right way this time. And I don't know if I'll feel all better in the morning. My head's sort of hazy right now..."
Valey gently bowed her head. "...Hey, no one's problems are solved in a single talk. But is there, uhh... anything you feel like you need to do? Anything I could help you with?"
"Sleep and think," Maple murmured. "And probably dream about it all over again. I'm glad Amber's here. I wish I could talk to White Chocolate and Willow, too, but they're far away..." She sighed. "I need to figure out how I feel about Chauncey, too. I'm not okay with him taking something that's supposed to be precious and thinking that's a justification for doing whatever he's done, but my emotions are all so extreme right now, I... So many years of hopes and dreams..."
"Cool. Then let's get you to bed." Valey stiffly stood up, stretching her wings and yawning toothily. "I'll deal with sorting out what I think about all that another day. Honestly, I'm still pretty beat up from Wallace, that huge flight and Morena, so a good nap would probably do me just as much good..."
Maple stood up too. "Thanks for listening to me, Valey. And helping me talk about that. Sorry if I was too sentimental. I probably really overstated a lot of it, and-"
"Nope." Valey silenced her with a wing to the lips. "Didn't overstate nothing. Come on, you heard Wallace talking about telling stories, right?" She turned Maple toward the hallway, pushing her along. "Historical accuracy doesn't matter as much as getting the feel across. And okay, maybe I don't get how you felt about having a kid back then, but I get that you felt strongly about it, right? You're cool, Ironflanks. And I'm, uhh... I'm glad to have you as a friend."
Maple's smile cracked a little, and she stopped at her door. "Thanks, Valey. Where are you staying, tonight?"
Valey rubbed the back of her head. "Well, I'd feel a little weird crashing with Sparky when she can't talk or move and I don't know what our relationship is, so I was sort of just going to figure something out..."
"Hmm." Maple's smile steadied. "Well, you're welcome with me and Amber and Starlight, if you wouldn't like to spend the night alone. I know you've stayed with just me before, and I bet our bed can hold the four of us."
"...Yeah, sure, whatever." Valey nodded, lowering her voice as Maple opened the door. "I can role with a weird little platonic snuggle pile. Honestly, the world would be a fuzzier place if this was the norm for everyone..."
Starlight crawled free from the pile of ponies in her bed, sleepily climbing over Valey and dropping softly to the floor. When had Valey gotten there? She shook her head as the batpony's sides gently rose and fell. Maple hadn't slept well last night, she could tell just from touching her, and with how her mother responded to physical contact and cuddles, it was probably a good turn from one friend to another.
The smell of rain drifted coolly through her cracked window, along with a gray, overcast-noon light. Starlight walked to it, reached up and pushed the window open wider. With all the body heat from Maple, Amber and Valey in the same pile, it would probably make the rest of their sleep even more comfortable.
Amber shifted at the chill, nuzzling slightly into Maple's neck and pawing with a hoof for someone to wrap it around. Starlight watched them for a moment longer, then nodded in satisfaction. Much as she was still tired and it looked like a cozy place to stay, she had things to do and think about.
First of all: was that voice in her mind that came with being gray still around, even when she was normal? She felt like she remembered it saying something the first time she touched the Nightmare Module, before it even did anything to her...
Nightmare Module emulation mode is currently disabled.
That was nice, Starlight thought to herself against a rainless backdrop as she trotted down the cabin. Really, the harmonic comet didn't need to resist all weather... So what could the voice actually do for her like this? She needed to know things, specifically about Chauncey.
Nightmare Module emulation mode is currently disabled. A catalyst is required to re-engage.
Okay, maybe that wasn't so helpful. Starlight sighed. Was there anything her voice could actually do besides tell her she wasn't gray unless she found more moon glass?
"You look lost in thought."
Starlight jumped hard at the sound of her own voice, entire coat prickling from surprise... and she beheld herself sitting in the library, a perfect mirror image resting in a reading chair. She blinked several times to clear her head, then swallowed. "It's you."
"Hello again." Glimmer nodded politely from the chair. "It is, in fact, you. Or however you've decided to think of me."
"...I still don't know what you are," Starlight said dubiously. "Something caused by touching moon glass? Maybe the harmonic flame in Ironridge? Are you some sort of leftover from when I came back after disappearing that time? I don't feel like I'm hallucinating..."
Glimmer shrugged. "I'm whatever you're most comfortable with. It doesn't really matter. Whatever you decide is good enough for both of us."
"What are you here for, then?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You never actually do anything, you know. Every... Both times you've shown up before, you just leave again without doing anything. So why show up at all?"
"Don't look at me." Glimmer raised an eyebrow, leaning forward and half-looking like she wanted to get out of the chair. "You're the one who would otherwise be trying to figure things out in your own head. It just seemed like it would be more productive if you had a real face to talk to instead."
Starlight sighed, figuring she might as well get a chair of her own if this was going to take a while, unlike every time before. "So what are you going to tell me? Something sinister about moon glass? Something I need to know about Izvaldi?"
"I can't tell you anything you don't know or couldn't figure out for yourself," Glimmer apologized. "All I can do is help you with priorities or remind you of things you might be ignoring. What do you know about how your friends are doing, right now?"
"I think they're okay?" Starlight looked over her shoulder. "Shinespark is recovering and Amber didn't go with us. Everyone's together though. Gerardo isn't fazed by anything."
Glimmer nodded. "And what are you doing right now?"
"Thinking about Nightmare Modules." Starlight frowned, flicking her ears. "It's important. They've probably got enough to deal with already without worrying about Chauncey. I was hoping my... voice could tell me a way to take his away, or something. What's happening down there is still a problem. And if I could get them for myself instead, I'd be more powerful if I ever had to use them as a last resort."
"...You are, are you?" Glimmer sighed. "You think having less to worry about will help your friends deal with the worries they have? Have you ever considered it might be easier to find an answer to a problem rather than removing the problem entirely?"
"Easier?" Starlight blinked. "What's the difference?"
Glimmer got up and started pacing, not looking at Starlight. "Chauncey is a pony who does bad things. Whether or not you want to call him a bad pony is up to you, but right now you're looking for ways to stop him or fight back. Right?" She turned and continued pacing. "You could find a way to stop him and make him harmless. I'm certain of it. You defeated a swarm of windigoes and crossed an uncrossable mountain range, after all. Or, you could find a way to live with the fact that some ponies do bad things."
Starlight curled her lip. "Why would I do that when I can do something better? Are you saying I shouldn't help everyone he's hurting or taking advantage of? That I should just let things like Stanza exist?"
Glimmer winced slightly at the mention of Stanza. "Ponies will always commit atrocities, Starlight. Even as harmonic beings, if the world could be perfect, don't you think it would have been long ago?"
"...I don't know a lot about history," Starlight admitted. "That doesn't mean I shouldn't do something about it when someone's hurting my friends and there's something I can do."
Glimmer closed her eyes for a moment. "So because you can, you have to. And you're very talented, Starlight. You'll have to look a lot harder than you are right now if you want to find something you can't do anything about. You definitely can stop Chauncey if you try."
Starlight worked her jaw, that precise wording triggering something in her mind. "I don't have to do anything. That's why I didn't want a cutie mark in the first place."
"Well." Glimmer shrugged. "I guess that's your decision. But if you do keep trying to solve every problem you find instead of learning to live with them, how long will it take until you're trying to take responsibility for the whole world? The world isn't perfect, and the ponies who can't live with that are the ones who do things like Chauncey."
"I..." Starlight narrowed her eyes, trying to see through her duplicate. "What are you getting at? What do you want?"
"I don't have an agenda," Glimmer said. "I told you, I'm just here to give you someone better to talk to than the inside of your head."
Starlight scrutinized the other filly for a moment longer, then sighed. "Maple didn't sleep well last night. I heard Valey talking about how she wasn't okay with this either. My friends aren't okay with this, and I'm not going to sit back and not help them. What do you propose I do instead?"
Glimmer tilted her head. "Everything you're worrying about and arguing over with your enemies? What the difference is between being alive or an automaton, gods and goddesses, souls, life, foals and obsidian..." She shook her head. "All that is just philosophy. Ponies who can afford to? They think about these things for a living. It's a little bit different for you because you actually have the means to get answers, but there are books in this very ship's library about it. In fact, I think you brought one down from the mountains a long time ago."
She pointed at a nearby bookshelf, and Starlight adamantly made a point of not looking.
"I don't have any more answers than you do." Glimmer shrugged, turning back to Starlight. "But if it makes things easier, none of you are thinking about these things alone. Anyway. I hope you can live in peace with whatever you think, learn and whatever comes your way."
Before Starlight could respond, with no magical effects or fanfare whatsoever, Glimmer was gone.
An irregular, rhythmless, stylishly chaotic knock sounded against a sterile door. "Go away," a despondent voice called from within. "I told them I'm not seeing visitors."
The door opened anyway, and High Prince Gazelle's face poked through, dropping into a pouty frown. "Aww. You mean I'm not even allowed to check on my best friend?"
In the room, in a bed slightly more plush than were usually allocated in hospitals, Geribaldi Stormhoof lay propped up on his back, neck in a braced bandage and eyes thin. "You're the last person I want to see right now," he whispered, voice hoarse. "Leave me alone, Gazelle."
"Are you sure about that?" Gazelle licked a paw and ran it through his mane, sauntering in anyway and closing the door behind him. "Because I can think of at least two you'd rather see less."
Geribaldi had no response.
"Not even a reaction, chum?" Gazelle raised an eyebrow. "Your old cat just tried to kill you. Don't tell me you think that conversation was supposed to go any other way. That really sits alright with you? Doesn't make you want to press charges, him trying to murder you and frame it as a suicide?"
"No," Geribaldi rasped. "What do you want, Gazelle? Leave me alone."
Gazelle stuck out his lip, then turned in a circle. "I'm trying to cheer you up. Get some of that fire lit back beneath you! Come on, so the bat stoked your ego a little. Just going to let it all go out now that you've been proven right about everyone being against you?"
Geribaldi's eyes flashed. "And what do you want me to do about it?"
"That's your decision," Gazelle replied. "I'm just here to wish you well and say I'm in your court, however you choose to take this."
"Are you? That's rich." Geribaldi painfully snorted, blinking slowly from his bed. "After you waltzed into my private sanctum in what was supposed to be an intimate moment to laugh in my face and tell me you'd been playing me for a fool for the last month. You can't justify that. I know you don't have an altruistic bone in your body."
"Ahem. Rude?" Gazelle coughed, fanning himself with a wing. "I care very deeply for some things. Granted, that includes myself, but still." He scrutinized Geribaldi for a moment, then sighed. "Not buying it, eh?"
"You're wasting both of our time," Geribaldi rasped.
Gazelle's grin returned. "Actually, this is a very productive use of my time, and you weren't doing anything with yours anyway. Care for a more selfish reason I'm on your side, if being nice doesn't cut it?" He circled again. "It all started a while ago when your old cat came to me a while ago and said, 'Gazelle? You're like a son to me.' And I said, 'Aww, thanks!' Big softie."
"I gathered." Geribaldi made a point of looking away.
"And then," Gazelle continued, uninterrupted, "our relationship blossomed and flourished and exchanged a pawful of political favors, until it reached the point where he told me he wished I were his heir. Funny, that. How as the High Prince, I can technically take over whatever province should happen to have its dynasty kick the bucket first? Old Izvaldi's been up at the top of the queue for a while now. But do you want to know a secret?"
He leaned in, grinning with catlike anticipation. "Old Goraldi Izvaldi, the province's last resident sphinx? He's been dead for years. Officially, I should have been the new Lord Izvaldi a long time ago, but it turns out Percival doesn't want to give up his regency and I don't want to rule Izvaldi, so we were able to come to a very beneficial agreement about hiding things."
Geribaldi eyed him coldly. "So you want Stormhoof instead? Take it. My father likes you. He'll stand aside, and I have no intentions of getting in your way."
Gazelle's grin grew wider. "The other half of the secret? Old Stormhoof doesn't really know this, but I don't want to rule Stormhoof either."
Geribaldi's eyes narrowed.
"That's why I need you to stay alive and kicking, chum." Gazelle patted his bed, then went back to sitting a respectful distance away. "It sure would be awkward if Stormhoof decided to off you and retire. Good thing he underestimated my ambitions and trusted me and my choice of assassins a little too deeply, or he could have actually got someone good on the job. But I knew you. You were too cowardly to go through with it, even with Felicity's special talent. So good on you! Don't give up! I'm fine with Stormhoof getting into a political mess, I just don't want it leaderless all of a sudden."
"What are you playing at?" Geribaldi gave him a suspicious look, unable to move at all with the bandage brace around his neck.
"I'm saying I botched your dad's job on you on purpose because I need you alive." Gazelle briefly frowned, then grinned again. "And because I like you. Really, I can have practical and sentimental motivations at the same time, can't I? I may be occasionally ruthless, but I have a heart. See?" He produced an elaborate bouquet from beside the door. "I brought you flowers."
Geribaldi scowled. "Those were left by a nurse several hours ago. They still have the original card."
Gazelle winced. "...It's the thought that counts?"
Geribaldi sighed and went back to being silent.
"Look," Gazelle said, tone settling to businesslike. "You're alone in the world. Treacherous lover, treacherous father, you don't seem to like me much either... But I heard you cackling in there about showing them all. You wanted to do something about it. And just now, I've handed you something you can do. You have charges to press! Felicity really is the Stormhoof underground's primary defense contractor, you know. At any time now, word is probably going to get in up north about Varsidel's reaction to that airship seizure and subsequent pirate incident a while back. How much political leverage do you think you could get threatening the one pony all the higher-ups and only the higher-ups know is responsible for keeping them safe from real assassins? Of which there are a lot. You could squeeze Stormhoof's elite like a vice. Throw me under the cart too, I don't care. I just want to see you fight."
"What is it with you and watching me fight things?" Geribaldi studied him for a moment... and then deflated. "No. I have no intention of lifting a paw."
Gazelle winced. "Err... Really?"
"Really." Geribaldi left it at that.
Gazelle waited a moment longer for an explanation... then sighed. "Why are you suddenly unwilling to lift a paw to defend yourself, as you put it? I know you, Baldy. A setback like that might sting a little on the outside, but doesn't it fill you with that righteous anger?" He clenched a paw in front of his face, briefly gritting his teeth. "The same anger and purpose I feel when I think about what I love most?"
"...That's why," Geribaldi said, as if this were a perfect answer. "Because I failed."
"...Failed at what?" Gazelle tilted his head.
"That anger you just mentioned?" Geribaldi seemed to come slightly more alive, eyes mostly open as opposed to half-lidded. "My righteous indignation, desire to 'show them all'? It has a name, in case you weren't aware. They call it the Thrill. My egotistical breakdown with Felicity? Your megalomania and political plotting? My father trying to kill me? Famous sphinxes of legend like Giovanni Goldfeather? You think these are isolated occurrences?"
Gazelle leaned forward in interest, folding his paws on the railing of the bed. "Oh, now that's interesting," he mused. "Do tell."
"Historical studies are rare," Geribaldi coughed. "It's very difficult to find information on, but such is my privilege as an academic. And you can imagine why. Even with Garsheeva's presence, public sentiment would become considerably more shakable if it were widespread knowledge that certain traits... icy tempers, bouts of egomania, sociopathy and an inability to see when we've gone too far... These aren't isolated flaws of history's more infamous leaders, but something every sphinx has been afflicted by on a varying scale. And if not every, enough to make it a widespread pattern. It can be fought and isn't severe, but it's a tendency that can be embraced, too. Some of the darkest hypotheses I've had access to even suggest that our race is unnatural or cursed somehow."
"Huh. I hadn't heard." Gazelle studied himself, then grinned again. "So now you mean I have an excuse every time someone tells me I'm acting like a big foal? Is that it?"
"No!" Geribaldi's eyes widened. "This is not a trait to embrace! You've called me a coward before, Gazelle?" They narrowed again, fixing the High Prince with a glare. "I admit it. Not only do I admit it, I embrace it. You might prepare for leadership of your future province by planning or arranging political setpieces, Gazelle. Thinking about things like this is another thing most sphinxes are good at. Sharp intellects are part of our nature. After I discovered the existence of this phenomenon, I devoted my own self to preparation through mental training and self-denial. I based my worth and ability to rule off my ability to resist this curse, to hold my head level in the most tempting or heated of circumstances. And I've failed. I let an ego-stroking false lover get the best of me... and a sarosian to boot. I am not fit to rule."
Gazelle frowned, musing to himself. "You know? Maybe that brain of yours is good for something after all, Baldy. I'd actually be very interested in learning more about this curse of yours. But let me get things straight. You don't want to fight your father because you think you'd make a piddly ruler when you're so easy to manipulate?"
Geribaldi sighed. "What's the point of being a ruler who is so easy to rule? I would never be able to lead my people or give them the service they deserved."
"Sounds a whole lot more altruistic than me." Gazelle shrugged. "At least your heart's in the right place in the first place. I could care less about making the Empire a perfect place for the people. I just want my sister to inherit a land she doesn't have to watch tear itself apart with politics and mind games. No matter how it means uniting the people, I will have an empire, not a mere province. And you could make a fantastic ally."
Geribaldi squarely met his gaze. "That says nothing about me."
"...Mind control," Gazelle sighed. "Felicity's brand manipulates your emotions. Happy?"
Geribaldi's eyes widened.
"You didn't succumb to your little curse," Gazelle continued. "Not just any random mare can do that. It's a big part of what makes her so dangerous, the other part being her ambitions. Baldy! Right now, Lord Stormhoof has a brewing crisis with you on his paws, his entire army stuck thousands of miles away in the city of Ironridge, and Varsidel's going to be coming to call about their merchant ships and sailors any day now. When all that collides at once? The other provinces are going to smell blood. Stormhoof is one of the oldest and most powerful dynasties in the Empire, and this could be curtains for it depending on how things go. Everlaste, Stormhoof's greatest ally, is already on watch to fortify your garrisons with their own troops in an act of solidarity that may become an actual defense. Whether or not you trust yourself, now is your moment. And Izvaldi is about to explode too, according to some information I've received, which means I am forced to act. I'll be playing the game, Geribaldi."
Turning, Gazelle moved to the door, lifting a wing behind him in salute. "I'd love to have you on my side."
Starlight sat in a reading chair in the Immortal Dream's library, all alone. Thoughts of her strange duplicate ran over and over through her head, but the most important question held no answers: was Glimmer a part of her, or something else?
She could be insane. After all the things she had been through, many ponies could easily have cracked, turning to delusions as a mental safeguard against the realities of their lives. And she was just a filly. Living a normal life might have been something she gave up on long, long ago, but she knew what normal looked like. Normal foals had parents who looked out for them and protected them from the unfairness of the world. She didn't blame Maple even a little, but the fact was she had taken and dealt with and stayed standing through more than enough to break an adult, all while she should have been nurtured and growing. It wasn't fair. Quietly, she sighed, wondering if her old family in Equestria deserved any blame instead.
Or, Glimmer could be a magical entity from somewhere else. Where else didn't matter, and there were far too many possibilities to even narrow things down. The important part was whether she was only talking to the thoughts in her own head, or whether Glimmer could know things she didn't and have an agenda of her own. Was she Starlight's conscience, advising her by her own understanding of her situation for better or for worse? Or did she want something?
Having spent her life trekking or being dragged across continents by the consequences of others' whims, Starlight wouldn't have been surprised by anything.
"I'm home!" Jamjars' voice interrupted behind her, and she spun in the chair to see a sodden, triumphant filly draining rivulets onto the floor.
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You need a towel."
Jamjars closed her eyes, stuck out her neck, and shook like a dog, spraying the walls with satisfaction. "Nah, I'm good. So, how did things go with Chauncey? As insane as I predicted?"
Speaking of insanity... Starlight nodded and sighed. "He made no sense and had no point to everything he was doing. He showed us he's under the effects of moon glass, and was very stubborn about not fighting or hurting us while we were down there. But he also took responsibility for all the evil things like making Stanza and creating those foals, and didn't even seem to understand it was wrong. I think it's all just the moon glass. It's making him very lonely, but without a conscience at all."
"Wow, good for him." Jamjars curled her lip. "So we're completely free? Not in any trouble from Izvaldi whatsoever?"
"I don't think so," Starlight muttered. "We also didn't stop them from doing anything bad, though we did get Valey's sister's body back. But Chauncey refused to fight us even when Valey tried to punch him. I think we're actually safe, for once."
Jamjars gave her a look, then huffed. "Well, boo. Guess I did all that digging for nothing." She pouted for a moment, then brought back her sharkish grin. "But I did find things. Percival having an affair? That's old-school. I got us the best blackmail ever."
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Izvaldi's sphinx?" Jamjars wandered closer, whispering with her muzzle right against Starlight's ear. "The one who's been dying of old age and is on life support deep in their hospital? He actually died a long time ago, and they haven't told anyone. That means Izvaldi doesn't have a sphinx, so Percival shouldn't get to rule any more. They should be taken over by that Gazelle. So if we ever need a threat, we just tell Percival we can spill this secret..."
Starlight actually stiffened. "Then he'll have to keep us quiet so he doesn't lose his province." She gave Jamjars a wary look. "Are you sure he won't try to keep us quiet some other way? Him loving a mare is one thing, but this feels big enough he'd try to retaliate with an even bigger threat."
"Mutually-assured destruction." Jamjars grinned. "All we have to do is set up someone else who's trustworthy and not in Izvaldi, and tell them if anything happens to us here, spill it to Meltdown. Get her to raid this hospital and have a look for herself. Ooh, that'll go so badly for Chauncey..."
"But it will also go badly for us!" Starlight protested. "Just... please try not to antagonize anyone for now? I think we're actually safe for once, and..." She looked away. "Now that we've found a conspiracy without being drawn in, we don't have to do anything hasty. I think everything's stable right now. It's not like Ironridge with the dam, so we can take our time and be careful..."
"Oh, that's perfectly fine," Jamjars assured her. "I'm not playing a card like this until I really need to, and we do still know about the affair anyway. Although..." She stepped back, putting a hoof on her chin. "Now that I think about it, I've got a contact with that Kero from trying to bail Valey out in the tournament, and I also really hate him for what he did with the foals in Ironridge, even if Chauncey was paying him to do it. I wonder if I could plant this secret in a way that makes him take the fall..." She started giggling to herself as she planned, grin growing wider.
"Jamjars, don't be evil," Starlight sighed. "Can we please just leave things alone right now? I don't think Chauncey will retaliate if we talk to him or ask him things, but let's not touch anything else? Please?"
Jamjars drooped. "Yeah, fine. Whatever. Look, I need to go dry off and warm up, okay? Drop by my room if you want to come hang out, or something."
Starlight watched as she left, studying the way Jamjars moved. Even soaked, with her coat matted against her skin, her step was confident... Was she satisfied in a job well-done? Did she walk like that normally? Or did she know Starlight was watching, and felt she had an image to keep up? Perhaps she even just hoped anyone was watching.
A small spike pricked at Starlight's heart. Here she was thinking about Chauncey, considering him a pitiful creature who couldn't understand how his foul deeds pushed away the ponies he tried to care about and made him alone. Melia, Sirena... She vaguely remembered hearing about a relative he had working in Percival's mansion he was on bad terms with, too. And she was thinking about herself, left to find her way through continent after continent to the point where she wondered if she was going insane... and then there was Jamjars, a weird, uncomfortable little filly with no upbringing whatsoever who was rude, intense, and always talked about things that made her feel awkward. Starlight had her friends; she had spent the night in a cuddly pile with Maple, Amber and Valey. Jamjars had... her posters.
It would hurt to be a hypocrite. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it hurt already. Feeling vaguely like her body was moving on its own, Starlight got up, lit her horn, floated a book out from the shelves... that book, since Glimmer had basically told her it was important... and trotted off down the hallway after her fellow filly.
When she got there, the door was closed, so she knocked. "Huh?" echoed from within.
"It's me," Starlight said as the door floated open in Jamjars' telekinetic glow. Inside, Jamjars was on the floor toweling herself off, and a look of surprise at Starlight's presence lasted just long enough for Starlight to see before it was gone, replaced by the usual smug self-satisfaction.
"You invited me over." Starlight shrugged, stepping inside and getting the door behind her, already feeling awkward in Jamjars' room. "So... hi."
"Ha. Wasn't sure you'd actually come." Jamjars grinned, rolling around with a mess of towels. "So hi yourself."
Starlight waited for a suggestion of what to actually do, eventually realizing Jamjars either had nothing to offer or was smart enough not to talk about her posters. "I brought a book, if you want to read something?" She tilted her head, floating up Sosa the Explorer's journal. "In Equestria, my best friend and I used to hang out by reading together all the time."
"What's that?" Jamjars squinted at the text. "It looks ancient."
"It is. I found it in the mountains." Starlight shrugged again, moving to sit on Jamjars' bed. She might have been willing to spend time with the filly, but she wasn't feeling altruistic enough to warn her that this was the most boring book in the world. "I think it's mostly poetry, but I haven't read it for a while."
Jamjars hopped up next to her, damp coat pressing probably-deliberately into Starlight's. "Ancient poetry? Sounds weird. Is that really where your tastes are?" She frowned. "Well, to each their own. But look, if I read this, you get to read some of my favorites with me."
Starlight winced internally, but she wasn't about to admit she was offering Jamjars a terrible book to read. "It's not for fun. I heard somewhere that there's something important in it I need to figure out. I think. Maybe."
At that, Jamjars seemed a lot more understanding. "Ohhh! I read textbooks too. It's how I learned my friction spell. Speaking of which, I need to decide what to focus on next..." She tapped her hooves. "I'm still showing you some of my favorites. I have them in a drawer in that cabinet."
"You have books?" Starlight frowned. "More than just the ones in Shinespark's library?"
"Well, of course!" Jamjars shrugged. "Camouflage spell, remember? And I'm good at styling my mane? Easy as pie to go to the public libraries in Stormhoof or Izvaldi, look like a different filly every time, and open a million accounts to keep all the books I like without getting fined."
"Oh, you'd steal them too if you saw how good these books were," Jamjars said with a grin. "And come on, you should be interested by my magic! I bet you don't have a spell that can do that."
"Wait a minute..." Starlight's eyes slowly focused. "Your color change lets you look like normal ponies, too? Not just background objects?"
"Yeah. Why?" Jamjars momentarily concentrated, turning her raspberry mane blue. "It's pretty useful when you're creative."
Starlight hesitated. "...Can you look like me?"
Jamjars hauled herself back to her hooves. "Give me a moment with my mane," she requested, walking over to her vanity. "Yours is a little longer than mine, and way too scruffy even with that ponytail. It would be easier if you got a manecut. Have you ever thought about how you'd look with a proper bang?" She shifted the colors in her mane as she worked, straightening and messing and continuing to dry it. "Ugh, it's just a little too short...!"
Eventually, she sighed, giving herself one last flicker of magic and turning to face Starlight. "What do you think?"
Starlight blinked. Jamjars was still wet, and the manestyle was a little different, and her eyes were orange and her horn slightly shorter, but... "Wow. That's interesting."
"How am I?" Jamjars turned back and forth, regarding herself. "Our body proportions are pretty much identical, right? Yeah, I think I measured us before. You're a sound sleeper sometimes. Hah. This is actually a good idea! You like it?"
Starlight just watched her for a moment. "Except for the horn and eyes, but yes... Huh."
Jamjars frowned. "Eyes are easy enough to fix with contacts. They even sell a ton of those in Izvaldi already. Firefly Sisters merch, remember?" She kicked open a drawer and pulled out a box. "I'd have to get some to make sure they match your shade, if... Wait, are you thinking of doing anything with this?"
"Maybe? I was just curious." Starlight shrugged.
"Well, now I'm curious," Jamjars informed her, walking up and putting her hooves on Starlight's shoulders. "Hmmmmm... Eyes we can fix, mane, you're getting a manecut. You need one anyway. We can cut ours identically and then style them differently so they're easy to interchange. And I have been having my horn growth spurt over the last few months, so maybe they'll eventually be closer. In the meantime, we could get a cone, as long as I don't have to actively cast while I'm disguised? Hmmm..."
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. "Are you actually planning to do something with this?"
"Nope!" Jamjars chirped. "It's just for fun. And maybe I'll plan something later. But you gotta admit, it's cool, right?"
Starlight wasn't sure. All she could think about was getting yet another duplicate. Useful, annoying or insanity? It would take some thinking to figure out how she felt about this for sure...
"Yeah?" Valey rose from a shadowed floor in an enclosed room, a single lamp giving light to walls with exposed support boards and tacked-up pictures of dignitaries. "Is that a short time, or a long time? We both remember each other."
Her target lay on her back on a bed in the corner, half-dressed with the covers kicked aside and her mane splayed messily beneath her. "Both. It doesn't matter. You remembered not to knock this time."
"Well, hey, you're welcome." Valey took two steps closer, a strip of light glowing under the doorjamb to her back. "So lemme see what else I remember. Your name is Crystal. You've been here for ages, work for Meyneth as a maid or something in Percival's manor, are related to Chauncey but both of you really hate each other, and you go out of your way to be nasty or lifeless to anyone trying to show you a little sympathy. And you're pregnant. That about sum it up?"
Somehow, Crystal looked even more despondent than the last time Valey had seen her, emerald eyes dull and lifeless. Two months ago, when Valey first came to call, Crystal had been provocative in her listlessness, leading her on and frustrating her and distracting her from her goal: finding out anything important about Chauncey from someone who was on bad terms with him. This time, Valey needed any information she could get a lot more badly, and was prepared to be pushier and less-gentle... but it hardly looked like Crystal needed it.
In the bedside lamplight, dark stains traced the batpony's face, evidence she had been crying. Before, her tailored maid uniform had been a tight fit, still wearable and letting her pass for well-fed instead of pregnant. She still wore it, but was big enough now that it was unclosable, the front buttoned only halfway down and left open around her belly. Crystal watched her unborn foal without blinking, staring through them with a look of helplessness, despair and loathing, silently rising and falling with her breaths. She didn't answer Valey's question.
"Just saying, we're both going to get annoyed if I make small talk," Valey warned, sidling over. "Last peace offering, right here. Need a shoulder? Because otherwise I've got something I need."
"Take it," Crystal snarled, briefly heaving, looking as if any talking could send her off the deep end.
"Snazz." Valey grinned, stepped closer to the bed, reached over and grabbed Crystal in a big two-legged hug. "Really wanted to do this last time, and I've got a lot less reservations now."
"Hakkkt!" Crystal made an enraged choking sound, grabbed Valey back, and sprang into motion. She was surprisingly strong... or not, since she had exercise gear on her walls she apparently used, but still powerful enough to throw Valey into the air. But Valey was perfectly ready, twisting herself to alter their trajectory, and managed to land both of them upright in the middle of the room before breaking the hug.
She stepped back, grinning. "Well, that got you out of bed!"
Crystal eyed her loathsomely, half-buttoned maid uniform hanging from her frame. "What. Do. You. Want?"
Valey let her grin disappear, looking serious. "So hey. You're either having the worst day, the worst year, or the worst life, period. And that really stinks. Last time, I kinda tried to be nice to you because it seemed like a cool thing to do, and you threw it back in my face? So this is a chance you really didn't ask for. Right now, I've got a beef with Chauncey, you've got a beef with Chauncey, and I was thinking we could help each other out."
Crystal's loathing sparked in her eyes, then started to turn dull again.
"Ohh no." Valey waggled a forehoof. "Don't go listless on me or I'll hug you again."
"...Your companionship is as temporary as it is well-meaning," Crystal whispered, turning her side to Valey and looking away. "You have no help to offer me. Didn't you learn your lesson last time, fool?"
Valey frowned. "You know, I dunno how much more you can ask for when you make a point of driving away any friendly faces. Yeah, sure, I'll probably bail once we're done with this talk, even though I could come back again if you like. Isn't that still a hundred times better than sitting in your bed thinking about dark things all the time?"
"How much more can I ask for?" Crystal flexed a wing, lifting the side of her uniform and showing off her belly. "Use your brain."
"...Yeah, you've got abandonment issues," Valey sighed. "That's what I'm getting from this? Lemme guess. You had it bad, some dude came in and brightened your world, convinced you to give hoping for stuff a chance, said some stuff about forever, and then flaked out when you got to be too much work. Is that it?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Actually, I kinda do." Valey narrowed her eyes, stepping forward. "I've got a real good friend who had exactly the same stuff happen to them. Worse, even, except they had some even better friends who stuck with them and dedicated everything to them and helped them be happy about seeing another sunrise. Tell me I don't know what I'm talking about."
Crystal reluctantly met her eyes. "I have love. I'm not lacking for love," she rasped. "What I lack is a future. Your friend has a sunrise to look forward to? Then she's nothing like me."
Valey blinked, glancing down at Crystal's belly. "Oh. I get it. You're, uhh... You're worried you're not going to be able to take care of your foal." She blinked again. "Bananas, yeah, if your lifestyle is like this, they're probably going to get packed off to that creepy orphanage..."
"This is my true love's foal," Crystal whispered, lifting a hoof and massaging herself with the only care or gentleness Valey had ever seen from the mare.
"Bananas. Yeah, that makes sense." Valey kept her voice low too, being more respectful now that Crystal was talking. "So you do have someone, just will lose your kid or something once they're born? Or is that someone gone and this is a last reminder?"
"Nnghk..." Crystal looked down, her natural coldness and apathy clashing with a wave of clearly-recent emotion.
Valey sat down on the edge of Crystal's bed, motioning for her to relax too. "What was it you asked me if I could do last time, again? Something ridiculously impossible, but you know, I've actually got some friends who are really good at doing the impossible. If you don't tell me exactly what's up, there's not much I can do to help."
Crystal gave her a baleful look. "You're still trying to do that? I'll save my breath. You can't, and if you could, you wouldn't bother."
"Oh yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Prove it."
Crystal scowled. "That's what everyone else would say."
"Okayyy..." Valey hummed, biting her lip. "So how about this? I've got an airship. Or, some good friends with an airship I live on. I don't see anyone here you care about except your foal, you're definitely not cool with folks like Chauncey, and my friends are really, really nice. If you could make an effort to not be venomous to everyone who tries to help, you could probably come with us. You could have your kid, keep your kid, raise your kid, and we'd help you and keep food on the table and the whole place safe. Now, this is totally theoretical, but why couldn't we do that?"
"You could," Crystal admitted. "But you wouldn't."
Valey folded her forelegs. "Are you insulting my friends' hospitality, or saying you'd be such a jerk we'd stop putting up with you? Because the latter's kind of your decision, and unless your faith in equinity is absolutely zero, I'm pretty sure you don't know my friends better than I do."
"And you don't know me better than I do," Crystal countered. "Or my problems. I'm more trouble than I'm worth."
"Yeah, well, maybe that's a good reason to tell me about your problems." Valey raised an eyebrow. "And I dunno... There are a lot of ponies who'd say you're worth a lot just by being alive."
"You're irrational," Crystal whispered, still standing. "Either that or lying. I haven't done anything to help you. You have no grounds for helping me aside from wanting something in return. Once you get it, you won't care anymore, because you don't understand true love."
Valey briefly gritted her teeth. "Alright. I admit it. I want something. But that something is to know any dirty stuff about what Chauncey's up to, because me and my friends are trying to do something about it, and if you hate him that benefits us both! And you know what else I want? I used to be kind of a scumbag who made a lot of ponies really mad at me for a living. Then someone stupidly gave me way too many chances for no reason, and it turned out to actually get my attention and turn things around. I wanna see that work for other ponies too, even if it's just to feel like I'm not an anomaly and that's how things work. Happy?"
Crystal watched her, then sighed. "I don't care anymore."
"You care about your kid." Valey pointed a wing at her belly. "Tell me about your kid."
Something seemed to crack in Crystal's demeanor, a single fresh tear running down her face. With a heavy breath, she stumped back to the bed, climbing on and passing within inches of Valey. She rolled onto her side, pulled a flap of her uniform out of the way, and lay back, pointedly presenting herself. "This is my true love's child," she whispered, reaching up and craning her neck around and nuzzling her taut coat. "I love them. My life will be over when they're born."
Valey folded her ears, but didn't press quite yet. "How long is that?"
Another tear dripped from Crystal's cheek, landing on her belly. "Two months."
"And what'll happen when they're born?" Valey whispered, fighting back her sense of anticipation at finally getting somewhere.
Crystal nuzzled herself harder, starting to shake with sobs. Valey stayed frozen, not about to be pushy while she was getting closer. She hadn't come here with the intention of this. She wanted to find Crystal, ask about her relationship to Chauncey, use some of that venom she remembered from last time to learn something useful about how to undermine or deal with the stallion... yet here she was, in this same trap again. Maybe she saw herself in Crystal. Maybe she saw Maple. Maybe her conscience was just too big for its own good.
"Sarosians... are under a curse," Crystal choked. "The way we were created. We... always breed true. Our foals are always the same as our lovers. It is a brand. A sign of sinfulness. I-If I don't give mine up before they are known to be mine, Garsheeva and the Night Mother will know..."
"...That your lover isn't a bat..." Valey trailed off, finishing for her. "Oh bananas."
"Well?" Crystal sniffed, wracked with shudders as she hugged her belly. "I would make you all fugitives from the world. Still think I'm worth the trouble?"
Valey couldn't stop her ears from falling, memories of the tunnels in Gyre rising in her mind. Was that the place she would go to? Were her emotions right now the same kind of desperate venom Stanza was made from, a rage against injustice and a desire to own her own future and feelings? Some of Garsheeva's heresies banned things that were clearly bad, but the prohibition against cross-species relationships had always seemed arbitrary and dumb.
"Bananas. I feel for that," she murmured. "You know, there's a unicorn I'd probably be a lot closer to if not for that rule myself."
Crystal lifted her neck, fur stained with tears. "Of course you care. Ponies are bad at knowing when not to care. But you didn't answer the question."
"I..." Valey swallowed, and realized she couldn't answer.
Was Crystal worth the trouble? Was a damaged, angry mare who wanted to live in peace with her lover and child worth fighting a world that didn't want to let them? Somehow, Valey and her friends had poked their noses into Izvaldi without having another Ironridge; they had learned things, yet stayed free. Letting an obvious heretic onto their ship when she had just seen the painful extent of such a crime's punishment? Then the whole world really would be against them. Not just a city where everyone was hostile, but an entire continent. Valey gritted her teeth. What would Maple say? Shinespark? Starlight?
Maple would say yes, Crystal was worth the trouble. Maple would also see another mother-to-be and become emotionally conflicted and invested, but she wouldn't be able to leave Crystal alone. Shinespark? She would play the long game, want to change an unjust society while tending individually to its casualties. At least, the old Shinespark of Sosa would... but Crystal didn't have a long time. She had two months. And Starlight... She didn't know. Maybe Starlight would just suggest Crystal leave.
"Okay," Valey breathed, making up her mind. "Maybe... Maybe you living on our airship isn't the best idea ever, but I still wanna help. I've got like a month of downtime or whatever while they set up for the next round of the tournament. You're good for at least a month, right? Before you give birth?"
Crystal eyed her dourly. "I just said how long I have."
"Yeah, yeah, you did..." Valey scratched the back of her head. "Give me a minute to think of another idea, here."
Valey's brain spun in circles, looking for any way Crystal could be helped that would fit within the span of two months. She needed shelter from the Empire, not mere living arrangements, and the Immortal Dream wasn't equipped to provide that. Going to Mistvale wasn't an option; as little as she knew about the place, the Night Mother had heresies too, and inter-species relationships were also one of hers. Could she leave the continent entirely? Air travel to Ironridge wasn't in supply, and it was a monthlong voyage, so they couldn't take her there and make it back in time to not miss the tournament. And now that Wallace and his friends were in her corner...
Every time she tried to pull a thread and think beyond that circle, though, she ran into a familiar problem: Crystal was in the room, and a very convenient part of her brain wanted to get distracted thinking about Crystal instead.
"Your gaze is easy to follow," Crystal warned. "Whatever good time you're worth won't give me a future, and I'm already taken. Think of a better idea."
"H-Hey!" Valey's ears slicked back, her cheeks reddening. "Look, I'm trying my best to take things seriously, here, and that takes a little effort because I don't let loose much. Heresy laws. You know how it is. So if you don't want this conversation to be about that, don't bring it up."
"You assume I want this conversation to be about anything," Crystal muttered. "You don't need to be here."
Valey folded her wings and huffed. "Yeah, but guess what? I am, and the more this gets off-topic, the longer I'm gonna stay. Go ahead and try it. You can't steam me up and embarrass me into leaving like last time. And if you try, I'm gonna hug you again, so lay off."
Crystal shrugged, then rolled, moving in her bed so that her belly was right in front of Valey. "Go right ahead."
Valey frowned. "Buh?"
"Indulge yourself," Crystal requested, stretched out and presenting her womb. "I make an effort to keep my body lovable. But my soul? You don't love me. You pity me, and pity is a poor substitute for love. You want something from me, whether validation or some other desire. Pity objectifies. It lets you see me as whatever I need to be for what you have to offer to help most. Go on. Feel my child. Sing to them. Tell them they're precious, that you want to help their mother and make a future for them. If you're going to pad out your deluded reality, don't let me stop you from going all the way."
"Woah, hold on." Valey narrowed her eyes, crawling backwards and getting off the bed. "What's deluded about me trying to help? Didn't I just tell you what I was in this for? What do you even think I want!?" She stomped a hoof. "Bananas, yeah, I do pity you! And to be honest? Your personality is gross! It is not attractive and I honestly feel terrible for whoever your true love is, and it's really awkward when you've got nice legs and that half-buttoned maid thingy that looks like it's about to fall off and belongs on a tease model in a certain type of fashion catalogue, but you look completely the opposite on the inside! And you know what? I still wanna help you, because I think that is worth changing. I'm not interested in pretend validation. But I am starting to lose my patience again, and will slap you if you try to fake-flirt with me one more time. Now: what's so deluded about my reality?"
Crystal sat up, hissing like she had been stung and crossing her wings defensively in front of her belly. Her long dull-aqua mane swished against the bed with the motion, and for a moment, she looked like she would attack. After a few harsh breaths, she calmed enough to say, "You've already convinced yourself there's something you can do, and that I don't hate you."
Valey raised her lip... then gave Crystal a glare. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you hate everything. Amicable conversation was nice, but so long for that. Now why is there nothing I can do?"
"You've just finished condemning my child to death," Crystal whispered, once again looking at herself. "We had a chance, and you erased it. And you have the gall to come barging in here and offer to help." Her gaze flashed up, green eyes burning. "You know nothing but your own desire to feel like the hero. Are you motivated by subconscious guilt? Or are you so much of a monster you don't even notice?"
With a flash of green mane, Valey rushed. The two of them locked together, hitting the wall with Crystal pinned halfway up, her legs and hindquarters dangling. But Crystal didn't struggle.
"I am not a monster," Valey hissed. "You want to see a monster? Your emotions are more toxic than Stanza. You have a lot more to worry about than getting condemned for heresy, lady: I don't think you could find an inch of love to raise your foal if you tried!"
"More toxic than Stanza?" Crystal chuckled darkly. "Oh, you silly pony. I am Stanza."
Valey glared at Crystal, eyes widening and then narrowing... and didn't drop her. "You're Stanza? You're bluffing."
"Am I?" Crystal glared back at her, pinned upright against the wall with her waist dangling.
"Yeah." Valey hovered, holding them in place with the force of her wings. "I've seen Stanza twice. It's a giant defiled dusk statue attached to an organ, shoots lasers and smells awful. So if you want me to bite, time to get explaining."
Crystal scoffed. "That thing my grandfather built is a self-perpetuating emotional snapshot attached to some hardware he doesn't understand in an effort to make it do what he wants. It builds itself up through exposure to feelings that resonate the same as its own. But how do you think it all started? Where do you think the baseline to which it compares everything else when weeding out the population's anguish and nihilism came from in the first place? It's nothing but the emotional signature of one wretched mare..."
Now, Valey loosened her grip, but not enough for Crystal to fall. "So you're not Stanza. Stanza is just based on you. Yeah, that I can buy a little more."
Crystal pushed out with both forelegs, shoving Valey away before dropping to the floor and holding her belly. She kept glaring, waiting for Valey to speak or leave.
"And you know what?" Valey flipped to a landing, taking a step back toward her. "That's kinda messed up. You just said Chauncey was your grandfather? This whole city is messed up. Sounds like you've had a really raw deal in life. So do you just hate everything, or is there something special about me?"
"My lover is Lord Percival," Crystal hissed. "With a wish from the tournament, he could have become a god. Retroactively granted rulership and status, immunity to the restriction on mixed marriages. I could have hidden beneath the ground until the fated year came and Wallace won the tournament... until you made us lose him! If it weren't for you stealing Puddles... She was the one thing that kept him here, forced him to fight for Izvaldi!"
Valey winced, suddenly realizing what Crystal was talking about. "Wait a minute, Percival? So he doesn't care about hanging onto his country, he just wants a wish for sphinx privileges so he can be with you?"
"Percival loves me." Crystal's emerald eyes burned, her tail lashing. "He gave me his child. I am his queen."
"And he sticks with you even knowing what you're like?" Valey blanched. "You sure he doesn't just like you for your legs, too?"
"How much work would you be willing to do to heal me?" Crystal whispered. "You're under no illusions about what kind of person I am. What kind I've been made into. You see the state of my soul."
"I'd do a lot more if you'd ask!" Valey stomped a hoof. "Do you treat Percival like this, too? You're trying your hardest to tear me down and make me leave, and if I wasn't really good at being stubborn, bananas, I would have already. In fact, stubbornness is pretty much the reason I'm still here!"
"You backed down from inviting me on your airship." Crystal pointed a hoof. "Percival wouldn't. He has even more to lose by being in a relationship with me. You're afraid of helping heretics? This mixed child is his." She lowered the hoof, rubbing herself gently. "Would you fight in the tournament all to burn your wish wishing we could be together?"
Valey tilted her head. "Honestly? I've gotten through the second round, and I still don't know what I'm wishing for. So yeah, let's say that's on the table."
"Am I?" Valey grinned, getting closer. "Lady, listen: I hate losing. Like, I really, really hate it. And you're giving me a challenge and telling me to back down. I'm not a big fan of you either, but as long as you're being nasty to me and not my friends? You're not even touching the worst things I've feared about myself. So keep trying to make me scram. I dare you."
For a moment, Crystal shuddered, looking like her tears might start again. "You're an idiot."
"A classy idiot. Who wants to win." Valey took another step and adjusted her mane. "Helping you? Nah, forget it. Walking away after you've ticked me off and giving you what you want? Letting you win? Forget it harder. So congratulations, you're not rid of me yet." She winked at the perfect time to be annoying. "Your turn."
"Grrr..." Crystal shook, sliding halfway onto her bed, burying her face and forelegs in the sheets. "No."
"No? Come on, I'm starting to enjoy this." Valey grinned, flopping down on the bed before Crystal could climb all the way in. "Because I can tell I'm getting somewhere."
Crystal didn't answer or stop, crawling back to her usual position, clamming up and laying down.
"Uhh..." Valey shifted uncomfortably. "Did you just lay on top of me?"
"This is my bed," Crystal whispered, voice raw. "I need to use it."
Valey took a deep breath and relaxed her wings, acutely aware of the batpony atop her. "Yeah, that old fallback isn't going to get rid of me. So stop trying."
Valey went limp too, counting her heartbeat and stubbornly staying put in a battle of wills. She wasn't going to enjoy this. She wasn't going to think about anything. She was just going to wait and be stubborn.
After about five hundred beats, Crystal asked, "Why are you still here?"
"'Cuz I'm winning. Duh."
After seven hundred more, she asked again, slightly more force in her voice.
"Because you goaded me into it, you hag," Valey grumbled, far more comfortable than she cared to admit. "You want me gone? I've got an easy way for that to happen. Tell me something I can do to prove my intentions. Something other than leaving, and that will make you treat me with a little more respect. Or else I'm going to be here for a whole month, because this is really, really bothering me."
"You're an idiot," Crystal said.
"Yeah, certainly feeling like one," Valey admitted. "But hey, aside from a verbal lashing, it's not getting me in any trouble. Doing the stupid thing is actually fun, sometimes."
"An idiot who doesn't understand the way the world works," Crystal continued. "Who doesn't understand that some things can't be changed and even meaningless actions have consequences. You're trying to do something meaningless because you don't understand who you're helping or what it will take."
Valey grinned into the sheets. "Yeah, you're saying that to someone who tried to make friends with a windigo. Forget logic and reason, you're not making me back down."
"If I ask for your help, we'll be taking advantage of each other," Crystal droned, scowling. "You because you'll work toward an impossible task for no thanks and no reward, and me because I'm a flawed mare who won't be able to help getting her hopes up before you inevitably fail."
"Cool. So forget about the long run." Valey continued holding still, still wishing Crystal would get off. "Gimmie a one-day task I can do to make something pleasant happen for you, right here, right now. So your world will end in two months, or you'll have to go underground, or something. The most important events of my life fit within three days. Once your kid is born? We'll see. But there's a whole lot you could do and have and experience between now and then."
Suddenly, Crystal was hugging her.
"Uhhh..." Valey's concentration broke and she finally reddened, wings twitching as Crystal sat up with her clasped against her chest. "Hello?"
"Shhh." Crystal brushed a hoof across her muzzle, burying her face in Valey's mane. "Can you taste emotions?"
"Smell them? When they're strong, yeah. I sorta figured it was a batpony thing..." Valey did her best not to shudder or squirm.
"Yours are delicious," Crystal whispered against her scalp. "Delicious lies. The same kind of lies Percival gives me, only his are proof of a promise... that when the truth comes, we'll face it together. Hope yields only disappointment. Knowledge shows how twisted people really are, and love is merely the denial of that. Yet we as a species can't help but be drawn to them anyway... I want to know why."
Valey blinked, still resisting the urge to struggle as Crystal nuzzled her mane. "Because they're ridiculously powerful! However much you can do on your own, think about how much you can do when you have friends who will do that for you! Bananas, we're not meant to be alone!"
"Are you sure?" Crystal's voice darkened. "How do you know what we're meant for?"
"For sure?" Valey folded her ears. "I don't. I've just had to infer it based on my life and experiences. But I sure can tell the good parts from bad, and someday, if I ever meet who made us, I'm gonna punch them if their answer isn't the same."
"If you ever meet our creator," Crystal whispered. "I want answers too. I want to know why talking with you has to torture me with the possibility of hope, when these emotions are empty. It would be so much easier if we didn't have to try. If we stopped from falling by never getting up and climbing toward a ceiling that isn't able to be surpassed!"
"You ever tried asking the Night Mother?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "With one of those creepy dusk statues?"
Crystal was silent for a moment. "Dusk statues haven't worked for me ever since they made Stanza."
"...Huh." Valey processed that for a moment. "I'm surprised. And here I thought we were gonna get to commiserate about how the Night Mother is creepy and I've never gone to talk to her either."
"You're not missing out."
Valey grinned. "So, uhh... let me go? And give me something I can do to prove I'll come back?"
"There's nothing you can do." Crystal dropped her, and Valey immediately jumped away. "You've done too much already. Go away and think about how I'll feel when you fail. Think about my feelings toward you. Ask yourself why you're helping someone who won't thank you or give any gratitude whatsoever, and come back in a week or more if you're feeling cruel enough to lift me higher before you let me down."
"Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence." Valey spun on one hoof, faced her, and winked. "Won't let you down."
She didn't need to look to feel Crystal watching her as she left the room.
Valey stepped out of Percival's mansion into scattered clouds and bright sunlight. Apparently Garsheeva had broken the storm while she'd been inside... For a moment, Valey filled her lungs with clean outside air, then realized she still smelled like Crystal's perfume.
"Oh bananas." She blinked, mind quickly running over being hugged and lain on and everything that had just transpired, and her wings snapped out to the sides. "Oh bananas what have I gotten myself into?"
Rushing forward, Valey dashed to the center of the plaza, lifted her head high, and dunked it hard in the fountain, trying to purge her thoughts of needy, curvy mares. "Aaargh!" she yelled, coming up for air, then dunked herself again. Bananas, had she let herself get goaded that hard into the impossible task of helping someone who refused to be helped? Valey heaved her entire body into the fountain, marinating in its cool water and stewing in the events of the past hour. Note to self: don't look for excuses to help needy, no-help-wanting mares who were also hot. Why had she even done that? Was it really because she was just that stubborn?
She couldn't have been like this in Ironridge, or she would have been effortless to manipulate... No, scratch that, she already had been. Herman had used her natural tendencies for whatever and she just hadn't cared. Fine, then, better note to self: don't get talked into a bad idea just to prove a point. Now what was she going to do, just run away? Sure, she was fine with helping Crystal on principle, but now that the heat of the moment was over it felt like stubbornness was just an excuse because she was trying not to focus on what she really wanted and... and what she really wanted was to be her old, unchanged Ironridge self and go peeping in a bathhouse or something. And on a mare whose personality was repulsive. Valey had been trying her hardest to forget Crystal was pregnant, too.
"Unngh... Why...?" She floated on her back, stretching a hoof toward the sun. Why was she doubting herself so hard all of a sudden? Either she was stumbling on something that hadn't changed from Ironridge, or was automatically assuming she had... Was talking with that mare just that toxic to her, too? Was-
"Well well well," a seedy little voice said nearby, definitely in her direction. "It seems I've found someone I was badly in need of finding!"
Valey lurched in the fountain, splashing and trying to recover a single ounce of dignity, not recognizing who it was... until she laid eyes on a short, bottle-green griffon with a pin-striped suit and a bowtie. It was Kero.
"You know," Valey groaned, "I really have bigger things to deal with right now..."
"That's a very big shame," Kero apologized in an annoyingly airy voice. "Because your biggest dealings are about to get bigger."
"Grrr..." Valey hauled herself more upright in the fountain, water streaming from her mane and fur. "Whatever it is, I'm not interested. Leave me alone, Kero."
Kero tilted his head so far sideways it was vertical, blinking once and giving her an avian stare. "I have no idea what kind of business you're indulging yourself in," he tweeted, "though it does look very fanciful. Unfortunately for you, it is my business for you to be hearing what I have to say! Regrettably regrettable. You are listening?"
"Bananas...!" Valey punched the inside of the fountain, sending water sloshing over the rim. "Could you at least not talk like that? Look, I remember that will you left in Ironridge. It was all immaculate and broody and not... Like, I know you know how words work!"
Kero gave her a blank look, then blinked once more. "Mmmmmmmmm! I see."
Valey splashed a moment longer, standing up and glaring. "In case you forgot, you ordered your mercenary dudes to kill me, yeah? That was them I was beating up in the tunnels? And then you bailed the moment I got away and left them stranded in Ironridge? Maybe? Remember that a little...?"
"What kind of point would you like to be making?" Kero chirped, very clueless.
"I... gahhh..." Valey applied a sopping hoof to her face and groaned.
"I have a warning for you," Kero informed her, sounding ridiculously proud of himself. "I am thinking you'll like to hear it. Somewhere more private we should be going, no?"
"Look, buddy, I was in this fountain for a reason..."
Kero waggled a talon, his stupidly prim bowtie fluttering in the breeze. "This fountain will still be being here when you return! But my business is taking too long already. Please hurry yourself along, now now."
Valey gave him an evil look, finally realizing a cause worth getting out of the fountain. Carefully, she hauled herself over the rim, pouring more water than a faucet, coat completely slicked down... and lowered her head and shook as hard as she could, emptying what felt like gallons into Kero's suit and face. The bird squawked in dismay, shielding himself with a wing, and Valey bared her teeth in a grin when she was done.
"Yeah, you like that?" She finished by blowing a raspberry. "Alright. Get on with your business. But I'm in a really bad mood with a lot of unspent aggression, so you better not remind me of the time you tried to kill me."
Kero shook himself in return, but it was utterly futile. "Anywhere in private will do," he mumbled, crest drooping as he trundled away.
Valey followed him out of the plaza and around a corner, ending on a windowless strip of concrete behind the hospital before the hill fell away in a grassy slope. "Here ought to do. Mmm, yes, it ought to do nicely," Kero sang to himself, spinning in circles three times and fixing Valey with his eyes. "Admiral Valey of Ironridge."
His gaze was returned with a glare. "Make this quick," Valey demanded.
"My mercenary company," Kero quietly told her, speaking in hushed tones, "has returned to my service from Ironridge."
"Wait, they're..." Valey furrowed her brow, leaning in and lowering her voice as well. "Here?"
"In Izvaldi? Oh no, they're already out on an assignment. Very important business." Kero mumbled something else about business to himself, clicking his beak. "Very very important, mmm yes."
Valey waited for the other boot to drop, but it didn't come. "Business about hunting me again?"
"That is not what they are doing," Kero rebuked as airily as ever. "I work... for Chauncey. They are on a mission from him, north of Gyre and Wilderwind. Their doings are being done in Mistvale."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? What of it?"
For a moment, Kero watched her... then hung his head. "Chauncey is blackmailing me," he apologized, the first tone of legitimate emotion aside from confusion, excitement and surprise entering his voice. "I have a loved one. You know how it is."
Valey frowned a moment longer. "That's rough, buddy."
"It is why I must carry out tasks even I do not want anywhere near my business," Kero continued, hanging his head profusely. "Such as disseminating obsidian to the mothers of my company's Ironridge foals, or seeking after your capture."
"Wait a second, Chauncey ordered you to hunt-" Valey's eyes widened in shock.
"Very fortunately that needn't be our business," Kero wheedled, realizing he had made a mistake and trying to change the subject. "You see, my company is presently-"
"Bananas it's none of my business!" Valey grabbed his collar before he could move and slammed him against the ground on his back, dripping water on his suit and face. "How did he know about me, what did he know about me, and why did he want me gone!?"
Kero squirmed. "H-Help! Mercy!"
"Uh huh. Like the mercy you showed me?" Valey forced him to meet her eyes, hard and cold and reflecting memories of a life-and-death struggle in the Flame District tunnels. "Or the mercy you showed your mercenaries when you left them to mine? Tell me!"
"H-He didn't... specify you... specifically..." Kero gurgled under the pressure on his throat, and Valey slackened off enough that he could talk. "It was your brand. All throughout our travels, we've been instructed to keep an eye out for a pony whose brand could see the future. We were told it would be a child, someone reconstituted using obsidian during pregnancy..."
Valey's eyes widened more. "What!?"
"I-I don't know why! Please!" Kero squirmed. "Or how Chauncey knew to expect something like that! I still don't know if you're what he wanted, or if we were off the mark entirely since you are a sarosian and not a foal from obsidian!"
"So you mean... that nutcase was searching moon glass for..." Valey bared her teeth. "Those answers aren't good enough!"
Kero stared unblinkingly at her in terror. "I am telling you, I do not know how or why! I observed you for years between visits to Ironridge, not wanting to admit it was true since it would mean my mercenaries needed to defeat you! I only moved because Ironridge was changing and you could die or leave and it would be too late..."
"Yeah? But what's so special about this picture on my butt?" Valey snarled. "So you know what it does. Big whoop, I can predict attacks before my enemies make them. What's it to him?"
"I am not knowing!" Kero whimpered. "I cannot know what Chauncey is thinking, only what he asks! This is why I tried to come and warn you..."
Valey took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stood up, ready to pounce again the moment Kero bolted. "What. Are you warning me of?"
Kero trembled for a minute before speaking. "Have you ever heard the tragedy of Monk Lord Yanavan?"
"Pretend I haven't and enlighten me."
"It was an incident in Mistvale several decades ago. Terrible business," Kero lamented. "One of the highest monks in the land turned traitor and attacked the Night Mother's most sacred council, unprovoked and without warning. He stole a set of powers known as the Nightmare Modules they were tasked with guarding before being somehow sealed away. Chauncey had some experiment he was using to try to extract or rediscover Nightmare Modules on his own, but seems to have lost a key component to running it. But he wants these powers, and has tasked me with the sending of my group to discover this Yanavan and bring him back to Izvaldi."
Valey chewed her lip. "Okay, that's pretty suspicious, but it's really just making me care for neither of you, which is how things were in the first place. Why do I care?"
"I do not like Chauncey," Kero mourned. "But I cannot raise a wing against him directly. I am telling you this in the hope you will beat my mercenaries to discovering the resting place of Yanavan and take these powers for yourselves, placing them further out of Chauncey's reach. This is my warning to you."
Valey scrutinized him heavily... and sighed. "Well, that stinks. And your dudes can actually find some scary traitor who's been sealed away for decades?"
Kero weakly shrugged. "Do not be underestimating the resourcefulness of my mercenaries. It is bad for business."
"...Yeah, I'm gonna need to talk with my friends about a whole bunch of everything. You." Valey jabbed a hoof into Kero's chest, earning a wince. "Stop being shady. Go, like, buy a farm or something, and leave everyone alone."
"Y-You're sparing me?" Kero meekly whispered.
"Killing dudes isn't my style," Valey replied, turning and walking away. "After all, I let your mooks off the hook too, once. Please don't make me regret trying it again."
Valey was still dripping as she furled her wings on the Immortal Dream's deck, thoughts swirling in her head. If talking with Kero had been good for one thing, it was tearing her focus from Crystal... but now she had thoughts of future visions swirling in her head, of mad monks and of power desired for unknown purposes. Kero had been lying; she didn't trust that griffon with a single melon seed. But about how much? Her head felt like an anvil had been calmly placed inside, and her hooves knew better than her brain did how to get home and let her friends help. She stumbled her way down the stairs, making for the library and the cabins.
She immediately drew to a halt when she saw who was there.
"Hello, chum!" High Prince Gazelle waved lazily from a reading chair, Felicity and Senescey standing mildly at ease nearby. "Fancy place you've got here! Much more amiable than the quarters I usually borrow at sea."
"Buh..." Valey pointed a wing, not sure how much she cared. "What are you doing here?"
"Well... it's funny," Gazelle said, stretching luxuriously. "There I was in Stormhoof, minding my own business and watching the proceedings after the tournament, when what should come along but a huge governmental catastrophe caused by sphinxes who are bad at scheming? So I thought to myself, hmm, this really would be a good time to skip town... since cleaning up after Stormhoof sounds like work I didn't ask for. And who should I run into but my favorite Ironridge heroes?" He winked. "I did you a solid in the tournament, remember? Getting you that private box? Figured you could repay the favor by giving me and my friends a place to lie low for a bit. What do you say?"
Valey rubbed a soggy ear, a little water squirting out from the pressure. "Uhhh... really?"
Gazelle shrugged broadly, spreading his forelegs and shaking his head. "Do I look like the kind of pony to stick around when there's trouble to you?"
Valey winced. "I mean, isn't that basically your thing? Look, I've had a bad idea, so as long as you don't mess us up I just wanna go dry off..."
"Ooh. Harsh but true," Gazelle admitted. "But this is the kind of mess I run away from rather than laugh with impunity while standing directly out of range. You understand, right, old chum?"
Valey glanced behind him at Senescey and Felicity, wondering what they were doing this close to the prince and where Felicity had come from in the first place. "You know what? Knock yourselves out. Just don't do anything spooky, okay?"
Gazelle let her pass with a wide bow, but she wasn't quite out of earshot before he said, "Huh. I expected something feistier."
"I can still hear you, you know," Valey remarked backwards, not looking over her shoulder.
She considered trying her friends' cabins, but Shinespark would barely have her voice back, soft snores emanated from Gerardo's room, and at the smell of food drifting from below, she guessed she knew where Maple was. Jamjars' room had soft voices drifting from it... Starlight? Maybe Amber would be around. She turned to walk back to Maple's room and found herself face to face with Felicity.
"Something bothering you, darling?" Felicity tilted her head, keeping a respectful distance.
"Nope. Just looking for my friends," Valey lied. "So what are you doing here? With the prince dude?"
Felicity chuckled airily. "Tell me you wouldn't take the chance to travel with royalty if offered the same."
"Uh huh..." Valey slowly nodded, feeling very uncomfortable. She needed to find her friends, not come home to a bunch of partial strangers... "You know, that wasn't really an answer."
Felicity regarded her sadly for a moment, then reached out and tapped her with a quick, subtle hoof. Immediately, some of the tension and pressure in Valey's chest lessened, and her head felt a little more clear. "Better?"
Valey blinked at herself, lifting a hoof and turning in a circle. "Woah, what? I mean... wait, hold on, what did you do?"
"A little trick I'm fond of that helps to clear the mind," Felicity replied with a smile. "Were you there when I was explaining my alternate uses for Mistvale arts? I can't remember. You looked weighed-on, darling."
"Yeah, well, I'm also soaked," Valey mumbled. "So unless you can conjure a towel..."
She deliberately didn't point out that Felicity hadn't answered the question, and deliberately didn't ask again. Instead she pushed open a random room that didn't have an occupant, stepped to its freshly-stocked shelves, and gathered some linens, rubbing down first her face and then tying off her mane and tail.
"You're not very difficult to read," Felicity murmured from the door. "Back when we had our very first meeting, I told you my sisters and I were more than ordinary mares, you know. We did offer to tell you everything, and you expressly told us you wanted no part of any skullduggery we partook in. So please don't mistake my dodging about the prince for hostility."
"Oh. Uh, thanks." Valey continued drying herself. No matter how good Felicity's intentions were, even after whatever magic she had used, she still wanted nothing more than to talk to her friends. "Look, if you want to help, could you go get, like... anyone? Sorry. Not really in a mood for chitchat right now."
"How broad of 'anyone', darling? Any specific person you have in mind?" Felicity smiled. "Most of your friends are about here and there, and we flew in on Wallace's airship so he and his team are somewhere too."
Valey waved a hoof. "Yeah, maybe later. Look, like..."
She trailed off. Who did she want? Shinespark and Maple would both be hard to talk about Crystal with, both for different reasons. Gerardo might be intellectually helpful, but she didn't really feel like it. Her next best friend was...
The door across from the one she had chosen cracked open, and Jamjars strolled out, all the contentment in the world on her face. That turned to a frown as she spotted Valey, Starlight standing behind her. "Oh. This room is being used, now?"
"Diiid you want it...?" Valey slowly looked up, returning the frown. "Listen, I just need towels..."
Reading the situation in a heartbeat, Felicity was suddenly at Jamjars' door, peering through. "Ooh, you two are fans of the Firefly Sisters too?"
Something seemed to break in Jamjars' mind, watching Felicity staring into her room and beaming, and her head ticked a little, mouth cracked open. With a very fluid motion, time seemed to unpause for her, and she pushed Starlight out while grabbing Felicity's mane and tugging her into the room. "If you think the collection I have on display is impressive..."
Starlight stumbled, narrowly avoiding a faceplant, then looked back at the closed door. "Does she have any idea what she's getting into?"
"Beats me," Valey sighed. "Look, I'm not really up to processing things that are going on right now. Maybe she was trying to leave me alone or something."
"...Are you alright?" Starlight frowned, entering the empty room.
"Get the door. And nah." Valey looked away. "Look, you, uh... Bananas, why can't the airship just be ours for a moment? Did they really have to choose right now to visit? I really need... bananas."
Starlight walked up beside her, offering another towel. "Something to do with why you're so wet?"
"I'm wet 'cuz I jumped in the fountain to try to clear my mind," Valey groaned. "Listen, I... I don't even know where to start. I found out a million different things, got shoved through a billion more and maybe accidentally did some stuff but I'm not actually sure..."
"Okay, then." Starlight straightened up, taking charge. "I don't know what's going on, but did you find out anything that puts us in danger?"
Valey hesitated. "I, uhh... Well, since we're not in danger yet, I don't think this changes anything?"
"Good." Starlight nodded. "Next question: do you need a hug? It's what Maple would offer."
Valey blinked. "Uhhh..." She glanced down at her soaked fur. "Maybe in a few more minutes?"
"Then I don't know where to start either," Starlight sighed. "At the beginning?"
"I guess? I mean..." Valey cut herself off, swallowing. That would mean talking about Crystal. But not talking about Crystal would mean talking about Kero, and how... "Hey Starlight," she blurted. "Have you ever heard of... of a pony who can see the future?"
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head, leaning in to catch the words as Valey lowered her volume. "Who can see the future? You mean like you dodging attacks with your cutie mark?" she whispered back.
"Bananas," Valey sighed, ceasing her toweling and slumping down on the floor. "Guess it's really that obvious. I found out that Chauncey, with his whole moon glass foals thing... is apparently searching for a cutie mark that can do that. And that's why Kero and his goons attacked me in Ironridge."
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. "What? That doesn't make sense. Why would they wait so long to go after you? They knew you were there all the time, didn't they? Was your cutie mark a secret?"
"Not really...?" Valey kicked a restless hoof, wishing she could slump lower than the floor. "I mean, I kinda bragged about it all the time. Apparently it was because they were too scared of me to do anything before, but thought that was their last chance..."
Starlight hesitated for a long moment. "So Chauncey wants a pony who can see the future? Or a cutie mark, or...?"
"Beats me."
Starlight's voice got low. "Because I can do that too, remember?"
Valey stiffened. "Wait, you can? Like my special danger sense, or-"
"We talked about it in the hospital, remember?" Starlight whispered. "You told me you had seen a vision while we were by Stanza in Gyre. Something about falling snow and you dying. And I told you I had seen the same thing a long time ago, but we decided to talk about it later. But if that's the same thing and you saw yours with a cutie mark that predicts the future..."
...Great. Whatever this talk was supposed to be doing, Valey's heart was suddenly even more filled with tension. "Yeah, well..." She looked frantically for a way out, aware her brain was probably moving at ten percent of its usual speed. "That might not have been my cutie mark? Look, I don't wanna find out what this means!"
Starlight hesitated. "Your cutie mark was almost glowing while we were down there. I don't know..."
"Just stop," Valey whispered, frozen. "Look, like... Sorry. I just picked a fight with someone I knew would be nasty and am really not comfortable with how it went down, and then got stuffed in another conspiracy smoothie machine before I could even get a minute to clear my head. I just gotta... gotta do something. Bananas, my head feels like a real mess right now."
"Yell into a pillow?" Starlight offered, floating one near.
"Thanks." Valey took it, planted it between her face and the floor, and was silent.
"...Are you going to use that?" Starlight tilted her head.
"Hey, kiddo?" Valey's voice was muffled by the pillow. "Apparently Wallace is around. I think I need to punch something, so see if he wouldn't mind. Also see if he can shoo away that prince and the batponies, and maybe see if Ironflanks wants to take a break from cooking while you're at it. Think any of that's reasonable?"
Starlight swallowed, then nodded. "I'll do it," she promised, leaving with a pattering of little hooves.
Whud! Valey flew across the grass, all four hooves impacting at the same time. The shock of the blow sent her adversary back two steps, and Valey flipped away, landing upright and panting.
"Helping?" Morena asked, battle cloak cast aside, together with Valey in Izvaldi's broad concert field without another soul in sight.
"Yeah." Valey flicked her bangs out of her eyes with a wingtip, breathing heavily. "Thanks for coming. Sometimes, there's nothing like... you know..."
She vaulted forward, locking her forehooves and bringing them together in an overhead smash. Morena blocked with one meaty forelimb, catching and straining against Valey's weight before flinging her to the side. Again, Valey landed upright, carving four furrows where her hooves hit the grass.
"Like sparring for clearing your head," Morena replied. "No need to explain. I know how it is."
Valey looked at her hooves, feeling like they'd need to discharge a thousand more punches before her frustration at the day's events was spent. Still, she was undeniably better, cooled by the lingering dampness in her coat and rainwater in the grass, not confined to explaining how she felt through words alone. Gritting her teeth, she charged again. "Take... this!"
First a punch, then a twirl, kicking with both hind legs and spinning again into an uppercut. Morena was too heavy to be launched, but she lost another step of ground under the onslaught, returning with a heavy slam that Valey had to roll to avoid.
"Hah... hah..." Valey paused for breath, again coming to a stop and facing Morena. "Bananas, tha... thanks. Really just had a stressful day, and I don't think punching Shinespark's ship or yelling at nobody would have been the same."
"Talk about it however you want," Morena invited, stance ready for more. "I'm listening."
Valey tensed her legs to spring again, clashing and breaking apart with Morena once more. "...So hey," she said during the next break for breath. "I can trust you with pretty much anything, right?"
"You and your friends brought my daughter back from the dead," Morena returned, lowering her guard. "But if you want to talk, I don't usually have a lot to say."
"Yeah..." Valey looked away at the distant forest groves splitting up the farmland. "You ever interacted much with a batpony called Crystal?"
"Crystal from the mansion?" Morena shook her head. "Everyone learns to leave her alone sooner or later."
"Apparently not me," Valey sighed. "I might have, uhh... gone to talk with her twice now, and had a really frustrating time."
Morena didn't look surprised. "Why?"
"Why talk with her?" Valey shrugged. "I dunno. Because she hates Chauncey, and I know Chauncey's up to no good, and figured I'd hear it from someone who's been around him longer. Neither time I've even been able to ask before the subject gets changed, we have a nasty catfight..."
"...You shouldn't talk to her alone," Morena said after a while. "Some creatures have a way with words that makes them very damaging to speak with on your own. Where were your friends in this?"
Valey looked down. "Didn't bring them. Shinespark's recovering from the tournament, Maple hates getting involved in all this stuff, Gerardo... I dunno. I guess I didn't..."
"If you're trying to keep them safe because you don't think they can handle it..." Morena pointed a hoof at her. "You don't look like you're handling it well either."
Valey flattened out in the grass, sighing. "Yeah, doesn't mean they'd take it any better. I just, like... I used to be a bad guy, you know? In Ironridge?"
Morena shrugged. "I can relate. You remember my story."
"Low-class punk, almost a pirate... yeah." Valey nodded. "Yeah, so you'd probably get it. The thing is, talking with Crystal makes me feel... dirty. Like I'm ignoring all the stuff I've learned and the better stuff that's happened to me and just going and acting like I did back then. And honestly, I wish that wasn't a problem, because playing dirty and being resourceful is kind of important when you need to be able to protect your friends from anything at a moment's notice! But it is. And I dunno what's up with me or what to do about it."
Morena watched her for a moment. "How high of a standard do you hold yourself to?"
"I... I dunno." Valey averted her gaze. "I mean, this is the Empire, right? Most everyone here kinda hates batpony guts. And it was the same in Ironridge, though that might have been more my fault. But I used to embrace the reputation and do whatever I could to feel like I deserved it, because nothing's worse than having all that heaped on you for no reason, you know? Only now it's, uhh... Well, it feels like maybe if I try a little harder, stuff won't be so lousy in the Empire for me all the time. You know. 'Cuz I'm a batpony."
"So infinitely high, then," Morena said. "If Garsheeva or the Night Mother could do that for your kind, they aren't. How often does that leave you with a sense of triumph, like the good makes up for the bad?"
"You mean in terms of stuff I do? Bananas, I dunno." Valey shrugged. "There was, uhh... Well, the time I beat up Herman and saved Ironridge. That was pretty awesome. Of course, it was also mostly thankless except for my friends, but still. And then there was..." She winced. "Ugh. I was gonna say the pirate ship, but that was kind of just a mess. And then when I went to save Starlight, only she had already gotten herself out and wound up doing more to save me than the other way around. I guess I don't even know."
Morena nodded. "And how often does it leave you feeling dirty, or like you're not good enough?"
"I can see where this is going..." Valey pulled on her face with her hooves, grimacing into the grass. "But Morena, like... I don't want to settle for just being okay! Or a bad pony who sometimes does good things! You don't... You, uhh... You ever heard where I really came from?"
Morena shook her head.
"Up there." Valey pointed at the sky. "Moon glass. Crazy scientists. Dunno how they did it, but they put me in someone else's body... Like, can you get this? What keeps me up at night is that I'm afraid I'm here for a reason, and it's a bad one."
"...That changes things," Morena sighed, sitting down. "But not as much as you think. Do you believe in destiny?"
Valey tilted her head. "Huh?"
"Yes or no." Morena shrugged. "If not, it shouldn't matter why. Should it?"
"I guess I do, then." Valey folded her ears. "Or, at least, I think it's likely enough that I'm scared of the possibility. And it's a fear I try to live and deal with, and sometimes, I do a pretty good job. But I guess it can still mess me up from time to time."
Morena was silent for a while. "...I have good news and bad news, Valey."
Valey raised a cautious eyebrow.
"The bad news is that it exists. That's what these are for." Morena touched her cutie mark. "No one knows a lot about them, or how much they change things, but ponies who don't follow theirs are few and far between. Even sarosians, who are born with theirs instead of manifesting them when they find their greatest wish. I assume you know what yours does."
Valey swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat.
"The good news..." Morena hesitated, as if she were about to say something dangerous. "Anyone can change. That's Wallace's mantra. It's the promise he gave to Diego and I, and the darker the world is, the brighter it shines as optimism. But... and I didn't find this out until after I had known him for a long time... it's not just an ideal. If you want to change your destiny? Change even your brand itself? There are ways."
"You've, uhh." Valey watched her in rapt attention. "You've got my ears."
"Garsheeva offers wishes to anyone who wins the tournament," Morena said. "It's well-known that she grants anything in her power. It's a lot less-known that the Night Mother grants wishes too."
Valey stared.
"There's no tournament involved," Morena continued. "All you have to do is visit her. And the things she can do... Have you heard the tale of Giovanni Goldfeather, whose offspring broke all the known rules of sphinxes and changed the Empire's political landscape for generations? Legends survive on the wind's breath saying his curse was actually a wish from her. If you wanted to be something other than what you are that badly... there is a way."
"Nnngh..." Valey grimaced. "But I really, like... I don't like the Night Mother, though. Bananas, all this stuff with batponies being picked on here? Why doesn't she help if she's so cool and great and everything? And that stuff with Starlight going to Gyre? She was behind that, apparently. But..." She sighed, then took a breath. "If I did want to find her, I don't suppose it's as simple as telling me where she is?"
"Everyone who knows isn't allowed to say." Morena shook her head. "And even if they were, I don't know. Wallace does. He's made a wish to her before. It's why he's so strong. Many think his strength isn't natural, but none expect to actually be right."
Valey watched the horizon. "So you just have to scour the whole entire Empire, huh? And probably all of Mistvale, too."
"There is a hint." Morena hesitated. "One hint, known as Garsheeva's Riddle and passed down in the Griffon Empire in plain sight for those who know it is there. You've probably heard it several times. It goes like this: glory to Garsheeva. May her love, as deep as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as pure as the moon, be revealed to the entire world."
"Well... bananas." Valey folded her ears. "Yeah, I have heard of that. That's a riddle?"
"Wallace tells me it is."
"...I'll pass," Valey said after a deep breath. "As much as things worry me... my cutie mark is a weapon. A really, really strong one, and even if there's some shady purpose behind it, I've used it so far to protect my friends. I'm not about to wish to be weaker. But thanks anyway. It means a lot."
Morena eyed her, nodding slowly. "More sparring?"
"Yeah." Valey got back to her hooves, then hesitated a final time. "Maybe this means something more to you than it does to me, but my cutie mark lets me predict opponents' attacks before they make them. Basically lets me see the future."
Morena froze.
Valey mirrored her reaction, wincing hard. "That's a bad thing, isn't it...?"
Sighing, Morena stood down, dropping all pretense of fighting. "Foretelling the future is one of the Griffon Empire's divine heresies."
Valey's eyes bulged, and she stomped the grass beneath her into a muddy pulp. "Oh, come on!"
Morena winced sympathetically. "There's a reason for it. Knowledge of the future is supposed to be exclusively the domain of Garsheeva. Anyone trying to do the same, like charlatans and card-reading tricksters, are seen as infringing on her holy right. But I've never heard of a pony who can really-"
"Woah!" Valey's cutie mark twinged, and she ducked left to avoid a surprise right hook... only the punch never came. Morena's eyes widened slightly.
"Yeah... Heh heh..." Valey wiped the mud off one of her hooves with another. "That's why I do so good in the tournament. But, so, that... makes me a pretty big liability to my friends, I guess?"
Morena sighed. "I don't know what would happen if Meltdown found a pony who truly can tell the future. It could be anything from condemnation as a heretic to having your brand sealed in obsidian and locked away to being regarded as a goddess. How tightly have you guarded what you can do?"
"Because of the tournament? Bananas, pretty tightly." Valey shrugged. "It's my one big advantage. I don't want my enemies to know how I work so they can prepare. My friends know, though, and anyone from Ironridge like Kero, so Chauncey... would... too..." Her eyes went huge with another realization, and she suddenly felt even less okay than she had before coming out to spar. "I think I need to talk things over with my friends all of a sudden. Gazelle is kind of hanging out on my ship, so do you mind if we use yours?"
Morena shook her head, regarding the mess they'd made of the field. "Whatever you've realized, good luck."
Valey swallowed, flapping her wings and taking off. "Thanks. If I'm right about what's going on, I'm gonna need it."
"...So." Valey closed her eyes and took a deep breath, sitting in the middle of Wallace's airship with Maple, Starlight, Gerardo, Amber and Slipstream all in attendance... Even Shinespark was there, having been carried from her room on the Immortal Dream by her friends. "I've got some stuff to say."
Morena nodded quietly, guarding the door, the only one of Wallace's team present. "We're listening," Maple promised.
"I found out," Valey began, "that apparently telling the future is a heresy here. Bananas, someone really needs to make a list of every last one of them, but whatever. And, uh, you all basically know what my cutie mark does."
Amber folded her ears.
"And the reason it's a heresy..." Valey glanced at Morena. "Is because apparently that's some super-special power only Garsheeva is supposed to have. Or something."
"Indeed it is." Gerardo drooped. "I do apologize for not making you more aware of that. But you seemed inclined to hide it from the Empire at large due to the tournament regardless, and it didn't feel like something you would appreciate thinking about, so I never pressed the subject..."
Valey sighed. "Thanks, Birdo. Listen, before I go further: tell me all the heresies. I wanna know all of them. No more surprises."
Gerardo nodded. "No inter-species relationships between ponies, sarosians and griffons; sphinxes are exempt. No incest. No cannibalism. No formally declaring war against Mistvale or attempting to expand the Empire onto their territory. No preventing the sarosians from placing dusk statues wherever they please. No piracy. No constructing mana generators. No attempting to foretell the future. The Night Mother also has her own set of heresies, some of which are identical to these. And that is everything of which I am aware."
"Great." Valey rubbed her forehead with a wing. "Okay, no more surprises... Bananas, some of those are common sense and others are just weird. And you're one hundred percent sure that's everything?"
Gerardo's headcrest perked. "Actually, all of them have quite sensible explanations, if you ask any politician or any of Garsheeva's most devout. The relationship prohibition is in the name of protecting national sovereignty, since otherwise things would become very tangled. Given the way the house inheritance works, outlawing incest is practically mandatory to ensure the sphinx population isn't eradicated by genetic deviancy, and-"
"Yeah, that's cool." Valey waved a wing. "I already know about the one that matters." She looked around at everyone, starting to pace on the ship's wooden floor. "I've... always not been entirely comfortable with what I am. Moon glass maybe-soul from space? I've done my best to live with it. It doesn't stop me from fighting or hanging out or being friends with you all. But the more I find, even when I'm not looking... especially now that I'm finding stuff without looking..." She took a breath. "I can't keep doing this. I just can't. And as much as I'm scared of winding up like Chauncey, looking for answers to the world's secrets so hard that I give up my morality and everything else to find them... I need to know. You get what I'm saying?"
"I'm not sure I do," Maple admitted. "That sounds like an apology, but you haven't done anything?"
"Haven't yet, but I'm gonna." Valey gave her a look. "You remember how friendly Chauncey was being when we talked with him, even though he had no right to? I kind of got distracted because he was really bad at getting to the point when doing evil speeches, but... he was talking about how he wants to make a goddess who can champion batponies better than the Night Mother, right? And he was talking about how Stanza is a machine designed to swap cutie marks around, and I just found out he was the one who sent Kero and his mercenaries to attack me in the Flame District, and now that my cutie mark is something apparently only Garsheeva is supposed to do... You see where I'm going with this, right?"
Amber's eyes widened slightly. "Chauncey wanted to make you...?"
"Still wants," Valey corrected, feeling a lump in her throat. "He even told me he could help with my whole problem of getting the old Valey back involving giving up this body. I dunno why it took me so long to put all this together, but... I don't think ignoring where I came from and pretending I'm normal is gonna work anymore."
"It probably took as long as it did because you don't want it to be true," Maple said. "So what are you going to do?"
"Try to get more answers. I need answers," Valey sighed, straightening up. "I have no idea how deep this rabbit hole goes, but somewhere, somehow, there has to be an explanation for who I am, what I am, and why I'm here. And even if it's one I don't like, it's no longer worth not knowing." She glanced around at everyone. "And I've got a pretty decent idea where to start. You remember how back on the pirate ship, it was like I flipped a switch and all those batponies suddenly started treating me like I was holy? I just rolled with it at the time because it was majorly convenient, but now I think I must have bragged or something and mentioned how my cutie mark works. I bet they know. I bet someone in Mistvale has a pretty good idea what my deal is."
"If Chauncey wants to be nice to you so badly, you could also just ask him," Starlight offered.
"Yeah, that's... Ugh." Valey rubbed her face. "But he's weird! And... yeah, I probably should ask him before I go do anything else..."
Starlight nodded. "I'll come too, if it helps."
"No, look, hold on." Valey held out a wing, interrupting her. "This is my problem, and... I mean... thanks."
"So is that it, then?" Amber smiled uncertainly. "We're flying to Mistvale? Do you have any place to start, or... even a map? We do have a month until the tournament with nothing better to do."
"Slow down, slow down." Valey waved a wing for quiet. "First off, it's totally up to you guys whether you want to-"
"Not even in question," Gerardo interrupted, everyone else nodding along. "Splitting the party would be a ridiculous notion when there's adventure to be had, Shinespark is injured, you're the most capable of us in combat and we only have one ship with most of the world neutral toward us at best."
Valey feebly grinned. "Heh. Sure thing, Birdo..." She glanced over at Morena. "What about you guys? Sounds like a good idea, bad idea... I don't suppose you'd want to come too?"
Morena hesitated. "I don't want to speak for Wallace, but it's not impossible. We might also want to keep an eye on Izvaldi. If you're really thinking of going to Mistvale, though, you won't want to go without a guide and a goal. Tell me why you want to go, and don't do it unless you can give me a very certain answer."
"I wanna go because I wanna know what my deal is," Valey replied. "I'm going to talk to Chauncey first, but unless I get a perfect answer out of him... and we all know that's not happening... those Mistvale pirates revered me, or something. Someone there has to know something about my cutie mark. About the stuff from space. I'll go straight to their high council or whatever if I have to. I'm going because I'm tired of having this hanging over my head and once I know what's up with who I am and where I come from, I can finally figure out how to live with it in peace."
"...Don't go without a guide," Morena repeated. "And good luck."
For a moment, the room was silent, Valey having had her say. Eventually, Gerardo spoke up. "Now we just have to figure out how to tell the Prince his new vacation spot is being commandeered for an adventure..."
"Leave that to me!" Amber promised, slapping a hoof against her chest. "I've got a way with these things. How soon are we thinking?"
Valey shrugged. "How long is the flight?"
Morena glanced at her. "From here to the border? One or two days. Depends on your ship. You flew to Gyre. It's a shorter trip than that, since you don't have to go as far east."
"Bananas, the Empire's tiny compared to the rest of the world." Valey rubbed the back of her head. "It took us like a whole month to fly here from Ironridge. Someday I'm gonna get a proper geography lesson and it'll blow my mind..." She shook it off and got to her hooves. "So, uh, I guess I'm gonna go bother Chauncey and see if there's anything more I can learn? I'm not really in a mood to wait."
"I'm coming too," Starlight volunteered. "To talk to Chauncey."
"You sure?" Valey raised a dubious eyebrow. "I mean, I'm not gonna stop you, but he's kind of..."
"Shady?" Starlight shrugged. "I have something I want to ask him too. We won't take too long."
Maple gave a hesitant smile. "Well, alright... I feel like there's a lot more to this than what you've said, and that's okay because we trust you. But I would like to talk with you about this before we fly too far, okay?"
"Yeah, I would too, Ironflanks," Valey sighed, beckoning for Starlight to climb onto her damp back for the flight to the hospital. "I would too..."
As the hospital elevator dropped into the giant underground generator chamber, Valey stood next to Starlight, her brain running at miles per minute. She needed a perfect grasp of what she was doing, and her goal was specifically not to rationalize going to Mistvale to chase Kero's mercenaries. Right now, she needed a clear head, focused on one thing: she was tired of not knowing who she was, of finding tidbit after dark tidbit that renewed her doubts and prevented her from being at peace. Chauncey was going to give her all the answers he was worth, and that would be the end of that.
"You're nervous," Starlight remarked.
"Me? Nervous?" Valey brushed it aside... then hesitated. "Yeah, look, who wouldn't be? But I'm gonna be a whole lot more nervous the next time someone tells me something spooky about where I came from if I don't find out on my own."
Memories of Ironridge floated across her mind as the elevator slid to a stop, of a dim red prison in the flame barracks where she had become Maple and Starlight's friend once and for all. When Ironridge and the Defense Force had no longer been enough, when she officially broke with pretending to be the monster she always believed she was... She had tried to be good. She had tried to live a normal life, away from her history and all its secrets. And everything she had started there was about to be finished here and now.
"Come on, Starlight," she said, sliding open the doors to Stanza's room. "Chauncey! Where are you!?"
The room was lit yet empty, Stanza's monstrous form nowhere to be seen. Valey's eyes flitted back and forth, from the observation platform to any other entrances, and finally to the rails leading to the tunnel in the wall. "Chauncey!"
Starlight shrugged. "Well, it can't be like he spends all his time down here. Right?"
"Nah, this place must have a security system." Valey frowned, striding forward. "He's gotta be-"
"Looking for someone?" Chauncey's voice interrupted from the doorway they had just used.
Valey and Starlight both spun. "I see you're back," Chauncey told them, standing in the entrance with his miter swapped out for a hood on his robe. "Fancy meeting you again. After our last talk, I had begun to fear you wouldn't want anything to do with me."
"Yeah, that was yesterday." Valey fixed him with her gaze, taking a step closer. "Look, old dude, I've got some questions and you've got answers. Cutie mark. Seeing the future. From the moon." She tapped her flank, then pointed upward. "I know you know what I am, and I wanna know too."
Chauncey gave her a look, Starlight standing behind Valey for the time being. "Then it sounds like we're on the same page. I assume you know of your purpose, and what I am here to help you become."
Valey held out a wing. "Nuh-uh. I like being me, and you're not doing any weird stuff to change that any time soon. What I want to know is how you knew I existed in order to start looking for me."
Chauncey shrugged. "Well... that's a long story."
"Tell it." Valey glared.
"I lived in Mistvale once," Chauncey began, starting to pace. "In fact, you could say I was an acolyte of some renown. You'd be surprised at the things you can learn, being near the highest circles of the Night Mother's teachings. And I may have heard a story about Luna's Artifice. Are you familiar with the Church of the Nine Virtues?"
"Yakyakistan's religion?" Valey tilted her head. "Yeah, a little. Seeing as I'm from Yakyakistan..."
Chauncey nodded. "Hope. Love. Knowledge. The three societal virtues that compliment the personal virtues of the Elements of Harmony. It is said the world contains three immensely powerful artifacts that embody these virtues, wielded by goddesses or else lost long ago. Our creator, Princess Luna, wielded the Immortal Dream, the crystallized virtue of hope. With it, she was able to create brands from nothing, and eventually our entire race. If a single brand is the power to make one wish come true, this is the ability to grant all wishes. To make manifest any and every one of your heart's desires... the true power of a god."
"Okay..." Valey watched him warily. "Don't start rambling, dude."
Chauncey eyed her with a be quiet look. "So what do you think would happen if someone wished upon the Immortal Dream for one of the other two virtues?"
Valey blinked. Then she frowned. "The same thing it always does. Make a cutie mark?"
"Please use real terminology," Chauncey sighed. "They're called brands. And yes, that's precisely what it did."
Starlight stuck her tongue out from behind Valey, where Chauncey couldn't see.
"Luna's Artifice," Chauncey continued, "is a brand with a lesser, limited ability to predict the future, a shadow of the ultimate power of the embodiment of love. The power only Garsheeva is allowed to wield..." He narrowed his eyes. "Something upon which she stakes her claim to godhood."
"Well, that's great," Valey groaned. "Except, you know what? I'm not sure I believe you. First off, just because you know something like my mark might exist doesn't explain being sure it'll come out of that moon glass meteor if you just look hard enough. Second, if I am that special, why was I the very first mark from there to get a body? Just gonna call that a massive coincidence?" She raised an eyebrow. "Third, okay, maybe you've got some reason you're sure Luna sent me down from the moon, or wherever this is going. What about all the hundreds and thousands of other souls in that meteor? You got a story for where they came from?"
"Are there any coincidences for one who can change the future?" Chauncey shrugged. "I only learned of your existence when Kero decided to tell me you had been living under his nose for years of searching and experimentation, and in a body Stanza could work with at that! You know more about your powers than I do, Valey. If you see a future you don't like, why not change it? What might seem a lucky coincidence to others could be a calculation from you, because you can know things no other can."
Valey tapped a hoof. "Not really answering the question there, old geezer. So I'm gonna ask again: congrats, you knew I existed. Why did you think I was gonna be in that moon glass?"
Chauncey didn't seem to have a better answer. "Ancient legends and prophecies from another time. You don't think Luna wouldn't have used the artifice she created, would you?"
Valey frowned. "Buddy, I can tell when someone's... You know what? Nah. I'm not telling you what my butt can and can't do. But I'm pretty sure it can't read stuff thousands of years in advance, if it's a 'more limited copy' of the real thing."
"Then maybe Luna made a promise on what she intended to do," Chauncey offered. "If a goddess possesses the power to make their will an absolute reality, what is the difference from them between a promise and a prophecy?"
Valey folded her ears. That was actually a good point... "So what, you guys have lore up in Mistvale that said this meteor would come?"
"Something of the sort," Chauncey said, tilting his head. "You're not thinking of going to Mistvale to fact-check me, are you?"
"Lemme guess." Valey hovered, folding her forelegs and pointing a rear one at Chauncey. "If I say yes, you're going to ask me a favor about a certain insane monk who got sealed away, aren't you?"
"It sounds like you're very astute," Chauncey agreed. "I have two Nightmare Modules, and I want the rest. Actually, there's only one I really need... Nightmare Module Five, the Treachery Module. Mistvale also has legends on what each of the modules do, and this one is very relevant to my interests."
"Do I wanna know?"
Chauncey bowed his head. "Oh, it's completely harmless," he assured. "The fifth module is nothing but a recording of a memory. One of Princess Luna's memories... specifically, a memory of her greatest betrayal. I want to see this memory and know what it contains."
"Uhhh..." Valey squinted. "Dare I ask why?"
"Apparently you do." Chauncey shrugged. "And I have my reasons. You sound like you're familiar with the tale of Monk Lord Yanavan. What's he infamous for, again? Betraying someone?"
"The Mistvale high monk council..." Valey nodded, slowly following.
"It's fascinating." Chauncey turned, continuing to pace. "All the stories say he stole the modules as part of his treachery, but what if it's the other way around? What if he learned what was inside, and it was such a terrible secret it destroyed his faith in the religion altogether? The most devout becoming the most despised in a single night... Such a secret could be very powerful."
Valey squinted. "You think it's a weapon to blackmail the Night Mother. Something you could tell all the batponies in Mistvale and the Empire, and get them to abandon her and follow me instead. After you've finished whatever you want to make out of my cutie mark."
Chauncey's grin widened. "Well, you caught on perfectly! Now, it would be much simpler if the Night Mother cared about her borrowed children and stood aside or helped us, but I've always been an advocate for contingencies."
"Ohh bananas." Valey gave him a worried look. "Yeah, I'm really not thinking I'm cool with where you're going with this."
"Look, buddy." Valey folded her forelegs, looking down at Chauncey from a hover. "Luna's Artifice, or whatever? I'm not really sure I believe you, but someone making me to be strong? That's cool. But I'm really not interested in helping with whatever divine insurrection you're planning, so maybe leave me out of that, okay?"
Chauncey gave her a look.
"Let me make one hundred percent sure I get what you're saying." Valey pointed a hoof. "This Luna made batponies using the Immortal Dream, and I in particular was made because she really wanted some other artifact's power as a toy and just decided to make it herself. That's what you're saying?"
"You are correct," Chauncey agreed.
"And she's where now, on the moon?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "You know, since moon glass came from the moon? She's also the evil spooky monster mare in the moon Icereach had some old legends about?"
"I've heard legends about that too," Starlight muttered quietly behind her.
"That is the case." Chauncey nodded.
Valey gave him a suspicious stare. "And when did Luna bail and the Night Mother take over? A pretty long time ago, right?"
Chauncey shrugged. "Nine hundred and eighty-five years. It happened concurrently with our present dating system. Many things did, and any scholar of history will tell you that's precisely the point where history fades to legend. It's almost like everyone who's still alive from back then doesn't want certain events to be remembered."
"Neato. But you knew about me, and those stories have to be from back then. Yeah?" Valey tilted her head. "So you're saying I'm a thousand years old, got taken up to the moon and then sent back down, and also when some evil goddess decided to make a cutie mark that mirrored the function of a legendary artifact, they made it look like this." She turned, exhibiting the cartoonish boxing glove on her flank. "Are you serious?"
Chauncey had nothing to protest. "I see no reason to assume otherwise."
Valey actually laughed. "You're off your rocker. Okay, so maybe there really are stories and this Artifice of Luna thing is legit. There are a lot of worse reasons to exist than because some goddess wanted a toy. If that was all there was to it, this would actually be kind of cool. But for someone who talks about using science to figure out how goddesses work, you're a horrible scientist!" She flung a hoof in his face. "All that stuff that's either crazy coincidences or flat-out impossible? You're just shrugging and accepting it? Come on, Starlight. I think we've gotten everything this dude knows."
Starlight watched Valey's cutie mark with a frown. "What's the difference between cutie marks and souls?"
"Buh?" Valey frowned.
Starlight shrugged. "So maybe Valey's cutie mark was made by the Mare in the Moon. That's different from her soul, right? I don't have a cutie mark and I have a soul. So do griffons. But then there are ponies like Puddles who lose their cutie marks and are empty, but also ponies like Shinespark who have their mark taken away, and it's almost like they can live in two bodies at once. You've said a lot about her cutie mark, but what about her soul?"
"I'm afraid that's not my field of expertise," Chauncey apologized with a stern frown. "In every field I've researched, they have been one and the same."
"Including that time your Stanza's song cracked the Firefly Sisters' cutie marks like dinner plates?" Starlight growled. "You're comfortable saying you made them look like that on the inside, too?"
"I never said I was," Chauncey lectured. "Those girls are precious to me."
Valey cleared her throat. "Alright. If we're moving on to heckling because you've got nothing more to tell us, I've got a big one: what's the deal with Crystal?"
Chauncey watched her for a while, reading Valey's expression. "That failed mare doesn't deserve any of your emotion," he finally said, voice flat and uninterested. "She's a setpiece, and should be grateful I let her be used at all."
"Wow. You know she's your granddaughter, right? At least that's what she said?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Bananas, what's this about? Are you nasty to her because she's a jerk, is she nasty because you're a jerk, or do you both just deserve each other that much?"
"...I've finally done it," Chauncey sighed. "I've lost track of how many times you've insulted me down here, Valey. Are you taking my hospitality for granted? Do you realize how bad of a time you would have if I wasn't infinitely tolerant of your transgressions? Even if you refuse to work with me and be a part of my plan, I would have thought you'd be happy to take a neutral acquaintance in a world that's so against our kind."
"Oh, believe me, I am." Valey rolled her shoulders. "In fact, that's a bigger reason than your shield why I haven't kicked your face in yet. You're completely amoral, but you're right: I do need allies. But being nice and passive and letting me get away with everything?" She glanced at Starlight. "I'm not looking for permission to be a jerk. I'm looking for answers about who I am, and right now, I really am feeling like Mistvale's the place to look. Get some of these stories checked against monks who might not be insane. So if there's anything else you'd like to tell me..."
Chauncey watched her without blinking. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"
Starlight hesitated, then said nothing.
"Nyeh. Shouldn't have come down here when I was hungry." Valey nudged Starlight toward her back, preparing to fly away. "Really need someone who's more all-there if I want answers, I guess. See ya, Chauncey. And don't do anything evil enough that I decide having safe spots isn't worth it."
As the elevator rose, Valey looked at Starlight. "You volunteered to come with me and then never really did anything. Looked like you wanted to ask something at one point too. What's up?"
Starlight looked away. "I thought better of it. I was going to ask since Izvaldi has a hospital and Chauncey is trying to be nice to us if he could have someone look at my horn for real this time."
"Oh. Huh. That's actually a pretty good idea." Valey blinked. "So why didn't you?"
"Because I realized Chauncey might not know I'm from... you know," Starlight mumbled. "And the way he's talking about you, and how I'm different from everypony else makes me afraid he could find out something about me that makes me interesting to him like that as well. And I also realized something else he might find out, thinking about all those moon glass foals."
Valey frowned. "Wait... what?"
"In my old home," Starlight began, "everyone gets cutie marks. You don't just not get them, like here. When I first got here and saw Willow, I was amazed that there was an adult mare without a cutie mark. But those foals... They always get their cutie marks, because it's like their marks already exist and then their bodies are made for them. They can even tell what they're going to be by looking at the mark on the mother's flank when she still has it."
Valey put a wing on her back. "Afraid you might already have one too, huh? And just not yet have manifested it?"
"If I do..." Starlight swallowed. "I-I don't want to know. I don't know how I might, since moon glass has only been here for the last seven years and ponies are way older than that. I feel differently about getting a cutie mark than I used to, especially if it's a part of who I am from the beginning instead of something that forces me to change. But if there's one somehow in me already, and Chauncey studies cutie marks... I don't want him to find it. I wouldn't want to know what it is."
"...Yeah, I can feel that." Valey sighed. "Bananas, all of this is weird. What do you think, kiddo? Think Chauncey's really got the whole story, or is even right? Or that I'll find more if we do go to Mistvale, or if it's just a wild goose chase? Jumping at an idea without thinking, like how your mom sometimes does? Right here, here and now, I could just call it off. Saying some goddess made me a thousand years ago as a toy is better than some of the other stuff I could find."
"These questions make my head hurt," Starlight replied. "I think we should go to the ship, dry off and warm up, and fly somewhere nice and live a normal life for a change. But we can't do that because the world won't let us, because we are special. It's dumb."
Valey scratched her mane. "I'm kinda still holding out that Chauncey is insane and there's some completely innocent explanation for everything. But hey, like that's going to happen. It's the insane ones who are usually the most dangerous. Remember Hemlock?"
"Ugh." Starlight shuddered.
"Yeah, that's my memory too..." Valey stared at the elevator wall. "Bananas. So, we go to Mistvale?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Do you know who you're going to ask and what you're going to ask them? Or where you're going to find them?"
"Well, no..." Valey hesitantly admitted. "But I'm good at winging it."
"Maybe we should ask Garsheeva. Or Princess Celestia, if we ever go back to Equestria." Starlight's ears fell. "There has to be someone who knows everything in the world."
Valey chuckled. "Yeah, but didn't I just say I don't even know what to ask? Bananas, I just feel... lost. Like I've been looking for something so hard I've forgotten what I'm looking for. Probably doesn't help that Chauncey's mysterious and confusing."
"You're looking for a way to live in peace," Starlight insisted. "We all are. But the world thinks we're important, so it won't leave us alone! I wish we could ask the world itself what it wants of us."
"The world's a chunk of rock, kiddo." Valey patted her on the back. "Pretty sure some of it's just gonna come down to bad luck."
"Just bad luck that you're from the moon and I stopped a swarm of windigoes and crossed an uncrossable mountain range?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Well..." Valey winced.
"Someday," Starlight promised. "Someday maybe we'll... I don't know."
Valey picked her up again as the elevator began to slow. "Someday we'll find a place that's actually cool and doesn't have mad scientists or batpony-haters where we can all settle down, hang out and actually chill for the rest of our lives, and it'll be awesome. But until then, we just gotta keep going."
With a slicing of wings, Valey glided to a stop on the Immortal Dream's deck, crouching and letting Starlight hop off her back. "Well, here we are," she sighed, looking at the door below. "Wanna place bets on the odds of that prince still being here?"
Starlight didn't, so she kept quiet. But the bridge was empty and so was the library, and at the sounds coming from the hall below, everyone there was at least having a good time. "Hello?" Valey flipped down the staircase, the ship's dining hall brightly lit and smelling of laughter and food.
Around the table, everyone was present, from Gazelle to Wallace to Shinespark to Senescey and all her sisters. Gerardo helped Maple carry a deep, steaming tureen from the kitchen while Amber sat next to Slipstream and giggled at a joke, and even Jamjars lurked in a corner, laying on one of the room's side benches with a plate of scalloped potatoes. Shinespark sat limply, propped up in her chair with pillows and eating using her horn, and Amber immediately waved.
"Uhh... Hey, everyone." Valey blinked, nose sniffing, smelling stewed carrots and leeks and mushrooms and onions and turnips and everything savory anyone could ask for. "Bananas, what's the occasion?"
"Who needs an occasion for a feast, young Valey?" Wallace grinned, holding a plate that was smaller than his talons.
Maple carefully set her vat down, adding more rich, earthy smells to the room as it steamed. "Well, I had already started preparing something fancy when Gazelle showed up, and I didn't want the work I had done to go to waste..."
"It's quite simple, really," Gerardo proclaimed, marching around and pulling out two chairs, then pushing Starlight and Valey toward them. "We've all come to the joint consensus that things are entirely too stressful for you around here, especially following that conversation on Wallace's ship. Which is frankly ridiculous, considering we have resources aplenty and no one around who wants to be our enemies. If you still want to go to Mistvale, you'd be hard-pressed to leave us out, but first, we are all going to sit down and have a good time."
"It's been quite a show of a good time already," Felicity sang, her long, carefully-styled mane tied back so it wouldn't risk touching gravy. "Your friends here really know a thing or two about letting loose."
Maple blushed. "Mostly those three," she murmured, pointing to Wallace, Morena and Diego.
"And Amber!" Gerardo jumped to his friend's side. "And Slipstream. And also Prince Gazelle."
Gazelle looked up from a loaf of bread that was half-bisected by his razor teeth. "I'm a prince," he said with his mouth full. "You expect me to not take my revelry seriously?"
Senescey folded her ears. "Serious or not, it's very nice of you all to put this on for us."
"Sounds like it has as good a reason as any to me!" Gazelle proclaimed, patting her hard with a wing on the back and nearly making her choke. "So what's all this reaching my ears about an excursion to Mistvale?" He raised an eyebrow at Valey.
"Uhhh..." Valey hesitated, completely unsure of what he knew and what she should say.
Fortunately, Wallace jumped to her aid. "Prince," he boomed, a twinkle in his eye. "What say you we leave worrying about the future to the future itself? Some of us actually don't take the chance to let loose every hour of the day."
Gazelle actually listened, and the room suddenly went about its jovial atmosphere as if Valey had been there all along. Starlight sat to her left, the filly's initial surprise having been pushed aside in favor of sliced bread and a bowl of soupy stew for dipping, and Shinespark was on her right, slowly lifting things to her mouth that didn't require a lot of chewing, watching Valey all the while.
"Hey." Valey gave half a grin. "Good to see you up and about. How much better are you feeling?"
A small notepad hovered up beside Shinespark, set itself on the table, and she quickly wrote something. Just whispers, but hard to hear here. Writing fine?
Valey tilted her head. "Your horn works, again, though?"
Shinespark smiled.
"Hey, good to have you back, though." Valey returned it with a grin. "Maybe once this quiets down a little, we should hang out sometime?"
Please visit. Lonely sometimes.
"Oh. Uh, yeah." Valey's ears fell. "Sorry about that. Been a little busy with everything... Yeah, though. But hey, at least this helps with that?"
Absolutely, Shinespark scribbled. And it's okay. Heard you have it bad.
Valey rubbed an ear, scanning the table for what she wanted to indulge in first. "Yeah, it's been a ride... So this is all Maple and Gerardo's idea, or something? Sure seems successful."
Amber and Wallace's. Maple and Gerardo helped. Very successful. You enjoying?
Valey took a deep breath, surveying the entire room. Maple, Amber and Shinespark... friends she deeply counted on. Gerardo and Slipstream, less-close friends who were still friends anyway. Wallace and his crew, whom she was fighting desperately in the tournament, yet were completely on her side. Gazelle and the batponies, who seemed to want to be friendly even if she had no idea what they were up to. And all of Izvaldi outside, with an insane adviser and desperate ruler and rotten core, yet still peaceful and determined to be nice to her anyway.
"...You know what?" She nodded slowly at Shinespark. "Yeah. I think this is actually exactly what I needed. Thanks, Sparky. Thanks for doing this, everyone."
She raised her voice a little so the last part could be heard, and immediately got nods from around the table. "Oh, no no no, thank you, darling," Felicity assured, waving a hoof. "We can't just go about having parties like this for no reason, or it would completely spoil the special quality and become simply normal. And from the limited tidbits I've heard, this is in your name, is it not?"
"I mean, I guess?" Valey glanced at Maple. "It's Ironflanks who did all the cooking..."
"And it's you who wants to go to Mistvale," Larceny muttered over her food. "Don't know why. But it's sounding like you needed cheering up."
"Uhh... heh heh..." Valey folded her ears. "Yeah, so maybe I had a bad day. Look, if you guys are trying to talk me out of-"
"Going? Oh, quite the opposite." Felicity gave a reassuring smile. "Mistvale is actually quite a nice place, provided you enjoy magically-perpetual fog and eternal twilight. I haven't been briefed on the specifics of your quest, but if you stick to the backwaters, it could be a very relaxing or pleasurable getaway. And that's rather easy when the whole entire place is basically a backwater."
Valey grinned nervously. "Heh heh... Thanks?"
"We're actually thinking of a little more than just vacation," Maple murmured. "But is it actually nice? When I think of Mistvale, I sort of imagine... pirates. And wastelands."
Amber shuddered.
Felicity sighed. "Well, yes. There are pirates there, mostly along the coast. But the whole place is actually quite heavily forested and green, so I'd hardly call it a wasteland. Really, all you need is a guide who knows the area and you'll be perfectly fine." Her eyes widened, and she reddened slightly. "Well, not to self-promote, or anything..."
Valey tilted her head. "You want to come too?"
Gazelle cleared his throat. "Political bother in Stormhoof. You wouldn't want to hear about it. Felicity here might be trying to lie low for a bit. You know..."
"Batpony things?" Amber folded her ears.
"That's one way of putting it," Larceny muttered.
"The point is," Felicity politely insisted, "all of us still feel dreadful about that incident with Starlight and the hospital and until you're absolutely sure we've made it up to you, we're in your debt. Now, I may not have been in Mistvale since I was a filly, but I am still a local and I owe you and I feel like it would be better for everyone were I to take a little siesta of my own from life in the Empire for the time being. It's a win-win-win, darling. I don't suppose you'd feel badly about letting me help?"
Valey thought for a moment, then stared at her food. Her stomach rumbled. "You know? Hold that thought. I'll think about it. But for now, I got some stuff to do."
"Oh bananas," Valey groaned, stumping up the stairs from the Immortal Dream's dining hall. "You know when you get so full, you're like 'yeah, it's time to hibernate,' and you just sleep for twenty-four hours and pretend the world doesn't exist? Because I am at least twice that full. When Ironflanks goes all out and everyone tells me to go all out too, they should mention not to take it literally..."
Beside her, in a cloud of sapphire telekinesis, Shinespark floated, her body limp and ragdoll but her horn and cutie mark working normally. She wore a faint smile, her whispers audible now that the party had finished and the ship was quieter. "You alright?"
"Hey, who said this is a bad thing?" Valey grinned. "I'm still... urgh... pretty beat-up from all the stuff that's happened over the last few days. Could do with taking some time off my hooves. So you wanted to hang out, or what?"
"There's not much I can do," Shinespark apologized, her voice weak and raspy. "We could go sit down and talk?"
Valey nodded. "Sure. Your room?"
"My room is fine."
With a glow of blue, Shinespark gripped the handle, sliding her cabin's ornate door aside. Twice as big as the other rooms on the ship, her private cabin had an ornate four-poster, a full-sized vanity she probably never used, and enough floorspace for some small chairs and a coffee table.
"Make yourself comfortable," Shinespark instructed, floating onto her huge bed and letting her horn extinguish. "Or join me up here. Sorry if I'm hard to hear."
Valey grinned, plodding over and dragging herself atop the bed before rolling on her back and flicking her tail. "Whew. Good thing I don't wear dresses, or none of mine would fit..."
Shinespark chuckled, the door sliding closed until they were alone in the window's dim light. "So, Valey. Tell me about things."
"Things?" Valey raised an eyebrow, glancing aside at her. "Like, what kind of things? Kind of had a lot of things happen recently."
Shinespark also lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "You. Our friends. Everything. Ever since you left to go flying after Starlight, I've only heard bits and pieces about what everyone's up to. Gerardo tries to keep me informed, but he's only watched from the sidelines."
"Oh. Yeah." Valey bit her lip. "Yeah, you know, I don't think I ever, uhh... Never really thanked you for throwing yourself under the cart like that for me. To keep me in the tournament, I mean."
"You did, but I wasn't able to respond," Shinespark said. "You're welcome, though. I guess I just... felt strongly about it. I had to do something."
"Even if that something was getting rolled over in an arena for the strongest warriors in the world," Valey answered. "And getting stabbed with a sword that turns batponies to dust. Forget me getting beaten up, I'm used to taking some hits. What about you? You gonna be okay?"
Shinespark frowned. "The sword is wearing off. It's inconvenient, but I can talk and move around. Soon it'll be like I'm just sick or tired, and I'll get better from there. I'm a little more worried about the ponies I had to indebt myself to in order to get in there in the first place. Like Lord Gyre."
Valey's face fell. "You owe him now, don't you? Yeah, I'd... Look, having been to Gyre, it's really not the kind of place you wanna take a vacation, you know? If he comes calling..."
"I'll figure it out," Shinespark sighed. "I knew what I could be getting into. I just hope I get a chance to fix Braen and Nyala first. Knowing what that sword does to armor..."
Valey hesitated. "Ever wonder what it does to moon glass?"
Shinespark didn't answer.
"...So yeah, though. Stuff that's happened to me?" Valey changed the subject, remembering Shinespark's original request. "Yeah, which part do you wanna hear about? How I flew a million miles chasing Starlight to some catacombs with a really scary scientific abomination? This really crabby mare I met in Percival's mansion who makes me feel all kinds of bad about myself? Or you guys being cool and actually having a good time exactly when I needed it most?"
"All of the above," Shinespark said. "Plus everything you've been hearing and learning about Chauncey and Izvaldi. And yourself, and why we want to go to Mistvale."
"Oh, that's a long one." Valey rubbed her face with her wings. "Bananas, gimmie a moment to figure out where to even start..."
Shinespark let her think for a minute, then spoke up. "We could start with Felicity and her sisters. Do you trust them?"
"I..." Valey fidgeted. "Honestly? Yeah, I think I do. You know how Ironflanks always talks about your dad, Arambai? How she knew he lied or kept secrets about everything and never told her the full story, but always got the feeling he was a good guy? These mares are like... exactly the opposite of that, but also kind of the same. I have no idea who or what they're fighting for, and for all I know, they're ruthless opportunists or scheming bad guys. But at the same time, I trust them. Not, like, with what they'll do to other ponies, but this isn't like Chauncey where it feels weird or desperate. I kinda feel like they like us and wanna play fair."
"So you'd like Felicity's help guiding us in Mistvale?" Shinespark asked. "You think what happened with Starlight at the hospital wasn't their fault and was an honest mistake?"
"I dunno. It's just a hunch." Valey shrugged. "But hunches and my cutie mark were how I got by in Ironridge, so I like to think I'm decent at reading ponies, you know? And they don't feel... Well, they do feel dangerous, but not really towards us. It's like how you could walk by an open power coil and it's not gonna jump out at you, but could still really hurt, right?"
Shinespark let out a breath. "You are good at that. Better than me, at least. I wondered your opinion."
"Hey," Valey gently admonished. "No being hard on yourself just because of that one lapse of judgement on the dam. But yeah, Felicity is like..." She thought for a moment, twirling the fur on her chin. "The first time I met her, she basically told me she was up to no good, you know? She offered to let me in on whatever it was they were up to, and I said no because we'd just made it a month in Stormhoof with no trouble. And guess what? She was actually pretty cool with that. And it sorta makes sense, you know? If you were some hyper-secretive vigilante, which you totally were, wouldn't you love having someone who knew you had secrets, knew they could get them if they asked, and were cool with you without knowing?"
Shinespark's breathing slowed, a far-away look growing in her eyes.
"Like, I'm pretty sure they're ponies," Valey continued. "It's technically possible they aren't, like Chauncey... Long story. But even if they're grand actors, I'm not really getting any sociopathy or cold brutality in there, and I'm pretty sure they have wants and needs too. So... yeah, I trust them. And someday we might be disappointed for it, but for now, I think they and I can be cool."
"You're the one who can tell when things are dangerous," Shinespark whispered. "I've been going back and forth on making a call, but if that's yours, I'll leave it up to you."
Their conversation continued, but outside in the hallway, Senescey stood, neither hiding nor shadow sneaking, a single tear dripping from her eye.
"Well, girls?" Felicity stood at the edge of the Immortal Dream, leaning over the railing, her curled mane blowing in the wind as Izvaldi's capital receded in the distance.
"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?" Senescey gave a worried frown. "It's been almost thirty years since you were in Mistvale last. And you really want to go by yourself?"
Felicity hugged both her and Larceny with a single wing. "Oh, I'll hardly be on my own. Honestly, you two. After the operation in Stormhoof suddenly turned bad, this is... well, probably even safer for me than remaining in the Empire. It's not every day you get a team of dashing heroes offering you protection, no questions asked."
"She means without us," Larceny grunted, watching the capitol's lights.
"I know." Felicity's voice softened. "But there's much to accomplish and very little time. We won't exactly be able to cover enough ground without splitting up."
Larceny flicked her tail in annoyance. "But we might have other problems without each other to lean on. Especially from Valey."
Senescey's ears fell. "What's wrong with Valey? I like her. Out of anyone here, I think she might be able to understand us the most."
"That's exactly it," Larceny sighed. "She's one of the moon children. I don't know the specifics, but she knows it. And the entire point of this quest, according to her, is for her to be able to live with what she is. It's uncomfortably close to our own situation. And Senescey, you've already doubted the Night Mother once on account of her asking you to do something to one of these ponies."
Senescey hung her head in shame.
"Larceny, dear, what's your point?" Felicity frowned, one fang sticking out. "I, for one, think trying to do something about an unfortunate situation is admirable, especially one as confounding as hers. Unless you have any easy answers on why the moon glass came down? Because the Night Mother clearly doesn't. And it's not likely Valey will find anything where there are no answers to be found..."
Larceny gave her a look. "You don't think watching her trying day and night to live with what she is, having no one to talk to, might weaken your resolve to get our own bodies restored?"
"Or get revenge," Senescey quietly added, fiddling with a small blade strapped to her side beneath a furled wing. "And kill all the ponies we have to to get it."
"I'm..." Regret briefly washed over Felicity's face, and she brought a hoof to her belly. "No, that's impossible. You girls will stay strong for me, and I'll stay strong for you. And that means keeping an eye on Gazelle and Lord Gyre while I'm elsewhere in the world. We can all do this for each other, can't we?"
Hesitantly, Senescey held out a hoof. Felicity put hers atop it, and both looked to Larceny.
"...Fine." Larceny completed the shake, then glomped onto Felicity, burying her face in her chest. "You were the one who taught me to be strong. Don't you go breaking before I do."
"Promise." Felicity rested her chin in Larceny's blue mane until the mare let her go. "Only two more months."
"And then we see if all of this was enough," Senescey whispered.
"Go on, you girls," Felicity whispered, voice tight. "Don't make your big sister let you see her cry. It'll cause her makeup to run."
Senescey chuckled, getting a last hug of her own. "Larceny?"
Larceny nodded, spreading her wings. And then the two were silhouettes against the moon, leaving Felicity alone on the deck.
"Dashing heroes, indeed," Felicity sighed, ears listening to the deck behind her. "I wonder if anyone here would have more than a solid punch to do with me if they knew why I was hiding from Stormhoof."
She almost hoped someone would overhear... but the deck was empty. For a while longer, Felicity stood and watched, then turned and walked back inside.
"Your cutie mark is a heresy against the Empire?" Shinespark gasped as well as she could, her ears falling bitterly. "Wow. I... I knew it would be hard for you here, even before we finished crossing the ocean, but... And Chauncey doesn't think it's bad luck?"
"Bad luck that I'm me?" Valey shrugged. "Bananas, I dunno. He said there was supposed to be a mark that could do this made a really long time ago, but had absolutely no explanation for why he thought it would be coming back in the moon glass meteor. Said, like, Luna made it with her powers because there was some other magical artifact she wanted and couldn't have. I'm guessing that other artifact belonged to Garsheeva."
Shinespark almost chuckled. "Well... that's not the worst reason to exist, even if it is unlikely. And it could be somewhat cool, if you wanted to think about it."
"Eh. Unlikely things happen." Valey stared at the ceiling, listening to the faint shimmer of the ship's energy comet overhead. "And when you think about it, if some goddess is going to make a person just like that, whoever it is has gotta be someone. Even if I just randomly happen to have this as a talent, if that story is true, there's someone else out there who just has a really crazy origin instead. I mean, bananas, look at you."
"You're right. I am technically royalty," Shinespark admitted. "Though I doubt anyone's going to call me a princess of Ironridge any time soon. I don't think it really fits me."
Valey nudged her shoulder. "Nyaah, that too. But I was talking about your whole born-on-a-boat thing. First pony ever, right? On an airship? Wasn't that a big part of your claim to fame?"
A faint smile crossed Shinespark's muzzle. "Oh yeah... I need to listen to that recording my mother left again someday. But I guess you're right."
"Heh. And Starlight's something else, too." Valey kicked one leg against the other, scratching at an itch. "But yeah. When you think about it, if Chauncey's not bluffing or wrong, being made like that isn't all that bad of a reason to exist. Kind of meaningless, but it's a whole lot better than being a weapon designed to come down here and mess stuff up. I think I could actually be cool with this."
"So that's why we're going to Mistvale," Shinespark said. "Because you want to be sure?"
"Because I want to be sure," Valey sighed. "Chauncey is... completely insane. Even a psychopath like Herman or a self-centered pineapple-head like Selma is more of a person than him, and I don't mean that as a random insult. I can't take what he says at face value. I just can't."
"Even if there are a whole lot of worse things that could be true."
"Yeah. Even if."
Shinespark watched her for a moment. "I really hope you find what you're looking for."
Valey grinned. "Thanks, Sparky."
"...I should get to working on Braen soon," Shinespark sighed. "She doesn't deserve to be magically dead or in limbo just because I'm not feeling up to working on her body."
"Yeah, uhh..." Valey hesitated, then swallowed. "Bananas."
"Everything alright?" Shinespark's brow furrowed weakly in concern.
"Just got something someone else should probably know," Valey mumbled, changing the subject. "I ran into Kero in Izvaldi. You know, the griffon with the mercenaries. Tried to hunt me down in Ironridge."
Shinespark hummed, following along.
"He told me his mercenaries are back in the Empire," Valey sighed. "Which is really hard for me to believe, since they don't like him and were working for Arambai, and Kero might actually not know I know this. But he said they were going for a target in Mistvale... some place where a creepy evil monk got sealed away with a bunch of Nightmare Modules. He wanted me to find this monk before his mercenaries and stop them from bringing the stuff back for Chauncey."
Shinespark frowned. "That reeks of manipulation."
"Yeah, he was totally lying through his teeth," Valey went on. "And that's not why we're going to Mistvale... but we are going, so it might become relevant. So just in case, keep your eyes out, okay?"
"I promise," Shinespark assured. "Do you want to tell any of our other friends?"
Valey took a breath, hesitating. "I... If it becomes important, yeah. Otherwise, no need to worry them. I just didn't want to be the only one to know."
Shinespark yawned. "I won't let you down. But that won't even matter until Mistvale, so in the meantime..."
"Yeah, I've flown over the Empire enough for a lifetime," Valey agreed. "In the meantime, I need an enormous nap. Nnngh..." She rolled over, burying herself in bedding. "Nini?"
"So this is the border to Mistvale?" Maple raised her ears, looking over at Felicity.
The two mares stood in the Immortal Dream's dining hall, the table retracted and revealing the glass window in the floor below. Hours before, they had left behind the lush fields and sparse forests of the Empire's mainland, mismanaged wasteland stretching dully from the west horizon to east. Felicity had advised against making a stop in Wilderwind, and so their progress continued, a day out from Izvaldi and early into the dawn.
Only... the dawn wasn't working. As the sun lifted above the horizon, the shadows shortened, boulders and rocky outcroppings covering less of the ground in darkness. But the land grew silvery instead of the usual reds and yellows of day, like the sunlight was growing bluer the brighter it became. Soon, the rocks began to slope gently upwards, almost sparkling in the light.
"It's shining..." Maple whispered, the landscape commanding her full attention. "Is that magic?"
"Which part, darling?" Felicity asked from beside her. "The sun's dimming? Yes, it is. Though the sparkles are at least in part because the land here is very salty. It makes the stuff an easy commodity for anyone willing to venture this far up... or down."
The desert rose further into foothills, and in several spots, Maple saw the remains of ancient constructions of walls... probably pointless, when so many on both sides could fly, and that was probably why they were remains and nothing more. Whether the ground rose to the clouds or the clouds fell to the ground, she couldn't tell, but streaks of silvery mist soon filled the crevices in the jagged earth. A few wisps of cloud passed between them and the ground, and soon, there were rivers.
Reflecting the sunlight-turned-moonlight, trails of water wound down the mountains obeying laws of their own, branching out further the lower they ran and disappearing into holes in the ground. It was like the mountains resented the empire and kept their water for themselves, and soon the effects showed: moisture healed the landscape, erasing the rocks and dust and replacing them first with hardy lichen and shrubs, then greater and denser plants like ferns and finally the trappings of trees. Maple just had time to watch two large rivers split from one source before the ship ascended too far, losing the landscape below in a bank of clouds.
Maple watched the clouded window for a minute longer, the mist close enough she could have reached out and touched it with a hoof. "So this is where you came from?"
"Well, Mistvale in general, yes. It's where I was foaled and spent my first few years." Felicity daintily cleared her throat. "But it's technically misleading to say that if you have no idea what I'm talking about. To a lot of people in the empire, Mistvale is just 'over there', as it were. It's quite a bit more varied than just a simple sea of fog, and quite a bit larger, too."
"Larger than a single province, I'm assuming." Maple nodded. "Is it as big as the whole empire?"
Felicity chuckled. "Oh, about a hundred times that, darling."
"A hundred..." Maple whispered, looking at the clouds below with a new respect.
"In terms of land surface area, perhaps a little more." Felicity followed her gaze, the clouds streaking below like a misty river. "The Griffon Empire is... small, on the geographic scale of the world. So is Mistvale, but not nearly that small. You could still cross from end to farthest end in perhaps two weeks at this speed. And not even close to all of it is inhabited, either."
Maple hummed in reverence. "The flight here from Ironridge was like that, too. We didn't see anyone, really. Half of the flight was across an ocean, but the other half was a river that used to be a major trade route. I guess I had gotten used to cities being within a day's flight of each other in the empire, but the world must be a very empty place on the whole."
"You could say that," Felicity agreed. "It makes me surprised I don't know more archaeologists. When the world is probably big enough that half of it hasn't been touched by mortal hooves since the dawn of time and some parts never even laid eyes on... But Mistvale, at least, I know plenty about."
She raised an eyebrow, an open invitation for Maple to ask questions. Maple shrugged. "So what are the major different kinds of places here? Is it divided like the provinces, or Ironridge's districts?"
"Three main places," Felicity said, meeting her eyes. "First, you have the coastline. Sarosian diets typically consist of two things: crops that can be grown without a lot of light and with plenty of water or dampness, and fish. A good half of the country's population is on the coast, making up fishing villages, pirates or both. Fewer pirates the further north you get, especially once the coastline starts to curve out to the west more. It's the area that's most likely to make contact with outsiders and also furthest from the Night Mother's power, so it could simultaneously be the most welcoming and the least like what you're looking for."
"Pirates are the most welcoming." Maple felt a light shiver. "That's good to know..."
"Well, I mean the fishing villages. Not the pirate towns." Felicity gave a reassuring smile. "The second type of area is everything below the mist. Mountain valleys, and the like. You'll see beautiful lakes, lots of coniferous trees, no development beyond the occasional winding road or wooden shack, and a very low population density. It's so tranquil, the setting is popular for Griffon Empire authors as a setting for writing horror. Some griffons just like taking something too quiet to be true and actually making it too quiet to be true. They get joked about from time to time in these lands."
Maple thought for a moment. "So the third main place is on the mountaintops? Above the mist?"
Felicity beamed. "That's where most of the development is, and the magic. Villages built on terraces, plants that glow at night... which means always, darling... Ancient temples dating back hundreds of years! Under the Night Mother's guidance, Mistvale hasn't been torn by centuries of feuding dynasties like the Empire has. The most knowledgeable in the Empire would counter that Mistvale lacks their ambitious spark, but with the exception of Garsheeva's cathedral, well... you'll see what I think about the place soon enough."
Maple gave an interested nod. "I'm guessing you grew up on the mountaintops, then?"
"Indeed I did," Felicity murmured. "My mother was a cleric in the Night Mother's service, so I was born and raised in a temple. The grand temple, actually, where the council of Monk Lords holds sway. Granted, we had our exodus when I was only six, but I still hold quite a few memories of this place."
"Six?" Maple tilted her head. "If you don't mind me asking, how old are you now?"
Felicity chuckled, no hostility in her tone. "That's a rude thing to ask a lady, Miss Maple. And I'm thirty-five. Twenty-nine years since I was here last... Were you thinking me older or younger?"
Maple reddened, knowing that question had no good answer. "A whole decade older than me," she offered, trying to make peace.
"Really! No need to be embarrassed." Felicity gave her a wink. "Plenty of mares underestimate what a good self-care routine can do for one's looks."
"I wasn't..." Maple mumbled, shaking her head. "Let's talk about Mistvale? You said your mother was a cleric. Is that like a monk?"
"...Yes and no, darling," Felicity said, smiling awkwardly. "The short answer is... Well, you probably want the long answer, and so does everyone else who will want to find their way through this society. Particularly Valey. What say you we round up some more ears and then continue?"
Maple got to her hooves, stretching in relief. "Yes! Okay. I'll go look for Valey and everyone else. On the bridge, maybe?"
"Anywhere you deem appropriate," Felicity sang, trotting toward the stairs with a sway in her hips. "Though I do advise being near a window when we reach the top of this mist. It might be a sight you'll want to see."
Shinespark was already on the bridge, determined to do something with herself beyond sitting around in bed all day. Pillows propped her in the captain's chair, and her horn gently made tweaks to controls as her eyes scanned various meters, relying entirely on the ship's instruments not to hit a mountain in the all-obscuring fog.
The door to the deck slid open, and Maple paced inside, trailing wisps of fog that seemed entirely at ease with the usually weather-repelling harmony comet that carried the ship. Valey had been on the bridge too, and Gerardo and Slipstream were sleeping, so the only newcomers she brought were Amber and Starlight. Felicity brought up the rear, offering everyone a well-groomed smile as she closed the door with her tail.
"Well," she said, wings folded at her sides. "I suppose everyone here could do with a word or two about Mistvale, hmm? I was about to go off on the longest tangent about the society here with Maple, and then realized it might be dreadfully useful for others to know too..."
Valey shrugged, laying atop a navigation chest that doubled as a bench. "Sure. I'm always down to hear what I'm getting into. More down than I am for stumbling into it blind, at least."
Amber nodded too, and Felicity daintily cleared her throat. "First off, it's rather important you decide where it is you're wanting to go, darling. It's not too likely we'll be accosted merely by floating around. Mistvale knows what airships are, and as long as they see us going somewhere and not lollygagging around, they're likely to leave us to our own devices. But the moment we touch down, local culture will matter a lot."
Valey nodded. "That's cool. I'm looking for someone important, who knows a lot about religious things. I'm pretty sure I can pull rank and get them to listen to me, but I've got questions. So, I wanna go for the top of the top."
"Pull rank, darling?" Felicity tilted her head. "However do you plan on pulling that off? Shows of combat superiority aren't the bragging right here they are in the empire, and these are Mistvale Monks we're talking about. Even with me to fix you up should you survive, it will hardly be pleasant."
Valey watched her... then sighed. "If you're gonna be guiding us, it's going to be awkward if you don't know. But... I can trust you one hundred percent, right? This is something that could be really bad for me if the wrong person knew."
Felicity nodded solemnly. "With all due respect, aren't you all doing the same for me? I've all but warned you when we first met, I'm an unsavory character with unscrupulous connections who's had to do some... rather unfortunate things, in the past." She looked down at herself and briefly frowned. "Hardly a paragon by any means. Yet, you're trusting me as your guide regardless, and I truly do appreciate it at heart. If nothing else, darlings, I wouldn't lie to you. So no, I swear I won't betray you."
Everyone else looked at each other, and then Valey sighed. "My cutie mark warns me when I'm in danger. I thought it was just a useful thing for fighting, but apparently that counts as seeing the future around here, which is... you know."
"...Hmmm." Felicity solemnly closed her eyes, thinking. "I can see why you'd want that held close to your chest. So something tells me the whole point of this excursion is a search for answers, because you're not confident in going to the Night Mother or Garsheeva and asking them about why you have this power directly."
Valey blinked. "Uhh... yeah, pretty much. I mean, I'm not either of their biggest fans, and something tells me I shouldn't wave this around in their faces?"
Felicity sighed. "Well, it's your quest, and I'm merely the guide. I suppose you'll want to head straight for the grand temple, in that case. And yes, if you can demonstrate that in public, you very likely will be able to pull rank after all... Hmm."
Everyone watched her, waiting. "So what should we look for in the grand temple?" Shinespark whispered, her voice as loud as she could comfortably make it.
"Yes, sarosian society." Felicity folded her wings and nodded. "Everyone who isn't Valey first. Mistvale is... tolerant of outsiders. You're likely to get a lot of looks, and the two biggest things you can do to make the sarosians happy is be respectful and look like you're passing through. If you appreciate their society without looking like you want to join it, that's the sweet spot. I'd advise taking inventory of anything on this ship you'd be willing to part with, since they're particularly fond of merchants and traders. Never any pretense of staying, and you're there to reach arrangements that benefit everyone. In terms of divine commandments, the Night Mother doesn't make many statements on outsiders, so you can largely do as you please so long as you don't entice sarosians to do wrong. That mostly means... ahem... no flirting."
Valey curled her lip.
"For everyone else, as I said!" Felicity insisted. "The rules for you are quite different, darling, and if you're really that set on that sort of satisfaction and enjoyment, I'll tell you later and alone." She glanced apologetically to Starlight, who frowned in confusion.
"Um... no, I mean... uhh..." Valey's ears folded. "Yeah, no, I'm good."
Shinespark smiled faintly, and Felicity gave an understanding nod.
"Either way, though!" Felicity flicked her ears and her mane. "If it's the grand temple you're looking for, I'm afraid that's at the far northwesternmost end of the country. Positioned about as far away from Garsheeva's capitol as they could manage it... so it'll be more than a week's flight there, and the same amount back. And since the coastline is curved, the most direct route there will take us quite near it, meaning the next big question is whether you want to stop anywhere on the way. I'm not heavily advocating for it, but since we'll be passing both coastal and mainland cities, it is an option if any of you feel like sightseeing."
"We'll, uhh..." Valey hesitated. "We'll think on it. If it's two whole weeks of travel time, though, that's like, half of what we have before the tournament or more. I'd really rather not cut it close, so let's at least save that for the way back?"
"Dutifully noted," Felicity sang. "In that case, I'm not sure there's much more to say. Don't worry too much about being familiar with the ins and outs of things; the sarosians are able to tell the difference between innocent ignorance and being a curmudgeon. And like I said, if we're really going that far, it won't matter for another week. So in the meantime, enjoy the view!"
"The view...?" Maple blinked, and everyone turned.
Beyond the windshield, the clouds were finally starting to clear away as the ship rose above Mistvale's perpetual bank of fog. A vivid night sky greeted them, the sun shining as bright as the moon, with no clouds or anything to blot out the stars. Nebula upon nebula spun and twinkled in the distance, the clouds bordered on either side by two long mountain chains. The mountaintops protruded from the clouds like islands, some covered in evergreens and blue luminous moss, space cleared in others and shaped into step-like terraces. There was never a trace of snow, and in the distance, a higher peak seemed wrapped in constructions that sent a faint beam of light into space, glowing like a beacon. Instead of dimming the sky, the projection seemed to enhance it, like all the stars above were reflected in the plants reaching to meet them.
"Woah," Shinespark breathed, tensing in her chair. "That's a city...?"
"There isn't very much land here," Starlight murmured, standing on Maple to look out.
Felicity smiled at her. "Also not the highest population to fill it, darling. And these mountains stretch on for thousands of miles, and there are plenty of valleys for anyone who prefers an even-more-secluded lifestyle. But it's beautiful, isn't it?"
Amber frowned. "If there's so much land here, how come so many batponies live in the Griffon Empire? Especially why did they do that when that incident happened three decades ago and made them not want to live in the cities?"
Felicity winced. "That... might be a story for another time. But I promise I'll tell it?"
"That's good enough for me," Maple whispered, putting a hoof on the console. "I just want to watch this for a moment."
"Take all the moments you need, darling," Felicity chuckled. "Take all the moments you need."
In the cargo bay at the Immortal Dream's stern, Shinespark sat surrounded by parts, multiple chunks of metal held aloft in her aura and Braen's armor splayed before her. The suit had been largely disassembled, each leg detached and split along its length, the barrel separated into four sections and detached from the hips and wings. The helmet lay on its side on the ground, with the neck assembly partially peeled back and the damaged chestplate the focus of her attentions.
"Shinespark?" Slipstream's voice asked, calling from the pantry door.
"Come in. Nothing's going to explode." Shinespark's voice was still weak, but she had recovered enough to manipulate tools, and a severed manacircuit sat on a desk before her as she fiddled with a similar chip, making tiny infusions with a spark gun.
"I brought soup," the pegasus offered, wings spread and a bowl carefully balanced on each. "You've been working in here for nearly two days, now."
Shinespark sniffed, her nose catching the aroma. "Soup? Is Maple worried about me?" She carefully put down her work, turning with some effort. "There isn't much else I can do, and keeping busy is much better than doing nothing. Thank you, though!"
Slipstream glanced around for a place to set the bowls, and Shinespark quickly cleared half of her workbench. "Oh... err... these aren't from Maple," she admitted. "The kitchen was empty, so they're from me. Would you mind if I sat for a moment to chat?"
"Sure. I could use some company." Shinespark cleared more room, sliding over a small crate for Slipstream to use as a stool. "It smells good," she offered. "You know how to cook?"
Slipstream shrugged, setting her bowl down and blowing on the broth. "I had to take care of myself somehow during school, and it's a good way to score points with your friends."
"Huh." Shinespark nodded. "So what did you want to talk about? Don't let me get carried away with small talk. What's on your mind?"
"Oh, no, small talk is why I'm here." Slipstream reddened a little and took a sip to hide it. "It's just... with Nyala gone, it's back to only me and Gerardo on the bridge. Kind of like how it was after Dior stayed in Riverfall. That's us, always the backup team... only we're the two who don't come and go. Make sense? So I'm trying to get out a little more before the cabin fever sets in like on the flight here from Ironridge."
Shinespark looked up from her bowl, tilting her head. "You're not going to ask how long until Nyala is back, then? That's... a lot more patient of you than some of the ponies I used to know." She stared at her hooves for a moment, then chuckled. "Sure. I can do small talk. What do you think of the view?"
Slipstream gave an understanding smile. "You're a mechanic, which to her is the same as a doctor. I won't hurry anything up by asking or pestering. I know you're doing your best."
"...Heh." Shinespark kept watching her hooves. "I stand by what I said."
She hesitated, then added, "I can probably fix her enough to talk again."
Slipstream's ears fell. "Oh. So she'll be...?"
"A box on a shelf with a speaker and microphone and camera?" Shinespark feebly shrugged. "I'll see if I can do more than that, but Braen's armor is... complicated. I don't have enough spare parts or raw materials, let alone a forge to remake the severed plates. We'll see how good it can go. The actual obsidian interface is intact, but most of the control logic is broken. Replicating the original experiment, I can do already, but I at least want her to hear, see and talk before bringing her back to awareness."
Slipstream nodded solemnly, listening.
"What I'm most worried about is her memories," Shinespark admitted. "Braen remembering things is something we never built or intended to make. It just happened, and we don't understand it at all. If memories were stored only in a pony's body, swapping their soul like Puddles or Valey wouldn't cause them to forget their past life. But if they were attached to their souls, then Braen would have had my own memories from her time when I was both of us, and Nyala would remember her past. So I don't know at all how that works, and whatever happens will just be up to chance. At least if she's back, I'll be able to make other modifications, like maybe adding wheels so she can get around..."
"Sorry to change the subject," Slipstream murmured, sipping from her soup, "but I'm trying not to think about that. It doesn't change anything and there's nothing I can do, and I'd rather wait to grieve or celebrate until she's out of limbo."
"Sorry." Shinespark winced. "Most ponies in your situation, I'm used to coming to me for answers."
Slipstream sat back on her crate. "What was that even like? Being a big... societal figurehead for half the city? More, even, since I heard plenty about you in the Stone District. I was popular in school, but it probably can't compare."
Shinespark flicked her tail. "It wasn't glamorous like being popular. There was a lot of attention that came with it, but if I was only interested in that, it wouldn't have been worth it. My time was either spent walking with my populace, especially the jobless or displaced Sosans, listening to their stories, telling them there would be a better tomorrow, and actually working to make that tomorrow. There was a lot of planning, research, trying to read ponies and keep secrets, and not a lot of time for the things most ponies do with their lives... or their teenage years. It's one of those things where I'm proud to say I did it, but am glad it's over and I can do everything else with my life again. All things considered, I probably came out of it a lot more well-adjusted than could be expected."
Slipstream listened attentively until she was done. "Sounds not gilded at all. My life, I was either at work or not. You just didn't take any time not at work at all? Nothing to blow off steam?"
"Oh, I had to take care of myself." Shinespark's eyes grew distant. "Trying to share your subject's burdens isn't something you can do for free."
Slipstream chuckled. "Guess I'm eager to find some common ground. Growing up in the Stone District, you know, it was easy to idolize 'the high life'. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but my school friends and I had kind of a mental image of what being at the top was supposed to be, and wow, if it wasn't fun to pretend to be there."
"Really?" Shinespark gave a little smile. "What did you get up to? Tell me it involved dresses."
"Welllll..." Slipstream's gaze drifted upward, an embarrassed fantasy growing in her eyes. "Hot bubble baths. A friend's place even had a sauna. Talking about crushes. Dancing to loud music. Trying on... clothes. All those can be done with friends or alone, and they're a little different either way. Reminiscing about the good old days, remembering in-jokes... Not Sosa's good old days, but like a few weeks ago. Especially after a payday, planning for the future is fun and relaxing. Those were my jams."
Shinespark nodded along. "It's important to maintain your appearance when you have a public image to focus on, but I couldn't pamper myself too much in that regard. Sosa needed a champion who had self-respect, but not someone who cared about themselves more than the district, so I found a balance and got a look and stuck to it. And now you'll sooner see Valey in a dress than me."
Slipstream giggled. "Girl, you don't know what you're missing."
Shinespark grinned. "Who says I didn't do things differently before I became a figurehead?" her grin faded slightly in worry. "Don't take that as a challenge."
Slipstream just gave a knowing smile.
"Anyway!" Shinespark pushed on. "Never had time for crushes. A lot of the time, I centered myself or cleared my mind by going to the old forges and just watching the machinery. It was important to keep my goals at the forefront of my mind, because they were what gave me the strength to go on, and how I controlled or guided Braen. They were also how I coped with all the stories I heard, listening to my constituents. It's hard for even me to believe, but I'm not even twenty and probably have the least innocence of anyone here."
"Well, I was going to ask about the stories you heard, but when you put it like that..." Slipstream drained the last of her soup, declining to finish her sentence.
"Do you not already have an idea?" Shinespark tilted her head. "I feel like my past's been most of an open book to everyone on this ship so far. We've been here for how long, more than three months? You're welcome to talk about yourself, too."
"Oh, I mean, I wouldn't want to..." Slipstream reddened. "I'm just an ordinary passenger, though. You're the ones who are impressive."
Shinespark shrugged. "Doesn't mean I'm bad at listening. If you're undervaluing your story because you think it's less-interesting than mine, I've listened to ponies whose problems ran the scale from thirteen breakups in one month to accidentally killing a houseplant that was a gift from a friend. And some ponies have similar tales. It happens when all of them live in a city with the same major event twenty years ago. But I've never heard the exact same story twice."
Slipstream fiddled with her forehooves. "I mean, I went to school, made friends, had a few misadventures with normal-pony levels of drama, got a job working in the skyport..."
Shinespark floated through the dining hall of the Immortal Dream, eyes scanning for ponies. Amber was laying in the middle of the floor on her belly, cheeks propped on her hooves and tail swishing as she watched the misty clouds below.
"Amber," Shinespark greeted, earning perked ears. "Do you know where Valey is? She borrowed something, and I'm looking for it."
"Huh? Oh, hi, Shinespark!" Amber brightened on seeing her. "She's in one of the empty cabins, I think. Went in a while ago and asked not to be disturbed." She sniffed. "You smell like soup. What are you looking for?"
Shinespark chuckled, bobbing in her own aura. "Slipstream brought me some. We had a nice talk. I'm looking for Nyala's moon glass to take some measurements and run some preliminary tests. I think I've cobbled together enough of a body for her to at least hear and talk again."
Amber shrugged, busy being fascinated by the patterns in the clouds. "Yep, Slipstream's nice. I chat with her about Riverfall sometimes. It takes a while to get her talking, but that girl has a lot to say!"
"Just got to talking about life in the Stone District," Shinespark agreed. "Anyway, thank you. I have a batpony to bother..."
She left Amber behind, drifting up the staircase and down the cabin hall, listening to every door she passed and checking beneath for telltale signs of light. Eventually, near the back on starboard, one door had a note taped to the front reading KNOCK FIRST in messy capital letters.
"Valey?" Shinespark knocked as requested, raising her weakened voice as loud as it would go. "It's Shinespark. Can I come in?"
"Buh?" Valey's voice sounded... odd on the other side, with a slightly different quality it didn't usually have. She hesitated. "Uh, yeah, sure. I guess? Close the door behind you and don't yell or anything."
Furrowing her brow, Shinespark slid the door open, hovered inside and closed it again without focusing her eyes, saving whatever Valey was hiding for once they were in private. When she did look up, the mare laying on the bed wasn't Valey.
Oh, she was partly Valey. One eye remained emerald, and her mane was still green at the base, but it was shorter, with the tips merging to crimson pink. Her other eye was sky-blue, patches of lighter gray spread throughout her coat, and the cutie mark Shinespark could see held a vibrating line feeding into a pony's ear. "Hey, Sparky." Half-Valey waved, a golden pendant around her neck. "What's up?"
Shinespark blinked, taking note of Nyala's empty body standing in the corner, doing nothing as always. "...Valey? Are you okay?"
"You must be Shinespark," Valey said, her voice taking on more of that unusual tone. "It's... a pleasure. I've heard about you. I almost never get to meet new ponies."
Shinespark worked her jaw. "That pendant... actually...?"
"Works?" Valey finished for her. "Yeah. Heh. Guess I kept this an even better secret than I thought. Bananas, I feel like I told you... Whatever. Sparky, this is Nyala. At least, the part of her I knew in Ironridge. She's, uhh... not got a whole lot of memories, sharing my body, but she's still her."
"...Wow." Shinespark glanced again to the empty batpony body in the corner. "It's nice to meet you too, I guess? Sorry. This isn't what I was expecting..."
"Oh, it doesn't happen a lot," Valey said, though Shinespark got the feeling Nyala was speaking again. "You're actually the third person I've ever met, counting Valey. The second was Herman. I saw you before, when you were passed out in the skyport, but we never talked."
"Do I shake your hoof?" Shinespark tilted her head. "Sorry, just, the Nyala I knew..."
Valey giggled, relaxing. "The Nyala you knew had a suit of armor for a body. I'm a shared conscience with Valey's body, and both of us have separate existences from my original body over there." She pointed a hoof at the carapace-covered empty pony. "If you're confused, try being me."
"You're pretty upbeat about it, at least," Shinespark said. "I don't know if you've heard, but I once had my soul split between two bodies at once? So I have at least an idea how you feel. Still, this is surreal..."
"Yeah, we're trying to look on the bright side," Valey admitted, back to herself again. "It's, uhh... it's kinda tough. I first got her out and put her back in the pendant hoping I could stick it on that body and it would just work." She shrugged at the empty shell. "No dice. Nothing happened. So then, I figured maybe taking me for a spin and having a chat in our heads like old times would be better than stasis and oblivion while we waited for you to work, and... here we are."
She coughed, continuing. "I don't think I feel anything in the moon glass, though. I don't have any senses to be aware of the passing of time, or if I do, I don't have any memory to remember it. Or I do, and am not aware of it here..." Valey trailed off, her ears folding. "It's kind of important to stay upbeat. In this life, even if I only have a few days' worth of memories, I know Valey. I've listened to her in Ironridge when she was feeling alone, and I was with her in the Sky District while she was fighting for her new friends. I'm talking to her now and can see how she's changed and am proud of her. It's like my memories are a time-lapse. I wonder if this is how immortals see time."
Valey sighed. "...And then the you in your mechanical body remembers everyone else, and has months of memories... but I brought you back at just the wrong time and had something else to do, or messed up or something, and things are awkward between us. Were awkward. I basically didn't get to know that version of you." She looked up at Shinespark, meeting her eyes. "And now you're working on fixing Braen, right, so things can go back to being that way? It's just... Bananas, this is too complicated to even do anything but roll with it."
Shinespark winced, hovering over to the bed and taking a seat. "You have a complicated life."
"Which one of us?" Valey chuckled, and it wasn't clear who was talking.
"I have no idea." Shinespark shook her head. "It makes me wonder if I should think of myself in Braen as more of a person than an extension of myself, or if there's any way different things could have gone with my own sister, or..."
Valey reached up and patted Shinespark's back. "Hey, trust me, Sparky. If you're not thinking about it? Like, here I am rolling out to Mistvale and dragging all you guys along to get some second opinions and better answers on this thing called Luna's Artifice that's apparently right now forming one half of my butt. I've got, like, destiny and the reason for the existence of batponies to deal with. But trying to figure this stuff out?" She shook her head. "I can't even try. Me and Nyala, we're just... rolling with whatever happens."
Shinespark closed her eyes, and Valey spoke again. "You have a complicated relationship with a sister too, it sounds?"
"Yes..." Shinespark took a breath. "I have a lot of sisters. This one's called Grenada. I looked out for her a lot when we were younger, but never told her about our relationship because I had a district to rule and didn't want to look like I was showing favoritism to relatives. My family also has a messy history, and I wanted to keep her safe from that... and she took it all the wrong way and developed a crush on me. Then we both thought the other had died in that battle at the skyport, found each other months later... and I tried to avoid dealing with the different ways we saw each other, messed things up more through it, and she left. I haven't seen her for a month."
Valey gave her a wry smile. "Yeah... good thing everyone makes mistakes. You wanna lay on our backs and stare at the ceiling for a while?"
"Sounds like a good use of time," Shinespark agreed, rolling over next to her and letting the tension drain from her limbs. "We've still got however many days until we reach the grand temple."
Not quite however many days later, Shinespark sat in her makeshift shop, voice and limbs much stronger than they had been before. An unarmored apparatus sat on the table before her, nothing but a square board covered in manacircuits, clustered wires, a few pre-built devices and a central socket where a piece of moon glass would go. Braen's old mechanical wings were attached to the sides, rigged so that Nyala could have at least some sort of physical output without modifying them too heavily to put back once the armor was repaired.
Gerardo and Slipstream stood to one side, with Maple and Valey on the other, Amber waiting in the background with Starlight and Maple. "Yo," Valey said, extending a wing with Nyala's clump of moon glass.
"Alright," Shinespark breathed, holding in her nerves as she took the chunk in her aura. "I'm using Braen's original reception socket for this. It took a while to free it from the armor, but if Nyala can retain her memories using that pendant and they're different from her memories as Braen, it's my best guess as to the cause. Testing in three... two..."
On the final count, she nestled the moon glass firmly into the socket. It almost seemed to meld in place, either the glass filling the space or the metal reflowing around it, and her aura flicked a tiny switch. Lights came alive on the board's back, pathways tracing to a small manacore embedded in the machine's tail... and the wings clicked slightly with motion, the speaker coming alive with Nyala's voice.
"Where am I?" she asked, dazed, as everyone held their breath. "What happened to my body? I can't feel so much of it. Did my legs get cut off when he used that sword on me? Shinespark? Did we lose...?"
Shinespark reached down and hugged the circuit-covered board. "And you still remember. Looks like we brought you back to life after all."
Gerardo beamed with gratitude. "Miss Shinespark here has been working night and... well, night to rebuild you once she was sufficiently recovered from my sword. It's very inspirational."
"Hey, uhh..." Valey grinned awkwardly at the camera. "Welcome back. It's been like a little over a week. Less than two. Round two is over and I'm still in the tournament, thanks to you, so..."
Amber did a tiny dance on her hooftips.
"Really?" Nyala asked, Valey trying to keep in the camera's immobile field of view. "My body stopped working and then everything blacked out..."
"Yes, really." Valey sat down, nodding at the board. "And you didn't have to do that, you know. Even though we, like, should have been close, I... wasn't really that great about not getting distracted and putting you first. So, you didn't really owe me that... but do you think I could try to do better this time and get another chance? We're kinda going somewhere important for me to do something, but I need to be able to balance real life with my friends, and you're completely immobile. So, uhh... yeah."
Nyala hesitated. "I don't think I'm completely immobile," she hummed, thinking. "I can... let me try..."
Her golden wings unfurled and, like giant flippers, started dragging her across the workbench, waddling forward one jerky flop at a time.
Amber couldn't help herself and laughed. "I'm sorry and this is terrible, but that has to be the cutest way of getting around I've ever seen..."
"Huh." Shinespark blinked. "I guess it's a good thing I put those on, then."
"But, uhh, you and me?" Valey gave a hopeful grin. "I really feel awkward and like I should have paid you more attention, but could we...?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Nyala replied, practicing turning in a circle and inclining herself up and down. "It gets lonely sitting with no one to talk to, especially when I don't sleep. Of course you can-"
She was interrupted by a soft crackle from the intercom. "Ahe-he-he-he-hem!" A dainty voice cleared its throat. "Everyone, this is Acting Captain Felicity speaking, seeing as no one else apparently felt like mareing or stallioning the bridge... but someone more in charge than I am really ought to get up here, because we've just been boarded by sarosians."
Gerardo was the first up to the deck, since Shinespark was still slowed and Valey wasn't about to ditch Nyala for the second time in a row. Everyone else was right behind, with Felicity peering over her shoulder through the open door to the bridge.
Three newcomers stood on the deck, and from the expressions of nervousness and uncertainty they wore, they weren't here to battle. The leader was a small mare about Grapejuice's height who was so rotund she was almost spherical, and while all were either awed or shying away from the harmony comet, she was the most confident of the three.
"Greetings, citizens," Gerardo said, bowing and offering a talon. "We've no quarrel with you. To what do we owe this pleasure?"
All three of them looked awkwardly at him, and the mare tried to say something before giving up, speaking in a heavily-accented voice. "Easy words?"
"Oh, someone else take this ship's controls and let me get out there!" Felicity called from the bridge. "Mistvale has their own language!"
Shinespark quickly hovered into the bridge, freeing Felicity to head out to the deck. All the visiting batponies had previously stopped to stare hopefully at Valey, but when she cleared her throat and announced something in a squeaky, trilling language, all three of them relaxed considerably. The mare quickly said something as Starlight and Maple joined the crowd alongside Amber, and even Jamjars slipped in out of sight.
Felicity's ears fell at the mare's pleading tone. "She's asking us to please go away," she translated. "Turn around, pass on through, just not stop and land here. Doesn't sound like there's much they can do about it, but they're asking very nicely."
Maple blinked. "Well, we weren't planning on stopping here, were we?"
"Why?" Amber asked, taking a step forward. "Is something wrong with this place? Is there something bad here?"
"Bad," the round mare answered, the two stallions echoing her. "Bad, bad."
"Before anyone offers to help," Valey warned, glaring at everyone. "Felicity, what's the bad stuff?"
Felicity translated, and the visitors' nervous shuffling increased. A few more words were exchanged, and she looked up and sighed. "It's not a secret, but they don't want to tell us because they think it will make us not want to leave."
Everyone looked to each other, and Gerardo shrugged. "Well, it sounds to me as if the easiest and most-straightforward course of action is to simply pass on by, no? Unless we're close enough to the grand temple that any good deeds done here could build us favor by reaching their ears..."
"What did I just say?" Valey raised an eyebrow at him.
Felicity cleared her throat, saying a few more things that seemed to make the visitors even more nervous. "They're... err... They really don't trust us, darlings," she apologized. "Valey, unless you wanted to do your thing and 'pull rank' as it were, I really think carrying on our way is the best way to curry favor."
Below, a faint colored light flashed, illuminating a thin patch in the curtain of cloudy mist.
Gerardo's headcrest drooped as he looked down over the railing. "There's something going on down there, alright..."
"Bananas, I really..." Valey walked to the side and looked down as well, the light continuing to flicker. "Do you guys seriously want to become involved in the first random thing someone politely asks us not to become involved in? Let's be chill with the batponies, please."
The visitors seemed to figure out she was advocating for leaving, and started to relax again.
"...Everyone?" Slipstream hesitantly cleared her throat, also looking down. "I hate to weigh in like this, but that flashing light is a pattern that's internationally recognized as a maritime and aviation distress signal."
Felicity folded her ears. "Oh dear."
Valey gritted her teeth and sighed. "Okay. What's this about pulling rank?"
The mare chittered something at her, and she tilted her head. "Yeah, uhh..." Valey pointed at Felicity. "Sorry, but you're gonna have to go through her. I don't speak batpony."
Felicity translated again, and all three visitors gave her nearly a strange enough look that they stopped being worried. One said something, and a few more words were exchanged, the trio growing more incredulous as Felicity spoke.
Eventually, Valey nudged Felicity's shoulder to get her attention. "Hey, uhh, whatever you're saying isn't working. I think the dude on the left wants to punch me." She gestured with a wing.
All three sarosians started chittering among themselves, growing slightly more animated, and the mare fixed Felicity with a look. Felicity sighed. "Trying to demonstrate your... erm... rank, darling. Which is difficult when these three are very antsy and are certain they're being tricked."
"Alright! Executive decision, we keep flying!" Valey called, standing up and turning to everyone. "Whatever's up, we don't need to know about it and will find out later if it's major. No antagonizing the local bats."
Maple's ears drooped. "Valey, if it's a distress signal..."
Felicity was already translating. The visitors markedly brightened, actually bowing to Valey, and the mare gave her a grateful, friendly smile. "Thank you," she said in her thick accent, adding something more to Felicity before leaving with the stallions in tow.
"...She said she's very grateful, darling," Felicity told her. "And told us if we really want to help, we should find a mountaintop city and tell them there's something going on here."
"So we're leaving?" Maple asked, stepping up alongside them. "Even though that's apparently a distress signal?"
"It is," Shinespark agreed, trading places on the bridge with Gerardo and floating back out. "Every Sosan learns that pattern almost from birth. But we have no idea what's down there, and I'm sure they're watching us to make sure we leave."
"Yep," Valey added, strolling to the railing herself. "Which is why we get sufficiently far away before diving back below the clouds and sending one or two of us to go check it out."
Amber blinked. "Wait, you're going to...?"
"There's something dangerous down there," Valey insisted. "This whole thing reeks of weirdness to me, and at the very least I wanna know what's going on. But we're also going to be stealthy and nice about it and not bust any heads. So I say we get two or three hours away... maybe that mountain peak... and then touch the mist and send someone back to check it out."
Shinespark bit her lip. "Are you sure? Just after you told them you'd leave?"
"Look, it's just for scouting," Valey insisted. "Me for detecting danger and finding our way back with Starlight, and you for translating just in case." She pointed a wing at Felicity. "We bail the moment we know what's up and catch up, with you guys flying slowly so we don't get left behind. What could go wrong?"
"You know," Valey grunted, "when I asked what could go wrong, I really hoped I'd get like a weird monster or a stupid bad guy or something. Problems you can solve by punching them in the face are easy! So no offense, but this is really, really lame."
"Sorry, darling," Felicity panted, mostly limp. "I didn't want to rain on your parade and really thought I'd be better than this..."
Valey's wings beat fast, struggling to stay in the air as she descended toward a rocky mountainside outcropping that rose through a break in the trees. Mistvale's valleys were dim, with just enough light filtering through the cloud cover to see clearly, yet mercifully not raining. Still, both of them were damp from their descent through the clouds, and that combined with Felicity's weight made the drop much less pleasant than it could have been, the bigger mare draped across Valey's back.
Crunch! Valey's hooves hit rocky gravel, and she stumbled to a stop, kicking the ground and clearing a patch of cleaner stone before crouching down and letting Felicity climb off. Felicity's step was shaky, and she immediately lay down on her side, breathing hard and looking slightly queasy.
"Alright," Valey panted, brushing herself off and stretching her wings, taking a moment or two to get herself back together. They were in a long, narrow valley, and ahead at the end she could see the beginnings of a body of water, but no traces of the distress signal. "Wanna tell me what this is about?"
Felicity folded her ears.
"Look, I know not everyone is super-fit or some kind of crazy athlete," Valey said, clearing a space of pointy gravel for herself as well but not sure she wanted to lay against the cold stone. "But we were flying for like fifteen minutes, and you got tired enough to just drop out of the sky. Am I just vastly overestimating normal pegasi and batponies?"
Felicity looked ashamed. "I'm deeply sorry, darling. Again, I haven't pushed myself in a while, and really thought I'd be better than this, but apparently extended flight, especially when it's cold out..." She glanced down. "Do you really want to know?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Is this about me saying I didn't need to hear all your maybe-illegal activities, or everything I could get drawn into? I'm still not interested in that, but if you've got liabilities that can mess up my plans, I need to know. Bananas, I'm still ticked that I have to ditch Nyala again for this, and if this trip winds up taking more than an hour or two I'm gonna flip."
Around them, the wind was completely still, and Valey felt a slight chill go down her coat from the cloud moisture and the perpetual dusk air.
"Well... it's just..." Felicity swallowed, looking unhappily at the ground. "You remember the first time we met, darling? When you and your friends came home with Senescey and visited my house? We told you a bit of our history, including living through a time in Izvaldi where the river was poisoned for several months. It took our mother, though the three of us survived... but I neglected to mention the three of us were left with a few lingering health issues."
"Oh." Valey blinked, suddenly feeling a little colder. "Bananas. Yeah, no, uh, sorry. Look, if you need time, take however much you need."
Felicity nodded appreciatively. "I'll be ready to take another leg soon, I hope. But yes, I... tire much more easily than I should from constant exertion. Usually I can manage more than this, but lately I'm... Well, I'm pregnant, too, and it's probably compounding things a little."
Valey stared at her for a minute... and then sighed. "You are, huh? Well, that's great."
"Sorry, darling." Felicity smiled awkwardly. "I don't want to elaborate too much unless you ask it of me, but that's my situation. Do you mind if we rest here a few minutes longer before trying to make the rest of the flight in smaller jumps?"
"No, no elaborating." Valey waved a hoof. "Look, I just had a really bad time butting heads with the world's saddest, edgiest jerk, who also happens to be a batpony mom-to-be, so I'm just gonna pretend this isn't close to home at all and... never mind." She stared pointedly off into the distance, then sighed. "Bananas, this is awkward."
Felicity gave her an apologetic look. "If you've got things on your shoulders, darling, I'm no one to judge. I can probably sympathize with more than you think, and I do feel bad for getting us stuck here so I would like to help..."
Valey tossed her mane in frustration. "Seriously? Because if you make offers like that too often, someone's going to take you up on them. I have no idea who you are or what you're up to and deliberately told you not to tell me, and... ugh. Look, I just wanna get to the grand temple and get some answers and confirmation on what I am, and maybe a chance for some peace and contentment in my life."
"Well, that could be a good thing, couldn't it?" Felicity shrugged. "It's sometimes easier to tell things to someone you're not obligated to be there for tomorrow. I know that's the case for me. I have burdens I couldn't even admit the existence of to my dear sisters."
Valey stared at her for a while, laying on her side on the stone, and sighed. "Get up and back on my back."
"Excuse me?" Felicity blinked, curious, but did as Valey instructed, her hooftips dangling off the ground once Valey stood all the way up. "I'm not sure I'm quite ready for more flying yet..."
"Yeah, but once you are, you probably won't be ready for much longer if you're frozen from laying on that for too long," Valey countered. Her legs stiffened beneath Felicity's weight, but didn't buckle, holding the mare above her and entirely off the ground. "And body heat, and all that. And I need something to do. Bananas, you're heavy."
Felicity gave her an awkward grin. "Well, I am slightly larger than you, darling."
"Don't call me small," Valey answered, standing at the edge of the outcropping and looking out down the forested valley. "Look, Felicity, I'm pretty good at reading ponies. My cutie mark helps, since I can tell if anyone means me harm, but even without that. It was important for getting by back in Ironridge. And you... I really, really wanna trust you. Maybe it's because you've done me and Shinespark a favor and helped her keep me in the tournament. Maybe it's because I've spent too much time around Ironflanks and am some kinda giant optimist. Might also just be because you're another batpony in the Empire and I've got a feeling you really get it."
"I know there's a but in there, darling," Felicity chided. "And you don't have to butter me up quite so hard."
"Yeah, there is." Valey looked down at the treetops and rocky slope immediately at the cliff base below. "Thing is, I know you're up to no good, and I don't wanna know the details. Like, really, whatever conspiracy or criminal activity you and your sisters get up to, I've got way too much on my plate as-is. And that's a problem, because... Well, you told me to let it out on you, so time for a bit about me."
She took a breath. "I was a pest in Ironridge. Really not a great mare. Sure, I had a job that helped the city and I was pretty great at it, but I was a menace. And there was this mare called Maple who I always call Ironflanks, and I did her a good turn or two and she just kept believing in me, no matter what. And on the one hoof, it was cool and felt nice, but I had a lot of reservations about actually switching teams and joining up with her. You know why? Because I really did have some dark and messed-up stuff in my past, and no matter how much I warned her that there was something she didn't know, she didn't care. You know. The moon glass stuff."
"I see where you're going with this, don't I?" Felicity murmured. "Sounds like we have a lot in common."
"Yeah. And I'm about to guess at a little more." Valey folded her ears. "Maple didn't listen to my vague, annoying warnings. Maybe she saw I was better than I was making myself out to be. Maybe she only saw an image I was trying hard not to project, of being better than I was, and refused to see through it. She certainly didn't see me the way I saw myself, couldn't see that I was afraid of my history, and couldn't confront or challenge me even when I did something and set it up to look like I was hurting her. If I actually messed up, or my past caught up to me somehow? I didn't think she would try to stop me. And I was pretty scared of that."
Valey turned her head, trying to look at Felicity on her back. "So that brings us to you. You're not trying to hurt me; I know that. But what do you want from me? Do you want me to just see you as being nice to me for no reason, ignore all the stuff you're trying to let me ignore, just hang out and... I dunno, unload my problems on you? Or are you hoping I'll get it and show some integrity and actually turn on you or be not okay with it if you do something messed-up where I can see? Are you afraid of me asking you to spill the beans because you wanna be friends and think it will ruin that? Or are you scared I won't ask and will keep not seeing you as you?"
Felicity chuckled weakly and wiped at an eye. "That tells me a lot more about yourself and your problems than I ever could have gleaned by asking directly, and yet lines up with everything I already knew. You don't know who you are, do you? Identity issues, darling. Not fun, and perhaps I can help. You want to know about me, though?"
"Yeah. What's your deal?" Valey made eye contact, neck twisted nearly upside-down to look at her. "I'm trusting you, here, but I wanna know what kind of pony you are, too."
"Haha. Alright. You showed me your heart, so here's something in mine." Felicity wiped her eyes again, then smiled. "I don't care whether you ask me to tell you about our plans, my sisters and I. I think you'd probably offer to help us, and I think we could greatly benefit from your help, but I don't care on such a personal level as that. What I'm most afraid of is that by watching you and your little quest to learn about and live with your reality, my own resolve will weaken and I'll find myself questioning what I've done all these years, wondering if there might have been a better way."
Valey hesitated, looking back out ahead. "...I think I might need to know what you're up to, now," she decided. "If you could keep as much politically sensitive stuff out of it as possible, I'd appreciate it. But... give me the general idea."
"An abridged version for safety's sake," Felicity agreed. "Alright then. Have you ever heard of finding a way to visit the Night Mother?"
"Uhh... yeah, actually. Right before we left for Mistvale." Valey frowned. "You guys wanna do that, huh? You have a wish?"
"Indeed," Felicity sighed. "And it shouldn't be too hard to guess. We want to ask the Night Mother to heal our bodies from the damage the poison caused when we lived in Izvaldi. My physical stamina is gone, along with some... other problems. Senescey and Larceny have their own issues, though mine might be the most severe."
Valey closed her eyes in thought. "And it's not just as simple as going to a dusk statue and asking where she is, right?"
Felicity grimly smiled. "Actually, it is. She heard our pleas and made a bargain with us. In exchange for our services, she will guide us to her, create new, restored bodies for us, and transfer all of our memories and souls."
"Your services, huh?" Valey dubiously folded her ears. "What's that entail? And for how long?"
"That's the sticky part," Felicity apologized. "For how long is however long she deems necessary. And our services... first and foremost, darling? We're assassins."
Valey felt a lot colder.
"Not targeting any of you," Felicity promised. "Though we do whatever the Night Mother asks of us regardless. If that was baking someone a cake and sending it with a get-well card, we would do it posthaste. But... well, you know how it is."
Valey took a shaky breath. "And what if she actually did ask you to kill one of us?"
"Honestly, darling?" Felicity's voice grew a lot quieter. "Senescey already advised you take Starlight to that hospital on her request, and the results shook all of us quite deeply. If the Night Mother requested such a thing...? Well, that's one of the reasons I'm afraid being around you could weaken my resolve and suggest there might be another way."
Valey closed her eyes, spread her wings, and took off.
"Eeep! What are you doing!? I'm not ready!" Felicity glomped tightly to her, wrapping all her legs around Valey's barrel.
"Flying! And giving myself time to think," Valey growled, enough force beneath her wings to keep both of them aloft. They streaked forward with a red and green trail, Valey turning their weight into a powerful glide at breakneck speeds. Barely ten minutes later, they had crossed three-quarters of the valley, and she pulled up, flapping hard to gain altitude and finding another ledge to settle down on.
"...Valey?" Felicity's voice was hesitant, and she didn't cling any less tightly.
"I've got a few questions," Valey said, not looking back or trying to get her off. "You can probably guess what some of them are, and answer in any order you like. How much does this bother you? Where would you draw the line? Will you be able to live with yourselves once you finish? Why did you think I would help you? And do you want me to condemn you for this, or be okay with you anyway?"
Felicity took a deep breath. "We have... always been free to walk away from the table at any time," she began. "Valey, the first thing I hope you will understand is that the Night Mother is a loving and caring goddess who is there for all of her children. Would we refuse if she demanded a murder that was blatantly vile and unjust? Yes, we would, and we've never needed to. We are our own mares with our own morals, and yes, at the end of everything, all we want is to be normal again. As for you? Well, that's a very good question."
Valey stood still for a moment longer. "So what does she have you doing?"
"That's getting into politically dangerous things, I'm afraid," Felicity apologized. "She has us working odd jobs aimed around shifting the balance of power in the Empire. A lot of them involve helping High Prince Gazelle, and most of them involve using our skills for things that don't quite amount to murder. Especially recently, we've been liberating large quantities of money from Gondolus Gyre, and the particular incident I'm here with you to avoid involved implicating Lord Stormhoof in a botched assassination attempt on his son to throw Stormhoof into political turmoil. We are going to actually kill someone soon, and while I can promise it's someone you probably would do in too, I think the details on who are something I'll only tell you if you ask directly. For sensitivity's sake."
"...So you're not actually assassins," Valey sighed, deflating as much as she could without dropping Felicity. "You have the skillsets, but you're doing high-level manipulation and stuff."
"I'm not saying what we may or may not have done in Gyre as a means of getting by," Felicity warned. "But Gyre is... kind to nobody, I'm afraid. Still, there you have us. We try to-"
Suddenly, she was unclasped from Valey's back and thrown down on her own back on the ground. Valey's forehoof slammed down... and hit the ground inches from her face. Felicity gasped, suddenly muzzle-to-muzzle with Valey.
Valey stared at her for a moment, neither of them able to break eye contact. "I think I get it," Valey eventually said. "You've got some stuff in your past, and I know about second chances. You've also got some stuff in your future, and I know about desperation. If you need it, and it sorta sounds like you do, I'll be cool with you... but I will turn you into melon paste if you try to do better and mess up. Figuratively speaking, of course."
Felicity sucked in a breath.
"So there." Valey leaned down and hugged her.
"Oh my," Felicity breathed. "This is... well, err, I appreciate the gesture, but this ground is extremely hard on my back..."
Valey grabbed her, pulled her upright, and continued the hug. "You got that? You want a chance, I'm good with that. You want to be better than your circumstances, I think that's awesome. But part of my deal is if you're not, I'll remind you of it, and pretty hard if it hurts my friends. And maybe give you another chance after, but we'll see. If you wanna work for the Night Mother and benefit batponies, or something, go ahead. I've killed dudes who really needed to go, too. But you better try."
Felicity winced in the embrace, and Valey brushed a bit of gravel out of her fur. "Well. Something tells me we'll be talking more about-"
In the distance was the sound of a small explosion.
"This later? Yeah, probably." Valey stood up. "Either fly on your own or get back on my back, though, because we've got business to take care of."
"Why are we changing directions?" Felicity whispered urgently in Valey's ear, clinging to her back in a far less-ladylike manner than her usual demeanor. "Do be careful, darling!"
"I am!" Valey called back, keeping her voice as silent as she could in the quiet valley. "But I think someone's gonna start shooting at us if we go any further that way. So, we find another way!"
They descended toward the mountainside, both taking stock of the geography around them. The long, narrow valley they had flown in through revealed itself to have a river at the base, which emptied into a large lake wide enough across that someone would be hard to hear yelling from the other end. Judging by the mountains that bordered its other ends, it was open to the sea, a mostly-enclosed natural cove that was big enough to have even more-sheltered areas within it. From her knowledge of Sosa, Valey figured it would be a prime location for harboring ships... and with what she knew about Mistvale, that probably meant pirates.
"Alright, girl," Valey quietly panted, landing in a forested clearing and stretching her sore wings. "I hope you're feeling up to going it on your own for a bit, because I'm getting worn out. Whatever we're looking for is up ahead, and I really wanna see it before it sees us."
"I think so, yes." Felicity brushed herself off, getting to her hooves. "I know I just had an embarrassing showing back there, but I at least pride myself on being stealthy."
"Right." Valey nodded. "And if push comes to shove, is there anything else important you can or can't do I should know about?"
Felicity cleared her throat, looking slightly hesitant... and nodded. "My brand can manipulate the emotions of everyone nearby. Not change them, but suppress them or make them more intense."
Valey regarded her for a moment. "Huh. So you can lower tensions before a fight?"
"Among many other things." Felicity glanced away. "It's quite a tool for pushing isolated ponies into hasty or foolish decisions, and just as effective at inducing laziness or apathy. Just a warning, though, it affects everyone. So while I have years of practice keeping a level head and compensating for the effects on myself... apologies in advance if I mess with your head, darling. I'll only use it to keep us safe."
"...Well, great. Mind magic is my favorite." Valey sighed, then made eye contact, Felicity's red ones to her green ones. "I'm trusting you, here. And we're absolutely talking more about you afterwards."
Felicity bowed. "I think that will benefit all of us. Lead the way?"
Valey opted not to fly, creeping along the forest floor. She had almost no experience in this terrain; while the groves of Ironridge were carefully curated and everything she cared about was in the treetops, the forests of Mistvale were tall and coniferous. Blankets of twigs and needles coated the ground, and she could never tell when a hoofstep would be silent and springy or make a loud crack. Some steps contained loose rocks or even boulders, and her cutie mark barely warned her of an invisible patch of pitch where a piece of bark had fallen. In some places the undergrowth was heavy, and in others there was nothing, and she followed her best indication of danger downhill, sloping toward the cove and the river.
Felicity was far more graceful, shadow swimming up to her waist, with only her head and back and the arch of her tail sticking out above the forest floor. Sheepishly, Valey copied her, gliding along through the dimness partially submerged. First, they heard voices. Then they found a trail. Then they reached the edge of the forest.
Leading up to the water, on the side of the river and following it back into the woods, an artificial clearing had been forged. Tree stumps still remained at the closest border with the forest, and next to the river, logs were being cleaned and stripped of their branches and stacked in a well-maintained pile. A single building stood completed, built with one story and freshly-hewn timbers, and another looked to be on its way up, next to an area of hastily-erected shelters that had been reinforced over time. The place was inhabited; Valey counted about two dozen earth ponies and unicorns inhabiting the camp. But there were no griffons, pegasi, batponies or fliers of any kind.
"Smokeless fire," Felicity breathed, pointing to a stone-lined fire pit where a unicorn was holding a steady spell over a cooking pot and a flame fueled by chopped-up stumps. "And what are they building over there?"
Valey followed her gaze to where treated, curved boards were being assembled using sawhorses near the river. "Looks like a boat," she whispered back. "A pretty big one, too. At least the size of Shinespark's." She pointed across the compound, next to the finished building where a guard kept watch on the skies from a box on the roof. "I'm more worried about that."
Felicity frowned, seeing the target: a large, triangular assembly of wood built with taut ropes and a large rock in a sling.
"That's a catapult," Valey murmured. "Someone here is ready for a siege."
"Technically, darling, it's a trebuchet," Felicity quietly corrected, pressing up against Valey's side. "And yes, they are. I vote we listen and try to get something about who these ponies are."
Valey put a wing over her back, pulling her further into the shadows. "Yeah. Quick inventory stock in my saddlebags, I've got the sound stone, a battery, my anti-batpony flash club... not a lot to work with for espionage."
Felicity smiled, touching a wing to her lips. "Leave this all to me. And be ready to control yourself, darling. Intensifying things."
They stealthily made their way over to a set of log benches near the shelters and the fire where three stallions were eating without talking. For a moment, Valey felt normal... and then there was the strangest sensation that almost registered in her ears. She felt all at once more curious about this place as a whole, almost enough to put an attitude on and walk into the middle of the clearing like she owned the place. But before she could decide whether it was a good idea, Felicity pre-emptively grabbed her and held her close, seeming to read her mind. Suddenly, Valey was far more aware that Felicity, the pony who was hugging her, was a mare and very attractive. She folded her ears, cheeks burning, letting her ally know she was getting an idea for what this talent did and was planning on doing absolutely nothing her brain told her.
"Argh!" a stallion grumbled from the benches, throwing down his empty wooden bowl as he succumbed to the mark's emotional enhancement too. "My horn hurts!"
"Shut it, Vargas," another stallion sighed, hiding his unshaven lips behind his bowl. "Boss isn't back yet. We still might reach that ship."
Vargas massaged his temple. "We have no idea how thick these clouds even are from day to day! For all we know we could have powered the signal half that hard and they would have seen it, or had three times this many unicorns and still been completely invisible! For all we know it was a sarosian ship and they flew on by on purpose."
"You ain't suffering alone," the third stallion, also a unicorn, muttered. "Probably gonna have to pause construction for the day after putting all that work into things. But have a little hope. You ever heard of a sarosian airship?"
"I know next to nothing about Mistvale," Vargas growled. "It's why we don't usually do business there! For all I know they have all the airships here and that's why the Empire was so reliant on us."
"Put your frustration somewhere useful, please," the second stallion said. "The moment we let our tempers turn us on each other is the moment we let those accursed bats win, if the boss doesn't kick our rears for it first. Speaking of which, show some faith! She does as much work as the rest of us put together to survive out here."
"Come on," Felicity mouthed, her breath tickling Valey's ear. "Tell us more about your boss, or these sarosians..."
The quieter unicorn shook his head and stood up. "Whatever. I'm gonna get more stew and maybe take a shift on the fire. I feel like doing something productive for some reason."
Vargas scoffed, but quickly found himself alone. Grumbling, he retrieved his bowl and left, too.
Valey felt her curiosity recede as Felicity pulled her further away from the camp, though her cheeks stayed red. She started swimming on her own, though, and once they had put a good five minutes between them and the ponies, they finally deemed it safe to stop again and converse in hushed voices.
"Well," Felicity declared, standing up. "That was certainly a start. We learned-" She turned to face Valey and blinked. "Oh my. You're... err... quite pink, darling. Was I...?"
"Your cutie mark," Valey mumbled, wishing she had a bucket of water. "My problem. No big deal."
Felicity gave her a knowing look and a teasing smile. "Well, let your mind wander where it needs to, so long as you don't get critically distracted. To use a favorite phrase of yours, perhaps we should talk about this later?"
Valey groaned.
"Present problems first, darling." Felicity patted her on the back, but... suddenly, Valey's mind felt leveler and emptier, and she didn't notice as much. "Better? Now let's focus on what to do next. As best as I can guess, these ponies are familiar with airships, not of the Empire, and hoping for a rescue..."
This time, Valey and Felicity traveled along the mountainside, trying to skirt around the pony encampment and get a better view of the cove they were building on. It required a lot of elevation gain, since the building with the watchtower was nestled into the foothills and they wanted to give that a wide berth, but between shadow sneaking and a short rest they eventually reached an outcropping similar to the ones they had stopped on during the flight in.
Their new vista looked out over the shoreline, a steep drop from it to a beach that looked like it had been recently scoured for driftwood. From this far out and high up, it was easy to tell their lake was connected to the sea: a gap in the shoreline to the right, mountains sinking down to sandbars and then open gray. By squinting, Valey could even see the end of the misty cloud cover, light tinging the distant horizon.
Felicity tapped her. "You're watching the sky, yes, darling?" she breathed in Valey's ear.
"Got my cutie mark," Valey whispered back, though she took the hint. Below, they could see the encampment on the river mouth, partially obscured by trees but largely revealed due to the logging for timber. But up the mountains... Her eyes scanned the ring of peaks. Several more river valleys like theirs opened up periodically into the cove, and most of the mountains lost their heads in the low-hanging clouds. In fact, the clouds were almost jumping distance above them.
"...What's up?" Valey frowned. "Literally."
"I can't see," Felicity murmured. "As long as you've got us covered from an ambush. I can't explain why, but this whole valley has a very slight sensation that's making my fur crawl. Probably just nerves. Silly Felicity..."
"Yeah, well, now that you mention it, we are a little exposed." Valey pulled her back toward the trees, dropping off their outcropping and taking shelter against its earthy side.
Felicity gratefully followed. "Well, we're getting a good lay of the land, at least," she said, still keeping her voice hushed. "One way or another, though, I think we'll have to be more bold than just lurking if we want a better idea of what's going on here."
Valey bit her lip. "You know, I've actually got a halfway decent idea. These dudes? I'm guessing they're stranded. Since they seem used to airships and don't have any griffons, I'm gonna guess they're not from the empire. And I actually know about a group of Varsidelians that was supposed to be getting a lift home and probably... maybe passing within shipwreck distance of here. It could just be a coincidence, but what if these are those poor dudes who got their merchant ships stolen way back when to send Stormhoof's army to Ironridge and then got abducted and freed from pirates?"
"I remember that..." Felicity drummed her wingtips, fidgeting.
"Doesn't explain everything," Valey continued. "Mainly, why the batponies thought we wouldn't leave if we knew what was down here. Like... what did they think we'd do? Come try to rescue them? Bananas, our ship would be packed. Still, they seem to be doing alright for themselves. Unless there's something urgent we don't know about, I'm fine with just going back to the ship and-"
A loud yelling split the air, and above the camp's clearing, the clouds flashed. Multiple voices shrieked, and then the mist fountained downward, ejecting a tangle of several ponies. Some were batponies, carrying others who appeared to be limp. One cluster was tangled in a falling brawl, until a periwinkle pegasus broke free and zoomed ahead, streaking toward the ground and leaving two batponies left behind. Yells from the camp answered, and with a satisfying creak of timbers, a small boulder was launched flying at the sarosians.
It had no aim whatsoever, and all the batponies easily dodged, but was enough of a deterrent that they broke off their pursuit. The message had been sent: the camp was armed and ready.
"Scratch all of that," Valey muttered, beckoning Felicity and slithering further down the mountain. "I'm really, really curious again."
"Seven! Whole! Batponies!" a frustrated, high-pitched mare's voice whined as Valey and Felicity crept closer, daring to sneak up in the main building's shadow to get as close to the action as possible. "I can't believe after all this fighting I haven't worn them down enough not to send that many. Who do they think I am, Admiral Valey?"
Valey and Felicity already clung to each other for stealth, and Valey drew back heavily at the mention of her Ironridge title. In the clearing, at the center of everyone's attention, a pegasus mare with storm cloud purple fur and a green-gray mane sat on her haunches and complained, an earth pony tending to her with a few improvised bandages and herbal poultices. Shifting a little, Felicity put the tip of her hoof on Valey's side, starting to stroke her in strange patterns.
Instantly, Valey felt her cheeks light up again, and her tail lashed in the shadows... until she thought about why Felicity would do that, and realized they were letters. KNOW HER?
She watched the pegasus, thinking. Did she? She was almost cute, but the look was ruined because she also appeared to have been punched many times in the last few days without being given time to recover. It hardly cowed her, though, and was probably the outcome of a lot of fighting. Pegasus, fighter, vaguely familiar... And then everything clicked in her head at once. Kero's mercenaries. She didn't know which one, but this was a mare from the Flame District tunnels.
YES, Valey wrote back in Felicity's fur, feeling like there had to be a less-distracting way to silently communicate but entirely unsure what it was.
"Couldn't reach the ship, Boss?" a stallion sighed. "They didn't come down for our signal, either. Oh well. At this rate we'll stay here until the boat is finished, and then we'll get one more shot at this same song and dance..."
"Aww, cheer up!" The pegasus winced, feeling her bruises. "It's not... ow. A total loss. The batponies don't like it when we try to go above the clouds most of the time, but they went really ballistic today. That means that shadow we saw must have been an airship."
Another stallion with a droopy face looked at her forlornly. "Unless it's all a part of their plans, getting our hopes up and pushing us to overextend..."
"Or wear you out," the bandage mare added in a concerned tone. "Up until you showed up, we were always on the back hoof fighting them. Even the old boss can't hold them off, so we were never making any headway on projects. And you've been taking too many fights with too little time to recover."
"So what?" the pegasus countered with a pained smile. "You've seen how great I fight. I'm getting them tired out too. And I'm doing it for a good cause. I'm practically a one-mare army."
From the sidelines, a stallion floated a small, sparking piece of metal to her hooves. "She's right, you know. You think you can repair your taser after this? Even if you keep going, you're running out of tools. We need a new plan before you give up or die and they raid our construction again! Else we'll never get out of here!"
"Look, I'm trying my best and I'm not giving up!" the pegasus snapped. "Maybe you'd like to try fighting seven punchy batponies at once? I'm the one risking life and looks for this, and they're almost vanquished! After how much I've beaten them up, they have to be! There can't be more batponies than this in a village."
A mare in the audience looked up. "We always could do more to fight, ourselves..."
"After how many we lost escaping from that pirate ship?" A muscular unicorn glared down at her. "I still have a limp in two legs from that fight. If we challenged them openly anywhere but our base, they'd just finish what they started."
"Hello, rude!?" The pegasus cleared her throat. "You'd get a lot less stomped than you would without me on your side. And I fight all of them solo! Hmmph." She swung her short mane and got shakily to her hooves. "I'm going to take a nap and recuperate. No one bother me if you want your best and only fighter in as good of shape as she can be."
She trotted off, backside turned to the camp and tail flicking.
A few worried murmurs began to break out, and before they could intensify Valey suddenly felt her head and thoughts still considerably. Felicity held them in place for a full minute longer until the ponies started to disperse, then finally relaxed her talent, tugging Valey along toward the hills. Valey was happy to follow.
"Okay," Valey breathed, hoping she was out of earshot of the camp and keeping her voice as low as it would go. "I'm really tempted to back off and call our friends on the ship, but first I wanna talk to that mare. Because there's two things I know about Kero's pegasi: they'll never work for him, since he abandoned them after sending them on a mission that was a death trap, and they're all really cool with me."
"Are you certain, darling?" Felicity murmured, muzzle to Valey's ear.
"Yeah. Well... yeah." Valey hesitated. "Maybe she wouldn't be cool if I snuck up and surprised her, but this is someone who knows what I can do. Explanations, here I come."
Valey and Felicity followed the battered pegasus from the edge of the woods, tracing her as she limped into one of the more-recused shelters and gingerly lay down. Almost immediately, her eyes closed to slits, but she was still conscious and on guard.
Wait here, Valey motioned with a wing, telling her companion to hold back. She slithered forward, submerging completely as she moved between the shelters, noting that about a third of the encampment seemed to be sleeping. Must have been hard to coordinate sleep schedules when the world was without sun or moon, only a perpetual state of clouds and dusk...
It didn't take long to reach the pegasus's open, rough-made tent. What did take time was figuring out how to approach her: Valey didn't need her cutie mark to tell someone like this would see sarosian long before they saw Valey. And even if they recognized her, what were the odds their first thought would be of the tunnels and nearly dying rather than that they were now supposed to be friends?
Fortunately, she was good at holding her breath, having practiced it extensively in Ironridge shadow sneaking for unsavory purposes. As she sat, watching the pegasus through her distorted underground vision, they finally licked their lips and seemed to settle a little more.
"Pssst," Valey risked, speaking from where she couldn't see her rise.
Her target's ears snapped up. "Who goes there?" the pegasus breathed, visibly stiffer but not moving her head.
"Don't freak out. I'm a friend. Was flying over in an airship, saw a signal and came down to check it out."
That was the right thing to say. Slowly, the pegasus turned to face her, and Valey floated just high enough that her head was visible. The moment their eyes met, she gasped and stumbled to her hooves, eyes constricting and breath quickening in fear... but she didn't yell or flee.
"Everything alright in there, Harshwater?" a voice called from several shelters away.
"S-Shut up!" Harshwater's head snapped backwards to glare at whoever had spoken. "I don't have nightmares!" She quickly turned to look back at Valey, breathing nervously and looking even more bruised and harried now that Valey saw her up close. "This is a trick. But they're not that crafty. I don't believe this."
Valey gently shrugged. "Don't freak out. It's really me. We're on the same side, right?" She tilted her head. "Bananas, you look nasty."
Harshwater slowly scrutinized her, breaths returning to normal. "Maybe we should go do this in the forest," she uncertainly murmured, tail twitching. "If you had been seen by anyone but me, they would freak out."
Valey nodded, submerging again and beckoning toward the forest.
Crawling out of the shelter, Harshwater limped off toward the trees, letting Valey follow on her own. She didn't go too far in, enough that a yell could easily reach the camp, then sat down and sighed to no one. "I don't know if you're the last pony I ever wanted to see again, or the first," she said as way of greeting.
"Hey." Valey rose out of the shadows, sitting across from her. "Long time no see, I guess. Looks like life after Ironridge hasn't been kind to you."
"Tell me about it," Harshwater muttered, reluctant to start explaining and still putting herself at ease.
"Ahem." Felicity's voice softly cleared its throat from near Valey, though she didn't show herself. "Probably your conversation, darling," she whispered. "I'll keep watch nearby."
Harshwater's gaze snapped to the spot. "Who else is there?"
Valey nudged the ground, and Felicity uncertainly rose halfway up. "A friend, I assure you. I'm with Valey."
"Yeah..." Harshwater regarded her, breathing starting to quicken again. "Listen, I kind of have some extreme issues and reactions and phobias regarding batponies lately, so as a show of faith, could you go over there? Like, reeeally far over that way?"
Felicity respectfully nodded and slipped away.
"...So." Valey didn't try to make eye contact, since Harshwater obviously wasn't interested. "What kinds of things do I need to know? First off, are we friends? I kinda recall your name, so I'm guessing you were one of the ones that hung out with us when I returned with all my friends."
"First off?" Harshwater gave her a sharp look. "I still have nightmares. About the Flame District. And you. Don't tell anyone I still have an image to protect with, if it'll ever matter. So when I say seeing you is a relief, that's what things have been like here." After a moment's hesitation, she added, "Please tell me you're more trustworthy than in Ironridge."
"I've been making an effort," Valey replied. "So what's up with you?"
Harshwater looked briefly shameful, ears going limp. "I... also might owe you another apology. For the Flame District," she admitted. "I think I've been getting a closer idea than I ever wanted how we made you feel down there, only drawn out over a few weeks instead of an evening. I don't know, it's hard to track time down here. So... sorry."
"You wanna tell me about it?" Valey kept her posture upright and forelegs loose, unable to tell whether Harshwater was going to back away from her or badly need a hug.
"I'm getting myself together! I'm getting there," Harshwater rebuked. "Give me time, okay? This is... ugh..." She trembled, then glanced up at Valey out of the corner of her eye. "So there are some batponies who live around here, and all of them are really aggressive for no reason. They haven't talked to us since I got here, and everyone else says they're really bad at speaking non-batpony. But they attack everyone and hate everything we try to do. I can sort of fight them all at once the way you fought us, and apparently they used to raid this camp and are only scared off now that I'm here, but every time I try to go flying anywhere on my own they gang up and try to pick me off. Everyone here was shipwrecked a while ago and are trying to build a new boat to escape, but they don't want to let us do that, either. Every time they have raided, it's usually to target that... I've taken a lot of them, but nopony here wants to go on the offensive and I'm getting worn down faster than they are. I really don't want to die in a place like this..."
Valey blinked, nodding slowly. "Well... bananas. There's some stuff in there that doesn't really make sense, but-"
Harshwater uncertainly sidled closer. "I bet you could clear all of them out with two hooves tied behind your back."
"Yeah, I probably could," Valey admitted, looking over Harshwater's injuries. "So, like... what happens when you fight them? How'd you get all roughed up like that? Just punches and stuff? Getting things thrown at you?"
Harshwater nodded. "If you're asking about Mistvale Monks, I don't think they know how to do that. I thought I was done for the first time they ambushed me, but they were just normal blows. And I can take a hit or three. Just not three hundred..."
"So I'm guessing you want my help," Valey said, putting on the beginnings of a smirk. "Look, I've still got a little investigating to do, but I do get how you feel, and bananas, you're right. No one should die in a place like this."
"I'll give you anything." Harshwater gave her a serious look. "I mean it. I'm... I'm in deep water, here. I can only show off for them because I need their morale high so they'll help me. Absolutely anything. I'm desperate." Her eyes unfocused a little. "Are you still a shameless flirt? I remember you hitting on me in Ironridge. I'd... I'd even give you a kiss if you got me out of this. Or join up with you and go with you. You'll have spared my life when we were fighting and then saved it here. Please, Valey."
Valey listened with her mouth slightly ajar, then nodded. "Okay, look. That other batpony who's here, my friend? She can translate. I've got this sound stone, so I can call in and talk to my friends on our ship. Those other batponies visited our ship while we were flying over and asked as nicely as they could for us to please keep flying, so, like... I'm not leaving, and I'll see what I can do."
"Ohh thank you." Harshwater sagged, shoulders starting to tremble. "I'm... I'm not quite on my last legs, but if there's fighting, do you mind if I sit out a little? My whole body really isn't feeling so good."
"Uh, yeah, it kind of looks that way." Valey raised an eyebrow. "Take care of yourself, girl. You wanna go back to your camp, or stick around? I'm gonna call my friends and tell them what's up, and we'll figure out a plan on what to do."
Harshwater hesitated. "Umm... your friends wouldn't happen to include Shinespark, right? Out of total curiosity?" At Valey's look, she elaborated, "A lot of these ponies are either merchants and traders or guards hired to protect them on the road, and she's a big name in Ironridge. Just thinking."
"Yep. She's with us," Valey said, catching on and nodding. "Gerardo, Maple, Amber, Starlight... not too many you wouldn't know, actually. Anyway. I take it you're going back to camp?"
"Yeah, I have some convincing to do," Harshwater murmured. "Just... Just remember, you don't even have to do a lot. Even if your ship isn't big enough for thirty-odd ponies, if you can just take out the local batponies or make them leave us alone, it'll be enough."
"I'll keep it in mind," Valey promised as Harshwater retreated, reaching into her saddlebags for her mana battery and sound stone.
"Yep. So that's the story," Valey said, having retreated further from the encampment to talk with less fear of being overheard. "We're still not sure what these batponies' deals are, but it's looking like they were right when they said if we stopped or asked what was going on, we wouldn't leave. I'm having a hard time just ditching these dudes here when, like... I know my injuries, you know? Harshwater really didn't look like she was faking or only had one bad encounter."
"This is very peculiar, though," Gerardo Guillaume replied, sitting on the sound stone's other end with Shinespark and Amber. "I'm trying to think of a reason these sarosians would tell us we wouldn't leave if we knew what was down here... Seeing as they were apparently telling the truth, it feels like a show of good faith, and that's very odd to see coming from a party who is blatantly and baselessly oppressing someone else."
"Did you talk to anyone other than Harshwater?" Amber asked. "Because from what you said, she somehow got here later than everyone else. Maybe there's something going on with these merchants she's not aware of that's made the batponies mad? They could be transporting moon glass, or doing something else offensive."
Valey scratched her head. "Yeah, the fact that neither of these sides seem to have talked is bothering me pretty hard, too. I'm not sure it's impossible that the batponies are good guys, but it's possible both sides are bad guys, too. Bananas, there's nothing to rule out."
"Suppose we did nothing, as the sarosians wish," Gerardo offered. "What would be the consequences? Unless this is a renegade faction, it certainly wouldn't hurt our relationship with Mistvale as a whole."
"Well, first off, there's Harshwater." Valey shrugged. "She seemed... sincerely desperate? I dunno, there was some stuff she left out like what she's doing here and why she arrived later, and it's possible she was once up to something suspicious, but I feel like she was legit scared. If we abandon her here, she's either gonna keep fighting to defend this place until she dies, or somehow survive and then remember us as the dudes who abandoned her. And if we let her fly back with us and ditch everyone in the camp, well..."
"It would be cruel to make her live with that," Shinespark finished. "Failing to save someone who's counting on you, especially a large group. It doesn't sound like there are any good options."
"Provided we care about her," Gerardo added. "Though knowing us, I think anything else would be out of the question."
"Yeah, I'm not ditching her. No way." Valey frowned into the stone. "But... that leaves us with all of three options. I walk into the main camp and try to talk to someone other than her, which probably gets me attacked because to everyone else I'm just another batpony. I fly around in the open, which gets the attention of all the other batponies, and might get them to talk if Felicity's with me but also might get me attacked. And you guys could turn around and bring in the whole ship, which would definitely get us attacked but could also get the merchant dudes on our side. All of these are battles I'm pretty confident I could take by myself without issue. The problem is I could be beating up someone who are supposed to be friends."
There was a momentary silence from the other side of the connection. "This is sticky," Amber eventually admitted. "Valey, I think you need to get the batponies' side of things even if that means letting them know you're here. You said most of them are hurt because Harshwater's been fighting them, right? They might be desperate enough to have a truce if you insisted on not fighting back. If they earnestly want us to leave, tell them you're trying to help everyone else get out and... and translate! So much of this could be bad communication!"
Shinespark's voice wearily cut in. "There's another possibility," she warned, "and that's that for religious reasons, they don't want anyone who enters this valley to ever leave. And they wanted us to stay out so they didn't have their hooves even more full trying to keep us here. There aren't a lot of reasons they'd be targeting what's obviously a boat, especially if they wanted the merchants gone."
Valey folded her ears. "Yeah, well, if that's the case, me and Felicity are already down here. So whether we talk to them or not, they wouldn't get what they want, because I'm not staying."
"Speaking of building a boat, actually, there's something else that's bothering me," Gerardo cut in. "Varsidel is a country without a lot of major rivers. It has only one coastline at its eastern edge, and the primary city there is more of an independent city-state not quite like Ironridge but populated by foreigners and distinctly unique from the rest of the area. Furthermore, its primary trading destinations were Ironridge and the Griffon Empire, and as Ironridge was the world's primary supplier of boats specifically designed for both river and sea travel, well... You see where I'm going with this, correct?"
Valey could practically hear the others blink. "Huh."
"What are a bunch of merchants who fly airships and come from a landlocked country doing knowing how to build a boat?" Amber asked. Her shrug was almost audible.
"I'm not sure that's very important, actually," Shinespark said. "Airships have only been produced reliably enough to take over from water ships in the last ten years. If any of these intercontinental traders had the same job that long ago, they'd have been sailors, and would absolutely know a lot about the workings of boats. Some of them might even be Sosans who left the city to find jobs elsewhere when the airships came."
"Yeah, good point." Valey rolled the sound stone over in her hoof. "Anyway, Felicity stepped away for a moment since being an unfamiliar batpony was spooking Harshwater, and I need her to translate, but once she gets back, I think we're going to fly around and try to pay the other batponies a visit. You guys should start heading back, but not get super close or come below the clouds. I just gotta find her again, and then it's time for a batpony-to-batpony visit."
Felicity swam through the forest, silently disguising her shadowy ripples against the twigs and needles on the floor. Ahead of her, Harshwater limped back into the camp; if she was aware she was being followed, she didn't show it.
Harshwater took a back route, not going immediately to her shelter. All the better, since sneaking wouldn't be possible near the cooking fire... Felicity tailed her through the edge of the clearing, using skills honed through years of experience to come up for breath precisely when and where nobody was looking. Eventually, the pegasus reached the main building's door and pushed it open, strolling inside without bothering to knock.
Quietly, Felicity took up a position underneath the two steps connecting the door and the ground, and perked her ears for voices.
"Hey," Harshwater greeted. There was the sound of water being poured and someone taking a drink.
"I thought you were resting," another mare said. "We need you at maximum strength, Harshwater. Please, do not overtax yourself."
A wooden mug clunked down. "Sounds like you're asking me not to fight them, period." Silence. "That ship saw our signal. Some ponies came down, you know."
The other mare gasped. "Did they...?"
"I think they want to help us," Harshwater said, sounding deeply uncertain. "And I'm pretty sure they can. But just so you know, that ship apparently belongs to Shinespark. So if you still-"
"No!" The other voice raised itself, and there was a shuffling of armor as someone stood up. "We do not need Shinespark's help. This is our land now, and we will deserve it on our own."
"Uhhh..." Harshwater sounded painfully dubious. "You can say that, but before I showed up you apparently had to move camp three times and couldn't even raise a single building. You might call it yours, but I'm the one risking my life and doing all the work."
"It is a communal effort," the other mare insisted. "Everypony contributes what their talents can provide."
Harshwater's voice came from closer to the door. "Yeah, but if what you provide is a dream no one is interested in? Ponies follow ponies who can keep them safe. And you're... not doing all that much to protect anyone. You might not have heard, but ponies are starting to call me the boss when you're not around."
"I keep everyone organized and allowed us to grow beyond a group of castaways whose teamwork extends to getting out of the rain at night. It improves our quality of life and strengthens our hoofhold here. You cannot tell me that is not valuable."
"...But nobody wants a hoofhold," Harshwater murmured. "They just want to leave. I'm sorry, but this isn't a cause I want to be martyred for when Valey is right here. It would be so easy to make her clear out the batponies so we could get on with our lives in the rest of the world..."
"But I cannot do this without all of you," the other voice protested, sounding worried. "If you leave, I will... be on my own."
Harshwater huffed. "Or, you could swallow whatever it is you have to prove, let them help, and leave with everyone else? Just think about it, okay? I'm telling the camp the airship saw us and we have friends."
Felicity furrowed her brow as Harshwater left, limping down the stairs and into the clearing.
"There you are!" Valey whispered, ears perking as Felicity swam quietly through the forest, clearly looking for someone. "Where'd you go?"
Felicity perked too, beaming when she saw Valey. "Darling! I fear I neglected to plan for how we'd meet up again once I wandered off... Just trailing our new friend while you were calling yours to see how trustworthy she is and what she decided to do with herself."
"Take a load off, I hope," Valey replied. "Anything interesting?"
"Mmm..." Felicity bit her lip. "I think she's genuine, darling. I also learned there's a bit of an unintentional leadership struggle in that camp. Sounds like they have a boss who's actually not that keen on leaving, but doesn't speak for anyone else? Your friends might... encounter a bit of opposition, bringing the ship here, but also a warm welcome. Most likely, it would cause trouble in the camp itself, though I can't guess at how much."
Valey nodded, processing. "Okay. So, the plan is we try to get the batponies' attention and go talk to them. Whatever's going on here, they've clearly got a side of the story too. Sparky and Birdo are bringing the ship closer, but not all the way back. We learn more and play it by ear. Sound cool?"
"Smashing," Felicity agreed. "The one thing Harshwater and this boss seemed to agree on was that the sarosians leaving them alone would benefit everyone. And if there's a chance good communication is all that's standing in the way of peace, I do believe we're the mares for the job."
"Right. So, we need to get their attention." Valey looked up at the clouds, visible through a hole in the canopy. "From what happened to Harshwater, I'm betting flying around in plain sight is the best way to do that, though we'll need to be far enough from the camp that they don't fire that dumb trebuchet at us. It's probably so inaccurate it's completely harmless, but would be a really good way to raise tensions. How good are you for flying?"
"Right now?" Felicity grimaced apologetically. "Well, I'm feeling mostly rested-up after earlier, but I think we've established however much that counts for is questionable, especially if we're gaining a large amount of height. I think the only way is for me to do my best and you to be on guard."
Valey eyed her slowly. "Right... Yeah, no offense but you're the tiniest bit bigger than average and if I have to do a straight height gain with you on my back, that's already a maybe. Never mind trying to fight if these bats turn out to be lemon bags and I'm weighed down. We could dive for shelter in the camp, but that'll just get more ponies in on the fight..."
Felicity winced. "Dreadfully sorry about being a burden, darling. Especially since I am necessary for translation..."
"Nah, it's cool." Valey strolled over to her, spreading her wings. "Remember, these guys are apparently beat-up from fighting Harshwater solo, and I count for, like... sixteen of her in a fight. I'm fresh, too. And if they somehow do have Mistvale arts hidden somewhere, us being close together might be a good thing. Anyway, go? I'm ready to get on with this show."
"Ready," Felicity promised, eyes showing she dearly hoped it was a promise she could keep.
When Valey cleared the treeline, Felicity was still going strong. She hovered under her red-maned friend keeping close watch, and while Felicity's breathing was labored and her progress slow, it wasn't dangerously slow.
They kept rising, drifting away from the camp and out clockwise along the edge of the bay, and eventually were twice as high as the trees in the valley. Valey hovered closer; she could clearly see Felicity flagging and slowing down. Watching her like this, she couldn't believe she had missed the mare's signs of exhaustion on the trip down... though a straight glide was far easier than gaining altitude, and she had been leading the way.
"Sorry..." Felicity gasped, wings beating fruitlessly and face twisted in exertion. "I think I've done my best for this flight..."
Instantly, Valey was beneath her, letting Felicity's legs wrap around her barrel as she shouldered the other mare's weight. "Cool. Save your strength, we've gotta be high enough for them to see. Bananas, you're heavy..."
"All in the flanks, darling," Felicity apologized with a rueful smile. "Still think you're agile enough if it comes to a fight?"
"To dive? Yeah." Valey held them aloft, slowly turning in circles as she surveyed all directions, feeling her cutie mark and especially aware of the clouds inches above. "And that's all it takes to get back to the ground. Now where are you!? Come out, batponies!"
It took less than a minute. Her flank wasn't tingling. A single fanged face poked down, hovering inside the cloud cover, watching them with mixed hope and fear. It pointed a hoof at the camp below and to the side, and said, "Danger."
Felicity cleared her throat, uttering something in Sarosian Valey guessed was a declaration of her ability to speak the language. The batpony watching them looked relieved, and chittered something back.
"Err..." Valey could feel Felicity's grip on her tighten uncertainly, and Felicity's muzzle brushed her ear. "He's asking if we're cursed, darling."
"Cursed?" Valey blinked in confusion. "Bananas, I hope not?"
This didn't seem to calm the sarosian's conflicting emotions. "Help?" he asked, accent thick.
Valey grinned.
Felicity spoke again, longer this time, and the batpony's expression changed several more times, ending on worry. "Stop," he requested, disappearing into the cloud cover.
Suddenly alone again, with a faint sense of danger in her cutie mark, Valey kept up her hover, wishing she at least had somewhere to go or a target to work towards while carrying Felicity's weight. "You get anything more than I did?" she grunted, hoping at least for conversation.
"Hmmm..." Felicity thought for a moment. "I'm afraid my grasp of the language might only be about ninety-nine percent as opposed to perfect, darling," she explained. "It is my native tongue, but it doesn't get used all that often in the Empire... but the tense he used when speaking about us, I believe, implied he expected to see us. And that he expected us to be cursed. It's not a perfect translation, since the variant of curse he used carries some religious connotations that-"
The batponies returned. This time, there were seven.
"Oh. Uh, hi?" Valey grinned awkwardly, recognizing the very round mare who had boarded the ship. Most of the sarosians looked nervous or mistrustful, but this one flat-out watched her with a wounded expression, hurt in her eyes. "Look, it's not feeling great, getting looked at like that..."
Felicity immediately spoke over her, tone hurried. The batponies blinked at each other, back at them... and the round mare said something which Felicity translated. "I told you if you came down, you would get involved."
Valey's eyes widened slightly, the sensation of danger growing on her flank. Surveying these batponies, none of them looked particularly crippled or injured in the short term, though they did bear some signs of combat... but of course they'd send their healthiest ponies first. "No!" she protested, hovering upright and waving her forehooves. "No fighting! We just wanna talk!"
As if in response, her cutie mark spiked dramatically, and she dropped, dodging downwards as the batponies surrounded her on all sides. They dodged too, and immediately a boulder tore through the air, flying up straight through where the group had been hovering.
"Oh bananas...!" Valey spun, seeing the still-swinging trebuchet in the camp below. "How are they so accurate!? Someone down there must have a cutie-"
"Betray!" one of the batponies shouted above her. "Trap!"
Felicity shrieked and ducked against her just as Valey looked up. All seven batponies were glaring at her, and the round one looked sick.
"No!" Valey shouted back, blatantly aware they were about to attack. "I mean... sorry about this!"
Without leaving her time to explain, the sarosians dove. Valey immediately flipped on her back, deftly unclasping Felicity's hooves from her barrel, and kicked off her, careful to avoid the mare's belly. Felicity was launched downward with a yelp of dismay as Valey shot back upwards, vaulting over the ring of hovering ponies and stealing their attention with a yell.
She only had a few seconds, and was grateful when they made her job morally easier and charged. "Ngahhh!" Valey grunted, grabbing the first one's head and shoving her into a spin. She darted backwards, letting the next two hit her at once. Flipping sideways, her hind hoof met one between the legs; as he yowled, she punched the other's windpipe, pulling the hit and letting him know she could have crushed it if she went all out.
Four remained, and they weren't coordinated at all. "No fighting!" Valey hissed, grabbing and spinning one so they crashed into another, flipping over the third's back and chucking them by the tail. For an instant, she was face to face with the round mare, gave her as apologetic a look as she could muster... and then dove, following Felicity's panicked screams.
Her friend hadn't managed to pull herself upright or stop tumbling, but Valey dropped like an arrow, catching up to Felicity easily before the trees. Timing herself against the mare's spins to avoid getting kicked, she lunged in, wrapped her forelegs around Felicity's shoulders, and snapped her wings out, pulling frantically into a swift, sharp glide.
"Eeeeek!" Felicity grappled her back, upside-down as they flew and looking very green. At the last second, as the rocky beach approached, Valey realized there was no way she was going to avoid a crash-landing; while their momentum was safe, she was too heavy and all her hooves were currently occupied.
With a final grunt, Valey flipped on her back, painfully impacting the stones and skidding to a stop, Felicity smashing down atop her. She opened her eyes, reluctant to move and resolving to take new appreciation before ever flattening someone as an attack or joke again.
"D-Darling," Felicity weakly whispered, still clinging to Valey like her life depended on it. "It's taking every bit of ladylike poise I have not to void my stomach all over you right now, and frankly, you deserve it..."
"Thanks," Valey groaned, glad to feel her lungs still working. She could see the sarosians gathering themselves again in the distance. "Think you could get off me, too? I think we're about to have company..."
Felicity went completely limp. Valey sighed, hoping she'd be able to get back upright by the time the fight resumed.
Valey groaned as the shoreline rocks dug into her back, forming an uncomfortable bed at the site of their crash. Felicity clung atop her and refused to let go, and after partially dropping her to fight off the batponies, she couldn't blame her for it either. But it was quickly becoming a problem, since the sarosians had regrouped and were flying closer.
"Nngh. Felicity, leggo..." Valey shoved as hard as she dared. "I'm sorry, okay? We knew there'd be trouble in a fight! Otherwise I'm gonna sneak and dump you on these rocks, because I need to move!"
"Two more seconds," Felicity mumbled, eyes squeezed shut. "My composure is... lacking..."
But they didn't have two seconds, according to the rate at which the batponies dropped... only Valey's cutie mark said otherwise. The seven didn't dive bomb them, pulling up and hovering low in a cautious circle around them, all watching with wary eyes. Apparently being pinned and prone had the benefit of looking much less threatening.
"Translation time, girl," Valey muttered, giving Felicity's shoulder a shake. "Don't flake out on me... Hey!" She looked up, making eye contact with each batpony in turn. "Friends! No fighting! Friends!" Insistent, she gestured between them and herself with a hoof several times.
One stallion pointed between his legs where Valey had kicked him, and another hurriedly addressed him, making him stop. Several looked hesitant. The round mare, the leader as best Valey could tell, still looked hurt and betrayed. Felicity finally cracked an eye open, adding something in Sarosian.
"Why?" the round mare asked, talking slowly and clearly doing her best. "Why... did you here? Come here?"
"Felicity, tell them we're friends," Valey grunted. "We wanna... We want to help you. Not fight. Please?"
Felicity added something longer and quieter, and the batponies seemed to listen. Some of them even brightened, but the leader's face slowly fell. "Good ponies," she said, pointing to Valey and Felicity. "Bad ponies." She pointed to her companions, including herself. Then, with a wide gesture at the entire bay and a fluence that suggested she'd practiced the words many times before: "Profaned land. Nightmare land."
Valey surveyed the crescent bay, its ends wrapping so far around it was nearly a circular lake. "Wait, you're the bad guys?"
The round mare added something else in Sarosian, a longer explanation, and Felicity folded her ears. "Oh my," she murmured, starting to get her composure back. "They're saying this is a place of exile, darling. A, err, cursed place fit for... ponies who commit crimes." She listened as the round mare added something more, and continued, "They live here away from any dusk statues, cut off from the Night Mother and the world?" Her ears flattened. "The good oppress the bad, and the bad oppress both bad and good... I don't believe our friends here have the healthiest self-esteem. They seem to think anyone remotely well-meaning would be against them, too."
"Are you serious?" Valey groaned, watching as the round mare explained something to her companions and their faces started falling again. "Look, being down because the dumb Empire is hard on us, I get, but you guys are hard on yourselves in Mistvale, too? What is it with the world and sad batponies?" She awkwardly punched the gravel with a hoof. "Felicity, lemme go."
Felicity carefully stood, and Valey crawled out from under her as well, getting to her hooves. All the batponies had landed by now, and some took steps back as she rose. Others fell prostrate, actually bowing as if whatever would happen was inevitable. The round mare did neither, hanging her head and not letting anyone see her eyes.
"Alright." Valey marched toward her, eyes narrow. "I seriously don't care about crimes, and I'm starting to take it personally every time one of you is down on life. So chin. Up!" She pushed up the mare's chin with a wing, and wrapped her forelegs around her in a hug. "This get the message across? I dunno which category of yours I fall into, 'cuz neither of them are about giving bad guys a second chance. Friends," she insisted, ending on a word she knew the batponies knew. "Friends."
The leader tried to recoil in her grasp, but Valey was far stronger and she couldn't get away. Most of the other batponies tilted their heads. "No fighting?" one asked.
"Varsidel," another protested, pointing at the camp.
"From Varsidel." Valey pointed a free wing along the beach towards the distant camp. "Not from Varsidel." She pointed at herself and Felicity, then repeated the process once for good measure without letting the round mare go. She smelled bad, this close, like insufficiency and self-hatred, but with a lot of hope and determination to balance it out. "Are you okay?"
Felicity said something, and a short exchange followed. "...Well, this is a pickle," Felicity finally sighed. "She says she believes you and you can let her go, by the way."
"Oh. Uh, sure." Valey backed off, still regarding the leader. "You okay?"
Her reply came in Sarosian, and Felicity nodded, starting to translate. "Darling, they're saying the ponies in the camp here apparently came in waves. Most of them at first, and at least two individuals at separate times after that. They do want everyone to leave, but don't believe that's what the merchants are doing, and say if we think that we're mistaken or being lied to. They're also very politely asking us again to leave and think if we stay here, we'll end up siding with the merchants even if we say we want to help them now. What I don't quite understand, though, is that they're saying the merchants are trying to defile the land, yet this place is apparently already defiled and that's why they're here..."
Valey frowned. "Do you guys not recognize they're trying to build a boat? They told us you target the boat. What else are they gonna use a boat for if none of them can escape?"
Felicity exchanged words again, then frowned. "They believe we're well-meaning but terribly naive, darling. That if they told us, we wouldn't understand and it would only lead to bad things happening."
"Well, that's fabulous." Valey sat back with a crunch of shifting gravel. "Look, I get that you guys think you're the bad guys, but we can't help if we don't know what you want."
"They've already told us that one, I'm afraid." Felicity smiled ruefully. "They would be extremely grateful if we flew back to our ship and left this land to its own devices. They wouldn't mind at all if we took Harshwater with us, either, but seem to think we'd have to force her to leave." She hesitated as the round mare chittered something more, and added, "They also ask that we tell none about this bay's existence?"
"Bananas." Valey rubbed her scalp. "I guess with a language barrier on top of poor communication skills, there's really no way to understand each other better, is there? It really looks to me like if they just told us everything, I could beat whoever was causing trouble into guacamole and everyone lives happily ever after, but for all I know we really wouldn't get it and telling us would just make things worse. You ever hear of a place like this before, Felicity?"
"Some sort of outcast colony where violators of religious law live in separation from the Night Mother?" Felicity tilted her head. "I can't say that I have. The Empire uncovers, captures and deals with heretics through an extensive network maintained by Meltdown's mana energy administration, but in Mistvale, such matters are usually centralized around the Monk Lords and delegated out on a per-city basis. Often the Night Mother herself becomes aware of them first and informs the council, thanks to her dusk statues, so living without the statues could very well be an effective way to hide. And the continent is sufficiently vast and sparsely-populated that I'd be surprised if there weren't hundreds of places like this..."
The local batponies shuffled politely as Valey and Felicity talked, clearly trying and failing to understand a word they were saying. "Please," the leader requested, looking Valey earnestly in the eyes despite a lot of conflicting emotion on her face. "Leave?"
Valey nodded. "We will take the pegasus," she replied, speaking levelly and doing her best to use as simple of words as possible. "What will you do to the Varsidelians?"
The round mare frowned, and seemed to get it with a repetition. "We will stop the Varsidelians," she carefully said. "We will stay the Varsidelians here."
"Why?" Valey asked, feeling like she was starting to get the hang of talking through the barrier. It was possible, but no wonder the merchants couldn't if they never stopped, sat down and made their best efforts to understand each other.
The leader hesitated for a moment, thinking hard, then turned to Felicity and answered in Sarosian. Felicity translated, "They don't want them to develop, darling. When they have tools and buildings and good shelter, they can spend less time trying to survive and more time getting stronger. Our friends here want to keep them in a state of technological regression deep enough that they're easy to control and never get out of hoof. They say Harshwater has bought the merchants enough time and cover, they're already afraid it's too late."
Valey bit her lip. "If the Varsidelians grow, then what?"
"Grow," the leader said, meeting Valey's eyes. "Love. Foals." She patted her stomach. "Many ponies." She pointed around the crescent rim of the bay. "Town. City." She pointed at the clouds. "Not secret." She looked back at Valey's eyes. "Death. Nightmare Moon."
Valey blinked, her cutie mark beginning to burn. "Buh? What's a Nightmare Moon?"
"Death," the round mare repeated, eyes pleading. "Please leave."
A large net fell from above, ensnaring the entire group of batponies.
"Oh, for crying out...!" Valey hissed, tearing at the sturdy woven ropes clinging to her face. Whatever fiber it was made from was vaguely sticky, clinging to her fur, and the rest of the sarosians panicked, screeching in painfully-shrill voices and struggling against their weighted confines. They had kept a close eye down the beach leading to the camp as they talked, but every one of the merchants lacked wings and no one had thought to look up.
"Is that nine of the varmints?" a shocked, gleeful stallion's voice came from above. Atop a steeply-sloped cliff, five unicorns and earth ponies looked down, surveying their work and looking proud. "Let's see how Harshwater likes this!"
A fuzzy calmness settled over Valey's head, entirely unfitting for the situation. "Calming, darling," Felicity whispered from beside her, a strain of panic in her voice as some of the sarosian shrieks started to subside. "Effectiveness is based on proximity, so I'm not sure our friends up there will get the full brunt, but it's everything I can do. My hairpin is a knife. See if you can cut yourself free!"
"Gotcha," Valey mumbled, craning her neck with the ropes pulling on her mane. Felicity turned her head as well, and Valey got the pin in her teeth, yanking it out and feeling several pinned-back locks fall free. "Nnngh... Gah!"
One strand of rope severed, taking a second or two of sawing. "Please do not cut the ropes," a mare instructed from above, and Valey turned her head upwards again to see.
The unicorn joining the group could have been Shinespark with a dye job, sporting a burgundy coat, short mane with a jagged bang and a slightly-used set of plate armor. Valey dropped the knife. "Lemme go, Grenada. It's Valey."
"Boss?" A stallion with her glanced aside. "You know this mare? She speaks with real words, she does."
Grenada shook her head. "My name is Braen, not Grenada. She doesn't know me. Sarosians! We have a boulder atop this cliff and will use it to crush you all if you try to escape. Nopony cut the net!"
None of the native sarosians understood a word she said, and Valey frowned, trying to get a wing free and curling it beneath her. "What's your problem! Do you dudes not know they don't understand you? Hey, mooks! I'm from the airship that just passed overhead! Ask your stupid boss what she's doing making threats only I can understand!"
Several other ponies at the clifftop blinked, and Grenada visibly paled. "That's a good question, boss," a stallion with a mustache said. "I hope we're not attacking airship folk."
"Well, you are!" Valey bellowed, thrashing in the net to conceal her wing movements as she slipped the sound stone free from her bags.
Grenada's face hardened, and she turned to her companions off the cliffs. "...I have been negotiating with the sarosians in secret for days now. I apologize for not telling you. I know this mare from there. Unfortunately, it seems she has betrayed me. Valey, please stop trying to escape."
Valey reached her mana battery and stopped, hiding both it and the sound stone beneath her as she lay flat on the rocks. She grit her teeth upward and waited, hoping for a familiar buzz.
"...I wouldn't put it past them," another mare on the clifftop said. "So now that we have them, what do we do? Is there any reason not to take them out?"
Suddenly, the sound stone activated. Muffled beneath Valey's fur and the terrified eeeing of the other batponies, it was definitely inaudible at the top of the cliff, but she wouldn't be if she yelled. Baring her fangs, Valey snarled, "Grenada, if you and your good squad drop a boulder on me and my friends from the top of that cliff, Shinespark is on that ship and she's still nearby and there'll be nothing Meltdown and Gazelle can do to stop her from hauling you straight to Garsheeva for piracy! What are you doing on the northwestern edge of this dumb cove, anyway, trying to build a pirate fort in that clearing? Is that why there's so much tension with the locals, even though they just wanna be left alone? We've got a filly that kills windigoes and a sword that can cut anything, and your shiny stolen armor isn't going to help you one bit!"
Grenada opened her mouth to counter, looking halfway terrified and enraged, and lit her horn... but an ovular shadow had already settled over the clouds above, perfectly shaped like the hull of the Immortal Dream. Valey grinned.
"Attention, everyone," Gerardo Guillaume's magically-amplified voice boomed, projecting down as the Immortal Dream's hull broke the clouds. "Please cease all hostilities at once! My talon has been forced to move, and this ship is now a peacekeeping force. Anyone who attacks anyone else is an enemy of ours until order can be restored!"
Grenada glared upward at the descending ship, its imposing hull cutting a slice out of the sky. "Stay out of Sosan affairs!" she cried, voice cracking as she bared her teeth. "You're not helping and you're not heroes!"
As her attention was distracted upward, Valey slipped the knife back out of a crook in her wing and sawed through another rope in the net. Some of Grenada's companions, though, had the presence of mind to keep watching the net, and one frowned down at her. "We really do have a boulder!" an earth pony atop the cliff warned. "And we will drop it! Don't test us!"
"So... Boss?" A mustached stallion raised an eyebrow at Grenada. "That's an airship. Probably the one we just signaled. Looks to me like they are trying to help."
Grenada looked ready to panic as the ship lowered further and Shinespark stuck her head over the railing, surveying the situation. She frowned in disapproval.
"Go away!" Grenada yelled, staring straight up at her estranged sister. "You have no right to be here!"
"And you do?" Shinespark called down. "What are you even doing here? This is over a week from the Empire!"
Grenada gave her a scathing look, fully clad in the alpha prototype Braen armor. "I am speaking with actions instead of words and trying to let Braen live on even though the real her is dead! After you left, I sailed north in search of a cause who needed a real hero instead of one who would stand there for weeks pretending there were no responsibilities and nothing to be done. I found these ponies shipwrecked and struggling to survive in a hostile and undeveloped world and became the leader they needed! Under Braen's symbol they have gone from struggling to find shelter and safety to the beginnings of civilization in mere weeks! We are winning the war for a place in this land! It is rich with trees and unexplored mountains that could be ripe with ore, and near the trading route between Varsidel and Wilderwind. We will establish a new Sosa in memory of the one that is gone... that you died with. Now leave us be."
The mustache stallion glanced hesitantly at her, then up at Shinespark on the ship. "Hey, you up there!" he called, cupping his forehooves around his muzzle. "I have a wife and two daughters back in Varsidel! We do everything we need to to survive in this place, and Braen here's a great leader, but none of us want to stay. Maybe you could make your peace by helping us get-"
"Do not undermine me!" Grenada hissed, shoving him with terrified eyes. "This is a threat, not an opportunity. Go get the trebuchet staff and tell them to scare that ship off or shoot it down!"
The stallion's eyes widened, and his mustache ruffled. "...No."
"Ahh, you all?" The earth pony mare who had warned Valey off cutting the net stomped a hoof for attention. "Maybe when we have nine sarosians trapped is the worst possible time to have a leadership dispute? Show a little solidarity and figure out who's the boss later, take care of the ponies trying to kill us now?"
"Yo! Sparky!" Valey bellowed upward, trying to reach Shinespark above the din. "Have they got a boulder up on that cliff? Too much chaos for me to tell if their threats are serious!"
Shinespark leaned outward, craning her neck to see and hear. "There are trees, but not that I can see!"
Valey grinned, and the mare watching her paled. "W-We do! We really do!"
Two more ropes were cut. Valey started to feel the net holding her weaken.
"Stay put!" Grenada threatened, stepping up to the cliff edge and looking on the verge of a breakdown. Her horn crackled menacingly, pulsing with an unstable light. "Or I will shoot! New Sosa cannot end like this!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey snapped another rope, feeling the net almost ready to give. "Look, lady, I'm sorry about how things have gone for you but right now your mental state looks worse than Herman's armpit! Now chill out and stop trying to be in control!"
"Grenada, stop!" Shinespark called down from the deck. "I'm sorry I was a bad sister and friend and not the perfect mare I let you think I was! But I can't make it up to you if you're threatening my friends!"
Grenada glanced up and down, deciding on a dime what to do with the bolt of bolt of energy building in her horn... and at the sound of another breaking rope, she fired down.
Valey felt the sticky ropes bite at her fur as she tore herself free, leaving a sizable hole behind. Her gaze instantly filled with violet light, and she set her teeth as the batponies clamored below her. With her cutie mark slowing time in protest, she threw herself in the way of the spell, knowing the situation would dissolve instantly if that hit any one of the locals...
FLASH!
A burst of sapphire teleportation sparked inches in front of her, and then Shinespark was there, horn crackling and frontal fur blackened and curled as she absorbed the brunt of the attack. She was thrown back into Valey, and Valey caught her, flipping gently enough to the ground that neither of them would be hurt by the landing. "Sparky!"
"Don't let this escalate further," Shinespark coughed, smoking. "And don't hurt anyone too badly..."
"Yeah, I'm on it." Valey glared upward, then launched herself off the stones.
Grenada's posse was smart enough to scatter back from the edge, but the leader herself stayed put. Leveling her steaming horn, she winced, trying to formulate another blast... and Valey exploded into her chest with a ferocious uppercut, carrying so much momentum that Grenada was knocked into the air, armor and everything.
"I'm all for second chances!" Valey yelled, flipping over her opponent and slamming both hind legs into Grenada's armored stomach, pumping her wings and carrying them higher. "And third, and fourth, and millionth! But that involves actually sitting down and trying to do better!"
Grenada wheezed as her arc came to its peak, Valey punching her backward into a tree before she could begin to fall again. "And you," Valey panted, hitting Grenada so that her back slammed against the bark and her limbs splayed against the sides, "are sticking your head in the ground and committing so hard to something that's not working that you're attacking your sister and ignoring your friends when they say they disagree with you! Do you know how bad Shinespark felt about how things went with you in Stormhoof? How much she wanted to hang out with you because you were alive? Do you!?"
She punched her against the tree again, and it shuddered, a branch snapping off and falling near the ponies below. All of Grenada's posse were watching with wide eyes, stuck in various states of 'we should do something' and 'there's nothing we can do'. "She's definitely not with the locals," the mustache stallion whispered to his friends. "You getting the sinking feeling we're on the wrong side?"
Suddenly, the forest rustled, and along a barely-cleared trail, new hoofsteps sounded. At least ten mares and stallions hurried along, eyes eager and not looking up or noticing Valey and Grenada in the trees. "There's an airship!" the leader eagerly gasped, beaming at the ponies who were already there. "Miss Harshwater said they're here to help us against the sarosians!"
None of Grenada's posse had words for them, and the eagerness slowly melted to befuddlement and then concern. "Help me..." Grenada wheezed, pinned high up against the tree.
"Oh bananas," Valey whispered under her breath as every gaze turned upward, the newcomers spotting her for the first time.
"Sarosians!" a new stallion gasped, his hat falling off in shock. "They've got the boss!"
Valey's eyes widened. "No! No no, this isn't what it looks-"
A chaotic screeching interrupted her as the batponies on the beach finished what she had started, breaking the net and launching themselves desperately up the cliff at the unaware crowd.
Valey's ears pressed flat against her skull as the tide of sarosians washed up over the cliff, breaking on the merchant ponies in an angry swarm. Neither side looked heavily armed, but it didn't matter. Each thought the other was ambushing... and both sides were correct. In less than a second, the entire clearing had devolved into a merciless brawl.
"Nnngh..." Grenada struggled against her pin, trying to get down from the tree. A stallion who wasn't preoccupied lashed out at the trunk with a mighty buck, yelling upwards as he attempted to free her, and Valey hissed as the trunk wobbled. "Let me go!" Grenada snarled.
"Bananas, no!" Valey dodged her flailing hind legs as she tried to unpin herself, Grenada's horn beginning to charge again for another shot. "You'll just find some way to escalate this further! Hey! You, merchants!" She looked down, getting the attention of all of one or two in the crowd. "Go back to your camp! Just scram! You're gonna get beaten up if you stay here!"
A fearful mare frowned, jaw slack, and picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could.
"Hey!" Valey yelped, twisting and letting the projectile impact Grenada's armor instead. "Knock it-"
Above the din of howls and meaty thwacks, her ears faintly made out Felicity's scream.
"Oh, fight your own battles!" Valey immediately dropped Grenada, throwing her at the forest floor and jetting towards the cliffside. The battle wasn't as chaotic as she had thought; the batponies were actually organized: they fought near each other with their backs to the cliff, focused on shoving or knocking as many enemies off as possible to split the opposing forces in two. But on the beach at the bottom was...
Valey dodged another flying rock as she flipped out over the edge. Near the wreckage of the net, Felicity stood panting over Shinespark's unconscious body, two paralyzed Varsidelians at her hooves and more standing to face her as the ponies pushed off the cliff recovered.
"Get away from that mare," a stallion growled, lunging at Felicity with a bull tackle. "Do you want us to leave this place or not? We're being rescued!"
"No, you!" Felicity cried, dancing aside with far more grace than Valey expected, hitting him with a careful combination of hooves and causing him to crash to the side, his entire body locking up.
"That's a sarosian ship, you dummy!" a mare berated the fallen stallion. "They led us into an ambush! Can't you see she's trying to protect that one!?"
"I recognize her," another pointed out. "Wasn't she some leader's kid in Ironridge?"
"Doesn't matter, this sarosian's alone! Take her!"
Felicity wasn't alone for long. Valey dropped on all fours between her and the Varsidelians, wings spread and teeth bared. "Stop fighting!" she yelled. "Can't you see we're different from the locals!? We're trying to help all of you!"
The mare who had spoken looked at her strangely. "Say that to the ones that pushed me off that cliff," she growled, rubbing a bruised shoulder. "Harshwater told us we were being rescued and then there was an ambush!"
"Yeah, 'cause you guys threw a net over everyone and made them panic!" Valey felt Felicity's calming effect wash over her, though with the amount of tension in the air, she wasn't sure how far it would go. "Leave the fight! Go home! Bananas, I could beat all of you all by myself even if both sides teamed up against me, so don't push it!" She glanced around frantically. "Come on, I'm Valey. Admiral Valey from Ironridge? You guys are traders, someone must have heard of me. You wanna find out firsthoof what I can do?"
The stallion who had recognized Shinespark earlier looked at her with widening eyes. "This might not be a bad time to surrender..."
Any way she was getting through to them, though, was rapidly undone every time a new pony slid down the cliff... and at this rate, Valey figured more than half of the Varsidelians had to be at the bottom. Why did the batponies have to be so coordinated? Better they were fighting her than the locals, at least. A new mare lunged at her, barely taking the time to roll to her hooves.
"Nope!" Valey sidestepped, caught her, and chucked her like a flour sack towards the gathering crowd, stomping a hind leg. "My friends!"
"Gerardo," Felicity panted into the sound stone behind her, "We really could use a way out of here..."
The Immortal Dream hovered overhead, and a stolen glance upward told Valey that Maple, Amber and Slipstream were all watching at the railing. Not smart... "Hey, Felicity," Valey said, catching her breath. "Sparky's out? How hard would it be for you to bail along this beach for a bit with her while I stop any of these goons from following? I can't-"
She was interrupted as another pony tried to attack, lashing out with an uppercut and sending them staggering backwards. "Can't carry both of you up there at once!"
Valey glanced up again, noticing that the flashes of Grenada's horn were conspicuously absent. She could feel her cutie mark's danger growing, and knew that at any second, the clifftop sarosians' tactics would change, and they would come down to finish the ones below. "Uhhh..."
A batpony tumbled down the cliff. It was the round leader, one of her wings hanging at an awkward angle and an eye swollen shut. She landed straight in the middle of the Varsidelians.
"Oh no. No, leave her alone," Valey warned, but the Varsidelians didn't listen.
"We've got one alone!" one yelled, raising a hoof to strike. "Take it out!"
Valey's wing snapped out, and she blasted forward. "Nope!" With an upward twist, she slipped between two ponies, kicking one harshly into the bay and knocking the other into a third. Whirling and landing on her hind legs, she slapped another's nose with a wing, causing them to recoil from the sting, and caught the first blow on her foreleg, booting the offending pony in the chest.
These ponies weren't warriors. They were travelers and civilians, hardened by a month or two in the wilderness, but they weren't even armed, and there was nothing they could do to block her assault. Ducking, she grabbed the round mare with a foreleg, earning a sharp cry of pain, and tried to retreat toward her friends... There was already another Varsidelian there.
Felicity took a blow to the neck, wincing sharply, but her hoof shot out to counter, and the offending pony dropped, spasming uncontrollably. "Yo!" Valley yelled, dragging the round mare toward them and glaring for nobody to follow over her shoulder. "Got someone who needs reassurance and a time-out." She made it the rest of the way, unaccosted save for a frantic, betrayed look from the mare she was carrying.
Gerardo was talking through the sound stone, she realized once she got closer. "...Said my sword wasn't an option, of course, but I'm not sure what else we can do!"
"Yeah, no, keep that stupid sword outta here," Valey warned, dropping the mare at Felicity's hooves. "You all!" She glared at the Varsidelians. "I hear one scream or cry for help from anyone down here, and every single one of you is getting used for target practice with the ocean! Go home, go home, go home!"
Mute nods met her. The Varsidelians seemed scared enough to comply. "Good," Valey told them, spreading her wings and returning to the top of the cliff.
Starlight hunkered in the dining hall of the Immortal Dream, sitting atop the reinforced glass floor and watching the battle unfold below. A lump gathered in her throat as she realized it was too broad for Valey to contain without simply defeating everyone: she had her back to her friends on the beach below, while the sarosians were trying to rally despite obvious injuries atop the cliff and blocking the path the remaining Varsidelians needed to flee. A need burned somewhere in her to climb up on the deck, lean over the railing, and pour everything she had into a massive crystal bolt, immobilizing the battlefield... but the fight was too spread out, she wasn't sure if she had it in her and her crystals hadn't proved effective at holding batponies every time she had used them before.
"Why the long face?" a voice asked beside her, and Starlight looked up to see Jamjars. "You have a plan, right?" The filly tilted her head. "Or are you just letting me do all the work again?"
"Letting you do all the work?" Starlight frowned. "I'm stronger than them, but not stronger than that many ponies all at once. What are either of us going to do, sneak in and stab them with Gerardo's sword? That kills batponies! And I don't see Grenada, which means there's probably even more reinforcements on their way. Maybe the best we could do is find a way to rescue Shinespark and Felicity, so at least our friends are safe, but I can't teleport other ponies! What do you think you can do? Are you saying you have a better plan?"
Jamjars bit her lip. "...Half of a plan." She looked briefly embarrassed. "I don't have a lot of time to work with, okay!?"
Starlight's ears perked. "Half a plan? Is it the kind that involves us getting in the way and becoming more liabilities the moment it fails? I can teleport down and back up, but with two teleports, I'm not sure how much else I can..."
"Not about your own magic," Jamjars interrupted, confidence quickly returning. "I think we could use moon glass."
Starlight felt her eyes widen, memories harkening back to the crate full of the stuff they had stolen from Kero's house long ago in Ironridge. She didn't remember or know if it was full or empty... "Moon glass!? We're trying not to completely kill off one side!"
"Oh, I didn't mean the glass itself. I meant what's inside it." Jamjars coughed, then levitated a tiny black chip out of her mane. "This piece in particular."
"What?" Starlight squinted at it. It was far smaller than most of the naturally-occurring moon glass she had seen, a little bigger than one of Valey's batpony fangs as opposed to the size of a hoof. "Where'd you get that? And how do you know what's inside? It looks different from all the others..."
"It's been cut," Jamjars said, floating it close. "Haven't I showed you this one before? I stole it from Chauncey."
Starlight frowned in confusion. "When did you steal anything from... Wait, that earpiece?"
"Yep." Jamjars smugly nodded. "The first time we were in Izvaldi. I'm certain I showed you. He stepped on it and walked away. This was inside. So I tinkered with it for a while, and it turns out he mostly just broke the case. There was some stuff inside, but I figured out how to put it back together."
"...What?" Starlight blinked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Jamjars gave a self-satisfied flick of her wig. "It probably runs in the family. Apparently Mom had an aptitude for these things too. Anyway, it plays music! That concert we went to, remember? Where Melia and Sirena were asking their fans not to fight?"
Starlight's ears slowly rose, though she still frowned. "Either you're making a leap of logic, or I'm not seeing how this is useful..."
Jamjars briefly looked hurt. "Hey! I'm their biggest fan and this is my treasure. Don't call it not useful, please and thank you." Her grin returned. "So, ask yourself: Ironridge has had audio recorders for a million years. What's the point of sticking moon glass in when it already works fine?"
"Errr..." Starlight's ears went back down.
"Come on, don't think I haven't overheard Valey complaining to everyone else about how these things work. I'm not that bad of an eavesdropper." Jamjars huffed. "Moon glass stores some kind of information that's only useful to batponies, because their bodies are like machines. And you." She raised an eyebrow at Starlight.
Starlight suddenly took a step away. "What are you implying?"
"No, no, listen!" Jamjars floated the obsidian back away, matching Starlight with a step closer. "Remember the concert? I didn't feel it, but everyone was saying Melia and Sirena singing sounds like the Night Mother to batponies. That their song is magical and batponies hear it with more than their ears. And then remember when we were getting attacked by pirates, and Melia and Sirena were here themselves? Melia said the ship's harmony extractor looks exactly like a thing Chauncey has as part of their sound system. Harmony magic, moon glass is obviously related..." She put on a pout. "You see what I'm saying, right?"
"...The moon glass records the song's harmonic magic?" Starlight tilted her head.
"Yes!" Jamjars grinned fiercely. "Probably. I think. It traps cutie marks, right? And those are supposed to be harmonic, according to all Shinespark's research notes in her library. So why couldn't it trap other kinds of harmonic magic as well?"
Starlight felt her breathing slow, finally seeing where Jamjars was going. "So you think that particular song, since it was about making up and not fighting, could distract the batponies or make them leave if they heard it?"
As Starlight's hope rose, Jamjars' quickly fell. "Yes... and that's about as far as I've planned. The earpiece sort of works. I can't feel the magic or tell if it's actually there. I remember when the pirates were here, Melia thought we could use the ship's harmony extractor somehow for them to sing and try to stop the pirates, and Shinespark made some changes to try to make it work, but they never got the chance to try it. And I have no idea how to connect the earpiece to the harmony extractor, anyway." Her eyes snapped to Starlight. "So, I've helped. Your turn! Any ideas to fill in the blanks?"
Starlight swallowed, dearly hoping that wasn't rhetorical. She did, in fact, have a way to fill in the blanks: touch the moon glass, turn gray, hope it would give her the song in a form her moon glass voice could use, then hook herself up to the harmony extractor and trust that something would happen. But she didn't want to turn gray, didn't trust that magic she didn't understand would magically work her way, and above all had promised Maple she would never use the harmony extractor ever again. It wasn't even in question; last time she had nearly died, if not all the way. And they didn't have a Tree of Harmony anywhere close to bring her back if history repeated itself. Granted, her horn wasn't so badly overused as to render her blind, this time around, but did she even want to know what would happen if she hooked herself up while gray?
"I'm... not sure I have anything. Sorry," she lied, averting her gaze.
"Really?" Jamjars gave her a frustrated look, then pointed down through the glass. "How about them? Do they look like they have anything to you? And what should I have? I had terrible parents and any time I try to help with a problem without doing it all by myself, it's always, 'Jamjars, you're just a kid! Jamjars, you're too young, you wouldn't understand!' Starlight, you really have nothing to offer?"
Starlight folded her ears. "We're almost the same age, and I didn't have good parents either. That has nothing to do with-"
"What it has to do with," Jamjars interrupted, "is that nobody has any better ideas! There's nothing anyone who's actually down there can do except fight and kill each other for stupid reasons, and that's not good enough! So if someone like me who has nothing and no one to rely on can get this far on her own, why can't a windigo-slayer like you come out with another miracle!?" She jabbed a hoof into Starlight's chest, looking legitimately upset. "Don't you 'I don't have anything' me, Starlight! You're not my rival because you sit around and tolerate things how they are when they aren't good enough!"
Starlight winced, feeling the lump in her throat grow. "No, I... Jamjars, I can't!"
"Can't what?" Jamjars grabbed Starlight's head in her telekinesis and turned it to look at the window floor. The battle on the clifftop was the fiercest, with several ponies unconscious or... No, they were definitely unconscious. Starlight squeezed her eyes shut. "Well!?"
"Give me that," Starlight demanded, pointing to the moon glass. "Go get Maple and all the windigo hearts and harmonic fire we have. I'll be in the engine room."
Jamjars nodded and set her jaw, a note of fear in her eyes now that she had an answer. The moon glass shard dropped into Starlight's waiting telekinesis, and Jamjars raced off, skidding around the landing at the top of the stairs and out of sight.
"This isn't going to work," Starlight whispered, holding the tiny shard before her. "It shouldn't. There's too much guessing about what will happen."
"Well, it has a pretty appealing alternative," a voice said behind her. Starlight's ears slicked back; she didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"You could do nothing. You were going to do nothing." Glimmer was there, and Starlight wasn't about to look at her. "You could trust in Valey and your friends to sort all this out for you. Valey is strong, isn't she? You know what she can do."
Starlight swallowed. "Nothing feels right to do. I don't want to... don't want to do nothing, but I can't do this to Maple, either. And I don't know what will happen! There's no way it can be safe!"
"So don't do anything," Glimmer murmured, tone softening as she paced around into Starlight's vision. "You have capable-"
With a loud boom, the entire ship shook, throwing both fillies off their hooves. Glimmer actually yelped in surprise as she hit the ground; Starlight managed to roll with Valey's training, but looked around wildly for the disturbance.
"Attention, everyone!" Gerardo Guillaume's panicked voice sounded over the intercom. "Someone appears to be firing a trebuchet at us! The ship has just been struck by a boulder!"
Starlight paled, pressing against the glass and staring at the scene below. "Also, there are at least ten sarosians descending from the clouds!" he urgently added. "Whoever's on deck, get back inside at once!"
The warning was very late. Less than two seconds later, Starlight saw the batponies descending on the cliff, all looking in various states of injury or incapacitation. Had the first seven been the best they had? Was this everyone left in their tribe capable of flight? It still would be enough to overwhelm the merchants at the top of the cliff, she realized... until the forest rang with activity, and another wave of Varsidelians arrived, these ones bearing crude weapons. Grenada was with them.
Starlight glanced up at Glimmer and swallowed. "Still think Valey can handle that before they kill each other?"
Glimmer's eyes shadowed. "I hate this part of the job," she whispered, so quiet Starlight could barely hear.
"What about you, huh!?" Starlight stomped a hoof. "I know you're not a hallucination, but you follow me everywhere you don't belong and have no explanations for anything! Why don't you help out!?"
Glimmer looked away. "...There are a lot of things I can't do. Anything that would change the course of your history, or its ultimate destination. No decisions, no making a splash. No fighting battles. The most I can do is talk to you and try to ease things on-"
The ship shook again from another boulder impact.
"Well, I'm not letting us get shot down, and Gerardo isn't flying away," Starlight decided, heading for the stairs. "Probably because our friends are down there. So whether you help or not, I'm going to try Jamjars' plan and see what happens. That's my decision. So if you want to make things easier for me, that's your decision. I don't have time for this."
"...Use the obsidian," Glimmer sighed.
Starlight gave her a look... and pressed her hoof against the shard.
The same horrible pulling sensation from every time previous instantly rose in her chest, like her body was simultaneously being drained and filled as it fought to merge with the cosmic substance. This time, the process felt somehow faster, a dark lake rising around her with no hope of floating. First, Starlight saw gray, hanging onto her memories of color as long as they would last, knowing she was about to forget... something. Nightmare Module emulation mode activated, that same cool voice said in her head.
Glimmer closed her eyes, frowning in frustration. There was a flash of teleportation, and they were both in the engine room, even though they had been standing hoofsteps away.
Starlight's transformation finished like crawling out of a mud pit and into the rain, feeling darkness wash over her body until she merely was. Lights glowed in her vision; Glimmer was bright and so was the windigo heart sitting fixed in an extractor helmet. The astral cloud overhead permeating the extractor's rails and feeding into the harmony comet glowed too, and Starlight almost collapsed, momentarily overwhelmed by a wave of desire for everything around her. But she fought it off, because she had a job to do. "Where's Maple? I'm not doing anything without her."
"Coming," Glimmer replied. "...If you're sure you have to do this... it's what I would do too. Here."
A series of tiny, flat arcane rings lit up around her horn, orbiting it with minute runes inscribed on their surfaces. Starlight blinked at the bizarre aura, feeling like she had seen Glimmer use a normal horn effect before... and then the Nightmare Module voice interrupted her, speaking coolly and calmly.
External access protocol accepted through Daydream communication socket. Eylista access level verified. Commencing system firmware update... Update complete.
Glimmer nodded, her horn growing dim. "That will help for this purpose and this purpose only. After you've done what you need to, I'm undoing everything I did, and not telling you what it-"
The engine room door rolled open, and before Starlight could even blink, Glimmer was gone.
"Starlight? Who are you talking...?" Maple stood in the doorway, holding Amber's briefcase of windigo hearts and looking panicked. "Starlight, you're gray!"
"I am," Starlight agreed, feeling the hearts' radiance from inside the case and spotting Jamjars lurking behind. "Maple, Jamjars and I have a plan to stop the fighting, but I have no idea how it will work or what will happen." Folding her ears, she added, "Just that it will. I think."
"Starlight...?" Maple frowned, worry mounting further in her voice... until the ship rocked again from another impact. "Waaah!"
"It's fine," Starlight urged. "Just let me..."
As Maple regained her footing, Starlight looked down and concentrated. Alright, Nightmare Module, what kinds of things had changed?
Daydream socket privilege level lowered. Pony-to-pony broadcasting system online. Twenty-one targets detected in range.
Starlight's breath caught in her throat. Pony-to-pony broadcasting? Did that mean some kind of telepathy? Aware that Maple was watching her with dawning realization, she reached out as if with telekinesis, trying to see if she could feel-
Don't misuse it! Glimmer's voice warned angrily in her mind.
Starlight swallowed. Did she have anything from the moon glass? Did she have the song? And could she somehow play it to everyone in range at once?
Scanning boot volume contents. One new file detected, the normal voice narrated. Daydream broadcast format identified. Broadcast to all targets?
Strongly aware of the feeling that Glimmer was watching her, gaining an uncomfortable feeling of disapproval, Starlight nodded, feeling frozen in time as Maple's reaction to seeing her here continued playing out. Then the world flickered in her senses, and she opened her eyes on a stage in Izvaldi, like her brain was split between multiple bodies and times at once. She was a filly, but also an adult, standing a head taller than she usually did, a unicorn and a mare in a spotlight before a wide-eyed audience. Starlight opened her mouth - which one, she couldn't tell - and began to sing.
Valey burst above the edge of the cliff, ready to see what she could do to break things up without losing control of the situation below. She quickly surveyed the situation; six sarosians remained against seven or eight Varsidelians, but two of the batponies were completely down, and one looked like she was fighting just to stay on her hooves. She set her teeth as the Varsidelians instantly saw her. This was going to be painful.
"Hey! Dudes who understand me!" She dropped into the fray, inserting herself between two struggling stallions with a twirl and forcing them apart. "That means you!" she added, glaring at as many Varsidelians as she could. "Stop. Fighting!"
"An elegant offer of surrender," another stallion grunted, targeting her with a shoulder shove. "As if you'd even think about sparing the likes of us!"
Valey popped him on the chin with the lightest of punches, spinning and decking a merchant who had caught a batpony in a frantic strangle, forcing them to roll away. "Might have something to do with you throwing a net at them!" she hissed, forced to stay moving by the sheer volume of misaimed attacks flying around. "Really should'a thought about learning to... speak their language or something! But I can't tell them to run, so you're gonna have to do it instead!"
She punctuated the last word by rolling underneath another stallion and flipping him prone... but before she could get a response, a batpony dove past her, trying to pounce on the downed enemy. "Nope! Nonono!" Valey caught them by the shoulders, glaring into their eyes with her best 'stop fighting' look. "You guys run too!"
The sarosian gave her a hurt, angry look, though some of the shock from earlier was wearing off. Valey noticed the batponies still weren't targeting her as much as the Varsidelians were, but if things didn't change, that would in a hurry... She frantically glanced around, looking for a better plan.
"Yeah, we're not leaving!" the stallion she had accosted earlier puffed, facing her for a moment until another batpony caught him off-guard. "That would mean leaving our injured to their... Oooomph!"
A nasty left hook hit his side, and Valey winced. Fortunately, there was an idea.
"Hey, bozos!" She leaped, flipping through the air and clearing the heads of most of the brawlers toward where the fallen Varsidelians lay. Three were down, plus a fourth who was obviously conscious but could barely move. "And you." She locked eyes with the wounded stallion. "What do you say I help some of you dudes a little closer to camp, and that makes all your buddies either chase me or trust me, huh? Come on, I need a retreat option-"
There was a loud crack overhead, and suddenly Felicity screamed again.
Baring her teeth in a helpless snarl, Valey vanished in a blink, leaving the downed ponies in place and flying fast for the beach. In less than a second, she cleared the cliff edge to see the fallen Varsidelians having actually backed off, staring upwards in surprise... and a chunky boulder where her friends had been resting.
"Bananas!" Valey dove for the rock. "Sparky! Felicity!"
Before she could even pull up, Felicity surfaced, gasping for breath as she was ejected from the rock's shadow. Shinespark and the round mare were each clutched under one wing, the former now barely conscious. Felicity stared at Valey with panicking eyes, too winded to speak.
"Where'd that thing come from?" Valey hissed, grabbing both of their shoulders, then looking back at the Varsidelians. All their eyes were fixed skyward, and if she focused, she could hear Gerardo's intercom above the battle, but not make out...
Her eyes widened too, a full ten sarosians dropping rapidly from the cloud layer. Some of their flights were unsteady, one even looked recently bloodied, but they had both numbers and surprise, swiftly falling on the beached Varsidelians in the blink of an eye. Two of them crashed, but most swooped past with flyby attacks, one dropping a small carried stone at an earth pony's head. Before the Varsidelians could so much as grab at them with telekinesis to react, the sarosians were up and over the cliff, earning panicked shouts as they joined the fight above.
"Knock that off, knock that off, knock that off!" Valey whirled forward on another rescue mission, trying to force the Varsidelians away from the sarosians stuck in their mist before any beatings could begin. Kicking raised hooves away, shoving ponies back with her shoulders, sides and rear, Valey avoided lethal or bone-breaking strikes, making it to the first downed batpony. Their eyes contracted in fear and confusion, and her cutie mark was too busy warning about everything to tell her if they would attack too.
"Back off! Back down the beach!" Valey spread her wings, pushing the Varsidelians instead. "Felicity!" she hollered over her shoulder. "I need these two immobilized, just in case! I've gotta get up there and save-"
New battle cries rang out from above, and her ears folded at the sound of sarosian screams.
"Darling, I'm... about to pass out myself..." Felicity staggered forward, looking sick.
Another sharp crack rang out from above, and Valey looked up in time to see a boulder strike the hull of the Immortal Dream. She didn't have time to gauge where it would fall; she dove at Felicity, catching her with both forehooves and propelling her back toward Shinespark. "Ngaahhhhh!"
Sparing a precious second to set her down gently, Valey zoomed to the top of the cliff, unable to spend any more time on the two fallen batponies and hoping they didn't get up or continue fighting. The scene at the top was even more desperate than it had been before: both sides held a large influx of ponies, but the Varsidelians had crude weapons, and most importantly Grenada.
A roughly-fashioned spear pierced a sarosian's ear, narrowly missing their eye and earning a shrill scream. Valey set her target and her eyes, blasting forward into a barrel roll that kicked two Varsidelians and a batpony apart, seizing their weapons and hurling them at the sea. Like a fuzzy, green-maned pinball, she ricocheted through the crowd, not caring how hard she kicked chests and faces for momentum as she stole every implement she could get her hooves on, disposing of them in similar fashion. But there were too many of them, and some of the sarosians had the same idea, stealing weapons for themselves.
"You!" Valey pounced on Grenada instead, her momentum tearing furrows beneath the mare's hooves in the ground. "Call this off and sound a retreat, right now!"
Grenada gave her an angry look. "And abandon the best chance we have had to win this land once and for all? You have my thanks for luring them into an easy ambush but we still will have nothing to do with you!"
Without even a grunt, Valey drove her hoof into Grenada's unarmored face, then flipped above and behind her and slammed her face-first into the dirt. Grenada's horn tried to light, and she put a hoof atop it, blocking the aura by pressing it into the ground. She struggled, but had no way to get her forelegs beneath her, and Valey looked up, spreading her wings and raising her voice as loud as it would go. "Hey! Lemon bags! Everybody scram right now or I'm gonna start making threats, and I have your boss! Count of three..."
She turned a few heads, but the message in everyone's eyes was the same: we kill the sarosians, or they kill us. Not one of Valey's racial kin looked ready to give in, despite limps, bruises, slashes and fresh scars on every one of them. There wasn't anything she could say, because none of these merchants wanted to die.
The sky shook again as another boulder impacted the Immortal Dream, earning more cries of warning from the beach. Fortunately, she didn't hear any sounds of combat... yet.
"Bananas, no..." Valey's ears pressed back, and by reflex she smashed Grenada's muzzle harder into the dirt. "Why would you do this? Why would you want to stay here? The locals can talk if you try; you could have made peace! There's gotta be a way they'll let you leave in peace! Bananas, why isn't there anything better I can do!? Fighting is what I'm meant for! Stop this! Someone, anyone, please!"
A magical pressure appeared in her chest, like a gentle force was asking to come in.
Valey recognized it instantly. The Firefly Sisters? A dusk statue? The Night Mother? But the former were in the Empire and the batponies had said there were no dusk statues here; that they lived in exile or separation from their goddess. Then how...?
The sarosians clearly felt it too, a wave of synchronized hesitation sweeping across their faces as one. Then every last one who could stand fell prostrate, ears pressed back in terror and shame as they abandoned the battle, not a single thought spared for their well-being.
"...That works." Valey got to her hooves, refusing the presence like she had every time she felt it before. "Bananas, if this is the Night Mother, she might actually have herself a convert. Alright, mooks!" She stared the Varsidelians down, keeping Grenada's head pinned against the earth with a single hind hoof. "They're sparing you! Get your wounded and go home! The first pony who harms a single hair on any of their heads gets to find out if I can launch them above the cloud layer with uppercuts alone! Savvy!?"
Murmuring swept across the Varsidelians. A few arguments risked breaking out, but no one was stupid enough to act on them, with the ponies who had actually been to Ironridge strongly reminding their companions who they were up against. "I'm not gonna let them fight you either," Valey insisted. "Your dumb leader here is getting tied up and deposed, but we're going to find a way to get you your boat and let you all go home. Whoever's suicidal enough to stay, now's your chance to try it!"
The Varsidelians looked at each other harder, until one of the group's few mares hung her head, muttered an apology under her breath, pulled an unconscious pony onto her back and slunk away.
Like a dam had been broken, the other Varsidelians started to warily leave, gathering their wounded and backing away with all eyes on Valey. Emboldened when the prone sarosians didn't get up or give chase, their retreat quickened, and suddenly Grenada was the only non-batpony on the clifftop.
There was a rush of feathers, and Gerardo Guillaume landed beside her. "What... What happened?" he asked, ogling the sarosians. "Did you succeed? How-?"
"I hoped you wouldn't be dumb enough to bring this down here," Valey sighed, grabbing the black sword from its sheathe at Gerardo's sides. "Hello, confusing melee with lots of batponies? Like me?" She held it in a wing, looking down at Grenada's struggling form. "I need to get down there as fast as possible, especially if that dumb trebuchet fires again. Help me get her armor off so I don't damage it. We're gonna immobilize her legs so she can't run, since the effects are sorta local, and then cap her horn, tie her up, haul her back to the ship, and... I dunno. This is going to be rough on Sparky."
Grenada grunted, pouring an enraged, desperate whine into the ground. Fear and lack of control radiated from her hard enough that Valey could almost feel a sting in her throat.
"Indeed." Gerardo quickly produced a ring and a roll of tape from a pocket on his uniform, grabbing Grenada's head and wrapping her horn. It fizzled with sparks as she tried to light it to no avail; without either air or encasement in a proper conductor, there was no way for a unicorn to activate their corona, and without the light around their horn, spellcasting was impossible.
"Sweet." Valey stepped back as Gerardo got to work on the armor, more than a match for Grenada without her magic. "Squawk if she sucker punches you, or something. I've got friends to see to."
On the beach below, the Varsidelians hadn't yet retreated, though they looked ready to. The two crashed sarosians were both immobilized near Felicity, and Valey guessed it was because they had tried something on Shinespark. Felicity herself was on her side, breathing shallowly, and all the merchants watched them with guarded fear.
"Yo." Valey dropped down slowly, furling her wings and hoping she looked disarming. "Battle's over. You dudes go home. Your boss is deposed, so if anyone sees Harshwater, tell her she's in charge. And if any of you feel like having a promotion, we're gonna get negotiating, and you'll need someone in charge."
A stallion at the front of the posse slowly nodded. "...We will spread the word. Please don't attack again."
Valey wanted to retort that they had started it, but that wouldn't help anything at all. Forcing herself to bow, she watched and waited for them to leave.
Eventually, the crunching of stones against hoofsteps vanished behind the sound of lapping water and a point where the cliff face curved out of sight, and Valey sighed, tension finally starting to drain. "Sparky? Felicity?" She stepped over to her friends, feeling emotionally exhausted and badly in need of a nap.
"Valey," Shinespark groaned, sounding better than her scorched chest fur indicated.
"Bananas, are you two alright?" Valey quickly decided Felicity looked worse, though the round mare she had saved wasn't in good shape either. "Felicity!"
"Q-Quiet, darling," Felicity breathed, badly overexerted and eyes thin. "I very badly need to rest."
"Yeah," Valey breathed, settling in beside her. "You do that."
Carefully, Valey lay down, knowing the stones were a terrible bed, and picked up Felicity's head, holding her ears flat against her head for quiet. Felicity closed her eyes in appreciation, and Shinespark gave Valey a quiet nod of approval. "Give me five minutes," she mouthed, "and I can fly us back up."
A short distance away, laying nearby on the stones, the three local sarosians lay, the round leader disabled by her injuries and the others looking locked up from Mistvale arts. Valey could see their eyes. All three were crying, and all three were humming in harmony a tune she remembered from a night long ago in Izvaldi.
"There we go," Valey whispered, stepping back from a bed on the Immortal Dream. Felicity was freshly tucked and still unconscious, though her breathing had stabilized considerably since she passed out on the beach and her state was approaching a restful sleep.
"What happened to her?" Shinespark murmured, standing shakily in the doorway as Valey turned to leave. "She doesn't look very injured..."
Valey exited, offering a shoulder which Shinespark gratefully took. "Apparently she's got some sort of long-term health issues," she said, careful to keep her voice down as she closed the door. "Something to do with getting poisoned in Izvaldi decades ago. I, uhh... got a much better idea of what she's like while we were down there. We'll have a lot to talk about later, but for now, probably best to leave her her privacy."
Shinespark nodded. "I won't tell anyone. So... what do we do with every other injured pony around?"
The ship had been lowered into the water for ease of reaching, and every sarosian who couldn't walk had been carefully carried on board by Shinespark and Gerardo. The recovered Braen armor stood unworn in the library, and everyone else was on the deck, the sarosians still humming their song as much as they were able. Valey and Shinespark exited the stairway, and both folded their ears at the ponies' condition. There was far more blood than was welcome for a battle mostly fought unarmed.
"What can we do?" Shinespark whispered. "Maple's in charge of our healing supplies, but I don't think we have this many."
"And the Varsidelians are gonna be busted up, too," Valey sighed. "Bananas. This is... I dunno what's happening, but it's too late."
"Are they singing?" Shinespark asked, tilting her head. "It's not affecting you, is it?"
Valey shook her head. "It is, but I'm tuning it out or something. It's a batpony thing. Feels like being near a dusk statue. But according to them, there aren't any dusk statues for a really long distance. They live here in exile, or something."
Shinespark grimaced. "And Felicity was our translator, wasn't she? Whatever this is, hopefully it keeps them pacified until she wakes up."
Valey swallowed and folded her ears. "Sparky... I really, really don't wanna hear what they have to say to us. Those dudes ambushed us while I was chatting with them and trying to make peace. They probably think I lured them into a trap. We were already, like... barely not fighting." She sighed. "I might just go sit with Felicity or something and check on how she's doing. Or go look for Maple and Starlight. If you wanna talk to them, the round one sort of understands if you speak simply, but... bananas. I feel awful about this. Good luck."
She left, not knowing which direction to wander except to avoid the bridge. That was where Gerardo had taken and tied Grenada, who... no one wanted to deal with. No one knew how to even begin to approach that, and if anyone did, it wasn't Valey. She wandered down the staircase one sore hoofstep at a time, knowing Amber and Slipstream were on the deck tending to the wounded batponies as best as they could. She needed... She needed... Voices, from the engine room.
"Buh?" Valey slid the door aside, peeking in. "Ironflanks? Wait, and... Starlight, are you gray?"
Starlight returned the look, sitting by Maple with Jamjars in a corner, her pupils vertical and slitted from the moon glass's effects. "I am," she said levelly, looking as if her attention wasn't quite in the present. "Valey, you're back. Is it over?"
"The fighting? It... meh..." Valey's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, for now. Both sides are pretty badly injured. We caught Grenada, who looked like the worst aggressor, but I think everyone still hates each other and probably both hate us, too. I just... I dunno what to do. I don't even know how it ended this well, period." She looked up emotionlessly at Starlight. "What are you doing like that, anyway?"
"Stopping the batponies from fighting," Starlight replied, closing her eyes. "You can feel it too, can't you?"
Valey's focus shot to the polite, inviting pressure in her chest that had appeared when the battle ended, and she realized Maple was humming under her breath too. "Wait a minute, that's you? You can do that?"
"It's working, then?" Starlight brightened. "This is me... I think. I don't know how it works. It's complicated." She hesitated. "Should I keep it going?"
"Uhh..." Valey's thoughts turned to the inured sarosians on the deck, who would either try to fight or stare at her with injured eyes the moment they came to their senses. This wasn't something she could avoid, but... "Yeah, keep it up. If you can? It's helping."
Maple got up, grabbed Valey, and hugged her. "You don't look so good," she murmured. "What's going on out there?"
Valey swallowed. "Thanks, Ironflanks. It's, uhh... Everyone is injured. Literally everyone. Whatever healing supplies you've got left from those mercenaries, we're gonna need them."
"Everyone?" Maple's ears folded. "As in, forty-plus ponies everyone? Because we have enough healing potion for maybe two or three..."
Valey felt the lump in her throat grow. "Well, better find out how much you can split it, who won't survive without it, and how much stuff we have for splints and bandages and slings. Because even if these guys are alive, I'm not sure either side is gonna be able enough to survive out here after this much damage. Maybe if they perfectly, perfectly got along..."
Maple felt slightly colder against her. "I should go. It sounds like they'll need me..."
She left, leaving only Valey, Starlight and Jamjars. The latter watched Valey without doing anything, and Starlight got up and sighed. "I should go up to help too."
"Uhh... you sure, kiddo?" Valey frowned, about to find some way to help as well. "Being moon glassed doesn't hurt that? You look kinda..."
Starlight shook her head. "I don't know how to explain it. I remember every time I've gotten back to normal, I felt like I had lost something while I was like this, but right now I do feel normal. I'm not evil or about to explode. And I can do things I normally can't while I'm like this. My horn doesn't work, but so what? Maybe I can talk to them and they'll understand me."
"They might also see you and freak out," Valey pointed out. "Remember how that Grandpapa guy reacted at the sight of you when you interrupted his fight with Shinespark?"
"Maybe?" Starlight shrugged. "I won't be using the shadow cloak."
"Look, I just... I dunno." Valey shook her head. "Maybe I'll go check out the Varsidel camp, or something. See where Harshwater is. At least there I can talk to dudes who will feel like I might be an enemy instead of might be a traitor. The way those batponies look at me is... eh..."
"I'll deal with it," Starlight promised, briefly leaning her head against Valey's shoulder on her way out. "I have magic and I don't understand it, but it's strong."
That sounded like a recipe for more bad ideas, Valey thought, but her cutie mark was thoroughly done with tingling after such a broad melee and all she wanted to do was go lie down. Which meant, of course, staying on her hooves and being productive. No giving up. She gave Starlight a nod of approval, sighed, and prepared to take wing.
The scene Starlight stepped outside to was exactly what she imagined the ship to have looked like when it was serving as a transport for wounded soldiers during the battle of Ironridge. Memories of low sounds of pain, chaos and darkness pressed in on her mind, but this time, she could see everything.
Seventeen batponies lay on the deck, some of their own accord and others because they were unconscious or too hurt to stand. She didn't even need to count them; she could feel them in the back of her head, where Melia and Sirena were singing over and over for peace. Heads turned as she stepped out of the door. They knew she was there, too.
"...Hi?" Starlight whispered, fixed by a forest of eyes and having no clue what else to do.
Some of the batponies looked away, and others started covering their eyes. Every last one that was conscious was humming, crying, or both.
Starlight walked down the length of the deck. Some of her friends were there as well, though they registered less in her vision than the batponies. Every one of these ponies was bright, far brighter than the tired, fearful guards in Stanza's dungeon in Gyre. She felt her heart shift; these weren't the kinds of ponies that bad things should happen to. Every one of them was important, and she wished they could stay. If she was near ponies like these more often, everything would be alright. They reminded her of her friends.
She passed close by one, and they shied away from her, but with the proximity Starlight could feel a burning desire to survive, a tiny candle somewhere inside them. She passed another and felt the same... but the one after that's brightness was flickering. Starlight stopped in concern, realizing they were fully unconscious with a spear hole in one wing.
Her ears fell, and she glided quickly to their side, her own hoofsteps not registering in their ears. Please don't give up, she urged, not feeling the need to speak to make her wish heard. She put a hoof on their coat and closed her eyes, not wanting to watch as their flame went out and their life slipped away. There was something she needed to do here, a directionless commandment and need for action, and nothing she could do to remember what it was.
Slowly, their brightness stabilized.
Night Mother? a voice asked, and she blinked in surprise, seeing the batpony barely conscious and regarding her with thin eyes.
"Night Mother? Me? I'm Starlight." Starlight frowned. "Are you...?" She stopped, realizing there was probably no way they could understand her.
It must be you, the batpony protested, struggling and succeeding to become more awake. You speak to hearts. Your song is in me. I hear it. Feebly, they hummed a few bars in tune with the melody in Starlight's mind. Don't look at me. We live in exile. We are not worthy. Please...
"Umm..." Starlight swallowed, suddenly a lot less sure about what Glimmer's change entailed. But her eyes narrowed. If this telepathy power could convince the batponies she was their leader... Had it just convinced someone whose light was going out not to die...? Then she was going to use it as much as she could to set things right. Questions could wait for later.
Valey slowly sighed, perched in the shadows on the edge of the Varsidel camp. While there were ponies here who hadn't participated in the fighting, they were in the gross minority, and the shelters were filled with the injured and resting. Still more sat around and commiserated, licking their wounds or doing anything to avoid inaction. It wasn't hard to guess how they felt.
"Is this the end for us?" one of the camp's few mares moaned, favoring her side and sitting awkwardly on a bench. "They took Grenada, and with this many injured, we'll need all our resources just to survive. Even if there are no more strikes, it could take months before we work on the ship again..."
A unicorn next to her shook his head, defeat in his eyes. "We all knew this might happen if that kid spoke for us when help actually came. Now we've gone and alienated them!"
"If they weren't working with the sarosians to begin with," a third bitterly pointed out.
The unicorn frowned, his lip torn and bleeding. "Doesn't matter. We would have treated them the same either way. Grenada didn't want nopony's help." He sighed heavily. "That was a decision all of us made. We got these shelters and this boat and everything else for it, and might have lived this long because of her, too! I guess now we get to decide if it's worth it.."
"There might have been things I would have done differently," the mare sighed, giving him a regretful look with lots of buried emotion. "If we knew we only had a few months. But... we're not dead yet." She shifted a little and winced, holding her side. "Maybe we got them good enough they'll leave us alone."
"Yeah. Maybe."
All three of them stewed, and after a few minutes a healthy unicorn walked by and refilled their drinks from a ladle of water, earning two thankful glances and a sigh.
Valey decided if she was ever going to make a move, she'd have to get started. "Hey," she called, low enough not to make a scene, still hiding in the edge of the forest.
"Who goes-? Aah!" The mare took too sharp a breath and winced, eyes watering. The unicorn to her side got up and frowned.
"Don't freak out," Valey urged, showing herself at a distance. "I'm friendly. Not with the locals!"
"It's you," the unicorn said, recognizing her quickly, watching for a second and sitting back down. "What do you want?"
Valey stepped forward, taking the lack of aggression as an extension of peace. "Well, what I did want was to get a truce going between you and the locals, since it's pretty obvious you don't speak the same language and there was some sort of misunderstanding. Now? Bananas, beats me. What do you want?"
"What do you think?" The third laughed bitterly. "To survive? To go home? And what have we got now?"
The mare just shook her head. "Anyone who knew what they were doing. We... If you're from that ship, you took Grenada. And our other leader, a pegasus, always wanted us to organize and attack or defend ourselves. Way to remember we're just a bunch of civilians, not soldiers..."
Valey looked away. "Every one of you who knew how to fight kicked the bucket on the pirate ship, huh? They were all on the front lines and stuff?"
"That's about it," the unicorn sighed. "Don't know who told you about that, or if we're just that famous wherever you're from. I even joined up with my crew in the first place because I couldn't stomach the war at home! Thought I'd get out and live in the sky or the more peaceful parts of the world."
"Didn't know Ironridge would go to war and then the Empire would rob us to go fight in it too," the mare chuckled weakly. "It's like the whole world's on fire. I never gave up on seeing my kids again, but... if it wasn't for the sarosians here, building a new life somewhere away from all that didn't sound so bad. Did either of you ever daydream about the best possible scenario?"
She was met with silence and ashamed looks.
"This stinks," Valey whispered, throat tight. "Hey, look... The dude in Ironridge who started a war there? Yakyakistan's ambassador. His name was Herman. Real jerk. He was my boss. We actually wrecked him, and the city's under new leadership and probably not at war any time soon. And then me and my friends all got to Stormhoof like, a day or two too slow to tell them what was up and stop them from sending off all your ships. And the stuff you had to deal with on that pirate ship is a little personal too. So... bananas, tell me what I can do."
By then, more ponies in the camp had noticed the conversation. Realizing that a batpony was there to talk and not fight, they approached slowly, an audience gradually building, though Harshwater was strangely absent. "I don't suppose you have a talented doctor?" a stallion in the crowd asked wryly, though he couldn't hide a bit of hope. "Or at least some medical supplies?"
Valey's ears fell. "Uhh... I'm pretty sure we don't, dude. Maybe a few supplies. The ship's supposed to be well-stocked. Whatever we do have, we're gonna use, though, trust me." She thought a little harder. "We do have a library with a bunch of science books, though. Probably some stuff about medicine in there, if any of you wanna learn."
A few faces perked at that, though most of the ponies continued to watch her without expression. "So why are you here?" another from the crowd asked.
Valey took a breath. "Complete coincidence. We were heading from the Empire to the grand temple to do some stuff. Saw your signal. Some batponies came and asked us pre-emptively to keep going and not come down. Said we'd stay or get involved and not want to leave. Guess they were right, huh?"
"Of course they did," someone muttered.
"Wait, you can understand them?" The first mare tilted her head.
"Yeah, sorta." Valey nodded. "They're not completely unable to speak. Speak non-batpony, that is. But you gotta be patient and work with them and make an effort to understand each other to get anything across. Of course, we have someone with us who speaks their language too, which helps."
A few ponies looked interested. "Did they say anything about why they keep us here? I always thought they'd want us gone, but then why try to attack the ship we're building to escape?"
"I dunno, dude." Valey shook her head. "We were trying to learn that when you guys threw a net over us and made all them go berserk. I think all the locals think we led them into your trap or something now. If they ever work with us again, especially for a reason other than all being half dead, it'll be a miracle."
Several more ponies averted their eyes in shame.
"Get this, okay?" Valey looked around, insistent. "They're not bad guys. We wanna help them. We want to help you, too. This whole thing is a nasty mess, and as ready to blow as it was, we were still the ones who blew it up. Will you work with us if it means forgetting about fighting, swallowing your pride and maybe trying to work with the locals as well?"
"Like we have any pride left to swallow," someone said bitterly.
Another pony cleared their throat. "You really think those savages will have anything to do with us? Even if you threaten us all into peace, what stops us from fighting again once you leave? I know a liar when I hear one, and that's not you. You're just an idealist."
Valey frowned. "Ideals are cool, thank you very much. They give you something worth living for. And yeah, I think if you guys really haven't properly communicated, especially if they were getting spooked by Grenada who did want to stay, actually understanding each other might, just maybe, be a solution. Like, they're almost dead. They're not gonna make it without help. You guys are pretty messed up too. And we might be able to airlift whoever's worst off to the Empire if they can hang on for a week, but if you could work together? Bananas, you guys could come back from this! You can still get home!"
Several in the crowd shook their heads, and some turned to leave.
"What... Hey, wait...!" Valey reached out a hoof, but didn't move.
"Glad to hear the world is nicer wherever you're from," a downcast stallion sighed. "But that's not the way things work around here. You haven't had to live in constant fear of those fiends for as long as we have. Put all that aside, work with them? You're nice, kid. Never grow up." He winced, and added, "Please don't. It's a much better world you've got yourself to live in."
Valey swallowed, feeling her chest hurt as the lump in her throat grew. "No, bananas, you don't get it. I know about... No, come on!"
More of the crowd drifted away, and some others gave her apologetic looks. "If you want to help," the first unicorn said, "those medicine books you talked about might save a life or two." He glanced at the mare with the injured side. "We certainly wouldn't mind those."
"Yeah, I'll... We'll get those," Valey sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. The Varsidelians being angry or chasing her away would have been one thing, but defeated rejection and disbelief just sat in her heart and stung. "...Hey, any of you know where Harshwater is? I kinda want to talk to her."
The remaining ponies glanced at each other, and most shrugged. A stallion frowned. "Don't know and don't care. She was always the one pushing us to fight for ourselves. She'd weakened them enough; we could take the sarosians with an organized assault, she said. Then she doesn't even show when we need her the most. Grenada's apparently out. I don't know how many are going to listen to her, either."
A mare who looked like she hadn't been fighting hesitated, giving Valey a look and disappearing behind a stack of de-branched logs.
"Well, that's cool." Valey looked away. "I... guess that's all I've got for you dudes. We'll be by soon with the best help we can offer. Good luck, and all that."
"Luck," someone snorted, and the remaining ponies ignored her or went about their ways.
Valey dove into the forest shadows, ears pressed back and trying not to cry. But there was too much frustration. If she couldn't prevent a war, couldn't finish it before there were too many injuries... It took Starlight to end it at all, and that in her book was tantamount to divine intervention. And everyone had made it through all that, yet the Varsidelians weren't even willing to try! For a brief moment, she hyperventilated in the shadows, muzzle barely above the ground, then steeled herself and drifted behind the log pile, looking for the mare who had watched her oddly.
The mare was still there, and gave a slight start when Valey appeared. "I-It's you," she said, looking overly nervous. "Are you Admiral Valey?"
Valey's ears went back down. "Yeah, that's what everyone here would call me. What's up?"
"Here..." The mare pulled out a piece of thin bark that was pinned inside her mane. "It's a message addressed to you. Sorry if it's primitive. We don't have any paper."
"Oh?" Valey took it in her wingtips, instantly skipping to the end. From Harshwater. "Cool, thanks. This is..." She began to read, gradually paling as she got further. "No, come on... Not cool. Not cool!" Her eyes urgently shot up to the mare. "When did you get this? How long ago?"
"It was a while," the mare admitted. "Shortly after Harshwater got back from her last fight. I was supposed to give it to you when you came here with help, but then Grenada gathered everyone and left, and I waited and didn't know what to do."
Valey paled further. "Yeah, uhh... Thanks. Good job, and all that. Listen, I gotta go."
Taking the bark in her teeth and not leaving time for a farewell, Valey spread her wings and bolted, flying for the Immortal Dream as fast as she could carry herself.
Starlight sat back from the batponies, surveying her work from the edge of the Immortal Dream. She had talked to all of them, and they had been in agreement: whatever she was doing was the role of the Night Mother. None had argued when she told them she wasn't. For several of the worst off, her experience with the first had repeated, their brightness growing faintly and stabilizing when she came to them. None were still unconscious, and none had died.
"Starlight?" Maple stepped over, looking slightly concerned. "Are you sure you don't want me to use the harmony in a windigo heart yet?" She glowed with absorbed energy on top of her usual brightness, and Starlight swallowed. "Everything seems to be going as well as it can... I don't think you have to keep doing whatever you're doing with this song."
Starlight bit her lip. In truth, she was starting to feel a little light-headed and dizzy, but wasn't yet confident things would be fine if she stopped. And it was probably due to tiredness and not the music; leaning into Melia and Sirena's song made her feel somehow better, too. Maybe that was why Chauncey had carried it in an earpiece. If he lived his whole life glassed, he probably had to do everything he could to get by. Normal batponies didn't have nearly as easy a time with this as her.
"Hello," a voice wheezed, and they both turned to see the round mare whom Valey had specified as the leader limping up. Her wing had been skillfully tied in a sling by Gerardo, and all things told, she looked better than a good third of her companions. "We can talk?"
"Oh! Hello." Maple nodded, extending a hoof in case she needed it. She cupped her ears forward, indicating she was listening.
The round mare pointed to everyone on deck, taking a moment to gather her words. "Flying." She pointed off into the clouds, toward a mountain slope along the bay's rim. "Not flying." She swept her hoof in a circle. "All sarosians. Not lots."
"There aren't any of you left," Starlight said, knowing the mare would magically understand. "Everyone who could fly was here, and got injured. You don't have any way to survive."
"No." The mare's ears fell, and she looked dejectedly at the ground. "Time is ended. Ending?" She tilted her head. "Ended. We die." She added a glance with eyes that seemed to say, This is your fault. To Starlight, she added, Fix this.
Starlight heard the intentions perfectly clear in her mind, swallowing. "But you're still alive. We want to help."
The mare kept watching her. We are outcasts, Night Mother. We separate ourselves from you as voluntary atonement for our heresies. If you have come to judge us, please call our punishment what it is. If we are undeserving of that, though, we understand. We will submit to our fates.
Starlight felt a mix of deception and self-hatred, and frowned. Maple glanced at her, aware she was somehow communicating, and Starlight swallowed and looked back at the batpony. "I'm not lying or trying to punish you! We really want to help! We just made a mistake or got into a fight that was already going to happen..."
...You, telling me you make mistakes. The round mare's resolve weakened slightly, and she briefly stumbled. "Why?"
"Because..." Starlight folded her ears. "I told you, I'm not the Night Mother. I'm just a filly!" There wasn't true distrust in the mare's heart, she could see now that she focused entirely on her. But she didn't believe or understand her, and for some reason that disbelief stung far more than it should have. Why wouldn't this pony accept her?
Then you don't know this place's secret, the round mare said. You wouldn't be bothered at all if we were gone and the Varsidelians lived here. They would expand and build a city and discover everything there is to discover. They even already know.
"What?" Starlight tilted her head. "I just told you I don't want you to die off. And I thought you lived here voluntarily. Why would the Night Mother care?"
The round mare grew a lot more fearful. You're lying. You're testing our devotion. That's not fair! Don't you know we're already here because we weren't devoted? Or is this our punishment? To submit us to a test both of us know we can't pass, even though we want to? Night Mother, we've failed you twice. You are just, and know we don't deserve mercy.
Starlight frowned harder. This mare's rejection and disbelief was starting to physically hurt, like a spike in her chest that dug deeper with every word. Wasn't she more hardened than this? The mare was a stranger! Why did she care? Just because this pony was bright, and she wanted that light to be her own? She narrowed her eyes. What did she need someone like this for, anyway? She'd show her. She'd...
With breakneck emotional whiplash, Starlight caught herself, throwing herself back before she could lift a hoof and demand that her powers do something. What she was going to do was not give up, no matter how stubborn this stupid pony could be or how much it hurt, because that brightness was good and she had to get it the good way. Fixing Maple and her friends and all the care they had ever showed in Riverfall at the forefront of her mind, Starlight set her jaw, raised her hoof again, and stepped forward.
"Sounds like your Night Mother isn't as merciful as I am," Starlight tearfully growled, taking the mare's chest in a filly-sized hug and wishing as hard as she could that her feelings would propagate across their connection. This mare could spurn her all she liked, but Starlight wasn't giving up on her, because as messed-up as she was, she was also very bright. "Maybe you should forget about her and go with me instead!"
"Starlight, are you alright...?" Maple asked, watching her face in concern.
Starlight wasn't focused on her. Her lightheadedness wasn't helping, but this finally got the response she was looking for. ...You do care, the round mare said. I don't understand. So you truly don't know about this place, yet want to help us?
"Heresies are dumb," Starlight grumbled, stepping back. "If there's anything I need to know about what's going on, please tell me?"
For a moment, the round mare looked conflicted again, but Starlight could tell the conflict wasn't directed at her. I'm sorry, Night Mother. But I need help, and you aren't here... One last wave of guilt and self-loathing accompanied the admission, and Starlight shuddered slightly at their touch. The round mare looked her squarely in the eyes. In this bay, there is a hidden cave on a cliff shore, reachable only by flight or by boat. The Varsidelians must be-
Whud! Valey landed heavily on the deck, breathing hard around a piece of bark in her mouth. She spat it into a wing, took two breaths, and licked her lips. "Guys, we've got trouble. It's really bad."
To Admiral Valey,
Hey. Harshwater here. Thanks again so much for coming to help us. I literally owe you my life, like, twice now. I'm going to stay out of the way from whatever you do, because the batponies definitely hate me and it'll just make things worse if I'm there, but I know whatever you plan will work out great.
Valey, listen. I... have something to confess about why I'm here and why I left Ironridge. I really, really had a big crush on Kero. You remember, right? Me hoarding all those paintings? Well, Arambai finally got a ship together for Varsidel, and I maybe kind of ran away to see him again...?
I know we weren't supposed to! I know we had it good in Ironridge, but I wasn't okay with what happened in the Flame District and hated having to think of Kero as someone who sacrificed us and ran away. I don't want to be a sacrifice. I wanted to hear it from him.
Eventually, I made it to Izvaldi, told him how I felt and asked for an explanation. And Kero said he was blackmailed into the Flame District job on you, apologized... He said he liked me too, and if I could do one more job for him to get him out of hot water, he'd break the Empire's taboo and run away with me to Varsidel and we could live happily ever after. He promised.
Kero has a lot of debt. Way more than I realized, and it's why he's in trouble. But he gave me the location of a huge ancient pirate treasure trove in Mistvale and asked me to go get it. It could more than pay off his debts. He told me it would be perfectly safe, and he lied. Again. I was going to die here in the middle of nowhere, again. It's in a cave near here by the water, and like the entire batpony village attacks me when I try to fly anywhere near.
I'm so tired of this. I hate Kero. I'm done with him and am going with you and your friends instead, if you'll have me.
Since all the batponies will be busy dealing with you and the camp and I have nothing better to do, I'm going to grab the treasure while you do your thing. You can call it a thank-you gift. Wait up if I'm not back when you're done.
-Harshwater
"...Look at this," Valey said, holding out the note. "Bananas. Bananas bananas bananas Kero wasn't lying when he said his mercenaries came back and he gave them another job from Chauncey!" Her eyes flicked in a panic from Maple to Starlight to the round mare. "Pirate treasure, my fluffy butt." She flung a hoof and a glare at the round mare. "You guys were guarding something all the time, weren't you? That's why you go after fliers and any attempt to build a boat that could reach this place by water? This was a place for ponies exiled from the Night Mother..." She huffed, gritting her teeth. "Bananas, I can't believe I didn't take Kero seriously. This is where you guys keep Monk Lord Yanavan, isn't it? And she's walking right into him..."
At that name, the round mare paled, cringed, and slowly, slowly nodded.
"Spooky cave. Evil monk dude. Where?" Valey rounded on the sarosian leader, staring her intensely in the eye.
The mare cringed back, eyes flicking between Starlight and Valey. "Why?"
"Why do we want to know?" Valey straightened up. "So we can follow Harshwater and drag her back before she gets into trouble. She's got no clue what's down there."
"She wants to help," Starlight clarified, pointing at Valey and knowing the round mare could understand her. "We're going to get the pegasus and bring her out. But we need to know where the cave is!"
The leader's ears pressed back, and she looked for an avenue of escape, but Starlight knew there wasn't one. "You don't have much of a choice, do you? It's not like you can go yourselves. Unless you think nothing bad will happen if anyone goes in that cave? We've heard stories about Yanavan."
She made things worse by trying to help, the round mare thought to Starlight, glancing at Valey. You'll do it again.
"I know that look," Starlight said, not wanting to spend time explaining to Valey how she could hear their thoughts. "That fight started because you and the Varsidelians were going to fight anyway. We want to help, and can do it better the more you tell us! Besides, you were just about to tell me about this cave when Valey showed up. It'll be okay."
Valey watched expectantly as the mare's resistance deteriorated. With a sigh, she limped to a railing, pointed precisely, and said, "Water cave."
"Cool." Valey nodded, fixing the direction in mind. "Who's up for a flight?"
Everyone sans Jamjars and Felicity were on the deck, all attracted by the commotion. Slipstream uncertainly flexed her wings. "I'm not sure how much use I'll be fighting ancient evil," she answered, blushing.
The round mare's ears rose in alarm. "No fighting!"
"Don't fight Yanavan. We'll have a bad time. Got it." Valey nodded, stretching her own wings. "Come on, who's with me?"
"Count me in," Gerardo declared. "I should be able to carry about one adult with ease, should the need arise."
"You might have to count me out," Shinespark apologized, eyes downcast. "I was just unconscious, and it would be bad if my horn gave out over the water."
"Well, I should be there," Maple decided, her eyes flashing with freshly-charged harmonic energy. "This works against Nightmare Modules, and I'm the one with a cutie mark that lets me use it. Gerardo? Can I get a ride?"
Gerardo bowed. "Indeed!"
"You three, then?" Amber tilted her head. "What about Starlight?"
"Yeah, uhh..." Valey glanced at Starlight. "Something tells me bringing you is either gonna be really good or really bad, due to the whole Nightmare Module thing. I can carry you if you wanna come, but..."
Starlight winced in realization. Having someone who could use Nightmare Modules against someone else who could do the same was a good way for them to be on even ground, and her new telepathy ability might prove critical... but it could be a weakness for her just as easily as it could for Yanavan. Of course, that was assuming they even encountered each other instead of finding Harshwater and bringing her back without trouble, but what were the odds of something going well for once? Even worse, the legend she remembered said he betrayed the other Monk Lords very suddenly. If there was something else involved and that wasn't of his own volition, could she be vulnerable too...?
But Maple would be there, and the harmonic flame. That could undo anything. If Yanavan was bad, it could stop him; if she needed to not be glassed, it had restored her before already. And there were all the ways in which she could help... She nodded. "I'm coming."
"Your, uh... Your call, kiddo," Valey said, slowly nodding, then glancing at Maple. Maple sighed, then smiled. "The four of us, then? Starlight with me, Birdo carrying Ironflanks?"
"No sarosians," the round mare interrupted, looking at Valey with concern. "No sarosians in water cave."
"Buh?" Valey tilted her head.
The mare touched her cutie mark. "Danger. Black rock."
Valey's eyes widened a little, then she nodded. "There's moon glass in the cave? Gotcha. I'll be very careful."
The leader looked worried, but stepped back and sighed.
"Alright! Sparky, hold down the ship and be cool to these dudes, and try to avoid messing with the Varsidelians until we get back!" Valey threw Shinespark a salute, hefting Starlight onto her back. "Take care of yourselves, take care of Felicity if she needs it, all that stuff. Birdo? This might actually be a good time for that creepy cursed sword of yours."
Gerardo patted his sheathe with satisfaction, Maple already on his back. "Good luck to all of us indeed. Haha! My blood is already pumping!"
"It's my ship, you know," Shinespark said with a wry grin at Valey. "And thanks. You come back too, alright? Not that we haven't fought legendary creatures before, but remember all you have to do is get Harshwater and leave. Don't wake anything up if you don't have to."
The round mare watched with a worried frown as Valey and Gerardo took wing, the four sailing off over the bay.
The ring of mountains encircling the bay was wider than Valey had estimated, even though their flight only had to go a quarter of the way around. Here, there were no beaches, the steep mountain slopes descending into the water at angles that would require pitons to find steady purchase. Layers and folds of the mountains wrapped down into the sea, making it hard to tell where the true shoreline lay, and they didn't even have to look closely to tell how a cave could be hidden here. In fact, Valey would have been surprised if there was only one.
"Split up!" she yelled to Gerardo as they drew close. Undisturbed by wind, the waters were calm, lapping against the rocks and creating no noise to hinder communication. "This is the right place, now we've gotta find the entrance!"
At a salute from the griffon, she started exploring the broken coastline, following sunken inlets as far as they would go. Most were dead ends, and a few lead to tiny stretches of stony shores that offered no escape to any castaway misfortunate enough to be stuck there. As she searched, she couldn't shake the feeling that the cloud cover had lowered.
"I believe I found... No, false alarm!" Gerardo called from near enough to be heard.
"Keep looking!" Valey shouted back. "Harshwater! Yo, Harshwaterrrr! Bananas, where are you!?"
Starlight clung to her back, feeling almost weightless. After Felicity's bulk, Valey was grateful to have a passenger smaller than a normal pony; Starlight was light enough she didn't even need to give her thought. She flipped over outcroppings, scanning the broken coastline, looking over and over for any sign of...
"Aha! This time I've definitely found something! Miss Valey, over this way!"
Valey was at Gerardo's side in seconds. "Hey, Birdo. What's... Oh, huh."
Narrow and winding enough to be a river, a small strip of water made its way between two of the mountain's roots. The rocky folds closed on each other like they did everywhere else, but here, they met only at the top, leaving a small triangle of darkness open above the water. The tunnel was just wide enough for a griffon wingspan, and made Valey glad she wasn't claustrophobic.
"Well?" Gerardo hovered at a safe distance. "On the one talon, this looks sufficiently foreboding. On the other, it's making me realize we forgot to bring a light."
"Got you covered, Birdo." Valey dug around in her saddlebags, pulling out her Varsidelian flash club and switching it to steadily on.
In the ensuing light, more of the tunnel became visible, bending out of sight instead of reaching an obvious end. Valey squinted, starting to wonder if she saw symbols carved into the walls.
Gerardo quietly cleared his throat. "Not to deny the primary principles of chivalry, but danger-detectors first?"
"Nyaah. Chivalry." Valey stuck out her tongue and flew carefully inside.
The tunnel walls couldn't decide whether to grow narrower or wider, but the further Valey pressed, the more obvious the glyphs on the walls became. "I dunno whether to be frustrated or glad I can't read those," she breathed to Starlight, slipping under a low-hanging spur of rock. "Probably either curses or warnings."
"At least there's no pipes," Starlight muttered back. "Why are all the evil places in the east underground? When you went downward in Ironridge, you found the crystal palace and the Tree of Harmony."
Valey shrugged. "Beats me."
Behind them, Gerardo flapped silently, occasionally hitting the water with the tips of his feathers. "How imperative is it we remain silent?" he breathed. "I'd imagine if anything's here to be aware of us, it already knows about Harshwater?"
"Nyeh. Good point?" Valey rounded another corner.
Finally, the tunnel widened out, a spherical cave the size of a comfortable bedroom greeting them at the end. The water ended at a low platform, two carved staircases descending into it on either side. Two braziers on stands were lit with illusory, smokeless flame, and a small altar shaped like a bowing pony was placed facing the entrance, a large stalactite hanging over its head. A stone door sat at the back.
Valey alighted on the platform, steering clear of the braziers and the altar. "...Well?"
"Something is definitely here," Starlight murmured, hopping down from her back. She surveyed the altar, the door, everything... but no matter what she did, she couldn't shake the feeling she was being watched.
Maple dismounted too, tilting her head at the altar. "Is that a dusk statue?"
"I don't believe it is," Gerardo said, regarding the pony statue. "Dusk statues always depict alicorns, and this is a sarosian. Far smaller, too, and I see no jewelry or regalia present on it. Likely purely symbolic, instead of actually magical."
"Well?" Valey shrugged. "Anyone see anything to do but go on ahead? For that matter, how do we open this door?"
Starlight walked up to the entry and inspected it. The door was perfectly rectangular, a faultless stone slab without hinges or a handle, and even the frame was just as meticulously made. Whatever the rock type was, it left a smooth and unblemished face, and she had no clue how to open it. "Maybe it's sealed? If Harshwater was here, I don't know how she could have-"
Suddenly, the door flew open, retracting into the ceiling. Starlight was grabbed in a telekinetic aura and yanked through, and before she could so much as yelp, the door slammed closed again, separating her from her friends with a boom.
"Waah!" Starlight yelped and flailed as a strong telekinetic aura hauled her through the door... and immediately set her down again as it slammed closed behind her, leaving her face to face with her reflection.
Glimmer raised an eyebrow.
Starlight ignored her completely, turning and banging on the door. "Hey! Open-"
"Shh." Glimmer's aura pinched her muzzle shut. She looked cross. "You know I only appear when you're alone. What's the big idea, running off here before looking for me? Do you remember anything I told you last time?"
Starlight blinked, unable to speak.
Glimmer sighed, lighting her horn with the same arcane rings instead of a normal aura Starlight had seen last time. External access protocol accepted through Daydream communication socket. Eylista access level verified. System firmware rollback initiated...
A brief field of static obscured Starlight's vision, not helping with her headache, and then it cleared. Rollback complete, her Nightmare Module voice told her.
"...There," Glimmer said, her horn growing dim. "Broadcasting like that wasn't an ability I loaned you to go running around with. Now, next time I do something like that to make your life easier, a good way to thank me would be to listen if I say it's not permanent and spend some time on your own so I can find you and undo it." Her eyes drifted to the door. "Otherwise I have to do this, and that's going to make questions that will annoy you and have no answers."
Starlight frowned. "What?"
"Never mind." Glimmer shook her head. "Next time I'll just... Never mind. Don't you and your friends have a pegasus to chase who doesn't know she's in the prison of an evil monk?"
"No, wait a minute!" Starlight's ears went back, staring at Glimmer before she could disappear. "You gave me the ability to talk to the batponies and play them the sisters' song, right? Why would you give that if you were just going to take it away? You make no sense!"
"Because it didn't change anything." Glimmer briefly turned downcast. "If I hadn't, you would have figured something out with the harmony extractor. And you could talk to the sarosians just fine without this power. It just would have taken longer. All I did was save you the heartache of having Maple walk in and see you hooked up to that thing. And believe me, that would have hurt."
Starlight winced, not wanting to imagine it.
"Here, though?" Glimmer pointed around the room. They were at the head of a steep staircase, the bottom lost in shadows. "It will make a difference, so this is where I draw the line. Even if it means making your friends ask questions."
"So..." Starlight swallowed. "If I had hooked myself up, I wouldn't have vanished like last time? Or fallen unconscious, or started to disappear?"
Glimmer shrugged. "How does your head feel now?"
"A little dizzy," Starlight admitted. "Not perfect. But I didn't touch the machine and haven't been using my horn, so I thought that was just..."
"My advice?" Glimmer backed away, keeping her eyes fixed on Starlight. "Don't let anyone weigh you until you've used the harmonic flame to get back to normal."
Then she was gone.
Before Starlight could even try to get her bearings, there was a smooth rolling of stone against stone, and the polished door slid open. "Starlight!" Her friends' panicked voices immediately reached her, Maple and Valey pushing to be the first through with Gerardo bringing up the rear.
"Maple! Valey!" Starlight ran to embrace them, immensely relieved by their presence.
"Yo, what happened?" Valey let Maple do the hugging, surveying Starlight with a concerned frown. "Something definitely grabbed you with telekinesis. Unless you can lift yourself like Shinespark, that means there's another unicorn in here?"
"It's..." Starlight swallowed, realizing she really did have no way to explain this. What did she tell her friends, that she had a mysterious double who definitely wasn't a hallucination? That wouldn't concern them at all. "I really don't know."
Valey lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah, well what happened? We were yelling and banging on the door for at least three minutes."
"You mean you couldn't hear me?" Starlight settled for a misleading truth, the necessity of it sitting like spoiled milk in her stomach.
"There was, ah... slightly too much panic for us to listen well?" Gerardo's headcrest drooped. "But I'm afraid not. You look relatively unaccosted, unless this is some nightmarish trick, and..."
Maple folded her ears and pulled back. "Gerardo, are you saying we should be concerned Starlight isn't really Starlight?"
Gerardo uneasily shrugged. "Much as I hate sowing the seeds of discord, it's important to consider that we do know of life-forms capable of changing shape. If young Jamjars' accounts are accurate, we've even seen one do it under the Night Mother's control at will. And it does seem very odd that Starlight would be so quickly accosted, yet come out of it perfectly fine. You do have a story to tell, yes?"
Starlight winced, brain in overdrive and still coming up with no ways to explain what had happened. Suddenly, her friends' brightness seemed that much further away. "I don't want to talk about it..."
The griffon frowned harder, but Maple instantly stepped between them. "Gerardo, Starlight is a filly and if something happened to her she's not comfortable talking about, it's not going to help to pry and doesn't mean she's not Starlight! If I was her, I'd have enough to be uncomfortable about on my shoulders already, like everything to do with these Nightmare Modules."
"For what it's worth, I'm not getting any more, uhh..." Valey glanced at Starlight. "Any more danger than I usually do from her when she's gray. Not that that isn't a considerable amount, but still. Cool your feathers, Birdo."
Gerardo sighed. "My apologies. I merely thought it prudent to be wary. Now, what have we ahead?"
After a short landing, stairs sloped down. The very entrance of the cave seemed to be natural, cut off from the previous room by a constructed wall, and their platform stood over the cave floor with enough room Starlight could probably hide beneath it. But when the stairs met the wall, they kept going, burrowing downward in a tunnel that was very deliberately carved. Ornamental pillars and even railings adorned the sides, making Starlight wonder how much time and effort someone had committed to build this.
"Well?" Valey pulsed her flash club down the incline. "Let's get after that pegasus."
Following Glimmer's suggestion, Starlight declined to ride on Maple, taking up a position at the middle of the formation as they descended into shadow. Her head was light and her mother's brightness appealing, but if there was something about her weight that would cause her friends concern...
Nobody spoke as they trekked down the incline, but again, Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her.
Starlight's hooves hurt from walking by the time the stairs finally ended. It wasn't abrupt; they curved to a broad, gentle stop, like the base of a grand staircase in a palace. A dark brick wall with an identical stone door loomed before her, boggling her with how a place like this could be built in thirty years, let alone financed. Her only conclusion was that this cave had to exist before it was used to seal Yanavan.
"Bananas, that staircase was long," Valey grumbled, stretching as she reached the base. "I'm going to the creepy door first this time, okay?"
Starlight didn't object. She was too busy looking longingly at Maple's back, having already received several invitations to ride. But Glimmer's words stayed in her ears from before not to let her friends weigh her, and she was starting to put two and two together on why: nothing would have changed if she had used the harmony extractor save for giving Maple a fright, she was told, and now she was lightheaded, slightly dizzy and fairly certain she wasn't at her usual weight... Had something she did started her along the same disappearing effect even though she never touched the machine?
She could be half dead and her friends wouldn't even know.
A wave of bitter loneliness washed across her heart, but Maple and Gerardo were too busy watching the door to see her squeeze her eyes shut and hold back tears.
With a smooth rumble of rock, the door slid open, no traps or telekinetic fields activating as Valey scanned it and warily stepped through. Again, Starlight followed, weariness mounting in her legs as her hooves met harsh, hard stone. Why did the floor hurt? If she was really lighter, her steps should have been easy, but it felt like the cut stone was rejecting her, punishing her darkened hooves for touching its form. It took everything Starlight had to keep her eyes off Maple, and even then, her mother's harmonic brightness burned in her vision. But she couldn't have that. Not right now. Why? Didn't remember. Why not use the flame and get back to normal? Something about Yanavan using Nightmare Modules too. The specifics weren't important. She helped her friends and they loved her. Even Gerardo, who had just been suspicious that she wasn't herself, and everyone else who... something...
"Hold up, everyone," Valey declared, and Starlight looked up to see the batpony with a spread wing. "This doesn't look good."
They were in a rectangular room longer than it was wide, with effigies of arches and pillars built into the wall to give the room the illusion of more sophistication than it had. But it felt like a box or even a coffin, dark bricks forming the walls and ceiling in neat, orderly rows. Murals had been painted on them to give the illusion of mirrors, but the room they reflected was full, two lines of pews stretching down to an altar at the far end. In the real room, the altar and its pulpit were missing, nothing but a glossy black door set into the wall in their place.
The murals had ponies, too. Line after line of blurry equine forms seemed prostrate before the altar, though nothing or no one was at the head and Starlight couldn't make out any of the ponies' details. The floor was a mosaic of small tiles, the ceiling flat, rough-cut rock... What was Valey stopping for?
"Don't touch the floor," Valey muttered, frowning downwards. "I think... a tiny hoofful of these tiles are moon glass."
Maple bit her lip. "They all look the same to me. But you're right, they do sort of look like moon glass..."
"A trapped obsidian floorway? Devilish and ingenious," Gerardo remarked. "You'll be flying from here on out, I take it?"
"Yeah, uhh..." Valey tapped the doorframe uncertainly. "You guys know how dangerous this is to me, right? The absolute unbreakable rule of being a batpony is that you never, ever mess with this stuff. And if it's in the floor, one accidental landing and I'd be..." She swallowed. "It's built into this place, too. You wouldn't even be able to dig me out and take me with you. This is a kind of a huge risk, you know what I'm saying?"
Starlight didn't need telepathy to read the fear in Valey's eyes. One mistake in this room meant a fate worse than death, and who was to say there wasn't more moon glass through the next door? Her heart clenched; Valey was the one who had known for sure she was alright when Gerardo worried she had been replaced. Valey trusted her. Valey cared. Valey wouldn't leave her alone.
"Nnngh..." What would hurt more, to leave Valey behind when she needed her now, or to risk losing her forever? Starlight grunted and clung to Valey's chest, not wanting to decide. But it was her decision. She had to-
"Heh. Sorry, kiddo. Sorry, everyone." Valey nodded at Maple and Gerardo, ruffling Starlight's mane with a wing. "But I see what the locals meant about no batponies, and this is as far as I go." She continued before anyone else could interrupt. "Doesn't mean any of you have to keep going either. But this is my decision, I figured we'd run into this since we were warned, and already had time to think it over. You'd try and talk me out of it if I wanted to go, too, wouldn't you?"
Starlight blinked.
Maple weakly chuckled. "Really? I thought for sure I'd have to tell you to stay safe. You could try to fly along and avoid touching anything, you know."
"Yeah, but then I'm one bad situation away from kicking the bucket," Valey sighed. "And if it were anything but moon glass, anything where the danger applied to you as well, I would in a heartbeat. But this just doesn't seem like the place to have a big long argument about who risks themselves and who stays safe, you know?"
"...Do take care of yourself this way, as well," Gerardo urged, looking reticent. "Please remember that being on one's own in this place might produce unusual effects."
Valey winced. "Yeah, uhh... bananas. Coming down here seems like a worse and worse idea the more I think about it. Like, hey, maybe we should have just trusted Harshwater not to awaken or unseal some ancient evil? Only problem is, when has doing that ever worked out for us...?"
"Well?" Maple sighed. "If we're all in agreement, those of us who are going might as well press on..."
She took three steps forward and was suddenly met by a quiet hissing sound. Lifting her hoof in surprise, she revealed a floor tile that was steaming unhappily from contact with her harmonic body. "That's good to know..."
Starlight and Gerardo followed in careful procession. Starlight stepped on a moon glass tile once, but since she was already glassed, it didn't have nearly its usual effect. She felt a vague sensation of walking on ice that could break at any moment, dropping her into a pool of dark, but it would hold unless she wanted it to. Still, there was a yawning sensation within hoof's reach, like the tile she had brushed was actually a vast cavern that could hold all that she was many times over... She didn't want to think about it. It wasn't hurting her on contact, and she could live with feeling creepy.
"The door is moon glass, too," Maple murmured, surveying the structure as they reached the end of the room. Unlike the smooth stone slabs before, this one had hinges, and the handle was clearly a polished, glassy nub. Anyone without a horn would have to take it and work it in their mouth, and Starlight had a strange feeling even if she wasn't glassed, this would be one of the world's places where her horn just wouldn't work.
"Well then..." Gerardo took the handle in his talons, and the door swung open. Starlight was afforded one last glance at Valey's worried, waiting form, and then the door closed of its own accord, shutting her completely away.
A short, featureless hallway came next, and nothing stopped them from reaching the door on the other side. More moon glass steamed beneath Maple's sacred hooves; Starlight took care to avoid the revealed spots, just in case.
As the next door opened, another stone slab that seemed to retract into the ceiling with a will of its own, a rush of wind tingled Starlight's senses. Wind? In a cave? Whether it made sense or not, it was there, and soon she saw the room that contained it: a giant unlit canyon, stretching to the sides as far as the eye could see.
"Hmm. Impressive," Gerardo remarked, wielding Valey's flash club. To the sides, the canyon curved out of sight, its underground roof looming a short distance ahead. Their door sat on a platform on one wall, and two doors marked the way forward, one a short distance along the near wall, heading back the way they had come, and another on the far wall, linked only by a narrow bridge.
Maple shuddered, her mane lifting slightly in the ravine's unnatural wind. "I'm not liking the look of that bridge..."
"This is a very interesting construction," Gerardo agreed. "Whoever designed this place would know any sane explorer takes the path of least resistance first, and the seasoned and reckless try to brave that which is most heavily guarded. I suspect one of the two routes of being a trap, but the question is which one? That bridge does indeed look dangerous."
Starlight folded her ears, being small and unnoticed in the middle of the procession. She didn't have her shadow cloak up, but was tempted to change that. Valey was gone, her head hurt, she couldn't tell Maple she wasn't alright, but Maple was so bright...
"I'm inclined to think this place's architects would have believed the idle wanderers to be weeded out by this point," Gerardo continued, talking over her thoughts. "Any sarosians present are likely to have progressed at their own peril, and this isn't the kind of cave many others would find. So let me make two cases for the bridge being a trap and the easy door being the right way: first is that. They would believe the psychology of most who could find this place past its local cult of guards sufficient to-"
Maple cleared her throat. "Whoever built this thinks anyone who could make it inside would think the easy way is a trap and would go the hard way instead. Across the bridge." She eyed the spur of carved rock unhappily.
Gerardo nodded. "That's a succinct way of putting it. And second, our friend Harshwater is both used to such exploration as per her career... I hope... and believes herself to be looking for treasure. And another rule of dungeoneering is that dead ends frequently make good treasure rooms. So if she thought the correct way to be across the bridge, she might have taken the near door first."
Maple frowned. "That sounds like a stretch of logic..."
Gerardo shrugged. "Would you rather flip a coin?"
"Fine," Starlight decided, making the call for her indecisive friends. "We're going through the closer door!"
She stepped on past them to lead the way, hoping the show of faith in Gerardo would alleviate any worries about her she still suspected he had.
No one was quite sure who should take point after Valey left. Gerardo, as a point of chivalry, seemed to want Starlight and Maple to stay in the middle, and it brought him no end of consternation that he couldn't lead and bring up the rear solely by himself. But Starlight wasn't enjoying the cave's atmosphere, was on edge every minute Valey was gone, and had no problems being up front if it helped them get through quicker.
"Starlight," Maple warned, sticking close behind as she approached a door, "if you feel something grabbing you like that again..."
"I probably won't," Starlight assured, leaving the ravine room into a passage parallel to the one through which they had come. "I hope I won't," she added, frowning.
This room was a short, narrow hall identical to the one beside it. The door at the end even had hinges and another moon glass handle. With careful teeth, Starlight worked it, shuddering through the yawning, yearning, thin-ice sensation that came with the contact. At least it wasn't sticky like when she wasn't glassed. The door opened easily... and she was back in the chapel where they had left Valey.
Starlight blinked, adjusting to the room around her. Valey's room had been an empty box, with a black tile floor and painted brick walls designed to look vaguely like mirrors, though the room they reflected had an altar and pews. The room this room's walls reflected was empty, and there was an altar shortly before her hooves.
Her face scrunched in unease. Two rows of pews faced her; she was at the head of the chapel looking down, administering whatever was to be done at the altar. None of the vague ponies she had seen in the wall were here; it was just her and her friends behind her. But this room and the last one were obviously side by side. It was like the painting wasn't so much an effigy of a mirror as that of a window...
The room in the murals to the side wasn't completely empty, she realized with a start. One pony was painted, sitting near the back of the room with nothing to do. She got an uncomfortable feeling the pony in the painting was Valey.
"I don't like this place," Starlight whimpered, too quiet for either of her friends to hear.
"Well, this is quite the unsettling display of optics," Gerardo muttered. "We must be next to the room where we left Valey..."
Yes, Gerardo, she'd figured that out. What worried Starlight more was that if Valey was in the mural to her side, that meant they weren't just painted but likely enchanted to show the other room... and in Valey's room, this one had appeared full of ponies. Now it was empty.
She had a sudden urge to draw her shadow cloak, and avoided it only for the sake of her friends.
"Can we not stay here?" Maple quietly asked, pointing to the other end of the room. "There's a door..."
Starlight was past the pews in a flash, trying her best not to think about invisible mural ponies. She touched the door, expecting it to open... but there wasn't even a seam in the wall. It was painted on.
She helplessly shrugged at Maple. "Well, that's a dead end, then, I presume," Gerardo remarked sadly, his headcrest drooping. "At least we've ruled one avenue out. To the bridge in the ravine?"
Maple wasn't terribly happy about the prospect of the ravine's narrow walkway, and it showed in her face. Starlight returned to the altar and gave her a comforting nuzzle, not wanting to see her brightness sad. "It's just a bridge," she advised. "You'll be fine."
The walk back to the ravine didn't hold any surprises; the parts of the cave they had explored so far seemed benign, eerie imagery aside. When Starlight actually reached the bridge, though, she gave it a long and skeptical look. It was wider than it had looked from afar, built of smooth bricks and nearly wide enough for a cart to pass by unhindered. While the ravine winds were heavy, she doubted even she was in danger of being blown off.
"We'll all cross as a group," Maple decided. "I don't have ballast, so Gerardo probably weighs the most? He should go up front, I'll hang onto him, and Starlight can hang onto me."
"Sounds like a reasonable plan," Gerardo decided. "Very well, then. Let us cross."
Gerardo took the first step, and then the second, Starlight biting Maple's tail just in case the gusts overwhelmed her. Then Maple stepped onto the bridge, the telltale hissing of moon glass against harmonic flame rising from beneath her hooves. They walked further out, Starlight frowning at the bricks below. What was hissing? These were ordinary stones.
Her eyes widened just before the bridge began to buckle. Moon glass was the bridge's grout.
"Back! Back, I say!" Gerardo spun in a flash, plowing into Maple and Starlight as the bridge actually sagged beneath them. Several bricks broke free and plunged into the abyss, and his paws and talons scrabbled for purchase on the changing, growing slope. But he found it, and the three were bowled firmly back onto solid ground.
"What was that...?" Maple asked, shaking, sitting upright with her eyes wandering over to the damage. Starlight looked too; the bridge sagged and contorted, like it was made of rope and wood slats instead of bricks and mortar. Some of the pieces on the edges had caved in, and she realized why it had looked so narrow from a distance: it might have been wide enough for a cart, but it was only one brick thin.
Gerardo scowled at the half-fallen bridge. "Now that's dastardly architecture if I've ever seen it. Granted, we knew there was obsidian in the floor, but still..."
"Do you think it can even hold us?" Maple murmured, staring at the bridge in nervous awe.
"Well, I'm willing to test for myself," Gerardo volunteered, squaring his shoulders. "However it absolutely won't take any more of your hoofsteps, and I'm trying to find a way we could get you across while preserving the route for our return..."
Maple swallowed. "You probably can't fly me in these winds, can you?"
"In a downdraft like this?" Gerardo sadly shook his head. "Not likely. And I'm dubious as to whether that thing could even support me carrying you on foot."
Starlight blinked at Gerardo's implications, a scowl growing on her face. "We are not leaving Maple behind."
Maple winced. "Well, Valey would appreciate the company, but I agree with Starlight. The whole point of me being here is so I can use the harmonic flame if we need it, right? I need to get it to the other side of this bridge. Me staying behind wouldn't do that, and if I got rid of it somehow so I didn't melt the bridge, that would defeat the point."
"Strictly speaking, it is a contingency," Gerardo admitted. "When our one and only goal is to find Harshwater and get her to leave this place without awakening or unsealing any evil monks, plans to fight such an evil monk are-"
"Are what?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "How many times have we not had something like that happen? There were windigoes in Ironridge, remember?"
That took the wind out of Gerardo's sails.
"Okay," Maple declared, "decision. We're going back to Valey and getting her input. I don't like the idea of staying behind, and I want as many better ideas as possible."
No one objected to that, even though there was an unspoken assumption they were in a hurry. Starlight swallowed back her reservations, trailing the group as they made their way to the entry chapel.
The obsidian door to the chapel swung aside as Gerardo pushed at the handle, showing Starlight a room without altars or decorations of any kind. The pews and ponies were still there in the murals, and Valey was at the far end, pacing anxiously back and forth just as they had left her, sending a ribbon of relief through Starlight's tense heart.
"Guys?" Valey looked up, her face relaxing in relief as well before shifting to concern. "Back already? Where's Harshwater?"
Gerardo's crest drooped. "Valey! Good to see you. We came to another conundrum, you see..."
He started to explain, Maple shuffling nervously, but something stuck in Starlight's head and wouldn't let her focus. When she had been separated from the group, Gerardo doubted her. He questioned whether she was really herself, wondered if she had been replaced, tried to convince her friends to turn on her. Even with Valey and Maple both to vouch for her... And now here they were, in exactly the same situation, and he didn't even spare an instant to check whether Valey was the real Valey.
She was, of course. The last thing Starlight was going to do was doubt her friends, and besides, she could just tell. Then why did Gerardo trust Valey and not her?
"I mean," Valey said, rubbing a foreleg with a hoof and averting her eyes. "Not to be selfish, but it is pretty weird sitting here by myself. Can't stop feeling like I'm being watched. So if Maple did have to stay behind, I kind of wouldn't mind..."
Starlight's eyes deliberately wandered. She didn't want to hear about how Maple and Valey, the two friends who did trust her, were both going to stop and stay here. She blocked her ears; she didn't want to know whether they were being forced to stay behind by Gerardo or abandoning her of their own free will. Either one would sting. Either one would lead her to mistrust her bright, bright friends.
Her eyes fell on the mural. It was the same as last time, with a decorated chapel and pews and an altar... but was now more defined, less vague. She got the impression after a minute of staring that the figures worshipping the empty altar were her friends.
"How bad would it be if we trusted Harshwater to get out of this and go home on her own?" Maple asked hesitantly. "Without freeing or awakening anything? It would be the batponies' own fault if they locked him so weakly that he could be accidentally set free..."
"I mean..." Valey tapped a hind leg. "One of the benefits of leaving me here is we've got a guard on the exit. We would have seen her flying out if she left while we were searching for the cave, and I would have seen her go past if she tried to exit while we were in here. So we know she's still here, and hasn't gotten turned back by anything..."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "For what it's worth, at the rate we're being forced to split up, if Starlight and I are the only ones who can cross that bridge, and given Harshwater's absence indicates this place goes on a while further yet, I'm somewhat dubious we can make it to the end at all."
"No..." Maple got a faraway look in her eyes. "This might sound weird, but do you get the impression we're having to split up because we're different? Valey is a batpony, I'm unusually harmonic... Maybe Harshwater is fine because there's nothing special about her."
Starlight frowned. If that was true, she'd have to turn back next, wouldn't she? Maybe she should just stay behind while she had the chance... No. She shook her head at herself; she wasn't giving up. Even if it was just to track down the friend of a friend, this cave was dumb and she wasn't going to let it stop her from doing something to help her friends.
However much time she was stuck in her thoughts for, Maple and Valey jolted her out of it by standing side by side, their backs to the exit. Both nodded at Gerardo, Maple with a smile. "If you find something else you can't get past, come back rather than trying to force it, okay?"
"Yeah. Take care of yourselves, you two." Valey frowned. "I'm still not getting danger aside from the moon glass, but this place seriously gives me the creeps."
"I..." Starlight swallowed, suddenly regretful that she had tuned out the decision. Maybe there was some way she could have helped. Now both of the friends who trusted her were staying behind, and there was nothing she could do about it because she had to go on. "I will. Promise."
Gerardo led the way back to the ravine, Starlight following him at a distance. The winds in the cavern almost seemed to have calmed, though she didn't really care. A new possibility was worming into her mind, and she really wished it wouldn't: was there any way Gerardo was a phantom, illusion or shapeshifter, like batponies' true forms? First he didn't trust her, and now he had gotten her on her own... Her eyes flicked to the black sword hanging at his side.
"Hey Gerardo?" she asked, needing to do something to set herself at ease.
"Hmm?" He looked over his shoulder, approaching the sagging bridge in the ravine.
Starlight took a breath. "Could I carry your sword? You're stronger than I am, so if there's a fight, I'll be a liability without a way to defend myself..." She didn't mention that she had her shadow cloak, and could effectively vanish and run even from magical means.
"Oh? Certainly." Blinking, Gerardo drew it and passed it to her. "Doesn't your horn not quite work in that state, though? I'm a little curious as to how you'll wield it..."
Shrugging, Starlight took the hilt in her mouth, which seemed to satisfy the griffon's curiosity. Carefully bending her neck, she stowed the sword beneath the strap of her saddlebags, its flat blade feeling like it belonged there, pressing coolly against her fur. He trusted her enough to offer a big advantage in a fight. That was good enough for her.
Now if only her other friends were here as well...
"I'm heavier, so I'll cross first," Gerardo declared upon reaching the bridge. "Should anything happen, turn back... Hmm?"
The path they had walked on along the edge of the ravine was cut into the wall, several support pillars holding up the roof between them and the drop-off. Starlight hadn't been focusing on the bridge when they arrived, but as the last pillar passed in front of it and her view became unobscured, she realized it was no longer sagging. Some force had repaired the bridge completely.
"Well, that's disconcerting," Gerardo murmured. "Sensible, though, if this is designed to be a reusable trap. Do you suppose we should return to get Maple?"
Starlight answered by putting a hoof out on it, tilting the edge so she could touch the glossy black mortar between the bricks. "It's still moon glass," she sighed. "The same thing would probably happen. I don't want her to fall..."
"Perhaps..." Gerardo tapped his chin. "Hmm. Well, let's at least have a look at what's in the next room before making any hasty commitments. Odds are otherwise we'll just have to cross right back over again."
Starlight pressed her belly to the bricks as she crossed, crawling to minimize her area. The winds thankfully left her alone, and soon both of them were on the other side. She was relieved to see that the stone door was real, not a painted illusion like the one in the mirror chapel, and it smoothly opened the moment Gerardo got close.
They stepped into a broad, circular room lit by ten magical torches. Though the floor and walls were brick and the ceiling should have rose quite high, it was missing, a chunk of natural rock so large and round protruding down in its place that it was like a boulder the size of a house had been chosen for the roof instead. At the very bottom of the hanging boulder, a thin metal rod reached down, ending in a disc. Light projected down from the disc in a cone, spreading across the center of the floor, illuminating in glowing runes a symbol Starlight had come to be very familiar with: The Emblem of the Nine Virtues. It looked an awful lot like a seal, and she was pleased to see it also looked completely intact.
This was the end; there were no further doors. And there was a pegasus, anxiously flitting around and searching the tower walls high and low. They were painted to look covered in stars, but nothing was there to be found.
"Harshwater!" Gerardo called, breaking into a beam. "We have arrived!"
"Eeep!" The pegasus gasped, instinctively hiding her face with her forelegs before dropping and landing in front of them. "Wait... Gerardo?" She gave him an uncertain look, pacing closer. "W-What are you doing here? Were you looking for me? How did you know I was here?"
Gerardo gave an amiable shrug. "Your letter left very little to the imagination. Once you mentioned a sea cave and Kero bidding you come here, the locals were kind enough to point us the right way."
"My letter?" Harshwater tilted her head and frowned. "Kero? I left, like, a tiny note with a friend telling you all not to leave without me while I was off getting a thank-you gift! Who ratted me out?" Her frown faded to confusion. "Who else even knew about this to tell on me?"
"...That's quite strange and concerning." Gerardo glanced quickly over his shoulder to the door. "Harshwater, this is no repository of pirate treasure; it's where bad things are kept and sealed. Valey and Maple were forced to stay behind earlier. We should return to them with all due haste, and can settle who wrote what once we're all outside and safe. Let us not spend any longer in here than necessary!"
Without waiting for a nod, he strode for the door, sending another spike of frustration into Starlight's heart. Really? After Valey had been on her own, at least Starlight trusted her too. But this was openly suspicious, something clearly didn't add up, and Gerardo took it in without batting an eye, yet still tried to interrogate her!? She gritted her teeth against the pain. Why her? This wasn't fair...
"That's very interesting," a calm male voice said behind them. "It seems the child is the least childish among you."
Starlight whirled to see Harshwater waiting... though her eyes had become slits, their blacks and whites inverted, and shadows were creeping their way up her body.
"Aa-aah!" Gerardo jumped in surprise, several bars sliding down across the stone exit and preventing it from opening. "What in-"
Harshwater threatened to burn with dark flame, wings fluttering. "Good night."
A ring of black burst from her, and Starlight felt her consciousness quickly slide away.
Harshwater's expanding ring of darkness hit Starlight like cold water, breaking and rippling around her as her senses clouded and obscured. Her shadow cloak rose on instinct, the only thing that came when she called for magic she didn't have, and she tried to draw Gerardo's sword. Something was wrong about this, something didn't make sense... but her brain slowed and slowed as she tried to put anything together, and it wasn't like solving a puzzle was going to do anything to stop her attacker.
Her legs gave out as she lost the last bit of control over her senses, blackness covering her vision. She was swimming, drowning, sinking, held in a truly neutral embrace... She was being shaken. "Starlight? Starlight! Snap out of it!"
Immediately, her memories of the encounter felt fuzzy, and Starlight groggily opened her eyes, Gerardo's borrowed sword still clasped in her hooves. Glimmer's concerned face looked over her, waving a hoof to see if she tracked it... She was on her back, and the ceiling was that of the staircase room at the very beginning. She was back where she began. Was she?
Glimmer saw her pupils move and seemed to relax. "This is why I wanted to change you back before coming here," she sighed. "Are you awake?"
"Nngh..." Starlight rubbed her forehead, trying to sit up, and Glimmer helped her. "What happened? Harshwater..."
"You had some sort of nightmare, didn't you?" Glimmer sat there for a moment, looking off into the emptiness of the staircase room. "This cave is heavily steeped in dream magic that manifests in illusions and hallucinations. The communication abilities I loaned you work using the same part of ponies that are used to dream. So you entered here with a major vulnerability you aren't accustomed to using. I've set you back to normal so it shouldn't continue to be a problem, but... you look really shaken."
Starlight frowned. "You think?"
Glimmer folded her ears in apology and stepped away. "You have a cave to explore. I won't keep you." She stayed in Starlight's vision until she blinked, and then she was gone.
Starlight stared at the space where she had been, then at Gerardo's dark sword, worry rising in her gut. That had been a dream? She was back where she started, but... why did she have this?
The door behind her slid open, and her friends poured through.
"Starlight! Yo, what happened?" Valey pored over her with a concerned frown, Maple wrapping her in a concerned hug. "Something definitely grabbed you with telekinesis. Unless you can lift yourself like Shinespark, that means there's another unicorn in here?"
"Stop! Stop, I..." Starlight struggled briefly, the scene playing out perfectly as she remembered it. "How long have I been gone? I think I had a nightmare, but I might be having one right now..."
Gerardo tilted his avian head. "About three minutes. A nightmare, you say? I have to admit, you look surprisingly unaccosted given the circumstances of your-"
"I haven't been replaced!" Starlight hissed, knowing what was coming and fearing it worse than Harshwater's magic. "I'm not a trap! Don't say it! Don't make me doubt you!"
"I wasn't... errr... going to be nearly that direct..." Gerardo drooped. "How did you know what I was going to suggest?"
Valey frowned. "Yeah, what's up with that? Where would you get the idea we were going to think you weren't really you? Don't you trust us? I mean, you could be nervous and have something to hide..." She tapped her chin with a wingtip, a look of worry spreading across her face. "Nah. But wait, Birdo, were you seriously going to ask that?"
Starlight's heart froze, squeezed by icy talons from somewhere deep inside her. "N-No! I trust you, I just dreamed you would! I had a nightmare about this cave! I hope it was a nightmare, at least..."
Now that her friends were back to doubting her, she wasn't sure which reality was even better.
"Starlight, look at me," Maple said, so bright that the prospect she would leave and Starlight wouldn't have her felt like being shredded by grinding rocks. "Are you alright?"
"No. I-I'm not. I hate this cave and I'm s-scared." Starlight buried her face in Maple's chest, wrapping her forelegs as tightly around her neck as she could. "I want to go back..."
At the silence from Valey and Gerardo, she could tell Maple was giving the pair a shut up look. "We can't turn around. We have something important to do, Starlight," she murmured, rubbing Starlight's back with a comforting hoof. "But you don't have to go further. You could stay here if you like."
That was just another thorn in Starlight's battered heart. "I won't leave you. I'm not staying behind."
"Any questions?" Maple asked Valey and Gerardo, her voice low and warning.
"Woah. Calm down." Valey paced closer. "Look, this place is putting me on edge too, okay? And... sorry if I said the wrong thing." She tried to meet Starlight's eyes. "For what it's worth, she doesn't feel all that dangerous... Well, not more than usual with being moon glassed and having that sword of hers."
Starlight glanced from the sword to Gerardo. He wasn't even looking at it. "Of mine?"
Starlight watched them all with a blank expression, mouth slightly ajar. She glanced back to the sword. "No it's not. It's Gerardo's."
Gerardo chuckled nervously. "Well, you certainly lend it to me a lot, seeing as my talons are more suited to swordfighting, particularly since that hilt isn't shaped for a mouth! But I'd hardly say right of time investment makes it mine, unless you're trying to pawn it off on me. And even then, perhaps that's a discussion for later?"
"I... Okay..." Starlight swallowed. This wasn't right at all.
"Yeah, I'm kinda in favor of finding Harshwater and getting out, too," Valey added. "This place is weird and this staircase looks long. Everyone who's with me, let's go."
As Maple and Gerardo followed her in her descent, Starlight folded her ears and came too. Gerardo was still wearing the sheathe for the sword, she saw, yet its black metal felt eerily familiar sitting bare against her side.
"Bananas, that staircase was long," Valey complained on reaching the bottom. It was just as long as Starlight remembered, and the next door would lead to the chapel of murals, assuming the cave was the same as she had seen before.
"Umm." Starlight cleared her throat. "I really did dream about this cave... I think... so I might know what's ahead."
Everyone turned to her expectantly, and Gerardo raised a curious eyebrow.
"It's a room with painted walls," Starlight began. "The floor is tiles... Some of them are moon glass. So be careful, Valey."
"Moon glass in the floor?" Valey's face twisted. "Well, that's rude. Let's see." She stepped up to the stone door, and it automatically slid open.
Inside, the chapel room was there, and just as Starlight remembered it, but Valey took a few steps in and frowned. "Kiddo, my cutie mark is pretty good at detecting moon glass. The absolute unbreakable rule of being a batpony is that you never, ever mess with this stuff. And if it's in the floor, I'd know. But my butt's not really giving me much of anything right now..."
Starlight swallowed. "I'll go forward and test?"
No one stopped her, and she zigzagged across the room, stepping on as many tiles as possible and waiting for that thin-ice feeling of yawning darkness below. It never came. After reaching the far side and back and there again, she inspected the doorway, the one thing she knew for sure to be obsidian. It still had a handle, but was made of perfectly ordinary stone.
"Looks like there are just no traps here?" Valey shrugged. "I mean, fine by me."
"But I remember this room!" Starlight squeaked. "I mean... sorry. I don't know why it's the same room, but different." She folded her ears. "There really was moon glass the first time..."
Gerardo gave her a strange look as Maple and Valey carefully marched to the far door. "You know, there's a very strange other possibility at play... What if this nightmare you seem to have had somehow was a trap itself, and is designed to give you knowledge that will lure us into something we would have, if blind, avoided? Perhaps it conditions us to you being wrong, so we fail to heed a warning, or you believe an area to be safe that is in fact deadly?"
Starlight swallowed. The fact that everyone thought the sword was hers aside, it was actually a good idea, and she automatically hated it because it made her less trustworthy and more dangerous to her friends... friends she needed to protect, no matter what. They were her brightness. They were her light.
"Let's... keep going," she murmured as Valey opened the next door. "And just don't listen to me..."
Starlight came in last in the procession to leave the chapel room, unlike the time before when she had taken the lead. No one was staying behind this time. That was good, right? But this time, she was the liability. She was the danger, and she couldn't keep the vague fear out of her mind that her friends would come to a modified trap where she was forced to be the one to stay behind.
Her reluctant gaze traced the murals one last time, wishing she could forestall how bad she was presently feeling. There was the adjacent room, with its pews and altar and small congregation of bowing ponies. She could see them even more clearly than the last two visits; there was no doubt that they were her friends. But unlike the times before, the altar pedestal wasn't empty.
A mare stood before them, twice the height of any adult, the same shade of black as any moon glass. With both wings and a horn, her slender form was clad in ornamented breastplate armor, and her mane and tail held the shape of clouds. Starlight's gaze lingered a second longer before she followed her friends and tore it away, but there was something comforting about the figure, even though she had never seen it before. She had a deep-seated feeling she would be safe there.
Starlight stood before the bridge in the ravine and swallowed.
It was different than it had been before. Whereas the last bridge had been wide and thin, this one was thick and narrow, looking much sturdier, yet perilously easy to fall from. Gerardo had officially decided the way forward was past it; she hadn't been given a chance for input in case her knowledge was compromised to lead them into a trap.
"The mortar's made of moon glass?" Valey tapped the bridge experimentally with a hoof. "Yeah, not feeling that here either. Bananas, it's windy, though. Seems like flying is out, so it's just a matter of not falling off."
Gerardo beckoned from the other side, having already crossed. "It's quite manageable if you're careful. Just keep low down to minimize your area and you'll be fine!"
Maple crept across, sliding along on her belly like it was a rail and grasping the sides for balance. Valey followed suit, and soon only Starlight was left on the entrance side. She gave the narrow walkway a dubious look. "Ummm..."
Valey blinked back at her. "Oh, uhh... we need a way to get you across, don't we? You're probably small enough to just get blown off?"
"Oh! Starlight..." Maple winced. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking... Do you want me to come back and try to help you over? You could hold onto my tail, or..."
Starlight folded her ears and stretched out a hoof, instantly moving from the relative calm of the near ledge into the magical gale. Ordinarily, it would probably blow her off, but she was almost certain she was lighter after whatever she had done with the Firefly Sisters' song. Even holding Maple's tail, she'd be flapping behind her like a kite.
This had to be a dream. Either it was a dream, or the cave could react and change according to her fears, because just one room ago she had imagined the possibility of a trap that forced her to be the one to stay behind... "I don't know!" she called back across the chasm. "Please don't leave me behind!"
Was this that? Technically, they hadn't needed to leave Valey behind the first time either. She only stayed back because sticking together would be dangerous. And maybe her friends could get her across the bridge, too, but it would almost certainly require her telling them about her handicap... telling Maple how she had done something similar to using the harmony extractor and now might be partially disappeared without her usual coming back. And now of all times, that was a conversation she didn't know if she could face.
The wind buffeted her ears, rushing them past and threatening to snarl her mane. Below, the bricks that made up her platform were harder than stone against her hooves, making her feel like she had walked for miles. She was tired, lightheaded, and wanted to go home, yet was lost in a dream or perhaps something worse... and now she was about to be alone. Hurting Maple by telling her what had happened was out of the question. The only decision was whether to let her friends leave her behind, or ask them to proceed on her own.
"I..." Starlight wanted to look away, but knew her friends would never hear her over the wind if she didn't try her best to throw her voice. "There's only one more room! Just go and come back quickly, okay? Otherwise you'll have to get me across this twice for nothing. And if it's not the end, then come back and try to help me across?"
Valey saluted. "Yeah, we'll be right back! You got that, Ironflanks, Birdo?"
Her friends all cheered their agreement, clearly trying to encourage her. Maybe they were thanking her for making their descent easier by staying behind. Starlight wished they wouldn't. It would help her more if they hurried up, so she wouldn't have to be separated from their brightness for as long...
Maple was the last one through the door into the seal room, watching over her shoulder as she stepped inside. Then the stone door slid shut with its usual strange will, cutting her off from sight... and an iron grate dropped down, sealing all of Starlight's friends inside.
"NO!" Starlight screamed, the pain of being cut off already too much, assaulting her with the realization that trap was still there and there was nothing and no way for her to help. She tried to step onto the bridge, to chase her friends and break down the door to help against whatever lay inside, and the winds threatened to lift her, rearing her unwillingly onto her hind legs before she could stagger back to safety. "Maple! Valey! Maple! Give them back!"
Snarling, Starlight summoned her shadow cloak. That protected her from magic, and these winds were clearly unnatural, right? Somehow, it worked, the roaring in her ears lessening as the gale stopped running through her fur.
Starlight raced across the bridge, utterly ignored by the air, and slammed into the door, hammering on it with everything she had. But the bars wouldn't budge and the rock was completely soundproof, leaving her nothing and no way to get through to the other side.
She wished her cloak hadn't worked. If she had thought of this just a little earlier, she could have been there. But she had been too preoccupied thinking of this as the same as Valey's trap, some part of the cave that had been designed just for her without workarounds. Maybe it was just a trap. Maybe the bridge hadn't been built specially for her. Was that even worse, knowing that even the designer of an evil cave hadn't cared about her or thought her worth notice? Either way, she was alone.
She was alone because she hadn't thought fast enough, because she thought the trap was about her when it had an easy way through. She was alone because she hadn't tried hard enough to stay with her friends, because she hadn't been willing to scare Maple by telling her about possibly disappearing again. Maybe that was the point of the cave. Maybe it was a test, letting ponies proceed together by being willing to take risks for their friends, and only together could they survive the trial at the end. Maybe she was reading into things again and it was all meaningless... but either way, Starlight was alone.
With too much in her heart and nothing anywhere else, she curled up with Gerardo's sword and cried, wishing anything could be different. Anything at all. But seconds turned into minutes, and the door didn't unbar.
Eventually, Starlight's sobs turned to sniffles, and her mind started to wander beyond her missing friends. There was the chapel, with its mysterious murals... the murals that still depicted all of her friends, along with the tall, armored alicorn who felt faintly safe. What was in the mirror chapel this time around? She hadn't checked, but she could. The mural had shown her friends. She needed her friends. If maybe, just maybe they were there...
Making sure she was cloaked, Starlight slouched back across the bridge, checking her shoulder every few steps to see if the door had unbarred. The first time she looked, it was still barred. The second time, it was also still barred. The third... nothing had changed. It was also barred the fourth. She couldn't bring herself to cast a fifth glance, though she wasn't giving up hope that they could return. She just had to stay strong, and this wasn't helping at all...
Starlight finally took her fifth glance as the door to the mirror chapel slid open. It was still barred. She sighed, wiped her muzzle and stepped inside.
Inside the chapel were at least a dozen Valeys.
There were even more Maples. Lots of Gerardos too, though not nearly as many. There were also Shinesparks, and even a Jamjars or two. Some Ambers, lots of Willows, even an Elise, the matriarch who had given them shelter from a storm in Blueleaf. All of them and more were seated in the pews, faces she loved mixed with ones that had barely done her a good turn and she couldn't even put names to. All of them were bowing, facing the altar where she stood alone.
"Wait, are you..." Starlight's tearstained face scrunched. "Bowing at me?"
Nobody answered. They barely even breathed. Somewhere in the crowd, an ear twitched, but the countless copies of ponies filling the room continued bowing with reverence.
"I... This is weird..." Starlight swallowed. The copies had no brightness and there was nothing attractive about them, illusions for all she cared or knew. And her real friends bowing before her like that would be... How would it be? She shuddered, imagining Maple paying her that kind of reverence. All that brightness could be hers forever, and it was what she wanted, but... she didn't want to be above her friends. She already was, forced to be the one who risked her neck and protected them when the world demanded it, and she hated it. She wanted to look up to them, not down on them. Why were they all bowing?
"Stop that!" Starlight stomped a hoof. "Go away!"
One by one, the illusions faded out, until once again Starlight was alone.
It didn't make her feel better. Rubbing the lump in her throat, she folded her ears. "I... No, come back..."
The illusions returned, fading back into existence and resuming their bows.
Somehow, this made things worse too. She didn't want to be alone, but she didn't want to see her friends like that! Growling, she stomped up to the chapel's altar, yelling down at it. "What's wrong with this place!? What's wrong with me?"
The altar was low enough to the ground to be shorter than she was, capped by a bowl of dark water that reflected a starry sky. Starlight glanced up at the rough stone ceiling, then back down at the bowl. "Well!?"
Her reflection glared back at her, the force of her voice making the water ripple slightly. The ripples disturbed her image, and as it congealed again, it began to change. Her eyes stayed slitted like the moon glass made them, but her muzzle grew square, her coat darkened until it was perfect black, and her horn grew until it was longer than her leg, an armored faceplate appearing on her forehead as her mane turned to mist. It was the alicorn from the mural.
You're lonely, her Nightmare Module voice said, speaking in time with the movements of the reflection's lips. Before, its tone had been sterile, like a recording, but now it printed in her mind with all the inflections and emotion of a real pony, sounding vaguely curious and amused. It's a hard life, isn't it?
"Who are you?" Starlight frowned down at the pool.
I'll just take that as a yes, the reflection answered. I am everything that's possible.
Starlight squinted and tilted her head.
I am the guardian of this place, the dark alicorn continued. The resting place of the Nightmare Modules. You've come for them, haven't you? Her eyeslits dilated in interest, and Starlight was suddenly unable to look away. Speak with me. Tell me your darkest desire.
The dark alicorn in the altar bowl looked expectantly at Starlight, and Starlight's ears fell. Something deep within her screamed not to disappoint this mare, and not out of fear. It was a feeling she couldn't possibly place, like she was watching something that deserved reverence, obedience and awe. She owed them. They had done something special.
"I..." Starlight fumbled for words. "What can I do?"
The reflection seemed to approve. I can see your heart. You have friends, but you're still lonely. You're afraid they might leave you, or be taken away. You want to be strong enough to stop it. Starlight felt her gaze drawn up to the crowd of illusions, still locked in their bows. Don't you wish they'd stay?
Starlight swallowed. "Yes, but not like that. I don't need to force them to kneel or do anything! My friends would never leave me. Ever. I just need to protect them and keep them safe."
You want to hold onto what's yours? The reflection chuckled, showing sphinxlike fangs. That's what the Nightmare Modules are for. A thousand years ago, the bearer of the Immortal Dream created them as keys to the soul. The world has six Elements of Harmony, Starlight Glimmer: Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Kindness, Loyalty, and the Spark, which brings the others together. Together, they're powered by the Magic of Friendship. So what's a creature to do, Starlight, when like you, they're all alone?
"But I'm not alone." Starlight felt herself tremble. "I have my friends."
Where? The reflection shrugged. All I see are illusions. She frowned, almost apologetic, and added, You're better off than the Bearer was. But you're still alone. You can use her Nightmare Modules, can't you? I see you have one already.
"I... Well, yes?" Starlight's trembles increased. "But that's because I used moon glass."
The alicorn in the stars didn't seem to care. The Nightmare Modules were created to fill the void in the Elements of Harmony, functioning where they do not function, made in the absence of friendship and camaraderie. The Elements of Harmony are self-perpetuating, designed to be infinite. Where there is life, light and friendship, they create more. The Elements of Loneliness, as befitting opposites, do the reverse: they seek to end the emotion that empowers them. The Bearer created them so that she would be loved, worshipped, surrounded by those with the capacity to care and able to take their light for herself. They were made for someone with problems like yours. In you I see the same pain and striving for companionship that afflicted the Bearer so. You can use them.
"But I didn't come here for Nightmare Modules," Starlight protested, uncertain.
Didn't you come here to save a friend? The reflection looked vaguely smug. Or the friend of a friend? Whatever your answer, the reason is the same. When was the last time you did anything that wasn't for the sake of jealously protecting your friends?
Starlight thought, and didn't have an answer. "This is supposed to be where an evil monk is imprisoned," she pointed out. "Not where the Nightmare Modules are kept. I thought they were kept at the grand temple."
It is. Where do you think the Bearer's children got the Nightmare Modules to keep in the temple? The alicorn inspected her with one slitted, probing eye. When the Elements of Loneliness were stolen, sitting on display without adequate defenses, they realized the error of their ways and sent Yanavan here instead. If anyone else might seek him out to steal the Bearer's gifts in turn, shouldn't he be protected in the same way as the originals?
Starlight felt another wave of pain in her head, her earlier headache not having abated. "But I don't want any Nightmare Modules. I just want to get my friends out safely and wake up!"
The reflection curled its lip. The trials don't discriminate against who enters. You'll have to survive or succumb to them just like anyone else. It returned to a smile that was almost motherly. But you'll do just fine. You're no stranger to being alone. When you have to choose between trusting your friends without you and risk losing them forever to keep them by your side, you'll know what to do.
"No I won't!" Starlight stomped in protest. "How is there an answer!? Leaving Valey behind hurt, but it would have hurt more if I made her come and got her killed!" She narrowed her eyes. "And besides, your trials are broken. I didn't even have to choose. I could have just used the shadow cloak."
Exactly. The dark alicorn beamed, looking immeasurably proud of itself. The Nightmare Modules were created so you wouldn't have to choose. You understand the point of this cave.
"Oh..." Starlight swallowed.
The alicorn watched her, seeming to expect something further, so Starlight spoke. "But I don't get it. You said this is protecting the Nightmare Modules? It sounds like you're trying to make me want them. Shouldn't you be trying to make me go away?"
The reflection chuckled. Mmm hmm hmm... Perhaps. Except you've already shown me the sincerity of your heart. Your pain and desire are written on your face for the whole world to see. At the same time, you're reticent. You haven't even asked for them yet. You may still be in the middle of the trial, but I'm starting to fear you'll earn them and then leave without your reward. Starlight, do you fear the powers of disharmony to be a bad thing?
Starlight hesitated. "Well..." She glanced up at the bowing illusions. "I have touched a harmonic flame before, and it felt good. But even though I feel like I'm forgetting something, being moon glassed like this isn't that bad. I think?"
That's up to you to decide, the reflection said. I know what you're thinking. 'Can't I have both?' and then 'I can't, because I used the moon glass.' That's a lie. The harmonic thing when you lost your friends to the bridge would have been to tell Maple what you had done. You could have done it.
Starlight felt her ears fall. "I don't know a lot about religion or harmony," she murmured. "I just want my friends."
"You just don't want to be alone," the alicorn finished, her voice suddenly audible instead of only in Starlight's head. "Behold."
The waters shimmered and the reflection distorted, returning to stillness once again as an image of Starlight, perfectly mirroring herself. But then the sky behind her glowed, and when Starlight could look again, she was surrounded by rings of light. The Starlight in the altar bowl was hovering, arcane sigils rotating around her barrel and behind her back and head, stretching out into a pair of runic wings that flexed and flowed, yet didn't need to flap to keep her aloft. Her horn was replaced with a blade of light, and a glowing sword with a triangular hole in the hilt floated at her side, making her acutely conscious of her own possession of Gerardo's. The reflection even wore her usual saddlebags, and around it, in the stars, she could see her bowing friends, just like the illusions in the chapel.
"You could become a goddess for them," her Nightmare Module voice continued aloud in her ears. "You could rewrite reality itself to keep them safe. Alicorns are made, not born. The tools exist in the world for you to do it."
Starlight cringed backwards at the image. "Stop making them be bowing! I don't want my friends to bow to me! I want someone to look up to, not someone to look down on! I hate being the best!"
A sense of caution rippled across the air. Her friends, both the illusions in the chamber and the worshippers in the bowl, got to their hooves, smiling at her... and one by one they turned, turning their backs on her and slowly walking away.
"The Bearer," the voice whispered in her ear, "was a goddess. She created an entire race of ponies as an expression of the innermost hope and optimism in her soul. Sarosians are called the ponies of the night because the night is the realm of dreams, and they are made of hopes and dreams. And even the Bearer was left alone."
Starlight felt a tightness in her throat as her tears threatened to return. "Why are you showing me this? What do you want from me!?"
"For you to understand that this is the way," Goddess-Starlight lamented, voice defeated and low. "The only solution ever created. Some who have friends can use the powers of harmony to retain that. To do so, you trust. Trust given, met with trust returned, builds more trust until you have relationships that can survive any hardship. But what about when it isn't? What happens when you're left all alone, and have no friendship left for the power of harmony?"
Starlight swallowed, the effigy's words still ringing in her Nightmare Module voice. "You're not Glimmer, are you?"
Her reflection blinked, confused. "Am I you? I'm the guardian of this place." The water rippled again, and then the dark alicorn had returned. "I apologize if that form was confusing."
"You try," the dark alicorn confirmed. "And you feel pain, because it isn't possible for one pony to be enough. Friendship is a force between ponies. It isn't a dance you can have alone."
Starlight gritted her teeth. "But I'm not alone! I have friends!"
Self-consciously, she looked around the room. It was empty.
"And you have pain," the reflection finished for her. "And loneliness enough that the Nightmare Modules have power for you. Jealousy, for when things you want threaten to leave. Deception, for when you wouldn't be accepted as you are. Cowardice, for when others laugh at you, not with you. Cruelty, for when oblivion is the greatest kindness. Treason, a repository of secrets with which none are worthy of trust. And Tyranny, for when you need to become the center of everything."
Starlight took a step back. "I-I don't want to be a tyrant, or rule my friends."
The armored alicorn's eyes followed her from the basin. "But it will work. No matter what you do, they can leave you. No matter how strong you get, they can choose not to repay you. This is the solution. Look deep within yourself and ask: even if it revolts you, if ruling your friends isn't the way, isn't it better than being alone?"
Starlight hated herself for being asked that question. She knew the answer... but she wasn't about to give it. "No." Her eyes hardened. "It doesn't matter whether it is or not, because that would be giving up. Even if something is better than it could be, that doesn't mean it's as good as it should be, and it doesn't mean I want it!"
The water in the basin rippled again. Slowly, the alicorn's coat lightened, though it was still nearly black. Her teeth receded, the armor vanished from her fur, and her slitted pupils widened until they were round like a normal pony. "Congratulations, Starlight Glimmer," she calmly praised, voice calmer and less metallic than the Nightmare Module voice the earlier image had used. "You have passed. The Nightmare Modules may have been created with a purpose, but in the end, they are nothing more than tools powered by emotion. Perhaps you will be able to use them better than their creator."
"What?" Starlight blinked. "No, I don't want-"
Initiating transfer, the voice said, her new Nightmare Module voice. It was a voice befitting the deep need she felt looking earlier at the mural, starry and ephemeral, and she liked it much more than the old one... though her heart still clenched at the realization of what it was about to do. Downloading system update. Initializing... Core system functionality restored to 85.7%. System restore from backup is advised. Ending update sequence.
"What did you do...?" Starlight croaked, though she knew without asking. She could feel the new spells inside her heart, already had the knowledge of how to use them. "I told you, I didn't want these!"
The alicorn in the basin watched her with sad eyes. "They are tools without agency, Starlight Glimmer. Their purpose is only what their wielder uses them for. You proved that you won't put them to the one use they have already seen too much of, no matter how it might suit your desires. May they find a better wielder in you than I was."
A wave of nameless emotion swept through Starlight, but she knew there were no more answers. She stepped up to the altar, stared straight down into it, and took Gerardo's sword in her mouth. Its blade, she suddenly remembered, could cut anything, even stone.
The alicorn folded her ears, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and waited.
Starlight trembled, holding the sword up... and set it down, shaking. "You're supposed to be perfect!" she yelled down at the water, disturbing its surface with her breath.
The reflection didn't move.
"I can feel it!" Starlight shouted at the basin, her trembles increasing. "This isn't like when I look at my friends and see them being bright! There's something about you that... that..." She swallowed. "I feel like I owe you something. I just... I don't want..." She folded her ears. "I'm done with this place. I have some friends to get out of here, and then I'm never using moon glass again. For anything. And maybe someday, I'll meet whoever you're supposed to be. You sound like you have more issues with friends than I do."
Turning her back on the altar, she flung the door open. "...If you were real, I'd offer you a hug," she promised without looking over her shoulder. "It's what my friends would do." And then she was gone.
Starlight strode out into the ravine room, Gerardo's sword clasped purposefully in her mouth. The new Nightmare Modules in the back of her mind weren't her only change; she felt physically stronger, and was realizing an unexpected upside of being lighter: it was that much easier to move around.
As she walked, she parsed through what she had gained, determined not to use them once she escaped the cave but not about to turn down the keys this dungeon had been designed around when her friends were in danger. Anti-Generosity? That one made moon glass. Probably useless, though it gave her a good idea exactly how the fateful meteor originated.
Anti-Honesty? Her shadow cloak. That one she already had, and it twisted up around her as she set hoof on the bridge, the winds ignoring her magically-vanished form. Anti-Laughter? That one was a real shield. She remembered Chauncey showing it off in the hospital basement. It had been strong enough to block a laser from Stanza with apparent ease. That would be her favorite the moment she got in a fight.
Anti-Kindness was the memory erasure spell she remembered Dorable possessing in Ironridge. How he had used a Nightmare Module when Valey was the only batpony in Ironridge, she didn't know, and it didn't really matter. She could use them just fine on her own, and wasn't fond of the idea of forgetting anything. Though if she could make someone who would otherwise be friendly forget why they were fighting her, it could be very strong...
She stepped off the bridge, facing down the barred door to the seal room. This was its last chance to get out of her way. Anti-Loyalty was another useless one; all it would do was show her a memory, and she didn't need to lose any time daydreaming. But Anti-Spark... Starlight tensed. Here was what she needed.
The module activated, and her mane began to melt, elongating slightly and flowing together into a prehensile, starry mist. Moving in accordance to her wishes, the material coiled around the hilt of her sword, freeing it from her mouth. Her horn still didn't work, but this was a suitable replacement.
"Yanavaaan!" Schwiiinng! Starlight yelled as she slashed, the dark blade parting the locked doorway with no more difficulty than air. She slashed again. "Give me back my friends!"
Another hairline incision appeared in the rock. Just another thing she hadn't thought of earlier, like using the shadow cloak to cross the bridge... but now she was done with silly oversights. Starlight lashed out with her hind legs, the door severed from its roots, and her enhanced strength knocked it clean out of its flush frame, sending a slab of stone into the room with a rocky crunch. She jumped in after it, landing on the fallen door with the sword readied and a snarl bared in her teeth.
The room was almost as she remembered it, with a sigil on the floor projected by a rod from the ceiling and stars painted all around the walls... only now it was almost three times as large, stretching expansively from end to end. Her friends, she could see, were all against the far wall, and all of them looked half-conscious. Nobody else was there.
Powerfully, Starlight strode toward them, taking the most direct route... but something warned her before she stepped past the projection in the center. She jumped backwards, amazed at how far her legs carried her, and the room answered with a crack of breaking rock, the curved, cavernous boulder that formed the ceiling splitting around the spike at the center.
Starlight fell back on her haunches and stared as cracks spiderwebbed out from the rod... then retracted, petals of rock interleaving themselves by deliberate design, like the roof held some sort of massive door. The rod fell, followed by a ton and a half more twisted metal, rocking the ground and making her stumble as it landed in a sparking, eldritch mass.
She could only stare as the thing jerkily began to move, rotating in snaps and bursts, rising up and growing into something equally unknowable, but far more threatening. Four or five times the height of a full-grown mare, the metal eidolon seemed to have legs, though she couldn't tell if there were two or three. It definitely had a front, and plasmatic tail and a head with glowing eyes... and that was as long as she had to study, because it roared toward her without walking, a burst of energy propelling it from behind.
"Aaaaaaah!" Starlight screamed as the thing collided, unable to follow her instincts and teleport... though by a new, deeper instinct, her new shield rose to guard her instead. With an almighty clang, metal struck transparent hexagons, and Starlight felt herself slide backwards until it pushed her into the wall. But her shield held perfectly, the reverberation of the impact shaking even her bones but not even denting the wall surrounding her.
Warning, her Nightmare Module voice said, back to its emotionless self yet still belonging to the second alicorn from the altar, not the first. Pavise-class soul arscrkkkkkkkkkkk!
Starlight winced from the sudden static in her mind as the metal thing leered at her, pressing against the shield with a curved metal limb and forcing her to maintain the shield. Her sword could cut anything, but she couldn't use it without dropping her barrier...
Something like this was too impossible, too alien to exist. It couldn't exist. "You can't exist!" she yelled, wheels slowly turning in its alien architecture in response. "This is still a nightmare! Go away and let me wake up! I want out of this stupid cave!"
The giant machine continued to inspect her, not letting up its assault.
"Nnngh... Go away...!" Starlight twisted beneath her shield, trying fruitlessly to find a way out.
Slowly, with a cry of grinding metal, the thing's back split open, plates spreading like lightning rods and insect wings. It knelt down, keeping its limb against her and its glowing eyes on her from below as it showed her the aperture. A cradle was exposed inside, rising and tilting to face her, and Starlight saw a stallion, his forelegs and the lower half of his body dissolving into an expansive ether that seemed to flow into the machine itself. His eyes were slitted, and leathery wings sat limp against his sides. "Yanavan."
"Dreams are a powerful canvas, indeed, to one who controls them," he said, voice slow and methodical from his perch in the metal nightmare. "This one is my dream. And I'm very interested to know what a unicorn filly is doing imagining themselves with a spell like that one."
"Which spell?" Starlight gritted her teeth, feeling over the modules in her mind and realizing the moon glass one could function quite like her crystals if she needed it to. "This one!?"
Her horn swirled with dark energy, and she twisted her neck over her shoulder and fired. The moon glass was slightly more sluggish than her usual geometric gems, forming itself roundly like honey being poured into a jar, but it did its job with enough speed to catch the behemoth off guard. Into the crater where she was being forced into the wall, black glass flowed, morphing into a pillar that pushed her into Yanavan's monstrosity and forcing them both back toward the center of the room. Starlight snapped her head forward again and fired, a feeling of drowning and need welling up in her heart as sickly black energy coalesced into its arm.
The glass encasing the limb that pinned her lasted for less than a second before it shattered, but that half-second was enough. Starlight dropped her shield, falling to the floor and landing with grace afforded only by Valey's combat practice. Gerardo's sword already in her starry, midnight mane, she rushed forward, taking aim at the base of one of its round, armored legs.
Covered in treads and talons, the appendage shouldn't have been swift enough to move if Yanavan had tried. But it stayed put as she leapt, presenting a perfect target... until Gerardo's sword clinked harmlessly off the metal, failing even to scratch its paint.
"Really?" Yanavan's monster leered down at her, twitching menacingly. "You intend to fight with tools I have mastered in an arena I am? You must be like the rest of them. Coming here thinking you can take my Nightmare Modules into the waking world? I am the anathema to those with delusions of godhood. Princess Luna's sacred power does not belong to you or the Night Mother or anyone else who thinks they can inspire the sarosian race into self-destructive-"
Starlight wasn't in the mood for a conversation. Coiling her legs, she sprung, trusting in her weightlessness and not finding herself wanting. She rose even faster than she had anticipated, using her mane like she had possessed it all her life and hooking herself atop one of the behemoth's armor-plated arms. Hooves finding easy purchase on its uneven construction, she raced towards its open back... until a tiny tingle gave her warning.
She realized what was about to happen as the sparks around its drill-like tail increased and stabbed the sword in between two mechanical joints. Gerardo's sword may not have been able to pierce this nightmare, but it also couldn't break, and as Yanavan accelerated to throw her off, she clung to the hilt with everything she had, staying fixed to the thing's back as it rocketed across the room.
"Get off me," Yanavan growled, the plates that concealed him within the thing's back beginning to retract.
Time seemed to slow for Starlight as they approached the far wall, and she knew the impact wouldn't be pleasant. But there was someone she could make it even less pleasant for... She drew the sword, standing on the machine's moving arm, waiting for it to be forced to a stop against the wall. "NO!"
The wall hit. The metal nightmare stopped, and inertia carried Starlight forward, sword outstretched and pointing forward. Yanavan was straight in her path.
The world went white.
Starlight came to far quicker than recovering from unconsciousness usually went. Water lapped in her ears, and she saw an ocean tunnel leading out from her room, the sea covering half the floor. Behind her was the first door, the one through which Glimmer had pulled her, and around her were her friends, including Harshwater, all in various states of grogginess. But the door looked different... It was painted, not real. None of the cave was there anymore.
There had been an altar, too, life-sized and shaped like a bowing pony. In its place was Yanavan, the only pony a moon glassed sarosian stallion could be, looking dazed and holding his chest where she had impaled him, face ashen. Gerardo's sword was still at her side.
Without giving anyone time to recover, Starlight shoved him roughly, and he fell prone. She took the sword in her mouth, knowing the Nightmare Modules were still there but not about to use them now that things were finally finished. "It's ober," she growled around the sword, holding its point to his throat. "I wim."
Starlight stood with her sword at Yanavan's throat, not tolerating motion from either of them as her friends slowly came to. Maple, Valey, Gerardo... Harshwater was there as well, the cave's waters lapping gently against their stone platform.
Valey was the first to get herself together, rolling upright into a dazed fighting stance before noticing Starlight. Her eyes widened as she read the situation in a heartbeat.
"Caful," Starlight mumbled around the hilt, teeth bared. "He cam make moom glaff."
"You got a little something in your mouth, there," Valey pointed out, still sounding dizzy. "Here, gimmie."
Starlight relinquished the sword to Valey's wing, but didn't step back. Her eyes locked with Yanavan's, and they both knew she could do everything he could, but also had friends. "So," Valey said beside her. "I, uhh... What happened?"
"Unnngh..." Maple started to stir, sitting upright and rubbing her forehead.
"What did you see?" Starlight glanced up at all of them. "We were exploring this cave, but I think it was a dream. We're awake now, right? I stabbed him with the sword..."
Gerardo shook his head to clear it, rolling and getting his talons beneath him. "We flew in this place, and you were approaching the door, and..." His eyes widened. "Is that an obsidian-afflicted sarosian?"
Valey stared down at the surrounded stallion. "You're Yanavan, aren't you?"
"How did you get my powers?" Yanavan wheezed, ignoring her question entirely and focusing only on Starlight. "You don't have them. You were bluffing. How did you even know what they do?"
"I don't have any powers," Starlight said flatly. It wasn't far from the truth: the Nightmare Modules may have all been there, sitting at the back of her mind and waiting for their knowledge to be called on, but that wasn't going to happen. Maple was here with her harmonic flame, and Starlight was going to leave her glassed state behind and never use it for anything again. "And you should have thought twice before threatening my friends."
"Threatening us, was he?" Valey narrowed her eyes. "Look, buddy. I don't like waking up, finding that I've been knocked out, and seeing the ponies I'm supposed to protect have needed protecting while I was down. I don't care what kind of powers you have, I have a sword that will end you the moment you even think about trying anything. Got it?"
"No..." Yanavan was still fixated on Starlight. "You fool. You cannot hope to fight me..."
Valey blinked. Only Harshwater was still out, and she was showing signs of life as well. "So, uhh..." She glanced to the pegasus. "Hey, everyone. We kind of came to get her, and hope this guy stayed sealed, or whatever. Now that Starlight's somehow kicked his butt after he got free, what do we actually do with him?"
Maple tilted her head. "He looks almost kind of sad..."
"Of course he does." Starlight frowned down at the defeated stallion. "He's Nightmared. Remember that pirate? I'm okay when I use this, but I'm different. He's been like this for thirty years. I bet he's like Chauncey, and has forgotten what being a real pony is even like."
Yanavan curled up on the stone, and Valey wrinkled her nose. "Dude sure doesn't smell like he's having the best day of his life. But are we seriously going to start feeling bad for him? He's not just a monk. He's, like, an elite monk. With Nightmare Modules."
"One of the Nightmare Modules lets him make moon glass," Starlight warned. "Don't leave him alone or he could kill you."
"While pity and empathy may be valuable," Gerardo interjected, clearing his throat, "please bear in mind he supposedly attacked the other elites of the grand temple entirely without provocation, with the goal of stealing the power that brought about this transformation in the first place. While he may be a victim of his state, it would be foolish to assume he's also an innocent victim."
"Victim or not, anyone who can make moon glass gives me the creeps." Valey glanced up at Maple. "Hey, Ironflanks. We don't have any evil-sealing tools, so if we're gonna keep him around..."
Maple tilted her head. "Hmm?"
"Just thinking aloud." Valey kept the sword point fixated on Yanavan's neck. "We leave him here, he's gonna bail. But I can't hold him like this for the rest of my life, and if anyone else tries, he could get some sneak attack in, so we gotta either kill him or take away his powers. Now, I dunno how to deal with the whole dangerous monk thing combined with shadow sneaking. Like, I knew how annoying I could be with it, but I never really realized how annoying it could be, you know? But the whole Nightmare Module thing, at least..." She nodded slowly. "You've used the flame from the windigo hearts to put Starlight back to normal before, right? What are the odds it would work for this dude, too?"
Maple took a small breath. "Oh, I bet it would..."
"What?" Yanavan finally paid attention to someone other than Starlight, worry creasing his brow.
"I'm not sure how much it will take," Maple apologized. "Starlight, did you want this? Or are you fine waiting until we get back to the ship to go back to normal, just in case this uses it all? I know the harmonic flame was effective on you and on Puddles, so I bet Valey has a point."
Starlight swallowed, glancing at Yanavan. "Use a harmonic flame on him to take away his Nightmare Module powers?" She could wait. "That's smart. Do it."
"What are you doing?" Yanavan hissed as Maple stepped closer, only kept from writhing by the presence of the black sword. "Stop! Don't tempt me, you fool!"
"Don't tempt you?" Maple curled her lip disapprovingly. "With what? This?"
Harmonic energy briefly danced across her coat, and Starlight felt a deep sense of need tingle through her body. Whatever the cave had tried to do to her, whatever fears it had preyed on, her friends were here. Maple would be there for her. All she had to do was hold on until they got back to the ship, and she could stay as close to that as possible for however many weeks it took to fly where they were going next. It was there for her...
...And Maple wanted to use it on Yanavan. Starlight sighed, but she knew it was the right thing to do. If she let others have what she wanted, maybe that would make them want to return the favor. She wasn't about to force anyone to give her anything. Not after the kneeling illusions of her friends, or everything the armored alicorn had said in the altar.
"Don't you know this is a place of exile?" Yanavan glared up at Maple as she stood over him, harmonic energy rising gently from her fur. "Light and goodness are banished from this undeserving land. Stop showing them to me! Didn't my children tell you to leave?"
Valey blinked. "Hold on, your children? And a place of exile? Those batponies were cool with you?"
"Exile," Yanavan rasped. "This is not my prison. It is my home. I am hidden to my sarosians, but I make it a home to those the Night Mother looks on without favor. A place where her all-seeing gaze does not reach."
"Uhhh..." Valey scratched her head with her free wing. "You know, I'd believe that a lot more if they hadn't just almost gone extinct from fighting with some badly-equipped castaways. Ironflanks, light him up."
"Stop!" Yanavan shied away as Maple reached a hoof for him, and Valey's sword quivered. But he didn't move quite far enough, and a flash of light quickly enveloped Starlight's senses. Something was pushing on her, filling her, starting at her heart and inflating her outwards as she felt the harmonic flame being used with an even deeper sense than sight. Something whooshed in her ears, she felt her mane lift from proximity to the fire... and then it was gone.
Maple still glowed, but not as brightly. On the stone in front of her, Yanavan was transforming: flakes of darkness hovered in the air, drifting downward and applying themselves to the congealed mist which formed his haunches and legs. Slowly, like intricate tiles, they reformed the surface of his body, melding together until the seams lost their luster and vanished entirely beneath growing fur. Within seconds, he was a normal batpony.
"...Yep," Valey confirmed, still keeping the sword ready. "Dude just got a lot less dangerous. Is also still really dangerous, so watch out. I don't wanna know what his monk arts can do."
"D-Did..." Yanavan was shaking. "Did you destroy them? They're gone. I can feel..."
"I have no idea." Maple shook her head.
A tear splashed onto the stone beneath the prone batpony. "You fools..."
"Yeah, yeah. Yuck it up." Valey held the sword a little looser. "Guys, I really don't think he's about to fly into a zealous rage and blow us up at the drop of a hat. Anyone wanna see to Harshwater?" She glanced back down at Yanavan. "I have no idea what your deal is, and you're still our prisoner at absolute best. But before we make any decisions, we're getting your story along with everyone else's." She shook her head. "Bananas, I still have no idea what's going on in this crazy place. Nothing about this makes sense. Not the Varsidelians, not the locals... I don't know why I expected you to be any different. There's gotta be something everyone here isn't telling us. I'm just done stepping on hooves because we ran in and set off something we didn't understand. We are getting this right, once and for all."
It was dusk when Starlight returned to the deck of the Immortal Dream. Neither bright enough for day nor dark enough for night, there wasn't a telltale light spot behind the clouds to showcase the position of the sun or moon. It took her several minutes to remember that in Mistvale, it was always dusk. By then, Gerardo was getting ready to leave again.
"Next, I'll bring out Maple," he narrated, winding a coil of rope about his shoulder that was ostensibly to tie up Yanavan. "After that, Valey and I will see what we can do about the monk, though one way or another we're probably bringing him back here. That cave is a horrid place to talk."
He nodded respectfully to Starlight. "Ugh," Harshwater groaned as he took wing again and left. "What a night..."
Harshwater had ridden back on Gerardo's back with Starlight. She seemed the worst off of anyone after waking up outside the entrance, particularly since she was already beaten up more than most of the fighters from the recent brawl, but looked comfy enough during the ride Starlight suspected she would have requested a lift even if she had been well. Now the pegasus stood unsteadily, fixed her messy mane with a wingtip... Starlight wanted to help her. She wanted to offer her a shoulder, walk her down to a cabin, see if there was anything she needed, because this mare was quite bright, but also completely neutral toward her. Maybe if she was nice to her, Harshwater would be her friend. That chance was certainly worth the effort.
"Hi?" Starlight tilted her head, walking into Harshwater's field of vision. "If you need to go lie down, I can show you where the beds are."
"I need to hit something," Harshwater complained, her voice high and whiny. "But my legs hurt! And my wings hurt, and my neck hurts, and my barrel hurts, and my back hurts, and my face hurts, and how did you know where I went!? I was trying to get your crew a present, not walk into another of Kero's trapped missions and need saving! I hate this! Why do I keep falling for thiiiiis?" She grabbed Starlight's shoulders, staring her intensely in the eyes and demanding answers she was trying to convince herself she could receive. "And why are you gray? Unicorns aren't supposed to have batpony eyes."
Starlight's ears fell to match Harshwater's. "It's a long story. If I tell you, will you go lie down to listen?" She could see she was exhausted, right?
Harshwater probed her, mane looking once-well tended and then not seen to for weeks. "This is embarrassing," she said matter-of-factly. "You're a kid. Are you trying to baby me? Are you asking to baby me?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Uggghh..." Harshwater slumped forward. "Fine. Bed please."
She landed on Starlight's back, too big to fit all the way on and awkwardly sliding off, kicking slightly to make herself look more comfortable than she obviously was. Starlight grunted from the weight but turned toward the stairs, preparing to drag her to the first cabin she found and stop there... and suddenly they were face to face with about seven batponies, waiting inside the stairwell.
Harshwater stiffened in shock. "Ummmm..." She worked her jaw wordlessly as the sarosians blinked and stared. "Please tell me you all were good at diplomacy while I was gone. Otherwise, I quit."
She went completely limp, and the only reason Starlight didn't fall over under her weight was the enhanced strength from the Nightmare Modules that hadn't left even once she woke up. Silently, Starlight hoped that nothing had happened to convince or enable the sarosians to attack. She realized she had no idea how long they had actually been gone, and while she was certain she could fight them off, her new powers would be a lot more destructive than her old telepathy.
Starlight tilted her head. "Can I get through...?"
Suddenly, in a burst of teleportation, a unicorn was in front of her, immediately grabbing her in a tight hug. "Starlight, you're back!" Shinespark cried, rocking her quickly back and forth.
"Aah!" Starlight yelped in surprise. "Shinespark!"
"Where's Valey?" Shinespark sounded almost desperate. "And Maple and Gerardo, but where are they? My horn is working again, I can fly to go get them. How did you get back? Did she fly you here?" She glanced at Harshwater, eyes widening, and lifted her in her aura, holding her vaguely on her hooves. "You look terrible..."
Starlight coughed, slackening Shinespark's grip around her barrel. "Gerardo flew us. He's going back for Maple and then Valey."
Beside her, Harshwater frowned, recovering a sliver of composure. "How long has it been?"
Shinespark gave her a look. "Since they left to look for you? Three days."
Starlight felt her eyes widen. "We were gone for...?"
"You all, make a path!" Shinespark waved a hoof at the batponies, who obediently left them room to head down the stairs. "Nyala woke me up," she added as they descended. "Everyone else is asleep right now. With so many of us gone, it's been hard to keep watch for you around the clock, and since she's the only one who doesn't have to sleep... I've been getting ready to fly out after you all, though all the locals are convinced it's a terrible idea."
Sarosian murmuring surrounded them until they passed the library, where Nyala's new flat winged board of a body was waiting. "Is everyone okay?" she immediately asked, propping herself up so her camera faced the three.
"They are," Starlight promised, sending Shinespark's ears back with relief. "We found the cave, but everyone who went in got stuck in a dream. I thought we had only been gone for minutes, not days." She glanced up at Shinespark. "Yanavan was there. He wasn't locked up or anything, and nobody's sure what to do with him. Valey is guarding him while Gerardo flies us out. He'll be back with Maple next. Maybe you should fly back with him next time to help?"
Shinespark's face shadowed. "That's... Okay. Is there anything else you need? Anything else I can do?"
What Starlight needed was all the reminders she could get that her visions of being separated from her friends and them bowing to her weren't true. "Nothing that won't wait until Maple is back," she assured. "I'll take care of Harshwater?" She pushed open the door to an empty room.
Shinespark gave a stressed smile, setting the levitating Harshwater on the bed. "Thanks," she said, still bearing a few scorches on her fur from the battle. "See you, then."
Starlight let out a breath as she swiftly trotted away, turning to the bright, important pegasus in the bed. "So is there anything I can get you?"
Harshwater flopped out on her back, all of her limbs going spread-eagled, and huffed a massive sigh. "You really want to be that way? Okay... First thing I want is a feast. And my everything hurts, so you better make it a good one."
"Will this be plenty?" Maple asked hopefully, standing over a tray of simple sandwiches. "I didn't really feel like I should take the time to make something fancy..."
The bedroom where Starlight had left Harshwater was packed. The pegasus herself made an aggressive point of taking up the entire bed, reveling as hard as she could in having real accommodations despite her injuries and loudly letting the others know. Maple had arrived with Gerardo, and while Gerardo and Shinespark had gone back to the cave to assist Valey with Yanavan, both Felicity and Nyala were here, the latter propped up in a corner and the former reclining in a library reading chair Maple had carried in. Starlight herself was glued to her mother's side, still moon glassed but finally off her hooves now that Maple's food was ready.
"Looks good, just give me anything..." Harshwater waved a bruised hoof.
Maple took a huge bite, having left the tray where Harshwater could easily reach it. "It really didn't feel like three days when I first woke up, but now, wow..." She chuckled weakly.
Nearby, Felicity wiped her brow. "It may have felt like less to you, darling, but imagine how much longer it was to us! Every capable pony had flown off to that cave, and there was no one left but Slipstream, Amber and a bunch of invalids to worry about or go after you! The first hours weren't so bad, mostly because I was unconscious, but after that..." A pained look crossed her face.
"Did you really not realize it had been so long?" Nyala asked from her wall. "When I wasn't put together, it was like no time had passed at all, and I was helping Shinespark fight just an hour ago."
Maple shook her head. "It's... shadowy? I don't remember if I dreamed, but it felt like we were only there for minutes."
As Harshwater weighed in on the passing of time, Starlight pressed against Maple's side, eating a little but not really needing it. Being here, surrounded by ponies who were passing friends at worst all the way up to her mother, she didn't feel quite as concerned by food. What bothered her more was how and what she was going to tell. Not only did Maple not realize she was lighter, but none of her friends had any awareness of what had happened in the dream cave. They didn't know she had the rest of the Nightmare Modules. Of course, that part didn't matter, because she was never going to use them again. It shouldn't matter. But just having the secret in her mind, having something she couldn't tell, pressed a chain of loneliness against her heart. She'd have to tell it at some point, she knew, for her sake of mind if absolutely nothing else.
"Things have been absolutely uneventful and filled with everything happening here at the same time," Felicity was saying. "Which is to say, it's quite a huge deal that nothing happened while you were gone. That Grenada mare is locked up with a damper around her horn to prevent it from lighting. Shinespark and I have been recovering, with me serving as translator for our new dependents whenever I'm feeling capable of it. Amber's taking care of us all. The Varsidelians are licking their own wounds and happy to leave us alone in exchange for truce. Things have been... well... they've been."
"Amber is exhausted," Nyala added. "It must be hard caring for so many injured ponies you can't understand with so little help. Slipstream is tired too. You should encourage her when she wakes up."
"Amber? I already did," Maple said with a rueful smile. "She hugged me and asked if she could finally sleep in. We'll have a proper reunion once she's taken some time to care for herself. I'll have to see Slipstream, though..."
Harshwater stuffed another sandwich in her mouth, eating faster as the conversation turned to the battle and its fallout, until all of a sudden, she stopped, winced, and slowly swallowed. "It sounds like your diplomacy didn't really go well, did it?"
Felicity winced back. "It could have been a lot worse. And by that, I mean outright war could have escalated to extinction. I was rather in danger of losing my life myself, you know."
Harshwater's ears pressed down, and she pushed the platter away. "I... Sorry. Does it help if I'm not too happy with myself right now?"
"Who would it be likely to help?" Maple gave her a gentle look. "It wouldn't change anything that happened."
"That's not really telling me there's something I can do..." Harshwater nervously whined, biting her lip. "Look, I really really would rather not play the pity card, but I'm... kind of in a terrible situation right now? And I hate to derail this conversation..." She twiddled her hooves, fidgeting. "But I just talked you into a war, aaand it nearly killed your friend, and when I tried to do a tiny thing to thank you for going out of your way for me..." She glanced quickly at Felicity, then averted her gaze.
"Darling, if you think I'm about to vengefully maul you, I'm happy to say I don't have it in me." Felicity waved a hoof, then frowned. "And do you mind not looking at me like that? You really don't seem to like sarosians."
"Can you blame her?" Nyala interjected. "When she's been fighting them for survival for the past few weeks..."
Felicity deflated. "Quite right. Just, Harshwater, please. You're so terrified of all of us I can smell it in the air."
"I am not!" Harshwater snapped, then faltered. "...Maybe." She glanced at Maple, clearly reluctant to explain.
Starlight got it. Before Maple could reply, she stood up, flicking her tail. "You want to come with us."
Harshwater's ears went back down. "Well, I chatted with Valey..."
Maple took a slight breath, then nodded. "Oh... I see." Her eyes settled on Harshwater, and she smiled reassuringly. "We're not leaving until we're sure everyone is happy enough with how things have worked out that there won't be more fighting," she promised. "And if that involves anyone coming with us, we have a big ship. Not big enough for all the Varsidelians at once, and we're not going to Varsidel, but a big one."
"I don't get it." Harshwater looked dumbly at her, then quickly perked up. "But eh, I'm not going to complain. Not like I won't just get thrown away like an old towel if I go back to Kero..." She spat the griffon's name, briefly scowling. "My chances really are better with you. Just don't trick me into any suicide missions, okay? I'll be loyal, even if I mess up."
Maple got up, walked over, and sat on the edge of the bed, putting a hoof on Harshwater's shoulder. "The only suicide missions here are volunteer-only, and Valey always makes sure everyone gets back alive. It sounds like you've got a lot to deal with, but maybe save that for when you're better if you can?" She smiled again. "Right now you're our guest, and you look like you have a lot of recovering to do."
"Yeah, I'll talk with Valey later..." Harshwater groaned into her pillow, no longer fighting the bed to stay upright.
Felicity tapped her forehooves. "Well, darlings, what do we do now? I, for one, am still rather tired after that ordeal, and I imagine the rest of you have some... things to take care of. Whatever those things may be. But would it perhaps be prudent to discuss what we do next?"
Maple nodded at her. "That might have to wait until Valey and the others get back, since they're in charge, but it would also be mostly up to you. Since you're the only one who can talk to both sides."
"Felicity the peacemaker," Felicity sighed, getting out of her chair and climbing gingerly to her hooves. "Well, seeing as I woke up for this, I think I'm going to try to get a little bit more sleep before my services are needed next. I'll see you all later?"
"Bye!" Nyala waved with a metal wing.
Maple nodded, and Harshwater grunted facedown in the bed. Starlight just watched Felicity, and right before the doorway, the mare turned her head and made eye contact. "Oh, and Starlight?"
"Huh?" Starlight blinked.
"I've noticed a... shall we say..." Felicity fidgeted. "An unusual lack of commentary relating to your present coloration, dear. Probably something that's already been discussed in this friend group before I joined up with you." She fixed her with a knowing look. "But I'd very much like to talk to you, if you wouldn't mind?"
Starlight nodded, and Felicity seemed pleased, leaving the room and closing the door gently behind her.
It wasn't difficult for Starlight to slip away from Harshwater's room. Whether by some passive effect of the Nightmare Modules or something else, she felt less present than she usually did, and nobody raised an eyebrow as she cracked the door open and trailed Felicity's retreating form down the hall.
Were anyone to ask her to rank the ponies aboard the ship from brightest to dimmest, Starlight would have said that wasn't fair. She sometimes wasn't even sure it was constant, and the more she wanted to be near someone - or the more she couldn't be - the brighter they seemed. So whether Felicity was actually one of the brightest mares on the ship or Starlight was merely invested in her approval over all others', she really couldn't tell. Bright enough, at least, that Starlight was willing to push down any nervousness about what Felicity wanted to talk about in hope of the best outcome.
Felicity had the same body type as Willow, as well. Bigger and heavier-set than most mares without being fat, muscular or disproportionate, she wondered if she would have been predisposed to like her even without whatever the moon glass did to her senses. Her tail was meticulously styled, in contrast to the likes of Valey or Shinespark, and she took visible efforts to keep poise in her step, though Starlight could tell she had very little energy beneath it. It made her want to stick to Felicity's side and help her, though she reached her destination before Starlight could catch up.
"Hello?" Starlight tilted her head, following Felicity through the door. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Yes, hello, darling," Felicity replied without looking over her shoulder, flicking the lights on with her tail and making straight for her bed. "Would you mind getting the door? There's a few things I'm extremely curious about, though I wouldn't want unnecessary ears to hear. These aren't exactly common questions."
Starlight obliged, nudging the door closed and watching as Felicity collapsed into the bed with a concerned frown. "Are you alright?"
"Frankly, darling?" Felicity gave a wan smile. "No, I'm not. I'm very much not alright. Was I worrying you?"
Starlight bit her lip.
"I'm rather delicate," Felicity explained, laying flat on her side. "My constitution is frankly terrible, and I pushed myself dangerously far during that little skirmish days ago. Thankfully, I think I should get back to my version of normal with a lot more rest, but I wouldn't want to do that again and again without risking something permanent happening. So don't worry too much, if you would?" Her eyes followed Starlight with a question, seeming to ask her if she wanted to help.
"Is there anything I can do?" Starlight asked it, coming closer and sitting down near the edge of the bed.
Felicity smiled, strained to hold it, and finally turned downcast. "I'm very interested to know that as well. Starlight, have you ever heard this song?"
She weakly hummed a few bars, and Starlight instantly nodded. It was the Firefly Sisters' song.
"I dreamed that song," Felicity continued, "very intensely. While I was unconscious from exertion, at that. I hope you don't have a lot of experience with being unconscious, darling, but it's not a place my mind is usually feeling up to dreaming in, and when it is, they're vague and nightmarish instead of coherent and uplifting. And when I first came to, I couldn't quite chase the image of you from the edges of my mind. Talking with our sarosian friends after I got up and about, it sounds they all experienced it while they were awake, taking things to an even further extent."
"And?" Starlight swallowed.
Felicity's smile returned, trying to be comforting. "I'm very curious to know how you did that."
"Why?" Starlight's ears fell. "Because I'm not really sure I know... It just happened. I can't do it anymore. But I did do it."
"Mmm... You can't, can you?" Felicity lifted an eyebrow. "Even if I told you it would help me greatly were you still able?"
"Maybe?" Starlight hesitantly, almost painfully offered. She couldn't do it again, she knew with certainty... unless she found Glimmer again and convinced her to give her back the telepathy. It was technically possible, but she had no idea how. "How?"
Felicity yawned, not even summoning the strength to lift her head. "Let me... Let me tell you a story, darling. You remember the time we first met, when dear Senescey brought you and your friends home after work? The time I told you all the story of how we lost our mother?"
Starlight's ears fell. "Something in Izvaldi, right? About Percival's father? I remember Maple was upset..."
"As accurate as it needs to be," Felicity sadly hummed. "The river was poisoned by a mismanaged mining operation, and it serves as the town's supply of drinking water. I mentioned that my sisters and I all survived. But with the way your mother took that news alone, I didn't think it prudent to mention that we weren't exactly unscathed."
"Oh." Starlight looked away, then forced herself to look back at Felicity. She was still very bright, but now her fatigue and tiredness shone differently in Starlight's ears. For a brief second, the empty feeling in her heart left over from the moon glass that her friends' brightness was destined to fill turned to divine anger, empowering her to use her Nightmare Modules to destroy whoever dared harm something of hers that was so precious... and then her heart flickered back to normal. This was decades ago, and the griffon involved had passed away long ago.
"Now, you're probably wondering where you come into this, but hold on a little longer," Felicity gently urged. "My sisters and I were all afflicted, though their woes are a little less-noticeable than mine. We prayed to the Night Mother, of course. She offers advice and guidance to all of sarosiankind, and we were hoping she might extend that to salvation. There is a legend about the Night Mother, you see... Not only is she hidden somewhere in the world, but any who can visit her in person are granted a wish. Much like Garsheeva and her tournament, only while Garsheeva grants worldly favors, the Night Mother is far more powerful. Powerful enough, for example, to create new bodies for the three of us, unravaged by poison, and transfer our brands, souls and memories so we could return to living normal lives."
Starlight swallowed, realizing where this was going. "The locals thought I was the Night Mother. They said what I did with the song was exactly like talking to her."
A little hope entered Felicity's expression. "That's my first question, darling. Somehow, you've used her powers, and mercifully at that. It sounds as though you saved them all from fighting to their deaths in battle. Not only that, but you've turned up in an area your friends are saying is the secret resting place of Monk Lord Yanavan, and defeated him yourself as well." Her eyes fixed intensely on Starlight, and she spoke slowly and carefully. "Are you my patron?"
Starlight's ears went back. "I hope not?"
Felicity sighed. "Well, I supposed it would be too easy to be true. Besides, your demeanor and hers are very different. That leads me to my second question, then." Her focus returned. "Since you seem to share her powers, can you help us?"
"What?" Starlight felt like a spotlight was being shone in her eyes.
Instantly, Felicity relaxed. "Please, darling, at ease. I don't mean to put any sort of pressure on you. I just..." She looked down. "Starlight, we... have been promised that if we serve her faithfully, the Night Mother will reveal her location to us and allow us to come and have our wish granted. She's confirmed she can do what we ask. And a lot of her goals, we're already sympathetic to, and they frequently align with our own. My heart isn't the prettiest thing, and I'd be the last to call myself a good pony, but I do have a strong dislike of injustice and that frequently gives us overlapping enemies. But... sometimes..." She swallowed. "Sometimes we don't like playing this role, or it goes too far. I would assassinate gods in her name if I felt they deserved it, and between you and me, I've come close already in the cruelest of ways. But that debacle with the hospital didn't sit well with any of us. Particularly since she passed it on like a word of friendly advice, not a job or mission. So I was just... wondering..."
"Oh." Starlight wanted to look away too, but couldn't avert her eyes, instead putting her forelegs up on the bed. Felicity calling herself callous or cruel made her grit her teeth. It was a waste of brightness... right? There was the vague possibility in her mind, born purely of logic, that this sight of hers was clouding her judgement and making it possible to overlook things she really shouldn't, but her heart told her that was impossible. Felicity could be better than that. She had to, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to share that brightness with her. "...How did you think I could help?"
"I really don't know," Felicity apologized, doing nothing to turn her away. "It's just, your friends occasionally talk about that business with the windigoes in Ironridge, and you apparently have a track record for doing things that should be completely impossible. Almost like you can... Forgive me for imposing what I want to see on this, and this is certainly a biased prediction, but almost like you can grant miracles in the same capacity as the Night Mother."
Starlight frowned, staring straight at Felicity's big face and tilting her head. "I don't think so..."
"But there is something special about you," Felicity insisted. "You can't simply speak into our sarosian hearts with the voice of the Night Mother for no reason, darling. It sounds as though you hardly understand yourself or what you can do either, hmm?" Her smile tried to return.
"Not really..." Unbidden, images of the mirror chapel returned to Starlight's mind, the altar bowl's reflection turning to her covered in sigils, rings and runes, with wings of floating geometry hanging at her sides. The altar hard promised her methods existed for her to become like that, hadn't it? But it had also seemed to think it was a test, and given her the modules for rejecting the potential to lord over her friends and anyone else whose companionship she desired.
Wincing, she added, "I'm kind of scared to."
Felicity gave her a reassuring look. "Confusion and uncertainty can be very scary, darling. And you're hardly of an age where you should be heaping responsibilities and obligations on your shoulders. All the same, I think knowing more about yourself might help. I could try my best to help you, if you like? Perhaps we could learn something that would clear up a little fear about how you can do what you do?"
"Come closer, darling." Felicity patted the bed, stretching a hoof toward Starlight, and Starlight carefully obliged, climbing all the way up. "How much do you know about Mistvale Monks?"
"Nothing..." Starlight hesitantly started.
Felicity forced her head upright, getting a shoulder beneath her. "Mmm. I recall explaining some to your friends while you were missing, but I suppose you wouldn't have heard... Their arts function, essentially, by making your body want to do things. It's exactly how you might think about raising your hoof and it causes your hoof to raise, only in this case, someone who knows the arts... someone like me..." She delicately coughed. "Could merely tap you and cause it to happen ourselves."
Starlight felt a little more hesitant. "You can do this?"
"I can, darling," Felicity softly assured. "Though I'm much more practiced with non-combat uses. Typically, the impulses from monk arts are much weaker than your own mind, so anything too direct can easily be fought off. But we can also do things your mind normally just isn't wired to do. You might remember I tried to help Shinespark after her battle with that other monk in Valey's stead. One thing I can do is... essentially ask your body to tell me about itself. That's quite an oversimplification, but I could potentially learn something about you, if you'd like me to try."
Starlight bit her lip.
"I'd be completely honest about whatever I found, of course," Felicity assured. "And until you said otherwise, it would absolutely be a secret between you and me. Not even the Night Mother would know. And really, I do feel somewhat bad that we sent you to get your horn looked at and nothing was ever found, so at the very least consider it my way of trying to make up?"
"Well..." Starlight hesitated, then crawled closer. She wanted to trust Felicity. She wanted Felicity to trust her. "Okay. See what happens?"
"Of course, darling." Felicity sat up a little more, her forehooves brushing against Starlight's shoulders. "Just give me one moment, here. I'm sure we'll..." Her lips pursed, and her eyes started to widen. "Oh my..."
Starlight sat still as Felicity's hooves tingled against her fur. She could tell there was some sort of magic involved, but it slowly ceased, Felicity ending her work and just holding her in front of herself with concerned, fascinated eyes. Starlight started to grow self-conscious. "What?"
"...Darling," Felicity said, taking a moment to get her words together. "This may not come as a surprise, given your present... unusual appearance, but I'm not entirely sure you're a unicorn. At least, not the kind of unicorn ponies usually associate with the word."
Starlight's nose scrunched in confusion. "I have a horn, don't I? What are you talking about?"
"...Your muscle structure. Not even something anyone well-versed in pony anatomy would need magic to understand." Felicity's hooves moved to the sides of Starlight's barrel. "Your sides are very distinctly built like a pegasus, sphinx or sarosian as opposed to a unicorn or an earth pony."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Starlight blinked, twisting her neck. "They don't look any different to me..."
Felicity nodded. "Anatomically speaking, ponies who can fly need different muscles to support their wings. These aren't just ornaments, you realize." She lifted a leathery wing for emphasis. "Ponies who only walk are laid out differently inside, around their sides, for more of a focus on leg strength. Since they don't need to waste room on wings, so to speak. And you, despite being a unicorn, are built like a sarosian or pegasus."
Starlight blinked again. "Are you saying I have wings?"
Felicity chuckled tensely. "Ha! No, you definitely don't, darling. And your skeleton is completely normal, too. But you have the muscle layout and structure of someone who would, even though it isn't attached to anything." She bit her lip. "It's very strange. I can't say I've ever seen anything like this before."
"What does that mean?" Starlight frowned, confused. "Does it even mean anything?"
"Well... It's just..." Felicity fidgeted. "I, err... This may seem like an unrelated question, but is there any chance Maple isn't your biological mother? Or that something among your parentage is unknown? I hate to make far-flung hypotheses, but in the realm of common knowledge, I'm sadly drawing a blank."
Starlight bit her lip. "I was adopted when I was little. In my old home. Before I met Maple. She adopted me too."
Felicity sighed gratefully. "Well. That's a relief. I never commented on your relative ages because it would have been in dreadfully poor taste, but I'm glad... Well. Never mind." She swallowed, hesitated, and started again. "You have things in common with the Night Mother, you know? And I've been politely not pointing it out, but your eyes look like mine now. Slitted, darling. I'm not going to make you tell me how you can shift from the little lilac filly I've been traveling with up until now, though it would be very helpful, but... at least right now, you seem to be... a little more similar to a sarosian than most unicorns I've seen. And this should go without saying, but no child of a unicorn and a sarosian would ever go on record in the Empire stating their parentage and allowing themselves to be researched. So if this was what that kind of union's result looks like... You see what I'm saying? It's a guess, darling."
Starlight blinked. "You think one of my parents was a batpony, and that's why I'm different?" She tilted her head. "I didn't even know batponies could have foals with other ponies. I thought..."
"You thought since Garsheeva and the Night Mother ban it so rigorously, it wasn't worth considering?" Felicity gave a rueful smile. "It's very possible, Starlight. As someone with a lot of secrets, I can tell you an excellent way to hide them is to always leave lesser secrets to throw off anyone hunting you and make them think they've found all there is to find."
Starlight slowly nodded. It was a simpler explanation for why she could do what she could than she was expecting, but maybe that made it likely? It wasn't like she knew any other half-batponies...
"I can't say for certain," Felicity sighed, seeing her uncertainty, "but it makes a lot of sense."
Starlight looked at her hooves. "I wonder what the hospital would have done when I was getting checked. Do you think they would have seen this and guessed that? I wasn't moon glassed when I went there, so my eyes would have been normal..."
Felicity blinked in interest. "That's a very good question, darling. Quite possibly, they would have... done the same thing they did already. The fruits of heresy are hardly much more welcome than the acts themselves..." She trailed off, blinking again. "If that's a coincidence, it's very strange. But what's this about moon glass?"
Starlight hesitated, realizing she had said more than Felicity knew... but if Felicity could go around telling ponies she might be half-batpony, whether it was true or not, she already had no choice but to trust her. "I'm trusting you, you know," she warned, staring straight at the older mare.
"I know. Hard to have much of a choice, isn't it?" Felicity smiled apologetically. "But for what it's worth, darling, my motives are laid bare for you to see. I want my body fixed, and my sisters', too. Even if I abandoned all pretense of being able to live with myself after all was said and done, helping you helps us. And if we ever were to abandon our quest and decide it would cause us to go too far, you and your friends are without question who we'd side with instead."
Slowly, Starlight nodded, Felicity's brightness intense before her. She wanted more than anything to trust this mare, and the possibility of them being friends was worth any risk. "I turn like this when I touch moon glass. It doesn't take my cutie mark like normal batponies. I think it changes how I see things, and it lets me use Nightmare Modules."
Felicity took a little breath. "Nightmare Modules? As in the treasure that..." Her eyes drifted to the window. "Oh my..." She looked back to Starlight, and her eyes narrowed.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Starlight felt her heartbeat speed up.
"Your friends know you can do this?" Felicity asked, a little bit too casual for Starlight's comfort.
"Yes...?" Starlight's ears pressed back. "Sort of? I mostly talk about it with Maple and Valey..."
Felicity watched her intensely. "And we're supposedly here, having accidentally stumbled upon the sealing place of Monk Lord Yanavan, infamous for stealing the Nightmare Modules. Implying they can be stolen."
The unspoken question of whether Starlight had them lingered in the air, and Starlight didn't want to answer. She had said she could use them, which gave away that she had at least one. "I-I..." She had a bad feeling riding up her spine, but knew there was no way she could lie convincingly right now. "Look, I don't like them!" Her voice cracked slightly, falling back onto her haunches in fear. "I don't want Nightmare Modules, I don't want to be a half-batpony, I don't want anything to do with Yanavan! I want to have friends and protect my friends and other than that just be normal!" She felt her lip tremble. "You're scaring me."
"And you think I'm any less terrified?" Felicity breathed, a hoof staying with Starlight's shoulder. "I'm sorry about this."
Suddenly, there was a tingle, and Starlight's entire body couldn't move.
"Easy, darling." Felicity caught her numb form, setting her down gently. The act swirled a storm of emotion in Starlight she couldn't even begin to parse. Felicity had stunned her? Felicity had stunned her. Why? And then she caught her, too. It was rejection and acceptance all at once, wasn't it? Her heart tried to violently push the mare away and pull her close all at once, but her body couldn't move.
Felicity folded her ears, making eye contact. "Please don't look at me like that," she begged. "Starlight, listen. You care about your friends, yes? Because from where I'm sitting, there's a faint possibility... a possibility nonetheless... that we didn't come here by coincidence and you're some sort of devious impostor who nudged us along to this place with the express purpose of taking those dark treasures for yourself. And if I'm wrong, which I hope I am and am scared I'm not, I'll let you go as soon as I've talked to your friends and made absolutely sure. If they say you've always been acting like yourself, including in this... alternate gray form, I'll profusely apologize. I'm being safe, and doing it for your friends. You can understand, can't you please?"
Starlight could understand. She wasn't sure what Felicity was looking for from her friends, and had an idea the mare hadn't thought things that far through, but if she suspected anyone of having good reason to betray them, she'd do the same. Of course, given how much she needed everyone, she'd need substantial evidence before being willing to throw away mutual trust... and it hurt deeply being the one who wasn't trusted. But Felicity was still right, and she'd done harder things than this for her friends.
She tried to nod, and it was like her muscles were missing some attachment. Something twitched in her neck, and her head flopped slightly.
Felicity gave a sigh of relief and quickly ruffled her mane. "I'll be back as quick as I can," she promised, shadow sneaking under the door and leaving Starlight alone.
"It's lonely at the top, isn't it?"
Of course Glimmer would be there. Starlight couldn't turn to look at her, but flicked her ears, a part of her body that still seemed to work. Did she want to talk to her now? Did she ever? Better than having no one, at least.
Glimmer stepped around into Starlight's vision. Arcane rings flared around her horn, just like when she had given and redacted the batpony telepathy, and suddenly whatever Felicity had done was gone. Starlight stretched, her legs working properly again, and frowned.
"Well?" Glimmer shrugged.
"Well what?" Starlight looked crossly at her, still stinging from Felicity's mistrust. "What do you want?"
"I know how you're feeling," Glimmer said, horn going out as she paced to the bed and sat at Starlight's side. "Right now, you're more powerful than you've ever been before, with all the Nightmare Modules. You've just saved your friends from Yanavan, stopped a small war... and for all that, you don't feel at all in control of your life. Maybe less than you ever have, and that's saying something." She turned to look at Starlight. "Right?"
Starlight frowned. "And what do you want me to do about it? I don't have a choice." She looked at her hooves. "Felicity says I'm half-batpony. The Empire would hate me."
Glimmer sadly regarded her. "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Sure?" Starlight tilted her head.
Glimmer slid closer and put a hoof around her shoulder. "It'll be okay."
"What...?" Starlight blinked.
"Remember how you used to hate being different, or special? Or the idea of being better than your friends?" Glimmer looked away, but Starlight could tell her gaze was unfocused. "That drive that made you run across the biggest mountain range in the world?"
"Yes!" Starlight folded her ears. "And this is a big reminder of why! But I need to be better to protect my friends, and I can't do anything about it if I'm somehow half-batpony!"
"This world," Glimmer sighed, "is good at self-fulfilling prophecies, Starlight. Felicity just said she was only guessing. She has no idea why you're the way you are. For all you know, you're even more unique than that. Or, maybe having pegasus anatomy is just the way every pony in Equestria is, and you're more normal than any other pony here. Why you are the way you are doesn't matter. What will change things the most... is just the way you treat yourself."
Starlight bit her lip. "What are you telling me to do?"
"Nothing. I'm just explaining things a little more easily than thinking them through on your own," Glimmer offered with a reassuring smile. "Starlight, you paid attention to what you saw in the altar pool. The Nightmare Modules are the tools of an immortal alicorn goddess. It warned you of what they could be used for. The modules react to you. You can use them. They submit to your whims. So if you treat yourself like you have the job of a goddess..."
Starlight swallowed.
Glimmer averted her gaze. "Let's just say Garsheeva and Equestria's princesses might have been mortals once, too."
"What are you saying?" Starlight fought off a lingering cold at the edges of her senses. "That I could become...?"
"Not just you," Glimmer apologized. "Anyone who tried hard enough and went looking for the way. What if the world works that way? The knowledge could be sitting there to be found. You've learned so much already. You've found the tools of a goddess. Who's going to stop you from going even further?"
"But I don't want these!" Starlight gritted her teeth, wishing she could throw the Nightmare Modules at the wall. "I don't want to be different, or to be stronger than my friends, but I have to! Because otherwise I can't keep them safe! Even with these, I don't know if I can!"
Glimmer took a breath. "That's... also true. If these tools are built for a goddess, and you try to use them as a little filly... what's to stop them from failing you when it turns out you can't do something an immortal would have taken for granted?" She looked at Starlight again. "Either way, it doesn't end in you being happy."
Starlight felt a pressure building in her chest. "You're not helping. That's not telling me what I can do."
Glimmer wrapped her other hoof around Starlight, pulling her into a filly-sized hug. "Shhh. Have you ever tried doing nothing?"
"Yes," Starlight said bitterly. "I did nothing when Sunburst was taken away, and that's what started this whole thing."
"No, you didn't," Glimmer whispered. "You ran away, across mountains and worlds rather than live in a world that wasn't better."
Starlight sniffed. "And what should I have done?"
"This might sound unfathomable," Glimmer answered, "but you could have done nothing. You could have stayed in your town and grown up in Equestria, stopped running from your cutie mark, lived with your loss and made new friends and seen where life took you."
"How is that supposed to be any better!?" Starlight choked. "You want me to just do nothing when things aren't right and there's something I can do?"
Glimmer closed her eyes. "Things will always be going wrong. It's in the world's nature. And you're powerful, talented, creative and stubbornly determined, so there will always be things you see that you can do. There are for all ponies, actually, believe it or not. Everyone always has the opportunity to make the world a better place, no matter their standing in life. But they don't always do it. Sometimes it's because they don't care, but more ponies care than you think. It's just..." She took a breath. "If you never stop and never draw a line, you'll end up trying to take responsibility for the entire world."
Starlight swallowed.
"Even Garsheeva settles for a tiny continent," Glimmer continued, "and even she settles for keeping it stable rather than making it perfect. Who are you trying to be, and when will you stop? You can live a normal life, no matter what's different about your body or abilities. You can. But if you don't... Princess Luna was an alicorn, and she was the loneliest pony in the world."
"What do I do?" Starlight whispered. "Please help me..."
"You need to learn to live with loss." Glimmer shook her head. "And grief, in a world that isn't perfect and where you don't have control. You're so unused to letting go... I'm not asking you to leave your friends, or anything that normal ponies don't have to live with in their daily lives. But there's a reason the world is populated by mortals. Everyone deals with accepting this. Everyone. You can start small. You'll need to, with how unused you are to not fighting fate. But if you ever want peace in your life, you have to come to terms with the nature of the world. You have to."
"I-I..." Starlight shivered. "And how will I be any better off if I just lose everything I care about?"
Glimmer exhaled. "You don't need to stop trying for a better life. I wouldn't, in your position. Ponies who try are the reason the world isn't a lot worse than it already is. You just need to learn how to draw a line and live with being able to do more. Can I tell you where to start?"
"Can you?" Starlight folded her ears. "Do you even know?"
"Right now," Glimmer said, pushing Starlight to her hooves. "Before they get back with Yanavan. Go to Maple and have her put you back to normal, and think long and hard before ever touching obsidian again. Starlight." Glimmer's eyes were serious. "Once he gets here, you'll be tempted to use the Nightmare Modules again. You're already used to thinking like a god. It'll be that much harder for you to be a normal pony if you get used to calling on the powers of one as well. There will probably come a day when the amount of harm using them could spare the world from will justify anything, if they were in the right hooves, but that won't be today. Put them away. Don't use them. Lean on your friends if being powerless hurts, or even me. But you can do this, Starlight. I believe in you."
Starlight swallowed. "Why? Why do you look like me, why do you know so much, and why are you trying to help me?"
Glimmer shook her head and didn't answer, taking a step backwards... and then she was gone.
Starlight walked through the cabin hall of the Immortal Dream, switching her shadow cloak on and off. On the one hoof, Glimmer had just plainly told her getting comfortable with the Nightmare Modules would lead her down a path of more power and less satisfaction... something she wasn't entirely sure she understood, but trusted anyway. On the other, she did want to sneak around since Felicity was technically against her right now, and the shadow cloak wasn't even a spell she had gotten from the altar pool. It felt more comfortable, like it was hers, somehow.
She settled for wearing it. Finding Felicity didn't require going far; the older mare was in the library, sitting as professionally as she could and talking with a slightly worried Maple.
"This isn't the first time this has happened to Starlight," Maple was saying, trying to keep a frown off her face. "I know this magic isn't good, and it's not something either of us are comfortable with, but it does happen."
"But there's never been any indication she would misuse a position of power?" Felicity pressed. "No indications of dishonesty, fascinations with goddesses, no-"
Maple's face hardened. "You don't know her like I do. Starlight hates standing out and being treated differently than others, even if it's better than everyone else. But she still tries as hard as she can to be her best self in spite of that because she cares about us and she sees us trying too! Even though power scares her. Starlight would never act for her own gain."
Felicity let out a breath, a new concern written on her face. "Well, that's why I needed to ask someone who knew her better than I did to be sure. I... need to let her go, and hope she forgives me." She got up to leave, then looked over her shoulder. "And Maple? You tried your best to make it sound like a good thing, but never being willing to act for one's own gain is... ahem... usually a bad sign when it comes to being in a healthy state of mind."
Starlight dropped her shadow cloak, standing right in front of Felicity and waiting for her head to turn.
"Yeeep!" The batpony jumped back with all four legs flailing, landing and panting with wide eyes. "Oh my heart... What... How... You surprised..."
Starlight winced. "Sorry!" Ears pressed back, she instantly felt a spike of regret: that was not the best way to make up with a pony who didn't trust her. "I was just listening, and..."
"Starlight?" Maple blinked, glowing with leftover harmonic energy from purging Yanavan.
"How...?" Felicity held a wing to her chest, looking unsteady. "I stunned you. How did you get out?"
"I don't know. It wore off." Starlight swallowed. It was technically true... "Sorry... Are you alright?"
Felicity grimaced. "I really ought to be resting and recovering, darlings. That battle wasn't good for me, and it already takes far longer than usual to get what hoofing I have."
Maple bit her lip, torn between who to address. "Starlight, are you alright?"
"From her?" Starlight glanced at Felicity. "Yes. From everything else, I don't know..."
Maple walked over and held her close. "Can I help?"
Her mother's fur felt almost hot against Starlight's coat, the way room-temperature water felt against frozen hooves after one had adjusted to the cold. Starlight couldn't help herself; she burrowed her face into Maple's chest, knowing she should probably check on Felicity more but badly needing this right now.
"Mmm," Maple agreed, putting a leg around her back. "And Felicity? It takes far longer than usual for you to recover?"
"It's a long story, darling," Felicity apologized. "Suffice to say that my health in general is not the greatest. And... Starlight, however this may have gone down, I am terribly sorry, and tried to act in everyone's best..."
"I forgive you," Starlight mumbled, interrupting. With some effort, she tore herself away from Maple and hugged Felicity's chest instead. "Now go to bed. I don't think I can do whatever I did to help the other batponies again."
"You're alarmingly innocent," Felicity murmured, not moving to return it... until Maple joined too. "Both of you," she corrected. "I... Thank you. It must have been a better world, in the west where you come from."
Maple shook her head. "No," she answered simply. "It's just better where we're going. That's all of our dream, isn't it, Starlight?" She leaned down and breathed in through Starlight's mane. "We might not know where or what it is until we get there, but we're here because staying in Ironridge and Riverfall wasn't good enough."
As much as Starlight appreciated the gesture, Glimmer's words suddenly came back to haunt her. Before Maple left Riverfall and Valey left Ironridge, she left Equestria... Was she inspiring her friends to look for something better? Was she the reason none of them could settle down with their lives?
"Ha. Well, I wish you luck with that." Felicity broke away, finally leaning on the wall and walking down the hall. "But I don't think I have any more avoiding rest in me. Do come visit sometime if I'm not awake in twelve hours or so. Especially you, Starlight. I really am curious about what you can do."
Starlight and Maple watched her leave, Starlight wondering if she should offer a shoulder and knowing Maple was thinking the same. But Felicity had her pride, and soon enough was gone in the dim shadows.
"Hey, you," Maple whispered, coaxing Starlight toward a library chair. "What are you thinking about?"
Starlight hesitated. "Lots," she admitted.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Yes. I think." Starlight swallowed. She knew that was a lie. What she really wanted was to be held forever, to have someone light their horn and make the world a simpler place where she didn't have Nightmare Modules or wing muscles or friends who didn't trust her to worry about and more. She didn't want to talk. Talking would be painful. Talking would start with what she had been about to do with the harmony extractor, force her to dance around Glimmer... Glimmer had released her from Felicity's monk arts. There was no possible way a hallucination could do that. She would have to tell Maple about her doppelganger, who knew far more than she would tell.
She'd have to talk about the Nightmare Modules. About how she had all six, and was much more powerful with them, about how she could use them to keep everyone safe. And then about how she couldn't, because Glimmer said she needed to learn to draw lines and she could end up like Chauncey or Yanavan if she tried to stay moon glassed for too long. And telling all of that would hurt. She didn't even know why it would, just that something like this had to... but the world wasn't a simpler place, and this was the only way to get what she wanted.
"Can we?" she asked again. "I... Not here, but..." She glanced around. Valey was the other pony who was invested in her reaction to moon glass, and she would prefer her to be there too, but... that involved waiting for Valey to get back with Yanavan. And according to Glimmer, by then would be too late. "Our room?"
"Our room," Maple agreed, climbing to her hooves.
Before they could go anywhere, the sliding sound of the deck door greeted them from above, and talons clacked against wooden boards. Gerardo Guillaume peeked around the staircase, crest perking slightly when he saw Maple and Starlight. "We're back," he announced, respectfully keeping his voice down. "Hah. I figured you'd be resting. Would you mind following me to the deck? We have a new prisoner I'd love to get the story on."
Starlight followed Maple cautiously to the deck of the Immortal Dream. Gerardo was back. That meant Shinespark and Valey were back, and with them... She wasn't ready to talk to Yanavan. Glimmer had warned her to get rid of Nightmare Module emulation mode before him, and she hadn't.
She climbed out onto the deck, redoubling her resolve. She'd just have to not use them for whatever Glimmer said she'd be tempted with. She could do that, right? It would be easy.
There, in the middle of the ship, Valey and Shinespark stood, the former carrying Gerardo's sword across her back and the latter with her horn aglow. Yanavan hovered in Shinespark's aura, locked in by light with nothing to touch to use monk arts or shadow sneak on. For someone who supposedly went down in legend as a monster, Starlight decided he looked surprisingly ordinary.
"Hey, kiddo." Valey took the black sword in a wing, offering it to Starlight. "Thanks for lending us this, but I'm pretty sure Sparky has him under control now. Here's your sword back."
Starlight blinked, hard, and didn't take it. "Wait, my sword?"
Valey furrowed her brow and tilted her head. "Uh, yeah, your sword. What are you talking about?"
"That's Gerardo's sword," Starlight said, pointing a hoof at the offered blade and looking to the griffon for support. "Isn't it?"
Gerardo gave a good-natured chuckle, showing off a talon. "Well, you've certainly lent it to me many times in our adventures, but that hardly makes me its owner." He reached forward and took it from Valey nevertheless, giving it a careful flourish and stowing it in the sheathe at his side. "It's a good blade. If you say it, I'm happy to continue using it."
"Wait, no..." Uncertainty twisted Starlight's heart, and she looked at Gerardo again with worry. "It's always been yours, hasn't it? For years before you came to Riverfall?"
"Are you feeling alright?" Gerardo blinked. "I'd never seen it before meeting you there. As far as I remember, your friends said it was in a crate with you floating down a river, did they not?" His crest flounced at Starlight's expression, and he turned a glance to Yanavan. "This is most unusual. Old stallion, have you been messing with one of our memories?"
Yanavan hovered in Shinespark's aura, watching him and refusing to answer.
"Gerardo's right, as far as I remember," Maple added. "Starlight, you really don't remember having it with you in the mountains?"
Starlight swallowed. "What did all of you see in the cave? In the dream?"
"I didn't have a dream," Valey belched. "It was just kinda hazy for a moment around when we opened that door. I think I remember you going through, or getting pulled through, or something, and then something fuzzy hit me and you were there with this lemon bag and it was over." She pointed up at Yanavan.
Maple bit her lip. "Same as Valey. I thought the door was real at first, but then when I woke up, it was only painted on. I don't think there was anything between that."
Gerardo nodded his assent. "Seems to me like we've got some funny business going on. I certainly can't remember us having disagreement about this before going in that cave." He raised an eyebrow at Shinespark. "What say you, eh? You weren't with us in the cave. What do you recall?"
Shinespark frowned at the sword. "I know Gerardo had it when I saw it first. I never paid attention or looked into where it was from."
"Okay, big guy." Valey nodded at Gerardo, walking over to stand next to Starlight. "As weird as this is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually matter or change anything, so let's deal with it later. What do we do with this gnarly dude?" She pointed again at Yanavan.
"That's a very good question," Yanavan rasped from within Shinespark's aura, voice sounding like it hadn't been used in a long time. "You've brought me into the light. What are you going to do now?"
Everyone looked at each other, and by a vote of eyes Valey was elected to talk. She stared up at the imprisoned stallion and cleared her throat. "...Whatever your story is and whatever connection you have with the locals, spill. Not that we trust you, but the alternative is me and Sparky guarding you in shifts while we haul you the rest of the way to the grand temple and let them deal with you instead."
"And hope they're not furious with us for accidentally releasing you," Gerardo added somberly.
"So be it." Yanavan bowed his head. "As long as the Nightmare Modules are destroyed, I will submit to whatever fate you have in store." His eyes suddenly focused on Starlight. "Provided they are destroyed. How did you know of their function enough to replicate them in my dream?"
Starlight bit down on her tongue. Here came the questions she hadn't thought about long enough to answer, that probably would have been easier if she wasn't moon glassed... "That's what those were? The cave showed me. It was a dream, wasn't it?"
"Starlight?" Maple blinked at her. "You dreamed something we didn't, didn't you? What did you see?"
Folding her ears, Starlight ignored her, listening instead for Yanavan. The monk scrutinized her, and soon replied. "It was a dream. I controlled it with the aid of the powers of that cave. But I didn't show you anything you weren't meant to see."
Starlight glared. "What does it matter? Why do you care if the Nightmare Modules are gone, anyway?"
"What does that matter if they're gone?" Yanavan calmly countered. "It only matters if any surviving copies are still here to be used. Otherwise, they're history."
Valey gave Starlight an uncertain look, deciding to let her do the talking. But Starlight could hear her heart in her chest: what did she say? How much did she tell? Felicity already suspected her of something. Her friends knew she had at least one Nightmare Module. At all costs, she wanted to avoid using the rest, no matter what they might do...
Swallowing, she met Yanavan's eyes. "And what if there are ponies who have figured out how to get other copies of them besides the ones you had?"
Yanavan watched her, regarded her... and in just as calm a tone as ever, replied, "Is this true? If so, you have much, much worse things to worry about than me."
"Oh yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Try us."
Yanavan didn't seem moved. "Who is looking for them, did they send you, why do they want them and which ones do they already have?" His eyes fixed on Starlight. "My dream had nothing to do with showing anyone the modules. You must have known about them from elsewhere. Tell me."
Starlight winced under his gaze. "...Valey?"
"Alright, alright..." Valey rolled her shoulders, preparing to start. "A lot of dudes. You know about moon glass? There were some guys in Yakyakistan, though they're all dead and only got one or two. And then there's some dudes in the Empire, headed by someone with several called Chauncey..."
Yanavan watched Starlight and Valey with an impassionate gaze, the rest of Starlight's friends looking on with skepticism. "Say who is searching for the Nightmare Modules in the Empire again," he requested, hanging in midair with his wings and forelegs folded.
"A shifty dude called Chauncey." Valey raised an eyebrow, giving him an intense look. "You wouldn't know him, would you?"
Yanavan ignored her. "And which ones does he have?" His slitted eyes settled on Starlight. "All but the fourth and fifth, from the ones you showed me."
Valey glanced at Starlight too. "Yo, so what's this about doing stuff in dreams? If all of us were out cold, you were doing something? I mean, I guess that's obvious, but it involved Nightmare Modules?"
"Yes." Starlight swallowed. "It's a long story. I'll tell you once we're not talking to him." Her ears flicked. "I learned more about what the other Nightmare Modules do."
"Did you somehow get them?" Maple asked, brow softening in worry.
"More than the one I already had?" Starlight shook her head. "No."
It was a necessary lie. Starlight hated lying to her friends, but this was a story she needed to tell in private where they were safe, not when a treacherous monk was listening and might talk her into using them. And as much as it hurt, the moon glass's darkness shielded her, pushing down the pain and letting her get through it with a steady voice and as straight a face as ever.
"I asked a question," Yanavan droned, sounding cross.
"You're also our prisoner," Shinespark growled up at him. "You have no right to the floor, and we'll get around to you when we get around to you."
"You have no grounds for capturing me aside from folklore," Yanavan countered. "And the lore that has reached my ears is that I am imprisoned. You saw for yourselves that wasn't the case when you invaded my home. I've stayed here for thirty years. Am I likely to leave now? Does that merit restraining at swordpoint?"
Valey shrugged. "Sorry, buddy, but we have literally no reason to trust you right now."
Yanavan frowned.
"Look, what did you want to know, how much stuff Chauncey has?" Valey one-upped his frown, briefly sticking out her tongue. "Bananas, I don't know any numbers on these things. How about this: what's it to you? Why does it matter? Why do you care?"
"Idle curiosity," Yanavan chastised. "It's no concern of mine until you remove me further from my home."
"Oh yeah?" Valey stepped forward. "How about this: you're being a passive-aggressive weirdo, not telling us anything and asking a bunch of stuff we have no reason to tell you. All the other batponies here. You care about them, right?"
"Are you blackmailing me?" Yanavan suddenly looked confrontational.
Valey gave her tail a satisfied flick. "No. Just saying, like basically all of them got beaten to death's door in a dumb fight that only happened because of terrible communication. So now I'm asking you some questions, and you'll answer them on pain of us being clued out and doing dumb stuff that offends you. How do you know Chauncey, why does everyone say you're so evil if you're just chilling here, what's the deal with this lake's other batponies, and is there anything you actually care about?"
Yanavan regarded her... and to Starlight's surprise, actually relented. "Chauncey was a high-ranking monk during my time on the lords' council. I assume you're familiar with imperial history in the north over the past fifty years."
Valey blinked, and Gerardo stepped up, clearing his throat. "You're referring to the single-day crusade, are you not?" At blank stares from everyone else, he elaborated with a knowing smile. "Just another episode of intrigue and drama that populate the Griffon Empire's dense and storied past. The previous lord of Gyre, in those years following the demise of Giovanni Goldfeather, sensed a societal power vacuum in the nation caused by his passing just as keenly as everyone else. With the empire's currency system out of sorts after Giovanni's attempts to own every bit of its money, there was room for leaders to create new ways of displaying stockpiled wealth and authority. Lord Gyre attempted to bring his province together beneath him with an extended show of rhetoric against Mistvale. The province would have been worse for sarosians than Everlaste is now. In time, threats and bluster evolved to an army, and after more posturing and riling everyone up, he did the inevitable and tried to invade."
"So what made it only last one day?" Maple asked, standing carefully behind Starlight.
Gerardo winked. "Garsheeva demonstrated how serious she is about her empire not being allowed to make war with the sarosians without her say-so. Lord Gyre could posture all he wanted without her lifting a claw, but the moment hooves and talons were set across the border, she quickly showed that even a sizable army can't lay a scratch on an immortal the size of a barn. She also killed Lord Gyre, who was with the party, leaving his toddler Gondolus to inherit the province and utterly ruining its one point of provincial pride, sending the society into a tailspin into the dump it is today. Ruthless, perhaps, but when Garsheeva acts, she doesn't mess around."
"All of that happened," Yanavan rasped in agreement as the others watched Gerardo with varying degrees of interest. "Garsheeva protected Mistvale. You can see that becoming a problem."
Shinespark's eyes widened. "The Empire can't have been happy with their goddess taking their enemy's side in a war."
Yanavan flicked a wing. "Chauncey was a prominent monk in a movement over the following decades that met that war with questions. Having their goddess appear to fight against them was the Empire's problem. He, and others like him, wanted to know why our goddess was absent in our hour of need, and the enemy goddess intervened on our side instead. They asked, why follow the Night Mother when Garsheeva offered action to defend us instead of words, advice and counsel? Years went by, and arguments evolved. It became more difficult to make a case for abandoning the Night Mother for Garsheeva when loyalists, pragmatists and even the Night Mother herself drew attention to the state of Gyre after her intervention. If the goddess of your enemies treats them without mercy, is she your friend, or would she bring you twice the woe? Soon, those who asked questions began to question the use of the Nightmare Modules."
Valey shuffled restlessly as Yanavan continued. "The high council had in its possession these weapons that were designed and left for us by our creator. Only those who reach the higher circles of the grand temple are aware, but the Night Mother and our creator are distinct entities. Those who shared these sympathies, doubting the Night Mother after the single-day crusade, who were high enough to know of the modules' origin and our commandment from the Night Mother to guard and never use them, began asking why we didn't use the modules for ourselves and elect someone to become a third god or goddess. The Night Mother could continue her guidance, they said, but we would have our own champion to dispense divine intervention."
"You know, that does sound kinda like Chauncey," Valey admitted. "The dude went on and on about finding all sorts of stupid ways to become a god. I don't think he was actually that interested in the Nightmare Modules, though? Kept going on about transferring cutie marks." She patted her flanks. "Uh, brands. You know."
Yanavan looked unmoved. "Chauncey likely had some other reason for disliking the Night Mother than the crusade. As time went on, Garsheeva's actions there became less of a real concern and more a cover for those looking to legitimize their actions. Either way, there came a day when someone inevitably tried to steal the Nightmare Modules."
"Uh huh." Valey nodded along, unconvinced. "So lemme guess: you totally 'stole' them first, or something, and then got all your Monk Lord buddies to back the story up, so they weren't around for anyone to steal anymore. Am I right?" She raised a dubious eyebrow. "Because you totally could have done that without getting chalked up as a weird evil monster that's basically a giant target for bad guys to come commandeer. We already know Chauncey's a bozo, and we're not giving anything dangerous to him, but he was sending parties to look for you."
"That's disheartening," Yanavan said. "It's also not my problem. There are no dusk statues within countless miles of this place. Even should someone of poor character grow so powerful as to rest control of the statue network from the Night Mother, they still would fail to reach me here."
His gaze intensified. "I was a zealous young monk. I took creating arguments as an act of defending my worship of the Night Mother rather than pursuing enlightenment or a better way of doing things."
"I can understand zealotry," Shinespark sniffed. "Now stop beating around the bush."
"One day, those who questioned came and demanded the Nightmare Modules be used for our good instead of sealed away." Yanavan shrugged impassively. "Chauncey was among them. We, the council, refused, and he in particular responded with the most calculated, pointless set of heresy and blasphemy I had ever seen. Then he attempted to steal the Nightmare Modules. He reached one. Zealous as I was, I took the other five to protect them, though he escaped before I could use them to stop him. Recognizing that we had warred in and desecrated the holiest shrine in the grand temple, I made up my mind to shoulder the Night Mother's wrath for the incident, as well as assure this never happened again. One of the Nightmare Modules can damage and erase memories, though it was more powerful than I expected. I erased Chauncey entirely from the memories of everyone present, and corrupted the questioners' thoughts on the Night Mother so severely they were left with emotion with no logic attached at all. I cared about the Night Mother, and believed she would be less hurt by one severe betrayal than the true level of chaos in that room. And so, I allowed myself to be banished to this bay, and here I remain."
Valey tapped a hoof, waiting to see if he would continue. "That it? Great. Bananas." She sighed loudly. "So you're totally blameless and heroic and it's all someone else's fault, right? Dude... I dunno how to tell you this, but you're not winning a whole lot of credulity from me. Hey Sparky, wanna hold him a bit longer?" She glanced over to Shinespark. "I think I gotta go discuss some stuff with everyone who was there before we continue."
Valey led the way into the Immortal Dream's library, Maple and Starlight trailing behind her and Gerardo bringing up the rear. "Alright," she announced with a serious look once they were there, not bothering to sit down. "So what are we thinking?"
Gerardo scrutinized the bookshelves, beginning to pace. "There's a lot here that doesn't make sense, and not all of it relating directly to our friend Yanavan. To be honest, I'm more suspicious of Starlight's earlier claim that this sword belongs to me than anything else." He drew the blade an inch from its sheathe, hanging darkly from his side. "And not because I suspect Starlight is lying."
Maple shuffled uncertainly, and Valey tilted her head at Starlight. "Yeah, what's that about?"
"I don't know," Starlight answered, her ears going back earnestly. "Do really none of you remember? One of the Nightmare Modules is supposed to do something to our memories..."
"Yes, but I'm not sure how simple erasure could cause us to remember the same thing two different ways," Gerardo mused, stroking his chin. "Assuming we're thinking of the same module. But if he did, you apparently had experiences in that cave the rest of us lacked, and since you're on your own in the way you remember things, I'm inclined to believe it's you who's somehow been misled."
"But I remember it clearly!" Starlight started to protest, then wilted. "But you probably do too."
Valey nodded. "Kiddo, I'm pretty sure we need a rundown of exactly what happened to you in that cave. What's he going on about when he talks about you and more than one Nightmare Module?"
"I..." Starlight swallowed, shooting a nervous look at Gerardo. Not that she didn't trust him, but the Nightmare Modules scared her, and Maple and Valey were the only ones she had talked to prior about her abilities.
Thankfully, Gerardo caught on. "Apologies for asking if it's a sensitive topic. Perhaps I should check on the rest of the crew if you three need a family moment?"
He didn't ask permission before stepping away, leaving Valey blinking. "What did you call us?"
"Just go with it," Maple hummed softly, nudging her. "Starlight?"
Starlight looked down.
"...Hey." Valey paced up beside her, putting a wing on her shoulder. "If some uncool stuff happened to you down there, you don't have to talk about it. I get that. We'll just lug him up to the grand temple, let them deal with everything, and you can have however much time you need. But if there's literally anything you can tell us, right now, it'll help. There's totally something you're not saying."
Maple swatted her with her tail and pulled Starlight close. "Valey! Try to be gentler? Whatever Starlight's been through wasn't easy."
Starlight hadn't noticed any lack of gentleness in Valey's words. It didn't matter, because she was right. She needed to talk. But all of a sudden, it felt like there was a yawning gulf between her and her friends, and she was terrified of describing how she got the Nightmare Modules. They might not understand. They probably would, but the possibility they wouldn't existed, and just by existing it was too great. Who else did she have? She'd be alone. If she couldn't trust them with this, wasn't she already as good as alone?
"I-I..." There was a river of darkness separating her from her friends, and she could see them waving from the other side. Starlight felt her heartbeat increase; Glimmer had been wrong. How was she to trust her friends when there was a possibility they could leave? She had to embrace every potential, leave no tools unused, so that she would be strong enough they'd need her to stay safe. If she was better, they wouldn't be able to afford to doubt her. She could make herself useful. "I..." But that would involve telling them what she could do, too. She began to shiver. She couldn't do this. She hated doubting her friends; every emotion involved was too painful. She needed to fling herself as far away as possible, make some leap of faith...
"I need a windigo heart!" she choked. "Harmonic flame. No more moon glass. Please..."
Instantly, energy from Maple washed into her, and her perception felt like it was melting, then draining water after being immersed in a river. Pink energy. Tear streaks of color restored her vision as she remembered what she had lost and then regained it, the mystical fire washing and cleansing her from the inside.
The Nightmare Modules were gone. They were still there, she knew, but until she touched moon glass again, she would never have to think about them, and that was something she was never going to do. A brief, powerful sense of loss swept over her, and she knew what she had just thrown away: the most powerful tool she ever might have to defend her friends. But her friends were still there.
"I'm sorry," Maple whispered, forelegs wrapped around her. "I remembered last time you said it didn't feel too hard to live with, and since you turned yourself gray this time, I was waiting to change you back until you asked. Did you need it earlier?"
"N-No," Starlight sniffed, eyes threatening to cry. "It's not being gray. It's having the Nightmare Modules. That cave gave me all of them. Even though it was a dream. I don't want any Nightmare Modules!"
"Wait, really?" Valey blinked, looking worried. "And you still have them? That's why Yanavan was talking about you with them? But hold on, I thought you could use them without any extreme bad stuff happening. Were some of them just that immoral, or something?"
Starlight judged herself, and the weight of having the modules further than a thought from use was the biggest change. Her friends felt closer; that dark river was gone, but... She swallowed. She still needed to trust them.
"No," she muttered. "Only the memory one was bad, and the one that let me make moon glass. There was a shield, and one that let me make my mane misty. But they were r-really strong..." A shaky breath later, Starlight steadied herself. "If I have them, I'll use them to keep all of you safe. But I'm scared of that. I don't want to be in charge of everything, even though it's the best way to make sure I don't lose it! I don't want to have to fight windigoes and batponies to keep my friends! Normal ponies don't have to, so why should I? It's lonely and not fair..."
"Bananas." Valey looked away, and then back at her, ears drooping slightly. "It's too much for you to handle, huh?"
"Is there any way you could expect it isn't?" Maple countered, rubbing Starlight's back and burying her face in her chest. "She's a filly, Valey. These are weapons made by a goddess. Even adults and trained leaders shouldn't be forced to take that much responsibility." She turned back to Starlight. "Even I don't know what to do with it. I'm so sorry if this has been hurting you and we're only now getting around to talking..."
"No," Starlight mumbled. "I was fine with them for a while. I just went too far today."
Valey gave Maple an uneasy glance. "Adults and trained leaders, huh? Like... don't forget that I'm technically six." She looked down. "Sure, I might not have started at zero, but still. When I first came to Ironridge, I was barely starting my growth spurt, and I knew the right dude to blackmail to basically rule half the city when I was the same size as her." She pointed a wing at Starlight. "It stinks and it isn't cool, but this is what the world demands of us. You've got us to lean on, but you gotta not give up."
"Or what?" Maple returned it with a sharp look. "Starlight needs a break, and you do too, so why not take one? Why do we have to deal with Yanavan on our own, and what will happen if we don't? Why can't we just take him to the grand temple and take care of each other for a moment? Isn't that what we came here for in the first place? Trying to answer some of your questions about yourself?"
"Yeah, but..." Valey swallowed. "I mean..."
"Pardon the intrusion," Gerardo Guillaume said from the hallway, talons clicking against the floor. "Just thought I'd check in in case I was needed."
"Hey, good timing, Birdo." Valey waved a wing, stiffened, then sagged. "Could you go help Sparky with Yanavan? Tie him up, get a light on him, something. We're taking him to the temple, and I'm really tired."
Gerardo saluted. "Consider it done. I'm still feeling relatively fresh, myself, so if you three need the night off, I've got you covered."
"Heh." Valey watched him go, nodding appreciatively. "Thanks, Birdo."
"We're moving," Maple murmured, laying on her back with her hooves in the air and a blanket nearby.
Starlight could feel the ship's harmonic vibrations, a soft resonance that carried down from the energy comet and reached her all the way through her cabin's plush bed. "Go back to sleep?" she mumbled, shifting to bury her face beneath a foreleg. On her other side, Amber snored loudly in agreement.
"Maybe. But I'm not that tired." Maple didn't move. "You are?"
"Mmmph."
At that, Maple rolled over. "Did you dream?" she whispered.
Starlight had. It was a normal dream, the kind she could barely remember even though she was only half-awake, involving wagons in Ironridge and large fish and slow, gentle rocking. Nothing important. Nothing nightmarish, somehow, and nothing related to the cave or Yanavan. "I'm tired," she muttered, wanting to preserve the peace while it lasted.
Maple answered by rubbing her face against a pillow, and didn't speak.
The shadows around Maple and Starlight's door rippled, and Valey straightened out of them, arching her back and yawning. Her hooves wandered, and when she reached the deck, night sky greeted her with a sea of clouds below.
She let herself onto the bridge without knocking. Gerardo noticed anyway, swiveling in his pilot's chair and welcoming her with a nod. "I see you're up and about."
"And I see we've ditched that bay," Valey replied, pacing closer and brushing a wall with her tail. "Did I really sleep that long?"
"Well, you were a little out of it," Gerardo suggested, giving her an amused look. "But no worries. It took some doing and a lot of improvised communication, but I think we reached a happy ending between the castaways and the locals. I gave them the rest of our healing supplies, and feel reasonably optimistic things will turn out well."
"Yeah, but you're always an optimist," Valey pointed out. "So what else did I miss?"
"Not all that much, happily." Gerardo focused again on the controls. "With miss Grenada out of the picture, most of the merchants felt like a truce was an enviable outcome. Of course, they took a little convincing the other side would accept, but once I got our sarosian friends actually talking with them and slowed down enough to understand each other, things fell into place." He leaned back, satisfied. "The sarosians were deeply unhappy, of course, with our infiltration of the cave. They felt they were protecting Yanavan, and still think we're stealing him from them. But even if we're not a welcome party back there any time soon, they recognized the merchants truly wanted to leave, and accepted they needed their help to survive, to boot."
Valey's brow furrowed. "Hold on a sec, what? They were upset we were taking him away? Not that we unsealed him, or whatever, but that we were hauling him off?"
Gerardo didn't meet her eyes. "I know you're about to ask why we didn't stay and try to reach something more agreeable. Valey, after a battle like that I'm astonished there's anyone alive in that valley at all. I made the decision that we should stop meddling while we were ahead."
"So does anyone even know now what was really going on in there, or what?" Valey crossly tapped a hoof. "Do we know for absolute certain we're not seriously going to regret hauling Yanavan off against his wishes for some reason more serious than him trying to kick our rears?"
"If anyone does, it would be Shinespark," Gerardo answered. "She's been keeping watch on him since you recused yourself. And since I haven't heard word from her that we should turn around, I assume nothing's come up."
Valey ran a wing through her bangs. "Yeah, I probably should go relieve her..." She shook her head. "Look, whatever. Being a good guy is hard, and if none of those dudes were going to appreciate it, I'm fine with leaving. Just gonna go see... nyaaah..." She interrupted herself with a yawn. "Gonna go see what's going on in the hold. See ya."
"Remember, take this." Gerardo offered her the black sword. "Useful against him if he tries anything."
"Yeah..." Valey took it, running a wing over its flat, polished metal and taking a moment to stare at her colorless reflection. "Starlight really thinks this used to be yours, huh?"
"Used to be? More like still is mine." Gerardo nodded sagely. "I must admit, I am handy with a sword. Fortunately, you don't need to know a blade's history to use it effectively. Steel is steel, and a sharp edge needs be nothing more than a sharp edge."
Wordlessly, Valey nodded, staring into the blade and walking away with that as her reply.
For any other sword, that would be true, everything Gerardo had said. But hadn't Felicity said this sword had a history? Something emotional that gave it its unusual magic? A sharp edge might have been sharp, but this one cut a lot deeper than skin.
A sadness burned into soulless metal like silhouettes after a blast... Valey looked up from the sword and continued her walk. Maybe she'd show it again to Felicity later. First, she had to talk with her about everything she said she would before the battle, like how she supposedly worked as an assassin. There was probably a lot more she couldn't even remember.
"Knock knock!" Valey stepped down the rear staircase, letting herself into the cargo bay where Shinespark had spent the past week reconstructing Nyala. Now, it was home to Yanavan, his wings bound and carefully tied against a wall. Shinespark sat before him next to Nyala, the latter with Valey's flash club mounted to her back and turned permanently on.
"Valey!" Nyala's voice chirped, a charging cable connecting her main board to the ship's power frame.
"You're here," Shinespark greeted, visible bags under her eyes.
Valey quickly scanned the room, deciding there was nothing much else of interest. Yanavan felt reasonably safe... "Yep," she replied, "I'm here. Bananas, Sparky, you don't look great."
"It's been a tiring few days," Shinespark admitted, keeping her posture proud. "And it's not going to get better, thanks to Grenada... She's tied up in the observation room." She shook her head, teeth gritted. "How did we start taking so many hostages? It's so much work, sorting through this."
"I don't envy you." Valey shrugged. "So how's guarding this guy? Is he chatty? Tried to turn you against us yet?"
Shinespark shook her head. "He keeps asking to see Starlight. I think he's sulking because I keep telling him no." She gave Yanavan a strange look, who was currently looking frustrated and vaguely pedantic against the wall. "It makes me wonder how he became a Monk Lord. It feels like he's less mature than I was in Ironridge, even. Isn't that supposed to be a position of respect and leadership?"
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "So how locked down is he? You should go take care of yourself and Grenada; I just had a sweet break. But do I have to hold this guy at swordpoint, or is it more of keeping a few eyes in the room just in case he starts an evil ritual or something?"
"Please don't demean me," Yanavan warned from the wall. "You're talking about things you have a foal's understanding of."
"And you're just a bunch of hot air," Valey retorted, not even sparing him a glance.
Nyala rocked a little on her wings. "I can hold him by myself, now that Shinespark gave me a light. But I would appreciate the company."
Valey trotted over, sitting down beside her. "Yeah, I could do that. Bananas, I've got so many ponies I probably need to talk with... See ya, Sparky. Can't wait until we have all these loons off our tails."
Shinespark left with a grateful nod. "Thanks," Nyala said, and then it was just her, Valey and Yanavan. The monk didn't actually feel that dangerous... though maybe it was a product of the light.
"I see I have a new visitor." Yanavan spoke first.
"Congrats. You do." Valey folded her legs. "You gonna try to use me for entertainment? Because if so, I can leave."
Yanavan shrugged, and a staring contest ensued. The monk, Valey quickly realized, had the patience and tolerance for solitude of someone who had spent thirty years in isolation.
"Yeah, I give up. I'm bored." Valey stood up. "So what's the deal with this sword? Why do my friends and I remember differently where it came from after running around in your cave? How'd you do it, and why this thing in particular?"
Yanavan blinked owlishly. "You likely trifled in magic you have no business with. That cave was my home, but I didn't build it. Its protective enchantments were in place long before I was foaled."
"So you don't know. Cool." Valey nodded. "And what's the deal with all the other batponies in that dump? They tried to protect your cave from the Varsidelians, or something?"
"They were like me," Yanavan retorted. "Those who chose to no longer live under the Night Mother's vengeful eye. I provided a grounding for them, and they protected my location from outsiders. It was a simplistic arrangement."
"Like how they almost died to the Varsidelians and you did nothing to help?" Nyala quietly added. "I don't think you made a very good leader, if you're telling the truth..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. Yanavan squirmed.
"Yep. Welp. I'm bored." Valey yawned, leaned back, and glanced around the room, looking for something to make herself comfortable. "Bananas, this is going to be a fun guard shift..."
Shinespark stepped quietly through the dining hall of the Immortal Dream, ignoring the staircase and passing through the small hallway to the very front of the ship. The observation room wasn't a place that saw a lot of public use, something that surprised her a little. Perhaps because it was out of the way, no one was ever passing through. It felt more secret than she had intended, drawing the ship's plans so long ago, but in time, she had come to think of it as her haunt. It was a nice secret.
And now, it was where she had put Grenada.
Her sister's eyes tracked her as she walked in, horn capped and hooves bound and burgundy coat silhouetted by a window of moonlit clouds. "This is humiliating," Grenada greeted, face stony.
Shinespark could feel the beginnings of tears tugging at her eyes, the present visage overlaid in her mind on a lifetime of memories. Speeches given in the Spirit hideout long before Braen was autonomous, meetings held against a backdrop of construction and machines... "I hate seeing you like this," she agreed, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to take a seat and not look away.
A flicker of sympathy crossed Grenada's face, and she tried to hide it, but Shinespark knew her too well. "You know whose fault that is."
"Mine?" Shinespark's jaw clenched. "I'm sorry."
"Too little, too late," Grenada snorted, and tried to look away.
"Is it?" Shinespark asked. "Just because I should have talked to you earlier doesn't mean we're not still alive. I won't stop being sorry even once it's too late to matter, but that hasn't happened yet."
"Just because you should have spoken earlier?" Grenada's brows both rose. "Just because? I lived with you here for an entire month, and you could not even dignify my question with a no? And now you followed me here where I was trying to start a new life and took all that away from me!" Her breathing intensified, chest threatening to heave... and then Grenada looked down. "I thought I understood you once. Now I cannot recognize you at all."
Shinespark's ears wilted. "That's because I've changed. Braen of Ironridge was made to be more perfect than one mare ever could be. She was built on a lie, that fighting with weapons was the way our Sosans could stand up for themselves and better their world! And then that lie was torn apart right in front of my face when it brought war to Ironridge. That lie was Braen and Braen was me, and so when it died on the bridge, it killed me, too. I've never been the same since. It took weeks for me to put myself back together, and I got up a different mare."
"That's bogus!" Grenada snarled, straining against her bonds. "Braen cared for every Sosan! She visited them in their homes, listened to their stories and gave them someone to look up to! Are you telling me that kindness was a lie, too?"
Shinespark watched, feeling energy tingle in her horn, tempted at the back of her mind to unbind Grenada and let herself feel the mare's wrath. "No. I didn't care for them because I was Braen. I was Braen because I cared for them, and it ended with Sosa and the skyport being destroyed! It ended with me unconscious with a broken leg while other ponies fought and almost died to protect our city from everything I allowed to build! It ended in the Ironridge skyport, C terminal, south wing, west control tower when I caught up to the Spirit and teleported everyone to safety but you."
Grenada shuddered. "Then where was it when I was waiting? If that care for everyone wasn't thrown away, why didn't I deserve any? Every day I spent growing up, you were there...!" Her shudders evolved to trembles, and soon the ropes were the only things holding her upright. "If Braen was a lie, I fell for it. And I have no respect for your truth if it's turned you into what you are now."
"Neither do I." Shinespark hunched over as if nursing a wound, squeezing her eyes shut and knowing her composure wouldn't hold out much longer. "I thought I could change the way the world works and it showed me just what it thought of that. I hate the way things ended, for Ironridge and for everyone I cared about. I fought it as hard as I could, Grenada. I became Braen because a dying Sosa wasn't enough, and I wanted to bring about a better world. The way things are isn't something I embraced. It's something that knocked me down."
Grenada stared, waiting and watching for her to go on.
"I'm so sorry I let you down," Shinespark whispered, meeting her ruby eyes again. "There are some wounds I have that never healed, left over from that day. Talking with you that whole month... you loved me because of how I treated you. Even if you were back from the dead, everything about you was a reminder of what I had told countless Sosans and how I had let them down. I needed to face up to it, to make things right with you and not let our friendship break apart because I spent our whole lives wearing a guise that was gone now. And? I failed again. I couldn't. It hurts." Her voice cracked, despite barely having volume. "You might have liked me better when I pretended to be flawless, but if I don't admit what I can't do then it will hurt even more when I run into things I could have avoided. I'm not the kind of hero I made myself out to be, and now it's hurting you, too."
"Really? Is that what you have to say?" Grenada's brow hardened again, though she didn't fight her bindings. A mountain ridge passed below, breaking up the reflective cloud sea, and its shadow reached up through the window floor, briefly cutting her off from the moonlight. "I was not looking for you to be flawless, Shinespark. I was overjoyed to see you again that evening on the pirate ship. It was like you had come back from the dead, too." The shadow passed, and once again she was lit, silvery light making her coat appear pale gray. "I knew your plan failed in Ironridge. It never mattered whether you succeeded because you cared and you tried!"
Finally, her mask slipped, genuine pain replacing the coldness and apathy from before. "I knew who you were inside that armor. The effort you put into every one of us was far more important to me than any of your rhetoric or propaganda. I may have been naive but that was never something I could not see." She sat up straighter, staring intensely. "You never became Braen because it was easy. I am not upset because you made a mistake, Shinespark. I'm upset because you're telling me that and are trying to justify why you stopped trying!"
Grenada's words settled like dust around her... or perhaps the dust was any argument Shinespark could have prepared. "You're right," she whispered, helpless. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"...I have no idea what to do now," Grenada admitted, scowling at the ground. "I could have helped you. I might have imagined you being my gleaming knight, because I was naive too, but I thought I could pay you back for inspiring me so. I wanted to be the pony you could lean on. I would have listened and understood like no one else, because I was there too and knew what you had gone through. And you lumped me in with the rest of your past and tried to throw me away."
Shinespark bowed her head, waiting for Grenada to say her piece.
"I know what you are thinking," Grenada went on. "You haven't even mentioned how I treated you just now, when I commanded my ponies to attack you, denied you and fired at you with my trebuchet. Are you waiting for an apology? Do you want me to take the initiative?" She paused, but got no response. "...I had a reason. How was I supposed to feel after you threw me away and forced me to live a life on my own, then walked back into the new life I was building? Were you going to tear it all down? Or become every Varsidelian's savior just like you were for Ironridge and just like you couldn't do for me? I was jealous, angry and afraid, and my fears were founded. Here I am being hauled away in disgrace while a truce has been reached between my friends and the sarosians, courtesy of your friends and not me."
A lump stuck in Shinespark's throat and refused to go away.
"If you get to justify being a coward and taking the easy way and ignoring everything that made you who you were, why can't I do the same!?" Grenada tried to stomp, but her hooves were tied. "I didn't trust you! I wanted nothing more to do with you and you came back into my life after everything you had done, and so I shot you with my own horn! See? I had a reason for disowning you, too! Does that make it any better? How does it feel, being on the other end of your argument!?"
Shinespark cringed. She hadn't had time to fully care for herself since the battle, too busy with sarosians and truces and everything else the days had involved, and some char from Grenada's blast still lingered on her fur as a result. She brushed it with a hoof. "It's no defense."
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Grenada wouldn't let her gaze go. "Saying you were worth less than fear."
"And it doesn't make things right." Shinespark straightened up, a flicker of resolve returning to her voice. "You're worth more than my issues with Ironridge, too. That's why the first thing I said was that whatever else we lost, both of us are still here." Her horn lit sapphire, beginning to unbind the ropes from Grenada's hooves.
Grenada watched as they fell away, standing where she was without moving. Then Shinespark's aura settled around her horn, lifting away the cap that prevented its use. She looked at her hooves, then at Shinespark, and didn't say a word.
"I'm sorry," Shinespark said once more.
"Well?" Grenada whispered after an eternity of silence. "Who is going to say it? Will we at all?"
Shinespark watched her, beseeching. "Would it mean anything, coming from me? I'm not in a position of power, here. I wronged you. I couldn't deal with Ironridge, and you paid the price."
"And I hated you," Grenada answered. "More than anything, for making me hate you. I hated the necessity of it. I asked why you couldn't leave me to lick my wounds in peace? I felt like if you would only leave me be, next time I could be the bigger mare. We could come full circle, and I could be the shining knight who reached down for you and forgave the way you failed me. But that was just another fantasy."
"No," Shinespark growled, growing tears beginning to obscure her vision.
"Isn't it?" Grenada frowned. "Both of us have-"
"No!" Shinespark repeated, rising in intensity. "Us making up does not have to be a fantasy! If I don't feel like I deserve to forgive you and you feel like there's more you need to do to forgive me, then we'll never make up even though we both clearly want it, and that's not right! I don't care whether I'm allowed to say it or not when I'm crawling back after leaving you like that, I forgive you, and I want to try again! And if that's somehow wrong in any way, then whatever says otherwise isn't a law I'm willing to let my world work by!"
Grenada choked on her response, rushing forward and nearly knocking Shinespark off her hooves as she wrapped her legs around her neck and buried her face in her fur. "I missed you...!"
"I forgive you," Shinespark insisted, putting a leg of her own around Grenada. "And I'm sorry. Now take my hoof and get up."
"T-That's more like it." Grenada's voice was shaky, and in their embrace Shinespark could feel her ribs, a product of hard living for the last few weeks. "I forgive you too, but it doesn't even matter. That's the Shinespark I knew. Never letting what was and wasn't possible control what you tried to do for the ponies you loved."
Shinespark wiped at her tears, still holding the embrace. "I think it might be reaching a little to compare me forgiving you to being the hero of Ironridge, but I appreciate the sentiment. And I missed you too."
"It doesn't feel like reaching to me," Grenada countered. "It felt like the mare I looked up to was gone. You tried as hard as you did and then had nothing left for me, even though I knew you would never do that. And now you are trying again to live like the world is the one you want to see..."
"Shhh," Shinespark urged, putting a hoof on Grenada's back. "There will be time enough for talking about who we want to be later, now that we're friends again. Right now, we should worry a little more about who we are, and you're not very well taken care of. Come with me to the kitchen?"
Grenada's eyes shone in the moonlight, reminding Shinespark of all the pain that had built up to this chance. It wasn't over, but it had a chance to heal. She had to be careful... but as long as they talked to each other, they could understand and make it through.
As Shinespark and Grenada made their way to the kitchen, Valey strolled in the opposite direction, under Nyala's invitation to do something with herself and her own judgement that Yanavan was well and truly stuck. And she certainly had a lot to do; a list of ponies to talk to piled on her shoulders, to Starlight and Maple and ensure they were well, to Harshwater about everything in the Varsidelian camp and to Felicity about her job and past.
But Yanavan didn't number among them. She was certain there was something he wasn't saying, that everything in that valley added up to a bigger picture she didn't see, but it didn't matter. This was a problem someone else was going to deal with. They had accidentally freed Yanavan but removed his Nightmare Module ability, and now the Monk Lords and their grand temple would get to deal with him. It wasn't her problem, and despite everything else she had to do, there was more of a spring in her step than she had felt since passing the tournament.
Mentally, she flipped a coin, standing between the doors to Felicity's and Harshwater's rooms. Gotta start somewhere... Harshwater. With a level of politeness she could never have mustered months ago, she knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" a sleepy pegasus voice mumbled from the other side. "Unless you're Valey, go away!"
"Wow." Valey cracked the door open, slipping inside without shadow sneaking. "I feel special."
Harshwater was on her back in the bed, a small light on and a book open before her, though she was looking up at Valey. "Don't take it too flatteringly," she warned. "I just knew you'd come in anyway."
"Oh, well thanks." Valey rolled her eyes, tromping in and seating herself at the edge of the bed. "So. You're coming with us, and I'm pretty sure that mess with the cave doesn't change anything. Like, you know your stuff, we could use the help, you said you didn't have anywhere else to go... So I figured we should chat."
"I'm not really sure what's to say." Harshwater stared straight ahead, looking past her book. "You could have killed me in Ironridge, when Kero sent me on a suicide mission against you, and you didn't. Then he sent me on another suicide mission up here, and I probably would have died if you hadn't bailed me out. And when I tried to repay you, Kero tricked me again and I nearly made things that much worse."
Valey tilted her head. "So Kero's a jerk. And?"
"I don't know if you get it," Harshwater went on, no fire in her voice. "I had a crush on him. Enough to forgive the first time this happened and run right back to him into a trap. My judgement must be nonexistent, and going into that cave doesn't help. I ran away from the company; any other plans I might have had for my life are left behind in Ironridge. I don't have any possessions, either. So you wanted me enough to keep me? Congratulations. You got me. What you do with that is your call."
Valey groaned. "Please don't tell me we just picked up a depressed pegasus. Look, girl, life around here is not that peachy. I've got my hooves full dealing with weird goddess technology and trying to be a good pony while keeping my friends motivated, so if you're needing to feel good about yourself, you're not gonna have a good time. This is the one time I'm gonna say this: you're not a tool. Have some dignity. This is not a discussion I need to have."
Harshwater frowned. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm a mercenary. Being other people's tools is literally what we're paid to do. You gave me my life twice over, so now I owe you, and that's just how it works. And even if I didn't, you are way more competent than me and more likely to keep me alive, so it's in my best interest to stick with you. Have a problem with that?"
"Uhhh..." Valey squinted.
"I'm from Yakyakistan. You're from Yakyakistan. You should know how it is." She looked through the pages of her book. "You do what it takes to survive. That means recognizing your own limits, and I've proven time and again that my own judgement is going to get me killed. I'm not depressed. Just, telling myself I'm great at everything and can go it alone isn't how I stay alive."
"Well, don't worry about that, then." Valey went back to leaning against the bed. "Keeping ponies alive is what I do. But seriously, if you're taking orders from me now, try to enjoy yourself. That's an order."
Harshwater gave her a strange look. "Are you serious?"
"Have you never had a cool boss before?" Valey countered, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm serious. Look, nothing bad is going to happen over the next few days. Rest up and heal, yeah, but this is a great time to focus on morale. It's good for you, it's good for everyone else, and it's great for me, too."
"Look, I just had the worst weeks of my life." Harshwater averted her gaze. "Give me specifics and I'll do it, but I'm not feeling particularly creative right now. And don't just tell me to cheer up. You know brains don't work like that."
Valey flopped a foreleg atop the bed. "There, see? I told you you were feeling bad about yourself."
Harshwater sighed. "Once again, I'd rather be alive than blissfully ignorant and dead, or idolizing people who didn't deserve it. It might not be pleasant, but believe me I've been in enough war zones to have seen the alternative firsthoof." She glanced suspiciously at Valey. "What's up with you, though? Why do you care how I'm feeling? Again, I'm not being a downer; you make everyone feel awkward for sport. How come I've just told you I'll do anything you ask and your first reaction isn't to take advantage of the fact I'm a mare?"
"Bananas, I dunno." Valey shrugged. "I changed."
"I'll say you did," Harshwater mumbled.
"...Wanna talk about it?"
Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "Do you?"
"What I'd like to do is be friends," Valey said, folding her forelegs behind her head. "I kinda don't get out much past this ship, and if you're going to hang out here, I'd rather get to know you than have you be a face in the background, you know?" She looked up. "Please?"
Harshwater shook her head. "Being asked please by Admiral Valey. My life is so surreal right now." She closed her book, setting it aside with a battered hoof. "Sure. Let's talk about whatever. Tell me what kind of team I've gotten myself into."
"Well," Valey started, "it all started with this dumb mare who gave me way too much benefit of the doubt..."
"Sounds like a rough life," Harshwater said, laying on her back and holding still. "The Empire's been giving you that much grief over the cross-species thing?"
"No! I mean, well, yeah." Valey rubbed the back of her head self-consciously. "Seriously, it's far from the worst part about this place. But there you have it. Tournament, Wallace, Chauncey... I might have left out a few super sensitive things, but you'll get filled in pretty quick if you stick around."
Harshwater closed her eyes. "Not like I'll be doing much else. Still. I still think you're a completely different mare, Valey."
"That a good thing?" Valey gave her a look even though she wasn't watching.
"Depends how much I believe it. I'm still skeptical." Harshwater took a slow breath. "Would you say it isn't?"
Valey rolled her shoulders. "I dunno. I mean, me not being in Ironridge anymore is great, because that place stank. But it kinda came with an identity crisis, and that's not cool either. Not exactly easy to have that big of a break with who I was and come out of it unscathed, you know?"
Harshwater exhaled. "Believe me, I know how that feels."
"Yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "You feeling any better about yourself? I kind of figured commiseration would help."
"I'm fine," Harshwater snapped, no force in her voice. "I told you, I'm far better than I was a week ago now that I'm not about to get murdered in battle."
Valey got up, turning to face her. "Alive, maybe, but your self-esteem is a trash can. Like, come on, you just got betrayed again by the guy you already forgave once! You can't just shrug that off!"
"Actually, I can," Harshwater said calmly. "If your emotions are going to hurt you, compartmentalizing and saving them for later is a basic part of improving your odds of survival."
"And this isn't later?" Valey frowned. "I mean, if you don't want me to see you upset, I can bail, but weren't you just going on about how I'm completely in charge of you and everything? Look, I know you're miserable. Sorry if I thought you also wouldn't want to deal with that on your own."
Harshwater slowly, calmly sighed. "Let me rephrase. I am not a stoic pegasus. Stoicism isn't my thing, and normally I'd have had at least three tantrums about this by now. One that I'm mad at Kero, one that I'm mad at myself, and one for attention. So I appreciate your offer. I really do." She looked down at herself. "But right now, I have at least three cracked ribs that haven't been given a chance to heal properly, already know what it feels like when I exert myself, and will be ten times more miserable than I am now if I hyperventilate and turn on the waterworks."
Valey blinked. "Oh. Uh. Yeah, that changes things... Bananas, are you alright? Like, physically?"
"Let's put it this way. In a life or death situation, I would fight. I would go down very quickly, but I'd fight." Harshwater gave her a grumpy look. "Barring that and to see a doctor, good luck getting me out of this bed."
Valey's ears drooped. "I'll take that as a no, then. Sorry we used all our healing supplies on everyone else, by the way. They were, uhh... in even worse condition, I guess."
"Don't apologize," Harshwater requested. "You weren't there. And not all of them were. They just weren't getting an airlift to civilization, and needed to survive in the wild in whatever condition they were in. As long as I was stable, I was fine."
"Well, I hope that fine-ness continues," Valey said. "And I promise, we're gonna pay off whoever we have to pay at the grand temple to get you patched up. If you have something that heals wrong, it's going to be fun for nobody."
"Thanks," Harshwater mumbled, then looked up. "Look, not to be ungrateful, but could you save talking about how great you're going to be to me until after you've done it? I am trying not to get worked up, here."
Valey saluted with a wing. "Gotcha. That, uh, sounds like I've visited enough? I'll make sure someone comes by with food later, or something. See ya."
"See ya," Harshwater replied, going back to reading her book.
Valey slipped out into the hallway, not entirely sure whether she'd excused herself too early but fairly certain Harshwater wanted to be alone. The ex-mercenary's social cues were weird, and she had either missed far too many not to be cautious or was deliberately being messed with. Either way, painful breathing was as good a reason as any to do what it took to stay stoic, so she wasn't about to begrudge her the grumpy mood.
Forcibly calm emotions... It was a perfect segue in her mind for who she had to talk to next. Maybe Felicity and Harshwater could even help each other. She knocked on Felicity's door.
"Who is iiit~?" Felicity sang, voice soft but reasonably upbeat.
"Yo, it's Valey." Valey put an ear to the door, her muzzle near the crack. "Permission to come in?"
"Help yourself, darling. But forgive me if I'm not feeling up to getting the door..."
Valey entered just like she had for Harshwater, finding Felicity in a similar state, sprawled on her bed. The batpony wasn't tucked in and had no book, but looked reasonably like she was enjoying herself, a brush beside her and her mane half-tended. She greeted Valey with a beatific smile.
"What's up?" Valey asked, stepping closer.
Felicity sighed airily. "Not me, I'm afraid. That battle was incredibly rough on my physique. I tax easily and recover far more slowly than I should, and seeing as I pushed myself to the point of passing out..."
Valey leaned her back against the bed, looking away. "Seems like everyone's busted up from all that. Bananas, I did the most fighting, and I'm in the best shape of anyone on this ship..."
"No need to avert your eyes, darling," Felicity urged, and Valey looked over her shoulder to see a curled lip. "If you're worried, I do think I stopped short of anything permanent, and as long as I'm allotted a peaceful recovery I should make it back to as good as I usually am."
"Glad to hear it." Valey stretched. "Anyway, I kinda recall we chatted on the way down, and before everything blew up with the fight and the cave, we had some stuff we were going to talk about. You feeling up to a chat?" She raised an eyebrow.
"We most certainly did save some topics for later!" Felicity beamed, her face slowly merging to a sultry smirk. "I'm sure you remember which one was my favorite."
"Uhhh." Valey reddened. "No idea what you're talking about."
Felicity gave a knowing nod. "A slip of the tongue. No sense in taking dessert before dinner, is there?" She winked, then grew serious. "So. As I recall, we agreed to trust each other for the time being. You trusting me and my dangerous skillset around your friends, and me trusting you not to throw me out in the dust. And now the urgency of that truce has passed, and the time has come for a more thorough understanding of one another. Is that a reasonable grasp of the situation?"
"Yeah." Valey swallowed. "You're an assassin. You work for the Night Mother, and she has you working for Prince Gazelle, and he has you doing weird stuff like stealing and something involving Stormhoof. And you're pregnant, but I don't remember if you said that had to do with anything."
"All correct," Felicity agreed. "And being that I am in the employ of such lofty powers with the intention of performing such unscrupulous deeds, you wanted to know what would happen were I ordered to bring harm to your friends. I replied that I might not be able to go through with it at all."
"And then we left things for here," Valey finished. "So?"
"So, darling?" Felicity returned the look. "What next?"
Valey met her gaze for several moments, unblinking. "...Bananas, I have no idea."
Felicity sighed, sinking into her bed. "I'm afraid any script I may have had for this has run its course. Ask me anything and I'll answer to the best of my ability, but I have no window into your desires. What do you want, Valey?"
"I don't even know." Valey shook her head. "I know there was more we were supposed to say, but I don't even..." She gritted her teeth, swallowed and shook her head. "That whole conversation happened before the battle, you know. It happened before Shinespark got blown up by her dumb sister and knocked unconscious, and you fought until you passed out to keep her safe from the dudes on the beach. You could have hid or ran, and you risked your life for her. I dunno exactly what we would have said on that flight if we hadn't reached the camp when we did, but bananas if actions don't speak louder than words."
Felicity closed her eyes and smiled. "Glad to be of service, darling."
"Still feels like there's something to say," Valey pointed out. "You know? Like, I wanna say something, or..."
"Something to solidify that we've reached an understanding, perhaps?" Felicity looked hopeful. "Not to be presumptuous, or put words in your mouth, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. But..." A familiar calmness washed over Valey, and she could feel Felicity's cutie mark activating. "Try saying nothing for just a moment, and see if silence isn't the right word after all."
Valey held her silence as long as her ears would allow. "So, you're an assassin, huh?"
The air of Felicity's cutie mark lifted from the room. "That's certainly a thing I've said. Would you like to hear about it?"
"Sure." Valey leaned back against the bed. "Just say whatever. Tell me about it."
"A lot of ponies in Gyre, when they want something dead, don't particularly care how it's accomplished," Felicity began with a sigh. "You could hire someone stupid enough to walk up and stab someone in broad daylight, though you wouldn't. You'd just rob them and use the money to hire someone better. Good assassins are the ones that live to tell the tale, and better ones aren't seen at all until they've gotten away. Of course, for some just seeing your target gone is good enough, and you don't care if you have your name written on the crime. But plenty of creatures dislike the idea of having their deeds come back to haunt them. They want to leave as little of a trail as possible."
Valey nodded. "And you were one of the better ones, else you wouldn't know that." Her eyes turned serious. "How much does that bother you? Being paid to go through with someone else's idea of justice?"
Felicity looked away. "I was a little higher up on the pay grade, darling, for when you don't even want it to look like the target was murdered. Unfortunately, that also made it harder to get work, seeing as my tools were far from the industry standard."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You mean like being a kid?"
"Oh, no." Felicity chuckled. "True, I was approaching fifteen when we left and had been there for nearly a decade, but children can be just as ruthless as adults when the world calls for it. No one trusted a filly." She shook her head. "I mean my brand. When I turn it up as far as it can go after manipulating someone into a carefully calculated situation, it can be... extremely adept at driving creatures to suicide. Hardly an assassination if they're seen throwing themselves off a cliff."
A chill ran across Valey's face. "You can't be fine with that."
Felicity smiled sadly. "Who said I was?"
Valey swallowed, looking down.
"Darling." Felicity reached a wing for her chin. "A few things for thought. While I may have been paid to deliver the justice of others, no one was innocent in Gyre. We all did what we had to to get by, little of it honest and none of it savory. After Senescey's father passed away, our mother became a... ah... a pleasure mare, for example. Kind of a long way for a cleric of the Night Mother to fall, yet at least it let her be upfront about what she did."
"So?" Valey frowned.
"So you learn ways to cope, or else go insane and turn to banditry and never feel anything again." Felicity shrugged. "I've never hidden under the guise of being a good pony. From everything I've seen, I don't know that I'd even argue such a thing exists. Just ones who are better and ones who are worse." She reached up and brushed a lock of mane out of her well-lined eyes. "That pegasus we just picked up is a mercenary, is she not? She gets paid to perform the justice of others too, just much more broadly. I'm sure she'd tell you the same thing."
"So what do you want from me?" Valey put both forehooves on the bed, staring straight into Felicity's sideways eyes. "Look, I know about having dumb stuff in your past. I know you're serious about being friends, and that you really want a chance and to get along. Like, I might have been cautious before, but you got trampled for us down on the beach. You probably don't even trust yourself. I sure didn't. You want me to respect that and not trust you either, but still give you a hoof and a chance."
"You understand," Felicity murmured, blinking. "You can probably also understand that, right now, my siblings and I work for the Night Mother. We have a promised reward. She will restore our bodies, and I'll never have to be bedridden like this... Perhaps we could live without it. We've certainly been working and surviving so far. But you must have had some safety in your past life too, something you did it for and didn't want to give up."
Valey exhaled, close enough that she could have reached out and touched the mare. "Yeah. Everybody had it out for me in Ironridge. Not like a religious or political fanaticism, they just knew I was a jerk. My job gave me diplomatic immunity, so I had the honchos at my back if anyone came to call. For one or two days, I was able to work that to my friends' advantage, but eventually I had to choose them and throw all that away."
Felicity smiled sadly. "That's not a decision I'm able to make, darling. Even if my sisters were here to weigh in as well, I need the Night Mother. I need to know all the chaos we've sown in the Empire at Gazelle's behest was for a real cause. The authority and reward of a goddess is a crutch for me. So as much as I'm inspired by your friends and know which way I'd lean if that choice arrived..."
"You're not there yet." Valey looked away, laying her chin on the bed. "You wanna be a better pony, but you're stuck between us and what you've been doing for years." She hesitated. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way. We try our best to be the good guys, but stuff like that mess we just left behind keeps happening, and there's other bad stuff and... Meh. Look at Sparky's sister. She was like that down there because Shinespark messed up and I didn't help her."
Felicity poked her shoulder, regaining her gaze. "It's like I said. I don't know about any good ponies, but I can certainly see when someone's better than where we are." She slowly sighed. "And that's that. You see completely through me, darling. Aside from a lot of technical specifics on our plans, that's my heart. I have nothing left hidden."
Valey's ears fell. "Yeah, well, I appreciate the introspection. Probably not all that comfortable to get completely laid out before someone you barely know."
"Necessity does come before comfort, I'm afraid," Felicity apologized. "Though I really should pull myself together. I'm not making you feel awkward, am I?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked.
"Emotional vulnerability, darling?" Felicity frowned at her. "A lady bares her heart to you and you worry about my comfort but don't feel the least bit awkward yourself?"
Valey winced, feeling like she was about to get verbally licked. "Uhh... should I?"
Felicity sat upright so that her jaw could drop. "I-I... Rephrase to me the present situation, one more time, please?"
Valey glanced around, realizing she had said something wrong and not sure how to fix it. "We were talking about your past and I was trying to help?"
Felicity's shock turned into focus, and she squinted intensely at her, brain turning. "Hmmmm..."
"Is there a reason you're looking at me like that?" Valey shuffled uncertainly, tilting her head.
"How about this." Felicity crossed her legs, regarding Valey like a scientist. "Do you consider me your equal?"
"Bananas, that's a loaded question..." Valey rubbed the back of her head, looking for an out. "Yeah, sure I do! I just told you I knew how you were feeling, didn't I?"
Felicity broke down into giggles. "Ahahaha! Oh, darling, you're cute when you're embarrassed. Don't worry, I was just messing with you. That conversation broke my comfort zone a little, so fair is fair, right?" Grinning, she brushed a strand of Valey's mane with a wingtip. "Come back and visit me again, won't you? And tell your friends to pay me some attention too! It's dreadfully lonely by myself from time to time."
"Yeah, uh... will do." Still blinking, Valey turned to leave, feeling like she had been caught off guard by a water hose. She made it halfway through the door before her ears snapped back into position and she called over her shoulder, "And I'm not cute!"
Gerardo sat, trancelike, in the pilot's chair of the Immortal Dream. It was hard to track days amid the unending twilight of Mistvale, but by sleep cycles alone the better part of a week had passed since they left Yanavan's bay. The last major landmark before the grand temple had slipped by to the starboard hours before, and his talons made imperceptible corrections to their course as they sailed toward a point of blue light on the horizon.
The sound of the door opening struck his calm like a pebble bouncing off glass. "My shift is over already, is it?" He grinned, spinning around in his chair and nearly getting up. "I figured since we're so close, I'd... Ah. My apologies. I mistook your hoofsteps for your sister's."
Grenada stood in the entrance, averting her eyes and sporting a bed-head that looked quite at home in her short, spiky mane. "No offense taken," she muttered, stepping forward until she was staring out the front windshield.
"Just sightseeing, I take it?" Gerardo drummed his talons. "Forgive me if you're not much for conversation. It's been rather quiet up here."
"At ease," Grenada requested stiffly. "I was pacing on the deck and got cold."
Gerardo nodded along. "Your thoughts are busy, are they? Pardon the intrusion, but I can't imagine mine wouldn't be, were I in your place right now."
"I lived here for a whole month," Grenada said, looking at her hooves. "Was I a tenant to you, Gerardo Guillaume?" She looked up, fixing his eyes with a stare. "I recall sharing several conversations with you, and with others as well. Now everyone treats me as though they are meeting me for the first time."
"Ah. Looking for a friendly face." Gerardo folded his talons on the ship's wheel. "In fairness to everyone here, you did have a series of violent leaf-turnings, from stealing Shinespark's armor to everything that followed."
Grenada's face shadowed. "I am well aware."
Gerardo turned back to the distant temple. "All a part of growing up with more power and less stability than is healthy," he said. "I'm sure no one will begrudge you for it more than you can work to overcome, even if you're not feeling welcomed back with wide-open hooves."
Grenada looked at the floor.
"So what's really got you down?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "I'm not usually anyone's first resort for their problems, though I do have years more experience than anyone else here."
"Who said anything about looking for help?" Grenada flinched. "I... Sorry. That's not fair. I am not looking for advice. I just wanted to talk to someone less immediately close to my sister and Valey."
"Well, you've come to the right place." Gerardo leaned back, folding his talons behind his head. "Those two are still at the start of their careers in the world. I've been all over it time and again. And I'll keep looking out for them to the best of my ability, but it stands to remain I'm only the friendly travel guide." He offered a wink. "Think my ear will do?"
Grenada sat down, silently accepting the offer. After a while, she asked, "How often do you wish things could go back to the way they were?"
"Hmm." Gerardo stroked his chin. "Well, I do love to reminisce about bygone glories, I'll give you that. But the past isn't always rosy. Once upon a time, I was so insensitive it was almost comical. That's not to say I can't still misread a situation from time to time, but I don't imagine I'd have hit it off nearly as well with this group five or ten years ago. Not to caricaturize, but we are rather heavy on sensitive, emotional young mares."
"Like attracts like, as they say." Grenada looked away. "Shinespark... when she was Commander Braen in Ironridge... was proud to wear her heart where everyone could see it. She was forced to because of how the armor worked, but she believed transparency and empathy were important qualities of leadership, as well. I see no shame in being sensitive."
Gerardo shrugged at the windshield. "As long as it gets you by. So what were you wishing you could return to the way it was these days?" He gave her a knowing grin. "I doubt I'll be surprised, but humor me."
"Is it not obvious?" Grenada didn't return the gaze. "I miss being able to look at Shinespark like she was Braen."
"You long for a simpler worldview," Gerardo extrapolated. "So not the past world, but the past you." He sighed. "No one ever said growing up was pleasant."
"You can relate?" Grenada turned her head.
Gerardo swept a wing across the windshield's expanse. "To which part? Love that was unrequited or forbidden? Look no further than Garsheeva's heresy laws. Becoming disillusioned with family? I never left home to be an adventurer out of attachment, that's for certain. And that's not even scratching the harsh lessons pre-war and wartime Varsidel had to impart."
Grenada shook her head. "That should not surprise me. But I..." Her voice caught, and her words wouldn't come.
Gerardo sat back and listened.
"I don't know what to do with myself," Grenada said to the control panel.
"Feeling out of options?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Or overwhelmed by too many?"
"Both," Grenada mumbled. "I have nothing to my name. Everything I had was given in Ironridge by Shinespark, and nothing I tried to build in Mistvale was sound. Nobody here knows me well except Shinespark, and my relationship with her is too strained to bear weight. I need to put into it, not take from her even more. But I do not see any direction to go."
"In fairness, not many late teenagers succeed in founding successful towns in hostile wildernesses," Gerardo remarked. "You did bite off an unfortunately large mouthful."
Grenada frowned. "What else did you expect me to do? I was furious and felt like Braen's legacy had been abandoned to my shoulders. I never thought I could do it, just that I had to, because if I did not, nobody else would."
"I'm dry on ideas," Gerardo apologized. "And I hardly said I blamed you. Things like this just tend to happen when someone grows up with too much power and not enough stability, though I believe I mentioned that before."
"So?" Grenada scowled at the floor. "Where does that leave me?"
Gerardo focused again on the distant temple, adjusting their course for the changing winds. "At a guess, I'd say the same place as most everyone else here. You may not have come from the fairest circumstances, but merely lamenting it isn't going to get you anywhere better. You'll just have to try to make of yourself what you want to be, learn your lessons as they come, and rely on the fact that you've got everyone else right there with you."
Grenada's ears swiveled toward him, but she didn't look up.
"Being a little shy about Shinespark and Valey, I completely understand," Gerardo went on. "Given what I assume to be your history with them in Ironridge. But Maple and young Starlight are right there with you in trying to make more of themselves than what they've known all their lives, and I have it on good authority Maple especially is happy to share her shoulder if things get a little too much." He winked. "And if you ever need a day off, Slipstream and Amber and I hang out here regularly when we're all awake. Feel free to join us."
"Thank you for the invitations." Grenada bowed curtly, a slight hitch in her voice. "I... have more pacing to do, and have warmed up sufficiently. Good night."
"Good night?" Gerardo asked the sky under his breath as the door closed behind her, seeing his face reflected by the light of the dials and gauges in the windshield. Beyond, the grand temple was only two mountain lines away, and its contours were starting to become visible. "Heh. Something tells me we'll be seeing a lot more hours before things get boring enough for sleep."
"Ahem. Everyone?" Gerardo's voice faded in on the ship's intercom, loud enough to rouse ponies from slumber. "Pardon the interruption, but we're almost there. I think it would be prudent this time to put together a welcome party before we're boarded by sarosians."
"Grrnnngh... seriously?" Valey sat up, scrubbing sleep from her eyes. "I thought we had a few more minutes..."
She was on a cushion on the floor of Maple and Starlight's room, too self-conscious to join them in their pile with Amber but having given up her own room long ago to make space for all the guests the ship was taking on. Amber's face quickly peered out at her from above. "What's going on?" she mumbled.
Starlight was already on her hooves. "We're there," she announced, repeating after Gerardo. "We should go to the deck in case there are more batponies."
"Finally," Maple murmured, rolling upright. "Yanavan makes me uncomfortable. I'll be glad to get him off this ship..."
"Yeah, let's get rid of him..." Valey yawned, stretching. "I'm gonna go make sure Felicity's up, since she's our translator and all. See ya..."
Less than five minutes later, Starlight had stretched, gotten a drink, let Maple ensure her mane was presentable, and was halfway up the stairs to the deck, the door standing open before her. Slipstream and Jamjars were waiting for her, the latter looking proud of her speed, and Shinespark and Grenada stood at the railing, watching the horizon.
"So I guess we're the welcome wagon," Amber declared, glancing onto the bridge and waving at Gerardo. "A pretty good showing, don't you think? Now we just need Valey..."
"We are here!" Felicity sang, climbing carefully out behind them with Valey at her tail. "Nearly to the temple, are we?"
Valey flew out beside the ship for a better look, then returned with a nod. "Pretty sure I can see some dudes coming to greet us already."
Starlight readied her guard, though she knew she had no role in however this meeting was going to go. Harshwater wasn't there, but she was injured, and Nyala was guarding Yanavan... Everyone else was there, and everyone else was ready. There was nothing she could do but wait.
Soon enough, the beating of wings filled the skies, and five armored batponies with chestplates and spears flew into sight, keeping a safe distance from the ship while trying to circle and inspect its energy comet. She could hear them talking, though not make out their words over the comet's gentle shimmer.
They noticed the ponies on the deck at the same time as Starlight noticed them and drew closer, seeming to decide the comet posed no danger. Hovering at the side of the ship, their spears highly visible, they spread into a well-practiced line. "Friend or foe?" the center sarosian barked.
"Friend!" Shinespark instantly called back, standing sharply at attention.
The five visitors, all mares save for the leader, instantly relaxed, the stallion uttering something in sarosian and sending three of his companions winging away. "Fabulous! Traders, then? Permission to come aboard?"
"Permission granted," Shinespark replied, stepping away to make room with a smile. "You speak our language."
"It comes in handy," the leader admitted, stowing his spear as he landed and furled his wings, offering a hoof. "Jaxy. My title doesn't translate well, but you could call me a captain in the city guard." He pointed a hoof at the mare who remained with him. "And this is my loyal subordinate, Yesna! Yesna, show some manners."
Yesna didn't look thrilled by her leader's attitude, standing and maintaining a professional posture, though still not aggressive. "A pleasure," she assured.
"Ah ha. She's got a real winning personality, right there," Jaxy apologized. "But she's the only one of my minions who can understand you, and there brooks no argument over that."
"Shinespark of Sosa." Shinespark took the hoof and shook it. "And we're here on business, though thank you for your hospitality."
"So lemme get this straight," Valey interrupted, wandering up beside her. "We're actually going to fly into a new place and not get blown up or fired at for once?" She grinned. "Bananas, I already love it here."
Jaxy jabbed her chest with a hoof. "Only in return for your story, little firebrand," he chuckled, returning the grin before wheeling on Shinespark. "The land of Sosa? Ironridge Sosa you speak of, hmm? I suspected you weren't Varsidelians. Every foal and filly knows their Varsidelian ships, yet this technology of yours looks almost otherworldly."
"It's an experimental prototype," Shinespark answered, tugging on Valey's tail with her telekinesis as a signal to back down.
"Time marches inexorably, I see. Ah ha! Doesn't it always?" Jaxy spread his shoulders and laughed. "So tell! What wonders led you to bring this futuristic marvel to our starlit edge of the world? Enlighten me, dear travelers!"
"He certainly enjoys his job," Maple murmured in Amber's ear, close enough for Starlight to hear.
Shinespark cleared her throat, glancing at Valey and then answering. "This isn't going to sound very believable. Give me your word you'll hear us out."
"But I just said I wanted to know, did I not?" Jaxy bowed deeply. "Truth is the best kind of nonsense, and I am a master of disbelief. Fill my ears, my good mare!"
"You know that Yanavan guy from a bunch of legends and stuff?" Valey cut in. "We sort of accidentally found him, and now he's defeated and tied up in our hold. And we've got no idea what to do with him."
Jaxy blinked... and burst out laughing, punching the deck repeatedly as he howled. "Monk Lord Yanavan? Does my leg look that yankable to you? Full points on creativity, ladies, but if you're looking for the Council's autographs, alas for you they don't have the sense of humor we do. But come, come, don't let me turn you away so easily." He slowly regained his composure, though couldn't fully banish a lingering mad grin. "Being travelers alone might be enough to get into almost anyone's good graces in times like these."
Yesna shot him a cross look. "It's our duty to investigate threats, not laugh at them. Shinespark, can we see your captive?"
"Yes, let's." Jaxy wiped a tear from his eye, his voice tight with suppressed laughter. "I'm dying here. Somebody, help."
Yesna slapped him.
"Ow, what was that for!?" Jaxy rubbed the stinging welt on his face as Valey, Shinespark and everyone else watched in terrified fascination. "I said I was going, did I not, Yesna? Come! Let us investigate this Yanavan."
"You do one thing to free him, and I'll knock all three of your blocks off," Valey threatened, readying her hooves. "This way..."
As Valey and Shinespark led the guards to the entrance at the stern, Grenada fell back alongside the others. "I have no respect for their society as a professional organization."
"Darling?" Felicity murmured, turning her head. "Bear in mind, this is why there exists a concept of being put on the front lines."
Jaxy followed Valey and Shinespark into the cargo bay, eyes darting perceptively around the ship's interior with Yesna at his tail. In the bay itself, Yanavan sat tied against one wall, Nyala perched in a dutiful vigil keeping him illuminated and unable to sneak.
"Welp, here's the dude," Valey announced, sweeping a wing at Yanavan's half of the room. "No one else but him here," she added, hoping Nyala would avoid drawing undue attention to herself. "Everyone who could kinda came up on deck."
"Well well, what have we here?" Jaxy rubbed his chin, scrutinizing the captive sarosian. "A tight lock they've put you in, my good imposter. One could almost believe they think you're the real Yanavan!"
Yanavan glowered, but held his silence.
"He's the real thing," Valey said with a shrug. "And if he's not, he's done a pretty good job pretending."
Jaxy patted her on the head, earning a hiss. "Easy now, assistant. Unless our captive friend wants to weigh in, I'm about to draw some unflattering conclusions."
"Excuse me, what?" Valey slipped away, spinning and landing several hoofsteps from him. "What did you call me?"
"I complemented your intellect." Jaxy grinned at the ground. "Unfortunately, you also are foreigners, and I suspect this stallion has preyed upon an uncultured knowledge of our history and mythos! Tell me, did he antagonize you before you humiliatingly bound him so?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Somewhat. We suspect there was dream magic involved."
"Mostly he makes threats and insults," Valey added with a burp.
"Mmm hmm hmm hmm! And you're aware of your fate if I take you seriously, fraud?" Jaxy spread his shoulders and laughed. "History's charlatans and criminals aren't the models we want our ponies impersonating! Come, speak. Show us your best attempt at exoneration!"
"All of you are fools," Yanavan sighed, shaking his head as much as his bindings allowed. "Blustering, pompous, indecent fools who don't understand the powers you trifle with. Take me before your council and see how satisfied you are with your victory then."
"Bwahahahaha! Really!?" Jaxy wiped a tear from his eye, shaking from laughter. "I offend you? You're righteous in your convictions? Hahaha! This stallion's a gem! Yesna, ask the merchants wherever they found him."
Yesna raised an eyebrow at Shinespark and Valey, clearly hoping she didn't need to ask.
"Several days southeast along the coast," Shinespark answered. "In a sea cave. Jaxy, is there a meaning to this?"
"Yes, I know what I'm doing," Jaxy assured. "How likely is our imposter to say anything more illuminating? Or am I wasting my time hearing him out?"
Valey scratched her head. "He's kinda been like this the whole-"
"Everyone?" Jaxy interrupted, giving Valey an arrogant look only someone a full head taller than her could manage. "I've come to the conclusion this buffoon has nothing more worth my time! Let us return to my other new assistants on the deck and discuss my findings." He turned with a swirl of wings, sweeping a flap of his armor behind him and striding slowly away.
"Uhh..." Valey blinked between him, Yesna and the sullen Yanavan. "Okay..."
The moment the door closed behind them, Valey rounded on Jaxy. "Okay, what was that about?" she demanded, stomping a hoof. "I get having an ego, but you were being a jerk to everyone."
"Don't mock me; I was staying in character," Jaxy said, stepping past her until he was standing in the center of everyone. "It wouldn't have been nearly as solid a ruse had I let you in on it so you could play along."
"Wha...?" Valey tilted her head, jaw hanging, all of her friends' gazes concerned at the current conversation.
"Elementary," Jaxy began, starting to pace. "I wear my station on my breastplate for any Mistvalian to see. He knew who I was! All I had to do was introduce sufficient manufactured strife between us and any coward would have jumped at the opportunity to turn us against one another. Furthermore, any innocent would instantly recognize someone as unhinged as I was wouldn't think twice about hauling them before the council for sticking to their story. Audacity is no refuge against me! So, my dear Valey, unless you see a flaw in my logic, I've firmly deduced this imposter of yours is neither innocent nor a coward. He truly believes himself to be something special, which makes me all the more curious what his deal is."
Valey blinked. "Oh. Bananas, I guess that makes sense then. Look, when you've met one too many guys who are actually insane..."
"That's quite fine," Jaxy assured, "I just didn't want us getting too buddy-buddy before I saw whether your prisoner was looking for a way out."
From the crowd, Amber loudly cleared her throat. "So what makes you think Yanavan is an imposter?"
Jaxy nodded, giving her his attention. "Not that I blame you for any ignorance, being from continents away, but Monk Lord Yanavan ceased being equine on the day of his treachery. This is no mere myth; the timing of his betrayal was such that it was witnessed by many. Not only do some of his contemporaries survive and retain their offices to this day, but he was in the presence of clerics and acolytes as well, many of whom saw his monstrous, distorted form in person. The other lords have spoken of it as a permanent punishment for his betrayal, a new and twisted body. However, not only was your captive whole in body, if not mind, he was also a far sight from the eighty-odd years of age the real Yanavan would have on his back by now."
"You mean his Nightmare Module form?" Maple spoke up. "That..." She glanced around. "Might be something we should tell the council about, but we do know about it, and that's how we're sure it's him."
Jaxy glanced around, and everyone slowly murmured in confirmation. "Well, this is interesting. Yesna, share with me your intellect."
The stoic mare at his side took a step forward. "If you're convinced the council should take an interest in him, which I agree with, there's no reason to debate him here. Matters of importance can fall to them to determine."
Valey gave her a sigh of relief. "Yes! Seriously, I wouldn't care if you grilled him and he turned out to be a fake; I just want him to be someone else's problem. Though I am pretty sure we've got the real thing, so just be ready."
"Due caution will be exercised," Jaxy promised airily. "In the meantime, let's see about getting you into port. I hope you're not overly averse to publicity."
Shinespark frowned. "That depends. Why?"
"Aha. A fair question." Jaxy strolled to the railing, looking out at the luminescent mountaintop city. "Navigator, correct course five degrees to the right. You see, these reaches of Mistvale prospered greatly from the airship revolution, and enjoyed a brief flourishing that came with them. We even took steps toward joining a global economy with the world's other great powers! But most of our proposed exports were heavy and required large volumes to be valuable, so we were the first to be hemorrhaged when Varsidel needed ships for their war instead. First trade slowed, and then a connected future was gone before it even began to happen. So you'll be the first foreigners our capitol has seen in quite a while."
Maple shook her head, staring too as the city came into better relief. "It sounds almost like Riverfall. This is going to be an interesting place..."
Starlight stared out from the railing as the ship began to turn, circling the grand temple and bringing the city into fuller view. It was built into an intersection between three mountain folds, the city proper and the bulk of its construction laid at the crossroads, even though that wasn't the highest peak. To one direction, directly across from them, the mountain range rose, and it was upon the side and top of this crest that the temple itself was hewn.
Pillars and columns rose from crags, alternately supporting platforms where the mountainside was too steep to build or remaining as natural rock, plazas and interiors cut away around them. The architecture seemed to widen as it rose, an illusion caused by being lit from below, ethereal blue light bathing the stone roads and casting shadows of the pillars on the ceilings above. Most of the light came from luminescent foliage, Starlight saw, carefully cultivated gardens and hedges dominating the city, especially the lower districts. But there were also veins, carved midnight-blue in geometrical patterns and glowing through the rock, pulsing even from a distance with an unearthly brilliance that made her shudder, as if she could see it with more than her eyes. That magic did more than illuminate, she knew beyond any doubt.
"It reminds me of my stop in Wilderwind," Amber remarked, leaning with her hooves folded on the railing.
Maple perked her ears, standing between the two. "Oh? How so?"
"Designed for fliers." Amber pointed a hoof at several points in the city, graduating from residential to the temple proper. "There are walkways, but they're narrow. Look how vertical it is, and how many entrances are open to the air."
Starlight had taken those for balconies or windows, but now that she looked again, the distant forms of ponies could sometimes be seen taking off or landing. The skies weren't full, but they were hardly empty, and she wondered just how many ponies the city held. A thousand? Ten? It was far smaller in diameter than Ironridge's massive crater, but was more dense and engineered, like the Stone District all the way through.
"Captaaain?" Jaxy called, leaning toward the bridge. "Bring us about over thataways! Lower down on the temple proper, if you please?"
They finished skirting the center, flying close enough at times that Starlight could make out the eyes of individual ponies watching them. No one hadn't stopped what they were doing to look up, from gaping stallions to concerned elders to batponies in fancy robes. Anyone not a sarosian was too few and far between for her tell if there were any at all, and a filly on a rooftop frantically waved.
Starlight waved back, slower and slightly awestruck by the civilization below. This wasn't the first time she had been in a city, but Ironridge and Stormhoof had both been sailed into, and Izvaldi was barely a provincial town next to the grand temple. Seeing from above a city that was built for fliers, designed to be seen from the air stirred something in her heart, and she briefly wondered what it would be like to fly too.
Jaxy strolled onto the bridge, and their course corrected again, his and Gerardo's voices emanating from within. Soon, their target became apparent: a dock protruded inside a dip in the larger mountain's side, a short distance above the moonlit cloud layer. A single airship was moored to its side, hanging from a dirigible but elaborate and fancy in design. The sigil on its side, Starlight was sure she recognized, but couldn't place from where.
With a shimmer of harmonic energy, the Immortal Dream drew up along the opposite edge, room enough for two more airships left further down the dock. A contingent of sarosians already awaited them, armed and armored yet looking at ease.
Yesna jumped from the side, soaring to them and barking something Starlight didn't understand. Every one of the ponies stood suddenly at attention, though their curious eyes stayed fixed on the energy comet as they split into two lines. Two hovered out, searching the ship until they found the gangplank and extending it to shore.
"Thank you..." Shinespark nodded, then looked around at everyone assembled. "Alright, ponies! Unless Jaxy says otherwise, we need an away team! More importantly, we need others who will remain here with the ship. Valey, Felicity, Starlight, and one of me or Gerardo should go. Prioritize diplomatic relations and finding us a doctor who can look at Harshwater. Don't worry about our captive until you've determined there's someone ready to take him."
Starlight blinked. "Why me?"
The sarosians on the dock didn't pretend to understand, still standing sharply at attention. Gerardo paced up beside her with a nod, clearing his throat. "Might I recommend I go, and miss Maple as well? That way we'll have everyone sans Harshwater who was in that cave."
"Good thinking." Shinespark bumped his shoulder with a hoof, walking back toward the bridge. "Any other objections?"
Jamjars smugly grinned, leaning against the railing. "I don't need to object when there's nothing you can do to stop me."
Amber sighed and shook her head. "Kid, if you get yourself in bigger trouble than you can get yourself out of, I will lock up all your posters for a week."
Jamjars booed.
"Sounds like you're getting yourselves in order," Jaxy declared, walking past. "Follow me. Whoever will want words with you, we'll find them in a high place."
Gerardo's logic was sound enough for Starlight, though she couldn't help but notice the black sword was missing from his side. Had he decided to leave it behind, given how dangerous it was to the ponies they wanted to be their friends? Would Gerardo actually do that? She thought back, realizing she didn't actually remember any precedents either way. Something about the idea still felt strange to her, but they were going to get Yanavan dealt with once and for all. Everything would make sense after this.
"I'm ready," Starlight declared, hopping up onto Maple's back in a single bound.
"As am I." Gerardo tucked in his wings, taking point on the gangplank.
"Well..." Valey was staring straight up, the sheer cliff face of the mountain fold forming a blue-lined horizon in the distance. "Bananas, let's go, then. Feeling pretty decent about this place." She patted her flank with a wing. "Let's see what happens."
"I'm as game as all of you are," Maple hummed, bringing up the rear. "We'll be back soon!" she promised everyone else with a wave.
The dock led to an angled archway, entering a wide cave room with hewn walls but a smooth floor and ceiling. The team's sarosian escort regarded them curiously, but kept up decorum, Jaxy ruling them with force of presence and the swaying of his fancy armor coat.
After enough distance that the Immortal Dream began to be blurred against the glare from its comet behind them, the room reached an end, several apertures set into the side wall. The door to one was open, a circular floor within easily recognizable as an elevator.
It was spacious enough for everyone, and no one needed any bidding to crowd inside. Starlight tucked in her tail on instinct as stone double doors slid shut behind them, and the elevator shaft hummed with runic energy as the floor lifted and began to rise.
Starlight felt like the elevator had been rising for an eternity, but it was probably the number of strangers she shared it with more than anything. Along with Maple, Gerardo, Valey and Felicity, a whole cohort of armored sarosians flocked around Jaxy, standing still from floor to passing floor. But eventually, the blue-lit ceiling drew into sight, and after minutes more they reached it, the magical platform sliding smoothly to a stop and stone doors splitting open.
They stepped out into a white stone plaza considerably far up the mountain, one half disappearing in buildings and tunnels into the rock face and the other dropping off steeply without even a railing. Only the barest edge of the city was visible below, testifying to their height, though Starlight was sure if she walked closer she could see things just like she had from the airship. They had to be near the summit, though she guessed there were still a few more layers to truly reach the top.
Batponies filled the courtyard, evenly split between ones wearing armor and ones wearing robes. Most of the armor looked ceremonial, and she doubted it would stop any fighter truly determined. There was also a clear difference between what the males and females were doing, and she was sure one side was more important, but couldn't put her hoof on what it was.
"Right then, follow me," Jaxy commanded, turning right past a fountain and towards the inward mountain slope. "If it's the council you wish to see, then by the council you will be seen!"
Starlight's fur prickled as all of the passing batponies regarded them with curiosity and interest, her old aversion to being the center of attention stirring slightly in her mind. She distracted herself by studying the fountain. There were four like it in the plaza, and this one showed two batponies, a lower one with their head stretched upwards, smiling as a higher one poured an endless stream of water on their face from an urn. If there was a meaning to it, it was lost on-
POOOF!
A sudden, painless shock coursed through her body, frizzing her mane and causing all her fur to stand on end. She flinched, and Maple jumped beneath her with a surprised yelp. "Starlight!?"
Everyone stopped to look at her, making Starlight even more self-conscious, especially now that her coat was messed up, though whatever had caused it was gone. "Aha," Jaxy chuckled. "Hahaha! You've got a knack for fashion, girly-girl. How did you pull that one off? Some unicorn trick, I suspect..."
"No, I... I didn't..." Starlight shrank against Maple's back, wishing she still had her shadow cloak. She rubbed her face against Maple's neck to try to smooth her fur, but that only ruffled Maple's, too. "Please stop staring..."
She was sure her cheeks were burning, but Gerardo came to her aid. "You heard the filly," he commanded. "To the temple, Captain?"
Jaxy shrugged and continued, though Starlight continued to wish she was invisible. Her fur didn't poof out again... but as Maple resumed her pace, Starlight looked behind them, noting that they had just crossed one of the city's glowing blue veins of light.
"Maple?" Starlight poked her mother's shoulder, whispering as they crested a staircase in a tunnel and emerged onto a higher plaza.
"Are you alright?" Maple hummed back.
"See those lines?" Starlight pointed to this plaza's midnight veins, two of them flowing down from above and one splitting in two. "Please don't step on them. I think they're what made my fur do that."
"Mmm," Maple quietly agreed. They had to cross both of the geometric bands to reach the next entrance where Jaxy was leading, and Starlight watched her hooves as they approached. Maple carefully stepped over, and Starlight felt a faint, tingling fuzz, but there was no shock or poof.
"Jaxy?" Maple asked after another set of stairs and another, smaller plaza. "What are these blue lines?"
"Conduits for the Night Mother's power, my inquisitive friend," Jaxy chuckled, lowering his head. "Gemstones energized by this temple's core. Most sarosian cities have them, though they take centuries to build, so this one's are the grandest by far."
The temple's core...? Starlight blinked. This city wasn't built on another Tree of Harmony, was it? That wouldn't make sense if every city could to that. They had passed by several on their flight already, and there couldn't be that many trees. But now that she looked again, the energy veins did remind her of the pulsations in the natural rock of Ironridge, at the lowest levels the elevator to the crystal palace cut through before it actually reached the crystals.
When they reached the next vein, her curiosity got the better of her, and she hopped off to take a closer look. The material seemed to flow just like a liquid, carrying light and brightness along at an even rate, yet retained the perfect, rigid form of a solid, and she was sure if she pressed her hoof to it it wouldn't feel like it was moving.
The light itself was strange, too. It almost reminded her of the brightness she saw around ponies when she was moon glassed, only now she was fully harmonic and could see color clear as day. Part of her yearned to reach out and touch it, though she could feel her fur threatening to rise just from getting close and knew that if being on Maple when she touched it poofed her entire coat, making contact herself would probably ruin her mane beyond any semblance of repair.
At the same time, something was off about the light in the conduits. Staring into it for more than a second, she began to feel a vague unease prickling at her insides, like someone was hiding around a corner. She couldn't place why, and was sure these veins were more good than bad, but knew that she wouldn't be able to watch them forever without eventually growing paranoid.
"Well, someone's curious," Jaxy remarked, sensing that the group was breaking up and strolling back over. "Appeased by the pretty lights, are we?"
"What is this?" Starlight asked, staring him straight in the eyes.
Jaxy took her look as a staring contest and accepted with a sly grin. "But I just said! They're conduits for the power of the Night Mother!"
"That's what they do," Starlight challenged. "I want to know what they are."
"What do I look like, a metaphysicist?" Jaxy frowned, then spread his shoulders and shrugged, turning his back on her and beginning to pace away. "We call them ether crystals. They're created in the places they are, inch by inch in accordance with ancient ceremonies, grown out from one another like a tree. You'd have to ask a real monk to tell you more."
Felicity furtively cleared her throat, motioning at Starlight and then herself.
Starlight got the message, nodding to let Felicity know. Valey poked the veins a few times herself, squinting into them now that they were the center of attention, but Jaxy was pressing on and soon everyone else was too.
By the next plaza, Starlight was riding on Maple's back again, though they were climbing enough staircases that she had to constantly watch and ensure her mother wasn't getting tired. "You're okay carrying me, right?"
"Up the stairs?" Maple smiled and nodded. "Starlight, I don't regularly carry ballast for nothing. I like having you close. I'm fine."
Jaxy made a mushy face and led on, continuing along the pattern of enclosed staircases that led between separate extrusions on the mountainside. The next plaza had extensive plant life, streams of water running through shallow troughs in the stone floor in the shape of a circular sigil, decorated by low hedges and vines hanging from pillars. But instead of green, all the foliage was a ghostly teal, decorated with deep violet and midnight accents and hues. It glowed from within with a phosphorescent light, and Starlight suspected the plants were like that from exposure to the city's veins.
"Enjoy the botany while you can," Jaxy advised, acting as an impromptu tour guide. "Visitors in the past have asked, and no, it won't continue doing that if you transplant it somewhere else. Even taking these shrubs below the cloud layer can rob them of their luminescence."
"I am sorry, darlings, but I think I'll have to enjoy it a little while longer," Felicity declared, abruptly stopping to pant. "Though the last week has been pleasant and restful, I am still me, and that's about as many staircases as I can handle without needing more than a day to recover."
Jaxy blinked, then frowned. "That was three mere flights, my good mare. Are you unwell?"
Felicity raised a wing for him to stand down. "If you're considering fetching a healer, there's another mare on our ship who would benefit from it far more than I would. I merely need a rest. And don't you dare threaten me with the indignation of carrying me in public."
"Carry you?" Jaxy tilted his head. "Who would do such a thing, mare?"
Valey innocently looked away.
"Never mind." Jaxy sucked in a breath, drew up his shoulders and opened his eyes. "I shall run ahead to inform the council yet again you are coming. Yesna, command the goon squad to escort them further along at whatever pace they choose."
Yesna returned a frustrated bow. If the other guards knew how they were being referred to, they didn't react, and everyone was free as Felicity made for a waterside bench.
Starlight slipped off Maple's back and followed her, looking over her shoulder to make sure her companions stayed close by. Now that her grayness was gone, she didn't have the same burning, lingering need for Felicity to trust her that she did then, so while she was going to give the mare the benefit of the doubt, she wanted her friends nearby, too. "You know something about the ether crystals?" she asked.
"I'm barely old enough to remember them firsthoof, so pardon me if my knowledge is rusty," Felicity begged, patting the bench. "And do take a seat. But you wanted to know what these are, yes? As in what they're made of?"
Starlight pondered. "Probably," she decided.
Felicity took a few more minutes to catch her breath. "What I know for sure is the way they're made, darling. When you want to add more, you find a branch that already exists, and you perform a special ceremony over it. The centerpiece to the ceremony must be some event of immense emotional power and significance revolving around hope for the future. Not just any joy or happiness will do; it has to be about wishes for what will happen. Two of the easiest examples are weddings and the birth of a foal, but other things can do it too. Coming of age, the reconciliation of mortal enemies... Combined with the proper rites performed by a sufficiently powerful monk, and the crystal grows an inch or more."
Her eyes drifted across the garden plateau. "And yes, that means each of the lines we've crossed on our way here took perhaps hundreds of events or more, just for the portions you witnessed. Building them is a project that's spanned all of this city's thousand-year history, guided by the Night Mother, and they're still being expanded at the edges of the city today."
"So they're crystallized emotion," Starlight murmured, staring at the plants. Kind of like Gerardo's sword...
"The conduits themselves," Felicity confirmed. "Then they're actually empowered, of course. I believe they're connected to a dusk statue, though of course I've never seen for myself. My understanding of this is a bit more limited, but they act like a reservoir of sorts. From time to time they even grow dim for minutes or hours. Tradition there is that this occurs when the Night Mother calls back her power because she has need of it herself, and in the meantime, she spreads it among us so we may bask in it."
Starlight stared in thought. "And does it do anything?"
Felicity shrugged. "Some say it's the source of Mistvale's eternal twilight. That's clearly an illusion, since the land would freeze if it truly received no warmth from the sun, but this is the most powerful magic source that's plainly visible to be involved."
"Huh." Starlight kept thinking.
"It's also responsible for the glowing plants," Felicity confirmed. "And it has other effects, too. Anything involving creation is easier, here. Trees produce better harvests, artists feel more inspired, children who are extremely young tend to grow faster and be healthier. We haven't had enough outsiders to know for certain, but there are rumors that brands appear more easily, too."
Starlight stumbled, tripping over herself as she tried to get anywhere but where she was. It wasn't safe there. A stone archway passed overhead, and her friends' voices distantly registered in her ears, but it was too much. Ponies that were staring? Magic reacting to her alone? Cutie marks? She wasn't thinking, but she needed to think, but to do that she had to get somewhere else. Panic rang in her ears, she couldn't look where she was going-
POOOF!
Her entire body fuzzed, and Starlight shivered so hard she tripped, bowling head over tail until she crashed into something hard and metal.
Momentum gone, she was on her back, thoughts swimming too hard to make out anything more than the vein of treacherous blue that had snagged her. Her stomach hurt from rolling, her head hurt from the crash, and her ears told her she become even more the center of attention.
Sarosians, adults and elders alike, stood around her at a respectful distance, though still too close for her liking. Most were cooing. None sounded mad. Starlight's fur was standing even straighter and more charged than it had when Maple trod on the vein; she knew she looked ridiculous. So, all her coping mechanisms having failed her and with no way to disappear, she lay back down and quit.
More batpony chittering sounded in her ears, but there was nothing she could do. She wasn't sure what she had landed against, and didn't look. All she could do was pretend to be dead and hope the world passed on by...
"Starlight!"
Her friends were here. They could fix things. Starlight heard pounding hooves... and then drawn-up stops and gasps.
She lifted an eyelid, fur tingling with static, and saw that some of the attention had turned to Maple, Valey and Gerardo. The batponies were looking at them, but they were looking above her...
Starlight rolled, suddenly feeling like she needed to see what she had landed against.
It was metal, quadrupedal and huge, stationary and immobile where it stood. Proportioned like an alicorn, it had folded metal wings so big they couldn't close at its sides, yet clearly wasn't a pony. Black and silver plating covered its form, and from the construction of its joints, she had a feeling it was supposed to move.
"What's that?" Starlight asked, poofed fur almost forgotten as she crawled on her back away from the thing, trying to look up at a better angle.
Maple caught her, clearly more worried about Starlight than the metal effigy. "Why did you run away like that!?"
A pang of unease wormed quickly back into Starlight's heart. "Mmph," she mumbled, hiding her face in Maple's chest. "I want to go back to the boat."
Talking briefly surged among the batponies, and some started trying to shepherd others away from the scene. A robed stallion pointed toward a bench near the side of this plaza, and Maple returned a thankful nod. Starlight was quickly picked up and carried there.
"Are you alright?" Maple whispered, setting Starlight on the bench and sitting in front of her to block most of her view of the plaza. "Here. What can I get you?"
Starlight looked at the ground, senses starting to return along with a wave of embarrassment. She couldn't be freaking out like this in new places. What if her friends were in danger and it would make her unable to protect them?
She swallowed. "I'm fine. I need some time."
Maple silently nodded, reading her mind and staying right where she was. Slowly, Starlight pieced herself back together. She had already made the decision long ago that she would get a cutie mark if it would help protect her friends. Being better than others or somehow special was worth it in the same conditions. Just because things reminded her of her old fears, especially when they reminded her of her old fears, she needed to remember that she wasn't scared of that anymore. She wasn't. She had grown and gotten better for her friends. She was better than this because she needed to be...
"I'm fine," Starlight mumbled, releasing a deep breath. "I just forgot when I was and got scared."
"Are you too high-strung?" Maple brushed her mane with a hoof, trying to calm some of its magical frizziness. "I wish we lived a less-stressful life..."
"Mmph." Starlight closed her eyes and focused on breathing, trying as hard as possible to relax. She was going before the Monk Lords soon, after all. Whatever happened there, she knew her friends would need her at her best, so at her best she would be.
Soon, as the plaza and her thoughts quieted, she began to make out Valey and Gerardo talking. "Yeah, we're from Ironridge," Valey was saying. "Only a world and a half away. At least, I am. Birdo here's from all over."
"That's an apt way of putting it," Gerardo agreed. "We've heard you don't get travelers often."
"Not for years," a dignified, heavily-accented mare's voice rasped. "You must have stories."
"Indeed we do," Gerardo chuckled. "I can't imagine information from abroad is too free-flowing out in these mountains."
More voices chittered, and the first mare translated, "The Night Mother keeps us appraised of anything major. I'm more interested in what in the world could have led travelers here again."
"Adventure, I guess?" Valey said. "And we wanted a chat with the high council, or whatever they're called. This seems like a cool place, though. Normally everywhere we go there's guards or political jerks, but here we've actually been treated decently for a change."
The mare sounded grateful. "I'm glad you're not finding our hospitality wanting."
Starlight found herself wondering if this was really the same civilization that patrolled the Empire's waters with ruthless pirates, but her friends didn't act too bothered. "So what's the deal with that statue?" Gerardo asked, pointing from the edge of Starlight's vision. "Seems a bit of a clash in architectural style with the rest of this place. Does it have a purpose?"
"What, this ugly thing?" the mare asked. "It's a long story, and by that I mean it has no story. It showed up a few years ago with the council saying it was a gift from the Night Mother, but the thing looks like something out of a book for teenage colts and no one can decide where to put it. If you ask me, some wealthy patron they can't afford to offend donated it as a prank, even though they all know it's hideous. So it gets moved around a lot, and there's something of a guessing game as to where they'll put it next... Every society has their oddities."
Starlight couldn't help herself and peeked. Maple had been blocking her view of the effigy, but from this far back she could see it clearly. It stood four times as tall as an adult at its back, plated with black and silver metal that looked halfway between armor and a striped fashion statement. The head and the wings were draconic, and she realized the hooves were actually claws: it was a pony-shaped metal dragon. She had read about dragons in Equestria, in the books she and Sunburst used to share. This one looked far more equine than the ones she was used to, but it was undeniably what it was.
Only one feature gave her pause: the tail. Short, wide and growing wider as it went out, it looked like a barrel that had exploded, or a massive drill. Concentric rings of metal surrounded a dim, midnight-blue crystalline core... Starlight realized with a shudder that, adjusting for the presence of color, the tail was exactly the same as she had seen on the mechanical monstrosity in Yanavan's dream.
She had an unsettling fear that this metal dragon could move, and a pony was supposed to wear it.
"Ah-ha!" Jaxy's loud voice interrupted her thoughts, the armor-coated stallion striding out from another archway. "I see you're enjoying our capitol's most magnificent sights. A true favorite of mine, this one." He marched straight up to Valey and Gerardo, wings folded, giving the metal dragon an appreciative look. "Really, they ought to put this where more of the population can enjoy it, but I digress. The council wishes to meet with you immediately, my good travelers!"
The mare who had been translating gave him an uncultured look, turning to leave and taking most of the other onlookers with her.
"Yep." Valey squared her shoulders. "Cool, I guess break's over. I'll go get Felicity. She stayed in the other room."
Starlight climbed on Maple's back as her mother returned to Gerardo and Jaxy. "How much further is it?" Maple asked. "I know one of our friends is having issues with the stairs, so if it's much higher..."
"Not long, not long," Jaxy promised with a wave. Leaning closer, he whispered, "They've sent an armed and capable squadron down to your ship who should be able to safely bring the prisoner up to the council chamber for them to do their thing. This is in our hooves now, so you all just sit back and enjoy the show."
Valey and Felicity caught up, and Jaxy led on, his words ringing in Starlight's ears. The sarosians were taking care of things. Yanavan might still be a problem, but they were accepting responsibility for things. Somehow, for once, all the major things in her life were as good as she had ever asked for.
But there were still little things that bothered her around the edges. She had no new ideas on how Gerardo's sword had somehow become hers, and the similarity between the tails of the metal dragon and the nightmare machine in her dream was eerie at best. She couldn't shake her last conversation with Glimmer, either, where she had been begged to return to normal before she was tempted to become any more acquainted with the Nightmare Modules. What would she have used them for if she had stayed gray? When was she next going to regret not having them? Aside from her shadow cloak right then, when she was being stared at...
Her shadow cloak. That was how she was thinking about it already. Starlight swallowed, letting Maple carry her on.
"Well? Here we are, then," Jaxy declared after only one more flight of stairs. This plaza wasn't open to any cliffs, though the stars did shine above, its floor built into a steep recess between twin peaks of the mountain. It was like being at the bottom of a giant hole, only far more open, the circular floor ringed with statues of noble-looking batponies carved into the walls. Another entrance pierced the mountain directly across from her, and it looked to be the final one.
The last ornate hallway took a left turn, exiting into a shallow mountain bowl with the stars close above, short natural crags the only things separating the Monk Lords' chamber from the high mountain winds. A raised U-shape surrounded a small central courtyard, open space in the middle and a dusk statue seated watchfully at the back. Eight glowing veins intersected at its base, and around the raised edges, hooded batponies sat, high enough to look down on the chamber yet low enough for quiet conversation to be held.
Starlight counted five in total, waiting patiently like statues. The gem in the dusk statue's core pulsed slowly in time with the blue power flowing from its base, though for reasons she couldn't fathom it was red instead of the omnipresent color scheme of the rest of the city.
"Emineeence!?" Jaxy called, kneeling heavily before the council. "I have delivered the travelers!"
"Thank you," the middle mare said in an accentless voice slowed by age. "Jaxy, you are dismissed."
Jaxy bowed, retreating without turning around and taking his guard with him. Starlight's gaze tried to follow two sides of the room at once as she and her friends were suddenly alone, the mare who had spoken raising a silent wrinkled hoof.
In response to her gesture, two double-doors swung out from the walls, closing off the way back into the mountain.
Maple sucked in a breath, but the central mare spoke before she could. "I just thought we'd like more privacy," she began, reaching up with both hooves and sliding back her hood. A glimmering silver mane that seemed to reflect the moon fell free, matching her unnatural eyes and almost ethereal over her aged, smiling face. "I hear you've brought me one of my old colleagues."
Everyone looked at each other, and Gerardo was elected to speak. "That we have, milady. Might you have a title? We wouldn't want to be rude."
"You may call me Eidys," the mare slowly replied. "But my station is one of humility before the Night Mother. This is not a place where decorum matters more than the contents of your heart, Gerardo."
Gerardo looked up. "You know our names, then."
"The Night Mother has informed us of your coming," Eidys said, her companions still deep in prayer. "Maple. Wayward Valey. Gerardo Guillaume, Starlight... She has a message for you, young Felicity. She tells you she is pleased with your path."
A faint chill ran down Starlight's spine. Eidys hadn't used her full name. Of her friends, only Maple knew it, but she was sure the Night Mother had some way of knowing, too. Did the Night Mother know why she didn't want her friends knowing, and had omitted it on purpose? Did she know about Starlight's vision in the harmonic flame in Ironridge, of a desolate landscape where Valey knew her name, one that ostensibly couldn't happen if Valey never learned?
"Then it sounds like you've been well-briefed," Gerardo confirmed. "You also know of our present mission, I take it."
Eidys frowned. "Mistvale is vast, and you've passed through some shadows in the Night Mother's all-seeing eye. From what we've heard from the captain, you have quite a concerning tale."
"That we do." Gerardo nodded. "I'd be surprised if encountering a criminal of legend wasn't. I'd like to apologize first and foremost for any role we may have played in freeing him, though I imagine that's not the most important thing to discuss."
Eidys gave him a scrutinizing look. "How are you so sure you met Yanavan? The captain told me he met your captive himself, yet you didn't believe him when he said that was somepony else."
Gerardo grinned grimly. "First because he said so, but when we met him, he was empowered by Nightmare Modules. Those are the treasures Yanavan purportedly stole, are they not?"
"And you'd know what those look like," Eidys said with a glance straight at Starlight. "Yet I'm told your captive doesn't share the transformation they effect on sarosians."
Maple cleared her throat, stepping bravely forward. "We have a way to reverse that transformation."
Eidys' eyes narrowed on her. "That's very interesting. And you swear on your loved ones you're telling the truth?"
Valey swallowed. "And what if we weren't?"
"Then you'd be applauded for your prank and told to find a more appreciative audience in the city proper, with no harm done save for a few wasted minutes," Eidys deadpanned. "I'm far more worried you're being serious."
Starlight felt a slight chill.
"A host approaches," the other hooded Monk Lords muttered in sync.
Eidys' eyes turned heavenward, and Starlight and her friends followed the gaze. Over the chamber's ridge crested a squadron of robed batponies, holding ropes and flying in formation. At the center was a figure clearly restrained, and it didn't take any guesswork to tell who.
The guards hovered down in the center of the chamber, landing between the dusk statue and Starlight's friends. "Release him," Eidys commanded. "From bonds and arts. Then you are dismissed."
Ropes were slowly undone, monks tapping their hooves against Yanavan in careful combinations before taking wing once again. Starlight frowned at the acts. "Hey, that dude's dangerous!" Valey protested. "We kept him locked up as hard as we could! Don't just free him!"
Eidys' gaze drifted to her. "This room is protected by forces more powerful than he can possibly imagine," she chastised, turning to the monk who was now abandoned in the center of the room. "And besides. That's not Yanavan."
Yanavan stood up shakily, locking eyes on Eidys. "And who are you to tell me otherwise, fool? I was before your time!"
Eidys lifted a hoof, and Yanavan flinched as an audible slap echoed through the air. "The real Yanavan's wife," she chastised, inspecting her hoof with disinterest, having stricken him despite the distance. "You look nothing like him. You were clearly no Monk Lord, either."
The stallion paled.
"Wait, what!?" Valey took a shocked step forward. "You mean we got kicked around by a random bum? He totally had the Nightmare Modules, though!"
Eidys paid her no attention, grinning down at the fake Yanavan. "Your disguise is cracking. Clearly a good enough actor to fool these people, but nopony becomes a Monk Lord for being gullible. Now tell me about all this commotion about Nightmare Modules."
The stallion spun in a circle, but he was surrounded, Eidys and the dusk statue on the front and Starlight and her friends behind. "Tell you?" He bristled. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Pah. You had them for generations and kept them as pretty ornaments." A spike of arrogance wormed its way into his tone, growing until it dominated it. "Simpering fools. Why should I pretend you deserve what I've learned?"
"Honey, we already know everything there is to know about Nightmare Modules," Eidys countered with a smirk, effortlessly beating him in force of personality. "The council and I are far more interested in you."
As the two elders squared off, Starlight's fur began to prickle, giving the uncomfortable feeling she was being watched. It had been all throughout the chamber, she realized, only now was growing more intense. Was it the dusk statue? She swallowed, looking everywhere but at the arguing monks.
The fake Yanavan hissed. "Curious about me, are you? Why not be curious about your goddess? Or is it too easy, simply believing everything you're taught to believe? I was the one who searched where there was nothing. I looked for more!" He straightened up. "Bluster all you want, but you hold no power here."
"My, you're a feisty upstart," Eidys countered. "And I never claimed to be powerful. But someone who does wants a word with you, and you'd best not test my mercy if you want to avoid facing her amusement. Now tell us why they say you carried Nightmare Modules."
"You dare make demands of me? You utter fools..." The fake Yanavan shook his head. "They were gifts bestowed by my goddess, a power unknowably greater than yours! You oppose me out of ignorance alone. Hahahaha!"
"Bananas, who did we pick up?" Valey blinked in concern, eyes wide.
Eidys gave her a smirk. "Wait your turn, hun. The codgers are talking." Her gaze snapped back to the stallion, dominant and amused. "Our goddess versus your goddess, hmm? The Night Mother accepts, whenever yours decides to show up. But it's just us mortals here for now. Why not start by showing us what your gifted Nightmare Modules can do?"
The fake Yanavan winced, and Eidys leaned forward like a vulture. "So were they taken from you, or is your goddess not as generous as you make her out to be?"
"Does it fill you with pride, stooping to such pitiful, obvious insults?" The fake Yanavan held his head righteously, refusing to break eye contact. "Shaming my goddess when yours withheld from you a millennium of power? The ground you stand on is nothing but straw, worshipping empty effigies who have nothing more than kind words. Where are her actions? Where was her power on the day Gyre invaded and was turned back by Garsheeva?"
Starlight blinked, remembering Gerardo's story of the crusade from shortly after the monk was captured. The fake Yanavan had said it stirred up a storm of questioning the Night Mother, almost a precursor to his own betrayal in its impact on society. That must have still happened, only he was lying about staying on her side...
He continued with a chuckle. "In those days I left to live in exile, refusing her pretenses forevermore. But my new goddess sought me out. She came to me, foretold these travelers' arrival and how I could convince them to bring me to your very doorstep. Cling to your last moments of rhetoric, for this hour of gloating is the last gift the Night Mother will ever give you."
Eidys rolled her eyes. "She's starting to get mad at me for not letting her laugh at you herself. Honey?"
Starlight saw the shadow cloak seconds before it dropped.
"You speak of these things like a gift," a quiet, elderly stallion's voice said, his haunches and forelegs dissolving in a void. "That proves you don't know what they are."
The fake Yanavan blanched. "What!?"
Before him, sitting directly beneath the dusk statue, a stallion just as ancient as Eidys appeared, flowing beneath his open cloak with monochromatic energy. He gave the imposter a colorless look. "I am Yanavan, as I have been for the past thirty years. Your identity was never in question. And for you to mistake the goddess's burden for a gift, you must have fallen very far, indeed."
Everyone in Starlight's group jumped. "You were here!?" Felicity shrieked in disbelief. "Did they know? Are you still allied? What was the meaning of our exodus!?"
None of the Monk Lords reacted, Eidys watching the conflict with a wry look. "You," the imposter said, staring calmly at the new Yanavan. "So, the hypocrisy-"
Flash!
A jet of magical flame surged around Eidys, and where she had been stood an elderly sphinx, still wearing the Monk Lord's robes. Feathered wings spread, and she glided down with unnatural lightness to land beside Yanavan before the statue. "I'm sorry," she announced, greeting the fake with a wide-toothed grin. "Were we about to re-litigate every tiny bit of this who's-who I just waited through? Let me speed things along." Her slitted eyes flashed red. "I am the Night Mother, who you've had plenty of time to talk down." She extended a wing to the new Yanavan's back. "This is my faithful servant who does exactly as I command, whom you impersonated. And you are Perynus, who confided in me as a foal about every crush you had. Doesn't that save time?"
Felicity was still wide-eyed from shock. "You're telling me in person you ordered Yanavan's..."
The Night Mother shot her a look. "Goddesses work in mysterious ways."
The fake Yanavan drew himself up, meeting her stare levelly. "I abandoned that name when I abdicated your presence long ago. I am Yanavan, a name I am far more worthy of than one who still serves you."
"Really." The Night Mother tapped a claw, looking unamused. "Now where is your goddess? I was promised a challenge. And don't try to fight me by yourself."
"Ask and you shall receive." Perynus backed up, spread his shoulders and turned to the heavens. "Oh, nameless one, I call as you decree!"
The Night Mother watched... and the air began to shimmer. Starlight's entire spine shivered, a huge patch of space distorting as something invisible started to become corporeal again. She realized a second before it finished what it was.
The metal dragon from the plaza stood in the Monk Lords' chamber, immobile, staring down at Perynus in exactly the same pose she had seen it last.
"Hah!" The Night Mother snorted so hard she nearly fell over. "And here I let myself get excited." She turned her back on Perynus, stepping toward her statue. "Congratulations. You've pranked a goddess."
"You have no understanding of what you call a-"
"Quiet, you." The Night Mother made a snapping noise with her tail, cutting the monk off as he swelled. "I was talking to her."
The silver dragon stood over him, completely immobile.
Perynus stared back up at it with a righteous smirk. "Let her eat those words."
Slowly, the dragon's tail began to rotate beneath its casing.
A faint red glow lit the insides of the blue crystals that formed it, and with a silent hiss of moving metal, it lifted a claw toward Perynus. He watched the claw expectantly.
Faster than Starlight could blink, the claw changed, two needle-like spines shooting out from its talons. Longer than swords and thinner than knives, they pierced his body all the way through, and the claw continued to rise, lifting him off his hooves like food skewered in an eldritch fork. She had the sudden realization that if they were to spread apart, it would be the messiest possible way to die... but instead they pulsed faintly with energy, and Perynus paled and lost his color. He stiffened, stopped moving, seemed to grow hard... and then popped into a soft cloud of ash, just like the black sword, and drifted slowly to the stones. Without even putting its claw down, the dragon shimmered and disappeared again.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Gerardo whispered, agape.
"I... But... Night Mother..." Felicity weakly stretched a hoof.
"Bananas, that was messed up."
Starlight didn't think the events needed any explanation. The Night Mother had a metal dragon, and it had misled the fake Yanavan... for fun? She had never heard of a goddess with a better reason. Actually, she had never heard of a goddess with any reason. They did what they wanted, didn't they? The same reason the real Yanavan was apparently here, and all the other Monk Lords were fine with it.
The Night Mother yawned, batted her mouth with a paw, and turned to Starlight and her friends. "Now that that chicanery is taken care of, let's pay some attention to you lot."
"W-What is the meaning of this?" Felicity trembled, pointing at the stallion at the Night Mother's side. "Is that him? Yanavan was here all along, and all of you knew and sanctioned it? Everything I and my family went through in Gyre..."
The sphinx approached, putting a wrinkled paw on her shoulder. "All of your afflictions happened regardless of whose fault it was. I see time in thousands of years, dear child. Changing events to ease your life could threaten millions of others', leaving them with these exact questions you have. But I have been with you through it, though you are but one in a sea of children, and your faith will be rewarded in time. Show me a goddess who could do more, and I will entrust you to their care instantly."
Felicity took a shaky breath.
"You will be fine," the Night Mother promised, turning to Starlight and Valey. "You two are the ones I truly want to meet."
"Us?" Valey blinked, pointing to herself.
"You," the Night Mother confirmed, slitted eyes dilating. "But you never stop to pray at my statues. Even when I guided Senescey to help you meet with me in person, you slipped out of my grasp. You've been hard enough to get ahold of to challenge a goddess." She grinned. "I like that."
Starlight's ears pressed back. "You mean the hospital? We were supposed to meet you there? What do you want us for?"
The Night Mother's eyes pulsed, and the dusk statue pulsed in turn. With a grinding of stone, its base started to move... and slid backwards, revealing a stone stairway beneath the ground, all eight of the room's blue veins winding their way down below.
"You have my interest and my full attention," she continued, eyes fixing on Valey. "Artifice of Luna." Her gaze switched to Starlight. "And you, a unicorn who can use Nightmare Modules without consequence."
Starlight gulped. "What's down there?"
"Please follow me," Yanavan, beckoning to Starlight alone. "I wish to have words with my fellow wielder. You have my oath no harm will befall you."
"Can I come too?" Maple asked hesitantly, stepping forward.
The Night Mother shook her head. "You've come a long way," she insisted. "The rest of you, remain here and speak with me instead."
Valey fixed her with a stare. "Can you tell me what moon glass is, where I came from, what I am, why I'm here and whether there's anything I can do about it?"
The Night Mother motioned to the floor. "Once these two go below, sit down and find out."
Valey sat still, trying her best not to fidget as Starlight hesitantly followed Yanavan into the stairs beneath the dusk statue. Gerardo had to place a hoof on Maple's shoulder to stop her from following the filly, and Felicity looked ready to faint. Breathing weakly from shock, the batpony leaned heavily on Valey's shoulders, eyes pinprick and unfocused.
"Uhh... Hey, you okay?" Valey nervously shook her. "Look, not a whole lot I can do to help, but if you could get yourself together..."
The Night Mother frowned, still regal despite being in Eidys' frail body. She snapped her claws, and a second later Felicity disappeared in a burst of teleportation.
Valey jumped. "Woah! Where did-?"
"To rest," the Night Mother interrupted. "She's lived a hard life, and listening to us talk will do nothing for her. She'll be well-treated and you'll see her again when we're done here."
At another flash from her eyes, the dusk statue ground against stone, sealing the staircase off again. "Now then. Your first question will be how you can trust me after what happened in the hospital. Won't it?"
Swallowing, Valey nodded. "Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good place to start."
"It is unfortunate, what happened to you," Yanavan rasped in a voice that didn't seem it could rise above a whisper. The staircase descended steeply, four blue veins on either side, and the proximity of the magic made Starlight's fur stand on end even though she wasn't touching.
"Which part?" Starlight asked, incredibly wary despite willingly following him underground. "Getting Nightmare Modules at all? You know I have them somehow."
"All of them?" Yanavan asked. "I didn't, but we were afraid of it. I was talking about Senescey and the hospital."
"Oh." Starlight looked down.
Yanavan continued on, hoofsteps silent against the stone. "The Night Mother speaks to us in our minds, through the power of dusk statues. Dusk statues are an information-sharing network built with the same magic that allows creatures to dream. To her most blessed and privileged, she speaks in physical form, through oracles controlled with the statues like Eidys, my wife. But her true nature and location are unknown to everyone, even the council that convenes above."
Starlight frowned. "I heard she's impossible to find, but grants wishes like Garsheeva if you do."
"You heard correctly," Yanavan confirmed. "I know her great secret, but not because of my role in the council. The reason you were taken by her agent at the hospital was because she wished to meet you in person, face to true face."
"And she's in Gyre?" Starlight's eyes narrowed. "With Stanza?"
"No." Yanavan shook his head softly. "She wished to act in a roundabout way, to prevent anyone from following your trail to her. She knew Valey would follow, but underestimated your resourcefulness. You returned to your family before she could draw you fully in."
Starlight looked at the ground. "She could have just asked."
Yanavan nodded and didn't reply.
That left Starlight to think. She got captured during the tournament's second round, which was well after she gained the first Nightmare Module... That had to be why the Night Mother was interested in her. She had never turned gray before, never done anything she would be interested in, unless the windigoes and harmony extractor in Ironridge counted, but she couldn't see what the Night Mother would have to do with windigoes. But that meant the Night Mother had to know what she had, and she had used the first Nightmare Module with only Maple and Valey to watch. It had all been over in minutes... How did she know?
She continued in Yanavan's trail, step after hoofstep, pondering what she would find at the bottom.
"I suppose that brings us to the next biggest question," Gerardo said, lifting a wing and keeping the Night Mother in his gaze. "What was that metal thing?"
"Yeah, and what did it do?" Valey pressed. "Yanavan... I mean the fake dude... was all, 'I have serve the bigger cheese!' and then acted like that was it? And then it blew him up?"
The Night Mother looked on them, standing before the restored dusk statue. "That was an executor of my will, more or less. A sanctioned servant on high enough ground to consider pranking me before my council. Perynus, the stallion you returned, was one of many self-imposed exiles after Yanavan assumed the Nightmare Modules three decades ago. He lived far enough from my dusk statues that he was beyond my eye." Her gaze shifted. "It seems she thought it would be funny to swell him into a false zealot before depositing him on my doorstep like a dead mouse."
Valey slid her jaw. "Well, this dead mouse prank kinda wound up with Starlight getting a ton of Nightmare Modules. Don't tell me you're fine with that happening behind your back."
The Night Mother's piercing, slitted gaze intensified. "If I wasn't, I'd have someone much more productive to take it out on than you. And that is why Starlight is meeting with someone intimate with the burden of carrying these treasures safely."
"As Felicity said, though," Gerardo pointed out. "Prevailing myth is that Yanavan betrayed you and stole these relics as an act of desecration. Countless sarosian lives were worsened or left your presence because of it. Forgive me if I'm having trouble swallowing that you and he are allies."
"She did," Yanavan wheezed, talking as he led Starlight further into the earth. "I could hardly believe my ears when the Night Mother asked it of me. There had already been an incident years ago, an invasion by Gyre, that planted the seed in many minds. What if she wasn't the ruler we deserved for our devotion? I knew what kind of sentiment I would light aflame. And the Night Mother agreed with me. She still asked me to do it, so I did."
Starlight's ears fell. "But why?"
"Why?" Yanavan asked. "Why did I devastate our nation? It was only faith." He shook his head. "Twenty-something years before, the Night Mother had done nothing when Gyre invaded. Whatever plan she had in motion for us could not be stopped by the refusal of one mortal, and I had a better chance than most ponies in history to know her immortal mind."
"No, why would she do that?" Starlight gritted her teeth. "It sounds like it ruined everything. And you can't enjoy being gray like that."
"I couldn't know." Yanavan's cloak swayed around him, though it seemed designed to reveal the void that made up his hindquarters and legs, swirling like a portal to a dark sky. "Now I do understand, through decades of meditation on the Nightmare Modules and their contents. The Night Mother is only trying to protect us, but she is not almighty. She must mold our society so we ourselves can weather waves too big to be stopped by a mere goddess."
"Such as?" Starlight tilted her head.
Yanavan raspily chuckled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. But you are a filly, and I am past my eightieth year. My old mind can barely touch the realities of this world after thirty years of struggle, when I started one of the wisest ponies in Mistvale. The fates of the world aren't things you need on your young shoulders. They would break you and never let you be happy."
Starlight winced inside, his speech feeling uncomfortably similar to one she had heard from a certain lookalike filly. "But they are anyway. I have the Nightmare Modules, even if they're turned off. And the world never leaves me alone."
"And that is why we're here," Yanavan said, the bottom of the stairs appearing in Starlight's vision. "So I can impart to you what I've learned about living with these, and hopefully make your path easier."
"The Night Mother wants to do that too, huh?" Starlight followed along, careful not to trip on the steep incline. "Does she care, or does she just not want me using them for anything dangerous?"
Yanavan didn't even hesitate. "Oh, both. Very much both." He paused, slowed, and glanced over his shoulder. "Did you use the one with the memory? The one related to Loyalty?"
Starlight bit her lip. "No. That's a good thing, right?"
"Perhaps." Yanavan continued onwards.
Starlight followed quietly, unsure where he had intended to go with that. "Is there any way for you to take them away? To make me normal?"
"Perhaps," Yanavan repeated. "It's good that you desire that. You understand the modules are a burden, not a privilege. As to whether anything can be done, one of the modules is used for deleting and corrupting memories. The Nightmare Modules are nothing more than information, so it could, in theory, banish them from your mind forever."
"But...?" Starlight raised a worried eyebrow.
"But it is a hammer, not a chisel, and the Nightmare Modules are stored deeply indeed." Only one last section of stairs remained, but Yanavan proceeded as slowly as ever. "Turning it on you with sufficient power could erase everything that isn't a part of your soul itself. You could lose all of your past in its entirety."
Starlight gulped. "But my friends would still remember me?"
"It is not a module I have ever tested," Yanavan whispered. "I think so. But I can make no promises."
"I'm not doing that, then," Starlight decided, firm in her stance. "I won't give up my friends."
"I don't think it was an option anyway," Yanavan chuckled. "The Night Mother does not understand you. Every sarosian and even a few others, she can learn things about merely by their proximity to her dusk statues. But you are protected by a veil she cannot pierce from afar. She does not know what you are, how you work or whether she could even affect you, and likely can't know without meeting you in person. That's a big part of why she was interested."
Starlight frowned, brain working fast. Could this have to do with how her batpony mind projection power got turned on and off? Or was it something to do with the way she interacted with moon glass? If Felicity and Glimmer were right and she was a mixed race foal with sarosian blood, the Night Mother would have to have seen that before, right?
If this was meant to help or ease her path, it felt like she was just getting drawn further in.
The end of the staircase arrived. A hexagonal room stretched before them, far smaller than she had expected, with a hexagonal pool of clear liquid in the center that seemed invested with faint motes of light. The blue lines on the walls branched and merged, spilling onto the floor and feeding into the pool, and it seemed to be the source their energies grew from. But that wasn't the room's most significant feature.
At the far wall was a chair, and in it was a filly, rising slowly to her hooves with a sigh. She closed her eyes, steadied herself, and bowed her head, purple mane dangling over the pool, looking like she wished she was anywhere else.
"Hello, Starlight," Glimmer said. "I wasn't looking forward to this, but here we are."
"You?" Starlight frowned, stepping towards the pool. "What are you doing here?"
Her lookalike straightened up, staring at her from across the starry surface, and shrugged.
"This is a trusted friend of the Night Mother," Yanavan introduced, standing back a few paces. "I was surprised to see how similar you look. But I see you are already acquainted."
"Starlight," Glimmer said, drawing a breath. "Do you remember when I said that the more you used the Nightmare Modules, the more you chased this path, the more it would chase you?"
Starlight swallowed. "But I stopped using them when you told me to. I got myself back to normal and didn't get tempted into anything! Didn't I?"
"You did." Glimmer nodded, pacing slowly around the hexagonal pool until she was at Starlight's side. "But it's a start, not the end. Do you believe in destiny?"
"Like my cutie mark? No." Starlight's nose scrunched. "That was the whole point of running away up here. So nothing could tell me what I had to become."
"And how about you?" Glimmer's gaze turned to Yanavan.
The old monk chuckled. "Destiny is whatever those powerful enough to enforce it decree. In these lands, that means the Night Mother. Anyone who challenges her directly? Good luck."
Glimmer nodded. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"...Where are you going with this?" Starlight asked warily.
Glimmer averted her eyes. "How powerful do you think we are?"
"What, us?" Starlight tilted her head. "I don't know, strong? Not that strong? You're strong." Glimmer had told her how far she could go before, and so had the reflection in the dream that gave her the Nightmare Modules. She already knew she'd killed windigoes and crossed mountains, but she had a bad feeling about admitting it, for more reasons than a Monk Lord standing right there.
"Okay." Glimmer continued to stare at the pool, the city's blue pulsing veins originating in its depths. "If you said your friends will stay safe, do you think you're powerful enough to make that their destiny?"
"Of course I don't!" Starlight winced; it would have felt wrong to say anything else. Even being asked the question stirred something resentful inside her. "Why would you even ask that?"
Glimmer didn't look any happier about it than she felt. "Context. You're going to have to take my word on this, Starlight, but the two of us are exactly the same in our potential. Both of us have missions, as well. I know more, but that's it. Up until now, I've been using a lot of tricks to keep up with you, stay hidden and appear either omnipotent or a trick of your mind, but I've hit a battle I'm not confident I can fight. Can you guess what it is?"
Starlight's brain turned, and she stared at the wall for a moment as she tried to put Glimmer's words into a coherent story. "The Night Mother is making you do something," she eventually surmised.
"Close enough," Glimmer answered. "What she's doing is taking interest in you and your Nightmare Modules. I promised you if you did continue using them, you'd get drawn further into the highest turmoil of the world. Sadly, it seems I wasn't quick enough. Now the powers that be are interested in you anyway."
"What...?" Starlight swallowed. "What do you mean? What do I do?"
"That's up to you to decide," Glimmer apologized. "As for me, I work with the Night Mother. I decided she was someone I needed on my team, so I help her out in return. And right now, she's asked the two of us to draw you further in." She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Starlight, but this is not a battle I feel like fighting. I'll still be on your side, but if you don't like this destiny you're moving towards? You'll have to change it on your own. Yanavan?"
Starlight felt her heart clench. She wasn't sure how much she had ever trusted Glimmer, but it suddenly felt like it had been a lot. Before she could speak, though, dark magic crackled around the stallion behind her.
She spun... and Yanavan tapped the ground, power divesting itself from his hoof into the floor. A dark circle inscribed itself between the veins, glowing with the colors of the night, complex magic runes gently radiating into the air.
"But let's talk about yourselves," the Night Mother said, shifting the conversation off Starlight and Yanavan. Her eyes fixed on Valey. "You in particular. You have a lot of questions you came here to get answered, don't you?"
Valey strongly returned the aged, robed sphinx's gaze. "Yeah. That would be cool. You really wanna help me, though?"
"I bear a responsibility to all you children," the Night Mother answered. "Come. Open your heart to me, and I will read what I can of your past."
Valey suddenly felt a probing sensation in her chest, the same gentle knocking that accompanied dusk statues and the Firefly Sisters' song. Only now it was restrained, like it could attack with force yet was taking care not to split her open. Her cutie mark vaguely tingled; there was no real danger, but she was being touched by something immensely more powerful than her. She instantly surrendered, letting the Night Mother in.
A brief, pleasurable tingle suffused her, and then the sensation was gone, releasing her from the sphinx's influence. "I see," the Night Mother said. "This could take some explaining..." Her eyes shifted to the right. "Have you ever heard the name Princess Luna?"
"A little?" Valey tilted her head. "There's an insane dude with Nightmare Modules of his own in Izvaldi who rambled about her for a bit, but he was kind of hard to follow and I don't really remember what he said. Something about how she created batponies, but isn't you, and thought I was something called an artifice?"
"An Artifice of Luna," the Night Mother agreed. "One of three ever made. One she took with her to the moon when she was banished and I stepped in to shepherd her children in her place." She fixed Valey with a look. "You fear being created for an evil purpose by an evil god. Princess Luna was banished for falling to the grip of indominable jealousy, but she had begun her fall already by the time she created your race... much less the Artifices. Your fears are founded."
Valey felt her legs grow weak, giving out without warning. But suddenly, the Night Mother was closer, and caught her despite her age. "Shhh."
"Bananas..." Valey blinked, too shocked to do anything. "You mean I came all this way for this? I survived Ironridge, made friends, tried to be a better pony..."
Maple and Gerardo drew up alongside her, Maple taking her off the Night Mother into a hug. "Oh, Valey..."
The Night Mother stepped back, silent for a moment as the two mares clung together and Gerardo stood guard watchfully. Eventually, the griffon gave her a critical look. "That's not the end of the story, is it?"
"You're a big believer in destiny, aren't you?" the Night Mother said wryly. "You believe where you came from has to dictate where you are going?"
Valey blinked, her eyes not yet wet to need drying. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"There are countless forces in the world that draw creatures together and lead them apart," the Night Mother began. "Love. Hope. Understanding. Friendship. But the only way to say for sure what a creature will do is to be powerful enough to force them to do nothing otherwise. You are fated not to walk through those doors until I say so because I can open them and you can't, for example." She pointed at the locked doors back into the temple. "Princess Luna is helpless and imprisoned where she was banished on the moon for waging jealous war against her sister. She holds less sway over your destiny than a housefly, only that which you give her."
Valey's jaw hung slightly slack. "Hold on, so stuff works that way? Like, as a goddess, who knows a ton more about the world than I do, there's nothing, like... built into me to mess things up?" Her eyes narrowed. "What about the giant comet I came down here in? Moon glass is bad for batponies. Nightmare Modules are bad for everyone! It's totally not harmless!"
The Night Mother smiled grimly. "You aren't harmless either, my little pony. Dangerous enough to have your eyes on the Empire's tournament, in fact. But you get to choose who you hurt, or whether you fight at all. Fighting for your friends alone, unbound by superiors, duty or honor, you have even more of a choice than most living creatures."
Valey stared. "Yeah, but... if she made me because-"
"Luna created her Artifices for one purpose alone," the Night Mother interrupted. "She was a harmonic mare. Jealousy and altruism conflicted intensely in her. Would she have made them had she possessed the counterparts to the Immortal Dream, the artifact that created sarosiankind? No." Her eyes narrowed. "But despite every conflict in her mind, she made them for me."
Valey had nothing to offer.
"Behold." The Night Mother spread her wings, lifting off Eidys' cloak with a shimmer of moonlight, turning her side to Valey and showing her flank.
There, drawn in midnight blue, a complex set of triangular runes faded into existence, a cutie mark that looked less like a pictograph than a spell yet to be cast. "If being an Artifice troubles you," the aged sphinx said, "I have one too."
"Buh?" Valey almost reached out to touch it before stopping herself and shaking out of a daze. "Wait, you're the same thing as I am? But my cutie mark looks normal..."
The Night Mother pressed again on her heart, and Valey felt another tingle, followed by a sensation to look at her own flank. Her mark was gone, replaced by runes much like the Night Mother's, only hers were a deep, ruby red.
"This is what they look like," the Night Mother said. "All of them are capable of obscuring themselves to appear as brands of normal ponies. The visual components of such things are ephemeral. If you meditate on yours, you should find I've given you the ability to shift yours back and forth at will."
"So you're the same thing I am?" Valey asked, not quite caring about the change to her flanks but staring into the sphinx's eyes.
"Our brands are," the Night Mother answered, putting a paw on Valey's chin. "Do you know the relationship between body, brand and soul?"
Valey stared.
"Cutie marks, as you call them, are not creatures' souls," the Night Mother went on. "But they are bound to them. In earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, a pony's cutie mark grows from the union of their soul and their body, as a manifestation of their truest hopes and dreams with a real, often physical power to change the world."
"But batponies are different?" Maple whispered.
The Night Mother shook her head. "Many races have existed since before recorded history even at the time I was born. Sarosians are different. They were created as vessels by a mortal ascended to godhood, using tools built for or left by gods. The Immortal Dream is the world's truest, most unstoppable embodiment of hope. It grants wishes by creating cutie marks, detached from bodies or souls, that embody any desire. When Princess Luna first gained the Dream, she created many of these as works of art, divine expressions of the innermost hopes of her soul. She then created sarosians' physical forms, also made purely from hope, as an attempt to bring her dreams to life and allow them to live themselves out in the world on their own."
Everyone listened in rapture. "That sounds so special," Maple breathed.
"The creation of life as a realization of your dreams?" The Night Mother gave her a serious look. "Is it really? All mortals pass away, yet life has endured in the world for thousands of years. Where does it come from?"
Valey tilted her head. "Uh, having kids?"
"Precisely." The Night Mother showed her teeth. "But what parent bears foals for the sake of themselves and not their children? In the world we were left, children come into their own, discover their own talents and live their lives in pursuit of their own dreams. As close as family can be, as great a gift as life should be, what Luna did was not the order of things. That is why I call myself the Night Mother. They may be her children, but I guide and shepherd them out of love alone, not because they make manifest anything for me."
"I..." Valey swallowed.
"And," the Night Mother continued. "Even Luna, ascended to a goddess, was not able to alter this way of the world. Born of bodies and cutie marks, sarosians have souls just the same as any other creature. They are weaker for it, beginning with all three when original ponies begin without all three and grow their hopes as they age and learn. Their bodies were created for this purpose by Luna's magic, yet their marks were forged by the same magic of creation that empowers the rest of the world. As such, their links are weaker, with their marks bound less powerfully to their bodies and their souls not at all. This is why original ponies can resist the effects of moon glass yet sarosians are consumed, and why those born without cutie marks can retain their souls even if their marks should be severed."
Valey's jaw hung. "So what does that mean for me?"
"It means you have a soul, mind and will just like all of your friends," the Night Mother promised. "Creating souls was not something Princess Luna could even attempt to do. All of the marks within the meteor were bound to such souls. The personality shifts ponies experience after withdrawing these marks into themselves are the result of two souls improperly sharing one body. These excess marks and souls can even be passed on, should they be mares and have children, creating foals with predetermined marks just like sarosians. But for you?" She smiled gently. "You have a body designed by ascended hooves, but born of a mortal womb. You have a brand of immense power, crafted by Luna's own hooves. And your mind, thoughts and decisions are your own just as much as anyone else in this room."
Valey sagged. "So this mark isn't, like... going to actually do anything bad?"
"It would be up to you to use it either way." The Night Mother took a step back. "Original ponies have brands that match their loves and talents. For anyone born with a brand or given one artificially, it is just power. Perhaps they can use it to support their dreams, and most do. But it is nothing more than power."
"So..." Valey fidgeted with a hoof. "So mine and yours..."
"What do they do?" the Night Mother guessed. "There are three Artifices corresponding to the three societal virtues. Much like there are three true artifacts, the Immortal Dream being the one with which you're familiar. Yours corresponds to love. I think you're already acquainted with its power."
Valey slowly nodded. "It lets me see when I'm in danger. That's like telling the future?"
The sphinx nodded back. "Of the virtues, love binds creatures together. It is related to closeness, drawing in, contraction, the end and destination of all things. Fate may not allow a fixed destination beyond what we can impose on each other, but all things that move still have direction. Mine, meanwhile, is the Artifice of Hope. In this view of everything, love and hope are two ends of a three-sided coin. Hope drives ambition, leads us to strive and search for more than what's already there. It is related to drive, spreading out, expansion, the beginning and origin of all things. Tied to the powers of creation, Luna's favorite of the three, my Artifice was given to me as a gift. It gives me limited power over the brands of others."
"What kind of power?" Gerardo instantly asked, raising an eyebrow.
The Night Mother met his eyes. "If your talent truly did not reflect your desires, I could, perhaps, make changes."
Valey sucked in a breath.
"Perhaps," the Night Mother insisted. "Your brand is not your destiny. I do this to grant power, not to take it away, and I will not break my requirement that you seek me out. Felicity has told you of her quest for me. You know how this works, and it will be much healthier for you if you can live with things you're unhappy with instead of asking me to deal with them instead. I tell you this only so you can know you are not alone."
Valey bowed. "Yeah. I get that. Not that I'd want to get weaker in a fight, either. Just..." She gritted her teeth. "Last question, I guess, then. Why am I here? Why did that meteor come down, and why was I and everyone else inside?"
The Night Mother sighed. "There, I can't say. I've never learned the reason. It may be lost to time itself unless Luna returns and tells us."
"Well... thanks." Valey slumped, then looked up. "I still don't feel that great about being... you know. But I've actually got some answers, now. Thanks."
"One last thing," the Night Mother said, her eyes flashing as the dusk statue began to grind, uncovering the stairs to Starlight. "Things are finished below, so you may leave. Please enjoy my city. But you..." Her eyes fixed on Maple. "You've been damaged somewhere in your past by an intense source of magic, haven't you?"
Maple blinked. "Have I? I think maybe, but how so?"
The Night Mother nodded. "The connection between your soul and your body is somehow broken. It won't affect your day-to-day life, but you should be aware it may have side effects around certain kinds of magic. Most importantly, your brand is the only link between the two, like a sarosian. If it is somehow ever removed, your body will become a lifeless puppet unless someone can restore it. Be careful."
Maple swallowed, hearing the sound of hoofsteps on the staircase. "I will."
Starlight stared at the rune Yanavan had created, suppressing a shudder. "What's that?"
"Nightmare Module five," Glimmer replied. "The one that contains a memory of Princess Luna's greatest betrayal. She was forced to create it as part of..." She averted her eyes. "A process."
Starlight frowned at it. "Okay."
"It doesn't show you the memory directly," Glimmer explained. "It's designed so it can be shown to others, as well. Using it creates that, and touching that is what will show you. It's... the one I was worried the fake Yanavan would convince you to use."
"When you asked me to turn back to normal before I got too drawn in?" Starlight's eyes widened slightly, and she took a step back. "So what are you doing with it now?"
Glimmer sighed, her ears going down with remorse. "Nightmare Modules are nothing more than information. This one contains nothing more than a memory. From the Night Mother's immortal perspective, you're in a role where having the module and having the memory are no different. She wants you to watch it because there are things about her she wants you to understand. So now? I have to talk you into this."
"What's in it?" Starlight hesitantly took a step back, glancing over her shoulder at Yanavan. "Didn't you say if I kept using the Nightmare Modules, it would be a lot harder to stop and live like a normal pony?"
"I did," Glimmer apologized. "And I stand by that." She paced again around the starry pool, coming to a stop at the edge of the memory. "Like I said, there are powers that are interested in you, Starlight. But if you want to live at peace, the ultimate force and fate that drives you to be stronger, search for something better, and not accept things that are wrong? The biggest destiny you'll ever have to fight is yourself. Knowing that there are things you can do and doing nothing. Watching this will push you closer. It will make it harder to sit down and pretend like the world is fine without you, and I don't know if you'll be able to do it. I don't know if you can watch this and not only become even more driven until you fall like Luna did."
"But I believe you," Starlight quietly protested. "I put away the Nightmare Modules. I don't want them! Why are they following me here? Why?"
Glimmer paced closer and hugged her. "You're about to say it isn't fair."
Starlight's next words died on her lips.
"I have to talk you into this," Glimmer whispered. "I need the Night Mother's help, and this is what she's asking of me. I'm so sorry. I hate making things harder for you and just want to see you at peace. I hate this."
Her eyes began to water, and Starlight saw it. "It'll be okay," she promised. "I'll do it, but it won't change anything. I'm still never using Nightmare Modules again, no matter what."
"Don't promise that," Glimmer murmured. "There will come times when the price of having power and not using it is greater on your mind than going too far. You just need to be able to hold onto yourself when you do, and leave once as only once. I just need you to be at peace, Starlight. Do you believe in happy endings?"
Starlight frowned. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
Glimmer sighed. "I'll watch it with you, if that will help. This will make your future harder. Please stay strong."
"Thanks," Starlight mumbled, then drew herself up and took a deep breath. If this was a challenge, she would rise to it. Whatever knowledge Glimmer thought would make her life harder, she'd have to live with. She was an expert at dealing with hardship already. She could do this.
They moved their lilac hooves as one, stepping into the circle.
"Alright. That's enough." Twilight Sparkle sat up, silhouetted through the window by the first rising rays of dawn. "Starlight, what did I say would happen at dawn?"
Starlight grinned, her mane slightly unkempt from a night of talking. "We... take a break for breakfast?"
Twilight looked more concerned than amused. "Starlight, your story is incredible and I'd love to keep listening, but ever since you entered that dream cave, I..." Words failed her, and she shook her head to reset it. "This is becoming less a literary endeavor and more something where I need to warn the Princesses. Anything less could be a dereliction of duty!" She kept her voice remarkably in check for the clear stress in her eyes, pleading Starlight to go along. "I appreciate everything you've gone through, and unaccounted for remnants of Nightmare Moon's magic that can be extracted from meteorites spread around the world are one thing, but... don't you think hidden altars where she bestows power on ponies from reflections in dream water are dangerous?"
"My life has been pretty dangerous, Twilight," Starlight admitted. "But what are you proposing? That we pause the story and go to Canterlot so you can tell Celestia about things that happened eighteen years ago? Some of this might have been dealt with by now."
Twilight's eye twitched, clearly torn between demanding safety-related spoilers and preserving the story's integrity.
Starlight drew a hoof across her heart. "I swear Celestia is already aware of any threats I know of related to this that may still be active."
"Yeah, Twi," Rainbow interjected. "Maybe we should hear what's in that memory first, at least?"
"I..." Twilight fidgeted. "Nightmare Moon isn't safe. And with all this future-telling, I'm getting more and more suspicious Glimmer is a future you trying to avert a catastrophe like the ones you and Valey saw. Starlight, this could be serious."
"Twilight..." Starlight yawned. "If I was aware of any imminent, crushing danger to the world and have been for eighteen years, don't you think I'd at least have told you about it when I became your student a week or two ago?"
"No, it's okay!" Starlight smiled disarmingly. "We'll go to Canterlot. You can introduce me to Celestia, and I'm sure she'll never have heard of me at all after how big of a splash I made in the northern world what with the windigoes and everything else that wound up happening, and we'll just pause the story right at a cliffhanger..."
Twilight twitched harder.
"She does have a point," Rainbow pointed out. "Look, I dunno about you, but I'm gonna need some time and like a million reminders to get all this through my head. I do going fast and being awesome, not batpony soul science. So maybe we should, like... hear about this memory and finish this bit just so we don't have to redo all this later? Since it's fresh in my head, I mean. And how long can a memory be?"
"Show you the memory," Starlight corrected.
"Yeah, show us... Wait, what?" Rainbow trailed off, blinking at her.
Starlight bowed her head. "I just said it was a Nightmare Module designed to show the memory to anyone. Most of the story, I've had to tell, but this is a part you could actually live. I just thought I'd offer, and all."
Twilight slowly gave her a look. "This is why you were talking about showing us the modules last break, wasn't it? You have moon glass? Or a way to use them safely?"
"I have another way to use them," Starlight said. "You'll want to close your eyes while I cast it, but everything will make a lot more sense if you see this. If we're going to the Princesses to see what they don't know, you'll really want to know this first."
Twilight took a deep breath. "This is making me nervous, but, for science." She shot both mares a look. "And then we're definitely going to see the Princesses."
Rainbow folded her forelimbs behind her head, kicking back and closing her eyes. "Fine by me."
Twilight averted her gaze too. Shortly, there was a crackle, and when Starlight gave the all-clear, she looked.
A ring of dark energy burned on the castle floor, seeming to draw color away from the crystal palace. Starlight sat unaffected, looking completely like she used to. Runes in the middle of the ring sent wisps of purple and midnight light trailing like geometric smoke, and it seemed to make the room quieter by its very presence.
"So, uhh..." Rainbow sat up and scratched her head. "You're sure this thing is safe, right?"
"It's a memory, Rainbow," Twilight reassured. "And besides, I'm pretty sure I already know what it is. I actually have watched this before, back when we gave the Elements of Harmony back to the tree. It's her fight with Luna, where Luna first transformed!"
Starlight sighed and beckoned them closer. "Just watch."
Twilight and Rainbow Dash stepped closer together, presenting their hooves. "Alright then..." Twilight's ears folded. "How do we do this?"
"Put your hooves in on three, and I'll activate it," Starlight promised. "One... two... three!"
Three taps sounded simultaneously on the crystalline floor. The ring reacted, flaring, and started to rotate, its energy drawing up and drawing the ponies in until they were standing together in a dark cylinder. Rainbow bit her lip, Twilight watched the runes in morbid fascination, and Starlight stood like she had experienced it hundreds of times before, until the floor was sucked from beneath them and they toppled into a winding chute of shadow.
Relief after relief lined the sides of a crystal corridor, blood-red gems forming sculpted, geometric patterns without a trace of foreign material in sight, polished to an infinitely-reflecting sheen. The walls, bearing carvings, showed fields of swords and fire, griffons and ponies dying and burning and fighting a war to end all wars. Spectral horses lined the sky; billowing storm clouds fought the flames with fields of sleet. But each panel was bordered by ribbed support columns, forming unique murals of equal size, and in the center of each devastation were three dragons and a triangular stone.
The beasts had gems in their necks, radiating and refracting light from the center stone, in each pane bathing a separate war in the light of destruction. Their tails were like fishes, and as the light spread in a gradient over every scene, finer details made the rays look almost like musical scores. Everywhere, everything was red.
"What is...!?" Twilight Sparkle took a sharp breath, backing away from one wall and into another. "Aah! Starlight, what is this place!?"
"A memorial," Starlight replied, hooves clicking against the impeccably-cut floor. "And remember, we're in a memory. Nothing you do here can change anything, and nobody we meet will know we're here."
Rainbow Dash didn't seem at all disturbed by the violent imagery. "This is pretty neat," she remarked, hovering and rubbing her chin while inspecting a mural up close. "Kinda creepy, though. Hey Twi, what's this place made out of?"
Twilight was trying not to hyperventilate. "It's fine," she murmured to herself over and over. "This is just a memory. I would not want to be here myself. Or wherever all these are pictures of." She squinted, distracting herself with study. "Wow, that's a lot of griffons. Are we in the Empire?"
"Take a moment to look around," Starlight invited. "You'll figure it out soon enough."
Twilight frowned, growing more comfortable now that the surprise had worn off. "Starlight, is this Star Swirl the Bearded?" She tapped a point on a wall.
Starlight stepped up beside her, nodding. "He's in these."
"His design is very technically accurate," Twilight mused. "And these..." Her gaze drifted to the three central fish dragons, and her ears slowly fell. "I think I know what story these are from," she said with a lump in her throat. "But there are clearly windigoes here. And almost half of these creatures are griffons... Either someone was combining all the apocalyptic literature they could into one carving, or some historian must have missed something and left a lot of stories separate."
"Hey, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash waved to get her attention. "Don't you think a building made of all crystal is weird? Unless we're, like, in the Crystal Empire or something, the only other place I've seen this is your place. Starlight, are we in another Tree of Harmony?"
Starlight grinned and nudged Twilight's shoulder. "She caught on faster than you did."
Twilight brushed her off with a wing. "Hold on. Dating of ancient Equestrian history is extremely imprecise, but I'm trying to see how possible it would be for all this to-"
The sound of hoofsteps cut her off. Everyone turned down the corridor to where a dark figure was approaching: a head taller than most mares in stature, she walked with an armored chest and spread wings, midnight-blue eyes fixed cleanly ahead.
"Princess Luna..." Twilight breathed.
Luna ignored them, marching slowly and purposefully down the hall. The three mares fell into step close behind, and they didn't have far to walk. Soon, the hallway widened into a hexagonal room with a completely translucent floor, the Emblem of the Nine Virtues glazed into it and the center point replaced with a map table just like Twilight's own. Through the floor, they could see a column of crystal tracing away into the depths, connected to the table like a root. An empty sphere of shimmering water hovered over the top of it, just small enough for someone to touch the center without immersing more than their shoulder, and the mural backgrounds changed, each of their backgrounds showing peace and a pony much larger than those around it.
"Luna," a large voice purred.
Uncurling from the floor was a sphinx, big enough to risk hitting her head on the corridor that led in. She bared her teeth in a welcoming smile, spreading wings that could wrap all the way around the table.
"It has been too long, Garsheeva," Princess Luna formally replied. "Unfortunately, it is a long journey, and for all our recent advancements We have yet to find a way to shorten it... so far."
"You were last here six months ago," Garsheeva countered with a warm growl. "When the journey from Canterlot is more than two months, you're almost speedy."
"Yes, well." Luna averted her eyes. "We became lonely."
Garsheeva's body suddenly glowed. Motes of light streamed off her in a river, fading into the air and appearing again in the water sphere, granting it a deep blue, almost starry sheen. The sphinx shrank, as well, reducing in size until she was only a head taller than Luna. "The Daydream system you made has been working well," she commented, stepping forward on smaller paws before spreading her wings and enveloping Luna in a hug. "Your sister still giving you trouble?"
Luna put her wings on Garsheeva's sides in return, looking downcast to the side. "She mistrusts our use of the Immortal Dream. It is not fair, Garsheeva. She has wielded her counterpart for the last millennium, yet will not take steps to recover thine and begrudges us ours no matter what good We write with it. Our sarosians are faring well in thy land, We trust?"
"I monitor them closely," Garsheeva replied. "They seem like viable life forms. Two of the mares have conceived foals, but it's too early to see whether they can sustain themselves as true life without mom around." She teased the back of Luna's mane with a feather.
"Hmm." Luna looked like she knew she was supposed to be grateful, but couldn't bring herself to feel it.
"Show it to me?" Garsheeva asked. "The Immortal Dream."
Slowly, Luna shivered... and with a pulse, something emerged from her chest, tethered to her by a thin cord of ethereal energy. It was a gemstone, the size of a hoof and shining with sapphire radiance, sending midnight light refracting all around the chamber as it floated freely before her, slowly rotating.
"Mmmmm..." Garsheeva stared into it and purred. In the background, the motes of light divested into the water sphere seemed to shift, gravitating in their prison toward the light.
"One will have to make do for both of us," Luna apologized, a tint of frustration in her voice. "But it is ours. Our sister cannot take it away. And our hope will be thine as well."
Garsheeva's face creased slightly. "And what about you? How are you faring against its curse?"
Luna scoffed. "We are better for this so-called curse. As We told thee before, the Immortal Dream has an oversight. It can only grant the wishes of others, not of ourselves. The spirit entombed with it, written of as the Nightmare, is enabling us to use it fully. What use is granting the dreams of others when our sister will not even help ourselves?"
At that, Garsheeva's teeth showed again. "All of these powers are sealed along with curses for whoever takes them. Curses that enable the worst sides of ponies. You lived through this temple's curse nearly destroying the world."
"That is our sister's line," Luna said icily.
Garsheeva instantly backed down. "Have I ever not supported you in this?" She stroked Luna's mane to try to calm her down. "I don't want you to run from it. I want to know how you fare against it."
"The Nightmare is not something to be fared against," Luna replied, remorse sounding like it badly wanted to enter her tone. "Thou hast already beheld our early work thanks to its empowerments in the form of our sarosians. As We continue to complete the requirements and finish the six Nightmare Modules, We will become powerful enough to fix the world in its entirety."
"Oh? And how many do you have now?" Garsheeva rumbled, rubbing Luna's shoulders until she started to unstiffen.
"...One more is asked of us." Luna lifted her head. "Our power is nearly complete. Shall We show thee what We have constructed?"
Garsheeva gave a curious purr.
The hovering Immortal Dream drew back into Luna's chest. Her horn briefly pulsed with shadowy energy before igniting in a midnight blue aura, and two glyphs appeared floating within it. Made of complex triangular runes, one was red and the other midnight blue.
Garsheeva regarded them curiously. "And these are?"
"We dub them Artifices," Luna said, holding the glyphs in her aura. "There are three in total, but We did not deem the third useful. They are cutie marks infused with our deepest power yet, constructed in the image of our three birthrights: thine, our sister's, and ours."
Garsheeva's eyes shone. "Tell me more," she rumbled.
The red one hovered higher in Luna's aura. "This one has a lesser capacity to foretell the future. It is thine." She weighed the blue one. "This one allows for some manner of manipulation in the fabric of cutie marks. In essence, to do what We do, limited to modifications instead of creation." She floated it slowly towards Garsheeva. "It is our gift to thee. Even when months and years wear on, it will allow us to be with thee in spirit, always." In the barest whisper, she added, "It is a terrible thing to be alone."
"I accept." Garsheeva's eyes closed. "And then mine is for you, for the same reasons."
A final shimmer, and the two Artifices disappeared in their respective mares' bodies, blue runes becoming visible where Garsheeva's flank had previously been bare. "It should also grant thee greater ability to control the Daydream proto-" Luna began to mumble.
Garsheeva interrupted her with a kiss.
The two mares leaned into each other's embrace as Twilight, Starlight and Rainbow Dash watched silently. "Heh heh..." Rainbow chuckled under her breath as the sovereigns went on. "If I didn't have a feeling something really bad is about to happen, this would make awesome blackmail..."
Starlight kicked her. Eventually, Luna broke off the kiss, resting her chin high on Garsheeva's shoulder, a tear leaking through her clenched eyelid. "We love thee," she murmured. "We feel less alone here. If things were always like this, perhaps it would be bearable."
"All this power hasn't set your heart at ease," Garsheeva remarked. "Has it ever gotten better?"
"It could," Luna insisted. "We must simply go further. We have not fully unlocked the Immortal Dream's power. It is the genesis of the world's creative power. Surely when We can control it fully, it will finally be enough..."
Garsheeva sighed. "Ordinary creatures live their lives to contentment with an ion of the power we hold, even without our birthrights. We were created to be goddesses. Climbing higher... where will it end?"
"We know not," Luna apologized. "But We must find it."
Garsheeva closed her eyes and held Luna, and was silent.
"...We have another gift for thee," Luna said.
"Oh?"
Luna stepped back, breaking the embrace... and a black sword with a triangular hole in the hilt dropped to the floor at her hooves, caught in her aura before it could clatter. "The Nightmare Modules have begun working for us alone," she calmly declared, offering it hilt-first to Garsheeva. "Our own emotions have become sufficient to power them. As much as this spared us and sped our work, it is a catalyst We no longer require."
Garsheeva stared at the sword. "I recall gifting that to you. If you don't want it, I can take it back... It isn't a borrowed item."
Luna's ears fell.
Gently, Garsheeva pushed the sword to her, closing the distance again and putting a paw in Luna's starry mane. "Think of it as something I can give you," she rumbled. "A gift. You made me this, after all." The runes glittered quietly on her flank.
"No. We... Thou may wish for it in the coming moments." Luna swallowed and looked away, a note of wretchedness entering her voice.
"Hmmm?" Garsheeva frowned.
Luna's horn pulsed again with shadow... and her coat darkened until it was pitch-black, her teeth elongated to match Garsheeva's sharp fangs, and she grew until she was the sphinx's equal in stature.
Garsheeva nodded, waiting for an explanation.
"This is Nightmare Module Six," Nightmare Moon explained, Twilight and Rainbow Dash both shivering slightly from her image. "Control of our form as befitting our sister's equal or better." Her voice was sharper, older, harder, with much of its emotion wrung into proud edges instead. "As We said, only one Element remains to be inverted before the Nightmare will fully unlock the Immortal Dream's power to us."
"And?" Garsheeva met her slitted eye for slitted eye.
"...That Element is Loyalty," Nightmare Moon said. "It requires a betrayal."
Ice crept into Garsheeva's posture. "I see," she answered, bowing imperceptibly. "And you really believe the Immortal Dream's sealing curse can bring you more happiness than the mare who loves you?"
Nightmare Moon's mask cracked for half a heartbeat, then was fixed. "We are not captive to the Nightmare. The spirit stipulates that it can only empower a willing host, and the moment they desire otherwise, it is forced away. We are also not captive to its demands. It requires the greatest betrayal We could make, but does not say what must happen before or after that occurs."
"I see." Garsheeva inclined her head. "You wish for me to act as a willing sacrifice of sorts."
"It pains our heart," Nightmare Moon promised. "The Nightmare chills us, inuring us to much emotional pain. On many nights preparing for this, We cast it out for a time, allowing ourselves to feel fully what We were doing and ensure it was judged in our right mind. This trial will pass; We are sure of it. But We will only finish things with thy support and approval. Turn us back now, and We will destroy what We have made."
Garsheeva straightened, doing her best to look down on the alicorn. "Return to your real form."
Luna shrank, her coat blending back to dusky blue as her features returned to normal.
"My princess," Garsheeva whispered, stretching out a feather and lifting Luna's chin. "You know what I desire. If this will ruin you, you know better than I do. If it will save you, the same. My decision is in your hooves. If you lie, it won't matter whether I stop you. I'll have already lost you."
A wretched look broke across Luna's features. "We... We..."
Garsheeva pulled her into another embrace.
"We created a seventh Nightmare Module," Luna cried, voice starting to shake. "One not correspondent to any Element of Harmony or required by the Nightmare. We call it the Star Module. It allows the wielder to withdraw and transfer cutie marks between ponies effortlessly and at will." She gulped. "A module designed specifically annul thy immortality by force and allow one to cause thee to perish."
Garsheeva frowned, but wrapped her wings around Luna's shaking form. "I forgive you."
"Nnnghk..." Luna rubbed her face on Garsheeva's shoulder. "W-We... are sorry..."
"Is that enough?" Garsheeva quietly asked.
"The condition is satisfied," Luna promised. "We can assume the Nightmare's full ability upon telling this to thee. Then the Immortal Dream will be able to overcome its shortcoming and grant any desire whatsoever. I-If We can attain that..."
"Shhh," Garsheeva urged, rubbing her gently.
As the two embraced, Rainbow turned to Starlight with a frown. "Uhhh..."
Starlight's eyes were closed.
Eventually, Luna stepped back. "Creating this module was enough," she shakily declared. "We are free to determine what We do with it. And..."
Her horn pulsed one more time, withdrawing another cutie mark from her body... only this one seemed half-there, like it flickered and wasn't fully formed. Its surface was nebulous, and looked deeper than a flat icon, and Luna held it to Garsheeva.
"We leave it in thy control," she promised. "This is a half-formed cutie mark with the Star Module's information woven into its core. With our Artifice, thou can finish or weave it into whatever mark thou please."
Garsheeva frowned at the thing.
"This is our gift and curse to thee," Luna apologized, holding her head high. "Do not lose it or attempt to be rid of it. We have not studied the lifestream of the world well enough to understand what happens when our own creations pass beyond the deaths of their mortal hosts, but it is not impossible fragments or even the whole of this Nightmare Module could somehow resurface. Neither have We studied the longevity of methods for containing cutie marks, beyond the equine lifespan. Please take care."
"Store it in a pony..." Garsheeva frowned at the hovering partial cutie mark. "Alright. Give it to me."
The brand floated into her chest with a soft puff of light.
"What next?" Garsheeva asked, looking up.
"Next? We..." Luna looked at the floor. "We will... have finished. We will show our sister what We have accomplished, reveal everything to her. Perhaps it will win her favor. Perhaps We will have to struggle onward. We need more, Garsheeva. Seeing the world live happily apart tears at our heart greater than all of the trials of the Nightmare. But We will show her We have mastered the Immortal Dream safely, and she will love us, and they will too. This will all finally be over. We won't have to watch as everyone else has everything We deserve anymore. We will share and be harmonic, and..." She gulped. "Tell us it is true. After all this distance, the prospect of her rejection is..."
Garsheeva looked with worry on her, but spread a paw between the backs of her ears, caressing both of them at once. "She will. She will accept the unjustness of her holding her power while neither of us can cling to ours. You will find the fulfillment you're looking for."
"We must," Luna whispered. "There is no other alternative. Because if We did not, there would be nothing left We could do."
"Then don't wait for my sake," Garsheeva urged. "Return to Canterlot. When this is all over, we can live together again as survivors of a ruined age."
Luna heaved a last shudder, then sprung to her hooves. "We will see thee again," she vowed, marching for the exit without looking back. Behind her, the motes of light in the water flared, winking out, and Garsheeva's size swelled again until she was once again as big as the table.
"Quick," Starlight urged, not leaving Twilight time to blink. "Follow her. There's slightly more."
The three mares raced after Luna's retreating hoofsteps, the princess's long stride giving her an advantage. Quickly, though, they reached her stopped in the corridor, staring ahead with a blank expression.
"We cannot see ye," she uttered, "whomever ye may be. This is a last message to those who view the memory We are about to create. We are Princess Luna, and We have lied."
She bowed her head. "The race of sphinxes is immortal by design. Their longevity comes from consuming the cutie marks of others, releasing their bodies and souls to mortal fates while deconstructing the emotional energy of their hopes. All sphinxes are capable of this."
With stricken eyes, Luna continued on, whispering such that everyone had to lean close to hear. "She realizes it, but our gift would not only allow for draining her and rendering her mortal. It would also allow any to rise to match her themselves, imbuing themselves with a host of marks stolen from their populace. It is a god-slaying mark. But her secret is well-kept, and the Nightmare Module woven into this cutie mark could remain hidden forever unless someone knew to go looking for it."
Harrowed, she finished, "This is the extent of the treachery demanded of us to ascend past immortality and gain mastery of this pinnacle of the world. The memory of this conversation, We will seal in a Nightmare Module, the one ye are watching now. We plead forgiveness from any power high enough to mete it, though We know none exists. The world being designed in such a way, requiring such sacrifices to become that power, is a testament that if anyone was that high, they would be too broken and ruthless to ever care about us. We dream of becoming that power, of becoming so indispensable to everyone that We will be loved, and will never have to be alone. But should that quest ever cause us to lose our love for those We wish to be loved by, We entreat ye: take our weapons and strike us down. The Nightmare Modules are tools of loneliness and jealousy, but We crafted them to protect those We care about with everything in our heart. That is why We shall leave them here for others to find. Garsheeva's curse from us is also a gift: a power she can bestow on a trusted ally to finish her should she ever carry herself too far. Likewise, should We ever lose ourselves, our Nightmare Modules will lend their strength to protect ye from us. We wish, from the bottom of our heart, to be a harmonic mare who is given harmony as much as We tried to bestow it to others. This is our plea."
The world immediately began to fracture, and then Twilight, Starlight and Rainbow Dash were falling upwards, tumbling through a tunnel in the sky.
Starlight was the first to regain her senses, standing in Twilight's sofa room in the crystal tree. She waited patiently for her friends, both of whom were blinking in stupefaction.
"So let me get this straight," Rainbow Dash eventually said, shaking her head like it was waterlogged. "Princess Luna and Garsheeva were lovers back before Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, Celestia had some artifact those two were jealous of, Luna got one for herself, it was cursed..." She dug in an ear with a hoof. "And the curse just asked her to do stuff that turned her evil out of desperation? And she left the Nightmare Modules sitting around so someone who could use them would have a thing to fight her if she ever did turn evil?"
"Luna was afraid of herself." Starlight nodded. "I've never met her in person, but I've watched that memory dozens of times. When I first saw that, I understood what Glimmer was warning me of with how I could go too far. I... feel for her a lot." She looked away. "I imagined myself making weapons someone else told me to make, but secretly willing that they could cut me down if I ever went too far, after watching that. At least, I tried to. I couldn't comprehend it." She sighed. "I guess you know how successful I was in breaking away from using them and not fixing my problems by force..."
"Yeah, that seventh one..." Rainbow twiddled her hooves.
Starlight shrugged. "When it had a similar name to me, how was I supposed to not read into it? Not that there aren't hundreds of ponies in Equestria with Star in their name, but..."
"That's rough." Rainbow looked away. "I guess maybe we need to talk to Luna too, huh? After we blasted her three years ago, I sorta figured that was a done deal."
"I have to admit, I'm a little intimidated at the idea of meeting her in person..." Starlight rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "But the same can be said for Celestia. Hey, Twilight? Are you okay?"
Twilight was staring into space. "Starlight?"
Starlight tilted her head. "Yeah?"
"The Immortal Dream," Twilight said. "That's what it looked like? Exactly what it looked like? That was the real thing?"
"I don't see any reason why not." Starlight started glib, then caught on that Twilight's serious tone wasn't improving. "Why? Is it important?"
"Wait here for a moment, girls," Twilight requested, then teleported away in a flash of light.
Starlight and Rainbow Dash looked at each other and shrugged.
Minutes later, Twilight opened the door and strode back in, a triangular red gemstone held in her aura. It was immaculately cut, with the ghost of an otherworldly light that looked like it was waiting to be activated. She tilted her head, showing it off. "And there were three of them, right? Is there any chance this is another?"
Starlight fell out of her chair.
"Uh, Twi?" Rainbow blinked at the fallen unicorn. "Hypothetically, like, supposing it was... where did you find it?"
Twilight's ears sheepishly folded. "Innn my basement..."
Starlight snapped upright, cracking out of her shock like a breaking twig. "What are you doing with one of those in your basement!?"
Twilight blushed furiously. "Look, it's a very long story involving some singing fish dragons Star Swirl banished to another world! Just is it or isn't it?"
"We need to go see Celestia, right now," Starlight declared, instantly getting ready. "And Luna too, if she's awake. And just to be safe, don't let anyone touch that who isn't immortal."
Train wheels clattered beneath Twilight, Starlight and Rainbow Dash's hooves. They had a coach to themselves, snow-covered hills rolling past on the short journey to Canterlot. A magical orb sat snugly in Twilight's saddlebags, safely encasing the red gemstone she had found, and the skies were clear and free of foreboding. Eventually, once Ponyville was sufficiently behind and they were settled, the conversation turned to Starlight's story.
"Star Module..." Twilight muttered over and over under her breath. "And you were using that."
Starlight nodded, but it didn't pacify her friend's consternation. "And it's named for you, or you for it," Twilight continued. "That just can't be a coincidence. But the sheer unlikelihood of us meeting-"
"Hey, Twilight?" Rainbow kicked back, crossing her hind legs in the air. "You know, we're the Elements of Harmony, and you got promoted to princess. I'm pretty sure whatever Starlight's done, we're the unlikely ones, here."
"I don't think my name has as much to do with anything as you think it does," Starlight added. "Like I said, stars are very common for naming unicorns! If I had to guess the module's name was related to anything on purpose, it would be 'the stars will aid in her escape'." She rubbed her forehooves against each other. "Of course, that's not as easy for filly me to think. More than anything, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hearing my name in that context kiiind of made an impression..." She rolled her eyes.
"But it just..." Twilight fidgeted. "I don't know, this just seems incredibly strange. Maybe I'm getting too into it, but you started out as a normal filly who worried about losing friends and having parents and... and normal-pony problems! This shouldn't be happening!"
Rainbow checked her with a hoof. "Yo, Starlight. This story is one hundred percent true, right? Or as best as you remember?"
Starlight nodded. "I've reconstructed a few parts. From what others have told me, when I wasn't there... but we're far enough in, I can start showing proof if you want it. I just used a Nightmare Module, didn't I?"
"See?" Rainbow shrugged at Twilight. "Doesn't matter whether it shouldn't or should. That's like walking up to someone and telling them they aren't scientifically possible."
"Eh heh heh!" Twilight giggled sheepishly. "No, but seriously, girls. Doesn't this seem a little... you know..." She fidgeted again, a frustrated frown appearing as words failed her.
"Are you in denial?" Rainbow raised a serious eyebrow, hiding a smirk. "Who was it again who was going on and on about how this is just telling us what happened when Puddles died?"
"I am not in denial!" Twilight protested, flinging a hoof. "Rainbow! That's different! This is... I mean..." She cast a wide-pupiled gaze at the pegasus. "Aren't you concerned?"
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Concerned about who? Starlight?" She pointed. "She's right here, and looks pretty fine to me."
Starlight gave a thankful smile. "I am here, and believe me when I say it isn't a low point in my life." She looked at Twilight. "And I was pretty concerned about myself, too. It still bothers me that all that happened, but there's no changing it."
Slowly, Twilight looked up. "Did you try?"
"Huh?" Starlight tilted her head.
"Time travel," Twilight pointed out. "Something that's been bothering me for a while is that if so much went so wrong in your past, why would you make all the tremendous effort of going after me and my friends, but never try to change your own circumstances?"
Starlight simply nodded.
"I would," Twilight continued. "And that's just at this point. I don't even know what could have been bad enough to cost you your friends, and I do know the kinds of dangers time travel poses to the world. I've seen them firsthoof! And you hadn't when you started using it against me. It just doesn't make sense. If you're not some sort of chosen one and this wasn't destined to happen, it should have been possible. Even if you tried and you failed, you could just try again."
Starlight took a deep breath, then sighed. "I can't tell you without spoilers. But it isn't because I didn't think about it."
Rainbow gave her a sideways look. "So were you actually destined or something, or what?"
"To do what?" Starlight shrugged. "On a biological or magical level, I'm not a normal pony, sure. But what Glimmer kept trying to show me is that reacting differently to moon glass or having the muscle structure to support wings didn't mean a thing about whether I could live a normal life. When I first ran away, I was actually weaker than most foals, remember. I had nothing special, no cutie mark and a malfunctioning horn."
Rainbow pointed a hoof. "Yeah, but you do have weird sort-of batpony powers?"
"It doesn't matter." Starlight shook her head. "The worldview Glimmer tried to teach me... one I believe, by the way... is that there aren't limits on what someone can do if they're ambitious enough. Not ones that are built into the way the world works, at least. Twilight, you ascended into an alicorn! I may have started out with a slight advantage, being able to use Nightmare Modules safely with the help of some extremely supernatural glass and fire..." She huffed. "But that doesn't mean I had to, and it doesn't mean anyone else couldn't if they tried hard enough."
"Are you sure about that?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Tell me how an ordinary pony who wasn't you could cast a Nightmare Module."
Starlight stared her straight in the eyes. "Find an unprocessed windigo heart, use Shinespark's experiment to strip your cutie mark from your body, insert it into an empty batpony using whatever technique they used to put Valey together, find some way to transfer your memories, and then use the modules to your heart's content."
Twilight blanched. "That's..."
"Too hard? Too high a price?" Starlight folded her ears and sat back down. "That's why I said this is only possible if you're ambitious enough and never give up. No sane or reasonable pony would ever go a tenth of that far, or one without something they would die again and again for. But it is possible, and that one's actually easy enough I could tell you how."
"Starlight..." Twilight swallowed. "I'm starting to think I don't like this story."
Rainbow Dash glanced at her in concern. "You okay there, Twi?"
"No... I mean, yes. I'm just..." Twilight shook her head. "I can't see where the magic of friendship is in all this. It doesn't feel like the world I live in. Maybe I am in denial..."
Starlight closed her eyes and nodded. "The north is a fundamentally different place."
Twilight shot her a look. "It still should be the same magic!"
"Should it?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "It's cut off by an immensely magical chain of infinite mountains and it's normal for ponies to never get their cutie marks. Are you sure there's nothing fundamentally different about the north?"
Twilight was speechless.
"You know what?" Rainbow Dash piped up. "I think it's time to change the subject. So Starlight! That sword they had wasn't Gerardo's, was it?"
"It was." Starlight nodded. "I was pretty surprised to see it there, but maybe not as much as I could have been. I knew it had a history, after all." She shrugged, relaxing again into her cushioned train seat. "And if you remember, they were discussing using it as a catalyst for the Nightmare Modules."
Twilight nodded, but Rainbow stared at her with a slack jaw. "Not an egghead," she reminded as the windows went dark, a small tunnel passing briefly overhead. "What's a catalyst?"
Twilight cleared her throat to explain. "A catalyst is a reagent used to lower the activation-"
Starlight cut her off with a chuckle. "The Nightmare Modules are essentially a kind of magic powered by emotion, Rainbow," she answered. "The Elements of Harmony work the same way, I would guess, but I haven't had the chance to study them. Luna was able to use her loneliness to run them, which I also used in the form of moon glass. But apparently the emotions burned into that sword, as Felicity described it, are so intense that it can cast Nightmare Modules too."
"And the sword used to be Garsheeva's," Twilight added, picking up where Starlight left off. "Whatever happened to it probably had to do with that war in the murals... I knew Star Swirl lived through the founding of Equestria two thousand years ago, but I hadn't guessed him banishing the sirens was part of the same event chain. It makes sense, though." She rubbed her chin. "The sirens are those fish dragons in the murals."
"Welp! You're the history buff, not me." Rainbow kicked back again. "I just wanna know, if you need that sword to use Nightmare Modules..." She blinked. "That's how you use them now, right? Without moon glass? Anyway, where was it when you were stealing our cutie marks?"
Starlight leaned against the window, half-staring out at the snowy landscape passing by. "I don't want to tell you exactly how it works, but it turns out that sword is very responsive to transformation magic. I had it with me at the time."
The two-pronged equality stick appeared in her hooves.
Both of her friends blinked at the same time. "But you told us that was just a stick!" Twilight protested in surprise. "When your cutie mark was revealed! That you needed to keep your mark because it was what let you take others'!" She tilted her head and frowned. "I had the impression you really wished you could have been free of your cutie mark back in that town."
"I had two of them." Starlight didn't meet her eyes. "So if I needed to, I could leave behind one that really was just a stick. As for why I didn't remove my own cutie mark? You'll see." She held out the stick, offering it if either of her friends wanted to see it.
"So, uhh..." Rainbow squinted at the stick. "How did you just pull that out of thin air?"
"Magic," Twilight and Starlight said, perfectly in sync. They blinked, looked at each other and grinned, and Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
"Whatever." Rainbow shook her head. "So you really just could've, like, been a normal kid? If only you hadn't ran away or kept trying to get some more decent stuff in your life?"
Starlight nodded. "It took a long time and multiple acts of risking my life to get noticed by the powers that did. Crossing the mountains, using the harmony extractor against the windigoes, touching the Nightmare Module in Stanza's catacombs in Gyre..." She sighed. "Remember all the way back in Ironridge, when I talked to the harmonic flame?"
Both of her friends nodded. "That was the beginning," Starlight continued. "My first real conversation with a higher power. Remember how it went? It was worried about me, but because it cared about ponies in general and I needed it. Not because of what I was. But it saw where my path was headed. The next power I stumbled into, the Night Mother, had a far bigger agenda than just helping lost ponies. The more I stuck my neck out and wasn't content with what I had, the more things kept ramping up..."
"Yeah, but that's dumb, though," Rainbow interrupted, pointing a hoof. "What were you supposed to do, just sit down in the windigo storm and die?"
Starlight's chin wrinkled. "I can't deny I did a lot of good that might not have gotten done otherwise. But what any other pony would have done was not run away into a mountain range everyone thought was endless, alone and poorly prepared. I could have made new friends, learned to live with myself in my old home, gotten a cutie mark and maybe followed Sunburst to a far-off school. Trying to improve your circumstances isn't a bad thing, and the world would be a much worse place if everyone just stopped trying. My answers to problems were just... extreme."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, uhh... no offense, but you can say that again."
Starlight sheepishly grinned.
"It's funny," Twilight mused. "But when you put everything this way, cloistering yourself in a tiny village and ruling just that with an iron hoof sounds almost too easy. Next to fighting monsters and learning about eldritch magic and doing things for entire cities."
"Says us," Rainbow Dash drawled, hooves folded behind her head. "Million-time saviors of Equestria from evil maniac butt."
Starlight obtrusively cleared her throat. "Sorry to cut this conversation off just when it's getting fascinating, but aren't we almost there?" The equality stick disappeared in her hooves again just as the train rounded a mountain and Canterlot appeared through the window, a short mountain gorge away. "I really want to get this thing to the Princesses, so they can deal with it and I don't have to. Speaking of things you wouldn't mess with unless you were way too ambitious..."
She chuckled nervously, and the train continued to clatter as it approached the gates of the city.
"The princess has been notified you wish to see her," a royal guard said, bowing seriously before Twilight Sparkle. "Please wait here."
"Wow." Rainbow Dash fanned herself with a wing as the armored stallion stepped away, leaving them in a wing of Canterlot Palace with fluted, golden pillars, windowsills adorned with chalices and plenty of comfortable seating and amenities. She glanced to Twilight. "Those dudes don't cut you a break, even being royalty? With the stuffiness, I mean."
Twilight shrugged, sitting upright on the tiled marble floor. "It's just decorum. They take pride in their work."
Rainbow stretched, hogging up a deep purple bench with pockmarked stitching on the cushion. "Yeah, but staying put is lame...!"
As Twilight tried to explain that wandering around was seen as less of a privilege than a chore, Starlight's eyes drifted across the alicorn's saddlebags. Only one was filled, and that with only one thing, a protective sphere of energy...
Seconds later, dawn light streaming in from high-up windows, a door creaked open and Princess Celestia stepped through.
"My little ponies!" she greeted, a warm smile spread beneath her flowing mane. "Twilight, it's so unlike you to show up unannounced for a change!"
Twilight blushed. "Spike was away..."
Celestia nodded. "And hello to you too, Rainbow Dash." She turned to Starlight and extended a wingtip. "And you are? I don't believe we've met?"
Starlight glanced expectantly at Twilight, who cleared her throat. "Princess, I'd like you to meet Starlight Glimmer, my new student."
"Oh?" Celestia looked amused, giving Twilight an interested look. "I see you've been enjoying your new place in the world. I'm very proud of you, Twilight." She glanced at the other two mares. "But if this is a social call, perhaps we should move somewhere more comfortable? I should be able to clear an hour or two from my schedule."
"Well, we would love to talk." Twilight shook her head. "But actually, we have something we think you need to see."
Celestia raised an eyebrow, and Twilight's saddlebags opened in a lavender aura. Slowly, the protective ball floated out, hovering before her with the ruby triangle inside.
At its sight, Celestia's amusement vanished, a neutral mask taking its place, until slowly she took a deep breath and smiled again. "I will go see if Luna is still awake. Twilight, would you take your friends and wait with this in my private quarters?"
"Of course, Princess." Twilight bowed, accepting the orb back into her saddlebags. "Girls, follow me."
Celestia's room was quiet and less lit than anyone would expect of the Princess of the Sun, adorned with large cushions and a deep hearth. Twilight and the others didn't have long to wait, Celestia and Luna both entering in blinks of teleportation that shimmered with bypassed wards. Luna instantly looked to Twilight. "May I see it?"
Neither Starlight nor Rainbow Dash spoke as the orb hovered free from Twilight's bags again. She showed it expectantly, with a slightly-hopeful frown.
"I see." Luna's magic enwrapped it, breaking Twilight's orb and allowing the triangle to float freely. She stared into it with a long, tiny sigh, then held it to Celestia. "So you finally got it back."
Celestia nodded simply, picking up on Rainbow and Starlight's fidgeting out of the corner of her eyes. "Yes." She spoke with authority, taking command of a situation where no one seemed to want to be the one to talk next. "I think we should all ensure we're on the same page. Twilight, Starlight, Rainbow Dash. How much do you know about what this is?"
"Little enough that it sat around in a storage room for several months until Starlight told me what it was..." Twilight blushed sheepishly.
The older princesses' gazes turned to Starlight, who shrank slightly. "I've..." Starlight's ears pressed back. "Spent time north of the Aldenfold. It's one of the Societal Virtues."
Celestia's eyes widened with interest, and Luna lit her horn. After a second of doing seemingly nothing, it went out again. "That's a long way to travel," Celestia remarked. "And you're right about what it is. Twilight, you have knowledgeable tastes in students, it seems."
"I would enjoy knowing what we are to do now," Luna cut in. "With this artifact. Sister?" She gave Celestia a warning look.
Celestia nodded. "Remember lessons learned and do nothing. I think I will summon Cadance for a summit tomorrow evening, just in case. But in the meantime..." She smiled at Starlight, inviting the three smaller mares to take seats on the cushions. "I'm very curious to know about our new friend from the north. What led you to us?" She chuckled, adding, "And how many questions have you given Twilight about how the world is so much bigger than she was taught?"
"A lot..." Twilight reddened, rubbing her mane.
"It's a long story," Starlight added. "I've spent the last week or so trying to tell it." Her mane drooped slightly, combed on the train but unable to hide the bags under her eyes from long nights of sleepless talking.
"So that's why you look so tired," Celestia giggled. "When you were introduced as Twilight's student, I thought the two of you were staying up too late doing science."
"It's kind of a concerning story," Twilight admitted with a nod. "Princess, right before we found out I had this in my storage room, I was actually getting ready to bring everyone here anyway. Starlight's told us some things about herself and the world we thought you needed to know."
Celestia nodded, suddenly somber. "North of the Aldenfold is a much less harmonic place."
"That's those mountains, right?" Rainbow asked, earning a nod from Starlight.
"We do our best to stay appraised of happenings in the northern world," Luna said. "Pray tell, from what time period do you hail? During the last hundred years, the north has been in a near constant state of turmoil."
"I was there in nine hundred eighty-five," Starlight answered, continuing before the princesses could speak. "And I'm in the middle of telling Twilight my story, so she would appreciate it if you didn't tell her what happened that year."
Luna grimaced. "I can see why tales of those times would trouble you, Twilight Sparkle. And what part of the world was this? Varsidel? Yakyakistan Proper? The Griffon Empire?"
"The latter is what I'm telling right now," Starlight replied, holding her head low. "And see, Twilight? It sounds like they already know about what it was like there."
Celestia spoke back up. "We don't visit the north often, but word of what happens there always reaches our ears. But you have still have concerns, don't you?"
Twilight fidgeted. "I don't know. So you just... You know about the Night Mother, about Stanza, about all the dark experiments with moon glass and foals and Nightmare Modules...?"
Celestia and Luna shot each other an alarmed look, and they both stared at Starlight. "You were involved in experiments using these things?" Luna asked intensely.
That was all the answer Twilight needed. Nervously, she nudged Starlight.
Closing her eyes, Starlight sighed... and pulled out her equality staff, holding it like a flag. The shadows around her hooves flickered, reaching up along her legs, until she formed a dark cutout in space that Twilight's eyes would have skipped over had she not known something was there.
"How!?" Luna gasped, breathing as if struck and lighting her horn. Beside her, Celestia widened her eyes.
"I don't know," the cloaked Starlight replied. "If you could tell me, I'd be grateful. As for what you're going to ask next, I have all seven."
"Remove that cloak," Luna commanded, and Starlight instantly obliged. "Are you using anything to aid you?"
Starlight appeared again, holding out the staff. Slowly and deliberately, she passed her horn over it until it glowed, shimmered... and widened, its twin prongs melding together and a hole appearing in its blackening base. In a matter of seconds, it was the sword Twilight had seen in the memory.
Luna and Celestia both visibly relaxed. "I am glad to see the location of that thing once again known," Luna sighed, breathing with relief. "Though it concerns me that science, in my absence, advanced things far enough that it can be used by merely anyone to cast the spells I created. You have watched the fifth, I take it?"
"I have." Starlight nodded, not mentioning yet that she could use Nightmare Modules with moon glass. "But that's all I know about what it is or where it comes from."
Celestia nodded at Luna, bidding her to explain. Luna obliged. "That is a sword we call the Indus, after the land our best efforts can trace it back to, though its history is difficult to track. When it came into my ownership long ago, an unknown magic erased prior possession of it from its old bearer's mind, or made me to believe I had not wielded it always. The rewrite was so thorough, we could not find any real-world evidence on either side. While both of us agreed it was magic that caused this and settled on it being a gift from one to the other, it caused the sword's true origin to become lost in shadow."
Starlight gasped slightly. "Then that didn't just happen to me..." She regarded the blade with wide eyes. "But you remember having it? It was the sword that did that, but it didn't erase itself from you?"
Luna looked ashamed. "Forgive me. My memories of the time before my exile are... as not as intact as they once were."
"Starlight, if it's not a spoiler..." Twilight rubbed a wingtip against the bottom of her hoof. "Princess Luna? Why did you send down the meteor of moon glass?"
Starlight nodded in permission, but Luna shrank more. "I... do not remember."
Celestia cleared her throat, earning a grateful look from her sister. "May I assume Starlight has told you at least somewhat about the Yakyakistani Virtues, along with the Nightmare Modules?" Her eyes passed over Starlight. "I assume you know what this is you have."
Again, Starlight nodded, so Celestia continued. "Long ago, before we used the Societal Virtues or the Elements of Harmony in their physical power, they were buried deep beneath the world, each in a palace much like yours, Twilight. The six elements were waiting to be found, but each of the three were sealed alongside curses designed to ruin the world by the hoof of whoever took them."
"Windigoes were tied to that one," Twilight said, nodding at the red triangle. "Starlight showed both of us the memory Nightmare Module."
"Yes." Luna hung her head. "And I am sorry you had to see me like that. In my last days, I grew consumed with loneliness and jealousy, and became..."
Rainbow and Starlight respectfully inclined their heads, and Twilight bowed too. "We understand."
"The Nightmare was a spirit of jealousy," Celestia continued. "Not an annulment of the virtue of hope, but a perversion. It allows for all of the determination and ambition of the virtue, yet turned inwards towards oneself instead of directed outward to others. Fully assumed, it makes one more powerful in pursuit of their own goals, but..."
Luna squeezed her eyes shut. "All of it came at the cost of love and knowledge. The spirit was always there by my invitation. Even when you, Twilight and Rainbow Dash, and all your other friends encountered me in the Everfree, it was still I who sent away the Nightmare, guided and tempted into the light. But while it was assumed, I could not love... and it began day after day to eat away at my memories. To this day, Twilight Sparkle, I remember nothing of my exile beyond a few vague emotions. The world wills I not remember it. The days before are hazy in my mind at best, and much of what I recall has been clarified by my sister or even come from my own Nightmare Module."
Twilight's ears fell. "Then..."
Briefly, Luna flickered with the visage of Nightmare Moon, though it was somber instead of fierce. "Yes, I can still cast them. Despite all time and healing, even the memory of my emotions is sufficient to power them, and that is one memory that will not fade. I believe the Indus works the same way in its ability to power this magic. Metal cannot have emotions, but somehow it can remember."
"We have been back to the moon on multiple occasions," Celestia added. "After Luna's release, there is little in our way. But there is nothing there."
"Starlight Glimmer." Luna looked up, catching Starlight's eye. "It is past time for me to sleep, and all of you look exhausted as well. Tonight, I will be in your dreams, and you will brief me on who you are and everything that brought you to wield my magic. Tomorrow evening, we shall see each other again."
As Starlight bowed, Twilight turned to Celestia with a worried expression. "Princess? Maybe I'm having trouble reading things, but everyone here seems uneasy with no one actually saying to do anything. Are things alright, or should I be prepared for... you know..."
"At ease, Twilight Sparkle." Celestia smiled and placed a hoof on her shoulder. "I've been expecting that gem to show up for around a decade now. It merely reminds Luna and I of some things in the past that have no place in the peaceful Equestria we try to make for our ponies."
Rainbow loudly yawned, and in the background, Luna left, she and Starlight following her out and leaving just Twilight and Celestia. Twilight's ears folded. "Does that mean Equestria isn't the natural order of things? It's just, the way Starlight's been telling her story, everything up north doesn't... match with how things are supposed to be, and there have been one too many things and I'm starting to worry I've got it backwards."
Celestia chuckled, sitting down beside her former student. "Don't forget what you've been able to accomplish with the magic of friendship, Twilight. Even if we do have to make an effort to keep the world good and free from chaos, isn't harmony trying its best to help you and your friends on your way?"
Twilight blinked. "Well, when you put it that way..."
"The world has its rough edges," Celestia went on, spreading a white wing over Twilight's back. "Equestria wouldn't be the land it is today without ponies who love the light keeping it that way. Here at the center, where things are most harmonic, ponies get to live free from the understanding of that. What matters most, Twilight, is that when your eyes are opened further and you see more of what's wrong in the world, you keep your sights on what things should be, as well."
Twilight stared at the ground.
"I'm glad your new student has been showing you this," Celestia added. "The best kinds of students are the ones their teachers learn from, as well. Twilight, you are a princess now, and you have a long life ahead of you where you'll get to use your power and those of your friends to polish the world and make it more like it should be. And the most harmonic regions of the world we preserve, in part, to inspire ponies like you and show them what the rest of the world can be."
"You've seen the fifth Nightmare Module, right, Princess?" Twilight looked up. "There was a war depicted in it. My friends and I know about stopping monsters, but how do you stop whole armies of creatures from wanting to kill each other? Can the Elements of Harmony really do that? And if so, why didn't they?" Her brow creased. "It just seems so out of place that problems like that and answers like ours could exist together in the same world."
Celestia smiled. "They can and they did. Luna and I were born into that war, and it was out of it that we forged Equestria alongside the founders. Think of it like the entire world was broken, and we put the first piece in place to fixing it, like a puzzle. Now we've continued to work on it, and despite setbacks some places are almost complete. Others have barely started, but the pieces are there. This is what the world is supposed to look like, Twilight, and we guided you on your ascension because you have a better understanding of that than many ponies else and have been willing to stand on the foremost lines and defend it when it risks being taken apart. Now you're seeing those lines are bigger than you first imagined, but you can still see the picture someone was always meant to build."
Twilight's eyes shone suddenly. "That makes so much more sense..."
Celestia hugged her again. "Don't worry, Twilight. We're not going to throw you out into anything that's too much. And there are parts of the world we might not tell you about for a long time yet, but it's only to help you grow. Now why don't you get some sleep with your friends? Dream about them, and about what you love in the world."
"I will. And thank you, Princess!" Twilight jumped to her hooves, nodding gratefully and leaving Celestia with a smile as she ran off.
Twilight yowled, catapulting out of her bed and into the air following an immense, cushy blow. She was too asleep to focus her eyes or to process the sound of horn shimmering and giggling laughter... until two hooves caught her shoulders, holding her dangling in midair. Blinking and kicking, she slowly focused on a grinning pink face inches from her own, horn alight and a pillow hovering nearby.
"Unnngh..." Twilight groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Cadance, did you hit me with a pillow...?"
"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake!" Cadance was too busy holding Twilight to do the usual dance, wiggling the dangling alicorn from side to side instead. "Clap your hooves and do a little shake! Twilight, it's been foreverrr!"
"Give me one moment to wake up, please," Twilight requested, grogginess returning now that reality was setting in. Cadance obliged, setting her on the bed and then sitting back with a smile, wings and forelegs crossed in front of her.
For several seconds, Twilight trusted in her old foalsitter's patience, trying nothing and letting her mind do what it pleased. Then she yawned, forced her hooves beneath her, noticed her bed was plusher than usual, and finally reconstructed how her day had ended and where she had gone to sleep. "Canterlot Palace? What time is it...?"
"Ten o'clock at night," Cadance cheerfully replied, holding her odd posture and straightening a tangle in Twilight's mane with her aura. "You're a sleepyhead."
Twilight blinked, rolling and crawling out of bed before her ears suddenly spiked. "Oh no! There was a summit at sundown I was supposed to be here for, wasn't there!? That's why you came! Am I late?"
Cadance giggled again, patting Twilight's head with her aura and ruffling her ears. "We just finished. All of your friends are still out cold too. Aunt Celestia decided to let you sleep, since you sounded pretty tired last night and wouldn't have been familiar with any of what we were talking about anyway."
"But I should have been there!" Twilight protested. "I... Are you sure?"
"It's fine, Twilight," Cadance promised. "And I can fill you in on anything you're curious about anyway. It's not like the Crystal Empire can't survive without me for a while. Oooh, do you want to get midnight donuts?"
"Midnight donuts? I..." Twilight rubbed her eyes again, finally deciding she was awake enough and returning a sleepy smile. "I'd love to hang out with you. It feels like we should see each other way more often... Is my brother here?"
Cadance shook her head. "Somepony had to stay behind and manage the Empire's affairs, but he's a more capable organizer than I am. It clearly runs in the family." She grinned. "So he's got me time off when I want it. But first, can I show you a surprise?"
"A surprise?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Is it related to why you're sitting like that?"
Cadance's grin widened, and she folded her wings and uncrossed and spread her forelegs, revealing a belly bigger than intended for her slim form. "Guess whose niece it is? She wasn't showing last time we met!"
Twilight drew a breath, eyes widening as she crouched and drew closer. "Cadance...!"
"Come here!" Cadance urged, sitting on her haunches and tugging Twilight's hooves with her aura. "She's not much of a kicker yet, but let's see if she recognizes her auntie!"
Breath held, Twilight pressed her ear and her cheek against Cadance's belly, using her hooves to not unbalance her old foalsitter and feeling as long as she could. "Well, I can feel you breathing," she eventually said.
Cadance picked Twilight up, setting her back on her hooves and getting upright herself with a laugh. "Well, maybe she's sleeping. But first! Donuts?" She gave Twilight a serious eyebrow. "This little filly is demanding."
"Sure." Twilight stretched, pacing to the castle room's vanity. "Give me one moment to make sure I'm presentable, and should we invite my friends?"
Cadance's eyes glinted mischievously. "You have a new student, I hear?" She tapped her hooves eagerly. "I'd love to meet her."
A bell tinkled as the door to Pony Joe's swung open, stars in the sky as Twilight, Starlight and Rainbow Dash were herded inside by an eager Cadance. "Customerrrs!" Cadance sang, prancing up to the bar in the half-empty establishment.
"Well well." The titular owner stopped polishing a hot chocolate mug, looking up with eyes that knew good customers when they saw them. "A royal crew tonight, are we? What can I get you ladies?"
Twilight and her friends stepped up alongside Cadance, the bigger princess flaunting her new endowment. Cadance gave him a toothy grin. "Could we get the back room tonight? I think we'd like a little more privacy."
Pony Joe nodded, pointing them to a hallway past the counter leading away from the tables of studying students, off-duty guards, teenage lovebirds and lone, contemplative artists. Cadance led the way, donating a wink as she passed a high-school colt chatting furtively with his companion.
The back room was small, past the bathrooms and less ornate, with three tables and designed to hold overflow customers during peak hours as well as act as a storage area. Cadance forsook the floor and pony-sized chairs for a massive sack of powdered sugar, taking princessly care to ensure she was comfortable as Joe brought their order and the others joined her around a table.
"A little more privacy, huh?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow as their host headed out, chewing a strip off a cinnamon twist. "Was that summit thingy big last night?"
Cadance giggled, halfway through fitting an entire jelly donut in her mouth at once. "Hours ago, Rainbow Dash," she said around it once she was able. "And not really. We decided some things I'm supposed to tell you, but they're boring." She leaned eagerly towards Twilight, poking at Starlight with her gaze, and dropped her voice to a whisper. "What I want to hear about is the new girl! And I don't mean mine." She patted herself and giggled again.
"What about me?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "Because I've been telling Twilight my past, and it's taken a whole week. I think. Never mind how much I still have left to tell..."
"Oh, pfft, pasts." Cadance waved a hoof, eyes gleaming. "Luna filled us in on everything important after talking with you last night, anyway. I want to hear about now! How are you two getting along, little life details, student things!" She practically glowed with curiosity. "Surely you haven't been staying up only for storytelling."
Twilight gave her a hurt look. "What's wrong with storytelling?"
Starlight shrugged, blowing on her hot chocolate. "Actually, we pretty much have. We made friends fairly recently, and before this storytelling started I was mostly moving in and getting properly introduced to others in Ponyville. Readjusting to not living on my own."
Cadance looked disappointed but not discouraged. "Sudden bonds of friendship? So you didn't even know each other going in?" Her grin returned, and her voice took on a theatrical tone. "You one day happened upon each other, meeting out of the blue? Was the Princess of Friendship herself caught dramatically off-guard?"
"Uhhhmm." Twilight reddened, rubbing an ear with a hoof. "Well, not really..."
Starlight looked embarrassed, too. "We were kind of mortal enemies and I hunted her down, but we're friends now so please don't hurt me?"
Cadance's eyes widened until her pupils were almost too big to fit in their sockets. In a burst of teleportation, she crossed the table and grabbed Starlight, holding her by the shoulders just like she had held Twilight earlier, looking for all the world like she wished she could squish her cheeks. "You. Were. Mortal enemies? And in a single day, you went to friends and living together?"
"Maybe?" Starlight dangled, too intimidated to struggle against a princess of Equestria.
"Hmmhmm." Cadance's eyes thinned, and a smug smile replaced her earlier eager grin. Respectfully, she replaced Starlight, then stepped over to Twilight and breathed, "Sounds like you've got yourself a real find. I'm proud of you!"
"Cadance!" Twilight swatted at her, but was too slow, the older alicorn teleporting back to her sugar sack and whistling innocently. "We're doing nothing of the sort!"
Rainbow blinked, half of a cream-filled bar sticking out of her jaw. "Uhh, did I miss something?"
Starlight's brow creased. "What aren't we doing?" She glanced from Twilight to Cadance. "There's something between you two I don't know about."
"Sister-in-law." Cadance closed her eyes, resuming her sugary feast with complete self-satisfaction. "I have a duty to tease her." Muttering under her breath, leaning over so only Twilight could hear, she added, "And look out for your future."
"Cadance..." Twilight warned.
Cadance broke down laughing. "I'm sorry! Just the look on your face..." She wiped a loose strand of mane back with a wingtip. "This is a great family to be a part of."
Through monumental strength of will, Twilight chose not to read into that. "I consider all my friends to be family," she insisted.
"What's this about?" Starlight leaned closer to Twilight.
Twilight groaned, slumping lower in her seat. "Remember what she's the princess of..."
Starlight blinked. "Hey, sounds like a neat time to change the subject," Rainbow volunteered, trying unsubtly to come to her friends' rescue. "So what did you princesses wind up doing with that weird triangle thing? And is it showing up, like, bad news?"
Cadance sighed, reluctantly letting the topic drop. "I'll be taking it to the Empire for safekeeping. That power is dangerous, but having it where we can see it is definitely good news. My aunts were very relieved to see it safe and not in troublesome hooves." Her teasing smile once again showed signs of life. "But we did talk about it, and decided the three of you deserved a reward for getting it safely."
"A reward?" Rainbow's ears instantly perked.
"What kind of reward?" Twilight asked, embarrassment replaced entirely with curiosity.
"One relevant to your story." Cadance nodded, lit her horn... and into existence popped three scrolls, each bearing a rune that seemed to not quite be confined to one plane, though they didn't glow or move or do anything fancy. "Celestia in particular thought you'd appreciate these."
Twilight and Rainbow tipped their heads curiously... but Starlight froze mid-bite, suddenly folding her ears. "Y-You can give mine to someone else," she said with fake nonchalance. "I don't really want one."
"What? Why, what are they?" Twilight gave her a quizzical look.
Cadance also gave Starlight a strange look. "Writs of Harmonic Sanction. But why don't you want one?"
Starlight waved a hoof. "Oh, this and that, it's complicated."
Rainbow Dash wasn't paying her any attention. "Wait, seriously? Aren't these really impossible to get?" She left her seat, leaning closer to Cadance to inspect them. "And you're just giving them away? We're not supposed to, like, go there, or anything?"
"Not for my sake," Cadance chuckled, ignoring Starlight in favor of the pony who was actually interested. She held Rainbow's closer. "But they last for a lifetime, and either way would make a good souvenir. Maybe you'll want them someday?"
Twilight accepted hers curiously, squinting over it. "These are definitely magical, but what do you mean they last for a lifetime? How do they work?" She glanced at Starlight. "And really? After all you went through to get these..."
Starlight averted her gaze. "I'm never going back, so one would be wasted on me. And they don't have the best memories attached. Just give it to someone who could use it. They are rare, after all."
"They're rare because my aunts make them," Cadance consoled, giving Starlight a watery smile. "But that's fair. I'll just give two to Twilight, instead." She floated Starlight's away. "You use them by holding them against your cutie mark for a moment. They're single-use, and make a small change that makes you invisible to the magic in the Aldenfold, allowing you to pass above them. The border security stations at the passes check for them too. Nothing to keep track of or remember!"
Rainbow turned hers over. "So they make my cutie mark cooler, huh? Do I get like a star or extra lightning bolts, or some cool effect to go with it?"
"You'd have to talk to Luna about that," Cadance chuckled. "She knows more about cutie marks. The effect is completely unnoticeable unless you're trying to cross the mountains!"
Twilight tilted her head. "Have you ever been across the mountains, Cadance?"
"Of course!" Cadance beamed. "The Crystal Empire is part of them. You don't think I wouldn't visit my... Starlight?" She tilted her head at the unicorn, who was shaking her head urgently.
"I'm still telling Twilight about my travels," Starlight apologized, looking slightly sheepish for having shushed a princess. "I don't actually know what the north is like now, but she appreciates anything that could keep us away from spoilers."
Cadance nodded very solemnly at Twilight. "We all know how our Twilight feels about spoilers."
Twilight batted at her mane. "Are you teasing me again?"
"Hmm..." Cadance put a hoof on her sugar-crusted chin, chewing thoughtfully, then suddenly brightened. "Spur of the moment idea! How would you girls like to catch a midnight train back to the Empire with me, right now, and we can stay up all night and I listen in on the next bit? Twilight, it's been ages since we shared a story together! If Starlight wouldn't mind, that is." She looked beseechingly at Starlight.
Starlight blinked. "A royal invite to the Crystal Empire? I mean..."
"Starlight, please," Twilight giggled. "It's a day trip. My friends and I do it for fun sometimes!" She glanced at Cadance. "But a midnight train? Are you sure?"
"Of course!" Cadance shrugged. "You three just woke up, and we'd have it all to ourselves! And I have an artifact to bring back safely, so I have a perfect excuse to not wait around. Why not?"
Twilight glanced at her friends and shrugged as well. "A pleasure outing sounds fun."
Starlight nodded, draining the last of her cocoa. "I could do that. Just a warning, you might get a little left behind, where the story is now..."
Cadance stood and stretched, arching her back and wiping away sugar from her lips. "Oh, Luna told us the important parts, and I knew plenty about northern history already. See if I can't follow along."
"You talked to Luna last night?" Twilight pushed in her chair, giving Starlight a glance.
"I did. In my dreams," Starlight replied. "Dreams make covering things much quicker. She was very interested, and told me some things I didn't know, but I think I should save them for after the story, if you're still curious. Not that they matter."
Nearby, Rainbow Dash had spent the last few minutes pressing her paper to her flank, and finally peeled it away expectantly, eyes widening. "Hey, the thing vanished! Does that mean it worked?"
Cadance lit her horn, scanning Rainbow with her aura. "It worked! Now let's go catch a train."
The walk to the train station was uneventful, teams of diligent unicorns having cleared the streets of snow since it last came down. They passed through broad streets teeming with night life, and Twilight even spotted a batpony or two now that they were in her mind and she was looking for them. Her mane felt crisp with the winter mountain air running between it and her fur, and as they reached the edge of the city, the train platform drew into view, bathed in orange floodlights. Cadance exchanged words with the conductor, barely breaking stride from telling Twilight about all the amenities she would provide and how they didn't have to pack, and with a hiss of steam the train began to move, running down the mountain and away from the city.
Two weeks passed, and the Immortal Dream flew south. After endless piloting shifts between Shinespark and Gerardo, using the ship's clock to mark the passage of time, the sky finally began to brighten, the end of Mistvale in sight.
Starlight had spent that time talking and thinking, confiding some things to her friends and holding close to her heart others. She had given up debating the origin of the black sword; all her friends agreed that if it really had been Gerardo's, all their memories seemed to say otherwise. Gerardo himself Starlight had spent more time with, and she started to feel the griffon himself was different, too. He was a far cry more respectful and better at knowing when to speak than the indolent griffon who had broken down Maple's door once upon a time in Riverfall and driven them into the Defense Force their first day in Ironridge; Maple remembered both incidents, but brushed them off as accidents. But Starlight recalled she had been deeply upset at the time...
Did the sword have some kind of butterfly effect? How far had things really changed? The more she thought about it, the simplest explanation felt like that without it, Gerardo seemed older.
In the cabins below, Harshwater was resting, having been treated in the grand temple but far from anyone's idea of good condition. Felicity had fared much better, walking around and looking for all the world like she was normal, though close observation showed she never used her wings and spent a lot more time sitting or laying down than others. Nyala was still a board with wings; without Shinespark having available time to work on her, she couldn't become anything else. But Gerardo had seen her relocated to the bridge, where someone was always on duty and Amber, Slipstream and Grenada were increasingly spending time.
Their stay in the temple had lasted a day longer their meeting with the Night Mother, and several had been tempted to stay longer. It seemed like a shame to go somewhere that peaceful, Maple had said, where the population regarded her with the same polite fascination a less-showy Gerardo would have seen in Riverfall, and leave after only a day. But the collective decision had been made to not push their timing with the tournament's third round, and Valey wanted a stop in Izvaldi to get Harshwater properly treated. The prospect of Izvaldi put Starlight slightly on edge, remembering Chauncey wanted the Nightmare Modules and knowing she had them now... but the fake Yanavan's story had been debunked, in all the information the Night Mother had given them, no one had remembered to ask for the real one. They would have to wait until Valey could access a Dusk Statue to know for sure.
Right before they set off, Jamjars had returned from wherever she'd been, and for almost everyone, everything was like it had been before... everyone except her, Valey and Felicity.
"I dunno how many more times I can say it," Valey sighed, laying on her back in a library chair, Starlight watching from a corner. "Turns out sometimes? When you're relying on a big cheese to give you a job you need, they can sometimes be the reason you need it in the first place. It's rude, but there's nothing you can do except play along or bail."
"I'm not sure saying it again will make a difference, darling," Felicity apologized, chin acting as a blanket for her hooves. "The Night Mother ordered Yanavan to do what he did, and he did so knowing what would happen. If I had grown up a cleric in the temple, all this... Gyre, Izvaldi, my body... never would have gone the way it did. Not ever."
"Yep. And it stinks." Valey rolled around a little. "So is this conversation gonna go any differently from last time? 'Cuz commiserating together doesn't usually make you feel better."
Felicity folded her ears. "Where else has it to go? No amount of words can change what's become of me. Either I walk away in indignation and resign myself and my sisters to our fate, or swallow my pride and do what it takes, even though I've lost faith in my side. Surely there's no third answer."
Valey shrugged. "Have you tried crying a ton and wallowing a little? Letting someone hug it off?"
"Darling!" Felicity's ears slicked back in shock. "Don't make fun, Miss Valey, I'm being serious!"
"Yep. I am too." Valey raised an eyebrow. "Look, I don't know how to feel about the Night Mother. She was actually pretty cool and helpful to me. But it's pretty clear you're ticked at her, right? Bananas, I was ticked at everything when I first switched sides. For a night or two, my life was chaos. You remember how I got through it?"
Felicity frowned. "I recall your story was distinctly short on stopping to wallow, darling. Wasted time benefits nopony."
"Actually?" Valey wrinkled her nose in a cheeky grin. "I handled it by stabbing my old boss with an icicle and punching him in the face. And bananas was it cathartic. I really needed that." She straightened up. "Point is, you're ticked too 'cuz you feel like you just wasted a million years of your life and if you'd known what you do now, you might've done things differently. Right?"
Felicity gave her a look. "But I still have no choice but to work for her if we ever want to be truly healed."
"And that's frustrating!" Valey pointed at the ceiling, leaning back again. "You gotta take that out on something! Hit a pillow, or a friend who can take it. Yell a bunch, have a tantrum. Right?"
Felicity curled her lip. "That sounds morbidly undignified."
Valey winked. "Hey, no one ever said being completely shameless has no benefits. Look, I'm just bringing it up because two of our crew come from this neat touchy-feely city of mares where sleeping in platonic cuddle piles is basically the norm. You say you need a shoulder, Maple and Amber are gonna be like, 'Oh, that's normal!' Trust me on this. It's like a sappy, sentimental pillow for the heart."
Felicity narrowed her eyes. "Are you being entirely up front with me? I feel like I'm getting played."
"I mean..." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Okay, so maybe it is a little embarrassing. I'm not the huggiest type anymore either. Reminds me a little too much of when I used to do it to make ponies uncomfortable. But it could seriously help!" Her legs went slack. "You are frustrated, so do find some way to let loose a little."
"Darling?" Felicity's eyes turned innocent, then hard again. "I'm a lot further gone than mere frustration."
Valey yawned. "Standing by what I said. And once you've done that, know what you should do next? Ditch the Night Mother, ditch us, ditch your sisters for one night alone, and do something, like, ridiculously fun. Something that leaves you panting and super satisfied with yourself."
Felicity glanced questioningly at her. "Either we have very different ideas of what fun is, or far too similar."
"Nope!" Valey held up a wing. "I'm talking, like, go climb a hill in the middle of the night and laugh like a lunatic at the sky. Or go swimming, just float around a little so it's not too hard, then dry yourself off with a fire and something warm to drink. Punching out the Night Mother is too much to ask for, but seriously, you need this."
"Valey..." Felicity looked like she was going to respond, but the words died in her throat. "Why are you being like this?"
"Buh?" Valey blinked.
"So focused on me and my silly problems." Felicity looked away. "It's not hard to figure out what you're lifting yourself, these days. The Night Mother plainly said you were created as a product of some uncaring goddess's ego and need for flashy artifacts. You're not trying to distract yourself on me, are you?"
Valey shifted her eyes. "Uhhh... do you want the nice answer, or the kind of rude one?"
"Give me the truth, darling," Felicity sighed. "Remember, I've taken care of myself through much greater adversities for years. And if you tell me you're white knighting because you think I'm attractive, you'll be starting a war of cheek redness you can't hope to win."
"Uhh... maybe?" Valey sucked on her cheeks. "Look, I do wanna help you. You remind me of me. Granted, a lot of ponies do, but still. But also, uhh... yeah, I'm a little beat up in the brainspace too. So if you did wander up and knock on Ironflanks' door and say you needed an hour or a night or two, and I totally didn't inconspicuously come along as a good friend, not because I'm embarrassed or don't trust myself asking for-"
Felicity winked, getting to her hooves at once. "Say no more, darling, say no more."
"Might I have everyone's attention?" The intercom sparked to life, projecting Gerardo Guillaume's voice all across the Immortal Dream. "I see Izvaldi's capitol on the horizon! We'll be arriving shortly."
His talon left the button that held it on, and the device clicked off. Throwing back his forelegs, the griffon stretched, doing a quick spin in his pilot's chair. "Ahh, about time we made it back to land. Long adventuring voyages have their perks, but there's nothing quite like returning to civilization."
The sun was halfway to noon, and Slipstream, Grenada and Nyala shared the room, Amber having recently gone to bed. "Are we going to control who disembarks?" Grenada asked, eyes thin and set on the distant city.
"After weeks of flying?" Slipstream stretched her wings, interlocking their feathers behind her head and rocking back and forth. "I sure hope not. I need to... meet some ponies! And we have enough trinkets from the sarosians, we could be popular in the commerce building..."
Nyala's wings rotated, propping her at a lower angle from the dashboard where she sat, letting her see more of the landscape below. "It would be awkward asking someone to carry me, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps. Many things in life are awkward." Gerardo grinned. "That doesn't mean they aren't worth asking. I'd be happy to."
"I assume not, then," Grenada said, staring at the dashboard.
"You sound disappointed," Nyala worriedly remarked. "Do you not want some of us to go?"
Grenada sighed. "We are stopping here to get treatment for someone who was injured repeatedly under my command. There was a leadership split in our camp between us, and ponies did not know whom they wanted to follow, even though neither of us tried to play into it. Things were tense. I do not know whether I should go down with her, and this would decide for me."
"Sounds like as good of a reason to go as any to me," Gerardo remarked, their course set and no longer in need of adjustment. "I'm sure young Harshwater would appreciate a familiar face or two at her side. All she has now is Valey. And if it turns out she doesn't, easy enough for you to wander off and explore the capitol, hmm?"
Grenada looked away. "What would I do while exploring?"
Slipstream blinked, then grinned. "Girl, do you even need to ask? Hang out with the rest of us! The sarosians gave us so many gifts to trade once we got back here, we'll be able to spend some days living the high life! We'll go shopping, see if there's anything happening at the theater..."
"I hate to check your enthusiasm," Gerardo interrupted, "but we do have a tournament to make. Better to be early than to be late, so I'd advise limiting your plans to today at most. I'd like for us all to be underway by nightfall."
Slipstream looked determined. "All the more reason not to waste time."
"...Perhaps I should go, then." Grenada turned away from the windshield, the city already noticeably closer. "I will go see if she wants me."
"Nice of you to drop by," Harshwater muttered, staring at the ceiling from her bed. An open book sat facedown on her bedstand, and someone had tucked her more carefully than she could have managed by herself. "It gets pretty lonely in here when no one's around."
Grenada stared at her for a moment, then rubbed her neck. "We are almost to Izvaldi. How are you?"
"Yeah, I heard. The intercom." Harshwater didn't move. "Low-key awful all over. Half of that's from laying still for so long, but even after the temple, walking or flying around would probably just make things worse. It's hard not to imagine what would have happened if I pushed myself further."
"If you pushed yourself further." Grenada's brow shadowed. "You pushed yourself for my cause. You do not give me any of the blame?"
Harshwater frowned. "No offense, but I pushed myself because if I didn't, I would die. They didn't want to let us live there. You could do whatever you wanted with goals and city-building, I just wanted to keep my body in one piece."
Grenada winced. "I am trying to say that I am sorry for not helping!"
"Never held it against you," Harshwater said limply. "If you're bothered by your conduct back in the camp, I've got just a liiittle bit bigger things to worry about on my mind."
"Yes well I am bothered!" Grenada's voice rose slightly, then was wrestled back under control. "I do not want to... go without trying to make amends. I wanted to offer to come too when we reach the hospital."
Harshwater made the effort to turn her head. "I appreciate that. I also told you I don't hold it against you. I'm not asking you to owe me anything. If you're asking for forgiveness for being a bad, stubborn leader, there you go."
Grenada frowned at her. "I still feel bad for it. Can you not see I am trying to apologize!?"
Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like you need to talk to yourself about that more than me."
"Y-You..." Grenada's jaw hung slack, and she shook her head. "Do you have any idea how a mare's heart works?"
"Yep." Harshwater looked away. "I'm a mare, and I have a pretty trashy love life and nearly died, but I also have enough cracked ribs that yelling or breathing hard would probably kill me, so I've had to suck it up. If there's something more you want from me, explain a little better, and don't ask anything that involves me getting up."
"I just tried to do you a favor..." Grenada grumbled, staring at the ground.
"Thanks. I appreciate it." Harshwater's ears swiveled, the only part of her that had an easy, painless range of movement. "If you want anything in return, ask when I'm not barely clinging to existence, and we'll get talking."
Grenada turned to go. "I will see you when we arrive, then."
"If you want to stay, I am lonely..."
"Alright, Birdo." Valey munched a freshly-peeled carrot, sidling onto the bridge. "What's the situation?"
Directly below, they were entering the space over the main Izvaldi plaza, the ship slowed to a crawl as Gerardo expertly maneuvered towards the docking tower. "I see no welcoming party, though if they saw us coming, they might be getting one together. Perhaps this calls for a winged envoy?"
"Huh. Asking me to volunteer?" Valey surveyed the tower, empty and free from ships. "No Wallace... Not getting any danger from this stop, though. Yeah, I can fly ahead."
"Need a hoof?" Slipstream offered cheerfully.
Valey rubbed her chin. "Uhh... yeah, help Birdo dock and everything? I think Sparky's asleep... Bananas, how does anyone keep a sleep schedule in Mistvale?"
Gerardo chuckled. "Usually they don't, from my understanding."
"Right! Well, yeah, make sure the commerce dudes know who we are, and everything." Valey nodded to Slipstream. "They probably do, but just be sure."
"Will do!" Slipstream left the bridge with a salute.
"I'll be back with dudes," Valey announced, straightening up to follow her. "Or permission to do hospital things. Mansion time for me!"
The descent from the deck to the rooftops and then the ground was short, and Valey forwent using her wings, showing off her ability to stick a perfect landing. Stretching and straightening after her sequence of jumps, she turned to regard Percival's mansion door... Wonderful. The two guards posted didn't seem to have a care in the world, and it was wide open.
She strolled inside, feeling a pleasant coolness as the shade blocked her from the sun and the mansion's halls captured a bit of air left over from dawn. Meeting Chauncey again wasn't a thing she was looking forward to, but they were there and needed Izvaldi's services, so it would be best to get anything that was going to happen out of the way first. With no idea how to navigate the tangle of rooms and corridors, she wandered randomly, figuring she was bound to run across someone important...
"Ahem."
Valey's ears pricked, and with a silent, resolute groan, she remembered the other pony she hadn't looked forward to meeting again.
"You came back," Crystal murmured, staring at her from the entrance of a hallway, surprise and skepticism and a little bit of reverence in her gaze. "Again."
"Uhh." Valey blinked, staring across at the mare she hadn't counted on running into. "Heya. Yeah, I'm back."
Crystal was well-groomed as usual, with bags under her eyes that spoke of too much sleep and a good two inches left in her shoulders if she stood straighter. But her coat and mane were well-cared for, and her foal was bigger, too, fitting tightly despite her new, expanded uniform. She stared at Valey with eyes that hadn't hoped in ages.
Flinging caution to the winds, Valey strolled closer. "So, you actually wanna talk to me? Like, no offense, but this doesn't happen every day."
"Since when do you not?" Crystal asked dryly. "Well, here I am."
Valey glanced back at the entrance. This was an unusually warm welcome from the bitter mare... "So, uh, my ship just got here and we've got an injured pegasus and could really use calling in a favor with that healing machine thing in your hospital. You know where any of the local honchos are, like maybe Percival? Someone who could help us with that?" Her eyes shifted. "If we could get that taken care of, I'd love to hang out with you, and stuff..."
Crystal gave her a look that suggested she was wrong about everything, but didn't waste time nodding. She turned, letting Valey follow her backside up a staircase and through several doors with the efficiency of someone who did this for a living. Valey had to admit, it wasn't a terrible place to be when her host wasn't making her feel awkward and being depressing.
Quickly, they came to a study, the door open and Percival poring over documents in all his regalia behind. Valey hadn't seen him often, but it wasn't difficult to remember the griffon's brightly-colored robes. "Admiral," Percival greeted, looking up. "I see our distinguished guests have returned. Allow me to make you two comfortable."
He rose from his chair, stepping around the room, and quickly drew out two chairs from caddies in the wall, their backs designed the same as the wall paneling to make it look like there was nothing there. Valey nodded appreciatively at the plushness, then frowned as he closed the door. "I get being a cool dude, but don't nobles usually have maids around to... you know... do maid stuff?"
Percival made eye contact as he returned to his desk. "You know our secret. No need to put on airs with you."
"Uh huh." Valey glanced at Crystal's sizable belly. "The one where that's yours. Don't worry, I won't tell. But look, before anyone starts on that, I've got some business real quick?"
Percival watched her. "Your crew are esteemed guests of state. Everyone is aware you have permission to come and go and use our docks as you please."
"We need a bit more than that." Valey scratched her ear. "Hospital stuff. Got someone who's real busted up. Think you can cover that?"
"It shall be done." Percival stood up, walking to the door and preparing to leave. "Wait one moment."
When the door closed behind him, Crystal looked expectantly at Valey. Valey looked back. "Look, I don't know how things are between us," she began. "I'm pretty sure you still think I'm a nuisance at best, and I really wish you'd be nicer to me. But since we ran into each other, what's up?"
Crystal's face shadowed. "I need help."
"Really?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "I mean, not that you don't, but things are bad enough you're willing to ask?"
Crystal glared at her.
Before Valey could figure out what next to say, the door opened again and Percival stepped expediently back through. Once he was inside, he bolted it behind him, and Valey couldn't help but notice the room's lights were focused on the doorjamb. No one would be sneaking in.
"You," Percival began, seating himself again at his desk, "I've heard things about. Travelers are starting to reach us again from Ironridge, but the most important things are from Crystal, here." He motioned to her with a talon. "My queen."
Crystal's brow creased, also looking at Valey. "You're rude, pushy, think you're far more sensitive than you are, and keep looking at me even though you know I belong to someone else." Valey winced, narrowing her eyes, but Crystal continued. "You're also stubbornly committed to doing what you want, and for some unfathomable reason you want to help me even though I push you away. I've known you for months now. And you're strong enough to fight in the tournament and reach the third round." She swallowed, looking like she was eating gravel. "I strongly dislike you, but the alternative is losing my family and my life. You're our only hope."
Valey glanced nervously around for anything hidden. "Uhh... look, I kind of showed up just now to get some medical help for my friend. I didn't actually say anything yet about running back here to throw myself into a bonfire for you guys. So, uh, sorry if you're reading into this..."
Crystal looked unsurprised. "I know you didn't. You still came back once before, after two months. That's more than anyone else has put up with me except Percival and Meyneth. I'm not waiting for you to offer. I'm asking. Please help me. Please help my Percival's child."
"Uhhhhh..." Valey blinked, eyes flickering between Crystal, who was hugging herself, to Percival, watching her intently. She had no idea what to make of this, had forced Crystal as far from her mind as possible during the Mistvale trip and barely remembered where things stood, except that Crystal was provocative, bitter and mean, and she took it as a challenge when the older mare said she was beyond aid. "So what's that entail?"
"If we could help ourselves, we would have done it. That's for you to figure out, if you can." Percival watched her, folding his talons atop a stamp on his desk. "Crystal has told you our problem. Sarosians breed true to their partner. In her womb, our child is a griffon. Chauncey's trusted doctors have verified this time and again. To Garsheeva, our union is a crime, crossing species lines without being a sphinx, and the child will stand as proof of that like blood on our talons and hooves."
"Neat." Valey nodded. "So why doesn't she give birth in secret somewhere, then just pretend it's someone else's and her kid died and everything will be peachy? You've apparently got some doctors in on this."
Crystal's ears pressed back in a painful grimace. "Because of my grandfather," she said.
Percival nodded. "Chauncey and Crystal have a negative relationship. At first, he blessed our union, and we took it as an attempt at reparations. He is loyal to Izvaldi, after all. A year ago, after many failures at the tournament and an inability to legitimize our relationship with a wish, what you said was even our plan. Izvaldi's sphinx is dead and has been for years. When word becomes public, my reign will end. I would abdicate quietly, withdraw with Crystal from public view, and we would start a family together out from the eye of any goddess, using the remnants of our resources to shield us. But then, when she became pregnant..."
Crystal's breath started to heave. "That traitor," she hissed, "That traitor. H-He... wanted to use us..."
"Chauncey has a fascination with the divine," Percival continued, not breaking speech as he slipped from his desk and picked Crystal up, caressing her until she calmed, clinging to him. "It drives him to do great things in the service of Izvaldi and my mission... to create an equal land for griffons, ponies and sarosians alike. You can see where I would foster that desire. But Chauncey disregards Garsheeva and the Night Mother, believing neither are here to help that missions. He wants to make his own god, a champion for sarosiankind that will lead them in Garsheeva's visible style, someone the rest of the Empire cannot ignore. Our child..."
"He wants our child as a flag," Crystal choked. "To take them a-and put them on a pedestal where the whole Empire can see them for as long as it takes Garsheeva to knock them down! He wants to use the product of our love as a taunt against powers that will crush him and us along with him! To rub our child in the goddesses' faces to show what he got away with letting us create. He's insane... Either he's l-lost his mind, or has given up and wants to take us down with him!"
Valey's eyebrows both rose. "Wait, seriously? What kind of nutcase basically declares war on Garsheeva and the Night Mother at the same time? Has he always wanted to do this? You told me last time or the time before hiding underground was possible!"
Crystal bitterly swallowed. "I-It was possible until recently. He was still going to use our child as a standard, but wait until something more happened. I would be protected underground with the child after the birth. But then you took away Puddles, who he was using for experiments and also kept us Wallace Whitewing. Now he's had setbacks, and we can't win the t-tournament. Now once our c-child comes, it will be the end..."
Valey's face fell again. She could tell which direction her heart was being pulled already. This plight was stupid, and it wasn't hard to see why Crystal was such a wreck if she had to deal with something like that on top of the Empire's usual conditions for sarosians. But that didn't mean there was much she could do...
"How much time do you have?" Valey asked, glancing at Crystal's belly.
"At best?" Percival looked up. "A month, if it was a normal pregnancy, to her due date. But griffons are slightly larger than ponies, and there's obviously never been a recorded case before to use as a precedent. This far along, we fear every day could be our last together."
"Oh bananas." Valey leaned forward, rubbing her forehead. "Yeah, you two are in deep."
"Okay..." Valey rubbed her forehooves, deep in thought as Percival and Crystal watched her with varying degrees of hope and despair. First and foremost, she needed to decide if she actually wanted to help them. On the one hoof, they were in deep. She had always suspected Chauncey was off his rocker to some degree, but despite all that had happened between them, they still were on some semblance of good terms. The old stallion wasn't rational thanks to prolonged Nightmare Module exposure and whatever else his history held, so getting Percival and Crystal out of their trouble would likely require taking him down. Unfortunately, he had some of Luna's powers, and she had no idea how deep his connections ran. This could be a harder fight than taking down Herman and stopping war in Ironridge.
Was she seriously about to plunge her friends right back into that? Absolutely unthinkable. They couldn't relive the chaos of Sosa's final day. Everyone, her included, was still barely recovering from that months later. Not unless they were struck first, pulled into the whirlpool of Empire politics they had so far observed from the sidelines and forced to fight again for their own escape and survival.
Escape... that was another option. She surveyed Crystal again, the batpony looking uncomfortable from a lot of things but drawing strength from Percival's embrace. If they left the Empire, the two forbidden lovers in tow, who would follow them? She shook her head; that contained too many problems as well. For one, the Immortal Dream was running low on rooms, now that Harshwater and Grenada were on board. Her existing friends were cobbled together well enough that the two lovers wouldn't be out of place, but could Crystal get along with everyone else? They had enough problems with emotional health already without needing to care for her, too.
Most importantly was Maple. Valey had no idea what her friend's reaction would be to taking on a mare who would almost certainly foal before they next made landfall, but felt like Maple would be happier without it. And finally, cutting and running would involve abandoning Felicity and the tournament, and they had no next destination in mind...
"So what do you guys want from me?" she asked, looking for a hint. "Helping you bail doesn't sound feasible. You asking me to just beat up Chauncey? 'Cuz I'm not sure I want to do that either..."
Percival shook his head. "You couldn't. He has magic that renders him invincible, among other things. Besides, he works diligently for the Izvalden State's cause. This isn't a problem because Chauncey is in the wrong by the Empire's laws, Admiral Valey. Extreme, foolish and self-destructive, yes, but we are the ones who broke our goddesses' commandments."
Valey scratched her ear. "You know, it does seem a little strange that Garsheeva would be ticked at you for this if she knew. Like, I thought love was supposed to be a good thing."
"Lamenting our fate, are you?" Percival raised an eyebrow. "That's questioning Garsheeva herself. When challenging our fate, she is the highest possible authority we could contest."
"Okay." Valey nodded. So both of them acknowledged being on the wrong side, at least according to the Empire... There was no way she was fighting an entire empire. "So basically, you two need to live somewhere where everyone's okay with your kid. That means either away from everyone, or getting that tournament wish so Garsheeva will be cool with you. Both cases mean making sure Chauncey won't bother you about stuff. Right?"
Crystal sniffled into Percival's shoulder. "If we could disappear, that would be enough..."
Valey hummed to herself. "Yeah... Yeah, I think we can do that. Like, wait for no one to be looking, then you two sneak onto our ship and we just fly you away somewhere? Nobody sees, nobody knows. Chauncey can make as much of a racket as he wants, but we can covertly spill the beans to Gazelle about there being no sphinxes in Izvaldi, he'll come in and take over, and probably run Chauncey out. Let Gazelle do the work for us?"
"We can't." Crystal sniffed again and grimaced. "I t-told you about Stanza. It's made from a dusks statue, using something from me as a c-core. I can't use dusk statues because the magic that talks to them is permanently bound to it. As long as Stanza exists, he can u-use it to f-find..."
"Well, that's not cool." Valey's pupils thinned. "So Stanza can track where you are? I guess that means we'd have to get rid of it. Either destroy it or steal it, and I have no idea how to do either of those..."
"I do," Crystal mumbled.
Valey's ears shot up. "Wait, you do? Because I've seen that thing before, and it's seriously bad news. Like, the kind of bad where it would probably benefit the whole continent if we took it apart. Can you just not do it yourself?"
Crystal made tearstained eye contact, her emerald eyes boring into Valey's. "Chauncey avoids me as much as possible because he despises me. If I betrayed him by unmaking his creation, that could all change. He could lock me in a lit room until my child arrives. He could kill me after. He's already bringing down Garsheeva and the Night Mother both on himself; he's committed to losing. If I drew his attention, it would just be more collateral damage..."
"And he was seriously always this unbalanced?" Valey blanched. "How have you let this dude stay in power for twenty-something years?"
Percival shook his head. "More than that, but no, he wasn't. We told you, his ambition has always been directed toward the goals of Izvaldi: the betterment of the sarosian race, without compromising any others. This last, greatest dive happened after the collapse of many plans centered around Puddles." He gave Valey a look that clearly said he knew whose fault that was, but was pleading and would put it all behind them if she would only help.
"I..." Valey swallowed, heart beating painfully in her chest. "Right. So Crystal sabotages Stanza, or whatever, and then we immediately give you two a boost to the middle of nowhere. That's what you're asking?"
"It still isn't that simple," Percival apologized. "We then have Prince Gazelle to deal with. Gazelle knows about Goraldi, my grandfather. It's he who has done the most to keep my dynasty in power and our secret intact, even more than Chauncey. He works with us because Izvaldi is an undeveloped province with no major cities, a low population and no strategic military advantages. He doesn't want it. So we have an agreement to keep me in power that benefits us both. But if I suddenly disappeared, that could be thrown out of balance. Chauncey is old and would be swept aside in a regime change, but Gazelle is young and ambitious and will likely hold a significant portion of the Empire's power for decades to come. He isn't someone we can afford to offend."
Valey nodded. "So you have to stay put, where Gazelle and the other lords can see you. But until Crystal breaks Stanza, she can't run, and the moment she does run, Chauncey will be out for you, and if he can't get her, he could try to get you instead? But if nobody does anything, Chauncey will get her kid and that's game over." She pointed at Crystal. "That's basically your situation?"
"You see our problem," Crystal sniffed. "We've talked about this."
"Okay... No, no, we can do this." Valey nodded more firmly. "Gazelle's in trouble if Percival disappears, right?" She glanced to the griffon. "So if Crystal breaks Stanza and then runs off with us, we can go find Gazelle and tell him to bully Chauncey into leaving you alone. He'll need to, because he has to protect your job, but then that's his problem and not ours..."
Both lovers watched her intensely, so she elaborated. "I'll need to clear all this with my friends first. One hundred percent. But if we're all cool with it, you two split up, we'll hide Crystal. She can even hang out on our ship for safety." An image of Maple floated again through her mind, and she insisted again, "If my friends are cool with this. From there on, Chauncey can do what he wants and it'll be Gazelle's problem. As long as no one knows we have Crystal, no eyes on us. Once Gazelle has solved Chauncey, we bring Crystal back, she can raise her kid in secret with you in Izvaldi. Someday, you get to retire and live together. Or hey, maybe I win the tournament? Still don't know what I'm using the wish on, but no promises." Valey shrugged. "How's that sound for a plan?"
Crystal watched her evenly from Percival's embrace. "I think," the griffon said, "we would appreciate if you talked to your friends."
A warm glow of light suffused a windowless room on the first floor of the Izvaldi general hospital, massive machinery lining three of the four walls. Pipes thrummed with soft energy, feeding from drums and synthesizers decked with dials into a covered cradle suspended in the middle. Grenada, Maple, Amber, and Starlight lined the free wall, along with Chauncey and two unicorns dressed as sarosians who seemed to know what they were doing.
"Forty percent... fifty..." one unicorn mumbled, watching a meter, speaking in a normal tongue for the benefit of everyone else.
"It's rare to see patients who were subjected to such intense prolonged injury without being completely disabled," Chauncey rasped, standing to the side next to a terminal display that controlled the healing machine. "You were wise to bring her here. Other methods of medicine would leave her frail for life, if she recovered at all."
"But she'll be fine here?" Maple glanced worriedly at the screen, then back at the healing cradle.
Chauncey nodded. "It was for injuries such as these this machine was designed. Lacerations, blunt trauma, internal damage that cannot be reached save through surgery. Anything that could be incurred in combat. She is in the best place she could be."
"Eighty percent," the unicorn read.
The cradle hummed pleasingly, slight vibrations at the joints where hoses were connected, but the meters attached reading green. From the side machines, the whirring shifted in tone as the cycle progressed, entering its final phase. "Ninety percent. Ninety-five..."
The screen clicked green, and the whirring slowly subsided.
"We've done what we can," the second unicorn said, reading from a display as the first went to open the cradle. "There will be lingering effects from keeping these untreated for so long, and atrophy from a month of bedrest. Constant exercise will do her good, and she should eventually make a full recovery."
"Whew!" Amber wiped her mane back. "That's a relief."
Grenada watched intensely as the lid on the cradle tilted up, a cloud of vapor rising into the air and a fan turning on in the ceiling to disperse it. Harshwater sat up inside, rubbing her head, her coat and mane soaked but not dripping. "Nnngh..."
The pegasus checked herself, sitting halfway up, moving her wings and forelegs and feeling her barrel and chest. "It doesn't hurt to breathe anymore," she murmured, almost in a trance.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and Valey strolled in uninvited, giving a quick blink to Chauncey but then turning to the rest of her friends. "Hey guys. The receptionist said I'd find you here, and we need to-"
POW!
Harshwater flung herself from the cradle, wings zipping as fast as they could go, and punched Valey in the face, sending her flying into a wall with a yelp.
"Hey! What gives!?" Valey landed on her butt, massaging her skull and giving Harshwater a dirty look. "You actually did that?"
Harshwater landed, wobbled slightly, and shrugged. "I needed to do it to someone, and you were the one I knew could take it. I've been bedridden for nearly a month! No offense, we'll talk later, I need to go fast and scream. This way is out?"
Everyone else was too busy blinking. "Uhh... yeah," Valey mumbled, getting to her hooves as Harshwater dashed away, nearly tripping and colliding with a wall as she went.
"Should someone go after her?" Amber asked with a worried look to the door.
"Yeah, I'll do it." Valey was upright, giving Chauncey another glance before nodding to her friends. "Could you guys be back at the ship in a bit, though? Wanna have a chat about what we're doing next."
"Of course," Amber promised, nodding. "Now go get her!"
Valey didn't have to run far to catch up with the healed pegasus. Harshwater was faceplanted in the middle of a hallway, legs brushing the floor like she was a spider with no leg joints. Her tail flicked violently in agitation.
"Hey, uhh... you alright?" Valey stepped up beside her in concern, staying a safe hooflength away and paying much more attention to her cutie mark, though it wasn't warning her right then.
"My legs aren't doing what I tell them to!" Harshwater whined, her voice a shrill squeak of frustration. "Nnngh! This is embarrassing!"
Valey tilted her head. "You want me to help you up? Probably less embarrassing than staying on the floor."
"Mmph," Harshwater grumbled in grudging assent.
Leaning down, Valey scooped the small pegasus up, setting her upright and then offering herself to lean on. Harshwater grudgingly took that, too.
"Can we get outside?" Harshwater mumbled, leaning over half her weight on Valey. "Please?"
"Say no more." Making sure she was stable, Valey made as fast as they could for the exit, stepping into the clear plaza air. She decided that wasn't quite far enough, seeing half a dozen families out enjoying the weather, and strolled with Harshwater around the perimeter of the hospital, stopping when they reached the unassuming back where a short concrete sidewalk bordered the building before the hill dropped away to fields and townships below. "Here good?"
Harshwater shook... then grabbed Valey like a vice, tilted her head to the sky, and bawled. "WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Valey's ears pressed back from the painful proximity of the pegasus's shriek, and she hoped no one came to investigate. She tried her best to give Harshwater a you okay look, and wasn't sure it got through.
"Don't you dare interrupt this; I've been holding my stupid breath for a whole stupid month," Harshwater whispered, voice briefly cold and composed. Then her delayed tantrum returned in full force. "I got played for a fool!" she wailed, clinging. "I threw myself at everything he asked! I hoarded his pictures when you raided his house! I forgave him when he tried to send me to my death and left all my friends in the company to run across the world to find him and he did it again and I thought I was going to dieeeee..."
"Uh... There, there?" Valey patted her shoulder, uncertain of what to do.
"And then y-you..." Harshwater sniffled, eyes already streaming. "First you didn't kill me when I was trying to kill you, then you saved me when I was dead in Mistvale! What's your problem!?"
Valey blinked. "Would you rather I have blown you up in the mines, or flew right past?"
"No. O-Obviously." Harshwater glared at her, shaking. "But I've made a m-mess of my life, and you keep being stupid and now I owe you, but e-everything I try is...!" She was interrupted by a shudder, then tried again. "Waaahh! I went into that cave and you had to rescue me again! And now my legs are n-noodles, so I can't even fight for you! I'm horrible at decision-making. That was the o-one way I could be useful, and you've dragged me around for a month w-waiting for me to be able to do this and now I'm useless!"
"We're not going to throw you out," Valey reprimanded. "Nobody needs to prove their worth. Being our friend is reason enough to hang out on our ship. You do want to come, right?"
Harshwater sniffled. "Well, duh. Where else would I go? I'll probably get cheated, or taken advantage of or trip in an alley somewhere and not be able to get up..." She drew a breath that sounded like a goose honk. "And you're an idiot who doesn't understand the economics of ponies who are deadweight. What do I have to offer you? What!?"
"Ohh no." Valey leaned back suddenly. "That's a rhetorical question, isn't it? Don't even think about kissing me." She glanced around, adding, "Uh, at least not here. Look, if you've just been dumpstered twice by Kero, I get not getting this, but it's because you need it and I actually care. And I'd much rather have you as an ally than not."
"W-Why?" Harshwater sniffed, daring her to answer.
"Nope. Not going there. It's not about what you can contribute." Valey put her hooves on her shoulders, preventing her from looking away. "Like half our crew spends all their time doing nothing but hanging out on the bridge and chatting, and I'm still glad they're there. Girl, I traded away a cushy job in Ironridge and a ton of political immunity for some friends I could stick up for, and not because Ironflanks or Starlight are strong. Bananas, at the time I did it, they were getting kicked around and run ragged and were such deadweights it took everything I had to get them out of the city alive. If we were talking contributions, bananas, it would be awesome to have another professional at fighting, and I'm sure your legs are just lame from laying down too much. But it doesn't matter."
"...I can't argue with you." Harshwater pitched forward, trying to hide her face in Valey's coat. "You terrify me. I still have nightmares about the mines."
Valey rubbed her back. "Worse times. I'd be lying if I said I haven't from time to time. So can you please try to just put aside what you owe me and come hang out with us? We won't skunk you again like Kero. I swear it."
"Obviously." Harshwater gritted her teeth. "Not like I have anywhere else to go. And do you mind? I'm a little busy feeling awful about the person I loved trying to murder me twice! I told you to let me have this!"
"Alright." Valey nodded. "On my back."
Harshwater blinked, then grunted in surprise as Valey deftly slipped beneath her, hoisting her off the ground. "What?"
"Wow, you're a lot lighter than Felicity," Valey remarked. "Just gonna get you back to the ship. If this is gonna be a while and we need to speak openly, probably best to do it in private."
Harshwater threw herself so hard on her bed, she bounced three times, coming to rest on her back with her wings and legs splayed and her tail dangling off the edge. "Feels good to be able to do that again," she remarked. "Thanks for getting me healed, by the way."
"Uh, yeah. No problem." Valey looked up from locking the door, ensuring they were left alone. "So, you weren't finished? Just thought it would be a little better if you didn't talk about your love affair with a griffon in the middle of public."
"There was no affair. Just me trying to get him to notice me..." Harshwater groaned, kicking weakly. But now that she had stopped for the flight up, her tears seemed reluctant to return. "Valey, how do you see yourself? Personal question, but since you're being open and stubborn already..."
"Me? Bananas, that's a long story." Valey tilted her head, then sighed and sat down. "Not the greatest. I just got back from flying all the way to the grand temple, only to be told in person by the Night Mother that my worst fears are true and I really was created by an evil goddess to be a living weapon. But also that I have the freedom to decide what to do with that. How'd that make you feel?"
Harshwater bit her lip. "So you're clearly an expert on feeling good about yourself."
"I didn't say that!" Valey blinked. "I said I got how you feel! Good company, and all that, right?" She leaned against the side of the bed. "Bananas, you messed up twice with Kero? I messed up for seven years solid with Ironridge. I was someone I'm not proud of being."
"Misery does love company," Harshwater sighed. "What would you do if you were in Ironridge now, living it all over again?"
Valey rolled her eyes. "Can't even begin to guess. I did what I did to survive. And cope, I guess. Still doesn't mean I'm proud of it. Why?"
"Because I'm trying to figure out how I feel about you." Harshwater stared at the ceiling. "Like saying it over and over and over again will get it through my slow head... I have nightmares about fighting you, but you spared me and then came to save me."
Valey's jaw twisted. "Look, well, you're probably not the only pony from Ironridge who has nightmares about me."
Harshwater flung herself onto her side, so that her face was inches from Valey's. "What did you really do in Ironridge? Something more than wasted years. Because every story I heard had you living the high life, treating yourself like a princess who got her hooves dirty, taking no flak from anyone and always doing what she wanted?"
"Uh, exactly that?" Valey frowned heavily. "I listened to no one, considered no one's feelings, made a ton of enemies with lifelong grudges, acted like a buffoon, let myself get run around by that stupid yak...!"
"And!? You don't do that now?" Harshwater glared into her eyes. "How much did you consider anyone's feelings when trying to break up the fight where you found me in that valley? Did you listen to anyone who told you to get out and mind your own business? I've heard from the others. You made the call to go down there right after the sarosians begged you not to! You did what you thought was right, and it wound up saving a huge number of lives, including mine! Does that remind you of anything?"
Valey blinked.
"Maybe it should remind you of Ironridge," Harshwater pressed, "where you did what you wanted, didn't care about anyone who tried to stop you, and messed up the Defense Force and Spirit so badly you probably held off an armed encounter for years. You're the same, you haven't changed, the only difference is that now you feel bad about being a hero! Stop lowering yourself to my level!"
Her eyes burned with intensity. "One of the fundamental rules of being a mercenary is that you keep moving forward. You take a job and innocents die, you help someone who didn't deserve to be helped, you lose a comrade you cared about or loved, it doesn't matter. You keep moving forward. But that involves knowing which way forward is! I've lost everything, I need a direction, and the reason I'm so confused on how I feel about you is because you're my hero who outclasses me in every way but still cares and I need to look up to you for that, and you keep trashing yourself and putting yourself on my level! So get up, you lazy, banana-eating slob, and stop doing that!"
Valey's brain crashed, skipping its tracks and taking several seconds to begin processing... several seconds Harshwater didn't give her. They were already face to face, Valey leaning against the bed's edge and Harshwater on her side atop it, and the stormy pegasus reached forward, grabbing Valey's and pulling her into a sudden kiss.
Pomf! Valey's wings popped out stiff, and she squeaked in surprise, but Harshwater held on for several seconds before letting go. "You know what that was for?"
"Buh..." Valey rubbed her lips with the side of a hoof, pupils pinprick. "Bananas, why did you do that!? I told you, you don't need to make yourself worth anything for me-"
"Nope! Wrong answer!" Harshwater interrupted her with a glare. "And you just said we're in private, so don't worry about the Empire. In my old company, this is what we call returning the favor. You probably did that to so many mares once upon a time, you wouldn't remember, but you got me too, years ago. I was minding my own business, standing in line for a shop, and you came out of nowhere and tried cutting in front of everyone. Some stallion tried telling you off, you feigned being all apologetic, then kissed me out of nowhere as a 'consolation prize' just so you could pat the stallion on the head, tell him he was too hairy to have one too, and stroll away laughing your head off without even buying anything. That was the first interaction I ever had with you."
Valey's face twisted in disgust. "Why are you making that sound like a good thing!?"
Harshwater smirked, propping her chin on her forehooves. "I'm sorry, was I? I don't think I was. Are you really so incapable of seeing anything decent about your history that the moment anyone brings it up, you think they're telling you there might have been something worthwhile there?"
Valey's eye started to twitch. "Try telling me there was anything worthwhile about that behavior!"
"Try telling me there wasn't about sparing me in the mines!" Harshwater countered, her volume rising with Valey's. "I'm alive because of you! It's worthwhile to me! And in the month after you left Ironridge, Arambai and the Defense Force started to put together everything you'd been doing to sabotage everyone's war abilities, and you probably spared countless more ponies too! What's being rude and self-centered in the face of that, huh!? Tell me!"
"Why can't I do both!?" Valey countered, piledriving a hoof into the side of the bed. "Why can't I be a good pony and act like one too!?"
"You tell me!" Harshwater hissed. "Because you're doing everything you used to, but treating yourself like you're awful for it! Leave that to ponies who have actually managed to screw up everything in their lives and don't have an airship full of friends or the ability to stop wars! Stop trying to make it hard for me to look up to you!"
"But I was a scumbag..." Valey's eyes shook, hollow. "The day after I met Maple, we were down in Blueleaf and I got led into an ambush by foals. These were kids who were stuck in this low-class dump town because I got their parents fired, or they quit so they wouldn't have to deal with me. I ruined their lives...!"
"By getting their parents kicked out of a militia?" Harshwater raised an eyebrow.
Valey countered with silence.
"By taking the tools out of their fathers' hooves to ruin or end countless more lives?" Harshwater glared at her face. "What are you asking for, to do right by every last creature in the world? An old Yakyakistan proverb is that if every creature in the world helped two other creatures during their life, there would be enough to go around for the world twice over. You win some battles, lose others, some wins come at a cost and some losses leave you with gain. What did you do with those foals?"
"Uhh... I kinda just left..." Valey looked away. "Didn't hurt them. I don't think. Starlight used her crystal spell to make them chill."
"So forget them and leave cleaning up after yourself to someone else!" Harshwater pressed. "Or remember and try if you want, just don't try to be a hero for the entire world! You're not a goddess, and there are other good ponies who will pick up where you left off! Or do you think the world is so dark there's never, ever going to be someone who makes an effort again? It only takes one match to make a light in darkness."
Valey took a shuddering breath. "What are you doing?" she asked, voice as neutral as possible. "I thought you were the one who needed my help with your issues. Bananas, all I was trying to do was say I get it. I know what you're going through. And yeah, I know I'm messed up. Kind of obvious. So why are you spending all your effort on me?"
"How many times do I need to say it?" Harshwater glared. "I don't know what to feel about you, Valey. You're my hero, and you're somehow helping me just because and not asking anything in return. I need that right now because I have no direction in my life, but instead of taking that and running with it you're lamenting not being able to do the impossible for everyone? Just who do you think you are? Is what you did for me not impossible enough? You saved me, and you're profaning yourself over it like it wasn't good enough when for me, it sure was. Get up. Get on your hooves, stop trashing yourself and help those of us who are already here before you break yourself and can't do anything for anyone!"
Valey rubbed at her mouth again. "...So what's that have to do with kissing me?"
"Uggghh..." Harshwater scowled. "Okay, sure. What you did was bad. Don't walk up to strangers in public and kiss them. But would it kill you to have a little of that self-confidence back? I need to believe in you to have any hope for myself in this world, and seeing you not physically hurts me." She put a wing over her heart. "I'm serious. And besides, you're overcompensating."
"Overcompensating?" Valey blinked. "How?"
Harshwater pointed at the door. "When was the last time you flirted with someone?"
"Uhhhhhh..." Valey squinted. "Riverfall? But the Empire's, like-"
"Don't care. And the real you wouldn't either." Harshwater closed her eyes, folding her forelegs behind her head. "Doesn't even have to matter. Have you paid even a drop of attention to who likes you on this ship?"
Valey frowned, counting on her wing spokes. "Well, Amber, but I think we agreed that wasn't a thing? Don't actually know where we stand. And then Sparky said she sort of liked me, but wasn't going anywhere with it because of heresy and everything else..." She glanced at Harshwater. "Wait, you?"
Harshwater scoffed. "I like griffons. And dudes. Believe me, my emotions about you are messed up enough I could kiss you again if I wanted to, and probably more, but not what I'm talking about." She looked back at Valey with serious eyes. "Have you really not noticed?"
A feeling of unease started to crawl at Valey's scalp. "Uhh... there's someone else?"
Harshwater gave a long, drawn-out sigh. "Felicity talks about giving up her goddess for you. The one she's killed for and been a special agent of for twenty years. And that's just from what I hear through my door. She's right across from me, you know."
Valey blinked. "She what?"
"You were there!" Harshwater pressed. "When someone says following you and your friends and your ways of living with yourself even when you're not all that happy with them? In Ironridge you made up the barest, flimsiest excuses to flirt with mares! Are you so far in denial of your time there that you can't see the real thing when it's staring you under your nose!?"
"Well, bananas." Valey sat back with a thump. "I mean... I don't... Bananas, I don't wanna be in a relationship, though. Look, I clearly get carried away with stuff like that. I couldn't handle-"
"Tell it to her, not me," Harshwater droned, interrupting. "Look, I'm actually more tired than I thought I was, so I'm going to lay in a comfortable position for a bit and maybe try to practice walking without falling over. Didn't you have something to meet with your friends about?"
"I did, yeah..." Valey's eyes shifted to the door, then fell. "Bananas, though. It was an important decision about what to do next, and suddenly I feel like I need to see to myself before tackling anything big..."
Harshwater shrugged, curling into a ball. "So tell your friends what's what, recuse yourself and let them sort it out. Easy. And have fun if you're adrift and anchorless, because that's how I'm feeling all this time it takes for you to get your act together."
"Yeah..." Valey paced to the door. "Uh, good talk. Thanks. I'll see you again soon."
"Or remember and try if you want, just don't try to be a hero for the entire world! You're not a goddess..."
Glimmer raised an eyebrow.
"This feels like eavesdropping..." Starlight mumbled, pulling her ear away from Harshwater's door. "Why are you having me do this?"
Glimmer shrugged, beckoning Starlight down the hall into another room. "It just sounded like that conversation was going somewhere interesting, and I thought you should hear. Seems I'm not the only one who's been giving someone else on this ship that advice."
"So?" Starlight followed her in, and the door shut behind them. "How did you know they were talking about that, anyway? Were you eavesdropping too?"
"I was hiding," Glimmer answered, pacing in a circle and sitting down on the floor. "I have to be somewhere when I'm not talking to you, and let's say I prefer to stay close by. It's not my fault if someone starts having a shouting match where I can hear it. They weren't being all that subtle."
Starlight supposed she didn't have any answer for that. "So is there any other reason you're here? I haven't seen you since..."
Glimmer nodded. "Things have been quiet. No reason. I thought I'd leave you alone for a while so you could process what they showed you."
Starlight's brow darkened. "The Nightmare Module..."
"Nightmare Module five," Glimmer agreed. "Now that it's been a few weeks, how much do you remember? What sticks with you? Anything you need to talk about?"
"There's another one. With my name on it..." Starlight looked down. "Is Garsheeva the Night Mother?"
Glimmer sighed. "Shouldn't be a tough question."
Starlight didn't speak.
"You don't look thrilled," Glimmer remarked. "Hey, there's a bright side to whatever has you down. Now that you know where she is, it should be easier to avoid her, right? If you don't want anything to do with this empire and the higher being that governs it..."
Starlight swallowed. "When I was foalnapped in the hospital. Everyone in that place in Gyre was going to be taken to Garsheeva as a sacrifice. That's how the Night Mother wanted to use that to meet me."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Glimmer nodded. "That could explain a lot of what happened to you."
"Do you..." Starlight looked up. "Why is she interested in me? Do you know? What does she want me for? First to meet me, then to make me watch that memory..."
For a moment, Glimmer's eyes held an almost-infinite weariness, but it was gone in a flicker. "Do you really want to know? You're trying to escape all this and live the way you want to as a normal pony. If letting a cutie mark decide who you are is enough to send you running across the mountains, what about a goddess who's lived for two thousand years?"
"That depends if knowing would help me get away," Starlight mumbled. "I don't like it in the Empire. I just want us to find somewhere better."
Suddenly, Glimmer was beside her, a hoof around her shoulders. "There's that drive again. Well enough can't be well enough with you. You wouldn't be happy settling down here to rest, so you have to keep striving for bigger and better things, but the reason you wouldn't is because here, you'll just get pulled into something even bigger. Goddesses make big plans. I just want you to be peaceful and free."
"I know," Starlight grumbled. "You think I want anything to do with Nightmare Modules or Garsheeva? I'm tired..."
Glimmer held her, and Starlight accepted it, leaning her head on her twin's shoulder. Eventually, she added, "How special am I? Really."
"Are you really sure you want to know?" Glimmer frowned. "In this world, there are no barriers stopping anyone from becoming anything. Obstacles, certainly, but nothing is impossible for anyone with the drive to try. What makes you special and dangerous, more than anything else, is your unstoppable drive to keep trying. You'll beat your head against walls, and you'll find yourself places you never knew existed and would rather not be. The only thing stopping you from being a normal pony... the only thing that's ever stopped you... is your determination to keep going when someone normal would give up and live with their fate. It was like this when you lost your friend, and only you can change it."
"Who are you?" Starlight asked, looking Glimmer directly in the eyes. "Who are you, really. I want to know."
Glimmer shook her head. "Someone who knows everywhere your path could take you. You don't want to know more."
Starlight narrowed her eyes, but dropped the subject. "So what were they talking about in there, then? Why was that important?"
"Valey and Harshwater?" Glimmer shrugged. "Starlight, do you ever notice how similar most of your friends are?"
Starlight tilted her head.
"With the exception of Gerardo, everyone on this ship is a mare." Glimmer pointed, waving her hoof past the roof as if indicating everyone. "He's an outlier. And then you have two kinds of mares: cheerful ones like Amber and Slipstream, who are here for everyone else's sanity, and everyone else. It's not that you don't meet anyone different, it's that the kind of ponies who stay around all tend to have similar problems. They doubt something in their past, have poor self-esteem, can't escape from some major burden or darkness on their shoulders. Shinespark failed Sosa. Grenada attacked this ship. Nyala has no body, but she's like Amber and Slipstream too. Felicity is an assassin, Jamjars had no upbringing, Maple lost her dreams of adventure and then her foal... and listen to Harshwater."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think?" It was an honest question. "Valey and Shinespark are the crew's essential leaders. They have a lot in common. They see themselves in others, especially Valey." Glimmer glanced at her. "Do you think surrounding yourself with ponies who have the same problem as you is a way to all find an answer together, since everyone is looking? Or is it a way to waste what strength you should be spending on yourself trying to prop up others, who are hurting in areas you don't know how to fix?"
Starlight furrowed her brow. "Why are you asking me? What's that have to do with anything?"
Glimmer stared into her eyes, waiting for her to answer herself, but Starlight had nothing.
"Do you do the same?" Glimmer whispered. "Many here are also looking for a home, because they weren't happy with where they were. But none more so than you. Does looking together strengthen you, wrapping all your desires together and letting your hearts beat as one in pursuit of a single, shared dream?" Her eyes found Starlight's flank for a fraction of a second. "Or does it compound your weaknesses as well? Does it make it so your friends, like you, can never stop at good enough, and live with the same lives as the millions of other ponies in the world?"
"I..." Starlight suddenly realized her stomach hurt. "I think I need to lie down..."
"Yo." Valey's voice crackled on over the intercom. "Look, I'm sorry to do this but I need everyone down in the dining hall to get some opinions on stuff that stinks, but is important anyway. Especially you, Ironflanks. Be there in five."
Starlight's ears folded balefully, and she glared up at the intercom.
"No rest for the weary," Glimmer sighed, glancing at Starlight. "You don't look so good. You think they'd miss you if you sat this meeting out?"
Starlight's glare shifted to Glimmer. "We are going to find a place to live together. It won't have to be perfect. Just good enough that me and my friends can live in peace. You think I can do anything just by trying hard enough? I'm not going to mess with goddesses, I'm not going to run myself to death, I just want a home! We could even found a town in the middle of nowhere if we had to, where no one else could find it and mess it up except whoever we decide to have live there. We will stop at good enough." Her eyes turned downcast. "I don't think I can take much more."
Glimmer's shoulders slumped, and she smiled. "Right. I'm sorry. Can I make it up to you?"
Starlight shook her head, struggling back to her hooves. "I have to see what my friends need..."
"Don't." Glimmer put a hoof on her forehead, gently stopping her. "If you need a moment, take care of yourself."
"But..." Starlight struggled feebly, though she didn't have much energy to devote to it.
"I'll cover for you," Glimmer whispered, giving an encouraging smile. "Just this once, and I won't do anything you wouldn't. Take care of yourself?"
Starlight blinked, taken off guard by this sudden offer... and thankfully laid back and nodded.
"...So that's the deal," Valey finished, shoulders slumping, most of the Immortal Dream's crew arrayed before her. "Percival and his lover basically begged me. I don't think we can expect much in return, and there are a million ways all this can go wrong. More importantly, if we haven't been sticking our heads in the fire already, this is it. We pick a side for real in the Empire, and we're in it deep. And I don't think this is a side capable of returning the favor."
"There are no good alternatives, aren't there," Shinespark agreed, thinking slowly. "No way to stay out of this while still doing the right thing?"
"Do keep in mind right is subjective." Gerardo stroked his chin, eyes closed in thought. "Remember, the reason they're in trouble in the first place is for defying the highest power in the land. That said, it's also a plight I sympathize with, and we have won against magical immortals before."
Valey's eyes narrowed. "Birdo, you had better not be suggesting we break every rule in the Empire and challenge Garsheeva herself. That's suicide."
"I never attested to its tactical soundness," Gerardo mused. "But you do realize no matter how we go about this, we'd be aiding heretics in escaping righteous punishment from their goddess. If it's suicide, well, that's what this plan of yours amounts to."
"Nngh..." Valey gritted her teeth.
Shinespark cleared her throat. "This is not a binding vote, but everyone who would help if we could do it safely, raise a hoof."
Gerardo's talon instantly went up, and Amber's and Slipstream's weren't far behind. Surprisingly, Jamjars' went up too, Grenada's rising with the rest of the group, and Shinespark nodded around. "Nyala?"
"This is a yes," the winged circuit board said, lifting a set of metallic pinions as best as she could.
Starlight's hoof also rose after a short survey of the group. The only two ponies present who hesitated were Maple and Valey.
"You?" They glanced at each other, and Maple frowned. "Valey, this was your idea!"
"Yeah, but I'm..." Valey fidgeted, torn between endorsing the goal and not. "Bananas, it's complicated. On the one hoof, I feel like I should. On the other... I've met Crystal a few times, and she's really mean. Maybe she'd be better if she's actually accepting our help, but I dunno... and I'm kinda reluctant for your sake, too."
"Oh." Maple looked down. "Probably not a surprise what my issue is."
Amber watched her in concern, slowly lowering her own hoof to half-raised. "Because we'd be taking on someone who's about to have a kid?"
Maple's face creased in a shadow of grief. "Yes. I'm not comfortable with it. I know I have issues with this, that I..." She swallowed. "But I should have dealt with them by now. It probably wouldn't be good for me to have someone like that around, but at the same time, if me not dealing with my problems causes us to fail to help someone who needs it and we could otherwise..."
Valey slowly nodded. "Yep. That's why I'm kinda voting no, even if everything else about this was perfectly safe. So if we do bail, it's not your decision."
The rest of the room held still as the two mares watched each other. "That's not how it works." Maple shook her head. "If you're doing it for my sake, even if it's not me making the decision, you'd be letting her down because of me. And besides, I feel for her. Knowing what it feels like to forcibly lose a child who is the only grounding in your life..." She winced. "And this Crystal has had months to see it coming. It must have ruined her. We need to help her. I need to."
Slowly, her hoof rose higher.
"Yeah, but are you sure you're going to be okay?" Valey gave her a concerned look. "Like, I've watched you have freakouts about this in the past. You basically freeze up and get pale, and if you get that bad merely thinking about this thing..."
"I'm already not okay," Maple sighed. "But I'll be a lot less okay if that stops me from doing something I need to."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "While that's all well and good, even if we want to, are we willing to weigh the risks? I'm afraid Valey is correct when she says we'd be picking a side in the Empire's political fray that won't be able to help us back. We'd gain enemies, have more pieces on the board, and see little in the way of compensation."
Jamjars blew a raspberry. "Having ponies indebted to you is always useful."
"Not if they have nothing to give." Gerardo shook his head. "This would be a charity case, as I understand it."
"Real question," Amber cut in. "How possible would it be to give Crystal a ride to Stormhoof, let her hang out with our batpony friends there, and pretend we had no idea about her and Percival if anyone comes to call?"
"Felicity and her sisters?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You think they'd even agree to that? Felicity left as soon as we arrived, so we can't exactly ask her."
Amber shook her head. "No, the other ones. What was her name, Grapejuice? The ex-pirate who has friends in the underground? They might not have qualms about breaking Garsheeva's rules for us."
"Wait, those guys?" Valey blinked. "I mean, Golbez and Belinda hated batponies, I thought, but Grapejuice... Yeah, maybe she would help..."
"One thing to ascertain." Gerardo raised a talon. "This business Crystal has with disabling Stanza. Does she need our help with that, and do we want to if she does?"
"Yeah, good question..." Valey's brow furrowed. "I mean, her doing it on her own is the impression I got, and that's better for us because there's less chance of us getting in trouble if she's caught. She didn't say anything about needing help, at least."
Gerardo gave her a sad smirk. "Well, I hate to bring this up, but there is one thing here none of us seem to have considered: what if we're all being played?"
"Buh?" Valey twisted her head.
"Observe." Gerardo began to pace, demonstrating in the air with a talon. "We know this Crystal and Chauncey are at odds with one another, if everything you've said is true, yet I haven't heard mention of why. The backbone of this plan is to place her beyond his reach, while protecting anyone she cares about from retribution and getting other factions involved to take care of him themselves. Done in such a way that her hoofprints aren't all over his body, so to speak. Now, our friend Crystal may be in real danger, and Chauncey is likely a cad, but are we certain we aren't enabling one nefarious character against another?"
Valey bit her lip. "Not really sure I see what you're getting at, Birdo. Like, that she'd steal Stanza and use it for something herself when she says she's trying to break it? Dunno if you remember, but the thing's a huge statue attached to a pipe organ. There's no way anyone's smuggling that out of the tunnels by themselves, let alone onto our ship."
"Do you know enough about the statue's workings to say whether she'd need to?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow.
Maple folded her ears. "This is starting to remind me of that breakfast in Ironridge... Do you really think guessing this much at what everyone else is doing will help? It just means more places for us to be wrong and walk into a disaster..."
Shinespark sighed, stepping forward. "It's still better than running in without considering things. The truth is, this is complicated. Gerardo, what are you suggesting we do?"
"Learn more about her history with Chauncey, for one." Gerardo nodded. "As well as the workings of that statue. The more we know, the more room there is for holes to appear. And I'd advise tailing her if she's going down there to perform any acts upon it. Furthermore, while we're still on good terms with her grandfather, I'd strongly advise trying to get his side of things as well. He may have some unsettling goals and methods of getting there, but I think he presently counts us as allies."
"You know what? That's solid." Valey nodded firmly. "Ironflanks, you're coming with me to meet Crystal and Percival... Starlight too. We need a unicorn, since we're going to be staying in touch with the sound stones if need be."
Starlight blinked. "Me? Umm..." She glanced up at Maple, then back at the stairs. "Do you need me to come? I feel like a nap..." She yawned for emphasis.
"I could go," Grenada offered, raising a hoof.
Maple folded her ears and smiled. "I'll be fine. I need to be able to do this..." She took a deep breath, then let it out suddenly. "I'll be fine. You go nap."
Valey nodded, waving the two mares over. "Sweet. Birdo, Sparky, you wanna go see what you can get out of Chauncey? Be discrete about it, but you two are pretty good with words."
Amber saluted as Gerardo and Shinespark walked over to each other. "Sweet. Anything the rest of us need to do?"
"Uhh, cabins, cabins..." Valey counted quickly on the spokes of her wings. "You and Slipstream wanna go clean up Felicity's old room? I lost track, but we might need it for Crystal if she stays."
"So that's it, then?" Slipstream glanced at her with concern. "We're doing this?"
"Nope." Valey raised a wing. "We're finding out more. Bananas, knowing us I'm pretty sure we're gonna talk each other into it, but I am not jumping into this without a better plan and a better idea of what's going on."
Sunlight broke around Valey and her friends as they exited the commerce building, the sunny central plaza of Izvaldi's capitol welcoming them as warmly as always. The Immortal Dream floated in the sky above, and for the few families enjoying the breeze and the grassy warmth, the day was clearly perfect. None of their surroundings reflected the unease Valey felt, manifesting deep in her heart as she led her friends closer to the possibility of fully entering the Empire's political fray.
The conversation with Harshwater sat near the front of her mind too, pressing for precedence. But right now, her judgement couldn't afford the-
She blinked. Directly across, the hospital doors slid open, and Chauncey strolled out, his hood swapped for a miter and looking like he intended nothing more nefarious than to enjoy the weather.
"Well, there you go," Valey murmured, nudging Shinespark and Gerardo. "Remember, no binding decisions. We're gonna go make sure Ironflanks is okay with Crystal in person, so you guys see if there's any other side to this story you can pry out. I wanna hear from Chauncey why he and Crystal don't get along."
"Subtlety is the name of our game," Gerardo assured, pinching the bridge of his beak and nodding to Shinespark. "Shall we?"
As the unicorn and griffon wandered off, Maple and Grenada flanked Valey's sides, starting a slow stroll to Percival's manor. Their steps weren't hurried; Valey was hardly eager to rush things. And in the unlikely event Shinespark and Gerardo needed backup...
"Nervous?" Maple whispered. "You keep looking back at them."
"Yeah. Maybe. Nah." Valey tore her eyes away from where the three were already talking. "Look, I just don't want you to feel dragged into this, is all. I'm nervous."
"I wanted to help," Maple reminded her softly. "And we still don't know if we're doing anything yet."
"Do you not?" Grenada gave them both a look. "If Shinespark has any of her old self left in her, she would back down from being a pony's last resort for nothing."
Valey's eyes uneasily slipped back to the manor, and she scratched at her cutie mark with a wingtip. "Yeah, but there's always a first time to do something smart..."
Maple's eyes caught the movement. "Danger?"
"Eh..." Valey turned around and scrutinized herself. The old boxing glove was back on her flanks; she had worn her mark in its artifice form the Night Mother had revealed for about a day before figuring out how to switch it back and forth. "I mean, yeah, but it doesn't take magic to see we're about to jump off the edge of a cliff, here. Bananas, maybe I've got cold hooves, but another Ironridge? Can we really take getting that caught up again?"
Maple reached a hoof for her shoulders. "Valey, if you need-"
Suddenly, there was a muffled crump far beneath the ground. In less time than it took for Valey to process the noise, the entire hill heaved, tossing Maple into her with a cry. That cry was overwritten with a massive crackle of electric static, and Valey's world went white.
"Yaaah!" With a squeal from Maple, they both hit the ground, Valey rubbing furiously at her eyes. Burned into her vision was a pattern matching every window on every building, as if the entire town's lighting system had just turned into a massive camera flash bulb, and from the smell of acrid smoke, she began to guess it had.
"Was that an earthquake!?" Grenada scrambled upright beside them as Valey's vision cleared enough to see several broken windows. "What happened?"
Valey growled, a sudden, distant pain appearing and growing in her flanks. "Dunno, but it was bad news. Cancel everything and get back to the ship, right now. Whatever happened, I don't like this one bit!"
All around the plaza, the ponies who had been relaxing were anywhere from stunned to panicking. She saw Gerardo, Shinespark and Chauncey, their conversation cut short, all three staring at the fountain in the plaza's center... the fountain that was now glowing.
Water had ceased flowing from its orifices, replaced by thin arcs of energy jumping intermittently across its slick stone surface. After a frozen second of watching, Valey was vaguely certain they were getting stronger.
"Bananas, didn't you listen to me?" Valey shoved Maple toward the commerce building. "Airship. Now! Hey, Sparky!" She spread her wings, launching over to where her other friends stood. "Bad news, don't like this. What's going on?"
Chauncey gave her a shadowed glance, not turning his head from the fountain. "Misfortune. You are wise to flee. I think it would behoove us to evacuate this hill with all due haste." He started stumping towards the administration building, no hurry in his old legs.
"Birdo, you do that, you're faster," Valey snapped, and Gerardo instantly bolted. "Sparky, very kindly get those two back to the ship!" She flung a hoof at Maple and Grenada, then rounded on Chauncey. "Alright, buddy. So what exactly is going on, here? Something exploded, there was an earthquake, please don't tell me your big fancy underground is a bomb or something equally stupid."
Chauncey regarded her with impassionate eyes. "That tremor was likely the single-use transition transformer bank blowing out under load as my mana generator array was connected to the power grid. I recall explaining its function to you."
Valey's ears went back. "Wait, what?"
"It is heretical to construct mana wells in the Empire. All power must be sourced from what Garsheeva provides," Chauncey rasped, watching as the plasmatic crackle around the fountain statue grew. "Ostensibly, a law to keep the Empire's currency flow intact, as power sales are the main income of the crown. But also an easy way to draw Garsheeva's attention, should any fools alter the pressure of power in the Empire's centralized grid. I built this as a beacon to draw the highest eyes in the Empire when my champion was ready to challenge them, but it seems someone with the proper activation codes has seen to it early. What a pity."
"Oh bananas." Valey swallowed, wondering if the most desperate mare she could think of could also have the said codes. "And who might that be?"
Chauncey ignored the question, shifting beneath his robes. "Irrelevant. In a matter of minutes, I expect Meltdown at the least to teleport in through the guild, likely with an inquisition army in tow. If the hour of my last stand has been decided for me, I will stand." He glanced back at Valey. "Artifice, this is not your battle."
Valey scratched her neck. "Yeah, uh, thanks for not trying to drag me into this, but why would you build a giant beacon to declare war on the Empire? And why is it going off!?"
Chauncey shrugged. "I had a chance of changing this continent forever, once, for the betterment of you and me and all sarosiankind. It seems fate was not on my side, but I will go defiantly. I had hoped to make my last stand in a month's time, but now is as good as any. You should leave."
"Bananas." Valey glared at him. "Who else has this activation code? Is it Crystal? That granddaughter who has a massive beef with you and is somehow related to Stanza?"
Chauncey raised an eyebrow. "So you've been talking to her, have you? I hope you found her a more pleasant conversationalist than usual."
Around them, the ground shook again, and Valey noticed the hexagonal path linking the six capitol buildings was beginning to flicker with energy too. "Are you just going to sit around here talking like you're having tea with me!?" Her fur bristled all along her spine, and she shot the hospital doors an anxious glance, ponies already streaming or being carried out of the darkened buildings. "She told me she's somehow linked to Stanza! Tell me what Crystal wants and if she could set off this generator thing to screw you over!"
Chauncey just looked to the sky. "Get along with yourself and do as you please. I have an encounter to prepare for."
"Oh, for the love of curvy...!" Valey stomped, then bolted for the hospital. It couldn't be a coincidence that this happened right after Crystal talked to her about breaking Stanza to foil Chauncey's plans. Was Gerardo right? Had they somehow gotten played? Was Crystal an idiot who had jumped the gun? Either way, she needed to be sure, and ignored the mounting pain in her cutie mark to fling herself headlong into the building.
The hospital's corridors were lit only by windows, some broken and some whole. Apparently, there hadn't been a lot of ponies to evacuate, which made sense given that they had a machine which could fix any physical injury. She reached the elevator and realized she had forgotten the upgraded password Chauncey gave them to return to the basement floor, but it didn't matter because the power was blown and the lights were out and the door had a crack at the floor.
With a slither of shadows, Valey was through, dropping into an elevator shaft beneath the carriage and breaking into freefall. Twisting, she passed a sparking power conductor on her way down, tapping the sound stone against it as she fell. "Yo, it's me!"
The response was instant. "Valey?" Shinespark's voice crackled. "Where did you run? I have everyone back at the ship, and you went into the hospital?"
"Yeah, I got some stuff to take care of. Get away from the city, Chauncey probably summoned a hostile army with this stunt," Valey called back. "I'll catch up!"
"Okay..."
Valey tucked the sound stone back under her hat, pulling out of freefall just in time to reach the bottom of the shaft. All around her were generator pylons, massive slabs of crystal propagating the huge underground chamber, and in the center she could see the huge power couple that had clearly somehow been activated. Its surface was completely covered in plasmatic crackles, and her cutie mark told her she could barely even approach the thrown breaker switch without getting fried... not that it would matter now, of course. Whoever Chauncey's machine had summoned would already be on their way.
Retracting moorings rippled in the air, and the combined telekinesis of Grenada and Shinespark easily lifted the gangplank back to its regular position as the Immortal Dream rose away from the commerce tower. Of all the buildings, that one was clearly the most heavily-populated, and alarms sounded through the air despite the blown-out power. Maple watched the receding plaza with wide eyes as Gerardo steered them further.
"Do you think this is because of what Valey was talking about?" Maple murmured, Jamjars lurking beside her.
"With Crystal and Percival?" Shinespark's eyes narrowed, the sound stone still floating nearby. "I hope not. I also don't know exactly what it is. Probably an Izvalden problem and best for us to leave, but they certainly don't look happy about it..."
Below, as ponies and griffons streamed to the lower concert field and the greater township to the north, the fountain glowed brightly as a point, the paths between the buildings forming a crackling hexagon around it. As everyone continued to watch, the grass on the hillsides began to smolder too, and suddenly a third blaze of electric blue grew into being, an equilateral triangle to complete the sigil.
"The Emblem of the Nine Virtues...?" Shinespark breathed.
Grenada frowned. "If I did not know better, I would say it looks designed to catch attention from the air."
Shinespark's ears suddenly pressed back. "Trust Valey to take care of herself. I have a feeling we need to clear this airspace, right now."
Another shadow sneak let Valey through the doors from the generator room to Stanza's white-coated testing room. Broken, sparking lights illuminated the entire facility, a thick blanket of smoke coating the ceiling from another door on the opposite side. Here, the quake looked like it had hit hardest, floor and ceiling tiles broken or dangling and errant wires hanging where they had been dislodged. Stanza wasn't present. But in the middle, back to her, was Crystal.
"Valey," Crystal said, turning to look over her shoulder.
"Bananas, I knew you'd be down here!" Valey stomped toward her. "Did you just turn on that generator? Do you have any idea what it's going to do!?"
Crystal turned to her, emerald eyes stressed to the breaking point. The lighting was uneven, and part of her form was hard to make out, but it was plain to see that she had shed her maid dress and was here on her own, unadorned. "Of course I do," she answered over the sound of the generators and distant groans from the structurally-destabilized building. "You were looking for a way out of helping me. You finally saw you had gone too far, and were making excuses, so I had to try myself. This will create a distraction so nobody sees when I undo Stanza, and Gazelle and Meltdown will come to see to Chauncey like you suggested. There is collateral damage, but if I don't do this, I will die with my foal."
Her voice was deathly cool and composed, devoid of emotion, and as Valey walked closer she could smell the fear before even seeing it in Crystal's eyes. The mare's wings were spread, she realized, wrapped around her swollen belly like a leathery shield, and Crystal watched her with the poise of an animal who had nothing it wouldn't risk.
"Well, congratulations on making our decision easier," Valey deadpanned. "Look, if you can get out of here alive, I guess you can come with us until we figure something out, because this really isn't the place to be having a sentimental chat. Can you move?"
Crystal gave her a dirty look. "I still need to find Stanza." She turned to the tunnel in the wall where Stanza's rail tracks disappeared, lifted her nose, sniffed, and took off running.
Valey blinked, actually having to try to keep up. Crystal's legs didn't just look good, she was fast! And while this heavily pregnant, too? Clearly the exercise equipment in her room wasn't just for show. Briefly, Valey tried to imagine how strong the mare would likely be if she wasn't so encumbered, then mentally slapped herself for it. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong thoughts period!
Crystal raced around a split in the tunnel, and then another. "How do you know where we're going?" Valey called behind her, only able to follow thanks to her good night vision.
"Stanza can find me, I can find Stanza," Crystal replied, somehow even able to talk while running. "I always know where it is, even provinces away."
The tunnels didn't last much longer. Crystal skidded to a stop, and Valey collided with her rear, having followed too closely. That earned a scowl, but they were there: the back of the tunnel was dimly outlined around Stanza's silhouette, as though the statue was glowing with faint green light that didn't illuminate its own surface. A whisper of anguished organ notes reached Valey's ears, bearing a mortal longing for love and light and joy and happiness, flooding her with thoughts of an infinite void that needed to be filled. For a moment, her mind teetered, memories of hallucinations in the Gyre tunnels returning, and her cutie mark spiked along with them. The danger in her flank was reaching a concerning pitch.
"Hey, uh, Crystal?" Valey pulled out the sound stone, its stored glow casting a tiny amount of illumination on the scene. "You know what you're doing, right?"
The stone illuminated Crystal, balanced on her hind hooves, reaching up and standing from Stanza's rail cart. Her forehooves were on the statue's chest, a look of grim determination on her face as she wrested and wrenched and yanked at the jagged black crown embedded in Stanza's choker where the dusk statue's lunar gem lay shattered. "Nnngh...!" She heaved, throwing her entire weight back and forth, trying to tear the thing from its bracing.
Valey watched with wide eyes as Crystal fought the statue for possession of the crown, Stanza's empty eye sockets meeting Crystal's frantic ones. Even encumbered with her foal, Valey was fairly certain the older mare was stronger than she was, and was suddenly glad they hadn't come to blows while arguing in her room before. A punch from Crystal looked like it would have hurt.
Sweating, shifting her hoofing, Crystal strained, rocking herself from side to side and twisting at the midnight crown. And as Valey watched, she realized this was the first time in proper lighting she had seen Crystal without her dress before. No matter what would have usually stood out to her, in this framing, there was only one thing she could see: on Crystal's flanks, her cutie mark was an exact image of the crown she was trying to break free.
"Away from the city!" Shinespark urged, waving at Gerardo to move the ship faster. Izvaldi was a ring in the distance, close enough that the Emblem of the Nine Virtues was still visible shining up into the midday air, but this was as far as they were going to get.
With a building pressure wave, a dark spot on the horizon expanded, barreling in from the south a healthy distance out of their way. The effigy came into relief as a sphinx the size of a barn, mist trailing from Garsheeva's wings as she streaked towards the city without flapping, pulling up and alighting herself on a hilltop to the south across the river, then craning her neck like a vulture and grinning down at the plaza over Percival's manor with bared teeth. "You have my attention," she rumbled, tail flicking in excitement.
A gust of wind swept past the Immortal Dream's deck, built up and released by Garsheeva's flight. Everyone on deck glanced at each other, and Shinespark frowned. "Gerardo, take us higher. Anyone who couldn't hang on if we suddenly accelerate, get back inside."
Everyone ignored her except Gerardo. "Are you sure this is a safe distance?" Maple murmured above the atmospheric wind. "I can still see individual ponies in the plaza! And the field below!"
"Hmm..." Shinespark floated over a spyglass, pressing it to her eye. "Chauncey. I think everyone but him was smart enough to get out... though I can't speak for the underground. But we're not going far enough that Valey can't see us."
"Why not?" Starlight frowned. "She can follow my scent back here, can't she? Whatever she's doing, you couldn't help by going after her."
Chauncey must have been saying something while they were talking, because Garsheeva's grin widened. "It's just me today. My subordinates haven't been as happy as they should be to evict you and your problems, and it's satisfying to have an excuse to do this in person." Then she raised a massive paw, individual claws the sizes of bathtubs, and slammed it down on Chauncey in a stroke faster than Maple could blink.
Crack!
Before Valey could stare too long at Crystal's cutie mark, the statue gave. Crystal tumbled backwards with a yelp, dropping the crown and sending it skittering away along the rail tracks.
"Woah!" Valey darted forward, catching her gently with a grunt. "Be careful! Really not the best time of your life to take a bad fall."
Crystal blinked, eyes starting to shake as they widened. "I-I almost... Thank you," she whispered, taking no steps to right herself.
Valey blinked, still holding her. "Uhh... You're thanking me? Are you alright, girl? No offense, but that's not like you."
Crystal didn't reply, gingerly sitting down and hugging herself.
"Whatever." Valey held the sound stone like a torch, approaching the fallen crown. There was no question that this was Stanza's core. Separated from the corrupted dusk statue, its feel was entirely different: the smell of the emotions surrounding it was gone, the music had stopped, there were no more notes in her head. But the feeling of a yawning, infinite, loveless void persisted as she stared at it, and the pain in her cutie mark built to such a pitch that her vision began to flicker, a hallucination superimposing itself in bursts over her present state where the air was filled with falling flakes of grayness. "...This thing's creepy."
"Don't touch it," Crystal warned, tenderly rubbing her child. "It's less in my head, but it's still there. It would probably paralyze or kill anyone but me."
"Duly noted." Valey rubbed her neck. "So what do we-"
The entire structure heaved again, sending Valey to her knees and forcing Crystal to brace herself. Stones fell from the ceiling as the tunnel roof spiderwebbed with cracks, and Valey had to get up halfway through the tremor and kick one away that was about to fall on Crystal's head. "Bananas, what's wrong with this place!?"
By the time the shaking subsided, a wall of fallen rubble blocked the way out, and from the burning in her cutie mark Valey guessed the rest of the tunnel was about to go.
Garsheeva recoiled from her slam, the entire hillside rippling from the shock of her blow. Maple and Shinespark pressed their heads together, passing back and forth a single spyglass, trying to make sense of the aftermath.
The Emblem still crackled brightly, raising its light to they sky in defiance of a goddess who had her own religion for the entire eastern continent, though the fountain was smashed and reduced to a pool of muddy rubble. Beside it was a crater, fitting a perfect barrier of gray hexagons. In the center was Chauncey, and Garsheeva's ears tilted as he said something they couldn't hear. Her teeth bared harder in a smile that was half anticipation, half vengeful doom, and her paw drew back to strike again.
Shadow swimming was a skill Valey had practiced extensively, yet swimming through rubble was one of the most disorienting things she could do. With one hoof, she probed her two-dimensional way forward, slipping in and out of chunks of broken stone and twisted iron reinforcement, the other holding Crystal and pulling her along. Physically fit or not, this was one area where Valey was definitely faster.
Odd angles pressed in on her body from all sides, threatening to eject her under a heavy concrete slab or into a sharpened spur, and she didn't have her cutie mark to fall back on. It felt like her butt was on fire, from proximity to the crown and the tunnel's collapse and who knew what else was happening. Her muzzle passed through a space to breathe, and she gulped down air, pulling herself along and following Starlight's scent towards the exit.
Finally, rubble clattered around her, and she kicked off a severed chunk of cement and pulled Crystal upright in her wake. The older batpony wore Stanza's crown like a hoof bracelet, and Valey glared at it. "I thought the point was to destroy Stanza, not steal it! Just because that thing's no longer attached to a dusk statue doesn't mean it's not dangerous!"
"You'd rather I leave it here for anyone to find?" Crystal countered. "I can't break this. We're going to throw it away where no one will ever find it, and if it does get moved, I'll know. Argue less, stay alive more!"
Valey had to admit, Crystal was much nicer after whatever had happened. Was it breaking Stanza? Something as simple and mundane as catching her when she fell? Or was she starting to have hope again that this would work out?
She tried to hide her own annoyance; this was the last way she wanted to depart from Izvaldi. Her ears folded at the fresh wave of destruction in Stanza's testing room. Clearly, whatever the generator had done wasn't the last abuse the world had in store for this place, but the sound stone had gone dim during the swim and she couldn't contact her friends up above.
"Alright, elevator. We'll fly up, I'll help you." Valey pushed Crystal along, trusting the mare was too ready to escape to complain... but right before they could clear the doors, there was another tremor, and the entire ceiling of the generator room caved in.
A crunch rent the sky as Garsheeva's second blow landed, compacting in the center of the plaza, all six buildings wobbling as their foundations were suddenly separated by a full story halfway through. The Emblem flickered as its generators were crushed, and all of the central lines burned fitfully for a moment before resuming intensity. Wide-eyed, Shinespark started to tremble, and Maple's shoulder was the closest one for her to lean on.
"I can't believe this," Amber murmured. "That's supposed to be their goddess, right? She's destroying their whole city..."
"Not their whole city," Gerardo remarked, strolling out of the bridge with Slipstream and Nyala left behind in control. "Merely their capitol, which was built entirely by a stallion who now challenges her to combat. They even evacuated first. That said, it does reek of wasted money and effort."
"But there was a hospital," Maple murmured. "You don't suppose...?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Garsheeva more than likely knows what she's doing. Unless you plan on intervening, I see no course of action we should take, and even if we did, whose side would you pick?"
"Theirs," Shinespark said, throat tight, pointing down at the evacuees in the lower concert field below. "Although with the structural damage those punches must be doing..."
Grenada's frown mirrored Shinespark's. "Anything we would do, it is already too late. But observe that Garsheeva has no interest in the population centers or citizens."
"Only with the ponies arrogant enough to challenge her," Amber sighed, folding her forehooves on the railing. "I wonder where Percival is?"
"More importantly, Valey," Shinespark said, gritting her teeth. "Starlight? There's no way you can...?"
"Tell where she is? No." Starlight shook her head. "But she's definitely fine. Trust me."
Valey was not definitely fine.
"Okay, uhh..." She glanced from exit to exit, but both of the paths out of Stanza's testing chamber she had explored so far led to collapsed areas. The only room left was billowing smoke; she was sure it held whatever equipment had exploded connecting Chauncey's generators to the power grid and bringing his beacon online. Dangling roofing panels hung around her, a few splintered crossbeams spiking through the ceiling of smoke, and she had nothing. "Bananas. I literally don't know which way to go."
Suddenly, a strong forelimb wrapped around her barrel from above. "Woah! Hey!"
"Don't struggle," Crystal commanded, pulling Valey against her with one leg as she flew, rising into the smoke. "And hold your breath."
Valey obeyed, mind running uselessly through how she could possibly be carried single-hoofedly through smoke by a flying, pregnant sarosian when suddenly Crystal did even more. Pulling back her free, braceleted hoof, she punched the ceiling... and with a clatter of twisting metal, an air vent grate fell out of the way beside them. Valey gaped, regretting it instantly as smoke stung the inside of her mouth, but Crystal didn't give her time to pause. The mare tromped onward, dragging her through the airless tunnel as fast as they could go, until a lifeless fan blocked the duct and Crystal stopped to tear it aside too. Pulling Valey along, she pressed on, stomping so hard on the duct floor that it threatened to give beneath her, until she found what she was looking for: a bit of floor resting on a support beam. Setting Valey down, Crystal braced her hind legs against the floor, and through the smoky haze Valey saw a flicker of energy surrounding the crown bracelet... and Crystal punched the ceiling, her empowered hoof tearing away part of the duct and the floor of the room above. Grabbing Valey by the tail, she yanked both of them into the breathable air along with a plume of smog, rolled onto her back, and lay shivering and coughing.
For a moment, Valey coughed as well, eyes streaming from the acrid spray. "Bananas, you..."
Beside her, Crystal curled up and uncurled, heaving for breath, and kicked the crown from her foreleg, the fur beneath it faintly singed a darker shade of black. Clutching her unborn child, she glanced at Valey with eyes that clearly said, your turn.
"...Yeah." Valey got up and nodded, smoke still rising from the hole in the floor. If she had been going to yell at Crystal for activating that generator, the time was long passed. They were in a room that looked like it had been used for experiments, but it was connected to a hallway that was still mostly intact... She grabbed a bucket from a wall and threw it over the crown, scooping the thing up and holding the handle in her teeth. "Coming?" She beckoned around it to Crystal with a wing.
Crystal just winced, rubbing the singed spot on her foreleg in pain.
"Gotcha." Valey ducked closer, doing her best to hoist the mare comfortably on her back. It was awkward, with Crystal unable to fit and leaving her hindquarters practically dragging, but after whatever that had been, she wasn't about to leave the other mare behind. Crystal's forehooves locked around her neck, and Valey took off, running as fast as her load would allow.
Garsheeva reared back, jaws opening wide... and a plume of smoke lanced out to attack Chauncey like a ray, red and black and moving in far too straight a line for any gaseous material. Inside, it boiled with energy, and through the spyglass seemed covered in giant, thorny spikes... The goddess wanted Chauncey gone. Again, the effects cleared to reveal Chauncey safe in his nightmare shield, and Garsheeva actually looked somewhat irked. "Fight back! Don't challenge me only to bore me, worm!"
Chauncey's reply was lost to the winds, but his behavior didn't change. "She can fight him, right?" Amber whispered. "That shield seems to stop at nothing..."
"It doesn't matter." Shinespark swallowed, watching the collateral of the fight. "He's already done what he wanted to, which is spite her on his way out. It's all about the..." She looked in a circle, scanning the skies, then trailed off, suddenly pale.
"Shinespark?" Maple felt the weight increase on her shoulders as her friend stiffened again. "What's wrong?"
"Oh no," Shinespark breathed, face ashen, staring with pinprick eyes at the western horizon. "Oh please no not again. No, this can't be..."
Everyone was now paying more attention to her than the battle, some scanning the horizon as well. "I don't see anything," Amber remarked. "Are you okay?"
Gerardo squinted at the sky. "There's something bright and silver, an extremely long ways off... Barely bigger than a grain of rice. See?"
Valey panted hard, slipping under a half-collapsed doorway with the bucket in her teeth and Crystal halfway on her back. Puddles' ruined experimentation dais sat in a room of tumbled shelves and equipment, and cracks raked the walls, but the tunnel leading up was still intact and open.
"Alright..." Valey sagged, gasping, and dropped the bucket. "We each fly ourselves up. Think we can make it?"
Crystal nodded, taking a final breath before getting to her hooves and spreading her wings. She took the bucket, deciding not to remove the crown, and lifted off, spiraling into a straight flight upward. Valey kept pace, meeting her ally's eyes as they rose. The older mare had the look of someone who knew they were going to die a day ago and it hadn't come to pass: unshackled, unfettered, and ready to go down trying.
"I think," Valey panted, "I see the top..."
They crested into Puddles' room, the Stanza-esque metal hoses that made up the walls much more resistant to earthquake tremors than the rest of the building. Crystal shoved the door, not needing Stanza's enhancement to free it from its frame, and they raced through the old nursery, long since cleared of all the possessions left there as a shrine by Wallace and Morena. The stairs in the next room had hairline cracks, but nothing stopped Valey and Crystal from flying past, a few errant warning alarms still blaring around corners and from adjacent rooms.
"The elevator is left," Crystal panted, forcing the next door... but left led to a collapsed ceiling, and Valey doubted the shaft would be intact on the other side. "Right, then!"
Through the psychiatric residential ward they raced, some rooms never occupied and others with the doors still ajar from where ponies and griffons had been hurried out minutes before. Crystal's eyes flew wildly about as they reached an intersection... and settled on another ceiling vent. "Air duct!" she hissed, flapping up and tearing it free.
"Again?" Valey raised an eyebrow, hovering behind her. "You sure this is a way out?"
"Of course I'm sure; I know these buildings' layouts," Crystal snapped, hauling her bulk into the duct. "Follow me."
Valey obliged, this duct significantly tighter than the last one. But Crystal was just as limber as she was strong, and didn't slow her down any more than an ordinary pony who had experience with vent-crawling. Several times they turned, and Crystal's tail snapped at Valey's nose to ensure she was following.
Another fan had to go, this one taking Crystal twice as long to wrench out of the way without the aid of Stanza's crown. But soon after it she pushed out another grate, slithering out of a wall and into a cozy office space that reminded Valey a lot of the teleportation guild. "Hold up, are we in...?"
"The administrative building's basement," Crystal finished, nodding, sitting down and checking her child. "We haven't had a tremor for a while."
"Yeah, we... we haven't..." Valey tried flicking sweat from her brow, but it was no good. Her cutie mark was still burning, danger encompassing her like a blanket of knives, not even fixed on the crown anymore. Briefly, her stomach lurched, threatening to be upset by the pain. "Urk... Guh, can we get out of here? We're not safe..."
Crystal pointed to a staircase, doubled over around her womb. "One floor up, there's a window to the-"
"I think I see it too," Maple murmured, staring into the sky. It was before noon; the sun was at their backs, glinting off whatever Shinespark saw to the west. "It's a silver... something. Is that an airship? It's either tiny or moving fast."
"An airship?" Amber squinted. "It looks like a shiny insect. You recognize that, Shinespark?"
Shinespark was frozen, ears down and tail between her legs, her eyes pinprick and her lips drawn in loose, straight, teeth-baring despair. "Valey, give me the detonator..."
"What are you talking about?" Jamjars asked, glancing quizzically at her.
The thing was getting closer, and Gerardo stared at her for a moment... then blinked in wide-eyed realization. "Well. That's a silver sliver I do recognize after all. Maple, remember the bridge?"
Maple frowned, squinting through the spyglass. The incoming object was long, thin, and seemed to have a burning tail... She gasped. "It couldn't be!"
Amber stomped a hoof. "Stop beating around the bush!"
"That right there is a recent Yakyakistani invention known as a rocket, my yellow friend," Gerardo murmured, putting a talon between her ears. "And I believe the first and only time any of us have seen one is the one responsible for delivering a payload of windigoes to Ironridge."
Maple let the spyglass go slack as the rocket drew closer, moving faster than she could conceive. For a full second, it was plainly visible, close enough to make out propulsion at the tail and a thin, pointed nose, and her brain took as much of the time to make connections as it could: Yakyakistani technology, Chauncey had stolen a scientist from Yakyakistan, Chauncey was stalling against Garsheeva, Crystal's foal would have been bait, the sigil was bait, the sigil was a target, the sigil was the emblem of Yakyakistan-
A lilac filly threw herself over the railing, and then the world went red.
Crystal was mid-sentence when Valey's time froze. She glanced around frantically; danger was here and now. But where was it? Her heart began to beat faster; it couldn't be Crystal, but she couldn't see what it was. Direction? Everywhere. She had to move, but there was nowhere to go...!
The time-stop wore off. Reality returned without giving Valey a target, and she spun towards Crystal as a vacuum-like silence engulfed the room... and then again in slow motion, letting her watch her own death, the air rippled and the room bent and everything caved in from the side. The roof was pushed backwards, the wall was gone in an expanding sheet of heat and force and light and flame. Her fur would burn first, her cutie mark told her, and then her flesh and... Teal.
Suddenly, Starlight was between her and Crystal and the explosion, hooves touching her, horn flaring with a corona of teal light. Her aura expanded as the shockwave reached them; Valey could feel her fur igniting... and then it was encased in cool gemstone, and the fireball roared on by.
Starlight's shield held as long as it could, but the explosion's aftershock ripped it into a million shards, tearing the filly's magic apart and freeing the mares with a scream. An immense, fiery wind split Valey's ears and bowled her over, and with her last shred of willpower, she grabbed Starlight's tail in her teeth, preventing the filly from blowing away, and flung herself over Crystal...
The roof was gone, but the falling debris wasn't. Her cutie mark was too taxed to try anymore, but Crystal was prone, belly to the sky, too shocked to move. Valey braced herself over her, throwing Starlight into her hooves and planting her legs as cinders and pellets and tiny hot chunks rained across her back. Something sharp struck her spine, then something hard, and she knew she was burned or bleeding or both but stood her ground. A brick struck Valey in the side, but she stayed upright, too focused even to muster a battle cry.
Finally, the onslaught ended, the heavier debris gone and only cinders falling. Valey arched her back in pain, unable and unwilling to move, too exhausted to question whether the mare who connected that generator in the first place deserved it. She did this for others. That was what she did. And with Starlight beneath her, horn sparking and eyes blank and unconscious, and Crystal below that, going into shock but whole and unscathed, if she could have moved, she would have felt like laughing.
From the deck of the Immortal Dream, every last pony stood speechless. Gerardo gaped. Amber cried. Shinespark was numb from horror.
"Not again," Shinespark whispered, the sound stone glowing in her aura but no one to pick it up. "No, not again. Not again, not again..."
The capitol hill was a crater. Layer upon layer of underground rooms lay exposed, covered by a thin and growing film of detritus and ash. There was no sign of Chauncey. What had once been a barn-sized sphinx was now a charred husk missing several major parts, and a lament was rising from the field below a red-tinged sky full of soot.
"T-That was a bomb," Grenada stammered, slack-jawed at the destruction. "That stallion lured Garsheeva into a bomb that large?"
"And not just any bomb," Gerardo murmured. "One delivered expressly from on high. Detonating your opponent's feet is one thing, but dropping destruction from above? Everyone had to have-"
VERY FUNNY, Garsheeva's growl roared in Maple's head, and she winced from the volume. It nearly made her drop the spyglass, but training it back on the crater, a lone figure hovered above the destruction... an unstained sphinx, only slightly bigger than normal, with Garsheeva's coloration and hanging in midair above the huge corpse. I HAVEN'T HAD THAT TRIED IN A WHILE. WAS THAT A DECLARATION OF WAR I JUST FELT?
From the change in tone of the crowd below, Maple wasn't the only one to hear it, but everyone else on the ship looked at her in puzzlement save Shinespark, who was too limp to care. "Maple? Are you alright?" Gerardo offered, stepping forward in concern.
"Starlight..." Maple slumped, stretching a hoof at last to where her filly had disappeared over the railing. "W-We... We need to look for... Someone with wings, Starlight and Valey, they..."
Shinespark just stared.
Valey breathed, standing, trying as hard as possible not to move her back. She was in bad condition. Without even seeing it, she knew this would spell the end of her tournament ambitions, and the machine in the hospital that could heal her would certainly have been destroyed...
"How?" Crystal breathed up at her, eyes too dry from the hot wind for tears.
"'Cuz I'm me. This is what I do," Valey gasped, breathing lightly. "Ow. You alright...?"
Crystal slowly crawled out from beneath her, brushing off a copious amount of ash and dust. "I-I..." Her belly shifted ever so slightly from a kick. "I'm alive. We're alive. How?"
Valey gritted her teeth. "Same way you got me out of that smoke room. And you really should thank her. Bananas, I've only seen her this bad once before..."
Starlight's horn was crackling faintly and radiating heat, and her eyes were open but unseeing. Quick, shallow breaths rocked her little body, and she was just as soot-caked as Valey knew she was becoming herself. Crystal's eyes widened when she focused on the filly.
"I'll fly us out of here," Crystal mumbled, her emerald eyes shining with newfound respect. "But first..."
She kicked aside a fallen, singed board to reveal the bucket, and from that plucked Stanza's twisted crown. They were on the remains of a blown-out hillside, and it was clear the river was already backing up to resume its course and continue its path to the sea. Crystal stared down at the rushing waters, rising darkly and dragging debris off into their building currents... and hurled the regalia with all her might, banishing it with a tiny sploosh. "Never again," she whispered, and the crown was gone.
Something clicked in Valey's back, and she lurched painfully. "Ow bananas..."
"Is that your ship on the horizon?" Crystal asked, trying to maneuver Valey safely onto her own back. "Hold tight. I'll get us there."
"And Starlight too..." Valey groggily reminded, her flanks hurting worst of all with the memory of her cutie mark's pain. In all the haze, she realized she couldn't even smell Starlight, even though she was right there. It felt like she was in the sky some distance away...
"The filly? I have her," Crystal assured, spreading her wings and lifting away from the wreckage, skimming close to the ground.
"It's just like Sosa," Shinespark whispered, Gerardo standing nearby with wings over Maple and Amber. "It's just like Sosa. Yakyakistan. We... Was it something we did? Was there something we could have done? It was because we came back here, wasn't it? Because of that offer Valey received..."
"We don't know," Maple stiffly replied, trying to keep her own heart from exploding. "Even if we set something off, even if it feels like this came out of nowhere, this was building for a long time, but we don't know what happened. It's not your fault. Now we just have to get everyone back and fly away from here, and let others worry about how it occurred..."
Shinespark continued to stare at the ruin. Then, slowly, the door to the cabin slid open and a lilac filly stumbled out, rubbing her eyes. "What's happening?" Starlight grumbled. "I'm trying to nap..."
"What the...?" Starlight sucked in a breath, reaching the Immortal Dream's deck to a horizon of devastation. After frustratedly holding her eyes closed through Garsheeva's vocal roars, knowing Glimmer hadn't returned yet, the challenge bellowed in her mind had been the last straw.
She didn't care if both of them got seen. She had to know what was happening. But she wasn't prepared for this.
All the world was tinged with red, from glowing embers falling from the sky to the distant horizon, colored by looking through tainted air. Fires burned fitfully in the crater where Izvaldi's capitol had stood, and it took several seconds for Starlight to even recognize the remains of the structure, though the river and distant body of the township gave it away. The edges of the hill rose like lips, and then they sank again, a sharp sphere carved out where and explosion had leveled and torn into everything. A screen of smoke rose drifted as if from the caldera of a volcano, some of the nearby trees were half-stripped from the blast, and all of her friends' manes were blown backwards by the following wind. Nobody looked okay.
"Maple, what happened?" Starlight asked, swallowing.
"Starlight...?" Maple blinked, stepping toward her, confused. She pointed at the railing. "You just jumped off! And teleported a second later..."
Starlight's ears fell further, realizing who Maple must have seen... but it didn't matter. Glimmer could do what she wanted. "Yes, I did. Pretend I don't know about that. What's happening?"
"It's gone," Shinespark whispered, turning to stare through Starlight, not fully registering her presence. "Again. Not again."
Gerardo stood solemnly. "I'd advise everyone who doesn't need to be here get down belowdecks. That ash will soon reach us, and probably better to avoid getting it everywhere. I should make sure the ladies on the bridge are fine."
"Need my help?" Amber offered, tugging on his sleeve. "Or... Maple, will you be fine without my help?"
Maple shuddered. "We just need Valey to get back. And... Starlight, I don't know what happened. But Valey will get back, and then I'll be fine." She forced an optimistic smile.
Gerardo patted Amber on the shoulder. "Shinespark's the real one who will need help, at the moment. Would you mind ushering her below?"
"I will do it," Grenada assured, nudging Shinespark uselessly toward the door. "Come on..."
At that moment, a rush sounded below the railing, and a clump of ponies appeared, flying straight up. Crystal crested the ship's side, barely making it over the barrier before landing in a panting heap, a lilac filly in her forelegs and Valey on her back. Valey's own back was seared and bloodied, less fur and more a swamp of detritus from the explosion. "We're..." Valey's eyes flickered, fighting to stay focused. "Ow..."
"Valey!" Maple jumped towards the pair, skidding and blinking when she saw their full conditions. Valey wasn't stable, Crystal was exhausted, there was a catatonic Starlight on the floor...
With a wordless sigh, Starlight approached her counterpart, staring into Glimmer's sightless, unconscious eyes. Angry energy periodically danced along her horn, and she could feel the filly's fever from steps away. "What did you do?"
Glimmer didn't register her presence.
"Starlight?" Maple's eyes were taken off the two batponies for a whole second. "What's...?"
"Take care of Valey," Starlight requested. "I know who she is. I'll take care of her."
Maple blinked again as Starlight pulled Glimmer from the pile, wincing at the heat from the filly's horn. "It's just like you when..." She swallowed. "Right. Valey. Valey, what happened!?"
"Caught in the explosion." Valey gritted her teeth, hooves scraping the ground as Crystal crouched beneath her but didn't get her off. "Starlight... Bananas, why are there two? Did that thing she does where she blows herself up saving everyone... Ow, please tell me we have medical supplies."
Beneath her, Crystal breathed heavily, low against the ground and refusing to speak.
"You..." Maple swallowed again. "You look..."
"Ash starting," Gerardo warned. "Nyala, Slipstream! Accelerate us away from this cloud, if you please? Slowly! We have injured passengers aboard!" He marched to Valey, inspecting her back. "Mmm... You really know how to take a beating. I'm no doctor, but I'll do the best I can if we can get you downstairs."
"Yeah, do that...!" Valey winced sharply as she was moved.
Grenada and Shinespark had already departed inside, and now Gerardo and Amber carried in Valey, tailed by Jamjars, who kept shooting curious looks at the two Starlights. That left Starlight, Glimmer, Maple and Crystal... and as the ship began to move, none of them knew who should speak first.
"Um. Hello," Maple said, badly shaken, eyes now drifting to Crystal's belly. "I heard about you," she added in a quiet voice.
"Quaint," Crystal coughed. "I don't do socializing. I need a bed and someone to check me for injuries."
Maple winced. "Okay. We have those. I'm not a doctor, but can I give you a hoof...?"
Crystal ignored her, staring at herself and sitting halfway upright. "You're still here," she panted down at her child.
Nearby, Starlight had gotten Glimmer onto her back, the other filly breathing fitfully. "Maple, help? I don't know what to do with her..."
Maple glanced at the Starlights, utterly dazed. "Get her to our room. Miss Crystal, can you walk? There's a room..."
Down below, Gerardo, Amber and Valey had stopped in the library, where Harshwater lay on her back doing basic exercises and trying to coax her limbs into usefulness. "Valey!?" She gaped, seeing the batpony's condition.
"Ow," Valey greeted, unable to wave. "What's up?"
Harshwater slumped and sighed. "It sounded like something big was happening. I was trying to see if I could build up enough strength to properly move in however many minutes it's been..."
Valey winced, and Gerardo nodded. "Things are over, if not under control. I don't suppose you have any medical training from your previous career? We're slightly limited on supplies, and things are, well..."
"Passable, but this looks really bad." Harshwater pulled herself upright using a chair, staring at Valey with surprise and concern. "Get her laying down immediately, back up, try not to move. Use sheets you won't mind getting wet, because we need to clean that and see how bad it is. We have fresh rooms? And are there any other injuries?"
Hoofsteps sounded on the stairs behind them, and then Maple was there, Crystal walking stubbornly beside her and Starlight carrying Glimmer on her back. "Injuries. You can help?" Maple asked, fixing Harshwater with a hopeful stare.
Harshwater sighed. "What is it?" She wobbled her way over to the newcomers, nearly tripping and carrying herself with a wall. Her eyes went to Glimmer first. "Horn trauma, something magical. Cold water rags for her forehead; don't try to chill her horn. You'll burn yourself and it could cause cracking. If there's a reason those two look identical, get that seen to too." She turned to Crystal. "Do you hurt anywhere, and permission to touch?"
Crystal's eyes drifted over her. "You know what you're doing? Granted."
"Right..." Harshwater sat down in the hallway, Gerardo and Amber carrying Valey away. Her hooves prodded Crystal, checking over her soot-stained form. "Number one, you need a bath. Trust me, it'll make you feel better. Some minor lacerations, and... what's this?" She frowned, stopping at the batpony's foreleg. "Were you branded with a circlet? The fur here is blackened and fused together... What caused this?"
"Magic," Crystal dourly informed. "Is my child okay?"
Harshwater pressed an ear to Crystal's belly, then stood up. "Alive enough to move. Listen, you're the best off out of anyone who needs help, so get someone to help bathe you and then rest easy. You look like you're showing signs of going into shock." She glanced at Maple. "And you do too. Do I want to know what you've gotten yourselves into?"
"The city is gone," Maple explained simply. "The whole capitol hill is a crater."
"Maybe Kero was in it." Harshwater sounded unimpressed. "Now go clean up and lie down. Valey has it bad, and I need to see to her."
The floppy pegasus dragged herself away, leading Crystal on down the hallway and leaving Maple, Starlight and Glimmer in the library. Carefully, seeing that their own room was in use, Starlight set her lookalike in a reading chair, frowning over her and wiping a bit of ash from her mane.
"Starlight?" Maple breathed, standing beside the two. "Who is this, and what's going on? Is she... you?"
"I don't know," Starlight answered, seeing herself reflected in Glimmer's unseeing eyes. "Whether she's me, I mean. She appears to me sometimes, and I never told anyone, but... now everyone else can see her too."
The sky drifted by as Maple and Starlight sat in their room in the Immortal Dream, watching over Glimmer's unconscious form. Starlight wasn't sure how to broach the subject of who this was, and Maple had too much on her mind to ask, sitting at the bedside with Starlight and holding her like a cushion.
A knock sounded at the door. "Harshwater..." a tired voice announced.
Maple's ears perked. "Come in!"
With a sliding of wood, the announced pegasus slipped inside, holding a wall for support and giving the room a thin look. "Alright," she droned, "how is everyone doing?"
"She hasn't woken up," Maple murmured. "I'm just startled. But you look ragged..."
"Gotta earn my keep somehow." Harshwater dragged herself over to the bed, glancing over Glimmer and touching her forehead with a pinion before feeling her pulse. "More stable than earlier. Good. Now what about you two?"
Starlight just watched her, but Maple's eyes didn't focus. "I was on this ship the whole time. We're not injured."
"Shock is a serious issue," Harshwater reprimanded, no volume behind her words. "I've done what I can for Valey. Crystal is getting cleaned up and Shinespark is beyond my skill level, so congratulations, you're up next."
"What does that involve? You're a therapist?" Maple's ears rose slightly. "I feel like I just need some time with others..."
Harshwater flicked at her messy bangs. "You don't serve in a self-sufficient army without learning how to get ponies through trauma, both mental and physical. I'm not a professional, but from the state of your crew and what you just witnessed, I'm the best you've got."
Starlight coughed, a faint odor of smoke tickling her throat. "Where's Amber?"
Maple nodded. "It's the middle of the day, but really what I need is to lie down with my friends and just process things. I'm trying not to have flashbacks of Ironridge, but... it feels so surreal. Like I'm not me and this isn't really happening."
"Understandable that you'd feel that way," Harshwater replied. "Amber and Slipstream are taking shifts looking after the sarosians. They're holding together well enough." She glanced away. "So do I count as someone to talk to? I'm here, for what it's worth."
Maple reached out a hoof, beckoning her over for a hug.
"Huh?" Harshwater raised an eyebrow.
"Closer?" Maple asked. "Sorry. I just respond well to... you know. And you look like you need it too."
Harshwater regarded her with a tilted head... then dragged herself over and let Maple hug her too. "If comforting others is how you help yourself, there are plenty who could use it more than I can," she informed her as she moved. "Just so you know. You all look like you've seen a lot less, but wartime destruction is business as usual for me, and hugs aren't going to get my strength back."
"Fine," Maple murmured. "Let this be for me, then."
Harshwater relented, joining Starlight as a therapy pillow. Eventually, she took a breath and asked, "You need to talk about it?"
Maple's breathing slowed as she thought. "Maybe. Not really," she eventually decided. "It's just that in Ironridge, everything went so explosively wrong on the bridge, and all because we were caught up in it. A lot of us got badly injured. We were in far worse shape than we are now, and were separated and unable to escape... I thought that couldn't happen again if we stayed on the sidelines better." Her eyes shadowed. "At least, Valey thought that, and I believed her. She's the team leader. Her and Shinespark."
"Congratulations on both of your leaders being down for the count for the foreseeable future," Harshwater droned, lacking the energy to put more emotion into her voice. "But did she really think that?"
"Why wouldn't she?" Maple cocked an ear. "In Ironridge, if we hadn't all agreed to take action and tried to figure out Herman's plan..."
Harshwater closed her eyes and sighed. "Maple, this is war you're dealing with. Collateral damage is always a part of it. Staying on the sidelines? You'd have to completely leave the area to not get injured, and if you haven't learned by now that what-ifs aren't worth considering, you're going to have a lot more trouble with this in the future. Getting in the center of things might make you a target, but bystanders get hurt in war. That's just how it is."
"I don't..." Maple looked at the ground. "I don't like that."
"Join the club." Harshwater limply shrugged. "You're not very schooled in how the world works, are you?"
Maple blinked. "Well, I am from Riverfall. But am I not? Ironridge was a harsh lesson..."
Harshwater just sighed.
Suddenly, there was a noise from the bed, and all three looked up to see Starlight's duplicate shifting and groaning. Glimmer tried to roll over, muttering something incoherent.
"Is she waking up?" Harshwater tried to struggle from Maple's grasp, and Maple helped her to her hooves. "Get another cold rag. It looks like she's coming to."
Starlight climbed up on the bed to watch as Glimmer shifted again, horn sparking slightly.
"Here." Maple pulled one out, having stored some ice in her cutie mark to refresh the towels. "Is this good?"
A teal aura lit as Starlight took the rag, gently applying it to her impostor's forehead. It was strange, using her magic like this. When her horn was dim, everything felt normal, but while it was lit, especially when moving near Glimmer, she felt the distant sensation of an enormous pressure or force, like she was attuned to the magical backfire that had built up in her horn. It didn't feel dangerous, but it was hardly pleasant, either.
At the touch of the fresh cold, Glimmer jerked, breathed sharply... and lifted a hoof to the towel. "Who's there?" she moaned, still feverish.
"Just three of us," Maple whispered, brushing the tips of her shoulder fur with a hoof. "I don't know who you are or why you look like Starlight, but you're safe. Can you see?"
"That's what happened to me," Starlight quietly said. Her memories of the last night in Ironridge weren't perfectly intact, and she knew she had recovered enough within hours to walk around, but from what Valey had told her later about her condition... "You tried to use your horn too much, didn't you? I saw the crater. Did you...?"
Glimmer groaned again. "I told you, I'd just do what you would have..." She swallowed, convulsed, and managed not to throw up. "Quiet..."
Starlight got it, and her friends seemed to too. After a minute of stillness, Glimmer croaked, "Do you want them here?"
"It's fine." Starlight shook her head, only remembering after that Glimmer couldn't see it. "Everyone has bigger things to worry about than why you're here. Just rest. If you're like me, it stops hurting and feels like it isn't there pretty quickly." She hoped she was remembering accurately.
Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "Is that my cue to ask who this is?"
Maple hesitated. "Starlight, if you know about her... should we wait until after you and her get a chance to talk to ask questions? Or does it not matter?"
Starlight glanced at her duplicate, thinking. Really, she had a lot more she needed to ask about, and soon: if Glimmer's horn was broken in the same way as hers, that meant they likely really were identical. So Glimmer couldn't be a poser, since no one in a disguise would copy such a major weakness... but she had just been asked if she wanted her friends here. Not whether Glimmer wanted them; whether she wanted them. "I think it's up to me."
Both adults watched her expectantly.
"...Stay for a while," Starlight decided. "Once she's feeling better, I want to talk, but for now she shouldn't have to be alone."
Hours passed since the time Glimmer first woke up, and still sitting in Maple's embrace, Starlight started to twitch. Harshwater was long gone, and Glimmer had been mumbling under her breath for nearly half an hour.
Eventually, Starlight craned her neck. "Should we wake her? She sounds uncomfortable..."
"I've been awake for a while," Glimmer replied before Maple could answer, instantly becoming coherent. "Trying to put myself back together. I'm not having much luck."
"Put yourself back together?" Maple's curiosity was roused, and she sat up with Starlight. "Are you feeling better?"
Glimmer gave an impatient sigh, keeping her eyes closed. "Getting there. Do you have water? That would help a lot."
"O-Of course." Maple pulled a flask from her cutie mark, placing it carefully in the filly's hooves. "Careful. It's full."
Glimmer drank deeply, gratefully corking it again with her hooves and setting it aside. "Thank you." She struggled to sit up, feeling over her face with a hoof, then dropping it uselessly. "Well, I can do almost nothing. Starlight, tell everyone whatever you like. I suppose I get to be at everyone's mercy for a while."
Maple tilted her head, torn between several questions... and glanced at Starlight. "You know her? We're already helping her, so I assume..."
"I know her, and we're helping her." Starlight nodded. "G... Err..." She winced. "Give me something to call you I can safely say in front of my friends."
"Make up your own name," Glimmer requested as Maple looked at both of them oddly. "I still have a headache, and bigger things to think about."
"Something safe?" Maple blinked. "What do you mean?"
Starlight briefly folded her ears, glancing between her duplicate and her mother. "Maple, I've known her for a while. It's hard to explain, and will just get more confusing if I try. Can you just..." She hesitated, realizing she had no idea what she needed to ask.
"I do have a lot of questions," Maple admitted. "But I guess it's still not the first thing on my mind... You saved Valey, didn't you?"
"Me?" Glimmer shrugged. "Yes, I did. And Starlight, before you ask why, I promised I'd just do what you would have done when I offered to buy you some time alone. I didn't think this would happen, but one teleport and a shield were what I had."
Maple frowned, but inched a hoof onto her shoulder. "I can't imagine actually being in that blast. Are you shaken? Is there anything I can do to help?" She looked around, then hesitantly crawled onto the bed. "I remember what it was like for me and Starlight having this happen in Ironridge..."
"Help? Not likely, I'm afraid." Glimmer shook her head. "My problems are metaphysical right now. You're welcome to keep me company, though. I would appreciate it."
Maple accepted the invitation, Starlight following into the bed behind her. "It feels strange, seeing two of you," Maple murmured, hugging one filly with each foreleg. "So where did you come from? And why do you look like Starlight?"
Glimmer shrugged. "Can't say. Don't expect me to leave any time soon, though."
"What's wrong with you?" Starlight suddenly asked. "You did the same thing as me, using my horn until I went blind. But you know more about it?"
Slowly, Glimmer nodded. "This is the simple version, but think of your horn as containing a very flexible, ring-shaped tube filled with liquid. When you use your magic, the liquid spins. Now imagine that part of the tube was pinched or missing. You try to use your magic and spin the liquid, but it backs up and creates a bulge that needs to slowly drain, and gives you a worse headache the bigger it is. Using your harmony extractors, which are actually very incorrectly named, you can siphon some of that off to relieve the pressure, but having too little in your system..."
Starlight swallowed. "Makes me disappear."
"Right." Glimmer's ears folded. "But that recovers with time too, unless you go too far. Going too far in either direction, too backed-up or too empty? Well, you've been to both ends before. Where I am right now, imagine that backup bulge has exploded and broken the whole system even more than it was in the first place."
Starlight thought about it, and quickly decided this was a very uncomfortable mental image. "So fixing you..."
"Isn't going to be easy," Glimmer answered. "You know what would happen if I touched a harmony extractor right now. So, I'm figuring out what still works and trying to plan how I'll get to a place where I can put myself back together."
Maple stared at her with no small amount of awe. "How do you know all that?"
Glimmer bit her lip and didn't answer.
"She just does." Starlight looked away. "She's helped me so far, so I don't really ask how..."
"Well, I'm glad you feel that way about me." Glimmer shook her head. "Because I'm probably going to be stuck with you for the foreseeable future. I can pull my weight, of course."
Maple hugged her a little harder. "I don't think there's a single pony on this ship who's only here because they're needed. But don't worry, you. Even if you couldn't do anything, I think having someone to take care of will be good for me right now. I still feel messed up inside by what happened to Izvaldi, but..." She stopped, taking a deep breath. "We're all together, flying away from it. It'll be fine."
Glimmer smirked wryly. "Thanks, but I'm offering to help. Even as a cripple, I can do a lot, and no offense, but your team needs it." Her unseeing eyes shadowed. "Well, not needs, needs. You're pretty hard to stop, when you want to be. But you could be so much happier on your way... Ask Starlight how common it is for me to get my hooves dirty if you need to."
Starlight squinted. "What are you even offering? You almost never do more than just talk to me."
"There are rules," Glimmer sighed. "Rules that are in my best interest not to break, but sometimes do anyway because I happen to have a heart. Now I'm paying the price, and am in a situation where I couldn't keep to them if I wanted to. So I might as well make the most of it and try to ease your path."
Maple smiled a little. "Our path, hmm? If Valey is too hurt to fight in the tournament, I wonder where we're going from here."
"Stormhoof, still," Starlight murmured, looking out the uncurtained window. "We're going south along the ocean."
"Stormhoof," Maple breathed. "Well, maybe it will be fun this time? No fights, no pressure? Everyone who's up to no good will be looking at the contenders, and I think we still have friends in the nobility. Chauncey is gone, Garsheeva will be focused on Izvaldi... I bet everyone will be focused on Izvaldi. Maybe it will actually be like a vacation."
"Awww bananas." Valey's eyes narrowed at the paper held before her muzzle. "That's it. Help me up. I am not dropping out of the tournament now."
"As the closest thing you have to a doctor, yes you are." Harshwater dismissed her with a wave of a wing, leaning against the doorframe to the cabin where Valey was resting. "Amber, don't let her up."
"Sorry, Valey." Amber barely even needed to try; Valey's entire neck and back were encased in a huge, stiff bandage that restricted her shoulders and prevented her from getting her hooves beneath her. She was propped with pillows beneath her barrel so she could lie down while standing, back to the sky, and had been this way ever since Harshwater finished dressing her after the blast. "But I think she has a point..."
Valey struggled like a floppy fish, wincing every time an unhealed injury moved. "No! There's no way I'm loafing around and letting this dude be the one to end my streak after everything Sparky and Nyala did to get me past him last time! I owe them! Just heal me faster, or something!"
Harshwater looked down her muzzle at the immobilized mare. "Two broken ribs say otherwise, missy, and your back has enough cuts and burns you'll be lucky if it isn't scarred for life. In fact, I think you're far beyond luck." She sighed at the bandages, not wanting to remember what was beneath them. "No fighting."
"But..." Valey stared feebly at the tournament schedule Slipstream held in front of her. Her first match of the third round was a rematch against Grandpapa.
"Sorry, Valey," Slipstream apologized. "We do still have our hold filled with Mistvale goods, so maybe we could sell them and buy one of those healing potions...?"
"The kind we gave you from our supply in Ironridge?" Harshwater shook her head. "I wouldn't count on being able to find one. Since the Empire confiscated most of Varsidel's trade convoy, they're probably not able to get more, and Varsidel would have kept all they had for the war anyway."
Valey groaned. "Oh yeah? Well... maybe they've got backups! And what do you know, you've barely been in the Empire recently!" Her eyes twitched at the taunting tournament schedule.
"Put that away. It's making my patient restless." Harshwater crossed her wings with a humph. "And I was keeping the merchants who got their ships stolen alive."
"Oh yeah." Valey winced. "Right..."
Harshwater pointed at her. "Don't think I'm happy about this, or anything. If any of you want to try buying a Varsidelian healing potion in Stormhoof, knock yourselves out. But it's probably going to be expensive and not available for just anyone to pick up. And keep in mind every other fighter in the tournament would love to get their hooves on one of these as a contingency."
"Good thing we've got friends in low places." Amber shrugged. "So I guess we keep looking? I do have to say, my legs are getting tired."
Gentle sounds of surf rocked the hull, the Immortal Dream bobbing softly in sheltered waters, finally out of the sky. The sounds of Stormhoof's harbor filtered distantly through the sealed window, and the sun was at the perfect angle in the evening to light up the room without getting in anyone's eyes.
"Same," Slipstream agreed, dropping the schedule. "Me, Amber and Gerardo spent all day scouting the place already. I hate to say it, but if you want us to hurry, we're going to need a second away team."
"Uhhh..." Valey glanced around. "Bananas, who else can go?"
Harshwater coughed. "You're indisposed and I'm in no shape for running around either. Grenada and Shinespark are physically fit, but Shinespark's not getting out of bed and Grenada isn't leaving her and I'm not about to talk them into changing their minds. Maple and Starlight might go, but they have someone to look after too. Crystal isn't leaving this ship for multiple reasons, so that leaves you with everyone who's already gone and Jamjars."
Valey winced again.
"You're not continuing in the tournament." Harshwater turned her back on her, preparing to slouch out of the infirmary. "Not like this. If that's hard to swallow, I guess you know what to work on next."
"Valey wants us to do that..." Maple's ears folded. "And healing potions are that hard to find here?"
Harshwater shrugged. "I haven't looked. Maybe you'll get lucky. Tournament or not, though, it would greatly improve her recovery. She's... not in good shape." She glanced resentfully at the ground. "I'm a field medic and an amateur. I get ponies stable so they can make it to someone who will treat them fully..."
Maple glanced at Starlight and Glimmer. "Girls?"
"Fresh air might do me good." Glimmer stretched, unseeing. "And I do want ways to keep track of things happening in the world. I'd come along."
Starlight wasn't leaving her mother's side; she knew that much. "If you go, I'm coming too."
"Well, it is early evening..." Maple sat up, staring out the window. "A walk does actually sound nice, as long as nobody harassed us. Though I don't know the first thing about shopping for rare potions. I don't even have very much money."
"Won't make a difference." Harshwater blew on her messy mane. "I just need to tell her someone's trying so she calms down. Even if you do get a potion, I'm not giving it to her until after she's missed her battle and dropped out."
Starlight blinked. "What? Why?"
"Didn't anyone tell you how Varsidelian healing potions work when we gave you the first ones?" Harshwater squinted at her with skepticism and almost concern. "They're not all the same. Most of them have similar effects of restoring your body to a healthier or more-complete state, but the purity of the elixirs runs everywhere from ambrosia to literal mud. Using these potions has side effects, and the less pure it is, the worse they are. Namely, you'll be weaker and more prone to re-injury in the spots that were healed, and if you're hurt again, it's likely to be worse. The ones we gave you were some of the best, with very mild weakening. But if you just pick up the first jar you find in a shady black market and then give it to her and let her keep fighting, she's going to get hurt more permanently than she already is."
Maple's ears pressed back. "Oh..."
Harshwater nodded. "With some potions, especially the mid-grade ones and better, the weakness wears off with time. If you got one that was decent and she stayed out of combat, she could make a full recovery in months or even weeks. Just give me a reason to feel less bad about telling her we're trying."
"...You know what?" Maple stood up, banishing the conversation with a nervous smile. "I need fresh air too. Let's go for a walk, girls."
Harshwater sighed in relief as the three got to their hooves, wandering off and muttering under her breath. Starlight glanced around, trying to decide if she should offer Glimmer her usual place on Maple's back since her duplicate was blind...
"Ahem."
"Eeep!" Starlight almost jumped, fur bristling as she realized who had spooked her. High up by the ceiling, watching from a ledge like a vulture, there was Jamjars.
"Hi," Jamjars insisted, appearance different from usual in a way Starlight couldn't quite place. "Can I come too?"
Maple blinked in surprise, then sucked her lip. "I'm not sure I want to be the only adult with three fillies..."
"Since when have you ever asked permission?" Starlight raised an eyebrow.
"Since I have a good idea and want you in on it." Jamjars smirked, hopping down with a thud. "I've been waiting for a chance to make this trick count. Oh ho ho, I've been waiting so long... You remember what I can do with my camouflage spell, don't you?" She winked at Glimmer. "And now that there are randomly two of you..."
Starlight realized what was different about Jamjars seconds before her horn went off: the filly was wearing contact lenses, coloring her eyes just like her own.
"Behold." Jamjars posed, showing off a suddenly-lilac coat and purple mane. "Now there are three of us! Oh, I can imagine the looks we'll get..."
Maple was already looking at the three identical Starlights with surprise, trepidation and no small amount of foreboding.
Glimmer sighed. "She camouflaged herself as us, didn't she."
"Oh, I did." Jamjars licked her shoulder, grooming an errant bit of fur. "Last important part: what's your name?" She flung a hoof at Starlight.
"Um... Starlight?" Starlight tilted her head. "I'm the one you know."
"I knew that! What's your name?" Jamjars' hoof violently flopped to Glimmer.
Glimmer blinked sightlessly. "Well, I keep asking everyone what they want to call me..."
"Fantastic." Jamjars spun on her hooves, marching back and forth before the door. "From this moment on, you are Starlight..." She pointed to Starlight, then back to Glimmer. "You're Lightstar, and I am Jamstars. Objections overruled."
Starlight blinked. "Hey, you can't just-"
Glimmer walked past, and her tail tapped Starlight's nose... or tried to, but she couldn't see and missed by a hooflength. "Lightstar it is. I told you to think up something. You snooze, you lose."
As Starlight narrowed her eyes and Glimmer practiced walking without bumping into things, Jamjars strolled for the door, pushing it open and passing a slightly-dazed Maple. "You okay, lady?" She paused, backing up, and frowned. "Wow. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were..." She stifled a churlish giggle. "Starstruck!"
Maple followed the three Starlights up the branching wharfs to the gates of Stormhoof, the evening sun lowering and allowing the docks to be cooled by a fresh ocean breeze. Jamjars eagerly took the lead, with the real Starlight in the middle and Glimmer perched blindly on Maple's back. "Thanks for the lift," she whispered halfway through. "Accidentally falling off a dock isn't an experience you can have too few times in your life."
"You're welcome," Maple murmured back. "I just... This is so unusual. It feels surreal after yesterday..."
Ahead, Jamjars was laughing, letting her mane bounce in the wind. "So," she narrated to Starlight as she walked, "Anyone who asks, we're identical triplets, but no one will ask because it's obvious. All we have to do is act like hooligans and everyone will feel so sorry for her they'll let us get away with anything, and boom. No trouble."
A passing stallion on the dock raised an eyebrow as he overheard, but firmly decided it was none of his business. "If you say so," Starlight muttered back, feeling like the weather was just a little bit too good and not foreboding. Garsheeva had just been blown up, along with the capitol of a small province. Even if she wasn't feeling up to shedding tears for Izvaldi, this had to put others in the Empire on edge. Others like...
Guards.
Starlight winced, folding her ears. She just had to think it... Before Jamjars could run ahead, she grabbed the filly's ear with her telekinesis. Ahead was the gate into Stormhoof, and on either side were two griffons, decked in dark green and purple uniforms that looked like they would be just as at home at a press conference as on a battlefield. The tailoring reminded her of Gerardo's suit, actually. The folds and seams were in all the same places... A pine tree insignia was inset into their chests and on their spear hilts, decidedly different from the whirlpool paw of Stormhoof.
None of the guards were stopping ponies, but their expressions even from a distance were stern, professional and wary, scanning the docks from their high entry and not slacking or making small talk. Maple soon drew up alongside Starlight and Jamjars with a sigh, looking unhappily back up at the guards. "I'm suddenly not so sure about this..."
"What?" Jamjars raised a Starlight-colored eyebrow. "Look, they're letting ponies through. Slipstream and the others were fine. What are you nervous about?"
"I just have a history with guards." Maple bit her lip. "This gate even looks sort of like that place in the Stone District..."
Starlight squinted, and almost agreed. The gate was set halfway up the island fortress's seawall, after all, connected to the docks by a wide string of staircases. Just like the Defense Force base entrance had been high up on the cliff wall... Before she could decide how much to make of it or whether to reassure Maple, though, one guard seemingly overheard them and took a step closer.
"Ma'am, we're here for your protection," she said, giving a slight bow. "I know these are difficult times, but don't be afraid."
Maple gaped at the griffon in confusion.
One of the guards' comrades tugged the one who had spoken on the shoulder. "Don't be overbearing. If they've just gotten off a ship, they might not have heard the news."
"No, we... I... Thank you." Maple hurriedly swallowed, bowing her head. "Come on, girls. Let's get in."
"What are so many of them even doing here?" Jamjars frowned at a passing platoon.
"The Everlaste guards?" Glimmer asked, apparently not needing to see to identify the colors on the troops that pervaded Stormhoof's streets. Most of them patrolled in neat, well-drilled squadrons or else stood guard at intersections, near storm drains and by the entrances to alleys, and none of them were ignored by the citizens, but their presence also didn't bother anyone enough to stop ponies from going about their usual business. None of the guards showed any interest in harassing, or doing anything aside from their professional duty.
"Them, whatever." Jamjars tossed her mane. "They're all over the place. Is someone paying them to walk around like that?"
Glimmer shrugged. "Stormhoof has been without a standing army for months now that its troops are all trapped in Ironridge. I've been hearing about a full-scale Everlaste garrison in this city being planned for a while now. I guess they decided it was time."
"I knew about that," Jamjars dismissed. "But what are so many doing clogging up the streets and being useless? Do they think they're getting invaded right now?"
Starlight shoved her. "Don't insult them while they can hear us! They're leaving us alone!"
Maple pointed her hoof at a familiar news stand, the same one they had stopped at on their very first day in the Empire months ago, where a crier was shouting and waving copies of a paper. "Going by what just happened in Izvaldi, maybe they do..."
Jamjars waddled smugly up to the news stand, Starlight and Maple following uncertainly. The crier stopped shouting for a moment, blinked at the three identical fillies... and sympathetically floated Maple a newspaper, asking nothing in return and returning to his cries.
"See?" Jamjars flipped her mane. "Works like a charm. Now what have they got to say about what happened? Ooh, is that the crater?" She poked at the front page.
"Hold on!" Maple yanked it away. "If we're going to sit down and read it, it's going to be somewhere with fewer guards. Maybe they're being friendly, but it's still making me nervous."
Unfortunately, finding a place with fewer guards proved to be a challenge. Everywhere visibility was good, griffons were stationed, and Starlight started to get the feeling ponies as a whole weren't as valued in Everlaste as their beaked relatives. Everywhere someone could easily hide, guards were also stationed, blocking narrow alleys and sitting at bridges and doorways. Starlight saw one pony slip past a guard by explaining they lived there, but by and large the Everlaste force seemed to mistrust the shadows, looking at anyone who drew close like they'd have to be crazy to actually want to slink around.
Eventually, though, they found a tiny park, just big enough to offer shade and a bench nobody was using. Only one guard was in sight, distant and with their back to them, so Maple finally took the chance to set Glimmer down, put up her legs and spread out the newspaper.
"Eyewitness Izvalden columnist Junior Waffle?" Jamjars stuck out her tongue at the page. "What kind of a name is that?" She started to scan. "Sensational, sensational, Garsheeva..."
"Oh my," Maple whispered, holding another section open as the fillies scanned the first. "Look at this. They have a picture of the rocket. The thing that struck the capitol."
Starlight was instantly looking over her shoulder. "Do they know what it is?"
"It says right here they don't," Maple whispered, lowering her voice as Jamjars and Glimmer also crowded around. "Look, there's speculation it was the Night Mother. I don't see any mention of Chauncey, either..."
Jamjars frowned. "I wonder how much they know that they're covering up."
"Rival provinces are always spying on each other, and allies share information," Glimmer murmured, unable to read the paper along with the others. "And that's not counting the dusk statues. Anyone higher up will know a lot about this."
"But how much?" Maple's eyes shadowed. "Do you think we need to tell them we've seen that rocket before?"
"No," Starlight instantly answered. "We don't need to get involved."
"Oh, we wouldn't be getting involved." Jamjars stood up. "We'd be getting all the credit for telling them something they didn't know?"
Glimmer cleared her throat. "Or, you could make the most of your evening before going home and laying low for a while. How smart is drawing attention to yourselves while three of the four strongest ponies on your team are injured?"
"Good point," Maple decided, pulling an executive decision. "We're supposed to be looking for a healing potion and getting fresh air, not seeing if we have useful information for... powerful ponies..." She trailed off.
Jamjars grinned. "If you want something valuable..."
"You're a friend of High Prince Gazelle's?" An Everlaste guard squinted at Maple, part of a proud formation blocking the entrance to Stormhoof keep. "First you said Stormhoof, now him? Changing your story's not going to get you in, lady. I understand wanting, but national security is too tight right now to be admitting tourists. It's hard for all of us, so don't take this personally."
"We're not getting through," Glimmer pointed out from Maple's back. "This isn't a good place to push our luck."
Maple wore a strained smile, but nodded. "Right. Thank you, sir." She turned to leave.
The guards gave them no trouble as they retreated, Jamjars and Starlight at Maple's sides. Once they were safely out of earshot, Maple sat down against a step-like wall and sighed. "Well, that was nerve-wracking."
"At least the guards here are nicer than the ones in Ironridge." Starlight shrugged. "So now what do we do?"
Jamjars blinked at her. "Try what I've been suggesting from the beginning?"
"We are not walking into another office of Meltdown's power company and trying to get her attention by telling them we have someone to arrest," Maple firmly replied, putting a hoof down. "That's a good way to make a scene, draw attention to ourselves and do nothing productive at all."
"We could go to the colosseum?" Starlight suggested. "Maybe we could find Wallace or someone else who can help."
Maple hummed. "Mmm. Good idea. I think we still have time to make it there and back before dark."
The colosseum itself was packed with sound, the tournament already in progress. Starlight and her friends took a moment to scrutinize a massive tournament board posted by a road leading up to it: while no one had bothered to explain the structure of round three to them, it was fairly obvious just from the diagram. Sixteen trees of four fights and sixteen ponies each, about half of them had their bottom level already resolved and cut off. She couldn't see Valey, but knew her friend's name would be somewhere on the remaining lower leaves. Over a hundred first-wave battles, but half were already done... Valey couldn't have more than a day. Her fight would almost certainly be tomorrow.
"Well, noise is good," Maple remarked, a din of cheers rising from the bowl ahead. "I guess we're more likely to find someone if there's something to be here for, aren't we?"
Their hooves started along the familiar path to the private box Gazelle had rented them for the previous round, more Everlaste guards stationed throughout the complex. Most of the guards in more populated areas gave them no trouble, but at the entrance to a corridor near the boxes, one griffon stopped them with a wing. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but there are private balconies past here. Are you on the list?"
Maple blinked. "We were for the second round. I'm Maple. In a party with Valey, Gerardo, Shinespark..."
"Hrmm..." The guard scratched his chin, scrolling down a lengthy sheet of paper. "A guest of Prince Gazelle?" He raised an eyebrow, but stepped aside. "You're more unassuming than I would have expected. Please enjoy your experience."
Maple paused, smiling awkwardly. "Actually, speaking of the prince, you wouldn't be able to tell us where he is, would you?"
The guard frowned. "It's not my job to keep track."
Starlight nudged her not to press, and Maple nodded thankfully. "Well, we appreciate it," she thanked, bowing and walking into the final hallway.
The private box was just as they had left it, with several chairs and room at the back to set down any packs or day supplies. Nobody else was there, and Starlight couldn't tell if this was fortunate or unfortunate. While they were now looking for Gazelle or anyone else they could barter medicine off of in exchange for information about Izvaldi, the box was like a shell, and Starlight felt much more at ease as the door closed behind them.
"Here we are," Jamjars declared. "So what do we do now?"
"I'm not really sure," Maple answered, setting down Glimmer and sliding into a chair. "We didn't run into anyone we were looking for on our way here, but I'm really not sure how to find people better than wandering around and hoping we cross paths. I wouldn't mind just sitting for a moment, but we will have to call it a night soon and go home..."
Starlight settled into a chair as well. The arena seating was full thanks to peak evening hours, and an evenly-matched fight between a griffon and a pegasus down below formed the perfect background noise for her thoughts. They wanted to talk to the higher-ups, but without attracting attention or making names for themselves...
"I still think my idea is best," Jamjars announced. "Remember, I'm the one here who actually got their attention last time."
"It's also the most dangerous," Maple sighed. "But if you want to do it by yourself, I can't stop you."
Starlight tuned them out, scanning the distant crowd. Wallace's bulk couldn't be hard to pick out, but she saw nothing, even searching the full circumference of boxes and stands. Maybe he had a private box she couldn't see into...?
A sigh from Maple cut her off, and she turned to see her mother with the newspaper out again from earlier. Starlight raised an eyebrow. "You think there's anything else in there?"
"It doesn't hurt to look," Maple murmured. "Wallace and his friends were a team from Izvaldi. If they went back after the disaster to help keep morale up, this might say. I just realized we should have checked earlier, before walking all this way."
Starlight glanced over to Glimmer as Maple settled in with the paper. "And how do you think we could get ahold of Gazelle or someone important?"
"Well, there are a lot of ways." Glimmer shrugged. "You could find a dusk statue and ask the Night Mother for help, though there are some problems with that. She can contact him, though. You could try to sneak somewhere important, though I couldn't come with you. Jamstars' idea is probably the soundest of the bunch."
Jamjars grinned wickedly.
Starlight just blinked. "You're actually calling her that?"
"She was the first to call me something." Glimmer rolled over in her chair. "And I'm agreeing with her, too. If you want to summon Gazelle, you know how to get Meltdown."
Maple glanced up from the newspaper. "Really? Are you sure walking up to her power company is a good idea? Because it's her job to arrest-"
"Yeah, yeah, you told me." Jamjars waved a lilac hoof. "Look, there are four votes, I have at least half. Easy decision. Are you coming?"
Maple groaned, getting back to her hooves. "We just got here..."
The sun hadn't set by the time Jamjars led Maple, Starlight and Glimmer to the power office she had found on their first visit, but it was low enough on the horizon that the entire island was shadowed by its own buildings. A sea wind was starting to chill Starlight's fur, and combined with the shadows of dusk made her wish she was the one getting the ride. Unfortunately, she didn't have long to think on it.
"Hours of operation: currently closed," Maple read from a posting in the window, her face falling. "Oh no..."
"Booo." Jamjars kicked at the ground. "We should have gone here earlier!"
"It would have had to been more than an hour ago," Maple murmured. "We didn't just miss it."
Jamjars scoffed. "We spent at least an hour walking between the arena. Whatever. Who has other-"
A distant blaring cut her off, making her cringe. Maple and Starlight turned to see a patrol of Everlaste griffons coming, walking along a main street tangent to them, the leader wielding a megaphone. "Sundown curfew!" the leader screeched, spreading their voice. "For your own safety, please refrain from staying outdoors after dusk! Sundown curfew! Sarosians move more safely under cover of dark! Sundown curfew, for your own safety..."
The patrol quickly passed by, but Maple's ears folded. "It looks like we're out of time. I guess we have to go home empty-hooved?"
"It sounds like you will," Glimmer sighed. "I don't advise being slow. The guards probably won't hurt you if you stay out too late, but you wouldn't enjoy the kind of attention it brings."
With a last glance at the power building, Jamjars huffed, and the four started back for the docks with nothing to show for the day but a newspaper and dead ends.
In the largest cabin on the Immortal Dream, long after sundown, Grenada sat patiently in a chair, reading through reams of technical documentation brought along from Sosa. Across from her, Shinespark lay curled in her bed, unresponsive.
A knock sounded at the door.
"We are unoccupied," Grenada announced, magically undoing the lock without looking up. "Come in."
The door slid open and Harshwater entered, leaning against the frame. She blinked at the bed from beneath messy, unkempt bangs in need of a trim, and got no response. "When was the last time she got up?"
Grenada shrugged. "About five hours ago for the bathroom. She has not moved much."
"Alright." Harshwater flicked a switch, and the main lights turned on. "This is a problem."
Shinespark groaned, lifting her head and rubbing her eyes. "I know..."
"You need to get up and do things with yourself," Harshwater dourly informed her, stepping forward. "I don't care that it's the middle of the night; you've slept all day. Laying here isn't going to make you feel better about yourself."
"I'm not expecting it to." Shinespark folded her ears. "But trying to make up for what I did to Izvaldi? It's a hole in the ground. You can't make that right. I couldn't for Sosa and I can't here, and all I'll accomplish by trying is reminding myself of what happened."
"Then maybe you need to be reminded," Harshwater countered, stopping and falling down in a chair next to Grenada. "What did you do to make Crystal turn on that machine, own an airship that had a crew member who happened to offer her passage?"
Shinespark held up a hoof and looked away. "Don't even start. You think I'll feel better if there's nothing I could have done? I just saw an entire city's heart blown away, and not for the first time. What I need is for there to be something I could have done so I can do something next time and finally stop this!"
"You realize that's a logical fallacy, don't you?" Harshwater lifted an eyebrow. "What happened in the past has no bearing on what you'll be able to do in the future. The only effect is whether seeing something like this paralyzes you too much to move. What if there still is something you can do, and you're missing out by staying holed up in your room like this?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth, not bothering to ask.
"You see this?" Harshwater pulled out a newspaper from beneath her furled wing. "Maple was kind enough to bring this back for me. It says Wallace, Percival and some others are all in Izvaldi, working to try to protect everyone's spirits and rebuild morale. That's what you made a name for yourself doing, isn't it? You think they'd be doing it if it wasn't helping?"
"I can't," Shinespark whispered. "You have no idea how hard it is being the emotional last resort of an entire city. And I'm just a kid. I couldn't bring myself to try that again."
Harshwater shrugged. "Maybe not, but I'm certainly enjoying being the lone therapist for an entire airship full of traumatized ponies. I don't understand why none of you have sought professional help when half your crew badly needs it. So here's an idea: you get out of bed and take three laps walking around this airship, and that'll help me feel like I'm earning my keep. It's that easy for getting up to be worthwhile."
Shinespark stared at her... and slowly rolled out of bed onto her hooves, Grenada watching with interest.
"That's a good start," Harshwater praised. "Now go somewhere. Will it help if I go with you? I've got a lot of muscles I'm trying to exercise back into existence."
"Come," Shinespark instructed, striding out the door a little faster than Harshwater could follow.
"Wait up!" the pegasus protested as Shinespark passed into the library. "I'm an invalid, you know? That makes me slow!"
Shinespark stopped, standing in the middle of the room with her back to Harshwater. She turned her ears expectantly.
"Don't... ditch me," Harshwater panted, pushing herself into the library as well.
Instead of continuing, Shinespark turned, scanned through the shelves... and slowly drew out a book, floating it to her companion.
"Discourse on muscular anatomy and treatment of disorders..." Harshwater's brows rose. "You have a book on this?"
"I have books on a lot of things." Shinespark shrugged. "A bit of this library has sentimental value, but it's meant to be as functional as possible. You probably already know what you're doing, but if it helps, it helps."
Harshwater paused, then slowly smiled. "Baby steps are all I ask. I'll give it a read when I get some free time."
"There are a few more," Shinespark offered. "I don't know what I can do for Valey's injuries, but this might help you with Crystal."
The first book set itself down, and another floated into Harshwater's hooves. "A pregnancy book?" She turned it over. "Well, this doesn't look well-read..."
Shinespark sat down. "It was my mother's, and she got it from a friend before her. If we need to take care of Crystal while hiding her, it could help. It's up to someone else how long we harbor her. I don't feel like making decisions right now."
"Fair enough." Harshwater found a chair, slowly skimming the second book, then put it down. "Looks useful. I'll give it a read too. So." She closed her eyes and leaned back. "Thanks for making the effort. Anything you need to talk about? If it involves areas being devastated, odds are I can relate."
Shinespark was behind her, their chairs back-to-back. "I'm not sure how much good it would do. Hearing there was nothing I could do makes me feel powerless. Hearing there was something I could do reminds me of my failure. Either way, I can't look at it and not see Sosa. You want me to hold it against Crystal and not myself for how things transpired? I could just as easily blame Starlight for pressing the detonator that washed away my home. But this isn't about blame. It's about taking responsibility so the ponies who shouldn't deal with it don't have to."
Harshwater slowly frowned. "And you're that much better prepared to deal with it? Look at yourself this past day or two and tell me it's not crushing you. Aren't you not even twenty? You're not dealing with this and you can't expect yourself to either."
"Only for another two months. My birthday is midsummer..." Shinespark sighed. "I know. You're right. I'm not handling it well. But part of being a good leader is taking weight for your team, and do you think anyone else is going to do better than I am? If I'm too young, what about Starlight? What about Valey? Don't both of them have enough to worry about? I've probably lived more years than both of them put together. And Crystal is-"
"I'm sorry, more than who put together?" Harshwater looked at her incredulously.
Shinespark winced. "Ugh! Sorry, did Valey not tell you? I forgot her life before Ironridge isn't common knowledge."
Harshwater sighed loudly. "No problem, I'll just ask her myself." She slumped backwards in the chair again. "...In the morning. There's an hour or two left before dawn. Maybe I should pretend to sleep."
"If you want me to take care of myself, you take care of yourself too," Shinespark instructed, getting up. "I think I'll take your advice and go for a walk. Or to work on Nyala, or on getting the dents out of the alpha Braen armor. Thanks for the kick."
"Don't mention it," Harshwater grumbled, getting up and slouching off down the hallway. She had been sleeping in a chair in Valey's room whenever time allowed for it, preferring to be on call for her most-injured patient, and eventually reached the room, sliding the door open... and revealing a room that was empty.
"Okay, where is my patient?" Harshwater scowled around Valey's empty room, the stack of pillows she had used to brace the mare's injured back laying askew, like someone had clumsily gotten off them. "Amber!"
"Mmwuh?" Amber stirred in a chair, blinking out of a peaceful slumber. "Who's it time for...?"
"Valey? Did you see her?" Harshwater got right up in her face, leaving the mare no time to wake up. "I had her attended for a reason; how long have you been asleep?"
Amber's eyes focused. "Wait, Valey's not...?"
Harshwater sighed, stalking around the room and only losing her balance once. "Ugh, come on..." Her eyes fell upon the tournament schedule, left clear in the open for anyone to see it. Valey's fight had been circled, timed just after dawn, the word 'Sorry' scribbled in stiff letters next to it.
"Well." Harshwater straightened up. "The mare I'm indebted to is an idiot. Wake everybody up. We need to find her and drag her back here and tie her up if necessary. So much for my own sleep..."
"Thus far, our day has gotten off to a start of legend," Howe muttered conspiratorially, shielding his rapier-microphone with a wing as he strolled about the pit of Stormhoof's colosseum. A team of unicorns cleaned and repaired the fight platform behind him, a sizable hole smashed in its surface where a very big earth pony had body-slammed too many times. "But will fate hold out? Or will grim fortune deliver us a match so one-sided, one of the contestants will be... Grandpapa?"
He spread a wing, and an older stallion entered from a tunnel, his mane protected from the wind by the bowl of the arena. Howe moseyed over, intercepting him on his way to the platform with his microphone. "Dig the moniker, by the way. Now, care to enlighten our audience on your feelings before the fight?"
Grandpapa calmly shook his head. "No."
"Oh. Uhh..." Howe blinked, backing off and recovering. "Well, I suppose that's a pity. Because as fate would have it, I meant it would be one-sided in the other direction! Mwa ha ha haaa!"
Spreading his wings like a billowing cloak, he pounced back up to the central platform, serenading the other entrance. "Because the competition is none other than a rematch with the hero of Ironridge, Admiral Valey!" He blinked at the tunnel. "...This is your noble cue to enter, Ma'am."
The tunnel was empty.
Howe blinked in consternation. "Well... while we wait, let's give it up for the underdog? I'm sure this will be a match for the ages, as their previous bout was mangled by lowly sabotage..."
"You're a biased whippersnapper, aren't you?" Grandpapa reached the stage, swatting at him with a wing. "Let Valey's actions speak for themselves. Perhaps this time she will listen."
The pegasus opened his mouth to respond... until a voice cut him off from Valey's tunnel. "Hey! Wait up, okay? I'm a little slowed down today."
Howe's face rose and Grandpapa's fell as Valey stepped into the sunlight, a Riverfall raincoat covering her back and chest like a cloak. Her legs moved stiffly and all at once with a tiny stride, stepping carefully to keep any swaying motion out of her spine as she crossed the compound at a glacial pace.
"What are you playing at, my dear?" Grandpapa pushed Howe aside, squinting at her from the edge of the platform. "You look like you can barely move."
"Nahhh. Just feeling a little lazy today." Valey grinned viciously. "Just gonna kick your butt, then get back home for a nap before anyone notices I'm gone, easy as that. Gonna... Uhhh..." She paused at the foot of the steps leading to the platform, three short rises anyone could take with impunity. Her hoof rose to meet the first one, already accompanied by a wince. "Bananas, this is gonna stink," she hissed under her breath.
The whole arena watched, none more closely than Howe and Grandpapa as Valey struggled onto the platform. With each step, her face contorted in a wince and hiss of agony, and by the time she was at the top, her smirk was clearly plastered on over a mask of pain. "What are you looking at?" she managed, breathing shallowly.
"What did you do to yourself, my dear?" Grandpapa raised an eyebrow in concern. "You're clearly in no condition to fight."
Valey blew a feeble raspberry. "Nah, I'm good. Hey, Pancake, shoo. I really need to finish this and get off my hooves as fast as possible."
Howe furrowed his brow, but backed away with a bow. "Very well... I'll let you two work this out! Remember, there is no shame in advancing backwards!"
He left the ring, leaving Valey and Grandpapa standing paces apart. "Well?" Valey flicked her ears, the only part of her that could move without hurting something. "Have we started yet, or not?"
"If this is a ruse, I'm calling your bluff," Grandpapa said, sitting down. "Come get me."
"Uhh..." Valey winced, taking a slow step forward. "You sure about that? Look, I'm kind of messed up, so if you make me chase you around this is gonna take forever."
Grandpapa turned up his chin, taunting her closer, his limbs limber and ready.
"Stop running away!" Valey growled at the sitting stallion. "Come on, come get me!"
"You have an ambush." A smile teased across Grandpapa's face. "I'm no rookie at war. If you're playing hurt, it's to lure me in, and if you really are wounded you'd have to stoop to foul play to win. Don't you remember a word I taught you?"
"Honestly, dude?" Valey gave him a cross look. "I hate to burst your bubble, but no, I don't. I have a mega-busy life, and literally all I remember you for is messing up my muscles when you pretended to help me under the city. Aside from the fact that you sucker-punched me, then carved up my best friend with a sword and smashed some priceless armor when she stepped in to fight you, I have no idea who you are or what your deal is. But I sure would love to shove a durian in your face. So come get me and hurry this up!"
Grandpapa shook his head. "No. I don't want to fight, and I don't want you to fight either. You waste your prestige from Ironridge, getting pulled into sides and fighting and making enemies in this tournament. All you accomplish is adding one more name to the list of sarosians whom the Empire holds against our kind. Why fight, my dear?"
"Because I've got some really cool friends to prove a point to!" Valey took another step forward, but it was too fast and she winced. "And I'm sure I could think of a good wish if I wanted. And I'm pretty stubborn, too. Now please hurry this up? I swam most of the way here, and walking really hurts!"
"Far easier for you to surrender," Grandpapa urged. "If you're truly injured, you think it will recover by the next fight should you win? Please, do not prolong your suffering."
Valey glared harder. "Yeah, right. Look, come here, you-" Something cracked beneath her coat. "Owowow! Bandage slipped! Owww, I think I tore a scab..."
"I can taste your pain on the air from here," Grandpapa remarked, lifting his nose and taking several steps closer. "You really are injured, aren't you? What are you hiding beneath that coat?"
"Just a scratch!" Valey grinned fiercely. "Yeah, that's right... Come here..."
Grandpapa stepped again, making to rush at her, but pulled into a feint right as Valey struck out. It was a single punch, whistling feebly through air, and the motion nearly caused Valey to topple, biting her tongue to keep from crying out in pain. "Aaaugh! Aah! Bananas...!"
"This is upsetting." Grandpapa shook his head, stepping closer. "You really are hurting yourself, aren't you? Surrender, for both of our sakes. You are in no condition to be fighting."
He reached forward, coming at Valey with a jab she knew to be laden with paralysis... Valey shifted right before his blow connected, striking something hard on her chest beneath the cloak. At the same time, Valey counterattacked with a swing of her own, putting as much force into her punch as her crippled body would allow. "Screw you!"
Grandpapa stepped backwards and out of the way.
Valey's momentum carried her forward, no flexibility in her legs to keep her balance. With a battle cry that turned to a scream of pain, her raincoat was carried by her momentum, flipping up along her back to reveal a painstaking network of bandages and cotton, red at the edges with dried blood and starting to peel where her motions had disturbed it. It was bound to her barrel with careful loops, and she landed with teeth gritted, whimpering a shrill note and unable to move.
"Hey, uh, I think I need to referee this right here..." Howe stepped into the ring, raising a wing for the action to halt. "Look, it's not the end of the world! We have a five-star medical team, and losers get free lodging at a hotel, and..."
Earlier, as Harshwater was rousing the ship, Maple poked her head outside the room she shared with Starlight. "What's going on out here?"
"Girls?" Grenada appeared at the opposite end of the hall, beckoning with a hoof. "You need to look in the cargo hold."
Harshwater groaned and started stumbling down the hallway. "She had better be in there and just have gotten herself stuck trying to do something with no significance when she's supposed to be resting..."
The lights were already on in the hold, most of its supplies spread out or neatly categorized from Shinespark's attempts to improve Nyala and make something out of the scrapped Braen armor. Much of the space was also taken up by trade goods from Mistvale, offered as gifts by the sarosians. But along the sides were several crates that had been in deep storage nearly forever. Maple couldn't recall them ever being moved... and one was stuck open now, dark, hoof-sized chunks of glass littered all around its base.
Harshwater raised a dubious eyebrow. "There had better be a good reason why you're carrying around..." Her eyes narrowed. "Oh. Right. My old boss."
"Kero's moon glass supply we took out of Ironridge," Maple whispered. "I forgot that was still here. But why is it open?"
Valey tried to rebuke Howe, but only gritted her teeth, eyes glistening up at Grandpapa as he stood over her. "I will make this painless," he offered, lifting a hoof. "You really are here out of desperation, aren't you...?"
He struck. Valey's cutie mark activated, slowing time and letting her watch her encroaching fate... and by the time her reaction was up, an emerald light was flaring inside the chest of her coat. Valey's hoof pushed through the pain to brush along her back, and suddenly, momentarily, she could move again. With one eyelid held firmly closed, hiding the off-colored pupil beneath, Valey felt a second presence in her mind as she wrapped the startled stallion's foreleg in one hoof, slammed herself upright against him, and threw all her momentum into a punch to the jaw that sent his lightweight form flying clear off the platform.
Howe gaped. Valey collapsed again as her body rebelled and failed to stick a landing, and she numbly felt more of the bandages failing along her spine. "Thanks, Doc," she coughed as her pendant's connection closed. "Yeah, don't worry, I'll return the favor. Ugh. Think I'm gonna need more than pain relief to be alright after that stunt..."
A loud thud echoed against a door in the Stormhoof Colosseum's medical ward, and moments later it opened, Harshwater trying to stomp in and almost faceplanting as it swung aside. Maple and the Starlights were behind her, next to an unbrushed Shinespark with Grenada, Amber and Gerardo bringing up the rear. "What," Harshwater demanded, "is this all about!?"
"Ow. Hey guys." Valey sat like a rolled-up towel across a careful network of supports, two nurses in the process of cleaning her now-bare back so it could be re-bandaged. The nurses gave her noisy visitors a cross look, and were promptly brushed aside. "Look, I heard you were looking for another of those potions, but the tournament doesn't wait for anyone and I had to... Ow, watch it! Buy you some more time..."
Everyone looked like they had something to say, but Harshwater was the loudest. "Thank you for containing my wayward patient," she growled to the nurses with the most thankful nod they were going to get. "Now explain how throwing yourself into the arena when you can hardly move and letting some monk beat you black and red until that referee mercy-kills your stubborn face has any better outcome than staying still and recovering like a smart pony!"
The others pressed in before Valey could respond. "We were worried about you!" Maple exclaimed, flinging a hoof to the side. "How were we supposed to react when you ran away with a one-word note?"
"I'm trying my hardest to get over what happened in Izvaldi," Shinespark added, gritting her teeth, "I was hoping the rest of you could take care of yourselves while I worry about myself for a moment, but I guess not. Valey, please don't tell me you did this for my sake, because of that discussion we had about you entering months ago."
At the back, Gerardo cleared his throat. "And I, for one, would like to know what tampering with our store of you-know-what had to do with all this." He gave a pointed glance at the two nurses, who were ready to throw up their hooves in frustration.
"Fine! Fine. Fine." As one, the nurses stepped back, pushing through the crowd to the door. "Dress your own wounds, or wait until your friends are less boisterous. I can't work in a room like this."
Valey blinked as they left, some of the burns and lacerations that crossed her wet back still threatening to bleed again. "Uhhh... Bananas. Sorry." She glanced up without moving her head. "I did win though, you know."
Everyone's eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Do I want to know how?" Amber hesitantly asked.
"Raincoat, over there." Valey couldn't move to gesture, but the article was half-folded on a waiting chair. "Look inside."
"I don't know whether I'll be more ticked if you're lying or telling the truth," Harshwater sighed as Shinespark's aura lifted the raincoat. Out floated Valey's golden pendant that had previously been used for Nyala, now inset with a new chunk of moon glass. Shinespark frowned, recognizing it instantly, but Harshwater's face scrunched. "What's that?"
Shinespark held it up to Valey for an explanation, and the batpony managed a feeble, smug grin. "Look, it gave me the edge I needed to smash Herman, so I figured, I really need an edge again here... and with all the things we've learned about moon glass, maybe now was the time to break it out again." Seeing Harshwater's expression, she clarified, "The thing lets you... sorta... use cutie marks that are stuck in moon glass. Sometimes. It's a little weird, and I dunno if it only works for me or only works for batponies. Changes how I look a little, and you can talk to them and hear them in your head. And if they want, they can help me."
"So that mess in the ship's hold..." Gerardo nodded slowly in understanding.
Valey carefully sighed. "Yeah, I snuck off once Amber fell asleep. Sorry, by the way, Amber. Got that thing open, started sticking them in the pendant one at a time, and started getting to know everyone in that box. Didn't even get a quarter of the way through it; the sun was starting to rise and I needed to use the shadows to get here. But, like, before I was just worried they were parasites, since you know what moon glass does to blank ponies, and was a little afraid of sticking those in my head... It turns out almost all of them are really nice people. And we've just been hauling them around in our basement for months, in stasis."
Slowly, Gerardo ensured the door was closed.
"Anyway, this is Doc," Valey continued, pointing to the stone in the pendant with her eyes. "None of them know their names, so I got to name them myself. Most of them aren't even sure about gender either, so I call her a she 'cuz mares are hot. Kind of weird to wonder if I might have once been a dude myself, in a past life, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, Doc's cutie mark is, like, an anesthetic. Pain relief. Would have rather found one that lets me shoot lasers, or something, but I figured Grandpapa would be smart enough to realize I wasn't acting about how crippled I was as long as I kept her under wraps. Waited for him to make a move he never would have if I was at full strength... and I guess the dude was old and frail enough that one punch was all it took. I was banking on that, to be honest. But as much as this hurts, it's mostly surface damage, I think. As long as I could move through it, even for a second, it was enough."
Her friends watched her as she finished, faces ranging from frustration on Harshwater to sympathy from Maple and Amber curiosity and a grimace clashing on Shinespark. "So what now?" Grenada asked from near the back.
"Now?" Harshwater shrugged. "We let them do what they can for you here, get you back to the ship, and you sit out the next tournament round instead. No one's falling for your tricks twice, and the battles are just going to get harder."
"Or," Valey insisted, "you guys keep looking for that potion, or whatever? Bananas, I just busted my back to get you more time! Like, I know I snuck out without telling you, but would you have let me go if I did?"
"That's the point," Harshwater growled.
Gerardo loudly cleared his throat. "I think this much tension isn't good for any healing processes that may or may not occur. What say you some of us get back to the ship, others make to enjoy the city, and we try to quiet things down a little so those nurses can return?"
Shinespark slowly nodded. "It's probably not a good idea to leave Crystal with only Slipstream and Nyala, just... just in case."
"Agreed," Harshwater sighed... but as the party turned to go, Maple hesitated.
"I'm staying," she decided, hanging back in Valey's room. "One pony shouldn't be too much, right?"
Amber bit her lip. "...Maaaybe two would be fine. I'm staying too?"
"Suit yourselves, in this case." With a broad shrug, Gerardo led the way away.
"Missed you guys too," Valey sighed after the door had closed, not making eye contact. "So, was I that dumb? I knew everyone would be ticked, but bananas, I didn't wanna drop out of the tournament in front of that guy. He cut Shinespark and my sister to shreds. I had to punch his stupid face if it was the last thing I did. I had to."
Amber walked up, put a hoof on a clear portion of her shoulder and sat down. "I know. And we forgive you." She smirked a little. "It was still a pretty dumb thing to do."
Maple choked on a laugh, unsure what the mood in the room was anymore. "So now that he's beaten, what now? If we haven't found a way to heal you quickly by the next round..."
Valey flicked her ears. "Eh, you've got time. There's four matches this round, and each one's a week apart so anyone with minor injuries can rest up between them. Since the fights are gonna be more intense, and stuff." She quieted for a while. "But yeah, if we don't get anything, I probably need to be finished after this one, don't I?"
"I'm afraid you do," Amber apologized. "...Hey, this is going to sound completely out of nowhere, but did you know I once glued myself to a wall? I was a kid, and no one was sure how I did it, but I was several feet in the air with my back and legs just completely plastered to the thing. They had to basically cut off all my fur to get me free, and there was plenty that got tugged out, too. It hurt a lot! Felt like I was walking on pins and needles for the next month." She chuckled into the distance. "Not sure how relevant that is. You just reminded me of it right now."
Maple smiled too. "That was the day you got your cutie mark. I remember it so well..."
"Heh heh." Valey's laugh was subdued, less because of her mood than to avoid moving her back. "Yeah, sounds about right. Look, I just don't want..." She swallowed. "Feels like if I'm gonna be stubborn about this tournament thing, you all will have to try harder to get me on my hooves for it. And tournament or not, I need to be on my hooves, because right now it's Birdo and Starlight fighting for our entire ship. If stuff goes wrong with Crystal, or those Everlaste goons, or anything else, bananas, what will we do? I'm down and out, Harshwater's limper than a noodle... Maybe it's backwards logic, but it feels like there's no way I'll heal naturally in time, so this will get me up quicker, you know?"
"Sounds like thinking with your heart." Amber glanced at nothing, thoughts still in the past.
Valey hesitated. "Hey, speaking of thinking with your heart... there's one more thing that's bothering me about the whole moon glass deal."
Maple perked an ear. "We'll listen. What is it?"
"Y'see..." Valey took a breath. "So I only tried looking in the rest of our moon glass because at this point, I'm pretty sure everything in there is made by Luna, right? Maybe, sort of... Okay, I'm not. But whether they are or aren't, I'm pretty sure they're real people, and not just space monsters or something. That's what I mean. And they've got no concept of time in there, so it's not like they're suffering by staying locked away..."
Maple and Amber looked at each other and folded their ears. Amber nodded.
"It's just..." Valey fidgeted. "All that super weird, creepy stuff we found out about with Kero and his mercenaries that Chauncey was sponsoring? The stuff with getting mares pregnant and then using the moon glass to extract the souls inside into foals, and give them bodies of their own? I still think it's totally unethical, every bit of how he did it, but... I'm pretty sure I'm happier having a body and getting to live than drifting in oblivion. And I'd rather be one of those foals with a predestined moon glass cutie mark than locked away forever without anything. So even if he was insane, and had a creepy way of going about it, I kinda... feel like he was doing a good thing." Her eyes looked up, as if waiting for permission that this was okay.
"Ohhh my. I see what you're saying, and..." Maple wiped her mane out of her eyes. "What do you want us to do about it?"
"What even can we do?" Amber added with a shrug. "Who knows how many pieces of this stuff there are in the world? Some of them might find lives naturally, but I bet there's even a ton in the ocean that could never see the light of day. And I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can do to get whoever's in there out and brought to life."
Valey winced. "Yeah, I know. And I've got no idea what to do about it either. Maybe if we could, like, somehow tell the world what this stuff is? But the Night Mother knows everything we do about it and probably more, and she hasn't. There's gotta be a reason for that. We don't know why it's here, either. Even if there's real ponies inside, that doesn't mean it couldn't be dangerous or bad. Bananas, I dunno what to do."
"Just that we want to do something." Amber sat back, keeping a hoof against her. "Well, moon glass seems to last for a long time. I guess the best thing to do is worry about what we can change for now, and maybe sometime in the future we'll learn something more?" She winked. "And by that, I mean you focus on recovering, and we'll do our best to get you a potion. Get well soon, Valey."
"Mhmm," Maple agreed with an earnest nod. "Get well soon."
Maple stared at the contents of the Immortal Dream's main table. "This was too easy."
"I have to agree, it's a bit suspicious," Gerardo said, leaning with a talon on the table and staring at the opened package. "Our Valey has fans, apparently."
"'From Anonymous,'" Harshwater read, repeating what was written on the card with a frown. "'Get well soon.' Right..."
On the table before them was a padded box with a single, vaguely-sparkling jar of red liquid exactly like the supplies Maple had carried around on the ship or in her cutie mark for months before the battle in Mistvale. To the side, Slipstream nervously shuffled her hooves. "It was a delivery pony who brought it. They said they didn't know who it was from."
"Your country's postal system allows deliveries without sender information?" Harshwater raised a skeptical eyebrow at Gerardo. "That's an excellent way for tournament fighters to get mailed poison or a bomb."
Gerardo shrugged. "Anyone can contract the services of an independent carrier. If you were paid to deliver an anonymous package, would you not have done the same?"
Harshwater huffed and looked away.
"Well, at least Valey won't need to drink it to tell if it's poisoned," Maple remarked. "Now that we have it, shouldn't we get it to her as soon as possible? If someone's going to hold it over our heads that they gave us this, they probably won't leave us alone even if we don't use it."
Harshwater's tail flicked. "Help yourselves. I'm not making the walk back up there."
About an hour later, Gerardo and Slipstream returned, and a third pair of hooves alighted awkwardly on the deck behind them. The three came belowdecks, Gerardo in the lead and Valey in the middle, raincoat back on and walking gingerly.
"You're back!" Maple instantly brightened from a chair where she and Amber were sitting together and reading a book.
"Hey, it worked?" Amber pushed aside the book, springing to her hooves. "Valey, you're walking again!"
Valey grinned, hiding a wince. "Yeah, sorta. I'm, uhh..." She spread her wings, lifting the raincoat and revealing a back that was still missing fur in patches, almost shiny from burn marks, even through the lacerations had closed and the wounds no longer were fresh. "Turns out there's a limit to what those things can do for cosmetic damage. But I'm on my hooves."
Harshwater sighed from another chair and set aside one of Shinespark's medical textbooks, getting up to examine Valey. After only a second of checking, she snorted. "Just not a big enough dose. Whoever packaged that potion was probably stingy and diluted it with water to make it look like there was more. How do you feel?"
Valey flexed her wings. "Kinda... stretchy? Feels like my skin is a size too small for my back. Doesn't hurt much, but bananas, it feels weird. Gonna have to practice moving like this."
"Just don't practice by fighting in the tournament?" Harshwater asked, eyes pleading. "I am tired of being the only pony on this ship with any sense of self-preservation."
Amber bit her lip. "Hey, Maple and I take care of ourselves, thank you very much."
"Yeah, well, we'll see." Valey stretched again, testing her new range of movement. "Look, if it's a big deal, maybe I will bail. I just didn't want to lose to that Grandpapa punk. But we've got a week to think over it until my next match, right? And bananas, if I don't keep going, we're gonna need something else to do."
"Such as?" Amber raised an eyebrow as Gerardo and Slipstream departed back to the bridge. "We've got plenty to do. Sell our goods from Mistvale, for one. We've already got some cash left over from Kero's vault. Maybe we could actually normally afford another of those potions if we needed it."
"She needs it," Harshwater interrupted. "If she doesn't want permanent scars, that is."
Amber winced, but continued. "And I don't know what we're doing with Crystal, but aren't we doing something? And then Shinespark still wanted to cross the mountains someday and try to find a way to trade between Ironridge and the Plains of Harmony... or is that dream old news? I forget; I haven't heard about it since catching up with you."
"Yeah, permanent scars don't sound so great." Valey looked at her back again and winced. "Maybe I should see about something I can wear that would cover this up... but yeah, we probably also should go talk to Felicity at some point. And remember Grapejuice? Didn't someone say we needed to talk to her about something as well?"
Everyone looked at her and shrugged.
Harshwater groaned and climbed to her hooves. "Sounds like a lot of problems for someone other than me. You, though..." She snapped her tail at Valey. "Are coming with me. I need to observe how the damage to your back affects your gait."
"Uh... okay." Valey blinked, wandering over and following along as Harshwater walked down the cabin hall, leaning against a wall. After a few doors, she frowned. "Yeah, you're not actually watching me, so that's bogus. What's up?"
Harshwater turned, opened the door to her room, and beckoned Valey to follow.
Confused, Valey stepped inside, shutting the door with her tail. "There are easier ways of saying you need to talk with me, you know."
"Sorry," Harshwater huffed, "I'm very stressed right now." She threw herself at her bed, bouncing and landing limp.
"Okay." Valey took a seat at the bedside. "I'm, uhh... guessing some of that has to do with me being reckless at the tournament?" She sighed. "Sorry. Really, I am. I've got some complex reasons for even being in it, and they don't really include taking the safe or easy road."
"I'm sure you do," Harshwater grumbled. "But harder doesn't have to mean better. I feel like your entire crew is reminding me why I don't want children."
Valey raised an eyebrow.
"Look, I'm doing the best I can...!" Harshwater sighed back. "I don't like being anywhere without earning my keep. We've been over this. But your crew are acting like a bunch of teenagers, sometimes are a bunch of teenagers, and I've only been on my hooves for a day or two. I'm trying my best, and I'm clearly more competent than all of you put together which is scaring me when you beat me and my entire old crew without lethal force, but I'm not that good! I can't help you all. I can't do this. I'm going to break."
Valey averted her gaze. "That stressful, huh?"
"Yes." Harshwater paused, then elaborated, "I have no grounding right now. I'm a mess, Valey. I need help, and I'm going to wear myself out long before I get it if I keep trying to whip your team into shape. And you're the pony who's worked miracles for me in the past, and you're also making stupid decisions that are terrible for your wellbeing, and I don't know how to help you. Please, if you care, reach inside yourself and scrounge up whatever scrap of maturity you can find and do what's smart for yourself so I can have someone I can rely on. I'm begging you."
"...You want me to quit the tournament that badly, huh?" Valey leaned back into the bed. "Bananas. At this point, I've gotten attached to doing it just to prove I can."
"It depends what's worth more to you." Harshwater's ears fell. "Can you really fight in it without disregarding your allies, sneaking around, taking stupid risks and hurting yourself?"
Valey winced.
"I'm not the only one that's going to have this talk," Harshwater warned. "Maple doesn't like it when you come wounded off a victory either, and Amber is hurt that you snuck away. She was your nurse. She was there to help you. But we had a talk, and I'm the one having this talk first because for me..." She looked down. "Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but I wish it would."
"So that's how it is, huh?" Valey spoke slowly, looking up at the bed. "Look, I just entered the tournament because Sparky was down and I cared about her and I wanted to inspire her a little. This isn't the last I'm gonna talk about this. But... yeah. I figured what we needed was some hero who would overcome anything no matter the odds, but I guess if that's not the case anymore? I'll quit."
For a moment after Valey's declaration, the room was quiet.
"You, uhh..." Valey squinted at Harshwater. "You don't look thrilled."
"No one wants to ask you to give up your dreams," Harshwater responded carefully, emotion subdued. "I certainly have no ground to stand on, asking for it. All I'm doing is asking anyway, and you don't owe me anything."
"Yeah, but-" Valey winced. "Yes I do! Bananas, I need my friends! I chose everyone here over my cushy job in Ironridge forever and a half ago, threw all my coins on this table... If I walk away, I walk away with nothing. It was totally worth it, but I need you guys, and that means making sacrifices."
Harshwater regarded her. "Well, I hope that works out for you. The most consistently happy ponies in my old company were the ones who were content with themselves, whatever they had, without being centered around themselves like jerks. Sure, there were plenty who got high off victory or relationships, and being able to ride those is all well and good. But when they're elevated to what you live for, you're asking to get destroyed. What happens when we can't fulfill a contract or are too late? Or when your friends and family die in the field? No one gets lucky forever."
"Says you," Valey glumly countered. "What about all your stuff with Kero?"
"Congratulations, you've realized I'm flawed." Harshwater rolled her eyes, putting her hooves up and settling down in her bed. "I never said I was one of those ponies. I just know what it looks like because I've seen all this before. Maybe you don't have the mental fortitude to roll with life and let things that need to happen... happen. I can't blame you, because I don't."
Valey's ears flopped. "Yeah, so what do you want me to do about it?"
"I have no idea!" Harshwater retorted. "How about...?" She sighed. "I have no idea."
"You and me both." Valey slumped against the bed.
Eventually, she found something to say. "You think it would be easier if I wasn't, like... ridiculously strong? You're talking about just dealing with the way things are, but I can usually change them. You think that would help?"
"No." Harshwater quietly huffed. "No matter your means, you'll always find a way to get yourself into trouble by doing something stupid and beyond them."
"Like me and that last fight in the tournament?"
"Like me chasing Kero all the way here from Ironridge after we knew he had betrayed us." Harshwater rested her head on her chin, ears down. "It doesn't take any power to stow away on an airship. It takes even less to enter a fight you know you can't win. Just recklessness and stupidity. And I can confirm right now that being weak and helpless stinks."
"Hey." Valey narrowed her eyes, pulling herself up to look Harshwater in the eye. "Knock that off, seriously. I know you feel bad about yourself, but you've been doing more for this ship than literally anyone else we onboarded since it first flew! You actually have an idea of what to do with injuries beyond throwing healing potions at them, you're more willing to try talking sense into me when I screw up than anyone else here, and all this when you can barely walk without a wall to lean on? You're awesome, not helpless. And we'll help you in return."
Harshwater shuddered. "Why is it so hard for you to look at yourself and say the same? Forget stopping Herman and a war and saving all of Ironridge from Yakyakistan, how many times do I have to say what you did for me!? If you could see yourself with even a tenth of that respect and admiration and treat yourself like you deserve it whether you have friends to tell you it or not, you'd look the part, too! You don't deserve to be a basket case!"
"I spent six years treating myself that way!" Valey was suddenly on the bed, standing over Harshwater and glaring. "Stealing from the Earth District, annoying everyone, making myself feel cool and living at the top of the world. And it was miserable! I'm not living that lie again!"
"That is not what I'm talking about and you know it," Harshwater forcefully countered, matching Valey's glare. "You knew full well you were a good-for-nothing punk layabout and did everything you could to live up to it even though you were holding off a war on the side. Don't treat yourself like a vagabond, treat yourself like a hero! We already know you are, and you don't have to kill yourself doing stunts in the tournament to prove it!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey snarled back. "And what if I'm the one I need to prove it to!?"
"A different tune than what you were singing earlier. You said you were in it for Shine-"
"You two should kiss," Jamjars commented from a crack in the doorway.
Both mares froze, a frantic pattering of hooves announcing the filly's retreat before they could do anything.
Valey stared at the door... and flopped down, landing in the bed a short distance from Harshwater. "Aww bananas," she sighed. "Sorry about that."
"For?" Harshwater blinked, her own fury completely subsided.
"Nah, you're right." Valey shook her head. "Look, I... When I first made a break from Ironridge to join up with these guys, I kind of wasn't thrilled with my own potential to be a good guy. And I sort of did it by blowing all of my friends up with a sedative grenade to see if I could make them mad at me, since I needed to know if they'd stand up to me rather than getting themselves hurt if I was being dumb. And it was... Like, Starlight was the one who got it. I don't even know if any of the others did." She rolled so she could see Harshwater. "So thanks for yelling at me. I need friends who can do that from time to time."
Harshwater frowned. "You're welcome. Maybe I needed it too."
"...You're not gonna tell me off for saying I need friends to get by at all?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Some kind of self-sufficiency thing?"
"No." Harshwater snorted. "First off, I was talking about getting every bit of purpose and fulfillment in your life from relationships and things other than you. Thinking you can be fine without them at all is a recipe for disaster. You just have to be able to hang on without getting destroyed when they come and go." She hesitated, then sighed. "And second, I'd be a massive hypocrite saying that when I'm looking up to you as hard as I am."
Valey shrugged. "You don't have to do that, you know. I guess when ponies count on me too hard, I start needing to do stupid stuff to live up to it."
"Then do something stupid and have some confidence in yourself," Harshwater replied. "I do have to, because my dumb brain won't see you as anything else than the mare who spared me and then came to save me when Kero would have gotten me killed twice. I feel like I need you on a pedestal, and am stretching myself far too thin keeping you from knocking yourself off."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Alright. Deal. If you stop calling yourself dumb in return. I already told you, you're awesome. I think you are, and anyone else who's seen how much you do for this ship would too."
"Even if I do it for selfish and fearful reasons?" Harshwater gave her a warning look. "Making myself useful so I can have a place here. Trying to fix you up because I look up to you and need you to stay there. Helping-"
"Yeah. I get it." Valey cut her off with a hoof to the chin. "Bananas, I don't care. I first started bothering Maple and Starlight because I thought they'd make really fun marks. Then because they put up with me. And I just told you, stick up for yourself. If that means being friends with us for your own sake, all the better."
Harshwater sighed and closed her eyes. "You're an idealistic idiot."
Valey nodded. "Uh huh. Never heard that one before. And you're someone who's actually willing to take me down a notch if it leads me to do dumb stuff. I appreciate that. Seriously. It means a lot. You get that, right?"
"Nngh... Fine." Harshwater reached out, grabbed her, and pulled herself closer into a one-sided hug. "I feel ridiculous," she mumbled into Valey's coat. "And stop me if this hurts your scars."
Valey blinked, then grinned gently, extending a wing. "Nah. And I can stay here a while. It'll be fine."
Valey wasn't sure if she slept. Night had fallen outside, and the world stopped changing around her, Harshwater breathing softly at her side. The only indication time had passed was that someone had come by and shut their door the rest of the way since Jamjars left it ajar.
Was the pegasus asleep? She couldn't tell without looking. After their conversation, she didn't feel like doing much of anything, mostly because she had no idea which direction to go. Eventually, she shifted slightly, testing the water.
"It tastes like I threw up in my heart," Harshwater mumbled.
"Sounds nasty," Valey replied.
"I don't know what to dooo..." Harshwater rolled over, groaning. "This feels so undignified, but I already threw out every ounce of shame and dignity I had surviving Mistvale. And then getting bedridden for weeks..." She stretched, reaching with her hind legs. "Why is this so hard?"
Valey got her shoulder beneath her, lifting her head upright and wincing at the tightness in her back. "What's up? Remember, truce on beating ourselves up."
"I know, I know..." Harshwater sighed. "How do you handle being completely shameless? I thought I could do it once, and now the things I did back then are just embarrassing. You saw me when we were clearing out Kero's old house..."
Valey shrugged. "Stealing his paintings? Yeah, I remember. And beats me too. I used to be an expert on it. And now, it's like... I can't at all. You feel like that's a bad thing, though?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not all that proud of a lot of the stuff I did back then either."
"Good question." Harshwater leaned back with her forelegs folded behind her head.
"Why?" Valey asked. "You got something you want to do, but something won't let you?"
Harshwater sucked in a long breath. "You know what your problem is?" she eventually asked, changing the subject. "You burn too quickly. I might have had a long time with you on my mind waiting around in Ironridge thinking about almost dying, but tell me I crossed your mind even once until we ran into each other in Mistvale. Not my company, me as an individual. And since then we've maybe been grumpy at each other once or twice, but that's it. Yet here we are having deep, special conversations about feelings and whatever else that you only have with lifelong friends or loved ones. You somehow see no problem with this, for whatever reason I'm going along with it. Probably has something to do with saving my life. Do you see any problem with this?"
"Uhh..." Valey's ears twitched. "I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds not the greatest. But what are we going to do, just not talk about it? We clearly need to. And it's not like you're going to find any real lifelong friends all the way out here."
"You're right about that," Harshwater sighed. "Back in the mercenaries, I had two friends I trusted with everything. Two that were still alive, that is, and not counting Kero. I'm not going to tell you why I trusted them, because I knew them for a very long number of years and the reasons would take all night. A lot of ponies had more, but, well, I'm me. Have you ever had anything remotely like that? Because I'm starting to wonder who here has."
Valey bit her lip. "Well, I mean... Maple and Amber grew up together as kids, right? And Shinespark had family."
"And Amber's one of the only well-adjusted ponies on this ship, along with Slipstream." Harshwater's cheeks puffed in a pout. "Shinespark doesn't count. I've heard from Arambai, and she went years without seeing him, never saw Dior, and never was close to Mobius either. But look at Starlight the runaway, or Jamjars the runaway. And you didn't answer my question about you."
Valey winced. "Hey, I haven't had all that much time for this. You know how old I am, right?"
Harshwater's ears drooped. "You took three days. Three days to quit your job and run away with Maple and Starlight, and I doubt you had anything worth staying for. I can feel it in this ship's air. There's just something here that makes friendships form in the blink of an eye and then try to be for each other what ponies elsewhere spend decades building. Maybe you can't feel it because you've never seen anything else, and maybe that's a big part of why it's there, but it is."
"Bananas, decades?" Valey laid back into the bed. "I mean, you're probably right. I'm only seven. That's a lot more time than I know the meaning of." She stared at the ceiling. "So what do you want me to do about it?"
Harshwater frowned. "I don't know what you can do. This whole boat is full of ponies who travel and have no roots, and it's too new of a community to have long-lasting roots with each other like my company used to. But for my sake, slap me if I start getting a crush on you."
"You don't have one already?" Valey blinked in confusion. "You've literally just spent the past however long inviting me into your room and cuddling in bed."
"No, I don't," Harshwater grumbled. "And I say that having seen ponies in love for real. And isn't this standard behavior around here?"
"What, sleeping in a pile?" Valey shrugged. "I mean, it's sort of a cultural thing in Riverfall, I think?"
Harshwater rolled again until she was laying on her belly, chin stuffed between her forelegs. "Right. Well, I don't, but I can't promise I won't later if you keep treating me the way you have been. Neither of us are fit to be in a relationship, the Empire has laws, and you have too many suitors already. I don't want to get hurt because we don't know each other well. I had enough of that with Kero..."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "That why you were asking about being shameless earlier?"
"Something like that." Harshwater stared at the wall. "Trying to rationalize things. Enjoying the moment. You asked me to feel good, didn't you?"
Valey sat up a little further. "Yeah, well guess what?" She reached forward and grabbed Harshwater in another hug. "There ya go. Platonic hugs are a thing around here if Maple and Amber have anything to say about it, and it's not often I'm feeling shameless and not-awkward enough to indulge. No pretense, no consequences. Knock yourself out."
"I feel ridiculous enough already," Harshwater grumbled. "I can't believe I'm having a conversation about this. And this is what I mean by quick burn." But she returned the hug.
"Neato." Valey grinned. "And look, at least it's a way more pleasant conversation than talking with Crystal. Now that's not the way you want to talk about feelings."
Harshwater sucked in a breath. "Does she brag about her lover while flirting with you, too?"
Valey blinked. "Wait, that's not just me?"
The two mares looked at each other.
"One of these days," Harshwater sighed, "you're going to help me when I try to give her a medical check, and we will share each other's pain."
Maple sat on the deck of the Immortal Dream, the night harbor breeze moving through her mane. She had taken her braid out, letting all of its length free, and simply stared at the subdued activity of the docks as the world went by. The ships on either side of them were dim and asleep or else unoccupied; half of the spaces across from them were empty, and no one had walked by save for a unicorn with an industrial broom half an hour before.
"Well, someone looks lost in thought," Amber greeted from behind her with the sound of approaching hoofsteps. "Hey, girl. How goes it?"
"Mmm... Thinking." Maple patted beside her with her tail, tilting her face to the wind. "And trying to relax. The last few days have been a little stressful."
"Good on you," Amber hummed, sitting down close enough that their shoulders were touching. "You've gotten a lot more resilient since Riverfall, you know? I saw that old explosion in Izvaldi and even I was frazzled. Don't get me wrong, it was cool, but Willow's stories from the sailors never really got it across that once stuff does that... it's gone."
Maple leaned slightly against her foalhood friend. "You think I have? I saw it and it shook me, and reminded me of Ironridge... but it hurt Valey and Shinespark a lot more, and I just had to be strong for Starlight. And her new friend."
"And for yourself." Amber poked her. "You're a lot cooler like this, you know. Not to say I'd ever blame you for all the stuff we've been through in the last ten years, but flying out here was worth it for nothing more than seeing you get your groove back. Makes me feel good inside."
Maple blinked. "You think I've changed that much? Not that I don't hope so..."
"Hahaha." Amber leaned harder, resting her head against Maple's neck. "Sure you have. The mare who worked that hard to regain her smile? Now spends her time caring for kids instead of getting messed up when an entire city gets mega unlucky. Look at you! Who's making you be out here, huh? Enjoying the night when there's sulking to be done... Ha."
"Thanks for the confidence," Maple hummed, laying her cheek atop Amber's head. "But I'm not that strong. I'm still out here to think and refresh myself, after all. Izvaldi did get to me, and hard."
Amber smiled in the embrace. "Yeah, and you just said it. You're here to do something about that, aren't you? Implies you think there's something that can be done, and that you've got enough strength to try. All by yourself, too. Didn't even need me or Willow by your side."
"Doesn't mean I'm not glad to have you." Maple adjusted herself slightly, Amber's warmth contrasting with the cool air. "Tell me about Willow. How's she doing?"
"Not much I'd know." Amber good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "I've been here for what, one month? Two? And spent a good month before that traveling, to boot. But she was holding up when I left. Faron and White Chocolate are happy, and she's happy that they're happy. Her kids are cute." A distant look entered her eyes. "A few more years on the go, and Yew could be talking when we get home. Imagine that."
"Her youngest," Maple murmured. "Hmmm..."
"Sorry if I interrupted whatever it was you were thinking about, by the way," Amber apologized. "Just had something to say and thought I'd say it. Figured a little pick-you-up couldn't hurt."
Maple gave a bare shake of her head. "No. I don't know if I'm processing so much as just clearing my head. Getting a little peace and quiet. It's peaceful out here, don't you think?"
Amber surveyed the docks along with her. At least two boats in the near distance were having late-night deck parties, close enough for their lights and voices to carry yet far enough to add to the atmosphere without being obtrusive. "Yeah. It's nice. Reminds me of when the Sosans would come, only now I'm old enough to appreciate it."
"It is like the old days, isn't it?" Maple sighed into her mane. "The smell of ships..."
Amber giggled. "Sure is saltier than I remembered. I guess that's the difference between Riverfall's docks and here. I always used to smell the salt on old ships, especially those times when we got invited aboard to see what they looked like. In the ropes, on the sail covers... Never quite knew what it was. Guess I do now."
"And the pulley grease," Maple whispered. "Do you remember the smell of fresh sealant when boats with wooden hulls would leave on their maiden voyages?"
"Now that was a smell." Amber grimaced in fond remembrance. "And the sweat of sailors on their way home? Anyone listening to us would think we're crazy. Those are supposed to be bad smells."
"But they wouldn't have lived it," Maple murmured back. "To anyone who's lived their life as a sailor, it probably smells like home. It smells like a better time, to me..."
"Implying we can't have a good time now." Amber said it with a laugh, poking Maple in the side. "But yeah... Those were good days. Our dreams were so alive, they showed up here for the ride." Her tail swished, touching Maple's flank and hers as well. "I've got so many memories of that shop I set up in someone's house while all three of us were teens..."
Maple sniffed, patting her on the shoulders and saying nothing.
Amber blinked. "Hey, are you crying?"
"Keep talking," Maple requested. "I forgot what it was like to remember like this for a while."
Amber softly grinned, brushing the fur of Maple's chest with a hoof that reached around her back. "Well. You remember that trip the three of us took south to the mountains?"
"Mhmmm."
"You remember the first night we camped?" Amber continued. "Rowing upstream was hard work, and Willow couldn't help because... you know. And neither of us were grown up, so we went at it with such gusto! Probably only rowed for an hour or two that day before we got completely tuckered out. And then we pitched the tent in that clearing because the rain could come at any hour, but Willow made us do it. Remember how much I didn't want to?"
Maple chuckled tearfully. "You climbed a tree and sat on a branch just out of her reach and blew raspberries at her, and thought she couldn't follow because she was so pregnant. And then she actually did, and got on that branch and shook it so hard you fell out, and then realized she had no idea how to come down herself. And both of us laughed at her because she wasn't that far up. I still have no idea how she made it up there..."
"Yeah... heh heh..." Amber wiped at her eyes, then looked up. "Hey. You really don't have any trouble talking about that anymore? I kind of forgot and let my mind go where it wanted to for a moment, and you just rolled with it?"
"What, our trip? Failing to go to Ironridge? I... Oh." Maple paused, ears falling. "You mean Willow... having foals."
"Something like that." Amber leaned back against her. "I know the whole having-kids thing was just... something you could never even talk about without freezing up, even when you were improving."
Maple closed her eyes for a long breath. "Maybe it's just because I'm feeling good right now. I don't know. I wish I could. Am I?"
Amber smirked wryly. "A little vague, there, girl. But I get it." She exhaled in solidarity, giving an encouraging nuzzle to Maple's neck. "It seriously hurts. But maybe just believing you're doing better is enough to start feeling better for real? Come on, you just finished a funny story about Willow being... like that. Whatever will help, tonight seems like a good night to make an effort for it."
Maple sucked in a wet sniff, then opened her eyes again. "It's not just that it hurts. When Willow had Alder, it was bittersweet, sure, because it meant no Ironridge." She wiped at her eyes again. "But by the time he arrived, it had been months, and we'd had a chance to come to terms with that. And it was t-truly magical. There have been times all throughout my life and this adventure when things have hurt. But getting cut with a sword or lost in a city or robbed... Those are bad things. They're supposed to hurt. B-Becoming a mother and getting to see that young life wasn't supposed to. It's supposed to be the most wonderful thing ever."
Amber massaged her shoulder with a hoof. "I don't know how much time you spent around other new moms in Riverfall, but I know Willow could tell you what it's like to get two hours of sleep night after night while your kid keeps waking up to cry. Probably a lot of ponies out there who would disagree with you on how wonderful it is."
"They're wrong," Maple muttered. "I know about making sacrifices for that new life. We all did, giving up on our dreams of Ironridge for that little Alder. You remember how much it hurt, when we couldn't do what we believed in so much that our cutie marks came for it. And we all saw that it was worth it. It was good, Amber. Intensely so."
Amber thought slowly, holding onto her as she contemplated how to respond. "I guess you're right. Probably feels like a broken promise, and all that."
"A broken promise." Maple nodded. "With Alder, we all helped Willow, and then when she had Fir too. We worked hard for them. And I don't know if you felt it as strongly as I did... maybe it was just me... but it felt so wonderful seeing their first steps, or their first words, or their first teeth... like all that work was paying off into a real pony."
"Yep. I thought it was cool too, but I know you were far more attached to Alder than I was. And not for my lack of trying." Amber chuckled carefully.
Slowly, Maple breathed. "I don't know how better to explain it. It hurts. Having a foal was supposed to hurt and also be good and overall be wonderful, but all I got was the pain."
"What you got was an experience." Amber's smile grew, reassuring and tight. "An experience that made you who you are, and is a big part of why you and Starlight now have each other."
"I did." Maple's voice cracked. "I don't know. Maybe I can't talk about this just now. Do you mind sitting here for a while?"
"Got you covered." Amber leaned into her, and the night went on.
Valey rose out of a shadow in the Immortal Dream's pantry, a little-traveled room between the kitchen and cargo hold. It wasn't a mealtime and she was hungry, so she kicked a light on with a hind leg and set about scrounging her surroundings.
Bags of oats, barley and flour didn't appeal to her any more than the fresh water barrels, and they seemed low on produce that needed to be kept cold. Probably due to the recent flight to Mistvale... She made a mental note to remind someone of that, a stray apple instead being impaled on her fangs and a small hunk of cheese finding its way under her wing. Satisfied with the beginnings of her haul, she plopped down on a barrel beside the best company the room had and began to eat.
"So how goes it?" Valey asked around a mouthful of half-chewed apple.
Her conversationalist didn't reply. Black, chitinous and filled with holes in unnatural places, Nyala's old body sat on its haunches next to the wall, chained with a collar to a ring meant for hanging things. Its eyes were pupilless and faintly luminescent, and the insectoid pony watched Valey's food closely but without emotion.
"No," Valey declared, shoving the apple back in her mouth and taking another bite. "You get fed on a schedule. You want to eat whenever you want, you can help us get you back to your old self. Bananas, I know Nyala'd appreciate being able to eat again."
The body didn't even seem to notice she was speaking. It had instincts and motor control, able to eat when fed and walk and even fly, yet was much less reactive than even an ordinary animal. There was no curiosity, no drive, no attunement to language or anything else she imagined when she thought of wild birds or squirrels or anything else. For a time, it had been kept in a cabin, and Valey did notice it liked to have the window uncurtained and watch the moon. But since the ship had become fuller, Nyala's body lowered in priority, and now it was kept here, safe and secure and out of everyone's way.
Valey finished her apple, gobbled her cheese, and over several more runs of the storeroom found more to feast on until she was patting her stomach contentedly. "Mmm. Good stuff..." She glanced down at herself, then back up at the body. "...So hey."
She took a breath. "I know you can't listen, but kinda just want to talk about this to someone who can't talk back. I'm thinking... about dropping out of the tournament. Actually, I pretty much promised Harshwater I would. Don't wanna run away, so I'm thinking I'll just show up to my next fight and surrender with dignity. But no matter how I do it, that leaves me out of a job. And I dunno what to do with myself when I have nothing to do, so... I'd really like to work on getting you back. But we're kind of at a brick wall for that. I have no idea how the clowns in Icereach put me together from a body and some moon glass, and everyone who knew is dead. And Chauncey's really long and complex method? Bananas, I'm not going to find some blank mare and ask them to turn you into their kid. I don't even remember the rest. Something to do with windigo hearts, and I dunno how to use those either. Bananas... What would you want me to do?"
The body stared impassively at her, less interested than when she had been eating.
"Yeah, same to you, buddy." Valey stuck out her tongue. "Come on, there has to be a way. They didn't need any time at all to put me together. How did they do it so quickly?"
Still no answer. Valey sighed. "Bleh... I wish I could remember before seven years ago, sometimes. I can still see all the faces around me the day I woke up! Why couldn't I know what they were doing just a few minutes earlier? They would have had access to moon glass, windigo hearts, batponies, normal ponies, rocks, snow and pretty much nothing else... How hard could it have been? Is there just something I'm missing, or is it a ton of arcane science we'd never be able to replicate no matter how hard we tried?"
Valey thought harder, the empty shell's silence sufficiently not distracting. "Chauncey had you with Navarre for six years. I know he said something about not having that procedure that made me, and think he was trying to find it. It's the same head mind working on it, with the resources of a city-state instead of a small outpost. Not the biggest increase, but definitely better. Icereach had windigo hearts, Izvaldi had a real windigo. Navarre couldn't have had that long after the glass fell before he made me the first time, though. Months at best. Bananas, what's different?"
"Do you really want to know?"
Valey jumped so hard she fell off her barrel, landing awkwardly on the floor and yelping in surprise.
"Sorry," a Starlight said, revealing herself from behind a sack of grains. "Trying to get around the library. Didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it sounded like an important conversation..."
"Uhh..." Valey blinked, taking in the filly's sightless eyes. "You're the other one. The one who appeared out of nowhere and saved me and Crystal in Izvaldi."
Glimmer nodded. "That's me. You're welcome, by the way. I may look fine, but taking this much damage has put me in a very bad position." One of her ears flicked. "Anyway, you were thinking about Icereach?"
"You know about it?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Look, I really don't know who you are. You saved me, so I'm cool with you, and Starlight says she's cool with you too, but isn't being a doppelganger kind of... weird?"
"I've been following you for a while," Glimmer apologized. "Hiding. Listening in on things. Sorry again if that bothers you. I have a mission, and didn't want to become too involved." Her sightless eyes shifted. "Anyway, I can't offer you anything more than a new perspective, but if you really want to devote yourself to figuring your sister out, don't do it by yourself. You should ask your friends to help you. You have more than you did before, and the friends you already had might have had new experiences. See what you can do by putting all your brains together."
Valey blinked. "You think Harshwater's a scientist?"
Glimmer shrugged. "She's smarter than she gives herself credit for, certainly. How about Felicity and Crystal? The former is skilled with monk arts, and those might be useful. The latter is related to Chauncey's experiments, so even if he and Puddles and Navarre are gone, you might be able to recover some knowledge or expertise from her. And Shinespark was the one who built a body for a cutie mark in the first place."
"Those are... actually pretty good points." Valey's eyes narrowed in thought. "Huh. Thanks."
Glimmer winced. "Don't mention it. Normally, I'd discourage digging into these kinds of things when you don't have to. Look at your past and ask yourself how much happiness messing around with souls and cutie marks and how they work has ever brought you. But I don't have a very good rock to stand on, right now, so what can I say except good luck?"
"Yeah, thanks." Valey nodded again, still thinking... and suddenly tilted her head. "What were you trying to avoid the library for, again?"
One floor above, Maple, Amber, Gerardo, Grenada and Shinespark all stood at attention as High Prince Gazelle lazily inspected a reading chair. "Far more relaxed than the last time I was here," he mused, slitted eyes wandering carelessly. "So what say you ladies we talk a little business?"
"I've been embroiled in a little event recently," Gazelle idly remarked, playing with his claws. "You might have heard of it if you've been following the news. This little thing happened called someone blowing up Izvaldi's capitol and Garsheeva in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses. Her charred corpse is still there for everyone to see. It's not that easy to kill a goddess, of course, but every higher-up in the Empire can see this is a major disaster that's only going to get worse." He smoothly lifted his eyes. "And I hear your airship was seen by many in the area at the time. Imagine my surprise when word reached me my favorite tournament fighter was carrying on despite grievous injuries."
Shinespark met his gaze without bowing her head. "That's not a very reassuring tone to greet us in, Prince. Please tell us why you're here."
Gazelle's lip trembled. "No trust in an old friend? Awww." He feigned wiping a tear from his eye, then instantly grinned, showing teeth. "It's just that you're a remarkably credible source in the Empire these days. Public sentiment can be what it will, but ships are arriving in Wilderwind from Varsidel with new stories of what happened, and your accounts from months ago line up quite accurately with what new travelers are saying. And people remember. In fact, with the amount of opportunism flying around in light of such a flagrant blow to Garsheeva's image, with how many are picking sides and sticking to them, you might be one of the most trusted sources there is. I just wanted to get to you first. Make sure no lesser politicians came in and tried to extort a story out of you that benefitted their whims."
Maple, Amber, Gerardo, Shinespark and Grenada remained standing. "That's kind of you," Shinespark said stiffly. "I suppose you want us to testify to whatever version of events benefits you most, too."
"Let's not jump to conclusions!" Gazelle winced, hurriedly shaking his paws. "Did I say that? I didn't mean to say that at all. Not that I wouldn't appreciate it as a thank-you, but I've already got my chickens in a row." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "I have a sister, and this Empire is her birthright. Protecting it as her charge until she is old enough to rule is my duty, nothing more and nothing less. Of course, I was being active already, but now that Garsheeva's gone and gotten egg on her face I have... plenty of problems to quash, shall we say."
Everyone kept watching. "So what is it you ask of us?" Gerardo pressed, shifting a talon. "Surely this isn't just a house call."
"Guilty as charged." Gazelle sat back, putting his paws in the air. "First off, I want the real story. You lot like to snoop around and stick your noses where they don't belong; it's how you did what you did in Ironridge. Don't tell me there isn't a shred of tantalizing info you have on Izvaldi. Not that I'll ask you to testify; I'm more interested in a sounding board for ferreting out liars from the other provinces. Now if you wanted to go public with some story, I might not stop you, but that would be your idea, not mine." He clapped his paws. "Second, I want you out of reach of any low-born, fanciful manipulators. The Empire is my toy, not theirs, and you're too powerful of a tool to leave laying around. From now on we're going to stay in close contact, you and I, because I like to have checks on dangerous things and anyone trying to wield you needs to meet a very unfortunate demise." His eyebrow arched. "Catch my drift?"
Maple swallowed, looking at all her friends. "We certainly don't want to get pulled into the Empire's politics..."
Gazelle just sighed. "Without powerful friends, you're in danger of it. Garsheeva's image just got rolled up, used as a rug and incinerated with fire from the sky, and everyone will be making their moves. Where lawlessness and anarchy used to be a chess game between the council of lords, Garsheeva has already had to return to the capitol in her diminished form to try and quell the chaos after one mere day of seeing personally to the survivors. So why not tell me about the dear Admiral's injuries? Because it looks to me like trouble has already found you."
"She was caught on the edge of the explosion," Shinespark warily said. "We were there, and do know about it."
Gazelle winced. "Painful way to go, but not too bad, then. I'm sure she'll be fine. Now what's the punchline?"
Shinespark looked to Maple. Maple instantly shrank. "Why are you looking at me!?"
"Executive decision?" Gerardo noticed the exchange, clearing his throat. "We need allies. Shinespark, explain."
Shinespark's face grew stiffer, and she nodded. "Garsheeva was summoned by Chauncey connecting an illegal generator to the power grid as bait. He had things called Nightmare Modules that gave him enough power to try fighting her."
Gazelle nodded along. "All things I've heard, though you knowing them is nice if I ever need corroboration that the sarosians were behind all this..." He stroked his chin. "Anything else? Come now, Chauncey didn't trust me. There must have been something of his you dug up I'm not aware of."
"...And the rocket," Shinespark finished. "It's a weapon used for delivering things quickly through the sky. This one must have been filled with explosives. The last one I saw was full of windigoes. They're made by Yakyakistan."
Gazelle's pupils grew so wide, they became round. "Yakyakistan?" he mewled like a birthday kitten. "For real!?"
"You say that like it's a good thing..." Shinespark nervously lifted a hoof.
"Ah ha ha... Ha ha ha ha ha! Bwa ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA!" Gazelle began to laugh, and didn't stop. He doubled over, leaned backward until his head was upside-down, howling with mirth... and suddenly blinked and fell silent, finding himself nose to nose with a green-maned batpony. "Well hello there, Admiral Valey."
"What's... up?" Valey slowly, slowly raised an eyebrow at everyone else in the room.
Gazelle quickly surveyed her back. "Hmm. Not as damaged as I'd heard, but a far cry from attractive. Now then!" He flung himself out of the chair, twisting in midair and landing on his paws. "I've changed my mind," he said with a curved, spreading grin, and flared his wings for emphasis. "I'd love it if you testified. Spread that story to Stormhoof officials and then the masses. Not that I'd ever stoop to blackmail, but I am the prince. The second most powerful sphinx in the Empire, and we all know how far the first has just tumbled from her usual perch. In fact, some might even consider me stronger. So what could I pay you with for a little back-scratch, here? Tell me your hearts' desires."
Everyone suddenly blinked. "Uhh..." Valey tilted her head. "Look, I missed something. Not agreeing to anything until I know what I'm agreeing to, but are you offering to get one of those ultra-fancy healing potions? You know, help fix my back?"
"Easy and done." Gazelle snapped his talons. "What else?"
Shinespark slowly regarded him, words readying themselves on her tongue. "How... hard would it be for you to get us a Writ of Harmonic Sanction?"
"A border pass? Mmm." Gazelle stroked his chin. "Are we talking just one, or a whole ship's worth? Or are you more interested in being smuggled across than having permission to come and go as you please? Hmmm..." He snapped again. "We'll call it a solid maybe. It's difficult because the border is an institution of their country, not ours, but I'll see what I can do. What else?"
"How dangerous is us telling our story going to be to us?" Shinespark asked. "About Izvaldi. Testifying that a Yakyakistani weapon was involved. We don't know for sure it was Yakyakistan. Chauncey had a foalnapped Yakyakistani scientist working for him. That rocket could have been launched for any number of reasons."
"Now now, no need to mention that part." Gazelle silenced her with a raised paw. "We'll go over things and make sure we know what you're going to say. And if anything, it'll make things safer for you since everyone will know they can't coerce a bogus testimony out of you without obviously running counter to what you said before. So what do you say? Just run with things now and call me in your debt until you think of more to ask for?"
Gerardo cleared his throat before anyone else could respond. "We tell that Stormhoof military council from before everything we know about Izvaldi, and in turn are indebted to you? Am I properly understanding the gist of this offer?"
"Accurate enough." Gazelle's tail flicked.
Gerardo glanced to the others. "I think we could use a night to discuss this among ourselves."
Everyone nodded.
"Fair enough. Take your time." Gazelle rose to leave, lifting a wing in salute. "In the meantime, try to avoid interactions with any parties who look too savory for their own good, would you? It's a cardinal rule that anyone honest about their dishonesty is far more trustworthy than someone dishonest about it. Good day."
With that, he was gone, leaving everyone blinking. "...Okay," Valey declared, sagging into a chair Gazelle hadn't just been occupying. "I'm gonna need the big, full version of everything that just happened."
"Well, Gazelle was here," Maple began. "And he wants us to go to Stormhoof and testify about Izvaldi..."
Maple, Starlight, Gerardo, Shinespark and Valey stood before the grand entrance to Stormhoof keep, every member of the Immortal Dream's crew that had been present on the Ironridge dam to witness the arrival of Yakyakistan's rocket. This time, the Everlaste guards that swarmed the city treated them in a far more welcoming light, though Valey was the subject of nonstop unwelcoming looks.
"Bananas," she whispered as they crossed the threshold, the guards having moved aside to let them in. "These guys are even ruder than Stormhoof normally is. Still dark in here, though. I kinda just want to sneak around..."
Manalights were visible, installed in chandeliers and most of the tower walls, but they were dim or extinguished in favor of window lighting, leaving large bars of shadow across the floor that formed complex, angled pathways for a sneaky sarosian to follow. Valey still found it an odd security breach, spending that much effort on importing guards yet leaving the door wide open to the ponies who would hate Stormhoof most, but it was their castle, not hers.
Their path continued upwards, a professional-looking guard leading them along, and from time to time she saw rooms familiar from her own infiltration, like the grand ballroom adjacent to the kitchen complex. But they largely took back routes, narrow staircases and hallways that curved with the keep's circular architecture, and as the windows passed by they showed the island fortress's city dropping further and further away. Large sections of stone made up the staircases, their faces carved to look like assemblies of white bricks, and eventually the corridors straightened and started branching, the tower reaching its upper levels.
"Wait here," the guard instructed once they reached a room equally as interesting as the others, then stopped and didn't move.
"...Well?" Valey shrugged, seating herself on a decorated stone bench between two ornamental wall pillars, potted ferns on either side. "Now what?"
"I suppose we wait," Gerardo remarked, seating himself across from her. "And see who comes to get us."
They didn't have to wait long. An elegant tapping of hooves announced someone coming down the hall, and soon their reception came into view: a long, red, well-groomed mane and tail, slightly larger-than-average proportions, and bat wings and tufted ears. "Good to see you again, darlings," Felicity greeted, stiff and poised. "I hope the evening finds you well."
Valey quickly noted the guard's obvious discomfort and mistrust clashing with her professional demeanor, but turned her eyes to Felicity. "Uh... hey? What are you doing here?"
Felicity blinked. "Defense contractor for the city of Stormhoof? Did I really not let my job slip at some point while traveling? I feel like I did..." Her ears cycled between upright and pinned back, and she glanced mistrustfully at the Everlaste guard. "Might I lead you somewhere more private to talk? Gazelle's informed me why you're here, and I think we have a lot of sensitive information to brief each other on."
The guard didn't need to be dismissed twice, and Valey was glad to see her go. Gerardo cleared his throat. "Better there than here, wherever you have in mind. Lead the way?"
"Of course. Follow me." Felicity guided them around three corners, ignoring staircases and sticking to the same floor, eventually ending in a wide-windowed room that seemed to be a luxury bedroom suite. A curved pane of glass made up one wall, almost like the hallways in Skyfreeze, with a lush four-poster near it and plenty of chairs and amenities.
She coughed, locking the door behind them. "This ought to do, as long as you don't mind the opulence. Easy enough for me to requisition, highly private and soundproof for... ahem... reasons, and much less formal than a stuffy office. Now then!" She beamed, sitting back on her haunches and flinging her forelegs wide. "How are all of you? I let you out of my sight not days ago, and it already seems like so much has happened!"
Valey turned, showing off her scarred back. "Eh, I've been worse. Been way better, too."
"I'll say, darling!" Felicity blanched. "That's a wound you'll want to have treated, trust me."
"That seems to be the idea," Gerardo offered with a shrug. "That prince of yours wants to pay us healing potions and far more in exchange for a public testimony that Yakyakistan created the weapon that did that to Garsheeva. Though I must admit, I could do with a clearer explanation of where all this is going."
"Mhmm," Maple agreed pensively, Starlight sitting on her back.
"Diving into business already, are we?" Felicity tsk'd. "If you all insist. But first, you are aware of the situation in Stormhoof, yes? Why I'm here, why Everlaste is here... I'd hate to get ahead of myself and confuse you further."
Shinespark's tail flicked. "Perhaps you should explain those, then. I've heard bits and pieces, but don't remember if I'm putting it all together right. This is because Stormhoof's army is absent in Ironridge, they're worried enough to borrow troops from their political ally, and you... work for them for some reason involving the Night Mother?"
"Correct and close, darling," Felicity agreed. "I'm a defense contractor hired by Lord Stormhoof and endorsed by Gazelle to do something about this city's dark underbelly. Do you know what I mean?"
Valey blinked, half-lifting a hoof. "The old sewer tunnels?"
Felicity grinned. "Precisely. This island has been built up so many times over so many years, no one quite knows what's down there, except that the dark is a good place to stay when you aren't welcome on the surface. More than that, it has to do with this island's little... energy crisis. You've probably noticed how dim things are at night."
"I have noticed," Shinespark declared. "Why is that? Does it just have to do with cost? If it's creating security concerns, isn't Meltdown in control of that?"
"Hm! One would think, wouldn't they?" Felicity winked. "Regardless, in the meantime, Lord Stormhoof felt it would be more cost-effective to hire one competent mare who knows how to keep tabs on the underworld. It's a fast and dirty game down there, but I tend to keep abreast of any would-be plots and have them reach my ears far before they actually manifest. Safe? Debatable. Cost-efficient? More than enough for him."
"Well, that's cool, I guess." Valey nodded out the window. "So what else is important? What from us do you need to know?"
Felicity's face fell serious. "Absolutely everything and as much as you know. But remember, darlings, I've... been feeling some conflicted loyalties between my usual position with Gazelle and the Night Mother, and between you all. And I know about keeping secrets. Anything you tell me that either of us deem too sensitive or dangerous in the wrong hooves will never leave this room. I swear it on all hope of seeing my sisters' and my bodies restored." She crossed her heart with a leathery wing.
Everyone glanced at each other. "Well... alright," Valey sighed, and together they launched into another, far more thorough recollection of the goings-on in Izvaldi than had been given to Gazelle.
Hundreds of miles to the east, as the sun set on Stormhoof Keep and Felicity listened on and on to Starlight and her friends' story, another group of equines held court in a very different tower. An unbroken window ringed the penthouse, small enough for a single room, its roof supported by a column in the middle instead. Dusty brown rock formed the carved trim and ornaments, but the structure was too modern to rely on stone for its core, built by a goddess who knew how to stockpile architectural knowledge for her own palace.
High Prince Gazelle paced in circles around the window, his tail flicking eagerly. Beyond were the expanses of Grandbell: normally shrubland torn by winds from the east, an infinite wall of rock stood to the south so high he had to press his nose to the glass to see the top. But a series of mighty aqueducts had been built into and out of the Aldenfold cliff face, capturing mountain runoff before it could disperse like mist and tracing it in a quatrefoil around the countryside. Several of the pattern's petals were inlaid with farmland, groves of crops and irrigated trees to feed a mighty city, but the ring furthest from the mountain served as the border to a titanic pit, nearly a mile wide. The city itself was built into the walls of this pit, level upon level carved straight into stone, with ramparts like the one that supported his current tower built up into the aqueduct around the side.
The window glass stood firm against the province's winds, barely admitting a whisper, and far below the city took shelter in its cylindrical walls. From one angle, the prince could see into the waterway itself, an edifice half-wall, half-brace supporting the canal as it flowed around the city. He stopped to stare at the waters for a while, manalight reflecting off his back.
Suddenly, there was a tap of hooves, and on command the window hissed, smoothly sliding in a ring down into its foundations and exposing the entire room to the night breeze. Gazelle's mane lifted, but it wasn't strong enough to make him lose his balance or stumble.
"Much better," Meltdown said from behind him, the fan engines on her new, post-Goldoa suit idling appreciatively with the wind.
"Having time to think it over?" Gazelle impatiently purred, not looking back.
"I have, and I'm failing to see what having the Ironridge envoy testify that Izvaldi had an illegal power reactor will accomplish," Meltdown snorted. "We already know they did. It's what baited you-know-who out there in the first place."
A sarcastic huff sounded from further behind, the room's third occupant sitting in a chair with their back to the wind.
"Easy does it, my friend." Gazelle held up a wing, feathers ruffling in the breeze. "Manufacturing a power crisis is difficult enough as it is. We'd have to be fools to throw away an opportunity to have someone else claim sarosians in Izvaldi damaged the power grid. We'd have to push rates on everyone to keep Stormhoof from getting suspicious, of course, but they'll have the sarosians to blame and so will Everlaste and both of them will just eat that right up. Though Lord Gyre won't be pleased..."
"And this is necessary?" Meltdown raised an eyebrow, the air behind her shimmering slightly from heat exhaust. "You don't think Stormhoof is vulnerable enough to sarosians already? I thought you lead Admiral Valey on enough of an escapade months ago to demonstrate that they're wide open."
Gazelle rumbled. "Yes, yes, that's perfectly true. But at the time I may have slightly underestimated her competence, and the bigger a tizzy everyone's in, the more we'll be able to capitalize on the drama. I'd say when our news about Yakyakistan and this rocket of theirs breaks, we'll have a solid week where tensions are at their highest..."
Meltdown stepped closer. "What will you do if this does turn out to be a threat? Last we've heard, the merchants you had Stormhoof rob never made it back to Varsidel, so the Everlaste troops in Wilderwind are mostly there as a preventative measure. But suppose they suddenly did make it home and we earned enough of Varsidel's ire that they came to attack? They have their own war, but are so much more built-up than one militaristic province that even a sliver of their forces would be something we'd have to try to repel. Especially since Garsheeva won't be fighting any time soon."
"I'm tiny, not helpless," an irate voice growled from the chair. "Don't make me school both of you in a fight to prove it."
Meltdown swallowed and nodded. "Regardless. If Yakyakistan was a threat, and they and Varsidel came to call at the same time, the Empire would be in trouble. Everlaste might have the resources to occupy many provinces at once, but they can't fight a war on two fronts."
"Yes, and Stormhoof's currently sitting on a flying boatload of heroes who stopped Yakyakistan once before." Gazelle tried in vain to fix his mane with a paw. "I'm sure we could work something out if push came to shove."
Meltdown frowned. "The records of their testimony indicate only four Yakyakistani nationals played a role in the conflict, Valey herself excluded, and three of them were on her side. Furthermore, they had access to a Tree of Harmony-"
"Funny story. So do I." The sphinx in the chair yawned, stretching and showing her paws. "You could always get on finding a way to get that filly to pay mine a visit..."
"Yes, so we potentially have the same resource." Meltdown sighed. "The point is, they fought one rogue ambassador and a commander who fought for the strongest side. If this rocket strike could be a herald of a full-scale invasion, that's different. What I want to know is if it's really the best idea to cripple the entire Empire by lying about the state of the power grid and starving them of power when we could need to be at our strongest, just to raise tensions in Stormhoof when they're already high enough. What's stopping you from getting Felicity fired right now, setting everything off and at least trying to give us a day or two to understand the new order before a potential invasion?"
"The rule of drama, my dear Meltdown." Gazelle stretched, arching his back and fluttering his wings before turning around, eyes shining against the night backdrop. "We just need a suitable actor to depose her. Doing it ourselves would make it look like it's our fault Stormhoof's security is so laughable. And I have an idea or two, but since Geribaldi is being a coward and not playing the game, plan A is presently out. No taking her down with Stormhoof himself... We may just have to wait for something better to fall into our clutches."
The chair turned too, revealing a sphinx with eyes more luminous than Gazelle's, faint burn marks on her fur and a blue set of triangular runes for a cutie mark. "Waiting won't get you what you want," Garsheeva said. "Felicity has prayed to me about her conflict. She's considered abandoning me and your quest with her sisters and going to join the team from Ironridge, and this will play out. If you need whoever ousts her to be a scapegoat and she leaves of her own accord, that's going to bring the Ironridge team into a negative spotlight as well. They will not react well to this, and if you count them among your enemies, you will fail. You cannot comprehend what kind of power they have that you'd be dealing with."
Meltdown opened her mouth to speak, and Garsheeva immediately silenced her with, "Neither of you."
"A strongly-worded rebuke." Gazelle bowed his head and folded his ears. "We shall heed. In that case, time to try my luck with Baldy again, and barring him, my other idea..."
Meltdown sighed. "I'm returning to Stormhoof as well. I need to hear as close to firsthoof as possible whether this Yakyakistan story is an excuse for Everlaste to occupy the shoreline provinces or constitutes real danger. We can't overlook something as dangerous as a double invasion."
"Fine. Suit yourselves." Garsheeva turned her back on them again. "And if you see the dragon, tell her to get in touch. She's been dead on the network for days."
"That is... quite the story," Felicity replied as everyone finished, ears folding and perking again as she thought. "Don't worry. Crystal's secret will be safe with me. In the meantime, I need a night to think this over, and you all..." She paced to the broad window, stars shining in the sky beyond. "You probably won't want to return to your ship through the city during night quarantine. Stay here instead? You won't get to officially testify until tomorrow, anyway, and it's no trouble getting more rooms like this one."
Gerardo nodded in interest. "Not every day one gets offered to be put up like royalty. What say the rest of you?"
"Sounds cozy to me," Valey replied, signaling she felt no traps. "And yeah, let's not put up with those Everlaste dudes if we can avoid it. Any objections?"
"As long as me and Starlight get a room together," Maple requested. Shinespark just shrugged.
"It's settled, then," Felicity proclaimed, nodding at Valey. "You stay here, darling, since this one's already ours. The rest of you with me, if you will?"
Maple, Starlight, Shinespark and Gerardo followed her out, leaving her with nothing to do save for staring out the window. The skies were empty, nobody risking flying during threat of lockdown. No clouds, either. Valey recalled the time in Izvaldi when a storm had blown in and Garsheeva flew out to disperse it... If the giant sphinx was gone, the weather here might grow more like Ironridge. She fully expected to awaken one morning to a rainstorm and have it last for days.
She sat, resting sideways against the glass, its faint chill feeling good to her burned, healing back. Looking at this angle, she could see more of the mainland, glowing with orange lights she more associated with lanterns than mana power. And... was that the Immortal Dream? Far off to the side, gently cruising, its harmonic comet shimmering, the ship seemed to be beating a lazy circle around the island with no destination in mind. Maybe her friends had decided to have a pleasure cruise in their absence. She certainly wouldn't blame them. It was a nice ship, and they had plenty of fuel thanks to Amber, so why not use it?
"Ahem." Felicity's voice cleared its throat at the door. "I've returned, darling."
Valey's ears perked. "Oh, you're back? Uh, come in!"
Felicity rose out of the shadows, not bothering to mess with the lock, and paced over to join her at the window, a box resting on her back that she quickly set aside. "So."
"What's that?" Valey nodded at the box.
"A gift from Gazelle," Felicity replied. "He called it advance payment. I have a feeling you could use what's inside."
"Bananas, he's fast," Valey mumbled, climbing to her hooves and trotting quickly to the table. "Mhmm... mhmm..." She pried the leaves off the box, revealing yet another dose of sparkling healing potion. "So how much of this do I need? Now that I know this stuff is rare..."
Felicity paced up beside her. "Honestly, darling, it's not the biggest jar, and your wounds are... Well, better being safe than sorry."
"Neat." Valey frowned at it for a moment, then lifted the jar and drank before settling in to wait. "...Feeling a little less like my skin is two sizes too small. How does it look?"
Felicity examined her back with a clinical stare. "Well, it helped. Significantly, I might add. You look less like you were caught in a death bomb, at least. Though your fur is still rather uneven and a little discolored... It'll take some serious cosmetics before you look like nothing happened."
Valey's ears fell in relief. "Nothing permanent, then?"
"I'd strongly advise not doing that again." Felicity tapped her wingtips down along Valey's spine, searching for sensitive spots. "And while these potions are designed to get soldiers back into the fray, I'd also advise not fighting for a while, if you can help it. Though the tournament..."
"I dunno about the tournament," Valey admitted. "I might be bowing out. Some of my friends are... not cool with me being there anymore, and there might not be a point. But, uh, I'm thinking about it."
"I see." Felicity folded her ears. "Understandable. You probably have your hooves very full, between Crystal and everything else..."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, Crystal's..." Her face grew serious. "We're really trusting you, you know? Since you work for the Night Mother, and all? The whole mixed-relationship thing was a heresy for her too, if I'm remembering, and Crystal is... really delicate. If she got whacked by a goddess for who she's been with, I for one would feel pretty awful, and I don't even like her."
"Of course." Felicity kept rubbing Valey's back. "I promise. That said, I would... dearly like to meet her. You probably don't know as much about taking care of someone like this as you ought to, and I could help."
"You think?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "She's kinda touchy, and I mean that in both senses of the word." Her wings twitched slightly. "What are you doing, by the way?"
Felicity dodged the question. "Well, fortunately I can be stubborn too. And yes, I know a thing or two about do-it-yourself medicine. Hard not to, when it's a matter of staying alive in a place like Gyre."
"Sweet. That makes you and Harshwater." Valey stared out the window. "You've got your work cut out for you, but if the two of you want to bully her into a checkup, maybe tomorrow after we do whatever with Stormhoof?" Her wings twitched harder, and she tried to turn her head. "Also just saying, but whatever you're doing to my back is kinda making me feel a certain way, here."
"Oh, is it, now?" Felicity lidded her eyes, then stepped back and resumed a neutral expression. "This is reminding me of a conversation or three we agreed to postpone in Mistvale."
Valey blinked, memories returning of some very tense conversations while flying, followed by a moment when Felicity traced words on her sides to communicate while shadow sneaking and she couldn't keep her wings down... and her eyes slowly traced the room's opulence, its lush bed and pristine skyline. "Yeeeah, something's telling me you're not remembering just this instant."
Felicity gave a guilty smile. "You've got me there, darling. Think you've got a moment to indulge this old mare, though? Nothing too far; I... just want to talk."
"You know what?" Valey shrugged. "Bananas. Sure. You've been cool enough to me. Let's chat."
"I-I..." Felicity fidgeted. "Oh my. This is awkward now that I have to say it. I fear I'm going to blush. But I noticed, at the time, you... had some issues involving physical contact."
"Yep." Valey leaned back. "I'm horny and you're hot. Congratulations, my reputation from Ironridge has gone back from being an open secret to being part of my name..."
Felicity's smile returned. "Hello there, issues, I'm Felicity. You talk about this like it's a problem."
"You want to tell me it isn't?" Valey gave her a serious look. "Look, in Ironridge alienating everyone I could was the name of the game. Someone dislikes me enough to either avoid me or come get me, that makes it easy to push them around. But I have friends now. I can't just go around being a cocky flirt. That's what you're getting at, right?"
Felicity bit her lip. "Mmm... Darling, I just thought you were fun to tease. But if me saying that earns a conflicted rant instead of a blush, perhaps this is something you need to talk about. Keep talking, please?"
Valey flopped backwards, landing on the floor of the suite. "Argh. Look, yeah, sure, have fun. It's what I did all the time, so I can't complain if I have it coming. Just..." She folded her ears. "Are you or aren't you going to try to talk me into... you know...?"
"And now we're beating around the bush." Felicity sighed. "Consider me impartial and without agenda. Do you or don't you enjoy... ah... teasing others and being teased?"
Valey squeezed her eyes shut. "Look. I used to be a big militia boss who annoyed my minions endlessly by threatening to flirt with their marefriends and wives, and thought it was hilarious to go through with it. The other captain dude fired every mare in the Defense Force just to annoy me. Go ahead and tell me that's a cool way to treat my real friends now that I have them."
"That sounds entirely up to your friends," Felicity remarked. "You've told me they took a day or three to win you over. Were you ever like this to them while they were still trying?"
"I mean..." Valey rolled her shoulders in thought. "Ironflanks, no. She's kinda just not my type. I bothered her with this nickname, though. Bananas, it used to tick her off. And I'm pretty sure I've made Shinespark really red before..."
"Mhmm, excellent," Felicity agreed, bobbing her head. "And how do they feel about that behavior now? You still call her Ironflanks, no?"
"Well, yeah, but..." Valey winced. "I mean, I guess she got used to it? Pretty sure I haven't annoyed Sparky since Riverfall."
Felicity exhaled. "From my preliminary understanding of things, it sounds as though your friends became your friends in light of your habits and indulgences. And that didn't stop them."
"I still feel like you're asking me to do something," Valey warned. "And bananas, no. Look, do you have any idea how many mares on that ship like me?" She waved a wing at the passing Dream. "Sparky outright said she has a crush on me. Harshwater has kissed me... twice? I forget. Amber and I hung out and got all snuggly in Riverfall. And don't tell me you're not interested, too."
"Sounds like a situation many would find themselves envious of," Felicity remarked. "And yes, I find you very cute and think you have a fascinating mind and personality. You could say I enjoyed making you red in that Mistvale valley a little too much. So what's stopping you from making the most of a good situation?"
"...It's complicated." Valey looked away. "The Empire's heresy laws, for one."
Felicity smirked. "Now that's an excuse, darling. You're already harboring one mare with an unholy child in her womb. You've met the Night Mother as well, and she has a vested interest in you. If you made eyes at a mare from time to time, I think you could slip it past her gaze."
"Neat." Valey kept her gaze averted, the window suddenly very interesting.
Felicity slowly curled her lip in concern. "Valey, what's wrong?"
Valey's tail lashed. "Look, I'm just not interested! If you're trying... like... Bananas." She dropped her head. "You wanna know what's wrong? I'm wrong. And I know what I've gotta do to be better, and I'm doing it, okay? Changing myself by stubbornness and force. For the better, because I'm not cool with who I was. If it's that obvious this is unnatural for me, well, I guess that just means I've got my work cut out for me yet."
Felicity sighed a long, low sigh. "You and I are definitely not done with this conversation yet."
Valey raised an eyebrow at Felicity, then folded her ears. "Alright. I mean, I'm your guest here. It's not like there's anything better for me to do." She sighed. "So what do you want from me?"
Felicity regarded her with concern. "Oh, this isn't about me, darling. It's about you having a bad reaction to what should be a fun and innocuous topic of conversation and when I press, you immediately tell me you're not okay. What kind of a friend would I be if I didn't offer to help?"
"Meh." Valey looked away. "Listen, it's a cool sentiment, but this is just what I get to live with. I deal with it, and the fact is I used to be a jerk and doing the stuff I used to is no way to treat my friends. They don't deserve it. I feel like you're pushing me to go back and live my old life and run around and repel everyone by being absolutely shameless, and I won't. It's not worth it. And before you tell me I don't sound all that happy right now, that's just paying the price for being who I used to be. Sometimes your past just comes back to haunt you."
Felicity folded her forelegs, settling down with her hooves tucked beneath her. "Oh, believe me, I could write a book on that subject. Grudges in Gyre can last until death, and beyond it if you have allies. And my physical state is a testament to things that occurred decades ago. Not to say you don't have baggage of your own, but in a lot of ways I envy you, being able to hop on an airship and leave all that many thousands of miles away."
"Yeah, but that's the easy part," Valey groaned. "Some dude tracks me down or remembers my face, big deal. I can beat anyone in a fight. I think it's even happened before in a bar here..." She rubbed her face. "Yeah, I have gotten away. I've left it all behind, and it needs to stay that way."
Felicity bit her lip. "Well, I beg to differ. It's clearly still causing you no small amount of consternation."
"No, that's because-! Ugh." Valey slumped hard against the floor. "Look, I used to make a game of annoying ponies and driving them away. When they're going to be against you either way, it feels a lot less unfair if you can say it's your fault. At least then you get to brag and be creative about it. Get some laughs in. And now I know better, I've learned my lesson, I can have friends and just need to not act like a brat trying to justify being alone again. Because I'm not. You get that, right? Please tell me you get that."
"Sound logic, perhaps," Felicity admitted. "But it certainly is making you unhappy."
Valey winced. "Look, I'm a lot happier than I was in Ironridge. It's worth it."
"Are you really?" Felicity insisted. "Because it sounds like you feel poorly about who you were, poorly about who you are, and didn't used to have issues with either."
"What the bananas are you trying to say!?" Valey's eye twitched, and her temper rose. "That I should go back to being a lonely jerk? I woke up to that now! I can't go back! I won't! Why are you trying to make me!?"
"Using my brand, darling," Felicity sighed. A second later, Valey's mind dulled, like someone had lain a gentle blanket over her anger. Felicity watched her face for a moment. "I'm sorry. Going back to normal."
Even after the sensation lifted, Valey felt thoroughly doused, her mane almost physically deflating. "Bananas..."
Felicity watched her with concern. "I have a hunch, and I'd like you to tell me some things. This isn't the first conversation you've had about your self-image and feelings on your past, is it?"
"No." Valey's chin slumped against the floor. "Harshwater's been bothering me about it too. No one gets that being here is so much better than where I was..."
"There is such a thing as being better without being good enough," Felicity offered. "So when did it happen? Were you still in Ironridge when you were... awakened to whom you had been?"
"Heh. Nah." Valey laughed weakly into the ground. "Back then, I had just made my choice and was a little too busy fighting for where I was going to worry about where I had been. And I always knew I was a jerk. I did it deliberately, after all."
Felicity slowly nodded. "It doesn't sound like it slowed you down, then. So when was it you started feeling truly bad about this, if not there? You said you and Amber had somehow been involved before, after all. I can only presume this was between when you left Ironridge and when you started having... this reaction to a conversation that started because I thought you were horny and fun to tease."
"I..." Valey swallowed, eyes unfocusing in thought. "Bananas, I don't even know."
"If you could remember," Felicity whispered, "it might be worth it."
Valey thought in silence, but barely lasted a minute before she wrapped her wings over her head. "I got nothing."
"Still," Felicity said, "it really does sound to me as if you've got something more going on than just a history of being unflattering. I wish we could get to the bottom of it."
"That would be nice," Valey admitted. "But you seem to think I've got enough on my plate already without digging up new problems for me to worry about, right? Look, I agree I don't feel great, but compared to the alternative this isn't that bad."
"Stop saying that," Felicity warned. "That's definitely part of your problem, making yourself believe you're fine when you really, really aren't. Ever had issues with that before?"
"Oh, really?" Felicity raised a curious eyebrow. "Don't tell me we're getting somewhere, now."
"Oh bananas," Valey whispered, tight and breathless. "No, stop it. You're right. I haven't changed. Stop it, no! Bananas, I don't wanna cry..."
Suddenly, Felicity was by her side, a wave of calming all that was standing between Valey and tears. "Shh, darling. On your hooves. The bed will much more comfortable than the floor, I promise."
Shakily, Valey got up, clinging onto Felicity's aura just as hard as the mare's actual shoulder. No sooner than she crawled in, though, the calming field disappeared, her emotions rising again like a tide she couldn't push down. What was she thinking? She had yelled at Harshwater, yelled at Felicity, felt worse about herself than she had in Ironridge, and through it all she was doing this again? Telling herself this was as good as it could get. That it was worth it. That this was fine, when it wasn't. It was unfair and she couldn't see the way ahead, only that the place she was standing was being overrun by a slow, inexorable flood of emotional ooze and she was about to be swept away too, and Felicity wasn't even using her cutie mark to help her hang on.
"No..." Valey felt her breathing start to speed up. "Do that again. Give it back, help..."
"Calm you with my brand? I shan't," Felicity declined primly, standing at the side of the bed. "Magic is an emotional bandage for treating symptoms, not wounds. And darling?" She smiled, putting a hoof on the bed. "If you've been in denial of your situation, forcing yourself to live with it and depriving yourself of the chance to try for something better, you need to let yourself feel this."
"B-But... no... I can't be! I didn't change," Valey protested, wetness growing in her eyes, as if admitting it one more time would make a difference. "What am I doing? Why can't I do anything? I'm just going to bury my head in the ground and drive everyone away...!"
With a rumpling of fabric, Felicity was by her side once again. "Drive everyone away. Well, I can't speak for your friends, though if they abandoned you for having emotions I'd have a very low opinion of them indeed. But I can tell you what I'll do, and you just watch and see if I let you see yourself through this alone."
The morning after, everyone found themselves congregating in a hallway in upper Stormhoof Keep, waiting for their time to speak with the province's leaders about Yakyakistan and Izvaldi. There was already a consensus about what not to discuss; Crystal stayed off the table, and there were details Valey hadn't even spoken of concerning Stanza. Now they just needed Valey to arrive.
"Yo," Valey greeted, walking up to join the group with a slightly unsteady gait. Her eyes had bags and looked drier than usual, but her fur was freshly washed and groomed, a small, unobtrusive gray coat covering her back, and her mane and tail were carefully done up in a far more presentable style than she usually wore. She smelled like shampoo.
"Hi?" Shinespark greeted, raising an eyebrow. "You look different."
"Rough night. Hey, Sparky. Love you guys too." Valey stopped, nodding, and straightened her shoulders, looking badly in need of a nap. "What do you say we get this done fast so we can go home? I really need to get to my room and crash..."
Felicity came pacing up beside her, nodding approvingly at her appearance. "I figured she needed some touching up for presentability, darlings," she answered to everyone's questioning stares. "If she went before the generals looking like a bedraggled war refugee, people would instantly think she's trying to bias them and play up sympathy points, and that wouldn't be good for our credibility. So instead we have a touch of reality, a clear effort to hide it... Even if she really is a mess, Stormhoof and his goons will appreciate the dishonesty."
Maple blinked hard. "...Are you sure?"
Shinespark and Gerardo both sighed, and Shinespark nodded to the griffon. "In parts of the world, that's how it works, I'm afraid," the griffon answered. "Showing a willingness to play by the game's rules is a sign of good faith, even if the rules are to put on a face. Though you do look like you've had an unpleasant time of things, Valey. Making this quick is what we shall do."
"Yo, thanks." Valey stepped up beside them, bone-weary and looking at any minute like she might fall flat on her prettied-up face. "Let's get going..."
"Right this way," Felicity beckoned, humming to herself and walking with a sway in her step off through the distant castle reaches.
Hours later, the five friends plus Felicity exited the war room, crossing several corridors to an outdoor balcony high in the sky. "That went much nicer than last time," Maple murmured, the noon sun pleasantly warming her mane. "Without Gazelle and Kero derailing everything, it was like those generals knew what they were doing."
"Well, that's because they did," Gerardo explained. "Recall that last time we were there, the whole meeting was somewhat of a gambit to justify a decision already reached behind closed doors. Stormhoof felt it prudent not to make it too well-known that we had a direct line of contact with Ironridge, especially given the sensitive nature of our discussions. Gazelle was there, if you noticed. This was just much more the real thing."
"So was Lord Everlaste," Shinespark added. "It wasn't just a Stormhoof conference; it concerned the whole Empire. At least, I assume that's who the sphinx in Everlaste colors was. I didn't like the way he looked at Valey..."
Felicity nodded darkly. "Lord Geltrich Everlaste. You're fortunate not to know him well if you count yourself a friend to sarosians. He has a wife and two adult children, a son and a daughter... Their dynasty isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and they have a long history in the Empire of being the ones who do the most to oppress us."
"You think having me up there made it less likely he'll trust us about Yakyakistan?" Valey raised a tired eyebrow.
"Perhaps." Felicity shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised if that's the whole point of Gazelle wanting you to do that. Discord can be a powerful tool in the right paws."
"What do they have against batponies, anyway?" Starlight asked from Maple's back.
"Everlaste in particular?" Felicity shrugged. "Think of them like a better-off Gyre. Up in Gyre, things are enough of a dump for everyone that squabbling with sarosian outsiders and refugees becomes a way not to be at the bottom of the social ladder, for most griffons and ponies. You take solace from knowing there's at least someone beneath you, though those differences can melt away if you need to work together to survive. Everlaste, on the other hoof, relies on villainizing sarosians for strength as well, though they're already strong. Sort of a national point of pride, you can say. They hold their province together by thinking, 'Us and them!' There actually are sarosians there. They like keeping us at least marginally in public sight. But we're tools for the unification of the province, not real citizens."
Valey progressively blanched as the story continued. "Yeah, that sounds really uncool..."
"What do they have to unify against, and why isn't it enough for them to not need excuses?" Shinespark stared questioningly at Felicity. "Doesn't Garsheeva already keep the Empire as a cohesive entity?"
Felicity almost laughed. "The other provinces, of course. And also the weather. Why would you want to live in a desert like the eastern provinces when the others exist? If you're in Everlaste, easy: because there are more sarosians everywhere else. And being proud of your province gives an increased resilience to living in adversity, as it turns out. There's no economic utility in being that far east, and as far as natural beauty goes, unless you like rocks or mana storms, you're out of luck."
"Mana storms?" Maple blinked, tilting her head. "What are those?"
"Ah, yes." Gerardo chuckled. "Don't forget you're talking to travelers from the center of the world, after all. But have none of you really ever asked what's east of the Empire?"
Shinespark stopped, then frowned. "I... don't think we have?"
"Well, that'll make an engaging story for dinnertime tonight," Gerardo remarked. "For now, though, what say you we get on returning home? I wouldn't want to leave the others out, and we have been gone for an entire day."
"Yeah..." Valey glanced at the harbor, its distant wharfs visible from the edge of the balcony. "Felicity, you, uh... You wanna come too? Just hang out for a bit?"
Felicity smiled regretfully. "Thank you for the invitation, darling, and I will be coming by in the next few days to help get a look at that Crystal of yours, but I'm afraid I've spent quite enough time here already and have some business with Gazelle to-"
"Did someone say my name?" a voice interrupted. "I could have sworn someone said my name..." Gazelle padded out from the entry, looking cluelessly around until his eyes fell on Valey and the others with a big, sharp-toothed grin. "It's you!"
Shinespark jumped slightly, the fur on her back raising in alarm. "How long were you standing there?"
Gazelle blinked innocently. "Who, me? Complete coincidence, I assure you." He patted her on the head as he passed by, turning to Felicity and Valey. "Marvelous work on that hearing, though, my friends! That went perfectly! Haha!" He scooped the two batponies each under a wing, rearing onto his hind legs and lifting them both off the ground in a tight hug. "I knew you could do it. Valey, get at me later for a little recompense. Let it not be said I promise rewards without keeping my word..."
"A pleasure to serve, Gazelle..." Felicity gasped, choking from the tightness of the hug.
"Of course, of course." Gazelle set them both down, nimbly stepping to where he could see the whole group. "Anyway, I already got a little unsolicited thank-you together. Not something anyone asked for, but... ta-daaa!" He bowed to Shinespark with a dramatic flourish. "I pushed through a pound and a half of paperwork to get your ship designated as the official Ironridge Embassy in the Griffon Empire. After our last talk, I figured some additional legal protections would hardly be unwelcome."
"Embassy standing?" Shinespark's ears rose. "We have that now?"
Maple tilted her head. "Is that a good thing?"
"Of course, of course..." Gazelle lazily purred. "Now your ship is sovereign territory that observes your laws, not ours, any act against it is an act against Ironridge, as long as you count it officially as your residence you have diplomats' immunity, blah blah blah. You know what this entails..."
"...Our laws. Not yours?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
Gazelle sidled closer, giving a look that only she could see. It was immensely self-satisfied, conspiratorial, and clearly said, I know who you're hiding.
Valey gulped.
"I dearly hope it doesn't complicate things for anyone else," Gazelle innocently declared, standing up and pacing away. "It's a permanent status, so it would be rather hard to revoke. See you at your next fight in the tournament, and enjoy yourselves..."
"So what do you think Gazelle meant by calling our ship an official embassy?" Maple asked, walking towards the middle of the party as they traversed the docks to the Immortal Dream.
"Depends if he means any official duties to come with it," Gerardo mused. "It could mean we're obligated to serve as a liaison whenever someone wants us to contact Ironridge, but since Amber brought the other sound stone with her, we don't have that line of communication anymore, so it's likely not for that."
"It's to spite someone else," Valey said, not missing a beat. "You heard his tone. Bananas, I did this all the time in Ironridge. You want to mess with someone, you take someone else they want to mess with and make it harder for them. And who knows how many eyes are on us now?"
"Valey sounds right," Shinespark admitted, using her shoulder to support the weary batpony. "As far as we're concerned, though, diplomatic protections are very strong. You remember Herman? If we had killed Yakyakistan's ambassador and that news made it west without the rest of the story, it might really be grounds for a war."
Maple suddenly paled. "You don't suppose..."
"That Gazelle wants something bad to happen to us to increase tensions with Ironridge?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I doubt it. How would Ironridge even find out about it, for one? And if they did, their reaction probably wouldn't change at all over some formality like calling us an embassy. Not only that, Ironridge has no standing army except the Stormhoof troops already stuck there, and it's been months since Amber caught a ship going out. I'd be surprised if those dudes aren't on their way back yet. Basically, even if they did start a fight, it wouldn't do anything."
Shinespark bit her lip. "Are we really discussing this? What if someone wanted to make two powers hate each other? Herman might have done that, but it can't be normal for the world. Ponies have to be better than that."
Maple winced. "Sorry. It was just a thought that crossed my mind. I still have bad memories of..."
"We all do," Shinespark consoled. "And they're going to keep getting brought up as long as things like Izvaldi keep happening, but we can't let that get us down."
Gerardo winked. "That's the spirit! And for what it's worth, we do still have a certain something against assaults and ambushes." He nodded at Valey. "But yes, Shinespark has the right of it. While we could mistrust someone and assume that because they can bring us harm, they will, we could assume that of most everyone we meet. And being a paranoid wreck helps no one."
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "Felicity's on our side. If anything really bad goes down up above, she'd help us. We could get some warning, maybe get out of here."
"I was talking about... Never mind. I dearly hope you're right," Gerardo sighed. "You know her best, so I've been trusting your judgement, but if it turns out she isn't for us, we've told her plenty more than enough to land ourselves in trouble."
Before Valey could reply, they turned the final corner, the gangplank to the Immortal Dream mere steps away. "She is," Valey promised as they boarded. "We've got a pretty good understanding of each other. She might work for Gazelle and the Night Mother, but if push came to shove, she'd chose us over them."
Maple hummed in hopeful assent. The ship's door opened, and the party trudged down the staircase and into the library, Valey making a beeline for her bed... only to find the library full of every crewmember sans Crystal. Amber and Slipstream sat proudly together near Nyala, and Harshwater stood in the foreground, flanked by Jamjars and Glimmer. A large sack sat in front of the three, and the two fillies had very satisfied expressions.
"Do I wanna ask?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
On command, Harshwater took the sack and overturned it, sending a cacophonous pile of gold coins big enough to cover Jamjars spilling onto the floor. "We made ourselves useful," Jamjars proudly declared.
Gerardo blinked. "That's a very sizable amount of money."
"It's maybe a quarter of what we got from Kero's vault," Harshwater explained. "So not like our wealth has increased exponentially. But with the way we've been going through expensive resources..." She cleared her throat unsubtly at Valey. "We thought it would be useful to have a fast source of income. Give us several nights, and we can get a lot more."
"Uhh... wow." Valey stared down at the gold. "I mean, I got my back fixed. Sorta. But that's actually really useful." Her wings twitched, the discolored remnants of her burns itching slightly.
"Two questions," Gerardo said. "Is it dangerous, and is it illegal?"
Harshwater shrugged. "It's honest. And amid everything this crew has done, it ranks very low on the danger scale."
"Ugggghh!" Jamjars whined, dancing in place. "Are you going to spill the beans, or can I!?"
Harshwater smirked and patted her head with a wing, Glimmer sharing a similar look. "Go ahead, kiddo."
Jamjars quickly adopted a brash grin. "We turned the ship into a restaurant."
Everyone blinked hard. "You used my ship for what?" Shinespark's pupils shrank in surprise.
Valey was equally stunned. "Wait, Jamjars asks you for permission to speak?"
Jamjars blew a raspberry. Glimmer fell over laughing, Amber and Slipstream clung to each other and even Harshwater got a smile. "It was a trial run. We only had one night and didn't want to go too far, but airships aren't common in the Empire. It turns out Stormhoof has a lot upper-class clients who are willing to answer to exorbitant sums for a chance at dinner in the sky."
"That's..." Shinespark put a hoof to her forehead. "I don't know whether to be mad or impressed. You need to ask before doing that with my ship. But it really worked this well?"
"If you've never worked for nobility before, you'd be surprised," Harshwater replied. "Your ship is fine. They're good at propriety. No noses poked where they don't belong, no damage or messes. With your approval, we'd like to continue."
Valey shrugged. "Hey, as long as I get a nap. I need to crash real bad. This is why you guys were flying around last night, though?"
"Oh, you saw us, did you?" Jamjars grinned, tracing swirls with her hoof in the heap of coins.
Harshwater nodded at both Valey and Shinespark. "I'll need to talk with each of you about this later. But if you're tired, suit yourselves."
"Actually, I'd like a conversation right now," Shinespark decided, taking Harshwater's shoulder in her aura. "My room, please. Valey, go get some rest!"
The noise of conversation in the library was quickly shut out as Shinespark closed her door, leaving just her and Harshwater in her large personal cabin. "Tell me you know what I'm going to say," Shinespark requested after a breath.
Harshwater's eyes shifted. "If I did that, I'd be lying. In most reasonable hierarchical orders, you'd mean trouble. But Valey's been clear this ship operates a little differently. So before you come down on anyone too hard, consider how happy contributing this made your crew. Did you see the pride in their eyes? The B-team, everyone who gets left behind on important missions like testifying overnight to a government panel? I know how things are done by the books, and by them we were in the wrong, but I also know how teams work, and I stand by everything we did." She stared Shinespark straight in the eye.
"I'm... sorry." Shinespark folded her ears and looked down. "I was about to underestimate you. I'd still like it if you asked before using my ship in the future, but you did well."
"...Thank you." Harshwater bowed, and Shinespark lifted her chin. "It will be up to you if we want to do anything further with this. But you should consider that we have a lot of crew members with a lot of free time. It's good for our morale and very profitable, and it also gives us a good reputation among citizens who have money and influence, but aren't necessarily tied to politics. Hopefully this will be good news amid everything else you're dealing with."
"Right." Shinespark squared her shoulders, glancing at the door. "I won't keep you, then. I'll have to tell everyone else I'm proud of them, too..."
"I can't believe you're actually doing this," Valey remarked, standing on the deck of the Immortal Dream at sundown and watching Amber and Gerardo drag circular tables into place that had been rented from somewhere in town. "Or that it works. Or that someone came up with it in the first place. Actually, I don't even know which of those is weirder."
Harshwater shrugged, standing beside her and doing her best to look like she wasn't suffering from severely underused muscles. "I got the idea from you, believe it or not."
"Wait, seriously?" Valey screwed up her face. "I have something to do with this?"
"Remember when we yelled at each other the other day?" Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "You said something about friendships burning more quickly here that stuck in my head. It's probably just your group dynamic, but I was thinking about it and wondered what being on an airship would do for normal ponies' relationships. And so here you have it. A romantic, starlit cruise above Stormhoof only the richest can afford."
Valey blinked as the harmony comet shimmered into existence overhead. "Huh."
"Of course, if I was that curious, we'd try to get a better-distributed population sample," Harshwater admitted. "But upper-class ponies are less likely to make a mess of Shinespark's airship, and this amount of money is worth failing to indulge my curiosity."
Slipstream stepped out onto the deck wearing an Izvalden maid outfit, and Valey's eyes widened. "Speaking of indulgences..."
Harshwater shrugged. "That's Crystal's contribution. You'll have to ask her yourself where it came from. I'm not an expert on aesthetics, but it seems better than wearing nothing to me."
"Even she's helping?" Valey tilted her head in confusion. "Huh..."
"It is what it is." Harshwater glanced upward at the sky, then started toward the stairs. "It's getting late. Time to see who shows up."
"How are you even advertising this?" Valey asked, following along. "No one's just going to show up out of the blue, right?"
Harshwater didn't look back. "Jamjars got us in contact with your friends in the underground. A small mare called Grapejuice? She knew how to spread word around quickly and to the right number of ponies."
"What's Jamjars doing knowing-" Valey groaned. "Never mind, she's Jamjars. So this is just going to work? I still don't know what you need me for."
"I still don't know how anyone would react to you," Harshwater sighed. "Being a famous sarosian, and all. Since we're still getting our hooves in the air with this, maybe you can sit things out for a night? Most of the action will be on the deck, but I can't make promises. Could you just stay with Crystal and the fillies and make sure none of them get up to anything?"
"Oh, that's going to be fun." Valey groaned, pausing at the entrance and then heading down. "But if it's making money like this or owing political favors when we have stuff we need, I guess I know which one I'm gonna choose..."
In Crystal's room, Jamjars and a Starlight were already present. Crystal herself was sitting on a stool, leaning over a desk as she worked two pieces of fabric with her wingtips, making delicate, repetitive stitches.
"Uh, hi," Valey greeted, waving lamely.
"Hey." Jamjars grinned. "How is it up there? Things getting heated?"
Valey frowned. "Still getting set up. Bananas, why did I come down here again?"
Glimmer shrugged, showing off her sightless eyes. "Do you need an excuse?"
"I'm making more outfits, thanks for your interest," Crystal said dryly, balanced with her haunches on the stool and her forehooves on the desk. "Since there's little else to fill my time with."
"You should use Valey as a model," Jamjars suggested. "She'd be real good at it."
"Nope!" Valey instantly backtracked through the door, leaning on it and panting momentarily once she was safe. "Aww bananas... Meh. This is going to be a long series of nights..."
Hours later, when the ship had flown and returned again to harbor, Maple lay weary yet satisfied in the kitchen and the customers had come and gone, Gerardo, Shinespark and Harshwater stood on the deck amid the leftovers of the night and counted their reward.
"About as much as last time," Harshwater announced, the gold separated into stacks on a table that had seen its cloth already carted away by Amber. "That's to be expected, since we only tried to serve three couples. If we want more, we're going to have to find ways to upscale."
"Yet it's still substantial, and we've hardly exhausted our tap of customers who would be willing to return another night," Gerardo mused, straightening the collar on his uniform. "How much time pressure are we under? What's the next significant event that's on the horizon?"
"Valey's next tournament match," Shinespark answered. "That's in a few days." She hesitated. "You... mentioned she might not be continuing, though?"
Harshwater looked down. "I counseled her against it. If she hasn't talked to the rest of you about her decision, that's on her. Either way, I don't see a match in the tournament stopping us from doing this and making money."
"But if I'm understanding, we don't have an end goal, either? Just building up finances in case something happens where they'd help?" Shinespark earnestly tilted her ears.
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, large quantities of money can be incredibly handy to have around..."
Harshwater shook her head. "More importantly, you'd be doing something actually productive with yourselves. Acting like you're living real lives, instead of being a loose family who flies around waiting for things to happen and then wondering why it doesn't work. My old company might not have been perfect, but we traveled the world in an airship similar to this one, and just hanging out isn't how we made it work."
"That might be good for everyone else," Shinespark hesitantly admitted. "For me, though, I still have a home to return to in Ironridge. For me, flying away has always been about finding or making something that could help my city and bringing it back. We could do this for a month or two, or even longer if we found a need. But I don't think I can settle down and live the rest of my life doing what we did tonight, if that's what you're asking."
"Of course not." Harshwater nodded. "We can't do this any more than a month or so even if we wanted to. For one, this ship's fuel is a limited resource, and for two, we have Crystal. I don't know if anyone's discussed a plan for what to do once she foals, but if you haven't, you should. This isn't the kind of thing that waits for convenience."
Gerardo drummed his talons and lowered his voice. "As I understand it, her biggest issue was with Chauncey, right? But if no one's seen hide nor hair of him since that explosion, it could be safe to assume he's gone. We could just take her back to her lover, see to it that they retire happily and out of public view... Provided that she's safe on our ship, it shouldn't make much of a difference whether she's had her child or not by the time we see her safely elsewhere."
"If you think so." Shinespark shrugged. "Maybe we should just sleep on this and try for more money tomorrow?"
"Agreed." Gerardo looked up at the leftover scattering of tables and chairs. "...After we've made our ship once more presentable."
Valey strolled through the poorly-lit recesses of Stormhoof Colosseum, the light of the arena gate forming a bright rectangle ahead. She hadn't checked the schedule since her fight last week, and was basing this purely off memory. But if she was wrong and missed her fight, no biggie. After all, she was only here to formally surrender.
She hadn't talked with her friends, either. Harshwater's crazy restaurant idea had somehow proved even more successful than it first appeared, and the energy of finding ways to make more flights, increasing their customer throughput and doing better spread among her friends like infectious fire. Forget escaping Ironridge, saving the world or leading happy lives, it was the kind of goal normal ponies set. It was something they could actually do, and she wasn't about to detract from that. She wasn't even about to talk about detracting from it. For her, the tournament ended here, and everything that came with it would be sealed in the past.
Sunlight broke over her beret-covered mane, the tuxedoed guard at the entrance nodding her along. Valey stepped across, climbed the short few steps to the platform for the last time... and blinked at the yellow-maned batpony waiting meekly for her. "Senescey?"
Senescey blinked, startled out of her nervousness. "...You didn't even look at who you're fighting?"
"Uhh... I mean, no?" Valey folded her ears. "Look, it doesn't matter. This is actually great, because-"
"No... wait." Senescey held out a hoof and took a breath, interrupting her. "I know it's the worst etiquette to ask this, but I have to. You... still have your Golden Regent, right?"
Valey popped the shimmering card out from her hat. "Sure do. What's it to you?"
"I know I can't beat you," Senescey admitted. "I nearly got eliminated last round. If you didn't see me, I used a trick that won't work twice. I'm at my limit in this tournament and know I can't reach the end, but it's never been about winning. We knew I never stood a chance, but my sisters just need me to stay in as long as possible. Even one more week will make a difference, so if you-"
Valey sat down and spread her hooves. "I surrender."
Senescey screwed up her face. "What...?"
"Yep. No need for me to spare you." Valey twirled her card, getting up and pacing back towards the stairs. "I'm done with this tournament. It's not helping, me being here, so I'm done. Was gonna say that whether I was up against you or anyone else... but I sure am glad I get to do it for my friends."
"Wait, what...?" Senescey's ears fell as Valey stepped off the platform. "You can't! Everyone is rooting for you to-!"
"Sure I can." Valey waved a hoof. "Watch me."
With a light puff of dust, she stepped onto the floor, and the match was over before it had begun.
Senescey watched her with a trembling lip. "Hey! Get back here! That's not the attitude I expect from the mare I watched preparing to break into Stormhoof Keep!"
Valey's ears turned back. "What did you say?"
Senescey hesitated... and pulled out a golden flourish of her own. "Spare!"
"Can you do that?" Valey suddenly whipped her head around and blinked. "Bananas, I'm surrendering. I don't wanna be spared. Save that for someone who needs it?"
"I read the rules," Senescey sighed, "and yes, I can. You can also just surrender again in a week's time. But I'll be mad at myself if I let you walk out on a chance to make this much of an impact on the world, and everyone else will be mad at me too. Spare. And you're coming with me afterward to talk about it."
Valey failed to change Senescey's mind. The entire hour after the fight was filled with shadow sneaking, murmurs of disappointed spectators who remembered Valey's earlier fights growing fainter as they slipped away from the colosseum. After a long series of back passages, swimming under eaves and ducking down below bridges, they finally reached the alley where the sisters made their home, Senescey ushering Valey inside.
"Huh. Been a while since I've been here," Valey remarked, nodding at the paintings in the foyer, finally able to talk again now that stealth wasn't a concern. "So really though, like... are you sure you wanted to use that thing on me? I'm serious, I'll probably just surrender again next week. I got a talking-to from some of my friends, and me fighting in this just isn't... Ow, hey!"
Senescey grabbed her ear, dragging her into the living room and dumping her down in front of Felicity's recliner, where the elder sister lay on her back with a wet rag on her forehead, looking half-dead. "She's trying to walk out on the tournament," Senescey declared.
"Yes, I believe something of the like came up in our last conversation," Felicity breathed up at the ceiling.
Before Senescey could protest, Valey pushed her aside, standing over Felicity in concern. "Yo, are you alright?"
Felicity's eyes wandered to her, and she smiled. "Just a spell, darling. Had a taxing yet productive day on the job, as it were. I could get up now, except I'm rather enjoying this at this point."
"Oh. Cool." Valey sat back, relieved.
"You talked about her quitting?" Meanwhile, Senescey's ears fell in disbelief. "But... what about everything? She could get a wish. She has a real shot at this!"
"Well, I'm flattered you care so much for her sake," Felicity hummed. "So what's it to us, hmm?"
Senescey winced and didn't answer. "I had to spare her with my Regent."
"...Am I missing something?" Valey tilted her head.
Felicity dragged herself into a sitting position. "Defeat drags poorly along all of our senses, darling," she explained. "As I recall, you've been rather intense about being in this tournament for the sake of your friends in the past, so an about face on your own resolve might be slightly painful. But it's perfectly alright." She gave a reassuring smile. "The three of us are just somewhat... more invested in your situation than your average mare."
Valey slowly nodded. "You're still thinking about all that stuff with what you're going to do with your own lives if working for the Night Mother doesn't pan out? The whole thing we talked about in Mistvale, how I felt the same about my own work for Herman?"
"You mean are we still thinking we might abandon all our work here towards getting our bodies fixed to join up with your friends and live life come what will?" Felicity rose from her chair, patting both Valey and Senescey on the head. "Well, it occasionally crosses our minds. But let's save talk of the future for the future itself. Come, can I get you anything to drink?"
"Uh, sure." Valey followed along, throwing a glance at Senescey. "Though I gotta admit, I am curious what being in the tournament only one more week will get you..."
"Hey girls," Valey greeted, slouching down the stairs of the Immortal Dream two hours before sundown. "I'm home."
Shinespark immediately looked up from a textbook in the library, folding her ears. "Where were you? I came to watch you, but couldn't find you after to see you home."
Valey winced. "Oh. Uh, you were? Bananas, I went to hang out with Senescey and Felicity for a while..."
"As long as it was enjoyable." Shinespark shrugged, settling back into her seat. "I'm to get more work done on Nyala. As much as I hate to admit it, rebuilding Braen isn't likely to be an option, but at the very least I want to get her wheels before the week is done. That should be a reachable goal."
"Yeah... Wish I could do more for her myself." Valey glanced away. "She's my sister. Is. Was. I dunno. All I can do is fight and flirt with things."
Shinespark nodded slowly. "Must have been hard to walk out on the tournament if that's all you can really do."
Valey winced. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow.
Valey hesitated. "Look, I haven't exactly made it secret that I kinda don't want to go on. This whole week, I've been, like... you know. If you had something to say about it, you really wanted to wait until now?"
"Hey, I've had Izvaldi on my mind," Shinespark protested, though there was no force in her voice. "Anyway. Had a fun time at Senescey and Felicity's?"
"Uh, sorta?" Valey tilted her head. "Look, I feel like there's something you're dancing around..."
Shinespark sighed and sat up. "Alright, fine. Ever since Mistvale, you've seemed... not quite alright. Maybe it was meeting the Night Mother, but it could have been what happened in that valley with Harshwater and Grenada, too. Did anything happen back there? Because you once threw yourself at impossible challenges without a clear reward, just because of your heart, and part of that fire feels like it's gone out."
"I, uh." Valey stared at her nose for a second. "I mean, the Night Mother did kind of confirm some of my worst fears about myself. And gave me a lot of answers I spent a lot of time looking for. So... now I don't need to look for them, I guess?"
Shinespark didn't look satisfied. "And are you happy with this?"
"Happy with what?" Valey shrugged.
"Alright." Shinespark stood up. "If that's what you say. I wasn't there and didn't hear what she said for myself. Maybe the Night Mother gave you a very convincing reason to sit back and stop being an ambitious daredevil. I just... never mind."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Nah, you've got something on your mind. What's up?"
"...This could be crazy." Shinespark took a deep breath. "But did anything happen down in that valley, when you were cut off from us, between you and Felicity?"
"Between the two of us?" Valey blinked. "Why? What's that have to do with anything? I mean, sure, we talked, and I was a little suspicious of her, but we wound up making friends."
"This is a crazy theory," Shinespark admitted, "and probably paranoid. But remember when we talked with Felicity about..." She trailed off, blinking. "No, that was while you were in Gyre. You wouldn't remember. Felicity was explaining to us how Mistvale Monk arts work. She thought there might have been a similarity between them and how that strange sword Starlight has works. And I borrowed that sword months ago when we were on the pirate ship, and when it's used on batponies... instead of paralyzing them, it made them give up. It lowered their will to do anything, and eventually turned them to ash. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
Valey's face scrunched in thought. "I'm pretty sure I haven't been stabbed by that thing, if that's what you're asking. Bananas, I'm pretty sure it hasn't left the wall in Starlight's room since that sea cave."
Shinespark hesitated, winced... and said, "I'm worried that this is something to do with Felicity."
"Wait, what?" Valey's jaw dropped slightly. "You mean she's using weird monk arts on me, or something? Nah, she wouldn't do that."
"How sure are you?" Shinespark's earnestness returned. "We treated her as our guest while she was here, but you two have been alone together more than... More than a little. The first time in that valley, and you visited her a lot while she was recuperating. Now you go to her house instead of here after the tournament, and I know you two were doing something after we told her about Izvaldi. Something I was only comfortable doing because you endorsed the idea, by the way, and I'm still not sure how I feel having done it."
Valey blinked. "Wait a sec, you sound almost jealous..."
Shinespark scowled. "This has nothing to do with the fact that both of you are batponies and I'm a unicorn. It's that I'm worried about you and you seem to be getting way too involved someone dangerously high up in the Empire's political system who has unknown powers and abilities to influence ponies and you look like you're being influenced!"
"Alright, hold up." Valey took a heavy step forward. "You wanna know who else was dangerously high up in some shifty political system, completely untrustworthy and with weird powers and abilities to influence ponies? Me. Felicity is exactly where I was, right down to having some stuff seriously wrong with her body that weighs heavily on her, kinda like how mine belongs to someone else. I feel for her hard. All her sisters, but her especially. You guys gave me a stupid number of chances, and I know how dumb that was, but it really changed my life. So I know exactly how much she could benefit from the same."
Shinespark shook her head. "Trust and second chances aren't magic."
"Well?" Valey shrugged. "I guess you could have fooled me." She stared at the bookshelves for a moment. "So where does that leave things now?"
"With respect to what?" Shinespark finally set her book aside. "Maybe I take your word on Felicity, but I'm still..." Her words fell off, leaving her with nothing to say, and she sighed. "Would you believe me if I said I missed Ironridge? The way things used to be before all this happened?"
"Bananas, yeah." Valey flopped into a chair next to her. "You had it good, didn't you?"
"I was talking about you," Shinespark said without making eye contact. "Remember the fruit-stealing thorn in my flank who acted the fool, thought everything was hilarious and found out all my plans without bothering to foil them?"
Valey blinked. "Yeah, that was me. What are you talking about?"
"I don't know." Shinespark shook her head. "I guess I just miss seeing you that happy. I don't know what it was that broke you or wore you down. Probably everything."
"Alright, seriously." Valey narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying you prefer me insulting you, annoying you, laughing at you and ripping you off to me not doing all that? I can't tell, because I think you just said you did."
"I didn't say you weren't annoying," Shinespark countered, looking down. "Just that you were so much happier like that. I was happier too, even with all my responsibilities, up until it ended. And now look at us. It's like this ship was poisoned with the weight of Ironridge and we weren't able to get away after all."
"I wasn't happy." Valey's face darkened. "I was lying to myself about how much cooler my place was than the alternative. And before you tell me otherwise, I know I'm not fine now, either. I just dunno where to go from here."
"Is winning the tournament and wishing Garsheeva would build airships to trade with Ironridge too much to ask for?" Shinespark asked. "And then we could... go back home?" An unspoken And things could go back to the way they used to be lingered at the end of her words.
Valey sighed and looked away. "Win the tournament? Sure, I can do that. Bananas, you all wanna put up with the stress of me getting injured again and drawing a ton of attention? I'm getting higher toward the end, now. But Senescey carded me; I'm still in."
Shinespark bit her lip.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. That's not what you really wanted." Valey drew her breath back in, swiveling her chair to flatly face her friend. "I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to balance whatever you and Felicity and everyone else think it is I used to do with not trying my best to drive everyone away. Or at least giving them an excuse for it. I dunno how to enjoy something I feel like I never really enjoyed at all. Feels like something's been beaten out of me with nothing left to take its place."
Shinespark slowly nodded. "I can relate. I think everyone on this ship can. But most of them bounced quickly the moment this restaurant idea got floated. I think you have it worst, and I don't like seeing you like this." She shifted her sapphire eyes. "Is it Nyala? I know we've had her back for a while now, and I know you... might not be feeling like you've done the best job helping her get her body back..."
Valey sighed again. "I mean, that certainly doesn't help. Bananas, I don't wanna let her down. It's just... weird, talking to someone who's been dead for six years who doesn't remember you at all."
"So what else is there?" Shinespark pressed. "Tell me there's something I can do. I'm not feeling my greatest, but I still have a fire to try. What can I do to help you?"
"...I dunno," Valey admitted. "I really dunno."
"Come on, there has to be something! Something with Felicity?" Shinespark leaned forward, ears perked hopefully. "I'm sorry for not trusting her for you, I guess. We could invite her here to make up... Or we could do something together ourselves?" She grimaced. "I'm trying, here!"
Valey shrugged. "I mean, we do need Felicity to drop by sometime or other. She kinda told me she wants a look at Crystal, and since she already knows... but other than that, I'm really drawing a blank."
"I tried." Shinespark slumped back in her chair. "I really tried. I don't know what it will take to get us out of this slump either. But just so you know, we will have the money for more potions after all this. So at least think a while more on whether to throw in the towel with the tournament."
"Great. More thinking about it. Just what I need..." Valey yawned. "I gotta do something someday. Meh. Bananas. You got any way I can help with that stuff with Nyala?"
"If you want to." Shinespark passed over another book with her horn. "Get reading and tell me how much of this makes sense."
"Good one," Valey remarked, nodding as she juggled a bean bag in one wing. "Now, ready..." She crouched, wound up for a throw... and spun, the little sack completely failing to leave her side.
Starlight stared impassively from across the deck of the Immortal Dream, not even flinching.
"And good again," Valey praised, stepping forward, a scattering of missed shots laying against the wall behind her target. "Really, I wish they would let us use fruit for this. So much more fun. But your reflexes are top catch!"
She jerked into motion in a flash... but nothing left her wing yet again, and Starlight remained impassive. One eyelid twitched.
Valey grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Keep it up."
Halfway through talking, the bean bag left her side, moving so quickly and stealthily the motion to toss it was nearly imperceptible. But Starlight leaned to the side almost pre-emptively, and it sailed within an inch of her lilac face, striking the wall with a thwack behind her.
"Hahaha! In your face, every guard in Ironridge who failed Admiral Valey's basic reflex training. Everyone said it was impossible, but nooo, you just have to be good." She proudly ruffled Starlight's mane with a wing. "I gotta admit, teaching you is actually really fun. Think fast."
Without warning, Valey slid onto her haunches, rotating a hind leg in a swift, low sweep at Starlight's legs. With a yip of surprise, Starlight jumped, neatly avoiding the blow. But without a way to change her velocity midair, it was easy for Valey to catch her, grabbing and holding the dangling filly in midair. Valey grinned. "You're good at dodging, but you gotta think more than one step ahead."
"That's not fair," Starlight protested, hanging in her grasp. "In a real fight, I'd teleport behind you and kick you. But if I do that while training, I'll just tire out my horn."
Valey bit her lip, setting Starlight back down. "Alright, fine. But you're gonna have a bad time if teleporting is your only way to get around that in a real fight. I can fly, so if you try to copy my style too closely without wings of your own, you're gonna have a bad time. Now let's try that again. Exact same move. You show me something you can do to get past it."
Starlight nodded, resuming her stance. Valey relaxed... and suddenly dropped again with the same spinning kick. Her cutie mark warned her Starlight was about to try something on her leg, but she didn't break the attack, curious to see what would happen.
Crack! A bolt of teal energy flowed from Starlight's horn, raising her on a tiny crystal pedestal so that Valey's kick struck the base. "Ow bananas!" Valey winced at the awkward contact with the surface, but Starlight had still raised herself into a similar position as before. Valey pivoted and grabbed again... but Starlight, still connected to the crystal pedestal, shifted its growth to boost her backwards, throwing herself into a fast backflip out of Valey's reach. By the time Valey could flip over the obstacle, Starlight was back on the ground.
"You have that kid doing backflips?" Harshwater asked, sipping from a mug and leaning against the open doorframe as she watched.
Valey shrugged. "Hey, I know acrobatics. Being able to move around is important, especially if you don't have wings. Easy to get outmaneuvered otherwise. And good stuff! I like that a lot more than the last one."
Starlight nodded too. "If I rely on my crystals to block everything, my horn will get tired. It hurts when things hit them and I have to hold them together. If I can dodge too, that's important."
Harshwater nodded, a blanket around her shoulders like a coat in the cool marina air. "Should have come out here to spectate you before."
"Eh, we do this on and off." Valey glanced at the docks. "About... how many months now? Two and a half, three and a half? Bananas, I've lost track of time."
Starlight cleared her throat. "Two weeks since Mistvale, a month in Mistvale, a month during the tournament, a month waiting for the tournament. And then a week or two in Izvaldi and Stormhoof the first time, and a month flying in from Ironridge, and two or three weeks there and in Riverfall..."
Valey wiped her brow. "Wow. Ironridge was that long ago? That's like nearly five months. And I guess we've been training for over three, then. Wow, yeah..."
"In a professional setting, that's almost nothing," Harshwater remarked, setting down her mug and taking off her blanket and stepping forward. "But here. Try me. I'm still getting my strength back after being bedridden, but I could use a little exercise."
Starlight watched her dubiously as she stepped closer, but squared her shoulders. "Okay..."
"Heh. This'll be fun." Valey took Harshwater's old spot, stealing the blanket and watching with interest.
Harshwater stopped three strides from the filly, sizing her opponent up with a look that indicated whatever they were doing had already started. She narrowed her eyes... and dove, aiming slightly for Starlight's right.
Starlight watched, reading her eyes, formulating her best guess of what Harshwater was doing. Most of her dodging against Valey relied on instinct and intuition, and here, her intuition told her Harshwater was somehow about to strike from the left... so she jumped further right, straight across the mare's oncoming path.
She saw Harshwater gasp, one hoof already deployed to land in a pivot and swing her hind legs and hindquarters around in a circular kick to cover a dodge to the left. The pegasus tried to change the direction of her spin at the last moment, but her unprepared legs failed her, and she crashed chin-first to the ground, sliding straight into Starlight.
"Counterattack!" Valey yelled from the doorway. "You've got the advantage!"
Starlight used her momentum and stayed right, dodging mostly out of the way of Harshwater's slide. She was a filly, but Harshwater was a pegasus, and pegasi weren't that heavy... With a burst of strength, Starlight tried to grapple her hind legs, successfully getting her hooves around them but underestimating her own lightness and getting carried along with the crash. A second later, the two of them were tangled in a pile on the deck, utterly undignified.
"Nope! Nope, time out!" Valey whistled, striding forward. "There are rules for grappling dudes and that just broke every last one of them." She paused, blinking at them. "Are you two okay?"
"She's fast," Harshwater grumbled, sitting up and straightening a bent pinion. "And I'm out of shape..."
Starlight winced at Harshwater's condition. "Sorry..."
"It's fine." Harshwater shakily stood up. "I'm fine. Lecture her about grapples."
Starlight tilted her head, attentive.
"...Right." Valey sighed. "So, the point of grabbing someone is to throw them. When you throw them, you either want them in the air or on the ground. Point is to make them not be standing. You can't follow anyone into the air, so no doing that, and she was already on the ground. When you grab someone who's already on the ground, you do it to pin them and keep them there. If you wanna practice that, we can, but you're too small to cover all the relevant limbs at once, especially on a pegasus. You basically gotta do a full-body hug. Finally, don't try to grapple anyone bigger than you unless you really know how inertia works and can make it be on your side."
"Okay." Starlight nodded attentively.
"Uhh..." Valey glanced again at Harshwater. "Go practice your jumps and kicks and stuff. Focus on the stuff we covered last week about getting more power into your hoofstrikes. Training's over."
Starlight bowed, retreating quickly down the staircase.
"She's diligent," Harshwater remarked. "You're not cutting anything off for my sake, are you?"
"Nahhh. Maybe. Yes." Valey looked away. "Nah, I just felt like a chat. And yeah, she takes being strong enough to protect her friends really seriously. She's already crazy strong, it just tends to almost kill her whenever she goes truly all-out. So I'm happy to show her slightly safer ways of stomping bozos than blowing up her horn, and she's super diligent and happy to learn. Great student. Gifted, too."
"Really." Harshwater didn't sound impressed. "I'm glad you have someone who can keep up with you."
"Here. Catch." Valey motioned with a wing as if to throw a bean bag at her, then threw nothing at the last second.
Harshwater flinched. Valey grinned.
"How does that even work?" Harshwater grumbled. "What's the point of that exercise?"
"Easy." Valey laid back with her forelegs folded behind her head and against the railing, juggling her bean bag with one hind hoof. "You gotta dodge when stuff comes your way. But if an enemy fakes an attack to make you dodge and then they don't commit, it's really easy for them to follow up and punish the dodge. If they're good, at least. But I know you and your mercenary buddies were at least that good back in Ironridge. So, it's training to tell when someone's really gonna whack you and when they're bluffing. You get out of the way in time without wasting energy."
Harshwater frowned. "Are you sure that's productive? What if you're just teaching her to read your expressions instead? No one can truly react that fast."
Valey blew a raspberry. "I can."
"You have a brand that breaks the rules," Harshwater countered. "You aren't just anyone. You know that doesn't count."
"Oh yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "And Starlight has my cutie mark too? 'Cuz she can do this. If you ask me, we're both just that good."
Harshwater narrowed her eyes in frustration, then sighed. "Or she could just be reading you."
"Nah, she had the right of it on your attack thing." Valey kicked her bean bag higher, switching it to the other hoof. "Just wasn't the smartest about what to do about it. Like you said, three and a half months? There's only so much experience you can cram into a kid's head in that amount of time. She's just skilled, and a good learner. You watch, she'll learn."
"And then I won't have the dubious honor of being this ship's second-best fighter when I can barely walk." Harshwater snorted.
"Hey. You're getting better." Valey shoved her shoulder. "You don't need to lean on walls all the time to get around anymore. You actually can walk. And if you get good enough to actually do exercise stuff, you'll be great. Look, I believe in you, here."
"I already borrow the things we got for Crystal sometimes," Harshwater admitted. "She enjoys keeping herself fit too, and never forbids me from borrowing them."
"Sounds like her," Valey sighed. "Got any opinions on how she's doing?"
"How do you mean?" Harshwater frowned. "Emotionally, she's as poorly-adjusted as ever. That's not saying a lot coming from the likes of us, but I know a mare who can do nothing more than wait to see if the future will be better when I see one. Physically, she has that strange scar around her wrist I want to investigate that you told me was from Stanza's crown, but I can't. And it's impossible to check up on her foal when she won't let me touch her without making passive-aggressive, suggestive comments. She's probably full-term and only has a week or two left, but I can't tell you more."
Valey stopped juggling, catching the bean bag on her stomach. "Yeah, Felicity volunteered to come give us a hoof with her. Maybe the three of us together can make her listen and at least get her checked out, if not doing something better with herself."
"In fairness, for her this is essentially asylum, separated from her lover." Harshwater leaned back too. "There's not a lot for her to do, here. A normal, well-adjusted mare in her position would probably be very on-edge too."
"Yeah."
Harshwater hesitated. "Speaking of wellbeing, you like training Starlight, don't you?"
Valey blinked. "I mean, sure I do. Why do you ask?"
"It just looked like you enjoyed it." Harshwater folded her hooves as well, mirroring Valey's pose. "Wandering around barking commands, berating mistakes and showing off instead of moping about problems you can't solve. Laughing. I think this is good for both of you."
"...Heh. Really?" Valey's eyes grew slightly brighter, and a little smile found her lips. "Didn't actually notice that. That's cool."
"Glad you appreciate it," Harshwater said. "...Want to lay here and do nothing until lunch?"
The sky was halfway between a thunderstorm and a crystalline day. The mountains might as well have belched, throwing down thick, smoky thunderheads, yet not enough of them to blot out the sun or form a proper storm. The clouds that existed grumbled, drifting around uselessly like black puffy bumper cars, occasionally sending down just enough rain to make someone quicken their step for a few seconds at a time.
"It's like the weather is teasing Garsheeva for getting busted up," Valey remarked from beneath a thick hood, trying her best to make it through the streets of Stormhoof without getting picked on by Everlaste. "Honestly, one of these days we're gonna have a proper storm. Been unusually nice weather for a while."
Shinespark walked beside her, humming faintly in agreement. "It's just that time of year. The seasons will probably turn soon. Summer's last good showing."
"Yep. Good thing we've got an anti-weather ship..."
Their walk led them to the Stormhoof Colosseum, where Valey's next fight was scheduled to begin. A week after she had tried to surrender to Senescey, time had stopped for no one, and it was time for her to decide again whether to throw in the towel or keep on going. "So what are you leaning towards?" Shinespark asked as they passed through the entrance.
"Honestly?" Valey shrugged. "After everything? Ponies don't want me to continue, they don't want me to stop, they just want me to be happy, all this stuff... We'll see about later, but today, I'm gonna let my opponent decide. Didn't look at who it is. If they're nice, I'll let them win for free, and if they're a jerk, I'll clean their clock and think again next week."
"Okay then." Shinespark slowed down, halting at the area only fighters were allowed beyond. "I'll be in our box, watching."
"And for her challenger..." Howe flourished his microphone dramatically, posturing next to Valey on the fighting platform. "We have..." His voice darkened ominously. "Pierre."
From the far tunnel stepped a lanky, aproned griffon with a balding crown, sharp mustache and sharper eyes. Two gigantic meat cleavers were tucked beneath his wings, and his tail flicked as he walked like a metronome. "Greetings," he announced in a voice that sounded like it had been refined through sheer force of will. "At long last we cross blades, Admiral Valey. I have been anticipating this day for week upon week without end. I know you, and by the end of this you will know me as well."
"Oh yeah?" Valey raised an eyebrow as Pierre entered the ring and Howe exited. So far, this dude seemed reasonable... but also like the type who might get mad if she threw the match. Maybe she could get away with it...? "I'm just a random batpony. You know me from somewhere?"
"Hoho." Pierre chuckled, withdrawing one of his cleavers as he advanced. "Months ago, you ran rampage through the kitchens were I was employed, earning the firing of my hot-tempered former boss! Blade form is an art not only for battle, and I practice it in all its nuances." He flung forward a talon, pointing a cleaver straight at her. "Isn't it fitting we should meet like this again?"
Valey blinked, then narrowed her eyes in realization. "Oh, you were...? Huh. Bananas, I guess I really do owe you a fight, then. You've been looking forward to this that much?" So much for offering someone friendly an easy victory. Maybe she could throw-
"AND I'M RANDORF!" a new voice bellowed from Pierre's tunnel, before a pegasus built like a gorilla hurtled into the arena, hurling himself into the air with a corkscrew triple flip and piledriving straight for Valey's head.
"Woah! Hey, watch it!" Valey vaulted to the side as he smashed into the platform, rippling with muscle, a pair of tight tights around his waist... only for Pierre to take a swipe at her as she dodged, forcing an emergency duck as she lashed out and repelled the flat of the blade with a hoof. "Hey, what gives!?"
Pierre grinned, winding up with his second blade for another swipe. "En garde."
Randorf straightened up, standing on his hind legs, and flexed. "EN GARDE!"
"Wait, two of you at once?" Valey flipped out of the way of the next strike, sliding to the edge of the arena and waving frantically at Howe. "Hey, is this cheating!?"
Howe blinked. "Is what cheating, my dudette?"
Valey's eyes bulged, her cutie mark telling her she had time for about one more reply. "You know, fighting two of them at once?"
"Didn't you read the rules for round three?" Howe called back. "You were spared with a Golden Regent!"
Valey groaned. No, she hadn't been briefed on the rules since round two by Wallace, and yes, she remembered them being complicated and dramatic... Served her right for not even looking who she was fighting. Without even watching, she flipped along the edge of the platform, landing in a corner with both enemies halfway through their advance. "Alright, then." Valey's eyes smoldered, and she grinned. "Guess I'm cleaning house with both of you."
Randorf beat his chest, still standing on his hind legs. Pierre flourished a meat cleaver, preparing to lunge across the arena to strike at her... Knives were scary. Time to get rid of those first.
"Raaaugh!" Valey launched herself at Randorf, hoping Pierre would extend to protect his buff ally. The griffon took the bait, sending a blade to chop at her outstretching limb, and Valey turned her assault into a bicycle kick, delaying perfectly to hammer the flat of the blade instead. That still left her with the pegasus himself, and another meat cleaver spinning around towards her back... Dodging in any direction would be too obvious.
Randorf's forehooves arced from above in a mighty linked blow, and Valey leapt to the side, flying straight into Pierre's face. "No chopping!" she yelled... only to be met with a very pointy griffon beak its owner clearly knew how to use. Her cutie mark warned her of another blow from Randorf aimed straight at her spine, a second away as she batted at Pierre and tried to keep his pecking head out of her eyes. These two weren't slouches and weren't giving her any space...
With a powerful kick, Valey launched both of her rear hooves together to counter Randorf's blow. The force of the assault jolted her painfully, but all their momentum and more was transferred to her, and what had been a grappling match with Pierre bowled the griffon over. Valey quickly rolled, preventing him from chopping her as he flipped over, and recovered first, stomping hard on a talon.
Pierre yelped in pain, trying to roll over and cover himself with the second cleaver, but Valey was able to wrench the first one from his weakened grasp. Sidestepping the swing, she reared up, turned around, and met Randorf's immediate charge, holding the cleaver by the blade and thrusting its pole like a spear, viciously slamming straight between his legs.
Randorf sidestepped, knowing that move well. "NOT SO EASY," he started to laugh... but Valey inverted the blade at the last second, catching his dancing leg like a scythe and flinging herself past him, out of the reach of Pierre's counterattack. Randorf's momentum from the dodge was against him, and Valey lifted hard, using the handle of the cleaver like a lever to pull his leg out from beneath him and send him toppling to the side.
"You're clever, aren't you," Pierre huffed, getting to his legs.
Randorf capsized, but was no worse at being a quadruped than a biped. He landed on four hooves, already lashing out with the targeted leg in a mighty kick... but Valey was in the air, judging Pierre couldn't stop her in time and bringing the flat of the cleaver down like a frying pan on the buff pegasus's head. CLANNNNNGG!
Valey still had time. Clunnngg! She whacked again, straddling his shoulders and spinning the cleaver about to keep as much momentum as possible. Pierre was upright; he lunged for her, but she brought the knife around in an arc, carving a sideways figure eight in the air that caught his attempt to parry and threw him off balance, ending in another bringing blow to Randorf's skull. Clonnnng!
"Ooog..." Randorf wheezed. Hoping he had had enough, but not able to risk more, Valey was forced to turn her attention to Pierre. She kicked off Randorf's back, planting a hoof on his head for good measure, vaulting and assaulting Pierre from the air with a double-overhead chop. Pierre raised a talon to catch the incoming handle, refusing to block with his blade, and instead targeted a strike at Valey's side.
"Hah! Nope!" Valey angled her strike at the last second, pummeling Pierre's cleaver awkwardly with the tip of hers. It was far more effort than the relief it earned her, but she was back on the ground, position reset to neutral with the stunned Randorf at her back. He would be waking up again...
Pierre grinned. "You know your way around one of these too, I see."
"Nah." Valey shrugged, then tossed him the stolen cleaver. "It's all just stuff to hit people with. Bringing a weapon is cheating, anyway."
Pierre caught the returned blade, blinking in surprise at the gesture... blinking for a millisecond too long. Valey punched him in the face.
"Nyahaa!" Valey caught both of the cleavers in midair as Pierre was flung backwards, hitting the ground and toppling out of the ring. She spun to Randorf, who had just gotten up enough to flex. Valey eyed him evenly, spinning the cleavers on her wings. "Okay, buddy, you wanna do this the easy way or the hard way?"
"BRING IT!"
Valey brought it, sliding in on her rear to bait a low blow. Even with his ringing head, Randorf saw through it, clapping his mighty hooves high... so Valey kept on sliding, taking advantage of him rearing up. He might have evaded her shot last time, but now he was dazed and she had two cleavers, and there was nothing Randorf could do to spare himself.
With a crash and a groan, he hit the ground, and Valey rose behind him, tossing a cleaver and catching it. "That it?" She looked over her shoulder, and got a whimpered assent in reply. "Yeah, that's it. Here, Pancake." Valey tossed Howe the cleavers, stepping down and out of the arena. "These are way cooler than that rapier. Good game, you two. See ya..."
"Well... looks like I'm stuck in this for a week more..."
Valey sighed to herself as she wandered the corridors of Stormhoof Colosseum, making her way out to the world beyond. Admittedly, trouncing two enemies at once had been fun. There was nothing quite like an unfair battle to make beating her opponents satisfying, and she didn't regret walking out of this one victorious at all. Would she feel the same next week? Maybe she'd find another excuse to keep herself in the fray and keep pushing her decision down the line. Or maybe she'd actually make up her mind one direction or another.
At last, her hooves carried her back into the public areas, where she registered a familiar orange unicorn waiting for her... alongside a gigantic griffon no one could ever forget.
"Hail and well met, my little pony," Wallace laughed, leaving Shinespark in the dust as he ruffled Valey's mane with a massive wing, knocking her beret askew. "I see you're still up to taking Stormhoof by storm."
Valey nearly lost her hoofing from the impact. "Woah! Bananas, long time no see..."
Wallace grimaced. "Indeed. Some unfortunate business in Izvaldi has required our constant presence as a symbol of encouragement and public support. We haven't had the time to hang out as I'd wished."
"I've been filling him in," Shinespark offered, catching up. "He was already waiting for me in our box when I arrived."
"Oh, I've kept myself appraised of the comings and goings here in Stormhoof," Wallace assured. He leveled an eye at Valey. "Most concerningly, I hear you tried walking out on a fight the moment you got there. What's all this about, young Valey?"
"Oh. Uh." Valey winced, faced with an expression that was outwardly cheerful and triumphant yet knew exactly what she had done. "Look, it was a friend, and I didn't want to throw away her chances..."
"Balderdash," Wallace rumbled, straightening up. "If you cared about her wish well enough to sacrifice your own, you'd fight on in her honor! Her wish being yours still leaves you with a wish, does it not? In a challenge where only the strong survive, laying down and clearing the path does your ally no favors for reaching her ultimate goal, my little friend." He leaned dangerously close. "Now what were you really up to?"
Valey wilted. "Look, I just... This whole tournament thing is like... My friends..."
Wallace let her stammer for a moment before flooring her with a sparkling grin. "Because I'll tell you what I've been up to! Stacking the deck! A little hocus pocus here, throwing my weight around with the right organizers, and presto! You were served a ridiculously unfair battle and cleared it without taking a scratch!" He seized Valey in his talons, holding her off the ground in a distant hug. "I'm so proud of you! Now tell me whatever assails your will to fight has survived such a blow of momentous victory."
"Buh?" Valey dangled in his grip. "Wait, you're talking about just now? Fighting two dudes isn't normal?"
Wallace's mustache drooped faintly. "...Didn't you read the rules?"
"No?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"Haaa ha ha!" Wallace dropped her, laughing. "Of course you didn't. You've been hoodwinked, young Valey. You would normally have an extra fight after being spared, as is necessary to keep the number of fighters in the bracket stable. A way to earn your way back in, as it were! But to combine those clashes into one? To go up against two of the sixty-four strongest fighters in the continent and emerge victorious? A feat that would wind even the heartiest of champions! Everyone thought I was trying to murder your tournament run like a cold-hearted assassin in the dead of night, but since you had already forfeit I was able to push it through."
"Wait, seriously?" Valey's eyes tried to narrow and widen at the same time, and she wound up just staring. "You... what? Why?"
Wallace grinned. "Because if you forfeit, you had given up. And if you've given up, there's hardly a downside to you losing, now is there? But there's nothing to galvanize hope like a victory in the face of impossible odds, and not only did you win a duel that was designed to be nigh impossible, you did it unarmed, ambushed and without taking a single blow. I judged it to be a risk worth taking. Now tell me how my judgement blew over!"
Valey just blinked. "You... Bananas. You really want me to win this that bad, huh?"
"Have I ever not?" Wallace lowered his voice. "You returned Morena's daughter to us and absolved us of our debt to Izvaldi. You have already given us everything we could wish for. There is nothing I can do but return the favor, and if your problems are ones of spirit, that is my domain."
"I asked him if he could do this, for the record," Shinespark added. "After last week. Not to rig things against you specifically, but to help you in some way. Maybe fighting in the tournament isn't the best goal for you to follow, but trying to drop out didn't seem to be helping."
"I..." Valey swallowed. "Look, it's not that I doubt I can win, it's..." She glanced around at the myriad of nearby corridors. "You think we could go somewhere a little more private for this?"
"Agreed," Wallace rumbled. "Allow me."
Valey and Shinespark clung together to Wallace's back as the gigantic griffon flew, making speeds even Valey wasn't confident she could keep up with. Stormhoof castle was a triangular outline in the distance, with the ocean far below. They winged their way westward, closely hugging the mountain wall at a low elevation.
Neither of the passengers had the breath to ask where they were going, but it quickly became apparent: a hole in the rock wall, just low enough that it could be reached by a rusty ladder affixed to a crevice yet well out of the way of storm spray. The cave was wide enough for Wallace to soar inside without furling his wings, and soon they landed, the interior a homely, sheltered room with an artificially-flattened floor, some seating and a few tunnels leading further in.
"Where is this?" Shinespark asked as she climbed down, staring around at the cave in interest.
Wallace nodded at the abode. "A hideout and lookout post we liberated from bootleggers about a decade back. My team and I have a large network of such locations, and it's usually more efficient to clean them up and repurpose them to our own affairs than to destroy them or abandon them for ruffians to reclaim. If you ever need to squirrel something away, retreat from the public eye or replenish yourselves from a supply cache, remember this place exists." He glanced back at Valey and Shinespark. "It's also supremely private."
"Uh... wow." Valey stared around the cavern, nodding at its small furnishings in approval. "You know, this would actually make a neat place to live for a while if you needed to..." She glanced at Shinespark. "You thinking about who I'm thinking about?"
Shinespark nodded.
"I'm glad you're finding it useful. We have far more than we need, ourselves." Wallace glanced once more at the entrance. "Now then. Your tone made it sound as though you're being blackmailed to quit. Tell me everything you know, and I'll see if we can't get some heat off your back. Barring that, you have a useful device for communicating with your friends, and this place is well-stocked enough for you to stay as long as you need."
"Uhhhh." Valey blinked, suddenly putting two and two together. "No, it's..." Her shoulders sagged. "Nobody's blackmailing me. I'm just... having... I dunno if winning would even do anything to help me anymore." She looked up, staring at a wall. "I've got a million different things I want, and all of them I either could more easily get in other ways that I'm not already doing because bananas, who knows? Or they're things Garsheeva can't even grant. You know, like having the entire world leave me alone and stop hating batponies and improving my luck, period."
"I see," Wallace slowly rumbled. "So your fire really is suffering. You're having trouble looking your goals in the eyes, aren't you?"
Valey frowned. "I mean..."
"Look at what you want and tell yourself honestly you want it," Wallace requested. "And then tell me where that breaks down. Is it the very first step?"
"Look, I just didn't want to lose to that yelling guy," Valey sighed. "In my fight just now. I just hate losing."
Wallace nodded subtly. "Young Shinespark, tell me what your friend wants."
Shinespark folded her ears. "She has a sister called Nyala who got trapped in moon glass a long time ago, and we're halfway to being able to bring back. That's a big one. She also cares a lot about us, all of her friends, and wants us to be safe. And I know she wants to be somewhere where everyone isn't biased against her or treating her unfairly for being a batpony. Garsheeva's heresies..."
Wallace watched Valey intently, noting every time she averted her gaze. "Are you ashamed of your goals, my little pony?"
"No." Valey grimaced. "Bananas, what kind of question is that? Why would anyone be ashamed of themselves for wanting to bring back their soul-siphoned sister?"
"Ashamed of yourself for following them?" Wallace raised an eyebrow, a twinkle entering his eyes. "That's not the answer to the question I asked, but it is an answer, and a helpful one at that. Don't you worry, young Valey. We're going to get to the root of what ails you if it takes us all day."
"...Alright." Valey sat up straight, alone in the mountain cave with Shinespark and Wallace. "You wanna get to the root of what ails me? Bananas, can't even count how many times I've had this conversation... Give it your best shot."
"My best shot, you ask for?" Wallace arched a bushy eyebrow. "Already accomplished, my little pony." His face softened. "I'll ask one more time: are your goals no longer something you're proud of? Or does the thought of returning your sister to the land of the living fill you with unspeakable shame?"
Valey winced as if slapped. "I just told you, no it doesn't! I'll get her back, okay?"
"Yet it's still the sorest of subjects," Wallace sighed. "You've met with many roadblocks on your way to restoring her, too many of them of your own making. You're ashamed of your own performance in this matter."
"I..." Valey choked on her words and trailed off. "Look, who wouldn't be? We had a body for her for like a whole month that no one was using, and I was lazy and just sat on her all that time because I knew it would be a hard task and a huge commitment and, like... And then when we did, I was feeling good about stuff, and the very next day I got dragged away by your stupid windigo. It feels like every time I try to be better for her she gets out-prioritized, or something dumb happens, or..." She sniffed. "You wanna know the worst part? We went all the way to the grand temple at the other end of Mistvale, I got to talk to an avatar of the Night Mother in person, and made the whole conversation about me. I forgot to ask her if she could put her back together, and we even had Nyala's body and her soul on the ship! We still do! Bananas, yeah, I'm ashamed of my performance."
"I see." Wallace's face returned to neutral. "And that wouldn't be the only thing troubling you like this, would it? What else weighs on your shoulders?"
Valey stared at the ground. "I dunno."
Shinespark hesitantly stepped closer. "...Wallace, we've had a hard time on our travels, and..."
"I know it well, my little pony." Wallace nodded. "Even as seasoned adventurers who have had more than our fair share of mishaps, some things still pierce straight to the heart. How do you think Morena, Diego and I felt learning the province to which we had entrusted our daughter was performing experiments on her in the name of betraying the crown?" He bowed his massive head. "There are some details about what happened to her that, in our ensuing checkups and examinations, have come to light... I won't trouble you with their harrowing nature, but rest assured we felt it keenly, the realization that we were too quick to trust."
Valey blinked. "Yeah, that... would have to stink. Bananas. And you guys fought for them in the tournament for years? Trying to get Izvaldi a wish to thank them for helping..."
"Indeed we did." Wallace spoke slowly and deeply. "This is not a request for pity. It is a demonstration." He lifted his head again, eyes suddenly blazing with determination. "That life will betray you from time to time, and moreover you will betray yourself. Whatever you want, young Valey, no matter how fervently you dedicate every inch of your being to achieving a friend's salvation, there will come times when you fail to reach it through no fault but your own. This is not because of you. It is a facet of living, and happens all the more often the harder you push yourself. That you feel it so keenly is nothing more than a sign that you are among the best of us."
Valey's mouth hung open, torn between pushing back and thinking harder about Wallace's words. "...Yeah? That doesn't change the fact that any of this happened..."
"I know of no power that can change the past," Wallace declared, straightening to his full height. "Not even the Night Mother can grant a wish of time travel. It is impossible. But do you need to change it to surpass yourself and do justice to your heart's desire?"
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Well, I need to change something! I'm making a mess of things with her over and over and the more times I get distracted and have to go beat up someone to keep my friends safe, the harder it is to... bananas..."
"The harder it is to look your goals in the eye," Wallace finished. "But who do you think your sister would rather have? A champion who has failed time and again, yet still gives her hope of a return? Or no one whatsoever?"
"If it was a choice between watching me mess up and let her down, and being stuck in moon glass and not having to watch that?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"
"The former," Wallace replied without any hesitation at all.
Valey blinked.
Wallace smiled, exhaling. "Does that come as a shock to you, young Valey? The world has many creatures who are powerless, who struggle and strive to improve their circumstances yet can never quite seem to reach all the way. If you reach down to help them, they won't care about how much of a failure you are or how many times you haven't made a difference before. Extending that hand is the essence of being a hero."
Valey looked at the wall. "I know I'm gonna mess up again. You watch. I bet you we won't get past the next tournament fight without something big happening that takes up all my attention for the next who-knows-how-long."
"This is true for everyone," Wallace confirmed. "But the only way for you to truly fail is to let it prevent you from trying."
"Yeah..." Valey stretched, getting to her hooves. "Guess I just gotta keep going at it. Thanks, bathtub. Don't you worry. I won't be giving up yet. Time to get practicing for being in the tournament to the end..."
As she approached the cave entrance, a huge wing suddenly barred her way. "And where do you think you're going?" Wallace Whitewing asked with a grin.
"Uhhh..." Valey blinked. "Back home, right?"
Wallace laughed. "And who told you we were finished? You're still holding out on me, young Valey. Do you know how I know?"
Valey blinked harder. "Wait, what?"
Wallace grinned his surest grin. "Because you lack the daredevil smile of someone who knows they live in a good-for-nothing world that will betray them at every turn, hounding them with failure and ill omens as it does everyone else in it! I know your history, young Valey. Ironridge and its reputation have not escaped my team's travels, nor your role in it. You have that ability, when the world laughs in your face to laugh back harder, straighten your shoulders and take what you want through guile and force. Only this time around, you have the heart to guide your motives true."
"What the...?" Valey stared at Wallace, uncomprehending. "Is this another talk about how I behaved in Ironridge? No. No way, no how. I was a jerk, I was a jerk, and I am not doing that again!"
"Oh, really." Wallace moved to stand in front of the cave entrance. "Force of personality is one of the most powerful tools anyone can have, and there's a difference between using it in ways your friends will appreciate and not using it at all. Are you afraid of offending someone?" He beckoned with a feather. "What if they deserve it? Or what if they have a sense of humor and it builds goodwill? You're holding back on yourself. You're being meek! And you say you want to leave this cave? Hah." Wallace's grin twinkled. "Show me you can surpass the fear that holds you back, or else fight your way through and prove you can win with your best hoof tied behind your back."
Valey blanched, looking back at Shinespark and expecting disgust. "Sparky, he's bonkers, ri...? Sparky?"
Shinespark was watching Wallace with curious contemplation, and nodded at Valey. "I'm staying out of this. Wallace hasn't given me any reason to doubt he knows what he's doing."
Wallace beckoned again from the entry.
"...You know what?" Valey turned to look Wallace squarely in the eye... and sat down on the bare floor. "I guess this means we'll be here for a while, then, because the mare I was in Ironridge is dead and I'm never being her again."
Wallace kept up his challenging look for several seconds longer before dropping it with a sigh. "Then make yourself comfortable, young Valey. If even a challenge like that fails to rile you out of complacency, we have a long road yet to cover indeed."
Valey sighed, watching the cave entrance to Wallace's rear. "Everyone says this. I dunno why. Look, in Ironridge I was a huge-"
"Stop right there, young Valey." Wallace firmly interrupted her. "Shinespark! Tell me of your companion's actions shortly after leaving that city. There is a hole in my knowledge between Yakyakistan's attempted invasion and your condition on arriving here, and I would see it filled."
Shinespark winced. "I wouldn't be the best one to say. I was... down after Ironridge. I had a broken leg, broken spirits, a bad cold and a wrecked ship to clean up. I might have not been paying her a lot of attention."
"Mmm. And was she feeling down with you?" Wallace raised an eyebrow. "You speak as if you were alone for this time. Everyone else was out and about?"
Shinespark nodded. "If you mean in general, she was running around with Amber. Trying to rile me up with tables. She certainly handled it better than I did at first."
Wallace turned to Valey with a rhetorically-questioning look. "What's this about tables? Sounds like there's a story in there."
Shinespark reddened and turned away. "It's nothing..."
"I asked her, not you." Wallace patted Shinespark on the head with a single massive feather. "Well?"
"It's nothing," Valey echoed. "Just me being dumb. Not getting the lessons of what not to do from Ironridge through my head just yet."
Wallace looked intrigued. "Oh? Lessons you've learned now, I suppose. Tell me how you got that there should be no repeats of this mysterious table incident through your head."
"It's not an incident!" Shinespark protested. "It's just... tables are... you know..." She pawed at the ground. "Have you ever been in a conference room, board-meeting style, where there's a long table down the center and everyone's sitting at the sides in two rows? Maybe you wouldn't, because I haven't seen any in the Empire. But it looks classy, and I might have... gone overboard with them one or two times in Ironridge, and Valey used to..." She trailed off, mumbling.
"What was that?" Wallace leaned closer in interest.
"Look, it's not important!" Valey stomped a hoof. "You can see she doesn't wanna talk about it, right? That's why it was a lesson to be learned. No more fl... No table jokes with your friends!"
Shinespark took a deep breath, cutting her off. "She used to tease me relentlessly about them. But really?" She tilted her head at Valey. "It was very annoying, but I thought that was the kind of thing we looked back and laughed at. Not were ashamed of."
"Uhh." Valey blinked. "Getting conflicting signals from that. Were you or weren't you bothered by me... you know..." She waved a hoof uselessly in the air.
"Oh, I was bothered by it," Shinespark confirmed. "At the time. I guess it's funny looking back on it. But it certainly wasn't enough to stop us flying to the Griffon Empire together."
Valey shrugged cluelessly at Wallace, who chuckled. "Hah... You really have a negative outlook on your old shenanigans, don't you?" He waggled an eyebrow. "I'd almost wonder if you like her."
Before Valey could even squeak out a reply, Wallace cut her off, adding, "Remember, what's said in this cave stays in this cave. Garsheeva has no eyesight here. And between us three, if the laws were different... Morena and I might have once been something more. So I understand."
"I... I mean... no!" Valey sputtered, finally getting her voice, glancing between Wallace and Shinespark. "Like her? Bananas, no, I was just being a gremlin! I didn't actually like anyone! Why would I like her? I used to-"
With a spark of teleportation, Shinespark was suddenly right before Valey, hoof raised. She punched her in the face.
Valey fell backwards with an undignified crash, sitting up and holding her jaw. "Didn't think you would actually go through with that..."
"Really?" Shinespark asked, standing straight over her. "Really? I'm... I'm kind of hurt by that."
"What?" Valey blinked.
"Maybe you forgot," Shinespark said, "about that conversation you and me and Amber had? The one where I told you, not to change anything but because you deserved to know, that I maybe liked you? About how I knew your love life was complicated and how there were laws anyway and I would never act on it?" She sighed. "I know you used to flirt with me. And with everyone who was a mare. And if you want to feel ashamed of that, fine. Go ahead. But don't emphatically say you don't like me, and especially don't ask why anyone would."
Valey winced hard. "Why would anyone like you? What? No, I didn't ask that! No, look, I'm sorry, I..."
Shinespark's ears folded too, and she looked to Wallace. "Did she?"
"I don't think so, my little pony," Wallace chuckled. "But this is all very fascinating. Don't tell me with all the pounding the world has done against your defenses, what truly ails you is a problem between friends. What's all this about a complicated love life?"
Valey glanced warily up at him. "Is that any of your business?"
"It's my business," Shinespark sighed. "I'm sorry, but it is. You've taunted me and tried to make me blush far too many times for it not to be."
"Yeah, and that wasn't cool," Valey agreed, averting her eyes with a pout. "Look, I don't need to undignify you like that. You don't need me doing it. So I stopped. Why is this a problem?"
"...You know normal ponies flirt with each other all the time, right?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "I am not an expert. I was so busy with the Spirit all throughout adolescence, the only friends I could afford to spend time with were the ones in my work structure. I am so inept at romance I screwed up horribly at noticing how Grenada was feeling, and to me this is still obvious."
"Are you asking me to do it again?" Valey gave her a dangerous look. "Is this exactly like how everyone else is nonstop going, 'Oh, you were so much happier in Ironridge!' Maybe you forgot, but normal ponies and me are oil and water. We're not the same! Just because someone can get away with that doesn't mean I can, okay!? I don't work that way..." She frowned. "Or are you still thinking you want me to anyway?"
Shinespark winced. "I don't know, maybe you forgot, but I just reminded you about the time I said I like you? You think? Maybe?" She wilted. "Empire laws and other obstacles aside..."
Valey's eyes deepened in concern. "Yeah, but you don't-"
"Don't even think about finishing that thought, young Valey," Wallace warned. "She doesn't what? Deserve something? Your affections, perhaps, because they're so much worse than a mythical normal creature's?" He ruffled his plumage. "That sounds tied to a specific event, and if you were still teasing her after Ironridge, I suspect it has nothing to do with your old mannerisms at all."
Shinespark blinked in dawning realization. "Valey, what happened to you and Amber...?"
"Nothing," Valey responded, quickly adding, "ask her yourself."
Wallace cleared his throat. "Regrettably, she isn't here in person, though I wish she was."
"Valey?" Shinespark took a step closer, folding her ears. "That's not how you ask someone not to press. What happened?"
"No, I really mean nothing." Valey waved a wing. "We, like... hung out over the sound stones for months. Had some pretty cool stuff going. Maybe. I guess. And then I dropped it. After she had started coming all the way out here to hang out with us. Like, we're still friends, I think. I'm pretty sure this happened before that conversation you were talking about, even, where you said you liked me and stuff. Bananas, I don't remember."
Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "You sound too nonchalant."
Valey finally snapped, sitting up hard. "Okay, what do you want me to say? You want me to talk about how I messed with someone in Riverfall and they messed with me back, and I was all, 'Hey, I'm one of the good guys now, maybe I can actually have fun with this and it'll be okay,' and then we partied and I wound up using her as an emotional support more and more until that stupid day when Puddles broke free, which was my fault, and then bagged me and hauled me off to Goldoa and was all snuggly and flirty and stuff and Amber thought it was no big deal for her expectations even though I felt like I had betrayed myself because I had it so much better than in Ironridge and I couldn't even be responsible for one! Stupid! Mare! Ugggghhhh..."
Wallace's brow furrowed in confusion. "You... betrayed yourself by being hugged by Morena's windigo-possessed daughter? Somehow mirroring your behavior in Ironridge? I'm not sure I follow..."
Valey sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "Yes..."
"Valey, what?" Shinespark tilted her head in concern. "I don't follow what you said either."
"I enjoyed it," Valey said simply. "Maybe just a little. I was shaken because I was trapped and she had me on a short leash with the threat that she'd bail. She was staying put, and, like... Like, I did not have fun at all while I was captured. That whole thing with the pirate ship was dumb. Please tell me you know what I'm saying. I don't think I can explain it..."
"You feel like you did something wrong because Puddles hugged you." Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "And... flirted with you? Something? I caught up too late in Goldoa to see it..."
"More like broke us into some sort of beachside resort," Valey grumbled. "And yeah."
Shinespark leaned over and hugged her.
Valey fidgeted, but Shinespark didn't let go. "Right. And I suppose this feels the same?"
"No, because... I mean... Yes, but..."
Shinespark sighed and backed off. As she did so, Wallace nodded, stepping to the entrance and spreading his wings. "Stay here. I'll be back momentarily. I have someone you need to meet."
Wallace winged away, leaving Valey and Shinespark alone in the cave. An awkward silence ensued between the two.
"...Give it to me straight, Sparky," Valey eventually said. "I really wasn't making sense with what I said about Puddles, right? About... why I let things slide with Amber?"
Shinespark's shoulders strengthened, recognizing Valey's less-combative tone. "I think I missed a few leaps of logic," she admitted. "But you're feeling like you failed her?"
"And like I failed myself. And I'd never tell her, but kind of like she failed me." Valey's ears wilted. "I've messed up before. So when I mess up again, I need my friends to call me out and set me straight. She... You know what she said?" She slumped into a sigh. "She said she never wanted to tie me down. She liked having fun with me, and liked doing fun things, and didn't want me to stop after coming to the Empire on account of her. Heh." She huffed. "I didn't fail her. I failed my own standards, and she told me it was fine. And now I'm really not enjoying myself, so I really have failed her after all. Bananas, what a mess."
"I don't get how being foalnapped by Puddles has anything to do with that," Shinespark protested, no intensity in her voice. "But you're not doing what makes you happy because you're weighed down by failing someone's expectations of doing what makes you happy?"
Valey snorted. "I was not happy in Ironridge. I was a professional bridge-burner. That was a lie."
"Oh, really." Shinespark folded her forelegs, sitting up straight. "And you running around with Amber in Riverfall was a lie too? Or that second trip where we went back to Ironridge, everyone who had been there but Amber and Willow too? The one where we properly enjoyed ourselves between taking care of business? Everything that happened before we set out east and Gerardo remembered batponies have it bad in the Empire, that was a lie too?"
"But I was bad at it," Valey whispered.
"At what? Springing back from a calamity like the one that ended Sosa?" Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I have news for you, Valey. Everyone is! You remember me that first week? I could barely speak. The war between Ironridge's districts was my foalhood. My life was consumed by Ironridge too, and I've never harbored illusions about being a pony like Amber or Slipstream without the memory of thousands of lives on my shoulders. Ironridge hurt you too, in a completely different way from me but still similar, but you got out with everything! Friends, a home, a second lease on life and no more Herman tying you to Yakyakistan! I was jealous. You had a chance at such a better life where I had failed, and I-I thought we could bond over being opposites or something, and you... aren't even taking it."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I know you were about to say I threw it away. And... yeah. Like I said. I messed up."
"Badly enough to get rid of your friends?" Shinespark returned it with a piercing look. "Whatever was so bad about you in Ironridge didn't stop Maple and Starlight from following you and being your friends. And I know how much of a selfish, foalish, opportunistic small-minded sapphic showoff you were. I grew up with you and your antics. And you grew up with me, unless you forget how small you were when you first showed up in Sosa with a Yakyakistani scientist and a chunk of moon glass. I saw all of it. Does that stop me from caring? Do I look like I don't care now?"
"I don't get it," Valey whispered, holding her ground. "You keep saying I wasn't all that bad, and then that I really was in the same sentence. Where's the difference? What do you want? Look, I knew where I had come from all throughout those six years. I always stopped short of doing anything really terrible, just pushed everyone away and played it up like I was a supervillain. But I don't wanna push you guys away..."
Shinespark put on a grimacing smile. "Did you just say you stopped short of doing anything truly bad? Kept to a moral code anyway? Sabotaged the Defense Force for years from being competent enough to do real damage any earlier? I'm sorry, I just heard you say that. So much for living a lie and being irredeemably bad."
"Not that part!" Valey's voice rose in desperation. "No, I know that, I... I pushed everyone away to make myself at least feel like I deserved to be alone and convinced myself it was great..."
"Yes, you did." Shinespark scooted closer. "And you were wrong. Congratulations, it's not great. And that is different from what I'm talking about. That was a goal, Valey. And ever since Ironridge, you've had a new goal, and that's keeping your new friends safe, right?"
Valey nodded, ears down.
Shinespark took another step forward. "Tell me, right here and right now, what part of that requires you to be a limp doormat who's afraid of doing anything you used to enjoy."
"I don't want to push ponies away..."
"But that doesn't line up, does it?" Shinespark grinned. "Who got pushed away by what happened between you and Amber? Was it her? Did she have a falling-out with you because you were too brash and self-satisfied? Or did you just leave her behind?"
Valey's pupils shrank in a new wave of realization. "Oh bananas..."
"You pushed her away," Shinespark apologized. "Not by doing too much. By doing too little. Didn't you?" She took another step, right to the edge of Valey's personal space. "Having friends? It's too valuable to waste over little things we do that grate on each other. Imagine if I walked into my cabin one day and you had stolen my bed, because it's bigger and comfier than all the others in the ship. Annoyed, of course, but would it be a strike between us? Friends can get over that. But walking away from the table..."
"Yeah. Heh. Sounds like something I'd do." Valey's eyes glistened. "So what do you want from me? I'm listening, here. How do I do whatever you're asking? I'm not who I was in Ironridge..."
"Are you worried about our feelings?" Shinespark whispered. "Or the whole world's feelings? What has this Empire ever done for you, Valey? Nothing. It's hit you with heresies and rockets and cheating tournament fights, province after province that wants nothing to do with you and a flight across the whole country to rescue Starlight. If this is how it treats us, I hate this place too. There has to be somewhere better, somewhere in the world. And you're excellent at fighting the whole world. Forget about everything else. When someone's neutral, give them a chance. When someone's friendly, be their friend. But don't try to carry the responsibility of doing right by everyone. I've been there, and it broke me. Right now, the Griffon Empire has not done right by us, it hasn't invited us to make an effort back for it, it's battered and beaten all of us down. Listen to Wallace. We want our Valey back who can steal the world's fruit and mess up armies' paperwork. We need someone who thinks our problems are hilarious and doesn't stop at fixing them, but makes stomping them into a show. Leaders are charismatic. You can do that. We need you."
Tears started to waver in Valey's eyes. "Bananas. You're going to regret this."
"Thirty-three," Shinespark said. "That's how many Sosan stallions I helped ferry to Riverfall. That's how many marriages were crushed because my workers were devastated by their own inability to find meaningful jobs, which was not their fault but forced them to rely on relief and welfare and left them feeling like they had failed their families. They were so devastated that they walked away, cut everything off, failed the mares who loved them for real and any children they had to leave behind! And I let them! And I know each and every one of their stories, and many of them I knew before things even reached that point at all."
Valey tearfully blinked.
"You can't let that happen to yourself," Shinespark firmly declared. "You've been getting worse, and if you do nothing it won't stop here. How many months will it be until your inability to stop putting your own needs and nature and happiness aside for what you perceive we want makes you walk away and leave us behind forever? Will you last until the end of the tournament, Valey? Or maybe you'll lose for real, and that will be the final blow?" She took a deep breath, holding back a shudder by force of will. "I won't let that happen to you because I'm not willing to stand by and watch my best friend push that counter to thirty-four."
"...You sure about this." Valey wiped her eyes with the side of a leg, taking several seconds until she was satisfied they were dry. "I'm serious. You don't remember what you're asking for." As she talked, she stepped forward just as Shinespark had, pushing past the barrier of personal space until their muzzles were inches apart. Her wings fluttered slightly, and she held one hoof halfway up. "This is your last chance. Whatever happens isn't gonna be on me, it's gonna be on you."
Shinespark's cheeks lit slightly at the proximity, and her ears pinned back, muzzle tilting slightly forward. "I accept that. Please..." She closed her eyes.
A second passed. Shinespark's tail tingled in expectation of a sensation on her lips... and suddenly a hoof met her head, bowing her with a gasp of surprise as Valey locked her into a ferocious noogie. "Nyaaaaaah! You asked for it! Hahahahahahaha!" When Shinespark's mane was thoroughly ruined, before she had a chance to recover, Valey kicked into a canter, racing away down one of the cave's back tunnels, cackling arrogantly. "Catch me if you can, Sparky!"
"H-Hey!" Shinespark's cheeks went furiously crimson as she scrambled to her hooves, not bothering to fix her usually-messy mane. "Valey! Get back here!"
Valey's laughter echoed clearly from one tunnel, and Shinespark chased quickly, keeping her horn lit the moment the lighting got too dim to see without it. The laughter slowly trailed off, though, and suddenly she found herself in silence. "Valey!? Valey, where'd you go?"
A shadow swooped across the tunnel, brushing her horn with a fuzzy maneuver that expertly snuffed it out.
"Hey!" Shinespark frowned into the darkness, sparking her horn and relighting it with ease. "Vale-"
Her horn was extinguished again.
"Shhhhh," Valey's voice echoed from everywhere, warning her not to relight it. "Sparkyyyyy, gueeess what IIIIII foooound..."
Shinespark's ears fell in anticipation, only a faint hint of daylight illuminating the tunnel behind her. "Do I want to?"
"No, no, this is great." Valey's voice had a spooky warble, and suddenly a pair of hooves were guiding her down the tunnel and into a side room. "Surprise."
Shinespark lit her horn. In the room, a couple of wooden kegs formed sturdy chairs around a manaconduit spool turned on its side, one of the wheels acting as a table for drinks or playing cards. Shinespark's ears twitched. In the corner, Valey was standing, grinning stupidly. "It's your favorite!"
"That is not a real table." Shinespark scowled.
"Aww, yes it is." Valey wandered over and leaned smugly on the spool, causing it to lean slightly. "See? Look at this. What a beauty."
Shinespark reddened. "This is the architectural equivalent of a fifty-year-old hunchback with half a coat who has worked the bilge pumps for their entire life, and is also a dude."
Valey was suddenly at her side, draping a wing over Shinespark's back. "So in other words, someone's jealous?"
Shinespark made a faint strangled noise. "No. It's the least-appealing thing I've ever seen."
Valey grinned. "Oh yeah? Look, at least the table's got something on Howe, right? Come on, I know which one you'd choose."
Shinespark's eye twitched. It twitched harder, and then she giggled. "Heheh... Heeheehee..." It wasn't her usual laugh, a pitch completely foreign to her businesslike voice, and she finally looked up, still laughing.
"Bwahahahaha!" Valey keeled over in a fit of laughter of her own, taking Shinespark with her. Both of them landed on the floor, and they didn't stop. "Oh bananas," Valey managed through her exuberance, flicking away a tear. "Oh bananas. Hahaha..."
"I hate you," Shinespark replied. "And love you so much. I missed you..." Still laughing on the ground, she seized Valey in a tight hug.
"Yeah, well, it better be worth it," Valey warned. "I dunno if I've got it in me to go through switching stuff up again. I still think you have no idea what you asked for, but... nyaah." She stuck out her tongue.
Shinespark's giggles didn't subside. "Are you really back?"
"Bananas, who knows?" Valey wiped her brow. "I was a mess. Still am. Dunno if you can just flip a switch and blow all that away, even assuming you are right. Which I still don't know if I believe, by the way. Just, I've been doing a fantastic job of looking after myself my own way..."
"Yeah, well, I'm saying there might be baby steps. And who knows how much trouble we'll get in if I start littering where an Everlaste guard can see it." Valey shrugged. "But honestly? Right here, right now? This doesn't feel so bad."
Shinespark took a moment to smile into Valey's coat... and then winced. "We probably should get off this cave's floor..."
"Heheh. Yeah, we don't wanna get the cave dirty." Valey winked, flipping upright and helping Shinespark with a hoof. "Whew..."
Shinespark stared back at the tunnel with a smile. "Whew indeed. I think this is officially a good day."
"Let's see how everyone else feels, first," Valey advised.
"Speaking of everyone else..." Shinespark took a step back toward the entrance, horn glowing for illumination. "Where's Wallace? Still fetching whoever he went for?"
"Sounds like it." Valey took the lead, flicking Shinespark with her tail as she passed. "I need to start wearing my hat more. But hey, wanna go wait for him?"
Shinespark followed along, and soon they were at the cave entrance. The skies were still patchy with feeble, dispersing storm clouds that failed to rain enough to obscure the view of Stormhoof, a distant spire to the east. "You see him?" Shinespark asked, craning her neck.
"Nah, but that's cool." Valey settled in on the lip of the rock, sitting on her haunches and patting the spot next to her. "We're in good condition to wait."
Shinespark settled in alongside her, and soon the two of them were touching shoulders as they watched the horizon.
Wallace didn't return for nearly an hour, but Valey and Shinespark never budged from their vigil at the mouth of the cave, even as the sun moved visibly across the sky. At some points, they were quiet, with light banter at others, but never anything deep. Valey teased Shinespark's tail with her own, and Shinespark flicked her ears in embarrassment, but they never drew further away. At long last, a speck appeared on the horizon and quickly drew closer, manifesting in the broad wingspan and shining grin of Wallace Whitewing. He flew at an angle, shielding his back from the wind, and the two mares moved aside to make room for his landing.
"Hah. Sorry to keep you waiting," Wallace rumbled, landing and keeping his back hidden and wings spread. A pony quickly used one of them as a slide, landing on her hooves and staring around the cave in awe.
"Amber?" Valey blinked.
"Wow," Amber remarked. "This is a neat place. I dig it, Wallace!" She winked, then turned to Valey. "So, a little bird told me you were in trouble and needed my help. Glad to be asked, by the way. What's up?"
"Ahem..." Wallace lowered his shoulders as close to the ground as they could go. "Presenting one more."
Valey watched as a chubby yellow mare with a pink and teal mane, about Shinespark's age, climbed rear-first down from Wallace's huge back. She turned to reveal a broad face with abundantly squishy cheeks that were clearly meant for smiling, threw a wobbly salute, and chirped, "Doot doo dooo! Hi, I'm Puddles!"
"Uhhh." Valey's jaw dropped, forcefully reminding herself that this wasn't windigo Puddles, it was the kid they had kicked the windigo out to put back in. "Hi?"
"Hi." Puddles put on a heroic smirk, utterly comical on her broad face and only learnable from spending too much time looking up to Wallace. "I know who you are. You're Valey! Uncle Wallace says you're having a bad day and the only thing that can make it better is a hug from Puddles, but don't worry! I am here, and here I come!"
Valey's brain couldn't quite pull itself together as Puddles half-waddled, half-marched across the cave, walked right up in her face and flung her forelegs around her in a hug so forceful it nearly tipped both of them over. "Heehee, yaaay!" Puddles crowed as she happily nuzzled Valey's neck and the sides of her head. "The day is saved! Puddles gives the best hugs!"
As Valey struggled to respond, Wallace stepped into sight around the huggy mare. "Say there is anything morally wrong about accepting a hug like that and you will make her cry," he dared, voice quiet enough that anyone not paying attention would miss it.
"Uhhhhh," Valey repeated, slowly hugging Puddles back. "Bananas, you've put on weight, kiddo. Weren't you a bone bag last time I saw you?"
"Heehee... yeah." Puddles grew more gentle now that Valey was reciprocating. "Momma says the windigo didn't know how to eat properly and kept me alive on magic instead."
Valey groaned, remembering Puddles' encounter with the wedding cake and its aftermath. "Yeah, that's definitely true, alright..."
Wallace hummed somberly. "Indeed. We must be gentle with her. Those scientists' experiments and that windigo's antics have not left her the paragon of physical health, though with care she is recovering. Part of that means keeping her out of the public eye, but... you deserve to see her."
"And so you brought her here to cheer me up? Huh." Valey blinked, growing more contemplative in Puddles' cuddly embrace. "Uh, bananas. Thanks. She is really cute..."
"Just don't forget she's six years younger than she looks," Wallace requested. "But yes. When you suffer from a compounding of failure after failure, I wanted you to see your victories face to face. Returning the dead is a feat even the Night Mother can only dream of, yet for all intents and purposes you've done it here."
Puddles smiled into Valey's neck. "Uncle Wallace tells all sorts of stories about windigo Puddles. I don't remember any of it, so being real Puddles is definitely nicer. Thank you a lot, Valey. You don't deserve a bad day. You're nice..."
"Aww. Kiddo, I... Look, I'm kinda emotionally fragile right now..." Valey gave a watery smile. "Don't make me turn on the waterworks again, okay?"
Wallace stepped forward. "There is nothing in the world that takes a stronger spirit than being an unsung hero. Being selfless, making sacrifices and doing good in ways that will never touch you again is the height of injustice perpetrated against you, by you, in no other name than that of doing good. Life for everyone is a series of successes and failures, setbacks and triumphs. I felt you were in severe need of a thank-you for the times you've saved someone by being a hero."
"Heh... yeah... Come to think of it, no one in Ironridge even knew me and Starlight saved them by the time we left..." Valey lifted a hoof from hugging Puddles to wipe at her eye. "Bananas, she might need something like this too."
"One thing at a time, young Valey." Wallace smiled gently, then pointed a wing at Amber and Shinespark. "And look at your friends. How do they look like they're feeling right now?"
Amber and Shinespark were watching proudly as Valey was squished in Puddles' embrace, and Amber stepped forward. "I'm feeling kind of like I wanna get some hugs from you two too."
Valey beckoned with a wing. "Yeah, yeah, come here..."
"Yaaay!" Puddles cheered, glomping Amber into the embrace. "Valey gets hugs from everyone!"
Shinespark stepped closer too, but didn't join despite Puddles staring at her with pleading eyes. She looked up to Wallace instead. "We... had a talk while you were gone," she began.
Wallace chuckled, shoving Shinespark toward the hug with a wing. "Talking about talking later, my little pony. Right now you're going to smother young Valey in more care than she can shake a stick at."
"Thanks, bathtub," Valey gasped as Puddles hauled Shinespark into the embrace as well. "Means a lot. But it's actually getting hard to breathe here..."
"Heehee... aww." Puddles hugged everyone for a few seconds longer, then slackened her grip, stepping back and surveying her work. She nodded, putting back that same silly, heroic smile. "Good job, everyone. Puddles is proud of you."
"Whew." Valey stood and panted for a moment when she was finally free. "Bananas, you all are enthusiastic. Thanks though. Heh..."
Wallace patted Puddles on the head with a wing, scooping her slightly closer. "Feeling any better after that? Or at the very least not like you've screwed up again?"
Valey sat back, letting herself decompress. "Yeah. Thanks for bringing her. I think Sparky was saying, though, me and her had a talk..." She winced slightly, but soon banished it, adding a wink at Shinespark. "Yep. A talk. And I still don't know if we're fully on the same page, but it ended with us laughing."
"It went well," Shinespark agreed. "And I'm glad it did, because I really put my heart out on the line, but it did."
"That's great." Amber smiled, keeping a respectful distance. "So what can I help with? Wallace dropped by the Dream on his way back from getting Puddles and told me I might be needed. It seems like we're having a good time already, though?"
Valey tiredly nodded. "Yeah, and I'd like to keep it that way. Just some stuff I was feeling like I'd messed up on about how our relationship went that really wasn't playing nice with everything else I was dealing with and turned out to be kind of a keystone in the dam..."
Amber's face fell into concern. "I thought we left things off amicably?"
Valey blinked and raised a hoof. "No, yeah, we did. I mean, it was just for me, like, the whole..." She glanced at Puddles. "What are you looking at?"
"Are you in love?" Puddles asked with an innocent, eager smile.
Shinespark winced, Amber's eyes widened, and Valey quickly backpedaled, glancing desperately at Wallace. "Uhhh..."
"It's perfectly fine," Wallace chuckled. "She's curious about everything, and we've had to start giving her the relationship talks early now that she looks older than she is. Bound to pick up some unwanted eyes that way..." he muttered slightly. "Thinks it's a fascinating subject, as usual."
Puddles nodded studiously. "This is the kind when a filly kisses a filly, right?" She blinked. "Why are all three of you turning red?"
Valey rubbed self-consciously at her mane. "That's... Grown-up things. Look, I actually am doing better, so maybe we should just party for now and Amber, I'll talk with you later? Probably would be good to do sometime..."
Amber slapped the floor with her tail. "Look, if it means you having a good time, I'm on board. You've been way too gloomy lately. So Wallace, back to the ship?"
"Oh yeah. Back to the ship." Valey nodded. "Relax, do stuff... bananas, actually it's getting kind of late..." She grinned at Amber. "Maybe I'll haunt someone tonight. You, Maple and Starlight have room for one more?"
"Haven't heard you ask in ages." Amber winked. "Sounds like we're good to go!"
"Excellent. I can easily carry four." Wallace knelt down again. "Though prepare yourselves. You may not be able to relax quite immediately on getting home."
Valey frowned. "Oh? Why not?"
"We've got some friends over," Amber explained. "Felicity and her sisters. Came looking for you to congratulate you after the tournament, then stuck around. Felicity in particular said something about waiting for you and Harshwater, then doing something with Crystal. Don't ask me what. But if you need me to get you out of it..."
"Oh, great," Valey groaned. "Yeah, no, I asked for this... Just gotta push the world's pickiest mare into letting some nonprofessional field medics give her a checkup since no one's properly gotten a look at her since Izvaldi. Don't worry, this will feel great to have taken care of. And then we'll party and have a great time."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "Good luck, and let me know if I can help. Wallace?"
Puddles was already atop Wallace's back, waving for everyone to join her. "All aboard the Wallacemobile! Yay!"
Chuckling, Valey flapped up to join them as Amber jumped and Shinespark flew behind her.
With a rush of air, Wallace landed on the deck of the Immortal Dream, four mares on his back. Shinespark and Amber immediately jumped down, with Valey close behind.
"...Hey. Wallace." Valey paused, hesitating at the entrance to the stairs. "You two girls go on ahead. I'll be right behind you; I got a thank-you to say."
Amber and Shinespark both nodded, heading below. Valey was left on the deck with the griffon, Puddles smiling at her from his back. "So, uhh..." Valey rubbed her neck. "Thanks. I guess enough people pushing hard enough was just what I needed to get through whatever was going on."
Wallace bowed his head. "Take care of yourself, young Valey. There are many who are beaten down who fail to rise to their legs again. I'm proud to see you aren't among them, though you must still use caution. Above all, trust your friends. Shinespark and Amber are here for you, and many of the others as well."
"Got you covered." Valey nodded. "Believe me, feeling terrible feels... well, terrible. It's not like I want to be a mess, or anything. But anyway, thanks." She glanced at the sky. "I guess you've gotta get Puddles back home?"
"Indeed." Wallace straightened up. "Though before I go... a word of parting advice?"
"Yeah?" Valey tilted her ear to listen.
Wallace drew closer, voice lowering. "Exercise caution around Felicity and her kin. They were raised on the wastes of Gyre. Manipulation runs through their veins. I know their kind well, and even when they truly wish to help someone, they are often incapable of being straightforward or honest in their manner of aid. Don't hurt yourself, and remember who they work for."
Valey frowned. "I appreciate the sentiment, but Felicity is my friend. And her sisters, too. I get exactly where she is, know the kinds of things she's used to doing to survive. I see a lot of myself in her, and it would be equivalent to saying I wasn't worth it if I didn't give the same chance I had to her."
"The table is set with your stakes." Wallace backed away. "This is your judgement, and I hope it is true. But I learned the hard way that the belief that anyone can be redeemed is not the same as that the redeemed can be anyone. Ponies like Morena, Diego and yourself who can claw their lives back from impossible precipices prove this can be done, but it is not a guarantee it will happen. Be careful, and may your ideals strike true... but do not give in to wallowing again should your trust be met with betrayal."
"That... Yeah." Valey gritted her teeth and folded her ears. "Don't you worry. I know what they'll choose. Felicity trusts me, and I trust her. And if it turns out I'm wrong? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I will survive."
Wallace gave her one last concerned look, then nodded, spread his wings and soared away, leaving Valey to make her way downstairs.
The library was empty, and for good reason: everyone was in the dining hall below. The room's table was lowered in place, a miniature banquet by Maple most of the way through being devoured. Felicity, Senescey and Larceny held spots of honor at one side of the table, with Maple, Starlight and Jamjars sitting next to them and everyone else sitting across. Only Crystal was absent, though Harshwater was conspicuously seated as far away as she could be from the three sisters.
"Woah." Valey blinked, seeing even Nyala given a chair. "What's the occasion?"
"Valey! Sorry..." Maple's ears folded in embarrassment. "We heard about the fight this morning and decided we had plenty of reasons to celebrate. But I was expecting you earlier and might have mistimed having the food ready. Sorry if we made you late to your own party..."
Felicity dabbed at her lips with a napkin. "Late? Oh, nonsense, darling. A lady always arrives precisely when she means to. And I have to say, this isn't a spread we'll be finishing by ourselves any time soon..."
Shinespark and Amber were just loading up their plates, and to their side Slipstream saluted. "It's also a party to celebrate nearly two weeks of success with the restaurant! And the sisters dropped by, so it's hospitality as well. We've been catering to aristocrats for days now, so why not throw ourselves a feast?"
Gerardo winked. "Indeed. We haven't taken any reservations for tonight. The occasion is just because we can."
"Well, hey, I'm down." Valey strolled to the table, plopping in next to Harshwater and surveying her clean plate. "Hi, by the way." She nudged Harshwater's shoulder.
"Hello." Harshwater munched on a half-full plate of salad. "Don't wander off after this. We're going to make sure we know what condition Crystal is in and get this over with."
Felicity nodded from across the table. "Okay..." Valey surveyed the serving platters, eyes settling on the bowl Harshwater's salad had likely emerged from. "Hey, everyone has mostly already served what they want, yeah? Since I'm late and all?"
"If you're asking whether you can help yourself, please do," Maple requested, sitting across from her and pushing the salad bowl closer. "I made all this for you!"
Valey took the bowl, hesitated... and with a little extra willpower, her promise to Shinespark won out over good manners. "Sweet," she declared, chucking the serving tongs over her shoulder and tipping the bowl straight back toward her mouth.
Everyone stared, though some were polite about it. "What?" Valey asked around a mouthful of greens, lowering the bowl to reveal a leaf sitting on her nose. "I'm hungry."
"Darling, I never knew you had a barbarous streak," Felicity coyly remarked, folding her hooves beneath her chin and smirking.
"Yeah, right." Valey used a wing to cram the rest of the salad into her mouth, cheeks puffing like a gopher. "I'm always like this."
Maple blinked in astonishment at the empty salad bowl. "That was two whole servings..." She glanced back at Valey. "You can fit all that in your mouth and still talk?"
Valey smugly chewed, swallowed, and made a show of patting her stomach. "Oh yeah. Good stuff, Ironflanks. And when has food been able to make me shut up?"
"Are you feeling alright?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow from far down the line. "You're being... spunkier than usual."
"Yeah, something like that." Valey surveyed her handiwork with the salad bowl, nodding in approval. "Actually, you could say I'm having a really good day. So what should I try to fit in my mouth all at once next?"
When the banquet had concluded, Valey leaned contentedly against a wall, licking her lips and flicking her tail contentedly. Maple, Amber, Slipstream and Gerardo bustled in the background, hauling dishes and preparing the cleanup, and Felicity soon approached with a businesslike smile on her face.
"Hey, girl." Valey turned alongside her, self-consciously bumping flanks and hiding her guilty thrill when it made the older mare blush. "What's up?"
"Well, you're certainly in a different mood than last I saw you." Felicity turned so they were facing each other again, a don't-try-anything-in-public look in her eyes. "Looks like someone figured out how to let loose a little?"
"Yeah, you could say that..." Valey rubbed her neck. Even if she went through the motions and could have fun doing so, she was quickly realizing she wasn't far enough back to be shameless about it yet. "So, Amber told me you wanna get a look at Crystal for us? Since Harshwater's been having an impossible time getting her to consent to a medical checkup, and she probably needs one after that explosion and with her kid and all? I kinda wanna get this out of the way..."
Felicity nodded sagely. "Don't you worry about Crystal." She tapped her cutie mark with a wing. "I can be very persuasive when I want to be. But yes, let's get your friend looked at and ensure there's no nasty surprises we'd like to find before she either collapses from an unknown injury or goes into labor."
The two mares quietly made their way up through the library, where Harshwater joined them, to the door to Crystal's room. Valey cleared her throat, stepping forward and knocking. "Uh... hey. Crystal? Can I come in?"
"You know my policy," Crystal dryly answered, inviting them in by refusing to give permission.
Valey slid the door open, revealing a room with the lights off. Harshwater instantly flicked them on with a wing, revealing some exercise equipment, a picture of Izvaldi's undestroyed capitol, another of Percival, and finally Crystal, laying in her bed and stroking her belly. Crystal watched everyone as they entered, glancing at Felicity without recognition but not reacting.
Harshwater took a deep breath, stepping to the least-occupied corner of the room. "I'd appreciate getting this over with quickly."
Felicity raised an eyebrow. "Nervousness?" She turned to Crystal. "Come now, darling, we're here to help you. I'm sure there will be no need for whatever behavior's putting anyone on edge."
"It's not that." Harshwater averted her gaze. "I'm alone in a room with three batponies. Having uncomfortable flashbacks to Mistvale."
"...Ah." Felicity worked her jaw slightly. "Let's get this over with indeed. May I?" She reached a hoof toward Crystal.
Crystal met her with a disdainful look. "I'm not a pleasure mare. Get your cheap enjoyment from each other."
"Ohhh my." Felicity's ears fell. "You certainly are a problem patient, aren't you? Miss Crystal, I am the closest thing to a doctor you're going to see in your life who isn't either a mad scientist or a shill who will turn you into Garsheeva for heresy. I've heard all about what kind of child you have in that womb of yours." She sharply pointed her hoof. "And you have been through a recent calamitous event with obvious damage to at least one leg, not had your child or yourself checked since, and for that matter only been seen to by the corrupt staff of Izvaldi's so-called advisor prior to that. Insult my character all you like and see how much I care about your wellbeing, but that ill-conceived child in your belly is innocent of all this and I would very much appreciate your consent to an examination so they don't risk suffering for your stubbornness, madam."
"What does my consent have to do with it?" Crystal frowned. "There are three of you and one of me. I can't stop you."
Felicity stepped back, looking vaguely revolted. "I-I..." She fumbled for words, then narrowed her eyes. "You will not disparage our attempts to provide legitimate and skilled aid. Take that back this instant or I will start playing dirty."
Crystal curled her lip, but Valey butted in before either mare could say another word. "Woah, woah, slow down. Hey Crystal, we saved each other in the hospital, right? You trust me?"
"...We worked together and survived," Crystal admitted, not admitting to any trust. "Thank you."
"Cool." Valey nodded. "So here's the deal: you're being a jerk to my friends. Now, I normally try my hardest to be nice, but today is your unlucky day, because I just had a friend make me promise to try a little lower at getting what I want. I want you to be nice to my friends. They want to make sure your kid's healthy. But you know what else I want?" She licked her lips, eyes gleaming dangerously.
Crystal watched her, concern for her foal and mistrust of Felicity and Harshwater fighting behind her emerald eyes. "What?"
Valey grinned. "You've got some really great legs."
Felicity and Harshwater both looked at her strangely. "Darling...?"
"Hold up! Hold up." Valey raised her wings for peace. "Remember the first time we met? How you went out of your way to get me riled up? Congratulations, first impressions matter. Now, I have been beating myself sideways trying to be an upstanding citizen, and like I said, that just changed. So either you are going to politely and sanely ask my friends to please make sure you and your kid haven't been injured by that explosion in some lasting, long-term way, or else I'm gonna be my worst self and pin you down with a big hug and enjoy it while they look you over anyway. Savvy?"
Crystal rolled her eyes. "I won't betray my true love. Do what you must."
Valey noted both of her friends' expressions shifting to concern. "Hey, believe me, this doesn't feel great," she promised. "But neither did this meeting before I said that. Would you rather I threaten to kick her off the ship and have her tell us we're forcing her with threats? No? Cool. Now get to work."
Determined, she stomped up, flopped on the bed and wrapped Crystal in a hug, pinning her legs while keeping the burned wrist and Crystal's belly where her friends could see them. The contact made her skin crawl; Felicity and Harshwater's expressions doubly so. "What?"
"We... need to check her over completely, and you'll be in the way..." Felicity managed.
Harshwater nodded.
"Well, bananas." Valey got back up, feeling vaguely disgusted with herself and not at all having enjoyed anything. So much for that idea... Now all her emotions from the cave were stuck mixing with her thoughts on Crystal. The cocktail was almost enough to make her sick.
"Darling? Darling!" Felicity snapped, waving at her. "Please, could you stand a little further away from her? Something about this is giving me a bad feeling. I don't like the way this is making you behave."
"Yeah..." Valey nodded, thankfully taking Harshwater's corner. "Not feeling so great myself..."
Harshwater stepped up by Felicity. "Right. If she's not going to fight, let's check her over and be done with this. I'm better with physical wounds, you check her foal."
"Alright then..." Felicity bit her lip, stretching a hoof for Crystal's fur. "I'm going to be gentle. Please don't fight me."
Valey expected a reaction, and didn't jump when something happened. What she didn't expect was for the reaction to be entirely Felicity's: her friend spasmed faintly, almost as if shocked by the contact. Harshwater didn't seem to notice, and Valey herself might have missed the sudden muscle twitch if it hadn't been accompanied by a sign she was much more familiar with: the calming emotional suppressant of Felicity's cutie mark.
"Hmm?" Crystal poked up her ears, watching Felicity's changing expression.
"I... ah..." Felicity migrated her hoof down Crystal's curved belly, feeling various spots and using what Valey was sure were monk arts to inspect the mare's body. "Y-You're very tight, darling. And definitely full-term. I don't know how you usually are, but I wouldn't be surprised to see your child in a day or two. It's a very good thing we didn't put things off..."
Valey zoned out. The feel of Felicity's cutie mark, emotionally damping and strong, was exactly what she needed right then to feel some clarity amid her muddled thoughts. This was messing her up again. She had just promised Wallace she'd be careful, just promised Shinespark she'd be her old self, but the moment she tried it around Crystal, things had gone wrong. What had gone wrong? Shinespark responded well to her less-than-politeness. She had earned a blush out of Felicity. Seeing her friends flustered had made her feel at least a naughty thrill, right?
What was wrong with Crystal, then? There was something irresistible about the mare that made her eyes wander to her whenever they weren't otherwise occupied. She was hot, right? Valey wanted... something with or from or for her. It had nothing to do with her being pregnant, since she hadn't known about that when they first met and she still felt this way. Crystal needed help. She wanted to help her, see her not be utterly dysfunctional all the time. That was it. Was that it? She examined her friends; Felicity had gotten her wings aflutter plenty of times in the past and Harshwater was definitely a mare when she stopped to study her. She tried to let her imagination wander, but her eyes quickly drifted back to Crystal when left alone. It wasn't something physical, then. At least, not fully.
But no matter what she tried, helping Crystal made her feel awful. It was almost like Crystal goaded her into things that left her feeling like drained garbage. But the way she felt was the result of her own actions, right? If her friends said they didn't want to snuggle and she hugged them anyway, what would happen? Depended on how serious they were. Maybe they'd blush and get annoyed, or tell her more firmly to stop... Crystal never told her to stop. Crystal just told her even interacting with her was a crime, and then let her do it anyway. And this was after whatever goodwill they had built helping each other escape from Izvaldi...
Slowly, memories of the other times she had met Crystal filtered through Valey's mind. Their aftermaths, specifically. Dunking her head in the fountain, rolling over and doing nothing in the grass, feeling like she had betrayed Amber by being unable to stop eying another mare... That time would have been right before she was captured by Puddles and taken to Goldoa, so by then she was already feeling bad about eyeing up another mare while being in a relationship with Amber...
Valey's eyes widened as her brain pieced together the missing link that had prevented her from explaining why Puddles affected her so much in the cave. Getting cuddled by a windigo? Fine, she should have gotten past that. It was on Puddles, not her. But she had already been feeling this way before that thanks to Crystal! Puddles' treatment had been a reminder, rubbing an open wound!
As several long-buried memories connected themselves under Felicity's calming, peaceful aura, Valey felt her breathing slow down. Sure, the Empire as a whole had been awful to her, but was it her repeated run-ins with Crystal that had finally broken her back? Not all by themselves, but at least making a significant contribution? A small flame of indignant anger lit in her heart, tamped down by her friend's power yet mixed with triumph at catching something that had been making her feel undeniably nasty. The whole story or not, this was important. If she saw a problem, she could do something about it... so now she just needed to figure out what to-
"Ahem." Felicity tapped her, and Valey tuned back to reality to see Crystal left alone and Harshwater nowhere to be found. "You and I need to talk. In private, please."
"Oookay?" Valey's ears perked nervously as she felt Felicity's aura lift. There were a whole lot of things this could be about...
Felicity whisked her out of Crystal's room and into another, closing and locking the door behind them and turning on the lights. She waved Valey to the bed, sitting down herself, and took a deep breath, staring her straight in the eyes. "There is something deeply and disturbingly wrong with that mare."
"You don't need to tell me twice." Valey grimaced, glad she didn't seem to be in for a lecture about herself. "She's like... What was she even trying to accomplish?"
"I'm not talking about her actions." Felicity lifted her forehooves, tapping them together to indicate her monk arts. "I'm talking metaphysically, about her body and magic. For starters, she has multiple brands."
Valey took a long, slow moment to blink. "Run that by me again?"
"Multiple brands, darling," Felicity said, confirming that Valey had heard her correctly. "More than one. And I'm not talking about the child she's carrying. It's hardly the only thing strange about her, too. Using Mistvale arts requires a strong understanding of ponies' bodies, so believe me when I say I know what normal is, and this isn't it."
"But, like..." Valey squinted. "How does that even work?"
"You ever seen someone who used obsidian?" Felicity raised an eyebrow. "It's difficult to put into layponies' terms, but you know the one they absorb from the stone isn't theirs. It's like... Mmm. No. This is a bad example." She rubbed her chin. "It's like her body is a bag. And everything that's sewn in place in their proper places aside, there's at least one extra brand floating around freely inside. To me, it felt like an outward pressure from inside her skin. At least, that's the best way I can describe it."
Valey blinked. "That's kinda creepy."
Felicity looked too troubled to find any mirth in agreement. "You don't even know the half of it. Our bodies physically process our emotions, you know. It's a large part of the basis of how Mistvale arts work, and why only we sarosians can perform them. But the emotional lines and pathways in her were completely wrong. We should normally resemble trees, made up of lines with our limbs like branches, and she... was more like a shell, field or bubble."
Valey's face scrunched. "Okay, so what's that actually mean?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Felicity admitted. "She is not a normal sarosian on a biomagical level. It's possible she was born this way, but that just shifts the suspicion of what happened up to her parents. And what isn't possible is that this was an accident. It reeks of intelligent design."
"Intelligent..." Valey frowned. "Hold on. Before you go any further, how possible is it she's somehow magically able to influence me just by... I dunno, me looking at her?"
Felicity's ears fell. "I wish I could tell you. I haven't a clue. But if you're thinking about what I think you're thinking about, stop. She was asking for a pummeling, and you were very gentle to stop at threatening hugs. I don't think being in that room was healthy for any of us."
"Yeah... it'll be fine." Valey shook her head to clear it. "What was that about intelligent design?"
Felicity took a deep breath. "Like I said, her emotional pathways form a shell or bubble just below her skin instead of a tree or network of lines near her skeleton. Furthermore, a regular pony's emotions are extremely complex. For every real emotion you register yourself as feeling, there will be hundreds of smaller feelings, impulses and sensations coming nonstop as you perceive the world around you. You may not be thinking about the effect this room's atmosphere is having on your thoughts right now, for instance, but I don't even need to look to tell you it's there. We look like... rapidly changing light shows, to use a visual metaphor. Sometimes quieter, other times more active."
"And her?" Valey nodded for Felicity to go on.
"Her." Felicity nodded too. "I could pick out the emotional patterns of regular thought, but they were muted by a much stronger wave of purely negative feeling that was far too constant to be any mortal's thoughts. Do you see my verdict in all this?"
"Ehh..." Valey tilted her head in extreme thought. "Like... something to do with that time you were talking about objects with emotions burned into them? Because they're constant?"
Felicity shook her head. "Well, maybe, but what I'd guess is that her unusual emotional mechanism is an artificial state designed precisely to allow her to contain more than one brand. I've heard from Gazelle a decent amount about the comings and goings in Izvaldi, and Chauncey was the type of stallion who would experiment with these things, correct? Brands are meant to be hopes and dreams incarnated into magical ability. A seamless shell of negative emotion would be a twisted, if sensible, way to attempt to contain one..."
Valey sat down hard. "Oh bananas. So she's a walking, twisted emotional fusion experiment from Chauncey, or something? Bananas, that's messed up..." She slowly recalled Crystal's relationship with Stanza, and wondered if one was a byproduct of the other or if Chauncey just really liked using her for experiments. Not that she'd ever learn what had happened between them to make them start hating each other...
"I hate to say it's possible." Felicity sighed. "I'd be willing to wager this is at least part of why she's so... unpleasant. You can't just go doing these kinds of things to your body without seeing an effect on your mind as well."
"And an effect on the ponies around you," Valey muttered. "I really hate Chauncey now."
"Well." Felicity fell back against the bed. "That's my verdict. Are you alright, darling? I was using my brand a lot in there, and you look somewhat shaken..."
Valey shrugged, flopping on the bed as well. "On the one hoof, no, I'm not. On the other, I'm a whole lot better than I could be. Bananas, I wish we could just dump her with Percival and never look back. Magic aside, how else is she doing?"
Felicity scooted slightly to make room. "I can't see her waiting much longer to foal. She's certainly full-term. I'm almost tempted to stay the night, just in case anything decides to happen this evening. Aside from that and that unusual scar on her wrist, though, she's somehow the picture of physical health."
"Really?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"Good muscle structure." Felicity nodded. "She exercises, and it shows. Fed well and properly nourished. Her child seems healthy; I got a heartbeat. She grooms herself well, too. No sign of any injuries, internal or external, from Izvaldi. Except the line around her wrist, of course. In overall better health than many mares her age, even, I'd say. Slightly strange given the condition of her magic. If she's sickly on the inside, I would have expected it to have some physical manifestation as well."
"I... Huh." Valey worked her hooves. "Hey, this might be a weird question, but do you think she's hot?"
Felicity chuckled. "I think she's one of the least-attractive mares I've seen in a very long time. But I don't have the most normal ways of assessing others. How about you?"
"I mean, yeah, she's terrible. Makes me feel bad every time I talk to her." Valey fidgeted. "I'm not talking about whether you like how she acts, though. I just mean, like... You don't find her more irresistible than she should be?"
Felicity's colored lips drew into a knowing smile. "You mean physically? Interesting tastes. But no." She shook her head. "Please understand I mean this delicately, but I have..." She paused, choosing her words. "Well, I'm not exactly new to the idea of getting to someone a little closely. It's not difficult for me to find my way into a bed if I really want it, if you know what I mean. And with the amount of ponies there are in the world, physical traits are easy. I'm far more attracted by a pony's mind, darling. So I don't have attention to waste on ponies like her." Her eyes shadowed. "You sound like your thoughts aren't nearly as solid."
Valey's ears folded. "Yeah, I dunno. Something keeps me coming back to her, and I dunno if it's me wanting to help her or something else or what. But I feel like garbage every time I do without fail. Bananas, I wish I could just get rid of her, have her be someone else's problem and not worry about it."
"I..." Felicity hesitated. "Is anything stopping you from returning her to Lord Percival right now? Just making the trip, leaving her in Izvaldi?"
Valey frowned. "Well, Percival's probably busy with the whole national crisis thing going on, what with his capitol being destroyed and his chief advisor blowing up Garsheeva. We planned a bit before everything went up in flames, and what we basically need is a way to get Gazelle to let Percival abdicate so he can retire to the countryside with her and live together with no one watching."
Felicity nodded seriously. "Absolutely. And Gazelle... has Percival on a tight leash about that, because if it's discovered Izvaldi is without a leader or sphinx, he'll be promoted to the new Lord Izvaldi in a heartbeat. These kinds of shenanigans are unfortunately common, but that's how the Empire goes..."
"You have any leverage with Gazelle that might be able to help?" Valey tilted her head. "Since he's the one stopping us from just leaving the two together for a happily ever after?"
Felicity bit her cheek. "I... don't think I do. I'm sorry, darling, but even though he listens to me and we work closely together, I can't simply ask him to accept a future he doesn't want and expect him to listen. And truth be told..." She trailed off, voice growing faint.
"What's up?" Valey glanced at her in concern.
"Darling... Valey." Felicity took a deep breath. "We didn't... come here tonight just for a social visit, the three of us. I have something difficult we need to ask of you."
"Uhh." Valey's heart grew louder. "Look, I'll do my best, but I've got a really lot on my shoulders already, and-"
"Shhh." Felicity closed her mouth with a wingtip, pressing it to Valey's lips, and managed a shaky smile. "We've come to a decision. Made up our minds. The three of us... are done with the Empire. With politics, with working..." She swallowed, ears folding and coming forward again. "We want out. We're ready. We want to throw in our lot with you and your friends instead."
Valey brightened. "Wait, really?"
"Is that... offer still valid?" Felicity winced, hesitant. "I know you asked us if we would drop our dealings here and change our ways quite a while ago, and..."
"Yes." Valey's voice was adamant. "Bananas, yes it is. If you guys wanna change for the better, we'll always..." She reached forward and grabbed Felicity in a careful hug. "Always be there for you. I know exactly where you've been, getting caught up in all this. You're welcome here, I promise."
Felicity's expression devolved into a watery smile, and she hugged back. "Awww. Thank you..."
After a minute's embrace, Felicity let go. "That said, we... need to talk business about how this is going to go."
Valey sat up seriously. "I'm all ears."
"Right." Felicity nodded. "So, as you know, I hold a rather high and important position in Stormhoof." Her eyes flicked toward the window, though night had well fallen and nothing was visible. "It's actually somewhat of a manufactured position. You see, Gazelle is in close contact with Meltdown, who's in charge of the Empire's power system. If there's price-fixing to be done, they get to do it. The two of them have essentially been creating a deliberate security flaw in Stormhoof for around a year now, starving the island of energy with the justification that they can afford it and creating dark streets and corridors that are easy for sarosians to roam through unchecked. This, when the whole island is built atop a network of tunnels and ruins that provide abundant routes and hiding places for the less-savory among us."
Valey's ears fell. "I thought something like that had to be going on. Bananas, when I first got here I busted my way all the way to the top of that tower, after getting monked up and without even hurting a single guard."
"A demonstration the public felt keenly," Felicity confirmed. "And actually the one Gazelle used to get me hired."
"Wait, really?" Valey's eyes widened. "So that's why he was so interested in me doing that..."
"Likely so." Felicity straightened her back. "It's been a matter of finances. The argument was always that Stormhoof could afford to pay more for energy, they just weren't because the money could be better spent on other things... Eventually, I was hired for my ability to keep tabs on the underground and catch word of any pre-emptive attacks before they happened. My salary is handsome and I'm effectively outside the chain of command, which are very small prices for Stormhoof to pay next to the cost of power. It's a manufactured need for me. You see?"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, makes sense. So now you need a way to withdraw from that without... someone actually taking advantage of this, or something? Or without Gazelle getting mad that his gift is being spurned, or whatever?"
A broad smile reached Felicity's face. "Actually, Gazelle is in on this, and we have both his and the Night Mother's blessings. Our service has been appreciated, so we have them as allies on our way out. You may have noticed that official embassy designation he earned your ship not long ago?" She winked. "A bit of a pre-emptive move, but that's so you can grant us asylum here and political immunity if we walk out and Stormhoof is screwed."
"...Okay, that's pretty crafty." Valey blinked, then furrowed her brow in thought. "So are there any downsides to this for us? Or when you say you had something big to ask us, is that to deal with someone being furious about this?"
Felicity sighed. "That's where I'm going next. We actually arranged for Gazelle to show up sometime later tonight, because there's a little bit of wiggle room in the plan. We thought it would do for you to have some input, given that I'm important and this will likely be a significant affair. The pin around which this next bit hinges, though, is your testimony regarding Izvaldi and the rocket from Yakyakistan."
Valey's eyes widened slightly. "Bananas. I knew that was part of someone's plan..."
"Ours." Felicity smirked apologetically. "The Yakyakistan part of the testimony was neither here nor there. What we really wanted was a footnote in the records from the place where you talked about his experimentations with the power grid. The details on the Empire's power grid and its architecture are very secret and held under heavy lock and key, but the story from Meltdown that the entire Empire is getting is that Chauncey's stunt damaged some critical components and we're under a continent-wide energy shortage while they're being fixed. Essentially, it's the fault of a dead, goddess-hating sarosian that Stormhoof's power is still rationed, not some price-fixing scheme."
"And will stay rationed once you bail," Valey finished. "...Bananas, what are you guys planning? Leaving a giant hole open once you're gone? Are you staging an attack on your own country?"
"That much is up to Gazelle." Felicity's shoulders sagged. "If I had details, I'd... Well. The furthest my involvement extends in the plan is to ensure that there is a hole. What it's to be used for or why is anyone's guess, but either way, Gazelle and the Night Mother believe my sisters and I have done our part. All that remains is for you to get us out of here."
Valey stared at the door. "I don't like this. Feels like something bad is gonna happen."
"Happen to whom?" Felicity raised an eyebrow. "Darling, Stormhoof is not the greatest province to live in with leathery wings. And it's currently overrun with Everlaste guards, who need I remind you are from the worst province for us to live in. While I highly doubt Gazelle plans to sneak around and give all the guards surprise presents, the ones who seem poised to lose from anything that happens are our enemies. If you really need to know, you can ask Gazelle himself when he gets here, but this is a ship that can fly more swiftly than any guard, is well-stocked from your restaurant endeavors, and in a worst-of-the-worst-cases scenario, we could take all your loved ones and run. Gazelle did also mention you asked him for some Writs of Harmonic Sanction..."
Valey bit her lip, then sighed. "You know what? Yeah, I guess you're right. Screw Stormhoof. Anyway, what still needs to be finalized?"
Felicity nodded. "The terms of my resignation. As-is, there's two easy outs: I walk away myself, or we goad Lord Stormhoof into firing me."
"Well, the first sounds easier," Valey remarked. "And the second still gets you disliked, just for different reasons, right?"
"That depends on how eager everyone is to find someone to blame for my disappearance," Felicity answered. "The latter could be harder to pull off, but less heat on us after. Essentially, though, you remember how I told you back in Mistvale that I was... pregnant, right, darling?"
Valey's eyes wandered to Felicity's belly, which was plenty flat and not conspicuous. "Uh, I think so."
"Well, I am," Felicity sighed, placing a hoof on her abdomen. "Around three months. Not quite showing, though you can feel it and probably will be to a discerning eye before long. But what I don't think I mentioned was my foal's parentage."
Valey thought for a moment. "Nope. Not ringing any bells."
Felicity settled out onto her back, watching the ceiling regretfully. "Prince Geribaldi Stormhoof. It was... part of a very complicated series of crossing and double-crossing between Gazelle and Lord Garland Stormhoof that ultimately ended without either of them getting what they wanted, though I was stuck with this. Many planning iterations ago, I hoped to get something of my own benefit out of those events..." She stared back down ruefully at herself. "Either way, if something about this is revealed, we could find ourselves anywhere from Everlaste calling for my resignation to Lord Stormhoof himself being forced to banish me to try to bail himself out."
"...Woah." Valey thought for a moment, then glanced again at Felicity. "So wait, that's a sphinx?"
"I'm carrying a sphinx," Felicity confirmed, patting herself gently before sitting back upright.
"Huh. Anyway." Valey looked away. "So, condition of mine on all this: you guys work out your own exit plan. I really don't want heat getting drawn on our ship because you decided to go out with a crazy stunt rather than patching your hole smoothly and turning the lights back on. Now, if you need my help actually carrying something out, ask and we'll see. But leave us out of the planning. Especially my friends. We've had the kind of stress that brings before, and it's really uncool. Like, deal with that yourselves, please."
Felicity swallowed... and bowed. "Of course, darling. We will try our utmost to leave all your friends out of this."
"Sweet." Valey stared for a moment longer. "And after that, that's really it? It's all over with you and Stormhoof? You're just turning over a new leaf, hanging out with us?"
"Well, that's the hope, darling." Felicity's smile returned. "We can't attest to how easy it is, and I know you're closer to us than some of the rest of your crew. We'll probably have to prove ourselves a little bit, but I've flown with you before and think we'll probably be able to fit right in. I'm looking forward to it. So... thank you for giving us this chance."
Valey closed her eyes and sighed, finally content. "Yeah. Hey. You're welcome."
She felt Felicity shift up against her. "Mmm."
"...You mean anything by that?" Valey felt a wing twitch, and she opened one eye to see Felicity's contented expression.
"Oh, nothing." Felicity winked. "Just a reminder that if you're ever feeling a little lonely, I always appreciate being appreciated."
"Uh. Thanks." Valey felt herself redden. "Bananas, reminding me of talking about Crystal again."
Felicity pursed her lips. "Aww, certainly I'm much nicer than she is. Come, darling, don't feel embarrassed about me. Or do, because it makes you very cute."
"H-Hey!" Valey's ears folded. "No, I mean like... Oh, fine, whatever." She put a hoof around Felicity. "There. Love you too."
Felicity giggled.
"Hey, seriously, though." Valey's voice slowed, a real thought crossing her mind. "Can you talk about that extra cutie mark thing she had, again? I just got a weird idea."
Felicity grabbed her with both forelegs, dragging her further up onto the pillowed side of the bed. "Only if I can do it like this. What about it?"
Valey grew redder. "Making it hard to think, here. So like, how strongly is it stuck inside her? You compared it to a normal pony using moon glass? But it didn't go into her kid, probably because they're a griffon? And you said it was just floating around. If she touched a piece of moon glass, you think it would drain it? Would it drain all her marks, or just one? What about something less drainy that still holds cutie marks?"
Felicity slumped. "That's an awful lot of questions, darling. Where are you going with this?"
"Just a crazy thought." Valey got a shoulder beneath her, still in Felicity's embrace. "We've got Nyala's empty batpony body down in the food pantry. Batponies get drained by moon glass, so worst case we can tap whatever happens with some and get her back the way she is right now. But if we had the body and Crystal hug, or something, and maybe put them in the engine room so there was some harmonic energy and good feelings going around... you think that extra mark would transfer?"
Felicity released her, sitting back in thought. "That's a very interesting question, and I honestly have absolutely no clue. Why would you even want to try such a thing?"
"Curiosity." Valey shrugged. "I went through our existing moon glass supply a while ago with that pendant I have that lets batponies borrow the marks inside of moon glass, and... What?"
"You have a pendant that does what?" Felicity frowned, deeply curious.
"Yeah, never mind." Valey waved a hoof. "I'll tell you about that later if you want, but the point is I'm curious about what's inside. The other part is that I have a sister I really wanna put back together, and trying weird stuff like this is how we learn about how cutie marks work and maybe to get hers out of that glass and back in her body where it belongs. Best case, we even learn something about transferring memories, but that's a long-term goal."
Felicity sat up slowly. "And you'd use your sister's body for this? Doesn't this seem like a bit of a shot in the dark?"
Valey skewed her lip. "...Yep. It does. But hey, you were the one who made me think of Crystal and then this. Look, though, I just had a big talk today and am kinda feeling like trying a little harder for my friends right now. At some point, I need to start making a serious effort to help get her back, and I'd rather not wait until I'm either not feeling it again or we've found a way to get rid of Crystal. How cool would you be with trying this right now?"
"I suppose it's as good an introduction to properly being on your team as any," Felicity agreed. "You fetch Crystal, I'll get Nyala, since she'd probably like to be there. Everyone else is probably enjoying themselves after cleaning up downstairs..."
"Yeah, yeah, I get to lug around Crystal. It's a deal." Valey flipped to her hooves, sighed, nodded and exited the room.
As Valey walked through the hall from Felicity's room to Crystal's, a drumroll sounded on the roof above, rising in intensity over several seconds as the skies began to rain. Valey folded her ears at the melody; they hadn't had a good storm for a while. It would be nice, as long as no one had to go outside.
"Hey, Crystal!" She didn't bother knocking, sliding open the door to the other mare's room and stepping inside.
"What?" Crystal looked up, laying on her back with a weight stretched uselessly in a hoof.
"We need you down in the pantry," Valey commanded, trusting that orders would stir the stubborn mare more than pleas. "Come on. We've got something we need to try."
Crystal rolled to her hooves, her long, straight aquamarine mane nearly brushing the floor as she walked. "Fine," she agreed, massaging her huge belly with a wingtip as she stood.
"...You okay?" Valey knew she would regret talking, but raised an eyebrow, asking just to make sure.
"Ye..." Crystal started to snap, then trailed off and looked down. "When am I going to see my lover again?"
"Hopefully?" Valey's shoulders sagged. "Real soon. I dunno. If I had my way, we'd fly you back to Izvaldi tonight. But we still got stuff to deal with. Trust me, though, we're working as fast as we can."
Crystal flicked her tail. "...You know what I want. Lead the way."
Valey obliged, taking the back staircase through the cargo bay and entering the pantry from the rear. Felicity and Nyala were already there, the latter perched atop a potato bag as the former observed the empty body with interest.
Crystal stopped in the doorway, staring at the chitinous, pupilless husk. It stared back, more expression than it was usually capable of. "It's empty," Crystal dryly observed.
"Sure is," Valey replied. "And we want you to give it a hug and seen what happens. The biggest, nicest hug you're capable of."
Crystal blinked at the body, then turned to her and gaped. "...Why?"
On the potato bag, Nyala's wings swiveled. "You want her to hug my old body? Yeah, why?"
"'Cuz according to her..." Valey pointed a wing at Felicity, then at Crystal. "You've somehow got more than one cutie mark? And I sort of doubt this will actually do anything, but if they, like, flow from a batpony with too many to a batpony with too few? That would actually be really neat to know. Could get us a step closer to putting you back together. Crystal, please hug?"
Crystal gave her a dubious look. "Oh. Beautiful. Are you sure?"
"Hey." Valey grinned. "Being not sure and not doing anything because of it is a really great way to wind up never doing anything. Give it a shot."
"Fine." Crystal rolled her eyes, stepping towards Nyala's shell. "Experience is a good teacher. Next time, if you want to know about Chauncey's experiments, just ask me instead."
"Wait, what?" Valey blinked in confusion. "You mean you already know what's gonna-?"
SHHZZZZT!
There was a bright dancing of energy as Crystal and the body made contact, followed by a shower of colored sparks that obscured Valey's vision and forced her to blink. When she opened her eyes, Nyala's body was gone, replaced by a long-maned sarosian stallion that instantly caused her to pale. He seemed disoriented, but the moment he got his bearings enough to notice her looking at him, he went paler.
Valey pointed a shaky hoof. "Wait, how were...? You were in...? We brought back you!?"
Navarre, mad scientist of Yakyakistan, creator of Puddles the windigo and Valey herself, last seen having his cutie mark removed forcefully from Nyala's body by an attack from Stanza, trembled in fear at her hooves. "What do you want with me?" he breathed, voice shaky and airy.
Valey just gaped. "Of all the things that could happen, I just acted on the first random hunch that crossed my mind and accidentally brought back you? Why!?" She stomped a hoof. "Bananas, why couldn't bringing back Nyala be this easy? Why?"
"He must have been removed by Stanza," Crystal managed from the side, voice tight and pained. "I told you, Stanza and I are one. I was the storage repository for brands Stanza had taken and not returned...!"
"Yeah, yeah." Valey waved her aside, not even looking as she stepped toward Navarre. "...Bananas. And Stanza got blown up, now, too. Now we just have to get rid of him again."
Navarre pinned back his ears. "Please just don't prolong things. I'm sorry!"
Valey stood over him, detecting no likelihood of attack. She raised an eyebrow.
"Um. Valey?" Nyala's voice sounded from behind her. "Look at Crystal..."
"Why, what's...?" Valey turned to Crystal and blinked. The other mare was seated on the floor, teeth clenched, holding her limbs around her belly. "Oh, come on."
"Please not now," Crystal whimpered. "I want Percival..."
Valey thumped her head against a sack of flour. "Oh, come on! It was just a weird arcane magic shock! That's not enough to... Aww, bananas, what do I know." She flipped upright. "You! Egghead!"
Navarre cowered, still chained to the wall with the collar that had kept Nyala's body from wandering off.
"You stay here." Valey pointed a hoof at the floor. "Nyala, watch him. If you run away with my sister's body, I will find you, but I've got bigger things to deal with right now. Crystal, let's get you back to your room. Felicity, congrats, you get to stay with her. See whether this is a false alarm or her kid has really fantastic timing. Sound cool to everyone?"
Navarre nodded as hard as he could. Crystal shakily got to her hooves, giving Valey a hard look when she offered her shoulder but taking it anyway. "I can walk. I'm not an invalid."
Three minutes later, they were back in Crystal's room, Felicity quickly surveying the place. "Right, we'll need some materials and don't want to make a mess of things..."
"You got that?" Valey asked, backing out through the door. "I'm gonna ask everyone and see if we can't time it to Izvaldi, really fast! She's mean, but deserves to see her dude. Gazelle can-!"
She bumped into someone in a hurry through the hallway, afraid for half an instant she had jinxed it and it was Gazelle. Valey instantly let out a sigh of relief upon seeing it was Larceny. "Oh, hey. Glad you're here. Listen, we-"
Felicity appeared in the doorway, giving her blue sister a stern look. "Tell me it's not more troublesome than a passenger who might have just accidentally sent herself into labor?"
Valey winced. "Look, I know it was a hasty and completely random idea, but you don't need to rub it in!"
Larceny fixed both of them with a piercing gaze. "Gondolus Gyre just showed up, and he wants to call in an immediate favor from everyone here. Shinespark owes him for something in round two. This is not according to plan."
Valey and Felicity turned to each other and gulped. "I... Sorry, darling!" Felicity called back to Crystal. "We've got to deal with something for just a few minutes! You're a strong mare and you'll be okay, and I'll be back as quickly as I can!" She then nodded determinedly to Valey, slid the door shut, and the three set off quickly for the front of the ship.
"Look, it's just a little favor," Gondolus Gyre wheedled, his large frame looking slightly less large with all his fur plastered from the rain. "And you owe me. I'm not even asking for your wish in the tournament, when let's not forget I sabotaged my own star fighter by giving you a leg up on him."
"Dripping on someone's library is not a good way to ask for favors," Shinespark countered. "And asking us to publicly endorse Gyre, consider it the location for a permanent Ironridge embassy, and turn over reams of technical data relating to Sosa's airship designs in order to get your province in the air is not small! Where would you even get the money to build these things when your province is as starved as it is? You haven't even offered any incentive for this beyond 'promoting our ideas.' I'm sorry, but we don't owe you that."
Lord Gyre cleared his throat. "Showing feebleness before the elements and wearing a coat is not the way of the mighty. And here I thought you wanted to help ponies and griffons who are in need. You must have heard the reputation of my province. Does it seem in need to you? I extend my own paw to help you in the tournament, and you want to withhold knowledge that would help my citizens." He shook his sopping head. "I know you have a good reputation here, in the Griffon Empire. Wouldn't it help you sleep at night if that was truly earned?"
"We're not interested." Shinespark stood up. "Please leave."
The soggy sphinx gave her a rude look. "I'm a lord. I can go where I please, and I'll thank you not to boss me around while pretending you owe me nothing."
Gerardo, Senescey and Harshwater stood behind her, though the rest of the crew had retreated below or to their rooms. "You can go where you please within your territory," Shinespark countered, "but this ship is designated as the official embassy of Ironridge. You're standing on our soil, and here I outrank you. Please leave civilly."
Gondolus Gyre raised a wet eyebrow. "You mean the city that's stranded thousands of miles away and normally takes two months for a round-trip communication, and has been out of the world economy for half a year? You're being very hostile for a diplomat, Princess Shinespark. But what's your worst resort? Declaring war on me? You and what army?"
"Hi, I'm an army," Valey loudly announced, strolling arrogantly into the room. "What's up, kitty? I hear angry words and have a million things more important to do than ask why you're on our ship."
Lord Gyre gave her a pitiable look. "Coming to collect on past dues. Your friends here are being very unfriendly to common sense."
"Milord, I apologize, but this is not a place for you," Felicity added, stepping in beside her. "Whatever you're after, this isn't Gyre and you can't get it through intimidation and instability."
"Felicity," Gondolus disappointedly purred, curling his wet lip. "I pay you to back me up in situations like this."
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to tell you?" Felicity checked her hoof, as if it was far more interesting than the sphinx. "We quit."
"We quit," Senescey and Larceny echoed, stepping up and flanking her.
Lord Gyre smiled, showing teeth, and his eye twitched. "This doesn't please me."
"We're not interested in giving you large amounts of classified Ironridge information just because you ask for it," Shinespark confirmed, staring him down with everyone else.
"...Be that way." The sphinx flicked his ears. "And you too, traitors. Enjoy living with yourselves." He turned and walked for the stairs.
Everyone collectively released their breaths.
Instead of climbing the final flight to the exit, Lord Gyre turned and stepped into the engine room.
"Hey!" Valey surged forward, Shinespark and Senescey at her back. "Where do you think you're going!?"
"Picking out a souvenir," Gondolus casually replied, looking around at the powered-down machinery. "Since you're being so kind as to share your technology with me, I figured I'd get a head start."
Valey and Shinespark prepared to charge together. "Oh, so you want a fight, huh? Bring it, kitty!"
Senescey urgently tapped their shoulders, holding them in place.
Both mares looked to her just as Lord Gyre started reaching for the exposed windigo hearts... and with a tiny sliver of silver from beneath her wing, Senescey darted forward, nicked him, and was back on the staircase landing in less than a second.
"Owww!" The sphinx jumped, clutching his shoulder. "That stings! What did you do?"
Senescey stared levelly at him, a tiny knife in her mouth pulled from a camouflaged sheathe.
"You brat!" Gondolus Gyre lurched forward, suddenly uneven in his stride. "You're going to get it! You're...! Hurrrkk!"
He made it as far as the engine room door before collapsing with a strangled choking sound. Both paws gripped frantically at his neck as he rolled on the landing, grabbing uselessly while his eyes bugged in desperation and he turned blue.
"...You've been poisoned," Senescey remarked with a detached look, sliding the dagger back where it belonged.
Lord Gyre choked, watching her, his struggles growing fainter.
"We're assassins," Senescey said, watching him die. "That's how it's always been. And now we're changing sides. You shouldn't have crossed our friends and forced our hooves. I'm sorry, but I won't lie: this was satisfying, knowing how you treated my sister. Good night."
Neither Valey nor Shinespark had words as Senescey stared at her kill, Gondolus Gyre asphyxiating on a swollen windpipe. At last, he stopped moving, and everything was still.
"...Did you just kill him?" Valey stared at her with wide eyes.
"I killed him," Senescey confirmed, everyone else watching from the staircase. Felicity stepped forward, slowly reaching a wing for her back. "I guess we're not on Gyre's side anymo-"
CRACK!
Senescey screamed as a bolt of bright blue energy lanced down the stairs, missing Valey and Felicity by inches and striking her squarely in the back. The impact bowled her over, and she landed against the far wall, coat smoking slightly and eyes sightless and unseeing.
At the top of the stairs, as a silhouette framed by pounding rain, High Prince Gazelle stepped into the light, the crackling tip of a freshly-fired mana pistol at his side and a thunderous look on his face. "I'm sorry, did you just make me the new Lord Gyre? Because I have not spent this long planning my rise to become the new Lord Gyre." He blew on his gun tip as he descended, fixing each and every pony with a look before ending on Felicity, tearfully cradling her sister's fallen body. The corners of his mouth upturned in a regretful grin. "You shouldn't have done that, little bat."
"Senescey, no..." Felicity sniffed, completely hunched over Senescey's body in the stairwell. "Senescey..."
Valey managed to unfreeze first, whirling on Gazelle. "Hey! What did you do that for!?"
"Stay out of this," Gazelle warned, reaching the bottom of the stairs. "All of you. This is between me, Lord Gyre and my three wayward minions. It has nothing to do with you, and you want it to stay that way."
Larceny placed a restraining, shaking hoof on Valey's back as well. "He's right."
"Senescey..." Felicity continued weeping.
"Bananas to all of this. These are my friends." Valey glared at the prince, taking a step forward anyway. "You lay one claw on them, on our boat or anywhere else, and it's personal, buddy. You've just messed with the wrong... Woah!"
Suddenly, Valey's legs locked up, and she pitched forward and went sprawling on her face. "Ow! What the-!?"
"Sorry," Larceny apologized, withdrawing her hoof. "Nobody move. Gazelle is right. We were in deep with both him and Gyre and many others as well, and if that takes us down right when we were almost free, you are not going down with us." She kept her voice even, bangs hiding her eyes and the rest of her face dark and pained.
"What is the meaning of this?" Shinespark demanded, not advancing but holding a ready stance. "Explain to me why there are multiple ponies dead on my floor within seconds of each other."
Gazelle gave a tortured, exasperated sigh, pointedly louder than Felicity's sobbing. "You want the pretty, friendly version? She nobly sacrificed herself to rid the world of a greedy clod who was down here for who knows why, I just spared her a much more painful execution by Garsheeva and all of you are witnesses who can testify the other two had nothing to do with it and, if they're lucky, let them not suffer for their sister's mistake." He reloaded his gun. "But right now I'm not feeling terribly rational, and the explanation that these three got high on friendship and offed their former employer while forgetting who they still work for sounds so much more appealing."
Larceny growled, but held her ground.
"Let me up, you idiot! He's gonna shoot Felicity!" Valey struggled against her floppy legs, unable to rise or get any traction. "Nnngh!"
Gazelle twirled his weapon, giving Valey a stand down look. As he did, Felicity looked up, craning her head over her shoulder as she coddled Senescey's body. "Don't even think about it," Felicity warned.
"Who, me?" Gazelle stepped up in her face, grinning like a predator who was forced to settle for a smaller kill than he wanted and prepared to make up for it. "Oh, I don't think so. You..." He sank his claws into her shoulder, pulled her bodily off of Senescey, and threw her on her back, earning a cry of pain. "You've just scuttled years of effort spent trying to corral this unruly empire and present my sister with a nation that's worthy of her inheritance instead of a bunch of simple-minded, infighting slobs like the one you couldn't let live however many more paltry months it would take! We were on the doorstep of victory!"
To punctuate his point, he shoved a paw down on Felicity's barrel, pinning her in place.
"No... Let go..." Felicity gasped at the pressure, struggling to remove his leg from her midsection. "Foal...!"
"Get off her!" Valey roared, flopping on the floor like a fish.
"Stop," Shinespark warned, lighting her horn. "These two are under asylum from Ironridge."
Gazelle wasn't listening to either of them. His pupils had shrank to slitted pinpricks, and were slowly widening until they filled his entire eyes, an expression of kittenlike joy overtaking his face. "Aha. Hahahaha! That's it! We can fix this. You're brilliant." He grabbed Felicity by the shoulders, lifted her until she was dangling completely off the ground, and nuzzled her hard. "That little illicit Stormhoof foal of yours Geribaldi is being such a coward about owning up to is now officially a product of your unscrupulous liaisons with the recently deceased. Congratulations, you're growing the new Lord Gyre."
Valey felt Felicity's calming aura flicker faintly, but it was unable to manifest in her shocked state. After the last few minutes' events, she couldn't even speak.
"Everything is better," Gazelle sang, mood swinging like the gybe on a ship mast. He flipped Felicity on his back, still too stunned to move, then pounced atop Lord Gyre's corpse in the engine room door. "Now all we have to do is get all the evidence back to the castle, let things explode, let things settle, probably get poor little you quarantined so you don't run away with Gyre's heir, I don't have to take that miserable job..." He started dragging the big carcass towards the stairs. "How lovely."
Shinespark looked like she was going to be sick. Harshwater watched impassively, Gerardo had vanished, and Valey kept shouting on the floor. Larceny frowned. "So you're taking both of my sisters instead of just one."
Gazelle carelessly shrugged. "Oh, you can have her back. Eventually. After I'm not the new Lord Gyre and have bought all the time I need."
"And me?" Larceny raised an eyebrow.
"Pfft. Who cares what you do?" Gazelle spat. "You're free. Out of this whole mess. That's what I was initially coming here to arrange, wasn't it? Go run around and enjoy your life, or something."
Larceny watched him coldly and evenly. "I hate you."
"Many do." Gazelle smugly got the corpse held in a way he was happy with, then dragged it over to Senescey. "Fortunately, leaving bitter rivals is a habit of mine. It tends to provide good entertainment for whenever they catch up. See you around..."
With that, he leaned down, clasped the scruff of Senescey's neck in his jagged teeth, and lifted her, too. His wings spread on the landing, and in an immense show of aerial power, he lifted off, soaring through the door and into the night with Felicity and both bodies in tow.
"Get back here!" Valey screamed, flailing. "GAZELLE!"
"What just happened?" Shinespark whispered, horn going dim as her demeanor started to crack.
"The worst day of my life." Larceny's head turned down, and she walked limply towards the library chairs.
With a rush of wings, Gazelle braved the storm, soaring past dozens of ships until he landed on another, dropping the bodies and strolling up to bang on the door. "Honey, I'm home!"
The door opened to reveal Meltdown in her sleek, post-pirate-ship armor. "The teleportation guild is ready, as are the power distribution stations. How did it go?"
"About as planned," Felicity sighed, slipping off Gazelle's back and landing on her hooves. She gave both of them a warning glance, going to sit by Senescey. "Valey will have all of our heads for this, you know. You underestimate her if you think she'd settle for anything less."
Meltdown moved to check Senescey as well, feeling for a pulse and then checking breathing. "The rain is bringing her about. Should we wait until she's awake before leaving?"
Felicity shook her head. "Larceny is good at her job. She'll buy us the time we need. I just hope you two are ready. Tonight, it's do or die."
"Hah. You leave that to me." Gazelle's eyes sparkled. "This night is going to be perfect."
"Odds that she survived? Zero." Larceny covered her eyes with her mane, Shinespark standing across from her and not knowing what to do. "We know our weapons, and that one was designed to kill. And even if it hadn't been a perfect shot at point blank, do you think he'd let her live? You heard what he said. Someone needs to take the blame for Lord Gyre, and better her than all of us."
"Better her than all of you?" Shinespark whispered. "You can casually think that about your own sister's death?"
Larceny faintly shrugged. "Growing up in Gyre does things to a pony. You're not likely to see me weeping and making a show of mourning. I'm sorry if that bothers you. It's the way I am."
"Yeah, well, you don't speak for all of us!" Valey was aggressively flopping towards her, making painstaking progress. "Now let me up this instant! Bananas, we gotta go after them and save Felicity!"
"We?" Larceny frowned. "I probably will once they've lowered their guard, but not you."
"Larceny is right," Harshwater apologized. "This is the way things are in a war zone. They're gone, and if Felicity comes back it won't be through anything we do. That's just a reality you have to learn to live with."
Shinespark fixed her with a shaken glare. "But my ship is not a war zone. Those aren't the rules we want to live by!"
Harshwater coolly met her gaze. "Nobody wants to live in a war zone, but being invaded gives you no choice. The only way to keep your sanity is to accept that and move on. I know what ponies look like who can't."
"Bananas, let me up!" Valey continued to flail.
Larceny just sighed. "See to what you can see to. That's how it works. I'm sorry."
"How what works?" a sightless Starlight asked, standing in the hallway.
Valey shot her a loop, ceasing her struggles momentarily. "Go back to your room, kid. Stuff's happening out here."
"I'm aware," Glimmer said, wandering up to Larceny and Valey. She stared the blue mare straight in the eye, somehow knowing exactly where she was without eyesight. "It was loud. We all heard, we're all worried and Starlight is this close to going to do something about it herself, because that's what she does when nobody else can."
"Oh, I could, if only someone would turn my legs back on." Valey glared up at Larceny. "Hello, you remember my resume, right? I've infiltrated Stormhoof before, and I can do it again. Let me at them."
Larceny frowned. "Felicity just got taken to one of the most fortified castles on the continent. Fighting Gazelle and freeing her when she was here would have made every single one of us enemies of the Empire. Trying to get Felicity back now would do the same, whether you can get to the top of that tower and back or not. Like I said, I'm still considering it. It's easily possible thanks to Gazelle leaving the lights out for us. But being enemies of the state is not something I'm about to let you do."
"Yeah?" Valey propped herself up as far as she could. "And what if I want to? Bananas, this empire is dumb. It's given me a lot of garbage, is now giving my friends worse garbage, and I would rather steal Felicity back and punch Gazelle's dumb face and have to fly all the way back to Ironridge and live out my life there than keel over and watch this happen to you. I'm serious, I wanna do it."
"It's reckless and stupid and unnecessary," Larceny countered. "You are not invading that tower for our sake."
Valey grinned, eyes burning. "Yeah, that's the point! It's also what I'm best at, and I just got a really big kick from a very good friend to put more faith in myself and my ability to pull stunts like this. So what if this is a test? Me versus the Empire? I'm down. I already cleaned two clocks at once in the tournament. What's a few hundred trained soldiers more?"
Harshwater looked slightly afraid. "She's completely serious," she warned. "She can and she will. I've been on the other end of that fight before."
"Valey..." Shinespark hesitated. "You know Felicity better than any of the rest of our crew." She nodded apologetically at Larceny. "I don't know how much I trust her, myself, but I do know injustice when I see it. Larceny, let her up. This is something she has to do."
Larceny gave her an incredulous look. "Attacking Stormhoof on our behalf. In full view of the Empire. When there could be an easier way by waiting, since you know Felicity's life isn't on the line because Gazelle says he needs her foal."
"I don't know anything about her foal," Shinespark answered. "I just know what my friend is capable of. And she's right. She made it up that tower once before, while crippled by a monk and also while refusing to attack a single guard."
"Yeah, I was playing pacifist," Valey added. "This time, if those Everlaste goons are as bad as you say they are, I won't mind knocking a few heads. Let me up, please?"
From the hallway, Jamjars cleared her throat, appearing behind Glimmer. "You and your sisters killed the guy in the first place, didn't you? You were hasty, your mistake. So maybe you owe it to her as an apology to let her go beat everyone up?"
Larceny sighed loudly. "We had a long history with Lord Gyre even after leaving his province twenty years ago, and none of us had any love for him before that either. That was personal business, and not anything to do with you." She looked down at Valey. "Why are you trying to put yourself this far on the line for us? You could have to leave the Empire. I can't guarantee anything if you make an enemy of Gazelle."
Valey blew a raspberry. "So you three talked it over, decided you liked the way we do things enough to throw in the towel with Gazelle and come join us, yet you don't even know how we work well enough to remember that friends help friends? It's not every mare for herself, here. You've gotta be pulling my leg."
Larceny winced. "Think it over first. You're all in shock and not thinking clearly. Anyone healthy would be after witnessing that."
"Congratulations, no one ever said a flattering thing about my state of mind!" Valey grinned. "Come on, please."
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No!" Larceny raised her voice. "It's not worth it!"
"Screw that and screw you." Valey's face hardened. "Bananas, this is your sister on the line! Stop giving up on her!"
Larceny rolled over and faced the other way.
Valey's brow furrowed in frustration, thinking of what to press next... when Crystal appeared in the hallway, looking intensely uncomfortable. "I'm in labor," she announced. "Please take me to Izvaldi. I need my Percival..."
Shinespark blinked hard, staring at Crystal's swollen belly. "This really isn't a good time..."
"And this kind of thing doesn't care about convenience," Crystal growled, pressing a hoof to her womb. "My child is coming!"
Glimmer was suddenly at Valey's side. "She can unlock you," she whispered, loud enough that Larceny could hear.
"Sweet! Hey, Crystal!" Valey's head shot up. "Listen, Larceny just monked me, but if I can get un-monked I've got a real important thing to do that involves this ship getting as far away from Stormhoof as possible super fast since it'll probably bring down some goons on our heads. Including back to Izvaldi. A little help, here?"
Crystal stared blankly at her... and before she could respond, Larceny's hoof reached down and tapped Valey's shoulder blades, and suddenly her legs worked again.
"Fine. If you're going to be that stubborn about it..." Larceny sighed, then put on a grim smile. "Having some help would be welcome. I hope you enjoy being an outlaw."
"I don't know Mistvale arts..." Crystal said.
Larceny growled and facehoofed, but didn't try to stop Valey again. Glimmer winked, strolling away down the hall.
"Okay, quick planning!" Valey hopped to her hooves, beginning to pace. "We've got two ways of doing things: being sneaky since the lights are dim, and fighting our way through. I can do either, but let's say I've got my preference. Larceny and I are going, right? That leaves Harshwater and... Who else knows what they're doing with you?" She pointed a wing at Crystal.
"Amber might," Harshwater quickly offered.
"Neat, so you guys get the ship heading for Izvaldi, top speed." Valey nodded to Shinespark. "We're already ruining Gazelle's day with Lord Gyre, so it shouldn't be a big deal if Percival disappears with her and their kid. I'll take a sound stone, so we'll stay in touch, but you'll probably find us hiding out at Wallace's cave. After that? Screw everything in this place, we're heading for Ironridge. Maybe we'll go to Yakyakistan, who knows. Anywhere but here. Sound good?"
"Do what you do best." Shinespark nodded. "Do you want Starlight's sword?"
"Uhhh." Valey winced. "It's super strong, but kind of a liability too... Ah, bananas, I'll take it. Jamjars, get me that."
Shinespark quickly stepped away towards Starlight's room, and Valey nodded. "Right. Any last important ideas, anyone else? Crystal, you okay?"
Crystal was stuck in an extended grimace, wings wrapped around her belly. "What does it look like? Just hurry..."
"Right. Hurrying. Time to kick some faces." Valey grinned as Shinespark returned with the sword, exchanging it for a sudden, surprise kiss on the cheek. "...That's for good luck. And I'll need my hat. Bring it, bad guys."
Rain pummeled down around Valey as she rose like a specter in front of the gates to Stormhoof Keep, beret tilted down to cover her eyes. A full platoon of Everlaste guards braved the weather in wait, readying their spears as she approached. "Who goes there after curfew?"
"Hey there, ladies and gentlemares," Valey greeted, tilting up her cap before the all-griffon platoon. "Digging the emergency protocol, but I'm needed in the war room as soon as possible. Stand at attention and clear a path."
"Emergency protocol?" one drilled.
"State your name and identity!" another barked. "No sarosians are military officers."
Valey rolled her eyes. "So whoever was supposed to be briefing you is slacking, eh? Lord Gyre was just assassinated. Something about a dispute with the mare who's in charge of making up for the completely embarrassing way there are no lights in this place. Felicity? She just got fired for it, I'm the hire to replace her, and every second you louts slow me down, this castle could be in danger of a sarosian pirate invasion."
The guards blinked at one another. "Lord Gyre was assassinated?"
"All the more reason to stick to protocol," another decided. "No sarosians, and no admittance after dark. You'll have to go through official channels, ma'am."
"Welp. I tried to do things the nice way." Valey's eyes gleamed. "And buddy, believe me, I'm as official as they come."
She dove into the shadows, swimming beneath the guards and their rain-extinguished torches, clear to the other side of the door.
As several panicked shouts erupted from the other side of the locked doors, Valey loudly laughed, giving away her position... then swam upward on a darkened inner door panel. Clicking sounds came from the lock mechanism as she climbed higher, before slipping through the crack between the majestic double-doors and dropping on her unsuspecting opponents from above.
Schwinnng! One circular slash felled every last one of them, Valey landing neatly and re-sheathing her sword. "Congratulations," she declared, standing among the paralyzed. "You dudes are under attack. Wouldn't wanna be ya. Let's see here..." She picked out the smallest griffonness in the pack, held them up, quickly ensured their Everlaste uniform was undamaged, and then stripped them of it, putting it on herself.
"How do I look?" Valey asked the stunned, disrobed griffon, taking a moment to pose. "Cheesy? Feels a little low-quality. Meh. You look cuter without this. See ya!"
With that, Valey was gone. The entrance hall to Stormhoof was long, high-ceilinged and dark, with several dormant chandeliers spaced equally down its vaulted ceiling. Valey spread her wings, soaring to a third-story balcony before ducking into a corridor with a flat roof. Not about to waste time looking for a staircase, she stabbed the sword into the ceiling, swept it in an inverted cone, and dodged out of the way as a huge chunk of rock crashed free, almost masked by a peal of thunder. "Yeah! Going up in the world!"
Valey flipped through the opening into another corridor... right into the faces of a line of marching guards. The griffons were dumbstruck by someone carving away the floor from below, and before they could react, she stabbed the leader in the face and shoved her into the others.
"Nyahaa! Wouldn't wanna be ya!" Valey darted forward, pressing her sword like a skewer through the narrow space as the guards piled up like dominoes, utterly unable to avoid her. She landed behind them with a flourish, leaving a pile that nearly blocked the corridor. "Wow, you're all terrible. Or this thing's strong. Maybe I should use it more often..."
One griffon she had somehow missed lunged at her from the pile, and without even looking she flipped into a spin, roundhousing him in the face. Rather than stab this one too, Valey pinned him against a wall, breathing against his face. "Fastest way to the top. Where is it?"
The griffon started to hyperventilate. "I'm a new recruit! This is my first deployment out of the academy, please don't kill me!"
"Fastest. Stairs." Valey snaked her head from side to side, preventing him from looking anywhere else.
The griffon immediately lost control of himself, pointing a wing to the right and sobbing. "Wuss." Valey got up and walked away.
The corridor quickly ended in a room that was two stories high, leaving a tempting ceiling for her to carve another hole in. Valey launched into a storage room, making another hole and finding herself in a dressing room, suddenly keenly aware of how much her dripping stolen uniform was doing to help her bluster her way through. "Hmmm..."
"Emergency meeting, called to order." Gazelle tapped a gavel, standing piously behind Lord Stormhoof's desk in the war room at the top of the tower. Several of the seats were filled by sleepy-eyed Stormhoof generals, though no other sphinxes were present save for Gondolus Gyre's giant corpse. "You can probably see why."
"Important details, Gazelle," a stern-looking general said. "When, where and how?"
"The chair recognizes General Gorgenheim," Gazelle replied, bowing curtly. "Within the hour, I found his body on a random dock, and a poisoned throwing knife, the kind regularly employed by assassins in Gyre itself. But you see, I'm much more interested in the who and the why."
"That's for a trial to decide," the bushy-browed Gorgenheim replied. "As well as whether it was your fault so you could inherit his province."
Gazelle almost gagged. "Oh, please. Who wants to rule a dump like Gyre? That's actually why I dragged his corpse up here now instead of waiting like a reasonable person for morning. There's a slight hitch with me assuming rulership of Gyre, you see."
"You're speaking to an audience that doesn't care, son," General Gorgenheim dismissed. "That's decided by the Council of Lords."
Gazelle sighed and leaned frustratedly on the desk. "Fine, we'll wait for more royalty to arrive..."
"Ohhhohoho!" Valey chuckled, having devoted five seconds to cutting the uniform off, a minute to drying her fur and straightening her mane, and thirty seconds more to scanning the room's available dresses. Whatever psychological advantage she would give herself, she would take, even with all the sword's power. And with the level of training the enemies she had mashed so far displayed? Getting stomped by someone in a dress would be either so eye-catching or so demoralizing, they might just stop fighting altogether.
"Yep. This one's good. I dig it." Valey squirmed into a sparkly, black tube dress that hugged her chest and had a high slit for her cutie mark, yet the train and leggings weren't quite long enough to trip her. She did several flips, testing her mobility, and nodded contentedly. Was she having too much fun showing off, being rude to her opponents and not taking a castle invasion seriously? Probably. Larceny had likely left her behind long ago. But like Larceny had said, Felicity wasn't in mortal danger as long as Gazelle needed her foal. If this was her parting gift to the Griffon Empire, she wanted every loser who crossed her path to feel it.
She burst out from the dressing room, running with quieted hoofsteps and relying on her cutie mark to steer her towards an encounter rather than away. Fate soon obliged, putting her face-to-face with another patrol.
"Who goes there?" the lead guard asked, squinting at her. "What the...?"
"Oh, hi, uh... darling?" Valey blinked, trying to talk fashionably like Felicity would. "I really must... Bananas, look, it's stupidly undignified being down this low. I was staying up in the top of the castle. Suites. You know. Friends with someone called Felicity? Rented one for me? And I was enjoying some fine... whatever you dudes drink that's fine, when I suddenly fell out of my window. Got kinda soggy. So take me back to my room right now and let me get a hot bath, or I'll hit you with my purse."
The guards all looked at her with stupefied expressions... before keeling over laughing, bending down and slapping the floor or leaning against walls. The leader, still laughing, met her eyes and managed, "You're under arrest."
Valey sighed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that game's my favorite." Then she kicked him in the knee.
As the guards slowly realized she intended to fight, Valey swept out the sword, and then it was too late. Another downed patrol... She yawned. Felicity must have been a genius if no one had invaded Stormhoof before.
"And the point is, she is pregnant with Lord Gyre's spawn because fate smiles on me sometimes." Gazelle held Felicity out before the desk like a frustrated doll, pointing to her stomach before a crowd of skeptical onlookers.
"Gazelle, this isn't important right now," Lord Stormhoof sighed, having joined the meeting late and looking deeply uncomfortable about any discussion concerning Felicity's foal. "We know you don't want to become the new Lord Gyre. Stop throwing a fit and leave the determination of heirs for proper proceedings."
Gazelle looked indignant. "I'm sorry, wait? Excuse you? In case you weren't aware, Felicity and her sisters were trying to flee the Empire. Don't ask me why, ask her. But it's hardly relevant. Maybe the news that a province lord has died doesn't stir you as much as it should have, but how about hearing that your favorite defense contractor wants to resign?"
Lord Stormhoof raised an eyebrow.
"...It's true," Felicity sighed. "My sisters and I are finished. We were at the Ironridge embassy when Gazelle caught up to us after discovering what had become of my former... partner. He's one of the few who knows of our liaison and its fruit."
Stormhoof narrowed his eyes.
"We had a lot of impetus to leave," Felicity continued, "and still do. Tell me honestly, Lord Everlaste. Are you going to stand for me remaining in this castle's line of defense, knowing who I've been intimately consorting with? I'd be fired anyway the moment the results of a medical-"
"Nonononono don't say that!" Gazelle frantically shushed her with a wingtip. "Nobody's getting fired, right, Everlaste old pal? She's pivotal to this castle's defense."
Lord Everlaste gave Felicity a distrustful look. "Gyre is not a province that does honest business. This isn't a good strike for her reputation, Gazelle. She's already here on your word alone."
"Oh, so she is fired, then." Gazelle held a paw to his breast, looking wounded. "Well, it's your castle, not mine. Not my loss if this place gets taken over by pirates without her around. But it is my loss if she hightails it with this heir, and if I were her, I'd be running as fast as I could right now."
Lord Stormhoof sighed again. "She can be placed under watch tonight. Gazelle, whatever plan you're up to is riding on petulance alone. Please drop this for the morning."
Gazelle stood up, carrying Felicity beneath one wing, and walked away. "Well, I see how it is. No one even likes Lord Gyre enough to care that he's been murdered. It's all Felicity this, 'Gazelle you're inheriting Gyre' that, blah blah blah blah blah..."
As he wandered toward the door, Lord Everlaste's brow creased. "True words, but he has a point. How did Lord Gyre die?"
Gazelle was back at the desk in a heartbeat, grinning toothily. "Oh, I'm so glad you asked."
"Elevator shaft! Score!" Valey crowed, finally discovering what she had been looking for. A bit of shadow sneaking and she was through the doors, another pile of paralyzed guards behind her, and the stories fell away like turning pages as she flapped onward in her ascent. The dress was starting to bother her, but it was bothering her enemies more, so she didn't bother taking it off. Sword clutched in her jaws, she darted to the very top of the shaft, punched a dimly-glowing emergency light to break it, and slipped out through a door.
This level did not have guard patrols. Instead, the guards had stations, so that when she emerged she was immediately spotted by three of them. All the targets were in different directions, and these were far smarter than the ones on the lower floors: rather than rushing her, they shouted and went to get help.
"Yeah! Tremble in fear!" Valey gloated, strolling forward. She tasted the air, smelling only wet batpony and pondering where to go next. There would be reinforcements soon. She couldn't stomp her way through everyone who saw her anymore. The alarm would be raised, and soon she would have to fight through every last guard in the upper reaches of Stormhoof... She licked her lips. Time to pay the province back for her first ascent.
It didn't take long for the first set to arrive. Ten of them, they leveled their spears at her, and Valey responded by holding the sword where they could see it. "Stand down," they ordered. "That is improper entry."
Valey yawned. "That the worst you can hit me with? Yeah, it is. And listen, you know me: Admiral Valey. I'm Felicity's friend, I've been up here to testify, I clean everyone's clocks in the tournament. Right now, you guys have someone I want back. So you can either be a friendly escort and show me around, or get ready to taste a whole lot of pain."
At least some of these griffons actually seemed to listen. "Elaborate."
Valey shrugged. "You seen High Prince Gazelle run through here recently? Killed one of my friends, grabbed and stole another? Felicity? I want her back. Where is she?"
"Felicity is out on business," a guard replied. "Surrender your weapon and wait peacefully, and we will send a messenger."
"What, this?" Valey blinked at the sword. "Sorry, you want this thing? See, it kinda belongs to a friend of mine..."
The griffons all leveled their spears at her. "These are our terms."
"Too bad." Valey was in the air, hurtling toward them, sword outstretched... These ones actually knew how to use spears. She had to feint, clipping the points off two weapons and taking a step in retreat.
The guards moved in a practiced formation, skilled at repelling attackers from range. But Valey was an expert at getting in, and more importantly the lights were still off. With a swoosh, she ducked behind them, rising in a spinning slash that dropped half their number. Valey caught a spear shaft as it fell, flipping it and ramming the butt into a guard to make him stumble before finishing the last ones in quick succession.
"Nice. Nice." Valey nodded at the paralyzed griffons. "Bananas, this is almost boring. Who's next?"
"...And that is why it's highly probable the Empire is on the verge of a large-scale sarosian infiltration and assault," Gazelle finished smugly, folding his paws. "I rest my case."
Lord Everlaste gave him a strange look. "I don't know whether to be more concerned that you're treating this like a joke, or that you might be right."
"Oh, please." Gazelle waved a wing. "Joking is how you know I care. If I didn't, I wouldn't make the effort." He narrowed his eyes. "First Garsheeva and our power grid are both taken severely down by a sarosian mad scientist, now Lord Gyre is mysteriously assassinated by a poison well-known in his own province, and shut up, I've studied this. Next thing you know, word's going to get out that you've removed my personally-chosen lieutenant from defense duty, the castle is dark and wide open, and all the leaders of both sarosian-voted worst provinces are here for the picking. How do you like swollen windpipes, Lord Everlaste? They could be coming for all of us. And by all of us I mean just you, because I'm savvy about this sort of thing and happen to carry an antidote."
Lord Stormhoof eyed Felicity suspiciously. "Whatever you're after, Gazelle, come out with it. If we've lost your mare's loyalty and the power grid is as broken as Meltdown says, I don't see what we can do that you're after."
Gazelle put on a wide grin. "Oh, that's easy. I'm just stalling for time while I wait for the fireworks to start."
"Gazelle," Lord Stormhoof threatened.
"It's true!" Gazelle shrugged innocently. "Like I said, I snatched her clean out of an attempted getaway. You think she told her contacts she was leaving? In fact, I'm surprised we haven't heard any alarms go off already." He raised an eyebrow. "If the bottom half of this castle was conquered with no survivors to raise the alarm, would we know?"
Lord Stormhoof stood up sharply. "Gazelle, stop trying to cause a panic in my war room! Take Felicity and go where you please; I don't care whether Lord Gyre has a surviving heir or not. Everlaste, take your family wherever you believe is safest. Generals, to me. If any of this reaches the troops on the ground, we're going to have chaos to stamp out. We secure the castle first, and then the island."
"Wherever I please? Haha!" Gazelle cackled as he left, Felicity in tow. "I'll tell you where I please. It's newspaper time, baby! Can you see the headlines already? 'Lord Everlaste fires Stormhoof Keep defense specialist, immediately gets invaded!' Bwahaha! Chaos is its own reward!"
As he passed through the door, a runner raced through in the opposite direction, gasping and panting for breath. "Sirs!" the breathless, uniformed griffon exclaimed. "Admiral Valey is attacking the castle! The one from the tournament... She's making piecemeal of all our best guards!"
Both of Lord Stormhoof's brows rose in alarm. "Again!?"
Gazelle nearly fell over laughing, and Felicity actually caught him across her back. As the war room erupted in commotion, they both staggered into the hall, where she set him against a wall and then sagged herself. "Congratulations," she sighed. "We've successfully goaded the same mare into making an absolute mockery of Stormhoof's defenses twice in one year. You had better be proud of yourself, because when she finds Senescey alive and realizes we tricked her into this, all that power is going to suddenly become our enemy."
"But did you see Stormhoof's face?" Gazelle sobbed, practically clawing at his cheeks to stem his laughter. "It was worth it. Oh, it was worth it! No one will ever live this down! They'll be too embarrassed to care about Lord Gyre, I'll have one less rival on the stage... You leave Valey to me. Let's just hide a while, wait for her to cause maximum chaos looking for us, and show up with Senescey in a closet somewhere at an opportune moment, hmm? Or maybe I should go back and annoy them about the power situation more..."
"You're already pushing it," Felicity warned, downcast. "Let's go meet our fates quietly. I really did like her, you know."
Gazelle grinned, not taking any of Felicity's attitude. "Oh, I told you to leave talking Valey down to me. Now come on. I feel like singing a catchy song about this..."
Steel sang, and another swath of soldiers finished their fall as Valey danced her way through the halls of upper Stormhoof. It wasn't even a fight. She had yet to get a tear on her stolen dress, swaying her hips as she juggled the sword between hooves, mouth and wings against wave after wave that never survived to communicate and always used the same predictable tactics. The hallways were chaos. At this rate, she was going to incapacitate every last soldier in Stormhoof.
Consequences weighed briefly on her mind as she continued her push. Could anyone stop her? Not these guards, certainly. With the amount she had felled, she was starting to feel she could recognize which class they had been part of by the opening techniques they used. But she couldn't blame it all on Starlight's sword. Even a sword that could end things with a single strike still had to get that blow, after all. She wasn't even using the darkness, walking loudly in plain sight and inviting all the attention she could manage.
Was she just this good? Valey held her own prowess in high regard, but in the Flame District she had proved a match for slightly over a dozen specialists. This was an entire army, supposedly belonging to the most militarized province in the Empire. So why were they dropping like flies? Where was their command structure, their crisis response, their ability to field power players and coordinated tactics when mooks weren't working? This couldn't be on her. Everlaste was bad. She almost wanted to find these griffons' commander and drill some tactical lessons into them...
Another wave fell to routine reaction, their behavior so simplistic she didn't even need to pay attention to counter their moves. Did Everlaste know their troops were a joke? What about Stormhoof? Had things always been this way? If Everlaste was the best in the Empire, and Everlaste was this weak, how did the Empire even hold itself together? Unless Garsheeva was doing to Everlaste what she had done to the Defense Force in Ironridge, and weakening her provinces on purpose to prevent them from doing serious damage when they fought...
Valey's brow began to fold in concern as she explored more and more what was unfolding. No, if this was Everlaste's best, then they couldn't be the strongest. She had fought stronger herself, in every round of the tournament. Randorf and Pierre? Grandpapa? Even the foes from the second round could have done massive damage to this army on their own, never mind if they teamed up and coordinated smartly.
What if Garsheeva knew that, and the tournament had been set up as a countermeasure? If she ruled a country that had strong warriors running around and she wanted to keep tabs on them, what better way than to offer them a prize for fighting? Learn their styles, understand their tactics, and above all get a solid lock on their motives and what they cared about above all else. But the tournament was ancient. If she was onto something, this would have been the way things were for centuries. And she remembered Wallace talking about the Empire's history of nonstop house warfare.
She paused in a corner, letting the Everlaste troops come to her instead of continuing her search. As cunning as that would be, it didn't make sense. Why go to the trouble of keeping watch on ordinary ponies and griffons who had the skills to be dangerous, but let the sphinxes wander around and do what they pleased? The Empire wasn't a haven where nobody could hurt each other, and unlike her in Ironridge, Garsheeva had a lot more power and didn't have to resort to sabotage. She could just put her paw down and break up any warfare by force... and she hadn't before when it occurred anyway.
So that idea had holes. But Everlaste's guards were still incompetent, far worse than her opponents in the tournament. Someone had to know that. Did Gazelle know it? According to Felicity, he made the power situation into a big deal, and spent a lot of effort justifying it being scarce. But how were the lights an important security hole when anyone could just walk in and smash through the defenders anyway? Anyone with a caliber of skill that dozens of warriors all held in the arena just next door...
The lack of power was a back door for batponies to attack the castle. But the front door was wide open, and all Gazelle cared about were the lights.
...And there had been a trial run months ago to see what happened when she tried to assault the tower. Valey suddenly had a bad feeling that however flimsy that front door was, she was knocking it all the way off, and wasn't the only one planning to invade Stormhoof that night.
"I surrender."
The next wave of guards charging Valey stared at her suspiciously, skidding to a halt and leveling their spears. "Like you're going to catch us off guard," one warned, eyeing the trail of paralyzed soldiers in her wake.
Valey twirled her sword. "Yeah, good thing you won't be the one to enforce it. I'm staying right here, and you all can either watch me, join the rest of them, or go get someone more important than a new recruit. I wanna speak to your boss dude."
"Our job is protecting the command structure from degenerates like you," another Everlaste griffon spat.
"No, your job is to protect this fort and everyone in it." Valey shook her head, dropping the sass. "Every single dude I've mowed down here has attacked me first. I want my friend back, to punch Gazelle in the face, and then to get out of your manes and leave you all in fighting shape in case this fort gets sacked and looted by anyone else."
The guards didn't back down, another wave running up behind them. "That is an open declaration of violence against Empire royalty," one declared. "Our lives are already dedicated to the service of the Empire. We will stop you."
Both waves charged as one, and Valey waved her hooves frantically. "No, bananas, go get backup! Tell your boss where I am! Stop being bad at this!"
Her outburst got one or two hesitations, but the rest didn't falter. Valey flipped among them, delivering a kick or two as she passed, not about to incapacitate any more of the castle's meager defense if she could help it. "Stay alert! I'm not the only one here! Don't waste all your effort on me!"
Valey tore through the hallways, abandoning the pretense of fighting and just dodging and kicking through every group she came across. Where would Gazelle be, and where would he have put Felicity? Those suites she had stayed in? She knew those. They... looked like the rest of the castle, and she had no clue how to find them.
Further up was her answer, gliding up staircases and dodging around corners. "Felicity!" she yelled as she flew, making it plain to everyone why she was there. "I'm coming for you! Everyone else had better stay out of my way!"
She rounded a corner on the outer shell of the building, windows revealing driving rain and crackling lightning, and ran straight into Lord Stormhoof.
"Whew." Valey wiped her brow, landing. "Been looking for-"
"Do you think attacking my castle is a joke!?" the muscular sphinx roared, drawing a broadsword attached to his military uniform. Behind him, a line of personal guards and at least one griffon that was obviously a general readied their weapons as well.
Valey took a step back, keenly aware that she was being chased by everyone she had left behind. "Yeah, it is, and that's a big problem! I thought you would have fixed stuff after last time." She brandished Starlight's sword defensively. "But I'm not here to make a point about it. I'm here because Gazelle just killed one of my friends and stole another, and I'm out for blood. Turn both of them over and don't try to stop me, and I'll leave the Empire and never bother your castle again."
Lord Stormhoof held his sword in a ready stance. "Felicity?"
"That's the one." Valey nodded, ears pressing back at the sound of talons against marble behind her.
Stormhoof snorted. "And you resort to haste, lawlessness and force."
"Well, the law hasn't exactly done a lot for me in the past," Valey retorted. "And given how strong its supposed enforcers are, I can't see it helping much even if it wanted to, either. If you didn't want to run a society that's everyone for themselves, you should have thought harder about how capable you are at keeping things fair."
Lord Stormhoof leveled his blade at her and swiped.
"Woah, hey!" Valey backflipped out of the way, the crowd of Everlaste guards skidding into sight behind her. "Listen, don't fight me! I dunno why, but Gazelle goaded me into trashing this place and I'm one hundred percent sure someone else is going to be rolling through who's a lot less altruistic than me! If you waste all your energy on me, you're going to have a bad time!"
"Then depart immediately." Another swing came, angling for her head. The sphinx was advancing, forcing her into a close-quarters situation... or towards the waiting Everlaste guards. That meant he expected a counterattack and had an answer.
"Not until I get what I came for!" Valey sized up Lord Stormhoof's stance. Weak to attacks from the bottom... but her cutie mark wasn't warning her about the idea of striking low, which implied he either had an error in his fighting or was expecting her to call it as a bluff. Maybe a limp paw would get him to cool down? She lunged in a low, horizontal arc, seeing the parry incoming. She knew she could slice right through his blade, and even if she couldn't, he had to overextend to make the position work...
Suddenly, at a speed impressive even to her, Stormhoof withdrew his parry and stomped, catching the flat of her blade and forcing it to the ground with his weight. As Valey gasped and tried to react, his tail was already in motion, snatching the sword by the point, flipping it, catching the hilt and throwing it like a knife through a window and into the storm.
Valey blinked twice, and then her frown hardened. "Okay, that belonged to a friend. Not cool. I guess I'm going to town on you after all."
"Surround her," Lord Stormhoof ordered to the Everlaste troops, his own guard forming an impenetrable wall behind him, spears readied to stab anyone who flew above and crush them against the ceiling.
"No, you!" Valey backflipped forward in a streak of satin, still wearing her stolen dress. The dress's folds actually concealed the positioning of her legs and the precise angle of her body, which could be a major advantage against a skilled opponent... but she would think about that later.
Stormhoof brought his sword up to defend his face like a shield, but Valey reached under it, kicking his chin before darting under him, latching onto his uniform, sliding on her back across the smooth castle floor and flipping up around his side onto his back. Using him as a pivot for her momentum, she smashed a hoof into the side of his head, the broadsword spinning about to seek her but her own motions too quick. Valey slammed his back, then twirled around his neck, caught her back against the wall and kicked him with all four hooves. Now he was between her and the Everlaste goons.
"I will pummel each and every last one of you!" Valey threatened loudly, the Stormhoof guard still forming a tactical wall to her back. "And I won't stop until you give me Felicity! You want your fort to be defenseless against whoever else Gazelle has taking advantage of this ruckus, that's on you to surrender!"
"You are making yourself an enemy of the Empire," Lord Stormhoof warned. "Surrender immediately."
"Give me Felicity," Valey demanded.
"Surrender."
"Well, well, well. What have we here?"
The first and last voice Valey ever wanted to hear again sounded from behind the Stormhoof guards, and Valey whirled to see Gazelle strolling causally up behind them, a contented grin on his face. "She can take you all, by the way. I don't advise provoking her further."
Lord Stormhoof breathed heavily. The general at the rear of the Stormhoof guard detachment instantly rounded on Gazelle. "Don't do anything to escalate this."
"Who, me?" Gazelle fluttered his eyelids innocently. "Well, I can't blame you for thinking it, but that's the opposite of why I'm here. You see, Lord Everlaste and his family are currently sitting in their quarters behind an absolutely tiny squad of minions. He simply begged me to go out and get some reassuring news on the night's condition, and I'm having trouble finding it. Those troops right behind you and the ones guarding their liege's door are, best as I can tell, the only members of the Everlaste garrison left on the island, save for a pawful of reduced rainy-weather curfew patrols. In fact, the front doors have been hanging open for who knows how long, and nobody's even around to close them."
He slicked back his mane with a paw, preparing to push through Lord Stormhoof's personal guard. "In short? For the love of everything in your tower, stop ticking her off and give her what she wants so she fights on our side!"
Lord Stormhoof snorted. "Leave, Gazelle. You've helped far too much already."
Valey raised a threatening eyebrow at Gazelle. "Unless you're going to tell me Senescey somehow isn't dead, the best you can hope for is me leaving you alone."
Gazelle whistled innocently. "Maybe let's cross that bridge when we come to-"
POW!
A barbell flew like a boomerang, catching Gazelle in the flank and shoulders and sending him flying into a wall, where he slumped, dazed.
The barbell was followed by a single pair of massive hoofsteps, and a huge, buff pegasus walked around a corner and into sight, standing on his hind legs. "HMM." Randorf stood over the prince, surveying his handiwork as Valey and all the guards gaped. "IS THIS SATISFACTORY?"
"Good job," a dainty little voice replied from out of sight. Valey stared as a filly padded around the corner, her fur golden and two ribbons in her lengthy mane. She wore a dress that was understated yet dignified, looked about Starlight's age, and had wings, paws, sharp fangs and all the trappings of a sphinx. "Big brother, you're in big trouble."
Gazelle dizzily groaned.
All the guards instantly knelt, Stormhoof and Everlaste alike. The generals bowed too, and even Lord Stormhoof composed himself slightly. Valey just blinked. "...Who are you?"
The filly drew herself up, posture so perfect she cowed everyone in the hallway despite being half their height. "Princess Gwendolyn of Grandbell, first in line to be empress and right now, defender of my constituents. Big brother, wake up."
She slapped Gazelle across the muzzle with a little wing, earning a grunt. "L-Lyn?"
Gwendolyn frowned at him. "I heard from a friend you were messing around in Stormhoof and putting this castle in danger, so I came myself. Whatever you're doing here, call it off if you don't want it putting me in danger too."
"What the...?" Gazelle's eyes focused. "Lyn, no, this is a war zone! Who brought you here?"
The princess pointed at Randorf, nearly a dozen more creatures filing out to join him who all struck Valey as seasoned warriors... Likely high-level tournament fighters. She smiled. "Creatures with good hearts who were willing to help when their princess told them their country was in need. Now then!" She rounded on the existing guards, clearing her throat as the Stormhoof cabal stepped aside and cleared her a path.
"...Princess." Lord Stormhoof finally bowed too, still bristling with anger.
"Uncle Garland. Rise." Gwendolyn nodded. "I know you too, Admiral Valey." She pointed a wing at Valey. "As of right now, my army and I are this castle's new front line. If my brother doesn't like that, he can make sure nothing happens to us himself. Whatever you have been fighting about so far, I formally apologize for anything Grandbell had to do with it and my brother will as well, but you will stop now. This is unbecoming of the empire my parents left me."
Lord Stormhoof shuddered... and then stood. "I apologize. Having my castle cast in disgrace caused my anger to rise."
"Wonderful." Gwendolyn primly turned to Valey. "And what about you? You are the one everyone was fighting, weren't you?"
"Yep." Valey nodded. "And I'm still not leaving until I have what I want, but I'm not gonna fight anyone who doesn't attack first."
"Acceptable." The princess nodded. "State your terms."
Valey blinked. "Okay, so first off, Gazelle killed one of my friends and I'm ticked. He needs to pay for that. Second, he stole Felicity and probably has her somewhere in this castle. I want her back." She pointed at Lord Stormhoof, then at the window with a broken slit in the center where the sword had carved a clean passage through. "Third, he kicked my friend's cool sword out a window. It's kind of important and really dangerous in the wrong hooves, so I want it back. Also, out of everyone here how come the kid is being the reasonable one?"
A brief look of intense frustration passed across Gwendolyn's face before reverting to her usual diplomatic grace. "Where is Felicity and what does she mean, 'stole'?"
Gazelle coughed, getting to his paws. "Felicity is in a secure location, and won't be going anywhere any time soon as she's presently expecting the newly-deceased Lord Gyre's only possible heir..."
The princess's brow furrowed. "Lord Gyre is dead? And this isn't the first item on all of your agendas?"
A Stormhoof general raised his head slightly. "With all due respect, Princess, Gyre is not an endearing province and Gondolus Gyre was not an endearing lord. Everyone cares more about the security risk implied by his assassination than the fact that he's dead."
"Fine. Whatever." Gwendolyn scowled. "Gazelle, let Felicity go. There is a law on the books that consorts of deceased lords may be counted as part of their estates, but can't be held captive by them. This is illegal."
Gazelle curled his lip. "Lyn, this is a hypothetical warzone that could be crawling with assassins or sarosian invasions or who knows what at any moment. You belong somewhere safe. I do what I do for you, now trust me to know what I'm doing!"
The filly sighed. "Randorf, hit my brother again. He's being stupid."
As Randorf kicked and Gazelle dodged, Valey sidled uncertainly closer to the griffon general. "He's not worried about getting in trouble for attacking... You know, the high prince?"
The general didn't look up. "She can pardon any crime that isn't a heresy."
"I'm sorry about this," Gwendolyn added, padding towards Valey. "My brother is too good at making creatures mad for his own good. I'll get through to him. In the meantime, he was saying things about this castle being invaded. Is there anything you can tell me about what we might be defending from?"
Valey shrugged, now at an awkward peace with the Stormhoof and Everlaste guards. "Couldn't tell ya. He was talking about batponies, but that could mean anything. For all I know, he-"
"Alright, alright, I give!" Gazelle squalled, tired of dodging mighty blows from Randorf and two others. "I'll take you to Felicity! You can have her, alright!? Have fun making me Lord Gyre..."
"Wonderful." Gwendolyn perked up, striding back to her recruited gladiators. "Valey with me, please. Uncle Garland, do what you can for your castle's defense. We will be right back."
"Here we are," Gazelle sighed, carefully unlocking a door and shooting a glance at his sister. "Now, since tensions are already high, I figure we ought to get this out of the way here and now..."
The door swung aside to reveal a dim room with two waiting forms. Felicity was there... and Senescey sat at her side.
"Buh?" Valey blinked. "Wait, you're still..." She turned to glare at Gazelle, who was grinning sheepishly.
"It was a paralysis gun," Felicity sighed. "Listen, darling, we have a lot to tell you, and-"
"Explanations will have to wait," a new voice said, a side room lighting up to reveal Meltdown and several unicorns. "This is a bad place and time."
Valey instantly bristled. "This had better not be a trap..."
Gwendolyn's sharp eyes shot between the unicorns and Gazelle. "Explain."
"Teleportation guild." Gazelle shrugged, holding out his paws. "Yes, I admit it. Chains were yanked. A lot of grievances to be aired, probably all at yours truly. But I have what I want, this night has overall gone magnificently despite the tiny little hitch of my dear sister showing up, and now it's time for everyone in our act to exit stage left." He pointed to the unicorns. "That lot have a teleportation lock on your airship, and some of the best range we have. Been setting it up for days now. In short, they're your ride home. On the house, and as a show of good faith I'll even go with you so you can grill me all you like about what just went down. Take your new friends, flee the Empire, I don't care. This, my little ponies, is where I give you an all-expenses-paid ticket out of drama llama land."
Valey frowned. "What about the whole I don't wanna be Lord Gyre thing? You're suddenly helping us get away? What?"
"Like I said, time for explaining later. Time's wasting away, must get back to your friends, chop chop!" Gazelle clapped his paws.
Gwendolyn frowned suspiciously at the teleportation unicorns. "Where will you take everyone?"
The unicorns bowed. "The Immortal Dream airship, which has been moored in this castle's harbor regularly over the last month."
"They're trustworthy," the princess announced, poking Gazelle. "You, though, are staying here and helping clean up this mess you made."
"Ah ah ah!" Gazelle waggled a paw-claw. "I only raise tensions, remember? I'm simply rotten at de-escalation. And in case this lot don't trust me enough to take me up on my free ride, I'm going on ahead. You all can live with me running around on your airship, or come along to stop me."
"Nope. No." Valey put her hoof down. "You are not making a mess on our boat tonight."
"Oh, I'll try not to party too noisily." Gazelle winked... then grabbed Gwendolyn under a wing. "And you, little tyke, are coming with me."
"H-Hey!" The filly struggled, but couldn't break free. "I'm defending this castle! Don't-!"
Gazelle clapped a paw over her mouth, nodding to a unicorn and then whispering loudly and crossly in her ear. "Not. A war zone. For fillies."
The unicorn reached them, and in a burst of light they were gone.
"UHHH." Randorf looked at where the princess had been.
"Well, great." Valey aggressively slumped. "Hey big guy, good fight this morning. Take care of this castle, and all. Taxi!" She marched up to another unicorn, checking her mark for danger. "After those three!"
Felicity and Senescey moved for the teleporters as well. Only a heartbeat before the three of them were gone, Valey realized she never had caught back up to Larceny after all.
Valey appeared in a burst of light on the deck of the Immortal Dream, surrounded by swirling storm winds and driving rain that were forcefully repelled by the harmony comet's pink, shimmering aura. She had just enough time to register that it hadn't been a trap after all before her unicorn teleported away again, leaving no time for thanks.
"Big brother!" Gwendolyn let out a frustrated yell, held in Gazelle's paws nearby. "I was going to stay at Stormhoof!"
"Shan't," Gazelle chided, holding the filly firmly. "I told you, that castle tonight is no place for children. You would get hurt."
Gwendolyn gave him a fiery stare. "That's the point. Whatever you've stirred up there tonight has no more right to endanger my constituents than it does me. You're supposed to call it off, not take me away."
Before Gazelle could reply, two more flashes deposited Felicity and Senescey, and then their unicorns were gone as well. "Uhh..." Valey blinked, unsure who to approach first or even what to say. The comet kept them safe and dry on the deck, but the storm was loud enough no one would have heard them arrive. She kind of wanted to get below...
"Well. Here... Here we are, then." Felicity apprehensively looked at the ground. "Valey, I'm... About all that, we're..."
Valey decided to ignore the feuding sphinxes in favor of her real friends, striding over and putting a wing around both other mares. "Hey," she said. "Look, you... survived. I lost Starlight's sword coming to get you, and now we've got to deal with Gazelle being back on the boat, but it's gonna be over soon. Let Stormhoof burn for all I care. I've been run around one too many times for anything happening there to be my problem. It's gonna be okay."
"Hah. Yes. Foalnapped and daringly rescued, that's what happened..." Felicity sagged slightly. "I wish. Valey, we need to talk."
Senescey frowned disapprovingly, but Valey shook her head. "How important is it? I know you're pretty shaken, but if you're feeling up to doing anything other than resting, there's a mare down below who's kind of having a kid..."
Felicity smiled sadly. "I'm afraid you might not want my help there, after I've said my piece. But if you do, she'll be doing that all night long. We need to talk, right now."
"Uhh... Here?" Valey frowned at the deck, crashing thunder drowning out bits and pieces of her friend's voice and forcing her to lean in closer to listen.
Felicity took a deep breath. "Gyre. Izvaldi. Stormhoof. Everlaste. The first consumed our foalhoods with lawlessness and struggle for survival. The second ravaged our bodies with contaminated drinking water and stole our mother. The last two are today's two provinces who have it out the hardest for sarosiankind, and are close allies as well. We hate all of them. All three of us. Badly. For decades, it's been our first and only goal to make them pay."
Valey blinked. "Wait, say that again?"
"She's telling the truth," Senescey sighed, staring out at the storm and looking upset.
"This is everything we didn't tell you all those months ago," Felicity continued, "when we thought you would be sympathetic to us, yet you asked to be friends without knowing dangerous things or getting involved. Lord Gyre's demise? We've been working for him for years. He was easily manipulatable, and it wasn't hard for us to nudge him into a situation without his realizing where we would be forced to off him in a way that didn't look like premeditated murder. The fall of Izvaldi? They took themselves down before we could do anything, but we had a very extensive plan to tarnish their old administration's legacy beyond even what it had been, enshrining Percival's father in infamy that would be remembered for generations. The lords of Stormhoof and Everlaste? Presently in a tower with no standing army, courtesy of you, because I... played the damsel in distress."
Valey folded her ears. "Wait, what?"
Senescey winced. "You remember that party you accidentally walked in on early in the tournament, where you found me and a bunch of other low-level fighters? Those were... friends. I didn't want them thinking we were close, since I hadn't told them we were leaving you out of things. But they're the ones who are presently heading up the tower we... had you clear out for us. They know their things. And in the morning, the royal families of Stormhoof and Everlaste will be gone."
Valey slowly tilted her head. "But you..." She furrowed her brows. "Wait, on the ship just earlier-"
"Staged." Felicity's tail pressed downward, almost tucked between her legs. "With Gazelle's help. A Varsidelian stun ray from him. Some dramatizations from me preventing any of you from checking the body. Larceny stalling for time so you couldn't intercept us before we reached the castle. I'm so sorry. We did think hard about our priorities, but revenge had to win out."
Valey tried to meet her eyes. "So you were lying about being done and wanting to join us."
"Well, it was a half-truth." Felicity swallowed. "We are done now. Just, not because we walked away. Because we finished. We undid every one of the provinces we..."
"What about the Night Mother?" Valey frowned. "Having you work for Gazelle? I thought you wanted to get a wish to have your bodies restored, or something."
"It was an arranged partnership she set up that would be beneficial to us both." Felicity looked down. "Our goals were compatible enough that we could easily work side by side, and that's what the Night Mother asked us to do. I'm afraid I can't tell you what Gazelle is really after. His stated goals and actions are too self-contradictory to make any sense of. But I can say that what he planned for tonight was to become the new Lord Everlaste."
"Look, just... forget about him. Forget it." Valey waved a hoof at her, then sat down with a thump, shoulders sagging. "So what you're telling me is, you had some beefs with some dudes who didn't like batponies, asked me if I wanted to know the details, and because I said no you tricked me into helping instead by staging your own murder on my ship. Is that it?"
Felicity's voice shrank. "Yes. It is."
Valey slowly groaned. "Well, hey. Thanks for taking me that seriously when I said I'd be happier not knowing."
Both of the other mares fidgeted. Eventually, Felicity said, "I... can't tell whether you're being sarcastic, darling."
"Totally depends on whether you're actually serious." Valey raised an eyebrow. "Because right now, either you're still lying or are really, really dumb. All those conversations we had, Felicity? You and me? Where you told me you were pouring your heart out to me, and we were talking about you guys maybe quitting with the Night Mother and changing to our side instead? Tell me how real those were."
Felicity smiled regretfully. "Look at it this way. Were we interested in fooling you, it would have been easy to pretend Senescey survived by chance and we really were rescued victims. There's no benefit to us telling you all this. Quite a bit of loss, in fact, from a material perspective."
Valey frowned. "I don't get it. Are you saying you want to apologize? And regret, like, traumatizing half my friends?"
Felicity slowly nodded, and Senescey followed her lead.
"Right..." Valey scratched one foreleg with the other. "So you had some sort of epiphany up there waiting for me? Or if things got rewound several hours, would you do everything the same all over again?"
"...I was hoping you wouldn't ask that." Felicity winced, looking away. "Please don't force me to answer. There's no way for me to respond without being unfair to everything we've been through, or to you. You killed Herman, after all. We're trying to take out our own corrupt leaders. Only, our skills lie in getting others to do work for us ourselves rather than doing it on our own power. And working with Gazelle means he gets a share of input in the plans... not that this wasn't on us, of course."
"Yeah, I did kill Herman," Valey admitted. "And... look. I'm ticked about this. I'm ticked to hear you were messing with me after all I did to trust you. You know how many times my friends told me I knew you better than they did and they were trusting you because of my judgement? You know that Wallace Whitewing warned me about you, and I stuck up for you because I thought you would be better?"
Felicity finally met her gaze. "Better in what regard? Do you mean less-damaged, perhaps? Less angry at this Empire and its treatment of our kind? Better at being the bigger mares, not fighting back and being kind and peaceful to our enemies even when we live under the cover of darkness and can't come out into the light?"
"Better like how I turned around and saved Ironridge when they owed me less than nothing." Valey's ears briefly pressed back, then came forward again. "What do you think is going to happen to the Empire if half its leadership just disappears? Will everyone go, 'Oh, hey, maybe we shouldn't have messed with batponies,' and completely rethink their lives? Or are they going to blame us? Are new fanatics going to show up and lead the provinces in their place?"
"We don't know," Senescey answered. "There was an iteration in our plans where we thought we would die for this, so that wouldn't be our problem. And another where we thought we could stay on good terms with you, and not have to worry about it either."
Valey stared. "You really are idiots."
"And what would you have done instead?" Felicity softened her eyes. "You're wearing a dress, darling. Something tells me you spent at least a little time trying to humiliate Stormhoof and Everlaste yourself on your way up, rather than coming straight for us. They've hurt you, too. You wanted to make them pay just like we did. Didn't you?"
Valey suddenly looked at the floor. "Yeah. And that's why I'm not half as ticked as I could be. I wouldn't have gone in there if it hadn't been for you, sure, but if you were a hostage until your kid was born, hey, I could take all the time I wanted. I figured we'd be leaving the Empire after this. We still might be. But... yeah. It felt good. Right up until I realized that everything was too easy, and I was probably making it easier for a reason."
Felicity nodded. "Gazelle has been bribing officers in Everlaste for quite some time now. When they dispatched soldiers to fortify Wilderwind to the north in expectation that Varsidel could retaliate for the seizure of merchant airships, I... may have suggested he pull some strings and have all the veterans sent up there. Got the idea from you."
"Well, that explains that." Valey shook her head. "Not the point, though. There is a big rule about messing with folks like that. One I stuck to hard in Ironridge, even when I had no qualms about being mean to everyone. I put it something like don't break your toys, but the important idea is you don't do anything someone can't recover from. Ruin someone's day? Neat. Ruin someone's life? Better draw a line. Throw the entire continent into chaos?" She raised an eyebrow. "So what if they're rulers that aren't helping batponies? They're still rulers, and power vacuums tend to attract opportunists." She sighed. "I don't care about the Empire enough to do anything about it. But for as good as you are at using your friends, you sure didn't think very far ahead."
Felicity gave a wan smile. "Nobody ever said we cared about the Empire either."
"If you had a rule like that, either you're better than we ever were or you just didn't have it as bad," Senescey added. "We've never pretended to be the good guys. Not to you or to anyone else."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "And that doesn't bother you even a little? You don't have a single dab of conscience telling you to do otherwise? I mean, I didn't, but still..."
Felicity's smile vanished. "Oh, we do. Don't mistake us for being selfish or evil, either. We are here to apologize, after all, rather than continuing a charade to try and get in good with your happy band of friends. It's too little, too late, I know. We're sorry."
"...Well, bananas." Valey sat down. "And what are you going to do now?"
"That's up to you," Felicity replied without needing to think.
"You know? I'm pretty sure it isn't." Valey gave her a hard look. "Shinespark was not happy with what went down. Everyone who saw it was shaken by it. Pretty sure the whole ship has heard by now. And since I gave you my trust and you lost it, I'm done being the one who vouches for you on this ship. If you still have any goodwill or intentions of being friendly toward us..." She took a deep breath and sighed. "Bananas, I'd love to have some sort of happy resolution come out of this thing. I won't kick you off this ship when we land in Izvaldi, but the moment we're done with Crystal, rid of Gazelle and have the ship back to ourselves, you will get to explain to everyone precisely what you just told me, answer all their questions, and let everyone decide together whether we collectively want anything to do with you. Anything to do with someone who would scare us into attacking a neutral fortress by pretending to die on our lawn."
"Understood." The sisters both bowed.
Valey flicked her ears. "Until we're rid of those two, I'll be watching you, and you can start working on my trust by doing exactly what I say. I don't trust Gazelle not to make trouble, so if he starts you're going to talk him down with whatever leverage you have, no matter how dirty of a trick you have to pull to stop him. And you're not going to draw attention to yourselves otherwise, since if Crystal needs medical help, I don't want that interrupted by an argument about your loyalty. She's not-"
She frowned and spun around, suddenly seeing an empty deck. "I thought it was too quiet. Where did they go!?"
"Well, no one can fly in this weather," Felicity sighed. "And seeing as they're not on deck and there's a rear door below, I imagine they went inside."
Valey stepped into the cargo bay, standing atop a staircase that connected it to the deck above and the hallway for the cabins. The hold was dimly lit, vibrating slightly as the ship surged forward at twice its usual speed and causing the crates and boxes to rattle, almost creating more noise than the storm had outside.
"Uhh... Gazelle?" Valey peered around the room. "You go this way?"
Down below, Princess Gwendolyn stepped into a patch of light, glancing up at the stairs. "He went that way," she said, voice slightly too even as she pointed a paw at the cabin hall door.
Valey almost threw open the door to give chase, then hesitated. It was loud in the room, but not so loud she wouldn't hear if Gazelle was getting screamed at. She blinked back at the filly. "You okay in here? By yourself? Not the coziest place, you know..."
Gwendolyn gracefully straightened her shoulders. "You didn't ask to play host to royalty, and I didn't ask you. You accept no blame if my brother and I have to deal with accommodations that are less than what we are used to."
"Yeah, that's not what I asked, though." Valey frowned. "You know there are more comfortable spots on this ship, right? This is basically our basement. We've got an empty cabin or two right through here, and I'm sure Shinespark would lend you hers..."
The princess's voice dropped a notch, and she moved her face away from the light. "Like I said, my brother went that way."
Valey blinked. "But... Oh. Well, okay, then."
She opened the door to the cabin level, stepped through... and almost immediately found herself face to face with Gazelle, who was leaning against the door to Crystal's room with a far-too-content smile. Valey instantly blanched. "Hey, what do you think you're doing!?"
Gazelle's eyes widened in shock as Valey appeared, and he hopped hurriedly to his hooves, licking his fur to straighten it and adopting an air of utter innocence. "Fantasizing about turning in for the night after a hard day's work. Why ever do you ask?"
"Uh huh." Valey stalked forward, Felicity and Senescey watching her back at a distance. "Look, buddy, you have no capital to mess with us right now, and tonight there are no places on the ship more off-limits to hooliganism and antics than that room."
"Fine! You got me. I'm meditating to the sounds of impending misfortune." Gazelle licked his lips. "Listen, I've had a very exciting day and can be forgiven if I'm feeling a little giddy. Believe me, I have absolutely no desire to interfere with-"
Crystal's door slid open, and Harshwater stood there, looking cross. She got crosser when she saw Gazelle. "I don't know why you're back, but please stand somewhere where you aren't upsetting my patient," she demanded.
Gazelle whistled. "It takes a lot of moxie to boss around a prince. I like your style, midwife! Don't worry, don't worry, my wings and paws are henceforth tied."
Valey pushed closer, getting in Gazelle's space and trying to make him take a step back, noting Amber and Crystal in the room to the side. "She said shoo," she insisted, meeting his eyes and glaring up at him.
"Oh, I heard," Gazelle purred. "Valey, I've had a very exciting day. Please forgive me if the adrenaline has gone to my head a little, but you are a useful ally and far from someone I intend to unnecessarily antagonize. Point me to somewhere to sit, and there I shall stay."
Valey gave him a strange look as Harshwater slammed the door. "Yeah? Uhh... how about that cabin, right over there? In that room, sit, stay until... Why are you even coming with us?"
Before Gazelle could answer, there was a soft tapping of hoofsteps behind her. Suddenly, Valey felt a sensation like a bucket of ice water being dumped on her head as Felicity turned on her cutie mark full blast. "That's enough," Felicity said calmly.
Gazelle's pupils twitched, then shrank from their overdilation as he held a paw to his head. "Kindly... appreciated. Ow."
Valey felt almost ejected from herself as the force of Felicity's power suppressed and detached her emotions, though she could feel the burst quickly waning to steadier levels. Under this light, Gazelle seemed far less concerning for whatever he had done than what he could do still. What mattered was to find a way to invite him off their ship, make sure he stayed off, and then everyone could focus on less-immediate problems like figuring out what to do with Felicity and her sisters. After they had reunited Crystal and Percival, of course.
"I see you looking at that door," Gazelle added as he stepped toward the room Valey had directed. "You're thinking about her. No, I have no qualms with Percival quitting his job and eloping. Perhaps they'll enjoy their happily ever after. Maybe. If they're exceptionally wise and lucky." He slid the door open and stepped inside.
Valey blinked, registering the barest hint of muted surprise. She turned to Felicity and nodded. "As sneaky as that can be, it's a really cool cutie mark."
Felicity let her aura fade with a strained sigh. "Thank you, darling. Now I advise letting him be. He wasn't lying, you know. Sphinxes have a tendency to get very into their excitement, and you absolutely won't have a productive conversation with him now. Give him some time to calm down."
"Yeah." Valey glanced back at Crystal's door. "So, how up are you for lending a hoof in there? Any funny business before we've talked to everyone about you and I will hunt you down and destroy you, but I'm really not seeing what you could gain by backstabbing us somehow here..."
Felicity's face fell. "That hurts, though I can't say we don't deserve it. But yes, my skills are completely at your service."
The door cracked open again, Harshwater poking an eye out with a panting Crystal pacing in circles behind her. "So you made it back. Why is Gazelle here?"
"It's a long story." Valey rolled her eyes. "And one you better believe everyone is going to hear once he's off our boat and we get to Izvaldi. For now, how's Crystal doing, and could you use help?" She pulled Felicity into view.
"Painful," Crystal admitted, walking to the door. "And yes." She folded her ears. "...Please."
"...Of course, darling." Felicity took a breath, smiled, and stepped inside as Harshwater opened the door wider.
Valey blinked slightly at Crystal's friendlier demeanor. "That bad, huh? Anything I can do?"
Crystal met her eyes, urgency in her own. "Tell me how far we have left. When will we get there? I need Percival. How far?"
Harshwater placed a wing on her withers. "Shhh. Shinespark has us going at double speed, and you're coming slow. It'll be hours, but you're going to be fine."
"I hope so," Crystal whispered loudly. "Please, please..."
Slightly uncomfortable, Valey retreated, shutting the door to check on the rest of the ship. She knew where Gazelle and Gwendolyn were. Senescey was at her side... Slowly, Valey wandered the halls, checking the rest of her friends. Maple was facedown in her bed, Starlight on her back and a pillow clasped over her ears. Grenada was in the observation room. Amber was already accounted for, Slipstream and Gerardo were sleeping, Jamjars and Glimmer were in the former's room, Shinespark must have been on the bridge... Satisfied with her search, Valey found Senescey a room and then retired to lay with Maple and Starlight, resting on the knowledge that whatever was happening in Stormhoof, there was nothing more she could or wanted to do.
The night stretched on around Starlight, her room vibrating faintly around her from the extra strain their speed was putting on the Immortal Dream. She knew it was safe; Shinespark had explained considerations in the boat's construction as they were leaving Stormhoof. It could go even faster if needed. The only limitation was the power source: traveling at this speed would consume harmonic fire from their windigo hearts far more quickly than their usual speed, resulting in much lower efficiency per mile. Fortunately, she never planned on using Nightmare Module emulation mode again, so it wasn't like they needed the hearts for her. A single charge would be plenty to get them to Ironridge for a refuel.
Just because it was safe didn't mean she was at ease. Maple had gotten to sleep beneath her, sandwiched between a pillow and the bed, ears covered and pretending there was nothing amiss in the world. Valey was present too, sleeping on her haunches and leaned against the bed like some kind of sentinel. Starlight alone was awake, her thoughts mingling with the sounds of the wind and the storm and distant distress from down the hall.
That sword was gone, she had been told. The one that should have been Gerardo's, but everyone now believed was hers... She didn't much care. It wasn't a sword she had any emotional attachment to. That couldn't have been it. But something prevented her from joining her friends in sleep, a nameless and lingering unease that not everything was well. Once, she even checked her flanks, thinking she felt a tingle, but it was nothing but an overactive imagination preying on her fears.
Starlight sat up, deciding maybe she was thirsty. It couldn't hurt to go to the kitchen and get a drink. Stretching her legs might not hurt either. And maybe some fresh air as well, while she was at it.
She went through the library on her way to the kitchen, avoiding the rear half of the ship. Nobody stopped her as she filled herself a glass, drained it, filled it again, and sat there looking at the surface of the water. Now that she wasn't separated from the ship by a plush bed and sleeping Maple, the vibrations reached her hooves, distorting her reflection in the surface of the cup and preventing it from forming properly.
"Hello?" Starlight whispered, feeling like she was being watched.
Nobody answered. Starlight's fur prickled, partly from the cold. She knew what was really wrong here: it was happening again. Just like Ironridge, some stupid nation's stupid fight was sucking them in, and someone had just been killed on their airship. All of it was happening all over again.
Starlight shivered, drinking the second glass and setting it down. Maybe if she stood outside? She was already cold, but that was fine. Maybe going back to Maple when she was cold would help her sleep. Or maybe the cold would keep her up. Some sense in her mind was warning her this was a night she shouldn't go back to sleep.
The library was deserted again on her way back up. She paused briefly at the stair landing, listening to the engine room. There was something comforting about its shine... At least everything was likely in order there. But as she stepped up to the door to the deck, she hesitated, realizing it was already open a crack, and peered through.
Two fillies were standing in the storm, facing out over the railing. One was Glimmer. The other was partially blocked by the former in her view, but she was wearing a tidy little dress and definitely not Jamjars. Starlight frowned, watching them, seeing Glimmer's lips move but without even a hope of her words not being carried away by the storm.
Starlight stared, watching curiously as the two carried on without urgency. Glimmer looked equal parts bothered and relieved by whatever they were discussing. Was this the princess? Valey had given her a very brief rundown when she came in, in case Maple woke up or she went anywhere. Felicity and Senescey were back, Senescey had survived, don't trust the sisters too hard, and Gazelle and his sibling were along for the ride as well... She accidentally coughed while watching, but the weather was too loud for either to hear her.
She watched a while longer, almost convinced they were going to stay like that all night long... when suddenly Glimmer stretched, arching her back and moving along the railing to feel her way towards the door. Her duplicate couldn't see her, of course, so she didn't have any hurry to leave.
The other filly saw her instead, pointing a paw.
Starlight winced. Spacing out...! But the two turned to each other, nodded and approached, Glimmer beckoning slightly off-center for her to stay. Slightly apprehensive, Starlight opened the door further and stepped out. "Hello?"
"You're Starlight?" the sphinx filly asked, nodding slightly, a serene grace to her little voice. "I've been told you're someone worth meeting."
Starlight blinked. "I'm not interrupting anything?"
"We were talking, but we're finished," Glimmer explained. "I've had to interact with the Empire from time to time, and we know each other. We were just catching up."
Satisfactory enough. "Oh." Starlight nodded. "I just couldn't sleep. It's nothing important."
"Gwendolyn," the princess offered. "You may call me Lyn, if you want. And I apologize for any role my brother may have had in your sleeplessness."
"Thanks," Starlight replied, hesitant. "Lyn."
Lyn folded her round ears at Starlight's initial reaction, then perked again at the use of her nickname. "I hope this doesn't get us off to a bad start. I've been following you in the news and hearing about you from others, and am sad I had to meet you and your friends thanks to my brother's chaos."
"It's..." Starlight gritted her teeth. She wanted to say it was okay, but it wasn't. "It's not your fault," she went with. "I don't blame you. You've heard about us?"
"Bits and pieces, and enough to decide I'd like to meet you properly," Lyn declared. "Once tonight has been settled and all of you can relax, I intend to offer my hospitality in case you're no longer welcome in Stormhoof. I am the ruler of Grandbell, after all. Hopefully that sets some of your worry at ease."
"That would be nice." Starlight blinked again, relaxing slightly. "I don't know what we're doing after this, though..."
"Everyone will figure something out," Glimmer assured. "I'm getting cold out here, so I'm heading back down below. If you two are staying up, have a nice talk. Otherwise, I'm going to sit with Maple and try to get some sleep myself." She paused, passing Starlight, and lowered her voice. "You have good instincts, by the way. If I were you, I'd trust them."
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. She knew she was feeling uneasy, why she couldn't sleep? Not that it wouldn't have been obvious, given how everyone on the ship knew... but Glimmer was quickly gone, leaving her alone on the deck with the princess.
"So..." Lyn inspected her eyes. "You don't look like you're in a mood to talk with a stranger about whatever's on your mind. You're probably not in a mood for idle talking either?"
Starlight's ears went back. "You know Gazelle, right? What do you think of him?"
Lyn nodded. "He's my big brother. He's precious to me. He also worries me, and does a lot of things he shouldn't. I'm sorry that he worries you, too."
Starlight looked at the ship. "Thanks."
Lyn watched her a few seconds longer, then sighed. "See? This isn't how I hoped I would meet you at all. Maybe we should save talking for later, when we're not all stuck here in the middle of a storm. Unless there's anything important."
"I don't think so." Starlight shrugged, still feeling a faint, worming sensation that something wasn't right that prevented her from focusing on or investing in the conversation. "What have you heard about me? And was it from her?" She pointed at the door where Glimmer had left.
Lyn took a step toward the door. "Some of it. I just heard you were worth knowing. She said we had some things in common, and that we might get along. I got curious. But it doesn't sound like this is a good time for curiosity."
"Sorry," Starlight agreed, frowning at the storm. It wasn't a windigo storm. The clouds were black, not white, and it wasn't snowing. "I can't really focus right now..."
Lyn bowed gracefully in understanding, departing and leaving her alone on the deck.
The Immortal Dream idled, harmony comet dim, grounded in a valley between hills across the river from the crater of Izvaldi's capitol. It was hard to see in the stormy night, but flying in they had observed the old concert field, converted into a work site for sifting through the explosion's debris, attempting to recover any valuable affects or materials. A month after the blast, the river had broken through its clog of cinder and sludge, changing course slightly and flowing with all its old intensity west to the sea.
A new construction on the hilltop nearby, the relocated governmental offices were an incomplete affair, and Starlight watched them from beneath a rain-streaked poncho, standing on the ship's unprotected deck. The gangplank was extended to a hillside, and as she and everyone else awake sans Gwendolyn stood watch, a party was slowly returning.
"Hey!" Amber called out, stepping onto the walkway with Slipstream and Harshwater behind her. "Everything went well! But why are we grounded?"
Gerardo welcomed the party back with a gracious nod. "Shinespark doesn't get to stress-test her creation often, and wanted to take readings and measurements on the equipment while we were idle. She said it oughtn't take more than an hour. We're welcome to stay, I presume?"
"Percival was there." Harshwater frowned from beneath her poncho. "He and Crystal were remarkably shameless for a couple who have managed to keep their relationship secret for this long. They have medical personnel there who are better trained than we are. Some of Chauncey's old ponies who are in on her secret. So she'll be in good hooves for the rest of her delivery."
Beside Starlight, Maple's shoulders sagged in relief. "Good..."
Valey nodded too, standing with a watchful eye on Felicity and Senescey. "And what about Gazelle? No longer our problem?"
"He had a very eager talk with Percival," Harshwater replied. "He told them he had successfully taken over Everlaste and no longer needed Izvaldi to have a lord. Said Percival could depart with his blessing, and then walked away laughing. As long as he isn't here, I don't care where he is now."
Valey watched her for a moment, shoulders slowly sagging. "So it's really over, then? He's leaving us alone, no more Crystal... Bananas. This night was gross."
"It seems so," Amber added, nodding. "Crystal and Percival were really happy to see each other. I didn't think it after what a crab she is, but it seems like they really care about each other. Maybe they can retire and actually be happy."
"Yeah..." Valey looked at the deck.
"So what now?" Slipstream asked. "You said it'll be a while before we're in the air again?"
Gerardo nodded. "I'd have to ask Shinespark to say for sure, but it should be within the hour. Personally, I vote for a proper chance at rest, then retreating to the skies for a few days to let whatever transpired in Stormhoof blow over. If Stormhoof is truly being victimized by enough assassinations to make Gazelle the new Lord Everlaste, we might want to steer well clear of the ensuing revelry..."
"Agreed." Felicity shuddered.
Valey raised an eyebrow at the crimson-maned batpony. "Yeah, rest sounds good... but we're gonna have to have a chat, sooner rather than later. All of us. About what went down in that place with you three."
Felicity winced. "That we will, darling..."
"Sounds rather ominous, but not unspeakably urgent." Gerardo ruffled his wings. "Very well, then. I, for one, feel the call of putting my feet up for a spell..."
Maple wiped her brow as he went below, only brushing more rain in through the hood of her poncho. "I hope everything turns out alright. But we did our best, though."
Slipstream followed Gerardo, and Harshwater unceremoniously tailed them. "I know," Amber groaned, almost collapsing against Maple's side. "I'd been up all day, and now I've been up all night with Crystal, and could really use a job well done..."
"Job well done," Maple hummed, catching her and setting her upright. "Amber? Starlight? Do we go back below too?"
Starlight bit her lip. She wanted to, and after a night of fitful not-sleep, maybe she could. But another part of her wanted to stay vigilant until the ship was in the air, and Glimmer had just told her to trust her instincts... "I'll come once we're flying again. I need the fresh air."
"Same." Valey waved, careful not to splash herself beneath her own poncho. "You two get some shuteye, though. And you as well." She nodded pointedly at Felicity and Senescey.
Felicity nearly wobbled on her hooves. "Believe me, darling, I need it..."
The last four mares went below, and then it was only Valey and Starlight on the deck, alone beneath the driving rain.
"Can't sleep, huh, kiddo?" Valey shifted so she was sitting right beside the filly, both of their eyes trained on the darkened silhouette of the new Izvaldi buildings where Percival was. "Or you just don't trust anything not to go wrong at the last instant?"
"You don't trust it either," Starlight pointed out. "And you can't blame us."
"Nope," Valey agreed, no further explanation needed.
"...Is your cutie mark warning you of anything?"
Valey bit her lip. "Nah. Not really. But it fails to detect stuff a lot more often than it gives false positives. A threat to my friends and not to me? Doesn't do it. Something that worsens my situation, but doesn't actually hurt? It's finnicky. Sometimes it'll pick stuff up, like if someone wants to mug me. Other times it'll be stuff like someone trying to ruin my reputation, and that sails right past it. If there was anything bad going down out there? Stuff that affects them, but not us? Maybe if it was a bomb, but nah." She shook her head. "No warnings."
"Just a feeling that if something's going to go wrong, it's going to be now," Starlight muttered.
"Yeah." Valey rolled her shoulders. "And that's just experience talking."
The wind came in gusts and varying bursts of intensity as they waited. Valey and Starlight tracked time by the light on the horizon: dawn had arrived. Blotted by the storm, it had no color to it, merely lightening the clouds with a faint sheen of gray and making the temporary Izvaldi headquarters slightly more visible. When they turned around, they could see the crater through lighter waves of rain, a black scar where a hilltop had once stood, blasted away in a caldera that had formed into a gray, muddy lake. Any tunnels that survived would be utterly flooded, not that any could have managed it. The distant sky held the ghost of the outline of Wallace's ship, but the rain blotted all sound from the outlying city.
"You think Shinespark is ready?" Starlight eventually whispered, nerves causing her fur to bristle and her skin to crawl even harder than the cold.
"Nah. We'll know when she is." Valey put a hoof on Starlight's hooded head. "Sparky knows what she's doing."
"Right."
Next time, it was Valey who spoke. "What do you think Gazelle's up to?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Nah. But I wanna know more than I wanna not know."
Starlight frowned. "If he was up to anything, we'd probably know when he was."
Valey bit her lip. The sky continued to lighten.
"Audio system test," Shinespark's voice declared, the ship's speakers lacking all of their normal volume for the sake of everyone who was sleeping. "I'm sorry for the delay. The ship is fine, I'm putting things together again. This was very interesting, and thank you for letting me stop here to do it. I'll need a little longer, but we'll be back in the air soon."
Valey and Starlight continued their vigil. "How do you think Crystal's doing?" Valey eventually asked.
"Do you care?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "I didn't meet her a lot, but she didn't seem nice." She glanced back at the storm. "Hopefully good."
"Yeah... I care." Valey folded her ears. "Not sure why. Probably really bad for me, and I'm never messing with her again no matter what. But it would be neat if she got to live her life and be happy."
In the distance, filtering from the buildings through the rain, there was a scream.
Starlight folded her ears.
"Welp." Valey adjusted her forehooves. "That sounds painful. And like Crystal. Guess we got her here nicely in time."
Starlight glanced up at Valey.
"I hope she makes a good mom," Valey continued, putting a hoof back on Starlight's shoulders. "Kids like you probably know a whole lot about when someone messes up at that."
"Sort of." Starlight tried not to look at the Izvaldi headquarters, but had nowhere but clouds for her eyes to wander. "Even in Equestria, I was adopted. I don't know who my real parents were, or why they gave me up. Maybe they were selfish or stupid. Maybe they were poor. Maybe they were dead. It doesn't matter, because my home is here now, with you and Maple."
"Yeah... Not everyone gets that opportunity, kiddo." Valey leaned back and listened as Crystal screamed again, the rain seeming to lighten and pause to let the sound through. "I dunno what kind of power good wishes or happy thoughts have without actions to back them up, but I hope her kid gets a good family from the get-go and doesn't have to go through all the dumb stuff we did to find one."
"We?" Starlight's ears perked. "We're family to you?"
Valey grinned, eyes shadowed by her hood and the rain. "Well, hey. You did just name me and Maple, talking about your new family, right? What goes around comes around. And yeah. I love you guys. A whole lot more than I ever did anyone in Ironridge, that's for sure."
Starlight leaned into her, listening as Crystal screamed again. This one was cut short in intensity halfway through, causing Valey's ears to flick. "You really wanna stay out here for this?"
Curling her tail, Starlight opened her mouth to reply... when suddenly, she was cut short by another scream from Crystal, this one completely different from the others. Even filtered through the rain, it was undeniably not a scream of pain, but one of surprise, panic, disgust and horror.
"Oh bananas." Valey sat up hard. "That doesn't sound good."
"Valey?" Starlight's ears twisted back, and she stood up worriedly.
"Oh bananas." Valey's face visibly fell. "Oh bananas, I'm suddenly really glad we're not over-"
She was interrupted by the sound of raucous, gleeful, arrogant laughter undeniably belonging to Gazelle.
Valey was on her hooves in a flash, poncho off and lightning in her eyes. "Okay, whatever just happened is ten steps too far. I've been holding back from kicking his tail all night long, and my tolerance has officially expired. Bring it, prince."
In the new Izvaldi compound, a lone room on the outskirts had its windows thrown wide, shielding from the rain while allowing as much fresh air as possible. Against one wall was a bed where Crystal lay, sweat-caked and exhausted and staring with quivering pupils at the foal that, seconds ago, had been inside her womb.
"It's a filly," a unicorn said, dressed in a clean hospital smock and wearing the fake-batpony regalia of the Firefly Sisters' fans and Chauncey's followers. She held the tiny creature gently to Crystal with her hooves instead of her magic. "We will bathe and clean her soon. She's been through an ordeal and needs her mother."
Crystal stared at the filly's tiny, tufty ears and shivered.
The midwife gave her a look. "Your child..."
"What," Crystal hissed, her body spent but her eyes burning. "Is. This?"
The midwife pulled the newborn filly back in concern. "Madam?"
To the side, standing with several other medical staff, Percival looked on numbly. "Crystal, you... Why?"
"There must be some mistake," Crystal whispered. "I did nothing. I did nothing! Chauncey must have been wrong. Whoever confirmed for you must have been wrong. This is our child. This is our child..."
"Madam, what are you talking about?" The midwife frowned, glancing at the feeble, crying bundle she held. "She hasn't left your sight since she was born. This is your foal."
Crystal's emerald eyes flashed harder. "She's a sarosian foal. Not a griffon like Percival. Sarosians always breed true. That's the rule Garsheeva's heresy is supposed to obscure!"
The midwife's brow furrowed slightly. "So her father is someone else you consorted with. She is still your-"
"Imbecile!" Crystal screeched, rising from her bed and drawing on some otherworldly well of energy to kick the midwife at maximum force. "How dare you accuse me of giving myself freely when I have true love? Is that what your barbaric life has conditioned you to believe is normal, you lecherous mongrel!?" She threw back her head and screamed.
The midwife flew back and impacted the wall, dropping Crystal's foal as she was kicked. With a flash of telekinesis, a waiting mare grabbed the foal and saved her from hitting the ground, floating her over and hugging her close as she started wailing as well. Crystal landed, stood and seethed.
Percival's jaw fell, and he lifted a robed talon, utterly unable to respond. "C-Crystal, I forgive you-"
"I did nothing." Crystal stood, panting, her head lowered and glaring. "Even you don't believe me? I did nothing! I did!"
As she roiled, a pair of rounded sphinx ears rose into sight outside the window. Then Gazelle was there, looking in through the open aperture with pursed lips and wide-eyed interest. "She cheated? On you?"
"Gazelle," Percival warned, "this is a family affair, and we-"
"Shut up." Crystal's chest heaved, and she turned to glare at Gazelle like a venomous snake. "Shut up. Don't you dare accuse me as well. Percival loves me. None of you fools understand..." Her eyes flashed to Percival. "This is a trick. He knows. It has to be."
"Crystal, it's alright!" Percival raised his voice. "Please, calm down! We'll get to the bottom of this together, and figure out what happened!"
"What happened?" Gazelle gnawed his lip. "Ooh, that's tough. Looks to me like she cheated..."
Crystal tried to stalk to the window, but her legs gave out and she slumped to the floor, shaking in rage as her sweaty mane spilled around her. "Shut up...!"
"You can't deny that, of course," Gazelle continued, sounding utterly reasonable yet tenser than a loaded ballista, folding his paws on the windowsill as his eyes glimmered with laughter. "I'm sure Chauncey made you all well aware of what happens when sarosians break the taboo on loving others. But isn't there a little something you're overlooking, here?"
Percival's face rose in strained hope. Crystal roiled, standing shakily again.
"It's just... if this is a surprise to you..." Gazelle gestured at Percival. "They would have known." He pointed at the medical staff. "Everyone working for Chauncey? Tell me they lack the means to tell you were harboring a sarosian instead of a griffon in that womb of yours." He broke out into a grin. "It looks to me like they helped her hide this from you, poor Percival. Or helped Chauncey, since they're loyal to him. Now what reason would an old goat like Chauncey have to hide a perfectly normal kid like this...?"
The midwife who now held Crystal's crying foal frowned. "No, we just assumed this was normal and not worth commenting on..."
Percival wasn't listening. "You... No, they couldn't..."
"And she wouldn't cheat on you, blah blah blah." Gazelle grinned harder. "So much for that. You know, I really have no idea what's going on here, or any investment in this whatsoever. This is all just after-show entertainment now that I'm Lord Everlaste. She's the infidel, don't blame me."
"Gazelle, leave," Percival commanded, voice barely restrained. "Crystal, please, I'm not angry! We can work through this...!"
"But you don't trust me?" Even Crystal's tail shivered, and she rocked from side to side. "We love each other, but you would rather forgive me than believe me? I did nothing..."
Percival glanced around at the medical staff. "He has a point. They would have known-"
"You poisoned him against me!" Crystal roared, rounding on Gazelle. "Stop stealing my love!"
Gazelle finally lost it, rearing back and roaring with laughter. "Bwahahahahaha! Stealing your love? You robbed yourself, little cheater. Should have stayed on your friends' ship and not let him see. Maybe they'd have helped you keep it hidden..."
Crystal gave an animalistic growl, her dirty aquamarine mane covering most of her face. "Shut up, you fool. I'll kill you..."
"Everyone, please!" Percival raised is voice over the rain against the roof and the sound of the crying newborn. "I am not poisoned! Crystal, I love you! Everyone, calm down!"
Gazelle wiped a tear from his eye, flicking it off into the storm. "Oh, you and about three dozen others. I can't say I've ever had an adulteress who was upset she didn't have a heretical child among them, though. Go on, go forgive each other and retire to a happy life instead. Maybe let Percival settle the score..."
"Hey guys." Valey strolled into view, standing in the open doorway where she could both see into the room and watch Gazelle. "What's up?"
Percival looked ready to panic. Crystal seethed, eyes suddenly widening at Valey's presence. "Help me...!"
Gazelle frowned slightly, waving a hoof at Valey to shoo her away. "Enjoying a little dramatic dessert. It probably wouldn't fit your tastes. Didn't you want nothing more to do with me?"
"I changed my mind." Valey grinned, rain streaming off her Riverfall poncho, and then winked at Crystal. "And I gotcha. This dude's the problem, right? Whatever he's up to, it smells like trouble."
Gazelle blinked, eyes widening in interest... and Valey threw off her poncho, revealing Starlight on her back with an already-charged horn. FLAAAAASH!
A jet of teal light blazed between them, and Gazelle reared back, his head encased in a faceted orb of crystal. Valey was in the air as he clawed at the obstruction, clearing the distance in a heartbeat and ducking behind the distracted prince as Starlight jumped for safety. Valey bit hard, clamping Gazelle's leonine tail in her mouth and pulling, toppling him and countering his frantic kicks with the edges of her hooves as she pulled.
Using the wind to her advantage, Valey twirled, bringing Gazelle into a hammer toss. She spun twice, changed her angle, flipped him up... and slammed him as hard as she could into the hillside, Starlight dropping her crystal at the last second to avoid hurting her horn. Gazelle bounced once, groaning as he hit the muddy grass. "Oh, this is going to be exciting..."
"It's not a game, buddy." Valey flexed her wings, strolling forward and preparing to attack again. "There are no rules, and it ain't gonna stop once you start getting creamed. But if it was?" She raised an eyebrow in challenge. "This is the game where I never lose."
Gazelle flipped to his paws, pupils pinprick and grin wide at Valey's challenge. "En garde!"
Valey's cutie mark immediately flared as he rushed her, claws extending for an all-in flurry of swipes. Unable to block the prince's sharp blows, the only direction she had to go was back, feinting and drawing out a lunge before kicking the moment she saw a weakness. Her hind legs slipped past Gazelle's claws and her hooves caught his shoulder, unable to put much power into the kick but still enough to unbalance him.
"Raaaugh!" Valey backflipped through his scrabbling defense, grabbing his mane as she rose and yanking his head up with her. But Gazelle twisted in midair to face her, grinning maniacally, showing the undersides of both forepaws. His claws appeared again to slash her chest.
Pulling a twist of her own, Valey caught his soft pads with her own hooves, pinning back each strike and then headbutting his face when he tried to bite her. Another gust hit them both as they plummeted earthward, her on top... but Gazelle's hind legs were still free, and with another sliding of claws, he kicked at her, raking her belly as they fell.
"Ow!" Valey arched her back in pain, slamming him into the mud and immediately pummeling at his head. There was no way she could defend against a reckless assault from this many angles, so she'd just have to overwhelm him quicker... Gazelle's front claws sank into her shoulders as Valey slammed hoof after hoof into his head, quickly bloodying his nose. He tried to kick again, so Valey flipped away, pivoting around his head and preparing another slam.
Eagerly, Gazelle leaned upward as she jumped, biting the end of her mane and tearing her painfully back to the ground. Valey reacted instantly, pumping her wings and forcing herself downward even faster, blocking Gazelle's next swipe with a spinning kick that left her hoof flecked with blood but her adversary wide open. She slammed into his chest, forcing a gasp and giving her a window to pick him up again.
Valey reared up, one forelimb around Gazelle's barrel as a bolt of lightning split the sky. She spun, thoroughly mud-covered, and flung the prince back into the hillside, punching him into it with everything she had... but Gazelle's flailing claws sank into her mane, pulling her with him, and Valey had no limbs in place to block as he raked her side with a hideous slash.
Flash!
Suddenly, both of them were encased in a thick sheet of crystal. Valey blinked, unable to look up, Gazelle's pinprick eyes separated inches from her own... and then she shadow snuck, diving into the muddy, storm-darkened hill just as he tried to flex the claws that were already in her.
"Bananas," Valey panted, straightening up and bleeding. "This dude has no sense of self-preservation. This is gonna hurt both of us, hard... Gotta be more careful..."
Starlight nodded, standing at the top of the hill, horn glowing fiercely as Gazelle flailed inside the prison with the space Valey's escape had made. Cracks began to appear in the gem as his free paws battered at it, and the filly winced. "Are you okay?"
"I'll live." Valey touched at her side and hissed in pain. "I've had enough of that dude. Gonna stomp every bit of ego he has and kick it in the river..."
The crystal prison broke. Gazelle was in the air instantly, wings flapping against the storm, glaring at Starlight, though his pupils were still pinprick. "Stay in the audience! I don't fight children."
Starlight retaliated with another beam of crystal, this time aimed at Valey. It hit the mare's forehoof, congealing into a block just big enough to use as a weapon or a shield. "Does that help?"
"Sweet." Valey weighed the orb, arching an eyebrow at Gazelle. "Bring it, kitty."
With a screeching battle cry, Gazelle dove toward Valey, then pulled into a loop at the last second, shearing through the space in front of him with all four claws. Valey impassively stood her ground, cutie mark effortlessly reading the feint, then dove upward and punched his back from below as he finished the loop, leaving himself open. Gazelle howled, flipping himself upright and trying to counterattack, but Valey was too fast, seizing his wing joint and yanking it with all her strength before slamming Starlight's armored orb into his side with all her strength.
Gazelle's wing cracked, sending him spiraling to the ground. He held it awkwardly, looking pained but not quite broken... until a pillar of crystal plowed into him from the side.
Starlight stood on the opposite hillside, horn shining. Her weapon dissipated and another one formed, a curl of crystal erupting out of the ground where her beam struck, forming three quarters of a circle and then punching Gazelle into its base. That one vanished too, and Starlight frowned.
"Stop that!" Gazelle shot her an angry glare. "I'm not fighting y-!"
Valey dropped on his head, planting her crystal hoof across his ears and a rear kick into his spine, forcing his legs out from under him and collapsing him into the mud. "I told you, buddy," she growled, landing on his back and riding him like a sled to the bottom of the valley. "This isn't a game. There aren't rules. You're the bad guy, and you're getting what's coming."
Gazelle spat, a muddy furrow carved in the grass where he had slid down the hill. "Mraaaah!"
Valey flipped off him, wincing at her injuries but avoiding another devastating swipe. She hovered near the slope, and as she did Starlight landed another bolt at her side, forming into a pointy crystal icicle. Without even looking, Valey picked it up, the turf it was anchored to breaking free of the hillside and hanging on the base of the spike like a muddy ice cream cone. She patted the weapon. "More?"
Gazelle hissed, prowling up the hillside, clinging close to the mud as more rain pummeled down, causing the slope to weaken. Starlight fired a third bolt, catching one of his hind paws and bolting it to the ground. The grass beneath his claws failed to give purchase enough to free it, and detached from the hill as well, sending him sliding back down.
"Cease," Gazelle threatened, eyes still pinprick. "This is not a fight for fillies."
"And what are you gonna do about it?" Valey stood at an angle, favoring her injuries. "You don't wanna fight her that much? Why? Because she's kicking your rear just this hard?"
Gazelle hissed, a teal shimmer in front of him warning what would happen if he tried climbing out of the narrow valley again. "Leave," he panted.
"Sorry. I think I'm gonna need a little more groveling to accept that surrender." Valey sat down, wincing. "Accept it. You're toast. You've lost. Or you can come see how much harder we can trounce you?"
"You cheated," Gazelle growled. "Bringing a filly..."
"It wasn't a game. There were no rules." Valey shrugged, then lifted a loose patch of muddy grass and threw it at Gazelle's head. Her aim was perfect, and he couldn't dodge. "We're not here for your entertainment."
"Yes... snkkkt..." Gazelle drew a breath, wiping mud from his face. "You are..."
Valey threw another mud pie. "Nope. And there's nothing you can do to change that."
"Fight me, you coward!"
Starlight instantly obliged, using her telekinesis to grab his head and yank him off-center. Her horn sparked slightly as she hauled him back and forth like an undignified marionette, fighting for control of his balance for several seconds before stopping and leaving him alone.
"Not you!" Gazelle roared, whirling on Starlight with his pinprick gaze.
"Why not?" Starlight countered. "You're fighting Valey and trying to kill everyone in Stormhoof. Why shouldn't I be allowed to help stop you?"
Gazelle seethed, ears twitching. "This isn't business for children..."
Valey hefted another mud pie. "What's this? Have we found a line you're afraid of crossing? Or is there actually a shred of decency in your heart?" She raised an eyebrow. "I used to think you were kinda like me, you know. At the top of the world, did whatever you wanted, had a dangerous sense of humor. Needed something better to fight for... Stinks for you I was wrong, doesn't it?"
"Needed something better?" Gazelle's pupils refused to return to normal, and his tail lashed viciously as he returned to facing Valey. "I have a perfect cause! I'm purging this empire of feuds and chaos and conquering it all so my sister can inherit a land she's worthy of. Everlaste is mine, Gyre and Izvaldi are dead, Stormhoof, Goldoa and Wilderwind are occupied by my new armies..."
Valey laughed arrogantly. "Purging the Griffon Empire of chaos? Do you even hear yourself? Who was it who was cackling about how wonderful that was up in Stormhoof? With your sister yelling at you and hiring goons to punch you to make you stop?"
Gazelle's face constricted as if slapped.
"What's that you say?" Valey raised an ear. "I'm sorry, was it you? You know she spent the entire flight here hiding in the cargo bay while you were creeping around outside Crystal's room because she didn't want to be anywhere near you? In the cargo bay. A princess. You don't care one feather for her, dirtbag."
"Liar!" Gazelle screamed, surging up the hill again. Immediately, he was struck in the face by the broad end of Valey's spike, swung like a baseball bat. With a resounding crack, he flipped over, sailing through the air and landing at the bottom on his back, Valey in the air and close behind. She fell at him spike first, aiming the point, perfectly aware she could land it at any point she chose... and speared the end straight through Gazelle's ear, inches from his eye socket.
"Maybe this will help you hear me better," Valey warned, stepping away as the pinned prince spasmed in pain. "Whatever you care for, if it exists at all, will not love you back. You're a monster. Herman was a monster. And the world has ponies like us who have the skills and will to stop monsters. If there's any line you don't think you would cross, you've already crossed it. If there's anyone you care for, the one and only thing you can do to keep them safe from yourself is to leave this continent and never return."
Gazelle shivered, and for a moment, his eyes returned to normal. "I was going to conquer this empire..."
"Yeah. But if you rule it, it'll quickly no longer exist." Valey stared at him, knowing Starlight was still at the ready. "You wanted to restore order to a chaotic empire, or something? Bananas, I don't believe you. Maybe it was a passing fancy, but there's this thing called actions speaking louder than words. You were laughing your head off about chaos back..." She trailed off, realizing something was wrong: while she could still see and hear the rain, none was falling on her.
Valey darted to the side and rolled, having just enough time to make out an area in midair where the rain was splashing against nothing. Then, with a ripple of light, the giant metal dragon from Mistvale faded into existence, standing like a sightless sentinel staring down at Gazelle. It had almost no facial features, but somehow seemed sad to see him.
Valey held her breath. Starlight did too. Both remembered what happened to the fake Yanavan the last time this dragon appeared.
"Big brother," a voice said, and Valey spotted Princess Gwendolyn walking carefully down the hillside from the direction of the new Izvaldi compound. "What are you doing?"
The dragon spread a metal wing as Gwendolyn got near, shielding the princess from the rain. "Lyn..." Gazelle croaked.
Lyn frowned. "I was going to ask Aegis to kick your tail," she said, putting a hoof on the dragon's leg and flexing her little wings. "But it looks like I don't need to. I just heard what you did to Percival and Crystal. What point could there possibly be in doing this?"
Gazelle coughed, the mud covering him making it hard to judge the extent of his injuries, though Starlight's spike still pinned his ruined ear to the ground. "I... wanted to..."
Lyn nodded up at the dragon. "Aegis, please take my wayward brother and carry him back to Grandbell. Find him a newspaper so he can see how everything in Stormhoof ended, make sure someone responsible never lets him out of their sight, and then come back here and find me."
With a shifting of steel, the dragon bowed, then extended the claw-spikes it had used to end Yanavan. Two of them gently pinched the spike, raising it and freeing Gazelle. Then the claws retracted, the dragon reared up and lifted his battered body, and was gone in a tunnel of wind faster than Valey's eyes could follow.
"...I'm sorry." Gwendolyn looked at the ground, rain hammering on her dress in the cold dawn light. "Thank you for trying to knock some sense into him."
Valey stood in the showering storm rain, having moved to firmer ground at the top of the nearest hill. She was caked in mud, stained all the way through with red, and Starlight followed her with a bitten lip and concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Ow. Yeah." Valey gingerly lifted her wings, letting the rain clean her. "I'm roughed up, but nothing major. Thanks for the help, kiddo."
Starlight frowned back at the valley where Gazelle had been defeated. "You're welcome."
Valey stretched and winced. "That guy was tough. Pretty sure I could have won alone, but it would have taken a lot longer and hurt a lot more. You probably saved me another healing potion, at least."
"My brother is strong," Gwendolyn admitted, padding up behind in her rain-soaked dress.
"So what just happened back there?" Valey turned to look at her, the mud slowly washing away. "You know stuff about that dragon thing?"
Princess Lyn nodded. "Her name is Aegis. I don't know what she is or where she came from, but she's related to the Empire's divine seer. I asked her for help."
Starlight blinked. "A divine seer?"
Lyn's eyes widened slightly, and she quickly shook her head. "That's not for me to talk about."
"Yeah, fair enough." Valey started washing mud from her less-wounded areas, her mane visibly green again. "Look, what about you? Are you okay? Sorry for beating up your brother, but, like..."
"He deserved it?" Lyn looked sadly at the ground, mane dripping in the rain. "I officially pardon you from any charges he might press." She gritted her teeth.
Valey shifted around, holding her good side's wing over the princess's head, though it didn't save her dress from being soaked clean against her coat. "Not to be ungrateful, but you're clearly not thrilled."
"My apologies." Lyn straightened her shoulders. "I shouldn't be losing composure in front of guests or strangers. My brother will take responsibility for his actions. You needn't worry yourselves over my empire's affairs."
Valey curled her lip, wincing again as she tried to wash the claw marks on her shoulders, side and belly. "Ow. Cool. Not worried. Ow..."
Starlight tilted her head at the other filly. She was obviously upset. They had just beaten up Gazelle, and she was pointedly not upset at them, so that only left... "Gazelle hasn't always been doing things like this, has he?"
A tiny chip cracked off from Lyn's mask, and her ears creased uncomfortably, water trailing from her mane. "He slowly got worse over the last few years," she finally said. "After our parents died six years ago, all the province lords started fighting, taking sides and trying to go behind each other for influence. I was just old enough at the time to understand what had happened. With no one ruling the Empire at the top, there was a power vacuum, and no one to make them behave. Gazelle and I both hated it. We made a promise to each other that when we grew up and became rulers ourselves, we would fix that and put everything back the way it was."
Starlight's ears fell. "And he broke that promise?"
"No, he kept it." Lyn stared at the horizon, eyes wide. "For a while, we couldn't do anything. Everyone gave us lip service, but no power. Then, about a year after our parents died, Meltdown appeared. Her brand is incredibly strong, and she was somehow in charge of the Empire's power grid despite being young herself. She made friends with Gazelle, and we learned to abuse her station and privileges to gain influence. I enjoyed having some power over my empire, but it gave us... especially Gazelle the idea that we could take over the Griffon Empire the old-fashioned way. Instead of waiting for ceremonies and me to marry and become the empress, we could conquer the other provinces and force their lords to behave. It made so much sense at the time. They started fighting because our parents were no longer ruling them, right?"
"And then?" Valey gently prodded.
"My brother and Meltdown were good at it," Lyn continued. "I was okay. For a while, we dreamed and brainstormed, talking about what we would do when my brother got a house and which one it would probably be. Eventually, hope got old in favor of reality, which was that he was probably going to get Izvaldi instead of a powerful one like Stormhoof or Everlaste. And then reality got old when we remembered we were trying to change the way things were, and didn't have to live with that... My brother and Meltdown got more and more ambitious. He took our promise seriously, to unify the Griffon Empire by force and bring things back to the old days. But as the years passed and we got older and more ambitious, he got... meaner."
"Like he is now?" Valey stopped washing herself.
Lyn looked away. "First he thought the sarosian pirates were a danger, and something he wanted to get rid of in the empire we were building. Then he thought they were a tool, and we could get rid of them in ways that would help more, or that would hurt enemies we needed to weaken. Now he thinks killing them is a sport. First we daydreamed about what he could do with any house. Then we played strategy games about which house would be better. Now he's killing all of them to get the one that would be best... or trying to, at least. You see? His goals have never changed. But month by month, he gets more like the lords we were planning to contain. He's been worse than them for almost a year, in fact. And as of tonight, he doesn't even listen to me anymore."
"Wow." Valey's face fell. "That's... Bananas."
Starlight bit her lip. "So he doesn't even realize he's being what he was fighting against?"
Gwendolyn winced. "I don't know. I do know the old Gazelle would have wanted you to stop him tonight, too."
"That's why you came to Stormhoof." Valey nodded in understanding. "Holding up your end of that bargain?"
"Keeping our promise." Lyn's tail curled around her paws. "That's what I was doing."
"Bananas." Valey rubbed more mud from her tail, eventually dropping it with a sigh. "Makes me feel kinda sorry for the dude. And happier I punched him. Do you know why he, like... went insane?"
Lyn averted her eyes. "No. I have a lot of ideas. I don't like any of them. Maybe Meltdown had something to do with it. Maybe our parents were special and most sphinxes are the same, and he just grew up. It couldn't have been his strength of character. Even when he was falling, he kept his goals. Years ago, when our parents died, he was the kindest big brother I knew. Or maybe that day just broke him, and he's been falling apart ever since..."
"...Hey." Valey took a breath, glancing over her shoulder at the nearby compound. "You wanna lift back to Grandbell? Or at least to come hang out on our ship for a while? The cold's starting to get to me, and I'd rather rest up there than hang out with Crystal and Chauncey's former goons. They're having a really bad day up there."
Lyn nodded. "That would be acceptable. Thank you."
Valey straightened her back, leading the way across a hill to where the Immortal Dream lay. The moment they reached the deck, Shinespark poked her head out from the bridge. "I'm glad I checked to make sure everyone was aboard before leaving! Where were you!?"
"Taking care of business!" Valey called back, forced to yell to be heard above the rain. "I'll tell you about it once we're in the air, but right now we need some towels!"
Shinespark's eyes widened at the bloody gashes along Valey's side. "What happened...!?"
Shinespark watched them with an open jaw before whisking them down and into the ship. The three were soon standing in the library, stacks of towels floating and sitting nearby.
Valey thankfully grabbed one, using it to bind her barrel like a bandage before taking another to her face. "Any chance we can lift off, Sparky? I really don't wanna be around here any longer than we have to."
Shinespark frowned. "We're ready to go, but are going to have to make some decisions. Between our trip to Mistvale and back, the energy Maple spent on Starlight and that monk, and pushing the ship to get Crystal here quickly, we're... starting to run low on harmonic fire. We have enough to make it back to Ironridge for sure right now, but the longer we stay in the Empire the more likely we are to run out on the way back to refuel. I don't think it's urgent, and we have a few more flights before we have to make the decision for sure, but we should keep it in mind before doing anything frivolous."
"Noted. Ow." Valey nodded, blotting at her shoulders. "Set a course for Grandbell, then? At the very least, we owe it to the princess to give her a ride home. And after that, we'll figure out what we do next."
"Right." Shinespark straightened up. "Everyone else is asleep, so Valey, follow me to the bridge if you want me to dress your wounds while we fly. Will you girls be alright down here by yourselves?" She glanced at the dripping Starlight and Lyn in concern.
"We will," Starlight promised, nodding at the sphinx. "I'll get her anything she needs."
"Cool," Valey groaned, getting up to follow Shinespark back up to the bridge.
When Valey and Shinespark were gone, Starlight was left alone with Gwendolyn in the library. She didn't opt to talk, tending to herself with her towels and drying her face and her fur. A few minutes passed, and she felt the hum of life course through the ship, a pleasant vibration that made the timbers feel slightly more alive. The floor lifted beneath them, the sound of the rain disappeared on the deck above, and they were airborne once more.
Starlight paused, sitting and holding her towel and looking at the roof. The sound of the rain was one thing she did miss, actually, when the ship was active. She didn't have the best relationship with getting rained on, and the memories of being finally safe from it in those early days in Maple's house sat like warm nuggets in her heart.
"I just reminded myself of something. It's nothing." Starlight shook her head.
Lyn shrugged, starting to remove her sodden dress. It was a dark garment with elaborate markings but a simple layout and no ruffles or frills, and had soaked through easily, looking thin and unsuited for cold weather. The thing clung to Lyn's fur as she struggled with it, and after a moment, Starlight asked, "Do you need help with that?"
For a brief moment, the sphinx looked slightly frustrated, then nodded. "Thank you."
Starlight delicately tugged at the dress, using her teeth and hooves and careful not to tear it. With her help, it was soon drying and folded, revealing a cutie mark of a chess king on the filly's exposed flanks. "There?"
Lyn gave her a strange look. "How come you didn't just use your horn?"
"I..." Starlight blinked, suddenly not sure she wanted to tell that she had overused it against Gazelle. "My horn is different from other unicorns'."
Lyn tilted her head. "I saw you using magic on my brother. It looked strong."
Starlight wilted slightly. "It just... only is strong. It isn't good for delicate things."
"Okay." Lyn huffed, leaning back and returning to toweling herself. "You can just say you don't want to talk about it. You don't need to lie to me. I was only curious."
Starlight sighed. "Is it that easy to tell what I'm thinking?"
"Yes. I apologize. I'm good at it." Lyn focused on her towel. "...And my brand tells me when anyone is lying. I don't tell this to everyone, by the way. It's more useful when it's a secret."
"Oh." Starlight folded her ears, recognizing the friendship offering when she saw it. "...My horn is broken. It's strong, but using it hurts me. A little is fine, but too much and I need to let it rest, or else I'll get bad headaches and seriously hurt myself."
"...Oh." Lyn's eyes widened slightly. "So back there..."
"I used more than I should have," Starlight admitted. "I'll be okay. I usually don't use my horn so I'm always at full in case something like that happens. I'll be fine if I just don't use it again for a week."
"A week." Lyn looked at her seriously. "That's... I'm sorry."
Starlight frowned. "Don't be. That's why I made something up. I knew you'd say that, and you had nothing to do with us being in that fight."
"No." Lyn shook her head, somehow regaining some grace despite being plastered with spiky, wet fur. "I mean I'm sorry that you have to live like that. Has it been that way all your life?"
Starlight bit her lip. "I don't know. I didn't use it for anything hard before a few months ago. And earth ponies live their whole lives with no horns, you know. I'm just like an earth pony, only sometimes stronger when I need to be."
Lyn shook her head. "An earth pony who can do everything they're expected to isn't going to be looked at the same as a unicorn who can't use her horn, and won't hurt themselves misusing it, either. I apologize if this isn't something to ask about, though. I know I'm telling you I'm sorry if you're getting unwanted attention for this while... also giving you attention for it."
"It's fine," Starlight reassured. "I'm used to being special. You're just curious. I don't blame you." She went back to toweling herself, starting to feel slightly drier. "You're asking anyway because you want to know if I feel the same as you do, don't you?"
Lyn smiled. "Is it that easy to tell what I'm thinking?"
Starlight blinked, recalling she had said exactly the same thing minutes earlier. "I... guess it is," she said, feeling some of the tension in her shoulders lifting. "You did tell me earlier on the deck that our friend told you we had a lot in common, though. I just remembered that."
"Oh. Right." Lyn folded her ears sheepishly. "You're right, though. It just sounds like you're uncommon, and I thought maybe you would rather not be..."
"I don't know." Starlight fidgeted with her forehooves. "No, there aren't a lot of other ponies who can do what I can. I only know one, and I don't know anything else about her. What I want is to stop needing to use what I can do to keep my friends safe. I do want a normal life, but if all the same things happened to us and I didn't have the power to do anything about it at all, that wouldn't make me happier. You don't want to be a princess?"
"There are a lot of reasons I'd rather be someone else." Lyn nodded. "I could still have my parents, and my brother. That's a big one."
Starlight's ears fell. "Oh."
"Don't worry about it," Lyn offered. "You weren't telling me about your horn to make me feel guilty, and I'm not doing that to you either."
"Okay." Starlight toweled herself again, her used linens slightly lilac from her fur. "I know you're being friendly, by the way. Sorry if I'm not being very warm. I'm not very used to spending time with other ponies my age anymore."
"Also okay," Lyn assured. "I know this is has been a little bit awkward, but... friends?" She offered a paw.
"Sure." Starlight took it, shaking with a slightly soggy hoof.
Lyn smiled. "Thanks. It's good to meet you. And I hope sometime we'll both be feeling in better spirits, and can have a little bit more normal of a conversation."
"That would be nice," Starlight agreed. "I feel like I usually do, though. I fight to protect my friends when they need me. Otherwise, I'm just here."
Lyn's smile slowly evaporated. "Don't you have any hobbies? What do you do to pass the time?"
Starlight shrugged. "Read. Sleep. Practice with Valey. Talk with Maple. Go out in the city if we're landed, or stand on the deck and watch the world go by."
"...You need more things to do than just that," Lyn slowly remarked, concern entering her voice. "I'll tell you what. If you and your friends stay in Grandbell for a while... on my invitation... I'll show you around and let you see all the things there are to do. If you're always doing the same things, no wonder this is your usual. I mean no offense, but you aren't very expressive."
Starlight tilted her head, considering the offer. Really, anywhere that was officially sanctioned as safe enough for a princess was very unlikely to have trouble... She nodded. "If we stay, that would be nice."
"Great." Lyn smiled an encouraged smile. "I think we should rest up for then. Do you have any place that would be better than the cargo bay for me to sleep?"
Starlight nodded, getting to her hooves. "We have an empty room or two. They're back this way..."
"I want to know how you're feeling," Shinespark declared, back to the controls of the Immortal Dream as she tightened a bandage around Valey's barrel and the ship slid smoothly through the storm.
"Physically?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Ow. But I'm used to taking a few hits now and then. I've taken worse."
"I know. I was more talking about your state of mind." Shinespark made a point of checking the bandages, avoiding Valey's eyes. "Seeing as it wasn't even twenty-four hours ago we..."
"Oh yeah. That." Valey grinned slightly. "Honestly? Pretty good, actually. I feel pretty bad for the princess, but there's something to be said for the therapeutic power of completely wrecking someone who's worse than you ever were. Bananas, there's nothing quite like it for getting it through your head that maybe you actually are the good guy. Must have been why I was so upbeat back in Riverfall..."
Shinespark grew a wry smile. "So just like that, all the rest of this night is over? Stormhoof, Lord Gyre, everything else?"
"I mean..." Valey shrugged hard, testing her mobility. "That's what being in the past is for, right? Not like I want to relive this stuff. We're rid of Crystal, rid of Gazelle, I didn't realize Lord Gyre was a problem but we're rid of him too, apparently. I'm just, like... Yeah, maybe it'll come back to bite us, but what can I do about that now? Fighting's over for tonight."
Shinespark squinted at the storm, a gray landscape faintly visible through the rain. "This morning, you mean." She turned back to Valey. "And we both know emotional wounds tend to last a lot longer than events themselves. You were in the thickest of it. We can make sure the rest of our friends are fine later, but right now, I'm talking about you. You're really okay? After all that, so soon after we had our talk and you were..."
"Emotional?" Valey grinned. "Girl, I clubbed Gazelle in the face with the broad end of a spike, ruined his ear forever, and threw a whole lot of mud at him. You get how this works, right?"
"Enlighten me." Shinespark tilted her head with a cautious frown.
Valey waved a hoof. "It goes like this. Someone messes with you, and you can't mess back. That hurts, 'cause it's dumb and unfair and you feel like a powerless ragdoll getting stepped on and abused and booted around. Kinda like Herman, since I mentioned him. But if someone messes with you and you give as good as you get? Then it's even. And if someone messes with you, they started it, so they've got something coming and giving it is extra-satisfying. Gazelle? That guy was a prick. He had been on my nerves for a while. Yeah, getting ran around stank, but getting ran around Stormhoof was worth it for the chance to throw that back in his stupid face." She folded her hooves behind her neck, wincing at the wounds on her shoulders. "Fair's fair. I didn't get cheated. I'm cool."
"So you're really okay," Shinespark sighed. "And feeling good. And not dealing with anything unreasonably heavy at the moment."
Valey sat up and blinked, her grin disappearing in confusion. "What are you getting at, and why is my cutie mark poking me? Am I in trouble?"
Shinespark slapped her.
"Ow..." Valey rubbed at her cheek. "I'm guessing I deserved that, but you're gonna have to enlighten me..."
Shinespark groaned. "Ugh! That's less satisfying when you can see it coming." She turned her back on Valey, staring out at the storm. "That's for messing up my first kiss."
Valey's brow furrowed. "Wait, what?"
Shinespark's ears dropped. "You mean you don't even..." She set her forehead against the control panel. "Of course you don't. I guess you weren't kidding about the old you being back to stay."
"Uhh... Heh heh?" Valey grinned sheepishly. "Look, you forfeited all right to be mad about my behavior when you were egging me on in the cave. I told you that you didn't want it. That's your fault, not mine. But seriously, what did I do about a kiss?"
"You don't even remember," Shinespark sighed, turning back to face her. "You kissed me last thing before running off to Stormhoof? Last night?"
Valey blinked, rubbing the side of her head. "I mean... maybe I did? Sorry. Had kind of an eventful night..."
"Yes," Shinespark said. "You did."
Valey tilted her head. "Look, you know how I am with stuff like this. Might have to explain things step by step here..."
Shinespark marched right up until she was inches from Valey's face. "Why did you have to do that then!? When I couldn't even return... You ran off! You didn't even let me say anything! Why couldn't you have done that while we were waiting for Wallace in the cave, or waited for sometime like now after you were triumphantly back!? Valey..."
Valey blinked. "Oh. Wait, you, uhh... Really?"
"Really what?" Shinespark asked, tense.
Valey folded her ears sheepishly. "I kinda figured you were going to swat me or something and wanted to bail on the aftermath..."
"Valey..." Shinespark narrowed her eyes, taking a step back. "Maybe you forgot the part where I told you months ago I had a crush on you, and why I was doing the hard thing and not acting on any of it at all for your sake? And now you're just going to tease me..."
"Okay, that's it." Valey stepped forward, closing the gap Shinespark had opened. "You wanted this. In the cave. Me to be a little ruder, a little flirtier, a little more Old Valey. You remember that? This is what you wanted. This is what you asked for. I warned you a million and a half times, and now that it's over, you're complaining? Really? Sparky..."
Shinespark winced. "No, I'm...! No, I'm not. I'm sorry." She closed her eyes. "You know that teasing me like this makes me like you, right? It's... frustrating. I knew you were going to do that sometime, and tell me that I asked for this. And I was hoping we could actually talk about what it means, if anything, because..." She sighed. "I know what I told you in the cave, and I know how I'm acting now. I'm not angry angry at you. Very flustered though. I'm sorry."
Valey relaxed, sitting back. "So what, did you want me to kiss you or not? You did, but just wanted me to stick around?"
Shinespark folded her ears. "Yes, but I can't blame you for being a tease. Look, I just... You're frustrating and..."
Valey tapped a hoof. "This is what you wanted."
"It's what I want."
Valey tilted her head.
"You're so dense!" Shinespark growled, grabbing Valey's neck in a hug, avoiding her injuries while hauling her close. "How many times to I have to spell it out for you? I like you, okay!?"
Valey's wings quivered slightly over the binding around her sides. "Yeah, but you said you weren't gonna do anything about it."
Shinespark groaned. "That was months ago. Before this ship was placed outside the Empire's jurisdiction, before we had that talk with each other in the cave, before a lot of things happened. We're closer now, it's safer, my own issues with Grenada have been put to rest, a lot of things have been solved in your life..."
Valey tilted her head. "So... you're waiting for me to do something, here?"
"That depends," Shinespark huffed. "Do you want to do something with me? I like you, and you apparently like me enough to go kissing me on your way out to attack a fortress."
Valey folded her ears. "If you're asking me if I wanna be your marefriend, look, I'm not exactly super knowledgeable on the subject..."
"Stop overthinking things," Shinespark commanded, eyes nearly touching Valey's. "Don't make me spell it out for you. Look at where my face is. Look at where yours is. What's a thing you could do that would be that much easier than fumbling over words?"
"Look, uhh..." Valey's cheeks reddened slightly. "Kissing is slightly less interesting when you're expecting it..."
"And you've probably never tried that before to know what it's like, have you?" Shinespark grinned knowingly.
Valey stuck out her tongue. "Yeah, says you. You're an expert on that."
"I've imagined it!" Shinespark's own cheeks flushed.
"About me?" Valey grinned harder, the tables completely turned.
"Yes! That's the problem!"
Valey winked. "So maybe it's gonna be you who gives up and smooches me first?"
"Valeyyyy..." Shinespark whimpered. "Shut up..."
"And please keep teasing you?" Valey leaned forward, then pulled back at the last minute. "In the cave, that's what you told me you wanted."
Shinespark made a faint strangled noise. "I can't..."
Valey giggled, watching her... and then her face softened. "Yeah, yeah. My mercilessness has a limit. You think it's that great of an idea, here you go."
Rain blew in torrents around the Immortal Dream, the storm showing no sign of exhausting itself. Valey and Shinespark shared the pilot's chair, hooves away from the controls as the ship held its own course, leaning against each other and watching the weather.
"...Thanks," Shinespark said after a long silence.
"For laying off the teasing?" Valey knew she wasn't looking and didn't bother raising an eyebrow. "For snogging you?"
"Just... thank you." Shinespark waited a minute before elaborating. "I don't know how you do it. Going from being terrified of offending any of us to laughing while I'm yelling at you in a single day. It's like you're a completely different pony."
Valey gave a small shrug. "Yeah, so now that that's over, did you actually want me to knock it off? Serious question, here. I still, uhh... still don't want to go too far."
"Yes. But that doesn't mean you should have."
Valey squinted. "I don't get it."
Shinespark sighed. "It's hard for me to explain. Ponies breaking the rules irks me sometimes. Like you, kissing me and running off to the tower. Or just now, when I was trying to get it through your head why you're not supposed to do that, and..." She briefly gritted her teeth, then relaxed. "I don't know why I find it so attractive when you make a mockery of the way I want things to be done. It's intensely frustrating. But it also makes me like you."
"So did I or didn't I go too far?" Valey pressed. "Like, at the end of the day I know you're gonna forgive me if I do. You were pretty clear about that back in the cave, and I'm trusting that you're gonna keep your word. But I also don't wanna strain that if I don't have to."
"Ugh, Valey..." Shinespark groaned. "I have no idea! I hate it, and I also love you because of it. And I stand by what I said in the cave. I missed it while it was gone. Sorry. I wish I could tell you better how my heart works, but I'm new at this. All I know is that if you wanted us to keep pretending I didn't have any feelings for you, yes, you've gone way too far."
"Nyaah." Valey stuck out her tongue. "I mean, you're here, and I'm here, and neither of us are leaving. Sharing a chair meant for one? Doesn't seem like either of us have a problem with it."
"That's good." Shinespark closed her eyes and relaxed. "Now it's your turn. How did you do it? After what we talked about in the caves, I thought..."
Valey shrugged. "Thought there would be baby steps involved? Yeah, I dunno, I kinda did too. But it's like a breaking dam, or something? Everything else that happened tonight probably helped. A whole lot of adrenaline, fighting evil... For half a second there, against Gazelle, I actually had a flashback and it was like I was right there fighting Herman back in Ironridge. You know how I killed that guy?"
"Tell me?"
Valey nodded. "Stabbed him through the heart with an icicle. He deserved it. Anyway, Starlight was making a ton of crystals just now, and I got a big old spike, and was jumping and Gazelle was helpless and... I could have done exactly the same to him. Right through the heart. Lights out. I saw it, and it was like I was right back there... and I deliberately took his ear off instead. Just like that."
Shinespark leaned against her. "And that played into you teasing me just now?"
"I mean, kinda." Valey shrugged again. "Like I said, it felt... really good to completely trounce someone I knew was a bad guy. I actually strolled around and lectured him on it while throwing mud at his face. And I do feel sorta bad for him, especially since his sister says he was once a really nice guy, but he deserved every bit of it." She took a deep breath. "Bananas, I needed that. I needed it more than he did. I got to be the good guy again. Sparky, you get, like... You get what this feels like to me, right? I don't need the Night Mother telling me I'm not predestined for evil spookiness, I need stuff like this. I feel fantastic. So I guess I was just in a good mood."
Shinespark put a hoof around her back, pulling her a little closer. "If that's what it took. I'm so glad you're feeling more like yourself."
"Hey, you helped too." Valey nudged her. "A lot. Being in the mood to dunk on Stormhoof was nice, even though it's probably terrible for them."
"Not to try to undo progress, but..." Shinespark winced. "You feel good for beating Gazelle, but not bad for wiping out that keep?"
"Eh." Valey frowned. "I didn't wipe out Stormhoof. I went to save my foalnapped friend. Anything bad that comes of that is on everyone who set this up. Maybe I had a hoof in it, but I'm not apologizing for looking out for you guys."
Shinespark closed her eyes and held her. "That's the Valey I want to see."
"Yeah..." Valey returned it with a wing around Shinespark's back. "About that, though. I do have some bad news."
Shinespark's ears folded.
Valey took a breath. "Felicity and her sisters set me up. I got played. They staged that whole thing with Gazelle that happened on our ship to get me to wreck the fort for them, and apparently had a band of assassins heading to clean up the rest of the royals now that the tower's standing army is down. I, uh... thought we were good friends, and might have trusted them a little too much, and... yeah."
"They what?" Shinespark's eyes widened slightly in alarm. "When did you find out about this? You didn't have us go back to Stormhoof to help? And Felicity is still on our ship?"
"One thing at a time," Valey urged, trying to calm Shinespark down. "They told me themselves. As for Stormhoof, we weren't far out and could have gone back, but to be frank? I'm not a huge fan of Stormhoof and Everlaste either. Assassinations aren't cool, but as far as I'm concerned, at best for those lords this was bad guys versus bad guys. And when I've taken out Yakyakistan's ambassador myself? I sure had good reason. I'm ticked at Felicity and her sisters really hard, but figured this was a conflict I wanted to stay out of. Those sphinxes sure aren't damsels in distress, or whatever."
Shinespark bit her lip.
"Also there was Crystal," Valey continued. "I didn't really wanna upset her by ordering us to turn the ship around while she was having her kid. She's, uhh... pretty emotionally fragile. Anyway, yes, Felicity and Senescey are still on the ship. They told me their roles in the stuff at Stormhoof, know I don't trust them, and I'm pretty sure they won't try anything while I'm straight up watching..." She sighed. "But I dunno. The one thing I know for sure is that I'm not going to be the only one who vouches for them anymore. You guys trusted my judgement, I trusted them, they blew it for me and by extension I blew it for you. So once everyone's rested, they get to explain themselves to everyone, and we collectively decide what to do."
"Valey..." Shinespark sighed. "Right. We'll do that. Thank you for letting me know."
Valey nodded. "Yeah. I've still got some opinions of my own, but like I said, their fate with us is up to everyone. Not making a call by myself again."
"I don't know how rested everyone will be," Shinespark remarked. "We did just spend all night flying here, but Crystal and last night's drama might have kept some ponies awake. We'll see when we can get everyone together and play it by ear."
"Oh, uhh..." Valey's tail twitched. "I dunno if it matters, but one other thing about Crystal?"
Shinespark perked an ear.
"Her kid was a batpony." Valey slumped slightly. "You know that stuff we heard from her and Chauncey about batponies always breeding true? Her lover boy was a griffon. So I'm really hoping we don't run into her again, but if we do, heads up that she's probably going to be even more unstable."
Shinespark groaned. "She cheated? Hopefully Percival is merciful to her..." She shook her head. "Speaking of batponies, would you like to tell me your plans for the newest prisoner of our pantry?"
Valey blinked hard. "Bananas, I completely forgot about him. I'll, uhhhh... I have absolutely no idea."
Hours later, after Gerardo had awoken and relieved Shinespark of her piloting shift, Valey and Shinespark stepped into the pantry where Nyala waited, patiently shining a light against one wall. The chain that had held her once-empty body now shackled a long-maned stallion, posture slumped. He cringed as Valey entered.
"Start by explaining who this is," Shinespark requested. "Should I have seen him before?"
Valey blinked. "Uhh, yeah? This is Navarre. I told you about my past in Icereach, right? We ran into him in Izvaldi, where he was working for Chauncey?"
Shinespark shook her head. "I don't think I was there."
"Oh boy. Let's see..." Valey rubbed her head. "So, long story, just to make sure I leave nothing out. Last I saw him six years ago, he transferred himself into Nyala's body, which is why she's stuck in moon glass now, and ran off and left me with her glass. Somehow Chauncey found him, got him working for him, and then when we got down there to go bust stuff up or whatever, Chauncey was like 'Wait, you want this guy's body?' and zapped him with Stanza, which removed his cutie mark and gave us Nyala's body. I'm sure I told you that. And now he's here because... uhh..." She reddened slightly, glancing away in embarrassment.
Navarre folded his ears in fear. Shinespark slowly nodded.
Valey took a deep breath. "I kinda maybe had Felicity checking out Crystal since she nobody had made sure she was okay after we got blown up in Izvaldi, and she was all 'Hey, this mare has multiple cutie marks,' and I was kinda impulsive and wondered if touching her with Nyala's body would do anything, and figured if it was bad we could just moon glass her empty again... and guess who showed up."
Shinespark watched Navarre with a slightly open mouth. "That was probably impulsive, yes," she agreed. "So now what? If he's evil, do we seal him in moon glass again?"
"Well, we could." Valey slowly nodded. "Most of our glass is filled, but we are carrying around that piece Puddles' cutie mark was stuck in. Would be kind of fitting to stick him in there when he was the one who put her in it in the first place. I guess I could go get that? Like, nobody here wants to deal with him, right?"
Navarre bowed his head.
"Sister, wait," Nyala asked, sitting on a barrel with her light keeping Navarre captive. "He might not have his memories from before he took my body, but he does remember the work he did for Chauncey. I've been talking to him while we were flying, and he was trying to help me get my body back."
"Wait, really?" Valey blinked and tilted her head, glancing at Navarre. "What's all this about?"
Navarre cringed. "He's very afraid of you," Nyala quietly added. "But he's not the same pony you once knew."
"Okay, buddy." Valey sat down, not advancing any closer but keeping her eyes on Navarre. "You have my curiosity. She says you wanna help us?"
"If you are going to dispatch me, please make it merciful," Navarre whispered. "I have heard of my wrongs against you. But if you grant me a lease on life, I will serve you and try to right my wrongs against you and your sister."
Valey raised an eyebrow at Shinespark. "Any opinions?"
Shinespark stared him in the eye. "We're not interested in torture or drawn-out revenge. What are you afraid of, and what are you offering? We aren't short on resources, but we're very tired of being betrayed."
"Luna's Artifice." Navarre raised a hoof, pointing it at Valey. "In my past life, I located and awakened her from obsidian, and my own awakening in this body found me at the mercy of her wrathful hooves. I lived for six years without understanding of why or what I had done to her, until we met again in Izvaldi, seconds before my undoing. Less than a day ago, to me..." His ears fell. "I knew nothing of the significance of the body I inhabit, nor why you had reawakened me now, until Nyala explained. The Artifice is a wrathful result of my past life's hubris, and-"
"Okay, real quick?" Valey butted in with a frown. "Stop calling me that. My name is Valey. I know who my cutie mark came from, and I am still a pony in spite of it. You're gonna get a lot fewer wrathful results if you treat me like one. And stop talking about me like I'm not here, too."
Navarre cringed, nodded and continued. "Chauncey discovered me after I gained this body and confined me to Izvaldi in hopes that I could recreate my past work in brand transference. To this day, none remain who know the procedure that was used to pull you from the obsidian and place you in a body, Valey, nor does anyone know how we determined that your obsidian held an Artifice, or even whether we were looking for such a creation. Were that procedure to be rediscovered, you could sacrifice me and restore your sister to her body instantly. It is a fate I would happily meet with, knowing that some of my sins could be undone."
Valey rubbed the back of her neck. "Bananas, the old Navarre was nowhere near this wimpy. Better than cackling mad, I guess. Sparky, any thoughts?"
Shinespark slowly frowned. "You want us to let you experiment for the sake of helping Nyala. Would these experiments involve the same things you were doing in Izvaldi? Using mothers to transfer obsidian brands to foals, or Puddles and Stanza?"
Navarre bowed his head. "Everything would be by your leave. Will it, and I will test no more, staying in chains and giving freely what I have already learned, in hopes that you could build on the acts I committed to learn it and obtain knowledge worth obtaining. Puddles and Stanza I can no longer work with, and while transference using mothers is a proven step in the right direction, it was not likely involved in my creation of Valey."
"Staying locked up and just telling us what you know already?" Valey nodded in interest. "You know, I think I've learned enough stuff I didn't want to know about what I am already to be cool with that. Probably not a lot worse you can tell me. Maybe we could play it by ear later, but Sparky?"
Shinespark hummed in thought. "You might not have had ethical considerations for what you did under Chauncey, but we do. I wouldn't be opposed to hearing knowledge you already have acquired. You have my word that we will act in good faith and not bring you undue discomfort or harm, provided you do the same and don't attempt to sabotage us or escape and notwithstanding any decision we make to seal you in obsidian."
Navarre bowed. "You are merciful. I will enlighten you as best as I am able."
"...Uh huh." Valey bit her lip. "Yeah, we'll do that. Nyala, are you okay in here watching him a while longer? I wanna maybe get someone set up on shifts for guarding him, until we can verify for sure he's trustworthy..."
"Don't worry," Nyala assured. "I've been talking with him a lot already. I won't get bored!"
Valey glanced back one more time, then strolled into the kitchen with Shinespark. "So," she said once the door was closed. "You think he's a fraud?"
"I can't say," Shinespark answered, leaning thoughtfully against a counter. "It is true that they somehow put you together from an empty batpony body and a piece of moon glass. However that works, he did figure it out. My concerns are more about his intentions than whether the problem he's working on is possible."
"Yeah, but here's the thing." Valey met her eyes. "Suppose he's selfless and really does care about atoning and is somehow a nice guy. That means he'd be legitimately trying to help. Suppose he's a selfish pig who just wants to save his own skin. Helping us is a way for him to get us to delay soul-sucking him, so he'd also want to try to help. The only way he's going to bite us in the back is if he somehow wants to screw us over enough to be willing to die for it. Now, there's a few things that don't line up with his story. Specifically, I'd love to know how and why he stuffed a windigo in Puddles prior to meeting Chauncey. But... eh, maybe I'm getting played again, but he didn't scream evil martyr to me, you know? Wasn't getting any danger, either. He wasn't even thinking about fighting me."
"Well, that's good to know." Shinespark nodded, glancing at the door to the dining hall. "Either way, I think he'll wait a day or two. Let's have that group discussion about Felicity and her sisters first, and then see what things look like for our next course of action before worrying too much about him. We're heading for Grandbell now, and I don't know how long we'll want to stay there."
Valey stretched. "Well, Gazelle's sister seems friendly enough. She's just a kid, but she's, like, actually nice. Feels bad that we had to beat up her brother, not bad that we beat him up in the first place. I dunno how much control she has there, but she could make a nice host."
"You think?" Shinespark's ears perked slightly. "I need to meet her myself. While we're discussing this, is there anything else we need to do?"
Valey rubbed an ear. "Eh... I should probably check on Ironflanks and Starlight. See how they're doing. Maple especially. I bet she just hid under a pillow the whole night long, and can't blame her. This night must have been really rough for her..."
"It wouldn't hurt to check on the entire crew," Shinespark agreed. "Having Senescey and Lord Gyre die here could have been shocking to anyone. I'm still shaken from it myself, but I'm used to coping with things like this. Shall we see who's awake and see if we can't get started?"
"Yeah... Nyaah." Valey stretched hard and yawned, wincing from her wounds. "It's gotta be at least midday. Let's go see who's about."
Starlight sat at the edge of her bed, Maple behind her with her hooves wrapped around her, and Amber further back, snoring away. Her ears gently twitched with the harmonic hum of the ship, contentedly warm after being drenched by the rain.
Maple finished fixing her mane for the third time that morning and lay down, taking Starlight with her with a hum and a sigh. "Ohhh..."
"Are you alright?" Starlight murmured. "You're holding kind of tightly."
Maple folded her ears and loosened her grip. "Sorry. I will be. Just not my favorite night in the world."
"It's okay," Starlight insisted. "Me and Valey took care of everything. Crystal is gone, and Gazelle hopefully won't be bothering us again. And I think I made friends with his sister, and she wants to get us out of any trouble from all this."
"Oh, Starlight..." Maple nuzzled her. "You know that's not how it's supposed to work, right? Parents should take care of their children, not the other way around. And all I could do was curl into a ball all night long. I can tell you were using your horn."
"I'm fine! I just did what I could to contribute," Starlight protested, wriggling slightly. "I didn't hurt myself too bad. My horn will be fine in a few days."
Maple kept holding her, but went limper. "And either I didn't do what I could to contribute, or there was nothing I could do. I've watched you training with Valey, but I never thought you would actually go fight someone with her. It's..." She took a deep breath and sighed.
Starlight frowned. "If you're feeling worthless, stop. I love you and need you."
Maple got a shoulder beneath her, smiling regretfully. "No, not worthless. Just normal. And normal mares have houses and friends and settle down and work jobs doing what they love, and... don't fight princes or weigh in in the fate of continents. I remember when you would have sat down and not lifted a hoof against him because you didn't want to be special, and now I don't know how to keep up."
"Oh." Starlight folded her ears, sliding slightly more into Maple's embrace. "I want that too, though. But I had to help Valey. If I didn't, she would have gotten hurt worse, and if she didn't fight either, someone other than either of us would have had to stop Gazelle. Or maybe no one would have, and more ponies would have gotten hurt."
"I know. But I don't know how to get there." Maple sighed. "All I could do last night was hide under my pillow. I should be the one out there keeping you safe and trying to get us to a place where we want to live the rest of our lives, and... it was too much. Ponies were dying, fighting, making critical decisions, Crystal was in labor, and I just... It was more than I could take. I should have been helping so you didn't need to..."
"I didn't do anything during most of that either..." Starlight folded her ears. "I didn't help with Stormhoof, or with Crystal, or with everyone fighting. Maybe I could have frozen everyone, but it sounded like by the time everything started, it was already too late. The only thing I did was go stand watch with Valey and hear when we needed to go fight Gazelle."
"Still, everyone else-"
"Everyone who?" Starlight turned in Maple's grip to face her. "Valey went to Stormhoof because that's what she does. Harshwater and Amber helped Crystal because they've done that before. Everyone else sat around and did nothing too. You're good at other things, like cooking when we're doing the restaurant. You think me or Valey could do a good job with that?"
Maple smiled. "I guess you're right. Still, I wish you didn't need to be the one protecting me."
"That's the world's fault," Starlight firmly decided. "Not yours or mine."
Behind them, Amber loudly snuffled, rubbing her face. "I had better not hear anyone moping..."
Maple turned to check her. "You're awake?"
"Unnngh." Amber tried to remove her messy mane from her eyes. "Because if anyone has a right to complain, it's me. I think I just pulled an all-nighter attending to the world's neediest, grouchiest, most impatient mare for who knows how many hours without breaks. I hope no one would ever think of being jealous of my chance to contribute..."
Maple almost giggled. "You really wouldn't have wanted someone to even take shifts with?"
"Nope." Amber blearily punched her shoulder. "If I had tried to take a nap last night, I would have decided not to wake for anything. And we had it covered. Trust me, Maple. Playing midwife for Crystal was miserable. Glad to spare you of it."
"It was that bad?" Starlight tilted her head. "I heard yelling..."
Amber instantly shushed her. "Yeah, this isn't a talk for fillies. Ugh, thank everything last night is over. However late I slept isn't late enough..."
Maple took another breath and sighed. "It sounds like it is over. After you went to sleep, Gazelle did something and Starlight and Valey had to fight him. Starlight says they beat him badly, so hopefully this is the last we've seen of him."
"Mmph," Amber agreed. "So now what are we doing?"
Starlight coughed. "Flying to Grandbell, I think. We'll decide what to do once we get-"
A soft knock sounded on the door. "Hey, sounds like you guys are awake in there?" Valey's voice called.
"Barely!" Amber groaned in reply.
"Sweet!" Valey slid the door open. "Think this would be the world's most awful time for a meeting? We've got some stuff for everyone to think about."
"Maybe...?" Amber raised an eyebrow. "If it requires brain capacity above ten percent, I'm going to need a big snack and then another two or three hours of sleep at minimum."
Valey rolled her eyes, clad in bandages around her barrel and shoulders. "Yeah, figured that would be the case. Ironflanks, care to help me with room service? Harshwater probably wants the same thing..."
"Yes." Maple rolled herself upright, letting go of Starlight and rising to her hooves. "I would love to help. It's about time I got out of bed and did something for all of you..." She gave Valey a light hug as she passed, mindful of her injuries. "Starlight, are you coming too?"
Starlight blinked, not sure what she was doing as Amber curled back up in the bed. "I... might. I'll catch up?"
Maple nodded, spirits lifted, and trotted away with Valey down the corridor.
Starlight stretched once her mother was gone, following at a more leisurely pace. She felt like looking out a window, more than anything. Or finding a new book. Shinespark's library was heavy on technical treatises and nonfiction, and over the months they had spent voyaging, she had exhausted every single interesting story it had to offer, and too many uninteresting ones. She glanced at Sosa the Explorer's journal, knowing instinctively where it was kept, and stopped in the middle of the library. This was where everyone would have been when Lord Gyre showed up...
"Heavy thoughts?" Glimmer asked, stepping up behind her.
"Oh. Hi," Starlight greeted. "Were you listening?"
"To you talking with Maple? Sort of." Glimmer shrugged. "Just some food for thought I had. You have plentiful money after everything you've done with the restaurant. If you went to the countryside, away from any of the capitols of the Empire, bought a large house, parked this ship and all settled in to live there, how do you think it would go?"
Starlight bit her lip. "Probably about as well as everything else we've tried? If we settle down, the next bad thing is going to sneak up on us and we won't be prepared."
"Sneak up harder than Lord Gyre did?" Glimmer tilted her head. "Half of the Empire's population lives like this. But what would you do if you were living like that and heard your province's lord was doing something bad, and you could go to the capitol to try and make them stop?"
Starlight frowned. "Well, that's not even a what-if. It feels like all the lords are doing bad things all the time! So we'd have to stop them, or else we wouldn't be able to live in peace."
Glimmer nodded. "But do you think they've done anything so bad, the part of the Empire's population that lives like that doesn't exist? If you acted, it could improve your lives and those of many others. But if you didn't, you would likely keep on living where you were."
"So?" Starlight bit her lip. "Where are you going with this?"
"I just felt like pointing something out," Glimmer sighed. "When you said earlier it would be the world's fault if trouble came to you? What about when you come to trouble? There might be consequences either way, but it's still your choice."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "This is you telling me I shouldn't try to make the world I live in be perfect again, isn't it?"
"When has my message ever been different?" Glimmer shrugged. "Nothing that exists is perfect. A sad truth, but we can learn from it and direct our energies where they will make the most difference. If your aim is to fix everything wrong with the world, you'll exhaust yourself and never find peace. But there is a certain beauty in some days being better than others. Learning to live in a world that is less than absolute is a goal that will bring you a lot more happiness in the end."
"I'm not trying to make a perfect world, though!" Starlight growled. "I don't need every little detail to be perfect! I just want us to stop getting attacked by lords and scientists and be able to be happy in peace!"
"Are you being attacked by them?" Glimmer tilted her head. "Or are you and your friends striking them first because what they're doing is wrong? Who made you leave this ship earlier when you heard Crystal and Gazelle in the storm?"
Starlight winced. "But something bad was obviously happening..."
"It was." Glimmer nodded. "And you intervened. The victim was likely quite grateful. It was still your choice. Not the world's. Not fate."
Starlight wilted.
"The same goes for Valey attacking Stormhoof Keep." Glimmer turned away, heading for the hallway again. "You have the power to make a tremendous difference in the world, and you've been using it for good. But the way you're doing it hasn't been making you happy, has it?"
"I..." Starlight looked down.
"...It's okay." Glimmer returned, walking back and gently hugging her. "Like I said. Just some food for thought."
"Alright," Valey declared, stepping into the dining hall. "We got some stuff to discuss."
The entire crew sans Nyala and Jamjars was present, arranged around the ship's table with Valey and Shinespark at one end and Felicity and Senescey at the other. Amber and Harshwater sipped from mugs with baggy eyes and unbrushed manes, and Felicity didn't look much better, though she had made an effort on her appearance.
"It would be best if you two explained that yourselves," Shinespark answered, hooves folded on the table. "We're going to do this fairly."
Senescey's ears fell, and Felicity nodded. "Right. We... have a confession to make, everyone. Everything that happened last night involving us and Prince Gazelle on this ship was staged. We planned it. Most everything went as we had designed."
The table was quiet for a moment while reactions sunk in. Eventually, sleep forgotten, Amber leaned forward with wide eyes and asked, "Why?"
"I second this," Gerardo added. "I've met a good share of actresses in my time, and if that was a display, the amount of effort required to produce it wouldn't be made for idle whims."
Senescey squared her shoulders. "There were two reasons. One was for revenge on Gyre, Stormhoof, Izvaldi and Everlaste... all the provinces that ruined our lives. The second was that we were working with Gazelle because our goals were compatible and we needed each other's help, and he had as much input into the way things were done as we did. It would have been easy for any of us to sneak into Stormhoof with the lights out and simply assassinate the lords we didn't like, but he wanted a spectacle, and we weren't opposed to making our enemies really feel their defeat."
Maple's eyes squeezed shut. "I don't like being betrayed like this, you know."
Shinespark cleared her throat. "There are going to be hurt feelings, but before we get too far into airing grievances, I want to know: what are your intentions toward us now?"
"Nothing hostile," Felicity promised. "You have a nice crew, and we've never wished to harm you. We like the way you do things, and in a better world, wish we could have been genuine friends. Unfortunately for that hope, our desire for revenge burned brighter. Now that we have it, yet have also slashed bridges with you, we're... adrift, as it were. We have no real further plans. We also aren't evil and still wish you no harm, which is why we decided to confess and apologize instead of putting up a charade or slinking off into the night."
Gerardo nodded. "You wish us no harm, yet you shook all of us by staging a murder and faking another on board our ship, which, if I'm understanding correctly, was all for the sake of making Valey cause a scene in Stormhoof for you. Why her? Surely there were a multitude of ways you could have settled your own scores without drawing us in."
"It's not fair to blame that on Gazelle, when we were complicit," Senescey replied. "But it was his idea. We warned him you weren't someone to make enemies with. The reasoning was that Valey could make the biggest splash and catch the most attention, because she had done this before. Since we had never let her in on our plans, she could have honest motives, as well. As what happens comes to better light, we hoped that some of the public would sympathize with why she invaded."
"Creating a controversy, were you?" Gerardo folded his talons in interest. "Why does this remind me of Chauncey and his musical events with the Firefly Sisters? You want to divide the public and force them to fight amongst themselves? Those against sarosians versus the ones in favor of saving your friends from a corrupt lord..."
Felicity tilted an ear. "Chauncey and the Firefly Sisters? I'm aware of much of that, but don't believe there's any relation. Not on our end, at least. What we wanted was for the public to watch and care. Revenge isn't just about killing. It's about tarnishing legacy and reputation, sending someone down in history as infamous for generation upon generation to remember, like the legends of Giovanni Goldfeather. Did we want Lord Everlaste dead? Yes, but what we truly wanted was for him to be the sphinx whose blunders made a mockery of the most fortified location on the coast's defenses. If he fired and imprisoned me, everything that happened in response to my removal would be on him. At least, that's how it was going to work in theory."
Amber slowly whistled. "You were in charge of watching the underground to make sure there were no covert plots, right? For batponies to get in through the darkness, like how Valey got in the first time? So you sent in assassins to kill the sphinxes as well, but wanted to make it look like both that and Valey were the sphinxes' faults? Wow."
Felicity smiled regretfully. "It's a little more devious than that, darling. Yes, we did have a completely unrelated team of friends heading in on Valey's heels to take out the royals in the ensuing chaos, but none of them were sarosians. We took special care to arrange that, to drive home the point that they walked straight through the castle's fallen defenses, and it could have been prevented were their standing army not down for the count."
"You put a lot of thought into ruining and destabilizing a government," Harshwater remarked, sipping from her mug. "Did you put equal effort into considering what would happen to the provinces in your wake? There isn't an infinite supply of sphinxes lined up to fill in if you destroy the royal families, and the one there is seems even less stable than the ones you were fighting. I've toured in Varsidel for years with my company. I've seen what happens when you weaken a nation so much that lawlessness and banditry take over and all the resources that would have gone to stop them are either vanished or used for war. You say you're not evil, but have you considered the equine cost of everything you claim as your goals?"
Felicity sighed. "A pity revenge is not an easier desire to control."
For a moment, everyone frowned. "So... that's it?" Valey put a hoof on the table. "Really? If it had been easier, would you have been straight with us and we could have been friends for real?" She shook her head. "I don't buy that. You're enough of an actress to fool all of us and make us think you were really in distress. You had me strung along. Bananas, what about your cutie mark? And you're telling us you plotted out a betrayal weeks in advance because your emotions got the best of you?"
"I-I..." Felicity cringed, her voice lowering. "Yes. You don't know what it was like."
"What's all this about her brand?" Gerardo asked, raising an eyebrow in interest. "It does something of which we should be aware?"
"Uh, yeah." Valey pointed a hoof at Felicity. "Explain that real quick."
Felicity nodded, standing up and showing her cutie mark to the table. "Of course. My brand allows me to influence the intensity of emotions in a radius around me. I can turn it on and control how heavy the effect, and from there it effects everyone equally. If you know about it and have had it demonstrated while you're paying attention, the effects are noticeable, but otherwise most never even realize there's something going on."
Shinespark drew a slight breath. "How often have you been using this on us?"
"Occasionally, but never for deceptive purposes." Felicity nodded at Valey. "I showed her early on. She can likely attest to this. I mostly use its calming side to defuse tensions, like yesterday around Crystal. The intensifying side is for special situations only, and I don't use that often."
Amber hummed. "So how do we know you're not using it now, to make us chill out and go easier on you?"
"She isn't," Valey interrupted. "I can tell when she is. But this is probably a good time for all of you to learn that too? Felicity, make everyone chill."
Felicity bit her lip. "As you wish, darling."
Her aura spread across the room, and most of the table blinked in thought. "You're right," Maple whispered. "I can feel something..."
"This is weird," Slipstream remarked, folding her ears.
"There. You can all feel it?" Felicity waited several seconds longer, then dropped her aura. "That's what I can do. If you know what it feels like, you still feel the effects, but will be aware of them. I promise that I have and will only use it either on request, with warning, or for the benefit of everyone involved."
"As far as I know, that's how it works," Valey confirmed. "Now then, back to my question. We're really supposed to buy that you can do everything you've done, but did it because you couldn't control your desire for revenge? Not the most consistent of emotional control, there."
Felicity nodded. "And as I said, our situation..." She took a deep breath. "You don't know what it was like. And if you're about to ask us to explain, I'm going to have to request that the children leave the room."
Maple gave a concerned glance at Starlight. "Is there any way we can get a version that doesn't require that?" Shinespark asked.
Senescey sighed. "It doesn't matter. Our story is just a story, and you've heard enough of it already to judge us. Felicity grew up with our mother in Gyre, and Larceny and myself were born there. We moved to Izvaldi, where our mother died and the three of us lived for months on contaminated drinking water."
"Right," Felicity added. "Us trying to reiterate and show you our pain would be more a testimony to our storytelling skills than our motives, regardless. The point is, yes, revenge was our priority. It is... what we cared most about. You can say whatever you like about our character for that, but it is how things were."
Valey groaned. "You know, you're doing a real good job of being pitiable and a real bad job at the same time..."
"What would you have us do?" Felicity lifted an eyebrow. "Maintain innocence? Provide some compelling story about how our hooves were forced? Going back in time and not having done it isn't an option, and even if it were, I'm not so sure we would. We do regret how things went down heavily, but we had a long time to consider our options and come to a decision, and we did it with full knowledge of every consequence involved."
"And you're remorseful, but not remorseful enough to have chosen Valey and her friends in the first place." Harshwater sipped again from her mug. "That's not a level of commitment or apology that are doing you any favors."
Felicity's eyes turned down. "Well, we never claimed to be good ponies, either. We thought that honesty would be the best route forward, the present being what it is. Yes, we had bigger priorities that were at odds with maintaining the best possible relations with you. Now we don't. As I said, I'm sorry things are this way, but we're working with what we have."
"And you're asking our forgiveness?" Shinespark asked. "I think the question everyone is dancing around is what will happen if we continue to associate with you, and you have a conflict of interest again."
"As she said, we don't have any other priorities," Senescey said. "I don't know what would happen if that changed, but this was a goal we had been building toward all our lives. Nothing like this would happen again lightly, or quickly."
Valey nodded. "I'm less worried about how fast it would happen and more whether you'd keep us looped in on the way. You realize how differently this could have gone if you told us what you were planning ahead of time and asked us to go along with it? Skipped the whole thing with Lord Gyre on our ship?"
"Yes," Felicity admitted. "It could have ended with you talking us out of it. Most likely would have, in fact, and we were... scared by the prospect of our lives' work ending in nothing when we were poised upon success."
"That's some backwards logic you've got there," Gerardo remarked, pointing a talon. "If we convinced you some route of action was better and you took it, wouldn't you still have done what you believed was best? If you were persuaded to believe in something more valuable than the whole of your lives' work, that would be a win for you if you were able to have it."
Felicity frowned. "As I said, we were... scared."
"As you said," Gerardo agreed. "Perhaps a change of topic, then? One other thing that's been on my mind is that if you really staged all of this, however did you get Lord Gyre to obediently play his part?"
Senescey sighed. "That's a bit of a longer story..."
"So you want to know about Lord Gyre," Felicity sighed. "And... how we were able to account for him coming in and making a demand that would make it logical for us to escalate things to the point where we killed him. That's..." She turned to Senescey, then back to everyone else. "Are you really sure? I know we're at your hooves right now, but it's not the most comfortable story."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "I appreciate the thought, but I've learned my lesson about what happens when I tell you I don't wanna know. Spill it."
Felicity evenly met her stare, shoring herself up and not flinching. "We've explained to you on some level how Mistvale Monk arts work, yes? Through physical contact, we send... emotional impulses that can cause reactions in your body on a subconscious or unintended level, from imparting an urge to flee to causing your muscles to freeze. Everything we do is short term and immediate, and the higher-level functions we try to utilize, the more able a strong-willed target is to fight back. I could force your shoulder to itch and there's nothing you could do to fight it, but if I tried to make you walk through that doorway, all you would have to do is overcome the willpower I can put into the desire with your own."
"Short term and immediate." Shinespark nodded. "But this is relevant to Lord Gyre intruding on our ship?"
"It is," Felicity replied. "You see, one common trait of Mistvale Monks is that they rarely fight the same opponent twice. You subdue or pacify, and then either eliminate or escape. In Mistvale, fights are rare, and in Gyre it's dangerous to leave your enemies alive. And almost no one has seen the effects of subjecting the same pony to the same art by the same artist repeatedly over a length of time."
Everyone squinted, tilting their heads and listening.
"I, now, am not like most monks," Felicity continued. "I learned arts as a tool and a form of self-defense, but especially after my time in Izvaldi have never had the constitution for battling. So, I use them for other things. In combination with my brand's useful ability to amplify emotions, I can..." She glanced at Starlight and hesitated. "I can attract some recurring customers, if you know what I mean."
The other ponies glanced around the table with varying degrees of discomfort, Maple putting her hooves over Starlight's ears. Starlight blinked. "What?"
"That's very unscrupulous of you," Gerardo commented. "And no, I'm not interested in a lecture on how it was necessary. I'm sure you have your reasons. If I'm not mistaken, you're about to tell us this had some unintended consequence on Lord Gyre."
"Perceptive, aren't you?" Senescey sighed. "Yes, it did."
Felicity nodded. "We worked for him for quite a few years, mostly in the business of defrauding him and using Gyre's money to finance our own exploits. Pampering him into giving lavish gifts, and the like. And before you ask, if we hadn't, someone else would have. That money was never destined for his people. Over the course of time, however, I began to notice a change in the way Lord Gyre's magic reacted to repeated exposure to my arts. I had seen the beginnings of it in other interactions before, but it was like his body grew addicted to my emotional tweaking. He became more susceptible, and the effects were more compelling and lasted longer. It was like he wanted to be under my control."
Shinespark's brow creased in concern. Felicity cleared her throat and continued. "We never told Gazelle about this. As far as he knows, we goaded him into it using conventional suggestions and trickery. We never told the Night Mother either, and in fact don't know if she knows this is possible... though knowing her, it's likely a closely-guarded secret."
"Do you mean to tell us you somehow gave him the desire to intrude on our ship?" Gerardo leaned closer. "A tale that stretches the imagination..."
"Yes, it surprised us, too," Felicity admitted. "As time continued to pass and Lord Gyre grew more and more attached to me, we started pressing and experimenting with what we could do. I could give him more complex desires that stayed subconscious, and the more I plied him with my arts, the longer the desires would last and the stronger they would become. Less than a month ago, we reached a point where I didn't even have to touch him to influence his thinking, though we had to be nearby and the effect was much more subtle."
Valey gaped. "You mean... bananas, you can mind control people?"
"Not easily." Felicity nodded. "But yes. We blundered our way into it over a decade of service. It was something we tried to avoid using excessively, so as not to draw attention to any odd behavior. But, we did."
"That's all very fascinating," Gerardo remarked, shifting in his seat. "But if he was truly so firmly in your grasp, why kill off such a powerful puppet? Surely you had a lot to gain from leaving someone like that alive."
Senescey coughed. "We killed him for two reasons. The first is that Gazelle wanted us to, and we weren't about to defend him or go against the plan. We still hated Gyre, the province and the lord. The second is that we were scared this would be discovered."
"You have to understand, darlings," Felicity insisted, "the only reason we're telling you this at all is because the only sarosian among your party doesn't know Mistvale arts, and even if we may be morally gray, I have enough faith in Valey's character to know she would never use this knowledge for evil. The effects on the world as a whole if it became known sarosians could do this would be disastrous. The existence of Mistvale arts frightens much of the Empire enough already. If the public suspected we could influence and control their decisions merely through prolonged use of these arts? And imagine those of us who would actually do it. My affairs with Lord Gyre were a single case, and had accidental results. What if someone found a way to turn someone faster? What if it works with arts that seemingly have no outward effects whatsoever? And even if it didn't, what if the public suspected it did?"
"It would destroy everything." Senescey shook her head. "Any hope sarosians have of peace in the Empire. It could start a war. We killed Lord Gyre because we realized what we had and that it had to be destroyed."
Shinespark worked her jaw.
"Welp." Valey folded her forelegs on the table. "That's creepy. I guess you guys really do have something you cared about more than revenge, after all."
"We told you, we're not evil," Senescey insisted. "Less than good, but we didn't want this."
Felicity nodded. "The good of sarosiankind? If we can spare others the hardship we went through, that resonates with us. And we certainly don't want to make things worse for our kind. As we mentioned earlier, we chose a team of assassins to follow Valey into Stormhoof that had no sarosians for a reason."
Gerardo leaned back in his chair. "Well, I must admit I'm curious to hear more about this. If all that is true, at least you have some character. But it sounds like we're back at the same old question of what to do with you."
"We make neither threats nor promises," Felicity sighed. "We wish you well. No matter how this ends, we're loathe to hurt you again. And we have no expectations of your trust. What we did pains us, but we did it knowing it would. We are sorry."
Valey leaned forward. "What I wanna know is why you don't seem to get it. 'Yeah, I hurt you, and I'm sorry but I'd do it again'? What do you want from us? Forgiveness? Acceptance of your apology? Do you not want it enough to show some real remorse? Because you're doing a pretty terrible job of asking. Friends let friends mess up, but that involves them owning up to their mistakes, and this is like the third time now you've said you wouldn't do anything different."
"Apologies for that as well." Felicity gave a crooked smile. "I know the way you're feeling, but please look at it from our point. We were dishonest tricksters with you. Honesty, even if our thoughts are still broken and inadmirable, is the most meaningful thing we have to offer you. If we lied and said we wish we had done things differently, would it show we had learned at all?"
"Well..." Valey bit her cheek. "I mean, kind of? Yeah, thanks for being honest, but it's still like you're not even making an effort for us, so why should we make one for you? Maybe you really feel that way, but have you tried changing how you feel?"
"If only it were that simple." Felicity's face fell. "On that, I truly agree, and wish things could have been different with all my heart. Far worse to avenge our fates than for them never to have befallen us in the first place. Perhaps we could have been better ponies, like you."
"You know you can change, right?" Valey stood up. "Bananas, like I did? Whatever happened to looking at me and thinking there might have been a way to live with the stuff that had happened to you without spending your lives helping Gazelle and the Night Mother and getting revenge? Was that a lie too? Whatever even happened to that promise in the first place? Are you still getting your wish from her, now that you finished out your job?"
Felicity wilted. "No, that... wasn't a lie. And I hope you're right, because we now have the rest of our lives to figure out what to do with."
"Yeah? And what do you want to do with them?" Valey stepped onto the table. "Does growing old alone sound fun? Knowing only yourselves for the rest of your days? Because lemme tell you, life is a whole lot more interesting when you have friends."
Felicity lowered her eyes. "And I believe you. With luck, perhaps we'll be able to find another group to start fresh with."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Say that again."
"I... what?" Felicity blinked, looking up. "I hoped maybe we would get to put your advice to use in the future. Now that we've had our revenge, perhaps... perhaps we really could make friends to put first. Someday. Isn't that what you hoped for us?"
Valey stepped forward. "Really?" she asked, striding down the length of the table. "How are you so dense? You're expert manipulators, and you have no idea how this works?" She stopped at the end, standing right before Felicity and Senescey, towering over them. "We. Are. Offering you another chance. We haven't thrown you out yet, you're still here, and you still have time to convince everyone here that maybe you can change and are worth changing and might learn your lesson and not do dumb stuff like last night again, and you're going, 'Oh well, maybe next time'!? What are we!?"
"I..." Felicity swallowed, stammering.
"You don't get it," Valey sighed. "You idiots. Bananas, what does it take to show you? You don't get how much better your lives could be, and you're too scared or stubborn or shortsighted or whatever to take a leap of faith and find yourselves somewhere a million times better like I did! Look at them. Look at them!" She swept a wing around the table. "Does anyone here look bored out of their mind by the mere prospect of being around you? Do they loath you and despise you and want to see Gazelle use your heads as playthings? Pfft. No. Yeah, maybe they're a little frustrated, and with the amount of garbage we've been through as a team, that has more to do with the way you're handling this now than that stunt you pulled with Stormhoof."
Felicity and Senescey were left blinking. "She's right," Starlight added.
"Well, that's certainly one way to throw down the gauntlet," Gerardo announced, nodding at Valey. "I imagine everyone will need some time to think things over after that?"
The two sisters glanced at each other, and Valey sighed. "If you wanna make a step in the right direction, do what he said and think things over. Like, actually put some thought into it. Give us a drop of consideration. Bananas, I..." She rubbed her face. "Ugh. I said there was going to be no more me vouching for you, because you tricked me and my judgement is compromised, but I really wanna see you two do better." She fixed Felicity and Senescey again with another look. "So maybe you were rude to us and are having an awful time showing remorse. Maybe you manipulated me into doing it, or something, but I still care about you. It's... frustrating, and the fact that you are doing the opposite of pouncing on it makes me wonder if it's really genuine. Please, please look at yourselves, try to find some remorse, and give us anything to make us feel like you aren't completely hopeless."
"...That's quite the speech," Felicity whispered, putting a hoof to her heart. "We will... give you thought. And we're sorry we weren't better."
Valey groaned, looking to everyone else. "Am I too invested in this? Be honest, here."
Amber bit her lip. "I wouldn't want to fault you for caring, and you definitely do, but... I want to defer to you, and you've said we're no longer doing that. Sorry. I'm going to need a while before I feel strongly about them, and am not sure I want to at all. It would make it harder to be objective, and they still will likely just leave."
"I think you should rest and think on this too," Shinespark decided, grabbing Valey's shoulder in her telekinesis. "Talk to someone. But all of us would rather have trustworthy friends than enemies."
"In the event we want to back up our apology with something more substantial..." Felicity folded her ears. "Is there anything we can do for you, even without trust? Our own manipulation aside, you're very good yourself at pulling heartstrings."
"Uhhh..." Valey scratched her ear. "Anyone?"
Starlight perked up. "You could go get Gerardo's... I mean, my sword that Valey dropped in Stormhoof? We need to not leave that lying around, and you might be good at it..."
She trailed off, seeing blank looks from everyone at the table. Valey tilted her head, face scrunched. "I dropped your what?"
"What were you asking them about a sword?" Maple asked as the meeting dispersed, everyone returning to their own business with the decision that they needed more time to think on Felicity and her kin. "I don't think I've ever seen you fight with a weapon before."
"It's not important," Starlight sighed, trotting for the staircase. "Something I must have misremembered. Not as important to worry about as Senescey and Felicity."
Maple didn't contest it. "I have no idea what to do about them..."
"I wish Valey's cutie mark could tell us if they were dangerous," Starlight said. "I think they're telling the truth, but they're not promising not to betray us again? But they also seem nice, and like they'd be happier if they did try to be trustworthy."
Maple nodded. "And I don't know how to react to that. This isn't like when Valey kept trying to convince us she was a bad pony while helping us out of the caves and guiding us through the Earth District. She says she feels for them, but I think they're worse than she ever was."
"Do you believe them when they say they're not bad, but not good either?" Starlight tilted her head. "How do you even do that? Either a pony does bad things or they don't."
"I think I do believe them," Maple answered. "They're just... not able to worry about what kind of ponies they are." She shook her head. "When I lived in Riverfall, dealing with the loss of Aspen, I didn't have the room in my head to worry about a lot of things. Thinking about whether I was doing right by my friends? I couldn't. I just had to trust that they cared about me enough to stay. Felicity and Senescey might not be in the same situation I was, but if they're telling the truth, I think I know how it feels. They had something important they needed to do, and just like me, they couldn't afford to care about the consequences for themselves. Now those consequences are here, and they don't know how to deal with it?"
Starlight shrugged, having no choice but to take Maple at her word.
"Of course," Maple sighed, "that's assuming they were telling the truth. They could be playing us again. Though they did make a good point about having nothing to gain from confessing and apologizing, and you know how I feel about being optimistic. I really want to believe them..."
"They were telling the truth," Princess Gwendolyn said, sitting in the library with Glimmer as they passed by.
Maple blinked at the fillies and stopped. "How do you know?"
Lyn nodded. "My apologies for overhearing. It was quiet, and you started talking while I was nearby. I'm good at reading ponies, though. I have a lot of practice in my station, and I think they were being honest."
Starlight regarded her, remembering their conversation earlier about Lyn's cutie mark being a lie detector. Lyn saw it and gave her a knowing look.
"Well..." Maple tilted her head. "What would you do if one of your subjects was talking to you about loyalty to your empire that way?"
Lyn shrugged. "If they honestly told me that they weren't trustworthy and I believed them, I wouldn't trust them."
Glimmer quickly cleared her throat. "That said, leading a nation is complicated. If you govern based on how you wish things to be rather than how things are, everything will crumble, because you were out of touch with reality. This ship isn't a nation. Consequences for taking risks are more personal, with less weight on a populace who looks up to you and is too big for you to know. Believing in the ability of less-than-admirable ponies to change is a risk, and while the ruler of an empire couldn't afford to take it, your situation is different. Whether it is worth it for you is your decision."
Lyn nodded sincerely. "She's completely right."
"Really?" Starlight squinted at Glimmer, trying to boil down her words. Giving Felicity and her siblings another chance was a risk, but it was a risk they could afford to take, and it was their decision whether to take it. Didn't that completely clash with everything Glimmer told her when they were alone? That by extending herself to improve the world around her, she would never, ever find fulfillment and peace? Her lookalike should have been agreeing with Lyn, telling them to leave the three sisters behind and see first to themselves, or at least warning them that giving them a chance wouldn't make them happy...
Maple shook her head. "I have no idea what children like you are doing thinking about things like that. Back in Riverfall, you should have been concerned with playing with your friends, getting excited about whose house you would spend the night at next..." She sighed.
"In case you haven't noticed," Glimmer replied, "I'm older than I look. And no one said her situation was admirable."
"Well, thank you for weighing in." Maple straightened her ears. "I suppose I'm going to sit in my room and watch the scenery for a while. Maybe we'll get close soon..." She nodded at the fillies. "And age or admirable situations or not, if any of you would ever like a hug, they're things I like giving."
Glimmer smiled. "Your kindness is appreciated. We'll keep it in mind."
"And we'll see if we can ever find a way to fix your eyes without putting you in danger," Maple promised. "I know you've been living like this for a month now, and..."
"I will be fine," Glimmer assured. "There are many worse places I could be than without sight or magic. I wish you well in your decision about those sisters."
Maple nodded one more time and left. Starlight turned to follow, but Lyn called out, "Starlight?"
"Umm..." Starlight bit her lip, glancing at Maple. "I'll be right behind you," she promised, turning and pacing back to the others. "Yes?"
Lyn waited until Maple was gone, then lowered her voice in concern. "You lied to her," she whispered. "Saying you must have misremembered and something about your sword not being important. Is something wrong?"
Starlight swallowed. "Oh." She glanced between the two, folded her ears and took a breath. "There's a black sword we've had for a long time. It belongs to Gerardo, but I started using it in a dream in Mistvale, and after everyone woke up, everyone thought the sword had always belonged to me instead. I lent it to Valey when she was going to fight Stormhoof, and when she got back, she told me she lost it there somehow. We were talking about getting it back, but when I mentioned that just now, everyone had forgotten we had it in the first place. Everyone except me, at least. I think someone else must have found it. But Gerardo didn't remember it had once been his, so I don't know why I didn't forget too..."
Glimmer folded her ears, and Lyn narrowed her eyes in thought. "I've never heard of that before. And I was in Stormhoof and saw Valey there, and don't remember her having a sword." She glanced toward Glimmer. "Do you know anything about this?"
"Nothing helpful," Glimmer replied. "I can tell you she's being truthful, but you already know that. How and why the sword changes hooves are less important than what it can do when you wield it."
Starlight nodded. "It doesn't make you bleed, but paralyzes anyone in a single hit, and if you cut anything that's not alive, it tears it like paper. And if batponies get hit by it, they sometimes turn to ash."
"That is concerning," Lyn murmured. "Tell me as much about what it looks like as you can. I will get my ponies and griffons to start searching for this sword across Stormhoof and the rest of the Empire." She gave Starlight a serious look. "If it is that dangerous, what do you intend to do if you get it back?"
Starlight swallowed. "Not use it. I wasn't planning on letting Valey use it, either! Ever since I got it, I've kept it rolled in a blanket in my room. Gerardo used to think it was a merciful weapon because you could stop others without killing them, but I'm not sure the sword is a good thing at all."
Glimmer slowly nodded. "Merciful or not, it's more power than you should ever have to bear the weight of. Leaving it stowed away is a good idea." She turned to Lyn. "The sword is black, with a triangular hole in the hilt. Distinctive, but not elaborate. You aren't likely to find a lookalike by accident."
"Right," Starlight agreed, tilting her head at Glimmer. "You remember it too, by the way?"
"I do," Glimmer answered. "You'll have an easier time thinking of why on your own than I would telling you."
"It doesn't matter, but the same reason as for me?" Starlight blinked.
"That's a simple and sufficiently accurate way of putting it," Glimmer agreed. "It not mattering being the key part. There are a lot of reasons I'm a part of your life, but giving you the ins and outs of phenomena that aren't linked to your happiness isn't one of them. The how is less important than the why, and I hope we've talked long enough for you to get an idea of my hope for you."
Lyn regarded both of them with interest, but didn't say anything.
"Well... thanks." Starlight stepped back towards the cabins. "I'm going to go spend time with Maple, I guess. And I hope your horn gets better soon, too."
Glimmer nodded. "Once we've landed in Grandbell, talk to me if you'd like to help with that."
Starlight sat in the observation room at the front of the Immortal Dream, a place she rarely visited without really knowing why. The storm hadn't slackened, sending down wave after wave of needlelike rain, and short of standing on the deck, this was the best place she had to watch the approaching city.
Much of Grandbell was flat and treeless, the ground too rain-shadowed to make out whether it was sand or stone. The misty horizon ended in a flat wall of mountains that pierced the clouds, doubling their height beyond that many times over, and the evening sun lit the clouds enough to make out structures extending from the wall. Massive aqueducts reached down from the mountains, encircling a patch of land like a four-leaf clover, providing irrigation and providing protective walls all in one.
For a moment, Starlight wondered what they were protecting against, when the empire was named after a species that could fly. Then a particularly strong burst of wind sent a torrent of rain spattering across the observation window, and she realized it was the wind: in a place as flat as this, they would need some way to keep their soil from blowing away for farming. She took a moment to marvel at the architectural structure, wondering if someone had put this much effort into living in a harsh climate from the beginning, or the land had changed around the city and the city had changed with it over the centuries.
"It looks like we will be landing soon," Grenada remarked, the observation room her usual haunts. "There are not as many lights as I would have expected."
Starlight frowned at the towers and minarets placed along the aqueduct walls. "Maybe they don't have energy like Stormhoof for some reason."
Starlight stood back and watched as the Immortal Dream was guided up against a docking tower on the city walls. A team of armored griffons had landed on the deck and were assisting with the transition, with Princess Lyn standing nearby in her freshly-dried dress. The griffons worked with seamless efficiency, and soon the gangplank was extended, forming a safe walkway into the stone building.
"Princess," the guard captain said with a bow. "We are glad to see you safe."
"You may thank my friends," Lyn formally replied, indicating everyone assembled on the deck. "We will discuss their arrangements, but for the time being they are guests of state."
Gerardo nodded from the door to the bridge. "Might there be somewhere we could land our ship once everyone has disembarked? We're having to watch our fuel supply."
The guard captain spread a wing, and three griffons marched over to Gerardo. "Assist him," the captain instructed. "Will the rest of you be coming with us?"
Lyn nodded welcomingly, and Shinespark bowed. "That would be a pleasure."
Slowly, they entered the tower, finding a staircase down and forming a procession into the city. Gerardo and Slipstream had stayed behind with the ship and Jamjars was doing her own thing as usual, but Maple and Amber walked side by side, with Shinespark and Valey leading and Grenada and Harshwater bringing up the rear. Felicity and Senescey were also present, several of the guards giving them uneasy looks. Starlight felt the click of Maple's hooves against the red stone floor, feeling slightly self-conscious about sitting on Maple's back when Glimmer was at the front, walking step for step by Lyn's side, but for some reason the guards paid neither of them any mind.
"Princess," the captain continued as they descended. "Have you stayed appraised of the events in Stormhoof over the past day?"
"I have not," Lyn replied. "I have heard no news since I left the fortress. Tell me what has become of my brother?"
The guard nodded. "We received word from higher up that both of you were safe. After you disappeared, another group attacked the fortress in the ensuing chaos. We believe they were targeting the royal families, but the tournament warriors whom you brought fought vigilantly and foiled any attempts at regicide."
Everyone's eyes widened. "Wait, they didn't get away with it?" Valey asked, blinking.
"The would-be assassins were taken into custody," the captain said, warily glancing at Valey. "Investigations into their means and motive are ongoing, as they are for everyone involved."
Valey shifted slightly away from him. "You're kinda looking at me there, buddy..."
"You will find that even though you under the invitation and protection of the Grandbell royal family, there will be many who have strong opinions about what you did in Stormhoof, Admiral Valey." The captain didn't meet her eye. "Evidence so far suggests you acted alone and were not in league with anyone else last night. That does not change that you attacked a province capitol. You may have our princess's trust, but prepare yourself for a mixed welcome."
They exited the tower into a corridor inside and beneath an aqueduct, and from there met an elevator that descended well below what Starlight judged to be the ground. The guards continued not batting an eye at Glimmer despite her standing close to the princess, and she almost wondered if she somehow did have magic to influence their attention... either that, or they already knew her. Glimmer had been known to the Night Mother, after all. Maybe she had some connections in the Empire's capitol, too...
The elevator let out onto a walkway that gave everyone a far better view of the city. A massive, circular hole in the ground taking up a full quarter of the ringed aqueduct space, rain plummeted through a straight, vertical shaft with houses and roads and architecture built into the walls. It was like if the Stone District had been built into a wall rather than a steep slope, wide enough that the far wall was obscured by rain yet narrow enough Starlight felt she could make out individual ponies across it if it were a clear day. She couldn't make out how deep the city went, but it reinforced her earlier thought that the place was built to defend against heavy winds.
"Follow me, please," the captain requested, leading the way around the rim of the pit, several floors below the surface. "As guests of the princess, we will take you to the castle. From there, with her permission, you will be free to do as you please."
"Impressive construction," Shinespark commented, stepping slightly closer to the edge. "How far down does this even go?"
"To Garsheeva's temple at the base, which is protected by a shield from falling objects and debris," the captain replied. "Prior to a month ago, it was designed so the people could look down and see their goddess in repose. Now there is... less to see."
Starlight nodded, memories of Garsheeva's charred husk in Izvaldi giving her a good idea why. "Is Garsheeva still there?"
"She is in her temple, regaining her strength," the captain resolutely said. "She still makes her presence regularly known, but is diminished in size. She cannot appear before the populace with the same types of displays she used to." He glared up at the sky. "The weather being a prime example of that."
Valey glanced up at the rain. "Yeah, she used to smash storms, didn't she?"
"Yes," the captain sighed. "She did."
Lyn wandered closer to the edge as well. "How are the capitol's pumping and drainage systems holding up under the unusual strain?"
"They were built to handle it," the captain insisted, despite the rivulets of water pouring down the walls of the city along with the rain. "Garsheeva designs wisely. If the city were to flood, her temple would be first, after all."
"Yeah, and I'm not really seeing a storm dumping quite enough water to flood this entire place," Valey remarked. "What do you guys even need aqueducts for when it rains this much in the first place?"
Lyn cleared her throat. "Consistency. The weather is erratic and all-or-nothing. Most crops are poorly suited for multiple climate extremes."
"Huh," Amber hummed, the group coming to another elevator. "Well, so far this place seems interesting to me!"
The Grandbell palace was constructed in a ring near the very bottom of the city, close enough that Starlight could make out faint shimmers of magic as rain struck the shield protecting the regions below. Looking down, the pit opened into a greater chasm, though a gigantic cylinder of red crystal formed a platform in the center, linked to a wall with an ornate bridge and ringed by fountains and a colossal, reclining throne suspended over the abyss. The group paused next to a carefully-constructed railing, taking in the sight below.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Shinespark murmured, standing between Maple and Grenada.
"We're so far down," Maple replied, the faceted structure reflected in her eyes. "Is that a crystal palace?"
Starlight didn't need to wonder. Staring at it, somehow she knew: that pillar was exactly the same as the castle buried beneath Ironridge, only polished and red instead of pink. Somewhere inside, calling to a sense she felt with her heart, there was another tree of harmony and another harmonic flame.
"That is the core of Garsheeva's temple," Gwendolyn announced, padding up beside them. "It is said it is hollow, but no one has ever been inside."
"Bananas, she excavated that whole thing and turned the hole into a city?" Valey folded her ears, gazing at the circle of sky far above and then at the stone palace ringing the bottommost reaches of the tunnel, separate from Garsheeva's core. "That's some dedication."
"You talk like you're familiar with this?" Lyn tilted her head, the griffon guards standing watchfully by.
Shinespark nodded. "There's one buried beneath Ironridge. I've never seen one from the outside, but this is exactly what I would imagine it looks like."
The guards shuffled uncertainly. "Interesting," Lyn hummed, turning back toward a wide, shallow staircase that led deeper into the palace proper. "For now, I must return to my regent and assure him I am here and unharmed. Come. We shall ensure everyone knows who you are so that you will be treated as proper guests, and see to it that there are no surprises left over from Stormhoof."
Starlight and her friends followed, Lyn and the guards leading them through ornate, faintly-curved halls that slowly circled the central shaft. Stone archways supported the carved ceiling, and no small corner had been deemed too insignificant to receive artistic attention, with opaque stained-glass backed by artificial lighting filling alcoves and silhouetting statues or casting patterns upon the granite floor.
"It looks almost like sunlight," Grenada remarked as they passed a window. "Most manalighting is distinctive in color..."
"The windows change with the time of day," Lyn remarked. "They were created six centuries ago. Every age contributes their own prowess to bettering this city."
Shinespark's ears fell slightly. "Almost reminds me of Ironridge."
They turned a final corner, entering into a huge room protruding in a bubble of glass into the central shaft, reminiscent of the skyport's bubbles yet gilded with golden swirls instead of steel support beams. The floor rose slowly towards the far end in a series of steps that spanned the entire room, and at the end two thrones sat overlooking the depths, one larger than the others. A scattering of golden pillars capped with flowers sat around the room, and two small streams were built into the edges where the walls met the floor, burbling quietly down from the front. The shield was rain-streaked, and Starlight blinked, her eyes wanting to wander higher and higher... but the room was occupied, and she focused instead on what was presently happening.
"...For your bravery and heroism in defending the land and the Empire..." a griffon was droning, covered in magnificently poofy robes that made him look thrice as wide as he actually was, standing between the thrones and facing a crowd of around a dozen. Valey tensed slightly, and Starlight tilted her head. Were these the fighters Lyn had brought...?
"Ahem." Lyn announced her presence, strolling towards the group. "It seems I have returned at an opportune moment."
The proceedings halted, everyone looking up at her. "Princess!" the poofy griffon exclaimed, striding forward and kneeling before her. "It lightens our hearts to see you safe."
"At ease, Regent Ginsong." Gwendolyn lifted his beak with an outstretched feather, surveying the rest of the assembled creatures. "I see thanks are being given for the parts you played in last night's conflict at Stormhoof. I extend you all my gratitude and would like to thank each and every one of you individually, but for now, please do not let me interrupt what my regent has prepared."
Valey paused, and Starlight and her friends hung back with her, aware that many of the fighters' eyes were on them but flanked by a squadron of griffon guards that made it very clear they were supposed to be there. Ginsong the griffon resumed his speech, withdrawing a medal from his robes that sparkled brightly in the distance and bestowing it upon another creature before bowing and stepping back, slowly repeating the ceremony for everyone who didn't already have one.
"I think those are the dudes that cleaned up our mess," Valey whispered loudly at Felicity and Senescey. "I hope you're ready to get some stink-eyes..."
Near the thrones, Lyn and Ginsong both bowed, and they watched the crowd shuffle around, several kissing the back of Lyn's paw. Starlight and her friends moved out of the way as the fighters finally turned to leave, the two groups watching each other with varying levels of interest. One mare turned up her nose. Randorf, the only creature in the crowd she recognized, smiled and waved. An earth pony with a styled, golden mane winked at Valey with a sharp, confident grin, a sheath buckled to his side that contained-
"Is that...!?" Starlight gasped, taking a step forward, recognizing a black handle and triangular hole as if they called out to her from across the room.
"Yeah," Valey agreed, eyes narrowed, stepping up beside her. "There's someone swimming in that pink mare's shadow."
Before Starlight could even blink in confusion, Valey broke into a swift trot, closing in on the mare who looked slightly intimidated. "Yo, hold on," Valey commanded. "You got a sneak."
Before any guards could lift a spear to do anything or the mare could jump away, Valey plunged a hoof down into her shadow, lifting out a cringing, blue-maned sarosian with a glimmering medal around her neck. Valey blinked in shock. "Wait, you?"
"Please let me go," Larceny whispered, doing everything she could to avoid Felicity and Senescey's equally-shocked gazes. "Before they see..."
"Uhhhhh." Valey stared, holding her by the mane.
"What is the meaning of this?" Ginsong demanded, striding closer, the guards looking helplessly to an equally-confused Lyn for direction on who to side with.
Valey waved a wing at him. "Personal business!" she and Larceny said in sync, turning to blink at each other when they realized they had both spoken.
"Darling," Felicity asked quietly, holding Senescey close with a wing. "Why are you wearing that medallion...?"
Larceny reddened and grimaced, ears pressing back in shame. "Shut up. I need to be somewhere other than here..."
Lyn cleared her throat, quickly taking charge of the situation. "Everyone is dismissed. Ginsong, thank you for keeping things settled in my absence. I will expect a full briefing later. Please prepare my guests a more private room for anything that needs discussing. In the meantime, this place will do."
"But..." Starlight reached a hoof out as most of the fighters herded themselves away, the golden-maned earth pony with her sword leaving with them.
The guard captain and Ginsong gave Lyn questioning looks, and the little sphinx nodded firmly. "Valey has say on who leaves and who stays. My friends have some personal business they need to attend to. Am I required immediately for anything?"
Before anyone could respond, a wheelchair rolled in through the doorway bearing a bruised, bandaged and minus-one-ear Prince Gazelle. "Is this a bad time?" he asked, voice lacking much of its usual bravado. "Word reached me some acquaintances were in town..."
"Oh, great." Valey's face deadpanned at the new arrival, Gazelle sitting in the throne room's entrance in a wheelchair as Felicity and Senescey continued to stare at the medallioned Larceny. The rest of the fighters warily shuffled out, giving the prince a wide berth, Starlight's eyes trailing the black sword at one's side until its bearer was firmly out of sight.
"Big brother," Lyn greeted neutrally, standing in the center of the room.
Gazelle waved meekly, chancing a grin. "Long time no see?"
"Not exactly thrilled to see you, buddy," Valey warned. "So are you back for more? Here to gloat on your home turf? Don't tell me you actually learned your lesson."
Gazelle sighed. "Yes, I'm well aware I'm unwelcome, and will keep this quick. I was in the wrong. If I wasn't stuck in this chair, I would bow. I..." He gritted his teeth, as if the words hurt to say. "I'm sorry."
Everyone blinked, especially Valey. "Wait, seriously?"
"Here." Gazelle reached into the bag at the side of his chair, pulled out a rolled-up paper scroll, and flung it like a knife at Valey, which she caught with a furrowed brow. "There's your Writ of Harmonic Sanction. I promised it earlier and didn't deliver, so now it's here. Don't use it until someone explains how it works, because it doesn't do what you're expecting. Don't ask for more, because the Empire doesn't have any."
Valey stared at the scroll. "Uhhh..."
Gazelle sniffed. "No friendly banter? More or less what I was expecting. Since you're all dying to be rid of me, I'll take my leave. I have important work to do. Expect to run into me again in several days."
He turned to wheel away, and Valey jumped forward. "Woah, wait a minute! Are you seriously-"
"Do you really want me to stay?" Gazelle raised an interested eyebrow. "In case you haven't heard the news, it's all over. There will be no Lord Gazelle Everlaste. Everyone survived Stormhoof, and I've recently had a sizable bucket of water to the head commonly known as you." He flicked his remaining ear, touching a claw to his bandages. "Even if you somehow desire my presence, I don't want to talk about it with you. Good day." He continued rolling away.
Once he was gone, Valey blinked. "Didn't see that coming..."
"Big brother..." Lyn sighed, slightly lowering her head. "I will need to follow him later." She turned to the three sisters, who were still locked in a triangle of awkward expressions. "If you require a place for private discussions, I can prepare a room for the three of you."
"That won't be necessary," Larceny said, finally meeting her sisters' gazes. "So you're still traveling with them?" She glanced over to Valey.
Valey and everyone else sans Lyn and the sisters shifted closer together, staying out of it. "We..." Felicity averted her own eyes. "Darling, why are you wearing that medallion...?"
"So you haven't told them." Larceny drew herself up, taking a shaky breath. "I'm sorry. You're going to hate me for this..." She took a step toward Valey, turning her back on her sisters. "We planned the whole thing with Stormhoof and Lord Gyre and you attacking the keep. My sisters are-"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, we know."
Larceny's face twisted in confusion.
"We've... had a lot of explaining to do," Felicity admitted. "And we're not on the best of terms. To be honest, I don't quite know why we're still permitted to be here."
Larceny glanced again at Valey. "So you know everything about the assassins?"
Valey shrugged. "I mean, I dunno if we know everything, but we certainly know they were coming and you were trying to get me to let you in, and..." She pointed a wing at Lyn, who was watching with a tilted head. "You guys are ridiculously chill about talking about this in front of royalty, by the way."
"...Fine." Larceny folded her ears and looked away. "I'm here because I changed my mind, helped her, and told her where and when everyone was trying to come through so her fighters could stop them." She pointed a wing at the princess. "I don't care if she hears. She already knows. But the plan failed because of me."
"But darling, what...?" Felicity reached out a hoof, non-understanding written on her face.
"I don't know what you said, what you told them, or why you're here," Larceny sighed, drawing in a breath. "The three of us were working with Gazelle, under the Night Mother's orders, because we wanted revenge on Stormhoof, Everlaste and Gyre and he wanted Lord Everlaste dead so he could rule their province and military. We planned almost everything that night. I paralyzed you and delayed you so you couldn't catch Felicity and Gazelle before they made it to the castle. We wanted you to fight the army we had left garrisoned so the tower's defenses would be weakened and assassins could sneak inside to kill the lords."
Valey waved a hoof. "Yep. We know all that. They spent a whole long time telling everyone while we were flying around."
Larceny blinked. "So you two regretted it too, then? We felt the same...?"
"Regretted it?" Felicity blinked harder. "Darling, we all weighed this extensively before committing. We all agreed on what decision won out, much as it hurt. And you were the one who had spent the least amount of time around Valey or her crew. This is just what happens next, and apologizing is infinitely better than attempting to continue deceiving them..."
Senescey's eyes wavered slightly. "But you're saying you tried to go back on the plan? That they survived because... Why?"
"Because I changed my mind." Larceny drew in a breath. "Talking about what we could have on either side was one thing. Finally getting revenge we had never tasted before, or having friends who are like us and might know other ways of dealing with our problems. And you're right. I spent the least amount of time out of any of us with them. It was a blind decision, up until I was following Valey in the tower. Getting to see someone fighting that hard for you is different from talking about knowing they'll do it. And when I saw what we were throwing away, I changed my mind."
"...Really?" Valey's jaw went slightly slack.
"But darling..." Felicity's face fell.
"I can't undo leading you into that," Larceny continued, looking entirely at Valey. "But I made a mistake. We thought hard about our decision and were confident in what we decided. It wasn't an accident. But we didn't know everything, and after seeing how hard you were trying on our behalf, I changed my mind and did what I could at the time to show it. Whether or not you can forgive me, I'm sorry. I was wrong."
Valey looked at her sideways. "Bananas. First Gazelle, and now you, too? Were you guys conspiring about this? Did you just realize I can beat up all of you and that you need to be back in my good graces? Or is it actually getting through to everyone how badly that night was messed up?"
"I haven't talked to Gazelle," Larceny said. "And I'm talking to all of you, not just Valey."
"She talked to me, though," Lyn announced. "At Stormhoof, while we were climbing the tower. She is telling the truth about her actions."
"But..." Senescey's ears fell. "Larceny, we were so close! You stopped us? What about how we feel?"
Larceny gave her a look. "You must have spent a day or two not knowing the attack had failed. How did it feel, thinking we won? Was it really worth it?"
"Yes, darling." Felicity drew in a breath. "After all the heartache of planning and deciding which goal to let down, seeing ourselves at least get what we wanted felt like a tremendous weight off our shoulders. Justice had been served, if nothing else. Can you say the same?" Her eyes narrowed. "Can you say the same, knowing that now we betrayed our friends for nothing?"
"I sure hope she can," Valey interrupted, stepping up beside Larceny. "Because it sounds to me like she actually gets it."
Larceny looked down. "I... still don't know what it would have felt like to finish getting revenge. And I don't feel good, because I know we made the wrong decision. And you know I hate talking about this in the first place. But I regret not having given up and gone with the friends you two were making a lot more than I regret not getting to see more dead sphinxes making headlines than we already killed."
"Truthfully...?" Tears pooled at the edges of Felicity's eyes. "Then... we don't see eye to eye anymore? Because we were already directionless, having finished our goals. Now we've been coming to grips with the news it was all for nothing, and having you say this on top of that..."
"A pretty good wake-up call is what it sounds like to me," Valey declared. "Yo. Watch this." She walked in a semicircle, cutting between the sisters and ending in front of Larceny. "I forgive you, girl."
Larceny blinked.
"Truth be told, I don't care whether those lords survived or not." Valey stepped forward, pulling the blue sister into a gentle hug. "They didn't do a ton to endear themselves to me. What I care about is that you get that you stuffed up, turned an already-unpleasant evening into a disaster, and that you'd do it differently if you had another chance, knowing what you know now. Felicity and Senescey have been real stubborn about saying however sorry they are now, they still wouldn't do anything different. And I'm hearing you say the opposite."
"You are?" Larceny frowned over Valey's shoulder, going stiff in the embrace.
The other two sisters glanced at each other uncertainly, and Valey sighed. "Yeah. And I'm pretty sure you're being genuine here, because even if they had contacted you and warned you about what to say, that would be a whole lot more complicated than just straight-up saying what everyone here is still waiting for from them."
An awkward silence ensued. "Look," Valey said when nobody else spoke. "Yeah, I was the one who had to run through that tower, but like I said Stormhoof had it coming too. I am not the only one any of you need forgiveness from. If you guys want another chance, you gotta talk to all of them, too." She swept a wing at her friends, who were all watching and waiting in a line. "And you two would do well to learn from your sister's example. Probably should wrap this up and let you discuss it yourselves later. But for now? Let's just say getting a second chance might not be off the table."
"Well said," Shinespark announced as Valey stepped away. "Things have been eventful and we have a lot to take care of, and I'm still waiting to learn more about what happened myself and wait for any other consequences to make themselves clear. If you three promise not to double-cross us again, we'll let you keep staying close while you think about things, but we've already discussed what to do about you and our attention will be needed on other matters for the time being."
"My attention is needed as well," Lyn declared. "I have been absent from the capitol for more than a day, and must ensure everything is functioning smoothly in my absence. You will be assigned an official guide during your stay here to answer your questions about the city, avoid getting lost, and contact me or others should the need arise. I wish you well on your visit, and hope you have a more pleasant stay than the circumstances that brought you here."
"You still think I'm being too generous with those three, don't you?" Valey whispered to Shinespark, leading the group with her as they followed their designated guide griffon to who knew where. "I need you to say this. I care a lot about them, and that led to me getting duped before. And here I am doing all the talking again."
Shinespark glanced over her shoulder, Felicity and her sisters having disappeared to a room somewhere but the rest of their friends in tow. "...Maybe," she replied. "Yes, you do care a lot about them. More than I do, and more than they deserve. Maple also cared about you more than you deserved. Maybe you could give them a chance and they'll take it. Maybe they'll throw it back in your face again. How much energy do you want to spend on them?"
Valey shrugged painfully, having removed most of the bandages from her fight with Gazelle but still feeling the wounds keenly. "I mean... if it was just me, I'd keep beating my head against them for a stupid length of time. I know that's not smart, but I don't know where to draw a line. That's why I'm asking you guys. I need opinions other than my own on this. You guys stand to lose a lot too."
"Maybe," Shinespark murmured. "We did all have an unpleasant time with their drama on our ship. But you were the one who actually went to Stormhoof, and you and Starlight were the two who got hurt fighting Gazelle. You were the one who made the call to trust them the first time, and you were the one who suffered for it."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but Gazelle and Stormhoof had it coming. I'm honestly kind of glad I had the excuse to beat them up, because Gazelle was a jerk and spending an entire month slipping from shadow to shadow avoiding those guards got old fast. The part that stings is that they tricked me... and if I ask why, they'll say they were respecting my wishes not to know anything. It just feels weird."
"They have a different way of thinking than we do," Shinespark answered. "I think that much is clear. Valey, you're the one who wants to give them another chance, so no matter how clear you are that what to do with them is our decision too, we're having this conversation at all because of you. They're still your friends."
"Yeah..." Valey folded her ears. "That doesn't tell me anything about what to do with them. And no, I don't want to just sit down and be all, 'Hey, do better this time.' I won't want to just give them another chance. They have to actually do something different. I think Larceny gets it, but, like... they'd have to do something really special to win over everyone else, I bet."
Shinespark glanced again at their friends. "Everyone is still treating those three like they're your decision, you know. But you're right. If they sincerely apologized and stayed, some would probably be friendlier to them than others."
"Right," Valey sighed. "I wonder how Starlight feels about all this. Not that it's a thing she should have to decide, but she was the other one who got hurt by it all. If Gazelle hadn't been on our ship, we wouldn't have gone to fight him, and she taxed her horn..."
Glimmer quickened her pace to catch up, clearing her throat. "She feels like she always does."
Valey blinked at the filly. "Bananas, needing to tell you two apart is weird. I don't suppose you have any super magical advice?"
"There isn't any to give." Glimmer shrugged. "Those sisters currently aren't trustworthy; you're right. But whether they could change isn't set in stone. Because of that, there isn't really a right answer. The question isn't whether they would change if given the chance, it's what you're willing to sacrifice to get what you want. Leave behind the chance at friendship for a chance at safety, hoping to choose one over the other? Or risk your chance at safety for a chance at friendship, and find either neither or both?"
"That's rather philosophical of you," Shinespark remarked.
"Uh, yeah, say that more simply, please?" Valey tilted her head.
Glimmer pouted, sucking her lip. "Stop thinking about whether they will be good if you give them a chance. No one can know that, because they think for themselves and it's their decision. You want to be friends, and you want to stay safe. If you leave them, you'll be safe but not friends. If you help them, they might do the right thing and you'll be safe and friends, or they might betray you and you'll be not safe and not friends. That's what you should be thinking about."
Valey frowned. "Yeah, but that's only weighing what I want. What about what's good or bad for them?"
"Adding that makes things more complex," Glimmer answered. "And so does weighing the consequences to your friends. But you're dancing around what you want, and you're not going to be able to weigh everything accurately if you undervalue what your heart is telling you. You want something out of this too, and trying to counterbalance your own desires to give more weight to your friends is why thinking about this is so hard for you."
Valey slowly furrowed her brow. "Who are you?"
"A friend who knows you well." Glimmer shrugged. "If you want a short answer, you should wait and think about it later. Don't you have other things to worry about, like the tournament?"
Shinespark nodded. "Agreed. We did tell them we're all going to take time to think about it. I'd prefer if we completely got this out of mind for at least a week before coming back to them again."
"Yeah, we probably should." Valey nodded. "The tournament's a bust, though. No way are we going back to Stormhoof after that episode. And besides..." She pulled out the Writ of Harmonic Sanction from Gazelle. "Assuming he gave us the real thing, isn't this what we were gonna wish for? I know I kind of just got a second wind, but what's the point of fighting if we already have what we were after?"
"Have you still not read the rules?" Glimmer asked, shaking her head.
"Uhh... maybe?" Valey winced. "Why, is there some clause that forbids me from bailing at the end?"
"No," Glimmer said. "But the fourth round is usually hosted in Grandbell, and since Stormhoof is having problems with their security and there's only one fight left in the third round, that might be moved here as well. I wouldn't count on it being impossible to continue."
"Well, that sounds like an important thing to find out," Shinespark remarked, loudly clearing her throat. "Sir?"
Ahead, their guide stopped and turned to face them. "May I help you?"
Valey nodded. "Yeah. Where's all the tournament stuff around here handled? We'd kind of like to pay the organizers a visit, just to see what's going on..."
The tournament organization, as it turned out, was on the surface outside of Grandbell's central pit, which meant it was in the rain. And the storm showed no signs of abating.
"Bananas, is it just me, or is this way more persistent than the Ironridge weather?" Valey complained, rubbing the back of her shoulders and wincing from her lingering wounds. "Feels like it's been raining forever!"
"Only a day, actually," Amber remarked, not at all caring that her fur was plastered to her skin by the downpour. "Granted, it was a very long day, but this just started last night."
Maple trotted beside them, herself and Starlight contained in a single oversized Riverfall poncho, rain streaming off the slick material. "Are you two sure you don't want one too? I have several more of these..."
Valey folded her ears. "Yeah, there's no way that thing's gonna feel good when I'm all beat up. But I can take it. I'll just dry off and warm up later."
"And you know I'm happier when I'm soaked," Amber chuckled. "We're fine, Maple."
Shinespark had no qualms about wearing one of the ponchos, her horn lit sapphire for light beneath its large hood. "So all of Grandbell's surface is used for crop production?" she asked, glancing around at the scenery. Well-ordered groves of trees sat in tended soil on either side of a curved stone road, and Valey was sure if seen from above in the day, it would form some kind of pattern. In the distance, the aqueduct walls protected the fields from the plain's wind, and the mountain wall of the Aldenfold loomed like a black void in the distance.
"Yes," their guide said, wearing an expression that said he was paid exorbitant amounts of money not to be bothered by the rain. "Grandbell attempts to provide as much of its own food supply as feasible in this climate. The area inside the walls is entirely used for crop production, save for the parade grounds, which serve as our arena."
"And it looks like we're almost there," Valey observed, the road widening and coming to a gate.
Their guide had a short discussion with the gate guards, after which they were permitted into the gatehouse and led down a short staircase inside. That led to a hallway, and suddenly they were in a long, well-lit room half-covered in tables and paperwork and filled with talking ponies. Valey blinked, dripping, heads starting to turn at their arrival.
"IT'S YOU!" a familiar wall of muscle called from the back, grinning an overeager smile.
"Hello, star power," a mustard-yellow unicorn mare with an angular face and slim barrel greeted, floating over a stack of emergency linens. "Need a towel, sugarcube? Or are you too cool for caring about the weather?"
Valey blinked, taking the towels. "Uh, hi. Have we met?"
"Everyone who is anyone knows who you are," a griffon in chef's attire who looked vaguely familiar mused. "Well met again, by the way. It was an interest, being bested by you in battle."
"It's an honor," a pink mare whispered, wearing a sparkling medallion from the earlier ceremony. "You're here to help us, right?"
Valey tilted her head. "Help? Why, what's going on?"
"Hello, Admiral Valey," another voice declared, and the temperature in the room rose several degrees. The crowd parted, revealing a mare in a sleek metal suit with flowing, luminous lines of coolant energy, several jet fans idling on her sides. Meltdown evenly met her eyes, and Valey winced. "What's going on is that your shenanigans in Stormhoof last night caused three of the tournament's top organizers to resign and flee to the countryside for fear of the Empire's instability. This is back-to-back with last month's devastation in Izvaldi, and things have reached a point where this year's tournament won't continue unless those who care about it make an effort to save it."
Valey's jaw dropped slightly. "Wait, this thing could be canceled?"
"Yep. That's what they say," the unicorn who had offered towels said, leaning against a large barrel with the faintest hint of danger in her voice. "So what'll it be, hon? Think we can be friends?"
In the back, standing on his hind legs as always, Randorf nodded hopefully. Meltdown waited, impassive, and the rest of the room seemed to hold their breath.
"I mean, yeah?" Valey furrowed her brow. "I have no idea what it'll involve, but of course I want the tournament to go on."
A collective sigh of relief swept through the room, and the momentary shadow disappeared from the atmosphere. "Whoo, that's a relief," the towel mare sighed, wiping her brow and offering a hoof. "I'm Saffron Sunflower. Best friend you ever did make."
From Maple's back in the entrance, Starlight blinked. That name sounded like it belonged to a pony from...
"And I am Pierre, in case I failed to be memorable," the chef griffon greeted, extending a talon while Valey was hoof-bumping Saffron. "You out-dueled me and my friend quite significantly not two days ago. I am still feeling it sorely..."
"Well, look who we have here," a new voice greeted, Diego shouldering his way out of the crowd. "Valey! Hey, buddy!"
"Uh, wow, hey guys!" Valey turned in a circle from all the attention, trying not to spray anyone with her dripping mane. "So what actually are you all doing here? I assume everyone's a tournament fighter, and stuff?"
"Yes. We're all career fighters," the pink mare murmured. "Some who are still in, and some who... aren't, but still care enough to try."
"LIKE ME!" Randorf added, shoving his way to the front and taking up the space of three ponies.
Saffron nodded. "A lotta passion and a lotta talent. Miss Meltdown here can take care of all the business making things official with Garsheeva for us, but it's up to us to figure out how to schedule five fights in the time bracket of four, promote the whole thing, and keep a lid on the cheating so the half of us who aren't doing it for the love of competition don't make fools out of the rest of us."
Valey rubbed the back of her neck, grinning sheepishly. "Yeah... maybe I should read the rules on how things are supposed to go normally before I go getting too caught up in that. But I totally don't want the tournament to stop, or anything."
Pierre raised an eyebrow at Randorf. "Pay up on our bet, moneybags. I told you she didn't even realize two against one was illegal."
"AWW." Randorf drooped, tossing several golden coins.
Diego beckoned Valey through the crowd to one of the bigger tables. "So the third round of the tournament starts with two-hundred fifty six fighters. From there, it's a straight bracket to the top, which means half of the fighters drop out every round for eight rounds until you have a champion. The first four fights are round three, and they're supposed to be in Stormhoof. The last four are round four, and they're usually held in the parade grounds we're sitting under right now. The first four are flexible, because you have a lot of creatures getting spared with golden regents, but those are much rarer to see used this close to the top."
Valey frowned at the diagrams, careful not to drip on them as she continued toweling at her mane. "And we've finished three of those? Or four? I wrecked Grandpapa, got a pass from Senescey, fought two dudes at once..."
"We've finished three," Diego said, pointing at a long row of short trees. "Here's the record so far. The problem is, if we want this to go as smoothly as possible, we have to use the battle timeslots they were already counting on before all the organizers quit and we got kicked out of Stormhoof. There are four of those, intended to go from a pool of sixteen challengers to one. But we're a round behind, and counting everyone who got spared with a Regent and hasn't had their rematch in the last round, we have to use that time to find a champion from among thirty-seven."
"Thirty-seven?" Valey blinked hard. "There were five dudes spared last match? If I'm mathing right, at least. Can't you kick people with your thingies too, or something?"
Saffron nodded, coming up behind her. "Oh, there's other uses for them, alright. But a good number of us who regularly make it up this far just do it because we enjoy the challenge. Don't let Wallace Whitewing fool you about needing goals and determination to make it to the top. Maybe that's true for being the champ, but I just enjoy a good tussle."
"We spare each other a lot," the pink mare added, still not having given her name. "You remember the fighters you get knocked out by, and sometimes we become good friends."
"Sorry to interrupt, but maybe we can help with this?" Shinespark slipped up by Valey's side, pulling her hood back and glancing over the tournament structure sheets. "I have a lot of experience with organizational work."
Pierre's beak pursed. "Ah, the captain! It is a pleasure to meet you as well. And your friends?" He gestured to the rest of Valey's entourage, where Amber was socializing and the guide had disappeared and the rest looked unsure where to go.
"Yeah, they're cool. And Sparky knows her stuff." Valey nodded confidently.
Saffron had been giving Shinespark a strange look, and her ears suddenly wilted. "Oh, I do remember you! You're that poor gal who got taken apart standing in for Miss Valey back in round two, aren't you?"
Shinespark winced from the memory. "...That was me, yes. Though I recovered better than my armor..."
"You still haven't gotten that thing put back together?" Diego raised a concerned eyebrow. "You should let me have a look at that sometime. I specialize in magitech and arcane machinery."
Saffron shook her head. "I still can't believe that Grandpapa somehow got to borrow Yulio's sword to do that to you. He must have thought you all were a bigger threat and wanted to take you down a notch. Or maybe he was just being rude."
"Wait, you know Grandpapa?" Valey blinked in alarm. "Bananas, I don't like that dude."
"SADLY." Randorf pouted.
"Well, you could say that, yes," Pierre mused. "He has been around longer than any of us. We do not often talk. They do things differently in Gyre, where he is from, and he has his... uniqueness. My muscle-bound friend is unamused with him after having him end last year's run early."
Randorf sulked.
"Aww, he's not so bad," Saffron countered. "Grandpapa, that is. At least, he usually isn't. He has some weird philosophy and always goes hard on sarosians. Doesn't really like them being in the tournament. But he seems to try his best to look out for everyone, even if he's got some eccentricities."
The pink mare turned her head down. "If you want someone to complain about, Yulio is far worse."
"Sounds like someone's got a grudge?" Valey raised an eyebrow, Shinespark poring over the table beside her.
"Fresh wounds." Pierre shrugged. "She is out of the battle courtesy of him from last match."
Saffron bit her lip. "Yulio's plenty nice outside of matches. Talks himself up and has a bit of an ego, but who doesn't when you're this good? But then he plays dirtier than an unbathed pirate the moment you're alone in the ring. Dunno why he hasn't used that paralyzing sword of his yet. If you go up against him, best advice I have is to pack a set of earplugs and ring his head like a gong. It's real unsporting of him when so many of us just play to have fun."
"The upside of being knocked out by you is that we won't have to deal with him," Pierre sighed. "The downside is we won't have the chance to teach him a lesson."
"And he has a sword?" Starlight asked, waddling up beside the table. "Is it black with a triangular hole in the hilt?"
Saffron's eyes went wide. "Awww! Aren't you the cutest thing?" She looked up at Valey. "She's with you?"
Valey grinned. "Yeah, Starlight's cool." Her grin turned to a frown. "You care about his sword, though? I've never even heard of this rando."
"This is his first year fighting, so neither have we," Pierre apologized. "And that is his blade, yes. You are familiar with it?"
"How long has he had it?" Starlight asked, sounding curious.
Saffron shrugged. "Shucks, I don't know. I just hope he keeps not using it. Not a fan of getting messed up by that thing myself. Who knows if a hoof clap can even catch its blade? I saw it go right through you, sugarcube." She nodded at Shinespark, who was too deeply absorbed in the tournament diagrams to notice.
"Heh..." Valey chuckled, nudging Shinespark's flank with her own wet one. "This table big enough for you, Sparky?"
Shinespark reddened, and her ears went down. "I'm concentrating. Don't you dare."
The others gave questioning looks, but Starlight quickly cleared her throat. "Is he here? Where could I find him if I wanted to talk with him?"
"Here? Being helpful? As if." Saffron chuckled. "Nah, he's probably showing off his shiny service medallion downtown, exactly the way our friends here aren't." She pointed at Randorf and the pink mare. "Better for productivity, if you ask me. He'll be around sometime or other."
"Speaking of who we were speaking of," Pierre interrupted, "Grandpapa is here, if you were hoping to find or avoid an encounter with him."
"Oh bananas, he is?" Valey's eyes widened. "Uhh... I mean... he's not gonna cause trouble, right? I'm not the biggest fan of getting monked up, and he's probably not going to get overconfident because I'm injured twice..."
Saffron bit her lip. "I noticed that. You alright, sugarcube? Don't worry about him, he's being helpful."
"Eh, I will be." Valey showed her shoulders, Gazelle's scratches somewhat visible beneath her wet fur. "Helpful, though? Really?"
Pierre coughed unscrupulously. "Seeing as someone brought Lord Gyre to a tragic demise, he is the closest thing the Gyre delegation has to a leader. He has stepped up to fill the role."
Valey winced again. "Exactly how tragic is this demise we're talking about?"
Saffron almost laughed. "There isn't no one who cared about Lord Gyre. All the other sphinxes are probably whistling and sweeping everything under the rug about him. I wouldn't worry your pretty little head about it, unless some vengeful expatriate shows up ticked you stole their kill."
Nearby, Diego sighed. "It's a shame the noble leaders of the Empire can sink to this. Not the reputation Wallace wishes they had."
"Yeah..." Valey swallowed. "Anyway, you have any idea where Grandpapa is now, then? I kind of would rather run into him on my own terms before he runs into me."
"I WILL FIND HIM," Randorf pledged, crossing his heart with a hoof and then lumbering away.
Valey blinked, watching in silence with her new companions for one minute... two... and then Randorf's very-visible head stopped looking and then cleared a path back through the crowd toward them, an older sarosian in tow.
"Well, Valey. We meet again," Grandpapa said, watching her with an expression of complete neutrality.
"Hey there, old timer," Valey returned, a hint of threat in her tone. "So I got you out of the tournament, right? You're not gonna mess with me anymore?"
Grandpapa sighed. "You've proven remarkably resilient to reason, my dear. But perhaps that's my fault for not speaking your language. You have good intentions here, trying to see to it that the tournament goes on?"
Valey glanced at everyone else. "I mean, that's the plan."
"Good." Grandpapa nodded, pleased. "I wish to talk with you if you will listen, but not now. You should continue helping your friends and building goodwill. You have a lot of eyes on you, and could still do much for the image of sarosiankind."
Valey blinked. "I'm never gonna understand you, am I?"
"That would be unfortunate, when you have a lot to learn." Grandpapa turned to leave. "I will be here for quite some time. Please pay me a visit when you are done with more productive things. We have a tournament to save, after all!"
He disappeared into the crowd again, leaving Valey staring. "Bananas. First he tries to kill me, then he tries to kill my friend, and now he's..." She straightened up. "Yeah, whatever. Hey guys, what's in that barrel from earlier? I dunno how much help I'm gonna be on the schedule stuff, but you all seem cool. Wanna hang out?"
A big grin spread across Saffron's face at the mention of the barrel. "I was hoping someone would ask."
Valey wrinkled her nose, sitting on her back in a chair with her legs up as comfortably as she could given her injuries and staring inquisitively at a mug of frothing liquid, a small patch bubbling on her tongue. "This stuff is weird. It has, like, bubbles."
Saffron laughed. "Have you never had something fizzy before?"
"Really? I thought Sosa was known for their beer," the pink mare said, still having given no name. At this point, Valey was starting to feel she wasn't supposed to ask. "Didn't you live in Ironridge?"
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, but Sosans were sad all the time and mostly used alcohol to forget their lives. I was living the high life, so why bother? At least, I sure felt that way at the time." She blinked. "I did trawl a lot of taverns just for kicks, though, and I'm pretty sure I never saw them drink stuff like this."
"Now that's just sad," Saffron huffed. "That's no way to get out there and party with your friends. But, uh, don't worry about this here stuff. Figured it wouldn't do for creatures to go about getting drunk at a planning session to save the tournament, so this here's soft cider. But it sure is fizzy!"
"Try some," Pierre urged. "Miss Sunflower is very fond of her otherworldly culinary secrets. Perhaps you will have some luck flattering the recipe from her."
Saffron drained a whole mug at once, wiping her lips with her telekinesis. "Tough luck downing more than me. But go on. Tell us what you think!"
"I CAN DOWN MORE THAN YOU," Randorf muttered, nursing a tankard like it was a baby.
"Yeah, something tells me you don't count, big guy." Valey stared into the foaming surface of her mug, then tipped it back, tried to chug... and immediately splashed herself, sputtering.
Saffron guffawed, purging the spilled cider from Valey's coat with her aura. "You're supposed to sip it, sugarcube. I didn't think you'd do that literally!"
Valey wheezed, eyes watering. "How was I supposed to know it would do this to my nose...?"
Over her shoulder, Amber had sidled up and was watching with a disapproving frown. "Did I really never get you anything like this in Riverfall? Because I know we have fizzy stuff there."
Diego chuckled. "For what it's worth, she's telling the truth about Ironridge beer. Since they ship it so far, their city specialty is making drinks that taste good flat. Cuts down on kegs exploding in transit."
"Tragic," Pierre muttered, shaking his head. "What is the working class to do, drink wine instead?"
"Don't know, don't care," Valey managed, her sinuses starting to clear. "Alright, sipping this time..."
Eventually, she sat up, eyes widening. "Hey, this is actually really good!"
"I KNOW!" Randorf cheered.
"Do you even have an indoor voice?" Amber asked, leaning against Valey's chair and raising an interested eyebrow at the huge pegasus.
Randorf bit his lip. "Yes. It's not very good at expressing myself."
"It's a lot easier on the ears," the pink mare admitted. "But it is nice to hear a voice you recognize cheering in the crowd during fights. You should hear his real outdoor voice."
"And by that," Pierre said, sipping his own mug with dignity, "she means the only reason he did not deafen you during our duel was to avoid deafening me as well."
Randorf winked.
Saffron shook her head. "Probably could have taken the two of you to town even if you had wrung her ears out. Beating two of us with barely a scratch just isn't something we see happen."
"Uh, heh heh..." Valey looked up from her mug. "No hard feelings?"
"...It will make for a good story," Pierre explained. "When there are as many of us fighting as there are, losing is always inevitable. And since we always remember our losses, it is good for them to happen in interesting ways."
Randorf nodded, grinning.
"Maybe we'll see if we can't rig the brackets a little to get you to fight me, soon," Saffron chuckled. "Out of us few, you, me and Diego are the ones who are still in. I'd love to get a friendly bout in and see what you're capable of myself. Especially since you're a sarosian who fights without that weird Mistvale magic. Never thought I'd see the day."
Valey blinked. "You want to fight me? I mean, sure. Don't get that a lot."
"You seem like a good enough sport," the pink mare answered. "You're nicer to talk to than we had feared. And Diego vouches for you."
Diego nodded sagely, draining the rest of his mug and moving for a refill.
Saffron's aura flicked the barrel tap, her horn longer and more slender than an average unicorn's to go with her thinner, more angular frame. "Well, sure. Everyone deserves a chance to make a good first impression."
"Yeah, my first impression!" Valey's ears went down. "I mean, you guys have clearly heard stories about me."
Saffron leaned in in interest. "Oh? We telling stories, now? Call me interested! What's in your colorful past, sugarcube?"
"Uhh..." Valey fidgeted. "Yeah, see, I used to live in Ironridge, which totally doesn't follow the Griffon Empire's rules, and Meltdown was right there a minute ago..."
"Don't you worry about her," Pierre dismissed, sharpening a talon. "Meltdown cares about enforcing laws in the here and now, not waging holy war against acts committed long ago in other nations."
Amber came to Valey's defense. "Maybe one of you go first if we're sharing stories instead?"
Saffron nodded, and Pierre shrugged. "Randorf and I go back a long way," the griffon explained. "We grew up in Wilderwind, joined a mercenary band as youths, became friends and formed a duo of blade and brawn. But I discovered an aptitude for mess duty and we left together to get rich in the city. Outside of tournament season, he is now an acrobat and stunt stallion for a traveling performance troupe, and I am a professional chef."
The pink mare cleared her throat. "I'm a cartographer. I used to work as a navigator when shipping was more common. I was born in Goldfeather, but grew up on the sea, sailing with my father's merchant ship. I learned to fight training with his crew against pirate boardings, and got good at it enough to be where I am today."
"Did I ever catch your name?" Amber asked, still leaning against Valey's chair. "Sorry if I missed introductions. I'm Amber, by the way." She offered a friendly smile.
"Um... maybe you didn't," the other mare said, hiding an eye behind her frizzy blue mane.
Saffron sighed heavily. "Her name is Shill, which is a beautiful name and means money up in Varsidel. She's just a little sensitive right now because that sword-toting scallywag Yulio made fun of it the other day hard enough to break her concentration and get her to throw her battle."
"Bananas, that's rude." Valey frowned, and Shill shrank slightly. "I mean, it's probably something I'd do too, but only against someone who really deserved it. She didn't do anything first?"
Shill mumbled something unintelligible, and Saffron gave an apologetic smile. "So how about me, though?" she asked, trying to change the subject. "Surely you're wondering what someone with a fine, dainty bod like me is doing in as rough-and-tumble a sport as this one?"
"Gotta admit, I kind of have." Amber whistled. "Take it as a compliment, but you look good, girl!"
"Hah. Well, I get that a lot." Saffron stretched, showing off her sharp chin and unusual proportions. "Short answer is, my mother was a noble and my father was an apple farmer. Being literally born in a barn has a bit of stigma among certain crowds, and looking all prissy and delicate and being a hornhead doesn't get you far with others. So, once I was old enough, I said see ya to both of them and went out to become an adventurer and make my own way in the world. Best choice I ever did make."
"Ask her where she is from," Pierre muttered, sipping daintily at his cider.
"You're an eager fellow, aren't you?" Saffron flicked at him with her telekinesis. "You think my looks are exotic? I'm from Equestria. That's what we call the Plains of Harmony."
"Wait, from across the mountains?" Valey blinked hard, aware that Starlight had snuck up behind her chair, staring at Saffron Sunflower as the mare stared back with a bemused expression. "Like, with a Writ of Harmonic Sanction?"
"Sure as sugar." Saffron gave a self-satisfied grin, her friends looking good-naturedly for Valey's reaction. "It's quite a story how I got it, but yep. I came over the mountains about five, six years ago. Spent most of my time before that island-hopping on Equestria's eastern sea, and now am staying here for a spell. Who knows when I'll move on again? All I know is, it's been a fun and exciting life so far."
Valey returned a grin of her own. "No kidding? My friends and I were kinda considering going there next! We're pretty sick of Ironridge, Varsidel sounds not fun and Yakyakistan is clear on the other side of the world, so why not? What's it like down there?"
"Uh... your whole group of friends?" Saffron slowed down, raising an eyebrow. "How many of you are there?"
Valey blinked. "Uhhhhh..."
"Me, Maple, you, Shinespark, Grenada, Gerardo, Slipstream, Harshwater, two Starlights and Jamjars," Amber said, doing a quick count. "Plus Nyala, and I don't know what we're doing with the sisters or the guy in the pantry. So about thirteen. Maybe more."
Saffron let out a low breath. "Well, it's a fancy dream, sugarcube. But good luck getting that many passes. You know how rare these things are, right? Equestria gives one to the Empire and one to Yakyakistan every year. It would take the whole world's supply for the better part of a decade to get the lot of you through."
Valey's eyes constricted. "Wait! You mean we can't just use one for our ship and get everyone on it across?"
"You never asked how they worked?" Diego raised an eyebrow. "How long have you been planning this, again?"
Valey groaned in frustration. "Awwwww...! Come on, who designs a system like that!?"
"Sorry about that, sugarcube." Saffron's face fell in sympathy. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I guess the Equestrians do."
"If anyone could ferry others across, imagine what would happen," Pierre muttered. "These passes would start wars. Exorbitant sums would be charged for service. Control of trade routes would create and destroy nations more than it does already. Entering Equestria is a task sufficiently impossible to exploit that anyone ambitious enough to try would have better luck elsewhere."
Behind Valey's chair, Starlight frowned. "But why, though?" Amber asked. "What good is one of these writs if it only works on one pony?"
"That's the point," Shill said. "Getting past the mountains is too hard for the one way to do it to be of any value. It's like if you're at an auction. If you sell something everyone wants for cheap, everyone will bid for it and you'll sell it for a high price. But if it starts at more than it's worth, even if it's worth a lot nobody will care. The one reliable way to get a Writ of Harmonic Sanction around here is to wish for it from Garsheeva, and you know how special becoming the tournament champion is. If you got there, would there really be nothing you'd wish for instead?"
Valey slumped. "Bananas, that's really uncool. Why do they even do that?"
"Well..." Saffron shifted her eyes. "Equestria is a bit of a different place from what the world's like up here. Imagine an onion, and the mountains are the outer peel, but there's a ton of layers inside that. The capitol's at the center. It's actually the place my mom was from. And the closer you get to the center, the more peaceful and idyllic things get. Yakyakistan trying to take over the world? Varsidel having a civil war? Sphinx lords assassinating each other and raising armies? Sure, Equestrian ponies still have problems, but nothing ever like that. It's like a big bubble of paradise, with a bunch of surrounding buffer land they call Equestria, and then a big wall of mountain out at the edge. And I guess they just care more about protecting that bubble and making sure their ponies don't have to know what this is like than they do about all us creatures up here."
"That's not very nice," Amber remarked, furrowing her brow. "Maybe they don't deserve us anyway."
"Eh. It is what it is." Saffron shrugged. "And it makes sense, if you think about it. A mother looks out for her own children before the children of others. Having lived close to that center myself, they do a pretty good job of keeping things down to peaceful, small-town problems. A few occasional monster attacks, since there's a lot of wilderness for things to live in, but most issues ponies have are personal. The local bakery stopped selling their favorite item, or they had a falling-out with a friend. Nothing like losing their homes to war."
Amber fidgeted. "Still..."
"When you think about it, their bubble of peace is a whole lot bigger than the Empire, too," Saffron continued. "They've got a deity called Princess Celestia, who's kind of like Garsheeva only small enough to talk to and actually the head of government. She's the one who keeps everything working smoothly and made the country the way it is. Some say she even created the Aldenfold in the first place, a thousand years ago. And just between you and me, Garsheeva is strong, but whatever kind of magic it would have taken to lift a mountain range..." She wiped her brow. "But even if she is that strong, what's she supposed to do about all this? I doubt even a goddess could stop the war in Varsidel without just militarily defeating all the squabbling sides. Sure, Equestria's reclusive, but having been on both sides of the barrier, I can't rightly say I blame them."
"So basically what you're saying is that whether they're at fault or not, we'd need thirteen Writs of Harmonic Sanction to go," Valey sighed, slumping. "Blame or not, that stinks. What do you even do with the things once you have them?"
Saffron showed her flank. "Well, they're like a scroll with a little rune on, and you just press it against your cutie mark - that's what we call brands down there - and presto. Single use and good for life. There's other ways for griffons and ponies who are blank, but they let you cross the mountains and use the border passes without getting magicked back where you came from."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, when we first got our airship up and running we kind of just tried to book it south. Didn't really work out."
"You wouldn't be the only one who's tried," Diego said with a grin. "When we first got our ship, we spent a month in there just to see what would happen. Took less than a day to fly back out. The mountains just keep repeating forever."
Starlight poked her head out from behind the chair. "Does it also stop you from trying to cross them to the north?"
Saffron blinked hard at her. "Aww, sugarcube, are you with these two?" She gave a silly smile. "Your mane is real cute. But yep, it does. Equestria has airships too, and they didn't exactly want pegasi or captains flying across and then getting stuck up here."
Starlight tilted her head. "But that's flying. What if you walked across?"
Randorf guffawed, and Diego smiled into his drink, Saffron shaking her head sadly. "A suicidal venture if I ever heard one," Pierre remarked. "The initial mountain wall is higher than creatures can fly, and only the first of many hurdles. In the lands above, there are still mountain ranges upon mountain ranges, with icy summits and impossibly forested valleys, and the weather is magically imbued and unpredictable. If a goddess is required here to control the storms' runoff, imagine weathering them in the Aldenfold itself."
"It's just not an idea that's worth it, hon." Saffron shook her head. "There's just no way."
Saffron Sunflower shook her head. "Trying to hike in those mountains would be a fool's errand. And how would you even decide when to turn back?"
"Yeah, but hypothetically, if we really wanted to go..." Valey tapped her hooves together. "I guess someone would have tried it and found out for sure it was impossible? Are you saying everyone who has kicked the bucket, or that nobody tried in the first place?"
"What even makes you think walking the mountains would be more successful than flying?" Pierre queried. "You have wings, do you not? And an airship. Why would the mountains' magic care whether your hooves left the ground?"
Valey shrugged, slowing down. "I dunno..."
"In answer to your question, no one's fool enough to try it," Saffron said. "Even just scaling the initial wall is a fool's errand when a storm can come down halfway up and blow you away, and that first step technically is possible! Grandbell has a gondola that'll get you up to the pass if you have a writ to get you through, but it isn't for tourists."
"What about Sosa the Explorer?" Starlight asked, sitting beside Valey's chair. "He went up there."
Everyone blinked at her. "Aww, shucks, you know about him?" Saffron's ears fell.
Diego chuckled. "They are from Ironridge, after all."
Shill giggled, and Saffron blushed, embarrassed. "Right. Must have slipped my mind..." She shook her head violently. "Sosa traveled the mountains eight hundred years ago. He was a unicorn from Yakyakistan who was downright obsessed with them, always having crazy ideas. Most people just think he thought they were pretty. He definitely thought there would be something special about the halfway point between Infinite Glacier and Grandbell here, and whether there was or wasn't, that's where he founded Ironridge."
"His cartography was startlingly exact, too," Shill added with a murmur. "Ironridge is surrounded by wilderness, and would have been even more remote then. He had no modern technology at all, but by the best possible measurements we can make today, the true halfway point is within a mile of the city's crater. Sosa might have been eccentric, but he was either lucky beyond belief, or knew something no one else has discovered for eight hundred years."
Starlight bit her lip, and Valey glanced at her, certain both of them were thinking of Ironridge's crystal palace.
Shill blinked. "Did I say something?"
"Uh... yeah, just thinking." Valey shook her head. "Nah, we're good. Just thinking, you all are being pretty cool to us, so maybe we should invite you to drop by our ship sometime? We could use more visitors who aren't sphinxes coming to mess with us."
"That is not what you were thinking, sugarcube," Saffron chuckled. "I know the look of someone who knows something and isn't sure whether to say it. And everyone knows something majorly magical went down in Ironridge that you all were a part of. For all I know, it could be related to whatever Sosa saw in the place. But sure! I love hearing rare things and buried tales few others are in on. It's part of the lure of adventuring for me."
"I would not mind dropping by your ship as well," Pierre mused. "In fact, if you were interested, it could even be quite profitable. Word of your restaurant in Stormhoof reached my ears, and if you are thinking of expanding your business here, I have a set of skills that may be worth your while to hire."
Valey pursed her lips. "Huh, that might be a good idea... I dunno if we're doing that yet, but yeah, you're welcome to drop by!"
"Sounds like you're ready to be somewhere else," Saffron remarked with a smirk. "We'll see you around, I hope. Headed back to your ship for the night? Or are you going to see what Grandpapa wanted?"
Valey's ears fell. "Oh yeah. Right. Yeah, it's really best if I go figure out what he wants with me before he gets in my face about it again. Or my friends' faces." She glanced to the table, where Shinespark was diligently poring over the tournament diagrams, head held in thought. "See you later, I guess?"
"See you!" Saffron and Randorf sent her off with a rousing cheer, with polite waves from Shill and Pierre and a salute from Diego.
As Valey stepped through the slightly-emptier room, fighters trickling out as the night grew later, Amber and Starlight stepped up by her side. "Looks like most of our friends have left," Amber remarked, nodding at the door. "Probably gone to figure out where Gerardo left out ship. I have the sound stone, so we can stay in touch." She tossed the crystal, lodging it safely in her mane. "They seemed really friendly."
Valey nodded, scanning the room for Grandpapa and detecting him in a distant corner. "Yeah. Especially when two of them are dudes I just beat. I kinda want to spar with Saffron to be sure, but I think they're legit and just are here because they really like fighting."
"About time we made some more normal friends, right?" Amber nudged her with a grin, careful to avoid any of her lingering wounds. "Anyway, want us along to talk to the old coot? You're probably really tired of elderly batponies after dealing with Chauncey."
Valey's smile returned. "You know what? That would be pretty cool. Bring it, old coot."
"Hello there, children," Grandpapa greeted as the trio drew closer. "I was almost afraid you would try to avoid me. How are you finding this effort to save our tournament?"
"Uh... hi." Valey blinked. "I mean, it's cool. But is there any particular reason you're being friendly all of a sudden?"
"Oh, I've always acted in your best interests," Grandpapa hummed. "But for today, at least, you're on a good path."
Valey moved a hoof forward. "Look, dude. You're cryptic, and I get that you enjoy doing that, but if you want something from me, you gotta straight up say it. No riddles, no jokes. What are you after?"
"Well?" Grandpapa shrugged. "If I could have truly anything, I would like to see sarosians treated as equals with the rest of the Empire. But that's a tall order, isn't it?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "So the best way to do that is to monk me in Stormhoof and then chop my friends up in the tournament?"
Grandpapa returned the expression, and his eyebrow was hairier. "What good were you ever going to do us all, fighting out there to become the champion?"
"I dunno." Valey frowned. "I wasn't really trying to do anything. I just entered for my friends."
"Mhmmm," Grandpapa insisted, skeptical. "Firstly, you were entering in the first place. Rising in the tournament draws eyes, and I had heard what you were like in Ironridge. You were hardly a poster child for a benevolent sarosian race. Second, you had that pendant around your neck, filled with obsidian. Not a good statement to be making. Lastly, you were entering with a Regent, which is a little philosophical peeve of mine. Regents pass judgement on your defeated enemies. That is the job of a god, and Garsheeva puts them there to watch mortals like us flail around with that responsibility. And I have seen all too well what happens when sarosians think they know better than gods."
Amber blinked. "Are you talking about you-know-who in Izvaldi?"
"Mhmmm."
Valey squinted. "You knew him?"
"Better than you think." Grandpapa smirked regretfully. "We knew each other in Mistvale, but went our separate ways decades ago. It didn't stop me from seeing what he became."
"So... what?" Valey tilted her head. "Chauncey was a punk, but what does he have to do with me? Why would you monk me when we had barely even met, then wreck Shinespark and her armor?"
Grandpapa shrugged. "Because the tournament is a waste of your time. It is for showoffs and entertainers. The Griffon Empire doesn't need sarosians being that way in the public eye. If you stayed like you were in Ironridge, you would reflect poorly upon our entire race, and if you had changed, there are much better ways to help than destroying others in front of an audience."
Amber nodded skeptically. "And cheating to get Valey out of the tournament is a real great way to reflect shiningly on batponies yourself, isn't it?"
"I worked for Gyre," Grandpapa apologized. "Everyone already knew nothing good comes out of Gyre."
Valey furrowed her brow. "And you couldn't have bucked that trend? Why do you want me to be a good role model, or avoid being a bad one, if you're a cheater yourself?"
"Because you're more charismatic than I am," Grandpapa replied, not missing a beat.
"Uh. Right..." Valey shifted her eyes.
"So where do things stand now?" Amber pressed. "If Valey stays in the tournament, are you going to keep harassing her and trying to get her out?"
"Oh, no." Grandpapa shook his head. "That would be a waste of time when she has already proven undaunted. There's nothing I can do to see her removed, and I wouldn't sabotage everyone else and what they're fighting for."
Valey huffed. "I feel so special."
"Well, you are something else," Grandpapa admitted. "Instead, I'd like to talk, and take a risk that you will act in good faith. You seem different from the Valey of Ironridge. May we find somewhere more private?"
Valey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, let's talk now instead of trying that before attacking me. Great idea. Better late than never..."
"Your sarcasm is noted," Grandpapa evenly replied. "But I don't believe you would trust words to work with someone of your Ironridge reputation either. Now, there should be plenty of space somewhere over here..."
Grandpapa led Valey through two doors and a corridor, Starlight and Amber on her heels. They ended what felt like a bedroom converted to a storage room, a functional lock on the door that the old stallion quickly used to bolt them in. "Now then," he sighed, seating himself on a chest. "I have told you what I want. The sarosian race has an embattled image, here in the Empire. I would see it improved, and certainly not see it harmed. You have potential to make a big difference in either direction, and every bit of experience I possess says force is the only kind of reason your type listen to." He raised an eyebrow. "But you've been stubborn, and so here we are."
"Uh huh." Valey nodded. "I'm not interested in trashing the reputation of batponies here, though. I've seen how we're treated, and it stinks. Bananas, I had a pretty good idea of what it was like already the first time I even met you. So, I'm officially promising that's not my intent." She returned an even stare. "You happy? Because something tells me it's not that simple."
"Do you understand?" Grandpapa countered. "Have you seen with your own eyes the darkest depths our kind can sink to to get what they want?"
"Yeah, actually, I have," Valey said, sitting on her haunches and folding her forelegs. "Chauncey. We even brought him up earlier. I saw his Nightmare Modules, met Stanza three times, spent way longer than anyone deserves with Crystal, and was there when he blew up Izvaldi. And after all was done, I thought he was sad. I'm never going to fall so far that I do things like him."
Grandpapa scrutinized her, then rubbed his chin. "Well, you do have a moral compass, but if that's all you saw him do..."
"We learned about the thing with the foals and the moon glass," Valey continued. "We saved Puddles from him. I know about the Firefly Sisters, and what he was using them for. I know exactly who Navarre is and what he was doing there, and I know why Chauncey wanted me, too."
Grandpapa hummed. "And do you know why he left Mistvale and came to the Empire in the first place?"
Valey blinked. "Uhh... I think he said he just didn't like the Night Mother?"
Grandpapa scoffed. "That's what he would say. Do you know what happened between him and Lord Victor, Percival's father? Do you know what he had to do with that mining accident that poisoned the river twenty years ago? Or why ponies like Crystal and Meyneth hated him so much?"
"Uhhh..." Valey trailed off. "No, I... never actually did hear why he and Crystal hated each other. He's kind of dead, so I didn't care to figure out..."
"You said you knew him, old stallion," Amber remarked. "You two just go way back?"
Grandpapa nodded. "Oh, yes. We go very far back. Once upon a time, we were clergy together in a southern city in Mistvale."
"He was a monk?" Valey asked. "With you? We heard from one dude Chauncey was around in this war fifty years ago, and got ticked and tried to steal the Nightmare Modules, but he was definitely lying..."
"And you were close to the Empire?" Amber added.
"Indeed," Grandpapa said. "This was a long time ago. Before even the Yanavan incident, or the brief war with Gyre that preceded it. In those days, we were zealous and pious, young stallions who loved the Night Mother and her laws. And then? A mare came."
Valey and Amber sat, listening attentively.
"She was from Gyre," Grandpapa narrated. "Quite a beauty, but not a sarosian. She was looking for refuge from her life there, and our temple accepted her."
"And someone fell in love with her," Valey interrupted. "But you guys had those heresies..."
"A sharp little mare, aren't you?" Grandpapa wryly said, leaving Valey uncertain whether he was being sarcastic. "We might have both had our hearts set aflutter. He was the only one who was serious enough to do anything about it."
Amber nudged Valey, and they both fell silent, letting him continue.
"The rest of the world, at this point in time, was feeling the grasp of Yakyakistan's expanding empire," Grandpapa continued. "Mistvale had traded with the Griffon Empire before, on and off throughout history. But the yaks' reach touched our shores, and we suddenly had materials we could never have dreamed of getting on our own. Garments, craftsponyship. Magical learning... Windigo hearts."
Valey's eyes widened slightly. "Those were around back then? This was fifty years ago, right? Since it was before that Gyre war? I thought the windigo hearts only appeared after Yakyakistan's war finished ten years later..."
"However they got them, they had them," Grandpapa insisted. "There weren't many, and they didn't come cheap, but the convoy insisted it was a powerful magical reagent with unknown applications. Chauncey bought one with temple funds, believing it could react to our Mistvale arts and do something to help. He and that mare from Gyre had a relationship together in secret, but it's hard to keep secrets from the Night Mother when she can communicate in our minds. But Chauncey found a way."
Everyone listened as he continued. "Chauncey found a way, by using Mistvale arts on windigo hearts, to create these," Grandpapa said, pulling out a small, black piece of metal that reminded Valey suspiciously of the substance that made up Stanza's crown. He held it out for them to examine. "It's a part of yourself. When a sarosian loses this, they are locked out from the dusk statue network connecting us all to the Night Mother."
Valey blinked. Crystal had said she couldn't talk with dusk statues, hadn't she...?
"Is that yours?" Amber asked, the black metal reflected in her eyes.
"This?" Grandpapa shook his head. "Oh, no. This is Chauncey's. He gave it to me decades ago as a token of friendship. These things can only be unmade by their owners, and he could use the network as long as he was touching it. But he wanted his thoughts and relationship kept secret from the Night Mother, and so he wanted it nowhere near him."
"Can I see that?" Starlight tilted her head, looking expectantly at the tiny piece of metal.
"Here." Grandpapa gave it to her. "Now that he's dead, you can keep it, for all I care. In the hooves of all but its owner, it is inert and useless." He shrugged. "Chauncey always said he knew instinctively where it was even when it wasn't on him, so having it far away was something he enjoyed. It was like it registered in his sense of smell."
Valey suddenly froze, glancing at Starlight. "That's, uh... Huh. Really?"
"I never did it to myself," Grandpapa said. "But we're getting distracted. Chauncey found a way to put himself outside the Night Mother's reach. He had to give up his robes when he couldn't explain to the other monks what had happened to his connection, but it was something almost any of us could have done, and all for the sake of what his heart told him was right. Would you have done that? Forsaken the Night Mother's teachings because your own heart told you otherwise?"
"Well, duh." Valey shrugged, pretending not to have been staring at Starlight. "I'm not exactly her biggest fan."
"And, so, you can see why I was worried." Grandpapa nodded. "Young firebrands feeling they know better than their protectors never ends well. It didn't for Chauncey, either. He kept that windigo heart of his, and the two of them saw each other in secret, and they tried starting a family. They didn't know that sarosians always breed true. If you've been around Chauncey recently, it might feel like an open secret, but this is very rare knowledge in the Empire and in Mistvale. But they were happy together, and I covered for them, and they might have lived happily ever after if the inevitable hadn't happened and they were discovered."
Valey and Amber's ears stuck up straight. "It was interesting it took so long, in hindsight," Grandpapa said. "Mares don't just have children when they're the only one of their kind around, and especially not three of them. Those two were busy! But even if Chauncey didn't find out, someone higher up did. His lover was mortally injured. His foals were killed."
"Ouch." Amber folded her ears.
"Yeah," Valey agreed. "He had it coming, but... ouch."
Grandpapa shrugged. "The executor of the Night Mother's will who did the deed was a local mare. She had a family too. A young daughter, several years older than that filly there." He pointed a hoof at Starlight. "A child for a child, Chauncey said. Nobody knew it was he who fathered those three. So he foalnapped her. He was blinded by grief, wanted the most painful way to make that executor pay. I was there when he did it. He took that windigo heart and did something he must have learned from Yakyakistan, something nobody even knew he could do."
He made a smashing motion with his hooves. "The very next moment, his lover was entombed in ice, missing her brand in a room beneath the floor of the temple shrine. There was a light floating in the air, a symbol matching the mark of the executor's daughter. We watched as it was drawn into the blue energy conduits that form lighting in Mistvale's cities. And where that daughter had been was a young sarosian filly who looked just like his lover."
"But that's impossible!" Valey protested. "That stuff wasn't invented until after the war!"
"The war in Yakyakistan?" Grandpapa raised an eyebrow. "Oh, that had already transpired. These two were careful, and didn't even dare to have children for many years. It would have been perhaps thirty-five years ago. Maybe more. They had many years of memories together when this occurred. It was the point at which I realized he was dangerous, and we went our separate ways. I left the Empire for Gyre, and grew into the service of their lord, fighting in the tournament. Chauncey stayed in Mistvale. I do not know what he did. But next I met him, after the Yanavan affair years later, he still had that stolen filly... and he had a Nightmare Module."
"Yeah, we heard he had something to do with that," Valey sighed. "Wasn't from a trustworthy source, like I said."
"How he did it is irrelevant." Grandpapa shook his head. "I just saw him while he was passing through. The child was grown up by then, with a newborn daughter of her own I knew was his, though she posed as Chauncey's daughter herself. The newborn was Crystal. They were barely with me for a day, making their way south, and Chauncey filled my ears with plans and goals to create some way to transfer a pony's memories. I don't even know if his old lover was still there, frozen in the ice on the brink of death, but he wanted to regain the time they had spent together. He had researched the heresies, found out that sarosians always breed true, and wanted to research the ways we have offspring, hoping he could modify us to create a new sarosian who can have children of either parent's type. He believed that would make the heresy unnecessary... or allow him to do something the Night Mother couldn't. That blackened form of my old friend was lost and very, very angry."
Valey winced. "Sounds insane. Not that he wasn't already, but do you mean all those weird research habits of his he kept talking about using to make a new goddess came in the first place from trying to save a forbidden love?"
"It is likely." Grandpapa nodded slowly. "That was the last time we ever spoke, though I have heard stories from Meyneth. He found himself seeking refuge in Izvaldi, which was ruled by Lord Victor, a corrupt, incompetent griffon with no eyes for the future. Victor's father was ailing and had recently been forced to give his son control, and Chauncey realized if he could manipulate the lord, he could have a whole province all under his control. A place to build a refuge for himself and his dreams..."
"So did he?" Amber shuffled where she sat.
"Oh, yes." Grandpapa nodded harder. "He tried to bargain, at first. But Victor only had eyes for himself, and asked for that mare, the executor's daughter with the brand and soul of Chauncey's lover, as his concubine. It was nothing more than a little case of selling a seat in the government to the highest bidder. And while the Chauncey of old might have refused, this one had a Nightmare Module, and love had been replaced by desire in his heart. He wanted the other modules. He knew one could erase memories, and desired it in his quest to restore his lover's mind. He thought anything he did could be undone. And so he sold Crystal's mother when she was still too young to speak."
Starlight was still busy studying the metal, but Valey frowned. "Dude, this isn't the greatest story..."
Grandpapa shrugged. "It is what it is. Most importantly, it's a warning, one for anyone who would give themselves up for power. You start by putting your heart above your goddess. And the spiral of destruction will never end."
"I would never do that!" Valey protested. "I know about Nightmare Modules. I've held one, and I'm never using one no matter what!"
"Are you really?" Grandpapa raised a dangerous eyebrow. "I know their effects myself, and I saw one, a shadow cloak, used when your friend faced me in the arena. That is not one Chauncey had. Someone on your side has already dabbled in these, and they are one wound to the heart away from catastrophe. You are playing with forces you don't understand. It feels like power, and I watched my friend take that power and when the world hit him again, he burned."
That got Starlight's attention. "They're really that bad?"
"He knew it cost him some emotions," Grandpapa continued. "When I met him on his way south, he spoke of feeling colder, more rational, like something was missing and he didn't know what. He spoke of lights around other ponies, about desire, and how wonderful his transmuted lover made him feel, even without her memories. But it cost him his reason, his ability to weigh the value of anything beyond what he wanted. And he lived like that for years, watching and ruling Izvaldi as an advisor, raising Crystal as his granddaughter and keeping her hidden from Victor while he used his power to keep chasing those dreams. And then it all ended with a bottle of alcohol and a moment that wasn't meant to be overseen."
He took a breath. "Meyneth wouldn't tell me the details, other than that she was there. But Lord Victor was drunk, saw that mare he had been promised with Chauncey and Crystal. Victor killed her. Crystal killed him, barely into her tenth year. Chauncey protected her and framed it as a suicide, but blamed her when they were alone. 'If you hadn't been seen with your mother, he wouldn't have grown jealous...' Victor was always a jealous griffon. I learned this from Meyneth. The goal of all his experiments was gone. He was broken by a Nightmare Module. Who knows if it was possible in the first place. But what was he left to do but take all of his work and repurpose it toward fighting the goddess he believed started all this? Experiments on eugenics. Memory transference, controlling a mare's offspring, moving brands... all of it began moving towards a singular goal: kill the Night Mother."
Grandpapa sat back, finished. "...Wow," Valey eventually said. "That's so messed-up I don't even know if I'd believe it, except... it kind of explains the way he was. He definitely hated gods and thought the world needed someone better."
"I don't know whether to feel sorry for him, or what," Amber sighed. "So what does all that have to do with Valey?"
"It's a cautionary tale," Grandpapa answered, shaking his head. "It's the worst ponies are capable of falling, when they combine an immense passion with following their heart, a disregard for our gods, and a knowledge of these sciences mortals were not meant to know. Tell me, Valey. How does this not describe you?"
"I..." Valey swallowed, looking at her hooves. "Bananas, you're kinda right. I do know way, way more than I'm comfortable with about Chauncey's science, and not just from after I met him. But I wanna be a good guy, and I'm never selling out my friends. And, like, if this has so much potential to go badly, anyone knowing about this... what do I even do?"
Suddenly, she became aware of Starlight holding onto her side. "You give up and stop trying."
Grandpapa hummed in interest, then nodded down at Starlight. "She understands. You must understand that hardship is the way of the world, trust in those far above you instead of trying to usurp them, and admit to yourself that just because you can and you want to does not mean you must. Whatever you were fighting for in the tournament, you would be happier without it."
"I was fighting for my friends," Valey mumbled.
"And Chauncey started out fighting for his lover," Grandpapa finished. "How long do you think it took him before he started fighting for his own need of her instead? The more I learn about you, my dear, the more you remind me of him when we were young. This is why I wanted you to quit the tournament. And it is all I have to say."
"We're, uhh..." Valey looked at her friends. "Gonna need to talk about this for a bit..."
Soon, Grandpapa was gone, having swam under the door and leaving Valey, Amber and Starlight alone in the room. Valey frowned. Amber fidgeted. Starlight stared at the metal that had once been a part of Chauncey.
"Sooo..." Amber began, trying to break the silence. "Boy, it's awkward in here. Valey, which part of that do you want to talk about..."
"What's with you?" Valey cut in, giving Starlight a look that was half cross and half worried. "We give up and stop trying? To do what? The only thing I've ever tried to do since coming to this empire is keep you guys safe! Yeah, so Grandpapa saw one guy go bananas and figured everyone must be the same. I'll admit, he did have a point: we know too much about that creepy science too, and I'd do anything for you guys. But while I get what happens if you go too far, the answer to that is to find a balance, not just morosely sit there!"
"I...!" A look of fear washed over Starlight's face.
"Hey." Valey's voice grew gentler, but stayed firm, and she rested a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "I know. It's okay. Whatever you were thinking made sense at the time." Her brow straightened. "You feeling okay?"
Starlight suddenly clung to her, careful to avoid her wounds but burying her face in Valey's fur. "No. It hurt to say that..."
"Uhh..." Valey patted her uncertainly. "Hey, kiddo, it's okay. Talk to me."
Starlight sniffed, then stilled. "That's what G... What she's been telling me. The other me who's with us. She talks like she knows things about me, and says that if I don't learn to let go of things I care about when I could stop them from leaving if I didn't, I'll never be happy."
Valey's ears perked, and Amber moved closer. "She does?"
"Yes," Starlight mumbled into Valey's side. "I thought he was saying the same thing, so I agreed because it makes sense when she says it, but it hurt to say."
"Oh boy." Valey sat back, putting a wing around Starlight. "Sounds like you've been thinking about a lot of stuff for a while. You talk about this with Maple? She's the one who knows most about you. I heard you had issues with this back in Riverfall, but kinda figured..." She uncomfortably scratched her head.
"It feels like I said something wrong," Starlight insisted, still burying her face. "I know you want to keep your friends! I want to keep my friends, too! I don't want to ever lose you if there's anything I can do to stop it, and even if there isn't I'll make a way! Losing you won't make me happy..."
Valey gritted her teeth. "You better believe it won't. And I'll punch anyone who says otherwise. So there."
Amber bit her lip. "You did just let Grandpapa tell you that fighting for your friends stacks up to becoming a monster."
"Yeah, well, he can put a sock in it."
"He's right, though," Starlight said, her voice taking on a duller tone. "He wasn't saying letting myself be left behind is a good thing. He was saying some of the things I can do to stop it would be worse. There is a line that should be drawn, but if I keep getting better and better at keeping all of you, I'll always need to reach just a little further..."
"Snap out of it!" Valey bapped her, holding Starlight up and meeting her eyes. "Wherever we are and whatever we've done, none of us are remotely close to being Chauncey. We have not crossed any lines, and there are none to cross for miles around. Every time we've done something huge or heroic to save our friends, it's come entirely at our own cost. We haven't turned into monsters and we haven't hurt others, especially not the ponies we're trying to save. Unless you think Maple feels hurt that you and I tried so hard to catch her when falling off that dam in Ironridge that we hurt ourselves more than we would have, injuries from which we're all better now? I sure doubt all of Ironridge feels ungrateful that we saved them! Yeah, we can do some cool stuff, but there's nothing stating we can't do it for good."
Starlight stared back. "If you got stuck in moon glass, what do you think we would do?"
Valey blinked. "I mean, that would be stupid, but what could you do? Nyala's already that way all the time."
Starlight's gaze didn't waver. "Do you think we'd bring you to Riverfall, and ask one of Maple's old friends who knew what would happen and didn't have a cutie mark if they would help us bring you back?"
"Uhh..." Valey gulped.
"If we explained everything involved, Willow would say yes," Amber murmured. "I know her."
"Would you want us doing that for you?" Starlight insisted. "Well?"
"Give me a minute!" Valey protested. "Look, you know where I came from is kind of a sore spot for me. Even after what the Night Mother said about my mark, I'm, like..." She shivered. "Bananas, I don't wanna think about that. I'd feel bad if you did. I wouldn't have any memories, either."
Starlight kept watching.
"And I'd be a kid again," Valey thought aloud. "You'd practically have to raise me. It would take forever for me to be old enough to get what had happened. The me that's here now and remembers this conversation wouldn't exist. I wouldn't even get a say in the conversation. But, like... you guys would be glad to have me back, even if it was just a part of me."
"Right," Starlight sighed, glumly drooping in Valey's embrace. Valey set her back down. "But I know we'd consider it, because no one wants to lose you. And if we crossed that line, what would be next? The bigger our reach is, the more impossible things we can try to grab for that we shouldn't..."
"Yo." Valey grinned. "Maybe ponies like Chauncey will do that, but when have we ever compromised on our ideals so far? Sure, we might have played friendly with a couple of shady dudes, but we never did anything evil knowing that it was wrong. Saving Ironridge? You and I were heroes, kiddo. And Maple was too for saving you afterward. You were the one who even talked me into fighting Herman when I wanted to get you out of there and bail. And just to stick it to everyone who says we can't, I bet you we can find ways to all stay safe and together without crossing any lines."
Starlight's lip trembled. "But what if we can't? There was nothing I could do in Equestria..."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Valey promised. "If we come to it. I'm not planning on getting glassed any time soon. Not with this baby keeping me safe." She patted her butt. "And if I do? You watch. I bet you'll figure out whatever Navarre did to get me out of my glass in the first place, and it won't involve having kids or waiting years or anything else that feels wrong. Or maybe you'll find an even better way."
Starlight's face shadowed. "I do know another."
Valey blinked. "Wait, really?"
Starlight nodded, lowering her voice to a whisper. "There's a seventh Nightmare Module. Remember the one that had a memory, that Chauncey wanted to watch? The whole point of that memory was saying that this one even existed. It's not with the others. I don't know where it is. But they said it let you move around cutie marks easily, from pony to pony. Since moon glass is made by a Nightmare Module, I bet this one can take cutie marks out of it, too."
"Uhhh." Valey sat down hard. "Well, bananas."
"I think Garsheeva has it," Starlight offered. "She was in the memory. But I don't know. But does it matter?" She tilted her head. "Would you be any happier being brought back by a Nightmare Module, even if I found it? Would I be happier, using them to help my friends?"
Valey hesitated. "You've used them before..."
"And I'm never using them again," Starlight promised. "Especially after hearing what they did to Chauncey. They make me feel different inside. I've mostly had you all to care for me while I was like that, but I'm afraid of what could happen. They make me really strong. And if one of you was in danger, I don't think I'd be able to tell where the line was on what to do..."
"Yeah, well, there were no nightmare batponies at Icereach, so you won't have to."
"Sounds like there's another way," Amber agreed. "Since they didn't have any harmonic flame to set themselves back to normal. But don't you worry about the Nightmare Modules. As long as we have a good supply of that stuff, we'll be able to put you back right as rain."
Valey winced. "I mean, to be fair... we kinda don't. Sparky used up a lot getting us to Izvaldi while Crystal was in labor. Apparently when you push the ship too fast, it gets way less efficient..."
Amber's brow creased in worry.
"Yeah," Valey sighed, "I'm expecting us to have a group talk about where we're going pretty soon here. We've got enough to get back to Ironridge if we don't mess around with anything else first, and then we can refuel and maybe hit up Yakyakistan for the rest of our windigo hearts. They owe us more, right? And we can get that Writ of Harmonic Sanction they owe us, too. Two isn't a bad start on thirteen..."
Amber glanced at the door. "That thing at the bottom of the city was a crystal palace. The one by Garsheeva's giant throne. If only we could get in there and get more..."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, breaking into a goddess's inner sanctum is at the very top of my priority list. It would be neat, but my butt hurts just thinking about it. That place is a no-go."
"Hmm," Amber exhaled, sitting back down. "Well, I hope Crystal appreciated it. She was very demanding to midwife for, much worse than Willow. We didn't have to get her there that quickly."
Valey winced. "Yeah, she might have... had other things on her mind at the time. I'm pretty sure if we ever see her again, which I hope we won't, it won't be a happy reunion."
Amber blinked. "Was she not okay?"
Valey stretched unhappily, glancing at Starlight. "I guess all we said was that Gazelle was causing trouble, huh...?" She huffed. "Crystal had her kid, alright. And it was a batpony."
Amber tilted her head. "And batponies breed true..."
"Yep. Not a griffon." Valey shrugged. "Percival thought she cheated and tried to forgive her, but didn't listen when she said she didn't. All the nurses and stuff were Chauncey's old goons, and they kinda made things worse by not seeing a problem, so she thought they thought she was a floozy. And then Gazelle was laughing at her through a window... We beat him up, and didn't check back in."
"So her foal's father... You don't think, if she really didn't want to acknowledge it, it could have..." Amber lifted a hoof.
"Nahhh, I'm pretty sure Crystal was telling the truth," Valey assured, pushing her hoof back down. "I mean, maybe there's a chance she was so unstable, she was lying to herself for an illusion of stability, but that feels like stuff wouldn't add up. And for Chauncey's doctors never to tell her what was in her during a checkup or something is suspicious. I bet you that since Chauncey had a thing for eugenics experiments and using her as a test subject, he somehow modified her so that rule doesn't hold anymore. I mean, Grandpapa even said something about him wanting to control a batpony's offspring. It's weird stuff, but there was so much messed up going on in there that you could tell me and I wouldn't doubt it for a second."
"Poor girl," Amber said. "She was needy and unpleasant, but I don't doubt it was because of her circumstances. I wish there could be a happy ending for her. Hopefully she and Percival can make up and retire happily together."
Valey rolled her shoulders. "I never really saw them together that much, but it's hard to believe their relationship could be anything approaching stable. Whatever works, I guess."
Both of them looked at each other until Starlight cut in. "Does this remind you of anything?" she asked, holding up Chauncey's metal.
"Uhh..." Valey squinted at it. "It looks vaguely like moon glass, but maybe I'm just saying that because it's black. Doesn't feel dangerous. I think it might be the stuff Stanza's crown was made out of. Having this created supposedly made Chauncey unreadable by the Night Mother, and Crystal said dusk statues never worked for her, either..."
Starlight frowned back at the metal.
"You look like you were thinking of something else," Amber remarked.
"It's nothing," Starlight assured, tapping the metal and listening to its clink. "It reminds me of a sword neither of you would remember."
Valey blinked in thought. "Yeah, don't remember it. One other weird thing, though: you know how he said you can apparently smell this stuff from ages away, if it's yours?"
Starlight tilted her head. "You don't mean like how you can smell me?"
Valey nodded. "Mhmmm."
"But I'm not metal," Starlight protested, checking herself over just in case. "And you can use dusk statues."
Valey shrugged. "Well, technically, I've never tried. But I can feel them calling me, and I heard the Firefly Sisters' concert and Stanza's music, both of which apparently use the same thing. So yeah, I guess it might be different."
"It's weird, though," Amber said, rubbing her chin. "Right? You never did find out why you can smell Starlight like that."
"I mean, no." Valey squinted at the chip again, then stood up. "But I'm not the only one with weird smell senses like this, either. Puddles had this really weird ability to beeline straight to Melia on that pirate ship after she had gotten captured. And since Puddles apparently wrote Stanza's songs that they were singing, there might have been this weird communication stuff somehow involved there too."
"Puddles isn't a batpony, though," Amber pointed out.
"Yeah, I dunno." Valey paced over to the door, flicking the lock open. "Look, I dunno about you, but all this talking has made me hungry. Who wants to invite some of our new friends over and have a good old hangout?"
Valey strolled through darkness of Grandbell's rainy surface, this time opting to wear a coat as Amber, Shinespark, Starlight, and their new group of friends from the tournament room followed along. The glowing sound stone sat under a wing, Grenada's formal voice providing directions to where the ship had been moored.
"Thanks for inviting us along," Saffron chirped. "We've been at this tournament stuff practically all day. Things are looking a little more possible after all our work, and it's a real pleasure to have a chance to put our hooves up in good company."
Diego and Randorf had abstained, both having elsewhere to be, but Pierre and Shill followed along at her sides. "We were grateful to have your help," Shill added. "Not a lot of others were going to do it. With all the bad news in the Empire these days, between Meltdown's power rationing and the events at Stormhoof and what happened to Garsheeva, everyone has real drama to worry about instead of the tournament's staged drama."
Saffron shrugged. "On the bright side, if all the spectating nobles aren't thirsty for it, it means the only ones we'll have to worry about cheating will be us fighters ourselves. And there'll be plenty who will, but this still might be the fairest endgame of the decade."
"If it happens," Shinespark insisted. "We're still trying to fairly choose a winner from thirty-seven contestants and enough timeslots for fifteen scheduled battles."
"Free-for-alls?" Valey shrugged. "That sounds kinda unfair, but it would be faster..."
"We're working on it," Shinespark promised. "What's most likely is that we'll do half of it off-schedule, as long as we can agree how we'll choose a champion still at the end. We could also have back-to-back fights, or a four-way battle where the last two standing win... It's complicated."
"Yep." Saffron tossed her mane, not caring about the rain. "So how did you three's talk go with Grandpapa? He can be a little intense and mysterious, but he's looked out for the rest of us fighters in the past."
Valey winced, wobbling her shoulders. "Eh, it went so-so. At least he's not trying to monk me anymore. That's an improvement I'll take any day."
"Mistvale arts are a pain to run afoul of," Pierre agreed. "Those who fear sarosians can say what they will, but it is always good to have a friend who can fix you on hand. The bad ones tend to last a very long time."
"Been there, felt that..." Valey folded her ears. "So apparently they're landed in an orchard over this way? I guess we turn right here."
Saffron gave a curious nod. "How's that thing of yours work, anyway? I've seen magic that sends signals through conduits, but normal technology doesn't just work at long range."
Valey tossed the stone and caught it. "I dunno. It just works. We stole them from some clowns in Ironridge who probably stole them from someone else. They sure are nice, though."
"Literal clowns?" Shill frowned. "Randorf works in a performance troupe, and has friends who are clowns..."
Amber stifled a giggle at the thought, and her and Valey shared a look. "Nah. I mean, sorta." Valey grinned. "Actually the same dudes who were somehow announcers for part of the tournament. Crazy hair and shades with a trench coat? They've kind of got the looks for it."
Pierre snorted. "They must have had some talent in performance to win an audition."
"Actually, I'm pretty sure Gazelle bribed someone. We kind of got them off the hook with him a while back..." Valey shuffled slightly as she walked, fidgeting. "I dunno. Those three can kiss each other for all I care. Point is, the sound stones are cool and they work, so who cares how or why?"
Saffron grinned. "A useful outlook you've got there. So is that your ship?" She pointed to a dark outline among the trees, a glowing crack of lighting along the sides marking where the shielding could retract to reveal the dining hall's armored windows.
"Yep." Valey picked up her pace, heading for the boarding ramp that was ready and waiting.
An hour later, introductions had been reiterated, Pierre had joined Maple in the kitchen, and Saffron and Shill were hanging out in the dining hall with the rest of the adults as Starlight sat at the top of the stairs and watched, hundreds of thoughts running through her mind.
A little patter of hooves announced Glimmer sitting down beside her. "Feeling alright?"
"No," Starlight whispered.
"Can I listen?"
"I keep seeing it again. I keep reliving that day. When Sunburst left and I couldn't handle it." Starlight's ears fell. "For a few months, I think I let myself forget I hadn't left immediately after that. I remembered it in Riverfall. But there was a long time between those where I stayed in Equestria and was afraid of moving a muscle. I thought I had moved past it, and now I'm thinking about losing my new friends too."
Glimmer put a hoof on her shoulder. "Let's go back to your room."
Starlight nodded and stood, guiding her blind lookalike on the short walk through the library before sitting down at the foot of her bed. "I'm imagining too much. Valey losing her cutie mark, Maple dying, us finishing our adventure and everyone walking away." She gulped. "Myself, telling them I give up, and staying together isn't worth the price of saving them."
Glimmer was quiet for a moment. "The worst part of learning to live with loss is seeing it coming."
"I didn't want to believe you," Starlight said, "when you kept telling me I need to learn to stop trying. And then Grandpapa was telling Valey how he had watched Chauncey try so hard to save someone he cared about, he became evil instead. And I knew the answer, and I said it, and it physically hurt."
"In here?" Glimmer put a hoof over her heart.
Starlight closed her eyes and nodded. "It felt dirty to say that drawing a line for yourself is more important than taking care of your friends."
"Oh, Starlight." Glimmer leaned forward, wrapping her forelegs around Starlight in a hug. "Nothing is more important than your friends. It may not feel like it in this broken world, but friendship is magic."
Starlight sniffled. "But you said I have to be able to let them go..."
"You do," Glimmer apologized. "But I know a little about Chauncey. The point where he crossed the line was where he stopped fighting so the pony he loved would be safe and happy, and started fighting so he wouldn't lose them. When the foremost thing in his mind had gone from her needs to his needs, that's when he had gone too far."
"But..." Starlight rubbed an eye, feeling herself start to grow teary. "I need my friends! I'm scared of being without them. I know what it was like..."
"Everyone does," Glimmer told her. "A lonely existence is the saddest existence possible in this world. Being together is the reason why ponies exist. You've learned about how Luna created batponies. The rest of ponykind was born for the same reason, much longer ago. And every pony has the freedom to love and care about whoever they wish. You can care about anyone, or even everyone, Starlight. And there will always be ponies who freely care about you. But if you try to take that love, caring for others so that they will love you instead of because you love them, you will only be lonelier, because the love you long for is not the kind that can be taken."
Starlight blinked. "So you're talking about them leaving me. Not something taking them, but..."
"It could be anything." Glimmer shook her head. "Maybe they will. But they care about you too much to want you hurting yourself for their sake. Maybe they will find themselves in a situation where they don't think they're worth the price of saving."
"But they'd be worth it to me," Starlight reluctantly mumbled.
Glimmer nodded, still hugging her. "And you've saved them from situations like that already, in Ironridge. That's why times like that are your decision. When you are the only one who can step in, no one else can decide for you whether your friends are worth it."
Starlight folded her ears. "So what if I decide they're always worth it, and never stop trying to protect them?"
"If you had all the power in the world, what would you have done when Sunburst left?" Glimmer pulled back, looking straight at her with her sightless eyes.
Starlight trailed off, no answer coming to mind.
"You could have gone with him, but he was one pony. What about when multiple friends go their own ways?" Glimmer continued. "This ship's crew is large. You'll have to choose someday who to go with when they no longer fly together, even if all of them survive every danger along the way. And whether they do that will depend on how far you're willing to go to keep them safe."
Starlight looked at her hooves.
"The world is infinite, Starlight," Glimmer assured, putting a hoof against Starlight's head. "How many years can you remember?"
"I don't know," Starlight murmured. "I'm not that old... I was adopted six years ago. My old parents said I knew my name when they got me, but it's kind of fuzzy. I don't really remember it that well."
Glimmer nodded. "I've lived for longer than anyone else on this ship, and I can tell you this. The world stretches for hundreds of thousands of miles before its boundaries. It existed for so many thousands of years before you remember that history itself has forgotten, and it has the lifespan to continue for thousands more once the hardiest of your friends have died of old age. There are so many ponies throughout space and time, even creatures like Celestia and Garsheeva couldn't hope to know them all. There will always be ponies, always be stories, always be friends waiting out there in the universe for you, friends I can guarantee you could live with happier and more peaceful than your life so far has ever let you dream of. Relationships are transient, but that's their beauty. There will always be new beginnings for every goodbye, and you'll be able to remember every one of them in your heart until the day you, too, cease to exist. Endings aren't the end, because there is no end. You can and should fight for your friends, but when the time comes to let them go, it will be okay."
"But I'm scared," Starlight sniffed. "I don't want to lose everyone again..."
"Even if you do, it will be okay," Glimmer urged. "Shhhhh..."
Starlight sat for what felt like hours, head bowed and touching shoulders with Glimmer as rain hammered the roof and the party dwindled below. Her eyes dried of their own accord, her breathing stilled, her heart slowed, and after an age of tranquility, she finally felt calm.
"How do you know all this?" Starlight asked. "How can you be sure of the friends I'll make in the future?"
"Because friendship is an exception," Glimmer answered, taking time to think. "If you never made another friend, that would involve taking every single person you meet for the rest of your life and not befriending them. And probabilistically, when the world contains people who will even be friendly to... say, Crystal, there's nothing you could do to stop that short of not wanting friends in the first place. They may be different, and they may not fit the precise shape in your heart left by those you miss, but they will fill the hole of loneliness. You aren't as lonesome about Sunburst being gone now that you have your friends here, after all."
Starlight folded her ears, not having a response.
"And I know because it's held true for me, too," Glimmer added. "I've had friends who would give their lives for each other in a heartbeat. And I've lost friends for it. I've also made more, despite having made bigger mistakes than you can imagine. And having them makes life so much brighter for everyone involved."
"But..." Starlight bit her lip. "You're right about Sunburst. I do feel better than I did after he had left."
"You need to talk about that?" Glimmer asked. "Those months before you left, and your time in the mountains?"
Despite her lingering headache, Starlight lit her horn, opening a drawer and pulling out a long-disused package containing ash, a brush and a stencil. She lowered the relic into her hooves, staring at an echo of a time that deserved to be long passed.
"Your cutie mark kit," Glimmer said. "You used to draw an equals sign where your mark would go."
Starlight nodded faintly, eye lost in the little make-up box. "In Equestria, and in the mountains. It kept getting washed off by the rain, and I never put it back on once I reached Riverfall." She folded her ears. "You want me to use it again, don't you."
Glimmer frowned.
"I wore this because I didn't want a cutie mark," Starlight explained, feeling like Glimmer already knew but needing to give voice to the words. "Because cutie marks made you special, and being special separated us. But look at Valey. Cutie marks are just power, and if I'm stronger, I could do more to protect my friends. I would get a cutie mark if it let me save them. I wouldn't care. But you're telling me there need to be limits on what I'll do. So if I won't do something, why bother being able to do it in the first place? But I've tried my hardest to be powerless and not special before, and it was so bad I ran away."
"Hmm." Glimmer closed her eyes. "I wish you didn't have to think about these things. I don't want you to be powerless, Starlight, and you're right that there's no way you can be. Whether it's a privilege or a curse, you can do incredible things for the people you love. I'm not asking you to pretend your determination and ability can be disposed of. What I'm asking is what I said before: I need you to be able to let things go, when the alternative becomes worse than the pain of starting over."
"And when will that be?" Starlight quietly whispered. "You said when I stop protecting them because I care about them and start caring more about myself not being alone?" Her face creased. "What will happen if I don't? And why me? I can't be the only one who's afraid of losing their friends. Why do you care so much about me?"
Glimmer slowly exhaled, the tip of her tail shivering. "Yes. Once you lose your love for others, you will never find what you're looking for. If you never succeed and never give up, you'll keep getting stronger, more ambitious, looking higher and higher without limit. Without limit, Starlight. You'll need to use your imagination on what you would do, but what will happen is the world will become exactly what you make it in your search. Everyone has the potential to shape their lives and the lives of those around them, but you will keep using that and never, ever stop unless you can break the cycle and face your pain in the name of a happier tomorrow. And as for why I care... let's just say you remind me of someone I knew long ago."
"How do I do that, though?" Starlight protested. "Maybe you could give me answers if I was still sad over Sunburst, but I have my friends right now! I'm afraid of what still could happen..."
"Talk to your friends," Glimmer promised. "And make new ones. Your circumstances aren't fair and it isn't right for a filly to have to grapple with this, but they're what you have to work with, and if you could put as much energy into overcoming them and being happy in the present as you do fighting against the future, you could be happy. You know how long it's been since you smiled, let alone laughed."
Starlight looked down.
"Since Sunburst left," Glimmer answered for her, growing a smile of her own. "What was that about not still being sad over him?"
Starlight folded her ears. "I don't want to be. I have new friends now. This is what you said. I lose some, I make more. That's how it needs to work, isn't it?"
Glimmer's face fell. "Starlight... you can't sweep saying goodbye under the rug. You stopped thinking about him because Ironridge put too much on your mind, not because it had gotten better."
Starlight frowned. "So do you want me to fight for my friends for their sake and not mine, or do you want me to do things for my sake because it really hurts when I lose them!?"
"Once again, I wish you didn't need to worry about these things," Glimmer sighed. "It's a balancing act, caring for yourself without being selfish while also caring for your friends. If all was well, every one of those would be the same. But they're not, and you don't have the life experiences to make decisions that are fair to yourself. Do you know what I want you to do?"
Starlight bit her lip. "What?"
"If you trust me enough to do whatever I say." Glimmer looked levelly at her with sightless eyes. "Tonight, I want you to make a friend. One of the visitors who isn't going to stay and you know will be left behind when this ship moves on. If I were you, I would get Maple, talk with Saffron Sunflower, and share stories about Equestria. You and Saffron, with Maple for emotional support. Don't worry about anything. And in the morning, we're going into the city, finding something relaxing and fun to do that feels like a reward, and you are going to tell yourself the entire time through that you deserve it."
Starlight narrowed her eyes, thinking.
Glimmer patiently waited where she sat. "You wanted so badly to be a normal filly in Equestria, but I'm worried you've lost all sight of what normal looks like. But I can help you. Let me help you. Let's go talk to Saffron. You deserve a chance to talk about your home side of the mountains."
"Um..." Starlight took a breath. "I trust you. Okay."
A gilded door sat fast on its hinges deep within the labyrinthine corridors of Grandbell's palace, barring the way to a set of accommodations fit for a king. A three-room underground suite held a plush four-poster, windows with artificial daylight, a powered hot tub and dozens of pillows, books and amenities, and right then, a king wasn't far from what it was being used for. Prince Geribaldi Stormhoof sat on a stiff study chair, tail flicking like a metronome, several treatises open on a desk before him as he manipulated a quill made from his own feather to take notes.
"Is this a bad time?"
Geribaldi sat bolt-upright as his door swung open, a wheelchair-bound Prince Gazelle admitting himself without knocking. "I locked that," he said, passive-aggressively refusing to answer.
"Yes, so you did. And claws make excellent lockpicks." Gazelle smiled innocently, covered in slings and bandages. "Excuse me if I didn't feel like waiting for..." He cleared his throat. "Ahem. I mean, apologies for the intrusion. May I come in?"
"What do you want, Gazelle?" Geribaldi grunted. "Everyone knows you had something to do with the Stormhoof attack. Make my father try to assassinate me, hire your own assassins to kill me, put me up in your own castle now that Stormhoof is a security risk so I'll be 'safer', I'm not playing your games. If you're not going to get on with it, then leave me to study in peace."
"Ah ah ah." Gazelle waggled a talon. "That's Lord Izvaldi to you. The remnants of the council just met, and it was unanimously decided that since someone's been covering up a dead sphinx for years there, little old me gets to rule the middle of nowhere."
"I can't tell whether you're bragging or complaining, and I frankly don't care," Geribaldi said, already back to his books. "Congratulations."
Gazelle suddenly deflated. "Oh, I asked for it too."
Geribaldi raised an eyebrow, not looking up.
"Seems like I could do a little less harm out there with nothing but a destroyed capitol and some farmland to my name," Gazelle sighed, a flair of drama in his resignation he seemed to be trying to banish. "Lead by example, start small, show my stuff, blah blah blah. My empire-conquering days are over, and for good reason. Secondly, I'm here to apologize for making a mess of your own land."
"Meaningless sentiment." Geribaldi dismissed him with a wave of a wing. "Forgive me if I missed the first reason you were here."
"Oh, that little old thing." Gazelle chuckled knowingly, rolling himself closer to the desk. "It's just... you tried to make me see reason back in the good old days, and I was stuck up and having none of it. But now I've had just a little change of heart, and am suddenly very curious." He leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing the spine of a laid-out tome, and gave a sharp-toothed grin. "Tell me everything you know about that old theory that sphinxes are chaotic or cursed of yours."
Starlight stepped alone down the stairs to the dining hall, her counterpart having gone elsewhere for the night. Valey was poking Shinespark about something in a corner while Maple and Gerardo continued chatting with the three visitors, but everyone else had retired for the night, the storm wearing on even though it had been more than a full day.
"Starlight!" Maple perked up, beckoning her over when she entered her sight. "Come join us?"
"Always room for one more," Saffron added cheerfully.
Starlight picked up her pace, feeling slightly empty and disconnected after her talk with Glimmer but not entirely bad. She quickly made her way to Maple's side, sitting down and leaning against her. "Hi."
"Where were you?" Maple asked. "Needed some time alone? I haven't seen you since everyone got back..."
"I don't blame you," Shill encouraged. "It's lovely that you get to grow up with your family on a ship, but sailing parties can be wild. Tonight was much calmer than what I used to see, but those memories will stay with me forever."
Pierre shrugged, having nothing to offer. "Something like that," Starlight muttered. It had to be after midnight, and she felt a thread of sleep tugging at her once again. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, just trading stories." Saffron shrugged. "The newspapers love a good sensation, but they still can't get nearly as good as talking to folks who were really there. This Ironridge stuff is something else to listen to!"
"Glad you enjoy it," Gerardo remarked easily. "It was certainly brimming with adventure, that's for sure. Though given the chance, I think most of us would prefer not to relive it."
"Hah. That's totally understandable." Saffron waved a hoof. "Speaking of reliving things, though, we've got some friends in the vaudeville industry courtesy of Randorf. Wouldn't be too hard to pull some strings and get you all tickets if watching someone else reliving adventure is more up your alley. Could make a fun afternoon when we're not busy with the tournament and all!"
Maple tilted her head. "Performance and re-enactment? That could be fun..."
Starlight blinked, realizing going and enjoying the city was exactly what Glimmer had asked her to do. Maybe she always had chances like this, and just wasn't noticing... "I'd like to go," she volunteered.
"If you'd ask about that, we'd appreciate it," Maple said, putting her hoof on Starlight's head.
"Easier done than said." Saffron cracked her hooves. "So how about you, little filly? We've been hearing all about this Ironridge business of yours. Surely you've got a side of the story to tell."
Maple folded her ears. "Starlight doesn't really like being the center of attention..."
"Uhh... really?" Saffron blinked. "All the colts and fillies I knew growing up loved bragging and being something special. Okay."
Shill put a hoof on Saffron's shoulder and shook her head, giving Starlight a smile. "It's fine. We understand."
"It's not really a problem." Starlight shrugged. "But I don't have a lot to say right now. You're from Equestria?"
"Only me." Saffron pointed to the other two as Pierre stifled a yawn. "These two are locals, though by lifetime mileage Shill's way more traveled than I am. Comes with growing up on a boat."
"Oh, I don't know. I've only been places anyone with a boat can go," Shill dismissed. "Mistvale, Ironridge, eastern Varsidel. These people have been to more than half of those themselves. You're the one who's exotic."
"Heh. Fair point..." Saffron rubbed her neck. "Well, I've been telling stories all night. Everyone else here has been mighty curious about the place themselves... but I might have one or two more left in me. You dream of going there too, sugarcube?"
Starlight bit her lip. "I just want to go where my friends go. Would you be staying late for it? Is everyone else staying? I would like to..."
"It is already very late," Pierre remarked. "I apologize, but I was going to have to dismiss myself sooner or later. If you are staying, I will head home now. Shill?"
Shill smiled apologetically. "I..."
"I don't want to keep you up," Starlight promised.
"Go on, now," Saffron urged. "I'll just be a little longer. Not like this rainstorm is going anywhere in a hurry."
Gerardo bowed, getting upright. "May I walk you out?"
Maple couldn't stifle a yawn either. "It is getting late..."
"No, you should stay!" Starlight wrapped her hooves around Maple. "I just... Please?"
Maple leaned down and nuzzled her mane. "Of course."
Valey and Shinespark had wandered into the kitchen, and Shill and the griffons slowly left, leaving only Maple, Starlight and Saffron in the room. "So what were you curious about?" Saffron chuckled. "Knowing kids, probably anything and everything?"
Maple nodded, tilting her head. "We have been talking about Equestria a lot tonight... Why do you want to hear about it? I didn't think it was the most interesting thing for you."
"Well..." Starlight pawed at the ground with a hoof, suddenly realizing she hadn't asked anyone's permission to tell her secret... and realizing after that that it was entirely her secret to tell. "Because... I haven't met another Equestrian in a long time."
Saffron furrowed her brow. "Another? There aren't that many of us up here, sugarcube. You've met someone from down south before? Come to think of it, you were asking about ways to get across the mountains..."
Maple gave Starlight a concerned look. Starlight saw it, nodded as reassuringly as she could, and took a breath. "I meant I'm from there. I've never met someone here who knows what it's like, being here but being from there."
"You have a Writ of Harmonic Sanction? A filly?" Saffron blinked in utter confusion. "But how?"
"I don't. At least, I don't think so. I don't know how to check if I do." Starlight folded her ears. "I walked across the mountains. That's why I asked if it was hard. I just wanted to talk to someone else."
Saffron's face shifted to disbelief. "Well, I don't know why you'd be lying, and I know all about running off at a young age in the name of adventure, but I still just don't see how that's possible. Nothing and nopony could survive those peaks. You'd have to fly, be utterly proof against wind and snowstorms... and that's assuming you didn't have them repeat on your for infinity. And you're not even a pegasus filly!"
Starlight shrugged. "I didn't know it was so impossible when I tried. My home was up against the mountains. Nobody told me they were special. I thought they were just as uncrossable as any other direction."
"So you were unprepared, too?" Saffron raised an eyebrow.
"...Yes." Starlight looked away. "And I nearly died for it. I spent a week or two in a cave with a bad cold, and Maple and Amber found me floating unconscious in a river."
"Oh, sugarcube." Saffron's face softened. "Are you sure you weren't just from some off-the-map town on the north side and got turned around in the foothills?"
"Absolutely," Starlight promised. "I was on top of the cliff wall, and I never climbed something like that to get there."
Saffron slowly, slowly blinked. "Well... there's no way you could accidentally forget something like that, and the Equestrian side of the foothills are much less sheer. But still, how did you even get down that?"
"I fell off," Starlight admitted. "By accident. I think I used my blanket as a parachute. It was a long way down."
Now Saffron was looking at her with equal parts disbelief, concern and astonishment. "But... the peaks?"
Starlight took a breath. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone how I did it in case they could misuse it, but if you already have a pass... there were caves. I went in when the slopes got too steep to climb, was inside for weeks, and found myself on the other side."
"...You went under the mountains," Saffron said, regarding Starlight with a dawning understanding. "Can't say I've ever heard that idea before. I have no idea how possible that would be. Guess it never crossed my mind..."
"Starlight," Maple warned, concern spread across her face. "Are you sure you want to talk about this? I thought we agreed we weren't..."
Starlight nodded much more firmly than she felt. "We said we wouldn't talk about it because I didn't want to get attention in Riverfall, and not mentioning the caves in case someone misused it. But she already has a real pass, and she's one pony instead of all of Riverfall or Ironridge. Besides, she might understand."
Saffron watched her slowly. "So... you still never got a writ, or anything. Not that there's any way you'd not remember something like that, unless you were real small..."
Starlight's ears fell. "I don't know. It's possible. How likely is it? My home was in the foothills of the mountains, near the sea. I don't remember ever being anywhere else."
"About as likely as a filly crossing the place by herself without one." Saffron rubbed an ear. "So why'd you even do it? Surely you had to know what you were up against, being so local and all."
Starlight shook her head. "I ran away. I didn't know what the mountains were like, or that they were supposed to be uncrossable. I just thought I'd find the next town, and that it would be harder for anyone to follow me if I went uphill..."
"Well, shucks." Saffron was wide awake by now. "That's... uhhh... I'm glad I'm trustworthy enough to hear something like that. Mighty curious, too, about the whole thing. But you need anything I can get you?"
"I don't know," Starlight said. "Most of my friends know, but I've never told anyone else, or met anyone else from home. I just wanted to."
"Aww." Saffron smiled, leaning forward. "Well, for what it's worth, I don't meet Equestrians all that often either. Occasionally I meet folks who want to go that way. My old mentor who took me under his wing when I arrived here even left for there the year after. Won the tournament and used his wish for passage through. It does feel real nice to see a slice of home..." She hesitated. "So if you're an Equestrian, I'm guessing Starlight isn't your full name?"
Starlight suddenly blinked. "Um... no. But I don't use the other half. Ever."
Maple tilted her head. "You told it to me once, didn't you? It was when me and Amber realized you were from far away. It was... Sparkle? Shimmer?"
"No!" Starlight's eyes widened. "I mean I'm not using it! Please don't..."
Maple's ears pressed back in apology, and Saffron gave her a strange look. "Everything alright there, sugarcube?"
Starlight bit her lip. "The rest of my friends don't know, and I really need it to stay that way. This is different from where I'm from. I don't want to talk about it."
"Sorry..." Maple whispered.
Starlight hugged her encouragingly, and didn't offer anything more to say.
"Well... my apologies too." Saffron put a hoof over her heart. "Even if you didn't know the deal with those mountains, must've taken an awful lot just to run away out there in the first place. I mean, technically I was a runaway too, but I'm getting the idea you didn't do it for the sake of adventure."
"I did it to find a better place to live," Starlight said. "Because I didn't like where I was."
"Huh." Saffron shrugged. "I guess I can't be talking at all, then. Same here. I just kept living my life at home, thinking there's gotta be more to life than that. Until one day, I packed my saddlebags..."
Starlight looked up, watching her curiously. "Did it hurt?"
"Which part? Watching the world go by before I left and knowing I belonged somewhere better than where I was at?" Saffron drew a hoof in an arc across the sky. "Or actually leaving it all behind? Sure, I might've gotten homesick or lonely a time or two, and there's nothing quite like falling in a patch of poison ivy and not having anyone else to take care of you or tell you what to do. But if I could go back and change anything, only thing I might do different is leave a little earlier. And even then, who knows? That would trade out all the ponies I met along the way for a completely different crew. Short answer, yes, but it was worth it."
Starlight bit her lip.
"Something tells me you don't quite feel the same," Saffron said, raising an eyebrow. "Wish you could go back?"
"No." Starlight emphatically shook her head. "I left my home because there was nothing there for me and I didn't want to be there." She paused, looking off to the side. "Everyone I hadn't wanted to leave behind was already gone."
"Aww, shucks." Saffron's eyes softened, giving an apologetic glance to Maple before turning back to Starlight. "You got your friends now, though, right?"
Starlight nodded. "Yes."
"Well..." Saffron stared at the ceiling in thought. "I'm having a hard time counting how many friends I've come across and left behind in my travels. Your crew here seems real solid, at least. Definitely a bigger group of adventurers than I've ever run across. It's mostly couples and soloists out in Equestria. Something happened to someone you cared about, though, back down south? Parents?"
"My best friend moved away."
Saffron gave a grim smile. "Looks like that still bothers you a tad."
"Starlight?" Maple nudged her. "Is this still weighing on you? I haven't heard you talk about it much for a long time..."
Starlight hung her head. "Some ponies said some things recently that made me start thinking about it again. I never got over it. I just buried it because in Ironridge, I couldn't afford to care."
Maple folded her ears. "That was such a hectic time..."
"...Well." Saffron stood up. "Mind if I share with you an adventurer's secret or two, Starlight?"
Starlight perked back up. "Okay."
"The first one," Saffron began, "is that this here life's the kind of life you live when you hate saying goodbye. The world's always moving, and it doesn't take a life dedicated to moving around to go from the country to the big city, or vice versa. This sort of thing happens all the time, no matter where you are. But if you know how to carry your house on your back and take everything you need wherever you want to go, goodbye forever becomes see you next time. Your friends might move around, so you just gotta move faster so you can visit all of them."
"Sure thing." Saffron relaxed back onto her bench. "Now, that's not me, granted. I have been at this long enough to run into some familiar faces who are just traveling around, but I'm more about seeing new places I've never been before. Though visiting places from a long time ago to see how they've changed is something I've never done before, so that could be new too..." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then happily shrugged. "Who knows? Point is, I've run into a lot of folks who were different, especially sailing the east Equestrian sea. There's a whole bunch of island-hoppers there, some of the nicest and most helpful folks you'll ever meet. And they do it because settling down in just one place would mean they wouldn't get to see everyone who lives everywhere else. Sure, you'll go for months or a year or two without seeing somebody, but that just makes the reunion all the sweeter. And when you're a little older, that's not so long. If you do make it back across the border, you could even go visit your old friend!"
Starlight watched her with no small amount of awe. "I've... never thought about it that way..."
Saffron chuckled. "Heh. Well, you want another secret? I can't speak for all your friends, but your mum here seems like a smart and caring pony who likes kids, and there's no way she's going to move away on you too. Sure, your friends will come and go, but you'll never need to cut ties with your whole family at once unless it's you who decides it's time. You want my bet, just from what I've seen of your crew? You, Maple and Amber are gonna settle down in Riverfall, Shinespark's gonna go lead Ironridge, Valey will wander all over the place but spend at least half her time with some of you or other, and you're all going to hop back and forth and visit each other like crazy. That make you feel better?"
Starlight ran forward and hugged her. "Thank you..."
"Oh! Heh heh..." Saffron's cheeks lightened in surprise, and she patted Starlight's back. "Glad I could help, there, sugarcube. Can I give you one more secret?"
Starlight nodded.
Saffron leaned down to whisper in her ear, not yet detaching the filly. "Every once in a while, there'll be some never-do-well who thinks they can get away with messing with your friends. But if you're all toughened up from surviving in the wild, wrangling monsters for food and what have you? Hooo boy they'll be in for an unpleasant surprise."
Starlight felt herself smile. It was something she hadn't done for a very, very long time.
"...There." Saffron picked her up and set her back by Maple. "So, you still feel like swapping stories about Equestria? I have to say, I'm still mighty curious about how you crossed those mountains. And if you don't know much about what the rest of the place looks like, maybe I could tell you something interesting myself!"
"Could you?" Starlight asked, latching onto Maple instead. "I would really like it."
"Aww, sure thing, sugarcube." Saffron made herself comfortable again on the bench. "So, let's get back to those mountains you went through. Wouldn't hurt to have an idea of your reference point. And I'll see what stories I can come up with from there."
"Huh. So that's what it was like up in those caves," Saffron said, hooves folded as she listened in interest. "Can't say I ever thought of that, though I guess it makes sense that mountains would be full of them. Still, I wonder how you made it through without getting turned back..."
"Maybe the mountains' magic can't extend caves?" Maple suggested, perking her ears. "It must be hard to make a tunnel look like it goes on forever."
Saffron shrugged. "Can't be harder than an entire row of mountains going on up on the surface. Still, it could be." She flicked her well-groomed tail in thought. "The way I see it, there's three ways she could have done it. One is she already has a writ and was too young to remember getting it. No idea how you'd get something that rare and not be told later, though. Second is what you said. Maybe whoever enchanted the place just didn't think to enchant beneath it. And third is that the magic reacts to your intentions somehow. If she was really running away, caring more about where she was leaving than where she was going... What if they only turn back folks who are in there because they're trying to get to the other side?"
Starlight furrowed her brow. "I don't know," she sighed. "I didn't know a thing about them going in, I told you. All I know is the part I was in was rainy and had a lot of trees. I guess it would have been kind of nice, if you were prepared for the weather and wanted to be alone..."
Maple smiled. "Well, you weren't completely alone. You had that book, right?"
She got up and trotted off, both mares looking after her, and quickly returned with Sosa the Explorer's journal held in her teeth. "Here," she said, giving it to Saffron. "I found it in the mountains. I gave it to Shinespark, so you'd have to ask her if you want it. It's really boring, but maybe you'd care about it."
Saffron lifted the book, skimming the intro, her eyes widening. "Is this authentic? It's got some traces of preservation magic. Someone definitely didn't want it getting old..." She delicately flipped through several pages, showing far more care and reverence than Starlight had ever given the thing. "Heh. Imagine writing poetry about mountaineering. Says he used pitons and rope to scale that whole initial cliff face. That's a climb that must've taken from dawn until dawn. We've got maps, expedition logs..." She shook her head. "This nutcase writes about building a portable brewery up there. Sosans and their alcohol. And look. Here's more about that theory of his, founding Ironridge right between Grandbell and Infinite Glacier. And aww, lookie there. He's even got some religious symbolism and mathematical theories to back it up. That's almost cute."
"I skipped the diagrams," Starlight volunteered. "The poetry was boring, but at least it made sense."
"Here's the Emblem of the Nine Virtues," Saffron continued. "He's got it... What is this?" She suddenly squinted, holding the book sideways and furrowing her brow. "Huh. Well, this is the weirdest theory I've ever seen."
Ears perked, Starlight and Maple both moved closer to look over her shoulder. The book was spread open in a two-page diagram, dominated by the familiar hexagon-triangle emblem further inscribed within a circle, with some space separating the edges of the circle from the furthest points of the triangle. But a thick black line sliced horizontally through the circle about two-thirds up, just below the top three points, Aldenfold written neatly beneath it. The top right point of the outer triangle was labeled Garsheeva, the top left Unicornia, and the point between them, the top point of the hexagon and the only other above the line, marked simply with an arrow and a question mark. None of the points below the line were labeled.
Starlight blinked, certain she had dismissed this image thousands of times in the mountains as meaningless and never looked at it again. But now that Saffron drew her attention to it... "Those are the mountains. Is this supposed to be a map of the world?"
"I suppose it is," Saffron remarked, still staring intently at the pages. "This here's pretty obviously the Empire, and Unicornia is supposed to be the old city Infinite Glacier was built on top of after the valley froze over two thousand years ago. At least, that's the story to hear my old mentor tell it. And it's true that the Aldenfold is pretty straight..."
"And the circle?" Maple asked, tilting her head.
"Well, that would be the edge of the world." Saffron shrugged. "I guess you two wouldn't have heard a whole lot about it, Riverfall being near the center of all this. It's nothing to write home about. It's kind of a hemisphere line that stretches around to the north and meets the Aldenfold in Everlaste and again far to the west. Stuff just gets barren and sort of stops. There's no wind or rain, no clouds, plants can't grow... It gets flat and featureless, except for cracks in the ground that sometimes burn with these intangible, temperatureless red flames at night. And eventually it gets colder and colder, and the air gets thinner until it's hard to breathe. I hear it's a pretty view, but it's just a place everyone kind of ignores."
"So he thought this symbol was related to a map of the world, though," Starlight said, looking at the pages again. "And everything south of the mountains is Equestria?"
Saffron turned to the books too. "Looks like it. Seems to be some writings here about the geometric precision of the distances from these two cities to the edge. Looks like if the circle kept up its proportions and the triangle did too, he's saying there'd be a third spot at the south, the last point on the triangle where everything lines up perfect to have the things centered in each other. I kind of want to call him crazy. But you think this is related to how he positioned Ironridge so precisely?"
"It is," Maple whispered. "Because Ironridge had a crystal palace, and Grandbell does too. There must be others at all these other points. And... wasn't there a table in the palace we visited with this symbol on it too? I remember one of the dots being differently colored. What if that was a map showing where we were on the symbol?"
Starlight continued staring at the diagram. "So there are three of them above the mountains, and six below. And we're in the corner?"
"Well." Saffron stood up. "I have to say, I know what my dreams will be filled with tonight. This is bizarre and fascinating. Can't say it's left me in the right mood for storytelling, unfortunately..."
"That's okay," Starlight promised. "Maybe we need to spend time rereading this book as well..."
"I'd recommend it," Saffron advised. "If that crazy idea's true, it's the kind of discovery that could make any history buff your best friend forever. No one knew why Sosa thought there'd be something special out there, but these palaces you're talking about aside, this idea with the emblem is really something." She brushed her mane back. "Though, uh, maybe don't talk to it around too many religious types here. The Empire knows how to tolerate Yakyakistan, but they'll still look at you like crackpots if you go on telling the wrong folks about someone else's theology. Garsheeva and the yak church are sort of rivals, and this is sort of Garsheeva's home turf."
"Right." Maple smiled. "Are you leaving?"
Saffron stretched, getting to her hooves. "Think so. I'll see if we can't get something together to do tomorrow, once the tournament preparations are sorted. I'll drop by and tell you how it-"
A loud knocking interrupted her from the door to the deck above. It didn't sound friendly.
"Oh, what now?" Maple whispered, ears pressing back.
Saffron frowned. "Mind if I get it?"
She didn't wait for approval, Starlight hurrying after her and Maple close behind. Starlight lit her horn on the landing, following upward as the door slid aside... revealing Meltdown, silhouetted by the storm, flanked by a cabal of professional guards and backed a sphinx who was a head and a half bigger than normal, watching with glowing eyes and the colorations of Garsheeva.
"Uhhh... Good evening, Your Eminence," Saffron greeted, immediately sinking into a bow.
"What do you want?" Starlight challenged, letting her horn go out but keeping a dangerous eye ready.
"Do not be afraid," Meltdown commanded. "We have come for someone who is hiding here."
Starlight and Maple stared at the delegation, Meltdown's armor steaming in the rain as Saffron bowed and Garsheeva loomed over everything, slowly regaining her size after the rocket strike in Izvaldi. Maple's lip trembled and she couldn't speak, but for Starlight, stubbornness quickly won out over fear. "What do you want?"
Meltdown locked eyes with her and pointed a metal-clad hoof at Starlight's nose. "She looks identical to you, but has a different demeanor. She's on this ship. We have come for her."
"Why?" Starlight asked.
Behind Meltdown, Garsheeva shifted, wings spread against the rain to add to her silhouette. "She's an acquaintance who's chosen a convenient time to be out of touch. We made a bargain, and she hasn't been here to uphold her end of the deal."
Starlight glanced at Maple. "She's in our room. Go get her?"
Maple bit her lip, nodded, and scurried away. The visitors waited patiently, Saffron standing in the background, while Meltdown looked casually at the framework for the harmony comet and Garsheeva's eyes followed Starlight relentlessly. Starlight felt a faint pressure on her heart, fully remembering what she had been shown in Mistvale: Princess Luna had given Garsheeva an Artifice brand. And while she had never told her friends, what she heard from them about the Night Mother's cutie mark later... It was a stare that would have frozen any normal pony, but Starlight was too used to getting knocked down for her own good.
"You keep looking at me like that," she said, staring back at Garsheeva. "Am I that interesting?"
"Yes," Garsheeva replied. "You are."
Now Meltdown and Saffron were both watching, and Starlight felt like she had somehow gotten into a staring contest with a goddess. Still, she wasn't about to back down, scrunching her cheeks and staring back.
Garsheeva kept it up for a minute, then chuckled. "You'll want to visit my temple sometime when I'm not preoccupied with this. There's something there that you want, isn't there?"
Saffron frowned in concern. "With all due respect, Your Majesty... You two know each other?"
"Oh, we've had a talk." Garsheeva flexed a claw against the deck, leaving no doubt in Starlight's mind that she was referring to Mistvale.
Before anything more could be said, hooves sounded against stairs and Glimmer appeared beside Starlight, clearing her throat. "Hello."
Garsheeva's tone instantly darkened. "Where. Have. You. Been?"
"Magical accident." Glimmer tapped her horn. "You could say I got too big for my abilities. From what I've heard, it was the same event that brought you down to size, actually." She stared up at the sphinx, not needing sight to find her. "Apologies for not being on the network. I haven't been able to access it, and Aegis has been too busy guarding the princess to search for me. I thought it would be prudent to fix myself before meeting you in this state, but apparently you have other ideas."
"Things have not been well in your absence," Meltdown warned. "Accompany us to the temple at once. You have a contract to uphold."
"I'm that sorely needed?" Glimmer frowned. "My mission necessitates that most of my attention is needed here, especially now that my perception is hindered."
Garsheeva waved a paw. "Don't know, don't care. I never gave you access to my resources so you could feign incompetence when I call a favor in return."
"This won't take long," Meltdown assured. "Please, come with us."
Glimmer glanced over at Starlight. "...I need to go. Take care of yourself. Remember what I said. Everything will be okay."
"Okay." Starlight nodded firmly, then squinted at Garsheeva and Meltdown. "I'll be fine. What do you need her for, anyway?"
Garsheeva instantly wrapped a claw around Glimmer, holding her close and blasting away into the sky with a faint trail of red light. Meltdown nodded to the guards, and they turned to take flight as well, before giving Starlight a last look. "Matters of state that shouldn't concern you. Farewell."
Within seconds, the engines on Meltdown's back revved up, and she jumped into the air, trails of flame bursting out behind her and propelling her in a swift arc after Garsheeva and the griffons. Rain fell, and the deck was empty.
"Whew," Saffron whispered when they were gone. "You don't just get house calls from a goddess every day."
"No," Starlight agreed, turning back toward the stairs to see Maple watching worriedly from the bottom. "...It's late, and there's nothing to say about that."
Saffron bit her lip. "I'm a little more hesitant to leave after that, but... sure thing, sugarcube. See the lot of you tomorrow."
"Starlight?" Maple approached her, joining her in the doorway as Saffron disappeared down the gangplank and into the night. "What just happened?"
Starlight shook her head. "Nothing. We got boarded by some ponies looking for someone, and they left without trouble. It wasn't Gazelle, it wasn't Lord Gyre. We're fine."
Maple closed her eyes and nodded. "Then that's something to be thankful for. Would you like to go to bed? Get some sleep, and see what the morning brings?"
"Definitely," Starlight agreed, leaning against her side before getting up to return to their room.
"Newspaper clippings are a magnificent force of nature," Gazelle declared, surrounded by binders of carefully-preserved pieces that had been yellowed by age, investigative tabloids and other pieces all relating to the shenanigans of misbehaving royalty in their teenage years. "I love newspaper clippings. When Lyn is empress, I'm going to ask her to make a holiday completely dedicated to newspaper clippings!"
"If you're bored, you asked to see this," Geribaldi deadpanned, pressing open another collection. "Don't read them all. These are primary sources, not the long-term trends and observations compiled from them."
Gazelle put on his sad-kitten look. "But I said I love them," he protested. "I really do! Look at this! Did you know Princess Germaine was found ramming fishing boats in a demolition derby three hundred years ago? I wish I had thought of that back in my pirate-hunting days..."
Geribaldi snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yes, it starts silly. Turn the page a little later in her section..." He flipped through half of Germaine's articles with a delicate wingtip. "She used tying captives to bowsprits as an execution technique. Surprise: they were ramming vessels. And turn earlier, and she's praised as a filly for her budding seaponyship skills. In every single case, the trend is undeniable. Whatever they love manifests over and over as a backdrop to growing barbarism. Prince Graille cared deeply about reforesting Gyre as a foal. Guess where that lead him?"
Gazelle bit his lip. "Some sportingly unsporting crusade against anyone who dared use wood in construction?"
"No, but you understand the picture." Geribaldi closed Germaine's book and set it aside. "Sphinxes who love their provinces tend to be isolationist and crueler against others. Sphinxes who love mortal relations are known for being vindictive and having legendary scorn. Lovers of justice rule with iron paws."
Gazelle's ears fell. "Ones who would do anything to build their sister a perfect world will, in fact, do anything."
"History's most successful rulers have been the ones with vices that don't impact their leadership abilities," Geribaldi continued, pulling out another volume. "Lord Greatrock had a horrible personal life, but left Everlaste in such a strong state it went on to grow into the powerhouse it is today. But this is all evidence of a foregone conclusion. Where things get interesting is when you graph the ages and levels of madness for each sphinx, plot that on a family tree, and plot that against time..." He swiveled his chair to a different desk. "Family and time period make a bigger difference than anything else. Is it upbringing? Genetics? Political climate in the world? Something else? That's where my research has been focused. Especially on sphinxes who have found and tried to fight this before."
Gazelle was picking at his claws, half-listening. "So what do you suppose Garsheeva loves? And what is her vice for it?"
Geribaldi frowned. "Garsheeva has ruled for thousands of years. If she was afflicted from this proclivity for madness as we are, she would have fallen to it already."
"That, or she's very good at hiding it." Gazelle waggled a talon. "Think, tomcat! This is interesting!"
Geribaldi snorted. "More likely, she has none, and engineered this flaw into our race to bring us down if anyone ever tried challenging her for godhood. No one knows how to make a sphinx giant and immortal, but as long as there are ponies like Chauncey, someone's going to figure it out."
Gazelle stuck his tongue out. "Chauncey? Yech. What are you looking into him for?"
Geribaldi blinked. "Well, when a known eugenics scientist has off-the-record dealings with the reigning emperor and empress, one has to be a little-"
"Lyn's parents?" Gazelle's eyes lit dangerously, and he leaned closer. "Tell me more..."
When Starlight awakened, the rain was still beating against the roof of her cabin, and Maple was still asleep at her side. Amber and Valey were elsewhere, but no pounding hooves sounded on the deck, no yells came from the corridor, and as far as she could tell, for all the night's drama, everything was fine.
"Mmmh," Maple mumbled in her sleep, shifting against her.
Starlight opted not to get up, lighting her horn and cracking their window and resolving to enjoy the peace. Her dreams that night had been uneventful, loose memories of hills and flying slipping away, and now the unsorted ideas from the last night's talk began returning in force. Glimmer, telling her that losing things was inevitable and she needed to balance dealing with that, protecting her friends and telling how far was too far. Saffron, telling her the opposite: an adventurer's life was perfect for anyone who didn't want to say goodbye, because when she could travel, she could see anyone, anytime she desired.
The idea of tracking Sunburst down rose like a bubble in her heart, slippery and hard to hold yet also buoying. She knew exactly why she had left for the mountains instead of left to follow him so very long ago. It was because she didn't trust the world and wanted to find somewhere where she wouldn't have to. The idea of trying to catch her friend had been too pointless to bear considering. But that was before everything she had done for her friends, and as harsh as her life had been, she now knew she could fight back. She wasn't at the world's mercy, even if it still fought her. She felt... powerful.
So did she have to learn to say goodbye, like Glimmer said? Or was Saffron right, and that was only temporary? Even if her friends finished their adventure and went their separate ways, she could just go find them again...
"You awake?" Maple murmured, rolling onto her belly and folding her hooves in front of her eyes.
"Oh. Yes." Starlight blinked, getting a shoulder beneath her. "Just thinking. Are you?"
Maple slowly exhaled. "We haven't gotten a lot of rainy mornings. Garsheeva used to smash the storms before they went on too long. Them being more common is nice..."
"Yeah." Starlight glanced toward the corner of the room, where she had set Sosa's journal for re-reading. Maybe later, though. "I think it's almost the afternoon."
Maple groaned. "I hope nobody wants us to cook..."
"They'll be fine," Starlight assured. "Do we want to do anything?"
"Well, Saffron did say she'd be back today." Maple sat up and stretched. "But that might not be until evening. Maybe we can just have a lazy day."
Starlight nodded, closing her eyes again... and then her stomach growled. "Maybe we should go get breakfast."
"Or lunch," Maple agreed, sliding out of the bed and onto her hooves. "Let's go down to the kitchen and see what I can make, hmm?"
The ship wasn't deserted, enough of their friends hanging out in the library or the dining hall to give everything a lively sense of atmosphere. Jamjars waved, and Grenada and Harshwater looked up from a conversation and nodded. "Looks open enough," Maple mused, stepping into the kitchen with a freshly-brushed mane and Starlight on her heels. "Now let's see what's in the pantry and whether I get any ideas..."
"Hello!" Nyala greeted as the pantry door swung open.
"Hi," Navarre breathed.
Maple blinked, jumping slightly in surprise. "Oh! Hello. I'm still not used to you living in here..." She folded her ears apologetically, then turned to their supply list. Though the trip to Mistvale had dwindled their reserves significantly, the restaurant project had forced them to stock heavily up, and Starlight felt almost overwhelmed from the barrels and bags of food stacked beneath things hanging from the ceiling. Except for Navarre's wall, the place felt more claustrophobic than Arambai's basement.
"Is Valey around?" Nyala asked hopefully, swiveling her camera to follow Maple as she went poking around for food ideas. "I'm not very mobile, and was hoping to talk to her."
Maple bit her lip in thought. "I didn't see her, but I just got up. But if you've been down here for days, maybe talking to just anyone would help? I'm here."
"True. That too." Nyala sounded slightly sheepish. "Navarre isn't a very good conversationalist, but I've been talking to him a lot. He says he can help us if we give him a lot of paper, and has been telling me about his work with Chauncey. Did you know that Chauncey's last big project before finding him and Puddles involved the empress and emperor? He read about it in Chauncey's research records."
Starlight tilted her head. "Gazelle and Lyn's parents?"
"Those are the ones," Navarre breathed, his voice so airy he had to be doing it on purpose.
"Really?" Maple pocketed some materials and looked up. "What was he doing with them?"
Navarre shrugged against the wall. "Genetics experiments. His usual field. No results were recorded, only notes for future observations. Meltdown's predecessor was somehow involved as well. I have extensive records and documentation, but never browsed them specifically as sphinx eugenics were outside of my area. I was a windigo scientist, studying using them to extract Nightmare Modules and transfer brands."
Maple's face fell. "That might be interesting to read. I suppose it's for the best all of it would have gotten destroyed when your lab blew up, though. It's probably the kind of thing that would be dangerous to know."
Navarre shook his head. "I would not be so sure. All of the creatures involved have now passed on, so it does not relate to the living. And I can easily reproduce the reports if you grant me sufficient paper."
Starlight blinked. "You have a photographic memory?"
"Oh, no." Navarre smiled faintly. "My brand can record and reproduce writing. It is the brand of a scientist who wishes to keep his knowledge secure."
"He's been telling me about it," Nyala added. "He says he can make perfect copies of all Chauncey's research if we want it. I was hoping to ask Valey, because I'm not sure if that's something we actually want."
Maple's eyes widened. "I see..."
"I'm not sure if it's something any of us want," Navarre sighed. "It would be an act of good faith, but my knowledge is what keeps me useful to you. That said, this is not a very exciting existence."
Starlight frowned. "If it's stored in your cutie mark, does that mean you have reports and science from when you knew Valey in Icereach?"
"I do." Navarre's repressed smile returned. "Imagine my surprise having that knowledge, but none of my memories. There were stories I had left myself on Valey, enough to reinforce my first impression of her. I could never have did what I did to Puddles without them." His eyes fell. "I know what you are going to say, and there were no notes whatsoever on the procedure used to resurrect Valey from her moon glass. I didn't even tell Chauncey I could recall these, for fear he wouldn't believe me."
Maple stared at him for a moment, evaluating his expression. "...I'll tell Valey when I see her. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to make important decisions on an empty stomach. But I don't think this is urgent?"
An unending shower of rain tumbled through the hole that made up Grandbell, the weather refusing to change even as the afternoon passed and the evening advanced and the storm clouds above started to darken from the lowering sun. But Starlight wasn't around to see it. Valey and Shinespark had returned, their acquaintances from the tournament organization in tow, and now they were deep within the city, the better half of the Immortal Dream's crew seated with their friends in a dimly-lit room as a stage was prepared at the far end.
"This is an interesting venue," Shinespark commented, seated on a long wooden bench that was comfortably curved and contoured. "I'm guessing this was converted to a theater and not built as one initially?"
"You would guess correctly," Pierre replied, seated next to Randorf and watching as the room slowly filled. "Grandbell is too large for a single house of culture, and the troupe we are friends with are not the most wealthy or established in the world. They travel too much to own claim to a permanent venue."
"So remind me what we're watching, again?" Valey scratched her head, looking slightly less bothered by her wounds than the day before.
"A dramatization of the last few years of the tournament," Saffron Sunflower replied, putting her hind legs up on the bench in front of them. "Figured if you all are weary of being the entertainment for other folks, what with being in the tournament spotlight and all, might as well see what it feels on the other side. Let the stories of some past champions entertain you."
A stallion who looked to be carefully hiding the signs of age stepped onto the stage, checked a pocket watch, and surveyed the crowd. "Ten minutes until showtime," he announced, sporting a prim, layered suit and a cravat. "Everyone should find their places and enjoy the show."
"That's Nimble Step," Shill stage-whispered. "He runs the troupe. Randorf works there when it's not tournament season."
"I'M OUT OF THIS PRODUCTION TO FOCUS ON MY FIGHTING," Randorf said, lowering his voice to an outdoor level.
Saffron elbowed him. "Yep. Wouldn't hurt to become the next champion and get in the play yourself some year, would it?"
"Excuse me," a voice said next to Starlight as the lights began to dim. She looked up, seeing a teal unicorn mare pointing to some empty space between her and the aisle. "Is this taken? And would there be room for two?"
Maple glanced over Starlight's shoulder, the mare regarding them with a coat slung across her back and a friendly smile. "I don't think so. I wouldn't mind. Starlight, we can trade if you want..."
The mare's smile slowly fell away into a look of surprise and recognition, her jaw dropping in the dim light. "Wait, you're the ones from Ironridge...!"
"Indeed we are," Gerardo said, leaning back from the bench a row ahead. "Have we crossed paths?"
"Shinespark!" The mare's face brightened again, her horn lighting for illumination. "I haven't seen you for months! It's me, Brightcoil! Don't you remember?"
Shinespark leaned over as well, her own eyes widening slightly in remembrance. "From Sosa!"
"You know each other?" Maple asked, beaming from their tones.
Shinespark nodded to everyone. "None of you would have been here to remember, but Brightcoil was the one who helped us get a better manacore for the ship while we were out of fuel, when we had just arrived. You all had flown on to Izvaldi with Wallace."
Brightcoil nodded brightly, and Shinespark glanced up at her. "You had a partner. Was it... Sharpie? Are you two still together?"
"We are." Brightcoil blushed slightly, though it could have been a trick of her horn's light. "I was trying to get seats for us... Looks like we're in good company, aren't we?"
Gerardo perked up. "Sharpie? Not the gray pegasus inspector from the Sky District who helped me sniffing out those bombs Herman had planted on the dams?"
"The grayest of the gray," Brightcoil giggled. "That's us. It was a horrible and stressful job for her that she only stayed at because of the money, and after seeing that dam, we decided to cut ties with the city and leave. We were actually on the last passenger ship east before the skyport went down, we learned. And now we have a happy life here... It's good to see you again!"
"Same to you." Valey grinned, waving lazily with a wing. "Always cool running into ponies who are friendly instead of headhunters or jerks. So yeah, you want to join us?"
Brightcoil set her and Sharpie's coats to claim their seats, stretched, and sat down. "Thanks..."
"So your lives here have been better?" Shinespark asked, turned in her seat to face her fellow unicorn. "That's a relief to hear. I don't often get news on how former Sosans are getting on with their new lives."
"We're good!" Brightcoil assured, nodding happily. "Both of us got new jobs working for Meltdown's Power Distribution Agency. I never thought we could be together in the same business, but it turned out perfect for our skillsets, and Meltdown was eager enough to get her hooves on Ironridge expatriate know-how that she gave us a very generous signing bonus. That was your airship core, actually. But we don't regret it."
"Really?" Shinespark raised an interested eyebrow. "You got a mana core as a signing bonus?"
Valey shrugged. "I mean, it is a power company. Giving out power equipment as payment? It's really cheesy, but it makes sense."
Brightcoil nodded. "The Power Distribution Agency has a monopoly on technology like this in the Griffon Empire, so it didn't cost her as much as it would have elsewhere. And we asked for it for you. We ran into you before, when you had first arrived, if you remember."
"Mmm..." Shinespark nodded, thinking.
Brightcoil's smile returned. "Anyway, I'm now a switching technician. The Empire's power grid uses centralized production in Grandbell, but due to the varying demands of each city and area and the way the loads change with time, balancing the infrastructure so no places get drained or overloaded requires a lot of hardware that's challenging and expensive to maintain. And Sharpie's a quality control inspector, as always. That means instead of being the one who tells the higher-ups things aren't fine and then getting stressed when they don't listen, she's the one who tells them there are no problems on her end and they have to blame their problems on something else."
"What about my job?" another mare's voice asked, the silhouette of a pegasus with a suit collar and short necktie joining Brightcoil.
"Oh! Hi, Sharpie!" Brightcoil's horn grew brighter. "I ran into Shinespark again!"
Sharpie leaned in, making brief eye contact with Gerardo. "Ah. It's you all. Hello again."
"Aha," Gerardo chuckled, offering a talon. "Your name rang a bell, but the appearance really seals it in my mind. I do know you!"
"Yes, we've met before." Sharpie shook with a wing, then settled into her seat, letting out a long breath. "Don't let me interrupt your catching up. We're here to relax, after all."
Brightcoil shook her head. "Oh, I was just talking about our new jobs. I'm sure you could tell much more about what yours is than I could."
Sharpie's ears folded. "You just like listening to the sound of my voice."
Brightcoil sheepishly grinned. "Guilty as charged."
"What was that you were saying about blaming problems on someone else, though?" Gerardo asked. "The power agency is having issues? Or do you mean routine things?"
Sharpie shrugged. "Issues are always routine. In the Izvaldi incident a month ago, that batpony did something to the power grid, and the continent has been facing increasing power shortages ever since. As long as I'm not pointing out problems that are being ignored like I was in Ironridge, I'm happy."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "Waaait a second. I heard from a shady but maybe-reliable source that Gazelle was making that up as an excuse to keep power expensive and the lights off for that stuff that just happened in Stormhoof. But now that all that's over, he's still doing it? Is he planning something else that requires keeping the lights off?"
Sharpie frowned. "This comes from Meltdown. I don't know why there are shortages, but as long as it's not under the parts I have authority to watch, I can in good conscience tell her everything is clear."
"And did you say they're getting worse?" Gerardo tilted his head. "Valey, are you certain? What reason would there be for that?"
"Hey, if someone tells me Gazelle is being shifty, I'm gonna believe it." Valey shrugged. "If he wants to be less blame-worthy, he can try it sometime."
Sharpie shook her head and looked at the stage. "Not my job. They are getting worse, and I suspect Meltdown already knows why, because she doesn't even press me for accuracy when I make my reports and I know she's getting a lot of pressure from the rest of the nation."
"As long as you're happy," Brightcoil insisted. "And it's not like your job in Ironridge."
"No, it's different," Sharpie softly insisted. "Here, I can do my job. There, I spent months compiling a report on the Defense Force's wasteful weapons contract and it got ignored. As long as I can do what I'm paid to and my management is not incompetent, malignant or evil, everything is perfectly fine..." She stretched, fluttering her wingtips, and put a wing around Brightcoil's back. "Though it's still important to make use of our vacation days."
As the duo cuddled up, everyone on the front row turned back to the stage and Valey mused, Nimble Step returned to the curtain. "Mares and gentlegriffons, griffonesses and colts, the production will now begin. Please dim your horns and enjoy the show."
The curtain rose with the sound of rotating pulleys, colored spotlights cast by unicorn horns converging to make a circle of white in the center of the darkened stage. A figure stood behind it, just out of the light.
"The Griffon Empire, year nine hundred and seventy nine," a craggy voice narrated, seeming to come from every direction at once. "A year of chaos and discord. Two years ago, moon glass had descended upon the world, an ominous omen for peace-loving creatures the continent over."
A light flashed from above the lifted curtain, and a black boulder hurtled from above, giving Starlight the impression of immense speed. Halfway to the floor, it shattered into thousands of chunks, striking the woodwork with endless magical tinkling as the illusory chunks faded from view.
Slowly, the lights extended in a line across the stage, mute ponies sitting behind countertops and moving their lips in shouts as they traded bags of money and shards of glass. A stallion eagerly held a stone to his flank, and a second curtain lit behind them, showing shadows of griffon guards who were doing nothing.
"Creatures had scoured the countryside for this valuable, brand-giving material, and enough had been collected that it was no longer easy to find. Competition grew fierce. A black market had appeared, fueling the growth of piracy. Some moon glass had fallen into the ocean, and illegal liners began trawling the ocean floor in an attempt to recover it. Sarosians desired it for religious reasons. Pony and griffon pirates sought it for the money. The Power Distribution Agency urged Stormhoof, Goldoa and Wilderwind to join the fight, attempting to calm the seas and restore order to the Empire's trading routes."
There was a flash of sheet lightning, and suddenly illusory rain spattered and slammed across the stage, the previous crowd of actors changing in a heartbeat as two wooden ships on wheels rolled out from the sides, the crew of each manning cannons and harpoon guns. Lightning flashed again as the two ships passed prow by prow, battle cries mixing with the sound of wind and soon fading to agonized groans as the ships drifted apart, their crews laying wounded and defeated on the decks in the aftermath of the battle.
"Temperantia," the narrator said, voice booming like thunder, still standing just out of the spotlight. "The commander of the Power Distribution Agency and Emperor Godwin's loyal friend, a stallion with a heart of magma and a will of steel, fought against the seas, captaining ship after ship and leading mighty crusades to keep the Empire's trade routes open. But forces in the darkness conspired against the servants of Garsheeva."
The second curtain parted, revealing a jagged mountain of rock with a stallion perched atop, armored in black spiked plate and wearing a trident and electric beard that was only visible in the flashes of the storm. Dark shadows swirled around him, and he stabbed at them with his weapon again and again, energy crackling between its prongs.
"The piracy trade was fueled by buyers of moon glass on the mainland," the narrator continued. "But the warriors of light suspected more was afoot. Who would benefit from the seas being inaccessible to merchants? The rising airship industry, offering new trade to Varsidel, Ironridge and Yakyakistan? Mistvale itself, seeking closer ties through mutual isolation with the Empire? The church of Yakyakistan, isolating their greatest rival? Before he could discover, Temperantia was killed."
A crossbolt appeared in the stallion's chest, and then another, and they multiplied until he sagged and fell behind the mountain, the illusory storm continuing unabated.
"The Emperor's best friend had fallen, his ship sunk in a skirmish with the most powerful dreadnaughts Mistvale had to offer. The loss aggrieved the Emperor deeply, and his wife, Empress Ganymede, agreed to travel with him to war-torn Varsidel to propose an alliance. If the seas were safe, Empire ships could be used for trade, freeing Varsidelian airships for military maneuvers."
The storm parted with a wave, a third ship prop entering towards the audience through the curtain that had fallen over the mountain, two well-dressed pegasi costumed as sphinxes waving from the prow.
"Varsidel's own war had reached new heights in the years since moon glass fell. Would they be kindred spirits? It was a risk Godwin and Ganymede were willing to take. They flew to Ralianth, the closest power center in eastern Varsidel. The Emperor and Empress sent word ahead of their intentions, bringing material gifts and aid and pledging support for Varsidel's own war in return. Some feared it would not be enough, but the opposite was true."
With a groan of timbers, the prow of the ship prop split open like a flower, becoming the backdrop to a comfortable bedroom where the two sphinxes shared a four-poster, sleeping in each other's embrace. Armored griffon guards stood watch by the door... until both fell with a slash, a batpony straightening up out of the shadows between them without a sound.
"Whoever did it and whyever they did it, it happened." The narrator's voice turned somber. "In a span of months, the Empire had lost all of its top leadership. The houses turned to infighting, treating our land like the sinking ship that had felled Temperantia. Sages screamed at the heavens, asking why they would deliver such ruination to the world in the form of that black glass ponies would fight to possess. Wallace Whitewing, a paragon and champion who had won the tournament in years past, had returned, but the Empire's salvation was beyond words alone."
A curtain dropped again on the assassination scene, ponies wheeling out tiny fortresses and siege towers and bickering as they divided into camps and turned their backs on others. In the background, a tight circle of sphinxes was silhouetted in shadow on the curtain, but it began to break and drift apart, each lord going their own way.
"Piracy grew ever more vicious. But just when creatures believed all was lost, a new ray of hope appeared."
Suddenly, the stage erupted in illusory flames, a wildfire engulfing the entire platform as pillars of concentrated burning rose up like geysers within the rest of the storm. The narrator was finally illuminated, revealing a stallion in jet-barrel armor with radiators hanging from the sides that looked like an iteration of Meltdown's old suit. The armor floated from his back, held in a telekinetic aura the same color as the flames until it rotated, hovering at the core of the bonfire for all to see.
"Two young adventurers appeared as if from nowhere, calling themselves Lighthooves and Meltdown. A pegasus who imbued magic into his hoofstrikes and an earth pony who could command infernos fiercer than a mythical dragon, they razed an armada to ashes with powers that scarcely seemed mortal."
A jet of rainbow light flared through the flames, and they parted, wrapping themselves into a spiral around it, arching into the air and striking a ship prop like a double-helix laser, sending ponies and griffons diving overboard. Two figures hovered in the sky as the curtain rose higher, one with wings and colored streamers tied to his hooves, the other without, clad in the copy of Meltdown's armor.
"Through their power and cooperation, they reminded the houses of what staying together could accomplish, paving the way for six more years of peace."
As the show seemed to conclude, other ponies in the audience stomping their hooves in applause, Starlight frowned, leaning over to Maple. "That seems like a lot to have happened for us not to know about it before."
Maple bit her lip in thought. "Maybe? We don't know all that much about Meltdown." She turned to Saffron. "Where was the tournament in this? Didn't you say it was going to be about the tournament champions in the past few years?"
"Well... it was." Saffron stared at the stage with a blank look. "It sure was when I saw this one last year. But that was a whole lot of fancy magic effects, kind of a rushed ending, and not a whole lot was even true. At least you enjoyed it, right? Because I think my friends might've sold out and given us some political propaganda instead of a history lesson. They told me they were making changes, but wow. I didn't expect that."
Across from them, Brightcoil stretched in her seat. "It sure did look pretty, though!"
Saffron shrugged. "Yep, they did a good job on that. I, for one, am going to go talk to my friend Nimble Step and toss some questions his way. You all are welcome to come with."
Starlight followed along with her friends as they trailed after Saffron, more for the sake of sticking together than because she was curious about the play. Made-up or not, she wasn't extremely interested in Meltdown's history, already knew all about moon glass and had never even heard of half the ponies mentioned. If anything, the flashy ending Saffron had complained about was the least noteworthy part for her. She had heard about what it looked like when she used the harmony extractor and stopped Ironridge's windigoes. Strong magic was probably just fond of light shows.
"Well, hello there," Nimble Step greeted, extending a hoof and tapping with Randorf, Pierre, Shill and Saffron. "Friends, and friends of friends." He nodded to everyone else. "I take it you all were our guests of honor?"
"Yep." Valey brushed back her mane. "Nice special effects, dude."
"Nimble Step..." Shinespark's brow creased. "I feel like I've heard of you before. Has your troupe ever visited Ironridge?"
The stallion shrugged. "From time to time, though not terribly recently. We did have a gig in the Stone District a few years back, but it's not the most jubilant place to visit after that business twenty years ago, and a few of us have been around long enough to have some bad memories associated with that day." He nodded to Valey. "And I'm glad it was appreciated. We had to throw it together in a somewhat hectic, show-must-go-on last-minute affair. It's fortunate our special effects artist is talented."
"Yeah, I could sorta tell..." Saffron rubbed an ear, averting her gaze and looking like she was broaching an uncomfortable topic.
Nimble's posture lost some of its pomp. "That many holes in our routine, eh? Well, it's a valuable litmus test. Not that we had a lot to work with, but at least we got a significant applause."
"What happened to the old routine?" Pierre asked, lifting a talon. "I assume you had to censor it due to recent political events?"
"Indeed." Nimble sighed. "The play's been rewritten three times since you last saw it. First, our writer wanted to focus more on single years rather than a spread-out survey. Fewer timeskips, better tension, more coherency, assorted things the audience will only spot with an education yet matter anyway. Then that explosive news happened with Prince Gazelle in Stormhoof, and since the situation is still unfolding, we thought it would be best to write him out of the story altogether. Now Meltdown's adjutants are running around telling everyone with a voice who can influence public opinion that it is our civic duty to shore up the citizenry, build morale, and promote solidarity in the face of the country fracturing again."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "If the news is that explosive, aren't you just a little bothered by me being here?"
Nimble gave her a sympathetic look. "Err... no? Should I be? I didn't grow up in the Empire and have little attachment to the species sentiments of this continent, if that's what you mean." He flicked his ears. "If you're talking about that business with Gazelle and Stormhoof, I don't think anyone in their right mind would blame you for that."
"Really?" Valey tilted her head, then quickly glanced back to her friends. "Wait, what does everyone here think happened?"
"Have you not picked up a newspaper over the last few days?" Nimble's eyes widened. "Only Prince Gazelle breaking down laughing during a public testimony before the Council of Lords about how he goaded you into attacking Stormhoof by foalnapping one of your friends and messing with the guard rosters so no one there could put up a fight. You can be reasonably sure everyone here knows who you are by now, and no one wants to mess with you."
Valey bit her lip, flapping her wings and hovering. "...Huh. He didn't even try to blame me for that?" She glanced at everyone. "Bananas, that's weird. I suddenly have some, uh, stuff to do. I'll meet you all back at the ship."
Starlight blinked as she flew away. "Bye..."
Gerardo looked up. "Should someone go after her?"
"She's probably fetching a newspaper." Shinespark shook her head. "We were talking about the play?"
Saffron sat down on the front bench, giving a careful look to the stage. "I mean, given the circumstances, it's a lot more understandable. I just wish you hadn't glossed over so many important parts. You want a moral about sticking together? Try giving Lighthooves and Meltdown more than a few seconds onstage so the audience can learn to care about them a little."
"And say what about them?" Nimble Step shrugged. "I'm sure they will once we've had more time to reform the act, but the truth is rather inconvenient. Telling the audience they had been around for two years and were Temperantia's friends before he died makes them considerably less heroic, and their powers-"
"Who does not love a story about avenging fallen comrades?" Pierre cut in. "That is what they did, was it not?"
Nimble loudly cleared his throat. "As I was saying, a story in which salvation miraculously descends from above is slightly more in line with what we were begged to inspire the citizenry to look for than a story glorifying vengeance. Far from perfect and perhaps a little sketchy, but Meltdown's image is having issues enough with the power crisis this last month and we made the judgement call to display her as an angel rather than a teenager who was around for two years and only put her ridiculous powers to work helping the continent when it got personal. Same for Lighthooves, though he isn't here anymore." He wiped his brow with a kerchief. "There's also the matter that both of them claimed powers from somewhere other than Garsheeva, so we didn't want to elaborate too terribly when the whole point is to restore faith in our good goddess..."
"Sounds complicated," Shill lamented. "For what it's worth, I liked the play and don't blame you."
"Who even was Lighthooves?" Amber asked. "I've never heard of him before."
Saffron instantly perked up. "Lighthooves was my old mentor. Took me under his wing when I first came across the border. He's gone, now. Won the tournament, got himself a Writ of Harmonic Sanction, and headed off in the name of bigger, grander adventures. Sure do wonder how he's doing..."
"He is a much more interesting character to write about when we're performing further to the west," Nimble sighed. "Being from Ironridge, you all are likely familiar with the legend of Blazing Rain? It's not a story often told around here, but back west, you can catch quite a few ponies' attention by talking about a pegasus with magical powers. He was from Yakyakistan initially, even."
"Huh," Shinespark said, glancing up at her horn. "I wonder how well we would have gotten along. I know a thing or two about having a similarity to Blazing Rain. What could he do, and how was he able to do it?"
Amber nodded. "And what was he like?"
"He fought with hoofstrikes that could burn you with this radiant light. Hence the name." Saffron sat back, waving a hoof as she talked. "Unforgettable appearance and demeanor. He talked larger than life, going on about special moves and silly things, had so much energy and enthusiasm, and he just loved... well... loving things. It was never, 'this is good' with him. Always 'this is the best'. Spoke exclusively in superlatives. Could drink anyone under the table, too. But you'd never see him happier than when he was appreciating things. His favorite thing was talking about how great things were. Of course, he was still a pony. Still had other emotions too. He was wise, mature... great at reading situations. Knew exactly when to slow down and help others catch up. He just had this fiery spirit you don't ever see in creatures, a spirit to go along with his hooves, and he kept up even when times were tough."
Everyone had quieted as she rambled, and Amber slowly grew a knowing smirk. "Sounds like someone has a crush."
Saffron instantly turned beet-red. "No! I mean, maybe a little. But there's no shame in that. He was great. Just... had wings, and was bound for places I couldn't follow. The world's a big place, though, so there's no use thinking about what could've been when you could be doing instead. Besides, I've got enough fond memories to last a lifetime."
Amber grinned, waggling her eyebrows.
"It was you who got me talking about him," Saffron huffed, stubbornly holding her head high. "Acting like you've never seen a little crush before. Hmmph. How many colts have you ever had eyes for, missy?"
Nimble Step coughed. "If we're done discussing my play, I'm going to speak with my stagehands. Good luck with your more frivolous matters." He quickly, discretely stepped away.
"See ya." Amber waved him off, focusing on Saffron. "And sorry. Old habits die hard. Believe me, I've had more flings than you can shake a stick at." She stretched. "So, anyone want to follow that up with lunch? I'm famished..."
"I would," Shill volunteered.
"Certainly sounds appealing." Gerardo got up, ruffling his wings. "I wouldn't mind seeing more of what this city has to offer."
"Are we waiting for Valey?" Starlight asked, glancing back towards the exit.
Shinespark shook her head. "She said she'd meet us back at the ship. I don't think she wanted us to wait around."
"Lunch, then," Maple hummed. "And maybe it will finally stop raining..."
Valey alighted on a balcony low to the shield over Garsheeva's temple, on the level of Grandbell where only the royal palace sat. The glass-domed throne room she had visited before was nearby, and she suspected her quarry couldn't be far.
"Yo," she said, greeting two griffon guards who stood by a door and stared at her with a minimal level of danger.
"You're that sarosian from the Stormhoof debacle," one griffon returned. "We know you. But I'm afraid this level of the palace isn't presently open to public visitors. What's your business?"
Valey tucked a loose strand of mane behind her ear, idly noting that she needed a trim. "Looking for Prince Gazelle. Got some stuff I wanna ask him. You guys have any idea where he is?"
"The prince comes and goes as he pleases. He doesn't keep a schedule." The second guard frowned, rain hammering loudly against the shield several floors below. "We can pass a message up through our superiors, but it won't get through today. Is it urgent?"
Valey felt a slight rush at the realization the guards not only knew who she was, they respected her for it. Or maybe Grandbell was just a much more respectable organization than Felicity and Selma's armies that she had dealt with in the past... "Uhh... not really, but I feel like wandering around anyway. Does the castle open up later? Are there other places he might be that are usually open? Just looking for a general direction, here."
The first guard nodded. "Public access hours for tourists are three to nine in the evening. Security is slightly more restrictive now that we're playing host to the lords who were attacked in Stormhoof, and the areas they're staying in will never be open. In or close to the castle would be my guess. If you're looking for ways to kill time, the public areas three stories up are open around the clock."
Valey blinked. "Wow, uh, thanks. You guys are cool. Tell your boss I said that. See ya."
With an amiable salute, she took off, weaving her way upward while staying in the rain shadow of protruding pieces of architecture. On the indicated level, the architecture opened up considerably, a wide ring of plazas and walkways built on the roofs and spires of the castle level before the vertical walls of the city hole properly began. This did mean some of them were exposed to rain, but there were enough spaces shielded by the higher levels that it wasn't hard for her to find a windowsill to sit on, comfortably looking out over a courtyard that seemed bordered by take-out restaurants.
"Mmmmm..." Valey breathed in, sucking down the scents of cooking food and spices as ponies and griffons went about their ways below. They noticed her, giving her more direct and deliberate looks than they spared for others, clearly evaluating her for danger, yet her presence didn't stop them from going about their ways.
It was too bad she didn't have an acquaintance to grab lunch with herself. For the briefest moment, she considered getting some anyway, maybe even trying to make a new friend... but nah. This was nice enough already, and if she was going to hunt down Gazelle and question him on why he allegedly bailed her out on the Stormhoof stuff, it wouldn't do to be in too good a mood. Or a bad mood, if things went south.
The lights inside the window she was sitting by went out.
"Huh?" Valey blinked, turning around, not realizing the room she was next to had been occupied. As fun as peeping had been in Ironridge, she wasn't quite sure if her recent talk with Shinespark solicited recreational spying... but the window led to a library, not a residence, and in the light it let in she saw rows and rows of darkened bookcases and several ponies looking around unhappily. A disgruntled unicorn huffed, lit her horn and continued reading.
Power shortages, indeed. She absolutely remembered Felicity telling her how the energy shortage in Stormhoof was caused by Meltdown and Gazelle raising prices to cause shortages and manufacture a weakness in the castle for sarosians. There had also been something about Chauncey's illegal generators she didn't quite remember, though it was probably that that was another excuse. But now that Gazelle's ambitions were ended, Meltdown really should have stopped...
Valey narrowed her eyes as the crowd's tone and volume began to change, those closest to the edge of the balcony shouting and the ones further away curiously migrating to join them. Within seconds, she couldn't resist going to see what everyone was looking at herself, though she had a tingling sensation she knew what it was going to be...
She glided to the plaza and landed, strolling to join the crowd gathering at the edge. Somehow, the creatures were too interested even to shy away or give her a wary berth, and even shrugged it off when she bumped flanks by accident. Finally, she reached the edge.
The shield that protected the temple core from rain and falling debris was gone.
"Hey, you!" a loud voice rang in her ear, and she turned to see a stallion with a fat, blocky jaw. "I've seen your face in the news. You're important, right? What can you tell us about what's going on?"
Valey blinked harder, realizing that for all the Empire's sarosian animosity and her general bad luck, she was somehow a random stranger's default assumption for an authority figure... and that several other nearby ponies were looking at her too. "I mean, uh," she said, needing something to say. "At a guess? That stuff that Chauncey clod did with the power grid a month ago really did mess something up. Can't think of anything else that would have happened..."
"This is the first time I've seen the shield go out," a mare with a long mane said. "The outages have been getting more and more frequent over the last few weeks, and it feels like they're worse and longer every time."
A griffon growled under his breath. "Garsheeva's clergy say the Empire's power comes from the big cat herself. After Izvaldi, everyone was saying she'd be fine, and needed time to regain her strength. That doesn't jive well with these outages getting worse and worse. And we're the capitol! The rest of the Empire's probably completely dark by now..."
Valey frowned at the pit, rain falling and landing on the ruby tower below. Already, battalions of guards were in the air, keeping any curious citizens from flying into the depths of the hole, but very few seemed to be trying. "Yeah, she's got her secrets. Any goddess does. I dunno what to tell you."
Truth be told, she hadn't noticed the region's power issues, because for the last month she had been in Stormhoof, which was short on energy always, and living on an airship with a harmonic generator at that. That was clearly a crystal palace, down in the hole. It was a safe assumption that Garsheeva was using the harmonic flame in there for energy, extracting it with technology like Shinespark's machine or weird goddess powers or other magic. But why would a source like that fail?
They were at enough of an angle that she could see the glass throne room part of the way around the ring, just above where the shield was supposed to be. She could see a little dressed-up filly standing at the very edge, and a wheelchair-bound form by her side...
The palace might have been closed, but the lights were off, and that was an invitation for sneaking.
"Guess who, guess what and guess why," Valey greeted, dropping from the ceiling in the castle throne room, earning a gasp from Lyn, a single swiveled ear from Gazelle and the drawing of several spears from the two guards who accompanied them.
"Valey!" Lyn's eyes widened. "At ease," she commanded, spreading a single wing and sweeping it past her attendants. "I don't know whether this is good timing or bad, but welcome back."
Gazelle slowly turned himself to face her, raising an eyebrow. "Admiral. Drawn in by the scent of trouble? I didn't expect to see you coming to seek out yours truly."
"Just got kinda curious." Valey shrugged. "So what's up with the shield thing?"
She gave Gazelle a knowing look, and he tried to raise his forelegs in innocence, wincing heavily and failing. "Ow. It isn't me this time, I swear it! This is all on Meltdown, nobody lower than her knows anything about it other than the obvious symptoms, and why do you care anyway when you have a magic boat that powers itself? If you want to beat up the culprit, you've got the wrong pony."
The guards by Lyn's side bristled, but she gave them another reassurance, stepping forward. "Is there anything we can do for you? We have a problem on our paws, you can tell, but there's little we can do about it so we may as well help you."
"A problem called curiosity." Valey nodded, flicking her tail as she walked to meet the princess. "Initially, I kind of just wanted to ask Gazelle some stuff about Stormhoof, but now that there's something way more interesting going on..." She gestured below. "That shield's not supposed to go down, is it?"
Lyn shook her head. "The shield is enchanted to allow sphinxes through but repel everything else. It is only opened on the days when Garsheeva executes heretics for all the city to see."
"Which is a rather barbaric show, if you're into us being polite and dainty," Gazelle added. "Wings tied, horns bound, drop them from the top and someone gets a tasty snack at the bottom. When she was big enough, at least."
"...Ew." Valey blanched. "She executes heretics by eating them? Yeah, glad I'm not one of those. So I'm guessing the shield dropping isn't something you do just to con an entire empire?"
Lyn looked forlornly at the window. "Regular power shortages? Ask my brother. But if the public thinks Garsheeva's power itself is waning, that's a bigger problem than you know."
"Right now," Lyn said, starting to pace, "the Empire is at its lowest sphinx population in three centuries, and that's counting all of Giovanni Goldfeather's surviving daughters. The Empire has twelve provinces, but four of them were demoted from provincial status by a ruling of the Council of Lords one hundred and thirty seven years ago, and turned into lordless vassal states managed by small councils of griffons and ponies who answer to the Empire as a whole. Grondus, Gleam, Falana and Barrows... They're so marginalized within the Empire that many ignore them or pretend they're not a part of it. But that's because of the holy weight the citizens place on sphinxes, thanks to Garsheeva."
She turned, walking back across the room. "Now, that balance of power is shifting again. Grandbell has been without an empress for years, and everyone is discovering Izvaldi has been, too. Gyre's lord is freshly murdered, and Stormhoof and Everlaste nearly had their families wiped out as well, thanks to someone's stupid plans. Wilderwind, Goldoa and Goldfeather are the only three provinces that haven't been shaken lately, and of them, Goldfeather are the only ones we can count on as a bastion of imperial unity."
Gazelle slumped in his wheelchair, tail flicking. "There was a reason I never went after Goldfeather. Their lord has a reputation to rid his province of and is generally a fine fellow, more or less. He knows how to solve his own problems."
"This could turn around partly," Lyn continued. "I will be of age to become empress in the coming years. My brother is taking over Izvaldi, and may be turning a new leaf. All of the surviving houses do have adult children, thanks again to Giovanni Goldfeather."
"And we could probably wrangle that foal in my wily ex-adjutant's belly into becoming the new Lord Gyre, if it's a he," Gazelle mused. "It's actually a Stormhoof, but I made enough of a fuss... but that's a big if, and still far in the future."
Lyn nodded. "Houses are usually replenished by the Empress's colts." She glanced down at herself. "But I won't even be having children for many years still. In short, the role of sphinxes in the Empire is vulnerable. There have been times this happened in the past. History books note Garsheeva blessing us with numbers after every period of waning, but they don't say how. Her influence has always kept us in power. But if we are on the decline at the same time as she is weakened, and now this power crisis..."
Valey furrowed her brow, speaking for the first time since Lyn began. "So sphinxes could be driven completely out of business? I mean... not to be a jerk, but you guys haven't exactly done the best job running the place. I like you, but isn't it a little egotistical to call this a tragedy?"
Lyn shook her head. "It's not us we're worried about. Garsheeva is a goddess. I have seen her face to face many times in the last month, and her power is returning, not waning. She may not have the size and presence to reveal herself to the entire world anymore, as the saying goes. But I fear for what she could accomplish in retribution if the continent turned its back on her. Are you familiar with the single-day crusade, the war where Garsheeva decimated Gyre's armies after they disobeyed her commandments and invaded Mistvale? Garsheeva lets us rule the Empire however we please, but there are limits."
"That, and the church of Yakyakistan has been getting thirsty," Gazelle added. "They've been making private overtures to us ever since that business in Ironridge. Whatever they're hoping to accomplish, they've been smelling blood for a while now."
Lyn nodded sadly. "Our regional rivals, in this northern half of the world." She looked up at the gray sky, the sun still far enough overhead to illuminate through the clouds down into the city. "This has been no laughing matter for a long time."
"And I only recently sunk my mind into that," Gazelle apologized.
Valey raised an eyebrow. "So let me get this straight, prince dude. Did me and Starlight actually get through to you with that clobbering? Like, I was trying to, but you're really dense."
Gazelle curled his lip. "I'm painfully aware, and yes, I'm more lucid than I have been. Don't let your expectations run away from you, though. You know how dangerous I can be..."
"Cool." Valey stared at him evenly. "I also heard a thing about you laughing at the lords about manipulating me at Stormhoof."
Gazelle sighed in exasperation. "Don't tell me you don't appreciate it. I could have pinned all that on you in a gambit to stave off my own reputation's demise, and I didn't. I expect a mouth-written letter of thanks and a kiss on the back of my paw, and we'll call it even."
Valey stared at him.
"What? Can't even take a favor these days?" Gazelle growled, shaking his head. "I bailed you out! You, Meltdown, Felicity and all her sisters... Don't make me be more direct. Apologies taste terrible. I hate being wrong. You're welcome, and since you're in cahoots with little Lyn here, the best way to thank me is staying that way. I might be far from trustworthy, but she's our empire's only hope."
"You could at least thank him," Lyn murmured. "You got through to him about how badly he was breaking his promise to me. He was always trying his hardest, but it's in a better direction, now."
"Uhh..." Valey folded her ears. "No strings attached? Bananas, if so, thanks."
"I just told you," Gazelle sighed, "the strings are that you help my sister. Competent help might be just what we need."
Valey glanced at the filly. "Really? You got something in mind you want me to do about this?" She swept a hoof at the darkened room and the city beyond, countless motes glowing along the walls where unicorns used hornlight, bathing the pit in a dim, colorful glow. "No offense, but... what?"
"Meltdown promises Gazelle the problem is real," Lyn whispered. "But... she won't tell him what it is."
Valey held her head in thought. "And how trustworthy is she? Just saying, if there's a chance a power crisis could purge sphinxes from authority around here, she's both pretty high up on the food chain and not a sphinx. What if you guys got ran out by an angry mob, and then she brought the power back and claimed she fixed something you had been blocking from her? Save her own image, prey off yours..."
Lyn shook her head. "Not possible. Even if Garsheeva left peacefully, the Empire's power comes from her. There would be no power for Meltdown to turn back on if Garsheeva wasn't here. But I think it's more likely Garsheeva would hold her position by force. There could be a lot of casualties, and Meltdown isn't a hateful pony. The only creatures I've ever seen her despise were heretics."
Valey bit her lip. "I hate to tell you guys this, and have no idea if I'm spilling a titanic imperial secret, but, uhh..." She glanced at the two guards who were stoically standing watch. "Those guys are trustworthy?"
"Absolutely," Lyn promised. "They are our highest ranks and have taken many binding oaths."
Valey hesitated, then took a breath. "Your power doesn't come from Garsheeva. That big crystal thing in her temple? We call it a crystal palace. There's one in Ironridge, too, and we think Yakyakistan has one and then there are a bunch more in Equestria. It's got this tree inside, with a magic flame that's incredibly powerful and is linked to stuff I never really paid attention to about the yaks' harmony stuff. Our airship has a generator that uses that stuff for power. And I'm one hundred percent sure Garsheeva's got some magic something down in there that's using that flame for energy. Her leaving probably wouldn't change your power situation a bit."
Gazelle and Lyn stared at each other with a look that didn't fill Valey with confidence. Even their guards looked disturbed.
"Meltdown and I..." Gazelle cleared his throat. "Are... close. If you know what I mean. She trusts me with her greatest weaknesses. As conniving as we are, she wouldn't do that to me."
"Okay, so you're friends." Valey nodded. "Maybe she'd just hide you away from whatever uprising you were causing. And maybe you were insane and didn't realize you were wrecking the Empire's political stability, but if she was planning this stuff with you, she must have seen it. I'd say you've got your villain nice and easy."
Lyn frowned uncomfortably, sitting and fidgeting. "Would Garsheeva really allow her to do that? It's her temple. She would have to know..."
"Oh, most likely." Gazelle waved a bandaged paw. "Garsheeva has been our confidante throughout that whole swashbuckling crusade. If we were approaching a line, she would let us know. She gives us remarkable leeway to do with the continent as we choose. Yet she's very insistent about things that are sometimes inconsequential. Like a heresy for building power generators? Who cares? Unless she's up to something too. The mind of our goddess is a complete mystery..."
Valey's pupils shrank. "...Bananas, I have no idea if there's something you want me to extrapolate from all that, but it could go in all sorts of uncomfortable directions. Seriously, though, you said you wanted my help? What exactly do you expect me to do? Fight past all the guards, break into the temple's core, figure out what's going on and kick some bad guy butt?" She blanched, then narrowed her eyes. "I mean, I'm flattered, but I'm really not feeling up to that. Especially not after you just made me clean up Stormhoof. Getting on the bad side of a goddess doesn't sound like my idea of a good time."
"Well," Lyn said, weighing her words carefully. "There's a chance you wouldn't have to break in..."
"The lights just went out?" Maple blinked, looking around as a chorus of grumbling rose and the room's unicorns lit their horns. The group was seated on the balcony of a dining establishment, getting lunch and treating their tournament friends in the aftermath of the play, and suddenly the gray sky was the only source of illumination far above.
"Welcome to Grandbell," Saffron apologized, her own horn glowing spring green. "Not a lot you can do but bring your own lights or stick with someone who has their own. Must be nice, living on a self-sufficient airship all the time."
Gerardo chuckled, trying to defuse the sudden tension and putting his chin on a curled talon. "It certainly puts our fuel worries into perspective. Though everyone here looks like they're just carrying on as normal."
Amber nodded, glancing around at the other tables. "It must be hard to live as an earth pony here, neither having a horn for light nor wings to fly around the central shaft."
Saffron shrugged. "Well, the power crisis is new enough not a lot of people have moved out of the area, and where would they go? Grandbell's dark, the whole continent's dark."
"At least Stormhoof has learned to deal with it over the past while," Gerardo mused. "Having lived under such tight constraints already..."
Shinespark folded her hooves on the table and stared at them. "I have a niece who wouldn't be happy about all this. You all remember Blueleaf, right?"
"It's exactly like Blueleaf." Maple folded her ears. "Periodic blackouts. You have a vertical city, so everyone low down probably has to live their lives in complete darkness. And all the power comes from Garsheeva's temple, which is just like the generator no one could enter."
Shinespark winced. "To be fair... I probably could have done more about Blueleaf myself, if I had tried. But Ironridge is big, and I thought I could delegate it while I got the Sky District to work on a solution. This is also the capitol of the Empire, rather than a rural reactor in the middle of nowhere. I doubt just anyone could lock themselves in and interfere with the power supply. At least Grandbell seems richer and better-equipped for this than that town..."
Saffron shook her head. "Well, this certainly isn't a place you live if you're impoverished. But what exactly are you supposed to do? Hard to buy batteries when trade's such a mess with Varsidel and Ironridge, and do you know what would happen if everyone burned candles for light at the bottom of a hole? Airflow just doesn't work like that. Not with the city's ventilation system powered down, at least. I can't say what'll happen if this keeps up or gets worse."
"Unicorns will become valuable," Sharpie said, mostly sitting and listening. "In what way, I couldn't predict. But the less ponies have magical technology to rely on, the more they'll remember to rely on their own magic."
Brightcoil blushed, her own horn glowing as well. "I'm glad I can be helpful."
"Well, if anyone can do something about it, I doubt it will be us." Maple shook her head. "Even if there is someone like Neon Nova messing with Garsheeva's generator, I don't really feel like breaking into her temple to look for them."
"Neon Nova?" Saffron blinked. "Isn't that the emcee up in the tournament announcer's box?"
"He is," Gerardo sighed. "Sounds like their resumes haven't exactly clung to them. Him and his brother Howe are the public-speaking equivalent of mercenaries without class or morals. We ran into them in Ironridge, where they were working as rabble-rousers for Herman's mercenaries."
Harshwater sipped from her drink. "I didn't see either of them often. They were usually out and about. Both of them were pains in the flank."
Saffron shook her head. "Sounds like Stormhoof needs to work on its hiring practices."
"The whole world needs to work on things." Sharpie sipped at her drink. "As long as I can provide for my family with the dignity I deserve, I'll be fine."
Brightcoil nodded slowly beside her. "After a whole month of this, though, it has been long enough for us to think about... what happens if this never gets better. If there was no longer a Power Distribution Agency to work for. Obviously, the continent will still need power, and the grid itself is in place and well-maintained..."
"Ponies will always need power," Sharpie assured. "And they'll need others to get it to them."
"Though they probably wouldn't mind having the existing system work out instead of undergoing a painful transition to a new one," Gerardo remarked. "What about Garsheeva? Have either of you heard word trickle down from above about her plans if things break further? Surely she must have been approached countless times."
"Garsheeva hasn't been helpful. That said, she usually doesn't do a lot." Sharpie squared her shoulders. "She told the council and the presses that this is the Power Distribution Agency's job. And Meltdown is certainly getting harried. I'm certain she knows the nature of the problem, but hasn't told anyone. Even her own inspectors. Probably because the problem isn't ours."
Shinespark shook her head. "Well, it's certainly a lively conversation topic. I wonder the events at Stormhoof helped take heat off it, or vice versa?"
"Neither," Sharpie said. "Most of the media thinks they're related. Some think Gazelle is to blame, but he's been reluctant to own up. He's blatantly unrepentant about everything else he's done recently, so that would be strange if it's true."
"What about Meltdown herself?" Gerardo suggested. "Perhaps she has something to gain from doing all this on purpose?"
Sharpie thought for a moment. "She might. There are certainly ponies corrupt enough to do it. I don't think she would, but am not confident enough to go on record."
"What about last night?" Starlight murmured, voice low. "When Garsheeva and Meltdown showed up at our ship? Do you think that has anything to do with this?"
Maple blinked, tilting her head in thought... when suddenly, there was a rush of wings and three armored, decorated griffons alighted on the balcony, all the restaurant's patrons looking up, startled.
"You are the delegation from Ironridge, correct?" The lead guard approached Shinespark and bowed. "Princess Gwendolyn requests an audience with you and any you deem trustworthy at once. Will you attend?"
Shinespark blinked, looking across her friends.
"You go, sugarcube." Saffron smiled encouragingly. "Don't know what that's about, but the Princess doesn't summon folks for nothing. We all will stay here and cover the bill."
"But we were supposed to be paying..." Maple raised a hoof, then lowered it. "Right. Can you tell us anything about what this is about?"
"The Princess did not explain the nature of her request." The guard shook his head.
"Well," Gerardo said, rising from his chair. "That sounds a hair more urgent than a formal summons. Let us see what adventures await us."
"Yo, you guys were speedy," Valey greeted, Maple, Amber, Starlight, Gerardo, Shinespark and Harshwater striding into the throne room, flanked by guards. Gazelle and Lyn waited with her, and Starlight bristled slightly at the sight of the prince.
"Valey?" Shinespark frowned, horn glowing. "You were down here?"
Valey scratched an ear. "Yeah, something like that. Listen, Lyn here has a spiel for you."
"We have been discussing the power outages," Lyn announced. "If you have been living in Stormhoof, where no energy is the norm, seeing them here will likely be unusual for you. I don't doubt you've been talking about them as well."
Amber frowned. "That's the kind of language I expect from someone who's about to ask a favor."
"Do you propose we deal with this?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "I hope you have something in mind. We were merely giving idle speculation, and haven't a clue what actually ails you."
"You get straight to the point, don't you?" Lyn nodded. "I would. I have a proposal for you." She turned, walking to the edge of the throne room dome, waving a wing for everyone to follow. "Valey has told me there is a crystal flame in the core of Garsheeva's temple, used to power the entire Empire as well as your airship. Is this true?"
"A harmonic flame," Valey corrected. "In a crystal tree."
Shinespark nodded. "That's a reasonable guess. If my father was able to invent a machine to use these flames for power, Garsheeva likely could have done so centuries ago."
"Right." Lyn stared down at the pit, still visibly lacking its barrier, the temple core now glowing slightly in the darkness. "I have also heard that you are low on this flame, and possess means of transporting it. I propose that I will give you access to the temple core. You will investigate the problem for me and return with information Meltdown may be unwilling or unable to share. In return, should you be able to gather it, I will allow you to keep any harmonic flame you collect as a reward."
Gerardo's eyes widened. "You can do that? That's Garsheeva's inner sanctum! You're allowed to let us in?"
Shinespark frowned. "Letting us into Garsheeva's home without her permission sounds extremely dangerous."
"I am," Lyn said. "It is not a well-known secret of the imperial dynasty. When Garsheeva reigns from her throne in full view, any can petition to speak with her. Typically, only her clergy know that spire is hollow, and when speaking with her you merely stand on its roof. The temple core itself is visited perhaps once in a generation. But the power to open its gates is deliberately given to the rightful empress of the Griffon Empire, by Garsheeva herself on the day they are foaled. There are rules we have to abide by. Other sphinxes are forbidden, and no one may enter for the purpose of visiting Garsheeva. But we are the gatekeepers and the judges, and if you enter to seek power for your airship, under her rules I could let you in."
Harshwater blinked hard. "Why is Garsheeva so fond of making others do her work?"
"You mean like how Meltdown has the most powerful job in the Empire, and Garsheeva actively listens to schemers and manipulators while letting her legitimate government flounder without guidance or commit whatever morally nebulous acts it will?" Gazelle shrugged from his wheelchair. "When you're a goddess, you don't have to answer questions like that."
"So in short," Gerardo said, glancing keenly at the princess. "You're saying you not only have a way down there, but Garsheeva intends for you to have it? You're supposed to be able to let us in?"
"Have you ever opened it before?" Maple tilted her head, looking slightly nervous.
Lyn nodded. "I have opened it once, when I was very young. To let Meltdown in, before she became who she is today. My brother would remember it better than I do. He was the one who asked it of me."
"So, the question is," Valey began, stepping forward, "do we even care? We've got enough fuel to make it back to Ironridge. Not with any to spare, but we could refuel before heading to Yakyakistan or something. See if we can get another Writ of Harmonic Sanction there. Having more now would be nice, but... isn't life-or-death. And even if Garsheeva is really strange and has something in there we're not supposed to walk in on, there's still Meltdown. I could kind of see us fighting her in there with Garsheeva just watching, in the event that she's evil. Lyn filled me in while you guys were coming, and I'm not one hundred percent sold on whether this is a good idea."
Everyone looked at each other, and no one wanted to speak... until Starlight stepped forward. "I'm going."
Maple stared at her. "Starlight?"
"I think I should," Starlight said. "When Garsheeva visited our ship last night, she took... my friend, and I bet it's related to this. I also think I might know why the rules about entering are the way they are..." She lowered her voice. "And I kind of want to feel a harmonic flame again."
"You mean why Garsheeva entrusts the empresses with judging who's worthy of entry instead of doing it herself?" Gazelle raised an eyebrow. "The same reason she declares how Regents work in tournaments: she likes watching mortals judge others. That's all the explanation I need."
"You have a different idea?" Valey asked, glancing at her.
Starlight swallowed. She was certain it had to with her revelation in Mistvale that Garsheeva and the Night Mother were one and the same. Asking the Empress for entry was likely a condition for meeting with the Night Mother in person and gaining the wish she offered... but this didn't seem like a secret she could just tell any of her friends. If anyone, it would be Valey, because the batpony talking about the Night Mother's cutie mark had been the last clue that helped her put it together, but she hadn't even told her yet.
"Well?" Valey tilted her head. "You're kinda staring."
"It's not one I want to talk about," Starlight said. "I'll go in. Maybe Valey should come too, just in case. But maybe everyone else should stay safe..."
Maple bit her lip.
"The fewer the better? Most interesting." Gazelle rubbed his chin. "If I were you... Well, I have no trustworthy advice to offer. Good luck, ladies. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing power restored to my sister's empire."
"If Starlight goes, I'm definitely in too," Valey promised. "But yeah, she has a point. I have no idea what it's like in there, if it's like the Ironridge one or different... and if it does come to blows, probably best not to have too many along who can't defend themselves. That said... you sure about this, kiddo?"
Starlight mutely nodded. She wasn't, and didn't want to be questioned, but there was a big part of her that wanted to feel the peace she had felt at the Ironridge flame, and another that wanted to find and help Glimmer. And the Ironridge flame had helped her magic. She could use it for short periods now and not get headaches that took days to recover. Maybe this one could help her again? But in the back of her mind, there was the lingering fear that she would have another vision, one of the gray world with an older Valey who knew her full name. A vision that could tell her more about that future and how to stop it, but also that it hadn't yet been averted... She swallowed, and stared at Lyn.
"You have my thanks." Lyn bowed to her and her specifically. "You should make any preparations you need. My guards will fly you if you require a visit to your ship. When you are ready, meet me on the roof of Garsheeva's core."
Starlight suspected the architecture around her would have been dark even if it was lit as intended. Lyn and Gazelle led the way, with Shinespark immediately behind them as the group's only unicorn with a normal, working horn. In the shadows cast by low archways and Shinespark's light, she followed along with Valey and Maple, Gerardo, Amber and Harshwater bringing up the rear.
From time to time, they passed Garsheeva's clergy, every one of them robed earth pony mares who huddled together, praying. Lyn had reassuring words for them as they passed, but all Starlight could wonder was where all the other types of creatures were. It was called the Griffon Empire, but aside from a few armored guards, there wasn't a religious-looking griffon in sight.
The low-ceilinged tunnels gave way to a room with one wall missing, a giant staircase descending deep into the ground. Starlight could feel a strange energy in the walls as they went down, as if they were low enough to the bottom of the world that the rocks themselves were conducting whatever energies lay at the base. The stairs felt like they descended forever, but they could see a gray shadow in the distance ahead where the light from the sky pierced the depths of the city and the stairs let out onto Garsheeva's sanctum.
"You are sure you know who will be entering?" Lyn asked. "You will not have time to second-guess once I open the way."
"I'm going. Starlight's going." Valey's eyes danced between her other friends. "If anyone else wants to come... it might have to be at your own risk. No promises on what we'll find, or what I can do to keep you safe if it comes to it."
Maple gave a low whine. "I want to go and keep Starlight safe myself, and my cutie mark does do things with harmonic flame..."
"Girl, I've given you a million and one opportunities to join me and Starlight for some fighting practice, and you never want to." Valey rolled her eyes. "This is a bad time to make the life decision that you wanna be protecting her instead of her protecting you."
Maple winced, and Amber frowned. "Valey, that might be a little far."
"Sorry! Sorry..." Valey's head drooped. "Kind of just a little stressed out here by walking into a place that's obviously bad news. And just saying, the first time we visited Ironridge's palace, I had to bust my butt getting you guys out when we got attacked and kind of... failed. It would be so much easier if I could just grab Starlight and fly away. I don't wanna let you guys down."
"It was me who saved us, that day," Maple whispered. "With the harmonic flame."
Starlight bit her lip in remembrance. Most of her memory of that night was cloudy at best. She came out of the mercenary fight with a devastating headache, and using the harmony extractor she was fairly sure was bad for her short-term memories. But she remembered the aftermath well enough. Maple's cracked cutie mark, Maple taking a hit from the black sword...
"She's right, you know," Harshwater said. "I was there. I remember it fully. If she can do anything like that again, given access to the flame, Maple is your silver bullet."
"...Yeah, I guess I forgot about that." Valey folded her ears, bumping Maple's side in apology. "If you wanna come, I'll find a way to get you through."
Shinespark frowned. "As long as we're increasing the party, do you want me? I can potentially carry others if we have to make an escape. But you and me are the leaders among our friends, Valey. Others might know how to pilot the ship, but you're the closest thing to a backup captain we have. Risking both of us at once..." She shook her head. "It's up to you. Ask me and I'll come along."
"That is not the kind of doomsday planning I'm fond of," Valey growled. "Look, this place feels... I dunno. My cutie mark has been vaguely uneasy ever since we got to Grandbell, but it's hardly reading certain death from all the way out here. We are not losing everyone who goes down there!"
Shinespark gave her a hard look. "The possibility of that is exactly why you were discouraging Maple."
"No, that was because..." Valey groaned. "Look, do you want to? I'm sorry, I'm stressed!"
"I think she should go," Amber volunteered. "Shinespark has more experience than anyone working with harmony technology. In the event this is all totally innocent and actually a mechanical problem, she could be the only one who would know how to fix it! And even if it's sabotage, she might be able to tell better than anyone else how to turn it back on."
"That's a pretty good point," Valey admitted. "Sparky?"
Shinespark lowered her head. "I was deliberately not mentioning that because I don't want to get your hopes up. Chauncey clearly stole Ironridge tech, and I'm guessing it was through a connection between Dorable and Navarre. But Garsheeva won't be using our extractor."
"...Same principle?" Amber asked hopefully.
"I have no idea," Shinespark apologized. "You're right. It's possible I'll know something. But I don't want to get your hopes up. Garsheeva's technology will be extremely old and likely far more advanced than anything my father ever created." She glanced at Lyn and Gazelle. "How old is the Empire's power grid?"
Lyn nodded primly. "It was constructed about nine hundred years ago over an extensive period of time, and has been maintained and upgraded ever since."
"Yeah, so you probably can't help, but sort of maybe. And you're a light if Starlight doesn't want to, and can help get Maple out fast." Valey nodded. "Okay, so hypothetically, suppose we take the four of us. Would anyone have any beefs whatsoever with that?"
"You, Shinespark, Maple and Starlight?" Gerardo nodded. "It sounds like a competent team. I have nothing particularly important to contribute beyond a general knowledge of imperial history and lore, so I'll volunteer to stay behind."
"I spent a lot of time in Stormhoof's library," Shinespark added. "I might have some knowledge on that."
Harshwater cleared her throat. "I'll excuse myself too. I don't have a fondness for underground battles, and it shouldn't be hard to guess why."
"And I'm a professional cheer squad, refreshment filly and bench warmer," Amber added. "Go get 'em, girls. I'll be here for you when you return!"
"Cool. Then we're settled," Valey announced, the final chamber drawing into sight. "And looks like we're just in time."
The bottom of Grandbell was composed of a cylindrical crystal spire, rising up from the blackness in the center of the pit and forming a platform in the middle. A bridge linked it to the grand staircase, and directly across from the bridge, a reclining throne sat carved into the rock, unoccupied and taking up a full quarter of the hole's circumference. Hundreds of candles suspended from thin lattices hovered over the rest of the void, and as her friends stared at the throne or the city or the abyss, Starlight's gaze was drawn intrinsically to the crystal pillar in the middle. Rain pelted her coat, and with some concentration she put up a crystal shield on her back, protecting herself and Maple as she rode along. Far above, circling guards filled the skies, but they were going lower.
"You are ready?" Lyn asked. "Do not worry about getting back out. Entry is the only part for which you require aid."
"Yep." Valey stared at the crystal with a frown, patting a saddlebag that contained their empty windigo hearts. "So, how do you do this?"
Lyn took a deep breath, her dress suddenly rippling on her even though it had been soaked against her fur seconds earlier. Starlight suddenly had an intensely uneasy feeling looking at her... and when she spoke, her voice carried a hollow echo that sounded uncomfortably reminiscent of her Nightmare Module voice. "Glory to Garsheeva. May her love, as shallow as the Aldenfold, and her virtue, as tarnished as the moon, be concealed from the entire world."
The filly's mane lifted, and she crackled with energy, eyes turning to pools of purple and green as her shadow grew and elongated. A light shone beneath her dress, gleaming from her flanks where her cutie marks would be, and the light illuminated behind her and darkened in front, until her small body cast the shadow of a mare ten times her size. Lyn spread her wings, and the shadow's spread as well, the crystals it fell on seeming dark and inverted. And instead of the polished, softly-glowing ruby floor, the area covered by her projection had a staircase down into the tower.
"Uhhhh..." Valey stared at her with wide eyes. "If that's the way Garsheeva set up for you to let others in, are you absolutely sure she's not the one we should be worried about?"
"It is what it is," Lyn answered in her augmented voice, holding the transformation and the pose. "If you do not wish to see me like this, you should hurry. The door is not pleasant to hold open."
"Bananas..." Valey tapped the darkened crystals with a hoof, wincing slightly at the contact. It faintly reminded Starlight of moon glass, but was clearly not the same thing.
"I don't like this," Shinespark said, pushing Maple and Starlight forward with her aura. "But if we're going, we should go."
Valey hesitated, meeting Lyn's discolored eyes. "...We're going. Take care."
"Remember!" Gazelle called after them as the ponies descended and Valey brought up the rear. "You said Garsheeva found this place instead of making it, don't you remember? This might not be her mechanism. She could just be working with what she had..."
With a slithering of light, the shadows behind Starlight changed, and soon an ornate edifice was all that was left of Lyn's shadowy staircase. She and her friends were locked inside.
Garsheeva's temple was constructed of solid, polished ruby, with ruby floors and ruby ceilings held up by ruby pillars separating ruby alcoves in the walls, ruby sculptures and vases and even flowers adorning them in the grand, blood-red foyer. The crystals gave off a soft luminescence, and were so present that the lighting felt like day, even though it was likely Starlight's unadjusted eyes. A soft hum reached her from the floor, something alive that she hadn't felt in the Ironridge palace. And unlike then, there was not a trace of the chalky shell that covered the gems to be found. This place was maintained immaculately.
"That didn't feel good to watch," Maple whispered, looking over her shoulder at the wall where the stairs had been.
"Gazelle's warning was certainly helpful," Shinespark grumbled. "Now I'm even more on edge than that made me already. Valey, how are we for safety, and does anyone see an escape route?"
"Eh..." Valey frowned, biting her lip. "Danger actually doesn't feel that bad. But you know how I feel about false negatives on my cutie mark. Just because it says something's safe doesn't make me less uneasy."
Maple glanced at Starlight. "What about you? Are you alright?"
"I can feel it," Starlight whispered, staring at the ground. Beneath them, somewhere in the depths, there was a bright spot... She hadn't remembered this feeling before, but now it was incredibly familiar: something at the base of the pillar was drawing her in. It must have gotten stronger when they entered, almost like something was blocking it outside. Or perhaps it was weaker than the one in Ironridge, or perhaps she had acclimated to it already... but the harmonic flame was near, and just like the last one she wanted to touch it.
"I can feel it," she repeated. "It's nearby. We should go down."
Valey pointed at a passage. "Well, there's only one corridor. I suppose we have to get moving."
Starlight picked up her pace, quickly finding herself in the lead. She had never been here before, but some invisible force tugged at her hooves, guiding her direction at every mazelike intersection. As she walked, the headache from fighting Gazelle rapidly disappeared as well, and soon her horn actually felt good. Just like the Ironridge palace, she felt as though she could direct magic instead of casting it, like she could will a spell to happen on the tree's power rather than drawing it from her own broken horn. As uneasy as everything had made her, the flame was still good. She had no doubt that if anything needed fighting, it would help her, and with it on her side she was unimaginably strong.
Murals passed by, images of flames and war that looked naturally-occurring rather than the result of any artist. Her friends blanched at the sight, especially Maple, but Starlight passed by the effigies of agonized ponies, warring griffons and dragons surrounded by song without lifting an eyebrow. She had seen it all before. This was where the memory module had taken her, where she watched Garsheeva and the dark alicorn that had been Nightmare Moon. Now she was taking her friends into this place, and she was the only one who knew.
Starlight suddenly had a feeling that whatever encounter waited in this palace, the harmonic flame and power generator aside, was meant for her and her alone.
They descended another level, and the imagery of fire was replaced with bitter cold. Sleet, ice, snowstorms and clouds, ponies huddled together around piles of sticks and staring at plates with only a few kernels of grain. Cloudy monsters covered the sky, ones she had never seen but knew in her heart were windigoes. The murmurs of her friends behind her confirmed it. This place was a monument to history she had never lived, but its goddess had: wars in the days of old, tales she was told in Equestria for Hearth's Warming. And it wasn't just Garsheeva that remembered. Starlight remembered Felicity's stories of objects with emotion, how moon glass and Gerardo's old sword had feelings burned into them. The flame was alive. It could remember, too.
After an age of walking, the crystal feeling lighter against Starlight's hooves than it should have been, they arrived at the table room. Shinespark instinctively stepped away from Valey, but Valey was too focused to bother teasing her about it. This room's architecture was almost a copy of the Ironridge palace's, except for one defining feature: Glimmer, Meltdown and Garsheeva, all seated around the table, watching them expectantly.
"Well, well," the large sphinx said, patting Glimmer on the head. "It looks like I win our bet. Hello, Starlight. Welcome to my domain."
"What's going on here?" Shinespark frowned, narrowing her eyes.
Glimmer winced. "We have a lot to discuss. But first, Starlight. I need to you come to the flame room with me."
"Me?" Starlight blinked. "Why?"
"To extend the lifespan of an ailing generator," Glimmer said, sounding frustrated. "We will explain everything as soon as it is done, but for now, you showed up, and so you must help me."
"Why her, though?" Valey demanded, stepping protectively forward. "What's all this about?"
Garsheeva lounged by the table, looking halfway interested and annoyed. Meltdown's helmet was back, her face a mask of apprehension. Glimmer just sighed. "...There is a generator attached to the harmonic flame that provides power to all of the Empire, but it was not built for that purpose. It was built by Equestria, and about ninety-seven percent of the energy it generates is used to power the spell that makes the Aldenfold impassable."
Everyone blinked, Valey most of all. "Wait, what?"
"The mountains..." Shinespark whispered. "The thing that stops everyone from crossing them is here?"
Glimmer nodded. "It was built by Equestria. There is much that can be said about why it is failing, or was built this way. The important part is that the power threshold it delivers to the mountains is hardcoded, and Garsheeva's power grid taps the runoff. This means even a one percent drop in efficiency can cause a blackout across a third of the empire. We need to lower the amount of power the generator is sending to the mountains. Even a five percent reduction would end the Empire's blackouts while still reducing the generator load below maximum and possibly delaying its deterioration."
"Let me guess," Starlight droned. "None of you can change it because you aren't Equestrians, and you broke your horn so when Garsheeva came to get you to fix the machine, you couldn't do anything."
"Sharp, aren't you?" Garsheeva rumbled.
Glimmer shook her head. "Not perfectly true, but it isn't misleading, either. I could do it, except for this." She tapped her horn. "And neither of these two can."
Starlight gave her a hard look she knew she couldn't see. "So nobody hostile is down here? You were really just having a technical problem? You could have just asked for my help in the first place instead of scaring all my friends, you know."
"Oh, we could have," Garsheeva said, waving a paw. "But your lookalike here really wasn't feeling up to it, and part of my bargain with her is that she gets final say in all things involving you."
Glimmer's shoulders slumped, and she nodded. "We made a bet. If you didn't come investigate this place on your own, we wouldn't bring you. If you did, I would guide you in changing the settings on the power generator."
"But why didn't you want me down here?" Starlight tilted her head. "I've been in a crystal palace before. Will this place somehow hurt me?"
"It will show you things and put ideas in your head that will make it that much harder for you to rest." Glimmer's voice was hard. "But I have a bargain to uphold. You will be fine. There will be time for talking afterward, and any questions you have can possibly find answers. Come."
She motioned Starlight towards another staircase leading below. "What about the rest of us?" Maple asked, stretching a hoof to follow Starlight.
"Oh, we made no bargains concerning you three," Garsheeva rumbled. "While they're busy below, why don't you chat with us? It's been a while since we last met..."
Valey's face scrunched in confusion. "We've met before?"
Garsheeva's grin grew broad, and she stood up, revealing an empty flank. Slowly, her fur shimmered, and a complicated set of midnight-blue triangular runes appeared as her cutie mark.
The walls hummed around Starlight as she descended the final staircase to the tree room, hot on Glimmer's heels. Her blind counterpart felt her way carefully down the curving steps, leaving Starlight a lot of time to think in her wake.
"You don't want me here," Starlight said.
"No, I don't," Glimmer replied. "But perhaps it was inevitable. Don't be scared, though."
"You sure did a great job of reassuring me with everything it took to get here," Starlight mumbled. "It wasn't nearly as hard as it should have been. Valey had an idea, Lyn had an idea, I never even got lost on the way down. If this place is so hard to get to, why am I here without even trying? Especially if you don't want me along."
Glimmer nodded, steadying herself on the blind descent. "Questions like those are exactly what I hoped to spare you from grappling with. Nothing in this tree will hurt you, but it will make you wonder. For now, we must visit the generator with all due haste. Once we are finished, if anything can be answered that would set you more at ease, I will do my best to help. But for many of the things in this place, you would be best off if you forgot them."
Starlight bit her lip. "So..."
"If you can stop yourself from asking until we are finished, you should," Glimmer advised. "Whatever is on your mind, you have a mission from an immortal to complete. We should go."
"Wait a second." Valey pointed a hoof at Garsheeva's cutie mark. "That's... from Mistvale... You're...?"
Maple and Shinespark gaped quietly at her, and Garsheeva watched them with yellow eyes. "The Night Mother? Yes. I am the goddess of the north, as I have been for nearly a thousand years. And now we meet in person. I am surprised Starlight didn't tell you, and to see she brought so many with her."
"Yeah, well, we had no idea what we were getting into and came prepared." Valey met her eyes, then pointed at Meltdown. "And what's she doing here?"
Meltdown folded her hooves on the table, speaking for the first time since they had arrived. "I am the ruler of the Griffon Empire."
Valey squinted. "Wait, huh...?"
"And not Garsheeva?" Shinespark stepped alongside her and frowned. "I don't understand."
"The curiosity and restraint of mortals surprises me at every turn," Garsheeva rumbled, tall and imposing. "You have heard the legends. Everyone has, of what meeting the Night Mother face to face will bring. Yet no one ever runs to claim their reward."
"You're talking about your wish," Maple said, eyes shimmering as she stared at Garsheeva. "They say we can ask for even more than for winning the tournament. But we were let here by the Princess."
Garsheeva's tail lashed once. "I assume she followed the rules. You are here, and I follow mine as well. You may all make your requests, and I will follow the spirit of them. But..." She sniffed, breathing deeply of their scents. "I sense you are conflicted about what you seek. Ask wisely, my little ponies."
"Asking you for information doesn't count, right?" Valey asked warily.
"No." Garsheeva's eyes scanned across them, panning from one side of the trio to the other. "I can read you, all of you. This is the heart of my empire, and I would not have left mechanisms for mortals to come here if I did not intend them to be used. That you are here means you have found each other worthy through bonds of friendship and trust with my princess. You have judged yourselves and earned the right to see the forces that hold this continent together, and to receive their power."
Shinespark's brow furrowed. "You care more about whether Gwendolyn will let us in than whether you want us here?"
"Yes."
Garsheeva's gaze grew intent, and Valey stared back without flinching. "What is it with you and judgement? I've heard this from everyone. Grandpapa, Chauncey, Wallace, random dudes on the street. You've got the whole thing with the Golden Regents where we kick each other out, and everyone says it's theologically important. Now a filly figures out whether it's cool for us to visit this place. Like, is there a pattern here?"
"Oh, there is." Garsheeva continued watching without blinking, regal and imposing. "You have likely heard from anyone who studies eastern theology that putting a value on others is a right only afforded by gods. But I force them to live a paradox, because I judge no one."
Valey frowned. "Heretics you capture and execute?"
Garsheeva shrugged. "I mete out the punishments, but only because I need food to sustain my size. The Empire's heresies are ancient rules put in place to protect its greatest secrets and way of life, but many were not even made by me and instituted by my church instead in the first few hundred years of my reign. And it is the head of my power company who enforces them."
Maple turned to Meltdown. "Explain?"
Meltdown sighed. "Garsheeva is a figurehead goddess. To protect her realm, she empowers others to rule for her from a less-visible location, holding the Empire together as a symbol and only intervening to protect her interests, or when given no choice. This is because she would not make a good political leader, and knows the Empire would collapse under her direct rule."
"Seems to be a trend with sphinxes," Valey remarked warily. "But you still seem a lot saner than some of the others I've met."
"That is because I rule from behind a mask," Garsheeva rumbled. "And only over sarosiankind. And because I have made many long millennia of effort to contain my worse nature. I was never created to be harmonic or benevolent." She focused completely on Valey, the light in the room seeming to concentrate around her gaze. "You have lived it out hundreds of times in your worst nightmares. I am a weapon of war."
This tree room was different.
Starlight felt the fur on her back rise the moment they entered the central chasm, the organic crystal spire rising up from the depths to the map table above. But instead of the natural ruby walls, every inch of space was covered with massive, rotating metal cones, facing the tree point-first with rings around their ends that made them look somewhere between cannons and drills. The surfaces of the cones were alive with red plasmatic energy, and a storm of red lightning unendingly spread from rods inserted in the tree trunk, lancing out to join them. A wall of cases, meters and metal supported them, surrounding the entire chamber, and Starlight's ears fell flat as she looked up into the chaos.
"It's quite a sight, isn't it?" Glimmer asked. "You recognize them from anywhere?"
Starlight mutely nodded. They looked identical to the device that made up Aegis the metal dragon's tail, as if one had been removed and installed there instead. And not only that. She had seen one even earlier, in the nightmare in the sea cave on the metal monstrosity fake-Yanavan had attacked her with.
"What are they?"
"They are harmony extractors," Glimmer said. "Much like the ones your friends from Ironridge constructed that now power your airship. Only, these ones are built using technology from a forgotten age, making them small and light enough to fit on mobile machines."
Starlight folded her ears. "Are they safe?"
"I assure you, they are much more dangerous for me now than for you." Glimmer started across the bridge to the tree, the tunnel into its interior arched and lined with metal. "Fortunately, you will not need to get near them."
Starlight followed hurriedly along. "You would disappear like I did."
Glimmer nodded. "Without an intelligent force that had the plans and knowledge to rebuild my body? Yes."
"So when I came back..." Starlight's brow furrowed.
"The flame was necessary," Glimmer continued, completing her sentence. "And it had help and guidance from me. Even if it served as a suitable crucible to restore and repair your body, these flames are harmony without form on their own."
"I'm guessing you can't just guide it to fix yourself," Starlight said, trotting along after her. "Could I help?"
"You are correct," Glimmer lamented. "Part of the damage from overusing my horn is a loss of the abilities I briefly unlocked for you in telepathy. That communication protocol and this technology go hoof in hoof."
Starlight tilted her head in confusion. "But there's not a generator in Ironridge. You mean the flame is technology?"
"I should have worded that better. I'm confusing you," Glimmer sighed. "I can't fix myself without my telepathy. You could fix me, with the proper knowledge, but I can't unlock that telepathy for you my way and telling you how to unlock it yourself would mean giving it to you forever. And it would both not make you happy and potentially be very dangerous if something attempted to possess you with your guard down."
Starlight's eyes widened. "That can happen?"
"Garsheeva, Stanza and myself are three easy examples of beings strong enough to do it," Glimmer responded. "I would be surprised if the world has not found ways of creating more."
"...Okay." Starlight bit her lip. Thinking for a moment, she asked, "So who did invent these generators?"
"They are technology from the land of Indus," Glimmer replied, furrowing her brow. "That is a name you will likely hear more than once down here, but don't dwell on it. It isn't a place you want to learn about or go."
Starlight tilted her head. "You've been there?"
"I have." Glimmer nodded. "It is a tomb and prison for all things that belong in the past. Dangerous knowledge, history... power. Aegis is from there. If you were willing to do truly anything for the strength to never sacrifice and never lose, you would find yourself trying to get there at some point in the future. I promise you, it isn't worth it."
Glimmer halted, holding out a foreleg. "We have arrived."
"Two thousand years ago," Garsheeva began, "when the Griffon Empire was actually a land of griffons alone, a vicious war broke out with the civilizations of ponykind far to the west. It began as a technology race, fought with advancements rather than battles and fueled with differing theologies and ideas about gods. Each side possessed a societal virtue; love in the east and knowledge in the west. We had these relics in their physical incarnation, each with the power to mold existence itself. But mortals could not survive their energies, and they were worshipped instead of wielded. Due to changes in the world, the two civilizations began to research ways these artifacts could be harnessed, to create beings capable of wielding them."
The other mares in the room sat still as she continued. "The foremost goal in the race was to reach a land known as Indus. Indus was incredibly ancient, and all research into the mists of time concluded that it was linked to the energies surrounding the very founding of this world. Eventually, the race concluded, with griffons reaching Indus first. They brought things back, materials and technology and information."
Garsheeva's eyes flickered, and her voice grew deeper. "They also awakened a thing that had been sealed there and brought it home with them. A mechanical life form, a machine with a soul. It called itself Tetra, and they desired it for the knowledge it had. Tetra was interested in creating higher life forms, the same kind the griffons sought to wield their societal virtue. With all of the Empire's amassed knowledge, the resources from Indus and Tetra's expertise, I was born. The first sphinx, a product of extensive eugenics, modifications, infusions of chaotic energies and attempts to cross-breed a griffon and a pegasus to create a griffon that could bear a brand."
She growled softly, her wings flexing on her back. "The societal virtues manifest on their bearers as brands, or cutie marks, as you call them, much like Luna's later imitations. The ability to carry that was one prerequisite. The second, as I mentioned, is the necessity of an immortal host whose body can properly process to exposure to their energies. Mature sphinxes contain a shell of chaotic energy inside their bodies that develops as we reach adulthood. It functions like a bag, allowing us to contain the energy of hope from branded ponies we devour. It is this energy that powers the immortality of a sphinx, and is why there exists a heresy on cannibalism. The populace must never be allowed to revere this act merely because I execute heretics like so to survive."
Valey paled at this news. "Wait, a shell of negative energy that contains cutie marks? Bananas, can Mistvale Monks detect this stuff?"
Garsheeva snorted. "They could, if a sphinx was foolish enough to allow it."
"Huh..." Valey's ears folded, instantly remembering what Felicity had told her about Crystal on the night of the Stormhoof invasion. But there was no way she was telling Garsheeva. Not after she had finally gotten that mare somewhere she had a chance for a happy future. And looking at the expressions on her friends' faces, she had never told them about that conversation. "Weird. Feels like that should be more widely known."
"It is not the kind of information that spreads," Garsheeva replied with a rumble. "Now, if you don't mind... This is what I am. A life form based on chaos magic. It manifests in our demeanors and behaviors, appearing when we reach adulthood and often relating to our harmonic, special talents." She brushed her flank with a wingtip. "Something Princess Gwendolyn has not yet learned is that the ability I gave her to open this tower will cease to function once she loses her innocence to the call of chaos. The Night Mother will then be sealed until she bears a new heir and they grow old enough to open it themselves. Though we can fight it, sphinxes are like dragons: beasts, not griffons or ponies, who lose their wisdom in a great spiral that increases as they indulge their darker desires. This is why I entrust the true oversight of the Griffon Empire to a pony anointed through friendship with a child."
"So Lyn's going to go insane just like Gazelle?" Valey blanched. "Bananas, that's dumb. And touching on some seriously uncomfortable personal history..."
"I am aware." Garsheeva's voice grew more gentle. "That is why I am telling you. Everything you fear being, I am, child of the night. And I have been so for two thousand years. Your problems are transient; your emotions your own to wield. You do not need to recuse yourself from responsibility and things that could inflame your bloodlust or greed."
Maple put a hoof on Valey's shoulder. "But you still leave sphinxes in charge of all the houses of the Empire," she said, a note of defiance in her voice. "You haven't recused them, have you?"
"Yes," Garsheeva continued. "I still oversee my empire. Meltdown or myself can intervene with force should things become truly dire. It is my hope that one day, a noble like Gazelle who sees the corruption of sphinxes as they age and hates it will find a way to break our race from the curse it was created under. Immortality is not worth this. It would be a mercy to the world and myself to spare me of an existence so prone to fiendishness. Yet I will not let myself die until all my children are saved and all have found a true goddess who can love them and rule in person without fear of losing themselves to madness."
Valey frowned. "When you talk about your children, you don't just mean sphinxes. You mean as the Night Mother."
"I do." Garsheeva's voice quieted. "Long ago, the sarosian race was created by Princess Luna. Luna and Celestia were created on the other side of the war for Indus, once it had taken a darker turn. They, too, were weapons like I was. Celestia had her differences with us relating to the three societal virtues... She was the only one who truly wielded hers. When Luna later lost herself to loneliness and a fell spirit, her children and powers became entrusted to me. The Nightmare Modules... weapons you already know as much about as you need to. But her children are our children, and they are different."
She finally looked away, eyes meeting a diagram on the wall of the Emblem of the Nine Virtues. "I cannot afford to take the approach I take with the Empire with them. I love them, and love is the purpose I was created for. Through magic born of the vast collection of brands I have stockpiled, I invented dusk statues and constructed a network I can reach them through, anywhere in the world. With the statues, I am right there with them, speaking into their hearts and seeing all their thoughts as one. You have likely seen the veins of blue crystal that light cities in Mistvale. These are crystallized hope, and act as conduits, receptacles and a reservoir for my power. Everything I do in the Empire, I do for their future."
Garsheeva slowly turned back to the assembled ponies. "In fifteen years' time, the seal imprisoning Princess Luna will break, and she will return. I will be ready. Decades ago, I instructed my servant Yanavan and caused the most significant faith crisis in Mistvale's history. Should Luna return healed, it will be easy for the sarosians to defect to their real goddess. Should she remain the tyrant she left as, I will cast her as the Night Mother and offer myself publicly to the Mistvale church as their goddess. They remember me fighting in the war against Gyre. With the Empire, I allow Meltdown to do as she will. Mistvale and the sarosians are where my heart lies."
"Bananas," Valey whispered. "That's, like... really messed up and also kind of cool at the same time."
"I hoped you would be inspired," Garsheeva said. "The struggles you have seen surrounding your identity in the face of your origin I can relate to deeply. However, sarosians were not created with immortality in mind, and while they share some similarities with sphinxes, your kind do not suffer from our curse. You may live your lives however you will. Now... are you ready to make your wishes? Through the power of my artifice, I can do things you may not even imagine possible. Ask for anything."
Shinespark folded her ears. "One more thing I'm curious about, first... What happened to Tetra?"
"Tetra?" Garsheeva's nose wrinkled. "It was stolen by a unicorn known as Star Swirl the Bearded. Or perhaps it joined with him and escaped. It was likely involved in the creation of the Equestrian alicorns, though I know not where it is today."
"...Right. Wishes." Shinespark took a breath. "I wish for a way to create trade between Ironridge and Equestria. You said your generator somehow controls the spell that makes the mountains uncrossable."
Garsheeva shook her head. "The Aldenfold is an Equestrian defense. It is them keeping you out, not me. Changing the foreign policy of a sovereign goddess is a monumental task, even for my influence. If I grant this, the results will likely not be able to help you in the way you desire. But if passage to Equestria for yourself is all you desire, I have one more Writ of Harmonic Sanction here, separate from the one stored in my castle for diplomatic emergencies and tournament rewards."
Shinespark bit her lip. "Let me think about it."
Maple cleared her throat, stepping forward. "We each get a wish, right?"
"You do. As does Starlight, once she returns." Garsheeva nodded solemnly.
"Okay..." Maple took a deep breath. "I wish for a new home. Somewhere all of us can settle in peace, where we won't have to fear mad ambassadors or corrupt lords or ponies who hate batponies. Where we won't be invaded and can live happily and at peace."
Garsheeva narrowed her eyes, rumbling in thought. "Do you plan on ever reaching Equestria?"
Everyone looked at each other. "That's the dream," Valey said. "We've got one Writ of Harmonic Sanction. Yakyakistan has promised us another, so we're going to go pick that up once we're done here. And you just said you have a third? It sounds possible enough to work towards."
"Worst case," Shinespark added, "they're apparently more common inside Equestria. Some of us could go through first and look for more to bring back for the rest. And for some of us, it's a stronger dream than others."
"I see." Garsheeva snapped her claws, and a scroll of paper appeared held between them. "Then I grant you this."
Maple tilted her head, taking the scroll curiously. "What is it?"
"A land title deed," Garsheeva explained. "One I obtained at great trouble long ago, but have little use for. It covers an area in northeastern Equestria, a mountainous desert where few see value in the land. But far beneath it is another Tree of Harmony like this one, the only one in the world that is freely accessible and not near civilization or built over. With this deed, the land and the tree are legally yours. It would require effort, but with the technology you possess you could gain access to a power source like mine. You could fuel your ship forever, generate energy for a town. With research, you could learn to use the powers of harmony to control the weather and climate, transforming the desert into a paradise. You will have to build your home, but this land could make an ideal foundation. Does this suffice to grant your wish?"
Maple stared at the paper reverently. "That sounds..."
"Building our own home," Valey murmured. "Bananas, setting stuff up from scratch does sound like a lot of work, but if we had this ship and a Tree of Harmony... Sparky? Think it's worth trying to get passes for everyone, then make some friends in Equestria and make this happen?"
Shinespark nodded firmly. "If that's the case, I wish for your second border pass. This will take us years, but we're all young. If we built enough of a new home in Equestria, we could use this ship and some of us as a crew to fly goods between there and Ironridge. We'll use the Tree of Harmony in Ironridge to learn to build a proper power reactor..."
Garsheeva snapped her claws again, a second scroll appearing and floating to Shinespark, this one a Writ of Harmonic Sanction. "Granted. And you would be wise to experiment. The technology in this reactor uses designs from Indus, which are now guarded by Princess Celestia. The Equestrian monarchy have been far more liberal with the secrets of that place than the Empire, but you will likely not be able to get your hooves on the plans or the equipment to manufacture them yourself."
"That's fine," Shinespark assured. "Arambai's harmony extractor works well enough. If three percent of your generator's output can power the entire continent, it won't matter if ours is less efficient."
"So we're really doing this. We're spending our wishes on this, and we might get it." Maple finally took the paper Garsheeva was offering, unfurling and reading it before stowing it in her cutie mark. "We have a dream we can really work towards."
"What will we call it?" Shinespark asked. "All big plans need a name."
"Our town?" Maple tilted her head. "...Yes. Our Town. Because we'd be making it for us."
As the others debated, Garsheeva's eyes turned to Valey. "And what about you?"
"I want my sister put back together," Valey said without hesitation. "I have her body. I have her cutie mark, in moon glass. I want it done."
"And her memories?" Garsheeva raised an eyebrow.
"Bananas, it would be neat if she could remember everything." Valey shook her head. "But I just want her to be able to walk around and feel stuff again. I've neglected her far too many times on this stupid trip since I first brought her back, and now that I have a real chance to fix this, it needs to end here. Can you do it?"
"I can transfer her soul," Garsheeva said. "By eating the moon glass her brand resides within, I can gain control of it. With sufficient power, the dusk statue network can act as a conduit for brands. As long as her body has not been stripped of its ability to connect to the network, I can reassemble her wherever she may be. But you will need to bring her soul to me. As for her memories, those are stored in the unique bond that forms between a mind and a body. The equipment I would need to extract those from a machine is unstable thanks to the generator. Whether and how soon I can do that will depend on the success of Starlight in fixing it."
Maple's ears folded. "What happened to it in the first place? The most we've heard is something about Chauncey's power reactor, but something this advanced and old can't have been damaged by that alone."
Meltdown cleared her throat, cutting in at last. "That was the final straw, but it wasn't the catalyst. Indus technology has lifespans too long to accurately measure. Many thousands of years. The reason our generator was vulnerable was because for the last forty years, it's been doing double duty. The Aldenfold was initially designed to be powered by two reactors, and after the war in Yakyakistan, the one in their Tree of Harmony went offline."
"Wow. I guess that would do it." Valey scratched her head. "Bananas, and it held up fine for forty years? This thing's tough."
Shinespark nodded in appreciation. "That's some quality engineering."
"Exactly," Garsheeva agreed. "That is why, if the emergency power boost is overridden, even a small drop below maximum capacity could allow the generator time to fix itself. And so, we wait to see what will be accomplished."
The interior of the Tree of Harmony held a familiar crystal brazier, but the flame inside it danced and sparked like the Ironridge one when Starlight had seen it melting moon glass. She approached cautiously, noting the apparatuses around it: several control consoles lined the walls, and there was a metal platform where it looked like an administrator could stand. "Where do I go?" she asked. "Up there?"
"Into the flame," Glimmer requested. "But first, wait. You need to know what to do."
Starlight's ears flicked backwards. "Yes?"
"You will likely have a reaction to the flame," Glimmer advised, standing safely at the entrance to the room. "When it is over and the flame talks with you, ask it to connect you to the generator, which will automatically verify that you are allowed to use it. Do not dwell in there, or search for any information you do not want to know. It responds to thought commands. All you must do is ask it to lower the Aldenfold emergency minimum threshold by five percent. Whether that succeeds or fails, tell it you want to leave. I have already asked Aegis to stand by on the network and protect you. We will talk more when you are done."
"...Glimmer?" Starlight whispered. "How do you know all this? Who are you?"
"Please be safe, Starlight," Glimmer replied. "Ask me again when you're done."
Starlight swallowed and closed her eyes, reaching out for the flame as she felt it reaching for her. A tendril of red met her foreleg, wrapping around it like a warm blanket offered by a friend, unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time... but just as the sense of rightness began to build in her mind, something cracked deep within her, and her vision shattered, the world falling away to a sea of gray.
Starlight knew, without even opening her eyes, that she was having that vision again.
Even the insides of her eyelids were gray. It was like using a Nightmare Module, only instead of only remembering the lack of color after she was restored, she was aware of it now, like a layer of sand in her mouth. The silence was absolute, less like no sound was being made and more like it was a concept that hadn't even been invented yet. Slowly, her emotions stilled by anticipation, she opened her eyes to see what she could see.
It was a room, with walls cut from stone and a single door and several furnishings like a bed, table and paintings. On the bed was a mare, another mare leaning over her and heaving with sobs. Both were sarosians, but she didn't think she knew either. It was hard to tell without color, though. And a single set of armor sat by the door, looking damaged.
"Hello?" Starlight heard her words, but didn't feel like her voice moved the air.
Neither of the mares looked up. Starlight walked around the one who was standing to get a better look at the one in bed, and her brow shadowed in concern. The other was breathing shallowly, laying with a deep wound to her neck that might have been caused by fangs, but it was hard to tell because there was no blood. Instead, her neck leaked the same kind of ash that came from sarosians slain with the black sword, ash Starlight quickly realized she had mistaken for snow the first time she had been here. She had no doubt if she were outside, it would be falling from the sky, and she was tempted to try teleporting to observe whatever terrible calamity had befallen the world. Her horn felt flawless, empowered even here by the flame. But the vision had put her here for a reason, and she had to stay to observe it.
She watched as the standing mare shook, stroking the dying one's cheek, and saw her lips move with words as a tear fell from her eye. Starlight tried to read her lips, but had no practice and couldn't make out a thing.
Suddenly, a faint static crackle flickered in her ears, and sound existed again, ragged sobs filling the air. Starlight blinked, knowing they still couldn't hear her but about to try getting their attention again... when a faint pop came from the bedside table and it vanished in a puff of ash. The vase atop it fell, shattering when it hit the floor.
The crying mare gasped, looking up. Within seconds, there were more pops, the paintings on the walls turning to ash as well. Starlight felt a wall of pressure in her heart as the flakes drifted and flurried, and suddenly the broken vase was ash as well.
"This is the end," the injured mare gasped, recapturing the attention of the other, who leaned down and hugged her. "We failed..."
There was a bigger crash as the bed, too, turned to ash, dropping both mares hard on the stone floor. Then the door was gone as well.
"What's happening!?" Starlight yelled, her flanks burning where a cutie mark should be. Suddenly, a wave of blackness appeared through the stone, expanding in a solid wall of force, so devoid of light that she couldn't see any contour whatsoever. It moved both terrifyingly fast and slow enough that she could watch as both of the mares were devoured, and then she, too, was inside, tumbling head over heels as it clung to her and washed her and bowled her over. But she was floating, rising to the surface, buoyed by a tiny spark in her chest, and she finally broke the surface, the darkness dripping off her and disappearing like heavy tar.
Before she could even attempt regaining her senses, another wall of something hit her, and both her hearing and vision imploded. "I'M HELPING," a metallic voice blared into her head. She could see colors, but everything was made of broken, refracting triangles save for a large image of the metal dragon Aegis peering at her with its faceless head.
Starlight winced from the volume, feeling intense vertigo. Where was she supposed to be right now? In the flame, connected to the generator... "What are you doing!?" she yelled, trying to be heard above the ringing in her ears.
"I WAS TOLD TO INTERFERE WITH YOUR SENSES BY MISTRESS."
Starlight reeled. "Well, that hurts, and I need time to think!"
"I'M HELPING."
Great. Starlight frantically tried to remember what Glimmer had told her to do in the generator. Lower the power. What were the steps? Could it just hear her thoughts and react accordingly? She wasn't even sure if she could hear her own thoughts under whatever Aegis was doing. She sincerely hoped it couldn't do this when she was awake and not in a trance or dream.
Something changed in the world around her, and she heard another voice, though it was buried and distorted by the effects of Aegis's presence. "That's really annoying," Starlight growled, then raised her voice. "Generator, I want you to give five percent less power to the Aldenfold!"
There was another shift around her, but Aegis shifted to remain at the center of her vision, preventing her from even getting a good look at the broken triangles that probably made up what she was supposed to see. "Glimmer, make it stop, I can't concentrate like this!" she shouted, unsure if she was in control of her body in real life. "I don't even know if I did it right!"
Aegis remained. "This isn't going to make me not wonder about what's in here that you're trying to hide!" Starlight called. "What's this generator going to tell me, anyway? What kind of information does it even have?"
The world shifted again, and the distorted voice of the generator returned. Starlight suddenly realized with a sinking feeling that it was trying to tell her.
"Never mind! I'm done here!" she called as Aegis leered. "Let me out! Let me wake up!"
Her vision began to fall away one last time, more peacefully than the start and end of her experience in the grayness. Aegis faded from her sight, red rose around her, and she finally found herself in the Tree of Harmony's brazier, her head swimming and ears still ringing but otherwise fine.
Glimmer sat before the flames with patient expectance. "That was really annoying," Starlight repeated. "I have no idea if I did it or not because your dragon got in the way."
"You're awake!" Glimmer smiled in relief. "Here. Come to the control panel and check. It should be open to a diagnostics screen."
"I don't know how to read any of this," Starlight huffed, walking up to the platform she had observed earlier. The screen was bathed in a red glow, countless changing numbers labeled in a language she couldn't read. "Ask Garsheeva or Meltdown."
"...So," Glimmer said.
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "So what? So I have a headache from all that noise? What did I see and why was it important I didn't see more?"
Glimmer sat down and sighed. "Which vision was it? It's been a long time."
Starlight gave her a strange look.
"If you can live without answers, not knowing what is and isn't important will make you happier than knowing which parts I can't tell you. I'm tempted to say nothing and walk away." Glimmer averted her face. "But that wouldn't help you at all. I did promise to talk when you were done, so. Ask away."
Starlight stared at her counterpart for a long while, the ruby flame at the core of the tree cracking and sparking nearby. "What was I not supposed to see in the generator?" she finally asked. "That hurt my ears and gave me a headache, and it's not going to make me stop wondering or feel at peace about anything."
Glimmer hesitated. "It would have told you things that were very misleading, about why we can use it and the others can't. It would have led you to believe you cannot live the life you desire because you are different from the ponies around you. And it would have been wrong, because the choices you make and the friendships and experiences you have are much more important than the metaphysical properties of your body. Old technology might care about those, but your friends look at you and see a young unicorn both just like any other and precious in your own, special way."
"So there is something different about me," Starlight said. "Obviously. Why does that have to be so special?"
"That entirely depends on who treats it as special," Glimmer replied. "And so far, the only ones who seem to care are yourself and this generator. Which do you value more? Your friends? Or the opinion of a machine? You are different from them, yes, but on a level that only matters to this insignificant technology. That will not stop you from finding peace."
Starlight frowned. "If it won't stop me, why is it so important for me not to know?"
"You..." Glimmer winced, then sighed.
"Well?" Starlight stared at her, determined not to leave until she finally had a satisfactory answer. "How are we related? And what do you want? You look exactly like me, you're constantly following me, and you say you just want to help me but no one cares that much about me for no reason! What do you really want!?"
Glimmer sightlessly met her eyes. "Do your friends need a reason to care this much about you?"
"Don't change the subject," Starlight growled.
Glimmer shook her head. "No, just answer this."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "My friends do have reasons. I help all of them. I keep them all safe. I saved them from windigoes! And I was someone Maple needed in Riverfall. We need each other. And even then, all of them do other things besides being obsessed with my happiness. The only thing you've ever done is talk about me!"
Glimmer tapped her horn. "Doing this to myself to save Valey?"
"...Oh. Right." Starlight looked away. "Sorry..."
"It's okay," Glimmer assured her. "And if you got around more, you'd see that I am spending time with your other friends as well. Jamjars in particular needed a friend, and I've spent a lot of days on the bridge with the crew that hangs out there. Gerardo, Amber and Slipstream?"
Starlight rubbed her forehead. "Sorry. I'm annoyed because I'm confused and you're being confusing and that thing Aegis did was annoying..."
"I wish I could clarify things for you," Glimmer said. "But there's a fine line between knowing enough to be happy and knowing too much. You can't let this place go, and that means you're already on the wrong side of that line. Can you imagine yourself walking away, thinking of this as an interesting adventure and never losing sleep over it?"
Starlight blinked at her. "I still don't get why you care. I just saw the end of the world in a gray vision and instead of helping me figure out how to stop it or what that means you're telling me to forget about everything and go home! I don't know what will make me happy, but I do know I have to do something!"
"What do you know about it?" Starlight drilled, staring at her keenly. "And why won't you help me to stop it?"
"Everything," Glimmer replied. "And I cannot tell you. I can't lie to you, Starlight, even if it requires me to be infuriatingly omissive. For the same reason as I have done my best to be kind and reduce your burden, have loyally never strayed far from your cause or your side, have tried my best to make you happy, have generously taken on loads that would otherwise be yours..." She touched her horn again. "You would have saved them if you were on the deck. You know it."
Starlight squinted, then bit her lip. "Those are yak things."
Glimmer nodded. "And the Spark. The Elements of Harmony, yes."
Starlight's tail flicked. "So? Tell me what you know so I can help stop it!"
"My concern is already with the future of this world," Glimmer promised, putting a forehoof on Starlight's shoulder. "As for you... a powerful, respected enemy of mine once wished for you to have a happily ever after, freed from worry, ambition and anything that could lead them astray. They were a good pony, who believed in a better world with everything they had. And fortunately, not only are those goals compatible, they go hoof in hoof. Do you understand what I am saying?"
Starlight's jaw cracked open slightly as she thought. If Glimmer's enemy had been a good pony, then... She squinted at the other filly. But that enemy cared about her, and from everything Glimmer had said, if Starlight stopped at nothing to ensure she and her friends were happy, she could easily get into dangerous territory. There were already the Nightmare Modules, which she had vowed never to use again, yet were power waiting at her hooftips. And she had heard the stories about Chauncey from Grandpapa. And if averting a bad future and letting her live a happy life went hoof in hoof...
"You're me," Starlight whispered, the pieces all falling together in her mind. "From the future. You were a bad guy. Someone saved you, and you went back to change it all. And that starts with me, which means... it's my fault. And that's why you want me to go home and be happy and content. So none of that happens..."
A wave of pain washed across Glimmer's face. "I cannot tell you if that's true. But I am helping you, Starlight, both for the world's sake and your own."
"What will I do?" Starlight murmured, images of falling ash flitting through her mind. "How long do I have? You look exactly like me..."
"I am much older." Glimmer shook her head. "An age spell, to put it simply. If my horn worked, I could appear before you as an adult. Do you trust me, Starlight? Will you do anything to help me help you?"
"What are you going to ask?" A bad feeling rose in Starlight's throat. "Right now...?"
"No. Not right now." Glimmer sat down on the control platform, turning to face the ruby flame. "You still have time. I can't promise when, Starlight. But, someday... there will come a day when I have to ask you to give up. To trust that there's nothing more you can do, even when there is, and to take what you have and make the best of it for the sake of the rest of your life. But that day is not today."
Starlight swallowed. "What will I lose?"
"I cannot say." Glimmer shook her head. "But I will ask it of you. You have seen how you interface with the Nightmare Modules, with the generator, with the harmony extractor on your ship. If you truly reached, the things you could grasp defy even your wildest imagination. None of it matters a bit to the friendships with which you want to surround your life. But you must learn to live with that, with the roads to the higher reaches of the world forever in your sights. You can see the beginnings of your potential, and making a conscious decision not to use it is the only way you will be able to live as a normal pony."
"My potential..." Starlight whispered.
"It will be difficult," Glimmer apologized. "Our most defining trait, for both of us, is that our determination is endless. We can be forced back, but never cowed or broken. We hate accepting defeat, and without something to bring us back, we will always keep trying, no matter the cost to the world. I have faith that friendship is that force, Starlight. Friendship is magic, and magic is power. I could try to destroy you with everything I have, all in the name of the world. But trying to help you is better."
Starlight squeezed her ears back. "If I can become so powerful, enough to cause something like what I saw, why can't I just use that power for good? Why can't you help me?"
"Someday, perhaps you will." Glimmer nodded. "But as long as your own needs are unmet, you cannot be selfless without every act of selflessness causing you pain. It happened for Princess Luna. It has happened for those who came before her, and it could happen again. Right now, if you cannot weigh fairly when it is time to let something go and accept the pain doing so will cause you, that is not even worth thinking about."
Starlight looked down. "What do I need? I have Maple and Valey and my family, and you're telling me I can't make the world leave us alone."
"That is a question you must answer for yourself," Glimmer replied. "But if there is nothing you need, why are you not at peace?"
"I..." Starlight had a feeling she knew the answer: what she needed was to accept that more things could go wrong in the world, so she didn't have to fight against every single one. "I keep trying and trying, and..."
"And it's never enough." Glimmer stared sightlessly into the flame. "No matter how fervently you desire it to be so. I know how you feel. I've devoted years to goals, only to see them fall fruitlessly and be left holding nothing but broken plans and a burning wish to make things right."
"You said never giving up is what defines us." Starlight bit her lip. "Does that mean you have a cutie mark in never giving up? And does that mean I will too? Actually, does this mean my cutie mark is... always going to be the same, no matter what I do? That I don't get to decide?"
Glimmer smiled softly. "That's an old worry of yours, buried beneath every new one life sent your way ever since you took up a traveler's bag and left for the mountains to fight it. Does it still bother you?"
"No." Starlight shook her head. "I've made up my mind that if a cutie mark can give me power I can use to help my friends, it's worth it."
Glimmer folded her ears. "Being worth it implies there's a downside, Starlight. Just because you have bigger problems to solve doesn't mean it's insignificant. Would you still worry about this if you could afford to?"
Starlight closed her eyes in thought. "I... don't even know."
"You should spend some time thinking about it," Glimmer advised. "Your old wounds may be less visible when they're covered by new ones, but they sometimes are still the closest ones to you. And healing them can often lift wounds on top of them that they were keeping open, ones you never knew how to recover from. Talk to your friends, Starlight. Remember that Maple has a long history of trying to live with the bad things in life. Remember that Valey knows about being that bad thing. Harshwater is strong, yet knows a lot about feeling helpless despite her strength. Amber knows about keeping others happy, even when darkness is falling all around. Grenada knows about having her world pulled out from under her, and Shinespark does, too. And Jamjars knows even less about some of these things than you do. Sometimes, teaching others can be the best way to understand yourself."
Starlight swallowed. "I should talk to my friends."
"Yes." Glimmer leaned in and hugged her. "But while you're here, you may also want to take the opportunity to talk to the tree. It loves you, and would be happy if it was able to help."
Starlight stepped toward the harmonic flame, reaching a hoof toward it. "Hello?" she asked, trusting that it wouldn't trigger another vision of gray.
I have been watching you, Starlight Glimmer. I am glad you are here.
"Watching me?" Starlight tilted her head.
My perception extends wherever the lifestream of the world is uninterrupted. I have been watching ever since Kindness told us you needed our aid. Please, come closer.
"The lifestream?" Starlight's ears folded, and she stepped into the brazier. "And you mean the pink flame from Ironridge?"
Yes. The lifestream is a surface of ether on which the foundations of this plane are laid. It is invisible, but you could touch it if you followed this tree to its roots. It is through it that souls are born and remade, that ponies obtain their will to exist and all things thrive. And also yes. Kindness is my sister, who helped you in the west. But I feel your turmoil has not ceased.
Starlight frowned. "And what's ether?"
You are curious. Ether is hope in liquid form. All things that are begin with the will to exist, and ether is that will.
"...Wow." Starlight stared into the flames, ruby light rising and crackling all around her. "Thanks for answering my questions and not being mysterious. You're nice."
Yes. To be loved is nice. And the foundations of the world are rooted in goodness because they were designed that way, precisely for the sake of those who live in it like you. I am that love, and I have no intentions or motivations beyond loving. So I have no need for mystery.
Starlight felt the tension start to leave her shoulders as the flames washed around her, comfortingly warm and refreshingly cool all at once. "Who designed it?"
No singular being. The world has existed in iterations, built up with the intention of improving on each other while leaving the possibility of improving again.
"Wow," Starlight repeated, a warm sensation rising in her chest that left her not knowing what to say. The tree actually listened to her. It not only cared, but didn't think it had to protect her from herself. She knew there was a supernatural sensation of feeling loved, like she was enshrouded in something bigger than her, but even if the tree had no presence whatsoever, she would have been happy. A dozen more questions nudged in at her mind, like what Indus was and why she was so special, but she suddenly felt she didn't need to push her luck. Better not to make Glimmer mad, when... she was already happy.
I will not tell you anything you do not wish to know, the flame reassured, causing Starlight to jump with the realization it could read her mind. But I think you are right not to concern yourself with these. There are many things missing in your life, and they will not be found through an understanding of history or your body. I wish to help you. Tell yourself how you are feeling right now, so that you may understand.
Starlight blinked. "How I'm feeling now? I don't know... It's nice. I like it."
For a moment, the flame shimmered harder. Day to day, you feel as if you are above your friends. You love each other, but you feel responsible for their safety and well-being. You fear that if anything were to happen to them, it would be your fault. You have been told over and over again to weigh the consequences of your actions. But you are also young, and the world is still confusing and new to you. And so, when you are told that knowing something would be harmful, yet have also been told you must know as much as possible to steer your loved ones free from danger, you feel as if the path forward is impossible, yet it will still be your fault. Do these words ring true?
"Maybe?" Starlight bit her lip. "I'd have to think about it. But I'm feeling happy right now, and that sounds bad."
Yes. The happiness you feel at the moment is the feeling of mutual trust. I trust that your curiosities about the world are honest, and entrust you with the answers to your questions. You may not realize it, but you are trusting that I will let nothing bad befall you because of it. And this is a feeling you are missing greatly.
Starlight felt a tug at her heart, and wasn't entirely sure why. "I... don't know. Am I?"
You do not understand the contents of your heart. But I can read everything, and have existed long enough to know many feelings that ponies experience. Starlight, you are missing having parents.
Starlight blinked, the flame's response completely unexpected. "I am? But what about Maple? I don't think I am..."
Maple is not your mother. You love each other dearly, there can be no doubt. But she is no parent to you, Starlight Glimmer. She is more like... a little sister to you. You look out for her, concern yourself with how you will make her feel, endeavor to take care of her. Your efforts are valiant, and you are good for each other. But that is not the relationship of a daughter and her parent.
"But then..." Starlight felt her eyes water. "What is? What do you mean I'm not supposed to think about how I'll make her feel?"
I mean that a parent's happiness should not be their daughter's first and only consideration. In much of the world, children welcome their parents home, present them with flowers or drawings, play games together and tell them they love them before bed. All of these are signs of love, and are very good. But it is not because they do this that their parents love them. It is because their parents love them that they are able to reciprocate this love: not an exchange, but a gift upon which mutual happiness is based. A parent's first concern must be for their children so that those children do not need to bear those concerns themselves.
Starlight's brow shadowed. "And how is anyone supposed to keep me from having worries? You think anyone else here could have stopped the windigoes and saved Ironridge? My friends were all going to die! I had to save them!"
Peace. I speak no ill of Maple. And in your unique situation, there was no way you could have done otherwise. This is what makes things difficult for you. Though a child, you are more powerful than many adults, and that is before being able to tap into harmonic energies and Nightmare Modules that should be the concern of immortals. There is no way any mere pony could protect you in the ways that you protect them. And, lest you forget what Maple's cutie mark did for you in the mines, she is far and away more capable than ordinary folk.
Starlight's ears pressed back. "Then what should she do? What do I do?"
Your situation is unfortunate, but you are not alone. Many children have parents who lack the resources to always keep them safe, especially those who live under war or poverty like in Varsidel. But even if you must fight with your horn and your hooves to keep your loved ones safe, as dictated by circumstance, you can still find someone who will hold you close in matters of the heart. Maple is dependent on you to stay happy, Starlight. This is someone she cannot be. It is good that you can be this for her. But what you need and deserve is someone you are not beholden to, whom you can love out of gratitude alone, and who will listen to you and love you no matter what you do. Someone who is safe for you to ask anything, confess anything to, explore your own heart before and learn and grow as a pony.
Starlight didn't respond.
You are thinking like an adult, balancing your own needs with those of everyone around you. But you are not yet grown up, and missed the opportunity to learn to do this. Adults have had many years of practice, with their own parents covering for their mistakes, or else the world imparting lessons harshly and directly. The world feels fearsome to grown-ups too, but for you, there are that many more dangers and unknowns. You need safety, so that you can take the risks required to grow and not sustain scars from it, more scars like the ones you already bear.
"I still don't understand," Starlight whispered. "How do I find that?"
It is okay not to understand. May I share with you an emotion?
Starlight nodded.
Suddenly, her eyes glazed over as if with a daydream, though she was aware of the flame around her and certain she was still awake. She felt bigger, like an adult mare, and the feel of a fresh breeze wafted across her face. There was a house around her, and a window was open. It was springtime.
Clunk. A door unceremoniously thudded open, and a filly stumbled in, trailing a fountain of tears. Starlight dropped what she was doing and was at the filly's side in a flash... slicing bread for sandwiches, not that it mattered. The filly was a perfect size to pull against her chest. What was wrong?
The filly resisted the hug, staring up with tear-stained eyes that needed to be seen. Her friend was gone. Their house had been locked and dark, an agent with a tie walking away from the porch and casually breaking the news. Moving. She would never see them again.
A spike of righteous sympathy and anger pierced Starlight's heart. How could this have happened without anyone letting her know? She pulled the filly close, and she didn't resist this time, and then she was tucking her into bed at the end of the day. Everything would be alright. The filly believed her, because she had no other choice.
The sun rose. It was a day off, which meant the filly's father would be home and Starlight could do what she must. She rose with the sun, not needing an alarm, and was on a train after talking to the ponies she needed to. She was in the city, looking for an address, a faint pounding in her heart but also confident she had what it took to do what was needed for the ponies she loved. The buildings were tall and the streets confusing, but she persevered.
She was talking to ponies, two parents and a colt. The mother was apologetic. The father was deeply ashamed. The colt was thrilled to see her, but looked like he, too, had been crying. She was invited for tea, sat down and took the time to talk, but what she was really there for was that colt. By the time her visit was up, the colt presented her with an envelope, marked with an address his mother had helped him write.
The train's wheels clattered, and Starlight leaned against a window, watching the sunset as she thought about the way the world was changing. A filly and a stallion welcomed her home, the filly looking slightly better and the stallion with a look that begged her for good news. Starlight knew the filly wouldn't notice, and gave him a reassuring smile.
She sat at a foal-sized desk by a bed, the filly's eyes shining as took out the letter and helped her open it. She read it aloud, nestled side by side, and they hugged, and a tear of her own dripped from Starlight's eyes.
A quill scratched on lined paper, the filly's brow furrowed in concentration. Starlight offered advice, but for the most part, the filly had everything down.
They could visit, right?
Yes. Of course they could.
The ruby flame crackled around her. Feel it. This is what you need.
Starlight was too busy bawling to have any response to give.
Starlight wept openly, hugging the brazier beneath her instead of scrubbing at her eyes, stopping only for breath and even then waiting as long as she could. Time didn't matter. She had seen her entire life, or something close enough to hit home, but a version where everything had been alright. It hadn't been perfect. That filly that could have been her daughter or could have been her had a terrible day. But Starlight had made it alright, like no one had been around to do for her.
She had never understood the balance Glimmer always talked about, living with the world's tragedies and holding onto happiness through them. In her mind, it had always been black and white, those events lingering with consequences forever unless they were prevented entirely. But the question wasn't how she could have prevented Hemlock from raising a mob and trashing Maple's house in Riverfall. It was how they could have lived with it and somehow made everything feel alright anyway.
Where was that way? She still couldn't see it, but had just seen proof that it existed. Someone had to know. Someone had to have been able to make things right without running away or else controlling the world so much that it never happened. She needed someone like that, needed it so badly that every support and structure she had relied on to get by without it and act like a normal filly was ripped away like a failing dam. She could do nothing but fervently, desperately hope... and cry.
"Lost soul," Glimmer's voice whispered, and the other filly had her hooves against her back, sitting with her in the fire. "Whatever you heard must have been something you needed."
Starlight couldn't respond, sucking in breath after breath between her wails as Glimmer sat there and a feeling of feathery wings enveloped her from the flame. She might have been there endlessly, but as was eventually inevitable, her tears finally ran dry.
I cannot help you fill the hole in your heart. But I have shown it to you. You will have to care for yourself for a while longer, Starlight Glimmer. The wounds in your heart will be difficult to heal. But trust that with love and the right person to lean on, they can be lived with. I have shown you just now how happiness does not require a world free from strife.
"I..." Starlight sniffled. "Then... who...?"
Who can you lean on in the way that you need? I know what you are thinking, and not either of us. I am sorry. The flame's crackles dimmed a bit. I am an aspect of harmony, and not a person as you understand. To you, I would be more like... a machine. And even then, both of us know too much to walk with you with the closeness you desire. Sometimes, a child must have questions to which their parent can only guess the answer. It is through limitations of their own and problems they cannot solve that parents are able to teach their children and carry them through hardship, because if they could do all, they would erase that hardship before it began as you so often desire.
Starlight wiped her nose. "Does that mean you can stop all of my problems before they start?"
Is that what you want? Even in a world where you were protected from all, you could still be alone.
No, it wasn't. Starlight knew that now. She had seen that vision, felt that feeling of love and the desire to make well. Erase every problem she had ever had? Who was she kidding? Even a goddess like Garsheeva or Princess Celestia couldn't do that. And even if she could, she didn't want that anymore. All she wanted was what she had seen.
Then you now know what you must do. Make friends, Starlight Glimmer. Find someone you can trust when you need it, who owes nothing to you and will listen to everything you have to say. Then all can be well in your world.
Starlight shakily got to her hooves, looking at the bag she had left by the door with the windigo hearts. "I... need to go and see my friends," she murmured.
"Good idea," Glimmer agreed, helping her up. "I can't hear the flame, but I hope you had a good talk?"
"...Yeah." Starlight sniffed again. "We did."
"Will you be alright?"
Starlight closed her eyes and took a breath. "Maybe. I know what I need to do now, and it isn't running away when things go wrong and looking for a place that's perfect. But... I still have to fight sometimes and keep my friends safe, because the world is still dangerous." She gave Glimmer a determined look, knowing her lookalike couldn't see it but staring into her eyes nonetheless. "Tell me what those gray visions are and how to stop them. I already know you know. I can do this."
Glimmer stared sightlessly back, not flinching. "Tend to yourself and leave everything else to me. You hold unfathomable potential in your hooves. Doing what you need to for yourself in the present is how you can best help make the future a happy one."
"...Okay." Starlight stared for a few seconds longer. "I trust you."
Minutes later, Starlight stepped out of the staircase into the table room, her bags glistening from within with red light. "I'm back," she declared.
Everyone around the table looked up. "I sensed a change in the generator's output," Garsheeva rumbled. "Well done."
Starlight blinked. In everything that had happened during and afterward, she had completely forgotten about her mission. "That's good?"
"Hey, kiddo. What took you?" Valey leaned back from the table, then blinked at Starlight's face. "Wait a second, have you been crying?"
"Starlight?" Maple rose to her hooves, trotting worriedly over. "What happened?"
"I'm alright," Starlight assured, having no idea if it was the truth. "I was just sitting in the harmonic flame. It was nice."
Valey frowned suspiciously. "You don't look all that alright to me. You got the hearts filled, though? And that generator fixed?"
"Not fixed. It will still require repairs, but hopefully those can be made now that it isn't running at one hundred percent," Meltdown broke in. "There's a possibility the decreased power throughput will be noticed by Equestria, and they'll send engineers to investigate, in which case it becomes their problem. But the Aldenfold has been running on one generator for forty years, and they have done nothing. So that's only conjecture."
Maple gave Starlight a concerned nuzzle. "You're absolutely tear-stained."
Starlight's heart threatened to break again. She knew exactly what she would have said before her talk with the flame: reassurance that everything was fine, with a hug to make it all better. And she knew why she would have said that: because Maple had enough burdens of her own, and she didn't need to worry. Now, she wanted to bury her forehead in someone's shoulder and tell them everything, but she couldn't. So she did what she always did and took care of Maple.
"I am. I wasn't prepared for what that flame would feel like." Starlight glanced back to the staircase. "Don't worry. I'm glad I went down there. Maybe we could go back to the ship and sit together for a while?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, if you're sure. If you're feeling that good, though, you wanna sit with us for a while and listen? Garsheeva is dumping random Empire lore on us. We were just hearing about this time right after the moon glass fell when she last met Celestia."
Starlight blinked. "I could? I don't know. I need..." She shook her head. "I don't know. Why is she telling you?"
"Weird sphinx things." Valey leaned back again in her chair. "I don't remember if you had left or not when she went over it, but she kinda doesn't have the hugest faith in her own judgement because apparently sphinxes are bad at that when they grow up. So ponies the empress trusts when she's still a kid are the ones who are cool to come in and hang out and know all about the Empire."
"Someone has to know." Meltdown nodded. "The more, the better. The Empire's history is rooted in things best left buried, but if they were completely forgotten, no one could stop them from being dug up by accident."
"So you're a good guy?" Starlight asked. "I always saw you with Gazelle, and I remember how imposing you were when we met..."
Meltdown shook her head. "I probably won't go down in any history books as one of the heroes of the Power Distribution Agency. But Garsheeva keeps a record of everyone who as ever served, and I'm not the worst, either. If you have anything to blame me for, please let it be known."
"Um... not really." Starlight bit her lip, tempted to avoid the gray mare's stare.
"We've been hearing about it. She did a lot with Gazelle." Valey waved a hoof.
Meltdown nodded. "I am perhaps too easily influenced by the ones I'm close to. It could be blamed on a difficult upbringing and my young age, but the reality is that these are difficult times for the Empire and I will merely not be able to make them anything else."
"You can say that again," Shinespark sighed. "I'm still surprised, though. I thought we might be similar when we first met, due to the armor and the job, but I had never imagined how much we have in common."
Valey put her hind hooves up on the table. "Go ahead, Starlight. Guess how old she is."
Starlight squinted. "Meltdown? It's really hard to tell with the armor..."
"Seventeen," Meltdown replied. "Two years Shinespark's junior."
"As much fun as everyone is having," Garsheeva rumbled, "I have an agenda of my own. You know who I am, Starlight. And your friends have already made their wishes. What will you ask of the Night Mother?"
Starlight froze. Out of everything she had learned about the Griffon Empire, the Night Mother's wish hadn't been at the forefront of her mind. "Anything?"
"Anything may be asked," Garsheeva agreed. "I will not penalize you for ambition, though my power does have limits, far as they may be. Do you need time to discuss with your friends?"
Maple, Shinespark and Valey looked expectantly at her, but Starlight shook her head, knowing exactly what she was going to wish for. "No. I'm good."
She bit her lip, suddenly realizing what she was about to ask for with Maple in the room. "But... could I ask in private, please? It's personal..."
"You heard the kid. Clear out!" Valey slapped Maple and Shinespark's backs with her wings, wincing suddenly from the exertion. "Ow! Don't suppose it would be too much to ask a little healing from getting busted up by Gazelle on top of what I bagged earlier? Heh heh..."
Garsheeva snorted, and her flanks briefly glowed with a sapphire light that suffused around Valey. "Painkiller. Speak with Gwendolyn and requisition aid. Gazelle owes you a thing or two."
"We'll be waiting up by the exit?" Maple asked, looking back hesitantly at Starlight.
"Anywhere will do," Meltdown replied, rising from her chair as well. "This place is exited through special teleportation."
Shinespark bowed, nudging Maple and bringing up the rear. "I'd like to return here sometime. It's been interesting."
"You will still need to bring me her sister's brand," Garsheeva replied, nodding toward Valey. "Ask Meltdown for how to get back inside."
Starlight waited patiently, glad her friends didn't ask too many questions as they left. After a while, when she was sure they were alone, she turned to Garsheeva.
"I want my parents back," Starlight declared, lip straight, staring Garsheeva in the eyes despite their massive height difference.
Garsheeva rumbled in interest. "Not what I was expecting. Four of you, and neither you nor any of your friends asked me for power, even though you face far greater physical challenges than the likes of Meltdown and Wallace Whitewing."
"I asked for what I asked for," Starlight replied. "Can you do it?"
"That depends on who your parents are and why they are no longer with you." Garsheeva surveyed her, the crystal table glowing softly nearby. "I make efforts to know many things, but outside this continent my sight is limited. And you are from Equestria. You will need to be more specific."
Starlight blinked, slowly realizing she wasn't entirely sure what she had just asked. Who were her parents? The mare and stallion she could remember living with in Equestria? The ones who adopted her, just like Maple, and never made things well enough for her not to want to leave? "I... was adopted there," she admitted. "What about my birth parents?"
Garsheeva's yellow gaze focused her. "And what became of them? Were they unable to provide? Separated by force? Are they dead? Or did they simply not care?"
Starlight racked her memories, but nothing was there. "I don't know..."
"There are many things I can do," Garsheeva said. "If you wanted someone located within the Empire, my senses extend everywhere there are dusk statues, and I have many faithful who would search at my behest. But with such a broad goal, the best you may hope for is help seeking them out yourself. Even if I could find and retrieve them, there is no guarantee they would stay. Why do you desire to see them again?"
Starlight swallowed. "Because I need them. The flame down there showed it to me. I don't know what I'm doing on my own. Things keep hurting me and my friends, and I'm not strong enough to keep them from happening. I need someone to make those things alright without needing to stop them, or teach me how to do it on my own."
"Interestingly put," Garsheeva replied. "Few children have that kind of view of the world. Wallace Whitewing and Meltdown were tired of watching creatures cope and struggle with injustice. They asked for power to change it. And you merely want someone to help you survive?"
Starlight's heart twisted. Garsheeva clearly had a different philosophy from Glimmer and the flame... "I already have the power to change it, and I don't want more! It's never enough and does nothing but make me lonely!"
Garsheeva stared at her, as if she could see beneath Starlight's coat and reveal everything that let her do the things she could do. "Your awareness is fascinating. But you should know one thing." Her tail flicked at the table, causing the Emblem of the Nine Virtues hovering above to spin like a wheel. "Blood is meaningless. Just because someone sired you or carried you in their womb puts them under no obligation and gives them no physical ability to have a connection with you. Likewise, someone born in another world is no less capable of holding you dearly due to their lack of relation. Whether or not this is how you wish things to be, it is true. What you seek does not have to be and likely will not be your birth parents."
Starlight folded her ears. "Then... how do I find it?"
"That is something only you can decide. I cannot control the reactions of your heart," Garsheeva rumbled. "All I can do is ease your hooves on the path. Tell me what wrongs you are struggling beneath the weight of now. Perhaps your wish could relieve you of one instead."
"I don't know." Starlight looked down, her mind suddenly empty when she needed it the most. "I don't want more that I have to do myself."
Garsheeva raised an eyebrow. "Really? You could wish for the seventh Nightmare Module, for the power to heal Valey's sister on your own, to save sarosians' souls when their bodies are about to die, and even to control the brand you yourself wield. You could wish for me to fix your unstable horn, so you can give all you have for your friends and not suffer nearly the consequences. Your words conflict with your emotions. You say you want someone so that you must do less, yet the idea of doing less than your best is fearful for you."
"I don't want more Nightmare Modules!" Starlight's voice rose. "I'm never using the ones I have again, anyway! I don't know what they do to my mind, and I'll get hurt if I rely on them!" Slowly, she frowned, processing the rest of Garsheeva's words. "But you can fix my horn?"
Garsheeva blinked owlishly at her. "Your horn is merely incomplete. It is waiting for you to discover your brand."
Starlight blinked back. "Really?"
"Yes," Garsheeva replied. "I am surprised I asked before you did."
Starlight's mind suddenly tracked back to Glimmer in the generator room. "Is my cutie mark going to be the same no matter what? Does it make me love something? Or does it change depending on who I am?"
Garsheeva's wings spread, tripling the size of her silhouette. "Right now, your brand exists as untapped potential. Anything you wish it to be, it can become."
"So... it's not set," Starlight murmured. "I... need to think. Are you still waiting for me to make a wish?"
"I will not force you. It is your choice." Garsheeva sat, wings still spread. "But the things you seek are found in the realm of mortals, not gods."
Starlight's heart was pounding, but she didn't know what to say. A wish from Garsheeva was given out once in a year, through the tournament. From someone meeting her as the Night Mother, it was an even rarer event. This was an opportunity that should have been invaluable, but as Garsheeva had just said... she wanted to be lower in the world, not higher. All she wanted was to be a normal pony. And no amount of power or resources would help get her there.
"Then I'll be fine with nothing." Starlight nodded. "Thank you for the offer."
Garsheeva frowned, folding her wings. "...In all my millennia of ruling, this is the first time I have ever heard that."
Starlight shrugged. "Then I guess I really am special."
"Some would call it foolish. Others, having character." Garsheeva leaned back where she sat, relaxing with a sigh. "I call it impressive, and worth a reward."
Starlight perked her ears.
"Two wishes, instead of one." Garsheeva beckoned with a paw. "One now, and you can call in the other at any time, when you contact me through a dusk statue. They will work for you. Ask anything now, and you will still be able to think on the other for later."
Starlight folded her ears. "I'm sorry. I just don't know if you have anything I want."
Garsheeva tapped a paw-claw against the crystal table. "...Oh, fine."
"Funny how gambling works, isn't it?"
Starlight jumped, spinning to see Glimmer leaning against the entrance to the stairs below. "How long have you been there!?"
Glimmer paid her no mind, giving Garsheeva a sharp, toothy grin. "I told you she wouldn't want anything you had to offer. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. But since I won this one, you owe me a wish now."
Garsheeva muttered a curse under her breath, then snapped her claws and caused a sealed folder of documents to appear. She flung it in Glimmer's general direction.
Starlight reached out and caught the folder in her telekinesis before it could hit the wall. "What's this?" she asked, walking over to her lookalike and giving it over.
"...You know I can't see," Glimmer deadpanned back at Garsheeva, feeling the folder with a hoof. "How do I know this is what I asked for?"
Garsheeva waved a paw. "I always keep my word with wishes. I know you'd be back later if I tried to rip you off."
"It just says Varsidel and Classified," Starlight read, looking at the big sticker that held the thing closed. "What's it supposed to be?"
"I'll tell you once we're back at the ship. You can make sure it's correct for me." Glimmer shook her head. "Nothing you need to worry about, though. I told you, you take care of yourself and I'll take care of everything else."
Garsheeva turned her back on the two and pouted. Starlight, feeling her time in the table room was up, headed quickly for the exit, Glimmer at her side. "Why was she mad at you?" Starlight whispered when they were out of earshot. "Did she not want you to have that?"
"I frustrate her by existing," Glimmer replied. "And also by winning bets. She thought you were going to ask for the strength to protect your friends. She probably thinks I cheated and warned you not to downstairs."
Starlight folded her ears. "I had forgotten all about the wish. Do you think it was good not to get anything? Will she give it to me later if I need it? I didn't have time to prepare..."
"There's not a whole lot she can give you," Glimmer replied. "Power, which you could get easily enough on your own if you tried. Her specialty is also augmenting cutie marks to make them stronger, and you... don't have yours yet. Knowledge, but she gives that for free to anyone who reaches this place. Privilege, which is what your friends asked for. But peace and contentment aren't commodities to be given, and she didn't title me the Empire's divine seer because she's better at preventing things than I am."
"A divine seer?" Starlight blinked. "I heard that before... You tell her about the future?"
"It's a complicated subject." Glimmer shook her head. "I know things she doesn't, and that's good enough to count. Your friends should be up ahead."
Several more turns passed, during which Glimmer seemed to know the way, and voices started to echo down the corridor. They came to a room with more technology, where Meltdown and her friends were sitting and talking and a machine took up half the space that Starlight suspected was a teleporter.
"Starlight!" Valey brightened at their arrival. "Uh, both of you! So what did you wish for?"
Starlight glanced at Glimmer. "It's... a secret."
"A secret?" Maple asked, tilting her head.
"Yes. And I'm tired." Starlight's shoulders slumped. "I have the hearts filled. Can we go back to the ship now?"
"You will need to come back here for your wish." Meltdown nodded at Valey. "If you are ready to return to your ship, this can take you directly there. Talk to me when you want to comeback in, but remember, I'm only off-duty here. Outside, you live in the designated embassy and I am the head of a government office. We will maintain a professional relationship there."
Valey stretched. "Sounds good to me. Sparky?"
"Ready," Shinespark confirmed.
Meltdown waived them toward the machine's dais. "In that case, please step this way..."
The rain hadn't stopped as Starlight and her friends crossed the final distance back to the Immortal Dream. Starlight walked at Valey's side, a faintly-luminescent crystal umbrella protecting both of them from her back. Shinespark covered Glimmer with a shield of telekinesis, and Maple and Amber looked like they were enjoying the rain, Amber even making a point to splash in puddles along the road.
Starlight's horn felt different than before. She knew her meeting with the Ironridge harmonic flame had changed her: while the initial aftereffects were hazy in her mind, it left her with a small, permanent well of power that let her horn function like a normal unicorn's before her own, broken magic kicked in. Now, she felt like it was swirling comfortably, like something in her horn was spinning, and she had enough power to cast one spell with the full force of the tree's might before seeing what she was left with. Maybe the amount she could do in a day before she started hurting herself would increase? Or maybe the flames had already done everything for her they could. But she didn't think that was very likely. Her crystal umbrella had been far easier to shape than usual, as if the crystal had conformed directly to her intentions rather than requiring the usual full focus it took to make specialized shapes. Something had changed. She could feel it in her core.
"And so Celestia snuck around like that for no reason. Can you believe it? They didn't even find that hole in the bathroom floor until there was a clog and an overflow months later and water started leaking. Bananas, these goddesses like to play games with themselves," Valey was rambling, clearly enjoying the fresh air. "So what did you wish for, anyway?"
Starlight bit her lip. "It's a secret."
"Aww, come on," Valey pouted. "That's what you said last time. Fine, though. If you really don't wanna say..."
They reached the ship deck, the gangplank already extended. It was still late afternoon, so no one felt like turning in for the night, but everyone was tired nonetheless. Words were exchanged: now that the power was back on, maybe they would get everyone together to go into the city for dinner. Absolutely everyone, Nyala not excluded. Meltdown had been briefed about Valey's wish and offered to take Navarre securely from them, so a permanent guard would no longer be necessary. But that still left them with several hours, and now Starlight had to decide who to talk to first.
"You still want to ask me about these?" Glimmer whispered as the others stepped inside, clutching the sealed folder to her chest and protecting it from rain.
"You're willing to tell me?" Starlight blinked. "You usually don't like doing that."
Glimmer shrugged. "In this case, I've had a change of heart. The flame can't communicate to me directly, but anything with a soul can feel some emotional resonance from that place. I stayed down there a while longer, and it got some things through to me about your talk."
"Oh." Starlight wasn't sure how to feel about that. "Well, okay."
Glimmer scanned with her ears, standing under Starlight's umbrella. "No one is around?"
"It doesn't look like it."
Glimmer took a breath, then started in a low voice. "These are documents relating to a contract between the Empire and a faction in Varsidel. It's a weapons contract. The manufacturing is done in Varsidel, for Varsidel, but the Empire provides the designs. What was going to go out to them involved some technology from Indus."
Starlight folded her ears. "More? It feels like everything down there is related to that place."
"It is." Glimmer nodded. "That's where Garsheeva keeps every bit that she has, along with the generator the Equestrians built to power the mountains. Either way, there's nothing about this you need to know. This is my project and my concern. I just thought you might like to know."
Starlight frowned. "If you're really me, how come you need a tree to tell you how I feel about it when you keep telling me I don't need to know things?"
"I'm fallible." Glimmer shrugged. "Also, you just needed a tree to tell you how you felt about yourself."
Starlight worked her jaw, but Glimmer's logic felt flawless. "So... does that mean you never went down there and learned how you were feeling? In your time?"
Glimmer bit her lip, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
"Bad question. Sorry."
Starlight looked down, realizing she must have touched on an uncomfortable subject. Of course, if Glimmer's life had been bad enough that she had done something to the world that was worth traveling back through time to undo... places where she might have it better would be very painful subjects. What had happened in Glimmer's world? Maybe she had saved Valey from the explosion herself, and then not had her horn and been unable to communicate with the flame or the generator in the palace... or maybe her world would have been completely different. Glimmer had told her she helped reconstitute her after she used the harmony extractor to kill windigoes in Ironridge. If she hadn't had someone of her own who could have done that, she would have died, so her world couldn't even have included that...
It was suddenly hard to imagine Glimmer wasn't an entirely different pony. Instinctively, Starlight put a hoof over her shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"Well, look at you," Glimmer replied with an interested smile, mood completely vanished. "Thanks, but yes, I am. Listen..." She took a deep breath. "There are a lot of things that simply aren't safe for me to tell you, because they could steer you towards a future I want to prevent. And I'm sorry that I have to dance around so much. I don't know if you would appreciate a reassuring lie more than no answer or a misleading truth, but I need you to trust me. And in return... I'll try to tell you what I can when it's safe. Deal?"
"You're really certain you can't just stop being mysterious and tell me every secret you have?" Starlight's brow creased. "It doesn't help me learn to live with things when you say there's something I can't know, because that means if I did know, I couldn't learn to live with it. It's like you're telling me to do things you don't even believe are possible, and then expecting me to do them all on my own."
"...Yes," Glimmer replied. "I am."
Starlight felt like she had been punched. "Why!?"
"That's the kind of thing I think it would be better not to tell you," Glimmer answered, not letting Starlight see her eyes. "Are you glad I said it anyway? Or would you prefer me to have answered that with silence?"
Starlight indignantly stuck out her lip, still feeling hurt. "I'd like it if that wasn't true in the first place!"
"And how do you propose to change what is truth?" Glimmer countered. "The same way you'd like to change the world so your friends are never in danger and you can be happy because there's nothing to make you anything else?"
"No." Starlight stomped a hoof. "That's not about the world. That's about what you believe I can do! You don't have to lie to have some faith in me! If you don't have any hope for me, why are you even trying to help me at all!?"
Glimmer cringed. "Starlight, stop! I didn't say I had no hope. Just that I was asking you to do the impossible, and given who you are, is that so much to ask? Because you've done it before. Multiple times!"
Starlight did stop, the weight of too little trust on her shoulders replaced with expectations that were equally heavy. "But I..."
"I messed up. I'm sorry." Glimmer hung her head. "I got too involved. When I first started following you, I had a plan to get involved as little as absolutely possible so that I could steer you in one particular direction at one particular time. And the more I talked to you, the more I started to care, and the more I started to wonder if I could be your friend and have you trust me when it matters instead of doing things another way. I abandoned my plan and tried to help you when I didn't need to. I trusted being your friend would work and sacrificed my horn and all of my power for your sake. But I know too much and you're never able to be at peace with that. This should have worked. We should have been able to be friends, but the world is broken. The whole world, Starlight. And... I'm... failing. Please, Starlight."
Starlight's ears fell in fear. "If things are so dangerous, why can't you trust me to be able to help you?"
"Do you want to set aside your own happiness for the good of the world?" Glimmer didn't look up.
"You're not giving me much of a choice," Starlight replied. "Because I'm not happy right now, and you say the world is why you're doing it."
"If you knew everything I do, it wouldn't make you any happier," Glimmer whispered.
"I don't care about knowing things!" Starlight stomped again. "It's not about what I know! It's that you keep telling me I need to learn to deal with problems instead of preventing them from happening, but you're preventing them for me instead of teaching me how to deal with them!"
"...I don't know how to answer, Starlight," Glimmer replied. "I'm sorry."
Starlight's lip trembled. "I'm sorry too. I want friends. I need help. But I'm not strong enough..."
"I wish I could promise you more." Glimmer raised her head. "But even if we have a hard time trusting each other, can we be friends?"
Starlight looked her over. Glimmer's hoof was outstretched, her unseeing eyes pointing just to the side of Starlight's actual face. She could say no. She didn't want to be the bigger mare. She wanted to just be small. Refusing was tempting, with how her heart was feeling. And Glimmer clearly felt like she had messed up too. But if there was any justice in the world...
Starlight sat in the library of the Immortal Dream, kicking one hoof against another. She needed to talk to someone, she knew. There were too many thoughts banging around in her head, and it was the only way to get the pressure out of her heart. But every time she tried thinking through the ship's crew, she got distracted halfway down the list and only made herself more sure there just wasn't an option. Maybe someone like Willow, but she was back in Riverfall. Maybe...
"Oh. Here you are," Harshwater's voice announced, partly covered by the rain pounding against the roof.
Starlight looked up. "Are you looking for me?"
Harshwater shrugged, looking like she had forgotten to brush her mane. "Valey is still resting after fighting with Gazelle. She asked me to cover for her if you were needing someone to spar with."
"Training?" Starlight blinked, then glanced at the roof. "It's pouring outside."
"Battles happen where they happen," Harshwater replied. "It's an advantage for you if you're more comfortable in bad weather than your opponent. But she just asked me to offer. It was only if you were wanting to."
Starlight struggled out of her chair. "Wait!" she called. If she couldn't talk about it, maybe taking her feelings out in a scuffle would help... "I didn't say I didn't want to. Is it inconvenient?"
"I don't have much better to do." Harshwater turned around, heading for the stairs. "Follow if you want."
Starlight scampered along, chasing the pegasus onto the shipdeck. Fat raindrops instantly flattened her mane, and she pushed thoughts of being warm and content far from her mind. For now, she was training in the rain.
Harshwater turned to face her again. "So, I don't know what you're working on. What do you want me to do?"
Starlight thought for a moment. "Well, with Valey, we usually just fight for a while and then she chooses something she wants me to work on from that. Last time we were practicing landing on my hooves after getting launched. Do you want me to just fight you?"
"Okay. Come at me." Harshwater nodded, adopting a stance and beckoning with a wing. "You've been doing this for months. Show me what you can do."
"I will." Starlight set her teeth, sizing up her opponent. Her horn still wanted to be used, but the whole point of training with Valey was to learn to fight when she didn't have it to count on. After reading Harshwater as best as she could and determining the mare wasn't going to do anything reckless, Starlight charged.
She pivoted, preparing to strike her adversary with as strong of a rear kick as she could. But that would be too obvious, Harshwater would backstep, grab her legs and pull her off balance... Rather than kicking, Starlight completed her spin, landing on her hind legs and rearing up to turn her momentum into a wound-up punch.
Harshwater's wing was exactly where she guessed it would be, preparing to grab her, and Starlight brought her hoof down on the wing's edge with a yell. "Good gambit," Harshwater huffed, gritting her teeth, but Starlight's belly was exposed and she knew the other mare wasn't going to waste her breath instead of counterattacking. There was a sweep coming, Harshwater trying to knock her off her legs, and Starlight took a swift step forward, stomping and catching Harshwater's tail as she whipped around to trip her.
But Harshwater wasn't finished. Starlight knew it was coming, but the rain on the deck prevented her from moving in time as Harshwater yanked her tail away, leaving Starlight on one hoof and about to be shoulder-checked. She could take it head-on, or dodge to the side...
Starlight lunged to the left, twisting to land on her back, knowing Harshwater was about to smite her with a wing and kicking to repel it with all four hooves. The wing still slapped across her, more to cover her sight than anything. Where was Harshwater about to hit her? She had a feeling she was about to be stepped on and pinned...
She shoved against the floor, figuring her best chance was to tangle herself in Harshwater's legs on her own initiative. Suddenly, the wet floor was working against the pegasus, and Starlight braced for the full weight of her body about to crush her. Harshwater wasn't heavy, but she was an adult, and would know how to use her weight as an advantage.
The blow came, and Starlight wheezed from the impact, but she was ready and grappled Harshwater's barrel in return, clawing with her hooves and trying to get onto her back while pinning her wings to her side. Harshwater growled in surprise and tried to kick her off, but held onto the advantageous position. Harshwater was about to roll, though, and crush her again...
Starlight angled her head, and when Harshwater came down again, her horn dug hard into the pegasus's side. She felt Harshwater's muscles constrict with pain, but Harshwater didn't stop, jumping into the air after her roll. She was about to get an angle where Starlight couldn't stab her and try to slam her to get her off for a third time. Starlight had no choice but to let go, certain Harshwater would capitalize on it in a heartbeat.
She was right. Harshwater instantly grabbed her back, and Starlight headbutted her in the chest, knowing she didn't have nearly enough limbs to block or kick every way Harshwater could hold her. It was over. Harshwater hovered in place, Starlight pinned against her between two dexterous forelegs.
"Well?" Starlight grunted. She was used to losing these matches, since Valey always won, but since this wasn't Valey, a part of her had dared to hope.
"You're unnervingly good at reading me," Harshwater replied, setting her down on the deck and stepping a few paces away. "It's eerie. But you're also holding yourself back by not using your horn. You have natural talent and are trained well, but your body puts you at a disadvantage. A unicorn filly without magic isn't going to be able to win against anyone who has training in combat."
Starlight folded her ears. Her horn begged to be used, fresh from immersion in the harmonic flame hours before, but this was the point of the exercise. "I know. I can still try, right? What should I work on?"
Harshwater regarded her for a moment. "...Whatever you want. And I'm not saying that to be lazy. Sizing up your own performance and weaknesses is an important ability for any fighter. Many aren't so lucky to have a mentor."
Just like that, everything Starlight had been out there to avoid thinking about was back in her mind. "Did you have a mentor?"
"My parents joined Kero's mercenaries when I was younger than you are, before he was around." Harshwater looked out into the storm. "I was trained, but didn't have someone in particular beyond my parents."
Starlight folded her ears. "Were they good at it?"
"No. They weren't thrilled about their precious baby daughter growing up to become a rough-and-tumble mercenary like them. Always thought they could protect me from it while they earned enough money for us to live 'the good life'. So much for that dream." She rolled her eyes. "Bad mission got them. But they saw me making friends with all the other kids in the company. They'd have known I'd be fine."
Starlight winced. "Oh."
Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "And just like that, all your fight is gone. Too rainy? Or did I touch on a bad subject?"
"The rain is fine," Starlight replied, giving Harshwater all the answer she needed.
"Well, misery loves company." Harshwater strolled to the front of the deck, sitting down with her back against the wall.
Starlight watched her, trying to decide if that was an invitation to say more. Harshwater saw the look and returned it. "If you came out here to get something off your mind, you might as well talk about it. There's a lot of trauma in my old line of work. I've seen what happens when you don't deal with it."
Sighing, Starlight walked over and sat next to her. If she was offering to listen, that wasn't an offer she was going to question. "I ran away from home. Maple just adopted me."
Harshwater nodded. "Mhm."
"And I don't know how I'm feeling now, but I wish I hadn't needed to," Starlight continued. "I feel like I'll lose everyone if I don't keep my friends safe all the time."
Harshwater shrugged. "It depends. Sometimes you lose them one at a time, other times a mission goes horrible and you lose a lot at once. Sometimes it happens when you were there, and you feel like beating yourself up for not doing more. Other times, it happens when you stayed home, and you have to avoid thinking things could have been different if you were there because you know everyone who came back is blaming themselves harder already. You just have to deal. But that's mercenary life. This isn't a mercenary ship. And as far as I know, none of the regulars here have died since you started flying together."
Starlight bit her lip. "But what if they do? How do you deal with it? Because I never had anyone show me how."
"Ugh..." Harshwater groaned. "You're asking the wrong pegasus. I dealt with it by setting unhealthy priorities and making bad choices on what to care about, and you saw where that got me when we met in Mistvale. So I can tell you that's not the way. But it did help at the time."
Starlight's mane dripped, hammered by the rain and flat against her skull. "So you never had anyone teach you a better way either?"
"A better way to do what? Deal with losing your friends?" Harshwater raised an eyebrow. "You must have a messed-up past if that's what keeps you up at night at your age."
"I guess I do," Starlight replied.
"Well..." Harshwater stretched, touching her forehooves above her head. "I don't know your whole story, and I always have a thing or two to say about role models who refuse to do their jobs. But I can't do a lot for you there. You just deal with it, because once you see the ponies who can't get over whoever they lost, and spend time living with them and knowing them, you know you never want that to be you."
Starlight stared at the ship's stern. "Oh."
"Are you sure you want to stay out here?" Harshwater asked. "We're going to catch colds in this."
"No, we should go in." Starlight got to her hooves, not sure how much better she felt. There was one pony who probably didn't have answers for her, but still might have a lot more empathy than some of the others. Maybe she would try to talk to Harshwater again. After she had warmed up.
Hours later, the rain still refused to let up, but Starlight's friends had determined that a trip back into the city to have dinner as a crew was the only thing to do. Navarre had been taken away by Meltdown's subordinates after leaving a massive stack of documents with Valey, and Valey herself was presently missing, seeking out their friends from the tournament to invite them as well.
The evening sun failed to pierce the clouds as Starlight rode with her umbrella crystal on Maple's back, though it did lend the sky a redder tone that hopefully meant the storm was ready to break. Maple leaned back as she walked, rubbing Starlight with her neck. "How are you doing, hmm?"
"I'm okay," Starlight replied. It wasn't untrue. Her horn felt great, and she had made it through everything that could have happened in the crystal palace with no injuries, no lost friends and a satchel of charged windigo hearts to show for it. But... "Do you need me?"
Maple blinked. "Need you? Well, what do you mean?"
"I know you care about me," Starlight continued. "I know you'd be sad if I left, or if anything happened to me. But would it just be really bad, or do you actually need me?"
Maple's ears folded. "Where is this coming from? You're not planning on anything happening, are you?"
"No, but..." Starlight winced inside. This wasn't the message she had intended to send at all. In fact, she didn't want to send any message: she was curious and wanted to better understand what the flame had told her about their relationship.
"But?" Maple asked. "You have something on your mind, don't you?"
"No, I was... just wondering." Starlight looked away. "I've been thinking about my life before I came to Riverfall. Maybe... wondering what it would have been like if things were different."
"Oh." Maple went back to watching where she was going, though her ears stayed pointed back towards Starlight. "Have you been missing it again?"
Starlight blinked. "Again?"
"When we first found you, you were a very different filly," Maple murmured. "You hardly ever spoke, and we never left you on your own. You were nervous, and it felt like anything that reminded you of home just hurt you. Willow told me about that time at her house you ran out into the rain and she had to follow you and sit with you to calm you down. Now, you... still don't talk a lot, but you seem a lot more confident. It's hard to imagine you breaking down now like all the times ponies paid you too much attention."
Starlight bit her lip. "You think I've changed that much?"
Maple nodded. "Absolutely. I don't know if you're still worried about changing who you are, but I think you've grown."
"Oh." Starlight swallowed. "I... probably am not." She looked off to the side. "I was just wondering how sad you would feel if we had never met, I guess."
Maple slowly hummed. "Well... things would be a lot different. I wasn't in a very good place when we met, but had been getting better slowly for months. I probably would have continued, and... never would have gone to Ironridge, of course. And I have no idea what would have happened after the windigoes came. But maybe they never would have, because that only happened because Gerardo arrived with his windigo hearts, and if you hadn't been here, his ship would have sank with them on it when Hemlock's crane broke."
Starlight blinked hard. Hemlock's crane... That had been so long ago, it had completely slipped her mind. If she hadn't caught Gerardo's boat when it fell, he might have lost his cargo and never been able to take it to Ironridge. If the windigo hearts hadn't reached the city, Yakyakistan would never have been notified it was time to send the windigoes. If Herman hadn't been awaiting the guard he thought was coming with the windigoes, he wouldn't have acted and blown up the dam. She had previously thought that without her, Ironridge would be a frozen wasteland. But the truth was, if it wasn't for her, Shinespark's home would... still exist.
Maple didn't seem to pick up on the extent of her revelation. "So if I had really never known what this would be like? Maybe I... I don't know. But knowing you now, I wouldn't trade being someone you can trust for anything."
"Really?" Starlight asked, too busy re-evaluating her view on everything to process Maple's words.
"Well, I haven't thought about it that much," Maple replied. "I don't think about things that could have been a lot, Starlight. It used to be a hole I was never able to get myself out of. You wonder about ways your life could have been better, and eventually you get so lost in that wondering that you'd rather lie in bed and keep living in your head than get up and live in the real world. It took a lot of effort to get out of, and I don't like the thought of going back."
Starlight's ears flicked. The windigoes in Ironridge had been the thing she pointed to every time Glimmer told her she needed to slow down and learn to live with things instead of trying to force her perfect world. If she had given anything less than all she had, the city would have been destroyed... and that wasn't the case anymore. For all she had done, it wouldn't have been necessary if she had stayed home in the first place.
"Starlight?" Maple glanced over her shoulders.
"Oh... What?" Starlight shook her head to clear it. "Sorry..."
"I just said I had to learn not to think about what could have been to be happy with the way things are," Maple hummed. "That doesn't mean it always works, of course. I really don't like... a lot of the things we've been through." She sighed. "Especially watching Izvaldi explode. And there's a lot else that unnerves me. The point is, I'm happy we're together and I hope you are too."
Starlight had completely lost the train of thought that led to whatever Maple was responding to. "Sorry," she repeated. "I have a lot on my mind..."
"Does it relate to your wish?"
Starlight closed her eyes. "It does. I just... I don't know."
"You sound conflicted," Maple murmured. "You can tell me anything, you know."
"Even if it was something you didn't want to hear?" Starlight asked.
Maple smiled reassuringly, though Starlight spotted a tiny spark of uncertainty in her eyes. "I am your mother now, aren't I? You have enough to worry about on your own without trying to look after what I need to hear. I've got Amber here, and plenty of new friends for dealing with my own problems."
"...Thanks," Starlight mumbled, hiding her face in Maple's neck so Maple wouldn't have to see her reaction. This wasn't what she had been told to expect at all. Wasn't that exactly what the flame said she did need? She certainly wanted someone to lean on. But at the same time, the very first thing Willow had ever asked of her was to take care of Maple. She told her she needed it. Maple said Starlight had grown. Maybe Maple had done some growing of her own...
Starlight's thoughts finally fell to the sidelines as Valey returned, a large group of her own in tow. Wallace Whitewing was there, Morena and Diego at his sides, and the restored Puddles too. Saffron followed along to the side, walking next to Shill with Randorf and Pierre at their backs. "Yo!" Valey called, waving from beneath her rain poncho. "Got a big crowd! Think we're in the mood for going somewhere fancy?"
"Quite the reunion," Wallace rumbled, the ground vibrating slightly from his massive stride. "Getting this many friends together at once is good for the soul."
"We're not lacking in money," Shinespark said, raising an eyebrow at Valey. "Somewhere fancy?"
Saffron shrugged. "If you're up for it, I know my way around Grandbell's establishments. Might even be able to get in somewhere without a line, on account of the power being so flaky. After this afternoon, I bet a lot of folks are just staying home."
"Arguably the smart course for us," Morena replied. "But who's afraid of the dark?"
Maple smiled, perfectly dry beneath Starlight's crystal umbrella. "Not me!"
More pleasantries were exchanged, and a long walk later they were at the embellished door of an establishment most of the way down the walls of the city. A stallion with a well-groomed mane watched them from the doorway, counting and doing mental math. "Would four tables be appropriate, or do you wish for five?"
"Four?" Saffron blinked, doing a count of her own. "There's only... what, nineteen of us? Twenty?"
"Eh, that could get crowded if we split it three ways." Valey nudged her. "Four's good, dude."
The waiter nodded, leading everyone sans Wallace up a staircase to a balcony, the big griffon flying around. Everyone was arranged, and Starlight found herself sharing a table with Maple, Amber, Saffron and Shill, a menu quickly deposited before her in a forest-green telekinetic aura. She squinted, reading it over.
"Starlight, look." Maple nudged her, pushing over her own menu. "They have grilled pineapple here."
Amber was leaning over their shoulders in an instant. "Wait, they do?"
Saffron leaned back and chuckled. "That a favorite of yours?"
"It has a special significance to us." Maple smiled fondly. "I've made it for a lot of special meals with my friends. Not all of them for happy occasions, but it's almost a tradition."
Amber grinned. "Since we don't have this big of a get-together every day and the company's as good as it is, care to go all in?"
"Main course," Maple agreed. "Now we'll need something on the side, though it says it comes with other things..."
Starlight nodded, passing her menu to Maple. She'd have that too. Saffron spotted her staring, though, almost before her eyes could even unfocus. "Hey there, sugarcube. Looking a little overwhelmed, there?"
"Huh? No..." Starlight blinked, snapping back to attention. "I mean... maybe. Why?"
"Just saw you looking like you wished you could be somewhere quiet, is all." Saffron shrugged. "I'll let you think if you've got stuff on your mind. Just wondered if you weren't talking for a reason."
Starlight folded her ears. "It's fine. I-"
She was interrupted by a voice from behind Saffron: male, not Gazelle, and arrogant enough it could be mistaken for him in a heartbeat. "Looks like I've walked in on a party?"
Maple and Amber instantly looked up, and Shill flattened her ears and retreated halfway beneath the tablecloth. An annoyed look instantly spread over Saffron's face. "Howdy, Yulio," she said, not turning her head. "What brings you by?"
"Aah! Not sounding happy to see me, there." A yellow-brown stallion with a likely-dyed golden mane winced in return, holding up a hoof in apologetic defense. "Just wanting to make a good first impression, is all! Here I was, minding my own dinner, when familiar faces walked in the door? I only figured introductions were in order."
Maple and Amber both blinked. "Hi?" Amber grinned uncertainly, keenly watching Shill's reaction out of the corner of her eye.
Starlight was far more interested in another detail: the black sword brazenly clasped to this Yulio's side.
"Pleased to meet you lovely ladies." Yulio returned the grin with a polished one of his own, leaning an elbow on the table and extending a hoof to Amber. "A lot of fighters about today. Friends through the tournament? I would have recognized you if you were competition, but a cheer squad always warms my heart to see."
Starlight narrowed her eyes as the sword bumped against the table. It was right there... "Yep. We are," Amber replied, keeping a trained friendly face. "So what's your history with our friends?"
Yulio apologetically shrugged, getting off the table and shaking his head. "Oh, you know how it is. There can only be one champion, and as much as getting knocked out stings, it happens to almost everyone. An inevitability, really. But I assure you, there are no hard feelings between us. They're all only in it for the fun of the battle, after all."
"I hate to break it to you, but that's not exactly your call to make," Saffron replied, shifting in her chair to better sit between Shill and Yulio. "And a reminder that there are rules against starting scuffles in public."
"I had no intention of that...!" Yulio took several steps backwards. "Merely wanted to say hello. Come chat me up sometime, ladies. I'm at that table over there. Always do love a friendly face."
He trotted off, the sword at his side sticking in Starlight's vision. That didn't belong to him, and whyever it was that she could remember it and none of her other friends could, she wanted it back.
"Well, there's a sour note," Saffron muttered, patting Shill reassuringly on the head. "Don't pay no mind to that stallion. He isn't worth your time."
"Bad history?" Maple guessed.
"He cheated during our fight in the tournament," Shill sighed. "Don't worry about him. He won't hurt you as long as you're not direct competition for the top."
"But he will if you are?" Amber glanced at Valey's table, the batpony loudly chatting up Harshwater, Randorf and Diego.
Saffron nodded, ears flat. "Only inside the ring, mind. Outside, he plays pretty fair, if a little rude. But inside, he wants to win. No honor holds him back."
"I need to use the bathroom," Starlight mumbled, slipping out of her chair. "If they come to take our order, I'll have the pineapple too."
Maple assented, and Starlight slipped away, starting off in the wrong direction so it wouldn't be obvious she was looking for Yulio's table. She slipped through the restaurant, eventually coming across her target: the well-groomed stallion was sharing a corner booth with two thick mares who were likely twins, both sharing his shoulders.
Starlight stood and watched as he chatted them up, and one of the mares noticed her first. "Looks like you've got an admirer, sugar."
"Mhm. That's never happened before." Yulio chuckled, then blinked when he saw who it was. "Oh, well hello there. You were looking at me earlier! I always have time for an up-and-comer." He flashed a grin. "What can I do for you, little one?"
Starlight wasn't about to beat around the bush. "Where did you get that sword?"
"You mean this?" Yulio lifted the black sword, polishing it with the edge of a hoof. "Family heirloom. It catches a lot of eyes."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "You found it laying somewhere in Stormhoof on the night the tower got invaded."
Yulio's eyes widened for a split second. Both mares started to protest, but he quickly silenced then with outstretched hooves. "It's fine, ladies. Though you've clearly seen this sword before. Embarrassing truth be told, there are a few holes in my history with it... Excuse me for a second. I'd love a word in private with my fan."
Starlight blinked in surprise as Yulio suddenly freed himself from the booth, ushering her up another staircase to a second balcony that was dark, roped-off and filled with chairs stacked on tables. He effortlessly ducked under the rope, pulling her along, and then set her down and stared at her with concern. "Who are you and why are you the only person who knows I haven't had this my whole life?"
"I don't know!" Starlight shied back slightly as he held the sword up. "But I do remember it. My friend used to have it and dropped it that night."
"Interesting..." Yulio pursed his lips. "Does your friend remember this?"
Starlight folded her ears. "No, but I do. Do you even know what that does? It's dangerous."
"I've figured a few things out." Yulio rubbed the blade. "So what do you want from me? This sword back?"
Starlight swallowed.
"You can see how that might be difficult, since everyone will magically think you've stolen the blade of house Yulio..." Yulio flourished the blade, showing off its edge. "Let's get a few other questions out of the way before discussing ownership, little fan. Not that I'm saying no. Just... this sword is a very interesting thing that's happened to me." He stared at his grayscale reflection in the flat of the blade. "First off, why does everyone think it's mine and only we know it isn't?"
"I don't know," Starlight replied. "I think it's something the sword does. I remember this happening before, and I don't know why."
Yulio rubbed his chin. "Interesting... And what does it mean when you or your friend the owner tries staring into it for too long?"
"Huh?" Starlight squinted.
Yulio quickly grinned. "Oh, so it seems you didn't know about this part? Fascinating. Tell you what, little fan. Tell me something useful, something maybe your friend figured out that I haven't, and I'll tell you what the sword told me."
"It told you something?" Starlight took a step back, feeling her coat stiffen. "It talked to you?"
Yulio whistled idly. "Information is a commodity. Tell me something I can use, and I'll indulge your curiosity."
Starlight winced. "You know what it does to ponies?"
Yulio lazily twirled the blade. "I may have tried it out a time or two. Not on tournament contestants, of course. It's blatantly magical, and I haven't exactly gotten a fight yet since I picked it up. Give me something better."
"Well..." Starlight swallowed again, certain she didn't trust this pony to do anything except look after himself. "Do you know what it does to batponies?"
"The flying rats?" Yulio raised an eyebrow, flipping the sword idly with a hoof. "Well, I can't say that I do. Should be easy enough to test, though. What else have you got?"
Starlight glared at him... and then at the sword. You don't belong to him, she aggressively thought. You belong to Gerardo. Or me.
Yulio chuckled. "Relax, little fan, I'm just seeing what I can-!" Suddenly, he fumbled, dropping the sword point-first. It impaled itself in the ground between them, hilt protruding straight up.
"Woah!" Yulio blinked several times, narrowed his eyes, and drew it back out of the ground, blowing any dust off the blade. "Not usually so clumsy. Why don't I give you your treat, we say you didn't see that, and call fair enough fair enough?"
Starlight cocked an eyebrow.
Yulio brought the sword back to his side, hilt facing backwards. "Now, not that I'm keen on parting with this, and you don't exactly have a brand to do this yourself..."
He tapped the sword's hilt against his cutie mark.
Flash!
With a little burst of light, Yulio and the blade both gleamed. Suddenly, the sword was floating, as if held in a telekinetic aura. Only Yulio was an earth pony, and instead of an aura around its hilt, there was a tiny, flat, transparent ring of floating runes, a larger one mirroring it softly rotating around the stallion's barrel. The sword flickered faintly with light, all coming from the triangular hole in its hilt, and feebly glowing there Starlight could see a replica of his cutie mark.
"A surprise, from the look on your face." Yulio waved the sword around without moving, the blade floating all on its own. "So I doubt you'd be able to tell me anything about why I'd get the idea in my head to do this, just from staring into it all this time. Or about the way I feel when I'm doing it." The lights in the sword winked out, as well as the ring around Yulio, and he caught it as it fell to the floor. "Oh well. I'll remember you, little fan. Remember to root for me in the tournament."
He turned around and left, and soon Starlight was alone, her mind moving at miles per minute. The sword having that kind of hidden potential wasn't remotely surprising to her. Gerardo had held it for years, after all, without a cutie mark to test with, and if anyone had found its secret before, it had likely been forgotten. But two other thoughts kept doing battle for the foremost space in her mind.
First, Herman had held a self-levitating axe. She had been blind at the time, and never seen it in action. Did it look remotely the same? She hadn't a clue, but couldn't imagine that kind of magic was easy. And second, a figure stared up at her from the depths of her memories: the altar in the sea cave where she had been given the Nightmare Modules in a dream. The spirit she had talked to there had shifted through many different forms, and one of them had been herself, hovering on wings of rune-shaped light. If that wasn't just a dream but was based on magic that really existed, something that could come true...
No. Not the most important thing to think about. Starlight shook her head and headed for the stairs, ready to get back to her friends. All she knew was that that sword wasn't a good thing to leave laying around.
"Hey, girls." Valey announced herself at Maple and Starlight's door without knocking, but not coming in either. "Dunno if you heard, but guess what? It stopped raining!"
Starlight looked up from where she sat with a book on the bed, Shinespark having tracked down a library earlier and refilled the ship's unread book supply. In a chair across from her, Maple's ears perked. "Did it, now?"
"Uh, yeah. Can I come in?"
"Of course." Maple rocked slightly, drawing something with a quill in her mouth and a paper pad in her hooves.
Valey wasted no time in banging the door open, coat groomed and bandages gone after having successfully mooched another healing potion off the castle staff, as had been suggested. "Guess what time that makes it?" She grinned, hefting a tiny barbell with one wing.
"More training?" Starlight set her book aside and stood up, rubbing her horn. It still felt different, but she didn't want to experiment in case this was like the first time and she had a limited well of power from the flame that would let her go all out exactly once before settling into a slightly-improved normal. "Okay."
"That's the spirit." Valey flipped her barbell like a baton. "Hey Ironflanks, you wanna join us?"
Maple blinked. "To spectate? Well, I guess I haven't done that in a while..." She pocketed her supplies and stretched.
"Nahhh." Valey grinned harder. "Come fight with us! Learn a trick or two of your own! Come on, it'll be fun!"
Maple's face fell. "You know that isn't really my idea of fun, Valey. Fighting isn't really what I do."
Valey blew a raspberry. "Uh huh. So no one would expect it if they tried to chump you and suddenly you punched them and were awesome. Just for today, Ironflanks. You gotta learn one trick. How about it?"
"You're in a good mood today," Starlight spoke up, hoping to take some of the heat off Maple.
Valey flipped her barbell again. "Ya think?" She glanced at her wings. "Okay, maybe a little. It's not like something I've been feeling consistently lousy about failing at forever is finally getting taken care of, or anything."
"Your sister?" Maple asked, face lifting.
"Yeah..." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Got a memo from Meltdown. Garsheeva's messing around with the generator, trying to fix stuff. She thinks she'll be ready for us right before the tournament starts again. So, we've got a date. In the meantime, wanna hang out?"
"By training?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "It didn't really sound like she wanted to."
Maple smiled apologetically. "I can come watch, though."
"Eh, I'm not trying to be pushy." Valey calmed slightly, giving Maple a serious look. "Just... remember that discussion when we were deciding who would go down into the crystal palace and didn't know what we'd find? You've got some powerful stuff going for you, girl. A little practice being creative and you could actually be a huge threat with your cutie mark alone, forget being able to dodge and hit stuff. And you wanted to come with us. Starlight's been practicing with me for months so she can be at her best when push comes to shove. Help do her part to keep us safe. And I know there's something in you that would rather it be the other way around, with you protecting her."
Starlight's ears drooped. Valey had a point... "I'd like it if you spent a little time practicing how to protect yourself, too."
Maple took a deep breath, then exhaled, doing her best to put on a game smile. "If that's how you want to sell it. But no promises I'll come back tomorrow. Just for today."
"Constant vigilance!"
Maple shrieked in surprise as Valey grabbed Starlight out of nowhere, spinning her and lobbing her into the air like a sports ball. Starlight flipped, flailed and was airborne for several seconds before landing, steering herself so that she ended upright with her tail. Starlight winced from the impact, dusted herself off, and looked to Valey for approval.
"Good stuff, kiddo." Valey patted her on the head with a wing. "You've clearly been practicing these last few days."
"That's how you train her!?" Maple gaped. "There was no warning, or..."
"You don't have warning in a real fight," Starlight replied, echoing Valey's lectures. "I'm fine, though. I still knew it was coming, and I've been practicing."
Valey grinned, going back to playing with her barbell. "Relax, Ironflanks. Yeah, this is what we've been working on for a few weeks. Landing on your hooves is critical for recovering when something sends you flying, and is the basis of pretty much every acrobatics trick ever. Go on, kiddo. Show her your moves."
Starlight tensed, squinting in concentration... and jumped, pulling off two backflips in a row with less than a second of wobble on the final landing. "It's easier when the ground isn't wet," she noted, the ship's deck soaked even though the rain had stopped and the clouds were lightening above.
"Practice makes perfect," Valey insisted, winking at Maple. "Natural talent helps too, but she's got that in spades. Best student I've ever had. All the Defense Force goons flunked out on my fruit-throwing exercise."
Without warning, she flung the barbell like a javelin at Starlight's face, then caught it with her tail at the last second. Starlight narrowed her eyes, but didn't even flinch. "See?" Valey did a midair flip of her own. "She's a natural."
"That's..." Maple blinked between them in worry.
"It's a whole lot less dangerous than learning to dodge stuff thrown by anyone who wants to hurt you." Valey flipped the barbell again and caught it with a hoof, landing and tucking it beneath her wing. "If she does mess up, it's gonna hurt, but she'll have me around to take care of her instead of being downed in the middle of a melee. Anyway, all that stuff's coming along nicely. How about leg strength? Kick me hard."
Starlight nodded, lowered her head and charged. It was a straightforward task, and Valey blocked with the flat of a foreleg as Starlight pivoted on her front hooves, smashing both rear ones into her mentor at the same time. Valey grunted, but held fast against the blow. "Good stuff. You're gonna need to be a lot better if you want to stop anyone with a body that small, but it'll still catch anyone off guard who expects you to hit like a feather. Tell Ironflanks how you choose which hooves to use."
"Right." Starlight took a breath, already steadied from the charge. "Rear kicks are much more powerful, since rear legs are better at pushing. Front kicks are faster, safer and more accurate, since you can see who's in front of you and don't have to turn around. Since it's easier for me to keep myself safe through fighting smart and reading my enemies than it is to get much heavier and double the length of my legs, I'm focusing mostly on rear kicks for strength, so I can cover all my weaknesses. But everything is important."
"See?" Valey lounged against a railing. "It's not just about building muscle mass and learning to tough it out when you get injured. Not that those aren't important, but being smart is the bigger half compared to being strong. Otherwise, I'd never have beaten that Randorf guy. And your cutie mark is plenty strong. So all you gotta do to be set is learn to use it smartly!"
Maple bit her lip. "Well... I take it that means it's my turn?"
"Yeah." Valey leaned her back against the railing, standing upright with her hind legs crossed and her forelegs folded over her chest, a position which could be unbalanced by a light breeze. "So come at me, Ironflanks. I won't hit back. Just show me what you got in the brain department. Starlight, watch and take notes."
Maple gulped, but kicked into a slow run towards Valey, brow furrowed in concentration. Valey's tail flicked, prepared to catch or knock away whatever Maple might produce to hit her with... and then Maple unpocketed a deluge of water, splashing all across her face.
"Blech! Gahhh..." Valey rubbed her eyes and shook her mane, dripping. "Good stuff, Ironflanks. Bananas, I just got dried off..."
Maple's ears fell in apology. "You said be creative..."
"Nah, that was great." Valey waved a hoof, still trying to dry off her face. "Impossible to block and nobody will see it coming. Bananas, one second." She dashed into the ship, returning with her face buried in a towel. "So!" she announced once she was no longer suffering from water draining into her eyes. "Starlight, what's your mom's biggest asset she just showed off?"
Starlight nodded. "Hiding things that no one is expecting."
"Bingo." Valey flung a hoof at her, then turned to Maple. "And Ironflanks, what were you doing with a gallon of water in there?"
Maple reddened. "Cooking, ballast and in case anyone was thirsty..."
Valey did another flip. "Oh yeah, the whole making-yourself-heavier thing?"
"Mhmm." Maple nodded. "Things I put in my cutie mark add to my own weight, so I made a habit of carrying around heavy things so if I ever need to carry something heavy, I'm used to it. And it's helpful to be able to take things out so I'm always a weight I'm familiar with. And I suppose it makes me stronger..."
"Whole lotta advantages. See? You're a natural too." Valey winked. "You'd be surprised at how strong most cutie marks are when you put your mind to them. Point is, all we need to do to get you super competent is make it so you're used to pulling this stuff out in a pinch. Or maybe brainstorming some more useful things for you to carry around..."
She rubbed her chin, hovered, and slowly, slowly turned to look at Starlight, a mischievous grin spreading on her face.
"What are you thinking?" Starlight asked, stepping closer to Maple and raising an eyebrow.
Valey tossed her barbell again. "Hey, Ironflanks. You can store magic in there, yeah?"
Maple nodded. "I haven't tried it often."
"And you two are hardly ever apart..." Valey's grin grew. "What if you two made a special team combo move? Maple stores Starlight's magic? If Blazing Rain was so special, no one would ever see a magic earth pony coming. I wonder if you can do that."
Starlight blinked. That would mean using her horn... but her horn did feel like it needed to be used. "How would we do that?"
"You cast magic on me and I try to store it?" Maple tilted her head.
"Yeah, give it a go!" Valey hung upside-down in the air, juggling the barbell with her tail. "Do that crystal spell on her. Ironflanks, try to not get crystalled!"
Starlight swallowed, stepping into position. Just encase Maple in crystal, no special shapes required. She pointed her horn, readied her magic, and fired.
Flash!
There was a jet of teal light, and Maple was frozen solid in a block of crystal. Starlight winced, letting it drop.
"Sorry!" Maple gasped upon being freed. "Ohh that felt weird. I wasn't ready. D-Do we try again?"
Valey rolled upright. "Eh, yeah, let's not give up after one failure. Come on, pocket the magic. Let's go again!"
Flash!
Once more, Maple was encased in a crystal. "Is it not working?" Starlight asked as she freed the mare a second time. "Or do you need to try again?"
"I don't know," Maple panted, getting her bearings after being frozen. "Maybe... What happens if I try to pocket a smaller piece of crystal after it's been formed?"
Starlight bit her lip. "Well, I can't make them just grow in midair. They have to grow on something, like the ground or a pony. So maybe you could pocket a rock with a crystal around it?"
Valey snapped her wingtips. "Yo, hold up. Idea of the century, right here." She offered Maple her barbell. "Pocket this."
Maple nodded, taking the training weight and making it disappear, looking to Valey for explanation.
"So, that's pretty heavy, right?" Valey grinned at Starlight. "Heavy enough, at least. I wonder what happens to something's momentum if you crystal it while it's flying, though? Ironflanks, you whip that out and throw it... like, over the railing so it doesn't damage anything, and Starlight, you hit it midair and turn it into a huge boulder. I bet it'll completely own whoever it hits."
Starlight winced. "The amount my crystals hurt my horn to use depends on how much they get hit by things. It's why it's hard to use them as armor. It sounds like it would work, but I could only do that once or twice..."
Maple apologetically passed back the barbell.
"Mmm..." Valey held the side of her head, taking it and resuming juggling it as she hovered. "Alright, good to know. But just in case, you wanna practice hitting thrown things with, like... a little crystal? What if Ironflanks threw some pebbles, and you turned them into spikes or daggers? And just in case you did need to blow your horn out on an ultimate move, someone like Herman would have a seriously bad time getting hit by a very fast flying boulder."
"Can I try pocketing some crystal, though?" Maple asked, looking expectantly between them. "If I'm out here, I still might as well try..." She faintly blushed.
"Oh yeah. Catch." Valey tossed Starlight the barbell in a gentle, curving arc. Starlight's horn flashed, and soon it was frozen in a ball about the size of Maple's head.
Starlight presented it to her, and Maple pocketed it with ease. "...Anything?"
A strange sensation welled up in Starlight's horn, like a small portion of her magic was cut off or missing. She could feel everywhere around it, and still try to do things with it... If her magic was a pool of water, this was an air bubble, completely immobile and suspended in the middle. She tried to interact with it, call it back, push on it and expand the size of the crystals... Her magic flowed around it like normal, but from the missing piece, nothing.
"That's really weird." Starlight frowned. "What happens if you un-pocket it?"
Maple lifted a hoof... and suddenly it exploded with crystals, as if all the energy Starlight had tried to put into expanding her creation when she couldn't reach it went into it all at once. Maple yelped, the crystalled barbell now frozen to her hoof, and Starlight gasped in surprise, instantly letting the crystals dissipate. She could feel them all again, and her magic returned, whole and undisturbed.
Valey raised an eyebrow.
"What just happened?" Maple stared at her hoof in concern, the barbell laying on the deck in front of her.
"I don't know," Starlight mumbled, slinking forward to poke at the fallen training weight. "I can usually feel the crystals I've made while they're out there. I couldn't feel that one while you pocketed it, and when I tried making it bigger, nothing happened. Then it got bigger all at once when you brought it out."
"That's weird." Valey grabbed the barbell and held it out to Starlight. "Try it again."
Starlight concentrated, getting only a little crystal on the end and finding herself pleased as the spell shaped itself with barely any effort compared to what choosing specific forms for her crystal had taken before the crystal palace. "Yo." Valey passed the barbell to Maple.
"So what are we doing now?" Maple pocketed it, looking expectantly at Starlight.
"Umm..." Starlight could feel the hole in her magic again, sized appropriately to what she had pushed out into the crystal. "I'll try to make it disappear. It's still there, though. See what happens when you take it out?"
Maple withdrew the barbell, a little flash tingling along the end as Starlight's crystal vanished.
"Huh..." Valey hovered between them. "Now try to make it grow again! Can you control the shape it grows to?"
Starlight refreshed the crystal, this time trying to will it to grow in a long, straight spur as Maple held it inside her. When she withdrew it, the crystal rapidly expanded, but in a formless mass just like last time.
"I guess not?" Maple tilted her head at Starlight. "Hmmm..."
Valey flicked her tail at Maple, having nothing to occupy herself by juggling. "Hey, what if you try to shape it? Starlight, you said you got cut off or something from it, right? Maybe it... needs direction from Maple, or something?"
Maple's ears fell. "I'm not a unicorn, Valey. I don't even know how I'd begin learning to do that..."
Two hours later, Starlight stared at Maple, feeling the hole in her magic as they watched each other from across the deck. Maple poked her tongue out of the corner of her mouth in concentration... and the barbell slammed down at her hooves, crystal growing and spreading along the ground until it lifted her up on a pillar twice as tall as she normally was. Maple lifted her hooves, checking them one by one. "I did it! I'm not stuck this time!"
"Hot stuff, girl!" Valey flapped over and gave Maple a celebratory shoulder bump, nearly toppling her and forcing Valey to catch her before she hit the deck. "Heh heh... Whoops."
"It worked? You did it?" Starlight raised her eyes hopefully. She didn't think she had overdone anything with her horn enough to waste the tree's blessing, but preferred to be safe rather than sorry.
"Yep." Valey drifted past, offering down a hoof for Starlight to bump. "Raising yourself on a pillar to get in the air? There's one more signature Puddles move stolen for Team Us. Speaking of which, I hope you're practicing that too when your horn lets you. Even if it's a discount super jump, that's still the closest thing to flight you're gonna get."
Maple was beaming, almost unshaken by her fall as she trotted over and the crystal pillar disappeared. "So you think I did good?"
"Yeah, I'd call this good for the day." Valey wrapped a wing over her back. "If you want a break, that is. I'd say you two have a pretty epic move in the works. Could use some polish if you wanted to come back to it another day, though..."
Starlight raised an eyebrow. "What do we work on next?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, aside from just making it faster, smoother, higher, and having Ironflanks work on safely getting down... Next thing to try is pocketing two crystals at once. Gotta see how they interact with each other." She patted Maple's back. "But hey, I might be a hard drill sergeant, but I'm fair. You didn't wanna join us and then you did cool work today. So go take it easy for a while and be proud of yourself, girl. I'll just finish things up with Starlight and we'll be right down after you."
Maple blushed at the praise. "Well, I was just using my cutie mark..."
"Nahhh, you did good! Go celebrate, already!" Valey grabbed her discarded barbell, tucking it away beneath a wing. "Go tell Amber about how awesome you... Hey, looks like someone's coming?"
Starlight and Maple followed her gaze up to the sky, where a winged silhouette was growing closer. In several seconds, an armored griffon landed, bearing Grandbell colors and quickly bowing.
"Hey, dude." Valey nodded. "What's up?"
"You are the filly Starlight?" The guard tilted his head at Starlight, who nodded back. "Princess Gwendolyn cordially invites you to lunch at the northern aqueduct tower. If you wish to accept, please join her in forty minutes."
"Really?" Starlight blinked.
Valey grinned. "Lunch with a princess? Hey, lucky you. She's a cool cat. You should go!"
The guard just nodded.
"Well, okay." Starlight shrugged. "I'd like to go."
"Of course." The guard spread his wings. "I shall inform Her Highness of your response. The tower guards will be notified and expecting you."
He winged away, and Maple gave Starlight an interested look. "I wonder what she wants to talk to you about. He didn't say anything about the rest of us."
"Probably means it's just her." Valey stretched, wandering toward the door belowdecks. "In that case, I might just go saw some logs..."
Starlight climbed a twisting staircase inside a stone tower, listening to wind blowing against the walls halfway through every revolution. A griffon guard marched at her tail, professional and stoic and doing his part to make sure the guards of Grandbell were a far more pleasant experience to deal with than the Defense Force. Starlight almost thought that if she lived here for a few years, she could stop looking at anyone in armor like they were going to hurt her.
She reached a door, letting out into a new stairwell that only had a few steps left before coming to a level floor. "Your Highness," the guard behind her said. "The filly Starlight."
"Starlight," Gwendolyn greeted, sitting in an open room with an unbroken panoramic window, a few chairs and a tea table in the middle. She wore a different dress than last time, equally simple yet elegant. "Thank you for joining me."
"You asked me to come?" Starlight stepped onto the floor, a regal carpet lining the floor of the tower.
The guard shuffled to a stop behind her, and Princess Lyn raised a paw. "You are dismissed," she regally intoned, then lowered it and smiled at Starlight. "I did! I hope it was not much of a bother. I wished to speak with you more. Please, have a seat and help yourself."
Starlight was too busy taking in the view, pacing to a window and staring out. It had been raining when they flew in, and this was the first time she had seen Grandbell in broad daylight, the storm clouds a mere shadow on the northern horizon.
With a rustle, Gwendolyn joined her, her little paws seeming to glide beneath her dress. "Taking in the Aldenfold? I would imagine that, having lived on an airship for months, such sights would be routine. Or does viewing the world from above never lose its splendor?"
"Don't you have wings?" Starlight tilted her head, watching the filly's feathers through slits in the fabric. "I thought you'd be used to seeing sights like this too."
Lyn shrugged and looked down, flexing her little wings. "It is not seen as stately for royalty to fly. So I do not get a lot of practice, and am... not the best flier." Her wings rustled and folded again.
"Oh." Starlight blinked at the mountains. "I guess it doesn't get old. We could see how tall the mountains are from Stormhoof, too, but they seem taller when you're this far up."
Lyn exhaled. "I heard from a source your friends and you are all trying to cross the mountains together."
Starlight folded her ears. "We are."
Lyn retreated to a chair, beckoning Starlight to follow and pointing out her spread of snacks and food. "That is a lot of Writs of Harmonic Sanction. Unless you have some other way to get everyone through without needing to pass through the Equestrian border checkpoint."
"I think my friends just want to collect enough," Starlight replied, following and taking a seat opposite the princess. "We have two, and Yakyakistan owes us a third if we fly out to get it. It might take us years to get enough."
"Oh. Years." Lyn's ears fell. "That is a lot of dedication. Why do they want to go so badly?"
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. She could know, if she thought about it, but she had plenty of other problems on her mind, and truth be told, she didn't even want to return to Equestria. It felt too much like facing her past.
"You are not as enthusiastic as they are," Lyn remarked, following Starlight with her slitted eyes.
Starlight shook her head to clear it. "No, I'm... Sorry. I have a lot on my mind."
"Would you tell me?" Lyn tilted her head hopefully.
Starlight blinked... and remembered what the filly had said on their first meeting. Glimmer had told her about her. They might have things in common and get along...
"Right." Starlight swallowed. "You lost your parents, right?"
"You are blunt." Lyn lost her smile, but kept perfect eye contact. "I did. They were killed six years ago in Varsidel, when I was very young. Hence, I was raised by royal tutors and instructed so I could take their place as soon as possible. Why do you ask?"
Starlight glanced away. "Just wondering if we had something in common."
"Your parents died too?" Lyn's ears fell. "I take it your family on the airship is all adoptive, then."
"...No." Starlight took a deep breath. "I ran away from home because they weren't able to care for me when I needed it most. I don't know if they didn't care or didn't know how, but it doesn't matter."
"I see." Lyn let out a breath. "That is what weighs on you, then? You have been wishing you made a different choice?"
Starlight gritted her teeth and looked away. "I made the choice I had to. I want to wish they had made a different choice and I hadn't needed to in the first place, but that's the same as wishing I had never met all my friends from the north. That my whole life here had never happened. That's what's bothering me."
"From the north?" Lyn blinked. "But I was never told your ship had been to Varsidel, and this is about as far south as..." She trailed off, staring at Starlight inquisitively and with dawning comprehension.
Starlight winced, realizing what she had just given away. "If I'm going to answer when you ask me what's on my mind, please promise you won't tell anyone else."
Lyn drew a paw across her heart. "I swear on my own deepest secrets to be trustworthy and never tell."
Starlight sighed and looked down. "Yes. I'm from Equestria. I don't know how I got here, but I don't think I have a Writ of Harmonic Sanction. I ran away from home and crossed those mountains on hoof."
"That's a difficult distance to run," Lyn replied. "It sounds impossible."
"I didn't know it would be that hard when I left," Starlight murmured. "I just knew I had to."
"Almost as impossible as running away from being the princess of an Empire," Lyn added, tugging at a corner on her dress. "Would you believe me if I said I wished I had been born somebody else?"
Starlight nodded. "You told me when we talked on the airship."
"Oh... I suppose I did." Lyn blushed faintly. "You have a good memory. But yes. I know how it feels to... want to do that. But I cannot exactly leave behind everything that I am and start afresh, even if I moved to another world. It is somewhat relieving to be told by someone who has done it that it isn't a perfect answer to our problems."
"More problems than missing your parents?" Starlight looked up. "Or... do you miss them?"
Lyn nodded back. "Of course. I never knew them long enough to remember what they were like, but the tutors who raised me and continue to look after me are royal servants. Their station is below mine, and they show it. It is difficult to find someone to look up to, especially when those I do look to as role models do things like... like what my brother did at Stormhoof. But you are surrounded by your friends, even if you have only had them since coming across the Aldenfold. You are lucky. I am at the top of my own world, and must fight everyone's reverence to be allowed to have others to look up to."
Starlight felt her eyes unfocus. "I know what that feels like a lot."
"You do?" Lyn looked at her with concern.
Starlight took a breath, her thoughts ever since she had touched the Grandbell flame too pent-up in her heart to keep buried even if she wanted to. "I'm the strongest unicorn on the ship, even if my horn hurts me to use. Valey has been teaching me to fight like she does, but I didn't even need that to kill the windigoes and save everyone in Ironridge! And I'm special, but nobody will tell me how. Garsheeva is interested in me, my lookalike is interested in me, harmonic flames are interested in me, I can do thing with old spells and machines that I'm not even allowed to see parts of because someone else thinks it wouldn't make me happy! And I've had these visions, and..."
Lyn's eyes widened. "But you have your friends! They can't help you with this?"
"What would I tell them?" Starlight shrugged. "That when we're stranded in a blizzard and about to be killed by windigoes, I don't want to be the one to save everyone? That hurts to say. And a lot of this would just worry them, and they wouldn't have answers. I feel like I have to protect them." She looked down. "You can't just order someone to... do something differently?"
Lyn shook her head. "Command someone not to be under my command? I cannot, unfortunately." She sighed. "Potential solutions aside, you... know how it feels? Like you are stranded at the top of the world and are responsible for everyone who is beneath you?"
"And the more you look down at them, the lonelier it feels?" Starlight added hopefully.
"But no matter what you try, it never helps you get where you want to be," Lyn whispered.
Starlight swallowed and nodded. "Because you try to do more and more to keep them safe, since you know if you lost them, you'd be even lonelier. But the more you do, the further away you feel, and you know it won't work but get frustrated when people try to stop you anyway."
"Is that how you feel about responsibility?" Lyn raised a curious eyebrow. "For me, I feel like if I do better for my subjects and am a smarter or wiser ruler, I will be... rewarded, somehow, for doing good. I'm not really sure why. It just feels like things should work that way."
"Maybe you want them to," Starlight said. "And feel like if you pretend they do, they will?"
"I don't know." Lyn shrugged, then smiled. "Have you ever told anyone this before?"
Starlight blinked. "Everything we just said? Bits and pieces, but not all at once. And maybe not some of the things I worry about."
Lyn slowly nodded. "That is how it goes, isn't it? You say a little to see if someone will understand, but never too much." She sighed, long and content. "I... actually feel a little better. I'm glad I called you here. It seems the divine seer knows both of us better than we were expecting."
"Yeah. Her..." Starlight's brow shadowed, an image of her reflection telling her she wasn't allowed to know something filling her mind. "I don't know how much she knows, but she says everything. I don't know what to think about her."
Lyn bit her lip. "She sounds like a less-pleasant topic. Would you like to keep talking? I am happy to listen to anything you have to say if you continue listening to me."
"My lookalike is..." Starlight sighed. "How much do you know about her? About where she's from?"
Lyn thought for a moment. "I don't know when she first showed up, but it was some time ago. I feel as if she was here for a long time, but I became more aware of her as I grew older. I only ever saw her in the lower levels of Garsheeva's temple, on the outskirts of the core. In hindsight, if she knew about you and saw that you would come here someday, she probably did not want to leave a presence you would be mistaken for."
Starlight's ears folded. "My best guess is she's me from the future. Everything she tells me is vague and unhelpful, and she keeps trying to stop me from knowing why I'm special or what I'm capable of. But she talks like I'll do something extremely bad there that affects the whole world, and she had to come back to change it."
"Does it make you scared of yourself?" Lyn looked up.
Starlight blinked. "A little? It's more frustrating than anything. If something bad is going to happen, why wouldn't it help, telling me how to stop it?" She slumped. "Everything she's told me is that the way to stop it is to learn to deal with my problems, be content with what I have, and stop reaching higher and higher to protect my friends. Maybe I should be scared, if I'm so dangerous that I can't even know what I'm going to do. And the visions don't help. I've seen two strange visions that seem like they're of the end of the world, and one has an older version of a pony I know."
"...Does it help if I'm a little afraid of myself too?" Lyn asked hopefully.
"Are you?" Starlight blinked.
"Look at what my brother did." Lyn shrugged. "You saw him fighting, but you didn't argue with him before that. That scared me. What if I lose myself like him? The Gazelle I knew hated lords who did that, and then he did exactly what he hated."
Starlight bit her lip. "You really called me here because you needed to talk and hoped I was someone who would understand?"
"I acted on a hunch and what I had been told." Lyn nodded. "We got along well enough when we talked on your ship, as well. I hoped it would be enjoyable and we would click together."
"...Thanks." Starlight slowly nodded in return. "If you're scared of yourself, well..."
She took a deep breath. What did she say to that? After how Gazelle had acted, it was probably a valid fear. That said, there were a lot of bad ponies in the world, and a lot of good ones, too. Maybe Valey could answer this better than she could...
"There is a little more." Lyn's ears drooped. "I snuck into my brother's room the other day, and I found a lot of notes from Geribaldi Stormhoof that weren't there before. I only read a few, but they said sphinxes in the Empire have a long history of... doing what my brother did as they grow up. Some do it worse than others."
Starlight's ears fell. "Are you alright?"
Lyn squeezed her eyes shut. "...Probably. I will make myself be. It's just not something I like being told, let alone finding out like... that. Maybe he was wondering about his own behavior. Either way, that is what I fear."
Starlight stood up from her chair, knowing exactly where that line of thinking led. You didn't just make yourself be alright. If you did, you were only burying it... "You asked me earlier, but you've never talked to anyone about this, have you."
"At ease," Lyn said, holding her eyes shut and taking tight breaths. "I am fine... I-I will be fine."
Starlight frowned. "You're the one with a cutie mark in lie detection..."
Lyn dragged her paws down her face. "You're right. I'm not fine. But I need to be because it's my job by birth, just like I made myself be right after it happened. I... get a lot of practice."
Starlight trotted forward, unceremoniously inviting herself into Lyn's chair and sitting down right at the filly's side. "That's not a good thing, you know."
Instead of any sort of sensible reply, Lyn broke out laughing, wiping her eyes on her paws and almost leaning sideways. "You're the most irreverent person I've ever met," she managed, suddenly smiling and meeting Starlight's eyes. "You don't even care that I'm the crown princess of a continent, do you?"
Starlight blinked. "Well..."
"You're not treating me like you're my subject!" Lyn burst out. "I can't make anyone do that with any amount of exercising my authority! I... I..."
"Are you alright?" Starlight asked.
Lyn flung her paws around Starlight and hugged her for all of two seconds. "I've never done this before," she squeaked, pulling back away. "We are proper friends."
"Really?" Starlight tilted her head.
"I told you, you are not treating me like a ruler," Lyn managed, regaining some of her accent and composure. "Do you see me as an equal? Because that is the message you are sending."
"And you like that?" Starlight blinked. "I... guess so. I'm not really used to talking about myself, though."
Lyn smiled. "You have been doing fine! I'm not either. But we can talk about our fears with each other, and..."
"And?" Starlight asked, sensing she wasn't done.
"...And I wish I could solve all my problems by running away." Lyn sighed, her good cheer draining as fast as it had come. "But that is even more impossible than a filly crossing the Aldenfold on hoof."
Starlight frowned. "If you're asking to run away with us... maybe? But me doing that was completely impossible, and I did it anyway."
"Not possible," Lyn repeated. "Alas, I could flee to the ends of the world and not be free from what happened to my brother. I will always have the possibility of myself doing the same lingering over me, and that is not considering the significant lengths the Empire would go to if it lost me to get me back. Freeing myself from my memories, my history, my duties, and whatever curse Geribaldi has discovered to afflict me..."
Starlight thought hard, running her mind over everything she knew about doing the impossible. It was something she was good at, according to Glimmer. But all that had ever come up in her own past was to never give up, even when the odds were zero.
"Don't give up," she encouraged, taking a faint thrill of warmth for being true to herself. "Maybe some of those are hard, but what about the ones that are just a normal amount of impossible? What about making the Empire let you go?"
Lyn shook her head. "Foals."
"Foals?" Starlight's face scrunched in confusion.
"Foals," Lyn repeated. "The Empire's sphinx population is in a bad place, as my tutors and advisors have made it very clear for me to know. You likely know how our inheritance structure works. When I grow up, the first daughter I bear will become the next empress, and any sons will go on to take leadership of houses that have lost their lords. Out of all of them, Goldoa, Wilderwind and Goldfeather's lords are healthy, but only Everlaste and Stormhoof have heirs. Gyre and Izvaldi's lines are extinct. The power is on the verge of collapse, and without me to provide foals to replenish it... That is what I have been told."
Starlight blanched. "So they only care about you so you can grow up and have kids?"
"Not only, but it is a major reason." Lyn's face fell. "Do you ever read stories about love, Starlight?"
"Romance?" Starlight tilted her head. "Not really. You do?"
Lyn nodded. "A common plot device is that of an arranged marriage, where a couple is put together with no love involved. That is in my future, assuming there is even another sphinx of my age for me to take as my emperor... which there is not."
"That's not very fair," Starlight remarked.
"No. But it is necessary for the Empire. Just another duty that makes it hard to run." Lyn sighed. "You have seen many of the tournament fighters, right? Have you met a stallion named Yulio?"
Starlight nodded. "He doesn't seem very nice."
"His wish is for the first chance at having my paw in marriage."
"Wait, what?" Starlight's jaw dropped. "Him? Now? But he's not a sphinx! And you're... my age!"
Lyn groaned. "That is what I wish more people reacted like. But yes. If there are no suitable emperors from the houses, my position has always been entitled to a free selection of consorts. Those are people we... you know... with." Her cheeks lightened again in embarrassment. "And it would be a binding promise for when I am of age, but... that isn't as far away as I would like." She hung her head. "What would you do, Starlight? I have more power than any filly ever should. I could arrange for him to be killed, if I wanted to. My brother would be more than happy to do it for me. But I'm afraid if I start doing that now..."
"You run," Starlight replied. "It's what I did. Run far away until nothing from your old life could touch you, and then some. Run until you find a place you want to call home." She sighed. "I haven't found one, and I think I'll have to learn to live with the bad things in the world, or else make one myself. But I haven't given up and am not stuck back at my old home with parents who didn't care or didn't know how to show it. I ran and I'd... If everything was the same I-I'd do it again."
Lyn watched her. "...I will think about it. In any event, it is not as if days themselves are on the line. In the meantime, would you like to try some of the food I had brought up? I have raspberry tarts, sugared apples, all sorts of food. Maybe while we eat we can talk about other things..."
Starlight nodded, yet another friend on her mind she needed to figure out how to save.
Valey stepped through the tunnels connecting the administrative rooms near Grandbell's stadium, the area where the final tournament round would be held. According to Saffron, it was two days until the final event, and even though she had been a part of the planning discussions to make sure the final round still happened, she wasn't going to repeat her earlier mistake of walking in without reading the rules.
She nodded to a griffonness and a stallion who were chatting and rounded a corner. The big room where she had met her current tournament friends was well-occupied, and she stopped for a moment in the door, looking for where she was supposed to go.
"Young Valey!" Someone else spotted her first. With a booming voice, Wallace Whitewing pushed his way through the crowd, standing out like a juggernaut as he approached her. Valey ducked to avoid being pounded into the ground by a head pat from his massive wing, and he grinned. "Good to see you in high spirits, little hero. Feeling confident in your skills for the final round?"
"Uh, hey." Valey grinned back uncertainly. "Yeah, sorta. You?"
Wallace wrinkled his mustache. "A halfhearted response. Victory is within your grasp, is it not?"
Valey shrugged. "Honestly, I'm kinda... only doing it for fun at this point, I guess. I've thought a million times about it, and it's fifty percent just because I want to and the other half just because I can. If I win, I'll probably ask for the Empire's Writ of Harmonic Sanction from next year, if I really feel like being owed stuff." She looked over her shoulder. "My friends and I are probably making this our last stop in the Empire. Gonna go back to Ironridge and maybe Yakyakistan or something. Finishing the tournament just feels like a good way to close it out."
"As noncommittal as ever, I see." Wallace patted her anyway, pushing her further into the room. "Come. I've heard a little news about what you've been up to here in Grandbell. There's something I want to discuss."
Valey followed along, tilting her head as Wallace led her through the room and into the hallway at the far end. "Searching for somewhere a little more private," he muttered under his breath.
"For talking about the stuff that's, like... down there?" Valey pointed a wing in what she hoped was the direction of the central city pit.
"Indeed. Hardly a feat accomplished by just anyone." Wallace nodded, finding a staircase to the surface and taking it with a sigh. "Fly with me?" he asked, pointing up at the empty blue heavens, the cliff face of the Aldenfold like a horizon in the sky.
"Sure." Valey spread her wings, readying herself to fight the province's high winds. "No way to get a little peace and quiet like ensuring you can see everyone for miles around."
Wallace chuckled, denying her attempt and scooping her onto his back with a broad wing. "You would not fare so well in these skies, little sarosian. Allow me."
The big griffon's ascent was so swift that Valey had to fight to hang on, and in no time they were what felt like a mile in the air, the aqueduct walls forming a flat pattern in the ground far below. "Smooth ride," Valey remarked, Wallace finally leveling off and hovering.
"Your compliment is oddly stinging," Wallace replied. "So. You have found your way to the Night Mother."
"That's one way of putting it." Valey rolled her shoulders, still clinging on tightly against the sky's powerful gusts. "Honestly, we didn't really go looking for her. I didn't even know she was down there. It sort of just happened."
"As it always is," Wallace rumbled. "Those of us who maintain the legends tell of her as someone to be sought out, but in truth, she is impossible to find. You cannot reach her through skill. Only by being chosen."
"By Princess Lyn." Valey nodded. "Somehow, I get the feeling she didn't even know what she was choosing us for."
Wallace slowly panned back and forth in his hovering, surveying the entire landscape. "Also as it is. I was chosen by Gwendolyn's mother. Yourself, along with Meltdown years earlier, were the current Princess's doing." He paused. "So. I hear you are trying to get back someone you lost."
"Have I never told you about it?"
"Perhaps." Wallace hung his head. "I hear a lot of stories. But tell me. Have you deduced yet precisely what it was that I wished for?"
"You've told us, haven't you?" Valey shrugged. "You wanted the power to win the tournament that year, the year you met Morena. Isn't your wish why you're so strong?"
Wallace's brow creased. "Yes, but it is more specific than that. I wished for strength, and Garsheeva bestowed it. But her boons are balanced. You obtain what you desire, but they come with they come with consequences. It sounds as if you are not then aware of my weakness."
"Is this a thing I need to know?" Valey's ears fell.
"Do not mistake my concern for distress," Wallace warned. "I ask only because we will meet in the tournament soon. With Garsheeva's power, I am inequinely large, swift and strong, can numb myself to pain, throw off the effects of fatigue, resist all manners of damage and deliver crushing blows. I am nearly invincible. And though I have tried to teach you the way, you will not defeat me as I am now."
Valey tongued her cheek. "So you wanna tell me how to beat you? I mean, I know you're in my corner, but really?"
"It is not a secret I guard carefully," Wallace replied. "Most creatures merely fail to take me literally enough. The price of my powers is that they will fail against any opponent who believes their cause more righteous than I find mine."
Valey blinked. "Buh?"
"Yes," Wallace continued. "Garsheeva knew what I desired when we met in her temple all those years ago. I was an idealistic young griffon who fervently believed in the good in all things. Garsheeva does not believe in this. I wanted the strength to become a true hero, because I believed it was heroic for the strong to fight for the weak. We discussed my tournament ambitions. That is where I came up with my tournament wish. A wager between us, that if I could convince even a single one of her condemned to renounce their life of villainy, they would be pardoned of their crimes. You remember how my story went. I won that tournament, yet failed to sway a single soul, and when I finally stopped flying after that day... I met Morena, and my life was changed."
Valey's face twisted in slow realization. "So... Garsheeva gave you a wish that you'd be as powerful as your belief in your cause when you met her as the Night Mother, then also made you a bet about how good your cause was, you used your tournament wish on that, and by not saving anyone there, she tried to make you lose faith in your cause, making your Night Mother wish less good? Bananas, that's kind of messed up."
Wallace shrugged. "Garsheeva never calls herself a good goddess. She has loyalties and an agenda, and they lie with Mistvale, not the Griffon Empire. I know only bits and pieces of this land's distant past, but I imagine she harbors resentment against the Empire for creating her in the first place. But yes. Garsheeva empowered me based on the strength of my convictions, and then tested them with a bet that I lost."
"So... what do you do now?" Valey frowned. "How come you haven't won another tournament yet if you were fighting for a wish for Puddles? I know she's technically Morena's daughter, but aren't you basically her dad?"
Wallace sighed. "Two reasons. The first was my conflicting desire for wishes. I wanted to save Puddles, but would it have been just to take my wish for myself when I owed Izvaldi for trying to help her? Yet how could I use my wish on duty when my closest and oldest friend's daughter was on the line?" His crest fell. "The second is that my love for Puddles and all of my friends is very much mortal. It is strong, a conviction that has reliably carried me to the fourth round each and every year. But there are things that are stronger than family. The tournament draws out the very best and the very worst from the world, and there will indubitably be fighters with causes better than mine... or, since it is a matter only of the strength of your beliefs, causes worse than mine they believe in much more firmly."
Valey squinted. "So... wait, it doesn't even care about whether they're actually a good guy? So you could get stomped by someone who just really, really wants to ruin the world?"
"It evaluates your belief in whether your cause is righteous," Wallace replied, shaking his head. "No. Someone who was knowingly and intentionally evil would fall, but that rarely encompasses most villains. Lord Everlaste believes firmly that oppressing sarosians is the right thing to do. As you may have guessed from your time around Garsheeva, she balks at establishing or believing in a moral absolute. Everything, including the righteousness of causes, is up to us to decide."
Valey took a long, deep breath. "So what you're telling me is that unless I'm seriously committed to whatever I want out of the tournament, it's physically impossible for me to beat you."
Wallace's grin returned. "That depends. What is it I'm fighting for now that you've given me back my Puddles and exposed Izvaldi for what they were doing?"
Valey's pupils shrank slightly in realization.
"Yes," Wallace chuckled. "If you want to beat me in the tournament, you must believe in yourself more than I believe in you. That's why I've tried so hard to get you to buck up and show some determination over these last months."
"...Well... bananas." Valey stared out into space. "Bathtub, can I be honest with you for a second?"
"You've already taken the liberty of giving me that nickname. Why stop there?"
Valey took a breath. "I'd honestly be cool with losing."
"Is that so?" Wallace lifted an eyebrow. "And do you consider that to be a good thing? It doesn't seem to bring you much distress."
"I dunno," Valey responded. "Here's the thing. I hate losing. At least, the old me did. Like, enough that it kind of messed me up when Kero's mercenaries beat me this one time and I had to get saved by my friends. But I've kind of had who I am shaken up a little... or maybe a lot recently. You know, how you dragged me off to that cave for a talk with Shinespark? So I feel like if I'm changing... I dunno, I'd like to be okay with it? If that makes sense?" Her ears fell. "Or maybe I'm just feeling adrift, or not wanting to do what I used to like, or... Bananas, I hate being wishy-washy. But do you know?"
Wallace's face straightened. "Mmm. You sound tired. You would likely benefit from less on your shoulders. But, for some, the world leaves no other recourse than to search your heart and find new wellsprings of strength instead."
"Eh. Maybe I am tired." Valey laid flat against Wallace's meaty neck as a particularly strong gust of wind blasted past. "Honestly, having gone to Mistvale, having gone down to see Garsheeva, having heard all about this and that and everything..." She paused, trailing off. "I have no idea where I'm going with this."
"If you had no friends, no duties and no restraints," Wallace intoned, "what would your heart be calling you to do?"
"Uhhh..." Valey took a deep breath. "I have no idea."
Wallace shook his head. "Seems you aren't as better after that last talk as I had hoped. Where are your goals, young Valey? What became of your passion?"
"Oh, those?" Valey shrugged. "Yeah, the last time I threw myself all-in at something that really, really mattered, it turned out to be saving a 'friend' who was trapped in Stormhoof and actually using themselves as bait to get me to take out an army. Look, dude... I'm not actually feeling terrible right now. I know, there's been that whole talk about being honest with myself about how I'm doing, and the honest truth is Garsheeva wants to put my sister back together again and... Look, I'll take it. I think Starlight's doing good, I finally got Ironflanks to agree to a little self-defense training... It feels like things could actually take a pretty decent turn for me if I just sat down and went with how they are. We even have a plan for making it to Equestria someday."
"I see," Wallace rumbled. "Few deserve a break more than you. If those are your true feelings, perhaps you should indulge yourself and make the best of the peace while it lasts. Yet I would caution you as well. Every time you explain yourself to me, your rationale for why you feel the way you do changes. It is never consistent. It speaks to me of someone who is struggling to understand themselves, always grasping at a truth they cannot reach. Take care, young Valey."
Valey blinked. "I'm still fighting in the tournament, though. Maybe you'll be invincible, or maybe you'll lose to some other dude before I even meet you. And you're not the only one powered up by weird magic. If you know about me meeting Garsheeva, how much else do you know about what I can do?"
"Do tell," Wallace replied.
"The way she grants a lot of wishes? With her cutie mark, messing with the cutie marks of others?" Valey shrugged. "Her mark is apparently one of a set of three, and I've got another one."
Wallace raised an eyebrow.
"So if you're empowered by her, am I on the same level as her?" Valey gazed up at the sky. "I have no clue. I'm not a sphinx. But, just so you know, since you told me all that, you get to know, too. I'm not just some mare who's good at fighting."
"Interesting," Wallace replied. "You do not owe me an edge, though, remember."
"Yeah, I just feel like saying it." Valey blinked, more from the wind than anything else. "...Anyway. The reason I came over here in the first place was to make sure I actually read the rules for once. I'm pretty sure I remember what we discussed back the other day? All the battles are held on the same day, magic heals in between, getting rid of the Regent requirements since they'd make things messier, and a hoofful of free-for-alls between three fighters just to fit everyone into the old timeslots?"
Wallace nodded. "You have the gist of it. Tactics advice aside, be prepared and do your best. May your belief in yourself favor you and not falter when you need it."
"Hey. Thanks." Valey did her best to bump his shoulder with a hoof. "And I should be good. Remember, I did just take a two-versus-one and win without a scratch. You can stomp me, sure, but I still might be able to win this just by winning. I guess I'm curious."
"Curious to see what would happen," Wallace chuckled. "A novel dream to be pursuing this late into the tournament. I wish you well, young Valey. Care for a ride back to your ship?"
Valey shrugged, then grinned. "It's that or skydiving. Thanks for the talk, Bathtub. I really do feel pretty alright. Just..." She rubbed her cutie mark. "Just gotta go get my sister back tomorrow, and then kick some rear, and then take a cruise to Ironridge and have a good time."
Starlight trotted once again through the ruby halls of Garsheeva's crystal palace, her friends at her sides. Valey held the cobbled-together system that was Nyala, and Shinespark and Maple stepped along behind them, the only others Garsheeva had invited to return.
"There haven't been power issues since we were here last?" Shinespark asked, using her telekinesis to lift some of her mane out of her eyes.
Starlight idly noted that Shinespark's horn worked down here. When she had first explored the Ironridge palace, there had been an aura about the place that prevented any magic from being cast, like a breeze snuffing a candle. Then magic had worked for just her, and soon after, for everyone that went down with her. Maybe whatever had been done to allow magic in Ironridge had been already done here long ago.
"The generator's worsening has ceased," Garsheeva replied, leading the way through a room that had to be near the tree, yet wasn't quite at it. Metal frames braced into the crystal held rack upon rack of humming technology, Shinespark's eyes following them with intense curiosity. "The Empire's power is stable, for now. It is no longer being taxed at one hundred percent. Time will tell how the technology repairs itself, but it is stable enough I can attempt to save all of your sister's memories."
"So, the stuff you said you needed to do that..." Valey's eyes flicked around the room as well. "It's in here?"
"Yes," Garsheeva said. "Be prepared."
Nyala's camera swiveled, her wings and all other peripherals detached and left behind, turning to regard the lethargic, insectoid body that Maple carried on her back. "Hard to believe that's me," she murmured. "Hard to believe I'll be able to feel sensations again soon."
Valey glanced at the body as well, carrying Nyala carefully. "What did you guys wind up doing with old Navarre, anyway? Meltdown kinda just showed up and offered to take him off our hooves."
"He has passed on," Garsheeva replied. "His soul is anchored only to his brand, as is true of all sarosians and a select few others as well, and his brand is adrift in the sea of energy that sustains me. I could call him back, if you wished it, but why? His original body perished years ago. While his soul endured, the method by which it was separated was extremely violent. Emotional injuries and wounds to the soul are one and the same, and he did himself a grievous harm. Release is, for him as for all heretics I consume, a mercy I see fit to give."
Nyala's camera moved again, focusing on Garsheeva. "As long as it wasn't too painful. I spent a while getting to know him, since I don't need to sleep and make a good guard."
"Soon enough you will be able to feel and judge that for yourself," Garsheeva answered, rounding a final corner. "We are here."
A black stone dais sat in the corner of the curved room, a dusk statue presiding over it. But this statue was different from the others: it stood, wings stretched, and was smaller than all the alicorns that sat and looked down on their subjects. Only a head taller than Maple and Shinespark, its hooves were level with the ground, its usual pedestal built into the side of the dais. This close, Starlight could see a greater level of detail carved into its face, which looked to be incredibly sad.
Garsheeva moved to the side, revealing the ruby crescent set into the statue's choker. Starlight suddenly realized it was the same kind of ruby that made up the crystal palace's walls. "Where is this?"
"One of the first dusk statues," Garsheeva rumbled. "Constructed differently to the others. We need it for the memory transference. Now... are you ready?"
Valey gulped, holding out Nyala's board. "How's this going to work, again?"
Garsheeva snapped her claws, and Nyala floated into her grasp. "Put the body at the center of the dais," she instructed, turning to Valey. "Ponies are receptive to thoughts and emotions on a magical, metaphysical level. It is through this affinity that you manifest brands, experience dreams, and exist as harmonic life forms. Princess Luna studied this affinity and used it as a blueprint for creating the daydream network and sarosiankind, which exist as two sides of the same coin. The statues merely act as range boosters to extend the network over a wide area. Because they are made of emotional energy, brands can be moved along the network, taken from or given to anyone connected with sufficient force... while carrying their attached souls with them. Though I am considerably weakened by that fool in Izvaldi..." Her face briefly stretched in a snarl. "I still possess more than enough strength to devour obsidian and add the brands contained within to those that I control."
Valey eyed the black stone set into the magical socket on Nyala's circuit board.
"As for her memories, those are more complicated to explain, and I feel like getting this done with." Garsheeva nodded as Maple left Nyala's body in the center, the insectoid pony sinking to the ground. "Now..."
Garsheeva's cutie mark blazed with sapphire light, the gem in the statue's choker answering with a ruby surge of its own. She held Nyala up in two paws, the board seeming to vibrate and turn red as well in her grasp. Shinespark made to start forward as Nyala was engulfed in a magmatic glow, but Valey snapped out a wing, holding her ground with a tight grimace.
Crackling static and then a snap echoed from Nyala's speakers, all that remained of her voice. Then, with a seamless motion, the glow of red disappeared from her board, floating into the choker as whatever mechanism held the moon glass in place gave out. The board fell to the ground, lifeless and looking faintly melted, and the moon glass core hovered above Nyala's body, Garsheeva standing over both. The sphinx's jaws spread wide, two lines of sawblade teeth...
Crunch.
With a black tinkling of tiny shards against the floor, the moon glass was gone.
For a few seconds, Garsheeva looked contemplative... and then Nyala's body ignited in a wreath of emerald flame. The fire barely lasted for a heartbeat. When it was gone, a batpony lay where the body had been, her short-cut mane a gentle crimson pink and her coat a much lighter gray than Valey's. She opened two ice-blue eyes. "Unnnh..."
Before she could move any further, the statue flared again with a red glow. Nyala's cutie mark almost seemed to hover above her flank, and her body froze and spasmed as a cloud of red, sparkling mist congealed between her marks and her flanks. Slowly, the lights died down and her cutie mark settled back into place on either side of her, letting her body slump back to the ground.
"Nyala!" Valey called out, voice almost cracking.
"O-Ohhh..." Nyala stirred again, flicking an ear. "I feel... Valey...?"
Garsheeva stepped back, motioning that others could approach.
"Yo! Nyala!" Valey cleared the distance with a single leap. "It's... Bananas, it's you..." She lifted the other mare's head with a wing. "You're fully back?"
"It's funny to see you all grown up," Nyala managed, putting on a shaky smile. "You're the older one now, aren't you?"
"Bananas...!" Valey buried her face in Nyala's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Nyala swallowed. "No. I have a splitting headache, my stomach hurts, I'm too hot and I can't feel my legs or wings. But until just now, I didn't remember experiencing any of this..."
"You're hungry," Garsheeva interrupted. "And dehydrated, and possibly atrophied if that body has been shackled for some time. And your mind will take time to integrate the memories I forcibly added."
"Doesn't matter," Nyala murmured. "Can we go home so I can eat and lie down?"
"Yeah we can." Valey grinned. "Bananas, let's get out of this place and get on with living."
Garsheeva flicked her claws. "You're happy with your wish, then?"
"Yep. Consider it fulfilled." In one smooth motion, Valey hoisted her sister on her back, wrapping her wings around her to steady her. "See ya, top cat."
Valey got looks as she walked her way through the cliffs and balconies of Grandbell, but nobody bothered her, either because she was too famous for anyone to think it was smart or because she was just that lucky. Starlight walked nearby, minding her own business, and Maple and Shinespark had stayed behind in the core, Maple hoping to pocket some of the harmonic flame for herself and Shinespark too curious about the technology to leave it sitting alone.
"I didn't realize how grainy things looked through a camera," Nyala remarked, draped across Valey's back with no strength of her own.
"Heh... yeah... Couldn't tell you what that's like." Valey strolled slowly, knowing they had to get back soon so Nyala could eat but doing her best not to make it a bumpy ride. Nyala wasn't complaining. "It's a shame there's no way to get your memories of our times in Ironridge, when I used that pendant to get you out. You could have remembered us dunking on Herman."
"Right..." Nyala's voice was weak. "I want to lie down and sleep for a month. I hope you won't mind if I skip watching the tournament tomorrow."
Valey's tail swished. "Not really feeling up to it? Eh, that's fair." She continued walking. "So, you... remember Icereach now like it was yesterday, huh?"
"Clearer than I remember being a machine," Nyala answered. "I know it wasn't yesterday, but it... doesn't feel like seven years."
"Eh, maybe your head just needs time to settle down. Whatever just brought you back didn't look that great." Valey rounded a switchback, searching for an elevator. "Bananas, I still can't believe this. I don't even know how to celebrate. Back in Ironridge, I'd swipe some fruit and throw it at someone who wasn't looking. You feel like you need to let loose too?"
Nyala chuckled weakly. "I feel like I need to sleep. Letting loose is good, though. I suppose I'm happy for me, too."
"You suppose?" Valey tilted her head.
"I'm only now realizing how much I missed," Nyala groaned. "Sorry. I have a lot of memories to reconcile..."
"You'll get there," Valey encouraged. "Oh, hey, there's an elevator! Let's-"
A dainty voice cleared its throat from the side. "Darling, is this a bad time?"
Valey's ears fell.
Felicity stepped into view, looking as well taken care of as ever. Valey felt Nyala shift atop her, and stopped, rubbing one hoof against another uncertainly. "Uhh... maybe? We kind of need to get back to the ship..."
"Ah." Felicity looked down. "I wouldn't want to delay you, of course. But whenever it would be possible, my sisters and I have spent some time talking and I have some things I need to get off my chest toward you."
Nyala smiled apologetically. "If you need to catch up, I'm sure I can hang on a while longer."
"Have we met?" Felicity blinked, glancing to the mare on Valey's back. "Your voice sounds familiar, but I think I'd have remembered any other sarosians..."
"Yeah, sorta," Valey answered for her, wishing this could have waited for any other day. "Listen, I'm not slowing down." She pointed at the elevator. "We're going up. You want my ear, you got it until we get to the surface, and then I'm booking it."
Felicity nodded gratefully. "Only a few moments of your time, darling. Promise." As Starlight scurried on past, she glanced at Nyala again. "So we have met? Usually I'm good with faces..."
"It might be a coincidence," Nyala apologized, subtly kicking her ride. "I'm just a friend in need. What did you want to ask Valey about?"
"Ah... yes. Must be." Felicity backed down, following Valey and Starlight into the elevator and watching both other batponies with a keen eye. "I can tell when it's a bad time, you know, darlings. Are you sure you wouldn't I rather come back later?"
Valey sighed. "How important is it?"
"To you or to me?"
"Wrong answer." Valey winced as the elevator closed, locking them into a cylinder of lit glass, and began to rise. "So what's up?"
Felicity furtively coughed. "Well, I owe you a proper apology after having my head a little bit in the sand for a while, so to speak. For Stormhoof. Now, whether you'd like the full version now or at a time when I'm not just going to have to apologize again for imposing is up to you, but I'm... sorry for what we did, and wish I had done things differently. And not just because we failed."
Valey raised an eyebrow, Starlight and Nyala holding their silence. "...Really?"
"Yes, really," Felicity insisted. "Now that a little more time has passed and I've had a longer while to see what life afterward is like, and especially after a few frank talks with my sisters, it's a lot more apparent that finishing your life's work doesn't equate to giving yourself a future, it wasn't worth it and you... you should have been our first choice. So there."
"...Really," Valey repeated, giving her an inquisitive look. "Like, actually really? You suddenly are going to turn around and actually get the point of apologizing? Who managed to get it through your skull?"
Felicity winced. "I did, and Larceny helped, and yes, that is my hope."
"Well... that's neat." Valey kept Felicity under her gaze, aware the other mare was making herself uncomfortable. "Look, whatever you're after, I'm honestly in a pretty good mood right now, but I've also got my own things to take care of. If you wanna talk, you think we could do that later? Say, after the tournament tomorrow? In the meantime, just do trustworthy stuff and things?"
"Do trustworthy things. Of course." Felicity bit her tongue and bowed, and was quiet for the rest of the ride.
Eventually, the elevator opened and Felicity hurried away, ending the tension in the silence. "Whew," Valey said, wiping her brow. "Didn't expect to run into her right there."
"She knew who I was," Nyala remarked. "Are you sure you're fine having her wandering around knowing? There have been a lot of ponies who were interested in getting ponies out of moon glass..."
Valey shrugged. "Eh, Chauncey and Navarre are dead. And honestly? I trust her. Felicity's good at manipulating and horrible at being... you know, a decent pony? So she should know how to keep a secret. I figure her heart's been in the right place more or less ever after Stormhoof. Sort of. She's just the worst at showing it. I dunno. We'll see. We're leaving the Empire soon anyway, so if anything does go wrong, easy enough to bail."
"If you're sure," Nyala answered uneasily. "I'm not the one who's been on the front lines because of her."
"Nah, I'm not sure." Valey frowned. "And she got me for that once before. But what am I even going to do, drag her back to the ship and lock her up there until she can somehow prove she's trustworthy? No."
"You did do that to Navarre," Nyala pointed out. "Granted, I'd have done a lot worse to him."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, and Navarre running away would have cost us big time. And there's a chance Felicity actually will be trustworthy this time."
Nyala sighed. "I gave Navarre a chance, you know. I kept him company down in that pantry for weeks. I was the only one who would. And now that I remember what he was like... it makes me mad."
"To be fair?" Valey shrugged again. "He didn't remember you, either. Same ponies, maybe, but for both of you that stuff happened in a different life."
Nyala chuckled. "Well, thanks for not treating him any worse, since you did remember. My body feels bad enough as it is... How long has it been sitting around without moving, again?"
"Uhhh..." Valey scratched her head with a wingtip. "I dunno, months? Two, two and a half? Bananas, we're going to have to get you doing some physical therapy or an exercise regimen. Your muscles are probably like string beans."
"Heh... yeah." Nyala relaxed again, leaning into Valey as they finally crested the edge of the city pit and made it onto the sunny surface. "After I get something to eat..."
"So, how's this place look?" Valey asked, pacing in a circle around a red stone room built into the inside of the aqueduct wall, a balcony and a slightly lowered floor looking out over the arena where the last round of the tournament was about to take place. "Cushier than our Stormhoof seating, or no?"
"It seems nice enough," Maple replied, walking up to the railing. Rather than a bowl like was featured in Stormhoof, this battleground was a broad, flat plane that extended all the way to a short wall separating it from some mobile bleachers and the Grandbell orchards beyond. More rooms like theirs ringed the rest of the aqueduct, stacked up and down for several floors. This arena definitely catered to a richer crowd than before.
"There's no platform in the middle," Starlight observed, joining Maple at the edge. "It's just a flat field."
Valey grinned out at the battleground. "Yep. No being polite and staying in close quarters here. All that space, and it only ends when someone is finished." She nudged Maple with her shoulder. "So how you feeling, Ironflanks? Confident enough in your one day of training to get out there and win this thing for me?"
"What!?" Maple took a step back. "I hope you're joking."
Amber giggled, plopping herself down in a seat behind Maple. "Oh, she is. Valey knows her cheer squad when she sees it."
"Yeah, this is my fight." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Honestly? I had a little talk with Wallace the other day. He thinks I'm missing a whole lot of conviction in whatever I'm fighting for, and that's required to win. And I told him I don't care. If I lose, none of you guys are on the line, we already bagged all the Writs of Harmonic Sanction the Empire has to offer so it's not like I'd miss out on an important wish... He thinks I need something to fight for, but the one and only reason I'm doing this is because I want to. And it actually feels really, really good."
"Feeling optimistic about your chances?" Gerardo joined Amber in a nearby chair.
Valey slapped her cutie mark with a wing, giving it an annoyed look. "Well... maybe? My butt's been bothering me all day, actually kinda bad. Kind of telling when your cutie mark reads danger hours before the actual event, when it's usually a few seconds. But I'm gonna give it what I got, and if I lose, I lose."
"You'll do great," Amber promised with a reassuring grin. "Just think of us, do your usual thing, and don't forget your hat."
"Got it right here." Valey patted her head with a wink. "And a banana peel, too. Gotta roll with my weapon of choice."
"Well, I'm glad you're feeling confident?" Maple took a breath. "Starlight was feeling nervous this morning, I know. We spent a while practicing that crystal pocketing again this morning just in case."
Starlight frowned. "I wasn't feeling nervous! Just like today was a big day. We did practice, though."
"Hey, good for you!" Valey patted both of them with her wings. "Got it charged up right now?"
Maple shook her head.
"Well, you know what you should do?" Valey hopped up on the row of seats, balancing her hooves on the back rims of the chairs like a tightrope. "Store one up, ready and waiting, and then when you come down there for my victory celebration, blow everyone's minds with an earth pony using unicorn magic. Or don't. I dunno, I'd feel like showing off."
"We will," Maple promised.
"Speaking of showing off." Shinespark stepped closer, holding out a glowing sound stone in her aura. "Call for you from the ship."
Valey grabbed it, flipped it and caught it with a wing, the Immortal Dream drifting lazily with a new ruby comet in the distance. "Yo, what's up?"
"Valey," Nyala's voice sounded over the stone. "I just wanted to tell you that even if Harshwater wants me to rest and I can't really get out of bed, I'm still watching from a distance. And everyone else here is too! Slipstream, Grenada and Harshwater all say hi, and the fillies would too if they weren't messing around somewhere, I'm sure."
Valey grinned into the stone. "Ain't gonna let you down. And tell Jamjars and Starlight's lookalike they better be listening if nothing else!"
"Felicity is also here," Harshwater's voice cut in. "Just so you know. She showed up just before we took off, said something about you inviting her, and has been cleaning, doing chores and making herself useful ever since. I'm keeping an eye on her just in case, but she's not my mare to deal with. You know how I feel about batponies."
"Really?" Valey rubbed a hoof down her face. "Meh, I guess I did tell her she could drop by after the tournament, didn't I...? Oh well. I guess just let her be, and we'll all talk with her when we get back."
"We shall be prepared for that," Grenada added.
Slipstream's voice cleared its throat, joining the conversation. "I've been looking over my old air traffic charts and maps from Ironridge. The sky looks completely different now than it did then, but I'm still preparing myself as best as I can for our flight west! Since once the tournament is over, we won't have any reason to stay around the Empire."
"Much appreciated," Gerardo replied.
"We'll leave you to your fighting," Nyala finished. "Good luck."
Valey pushed back her mane, tossing the sound stone to Shinespark again. "Well, I've got everyone's support. Guess I should get ready to get down there?"
Suddenly, a squeaking sounded at their door, and a wheelchair-bound Gazelle rolled in, Gwendolyn padding several paces behind. Valey's eyes immediately widened. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing nefarious! Just wanted to wish you well." Gazelle innocently crossed his heart as the others shared Valey's reaction. "After everything, you're still my favorite to win this, after all."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I am?"
Gazelle showed his teeth. "Old hard feelings aside, why yes, you are. I even came with a little incentivizing offer to go with my good wishes." He winked at Lyn. "You see, if you're aiming for the top, the way the bracket is structured, there is a stallion who calls himself Yulio you just might run into in the grand finals. I think his wish is dumb and would rather not see it come true, so if it's you and you alone who ends his game, let's say I'll owe you big-time. Always good to have a sphinx in your debt, isn't it? Anyway, good luck, and try not to make all the interesting fighters retire from embarrassment after you kick their tails."
He lazily rolled away, Starlight and Lyn sharing a look before the sphinx filly followed him. "Uhh... thanks?" Valey said after him. She shrugged once he was gone. "Well, I guess I'm someone's favorite? Anyone know what this Yulio's deal is?"
"Watch out for his sword," Starlight urged. "He has a sword that's worse than a normal one. Whatever you do, don't let it cut you, and if you can steal it, don't let him have it back."
"Noted." Valey wandered back to the railing. "Good on you for keeping tabs on the competition, by the way, kiddo. That's a lesson I haven't really gotten to yet. If you research who the biggest threats are before you fight them, they'll have that much less that can take you by surprise. Now, they should be starting any minute now..."
A speaker system blared far below, two stallions visible down at the center of the arena. "Welcome, welcome, one and all, to the endangered and ultimately saved very final round of the war of one thousand heroes!"
Valey slapped a hoof across her eyes. "Someone didn't hire someone else to announce and referee when we were putting together all the logistics for this tournament!?"
Amber innocently shrugged.
"Aww bananas. Well, I guess if a fight gets too rowdy and accidentally knocks some dudes hard enough that someone's sent flying and those two get sandbagged by the body, it'll toootally be an accident..." Valey rolled her eyes.
Howe's voice joined his brother's on the field below. "The tale of this event's survival is legendary! Nine hundred and eighty five calendar years of painstaking history were about to be marred by fate and fell fortune, when..."
Valey tuned him out, plugging her ears with the tips of her wings. "Yeah, nope, sorry. You know what I'm doing? Getting to my place to fight. Wish me luck, and watch me thump some heads."
The preparation room was packed as Valey stepped in, with more fighters arriving right behind her. She spotted Wallace's huge head in the background, several other bulky figures interspersed through lithe, speedy acrobats and powerful unicorns.
Saffron was clear across the room, and Morena and Diego both stuck close to Wallace's side, but she couldn't make out any more of her friends from earlier. Probably because most of them were out of the fight...
Valey may not have recognized the other fighters, but most of them recognized her. A lot of ponies and griffons gave her a clear berth as she strolled to a wall covered with a huge bracket board. Four fights were ahead of her. Due to the number of competitors, the first two would be three-way free for alls. She rubbed her chin as she found her name: second timeslot after the first. Not only that, it looked like her battle was one of four that would be sharing a timeslot with another fight. Two teams of three in the arena, each fighting their own enemies for their own champion, but able to interfere with the other if they desired...
She was up against Diego. His name, she recognized. Her other opponent was someone called Master Kickface. She had a feeling the point was to make opponents laugh before getting kicked in the face... Not someone she was going to underestimate.
Valey licked her lips. This was going to be fun.
In the viewing rooms high above, Starlight, Maple, Gerardo, Shinespark and Amber watched as three fighters were escorted onto the field. The early morning sun cast a tall shadow over the ground, a wall tower to the west reaching out touching the dusty ground like a sundial. Maple paced, Gerardo and Amber relaxed, and Shinespark and Starlight stood at the railing, watching the grounds intensely.
"There's Yulio," Starlight muttered, frowning as she watched the stallion carry a tiny streak of black at his side. She wouldn't tell it to Valey, but she had been nothing but apprehensive since she woke up. None of her usual methods helped, and she couldn't find any reason for it aside from the obvious: Valey was about to fight someone with a dangerous sword, and she didn't remember what it did to batponies.
"The one Gazelle just mentioned?" Shinespark scanned the combatants keenly. "There's also Morena. Valey's fought her before. Does anyone recognize the third?"
Amber leaned forward, shading her brow. "Some griffon. So, who wants to take bets on why Gazelle thought this guy would see Valey in the finals?" She frowned. "Saffron and Shill sure didn't seem to like him when we ran into him that night in the restaurant."
"You've met him?" Shinespark looked up.
"He came around our table," Starlight mumbled, watching intently as the fight prepared to start. "We'll see how he fights."
"Well, this will be interesting," Yulio remarked as the three combatants began to circle, Howe and Neon Nova fleeing for cover. The black sword stayed sheathed at his side, and his golden mane waved gently atop his head. "This will be my first time crossing blades with someone as distinguished as you."
Morena frowned. "Flattery will get you nowhere. I'm not here for a battle of words."
Yulio winced hard. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the griffon."
The griffon in question changed the direction of his circling, moving to put Yulio between himself and Morena. "Bad move, drawing dishonorable attention to yourself against more than one opponent. You're new to this, aren't you?"
"But I am! Haven't you heard?" Yulio quickly backpedaled, moving to keep both foes in his sights. "Black sheep, up-and-comer, rising star. A considerable advantage, I might add. And highly preferable to being an honorable nobody or a cheap date. Rumor even has it you're the kind of mare who's happiest kissing griffons."
Morena's hackles rose. "You're doing a lot to make an enemy of yourself."
"Or was it sarosians?" Yulio shrugged, drawing the sword and sticking it point-down in the earth. "Heretical flying rats, birds who don't understand how to grow proper ears or muzzles, they're all the same to me." He covertly bumped his flank against the embedded sword's hilt, the bright sun hiding the faint, resulting rings of runic light.
"I tire of you already," the griffon declared, speeding his trot and getting Yulio perfectly between him and Morena. The stallion made no move to escape his situation, and the griffon beckoned with a wing. "Time for you to become the first casualty of round four!"
"Careful!" Morena warned. "He clearly wants-"
The griffon didn't listen, rushing at Yulio's turned backside and brandishing his sharpened talons. "Yaaagh!"
With a back hoof, Yulio kicked the sword out of the ground and into the air, spinning and grabbing the hilt in his teeth to cut the griffon down with a surprise counter. But his adversary was ready. Launching into a spin, the griffon ducked the slash, catching Yulio's jaw with a sharpened parry and sending the sword bouncing away, bloodily slicing his lip. As Yulio flinched, his other talon came around, balled into a powerful punch, striking the stallion in the side and launching him straight toward Morena.
Morena pounced before he could even stop rolling, catching Yulio and pinning him in a crushing bear hug. He could barely even struggle against her muscle mass. "Admit defeat!" Morena demanded.
"So... gentle and physically caring..." Yulio wheezed. "Perhaps you're attracted to normal ponies after all..."
Morena raised a hoof to strike him, ready to pound him into unconsciousness or worse. "The world doesn't need fighters like-"
With an inaudible whistle, the black sword flew through the air, embedding itself in Morena's side and cutting her sentence short. Yulio's eyes went wide. "That dastardly griffon. You two had an alliance going, and he betrayed you!?"
Morena couldn't move her mouth to reply.
"Or not." Yulio shoved her roughly off him, getting to his hooves and dusting himself off. "You fell for my distraction. So much for not listening to-" He whirled, pointing the hovering sword tip at the griffon who was about to ambush him. "Stay out of this! I am exchanging words with my defeated opponent!"
Morena's eyes quivered with rage. The griffon stared at the sword, taking a wary step backwards.
"No hard feelings," Yulio promised, turning back to Morena. "Just doing what it takes to win. You actually were quite high up on my threat list. And by the way..." He leaned down, giving her a tiny kiss on the cheek. "Consolation prize. I never actually cared who you like. You're too blocky to be my type, and who else but me has tastes that matter?"
With a yell, the griffon flung himself again at Yulio, his focus dead-set on avoiding the floating sword. "I've fought unicorns before! However you're doing that, I know your tricks!"
Crack! The griffon was so set on avoiding the sword that he dodged into a bad position against Yulio himself, and was helpless before an ensuing trip and subsequent slam as he hit the ground. "And you, my feathered, less-famous friend," Yulio lectured, "really need to learn to keep your cool when you see a fellow fighter getting disrespected. No offense once again, Morena! For real, this time. As I said, only doing what it takes to win."
The sword floated closer, stabbing into the griffon to ensure he stayed down.
"And that, fillies and gentlecolts," Yulio proclaimed, standing up and sheathing his sword as he wiped the blood from his sliced lip, "is how you win a two versus one you actually asked for! You will know my name, Admiral Valey! And you had better not get knocked out so I can fight you myself! It's me everyone should be talking about, and I'll be more famous than you in the end!"
"Hey dude," Neon Nova said, he and Howe returning to the center of the battlefield now that the action was clear. "You totally know you're not microphoned right now since fighter conversations have a right to privacy, right?"
Yulio legitimately reddened. "...This is a new rule for this round, right?"
Neon lifted his shades. "No way. You didn't even attend any of our earlier productions to see that you couldn't hear the fighters when you were in the audience? We put a lot of effort into those!"
"Yes, yes, how quaint." Yulio brushed them aside. "Go tell her word for word everything I said. I am going to spend the time until my next match relaxing in the victors' break room..."
"And that, word for word, is what he asked me to tell you," Howe finished, giving Valey a curtsy. "You have had a gauntlet thrown down."
"Yeah, well tell this Yulio to take a hike," Valey replied, busy stretching. "I have a fight to get to."
Howe unscrupulously scurried away, leaving Valey groaning internally. To be fair, it wasn't like she should have expected to make it through the tournament without making a few enemies. She had even seen Yulio looking at her that night in the restaurant. Still, someone who would rather challenge her by deliberately one-upping something she had done instead of telling her they were a rival to her face... If he could do that, he was dangerous. Especially when one of the fighters he had beaten that way was Morena.
She rubbed her cutie mark, making her way to the exit for her fight. It was still bothering her, a low-key, extremely constant tingling that served to put her on edge more than anything. That didn't stop it from working, fortunately. Thinking about punching the buffest creature in the room and starting a backstage brawl still sent waves of bad idea down her flanks. But was it malfunctioning, or was this a sign that she should pack up and go home?
The latter wasn't on the table. Valey fixed her grin back on her face. She had come this far in the tournament, and finally had a reason she cared about to see it through to the end: no reason whatsoever. Sure, it would be dangerous, but so was every other thing she had done in her life, and she wasn't going to leave herself with regrets about this one.
Straightening her beret, Valey marched up the staircase towards the battlefield.
"Alright!" Valey demanded, strolling out into the morning light. "So how's this gonna go? Two against one? Gonna try your odds ganging up on me?"
Neither of her opponents were listening. Diego was having an intense stare-down with a wiry griffon in a teal shawl who sported impossibly sharp eyes. "Stand back, Valey," Diego warned, holding a hoof out without blinking or looking away. "They might have scheduled this as a last-pony-standing, but for me it's a grudge match. You sit tight and just fight the winner."
Valey blinked, scratching her head. "Is that legal?"
"Master Kickface knows no rules except kicking face," the griffon replied in a thin, tweedy voice. "And his feet have been CHALLENGED!"
Valey covered her ears from the force of his avian outburst, backing off a few steps. "Okay! Okay, a little personal history here. Look, I just wanna fight someone good, but you two clearly have a thing going..."
A series of explosions sounded from the other side of the field as a unicorn engaged in the simultaneous match at the other side of the field let off some gigantic spell. It sounded more like a backfire than an attack, but Diego and Master Kickface took it as a cue to start, sailing into each other with gusto. The griffon's hind paw collided with Diego with a terrific thwack, but even as Diego flipped backwards from the force, he turned the momentum into an attack of his own, slicing upward with his augmented horn and scoring a tear on Kickface's shawl.
"Uhhh..." Valey stood and stared, entirely unsure if she should do anything. Master Kickface kicked again, and Diego met it with a punch from a reinforced combat boot, a shockwave of force crackling as the tides seemingly turned in his favor.
"SCRAWWWWW!" Master Kickface hollered, pivoting and dancing, conceding ground before charging Diego's side with a jump and a bicycle kick. Diego rolled away from the blows, but Kickface's momentum changed midair with a flap of his wings, and he landed his namesake straight on Diego's head.
Diego writhed backwards, spinning away on the ground to guard his face as he grappled the limb that had struck, preventing his foe from getting away, He swung his hindquarters into a kick, lashing into the griffon's midsection with two more combat boots and sending his opponent tumbling backwards.
Master Kickface skidded to a stop, but Diego had time to get up, and they both stared each other down, breathing heavily. "You have learned from my technique," the griffon raspily remarked. "But you cannot surpass THE MASTER!"
"Uh, guys?" Valey held out a hoof as the pair flew at each other again. "Not that I'm complaining about a free win if you beat each other up too much to fight me, but I kinda have nothing to-"
Her cutie mark twinged suddenly in intensity, and she sidestepped, a boulder torn from the floor and launched by the nearby battle rolling right through the space where she had stood. Diego and Master Kickface weren't so lucky to have the powers of foresight she did, and the rock clipped the griffon's tail, earning a yowl of fury.
"Who dares?" Kickface demanded, breaking away from Diego and holding up a talon for peace as he stalked toward the other melee.
"Scheduling issues," Diego replied, rubbing a bruise and sporting a considerable black eye. "Are you finished?"
Master Kickface spat on the ground. "Interruption for interruption. Let's mess them up so we can get back to our battle in peace."
Valey raised an eyebrow, taking a few steps after him. "Okay, I'm definitely sure that one is against the rules."
"The sarosian has no brain," Master Kickface admonished, shaking his head in determined exasperation and quickening his stride. "The only rule is KICKING FACE!"
Diego charged after him, leaving Valey blinking and following along with caution. The other battle was between Saffron, a small unicorn with a large horn, and a pegasus who looked to be having a very bad day. Valey raced closer, sizing up the situation... Saffron had spotted Kickface coming and was fighting a defensive battle, her horn projecting a shield, mostly covering for herself while the smaller unicorn held the pegasus in a bad position. The unicorn looked up at the last second, ears folding as he realized what he was about to be hit by.
"Wyaaah! WAAA!" Master Kickface threw himself into the other battle, heading straight for the little unicorn who was most likely the cause of the boulder. He spun into a whirling kick, the unicorn bracing himself for impact... but the pegasus wasn't a slouch, taking advantage of her captor's distraction and kicking him in the horn. Kickface grabbed the unicorn, preparing to boot him with a paw.
"...Do you mind?" Sunflower called, looking heavily exasperated.
Master Kickface did mind, kicking the smaller unicorn like a kickball straight at Saffron's head. But the pegasus, having had more than enough and fighting everything in self-defense, immediately retaliated with a ferocious hind kick directly between Kickface's legs, causing his eyes to bug in pain.
"Hey!" Saffron cried, her shield flickering and breaking as the unicorn's horn exploded again, sending out an unstable shockwave right before hitting it. She staggered back, giving Kickface a glare while staying well out of range of her thrown opponent. "You wanna fight that way? Better be prepared to get back what you put in!"
As Saffron stomped forward, Diego blew past her, grabbing the pegasus who had attacked Kickface and grappling her away. "No! That's my rival! I'm the one who'll be defeating him this tournament!"
Kickface wheezed, suddenly free, only to see Saffron bearing down on him. Rolling upright, he juked around a horn blast, preparing to fight her as well, and launched into a vicious, signature flying kick.
That was the point where Valey decided enough was enough. "Nope!" she called, flipping above Master Kickface and grabbing him from above. Before he could even reach Saffron, she latched onto his tail, swung him like a hammer throw, and slammed him into the ground, finishing with a winding blow to his chest as he landed.
"Not your battle, and that's my friend," Valey lectured, standing on the griffon's head. Below her, he wheezed and passed out.
"To be fair, we were asking for this to happen," Saffron apologized, re-summoning her shield. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to-"
Another horn backfire sounded a short distance away, and Diego slumped to the ground, having been ganged up on by the pegasus he tackled and the small, unstable unicorn. "Huh," Valey remarked when he didn't rise. "I guess I win."
Valey wasn't the last person on the field this time, standing at the ready for her second encounter as two challengers approached. Saffron was one of them; she had paid enough attention to the bracket and the end of the last fight to know that. This was the last free-for-all. If she won this, there would just be two duels left: the semifinals, and the end.
"Hey there, sugarcube," Saffron said, a cut on her cheek and a burn mark marring her side. She gave Valey a challenging look, eyes glittering. "Lucky us, running into each other this early. This is gonna be a fight to remember."
"Oh really?" Valey raised an eyebrow, returning the challenge.
Saffron laughed. "Don't you go easy on me just because we're friends, now. I won't do the same for you. I'm in this tournament for a good tussle or three, and I didn't climb the ranks this far to throw in the towel at the best part. En garde!"
"You sure?" Valey blinked. "You look kinda..." She was about to say beat-up, then saw the third contestant: a blocky, chocolate-brown earth pony with a beard and broad shoulders, sporting two black eyes and a significant number of scrapes and bruises along his chest and back. "Woah. Dude. If all that damage is a ploy, I'm not falling for it, just saying now."
Saffron whistled at the stallion's state. "Hey there, Hank. Hard-fought last battle?"
Hank roared with laughter, his eyes making it known he wasn't down yet. "Can't use my heal after the first fight if I want to see it through to the championship! Had a real contender last battle. Practically had to go two against one to beat her!"
Valey bit her tongue. She knew there were healing potions available between rounds, and hadn't had any reason to ask for one, but Hank made it sound like there was only one per fighter... Maybe it was a good thing Diego and Master Kickface had left her alone.
"Heh. Well, you've got yourself another real contender here," Saffron remarked, scuffing the ground in Valey's direction. "But I'm doing no team-ups today. This here is a battle I've been waiting for."
"Yeah?" Valey grinned. "Well, ready when you are..."
The fight began, but neither warrior took initiative. Hank was too hurt to expose his back with a first attack, and Saffron was smart enough not to underestimate either of them. And so they circled, Valey becoming increasingly certain she would have to be the one to make the first move.
She circled toward Saffron, watching her more frequently than Hank. It wasn't just that the unicorn was a ranged, healthier, more-dangerous opponent. If she went for Saffron, Hank would try to backstab her, and that was obvious enough that she could play off Saffron seeing it coming... She prepared to lunge, when her cutie mark suddenly warned her of danger below.
Time slowed, and Valey moved her hooves carefully, paused mid-stride and certain she was about to step on a trap. She adjusted accordingly, deliberately keeping herself from looking while stepping over the hazard. Time resumed, and she continued walking, not looking at Hank in hopes she could distract him with an opportunity and make him trigger it instead.
Crack! The backfire noise from early into Saffron's last battle sounded, and Valey realized with a start it had been her, not the smaller, unstable unicorn. Her gaze immediately flew to Hank to see what had happened, spotted the stallion jumping back from a cloud of smoke... and her cutie mark immediately told her that Saffron was exploiting her distraction to charge.
"Nice try!" Valey whirled, catching Saffron mid-jump with a leg hooked around her barrel. Saffron's eyes widened in surprise as her kick went wide, and Valey swung her, slamming them both to the ground.
"How did you-?" Saffron didn't have time to finish. Valey knew that Hank was charging immediately, and rolled over with Saffron still grappled, forcing the mare to use her horn to defend herself or else be crushed between them. Valey forced a hoof at the back of Saffron's head, angling her horn like a spike toward Hank as he jumped...
Saffron teleported, leaving Valey prone and about to be crushed by a leaping stallion.
Valey didn't have time for a quip, shadow sneaking and falling away into Hank's impending shadow. He hit the ground with a thud, and was immediately blasted from the side by a bolt from Saffron's horn, falling away with a grunt. Unfortunately, that moved his shadow away from Valey, and she was immediately thrust out onto the ground, straight in the path of a follow-up horn bolt.
"Hey!" She pumped her wings, doing her best to dodge, but the bolt was too far along. It struck her squarely in the side, causing her muscles to briefly spasm and numb with a burning, tingling sensation and a faint whiff of smoke.
Hank capitalized again, and this time, Saffron waited and summoned her shield instead of coming to anyone's defense. Forcing her legs to move through the tingling, Valey twisted on the ground, slamming two hooves up to block Hank's strike with a punch of her own and immediately kick him in the chin. She felt her legs complain from the sheer weight difference, but Hank was injured already and had just been hit by the same bolt as her. He fell back enough for her to roll to her hooves and rub her smarting side, glaring between her opponents.
Saffron wasn't finished. Shield surrounding her like a bubble, she charged again, this time targeting Valey. Valey set her teeth, certain Saffron recognized her as the more dangerous of her opponents... but her cutie mark didn't read as much danger as it usually did.
She backed up and set her stance to intercept a shield charge anyway, noting Hank getting to his hooves and preparing to attack again as they clashed... until Saffron suddenly teleported again, leaving Valey facing nothing. Hank immediately dodged, and Valey sat back and watched, knowing she was safe as Saffron appeared straddling the stallion's singed back, wrangling his neck and trying to force him into a run. Her eyes blazed with fighting spirit as she turned to Valey. "Feels like I'm doing all the work here myself, sugarcube!"
"Alright." Valey purposefully trotted forward as Hank rolled over, attempting to crush his opponent and being met with another teleport. "How's... this!?"
Saffron appeared in a spark behind her, and Valey was already whirling, using her danger sense to tell where the unicorn would appear. She caught Saffron's shoulder, locking both of them in an embrace and twisting out of the way of two kicks, sliding smoothly to her adversary's other side. Saffron teleported instants before Valey could turn her block into a punch to the head, but made the mistake of instantly firing another horn bolt, letting her know exactly where she would appear.
"Yaaah!" Valey kicked around the bolt in a zigzag, outrunning Hank as he attempted to pursue and striking the startled Saffron squarely on the chin. Catching her off-balance, she flipped onto her back, sliding, and hit Saffron's chest upwards with a powerful rear kick. Valey pumped her wings against the ground, throwing herself into the air to follow, but Saffron's glowing horn pulsed, and she teleported again.
Valey growled, getting upright and rounding on Hank as he caught up, sidestepping a blow and not getting any danger sense as to where Saffron was this time. She bodily slammed his shoulder, and he almost caught himself into a pivot but his leg gave out at the last second and sent him sprawling.
Unicorns... Unless Saffron was going to get tired, she had to stop the teleporting. She was far too good at mixing magic and martial arts for Valey's tastes. Most unicorns specialized in one of the other...
Saffron appeared again above Hank, dropping her shielded body on him like a glass ball. The shield shattered from the impact, but Hank's attempt to save his balance went down. Saffron kept her hoofing on him as he fell with dancer-like grace, angling her horn down and blasting him with energy before flipping away as Valey gave chase.
Valey jumped over Hank, stomping him mid-leap to ensure he stayed down, and skidded to a stop, Saffron landing facing her. "Whew there," Saffron panted. "You reckon it's just us two now?"
She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and was thankful when there was no danger of a counterattack. Hank groaned, swore, struggled... and fell flat again when he saw the two mares' relatively good conditions, giving up.
"Looks like it." Valey brushed her singed fur where the magic had struck her. "You're good. Let's go!"
This time, Valey had no worries about being backstabbed and happily took the initiative. Saffron was good with her hooves, but still delicate and clearly didn't like opponents who got in her face. A tinge of danger sense warned her of another magic smoke mine Saffron had placed, and she juked around it, but her friend saw the dodge coming.
Valey hit the ground, dodging barely as a bolt of energy soared overhead, but the move cost her momentum, and she wasn't able to escape as Saffron's telekinetic aura hardened around her. Swiftly recalling her experience fighting unicorns, she pushed against the cloud, trying to escape by moving in the same direction it was pulling her... but Saffron had experience fighting pegasi, and pushed her hard into the ground, leaving her no way to run.
All Valey could do as Saffron came in for a kick was block with her hooves, her legs stinging badly as a result. Putting the telekinesis to her advantage as best as she could, she scraped at the ground with her wings, using the increased traction to shove herself forward into Saffron's legs. She lashed out at the unicorn's underside, but Saffron's unusual form and long legs put her barrel just out of reach. She retaliated with a swift punch into Valey's belly, and Valey was suddenly relieved she hadn't eaten immediately before the right.
"I'm not going down that easily!" Valey snarled, flailing chaotically and tangling herself in Saffron's legs. Whatever next attempt at a kick Saffron was attempting ended in her toppling, and Valey was already grabbing on and preparing to pound her before she vanished in another flash.
But the teleportation provided a reprieve from the telekinesis, and Valey lunged into the air, the backs of her wings stinging from being used as impromptu oars. "Bananaaas!" she yelled, swerving straight towards the new source of danger. Saffron was charging a horn bolt, which meant she wasn't about to teleport...
Ignoring safety, Valey plowed straight through the bolt and into Saffron, taking the brunt of the energy straight to her chest and barely holding together through it. But she did hold on, knocking her hat away with a wing and swiping the banana peel stowed carefully beneath. She thrust the peel forward as they collided, wrapping it like a sleeve over Saffron's horn, and plowed into her with a tackle that sent both of them tumbling.
"What the...!?" Saffron yelped, scraping at the peel on her head.
"Special delivery!" Valey cackled, ending the tumble on top. Saffron was held in a thorough hooflock, and her horn pulsed weakly, prevented from igniting by the peel clinging to it. "I win. Again."
"Nnngh! Let me go!" Saffron struggled fruitlessly against Valey's hold, her horn pulsing yet unable to ignite with the banana peel separating so much of it from the air.
"Nah. I'm feeling like a win," Valey gasped, her entire body feeling painfully like a leg that had been slept on after absorbing the last blast from Saffron's horn. She clung to the bigger mare, locking them both in a position on the ground where Saffron's legs and head were pinned, unable to do anything except scrabble uselessly. "Not sure I wanna get hit by that again..."
After what felt like minutes of resistance with no Hank coming to the rescue, Saffron finally gave up and went limp. "Well, I'll be. In all my days, I've never seen a unicorn be incapacitated like this before. I don't know whether it's cheating or creativity at its finest, but it got me good."
"Heh heh..." Valey chuckled weakly. "That mean I can get off now? Wouldn't want to start enjoying this."
Saffron rolled her eyes, able to slip free now that Valey relaxed her grip. "Now, now, gloating over a win is one thing, but no need to flirt." She climbed to her hooves, hoisting Valey in her telekinesis when the batpony didn't immediately follow and presenting her to Howe. "Here you go, mister announcer. You got yourself a winner."
"Slick." Valey dropped to her hooves, wobbling heavily as her muscles tingled and refused to act with coordination. "Ow, bananas, what did you do to me?"
"Energy attacks," Saffron explained, offering Valey her shoulder and giving the unconscious Hank a glance, a medical team on their way to help carry him off the field. "Hits you from the inside. Not too bad on their own, but real good at wearing you out and slowing you down if you take too many. You're kinda small, so I guess two was all it took to get to you?"
"Kind of small?" Valey's ears flicked as the crowd cheered above and Howe and Neon Nova pumped up their match. "Oh, so you tell me not to flirt..."
Saffron snorted good-naturedly. "You know I didn't mean it like that. So, you want to explain why even though I lost, I'm the one helping you off the field?"
"I guess I'm just good at forcing surrenders." Valey scooped her hat off the ground with a wingtip, depositing it sloppily back on her head, leaving the banana peel on the ground as a gift for the next fight. "Ow."
Saffron shrugged. "Well, lucky all three of us have our heals left. Hank sure will need his, and I doubt you want to be fighting Wallace like this." She hesitated. "Thanks for finishing me gently, by the way. It's against the rules for me to give you mine, but I don't exactly need it and can save it for some important time instead."
Valey winced. "Heh. Yeah... Wallace is up next, is he?"
"For you? Sure is." Saffron reached the tunnel, Valey still leaning on her side. "This was the last round of the quarterfinals. Whichever of us won that would be up against him battle after next, and whoever wins that goes straight to the finals."
Valey grinned. "Yeah... guess I do have to use my potion now. Wallace is probably gonna end me, but that's not so bad. In the end, I'm only here because I wanna be. You ever been this high before?"
"Once." Saffron shrugged again. "Top sixteen? I can do that as long as I don't run into someone who's champion material on my way there. Top four? That's pushing it. Wallace, I know I can't beat. And one of the two who's up right now, fighting for the other spot in the grand finals? Fastest earth pony you ever did see. Not Yulio, the one fighting him. I've lost to both of them. Didn't even stand a chance."
"Heh... Any tips?" Valey chuckled.
Saffron nodded sagely. "Heal now, don't get hit, and hope this is one of those days where he doesn't seem completely invincible. I've thrown everything I have at him before, and only gotten speeches about fighting for fun just won't cut it and I've gotta have something I believe in. Sorry, Wallace, but that's just a recipe for getting sore when I lose. Makes you desperate, too, which can lead to poor decision making."
Valey's mind flashed back to her last conversation with Wallace, where the griffon told her the secret of his empowerment from Garsheeva. "Yeah... He's a cool dude, but sometimes pretty silly."
"Either way?" Saffron patted her on the back as they entered the preparation room. "Wherever you and your friends are flying next, win or not, you gotta let me take you out with the others as a celebration for making it this far. No way to wrap up a good tournament run like laughing off the loss and commiserating about old foes."
Valey winked, testing if she could stand on her own. "Heh. Yeah. I'll totally be down. So, any idea where they give out the healing... Buh?"
Garsheeva was sitting in the middle of the preparation room.
"Uhhh." Saffron immediately dropped into a steep bow, leaving Valey wobbling. "Your Exaltedness..."
"Oh, I'm not here for you." Garsheeva waved a dismissive claw, though the room was largely empty and everyone who was there was giving her a wide berth regardless. "There's just someone who's been using questionable means to breeze through fights in my tournament, and I'm deciding whether to use questionable means to answer his wish if he wins."
Valey winced. "Is it that Yulio guy?"
A loud sigh sounded from a doorway as Wallace stepped in. "Did somebody say Yulio?"
Valey raised an eyebrow, and Garsheeva turned to glance at the new entrant. Wallace just shook his head. "I've been with Morena. She fought him in the first wave. He has a sword that did something to her, and it... isn't pretty."
"All flopped out, can't move except for her eyes?" Valey asked, ears falling.
"You've seen it too, then?" Wallace nodded. "Yes. It's... concerning, to say the least."
"She'll get better in about a week," Valey assured, not entirely sure where she remembered this sword's effects from. "But yeah. So, you and me, huh? And whoever wins gets to go to the finals?"
Wallace puffed up again. "Yes! Steel yourself, young Valey, and come at me with everything you have. If I'm correct, it won't be long until we begin..."
"Over there, sugarcube." Saffron nudged Valey's shoulder, pointing out a desk in a corner that had an open crate of jars behind it.
"Thanks." Valey stumbled over, nodding at the pegasus mare with an office haircut sitting behind. "Healing?"
The mare nodded, briefly scanning a checklist with a pen in her mouth. "Admiral Valey?"
"Yep." Valey nodded.
The mare made a mark, passing up a jar with her wing. "You know how this works. You get one use, no sharing with other fighters, here you go." She stared, expecting Valey to drink it then and there.
Valey complied, a pleasant relief washing over her as the tingling faded from her body and her muscles returned to their usual state. The pain in her cutie mark wasn't gone, unfortunately... In fact, it was noticeably worse as the day went on. Silently resolving to surrender before she hurt herself too badly trying to beat Wallace and maybe even get out of the tournament by deliberately letting him win, she grinned, passed back the empty jar, and strolled back towards Wallace and Saffron.
"I believe we'll be starting soon," Wallace remarked as she returned. "Are you prepared to do what you must to win?"
"Nope," Valey replied, her stride easy and her senses alert. "But I am prepared to do what I came here to do. Bring it, bathtub. We've fought before, and I'm not bailing on this match either."
Wallace gave a teeth-twinkling grin. "With how that scallywag Yulio's matches have been going, I can't imagine this one won't be extremely quick in one direction or another. Come. Let us prepare for battle."
Valey followed Wallace out to the battlefield, stepping into the sunlight to be greeted by Howe and Neon Nova's amplified voices. In the distance, she could see two fighters, one still standing and one not. The one on his hooves had a sword.
"Valey!" She was distracted by a voice from nearby, and glanced over to see a low bunker, Amber grinning and waving frantically from the edge. "Hi!"
"Amber?" Valey blinked, walking closer... and saw Maple, Starlight, Shinespark and Gerardo as well, all of her friends who weren't on the airship. "Wait, I thought you guys had seats up on the wall?"
Amber waved a hoof. "Cheer squad. Semifinals means your friends get the best seats in the house!"
"This certainly is close to the action," Gerardo remarked. "Though apparently neither of the two who were just fighting drew many close acquaintances, and it seems Morena and Diego are both indisposed on Wallace's end. So... congratulations. It's us."
"Not quite," Saffron remarked from behind Valey with a wink.
Valey jumped, not having noticed the mare's presence. "Wait, you're back out here too?"
"Sure." Saffron shrugged. "If you'll allow it. Figure it wouldn't hurt to root for one of you. Though if you need me to drum up a bigger crowd by the finals, I can go look for Shill, Randorf and the others."
"The more, the merrier," Wallace insisted with a grin. "As for Valey and myself, however, we have a fight to commence. My thanks to all of you for your support. Now then... shall we begin?"
Valey followed him to the center of the arena, the sun directly overhead and baking into the soil. The Aldenfold was so close and so tall, it was like a horizon in the sky, the sun inches away from touching it and setting at high noon.
She adjusted her hat. "Yeah. I'm ready. Time to see what I've got."
Wallace's grin flashed like steel flying through the air, and soon, he was too. The griffon took full advantage of their bigger battlefield, launching straight into a corkscrew that sent him soaring high, preparing to land on Valey with devastating force.
"Nope!" Valey flitted to the side, Wallace landing into a roll. The big griffon pivoted with alarming speed, using his wings like an extra pair of legs to propel himself along the ground as his fist balled into a massive, muscular punch.
Time to see if her newfound motivation got her anywhere new... Reading his blow with her cutie mark, Valey sidestepped to the only safe location, slamming both hind legs into his arm in a ferocious kick. She couldn't tell if she earned a grunt, her hooves sinking into a wall of muscle, but she immediately pumped her wings, dodging away before he could retaliate.
That retaliation came, Wallace rolling himself into a ball and swiftly crushing the spot she had been standing. Valey yelped, dodging to the side again, her cutie mark slowing time... but that timestop gave her time to think. Wallace didn't need to focus on precision blows when he was so huge. He just had to cover as much area as possible... and with her enhanced reflexes, this was the perfect time to get in through that.
Valey kicked against the ground, reversing her momentum in a heartbeat and latching onto the side of Wallace's rolling figure. Before he could alter his trajectory to flatten her again, she found the base of his wing, forced its feathery plumage away, and bit down as hard as she could afford.
Even though the wing joint was far too thick to fit in her mouth, she felt herself graze flesh, and the taste of blood stung her tongue. Wallace's wing flexed, slapping her away as he spun to a stop. Finally, she had gotten a reaction.
"You've changed!" Wallace declared as he straightened up, spreading his wings in a show of imposing power. "You're not the same Valey I fought in Izvaldi or Stormhoof."
"Cool story," Valey replied, hovering as she waited for his next strike. "Come on!"
Wallace stood there and waited, changing up his style and forcing her to approach. Fine, then. Valey narrowed her eyes and charged, reading a right hook followed by an overhead wing chop. She expertly ducked, rolling to the side as the wing came down and sliding around a mighty stomp, grabbing Wallace's hind leg as she skidded. "Yaaaah!" Valey called, flinging herself about and slamming a punch squarely into his heel joint.
Again, she got no visible effect, but unlike in Izvaldi the big griffon clearly felt it. He lifted his leg, Valey still attached, and she had to scramble free to avoid being shaken off by a brush of his titanic wing. Wallace spun, and Valey was forced to fall back to avoid being crushed against the ground by his pounding talons.
Valey rolled away, kicking off the ground and back onto her hooves as Wallace belly-flopped in pursuit, landing on his chest and rotating, his wings sweeping a circle around him like sawblades along the ground. The moment he registered that Valey was too far away, Wallace flipped again, jumping and slamming towards her on his back, then bouncing and coming down with an upright stomp to finish the move off.
Even slamming himself into the ground with repeated stomps didn't hurt him... Valey had a feeling even if she could get through whatever powers Garsheeva had granted, he was simply too big to care about most of what she had to offer. There was no way she would be able to wear him down, especially without being worn down herself. She had to focus one area, try to hit him in the same place over and over again...
Wallace didn't wait for her this time, charging her with a shoulder prone for a slam. Valey ducked toward his head, knowing he was about to roll over and crush her if she dodged toward his back instead, and was rewarded by his beak stabbing straight for her head. But her cutie mark gave her too much time to react, and she smashed Wallace's mustache against the ground with a hoof before punching him in the chin at full force, knocking his head back and severing half of the mustache from his face.
"Well. Haven't had that used against me before..." Wallace stood up, rubbing a welt where the crinkly hairs had been torn from him. Valey wasn't keen on letting him have his time to grieve, though, and was immediately on her hooves, flying at his head again and hoping to bait him into exposing the side where she had bitten his wing.
With a battle cry, Valey sailed toward him with a jump kick, dodging with her wings as he nearly smacked her out of the sky with a punch. She tried to grab his shoulder and pivot, reaching for his side again, but Wallace was simply too large to find purchase and by the time she could adjust her momentum on her own, he was already spinning in the opposite direction.
Thwack! Wallace's tail clobbered her like an abnormally-thick whip, sending her crashing to the ground. Valey spat, rubbing her side and back on the defensive again as Wallace lunged, following up on his hit with a big double-talon smash.
Dodging backwards would only give up her position, though. Valey scraped under him, fully prepared to dart to the side when he inevitably crushed her... but no, he wasn't doing that.
Wallace threw himself to the side, landing right where she was about to dodge to. Valey didn't give him any time to realize he missed, jumping on his exposed side, the one she didn't want, and tearing at this wing base with her teeth too. She got in two solid bites this time before he could fling her away, scraping with her teeth and focusing on maximizing surface damage to make future bites easier rather than sinking in deep.
"Hah!" Wallace clapped his wings like a flyswatter, and Valey backflipped to safety, one of his feathers catching her and giving her a wobbly landing. "Have a new favorite tactic, do you? Remember not to get predictable, young Valey!"
Wallace turned his back on her, spinning his tail like a whistling shield. Then he rapidly backed toward her, looking over his shoulder and steering quickly as he attempted to mow her down with his improvised blade. Valey scrambled backwards, but Wallace was too quick for her to shake him, turning instantly and keeping his spinning tail between them at all times. He was forcing her to use the arena's size to its full potential... so she did.
With a streak of green, Valey blasted straight up, pirouetting midair as her opponent soared up to meet her. Wallace rocketed toward her with an outstretched punch, accelerating to such speeds that even though she could have grabbed him, even hanging on would have given her a carpet burn. This was a bad place to be. Most high-altitude combat involved ramming each other, and that was a contest she would always lose.
Valey sped after him, hoping to catch him in the transition as he changed his momentum to zoom around for another blow. She was too slow, and Wallace blasted past her again, but this time she grabbed his tail, somehow clinging on even as her legs and belly burned from the force of clinging on as it ripped past her. Wind blasted through her mane, costing her her hat, but hoof by hoof she pulled herself up, catching his haunches and crawling along onto his back.
This high in the air, Wallace couldn't devote his wings to scraping her off and couldn't reach her with his talons, but his head reached around to defend himself. Missing half of his mustache, he grinned dangerously and launched a ferocious peck at her, which Valey repelled with a heavy punch. Wallace's head swung like a bobble, and she was ready when he came in for more, jumping along his back to a better hold near his side and bracing herself with her hind legs before striking at his face again. This time, the hit was solid, and her cutie mark told her she had earned enough time to go for his wings again.
Valey slipped down his side, biting for all she was worth, scoring two more chomps before Wallace threw himself into a barrel roll. But Valey saw it coming and clung on hard, biting down again as he pulled out.
Immediately, Wallace dropped, soaring hard for the ground and angling to crush her against the dirt. Valey had no choice but to bail, but this time, when she stood up and faced her opponent again, he looked like she was getting somewhere.
"Let it never be said you couldn't score a hit on me, young Valey," Wallace grunted, holding his wing. He had landed hard on it to try and scrape her off, and it was actually starting to look somewhat battered. "But do you have what it takes to see this battle through to the end? Call upon every hidden reserve of strength you possess! You can do this! I believe in you!"
"Heavy on the cheese there, buddy," Valey replied, smoothing her fur, still burning from where she had high-speed grappled his tail. "You wanna motivate me, give me some I can actually eat instead. After I finish kicking your tail!"
Wallace laughed, bounding toward her again, using his better wing as a shield. Valey had no doubt it was about to swipe at her and send her flying, and she backed up and circled, trying to stay out of the range of his impending attack. Her cutie mark surged with danger, telling her she wasn't safe anyway, so she spread her wings and flew.
She skidded to a stop what should have been a safe distance away, but the pain didn't die down, sitting at a new constant level. "Come on, what's wrong!?" she growled, slapping her flank with a wing as Wallace approached again. "I really need you right now..."
Wallace wasn't about to wait for her mark to sort itself out. He charged toward her, head raised to use as a hammer, and Valey's cutie mark didn't have much room to intensify and warn her what direction it was coming from. For the first time in all her fights against him, true fear gripped Valey's heart as she blindly guessed at a swipe from the left. Instead, a talon came in from the opposite direction, balled into a fist and clipping her wing as she frantically changed momentum.
"Bananas," Valey hissed, forced into a defensive war she knew she couldn't win. She was actually getting somewhere! Why did she have to go out like this!?
It wasn't fair, but it was smart. If her cutie mark wasn't working, she couldn't fight and would lose by carrying on. But if it was, then something seriously bad was coming and she needed to be out of the tournament and as far away from it as possible. She almost hesitated...
But at the same time, coming to the tournament semifinals only to surrender was not what she had come here to do.
"Bananaaas!" Valey cried, launching herself into an all-out attack she knew would be her last chance. Wallace's head came in for a close-distance peck; one of his eyes was already blackened. That was easy enough to knock away. His injured side was right there...
A balled-up talon slammed into her, and she was out like a light.
Wallace stopped, looking down regretfully at the crumpled sarosian who had connected with his talon. "...Alas."
Valey's friends were already advancing from the nearby bunker. Starlight tried to take the lead, but was held back by her short legs and got there last, everyone else already crowded around. "Valey!" Shinespark called, lifting her in her telekinesis.
Amber dashed away, returning with Valey's hat from where it had fallen. "I guess it's over, then?"
"As it always is," Wallace rumbled. "For hundreds upon hundreds of dreamers who seek to compete for the top! But fear not. She fought well, and I would not wager her out for long."
Far above, the sun touched the mountains. A shadow reached down, covering the very easternmost part of the tournament grounds, and Amber frowned. "She just... missed one dodge, and it's over just like that."
Something nagged at Starlight, and she almost growled in frustration. Wallace had just said Valey was fine! She was down, she was out of the tournament, and Starlight had been apprehensive all day, probably because of the possibility of a finale with Yulio and that stupid sword. Her friend was safe now... but there was still a pressure on her heart she couldn't quite describe, almost an urge to teleport to the airship where it was safe and hide. She could see the ship circling above. With her magic boost from the tree, she knew she could make the jump. But why was she feeling this way, and what was she worrying over...?
"Relax, young Amber," Wallace reassured, the potion desk mare strolling onto the field with Wallace's heal ready. "She may be upset with herself when she comes to, or perhaps she'll laugh and shrug it off. It was not a one-sided battle. She brought her full potential, and could have won, fortune willing. The important part is, she tried her best, and you all aren't out of this tournament yet."
"That's mighty generous of you," Saffron replied, standing along with Starlight's other friends. "You're still fighting for them, now?"
Wallace laughed, grabbing his potion and quaffing it as his mustache knit back together. "If I win, my wish is Valey's. If our battle has dictated I am still the stronger, then myself proceeding only increases our odds of winning! Carry her to the bunker. I have a grand final to win in her name."
"Unnngh..." Valey stirred as Shinespark draped her across Amber's back.
"Waking up already, sugarcube?" Saffron trotted at her side.
Whatever reply Valey would have given was drowned out by a sharp cackle. "Grand finals with Wallace Whitewing?" Yulio asked, striding forward, the black sword brandished in its phantom aura. "Hello there, Wallace. I hope you aren't too attached to winning, because I put odds at one hundred to zero on myself."
Starlight shot the stallion a death glare, her high nerves rising up into her emotions. That sword didn't belong to him. He couldn't have gotten this far without it. It was hers by right, because only she could remember it and only she could keep others safe from its effects, and whatever it had done to erase itself from her friends' minds needed to end.
Yulio didn't see her look, but he winced suddenly, a small crackle of energy arcing along his cutie mark. Starlight's eyes widened. Did she just have an effect...?
"Make it stop," Valey mumbled, wings fidgeting at her sides.
Maple hurried along by her other side. "Valey, are you alright?"
Starlight retreated with her friends, watching over her shoulder as she ran. Wallace gave Yulio a grim look, one she knew was filled with thoughts of Morena, and Yulio returned it with a cocky grin. But the stallion wasn't looking so good, having clearly used his heal sometime before the last battle. His shoulder was bleeding heavily, bruises lined one flank and an eye, and most of his well-styled mane was torn halfway down.
Behind her, Howe and Neon Nova gave the signal to start the fight. Starlight didn't watch the opening blows, instead helping pull Valey off Amber and set her on a bench as Maple continued to fuss over her. "Valey, what's wrong?"
"Ahh bananas," Valey hissed, eyes half-open. "I lost, didn't I...?"
"Yes," Maple consoled, everyone else torn between looking at Valey or at the battle. "But you don't seem alright..."
"Urgh... Cutie mark didn't work," Valey grunted, curling up. "Bananas, go watch Yulio and make sure he doesn't try anything funny..."
Maple bit her lip, but complied. Starlight, though, stayed by Valey's side. "It didn't work? What do you mean?"
Valey squeezed her eyes shut. "False positive on everything. Couldn't read his swings..."
"You couldn't read him?" Starlight frowned. "You mean when he punched you? I could tell what he was going to do from here when I concentrated. Why couldn't you just read him normally like you taught me?"
Valey winced. "Must've been a lucky guess. Dude was way too fast and too good at reading me back. I gotta find a safe spot when he's hitting literally everywhere and ow ow..."
"You're still hurt?" Starlight tilted her head, Valey's condition doing nothing to assuage her own worry. "Maybe they have a spare potion..."
"Nah, just my head," Valey hissed. "And my cutie mark. It's been hurting all day. Thought it would stop now that I'm out. I'm out, aren't I?"
Starlight blinked. "You've been feeling in danger all day?"
"I dunno if it's broken or what," Valey rasped, voice faint. "Can we go back to the ship? I really don't feel so good..."
"I-I'll ask." Starlight stood up. She didn't feel good either, but for a completely different reason: she had known what Wallace was going to do. Maybe Valey was a good teacher, but if she said it was beyond her abilities to read... Harshwater had been surprised by her reflexes when they sparred, too. And now she had a constant, inexplicable worry on the same day Valey's danger sense wasn't able to turn off?
Starlight looked at her flank just in case, but it was predictably bare.
She was interrupted by a gasp from her friends. "Wallace got hit!" Amber cried.
Starlight joined them at the window in a flash. Wallace stood, holding a foreleg which moved feebly and flickered with blue light. Yulio frowned, standing across from him and holding the sword like a ward. "What happened? It doesn't do that to anyone else...!"
"But I am not just anyone, my featherless friend," Wallace replied, grinning a daredevil grin. "If only you knew the powers of justice to which I am privy!"
Yulio stabbed, and Wallace slammed the blade to the ground, hammering its flat side with a massive fist. His sliced limb shook, but somehow managed to support his weight.
Starlight gaped. She had never seen a griffon stabbed before, had she? Or maybe it was because of whatever power Wallace had been given by Garsheeva... Yulio growled, clearly trying to free the sword, and she glared again. Whatever influence she had, whyever she had it, it did not belong to him.
The sword flew free, whizzing like a mosquito through the air around Wallace, but the big griffon was unimaginably fast. Employing a dexterity far and above anything he had shown Valey, he skidded backwards and rolled to the side, doing his best to avoid its blade.
"Come on!" Yulio called, the sword constantly flitting between him and Wallace. "You have to approach someday!"
"He has a range on that," Saffron muttered. "And it's shorter than any sensible telekinesis, too. Going to make him awful hard to actually get rid of..."
"Trying to get in is how he got Wallace in the first place," Amber quietly replied, Starlight poking her tongue out in concentration. "He needs a way to hit him at range..."
Such a way was exactly what Wallace had. He stepped backwards and punched the ground, fracturing out a boulder with the strength of his talons alone. Hefting the thing and rearing up, he hurled it straight for Yulio with a yell.
With a slice of black, the blade flew, cleaving the rock effortlessly in two. But Wallace was immediately behind it, charging Yulio like a runaway train, too fast even for the sword's turnaround time. His fist struck Yulio like a thunderbolt, sending the stallion skidding and bouncing across the field, and the sword dropped to the ground as it went out of range. Wallace instantly grabbed it by the hilt, flinging it far away.
"No!" Yulio cried, panic rising in his voice as he sat up, looking even worse than when the battle had started. "No!"
"Yes!" Wallace replied, limping towards him. "Prepare for your ambitions to be ended!"
In the bunker, Maple's eyes widened. "This might be a trap...!"
"Of course it's a trap," Saffron replied easily. "And Wallace knows it is. Yulio didn't get up this far for no reason. You watch."
Yulio scrambled, but Wallace reached him, grabbing him tightly in his good talon and holding him up, grinning into his face. "Surrender?"
With a whistle, the sword flew back point-first, either not out of range after all or still able to be summoned. Yulio snarled, but Wallace was ready, whirling him around and thrusting the captive stallion straight into its path.
The sword pierced through both of them, clattering again to the ground like an arrow.
Wallace grinned... and fell to the ground, chest sparking with blue, Yulio still held in his grasp.
"Wallace!" Amber leapt out of the bunker. In the short span of their battle, the Aldenfold's shadow had advanced halfway across the battlegrounds, and she ran along the halfway line where light began blurring to evening. Maple and Gerardo quickly gave chase.
"Hah! Hahaha!" Yulio cackled, pinned in the fallen Wallace's grasp. "Oh, thank you for overestimating it. That sword doesn't hurt anyone it's bonded to. I win! Now release me so I can claim my prize!"
Wallace grunted, still visibly sparking where the blade had struck. "I think not. Who said anything about this being over?"
"You're down," Yulio replied, blinking. "What do you mean it isn't over?"
Wallace grinned. "And you're stuck. In a worse position than me, even, I'd say, since I could get up if I wanted to." His eyes turned to Starlight's advancing friends. "Stay back, all of you. This fight has not yet concluded."
Starlight's heart clenched as she saw the sword tremble again on the ground where it had fallen, and she didn't have time to think twice. She vanished in a burst of teleportation.
Flash! Starlight appeared in front of her friends and angled her horn at the ground, firing and raising a wall or transparent crystal to isolate them from the fight. Maple, Amber and Gerardo skidded to a stop, barely not colliding with it as Shinespark looked on worriedly from the bunker.
"Watch out!" Starlight cried, pressing herself into cover against the crystals.
The sword flew, embedding itself again in Wallace's side with another crackling spark of blue. He grunted harder in pain, but Yulio screamed, crushed as Wallace's talon constricted around him. "Give... up!" Wallace managed. "My powers cannot take much more..."
With a slam, Garsheeva appeared, landing heavily on the ground before the brawling duo. She snapped her claws, a clear telekinetic aura surrounding Yulio and dragging him away from Wallace and into the air. "Match concluded," she drawled. "I'm not feeling up to poor sportsponyship today."
Howe and Neon Nova approached, heads bowed low, as the Aldenfold's shadow continued to advance, covering the spot where Wallace had fallen. Howe offered his microphone. Yulio smirked.
"Wallace Whitewing wins," Garsheeva announced, broadcasting it to the crowd.
Behind Garsheeva, Gazelle and Gwendolyn appeared, both looking extraordinarily pleased. The fur along Starlight's back rose in foreboding as Yulio's jaw dropped. "Him!? Look at me! I'm barely scratched, and he can't even stand! You call that a victory!?"
"Wallace, rise," Garsheeva lazily commanded.
Wallace grunted again, sparking harder with effort, but he raised himself upright, standing shakily on four legs. "Your Eminence..."
Garsheeva rolled her eyes. "Wallace wins. Yulio loses. This year's tournament has a champion. I have made my decree."
"My condolences on the loss!" Gazelle called, wearing a smirk of his own. "Maybe next year you'll find a cause you're worthy of!"
Yulio gave him a glare... and the sword rose again. Starlight saw it first, her heart too high in her throat to even speak. She angled her horn to freeze the sword midair, encasing it in crystal, but Garsheeva was even faster.
"What have we here?" she hummed, plucking it out of the air as it arrowed straight for Gazelle. Her eyes narrowed at the triangular hole on the side, glowing faintly with Yulio's cutie mark. "Hmm. You don't see one of these every day... I think I want this for myself." She raised an eyebrow at Yulio. "As tribute to your goddess."
A single claw struck the center, and the light in it burst, more obvious as the Aldenfold's shadow covered her and Yulio as well. The rings of runic light disappeared from around his barrel and the sword hilt. This time, their bond was well and truly broken.
Starlight should have let out a breath, but somehow found she still couldn't. Her ears flicked wildly, and she glanced over her shoulder, spotting Shinespark carefully carrying Valey closer. By now, Valey was drenched in sweat, and she blinked at Garsheeva and Yulio. "Hey, that looked kind of like the effects on Herman's axe..."
Maple turned, and gasped when she saw Valey's current state. "You're not alright. Valey, we have to get you some kind of attention."
As Saffron ran to Wallace's side, Valey gritted her teeth. "Nah. Just wanna get back to the ship, right now. Sparky, give them a c-call. Got a real bad feeling something's about to happen. Never h-had it feel like this before..."
Yulio was busy flailing in Garsheeva's telekinetic grasp, yelling about his wish for Gwendolyn. Lyn was looking incredibly relieved, Gazelle was taunting the defeated earth pony, and all of Starlight's friends were either with Wallace or Valey. But that was all background noise. She felt her heartbeat reach a pitch, and saw Garsheeva wrinkle her nose and sniff. "What is that?"
The Aldenfold's shadow touched the darkened entry to the preparations room.
Starlight spotted the telltale flicker of shadow swimming, fast but not particularly stealthy. She turned her horn, but lost the trail as quickly as she spotted it. "Who goes there!?"
Garsheeva glanced at her, then at the ground, narrowing her eyes. Lyn heard her too, looking at Starlight and tilting her head. "Starlight?"
Starlight looked back. It was half a second she could have used.
A black-green beam of energy sprang into existence, seeming to take no time to travel at all, lancing from outside her vision and connecting squarely with Gwendolyn's tiny chest. There was barely time for a spasm before the filly crumbled to dust, her floating cutie mark and a stately little dress with a hole burned in the chest the only things where she had once been.
"LYN!" Gazelle screamed, leaping from his wheelchair and landing with barely a wince. He cradled the dress, pupils filling his whole eyes, reflecting her cutie mark as it was slowly drawn away.
Lyn's mark floated faster and faster before hitting an outstretched hoof and vanishing in a mote of light. "Family for family, you bastard," a deathly familiar mare's voice rasped, spoken from beneath burning emerald eyes. "Happy you laughed now?"
Behind her, Valey writhed on the ground. "Help... Bananas, feels like I'm gonna die..."
Garsheeva's eyes narrowed with danger. "Who dares destroy my princess?"
"He deserved it," the figure replied, eyes only for Gazelle, stepping forward and brushing back her long, ragged, dull-aquamarine mane. One of her forelegs was black and chitinous, riddled with holes, a twisted crown with baubles on the points worn high up like a bracelet. "He took Percival from me. He made Percival not believe me! And my child, too. You took everything from me!"
Wallace turned to face her, still standing weakly. Gazelle snapped at the fallen black sword, launching it into a ready paw with his tail. Saffron snorted and scuffed at the ground, and all of Starlight's friends huddled closer together. Garsheeva opened her jaws and roared.
The roar came with a lance of spiky, shadowy energy, her breath billowing forward in a laser of her own. Crystal raised her crowned, blackened hoof, another one of Stanza's lasers flying forward to meet it. The two energy beams collided in midair with a thunderclap and a shockwave, canceling each other out and blowing everyone's manes backwards. It was only thanks to Starlight's crystal wall that she avoided being blown off her hooves.
The crown around Crystal's leg crackled dangerously with green fire, and she slipped it off, looking at Garsheeva this time. "It echoes," she said, voice twisted and distorted. "Echoes in my mind with the voices of everyone you sacrificed! Nobody loved them. Nobody cared! Chauncey left me every chip of pain and regret he could have them heap on my shoulders, and gave me no love or family to help carry the load! I can see that now. I can see it all! Only Percival loved me, and he thought I betrayed him thanks to you!"
She flung her distended hoof at Gazelle again, but no laser came, the crown off and held in a trembling, leathery wing. "You're going to pay," Crystal rasped. "Pay a thousand agonizing deaths worth of pain for taking away everything that made my accursed life worth living. I had family. A child. You cost me them. I had love. You took it! I was Percival's queen..."
Crystal raised the black crown high above her head. "AND I WILL BE A QUEEN AGAIN!"
"No! Wait!" Starlight cried, stretching a hoof forward, not enough time for her mind to process what was about to happen. Crystal was cut off from the network, concentrated emotional energy affected the network, that crown looked like it was made from the same material as the chip Grandpapa gave her that was supposed to-
Crystal didn't wait. A ring of green fire erupted from her as the crown touched her head, spreading out in a shockwave that sheared clean through Starlight's crystal barrier. The tree's magic protected her from the brunt of the recoil, but she was still knocked backwards, and from the cries behind her she could tell her friends fared no better.
The fire crackling along Crystal's scalp rose up into a pillar, burning twisted patterns into the ground as it rose in a helix around her, the mare's silhouette visible rising within. Starlight gaped as the fire trailed off, congealing around her and burning into her flesh, distorting and elongating her legs and neck and barrel. Gossamer wings were the first to emerge from the conflagration, and then her eyes pierced the blaze, the same emerald as ever yet now with a second, darker-green layer between her irises and pupils. Finally, the last embers drew into her, revealing an entire body that looked like one drained by moon glass... only it was twice as large, and Crystal was very definitely still in control.
"Ahahahahahaha!" The abomination landed with a cackle, to a backdrop of screams from the distant crowd. Her head was now graced by a jagged, pockmarked horn, twice the length of even Saffron's, and behind it sat the crown, still crackling with green and now fused permanently to her scalp. Her eyes scanned the ponies, griffons and sphinxes still arrayed to challenge her... some Starlight's friends, others her mortal enemies, yet each and every one now steadfastly siding together... and she threw back her head and laughed.
Gazelle didn't give her an instant. "Die!" he howled, rushing forward like a thunderbolt. Crystal didn't stop him. The black sword lodged point-first in her chest, driven by both his paws, and they hung there, the sword sticking and not passing through.
Crystal stopped laughing, her head still thrown back. She blinked.
Gazelle didn't let go of the handle.
Crystal licked her lips. "Tastes like sadness and regret," she remarked, voice sharper and crueler than it had been as a batpony, yet no longer twisted, perfectly enunciated and clear. She looked down at Gazelle, the sword still embedded in her up to the hilt. "Just one more voice added to the chorus."
"Die," Gazelle hissed, still clinging to the blade.
"Are you trying to hurt me?" Crystal grinned a seductive, predatory grin, lowering her head and brushing his cheek with her horn. "Your blade will have to cut a little deeper than that."
Then, with a spark of green light, she slammed her horn into him like a club, tossing him far away. It lit with an emerald aura, far too bright and smooth to belong to a normal unicorn, and a telekinetic grasp formed around the sword's handle, sliding it out of her body. The point left a physical hole as it withdrew, and that hole crackled with green, slowly knitting back together. Crystal tossed the sword aside like disinteresting garbage, Yulio instantly scampering after it. She didn't even care.
"Crystal already is dead," she proclaimed, stepping forward, wings spread. "What else can you call a mare who's had everything that makes life worth living ripped away? Your sentiment of vengeance is useless. I am vengeance. Hatred, greed, lust, injustice, hopelessness and despair..."
Her crown crackled with green. "From this day forth, I am no longer Crystal. I will be the queen and pulpit of Stanza, and we will be given the love we deserved... or I will take it for us by force. I will be... Chrysalis. A new, changing name for a new, changed queen. Now love us, or be added to the flames."
Garsheeva stepped up to meet her, her equal in height, and swept a wing out, signaling for everyone else to stay back. "This party is over! If you insist on threatening my empire, then I will have to intervene."
"How cute." Chrysalis licked her lips, lit her horn... and stopped, her eyes widening. "Dusk statues. I remember this feel. I can..." Her pupils narrowed to slits, and she started to chuckle. "You."
Garsheeva wasn't interested in talking. Her claws blazed with light, and she flew forward in a whirlwind, preparing to grapple Chrysalis from a position where Stanza's laser couldn't be used against her. Chrysalis stood still and let it happen... but the moment she was in Garsheeva's grasp, she fought back, rolling and trying to pin the sphinx to the ground. "You're her! So this is where you were hiding? Why didn't you help me every time I prayed to you!?"
Her demands were met with a roar, Garsheeva slicing heavily into her side with sharpened claws. Chrysalis responded by digging her horn into Garsheeva's shoulder, stabbing mightily and throwing her opponent off her. "You..." Chrysalis sprang back, hovering again as the wounds in her side crackled and repaired themselves as well. "I can taste it. All the love and faith they put in you. All that belongs to me!"
Her horn erupted with a dark aura, shrouding the air around her and Garsheeva with a field like oiled water. Garsheeva's flanks immediately blazed, the Night Mother's cutie mark manifesting boldly.
Garsheeva roared, another spiky plume of energy lancing forth, but Chrysalis lazily dodged, her eyes glowing bright with greed. Green energy crackled around Garsheeva's cutie mark... and it vanished with a wink, pried from her body, and a mote of light appeared in her crown.
Chrysalis threw back her head and cackled. "Ahaha! Yes! There's so much-"
With a metallic thump, Meltdown landed between Chrysalis and Garsheeva. Her armor whined and boiled with energy, and an inferno of crimson flames blasted forth, engulfing the ascendant queen. "Everyone, attack now!"
Starlight didn't need to be told twice. As Chrysalis screamed and everyone else charged, she pointed her horn and fired, pouring every bit of magic at her disposal into an attack. A bright teal laser flashed from her horn, interlaced with red as the tree's blessing came to her aid. Starlight threw aside every concern for herself she could, sustaining the attack beam of raw, unformed energy as Saffron fired as well and even Wallace staggered forward.
Flash! Meltdown's plume of fire trailed off, and her armor immediately crackled and fired again. Chrysalis writhed in the flames, and a poorly-aimed Stanza laser returned fire, hitting the ground near Meltdown's hooves and blowing a crater in the rock. Meltdown rolled to the side and fired again.
"Return Her Majesty to normal at once," Wallace growled, balling a talon for a punch.
"Stop this!" Maple cried, a burst of red firing from her chest as she unleashed her pocketed energy from the harmonic flame, her irises gleaming red.
"Fools!" Chrysalis shrieked, a shockwave of energy billowing out and knocking everyone off their hooves. She looked partially melted from the blasts, and was tingling with red and teal energy, but immediately launched Stanza's laser at Meltdown in retaliation. Meltdown tried to dodge, but the beam formed instantly without any travel time at all, and it grazed her shoulder, reducing a large chunk of her armor to slag.
Starlight winced, her horn burning already. She had thrown ever last bit of magic she had into that, save for the crystal chunk Maple was pocketing. That had been their best chance, and they might not get another...
Chrysalis hovered, already repairing her carapace and knitting herself back together with green energy. Her eyes unfocused. "Leave me be," she commanded. "There's so much I can feel now... So many ponies... They don't deserve their happiness. All of it should be ours!"
Across Mistvale, the night sky shone, regardless of the time elsewhere in the world. Cities graced mountaintops, glowing with luminescent blue moss powered by conduits of pure crystal. The crystals pulsed softly, inlaid in rivers along streets and down walls, each and every inch constructed over a thousand years by the sarosians who stepped their ways through the cities, going about their lives.
Then, the conduits flickered. A single word crossed the network, audible in the minds of every last batpony: RUN. Then the crystals flickered again and went dark.
Everyone looked up. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Some hesitated, and some spread their wings to flee. And then the conduits blazed again, their blue light swirling and draining before being replaced by billowing green flames.
Screams filled the air, ponies falling to the ground wherever they were and clutching at their flanks as their cutie marks burned. Flashes of green rose as one mark after another left their hosts, drawing away into the deadly crystals and leaving only transformed shells in their wakes. Some held on longer than others. Families clutched each other as one transformed after another, but pleadings and last wishes and whispers of love only seemed to quicken the process as the flames stole each and every one away. And for those who resisted the longest, a dark light lit the pupilless eyes of those who were already gone, and they got to their hooves, ready to help the souls along.
A blinding sphere of midnight-blue light erupted around Chrysalis, like a second moon in the sky. Hundreds of thousands of cutie marks winked into existence inside it, flowing and spiraling towards the center of her crown. Marks flew in from outside the sphere too, several drawn in from the stands around the arena as every dusk statue in the world activated to collect their new master's dues.
Starlight felt an inky sensation bathing her that she knew terribly well: moon glass. Only instead of the pure loneliness contained in the crystals from the sky, this was a whole new flavor: hatred, revenge, sickness and despair, Stanza's aura instead of Luna's, flooding over her and the entire world.
But she didn't succumb. A spark welled up in her chest, fighting back like a shield of color that wasn't toxic green. She gritted her teeth, feeling her horn's power battered but not extinguished, but she still had no idea what she could do.
Then Maple's voice cried out behind her, "Valey!"
Starlight's heart nearly stopped, and she jumped backwards to see one friend bent over the other, Shinespark there as well. Valey was shaking, green flames licking at the mark on her flank, red energy crackling from her cutie mark as it fought to stay attached.
"Bananas..." Valey hissed, eyes streaming with tears. "Gimmie moon glass... Not gonna be her that gets me..."
"Watch your backs!" Yulio shouted. The battered stallion leapt through the air, and with a flash of black, he swung the sword, once again bonded to his own mark. An empty sarosian shell had been streaking towards them from above, and he sliced it clean in half, the insectoid monster exploding in a shower of ash that drifted down from above. Two more flew, and met the same fate, sending down a flurry of flakes that sent Starlight's mind reeling to a vision of death, empty shells and falling ash.
"What have we here?" Chrysalis asked, stepping over to the huddled party, the light of a continent's worth of souls and brands shining trapped in the center of her crown. "Someone doesn't want-"
With a battle cry, Wallace Whitewing charged, slamming into her with his shoulder and still steaming with energy. "No you don't!" the heroic griffon declared, sending her flying into the spectator bunker and demolishing it in a cloud of rubble. Saffron growled in assent, following him up with another attack laser.
Chrysalis snarled, her horn igniting and sending another laser straight at Wallace. Thunder roared as it connected with his offending shoulder, and soon his entire leg was gone, and part of its socket as well. Wallace collapsed, his torn shoulder exposed, but instead of blood, it trailed with torn endings of blue rune magic interwoven with his muscles.
Saffron stepped forward, shield glowing and face torn in a snarl of her own, but Chrysalis's horn pulsed again, and a boulder torn from the field by an earlier shot collided with her from the side, sending her flying. She stalked towards Valey again, a wave of gravity from her horn pinning everyone tightly to the ground.
"You," Chrysalis said, her voice growing sweeter as she lifted Valey from the ground, draped over a single long leg. "I remember-"
She was interrupted again as Gerardo barreled into her side, somehow standing despite her magic, and Yulio plunged the sword into her back from above, trying again even though it had failed the first time. "Enough!" Chrysalis shrieked, seizing the sword in her magic and overpowering Yulio's control, using it to run both him and Gerardo through.
As in his fight with Wallace, Yulio had bonded again to the sword, and the slash phased right through him, leaving him unaffected. "Run, you idiots!" he called, clinging to her back. "I'm buying you as much time as I-"
Chrysalis spun, grabbing him in a hoof and thrusting him downwards, pinning him against the ground. "I'm not interested in a loveless fool like you!" Then she angled her horn and fired Stanza's laser at him point-blank. Yulio was gone.
"Help..." Valey rasped, her cutie mark flickering in and out between her flank and the air an inch above it.
Maple, Amber and Shinespark all struggled back to their hooves, staring Chrysalis down defiantly. Starlight knew they would be next.
Chrysalis activated her horn again, knocking the trio down with a fresh wave of energy. "I remember you," she crooned, holding up Valey. "You showed me kindness when no one else could be bothered. Why couldn't everyone have been like you? You stayed with me, took me into your home... Things could have been different. But you will be rewarded. The rest of the world can burn, but I will keep you and cherish your soul gently. Come."
Valey was wreathed with an aura of green power. "No, you..." she croaked, before being able to fight it no longer. Her body flashed, transforming into an empty shell, as her cutie mark drifted into the multitude in Stanza's crown.
"NO!" Amber screamed. Starlight didn't have breath to echo the sentiment. Her world was ending, and her imagination boiled with everything that was about to happen. Maple still had energy from the flame, she would try to fight back. Amber would try to keep Valey's body. Shinespark would interfere, and Chrysalis would shoot to cripple, not kill, because she wanted love and servitude instead of dead bodies...
Chrysalis laughed, and Valey's body got up, spreading its insectoid wings with a mind of its own as it lifted off to join the swarm already circling in the sky.
Amber wasn't having it. She ran past Chrysalis and jumped, the ascendant queen looking on with amusement and canceling the gravity spell. "You're chasing a husk? She's gone, you know. But still connected to my network. Caring about that thing only feeds me..."
With a flying leap, Amber grappled the shell's legs, hanging on with a yell. But Valey's body was strong and well-toned, and it buzzed its wings harder, still managing to gain altitude. "Help me out, here!" Amber cried.
Maple set her teeth. Starlight felt the missing chunk of her magic react as Maple's cutie mark flashed, almost glowing in the darkened world, and a pillar of crystal burst up beneath her, propelling her into a leap. "Valey!"
Her aim was true, and she latched onto Amber and Valey's body midair, living up to her nickname and weighing the body down. "This is for every time you've called me Ironflanks," she hissed, the trio coming into a rough landing next to Wallace's fallen form. "You had better call me that again..."
Wallace's remaining talon stretched out and slammed down, pinning Valey's tail to the ground. "You're not going anywhere," he managed with a pained grin. "Not while I have anything to say about it..."
"Hmm," Chrysalis mused. "You care that much about it? So strong... I could use this..."
"The way you can use it," Shinespark threatened, "is by giving our friend back! Fix everything you've done, right now!"
Chrysalis gave her a cross look. "Fixing things? Oh, I'm fixing things. I'm fixing the hole in my heart called nobody loving us!" She seized Shinespark in her aura, lifting her until they were face to face. "You can help. I can feel how much you care... I see it all. You practically glow with it! Ironridge! Everyone in this field... Valey? You love her. You love her, don't you? Ahaha... And you're not even a sarosian. You poor, star-crossed lover... We could have been such good friends, if only you had cared. It's not too late. Love me. Love me!"
"I hate you!" Shinespark retaliated by overloading her horn, a blast of magical energy hitting Chrysalis squarely in the face and knocking her away.
"You little..." Chrysalis hissed, lifting her head from where she lay in a heap on the ground. "Clearly you don't need that horn of yours!"
Shinespark tried to dodge, but Stanza's beam was too fast... for her. Starlight had seen it coming miles away.
The energy beam formed, crackling green and black in a perfectly straight line between the tip of Chrysalis's horn and Shinespark's. Shinespark's horn glowed dangerously, cracks began to form... but before it could shatter, Starlight threw herself into the beam, blocking it and cutting it off from her friend. If this was what her future held, she would sacrifice anything to keep them safe.
But she didn't die. The energy rolled over her like living tar, violating, invading, just as negative yet far more violent and hateful than moon glass. Moon glass was emotion that had been hurt. This was emotion that intended to hurt, yet was equally negative... and somehow, her body reacted differently to it all the same. She clung to herself, blocking and absorbing the beam, until it faded away, leaving her covered in clammy waves intent on taking every inch of her body and defiling it with foreign emotions.
Chrysalis blanched. "What are you supposed to be?" she asked, brushing Starlight aside with her telekinesis like a broom. "Get out of my way."
Starlight landed in a heap, her muscles refusing to react as the effects of Stanza's beam continued swirling through her and crawling up her spine. The spark in her chest pulsed feebly, continuing to fight it off, but it wasn't enough. Starlight felt sick, and not just because of the energy: she knew exactly what was coming next.
"You just shot my filly," Maple said, eyes flashing with the ruby flame's stored power.
"Maple, no!" Starlight cried weakly, her muscles working enough to move her mouth. "Don't..."
She could imagine everything as Maple stalked toward Chrysalis, and the monster looked up from Shinespark to meet her. Maple, pierced by Chrysalis's horn. Maple, thrown into a wall at full telekinetic force. The pony she cared about most, annihilated by Stanza's beam... and there was nothing she could do but yell to save her.
Maple wasn't listening, ruby crackling around her cutie mark. "We took you into our home!" she snarled. "And you're killing us in return!"
Chrysalis curled her lip, the inside of her crown vibrating with stolen light. "Which one of your friends have I killed? The filly was Gazelle's friend, not yours, and nobody cared for that stallion. I've spared you all."
"Valey!" Maple yelled back, taking up a fighting stance. "And look what you've done to everyone else!"
Chrysalis chuckled and tapped her crown. "Safe and sound with me, where she belongs. And so what about everyone else? As long as they can love me, they're perfectly serviceable. As are you." She leaned down and sniffed. "I can feel something very powerful in you... Feed me willingly, and I will spare you further pain."
"You attacked my filly," Maple replied. "You stole my friend and are killing my others. I'd rather die than kneel to you. But I'll see you dead first!"
She leapt at Chrysalis, who stood and took the blow willingly. Maple grabbed onto her side, reached for her head, and punched her squarely in the eye, ruby flames channeling out from her hoof as she released a second round of stored-up energy, billowing straight into Chrysalis's head.
"Ahahahaha!" Chrysalis laughed as the flow began. "Yes, feed..." She winced. "Stop that! That burns!"
"Oh, you want some more?" Maple drew back and punched again, landing another blow squarely on Chrysalis's face. "Stop hurting my friends!"
Chrysalis howled, bringing her head down and slamming Maple against the ground to get her off. Snarling, she drew back and stabbed forward, her sharp, jagged horn piercing straight through the offending hoof. Maple screamed as Chrysalis withdrew, unused to dealing with combat injuries and now sporting a bad one.
"You fool-!"
Maple kicked upward, lashing out desperately with her legs, and a final plume of fire reached upward, knocking Chrysalis off her as her magic store ran out and her eyes returned to normal.
"Maple!" Starlight dragged herself forward one hoof at a time, the clammy energy not abating. Her body felt like it was rejecting her, but she hung on, desperately wishing she could run. "Maple, look out!"
With a snarl, Chrysalis's aura formed around Maple, flinging her like a missile over Starlight's head and into the arena wall behind her. Maple cried out in pain, bounced off and rolled to a stop shortly behind Starlight, unconscious before she landed.
"Maple... No, Maple..." Starlight managed to turn around, crawling back toward her fallen mother. "Maple! Maple!"
She heard Chrysalis approaching behind, and turned to face her, laying incapacitated before the pony she cared most about like a useless, broken shield. Everyone was down, dead or dying. There was no one left who could save them save Amber, and she stared helplessly from beside Wallace and Valey's body, painfully aware there was nothing she could do.
"I told you to love me," Chrysalis announced, her horn crackling with green. The laser would be next. If Starlight could even stand, she could block one more shot, but her spark was waning. She got a single hoof beneath her, and that was all she could do.
"Why won't you love me!?" Chrysalis insisted. "No one would before, no one will now! DIE!"
Starlight's prayers weren't going to be answered. No one could hear her. She couldn't move... and then a faint wisp of memory rose in her mind.
"We dream of becoming that power, of becoming so indispensable to everyone that We will be loved..." a dark alicorn said, standing with her back to Starlight in a ruby corridor in a fragmented memory of a memory. "But should that quest ever cause us to lose our love for those We wish to be loved by..."
The memory faded in and out along with the waves of Stanza's darkness crawling beneath her skin, the world seeming to slow to accommodate them. "The Nightmare Modules are tools of loneliness and jealousy, but We crafted them to protect those We care about with everything in our heart..." The memory flickered again. "...should we ever lose ourselves, our Nightmare Modules will lend their strength to protect ye from us..."
The crown on Chrysalis's head glowed with the light of every one of Luna's children, crying out from their new master's grasp. Starlight's friends were dying, she was helpless, and a god stood in her way. But she had been given the weapons of an alicorn, designed to kill a god for this very purpose, and Glimmer was nowhere around to tell her to stop fighting and learn to let go. Even if she had been, Starlight wouldn't have listened.
Stanza's negative energy wasn't moon glass, but it was close enough. Starlight reached inside herself, found the spark that saw fit to protect her, and blew it out.
FLASH!
Stanza's laser lanced over Starlight and Maple's heads, impacting the aqueduct wall behind them and chipping a large crater into the stone. It had flown at an angle, and hovering dully in the air where it had refracted was a shield made from dull, gray hexagons: the same kind that had blocked the beam in a demonstration long ago when Chauncey showed off the machine in a lab in Izvaldi.
Black energy from the earlier strike still crackled over Starlight, but it was increasingly flowing toward her horn, bathed in a veil of gray. Her legs worked again, and she stood, facing Chrysalis down with a frown.
"What...?" Chrysalis bared her teeth. Another laser flew, deflecting effortlessly off Princess Luna's shield. The light of the marks in her crown grew all the brighter, Starlight's senses changing and recognizing it for what it really was: the worth of hundreds of thousands of ponies, who were trapped and would never be able to laugh or smile again. Who would never be able to share that light with her.
"Give those back," Starlight warned, her voice echoing, standing aggressively in front of Maple. "My friend is in there. Those don't belong to you."
Chrysalis spat. "What do you think you're doing?"
Starlight let the Nightmare Modules answer for her.
Her horn burst with darkness, Luna's magic radiating around her and seeming to draw in every shadow for miles around. Grayness flooded down and enveloped her until her hooves were the same color as the rest of the world, and each module rose in her mind, reminding her of what it could do. Jealousy, which made moon glass. Deception: her shadow cloak, which also freed her from magic fields. Cowardice: the shield. Cruelty, which erased memories. Treason, the memory of Garsheeva and Nightmare Moon. And Tyranny, which could shift her own form...
The last Nightmare Module activated, Starlight calling on it to make herself something stronger and better-able to fight. Her mane immediately flared up in a starry mist, wrapping around her and leaving her bigger... the size of an adult, or a little more.
"Give those back!" Starlight called again, standing over the fallen Maple, everyone who was still conscious staring at her with wide eyes. The light from the crown pierced her heart like a knife from its goodness and intensity, but it was okay because Chrysalis wasn't going to keep it. She was coming, and she was going to make all this right. "Those cutie marks belong to me!"
Chrysalis took a step back, looking legitimately shocked by Starlight's challenge. Then she snarled, angled her horn, and Stanza's laser erupted again.
This time wasn't like the others. Instead of a thin beam, Chrysalis called on everything she had, an umbrella of devastating light fountaining forth. Starlight's shield reacted instantly, colliding with the beam and forcing her back a pace as the attack spread out behind her, Maple and Shinespark protected in her lee.
Starlight dug in her heels as Nightmare Moon's magic and Chrysalis's fought, the shield calling on her in return. It was a force of jealousy and loneliness, a force that protected, a force that functioned in the absence of friendship to keep her from losing more, but Starlight still had her friends. And she was about to lose them. She strained the remnants of the darkness from Stanza's beam, then dug into her own memories, forcing in every bit of fear and confusion from her visions of the ashen future and her wishes for protection, her parents and care. Light umbrellaed around her, and she snarled, the attack finally fading away and leaving her shield without a scratch.
Behind her, a hole the size of two houses had been blown through the wall, stones crumbling and falling and the windswept plains visible behind. Chrysalis sagged from the force of the blast, and Starlight charged, racing towards her in her moment of weakness.
"What are you!?" Chrysalis demanded, her crown flickering as the swarm of shells in the sky wheeled around, preparing to defend their queen. "Get away from me!"
Starlight answered her with a primal scream. The sarosian shells dropped, striking the ground like missiles, and Starlight rolled to avoid one before slipping through another by momentarily turning into a cloud of mist. "Give me my friend back!"
The shells flew towards her friends, too, and for a moment Starlight hesitated... and then Wallace flew through the air, striking two away from Maple. "Everyone who is able, on your feet and rally! This battle isn't over yet!"
"Aye aye, Wallace!" Amber crawled towards Saffron, dragging Valey's pinned shell with her.
Starlight's eyes flickered between Chrysalis and everyone else who was down, Wallace fighting to defend Maple and Shinespark with his remaining weakened arm. Another drone was heading for Gerardo...
She couldn't use her horn and didn't have crystals, but she had something else that functioned just the same.
Starlight stomped down, a line of black energy crackling along the ground before erupting near her friend in a spire of moon glass. The sharpened spike struck the drone through the wing, earning a hiss and a screech and immobilizing it before it could bite him.
Suddenly, she knew another laser was coming, and whirled and raised her shield... but Chrysalis fired at her feet instead, blowing a crater in the ground that Starlight immediately dropped into. Before she could get to her hooves and climb out, the queen was flying away.
"No-!" Starlight called, but didn't have time to finish. A snarling, normal-pony-sized Garsheeva streaked through the air, her blank flank still crackling, latching savagely onto Chrysalis's neck and mauling her face with her fangs.
Chrysalis screeched as Starlight climbed free from the pit, twisting and blasting Garsheeva back to the ground. She hovered, restoration magic knitting her face back together, but Starlight had been bought the time she needed.
With a yell, moon glass formed beneath her hooves, launching her upwards in a pillar just like Maple. Chrysalis tried to swerve, but Starlight read her perfectly, jumping at an angle and catching the queen's hind leg as she rose through the air.
"Hressshhhh!" Chrysalis spat, beating at her with a hoof to knock her off. But Starlight was bigger and stronger thanks to the Tyranny Module, and the holes in the queen's legs provided excellent purchase. She took one hit, but punched away the next, hanging on and dragging herself upwards onto Chrysalis's back.
The crown was right there... Chrysalis was about to gore her with her horn, but Starlight was more interested in the light just above, countless souls including Valey's just within her grasp.
"Those are mine!" Starlight screamed, swinging around a powerful foreleg and grabbing Chrysalis's horn before it could stab her, holding her head in a lock. "Mine!"
The queen's horn surged, and Starlight felt a searing burst of energy, but it wasn't enough to dislodge her. Her own horn fired back, summoning the one material she had been given that was designed to capture and safeguard cutie marks from everyone else: moon glass.
Black crystal bloomed from her horn, forming into a shape her thoughts vaguely guided: a sword, not unlike the corrupted crystal one she had called on against Hemlock. Faceted and chunky, it hovered in a dark aura next to her even though her horn had no telekinesis to give, longer than she was even with her enlarged size. She raised it high, high over Chrysalis's crown and stabbed.
Chrysalis screamed.
The light in her crown pulsated, the sword's tip sinking all the way through it and piercing her welded scalp below. The sword pulsed in return, and the crown dimmed... it was absorbing the marks. Everything Chrysalis had stolen, Starlight could steal back. What she would do from there didn't matter. All that mattered was that there were ponies who were real and could care and she would save them, and maybe, just maybe, some of them would thank her in return.
Chrysalis lost control of her flight, crashing into the ground and knocking Starlight off. They landed together in a circle of dust, flashes in the background as Garsheeva, Wallace and Gazelle fought to draw everyone together and towards the hole in the wall, trusting that Starlight could stand up to the queen.
"What. Did. You. Do?" Chrysalis hissed, her horn flickering wildly, holding a hoof to her crown as it danced and burned with chaotic light.
Starlight brandished her moon glass sword, starting to circle... and almost tripped on Gerardo's old sword, discarded on the ground nearby. She flipped that one into the air, catching it in her teeth and arming herself doubly. "Stopping you," she retorted. "There are ponies in this, and they don't belong to you."
"You'll pay for that!" Chrysalis opened her mouth and snarled, charging straight for Starlight's sword.
Starlight swung it out of the way, bringing Gerardo's slicing down on her back instead. Stanza had been able to withdraw cutie marks from moon glass, she remembered. She might have the upper hoof, but this fight was far from over yet.
Chrysalis screamed, kicking her into a wall faster than her reflexes would allow. Starlight shielded herself from the impact and landed shakily on her hooves, readying herself to go again. It felt so much more natural to fight with a sword that could float than one in her mouth, though...
A rapid-fire succession of Stanza lasers flew at Starlight as Chrysalis charged again, thoroughly berserk and not about to back down. Starlight shielded all of them with ease, swinging at the charging queen, but Chrysalis pulled up, looping towards her gathering friends instead. "If you won't get out of my way...!"
Starlight instantly ran, seeing Chrysalis's horn charge, snarling as she realized there wouldn't be a way to reach and shield her friends again... when a massive crimson laser dropped at an angle from the sky, wider than the queen's entire body. Chrysalis swung on instinct, firing Stanza's beam back into the attack, but it was canceled effortlessly, blazing through her body and slamming her into a deep trench in the ground. Starlight looked up.
WHAM! The metal dragon Aegis landed behind her friends, curling its neck around them protectively, conical tail generator alive with ruby light. Energy flowed down through veins on its body, and it extended a lethal claw, scoring the ground in a crisscross before scooping out dozens of finely-carved stone darts, launching them where Chrysalis had landed in a barrage of covering fire.
"Glimmer!" Starlight yelled, charging toward the dragon in relief, both swords in tow and not caring who heard. A crimson aura was congealing around every downed pony, griffon and sphinx in the arena...
There was a pop of light, and everyone, Aegis included, appeared on the deck of the Immortal Dream. The harmony comet was blazing with far more intensity than usual, and the dragon instantly spread its wings, soaring and hovering inside the comet, seemingly amplifying its effects.
Glimmer, Harshwater, Slipstream and Grenada were all waiting on the deck. "Get everyone inside!" Harshwater barked. "Now! Hurry!"
Ponies carried ponies, and no one wasted time in complying. Amber still held Valey's struggling shell, the fallen sarosian's hat clutched in her teeth, and Garsheeva roughly shoved Gazelle into the door. She briefly shot a glance at Glimmer. "Whatever you're planning, you had better have planned well. I have a continent to see to."
With that, Garsheeva leapt off the deck, streaking away. Nobody had time to protest or complain, Wallace dragging himself along and somehow carrying Meltdown, bringing up the rear.
"We're good! Go!" Glimmer called frantically through the open door to the bridge the moment only she and Starlight were left on the deck.
"I've been looking forward to it!" Jamjars grinned back, then swiveled in the pilot's chair and punched a lever.
The engine roared, and the harmony comet strained against its wireframe, trying to tilt straight upward like it had when Starlight overloaded the engine to kill the windigoes in Ironridge. But this time, the ship followed suit. Its prow rose, the floor tilted, and suddenly Starlight was skidding along the floor, catching Glimmer by the scruff of her neck as the deck went vertical and the Aldenfold became the new horizon. Soon, she was standing on the stern, the doorway to the rear staircase part of the floor beside her. She didn't let go of Glimmer, cautiously sticking as close to the deck as she could... and the engine fired, and the ship rose like a rocket.
Wind screamed around them as the ground disappeared, the arena falling away into a petal on the aqueduct walls' four-leaf clover. But the weather shield empowered by the harmony comet held, and they weren't blown off.
"This isn't good," Glimmer remarked, dangling from Starlight's mouth.
"You think!?" Starlight set her down, exasperated. "What's happening, what are you doing, and where are we going!?"
"Aegis says the daydream network has been taken over by a hostile agent," Glimmer replied. "Fortunately, she is fine, and safely monitoring Chrysalis's communications. This system doesn't have the capabilities to compromise her. But the rest of the continent likely isn't. You are now being chased by her, correct?"
Starlight swallowed, staring down. She could see the swarm following at a distance.
Glimmer sighed. "You're committed to doing whatever it takes to see your friends through this, no matter the cost to yourself?"
"I'm already using the Nightmare Modules," Starlight replied, squinting as Chrysalis and her shells drew nearer. "If I say yes, will you help me?"
Glimmer nodded.
"Then help," Starlight demanded. "Help however you can."
Glimmer put a hoof against her flank. "Eylista administrator external access protocol..." She took a deep breath. "Unless."
User password recognized, Starlight's Nightmare Module voice said. Access granted.
"...There." Glimmer nodded and stepped back. "To put it simply, your body will listen to you more. Now, Aegis is projecting a shield around the ship protecting this area from Chrysalis's influence, and making herself available as a network access point. The first thing I need you to do is to give yourself back the power I lent you when we were in Mistvale. Do you remember?"
"When I was talking with the other batponies in their heads?" Starlight blinked, wondering how she was supposed to do that.
Daydream socket privilege level updated to match new user permissions. Pony-to-pony broadcasting system online.
Starlight blinked again. "Once you've done that," Glimmer continued, "try to talk to Aegis. There's a lot of noise on the network from Chrysalis, and if you use it, she'll hear you, but Aegis's defenses will keep you safe. From there, I need you to access the generator again in the Tree of Harmony."
"Okay..." Starlight swallowed, looking away from the advancing Chrysalis and up at the harmony comet as they sailed up the Aldenfold's cliff face. "Hello?"
"HELLO," Aegis replied, the words registering as sound yet ringing in her mind. "I AM WORKING..."
Suddenly, a cacophony of dark wind surrounded her senses, like she was in the middle of a tornado. Most of it was wordless voices, until Chrysalis blared in her head, "You! What are you doing in my mind!? I'm coming for you, Starlight! And your friends, too! Give me back my love!"
Starlight winced heavily from the noise. "Tune it out," Glimmer urged, putting a hoof on her back, "and find the generator. Please."
Suddenly, another laser of red flared from inside the harmony comet, Aegis blasting down as Chrysalis and her swarm continued giving chase. Inside the network were countless voiceless screams and Chrysalis snarling, but it was overridden with Aegis warning, "PLEASE STAND BACK."
With the energy expulsion, the harmony comet had grown noticeably dimmer, yet still more vibrant than usual. Starlight winced. That attack was burning through precious fuel, wasn't it... Where was that generator?
A new voice entered her mind, cool and smooth. Aldenfold core energy suppliant systems. Verifying access level... Transitional Emotion Trinity Research Automata version 4.0. Full system administrator access granted. Welcome.
"Okay, now what!?" Starlight looked again. Chrysalis had fallen back somewhat.
"You found it?" Glimmer's ears rose. "We need two things. First, find the master power production scheme and change it to stress testing overdrive."
"What?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. "But didn't you just have me lower it?"
Glimmer sighed. "That was before I knew this would happen. Starlight, you don't get to the places I've been in life without knowing how to fight rogue, upstart gods, and hitting her with this generator at full blast is definitely something we want to do."
Too many questions pressed in on Starlight's tongue for her to parse, not least of which the sudden realization that Chrysalis's fire and the harmony comet weren't gray. She felt like there was a significance to that... but Chrysalis was coming, so she shut up and willed the generator to do what Glimmer asked.
Warning. Systems are in a maintenance cycle for overuse. Stress-testing may cause core components to become damaged. Only proceed as a necessary part of testing reparations.
Starlight insisted, and the generator complied. She couldn't hear the rumble, but was sure there was one, a ruby glow intensifying at the bottom of Grandbell's city pit.
"What now!?"
"Now..." Glimmer suddenly grabbed onto her. Around them, the cliff face fell away. With only a few minutes of rapid acceleration, they had crested the initial wall of the Aldenfold, and the ship slowly leveled out, still speeding upwards at an angle as snow-capped peaks and forested wilderness soared by below.
Behind them, Chrysalis rose into sight, the rest of her swarm having been unable to finish the climb but the queen herself undaunted. She shrieked, blazing toward them and building speed.
Glimmer nodded. "We're in the mountains? She is too?"
"Yes!" Starlight shook her. "And she's gaining! I'm getting ready for a fight." She set Glimmer down and grabbed the black sword again, hefting her moon glass one in its unusual aura.
"Turn on emergency weather ventilation mode," Glimmer instructed. "The storms in the mountains are caused by power runoffs through special equipment used to keep the spell at a proper power balance. We're going to send everything to that ventilation equipment."
Starlight nodded and sent the command, silencing another warning when it came.
Immediately, every mountaintop reacted. Snowcaps turned red and exploded, storms of red lightning arcing far into the air. One bolt struck the ship's shield, which vibrated intensely, protecting it from the chaotic, untamed blast. Another soared over Chrysalis, and the queen surged, darting beneath it and chasing the ship with lust and panic in her eyes.
"Now what!?" Starlight had climbed the stern, and looked back, meeting Chrysalis's eyes as the ship put on a burst of speed, barely staying ahead of her.
"Close your network connection before she gets too close and hope she gets hit!"
"That's your plan!?" Thunderous clouds were rapidly spreading across the sky, brewing a storm to end all storms as Chrysalis and the ship raced on through a tunnel of lightning. "Just hope she gets hit? You don't have anything better than that!?"
"I'd like to see you do better!" Glimmer retorted. "I'm blind, have no horn and no powers whatsoever! Cut me some slack!"
Behind them, Chrysalis grabbed the stern, clinging on and scowling.
"No time for that," Starlight replied, balanced on the woodwork as Chrysalis pulled herself closer and straightened up. "She's here."
Glimmer ran to the bridge, and soon the intercom was blaring. "Anyone who feels like fighting an evil queen, Starlight could use help on the deck!" Jamjars warned.
Chrysalis scoffed at the announcement. "I won't give them the time to reach you."
She angled her horn down, preparing to fire into the ship, destroying it and everyone inside. "No!" Starlight yelled, jumping forward and tackling her at the edge.
If she had fallen off and taken Chrysalis with her, it would have been worth it. But the queen had other ideas, more concerned about the red lightning storm than taking Starlight down with her. She grappled the edge, clawing her way into a better position, and kicked at Starlight, preparing to fire again.
"Stop that!" Starlight growled, clubbing her head with the telekinetic moon glass sword. Chrysalis winced from the impact, and Starlight crawled further along her, keeping both of them prone as she reached her neck and swung the black sword, chopping at her twisted horn.
It took three hacks and a desperate struggle to cling on, but Chrysalis's horn severed, cut down to a sparking, crackling stub. Chrysalis howled in pain, trying to regenerate it, but the process seemed slower with such a magical part of her body. She lunged at Starlight with her teeth instead, too close-range to effectively block with the shield, opening a painful double-gash in Starlight's side.
Before she could sink deeper, Starlight misted, remembering the module that let her turn to fog and swirling behind the queen. She reverted to a pony, stomped Chrysalis's neck, and slammed her head into the boards, leaning forward and stabbing Chrysalis's eye with her horn.
It was intentionally the same eye Maple had stung earlier with her stored harmony, and she felt herself meet with success. Before she could summon more moon glass to finish the job, Chrysalis tore her away with a roar, flinging her against a railing and hissing as her eye rebuilt itself too. "Curse you..."
Starlight couldn't shield. She knew if she used the Nightmare Modules to lessen her impact, she risked breaking through the railing and plummeting off the ship, and so she took the blow against the ship instead. It left her head ringing, and she hissed back, unable to capitalize and hit Chrysalis while she was down.
She rubbed her head, vision spinning... Chrysalis was going to recover first.
"Oh, no you don't!" Wallace Whitewing's voice boomed from below.
Starlight gasped as Wallace hurled himself up from the deck, streaming energy and missing his leg and looking utterly terrible, yet somehow retaining his grin. "Hello there, so-called queen."
Chrysalis growled, her eye healed and her horn halfway through the process of rebuilding itself. "How are you still alive!? Nobody should be able to survive that!"
"Speak for yourself," Wallace replied, standing shakily. "I fight with the powers of heroism. My devotion to my cause is my strength!" He shuddered, steaming and crackling with energy. "And you are a threat to the whole world. There is no higher cause than saving the world from the forces of evil! Against you... I will not fall!"
"You'll fall like everyone else who doesn't give me my love!" Chrysalis opened her mouth and screeched, preparing to charge him... but Wallace charged first.
"FOR JUSTICE!" Wallace bellowed, taking Chrysalis's broken-horned stab to the chest and closing his remaining talon in a death grip around her barrel, pinning her gossamer wings uselessly. Not even a mountain could stop his momentum, and he carried them both off the side.
"Wallace!" Starlight leapt to the stern, staring as they were both carried away.
POW! Wallace drove Chrysalis face-first into an exposed mountaintop, punching her against the pointed rock. The mountain erupted with light, a pillar of red lightning linking its summit to the roiling clouds above, running both of them straight through.
Chrysalis screamed, and Wallace's pained grunt could be heard too, but the griffon didn't let up, holding his nemesis against the raw contact point even as lightning surged through his body, illuminating his lopsided frame and charring all his feathers to a crisp. Both of them burned, and Starlight stared as the ship sped on, and neither of them moved before a new mountain peak finally obscured the sight from view.
Wordlessly, Starlight stared, counting by mountain peaks instead of minutes. Three, four, five... seven. Wallace didn't catch up. Neither did Chrysalis. The mountain lightning soon cut off, and the storm drifted north, ready to give the Empire the worst weather they had ever seen, and no giant goddess to fight it off.
Then, the sound from the harmony comet changed. The shimmer faded, the ship started to wobble... and it slowly drifted downwards as the mountain line receded, coming to rest on a high foothill with the snowy peaks only in the background. Starlight stared around, and to the southwest, she could see the sea.
Glimmer climbed up beside her. "We've stopped."
"Are we back in Equestria?" Starlight whispered, letting the Nightmare Module's transformation end as her body shrank back to a normal filly. The two swords sat on the deck before her, Gerardo's old one and the moon glass one she had sealed every cutie mark and soul Chrysalis stole inside... including Valey's. Maybe there was a way...
"Probably," Glimmer replied. "Since you turned all the power to the exhaust system, the spell itself wouldn't have been powered." She stopped, then hesitated. "Starlight, are you alright?"
"No."
"...I'm sorry," Glimmer said. "If I had known this would happen, I would have stopped it."
Starlight didn't want to ask why she didn't know. Either there wouldn't be an answer, or it would just hurt more. She stared at her sword, at everything she had done and how it didn't even start to make up for what had happened, and sat down and cried.
The moon hung far overhead, a mare-shaped shadow stenciled permanently on its face. Snow-capped mountains crunched the skyline to the north, yet couldn't scrape the moon's path, reaching and never coming close. Below the snowline, forests stretched down, and below the forest, a lake filled half of the valley.
"Nnngh...!" A well-fed mare with a fish for a cutie mark sat on packed ground at the edge of the lake, straining with her telekinesis at a fishing rod. Her back was lit by an orange glow, a bonfire flickering behind her as three friends stomped their hooves in encouragement.
With a splash, a fish burst from the pond, the mare toppling over backwards from the effort. One of her friends caught the catch in her aura, saving it from hitting the ground, and all four laughed. A stallion stepped forward and nuzzled the upside-down mare's cheek. "Let it never be said my very special somepony doesn't live up to her name."
"Short Grass, you tease..." The fisher mare rolled to her hooves. "So how does it look?"
The remaining stallion was poking at the fire, tongue out in concentration, and the mare who held the fish was reclining lazily against his side. She flipped it several times in her aura. "Looks delish, Fishy! Might need about... one more of these to have enough for all of us. Better stuffed than sorry!"
"Aye!" Fishy rewound the line on her pole, turning back to the lake and casting again.
"Might be a few more minutes before this is ready," the fire stallion remarked, concentrating on the flames. "Catch one quick, and we can cook them together."
Fishy patiently watched the water, and the other mare leaned back, the caught fish doing loopty-loops in her aura. "Or, you could start it now. See if the rest of the town can't follow their noses and join the fun."
Short Grass settled down by the other two, warming his hooves by the flame. "Meadow Rose, we did just do this last night." He pointed to the well-used fire pit the bonfire crackled inside, then to the rows of houses visible along the road leading back through town. "And the night before, as well. I would wager no one is wanting for opportunity."
Rose closed her eyes. "You say that, but I'll bet you first dibs on the biggest portion we'll be hearing hoofsteps within five minutes after Timber starts cooking."
Timber, the fire stallion, merely nodded, still focusing on the flames.
"I got a bite!" Fishy called from the shore, horn glowing excitedly.
Her friends instantly looked up, but several seconds later she deflated and sighed. "Drat. I lost the slippery thing..."
"Still at your fish-eating customs, I see?"
Everyone turned to see a young stallion with chin stubble and a dark coat strolling down the path, wearing a shirt against the cold. Fishy waved, looking away from her hovering pole. "Well, if it isn't the good archaeologist! Here to join us?"
Rose punched Short Grass's shoulder. "Biggest portion's mine, Shorty! I win."
Short Grass chuckled. "You said within five minutes after Timber started cooking."
"Gambling, are we?" The archaeologist seated himself a safe distance from the fire, making some scratches on a notepad he held in his hoof before sliding it into a pith helmet and slapping the helmet on his head. "Well, do not grow too attached to my presence. I am merely taking a little advantage of civilization when I find it to rest up on my travels of Equestria." He grinned. "But who says relaxation should not be done in good company, eh?"
"Company for company, mister," Rose replied. "Tell us a banger of a story while we wait for the fish to cook."
Short Grass nodded eagerly. "Trading caravans are well and good, but I get the impression you've been a lot further than a few towns over."
"Oh, I have been here and there..." The archaeologist shrugged.
"What did you say your name was, again?" Timber asked, fixated on the fire and only paying half attention.
The archaeologist held a hoof to his chest. "They call me Caballeron. Adventurer, treasure hunter, collector of ancient-"
"Look!" Fishy yelled, raising her voice and dropping her pole. She leapt to her hooves, pointing at the sky. "A shooting star!"
Everyone looked, even Timber. A trail of light was making its way across the stars, drifting slowly through the heavens. Rose oohed. Short Grass whistled.
"That does look like a shooting star," Caballeron agreed, eyes sparkling at the natural phenomenon. "This may be a story you have heard before, but in certain parts of the world, they say if you make a wish while one is in the sky, it will come true."
Fishy stared at the star, a bite catching and dragging her pole into the water as she left it unattended. "I wish..."
Short Grass slid quickly over, cupping a hoof around her muzzle. "Shh," he entreated. "It only works if you don't tell anyone what you wish for."
"So you have heard that one," Caballeron muttered, still fixated on the star.
"I made my wish!" Rose shouted.
Timber nodded, and opened his mouth... and Caballeron held out a hoof. "Shh!"
Everyone glanced at him inquisitively.
"It appears to be speeding up..." He fidgeted for a spyglass, but didn't have one and huffed. "That means it must be far closer than the usual for these things. Look!"
At first, the change in the star's speed was imperceptible, but it swiftly grew until in a matter of seconds it was blazing through the sky. The five ponies' jaws were already agape, but then there was a flash of light... and the shooting star exploded, tiny fragments soaring all across the night sky. They crossed the whole nightscape faster than anyone could blink, disappearing over the horizon in every direction imaginable, some fracturing further with smaller bursts and sparkles... all except one. One fragment stayed, hanging above the town before slowly growing bigger until it was more than just a pinprick, finally flying and soaring into the mountains just on the far side of the nearest peak.
"A meteor..." Caballeron whispered.
Fishy shaded her eyes. "Did part of that just fall to the ground?"
"Nearby. I am sure of it." Caballeron stood, rubbing his cutie mark. "Let us say I have an intuition for the location of things of value."
"Do you mean to say you're going to find where it landed?" Timber looked up, brow furrowing in concern.
Caballeron chuckled. "But of course! Surely this town can't have been the only one nearby to have seen that. If I don't get the treasure first, some other hunter will, and a fallen meteorite will make some fine treasure indeed." He turned back towards town. "I will just get my saddlebags and be off. If I do not see you again, eat a fish in my honor."
Timber got up, following him. "You mean you're going into those mountains? They aren't the kind of place ponies come back from."
Meadow Rose scoffed. "That's because it's not the kind of place ponies go to in the first place. There's nothing there!"
"I've always thought the view might be pretty," Fishy volunteered. "That's a sketchpad, right? Draw the town from above for me while you're there!"
Short Grass bit his lip. "There is a trailhead going into the mountains, but it's not well-used. I think it just goes halfway up the first peak, for ponies who do want the view. I can show you where it is, if it will help."
"Much appreciated, friend." Caballeron nodded. "And I have heard this about many places I myself have come back from. Fear not. I would not live this life if I did not know what I was doing."
The rest of the night passed, and all of the day after that. The next night passed too, but around noon of the following day, Caballeron returned.
"Afternoon, miss Fillet," a market stall pony said as Fishy filled her saddlebags with vegetables and rice. "Grocery day?"
"Sure is," Fishy replied, having to reach a little with her short legs to properly survey the stall table. "Just getting some quick chores done so I can-"
Her eyes, always trained to watch the area around her so she could pay attention to fishing floats while doing something else, locked onto a familiar stallion entering town with bulging saddlebags. "Keep the change," she said, floating several bits onto the table. "Gotta run!"
She didn't look back, dashing up to Caballeron as he stepped along the packed earth. "Hey! Archaeologist, you're back! How was the view!?"
The stallion smiled gruffly. "The name is Caballeron, friend. And I have some good news, but I also have some bad news."
"Oh?" Fishy drew up curiously, her own saddlebags loaded as well.
"The good news..." Caballeron turned his side to her, flipping the top on one of the bags open. "The meteor is mine!"
Inside was a collection of black, glassy rocks, freshly fractured and looking like they had recently been whole. The bag bulged with their weight, and Fishy drew closer, seeing if she could see her reflection. There were a few pieces where the breaks were smooth enough to permit it, though the rocks were so dark the only color they reflected was gray.
"It is a bit of a shame that it broke on landing," Caballeron admitted. "But, that just means I can sell it for large sums to many ponies instead of an exorbitant sum to just one. So now that I have found my fortune... time to head back to the proper edges of civilization and see about turning it into money."
"You're taking it?" Fishy bit her lip. "It's kind of cool. There's a stallion in town who builds machines that record pictures. Would you at least let us save a picture of it? If it landed so close, it suddenly feels like it should be the town's rock."
"Well..." Caballeron averted his gaze, clearly hesitant. "You may not be so fond of it when I show you the bad news." He turned and popped open his other saddlebag.
A tiny lilac filly stared out, her eyes confused and frightened.
"What...?" Fishy took a surprised breath.
"I found her up in the mountains, near where the meteor landed." Caballeron shrugged. "Two ponies with her were dead. It looked like they were too busy staring at their prize and didn't notice a falling boulder."
Fishy lifted the filly in her milky aura, breathing tight. She was a unicorn, about two or three, with a purple mane with bits of teal. "Oh, honey... And she was with them? Her parents?"
"Who can say?" Caballeron shrugged again. "No responsible parent would take a filly into the mountains, but no responsible not-parent would do it either, so, somepony was feeling stupid and this filly paid the price. A pity."
Fishy hoisted the filly, examining her for cuts or bruises. "Are you old enough to talk?" she asked, ignoring Caballeron.
"Sta'ite Gimme," the filly replied, halfway between words and scared babble.
"Now, I cannot say I felt too bad, because it did mean I got the treasure and they missed out," Caballeron continued apologetically, "but I could not just leave her there. I also cannot care for her on the road, so, there. I have done my duty. You will take care of her?"
"Uh... yes." Fishy's ears were flat. "I'll put up an adoption notice. Someone here will want her, or know who her folks are, unless they're from the next town over..." She sighed. "Poor thing. I thought that shooting star was really pretty, and now it went and orphaned you."
Caballeron winced. "Well, I may not have paid the closest attention to what the dead ponies looked like, being distracted by the meteor and crying filly and chance of danger and all, so I cannot exactly help, but I wish you luck with that." He patted the top on his filled saddlebag closed. "As for her, she will probably never mind if I take this far away and she never has to think about this meteor again."
"You do that," Fishy said, kicking into a trot and leaving Caballeron behind. "Hold in there, honey," she urged, holding the filly against her chest. "I'll do what I can do..."
Wheels clattering against tracks were the only sound that carried through a train carriage bound for the Crystal Empire. Starlight's words were spent. Twilight's eyes were distant. Cadance's expression was deliberately neutral, and Rainbow's jaw was painfully slack.
She pointed a disbelieving blue hoof at Starlight. "Duaaah..."
Starlight got to her hooves, making for the exit to another car. "I need a moment."
The door clicked behind her, and that was Rainbow Dash's cue to start talking. "She... Seriously? But...!" She grabbed Twilight's shoulders and leaned face to face, hovering in place and still failing to put together proper sentences. "Starlight. Chrysalis! Valey! How?"
Twilight sighed, touching a wing to Rainbow's back and pulling her down. "She never pretended her story had a happily ever after, Rainbow."
"But Valey..." Rainbow's mane and tail drooped, and she turned to stare at Cadance. "Did you know about any of this?"
Cadance nodded, reclining and taking up her entire bench now that Starlight was gone. "We were aware of an incident in which huge quantities of batponies in the Empire and Mistvale's continent became feral changelings. Chrysalis herself was more of a rumor, and stories of her were easier to find after we had seen her for ourselves doing... other things."
Rainbow Dash winced. "Like the wedding?"
"That would be one example," Cadance admitted.
Rainbow rubbed her neck, thinking harder and finally starting to process the ending of Starlight's story. "Wow, though, this must have been really rough on Luna. Her coming back and finding out about something like this."
"How often did you see her in the first year or so after her return?" Cadance asked.
"Like..." Rainbow started counting on her feathers, lifted two... hesitated, and lowered one again. "Was she at the Gala? Uhhh..."
"This is why," Cadance sighed, and left it at that.
"Oh."
Cadance nodded. "In case you're wondering what we talked about at our meeting, it was mostly this. There were a lot of things Starlight's dream let us piece together we didn't previously know, especially concerning Chrysalis's past as a pony and what happened to her after that initial invasion. It's likely she hid somewhere after that or even had to be rescued, regaining her strength for several years."
Rainbow's ears fell. "So what happened to the Empire?"
"It was bad, but not so much as it could have been." Cadance stared out the window, the moon slowly making its way to the horizon. "Starlight's story confirmed something we had long suspected: Chrysalis and her hive were new to their abilities, and not fully able to utilize what they could do. There was no transformation magic, for one. And the storm that rolled in grounded the whole continent for long enough for the survivors to get a defense together. Thanks to Gazelle's machinations, the bulk of the Empire's military was stationed in Wilderwind and Goldoa, under threat of retaliation from Varsidel over the affair with their merchant airships. They were able to secure the Empire from within and establish a militarized border to defend it from the north, though it was hardly free from casualties."
Rainbow Dash sighed. "That stinks. Not gonna lie. And is awesome and terrifying at the same time. I can't tell whether Starlight fighting Chrysalis is the coolest or the uncoolest thing ever! I mean, we fight evil all the time, and when we win, we're usually able to fix things up afterward with a few rainbows and lasers and things. This is like... if we had to get Ponyville back to normal after Discord trashed the place using shovels and yard work."
"That's exactly what's bothering me," Twilight said, stare distant.
"Huh?" Rainbow looked up.
Twilight rose to her hooves, stepping into the aisle. "I need to talk with my student." She started for the door Starlight had left through. "I've been realizing some things I can't believe it took me this long to notice, and I desperately hope I'm wrong. But Starlight doesn't deserve for me to bank on that."
"Like what?" Rainbow asked with a frown. "Like how she's scarily strong and I'm glad we're no longer messing with her? Because that's what I got out of that ending. Though you should know better than me..."
"...I'll be back." Twilight took a breath and left.
Starlight was at the rear of the caboose, standing with her forehooves on the railing and her mane blowing forward in the wind, looking out at the passing night sky. Her ears rotated when Twilight stepped up behind her, but she didn't speak.
"You went easy on me," Twilight said. "When we were fighting in the time warp. You matched me and countered me perfectly when I was trying my best, but didn't lay a scratch on me. And after hearing you tell me about stabbing Chrysalis in the eye with your horn and trying to make it worse by coating it with jagged moon glass, I know you were doing less than what you were capable of."
Starlight didn't look back. "Twilight, my emotions are running a little bit strong right now, and if we talk about that battle before I spend some time getting them back under control, I'm going to spoil something by accident."
"Then let's not talk about Chrysalis." Twilight sat down beside her, facing the train track disappearing into the horizon. "Strong emotions. Which ones?"
"Lots."
"I'd ask if there's anything I can do to help," Twilight said. "But I have a feeling the answer is just letting you tell your story."
Starlight nodded, still facing away. "It's not going to be fun for me to tell, especially the last part. Which is close. But having someone who knows will be much better than still holding it all to myself. That's why I started telling it in the first place, even though I knew it would take weeks. So just let me deal with myself a little longer. We can talk more openly when it's over."
"Starlight..." Twilight's ears fell. "I know I don't want spoilers, but what I want less is for you to hurt yourself keeping secrets on my behalf. If you need to talk-"
"What I need to do is tell everything," Starlight interrupted. "And if I don't stick to the story, I won't be able to do it at all."
Twilight sighed. "That confirms one thing I was wondering. At the tree, beneath Grandbell... where the flame showed you what was missing in your life, and you wished for your parents back. I am nopony's parent, but I am a good listener, and I'm guessing this is the first time you've ever told even a part of this story to someone who doesn't owe you anything whatsoever."
"Yes," Starlight said stiffly. "It is."
Twilight slowly nodded. "Your village was the first place the map table sent us. It sent us immediately after we activated it, and it was the only time it sent us all. At the time, I thought our mission had been to save the village... no offense. But now, I'm thinking it's more likely the map wanted us to help you."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Starlight replied, her voice wavering slightly. "There's been a map table near the tree in every crystal palace I've visited. The tables are linked to the flames, the flames are linked to each other, and at least some of them knew about me."
Twilight bit her lip, then took a deep breath. "I think I know what happened to your friends, and how Our Town got the way it was, and why you came after me and my friendships the way you did. And why you didn't like the idea of going back over the mountains. And... everything else, really."
Starlight tilted her ears back toward Twilight.
"It has nothing to do with Chrysalis," Twilight continued. "It's about Glimmer... and some of the things you said to me in the time warp about me and my own friendships. I'm not going to say it. I hope I'm wrong, and I'm holding out that I am, because there's one last piece that refuses to make sense no matter how I twist it. Either way, I'm sorry your life wound up like this. It's wrong that that can happen."
"Is it my cutie mark?" Starlight asked. "You're trying to figure out what it does?"
The star stood silently on Starlight's flanks, a wispy tail rising above it, and Twilight stared for several seconds before blinking and shaking her head. "Um, no, actually. I completely forgot about that. Wasn't it what started this whole story?"
"Me telling it?" Starlight shrugged. "It was."
"You said in your village you needed it to remove cutie marks, so I assumed that was what it did." Twilight scratched her head. "But now it's sounding more like you used that one Nightmare Module to do the job. The seventh. So I have no idea what this does."
"What's been my most defining trait for this whole adventure?" Starlight kept staring at the sky. "What's the one thing that completely breaks me when I even think about not doing it?"
Twilight didn't even hesitate. "Protecting your friends, of course." She blinked. "No, but that doesn't make sense. It's... It's not being alone, isn't it?" She squinted at Starlight's flanks again, and leaned in close. "But why this? It looks like a mark in magic. Stars, wisps... Even my cutie mark is a star. If it was in one of those subjects, it would be more descriptive, and I have no idea what yours even does." She sat down again. "I don't get it."
"You don't need to," Starlight assured, shaking her head. "I'll tell you when it's relevant."
Twilight slowly nodded and closed her eyes. "If you say so."
For a moment, Starlight let the conversation drop. "...So are you just out here for some fresh air to process your thoughts, too?"
"Partly," Twilight replied. "And the bigger part because I know you don't like being alone."
Starlight shrugged. "You get used to it after a while."
"Which is the point of me checking on you," Twilight remarked with a wry grin. "If you're too used to it, you're not going to help yourself."
Starlight finally turned around, getting off the railing onto all fours again. Her eyes were watery, and looked like they had been lost in distant memories. "Thanks," she said, voice still even.
Twilight leaned against the railing. "Well... it's a few more hours to the Crystal Empire, still. I'll stay here helping however I can help, even if that's just sitting here and keeping quiet."
"Thank you," Starlight repeated. "But I just need a bit to pull myself together. I shouldn't leave you hanging on how my friends and I fared, badly injured and out of harmonic flames in the Equestrian foothills of the Aldenfold."
Twilight shook her head. "Just don't push yourself. And besides, we all need a bit to wrap our heads around that last bit. I think Rainbow Dash is mourning Valey, and I'm thinking about your friend Lyn..."
"I was thinking about both of them too, and didn't have time not to push myself back then," Starlight answered. "And besides, I need to push myself now. I'm so close to being done, and when I am..." She hesitated. "I don't actually know what it will feel like, but I need it."
Twilight nodded, giving her student a reassuring smile.
Nobody came to check on Starlight as the ship sat there in the Equestrian foothills, the harmony comet gone and Aegis standing like a statue in the middle of the deck. Glimmer had retreated indoors, and she started to get the feeling she needed to too.
She stepped across the deck, the Nightmare Modules sitting at her hooftips even though she had no further need of them. Was there any harmonic flame left to turn her back? Probably not... but she was the last pony she was worried about permanent injuries to.
The library was trashed worse than the time the ship ran out of energy on their way across the sea and suffered a midair fall. Tipping upright for the emergency ascent into the mountains had unshelved half the books in the room, and strewn most of them all the way down the cabin corridor. The reading chairs had been tossed and tumbled, and she was afraid to see the state of the pantry.
Harshwater stepped out of a cabin, quickly picking her way over the mess, and she glanced up at Starlight. "If you're not dead or dying, I could use some help, here."
Starlight's ears snapped up in alarm. "What can I do?"
"Check our water supplies down below and bring me some," Harshwater sighed, shaking her head. "Shinespark has a bad fever and Gazelle and Meltdown have wounds that need to be dressed. After that, just keep an eye on the freeloaders and make sure no trouble starts. All the injured should pull through, but we're going to be in a weak position for a while, here."
Starlight was far more interested in helping Maple and Shinespark than Gazelle and Meltdown, but Harshwater was the medical pony and every life mattered. She swallowed and nodded, briefly wondering if her Nightmare Modules or new powers from Glimmer had anything they could do for injuries, then scurried to the stairs and made her way down another floor.
"Hello," Nyala called, laying at the side of the room. Gerardo lay speechlessly next to her.
Starlight blinked, trotting quickly over to her. "You're alive?" she asked, poking her with a hoof to be sure. But Nyala was definitely still a batpony, without a hint of carapace on her.
"Alive and completely useless," Nyala apologized. "I'm not in danger, but I can't really move, so I'm just here... out of the way."
Starlight wanted to question, wanted to comfort and reassure, but if Nyala was physically safe, that was all that could afford to matter. "I'll be back," she promised, hurrying to the kitchen and storeroom. "I just have to get Harshwater some water..."
"Looking for something?" a voice said as she entered.
Starlight blinked and covered her nose. A pungent mess of crushed fruits and vegetables was strewn throughout toppled crates and punctured sacks, and the floor was wet and sticky from however many different things had leaked. She winced, wishing she had her normal crystals so she could coat her hooves in boots, and looked up to see Howe and Neon Nova picking through the chaos. Her ears fell. "What are you two doing here?"
"I've been asking myself that a lot," Howe muttered, rubbing his head. "One moment we were announcing for the tournament, the next an insane pony was slinging fiendish magic, so we took cover in the bunker. Then the bunker was destroyed and we tried slinking to safety before somehow being teleported here and bearing witness to airship acrobatics the likes of which I have never seen..."
Neon Nova shrugged, his shades and trench coat still present but one of the lenses cracked in its frame. "We've rolled with stranger punches."
"...Whatever." Starlight gritted her teeth, knowing these two had posed a danger to her friends in the past yet still bearing that familiar, desirable glow all life seemed to have. "What are you doing? I need water."
Howe nodded at the destruction. "We are sorting through this culinary carnage and salvaging what we can. We're not too trained in the divine art of healing, alas... but wherever we've landed, everyone must contribute to survive!"
"Water," Neon said, rolling over a barrel that had been set aside in his telekinesis. "This one's leaky, so use it first. You got anything to carry it in?"
Starlight shrugged, casting a pair of buckets out of moon glass and hoping severely she wasn't creating a hazardous material that would be difficult to get rid of later. "Fill these."
The barrel was indeed leaky, and grew more so as Neon filled the buckets with his aura, giving a sidelong glance at Starlight for her powers but saying nothing. Starlight hefted one on her back with the swords and took the other in her teeth, quickly leaving before the barrel could deteriorate further and possibly get her soaked.
"Thanks," Harshwater grunted as Starlight appeared again in the cabin corridor, stepping through the doorway to Shinespark's cabin. The once-fine bedroom had been turned into a triage center, with several beds from other rooms dragged in and Maple, Saffron, Shinespark, Gazelle and Meltdown all arranged throughout. Of the five, Gazelle and Saffron were out cold, and Shinespark's eyes were open but she only appeared to be half-conscious.
"Oh!" Felicity looked up, also present and tending to the injured. "Darling, you..." She stopped halfway through pointing a hoof at Starlight, staring at the moon glass.
"Oh." Starlight blinked back at her. "Maybe I should have found some better buckets..."
"Never mind, I'll handle them." Harshwater relieved Starlight of her load, glancing briefly at the two swords on her back but saying nothing, moving over to Shinespark.
Starlight stared around, taking in everyone's condition. Meltdown was still trapped in her armor, burnt skin visible all down her side where part of it had been blown away, and looked weak and terrified compared to her usual imposing figure. Shinespark's horn was cracked hideously, steaming as Harshwater wet a rag and touched it and occasionally sparking with magic, but it was still there, all the way down to the tip. Maybe it would someday heal... At least the odds were better than if it had been reduced to a hole in her head.
"Starlight..." Maple gave a feeble smile.
Starlight quickly stepped over. "Maple?"
"No hugs," Maple whispered. "My barrel hurts. They say I have cracked ribs. But I feel like I'll survive." She looked Starlight over from tip to tail, as much as she could while pinned in place. "You're gray again. What happened after I passed out? I haven't seen anyone who knows..."
Starlight hung her head. "I used the Nightmare Modules again to save you. They were the only way I could block her laser." She didn't add anything about the moon glass sword, or the weight it now contained. That wasn't something she was even ready to think about.
"Hey," Harshwater said, having finished transferring the water to buckets that were safe for Felicity. "I need to borrow your sword. The one that supposedly cuts anything?"
"This?" Starlight blinked, holding out Gerardo's old sword, its metal as dull and lifeless as ever. So it was hers again... "How come?"
Harshwater took it and turned to Meltdown. "I need to get her out of this armor. It's too damaged to be useful and will get in the way of treating her, and however its fire powers work, I don't want it broken and laying around."
"Don't do it over the bed," Meltdown warned, voice distant. "There are coolant loops that might not have ruptured yet, and it could be wet. I can't remember where..."
As Harshwater carried the other mare away, Felicity looked up from Saffron, one hoof on her back and the other on her head. "Well, I've done what I can for her concussion, but unless we can get some materials for a cast, her broken leg is probably just going to get un-set again. I may have gone to the liberty of checking her saddlebags and finding her tournament potion, but I... feel like we should probably allow her to wake up before deciding how to use that. Especially since no one seems to be in danger of imminent death."
Starlight looked away, holding her moon glass sword. "...Where's Valey?"
Maple's ears fell, and Felicity winced. "You mean her... shell, darling? Amber tied it up and refuses to leave its side. I don't quite know what she hopes to accomplish with it, but that's mourning for you."
Starlight slumped. "You survived."
Felicity stood up and leaned against a wall. "Albeit with a splitting headache caused by some uncomfortable voices in my head and a terribly upset stomach from our aerial acrobatics and my usual poor constitution, yes. I'm alive..." She glanced down at the injured. "I came here to see if I could help out a little as a token of apology, but this puts things into a slightly different perspective."
"So what do we do now?" Starlight stared at her sword.
Felicity tilted her head. "First off, do you need anything yourself? You're, um... Darling, you're gray."
Starlight hesitated. "I've been like this before. It's not an injury."
"Well..." Felicity glanced at Maple. "It... might be a prudent thing to do to get everyone who's able together to talk about what we do next? I know we've had our differences in the past, but I really hope it's safe to say we're all in... whatever it is we're in together."
Starlight wasn't going to argue. She knew, logically, that Felicity had betrayed them before, but that knowledge didn't reach her heart. "If you're going to be our friend." She nodded, stepped over, and hugged Felicity's chest. "I forgive you."
Felicity recoiled sharply. "Ah! N-No offense, but please keep that sword where I'm not close nearby..."
The recoil stung far, far harder than Starlight had been ready for, like a slap straight to her already-hurting heart. She couldn't stop a tear from building in her eyes.
Felicity saw it too and winced. "Darling please, I just... You have moon glass! Please don't look at me quite like that..."
Starlight nodded, setting the sword by Maple's bed. "Look after this," she firmly instructed. "It's important."
"I'll do my best," Maple whispered.
Once Starlight had set it away, she felt a hoof on her head. "Sorry," Felicity promised. "I'm not looking to make enemies. Friends?"
Starlight couldn't take it anymore. That was an invitation, and a friend was exactly what she needed. She buried her face in Felicity's chest and grabbed at her shoulders, and it was finally safe for her stress and emotions from the past day to catch up to her.
Maple gave Felicity a serious look as Starlight began to sniffle and cry, and Felicity nodded, sitting down and leaning against the bed. "Poor thing," she remarked, rubbing Starlight's back as Maple was unable to do. "I wasn't even on the ground, and I'm feeling a little in shock. This day has probably been absolutely horrid... Physical trauma aside, I can't imagine anyone's escaped those events without some serious weights on their mind as well..."
"We'll have to take care of ourselves however we can," Maple whispered. "Valey is dead, everyone's injured, I can't get out of bed... It's a bad day. And sometimes you just have to lie down and take it and remember that the sun will still rise tomorrow."
"Ah." Felicity slowly nodded. "Maple, I... was on your ship today in the first place to... try to butter myself up so I could feel a little better about giving you all a proper apology, and-"
"Apology accepted," Maple insisted. "As long as we're in this together, like you said. If you want to be friends, you know about medicine and have a working set of legs. We're helpless right now. You'll have a lot of opportunities to prove it."
Felicity chuckled regretfully. "Not as working as I'd like. I'm in no condition for physical labor, what with every last ailment that's wrong with me... but you're right. I'll do what I can."
"Everyone will," Maple whispered. "And those of us who can't do anything will just..."
"Survive," Felicity finished for her. "We'll see to it. You have my word."
Slipstream, Jamjars and Glimmer stood on the deck, looking out at the mountains and the distant sea.
Glimmer was pacing, growling occasionally in frustration. "What?" Jamjars asked, looking over her shoulder.
"What else?" Glimmer angrily shrugged.
"The fact that there's water down there, and down there is the southwest, and that means we're through the mountains and in the Plains of Harmony?" Jamjars victoriously grinned. "Or my awesome stunt flying? I don't know how that plan of yours worked, but if Starlight was half as ambitious as you, we could do things like that every week!"
Glimmer slumped, and Slipstream lifted a wing to chime in. "It is a lot better than it could have been."
"Jamjars, there's a pendant Valey used to use," Glimmer thought aloud. "That held pieces of moon glass. Do you know where it is?"
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "What do you take me for, a filly who doesn't track where her friends keep their valuables? Of course I do. But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Right." Glimmer massaged her temple. "Starlight probably isn't feeling up to anything right now. I don't know if I should talk to her right now or let things sink in, but I'm going to need her again..."
"Whatever you're planning, it probably won't get us in the air again," Slipstream pointed out. "I know everyone's shaken and upset, but since all of us are able-bodied and this situation isn't good, we should be doing something to help."
Jamjars' grin returned. "Only if the thing you're thinking of doing involves seeing if you can carry two fillies at once while in the air."
Slipstream nodded out over the railing. "We're stranded here without power, and I don't think we'll get the ship moving any time soon. Someone needs to explore to find out about any threats or resources, and I'm not one of the ones with medical knowledge."
Jamjars rubbed her hooves together, staring out at the hilly horizon. "Yesss..."
"Alright. Exploring it is." Glimmer sighed, stepping towards Slipstream. "Let's see what this area has to offer."
Slipstream flew low enough to the foothills that she wouldn't be visible to anyone not very close after losing a long argument with Jamjars, the possibility of attracting unwanted attention by flying high for a better view outweighing the fact that if there were hostile creatures around, they would likely be doomed already. Glimmer hung in her forelegs, the less-useful of the two for scouting, while Jamjars rode woozily on her back, hiding her face in Slipstream's mane and pretending they were anywhere but flying - the more likely reason why she had wanted to stick close to the ground.
Water, thankfully, was plentiful. It felt like almost every other valley had a river, the product of countless miles of runoff and meltwater from the Aldenfold to the north. None of them knew how to tell if it was clean, but just from the clarity Slipstream was strongly tempted to find out.
The land was abundantly hilly, with tall, wild grasses covering the countryside. Occasional weeds and grains grew up through them, enough to make walking the hills a major chore, and even though the ground wasn't quite mountainous it was far too steep for farming. The valleys were deep enough for Slipstream to fly through unobstructed, and she measured with the sun to keep her course true southwest.
"Girls?" she panted after several minutes of flying. "I'm not an endurance flyer, and carrying two of you might have been too much. I need to land soon..."
Jamjars gave a wet burp. "Please?"
Slipstream drew into a landing on a hillside, the ground steeply sloped into a river that rushed out of sight along a bend. Jamjars dropped from her back, planting herself against the ground with her legs splayed, and nuzzled the earth with her cheeks. "I could kiss this ground like a Firefly Sister..."
Glimmer kept a hoof on Slipstream, not trusting herself not to fall on the foreign, sloped soil. "It was your idea to fly out here in the first place. Why did you suggest it if you hate flying so much?"
"I forgot..." Jamjars whined, hugging the ground.
"Whew." Slipstream was busy stretching her wings, rubbing their joints with her hooves. "I did track when I was in school and flew to work in Ironridge to stay in shape, but maybe all these months on the airship haven't been good for me. I hope I haven't been gaining weight..." She poked her belly to be sure and grimaced. "So much for all that work."
Glimmer frowned. "If you feel like doing something to change that, the crew could use you. You're one of the only three fliers we have left, counting Howe, and he might not be safe to count. We need you."
Slipstream blinked, looking up from herself. "Flying for months with stars like Valey and Shinespark and always being more of a tenant, that's not something I hear a lot."
"And those stars are long-term indisposed," Glimmer replied, the river rushing by below. "Between those with injuries or disabilities and those with questionable loyalties, if being out of shape is the worst you can say about yourself, you might want to get used to the idea of being important."
Slipstream blinked again. "...Wow."
"I love ground," Jamjars sang nearby, completely oblivious to the conversation. "I love it. I love it! I love ground so so much, and I really really love groooound..."
"Can I tell you a secret, now that we're out of the Empire?" Slipstream asked. "One that's probably not as secret as I like to pretend it is, but feels like one anyway?"
"Alright." Glimmer sat back in the tall grass and listened.
Slipstream took a breath. "I only joined up here because I had a crush on Gerardo and nothing better to do with my time, being newly unemployed. And I thought I was just coming along to Riverfall, and then I didn't get off when we left for the Empire, and... here I am. Just like that. Because I flirted with the wrong griffon on the job... or the right one. It's so crazy I stopped trying to wrap my mind around it long ago."
"Luck is fickle like that." Glimmer nodded. "Feeling overwhelmed?"
Slipstream hesitated. "Not... really? It's hard to be overwhelmed when you just go with the flow. That said, if what I do is going to start mattering and I have to take things more seriously..." She held a wing to her forehead and gave a nervous laugh. "I'm not even sure how to do that, hehe... I'm an average pegasus who used to read about celebrities in magazines and now lives down the hall on their airship and occasionally pretends to help with navigation..." She reddened. "But I mostly just hang out with the others who aren't as important and we talk about things and have fun, and... So what do I actually do?"
Glimmer shrugged. "You play to your strengths, volunteer to do things that need doing and take charge when you think it's within your abilities. Just like deciding to go scouting when you have little medical knowledge, but a good pair of wings. That's all there is to it."
Slipstream's blush deepened. "I-I... Wow..."
"How are you feeling?" Glimmer asked, flicking her ears.
Slipstream nodded. "Good, but nervous. But also good. I'm sorry, I just... I don't even know how to process being told all this."
"Being told that other ponies are counting on you?" Jamjars looked up, finally starting to recover. "You're that reliant on what others think of you for your own self-image? That isn't healthy."
"Well, no! I mean... But..." Slipstream fidgeted. "How would you feel if you were told Melia and Sirena were counting on you to save one of their shows?"
Jamjars blinked... and chuckled, slinking out of sight into the grass. "Heh heh... Point taken."
"I'll do my best, of course," Slipstream promised, turning back to Glimmer. "Get my head out of the clouds, and help out. Right." She shook her wings. "I'm maybe ready to go on?"
Glimmer got to her hooves. "You've barely even caught your breath. Are you sure?" She flicked her ears at the grass where Jamjars was hiding. "Maybe we should walk for a ways."
Slipstream bit her lip. "The hills are steep and the grass is very tall, but we might have room on the riverbank if we were careful not to fall in..." She looked again. "On second thought, there was a massive storm, and it looks swollen from runoff. We're going over the tops of the hills."
"No flying!" Jamjars heartily agreed.
Slipstream scooped Glimmer onto her back, not about to let the filly fall during the treacherous climb. It was only a short distance until the slope evened out, but with almost as much elevation change as they had moved horizontally, and Slipstream took it slowly, testing each step for solid hoofing. There was no doubt Glimmer recognized how steep it was just from the angles of the pegasus's back, and she moved as carefully as possible, using her weight as a counterbalance.
Slowly, they crested the hill, grass rising up as high as Slipstream's face that she had to push aside with her wings to proceed. Occasional stickers and thorn bushes kept her cautious, and Jamjars clung close behind, helping probe the path with her telekinesis. They followed the curve of the slope back down to the river, making sure they didn't wander too deep into the thicket... and eventually, they curved around far enough for a structure to be seen.
It was a bridge, spanning the river and wide enough for a single cart, made in a whimsical style from a pink material that wasn't quite brick, but a similar kind of stone. Slipstream's ears perked, and she pressed forward, the underside of the bridge clean and open and the top slightly too high to see.
"What is it? I can't see!" Jamjars complained, wading through grass that came all the way up to her chin even when flattened.
"Here. Let me fly us there. It will only take a second..." Slipstream grabbed her, braced for the complaints, and pumped her wings, landing on the structure and setting Jamjars down again. "Wow. This is... What is it?"
It was almost like a road, except not made for any cart or hooves she had ever seen. Evenly-spaced wooden slats covered the bridge, and ran along through cleared pathways atop the adjacent hilltops that both curved gently out of view. Two unbroken metal bars ran parallel along the slats, perfectly flat and even, and supporting the entire assembly seemed to be the sole purpose of the bridge. But some artisan had still created it with pride, covering the thing in chiseled, artistic swirls that could have been a foal's drawings if they hadn't had a deep-seated order to them as well.
"I have no idea." Jamjars scratched her head. "Metal bars on wood? It looks like a path. Someone obviously made it."
Glimmer tilted her head, climbing down from Slipstream's back and feeling one of the rails and several slats with a hoof. "Is this a train track?"
"A what?" Both others looked at her, confused.
"Oh. I guess you didn't have trains in Ironridge." Glimmer felt out one of the rails, climbed on it, and began walking southeast. "It's a track that vehicles move on. They're called trains. If someone built it, that means both directions go somewhere someone wanted to go."
Intrigued, Slipstream and Jamjars followed, crossing the bridge with Glimmer and seeing where the train tracks would lead them.
"So let me think," Slipstream said, talking as she walked with Jamjars and Glimmer down the railroad painstakingly built through the hilly country. "In order for us to fly anywhere, we have to first find somewhere we want to fly, and then get the ship in the air. We might find something while scouting, but Saffron crossed the mountains around here, so she would know the area better than any of us. So we need her to wake up. Then we also need to fix the ship, which means Shinespark wakes up and either fixes her horn or teaches Grenada to do it for her..."
"The ship isn't broken," Glimmer replied. "We put it through a lot of stress, but Shinespark and Arambai did good work. The problem is it's out of power."
Slipstream scratched her head with a feather. "But we just got more fuel a few days ago. One of those windigo hearts got us almost all the way from Ironridge to the Empire, and then three of them gave us a month in Mistvale, another month of cruising around with the restaurant, and then that speedy flight to Izvaldi. We have what, five hearts? And pushing the ship to the max for a day only takes one..."
"Most of the power was used by Aegis, not the ship." Glimmer shook her head. "Lasers that big don't come cheap, and she had to fire twice."
Jamjars was too busy playing balance beam with the rails to pay full attention. "Someday, I'm going to learn to shoot lasers with my horn," she declared.
Slipstream was curious, though. "How does that work?"
"Aegis?" Glimmer's ears swiveled, the even spacing of the rail slats letting her walk confidently even while blind.
Slipstream nodded, grinning. "Try me. See how well I can understand."
"Well..." Glimmer took a breath. "How much do you know about how Braen worked?"
Slipstream bit her lip. "I've picked up a little. It was a suit of armor that Shinespark somehow remote-controlled, and if you put in moon glass with a cutie mark, it could act as a body, like for Nyala."
"I meant from a power standpoint, but okay." Glimmer nodded. "Braen converts energy from a pony's cutie mark into conventional mana power in order to function. That cutie mark energy is harmony, which is fundamentally the same as the energy stored in the windigo hearts. It's an ambient energy constantly produced by ponies and all harmonic life forms. Following so far?"
Slipstream nodded. "And what about ponies without marks?"
"That's more complicated, but the short answer is they produce it too." Glimmer shook her head. "Anyway, some cutie marks are more 'harmonic' than others, usually on a scale of twice as powerful to half as powerful as average... though there are extreme cases, like Shinespark's."
Slipstream perked her ears, listening.
"Shinespark's is about fifty times as powerful as average," Glimmer continued. "That's incredibly unusual, but as you can see, it happened. And what that means in this context is that she can passively provide enough mana power for Braen to walk around, speak, and fight once or twice a day. Braen has rechargeable batteries for situations like that."
"So this is relating to your dragon," Slipstream said. "Braen is a similar thing to her?"
Glimmer considered this. "There are some differences. First, harmony is much more than just mana energy. It's a power that fights entropy and re-orders reality according to someone's wishes. This is why ponies like to build and create things, how unicorn horns function, how pegasi can fly despite the small size of their wings... Braen using it to create mana power to run a machine is creative, but like taking a greater form of energy and converting it to a lesser one. Aegis is like Braen in that she is a machine designed to operate on a pony's harmony magic, but she incorporates a full harmony extractor like the one that powers this airship instead of merely reducing it to mana power. In the same way that the ship's extractor lets it use stored harmony to replicate pegasus magic and fly, Aegis's allows her to use her energy in a host of ways, and with incredibly high theoretical throughput. Are you still following?"
Slipstream frowned. "...Maybe. Basically, your dragon uses harmony like Garsheeva's power generator, but flies and shoots lasers instead of generating normal power."
Glimmer nodded. "And teleports, and shields, and many other things. She was able to amplify the ship's thrust for our ascent up the mountains." She flicked her tail. "Are you seeing the problem?"
"If Shinespark's cutie mark is incredibly rare, and the energy it produces is only enough for Braen to walk around and pretend to be a real pony, then there's no one who can actually power your dragon enough to make use of its potential?" Slipstream hopefully guessed.
"Good guess," Glimmer praised. "This ship's harmony extractor was the work of two novice inventors researching an unusually strong mark, with some help from a career scientist from Yakyakistan, and it managed to survive an overload that killed a significant number of windigoes. Aegis is a remnant of a forgotten time, built with incredible knowledge and effort to be the most powerful weapon in the world. At maximum capacity, she could..." She lowered her head. "Well, you can see how powering her adequately is difficult. But yes. To bring a long story to a close, that is how we lost our harmony reserves so quickly."
Slipstream quirked an eyebrow, but didn't question what it was Aegis would be capable of. Probably destroying the world, or something. "And something this powerful is yours? How did you get her?"
"...I don't like talking about it," Glimmer apologized, and left it at that.
Slipstream hummed, fishing for a good way to change the subject without being awkward. But before she could come up with anything, from up ahead, Jamjars called, "Look! It's the ocean!"
The pegasus quickened her trot, rounding a hill corner and stepping onto another bridge crossing the mouth of a river. Jamjars was standing at the edge, mane blowing, staring into the horizon.
"Wow," Slipstream whispered, her own mane starting to blow now that she was exposed to the ocean wind as well. The hills fell away into sand dunes, and only a short few hummocks away was blue, easy to see down the mouth of the wide river they were standing over. It was impossibly different from the other two beaches she had seen, covered in waves of sand and carrying a salty, rotting-plant smell that was pungent and somehow nasty and refreshing at the same time. There were no crafted stone walls and endless rows of docks, no steep stone beaches made of rocks the size of her hoof. And strangest of all, an incessant cawing filled her ears, hundreds of gulls wheeling or strutting on the sand, all looking beadily at the three ponies.
"...What's with all the birds?" Jamjars asked, tilting her head.
An ominous splat sounded beside her as one of the flying gulls tried to bomb her with a special delivery and missed.
Jamjars glanced fearfully at the mess, than glared at the gulls and shook a hoof. "If you mess with me, I will learn that laser spell today just for revenge!"
A chorus of cawing was all the reply she would get.
"This is a lot more wildlife than I'm used to," Slipstream remarked as the trio followed the train tracks through the boundary between the hills and dunes. "Birds in Ironridge were rare, and I saw even fewer in the Empire. But here, they're everywhere."
"Maybe south of the mountains is just weird," Jamjars replied, hopping from slat to slat and fearfully watching the sky.
"It is a world that has had almost no contact with your own for the last thousand years," Glimmer noted. "I'm surprised wildlife and trains are the only things we've ran into so far."
They continued along the tracks, ducking in and out of sight of the sea as the sun progressed through the sky. Slipstream began to regret that they hadn't brought the sound stone, and before long they had all chanced the river water due to thirst alone. Nothing in the terrain changed as they progressed, and after a while Jamjars began to flag. "My hooves are too delicate for this," she complained.
"Should we think about turning back?" Slipstream shaded her eyes with a wing and looked up at the sun. "It's only several hours until dark. Fortunately, we haven't found anything hostile, so it should be safe for me to fly high and take the most direct route."
Jamjars winced. "On second thought, let's keep going. Maybe we'll see something on the other side of that peninsula!"
The shoreline followed a wave pattern of broad, gentle coves connected with protruding spurs of land, offering frequent points where a new view promised to open up around one more bend. Slipstream rolled her eyes. "We're going to have to fly back sometime, and my wings are as rested as they're going to be, you know."
Jamjars ignored her, running on ahead... and stopped short at the curve, staring past it. "Woah."
"What is it?" Slipstream left Glimmer, running to catch up.
The sea pushed forward sharply, opening past them into a bay many miles across. They could see the tracks following the shore until the distance became too far to make out, curving around and around until the land became the horizon far in the south. Then the shore came closer again in a protrusion pointing at them from across the water, like the thumb on a griffon's talon, rising out of the water in a great, singleton mountain shaped bizarrely like a tree.
The mountain was covered in buildings strewn through every available outcropping, though their construction was impossible to make out from that far away. Patches of yellow could have been dry grass or thatched rooves, and a small stone keep graced the peak, flying a red-and-gold flag that stood out like a beacon at the pinnacle of the landscape.
"That looks interesting," Slipstream remarked. "What do you suppose it is?"
"It looks like a long distance around," Jamjars answered dubiously. "Even if it's where these tracks are going, we have to go all the way along the shore past it to the south. Either count me out of the party that scouts down there, or I want a ride."
Slipstream glanced back over her shoulder at the endless hills. "Well, shall we head back? I think we've done a good enough job getting the lay of the land and identifying points of interest for today."
Slipstream once again soared through the air, Jamjars and Glimmer along for the ride yet both useless for navigation. She flew straight north, having gone southwest to reach the ocean and then southeast along the tracks again, and concentrated on breathing as she went, determined to make it without having to stop and rest her wings.
She kept a higher altitude than had been allowed by Jamjars on the flight out, the filly thankfully keeping quiet and not noticing with her eyes closed and her face hidden. It allowed for a better idea of what the hills looked like from above, especially the layout of the rivers, which came down from the mountains in a few large streams that split and branched as they drew closer to the sea. The hills rose, too, and while some rivers flowed steeply at the surface, others had cut deep gorges into their valleys, dropping dozens of feet or more.
Slipstream found herself drifting to the east as time passed, a shadow on the horizon she was fairly sure was a forest of some sort. That was another thing that would be useful to check on a future run... but for now, her breaths were raw and her wings hurt. She rose even higher, scanning the ground over and over for the Immortal Dream... There!
Her wings drew into a descent, speeding up and losing height as she chased the unmistakable sight of a wooden hull nestled between two hills. Glimmer held on and Jamjars whimpered as they rushed in close... but Slipstream soon pulled up, frowning.
This ship had a hole in the deck. It also lacked the harmony comet assembly, and had noticeably different proportions to their own ship, slightly longer and more tapered at the ends. And the bridge was different, a smashed-off prow extending beyond the missing windshield.
"This isn't ours," Slipstream murmured, hovering around it with interest. "I wonder how long it's been wrecked for..."
She flapped behind it, noting a large, broken-off propeller that had once been attached to the stern. It was tempting to explore and even more tempting to stop and rest, but an abandoned airship could be dangerous and she needed to get home. Adding another entry to her list of places to return and explore, Slipstream gained height again, panting and angling her course more west in the search for home.
Slipstream wasn't sure how long she had pushed herself. The sun's height was hard to measure, and it could have been hours or fifteen minutes, but judging by how long it had been since her wings started feeling she couldn't go on, it was at least thrice as long as she had carried the girls before their first rest.
Finally, the Immortal Dream appeared in her sights. With a last burst of strength, Slipstream landed gratefully on the deck, stumbling to a stop before dropping both of the fillies, laying down and panting. "We made... it... Whewww..."
Jamjars woozily staggered to a railing, and Glimmer nodded in thanks. "I'll see who's doing what and let the others know we're back. You did good, Slipstream."
"No problem..." Slipstream waved weakly, slumped against the floor.
Several minutes later, Grenada appeared in the doorway, fixing her eyes on Slipstream and Jamjars. "I was told you had a scouting party?"
"Hi..." Slipstream looked over, not getting off the deck. "We did. I don't think I'm up to doing that distance again, though..."
Grenada's horn lit, and an aura pulled Slipstream onto her hooves. "I am tired too," she replied, offering a shoulder. "Amber will not come out of her room and Felicity and Harshwater are busy with the injured, so it has fallen to me to clean up the ship after our flight. Come. You should lay down somewhere better and tell me what you saw."
Slipstream gratefully took her shoulder, walking with her down the stairs. "How are we for beds? We might be over capacity, and there are a lot of injured..."
"I have only restored one cabin," Grenada replied. "Felicity insisted on one for herself, and I would rather share than spend time fixing another for me when the ship has more pressing work to be done. Would this bother you? There are not many, but I can fix another..."
Slipstream shook her head. "Roomies with you two? That's fine, I just need to lie down. Please?"
Grenada nodded, leading her down the stairs and into the darkness of the interior.
Slipstream felt the tension slowly drain from her body as she spread out on the bed Grenada had salvaged and repaired, letting her wings loose and regretting the fact that her hooves would have to be used tomorrow. For now, at least, she could pretend that wasn't the case, her body ready to fall asleep but her mind too abuzz with the day's drama and events to even consider it.
"Oh...! Hello," Felicity said, appearing in the doorway with a surprised look on her face. "Darling, ah... I did ask Grenada to set that bed up specifically for me, but you also look like you need it, and I suppose I don't mind sharing..."
Slipstream blinked and rolled over. "Sharing the bed? Grenada said roommates..." She lifted her head, looking around, and quickly realized there was only one bed and this was what Grenada had meant. "Oh. Well, sure?"
"I hope that doesn't make you uncomfortable?" Felicity apologized, lifting a hesitant hoof. "I really don't mind, I just... am not in the greatest condition, and..."
"I suppose it'll be an experience," Slipstream decided, rolling further to the side. Felicity was bigger than she was, and even though the mare had traveled with them for some time in Mistvale, she hadn't been incredibly open or present. And of course, it had been impossible to miss Valey's talks and explanations about what Felicity had done at Stormhoof... This was a mare she wasn't as at ease around as the other crew members. But she was also helping everyone injured from the battle, and so she stayed and decided to give Felicity a chance.
Felicity collapsed onto the bed with a sigh, rolling onto her back and giving Slipstream her space as well. "Ohhh I've been on my hooves for hours, darling, but I think everyone's going to make it through the night. Maple and Meltdown are awake, I've jury-rigged a splint that will hopefully get Saffron's leg healing in the right direction, Gerardo's issues are apparently well-documented, and Gazelle is... not completely lucid. I have to say, I planned on approaching you all and helping out, but this isn't what I had in mind at all."
"Tired?" Slipstream asked. "I know how that feels."
Felicity appraised her without turning her head. "If I can be frank, you look absolutely beaten. Hard work around the ship?"
Slipstream shook her head, the day's excitement and terror far more pressing than her concerns about Felicity... who was presently being a pleasant conversationalist. "I took the fillies and went scouting. If we're stranded here, I figured it wouldn't hurt to know just what here is like."
"Oh?" Felicity slumped in the bed, sinking into it as hard as Slipstream felt like she was doing herself. "A useful endeavor. Find out anything worth finding?"
"Lots, actually." Slipstream rolled over again so she could face the mare. "We followed the coast for a while and found what looks like civilization, though it's at least two days' long march from here. Maybe longer, since I flew over some difficult terrain. Between rivers and hills with tall grasses, this area will be almost impossible to traverse by hoof."
Felicity sighed, giving her wings a flap. "Well, don't count on me for that, darling. You know how I am with endurance runs."
Slipstream didn't, but she didn't press. "There's a wrecked airship a ways east of here that could be interesting to explore, and I think I saw a forest beyond that if we need wood or certain plants. We never saw anyone flying, or even anyone at all, so we're going to have to just take what we can find and help ourselves."
"We are alone out here?" Grenada's voice cut in. She appeared in the doorway, several sturdy trays heaped with slightly-bruised fruit floating in her aura. "That is good to know, at least. Here. The stallions in the kitchen say this needs to be consumed first or it will go bad."
Slipstream's stomach growled audibly at the sight of food, and she found herself still possessing the strength after all to sit up, take a tray and dig in. Several pieces of fruit later, she prepared to dig into another, only to have Grenada climb into the bed with them.
"...Three of us?" She put down the fruit that was to be her next morsel. "This is getting kind of crowded."
"I would rather share than sleep on the floor," Grenada replied, as if it was an obvious logical deduction. "Is this a problem?"
Felicity daintily nibbled on a pear. "I'm not the one who would have issues. Though with us at this close of quarters, ah... how awkward would it make things if I accidentally cuddled in my sleep? I may not be very used to shared bunking that's both platonic and not with close family."
Grenada tensed slightly. "Are you asking to be in a relationship?"
Felicity waved a hoof. "Oh, hardly, darling. Just giving a sensible warning."
"Then I do not mind." Grenada settled down between them, making herself comfortable. "As long as there are no pretenses or false hopes."
Slipstream sucked on a pear of her own, taking care not to dribble pear juice on the bed. "What did we even just start talking about? False pretenses and platonic cuddling? I might have missed something."
Felicity blinked at her. "We're three mares sharing a bed, darling. And by circumstance and necessity rather than choice. At times like this, making sure everyone's on the same page and has had a chance to lay out their own ground rules really is a wise caution."
"Ground rules?" Slipstream furrowed her brow. "We're all mares. What does..." A memory of Riverfall she had tried to put behind her surfaced in her mind, and she reddened. "Oh."
Felicity put her head back down. "Ah. Well, I suppose that answers that."
"No! Sorry. Just an awkward memory." Slipstream sank, embarrassed. "I've always been more of a stallion's mare, you know? Or griffons, which I can say now that we're out of the Empire..."
Felicity eyed her suspiciously, then gave a disarming smile. "An awkward memory? Sounds like an excellent icebreaker should you ever need one, darling, but fear not. I won't press. So, you were telling me about your scouting trip, no? Everything you found, and the difficulties of traveling?"
Grenada was still busy eating fruit. "I would like to hear this."
"Right." Slipstream saw the out and took it. "The important part is that the terrain is awful and we won't be able to make it through these hills on hoof. If we make it to the shore, there's a long road, but that's still a ways. So anywhere we go is going to need fliers or ponies who can be carried."
Felicity's ears fell. "Bad news on that front, I'm afraid. Gerardo is paralyzed, Gazelle is catatonic, Nyala needs rehabilitation and I can't guarantee Shinespark's horn will ever work again. That means you'll have to work with Harshwater and Howe, and as much as I have no standing to say this, the latter isn't trustworthy at all."
"And Harshwater's probably going to be busy." Slipstream showed off her aching wings, the appendages rebelling even at being lifted. "I guess that means it's going to fall to me... and I just got a bad reminder of how out of shape I am. I might not even be ready to fly again for two or three days."
Grenada kept munching as Felicity sighed apologetically. "Well, that's no fun. Fortunately, if we're going to be here a while, that means you'll have plenty of practice and get your endurance up. Ever done an exercise routine?"
Slipstream nostalgically rolled her eyes. "Only in school, when having the flattest belly and tightest flanks were how you got popular and scored dates. Funny how that transitions importantly into the real world, only for a completely different reason... and I just spent months laying around and not keeping up and let myself go to seed." She stared down at herself and huffed.
Felicity leaned over across Grenada, inspected her proportions, and frowned. "Darling, if that's what you call gone to seed, then pray tell what am I?"
Slipstream had walked into a loaded question and she knew it. "Naturally endowed. You make the... less-flatness look good."
"Then call yourself the same." Felicity booped her with a wingtip. "Take it from a seasoned professional, if you care about looking good, your body is fine. Body image and how it lets you carry yourself is what everyone is actually looking for, and the ones who aren't are good for a throwaway date and nothing more. Though I think trying to improve your flying stamina and recovery time for the good of everyone here is a far more attractive goal than anything else you've put on the table. Everyone likes a mare who's motivated to improve for the sake of others."
Slipstream blinked. "Thanks?"
Felicity drew back to her side of the bed with a saucy wink. "You do you, darling."
Grenada nudged Felicity with her telekinesis. "She said earlier she was not interested in other mares. There is no need to flirt."
"But darling, I've had a long and stressful day and this is how I relaaax...!"
"I think we all have," Slipstream replied. "And honestly, I don't mind. It almost reminds me of my schooldays with my old friends, teasing each other about what colts we liked. Except now I'm wondering if you like me... which is a little weird, but not weird enough to make this not feel like some badly-needed normal." She sighed, closed her eyes and smiled. "So now that I think about it, keep it up, girl."
Grenada shrugged, crawling out of the bed and pushing Felicity to the center before getting back in where the batpony used to be, no longer in a position where she had to be reached over.
Felicity laid on her side, propping her cheek on one forehoof and fluttering her eyelashes at Slipstream. "In that case, tell me more about my good-looking less-flatness you saw."
"U-Um..." Slipstream's ears fell. "On second thought, maybe I should mention that the time I got introduced to the idea of fillies being a little more interested in each other happened to be in a city where all the population, including my hosts, were susceptible to mob mentality and wound up vandalizing Maple's house, and I got beaten pretty badly trying to defend it for her."
Felicity blinked hard, then deflated, her saucy demeanor disappearing. "...Well. I can't say I saw that coming."
"Sorry," Slipstream insisted. "Like I said, it wasn't a memory I do a lot to focus on. And looking back, I stepped in and tried to make a difference, so even if I failed, I'm sort of proud of it, but it's still just a weird memory, and... sorry for making this awkward."
Felicity bit her lip. "Sorry, darling. I... Would a hug be the right or wrong thing to offer here?"
Slipstream blinked. "Ummm..."
"Felicity?" Grenada rolled over and lifted her head. "If there is something you want from us, you can just ask instead of trying to make us ask so it sounds like it is our idea."
"You're better at reading ponies than I give you credit for," Felicity sighed. "Or perhaps I'm just that obvious. If it wouldn't be awkward...?" She reached hesitantly for a hug.
Slipstream bit her lip. "Stressful day for you too, huh?"
"Tell me about it." Felicity looked down. "I haven't exactly told anyone, but my sisters and I... had a falling out over how to handle you all in the aftermath of our choices with Stormhoof. Larceny regretted our choice, wished we had chosen differently, gave you her apology and wanted to wash her hooves of the whole affair and start anew elsewhere. Senescey and I felt poorly about how we had treated you, but agreed that if we had to do it all over again, we'd make the same choice that final night. That you could only be our first priority after our ambitions in the Empire were taken off the list. Long story short, we had a talk that turned into an argument and then a fight, and I changed my mind and was won over by Larceny while Senescey... didn't."
"Sibling disagreements are difficult, aren't they," Grenada mused quietly. "As is finding yourselves ideologically opposed."
Felicity thumped her head back against a pillow. "But then Larceny wanted to go off and start anew, and I wanted to come back and actually try to properly apologize and see if I couldn't maybe work my way into a second or third or whatever it is chance, because maybe it would be possible and she had just made me want it, and I never apologized properly the last time... and maybe possibly I had a tiny crush on Valey as well. Had. Unfortunately."
Slipstream winced. "And now she's... whatever happened to her, and your sisters likely are too?"
"...Yes." Felicity sighed. "And instead of trying to help out around your ship a little as a peace offering, I wound up getting carried along on a dizzying airship ride and suddenly having the full extent of my skills needed to keep half of your friends from dying, some of whom likely trust me little enough to refuse service if they were conscious. Bad on top of worse on top of terrible... and to cap it all off with a problem that probably sounds terribly silly, the way I relax and unwind is with physical closeness. And now we're stuck with just the few of us in the middle of nowhere with no other ponies around, and by the time we're able to get back to civilization, even without Garsheeva's heresies to skirt around... I have three and a half months of foal that are about to start showing and likely make me that much less alluring. Lumping an issue like that in with my sisters likely being dead... It just makes me feel fabulous."
"So..." Slipstream hesitated. "You really would like a hug."
Starlight sat by Maple's bed in the infirmary, holding her moon glass sword as the world went by. It was a new day, late afternoon, and the ship was largely quiet. Harshwater and Felicity had been working, her friends were still stable, Slipstream and Nyala and Gerardo were resting, and she hadn't seen Jamjars or Glimmer.
Everyone had given up on asking about the sword she carried. She wasn't going to tell them what she had done with it, though she suspected anyone who had been conscious to see her stab Chrysalis's crown already knew. But it wouldn't do to get anyone's hopes up. She polished the sword, running a hoof down its sticky surface, wishing it wouldn't cling to her like it did. Though maybe the souls inside were clinging instead...
How many were there? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? One had to be Valey's. It taunted her, frustratingly out of reach when Amber had saved her body and all the parts that should have been needed to put her back together again were right there. She felt like there should be a way to do this. There had to, when Garsheeva was able to do it for Nyala. Knowing her friend was right there and she couldn't do anything to help her hurt, like her heart was the wrong size for her chest, yet at the same time, having so many souls right there that would have been someplace far worse if she hadn't saved them herself... It was almost hard to look away from the sword. They needed each other. She wouldn't let the ponies she had saved down.
"Nnngh..." In a nearby bed, Saffron stirred.
"Don't move," Harshwater instantly said, rousing herself from a catnap and stepping gracefully to the unicorn's side. "Your leg is broken, on top of a lot of smaller injuries. We're safe here."
Saffron instantly winced. "Oh, my head... W-Where...?"
"On our airship. Careful," Harshwater urged, soft and stern. "We had a bad fight. Do you need water?"
"Sure would be nice..." Saffron closed her eyes. "Can't say I feel great, sugarcube..."
Harshwater quickly stepped to a corner, where Grenada had moved an intact barrel of water. "Here," she said, raising a glass to Saffron's lips. "Starlight, go find Felicity and Slipstream."
"Slipstream?" Starlight asked, getting to her hooves and heading for the door. "I don't think she's one of the doctors..."
Harshwater nodded. "But she's been out scouting, and Saffron is the only other one who knows about where we are."
Starlight swallowed, disappearing out into the hall without further objections.
When Starlight returned a short while later, Slipstream in tow, Saffron was sitting upright, her leg bound in a careful, makeshift splint. The pink pegasus followed her on wobbly legs, and brightened when she saw one more pony up and about.
"Howdy," Saffron greeted, sounding slightly less dizzy. "So what's this I'm hearing about us being back in Equestria? They say you're the only one who's been to check the place out?"
"We're definitely south of the mountains, using the sun as a compass," Slipstream replied, leaning against a wall and stretching one leg at a time to fight off lingering cramps. "So, you know anything about the area around us? Because guess who volunteered to be in charge of scouting..."
"Good question." Saffron tried to shrug, stopping and wincing halfway through as Felicity quietly slunk to her side. "You've looked around at all? What's it look like around us?"
Slipstream sat down and rubbed her legs. "There's a lot of small hills, tall grass, rivers coming down from the mountains... an ocean to the southeast, and something called a train track running along the shore that was easier to walk on. We went far enough to see a giant bay with a mountain that looked like a tree across the water."
"That's Equestria, alright," Saffron hummed. "Sounds like we're just north of Griffonstone."
"More griffons, hmm?" Felicity tilted her head, running her hooves along Saffron's side. "I hope you don't mind me, by the way. Just trying to check your injuries again now that you're awake and moving."
"Doctors do what doctors do," Saffron replied, nonchalant. "And these aren't your average Empire griffons. There's only a few things you need to know about Griffonstone griffons. First, it's actually a griffon society, compared to the Empire where ponies are in the majority. Only them around. Second, they're mean, greedy, and don't like other folks. They'll treat you well only as long as you keep paying, and after that, you're out of luck. Fortunately, the Empire and Equestria use the same currency, so we can buy them off for a while. I wouldn't advise setting hoof out alone without a safe stash of money on you."
"Well, that's heartening." Slipstream folded her ears. "At least we have a lot of money left from the restaurant. So what do you recommend we do?"
Saffron thought for a moment. "In terms of where to go? Well, they'd sell us food, though don't expect it to be too high-quality. This isn't the best place to stick around, really. Can't we leave?"
"Out of fuel and stranded in the hills, I'm afraid," Felicity sighed, drawing back from her monk art ministrations. "From everything I've heard, we might be stuck here for quite some time."
Saffron's face fell. "That's not so great, I'm afraid. You've probably seen if you tried flying around, but the terrain here isn't something you can just walk over. The only way I made it past all these rivers and tall grass on my way north was by getting a small riverboat and a punting pole to push myself upstream."
Slipstream nodded, still stretching. "Getting a boat like that sounds like an important goal, then. I think I saw a forest to the east... Maybe we can get wood from there? If not, there's a wrecked airship we could possibly salvage for timbers."
Saffron tested a foreleg that wasn't broken, wiggling her joints and then smoothing a rough patch on her fur. "A forest? Hmm... That's just on the other side of a big canyon that's somehow important to local lore. Can't remember the name, but that's definitely something you won't be crossing without wings. Might be able to pay some griffons to carry some of us, though..."
"So what about the train tracks?" Slipstream asked. "Do you know anything about them?"
Saffron blinked. "Those things? Oh, right, I guess you might not have seen a train before... The Empire doesn't have them, at least. It's basically a path for a machine that gets you here quickly from the center of Equestria. Doubt it'll be of any use to us, except, as you said, a road." She tried to look to the window, but it wasn't at a good angle to be seen from the bed. "Griffons don't care much for visiting the rest of Equestria, so the only time you get trains is when someone wants to come here, not leave. And the closer you get to the center of Equestria, the less they care to admit the rest of the world exists. So, this stop won't even be on a lot of maps, and you might need to be a bigwig to ask to come here even if you know about it. Long story short, it may as well be abandoned."
"Noted..." Slipstream nodded. "At least it will make a good road if we're walking to Griffonstone. But in order to get more than just Harshwater and I there, we'll have to make a smaller boat for the rivers, and to do that we'll need wood, which either means exploring the forest or the crashed ship... I guess I have my next exploration objective. I'll get to it as soon as I'm not feeling dead after yesterday's flight."
"Fortunately, Gerardo should be up before long, and able to help," Maple added from her bed nearby. "He only got stabbed with Starlight's sword, and it wore off after about a week when it hit me and Amber."
The black sword wasn't with her, but Starlight felt a small note of appreciation that her friends seemed to remember them having it once again.
Harshwater cleared her throat. "One more important thing, now that you're up: you had a healing potion on you when you were teleported. Since no one was in immediate danger of death, we waited for you to be up to use it. Who do you want it used on?"
Saffron blinked. "Well... who all is down, and with what?"
"Your broken leg and assorted ailments, Maple has cracked ribs..." Felicity pointed around the room. "We're not entirely sure what's wrong with Meltdown, and Shinespark has a cracked horn."
Saffron instantly winced. "Give all of it to Shinespark, or as much as will help. That's not an ailment she'll want to pass up help recovering from."
"There's also Gazelle, who's mostly in shock," Harshwater added. "Everyone else is minor and will recover on their own."
Saffron lit her horn, testing her aura's strength. "Give it to Shinespark," she insisted. "Though since you're not mentioning Valey, I assume I didn't quite prevent her from... not being an option..."
Maple folded her ears.
"Here you are, darling..." Felicity pointedly didn't look at Saffron as she held up the jar, uncorked it, and slowly coaxed Shinespark to drink, stroking her throat with a wingtip to make her swallow.
Shinespark's eyes were open yet blank, and she reacted to the drink, not quite lucid. As the bottle slowly drained, her horn tingled with a faint light, and by the time it was empty many of the lesser cracks had sealed, though it was still obvious where they had been. The bigger ones were noticeably smaller, though it didn't seem a single dose was enough to banish them.
"Urgh..." When Felicity pulled the bottle away, Shinespark licked her lips and rolled over, slightly more animated than she had been before.
"Hopefully that will help her come around soon," Harshwater sighed. "I can't believe out of the six unicorns on our ship, three are disabled and one is Neon Nova..."
Three days passed before Slipstream was feeling up to a scouting trip again. Gerardo was recovered enough to talk quietly, and he and Nyala had been moved to another room Grenada fixed up so they could rest in better comfort. Nyala herself was taking getting her strength back into her own hooves, and had gotten a wheel cart Jamjars and Glimmer had cobbled together from the wreckage of Shinespark's supplies in the cargo bay. The cart fit beneath her barrel, taking most of the weight off her legs while still allowing her to push herself around and strengthen them. Maple, Saffron, Meltdown and Gazelle were still confined to Harshwater's infirmary, the former two awake and talking, Meltdown silent and Gazelle in an unabated state of shock. Howe and Neon Nova had continued to make the pantry their lair, and had been issuing increasingly vague and ominous warnings about the state of the ship's supplies. And Shinespark...
"We're getting ready to depart," Slipstream reported, standing in the doorway to the bridge and doing pre-flight stretches, Starlight and Felicity at her back. "We're going to scout the shipwreck, as planned. Any last instructions or advice?"
Shinespark sat in front of the ship's dim control panel, hooves on the levers and head bowed. She tensed, concentrating, and her horn sparked blue... but no aura formed. "I don't have anything to offer," she said, voice stoic and hard.
"Right. We'll... try to bring back good news, then..." Folding her own ears, Slipstream stepped away.
"She's far from alright," Felicity apologized, keeping her voice down.
Starlight frowned. "She was bad after Ironridge, too. Losing ponies she cares about is hard for her." She hesitated, then added, "Probably because she spent too much of her foalhood not being a normal filly. She was fighting for Ironridge ever since she got her cutie mark. I don't know how to help her."
"I hate to say it, but I'm a little bit more skilled at emotionally deconstructing ponies than putting them back together again..." Felicity looked out over the railing. "So, the three of us are on a nearby scouting mission."
Slipstream's eyes found Felicity's belly. "If you're sure you can handle it. I know you have a lot of issues that lower your stamina..."
"But you have a filly to carry," Felicity countered, "and are self-proclaimed out of shape yourself. Besides, I need to make myself useful as well, and I can pace you so you don't get too worn-out to get back out again tomorrow. And I'll be useful if it's dark in there! Besides, it's not like I we can't rest along the way. The ground isn't hazardous, merely slow for progress."
Slipstream reddened, helping Starlight onto her back. "Well, it might be a lot easier carrying one filly instead of two... but if you're sure you want to come, let's go."
The three took flight, Felicity breathing heavily and flagging within minutes. "How are you holding up!?" Slipstream called back, lowering her speed.
"Not... quite peachy, I'm afraid," Felicity huffed. "But I don't need a break yet! Let's press on and... keep going!"
Felicity eventually needed a break.
She needed four of them, in fact, during which Slipstream left Starlight and her on the ground and flew high to try to pinpoint their destination. After the final ten minutes of flying, they settled in on a hill forming one side of the valley the wreck was lodged in. Felicity sprawled out on her side in the grass and let her eyes go thin, her coat already too full of seeds and grassy bits to care as she waited for her breathing to steady.
"Are you alright?" Starlight sat down against her back, innately bothered to see someone as bright and important as Felicity in distress. If the roles were reversed, she knew she wouldn't want to be left alone...
Felicity dryly licked her lips. "Didn't overdo it. Just need a moment to catch my breath..." She raised a wing, tucked her head under it, and pulled out a small dagger from a concealed sheath. "Here," she said, offering it to Starlight with her teeth. "Maybe cut down some of the grass...?"
"Good idea," Slipstream agreed, using a trick with her feathers to try to measure the sun's angle to the horizon. "The ship is hard to see from low down, so marking this hill will give us a better landmark if we want to find it again later."
"I think she meant so it's easier to lie down," Starlight mumbled around the knife, getting to work shearing off grass around Felicity and creating a nicer patch for the mare.
Slipstream was busy thinking aloud. "So, it's hard to tell because of the breaks, but excluding them, at our speed, I think we're about an hour and a half from the Dream. Three hours with them. I was too tired and sort of forgot to measure last time, but I think you fly around the speed I fly with a full load. But we can only fly at a direct speed if we leave landmarks and don't have to constantly check where we're going..."
"Very clever of you," Felicity panted, getting a shoulder beneath her. "Perhaps we should investigate the ship and see what there is here that's worth coming back for before planning a return?"
Slipstream wiped some sweat from her brow. "Just a hunch, but I think it'll be interesting. Are you ready to go in now?"
"A few more minutes, please." Felicity closed her eyes. "And a drink. Starlight, are you coming in or keeping watch?"
Starlight looked up from her mowing. "If I cut down this entire hill, it will be easy to see from a distance and will be a good place to put anything you bring out that we want to carry home." She winced inwardly at having to ask her friends to leave her behind, but this was smart and useful. If they recognized that...
"Good thinking." Slipstream winked, a sight that made it all worth it. "Alright. Felicity, we'll go whenever you're ready."
"Darling, I know it's not polite to ask a lady her weight," Felicity apologized, standing and surveying the wreck with Slipstream. "But is it safe to assume I weigh more than you?"
Slipstream sized up the bigger mare's proportions. "Well, I haven't tried to lift you, but unless you're deceptively light..."
Felicity nodded. "Then any floor that holds me should safely hold you. Now, I'm not the fastest, but I can sneak through falling things in the dark, so we should travel far enough apart to spread out our weight but close enough we can reach each other if something collapses. If there is an incident, grab onto me as quickly as you can."
"Grab onto you?" Slipstream blinked.
"Ever seen a sarosian shadow sneak, darling?" Felicity fluttered her eyelashes. "Don't tell me Valey never showed you. It's good for avoiding things, like prying eyes, watchful guards... and in this case, debris if there's a cave-in."
"Right. I've seen that." Slipstream nodded. "You think this place is that unstable?"
Felicity took a deep breath and spread her wings. "Only one way to find out."
Slipstream watched as she soared to the shipdeck, landing as softly as her wings would allow. The boards creaked dangerously beneath her, but as Felicity steadied herself and folded her wings, they held.
"It seems to be safe!" she called back. "Don't land right near me just in case!"
Slipstream felt the ship's timbers give ever so slightly as she landed, too. It felt less like the boards themselves were compromised and more like the ship's structural integrity was broken somewhere inside, because the whole floor held together as one. "Are you sure this is safe?"
"Look at it this way, darling," Felicity assured, getting down on her belly and beginning to crawl forward. "The more dangerous it is, the more likely no one else has plundered it and there will be useful supplies for us. And move like this. It spreads out your weight more."
"...I have a feeling I will get splinters." Slipstream took a breath, and complied.
They crossed the deck uneventfully, Felicity choosing to descend through the hole that had been broken in the floor rather than any normal doorways. Looking down through the hole, she identified where the floor support beams ran and crept along those, dropping gracefully when she reached the edge and taking care not to snag her mane on a broken board.
Slipstream followed, using her wings as extra limbs to carefully maneuver down the hole. The sun was still high enough to provide illumination in the bottom, and they found themselves in an area that seemed to have once been a galley. Countertops and a contained oven were spaced around the surviving side of the room, and Felicity was already opening them, picking through. "Empty... empty... far too old... Ooh, a rusty spatula. Too bad we can't eat utensils..."
While she searched, Slipstream wandered to the door at the side of the room that hadn't been blocked by the cave-in. She carefully eased it open, but the floor beneath her seemed mostly sturdy and a short hall with a bathroom on one side and a staircase on the other greeted her.
"It looks like there's a way further down," Slipstream suggested. "Shall we?"
"Stay by me," Felicity requested, waving a wing. "We don't want to overlook anything anyone else has missed. Disappointingly, someone's already been here before us, but we'll just have to hope our eyes are better... Think there's any way this oven could be used for parts?"
Slipstream grimaced, walking back to the debris from the cave-in. "I am not carrying back an oven to find out." She tugged at a board. "We might be able to get some good wood from this, but I'd need a way to get the nails free..."
"Alright." Felicity sighed and straightened up. "I think we're going to have to go further in to find anything useful. This way, you said?"
Slipstream nodded, following as Felicity turned into the bathroom, stepping carefully while scanning the dim light with her keen eyes. "Still has a bit of a stink," Felicity commented, opting not to touch anything. "What's this on the wall? Petunia's favorite..." She made a face and stepped backward into the hallway. "Ech. Well, that says a lot about this ship's crew's taste in graffiti. I've rarely felt so degraded for being a mare."
"What is it?" Slipstream frowned in concern, peeking in through the doorway. "Someone did graffiti in their own airship?"
"That or a griffon looting this place." Felicity tapped her with her tail, prodding her to follow. "Nothing in there you want to see. Let's look through the rest of this floor before trying those stairs."
Slipstream followed. The next room was significantly darker, but she made out something that might have been a big table on its side. "Mess hall, no doubt," Felicity remarked, faint rays of light filtering down through cracks in the ceiling and a stench of old ale permeating from everywhere. "Mmm... I'm guessing this ship wasn't designed to sail like yours. I have a feeling it isn't watertight..."
She picked her way around a collection of assorted debris on the floor, mostly mugs and plates that looked like they had been made entirely from wood. A broken cabinet to the side revealed the source, and Felicity trotted carefully closer, inspecting it. "I wonder if there's anything else of value in-!"
She cut off with a sharp breath as her forehoof sought floor and found none. "Oh!" she gasped, immediately falling to her chest, the floor groaning loudly below her, one of her forelegs dangling up to the shoulder into the room below.
"Felicity?" Slipstream froze.
"Darling?" Felicity whispered. "What was the first rule I laid out when we were preparing to enter?"
Slipstream hesitated, not wanting to move in case the floor was more unstable than she thought... and it was dark enough that Felicity was merely an outline on the ground. "Let you go first to test for floor that can't hold us."
Felicity frowned. "And what was the second rule?"
Slipstream bit her lip.
"Grab onto me the moment anything happens," Felicity reprimanded. "Not wait five seconds to see if I'm okay or there's no more danger, grab on immediately. And you're still several hoofsteps away."
"Um. Sorry!" Slipstream winced.
Felicity hummed. "You still haven't done it yet..."
Awkwardly, Slipstream crawled forward, careful not to fall herself, and put her hooves on Felicity's shoulders.
Felicity rolled her eyes and sighed. "Alright. This is clearly making you uncomfortable, and I apologize for not practicing when we were still out in the open. But first, help me up? I'm slightly stuck."
Slipstream grabbed Felicity more certainly, beat her wings and lifted, and together they were able to scramble upright and back onto solid ground.
"That's more like it," Felicity said, dusting herself off and staring at the ground. "Looks like a table corner smashed things after tumbling around during the fall. Not big enough for us to comfortably get down without swimming, though. Speaking of which..." She turned to Slipstream, tapping the floor to make sure it was stable. "Anything unexpected or possibly dangerous happens. What do you do?"
"Hold onto you," Slipstream repeated, answering like a student in a lecture class.
"Show me." Felicity's eyes sparkled in the darkness.
Slipstream stepped forward and hugged her, but there was some hesitation in her step, and her hooves more of brushed Felicity than clung to her. The batpony frowned. "Darling, you're letting your modesty get the best of you. I'm not some forbidden fruit, and this is a matter of safety. I don't care where you hold or how hard you do it so long as it's quick enough that I don't have to make it back to the ship and tell Harshwater one of our only fit ponies is stranded an hour and a half away injured or worse. Try it again, and try it like you mean it. The ceiling falls right... now."
This time, Slipstream was quicker, jumping fast on her hooves and grappling Felicity still awkwardly, but hard. "How's this?" she asked, making the batpony stagger backward a few paces from the effort.
"That's... much more like it," Felicity said, carefully staying upright. "Good. You alright? You think you can do that without me prompting if this place tries to come down on us? We've just had a scare right there, and I would have greatly appreciated someone to catch me if I had been about to fall a whole floor."
Slipstream nodded, momentarily grateful the darkness was hiding her blush. "That is not something I'll get used to, but I can do it quickly."
"A bit too close for comfort?" Felicity asked. "Still stirring up those memories we talked about the other night?"
Slipstream rubbed her hooves. "It's not bad, just awkward. But we still have a ship to explore, right?"
"Truly." Felicity took up the lead again, dropping and crawling again to safely guard against further falls. "We can talk about it later if you like. Ugh, I wish we had Jamjars and her working horn..."
"A lamp would be a great thing to find around here," Slipstream agreed.
They made it to the far end of the dining hall without further incident, Felicity testing the way by crawling along on her belly and Slipstream following carefully in her trail. There was one more door here, this one leading up a short flight of steps to a door that was locked and looked like someone had tried to force it off its hinges. It was well-built, though, and as the two mares felt out the edges in the darkness, Slipstream figured it was both ornate and designed to guard against precisely that sort of thing.
"Someone's been after this," Felicity singsonged to herself. "And whoever it was forgot to bring a sarosian. Grab on, darling. I think we've found somewhere nobody has managed to plunder!"
Slipstream clasped on tightly, wrapping her hooves around Felicity with a speed she hoped would make the mare proud. As many initial reservations as she had felt about her, Felicity knew what she was doing... and she needed all the help she could get.
"Oomph! Good job..." Felicity wheezed slightly. "You were listening after all. Now, I suppose we'll get to practice shadow swimming as well, which is all on me but still something that might be nice to be prepared for. Ready to go under this door?"
Slipstream nodded. "You're kind of sticky, by the way," she mentioned, feeling a hoof against Felicity's fur. "Just so you know..."
"Was it the floor? Of course it was the floor," Felicity sighed. "Hopefully it's not too bad. Oh well. Treasure hunting first, seeing what I accidentally crawled through in the dark later. Here we go!"
The duo sank into the floorboards, vanishing beneath the sealed door with a ripple of shadow.
Felicity and Slipstream surfaced in a room that had once been opulent, though time and the crash had seen to it that nobody would be enjoying themselves here any time soon. It took a moment for Slipstream to re-orient herself after the confusing visage of being submerged in shadows, but when she did, she saw a smashed four-poster on a once-red carpet, the room nestled into the ship's stern and surrounded by the remains of windows. The stern seemed to have collapsed from above while still holding together, creating a slanted roof and blocking the windows with debris while still permitting them to allow light and the elements.
"Well, this carpet has certainly seen better days," Felicity dryly remarked, the floor squishing slightly beneath her hooves. "Ick. Should have worn boots... Darling, if this room's mildew proves too much for my lungs, I may have to retreat."
Slipstream nodded, pacing carefully to the remains of the bed. The roof had fallen on its canopy when it partially collapsed, and knocked the whole thing in on itself, but it had easily been big enough for two... or a very large captain.
"There's a desk," Felicity murmured, trotting to a relatively-intact corner, her tail shivering from the sensation of the wet carpet below. "Look for any treasure chests, darling. Now, what have we here...?"
While Felicity searched, Slipstream inspected the wreckage around the windows, just enough light filtering through to see by. A lot was buried beneath, but it seemed like mostly mundane things... A hat rack, crushed picture frames, padded chairs and a low table. She extracted the remains of a tri-fold from near the rack, and held it up. "What do you think? Pirates?"
"If this land's pirates can be held to the same fashion senses as ours, probably not," Felicity replied, using the spokes on her leathery wings to attempt to pick a locked drawer. "Empire pirates only ever dressed that way in stories, save for a small few who lived by the legends. Legends that are rooted in high Goldoa fashion from four and a half hundred years ago, I might add, so it wasn't even originally related to... Aha!"
The lock sprang open, and Felicity slid back a drawer that was surprisingly well-preserved. "Ooh, wax sealant," she mused, lifting out a well-worn book. "Somebody didn't want you getting damaged..."
Slipstream looked up, in the middle of trying to force the door on a closet with a damaged frame. "What is it?"
"Captain's log," Felicity said, flipping it open with a grin. "Seems this misfortunate craft was called the Shining Talon. The dates start about twenty years ago, when it was... stolen from someone else. Of course." She curled her lip. "Hm hmm, hm hmm... Captain Groctus. What a tragic name."
Slipstream curiously wandered over. "Sounds like this was a pirate ship after all."
"A pirated one, at the very least." Felicity turned several pages, skimming. "Likely griffons, too. Come now, give me treasure maps or interesting details..."
"Treasure maps?" Slipstream tilted her head. "You really think gold and jewels will help us right now? How would we even carry it home?"
Felicity winked. "Oh, I'm not interested in the treasure, darling. Well, I am, but the map is more important. Especially if they've also marked danger or places to avoid..." She chewed her tongue as she searched. "Seems they knew about the Empire. Read this."
Slipstream stared at the page filled with messy, repetitive scrawl. "Wow."
"Yes, I suspect someone was drunk while writing this..." Felicity flipped another page. "Ah. The captain's daughter was killed in a skirmish with Equestrian border guards. I must say, the first mate's writing is infinitely better than his superior's..."
"Equestrian border guards?" Slipstream frowned, Felicity skimming too fast for her to keep up.
"Seems to be these particular pirates' nemesis," Felicity replied. "There are a lot of references to making plans to get past them. It makes sense, I suppose, that if there's a point here to cross the mountains with a Writ of Harmonic Sanction, then whoever issues the writs would be interested in monitoring it... I suppose these pirates just never knew about the mountains' supposedly-endless nature?"
Slipstream bit her lip. "If it's not common knowledge, that means it wouldn't deter anyone from crossing, so someone might get through now that whatever happened that let us through happened. I hope that's not a problem..."
"Mmm. From the writings here, it looks like they never made it far enough to find out." Felicity rubbed her cheek with a wingtip, holding the book and turning another page. "There's a lot of interest written here in smuggling various kinds of alcohol to the Empire. Though the way the captain writes about it, I believe he thinks the Empire is much, much smaller and poorer than it is. This place's inferior cousin, as it were."
"Still no maps, though?" Slipstream's ears fell, but she kept watching hopefully.
Felicity reached the end, only blank pages meeting her as she flipped further. "Hmm. Well, we'll take this back and give it a more careful read-over, but I didn't see any drawings... Maybe they keep sea charts elsewhere. It's a little small of a book to be used for maps, anyway."
"There was a table!" Slipstream perked up, almost running back to the window wreckage and stopping herself when her hooves started to squish. "Maybe there are charts..."
"Oh, would you look at this," Felicity called, summoning her back over. "The last entry. Seven years ago... Here's what happened to the ship, I suppose?"
First Mate Glenn, acting captain's report. This will be the Talon's final flight. We have split the crew three ways, leading a raid to barricade the railway and draw out the pony defenders. While their main garrison is dispatched, our second crew will lead a ground strike on their fortress, drawing away their reserve. While they are undermanned, we will strike the Talon into their fortress and deliver the payload.
I will be leading the rail team. I rate our odds of success at twenty percent, with much running involved. But Captain Groctus will be leading the ground assault team, and he is confident that with the regalia of the Forest King on our side, we can prevail. Either way, our rallying cry is the same: the ponies will stand in the way of our profits no longer!
The skies have been free of pony scouts all day. They will never see us coming.
Slipstream shrugged, finishing the passage. "Apparently they saw them coming. What's a Forest King?"
"I'm more interested in this payload they discussed," Felicity mused. "Though regalia is usually just for show, so having some that seemingly increases your odds of victory... Perhaps if they were downed early, it's still here."
"Well, I can't think of any better place for regalia than in a closet." Slipstream returned to working on the stuck door, trying to pry one of its hinges from the wall. "Is there anything else in that book? Because I could use a hoof, here."
Felicity closed the book and set it hack in its drawer, having nowhere better to set it. "Here we go, darling."
She wrapped a wing around Slipstream, and after a brief submerging, they rose in a room that was completely dark... except for a single source of illumination.
It was a coat, griffon-sized and red with gold trim and armored shoulders, bearing a cape and gauntlets and a noble collar. A green emblem of a crowned tree graced the chest, and a platinum tiara with a single large emerald sat above it. Beside it was a rapier, the blade polished silver and the flowing hilt guard inlaid with traces of emerald in the pattern of leafy vines. The whole assembly glowed with a faint light that didn't reach the walls as much as it should have, as if the clothes were there to draw attention to themselves and themselves alone. And despite the damp conditions and the years the ship had stood empty, they didn't seem affected at all.
Felicity slowly gasped, her pupils growing and dilating, and she put a hoof over Slipstream without thinking. "Oh, darling, I know I didn't say we were here for treasure, but I know valuables when I see them..."
"Are they magical?" Slipstream blinked. "They're glowing..."
"Likely so, and yes they are," Felicity giggled. "Come. Let's handle this door and get this absolute haul out into the light. Just imagine how much favor we could win with the money-grubbing locals in exchange for something like these..."
Slipstream started working at the door. "Seems like they'd be a shame to sell. They look pretty, and are apparently powerful?"
"I know." Felicity's ears fell dramatically. "Would that I could keep them, I'd be a very happy mare, I will admit. While they are designed for a griffon royal, I do imagine I'd look deeply attractive in upper-class stallions' clothes..."
Slipstream raised an eyebrow.
Felicity sighed. "But I'm playing a different game now, and you all have to be my first concern. And that means making the most of our resources and not being selfish, and these really do look like they could go a long way... Though I'm still trying them on after I've had the world's longest bath. Need help?"
"With this door?" Slipstream shoved it. "If you can't sneak them through, we'll need to get it open. Watch out for the ceiling, it's damaged. Are you strong enough to try to buck it open with me?"
Felicity lined up her rump with the door. "I'll give it a shot."
With a shout, both mares kicked, and the door snapped off its damaged hinges, spinning on its way down and preparing to club them both across the back. But with well-honed reflexes, Felicity jumped to the side and tackled Slipstream, and when the door fell they were both safely submerged in shadow.
"Whew," Slipstream panted as they got up. "That surprised me. Thanks?"
Felicity frowned at the door. "Well, I was ready just in case anything happened. Remember your own job, though, darling. I think we would have been fine, getting hit by that, but better not to take chances."
Slipstream nodded, pushing the fallen door out of the way and making sure the ceiling still looked stable. Apart from slightly more ruined trim, it would hold. Looking back in satisfaction, she sized up the regalia, then the locked captain's door, all the bolts still present on the inside. "Alright. Time to get this out of here."
Felicity and Slipstream panted, having wrestled the regalia and the griffon-shaped figurine on which it hung back to the pillar of light from the broken roof in the galley. Immaculate as ever, the clothing seemed to shine softly in the light, as if its threads bent the rays slightly to draw more attention to itself.
"Whew," Felicity breathed, wiping a wing across her brow. "Treasure, you've done us proud. I fear we'll need to carry it back piece by piece, or perhaps with Harshwater's help..."
"Do you still want to look for more?" Slipstream tilted her head, feeling her fur plastered against itself. "We've got more than enough to carry back if we leave now..."
Felicity hummed in thought. "Mmm... I am a little tired, but I'd rather not." She picked at her fur, in poor condition from her crawls across the ground. "Better to get this all over with at once."
"Right..." Slipstream nodded. "So, the only way left is downstairs?"
Felicity squared her shoulders, heading for the door to the hallway again. "I believe that to be the case. If this really was a merchant ship, there's likely to be a large hold down there, with a possibility of more things plunderers missed."
Slipstream followed along. When Felicity tried the stairs, the first board immediately broke under her hoof, no one having installed vertical slats to support the horizontals. She scowled at it disdainfully, having caught herself and prepared for the fall.
"Well..." Slipstream surveyed the dark staircase, descending to a shadowy landing and then switching back. "There's no room to fly down..."
"Grab ahold," Felicity sighed, taking the pegasus in a wing and stepping into a wall. Moments of swimming later, they emerged from the darkness at the foot of the stairs in a pitch-black interior... and Slipstream immediately felt rotting wood beneath her hooves.
"Oh, I don't like the feel of this," Felicity sighed, rocking a watery floorboard beneath her. "Seems the ship is resting on the ground, here, but in a very non-waterproof manner."
Slipstream took a step, and the next board outright bent beneath her with a soggy groan. "That's not good at all," she agreed, pulling back and bumping into Felicity in the dark. "I don't like this. How much can you see?"
"A little bit." Felicity bit her lip. "There's a lot down here. Covered things, crates... Looks like some have fallen a short distance through the floor on their own weight. And let me feel..." She ran the edge of a hoof expertly over the wet floorboards. "There are some faint scratches here, though I'm guessing they were made long before the boards were this wet. Likely a few years, but not when the ship was quite still running."
"How much do you think they'd dry if we came back another day?" Slipstream asked.
Felicity felt the floor again. "Very little. Though we could at least bring a light..."
"Time to go back?" Slipstream tilted her head.
"No, we're getting through this," Felicity assured. "I have a feeling anything of value down here is likely either rusted or ruined, but it's faintly brighter up towards the prow of the ship. The direction we weren't able to go because the door was caved in. And if the floor won't support us... this is how it is done."
She stepped cautiously forward... then stomped harder. The floor immediately cracked beneath her hoof, a waterlogged section dropping several inches and hitting the ground. Felicity waited, then lowered her hoof, the wood now sitting solidly on the ground below.
"What are you doing?" Slipstream asked, following along behind.
"Grab on again, darling," Felicity said, standing carefully in her hole. "I'm skipping all of this and being clever."
Slipstream clung to her, and Felicity dipped them again into the shadows... this time swimming along the floor of the valley, mud and long-dead grass decaying in the ship's shadow. Slipstream held her breath, unable to tell just how tight of an enclosure they were passing through, but her lungs had almost begun to burn when Felicity surfaced in another hole, poking into the ship where a shattered support pillar had brought the floor down. The roof also had a hole, and though the ceiling above that was intact, somewhere in the next room up was an exposed window.
"Feeling like flying up there?" Slipstream asked, craning her neck.
"Doesn't seem like it's the best idea. But there is another staircase." Felicity pointed slightly further down the ship.
Slipstream took a step, and found the floor here to be drier and slightly sturdier than the waterlogged boards from before. She paced lightly, keeping her hooves spread and her weight even, and Felicity resorted to crawling again behind her, not trusting her heavier weight when the boards were already groaning. "I am so going to need a bath after this..."
The next staircase was the same build as the first. "Hug the wall," Felicity advised, "since that's where the braces are. And tread lightly. I'm not sure I can carry you up a wall while swimming, so you'll have to get this on your own."
Slipstream felt a step wobble beneath her, but Felicity's advice was sound. "If we're not looking for treasure in the hold, what even are we looking for?"
"At this point, just trying to map the place out and decide if there's anything we need to bring to finish exploring!" Felicity stared up the staircase, just enough light present to reflect in her slitted eyes.
"Right..." Slipstream rounded the landing and started up the second flight, another step cracking ominously but the whole thing holding together.
This room was reasonably well-lit, courtesy of two square windows on either side. It was in about as bad of shape as the captain's room, with a collapsed wall and a blocked exit that was likely the other side of the door in the galley. A sizable hole had been torn in half the floor, and the corners were heaped with mound after mound of black powder. Three wheeled, cylindrical apparatuses sat scattered around the floor that Slipstream slowly recognized as cannons.
"Oh wow," she said, stepping carefully over to one of the fallen guns, touching it with a hoof.
"Slipstream, freeze!" Felicity's voice called out behind her, stricken with urgency. Slipstream almost whirled... but did what Felicity said, keeping her neck and legs stiff and not moving a muscle. What was wrong?
Behind her, Felicity sniffed, standing at the top of the staircase. "That is a lot of gunpowder," she whispered. "There are scoops taken out of it. From some point after this ship went down... No matter. Darling?" Her tone suddenly became buttery and sweet. "Is there any chance you're either not wearing horseshoes, or have ones that don't happen to be metal?"
Slipstream folded her ears. "Youuu say it like it matters a whole lot..."
"Hypothetically, darling!"
"Maybe?"
Felicity swallowed. "Darling, you are going to stay there and not twitch a hair for fear of igniting these explosives and vaporizing us faster than that Crystal ever could hope to. Fortunately, I wear padded ones, which may have soaked up a lot of water and should be slightly safe. I'm just coming to get you..."
"Why do you wear padded horseshoes?" Slipstream asked, finding nothing else to fixate on besides the fact that she was apparently surrounded by explosives.
"For the times when silence is a virtue," Felicity simply replied. "Now I'll just... I don't know, find some way to carry you to a window and we'll leave, since I suddenly don't feel like exploring anymore..."
Slipstream didn't question whether the gunpowder was actually that unstable. "Can you really carry me? Is that even necessary?"
"I likely can't, but we'll cross that bridge when we-"
The floor cracked sharply beneath her.
Between the shattered support pillar below, the already-considerable hole in the floor, and the weight of Felicity, Slipstream, and the cannon all close together, the wood began to bend. Felicity gasped and stepped back, but there was now a hairline fracture running through the boards, and they were making noise that wasn't abating. Slipstream's wings trembled, and she swallowed. "Felicity, I think I'm moving..."
"Yes, yes, just... ah... don't fly," Felicity quickly urged. "It will stir up all this powder and wreak havoc on my lungs. We just-"
The floor snapped again, and Slipstream jolted. "I'm going to fall!"
"Alright then, I'll just circle around this way, and..." Felicity moved more quickly than she would have liked, fueled by desperation, and paid the price as a chunk of wood completely separate from Slipstream's yet adjacent from the pit broke off, dropping her like a rock. "Aaah!"
"Felicity!" Slipstream started to reach a hoof, but that was all her section of the floor could handle as well. It gave like a ramp, sliding her down and dropping her harshly, breaking a few more boards when she landed.
The cannon teetered on the edge, and then it fell, too.
Both mares were squarely in the way of the falling gun and any more of the ceiling it was about to take with it. Acting on panicked instinct, Slipstream lunged for Felicity, tearing part of her skin on a freshly-broken board but managing to grab on tightly. With instants to spare, Felicity dove into the darkness, taking Slipstream along as the cannon and a sizable chunk of ceiling clattered down atop them.
Felicity stayed under as long as their lungs would allow. When they surfaced, the air was so heavy with dust Slipstream immediately started coughing. "Fly," Felicity rasped, spreading her wings. "Window..."
Slipstream soared, using the last dregs of her breath to try to boost Felicity as well. They both made it halfway through the nearest window frame, jagged and broken and looking less like it had been damaged in the crash and more like something big had tried to force its way through it. But their wings caught as they tried to exit together, landing them with their heads outside and their barrels hung on the jagged frame.
Felicity coughed violently, grabbing the wall with her hooves to steady herself, and Slipstream did too. Eventually, they hauled themselves further out, landing on their backs on a shadowed hillside and staring up at the sky.
"I've changed my mind," Felicity wheezed, eyes streaming. "Ohhh it'll take a few hours before I think I can fly back. We're taking that regalia and are done..."
Slipstream hammered her chest, coughing. "Ow, I cut myself... I guess we discovered their payload that they wanted to crash into the fortress. Can I get you up to our hill?"
Felicity didn't object, and once Slipstream had gotten her breath back and stopped coughing, she got the bigger mare onto her back and made it through the swampy ground surrounding the airship hull. Back at their landmark hill, Starlight was still diligently at work, about a third of the mound completely bald. The filly saw them coming, standing and looking down with concern.
"We're fine... sort of? We're alive!" Slipstream called up.
After a second, it opened. "Hello?" Amber peered out, smiling when she saw who it was. Her mane was unbrushed and messier than usual, though her cheeks were free from telltale tearstains. Behind her, Valey's shell was visible sitting on a restored bed, completely passive and unrestrained. Her signature beret was perched lovingly on Amber's head.
"So, I've got news." Harshwater looked suspiciously at the body, not batting an eye at the beret. "Slipstream and Felicity are back, and messed themselves up. I need to convince Howe to follow me to the place where they were, because apparently they left Starlight and also found something we need to bring back. Slipstream can take care of herself, but Felicity is demanding a bath and you get to help her."
Amber blinked. "What?"
"Felicity is filthy and wants a bath, and you're going to do whatever she needs to help her," Harshwater repeated.
Amber glanced over her shoulder at Valey's body. "Is it important? Someone needs to take care of her..."
Harshwater rubbed her face with a wing. "It can take care of itself. Nyala's did. And you staying in here all the time is why we both agreed you should get outside and help her with whatever she needs. I know losing a friend can be traumatic, but it will be a lot easier to get on with your life if you don't shut yourself away."
Amber bit her lip. "I'd really rather not leave her..."
"Alright." Harshwater turned to leave. "Then Felicity will be bunking with you, you'll be in charge of cleaning anything she gets filthy, and you will field every complaint she makes about being dirty herself. She said to tell you there will be a lot."
"But..." Amber winced, her eyes starting to show hurt. "I don't want to bring Valey outside in case she flies off, but she needs me..."
"Valey is dead," Harshwater replied simply, emotion withheld from her voice with practiced grace. "Felicity is alive, and so are you. Are you more concerned with the dead, or the living?"
"She's not dead," Amber protested, striking a frown. "She walks around and sleeps, and her ears move when I talk! I am not leaving her behind."
Harshwater shook her head. "Nyala's body did that too. Ask her yourself if you don't believe me."
"And Nyala wasn't dead either," Amber said, resting her case.
Harshwater just sighed. "Nyala was brought back by a god. After years of hopes, wishes, and failed experiments that also created the mare who killed Valey in the first place. We're a little short on gods, in case you haven't noticed, and unless you have any ideas for getting her brand back from that monster when we're stranded and barely escaped the first encounter with our lives, we don't even have the real Valey. That's just a shell."
Amber winced harder. "This is not just a shell! Valey is my friend!"
"She was my friend, too." Harshwater kept her voice painfully even. "Larger than life. Saved mine twice, speaking of lives. The reason I joined on with this ship. I was terrified of her, and in awe of her at the same time. If there's an upside to losing her, it's that I'll never have to explain to her or try to quantify how I feel, because I'm not sure I can. So stop thinking you're the only one who cares. But you need to take care of yourself, and your other friends who are still here."
Amber looked regretfully at Valey's body. "I have to let her walk around, so she won't atrophy like Nyala. Valey was proud of her strength. I know she wouldn't want us to let her body go to seed..."
"She won't atrophy over two hours," Harshwater reassured, nodding stoically. "I'm not going to ask more nicely. You need to take care of yourself, and our scouts deserve the treatment."
With a sad sigh, Amber stepped through the doorway, looking back at the shell. "Be safe, Valey. I'll be home soon."
She shut the door and followed Harshwater off toward the stairs.
Two doors down the hall, a camouflaged bit of wood broke off from the wall, Jamjars making herself visible, Glimmer waiting behind her. The yellow filly frowned. "They don't know, do they? What Starlight did?"
"You only know because I told you," Glimmer pointed out. "And I only know because she wouldn't have done anything else."
Jamjars folded her ears. "Everyone on this ship is going to go mad."
"It's a frightening prospect," Glimmer replied. "Half of the ponies on this ship are bad at accepting loss and dealing with grief. It's a big part of what binds this crew together, and Valey herself was another. Magnetic, powerful, with a dream anyone can relate to if they've ever felt like they didn't belong... The first one to take charge, and so driven it hurt her whenever she couldn't see where she wanted to be going. It won't be the same without her, and everyone knows it, even the ones who didn't have a strong emotional attachment to her. But we can't afford to spend too much time mourning. We're still stranded with many injuries in territory that's neutral at best. Even if we've escaped danger, there's likely more coming. We can make it through this, but only if everyone who is able helps."
"Like yours truly." Jamjars sassily winked. "This filly isn't about to sit back and do nothing."
"So you're still on board with my plan?" Glimmer turned toward the end of the hall, where a door led into the trashed cargo bay.
Jamjars picked herself up and started strutting toward it. "The one where we get this place its mojo back? Only if it can be our little secret until it's done."
"Of course." Glimmer followed along, reaching the door quickly. "I don't want to get anyone's hopes up dependent on your ability. What to promise is your decision and yours alone."
The cargo bay was windowless and completely dark, though it didn't make a difference to Glimmer and Jamjars had the light from her horn. Crates and bins of supplies were spilled everywhere from their emergency vertical ascent, and only a small cleared area with an improvised desk sat in the center, surrounded by tangled and often-broken parts. Jamjars paced down to the desk, seating herself and smiling in anticipation. "Dependent on my ability, huh?"
"I won't be able to help beyond guidance, teaching and instruction. I won't even be able to see what you're doing," Glimmer replied. "I know a lot, but all of the fine mechanics and horn work will be you and you alone."
Jamjars closed her eyes and sat straight, taking a deep, contemplative breath... and opened them with a smirk. "My grandfather was a Sosan engineer, and for all her failings, my mother was a good tinkerer, too. It's in my blood. I've got this. I will master whatever ancient technology you have for me to learn."
Glimmer nodded in approval. "Right. The first thing we need is access to the information stored in this ship's administrative terminal. The blueprints for Shinespark's old designs, in particular. So for our first task, we need a way of restoring power to the ship..."
"But darling, that river is full of arctic runoff! It's probably freezing!"
Grenada dipped a hoof in the fast-flowing river. "It is quite warm."
Felicity's face scrunched.
"Maybe water temperature works differently in this land," Grenada mused, the Immortal Dream visible a hilltop away. "Maybe this one comes from an underground spring. Maybe the storm rain was hot."
"If it was hot, it would have cooled the day it fell," Felicity pointed out. "Now this is getting slightly awkward, so I suppose I'd appreciate it if you moved me one direction or the other..."
The aura around Grenada's horn pulsed, and with a tingle of telekinesis, Felicity went from held above the water to slowly dipping into it. "Mmm, you're right," she hummed. "I'd hardly call this quite warm, but it isn't frigid, either."
"Enjoy." Grenada sat back, pulling out a technical manual from the trashed library and beginning to read as she held Felicity steady in the background.
For a moment, Felicity was content to soak. Eventually, she asked, "Fascinating read?"
"No." Grenada flipped a page, not needing eye contact to concentrate on her aura. "But it gives me something to do."
"Ah." Felicity hung in the river, making a few halfhearted attempts to clean her fur. She was beyond caked from everything she had been through, between mud and crawling along the floor. "Well, I don't suppose you'd rather help me out, here? Especially since it doesn't seem Amber's going to show..."
Grenada didn't look up from her book. "She is mourning. What do you need?"
"Everyone is mourning, darling," Felicity sighed, breaking off into a brief fit of coughing. "Ugh. Excuse me. What I want is to be pampered, but circumstances not permitting, I would settle for a little help not feeling like a used dishrag."
Grenada looked up and raised an eyebrow. "I am already holding you in the water."
Felicity gave her an intense look. "This will be much more awkward than it needs to be if I have to explain the ins and outs of assisting a fellow mare with a bath, and I assure you, I am the much more shameless of us two."
Grenada shrugged. "If you are asking me to physically wash your coat and mane for you, I would rather not."
Felicity groaned.
"Hello?" Amber's voice called from the top of the hill. "Felicity, was that you? You down here?"
"Aha! More ponies!" Felicity waved up at the hilltop. "You came?"
Amber drew into sight, carefully making her way down to Grenada at the riverbank. "I really hate to leave Valey for long, but since I'm here... you called?"
"Closer to shore, please," Felicity requested, and Grenada moved her. "So, you came after all."
Amber set Valey's beret and her saddlebags carefully on the grass, then didn't wait for Felicity to finish drawing near. She leapt off the hillside into a cannonball, splashing down into the river with enough force to make Grenada look up in surprise. Seconds later, Amber surfaced, treading water and skillfully holding her own against the current. "Yep," she said, staring into Felicity's eyes, just close enough to be inside her personal space. "So, what are you asking? We're going to get this done right and done quick, because I have a friend I need to get back to. How clean are we talking, and how much am I going to have to do for you?"
Felicity smiled broadly. "Now that's the right attitude. I don't know if a single bath ever can rid me of that floor's smell, but as close to perfection as you can come. And while I don't expect a luxury spa worker, I am very worn out and would appreciate if you did your best to pamper me."
"Right." Amber gave Grenada a businesslike look. "I've got this. Let her go and put the bottles from my saddlebags by the shore."
"Wait, what-?" Felicity started to protest as Grenada's aura disappeared and the river's current seized her, but Amber instantly had a hoof around her, dragging her close enough to the shore that a pony could either float or stand. Amber braced herself with two legs, held Felicity in place floating on her side with a third, and used her free hoof to feel through her coat.
"Hmmm..." Amber bit her tongue in concentration, rolling her in the water again. "Mostly mud on your back and... what's this you were crawling through?"
Felicity blinked, then giggled at the way she was being held. She made a face at Grenada. "Well, someone's not afraid to get their hooves dirty. And I have no idea, but it was the floor of the mess hall in a pirate ship. Smelled like cheap ale."
"Yep." Amber nodded, holding out a hoof and rolling Felicity onto her back, still floating her at the surface. "Green bottle, please."
Grenada shrugged, floating the bottle out to Amber. "It is not a matter of doing work. I just do not feel like caring for another mare's coat... or getting wet."
"Your loss." Amber grabbed the bottle, popped the cap and held it in her teeth, measuring an amount onto her hoof before closing it and tossing the bottle back to shore. "I've always found swimming relaxing. Here we go..." She started rubbing in the shampoo, frowning at the small amount of lather. "Wow, this might take a bit. This is gross."
Felicity closed her eyes and leaned back, floating on the surface. "Glad to have your assistance, darling. I'll repay you if I can, sometime."
Amber continued working on Felicity's chest. "You play your part, and I'll play mine. I don't know you all that well, but staying on our side this time is a better way than any." Her hoof moved lower, and she blinked. "You're pregnant?"
"I don't know why I keep being surprised when ponies don't remember that," Felicity muttered, lifting her head and looking at herself. "Is it really that obvious?" She sighed in disappointment.
Amber shrugged, bracing Felicity against herself to hold her against the current and working more gently. "When your best friend has three kids and you spent a year of your fillyhood trying to feel kicks, you've felt it enough to tell." Her lips pursed in concentration. "That's not a problem, is it?"
"No, no..." Felicity just leaned back again.
"Well, it's making you tense." Amber started scooping water with her hooves, rinsing without rolling her back over. "And this will feel better if you relax. I know what I'm doing, here. Between that and having your other best friend be depressed for two years, you pick up a little about how to make a girl feel good. I'm not your luxury spa worker, but I know how to get this done right."
Felicity hummed, doing as instructed and leaning back. Amber worked quickly but never roughly or sloppily, asking Grenada for various shampoo bottles and occasionally turning Felicity in the water, focusing mostly on her mane, tail, legs, chest and belly but gradually getting everything.
"Darling, you really do know what you're doing," Felicity murmured as Amber held her on her side, carefully massaging her shoulder and foreleg. "You're sure your brand isn't a coincidence and your true calling is as a professional masseuse?"
Amber shook her head. "That's a long story, but no, it's for building and maintaining boats. And I'm just washing. If you want a massage too, you're going to have to come back to my cabin, because I've been away from Valey for too long already."
Felicity's eyelashes fluttered at the implication that Amber not only didn't consider this a massage, but thought she could do a real one. "Oh, I'd like that..."
"This is why I did not want to help," Grenada said from the shore, still reading. "You are getting far too into this. Sharing a bed out of necessity is one thing, but this is another."
"Good thing you never lived in Riverfall," Amber muttered, rubbing against the grain of Felicity's leg fur to get at the roots.
Felicity smiled contentedly, not expending the energy on a shrug. "If only you knew what you were missing out on."
"I have imagined it many times," Grenada replied, turning another page in her book. "How much longer will you be?"
Amber flipped Felicity over again. "Just a last rinse here, and then we'll go back to the ship to dry off. You can stay in my room so I can finish."
Felicity purred her assent.
Grenada shut her book and sighed. "You two are far too friendly, too quickly."
"Too friendly?" Amber shrugged. "You're talking to the mare who was friends with half of Riverfall. Everyone knows what my first choice is for things to be doing, so as long as I'm out here instead, I'm going to make it worth everyone's while. Felicity, you're enjoying this?"
Felicity sighed happily. "I'm going to have to find a way to get this again someday..."
"Preferably some way better than threatening to get my bed dirty and complain," Amber said with a wry smirk. "But there you go. Just gotta read ponies and figure out what makes them tick. And Felicity straight-up told me."
Grenada just shook her head. "Fine. I will carry you back if you still need it. Let us go."
"Well, telling people what you want is usually a better way of getting it than being obscure," Felicity remarked, satisfied and content as Grenada's aura formed around her. "Now if it isn't too much to ask, getting dried off sounds wonderful, and if that massage is still on the table..."
"If we can do it in my room," Amber replied, leaving no room for argument.
"No objections..."
Amber gathered her things back in her saddlebags, set Valey's hat lightly atop her head, and trotted after the other two back towards the ship in the adjacent valley.
In Amber's room, the window blinds were fully drawn back, though the ship wasn't angled right for the room to get much sun. An empty, insectoid pony body sat patiently on the floor, staring at the door with empty eyes, and when Amber pushed it open, the shell thumped its tail against the ground.
"Here you go," Grenada finished, depositing Felicity on the floor and stepping away. "I am going to see what needs doing."
Amber rushed to the shell's side, giving it a caring nuzzle that it accepted with a blank, pupilless stare. "Valey! I'm back! You're still here..."
"It is," Felicity agreed, sitting upright. "Do you think you could pass me a towel, darling?"
"One second." Amber finished hugging the shell, then opened a cabinet built into the wall. She kicked out two towels for herself and three more for Felicity, depositing the beret on the empty Valey's head and throwing her saddlebags in the corner. She rubbed herself down in a brisk ten seconds, fixing the towels around her mane and tail before turning to Felicity. "Alright. Now that I'm back with my friend, we can take our sweet time. Let's get you dry enough not to ruin my bed..."
Felicity hummed as Amber quickly set to work. "You know, you're not quite as poorly-off in here as I was expecting. I supposed the messy mane speaks of poor self-care, but you've got the window cracked and everything..."
"I'm not poorly off," Amber protested, squeegeeing Felicity's tail with a linen. "I'm taking care of my friend. And I messed my mane up on purpose. Valey never brushed hers, so it's my way of paying tribute and making it feel a little more like her in here."
Felicity stretched, relaxing instantly. "Keep being that cheerful, and I'm going to know you're not alright. Though it certainly isn't stopping you from being very helpful and considerate..."
Amber shrugged, wrapping back her mane as well and getting to work on her fur. "Who said anything about me being alright?" she asked, a note of frustration in her otherwise-upbeat voice.
"Well..." Felicity frowned.
"I'm not. I hate losing friends. More than that, I hate seeing my friends lose friends, but Valey was special to me, too." Amber's toweling intensified. "But the last thing I'm going to do is fall into an unproductive rut of feeling sorry for myself and not getting up in the morning, because I've seen that happen and I know where it leads. And I am not going to let Valey come back to see me like that. So I stay on my legs, and this is what that looks like."
Felicity's ears fell. "I see."
"And if you're going to be poking ponies for not being fine, I'm going to do a little prodding of my own, too," Amber continued. "I didn't say anything by the river because Grenada was there, but what's with you? Valey always vouched for you up until you betrayed us... mostly betrayed her, though. And now the moment she's gone, we get you instead, and you're worried about how we're doing? You have to have something against her, but I can't see what. Are you jealous?"
"Odd of you to be verbally tearing me down while pampering me at the same time, darling," Felicity meekly pointed out.
"They're not mutually exclusive." Amber continued drying. "I'm going to continue doing what I can to help us reach the day when Valey can return, and if that means getting you to be productive?" She rolled Felicity partway onto the bed, starting on her chest. "Congratulations, I'll do it."
Felicity frowned. "You're not in a good way."
"It's not stopping me from helping."
Felicity shrugged. "This is the first time I've seen you outside your room in days."
"I am helping by caring for Valey and making sure she'll be in perfect condition for when we can put her back together," Amber insisted. "And it's a job nobody else seems willing or able to do."
"So hypothetically, if someone told you it was time to cut your losses..." Felicity hesitantly began.
Amber squinted at her, pausing in her towel-down. "You do have a problem with her." She resumed her work, not making eye contact.
"I didn't say that," Felicity calmly began.
Amber interrupted her before she could continue. "Well, it sure sounded like you wanted to give up on her body to me. You're going to have to explain to me a little better, because it seems like you just joined on with our ship now that she's gone."
"Well, now you're trying to make me cry," Felicity protested. "What am I supposed to say, agree we must get her back at any means necessary? It's a fool's errand and not one we're even capable of!"
"Don't you tell me what we are and aren't capable of." Amber gritted her teeth. "I have a friend whose name is Starlight. And while everyone else was dead, dying or not even there, I watched her fight off that thing Crystal became and win. After everyone else got destroyed without even a fight! If she can beat the thing that beat Valey, I believe she can make this right. It isn't the first time she's done the impossible."
Felicity blinked. "This isn't Gyre, darling. What are you doing heaping your work and expectations on a filly?"
Amber tensed. "Who else would you turn to?"
"Do you know how many goodbyes I've had over the course of my life?" Felicity frowned again.
Amber toweled harder. "Does it change anything?"
Felicity gave her an intense stare. "I just parted ways with my two sisters, whom I helped raise from birth and shared everything with, over an argument on what to do with you and your friends! I chose trying to get a chance to give you a real apology over going with them, and now not only has that falling-out turned into the last time I will ever see their faces again, the mare I wanted to apologize to isn't even here anymore! So as much as I might deserve it, before you question my loyalties any further I'll have you know I am hurting just as much as anyone else here!"
Amber's mane deflated. "...Fine. Whatever. Just... she was special to me, so think twice before saying we should give her up for dead where I'm listening."
"She was special to me, too, not that anything ever would have come of it." Felicity folded her ears. "It sort of takes that to make one rethink two decades worth of a life dedicated to vengeance. And I prefer to honor the dead rather than burying my head in denial. But... well, whatever, as you put it."
Amber concentrated on her work. "I'm not sure we're talking about the same kind of special."
"And I wouldn't be surprised if we are," Felicity replied. "Clearly special enough to get you this off-balance just by passing away. It's obvious you're deeply hurting, and..."
"Do you mind not talking about how bad I'm trying not to feel?" Amber tensed again. "It's an uncomfortable reminder of things I'm trying not to think about at least until my friend's ribs are healed and we can talk about it together without not being able to hold each other. And you're the one who's trying to cope by getting others to make their body feel nice."
Felicity winced. "Is it awkward? Sorry, darling. This isn't unique to this situation, closeness is just how I unwind and deal with stress..."
"No, not awkward." Amber's voice was unnaturally casual. "Sorry. That's not sarcasm. Figuring out what puts ponies at ease is a big part of what I do, and Riverfall was pretty big on touchy-feely and platonic or non-serious cuddles. And regardless of my personal feelings, if this helps put you in a better emotional place and that helps you help us, it helps Valey, too."
"Rather kind of you not to question that," Felicity mumbled. "And I'm sorry as well. It's obvious feelings are running a little high right now, and I can see where you're coming from..."
Before Amber could respond, Valey's shell walked up close and sat down next to them, staring off to the side.
"Look how alive she is," Amber huffed. "There has to be something we can do."
"I'm not sure there is," Felicity replied.
Amber gave her a challenging look. "Well, there won't be if everyone doesn't give their all. If we ever come to a choice where backing down would be easier than pursuing an option for getting her back, what will you do?"
Felicity raised an eyebrow. "Is that implying we'll find an option?"
Amber countered the expression. "Is that implying taking care of her isn't one already?"
Felicity sighed. "Fair point. I just... I really don't know if this will make you happy, but I feel like I owe it to Valey to-"
"Hey." Amber leaned in closer, putting a hoof around her. "Speaking of happiness? If this is as enjoyable for you as you were talking it up to be in the river, here's a deal: back me up in taking care of Valey and doing what we need to in order to bring her back, then I will do it again whenever you want, as long as we can get along, stop clashing and stop poking into each other's hurts and personal business. No more of that let's-not-do-that business. Sound like a fair and square trade?"
Felicity bit her lip. "You found my weakness. I comply."
She offered a hoof, and Amber took it, then knelt down and returned to drying her off, the shell sitting idly by.
A full week went by since the Immortal Dream had landed in the Equestrian foothills. Slipstream and Starlight had made regular journeys to the wrecked airship, never to explore it but to clear out a section of hills to serve as easy landmarks, and for the former to build her endurance strength. Once, Slipstream and Harshwater had flown to the tracks and explored them west, but after several hours of walking were forced to return, concluding that they likely followed the sea for at least a day but not ruling out the possibility of an extended journey to see what lay at the other end.
Gerardo was walking, if not feeling up to flight. He swore he would shake off the last of the sword's effects every single day, to the point where he was trying to work even when unable to bench press a filly. In the medical ward, Maple and Saffron waited out their broken bones, talking so much they became fast friends. Meltdown had been cleared to leave multiple times, but stubbornly remained quietly in bed, and Felicity vaguely rebuffed all attempts to encourage her to leave. Gazelle still hadn't regained lucidity from his trance, though Harshwater promised his wounds were healing. And on the bridge, a unicorn with a broken horn sat, watching as an atrophied sarosian and a tired griffon competed fruitlessly to see who could be the first to climb a hill, a flurry of activity on the other side.
"Like I'm going to be beaten by you," Nyala panted, laying on a steep slope in the grass, her rolling walker discarded as she rested while crawling her way to the top. "Hnnngh... Ah!"
She pulled herself half a step forward, putting herself in the lead over Gerardo Guillaume. "A valiant effort, I assure you," the griffon countered, pointing a talon. "But your trembling legs tell a different story. I am merely hobbled by a curse, and am actually not tired at all! Can your stamina hold out?"
"You... bet..." Nyala strained, gaining another hooflength.
"Oh really," Gerardo chuckled. "Behold-"
He reached a talon forward, grabbing for purchase, and promptly uprooted a clump of grass. His face fell as he slid backwards several inches.
Starlight watched the competition with an even look, the two invalids' dedicated chaperone. Not that they couldn't be seen from the ship, but she wanted to be close.
She tilted her head, watching with interest as they competed. Both of them cared a whole lot about the competition, but Nyala in particular was easier to read. Between all the effort the batpony was putting into the climb, what she cared about most was spurring Gerardo to win... and getting better herself, but that was secondary. Starlight supposed her accuracy at reading Nyala's mind had something to do with the changes Glimmer had made so she could access the generator on the flight up the mountains, which for whatever reason hadn't been turned off yet like the time she got the same changes in Mistvale. She wasn't sure yet whether she even wanted to remind Glimmer to fix them. It sure would feel nice if she was able to see someone paying that much attention to her.
But that wasn't an immediate problem. Everyone was strapped for time and resources, and if her friends saw her being selfless and not asking for that time for herself, maybe it would pay off in the future.
"Hah!" Nyala crowed, panting, throwing a foreleg up in front of her. "I win!"
"I beg to differ," Gerardo growled, clawing himself up along behind her. "The slope may have evened, but we are hardly at the crest of the hill! And now I can... finally... stand!" He hauled himself shakily upright, took three steps forward, and promptly tripped, faceplanting into the tall grass yet putting himself decisively ahead of Nyala. "Take that."
"Bah... Good for you." Nyala crawled closer, having an easier time of it now that the slope was more even. "Aww, my legs hurt."
"The sign of an effective workout." Gerardo offered a balled-up talon for her to bump. "Good showing. We'll both be up and flying yet."
Nyala took it. "Now what's going on around here...?"
Starlight pulled back more grass, getting to work shearing it with Felicity's dagger. Harshwater had made the executive decision that grass-cutting and bringing the product back to the ship was a good use of time, since it could be feasibly de-weeded and dried into hay while their food supplies ran down. Howe and Neon Nova had seen hay-processing added to their list of duties, sharing space only with cleaning a now-thoroughly-cleaned pantry and guarding the Forest King's regalia, the latter a task they had begged and wheedled for themselves. She worked quickly, with skill born of practice, and Nyala and Gerardo followed as she cut a straight path to the edge...
In the valley below, a patch of ground had been cleared of grasses and weeds, Grenada standing at the edge with a glowing horn. A large shovel hung in her aura, working efficiently at a hole in the ground, with Jamjars and Glimmer spectating.
"What's going on!?" Nyala called down from the hilltop.
Grenada blinked and looked up. "We have decided restoring mana power to the ship is an important goal, so we can have lighting short-term and be able to sail once we find a way to reach the sea. So we are digging a test pit to see how much groundwater would get in the way of building a mana well."
"Unfortunately, it's kind of muddy." Jamjars frowned, poking at the ground. "So making a proper hole is annoyingly hard. We need a way to freeze the ground and stop it from collapsing."
"And that's just to reach bedrock," Glimmer added. "And no, we're not polluting this area by injecting obsidian into the mud to stabilize it."
Jamjars pouted and rolled her eyes.
"It is difficult," Grenada agreed. "At this point, we are likely to need to try somewhere else. I imagine this area has a lot of underground rivers we will have to carefully avoid. And those can only be found through digging test holes."
"Huh. Sounds fun." Nyala turned to Gerardo. "Race you around the hills at the edge of this valley?"
Gerardo chuckled lightly. "I think not. You're plenty worn-out as it is. But I'll race you back down the hill on our way home, if you like!"
Nyala rolled, trying to turn around without relying on her wet-noodle legs. "Bring it...!"
Starlight let them go. Glimmer was here, and she had a question that she was going to ask. She trotted carefully down the hillside, abandoning grass-cutting early, and reached out and tapped her lookalike on the shoulder. "Can we talk?"
Glimmer blinked. "Here?"
"Follow me," Starlight instructed, giving her tail as a guide. Jamjars thankfully stayed behind, more interested in the test pit than Starlight, and Starlight led them around to the back of a hill, out of sight.
"What is it?" Glimmer sat down and asked.
Starlight took a breath. "If you know everything that's going to happen, why didn't you stop us from getting stuck here, how would we normally get out, and what are you doing to speed that up or make it better? We've been here for a whole week and I'm tired of seeing everyone around me either busy or working."
"That's a lot of questions to answer at once," Glimmer replied, cutting her off. "As for the first one, I didn't know Crystal was going to become that at all, and a large part of the reason I couldn't do anything about it was because of this." She tapped her useless horn. "I already blew myself fixing one problem, you remember?"
Starlight's ears fell. "Yeah. You saved Valey and Crystal from an explosion. One of whom is now dead, and the other is the reason we're stuck here. It really seems like you could have fixed a lot of things just by not doing anything, even if..."
Glimmer sightlessly stared at her.
Starlight's eyes slowly narrowed in realization. "If this is an elaborate lesson on why it's better to not give everything protecting my friends, I hate you."
"It isn't supposed to be," Glimmer promised, "but in this case, it turns out to demonstrate it tragically well..." Her ears fell. "Are you really giving up on Valey as dead?"
Starlight shrugged. "You're the last pony I expected to question that. You want me to, don't you? I have her brand and her body, and can use Nightmare Modules. All I need is Nightmare Module Seven to bring her back. I don't know where that is, but I thought for sure it's the kind of thing you'd tell me isn't worth it in the long run."
"...Stop," Glimmer sighed. "All that is normally true. But right now, your body is overloaded with Nightmare Moon's emotions... with some unfortunate extra flavoring, given how you activated it from this time. Your mind is shielded from them, but this is like trying to drop the sun on the world and prevent it from burning a blade of grass. So what I'm telling you instead is to take care of yourself and your mind's wellbeing. Just..." She shook her head. "This is bad for me too, Starlight. As for what I'm doing about it now, I promise I'm doing my best. I might have a miracle or two up my sleeve, but you and your friends are going to need a lot more than just a blind filly to get out of this."
Starlight frowned.
"As for if you're feeling lonely or left out?" Glimmer turned back to the clearing with the pit. "Don't sit on that. Friendship is magic, and taking care of your relationship with your friends is critical to working together as a team. Higher morale means better progress. Don't set yourself aside because you think it will help and save time. In the long run, this could make the difference between failure and getting this ship out of here."
"An incredibly deep hole in the ground?" Saffron Sunflower scratched her head with her good foreleg, the other bound tightly in a splint constructed from two thin metal pipes from the cargo bay. "Well, sure, there's ravines all over. What's your purpose?"
"We need one deep enough to reach a crystal palace," Jamjars said, standing at the foot of her bed with a pleading, cutesy expression. "We're looking for ways to refuel the ship."
Saffron frowned. "Well, I can't say I know a whole lot about those, but I suppose your best bet would have to be that canyon over east separating us from the forest. Wish I could remember its name. But it's real windy, so you can't fly down, and there's some griffon legends about monsters and I don't think anyone's ever reached the bottom. Which probably means you can't, either."
"I don't think that will work," Maple apologized, looking over from her own bed. "Garsheeva's is only a day's flight north of here, and the one in Ironridge was a month's flight away. We found a map in Sosa's journal, and the closest one is likely far southwest of here."
"Any idea exactly how far southwest, and a more precise direction?" Saffron perked her ears. "Like I said, I know a lot of deep places. Caves make for good exploring, and all. Help me narrow it down, here."
Maple's face fell. "If it's that far away, it would be easier for us just to take a Writ of Harmonic Sanction and try to cross back over the mountains... assuming we need them anymore, and that the Empire is still standing on the other side. I think we're just going to have to find a way to get the ship to water and sail."
Jamjars blew a raspberry. "Easy for you to say. Any ideas?"
Saffron scratched her chin. "Well, there's a whole lot of hills and rivers around these parts. What if we could build a dam, divert a river and get it to help carry the ship to the sea? Might be a little rough on the hull..."
"Would that actually work?" Maple drew a small gasp, then winced from the movement in her ribs.
Saffron shrugged. "You'd have to ask an engineer. I'm just brainstorming."
"Your contribution is appreciated." Jamjars tossed her mane, which she had finally started growing back after keeping it short to fit in her wig throughout much of their time in the Empire. "I'm going to go talk with my team."
Grenada and Glimmer were waiting patiently in the library, the former sorting books that had been stacked but not reshelved and the latter existing sightlessly in a reading chair. Both looked up when Jamjars approached. "Well?" Grenada flicked her ears.
Jamjars struck up an important trot, chin held high. "Regretfully, Maple agrees with you that the nearest crystal palace isn't near at all," she announced, pointing a hoof at Glimmer. "Which means we'll have to hope we can reach it by sailing. Now we just need to get mana power so we can sail, and get the ship back in the sea."
"I almost wonder if it would be easier finishing the harmony extractor and making it be powered by ponies the way Arambai initially designed," Grenada muttered. "So we could fly it ourselves."
Glimmer nodded. "That's what it was originally designed for, after all. Theoretically, we have windigo hearts to act as batteries, and could find a way to charge one gradually until it had enough power to carry us to the sea. But in practice, it's not so easy."
Jamjars regarded her keenly. "Keep talking."
"I wouldn't be surprised if Arambai left a book here explaining it succinctly," Glimmer continued. "The term 'harmony extractor' is a misnomer. The machine as Arambai designed it is more of a harmony borrower. Think of a pony as a closed system that is harmonic, but neither produces nor consumes harmony. It is a catalyst that enables the functionality of much of our magic. So a pony connecting to the extractor, rather than somehow draining their harmony, makes them and the machine part of the same closed system, so the machine effectually borrows their-"
"Uhhh..." Jamjars' face twisted. "What?"
Glimmer sighed. "It's difficult to put this simply. The harmonic flame in the windigo hearts has been acting like fuel, right?"
"Yeah, isn't that the point?" Jamjars frowned.
"It isn't fuel." Glimmer started to pace. "Not in the sense that it can be created or consumed like... It isn't physical and it isn't energy. It's..."
She gritted her teeth, plainly aware Jamjars was staring. "The point is, every harmonic life form has some harmony that's unique and innate to them. It's not a lot, but using it doesn't make it go away. Connecting yourself to the harmony extractor, in most cases, lets the machine use yours as well, without any going away."
Jamjars puffed her lip in thought. "Okay, so what you really mean to say is that ponies can't put their harmony in windigo hearts since it can only be borrowed and not used up or given away."
"Thank you! Exactly." Glimmer's shoulders sagged. "It would be like trying to give away your head, which is attached to you and you only have one of and need to survive. Think of a pony as a closed system with a set amount of harmony. Think of that same pony hooked up to the machine as also a closed system with the same amount of harmony, only the machine is like a second horn or an extra pair of wings or an extension of their body they can use to create magic."
Jamjars pointed a hoof. "So what happens if you hook up multiple ponies at once? There are two helmet things on the extractor, after all."
Grenada shook her head. "You cannot. Those are there as backups because the helmets and their wiring were the most delicate part of the system and the only one to reliably break. If two ponies connect at once, it does not work."
Glimmer nodded. "For the purposes of thinking about harmony, the machine becomes part of the connected pony's body in that it is linked to their magic. Trying to link it to two ponies at once causes the two unique cutie marks' energy to clash and destabilize the system. In order to have multiple ponies' harmonic signatures resonate perfectly, their cutie marks have to be bound, earned at the same time, by the same event and for the same purpose. A powerful emotional bond is also needed. True friendship, love..."
"Okay, but we don't have any of that, so how relevant is it?" Jamjars tilted her head. "Unless Maple and Amber..."
"They got theirs some time apart, if I recall." Glimmer flicked her tail. "And it's relevant as long as you're hoping to improve that generator as a means of getting us out of these hills. That said, I give Saffron's far-fetched dam idea about twenty times higher odds of success."
"Noted..." Jamjars sagged. "So we're back to looking for mana power. Who wants to bet the griffons have some to trade?"
"We have restaurant money." Glimmer shrugged. "And they apparently take the same currency as in the Empire here."
Grenada cleared her throat. "If living beings are closed systems from which it is impossible to isolate this harmonic catalyst, where does the energy in the flames come from, why are we able to contain it in windigo hearts, and why is it consumed upon being put in the reactor or your Aegis? According to the initial goals laid out for the extractor, this was supposed to be a perpetual energy source that could be renewed freely as long as ponies were around to power it, like you are saying now."
"Like I said." Glimmer turned in a circle and sat back down, curling up in a reading chair. "There are ways. It is possible. It's just a lot harder than it sounds. Still could be worth looking into, but even just mana power is a good first goal and I give other ways better chances of success."
Grenada was still thinking. "If we obtain the energy from the root of the world, and assume the windigo hearts are part of the world, so it technically is not removed, we could treat the world as a closed system..." She tilted her head and frowned. "By that model and your logic, the world itself is a living organism."
Glimmer blinked. "...Well, a lot of small cultures and tribes view the world the same way. It's certainly not a bad worldview to live by. Take care of your environment, and all that. But anyway, enough about that! Let's talk more about trying to trade for energy with the griffons."
With a click of horseshoes against metal, Slipstream and Gerardo alighted on the railroad, each carrying a modest bundle of supplies. The former's ribs weren't showing, but mostly because she had been well-fed in the Empire: it had been a week and a half since the crash, and rationing was tight.
"Whew," she panted, stumbling slightly over the railing as she alighted. Her step was slowed by saddlebags full of golden bits, and by the time they returned home, hopefully they would be weighted with food instead.
"Indeed..." Gerardo bent over and caught his breath, his own back loaded with bags holding a tent, food for three days, the sound stone and Valey's old flash club to activate it, and the ship's uncharged mana core. "We might be taking this a day too fast after all, now that I think about it. Though at the rate our food is dwindling, I don't think waiting to make contact with this Griffonstone is the best option..."
Slipstream nodded, grateful to give her wings a rest and let her hooves take over for a change. They had flown straight south, and Griffonstone wasn't yet visible on the horizon. "Everyone's counting on us, but we've got this. All we have to do is walk for hours on end, hope they're willing to trade, then carry everything we get back and fly it the last leg of the way! How impossibly dead could that leave us?"
"Not to mention two nights in the wilderness." Gerardo weighed his bags. "And perhaps a third in Griffonstone itself, if an inn is available and we're significantly tired. Which might be a reasonable assumption..."
Slipstream squared her shoulders and set off at a brisk trot. "We've got this. Three days of nonstop hiking is nothing this filly can't handle. Not with a whole week and a half of trying to get back in shape, right?"
She cracked a grin, hoping levity would count as much as actual stamina on the journey ahead. Gerardo chuckled. "Well, I have been known to have a strong spot for wilderness survival. But let's see how it holds up in practice, shall we?"
Eight hours into the day, neither of them were holding up.
"I think I'm not good to go on much longer," Slipstream moaned, wobbling on her hooves.
"Any truer than the last few times?" Gerardo panted, matching her pace. Despite the last lingering effects of the sword's curse, it was clear he was the stronger of the two. "Because we've still three or four hours until sundown, and haven't yet reached the city's latitude..." He pointed at Griffonstone far to the west, the lowering sun hanging over it like a point of alignment. When they touched, it would mean they were due west of the city, but the sun was still slightly to the right. "By my estimations, we need to reach at least that far today if we want to complete this in three. Though even that might be a hard task..."
"Sorry..." Slipstream staggered onwards. "I need to stop..."
Gerardo slipped a wing out, hefting her saddlebags himself and nearly collapsing from the weight of both loads on top of his own exhaustion. "Ten more minutes?"
Slipstream whined under her breath, but summoned a last reserve of strength just like she had done countless times so far that day. Finally, mercifully, Gerardo spread a wing. "Here."
The railroad dropped down slightly on the left, creating a valley that was too shallow to harbor much water yet deep enough to protect them from any nightly winds. Slipstream gratefully sighed, then promptly passed out.
It felt like she came to instantly, but the darkening sky told another story. "Where...?"
She lay on the side of the tracks, Griffonstone's tree-like mountain holding the sun in its crown in the distance. Gerardo was beside her, leaning slightly over her as he knuckled her legs with his talons.
"I thought you might like to see the sunset," he explained. "And as much as you looked like you wanted to go on sleeping, you'll feel considerably worse in the morning if you leave these to knot up."
Slipstream's legs felt like they had been forcibly stretched to twice their natural length, then snapped back in place like rubber. "Doesn't feel that great already," she admitted, a single row of sandy dunes separating them from the sea. "So you're just into giving muscle massages to sleeping mares, are you?"
Gerardo shrugged. "You passed out before I could ask, would prevent us from making any headway tomorrow if you can't stand, and weren't waking up to anything else. If I've overstepped a boundary, you have my full apologies."
"Gerardo the absent-minded adventurer." Slipstream tried to gently whack him, but it came out as more of a limp nudge that still batted his talons away. "Has anyone ever told you you're bad with mares?"
Gerardo's headcrest wilted. "It may have been nonverbal feedback from time to time. I prefer to think of myself more as a handsome, rugged wanderer, but I suppose spending that much time away from civilization lends its rough edges..."
"Nobody said those were mutually exclusive." Slipstream leaned down, using her wings to continue what Gerardo had started.
"Then I'll take that as a half-compliment." Gerardo sat back, pulling a spyglass from his uniform and gazing out at the distant city. "Unless you mean it as otherwise?"
Slipstream stretched. "I'm not gonna lie. When I first took you out to lunch, I just thought you were a hunk. Who needs anything else? Sure didn't think I'd wind up on your airship, or in an Empire with all sorts of taboos..."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "Well, we're not in that Empire anymore, are we?"
Slipstream blinked.
"Not that I mean anything by it, of course." Gerardo leaned back. "I may occasionally make a foible, but I'm not that clueless. Just thought I'd offer a reminder."
"...And not that I'd read into it." Slipstream continued working her legs, stretching and rolling them one by one. "You're right. You are clueless, but sometimes a lot less than you pretend to be."
Gerardo chuckled. "Neither of us outright wants to say it, do we?"
"I don't know what your angle is." Slipstream shrugged. "But you're not getting a word out of me."
Gerardo sighed, cleared his throat... and gave his brows an exaggerated waggle.
"Come on..." Slipstream cracked a grin. "I might have been pretty transparent about it when we first met, but you're the one who talked Harshwater into swapping me into her place on this mission when she's better qualified. Say it. Be awkward."
"When you say it, I, ah..." Gerardo redoubled his throat-clearing, almost bending over and pounding his chest. "Presume you're talking about us no longer being in a region subject to the no-interspecies-relationships rule? With respect to the two of us?"
Slipstream's smile vanished into neutral contemplation. "Wow. Sure feels weird having that right out on the table after months of legally being just friends. What do we even talk about?"
"Well, your interest was rather palpable," Gerardo said into the sunset. "Hardly the first mare I've seen who was smitten, at that. Modeling your life after a storybook hero tends to come with a glamorous first impression. What I haven't been able to read is just how much you're noticing about my own reaction."
"As much as I need to." Slipstream shrugged. "Not hard when we've spent months hanging out on the bridge together."
Gerardo hummed. "Shouldn't be hard to guess that I've never found the sense of nationalistic pride some of the other Empire denizens take in the heresies. But I've also tended to work alone or travel too much to ever think of my fans as much more than faces in passing, and over the last few months... Well, things have been easier not to think about. So if you think this means something for us now, you're going to have to go right out and say it, because I'm suddenly out of my depth on what to do."
"Not so far out that you couldn't get us together out here." Slipstream winked. "And I was enough of a cool girl in school to have done my rounds on the dating scene a time or two. But picking up a status symbol coltfriend and dealing with a relationship where we've been interested for months and suddenly no longer forced to keep it platonic are completely different things."
Gerardo hummed, adjusting the focus on his spyglass. "What a pity we're stuck together on a three-day journey without any downtime to ourselves."
Slipstream chuckled. "Sure, that works. You want to do something to commemorate?"
"Oh?" Gerardo tilted his head.
"Let's each tell each other a secret," Slipstream said, conspiratorially lowering her voice. "The kind of secret you wouldn't just tell to a normal friend. You know, something close to your heart that would be devastating if it got out. It'll be fun!"
Gerardo grew a wry grin. "I know mine. Mares first?"
"Alright then. Here goes..." Slipstream took a deep breath. "I maybe... might have... not actually had my first kiss until I was sixteen."
Gerardo blinked. "As someone who grew up in a manor and then roamed long and far across the world, is that unusually late or unusually early?"
Slipstream reddened and mumbled something unintelligible that might have involved clueless griffons being bad with mares. "Your turn."
"Ah. My turn. Brilliant." Gerardo shrugged off getting no answer, suddenly looking deeply embarrassed himself... and then all that embarrassment vanished in a sly wink. "When packing, in an effort to conserve weight, I may have elected to bring only one blanket."
The sun was several hours out from evening by the time Slipstream and Gerardo finally reached the end of the line. The railroad came to a halt beside a wooden platform that looked like it hadn't seen love for a very long time, both limping heavily from cramps and exhaustion. As they drew further south, the rolling, grass-covered hills fell away into a dry, dusty plain that seemed like it could have been used for farming if someone stopped all the topsoil from blowing away.
Slipstream collapsed onto a lone visitor's bench in the train station, resting against decades worth of graffiti and 'I was here' scratched into the woodwork. "Whew," she panted, putting her legs up and rubbing her cramps. "I don't think we're going to do our trading and be back to our last camp by nightfall..."
"We'll just have to hope they're willing to trade space in an inn for sufficient coin." Gerardo jingled his saddlebags, carrying the ones laden with money now that their food supplies had started to lighten.
"Yeah." Slipstream stretched out, wincing from soreness and pulling a rock out from a horseshoe. "You feeling up to climbing that mountain and finding out, though? Because I'm sure not."
Gerardo stretched as well. "Perhaps in an hour. We could even fly to spare our legs, if you're feeling up to it... but waiting it may have to be."
"Mmm," Slipstream groaned in agreement, her eyes starting to wander. One of the roof's support posts had a few old posters tacked up, and she eventually found herself focusing on them.
"Look at those," she said, leaning over and flattening a poster down with a wing. "Friendship Express... Love Line... last stop. What do you suppose this means? Do you think it could be this train track?"
Gerardo cleaned closer as well. "Seems likely enough," he agreed. "Come and... tour the majestic land of the griffons? I have a feeling their advertising isn't very well-maintained, judging by the state of this poster. Hopefully that doesn't speak to the quality of their establishments as well."
"Yeah..." Slipstream brushed the faded, wind-crumpled page back into place one more time. "Hey, is this a map?"
"Let's see here." Gerardo dug in a talon, plucking out the single staple holding the paper to the wood. It had been torn in half, and only the right side remained. A red X near the top right corner was helpfully labeled 'You Are Here', overlaid atop a large cove structure that roughly matched the land layout they had seen walking from the Immortal Dream. The sea stretched to the south and west borders of the page, and a thin red line that was supposedly the train track meandered around and along a thin coastal strip marked with mountains and forming the northern border of the map before leaving the page to the west.
Slipstream tilted her head. "You really think we can just take that?"
"It's not as if it was being taken care of by whomever put it here." Gerardo tapped the page with a talon, then slipped it into Slipstream's bags. "And perhaps it will jog our friend Saffron's memory. That girl is our best hope at finding our way around this place, after all."
"Unless we could hire a guide," Slipstream suggested. "You think anyone would be willing to show us where's where and give us a newer, better map for bits?"
"Did someone say bits?" a new, suave voice spoke up from above, out of sight atop the roof.
Slipstream gasped, craning her neck. "Hello?"
"Now those are words of power, little pony. Music to my ears." A light patter of talons sounded on the roof, and a figure swung down, hanging by his tail from a rafter and regarding them with keen, avian eyes. "Did you perchance mean to say you have some you'd be willing to part with?"
Their visitor was a younger griffon, or at least a smaller one, but he wore a black tailored suit with upside-down pockets to accommodate his peculiar method of hanging. He stared at them with a neutral eagerness, and Gerardo politely cleared his throat. "Well, hello there. I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. If I'd known we were being watched, I'd have introduced myself earlier. Might you be a local?"
The dark griffon extended a single feather. "Information is a commodity, friend. Share the wealth, and I'll tell you most anything. And if I don't know, you have a full refund guarantee."
Slipstream blinked at Gerardo's bulging money saddlebags. "For asking if you're a local? You're charging? How much?"
"Name your price." The dark griffon gave an upside-down shrug. "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, but I'm not about to stiff you and risk you taking your business to some other sod."
Gerardo pulled out a single coin and flipped it to him, and he caught it and pocketed it with expert grace. "Yeah, I'm a local. About as local as you can get, though that goes for everyone still living here. The name's Gunther. Don't misuse it."
"Well met, I suppose." Gerardo glanced at his faintly-lighter bags. "So, if we wanted to barter for food and a safe place to spend the night, how feasible would that be, and where would we go about it?"
Gunther beckoned for another coin.
Gerardo shook his head and tossed a second. "You're an opportunistic one."
"Hardly," Gunther chuckled, pocketing it deftly as well. "I didn't even charge you to know my name when you didn't ask. I actually think I'm quite generous. So you're from out of town, aren't you? What exactly are you trying to stay safe from?"
Slipstream hesitated. "How much would it change if we were?"
"Anyone unscrupulous enough to go after these, though I hope it goes without saying." Gerardo patted his bags. "And a place to rest our legs."
Gunther grew a slight smirk. "You don't look like the hardest targets, if you want a free appraisal. Food, you can buy it. It'll be bland, like everything else, but you get what you pay for. And there are plenty of folks who will stoop to sleeping on the floor and letting you borrow their beds to part you from your gold. Now, I might know a little extra about how to get good food, or how to keep your treasure safe from greedy griffons... but that was already a two-for-one, and this is good info, if you know what I'm saying."
Gerardo's headcrest flopped, and he tossed up another bit. "What's this trick for avoiding bandits?"
Gunther widely shrugged. "There is none. Stealing gold from others would defeat the whole purpose of having it. All these shinies are just symbols that show off how you got others to agree that you're better than them. A griffon who needs to steal to compete is weak."
Slipstream blinked. "Is that really it?"
"It's hard to lord your money over someone else when they just laugh at you and call you a fraud. It has to be legitimate." Gunther's eyes narrowed. "But, I can tell you're not one hundred percent satisfied with that response, so how about this? Completely for free, I will follow you around for one whole day and personally ward off any thieves who think they can sneak by."
"That's quite generous of you," Gerardo remarked. "Though I have a sneaking suspicion you'd do that anyway, just to be first in line if we're wanting to pay for any other information."
Gunther smiled and shook his head. "Guilty as charged. But now I'm offering to fight for you, too. You could use a friend around here, Gerardo Guillaume. Know how I know?"
Gerardo tilted his head, and was met with only a beckoning feather. He sighed, tossing up another bit.
"Because you've never once tried to extort me back." Gunther pocketed it with satisfaction.
Slipstream rubbed her face with a wing. "Talk about a cutthroat economy..."
"Oh, you get used to it." Gunther winked at her. "Sooner or later. Sometimes before you go broke. If you have the money but not the meanness, your best bet is to hire someone to do it all for you." He started to swing, then flipped himself back up on the roof, and a patter of talons sounded as he made himself comfortable out of sight. "You look beat. Whether or not to rest is up to you, but if you feel like a little friendship on demand before moving on, you know where to find me."
"We sell bread," a griffon with a scratchy voice drawled, standing behind a counter that was painstakingly made out of low-grade materials. "But after you see what the others are selling, let me tell you, you're going to regret not buying me out right now. You want quality, you gotta shop smart, you see what I'm sayin'?" He held out a long, thin loaf. "The price is just a quality guarantee."
Gerardo and Slipstream looked at each other, and then at the sign advertising one loaf for ten coins. Sunset had fallen, and in the growing shadows a modest number of griffons were slinking about through a plaza full of shops, perfecting the art form of haggling. Rock dominated the landscape of Griffonstone proper, befitting its name, and all the buildings were made from wood that looked like it had been cheaply recycled from some other project, possibly more than once.
"Ahem." Gunther beckoned with a feather for a coin... but not from them.
The merchant gave him a stink-eye. "What do I look like, a charity? Shove off, kid, I'm tryin' to cut a deal."
Gunther shrugged, then leaned back toward Gerardo, whispering loudly enough for the shopkeeper to hear. "If you're looking for more than a quick snack, bread will grow stale too quickly. Why don't we move along and look for raw ingredients instead?"
"Perhaps an equitable idea..." Gerardo lowered his headcrest and started to walk away, pretending absolutely nothing had happened.
"Hey!" The shopkeeper shook an angry, balled-up talon. "You have a beef with my business, you punk kid? What do you think you're doing?"
Gunther spun around sharply. "Well, perhaps they'd be willing to stay if you cut them a better deal." He held out a wing laden with five golden bits. "Fifty percent off. Take it or lose them forever..." His swishing tail tapped Gerardo's saddlebags, causing them to jingle with unspent gold.
"Grrr... I don't do... business with..." The shopkeeper banged his fist on the table, depositing a single loaf. "Fine!"
"See? That wasn't so bad." Gunther deposited his coins and swiped the bread, turning his back again on the merchant. He offered it to Gerardo. "Six bits. I profit a little for my effort, you still save forty percent, and you can't eat dry ingredients for a snack. Sound like a win to everyone?"
Slipstream's ears fell. "That's still far more expensive than where we got these..."
Gerardo weighed his saddlebags and frowned, a not insignificant portion of their wealth already siphoned off by their guide. "I'm afraid we're going to have to economize harder on our own pickings if we want to bring back a suitably large supply of food."
Gunther's headcrest fell slightly as he stared at them in thought... until suddenly a noise from the bread seller caught his attention. "No! I am done cutting deals for the day," the merchant was angrily telling a thin griffonness with heavy eye liner. "Full price. I have a reputation to uphold."
The griffonness slowly blinked, holding up eight bits in a single talon like a hand of cards. She slid a ninth in with her thumb. "Ten percent off."
The baker frowned.
"That a dissatisfied customer I hear?" Gunther turned around, flipping and catching his loaf. "You know, I have exactly the same thing he's selling, and am more than willing to be reasonable. Seven bits."
"That's less than I offered in the first place," the griffonness said, looking bored as she relieved him of the loaf and turned over seven coins. "You have yourself a deal."
The shopkeeper fumed, but the griffonness barely gave him a second look as she walked away. "Next time, you should run a better business model."
Gunther chuckled as he headed off in a separate direction, beckoning Gerardo and Slipstream to follow. "Heh. You don't even need to buy anything for me to make money off you. Maybe I should pay you to stick around a while longer... Too many griffons get light-headed when they smell a rich customer."
"Not going to lie, that was kind of brutal." Slipstream folded her ears.
"You don't seem to have a very high standard of treatment for your fellow griffons," Gerardo remarked.
"Correction: I don't have a high standard of treatment for anyone who will lose me money." Gunther strolled into an alley, lovingly stroking his pockets. "There are the griffons who play the game, and then the ones who see others playing and want to join in, even though they belong at home. He wasn't going to benefit from your money, so try not to feel too bad for him."
Slipstream frowned. "From the condition his storefront was in, he might have needed it to survive. Those prices were exorbitant, but still..."
"Hey, I gave him a sale!" Gunther shrugged with his wings, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice. "If anyone cared about actually spending their money on a higher quality of life, or even put as much effort into the rest of their lives as they did into getting rich, the place wouldn't be such a dump. But it's been every griffon for themselves in this world for years and years, and no one thinks about a thing other than having more money than everyone else."
Gerardo gave him a look. "And that includes you, I take it."
"Why wouldn't it?" Gunther flipped upside-down, resuming his tail hanging from an exposed, jutting rafter. "It's a game I'm good at, and there's no point in winning at something nobody plays."
"So what do you mean, for years and years?" Slipstream sighed. "Was it not always like this?"
Gunther extended a feather.
"You are deviously good at this, indeed." Gerardo shook his head, paying up.
Gunther pocketed it with satisfaction. "Everyone says it was different. I find it hard to believe. Twenty, thirty years ago, there was a king up in the castle at the top of the mountain. Then some things happened that everyone will give you a different story on. Some say monsters invaded, others say there was a war. I think the king got what he could while the getting was good, took his retainers and ran. Now the castle's got nothing but squatters who are too cheap to build their own houses... though I shouldn't be talking."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "This king wouldn't happen to be called the Forest King, would he?"
Gunther looked at him with interest. "Where'd you hear a name like that?"
Slipstream started to open her mouth... until Gerardo silenced her with a wing, a little smile playing on his beak. "Actually, I think that's the kind of information that might be valuable enough for us to sell back."
"Oh, really?" Gunther appraised him critically and thoroughly. "...Eh, I'll pass. Probably not much you could tell me about the Forest King, anyway."
Gerardo frowned. "If this is something important, we would appreciate a primer..."
Gunther held out a feather.
Gerardo flipped him a coin with an exasperated sigh. "How are you so good at this?"
"Like I told you before, information is a commodity." Gunther pocketed it with nonchalance. "Any time you're looking for something that can be sold, you're asking to be swindled. All I want is money, so I don't have my greed competing with a thirst for products to undermine it." He swung lightly on the rafter. "The Forest King is the old king... or maybe the prince, or the prince's prince. They say he and his retainers ran off to live in the forest to the northeast, after whatever happened. Whether it's true or not, nobody here cares enough to investigate, and it's likely the same for them."
"Hmmm..." Slipstream rubbed her chin.
"So, I'm guessing the next thing on your list is lodging, right?" Gunther glanced at the sky, where stars were just beginning to become visible. "Then keep trying to get food tomorrow. How many mouths are you trying to feed?"
Slipstream nodded. "I think we need it, yeah... And how did you know we needed it for others?"
"I didn't. But thank you for telling me." Gunther swung again. "You know, we've been friendly enough so far that I'd be willing to make you a deal."
Gerardo watched him. "Explain?"
"Your money." Gunther pointed at the saddlebags. "Give me all of it, and by dawn I'll have you a far better food deal than you're going to get on your own."
Slipstream hesitated. "All of it?"
"Sure." Gunther shrugged. "Only a fool would risk going broke on a guy like me, so I'm willing to wager that if you accept, it means you have more back where your friends are. And I'm also willing to bet on my own talent I can come back with enough that you'll need some extra shoulders to carry it all home. I'm smelling potential for involvement in something long-term lucrative, if you know what I mean."
"And we have your word that you won't rob us or rip us off?" Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "I'm aware you just told us stealing was pointless, but this is hardly an insignificant amount of money..."
Gunther eyed the saddlebags. "I said what I said. And I'm betting that's not all you have. Only a fool wouldn't leave some somewhere safe if they were worried about brigands. We're talking at least six saddlebags stuffed with good-quality food, here..."
"And you'll need the money up front," Slipstream sighed.
"It's a rare griffon who takes credit."
Gerardo hesitated slightly longer... and stuck out a talon, shrugging off his bags. "We need the aid, and you've read us correctly. I hope I'm reading you right in return."
"Thanks." Gunther flipped upright, taking the saddlebags for himself. "This is going to be worth your while..."
Griffonstone did, in fact, have an inn. "Twenty bits per body per night, and that's final," the cranky proprietress demanded, polishing a glass behind a bar. "You can have one room or three, I don't care. Not like there's enough business to give us no vacancies, anyhow."
Gunther disappointedly weighed Gerardo's saddlebags, looking like he was itching to be somewhere else. "That's almost half your remaining money. Not leaving me with a very big operating budget, are you?"
"I think we're both assuming we'll never see that money again, fraud or no," Gerardo remarked. "So, shall we tour our room?"
The innkeeper tapped her bar with a first. "Bits first."
"It's your call, boss," Gunther sighed, tipping up the bags and counting carefully as a deluge of coins slid out. "There you go," he told the innkeeper. "Forty bits. I'm not staying."
The innkeeper scrutinized them. "You trying to short-change me, or something? That's thirty-eight."
Gunther huffed, quickly shuffling them about on the table until they were neatly arranged in four groups of ten. "Charlatan."
She counted them again, finally satisfied. "Have a nice sleep."
"I could have found you somewhere cheaper if you didn't mind not having beds," Gunther grumbled, shaking his head and pacing away. "Now, will you be fine on your own while I go speak with my back channels?" He hefted the considerably-lighter money bags, one talon itching at his pockets. "I know I said griffons don't do credit, but try not to get into debt anyway."
"I think I'm more than ready to get off my hooves." Slipstream yawned. "It's been a long few days, and these cramps are starting to get serious..."
Gerardo nodded heavily in agreement. "Until the morning. I hope to see you return."
With a rush of wind, the door was empty, Gunther and their money gone.
Slipstream stared after him with a fading smile, before whispering up to Gerardo, "We didn't actually give him all our money, right?"
Gerardo chuckled, revealing four deep pockets filled with gold and padding to keep it from clinking when he moved. "Of course not. Just enough to see whether he's trustworthy. Let's hit the sack."
Moments later, Gerardo was back at the foot of the staircase, looking irately for the innkeeper. "There are no beds or furnishings in our room."
"Beds are extra." The griffonness didn't look up from her endless polishing. "So is paying me to drag one in there for you, but you can do that yourself if you're feeling like an economy package. Get rowdy without one and break the floorboards, and you owe me your souls."
Gerardo blankly raised a talon. "Right..."
"Go ahead and laugh, but it's happened before." The innkeeper sighed. "I swear, it's impossible to get quality lumber for free around here... Thank your lucky stars I've at least got a second floor. That's why the prices are at a premium."
"Trying to save up for upgrades or repairs?" Gerardo tilted his head.
"What? No." The innkeeper gave him a weird look, like he had just missed something obvious. "I already have the best establishment in town, and no one even needs an inn when everyone just squats at the castle once their existing house falls down. The only folks who will pay for luxury accommodations are prissy travelers like you who don't know how to double down and cut expenditures. Not that I'm complaining. This so rarely pays off, you're the best money I've made in weeks."
Gerardo blinked. "Everyone is so miserly that none are willing to pay for reasonable quarters? If you haven't built anything better, are you really that sure?"
"I know better than to gamble against greed." The innkeeper continued polishing. "If I didn't, I'd be out my life's savings faster than you can snap. Tell you what. Spend your own money, build your own better inn, and I'll let you laugh if you ever beat me. You're still not getting a free bed."
"Is everyone truly so greedy they won't spend a single coin on improving the quality of their life?" Gerardo blinked harder. "It doesn't seem like the standard is very difficult to beat..."
The innkeeper shrugged. "You come from somewhere that's less of a hole? The bar is low because everyone's too smart for that nonsense. Spend a bit for some better food or a better bed one day, and you'll be in exactly the same place tomorrow except with one less bit to your name. Around here, we know how to prioritize."
"It doesn't seem like you're getting a lot accomplished with that logic," Gerardo cautiously remarked. "What value does your currency even have if you're so adamant about not spending it on basic improvements to your lives?"
"No free bed means no free bed." The innkeeper turned her back on him. "If you don't want those savings enough to pay the price for them like literally everyone else, then hand over your money and take your basic improvement to your life. You'll regret it when you're poorer in the morning, but... Eh, why am I even trying to talk you out of this?"
Gerardo shrugged, turning for the stairs. "In that case, my friend and I will make do with our own methods."
"Idiot..." The innkeeper quietly berated herself as he left.
Gerardo ascended, following a short hallway to the room where he had left Slipstream. "Any luck?" the pegasus asked, laying on the floor as he entered.
"Alas, it turns out the answer to any request here is a request in return for more money," Gerardo sighed. "Fortunately, I still have our tent, bedrolls and blanket, so we shall simply... make do with camping inside."
"Whooo." Slipstream cheered unenthusiastically, then giggled. "I haven't done that since I was a filly."
Gerardo blinked, laying out the bedrolls side by side. "You've camped indoors before?"
"Sure." Slipstream shrugged, rolling over and lazily crawling onto hers. "You never did? There wasn't a whole lot of space in the Stone District, and the Earth District wasn't exactly a fun and recreation zone. So, you get your friends over and go on vacation at home! We had this neat tent with multiple rooms, and would pretend it was a fort... This was like when I was six."
"I can't say I had the kind of friends who did that growing up," Gerardo replied, flopping down himself right next to Slipstream. "That said, had I possessed better attachments, I likely wouldn't have felt the call of adventure... or would at least have had a harder time getting up to follow it. And I've had a lifetime of real camping to go along with it."
"Does it stay romantic?" Slipstream asked.
Gerardo tilted his head, which was difficult when it was resting on a saddlebag used as a pillow. "Hmm?"
"I guess I should say..." Slipstream thought for a moment. "I've got a lot of fond memories, since it was fun to pretend when I was way little. But is setting up camp like that out in the wilderness something that gets... I don't know, old? Loses its charm? When you get rained on and bug bites and you can't just go inside when you're done..."
"Or when you've done it for years upon years?" Gerardo finished for her. "It has its ups and downs. I'd say there's a hump to get over. And I've certainly had so many story-worthy bad experiences it's impossible to even remember them all, though I try my best when I have the right audience. But likely due to a mindset that doesn't apply to quite everyone, I still find myself drawn back to the lifestyle time after time. It's worth the downsides for that horizon."
Slipstream yawned. "That's... really cool..."
"One thing you do learn is to appreciate having a roof over your head." Gerardo winked, then stared upwards. "Though this one does look rather leaky... but it's a cloudless night. Still, my point stands."
Slipstream had curled up. "And I'm going to have to stand on my hooves tomorrow..."
"Ah. Yes." Gerardo chuckled. "Well, if that's a signal we should make the most of our room and sleep... let's give this indoor camping thing a try. Until the morning, my dear friend."
It took a while for the morning sun to rise high enough to reach the floor from the lone window in Gerardo and Slipstream's room, but when it did it plowed directly into Slipstream's face with the subtlety of an enraged boxer. She grunted, lifting a sore hoof to rub at her eyes... and found it stuck beneath the body pressed against her.
"Oh!" Slipstream started, realizing with a blush that she must have unconsciously cuddled up with her roommate in her sleep. She carefully tried pulling away, back to her side of the bedrolls without snagging on the blanket or waking him too, and immediately rolled off her own bedroll and onto the ground. She had stayed put after all. It must have been he who cuddled up with her.
This thought made her blush more, and she stood shakily and dusted herself off as Gerardo threatened to wake with a loud snore. Her legs were nothing but pain, but starting the journey back to the ship would at least be feasible now that she had slept. She brushed her mane with her feathers, wishing she had some water to run over her face and wings, and stepped blearily to the window, standing on her hind legs to reach it and check on the world beyond.
The window faced out into the street, a few griffons lazily picking their way through a finely-pockmarked dirt road. From here, it actually looked like it had once been artistic cobblestone, before someone removed or stole all the stones... Some griffons flaunted their wealth, others looked at them like they were idiots for wasting money on showing off, and most just watched the first two kinds with greedy eyes and ratty crests.
Across the street, in a lee that was shaded from the sun, a familiar griffon hung by his tail, spotting her instantly. He gave her a quiet thumbs-up.
"This place is beyond depressing," Slipstream whispered, dropping back to all fours. "Come on, Gerardo. I want to go home..."
Gerardo grunted into wakefulness. "That time already, is it?"
"Morning? Yep." Slipstream paced to the door, then remembered her bedroll, going back and nudging Gerardo off and beginning to roll it. "More like nearly noon. Our friend from yesterday is back."
"Well, I suppose we should see how lucrative he was." Gerardo stretched, doing the same to his roll, not seeming to notice he had woken up on Slipstream's. "And what kind of price he expects for doing our shopping..."
"I have good news and bad news," Gunther said, dropping to the ground as the pair drew near. "The bad news is, I got your food for free, so all that money you wasted on this expensive inn is money I don't get to keep for my commission."
Gerardo blinked. "Your commission? I recall you were taking our money and going shopping to spend it in our name..."
"No, I said give me your money and I'd get you a deal." Gunther grew smug. "I never specified how much of it I'd spend. But that's where the good news comes in. Take a look."
He tapped a ramshackle door to the building behind him, frowned when it did nothing, and punched it hard. The door buckled open with an almighty creak, revealing several dozen bags and baskets of flour, fruit, cheese and cured meat.
Slipstream and Gerardo gaped at the size of the haul. "That's... a very large amount of food," Gerardo stated, pointing a disbelieving talon.
"Like I said, I got you a deal." Gunther shrugged. "I know my back channels. So, is this to your liking?"
Slipstream worked her jaw, then swallowed. "What's the catch?"
"Nothing on my end." Gunther blew on the end of his low-hanging crest. "Of course, I'm not the one who now has to figure out how to get this all wherever it needs to go."
"Right." Gerardo's face fell. "We're going to have to carry all this, aren't we...?"
"That's going to be pretty tough without some hired hands," Gunther remarked. "And I can't imagine you have a whole lot to hire them with."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "So now that you've set us up in a position where we need help to carry these things, what are you about to do with it? It would take ten griffons to carry this all."
Gunther grinned. "You catch on quickly. But I'm just messing with you. It's not like I carried all this here myself, or anything. Come on in, boys."
A door leading further into the building cracked open, and four griffons marched out. One griffonness wore heavy eyeliner, had a long crest and looked vaguely familiar, another griffon had a massive scowl and an outrageously spiky, chaotic crest, and the third had a long face with permanent creases that suggested he always looked down on everything. The last was tiny and way too happy.
The one notable characteristic that tied all of them together was that they all wore neat, trim, form-fitting suit jackets like Gunther's, a sharp contrast to the baggy robes or else nothing favored by the rest of the population. Gunther gestured to each of them in turn. "Don't expect names unless you're willing to pay for them, but it's easy enough to call them by their colors." He glanced back at Gerardo and Slipstream. "So, is my delivery squad up to spec? Ready to go right now, and they won't cost you a thing."
Slipstream blinked. "No introductions, then?"
"I'm certain I know you," Gerardo insisted, pointing a talon at the purple-suited griffonness with the heavy eyeliner. "You were the one he sold that bread to yesterday in the plaza."
"Guilty as charged." The griffonness slowly blinked. "You can call me Violet, but I literally don't care." Her voice was droll and uninterested.
"And I'm Chartreuse," the small, bouncing one chirped, sassily winking and flipping her mane. "But you can call me Char, or whatever. We're gonna have a good time!"
The tall, long-faced griffon frowned down at them. "And I am Blue. It is a pleasure to be associating with someone better-endowed than most of the common folk, though I hope Black is exaggerating when he says he relieved you already of every bit of clout you possess."
"That's me, by the way." Gunther cleared his throat and pointed to his dark suit. "In case it wasn't obvious."
The last griffon with the spiky crest glared at everyone, as if resenting them for making him go last. "You get one guess at what my name is," he growled, sporting a vivid red suit that would be almost as terrible for stealth as Char's. "And don't try to stroke my ego by being wrong."
"They have a few rough edges, but you'll take what you can get, right?" Gunther shrugged. "Not a lot of griffons willing to carry things for free on short notice."
Gerardo and Slipstream stared at each other. "Don't try to tell me there's not an unfortunate catch," Gerardo warned.
Char tilted her head in abject confusion. "Why would us catching you be unfortunate? Tripping and landing on your face really hurts."
"You're an unfortunate catch," Violet droned.
Slipstream blinked in confusion, thrown for a loop by the train of thought. Gunther waved a distracting talon. "Nothing under the table. I want money, my associates want money, and I just told them if they did this job for me, they might be getting in good with a very wealthy customer. It's less about you and more about screwing the rest of this city out of your business." He adjusted his collar. "You have to run a tight operation to make maximum profits."
"Anyone who can use this much food likely has a reasonable amount of assets they wouldn't mind trading, no?" Blue looked down on them with an almost-approving note in his perpetual disapproval. "We would simply hate for you to waste your trading power enriching these lowlifes who fail to deserve it. They will likely just sit on any wealth you give them until the end of time, and fail to cherish it in the way it deserves."
"Basically, don't trade with losers." Char winked. "We're not losers. Just so you know."
Red huffed. "Says a loser like you."
Gunther winced hard. "And this is why I'm the party face. Instead of any of you." He turned apologetically to Gerardo and Slipstream, who were both staring at the delivery squad in concern. "Their greed is proof of their loyalty, and what they lack in charisma they make up for in muscle, which last I checked was what you need. So, think we can head out?"
"You know..." Slipstream rubbed her head. "I'm not thrilled with this, but I suppose it is our fault for not bringing a way to carry back the amount of food we really need..."
Gerardo shook his head. "This was supposed to be a scouting mission to see what the pickings were and how much we'd want to invest in making such a delivery possible. But, it is what it is."
"Heh. I knew you had more money back with your friends, and were planning on spending it later." Gunther rolled his shoulders, kicking open the door. "Come on, you lot. We have a paying customer to win over."
One by one, the griffons hefted huge loads, even Chartreuse, who was tiny. They somehow split the majority of the load between them, leaving little enough that Gunther, Gerardo and Slipstream could manage the rest on their own. As they passed, each one gave the pair a look, and they steadily filed out the door.
"Well." Gerardo fidgeted at the saddlebag that held their sound stone. "Something is all of a sudden telling me we should warn our friends to expect company..."
"You know how I know you're still yourself inside?" Amber asked, leaning on a railing and looking critically at Valey's shell. "Because it's sunny, the weather is beautiful out, and you think that's a perfect time to bask and do nothing."
The shell didn't respond. It was out on the deck with Amber, having spent long enough around her that she was confident it wouldn't fly away if carefully attended. The thing almost seemed attached to her, following her around unbidden and even attempting to climb into her bed at night, though it mostly slept at her hooves. Now, it was belly-up, all four legs in the air and staring blankly at the sky.
"Well, you're right." Amber paced in a circle before giving it an approving glance, her mane deliberately uncombed and Valey's beret perched casually on her head. "We didn't get a whole lot of sun in Riverfall, what with the trees and all, but that just means you have to soak it up now. Come on, you know you're enjoying this."
Valey's shell still didn't budge.
From the darkened entrance to the stairway, Starlight stood, watching the conversation move along. Amber was remarkably adept at making a one-sided conversation seem engaging, but Starlight could see she was just reaching for something that was gone. Amber's brightness flickered slightly, as if she knew deep down her purpose was futile. The shell didn't have any brightness whatsoever.
Her moon glass sword hovered silently at her side, the same number of sarosian souls trapped inside as there had been for the past two weeks. She had stared at it, willed it, occasionally even talked to it, all to no avail. It was almost like what Amber was doing... though from her own perspective, she knew that shell was empty and the sword was full.
Starlight sat down without a sigh, and took the sword in her hooves. It was hard, being so close and yet so far, but Glimmer wasn't telling her something and there was nothing more she could do on her own. Why could she kill Windigoes and fight off Chrysalis, but not get her friend back from magic she herself had cast?
The sword still felt faintly sticky and malleable in her hooves, the way most moon glass felt when she tried to touch it, only it respected her will to stay separate rather than absorbing into her skin. What would even happen if she willed it otherwise? Most moon glass that was already filled seemed inert to her. She recalled the time she had accidentally ridden along in a crate filled with it and been fine... It was usually only empty glass that she reacted to. Was this different because it was hers?
Silently, she imagined trying to absorb it like empty glass, thousands of cutie marks and all... but the sword was even bigger than she was, and a faint nagging sensation told her that was a bad idea.
"That was a fantastic yawn," Amber encouraged in the background, still talking to Valey's shell. "Nnngh... Making me feel like a nap in the sun too..."
Starlight stared at her reflection in the faceted glass. She felt like she did nothing but rest. Why Amber would want to when there were so many potential things to be done...
"So we have a call from Gerardo and Slipstream," Harshwater interrupted, stomping up the stairs. "They say it's urgent, so all hooves on deck."
"In short, we felt it would be an unfortunate idea not to comply when we were that heavily outnumbered," Gerardo's voice finished, the stone on the dining hall's table glowing with magic. "I know how to size up combatants, and these griffons have a good idea of what they're doing. They also have a very large amount of food I'd love for us to take for ourselves. So while it's technically possible to go along with them and let whatever happens happen, I strongly advise coming up with a more proactive course of action."
"What did I miss?" Amber frowned, Valey's shell right behind her.
Felicity looked up. "Apparently our scouting party has gotten themselves mixed up with some sort of griffon syndicate or mafia who now expects to be led here, on the pretenses of selling us food. A lot of food, mind you, but... still."
"Seems like odd news to me," Saffron said, up and gingerly about despite the braces on her broken leg. "The Griffonstone griffons I knew weren't big enough on sharing and cooperation to form any sort of syndicate. That's the kind of behavior you'd expect from diamond dogs or even ponies themselves."
"Well, they're very low on cooperation," Gerardo replied. "In fact, I'd put money on some higher authority forcing them all to get along through bribery or blackmail."
Grenada shook her head. "I would not count on being able to turn them against each other as much of a plan. Who has a better idea?"
"How many of us do they know there are?" Nyala spoke up, sitting upright in a chair.
"They know we were pleased to see this much food, but we haven't given an exact number."
Nyala nodded. "Lead them to the older, crashed airship. How much faith do they have in us being upstanding ponies?"
Gerardo hesitated for a moment. "They expect it and are likely ready to abuse it."
"Right..." Nyala bit her lip. "So we only need one or two of us there to meet you. Ponies who can put on a convincing act. They wait there to meet you and say the rest of the team gave up on you and left you behind. And you haven't actually promised this syndicate anything in return?"
"They strongly suspect we have more money, and are interested in the opportunity to trade with us."
Nyala sighed. "Right, so it won't work to say whoever ran took the money with them because then they'll just spread out and search. Back to the drawing board..."
"Trying to con a group of con artists is quite bold," Felicity commented. "Kudos on your fearlessness, darling, but I happen to be a professional at this sort of thing." She winked, standing up, and patted her cutie mark. "Who's to say we can't exploit any tensions within their group, again?"
Saffron tilted her head. "What's she on about?"
"My brand intensifies or lessens emotions in a radius around me," Felicity replied. "And just you watch. Professional mafia or no, I'm willing to bet I'm more than a match for them."
"I'd rather no one get suspicious of how long I excused myself for," Gerardo cut in, "so I'll assume the plan for now is to take them to the other ship, pretend we were using it as a base, and let you fill in the rest?"
"You do that," Saffron insisted. "Don't want to blow any cover."
The sound stone went dim.
Harshwater got up, glancing between the two batponies. "You two seem eager enough to handle this, but since Shinespark won't come out of the bridge and everyone seems to think being the medic makes you the leader, you're going to have to run whatever you come up with past me. We have until tomorrow night, so we'll want to start staging whatever we're staging now."
Nyala nodded. "The best result is for the griffons to lose interest in our friends, leave the food behind where we can carry it back ourselves, and not go scouting around the area and find this ship instead. It will be hard to do all of those at once, but we can't afford to compromise on any. Like it or not, we do need that food."
"Regrettable but true." Grenada looked down at her stomach, and it growled in response.
"Pardon the interruption, ladies and gentlemares," Howe's voice echoed mysteriously from the kitchen. "But if you're entering the dark business of defrauding fraudsters, some proven talent like ours could be exactly what will tip fate in your favor..."
Harshwater shot the kitchen door a look. "The only thing proven about your talent is how unreliable it is. Stay out of this."
"Hah," Howe chuckled, striding into view. "Perhaps we've not been on the best of terms, you and I, but a familiar evil is preferable to an unknown one, is it not?" He waggled his eyebrows. "A true tactician can use unreliability to their advantage."
Grenada looked around the room and sighed. "The only thing I am getting from all this is that every last pony here could be just as questionable as the griffons we are trying to shake. Myself included..." She winced and rubbed her forehead.
Amber nudged Valey's shell with a hopeful smile. "If things come to blows, think you'll be just as good at fighting as always?"
The shell yawned.
"If we have to fight them, I can do it," Starlight cut in. "I can also scare them away." She frowned. "With the Nightmare Modules, I can... do things to my appearance." Her mane shimmered darkly in emphasis, hovering briefly between gas and hair.
"Now there's an idea." Saffron tapped the table. "This isn't something any of you would likely be familiar with, but Equestria has a monster population. Weird, mutant, one-of-a-kind things that will either leave you alone or rampage, and can cause trouble for townships not equipped to send them packing. Starlight, what's the spookiest you can make yourself look?"
Starlight winced. "Are you sure that's a good thing to plan on? They might be brave, and could just go scouting and find us if I scare them away from the abandoned ship."
"True, but they'd need their wings to do it..." Saffron scratched her head. "What do you want to bet they'd drop the food in making a hasty getaway?"
"Unless we have any plans for moving the airship that I don't know about, we can't have them leave us alone for any reason other than thinking there's nothing worth finding." Harshwater shook her head. "The other option we should be considering is actually letting them find this ship. It would put us in a vulnerable position, but if we planned on it happening rather than letting them realize we were deceiving them when they stumble on it later, we could be in a significantly better position than we would otherwise."
Felicity cleared her throat for attention. "So let me get this straight! We have less than thirty-six hours to prepare, and our only options are to either eliminate them in a test of martial strength we're unlikely to win, or convince them there's nothing here worth finding when we have money and they already know it. In short, whether we mislead them or not, they're going to know there's money out here unless they find it alongside a convincing story for how it got where it is. Is that right?"
Harshwater nodded.
"And what exactly are we trying to stop them from getting?" Felicity tilted her head.
"Any sort of advantage over us," Nyala replied. "We're already in a vulnerable position, and it would get much worse if they took us, our healing supplies, our ship... anything."
Felicity frowned. "Well, I still think getting them to fight each other is our best bet. I can do this, everyone. Really, I can! Please let me give it a whirl?"
Harshwater took a deep breath. "Everyone, break for lunch. Eat a good one, since we want to walk out of this with our food resupplied. Then we'll reconvene and see what we can do."
"We'll break here for the evening," Gunther declared, pointing to a recess between the tracks and a hill that could protect a camp from wind. "Everybody off their feet and rest."
Slipstream blinked, staring at the noon sun and their not-yet-winded squad of pack griffons. "Not that I'm ungrateful," she said, lifting a very sore leg, "but I think I can keep going..."
"The whole evening?" Gerardo tilted his head. "There are still quite a few hours left in the day, you are aware."
Gunther scoffed. "Hours of afternoon heat and misery. We'll sleep here, then continue on through the night. That'll make traveling safer, faster and more pleasant. We want to be awake and moving when everything else in these hills is up and about."
"Everything else?" Slipstream suddenly stared out at the hills. "What do you mean?"
"Not from around here, are you?" Gunther finished setting down his load and leaned on it, staring at her with passing interest.
"Wow, you found something scarier than us?" Chartreuse piped up, drawing near.
"Shut up." Gunther held a talon in her direction. "And go ask Red. That story's his favorite."
The red-suited griffon blanched. "Why in Tartarus are you dumping her on me!? You have a problem, Black?"
Blue just sighed, laying out a bedroll, then inserting earplugs and donning dark sunglasses and tuning out the world.
"You know, other things out here aside, I'm not sure I can get to sleep at high noon..." Slipstream glanced up at the horizon. "Maybe you all are nocturnal, but I hope I won't need to be very awake for continuing tonight."
Gunther shrugged, holding out two pairs of strange-looking sunglasses. "Here. They're enchanted to help you fall asleep." He glanced around at his allies and lowered his voice. "Though just between you and me... it might not be a bad idea for one of you to take first watch with me, if you know what I'm saying. There's trusting, and then there's stupid."
"It seems we think alike." Gerardo pocketed his shades, giving Slipstream a friendly nudge. "You rest. Out of the two of us, you need it more."
Slipstream nodded at his reassurance, beginning the work of spreading her own bedroll.
Half an hour later, the camp was arrayed, three of Gunther's colored friends sharing space between a lean-to and Red bivouacked a short distance away. The four griffons slumbered, and Slipstream did too, Gunther and Gerardo alone keeping watch.
"Red fell in a lake while trying to show off when we were kids," Gunther muttered, his voice hardly quiet. "Blue has one-night stands with commoners nearly twice a week. Violet's jokes are hilarious, and there's candy in the pack with the drawstrings."
Gerardo blinked. "Beg pardon?"
Gunther leaned back and folded his wings behind his head. "Just checking if my compatriots are truly asleep. Don't want any idiots giving out on us because they didn't rest properly."
Gerardo stared at him. "You want my help going behind their backs and are checking if they're listening."
"I didn't say that." Gunther rolled his shoulders. "Actually, it's the other way around. I want to know your plan for going behind them."
"My what?" Gerardo frowned.
Gunther huffed. "Don't play coy with me. Whatever you want this much food for, you'd have to be daft to want this many greedy, unruly griffons knowing where it is. At least, I wouldn't if I was in your place. You've got some plan to get this payload home while shaking us off your trail."
"...Well, suppose you caught me." Gerardo kept his face even. "Why wouldn't I lump you in with these other griffons? Perhaps you did return with food one time, but you're still hardly trustworthy. No offense, but it's true."
Gunther shrugged. "None taken. I wouldn't trust me either. Honestly, the fact you've gone along with us this far reeks of desperation. You don't want to tell us to shove off because you don't think you have what it takes to back it up if we stop playing nice. But you haven't tried to run for it either, so I'm guessing you need this much food."
Gerardo held his face neutral, but internally gulped.
"Now here's where I'm coming from," Gunther continued. "This delivery squad of mine, myself included, works together only to maximize profits. But as we make no effort to hide, we despise each other, and I'm not really in the mood to share with griffons I don't like. Knowledge is a commodity, remember? The less they know about what you've got to offer, the more there is for me."
"That's not a very reassuring way of saying you want to be on our side," Gerardo remarked.
"Think of it more like I want to undercut my enemies," Gunther stated with a frown.
Both griffons stared at each other for a moment. "I don't trust you one bit," Gerardo finally said. "What are you asking?"
"I'm asking how you're planning on making them lose interest in finding your base, and whatever's in it that you're protecting." Gunther pointed a wing at the slumbering griffons. "And I'm offering to help you. As proof of my intentions, I'll even do it no questions asked. That means whatever you hide from them, you hide from me, too... and whatever I do know, you can bet it stays with me."
Gerardo frowned. "If you were keen on keeping knowledge of me and my friends and any potential lucrativity to yourself, why invite these four in the first place?"
Gunther shrugged. "First, I'm not carrying all this by myself, and second, it's cheaper than renting a wagon. Better to cut costs by maximizing your resources than taking the lazy way out. Around here, I work for my money."
"You have me in a hard spot," Gerardo replied.
Gunther cracked a slight smile. "Yet you still find me difficult to trust. Keep a lid on your panic, friend. Keeping anyone else off your tail is in my best interests, and I know how to look out for myself."
"...Very well," Gerardo said. "Yes, you've read me correctly. But I still think I'll take my chances with my own team's abilities."
"You do that." Gunther chuckled. "Just remember, I know there's a ruse. I'll play along, but I won't be fooled. The next unexpected thing that happens... Well, you just keep an eye on me. Maybe we'll be able to work together more efficiently once you've seen how things work in my world."
Gerardo hesitated. "Have you ever considered making your world work in a slightly less-dubious way?"
"Hey." Gunther narrowed his eyes. "Griffonstone as a whole stinks. There's nothing but cultural decay as far as the eye can see, and being decent to everyone only seems like a great idea for as long as it takes for someone to take advantage of you. You're naive, and I'm willing to bet you'll return the favor, but playing for anyone but yourself around here never pans out in the long run. Besides." He exhaled. "If everyone around here insists on such a pointless passion as money-hoarding when basic economic theory and common sense says that'll only make your country a dump, there's nothing left to do but beat them at their own game. It's a pathetic heap, but it's still the only one around to claim the top of."
Gerardo shook his head. "Your country is a very depressing place."
"Glad you agree. Fools who think it's great are the worst." Gunther turned back to the horizon. "Now help me keep watch. Wild boar aren't things you want to be snuck up on by."
Jamjars sat surrounded by parts, Glimmer and Grenada before her, the trio illuminated only by the light of unicorn horns.
"Sound stones take magic to activate," Jamjars said, holding the inert stone Gerardo had called with in her hooves. "We use unicorn horns, but Gerardo and Slipstream don't have any unicorns with them. And if what you've told me is true..." She gave Glimmer a don't-make-me-look-bad look. "All they need is mana power, and our horns provide that. So I want to know why we're spending so much effort looking for ways to dig mana wells when they must have a perfectly good source of power nobody told me about."
Grenada cleared her throat. "They are using Valey's modified flash club, which is a weapon Sosa made for the old weapons contract. Its power comes from the Sosan Black Box, one of the projects that went into making the Braen armor. The Black Box is a hoof-sized harmony extractor with the limitation that it only generates mana energy from brands instead of harmony itself, built to use an obsidian core instead of a living pony. It was originally made so that Braen could be powered by Shinespark's encapsulated brand."
Jamjars frowned. "Well, why didn't you say so? We could just use Braen's old extractor to power the ship!"
"That will not work." Grenada shook her head. "Shinespark's brand was powerful enough that a single pony-sized machine could be active during the normal hours of a waking pony. The power of an average brand is only enough that, given days of charging, a mana core can be powered enough for several instantaneous bright flashes, or to briefly turn on a sound stone. Drawing the energy out of the obsidian sharply limits how much we can collect, and it is a small amount in the first place."
"That part of Braen also broke when Nyala's memories were transferred," Glimmer added. "It's not a bad idea, but we'd need to make a new one from scratch. I doubt the apparatus in the flash club is built for high power throughput."
Grenada hesitated. "We might have the parts for it. They were the kind of things Shinespark would keep around. But what would we even do with one?"
"We still have all that moon glass from Kero." Jamjars stuck out her tongue, her mind fixed on a more secret, far greater concentration of cutie marks in moon glass. "Hooking multiple ponies up to your main reactor explodes, but regular mana power can run in series. There's no reason you couldn't build ten flash clubs and wire them together, and if that works, why not build a giant one and see how many pieces you can stick in at once?"
Grenada stared at her, searching for a hole in her logic.
"You have to have power consumption charts on this ship somewhere," Glimmer piped in. "How much the lights use, the heating, the water propulsion and main terminal."
"You would have to ask Shinespark. I could not say off the top of my head." Grenada looked away. "The lighting, controls and infrastructure will be cheapest. Heating and sea propulsion vary. We could get by with very little, or use a lot. Thankfully, it has not been raining, and we are out of the mountains, so the cold is not a major concern."
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "And Shinespark is still being ornery, right?"
Grenada immediately stiffened. "If you want my help, do not mock my sister's grief."
Glimmer jumped in before anything could escalate. "She likely wouldn't be interested in helping us, but that's perfectly fine. Grenada, if you were involved with the Black Box project, you could help us make a proof-of-concept version for testing multiple pieces of obsidian at once? To see if they generate more power or destabilize?"
"...Perhaps." Grenada sighed. "But not now. We have griffons to prepare for."
Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "Because we're all sooo helpful preparing that other ship with who knows what when we can't even fly out there. It's literally going to be Harshwater carrying everyone. Because no one is stupid enough to fly with Howe. Come on, just a prototype! How long will it take?"
Grenada returned the look. "If we are trying to be stealthy from a group of griffons, having lights on in a darkened ship is counterproductive. Why does it need to be now, impatience aside?"
Jamjars cutely rubbed her chin. "What if they turn out to be legitimate greedy traders? It's not like we're doing anything with our money. If we knew having a ton of moon glass would help, maybe we could buy some from them."
"I do not think that is a safe assumption to make," Grenada deadpanned.
Jamjars chuckled. "Says the mare whose goon squad spent years selling the Defense Force weapons and then stealing the weapons back to rob them of their money. Come on, we're professionals. If they try to rip us off, we'll get the better of them. But we have something they want, and that gives us the power."
Grenada just sighed. "It was all Shinespark, Dior and Arambai's plan. I wish we had Shinespark back. Especially for this, we could use her expertise..."
"I told you it's no fun for anyone when she's holed up on the bridge." Jamjars rolled her eyes. "How about you start building a prototype, and I'll go give her a motivational speech."
Grenada's leg shot out, blocking her progress. "You will do nothing of the sort. I will make you a list of parts I need to start with, and if anyone is going to speak with my sister, it will be me while you search for the parts amid this mess."
Jamjars predatorially winked. "Deal."
The bridge was one of the lightest parts of the ship, thanks to its abundance of windows, but it felt like the opposite. Shinespark's pilot chair sat with its high back to the entrance, though there was no denying it was occupied. Grenada stood in the open doorway for a full minute, receiving no acknowledgement she was there.
"It has been two weeks," she eventually said. "You have had time to grieve, sister. But everyone who is still here still needs you."
"Like I can afford to care," Shinespark rasped back, voice dry from disuse.
Grenada didn't break her stare. "All it costs is hope. You are out of that, then?"
"Hope for what?" Shinespark growled. "Seeing all my friends and everything I love torn from me shred by shred, time after time after time? In Ironridge, I led poorly, and it cost both of us our friends and our home. And then I made the mistake of caring again. You weren't there. We were all powerless against her, watching as Valey's life force was ripped away and everyone else was crushed like trees before a flood. She looked at how much I cared about Valey and thought it was amusing."
Grenada stepped through the door, but stayed at the entrance. "There were many survivors."
"Don't try to pretend that makes an inch of difference," Shinespark hissed. "Valey was... We never... She..."
"However much you had left unsaid to her, I have been there," Grenada interrupted. "Lest you forget my long-quashed feelings for you, and how I thought you perished higher up in that control tower in the skyport."
Shinespark sucked in a breath. "If it weren't for Garsheeva and her heresies... before the end, we might have..."
"Stop," Grenada commanded. "You saw where I was when you found me in Mistvale. You loved her, and whether you did not say it, did not show it, did not let her see how you meant it or anything else, there is only one place that kind of blind devotion leads. What if she returned from the dead just like you did for me and saw you giving no aid to their friends when they needed it? What if she saw you poisoning their cause and her cause because you are in whatever spiral currently traps you?"
"Blind devotion? You think I'm blind?" Shinespark shuddered. "I wish I was blind, but she's all I can see." She rotated in her chair, horn cracked and healing yet very much disfigured and unusable. Both of her eyes burned with a faint sapphire spark that was a mockery of her usual resolve. "Her dying to that laughing monstrosity. You think her soul is in a better place now, in that thing's crown? I dream of crumbling bridges, falling rockets and green flame, and it never ends. If you think you've been where I've been, then show me the way out, because there are none for miles on end."
"Time moves forward whether you have a way out or not, and takes you along with it," Grenada replied. "You cannot wait here. Half of your friends are planning to protect this ship from opportunistic griffons, and the other half are trying to improve our lives and rebuild the systems we will someday need to get out of here. We are doing it with the help of former traitors like Felicity, Howe and myself, because anything is better than languishing here forever. But even with ponies and griffons of all colors, we have no leader and nothing to hold us together except thin trust and the will to survive. If you cannot stand up for yourself, stand up for us. Please, sister. We need you."
Shinespark stared at her. "Where are you even moving forward to? This happens again and again, and you know it. I made myself the hero of Ironridge, severed my cutie mark and built an empire of lies all to fight Yakyakistan and the Sky District and still couldn't stop my city from being erased. I sat back and believed in my friend and was equally powerless when her fated day came. No matter what I do, it's the same. It's fate."
"So what?" Grenada stomped a hoof. "Is the journey along the way not more important than the end? None of us are immortal! We all die someday. But that is no reason to sit back and waste the rest of the life you still have."
"I lived my journey," Shinespark said, voice even. "I followed the rules. I did my best. And what did all of it get me? There were so many times and so many talks when Valey knew how I felt, but because we listened to those rules... we..."
"And I felt the same," Grenada urged, "after all the time I spent as your loyal subordinate, and you died before you could finish the war you taught me so heavily to believe in! You have to get up, Shinespark. Please..."
"...Stay for a while." Shinespark turned back toward the windshield. "Your words don't ring anything in my heart, but I believe you mean well. Please."
"Your friends aren't fine," Glimmer said, pacing up to Starlight in the forward observation room in the hours after Grenada had returned and started her work.
Starlight grunted in agreement. "I'm going with Howe, Harshwater and Felicity to the old ship tonight so we can prepare for the griffons. I know they're not fine, but I'm trying my best to help."
Glimmer seated herself at the edge of the room, its view ruined by having landed at the bottom of a valley. "No, you aren't."
Starlight aggressively folded her ears. "Aren't trying my best? I thought that's what you wanted." She glared at the sword hovering before her. "For me to sit down and give up even when there's more I can do because it's important to let go of your friends, or something. So why aren't you happy?"
Glimmer swallowed. "Because you're not happy either."
"You expect me to be?" Starlight waved a hoof at the window, half of it blocked by crushed grass and dirt. "Did you honestly, ever, when you were telling me time after time to do this, think sitting by while my friends suffer would make me happy?" A faint flicker of darkness crossed her horn. "I'm miserable. And they are too. I don't know why I'm even still trusting that you know what you're doing."
"Starlight." Glimmer's face fell.
"What."
Glimmer raised her eyes. "I want to say I have some lengthy plan, reassure you and tell you to keep trusting me. I know you want to. The reason you're still trusting me is because you need someone to trust in. But the truth is, all I really knew is that losing what you care about would crush you in the future. It's hurt you before, and you've reached far further than most to stop it from happening again. I just wanted to prepare you, and help your heart survive when that time came. And instead, there's no denying that... all I've done is let it crush you early."
"So what are you telling me to do now?" Starlight glared at anything but her lookalike. "If it comes down to it, I already know I'm not going to listen to you and will do anything in the moment to save my friends. That's why I used the Nightmare Modules again two weeks ago."
"There's nothing I can say except I'm sorry," Glimmer replied.
Starlight didn't look up. "Stop telling me you were wrong. I've spent months trying to understand everything you've been saying, and ever since we got here I've been hiding what's in my sword because I don't want to give my friends hope in something I'm not allowed to not give up on myself. Don't you dare make me have done that for nothing."
"Even when you're hurting, your first wish is for me to give your pain a purpose rather than take it away," Glimmer murmured. "Do you know your purpose in life, Starlight? Have you found your special talent?"
"Apparently, it's losing my friends," Starlight huffed.
"Stop." Glimmer came over and sat by her, putting a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. It wasn't rejected. "I've hurt you and I'm sorry, but your body is running on an extremely volatile mix of emotions in a physical sense. You need to-"
"Whether they're mine or not, I sure feel them!" Starlight raised her voice, ears folding in anguish. "Don't tell me my emotions aren't my own! How's that supposed to help!?"
Glimmer gritted her teeth and sighed.
"Whose side are you even on?" Starlight whimpered, burying her face in her hooves.
"This isn't learning to accept or deal with losing your friends," Glimmer growled. "This is hurting yourself by pretending there's nothing you can do. And you'll remember this hurt for the rest of your life, and if you're waiting for it to mean something then you'll do it again and again and grow bitter and angry when you wind up with nothing for your pains, or else you'll grow so dedicated to never letting it happen again that you won't be able to let go when it truly does matter. Snap out of it, Starlight. Despair isn't your color."
Starlight sniffed, definitely not crying. "So what makes this time a time I shouldn't give up on my friends if there will still be times later? What if you just show up next time something like this happens and tell me that time is different for no good reason?"
Glimmer looked down as well. "I hate that you have to think about these things."
"So give me answers so I don't have to!" Starlight sobbed. "You never tell me what's in the future that you're so afraid of! Maybe you could have warned me and told me up front instead of whatever it is you've been doing all this time, huh? I killed windigoes and fought off Chrysalis. I'm strong. I can change a bad future. But no, it's always secrets and secrets and secrets and having your dragon yell in my head when I'm connected to the generator so I don't hear something I'm not supposed to. I didn't even hear anything important when I connected to it the second time! You expect me to trust you and I do even though it does nothing but hurt, and now you're telling me it's all been pointless so far but I'll still have to do all this again later?"
Glimmer drew her close, and again she didn't struggle. "Yes. And I'm sorry. I'm not much of a caretaker or teacher. A warrior and leader who inspired others, drew them together and made tactical achievements, maybe, but keeping someone alive with good decisions is a different way of caring for someone than what you need. You're good enough at keeping everyone alive, already."
Starlight curled her lip. "At this point, I don't even know if I believe you're really from the future. If you knew what was going to happen, you would have stopped Chrysalis, and if you don't know, that explains why you keep refusing to tell me. And if you really were me, you'd know what I need a lot better than you seem to."
Glimmer sighed. "If what you needed was yourself, you wouldn't be wanting so badly."
"So what are you telling me to do?" Starlight stiffly changed the subject. "You want me to just tell my friends I have who knows how many cutie marks in this thing? And get their hopes up that Valey can come back, even though it took Garsheeva to put Nyala together from the same state, and Nyala's cutie mark wasn't even mixed in with a million others?"
Glimmer shrugged. "I told Jamjars what's in your sword."
Starlight blinked. "You did?"
"Mhm." Glimmer nodded. "She has no idea if it's possible, but is fed up with everyone moping around and doesn't feel like joining in. So I showed her where we put Chauncey's research documents we got from Navarre, advised her that getting the ship's power back on would be a good first step so she can cross-check them with Shinespark and Arambai's research files on the ship's terminal, and she's been going hard at it ever since."
"But..." Starlight's face scrunched, mind going blank at the thought of Jamjars doing real work toward a measurable goal for Valey's sake.
Glimmer sat back, rubbing a hoof along Starlight's spine in time with her steadying breaths. "I didn't tell her if she stands a chance. I don't know if she believes she does either. But she doesn't even care, because it's not guaranteed to be pointless and it's not moping around or giving up. She lived so much of her life angry about her own insignificance, and the stubborn determination born of that won't die easily."
Starlight folded her ears. She couldn't tell if she was being upstaged, being inspired, or being ridiculous for considering either. "But she's Jamjars."
"And you're you," Glimmer countered. "A filly who hates giving up so much that sitting by when there's anything you could be doing is emotionally killing you. If there's one thing you need to know about the future..." She took a deep breath. "If you are happy and love the world, then no matter what choices you make there will be nothing to fear."
"That's asking a lot," Starlight grumbled, floating her sword again. "I don't even know how to start trying and get off my hooves, though. If I think about it, it'll hurt too much and remind me of everything I haven't been doing, so I can't think about what to do."
Glimmer stood up. "I hurt you, and while you can delay that pain, you can't dodge it forever. Run from it, and it will slowly poison you. Face it and break through, and you'll find the things you want most are still within your reach. Chrysalis isn't more powerful than you. You've already snatched away your friends' souls from her. Get up, Starlight. Every one of your friends needs you."
Starlight hesitated. "In my first vision in Ironridge. With the falling ash and dead batpony shells and the older Valey who knew my whole name... Valey was still alive."
"Are you afraid of that particular vision, or of a ruinous world at all?" Glimmer stared sightlessly at her. "There is no way the future could hold that particular vision. It is nothing more than a dusty possibility on the shelves of history. Whether it will happen in the distant future, already took place far in the past, is playing out right now in a different reality or only ever existed in your mind, the only effect it has on the world is through how it influences your actions. But it is also one of only millions of dark or ruinous states that could befall any world. Imagine a sunbaked desert where no food could grow, or a dystopia ruled by a mad king or god. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Starlight swallowed. "That even if I change some minor detail and prevent that particular vision from coming true, it doesn't mean I stop the whole thing. Removing Valey or not letting her know my name doesn't stop the ash or the bodies or that black wave."
Glimmer nodded. "Precisely."
"I..." Starlight winced with her entire body, standing as well and shivering as her muscles unlocked. "I am never listening to you tell me to let go of my friends again," she said, taking a resolute breath.
Glimmer watched her. "If there's any other way, I swear I won't let you down again. What are you going to do?"
Starlight looked at her sword. "I have no idea, but I'm doing it because I can."
She pressed a hoof against the blade, feeling the familiar grabbing stickiness of empty moon glass that wanted her when she wasn't glassed, even though the blade was full. That block was still there, like it was staying separate from her because she willed it and not because it wasn't hungry, all-consuming loneliness. Starlight pressed back on that block. The sword had something she wanted, and it wasn't about to keep it separate from her. She opened the sword's hunger to herself like she was instructing it to pry apart its ravenous maw, unsure what she would do next but following Glimmer's words and her own deepest desires and taking the first step, just because it was there-
Her hoof sank up to her shoulder in the blade.
"Aaah!" Starlight yelped in surprise, a cavernous sucking sensation drawing on her leg. Normal moon glass melted into her, because it was smaller than she was, but this giant sword was different! She fought it back with force of will, the obsidian sword trying to absorb her now that it was the bigger of the two. Physical strength alone wouldn't have been enough, but she slowly pulled back her hoof, her leg visibly stretching and distorting where it met the substance while the moon glass remained perfectly smooth. Eventually, she was free, the sword hovering inert in its black aura.
"What...?" Starlight panted, legs shaking, and looked at Glimmer with haunted eyes.
Glimmer shrugged. "You've always been willing to play with the unknown to protect your friends before. But if you'll accept me telling you to stop one more time... If you have any unfinished business in this world that's time-sensitive, you may want to see to that before continuing to experiment."
"We're preparing for a minor invasion by the griffon mafia," Amber said, looking over her shoulder on the deck of the Immortal Dream. "And as much as I'm thankful you've changed your tune about helping me with Valey... are you one hundred percent sure now is the best time to hit the river for a bath? Gerardo said they'll be here tomorrow."
Felicity bit her lip. "Darling, I know it sounds like a vain request, and yes I would enjoy it, but if I'm to be doing the sweet-talking it's very slightly imperative that I look as sweet as can be. I'm aware of how it sounds, but this is my preparation."
"Well..." Amber shrugged. "I guess I can't argue with that. Hey Valey, want to come with?"
The empty shell yawned and paced in a circle, preparing to lie down.
Amber blinked at it. "I guess I'll go get my shampoos."
"E-Excuse me," a meek, unfamiliar voice stammered from the rear doorway. "Are y-you going to the r-r-river? Can I c-come t-too?"
Amber and Felicity both turned sharply, regarding a meek gray mare with a limp orange mane and eyes that couldn't seem to focus on any one thing. "Meltdown?" Amber tilted her head. "You're out of bed?"
"Darling, I mean this tactfully, but you look awful," Felicity commented hesitantly. "If you're not alright..."
"I d-don't need r-rest." Meltdown shook her head with a slight tremor, the cutie mark on her flank showing a gauge on a pipe turned all the way to zero. "Help me t-to the r-river?"
Amber quickly walked closer, steadying her with a shoulder. "Easy, girl. As long as I'm being the pamper mare, you look like you could use a morale boost too." She hefted Meltdown onto her back. "Bananas, you're light."
"Really?" Felicity raised a skeptical eyebrow. "The hat is sweet, but trying to emulate her too hard is going to be a little bit disturbing."
Amber sighed. "Okay, I feel a little bad now that I said that too. You good up there?"
Meltdown silently nodded.
They reached the river a few minutes later, a proper trail built by now from all the times she and Felicity had gone down to the water. "So, what do you want to do now that you're here?" Amber asked, unable to make eye contact with the mare on her back.
"Let me in," Meltdown requested, her voice slightly stronger. "And s-stand back."
"Stand back? Oh no," Amber chuckled, wading into the river. "The current is strong enough here that if you need me to carry you, you'll need me to hold you or you'll be swept away. But if you want to get wet, I can-"
Meltdown aggressively struggled, slipping free of Amber's back and falling in.
"Woah! Hey!" Amber's eyes shot wide with panic, and she grabbed for the mare... only to touch something searing beneath the surface. "Yeowch!"
Amber scrambled backwards, getting onto the shore as the water rapidly heated around her and a pool of steam bubbles began rising where Meltdown had gone under. Suddenly, Meltdown broke the surface, her eyes once again focused and her mane far more vibrant even though it was steaming and soaked.
"Thank you," Meltdown panted, treading water, her voice far stronger and more coherent. "I thought about it several times, but I wasn't sure I could make it here on my own."
"What?" Amber blinked. "You're... Wait, you make all the fire magic heat? Not your armor?"
Meltdown shook her head. "My armor was a coolant and exhaust unit, just like this river. We don't know each other well, so don't let me impose on your spa date, though. The water should be comfortably hot downstream from me, if you're looking for thanks."
Felicity giggled, having watched the whole exchange from the safety of the riverbank. "A hot bath sounds even better for what I need. I do have to say, though, it was hard not to pick up on your... habitual exhaust, let's call it, with all my work for Stormhoof. Whatever ailed you, we could have brought you down here sooner had you asked."
Amber bit her lip, wading in again and testing a spot safely downstream from the steaming Meltdown. "Okay, this really is nice. Come on, Felicity, let's get started." She looked up at Meltdown. "Don't expect me not to be curious after behavior like that, though."
"It's your outing." Meltdown shook her head. "I wouldn't want to interrupt if there's anything special going on."
Felicity waded in after Amber, letting the current catch her once she was deep enough, and Amber stopped her and began her work. "Depending what kind of special you mean," she said around a bottle of conditioner in her teeth, "either there isn't, or you're welcome to join. What's been up with you?"
Meltdown sighed, dipping her face briefly beneath the water to refresh the wetness in her fur. "First give me updates. We're no longer in the Empire, and Gazelle isn't talking. What's the status of everything else?"
"In a nutshell?" Felicity floated luxuriously on her back, humming in contentment as Amber lathered her legs and her coat. "Wallace and Gwendolyn are likely dead, Garsheeva stayed in the Empire without her brand, no one knows what befell Crystal, who was calling herself Chrysalis, and Valey is also sort of dead but we have her body and it hasn't been worth giving up hope. Now we are south of the mountains and have attracted the interests of a local griffon mafia..."
Meltdown surfaced enough to nod. "You'll want them as your friends, but be prepared to pay to get it."
Amber blinked. "Dodging my question aside, we want to be friends with money-grubbing local griffons? These sound meaner than Empire griffons."
"If you crossed the border without Writs of Harmonic Sanction and want contacts here who won't care when they find out, you'll want them as friends," Meltdown repeated. "The griffons here are greedy enough to protect your secrets if they think it's in their best interest. The Equestrians, on the other hoof, are the ones who keep the border sealed in the first place."
Amber's eyes widened. "I don't think any of us thought about that..."
Meltdown shrugged. "Gazelle and I already have passes, and Starlight and Saffron are natives. Beyond that, you have two that I know of. If you ever get cornered and think there will be trouble, you should think now about who you're going to protect for free."
Amber stopped washing Felicity and stared.
"Darliiing..." Felicity whined.
Amber mechanically resumed. "I'm... going to have to ask everyone else what we do about that if it comes up."
"I'm just mentioning it while I can think," Meltdown said. "I didn't mean to dodge your question. It's just not a very long story. You can probably guess most of it yourself."
"Your cutie mark generates heat," Amber replied. "But it has some downside?"
Meltdown shook her head. "Generating heat is the downside. My brand increases my physical and mental abilities. I don't know if it has a limit, but the heat scales with how much power I draw from it. If that sounds unusual, it's my wish from the Night Mother. And the reason I wished to be stronger and smarter is that without it, I'm essentially an invalid."
Felicity's ears fell in the water. "Now that's a side of you I don't believe I ever quite dug up before..."
"It's a secret," Meltdown answered. "The only reason I'm telling you is because without some way to stay cool, I'm useless, and it's better if you know why rather than assuming it's related to physical trauma from Crystal. Even with this river, I'm well below the temperature I used in the Empire as my operating normal."
"You noticed the stuttering," Meltdown sighed. "I would describe it for curiosity or learning's sake, but not so I can be pitied. Getting a wish that can overcome things like this happens once in a generation. Pity would be better spent on everyone who has a situation they can't do anything about."
"Alright. I gotcha." Amber kept washing. "Were you always like this, or...?"
"Birth defect, though it grew more noticeable as I aged." Meltdown looked away. "It's not a feel-good kind of story, so don't ask."
Amber winced. "Okay, not imagining. So are you just going to live in this river, or...?"
"No. Not as long as I can come back from time to time." Meltdown did a roll in the water, stretching her legs. "But perhaps we should make use of the time we have to discuss these griffons..."
Grenada and Jamjars sat in the Immortal Dream's cargo bay, busying themselves with parts and magic. "Unscrew this," Grenada instructed, passing a small sealed box that looked like it had been pulled from a bigger part. "We need the crystal filament cable inside to safely insulate the extraction prong unifier. Otherwise there will be an uneven distribution of power that wastes energy to heat and could eventually warp the metal."
Jamjars stuck out her tongue in concentration, taking the box and working it apart with a screwdriver. "There," she said, prying it open. "I know. No need to tell me how skilled I am."
"However skilled at mechanics you are, you will always be the filly who stole questionable posters from the Spirit hideout to me," Grenada muttered, her horn sparking brightly as she welded together thin parts on a frame. "Stop trying to live that down and concentrate on your project."
Jamjars rolled her eyes, passing back the successfully-retrieved filament cable. "If you're jealous, my room is second from stern on the left. I'll let you see it for free if we're friends."
"I am already helping you with this," Grenada sighed, capping together some loose wires. "Stop pushing your luck."
"What are they doing?" Starlight whispered from a platform high above, the door to the deck at her back.
"Trying to restore mana power to the ship," Glimmer replied next to her. "It's probably complicated."
Suddenly, the door opened behind them, an orange unicorn with a broken horn standing against the sky. "I was told I was needed," Shinespark said, not coming in.
"Sister!" Grenada looked up from the floor below. "You came off the bridge."
Starlight and Glimmer moved aside, and Shinespark descended to the floor. "Don't worry about making this quick," she warned. "It's not like I have anything better to do with my time. Is that a prototype Black Box?"
"Prototype?" Jamjars struck a pose. "Oh, this one's new and improved."
"It is a prototype," Grenada droned, cutting her off. "This is the design for a bigger one before we shrunk it down, so we have room to work with it."
Shinespark gave it a disinterested glance. "Where's your input stabilizer chip?"
Grenada shook her head. "We lack one big enough, so I was improvising with a matrix of..."
"Best to leave the mechanics to the mechanics," Glimmer murmured, tapping Starlight's shoulder and walking away. "There's not much either of us can help with here."
"The good news is, your hoof is healing nicely," Harshwater commented, expediently changing Maple's bandages. The old ones were thrown into a bucket to be washed, and the new ones, made from a torn-up sheet, were quickly reapplied. "The bad news is, there's still nothing I can do for your ribs. Fortunately, they're all cracks instead of clean breaks, so they'll eventually heal on their own. But you'll have to be careful walking around or doing anything involving twists and turns."
Maple's ears folded, and she smiled. "I don't think I feel like walking on this hoof anyway. But what's been happening for the last day? Everyone's been so much more active than usual."
"Preparations for getting the griffons off our tail," Harshwater replied. "Starlight said it was the kind of thing that would stress you out, so we've got it under control ourselves."
Maple shook her head, testing her new bandages. "That's not very reassuring. Ugh, Saffron is up and walking around..."
Harshwater made a wavery face. "Ehh, if you count walking on three hooves. Recoveries take different times. She's just lucky." She glanced over at Meltdown, whose fur was still damp from her swim, and Gazelle, who remained in his perpetual state of shock. "You're not the unluckiest, rest assured."
"I'm not worried about myself," Maple replied. "I'm worried about everyone else. I haven't seen Shinespark at all, and Amber has spent all her time with Valey's shell. She's been through everything I have right alongside me, and I don't want to see this be the thing that finally breaks her."
Harshwater tilted her head. "Well, I know I said you'd make a full recovery within months... probably. But not even a little more concerned for yourself than your friends? You're a tougher small-town mare than I give you credit for."
Maple smiled faintly. "It happens when you've been where I have. I've been emotionally beaten up so many times, I guess I'm getting harder to knock down... though I don't know if that's really strength or just being desensitized."
"Where I come from, there's not much of a difference." Harshwater shrugged, seating herself and resolving to wash the bandages later. "What's it mean to you?"
"Well..." Maple bowed her head in thought. "Sometimes, I just feel like I'm doing nothing. Back in Riverfall, I actually did nothing, and then in Ironridge I mostly took compulsive risks. For personal reasons. I used to have so many goals for my life, back when I was a filly, so I suppose if I was desensitized, that would just look like me going along with the world. But every once in a while, I just get this urge to... I don't know, go do something. Especially now that I'm bedridden in the Plains of Harmony. And I want to, just so I can prove I'm not so beaten down that I can't enjoy doing my own thing."
Harshwater licked her lips. "Have fun with that. I know it's hard to think about anything else when you're physically stuck in place, but thinking that much about how beaten-down you are isn't healthy."
Maple closed her eyes and sighed. "I know... I just have to get out of this bed."
"And there's that tangle out," Amber said, standing on Felicity's back and working the mare's muscles with her hooves as she picked through her mane with a comb. She passed the comb to Valey's shell, which was standing nearby like a trained equipment rack with several different sizes of combs in its insectoid mouth. "Now let's start on this side..."
"Oh, I can already tell this is going to be the best plan everrr," Felicity happily hummed. "I'm enjoying it so much already..."
"You do that, girl." Amber rolled her eyes. "But this isn't a party, you know. We have to get these griffons where we want them. I know Harshwater and Saffron have their fears, but this is a whole new world we're in. If they could trade us for something that could help bring back Valey..."
Felicity giggled. "Oh, please. This is merely how I mentally prepare myself for a proper performance, darling. Just you watch, and I'll have those griffons wrapped around the tip of my wing in no time."
"To get rid of them, I hope," Nyala interrupted, poking her head around the corner as she traveled the hallway with the aid of her roller.
Felicity raised an eyebrow. "A neutralized threat is a neutralized threat, is it not? We might as well see if there's any way to capitalize on our success."
Nyala looked her up and down. "Are you saying that because you want to bring back Valey, or because you want Amber to keep pushing your reset button so you don't have to think about losing your own sisters?"
Amber stopped coming and frowned. "What kind of a question is that?"
"Ahem. Darling." Felicity politely cleared her throat, then gave Nyala a look. "You too have a lost sister standing right here, do you not? That was tactless to the point of being vaguely hostile, if you don't mind me saying. And don't question my fondness for Valey, either."
Nyala shook her head. "I do, and my sister disappeared from that body eight years ago. Not that I don't care for Valey, but she was... someone else. I've been where both of you are, and I'm vaguely worried one of you will do something stupid or dangerous to bring her back. You might not even get what you're after."
Amber and Felicity shared a look.
"You're both in denial." Nyala turned to leave. "Try not to deal with it in the worst way possible."
When she was gone, both mares stared. "What was she talking about?" Amber shook her head. "The worst way possible? I think that was supposed to be rhetorical, but I have no idea what she means. And we won't even need to deal with it, because we're getting her back."
"She has her own issues regarding the subject, I think," Felicity replied. "Not surprising, given that she was recently injected with the memories of her past self after spending months as a machine. I wouldn't be surprised if that has something to do with it. Now would you mind continuing? I really need to ensure I'm properly unwound..."
One by one, Starlight, Felicity, Harshwater, Howe and Neon Nova arrayed themselves on the deck, the materials they needed spread before them.
"It's about that time, isn't it?" Saffron looked at the sky and sighed. "Good luck, you all. Reasonably sure everything is in place?"
Amber nodded, standing with Grenada, Jamjars and the team that was staying. "I still think you should bring Valey. She can fly, and she has to remember something about how to fight."
Jamjars adamantly shook her head. "She stays here. Just in case."
"We have the sound stone," Harshwater announced, "so they'll be communicating with us if need be. Neon will light it. Won't you, slacker?"
Neon Nova winced, adjusting his tape-repaired shades. "You know, that thing was originally mine..."
"Finders, keepers, as Valey would say." Amber shrugged and tipped her beret.
Starlight held Gerardo's old sword across her back, occasionally fidgeting from the lack of her moon glass one. "Are you sure you need me to leave my moon glass here?"
Jamjars huffed. "Why would you have an attachment to a bunch of moon glass? You can just make more."
"You know why." Starlight glared, remembering Glimmer had told her that Jamjars knew.
"Well, see if you can live without it." Jamjars nodded toward the cargo bay. "We're trying to test it with Grenada's machine while you're gone. And this is for actual science, not using it as a comfort toy."
Starlight bristled... but Glimmer held up a hoof for her to calm. "I'll keep things under control here. Good luck with those griffons."
Everyone else who was there to see the others off nodded. "Good luck."
Slipstream, Gerardo and the other griffons advanced under the cover of night, following the railroad tracks. Griffonstone was far behind them to the south; they were advancing northwest with the foothills of the Aldenfold on the horizon. Gerardo was counting landmarks and bridges; within the hour they would be leaving the coast behind and flying the rest of the way.
The five griffons kept close vigils on their surroundings and each other, professionally holding their silence. While they had squabbled further inland, this far to the north they seemed on edge, working more smoothly as a team.
"Far from your normal turf?" Gerardo whispered, disheartened by their lack of infighting.
"Yes and no," Blue replied, some sixth sense detecting Gerardo's noble blood and manifesting as courtesy... or he was just being polite to get under his allies' skin. "While we do haunt this territory occasionally, a ways north of here is a fortress of ponies who hobnob with the inferior griffons across the pass. I have a personal quarrel with them, and am dearly hoping to provoke an ambush."
He appraised Gerardo keenly, looking for a reaction to what he had shared. Gerardo thought quickly, trying to weigh what the griffon was looking for. "A fortress, you say. Pretend we're new to the area."
This seemed to whet Blue's interest. "Haven't heard of them, hmmm? Then chances are they may not have heard of you. Hopefully the base where your friends are waiting isn't well-visible from the air, I say. With a treasure hoard like you're rumored to be hiding, I'd hate to see it parted from you by anyone unwilling to give you a fair deal. Alas, the Equestrians aren't as well-versed in business etiquette as a gentlebird like myself. Do take care to hide your assets properly until the time comes when you're interested in spending."
"Don't listen to him," Violet disinterestedly droned, walking near. "He's about to offer an investment service to keep your money safe for you."
"You make it sound unflattering." Blue winced. "I'll have you know that through my patented schemes, not only will I keep your money safe and sound, I'll turn a profit just for you. Someone of my pedigree knows how to make a sizable investment like yours grow healthily..."
"Shut up about money," Red growled. "You're getting paid for this work, now do it!"
Gerardo cleared his throat, glancing earnestly at Gunther, looking for confirmation that whatever this payment was, it wasn't being expected out of him.
"All of you, stop blabbering on and move your tails." Gunther shook his head, returning the glance as he did it. "Or do we need a break so the investment banker can properly advertise himself?"
"I wouldn't mind a break," Slipstream panted, carrying the lightest load of the group yet flagging the hardest. "Not gonna move for a week after this..."
Gunther looked at her like she had just answered a rhetorical question the wrong way. "Fine. You have fifteen minutes. Gerardo takes watch with me."
Chartreuse giggled as Gerardo excused himself from the other griffons. "Oooh, Blue, the whole reason you wanted a break is walking away..."
"I did not call for a break." Blue turned his beak up at her. "I merely know how to follow orders when it is my imperative to do so."
"You didn't say you didn't want one..." Chartreuse singsonged. "Lazy Blue, lazy Blue!"
"Please refrain from singing." Violet shook her head. "The acoustics in this place are terrible."
"Well, if you wanted to build me a concert hall, it wouldn't be the meanest thing anyone's ever done for me..."
"Ahem! Don't let Chartreuse pressure you into such things, Violet, dear. We wouldn't want you to have to take out a loan to finance them backed by my oh-so-pointless investment service, would we?"
Gerardo drew away from the group with Gunther, keeping his voice down. "You want to speak with me alone, I take it?"
"More like I wanted to see if you wanted to speak." Gunther kept his posture stiff, standing on the tracks and scanning the horizon. "If you have a plan you're letting me in on, I have yet to hear of it. Like I said, I'll play along, but don't think I'll be fooled too. And I won't be any more effective keeping the others off your tail if I'm in the dark."
"Well, you've got your priorities, I'll give you that." Gerardo kept his posture straight as well, giving no indication from the rear that he was talking about anything other than keeping watch... but if the rest of the griffons were half as smart as he was giving them credit for, they'd already suspect he and Gunther were in cahoots.
Gunther narrowed his eyes. "That's a polite way of saying no."
"Hypothetically, if we did have a plan, consider this," Gerardo muttered. "Breaking anyone else's desire to stake us out won't work if anyone suspects you're profiting from it without them. If you look like you're expecting our plan, it will smell. So, not to cast doubt on your ability as an actor, but I'd rather keep your response as genuine as possible."
"Quite the impeccable logic you have there," Gunther muttered. "Now I'm looking forward to the surprise."
Fifteen minutes weren't up, so they maintained their vigil, staring at the hills and the sea. Arguments alternately started and were silenced behind them, and Gerardo found himself staring at the distant curve westward of the shoreline following the mountains, trying to judge precisely how far south they'd flown from the pass... when a bright pinprick of light appeared on the horizon.
Gunther's eyes immediately narrowed. The light was moving.
"Train," he hissed, the light sliding along the shoreline at speeds that made Gerardo certain it was magically enhanced. "Train! Hide, you fools!"
Gerardo found himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck, yanked heavily into the tall grasses far to the tracks' side. The other four griffons ducked in as well with practiced reflexes, Violet grabbing Slipstream and yanking her along too.
"Pardon? You mean using these tracks?" Gerardo whispered, the other griffons shedding their loads into a neat pile hidden beneath the grass, all five of them pressed low to the ground. "What about this merits hiding?"
"Shut up and do it!" Red pressed him against the ground as well.
"The train goes to Griffonstone, right?" Slipstream breathed, still panting slightly from the walk. "I don't get it. Shouldn't we want them to see us? They could give us a ride..."
"Perhaps I should clarify," Blue muttered. "When I said there was bad blood between myself and the ponies in the fortress, that applies to all five of us. The trains are Equestrian property, ergo, there is enmity between us and them as well. And we have no wish to waste our time hunting or hijacking trains."
"Are you sure?" Chartreuse tilted her head in confusion. "Because Red looks like he's practically drooling at the idea."
Gunther spread a wing, beginning to creep toward the edge of the grass to monitor the train's progress. "Knock it off, all of you. That has nothing to do with any of-" He froze. "They're slowing down."
"I beg your pardon?" Blue crawled up next to him.
There was a light cling, and Gerardo turned to see Red holding an axe, twisted and expertly formed so it could fit in his suit against his body with no outward presence whatsoever. It had an attachment on the head that looked like it was for spewing something, and he admired his reflection in the blade. "Is it going to come to blows?"
The eagerness was palpable in his voice, and Gerardo and Slipstream crawled forward to get a better look too. The train was decelerating rapidly, a long, cylindrical machine that trailed smoke from above and held a brilliant front-light in the shape of the sun, coming to a stop about three hundred meters away. Around it, air shimmered, and a roofed boarding platform materialized out of thin air.
Gerardo furrowed his brow, and Gunther whistled. "Hello, unexpected. Leave the cargo. We're going to check this out."
He took off at a low, fast soar, sticking to the valleys as everyone else gave chase. They reached the platform just as the train ceased its motion, steam discharging from various pores all along its wheel assembly. All seven fliers pulled up in the shelter of a last hill before the station, keeping carefully out of the train's beam of light.
A sleek double-door slid open along the carriage sides, a collection of black and white pegasi in blue-plumed armor stepping forth. Some of them held reins, and they unloaded a winged chariot, cushioned and golden and emblazoned with the motifs of the sun. Then the train's interior shone with daylight, and a mare emerged, so tall that the doors had clearly been crafted just so she could emerge without bowing.
Her coat was white and immaculate, with a faint pearly sheen. Golden regalia covered her chest and her hooves, the horn on her angular head long enough to rival Chrysalis's. Swan-sized wings rested at her sides, big enough to eclipse anyone save Wallace Whitewing, and her cutie mark seemed to animate slightly with the light of impending dawn. And her mane and tail flowed in colored clouds, more mist than solid, their only likeness that Gerardo had ever seen being Starlight's form when she used the Tyranny Module.
"Friend..." Gunther stared, his breath a bare whisper on the wind. "If this is part of your plan, consider us badly outplayed."
The look of response on Gerardo's face said all that needed to be said. They were in the presence of a god.
"Your Majesty. We have arrived." The pegasi bowed low.
The majestic mare turned her head to the northeast, staring at the night sky. "What is the status on the distress signal?"
A pegasus whose armor had been exchanged for a complicated box of meters and antennae bowed low. "Their codes are changing in compliance with the actively manned protocol. Someone in the garrison must be still alive."
"The chariot is ready." The team of stallions harnessed to the golden construct turned about, kneeling. "We fly at your command."
Gunther pulled back into the grass, far enough that he could whisper safely. "Princess Celestia," he breathed. "Looks like the big-shots are finally responding to that distress signal we picked up two weeks ago."
Red gritted his teeth and grinned. "I say we wait until she's gone and sabotage the train."
Slipstream winced hard. "Let's not make enemies with someone as powerful as that?"
Blue shook his head. "Strictly speaking, they made enemies with us first."
"Quiet, all of you!" Gunther hissed. "You two aren't with them, right?"
Gerardo and Slipstream shared a look.
"Give me the thing you've been using to communicate with your friends." Gunther held out an urgent talon. "Red, interference."
Red grinned viciously and disappeared. Gerardo squinted. "Why, exactly?"
"Shut up and comply," Gunther whispered, beckoning with his talon. "Or warn your friends yourself. Unless you want to tell me it's a coincidence your friends are stranded in this particular part of the world two weeks after a distress signal that started two weeks ago. The only place you could be from is the north, and if you broke through their fort, a friendship with them won't be one money can buy."
Gerardo pulled out the sound stone, reaching inside the flash club assembly and switching its improvised power device on. "It may take a while for them to reply..."
"Well, hey," Neon Nova's voice called back through the stone. "What's the update? Everything's working smooth as can-"
His voice was just slightly too loud.
"What's over there!?" a pegasus guard called, pointing a spear. "Did you hear something?"
"Scatter!" Gunther hissed, and the griffons expertly broke apart, Violet grabbing Slipstream as every one of them soared low to the ground in different directions on silent wings. Gunther grabbed Gerardo and raced, hiding the sound stone in a pocket to muffle any sound.
Seconds later, the air where they had been hiding shimmered. Princess Celestia stared at it, horn aglow, projecting a cone of heat designed to suppress and flush out. It lasted for several seconds, long enough for the grass to curl and emit wisps of smoke. "Show yourselves," she declared once it was over.
Gerardo and Gunther landed behind another hill, faint muffled questions coming from the stone in Gunther's pocket. "Maybe it was a false alarm?" a guard suggested from over the hill.
"There are no false alarms in these hills," Celestia replied. "Especially not with an active distress signal coming from the border. I suspect this is the work of the Forest King and his allies."
"Establish a perimeter and fly in formation," another guard barked. "And protect the train. If this is an ambush, we need to stay moving!"
"Maybe they turned it on by accident?" Felicity's muffled voice drifted from Gunther's suit.
Celestia's head slowly rotated, her ears alert. "Show yourselves!" she repeated.
Suddenly, a hilltop across from them burst into flames.
"Ambush!" The guards reacted with instant coordination, forming a defensive wedge between Celestia and the flames. Celestia frowned, her horn aglow, and the flames seemed to bend toward her before vanishing entirely, their heat siphoned by the princess of the sun. Grass atop two more hills rustled.
With a blink of teleportation, Celestia appeared in the chariot. "Take to the skies where they cannot hide," she ordered, horn still aglow.
Gunther slid down the hill, holding the sound stone low to muffle any replies. "Hey," he hissed into it. "Wherever your camp is, you have minutes to make it look abandoned from the air. You've got soldiers in the skies, and they aren't in a mood to trust anything suspicious. Now keep quiet and don't reply, because I don't know how to turn this thing off!"
Gerardo reached a talon. "Here. Let me-"
A rush of air blasted overhead, Princess Celestia's chariot taking off directly over them. Gunther backflipped before Gerardo could reach him, grabbing onto the axel and pumping his wings to reduce the shock of his impact as he pressed against the bottom. In barely a second, he was gone.
Celestia was both headed and tailed by guards, and one of the ones after her looked down.
"Hey!" The guard pointed his spear at Gerardo. "There's a griffon-!"
"SCRAWWWWW!" A bolt of flame arced through the night, cannoning up from an adjacent hill and singing the pegasus's feathers. With wings of lightning, Red soared down the valley, grabbing Gerardo in his free talon as the hill he had sniped from exploded in a swirling column of sunfire. His other talon clutched his axe, the nozzle on the tip smoking. Gerardo clung on, the image of the burning hill stamped into his mind, not about to resist running from anything that could cause that.
Starlight, Harshwater, Felicity, Howe and Neon Nova all stared at the sound stone, the faint sound of rushing wind carrying through.
"Utmost silence," Felicity breathed, her mane styled fancifully, clad in the regalia of the Forest King. The five stood on Starlight's well-mowed hill adjacent to the shipwreck, their plans for exploiting the griffons completely upended. "Whoever that was, we oughtn't give them away."
"If only we knew what to expect," Howe muttered. "Our home base will be laying low from griffon mafiosos, but is there some other manner of miscreant he meant to make us more wary of?"
"I am going to warn them." Harshwater stood up. "Out of all of us, I'm the fastest."
She spread her wings and jumped... and Starlight jumped too, grabbing her hind legs as she took off. "Not without me!" Starlight growled. "If there's danger of an attack, I'm coming too!"
Harshwater didn't waste energy fighting her. As the two soared away, Felicity opened her mouth to call out... but held her silence, not wanting to shout around the sound stone.
Whatever conversation ensued was rapidly left behind as Harshwater pumped her wings, making record time across the distance to the Immortal Dream.
After two minutes of frantic flight, the scattered griffons rendezvoused. Violet still had Slipstream, and Gerardo panted as he touched the ground, his host depositing him roughly.
"Our fearless leader is last to return?" Blue quirked an eyebrow.
"The idiot stowed away." Red shook his head. "Hogging all the action for himself."
"Sooo what do we do now?" Chartreuse rolled her shoulders. "Call me a scaredy-cat, but fighting an immortal sun alicorn is just a little out of my league."
Slipstream folded her ears. "Why are they enemies, again?"
"It's personal." Violet dismissed her with a wave of a talon.
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Would it be a problem if we'd prefer the Equestrians as our friends?"
"Not if you have a plan to do that, perhaps," Blue haughtily replied. "But if you came from the west, you'd already be familiar with them, and if you're from the south? Hah. You'd never have come this way if Equestria is your target."
"And if you messed up their fort at the border..." Chartreuse gritted her beak, drawing a talon threateningly across her throat. Then she broke into a wide grin. "Then you'll be our best friends forever! But not theirs. Just ours."
"So what's our next move?" Red growled, ignoring Slipstream and Gerardo. "Pack it in and go home? Messing with them won't be easy while they have their princess on their side."
Gerardo held his silence, the past few minutes having transformed the abandoned food delivery from his foremost priority to the least of his worries.
Harshwater streaked through the hills, pumping her wings with practiced efficiency and staying low to the ground without losing her sense of direction. Starlight continued to cling to her, not about to be left behind when her friends could be in danger... even though she had no idea who was warning them, or what the danger was.
Eventually, the Immortal Dream drew into view... and its windows were glowing with light.
"What are they doing?" Harshwater hissed. "I thought we don't have power now! And why would we have the lights on tonight if we did?"
Starlight gritted her teeth. The skies above were empty, and they landed on the deck without issue, Harshwater immediately opening the door and stepping below. She made to rap on the engine room door... but couldn't, because Shinespark was already there.
"I'm experimenting!" Jamjars' voice echoed through the blocked doorway. "The griffons can go jump in a river. It's not like any of them will be getting close enough to see the lights anyway!"
Shinespark opened her mouth to retort, but then she heard Harshwater and whipped around. Her ears fell when she saw who it was. "Report."
"We got a message over the sound stone from someone we don't recognize," Harshwater immediately said. "They said there are hostile soldiers in the skies, and we need to make this place look abandoned from above. Whoever it is, warning us to hide from danger isn't all that likely to be a trap."
Shinespark's brow furrowed above her already-cold eyes.
"Can they seriously not wait?" Jamjars huffed. "It's obviously a false alarm, since we don't have any anonymous friends out here. Go tell me whether the controls on the bridge have power, and I'll be satisfied."
"Let me into my engine room!" Shinespark snarled.
"What's all the noise?" Nyala asked, passing through the library on her roller. "Isn't this a night to be quiet? Harshwater, why are you back?"
Starlight stared at the door, a powerful brightness leaking from beneath it that could only be caused by something very valuable... like her sword. "Nyala, shadow sneak me under the door," she requested. "I want to see what Jamjars is doing with my things."
"Take me under!" Shinespark demanded. "She's experimenting on my ship!"
Nyala sighed, getting off her roller with a heavy wobble and spreading her wings. "Come closer..."
Starlight gripped her, and Shinespark stood alongside. After a brief moment of altered vision, which wasn't nearly as disorienting as Starlight remembered it being, Nyala rose alongside both of them in the brightly-lit engine room, where Jamjars was surveying a rectangular cage, dozens of wires connecting apparatuses along its frame to plugs that were attached to the moon glass sword.
The door had been barricaded with a carefully-wedged chair, which Shinespark immediately kicked aside, allowing Harshwater entry as well. "Turn off the lights!" Harshwater hissed.
"Can't you do that from the controls upstairs?" Jamjars started to stick out her tongue, then thought better of it. "Leave it connected and I'll go check myself..."
"What did you do to my ship!?" Shinespark stared menacingly at a rack of equipment, several wires from Jamjars' contraption inserted into places they likely didn't belong. "This is not how you connect auxiliary power! You have to do it through the mana core, or-"
"Should have helped me when I asked." Jamjars shrugged. "So I found my own way."
"You're circumventing the ship's power distributor! I told you to wait because tonight we're dealing with griffons!"
Harshwater ignored the two squabbling ponies, looking desperately for something she could unplug to cut the lights. Nyala sat back awkwardly, and Starlight watched the whole dispute with a prickling feeling on her spine like she was being watched herself. It suddenly intensified, and she turned about, shadow cloaking herself on instinct and darting to the entrance to the deck.
On the horizon, something was glowing. It was the same kind of glow as the brightness every creature had, desirable to the point where she consciously reached a hoof... but this light was different. It wasn't just bright because it was light. It was bright because it had light, in the same way she wished to be surrounded by other creatures who cared about her herself. And staring into it burned her with fear and jealousy alike, the shadowy energy that empowered her briefly transforming into something else. Starlight felt her body flare as her muscles failed and she collapsed to the ground. She had to get away... couldn't be seen...
"On a scale of one to ten, how likely would either of you rate this to be fraud?" Felicity breathed, playing with the Forest King's rapier as she watched the sound stone breathlessly.
Neon Nova held his silence, and Howe bit his lip. "That our avian adversaries have subdued our compatriots and sent that message as a ploy to get us to abandon the plan and break position? Not likely, unless they wished to tail us as we fled to our main base. But that would imply they already knew the details of our separation, so they wouldn't have anything further to learn..."
The sound stone continued crackling with wind, guards' voices occasionally breaking through. "Princess," one voice said, "We've gotten near enough that the fortress is in range of our transmitter. They're acknowledging our communications."
"Have they anything to say, soldier?"
"They say it was extreme weather that damaged the stronghold, which I have difficulty believing. All personnel are reported accounted for in the emergency bunker. Shall I send the signal for them to come aboveground for a damage assessment and to clear a place for us to land?"
"Yes. Tell them to prepare to accompany me to the Empire if necessary. They control facilities that may be involved in any unusual-"
"Your Highness! Pardon the interruption, but there appears to be a boat in the hills below. Lights are on in the windows!"
"...Hmm. Captain Strongwind, do you recognize anything about the make of that craft? Does it appear to be an airship?"
"Not one of ours, and not one of northern design, but it's hard to tell from this distance. If there was weather bad enough to damage our fortress, perhaps they were beached by a heavy storm surge?"
"That is possible. We can investigate once we have seen to the fortress, and render aid if they are friendly. But it also may be a trap. Do not stop or slow down now."
Everyone looked at each other, and Felicity had to stifle a giggle of relief.
Starlight burst into the engine room, legs shaking. "Why are the lights still on!? They'll see!"
Shinespark and Jamjars were still fighting, while Harshwater was trying unsuccessfully to disconnect the cobbled-together device. Nyala looked at her with concern. "Starlight? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I need..." Starlight panted, reaching for her sword. She needed to hide, needed it to defend herself, needed to cut the power and plunge the ship into shadows, and her sword was clearly involved in Jamjars' machine. She commanded it toward her, reaching for it at the same time. The blade started to move, dragging the cage along with it, tripping Harshwater in the wires.
"Ow, hey!" Harshwater complained.
Starlight grabbed the sword, trying and failing to yank one of the plugs off it that held it at the center of the frame. Jamjars immediately stopped fighting Shinespark, her ears falling. "Don't break that! I spent all day getting Grenada to help build it for me!"
"Then turn off the lights and give me this," Starlight panted, aware that the light she had seen was directly overhead, passing by like a ravenous hawk. "Give me my sword...!"
She willed it towards her harder, and the sword reacted with a gleam... its surface suddenly flashing and redoubling in stickiness as it responded to her desire to no longer be apart. Before Starlight could process what she had just willed it to do, it was ravenous once again, and she was pulling it against her chest with both forehooves rather than cautiously touching it with one. She didn't have time. There was nothing she could do but scream.
The sword pulled harder, and with a ripple and a flash, Starlight was gone.
Light swirled around Starlight like burning clouds and falling stars as she plummeted and spiraled, a tunnel of black emptiness tearing through her fur with motes of light. Forks of energy swirled in the distance, connecting her to the center of the abyss, brightness and darkness clashing in a chaotic storm that pierced every orifice and flowed through her like a tide of black feathers. Flakes of gray rained from the sky, and then she was falling up, tumbling head over heels so fast that gravity lost any meaning, or might have not existed at all. Stone, metal and planes of glossy blackness soared through her head, reflecting off the insides of her eyelids with a cacophony she felt in her core, turning her inside out and around and around until she was nothing but a bright spot on her flanks. The rush faded first in her ears, only for vertigo to kick in, and she finally realized she was herself again just in time to process that she was falling normally and didn't have her nightmare shield to protect herself from the ground. But when she landed in a puff of ash, it didn't hurt at all.
Thunder rumbled distantly ahead, and this time she only heard it with her ears.
Starlight stood shakily and turned around. Flakes of gray were gently drifting through the air, falling without wind onto a carpet several inches thick. The sky was black, and so was the horizon. She had been here before, yet this time was real.
She completed her rotation, facing a chunk of metal that braced a lopsided flagpole. On it, in a scrawl of indeterminate age, were the words, Welcome to Indus.
Starlight stared at the sign and the flagpole, the words Welcome to Indus looking like they had been inscribed with a blade or other apparatus. For a moment, her mind locked, running in circles of whether a mystical, forbidden land was really in her sword or she had somehow gone somewhere else.
"Well, hello there!" a stallion's voice said behind her, causing her to squeak and flare her wings with surprise. The extra shock of having wings to flare made her full-on trip, and she landed on her muzzle, the realization that she would have hit her horn had it still existed filtering into her mind as well.
"Oh! Didn't mean to startle you. Need a hoof, little one?"
Starlight uncomfortably got her hooves beneath her, wishing desperately she wasn't being watched. If something had happened to her body, she wanted to be the first to see... She aggressively blocked him out of her senses, bringing her wings forward with muscles that felt like she had possessed them all her life. They were leathery and webbed.
She rubbed a hoof over her face, feeling for a horn, and found none. She had tufted ears instead. She was... a batpony here?
"Didn't expect to run into anyone out here," the stallion behind her said, standing further back than he had been. "Fear not, though, I won't hurt you. Where did you come from?"
Starlight slowly turned around, ears and tail down, not surprised when she saw another sarosian. "Where did you come from?" she asked in return.
The stallion regarded her curiously, his face sporting a strong jaw that belonged in a magazine. "Why, somewhere else, of course! ...I think." He rubbed his head. "Who cares? The point is, why would I want to be anywhere else?"
Starlight stared around at the silent world, ash falling against a veil of blackness. "What is there here that you want?"
"It's not a matter of what, but where." His voice turned gruff and earnest, and he turned to face the flagpole, putting a strong hoof atop the sign. "This is the land of Indus. For my family, my country and the entire world, I've spent my whole life reaching this place. The benefit to all of civilization outweighed the risks... and risks or no, here I stand."
Starlight tilted her head, his cutie mark standing out as the only thing in the gray landscape that was filled with color. Actually, if she recognized color and was aware that she did, wasn't that a thing she forgot about when using the Nightmare Modules? She tested one more time, and her shadow cloak wasn't there... "How does it benefit them?" she asked, hoping to keep him happy while she thought.
The stallion stroked the sign proudly, making her wonder if he had made it. "All sorts of ways."
"Like?" Starlight tilted her head, deciding to deal with him and figure out what she could about the world before worrying about herself. "Don't you have to get home for it to matter?"
"...Huh." The stallion scratched his head. "I suppose I didn't think about that! I have no idea. It makes sense, now that you mention it..."
Starlight frowned. "Do you even know how to get back, or where you're going, or how you got here?"
The stallion sat down in confusion. "Well, now you've got me worried, little missus. Does it really matter? The point is, we're on the soil of Indus! So what if it's a little strange? If no one's been here before, there's no proof it isn't strange for everyone!"
Starlight stood and looked away. He was right that it was strange for everyone, though probably not in the way he intended. Was he missing memories? From everything she had seen with Valey, Navarre and Nyala, memories seemed to be unique to body-soul combinations. However that worked, it might follow that since her sword was filled with disembodied cutie marks, the pony she was speaking to could be one of those, and could be missing his memories due to not really having a body...
But then why did they appear to have bodies, what had happened to her own body, and how did he know about Indus?
The stallion didn't pressure her for her silence. He was busy staring admiringly at the flagpole.
"You put this flag here," Starlight said.
"My crowning achievement."
She bit her lip. "...What's your name?"
His eyes crossed. "...It's somehow slipped my mind. Silly me, right? You'd think a famed scientist like me could remember a little thing like that. But who cares!? Have you even seen where we are?"
"You're a scientist?" Starlight pressed, not sure why she cared herself but curious for any details she could get in this unnatural place.
The stallion rubbed his chin. "Am I? Huh. Must have slipped my mind too. Though now that you mention it, it does ring a bell somewhere..."
Starlight felt a shiver go down her spine. "So... what else is here? In Indus? I don't want to stay here, so is there a direction I should go, or...?"
"I haven't tried any!" The stallion confidently grinned. "If you go exploring, come back and tell me what you find! I can't wait to see the look on my wife's face when I get home and tell her all about this. Assuming it's not kept confidential, of course..."
Starlight left, knowing that if she asked about his wife, she'd likely feel bad if he didn't remember her too. The ground was flat, and soon she was completely surrounded by ash.
A flurry drifted around her, no wind to propel it. It felt like the world itself was moving as she stood in place, and she couldn't tell if the black void around her was filled with everything or nothingness. But at least it was private here. She found herself wishing for a lake so that she could see her reflection...
The world complied. Out of the darkness, the ground fell away, revealing a pool just narrow enough that she could see the far side through the ashfall. The stone beneath her hooves was separated by a blanket of ash that crumped slightly with each step, but the flakes that hit the pool just disappeared, melting without ripples and keeping it open to the sky. What did that mean? If these flakes appeared from batponies who were killed by the black sword, and they perpetually rained from Indus's sky, and the pool was those flakes as a liquid... It felt like there was a connection waiting to be made, but she couldn't see it.
What she could see was her reflection, her features shifted to be slightly draconic. She spread her wings, investigating and admiring them, and leaned closer to see her slitted eyes and tufted ears. She had fangs, too. Little ones, fit for a filly.
A faint instinct told her the pool was good to drink, and she almost pushed it back, but then thought on it. The pool was either made from or full of flakes, the flakes were batponies, she was a batpony... but didn't ponies eat plants and other living things normally as food? Maybe it was true that she was what she ate.
She leaned down, tapping it with her tongue, noticing her tongue was slightly longer than she was used to. Probably another batpony thing. The pool was sweet against her tongue, tasteless yet strong and almost familiar. She closed her eyes to take a deeper drink...
"Out of the way! Hahaha!"
Something bumped into her, and she fell on her rump to see a pair of foals dashing away, clad in ghostly outlines of a suit and a dress. She rubbed her head, blinking... and looked back at the pond, realizing it was actually a fountain. The terrain was less even than she remembered, with a couple of buildings in a style that reminded her of her climb through the Mistvale grand temple. In fact, they even had the crystal lines, glowing with hazy blue energy.
All around her were shadowed outlines of ponies, no cutie marks on their flanks or detail to their faces, and when she tapped one with a hoof, it passed right through. The two ponies left that were real, she saw, were a mare and a stallion, each clad in phantom clothes as a more distinct shadow recited words that sounded like wind.
The pair of souls embraced, then kissed. As they locked hooves and wings, a tapered end to a blue crystal line grew beneath them an inch longer.
Starlight blinked, making out frills and fancifulness in their half-existent clothing. "What are you doing?"
"Having the best day of our lives," the mare murmured, not looking away from the stallion's eyes.
"Getting married," the stallion breathed back.
Neither of them looked interested in talking. "Who are you?" Starlight pressed, just in case.
"My lover's spouse," they replied as one.
Starlight swallowed, a flake of ash landing in her eye and melting away with barely any sensation. "Have fun..." She turned her back on the wedding, heading for the entrance to a building and hoping it would be more productive than staying outside.
The building was bigger on the inside. With a carved, double-barrel ceiling interspersed with pillars and arches, a long corridor stretched out before her, the entire left wall an open balcony with ash falling past, the ground too far down to see. All the doors to her right were evenly spaced and fancifully ornamented, and also closed tightly. It reminded her slightly of the villas in Skyfreeze.
Starlight glanced back and forth, a few more ghostly ponies that had neither form nor cutie mark walking in both directions. They neither reacted nor interacted when she spoke, and she couldn't fathom what they could be. With nothing better to do, she tried a door and found it locked.
It quickly reacted, though, swinging inward. A long-maned sarosian stallion blinked down at her. "Who are you supposed to be?"
"What do you want?" Navarre asked, the world growing colder as he stared at Starlight through the doorway. At first, Starlight thought it was her reaction to seeing him, but then she saw him shiver too, and realized it somehow just was that cold out.
"I bet you've lost your memory too, huh?" she asked, noting his colorful cutie mark.
"Lost my memory?" Navarre scowled. "I should dearly hope not. Today is the crowning day of my career! If I fall into senility now, it will be a waste of one of the best minds of the century." He narrowed his eyes, pausing and thinking harder. "...Lost my memory too, you said. Has something been happening?"
Starlight bit her lip and puffed out her cheek, taking a page out of Jamjars' book and trying her best to look petulant. "No. But if you have all your memories, you should remember who I am."
"I've never seen you before in my life," Navarre flatly replied, though a flicker of doubt crossed his face as he weighed his certainty against the consequences of being wrong.
Starlight stared him in the eyes. "Your name is Navarre, which you probably don't remember. You're an evil scientist who worked for Yakyakistan and then the Griffon Empire, and you did experiments on moon glass and windigo hearts and created a mare named Valey, and were terrified she'd kill you."
Navarre spat. "A lot of made-up locations, and must you really refer to obsidian in the common tongue? Though you've clearly done some research. I wouldn't be surprised if my fame precedes me, though for it to manifest in the younger generation is somewhat flattering... Come in."
He left the door open, and Starlight followed, blinking. "So you do remember windigo hearts and obsidian?"
"Don't mock my hospitality by thinking I'd forget," Navarre haughtily chuckled. "This last month has seen me become the foremost mind on obsidian. Windigo hearts are a mere myth... to common science. How do you even know of them?"
Starlight shrugged. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she replied, a dash of irony striking as she wondered if Glimmer ever felt like this talking to her.
"Balderdash," Navarre drawled. "I put my belief in truth and facts. If I didn't believe you, it would just be because your story didn't hold up. And this belief has lead me to this!" He swept a hoof at a letter laying open-faced on a table, its text more sharply defined than anything else in the room save for the ponies. "A research opportunity to head a team that can access the hearts themselves! You know at least something about science. Tell me you can appreciate this."
"It sounds impressive," Starlight lied, not about to drop such an easy chance to make him keep talking. If this was Navarre pre-Icereach, however it was, he might know something about how to withdraw cutie marks from moon glass... a way not only to potentially reassemble Valey, but somehow let her escape.
Navarre grinned drunkenly. "Oh, it is. Obsidian is the future, filly. Once we learn to extract the knowledge it holds..."
"What have you learned about it so far?" Starlight asked eagerly, sitting with a polite and attentive smile.
Navarre stared at her. "You weren't sent by a competitor to steal my research and theories, were you?"
Starlight quickly backtracked. "No! I'm a fan. The truth is, when I grow up I wanted to be a scientist just like you, but my teacher told me I had to be whatever I got my brand in and that I shouldn't even try even though I don't have mine yet, so I was hoping you had advice..."
It was the right thing to say. Navarre chuckled. "Some take their job of gatekeeping the field far too seriously. I'm not giving you the details of my research that would be lost on your uneducated mind, but I'm in a good mood today! I have some inspiration to go around."
Starlight tilted her head and smiled innocently. "So what did you get rewarded for working on?"
"Obsidian." Navarre gestured toward a wall display that held a white stone, almost resembling a hole in the darkness... Starlight was curious to touch it and see what happened. "We all know it fell from the cosmos mere weeks ago. My investigations have been ongoing, yet the pinnacle of my discoveries... This substance contains thought waves."
"How do thought waves work?" Starlight peered closer.
Navarre stepped up to the case. "It would be wrong to call it an energy, but simple and close enough for your young mind. They are emanated by all living beings, and vary with emotions. I have detected them conclusively, and believe it to be proof of consciousness within the stones."
Starlight blinked. There was another thing she had heard described in the exact same terms, given off by all living things and not energy yet close enough. "Is that like harmony?"
Navarre made a face. "What kind of plebian name is that? Something your farcical teacher taught you?" He began arrogantly pacing. "The obsidian pieces contain some kind of consciousness that feels emotions and may be self-aware. If it had knowledge, too... Imagine, child, the kind of information that could be learned by minds carried from the moon! My research grant is in hopes of reaching that knowledge, of extracting these minds and seeing what comes with them..."
"Can I see that obsidian?" Starlight stood in front of the case, peering in.
Navarre frowned. "It is on display for a reason."
"Obsidian is black, right?" Starlight made a face at the empty white chunk. "Does this one look white to you, too?"
Navarre's expression slowly melted into confusion. "What the...?"
Starlight took a deep breath. "If I told you that we were both inside a piece of obsidian right now, would you believe me?"
Navarre gave her an incredulous look. "Where in the world would you get that ridiculous idea?"
"Well..." Starlight licked your lips. "Do you remember your name? Your parents? Your hometown? Where we are now? Any friends you had, or anything other than this one moment?"
Navarre looked down in contemplation. "I... They aren't relevant, though. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters! I have reached a status other scientists can fathom only in dreams!"
"By doing research on obsidian and the things inside it." Starlight pointed a hoof. "Listen. I was your student. We were experimenting on obsidian together, trying to find a way to see what was inside ourselves rather than getting what was inside out. But there was an accident, and you got stuck inside and your memory got damaged by it! It's working properly for me. I'm not really here. I'm... tethered to the outside! But we're here because you wanted to research what it was like being inside, remember?"
Navarre starred at her, flabbergasted by her string of lies. For a long minute, he tried to parse what she had said.
"...I did it?" he eventually whispered, holding up his hooves and staring into them. "Is this truly...?"
Starlight nodded. "We are truly inside."
"This is incredible. I-I..." Navarre's eyes lit up. "Laboratory procedures. We must record and take notes. Tell me everything."
"I'm a little less interested in telling you everything than in getting you out of here and understanding this place..." Starlight tapped her forehooves nervously. "If there was any reason you'd remember less in here, do you have any idea how it would work or what it would be?"
"Hmmm." Navarre sat down, folding his sarosian wings in thought.
Starlight hesitated. "If it helps, a part of our research I think you forgot is that when you transfer a pony's soul from one body to another, their memories don't stay. So if you're just a soul in here, maybe your old memories aren't with you?"
"Nonsense," Navarre huffed. "I can remember it as clear as day! My acceptance letter, submitting my final work to the royal..." He frowned. "Are we the only ones here? If we were inserting ourselves into obsidian to see what was inside, surely there would have been something else inside to see."
"There are other ponies." Starlight shook her head. "Outside."
Navarre got up and opened his door again. Instead of the balcony, the scenery outside had been replaced with a winding bridge into a mountainous valley, the bare beginnings of a road visible before everything was lost in falling ash. They were standing inside the entrance of a huge stone tower.
"...Maybe when it's warmer out?" Starlight asked, shivering from a blast of cold air.
"Only if we can still find fitting answers to your questions." Navarre resumed his pacing, this time deep in contemplation. "You've seen others. Have you talked to them? What did they look like? What were they doing? You said they had lost memories too?"
Starlight nodded. "I saw a few. Two were getting married. One was excited about finding this place. He said it was his life's work to get here."
"Life's work..." Navarre's eyes slowly widened. "And you say I've not only forgotten things from before this, but from after?"
Starlight shrugged. "They weren't very keen on talking about what they forgot. All they wanted to talk about was what they were doing."
"In absence of our connections to our bodies... Achieving one's life's work? A wedding, ordinary as it may be... My own crowning achievement..." Navarre's look slowly turned hollow. "Have you seen anyone who remembers things not related to their pinnacle of existence? Perhaps it is that only our strongest memories... But then why do you remember things?"
"The way we were trying to enter with worked properly for me," Starlight lied. "I guess I keep all my memories. But are you saying we remember the things that are strongest or most important to us?"
"It is a logical assumption." Navarre glanced again at the moon glass in the display. "Though the prospect of being reduced to a single moment in time... terrifies me. What is science if not a means to immortalize our names in the ledgers of those who were great forever? Tell me! Whatever procedure we used or accident I suffered... Can it be undone?"
Starlight gave him a steady look. "If it can, could you figure it out?"
Navarre sighed. "How darkly ironic that my own state of existence leaves me precisely able to contribute knowledge toward my predicament without being able to comprehend it in the first place. What would be needed of me?"
"We need a way to pull brands out of obsidian and put them back in pony bodies," Starlight replied, tone dead even. "Sarosian bodies, if we need to. You invented one. Do you remember it?"
"Alas." Navarre shook his head. "All I know is that I desire badly to begin research into how to do such a thing. That is what my grant is for."
Starlight's ears fell. "Well... Can I have that, then? Your obsidian? If we're inside obsidian, I have no idea what that is now, but it might be important."
"Of course. Anything to recover from this predicament." Navarre opened the case, drawing the white stone out with a pair of tongs and offering it to Starlight. "...Don't scratch it."
Starlight tried to take it... only for it to nearly bounce out of her grasp. The rock had a field around it that pushed against her and repelled her, and she clasped it firmly between her hooves, certain that if she slackened the pressure, it would shoot out from between them like a magnet forced up against the wrong polarity. "Hey! It doesn't do this normally...!"
Eventually, she got it safely tucked beneath a wing, though it took some effort to keep the wing folded around it. Navarre was already by the door, donning a scarf. Starlight tilted her head. "What are you doing?"
"Sticking with you," Navarre insisted. "Wherever you're going next, it would hardly do for my intellect to be left behind."
That was a good idea. "Okay." Starlight nodded, finding a second, filly-sized scarf conveniently laying around for herself. She pushed the door open, leading the way out, and looked over her shoulder when she realized Navarre wasn't following.
"Who are you?" Navarre blinked at her with an identical expression to when she had first seen him.
Starlight swallowed.
"What do you want?" he insisted, sending a shiver down her spine. Starlight turned tail and ran.
After a minute of running, Starlight reached a beach, waves lapping against a stony, mountainous shore as the ash continued to fall. She panted for breath, the cold climate gone, and didn't want to think. What had happened to Navarre? It was like he reset... Did she move him too far from the state where he was frozen in time? Did he become too self-aware, or gain some quality that the moon glass drained from him all over again? Or did it have anything to do with the white stone she still had as proof of their encounter...?
She almost wanted to go back and look for him again, but the way she had come was gone, only mountains left behind her.
In the engine room of the Immortal Dream, everyone stared at the spot where Starlight had disappeared. The sword stood, still attached to Jamjars' apparatus, as black and inert as ever.
Shinespark gave Jamjars a stinkeye.
"...I don't think it was supposed to do that," Jamjars said, trying to maintain as much innocence as possible.
"You," Shinespark said, "are going to finish turning this off and then be the one to tell Maple what just happened. And then you're going to write me an essay on why you think it's funny to keep shrinking my crew."
Jamjars gulped.
Suddenly, Glimmer appeared in the doorway. "I heard something large fly overhead," she reported. "Someone who can see really ought to look at this..."
Harshwater immediately darted out the door. "On it!"
Jamjars grinned sheepishly and Shinespark glared until the pegasus returned a few seconds later. "I don't see anyone," she announced, "and our lights are obvious. Just a little." She frowned. "So, who wants to bet we had a fake warning and jumped the gun a little?"
"It doesn't matter," Shinespark growled, pacing out of the room. "If you think there's anything to be done about it either way, then look what just happened here! Fix it in your eyes and stop trying to pretend next time could be different. Hostiles, not hostiles. We're all just leaves in the wind."
Jamjars stuck her tongue out once she was gone, still using irreverence to mask her surprise at Starlight's fate. "You're a bigger quitter than my mother. Mleh." She trotted for the door as well. "Time to go check out the terminal on the bridge!"
Nyala stopped her with a limp hoof. "Don't you have somepony else's mother to explain something to?"
Jamjars winced and folded her ears. "Look, lady, I've gotta work while she's not trying to unplug the power! I'm on a timer, here. I'll do it later. Much later."
She bolted, and Nyala couldn't keep up. Fortunately, Shinespark was standing in the library and hadn't retreated to the bridge, so she had the room all to herself. "Terminal, terminal..."
Glimmer appeared beside her, and Jamjars' act immediately vanished. "Please tell me that was supposed to happen," she said blankly, sitting in the captain's chair.
"I knew that it was likely," Glimmer replied. "Starlight will be fine. Do not let it distract you from your task."
"Right." Jamjars clung to her words like a tree root on a cliff face, solidifying her expression and tapping on the terminal screen. "...Well, it has power. Now how do I find everything?"
Shinespark stood still in the library, not even twitching her ears as Nyala approached.
"Even if it could be called her fault," Nyala said, "that doesn't mean she's a good choice to break the news."
"What are you talking about?" Shinespark dryly replied.
Nyala pointed down the hallway at the open door to the infirmary, Maple's bed positioned just so where her face was visible, watching them with concern. "She's listening."
"What's going on?" Maple asked, raising her voice as much as her damaged chest would comfortably allow.
Shinespark growled and marched in. "Starlight is... elsewhere," she said, too frustrated to stand for any unfinished business. "She got absorbed by obsidian."
Maple blinked.
Shinespark flicked her tail, but could tell Nyala wasn't following her. "You heard what I said."
"...Oh." Maple looked down.
Shinespark stared. "That's it? 'Oh'?"
Maple opened her mouth, but no words came out. Eventually: "How do I even respond to that?"
"How does anyone respond to the loss of a loved one?" Shinespark sat down, facing to the side. "Anger. Sadness. Denial. Bargaining. Tears. Don't tell me it feels like a pointless cycle to you, too."
"What kind of an answer is that!?" Maple indignantly folded her ears. "Are you saying she's dead gone, or stuck gone?"
"What difference does it matter?" Shinespark stared off into the wall.
Maple bit her lip, her eyes starting to well with tears. "You're horrible."
"It's a horrible subject," Shinespark replied, barely bothering with a shrug. "They're one and the same. Nothing escapes from that black prison."
In the doorway, Nyala loudly cleared her throat.
Shinespark pointedly ignored her.
"I am this close to getting out of bed and slapping you, Shinespark," Maple threatened, voice shaky. "I know you're upset about Valey, but that is not how to tell someone their daughter is gone. Now tell me exactly what happened."
Shinespark stared at Maple. "I am off the bridge and doing my part to keep this crew safe. What more can you possibly expect?"
"Starlight isn't dead," Nyala butted in, still in the background. "I've seen batponies get drained before, and I've never seen anything like this. It looked like she tripped and fell inside that sword she always carries around. Whatever happened to her, there's no way to assume anything."
Maple gave her a grateful smile, then returned to staring at Shinespark with a hard look. "I don't know whether you're making me more worried about Starlight or yourself, so I'm going to forget e-everything you said, and let you try again. What's going on out there?"
Shinespark got up and left. The moment she was gone, Maple's tears resumed.
"...Are you alright?" Nyala sighed, stepping weakly closer.
"Yes," Maple whispered. "I have cracked ribs, a punctured hoof, thought I was going to die not three weeks ago, and I'm somehow the most alright pony here."
"Sorry." Nyala sat down heavily, folding her ears. "I sent her over here because I thought she would be the best one who could relate."
Maple shook her head, voice tight. "You're forgiven. But what about Starlight...?"
"I wish there was more I could tell you," Nyala apologized. "Jamjars and Shinespark were fighting, and Harshwater is back and was warning us about something from the other group that I think turned out to be a false alarm, and I was watching the fight, and..."
Maple sighed. "She'll be alright. She has to. She's gotten out of worse situations before..."
Nyala leaned against the side of the bed. "If that's what will help? Then you bet she will. You just watch. Defeating that moon glass and whatever just happened is going to be nothing compared to beating windigoes or beating that Crystal or whatever. And if not, hey. Maybe we could help her?"
"Help her?" Maple looked up. "I'd need to see... What do you mean? If she's stuck in moon glass, getting her out?" She wiped her good hoof across her eyes, sniffing shallowly.
Nyala shrugged. "Well, isn't the whole problem with breaking or destroying moon glass to get the cutie mark out that you don't have a way to re-attach it to the body and it just floats away? Starlight's body is gone too, so maybe she'd just reappear and wouldn't need to be reattached."
Maple's eyes glazed over. "She's disappeared before, though... Maybe she wouldn't just reappear. And we don't have any harmony to break it with anyway."
"Use a hammer?" Nyala suggested. "How did Shinespark break the moon glass that held her cutie mark in the old Braen armor?"
Maple blinked, her tears banished for now by the idea that there was anything she could do. "That's an idea. Where is the sword she disappeared into? I want it nearby."
"Well..." Nyala winced. "It might be stuck in the engine room, and Jamjars and Shinespark were fighting over whether it could be removed..."
"Then I want my bed moved to the engine room," Maple replied, her expression making it clear that this was a condition for her keeping her composure in any sort of state. "Please. I want to see where she is and be near her."
Nyala met her eyes, then saluted with a wing. "I can't move it myself, but I will find someone who will. I promise."
Then she left too, closing the door behind her. Maple was alone, save for Meltdown and Gazelle. It didn't take long for her tears to return.
Felicity coolly played with her mane, sitting in the Forest King's regalia and pretending not to notice as Howe and Neon Nova competed to be the less-obvious in ogling her. However far off the rails the plan had gone, she projected nothing but confidence in her ability to handle the griffons herself, greed and high emotions the only tools she needed for the job.
Eventually, her patience paid off. Gerardo crested a hill first, flying low to the ground, and Slipstream was with him, both looking badly fatigued. The four griffons behind them moved with much greater stealth... though all that was lost the instant they beheld her garments.
"Woooooah..." Chartreuse gaped.
"Shut up!" Red elbowed her into the ground. "You'll blow our cover!"
"I didn't realize our hosts had such exquisite taste in fashion," Blue remarked, landing and trotting close enough to bow. He completely ignored the two stallions, focused entirely on Felicity. "A testament to the legends of your enormous wealth, I'm sure. Pray tell, that garment must have a story."
Felicity fluttered her eyelids at him and struck a pose. "What, this old thing? Something about it strike your fancy?"
"Most certainly." Blue rose from his bow. "Though that conversation is for later, I'm afraid. It wouldn't do for a lady of refinement such as yourself to be caught outside by certain... undesirables on a night like this. Might we become your escort, milady?"
Violet blinked expressionlessly. "Your ability to fall for bait is inspirational."
"If I might interrupt..." Gerardo panted, setting himself down in the grass. "Whatever the agenda is might be on pause, given the circumstances."
Felicity bumped him in the flank with a wink. "Trust me, I know." She sauntered further towards Blue, the magnificent, accented coat swaying around her. "Seems not everyone has equal appreciation for my tastes, though?" She shot Violet a haughty, disapproving look.
Red growled under his breath. "Do we have to do this?"
"What else would we possibly do!? She's got the Regalia of the-"
Chartreuse suddenly found a talon stuffed in her beak, courtesy of Blue. "Forget she said anything," he appealed with a winning smile. "She's mildly drunk, you see, and her wires are somewhat crossed."
Felicity pursed her lips. "Mmm, so you do know what this is..."
Red glanced at Gerardo. "Your friends have no idea what's going on, do they."
"What's going on," Felicity interrupted, "is that I'm simply starving and last I heard these two left a week ago to bring back the finest in griffish cuisine. And now they've finally returned with a mix of refined and dignified gentlegriffons and oafs with no sense of fashion or history... yet I see no food on any of you. I am this close to having a fit and would dearly appreciate it if anyone could bail me out, so to speak."
Blue cleared his throat. "As rousing of a conversation as this is, I'm inclined to agree with the good madam, here. These so-called lodgings of yours are far from excellent. And by that I mean this hill, since no one would stay in that thing." He waved a dismissive wing at the fallen airship. "I would be more than happy to invite you to some higher-class accommodations at my own abode, if you wish."
"Sure." Red turned his back on the group.
"Okay!" Chartreuse bounced.
Felicity blinked as none of the group offered any resistance, and smiled. "Surely you don't all live together, do you?"
Violet raised an eyebrow. "Would it matter?"
Felicity bit her lip. "Well, you see, darling... I'm ever so slightly more keen on keeping some of your companies than others'. That is to say, yes. It does. Exactly one of you has been hospitable so far, after all, and I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable even leaving my wardrobe around undesired attention. Surely you recognize how valuable it is."
Blue scoffed. "As if I wouldn't have my own manor. Fear not, your assets will be diligently handled."
Howe and Neon Nova snickered to each other, and Felicity gave them a look. "Knock that off." She turned back to Blue. "...Really. Not a lot of competition for a houseguest, is there?"
"Depends how much you're willing to pay," Violet replied. "You look expensive. Only a fool would host you for free."
Felicity raised an eyebrow. "And say I was willing to pay..."
"I wouldn't dream of asking it." Blue bowed again. "Far better to forge a working relationship rather than extorting capable mares in need, is it not? I am no highway robber." He glanced up at Gerardo and Slipstream. "You'll come too, of course. Your other two friends will need to make far better cases for themselves than silence to tag along, but I smell opportunity in the air at the thought of hosting you."
Gerardo and Slipstream turned to each other and shrugged. "How much more of a walk is it?" Slipstream asked, collapsed on the ground from exhaustion.
Blue narrowed his eyes, then walked over and lowered his voice. "That's a rhetorical question," he hissed, whispering in hopes Felicity couldn't hear. "There are Equestrians about, and they have a dirty history of stealing things that belong to me. If this friend is the center of the wealth I was advertised, I swear on my honor as a member of the aristocracy that with your cooperation I will only allow your wealth to be parted from you by fair, equitable and mutually agreed-upon methods. Right now, that means prioritizing her safety, so please do everything in your power to come along. We cannot stay here."
"Pardon me, but I couldn't help overhearing." Felicity trotted nearer. "You were a little quiet, there, but was that something about thieves in the area?" She visibly shuddered. "That's exactly what I don't want to hear. Though may I have proof you aren't truly them in disguise?"
Blue turned to her, his smile returning, and winked. "Thievery is an act of utmost dishonor even these cretins wouldn't think to commit." He winked at Red, Violet and Chartreuse. "If you need proof of my character, behold." He withdrew from his suit a device that looked like a short, compact lance, but when he twisted a part on the hilt, it telescoped violently, shooting the head out on a very short tether with explosive force. "Does this look like the weapon of a highway robber, or of someone who seeks to end them?"
"That's an impressive show of arms," Felicity said, unconvinced.
Blue stared at her. "No reaction? Really? Well, I hope you've led a sheltered-enough life not to need to know of these things. I must say, it hurts to see you so confident in my character compared to that of my compatriots earlier and suspect me of thievery now."
Felicity flicked her tail. "Hmm... An acceptable point. Exercise your anti-banditry authority and make them begone. I will travel with you and you alone."
Blue waved a wing at the other three griffons. "Begone, all of you. You are no longer of use to me."
They faded into the shadows.
"...Wonderful!" Felicity happily tilted her chin up. "Now where are we off to? I believe you and I will get along smashingly."
Gerardo and Slipstream stared as Felicity continued sucking up to Blue, explaining how much she disliked extended flying and wished there was an easier way to get wherever he wanted to take her. Gerardo sidled closer to Howe. "Is this really a plan?" he breathed.
Howe shrugged, keeping his voice down. "It's what we could come up with. That coat was free, was it not? That nightly maiden decided it would be sufficient to convince them she held all of our class and currency. So she accompanies them to their lair, lets them think they have it all, and if she has to abandon that garb and hasten away when our time finally arrives to flee this landscape? No loss, no gain."
Gerardo frowned. "Where are Harshwater and Starlight?"
"Homeward bound, as of the moment we received your message," Howe whispered back. "What was that ruckus about?"
"Equestrian soldiers, and their princess," Gerardo hissed. "They apparently have quite the quarrel with the local griffons, and these griffons with them. I think it would be wise to follow their lead and lay low for as long as we possibly can..."
"We still need food, dude." Neon Nova shrugged. "We're even lower than we were a week ago."
"We got some," Slipstream groaned, laying in the mowed grass. "Then abandoned it by the tracks a ways south of here..."
Gerardo nodded. "True. Though I suspect-"
Suddenly, the sound stone crackled with Gunther's voice. "Who's listening?"
Everyone frowned, Howe and Neon Nova looking to Gerardo and Slipstream for advice on whether to answer. Gerardo took the stone in a talon. "Safe to speak, I take it? What was all that about?"
"Yours is a welcome voice, my friend." Gunther's volume grew, until Blue looked over with a quirked head. "I take it your groups have met up. Who of my subordinates are around?"
Blue cleared his throat, stepping nearer. "Do you possess a device that allows you to speak with my dearest and most trusted friend?"
"This isn't the time for insults. Is everyone primed for battle?"
"Battle?" Gerardo blinked. "What in the world is going on up there?"
Red, Chartreuse and Violet all peeked over a nearby hilltop, the former two looking blindingly eager.
"I'm in the pass, up by their fort. The Equestrians are having a bad time. Apparently those fools kept themselves in a sealed bunker rather than going out to assess the damages. And you'll never believe what they let escape."
The three hiding griffons drew closer, and Blue gasped, clutching his spear gun. "You couldn't mean...?"
"Yep." Gunther audibly licked his beak. "Forget about Gerardo. We have bigger fish to fry. Gerardo, hope you weren't counting on them to stick around. The Equestrian princess is going to be back your way very soon, and she's specifically interested in your lair. If you don't want to be robbed blind and kicked north of the border, you've got an hour at best to come up with a plan. Everyone else, grab the stone so we can communicate and head north to meet me. Pay them whatever they want for it, we need this advantage. Going silent now. I'm hunting."
The four griffons assembled in front of Gerardo, Slipstream, Howe and Neon, even the usually-stoic Violet betraying her anticipation. "It seems the circumstances have changed," Blue said, holding out a talon. "We require that stone of yours, and swiftly. Name any price for it. We will honor debts, and asylum is hardly off the table. You heard what he said about their princess."
Neon Nova raised an eyebrow, glancing over the rims of his broken shades. "You know only a unicorn can turn these on, right?"
Red snorted. "Black isn't a unicorn, and he could use the other end."
Howe winced and tapped his forehooves. "Would you believe us if we said special circumstances?"
"If you're offering any good or service..." Gerardo narrowed his eyes. "Tell us exactly why you're feuding with the Equestrians, and why they're supposedly so keen on securing their border."
Felicity loudly cleared her throat before Blue could reply. "Darling, are you really sure you want to give up on our sound stones like that? They're rather valuable, as you can see..."
"One on its own does us little good," Gerardo sighed, shaking his head. "Gunther already possesses the other. I'd rather get what I can for this." He looked up. "You have that much honor that you'd acknowledge debts, you say?"
"That I do." Blue bowed, touching a talon to his breast. "Much as I desire your wealth, I believe good business is the best way to ensure we have a maximally-profitable relationship in the long term. That said, it would truly be a pity if you were forced out of the area while I still owed you, but there would be understandably nothing I could do..." He innocently glanced away. "As for the Equestrians, who can ever parse their motives? Barbarians, the lot of them. We quarrel because they robbed us years ago of a great right to all griffonkind, one we are finally about to reclaim. We must strike expediently and without delay. What else do you desire?"
Red growled, pointing a talon at Felicity. "How much for those clothes? And the sword that goes with them?"
"What, these things?" Felicity looked herself over. "How much have you to offer? I do think I look rather good in a male's clothes, and wasn't planning on seeing them leave..."
Violet frowned. "We left all of our money behind to carry your food."
"Which still isn't here, by the way..." Howe tapped his hooves together.
"So all deals are off, then?" Felicity tilted her head. "I see the way you're eyeing these. What claim have you to them, and why do you want them?"
"This is a waste of time," Violet droned. "We need to move."
Blue winced. "But we need the communicator! And furthermore with such a powerful heirloom and weapon on our side..."
"As fell fate would have it, those sound stones are already our heirlooms," Howe countered, jutting his hips.
Neon Nova hesitated. "And they're heavily armed and desperate to make a deal..."
"We are not about to rob you!" Blue winced harder, looking like he had been punched. "Do we look like Equestrians to you!?"
"Actually, there's an idea." Gerardo tapped the remaining sound stone, holding it up. "You say that you want this stone for a strategic or military advantage, and you just said these clothes and sword somehow confer one as well? If you could have one of the two, which would be greater?"
"We were ordered to take the stone-" Blue began.
"The regalia!" All three others cut him off as one. He slumped.
"Felicity, undress," Gerardo commanded. "I believe I have a satisfactory arrangement. You may have this regalia, but not the sound stone."
Felicity gave him a sultry look, making a show of slipping out of the regalia.
"Not that I know what's going on, but you call that satisfactory?" Slipstream frowned.
"Indeed." Gerardo flipped the stone in a talon and caught it. "Should you all feel like abandoning us to Equestrian mercy, they will inevitably get this stone and trace you through it. I have told you little of how it works, but unicorns of the caliber they possess can effortlessly use one in a pair to trace the physical location of anyone who has touched either within the last week." He flicked his tail at Howe and Neon Nova, trusting that they would keep quiet. "So if they really are that much of a threat, we'll call in what you owe us and say keeping them off our backs will be suitable payment for that regalia. Otherwise..." He pocketed the stone. "You're in exactly as much danger as we are."
Red seethed. "Does Black know it does this?"
Gerardo chuckled, shaking his head. "Information is a commodity, my friend. And he neither asked nor paid."
"Here you are, darlings!" Felicity finished wiggling her rump free from the regalia, presenting it held on her wings.
All of the colored griffons growled, looking desperate to call Gerardo's bluff yet none of them wanting to be the one to ruin it if he was telling the truth. "...You have yourselves a deal," Blue choked, swallowing as he accepted the regalia. "I see you're as well-versed in the ways of Griffonstone as they come. Fly on my mark!"
He slipped the regalia on over his suit, the accents shining in the darkness in a way unlike they had for Felicity. The glittering rapier shone at his side, and he spread his wings, leading the four as they blasted away in a truncated vee. Within seconds, all traces of the griffons were gone.
"They left to the north!" Howe grinned. "And our noble flagship is to the west. Dare we call this victory?"
Before anyone could reply, Harshwater skidded to a stop, carving a furrow in the earth as she landed. "False alarm," she panted, mane stuck to her forehead with sweat. "The Equestrians absolutely saw us and didn't stop. Whoever gave us that warning was lying through his teeth. If the griffons get here, don't..." She trailed off, blinking at Gerardo. "Am I too late?"
Gerardo winked. "As a matter of fact, I just finished dealing with them myself. Whether or not we ever see them again, they'd all have to be infinitely better actors than I give them credit for in order for us not to have the upper hand."
"But they did say the princess herself was heading our way..." Felicity rubbed her chin, shivering now that she was completely unclothed.
"They lied the first time, they might be lying again." Harshwater took several deep breaths, swallowing and regaining her composure. "Or they have bad information, or whatever. Do we have any reason to remain here? How likely is it we're being watched?"
Gerardo shrugged. "On the one side, there would have to be one beyond the five I've seen so far. On the other, their leader likely has seen our real ship from the air."
"Then there's nothing we can do about that," Felicity sighed. "Something tells me that whatever we do next, being all grouped up wouldn't hurt at all."
Starlight sat at the edge of a gray mountain range, surf crashing against a beach of stones and boulders. Ash endlessly fell from the sky, covering the land and plummeting into the sea. It seemed the longer she stayed here, the stronger her feeling of being alone.
She stared at her hooves and examined her body, not having stopped to really understand the changes that had become of her. She ran her hooves across her wings, thin and spindly and exactly like she imagined Valey's felt, only smaller. Had she ever even seen a sarosian filly before, more than just in passing?
Her flanks glowed with a nebulous light, and felt vaguely warm to the touch. They were just like they were in her previous ashen visions, as if a cutie mark was there but had yet to manifest, but was still drawn to the surface by this place. What was it Garsheeva had said about her cutie mark? That it could be anything? Or had she dreamed that amid the emotional fever of her fight with Chrysalis and everything after?
At the heart of that battle, she remembered resisting Stanza's power, and having to consciously undo that resistance to activate the Nightmare Modules. Some force had been feebly protecting her, just enough for her to remain normal, but far from enough to shrug off the attacks or move. It was like a spark in her chest, colored faintly midnight blue, that refused to die until she quashed it herself. Was it still there? Was it related at all to where she was?
She closed her eyes, concentrating on herself, and got a faint sensation of an unlit fire. But it was completely cold, like the fuel was there without a spark, and there was nothing further she could do.
Nearby, the moon glass she had taken from Navarre lay in the ash. Ash fell in bands around it, seemingly moved midair by a field it gave off to land in a pattern with the stone at the center. It was whiter than white, less like a physical object than a hole in space. Starlight picked it up carefully, the rock repelling itself from her and forcing her to pinch it between her hooves. She held it to her eye, as close as she could before the force pushing them apart began pressing on her eyelid and making her uncomfortable.
Beyond the glass, when she looked close enough, her eyes seemed to adjust from the dim world around her. Her vision darkened, the gray horizon turning to black and completely fading from focus, her pupils constricting to block out the darkness and temper the light. And finally, like peering through a peephole, shapes and images began to come together in her vision. She saw a wooden ceiling, a cloud of interwoven metal rails, and ponies... Everything was so washed out, it was impossible to see facial details, but there was a unicorn with a working horn helping an earth pony move a bed into the room. And behind them, standing with three legs and a cast, was a mare with the unmistakable manestyle of Maple.
Starlight caught her breath. "...I can see you..."
A faint flicker of hope rose in her chest. "Hello!?" she called, needing to be heard. "I'm right here! I'm Starlight! I can see you!"
The figures in the moon glass made no indication they could hear her. She rammed a hoof into it, as if it was a portal to the real world, a physical hole, and she could somehow force herself through... but it was a rock. Starlight sniffled.
She knew it didn't matter whether they could hear her. When she sat with the sword, telling herself it contained countless thousands of souls, she often wondered if she could hear them, too, and always brushed it off as her mind playing tricks on her. She still thought that was the case, but even if it wasn't, her friends would just think they were imagining her, too.
Before that thought could make her properly cry, Starlight pinned the stone to her chest, spread her wings, and flew.
She didn't fly like a filly who had never flown before. It was surprisingly intuitive, almost like the myriad times she had been in free fall, only with complete control in three dimensions. Unfortunately, the lack of a challenge didn't provide a distraction. She pushed herself as hard as she could, but couldn't outrun her tears. Eventually, she stumbled, crying, onto the high-up slope of a mountain.
"Yo, what's a kid doing crying on my doorstep? I came all the way up here to get away from shrimps like you."
Starlight froze, a coldness welling up in her heart as if the words had kicked her and damaged a shoddy dam.
She was on a ledge on the steep mountain slope, and a tiny batpony was watching her from the mouth of a cave, nearly her size yet clearly much older. Her fellow midget raised an eyebrow. "Go on. Shoo."
Starlight growled. "And why don't you?"
"'Cuz this is my place." The batpony folded her wings behind her head. "And I got too many things to do to foalsit kids."
"Like what?" Starlight raised her hackles. "What are you going to do other than relive the same memory over and over again? If this is the most important day of your life like it is for everyone else, then would it kill you to be a little bit nicer?"
"Hey..." The other batpony looked mildly offended. "I am not the one who waltzed into a stranger's house on the brink of tears, kid. So speak for yourself. Glad you agree, though."
Starlight bristled and blinked at the same time, anger and confusion fighting for dominance. "Agree about what?"
"That it's the most important day of my life." The other batpony shrugged, walking to the edge of the cliff and sitting down. "Tonight is finally going to be the night I head down there and see what that ship is all about. Granted, I say that every night, but I've got a good feeling about this one."
Starlight frowned, staring down herself. A winding river rushed past below, and there was a big battleship she vaguely recognized from Goldoa, though she hadn't gotten a great look at it at the time...
"But if some snot-nose like you is going to be rolling around my hideout, maybe I'm suddenly feeling even more motivated." The batpony spread her wings, tipped off the ledge, and was gone.
Starlight stared after her with an open mouth, then decided she didn't care and let her be gone. That mare hadn't been the brightest, anyway. Should she snoop in the cave? She was still upset about having her mourning interrupted so rudely, and badly needed something to do with herself... Stomping just for the sake of it, she made her way inside.
The cave quickly turned into a tunnel, and that into a door. Starlight opened it effortlessly, finding herself in a place that didn't take long to recognize: the township of Izvaldi's capitol, just far enough north on the river to see the lord's mansion on a hill in the distance. She stared back at the size of the house she had left, beyond certain by now that if this was Indus, it completely failed to conform to the normal principles of space... and almost wondering if the soul who had told her it was Indus in the first place was only speaking of his particular memory. She swallowed, noting the absence of the school and the hospital on the hill, wondering how old this memory was and whose the world was made of now.
Across the street, a door burst open, and a filly dashed out, younger even than Starlight. "Help!" she squeaked, her cutie mark glowing and indicating she was real.
"I need water!" she cried around a bucket in her teeth, dashing between several phantoms to a spigot at a crossroads. "Please..."
The faucet blasted, its pressure far too high, and the filly returned with a dripping face and mane, her bucket sloshing in her teeth. Starlight followed her inside.
Inside the shack, which had one room and two beds, there were three phantoms, all in almost as much detail as real ponies. The eldest, a mare, lay on her side with her fur matted with sweat, a dirty bucket by the bed and her stomach visibly distended. A teenage batpony a few years Starlight's senior held a rag to her head, looking gaunt herself. The last pony was a tiny foal, young enough that her irises hadn't developed yet, and she was crying. Starlight got the very definite impression that this was not the happiest day of someone's life.
"Felicity!" The foal she was following stumbled over the ground, setting the bucket down without spilling too much.
"Thank you dearly," the teenage Felicity panted, using the water to refresh her rags and re-apply them to the older mare's head. "Hang in there, Mother..."
Their mother dry-heaved, Starlight's stomach twisting in sympathy as she clenched and retched. Filly Senescey clung to her sister with wide eyes, and a vein of stress pulsed in phantom Felicity's temple, her eyes bloodshot from several days without sleep. "Please be alright..." Senescey whispered.
Behind them, infant Larceny wailed.
"Mother, Larceny is hungry," Felicity whispered, glancing between her mother's hind legs. "You are in no state to feed her, but I-I don't know what else to do..."
Their mother heaved again, a few specks of blood flaking her muzzle.
Starlight watched the scene with a sensation of ice. What was this memory? The most important, powerful, defining moment of Senescey's life? She wanted it not to be true. Even if Senescey had betrayed them, had been the only one of the three to refuse to admit they were wrong, she didn't deserve to be reliving this for the rest of her existence. She felt rooted in place, unable to look away as their mother spasmed, retched again and breathed her violent last.
"I'm so sorry..." Felicity closed her mother's eyelids with a trembling hoof.
Larceny continued wailing, and Felicity scooped her against herself with a wing. The Felicity Starlight knew was smooth, sleek and well-built, but this one was gaunt and emaciated, and it wasn't hard for Starlight to guess she had been throwing up as well. Her worry for herself was plain on her face, but she didn't speak it as Senescey clung to her, wrapping both her sisters in her wings.
"W-What do we do?" Senescey sniffled. "She said we'd make it out of Gyre together. She didn't say she'd die as soon as we were safe!"
"Tell me, sister," Felicity breathed, voice hard with repressed emotion. "How many others in the town are afflicted like she was?"
"L-Lots." Senescey wiped her nose on Felicity's shoulders. "There was a line at the water..."
Felicity folded her ears. "A lot of good water will do when no one can keep anything down. Sister. Are you listening?"
She set Senescey across from her, in perfect clarity despite being a memory and lacking a cutie mark, and Senescey gave a trembling nod.
"This is no accident," Felicity began, voice icier than even Starlight. "It cannot be a coincidence so many are sickened. However it happened, whyever it happened, there will be a cause. There must be, for us to find it, for there to be any justice in the world. Don't you let any of that despair into your eyes." She touched Senescey's chin with a wingtip. "This is horribly wrong. All this was supposed to be our chance for your world to be better, but it seems that day isn't fated to happen. Our mother couldn't give me a brighter future when she left for Gyre. She and I couldn't give you one when we left for Izvaldi. But now Larceny is yours and my responsibility, and I am not going to fail again. Everything you are feeling now... Look at me, sister. What will you do to keep this from our Larceny?"
Senescey shivered and trembled, and her eyes grew hard. "Anything."
"Someone's world will burn," Felicity continued. "Just like ours. Whoever's fault this is will pay and perish, so that they will never inflict this on others again. We tried running, and running wasn't enough. If we found someone responsible for this plague, would you kill them to stop it from happening again?"
Senescey swallowed. "Yes."
Felicity's phantom eyes burned. "If they were a worthless street dweller in Gyre, would you kill them?"
"Yes." Senescey's voice strengthened.
"If it was an entire family, would you kill them all?"
Senescey nodded. "I..."
"If it was a noble, and we had to kill them through the entire force of the law, would you falter?"
"No!" Senescey glared.
Felicity's eyes hardened. "If anyone begged you to reconsider, from your friend to your lover to our goddess herself, would you tell them that avenging Mother and ensuring this could never happen again would have to come first? Would you choose your family over anything anyone could offer?"
Senescey hesitated. "What if they offered to bring Mommy back?"
That took the wind out of Felicity's sails. "I don't know, darling," she whispered, pulling Senescey back into a hug. "I simply do not know."
Starlight ran, praying to anything that could hear her that this wasn't a fate the souls here would have to endure forever.
Starlight ran. Izvaldi changed around her, but remained Izvaldi, shifting through dozens of time periods as different souls controlled the memories she lived. Throughout it all, ash fell, a constant reminder that this world was shadowed and cursed, frozen in time as an endless purgatory. The knowledge that all these souls would have been somewhere far worse sustained her, but her strength still wavered as her mind pounded with the reality of her alternative.
No one could grow. No one could change. No one could live or move on or learn, their personality and their mind locked into a snapshot of memory. The ones who had bad memories would suffer through them forever, and no one could comprehend time enough to appreciate it when their memories were good. What was the point of being alive in this place, if these souls could be called alive at all?
She skidded to a halt against the corner of a building, leaning and panting as soulless memories walked by. Her legs forced her to, but the moment she stopped, the visage of Felicity's mother's last moments caught up to her like an avalanche. It pulsed against her eyelids even as she squeezed them shut, until the memory hurt so much she physically cried out in pain and frustration. Why wasn't there anything she could do!? She saved the souls from Chrysalis... by doing what, confining them in another prison she had no control over? One fate was bad, but what if Nightmare Moon's magic was no better?
She was interrupted by a scream.
Starlight darted upwards, spreading her wings and getting off the ground. When she reached the roof, she realized it was a place she had been in person: the slanted side of the lord's mansion, countless months ago when she was sneaking with Jamjars. The scream had come from a window, and it was open.
"What do you mean, mother!?" an enraged male voice snarled from inside.
Smash!
Another scream sounded, along with stomping and several desperate cries before Starlight was able to get a good look. A sarosian stallion in fancy clothes was preparing to hurl a wine bottle, a mare in the corner cowering and bloodied and trying to cover a filly. The mare's side was sliced and bloody, and the stallion's cravat was wet and dribbled, his mane looking like he paid someone to take care of it and then contributed no effort himself. He flung the bottle, and it shattered upon impact.
"You dare h-have children w-with... others?" One of his eyes twitched. "Disloyal...!"
Starlight wasn't having this. She couldn't identify anyone in the room with a cutie mark, but it was hard to see the filly properly. But if there was any way she could interact with these ponies, she wasn't about to watch someone lose a parent again. She snarled, stepping forward, preparing to put all of her combat training to use...
With a noise that rang her ears to the core, a spear of eldritch green appeared from a pool in the floor, striking the stallion's underside and running him straight through.
"Aah!" Starlight gasped, stumbling backwards in surprise.
Slowly, the spear detached from the floor, made of a color she never wanted to see again in her life. It twisted in midair, the stallion's growls of rage turning to agonized cries as he was tortured by gravity, spun along the crackling weapon like a skewer. But that was all background noise to Starlight. Cutie marks were colorful, here, but this wasn't a cutie mark. It was a rare color that had pierced her Nightmare Module color-blindness before...
The lance finally shimmered, and its victim burst like a balloon, scattering into a cloud of ash that seemed less real than the flakes outside, like it was a phantom itself. Starlight stared as the wounded mare seemed to pause, like a suspended animation, and slowly slide aside. Despite the age difference, even without the shimmering green outline where a horn should have been, it wasn't possible for her to mistake the filly in front of her.
"You'd think after weeks and weeks of replaying the same memory again and again, interfering would get boring," filly Chrysalis drawled, her eyes piercing Starlight's. "But I could relive this for the rest of eternity, thanks to you."
Starlight's heart stopped. "Y-You..."
"Me." Chrysalis was a sarosian again, just like her, with even odds of being younger or older. "I wondered when I'd see you show up."
"What are...?" Starlight swallowed, realizing she wasn't immediately about to attack.
"Good question." Chrysalis barred the room's only door with her spear. "I've asked myself what I'm doing here hundreds of times, and the only real answer is that I picked a fight with someone just as abominable as I am, and you got the upper hoof. So now we get to exist in your private mindscape instead of mine."
She rolled her shoulders, sitting down. "So? You win. Do as you please."
"...What?" Starlight blinked. "Is it really you, and aren't you going to fight me?"
Chrysalis pouted, refusing to meet her eyes.
Starlight tilted her head, eyeing Chrysalis like a primed explosive. "You can remember things. You aren't frozen in time."
"Why do you care?"
Starlight opened her mouth and trailed off. "What's going on?"
"I told you," Chrysalis grunted. "You won. Now what are you waiting for?"
"To do what?" Starlight pressed. "Are you real, what are you doing and why are you here?"
"I'm here because obsidian extracts sarosian cutie marks, and whatever remains of my soul is tied to that." Chrysalis rolled her eyes, barely letting Starlight see.
Starlight blinked. "Does that mean your body...?"
Chrysalis groaned. "Just get on with yourself, already! Why did I have to be undone by a kid who asks so many questions...?"
"Get on with what!?" Starlight stomped, her frustration beginning to mount. "I'm not here to torture you or gloat or whatever! I'm stuck here, and you're the first pony I've seen who remembers anything except one point in time!"
Chrysalis froze, slowly turning to her with a round-eyed expression... and then tipped over, howling with cruel laughter. "You caught yourself?"
Starlight felt her cheeks heat up. "Shut up! It was an accident!"
Chrysalis cackled and punched the ground, crying tears of irony.
"Stop it!" Starlight squeaked, her voice cracking. "I have had a terrible time in here and am only here in the first place because my friends were in danger, and we're only in the situation we're in thanks to you in the first place! Now tell me everything you know about what's going on!"
Chrysalis snorted and lifted her head from the floor. "You're serious, aren't you."
Starlight bit her lip and nodded.
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. "You're actually stuck here. You don't have control of the power you used to beat me."
Starlight folded her ears, considering making a run for the window.
"Then enjoy your new life." Chrysalis swept a hoof. "The memories are malleable if you think hard enough about them. Go find someone suitable to take it out on, or use yours if it's unhappy enough. Enjoy your five-star vacation tour..."
"Wait a minute!" Starlight stood back up. "You mean there's really no way out?"
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Did you intend for there to be when you made it?"
Starlight winced again.
"Then you should hope you're as incompetent as you look," Chrysalis snorted.
Starlight growled. "Why are you being so mean to me? I thought you were upset in the first place because nobody cared about you! Isn't that why you were going on about stealing Valey in the first place? Because you wanted to force everyone to love you? This is a terrible way of doing it."
"That's all pointless now," Chrysalis complained. "On account of everyone having no memories and being great for nothing but a cheap fix. Other than you. And you're the one who locked me here in the first place."
"There are better ways, you know." Starlight frowned. "Like actually being nice to your friends, and trying to protect them. With how powerful you are, you could have kept a lot of ponies safe, too."
"Says you, who did exactly what I tried to," Chrysalis griped.
Starlight took a step back. "No I didn't! I was stopping you from taking my friends away! You were going to steal Valey and kill everyone else, and me, too!"
"And what have you done?" Chrysalis raised an annoyed eyebrow. "Stolen all my love and taken it away. And I was merely trying to stop the same."
Starlight hissed. "But it was never yours in the first place!"
Chrysalis yawned. "And their love just belongs to you, instead? Face it. You're greedy. You can't stand the thought of living without them. The only difference between you and me is that I've already lived with it for twenty years, and you're just afraid of what you can imagine."
"No, I'm..." Starlight cringed. "My friends didn't want to be killed or absorbed by you!"
"And how much do you think I wanted to be in here?" Chrysalis shrugged.
"I was stopping you!"
Chrysalis waggled a hoof. "I don't want to hear it. You're a brat. Just like me."
Starlight hesitated, hurting but not defeated. "If I'm so much like you, shouldn't I understand you? Wouldn't you want my company?"
Chrysalis's face scrunched in confusion.
"Because..." Starlight sighed. "I've always wanted someone who could understand. So if you feel differently, then we're definitely not the same. But otherwise... truce?"
"...What?" Chrysalis stared blankly at Starlight, her green aura winking out from confusion, leaving her looking like a normal sarosian filly.
Starlight held out a hoof, memories of the day Valey died crawling up her spine and telling her to put it back down. "We are not the same," she said. "I dare you to prove otherwise."
Chrysalis tilted her head, examining the hoof from all possible angled, then stared at her, awaiting an explanation.
Starlight sighed. "We aren't the same," she repeated. "Because if I thought I had found someone who really understood, I wouldn't fight them. That's the kind of pony I've always wished for. And so if you hate me for beating you more than that..."
"As if you'd do otherwise," Chrysalis scoffed. "Look at yourself. If I had won, what could you possibly care about beyond revenge?"
Starlight looked away. "But you didn't, did you?"
"And what if I had?" Chrysalis sat back, spread her forelegs and shrugged. "Words can't express how much I hate you, Starlight. You're afraid to even consider how you'd feel if I had my way."
"Can't they?" Starlight squinted. "You're being rude and mean, but still nicer than I would if things were the other way around. And you might have lost, but I didn't get Valey back either."
Chrysalis growled.
Starlight stared.
"I hate you on levels that are indescribable," Chrysalis threatened. "I loathe you. I despise you. You make me sick with anger."
"You were sick with anger already," Starlight pointed out, not sure where she was going but feeling like pressing Chrysalis's buttons. "Wasn't the whole reason you did what you did because you were mad and alone and had Stanza's emotion stuffed in you?"
Chrysalis lifted her wings and turned, letting Starlight see her flanks.
Where Starlight's cutie mark was an indiscriminate patch of light, Chrysalis's was a pool of shadow, with faint wisps leading away like a cord that tethered across dimensions. Chrysalis held her wings up and turned, displaying the phenomenon from all sides.
Starlight winced. "Is that painful?"
"Rrrrrgh..." Chrysalis set her teeth.
Starlight's brow furrowed. "There's something you aren't saying."
"Why does it have to be you?" Chrysalis hissed. "Why don't you just leave? Why does the pony who cost me everything have to be one who won't leave me alone?"
"But you don't want to be alone," Starlight pointed out. "Which is weird, because Valey said you always tried to drive her away, but I couldn't have used your magic to activate my Nightmare Modules if you weren't really lonely. And you keep saying that's why you wanted those souls for yourself."
Chrysalis spat halfheartedly on the floor.
"Well?" Starlight stared.
Chrysalis pouted and turned her back.
"I was nice to you too, you know," Starlight pointed out. "It wasn't me who ruined your life. If you hadn't felt like your life was already ruined by the time I fought you, then you weren't paying attention. I didn't meet you a lot, but I only ever helped you. I was there with Valey the night you had your foal. We saw what Gazelle did, and we beat him up past the point where he realized it wasn't a game."
Chrysalis's ears pressed back.
"At this point, the only reason I'm being nice to you is because it's a challenge," Starlight continued. "You wouldn't in my place. And you think we're the same. But if you had been nicer early on, we really could have gotten along."
Chrysalis burst into tears.
Starlight blinked. "Are you okay?"
"What a pointless question," Chrysalis growled into the floor, covering her head with her wings. "Do you even realize where or what I am?"
"Tell me," Starlight insisted. "I need to know better than I do."
"Urrgh..." Chrysalis pressed her face into the ground, voice muffled by the boards. "You've split me in half. My soul is tied to the me in my body, and to me of my brand that you're talking to. The other me probably isn't even aware I exist. I'm even more of an abomination than I already was. And now I'm stuck here for eternity, with tormenting the specters of my past as my only solace or pastime. And now you're here, getting in my face and being nice just to prove a point! You don't care. You're just taunting me. Stop-"
Starlight sighed, sat down beside her and put a wing over her back.
Chrysalis froze. "Get off me."
"Fine." Starlight pulled back, but only slightly. "Look. I know you hate me, and I'm sorry I stopped you, but you had to be stopped. And yes, I am only being nice to you to prove a point, because you stole my friend and have never done anything back for me. But while I'm being nice, I'll tell you a secret: ponies are nice to you more often when you're nice first. If you tried it sometime, I'd give you a chance, which is more than anyone else will say."
Chrysalis glared up at her with wet eyes. "That's not saying a lot when you're the only other one here."
Starlight shrugged. "I'm stuck here, and I don't like this place. I need help. I'm giving you a chance. Please?"
"You're just a stupid... foolish kid..." Chrysalis groaned. "Leave me alone! Please! Stop tempting me!"
"Tempting you?" Starlight tilted her head. "What would be so bad about just giving in and coming with me?"
Chrysalis finally met her eyes. "Do you really not know? What it feels like to let yourself hope only to get it smashed against the ground again and again, where every crack you allow in your shell is only pried open with iron stakes and leaves you worse than when you began? You're a filly. You can't possibly be evil enough to do this on purpose. Even if your powers are just as twisted as mine are."
Starlight tapped the ground with a hoof. "I've had that happen before, and I'm afraid of it happening again. That doesn't mean I'm not going to take what I can when I can get it."
She offered a hoof again, and Chrysalis stared at it. "I took what I could, and you were the one to steal it all away from me."
Starlight shrugged. "Would you rather have thousands of captive friends, or one willing one?"
Chrysalis's brow furrowed. "For how many times I've told you to get lost, you'd almost think I wasn't willing."
"Maybe not, but I am," Starlight insisted. "I'm not giving up. And you're the one who's always had trouble getting others to give you a chance, right? If you leave this chance behind, you can't blame it on anyone else. I'm offering. This is your decision."
Chrysalis met her eyes one last time. "You're the stubbornest filly I've ever met."
Starlight nodded. "I really hate giving up."
"Fine." Chrysalis sighed, took her hoof, and stood up. "Let's get this over with. Now what?"
Starlight hesitated. She had been so focused on fighting with the other filly that she wasn't actually sure what to do now that she had won. "So... what do you know about this place?"
"We aren't in the physical world," Chrysalis replied. "We're in a place Chauncey called the emotional plane, but it wasn't researched enough to have a real name. You can think of it as a parallel to the real world, only the laws of space don't apply. We don't have bodies here, which is why anyone without a magical means of tethering their memories to their soul doesn't have any. It's also why you look like a sarosian. If you wander long enough, you'll see other sarosians who were different creatures in life as well."
Starlight blinked. "How do you know all that?"
Chrysalis scowled. "You pick up a lot, being worked on by Chauncey. And you left me ample time here to experiment for myself."
"Sorry." Starlight folded her ears. "I wanted to send everyone back to their original bodies, not lock them up in here. But I don't have the power to do that."
Chrysalis eyed her, then sighed. "And then there's this."
She whipped around, her aura reforming, drawing her sickly-green spear out of thin air, before hurling it through a window, earning a strangled, snarling cry. When she drew it back, Prince Gazelle was caught on the end like a skewered fish, and she slammed him into the ground, smoothly decapitating him and reducing his phantom to ash.
Starlight stared at the spear with wide eyes. "Are they attacking you?"
"I'm attacking him," Chrysalis grunted, tossing aside the spear. "That was the day he laughed at me and my foal. Just because we have our conscious memories here doesn't mean we don't have the kind of deeper memories the world relives for everyone else. If you're going to follow me, you had better get used to my stepfather appearing in a drunken rage, or Gazelle climbing in through windows. There have been a few fireballs from the rocket strike, as well."
Starlight stared at the window Gazelle had been hiding around, climbing up herself and looking out to see a flat field covered in nondescript ash. "We have to relive memories too? I don't think I've seen any of mine."
"If you've been here longer than a few minutes, you would have. And it would follow you everywhere you go." Chrysalis already looked resentful, as if she expected to be proven wrong and be told her situation was just that much worse than Starlight's.
"Umm..." Starlight bit her lip. "They're not dangerous?"
Chrysalis snorted. "Merely annoying. Though you should hope yours isn't a good one. You might want to stay here reliving it forever..."
"Well, thanks for wanting to help me." Starlight looked down, then back up. "So you have more than one."
"Yes." Chrysalis didn't care to elaborate.
Starlight worked her jaw, but couldn't think what else to ask. "So... I'm looking for a way out of here, but also for Valey. Do you know where she is?"
"No." Chrysalis sighed. "And I've spent the past month searching."
"Not just for her." Chrysalis winced, a word suddenly stuck on her tongue. "...For my foal."
Starlight caught her breath, slowly remembering that all this had happened because Chrysalis's foal was born a sarosian. "They would be here too?"
"I can't see why not," Chrysalis dryly growled. "Unless they took her outside the reach of the dusk statues. They already took her from me in Izvaldi. Told me I wasn't fit to be a parent. But I have no intention of giving up. Even if my child cannot age beyond infancy in this place, she is still mine."
"And no Valey either." Starlight folded her ears. "But you were looking for her as well?"
Chrysalis sighed. "You're asking so many questions..."
"I need to know!" Starlight squeaked. "I have to understand this place as well as possible to find her!"
"I told you what you needed to know." Chrysalis turned her back on her. "There is no concept of space in this world. Everything you see here is projected or created from our emotions and souls." She pointed again to her ethereal black cutie marks. "That's why I look the way I do."
Starlight frowned at her own flanks. "Are you saying these are special? I thought I just looked this way because I don't have my cutie mark yet."
"That's a sickening name." Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "And you're different because you're an abomination just like me. Real ponies can't have our abilities unless they've been twisted or modified beyond sanity."
"Modified?" Starlight's heart retreated into her chest. "You're just saying that. You don't really know what I am, right?"
"I know what I felt when I touched you with Stanza's laser," Chrysalis droned. "When you took an attack for your friend. There's nothing natural about you. It was like stepping on ice, expecting solid footing and breaking through into a ravine. And then you used enough negative emotional energy to beat my containment at its own game, and trap me along with it. I don't need to know the specifics on how you work to tell that you're just as twisted as I am."
"Oh." Starlight looked away, but the pressure lightened somewhat. "What did Chauncey do to you? To make you... not a normal pony?"
Chrysalis sighed. "Nothing a kid like you has any business knowing. And it would take a long time to explain."
"It has to do with that crown, doesn't it," Starlight pressed. "The one you put on, that was part of Stanza."
"That crown was originally mine." Chrysalis shook her head. "The metal it was forged from is made by using Mistvale arts in a certain way on windigo hearts. It's part of my soul, and what keeps me tethered to my memories and body." She pointed to the smoky, fading trail coming from her flanks. "Chauncey had me craft it, and then used it as Stanza's core. Everything he did to it reflected to a lesser extent on me."
"And it went all the way when you put the crown on," Starlight finished.
"You're very astute," Chrysalis groaned. "You saw Stanza. You know the experiments it was used for."
Starlight folded her ears. "In Gyre? Where it was tied to those statues with the organ pipes, and the instructions for the prisoners to say what they hated or were afraid of and that Stanza was listening?"
"And involving dusk statues." Chrysalis sat back against a wall and stretched her wings. "And the result is pretty, aren't I? One weaponized sack of rejection and torment, most of which isn't even mine. Be serious. Can you blame me for wanting just a little something to balance that out?"
"Not at all." Starlight met her eyes. "I blame you for what you did, not for why you did it. I wish you had gotten your love, just more nicely."
"Hah." Chrysalis laughed dryly. "Enough about me. I think I've earned the right to some probing, personal questions of my own."
Starlight sat down as well. "Alright. Ask away."
Chrysalis opened with a strange look. "Why can you use the same emotional magic I can without being a bitter wreck? You don't even look like you're struggling with it, but you're a bigger yawning chasm inside than I am."
"No I'm not." Starlight folded her ears. "I can't use the Nightmare Modules whenever. Only when I get something to power them, like moon glass or your laser."
Chrysalis snorted. "Yes, you used the tiny scratch I inflicted on you to overpower me in return."
"I have no idea how the Nightmare Modules work or what powers them or why I can use them!" Starlight protested. "I know where I got them, but that doesn't help a lot."
"Oh?" Chrysalis raised an eyebrow.
Starlight sighed. "I got my first one from Puddles. She ate it or something and had been hiding it from Chauncey in her stomach. I think. I don't know how that works. And then I got the rest in a weird cave in Mistvale that I think was all a dream, and had this shrine where I got separated from my friends, and a weird altar and a lot of traps and this strange machine that might have been from Indus..." She glanced back at Chrysalis. "Do you know anything about Indus? The first pony I saw said this was it."
Chrysalis scoffed. "Indus is a myth."
Starlight chewed her lip. "But he said this was it, and he was really happy about finding it. Unless his memory was of finding it... but I thought Indus was only explored thousands of years ago."
"So maybe it was a thousand-year memory." Chrysalis shrugged. "Who knows how long Garsheeva keeps souls inside of her."
Starlight stared blankly, unsure how to process the fact that she could be speaking to ponies from thousands of years ago. "So he was... the original explorer who...?"
"Indus is a myth," Chrysalis repeated, growling. "He was probably just delusional."
"Oh." Starlight wasn't convinced, but she let it drop. "Well, that's all I know."
Chrysalis sighed. "I suppose my curiosity will have to go unsated."
"Sorry." Starlight looked away. "Anything else?"
Chrysalis hesitated. "...You keep insisting on being sickeningly nice to me. But suppose I play along and return the favor. What will you do if you find a way out of here? Take me with you, and I doubt my body will ever remember the time spent here. I might even be stronger for it, with my brand returned. But leaving me behind would be nothing but a cruel reversal."
"I don't know," Starlight realized. "I really didn't think that far ahead..."
Starlight followed Chrysalis through an empty plateau of falling ash, a layer of unbroken stone beneath the blanket that covered the ground. Arguing about which way to go was pointless: both of them had agreed the direction you actually took had no bearing on who you saw next.
"Have you ever ran into the same pony twice?" Starlight asked.
"Sometimes," Chrysalis grunted. "You're more likely to ones who have some relation to you. Not that I had many relations."
Starlight frowned, matching the other filly's pace. "But you said you haven't ran into any of the ponies you're actually looking for."
"Explain it yourself if you have a better idea how it works," Chrysalis growled, flicking her ears in annoyance. "I've seen what I've seen. Percival's other maids are here. Almost all of them have crossed my path."
Starlight backed down. "So is Valey someone you're looking for, or not?"
"And why are you looking for her?" Chrysalis countered. "You're getting upset about strangers and enemies reduced to shadows of their former selves. I can smell it on your breath. You think seeing a friend subjected to the same will make you feel any better?"
"But what if she does remember me?" Starlight winced, but held her head high.
"She doesn't." Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "She's not like the two of us. I had her myself for long enough to know that."
Starlight frowned. "I meant, what if her memory is of me?"
Chrysalis shrugged. "Keep telling yourself that will make it hurt any less."
"Oh yeah? Well, what would you know?" Starlight huffed.
"About how it feels to see a friend you trusted and counted on suddenly treat you like you never existed?" Chrysalis whistled bitterly. "Try me."
"If you're talking about Percival, that's not how he treated you. I was there." Starlight narrowed her eyes. "He trusted you, and he trusted his eyes, and they told him different things. He was confused."
"Shut up." Chrysalis sharply turned her back on Starlight. "You've never been in love. You've never had the one person you counted on above all else abandon you in your darkest hour."
Starlight flicked her tail in annoyance. "So much for saying we were the same."
Chrysalis stopped in her tracks without looking back. "...You're too young to have been in a relationship."
"I have a friend called Maple," Starlight countered. "She adopted me, and I call her mother, but I have to protect her more than she protects me. I love her, but have been told she's more like a little sister than a mother, even though she's more than twice my age. The first thing anyone ever asked me to do after I met her was to take care of her. So no, I haven't been betrayed all at once. But I do love someone, and they're always failing to do what I need. I'll never blame her for it, but once I realized, it hurt. A lot. So there."
Chrysalis stared at her for a long minute. "You're messed up."
Starlight averted her eyes. "I never asked to be."
"But it happened." Chrysalis skirted an errant boulder in the field, almost shaped like a crumbling section of wall. "Did you ever have a normal life? Or were you marked from birth by family circumstance like I was?"
Starlight chewed her lip. "I don't know. I was adopted before I could remember. Maybe if my parents had been better... either set of parents, I wouldn't be here. But I just one day ran away and didn't stop running."
Chrysalis kicked at the ash. "Hmph."
"Did you ever regret not running away?" Starlight looked over at her. "From Chauncey? Before he could do any of the things he did to you?"
"Oh, I tried." Chrysalis flipped her mane. "Twice. But when the Izvalden regent kills your mother and you kill the regent in revenge, and the vizier who runs the province while the next regent comes of age is your father... he had too many resources for me to get past."
Starlight looked down. "I'm surprised you tried that few."
Chrysalis shrugged. "Where would I have gone? This body, remember?" She flexed her wings. "Chauncey made Izvaldi safe for my kind. Anywhere else, I'd have been persecuted and on my own, barely into my teens."
"Sorry about that," Starlight murmured. "Valey really didn't make it sound fun."
Chrysalis huffed. "I got my revenge, if nothing else. Don't patronize me."
"Sorry." Starlight glanced around, looking for a way to change the subject, and was met with only ash. "So how come you look like a filly? I thought you were an adult, or a huge monster with holes in your legs."
"Subtle, aren't you?" Chrysalis deadpanned. "Appearances here are more of... suggestions." With a flash of green flame, she was suddenly an adult. Another flash, and she was pregnant. The next flash left her as a smaller version of the burned, chitinous being she had transformed into in the arena, sans crown, and with a significant amount of concentration, she flashed into a sarosian copy of Starlight. "It's just practice."
Starlight blinked. "You can do that? It feels like every pony I know can make themselves look like me..."
Chrysalis returned to her initial form. "Do something with your mane and become a model. Make everyone look like you. If ponies are vain enough to copy your look, you should encourage them and profit from it."
Starlight tilted her head, wondering if that might actually work and filing the idea away for later. "Thanks?" She paused again, realizing Chrysalis had dodged yet another question. "So if you can be anything, why be my age?"
Chrysalis curled her lip. "Because I disagree with Stanza's fashion sense and would rather not be a hideous behemoth. Call it an opposite extreme, but looking good and pampering myself have always been hobbies of mine and I'd rather not have to think of that when I look in a mirror."
It was impossible for her to hide the bitterness in her voice. "You really regret that, don't you?" Starlight asked. "If you could go back in time, would you not put the crown on?"
"If I could go back in time, I'd never have returned to Percival in the first place," Chrysalis grumbled. "I'd have strangled Gazelle on your ship and then left to raise my foal on my own in the countryside where no one would ever find me. Chauncey was dead. I could have gotten away. But that's impossible now, and my self that's in the real world wants you suffering a fate worse than death."
Starlight perked up. "Your self that's in the real world? You mean you feel different?"
Chrysalis flinched, a very brief hint of embarrassment flashing across her face. "No! I despise you and am only working with you because you refuse to leave me alone."
"You're lonely," Starlight said, no victory in her voice. "You hate yourself for it, but you're enjoying having company, aren't you?"
"Quiet," Chrysalis hissed, the emotion in her voice now obvious. "I am, and if you think drawing attention to it is anything other than the fastest way to raise my ire, think again."
Starlight lowered her ears. Chrysalis clearly wasn't happy, and her adamant rejections and avoidance didn't seem to be doing her a whole lot of good... but when she thought about it, her own methods of being nice and friendly hadn't led her to the happiest life, either.
A wall approached out of the flat, ash-covered plain, with a hole blown through it that looked painfully familiar. Starlight and Chrysalis alike winced as they stepped through the Grandbell arena wall that had been demolished during their fight, phantoms flickering left and right amid flashes of light as memories did battle.
"Hmm." Chrysalis looked about with pointed disinterest, her own shadow engaging with someone else's memories. Starlight flew up, feeling more like a ghost than the ponies around her, drifting past the audience and watching as they fled from or were transfixed by a fight they had never come to watch. With a shriek, a marked sarosian vanished into thin air, her mark floating close enough to Starlight that she could reach out a hoof and touch it. It floated through her with a tingle of warmth, and she briefly had a Nightmare Module-esque sensation that she was holding something beyond value.
"I've only seen this once or twice," Chrysalis grumbled, flying up behind her.
Starlight folded her ears without looking back. "Do you not like it because you know you were wrong, or because you didn't win?"
"Wrong to do what I did?" Chrysalis huffed. "You would do no less in the same position as me. Wrong inherently? Twisted into a creature I despise? You're dimmer than I give you credit for if you even need to ask."
Starlight flicked her tail. "You keep ignoring my questions."
"I'm not obligated to answer." Chrysalis tossed her mane, strolling to the edge of a partially-intact balcony as ash drifted onto the battle below. "But I dislike everything I do, in case you didn't notice."
"Have you ever done anything you were proud of?" Starlight stepped up beside her, staring out over the railing at the battle with utter detachment. Her friends dying, her Nightmare Modules, their last day in the empire going catastrophically wrong... all of it felt like an axe had been taken to her own memories, dividing it into then and now. "Do you ever feel like you used to be a different pony?"
Chrysalis grumbled.
"You saved Valey," Starlight pointed out. "In Izvaldi. From a problem you made, but still. And I know you feel strongly about her, because you change the subject every time I bring her up."
"She did me a favor. I repaid it. That is all."
Starlight squinted at her. "And what was that favor?"
Chrysalis groaned. "She was exactly like you and got stubborn and annoying and in my face about not leaving me alone, and..." She trailed off into a mumble.
Starlight lifted an ear, leaning closer. "What?"
"I said, she mmrmmphg. Just a little!"
"What?" Starlight stared earnestly at her.
Chrysalis hit her head against the railing. "She grew on me. I didn't want to be pitied. I hate pity. It's false, one-sided love that's as shallow as an attention span. And she was stubbornly nice to me for longer than anyone would have put up with if they didn't mean it. Are you happy?"
"You know it's okay to do things to make ponies like you, right?" Starlight's ears fell. "Not forcing them to or killing them if they don't, but a lot of ponies like being nice to ones who are nice to them. You don't have to just be bad to everyone to fish for ones who really mean it."
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Easy for you to say. We've already gone over this. Yes, I regret that I had to do what I did. Do you remember what else is regret? Stanza. I am regret. Perhaps I could have had the tenacity if I was only looking out for myself, but the voices in my ears had needs of their own. Cheap love would never have done."
Starlight bared her pointed teeth. "That doesn't mean anything! I'm sorry you have Stanza, but that just means you need more friends, too."
"Case in point." Chrysalis pointed down at the field, where her larger queen self was siphoning thousands of souls.
Starlight growled. "...Fine. You know what? Fine. But Stanza wasn't the only thing you had to take care of, you know." She suddenly looked at the ground. "How were you planning to raise your foal? With your life the way it was..."
That was the question that finally broke Chrysalis's resolve. She slumped against the railing, resting on her chin and staring morosely forward. "You got me."
Starlight tilted her head.
"...I had no plan," Chrysalis admitted, her posture defeated. "I hoped I just could. I cared about my child in ways you couldn't comprehend. Everything I had been through... I was willing to do anything to spare them the same, no matter what it meant putting myself through. Chauncey made me desperate. Most days, I thought there was nothing to be done, and floated drowning in despair. Others, I felt like I would find a way out of sheer force of will, no inhibitions, willing to take measures more extreme than should have been possible. The day I destroyed the capitol was one of those days."
"I know how you feel," Starlight murmured back, scooting slightly closer. "That's how I feel every time I have to fight to defend my friends. I almost killed myself in Ironridge to save the whole city. Maybe I did, and got brought back. But I'd do anything to keep them safe."
Chrysalis raised a jaded eyebrow. "Why? Because you believe if you somehow spend that much effort on others, there's a law of fairness in the universe that will make them spend it back on you?"
Now it was Starlight's turn to feel punched. "But...!" She wanted to protest that there was, but what evidence could she turn to? "...I believe there is," she finally grumbled. "And I'm not giving up, no matter how many years it takes me. The only reason my friends don't already is because they physically can't. Because I'm stronger than all of them."
Chrysalis bitterly scoffed. "You can't solve problems with wisdom and mental fortitude so you turn to strength. I told you we were the same." She slumped further. "Working out. Knowing magical secrets. The basis of Mistvale arts. My soul is mutilated and diseased, but I always hoped I could use strength to compensate. And now look at us. Even Garsheeva didn't stand a chance in that fight, but you matched me blow for blow. The two strongest titans on the continent clash, and we're both absolutely miserable."
Starlight wilted. "I'm not miserable. It's just so hard for me to find what will make me happy."
"Ever think you're looking in the wrong place?"
"Maybe." Starlight swallowed. "But I'm not. I believe in my friends."
Chrysalis halfheartedly rolled her eyes. "You're just afraid to face the truth that there's nothing you can do. Caves and shrines or not, anything that can use our powers to imprison that many brands is a monster. They're called negative emotions for a reason."
"I think I see why Valey gave you so many chances," Starlight mumbled. "You probably reminded her of herself. She was terrified of being a monster."
Chrysalis sighed. "If you say so."
"...Your foal," Starlight said after a while. "You'd have done anything for their sake, you said."
"Without question." Chrysalis slightly straightened. "Unlike my lover, who was not even willing to believe they were ours."
"I never had that." Starlight looked at the railing, the battle below having restarted several times by now. "I wish I didn't have to be afraid for my friends all the time. I wish I wasn't the one who had to protect them, and didn't even have to worry about all the things that could go wrong."
"I wish I had others to worry about," Chrysalis replied. "You mentioned when Valey and I escaped together."
Starlight nodded.
"That was the first time I reunited with Stanza since it was created," Chrysalis continued. "I only borrowed my true power, and part of my leg paid the price. The wails and moans were infinitely louder in my head when I wore that crown, pleading for all the justice and light they had been denied in life, or else slain by in the first place. I wished it would lessen, but escaping for myself didn't help. What did quiet the voices was trying to get the others out... Her, and my unborn child."
Starlight folded her ears.
"I would have cared for them," Chrysalis whispered, looking out as the souls were stolen yet again. "At least, I would have been happier if I had. Or perhaps I wouldn't have. I was more concerned with my own needs and letting the rest of the world burn. When you dote on your friends, and save them from peril... do you earn any happiness at all?"
"Some," Starlight whispered. "But it's never enough at all."
In a world far from Starlight's, where the moon hung in the sky over a stranded airship, the entire crew of the Immortal Dream sans Maple and Jamjars sat around a table, talking in earnest.
"And that concludes our report," Gerardo finished, Slipstream sitting tiredly beside him. "Our mafioso friends are presently off our backs, albeit with one of our sound stones in their possession. We still have no food, though there is a large cache of it by the shore a feasible distance away. And the most recent report is that the Equestrian monarch is returning this way, this time with a specific interest in our ship."
"Finishing what Chrysalis started," Shinespark said, her usual post at the head of the table vacated in favor of the far end at one side.
"Well, that's no plan," Amber pointed out with a huff. "There has to be something we can do."
"Does there need to be?" A weary Felicity raised a wing. "While I've dealt with more than my fair share of corrupt heads of state, my admittedly rudimentary understanding of this Princess Celestia is that she's more of a Garsheeva than a Gazelle or Lord Gyre. And Garsheeva herself has largely acted in our favor."
Grenada narrowed her eyes at the ship's lights, still on and glowing from Jamjars' machine. "Were we not trying to hide from her gaze?"
Gerardo sighed. "Strictly speaking, that was under the advice of some griffons who are very definitely aligned against her. However, I think it would be possible to distance ourselves from them should the situation require it... not that I can say how much difference that will make. The policies of this land are sadly something I've never had the chance to study extensively before."
"What's the worst that could happen?" Amber asked. "They send us back north? Crystal might be waiting for us on the other side, but if the mountains are crossable and she's already coming for us, they'd totally have to deal with her themselves first to stop her from messing up Equestria."
"Chrysalis, now, apparently," Gerardo corrected. "And not to incite fear, but that's far from the worst that could happen."
Harshwater nibbled her lip. "How bad of a fate are we talking about? As bad as whatever Chrysalis did to Valey? As bad as whatever just happened to Starlight?"
"Well..." Gerardo raised a talon, then put it back down. "Honestly, being instantaneously reduced to cinders potentially doesn't stack up, there. Maybe. I'm a little hazy on exactly what Chrysalis was trying to do..."
"Either way, we are gambling with death," Grenada finished. "I have been imperiled too many times to enjoy that unnecessarily."
"It isn't a gamble if the odds are guaranteed," Shinespark whispered. "There are powers in the world you can't fight. I gave everything to save my city and it wasn't enough. Chrysalis didn't even give us a chance to fight, and the champions who let us escape with our lives no longer have theirs. Now we have the ire of another god. Either the griffons are bluffing and we live, or else we fail. Either way, we don't even get the decency of a choice."
"Shut up!" Jamjars snarled, standing on the landing of the staircase. "Are you ever going to grow up and stop saying that!?"
Shinespark whipped around, giving her a baleful look.
Jamjars marched down the stairs, hopping up and onto the table before squinting at every last creature there. She squared her shoulders and sighed. "So are you all going to sit around talking about how screwed you are, or actually get off your rears and let me not have to do everything? You're all bigger babies than my siblings. Oh, woe is us, we're in the Plains of Harmony past our bedtimes and Mommy Celestia is going to catch us and call us naughty!" She blew a raspberry. "It's like none of you know how to deal with the most common problem in the world."
Everyone stared at her. "The what now?" Amber dug a hoof around in her ear.
"If you have options, we'd be all for hearing them," Gerardo offered.
Jamjars sighed and rolled her eyes. "Step one: don't get caught. Step two: have your excuses ready. Step three: better to ask forgiveness than permission."
"We've already been found out," Harshwater pointed out. "If we try to abandon the ship now, she'll know it. And then we'll be stuck here without a ship."
Jamjars winked. "Who said anything about abandoning the ship?"
"Explain," Shinespark grunted.
"Well, since you asked so politely..." Jamjars tongued her cheeks. "What was the harmony extractor originally built to run on, before you got your fancy windigo hearts?"
Harshwater frowned. "Isn't it literally in the name? Harmony? I'm not the biggest scientist, but..."
"Brands," Grenada cut in. "Cutie marks. But Shinespark's was significantly more powerful than any we had ever seen before, almost unnaturally so, and it could barely allow a suit of armor to walk around for a day."
Jamjars grinned. "And you tested it on everyone, did you?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "If there's a point to be gotten to, here, we are on a timer. Better to skip the grandstanding and get to the point? You already have our attention."
"Fine..." Jamjars sighed, looking thoroughly put out. "Valey's was an artifice. Sorry if I'm breaking that to anyone, I don't remember how much of a secret it was, I snoop around a lot. You remember, those things that are supposed to be knockoff versions of those really powerful virtue things? I'll bet you it's strong enough to get this ship in the air."
Half of the room drew a sharp breath, and the other half sighed. "Great," Amber muttered. "So Valey could save us, if only she was here."
"Yeah." Jamjars' grin returned, and she reached into her mane. "If only."
Something golden slapped down on the table, a pendant that had once carried Nyala's moon glass and now sat empty. Amber looked wistfully at it, but most of the rest of the room blinked in confusion. But slowly, Amber's expression changed.
"Wait a minute..." Amber pointed a hoof, her other leg wrapped around Valey's shell. "Valey used to use that thing." She pointed across at Nyala, who was completely silent and unreadable. "It let her... let you out, or something, or share her body with her!" She turned back to Jamjars, eyes widening, and gaped. "Are you saying...?"
"How should I know?" Jamjars shrugged. "I didn't build this thing. I'm just doing what I can with the things I have to keep myself safe and out of trouble, and you along with me. And it sure wouldn't hurt for you to be complaining less while I'm the one doing all the work." She glared at Shinespark. "I was going to keep this a surprise until I knew if it would work, so I didn't get your hopes up. But you're all 'This is impossible!' and not even trying, and it's really ticking me off."
A faint flicker crossed Shinespark's eyes. "Your plan is too riddled with holes to stand a chance. And even if it wasn't, we're up against forces that are just too strong."
Amber stood up, walked straight around the table, and slapped Shinespark in the face.
"I hate having to do that," Amber said, staring down at her, the force of her blow having knocked Shinespark from her chair. "And I love doing it. There are ways to get Valey back and always have been, as long as we're ambitious enough! I know nothing about magic or science, and have been doing my utmost by caring for her body and taking care of it so if she does get back, she won't be an atrophied husk, and if everyone put in an equal amount of effort, we could really do this!" She stomped a hoof, turning around to face Jamjars as Shinespark hissed and rose. "Tell me anything I can do to help, and I'll do it instantly at your command. Felicity, you're with me?"
Felicity hesitated only slightly. "If there's a real chance? A-Agreed."
"You're idiots," Shinespark whimpered, gritting her teeth. "You don't even have her soul! Chrysalis does! Stop clinging onto feeble hopes! They'll only make it longer until you can move on..."
"I beg your pardon." Gerardo loudly cleared his throat. "But aren't you the most vocal prophet of us all meeting our ends at Celestia's hooves? If we're all bound to die, why not reach the end with our heads held high? Completely ignoring any hypothetical chance of success, I have never planned on dying crushed and broken, and I would rather not revise that intent now."
Jamjars' grin grew as several took her side. "Hah. See? Giving up is out of style. It's certainly not what Starlight would do, and you know where she is now?" She pointed with her tail at the engine room. "She's too antisocial to say it, but with how closely she carries around that sword all the time, it's obvious what it is. Moon glass absorbs cutie marks. I'll bet you rights to your bedroom once it's no longer an infirmary that the reason Chrysalis was chasing us is because Starlight stole Valey back. And maybe the rest of the batponies, too. She probably jumped in there just to go find her or something, just in case we found a way to put her back together again, because she's even stubborner than I am."
Everybody squinted and blinked at each other. Felicity rubbed her chin. "I suppose that makes sense, darling, but you'd think if that was the case she'd have told us..."
Jamjars shrugged. "She's probably being sad and not feeling up to it. Who knows. I've been busy working rather than being a cheerleader for your morale. Though if someone wanted to step up to that, it's sorely needed..."
"All this is irrelevant!" Shinespark protested, her voice getting higher. "So what? So what if you got her back? It would just be a brief respite, and then we'd be back where we are, and worse than ever before!"
Harshwater shrugged. "If we can fully recover from something like this and get someone back from the dead, I'm pretty sure we can come back from anything that doesn't kill all of us outright. This plan is honestly ridiculous, but it still could be worth a try."
"See?" Jamjars stuck her tongue out at Shinespark. "Everyone believes in me. Maybe they should make me the captain instead of you. So, are you going to help too? I could use it..."
"What do you want?" Shinespark whispered.
Jamjars sucked her cheek. "Well... the reason I needed power back, other than so it wasn't stupidly cold at night, is so I could check your terminal and see the plans for this thing so I could modify it, since it doesn't turn on automatically and I need it to do that. But everything on there just says the data is corrupted, which is lame. So I need you to show me how it works and help me change it."
Shinespark stared at her.
Jamjars tossed the pendant, catching it with a hoof. "I'll bet you your room I can get her back."
Shinespark turned her back and slumped her shoulders, shaking her head as she walked away.
Jamjars stared at Shinespark as she left with a mixed look of confusion and frustration. "Hey! Get back here!"
"Well, she's snapped," Harshwater sighed. "Not that it wasn't obvious already, but I know my broken ponies."
"Strictly speaking, she did have a point," Gerardo admitted, getting to his feet. "As much as you've been able to do, even if all your assumptions work in our favor, we are still missing a great many pieces of the puzzle. For one, Starlight is indisposed rather than in a position to help us. Even if she does possess Valey's cutie mark, how exactly are we supposed to get it? I have a feeling placing that entire sword in the pendant wouldn't be optimal."
Jamjars gave him a hard look. "If you have a better idea, you can speak up at any time."
"Where's Saffron?" Amber asked, sitting with a leg around Valey's shoulders. "If we've got no way around being caught, she could be the best diplomat we'll have."
"Sleeping off her injuries," Harshwater replied. " I can wake her..."
"Do that," Gerardo commanded. "And check on Meltdown and Gazelle. If a meeting is to be inevitable, we need our best diplomats front and center, and those with less skill hopefully off the stage."
Amber winced. "I hate to say this, but you know that means you, right? At times, you can be..."
Gerardo's headcrest fell. "I regret it, but can't deny it. Such is the price I pay for mostly being an adventurer who lives on the edges of civilization. But now is hardly the time to debate my social skills."
"Agreed," Felicity said, keeping her head up yet unable to hide the exhaustion in her eyes after two long flights and an evening of masquerading. "Personally, I think I'm at the point where I'd trust this princess over any griffons who warn us about her, but putting on a good face may well be the difference between life and death."
Harshwater wandered up the stairs. "I'll get Saffron and see what she says..."
"And this ship has Princess Celestia's attention?" Saffron wiped her unbrushed mane, blearily blinking sleep from her eyes. "Well, not much good in trying to hide from it. I'd greet her with your best face and see what she says."
Felicity glanced at Harshwater. "See? That's what I said."
"How likely is she to..." Amber tapped her hooves together. "Incinerate us?"
Saffron tried to shrug. "That's real hard to say. On the one hoof, she's a fair and just ruler. Sometimes the nobles under her don't know what they're doing, but the land is mostly peaceful, and not because she rules with an iron hoof. On the other, the border region... Well, I don't know a whole lot about it. I just got my writ and crossed. Keeping out so many creatures so strictly doesn't quite line up with the public image of her, and it's not even public knowledge there's such a big world up there. So maybe she's got secret reasons for not wanting you here? At the very least, she'd probably be nice enough to take you back north peacefully... though Garsheeva falling to an evil monster is hardly an everyday occurrence up north. So maybe she'll have a change of heart if you ask for asylum?"
Harshwater nodded. "The border is secured from the south, not from the north. It's the Equestrians keeping us out, and not the other way around."
"Yep." Saffron nodded. "All the old lore I've heard says it was the Princess herself who raised the mountains, a thousand years ago. Whatever the case, it's her who wants you out in the first place. Who knows if she'll have a change of heart?"
"But even if she wants us gone, she'll likely be kind?" Felicity turned to the others.
Saffron glanced over to Meltdown and Gazelle. "She certainly won't incinerate the boat with Equestrian citizens or foreign royalty on board, if that's what you're worried about. Maybe give me a hoof up on deck, and carry them too?"
"That sounds like a plan. Valey, help me out!" Amber gave Meltdown her shoulder, the gray mare getting to her hooves and following with a worried expression.
Valey's shell looked blankly at Amber, then copied her motion next to Felicity, offering a shoulder.
Felicity blushed, unsure how to respond. "Ah... no, darling," she said, patting the shell's chitinous head. "Help Saffron there, not me. I have no idea whether this is sweet or disturbing..."
"She's still in there," Amber said with a shrug. "I keep saying it and no one believes me. It's not empty and it's not dead."
From the hallway, Nyala watched with a sigh.
"Sorry..." Amber apologized with folded ears as she passed by. "I know our Valey and your original Valey were different ponies, and it's hard for us to keep talking about bringing just the one back..."
"You're fighting for who you believe in." Nyala shook her head, looking down. "She didn't believe in herself, though, remember? She worried so much that she shouldn't exist, or was a monster. Are you even sure she'd want you to bring her back, if she was here right now?"
"This isn't the time for that conversation, I'm afraid." Felicity walked through herself, too shaky on her hooves to carry anyone. "Frankly, I don't blame anyone here for being in a terrible headspace, though you really will want to get that looked at. If someone didn't want to be brought back from a fate like Valey's, it would be on us to change their views rather than to respect them. And perhaps I say that with a little bit of bias, but when we're in as bad of a situation as we are, I think I'm at least entitled to my views."
Meltdown sat on the deck next to Amber, who shared a shoulder with Valey and her with the cast-wearing Saffron. Felicity and Harshwater both sat alone, the latter still wary of batponies and the former happy to stand on her own. Jamjars lurked in the door to the bridge with a frustrated frown, and Grenada sat behind her, the lone representative of Ironridge while Shinespark was out. Maple was bedridden and Gerardo was below, Howe and Neon Nova having happily bowed out. The only pony left was Slipstream, sitting in the entrance to the stairwell and fighting off the fatigue of days of travel. Everyone stared at the mountains, watching the north.
Eventually, a streak of light appeared on the horizon, aiming directly for them. A few tails flicked, accompanied by turning heads and twitching ears, and Jamjars fidgeted, both Writs of Harmonic Sanction tucked inside her mane. It traveled in seconds, resolving into a single pony that was big enough to see at a distance, accompanied by neither guard nor chariot. Princess Celestia flew with a wingspan more than twice that of any pegasus, her mane trailing pink and green and teal behind her in a pastel rainbow, and she glittered with armor of gold.
She circled the ship once, the air shimmering as she swept her cone of heat over the hills and rivers that surrounded it. "Hello up there!" Amber called, waving, finally cracking from the tension.
Princess Celestia stopped, spreading her wings and hovering closer over the deck. Slowly, she descended, until her hooves touched the wood with four metallic clinks.
Her eyes surveyed them, wary. Her horn continued glowing. And eventually...
"Saffron Sunflower. Meltdown." Her aura went out. "You are refugees, then, from the Griffon Empire." She moved her eyes to Saffron's cast, and looked at each pony in turn. "Exhausted and injured. As I feared."
"Your Majesty." Saffron bowed low. "You know my name?"
Celestia shook her head. "I make it my business to know all who are authorized to cross my borders. Yet so many of you here are unknown to me. Whether or not you hail from the north, do not be afraid. You do not look like allies of the children of the Forest King. You will be safe here."
The air of relief was palpable all across the shipdeck, but nobody wanted to be the one to speak first. Eventually, it was Celestia herself who took the initiative. "Am I correct in assuming this is an airship, and you flew across the border from the north?"
Saffron held her bow. "That we did, Your Majesty."
Celestia nodded, looking at everyone equally. "And you knew in advance about the magical nature of these mountains that prevents any from crossing."
Amber kept her ears respectfully down. "If they stop ponies, they didn't this time."
"Indeed." Celestia nodded again. "When notification of the failure arrived in Canterlot, I came as soon as I could. These mountains are a vital part of the world, and their deterioration is most alarming... especially in that they are being crossed so soon. Tell me, why did you come, and are others likely to follow?"
Everyone glanced at each other, most of the ponies cowed by Celestia's gigantic presence. "We are refugees, as you guessed," Grenada eventually said, electing herself to speak up. "You know what happened in the Empire, then."
"I have flown there and assessed the situation," Celestia replied. "The continent recently suffered a large-scale invasion and is entirely without power, but their military has largely restored order and safety to most of the urban areas. So I can afford to tend to my own affairs for the time being." Her eyes scanned the group again. "How likely are others to follow you?"
"...We cannot say," Grenada answered. "Our ship is special, and the Empire lacks a fleet of their own. Ironridge is also grounded for the time being. We did not tell anyone the way was clear."
Celestia looked contemplative for a moment, standing in her shining armor. "None of you are at ease. My little ponies, please. I have much to ask you, but tell me what you require first as a sign of goodwill."
Felicity loudly cleared her throat. "Tell us who these children of the Forest King are, and why you seem so at odds with them, if we may ask?"
Celestia sighed. "A group of griffons who identify themselves by color. From the looks in your eyes, you have already spoken to them at length, haven't you?"
Slipstream mutely nodded.
"So what do you have against each other?" Harshwater frowned. "We're trying to stay safe and be left alone, and don't really want to be caught in a quarrel, you know?"
"I see," Celestia said, standing still. "Those griffons are the descendants of the last monarch to hold power in Griffonstone. Griffonstone has always existed in the shadow of the Empire ever since the creation of the Aldenfold, when some griffons swore loyalty to Equestria and chose to live south of the border. They held themselves together with nationalism and pride, aggressively denying their neighbors' power while building their society around an artifact known as the Idol of Boreas. But some time ago, a monster known as Arimaspi stole the idol and, after a battle with the last king, fell along with the idol into the Abysmal Abyss, a deadly canyon to the east of here. The royal line has lived in an enclave in the forest ever since, a self-imposed exile in which they lament the fall of their country and bitterly long for the ideals they once had. Today, Griffonstone is a ruined kingdom, far beyond the reach of any pride in an artifact to hold them together. Every griffon who wished to has moved elsewhere, toward the center of the world."
Slipstream's ears fell. "And you're somehow to blame for that?"
Celestia shook her head. "Arimaspi likely perished in his fall into the abyss, but he had a brood who survived him, living in these hills. The royal line swore vengeance, and for some time they waged war, flying out from their fortress stronghold to battle them, kin against kin. But Arimaspi's kind cannot fly, and the griffons had an insurmountable advantage in that they could retreat across the abyss to their hideout safe on the other side. Year by year, they drove them back, until they pushed the beasts into the mountains where my soldiers guard the pass. The monsters became a severe peril to the chosen travelers, and even to my border guard themselves. My ponies had no choice but to fight back, and were able to capture the beasts and seal them away. Ever since that day, the lands have been safe from Arimaspi's descendants, but the royal line believed we had robbed them of their rightful vengeance and began striking at us instead."
Felicity sighed. "I suppose simply hoofing the beasts over to them would be too much to ask for, then? If they're already captive, the griffons could be allowed their executions..."
"The children do not wish for the other side's annihilation," Celestia softly replied. "What was at first a crusade slowly evolved from a war to a hunt. They do not want them dead. They want them freed, so they can continue to harry them until the day the throne is restored. Before we were forced to seal them, they hunted the old and spared the young, targeting only the strongest and keeping the beasts weak."
"...Well, that explains a lot." Harshwater sat back with a thump.
"I guess that's who escaped that they ran off to go hunt," Slipstream said with a shrug.
Amber bit her lip. "Almost makes me feel sorry for the monsters."
"They are far from innocent, my little pony," Celestia answered firmly. "One wrong cannot erase another just as much as two cannot make a right. The only thing I can do is step between both sides and distract their ire from each other, and you have seen how that ends. Now. Have I helped to put you at ease?"
Several ponies nodded, but others stayed wary.
"I see." Celestia nodded again. "Tell me what you still fear. Is it your position here, south of the border where you do not belong?"
Jamjars poked her eyes out from the bridge door, her pupils reflecting Celestia's light like a cat in the darkness. "Depends. Are you going to send us back?"
Celestia hesitated. "I would like to have that conversation later. Writs of Harmonic Sanction are mine to bestow, and depending on your circumstances, I may be willing to make you a deal even if you lack enough on your own. But rest assured that under no circumstances will I put you in harm's way. You have clearly been through a great ordeal already."
Saffron lifted her cast and chuckled weakly. "It's that obvious, huh?"
Celestia fixed her eyes on the cast. "Did you obtain these injuries from the children of the Forest King, or were they from your time in the Empire?"
"The latter." Amber's eyes shifted to the door. "Just saying, but if you had medical supplies..."
"You have more injured below." Celestia nodded, and her horn relit. "Bring them to me. I will do what I can, and hope you respond in good faith."
Her brilliant-yellow aura congealed around the cast, deeper and richer than the auras of most unicorns, and Saffron shivered hard, her leg held out. "That's warm! Are you...?"
"Stimulating your body's natural healing abilities," Celestia replied. "You will still need days of rest for it to work, but will heal more naturally and completely than many common magical treatments. Provided you have no injuries that would not heal on their own given time, this is the best you can receive."
Amber hugged Valey closer. "I don't suppose you're good at healing more magical injuries, are you?"
Celestia's eyes passed between Valey's body and Felicity. "You have types of ponies among your party I would not have expected out of the present-day Empire, I see. If you wish for me to help here, I think it would be best if we moved on to my questions for you."
"This is Valey," Amber said, nudging the shell forward. It blinked at Celestia with empty eyes. "She used to be..."
Celestia nodded gently. "I understand. And yet she does not appear hostile or feral. She is far more like the changelings I used to know..."
"Changelings?" Harshwater tilted her head.
"Used to know?" Amber murmured, leaning closer.
"That is the name we have given them in Equestria," Celestia replied. "Few know of their existence, because they are almost always live lives as ordinary sarosians. But they were created in my lands, and I saw them at their genesis. Has she not displayed any of her powers?"
Amber blinked at the changeling. "Powers?"
"They are capable of changing their form and assuming mannerisms in response to powerful emotions around them," Celestia said, leaning towards Valey and lighting her horn. "Despite having no souls themselves, they have a limited ability to reflect the souls of others, rooted in their nature as creatures of emotion. When empty like this one, they subside on the positive emotions of others, rather than food. This one looks remarkably well-taken care of." She lifted her head, meeting Amber's eyes. "You care deeply about who she was."
"We all do," Amber replied, keeping her gaze from shaking. "Can you fix her?"
"Returning a soul to its body after it has moved on is no small feat, especially for a sarosian," Celestia murmured. "I am afraid it is far beyond my abilities."
"Oh..." Amber's ears fell, and a single tear trickled free.
Jamjars curled her lip. "Tell that to Garsheeva. She did it for us."
Celestia instantly fixed her with a curious gaze. "Hello, little one. You have met with Garsheeva?"
"In her crystal palace," Amber replied, pointing down the stairs. "Though I think everyone who actually saw her is inside... She put back together another friend of ours who had her cutie mark pulled out with moon glass."
"Hmm. Cutie marks." A smile twitched across Celestia's muzzle, belying deep concern in her eyes. "I did not know that was a common term in the north."
Saffron shrugged, holding and staring at her splint. "It's a term that gets spread around."
Nobody else spoke, and Celestia sighed. "She has not gone feral." She glanced at Valey, and her gaze moved on to Felicity. "And you are still whole. You escaped the influence that stripped all the rest of the Empire's sarosians of their souls."
Felicity shrugged, looking at the floor. "Yes, well... some of us were luckier than others, I suppose."
"This ship is powered by harmony," Grenada cut in, standing straighter. "No one aboard it was affected. Perhaps it protected us while it still had power. Unfortunately, now it is empty, and we are stranded as a result..." Her voice carried a tone that clearly suggested she thought there was something Celestia could do.
"Harmony can mean many things, my little pony," Celestia replied. "Explain."
Grenada hesitated, moving to the entry. "It will be easiest to show you, if you are familiar with magical technology."
Celestia stood very straight, her horn suddenly pulsing with some kind of signal. When everyone blinked, she nodded, stepping toward the door. "I am alerting my soldiers for our protection," she explained. "Your ship is surrounded by a hidden vanguard right now in case we are approached by the children of the Forest King, or Arimaspi's brood."
With varying degrees of acceptance, the ponies nodded, and Grenada led Celestia to the engine room, Amber and Valey close behind. The princess's head was bowed to avoid the ceiling, and when she entered the room, Jamjars' machine was still stuck into a console, Maple laying on a bed nearby.
Maple gasped, and immediately winced. "Ow...! Are you...?"
Celestia kept her head low, mindful of her horn against the doorframe, and straightened up once she could, nearly touching the rail array that conducted harmonic power. She kept a perfectly even face as she surveyed everything in the room, and eventually lit her horn towards Maple, bathing her in the same yellow glow that had suffused Saffron. "You are clearly injured," she whispered. "This will speed your healing."
Amber and Grenada entered the room as well, the rest staying behind to conserve space. "It is slightly patched together at the moment," Grenada admitted. "But our ship runs on the same type of power borrowed from ponies' brands."
Celestia's eyes next went to the obsidian sword. "You did not find this merely anywhere."
"It's different from regular moon glass?" Amber looked closer, holding Valey closely at her side. "We think she's inside..."
Celestia shook her head. "The meteor from eight years ago never fractured into that shape." She leaned closer, her eyes inches from the material. That close, both Celestia's outline and the sword itself seemed to shimmer faintly, as if they were reacting to each other in a magical way that wasn't entirely confined to one world. "Where did you come by this?" she asked, stepping away.
Amber winced. "Is this a question that could have really bad answers?"
Celestia gave her a serious look.
"My daughter made it," Maple interrupted, lifting her head. "Using Nightmare Modules. And now she's trapped inside."
"Is this true?" Celestia turned to face her. "The Nightmare Modules are not things ordinary ponies would even know of, much less use. And obsidian confined cutie marks alone. How do you mean she is trapped inside?"
Grenada shrugged. "She tripped and fell inside. I do not know how it occurred."
Celestia squinted at her.
"Either way, Valey might be in there too," Amber insisted, picking up Valey by the shoulders and holding the changeling up. "Even if we had her cutie mark in there, is there nothing you could do?"
Celestia looked at the sword for a long moment. "Do you know the legends of Nightmare Moon associated with this substance?"
"Maybe," Amber replied. "But I don't know if they're true."
"This black glass repels me," Celestia apologized. "Its original creator willed it to hold things separate from me. I could attack it, burn it, shatter it, hurl it into the sun, and it would refuse to yield to me. If something you seek is lost inside, there is still nothing I can do."
Amber's ears fell. "Nothing at all? Not even when I have her body right here?"
"I am sorry, my little pony." Celestia shook her head. "But that body is not your friend, and will never be again, no matter how much care you show it. Even if it one day learns to utilize its powers and transforms into an image you love, it will merely be a shadow, living off your love for it. There is nothing you can do but let go."
"Nothing." Amber's eyes burned into Celestia's. "Garsheeva could do something. There was a stallion called Chauncey who was trying to do this through science, too. Do you mean nothing, or...?"
"Nothing that would be worth disrupting the natural cycle of the world," Celestia replied. "All things are possible with the right power and the right will, even the ones that are not meant to be. You are a pony, as you were meant to be, and this is your fate. I am sorry."
"Nothing you can do..." Amber whispered, not letting go of Celestia's gaze. "You're telling us this just after Garsheeva cured another friend of exactly the same fate. One of my friends here made a metal body that worked when you put a cutie mark inside. Valey herself has been in moon glass and made it out before, years ago! Aren't you supposed to be a goddess? Who wants to help us? Why is there nothing you can do now!?"
Celestia didn't look away. "How many millions of ponies do you think there are in the world? How many thousands do you think die each day, from illness or injury or merely old age?"
"That's beside the point!" Amber raised her voice. "You're here, right now! Just because you can't help everyone doesn't mean it's fair not to help the ponies you can!"
"No." Celestia shook her head. "I understand your loss, my little pony. While every pain is unique, this is something that afflicts everyone in time. It is a natural part of the world, one everyone must live through. If I possessed the power and used it to intervene, why not help two who were suffering? And if two, why not four? I could never hope to stem the tide of death across my entire country. Without a line to never cross, there would always be more I could do, and my country would never be at peace. My line is the dead. While my subjects are living, I do everything in my power for them, but I stop at turning back time on fate. That is why you are the ones I am concerned for."
Her wing spread out, passing everyone in the engine room, but Amber didn't stop. "But this wasn't a disease, or an injury or old age! And she's not dead! She's right here!" She pushed forward Valey's body again, which blinked obliviously. "And here!" Amber put a hoof roughly on the cage holding the sword apparatus.
"Even were I to wish to, I told you that I cannot," Celestia apologized, closing her eyes momentarily. "I am sorry for your loss. I truly am. But the powers required to undo something of this magnitude are ones I have distanced myself greatly from. No mind could wield them and rule without the temptation to misuse them. Equestria is a peaceful land, and I must prioritize a fair and just rulership of it above all else."
Amber's face strained. "But Garsheeva..."
"You said you met Garsheeva in her temple's core," Celestia interrupted. "You are aware, then, of her true nature. She would have told you stories about how she rules and why."
"Amber..." Maple's ears fell. "I think she might have a point. Garsheeva doesn't rule the Empire. She's just a protector and figurehead, because she knew she couldn't handle the power. If she tried to be a kind ruler while being able to do this much for everyone... how would she ever choose who to spend her time helping?"
Amber glanced desperately at Maple. "But...!" She whipped back to Celestia. "You saw Meltdown. On the deck. You recognized her. If you know who Garsheeva is, you know who she is too! Maybe you can't help us just for being random ponies, but if she asks you to fix Valey, can you help her!?"
Celestia sighed. "Meltdown is known to me. I merely did not wish to pressure her with attention in her current state. She is very ashamed." She lowered her head down to Amber's level. "Believe me when I say that even if I wished to, there is nothing I can do."
"Please..." Amber whispered, eyes starting to tremble with tears.
"I am so sorry." Celestia spread a wing, offering it like a haven.
Without acknowledging the wing, Amber ran from the room, trailing sobs and leaving Valey behind like a clueless chicken. The changeling slowly nuzzled Celestia's leg.
"Oh..." Maple's ears fell sadly.
Celestia entertained the shell for a moment, rubbing one of its chitinous ears and earning a cicada-like purr from its rattling wings. Eventually, she looked up, glancing between Maple and the silent Grenada. "She was your captain, wasn't she?" she murmured. "You all appear shellshocked and leaderless. Soon, I am going to need to discuss things with someone who speaks for all of you, but you seem strained to the breaking point."
"...Our captain is still alive," Grenada said after a silence. "She is the worst off out of any of us."
"It was horrible," Maple whispered. "We were right there when it happened. We fought her ourselves. I thought for sure we were going to die. Ever since we escaped and ran out of fuel here, I've been bedridden and watching everyone else try to improve the place, just wishing there was something I could do... and I feel like I'm the best off out of anyone." She met Celestia's eyes. "I have a daughter and a best friend in that sword, and I would do anything for you if you could get them back. But if that isn't possible... please help the rest of my friends."
Celestia looked like she wanted to ask something, but held it back. "As I said, my little pony," she murmured, "for those who are still alive, I will do anything I can."
"Then take us away from here," Grenada insisted. "Even if we could restore power to our ship, we are out of food and in dangerous lands without a map or morale. Some of us were enemies before escaping together and having to work together to survive, and as you said, none of us are emotionally stable. We cannot support each other. I have heard you have a train that leads deeper into your lands."
Celestia inclined her head. "I see. This is why I would prefer a leader to discuss with regarding Writs of Harmonic Sanction."
Maple was aware that a lot more ponies were likely watching from outside the engine room door, but she folded her ears. "You'll have to work with what you can get, I suppose."
"...Mmm." Celestia sighed. "I do not make them rare for no reason. You are aware of this."
Maple nodded. "We have two, and Yakyakistan has promised us a third."
"That is a feat I see around once in a century," Celestia replied. "But there is little doubt your group is exceptional, from what I have heard."
"You have seen our condition," Grenada replied. "And not the worst of it. We sent our best showing to greet you on the deck. Grant us asylum."
"The Aldenfold are not simply a country border." Celestia stood up, spreading her wings as much as possible in the enclosed room. "They are a dividing line that splits the world in two. Any who cross it in either direction bring technology, ideas... magic." She stared at the obsidian sword. "I limit it as sharply as I do so that all who cross may be made known to me. There are many long-lost secrets in this world, and it is my hope that by limiting access between the north and the south, I may slow their spread and return. Do you know the legend of the thousand-year war?"
"A thousand years?" Maple blinked. "No, why?"
Celestia nodded. "Nearly one thousand years ago, the world was engulfed in a period of tremendous turmoil, when the Aldenfold was created and the world's geography set as it stands now. One thousand years before that, there was another great upheaval, and amid it gods such as myself and Garsheeva came to exist. History before that is lost to all but immortals such as ourselves, but I can assure you it happened before that as well. Whether it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, an ancient curse or something far more, we are less than fifteen years from another millennium, and events such as these in the Empire and the war in Yakyakistan decades earlier may well be precursors to another such world-shattering episode that all of you could live to see. Now, more than ever, I cannot afford to be careless about things that could have such dire consequences."
"What dire consequences?" Maple protested, her chest still weak. "We just want to live out happy lives."
"Shhh," Celestia whispered, looking over her shoulder with a twinkle in her eye. "I did not say no, did I?"
There was a shuffling in the hall as many ponies, including ones who hadn't been on deck like Gerardo and Howe, crowded closer to listen. Celestia turned around, regarding them all. "These are negotiations I require to have with a captain," she gently said. "One who speaks for all of you. If no such figure is present, it will be more difficult for me to safely allow you harbor in my realm, but not an impossibility. First, how many of you are there, excluding those who have Writs of their own?"
"That would depend upon how you count." Gerardo cleared his throat. "Some of us are here by circumstance, and others more permanent members. Though I apologize if I'm late to the discussion."
"You don't need to count me." Saffron shrugged.
Celestia held up a wing for quiet. "Peace. You will not be returned to the north tonight whether or not this is immediately settled. There are many more pressing matters to attend to, such as those of you who are unwell."
Felicity delicately coughed. "What manner of unwell are you referring to, might I ask?"
"I'm the doctor," Harshwater sighed, stepping forward with a nod at Felicity. "And her. Since you want someone in charge, this is our area."
Princess Celestia nodded. "Appreciated."
"I believe that's our cue from on high to clear the area for her majestic largeness," Howe breathed in Gerardo's ear, slinking away.
Celestia's head snapped up in his direction. "Well, you're unshaken enough to joke in the presence of royalty."
Howe grinned cheekily. "Accusing me of tactlessness? Hey." He shrugged. "No one here is going to vouch for me, so I may as well go out with a bang."
Harshwater groaned and shook her head, but Celestia's gaze eventually passed him over. "It is good to know your spirits endure. Ordinarily, I would be in more of a mood for this, but for now, there is business." She turned back to Harshwater and Felicity. "If you would."
"Go on. Clear out." Harshwater waved everyone off down the stairs with a sigh. "It's crowded here. I'm newer here myself, but we're definitely over capacity."
"What can we do for you, then?" Felicity politely bowed.
Celestia appraised them. "I must know every being on this ship, starting with those who are worst off, either in mind or in body. But first, how are the two of you faring?"
Harshwater shrugged. "Working myself to the bone to pay off a debt to a mare who no longer exists, which is miles better than my old boss. I could do with a break."
Felicity bit her lip. "Oh, you know, the usual ruing that my family died and I lived by a stroke of luck and nothing I spent my life doing matters anymore, and did I mention that I'm crippled for life with four or five months of foal I only wanted exactly that many months ago? Par for the course around here, I'm afraid. This place is a mess. The best I can do is find friends who will help me put it out of my mind."
Celestia stared at them and slowly whistled.
"That's just us, of course. Everyone else has their own problems." Felicity waved a hoof dismissively, far more nonchalant than the situation warranted. "That Prince Gazelle fellow hasn't gone out of shock since we got here, Meltdown is a zombie, our captain hates everything, half of us are crippled and injured and the ones who aren't are either overworked heroes or untrusted former enemies like yours truly and those weirdos in the pantry, we have a couple of insane fillies who are budding mad scientists, and don't even ask me to deconstruct Maple's issues. I used to find out what made ponies tick for a living, and I wouldn't stick my face in her clock if you... err... Bad analogy. Never mind." She reddened slightly. "So, what kind of goddess powers do you have for all that?"
Celestia actually looked slightly overwhelmed. "How did you make it across the mountains in such a dysfunctional state?"
"By running for our lives," Harshwater grumbled. "Everyone here is a civilian except maybe Gerardo, and I don't even know about him. I used to be a mercenary. You learn how to roll with things you don't like. But most everyone is here because they were all glued to a single mare who's gone now. Valey must have had a thing for collecting ponies with the same problems as her, whether deliberate or not. But I'm here because of her, and so is almost everyone else. Without her holding us together and with no goal better than survival to move towards, things have ended up like this. Though being on rations for a month doesn't help."
Felicity instantly nodded. "I don't suppose you have princessly abilities to carry large amounts of things, or soldiers to do it for you, but if you really wanted to help us, there's supposedly a large cache of food near the rails south of here. Complicated business, don't ask. A proper meal would certainly do my spirits a world of good, and would probably help for everyone else to boot."
Celestia looked thoughtful for a moment. "My train is extensively provisioned. For now, my soldiers are staying near this ship for security, but we could aid you in this."
Harshwater's stomach growled. "I sure wouldn't mind..."
"You said Gazelle was here." Celestia straightened up. "High Prince Gazelle, from the Griffon Empire. The last of the imperial line."
Felicity winced. "Well, here in body..."
Harshwater flicked her tail, leading for the infirmary and beckoning for Celestia to follow. The princess had to bow her head to get through the sliding doorway, but Shinespark's room was empty enough that she didn't make it feel cramped. Meltdown wasn't there, having been brought to the deck for the arrival, and Saffron was with the others below. Only Gazelle remained, staring lifelessly at the ceiling with pinprick eyes.
"...Poor creature." Celestia lowered her head and lit her horn, hovering it over him for a moment. "He is paralyzed by chaos," she said when she rose. "Garsheeva would have told you that sphinxes are not natural life forms. They are both harmonic and chaotic, created with forbidden knowledge and experiments that should never be performed today. This makes them far more susceptible to certain imbalances and conditions. His mind has suffered a great strain, in an area where he would have been magically compromised..." She closed her eyes, and her horn pulsed brighter. "Awaken."
Gazelle started to thrash and cry.
Celestia immediately pulled back, the prince still not lucid. "Lyn..." he moaned, his voice drier than the wastes of Gyre. "Lyn, no, don't go..."
A white wing reached down, a single feather wiping his brow. "Lyn!" He snapped his teeth at nothing, eyes darting. "Lyn!"
"Hmmm." Celestia exhaled. "This is a wound that may be too deep to heal."
"He can't stay there forever," Harshwater protested, pointing a hoof. "Look at how scraggly he's gotten. He's eating even less than the rest of us, and I know a thing or two about being bedridden too long."
"He wasn't exactly the nicest of ponies," Felicity murmured. "Then again, I'd be a slight hypocrite if I said he deserved this fate... What will you do? There's obviously nothing we can provide."
Celestia shook her head. "It would be irresponsible of me to allow him to return to the Empire in this state. If he ever does wake up, his grief would be terrible, and allow no room for his kingdom amid the denial and thirst for revenge. He would likely stop at nothing to be reunited at his sister, even if it was in death. I will take him to Canterlot. Until he is rehabilitated, it will be a mercy to his land."
"One less mouth to feed, I suppose," Felicity sighed, Gazelle fitfully writhing in the bed. "Assuming we stay together. Though honestly, without a common dream, I probably should be thinking about what to do after that changes..."
"Isn't this ship called the Immortal Dream?" Harshwater bitterly laughed. "Ironic you should say that about its crew."
"It is?" Celestia stared at her with interest. "Where did it come by a name like that?"
Harshwater shrugged. "It was before my time. Maybe Shinespark would know. She's technically the captain, but good luck dealing with her."
"I would like to meet her next," Princess Celestia announced, straightening up. "Where does she reside?"
Felicity glanced at the doorway. "These days? The darkest part of the ship, which is either the bridge or the cargo bay depending on how many others are there..."
"You were terrified, down there," Chrysalis drawled, pacing along a crumbling rampart at the top of the aqueduct, the last battle still reliving itself down below. "And now you're calm as can be."
"So?" Starlight figured it was useless to deny it, pacing along behind her with no destination to work towards. "It already happened. We're not fighting now."
Chrysalis scoffed. "Funny how useless the past can be. Have you ever stopped to think how all the time you've ever spent with your friends is in the past?"
Starlight blinked. "What's that supposed to mean? I'm not going to be stuck here forever!"
"Maybe you will, and maybe you won't." Chrysalis lazily shrugged. "Maybe you'll escape, and they'll all have moved on without you. Or maybe time passes differently here, and you'll come out years in the future. Either way, you're not back together right now. All the time you've ever spent together is in the past."
Starlight's face scrunched.
"Where are they now?" Chrysalis leaned over the edge, teeth pulling back in a growl. "Where is anyone who said forever and meant just for now? How much good is all the time you spent with them in the past doing you now?"
"Oh." Starlight's ears fell, but then rose again as she set with her jaw. "It gives me a good reason to find a way out of here. That's what good it does."
Chrysalis stuck her tongue out. "Bleh. Sounds like a bitter sustenance. That's a painkiller, not food."
"Is that really what ponies who care about you are to you?" Starlight trotted closer, her frown twitching slightly. "Food? Something to make you feel better?"
Chrysalis waved a hoof. "A barbaric way of putting it, but have you ever seen a pony who tried to survive without it?" She stared for a moment, then cleared her throat. "I mean myself. The results are pretty, aren't they?"
"You're supposed to be nice to your friends for their sakes," Starlight mumbled, growing frustrated. "Not think about what they can do for you."
Chrysalis turned around, stepping close enough that she was in Starlight's personal space. "Is this the patented, tried and true golden rule of your life?" She smiled graciously, then gave a condescending pat to Starlight's head. "Because your life is in so much better shape for it."
"It is!" Starlight growled. "If I didn't have my friends I'd probably still be a runaway, starving or living on my own in the badlands north of Ironridge!"
"Problems," Chrysalis sang, turning her back on Starlight. "Get off your pedestal and don't lecture me for wanting what I want. For a moment, I thought we were reaching an understanding, here."
Starlight swallowed and snorted. "Like you're having any better luck with your way of doing things. We're going in circles."
"Agreed," Chrysalis sighed. "It's almost like chastising each other for our bad decisions is completely and utterly useless. What was my point about the past, again...?"
"Having my friends wasn't useless!" Starlight barked. "And it wasn't a bad decision, either!"
"Ah ah ah. Spare me the sermon." Chrysalis waggled a hoof. "We just covered this. You're a mess. Say it with me..."
Starlight's ears pressed back. "Yes I am, but what do you care!? Are you trying to make me feel bad about it to get revenge, or make yourself feel superior? Because it's not working!"
"Oh?" Chrysalis seductively curled her lip.
Starlight stared for a moment and shook her head. "Don't make that face. It reminds me of Jamjars."
That left Chrysalis blinking in confusion. "You know what I think?" Starlight continued, pointing a hoof. "You're so lonely and feeling so bad about your life you want me to feel bad with you just so you have someone to complain about it with."
Chrysalis scoffed. "Congratulations, captain obvious, you finally caught on. What else is there to do in this accursed place?"
Starlight hadn't been ready for such an easy acceptance, and stumbled slightly. "Um..."
"Ugh." Chrysalis stopped and sat down, rubbing her head with a wing. "You're so stupid."
"What?" Starlight frowned, stepping closer.
Chrysalis immediately pounced, knocking her onto her back and landing atop her, pinning her with a growl. "Why are you being so nice and cheerful!? Your life is a dump! It isn't helping!"
Starlight growled back, fighting and rolling Chrysalis over until they were at the edge of the railing and she was on top. "Because you're moping and someone has to pick up the slack! Why don't you try being nice and making it a nicer time for both of us, huh!?"
Chrysalis hissed in her face. "Because you're being optimistic! Acting like everything's fine and happy and full of love and rainbows and sunshine is just lying to yourself! You're a trash can in a dress!"
"I am not acting like everything's fine and happy because it isn't!" Starlight struggled, managing to stay on top. "I'm acting like it could be in the future and is worth trying for!"
"And how long do you think I tried that before getting too jaded to see my own lover's treachery!?" Chrysalis managed to writhe away, scrambling back along the balcony until her back ran up against a tower that the wall fed into. "You're a stupid kid! I've been hanging on and waiting for a miracle for decades longer than you've been crawling around! How many years have you been preaching this, one? Less?"
"That's a good thing!" Starlight cried, her hackles all the way up. "Because sometimes my friends get too tired and quit, or can't see a way forward and I'm the one who has to keep going! I've never given up on them before!"
Chrysalis smiled darkly. "But we've covered again and again where that's gotten you."
"I don't care about the past!" Starlight stomped a hoof. "I care about the future! Someday, I'm going to get out of here and get Valey back and make everyone happy again and we're going to build a town at another Tree of Harmony, and we're going to run it our way and let everything be peaceful!"
"Well, isn't that romantic. Yech." Chrysalis made a show of scraping at her tongue. "It sounds suspiciously like a promise a certain good-for-nothing griffon once broke to me..."
Starlight took a step forward. "I'm sorry that happened, but you should just try again!"
Chrysalis made a face. "Oh, just try again, she says, just try again. How many times has your world walked out on you after broken promise after broken promise, and how have you felt then about trying again?"
Starlight fixed her with a glare. "Not as many times as it's broken a promise and I've walked out on it."
Chrysalis gave her an annoying look.
"I'm really stubborn," Starlight warned. "I know you want to drag me down to your level so we can be miserable together, but you could pull yourself up to mine. We could argue in here until the end of time if you really doubt I have commitment. You'll break before I will. I'll bet you anything."
"I'd be a fool to take that bet." Chrysalis suddenly drained, slumping against the wall. "I'm old and bitter and weary, and you're too young and stupid to see what condition you're really in. The harder you fight it, the harder you'll break at the end. Stick to your ideals, go ahead. When it finally fails, if you're strong enough to beat me now? Look at what I did." She pointed listlessly into the arena, which was nearly lost from sight in the falling ash. "The world will have a fun time dealing with your freak-out."
Starlight felt her pupils shrink slightly.
"Oh no, did I let an uncomfortable truth slip free?" Chrysalis opened her eyes, and they were sharp despite her broken posture. "You're going to snap. I can see it in your eyes and smell it on your breath. You're lonely. You're desperate. You know whatever you've been doing isn't working, but don't want to admit it to yourself because it'll mean all your effort was for nothing. It'll mean your precious, good harmonic ideals were empty and useless. You're going to go off the deep end worse than I have, and the harder you deny it, the less there is you can do to stop it. There's no way to prove me wrong..." Her grin reappeared, twisted and sickly. "You can only deny the inevitable."
"Or I'll be right in the end," Starlight whispered. "You're wrong and everyone who agrees with you is wrong too. We do have a happy future if I can just reach it! I can make everything be alright!"
Chrysalis gave her a serious look. "I'm not joking. You're going to hurt yourself."
"And you care?" Starlight lifted an eyebrow.
"You've done it-" Chrysalis froze as another phantom of her stepfather exited from a doorway into the tower, and was momentarily exploded by a lance of green energy, her own memory threatening to start randomly replaying as it had done dozens of times since they started walking. "You've done it before."
"I asked whether you cared," Starlight insisted. "Or more importantly, why."
Chrysalis sighed. "You're terrified of yourself, aren't you? It's why you protest so much. Probably why you refuse to own up to your own memory that keeps following us around like him." She gestured to where the spear still hovered.
"Don't change the subject," Starlight growled. "I told you, I haven't even seen anything following me that I remember other than you yourself!"
"Spooky." Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "I'm tempted to play with you and pretend I only look real because I'm a figment of your imagination, but I think I'd rather try you against the truth and see what happens." She grinned, leaning closer. "All this ash only started falling once you showed up."
Starlight froze.
"Hah!" Chrysalis crowed. "So what did you do? Burn your old house down? I know it's something you refuse to admit to yourself. You've already snapped once before, and that's why you're so-"
"Shut up!" Starlight stuffed a hoof in her mouth. "I didn't! I didn't! I..."
Chrysalis watched smugly, not even bothering to remove Starlight's hoof.
"I had a vision of the future." Starlight slumped. "Two of them. And I've already been told they'll happen if I refuse to give up on my friends, so... I don't need you rubbing it in. I'm not going to cause it myself. I have to find another way."
With a flash, Chrysalis was her adult sarosian self again, still sitting against the entrance to the tower. "Poor, stupid kid. If you get stronger as you grow, and you're this strong already, you know you'll eventually be-"
"Don't say it." Starlight looked at the ground. "Please."
Chrysalis chewed her lip, and finally sighed. "I have to admit, this is less satisfying than I thought it would be."
"You mean now that we both feel like garbage?" Starlight gave her a brief glare. "Well, thanks for the effort."
"And now I win." Chrysalis leaned back, satisfaction written on her face. "I told you you'd give up and see things my way before you won me over to yours."
"Laugh it up."
Suddenly, a hoof was on her shoulder, and it wasn't as condescending as Chrysalis's earlier gestures. "Just returning the favor."
Starlight winced as Chrysalis's hoof settled on her shoulder, the other filly appearing as an adult once again. "What."
"Hmm. Nothing of importance." Chrysalis didn't budge. "One would almost think you'd be happy here. If this ash is the memory that's following you around, you think you're to blame for a catastrophe in the future, and you're endlessly stubborn about being good and nice and wholesome... wouldn't it be worth staying locked away here for eternity? Sacrificing yourself to ensure the world is safe? If you really care that much about it..."
"I thought you didn't want to be stuck here with me," Starlight mumbled. "Leave me alone."
"No." Chrysalis licked her lips. "As true as that is, you refused to do the same to me. So here I am, like it or not."
Starlight stood up and walked away, heading for the entrance into the wall tower.
A green spear immediately floated up and barred her way. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," Chrysalis warned, shaking her head. "I've been around these parts before. You won't like meeting who's up there in your present state."
"Who cares what you think!?" Starlight snapped back. "I tried to be nice to you and give you a chance even after you killed my friends and you're the one who still hates me!"
Chrysalis curled her lip. "I've really been trying to decide which part of you I dislike most," she announced, getting to her hooves. "You stopped me in Grandbell, and I despise you for it. And now you won't stop prattling on about blatantly empty ideals even when I shove your face in them like a puddle in the street. Yet from where I'm standing, both of those are kindnesses. Pushing you off your path, sparing you the road to my own agony if only you'd stop and think... Who knows if it's possible, but I tried. And none of us are illusioned that I'm anything other than a despicable, fallen being who deserved to be stopped."
She paced in a circle until she was between Starlight and the door. "I hate you. I hate that your foolish ideals are so closed you perceive my kindness as hatred, and I hate that you're right. I hate that there's no difference, and that this is the only thing I can feel, whether I want to care or despise. But more than anything else, I hate you because you remind me of myself."
Starlight met her gaze with a stern look. "And you hate yourself."
"Bingo." Chrysalis stalked forward until she and Starlight were nose to nose, though she stood a head taller. "And here you come with your lovey-dovey niceness, and the only reason you care about me is for the exact same reason." She leaned further in. "I remind you of yourself, and you're so desperate to be loved that you can't help yourself."
"I..." Starlight swallowed.
"How does it feel, being beholden to a system that tells you to treat garbage like us with dignity?" Chrysalis returned to pacing. "Your life would be so much happier with me not in it, and yet you wheedle and beg and refuse to let me leave your side. What are you hoping for? What reward could you possibly earn, and who would give it to you? Me? Pah. I have nothing you want. And even if you leave here, what will you take with you? Everything you do here is in the dark. There's no god watching you, judging you, ready to reward you for being true to yourself here. Yet you just don't quit."
Starlight had had enough. "Well, what about you!?" She stomped closer, refusing to leave Chrysalis's personal space alone now that hers had been violated. "You just admitted you think you're being kind to me! You said you were! So if it's so pointless, why are you doing it!?"
"Didn't you listen?" Chrysalis gave her a deathly look. "Didn't you pay attention when I told you about my family and my foal and my hopes for the future before he ended it all?" She flung her spear with impossible venom down the wall of the rampart, a strangled cry coming from below as it pierced another phantom Gazelle who was sneaking up on them.
Starlight stared at her, daring her to go on.
Chrysalis closed her eyes. "It's an instinct you would never have felt," she whispered. "One that transcends whatever situation you find yourself in, and only strengthens as your life worsens. A determination that no matter what you've suffered and what you've lived through, it can still mean something in the end if you're able to leave a life better than yours for your children. What am I worth? Nothing. But if I could sacrifice all that nothing for the sake of my kin... what would I benefit? Also nothing. Yet my heart still tells me I should have given my foal a good life. I should have done my duty and not have let them be taken from me..."
She turned, fixing Starlight with a burning gaze. "Showing a mongrel like you a mote of love burns me. It feels too much like caring about myself, yet at the same time fills me with jealousy. It's a paradox, illogical and irrational. Beyond explanation. But you're so tiny and stupid and misguided, and might stay here forever or meet the same end I did if you ever escape. I'm worthless. It's easier if I'm worthless, and never do anything to change that. We could commiserate here forever. But there's some foolish, insignificant part of me just refuses..."
Starlight stepped up and hugged her.
"Stop that." Chrysalis stared down at her and frowned, but didn't throw her away.
"No." Starlight buried her face in Chrysalis's chest. "It's not foolish and not insignificant! You wanted to be worth something before you gave up and came to Grandbell, didn't you? Why don't you try again...? You always wanted to be loved too, and I'm willing to give you a second chance!"
"Until I learned that's not the way the world works," Chrysalis whispered. "I stayed on your airship long enough to hear about what it runs on. Harmony. That's what you call your way, isn't it? But how much better off were your friends than the world around them? Show me a pony who's ever been better off because they cared. I felt it in my heart once, but it's nothing more than an anomaly of nature to use in others for my benefit. It's all so worthless..."
"No..." Starlight protested. "If we had been your friends and you had been our friend, everyone would have been happier! You could have kept your foal, still had friends around when things happened with Percival!"
Chrysalis still glared at her. "You think I don't know that? It sounds like regret to me. And it's too late for anything else, so don't even think about it! Nothing I learn or say here will ever be remembered by my body's memories. This is another world, with just my corrupted brand along for the ride."
Starlight stepped back, feeling tears in her eyes.
"Now you're crying for me. Wonderful." Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "There's nothing you can do. Haven't you learned this by now? What are you going to do, escape from here and then mourn over me when you could have been so much happier if you just didn't care in the first place?"
"But you care," Starlight grumbled. "Even if you're wrong, you're still thinking about what will make me happy."
"Don't remind me." Chrysalis pushed her away.
Starlight gave her a serious look. "Please..."
"Go!" Chrysalis waved a hoof impatiently, shooing her toward the tower entrance. "You have an errand, don't you? Get on with your broken self. Stop staying here with me."
"I'm not leaving you behind," Starlight said flatly.
Chrysalis shrugged. "Who said anything about that? I'll still be here when you're done up there. For better or for worse..."
Starlight swallowed. "Fine. You need time to think. I... I do too. But even if I find Valey and a way out, I'm not leaving until I see you again, so don't even think about trying to hide."
Chrysalis nodded, slumping on her side against one of the ramparts and looking away. With a final sigh, Starlight entered the tower.
A carpeted staircase spiraled beneath Starlight's hooves, feeling heavily familiar. She was sure she had been here before, but without color, it was hard to exactly remember...
"Starlight," a voice said that froze her in her tracks. "Thank you for joining me."
Around her, the walls fell away as the stairs reached the floor above, a circular room completely ringed by windows. "You remember me?" Starlight whispered.
"Should I not?" Gwendolyn tilted her head. "You actually caught my attention. I hope asking you here was not much of a bother. I wished to speak with you more. Please, have a seat and help yourself." She motioned to a table with tea.
Starlight took several hesitant steps closer. "You're real? Or... this is your memory. The thing you remember most is... meeting me."
Lyn politely blinked. "I am afraid I do not follow. Yes, I recall when we talked before, but I would not say it is my strongest memory..." She fluttered her wings and smiled. "But as you can see, you made an impression. A private audience with me should be a great honor."
Starlight wracked her brain, remembering what they had talked about, and had a bad feeling she knew. "You called me here because... you're afraid of your future and wished you could be who you wanted to be, and wanted to talk to me because you knew I would understand..."
The sarosian princess stared at her in utter awe.
"I'm so sorry," Starlight whispered, stepping closer and pulling her into a hug, Gwendolyn too shocked to resist. "You were hoping we could help you start a new life where you wouldn't go insane like Gazelle or be a ruler or anything, and the only life I was able to get for you was here..."
Starlight had the sensation of eyes on her back, and knew Chrysalis was watching from the stairway, but she didn't care. "I'm sorry," she repeated in Lyn's ear. "Somehow, someday, I'll find a way to save you all..."
"It won't be enough," Chrysalis warned, walking over and taking a seat near the tea set. "It's never enough. We're in a prison made from pure loneliness. Nothing in the world is strong enough to dispel that. But by all means, keep trying..."
Princess Gwendolyn stared at Chrysalis with a puzzled expression. "I'm sorry?"
"No you're not." Chrysalis lazily waved a hoof, settling into one of the tower room's plush chairs. "Go on. Have your memory. Don't mind me."
Lyn turned to Starlight, eyes insistent. "Who is this? I requested an audience with you, Starlight. Explain to me what is going on. I wish to know how you know me as well as you do."
"Because..." Starlight's throat was dry, no answer forthcoming. "It doesn't matter. How long have you been waiting for me?"
Lyn blinked. "Some time. Does the precise amount matter?"
"No, just..." Starlight swallowed. "I'm sorry."
The other filly started to look concerned.
Starlight took a deep breath. "You're dead. This is your afterlife. You don't remember it, but you've probably talked to me thousands of times before and told me how you wished you could run away like I did and not have to be a sphinx or a princess anymore. You probably won't even remember this conversation. And... there's nothing I can do."
"What?" Lyn took a breath, looking like she had been swatted. "That is not the kind of thing you come out and say to a princess! What are you talking about!?"
Starlight fidgeted, looking helplessly at Chrysalis.
The older mare rolled her shoulders and offered no help whatsoever.
Lyn stared at both of them, stubbornly awaiting a better explanation.
"I-I'm sorry." Starlight lowered her head, got up and walked away. "I just don't know what to say."
She was halfway down the staircase when she slumped, leaning against the stone wall, and didn't get up. "Words fail you," Chrysalis drawled, following along behind. "At last, some peace and quiet."
"Shut up," Starlight grumbled. The only reason she wasn't crying was because that would accomplish nothing at all. "Senescey and Navarre were my enemies, and seeing them stuck here was bad enough. Lyn was my friend! I thought maybe she really would run away from the Empire with us, and be happier for it. I have nothing to work with. I don't know what to do besides keep hoping..."
"Does it hurt, being helpless?" Chrysalis licked a hoof and used it to wash her ears. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what that's like. Get used to it, princess. It's about time the world stopped rolling over and letting you have your way."
Starlight's hackles rose. "What's that supposed to mean!? Everything I've ever done, the world has been against me every step of the way!"
Chrysalis gave her a sultry look. "You could be happy, knowing your friend gets to spend the rest of eternity locked in a memory where she basks in your presence."
"Stop it." Starlight turned her back on her. "Now you're not even trying to make a point. You're just wanting to get under my coat, aren't you?"
Chrysalis shrugged. "What's left to do? We understand each other, as irrational as we are. I've said everything I have to say to you. All I've got left is spite."
Starlight continued ignoring her.
"If you want my coping mechanism," Chrysalis offered, "we are still in a tower. Climb on the roof and scream at everything. It's remarkably therapeutic."
Starlight looked up, staring at her for a moment. "...That actually sounds like good advice."
"I'll be right behind you..." Chrysalis smugly retreated out of sight.
On shaky legs, Starlight returned to the meeting room, where Lyn's memories had already reset. "Starlight," she greeted cordially and with a hint of anticipation Starlight only heard now that she was looking for it. "Thank you for joining me."
"I'm... happy to," Starlight replied, unable to meet Lyn's eyes. "You want to talk, right?"
"Mhm." The princess nodded. "Please, make yourself comfortable."
"Actually..." Starlight glanced up. "Could we go up to the roof to talk? Is there a way to get up there from here? The weather is good and the view might be pretty..."
Lyn nodded thoughtfully, completely failing to register the falling cloud of ash. "There is a door," she announced, nodding up at a small hatch in the ceiling that Starlight wasn't sure had been there a minute before. "Though it may be difficult to reach..."
Starlight shrugged, hovering up and forcing it open without too much difficulty. "We could fly?"
"Oh." Lyn blinked, scratching her head. "For some reason, I thought you couldn't... Well, then!"
Momentarily, she joined Starlight on the roof. It was flat and nondescript, with an inch of ash padding her hoofsteps and the world obscured in all directions. She knew which way was south, the Aldenfold somehow cutting through the ash in her vision, but the ground was lost beneath a curtain of falling flakes.
"Hmm," Lyn remarked as they settled in. "It is less windy here than usual. This was a good suggestion."
Starlight earnestly turned to her, the ash falling all around them. "Do you ever worry that whether you like it or not, you'll grow up to do something really bad?"
Lyn stared at her quizzically. "That is a remarkably forward question for how little we know each other."
"You were planning on asking me, though," Starlight pointed out. "A... friend told me. Just... I do."
"I see." Lyn decided not to question it.
Starlight took a breath, the ash starting to press in on her like a suffocating blanket. "Sorry. Cover your ears," she warned. Then she reared up...
"Why won't you let me protect my friends without threatening me with those visions of the future!?" she screamed at the sky, standing on two legs. "Why do I have to be the one to protect them in the first place!? Why can't someone else do it!?"
A little hoof settled on her shoulder as she stood back down. "Sometimes," Lyn said, "I feel that the further you are above everything, the less anyone hears you. You can cry all you like, but it doesn't feel like it changes anything."
"Tell me about it," Starlight mumbled. "I just want to save everyone from this place. Including you. Why is that so much to ask for?"
"Any goal involving the words 'save everyone' is bound to be difficult," Lyn advised. "Save us from what, though? I still have many years before I... Never mind. Right now, I was mostly just hoping to see if we would get along!"
"We do," Starlight whispered. "And if I ever get you out of here, I'll be your best friend ever. But I just don't know how..."
Lyn pursed her lips. "Everything you say is full of superlatives. Best. Everyone. Starlight, believing in your dreams more fervently is not the best way to make them come true."
"Isn't it?" Starlight swallowed, glancing at her glowing flanks. "A long time ago, someone I care about told me that if you have a dream you believe in more than anything else, you'll get a mark here that gives you the power to do just that."
"Your brand?" Lyn tilted her head. "But you must know how rare it is for ponies to get them at all... What would you even like yours to do? It sounds like you want to be able to do everything for everyone, but for me, I wish I was less powerful and important. Then I would have less weight on my shoulders..."
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut. "But if I don't carry it, who will? What if everyone stays here forever? No one else is going to help them..."
"Everyone. Forever. No one." Lyn shook her head. "There you go again. Starlight, I... don't know why, but I remember you being different from this..."
Starlight wilted. "I know why you do. I feel like being here is breaking me. I just want to leave..."
"Leave where?" Lyn whispered.
"This place. Everywhere. This whole world. I..." Starlight swallowed. "If I tried to explain it, you wouldn't understand. I just need out."
Lyn gave her a contemplative look. "I do understand. This is the exit, you know. It's why I enjoy spending time here. I've always thought about just forgetting my responsibilities and running away..."
"The exit?" Starlight blinked hard. "To where?"
Lyn stared up at the sky and flared her wings. "The world. I will show you."
For a moment, Starlight watched her, certain she had to be conflating something. No one was aware of the nature of this moon glass world save her and Chrysalis... but suddenly, a shadow appeared in the sky. It drew lower, sliding along a cable so thin Starlight hadn't seen it in thin air. With a silent puff of ash, a gondola settled onto the roof.
"If you want to go..." Lyn beckoned with a hoof. "I won't keep you."
Starlight stared at the thing, feeling utterly surreal. Her mind traced the direction it had dropped from, and her gaze met the Aldenfold, looming to the south. "It's the way to the pass to Equestria," she whispered. "Really?"
"I don't know," Lyn replied with a shrug. "I have never been this way."
"You just know it's the way out." Starlight stared longer at the gondola, her wings twitching. "And you remember it. Maybe it goes somewhere else here? I've searched all over this place, but I've never tried going up before..."
"Good luck," Lyn whispered. "I wish I could come too."
"As if I'm leaving you behind." Starlight bodily grabbed her, eliciting a shriek of surprise from the princess. "You can forget about our conversations as many times as you like, but I'm done leaving my friends behind. Come on." She shoved both of them into the gondola, and it began to rise of its own volition, the tower roof falling away through the ash. "We're seeing what's at the top of those mountains."
"What are you doing!?" Lyn squeaked in surprise as Starlight hauled her into the gondola. "Put me down this instant!"
Starlight shoved the door roughly closed, and stared at its crack as the ground began to press against her and the rooftop fell away. "Sorry," she panted, breathing hard. "I'm just... done with everything. And I'm going to grab any chance I can get."
The inside of the gondola was plush, with a velvet bench on either side. Lyn took the one that was further from Starlight, watching her closely. "You aren't lying. I can feel your frustration from here." She dusted off her dress. "Please, ask before doing that again, however. I do not appreciate being surprised by any form of attack."
Starlight folded her ears, reminding herself that the princess's cutie mark detected lies... and apparently cutie marks worked just fine here. "I'm sorry," she repeated, the gondola swaying lightly as it rose. "I am helping, though. I want you to be anywhere but where you were just then."
Princess Gwendolyn scrutinized her. "You say that with great conviction. I know you know more than you have said. What are your aims? If I am going with you, I have a right to know."
"This place is..." Starlight stopped and swallowed, the thought crossing her mind that trying to explain the nature of being in the moon glass might make the memory-resetting process quicker. Navarre had rewound the moment she finished talking to him, after all... "Never mind. I don't think I can tell you."
Lyn stared suspiciously into her eyes. "And you believe it, too."
For a moment, Starlight felt a flash of regret, realizing she was doing exactly what she hated when Glimmer did to her. Maybe her lookalike really did have reasons that were both good and unutterable. "We both wish we didn't have to be who we are, right?"
"And who are you?" Lyn kept watching her, inquisitive. "It was I who summoned you, yet I feel as if you are looking into my soul. I cannot parse you, and I am normally quite skilled at reading the intentions of others. You speak about things that are close to your heart without so much as an invitation, yet are more guarded and reserved than the Aldenfold itself."
Starlight looked up. "I don't know."
"You see?" Lyn pointed a hoof, trying to gesture as if it was a paw. "You make no sense. I..." She blinked. "I was going somewhere with this."
Starlight instantly sat straighter. "If you feel like you're forgetting anything, concentrate on why you wanted to talk to me at your tower. You remember that, right?"
"Yes!" Lyn perked back up again. "I was-"
A snickering Gazelle pressed his face against a window.
With a flash of green, he was impaled from the side, tumbling away into the abyss. Starlight's ears pressed back. "One minute," she insisted, cracking open the door, sticking her head out and looking around.
"Oh, don't mind me," Chrysalis drawled, lounging on the gondola roof. "Just making sure I don't miss the fun. Speaking of missing things, though, aren't you forgetting someone? If you really think any random location some memory happened to remember is any more likely to be a hole in a perfect prison than the rest..."
"Shut up," Starlight warned. "This feels right! Those mountains are special in real life somehow, so they might be special here too! And don't even think I'm leaving without Valey!"
"Starlight," Lyn politely said behind her. "Thank you for joining me."
Starlight froze, slamming the door shut in Chrysalis's bemused face. "...Hi," she mumbled, turning with a limp mane to face her host.
Lyn blinked, staring at her. "I wished to talk, but... are you sure you are feeling up to it? I would understand if this meeting were overwhelming for you. You are a filly, after all." A bitter irony tinged her last words.
"No." Starlight shook her head at the ground. "Sorry. I've had a really bad day, and I really don't want to talk about it even though you might understand."
Lyn stared at her for a moment longer. "...I see," she eventually said. "Believe it or not, I think perhaps I do understand. You look as though you have not had a break in a very long time."
"Nope." Starlight curled up on the opposite bench, folding her forelegs and resting her muzzle.
"Then this meeting may as well be what we need." Lyn stretched out on her own bench, flicking her tail. "I have ensured we will not be disturbed while we are here. Please, take all the time to rest you please. I hope you will not be bothered by my presence?"
Starlight closed her eyes, keeping one slightly cracked to watch the princess. "Please stay," she insisted. Thoughts of guards who were mere phantoms and soulless memories themselves flitted across her mind. Lyn may not have understood just how little power to secure the place she had, but somehow, Starlight felt her frown lessen just a little as the ash silently drifted around them.
Princess Celestia had to duck to enter the cargo bay, which she did with so much grace the doorframe may as well never have existed. This was the one part of the ship Jamjars' power machine hadn't brightened, and with a twitch of her ears and a faint concentration, the luminescence of Celestia's mane grew until the room was bathed in the light of day.
An orange unicorn sat in the corner, face to the wall, and refused to look up.
"So, you are the one they call the captain," Celestia greeted pleasantly, Harshwater and Felicity staying behind in the hallway. "I have looked forward to meeting you."
She didn't approach, but still earned a response. "You have, have you? I hope you have an agenda."
Celestia watched Shinespark with a straight face. "My agenda is in speaking to you."
Slowly, Shinespark turned to face her, weeks' worth of uncut and unbrushed mane allowing her bangs to grow and shadow her eyes. Her tone was neither welcoming nor aggressive. "I've said all I have to say."
With a glitter of vibrant yellow, Celestia's aura brushed back her bangs, revealing the lingering crack along her horn. "...You do not seem like a pony with much patience for those who state the obvious," Celestia remarked.
"I don't have any impatience, either," Shinespark muttered. "You'd be wasting your time either way."
"Tell me about your cutie mark," Celestia said.
Shinespark blinked, caught off-guard by the suddenness of the question. "What?"
"Tell me." Celestia nodded, settling in patiently.
Shinespark sighed. "If you care, I got it years ago when I made an oath to protect my city. Turned out whatever it could do wasn't enough. And without my horn, it's not only meaningless but inert, too. Just a picture on my flanks."
Celestia hummed in interest. "In days long bygone, there were ponies whose marks gave them so much power, their societies looked completely different from yours or mine today, and they took it all for granted. There were also ponies whose marks gave them no powers whatsoever and were nothing more than pictures. Some of those ponies used those magicless pictures to do truly great things, like inspiring others and rallying them together under a common cause. If your cutie mark could do more for you, would you use it?"
Shinespark stared blankly at her. "Of course I would. What kind of question is that?"
Celestia smiled knowingly. "Then you still have sparks of your dream. You aren't the first pony I've seen who's talked themselves into giving up, or the second. Tell me about how you earned it, my little pony."
Shinespark stared a moment longer, then shook her head. "You have better things to do than listen to me. But fine..."
"It's going to work," an orange filly whispered, her short tail flicking as she crouched hidden beneath a break room chair. "Eventually. Just you wait and see."
"We've been here for twelve minutes," the colt hiding with her muttered, quietly checking his wristwatch. "Seven of which have been break time. I deduce the probability of anyone falling for your trap is regrettably low."
"It's not a trap, Dior," the filly giggled, covering her mouth with a hoof to keep herself quiet. "It's a gift. Everyone has been so mopey these past months, they need something to put some pep back in their step. This is a brilliant plan. You watch."
Dior rolled his eyes. "Shinespark, let us be under no illusions that we are here for the enjoyment of seeing somepony be pranked and for no reason other. Call it a noble goal all you like, but as the older of us two I would at least expect you to be-!"
"Shhh!" Shinespark clasped his mouth shut with her aura, sticking out her tongue in concentration and scrunching her face at the door. "Someone's coming!"
The door burst open, no doorjamb to stop it from clanging against the corrugated metal walls and exposed support boards of the break room. Heavy hooves stumped in, each the size of Shinespark's head, moving with a speed that suggested they were in a hurry.
"Look at him. Parched, clearly," Shinespark mouthed. "Come on, use the water cooler... You know you want to..."
The stallion sat down heavily in an adjacent chair, scooting it slightly with his force. Shinespark winced. Her hooves would have been crushed had that been the one she was under.
Dior looked at her for a moment, until both of their ears were drawn by the sound of quiet sobbing from above.
Frowning, Shinespark crawled out from a direction the stallion couldn't see her, moving to the door and pretending to enter through it. "Gasket?" she asked, staring at the stallion from the doorframe, his head in his hooves on the table.
"Who the...!?" Gasket's head snapped up, a brown-and-chartreuse worker's vest covering his muscular shoulders. "Oh. You're that filly they let hang around. Must feel good, having the run of the place. Bet no one's told you to get lost in your life."
Shinespark curled her lip. If only he knew... He probably did. She sidled to the water cooler, her horn glowing a pleasing sapphire as she filled him a cup. "I've heard it here and there. Why the long face?" She blew on her bangs, causing the teal streak in her mane to wave slightly.
Gasket took the cup, but didn't drink from it. "They let me go, for your information. So much for Arambai and his promises."
Shinespark squinted. "I'm not familiar with the turn of phrase..."
"Fired!" Gasket turned to roar in her face, blowing back her mane and flecking her with spittle. "Let go! Released! Told they don't need me anymore! Seven generations of my forefathers working here, and it all means nothing and all ends with me."
He stood up and faced her. Shinespark had just started her growth spurt, and her legs were noticeably longer than a normal filly's, but even if she had been as tall as a full-grown mare he still would have towered over her. She blinked once and wiped her face and mane dry with a hoof.
"Are you sure?" Shinespark blinked slowly and skeptically. "Arambai knows how to run a factory. Even if the rest of Sosa is a mess, he never fires his own."
Gasket glared at her, and a vein twitched near one eye. "Sure does," he sighed, deflating. "Means I'm not only not good enough, I'm the least good enough. Doubt that'll comfort whoever comes next..."
He threw back his head and chugged the glass, marching toward the door, but dropped it and sprayed water halfway through, hacking and wheezing. "Bwaaaaah! What the-!?"
Shinespark's eyes widened, and she darted for a wall, slipping inside an open ventilation duct he had no hope of following her through. Her horn glowed for light, and several bends in she bumped nose to nose into Dior.
"From the sound of that, spiking the water cooler with chili peppers did not give him the kick he needed," Dior dryly remarked.
"Dior." Shinespark wasn't listening, grabbing him hard by the shoulders and staring him in the eyes. "When was the last time we checked Father's payroll records? He says he was fired, and that's preposterous. We need to get proof that he's lying and show it to someone who can expose him, or he'll hurt our factory's reputation and make Father's job even harder! He's probably a spy paid by the Sky District to-"
A hoof to the muzzle interrupted her furious whispering. "Shinespark," Dior admonished. "Those are serious accusations all around. Father does business ethically and we must trust that the Sky District would do the same to him. But these signs of the times are dark indeed. Perhaps we should make for his office."
"Agreed." Shinespark slipped past him, scurrying off down the air duct, leaving the spiked water cooler to its fate.
Shinespark spread her forelegs, blocking the passage and forcing Dior to stop. Ahead was the grate to Arambai's office, properly secured courtesy of keeping up appearances. From the voices coming from ahead, he was in the middle of a meeting.
"You drive a hard bargain," Arambai's voice growled, as scratchy as ever. "But price cuts on the materials for Skyfreeze aren't on the table. I need to keep up a strong showing for Sosa's involvement in the skyport project if you want the public to stay happy with these changes. If the numbers don't say it's good for Sosa, the public will know."
A high-class stallion chuckled. "Who cares what the public knows? You're the elected official, sir. Tell the ponies it's a time of national hardship when they all must buckle their belts to out-compete parts and materials shipped in from Yakyakistan! Besides, there's nothing like a common enemy for driving up approval ratings. Work with me on this price cut, and you could profit from it too!"
"You say that." Arambai took a long breath. "Profits are a thing of history. We've been in free-fall through the red for the last three years, and you know it just as well as I do. I'm less concerned about making money and more about spending it to preserve my workers' dignity."
"How remarkably forward of you," the other stallion replied. "I wish you luck in your... ahem... altruistic endeavors. So long as it doesn't complicate mine. It would be a tremendous logistical hassle to switch our coordination systems to managing shipments for outsourced materials, you see, one I'm afraid my superiors don't quite understand, so I could be persuaded to throw in a bonus if it meant taking the deal and skipping deliberations altogether..."
"A bonus for me?" Arambai growled. "Or for the first wave of stallions I had to let go thanks to your shenanigans two weeks ago with that defaulted contract on the power grid?"
The other stallion started making patronizing excuses, but Shinespark didn't stick around to hear it. She silently backtracked, pulling Dior with her as she slunk away into the maze of the ventilation system.
"I can't believe it!" Shinespark huffed, pacing violently back and forth in a safe room had set up just for her and Dior to use as a hideout. "I thought he got those stallions reassigned after they seized the south dam power routing station! Is there nowhere for them to go? We still have growth in defense research and conduit infusion-"
"The conduit infusion enchantment team is flooded with Mobius's decommissioned omega hull alloy division," Dior replied softly. "And there were twice as many as Defense was able to take. They mostly needed safety experts who knew about the ways mana currents interacted with bodies, so many of the console experts seem to have been extra. Last I checked."
"But there are other terminal teams!" Shinespark loudly protested. "Why not assign them to encryption and storage, or peripheral development, or..."
"Operating at maximum capacity," Dior answered. "The equipment used to build the research equipment was decommissioned thirteen years ago, and there was an explosion last month that took out the one they were trying to bring out of retirement and back online. Nothing for more engineers to do."
Shinespark glared, spinning and flinging a gangly hoof at him. "Well, so much for you saying the Sky District would treat us equitably and fairly, then! What kind of business do they have taking over a power routing station with armed guards the moment we finish building the power conduits to Skyfreeze?"
Dior sighed. "Strictly speaking, it makes business sense because now we can't cut their power when they refuse to pay without blacking out half of the Stone District. But perhaps I misspoke."
"I'll say you did," Shinespark grumbled, angrily pushing her mane out of her eyes. "Father isn't supposed to have to fire anyone! There's always been something he can do! And those foreigners from that yak hole keep cheating when he's done so much for Sosa, and they don't respect any of it at all!"
Dior tried to rest a hoof on her shoulder. "Shinespark-"
She brushed it off. "How high up do you think their corruption goes?" Shinespark whirled on him. "Contractors? Managers? Project leads? Their ambassador? Church? Heads of church? Yakyakistan is a theocracy. Their religion is supposed to be about harmony and treating one another with respect..."
"Perhaps it is their point of view." Dior shrugged. "The workers here have dozens of generations of history set in Sosan ways. The yaks have zero. To them, our stubborn refusal to move up the mountain must seem quaint or even frustrating. After all, they are apparently short on physical labor."
"In the Sky District, where it's cold and Sosans have no business being." Shinespark aggressively slumped. "Come on. Are you with me?"
Dior gave her a skeptical look. "With regards to what?"
"We're going to pay them a visit." Shinespark flicked her tail, heading for the ventilation ducts. "Skyfreeze, the skyport, their construction headquarters. They'll be heartless and kick us out for being two random kids, obviously, but I want to see who's responsible for this at the top with my own eyes."
Dior sighed and followed along. "Well, you've never been one to commit to anything in half measures..."
Hours had passed, but Shinespark and Dior were nearing the top of the Stone District. Shinespark knew if she looked back, she would be greeted by a sprawling forest far below, intermingled with settlements and plantations and the distant smokestacks of Sosa, many of which had gone silent. But she kept her gaze steadfast and forward, to the point where the ponies in the streets started giving her concerned looks. None of them recognized her. None of them saw her as anything more than a young mare with a mission.
"The map said there was a tunnel this way that led to the Water District," Shinespark puffed, her legs and lungs burning. "It should be right..." She stopped, pointing to where the road dead-ended one more zigzag up. "There."
Dior stumbled up beside her, rasping for breath. "What are you attempting, an uphill marathon? This is a mountain, for Sosa's sake!"
"A mountain with our enemies on top of it." Shinespark stared up the mountain wall, where the winds buffeted the cliff face and made it unpassable and up to the snow drifts above those. "Our comfort is the last thing I care about. Let's go."
"You do realize," Dior gasped, stumbling after her, "that it's going to be guarded, and we'll be significantly more able to smooth talk our way through if we aren't this short on-"
"Who said anything about it being guarded?" Shinespark rounded the last corner, pointing at the empty entryway. "If you're short on breath... save it!" She was panting too.
Dior warily followed as Shinespark reached the entrance without incident and stepped inside. "What kind of organization would leave their front door open while actively generating bad feelings among the populace?"
"Well, the Stone District can afford not to care," Shinespark grumbled. "They're the ones who benefit from all this. It's all friendly territory for them..."
"Funny you should assume it's friendly territory."
Shinespark jumped and spun around, her spine raising. "Who was that!?"
A hoof poked her barrel from below. Shinespark jumped again, looked down... and there was a face in the floor grinning naughtily up at her. "BOO!"
"Aieeeeyaaagh!" Shinespark flew backwards in surprise, hitting the wall and collapsing against the ground. "What the-!?"
"Nyaaah ha ha ha ha!" A pony fell out of the floor, rolling over and pounding the ground in a fit of laughter. "Gotcha! You scream like a filly!"
Dior stared with the widest possible eyes. "What in the entire city...?"
The newcomer was also a filly, maybe a pinch shorter than Shinespark, though it was hard to tell when she refused to get up and stop cackling. Shinespark quickly narrowed her eyes and remedied that with a burst of her horn, and soon the filly was captive in her aura, emerald mane and tail dangling. She giggled and shrugged, showing off wings that didn't look like any pegasus's either of the two had ever seen. "Got you!"
"What even are you?" Shinespark turned her over in her aura, noting differences on her head and face as well. "And why are you in my way?"
The filly blew a raspberry. "Wouldn't you like to know. The name's Valey, and I'm here because this is my tunnel."
"Valey, hmm? And your tunnel?" Dior took a step forward, eyes narrow. "Whatever do you mean?"
Valey carelessly shrugged. "It's like this, right? I wanna meet someone important. So I'm looking around, and find a guy guarding this tunnel, and what does that mean? There's something important here. So I made him go away, and now it's my tunnel, because if there's something important, then someone important is gonna come check on it." She folded her forelegs in midair and raised an eyebrow. "So who are you? Looks like average-class kids to me."
"Your planning and perception are remarkable," Shinespark deadpanned, holding Valey in her aura. "You aren't from around here, are you?"
"It's that easy to tell, huh?" Valey frowned. "Well, let me tell you two things. First, fruit is delicious. And second, I'm hungry. Hint hint?"
Dior blinked at her. "Whatever does that have to do with anything at all, you hooligan?"
"'Cuz it's my cave." Valey gave him a suspicious look. "And you look like you wanna go through here, which is making me think I should make it a toll road. Do you have any fruit?"
Shinespark glanced at her saddlebags. "No. We have water bottles, but they're for us and not for you. And you're currently stuck, so there's nothing you can do to stop us."
Valey gave her a noncomprehending stare, still trapped in the telekinesis.
"Come on," Shinespark sighed, trotting off down the tunnel. "Let's leave her to her business."
Dior followed, and soon Shinespark got far enough away that she was forced to let her horn go out. "Whew," she sighed. "Now we need to-"
Less than a second passed before she was flying through the air back toward the entrance. Valey flew along with her in an acrobatic suplex, knocking Shinespark onto her back on the stone. Valey landed atop her, hooves on her cheeks and tail wagging. "Who's currently stuck now, huh?"
Shinespark's pupils shrank.
"Toll road. Come on, pay up." Valey beckoned with a hoof, then frowned. "You've really got nothing, have you?"
"Get off," Shinespark threatened. "I'm here for critical business and you're treating this like a game! Get out of my way!"
Valey whistled. "Oh, so now you're important. Yeah, look, I'll cut you a deal. Free passage for the low, low price of..."
She contemplated for a second longer, then leaned in and gave Shinespark a kiss.
This time, it was Valey who was flung away, Shinespark's telekinesis pinning her against the ceiling. "I'm twelve!" Shinespark yelled up at her, furiously red. "That's gross!"
"And I'm less than one." Valey winked. "Sounds like an excuse to me. But hey, if you're madder about that than that we're both fillies..."
Shinespark gave her a dangerous look.
Valey bit her lip. "...Parents don't want you dating yet?"
Dior watched the exchange with an odd expression. "Shinespark..."
"F-Forget this." Shinespark stomped back down the tunnel. "I don't need distractions. Come on, Dior. We're going up."
"Have fun!" Valey waved, still pinned to the ceiling. "I'll call that my toll. And hey, if you see any bananas, think of me! They're the best!"
Shinespark didn't respond, fast on her way to the Sky District.
Shinespark and Dior felt the chill of the mountains before they saw it.
"Brrbrr..." Shinespark blew on her forehooves as she walked, the blue stone caverns of the Water District arching around her. "Shouldn't have used metal horseshoes..."
Dior followed stoically behind. The annoyance of her meeting with Valey was like paper on a fire, burning quick and hot next to the logs of her memories of Sosa. For speech after speech, Arambai had defended his workers, taking over responsibility for the other two factories three years earlier by popular demand and working his hardest to keep them afloat. The airy, entitled voice of the stallion he had been meeting with pricked like a thorn in her ribcage, and Shinespark walked quickly, the chill in the air only adding more of an impetus for her to reach her destination.
Eventually, her map led them true, and a door swung open to a concrete platform that had been recently cleared of a snowdrift. The sky was cloudless and the sun blinding, more so when the ground was pure white and reflective, save for a crisscross of cleared, cut roads where stallions trudged and materials were hauled between an upcoming spire and a forest of raised platforms.
"The skyport," Dior remarked, pointing southwest. "It looks more like they're making three of them..."
The terminals rose like stands of metal mushrooms, a great disk on a central spire surrounded by taller, smaller ones for each of the main hubs. Above one, a central sealing dome of glass was finished, while a second had a lattice of steel beams halfway installed that would someday support another.
"And Skyfreeze," Shinespark growled, pointing to the golden tower ahead that ended jagged and incomplete. At the surface, its plating was immaculate, gold mixed with glass, and the covering fell away as her eyes traveled upwards, its internal supports growing more and more exposed until they reached the top. "I'm sure that's their command center."
She and Dior waded through the snow, making slow progress to the ground-level entrance. The area immediately outside it was cleared, but they wound through the drifts to avoid stallions carrying materials, and by the time they reached the entrance Shinespark felt her hooves were too numb to even knock. She lit her horn instead.
The door cracked open with a rumble, parting before she could get her aura around it, and a yak stepped out, flanked by suited ponies. They pretended not to notice Shinespark and Dior, and the children were roughly kicked to the side.
"Yes, Ambassador, as I was saying," one of the ponies drawled.
"Hey!" Shinespark yelled, rising to her hooves. "Who do you think you are!?"
The yak turned slowly to face her and frowned. "Why are there foals on a construction site?"
"We have a schedule, Ambassador Herman," the other pony breathed, tapping his shoulder. "Many progress scenarios to check up on..."
"We are here," Shinespark announced, cutting him off, "because this project has been trampling our economy and ruining the Sosans' prides, and I want to see for myself what face is attached to all of it."
"Speaking," Herman replied, looking at her with an impatient expression.
Shinespark stared at him. "Get out of our land."
Herman brushed a hoof, covering her completely with a drift of snow. "Children are their parents' responsibilities, not mine. Moving on."
Without a backward glance, the trio let the doors to Skyfreeze slam shut, and they sauntered slowly away.
Shinespark growled and sat halfway up, her ribs throbbing from where Herman's henchponies had kicked her aside. The yak ambassador was already a ways away, and the realization that following them wouldn't earn anything burned like fire in her heart. She'd probably get kicked again, or worse.
"Sh-Shinespark?" Dior spoke up behind her. "It's hard to tell because of the cold, but I may have hurt my leg..."
Shinespark twitched. She barely felt the cold.
"We need to pull back," Dior urged. "We've done what you came to do, and this isn't a place for us. We must go home."
"Aww, throwing in the towel already?" an annoyingly familiar voice chimed in. "Come on, you gotta put up a fight!"
Shinespark turned her head, an emerald mane standing out like a large plant in the sea of snow and slush. "Don't follow us."
Valey shrugged, barely seeming to notice the snow. "Why? It got me what I'm looking for. You two look like you got owned."
"That's not a polite way to speak about others who may be indisposed..." Dior winced, testing his shoulder. "I'll feel this in the morning."
Shinespark kicked snow at Valey in a far less effective version of what Herman had done to her. "Be quiet. I need to think."
"About how badly you got owned?" Valey swaggered up beside her.
"Yes!" Shinespark snapped. "It's none of your business, but they're ruining Ironridge and there's no one who can stand up to them and I can't stop them either!"
"No one who could take them in a fight, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "I bet I could teach them a thing or two. If you had brought me fruit when I asked for it, so... nyaah. No deal."
Shinespark hissed and gritted her teeth in frustration. "I'm not asking you to! This is about the economy and ponies' jobs and families, not fruit! Just go away. The only thing I know about you is that you don't get it at all."
"Ehh... You sure about that?" Valey gave a sidelong glance after Herman. "I'm pretty sure I know a boss when I see one. That guy looks like he's mean enough and high up enough to have his own goon squad. Bet I could get in really cushy with the team with the power if I showed him my moves and offered my skills..."
Valey flicked her face with a wing, messing up Shinespark's bangs. "Hey! I got plans, sister. Smells to me like that guy's going to be running the place, and this bat needs a little permission and a little authority from the guys in charge to do whatever she wants. You hear?" For a moment, her eyes glowed with just as much intensity as Shinespark felt in herself. "Good. Don't worry, I just need to get in good with the winning side for a bit. Then I'll dunk everyone I don't like, just because."
Shinespark glared, furiously standing her ground.
"Ah..." Dior winced, trying to take a step, utterly ignored by both of the arguing fillies. "I think either my shoulder is dislocated, or my leg is broken. We need to go home..."
"Have fun." Shinespark didn't even look at him, fixated on Valey. "Ponies are losing their pride and their livelihoods and you're telling me you want to help the bad guys? Who do you even think you are!?"
Valey leaned on one leg, aloof. "Oh yeah? And who do you think you are? You losing your livelihood too?"
"What does it matter!?" Shinespark snorted in her face.
"Because who cares if others get chumped?" Valey rolled her eyes. "I've got problems of my own to worry about, and you can stick your head in a watermelon if you think I'd put those aside to help out anyone-" She froze. "Wuh-oh."
A team of construction ponies had been drawn by the argument's noise, and next thing Shinespark knew she was being hefted by the scruff of her neck and carried unceremoniously away.
Shinespark landed in a chamber in the Water District, high enough for an icy chill to permeate the air, with Dior nowhere to be seen. "The exit's that way," an angry-looking pony in a hard hat grunted, flinging a hoof. "We don't need kids getting in the way!"
They stomped away, and the door slammed behind her. Shinespark trembled with fury, too pent-up to speak for the entire ride. But now that she was alone...
"Raaaaaugh!"
Clannnnng! She bucked a support pillar, slamming her hooves against the metal despite her aches and bruises. It felt so marvelous that she did it again, and was winding up for a third strike before suddenly Valey was beside her, holding a hoof to her mouth. "Shhh! You want them to come back?"
"I have nothing to say to you," Shinespark declared, stomping away.
"Oh yeah?" Valey followed with a cocky grin. "Because you sure sound like you'd explode if I poked you just a little harder."
"No!" Shinespark quickened her pace, still stomping, and barged through a wrought-iron door that had been left ajar. "I am having the worst day of my life, no thanks to you, and you're following me and being utterly selfish and a complete uncaring jerk!"
Valey hovered, flapping along behind. "Meh. It's a healthier outlet for your anger than fighting that yak. And you should try not caring too sometime. Your blood pressure's gotta be through the roof."
Shinespark stopped and blinked. "What?"
Valey widely shrugged. "Okay, okay, so I decided to look out for a pretty face. Keep yelling, it's entertaining."
"I can't believe you," Shinespark hissed, lowering her head. "You really don't care. Why don't you go chase that yak and see to your own goals, or however you put it?"
"A dude like that shouldn't be too hard to find again." Valey casually did a backflip in midair. "And I've gotta wait for some stuff anyway. But yep. Could care less, but not without getting really bored."
"I need to be alone with my thoughts," Shinespark whispered, kicking open another door. "Leave me-"
Evening sunlight flooded the room, enough that Shinespark had to shield her eyes. Slowly, they adjusted to the outdoors, and she stepped forward cautiously. "Wait, is this...?"
Ahead of her, a long, faintly-curved road stretched, a crystal-blue lake to the left and a bottomless valley to the right, a lone mountain with a lighthouse standing at the other side.
"Yo." Valey whistled, landing and walking up beside her. "I could hang out here more often..."
Shinespark took off running.
Valey called something and gave chase, but the wind was in Shinespark's ears and her heart was pounding too fast for her to hear. As she passed the midpoint, she threw back her head and screamed, still running, wishing her breath was blowing every worker and contractor out of the Sky District and out of Ironridge and keeping the city's heart and pride down where it belonged. Perhaps it hadn't been this bad in the past, or perhaps her father had done a better job of hiding it from her, but the last golden age of Ironridge had ended before she was born. It was her problem if she would never get to see her city's heritage and her city's pride, no matter what Valey said. Her heart felt like Sosa, stuck low while everything else flew up above, and she tripped head over heels and landed at the far end of the bridge when her legs gave out after she had forgotten to breathe.
Shinespark panted raggedly, laying at the foot of the steps to the lighthouse as her lungs stabbed her and her muscles burned. Soon, however, Valey caught up.
"...Girl, you've got issues."
Shinespark was too winded to respond.
"I really mean it." Valey shrugged. "You should try caring less. It's what I do. And I'm having a pretty great time, which I definitely wouldn't be doing if I sat around crying about all the stuff wrong with my life. Wanna go down to the place with the trees and steal some bananas with me?"
"Never," Shinespark rasped. "Sosa belongs at the gateway to Ironridge, not some new district at the opposite side of the city. And if anything, you're making me care more."
Valey flicked her mane out of her eyes with a hoof. "Yeah, who would have thought you're hot when you're angry? Nope, not trying to get you fired up at all." She winked, continuing before Shinespark could respond. "So you're stuck on someone stealing your spotlight, right? Easy peasy. Just beat them!"
Shinespark's shoulders sagged. "And how are we supposed to do that? Sosa makes sea ships. They have airships, and the airship economy is growing fast. Any technology we could have had is thirteen years out of date, and Mobius is blocking every..." She frowned. "But he's not anymore. But we're still so far behind. We don't have the resources to out-compete them for sky travel, and even if we did the skyport is in the Sky District!"
"Oh yeah?" Valey winked. "So you don't have enough, and they have too much? Nothing a little thievery can't solve."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were on their side."
Valey slapped a pious hoof across her chest. "Nahhh. I'm on my side. You were saying?"
"What was I saying?" Shinespark scratched her head, feeling an itch to say something, anything, even if it meant nothing at all. "Even if there are pieces in the right place, Arambai is a master strategist, and he's been trying to save Sosa for thirteen years. There's no possible way I could come up with something here that would work, even if your advice is somehow good."
"Screw having a plan!" Valey threw her hooves in the air and grinned. "Step one: tell yourself you're gonna stick it to them. Step two: be cool with being the underdog for a bit if you're not as awesome as me. Step three: figure it out as you go. How's that for a plan?"
Something in Shinespark's chest clicked. She refused to say it to Valey's face, but at least some of her words rang truer than true: she didn't need a plan to care. Even if she had a goal that was unreachable, did that mean she couldn't have it, and couldn't live like it was reachable? A swelling sensation filled her, and she stared into the lingering sunset, feeling almost like she grew an inch. "The sky shouldn't be theirs. It should have been ours, thirteen years ago. It should have been mine...! Mine to give to them..."
Valey sidled up beside her and puckered her lips. "Feeling better? You're welcome..."
"Leave me alone!" Shinespark's voice echoed, and her horn flared sapphire, attempting to push Valey back with telekinesis... only for an expanding dome of force to radiate out from her, sending the other filly flying. Her horn crackled and sparked, and she stared up at it with a gasp.
"Ow! I'm okay...!" Valey called from halfway down the bridge.
"What the...?" Shinespark breathed, her horn swirling above her, begging to be used.
Valey soon caught back up. "Well, that was rude. Hey, is that a magic surge?"
Shinespark blinked.
"Happens sometimes when you... you know..." Valey pointed at Shinespark's flanks.
Shinespark whipped around, staring at herself as well. She was no longer a blank filly.
"There." Shinespark sat in the cargo bay of the Immortal Dream, looking just a dull yet slightly more frustrated than when she began. "That's where it came from. It let me fly using my horn."
Celestia had sat patiently throughout the whole tale. "An unusual ability. The last time I heard of a pony who could do that was many hundreds of years ago."
Shinespark turned again to face the wall. "Apparently it wasn't unusual enough."
"I could hear the fire in your voice, recounting your past experiences and feelings," Celestia said. "You still feel them keenly. Your dream hasn't changed."
"Has it?" Shinespark growled. "The city I was fighting for is gone."
"Nothing is ever truly gone as long as it lives in memory, my little pony," Celestia answered, shaking her head. "You cannot care about something that doesn't exist. Merely caring is enough to make it live, even if as nothing more than potential for the future. Because that is the nature of all dreams, is it not? Every cutie mark is like this, both north of the mountains and south."
Shinespark looked up. "What are you offering? My city's economy is destroyed, its travel options cut off, and all it can produce is enough food to sustain the population. Even if you offered me a trade contract and free passage to ship things across your mountains, it wouldn't matter. There's nothing I'd be able to do the next time something threatens that dream. It's dead, just like Valey. So stop pretending otherwise."
"I am not the one pretending," Celestia gently murmured.
Shinespark's hackles rose. "What are you implying?"
"How different are you now from how you were then?" Celestia held out a hoof. "I see a young mare who is frustrated by her powerlessness in the face of things she knows deserve to be changed. You call it hopeless because there's nothing you can do, not because there's nothing that needs to be done."
"Could you be any more obvious!?" Shinespark raised her voice. "I know that! There's nothing I can do now, and there was nothing I could do then! All my cutie mark was was a false hope that let me hang on and stall out the end for a few years! There's no magical answer and there's nothing I can do, because if I could, I would!"
Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Your reticence to spend time with your friends and insistence on shutting yourself away here speaks otherwise."
Shinespark growled. "It wouldn't matter. Even if it looks like there's something I can do, it would just be steps along a dead end I haven't reached the end of. I lost years of my life to that already."
"Really." Celestia watched her, blatantly unconvinced. "Knowing what you know now, would you live your life more selfishly if given a second chance?"
Shinespark stared back. "In Ironridge? No. If I knew what I know today, I would have known what I needed to do to stop it."
Celestia's smile returned. "Oh, I was talking about today. You are still alive, after all, and have many friends who are wandering around without a captain."
Shinespark's angry mask cracked. "What's your point!?" she snapped, breath hitching momentarily. "I'm not... I can't..."
"Shinespark." Celestia leaned forward. "You may have lost faith in your dream, but it has not lost faith in you. You are here, as is your cutie mark, and I believe this injury to your horn will heal given sufficient time. Your power will never be omnipotent, and there will always be forces in the world you cannot hope to contest. But just because it is a wide world and these powers exist does not mean your own existence is pointless."
Shinespark gritted her teeth, too busy trying to control her breathing to respond.
"You care for the ponies who are weaker than you," Celestia continued. "It is the most important trait to have in a leader, beyond any measure of power or wisdom or courage. Tell me truly: the stallion in your story who lost his job and was powerless to change it. Was his existence pointless? Should he never have worked it in the first place?"
"No!" Shinespark hissed. "It wasn't! Ponies like that are the ones I wanted to protect Ironridge for! They never asked for economic tides they couldn't change to wash away their histories..."
"He is just like you," Celestia insisted, face to face. "His mission was to be a craftspony, and it was trampled by powers beyond his understanding, was it not? Your mission was to seize the skies for your city, and it met a fate much the same. If he is worth fighting for, so are you."
Shinespark lost the battle against her tears. "Be fought for by whom!? I tried to fight for them, and I wasn't good enough! And Valey is gone!"
Celestia touched her chest with a feather. "By you, my little pony. You can be the hero that you deserve."
"Sure I can!" Shinespark violently flinched away. "A failed hero for a failed mare. It's a perfect fit."
Celestia stepped after her. "Isn't it?" she said softly. "Nopony understands how you're feeling better than yourself. No one but you knows what it's like to have let down Ironridge in the way you so keenly are feeling. Who else but you can see yourself in a mirror and say, 'I've been there too'?"
Shinespark clung to the ground and sobbed.
"Get up, Shinespark," Princess Celestia whispered. "You need yourself. No one else will do."
"What's that supposed to mean!?" Shinespark wailed. "I'm already stuck here!"
"You know exactly what I mean," Celestia answered, settling down beside her. "The Sosans deserved a champion just as much as you do. And while they may have gotten an imperfect one, imperfection is the way of the world. You don't believe you can reach your dreams on your own. But look into your heart, Shinespark, and ask yourself who you'd rather have fighting for you: someone powerful enough to do most anything, or someone who would try again when they inevitably fail?"
Shinespark covered her head with her hooves. "Why can't I have the former?"
"Because there is no unchallengeable authority in the world," Celestia replied. "Ponies are free creatures with the power to shape the world around them as they see fit. Even goddesses like myself have limits upon our powers, no matter how vast they may be. No matter how much power someone accrued, it would be impossible for success to be truly guaranteed. You will fail, Shinespark, much as your friends have failed and Garsheeva has failed and I myself have failed as well. And the stronger we are, the bigger our failures and the broader their consequence. That is the price for power... and the reward is more we can do to bring about our dreams."
Shinespark just cried.
"Let it out," Celestia whispered, putting a wing over Shinespark, and this time the unicorn had nowhere to run. "And remember these feelings, and how you've felt them before. Hopelessness, injustice and the accompanying wish for hope are the soil your will to flourish is born of. This may be a dead end for you, but you can rekindle yourself and turn all of these feelings into the fire to continue, with or without a chance of success. Fight like you fought for the Sosans, not because you had a way all along but because they needed it and nobody else would. As insurmountable as your despair seems, all you must do is pick yourself up to prevail."
Shinespark bawled, pressing her face into Celestia's chest and shuddering hard, and the princess focused on her, pretending not to notice the sizable crowd that had gathered silently at the doors to watch a goddess be used as a tissue. Slowly, however, time passed, and Shinespark's sobs lessened and her grip strengthened.
Eventually, Shinespark stepped back and rose to her full height, an old, sharp flame flickering in her sapphire eyes. "It doesn't hurt any less," she said, voice even.
"Did it when you were younger?" Celestia asked back.
"...No." Shinespark sighed. "Only doing things helped." She took several steps towards the stairs to the deck, then glanced back at Celestia. "I should never have had this dream in the first place. It was only necessary because my city was dying and I could either intervene or sit back and watch. All of that was wrong, and shouldn't have happened. A year ago, I still thought once I succeeded, I'd find peace. But if trying is what matters, and reaching my goals may never happen at all, when will I be able to finally rest easy?"
Celestia nodded at the ponies and griffon in the doors. "Whenever you need, so long as you trust your friends to pick up the slack. The greatest things in the world are never accomplished alone, after all. If you have friends who share your dream, then you can rest when you require it, and do so in full knowledge that your work remains in good hooves."
Shinespark closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"But for now?" Celestia smiled. "Your first priority must be to yourselves, but I am here and will ensure nothing further bad befalls you. I think that allowing yourself to set your burdens aside would be the most productive choice towards fixing them."
Shinespark folded her ears as she walked past, then raised them again, staring at the others. Some were her friends. Others, acquaintances, and several uneasy enemies that she would need to talk to about why they were on her ship. The friend she wanted to see most would never be there again. But for now...
"I missed you!" Amber interrupted, running up and throwing her forelegs around her in a big hug.
"I... don't know if I'm feeling better enough for that yet." Shinespark held her ground, patting Amber on the back gently. "I don't even know what our goals are. I'll find a way to get us to the water, or back in the air, and then... we'll see." She folded her ears. "But I'll try."
"Actually, darling, that may not be fully necessary..." Felicity twiddled her wingtips. "The good princess here potentially sort of wanted a leader who speaks for this whole crew with whom she could discuss the possibility and terms of asylum. Which is in our interests, given that we're now in the Plains of Harmony and you were just getting a motivational speech from the one who makes the border so hard to cross in the first place..."
Shinespark stared at her. "Actually," Princess Celestia announced from behind, "I think those are discussions that at the very least should wait until tomorrow. Unless all of you are somehow nocturnal, I can only imagine you would have been in bed by now, and would think better with a good night's rest behind you. My guards and I will see to it that your ship remains safe in the meantime, and I can have them work on transporting the food provisions you told me about. Would this be equitable?"
Harshwater's eyes shifted. "I know I'd be in a much better mood if I had eaten more than once today."
Celestia closed her eyes and sighed. "Very well. I will inform my guards immediately." She carefully ascended the staircase, ducking and exiting onto the deck.
Shinespark followed her, feeling an itch to return to the bridge and feel the ship's controls again. Grenada followed her, looking like she had something she wasn't sure if she wanted to say. Amber trailed further behind, along with a body she still couldn't bring herself to look at. There were guards on the deck, a small group that looked like a liaison-
Princess Celestia cried out in surprise and pain, stopping abruptly in her tracks.
"Your Majesty! Who goes there!?" The guards immediately drew their weapons and whirled, and Shinespark dropped into an instinctive crouch, backpedaling to the door and blocking her friends inside even though she had no horn or weapons to fight with.
Celestia rubbed her nose, looking more confused and startled than injured or imperiled. "How strange," she said, a warning note in her voice. "It felt like I ran into something... Show yourself!"
Her horn burst with energy, filling the surrounding air with harmless, hovering motes of light. Then her aura swirled, blowing the air around the ship in a gentle cyclone, carrying the motes with it. They stuck whenever the contacted something solid, and a few landed on Shinespark's coat... but a lot more of them caught on something large, bulky and definitely invisible in the middle of the deck. Shinespark sucked in a breath.
Princess Celestia frowned harder, and her horn glowed again. "Be revealed!"
For a moment, her aura surged, as if the spell she was casting needed to overcome a powerful resistance... and then it finished, the metal dragon Aegis standing exposed and inert in the middle of the floor.
Celestia's pupils slowly shrank in dawning recognition and horror.
"Your Majesty?" The Equestrian guards leveled their weapons at Aegis, their target entirely inert and unresponsive. "You recognize this thing?"
"Only from depictions that are older than I am," Celestia whispered, staring in shock at the dragon. "Either it truly existed and this is the original, or it was created by someone with far too deep an understanding of things that must remain in the past." She turned to Shinespark and the others in the doorway, voice strict and urgent. "Were you aware of this, where did you obtain it and what have you seen it do!?"
Shinespark snapped to attention, the goddess's command more than enough to shake her through her present state. "I've seen it before but wasn't aware it crossed the mountains with us. Others might know more. It runs on the same energy my ship is powered by, which we're presently out of, and it belongs to a filly I know nothing about who started flying with us in the Empire."
"Where is this filly and what does she resemble?" Celestia pressed. "And what kind of abilities has she been known to display?"
Shinespark's eyes fell dubiously. "I haven't been keeping tabs on my crew. As far as I'm aware, she hasn't done anything since she broke her horn in an incident in the Empire earlier."
Celestia's horn pulsed, sending up a signal of light into the sky. "Guards," she commanded, drawing the defensive perimeter out of the shadows. "The situation has changed. I must return to Canterlot immediately to seal this creation away. Too little is known to take any risks."
Felicity paced out behind them, ears folded. "I suppose that means we will have to wait?"
"I am sorry, my little pony." Celestia regarded her with folded ears. "I will leave my entire regiment here to protect you and return as soon as I am able. It is abundantly clear there is more to your appearance here than meets the eye, but until this is separated from anyone it may be associated with, you cannot be my first priority. Rest assured, they will keep you safe in my absence."
"Your Majesty!" the guards protested as one. "If this thing is dangerous, you mean to say you're escorting it yourself?"
Celestia turned to regard the ones who had spoken. "My prayer is that it will be inert without an operator. Should that fail to be the case, it would be very difficult for me to protect you. Prepare my train."
Wings snapped up in well-trained salutes, and several of the pegasi streaked off. Celestia's aura burned bright along the deck in a perfect square, a sheet of force slowly rising and lifting Aegis atop it, as if she was hesitant to grasp it with telekinesis directly. Slowly, shimmering, it lifted off, floating out over the railing and into the night.
A ways away, inside the ajar door to the bridge, a camouflaged Jamjars watched with an intense frown. "They're stealing your thing..."
"There was nothing I could do except hope they didn't find it," Glimmer breathed, true worry on her face. "And now those soldiers will ask around and find out about me. This is very bad..."
"Got a plan?" Jamjars muttered.
"As I always do, yes." Glimmer didn't sound thrilled. "It involves hiding and letting them get away."
"I've got you covered," Jamjars whispered back. "You've got this."
Glimmer's ears pressed back. "No. I don't. I only have increasingly desperate solutions for desperate situations that will make more and more trouble down the road. The more radical I reach for, the more I lose, and this time is no exception."
"Have you considered being honest and telling someone what your deal is so they know how to help?" Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "I get secrets more than anyone, but you can trust me, right?"
"I already am," Glimmer sighed. "If anything spirals out of control further and this ship goes from sinking to sunk, and I'm not around anymore... take the things I hid in your room. You'll know what to do with them."
Jamjars tilted her head. "Those papers?"
"Yes. Those." Glimmer hunkered further away from the door. "But we're not there yet. For now, we hide."
Starlight tried to sleep as the gondola rose through the heavens, but it just wouldn't come. Her eyes closed and her body relaxed, but instead of slipping into a dream, she got the strangest sensation that she was already dreaming and couldn't wake up if she wanted to.
No sound came from Chrysalis on the roof, or the cloud of ash inexorably drifting past around them. No wind buffeted the gondola, which would have defied belief in the normally-windswept Grandbell. Lyn didn't disappear, though Starlight kept half an eye on her at all times, cracked even while she was trying to sleep, refusing to let her friend disappear.
The ride could have lasted an hour, or maybe more. Starlight would have been sure something was wrong if she hadn't fallen from the mountains herself, remembering just how tall they were...
Slowly, the gondola rocked to a stop, its ascent complete.
"Where are we?" Lyn asked, going to the door and checking the window. She squinted, then rubbed her head, looking pained. "I don't recognize this. Starlight, where...? Why is it so hard for me to think?"
Her attempt to sleep finally over, Starlight rose and put a wing around Lyn, making sure she couldn't wander or get lost. "It'll be alright. Come with me. We're going to get both of us where we belong."
"Sure you are," Chrysalis drawled, dragging open the door. "This ought to be entertaining..."
The world outside looked nothing like Starlight had been expecting. The horizon was vertical, a solid wall bisecting the world up and down, running as far as the eye could see. A gray void of falling ash filled the sky above and below, Starlight's vision in all directions lost in the mist. The gondola had let them out on a nondescript, rectangular pier of metal that protruded from the wall, a door visible at the far end. Once her hooves stepped onto solid ground, Lyn along with her, the gondola slowly retreated back down into the mists.
"Whose memory is this?" Starlight asked, staring at the alien landscape with wide eyes. "Are we halfway up the Aldenfold...?"
She led the way towards the wall and the door, already certain this was somewhere else. She had tumbled down the mountain wall, and while it was sheer and vertical, this face was unnaturally smooth. In fact, the only flaws were rectangular patterns and angles that looked almost like the borders of giant sheets of plating... This structure was made of metal as well.
"Don't look at me." Chrysalis shrugged, looking oddly tense.
"Starlight, do you know where we are?" Lyn asked, even though the answer was obvious. "I feel lost. Something's weird..."
Starlight pressed her eyes shut and didn't let her go. "We're all lost. Just hang on..."
When they reached the wall, it was, in fact, metal. The door was a single smooth sheet that looked like it could retract by sliding, a panel on the side that looked vaguely familiar from somewhere. Starlight leaned in, squinting.
"Terminal access," her Nightmare Module voice said, making her jump in surprise. Unlike every other time she had heard it, though, this time it was out loud instead of in her head, and from the looks on the others' faces they had heard it too. "Initiating scan... Detection complete. Welcome, Eylista."
The door smoothly and seamlessly opened.
Starlight just stared at it. "What?"
"You heard it. In we go." Rolling her eyes, Chrysalis strode forward and through the portal. "Don't think too hard about a memory. It spat technobabble and let me in last time I found this place, too."
Starlight pulled Lyn along through, the former sphinx not resisting at all. "You've been here before?" she asked as lights came on and illuminated the tunnel around them. The first thing that caught her attention was that in here, no more ash was falling.
"Perhaps." Chrysalis shrugged and took the lead, looking adamantly like she wanted to be in front. They were in a long corridor, the floor and walls adorned with an architecture Starlight had never seen before, like if the architects for the Ironridge skyport had taken their ambitions and designs twenty steps further towards a glass-and-steel vision of the future.
Lights glowed along ridges in the walls, tiny filaments and conduits that traced lines and angles that reminded Starlight of hexagons. It was impossible to tell exactly what the metal was it was made from, but it seemed to have many layers, yet been cast in one piece without any assembly or welding. Starlight was so absorbed in looking at the scenery, she didn't even notice the next door until it passed.
"Yo, finally, I get some visitors!"
Starlight's heart leapt so hard at the voice it felt like it smashed into her head, and she nearly dropped Lyn to scurry forward. "Valey!?"
This room was long and narrow, with a polished interior and two long lines of parallel, flat-screen panels along the walls, each large and frameless and showing flickering static like broken terminals from Ironridge. But at the far end of the room, a bigger panel than all the rest was hung, placed high and tilted downwards to oversee the entire space. Looking out of it like it was a window, staring directly at Starlight, was a giant version of Valey's head.
"Hey." Valey folded her forelegs crossly, no spark of recognition in her eyes. "Do you have any idea how long I've been stuck here? Bananas, it's boring. Who are you, anyway?"
"How long you've been stuck here?" Starlight dashed forward, racing for the screen. "How long do you remember? Do your memories not get reset like everyone else's!?"
Valey blinked at her in confusion. "Uh... no? What are you talking about? I've just been stuck here for ages and dying of boredom."
"I'm getting you out!" Starlight yelled up at the screen. "I don't know how, but there's a way! I can feel it!"
She skidded to a stop as she neared the screen, a triangular pedestal rising from the ground surrounded by rings and arrays of complex runes. Starlight frowned, stepping up and examining it. It seemed to have three slots, one filled by a red stone, another by a midnight blue stone, and the third empty... In fact, now that she looked at the ambient light harder, in this whole place she could see color. The materials it was made from were just mostly gray.
"What's this?" Starlight leaned in, the stones like vertical tablets set upright into slits with their narrow sides pointed towards the pedestal's center. They each had engravings, both complicated messes of triangular runes. In fact, the blue one reminded her faintly of Garsheeva's cutie mark...
"Some kind of power system, according to this thing." Valey's image tapped the edge of the frame. "I don't get how a million percent of it works. Don't get a lot of things, actually, like where this even is or why I'm stuck here. Watch out for the creepy lady, by the way!"
Starlight turned, having forgotten about Chrysalis, who now stood between her and the door. "What?"
"Oh, nothing." Chrysalis walked forward and licked her lips, and suddenly seized Starlight in her telekinesis. "Thank you so much."
Starlight snarled and tried to react, but before she could, Chrysalis picked her up, flipped her upside-down, and thrust her face-first against the third, empty slot on the pedestal. A horrible vacuuming rushed through her body like a windstorm, one she knew all too well: the sensation of being connected to a harmony extractor.
"No! Get off! What are you doing!?" Starlight screamed and flailed, her sarosian body lighting up with bright lines that began to tug on her consciousness. "Stop it! Lyn, help!"
Lyn rushed forward, her mind still present enough to act when she needed to, but another wall of green smacked into her, bowling her to the side and under one of the wall screens. Starlight lasted about a second longer before her body gave out.
A whirl of everything flooded her senses, tumbling her through pure chaos and mixing every sensory input she owned, until she had the sound of triangles in her ears and felt the taste of ash against her nonexistent hooves. But after everything she had been through, her reflexes were good and her mind was strong, and she regained control of her sight just in time to look down from above and see her gray former body burst into a lifeless puff of ash.
"Huh," Valey said beside her, and Starlight realized she was somehow in the computer screen as well. "You know, I can't remember for sure, but I wonder if that's how I got stuck here as well..."
Below, Chrysalis burst out cackling, standing by the pedestal and wiping her mane back in glee. "Oh, it is. You left me for weeks, Starlight. Weeks and weeks to plan my revenge. I found this place early on, the moment I tried flying upward out of rage and frustration. It reacted to me. It could tell I had a hoof still in the land of the living. Do you know where we are?"
Starlight snarled. "Let me go! What are you doing!?"
Chrysalis giggled cruelly. "Nightmare Modules are instructions for machines. Sarosian bodies are those machines... or so Chauncey thought. But he was looking for Nightmare Modules inside obsidian, don't you remember? His experiments on Puddles the windigo, designed to use her chaotic body as a sieve to fish out that code from within fallen obsidian. But this place, where we are now? This isn't anyone's memory. It's part of the obsidian itself. A livable dream, if you will. And us being here, Starlight, you and I who belong in the real world, is enough to make it manifest."
"Who cares?" Starlight flailed in the screen, unsure how her senses were adapting to lacking a third dimension, only that they were. "I don't even know what that means! Let us go!"
"Oh, I don't think so." Chrysalis chuckled. "What I mean is that this isn't a memory. It's a dream, one you and I are having that's hard-coded into your obsidian by the Nightmare Module's design. I spent days wandering these halls and investigating this place, and whoever dreamed it dreamed of a place where souls and brands themselves were separable. Complete control over all three parts of a pony... A mad scientist's dream in the waking world, but here, anything that can be imagined can be reality."
Starlight tried to punch the screen. Her hoof moved uselessly through empty space.
"Nightmare Moon's dream, perhaps?" Chrysalis shrugged. "The so-called goddess who created the Nightmare Modules? When I first found Valey, lost and reliving her own memory out in the wilds, I knew you would be here for her someday. Merely wanting to find her led you here, because that's how this world works. If you want to find someone, you will, eventually. She was bait. And now you're trapped here too..."
"Hey!" Valey made a rude hoof gesture at Chrysalis. "I dunno what your problem is or who either of you are, but I know someone who's asking for a beating when I see them! Lemme go and see how tough you are then, hag!"
Starlight ignored her, staring dead at Chrysalis. "What's the point of trapping me here? Because you're trapped, too? So we can sit here and be miserable together, forever?"
"A tempting offer." Chrysalis shrugged. "In less hopeful circumstances, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing you rot for eternity. But here and now?" She tapped the pedestal, staying carefully clear of the exposed slot. "Brands." She pointed to the two slots that were filled, nothing left where Starlight had been. "Obsidian binds you by your brand. This machine binds you by your soul instead, somehow. You might have showed up before I was fully ready, but sit tight. With more study on this dream, I might find a way to use this machine and switch our places entirely, and our bindings to our outside bodies. You'll get to live as Stanza for eternity, and once I find this way out you're so sure of, I'll have all your friends and the happily ever after you were too stupid to enjoy when it was staring you in the face! Hahahahahahahaha! Oh, Starlight..." Her face twisted in a sickly sweet smile. "I warned you. I told you I would have stayed with your crew if I could do it over again. I told you I despised you and would never be your friend, and you just had to stick with me anyway."
Celestia departed, and Shinespark stared as she vanished over the horizon, all the Equestrian guards looking thoroughly unsettled.
"So, if I may..." Felicity tentatively raced one. "What happens now?"
"We have our orders," the guard grunted, looking disturbed. "Rest well, Ma'am. You look exhausted, and we are fit to guard you."
"When you say guard us..." Amber strolled up carefully, Valey at her side. "You mean keep us safe, right? Because we hadn't exactly finished the discussion on how and whether we were allowed to stay..."
Far in the distance, an unearthly bellow sounded through the silence, carrying tidings of the griffons' battle with the brood of Arimaspi. The guards looked at Amber as if that answered her question.
"Right." Amber sighed. "You guys have some escaped monsters, or something, and we've got shady griffons. Let's just sit back and hope they beat each other into submission and make cleaning up the winning side easy?"
Some of the guards saluted, confident and strong. Others shuffled nervously.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Saffron gave them a sidelong look. "None of you look very confident."
"Her Majesty told you about the brood and the children, and their battle?" The guard who spoke looked in less-good condition than the others, like he had recently been through a long ordeal. "I'm from the fort where we were keeping them. They're... you know..." He swallowed. "The griffons used to hunt the brood and kill the oldest and strongest, to keep their population under control. Which meant none of them grew up all the way. And they haven't been culled like that in a while. The plan was going to be that Her Majesty would take care of them personally once we let the griffons finish fighting while we were talking with you... Let's just say it's not a fight I'm looking forward to."
"Quiet, you," a better-equipped guard threatened, gesturing with his spear. He turned to Saffron. "You have no need to fear. We are not Her Majesty's elites for nothing. She has ordered us to keep you safe, and we will do so with our lives."
Gerardo cleared his throat, standing in the doorway and looking like he badly needed to sleep. "I hate to interrupt, but unicorn, anyone? The sound stone is glowing."
Grenada frowned and lit her horn. "Here."
Soon, it was hovering in her aura, a familiar, pained voice filtering through in the middle of the group. "Hey," Gunther panted. "You there, Gerardo? Ah, forget it... Listen. My subordinates and I got in a bit over our heads. I lost Violet, Red and Chartreuse are dead, and Blue fled like the coward he is. Of course, I did too... There are five of them, two injured. If you haven't gotten jailed by Equestrians yet, get out of here. This is someone else's stomping grounds, now."
In the distance, another roar sounded, this time much closer.
"Let me go!" Starlight tried again to assault the screen she was trapped inside, to no avail. "Chrysalis!"
Chrysalis was already leaving. A hoof settled on Starlight's shoulder, and she turned to see Valey wink. Starlight frowned. "What?"
"Nah. Let her go. She's all hot air." Valey kicked back and lay down. "Trust me."
"How do you know?" Starlight pressed. "She was talking about trapping me here while she tried to take my body!"
Valey glanced out at the pedestal. "Last I checked, she just turned that to dust. Listen, I couldn't follow ninety percent of what she was talking about, but I can tell the difference between someone who knows how something works and someone who has a vague idea of how it works and really wants to be right. Sounded to me like she was just trying to get your goat. So chillax! It'll be a lot better in here now that I'm not stuck forever watching the world go by."
"She's right," Lyn called quietly, crawling out from behind a screen after Chrysalis had wandered away. "I can tell when ponies are lying."
Valey and Starlight both perked. "Really?" Valey squinted at her.
"Yes!" Lyn called up, still rubbing her head like she had the beginning of a migraine. "She wasn't telling deliberate falsehoods, but she was guessing about things she wasn't sure of. She was probably trying to make you furious."
Starlight pressed her ears back. "Well, it worked. We need to find a way out of here."
"Easy." Valey shrugged. "All we gotta do is wait."
"What?" Starlight took a step back, too frightened and upset to properly rejoice at finding Valey. "What do you mean?"
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "I just asked this machine thing. Yo! Thingamajig! How long until I can ditch this place!?"
Please be patient, the Nightmare Module voice urged. Your voyage will be completed soon.
"Voyage?" Starlight blinked and tilted her head. "What? Does it think we're... still in a meteor, traveling through space?"
Valey looked blankly at her. "Buh?"
"Hey!" Starlight shouted, willing the voice to respond. "We're already right where we want to be! Let us out! Back to the real world! Let us go!"
"Nahhh." Valey put a hoof on Starlight's shoulder, pulling her back. "It gets huffy if you spend too long bossing it around. Try this. Hey, machine! Show me that place you showed me before!"
Initiating physical plane view, Starlight's Nightmare Module voice said, seemingly heard by Valey as well, but not Lyn. A part of her view disappeared, replaced by a blindingly bright window into...
"Maple!" Starlight jumped toward the portal, failing again to reach the abstract visualization. But it was there, in her vision: a window out to the engine room of the Immortal Dream, its viewpoint coming from what she knew to be her obsidian sword. It swiveled at her command, focusing on a bed with a familiar mare.
"Yep." Valey sidled up beside her. "Like I said, watching the world go by. Speaking of which, wanna tell me who you are? Because I'm used to seeing you in there, and now you're somehow in here. Maybe you can explain some stuff to me."
Starlight just stared, a hoof reaching desperately for a window she couldn't touch. "That's the real world. How long have you been able to see it? Do you recognize anyone?"
Valey scratched an ear. "I dunno. You guys all look kinda familiar now that I've been watching for a while. But yeah, it showed me this after I made a big enough fuss about being bored the first time. Better entertainment than staring at an empty room all day, let me tell you." She turned to face Starlight again. "So seriously, who are you? Because I've been watching and listening, and it's seriously hard to figure you out."
Starlight took a deep breath. "We're stuck inside a thing called moon glass and I have no idea how it works, but that's the real world and I want to get all of us out there and back home. You don't remember us, but me and everyone out there are your best friends. Do you believe me?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, it would explain why everyone there knows my name, I guess. Hey machine, turn up the volume...!"
Gerardo entered the engine room in a huff, looking slightly bedraggled. "Gerardo?" Maple asked, looking up.
"Not to worry you," Gerardo began, "but have you any knowledge on the whereabouts of that sword Starlight let me borrow in Ironridge? The black one? We may have found ourselves in a slightly dangerous situation and as long as the Equestrian guards are on our side I'd like to arm them as well as possible."
Maple's eyes widened. "What's going on?"
"Merely precautionary actions," Gerardo assured, holding up a talon with certainty. "As I said, not to fret..."
The shipdeck was a different story. "Divisions one through three," the acting pegasus captain instructed, "create a diversion and attempt to draw the beasts off to the east. According to intel, they track by hearing and smell. Four through seven, remain here and defend this airship. Eight through ten, we hide and mount an ambush on the smaller group if they split. We have numbers, but they have strength. We have to whittle them down before we can afford meeting them head-on."
"And what about us?" Shinespark asked, a stiff sea wind ruffling her mane and blowing in from the water. "With this wind, they're going to smell us from miles away. You can't expect us to sit back without a plan."
Howe whistled innocently. "Not that that's what you just spent the past few weeks-"
Shinespark punched him. "Not the time for mutiny, pegasus! Captain?"
The guards were already splitting into small squadrons and soaring about, and the acting captain looked at her with a sigh. "The Princess has ordered us to defend you, but this battle may be difficult. What do you have to contribute?"
"This unusually-powerful magic sword, for one," Gerardo offered, stumbling out from the stairwell and holding out the black sword. "Though I'm afraid I've... been on my feet far too long today to..." He pitched forward and collapsed, utterly exhausted.
Shinespark stared around. "Harshwater!" she snapped. "What's the state of my crew?"
Harshwater's eyes shifted. "Dead, injured, exhausted or useless. I'm the only one who knows how to fight who isn't incapacitated, and I'm not a zealot who goes blindly charging in."
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "Gerardo and Starlight, no... Felicity? Saffron? Anyone? I'd have you in the backline defending the ship if it comes to it. None of you are going out there tonight."
"I may be a good shot with certain types of firearms, darling," Felicity volunteered, "but there's absolutely no way I'll be swinging a sword."
An explosion sounded several hills away, along with another roar.
"...Fine." Shinespark strapped the sword to her own side, fumbling slightly from the lack of her usual telekinesis. "Fine."
"Were those things always that massive!?" one pegasus exclaimed to another, the squadron wheeling around a valley containing a creature that might once have been imagined as a goat. It was reddish-purple and massive, big enough to take up the entire deck of the Immortal Dream, and was currently reeling from a barrel of explosives three pegasi had dropped to capture its attention.
The ploy succeeded, and the beast lunged upward in a corkscrew motion, trying to impale the guards on its smoking horns. With expert coordination, the Equestrian guards soared out of the way, not breaking formation, wheeling and carrying on to the east. "Find more of them and draw them too!" one barked, voice carrying over the stiff sea winds. "Leaving four is leaving too many!"
The pegasi split, the rest of the beasts visible a shadows between the hills on the horizon. "Roger!" Leaving trails of unsubtle yellow, half of the squadron continued to the north, two more explosive barrels carried between them.
"Locking targets," a pegasus with enchanted goggles reported. "We've found one that's injured. Leave it for the strike team. We don't want it joining the decoy chase and falling behind."
A yellow eye stared back at him, its slitted pupil thinner in the center than at the ends. "ROOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH..."
The creature flung itself into a maelstrom, rearing up on its hind legs and spinning. One of its front arms was entirely missing, the stump glowing and flickering with an unearthly blue light, but it used the remaining arm like a sawblade, shredding the air with the edge of its arm and forcing the pegasi to take evasive action. "Watch your flanks!" a scout called from above. "They can jump higher than they look!"
As if on cue, a third beast flung itself upward from a valley a hill away, its trajectory perfectly calculated to intercept any pegasi that were dodging upward from the first. Two were perfectly in the way, flapping frantically as they realized the monsters' tactics... and then another squad of three flew in from the side, diving like lightning, ramming it hard with another barrel and splitting and soaring as the explosion knocked it off-course.
With a roar, the jumping beast crashed onto the injured one in the valley. "Attack now!" one pegasus hollered, and a forest of spears and javelins soared for the monsters, some sticking amid their woolen coats.
"No!" another pegasus cried. "We have to lead them away! If we pick a fight here, we'll-!"
"BRAAAAAAAHH!" A fourth abomination bounded over the horizon like a gorilla, leaping from hilltop to hilltop and walking on its knuckles, pulling back an arm as it flew for a deadly punch.
"We can't take three of them!" a third pegasus screamed, the first two beginning to angrily blink and recover. "Fall back to the east! Retreeeeeat!"
The beast that had been knocked from the sky leered up at the pegasi, then dug its limbs into the ground, pulling up a giant clod of earth and grass... then threw it like a deadly missile, the loose ground shattering mid-flight into an enormous cloud of dirt clods and boulders. It was too wide for all the pegasi to escape, and three were caught fully in the blast, taken to the ground along with it.
"You and you, search and rescue! Save the third barrel! We have to split these three as well!"
Yellow streaks blazed through the sky in chaotic directions as the pegasus formation shattered, the groups shifting as tactics changed. The newcomer beast grinned, following its companion's lead and hefting a colossal chunk of land...
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed through the air, embedding itself in the clump of dirt. Half a second later, it exploded in a fiery salvo, breaking the projectile and showering the creature with earth. The pegasi glanced around wildly.
"This doesn't make us friends," Gunther grunted, flying lamely over a nearby hill with his bow drawn and a quiver of exploding arrows pulled from his ruined, bloodied suit. "But between me and them, it's personal."
Shinespark stepped onto the bridge, her captain's chair as vacant as it had been since the ship landed weeks ago.
"Don't you have a battle to fight?" Jamjars frowned, stepping out of the darkness. "Friends to defend? All that stuff?"
"I can't fly anymore," Shinespark replied, voice tight and level. "The only way I'll be fighting is if they come to me. And I haven't been willing to do it lately, so... if the guards are overwhelmed and that was our last flight, I have a ship and need to say goodbye."
She slowly sat down, running a hoof over the ship's dim, pristine control console, and closed her eyes and sighed.
"Or you could do something useful with yourself," Jamjars muttered. "I'm still waiting on the plans for that pendant so I can try to bring Valey back."
"That won't work," Shinespark said, her voice quiet. "If this is the end, I'll face it with dignity, but do you honestly believe there's anything we can do to make a difference?"
"Isn't there?" Jamjars shrugged. "You still have your unusually-harmonic cutie mark, don't you?"
"No." The chair didn't hide Shinespark's flanks, still clearly adorned with her brand. "I don't. Without my horn, it doesn't work."
"You really need to listen more," Jamjars sighed. "I have a friend who's been explaining harmony extensively to me. The stuff you make your ship run by? She says it's a power that can shape the world around you based on your emotions and desires."
Shinespark refused to look back, the ship's meters and dials dim before her. "That means nothing. If I could have saved Ironridge just by wanting to, Sosa would still be standing."
"Don't look at me." Jamjars shrugged. "But even if you lost, everyone thinks you put up a pretty good fight. Look." She trotted forward and glared up at Shinespark. "I don't really care about your personal crises and how good you are at saving cities. I'm mostly interested in keeping my body in one piece. And right now, you should be doing your part toward that instead of sulking and waiting."
Shinespark's eyes bored into her. "And what part are you playing to save yourself? Aren't you waiting just as much as I am?"
"Yes." Jamjars shrugged.
"You're a hypocrite. This isn't even your ship."
"I'm also not the one with an unusually-harmonic cutie mark," Jamjars countered, rolling her eyes. "You want to make yourself useful, go use what you have. Who cares if it's not strong enough? Go hook yourself up to your harmony extractor and do everything you can anyway. Isn't it what your friends would do?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I told you that if we're going to die, I'm going to face my death with dignity. Not clinging and scrabbling to schemes with no chance of success."
Jamjars stared at her, with no words necessary.
Shinespark hit her head against the control panel. "Even though there was no chance of success when Starlight stopped the windigoes in Ironridge. But I'm not her and don't know why she can do the things she can!"
"She sure wouldn't have been able to if you didn't leave this ship there waiting for her." Jamjars shrugged. "You can mope around if you want. I always figured you'd go down fighting."
Hissing, Shinespark sucked in a breath, got up and stomped away.
"Shinespark?" Maple looked up as her friend entered the engine room, worry on her face. "Gerardo was just here. What's going on?"
Shinespark just sighed. "Some monsters the Equestrians were keeping sealed in their border fortress escaped, and Celestia is gone, and the guard she left are trying to protect them from us. There's a battle happening and there's nothing any of us can do."
"Oh." Maple's face fell. "I suppose that's... how it is for me when we get in a lot of battles. Trying to stand up to Chrysalis, I just got knocked to the side."
"I know." Shinespark sat down beside the bed, gently touching Maple's shoulder. "Me too."
"You haven't been feeling well," Maple whispered. "About... everything. Are you...?"
"If you're going to say okay, think about how likely that might be," Shinespark whispered back. "But I'm better than I could be. There's just nothing else to be done."
Amber appeared in the doorway, Valey's body at her side. "Shinespark? I've been trying to see if Valey thinks she can fight for us, and..."
"Come." Shinespark motioned her over. "That's just a husk. Either the guards will win, or they won't. But if they don't, I... shouldn't be alone."
The door had been left open above, shouts filtering down from the deck. "One monster inbound!" a guard cried in the distance. "Fire!"
There was an explosion and a crunch. "None of us are up there this time, are we?" Amber asked, trotting closer and sitting with Maple and Shinespark. Valey's body joined them.
"No," Shinespark answered, the black sword still clasped at her side. "Not this time."
"So we could die, and there's nothing we'd be able to do about it?" Amber looked up. "Well, I suppose we survived Chrysalis by coincidence already. I guess these are the dangers of adventuring, huh?" Her eyes watered slightly. "You think it was worth it, Maple? Instead of staying home in Riverfall?"
"Don't talk like that," Maple gently reprimanded. "Maybe we should have died to Chrysalis, but we didn't. Starlight saved us."
"You talk about her more like she's your hero than your daughter," Shinespark softly replied. "She's not here this time, though, and even if she was, how many times can one pony do something like that?"
Suddenly, something sparked, and the lights went out.
"What the...?" Shinespark struggled, trying to force magic into her broken horn. It sparked fitfully, but still enough for the mares to see by. In the center of the room, Valey's body had somehow tugged the moon glass sword free from its power cage, before wandering it over and placing it by the group.
"Heh... see?" Amber patted its chitinous back, nudging the sword into the center of the circle. "She's still got brains. She knows Starlight and Valey would want to be here too."
Starlight stared at the viewport to the outside world, ears folded back in disbelief.
"This has been surreal enough already, but who are we?" Valey asked, staring along with her.
"It doesn't matter." Starlight straightened up. "Our friends are in trouble and we have to get out of here, right now. I don't care how possible it is. We've both done things that should have been impossible. Hey! Lyn!" She looked back out into the pedestal room. "Are you still there!?"
"Yes," Gwendolyn squeaked. "Starlight, were am I?"
"It doesn't matter!" Starlight shouted back. "Just stay here! I'm going to get us out... somehow! Machine! Nightmare Modules! Tell me exactly where we are, right now!"
Nowhere in particular, the voice replied. A blank canvas, if you will. You know how this world works, Starlight Glimmer. Drawing from the memories of the souls within it, it conforms itself to their consciousness. We are in the same place where you go to dream, only tethered there by a power you yourself created, using Crystal's aid.
Starlight winced at the use of her full name, right there while Valey was listening.
This is merely a section of the world with no soul to paint it. It is controlled by those who have kept their memories, such as Crystal and yourself. Crystal desired a place where she might act upon her jealousy and resentment of you, and so that is what it has presently become.
"Who are you and why do you know this!?" Starlight called back. "And what can I do about it!?"
I am an interface within each of Princess Luna's creations. It is my purpose to guide and regulate administrative access between their magic and the world around them. In simpler terms, I am a machine, and I was created to know this. At the moment, you could think of me as Valey's version of the instance of me you regularly communicate with, which is restricted here. As for your second question, this area is currently being shaped by Crystal. You could change it, if you could put more power behind your desires than she can. You know, however, who and what she is.
"Stanza," Starlight whispered. "You mean the kind of power she used to drain all the cutie marks from Garsheeva and every batpony in Mistvale?"
Yes.
Starlight looked at her hooves. "But I'm just one filly..." She gritted her teeth.
"You also don't look like someone who gives up easily." Valey patted her on the shoulder. "Yo, machine thing. Think you can make this place play rude noises at this Crystal or Chrysalis or whatever to get her attention? I think it sounds like we've got a fight to pick with her."
"You're right," Starlight said, glancing back at the window to her friends, still huddled around the sword as shouts filtered down from the deck in the distance. "Nothing will stop me from trying. But... we?"
"Yep." Valey winked. "I'm super fuzzy on how this place works, but she said it does what we want if we want it harder than that other punk, right? So if we challenge her together, think we'll be twice as effective?"
Starlight blinked.
"Hey, maybe if I really want us fighting her to look like a cool laser battle, it'll let us out of this machine so I can stretch my legs and finally-"
Chrysalis arrived, glancing in mild annoyance up at the screen. "What? I'm too busy figuring out how this place works to spend time playing with you."
"Let us go," Starlight threatened.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "No."
"Yeah! Let us out, you punk!" Valey made a rude gesture, but Chrysalis merely rolled her eyes and started walking back away.
Starlight hissed, glancing around and wishing the Nightmare Module voice would return. What was she supposed to do?
I told you that your odds of success would be low.
The battle cries above had grown more and more desperate as seconds passed, but Maple, Amber, Shinespark and Valey's body stayed huddled together, sitting in the engine room around Starlight's moon glass sword. Suddenly, screams sounded from above, and the ship rocked hard.
"That can't be good," Amber whispered, shaking.
"Something big is out there." Maple hugged her despite the pain in her ribs. "Sorry, girls. Sorry, Willow. Sorry, Starlight. I guess the soldiers couldn't do enough. I never thought the guards would lose when I finally wanted them to win. I wish I could have seen you one more time..."
Amber squeezed her eyes shut. "At least it will be quick, right? Or do these things take captives and...?"
"It won't be quick, but not because of that." Shinespark shook her head, a dark smile growing on her muzzle, her sparking, broken horn the only source of light in the room. "This ship was made with an experimental hull prototype my biological father, Mobius, spent ten years developing in an effort to make a new generation of water travel and compete with the airships. It wasn't enough for him, but there was nothing his tests could do to damage it. I wouldn't be surprised if it could survive a mile-high drop, nose first. As long as they're too big to fit inside, they can't just break through and grab us. We might starve while they wait for us to come out, but we can die on our own terms."
Amber looked up. "You could have mentioned that earlier..."
"Or maybe it's not as strong as we thought it was." Shinespark shrugged. "Now that we're here, I just... feel like I have more I should have..."
"Should still," Maple corrected. "We're not gone yet, right? Maybe the soldiers are doing a maneuver, and-"
With an almighty clang, the ship was lifted a foot in the air, landing slightly at an angle. Amber latched onto Shinespark and started crying.
Maple's smile cracked too, and she turned to the sword. "Starlight, I love you..."
Starlight stared frantically between Chrysalis's retreating form and the window to her friends, their voices all filtering down from above. Whether or not there was anything she could do, they had no one left to protect them. This is how it would have been without her. It was how it was without her, and it was how it was always going to be. Maple had left Riverfall because of her. If it wasn't for her, they would never have been here... but now they were, and she wasn't there to protect them.
She wasn't where she needed to be.
"Chrysalis!" Starlight screamed, trying to rush the screen again.
Chrysalis looked over her shoulder and curled her lip.
"My friends are going to die out there!" Starlight roared. "I need to find a way to help them! Let me out and stand aside, or help me! Don't stick me in here!"
"You're stuck in this world whether I have you in there or not," Chrysalis drawled. "Don't be a sore loser. I told you, once I find a way to make this place switch us, they won't even be your friends anymore anyway."
"And they're going to die!" Starlight cried, her hooves finally, somehow making physical contact with the screen window she was looking out of. "Even if you do get this place to work for you, you won't even have friends waiting for you on the outside!"
Chrysalis sneered. "A clever ploy, but I can tell a lie when I hear it."
"Chrysalis...!"
Starlight's friends were waiting for her. They were gathered around the sword, waiting for death or salvation. They wanted to see her again, too. Maybe she couldn't do it on her own, but... she swung a hoof and hit the display, and felt the glass crack.
Chrysalis's eyes bulged in surprise, and she frowned. With a flicker of green from where her horn should have been, the monitor repaired itself.
"I'm coming for you!" Starlight howled, pummeling the screen again.
Chrysalis sighed and sat down, repairing the damage effortlessly. "However you're doing that, are you really going to make me sit here and foalsit you?"
"I'll never stop," Starlight warned, a vein twitching around her eyes. "I'll fight you for the rest of eternity here if you cost me my friends!"
"Bananas, girl, you're scary," Valey remarked. "Hey, meathead! Do what she says or else I'll beat you up too!"
"Give up," Chrysalis complained, tossing her limbs in exasperation. "Whatever you're doing is weak, and I have things to do!"
"Should have thought about that before becoming my enemy again," Starlight snarled, glancing around. Chrysalis was right, unfortunately. She needed more power... "Valey, where's Garsheeva?"
Valey blinked. "Gar-who?"
Starlight pointed down at the pedestal, where red and blue cutie mark stones were inserted in two of the slots. "You're tied to the red one, I think. The blue one belonged to someone called Garsheeva! They're called artifices, and they're strong. If Garsheeva is here and could help us..."
"Uhhh... I don't think so?" Valey tilted her head. "I definitely do have something going on with the red one. Feels almost like a rope tying us together, now that you make me think about it. But I've never seen anyone else in here?"
Starlight's vision panned, and she searched the room for anything that would help. Lyn, hiding under a side screen with perked ears. Chrysalis, staring at them and daring her to try punching the screen again. The two artifices. Hadn't Garsheeva's been given to her by Luna as a gift, in the memory Nightmare Module? Maybe it wasn't attached to her soul. Maybe it was just a single brand, floating there with no one to use it?
"Valey," she whispered. "I got stuck in here after she tried shoving me in that slot. And if you feel tethered to your cutie mark, which is in there... if it was removed, would you be free?"
Chrysalis scoffed. "As if there's any way for you to remove them from in¬-"
Gwendolyn dashed out into the center, jumped, grabbed onto the red artifice, and yanked it free.
Red light blazed around the pedestal, and Chrysalis stepped back in surprise and anger. When it finished, only the blue artifice remained, and Valey stood where the red one had been. Scowling, she rubbed her head and glared at Chrysalis. "Ow, bananas, this feels weird... I've got a good feeling you're about to get a whupping."
"See if you can try!" Chrysalis snarled back, readying her green spear. "What's that whelp doing, helping you? She should go back to her memories where she belongs!"
She flung it straight at Lyn, who screamed and covered her head. Valey effortlessly knocked the weapon off course.
"Maybe you should be more worried about me," Valey warned, stepping down the pedestal and towards her.
"Go back where you belong." Chrysalis's eyes burned. "You were compassionate enough to stand up for me when we were alive. My quarrel isn't with you."
"Too bad. I fight for my friends!"
As Valey took off and Chrysalis was forced to react, Lyn stared up at the screen, Starlight stuck inside alone. "If I take the other one out, will that free you, too?"
Starlight's ears fell. "I don't think so... That one was tied to Garsheeva, but I think it's just on its own now. And I don't have a cutie mark. That's why I left nothing behind when she put me in..."
Her friends stayed constant in the background, their conversation weighing on her like an anvil. As she stared at the pedestal, a lonely realization hit her: she had always known that she would be willing to get a cutie mark if it meant saving her friends, but had never considered she might find herself in a place where she was stuck because she hadn't had one already.
Unless...
Starlight stared intently at the artifice. Garsheeva's was based on the virtue of hope, right? She didn't know her special talent, but she was stubborn and never gave up in impossible scenarios. It couldn't be that poor of a match. And it was a mark without a pony, and she was a pony without a cutie mark... and it was an artifice, to boot. Designed to mirror an intensely harmonic artifact. Starlight swallowed. If there was any way it could help her help her friends...
Her Nightmare Module voice rose beside her. It is as you will it.
With a soft flare of blue light, the nebulous spots on Starlight's flanks resolved, becoming the triangles she had once seen on the Night Mother with far less fanfare than she had expected. A faint sensation of a cord like Valey had talked about tugged on her mind, but otherwise she felt utterly unchanged. For all her worries months ago about getting a cutie mark, here she was with one that wasn't even hers and it hadn't done a thing to her. If it weren't for the tension, she could almost have sighed in relief.
"Lyn!" Starlight called. "It's different now! Pull the blue one free!"
"Not so fast!" Chrysalis hissed, soaring over as Valey was slammed against a wall by a field of telekinesis that covered the entire breadth of the room, leaving her nowhere to dodge. Her forehooves slammed down on Lyn before she could reach for the pedestal again, crushing the filly against the floor. "I'm not falling for that again. Stop fighting me and hold still!"
Starlight stared intently down from her perch in the central screen. "Never."
The boat rocked and clunked again, tossed a foot or more in the air. Maple cried out from the jostling to her wounded ribcage, and Amber and Shinespark fought to keep their balance.
On the surface, two of the brood had reached the ship, and were largely ignoring the pegasi swarming around them as they investigated their catch. Sniffing and nudging it, they stood taller than it was when they reared fully up, and one was on the deck, poking around. The other shoulder-checked it experimentally. "GRWAAAAA?"
"Sir, none of our attacks are working!" a frantic pegasus reported. "They're too large, and we're out of explosives! They're not even interested in us!"
"Tell me something I don't know, private," the captain growled, loading a crossbow and firing it at one creature's eye. It turned its head and blocked the shot effortlessly with a massive horn. "We must trust the diversion team and do our part regardless!"
With a roar, a third beast bounded over the horizon, this one very much interested in chasing pegasi. "There's a third!" several guards screamed, adjusting formation and focusing fire on the newcomer.
The battle continued to rage, with Jamjars hunkered on the bridge, unable to get below if she wanted to. Hairy arms pounded the deck like it was a drum, and horns rammed the side, rolling the boat and trying to tip it over.
"...This can't happen," Glimmer whispered from the landing outside the engine room.
Shinespark's ears snapped up. "Well, it's happening whether you like it or not!"
Glimmer turned and stepped inside the room. "You don't understand. It mustn't."
Nobody had an answer for her, all still huddled by the sword.
"Listen to you all," Glimmer said. "When you need someone to save you, you put all your faith in Starlight, and she knows it. I was supposed to prevent her from growing up with that kind of a burden on her shoulders, but how can she ignore the cries of her best friends? But now I've failed. You're going to die, and when she someday escapes from that obsidian, she's going to have nobody waiting for her. That will end her."
"What do you want us to do about it!?" Amber choked, eyes streaming. "Shut up! Up until minutes ago, I thought we were going to be safe with Princess Celestia, and she just left because of your dragon! You're right that it shouldn't be on Starlight to fix, just because she's usually able! It should be on you!"
"Amber is right." Shinespark got up, her horn sparking painfully to keep the lights on. "I was there. Do you really intend to lecture us about who we want to spend our last minutes thinking of when it's your fault they're our last in the first place? We know nothing about who you are or even what your name is. You showed up one day and saved Valey, and that's why we let you travel with us, but you've never made friends with us and always done your own thing and now we get to find out you had something you didn't tell us about that caused the princess of the Plains of Harmony to abandon us at the worst possible time!"
Maple just sniffed.
"You owe us an explanation," Shinespark demanded. "If you're going to treat us like this right when our chance has been snatched out from under us by something you brought here, we deserve to know." She flung a hoof at Glimmer. "Who are you and what was your machine and why was it worth Celestia leaving us right before this happened!?"
Glimmer closed her eyes. "I... I'm sorry. I know you want an explanation, but I don't owe you that. I owe you your lives."
Maple blinked. "That would be welcome too, but what...?"
Glimmer picked up one of the empty helmets for the harmony extractor.
All three mares reacted at once, Maple reaching a hoof with wide eyes. "What are you-? No, don't! No!"
"Starlight needs friends," Glimmer said, placing the bowl on her head. "Take good care of her for me. More depends on it than you think."
An unearthly hum rolled through the Immortal Dream, one it had only traversed once before. Every light in the ship reignited, blazing blue, and the two beasts that were currently assaulting it looked up, glancing at each other in confusion.
"What the...?" The guards flocking around the ship looked up from the third beast as well.
"That doesn't look good!" the captain warned. "Stay back and take cover!"
A pool of brightness blazed, visible through the hull from the engine room. With crackles of lightning, energy arced all across the hull, sparking where the wooden coating was damaged and making the beasts wince in pain. "What's going on!?" more pegasi cried, the air where the harmony comet had once been shimmering and distorting.
With a conical explosion of blue, the comet reformed, instantly decapitating the head and upper body of the beast standing on the deck. It roared at its constraints with the force of a hurricane, a single-shot overload of energy, waiting for direction from the one who commanded it.
"Jamjars!" Glimmer cried, reduced to a fading specter in the engine room beneath a storm of harmony raging above. The helmet was destroyed, the equipment faring little better than when Starlight had done the same, blue fire pouring from exploded meters and dials and reflecting in Shinespark's stupefied eyes. "She's on the bridge! Someone use the intercom...!"
On the bridge, Jamjars had gotten her hooves beneath her, the ship console alive with unearthly energy. She had heard the stories. She had been in Ironridge. But this burst of harmony was destined for something far different than exploding windigoes. With her trademark, shark-like grin on her face, she punched the dashboard, pushing the ship's acceleration all the way forward.
One moment, the ship was there. The next, it was gone, a fading afterimage in the guards' eyes and a furrow carved in the ground in the direction it had been facing.
Shinespark's hull melted through hills without resistance, the ship flying forward through the ground at miles per second. Its nose was angled down, but the ground gave way without resistance, blown away by the sheer power of the ship's construction and the jolt of harmony, carving a wide trench and annihilating Celestia's railroad as it barreled toward the sea. Everyone on it was buoyed by blue, cushions of energy extending from the comet and fighting inertia so that the crew wouldn't be reduced to just as much paste as the hills. Finally, they burst from a bank and plowed into the water, the ship landing in the sea with colossal force.
"Starlight!" Maple screamed in the engine room, somehow on her hooves. "What are you doing!? Don't do this again to me!"
"I'm not your Starlight," Glimmer apologized, already growing faint, the cloud of blue beginning to dissipate overhead. "She'll be safe if you keep her safe. I'm sorry. Good-"
Maple charged through her, and her cutie mark flashed, doing once again what she had used it for in Ironridge. Glimmer was gone.
Gasping, Amber struggled to her hooves. "What...?"
Shinespark's eyes flickered between the ruined engine room, the dregs of Glimmer's harmony cloud, and the obsidian sword, which was looking slightly melted from the explosion. Grabbing it in her teeth, she flung it up into the energy still coursing through the rails.
"Leave me alone to pursue my goal in peace!" Chrysalis hissed. "Stop fighting and stay put!"
"No!" Starlight continued struggling to break the screen, and Chrysalis actually had to spend effort stopping her this time. "I would have helped you! I would have let you come and be friends with my friends if you would have just been nicer and trusted me! But I'm never going to stop as long as you keep doing this to me and my friends!"
Suddenly, the ceiling crackled with force.
"Hmmm...?" Chrysalis glanced up and gasped, barely jumping out of the way in time to avoid incineration by a continuous lightning bolt of blue that struck the pedestal, causing every screen in the room to blaze with light. She cried out in pain, her fetlocks singed where she had been slightly too slow.
Starlight's eyes reflected the energy, and the cutie mark she had a new attachment to no longer felt so normal. It was overloaded with everything she had been missing since falling into this place... or everything since using the Nightmare Modules against Chrysalis. Or maybe even further back. But it was a wellspring of power, and she grabbed onto it, attacking the screen with everything she had.
There was no way Chrysalis could stop her. Starlight exploded out into the room, gently gliding to the ground, feeling even more overloaded than when the Trees of Harmony were lending her their power. Her horn pulsed, right on her forehead where it belonged, and she seized Lyn and Valey, dragging them over to her in front of the pedestal.
"I would have helped you," Starlight warned, pointing a hoof at Chrysalis and hovering in place, pointedly aware of where this burst of energy had come from. "I would have! But it's too late for that now, Chrysalis. Maybe someday, I'll be back for you and try again, but I'm not staying here any longer. You hear me, world? Let! Us! Out!"
She flew for the ceiling, Lyn and Valey held with her, the feeling of wings working at her sides even though she was a unicorn again. Her horn blazed with borrowed power, and she slashed at the ceiling, pouring herself into the desire to be free and save her friends. Even Glimmer believed in her, at last. This was a gift to help her escape...
The ceiling cracked, stars visible beyond. Chrysalis tried to lunge, but an invisible wall of force blocked her way, and Starlight dragged her friends up and into the chaos, leaving the world behind.
The sword landed on the floor of the engine room point to the sky, balanced perfectly on its half-melted handle. It shimmered and glowed, the reflections in its facets distorting with sparkles of stars... and then it exploded, its tip shattering into several shards. The ground beneath it melted into a circle, absorbing the last of the light from the extractor rails, and a faint outline of a filly rose up, landing in front of the sword. Her cutie mark pulsed, and she grew slightly more corporeal.
"Starlight!" Maple gasped, staggered against the wall of the room. Amber gaped as well, and Shinespark reluctantly smiled.
Starlight flailed, realizing her hooves passed straight through the floor... but her new artifice mark flickered again, and she faded slightly further into existence. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Valey! Lyn! Where...?" She glanced at the two shards that had broken off from the sword tip. "They're in these," she knew, her horn glowing and lighting the engine room. A sinking feeling filled her as she realized just how far her friends still were from the living world. "This one is Valey, and this one is Lyn. They're in here..."
Amber stared at the shards with wide eyes... and took off Valey's beret, pulling out a golden pendant and offering it to Shinespark.
Shinespark blinked between them with stupefied disbelief and a slow, shocked smile. "I'm going to need a screwdriver."
"What was that!?" The pegasi struggled to regroup in the aftermath of the ship's departure. One beast had keeled over dead, and the other two took off, bounding toward the sea in pursuit of the quarry that had suddenly killed one of their own.
"Irrelevant! Protect the ship!" The captain flourished a trident in one hoof and a spear in the other. "Formation, ponies! Don't let the beasts catch up first!"
They streaked over the water after following the ship's furrow, several bisected rivers already draining into the unnaturally straight trench. The beasts were faster on land, but over water, the pegasi had the advantage. Both beasts growled threateningly as they were passed, the Immortal Dream floating damaged in the bay.
"Assemble! They're going to try to capsize the boat!" The pegasi swarmed again, reduced to less than half their original numbers by the fight, but too well-trained to give in. One beast leapt from the water as they hovered above the deck, landing on it and beating its chest with a roar.
"Aim... Fire!" Crossbolts streaked through the air, hammering against the first monstrosity.
The second one dove from the water like a fish, its brother catching it and hurling it into the sky like a barn-sized missile. Pegasi shrieked and dove to avoid it. "I've never seen them do that!" one panicked. "Are they learning, or do they know how to keep tricks up their sleeves!?"
"Rally and defend the boat!" the captain countered. "We're our charges' last line of defense! Princess Celestia herself tasked us with this! Don't be scattered!"
Black hooves pounded against the staircase.
"BWAAAAAOORRRRRR...!" The beast still on the deck leaned over and grabbed the starboard railing, snapping it off like a bar of candy. It reared up, holding the railing like a jagged sword, and began slicing through the air. One pegasus's wings were struck, and he plummeted with a scream.
"Don't let it use that as a weapon!"
"Rally! Attack its head...!"
A bolt of green skidded out from the door, sliding straight between the beast's feet with slashes of monochrome black. "Ha! Hyaa! Take that!"
The beast winced, suddenly standing straighter. "Who...?" The guards looked down in confusion.
A massive head rose from the waves, and the second beast grappled the edge, rolling the boat in the water as it tried to climb aboard. The far side of the deck rose with the motion, and a green-and-black blur used it to launch herself into the air, landing on the first beast's back between the shoulders. Four hooves planted themselves squarely against its hairy hide as a black metal sword stabbed deep into its spine, and the mare let herself slip, carving all the way from its neck to its waist as she slid down. At the end of the slide, the beast toppled, and she catapulted off, flying straight for the head of the one that was climbing aboard.
"GRRROOOOOO..." It opened its maw to catch her.
With a single beat of leathery wings and a dangling shimmer of gold, her trajectory changed, and the sword landed point-first in its massive, yellow eye. The beast moaned again, its pupil rolling back into its head, and it released the boat, falling back into the sea and taking its sibling with it.
Less than a dozen surviving guards hovered over the boat, staring with unreserved awe.
"Heh..." Touching down on the ruined deck and pushing back her mane, a golden pendant with a black stone clasped tightly around her neck, Valey adjusted her beret and whistled. "Bananas, you guys are hopeless without me."
Bubbles rose through the water as two defeated brood beasts bobbed, no way to tell if they were paralyzed or dead. It wouldn't have made a difference to Equestrian soldiers, their expressions utterly stupefied as Valey ignored them, the black sword slung over her shoulder. Her attention was elsewhere.
Far to the northeast, in the vicinity of the derelict airship, a titanic explosion rocked the horizon. Valey glanced up at it. "Is that my problem? Because I have some friends I need to talk to and some questions I need answered."
The pegasus captain finally managed to get his jaw back in working order. "Form up," he ordered, still breathless. "If the situation is safe here, we reinforce the other squadrons."
Valey shrugged, turning again to the stairway where Shinespark, Starlight, Amber and even Maple were waiting. "So," she said, hefting her pendant. "The last thing I remember is dying, and here I am not dead. And I'm betting it has something to do with this."
"You're welcome..." Jamjars stumbled out of the door to the bridge, looking slightly off-balance after the ship's rocket-powered dash.
"Chrysalis tried to take you," Starlight replied, hiding her flanks. "I used the Nightmare Modules to make moon glass and took you back."
"Heh..." Valey's mouth turned in a regretful half-smile. "She got everyone else, too? That make me the last bat in the world?"
Shinespark shook her head, barely looking like she was processing where she was or who was in front of her. "Everyone on the ship survived. Nyala and Felicity. They're here too."
"I took back all the others as well," Starlight assured. "Everything she stole. But they're still trapped in moon glass..."
Valey squeezed her eyes shut and stepped forward. "...Hey. Can we go downstairs and get a room? I kinda... want to be somewhere a little more private to say what I'm thinking right now."
"My room." Shinespark nodded. "Is it still in use as the infirmary?"
Maple winced. "If so, it's where I really should be..."
"Gazelle and Meltdown," Amber added. "Though I think they'd be fine in a smaller room, and Meltdown would even appreciate it."
Shinespark nodded, and started down the stairs. Valey watched her go. "An infirmary, huh? Her horn... How badly off are we?"
Maple smiled tearfully. "Bad enough that ten minutes ago, we thought we were going to die. I'd hug you, but my ribs..."
"I gotcha." Valey grinned, then followed Shinespark into the ship.
Starlight's horn was the one to light the room, the ship's power out once again now that Glimmer's burst had subsided. Valey sat in the center, Maple resting and Starlight still hiding her flanks but Shinespark and Amber close next to her.
"The more I look at you, the rougher you guys look," Valey remarked seriously. "Not just beaten up, too. How long have I been gone?"
"Between two and three weeks," Amber answered. "How are you feeling, though? I never stopped believing you'd be back, and did everything I could to keep your body in good shape."
Valey stretched, testing her legs. "Honestly? Never better. Pretty full, too, which is weird because every time I used this pendant in the past it made me stupid hungry. So don't you worry about me."
"There will be time for worry later," Shinespark whispered. "I just... can't..."
"Hey. You guys have had it hard? I've got you. Just take it easy." Valey put a wing around her and patted her shoulder. "I'm sure I'll get story after story about just what's happened while I was gone, and I'll lick a boot if there's not a ton of stuff breathing down our backs already, but leave all that to me."
"But how are you doing?" Maple insisted. "It must feel like minutes ago in Grandbell..."
"Yep. Sorta. Glad to be alive." Valey stretched, then stared straight at Starlight. "But I meant it when I said I'm better than ever. You know why?" She put her forehooves on Starlight's shoulders, staring straight into her eyes. "Say what you did with the moon glass again. To that hag in the arena."
Starlight swallowed from her intensity. "I used the Nightmare Modules and took back all the cutie marks she was trying to use her powers to steal, including you."
Valey instantly yanked her close, burying her in a deep hug. "Don't you get it? It was an ark."
"What?" Shinespark frowned, stepping closer.
Valey grabbed both her and Amber with her wings, hugging them tight. "It was an ark," she repeated, her voice a tense whisper. "The meteor, eight years ago. It wasn't sent to carry something evil to the world. It was one hundred percent good. If Nightmare Moon or whatever was up there on the moon... the meteor was to get everyone inside away from her and give them real lives here."
"Valey, what?" Amber repeated, surprised. "How do you know? Do you remember something you forgot before?"
"'Cuz it just happened now," Valey chuckled. "Who cares how the Nightmare Modules work, or who made them or why? There's thousands and thousands of batponies Crystal tried to swipe, and Starlight swiped them back. It's exactly the same. Regular batponies can use Nightmare Modules too, and there must have been enough of us up on the moon to populate the meteor in the first place. What if Nightmare Moon was a tyrant up there, and some hero made that meteor so we could all escape? It's totally possible!"
"Possible, but you're saying guaranteed..." Shinespark's ears fell.
Valey pushed them back upright with a wingtip, laughing harder. "You don't get it. I've never had any explanation for how the meteor could not be a bad thing before. It was always about how do I live with myself when I know I came from this creepy evil thing, and every single time I tried to find out more about what it was, it just looked worse and worse. Even the Night Mother had nothing, remember?" She wiped her mane back, almost doubled over while hugging her friends. "But it totally could have been just like this! It's not about being guaranteed, it's about being not guaranteed!"
"Oh, Valey..." Amber beamed, wrapping her hooves around the entire hug as well. "So you're happy?"
Valey tipped over, taking her friends with her. "Hahaha... Never been gladder not to know something in my life. It doesn't matter what the meteor was, because I can reasonably believe it was fantastic, and how I feel about it is the only part that's ever really mattered. Bananas, I love you girls. You too, Ironflanks. Bet you were starting to miss getting called that?"
Maple smiled, staying safely to the side of the hug. "From the very first day."
"Thanks, kiddo." Valey ruffled Starlight's mane, eyes streaming. "You look pretty rough too, but I'm never gonna forget this. Whatever you've been through without me and to get me back, it means more than life to me. Feels like I've got a whole lot more of a future now than before she got me... You're a hero. Anything you need for the rest of your life, I will never, ever let you down."
Starlight started bawling, and Amber soon followed suit. "Everyone thought I was crazy for always believing I'd see you again..."
Valey was too busy laughing to answer, but she pulled Amber closer anyway.
They could have carried on all night, and would have if not for a knock at the door around an hour later. "I'll get it," Shinespark sighed, extracting herself from the pile.
She opened her door with a hoof and blinked. It was Jamjars, wearing saddlebags loaded with what looked like everything she owned.
"Pay up," Jamjars demanded.
Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"Pay up," Jamjars smugly repeated. "You bet me your room my plan to get Valey back wouldn't work, remember? These are my captain's quarters now. Besides, I've been the one doing all the piloting lately, so you might as well name me captain too."
Shinespark blanched. "No. I was not in my right mind."
On the floor, Valey sat up. "Wait, seriously?" she asked, threatening to start chuckling again. "Jamjars was the one who figured out how to beat moon glass? And you bet her this room she couldn't?"
Shinespark's ears pressed heavily back, and she scowled. "I have not been in a good state of mind, lately. If she bet me that, I wasn't paying attention and she was taking advantage of-"
Valey was at her side in an instant, somehow carrying Amber and Starlight both. "Are you joking here, kiddo?"
Jamjars winked at her. "Jamjars one, Valey zero. Now you owe me."
"Just give her the room, Shinespark..." Valey rolled her eyes, trying not to laugh. "Look, it's worth it to me, and I'll make it worth it to you. Besides, smaller places are cozier anyway. How full are the other rooms?"
Shinespark sighed. "Fine. And I wouldn't know. There's a lot to be done..."
"Yeah, and I'll be doing the doing." Valey stepped out of Jamjars' way, Starlight following her with Maple carried carefully in her aura. She glanced aside. "First, we wanna set Ironflanks down somewhere?"
Shinespark nodded, stepping through and checking door after door. "Jamjars' room is clean and empty. It will do for now."
Valey nodded in return, leaving her friends to see to setting up the other room. Her hooves carried her through the library, most of its chairs overturned and books shaken free. That would be a task to deal with. Probably from all the ship-rocking caused by those monsters. She wasn't looking forward to facing the outside state of the vessel, but her cutie mark was quiet, so at least there wasn't any danger of sinking.
One glance into the engine room told her all she needed to know about its state. It looked actually worse than when Starlight had fought the windigoes in Ironridge, and that was saying something. The remains of a twisted moon glass sword lay in the middle of the room, and she silently closed her eyes, taking a moment and nodding respectfully to the place where the rest of her species was enshrined.
Then her path brought her below. The dining hall was actually crowded, most of the ship's occupants having set up there for the night rather than in the proper cabins. A quick look across them told her there were likely too many to even fit in the cabins without crowding... Gerardo and Slipstream were using each other as pillows, a sight that brought another smile to her lips. There was Felicity, just as predicted. And Nyala...
"You're back," Nyala whispered, eyes glowing in the darkness.
"Yeah," Valey breathed. "Sorry about disappearing again right when... you know. I got you back. Again."
"I heard you laughing," Nyala murmured.
"Glad to be alive." Valey winked. "Maybe things will really start looking up for us, now."
Nyala shook her head. "Well... thanks for coming to talk to me. But we should save any celebrations or reunions for tomorrow. Everyone is exhausted and there will be more trouble in the morning, so let them rest. I'm just glad to see they can rest peacefully."
"Looks like they've needed it for a long time," Valey murmured back. "Guess a good night's sleep is what I can give them for now. Maybe I should stand guard for a bit. Think I'll go for a fly... Don't wanna leave Amber and Sparky for too long, though. Don't you worry. This place looks like a dump, but I'm gonna get it back in shape in no time."
Valey felt like the only pony awake aboard the Immortal Dream by the time the sun rose. As much as she remembered their crew keeping odd hours, everyone seemed too exhausted to not take advantage of the reprieve, both from the previous night's battle and the last few weeks as a whole.
She stood on the deck, closed her eyes and strolled toward the shattered railing. A refreshing tinge of danger prickled her flank and stopped her from walking overboard, a reminder that her cutie mark was still there and she was too.
There wasn't much point in circling the boat again. She knew what the damage was: assorted pummeling all across the hull, broken wood beams and dented side finish. Parts of the wireframe used to support the harmony comet were bent heavily out of place. The engine room smelled like smoke, and the ship was likely gutted to a state where Arambai's laboratory would be needed to restore it to new. At least it floated, even if it reeked of too many ponies with too little hope. She had to do something about that.
Wings sounded on the horizon, and she looked up, seeing a squad of battered pegasus guards inbound, lugging stuffed sacks and saddlebags. "We found the food cache your friends described," the lead guard said, allowing his stallions to deposit their payload on the deck without taking his eyes off Valey.
"Neat. Any of you know how to cook?" Valey glanced at the rear entry. "Or have a working kitchen, for that matter? I'm not gonna put money on ours working too well right now."
The guards shuffled. It was clear from their postures which ones had witnessed her single-hoofedly defeating two monsters that had threatened to take out their entire team and which ones had been elsewhere.
"Whatever." Valey shrugged. "Just do your own thing, I guess."
It wasn't a professional breakfast, but Valey had figured a sword wasn't far from a knife and done her best to dice some fruit and add a little bit of honey for her friends. She visited the dining hall first, figuring Starlight and the others in the cabin would be among the last to rise.
"Hey, uhh..." She glanced around the room, still greeted by half-asleep ponies. "Breakfast?"
"You're back," Harshwater remarked, the only properly-awake creature of the bunch. She still took a bowl gratefully from Valey's spread wings. "About time."
"Thanks," Nyala whispered, curled up against an overturned chair.
Howe and Neon Nova rested in the kitchen, and from the looks of things they actually had done some work trying to straighten it up last night, because it was in a far better state than the library. Both stallions were fast asleep, though, or at least pretending to be.
"Snore it up, Pancake," Valey droned, leaving bowls for them anyway but getting a good idea of who the first ponies to go would be if the ship was as overcrowded as the dining hall made it look.
Saffron Sunflower was next, her leg bound in a splint. She took her bowl with a chuckle. "I sure am glad to see some food that isn't rations again. Getting tired of all the welcome backs yet?"
Valey grinned a little. "Nah. Probably not gonna for a pretty long time."
"Is that from the food we attempted to recover?" Gerardo asked blearily, lifting his head from nearby. "Should do wonders for our spirits around here..."
"Here ya go, Birdo. And Slipstream too." Valey passed him two bowls with a wink. "Don't think I'm not gonna ask about the way you're cuddling in your sleep later."
Gerardo was too tired to reply, going straight to his breakfast. Felicity was next, and Valey stepped toward her lightly-slumbering form with a frown.
Felicity's ears flicked up, trained to sleep lightly by a foalhood in Gyre. "Oh, darling. It's just you..."
Valey stopped in front of her. "Yeah, so what are you doing here? Same for the dudes in the kitchen. Weren't we on really awkward terms last we talked? Something about you betraying us and getting me to clear out an entire castle for you?"
"Guilty as charged, I'm... I'm afraid." Felicity stifled a yawn, her ears going back down. "I'm sure we'll talk later, but if you wouldn't mind at least a temporary truce, I'm in very bad need of some proper nourishment."
Valey hoofed her a bowl. "Howe and Neon Nova get some, you do too. But you bet we're gonna talk. Who else is here I don't know about yet? I... might need to make some more."
Felicity bit her lip, halfway through digging in. "Darling, if you really are back from the dead, shouldn't you be taking it easy? If we have the food, there are others who can prepare it for any who haven't partaken yet. You've been through so much and I'm sure it can't be easy, and you really shouldn't be trying to avoid thinking about it by staying busy."
"Uhh... thanks?" Valey rubbed the back of her head. "But who says I don't wanna think about it? In case you didn't notice, I nearly spent the rest of my non-existence as an empty husk, and I seriously feel like running around and doing the stuff you can only do when you're alive. If I was trying to bury anything, I'd be doing a pretty lousy job, because this stuff is all I can think about."
"Just take care of yourself," Felicity urged, going back to her breakfast. "Please."
Valey nodded and strolled away, heading for the navigation room, a single bowl left in her grasp. "Yo, Grenada?"
"I am here," Grenada called down the stairs, her voice echoing from the engine room.
"Breakfast." Valey strolled up and dropped her bowl at the entrance, glancing into the room. It was entirely lit by Grenada's aura, the unicorn on her back with her head inside a partly-opened metal equipment case. "You hungry?"
Grenada sighed and scooted out, her mane an utter mess. "Thank you," she sighed, slowly getting up. "I have been inspecting damages after that stunt."
Valey rubbed an ear. "Yeah, about that... I figure you hooked something explosive up to the extractor, since it looks a lot like last time, but Starlight is still here?"
Grenada thankfully took her bowl. "I was not present last time to see the state of the ship. From what I have heard, it was Starlight's lookalike who connected herself."
"Bananas." Valey whistled. "Must've been rough for Ironflanks. I really gotta talk to her. So how's the ship?"
"Bad." Grenada shook her head. "If Shinespark and I work together, we may be able to patch something together, but it will be a temporary measure at best. The unique core components of the ship are built to withstand incredible energy levels, but many smaller auxiliary components are completely destroyed. The kind that are easily swappable and would be cheap to replace in Ironridge, so we did not invest heavily in making robust. And our supply of spare parts is running low."
Valey set her jaw. "So if it's completely broken, broken, how stuck are we and where do we go?"
"We are less stuck than we were when the ship was stranded miles inland," Grenada replied. "If we can restore mana power and some of the ship's core functions, we could sail anywhere this sea extends. We had it working before. The hull also has an enchantment that gives it a limited ability to self-heal when powered, so it would assist greatly in repairing physical damage to the ship. Presently, I am still trying to assess how hard it would be to do that again."
Valey glanced up at the stairs to the deck. "Speaking of sailing, where actually are we? Somewhere on the Empire's coast? Or did we get further away?"
Grenada just shook her head. "We are in the Plains of Harmony. I would advise finding someone who can catch you up."
"Yeowch," Valey remarked, sitting on the ship's stern with Amber glomped around her, the pre-afternoon sun still rising through the sky. "That's a lot of nope. Almost surprised you guys are still standing through all that. Not that you aren't tough, but..."
"Everyone has been hanging on in their own way," Amber replied. "And now we're here."
"Yeah." Valey stared out at the bay shore. "Gonna be a lot to do to fix everyone's spirits again. I'm still feeling great enough to try, but this is the kind of thing where there's only so much one mare can do. I can count on you, right?"
Amber nodded, then sighed. "Someone has to, and I'm better off than most. But Valey... I really need a vacation. Everyone here does. I've just been surviving this whole time, and it lost every bit of the fun I once imagined in adventuring the moment we were out here for real. Stranded, injured, no food, friends dead..."
"At least the local guards are friendly for once." Valey shrugged. "They said they had stuff to take care of and would be back, but I think they're a little spooked of me. Our best bet seems like it'll be to get their attention again, ditch the ship, and use this train thing to head back into the rest of Equestria."
"We do have to wait here for Princess Celestia," Amber murmured. "She's the one who was going to talk about how we would be allowed in. We did cross the mountains without passes, remember."
Valey waved a hoof. "Eh, you said she sounded like a pretty decent gal. Anyway, we wait a day or two for her, or however long it takes. Get her to agree to let us in. And then we... probably split up? I don't want the Howe bros around. Saffron's got her own thing to do. Meltdown and Gazelle need help. Birdo's probably gonna want to wander, and I'll eat my hat if Slipstream doesn't try to follow him. Harshwater's only here 'cause she thinks she owes me a debt, and she's got her own life to live. Felicity and Grenada... Who knows?"
"And what about you?" Amber asked.
"Good question." Valey kept staring. "You and Ironflanks are sticking together, obviously, and Starlight too. I seriously wouldn't mind following you three wherever you decide to settle down. Hard to imagine Sparky ever stopping, though, and I know she'll want me around too. And I'm not leaving Nyala, wherever I go. Honestly, I don't have anywhere to go aside from where you all are. I'm just going to stick with my friends."
Amber bowed her head. "When you put it that way, it sounds like we have a good-bye ahead of us."
"Yeah..." Valey rolled her shoulders. "You all are my first friends, and I'm not super keen on it. But I can't expect every last pony I pick up on our adventures to stick around for the rest of my life, you know?"
"Every pony you pick up?" Amber whacked her with her tail.
"Hey, Harshwater joined because of me." Valey poked her back. "I dunno. Forever's always been a weird thing for me to think about. Probably because my life's been so short. Speaking of which, I probably even have a birthday coming up. It'll be nine years since that meteor fell soon."
"I don't know. It feels like a weird thing for you to say." Amber hesitated, then turned to look up at her. "You seem different, you know?"
Valey grinned. "I'll say."
After a silent request for elaboration, Valey shuffled in place. "Just a whole lot of glad-to-be-alive, I guess. As grim as things seem around here, I feel like I've got a future that could be about me in addition to you guys. Just... I dunno. Don't look a gift in the mouth, and all that. I'd rather enjoy it than think too much about it."
"I wish everyone felt that way." Amber closed her eyes, leaning against Valey's shoulder. "We're all incredibly fortunate to have escaped from the Empire with our lives. Now that you're back, that makes only Wallace that we lost. But sometimes, you get beaten down too much to see what you still have."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Yes. With Maple." Amber sighed. "Back then, a year or two ago, I swore an oath to myself that I'd never be the one who couldn't summon the will to get out of bed in the morning, and always stay on my hooves so that I'd be there for anyone who couldn't. That was... a big part of why I refused to accept that you were gone. Having been there now, I don't know that it made it that much better... I bet you're grateful I took care of your body and kept you in shape, though."
Valey winked and nudged her shoulder. "Yeah, thanks for that. Would have been hard to clean those monsters' clocks if I'd lost half my muscle mass."
"Anyway." Amber shook her head. "I mean it when I say we need a vacation. We might have made it through to the other side, but there's no way we're alright and we're not just going to sleep this one off. Shinespark was so devastated she didn't even try to get you back. Maple's spent all her time bedridden and unable to help, and I know she's shaken by what that filly did last night in the engine room. Starlight won't talk about it, but who wouldn't feel the pressure of being the one to stand up to an evil maybe-goddess and win? And don't get me started on Felicity."
Valey tilted her head. "Yeah, what's her deal?"
Amber looked away. "The short version? Had a falling-out with her sisters over how they treated us, snuck onto our boat alone to apologize, was in the one safe spot in the Empire by pure luck and is never going to see them again. She's been doing... a lot of coping."
"Bananas." Valey sagged, ears folded in exasperation and a hint of pity. "I guess I've gotta give her... what, a third chance? Or is this the fourth? Either way, we really gotta deal with those guards first and make sure we have a future. If they don't come back by the time Birdo and Sparky are up and about, we're flying out there and seeing what's up for ourselves."
Amber's face fell. "You know Shinespark lost her magic and can no longer fly..."
Valey winked. "Nah, that one's easy. Just you watch. I got this."
A stiff sea wind blew through Shinespark's mane, ruining the first job anyone had done to brush it in weeks as the sea shone crystal blue in the distance below. Valey swooped and wheeled, doing tricks just for the sake of it, and her friend almost smiled, clinging tightly onto her back.
"So? How's the view?" Valey asked, pulling up.
"...Thanks, Valey," Shinespark answered. "I hadn't realized how long it had been since I did this."
"Well, until Birdo gets his rear in gear, we've got nothing but time to kill." Valey dove again, the wind shredding through her ears and pulling her cheeks back in a forced grin, but she didn't fight it. Throwing herself into a sharp turn, she angled out perfectly to skim the water with a wingtip, sending a spray of droplets and mist into the air that she and Shinespark cascaded through, emerging with misty manes. "Yahaa!"
She did a barrel roll, pulling into another hover. "How long actually has it been?" Valey asked, carrying too much weight to fly lazily but still trying to look like she was relaxing. "Didn't you only ever fly around in armor back in Ironridge? How do you get a breeze going?"
"I went out to the wastelands to practice before I had my mark removed," Shinespark replied. "And I flew sometimes while we were flying to the Empire. It gave me time to think."
"About Sosa?" Valey bit her lip. "Yeah... So speaking of that, what are you thinking of doing now?"
Shinespark instantly shook her head. "I have no plans. I haven't been able to afford to. I'm sorry if you expected more from me, but... I'm past my limit, Valey. I've put in more than a lifetime of effort being a hero for Sosa, and I just don't know how much more I have to give. Even if I try, I've already given my all. What more do I even have?"
"Time." Valey did another flip. "A whole lot of time. Ironridge is pretty smashed, and is going to have to rebuild a whole lot of basic infrastructure before they can support any kind of ambitious project like you're good at. And you're practically still in your teens. Are you? Did I miss your birthday?"
"It's coming up." Shinespark shook her head. "Continue?"
Valey shrugged. "Way I see it, Ironridge is still gonna be there in ten or fifteen years, and it'll be in a whole lot better of a place for some ambitious mastermind to come in and try to help it seize the future then than it is today. So if I were you, I'd swear I'll return someday and then go do other stuff for a while. Live a little, do stuff for yourself, don't even try to be a hero. Settle down for a few years, and get some smaller project if you're restless. Do some stuff with your friends, or even get a family. Point is, you've got a lot of years left and unlike when Herman was there, time is on your side now."
Shinespark sighed. "Maybe you're right."
"Just try it." Valey patted her, then threw herself into a rising corkscrew. "I've been talking with Amber, and we've gotta get this crew room to de-stress and recover like we completely couldn't do after Ironridge because Hemlock was a prick and did his thing. What do you want to bet all the guards will know a place that's close enough for us to reach, is one hundred percent safe, has ponies living there who are chill and not evil, and some other good stuff that's icing on the cake?"
"We need to wait for Princess Celestia," Shinespark insisted. "She said she was going back to her capitol, and would return for us. Even if you're strong enough to defeat a patrol of half-dead royal and border guards, that would be a bad way for us to find somewhere with no one harrying us."
Valey scanned the ship below with her eyes. "Well, I think I see Birdo looking for us. He did the most scouting, so I wanna have him along when we go look for the guards again. Ready to go?"
Shinespark took a deep breath. "I feel like a dry sponge. I have no readiness left for anything. Let's do this."
It didn't take long for the Equestrian guards to find Valey, Shinespark and Gerardo, waiting at the tear in the railroad where the Immortal Dream's flight had carved a long, perfectly-straight trench through the ground.
"Hail!" Gerardo called, looking significantly better but still badly out of it after a good, long rest.
The guards assembled, putting on a show of dignity even though it was obvious they were covering for injuries and hurting for lost members. "Well met," the leader said, stepping forward and nodding respectfully. Then he waited.
After a long, awkward silence, Valey dared to speak first. "So I'm out of the loop. What are we talking about?"
"...We don't know," the leader admitted, the rest of the guards shuffling behind him. "Her Majesty is presently absent."
"I noticed," Shinespark grunted.
A guard in the back shouted and lifted a hoof in the air, pushing his way forward. "Fine! If you won't say it, I will!" He shoved his way to the front, carrying a helmet with a damaged plume under one wing. "We're stranded," he announced, staring straight at the three northerners. "Our fortress has been compromised and partly destroyed by a large storm. Our Princess has vanished in the middle of a mission. We're low on supplies, in the middle of enemy territory, and have many lost and injured, and while that would be well within our training if it was all, we have two significant incomplete mission objectives: defend the border and do something with you foreigners. And all we know is that the Princess had a plan for you and none of us know what it was."
"Huh." Valey raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were here to negotiate with you guys for the terms on which we could stay here and not go back to the Empire."
"There are no terms we could negotiate," the leader replied, his voice deeper than the stallion who had spoken up. "Who can cross the border is determined by Writs of Harmonic Sanction alone. Her Majesty is the source of those writs. She is the only one with whom you could negotiate for the right to remain here."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Well, how problematic would it be if we waited here under your oversight until she returns?"
The leader cleared his throat. "That could take weeks. It's a long train ride."
"And we don't have weeks' worth of provisions!" someone shouted from the back. "Just get to the loophole already!"
"A loophole, huh?" Valey narrowed her eyes. "The kind that gets someone in trouble for using?"
The captain stared at her, but it was the stallion who pushed his way forward who spoke. "We can make our own decisions when separated from our chain of command and either our own lives or the success of our mission depends on it."
"Yes..." The captain bowed his head, still nervous. "And you may have saved our lives, even though we were prepared to give them following orders to defend yours. So, unofficially, we have an offer for you."
Shinespark watched him. "We're listening."
"We cannot continue to watch you and secure the border in our present state at the same time," the captain said. "We could prioritize the border, re-garrison the fortress, and attempt to hold it against griffons or any who try to pass through. We would not try or be able to keep you. You could leave and go where you please... but we would point Her Majesty in your direction the moment she returns. It would be on you to ensure whatever you do during that time doesn't lower you in her graces."
Gerardo winced. "That seems like the kind of course of action where we'd simply remain where we are now in the interest of violating as few rules as possible..."
"Would be cool, Birdo..." Valey waved a skeptical hoof. "Except something gives me a tiny little feeling sitting here for another however long wouldn't be all that great on our crew. What's the other option, captain pegasus?"
The captain shuffled. "There is an archipelago far to the southwest of here with a prestigious university. They have cutting-edge communications equipment there which we could use to sound an alarm and summon reinforcements to guard the border. We would have to requisition your boat to reach it, provided she is seaworthy. That would involve you coming too. Provided you stay together and don't make trouble for us, we will take full responsibility for your presence in Equestria and testify to anyone who asks that we thought adequately securing the border against unknown foreigners was a higher priority than repelling known ones who were willing to work with us."
Valey's ears perked. "A university, huh? Tell me more..."
"Kinmari Marine Research Academy. A center of learning and a hub of technical and academic expertise," another stallion cut in. "My little sister goes there. They have an extensive oceanography program, most branches of applied and theoretical science, and even a budding space program! I know where my vote goes..."
Shinespark glanced back out at the Immortal Dream. "And you'd bring us along and keep watching us in exchange for our ship."
"In exchange for passage," the captain corrected. "You can keep your ship. Whether you'll be going anywhere you can't take a boat along will be between you and Her Majesty."
"...The ship is damaged," Shinespark slowly said, thinking. "It floats, but I don't know what it will take to fix the propulsion systems. If you're volunteering to take responsibility for our being here, it's a tempting offer, but we need more time, both to see to our ship and to vet our own crew and ensure none of us would play dirty."
She shot a look at Valey, and Valey knew exactly the duo she was thinking of. "If we wanted to vouch against anyone, how hard would it be for you to kick someone back north with the rest of us backing you up? 'Cuz the ship's pretty crowded as-is..."
The captain nodded, stepping back. "Shall we meet again here, tomorrow, an hour after sunrise?"
Valey shrugged, spreading her wings. "Sounds like a plan, captain pegasus. Anything else?"
The captain turned to his stallions. "Air Cutter, Proud Prow, you go with them."
Two stallions stepped forward, and Gerardo tilted his head. "And to what do we owe this?"
"Air Cutter," the first said, extending a wing to shake with. "Senior weather team coordinator for Cloudsdale prior to enlisting. We have a big enough team of pegasi to do a little weather control, and I'd like to look over your boat and see how much we could make a favorable wind do for speeding us up."
The second offered a wing as well. "Proud Prow. Seventeen years as a naval expert at the north Manehattan maritime center. If you need help getting her seaworthy again, nopony knows the craft like me."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever worked with mana circuitry?"
Proud Prow returned the look. "Have you ever seen a submarine that works without it?"
"You're good." Shinespark nodded. "We have more to do than nothing, at least. Let's get back to the ship."
Valey winked at the two pegasi as the rest of the guards retreated, hovering and grabbing Shinespark by the barrel. "So you know your stuff, sure. But how fast are you? Race ya!"
Valey stood on the deck of the Immortal Dream, brushing her wings off after depositing Shinespark and allowing her and the pegasi to go to work. While she wasn't clueless about the technology that empowered the boat, it also wasn't her place, so she was happy to step back and let the experts do the work.
Her hooves took her on a circuit of the ship, figuring that when she needed to talk to the whole crew, anyone she could find would be a good place to start. The library was regretfully trashed again, books laying with bent pages after the rocking the brood beasts had given the ship. She stopped and smoothed a few out, finding it almost therapeutic but with too much to do to sit there and fix them all day.
The cabins... There were five on the starboard side and four on port, Shinespark's taking up the size of two regular ones. Though it was Jamjars' now... Valey made a mental note to only let the filly keep it until they had dealt with enough problems that she could afford not keeping her happy and out of the way. Behind it was the one where they had moved Meltdown and Gazelle, and then Jamjars' old room, and then an empty one where Crystal had once stayed...
The other side had Gerardo's, which she guessed was being shared with Slipstream now. Maple, Starlight and Amber's. Harshwater's. One clearly marked as Felicity's, which had once been Slipstream's. Nyala's. And Grenada slept in the observation room, Howe and Neon Nova were staying somewhere, she didn't even know where Starlight's lookalike had been...
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we don't have a whole lotta room for pegasi," Valey told Nyala's door, thinking out loud.
"I beg your pardon?" The door opened, revealing Howe instead.
Valey instantly reacted, pointing an accusing hoof. "Pancake, what are you doing in the room with my sister's name on it?"
"Hearing something about having no room for pegasi," Howe harrumphed, posturing mildly enough that he might not have meant it. "As well as housekeeping, my scathing madame." His eyes shifted, and his voice fell. "Look, things are still messy from our Empire escape, and I know who'll be the first to walk the plank now that someone's in charge again so please oh please don't throw me stranded out in the hills with naught but my brother to keep me company or worse? We can pull our weight."
Valey watched him with a clear show of disinterest, but this was the job she had volunteered for. "Fine. Alright, Pancake. Give me your best case for why we shouldn't boot you two out like we've been trying to do since Ironridge."
Howe smiled feebly. "Charity?"
"Thanks for making my job easy." Valey turned her back on him. "You don't want to travel with us either, do you? Just not even gonna try?"
Howe shuffled and cleared his throat. "Permission to be frank without re-earning my nickname?"
"Speak up."
"You see..." Howe took a breath. "Your crew has issues. You may have a low opinion of my good brother and I, and we've been nothing but respectful in our own way, but we neither begged nor bothered anyone to be brought along. One moment we were doing our legitimate and unfraudulent jobs, which you should be proud of given how much nonsense pubic speakers-for-hire can be called on for, and the next we were scooped up amid your battle and spirited here without question or comment. Usually when we stick around squads like yours, it's for money, and we don't work for free."
Valey raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "So we ask the guards out there how to take you two back to the border, and everyone's happier for it. Good deal."
Howe's eyes shifted. "You realize we see a lot of tight-knit groups in our line of work, right? Yours isn't unique. There are others who are transient, have this us-against-the-world mindset, have similarities between their issues. Highly charismatic leaders. Enough drive to get resources, and enough resources to do something, which often involves hiring no-questions-asked folks like us, which might I remind you Maple did back in Gnarlbough. And they have some broad and lofty goal that they say binds them together, but is always just an excuse so they don't have to say it's for companionship, because whether they're outcasts or don't fit in, they just have nowhere else to go."
Valey frowned. "Where are you going with this?"
"You're not paying me to be your personal echo chamber, are you?" Howe shrugged. "Then I'm saying what I've always wanted to say to groups like yours before even beginning a job. This is a personality cult, and I can't tell whether you or Starlight is the leader."
"Not very flattering terminology, there, buddy," Valey said neutrally, standing her ground.
"It is what it is." Howe didn't break eye contact. "So if you'll take the best unsolicited advice of my life, listen up: you will never win your war against whatever you see as being wrong with the world. I've seen a few of these groups collapse while I was there, but most of them I just leave exactly the way I found them, plus or minus a few members. Sometimes, I have repeat customers, and they're still fighting, no closer to their goals than they were years and years ago. So please don't be like them. It gets depressing after a while." He turned away. "Your kind might be how I make my living, but it would make my day if one of you actually learned a thing or two."
Valey watched him levelly as he retreated for the stairs in the cargo hold. "Good talk, Pancake. See ya."
When he was gone, she leaned her forehead against a wall, closed her eyes and sighed. "Bananas, even he's giving lectures about how this team's getting driven into the ground. It's obvious enough for Pancake to get on a soapbox about. Bananas."
She stood up and shook her head. "Find somewhere reasonably safe. Settle down. No more adventures. Figure out how to get everyone happy and well-adjusted... No big deal, right?"
The silence didn't bother to refute her.
Setting her jaw, Valey strolled away. There was work to be done if they wanted to be anywhere else than floating in the bay north of Griffonstone, and she was far from tired yet.
"Felicity?" Valey called, dropping from the railing and flipping down the stairs to the dining hall purely for the sake of doing it. "Yo, you still lurking here? I need a talk...!"
Felicity was indeed still present, laying on a cushion at the side of the room and looking torn between getting up and doing nothing, or staying put and also doing nothing. "Oh! Darling, you're... You are?"
"Yeah." Valey trotted over, sitting down in front of her. "So. Crew audit, because the ship is full and I need to know who here I can trust and why, and you and I have had some issues before." There was no subtlety in her voice. "Same deal I gave Pancake: tell me why I should trust you and let you hang around."
Felicity needed no further bidding to lunge forward and grab Valey, practically kissing her hooves. "I'm sorry! I thought I'd never get to say it but I'm sorry...!"
"Huh." Valey stared at her with no idea how to respond. "Well, this is different."
Valey stared at Felicity, back arched slightly as the other mare knelt before her. "Uhh... You alright, there?"
"You asked what I have to say for myself. You have time for it, unlike this morning." Felicity took a breath. "Now quiet and let me say my piece."
Valey sat back, dubious and taken aback. "I'm listening."
She waited for the emotion-altering effect of Felicity's cutie mark, but it never came. "A long time ago, though for you it was probably yesterday," Felicity began, "after Stormhoof but before Grandbell, I told you that while staying with your crew and trying to be a trustworthy friend was my first choice given the situation, I wouldn't have changed things had I the chance to do them over again." She sighed. "And because I said that, my sisters are dead and here I am today."
Valey arched an eyebrow. "So are you gonna tell me you wish you had done something different, or do you actually mean you wish you had done something different? Or is this just a bait-and-switch to tell me exactly the same thing as last time?"
That left Felicity with her jaw hanging. "I... Darling, I... I don't think we're very effective at communicating, are we?"
"Aren't we?" Valey folded her forelegs. "Then lemme tell you how I see this. I make it back from being moon glassed to see that my friends are utter wrecks. The more I look, the more it seems like I'm gonna have to do to set things right for them, because they're burned out and can barely even try. And I just got back from a talk with some guards who maybe might be able to help us, but it's going to involve us being on thin ice and trusting others who are good guys, but will have no patience for betrayal. And you are a mare who played me for a fool last time I vouched for you to all my friends, which is making me nervous because I swore never to make the call about you on my own again, and here I am anyway. Forget making me trash Stormhoof, they had it coming. I need to know you're not going to be a dirty little liar just like last time, or else."
"So you think I'm not being serious with my regret," Felicity deadpanned, ears down. "Have I ever been insincere about the contents of my heart with you before?"
Valey blinked and narrowed her eyes. "Uh, yeah? When you tricked me into trashing Stormhoof?"
"Oh, no. I don't mean that at all." Felicity shook her head, voice quiet and monotone. "You may have noticed this about me, but... I hated my job. I had to debase my pride, my honor, my dignity... live double and triple lives, all in the name of our mission. If I hadn't been doing it for my siblings, I never would have done it. I had to con many ponies and griffons alike. Sphinxes, too. It wears at my soul, makes me feel dirty. If you were always pretending, how would you hang onto a sense of self? I didn't want to be some disgusting thing, crawling in the dark and hiding my true nature. So as much as possible, even though I've had to manipulate cities and governments to get at my goal, the one thing I clung to aside from revenge was to always be honest about myself, even when I don't like what I see and my path forced me to lie about others. I meant it when I said I wouldn't have changed things if given the chance, knowing full well how bad it sounded. Because I do care about you and your friends, and I thought the least I could do was not try to hide from you what you were choosing to associate with."
Valey groaned and dragged her hooves down her face. "Bananas, you're just as messed-up as everyone else here..."
"I never tried to hide it," Felicity awkwardly apologized. "And believe me, I know what I did wrong. I-"
"Yeah, well I do too." Valey looked away. "Did it never, ever cross your mind that we cared less about who you were and more about who you wanted to be?"
Felicity's mane sagged. "I was going to say I was wrong, and if I could have done it all over again I should have sided with you in the first place."
Valey looked back and raised an eyebrow.
"You should talk to Amber," Felicity murmured. "Or Harshwater. We... don't have the same values in speaking, and my attempts at sincerity are turning you off. They would be better able to attest to my conduct in your absence than I can."
Valey stretched her wings. "Yeah, but I wanna hear it from you."
Felicity sighed wistfully. "It was Larceny who talked me into it. I was stupid. Our goals should all along have been about the ending, and saying I'd redo what I'd done purely for the sake of principles with no results was... utterly blind of me. Of course, it doesn't help that life decided to drive home the point with the force of a landslide after I'd made my decision. How many times do you think I've thought about how Gazelle wouldn't have been on our boat the night Crystal had her foal and this whole catastrophe could have been averted if it hadn't been for me?"
Valey gritted her teeth.
"My apologies." Felicity bowed her head and backed up a step. "If I'm overstepping bounds or making you uncomfortable in any way, I shouldn't-"
"Ugh. Not that," Valey groaned. "Look, I do get where you're coming from. Sort of. Maybe. The problem is, it's exactly what I thought last time, before you turned on me. My heart says to give you another chance because it's what I needed and I kinda see some of myself in you, but don't you get how serious this is? You've been here longer than I have, you've seen the state of the crew!" She flung a hoof. "They can't take another crisis! If they do, they'll... Well, I dunno! But I can't let that happen!" She stuck her face back up in Felicity's. "You understand, right?"
Felicity didn't blink or flinch. "Completely, darling. I have seen the state of your crew. They're desperate enough to take any help they can get, and if I can be honest one more time the feeling that helping them might begin to make up for what I've done is what's kept me going myself these past few weeks."
"I really want to trust you," Valey said. "Even though I'm still mad at you for giving everyone a heart attack in Stormhoof and I can't afford any shenanigans around these guards. Give me more, here."
"What more is there to say?" Felicity whispered. "Darling, my entire old life is gone. I would do things differently if I could, but that's irrelevant because this is where we are today! The only thing I can possibly do is start from scratch, and I'm trying but it's difficult and trust will only come with time..."
"Starting from scratch is harder than it sounds," Valey frankly replied. "I tried it once. Felt like the best thing ever for a while. Then my past kept on catching up and up and further up with me, and even if it was mostly me worrying about it, it pretty much ruined everything for a while."
Felicity's face fell. "And even if I do manage to redeem myself in everyone's eyes, my body is still crippled, and I'm not likely to get any second winds of stamina as this little unintended consequence comes along." She regretfully touched a hoof to her belly. "Please... Valey. I know how much work I have to do, I know I'm a risk and I'm the last pony who will hide how... not pretty I am. And I understand if it's a risk you can't afford to take, but... I have no future and not a whole lot left in my past. And despite all that, and despite however much it's worth to you, my life is... the only one I have, and by the day I do face my death I truly wish I can make something more of it than it is now."
Valey slammed her head into the wall.
"Darling, are you-!?" Felicity reached out a hoof in concern.
"Bananas...!" Valey slumped. "I literally just got back from the dead, girl! I have a life too, and I almost didn't! And I wanna spend mine doing the stuff I want too!"
Felicity held a hoof to her mouth, stammering slightly. "And I-I... I mean, is that i-incompatible with-?"
"No! I want to give you another chance, but I have a whole ship full of futures to look out for already and... Ah, bananas." Valey pitched forward, taking Felicity in a gentle hug. "What's the point of being alive if I don't get to spend it doing the stuff that matters to me? I swear, I'm this ship's biggest softie..."
Felicity's cheeks reddened. "T-Then you mean...?"
"I will vouch for you," Valey warned. "Forgiveness is a thing that happens around here, and so are mistakes. And you say you've been helping my friends and are really sincere. This doesn't mean I'm not mad about how that whole thing went down, and you are right that Crystal snapping was partly your fault. I am choosing to trust you, and give you the chance to smooth things over. But I'll be watching. You're gonna make more mistakes, and we'll deal with those as they come, but if you ever even think about another pre-meditated betrayal..." She pulled back, and the atmosphere grew so cold it was as if a cosmic record player had hit a snag. "I will make you wish nothing you love had ever existed."
Felicity froze.
"Got that? Good." Valey smiled, and the tension shattered as she patted Felicity on the back. "Sorry if that's a little harsh, but I'm gambling a whole lot on you. Remember: mistakes? We can work through it. Plot behind my back, endanger my friends and make the Equestrians think we've betrayed them, and we won't just go our own ways like last time."
"P-Point taken, darling." Felicity shivered, regaining her motor control. "You're alarmingly intense when you want to be..."
Valey shrugged. "I've got a lot to lose. So, who should I go drill next? I'm going to be a wreck myself if I have to do this for too many more ponies in this crew..."
Felicity brushed herself off, sitting upright. "If no one springs to mind, might I suggest assembling everyone and saying anything you have to say?"
"Nyaah. Good idea, Longhair." Valey turned towards the staircase and started trotting away.
Felicity blinked, lifting a hoof. "I beg your pardon?"
"Longhair. Your new nickname." Valey shrugged. "I give most everyone one. If you're gonna be part of the crew, you get one too. Let's get all this smoothed over and the stakes back down so we can hang out without the tension, what do you say?"
Felicity sat back and let her leave, bewildered. "What a strange and fascinating mare..."
"Alright. Listen up," Valey said an hour later, having gathered everyone except Shinespark, Grenada and the visiting pegasi, who were all hunkered in the remains of the engine room and running errands to the cargo bay. "I've talked to the guards and we potentially have a deal: they don't have the authority to let us stay, but are willing to take the blame and tell their princess honcho it was for the greater good if they let us stay for a bit while we use our ship to ferry them to some school a ways away that will let them call for reinforcements to defend the border."
She paced back and forth, gesturing with a hoof. "Their princess isn't going to be back for a few weeks. Now, personally, I think helping her guards and getting in good with them is a good way to build some favor, but the only reason they're our allies now is because they're decent ponies and their boss asked them to protect us. I didn't talk to her and I couldn't try to read her for myself, but I think this is a risk we need to take: help the guards, let them take us further into Equestria, and then hope the goddess we're dealing with is nice."
Slipstream raised a hoof. "And what are the consequences of this risk?"
"You mean what happens if something goes wrong?" Valey shrugged. "I dunno. Anything from us getting kicked out to us getting wrecked like the last time we fought a goddess. Either way, let's try not to let that happen. The bigger question is what would cause something to go wrong, and there's exactly one thing I'm worried about: we're in Equestria and playing by their rules, and the moment someone isn't cool with that and breaks them, it's gonna look to them like we're the bad guys. So if anyone wants out now, speak up. I can ask them to take you back across the border, or something."
"That's us," Neon Nova called from the back row.
Maple shot him the only grateful look she had ever dared to give him.
Valey folded her forelegs, scanning the crowd. "And is anyone else right off the bat not cool with following their rules?"
Her eyes found Jamjars, who had an impish look on her face. "Oh yeah?" Valey pointed a hoof. "And how about you?"
"What rules? Just to clarify." Jamjars flipped her mane.
Valey sighed. "Number one: everything they say goes, period. They get to make up new rules, and we get to deal with them, like it or not. Two: we don't go wandering off without Writs of Harmonic Sanction. We stick together and don't make trouble for them. They've already laid that one down. Three: I want them on our side, so if it turns out someone does cause trouble for them... please don't make me choose whether to bail you out or try to save the situation. Please."
"It's important to note," Gerardo added from the side, "we don't know precisely what deal Princess Celestia was preparing to offer us. But at the very least, we do have two writs as a last-minute contingency, for what they may be worth."
"Yeah." Valey pointed a hoof. "Anyone who's already got permission to be here shouldn't need to be worried. That's Starlight, Saffron..." She sighed. "And you two."
Meltdown nodded, seated and trying to look small. Gazelle was as blank as ever, an occasional tremble running through his shoulders.
"And two more of our choice," Maple whispered. "Do you think the land title we have would help at all? That I got from Garsheeva...?"
"Honestly?" Valey shrugged. "If we really did get in deep trouble, showing that off might just get it confiscated if you're not a citizen. Who knows? But if we got banned, would it even matter if it got stolen? Up to you what to do with it, but I wouldn't count on anything."
"Land title?" Harshwater looked over her shoulder. "What's this about?"
Maple smiled and winced. "Valey, could you explain?"
"...Sure." Valey took a breath. "I dunno why a lot of you are here, and I'd guess some of you don't either. Sometimes circumstance brought us together. Other times, there's been no good place to get off, or you don't have anywhere else to go if there was."
The last phrase drew a small chorus of nods, particularly from Slipstream, Felicity and Harshwater.
Valey noted all of it. "For me, at least, I've got a dream I've been chasing for a while now, on and off. I've gotten distracted a few times, especially with the tournament and the Nightmare Modules and everything else that's been happening, but getting moon glassed and seeing how all of you have fared during the past few weeks has really brought it back to the front of my priorities list. I want a home."
Her gaze drifted over the crowd, a small forest of pony ears punctuated by the occasional tufted pair or beaked face. "My home for a while has been with you guys, flying around and traveling, and I'm definitely grateful and know there are a lot of worse places out there. But... I know there's more that's out there. I wanna settle down in one place, where I can know more ponies than just the ones I hit it off with after one talk and decide to invite along. You guys are fabulous, but there's like a dozen of you, and most of you I don't even know that well. It's cozy, but I want bigger. And I know that's weird to say, like sailing the entire world somehow isn't big enough, but it's true. I want a place where I can put my hooves down and not have to worry about the first food place I walk into trying to either rob or poison me because of my wings and face. I wanna feel like I'm where I belong, rather than I'm looking for somewhere I don't not belong. And that's where this comes in."
She pointed a hoof at Maple. "Ironflanks here has a thing that says she owns some land in Equestria that's right above a Tree of Harmony. If we built there and developed it, we could have a town on top of a power source that can run this airship. Some of us could settle down, and others could stay on the go, flying everywhere and seeing new things. I know some of us like this adventuring life just for the sake of keeping moving." She nodded at Gerardo. "And who knows? Having a harmonic flame nearby could help Sparky somehow in her dream of someday rebuilding Sosa."
Valey stepped into the crowd, ponies parting to let her through until she was in front of Maple, Amber and Starlight, the latter wearing a Riverfall rain poncho that covered her flanks. "You three in particular," Valey said. "I don't wanna speak for you, but..."
"I will." Amber cleared her throat and spoke up. "We had good lives in Riverfall, Maple and me, and we still have a lot of friends there. But even if we want to see Willow again... after what the town did to Maple and her house, we're done with them. We can't live there anymore. From the moment Starlight showed up, it was never going to work, and we choose her over a home that won't stand by us when we need it. It's not even a decision."
She put a hoof over Starlight's back, and the filly frowned at the memory. "I left Equestria because there was no one left at my old home who understood who I wanted to be. I just want to live somewhere with all my friends and have the world leave me alone."
"Yeah." Valey looked up at everyone else. "We just got this land title, like... a few days ago, for me. I've got some serious catching up to do. But that's what we're doing. That's our end goal, me and Ironflanks and everyone else here. So, for all the rest of you guys: is that a dream you're on board with? Sticking with us doesn't have a lot of guarantees, and if there's something else you'd rather be chasing, now's the time to get off. You'll have whatever good luck I can offer you."
Gerardo smiled wistfully. "At the end of the day, I know my name will be written on the list of horizon-chasers. I don't think I'm quite ready to throw in the towel with you all yet, but at some point I'll be going on my way. I do have a third writ waiting for me in Yakyakistan, after all."
Slipstream blushed. "Same, honestly. Scares and drama aside, I've enjoyed it here. But I originally joined for something new to do after my old job was destroyed and my prospects in Ironridge suddenly lessened, and... well, I might be moving on at about the same time as Gerardo. Maybe someday I could become an adventure novel author and write about our experiences, or publish a world almanac of the north."
Harshwater shrugged. "If I'm going to talk about my thoughts on this, I'd kind of rather it be in private."
"Noted." Valey nodded, looking to Nyala and Felicity. "And you two? Pretty sure I already know..."
"I haven't all that much better to do, do I?" Felicity shrugged. "This place is my life now. I might have some things to prove, but I will follow you loyally for as long as I can."
Nyala smiled feebly. "Someone needs to keep an eye on you, right?"
"Yeah, yeah." Valey affectionately ruffled her mane, then turned to Jamjars. "And you."
Jamjars gave her a look. "I have places to be and things to take care of. If sticking with you and following your rules will get me a Writ of Harmonic Sanction, I will be friendly, studious, and keep bailing you out when you need me."
Valey narrowed her eyes. "You're a kid. What places and what things?"
"Oh, this and that." Jamjars shrugged. "It was my idea to use that pendant to bring you back, by the way."
"And you're saying that like I owe you?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "This is a really bad time to be threatening me."
Jamjars' eyes widened, and she backpedaled. "No, no! I'm saying it like I came up with it. Like I'm smart. The point is, I know how to make my own goals and plans, and they're usually helpful to everyone. Trust me. I've got things to do, and I'm smart enough not to get you all in trouble for it."
Valey pursed her lips. "I'm gonna need some proof."
"Collateral?" Jamjars asked hopefully.
Valey sighed. "Giving back Sparky's room would be a nice start, since we're going to be low on space with a pile of guards on the ship and it's the biggest room we have. You wanna show you're helping us and not going to use us for personal gain, prove it by not taking spoils."
"Fine..." Jamjars slumped. "But you're getting someone to help me move all my things back. I just finished setting up my posters again."
Harshwater looked skeptically at the exchange. "Are you really alright with this?"
Valey stood, ignoring Jamjars again. "No, but if anyone's going to make a mess of things, a filly is the least likely one the Equestrians would think speaks for all of us, and she's smart enough to know I won't think twice about throwing her under the cart if she tries anything. And she wouldn't be able to take care of herself if I sent her packing with the Pancake bros. Do you wanna leave a kid alone with them?"
"What do you think you're implying?" Neon Nova piped up. "I resent that!"
Harshwater glanced at the brothers out of the corner of her eyes.
"Eh. Good point." Valey shrugged. "It would probably be meaner to leave them alone with her. Now speaking of all this, we gotta talk about rooms, space and how we're gonna accommodate this many guards..."
"I resent that even more!" Howe called, leaving Jamjars snickering.
"Hey!" Valey strolled up to the engine room, peering through the door. "Sparky? You hiding in here?"
"I'm not hiding," Shinespark answered, looking slightly put out at her lack of a functional horn as Grenada fiddled with the contents of a metal cabinet and the two guard pegasi watched intently. "What is it?"
Valey tapped her forehooves together. "Long story short, I got Jamjars to give back your room, but me, Ironflanks, Amber and Starlight are now your roomies. Is that cool? We're gonna have to crunch a little to fit all the guards on this ship."
Shinespark sighed. "I have more important things to worry about than whose room I'm sleeping in... but thank you." She managed part of a smile.
Valey winked. "Knew it. So how legit were her claims to winning it in a bet, anyway? She keeps rubbing it in my face how it was her idea on how to get me back."
"Technically?" Shinespark's ears fell. "She's telling the truth. It was her idea to modify the pendant so it would work automatically. There was also a lot to her plan that didn't happen, and she had nothing to do with separating you out of the rest of the obsidian. All I know is that was all Starlight."
Valey winced slightly. "Yeah... I really gotta talk with her and Ironflanks. Been sorta hoping they can hold on, and there's so much to do..."
"Speaking of so much to do." Grenada cleared her throat. "If you are having a conversation, could you have it elsewhere? This work is difficult and I need to focus."
"Oh! Sorry. Shutting up now." Valey sealed her lips, just watching. Shinespark nudged her shoulder, though, heading out to the staircase.
Valey followed, and Shinespark let out a breath one they were on the deck. "Working with the Equestrians is difficult," she said. "We have the same laws of magic and physics... I hope. But our sciences and levels of technology are different, and we have different terms for everything. And this is ignoring all the harmony equipment and only trying to get sea propulsion back like we had in the Empire."
"Yeah, but you're feeling good enough to try?" Valey nudged her back, sitting down on the partly-ruined deck.
"Do we need to talk about this?" Shinespark's voice quieted. "I'm working, and that's what matters. We can deal with my problems once we've reached a better place to deal with them. Somewhere that isn't the middle of an ocean where we've been stranded for weeks and weeks already. You understand, right? They'll wait until then."
"Don't you worry," Valey insisted. "This time, we actually are going to find that better place."
Shinespark frowned. "You take care of yourself too. We're being held back from leaving by the power system being broken, and there's nothing you can do to speed that up."
"Except provide moral support to you." Valey leaned back and winked. "You've got this."
"Grenada and I will figure this out." Shinespark shook her head. "You take care of yourself and the rest of the crew so that when you are needed, you'll be ready. Or work on the logistics of boarding three dozen pegasi on this ship..."
"Got you covered." Valey grinned, then tapped the deck for emphasis. "You, me, and the Riverfall gals get the big room. Should be able to fit up to three beds in there, since Ironflanks is injured and I dunno how snuggly you like to get. The other rooms will hold one bed at best, but have some room for bedrolls. Felicity gets one bed 'cause she's frail, and rooms with Nyala and Saffron, who's sticking on with us until we reach this university. Next room is Slipstream, Harshwater and Jamjars. They're on decent terms with that kid, and I figure those two pegasi are gonna spend most of their time elsewhere anyway. Grenada will probably be on call in the engine room, Howe and Neon Nova will be gone, and hopefully the guards have a plan for what to do with Meltdown and Gazelle. That leaves us six rooms for about three dozen pegasi, so all we have to do is have them sleep in shifts and boom. Don't even need to set up bunks in the dining hall!"
Shinespark had tuned out slightly halfway through the listing, and snapped back to attention at the end. "Right... Valey, my thoughts are on mana circuitry and conduits and how to rebuild a broken power supply almost from scratch. Sorry... Can you clean the ship, or talk to someone who needs morale, or anything else? We're working on getting us moving."
Valey slumped. "I got like all of us down to three rooms, though! Isn't that cool? I mean... right. Will do." She got up and trotted toward the entrance. "Good luck."
Moments later, Valey stood in the doorway to Shinespark's room, watching as Amber dragged and positioned a bed in accordance with the plan and Harshwater helped clean up the last of Jamjars' regalia.
"Easy does it, now," Saffron urged, helping Maple along, her new quarters not all that different from when the room had been used as an infirmary. "There you go."
Maple winced as she settled back into the bed. "I need to move around more," she mumbled, trying to lie down without moving her ribcage. "It's hurting less, and is good for me..."
"Hey, Ironflanks." Valey stepped closer as Harshwater left, and nodded to Saffron. "I got this from here."
"You've been busy," Maple murmured once they were alone.
"There's been a lot to do. Sorry for not being around sooner." Valey shrugged, then looked at her. "So, do you wanna talk about it?"
Maple glanced down. "Which it do you mean? There are a lot of things."
"I went for a fly," Valey said. "I saw that ginormous trench. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened when that thing's there, the engine room is fried, and the local Starlight impostor is nowhere to be seen." She tried to meet Maple's eyes. "You alright? I know she wasn't our Starlight, but it probably brought back some memories."
Maple shook her head. "I don't think anyone here hasn't been dealing with bad memories since the moment we left the Empire. I'll be fine as long as there's an end in sight. And it's easier this time."
Valey bit her lip. "Easier doesn't mean easy. Look, you say everyone, but I know how hard bad memories can get you down and that's no excuse to make light of-"
"No," Maple cut her off. "I mean easier in that my cutie mark isn't broken this time from harmonic overload. It's not painful and I don't have to try constantly. I can fall asleep this time without dropping her."
Valey blinked hard, gaping slightly. "Wait, you... Really? In your cutie mark?"
"What else could I do?" Maple's ears fell. "It worked when Starlight did this. I don't know her lookalike very well, but she hurt her horn in the first place saving you from that fireball, she used the harmony extractor to save us again, and I definitely would feel worse if I stood by and did nothing when I knew there was something I could do."
Valey's jaw sagged. "But... didn't Starlight get brought back by the flame in Ironridge, after you pocketed her? We're nowhere near a harmonic flame. Or, we are, but it's way north across the mountains!"
Maple closed her eyes. "I'll be fine," she whispered. "Like I said, it's easier this time."
"Yeah, but..."
"Valey." Maple's voice grew firm. "I have spent the last few weeks bedridden with broken ribs and an impaled hoof. I have stayed here in the infirmary while everyone else fixes the ship or goes scouting and risks their lives trying to help all of us survive. I've watched as even ponies like Howe and Felicity work together to help us survive, seen it feel like everything's falling to pieces around us, and the only thing I've been able to do is sit here and try to stay sane and hope that somehow everyone else will come through for me. This is something I can do to help. It's a burden, but I need it. Please. I'm glad you're concerned, but I can do this."
Valey stared for a moment longer, then closed her mouth and grinned. "If you say so. I believe in you, Ironflanks. You got this."
"Thanks..."
Maple relaxed, and Valey tilted her head. "Seriously, though, you got an idea of how long you plan on doing this? I know we've got that land title thing, but land title sort of implies it's on... you know... land. Where are we even going to find a harmonic flame to bring her back with that's accessible by water? Even if Sparky's a genius and gets this ship fully fixed, it's all out of fuel. And that's saying nothing of whether the guards would let us go find a flame even if we knew where one was..."
"As long as it takes," Maple replied. "I owe it to her."
Valey almost said something else, but stopped at the last moment, just sitting down beside the bed. "Nyaah... Been on my hooves all morning. You mind some company for a bit?"
"I'd love it," Maple murmured. "Bring me some books and find Starlight, and we could even read together for a while."
"Sounds like a plan." Valey stretched, getting up to go look for the filly. As for books, finding those would be easy.
Starlight sat in a corner of the Immortal Dream's trashed library huddled under a poncho, her mind spinning high-speed circles with no substance at all. Her magic was back and her vision wasn't gray, but it wasn't her familiar teal aura that greeted her as she tested what she could do.
Books floated past her in hazes of midnight blue, deep and pure and bending to her will, despite looking like they belonged to anyone else. She tugged at pages, straightening them and smoothing spines, and the irony was too bitter for words how she finally had a cutie mark and the first thing she was doing was reshelving fallen books.
She knew she had asked for it. She knew she had been prepared to do anything to protect her friends, and whatever she had done was enough. But two things stuck in her heart and prevented her from living with it and moving on. First, it hadn't been necessary after all. She tried to take it to get out of Chrysalis's machine, and had gotten out a completely different way instead. Probably. The events were muddled by adrenaline in her mind, but the more she thought about it, the more she knew she had this mark for no reason at all.
And second, she felt no different whatsoever.
Her magic might have been stronger, or have a better buffer before she hurt herself, or even be fixed altogether. But if it came with any special cutie mark powers, like Maple's pocketing or Valey's danger sense, she had no idea how to activate them. It didn't help that she had a hazy idea of what all the Artifice of Hope actually did, but for her, it was seemingly nothing.
She felt no different. Her mind had none of the telltale signs that something was missing or changed, like when she used moon glass. And that meant that all her fears so long ago about not wanting a cutie mark in the first place were for nothing. She put herself through all of that for-
"Those are some intense thoughts you're thinking, there."
Starlight blinked, jolted out of her thoughts by Valey standing right in front of her. "Aaah!"
Valey grinned apologetically. "Sorry. Nice aura, by the way."
Starlight's eyes fell. "I guess."
"Hey." Valey offered a wing. "Wanna go for a fly? You look like you wish you were anywhere else, and going fast always helps me with that."
"Sure." Starlight stood up. Fresh air might not be so bad...
In less than a second, she was on Valey's back, being carried up and out the door.
Wind tore at Starlight's mane, and at the apex of their ascent, Valey tossed her, rolling over and catching Starlight on her chest before backstroking through the air. Starlight had tumbled from far too many heights to be startled by the sensation, and almost wanted to dive just to test her current magic's strength with a crystal shield hitting the water.
"There we go," Valey said, skimming through the clouds, flying so that she could see Starlight's eyes. "So. Ironflanks wanted me to get you to chill and read stuff, but you don't look very in the mood."
"Are you happy I got you back?" Starlight asked.
"Over the moon, kiddo." Valey slowly pivoted. "So what's with the regret?"
Starlight folded her ears. "I'm just not feeling very good. About everything."
"Being stuck out here had you down too, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow, flying lazily.
Starlight bit her lip and hung on tight, refusing to answer.
"Hey, what's up?" Valey pulled up, hovering, holding Starlight by the shoulders. "You've had a bad time, but I don't get it as well as I'd like to. Tell me about the stuff that's on your mind."
"I have a cutie mark now," Starlight mumbled. "It feels weird having one after trying so hard not to months ago."
"Yeah, I saw while you were sleeping last night." Valey continued her hover, the land's topography visible like a map around them. "What else?"
Starlight sighed, feeling like she was slowly tugging out a thorn. "And it doesn't do anything. I don't feel any different. All the times I cared about it before were pointless."
Valey tapped her nose. "They weren't pointless if they put you where you are today. Maybe they didn't go the way you wanted, but they weren't pointless. What else is bothering you?"
"Nothing." Starlight looked away. "That's all."
"Neat." Valey tipped backwards and resumed her backstroke. "So it wouldn't be too sensitive a subject if I asked how you got me back? Last thing I remember was basically dying of pain in the arena, and suddenly I'm here with a pendant."
Starlight's eyes shadowed. "Which part? Where I used the Nightmare Modules and got everyone back from Chrysalis, or where I went inside and found you among all the others?"
"Used the Nightmare Modules? A little specific there, kiddo." Valey grinned slightly. "Tell me about that. You somehow ran off that madmare?"
"Yes," Starlight grunted, wishing Valey would stop probing.
Valey didn't. "You know, when I stomp jerks who are threatening my friends or being evil, it usually makes me feel pretty good. Remember when we beat up Gazelle together in Izvaldi?"
Starlight frowned.
"Listen." Valey pulled up again. "Jamjars might be the one who's bragging about it, but I and everyone else know it was you who got me back, and saved everyone in Grandbell in the first place. I owe you everything. There is absolutely something you don't wanna talk about and I'm not kid-savvy enough to tease it out any more gently, so please believe me on this: whatever's got you tied up, you can trust me. And if it hurts saying it, it'll hurt a whole lot more keeping it bottled up."
"I'm going to destroy the world someday," Starlight whispered.
Valey utterly blinked. "What?"
"I've seen it in two visions now," Starlight went on, her chest tight. "When I touched the harmonic flames in Ironridge and Grandbell. I saw the world covered in falling ash, and you were there, only older. And there were dead shells that looked like drained batponies, and there were other ponies who were dying, and there was a black wave that ended both of them. And I thought the first one was just strange, but now I've seen two. And when I went in the moon glass by accident and wound up finding you..." She swallowed. "Do you remember anything about it? Anything at all?"
"Nope." Valey shook her head. "Like waking up and knowing you probably dreamed, except it feels like seconds ago you were falling asleep and have no idea what it was."
"Chrysalis was there," Starlight went on. "It was like being in a dream. She told me the world was made up of everyone's strongest memories. My memory was the falling ash from my visions."
Valey's ears swiveled. "Your strongest memory, huh? Then how come I never heard you talk about these more than really vaguely once or twice? And how does this have anything to do with you? If you were getting visions of the future, which sounds a little weird but is maybe possible, wouldn't the whole point be to change them?"
Starlight sighed. "I don't know. But the other me kept saying things and I think she's from that future and used to be me, and she kept saying I'd do something..."
Valey tilted her head and frowned. "And nothing more specific? Sounds pretty rude of her to me."
"She didn't need to be," Starlight mumbled. "I crossed the mountains on hoof, saved Ironridge from windigoes, can use Nightmare Modules, fought off Chrysalis and got you back out of the moon glass. The stronger I feel about something and the harder I try, the more I can do. I don't know if there's anything I can't do, and I don't know why. But the other me kept saying if I didn't learn to stop trying when there was still something I could do and let bad things happen to my friends or worse, I'd keep doing things like this and eventually break or become the bad guy or try this hard to get something I shouldn't! I don't want to be strong enough not to do anything about Chrysalis, but I don't want us to all have died there either! I want to not have needed to be that strong in the first place!"
Valey held her for a while, making sure she was finished. "So to sum all that up, you're scarily strong enough that even you're scared of yourself."
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.
"Good news: been there, you're not alone." Valey ruffled her mane. "Bad news: I honestly don't have the best solution either. Kind of riding a high right now from being alive, but I think cleaning clocks when we need to and just watching out for our friends is how we have to do things. More good news, though: right now our friends are suffering from a severe case of being stranded, desperate and messed up, and not any evil dudes or crazy monsters. Which means you and me don't need to stomp anyone at the moment to keep them safe. I'm getting this ship back to civilization, and then you and me are gonna kick back and leave helping our friends to the experts. How's that sound?"
Starlight just clung to her.
"You cool with that?" Valey craned her neck, poking Starlight's shoulder.
"Mmph."
"You're not talking to me," Valey warned. "I can't help you if you don't wanna let out what you're dealing with."
Starlight just kept clinging, and Valey sighed. "Well, I'll do what I can for you. Let's go get back and see Ironflanks. She's waiting for us. But don't think I'm gonna let you get away with saving my butt and being miserable as a result. We'll talk more later."
"So this is the way you came up with to power the ship," Valey remarked, standing on the Immortal Dream's beaten deck with her wings folded at her sides. "Can't say I've ever seen this one before."
"Technically, they came up with it," Shinespark replied. "Even if we connected a power source to the sea engine, the circuitry on the bridge is damaged, so we needed a new steering mechanism either way. And once the idea to use an external mechanism was raised..."
A flock of Equestrian guards wheeled overhead, pushing and packing clouds and fanning gusts into a miniature thunderhead. Wind streaks danced around it and the bottom crackled with threatening weather, but the pegasi were somehow able to command it, pushing it and moving the entire storm in repetitive practice drills.
"However they got that thing aside..." Valey scratched her head and turned to the prow. "Why do I get the feeling it's not just for a tailwind?"
Lashed to the front of the boat, using a complex harness assembled from materials the pegasi had spent a solid day ferrying back from their ruined fortress, two surviving brood beasts floated, both badly burned and treading water and looking like they wished they were anywhere else. An unhappy moan echoed from one, watching Valey from just above the surface.
"Lightning power," a pegasus Valey wasn't sure if she should recognize said, landing on the deck and nodding appreciatively at the storm. "These hooligans are smarter than most give them credit for. On land and all together, they have a big upper hoof, but they know they'll get the zap if they try anything now. Ever been struck by lightning while swimming?"
Valey squinted. "Yeah, I'll pass on that."
"Best for you to keep that sword nearby regardless," Shinespark mumbled in her ear. "The Equestrians are convinced this will work, but I'd feel a lot safer with you checking them as well."
"Eh..." Valey strolled closer and frowned, judging the tingling in her cutie mark. "They're definitely wishing they could attack us, but I don't think they're gonna for now? Bananas, pointing a storm at them is either ridiculous or cool, and I have no idea which."
The pegasus who had landed nodded firmly. "We've guarded them for years in the border fort. We know these creatures well, so don't you fret. Of course, with what you did to the last two, you probably wouldn't be fretting anyway, haha..."
"And will it matter that they look really explosive-fireballed?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Keeping them in check is great, but we're not letting them on the deck to rest. If they give up and sink halfway through and we're stuck out in the middle of the ocean, it's not gonna be a fun time for us."
The guard shrugged hard. "They can swim well, according to ancient griffon lore, and we've never seen them get cold. You saw how they were swimming when they chased this boat."
Valey's face fell into a more serious look. "Actually, I only showed up after they got here... Never mind. Look, how fast are these guys?"
"On their own? Born hunters. Tied to a ship? Who knows?" The guard shrugged again. "We'll ferry the storm along in shifts and see how long it takes for them to get tired."
Nearby, another patrol was assembling, this one around Howe and Neon Nova. "Heading to the border?" Shinespark asked.
"That is our prerogative." Howe bowed. "Should the fates be willing, we will never meet again."
Neon Nova innocently whistled. "Though if we happened to, and you wanted to ensure it was a happy reunion, a token of goodwill or two wouldn't be amiss..."
"You're not getting a kiss," Valey replied, dismissing them with a raised wing. "Either of you. Don't even bother asking."
"Bold of you to presume what we want," Howe swaggered. "But have you forgotten our penultimate motivation throughout our adventures in Ironridge, notwithstanding keeping our skins in one piece?"
Valey glanced over her shoulder. "Pancake, there's a ton going on and I have stuff to do and it would be swell if you just packed it up and gave me one less thing to worry about."
Howe had no intention of obeying. "Our ancestral treasure!" he intoned. "Nothing other than two windigo hearts, one of which Starlight melted to slag."
"And the other was devoured by a windigo who hijacked our ship!" Neon Nova added with a wink. "So now we're heirloomless. And you just so happen to have four you aren't using... You never know when it's a good idea to have someone like us in your debt, am I right?"
Valey squared her shoulders. "From what I've heard, we wouldn't have had enough power to make it across the mountains without every one of these. Whatever we do next, we can never have enough."
"It was worth a try, my dear brother," Howe sighed, patting Neon Nova's shoulder. "Shall we away?"
"Are we waiting for you to return?" Shinespark asked the three guards who were with them. "They're getting ready to test the brood beasts."
The leader of the trio shook his head. "Someone needs to keep recon on the pass. We won't be able to stop anyone who passes through, but there are few enough we can find resources to survive."
"Fair enough." Valey shrugged. "That mean you don't have the resources to get Gazelle and Meltdown back where they belong...?"
"Her Majesty indicated that she wished the Prince to be kept in her company a while longer," another pegasus cut in, soaring to a landing. "As foreign royalty unable to act under his own agency, he and his entourage will be treated in accordance with her wishes. The Prince stays with us."
From above came a cry, and the pegasus formation changed, a team of eight surrounding the cloud on one side and pushing its burgeoning mass through the sky in a swift, practiced streak. One who was overseeing drifted down, nodding at Howe's group. "Everypony has had a chance to drill," he reported with a feathered salute. "We wait only on you."
Howe and Neon Nova gave one last, intent look at Valey and Shinespark... and then one grabbed the other and together they flew, surrounded by guards, swiftly toward the northern horizon.
"There," Shinespark said, sparing no words for the duo. "See what this plan can do, but follow the coast after we pass Griffonstone for at least a day. I want us to stay close in case anything happens."
The pegasus formation shifted again, a crew of eight maneuvering the micro-storm to their backs and fiddling with it until a heady gale was blowing against the ship. Four more hovered out over the front, the brood beasts watching unhappily from the waters.
Whatever commands and gestures the leaders used, they were understood. Something jolted at the boat, nearly throwing Shinespark off her hooves, and it began to slide slowly forward as a splashing sounded at the prow.
Slowly, the boat picked up speed. The beasts were strong enough to tip and jostle it when it was on land, and its hull provided less resistance against the water than it did the hillside. Several other ponies emerged from below to watch, Gerardo along with them. But the acceleration didn't slow, the beasts pumping their hairy arms and cloven hooves in broad butterfly strokes, until the ship was almost skimming.
"How...?" Valey stood by the shattered railing and lifted a wing, feeling the wind trail under it. "Bananas, how are they pulling us so fast?"
"Magic, a tailwind and fear for their lives," one guard replied. Two thirds of the pegasi had landed, and most were filtering below to rest before their own shifts. "The same way we can fly with stubby little things like these." He showed off a wing of his own.
"Species magic," Shinespark said, standing at Valey's side. "They would need to move quickly if they were hunters."
"Or for fleeing," another guard added. "Lore says they were once master thieves who raided, plundered and fled into the night. They can move quickly through any type of terrain, including the sea... or so they say."
"Or being tied up," Shinespark added warily. "As many contingencies as we have, please be careful."
Valey bit her lip. "Honestly, there's one last thing that's sort of spooky about this."
The guards eyed her.
"Didn't you guys have a big war with the griffons for keeping these things locked away?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "How utterly thrilled do you think they're gonna be if this brood is down to two survivors now, and they see you running away with them? It's not like we aren't extremely obvious out here and in plain sight of their city."
Another guard chuckled. "That should hardly be an issue, miss. Their vigilante force completely exhausted their strength fighting the brood before we even engaged them. We still have our numbers, and would see any attack coming from miles away at sea. And soon, we'll be far enough beyond their lands for it to matter at all."
"Yeah... I'll say." Valey eyed the city, figuring what had been a multi-day walk for Gerardo would likely be passing by within minutes. "Well, let's see how this goes."
A dusty roof covered a dusty platform at the base of a dusty mountain trail, the train tracks leading up and ending there looking slightly duller than they had several days ago. But the griffon who sat atop the roof was the same, his suit battered and damaged but the same sparkle of distaste in his gray eyes as he stared around, up at the city and at the lands around.
On the horizon, a ship slowly rounded a corner, chased by a storm cloud and sporting no mast or sails whatsoever. Gunther flipped a sound stone lazily in one talon, sighed, and got up, wincing slightly at a pain in his legs.
"Didn't see things going this way any time soon," he muttered to himself, swinging by his tail and dropping to the ground as he pocketed the stone. "Maybe I'll tag along at a distance. Can't be any less interesting than waiting for this place to get itself in order, can it? And besides, I owe that lot a thing or two..."
The lights on the train were dark, making it hard to see Starlight's eyes as the announcement interrupted her story. A faint chill pierced the insulated train car, the kind Twilight Sparkle was only aware of because she knew it was frozen outside, though if she hadn't it would have gnawed at her like a background noise you could only hear once it stopped. The sun hadn't yet risen. They were the only passengers in that car.
"We should return to the castle," Cadance said, breaking a silence even Rainbow Dash had known better than to tamper with. Like that, Starlight's spell was broken, and Twilight found she had a voice again, though she didn't know what to say.
Steam hissed from the train as Twilight disembarked, following close behind her student. Rainbow flew ahead, dawn tinging the eastern horizon with a light that didn't seem to touch the ground.
"You know," Twilight said, "you were enjoying telling this a lot more at the beginning."
Starlight's mane didn't perk. "They were my friends for a reason. There were a lot of good memories I hadn't looked back on in a while."
"But now your voice is so sad." Twilight kept her horn dim, respectful of the darkness, but it didn't stop her from looking intently. "And I can't see your eyes, but I can only imagine how they must look. Starlight..." She took a breath. "You need to stop telling this story. It's not making you feel good, and at this point I don't even want to know whether I'm right about the ending."
"No," Starlight replied. "With all due respect, I can't. This is the first time I've ever been able to say some of these things, and they need to be said because you need to understand who I was and why I did what I did with your map table and what you did to me in my village. And I want to have someone who understands. When I'm done, we can go back to Ponyville and drink hot chocolate and make snow angels, and we can laugh about our plans for the future. But I need to finish this first."
Twilight opened her mouth, but found no words would come. Eventually, she swallowed. "It's my job to tell you that talking about your feelings is the first step in coming to terms with them, no matter how much it hurts. But you already know that."
"But you're telling me otherwise," Starlight said, "because friendship is magic and you're the princess of that and you don't want it to be true that it just wasn't magic enough for someone who believed as hard as I did to keep their friends."
Twilight frowned. "I'm telling you because it looks like talking is making you miserable and you've clearly had enough of that for one life. But yes. That too." She sighed. "I am a princess. This is the kind of thing that it should be my duty to fix, and I can't see anything I can do."
Starlight continued her walk. "Listening? Existing? Offering to be my friend?"
"Right." Twilight's ears fell. "I know how important that is, but everything I'm doing just feels like treating symptoms instead of the real problem."
Starlight shook her head. "Much as I'd like to blame everything wrong in my life on some curse or malicious power or cause beyond my understanding I could somehow defeat with friendship or someday be rid of, that's missing the point. This happened to me years ago, and there's nothing I can do to change it except live with the results. There are some problems you can't fix."
"Says the mare who invented a time travel spell using work from Star Swirl the Bearded."
Starlight continued walking.
"Starlight!" Twilight ran to catch up, the road shadowed by pools of light from ponies who had left their porch lights on. "This isn't something you should have to live with!"
"No," Starlight agreed, "it's not. But whether I should or shouldn't, I do. And whether I do or don't, I can. And you and your friends actually have a magical power binding you together, and if I stay with you it will be a lot more livable than how I've been surviving for the last decade and a half."
"But it's not right!" Twilight protested. "I should be doing something, or..."
"Are you actually going to do it?" Starlight asked, staring straight ahead. "I should be too, but that's not enough of a reason to do it."
Twilight's face fell, and her pace slowed. "I hate that you asked that."
"Then you're probably right about what happened to my friendships."
That was all Twilight could bring herself to say. The sun rose as she and Starlight walked in silence, rising high enough to cover the city in long shadows from the crystalline houses, its light not touching Twilight's coat. Early-rising ponies were starting to wake, and a few glittering hooves waved at her from kitchen windows. It didn't make her feel surrounded. There was only one mare and two groups of friends on her mind, and one of those groups was her own.
"This crystal is the same type as the crystal palaces," Starlight said as they approached the base of the tower, a spinning, heart-shaped gem visible at the center of the plaza.
"It's similar in structure to my tree," Twilight answered, not interested in small talk but feeling like it was better than silence. "I've studied it a time or two."
Starlight stepped up to the crystal heart and regarded it, her mane still limp. It hung in midair between two spikes of crystal, one from the ceiling and one from the ground, and as it spun the air seemed to shimmer with power, flowing around Twilight like a large, gentle wing.
"I don't know how much you'd know about this place," Twilight offered, "but the crystal heart is an artifact that contains and acts as a focus for the crystal ponies' love. Keeping it here supposedly lets it spread its love all across... Starlight?"
Starlight was more interested in the spikes the heart hung between, poking at the bottom one with a hoof. Twilight quizzically tilted her head, mouth half open.
"If you've ever wanted to see Indus technology in person..." Starlight lit her horn, and suddenly the bottom spire vanished like a hologram, revealing a spinning drill-like device that had been encased inside it. "That's a harmony extractor."
Twilight gaped. "How did you know that was there!?"
"The shape was right." Starlight shrugged. "And it makes sense with what you said this was used for. There's one in the top, too, I'm sure."
The sharp, conical extractor spun soundlessly, teal energy dancing along its surface. After a few seconds, Starlight's horn went out, and the crystal covering re-materialized, leaving it looking exactly the way it had been before.
Twilight took a deep breath. "Starlight," she said. "Tell me you can know that there are mysteries like that in the world and not feel like there should be a way for you to fix everything that happened to you?"
"Who gets to decide what there should and shouldn't be, Twilight?" Starlight turned her back on her again, the sunlight starting to touch the ground. "I need to finish. We're almost to the end, and once the story is over you can speak to your heart's content about regret and what should be possible."
"We get to decide!" Twilight's ears rose in indignation. "If there's something that isn't right, we can tell! That's part of being a pony! Even the ponies I've met who were in the wrong or needed to be stopped all had real grievances about things that were wrong with their lives!"
"And what about when you're terrified of making that decision?" Starlight whispered. "What about when you've been told day and night by visions and a filly you don't understand that you will decide something needs to happen someday but you're wrong, and everything suffers as a result? What about when you're a foal whose talent seems to be doing anything, and you know no one could stand up to you if you did? What about when some magical glass shows you that the memory that impacted you most was a memory of watching a vision of what you might do, and catapults it from a lingering fear to the first and only thing you can think about?"
"I stood up to you," Twilight said, a dawn breeze blowing through her mane.
"You didn't stand a chance," Starlight countered, countered, her voice tight. "Even as an alicorn, you had to talk me down."
"But I did, didn't I?" Twilight stepped forward. "And it worked. Because that's what friends do. They talk to each other and tell each other when they're wrong, and they respect each other enough to listen. Maybe you can beat me in a magic fight, but that has nothing to do with it as long as you care enough to listen. Your friends don't have to be stronger than you to be able to protect you from your own bad decisions, no matter how much harm you could cause by making them."
Starlight broke down and crouched, covering her head and crying.
"Shhh," Twilight whispered, touching a wing to her shoulder. "We're taking a break and getting some sleep before we finish. And then if going back to Ponyville and living a normal life is what you need? I'm royalty, and I manage to pull it off sometimes. I'm practically an expert."
She gave an awkward, reassuring smile, and Starlight hiccupped. "I w-was terrified of myself. The seeds were there all along, being sown every step of the way. And then they all sprouted all at once, and I realized I really could cause something like that, because I was strong enough and a-all it would take was choosing the wrong thing to make my goal. Cutie marks are goals, and also the power to help you reach them. I t-thought that without those..."
"It's okay," Twilight consoled, her eyes finding their way to the mark on Starlight's flanks. "I understand."
"Day one progress report: we're not dead yet," Valey muttered to herself, standing near the front of the Immortal Dream and watching as the surviving brood beasts swam. Their posture looked almost ridiculous, but even though the coast was still nearby they showed no signs of trying to make a break for it. The ship nearly skimmed across the water, reaching speeds she had only seen while it was airborne before, though she could have easily paced it if she was flying long-distance herself.
"That's insightful and uplifting," Harshwater said.
Valey jumped. "Woah! You were behind me?"
"You looked distracted." Harshwater shrugged. "Speaking of distractions, no one is looking for either of us. Would this be a good time for a talk?"
"Yep. Therapist Valey is permanently on-call." Valey glanced back at the waves, then sat down. "What's up?"
"I was thinking we talk down... Never mind." Harshwater sighed. "So, you've been going around, glad to be alive."
Valey made a face. "Eh, that's the plan. Once I get everyone un-stranded so they can do it with me. But we're moving, so it shouldn't be too long."
"You've been going around talking to everyone," Harshwater remarked. "Have they been telling you about their injuries?"
"Uhh... not really?" Valey bit her lip. "It's not usually the most comfortable subject, you know? And from Ironflanks and Sparky's states, there's not a whole lot that needs to be said."
Harshwater frowned. "And how much is there to be said for the medical team who made sure those injuries were as survivable as possible?"
Valey blinked. "Uhhh..."
"Myself and Felicity, since it didn't cross your mind." Harshwater sat down, looking away. "If it wasn't for us, some of them might not have survived the weeks they spent waiting for you."
Valey's jaw slackened for a second. "Exactly how much did you two do? Not to be rude, but especially Felicity..."
Harshwater sighed. "You already went and gave her a you-betrayed-me talk, didn't you?"
"For all I knew she could've slacked around on the boat the whole time!" Valey buried her face in her hooves. "Answer the question..."
"She did enough," Harshwater said. "A lot, considering she's chronically disabled on top of being just as emotionally compromised as anyone else on this team. But you know how I feel about batponies. I'm not interested in talking about her. I want to talk about me."
"Yeah, alright, I'll put her back on my list of ponies to talk to." Valey sagged. "Bananas, she really could have mentioned something about patching everyone up or keeping them alive earlier... You sure you aren't here about her?"
Harshwater folded her forelegs. "Remind me why I don't like batponies, again?"
"Me?" Valey guessed. At Harshwater's disapproving look, her brow narrowed. "Look, I have a whole bunch of stuff going on right now, and my thoughts are currently busy with getting us somewhere safe, figuring out what's up with Starlight, and not being dead. I wanna help you but it would mean a lot if you made this easy for me."
"I'm here because you saved my life twice, first by sparing me in Ironridge and then by rescuing me from Mistvale," Harshwater huffed. "I've spent my whole life following and working for bosses, and you've been the one I've been indebted to ever since then. It's for the better, because we both know what happens when I follow my own personal judgement on things. Ringing any bells whatsoever?"
Valey blinked. "Oh. Yeah. So what can I do?"
Harshwater groaned. "I need guidance, and you're making it awkward..."
Valey's face fell. "Really? Bananas. That's usually the kind of stuff I do on purpose." She winked. "Alright, though, now we're getting somewhere. I'm already a professional unlicensed therapist, might as well try my hoof at guidance counseling while I'm at it! One more time, from the top: what's up?"
Harshwater groaned and buried her face. "You're incorrigible."
"Helps take the edge off certain situations." Valey shrugged. "And you're still not giving me a huge amount to work on."
"I'm getting there!" Harshwater whined, eventually deflating. "Look... I was one of the only creatures here who made it out unscathed from the Empire. The only capable flier, not counting Howe. I know my wilderness survival, and have fewer strong ties here than most anyone else. I could have left and never looked back."
Valey nodded, listening.
"But I owed you, and so I stuck to my code," Harshwater sighed. "And as it turns out, there's not as much gratification as I had hoped in working alongside a batpony day and night to try to pay off a debt to a pony who was too dead to care."
Valey stopped her with a hoof. "If you're gonna tell me you were disloyal or untrustworthy or something and I should kick you out, you're still here, aren't you?"
"That's not where I'm going with this." Harshwater's voice stiffened. "You're back now, and I still owe you my life."
"Yeah, so not that I'd ever turn down a pretty mare who wanted to dedicate her life to me..." Valey scratched the back of her head. "But you know we've been over this, right? I dunno what to do with a goon squad. I don't want goons. All I ever do is screw with them and make them hate me. Having friends instead is a lot less lonely."
"I knew you'd say that." Harshwater looked away. "I owe you, but the only one enforcing that debt is me. You couldn't care less."
Valey watched her. "Uh huh..."
Harshwater sighed. "It's just not worth it. That's the way I've always lived, but for the last few weeks it's been taken to an extreme and just... doesn't seem like what I want to do anymore."
"Sounds good to me." Valey nodded. "But you didn't bail on us yesterday when you had the chance. So what can I do to help?"
Harshwater rubbed her face again. "Stop making this feel awkward..."
"Hey, awkward is what I do." Valey shrugged. "I can make it a whole lot more awkward if it would help, but-"
"I'm talking to myself!" Harshwater interrupted with an exasperated groan.
"Right." Valey winked. "Sure you are."
"This is why I wanted to talk in private," Harshwater complained. "I don't know what to do with myself and my brain keeps telling me to look to you because you're my current boss and that's how I do things, even though the point is to do something else because I know this isn't how it's done and it's awkward! Could you... just... give me just a little more space? I've been trying to psyche myself up for this and it clearly hasn't worked."
Valey whistled. "So you're more bothered by the fear of being awkward than the act of being awkward itself. You know what the solution to that is?" She waggled her eyebrows. "Here's a hint. I sometimes call it the ice bucket challenge."
"That's not what I'm here to talk about!" Harshwater protested. "I'm asking for advice!"
"Honest advice?" Valey adjusted her beret. "If calling me your boss helps you sleep at night, but you're bored and know I don't care either way, then go do something selfish or crazy for an hour or a day or whatever, and when it starts to freak you out then just come back and do chores or something. We're all committed to going on this boat trip, so it's not like we're gonna part ways soon. Just, like, do baby steps, or something. That's the best I've got."
"...I'm going back to my room," Harshwater said, retreating, red in the face.
Valey shrugged, watching as she left. "Bananas," she said once Harshwater was gone. "I've seriously gotta get this crew living in a proper town where they can know more ponies."
"What's wrong?" Shinespark asked, climbing up from the engine room. "Why have we stopped moving?"
"We can't say!" a puzzled Equestrian replied, part of a crowd that was gathered on the roof of the bridge. "They've just... stopped going!"
"We clung to the coast for as long as we could without losing significant time, just in case anything happened," another said, scratching his head and lowering a hoof to help Shinespark onto the roof. "You'd think if they were going to mutiny, they'd have done it in the first four and a half days. But no, they wait until we're two more out in the open ocean..."
In front of the prow, the two brood beasts had stopped pulling and were content to tread water, making a show of lounging around. The pegasi had their thunderstorm positioned directly above them, crackling ominously with electricity, but the beasts didn't appear to have a care in the world.
"If we shoot them, it's supposed to kill them!" a pegasus complained, one of the ones staffing the cloud. "They're supposed to be working so that we don't!"
"They're too smart for that," a third sighed. "They know if we kill them, we'll be stranded."
Another bit his lip. "They probably think they're going to die when we reach Kinmari anyway, and just want to take us down with them."
Shinespark blinked owlishly at the noise from the arguing pegasi. "So what's your contingency for this?"
"It was supposed to be fear of the storm cloud..."
More ponies were starting to emerge on the deck, though it was an hour before dawn and most remained sleeping. "What seems to be the matter?" Gerardo Guillaume asked, peering out from the rear doorway.
Shinespark glanced back at him. "This brood beast plan has stopped working. Find something to motivate them. I'm not in a mood for this."
"Shinespark...?" Amber joined the deck as well, rubbing her eyes.
Gerardo winced. "I'm not sure we have the most in resources for this sort of thing, but I'll see what I can do. Do we know anything they particularly hate? Aside from griffons..."
"What's going on?" Starlight asked, appearing at Amber's side.
Shinespark sighed heavily. "For everyone just arriving, we've stopped moving."
Still in her Riverfall poncho, Starlight frowned, and her horn gleamed midnight blue. A pillar of crystal rose from the deck beneath her, elevating her to the roof with an ease that indicated she'd been practicing.
Most of the pegasi were too busy debating or doing nothing to pay much attention to the filly, and she easily squeezed through them to the prow with Shinespark. "Are they too tired?" she asked.
"What do you think?" A stallion shrugged as one of the brood beasts made a rude hoof gesture up at the ship. The other blinked with its blank, yellow eye.
"If you want to do your usual thing," Shinespark invited, "this wouldn't be a bad time."
Starlight's face instantly darkened beneath her hood. "I don't want to have a usual thing," she muttered, lighting her horn. "Do you have a rock?"
"Um, no?" The closest guard blinked at her. "Why?"
"I have a rock!" another volunteered. "It's a keepsake. What do you need it for?"
"I'll give it back," Starlight said, taking it... and hurling it straight up, as high as she could.
Both of the brood beasts watched with lazy indifference. The rock soared in a high arc, turning about and starting to fall toward them, barely the size of a Starlight's hoof yet gathering speed... and suddenly her horn pulsed again and a crystal laser fired forward, striking the stone and encasing it in a massive crystal boulder bigger than the beasts' heads. It struck one directly with a titanic clunk, earning a loud groan of pain.
Starlight dispelled the crystal, floating the rock back up with her telekinesis. "I can do that all day now!" she warned. "Now swim!"
The brood beasts growled and rammed the ship.
"Fire!"
The world briefly went white, and a thunderous boom crackled across the deck as a pillar of energy smote one of the beasts, utterly charring it. If it was still alive, it wouldn't be pulling the boat again any time soon.
"You want to think twice about stopping now, do you?" one of the storm pegasi threatened the survivor. "We'll do that to you too!"
"One of two engines is permanently offline," a deck pegasus muttered. "Why does this have to happen when I'm on rotation for travel duty...?"
The ship was moving again, but at less than half the speed it had been. Starlight sat in Shinespark's old room, the only place on the ship where she was willing to take off her poncho.
"It doesn't feel like my magic," she whined, Valey snoring loudly in the background. Maple was the only other who was both awake and present, and she quietly listened as Starlight talked. "It looks different, and it feels like the magic is coming from somewhere else. It's exactly the way I feel when we're in a crystal palace and the trees are helping me. But then everything else about it does feel like mine! It doesn't feel like I'm using someone else's horn, or anything. But it looks like it! I don't know..."
"I've never seen a pony's magic change color when they got a cutie mark," Maple admitted. "But then, I haven't seen a lot of unicorns get cutie marks. Amber was the only pony I ever knew in Riverfall who got hers while she was a filly. Everyone who got one did it after the age where all the unicorns would sail away for Sosa."
"This isn't a normal cutie mark, though," Starlight mumbled, turning in circles and watching her flanks. It was the same abstract triangular pattern she had seen when she visited the Night Mother in Mistvale, not any sort of pictogram or glyph with meaning like most ponies had. Her mind didn't feel changed at all, and she couldn't figure out how to directly use it... "It feels like it's not properly mine, or I can't do something with it I should be able to, or... I don't know."
Maple's ears fell. "At least it's helped your horn not hurt when you use magic like usual, right?"
"I don't know." Starlight looked at the floor. "I don't know how else to say which parts of my magic feel different and which feel the same. It feels like something changed that shouldn't have changed, and something didn't change that should have changed at the same time. And for all I know it's not even the cutie mark that's doing it. This is the first time I've been able to use it since we got back to Equestria, and I never overused it when I was living here the first time..."
"I'm not sure what to say," Maple apologized. "But... Starlight, tell me what that artifice is supposed to do, again."
"What it's supposed to do?" Starlight shrugged. "I don't know. Did Garsheeva ever even say? She was mysterious."
Maple shook her head. "No. What it's supposed to mean. The virtue it represents."
"Oh." Starlight looked at the triangles on her flank again. "This one is for hope, and Valey's is for love."
"And how much are you hoping for, right now?" Maple asked. "How many wishes or plans or ambitions do you have?"
"Not a lot." Starlight glanced back at her. "Can I afford to? I don't want to start any new things right now. I just want to get somewhere safe and get away from everything that could go wrong."
Maple gave a wry smile. "So you have a cutie mark in hope, and you're not being very hopeful. Starlight, I might never have gotten someone else's cutie mark or had a broken unicorn horn, but I have gotten my own mark and learned soon after that I wouldn't get to do the thing I got it in. Me and Amber both did, after Willow told us we wouldn't be going to Ironridge... It felt confusing and aimless for a while, and we got by by finding new things to care about and other ways to use them. But trust me. You're not alone."
"Right." Starlight stepped over and settled in by the side of the bed. Even with her best intentions, Maple was only skimming the surface of what was on her mind. She sure felt alone... but maybe she'd try again to tell herself it wasn't true.
Valey rubbed her head crossly, sitting on the deck of the Immortal Dream. "You know, that would be a whole lot more exciting if we hadn't spent the last two days backtracking just so that we wouldn't get stranded again when this one quits too..."
A guard looked at her. "Now that we're down to one thanks to your filly making them attack, we can't afford to risk getting stranded."
"We risked getting stranded the moment you decided to use them for propulsion in the first place," Valey growled. "Now we've wasted a bajillion days of travel! And don't blame Starlight for trying something when no one had any better ideas."
"We could have waited and come up with a better plan," another guard pointed out.
"Guh..."
"Look, being delayed to Kinmari is bad for us too!" the first one insisted. "None of us are winners, here."
Valey was already trotting away.
In Shinespark's room, a bed poofed and groaned as Valey flopped down with a sigh. "Can't hide it from you, kiddo: sticking your neck out there the other day was not the best way to endear yourself to our guests."
"I know," Starlight grunted, huddled in a corner with books and a few snacks and showing no intention of moving.
"I didn't see it," Maple murmured, "but it reminds me of when Hemlock's crane broke so long ago and you saved Gerardo's ship from falling. But we didn't leave Riverfall immediately after that, did we? How did we help you deal with the pressure then?"
"Don't remember." Starlight turned a page.
Maple frowned in concentration. "Didn't Amber and Gerardo do a stunt, or...?"
"Bananas!" Valey groaned and rolled over. "The smell of tension on this ship is so thick I feel like I'm gonna choke. We need a good plan and we need it now, because this is absolutely not working."
"I wish I had more to offer. I'm trying my best," Maple apologized, her eyes the same midnight blue as Starlight's new aura ever since the day Starlight got her artifice and she had pocketed Glimmer. "I think we're just so out of resources not even we can make it work. All of you are so creative and resourceful, but we've just hit out limit."
Valey blew a raspberry at the ceiling. "Maybe I should have flown for it. Tried to reach this university place before we turned back. If I hadn't been asleep when it happened, I would have yelled at them to keep going and then have us try to fly and get help if we did get stranded. It's a school on an island, how can they not have a million boats of their own? They could rescue us!"
"Didn't they say it was nine days at full speed from here to the school?" Maple asked, eyes shadowing with concern. "Even you can't fly for a full week without rest or sleep."
Valey grumbled.
Maple's face fell. "You know, it might have nothing to do with getting us out of here, but I was glad to get to see you so happy when you returned. Even if we've been drowning in our own troubles for the last month, and they're dragging you down too now that you're back in them, I'm glad I got to see you smile."
"I know, right?" Valey tossed a hoof. "I was feeling great, and then it was like, hey, we're stranded and everyone's in a real bad way. And so I was like, bananas, let's get this problem fixed and then back to being happy. You know what's wrong with that? That's exactly how I've been feeling all throughout the Empire! Oh, if only we could solve these million impossible things that are completely screwing us, life would be great! Once those are gone, we'll have a real party! And now we're right. Back. In the same exact place. Odds are, we're gonna get hit by more bad luck before we even come close to solving this one."
Maple's ears fell.
"That's why we can't let that happen," Valey insisted, sitting up. "Not while we're still so close. We don't have a bunch of racist griffons and evil sphinxes and crazed scientists breathing down our backs, and for once I don't have to worry about that meteor. Crossing that ocean is the only thing standing between us and the chance to actually get somewhere better. And we gotta figure out what we kept doing wrong and change it while there's still time to try. I'm frustrated, but I haven't lost my second wind yet. I just dunno what to actually do."
"What will we do once we get there?" Maple bit her lip. "I know it's important to stay hopeful, but do we know this university will actually help? I'm honestly asking, I didn't hear the guards talk about why we should go there."
Valey took a breath and looked at the door. "Honestly? I dunno. But they made it sound like it's not a war zone, it's not in the grip of an evil chancellor, and might actually be the kind of bastion of civilization we've been looking for. And even if it's not, their princess will be able to find us and we can negotiate with her or whatever for the right to stay here."
"Worst comes to worst, we can wait here for Princess Celestia to get back," Maple hummed. "How bad of an idea would that even be anymore?"
"Might be what we have to do. I'm not worried about us starving or dying or anything." Valey shrugged. "We've got food for a month or two, more if we stretch it, and I've got no intention of losing to anything that tries to whack us. Except... you know... her."
"Chrysalis is gone," Starlight insisted from her corner.
Valey sighed.
With a slow shuffle, Maple climbed out of her bed, stepped over and put a hoof on Valey's shoulder.
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you injured?"
"It's been a month," Maple answered. "I'm far from comfortable, but I did have Princess Celestia's healing spell. And you look like you're feeling alone."
"Heh. Thanks, girl." Valey gently patted her back. "What I'm feeling is like we're inches away, and yet miles away at the same time. What I need are ideas. Say we do have to wait for their honcho. How do we get the ship in any better of a mood so it doesn't have to stagnate like this for however many more weeks it takes?"
"It's a good question," Maple said. "When I was getting back on my hooves last year, I had a lot of tricks that helped, but most of them relied on having supportive friends, or being able to walk around in Riverfall. And I don't think there's anyone here who's completely okay."
Valey huffed. "And the land around here is probably full of nothing. See, though? This is why I wanna reach that island. I've been thinking, and I'm one hundred percent sure settling down and getting to know more ponies than just a hoofful on this ship is good for us."
"But we can't," Maple agreed, "so we need to find something to do in the meantime. Do you think some sort of celebration would help raise spirits?"
"A celebration? Of what?" Valey tilted her head, curious.
"Of me feeling good enough to go cooking and having enough food to cook with." Maple nodded at the door. "And we don't need to be celebrating anything in particular to have one. Even just treating ourselves to a feast might help raise spirits."
Valey rubbed her chin. "Alright, I'm liking it. What else?"
"I don't have anything else." Maple stiffly shrugged, trying not to move her barrel. "But if we ask our friends, they might have something to pitch in?"
"It's something to do." Valey flipped upright, landing on the floor. "And that's a whole lot better than laying around. Let's see what we can-"
She slid the door open with a whirl, revealing the talon of Gerardo Guillaume, inches from knocking.
"Oh, hey, Birdo." Valey winked. "So, new plan is to have a feast. If we can't do anything to get us quicker to the island, we gotta boost morale while we wait, and I'm not sitting on my butt while-"
"Apologies for the interruption." Gerardo reached inside his uniform, produced a glowing sound stone, and held it where everyone could see. "But I have a problem that requires a unicorn."
Starlight and Valey both tilted their heads. "Who's it from?" Valey asked. "We're all here, aren't we? Don't tell me you gave the other one to Pancake..."
Gerardo offered the stone to Starlight, beckoning for her to activate it. "On the contrary, it was last taken possession of by the leader of the very griffon gang who were likely to be upset by our taking the last brood beasts to use as propulsion..."
Maple swallowed.
"Hope he's not looking for trouble," Valey remarked, a faint grin on her face. "For his sake. So?"
Starlight's aura congealed around the sound stone, and within seconds it activated, a crackle of static making its way along the connection. "Hello?" Gerardo said into the stone.
"Huh. It's you," Gunther's voice carried, broadcasting into the room. "I'm surprised the soldiers didn't rob you blind enough to take this, too. Where are they?"
Gerardo blinked. "Who, the Equestrians?"
"Yes, that's who. Are they still commandeering your ship?"
"What's it to you if they are?" Gerardo narrowed his eyes.
"Because my sources say you turned back after suffering some engine troubles, and I've been following you. It turns out a little spending goes a long way in Griffonstone toward getting yourself a ship and a crew. So if my calculations are correct... I'm a lot closer to your destination than you are."
Everyone in the room stared at each other.
"Go get your captors. I've got an offer or two to propose..."
The pegasi mustered with military precision, and soon four of them were crowded around the sound stone on the bridge, alongside Valey, Shinespark and Gerardo. "What is the meaning of this, griffon?" the leader demanded.
"Well, don't you sound caught red-taloned. Doing something you're scared I'll call you out on?"
The pegasi all bit their tongues, fury written on their faces, but they were smart enough to hold any outbursts. "Reach your point," the captain growled.
"Impatient, aren't we? I bet you're ruing the day you messed with my ancestral hunt. I have three siblings dead because of you, and one ascended enough to make years of trouble for anyone he pleases later. It's you who owes me, here, and I'm well within my rights to ask you all to grovel before I even think of helping."
The Equestrians glared at each other, and for half a second Valey had a bad feeling they were judging the feasibility of trying to take hostages in hopes of leverage. She suspected Gunther wouldn't care, but fortunately the plan left their minds the moment their eyes passed across her.
"Fortunately for you, I'm more interested in the kind of debts you can repay. So here's the situation, pegasi: I'm currently playing host to a research submarine from your university. They're wary and ready to bolt at a moment's notice, and they move quickly. I haven't mentioned you to them and pledge neutrality if we can't reach a deal. So, want me to give this sound stone to someone who could stage a rescue, pass along a message or anything else you have the authority to ask for? The bidding starts now."
The pegasi all gaped, and a vein twitched in one's brow.
"What are you asking?" Valey stepped forward. "We've got griffon money."
"Depends which side you're on," Gunther replied. "I don't recognize your voice, but I don't see those chauvinists letting a mare into their ranks either. Are you with Gerardo? If so, we're not talking."
"And whyever not?" Gerardo insisted. "We do indeed have the means to-"
"Because I don't care to be indebted any further to you than I already am, even assuming you have money they haven't stolen yet. Now shut up until I can give back your sound stone in person. I said I was only borrowing it, remember?" There was a brief silence. "They, on the other side, owe me as much as I care to ask. And while I'm not about to stoop to blackmail or extortion, I don't need to when I have supply and demand. Pony up, ponies."
The lead guard stared at the sound stone with a thunderous look. "Refusal to aid Equestria in times of crisis constitutes-"
"Bluster all you want, but don't pretend you can make getting rid of me any more of a priority than it was already. Or, you could resort to working together with me so we both benefit. What was that called, again? Some Equestrian value I can't recall the name of..."
Gerardo shuffled tensely. "It would be very much appreciated if you worked with him and got us potentially un-stranded..."
"You don't know what you're asking," another guard grunted. "Him and his band have been making attacks on our fortress for years."
"And will your princess care more about that, or about how efficiently you prioritize your real mission?" Shinespark interjected. "I don't know how much is at stake for you, or anything about your plans. But I know a lot about getting distracted by grudges and emotions, and none of you are thinking clearly. We need help."
The pegasi didn't stop arguing. Valey had never met Gunther, but could practically see him grinning vindictively to himself on the other side of the sound stone as his ultimatum caused his enemies to quarrel. He was serious, she could tell, but far too interested in whatever leverage he had obtained to let a chance like this go easily. At least they didn't have to worry too much about him passing them up and leaving the ship alone...
Her eyes began to wander, and she saw Jamjars standing in the entrance to the bridge. Jamjars winked.
"Oh bananas." Valey broke away from the crowd to chase her as she disappeared. "Bananas, no, what are you up to? This is a terrible time for any stupid... stunts..."
Standing in the doorway, she found herself face to face with High Prince Gazelle.
"It's you," the sphinx breathed, standing on his own without assistance. His eyes were blank and unfocused, and his cutie mark a pure black outline, but he held himself with a posture so normal it sent a chill down Valey's spine.
"Uhhhhh." Valey swallowed.
"So it is possible to return," Gazelle whispered, reaching a paw and touching Valey's chest to make sure she was real. "You must help me. I have someone I'm looking for. She is important to me..."
Valey was too frozen to do more than turn her head as Gazelle walked past her onto the bridge. "Hello," Gazelle greeted the room, his voice unnaturally calm. "I'm looking for my sister."
The pegasi all turned from staring at the sound stone to staring at him. "Your Highness, you should rest," the leader said firmly. "Your injuries are-"
"Idle feet will not return Gwendolyn to the living!" Gazelle moved faster than teleportation, suddenly standing on two paws and pinning the pegasus who had spoken to the control console. A single claw pressed against the pegasus's neck, drawing a dribble of blood. "I shall not rest! I can't..."
The captain reacted instantly, kicking hard at Gazelle's belly to throw him off. But Gazelle was faster still, vaulting into a somersault and raking a full set of claws down the captain's face, opening several wide, parallel gashes. Gazelle turned as he landed and caught the captain with his tail, flinging him with unnatural strength into the room's far wall where he crashed, slumping.
"There shall be no rest," Gazelle threatened, tail lashing. "Thank you. I have a sister to find..." His voice returned to its previous calm. "Lyn, where are you? Lyn..."
None of the pegasi had entered the bridge armed, and all three conscious ones were stock still, knowing better than to subject themselves to the same fate. "Your Highness, what are your orders?" one asked.
"Take him to Kinmari," Jamjars said from the doorway. "Gazelle, it's the school I was telling you about. We don't have the tools we need to get Lyn back here, but they definitely will there."
"Agreed. This is a good plan. Very good," Gazelle said, his eyes still unfocused. "Let us move."
"This is an interesting drama to listen to," Gunther commented from across the sound stone. "I'm hearing one solid vote for Kinmari. Anyone else?"
Gazelle seized the sound stone. "Who are you?"
"Your best friend, if you can pay right. I know where you want to go. Convince these pegasi to play my game-"
"I am looking for my sister," Gazelle interrupted, voice steady. "She is the last ruler of the Griffon Empire. Name your price and help me, and we will grant you anything you could desire. My sister is worth far more..."
"Money for the sake of money is worthless. The act of being paid is what matters. I don't care about riches, I care about seeing Equestrians kneel and admit I'm better than them by paying for my services. And while I don't resort to blackmail, it sounds like they've done an excellent job on their own commandeering a ship with impatient travelers..."
Gazelle's tail lashed, and his claws flexed in and out as he scanned the room. "I'm looking for my sister," he whispered, his unfocused gaze passing everyone. "Please. Help me."
Valey glanced about nervously, hoping she wasn't about to have to beat Gazelle back into submission. "You know, it would be real cool if everyone helped the sphinx right now? All of us want to go to Kinmari. Right, big guy? Real good place to go."
Gazelle stiffly nodded. "She knows..."
The tension in the room was thick enough to shatter. "Name your terms," a pegasus growled. "But don't think we'll let you get away with this."
"What?" another pegasus grumbled. "How are we even supposed to pay him? He knows there's no way for us to give him money up front, right?"
"Weren't you listening?" Gunther sighed. "I already have money. Enough to hire some layabouts who knew how to crew a ship. I think I'll be satisfied... if you say please. Sixty-seven times, once for each month you kept my prey locked away. I kept count. And because I'm feeling generous, that's a total for all of you, not sixty-seven per pony."
The guards gaped. "Are you mocking us?" one demanded, pointing a wing.
"And I also want an apology. Make it as awkward and frustrated as you can, I want to relish this. And if you take the deal now, I won't ask you all to sing me the sappiest song about sharing you know from when you were foals."
"You're ridiculing us!" another exclaimed. "How dare you!? We are Her Majesty's personal royal guard, and-"
"I never pretended otherwise," Gunther drawled. "Your dignity for your jobs, your lives, and whatever else you have to gain from this. We both get something we want. It's just business."
"You little..."
"Hey!" Valey snapped. "Would you rather give him money? He's letting you get us out of here for free!"
"Yes!" all three conscious pegasi shouted as one.
"And that's the point."
Shinespark loudly cleared her throat. "For elite royal guards, your lack of professionalism is appalling. The role of any public servant is to give in service of their home, and for every bit of valor you displayed defending us a week ago, it's the opposite of what I'm seeing now! Is refusing to apologize to a griffon who clearly thinks you've wronged him more honorable than being humble and furthering your mission at the same time? There's no dignity in being held back by pride."
All three of the pegasi looked like they had had ice sculptures smashed across their faces. "You're good," Gunther commented.
"...That's an accusation I swore an oath I'd never have to hear," one of the guards said, helmet off and head and ears lowered. "You have the right of it, miss. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. To everyone."
Gunther whistled. "Didn't think I'd get to hear sincerity today. That counts for twenty pleases. Do continue."
Gazelle flicked his tail impatiently.
"We're not the ones you're interested in hearing it from," another pegasus said, glancing between his companions. "I'm from Canterlot, not the border. I was never involved in imprisoning your beasts. What I am supposed to be involved in is mediating and resolving disputes before they require us to draw arms. We're supposed to be a peacekeeping force."
"I don't know what came over me," the third muttered, shaking his head.
"So you're sorry for getting worked up now. But that's what I was looking for. How about my ancestral hunt?"
"We weren't involved in that," the first repeated, "but I'm sorry we couldn't do anything to resolve it rather than let it linger for years. The brood beasts were shackled for endangering the pass, but we should have done something to reach an agreement over them rather than let things escalate endlessly."
For a moment, the sound stone was silent.
"Huh," Gunther eventually said. "Well, it wasn't what I wanted, but it'll do. You Equestrians are a bizarre lot. One would almost think these northerners know more about your purported values than you do. But whatever. Don't go anywhere."
The room was still. Seconds passed, and then a minute, and Gazelle's tail returned to its tense twitching. And then...
"Hello?" a sharp, middle-aged mare's voice greeted, sounding practiced and well-used. "This is Doctor Sea Star of the Kinmari Marine Research Academy. To whom am I speaking?"
"That, girl," Valey began, "is a really long story..."
Valey stood on the ship's deck once again, wanting to be anywhere but the stuffy bridge. Gazelle was there, and though he was quiet as a stone when not urging anyone to look for Lyn, no one was comforted by his presence. She had stayed long enough to hear some coordinates in a system she didn't understand and a promise of a rescue ship the following afternoon, which didn't make much sense unless the Equestrians had extremely fast boats... but she wouldn't put it past them.
Something else was bothering her, and she couldn't put her hoof on it. It wasn't how Jamjars had done something stupid without asking yet again, though she wasn't sure how anyone planned to explain to Gazelle there was nothing more a university could do to bring back his sister than they could. It wasn't Gazelle himself and his eerie black cutie mark, though he certainly wasn't helping. Something about the Equestrian guards. That was close...
After some time of musing, she heard hoofsteps shuffling behind her, and turned to see a pegasus who looked like he needed air as well. "You're one of the dudes from the bridge?" she guessed, going by the look on his face. These pegasi were worse about looking uniform than the Defense Force.
"Hmph," he sighed, sitting and staring out to sea.
Valey raised an eyebrow and got no response.
"Good day so far?" Valey prodded. "We're finally getting somewhere."
"Not a good day," the guard grunted. "Do you mind...?"
Valey frowned. "Excuse me, are you moping? Because yeah, I do mind. We've got way too much of that on this ship already and now we're getting out of here. Why not celebrate or something?"
"We made contact with Kinmari, yes," the guard sighed. "No thanks to me. You might not understand the importance of our oath to our princess and country, but we all failed and then failed again to check each other's failures. I don't know what came over me, but it's made this the lowest day of my career."
"See?" Valey pointed a restrained hoof. "That's what's bothering me. Sure, it might have been a little embarrassing, but you went up against a trickster and got what you wanted. And you're only looking on the dark side. It's like everyone's incapable of not being gloomy around here."
The guard's face tensed, and he looked away. "You could never understand. I had no history with that griffon. The most I had read was a mission briefing. And in the moment, I forgot every part of my mission and let pride carry me away. I-"
"Oh, shut up!" Valey flapped her wings for emphasis. "Sure, Sparky had to slap some sense into you, but you got through to the dude, didn't you? And even sort of made up? Mistakes happen, and this one cost you a whole lot less than some of the ones my friends and I have been through. Didn't this guard training you feel like you betrayed also have some unit about rolling with your mistakes, leaving them in the past and trying to recover from a bad situation? Because it's what I'd put in any serious curriculum I was making."
She didn't stop to watch his reaction, stalking away into the ship. That guard had pinpointed exactly what was bothering her: rather than being pleased that they were now being rescued, all the pegasi on the bridge had been upset with themselves. And sure, maybe they had violated some personal code or made an intense moral failure, but couldn't they buck up just a little while she was trying to prevent the ship from wallowing? If everyone had been down or else just hanging on before they turned around, after the brood beast died everything had been-
"Oh!" Felicity narrowly jumped out of her way, stumbling against a wall. "So sorry, darling, I didn't see you there...!"
Valey blinked, focusing. "Oh, hey, Longhair." She offered a hoof to help Felicity up, sizing up the mare. "Quick sanity check, off the top of your head: what's the last nice or cool thing you've done that you felt really good about?"
Felicity tilted her head and fluttered her eyelashes. "I beg your pardon? I mean, I-I wasn't expecting to be tested so brazenly, and I don't have the stamina to put work in like some of the rest of us, you have to understand-"
"Nope. No, no." Valey held out a wing, stopping her. "Not a test, not about what you've done for me or anyone else. I'm asking what you've done recently that you feel good about."
Felicity's face scrunched. "I'm... flattered that you care, but why?"
Valey huffed. "So we made contact with that university place and are apparently getting rescued tomorrow. Cool, right?"
"I'm afraid I don't follow..."
"And all the guards who were present are moping like it's the worst thing ever," Valey finished. "Maybe they've got their reasons. I don't care. We're a million steps closer to not being stranded anymore and they don't care. So tell me they're just being weird and you can remember the neat stuff you've done, because I am tired of everyone being miserable around here."
Felicity worked her jaw. "I... Darling, I owe you so much, and am so far from being in a position to brag-"
"I literally don't care," Valey insisted, grabbing her shoulders. "I'm asking you because you're the first random pony I ran into: I'm tired of hearing everyone being depressing when I'm alive and we're not dying and we're getting to go to a place that's not ran by despots. I already know what you've been up to while I was gone, I talked to Harshwater. Tell me you can feel good about the stuff you have to feel good about."
"I..." Felicity swallowed.
Valey tapped a hoof.
"I'm sorry," Felicity sighed, hanging her head. "I know what you're talking about. Yes, I did spend night and day as a doctor-on-call for your friends, I did push my body to its limit trying to help and go scouting, I really did everything I could..."
"Yes! Exactly!" Valey clapped her on the back. "See? You've done some cool stuff. Now tell me thinking about it makes you happy and those guards are just being losers."
Felicity closed her eyes and exhaled. "It's a drop in the bucket, darling. I still have a long way to go to make amends. But if this is something you're saying will help..." She smiled.
"Thanks, girl. I owe you a better thank you, and a talk. Once we get out of here. Didn't quite have the full story when I asked if you wanted to stay earlier..."
"Hah." Felicity sniffled.
Valey frowned. "And I've got a suspicion that smile's not genuine, but thanks for trying, too."
Felicity instantly winced. "When you've lived the type of life I have, you tend to find there's not much of a difference, darling. My emotions follow where I will them."
"Mhm." Valey got up and nodded, entirely unconvinced. "Anyway, I gotta wander. See ya."
The next pony Valey ran into was Shinespark, but this time she was looking for her. "Yo. Sparky."
"Hm?" Shinespark tilted her ears without looking up.
"Quick sanity check," Valey began, hovering. "Tell me the last cool thing you did, or the last thing you feel really good about doing."
Shinespark turned around to face her, an eyebrow raised. "I told you what I spent the weeks you were gone doing."
"Naaah. Wrong answer." Valey flicked a hoof. "Try again."
Shinespark stared at her in confusion.
"Bananas, not you too!" Valey grabbed her face and groaned, then hovered right in front of Shinespark's. "You just owned those squabbling guards and got them to get us a way out of here! Tell me that's cool! Tell me you're proud of yourself for getting me somewhere I want all of us to go because you care about me and what I want and that's supposed to make you happy!"
"You think?" Valey thumped her head back into a wall. "Please just tell me you're proud of yourself. And don't say it just to make me happy."
"I'm not feeling proud, Valey." Shinespark shook her head. "I'm not feeling a whole lot of anything right now. I'm on my hooves and doing everything I can to help you get our friends and ourselves to safety, and this is the price I pay. I'll have time for my own feelings after they're safe."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Even for giving yourself a pat on the back because we're this much closer to getting them safe? Because of you?"
"What's wrong?" Shinespark asked.
"Fine..." Valey groaned. "Bananas, I think this ship's atmosphere is contagious. We're supposed to be thrilled that we're actually no longer stranded! But the guards are moping about their oaths, Felicity feels like she owes me, you're... doing this... Nobody here is even capable of being in a good mood anymore! We've done so much cool stuff to survive, and it's like we can't even look at it or acknowledge our own contributions."
She flopped back against the wall. "I'm so sick of this. It's like our crew is contagious. I just wanna see everyone be happy. And I've got a plan for that, but why wait for a plan if we can't be happy about the stuff we have to celebrate now!? And who says the plan will even work if we can't do this, anyway? Maybe our ship's cursed. Those guards are like-"
"The Immortal Dream is not cursed," Shinespark growled. "If it is... it's my curse, building it for a dream it might take decades to complete, if ever." She sighed. "So what about you? Leading by example? What are you happy about?"
Valey waved a hoof. "Already thought it over. I'm not dead. I smashed those beasts. Saved your rears. Got to see some glimmers of hope in your eyes after beating a fate worse than death. And for a while, I was thrilled. I felt it. I was so happy, and you saw me."
She rolled over. "And now? Bananas, it feels exactly the same as it did in the Empire. Yeah, we've got our lives and our friendships and everything else, but if we could just get rid of this one last problem that's in the way of us enjoying our lives... You know? I know what I've done. I know I'm cool, and I'm not about to let go of that and start feeling like a weapon or a monster again. I won't. But it feels like there's a blanket between that feeling and my heart. I just wanna see you guys happy too, and enjoy being alive with you. And instead it feels like we're sinking, even though we're closer to wherever we're going next than we've ever been before."
Shinespark put a hoof around her shoulders. "I want to see that too. Whatever is in our way, wherever we have to go... I promise I'll survive long enough to see that day with you when it comes, Valey."
The first one to notice the university ship was the brood beast.
It had been loafing around, ignoring the guards and content to let the guards ignore it. But several hours before noon, it grew edgier and more restless, never dipping its head below the water and looking jumpy and annoyed. That, in turn, put the guards on edge, who had debated endlessly whether to kill it and be safe or spare it in case it became a necessary contingency. Valey suspected at least some of the guards who wanted to keep it were the ones who had been on the bridge with the sound stone, but their motives were much less interesting now that she could see what the beast had heard.
A trail of disturbed water rippled along the sea like a wake with no boat, moving faster than she could fly and covering a large, dark shadow beneath the waves. It slowed quickly as it approached, reaching them from the horizon fast enough that she had to yell at a guard to find her friends rather than look away to fetch them herself.
The waters were cleaved by a metal fin, and as the thing drew to a stop, it surfaced. A huge, horizontal obelisk broke the waves, water pouring off its metal sides, more than half the length of the Immortal Dream from tip to tail. Devices and sensors built into the monolith softly flickered, and one of the Equestrians wiped his brow appreciatively. "Now that is a research sub."
"A what?" Valey was only half paying attention. The thing had a short tower on its back, and as she watched, the top unscrewed and slowly swung open.
"Hail!" a voice called, and a unicorn and an earth pony climbed out, balancing fearlessly on the ship's slick surface. A pegasus hovered behind them, and they were followed by an older-looking unicorn who didn't come all the way out of the hole.
Valey almost flew out to greet them, her mane perking in relief, but the Equestrians had it covered. "Hey," Amber said, strolling up beside her on the deck. "Looks like our help has finally arrived?"
"About time." Valey blew on her bangs, deciding she needed a trim. "Only question is, how will they get us back? You think we can all fit in that thing, or are they towing us?"
"I'd reckon it'll depend on what they think of our injuries," Saffron Sunflower said, limping up as well. "Kinmari has a hospital as part of their medical program. Doubtless they'll all want to get us patched up."
Valey bit her lip. "You think they've got anything for cracked horns?"
Saffron shrugged. "I've only been there once. Couldn't say. But it is a school, so new or unusual injuries are things they'd probably take an interest in."
"I could care less about their hospital as long as the accommodations are in order," Felicity sighed, joining them. "Not to complain, but my needs are... delicate."
Shinespark and Harshwater drew near as well, but neither got a chance to speak before the pegasus from the university ship soared over and landed with an acrobatic flip. He brushed his mane out of his eyes with a wing. "So," he greeted, his voice sounding like his purpose in life was to hang out on beaches. Given his cutie mark, that might not have been far from the truth... "I hear you all are refugees from the far, far north."
Everyone slowly nodded.
"You've got the castaway look going on!" He pointed his wings in feather-guns and winked. "Except this is real. And your ship isn't just trashed to look like a setpiece in a movie."
"You're observant, kid," Shinespark remarked, her mane showing clear signs of not having been cared for in a month.
"Uh... heh heh... yeah." The pegasus rubbed his sand-speckled mane and blushed. "Anyway! On behalf of Professor Sea Star, since she doesn't feel like making the jump... welcome to Equestria?"
Valey glanced over to the other ship. The older mare, presumably the professor, was deep in conversation with the Equestrians. A white unicorn with a pink mane and huge yellow bow, however, definitely was looking ready to jump the gap between the ships... and it was wide enough Valey wouldn't even trust herself to do it if she didn't have wings.
"Ahem, thank you for the courtesy, but..." Felicity made a show of daintily clearing her throat. "We've been welcomed harshly enough by the land already, and would severely appreciate knowing how we're going to get somewhere safer and more civilized."
Splash!
Valey had looked away just long enough to miss the mare jumping and apparently falling in the ocean. "Yo, hold up one-"
Before she could even lift a hoof to get over the intact section of railing and attempt a rescue, there was a ripple of bubbles and the unicorn flung herself out of the water like a dolphin, grabbing the ship and using the damaged areas on the hull to haul herself upwards with the speed of a professional athlete. The drenched mare reached the railing and tossed herself over, sending a spray of droplets everywhere before looking at the assembled ponies with a breathless stare.
"I am so sorry," she panted, not even bothering to shake herself off. "That's Ebb, and I'm his sister Flow, and he probably made this real awkward already because we're students, not rescuers, and you're you, haha, so how would we know how to deal with a refugee situation right now and Ebb stop freaking out!" She grabbed the startled pegasus and shook him.
"But I didn't do anything!" Ebb complained, struggling.
Flow dropped him and turned back to the group with an incredibly forced professional smile that utterly failed to contain a mix of shyness, awe, curiosity and embarrassed glee. "Please forget about that, please! We'll be here to help you get rescued or anything else you need! Right!?"
"Bananas, girl," Valey said, her attention having completely skipped Flow's outburst. "You can really climb a boat."
Ebb winced. "I don't think we have any bananas. This was a research trip, and we only brought grub for three nights..."
Valey's brain skipped another notch. "We're trying to reach your school," Shinespark said, taking over for her. "You've had contact with the guards. How are you planning on getting us there, along with our ship?"
Both students glanced at each other, Ebb with a furrowed brow and Flow with a slack jaw. "We... might need to ask the professor on that one," Ebb admitted, ears back. "That griffon ship we ran into didn't give us a whole lot of time to talk, and we guessed at a lot while planning."
"Works for me." Valey shrugged, finally catching up. "Take your time. Now that we're finally getting somewhere, I think we can be a little more patient."
Valey, Gerardo and Shinespark were the ones to make the flight to the submarine once the guards summoned them, the latter riding on Valey's back. Professor Sea Star was waiting for them, most of the guards having crowded away from the entrance.
"Castaways," she said, her voice sour but her eyes concerned. "I've seen your kind more often than I'd like, but you don't need me saying how dreadful it is. Let's get to business."
Gerardo chuckled ruefully. "Apologies if we aren't more presentable. There have been greater things on our minds than-"
Sea Star interrupted him with a wave of a hoof. "Honey, I'm a marine biologist. Going on voyages with teens and twenty-somethings who can't bathe for a week is my job. Now, let's make sure I understand the situation the same as you do: you're from over the Aldenfold, many of you without permission, and are legally prisoners of the Celestial Royal Guard, though we all know they're just saying that so they can take you with them rather than staying put or trying to send you back across a border they've lost control of."
Shinespark watched her, making no effort to hide her cracked horn. "Accurate enough."
"Don't forget we're negative on morale, our airship is broken, and half of us are injured or crippled." Valey ruffled her wings. "Really could do with some civilization soon..."
Sea Star sucked her cheek in thought. "And you're waiting to meet with Princess Celestia. We've sent word to Kinmari already, so she'll be aware of your whereabouts. That leaves us with the question of how many of you we'll be fitting on the Arc Manta, here."
"Your ship, I presume?" Gerardo peered closer. "How many does it hold?"
The professor frowned. "It's supposed to crew between four and seven. Luckily for you, we're running at minimum capacity, but it's going to be a squeeze."
Valey cleared her throat, stepping up to the entrance. "So we're just leaving our own boat, huh? Here, I bet we can squeeze-"
"Not you." She was interrupted be a stern hoof to the chest, Sea Star holding her back and tapping her pendant. "Not until you take that off. I know obsidian when I see it, and having it that close to the ship's instruments will ruin their readings for our return voyage. I'm not about to stop working for the sake of jewelry or an heirloom."
"Leave any personal items that aren't critical on your own boat!" another stallion called from below, presumably the earth pony. "We've already sent the coordinates, and they dispatched a tugboat yesterday. You'll have them back soon enough."
Valey listened, then stared at the professor. "As cool as that is, I know what this stuff does. And this piece currently has the cutie mark of... someone really important to me. I'm not taking it off."
Sea Star shrugged. "We're not going to have room for everyone, and you look healthy enough, so you can wait with your ship for the tugboat if it's important to you. I have a duty to keep the Arc Manta's equipment in good operating order while it is under my care."
Shinespark glanced at Valey, who was still frowning. "What kind of equipment would care?"
"In layponies' terms, it maps the seafloor and feeds a live data stream back to a model at Kinmari," Sea Star replied. "That's grossly misleading and oversimplified, but my students have studied here for years and have only begun to master what it does, never mind how. If you're interested, there will be many hours for me to try to condense it during the voyage back to Kinmari, but now is not the time."
The earth pony stuck his head out of the hatch, wearing a hoodie and looking like he hadn't seen the sun for a few days. "Doc! Their ship is right in the center of a maelstrom of weird readings, and our sensors are overwhelmed as-is. Don't treat them like children. What if they do know about the premonition flux we saw from a day out? It's not like we're getting any valid data about the lifestream from here anyway, you know."
Sea Star gave him a slightly annoyed look.
The earth pony shrugged. "And if not, I'm a communication specialist. I'm only here to keep the transmitter running, and I understand your graphs."
"Very well, Keystroke," Sea Star sighed. "Come aboard."
"Bananas, these are your living quarters?" Valey scratched her head. "You could barely fit a stallion in these beds."
"This ship emphasizes technology over luxury. It isn't a cruise liner," Sea Star replied. "Some of the bunks are removable to accommodate students who need more space."
"Uhhh..."
The submarine's 'living quarters' was a tiny room on the upper level, with three beds in a U-shape recessed into the metal walls. They had an inch of bedding at most, and a second layer had been installed above them on metal sheets that looked like shelves, a fourth bed wedged above the door to form a ring on the second level. The hall between them was narrow enough that two ponies couldn't stand together without bumping flanks, and every available surface beneath the beds was filled with cabinets and storage areas.
"It's a boat," Shinespark remarked, the only one able to fit inside the room alongside Valey. "Mine might have colored your impressions about what they should be, but this is what they're usually like. As far as seafaring goes, we've been living in utter luxury."
Valey poked one of the beds, feeling a clunk as her hoof tapped against the metal through the padding. "Well, bananas. Maybe we can get two to a bed if we really, really cuddle up?"
The rest of the ship was slightly more spacious, if only barely. Everything had been optimized and every bit of available space used, with hooks and hangers in the corners and chests under seat cushions, and corridors thin enough for single-file. "I suppose two of us can live in the cockpit," Sea Star mused, searching for places as well. "It's not like we don't already."
They reached the dining area, a compact preparation counter with a sink smaller than Valey's head across from a shallow table. "Hey, you could sleep there," she murmured, prodding Shinespark.
"When we get to Kinmari, you can tease me about that all you want," Shinespark whispered back. "I'll need it."
"Sleeping on the table?" Sea Star's ears perked. "That would work out. And here..."
Eventually, they had explored everywhere except a sealed metal door into the back half of the ship that Sea Star refused to open. "There's nothing back there but the engine, the transmitter and our research areas. That's it for the living area. By my count we can take up to nine more, but you could stretch that with a little disregard to Kinmari's rule against sharing beds."
Valey winked. "Good to know we're on the same track, because I counted eighteen."
"You're going to be a fun one," Sea Star grumbled. "Philander in front of my students and I'll have your skull for a soup bowl, upstart. Ahem." She winked.
Valey paused as she climbed back to the entrance and grinned at everyone else. "She's cool. I like her."
"She does have a point," Gerardo remarked. "It's usually wise to play by your host's rules, and I can easily see why they exist. This wouldn't be the best place for things to get out of hand."
"So what am I telling my crew?" Shinespark asked, following Sea Star. "The guards will be too large to double up, and they have more injuries overall than we do."
Sea Star huffed. "That depends on how good you think you'll be at entertaining my students. I've already transmitted those helmetheads' message, and Equestrian guards are notorious for not being talkative. Give these kids something to write home about, and I wouldn't mind showing a little favoritism..."
"You're asking us to bribe you with stories?" Gerardo blinked, incredulous.
"You saw the looks on their faces," Sea Star replied. "Learning is pointless if it doesn't inspire you to go out and learn more. Teach these kids that there's more than water beyond their backyards and stoke their curiosity, and you'll be doing my job a sizable boon."
Gerardo chuckled. "Well then. Through our most recent trials, I'm afraid I've let these words grow faint on my tongue, but fear not, my good mare. For I am Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire, and I believe I can make us well worth your time."
"You know," Valey remarked, "I really thought more of us would be willing to brave this cramped submarine to get to the island however many days sooner."
"One really would think so," Felicity agreed, looking both deeply uncomfortable from the close walls and hard surfaces and not at all unnerved by being well inside the personal space of others. "It must be these beds. Not everyone is willing to put up with such a non-luxurious sleep just to get to a working shower and spa, apparently..."
Starlight hadn't shed her poncho, sitting vigil by the bed where Maple lay, a few extra blankets arranged as cushions and helping her rest comfortably with her ribs. Gazelle was also present, his cutie mark inky black and his face filled with an uncharacteristic, impatient worry. Gerardo's voice echoed up from a level lower, and there were three guards holed up elsewhere on the ship, and that was everyone who had joined.
"Darling," Felicity complained, patting her bed. "I did remind you that you don't have to stay on that bare metal floor, remember? I know doubling up was floated as a joke or contingency, but I really am willing to take one for the team."
Valey chuckled. "Yeah, right. It's the middle of the day, and I need to stretch my legs, not hole up harder. And like bananas you think that's 'taking one for the team'. I think I'm gonna wander for a bit."
Leaving behind a disappointed Felicity, Valey flipped down the ladder hatch to the next level, wishing the lights were dimmer so she could shadow sneak to save space. It wasn't hard to follow Gerardo's voice to the cockpit, where Ebb and Flow held the two seats and the griffon was sitting in the aisle between them. "And then," Gerardo was narrating, "we tracked the ruffian to an apartment complex, confronted him and successfully liberated the stolen locket. There wasn't much of a fight, of course, because he was a common hooligan and we were hardened adventurers. The Firefly Sisters were of course grateful..."
"Hey, Birdo." Valey leaned into the room. "What's up in here?"
"Your griffon is the best," Flow gushed, her smile almost wider than her bow. "I haven't heard something this real in forever!"
"It's pretty real, alright." Ebb wiped back his bangs. "Imagine if they hired you to speak at Kinmari. Hey everyone, we get to meet folks like this in the voyage program! Demand would rise so high, they'd have to expand it and give us more resources to help Professor Sea Star get closer to her dream. It's not like Kinmari is boring, but you lot could be the most exciting thing that's happened all year."
Valey waved a hoof. "Hey, don't let me interrupt. Hopefully we won't be too popular, though. Really trying to actually have a normal life after all the stuff we've been through up north."
Flow winced. "Was our first impression good enough? Ebb got carried away..."
"What? No, you're fine." Valey squinted. "A little goofy and carefree, but that just means there's nothing at your school that regularly goes around crushing souls and making you despondent and stuff. Believe me, I'm glad to see some good cheer."
Flow looked cluelessly at her. "I think we might have different definitions of soul-crushing. If you had ever done the homework for Professor Dot Product's integral calculus course, we'd be able to see the scars."
Valey burst out laughing, then wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Stay innocent, kiddos. Bananas, I'd rather eat your calculus homework for lunch any day of the week than relive certain days again. Literally. Paper is surprisingly palatable when you're trying to hide the evidence."
"Only goes to show that real-world experience has everything over what you can learn in a classroom," Ebb replied, checking a meter and making a small adjustment. "This has been utterly surreal. You're like something out of a story. I wish everyone could have these kinds of experiences and actually live what's really out there."
"Well, it isn't for everyone," Gerardo chuckled. "But the life of living horizon to horizon is one I live for a reason."
Valey shrugged. "You sure are passionate about something, though. What's your story?"
"What's not to be passionate about?" Ebb swept a wing across the control panel. "This is both of our first time in the Arc Manta. Our parents run an accessory store in Kinmari College Town, so we were born and raised on the island. All my foalhood, I would sit on the beach or at our second-story window and stare at the sea, and just imagine what was out there beyond or under it all. And look where we are and what we're doing right now! I don't know if you believe in fate up north, but this is my destiny. I know it."
Flow giggled nervously. "That's Ebb for you, passionate about everything! I was so excited for him when we got into this class..."
Valey tilted her head. "Oh yeah? And what about you?"
Flow fidgeted. "Oh, you know, this and that. It's exciting, isn't it? Being underwater? Not too exciting, I can keep my cool, but I totally understand when you can't, you know, haha?"
"Sis here has issues with speaking for herself," Ebb said fondly. "It wouldn't be too polite to get into it, but she's thrilled to be here too."
Flow reddened and shrank into her sizable mane. "Oh, I do not! I mean, you know, I just wouldn't want to brag in front of guests, right? Ebb, be a better host and tell them about the ship!"
Ebb winked apologetically to Valey and Gerardo, and Valey nodded, indicating she'd play along. "Yeah, so this thing's fast and goes underwater?"
"You can say that again." Ebb grinned, leaning against the wall and polishing it with a loving hoof. "This baby is less than five months old, and was a decadelong project using the most advanced technology in Kinmari. There are finance documents showing they collaborated with the new space program, but honestly? Some of the tech in this ship is so secret, even Professor Sea Star might not know it exists. That's my opinion, at least. But take the engine, for one: it lets us go over ten times the speed of Equestria's existing models of submarines."
Gerardo nodded appreciatively. "I certainly wouldn't mind if it got us to our destination quickly."
"It's fast," Ebb confirmed. "I couldn't tell you the first thing about what's inside, other than that it was developed so we can chase down fluctuations and magical wave propagations that occur on a geologic scale, or more accurately follow them. If the tech that went into building this is special, the things it was made to measure are so cutting-edge, understanding them could revolutionize science as we know it. Imagine if we could learn where the world came from, or create a unifying theory for the principals of magic, life and physics!"
"You and your buzzwords," Flow giggled. "It's okay not to leave them impressed, Ebb. We're not that far along in our track, after all, what would we know when we're just students?"
Ebb winced. "Okay, so I know most of what I know from reading research papers and following press releases when I was younger. So what? There's so much out there that nobody knows, and it could be discovered in our fields within our lifetimes! That's what's important!"
"Honestly?" Valey shrugged. "As inspiring as that sounds, I think I'd just take a snooze and be cool with what I don't know. It's not very inspiring when you learn stuff about the world and it isn't cool. Have fun with your dream, though."
"Oh, girl," Ebb chuckled. "You need to talk to Professor Sea Star. Give her one lecture, and she'll change your tune."
"Having fun with my students?" Professor Sea Star asked, sharing the narrow confines of the kitchen with Valey as both of them poked around for a snack. "I haven't seen them in the instrument area all day."
Valey shrugged. "More like they're having fun with us. You've got some really enthusiastic kids, there."
"I chose them because they were the most driven." Sea Star shook her head. "With the size of this ship, it isn't a class just any can take."
"You just trying to make them explode from excitement, or something?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "They're barely holding themselves together, there. Ebb and Flow, at least."
Sea Star nodded, closing one cabinet to make room to open another. "I am. The only outlet for curiosity is learning. I've been studying these seas since I was their age, and there are mysteries here that will far outlast my lifetime. The greatest work I can do is ensure there will be more, find and enable the ones who will carry on that search for knowledge in my stead. I want them to remember these experiences for the rest of their lives."
"Sounds pretty idealistic," Valey replied. "What are you even hoping to learn? What do you want to do with it?"
"Anything and everything." Sea Star produced a box of hard biscuits, and started slicing cheese. "There are hundreds of other ponies at Kinmari, let alone elsewhere in the world, who take knowledge and create things with it for the benefit of civilization. Whatever we discover here, someone will make use of it. But the sea has been my frontier for decades, and that isn't changing any time soon."
Valey eyed the biscuits. "Yeah... hope I'm not messing anything up with this, I guess?" She tapped her pendant.
Sea Star sighed. "You're skewing our instrument readings with a magnitude we can't compensate for. Don't expect to go on any pleasure cruises with that later. I'm only letting you on because you're doing a net service to my students."
"You said they were already messed up because of our ship," Valey pointed out. "What is it even supposed to do?"
Sea Star shook her head. "Do you know what the lifestream is? Premonition fluxes and flows? Ether? Harmonic polarity?"
"Woah, hold up!" Valey stopped her with a hoof. "From basically another world, remember? There's a decent chance I actually do, but I probably use completely different names than you."
Sea Star raised an eyebrow. "You're not the first visitors Kinmari has had from the north. Most of them tend to be adventurers or diplomats instead of scientists, though. Forgive me for judging your mannerisms and physique, but you strike me as more of a tavern brawler than an academic."
Valey mirrored her look intensely. "You better not be calling me chunky."
Sea Star chuckled. "You're too small to be chunky. I wouldn't be surprised if my students are your seniors." Her tone returned to serious. "Which is why I would be surprised if you knew more than them, since they've been studying cutting-edge science for their entire lives. But perhaps the north is more advanced than us. Please, enlighten me."
"I told you, girl." Valey shrugged. "Just give me the explanation and see if I can follow along. What's this ship doing?"
"Serving as a water taxi for stranded refugees," Sea Star wryly replied. "At the moment, tragically little else."
Valey stuck out her lip. "Yeah, but what's it supposed to do?"
"It measures the flowing of the lifestream, which is a sheet of positively-charged harmonic energy also known as ether, using the effects that flowing has on the world around us." Sea Star gave her a look. "How familiar does that sound to anything you know?"
Valey shrugged. "I mean, it makes sense, even though I don't think I know the words. Is this the same kind of harmonic energy you get from the flames in those crystal palaces you find really far underground?"
Sea Star instantly dropped her snack and stared at Valey. "Crystal palaces far underground? Elaborate. What do you mean by these?"
Valey grew a tiny, smug grin. "Oh, so we do know some interesting stuff? I dunno how to describe them. They're, like... really big buildings made entirely out of crystal, about as far underground as you can go. And they have these crystal trees with flames inside them that give us some special kind of energy that's way more powerful and versatile than mana, and has something to do with cutie mark energy?"
"You mean to say you've not only found structures like these, but been inside them?" Sea Star pressed. "How did you get inside? And you use them for power?"
Valey winked. "Strictly speaking, one of them used to power the entire Griffon Empire. You wouldn't happen to know where one is, would you?"
Sea Star frowned. "Perhaps this is a discussion we should have with more faculty present, once we reach the university itself. I'm afraid I wasn't entirely truthful earlier when I said my only goal for understanding these waters is knowledge itself. We understand enough about what might be possible to know when to keep certain things under wraps."
"Woah. Hard stop." Valey held out a hoof and narrowed her eyes, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Real quick, lady, just so you know: me and my friends know enough about the spooky inner workings of the world to wish we knew less than we do. If you guys are advanced enough to have realized that there's some extremely dangerous stuff you could potentially learn by poking around with how the world works... it would probably be a decent idea to step back and ask yourselves whether it's a good idea to dig this stuff up at all."
A shadow of worry crossed Sea Star's brow. "As I said, this is not the place for that discussion. Rest assured we have entire councils to ponder that question. It would be far better to speak of this with them."
"Yeah... gotcha." Valey turned to leave, even though she didn't yet have her snack. She glanced back at the professor. "Did you get a chance to hear why we're refugees?"
"There was a storm of unusual magnitude that destroyed the border fortress," Sea Star replied. "But I haven't heard your individual side of the story."
"There was a scientist," Valey muttered, voice low. "Real off his rocker. Had altered himself in ways that might not have made him a pony anymore. He was trying to create a god, like the Empire's goddess Garsheeva or probably your Princess Celestia. And instead, he accidentally made a monster that beat Garsheeva and killed nearly every batpony on the continent. Completely by accident. She was a byproduct of his experiments and bad luck."
She straightened up, the professor's expression blank. "My friends and I? We're here because we never want to deal with that again. Just be careful, okay?"
"...I see." Sea Star nodded. "That's troubling, and I expect it isn't the last we'll talk of this. You ought to get some sleep. We should be at Kinmari by morning."
Word of landfall came over the Arc Manta's intercom system, right at the hour of the morning where Valey was awake, but hadn't yet rolled out of her cramped bunk. The students had either risen long before her or never slept, but Maple was still asleep and Starlight was sitting guard and Gazelle was a statue and Felicity just stared from the opposite bunk, watching her and looking vaguely wistful.
That changed once Keystroke's voice sounded, announcing they would be docking within fifteen minutes. A flicker of intensity flashed in Gazelle's otherwise-empty eyes, and Starlight hugged her poncho tighter as Felicity crawled hopefully from her bed.
Gerardo was up with the students, standing by the ladder to the exit. "Time to see what our new destination has in store for us, hmm?" he greeted.
"And time for me to see the looks on everyone else's faces when they see what happened on our voyage," Ebb chuckled, eagerly rubbing the tips of his wings together. "If any of you are looking for some prime time, stick with me for a while."
Felicity cleared her throat. "As gratifying as attention can be at times, my health is never the best and the last month has been especially unkind, so I really would like to see about putting my hooves up in a low-stress environment for a spell..."
"We'll see about that," one of the Equestrian guards said from the hatch to the next level down. "Remember that you don't have permission to be across the border. This will go better for everyone involved if you stay together and make it easy for us to keep track of you."
Felicity brushed her mane back with a sigh. "Darling, if these ponies' idea of rest and relaxation involves a lot of running around or anything other than staying in one place, I'm afraid being findable will be the least of my worries."
"We'll follow your rules, of course," Gerardo confirmed with a nod. "But perhaps you should discuss in advance with the university as well? My understanding is that it's an island, so it isn't as if we can leave whenever we please. And we have every interest in being easy to work with."
The floor shifted beneath them as the ship rapidly decelerated, and a few bumps and turns later, the hum of the engine grew quiet. Finally, with a hiss of moving metal, the entry unscrewed itself and swung open.
Ebb and Flow were the first up the ladder, followed by the guards. When Valey surfaced, she found herself in a hangar not unlike Shinespark's dry dock in Sosa, though the building had a real roof and its metal interior was vastly better cared-for and well-lit. A squad of ponies stood at the ready, including two in medical coats, several who looked like they worked out, and a stallion in a black suit with a well-groomed mane and a cane she was certain was just for show.
"Order, please," Professor Sea Star insisted, taking a gangplank to the shore instead of jumping like Ebb and Flow. "Greetings, Mister President. I trust everyone can handle themselves from here? I have a meeting with Doctor Lost and Doctor Caballeron, and shouldn't be late."
"Of course! See to it, my good professor," the suited stallion chuckled warmly, gesturing with the cane held in a wing.
Valey raised an eyebrow, tempted to jump but not wanting to spook the ponies on the dock. "President?"
"President Kinmari." The stallion nodded and beckoned. "This island and its institution has been in my family for generations. Won't you join us? I expect you've had enough of seafaring for quite some time, castaway."
Valey needed no further invitation. "You have two injured, right?" one of the buff stallions asked, as she landed, rope and a harness around his shoulder. "Will we need to carry them out?"
"One of them could use it, the other definitely wants it." Valey shrugged, looking around. The sun was low enough on the horizon that it shone in through the bay doors, indicating the dock was facing east. It felt good on her coat, and she stopped to take a breath.
"It gets a little musty in that ship, doesn't it?" President Kinmari asked, stepping alongside her and nodding. "I support my scientists, but the lengths they're willing to go sometimes! Simply inspiring. So, I've heard you're seeking asylum from Her Majesty herself."
"I mean, yeah." Valey nodded, the other ponies working to help out Felicity and Maple. "But mostly we're trying to avoid wars and politicians and getting caught up in things we want nothing to do with. My friends and I badly need some room to breathe."
President Kinmari chuckled. "Well, you won't be found wanting on my island. I manage the school board myself, and we like keeping disturbances that degrade the quality of life to a minimum. Though judging by the last time a northerner came here, you'd better be prepared to be sensations. If there's anyone you'd like kept out of the spotlight, best mention it now and I'll see what I can do."
Valey pursed her lips. "You know, I can think of one filly..."
"Leave it all to me," the stallion assured. He leaned in, voice lowering. "And just a word of advice: don't go around mentioning things about the border being down or you all being here illegally. That's a thing we feel would be better on the quiet."
The royal guards nodded sagely.
"Yeah, I'll see to it." Valey squared her shoulders, watching as her friends were lifted out. "So... what kind of stuff are we actually gonna do?"
"As I said," Felicity instructed, "I really need some rest. In a proper bed with real amenities, and the right degree of..." She broke off coughing.
One of the medical coat mares shook her head. "I'm afraid we'd like to look over all of you first. You do look like you could use the rest, and I promise we won't keep you on your hooves longer than necessary, ma'am. Can you walk on your own?"
"If you're offering an alternative, I wouldn't mind..."
Valey scratched her head. "Well, guess it couldn't hurt to tag along. Give us the tour, boss?"
Valey had never seen this degree of lawn landscaping in her life.
The dry dock was part of a building complex, but she couldn't tell if it was a singular structure or a maze of interconnected ones. White marble dominated the architecture, which used natural hills and winding turns to make everything feel far more open than the level of development warranted. She was almost reminded of their first visit to Izvaldi, when the area seemed like a peaceful blend of development and wilderness, but Kinmari used hills and corners to create horizons and inspire vastness rather than Izvaldi's low population. Because the population of Kinmari was anything but low.
Almost everywhere she turned, young ponies were lounging on the lawns, reading or sharing picnics and talking together. The weather warranted it, but there was far more to their attitudes than taking advantage of some respite: this wasn't a break, it was a way of life. More certainly than she could ever remember, Valey's cutie mark was dim here. While she was looking for a break from danger, here were ponies who might never have been threatened in their lives.
"Bananas." Valey licked her lips, sniffing a scent that probably came from the decorative bushes. "Makes me wanna join them."
"Don't feel like you'll miss your chance," President Kinmari warned, leading the way and occasionally attracting waves and greetings from the students. "The weather around here is like this even in winter! With sufficient gardening resources, we don't need to have seasons at all! There'll be plenty of time for sunbathing during all of your stay."
"Even if some of us don't appreciate it," Keystroke added, the earth pony who had spent the voyage in the instrument section of the ship. He still wore his hoodie, though at least the hood was down. "Right, kid?"
Starlight nodded mutely, refusing to surrender her Riverfall poncho.
"Sounds like a good time to me," Valey countered. "What about you, Birdo? You wanna just flop out and roll around on the grass like... Birdo?"
Gerardo was trailing the pack, a guard watching him warily as he talked with the excitable Ebb and Flow.
"Eh, he's not listening." Valey shrugged, looking around and realizing her only companions would be hospital-bound, have better things to do, or were Gazelle. She might actually be on her own until the Dream arrived...
She knew she didn't feel like sitting around, that was for sure. Shinespark was with the Dream, and she trusted her to get the rest of her friends here safe and sound. There wasn't anything she could do if she didn't. Maple and Felicity would be in good hooves, Starlight would follow them, Gerardo was busy... her mind ran through her friends in circles, but one thing stood out to her above all else: they were actually fine. She had nothing she needed to do.
Whatever feeling she had battled days ago of always having one last problem between herself and being at ease wasn't there anymore. Not only was her cutie mark quiet here, but her shoulders were lighter, too. For the first time in a long time, she could do whatever she wanted without worrying about her friends... within reason, but still.
Valey grinned. This was not an opportunity she was going to waste after dreaming of it for so long.
Something about the way Valey carried herself drew stares.
It wasn't her wings, or her tufted ears and slitted eyes. Though rare, she had spotted other batponies among the students, and none of them seemed to receive special treatment. It might have been her hat; though she stopped to use the infirmary's showers, she hadn't been willing to surrender it for cleaning. Amber had kept it in good shape anyway, and she doubted some of these students had ever seen a military beret before.
"Looking good, sister!" a stallion was bold enough to call. Valey tipped her hat in return.
It wasn't the smell of the sea, either. Though it felt like her coat would be infused with salt forever, the island breeze held nothing but the same, and these students looked like they were better-accustomed to the water than she was. And as she came up on a field where two groups of ponies were batting a ball back and forth over a net, jumping around and showing off moves that were pointless and flashy for the sake of being pointless and flashy, she figured her general fitness couldn't be it either... though she giggled internally at the memory of the infirmary staff clearing her to go, boggled by how much better shape she was in than her friends. It had actually taken some effort to convince them she hadn't been keeping all the best food for herself. But now she was cleared to wander, and there was a whole day to make the most of.
She sat down beside the field with the players, watching and wondering if she would be noticed. After a stallion leapt high and spiked the ball with his chest, and the two mares that dove to save it crashed into each other, the ball rolled away and the ponies seemed to take it as time to break. "Hey, there!" the stallion who had last launched the ball greeted, wiping sweat from his brow and strolling over with a group of friends.
"Hey, yourself." Valey stood again.
The stallion nodded. "I see someone looking a little lost, a little confused... and not bothered in the slightest." He flashed a grin that had likely been put together by a professional, and offered a meaty hoof. "Name's Big Shot. Hoof wrestle me!"
Valey sized him up. He couldn't have been past his early twenties, but clearly worked out. "That's one way to say hello," she replied, offering a hoof of her own. "I'm down."
One of Big Shot's friends pulled over a crate that had been left by a roadside, offering it as a table. Big Shot nodded, locking hooves with Valey. "Three... two... one..."
His muscles tensed with impossible force, and Valey didn't fight it, throwing herself into a sharp flip using his momentum. She landed with her hind legs against the ground and didn't stop, locking the limb he had pinned her with and rolling backwards, lifting him into a mighty suplex. "Yaaaaa!"
Big Shot crashed to the ground a short ways behind her, his friends all jumping back in surprise as Valey landed and adjusted her hat. "You alright?" she asked, offering a hoof to help him up.
The stallion gaped at her, recovering quickly but not trying to get up. "You're insane," he said, eyes shining with unabashed respect. "I thought you were some visiting sailor! Sailors are tough, but I've never seen that before..."
"Who are you?" one of the mares who had crashed asked, head tilted so far sideways it was nearly vertical.
"Good question," Valey replied, pleased to have read the situation correctly. "I'm new around these parts, you've got that right. But let's say I feel like being mysterious for a while." She winked at the mare. "So what stuff is cool to do around here? I'm looking to enjoy a vacation."
Big Shot climbed to his hooves. "Not to toot my own horn, but if you can do that, the answer is probably 'me'. Let me reintroduce myself: Big Shot, captain of half the sports teams in the Loyalty house. You want to have fun with skills like that, you just made the right friends, friend."
He offered a hoof again, this time to bump, and Valey took it. "Loyalty house?"
"New, aren't you?" Big Shot chuckled, catching the ball as one of his friends threw it at him. "Kinmari students are divided into five houses, partly by interest and mostly so we can compete." He raised an eyebrow. "Not to guess ages, but you aren't a transfer student, are you?"
"Nah." Valey shrugged. "You're not asking me to help your team win or anything, are you?"
Big Shot instantly grinned a slightly-too-big grin and shook his head, a faint undercurrent of nervousness rippling through his friends. "An outsider, play for house Loyalty? Naw. We couldn't do that to the other houses, not with someone like you. These things get heated. We're all friends again afterward, but this is the time of year for friendlies. Just come play with everyone!"
"Please?" one of the mares who had dropped the ball at the end asked. "There's no score, but we could use a hoof."
Valey waved a hoof. "Aah, don't worry. I'm not feeling like being competitive or picking sides." She surveyed the group, hiding a prickle of curiosity as they all returned to their completely relaxed demeanors. "Anyway, why not? I'm game to kick a ball around."
Kicking the ball, it turned out, was extremely similar to Valey's old days of throwing melons at ponies she didn't like in the Earth District. It was hard to shake her old instincts of trying to hit someone with the ball when the point of the game was to miss them, but eventually she stopped trying, figuring both teams would have more fun if they weren't getting creamed.
"So," she said as she caught and threw the ball with her hind legs in one smooth backflip, not remotely winded. "What's up with these houses?"
The mare she was playing alongside lunged, catching the returning ball with the back of her head and heaving it over the net, breathing heavy and mane plastered with sweat. "How are you... fit enough to talk while...?" she panted, the opposite team faring better but still far worse than Valey.
Valey stuck out a hoof, hitting the ball straight up, then did a front flip and kicked it over the net with both hind hooves. "'Cuz you were playing for however many hours you were before I showed up. I'm fresh. Now don't give up, you got this!"
The ball went sailing over the mare's head, and she jumped a second too early, missing it with flailing hooves.
"Oh. Uhh..." Valey winced, the other team celebrating and exchanging hoofbumps.
"It's fine. I was done anyway." The mare flopped down in the shade of a tree, panting hard. "Good game, especially since we were down..."
"Heh. Sorry about that," a stallion apologized, sitting under the tree as well and nursing a hoof he had stepped wrongly on. "I figured you'd be alright without the advantage..."
Big Shot came strolling over with the other players in tow, throwing a wink to both resting ponies. "I think we'll call it there for the day. Showers? Lunch? You're welcome to join us."
"Here, I'll show you the way," the stallion who had hurt his leg volunteered. "Unless you want to follow everyone else to the showers. But the dining hall is on the way to the Loyalty dorms, and I need to head back to my room and rest."
"You do that! We'll catch up!" Big Shot shouted, heading away with a wave.
Valey nodded, setting off after the limping stallion at a leisurely pace. She offered a shoulder. "You alright, there?"
"Oh, it's nothing I haven't dealt with before," he chuckled, happy to walk on his own. "The captain will be feeling it in the morning too, the way you suplexed him back there. But that's part and parcel of playing these games. It's what I signed up for."
"That's cool," Valey agreed, not entirely sure she felt the same but glad the ponies were enjoying themselves. "You all seem like cool enough dudes."
"That's house Loyalty for you," the stallion replied. "Always trying to be the best of the best. I'm Far Field, by the way. Second-best sprinter and long-distance runner in the house, and I'm only a second-year. You mentioned something about the houses?"
Valey shrugged. "Eh, just curious. Like I said, I'm not from around here. What all am I getting myself into?"
"Well, there are five of them," Far Field began. "Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, and yours truly. The politics are difficult to explain, but outside of sporting events, we tend to get along pretty well. Silver Shell... she was the mare on our team, by the way... is from Generosity, as were two of the others."
"Complicated politics?" Valey grinned. "Between school houses and sporting events? Compared to the stuff I've seen, I'll believe that when I see it. Try me."
Far Field grinned, sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, you asked for it... Generosity are our allies. We have an alliance that's stood for years with them. Honesty are our biggest rivals, but mostly because they have good players. We get along surprisingly well for rivals, but Generosity doesn't think much of them. It's part of why they're allied with us. Then there's Kindness. They don't have much of a presence on the field, but they do have the strongest cheerleading and band program. Things have been a little strained between us and them before, but this year's class has gone a long way toward patching it up, so you could call them our second-best friends. It's more of a new alliance than a longstanding bond of trust, though."
Valey nodded. "You're good guys, Generosity are good guys, you fight with Honesty but they're also good guys, and Kindness are good guys too. I dunno how to break this to you, buddy, but unless there's some monumental shenanigans going on with the last one, this is so tame it's kind of adorable."
Far Field winced. "That's... one way to smash all the nuance out of it and sum it up, yes."
Valey broadly grinned. "Hey, what a coincidence! I'm great at smashing things! Now where's the plot twist?"
"There is none," Far Field sighed. "We had an incident five years ago that majorly soured things between us and Laughter. I couldn't tell you all that much about it, but it's why Kindness was on rocky terms with us, and... Never mind. Why don't you just hang out with the other four houses for a while, though? Given your affiliations, there's no need to put stress on old wounds."
Valey's brow furrowed, and she filed this away as interesting. Did it have anything to do with whatever had spooked the players earlier? She wished she could remember that better... or maybe she didn't care. Honestly, whatever drama a college sports program could kick up would be nothing to live with next to the Empire's anti-sarosian sentiments and Ironridge's militia warfare.
"Ah, here we are," Far Field interrupted, indicating a broad double-door that was propped open on both sides. "The dining hall is right through that foyer. Feel free to wait for Big Shot, or follow your nose and mingle. I'll be off, myself. Hopefully we meet again during your stay!"
"See ya." Valey threw him a salute, then wandered inside and set about lounging against a wall. Her nose definitely did want to be followed, heavy aromas of food wafting from the next room in, but she amused herself with a small newspaper stand instead, having forgotten to bring money and not about to shadow sneak past the lunch money mare when she could just wait for a student to impress and get them to buy her legitimate passage. Hopefully that would come soon. As welcoming as Big Shot and his friends had been, there had to be more to this school than sports. Maybe someone who looked like an egghead...
"Valey!?" a familiar, drawn-out voice gasped.
"Buh?" Valey sat up, her eyes registering the yellow ribbon before the rest of the pony. It was Flow.
The unicorn immediately clutched her head, her eyes unfocusing in impending panic. "Urrrgh! Are you out here alone!? Please don't tell me Ebb was being a bad host, I promise he's just excited! I can fix this. You can fix this, Flow, haha, your guest is panicking-"
"Nope." Valey slapped a wing over her back, shocking her out of her reverie. "Beats me where he is, but I've been wandering around and exploring and having a blast. Hey, you wanna treat me to lunch?"
Flow sagged in incredible relief, and Valey let her go. "Sorry... I mean, sure! Lunch!" Within seconds, she had gone from a near meltdown to a confident, can-do grin. "I will show you the dining hall! After meee..."
The inside of the dining hall didn't disappoint. A complex circle of tables lined the room, broken into sections by five grand aisles and layered in alternating rings, serving tables separated by eating tables and vice versa. Valey got the distinct impression there being five sections wasn't a coincidence, but she had no way to parse which section belonged to which house.
"Here we are!" Flow sang, more than accommodating. The table she gestured to was already packed, every pony close enough to hear looking up, chewing and blinking.
"Flow!" a mare gasped, clad in a sporty pink shirt with her mane done up in a bun. "Oh my Celestia, we saw Ebb just earlier and heard about your trip from that griffon and are you giving tours?"
"Wait, don't tell me this is one of the castaways," a stallion exclaimed, nearly falling over as he tried to correct his lazy posture. "I passed by you this morning! I saw you totally destroy Big Shot by the eastern pavilion!"
"Destroy Big Shot?" a pegasus leaned in with a grin. "Music to my ears. How'd you manage it? Secret techniques?"
Valey waved her hooves for space. "Woah, woah. Thanks for the welcome, but I'm here to stuff my face and chill. He challenged me to hoof wrestle, and I won. That's all there was to it."
Students rammed into each other as they all tried to shuffle, each wanting to make space for Valey to join them on an already-crowded bench. Valey watched them for a moment and stifled a chuckle, until Flow's eye started to twitch and she looked ready to freak out again.
"It's cool, I got this." Valey parsed the crowd with a wing, seating herself dexterously between two mares for no reason at all. "So, what do you recommend?"
Her new neighbors giggled and shrank, looking slightly overwhelmed. But a suave stallion with a mane that curled forward leaned in, resting his chin on a hoof. "That, my dear, depends on your palette. Might I be correct in assuming you're the... adventurous type?"
Valey flicked him back. "Only in your dreams, pal."
"But you're from far away, right?" another pony leaned over to ask, Flow hovering nervously behind Valey and unable to find a seat of her own. "As in, an adventurer? I've been hearing all about Gerardo Guillaume, the famous explorer..."
"That's right!" Flow cheered, throwing up her hooves. "They're companions! Now give our guest some room, we wouldn't want her to think we're all astonishingly bad hosts or any-"
Valey stuck out her lip in a knowing expression at Flow. "Yeah, yeah. Hey, you all feel like scooching and making some room for my buddy, here?"
The students uncertainly complied, and Valey scooped Flow into the seat in a heartbeat, now even more cramped than before. "Easy peasy." She shrugged, licking her lips at the table. "Sooo, what do you have that's sweet?"
"You know what would be sweeter?" Another stallion leaned in. "If you signed for us and helped us kick Big Shot's tail! You'll be staying a while, right?"
"Uhhh..." Valey glanced around. "Just because I suplexed him once doesn't mean we're mortal-"
"Enemies?" a mare finished for her. "I just guessed what you were going to say, didn't I? I knew it! Ahaha!"
Valey loudly cleared her throat. "Yo! Face-stuffing? I can't really talk with you if you keep talking over each other. Use your mouths for food more, speech less. Try it, it's tasty!"
Most of the students looked sheepish, though some had expressions that said they clearly hadn't given up. "Uhhh..." an earth pony said, retreating and rubbing his neck. "Try the butternut squash. It's... my favorite..."
"This stuff?" Valey blinked as a bowl was set in front of her. It did smell appealing...
It was more than appealing once she lifted it to her face and started slurping. Manners could wait, especially when it wouldn't hurt these ponies to have a slightly lower opinion of her. She hadn't even done anything for them yet.
"She's enjoying it," the recommending stallion's voice said, tight and eager, though she couldn't see him because of the dish. "That's one point closer to being swept off my hooves..."
Valey blinked hard and looked up from the squash. "Wait, what?"
Slap!
She blinked even harder as the mare sitting next to him slapped him hard. "Excuse you, I thought I was your marefriend?"
"Yeah!" another mare exclaimed. "No cheating!"
The offended mare huffed. "On me, I hope you mean..."
The stallion with the forward-curled mane sipped from a glass. "She's referring to the act of fraternizing too quickly rather than taking the sensible road and first forming long-lasting friendships that will-"
Flow looked like she was about to explode. Valey sighed, grabbing her hoof and rolling her eyes. "Hey, close your eyes." Then they were gone into the shadows.
"Yo, you alright?" Valey seated Flow on the roof above the dining hall entrance, having swam up the shaded wall. "You looked like you had it bad."
"Oh, of course I'm alright, why wouldn't I be alright?" Flow hyperventilated. "I'm not the one who just got completely and utterly overwhelmed by an entire house being overcurious and giving in to their worst qualities and being rude and pushy, haha, and I'm also definitely not the one who just got a terrible first impression of Laughter or might have nothing to do with us ever again, which wouldn't be the worst since we so definitely deserve-"
"Stop." Valey plugged her mouth with a hoof. "I was fine. Maybe about to school a few clowns on this and that, but that's basically my favorite thing in life. You're the one who was freaking out. So now that you've got some air, sit down and breathe."
Flow took several gasping breaths, staring at her. Valey waited patiently.
"So why do you care so much about my opinion of you and your friends?" Valey asked once the unicorn had had a moment. "You utterly lose it whenever you even think I might start getting offended and mad. Which, just so you know, I'm pretty good at dealing with on my own."
Flow slumped. "I'm sorry. Now you're having to take time out of your day to help me, and-"
"Stop. Apologizing," Valey interrupted. "Look. I've been traveling on a tiny boat with the same dozen-odd ponies for months. You don't need my whole life's story, but let's just say that as much as I like some of them, I need more friends than just that. And I've technically known you longer than anyone else here, so congratulations, you're my first pick. If that's making you nervous, or would just be more comfortable on your own, say the word and I'll bail, because there are tons of ponies here and I'm sure at least some of them have more on their minds than drafting me for sports teams and whatever that was. So, friends?"
Flow looked cautiously up. "You'd want to be my friend?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, you were pretty cool with the way you boarded our boat the other day, so sure, why not? Just make an effort to take it a million degrees easier about what I think? I've been through way too much stuff in life to be offended by anything at a school like this." She offered a hoof.
"Oh... thanks." Flow took the hoof, taking one last deep breath. "But how do you expect anyone not to take you seriously? Adventurers like you are pure legend. We often see travelers who sail the seas, but even without knowing you're from the north, we can just look at you and... tell you've been places. Almost no one in my house even remembers the last time someone like you came here, and everyone who does says you're spectacular and amazing. I just wanted to be a good host instead of overwhelming you by basking in your aura..."
Valey grinned. "Yeah, I think you're projecting a little there. Look, I'm still hungry, so I'm gonna go back in there and have some fun messing with your friends. Think of it as an exercise in not freaking out, okay? I promise no grudges, and if anyone has a sense of humor about it, we'll probably get along just fine too."
Flow sighed and looked down again. "I really want you to like my house."
"Hey." Valey stood up, preparing to backflip off the roof. "After what those Loyalty guys said, I have no allegiances or disallegiances. Though I do wonder if the warning that guy gave me was actually because I'd get mobbed..." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Eh, here goes nothing. See ya!"
"Touring the dining facilities does sound agreeable," Gerardo Guillaume said, Ebb at his side along with a small cohort of ponies. His strategy for managing the attention was simple: never stop walking, and only the ones who really cared wouldn't get tired and go do something else. "I've been on the road more than enough to know how to make do with shallow means, but feasting on the fruits of civilization at the end will never lose its appeal. Shall we?"
"It's right over here," Ebb beckoned, holding his best air of utmost coolness as he waved Gerardo after him. Beneath it, it was clear he was still giddy.
Most of the other students could say the same. "We can join you, right?" an earth pony asked, showing off his ability to keep a kicking sack in the air as he walked. "I want to see for myself what kind of feast a champion can devour."
"The last time someone came here from beyond the Aldenfold," a mare remarked, "they said he beat the head of house Loyalty and two seconds in a cheese-stuffed mushroom-eating contest. Which, completely coincidentally, are my favorite food, but that was before my time, so what do I know? Show us how it's done!"
Gerardo chuckled good-naturedly. "Interested in how much I can put away? I can't say I've ever been invited to an eating contest before, but what kind of adventurer am I to deny my friends?"
"This is going to be so great..." a stallion giggled to himself, the group stepping into the hall.
Immediately, a sight caught Gerardo's eyes. "I say, there's quite a crowd over in that corner..."
Ebb whistled and blew on his bangs. "That's by the Laughter tables, alright. Which is us. What do you want to bet Flow got mobbed after beating us here?"
One of the mares with him immediately perked. "There's more!?"
"Well, I certainly didn't come here friendless," Gerardo assured, stepping forward and leading his cohort. "Though I can see you're all most excitable..."
He pushed his way through the crowd, apologizing and using his wings to parse the ponies, none of whom even seemed to notice him. In the center, laying on a table she had all to herself, Valey was making a show of eating grapes, upside-down and talking nonstop.
"And then I said, 'Yeah, but have you ever really smelled a yak's armpit?' And let me tell you-" She blinked and looked up. "Oh, hey, Birdo! Been having fun getting mobbed?"
All the student's eyes immediately shifted. "This isn't one of your friends, is it?" a mare gasped.
Valey gave Gerardo a now-you're-in-for-it wink.
"As a matter of fact, I am," Gerardo proudly said, stepping forward and pushing back an admirer or two who got too close with his wings. He seated himself on the bench beside Valey and leaned on the table. "Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire. This looks like the place to be for happenings."
"Is Flow around?" Ebb asked, lifting a hoof. "I notice you found our tables, so if she is, I probably need to..."
A mare shoved him. "Shh! She's not into you!"
Valey chuckled and sat up, pointing a hoof at the mare who had spoken. "Oh, are we going to start this again? Flow's outside, by the way."
The mare looked suddenly nervous and backed down.
Gerardo's eyes shifted. "So what exactly is transpiring here? If there's food for the taking, I have a promise to my fans to uphold..."
"Long story short?" Valey shrugged. "Everyone was feeling pushy, so I told them the best way to win my favor was through a belching contest. With each other, not me. Hooo boy that got out of hoof, but it schooled them pretty good. Now I'm permitting them to watch me eat."
Gerardo's jaw hung slightly.
"And I'm the champion!" a stallion with a big jaw shouted near the front.
"She's toying with all of you," another huffed. "Making you look ridiculous. What she wants is for you to see through the games!"
"I like getting toyed with..."
Valey winked at Gerardo. "Yep. Apparently it's a thing. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but the food's good and I'm digging being popular."
"Speaking of food." Gerardo cleared his throat and gathered his wits. "I'm rather famished, and did make a promise-"
A clock tower tolled.
Immediately, the tight mass of students deflated, a collective sigh of disappointment running through them. Valey immediately sat up as they began draining dejectedly away. "Wait, what? Where are you all going?"
"Lunch is over!" the belching champ complained, throwing a mournful look back at Valey. "Don't forget me! Because I won't forget you!"
"Wait no wait hold up!" Valey scrambled to her hooves, jumping off the table and landing in front of the students. "Bananas, I thought I had more time to prepare for this..."
The belching champ blinked, Valey standing right before him. "Say wha...?"
"Buddy..." Valey leaned in with a tender, affectionate smile. "You rocked that competition. And sounded ridiculous, but still. I've got something real special to say to you... as a reward."
The champ waited with baited breath, his pupils quivering. The rest of the crowd seemed to deflate a little. The champ offered his lips. A sly grin was the only warning he would receive.
"I'm only into mares," Valey said all at once, grabbing a mare at his side by the shoulders and staring deep into her eyes.
Half the room's collective hearts broke. Valey held her grin, holding the flabbergasted, starstruck mare exactly long enough for what just happened to sink in... and then set her back down, patting her on the head. "And I'm also taken."
The other half of the room's hearts shattered, the mare Valey had dropped slumping against the ground with pinprick eyes, looking utterly shellshocked.
"...But I don't say no to consolation prizes." Valey waited again before darting in, giving her a lightning-speed peck on the cheek so bare any observers would be questioning if it had just been a dream. Immediately she vanished into the shadows, her laughter echoing around the emptying hall. "Nyahahahahaha! Catch me if you can!"
The students started trotting away, looking at each other and picking up their paces as if in an unspoken competition to get somewhere quickly without looking like they wanted it.
Within seconds, the area was clear, save for Gerardo, his gang, and the kissed mare, who had fainted. "That," Ebb said, eyes wide as saucers, "was the most savage thing I've ever seen."
"You think?" Valey rose out of the shadows behind him, all the remaining students jumping slightly. "Trust me, that's just going to make them try even harder. If everyone here likes competition this badly, bananas, they're gonna get what they asked for." She glanced apologetically at the body on the floor. "Think I overdid it just a little, though?"
"Honestly, I don't know what I expected," a new voice said, a sharply-dressed stallion strolling over, looking slightly older than the other students. "Ebb, find some water to wake Monkey Penney. Everyone else, run along now. You wouldn't want to be late for class."
Valey blinked hard. "Monkey Penney? What kind of a name is that?"
The stallion shrugged. "One you're given when your father is a biologist and your mother an accountant. I could ask just as much about a one-word name related to no object at all like Valey. But the answer is culture clash, I assure you." He held out a hoof and smiled. "Nautilus Shell, student government leader of house Laughter. Nautilus is fine, but don't call me Naughty. The first-years think it's hilarious."
Valey bumped it. "Seems cool enough."
"Can I offer you lunch?" Nautilus offered. "Or tea, if you've had your fill? We have a lounge that's slightly more private..."
"That," Gerardo said, "sounds like a very tempting offer."
Nautilus's purportedly private lounge was actually a teacher's lounge, with dim, cozy colors and small windows and big couches that made it seem much smaller than it was. Most of the staff were away teaching classes, but one graying pegasus bowed to him and then went back to making coffee.
"Eh, it beats having a crowd." Valey flopped on one of the couches, bouncing once and patting her stomach. "So, you're the boss of all the hearts I just broke? How big of trouble am I in?"
Nautilus raised an eyebrow. "You make it sound like their hearts belonged to me in the first place. I'm just a humble elected official." He shuffled to a counter, motioning Gerardo toward the couches as well. "Anything I can get you? There are scones..."
"Whatever you recommend," Gerardo replied, seating himself across from Valey. "...So. Who minds filling me in on what I happened to walk in on?"
"I already did, didn't I?" Valey shrugged. "Those clowns in the food place were being a bit overexcited, so I showed them a thing or two." She flicked her tail. "Seriously, what is it with this place and adventurers? I get thinking we're new and cool, but they acted like I was some mythical omen of all things good."
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, I have been seeing a warm welcome myself..."
"I am to blame for that," Nautilus announced, turning back around with a loaded platter. "Or credit, given your attitude about the affair... I prepared for a moment like this to be an apology."
"Oh yeah?" Valey kicked even further back as he set it on a table. "Sounds like a good story. How's it go?"
Nautilus narrowed his eyes. "First, I have to ask: do you have any legitimate philandering intents toward my students?"
"Hah!" the pegasus professor barked, getting up with his coffee to leave. "She's utterly clueless about your station, colt, and irreverent to boot. I wouldn't ask questions like that if I were you. This is going to be good."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Aww, come on, old stallion. I'm not that mean." She stared back at Nautilus. "But he's right, you know. I have no idea what a student body president is, and I just dunked on your house because they wouldn't stop hitting on me or leave me alone. If you wanna tell me something I don't know about what's going on, be my guest, but if you've got ulterior motives for taking me to lunch? Get on the wagon."
Nautilus's well-groomed composure cracked slightly. "You don't know me, and I don't know you. We're on completely even ground, and I'm offering you all the friendliness and good-natured benefit of the doubt my house's credo demands. Would it hurt to make this ever so slightly less painfully awkward? I'm trying to connect with you..."
"Connect with me, huh?" Valey pursed her lips. "You gotta watch your double meanings, bud."
Nautilus gritted his teeth and started to turn red.
"Ahem!" Gerardo loudly cleared his throat, reaching over and tapping Valey. "Perhaps no need to antagonize all our hosts, hmm?"
"Yeah, yeah." Valey deflated, but kept her smile. "Hey, sorry about that. Anyway, I'm Valey, and I'll have a lot less of an interest in your students if they stop throwing it in my face. So what's up?"
Nautilus took several breaths to calm himself, sipping his tea and fixing a popped-up strand of his mane. "Apologies as well. Things are clearly... done differently in the north, and you'd think I'd know better. My aim is nothing more than to be a gracious host and exemplar of the best qualities of our school, and I sought to wait on you rather than allow you to be mobbed by enthusiastic underclassponies."
"And serve lunch, which is greatly appreciated," Gerardo assured.
"Alright. You know what? You're cool." Valey sat up and offered a hoof. "Anyone who can take that and not want my hide for a rug is, in my book."
Nautilus bumped it. "I see you're fond of testing the waters..."
"Something like that." Valey sat back and yawned. "So what were you saying about all their enthusiasm being your fault, or whatever?"
Gerardo nodded, listening.
Nautilus took a breath. "To make a very long story reasonably short, the Laughter house... which is mine... had a demoralizing incident involving an adventurer from the north five years ago. Ponies typically only stay in the houses for four years, after which they either go on with their lives or abandon such constructs in pursuit of higher education, so there are very few who actually remember it. Two years ago, we all got together and decided being glum or contentious about it was antithetical to our morals, and that we needed to work together to bring about an about-face in our class attitude and direction while there were still those who actually remembered. House Laughter is now a house that loves those who travel, and what you saw in the dining hall were the first and second-years who are indoctrinated with the stories from the third and fourth-years who took that oath."
"...Huh." Valey blinked, sitting upright once again. "So something really bad happened, and you got tired of being sad about it so you started telling all the newbies to outrageously love us instead?"
Nautilus pointed a hoof like a public speaker, raising his voice. "The north is mysterious! The north is romantic! If you were to befriend anyone from the north, it would bring nothing but good..." He shook his head. "Perhaps not that direct, but you get the idea."
"What was it?" Gerardo asked. "The incident, that is."
"Something I'd rather not allow to color your views and interactions with the students," Nautilus assured. "If you'll trust me. We've already taken steps to ensure it will never break our house spirit again."
"Ehh..." Valey gave him a shifty look. "On the one hoof, I'm not super cool with having potential bad stuff that could jump me without me knowing. On the other, I've kind of promised myself to stop sticking my nose where it doesn't belong and be all around happier by not having to worry about that stuff. Back to the first, I've dealt with stuff that would make your mane fall out, and I've kind of got a suspicion whatever this is isn't even that scary in the grand scheme of things..."
Gerardo raised a talon. "I think the bigger question is, would knowing help us get along any better with your students? Or are there better ways for that? I've noticed myself attracting a very high quotient of admirers merely wandering the grounds..."
"What he said." Valey pointed at Gerardo. "Forget what happened in the past, do these dudes think I'm the ultimate supreme whatever no matter what, or is there a way to make them chill so we can just hang out and stuff? It's not just your house that does this. I talked with Loyalty, and they were obsessed with sports."
A flicker of unreadable emotion crossed Nautilus's face, but Valey chose to ignore it. Whatever this mystery was, if it had to do with those competitions it was less likely to be serious. "Point is, I'm real worn out and my friends are too. Like, emotionally. And while I could be happy terrorizing innocents with horny pranks and bad manners, what we need as a group is to settle down, chill out and hang out with ponies who neither worship nor despise us. You follow?"
Nautilus slowly nodded. "Of course. That's more than sensible. Foremost, I'd recommend trying to associate with the Kindness or Generosity houses. They tend to be more empathetic and relaxed than the likes of Honesty or Loyalty. Though if you'll permit a bit of self-promotion, Laughter's older students who remember what the house used to be like might be your most understanding allies."
Valey tilted her head. "The dudes who fired up all those clowns in the lunchroom about me?"
"Yes, the 'dudes who fired up those clowns'," Nautilus sighed. "You have the look of someone who's seen a lot in life and had to fight for what they believe in. I don't know how the real lives of adventurers like yourselves compare to our romanticization, but I do know we have students who saw that their house had become something they weren't proud of and that it wasn't going to change by itself. You might find our problems silly compared to being stranded, and it's true that this school is sheltered, but if anyone, it's them who might understand."
"...Huh." Valey licked her lips in thought. "Yeah, you know, I might give them a visit after all. You know how I'd find them?"
Some of Nautilus's confidence returned. "Well, it happens to be the night before the weekend, and each weekend has a voluntary camping trip to one of the archipelago's neighboring islands. They're common, so they're rarely fully-attended, but I'm sure you can think of an easy way to get all my first and second-years along. Then our house dormitory will be half-empty, and anyone who remains will be the ones you're looking for."
Gerardo chuckled knowingly, puffing out his chest. "If you're asking for volunteers to draw your students away on a weekend camping trip..."
"Would you be volunteering?" Nautilus looked up. "I hope for your sake you wouldn't be averse to an increase in popularity."
"My duty obligates me," Gerardo replied with a wink. "For a job like that, I'd wish you good luck finding better than a griffon adventurer extraordinaire."
After lunch, Valey and Gerardo parted ways, and Valey took a different tack with her explorations. She wheeled above the school, ascending and descending, hovering past windows and trying to familiarize herself with which building was what when seen from the air. It took several hours, but there were so many ponies and so much variety she never got bored, and her wings were glad for the workout.
Eventually, she started growing confident in her feel for the campus. The island was hardly circular, with a broad cove to the east, a peninsula on the northeastern edge and a broad, flat field to the south that was surrounded by a running track. The west shore was entirely residential, with a town clustered between the field and the beach she was reasonably sure was the heart of Kinmari College Town, while the north held the heart of the institution, all the departments built into building clusters that made up quadrants of a sprawling, open, castle-like structure. It spilled down a hill to the south, where the residence halls and dining halls were hemmed between the school buildings and the field.
The cove itself seemed dedicated to sports and swimming, boasting the best beaches of the island, and she definitely didn't stop for a while to watch the students play and compete. But the northern end was roped off by buoys, and there Valey found herself hovering before a tight cluster of sheltered docks and ocean warehouses, one of which housed the submarine she had sailed back on. From there, it was only a short flight to the north of the island, where there was a building she had flown past all day and never quite decided to stop and enter: the hospital where her other friends were being treated.
But now the sun was midway to evening, and she figured it was time for a visit.
"Yo," Valey greeted, touching down and strolling through spacious doors to the reception desk.
The mare at the desk, who was probably a student, looked up from a stack of papers she was straightening with an expression of clear recognition. "You! You're looking for your friends?"
"Yep." Valey adjusted her beret. "You know where they are?"
The reception nurse-in-training sighed. "Hard not to when I've been thinking about them all day. Today had to fall on my front desk rotation week... Please, come with me."
She rang a bell for someone to cover for her, and trotted off as another pony stepped out of a back room. Valey followed, ignoring the swishing tail and noticing instead how empty the hospital seemed. "Doesn't seem all that busy," she remarked.
"It's one town," the mare replied. "How many illnesses or injuries are you going to have at once? This is a school hospital, for learning to work at busier facilities on the mainland or researching cures for advanced illnesses and disabilities."
Valey scratched her head. "Yeah, probably need a decent overflow sick bay in case everyone gets food poisoning at once, or something..."
"Your friends are here," the receptionist eventually said, a short walk to the second floor later. She pointed to a trio of rooms, two of which were open and one closed, with windows facing out over the front entrance.
The two open doors led to the same room, separated by a curtain that had been drawn far back. "Darling!" Felicity greeted happily, reclining in a bed that looked far more comfortable than what Valey expected to see in a hospital.
"Valey, you're back," Maple called from the opposite bed, Starlight sitting in her poncho and reading a book with her back to the bed like a guard.
"Yep!" Valey thanked the receptionist and strolled inside, looking for a place to put her legs up as well. "How are you two? Been having a day I haven't had for a while..."
Felicity swooned, making a show of nuzzling her bed. "Oh, you wouldn't believe how accommodating they've been. Most of the nurses may be students, but the amount of care and attention they show makes Chauncey's hospital in Izvaldi look like a prison, darling. And you'll never believe this, but they completely agreed with my diagnosis that rest and good conditions were what I needed most, so there."
"Yeah, that's probably because it really was a prison." Valey winked, then turned to Maple. "And you, Ironflanks?"
Maple sighed. "I'm... good. It's good here. I want everyone else to make it here too, but once they do, I think we'll really be able to relax. Most of us, at least."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Like not who?"
Maple's gaze drifted to her cutie mark. "I've been asking, and I don't think we got lucky enough to have this island be on top of a crystal palace. I don't even know if I can hold onto her forever. It makes it hard to use my cutie mark for other things. Someday, I'm going to have to decide what to do."
Valey stepped over to Maple's bed, getting a glance from Starlight. "How urgent is this? Be honest, here."
"Well..." Maple thought for a moment. "It would be in terms of weeks, not hours or days. But also not months. It's not like holding onto her hurts physically, but if I'm always planning to do something to help her and we're not going to get a way... it won't make it easy to think about or plan for the rest of my life. But for now, I'm fine."
"I'll take your word for it." Valey offered a hoof. "So, other than that, how are you feeling? Relaxing? Bones doing okay?"
Maple shook her head. "I've been walking just to get myself moving. It's very uncomfortable when I move at certain angles, but not a sharp pain anymore. What Celestia did is helping. I think soon I'll just have to keep living my life again, only more carefully than usual, and wait for it to heal on its own."
"Speaking of relaxation," Felicity piped up, "I don't suppose you took the time to tour everything else this island has to offer?"
"Hold up." Valey paused her with a wing. "And the students are nice? Someone said the nurses were students?"
Maple grew a gentle smile. "They've been... a little bit timid. It's obvious this isn't a normal day for them, but they're doing a good job of being professional despite their feelings. And they've been fun to talk to. I've enjoyed it."
"Huh." Valey rubbed her mane. "Maybe I gotta meet these ones..."
"Do tell us about your own day, though?" Felicity asked, propping a hoof beneath her cheek. "With just the few of us here, I have been dying of curiosity what it's like being out and about."
Valey rolled her eyes and sighed. "Girl? If you walked into a crowd of these kids, turned up your cutie mark to full-blast intensity mode, and shouted, 'I'm eligible,' it would probably cause the entire island to sink from the force of the stampede."
Maple burst out laughing, then winced and rubbed her side.
"Hmm." Felicity pretended to contemplate this. "Utterly lacking in romance tact, but definitely a dramatic entrance. I'll remember that for later. Do go on?"
Valey shrugged hard. "I really don't know what to say. I wish Sparky was here. Every last one of the kids... which I say, even though they're probably mostly older than me... is single-mindedly obsessed with either me playing sports, dating me, or freaking out that everyone else is obsessed with that. It's kinda innocent and silly at the same time, and I may have... let loose and messed with them a little in a way I haven't done since Ironridge. You know. Before I met you." She nodded at Maple. "Like I said, I wish she could have seen it. After some of the talks we've had... Well, I felt good, and I bet it would have meant a lot to her."
"How quickly will you wear out your welcome if you do it again tomorrow?" Maple asked, folding her hooves. "Or whenever the Dream arrives?"
"Mmmmm..." Valey pursed her lips. "With the students? I definitely didn't wind up discouraging them. With the professors who have to deal with their hype? Literally who knows?"
"Well, I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourself," Maple hummed. "Like I said, I think most of us might finally be able to relax here."
Valey squinted at her. "You say that like there's more than just yourself on your mind."
Maple glanced down at Starlight with a do-you-really-want-me-to-say-aloud-I'm-talking-about-her look.
"Oh. Uh. Right." Valey rubbed her neck. "Bananas, I dunno what to even do about that." Her eyes shifted. "Hey, how's Gazelle?"
"Elsewhere," Felicity answered. "He's gotten up and left at least half a dozen times by now. They're trying to keep him in the room next to ours, but he seems to have wanderlust and just quietly leaves each and every time. Once he came back on his own, other times he's escorted... I think he's out at the moment. He certainly isn't one of the ones taking the time to relax."
"...Huh." Valey turned in a circle and sat down again, deciding the lonely prince wasn't worth thinking about. "Anyway. I dunno how up and about you're feeling, but long story short one of their houses is going to be half-empty this weekend and we've got a standing invitation to hang out. I've been poking around, and the worst deep dark secret they've got doesn't seem all that threatening, so we could totally have some fun and look for good company if you want?"
Felicity looked up eagerly. "Which house, darling? We've heard about them. This hospital seems to be mostly the domain of Kindness. I can't say I wouldn't miss the accommodations, but who wouldn't want to try for more?"
"Are you cleared to leave?" Maple asked. "I know they told me I could be on my hooves if I was feeling like it..."
Felicity coughed. "Technically, they did a blood sample and a physical, and I'm still waiting to hear what the former was all about. But I think it should be obvious what I really could use."
Valey thought for a moment. "Eh... Well, maybe I could go check it out myself beforehoof just to make sure we don't get mobbed. Or we could go in blind, if you're feeling like some fun. Or hey, maybe I should hang out with the kids here if they're more chill than the others..."
"If I were you?" Felicity winked. "I can tell when a mare is enjoying herself. Get out there and frolic, darling! You look much happier than you have for the last week, and especially since I knew you in the Empire."
Valey gave her a look. "You don't even know me that well. Bananas..." She sighed. "I still owe you a talk about the last talk we had on the ship, don't I? Right after I got back...?"
Felicity shrugged. "I think you made it clear enough where things stand. If I'm ever anything but helpful or supportive enough, please let me know, because I'm really not feeling well enough to go above and beyond just for the sake of paranoia. I trust you."
Valey blinked. "...Yeah, I owe you a talk."
"Suit yourself." Felicity nuzzled her bed. "So, are we touring? I suppose I could coax myself out of this luxury in the spirit of a little fun..."
"You're enjoying being in a hospital too much," Maple sighed, gingerly getting to her hooves. "Come on, Valey, Starlight. I need to walk around if nothing else. Get some fresh air. The doctors said it would be good for me."
Valey offered a wing to help her up. "Good thinking. Just, uh, stick by me so I can own any bozos if they swarm us too hard." She glanced down at Starlight. "Hey, so, uh... do you think you could lose the coat?" She lowered her voice. "It's gonna make you stand out. We're already going to be popular, and literally everyone here has a cutie mark so it's not like anyone will bother to ask about or even notice your new one."
Starlight looked up at her and shook her head. "I'm not wearing this to hide the cutie mark."
"Huh?" Valey tilted her head.
Maple put a careful hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "You should show her," she whispered.
Starlight folded her ears, glancing across at Felicity.
"Fine," Felicity huffed, tossing her mane and rolling out of bed. "I'll get a head start. See you all in the lobby!"
Eventually, she was gone, and Starlight went and closed both doors by hoof, not using her magic.
"Horn still bothering you?" Valey asked, looking quizzically at her.
Starlight carefully struggled out of the poncho, revealing a glowing disk of white runes hovering around her barrel.
Valey's jaw dropped, and she stared at the lights. "What the...?"
"It's because of this," Starlight muttered, the poncho shifting on the ground beside her. Slowly, an object floated out: the black sword, only somehow shrunk to about half its usual size, held by a similar light ring floating around its hilt, a flickering image of Starlight's cutie mark hovering in its triangular hole.
"Yeah, but how...?" Valey pointed and stared. "I mean, what?"
Starlight's face fell. "Neither of you remember it, and it's hard to explain why, but I learned this from a stallion who stole it for a while. He figured out that if you tap this part to your cutie mark..." The sword's hilt floated up, Starlight's horn doing nothing to levitate it. "It does this. And you can break the connection the same way, and it's hard to see in bright sun..." She looked away. "It lets you move it around and things. And change how it looks, I guess. I wish there was a way to get the light to go away, because if I keep it tied to myself, no one can steal it and make trouble. It's safer this way."
Valey continued to stare. "So you can... change how it looks, but not the weird light thing?"
Starlight nodded.
"And if you change it and turn the lights off, which you said you can do..." Valey scratched her head in thought. "What happens? Does it turn back to normal?"
Starlight took the blade carefully in her teeth and tapped it again. The rings disappeared, but its size didn't revert.
"Hah!" Valey shrugged and held up her forelegs. "So just turn it into something nobody would ever steal, like a stick or something. Then carry it around that way. Tell them it's a patented adventuring stick and they won't look twice when you carry it around, either. Easy peasy!"
Starlight stared at the sword, looking for all the world like she wished she had thought of that a week ago.
"So... here we are," Valey said, standing outside a door in a stone corridor that looked like it was designed to accommodate a lot of traffic. "This is the Laughter dudes' house dorm, unless nine million different signs and students are playing me for a fool. And we've got a standing invitation, and it's supposed to be quiet around the place..."
Felicity knocked.
The doors sparkled with an enchantment, swinging open of their own accord. It was a lounge, but not the snug teacher's lounge Valey had been to earlier: this one was vast, using low, barrel-vaulted ceilings to try to replicate the feel yet hold dozens of ponies at a time. One of the walls was dedicated to a giant trophy case, with twin hearths along the other and the far side holding several doors and staircases. The room wasn't packed, but it was hardly abandoned.
Four mares looked up from a table in a corner, littered and strewn with open books and notes. "Are you the travelers?" the closest one asked.
"Yep." Valey took a step forward. "Is that Nautilus guy around? He said something about how we should come here and hang out."
The mares all got up, stepping closer and looking over Valey and her friends. "...Wow," the first one eventually said. "I have to say, you look a lot more normal than I expected." She did a double-take. "Take it as a compliment!"
One of her friends nudged her with a grin. "So much for see-through wings and rainbow manes and leaving sparkles when they walk."
"You've probably heard this a lot," the third added, "but welcome to Kinmari! We did hear you were coming, yes, so please make yourselves at home! I'm Specklefruit, and these are Waterfall, Meadowglade and Lavender Curtain. Pleased to meet you."
Valey blinked at the group, aware she was being sized up and sizing them up in return. Meadowglade and Specklefruit, the second and third to speak, looked the most cheerful, but still far more under control than the students from the dining hall. Waterfall, she decided, was more relaxed than the first two but also the most likely to try to rope her into playing sports. And Lavender Curtain...
She was noticeably older than the other three, maybe Nautilus's age. She was the least-attractive of the bunch, and looked the least enthusiastic to see them. Valey gave her a look.
"Welcome," Lavender said, staying at the back.
Felicity quickly decided that no one else had anything burning to say, and stepped up to take charge. "Well I, for one, have felt more than welcomed already. If any of you have ever tried being stranded for a month with poor conditions, poor health and a lot of work to be done to survive, you can probably sympathize, but between you and me, I dearly hope you haven't. Well met regardless. I am Felicity, and here we have Maple, Starlight and Valey."
Nods were exchanged, and Meadowglade spoke up. "Alright. Study session is over. So what can we do for you? Show you around?"
"As tempting as a tour sounds," Felicity insisted, "I honestly wouldn't mind putting my hooves up and hearing about the place instead..."
Maple nodded, carrying herself carefully. "Could we? I'm recovering from broken ribs..."
Specklefruit glanced at Meadowglade. "There's a story behind that, I'll bet," she proclaimed, heading over to a couch by a hearth that Valey realized was just enchanted to glow, and wasn't giving off any heat whatsoever.
"The way you're looking at me," Waterfall said, not even glancing at Valey as Maple, Starlight, Felicity and the other two walked to the couches, "is like a tiger that meets another tiger and starts thinking to itself, who's the bigger tiger? Is she a threat? Is she an ally? Is she strong? Or does she just like the feel of her coat when she's slinking through the grass and hiding for no other reason than because she can?" She smiled up at her. "Am I on the right track?"
Valey stared. "Uhhh..."
Waterfall burst out laughing. "Well, now I know you're not a poet. But really, you were sizing me up. Trying to get some warning on whether I'm going to bother you about sports teams like probably literally half the ponies you've met here?"
Valey's jaw hung for a second longer. "Good guess," she replied, resuming her posture and closing her mouth. "Please don't do that, by the way."
"No worries." Waterfall waved and took the nearest seat. "I'm the same. Won't play for anyone, because everyone around here thinks the whole point of getting good. They don't understand how great it feels to be your best for no other reason than being the best you can be. You know?"
"Uhh..." Valey chuckled weakly. "Maybe, but that's still sports talk. Kicking some tail was fun earlier, but literally everyone is talking about it, you know..."
Waterfall blinked, then winced. "Oh. Sorry... Not how I wanted to come across." She took a breath. "But you're here and talking to me, so... what do you want to talk about?"
"...Bananas, I have no idea." Valey sat down too. "Thanks for listening and not being completely manic about meeting someone from up north, I guess?"
"It's been hard to know what to expect." Waterfall shrugged. "I wasn't here the last time we had a visitor from so far, and you've certainly seen how many legends there are about you. Sorry for the harassment, by the way. I... heard about what happened in the dining hall."
"Hey, don't apologize for that." Valey leaned back and waved a hoof, vaguely aware that Lavender was watching her. "I had to teach them a thing or two, but they'll be fine."
Waterfall stared at her, then laughed nervously. "You're touchy about anything involving athletics because it's been mentioned too much, but just brush off that mob and tell me not even to apologize? Sorry if I'm a little confused..."
Valey tongued her cheek. "Alright, let's put it this way: I've worked for really evil bosses or owed favors to shady mad scientists just a few too many times not to be sketched when someone talks about fighting for a cause. Sports teams? Smells to me like an allegiance that's gonna get you sucked into something nasty. Nothing against your school, just lingering adventurer issues. That make more sense?"
Waterfall whistled. "I get it. Sounds like quite the story." She hesitated. "Not to tread, but you've been in fights for real, then."
"Hey, you were sizing me up too," Valey replied. "You know I'm strong. And yeah, fighting for my life is what I do." At Waterfall's look, she waved a hoof. "Ask away. I just didn't wanna talk about literally nothing but helping your underdog house win. You don't strike me as a single-minded goon."
In her peripheral vision, Lavender's look turned disapproving.
Waterfall's lips grew tight. "Thanks, but even though I sympathize, I do it a little more politely. Like it or not, sports are a way of life at Kinmari, and something every last pony feels strongly about."
Valey looked to Waterfall. Waterfall rose and beckoned. "Let's go."
They passed Maple and the others, who seemed to be finding much more success at their conversation than Valey was. Lavender stopped at the far left edge of the trophy case, which spanned an entire wall. "Look at this," she said, tapping it with a hoof. "What do you see?"
Valey squinted, willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. "It's a timeline," she remarked. "Bananas, this goes back nearly a hundred and thirty years."
"To the founding of the houses," Lavender said, her voice sounding like she was unable to swallow. "This collection has moved twice as we've changed buildings. It's that old. Look what happens as we go along."
Valey paced down the wall. It wasn't at all homogenized; there were spans of two decades or more when the colors would be predominantly silver or gold, mixed, or bronze or empty. She stopped to read some of the trophies, names of players etched in their bases, along with the house they had been won for and won against. After a point, photos of player teams started appearing as well, with jersey or swimsuit designs that updated every few years yet always looked slightly the same. The photos showed generation after generation of young ponies with soaked manes and sparkling eyes, and for a moment, Valey felt a stirring of secondhand pride from seeing so many creatures on the best day of their lives.
Eventually, she reached the end. It was dominated by bronze and nothing.
"What do you see?" Lavender asked.
Valey thought for a moment. It would be sacrilegious to try to sum this up, she could clearly tell. And while that was usually her modus operandi, it really didn't seem like the best way to get on this mare's good side...
Lavender sighed. "Look who all the recent trophies have been won against."
Valey looked. There were a scattering of bronzes for different events, each one listing the final opponent as Generosity. Six years back was a single silver won against Honesty, and she had to go back a whole twenty-three years before she found a gold.
"Yeah... alright. I'm guessing this is a sore spot," Valey admitted. "For the record, I hope you win, but please don't ask me to help."
Waterfall folded her ears at the gold trophy. "My father was on the team that won that," she admitted. "There's maybe a little bit of family tension because I don't play. Like I said, everyone has strong feelings about this, like it or not."
"There's been a whole generation of us fighting Generosity for the leftovers from the two champs, and being good sports about it and holding true to our ideals, even when all the good athletes know to join the winning houses." Lavender could have rolled her eyes, but her voice was perfectly serious. "And we keep trying. So before you have an irreverent I-don't-care party, please consider that we aren't the underdog house because we want to be and some of us want to change that. Thank you."
Valey winced as she turned her back and stepped a short distance away. "Okay... Look, can I just settle for cheering you guys on and being friends with everyone? I'm really not looking to make enemies on any side of the competition. Which is why I'd rather have nothing to do with this. Even though it's awesome that you have a goal that can bring your house together, and stuff."
"Look at five years ago," Lavender grunted, "and tell me what you think happened."
Valey had deliberately not paid much attention to that one. "Here we go..."
They were bronze trophies, just like all the others. One was for a track event, and one a swimming event. The only abnormality she could see was small, but once she spotted it, her eyes wouldn't let it go: the photo of the swim team had been carefully torn, as if one pony was very deliberately removed. The number of remaining ponies matched the number of names on the trophy.
"What happened here?" Valey asked, tapping the glass, deciding she was going to learn the horrific mystery surrounding the adventurer from five years ago whether she liked it or not.
"There was another traveler," Lavender sighed, her voice dry. "He was helping Loyalty. We stood a chance at beating them. And then he took our star player and eloped."
It was the hardest task of Valey's life, preventing herself from destroying her relationship with Laughter by bursting out laughing. When she realized the irony, she failed anyway.
"Thanks," Lavender said, trotting unhappily up a staircase.
"What happened, darling?" Felicity looked up from her couch, the others glancing over as well.
"Bananas... sorry... Don't ask..." Valey wiped her eyes, having a sinking feeling she had just made an enemy. She lowered her voice, glancing at Waterfall, who looked both concerned and amused. "So, uh... if your house was crazy upset by this, which I assume is the thing that happened back then, why convince all your newbies that we're good for hitting on?"
Waterfall shrugged. "It wasn't my plan. I just signed off because I didn't care. Some ponies thought if we expected it, it wouldn't be a surprise. Others thought if it happened again, we'd think of it as a good thing. Most of them were just tired of us holding a grudge and wanted to go far, far in the other direction."
"Well, at least it's not ghosts or an evil chancellor or something that will cause danger." Valey rubbed at her eyes. "Bananas, having problems like this is weird..."
Valey rubbed her eyes, staring at the staircase where Lavender had vanished. Waterfall looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't bring herself to say it. Everyone on the couches was staring.
"Look," Valey said, "you have to admit stuff getting ruined because someone eloped is just a little funny, right?"
"That's the point." Waterfall shrugged. "And we didn't take it that way, and some of us realized it was a problem if house Laughter couldn't laugh something off. Just so you know, most of the first and second-years think that story is a fairy tale, not a tragedy."
Before Valey could reply, a middle-aged stallion in an over-the-top academic robe stepped out of a doorway. "I say," he said in a science-y voice, "did someone tell a joke without me?"
Valey blinked. "Old dude! Do I know you? What's up?"
"No, but I know you!" He glanced between her and the couch, then waved her over. As Valey and Waterfall approached, he continued, "I'm Doctor Lost World, the head of house Laughter and Kinmari's unfortunately small history department, and owner and proprietor of the largest collection of historical artifacts on the island. But you can call me Doctor Lost if I lose myself on a tangent or forget where I'm going halfway through a walk around campus. Hoho!"
"A pleasure, really," Felicity quickly said, sprawled luxuriously on a couch and looking disappointed the hearth flames were illusory and just for show. "If you're the one responsible for choosing the furnishings in this room, consider yourself owed a debt of gratitude."
Doctor Lost chuckled, patting the cushion he was seated on. "Oh, thanks for that would go to the student council, but I'm glad you approve! To the young, comfort is comfort, but they don't realize how much of a difference it can make for old bones such as ours!"
A single strand on Felicity's mane popped out of place, and her eye imperceptibly twitched. "Old bones, hmm? I'm not that old..."
Maple gingerly tilted her head. "How do you know us?" she asked. "We're just that famous here, I guess?"
"Hoho. No, Sea Star briefed me this afternoon." The doctor shook his head. "It's a great pleasure to meet such exotic creatures in person. I'm greatly looking forward to hearing anything and everything you'd care to impart about your homeland. But first, is there any hospitality you've been lacking? Any way in which I can ease your stay?"
The more he talked, the more Valey noticed a slightly unusual cadence to his rhythms and pronunciations, as if he had spent so much time learning or speaking dead languages it bled into his normal speech. "Uhh, I'd like some fruit, if it's no trouble?" she volunteered, mind elsewhere.
"After how dreadful the last month has been, I'll never say no to more pampering," Felicity complained. "Though I sincerely doubt your well-meaning yet general offer includes things like a hoof massage."
"Oh!" Doctor Lost's cheeks lightened slightly, and he shook his head. "Yes, that might have to be arranged at a... later date. Specklefruit, could you search my office and see if there's any of your namesake laying around? I'm sure I had some uneaten zucchini in my lunch yesterday..."
Valey almost laughed again. At least house Laughter's professor was appropriately absent-minded and silly... "Nah, nah, I'm not that hungry." She urgently waved a hoof for Specklefruit not to go. "Tell us a crazy story about this place, doctor dude."
Doctor Lost fluttered his mustache and scratched at his graying goatee. "Now that's a very broad index to start from..."
Maple smiled and carefully cleared her throat. "If someone could get some water, I'd actually appreciate it."
Specklefruit ducked out with a nod. "Hmm," Doctor Lost mused, still deep in thought. "You ask for a story, but perhaps I could show you my collection and library instead? Any one of the things in there could have a story all of its own, and you'd have a much easier time picking out which ones interest you than I."
"Ehh..." Valey glanced far, far to the side. "What are the odds this artifact collection of yours has stuff that's evil or cursed? Just in case we happened to be avoiding that sort of stuff?"
"One hundred percent!" the doctor laughed, getting to his hooves. "But don't worry. I've been doing this for decades, and I'm still righter than a fresh-baked strawberry pie. Just don't touch anything if you don't know what it is."
Not touching things in Doctor Lost's office turned out to be harder than he had chalked it up to be.
Shelf upon shelf of things filled the walls, surrounding a desk so big and so old it looked like it had been wrought for a different society altogether. Illusory candles kept the tall room feeling cozy and warm, though it also felt even more likely to collapse than Arambai's workshop in Riverfall.
Valey whistled. "Okay, this is a pretty gnarly collection. Not too shabby."
"Oho, these day-to-day office supplies aren't my collection," the doctor chuckled. "This is my collection."
He pulled a giant lever which wasn't intended to be hidden, yet camouflaged perfectly with the room's chaotic, rusty-orange aesthetic. With a grinding of gears and a sifting of dust, two bookshelves rotated and drew to the sides like a complex double-door.
"...Of course you have one of those," Valey muttered, suppressing another grin.
Starlight followed the group inside, her small size giving her a considerable advantage in not stepping on detritus. The room was piled so high, it would take a pegasus to have a hope of reaching the upper areas, and so tightly one couldn't fly anyway without unshelving half the room with their wingspan. Only someone like Shinespark would be able to properly navigate it, though with clever use of crystal platforms she probably could too.
Most of the shelves weren't even sorted, Starlight realized as she followed, her newly-transformed stick carried closely on her back. There were just boxes or even barrels, either unlabeled or categorized in a way she couldn't identify.
"So what even is this stuff?" Valey asked, tapping a barrel Starlight had a feeling wasn't dangerous enough to avoid. "This doesn't even look like it's been opened in a million years."
"That's a blind barrel," Doctor Lost proudly said. "Sometimes, antique shops will get more donations than they can measure or identify, so they box things up and sell them for incredibly little! Then someone else can buy them and do the identification work instead. It might be mostly garbage, but you never know when you could dig up something impossibly rare! These little treasure hunts I bring back from every corner of Equestria whenever I have time to travel."
"Really?" Valey squinted at it. "So what's in this one?"
"I don't know!" the doctor laughed. "I haven't had time to sort that one yet either!"
Valey and Maple gave each other a look.
"Well, you did say you'd have a story about something fascinating in here for us," Felicity remarked, looking vaguely bothered by the dust as she stepped through an aisle of cavernous bookshelves. "How about this one?" She pointed to a crate. "What's in here?"
"Ah, this." Doctor Lost darted over and polished the box lovingly. "Also uncatalogued, but I know what's inside! This is from an estate sale from the family of a mare who fled the north more than seven hundred years ago, much like yourselves! What was her name...? Seraphim, she was called. All sorts of legends about that one, mostly restricted to old writings from a tiny area in northern Equestria, mind you, but still! Some that were obviously false, like how calamity would befall a continent called the Griffon Empire if she ever passed away, but there were others saying she could fly and use magic at the same time!"
Valey blinked hard. "You don't say."
"And this was how long ago?" Maple asked, leaning in.
"Seven hundred and seventy-six years, if my mental math doesn't fail me," Doctor Lost chuckled fondly, wiping a nostalgic tear from his eye. "Ah, what I wouldn't give for a free weekend to sort through this box... but in a most ironic tragedy, I have dozens like it all competing for my time!"
"How many flying unicorns or magical pegasi even are there?" Starlight asked, deciding to let her curiosity get the better of her.
Doctor Lost raised his eyebrows. "Flying unicorns or magical pegasi? That depends on your definition. Certainly there are ponies like Lighthooves..." He huffed. "And those are all very well and good, but what if this is a case like Mi Amore Cadenza?"
"Lighthooves?" Valey squinted, tilting her head. "I feel like I've heard that before..."
Doctor Lost waved a hoof. "Don't think too hard on it. He was some nobody from five years ago. At least, that's what my class has rebuffed every legitimate scientific interest with. Harrumph..."
Felicity opened her mouth to speak, inhaled dust, and broke off coughing. "Who's...?" she gasped. "Who's Mi Amore Cadenza, darling?"
"Oho, the Cadenza papers...!" The professor's excitement returned. "...But no, is that too much of a secret? I couldn't dare spoil one of the most interesting unsolved twists of modern history..."
"Oh, come on!" Valey complained. "Spill it, doctor dude!"
"Alright, alright!" Doctor Lost wheezed. "Since time immemorial, Equestria has been ruled by one alicorn princess and one alone! But seven-odd years ago, a new one appeared. Mi Amore Cadenza, a new goddess... Where it gets mysterious, however, is that there was already a Mi Amore Cadenza long before her! Historical proof of her existence is difficult to find on an almost unheard-of level, but I knew her myself. She was a student here in the first class I ever taught... Could it be possible for ordinary ponies to somehow become alicorns, gaining the magic of all three races at once?"
Starlight instantly decided she wasn't interested. If this Cadenza pony had once been normal and somehow become a goddess, that was far too close for comfort to Glimmer's ominous warnings that anything was possible if she tried hard enough, and how there were heights of the world that should never be reached. She hoped she never accidentally became an alicorn.
"I've done some theorization on what sort of process must have been involved," Doctor Lost's unwelcome voice continued, and Starlight pointedly started trotting away. "Perhaps her body could have been deconstructed and her spirit transferred to a new one by a force of unimaginable power? But the physical resemblance she bore before and after must hint at something far..."
Starlight rounded a corner, and her ears went back at the sight of a giant display case filled with a substance she knew all too well: moon glass.
Of course Doctor Lost had moon glass in his collection. Starlight trotted up to it, having had far too many interactions with the stuff to be afraid of it. It was in a case. If she couldn't touch it, it couldn't hurt her.
But this moon glass was different than any she had seen before. It looked like someone had tried to take the pieces, all shattered splinters of the original meteor, and piece them back together...
Obsidian meteorite chunk, a plaque on the case read. These 23 fragments were all discovered at the same crash site in the base of the Aldenfold north of Sires Hollow. They have been reassembled into a larger section of the original meteor, allowing some details to be visible that are not apparent at a finer granularity. Contributed by Doctor Caballeron.
Starlight looked up again, letting out a sigh at the mention of her original hometown. The positions of the cracks on the meteor where it had originally split were still obvious, but... the grooves that occasionally marked pieces of moon glass she saw naturally, she now realized, weren't natural at all. On one of the cluster's faces, they formed a mural.
It was the Emblem of the Nine Virtues, heavily stylized yet unmistakable. And above it, printed in a faintly-semicircular capital font, was the word, EYLISTA.
Starlight felt her breathing speed up. That was what the door had called her in the metal area, near the end of her time stuck in her own moon glass with Chrysalis. And where this had fallen...
Her instincts didn't leave her brain any longer to follow that train of thought. She lit her horn and teleported far, far away.
Starlight appeared from her teleport in midair. She hadn't thought about where she was going, and felt a brief flicker of panic before crystalling herself and slamming into the ground as a hard, faceted ball.
Her crystal bounced once and rolled to a stop, not shattering from the impact. Her horn didn't feel the hit at all, but somehow, this thought only made her feel worse. She let the crystal drop and ran, hooves slipping on freshly-watered grass, the sun low enough in the sky that no students had been around to see her drop out of the sky.
Skidding, Starlight fled down a sloping path, her stick at her side, hoping this time would be different and she could outrun her thoughts be moving fast enough. But then the path banked sharply and she tripped, tumbling head over heels to a stop on a sculpted stone bank to a pond. It was probably meant to be decorative.
She crawled to the edge of the water. It was free of ripples and she could see her reflection, and she needed someone to talk to and it would have to do.
"Who am I?" Starlight whispered, faintly woozy as she leaned over the pond. "Why did that moon glass say Eylista when it was found near my home, and it called me the same thing? Does it think that's my name? Why was it written on the side of a comet?"
Her reflection's lips moved in sync with hers, her voice quiet enough not to disturb the surface of the water. She held out her stick, and the reflection held out its, too.
"I don't want to know!" she mouthed, ears folding. "I want to be a normal pony! One who has parents who can fix anything and doesn't have to worry about destroying the world!" Glimmer wasn't there to yell at, so the pond would have to do. "Why do I have to worry about this!?"
The pond's surface rippled. Starlight was sure it was just her imagination, but suddenly the stick was a sword and it was tethered to her by a hollow disk of runic light around her barrel. Then it rippled again and showed her a visage she had been trying to forget ever since she saw that ring for real, in a Grandbell restaurant around Yulio: herself, as seen in an altar in a cave in a dream, the night in Mistvale when she had been given all the Nightmare Modules. The waters had showed her potential, a form of herself with massive ethereal wings and runic halos and flowing lights the same as this, that the sword's appearance was a hoofstep along the path to.
Starlight stabbed the water with her stick, breaking the image, and squeezed her eyes shut. That altar had showed her as a goddess, with so much power she could mandate her friends' loyalty and safety, and force herself to never be alone again. She had rejected it... hadn't she...? And for her trouble, it had blessed her with exactly the power she didn't want, and exactly the power she needed to save her friends from Chrysalis.
There was no answer. Starlight slumped. That wasn't a nightmare, it was a what-if. And it was less a what-if than a warning. That was who she could become if she took the wrong path. It wasn't an exercise in thought, it was a possible future. And with every new discovery, she saw a little more about just how possible it could be.
Who was she? A normal pony? Fat chance. Normal ponies didn't explode and vanish when connected to harmony extractors. They couldn't use Nightmare Modules without losing themselves. They couldn't survive the Aldenfold, couldn't kill windigoes, and even the best of the best who had been magically enhanced by Garsheeva or bore Luna's Artifices themselves couldn't stop Chrysalis when she could. Maybe that was why her new cutie mark didn't seem to do anything. Maybe her talent was in doing the impossible, and there was nothing it could do that she couldn't already.
What would happen if she learned what Eylista meant? What would happen when she learned what it meant, because the one thing she was permanently incapable of was protecting herself from things like this? She already knew: it would be one more step toward the future Glimmer had warned her about. A future Glimmer had been very clear about how to avoid: give up. Stop trying. Let the world happen. Don't lose her friends to circumstances beyond her control, lose them when she could stop it, because she always could, and live with herself and what she could do with no more surprises and just force herself to stop. It was sickening.
Starlight slumped against the cool stone deck, memories running like speeding streamers through her head. Once upon a time, Princess Luna had created the Nightmare Modules because she was alone, and wanted to use that loneliness to protect and fight for what was dear to her. They hadn't been the right tools for the job in concept, but they were all she had. But concept was what mattered. Friends weren't something you could get the wrong way and expect it to work out. But Starlight had those tools, and just like she assumed had happened to Nightmare Moon... waiting had produced no better answers than using them.
Hadn't Luna even said in the memory that someone else could use the Nightmare Modules to keep their own friends safe from her?
The stick poked against her side. She still had the Nightmare Modules. She hadn't tried using it to use them, even though she had a feeling she could. It made sense, and hadn't Luna said so?
There was one Nightmare Module Starlight had never used. The shadow cloak? Probably her favorite. The shield? Useful. Moon glass? She needed it to beat Chrysalis. But there was another, one that let her damage or erase memories.
Starlight had tried not to think about it, leaving that one as far from her mind as possible. She knew she needed barriers, lines she wouldn't cross, and something that could take away part of a pony's life had to be it. But so much of what she knew made her nothing but miserable. What if she rewound herself, used her problematic solution on herself instead of the ponies around her, sent her own mind back in time to before she had seen the Eylista meteor?
That wouldn't work, she chided herself bitterly. She'd just wander around and find it again. What if she erased her memories of her time in the moon glass altogether? Then she wouldn't remember Eylista when she saw it. She knew she had heard it before, but nowhere that stuck so strongly. That would work... except if she forgot about Chrysalis lurking inside the stone, she could endanger her friends. And she would forget about Larceny, and the other ponies stuck or suffering inside. She couldn't turn her back on them before she found a way to save them, or at least tell Felicity what had become of her sister.
Starlight growled, a fever fuzzing her head. But it wouldn't matter if no one remembered it! And it wouldn't matter that she crossed her own line, because she wouldn't remember it either. But it still reeked of giving up, strong enough to turn her stomach and make her gag. Thanks a lot, Artifice of Hope. If this was what she needed to do, having hope as her talent certainly wouldn't make things easier.
A wind picked up, and she lay there, wishing it would cool her more than it was and feeling utterly terrible.
"Professor?" a voice said, interrupting her funk after a long time. "What do we do?"
"It would appear there is a filly collapsed in the road," another voice said. "...She doesn't look good. Pick her up and carry her to the hospital. We will see if someone can identify her or contact her parents."
Her parents. Right. What a funny joke. Starlight kept the stick in a death grip, otherwise not budging as she was hoisted and carried by a pony she didn't know.
There was a lot of banter. Starlight got the impression someone recognized her, but wasn't sure if she didn't care enough to focus or literally couldn't. Maybe her eyes worked, maybe they didn't. She was in a bed. Then the lights went out, and it felt once again like she was drowning in air.
"...Hm," a voice said nearby. She wasn't sure if she recognized it. She wasn't sure if anyone was even in the room.
Then, suddenly, a hot, sticky, fuzzy probing came over her, like something was breathing on her and touching her all at the same time. It was deliberate, and very, very unwelcome.
Starlight tried to thrash and scream... and then like a deflating balloon, the fevered sensation drained from her head and the world flooded back into focus in a rush of cold, lucid air. Her thoughts didn't hurt anymore. In a matter of seconds, her panic and confusion were gone.
She was in a hospital room, on a bed much like Maple's. And Gazelle was on the bed, standing over her and staring down at her in confusion.
Starlight instinctively crawled back and took the stick defensively in her teeth, apparently no one having pried it from her. "Get back!" she warned, lighting her horn but not using her seemingly-infinite magic in case it spooked the prince. "What are you doing to me!?"
Gazelle's pinprick eyes dilated faintly in fear and uncertainty. "You aren't my sister," he pointed out.
"Um, no, I'm not." Starlight rolled out of the bed and easily landed on her hooves, backing away, not sure whether to question more why she was suddenly feeling alright or what this sphinx was doing here. "I look completely different? What were you doing to me?"
"You were having a nightmare," Gazelle whispered. "Like she did. And you're so small. I thought I could help..." A muscle in his side randomly spasmed.
Starlight's gaze sharpened in surprise. "What?"
"I always helped Lyn with her nightmares. When she was mad or upset and came to me, and smelled just like you did..." Gazelle whispered, a slow look of horror crossing his face. "I can't find her! Where is my sister!? Please, help me? She has to be here. I need her..." His expression reset. "Gwendolyn? Is that you?"
Starlight took another step back, ears tensing in apprehension. At least she knew why Gazelle was still in the infirmary... She didn't let her horn go out, just in case she needed teleportation to escape.
Suddenly, the door banged open, and Valey skidded in. "Yo!" she called... and whirled when she saw Gazelle. "Woah, Catbreath, what are you doing here?"
"Valey!" Starlight gasped in relief, hoping this wasn't about to come to a fight anyway. "I-"
"Hold up, kiddo." Valey held her back with a wing and wrinkled her nose. "Something smells fouler than usual in here."
Gazelle's pinprick eyes twitched at Valey's aggressive stance. "Have you seen my sister?" he whimpered. "I'm looking for her..."
"He doesn't matter!" Starlight insisted, scooting under Valey and making for the door. "Let's go!"
Her legs burned to be outside, and she heard Valey following as she made for a second-story window. Valey caught up quickly, grabbing her and shadow sneaking through the glass before flipping up onto the hospital's roof.
"Valey-"
"Yo," Valey interrupted, holding Starlight out and inspecting her all over. "Are you okay!? We last saw you in that guy's collection room, and have been literally looking for you for hours! I thought an evil artifact got you, or something! Ironflanks has been beyond worried, and it didn't help when someone came and told us you'd been found passed out on the other side of the island and were in the hospital!"
Starlight winced. "If I look like I need a hospital, why are you holding me like this?"
"Uhh." Valey slowed down and set her gently on her hooves. "Bananas, I just... Are you okay?"
"I..." Starlight swallowed, the adrenaline starting to wear off. She looked down at the campus, the wind feeling good in her mane. "I don't know."
Valey slowed down too. "Physically hurt? Or did something... you know, upset you? Maple was talking about times you ran away before..."
"I really don't know," Starlight insisted, finally being hit by the realization that the moon was high in the sky and all traces of sunset had disappeared from the horizon. "I'm okay now, I think. Maybe. But I don't know what happened at all."
Valey sucked her lip. "...You sound like you've seen a ghost. If you're scared and need to talk, I promise I won't tell anyone. You think you can talk to me? Everyone knows I went to get you. They won't worry if we stay here and chat for a while."
"Can we?" Starlight whispered, feeling the edge of a tear in her eye. "I do n-need to, and if anyone might understand, it would be you."
"Alright." Valey wrapped a wing around Starlight's shoulders and pulled her against her side. It was comforting, but at the same time, Starlight wanted to feel the wind... "Tell old Valey what you've got on your mind."
"...And now I don't know what to do," Starlight finished sadly, hanging her head. "What I'm supposed to do is nothing, but that doesn't feel like doing anything at all."
Valey had sat still through the entire story, and the moon was noticeably higher in the sky. "So lemme make sure I have this," she said. "You're feeling like the strongest thing in the world, and that's a bad thing because you're scared of yourself."
"Yes," Starlight pouted, her voice a whisper. "And don't just tell me the visions are silly and to ignore them."
Valey squinted. "Uh, no, why would I do that?" She patted her butt. "Danger detector, remember? Also known as seeing the future? I'm not about to call a warning like that silly whether it's likely to be bogus or not."
Starlight looked at the roofing beneath her hooves. "So I'm right to be worried, then."
"Absolutely."
Starlight took a sharp breath, her tears about to resume.
"But." Valey grabbed her, far from finished. "The times when you're wrong to be worried? It's not because there's nothing to worry about, it's because there's nothing you can do. There's always something to be freaking out about, and anyone who says otherwise hasn't been through half the stuff we have. If something deserves our attention, it's because we've got work to do."
Starlight's face clenched. "But the whole point is that what I need to do is stop doing the things I do need to do!"
Valey pursed her lips in disapproval. "If someone actually tells you that with those exact words, slap them. That includes slapping yourself if you need to. How many powerful ponies do you know who sit in a box all day because they're too afraid of doing what they can and owning up to their mistakes later? It doesn't take someone as strong as you to mess stuff up by making a mistake or choosing the wrong goals. Look at Gazelle or Herman!"
Starlight's eyes bored into hers. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Uhh..." Valey hesitated. "Alright, what am I forgetting?"
"Garsheeva," Starlight muttered, tucking her head closer to her shoulders and making her neck small. "Remember what she told us in the crystal palace? That she's just a symbol and all the real decisions are made by Meltdown because she knows she'll go mad like Gazelle if she goes out and does anything on her own? And she's a goddess."
"Bananas." Valey sat back, her argument utterly derailed. "Look, you could say she's wrong too-"
"How!?" Starlight snapped. "She's thousands of years old and has been the most powerful thing on her continent! You think she hasn't tried to find another way!? You think she wouldn't have the best solution!? Because she's exactly like me."
Valey worked her jaw. "I... Look. Maybe she has, but just because she didn't find one doesn't mean there isn't something else to do, right?"
"If she can't find a way to control herself and not ruin the world after thousands of years of searching, it sounds impossible," Starlight whispered. "But that's exactly the kind of impossible I keep breaking, like crossing the mountains or getting you back from the moon glass. And it's what I need to stop doing."
Valey lifted a hoof, then put it down and sighed. "There's gotta be a better way. You know that, right?"
"I want it," Starlight countered. "And trying to get the things I want is what I'm afraid of, because what if I want the wrong thing and nobody can stop me?"
"Alright." Valey sighed, sitting straighter. "I really didn't want to use myself as an example, because I'm seriously enjoying my time here and don't want to think too hard about what I've been doing differently because I don't wanna jinx it, but you asked for it. Spooky evil moon magic? Check. Weapon from space that's strong enough to fight an army? Also check. Made some pretty big mistakes? Really don't wanna think about it, but I'm sure there are a lot out there." Her stare intensified. "Do you think I'm strong enough to ruin a continent, or at least a city?"
Starlight swallowed. "Probably."
Valey nodded. "Yep. Definitely am. Now, how many times have you, the one pony among our friends who has even a chance of being in the same power class as me, had to stop me by force?"
Starlight blinked and tilted her head.
"Go on," Valey prodded. "How many times have I screwed up so badly that the only thing to do was to actually take me down? I don't mean talking me down, I mean beating me up when I'm fighting my hardest. How many?"
"Well, none, but-"
"And how many times," Valey pressed, "have I done or tried to do dumb stuff and needed some sense slapped into me?"
Starlight blinked, thinking.
"Here's a hint: I've lost count." Valey grinned. "I know at least one big one was that time I stun bombed you and your friends and locked you up in the Flame District. Remember that? Bananas, you were ticked. I sure remember it, because it was a pretty important day for yours truly." Her look turned serious again. "You see what I'm getting at? There's gotta be other ways."
Starlight's face fell. "But you've been scared of yourself too. For the entire Griffon Empire."
"Mmm, yeah," Valey admitted, nonchalant. "Okay, full admission: I was pretty terrified. I don't think I did a good job hiding it, and it messed up my ability to enjoy things in a big way. More than that, it messed up my ability to know what to do with myself. I felt ridiculously aimless whenever I wasn't beating someone else up to protect you girls. The point is, I have at least an idea of how you feel."
"But you didn't have any visions," Starlight murmured.
Valey shrugged. "Who needs visions? Sure, you've had a couple super apocalyptic dreams or something that someone says could be caused by you, and I'm not saying that isn't serious. I had an entire city living under the law of Valey does what she wants. I may not have had them, but I don't need them to know what I'm capable of."
Starlight took a shuddering breath. "So what did you do, then? How are you happy now while I'm...?"
"Honestly?" Valey's ears fell. "I dunno. I've tried not to think about it so much and just try to enjoy the good stuff while that lasts. Maybe that attitude actually is it. I just care less... not about the world or anything big, but the little things. Yeah, I gotta watch myself and not do anything evil that might flatten a continent, but I guess it's easier when you don't treat every tiny mistake as The Big One that could butterfly effect into world doom. Back in the Empire, I was sketched about trashing random bar patrons or guards or scoundrels who tried to rip me off, and freaked out when I had to anyway. Here? I ran some students around, laughed in their faces, probably stoked a lot of feelings and made at least one big enemy. And yeah, I wouldn't have if I had focused on covering every last problem before it began, but still. I'm happy. And if I can afford myself a little selfishness, that feels worth it to me."
Valey whistled. "Kiddo, did you know that I'm me? If a problem comes my way that can be handled by brute force or cleverness and a silver tongue, I've got it covered. I'm not too worried about a couple of lovesick or sports-obsessed college ponies."
"I don't know." Starlight stared out at the star-strewn sky, her namesake shining all around them. "It doesn't feel like it."
Valey took a deep breath... and suddenly grinned. "There we go. Now I know how to put this. You wanna know this really works?"
Starlight tilted her head in confusion.
"When you're really cool," Valey said, taking her by the shoulders. "And you know you're really cool, and you're strong and can flatten most of the problems that come your way, and you know it, you have no problem inviting those problems in. Sure, you know they'll come, but you also know you can usually flex on them. And so you can do whatever you want, be satisfied, enjoy your coolness, and still have enough emotional brain space left for the really big stuff, the problems even you aren't cool enough to flatten, where you actually have to watch out and be smart and safe. Like how I can kick tail in a fight, but still have to pay attention and not do something dumb like get ran over by a carriage."
Starlight winced. "But if you're just doing whatever you want without thinking-"
"Hold on. Let me finish." Valey stopped her with a wing. "There's also the case where you don't feel very cool. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, it feels like it could completely flatten you. You know it'll happen, you can't deal with it, and your only hope is to stay on top of it and stop every last little thing before it starts. And you fail over and over, because that's ridiculous and the bad kind of impossible, and each time you fail you feel even less cool, because everyone always says prevention is easier than cure and if you can't even prevent a problem, bananas, how can you solve it? And because you feel uncool, you try too hard and it makes you feel even less cool, and it keeps on spiraling and even if you were actually very cool and the greatest problem-solver, all you ever see when you look at what you've done are problems you failed to prevent. And your achievements feel like failures and it's gross and stuff. How's that?"
Starlight stared. "But..."
"You," Valey insisted, "are amazing at fixing stuff that goes wrong. From what Amber told me, you fix stuff even Princess Celestia said was impossible. And you wanna know what I think this spooky twin whose name I'm not allowed to know is really on about?" She raised an eyebrow. "If you keep running yourself dry sweating the stuff you could handle in a heartbeat if it did go wrong, you really won't have the energy left to watch for or deal with the really big stuff. And maybe you'll try so hard and so long to be good for no relief or reward that you'll just get sick of it and decide it's not worth it, and that's where you'll go wrong."
"You're making all this up on the spot," Starlight mumbled.
Valey awkwardly shrugged. "Okay, so yeah, maybe I'm just guessing. I'm a little out of my element, but I'm still doing the best I-"
Starlight hugged her hard. "Thanks for trying."
Valey gave a cautious smile. "Is that a 'Thanks, but you can stop wasting your time now' thanks, or...?"
"No," Starlight sniffled. "Thank you."
Valey patted her on the head, unsure where to go next.
"I don't get it," Starlight continued. "But I can tell you mean it and you care."
"Heh." Valey sat back, careful not to squish the filly. "Well, I guess I can try to repeat myself? It's just a matter of perspective. Problems happen, and we deal with them. If you focus on how you solved it, you feel good about yourself. If you focus on how you didn't stop it from happening in the first place, you feel bad about it. And where you really want to be is feeling good enough about yourself that you don't even need to worry about stuff you know you're cool enough to solve. It's a whole lot easier to think about the big stuff when you don't have to paralyze yourself with handling everything."
"But isn't that what I'm doing already?" Starlight whispered. "I'm not worried about small things. I'm worried that I'll do something really bad."
"And I'm telling you." Valey patted her head again. "Do you want to blow up the world and turn it to ash? Because as long as you don't, I'm pretty sure your friends will watch your back and warn you if you start down the wrong path. What I think is far more likely is that if you don't take care of yourself and take a load off, you'll get stretched thinner and thinner until you just can't care anymore and snap, because caring is just too hard. And then, once you've stopped caring whether or not you do stuff like that? That's when you'll do it."
Starlight's mouth scrunched in a pained frown.
"You gotta relax. You gotta care less. And you gotta be able to tell what stuff you can afford to care less about, and what's really important." Valey met her eyes. "Even ponies as cool as us are still ponies. There are things we just can't carry, and everything is one of them."
"And how did you do it?" Starlight asked. "How did you decide what not to care about?"
Valey shrugged. "I died. And got a second lease on life... or third, depending on how you count Icereach, or even a fourth, since I was practically a new mare after Ironridge, but still. When you're suddenly hale and hearty and it feels like a second ago you were thinking about all the things you'd never get to do with your life and how all your friends were gonna follow you, and then a second later you're stomping weird monsters and saving your friends, it's enough of a kick to re-evaluate what you're doing with yourself."
"And what do you care about now?" Starlight whispered.
"Me?" Valey gave a daring grin. "Myself, for one. I have a life, and I kinda enjoy that. My friends, for two. I've got you and Sparky and Ironflanks and Amber and even clowns like Birdo to thank for being where I am, and bananas if I'm not gonna repay the favor. What's just as important is all the stuff I don't care about. Top of the list? Random people. No, I'm not going to be evil and do scary stuff to them, but I'd kill myself if I tried to look out for each and every last one of them. Not saying I'm not gonna help them if I'm needed and the opportunity is there, but if they're in my face and asking for it, I'll offend them and then laugh about it afterwards."
Starlight momentarily struggled. "But the ponies who live in it are what make up the world."
"So?" Valey brushed her mane aside. "Don't kill them, don't enslave them, don't steal their souls. Easy peasy. Don't worry about anything more."
Starlight sighed. "Or doing whatever I saw in my visions?"
Valey's grin wrinkled wryly. "Yeah, don't do that either. But I think you know what that looks like. Seriously, if you already know what's coming, the only way you'll ever do it is if you change your mind about not wanting to. Don't you get it? This isn't something fate will twist your hoof into doing. It's something where you get hurt enough that you just stop caring about exactly the wrong thing. And as long as I'm around, I won't let you reach that point."
Starlight shuddered and leaned against her. "Thank you..."
"Any time." Valey winked. "But especially when you need it."
Starlight had nothing more to say.
"So," Valey said after a long silence. "How about all the other stuff on your mind?"
"Huh?" Starlight blinked and looked up.
"You got more you need to talk about?" Valey gently prodded. "If you're tired now, I get it. But all we talked about was weird visions and being afraid of yourself, and something tells me you didn't have another one right there in the archives. I doubt that's what Gazelle was up to, either. You got anything more on your little chest?"
Starlight swallowed. "Oh. That." She took a breath, the words feeling sticky in her mouth after talking so fast about her worries earlier. "I... found out I might have come from the moon glass comet too. Like you."
Valey stared for a moment... and broke into a wide grin. "Well, it's about time we found something like that. That explains a lot."
"It does?" Starlight blinked hard, too surprised by the reaction to remember that she didn't want this to make sense or be true. "But I thought you thought being from the meteor was-"
"Don't even start," Valey sharply warned. "I dunno why that rock fell and I don't need to know, but I do know it could have been good and it could have been bad, and either way it doesn't tell me anything about how to live my life. And next time you even think about thinking that, I'm gonna brag about being from space and how cool it is. Savvy?" She raised an eyebrow, and then her expression reset. "Ahem. I mean. Yeah, it explains a lot! And now I'm not even the only one?" Her grin was back in force, and she sighed happily. "I wanna hear about this. Don't skimp on details. What did you find?"
Starlight stared at her, nonplussed. The batpony couldn't actually be this happy about something that had bothered her so heavily merely a month ago... "You're making it sound good to make me feel better."
Valey shushed her with a hoof to the lips. "You're making it sound good by giving me a reason to legitimately think this is cool. Get to the bean-spilling."
"Eylista, huh?" Valey rubbed the top of her head. "Gonna be honest, not ringing any bells. Not even anything like I feel I maybe should remember it, but don't. Just sounds like a weird word."
"I don't know what it means either," Starlight said, holding still. "It's just what something called me when I was inside the moon glass looking for you. And it was written on part of the meteor that someone put back together that fell near my old home."
Valey stared into the distance in thought, the moon much higher than when they had started.
"My old parents told me I was adopted when I was very little," Starlight continued. "I never knew who my real mother and father were. Maybe they didn't exist at all."
"Eh. Having biological parents is overrated." Valey shrugged. "Actually, I wouldn't know, but that just means I'm right there with ya. If Nyala and me had parents back in Icereach, she never mentioned them."
"You could ask her," Starlight suggested.
Valey exhaled. "I could... but if they weren't around, what are the odds it's a happy story? It wouldn't really matter to me, but she's been pretty quiet ever since... uhh... I dunno what she was like while I was gone, but definitely since I've been back. I want her to enjoy herself too."
"Everyone was quiet while you were gone," Starlight answered. "We just existed. A lot."
"Just existed, huh?" Valey leaned back. "Well, I know for a fact some of you picked up the slack, or you wouldn't even have existed after a while. Can't blame you, though. You had that stuff with being super strong on your mind thanks to saving everyone from Crystal, and were grayed out too, weren't you?"
"The Nightmare Modules?" Starlight looked away. "I was. I think it helped make it hurt less, but I don't know. It definitely didn't feel like I could do anything but exist."
Valey pursed her lips. "Mind magic is bad for you, kiddo. I dunno what it's like to have those things in your head, but we both saw what they did to Chauncey, right?"
Starlight sighed. "My head feels messed up enough already without magic."
"You ever wish you could just blame your problems on magic anyway?" Valey asked. "Being from space? Something tampering with your head? Bananas... Right before we left, I was almost wondering if our ship itself was cursed to make us feel worse. But it doesn't matter, because even if there was some circumstance like that and we could beat up something evil and make it leave us alone, we'd still have to live with everything. You'd still have to deal with being so strong that mistakes could have consequences. Even if there was some external problem we could solve, we'd still have to deal with ourselves. Because being scared of stuff like that...? It sounds like something that could happen to anyone."
Starlight lifted her eyes.
"I met a girl," Valey went on. "Today, one of the students. She cared real hard about some stuff that's ridiculously silly, and I honestly might have laughed at it just a little. You were there. And she was as normal as ponies get. She still cared. We're gonna have problems like this no matter who we are."
"Where are you going with this?" Starlight asked.
"...Beats me." Valey sat back down. "It's something I've thought from time to time. I'll get to thinking about my problems like they're things I can punch, because that's what I'm best at. Hey, Valey, what if this friend who betrayed you and is trying to make it up, or this other friend who loves you but tells you to be something you're afraid of, or whatever other stuff you don't know how to deal with could just be fixed with a whack pow kaboom? I get to daydreaming about a better life and it just goes nowhere. I dunno, I'm just trying to be relatable."
Starlight hesitated. "But you think there really is magic involved in how I feel. The Nightmare Modules."
Valey lifted a hoof and found herself with nothing to say. "I... Uh... yeah. I..." She fumbled for words for a moment.
"I think I get it," Starlight cut her off. "You want me to know it's important not to have things messing with me, but not to think that fixing those things will make everything better."
Valey grinned in relief. "There, see? You get it." She paused. "Do you ever do that thing and wish you could blame all your problems on magic?"
"No," Starlight said. "Not really. It happens too often. Remember how bad Maple was feeling in the Earth District until we found out it was because she was carrying a windigo heart in her cutie mark?"
"Say wha...?" Valey blinked slowly.
"Didn't you hear about that?" Starlight asked, tilting her head. "We talked about it when we were all sharing stories in Riverfall."
Valey slowly paled. "Bananas, I knew it... Ugh...!"
"What?" Starlight sat up and leaned closer in concern. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah... Just feeling dumb." Valey groaned and leaned back. "Ever since we learned how windigo hearts can act as harmony batteries for Sparky's ship, I literally forgot all about all the bad stuff I knew they could do from Icereach. I even told you about this, didn't I? All the rumors that they could make ponies fight over keeping them?"
Starlight stared, a hint of a memory of tunnels in the Flame District surfacing in her mind that had long been buried beneath memories of frantic escapes, falling dams, blindness and live windigoes. "You did..."
"And we even got a reminder from Hemlock," Valey continued. "Amber told us she found out one of the hearts from the windigoes you killed fell in the river and washed down to Riverfall where he picked it up, remember? Who knows whatever else they could do to ponies around them, because he was crazy, but we've just been keeping a pile of those things on our ship. And I doubt anyone looked twice at them."
Starlight's ears slowly fell.
"Yep." Valey slumped.
"You think the windigo hearts we've been using for power haven't been good for us?" Starlight asked, leaving nothing off the table.
"Bananas, girl, literally the day before we got on that submarine I was scratching my head wondering how a group of upstanding guards who would give their lives to defend foreign strangers transformed into petty clowns who would strand us all to spite some griffon and then cried about their misconduct afterward." Valey threw up her forehooves in exasperation and flopped flat on her back. "We've got problems. Everyone on our crew has big ones, except maybe Birdo because he doesn't care where he goes next. But how much do you wanna bet we've been stabbing ourselves in the hooves anyway?"
Starlight swallowed.
"It makes too much sense!" Valey complained. "Have you noticed how much happier everyone is since we got here? I mean, I know we haven't had evil leaders or goons breathing down our backs, and it's cozy and we're well-taken care of, but still."
Starlight's eyes shadowed. "So once the ship gets here, we can find the hearts and throw them in the sea, since it's not like it will be flying again soon anyway. And then we feel good about ourselves for solving the problem, right? Instead of feeling less cool because we didn't stop it from happening in the first place?" Her voice carried a hint of challenge to it.
Valey froze mid-complaint, still laying on her back. Slowly, she grinned, only the side of her muzzle visible from Starlight's angle. "You're good."
Starlight blinked in confusion.
"Lemme tell you a secret," Valey said, reaching a hoof and trying to find her without looking down. "I? Am one of the biggest messes on the crew. I'm convinced that right now, I'm just caught in a happy spiral or something, where I don't care and that makes me do dumb stuff which makes me happy which makes me do more dumb stuff, or something. For all I know I'm clinging desperately to the good times while they last, enjoying them as hard as I can, and in months or weeks or even tomorrow it'll be right back to the emotional grindstone for me. But if you can gently poke some sense into me when I do silly stuff like that, then I can watch your back, too. Sound fair and square?"
Starlight crawled up beside her and met her hoof. "You already have been," she sighed. "Thank you for talking with me."
"Feeling better?" Valey guessed, flat on her back and staring at the sky as she aimlessly rubbed one of Starlight's ears.
"Less alone," Starlight replied. "...So what do we do about the windigo hearts?"
Valey shrugged. "Leave them on the ship at a dock somewhere, for now. Let our friends come hang out on this sweet island with us. See how they do. And if things are looking up for them too, we sit back, see that our friends are happy and there's nothing we need to do, and feel fantastic."
Starlight sniffled.
"You need to smile more," Valey remarked. "Someday, I wanna see your smile."
"Probably..."
Valey shrugged, letting it drop. "So. Being space sisters, or whatever you wanna call it. I think we got a little distracted..."
"What else is there to talk about?" Starlight asked. "I saw it written on a piece of the meteor."
Valey chewed her lip. "You... feeling up to telling me anything more about what happened when you were finding me? It's sounded like that was a big nail in the coffin with how you're feeling lately, and you haven't been super talkative about it."
"Everyone was reliving their memories," Starlight murmured, her voice darkening. "Their strongest ones, ones they still had even without their bodies. I saw ponies getting married. I saw Navarre the day he got his grant to go to Icereach. I saw Senescey with her sisters on the day their mother died. I saw Gwendolyn on the day she met me. I saw Chrysalis getting chased by Gazelle and her stepfather, and she killed them each and every time they appeared. And it was raining ash like in my visions, because my strongest memory is of the time a vision told me I was going to destroy the world. That was when I couldn't hide from it anymore."
"Bananas, that's rough." Valey stared at the sky. "And, uh... What was I doing? Did it tell you anything about who I was before...?" She swallowed and stopped. "Nah. Forget it. If it did, it's not important."
"I don't know," Starlight truthfully said. "I didn't find you reliving a memory. I found you in a machine that existed because Chrysalis wanted it to. I think. I don't remember how it worked, but you weren't stuck in a loop. You couldn't remember this world like me and her, but your memories of that place didn't reset every few minutes."
"Weird," Valey whispered. "That's real weird."
Starlight shrugged. "That's what I have to say about it."
"Well." Valey swished her tail. "What I've got to say, just so you don't forget, is that this is cool. If you do have a weird history with moon glass, it means you're not alone, and think about how I feel. Being... this... has been so isolating, I lived my entire life in Ironridge with no closeness to anyone. I spend a million years with you and all the rest of our friends trying to get over that, and just now, when my life is already looking up and I'm feeling good for a change? You stroll up and tell me I'm not the only one of my kind. Bananas, I can't even tell you how many... You know what?" She sat up. "Forget it. This says it better instead."
Valey buried Starlight in a crushing hug, just managing to keep it loose enough for Starlight to breathe. "I love you, kiddo," Valey mumbled around her. "And I'll always have your back. Don't you forget it."
"You think this is that much of a good thing?" Starlight sniffed.
"It is to me," Valey promised, slackening off. "I'm still no longer convinced this meteor is even bad, but even if it is, it means we get to deal with that together. But it's not gonna come to that."
"Do you want to learn more about it?" Starlight asked.
Valey blinked and frowned. "Wha...?"
"Do you?" Starlight pressed. "You keep changing your mind. One minute you say you're happy not knowing and the next you say we face whatever comes together. Do you want to know more about us and this meteor?"
Valey sat back again with a thunk. "I literally dunno. Maybe it's smart. Maybe it isn't. I've got some living to do, personally. Do you want to?"
"I don't know either," Starlight sighed. "Everyone who really knows things keeps telling me I'll be happier if I stop being curious and I stop learning about how the world works. But even when I try to do that, I do things like find meteors in museums and get scared and panic. And the more I know, the closer I am to becoming the thing I saw in the altar." Her mind flickered back to the visage of her light-strewn self, with butterfly wings made of glowing, turning runic ribbons of energy. "The time where I need to stop, or let the visions come true. But you say if I'm feeling better, it'll be okay, because the danger is if I just stop caring. So maybe if we tried to find out on our own terms...?"
Valey pursed her lips and nodded. "Sounds like you've got a plan you're considering?"
Starlight nodded back. "There was a name on the meteor display. It said someone called Doctor Caballeron donated it. If he put it together, maybe he would have done research into what it means. I don't know where in the world he'd be, but if that other doctor remembers where he got this..."
"Oh!" Valey's eyes suddenly sparked with understanding. "No, we're actually in luck. I think that Sea Star chick mentioned he works here! And that they might have wanted to talk to me anyway..." She slowly regarded Starlight. "Honest question, here. You wanna come with? We can go looking for them tomorrow. But they're expecting only me, so if you didn't want to stick your neck out..."
"I'm coming," Starlight firmly said.
"Cool." Valey lightly punched her shoulder. "Sounds like we've got a plan."
Above, the moon had moved even further through the sky.
Valey yawned. "I bet Maple's asleep by now. Who knows about Felicity? How are you feeling?"
Starlight hesitated, feeling both exhausted and not all that tired after her recent ordeal. "I don't know. Could we talk about one more thing before we go back?"
"Sure, kiddo. What's on your mind?" Valey nyup-nyupped, rearranging herself to keep listening.
Starlight took a breath. "I don't know what happened to me when I got scared and ran."
Valey narrowed her eyes in concern. "Well, I heard someone found you passed out, and came as fast as I could. And then Gazelle was doing something."
"I felt bad," Starlight admitted, shivering at the memory. "Really bad. It was like I was thinking, and the harder I thought, it made me think even harder, and I couldn't stop. It was like I was too scared to move."
Valey wrinkled her nose. "But you're at least sort of composed now, right?"
Starlight nodded. "Gazelle did something, and I didn't see what. But it felt like my thoughts and feelings all drained away."
"What?" Valey's voice had an edge to it.
Starlight met her eyes hesitantly. "I don't know. It didn't feel good at all. But it also helped. I was able to think and move around and defend myself without getting paralyzed by what I was thinking about. Even though it still doesn't feel very good to think about..."
"And did he explain himself?" Valey pressed. "Did he say what he did?"
"I don't know," Starlight insisted. "He didn't sound sane. He kept changing how he was talking, but I think he thought I was his sister. He said he did something on purpose."
Valey slowly exhaled. "You think he used magic on you?"
"Yes," Starlight said. "He had to."
"Alright." Valey sat up. "I'm going to have to ask a professional on that. Maybe get her to take a look at you, because that sounds serious. And fortunately and unfortunately, our friendly local professional is both in the house, thinks she owes me a gigantic favor, and I kinda owe her a big talk myself before I accept any more favors from her. You think you'll be alright if we head back and I chat her up about you in the morning?"
Starlight slowly nodded. "If I don't freak out and get paralyzed again."
Valey paused, then sighed. "You're scared of feeling the way you felt back there?"
"Yes," Starlight whispered. "I don't even know why it happened. All I did was see a silly meteor. So what if I'm not a normal pony and came from space? I already knew I wasn't normal, and you came from moon glass and were good. Maybe getting startled is normal, but I shouldn't have freaked out like that! What happens if it happens again and I can't move when I need to protect my friends?"
Valey took a breath. "Yeah, we can work on that. I'm probably gonna have to ask Felicity too, because I don't know how to answer that. But you know what I do know?" She grabbed Starlight's shoulders, forcing her to meet her eyes. "You were the kid who was blind and magicless and went in to fight Herman when it was just the two of us and I wanted to bail. You had no power whatsoever and were still the first to take action, and I wouldn't have messed him up if it wasn't for you. You were also the kid who made Crystal shove off, when any other kid in existence would have been wailing and hiding in terror if there was an evil monster murdering their friends like a lawnmower. Bananas, most adults would have done that. I don't know why you passed out, but I do know it isn't like you, and when you need to, you can always rely on yourself to come through in a pinch."
"...I'll try." Starlight swallowed and nodded.
"Doesn't mean I'm not gonna try and get you help," Valey promised. "Just hang on and get a good night's sleep tonight. And hey, this school has to have someone who knows a thing or two about feelings and can help you more than I can as well. We can do this, okay? Just don't worry and let me handle things just for tonight."
"Okay," Starlight murmured.
"Good." Valey stood up fully. "Now... I've got some planning to do. Gonna have a busy day tomorrow, I think. And if I can, I'm gonna get you to come with me while we go screw around with some students, just to have fun and let off steam. If I take you back to our friends, you think you'll be good to sleep?"
Starlight closed her eyes. "Thank you..."
"Heh." Valey smiled fondly at her, scooping her onto her back. "Hey, forget saving lives, you brought me back from the dead. I'm just trying to show you what that means to me."
Valey entered the Laughter dormitories by shadow sneaking through a window, in a maneuver she was certain countless batponies had performed throughout the ages. She had scouted this place out when she was here before, and knew herself to be entering the first and second-year mares' dorm: the currently empty floor where Maple and Felicity had been offered spare beds.
It didn't take long at all to find her friends, Maple resting carefully with respect for her ribs and Felicity swaddled in the least-dainty, most-comfortable pile of blankets and pillows she had ever seen. Taking care not to make the floor creak with her hoofsteps, she alighted beside Maple's bed.
"Still awake, Ironflanks?" Valey whispered.
She was greeted by a sleepy snuffle. Maple looked vaguely worried by her dream.
"Guess not. Last stop, kiddo." Valey set Starlight down and patted her. "Be real careful, but... I bet you'd both feel real good waking up next to each other in the morning."
Starlight gingerly climbed in, knowing exactly how to move without disturbing the bed. She avoided Maple's barrel, laying near her forelegs instead, and Maple's frown slowly turned to a smile as she noticed the filly in her sleep.
"...Heh," Valey whispered, staring at the scene with a tiny, residual tear.
Valey faded into the shadows, but stayed there, standing and watching. It wasn't hard to tell when Starlight was sleeping. The filly's tension drained as well, her shoulders visibly flatter as her muscles relaxed. Hopefully she didn't have nightmares, but there was nothing more Valey could do.
After half an hour, once she was sure Starlight was sound asleep, Valey finally budged. She took the long way, silent as a ghost, pacing past both mares' beds a number of times, making sure the thoughts of her conversation with Starlight were put firmly on hold in her mind. For this, she'd need her focus.
Eventually, she stopped at Felicity's bed. The older batpony slumbered, looking utterly and blissfully content on the surface, but as Valey stood there, little things began to stand out, like the way the two pillows she had chosen to hug against herself were yellow and blue...
She stirred and shifted herself, hugging her pillows tighter. She tried to roll over, but was too heavily-tucked to budge. But something was wrong with her bed, and the disturbance grew, until she blearily cracked an eye...
"Hey, girl," Valey whispered, laying inches from her in her bed, head propped seductively on a hoof.
"Eeep!" Felicity squeaked, though Valey silenced it with a wingtip. "O-Oh my, did I sneak, I'm so sorry, I-"
"Shh," Valey whispered. "It's like one in the morning. And I figured if I was going to wake you, I'd do it in a way you'd appreciate."
She fluttered her eyelashes and shifted herself against Felicity's blanket stack. "So?"
Felicity stared, panting slightly from shock. "M-My heart is going a mile a minute, darling, please don't... One in the morning?"
Valey bit her lip. "Yeah. On a scale of ten to ten, how bad of a time is this for a real important talk, and can I make it up to you by letting you cuddle me? You looked lonely."
"Well, it's not like I'm getting back to sleep immediately now," Felicity whispered back, her face visibly red even in the darkness. "But Maple should be sleeping, and I really don't feel up to moving around."
Valey smirked. "What if I carry you, and told you I found a heat control on those magical fireplaces in the lobby? Come on..." She pressed closer. "I really mean it."
"...Very well. I shan't deny you," Felicity breathed. "Or whatever track you've gotten your mind on. But I'm warning you, I'm half asleep."
Valey winked. "I got this." With only two deft movements, she rose and pried the top off Felicity's blanket stack, exposing the mare to mere room temperature, and carefully hoisted Felicity onto her back.
"Watch the belly, darling!" Felicity hissed as Valey tried to use her rump to prop up her abdomen.
"Oh. Right. Sorry." Valey shifted her to the side, bracing her with a wing instead, and after a short walk they were met by the glow of the lobby's fires. Valey made a beeline for the nearer of the two, a few pillows and blankets dragged lopsidedly by her spare wing, and soon she had set Felicity down again on the closest couch to the fire. "There. Cozy?"
Felicity slumped into the couch and brushed herself off. "Well, I was cozier. Darling, what is the meaning of this?"
"I've got a friend who needs your help," Valey began.
Felicity raised an eyebrow, Valey standing between her and the illusory flames. "And doing so involves waking me from a very deluxe slumber? I don't see anyone else here..."
"No," Valey said, sitting down beside her. "Doing so involves us trusting each other, and that involves me apologizing because the last time we had a talk about what your future was with the crew, I didn't know what you'd been doing for the last few weeks and you were actually humble and didn't advocate for yourself. And I learned that from some others, and have been watching a while to see for myself and waiting for a good place to say it, so here it is: I'm sorry. You saved my friends, and I put you on thin ice anyway. I owe you a whole, whole lot, so at the very least, we're even now. Thank you."
Felicity blearily blinked, though much more awake than she had been before. "Darling, I might be a bit foggy and in need of a repetition, just to ensure I'm not hearing things..."
Valey leaned in and hugged her around the shoulders. "How's this, then?"
"I-I..." Felicity reddened.
"Come on," Valey insisted, still hugging. "It's the middle of the night by a cozy fire, I know you're lonely, Amber told me all about how much you like physical attention, and you even told me you liked me way back when. I needed a good short-notice apology gift, so here's what you've always wanted. Friends?"
She grabbed Valey with a high-pitched happy squeal, pressing Valey's face into her chest fluff and giggling.
"Wow. Heh." Valey dragged the blankets she had brought up and around them with her free wing. "I figured it would be harder to get you past your inhibitions or self-consciousness. So, apology accepted?"
Felicity tried to silence her with more fluff, shifting the blankets around herself as well. "Quiet, darling. Don't take this from me. And in my defense I'm half asleep."
"Yeah, yeah." Valey leaned against her. "I'm not going anywhere. You've got all night. But I do want this to mean things are even between us. So could we talk? You've been going on and on about how cushy this place is, but saying nothing about personal stuff. I know you've got some ghosts that have followed you, and if I'm gonna be trusting you to help my friends, you gotta trust me to help you in return."
"How do you mean?" Felicity whispered.
"I don't wanna rub anything in your face if it isn't currently on your mind," Valey insisted. "But are you really doing perfect?"
Felicity sighed. "Why, darling? I'm very sorry, but my mind is currently in other places, including bed. If you're telling me we're even and want to sleep at my side by the fire, I'll take it and wait to question things until the morning."
"Yeah, but..." Valey protested.
A spot where Felicity's hoof was touching Valey faintly tingled, and Felicity frowned. "Ah. I see. You're the one who's worked up, and came to me for..." She glanced down at them. "I'm glad to know I'm your first pick for when you're feeling intensely about something on your mind. What's wrong, darling?"
"No, I... But..." Valey protested. "Bananas. Right. The whole reason I wanted to ask you is because you can do that." She sighed. "Yeah, I've had a really intense last few hours."
"Well." Felicity genuinely smiled. "I can tell you're serious about trusting me, then. Does that mean I've... really done enough?"
"Girl?" Valey stared at the fire. "You were a doctor on call when all my friends were dying of injuries from Crystal, even though you're not really in shape to be working yourself. Maybe kept all of them alive, definitely kept them healthier, absolutely didn't have to, probably put them in a better place to bring me back too... Yes. You've done just as much for them as me or Shinespark or Starlight or the other members of our team, and you did it when no you owed no one anything."
"Even Howe and Neon Nova helped," Felicity gently pointed out.
"And if they had apologized and felt sincerely about it instead of running off, I might have listened if they asked for a second chance too," Valey insisted. "Although guarding the pantry and rationing food when you're perfectly fit and able is way less impressive than tending injuries and even going scouting when you can barely fly."
Felicity closed her eyes and sighed. "I won't lie, that may have been the last time I'll fly until my passenger finishes their little stay."
Valey's eyes shifted toward Felicity's stomach. "How's that going? I remember it was a bit of a sore spot."
Felicity lifted an edge of the blanket, showing a noticeable rounding of her fur. "A month past the point where I could still pretend to have my old figure. It's... inconvenient. For many reasons."
"Yeah, I'll bet." Valey leaned against her. "But if we can make it easier, we'll take care of you back. I told you over and over, you and me are good now."
Felicity sniffled slightly. "You do seem fond of repeating it."
"I want it to sink in." Valey shrugged.
"Then you'll tell me what was on your mind enough to drive you to start this talk?" Felicity asked hopefully.
"Starlight," Valey replied. "What did you think."
Felicity sighed. "I suppose that's logical. What do I have to do with it?"
"She's feeling messed up," Valey continued. "Freaked out earlier and doesn't even get why. Hard enough that she apparently fainted on a road and couldn't move. I just spent the last few hours talking with her, and she's scared of herself and a whole bunch of other bad stuff. Wouldn't be surprised if she's missing her parents, too."
"Right..." Felicity nodded. "And what are you hoping I'd do?"
Valey shrugged again. "I dunno. You're good at this, right? Emotional problems? You've got your cutie mark, your monk arts..."
Felicity bit her lip. "Usually what I'm good at is putting on a charade or getting what I want by making creatures feel worse about themselves, darling. Often with consequences." She glanced again at her belly. "But I can at least try. If she's feeling something she doesn't recognize and I do, I could tell, if that would help?"
"Maybe?" Valey tilted her head in thought. "I dunno what I'm looking for. Just an expert, I guess." She blinked. "Oh, and Starlight also says Gazelle did some weird emotion magic on her."
Felicity's breathing quieted. "Well, that's a lot more serious, then. And perhaps up my alley."
"You think you need to check her for anything tonight?" Valey raised a worried eyebrow.
"Oh, no, I doubt it." Felicity snuggled back into Valey's shoulder. "Not and waste an opportunity like this. But really, the whole point of this type of trickery is to get others to do what you want, so she'll be perfectly fine throughout the night."
"Heh..." Valey chuckled, a wing around Felicity's back. "I knew this would be the right apology gift."
"I'm saddened to hear you say it's transient, but I don't know what else to expect," Felicity replied. "But I also know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. As long as you're offering... I'm going to make the most of the time we have!"
She almost pushed Valey over, snuggling harder. "Oh, really?" Valey asked, letting it happen and raising an interested eyebrow.
Felicity crawled halfway on top of her, using Valey as a pillow. "Not like I'm going to get many other opportunities, with my figure in the shape that it is. Until you say otherwise, yes, I am."
"Huh. I could use this..." Valey grinned. "Next time I need to annoy Sparky, kill this entire house with jealousy, and butter you up for a personal question, all I need is to offer to hug you?"
Felicity pursed her lips in warning. "If you want to have a real talk about personal things, I'm afraid you're going to have to add not accosting me in the middle of the night to that list. My head is still cloudy, I'm... I'm afraid..." She yawned, showing her teeth.
"Alright. I get it." Valey lay back contentedly beneath the weight of Felicity and the blankets. "You're real easy to please, you know that?"
"It's not like I don't go out of my way to make the method obvious..."
"Heh," Valey chuckled. "Well, I'm glad we're friends now. Let's worry about Starlight in the morning, and say I owe you another talk and another cuddle later. At a better time. Deal?"
Felicity rolled her eyes. "Owe me one? Darling, I'm still going to feel indebted to you for quite a while. I'm just not above taking gifts when I'm offered them."
"No, not for anything in the past," Valey insisted. "Because if we're gonna be friends, then I need to get to know you just like everyone else. And it sounds like this is the best way to get you to open up."
"I told you, darling, I..." Felicity yawned harder. "The more important thing is timing; I've never hidden anything from... from you..."
"I feel like you're sabotaging yourself, here." Valey grinned and poked her. "Come on, I'm offering you stuff you want!"
"Oh, shut up and be a better pillow..."
Hours later, Starlight's eyes flew open. She was in a bed, and Maple was nearby. She knew that breathing anywhere. She had talked to Valey, remembered dregs of her earlier ordeal. That was over, right? So why did she have a creeping sensation that something was urgently wrong?
Starlight sat upright and still, listening as hard as she could. Something had to have woken her, but all she could hear was her own heartbeat. What had put her on edge? She had been dreaming, and it hadn't been good, but hardly a nightmare either. It was the middle of the night...
Minutes ticked by, and then she heard it: a distant moan of pain, carrying through from the open door to the lounge room.
Starlight rolled to her hooves and stepped urgently to the door, taking care to mask her hoofsteps and not light her horn. More because she was scared than because she had anything to hide from, she peeked around the door.
There was a bundle of blankets on one of the couches by the fires. Starlight quickly tip-hooved over, ears on high alert, until she drew close enough to see... "Valey?"
"Bananas, what's goin' on...?" Valey mumbled, scrubbing blearily at her closed eyes, so tangled up with a snoring Felicity that Starlight would have stopped and stared if something hadn't been wrong.
"Why are you out here?" Starlight whispered. "Did you hear that? And was it-"
A loud crash of falling objects sounded from the open door to Doctor Lost's office.
"What the-?" Valey sat upright sharply, dislodging Felicity and causing her to shift and groan unhappily. "Is that dude up cataloging stuff in the middle of the night?"
"I don't like this," Starlight said, fur standing on end. "You said you have my back, right? Let's go see what that was."
Valey trailed her blearily, but followed Starlight's lead and moved stealthily even being half-asleep. They paused at the entrance. "His archive is open," Valey whispered, peering in. "He definitely closed it yesterday."
Again, Starlight took the lead, moving cautiously to the entrance to the inner archive. "...Hello?" she called hesitantly. "Are you alright?"
There was a swift rustle from within, and Starlight thought she saw a shadow move on the edge of her vision. She instantly lit her horn, bathing the area in bright midnight blue. A few hanging banners and charts waved, as if there had recently been a breeze.
"Not getting danger. It's alright," Valey muttered to her, stepping up and into the archives. "Hey! We heard a crash! Everything alright in here!?"
No response. Starlight followed along, this time letting Valey lead, the shadows shifting around her as the light moved with her perspective. She was the light source, and the shadows always seemed to move to hide between her and whatever was casting them... which made sense, but didn't do anything to calm her nerves.
Valey sniffed, frowned, and turned a corner, and then another. Suddenly, Starlight stopped, bumping into Valey's outspread wing.
"Careful," Valey warned. "Broken glass on the floor."
Starlight stared, her hornlight reflecting off tiny, jagged edges littering the floor. She didn't want to get any of those stuck in her hooves. There were also traces of blood on the floor from someone who hadn't been so fortunate.
Valey leaned down. "Fresh. Is this a shattered display case?"
Starlight's breath caught in her throat, and she lifted her head, having a bad feeling she knew exactly which display case had been broken... but her fears were entirely unfounded. It wasn't the Eylista meteor, just a collection of ancient books that were all askew, like someone had broken in to read them, then left in a hurry.
"What's going on in here?" a mare's voice called from the entrance.
Valey's ears perked, and she stood up. "Who's there? We heard some crashing and came to check it out, but I don't see anyone here."
A beam of light shone through the stacks and aisles of shelves first, and then the pony casting it came into view: Lavender Curtain, a flashlight held under one wing and a nightcap tucked over her mane.
Lavender's eyes slowly narrowed at the scene. "Is this what it looks like?"
"I dunno," Valey grumbled, blearily shielding her eyes from the direct ray of the flashlight. "Did you see anyone come in or out of here? There's a lot of broken glass, someone had to have done-"
Lavender sighed, giving her an impatient, exasperated look. "Is this what it looks like?"
Valey blinked in slow realization.
"No," Starlight firmly protested, stepping in front of her. "We heard something and came to investigate. There was a crash, and earlier I heard someone in pain. None of us are bleeding. See?"
"Show me your hooves," Lavender said lazily, sounding as if she was trying too hard not to be upset. "All of them."
Starlight sat down and held all four hooves out, nudging Valey to follow suit. Lavender came closer, inspecting them with her flashlight, then looked at the shattered case and the bloodstains where someone had stepped with a pierced hoof. "...Alright," she finally said. "Either you didn't do it, or you spent too much effort planning this."
Valey stared at her for a moment, then narrowed her eyes, now fully awake. Finally, she sat back with a sigh. "Bananas. For a moment you had me worried you set us up to get us kicked off the island after yesterday afternoon."
"Don't stop worrying," Lavender said, turning around and heading back out. "This office hasn't been vandalized in all the years I've been here, and it's not a coincidence it happens the night you arrive. Either one of your other friends did it, or someone else did set you up. I'm not a pony who would do that, but I don't like you enough to defend you, either. I'm going to wake Doctor Lost."
Starlight and Valey turned to stare at each other. "Well," Valey groaned, "bananas."
"Darling," Felicity said unhappily from the couch, "this really isn't what I wanted to wake up to... or when I wanted to do it."
"Sorry, girl." Valey smiled apologetically, offering a tense hoof to help her up. "But someone sacked the professor's office at three in the morning, and we gotta do damage control. If this gets escalated to those guards, our cushy vacation here is toast."
Felicity paled and hugged a pillow. "Suddenly, I'm feeling faint..."
"Well, alright then." Valey straightened back up. "I guess Starlight and I will take this. Starlight? You good?"
"No," Starlight deadpanned. "Someone broke into that office. Of course I'm not good. But I'm definitely going to help."
"Yeah." Valey stretched anxiously. "I really don't wanna get on the bad sides of those guards..."
Starlight shook her head. "They said they'd already contacted Princess Celestia. Even if they want to get rid of us, she'll still come here and you can talk to her or something. Aren't you more worried about what someone could do with anything they stole from a room of old, unknown magic artifacts?"
Valey rubbed her forehead. "Now that you put it that way, I'm not exactly reassured..."
"Blood pressure rising, darlings," Felicity warned. "I suppose this sad, sleepless sarosian will have to help you get this over with anyway..."
Suddenly, the entry door opened, and Lavender reappeared, followed by a very intense-looking Doctor Lost. He clearly hadn't been freshly awakened, though he wore an over-the-top bath robe and a nightcap with two pom-poms, thoroughly beating Lavender's one.
"So!" the doctor greeted, eyes twinkling with excitement. "I have been summoned in the middle of the night, and the word I have heard is that someone was snooping around in my archives!"
"Not so loud, Professor," Lavender hissed. "If we wake the other students, this will become a lot more chaotic."
"Right. Apologies. Thank you, Miss Curtain."
Valey squinted at the old stallion. "Uhh... not that I'd rather be in trouble, but you make it sound like this is a good thing."
"Oh, please, my dear." Doctor Lost wandered over to Valey and chuckled, slippers occasionally visible beneath his fluffy robe. "I heard there was a break-in at my archives, with two of you spotted near the scene! On the night after you arrived, no less. This can be no coincidence, I'm sure." He glanced toward the office door, and his eyes hardened. "Clearly, there is only one logical conclusion to draw."
Valey held her breath. "And that is...?"
"You've brought that adventurous spirit along with you!" the doctor cheered, starting for the door. "Now that you're here, you've brought our very own adventures and mysteries along with you. Shall we investigate? I can't wait to get started."
Valey and Starlight stared at each other, utterly nonplussed. Felicity joined the staring match by looking over the back of the couch, one foreleg dangling, her look of surprised confusion easily beating either of theirs.
"Hey, wait!" Valey hurried to catch up. "You just got burglarized and you're excited?"
"I believe I mentioned this already," Doctor Lost nonchalantly replied. "Now would you grab a light and help me search for clues? These eyes aren't what they used to be..."
Starlight lit her horn to help, and Lavender followed along with her flashlight, looking almost as bothered by the situation as Valey and Starlight yet for a completely different reason. Even Felicity trailed along, looking determined and businesslike and not at all helpless.
"More than ever," Doctor Lost instructed as they scanned the archives, moving through the aisles, "try not to touch anything. There is enough out of place here that we can establish a trail, and if that reveals a motive-" He instantly stopped, distracted by a barrel that looked like its top had been pried off by force. "Oh my Celestia, is that a second-edition copy of the seminal work on pegasus wing anatomy? The first edition was printed with an unauthorized preface that became one of the most notorious incidents in scientific literary history, making this copy truly the work in its original intended form..."
Lavender raised an eyebrow.
"Hey, uhh..." Valey poked him. "As great as it is that you're having fun, have you seriously never been burglarized before? It happens because someone wants to take your stuff, not because they want to give you an adventure."
Doctor Lost gave her a shut-up-I-know-what-I'm-doing look.
"Right! Okay..." Valey backed off and sighed, finding herself standing right next to Lavender. "Please tell me how big of trouble we're actually in, because this is not how you're supposed to handle this."
Lavender frowned and took a step away.
"I'm still worried about what someone could do with anything they stole from here," Starlight cut in, her horn glowing and her hooves covered by crystal boots to protect her from broken glass. "I suppose we'll know tomorrow. If no one comes out to blame us for this, it'll mean they came here for some other reason instead."
"Darling?" Felicity asked, stepping past them and up to the professor. "Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but there's quite a noticeable pattern..."
Doctor Lost's ears perked sharply. "Have you found something, my dear?"
Felicity glanced at the endless shelves. "I remember thinking to myself the first time I was here how meticulously and caringly you shelved the books here, yet now I'm seeing quite a few of them that are askew. Perhaps there are other things out of order as well, but whoever did this was very interested in your literature."
"You speak the truth!" Doctor Lost gasped, his eyes following her pointing. "Why, these tomes are indeed out of order!"
"Yes," Felicity acknowledged, "and they look like they were skimmed. Chosen at random, somewhat evenly spaced, no time taken to put them back properly. Either someone in a very big hurry, or with the attention span of a six-year-old."
"And the broken display case was full of books too," Starlight added.
"Hmmm..." The doctor inspected book after book, scratching his goatee. "I simply can't find a pattern. Astronomy, biology, art, classical fiction, all of the above in multiple languages... What could they possibly have been looking for?"
Felicity yawned right in the professor's face. "I can't say," she managed, fanning her mouth with a wingtip. "But I, for one, think we've done more than enough work for tonight, and may as well cut our sleep losses while we're behind. May we... please... get back to bed?"
"Yeah, doctor dude." Valey trotted up behind him. "As gnarly as this mystery is, since you don't seem to be out for our blood about it, could we work on it later? Like, say, standing guard tomorrow night to see what happens? That kind of later?"
Doctor Lost blinked. "Whyever would I be out for your blood?"
Lavender sighed and left the room.
"Because that's how things work in the north?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I'm used to things being way more cutthroat and vicious than they are in Equestria, but up there, when you get in a situation like this, it's because someone's trying to frame you or something. And to be honest, it's really unnerving me how we're this close to a bad situation and no one's jumped us yet to try finishing us off. When's the other boot gonna fall?"
The doctor adjusted his nightcap. "Simply fascinating. Stories and information like this are why I'm so excited to continue speaking with you. Which obviously couldn't happen if any other houses were horrendously jealous of your patronage here and attempted to get you in trouble with the school board." He winked.
Valey blinked.
As she stood and stared, Felicity swooned across her back. "Darling, I'm very tired..."
"Uh, yeah." Valey staggered slightly under the unexpected weight, bracing herself and propping up the bigger mare. "Thanks for having our back, then. Just please don't ask us to do anything dangerous or stupid to repay it. We're really, really scared of being in hot water."
Starlight nodded, frowning, her horn the only source of light in the room.
Doctor Lost chuckled. "Not only Generosity is allowed to give favors with no expectation of reparation. Though I do hope when this gets sorted out, it ends with us on better terms than we were going in." He checked a giant hourglass. "And would you look at that. Barely an hour left before sunrise! How time flies when you're having fun..."
Valey groaned, propping up Felicity and carrying her back to the dorm room, ignoring the couches this time around.
"What a fun night, indeed," Felicity grumbled from her back. "I feel cheated."
"Bananas, I'm gonna have to get up after being up all night long," Valey complained. "Probably not a good idea to sleep when ponies are up and about after that."
"So much for beauty sleep," Felicity agreed.
Valey trudged all the way back to the bed she had hauled Felicity from hours ago, helping her in and then slithering under the covers herself.
"Really?" Felicity asked, her eyes already closed.
"Really what?" Valey asked, snuggling against her. "I told you I'd stay here until morning, and I'm not about to bail because of bad luck. Besides, I have a headache. I don't feel like figuring out where else I'd stay."
Felicity cracked an eyelid and glanced around at the empty dormitory around them. "Of course you don't. One of these days, perhaps I owe you a talk too..."
Starlight had passed by the Eylista meteor several times while wandering the archives looking for useful clues. She knew its location by heart, now, and failed to prevent her eyes from wandering every single time she walked by it. Now, the other searchers had gone to bed, and it was just her and the stone.
"Who am I?" Starlight whispered, asking the rock. "What does Eylista mean? And what happened to me yesterday?"
The meteor reflected her blue light back at her, drained and turned to monochrome gray. It gave no answers, and Starlight had none of her own, save for a tiny, twisting sensation in her heart like a draining little whirlpool she knew would consume her if she let it grow big. She carefully quashed it, pushing back with the memories of her talk with Valey. She wasn't alone. Her friend might have had fewer answers than even she did, but her situation was at least similar, and she had been living it for much longer than Starlight.
Or, if they both came from moon glass, exactly the same amount of time.
Starlight sighed. She was both tired and not, but had seen how worn-out Valey and Felicity were. She needed to get some sleep. All of her suspicions said this didn't actually have to do with them and the culprit really cared about finding something in the archives, and their best bet would be a stake-out... and if her friends would be too exhausted to be there tomorrow night, it would be up to her instead.
Focus on how you can solve problems, not prevent every last one. Think about how cool you are. Valey's advice echoed in her head, and she held onto it like a sword: this was a problem that was already happening, and she was a strong, stubborn filly who could definitely catch someone sneaking around. This was a problem, but it was one she could solve. And if she could do it right, maybe it was a stepping stone toward helping herself and averting her bad future, as well.
"Did you hear?" a mare whispered to a stallion. "There was a break-in in house Laughter last night! I heard the adventurers are helping Doctor Lost search for the culprit..."
"Yeah! But no one's been able to tell me what was stolen. Everyone has a guess, but none of the stories I've heard line up. If you want my opinion, the thieves didn't take anything, and it's just a distraction to cover for something else."
Starlight frowned, sitting beneath a bench with her poncho worn and the hood up and listening to ponies pass. It was an effective disguise, especially since Valey and Gerardo were far more prolific than she was... No one seemed to look twice at a little, cloaked filly with a stick.
It was midmorning, and she imagined Valey and Felicity were still passed out where she had left them, but she was awake and she had investigating to do. "Excuse me!" she called out to a passing mare with titanic pigtails. "I heard there was a library around here?"
"Huh?" The mare flounced her pigtails, turning with a flick of her chin that would have made Jamjars green with envy. "Oh, you're looking for that building right over there. Have fun!"
Starlight thanked her and made fast for the library. The intruder had shown an interest in books, so what better place was there to start? In her poncho, she carried a list she had written down of every disturbed or perused volume, reasonably sure the culprit hadn't found what they were looking for but ready to make the most of every clue she had been given.
The entrance to the library was cool and spacious, and the interior even more so. "No cloaks in the library," a bespectacled mare warned her as she entered.
"Really?" Starlight frowned, stowing her stick in the cloak and balling it up and carrying it beneath a hoof. "Fine..."
"Thank you," the librarian replied with a curt smile.
Starlight fished out her list, holding it up in her telekinesis. "Do you have any of these?" she asked hopefully.
The librarian took the list and squinted. "This is an unusual reading list you have, filly. Some of these are far above your level, and others I haven't even heard of... Are you on an errand from a professor?"
"Yes," Starlight said, deciding not to contest the assumption of her reading level. For all she knew, it was true, and she was technically on a mission for a professor... "And I don't need to have them, I just need to know if you have them. And if anyone's been checking out multiples from this list recently."
The librarian raised an eyebrow. "How recently?"
"I don't know..." Starlight didn't break eye contact. "I just need to know if there's a pattern. If there's anyone who might be interested in lots or all of these books in particular."
"The ones from here that see any traffic are all in demand all at once," the librarian told her. "Assigned for classes, this and that. We've been all out of those since the start of the term. The rest, we either don't have or are only read by the bookworms who read everything. Does this help you?"
Honestly, Starlight hadn't expected to find an answer. Anyone who cared about books that could have been found at a library would have gone there in the first place, and Felicity thought these were the ones they didn't care about... "Thanks," she sighed, trying not to feel discouraged. "That's what I needed to know."
She turned to leave, the librarian nodding and going about her business. Maybe one of the bookworms the librarian mentioned would know enough to piece something together? But no, no matter how she looked at it, this clue was probably just a dead end. Starlight needed something more...
"Do my eyes deceive me?" a stallion's voice interrupted. "Unless I am mistaking you for someone else, I must admit I did not expect to see you here."
Starlight jumped and turned, ears standing straight up in surprise. A tan stallion with a short, wavy black mane and a tropical shirt was watching her with an appraising look, and she was fairly sure she had never seen him before. "Do I know you?"
"I happened upon someone with your coloration yesterday evening near the pond," the stallion said, keeping his voice down since they were in a library. "Though perhaps I am mistaken."
Starlight thought back to when she had collapsed, realizing she had no idea how long she had laid there until someone brought her to the hospital. "I was by a pond yesterday, but I wouldn't remember you..."
"So it is you," the stallion sighed in relief. "I am glad to see you are feeling well enough to be up on your hooves."
"Is this the best place to talk about me passing out?" Starlight muttered, tempted to draw up her poncho again. "We're in the entrance to a building..."
"I had little to say beyond well-wishes anyway," the stallion dismissed, giving her an odd look. "Hopefully you are feeling better soon."
He walked past her, and Starlight stood and watched. "Miss Papercraft," he said, cordially greeting the librarian Starlight had just been talking to.
"Morning, Caballeron," she replied, causing Starlight to do a double-take. "What can I help you find?"
Starlight stared. This was Doctor Caballeron? The pony credited on the plaque for the Eylista meteor? She slunk as close as she dared without making it obvious she was deliberately hanging around.
"Checking in on behalf of a friend," Caballeron said, producing a folded-up paper from the pocket on his shirt. "Doctor Lost's archives were vandalized last night, and the thief showed a particular interest in this list of materials. I do not suppose all these titles together would mean anything to you?"
Miss Papercraft frowned. "There was a filly here not ten minutes ago showing me exactly the same list. Might be possible to catch her, if you're that curious. She did wear a cloak like a burglar..."
Starlight grimaced, having gotten behind a pillar in time to avoid being immediately looked at but now with no idea what to do. Teleport away? No, she wasn't about to panic again. But if this made her look like a burglar, she really needed a better disguise...
Caballeron ran past the pillar, blinking and turning around when he spotted her hiding. "Not you, surely," he said incredulously, staring sideways at her.
"Yes, I'm investigating too," Starlight sighed. "Because most of my friends are too tired after staying up all night looking for the thief when it happened."
Doctor Caballeron blinked, lowering his voice. "Pardon, but do you mean you are... with the group from the north?"
Starlight stiffly nodded, entirely unprepared for whatever he had to say.
"...Can I buy you a coffee?" Caballeron asked. "Or whatever is popular with children these days? I think a talk would be rather interesting between you and I. Perhaps we could pool our knowledge on last night's vandalism."
Starlight swallowed. As long as she didn't mention the Eylista meteor, he'd have no idea who she was and wouldn't bring that up, right? She might not be on the verge of collapse, but that was a conversation she couldn't be comfortable having yet unless Valey was with her. "Okay."
"Excellent!" Caballeron cheered. "I have a shop that I love to favorite right this way..."
"Hot cocoa?" Starlight asked, recognizing none of the other names on the menu.
"Sure thing, sugar," a plump barista replied, her body two sizes too large for her frame. "And you want your usual."
"You know me well, madame," Caballeron replied with a smooth look.
The barista rolled her eyes and went to work, leaving Starlight and Caballeron in a booth. It wasn't yet lunch hour, so the shop was almost empty enough to feel secluded, despite broad daylight pouring in through its glass front.
"I must admit, I did not realize I was assisting someone of such interest when I found you last night," Caballeron began. "You are feeling better from your ordeal, I hope."
"I don't really want to talk about that," Starlight muttered, hoping to steer the conversation as far from Eylista as possible. "You know the professor whose office got broken into?"
Caballeron shrugged. "Fair enough. We are colleagues on several projects. Though I find him lackadaisical and..." He waved a hoof. "Easily distracted, he has a considerable collection of knowledge and material that make him a very profitable co-worker. Besides, enough of our interests align that we frequently find ourselves advocating together for resources to the school board. You could say that we are friends."
"Why do you think anyone did it?" Starlight asked. "Broke into his archive. Do you have any ideas?"
"Merely theories, I am afraid," Caballeron sighed. "But I was not there at the time of the event, and you were. Perhaps this is something you have insights yourself on?"
"Not really," Starlight sighed, unable to evaluate whether he suspected her. "Just clues. We know they might have been interested in books, and were looking for something. They also hurt themselves on that broken case. They woke me by crying in pain. And they had to be sneaky to escape, and maybe able to fly? And they might have wanted to frame us to cause tension and get us in trouble with the school or the guards."
Caballeron looked intrigued. "I collected some glass shards with bloodstains and took them to a colleague who works in Biology. They say the technology to identify a pony by their blood is still many years away, but we can accurately determine species already. Those tests will perhaps be done by tomorrow morning. Then we will know if it was a unicorn, a pegasus..."
Starlight kept watching him, getting an unsettling feeling there was something he was thinking about but not saying. "What do you think we should do if we catch the culprit?"
"Probably assign them to detention for a month with Lost World." Caballeron shrugged. "He will make them rue the day they did anything he wishes to make them rue. It is his archive, after all." He folded his hooves. "I have also been past the hospital and verified there are no recent injuries of slashing, though I have yet to check the student houses."
"Right." Starlight looked at the table. "I... didn't have a lot of luck investigating the books that were disturbed, either."
"Go figure," Caballeron sighed. "Oh well. That one did not seem important anyway."
The barista stepped up, a platter balanced on her back. "Here ya go," she drawled, plopping two mugs before the two ponies. "That's going on your tab. Have a nice day."
Caballeron nodded and tipped his nonexistent hat. "Excellent service as always."
Starlight stared into the frothy surface of her mug... and all of a sudden, decided to risk it. "How in danger are we of being suspects?"
"What?" Caballeron blinked. "Why in Equestria would anyone think you are the vandals? You are stranded here and unbelievably popular. You have literally nothing to gain from attempting to get on our bad sides."
"Because bad things usually happen to us, and..." Starlight swallowed and trailed off, deciding maybe there was a chance her luck actually wouldn't be terrible for a change. "Well, we also thought someone might have been trying to frame us."
Caballeron sipped from his coffee. "And if anyone tries to do that, they will draw attention to themselves, which is the opposite of what a good agent should do." He set his mug down again, regarding her. "Although, if you are afraid of such things, it would explain why a child like you is wandering about alone. You do not have any unsaid things, do you?"
"You're the one who keeps looking at me like you know something you're not saying," Starlight blurted... and then winced. "I mean no. I don't."
Caballeron's shoulders drooped. "Apologies if I am making you uncomfortable. Your appearance reminded me of a very young filly I once met years ago in a town called Sires Hollow, but since you are from the north, there is probably no... Why are you looking at me like that?"
Don't teleport, Starlight told herself. Don't panic like yesterday. "S-Sorry," she managed, overriding her instincts by force and keeping her horn dull. "Please forget about it?"
Caballeron frowned apologetically. "Of course. I would be wrong to press on personal matters." He glanced at her cocoa. "Do not forget that, by the way."
Starlight took a gulp. It was still hot, but barely cool enough that she could swallow it and keep from burning her tongue too bad. "Right. Sorry."
She couldn't look back up at him. It was impossible not to, when she knew her reaction had given away so much. Or had it? Maybe he just met her when he was collecting the meteor and she was too young to remember. There was no reason he had to know about who she was, not that it would matter when he seemed willing not to press when she asked... Don't panic. Starlight took a smaller sip of her cocoa.
"I really try not to cut that much of an imposing figure," Caballeron remarked. "Oh well. It has been very insightful meeting you, but I should probably get back to my work. Even if our friend from last night eludes us, I have a large batch of data gathered by another colleague I must return to processing posthaste. Good luck, and do take care of yourself. I think I've done plenty of carrying you to safety for the time being."
He got up, nodded to the barista, hoofed over his empty cup, and trotted away.
Starlight stared at her cocoa, not even a third finished. She felt... like she could do this, even though she was scared. Maybe.
"You alright, sugar?" the barista asked, polishing a mug.
"Huh?" Starlight looked up.
"Sorry for eavesdropping. Hard not to when you talk loudly and it's an open place." She rubbed a rag around the inside with her hoof, leaning on the bar and watching Starlight as she worked. "But you don't usually see professors coming in with kids and chatting about vandalism and whatever else. Ain't hard to tell when a body like you is stressed."
Starlight sighed. "I'm not alright, but what can you do about it?"
"Listen?" The barista shrugged. "Every finals season, countless students come through here and need an ear to vent about stress and whatnot. Secrets shared here don't leave these walls, kid. Even a kid like you has gotta be able to talk to someone."
"Oh. Thanks." Starlight stared into her cocoa again. "I don't know, though. I have a lot to worry about."
The barista shook her head. "Doesn't everyone? One day you'll see someone here with a nice new date, and then they'll be back the very same evening hoping inspiration will strike on how to pay their rent. Maybe that's too adult of a problem, but you've got the same look in your eyes."
"Look in my eyes?" Starlight asked.
"Too much despair and not enough hope." The barista shrugged. "The kind that keeps you up at three in the morning wondering why you never bothered to give your life a future." She glanced back at Starlight. "I can't lie, it's creepy seeing that look on a filly. Children aren't supposed to look like that."
"Thanks," Starlight sighed, taking another sip. "I know I'm not."
The barista's face softened. "Bad family situation? Got stuck with a responsibility you aren't ready for?"
Starlight blinked and paused. "...Sort of."
"I never had kids," the barista sighed. "Couldn't tell you exactly how to deal with that. But if you ever just need to escape, there are folks who'd look out for you. Pretty sure you could go to the university and they'd intervene."
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut. "It's not that kind of problem. My problem is that I've spent too much time running already."
The barista shrugged and went back to polishing. "In that case, all I can do is listen, honey."
"Thanks," Starlight said, draining her cocoa and getting to her hooves. Talking had helped, actually. "I need to go get back to my friends."
The barista took the mug with a gentle smile. "Then you do that. Don't worry about the price, it's on Caballeron. And don't be afraid to ask for help if you get in bigger trouble than you can handle."
Starlight nodded, wishing she had more ponies to go to as she headed out the door. "I'll keep it in mind."
Valey made sure not to wake Felicity as she left to go about her day. "What time is it?" she quietly grumbled to herself as she stumbled away from the bed, noting sunlight filtering in through the heavily-drawn blinds. She nearly topped from dizziness as the sleepless last night caught up with her, catching herself and stepping through the door to the house lounge.
Two armored Equestrian pegasi were waiting on the other side.
"Oh bananas," Valey gulped, backpedaling, failing to notice the lack of a tingle in her cutie mark. "I'm serious, we didn't-"
The guards looked at her quizzically, the same ponies who had come ahead with her in the submarine. "You look unwell, miss," one said. "Are you alright?"
Valey sat on her rump and rubbed her head, then quickly hopped into a more dignified position. "What are you guys doing here?"
The guards nodded. "Doctor Lost World informed us there had been a break-in last night," the other informed her. "He said you were up all night helping him investigate, and requested that we guard your quarters to prevent your sleep from being disturbed by curious students."
"Apparently, this is big news on campus," the first added.
Valey squinted at them. "So we're not actually suspects at all, even though we were the ones who found it first."
The guards both squinted back. "Should you be? You know we're watching you closely. If you were going to break the rules, you'd run. You have nothing to gain from this whatsoever."
"Are you sure?" The second suddenly looked at the first, an idea dawning on them. "The professor seemed remarkably unbothered and the students are excited... What if they are responsible, and it's a staged performance?"
"An entertainment event?" The first squinted at his companion. "...Whatever. It still wouldn't be something we care about."
Valey stared for a moment at the exchange, slack-jawed. "Uhhh... No, I mean, we shouldn't be suspects. That's just how stuff works in the north. When bad luck happens, bad luck follows..." She glanced back at the door. "Never mind, I'll take it. What time is it?"
A guard checked a clock. "Two in the afternoon."
Valey groaned inwardly. So much for rising with the sun... "Cool, cool. I'm gonna go investigate... and stuff."
The guards both saluted as she strolled away.
"This is weird," Valey muttered under her breath, batting at an instinct that told her trouble had to be just around the corner. "Stuff can't really be this nice and cushy, can it? Where's the catch? Is someone messing with us? No one should know-"
She stepped out a doorway, and realized it was the weekend. Students who weren't in classes and were shooed out of their dorms by guards had to go somewhere...
A crowd of ponies intermingled on sunny, well-cared for lawns, with another ball game taking place in the backgrounds. Mares shared space on blankets, wearing shades and sunning their bellies with their legs to the sky, and stallions sat against pillars, reading, or walked in groups and shoved each other, laughing all the way. Valey self-consciously straightened her mane to just the right level of messy and adjusted her beret.
"It's her!" a voice called, and nearly a dozen pairs of eyes turned toward Valey.
"Uh, hey guys," Valey greeted, her tired brain deciding it would rather have a meet-and-greet than run and deal with the consequences. "What's up?"
"I heard the history archives were vandalized," a stallion said, running up with a bouncing mane and then halting a very safe distance away. "But there are guards in the Laughter quarters, and no one will let us in to see! They said you were there, though!"
Valey regarded him as several more crowded around, grinning as she put together half a plan. "Yup. There's a bunch of broken glass, and they can't clean it up without disturbing evidence. Don't want that getting stuck in your hooves." She mimed ramming a spike into the bottom of her hoof, wincing for emphasis.
Some of the students winced as well. "Oh my," a frilly pegasus mare breathed. "You didn't find that out the hard way, did you?"
"Nahhh." Valey winked. "I used special adventurer tactics to get past them. I'll teach you the secret... if I feel like it." Her eyes wandered to the blanket where two mares were still sunbathing, listening eagerly but reluctant to give up their pastime. "Hey, that looks pretty chill. Mind if I join, hot stuff?"
The mares looked smug, noting her wandering eyes, and moved over to make room.
"Neat." Valey settled down next to them, folding her hooves behind her head and closing her eyes up at the sky. "The trick to glass and other sharp things," she said, basking in the tiny murmurs of envy from some of the other students, "is that your skin isn't actually that frail. It only gets cut if you try to cut with enough force. Glass is bad 'cuz you step on it with a whole bunch of weight. Who wants to guess where I'm going with this?"
"Tread lightly and carefully," an eager stallion piped up. "Move slowly, handle the pieces delicately, and it'll be fine! That's what I told my mom every time she made me clean up broken dishes!"
"Nah." Valey kicked a leg. "That's the way that seems to work until you mess up and get hurt anyway. Much better just to put zero weight on it... with these babies." She flexed her sarosian wings, hoping none of the students knew just how little flying room there was in the archive.
Her bluff paid off. "Flying feels like cheating," the frilly pegasus said, downcast. "You made it sound like you had clever, secret knowledge."
"The most secret of all," Valey replied, keeping her toothy grin. "When it comes to using a boring tool that's all mundane and stuff, or being unnecessarily clever and getting glass stuck in your hoof? Cool ponies don't get glass stuck in their hooves. There's some real adventuring know-how for you."
This had a more positive effect. Valey heard the mumbles of appreciation increase, along with a few new sets of joining hoofsteps, and stretched mightily, showing her toned figure off with utterly no subtlety.
"So what's the word on the street about the break-in?" Valey asked, her audience completely captive. "I'm curious how the rumors are holding up to the real latest scoop."
"Oh! I heard," the frilly pegasus bubbled, "that it might have been pirates from Griffonstone. Someone said a ship was spotted near the harbor this morning running their flag!"
"Pirates from Griffonstone?" Valey opened her eyes and sat up slightly, squinting at the pegasus. She smiled hopefully back.
Valey made a mental note to investigate that as soon as possible. "Well, I wouldn't put it past them, but the real biggest lead? This was done by students." She swept her eyes dramatically around. "Someone thinks there might not have been anything stolen at all, and the culprit wanted me and my friends to do an investigation as a show. And you all are finding this pretty entertaining..."
Most of the students gave each other suspicious, mistrustful looks. The frilly pegasus gasped, and the two mares Valey was sunning with looked too satisfied by their company to care.
"Of course, I haven't had too much time to look into that. Been busy browsing records and stuff all day." Valey waved a hoof, then raised an eyebrow. "And I'm new around here, so if there was some faction or something that would be more likely to do that, I wouldn't know. Sure wish I had, like, someone who knew who'd do such a thing well enough to point me in the right direction."
Predictably, the crowd fell apart, each pony wanting to be the one with the suggestion. Valey kept her eyes closed, listening to the chaos around her with a grin.
"...I'm gonna open my eyes in three seconds," she eventually warned. "And everyone who I see jumping to help me and be a hero is automatically suspect because of course you'd set yourself up to look good, three two one kaboom." She opened her eyes.
Even the self-satisfied sunbathers who had been laying with her had joined the circle standing around her, and every last pony in it was frozen, looks of realization spreading contagiously across their faces as they realized what she had just said.
"Nyaah." Valey got up, making a show of stretching. "Well, that confirms that. Maybe someone did set this up as a show to make themselves the sidekicks. Congratulations, you just helped me narrow the suspects down to everyone." She pushed her way through the circle, patting the frilly pegasus on the back on her way out. "You're the cutest one here, by the way. Wear that title with pride."
Valey pretended to rocket off across campus, but flipped and turned so many times that she eventually landed on the steepled Laughter dorm roof, right near where she had started. The students she had attracted were still dispersing, and she watched them from the eves like a gargoyle, flicking her tail and rubbing her chin.
Well, she had confirmed it was possible that other students could be behind this... maybe? They certainly weren't above being pushy if it meant a place next to her. Not that she didn't know that already, but it didn't hurt to make-
"Do you flirt with everything that moves?" a familiar voice groaned.
"What? Feeling left out?" Valey turned to see Lavender Curtain also on the roof, her coloration letting her blend into the shingles. "Bananas, how long have you been there?"
"Since before you came outside," Lavender replied curtly. "This is my thinking spot."
Valey backpedaled a step. "Whoops. Sorry for intruding. Didn't mean to impose."
Lavender blinked hard, then frowned at her. "You treat me completely different from all of them. How are you so cordial to me, yet borderline scandalous down there?"
"Because you don't like me." Valey shrugged.
Lavender stared, her jaw slack. "Northern logic makes no sense," she ultimately said, shaking her head.
"Tell me about it," Valey complained. "I keep expecting us to get in trouble because they think we did it. It looks like we did it, doesn't it? Please tell me there's someone here who realizes that me and my friends should be on thin ice."
Lavender's eyes shifted. "What does me not liking you have to do with how you're acting?"
Valey waved a wing. "Those kids down there are obsessed with me. I can play with them and tease them however I want, and as long as it's not cruel or mean-hearted, they'll know it's all a game. A game they're super passionate about, but a game nonetheless. Kinda like your sports." She turned to regard Lavender. "But I've got a real bad first impression with you, and I've had too many enemies come stab me when I'm down before to want any more. So congrats. You get nice Valey."
"That's unusual," Lavender sighed, sitting awkwardly. "You're not pulling my leg, are you? I didn't take you for someone who cared."
"Girl..." Valey leaned back. "I care a lot, and I usually care so much it gets me hurt. I dunno if you've ever felt like your world was sinking around you, and for all I know you have, but this place is like a big mental vacation for me. I can care. If this place gets attacked by a giant monster or something and it really needs it, I'll care... or if I need to in order not to get on bad terms with someone. But if I can get away with it, I really need to kick back and let loose for once. Sorry for any irreverence where it's undue. Is that so bad?"
Lavender frowned in discomfort. "...I'm starting to see that. I still don't like you."
"Anything I can do about it?" Valey raised a hopeful eyebrow.
"Stop flirting with the undergraduates," Lavender instantly replied. "Please."
"Why?" Valey asked. "I heard about the thing from five years ago, but these ponies are really digging it. I'm paying attention, I don't bother the ones who aren't obviously into me."
"I'm a sixth-year," Lavender said dully. "I was there when W... When my friend left with that stallion. The most the ponies responsible for Laughter's current culture remember is what it was like in the years after that. It was bad, but this is nothing like what it was like before, either. Can you honestly see yourself living a life here, surrounded by ponies who only care about your flanks and your legs and your barrel? Or your ability to do a backflip, maybe? You're enjoying it now, but wouldn't it get lonely?"
Valey winced. "Okay, so it's an opposite extreme to what I'm used to and not a perfect middle ground. I get the point. I still need this, though."
"To what you're used to?" Lavender blinked. "I said to what the house used to be like."
"Yeah, but to what I'm used to as well," Valey said with a shrug. "Fun fact about the north: both of the places I went really hated batponies. One, you were a villain and didn't even get a chance. Another, there was a crazy goddess who had us and everyone else at odds with each other. Maybe this isn't perfect, but it's something I really need and you're gonna have to be more specific if you want me to throw this chance in the trash bucket and be a chaste little angel who doesn't even look at the flanks that are being waved in her face."
Lavender looked troubled.
"...If there are old wounds, I didn't mean to stir any up," Valey added. "You've got that look that says you've seen a thing or two."
"...The reason I'm still here after six years," Lavender sighed, "is because I've been attending school part-time so that I can help take care of my younger sister's foal so she has time to go to classes and do her homework in the day and doesn't derail her own education for her mistakes." She glanced up, and her eyes briefly burned. "Is that stirred up enough for you? Maybe you don't have problems that lowly with your crazy goddesses in the north, but I don't think there's anything beneath notice about a situation that prevents someone from following their dreams and I've never seen anything good come of this free-spirited philandering. We might not care if you steal any players this time, and the only one you can leave with consequences is yourself, but you're still contributing to this... this culture of free-spirited philandering, and...!"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, that sounds exactly like the kind of stuff we've been dealing with."
Lavender blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah." Valey sat back and sighed. "The problems where you feel like your life could be on track for happiness, bananas, whatever success looks like to you... except for this one little problem you can't quite solve, and every time you try, more time passes and you get just a little further away. You probably feel like you've missed all sorts of opportunities in the past two years because of this. You don't wanna question whether it was worth it, but you do dream of it being all over, even if that seems ridiculously far out of your reach. And now I guess it looks like I'm rubbing it in..."
Slowly, Lavender's face tightened. Then she took off one of the boots on her forehooves, lifted it, and showed a bandage carefully applied to the bottom.
Valey blinked hard. "Wait, wha...?"
"Right," Lavender sighed. "I did it because I wanted to see what your reactions would be. There's nothing missing from the professor's archive."
Valey stared at her. "You know, the very first thing I thought when I saw you there was that you were setting us up. What gives? And why tell me now?"
"To see your reactions," Lavender repeated. "Stepping on the glass was a mistake, but I could have covered for it if you tried to silence me when you realized what it looked like. I slipped while trying to knock over a bookshelf to get your attention." She averted her gaze. "I still don't like you, but it's just personality clash. You aren't clueless buffoons. You understand."
"So..." Valey stared at her hoof.
"You can stop investigating and catch up on sleep," Lavender finished. "There's no danger and no need to keep searching. I can turn myself in. Just don't expect things to get back to normal for you with the culture here the way it is."
Slowly, Valey smirked. "Oh, I don't think we're gonna do that."
"Huh?" Lavender blinked.
"I owe you a good turn, right?" Valey held out her hooves and shrugged. "Everyone makes mistakes, all this one cost us was some sleep, and you had legit concerns. I forgive you. So lemme bail you out of this. We'll keep watch again tonight with the professor in case the crook comes back, then you try to sneak past us to mess more things up. We catch you, and then I tell the professor we had the whole thing staged from the beginning to give him and the school a fun, dramatic adventure. I'll get the rest of my friends in on it, and we'll cover for you. Sound cool?" She smiled hopefully.
Lavender stared at her. "...Why?"
"I told you." Valey turned back out to face the schoolgrounds. "Because I'm seriously tired of having enemies. You just made a peace offering, so here. I'm returning it." She held out a hoof. "Let's do this?"
Lavender took it reluctantly, then firmly. "I'll trust you," she said, a flicker of intensity in her eyes. "Please be trustworthy."
"Oh, girl," Valey replied with a grin. "We're gonna make this legendary."
"Hi," Valey said, hovering above a group of students with a polite grin. "Is there any chance you've seen a lilac filly with a stick and a big raincoat who looks way too serious and might have forgotten how to smile?"
The students looked at each other, scratching their heads. "She's with you, right?" a stallion asked. "Explorers from the north?"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, that one."
"I saw you two yesterday!" a mare offered. "Probably not recent enough?"
Mentally thanking them for their ability to stay focused and not be overwhelmed by her presence, Valey shook her head. "Any time since this morning. Think she went off to wander, and I've gotta tell her some stuff."
"Is it about the archives?" another mare asked. "I saw Doctor Lost an hour ago. He was calling all hooves on deck. Didn't seem to be too upset, though..." She rubbed an ear. "Almost makes you wonder if he set this up himself as a game. If someone rifled through my private things, I'd flip."
Valey pursed her lips. "Yep. Totally. She's probably off investigating too, or something, and I got a hot new lead I gotta share with her."
The students eyed her in interest. "You do?" the first stallion asked.
Valey winked. "Can't blow it and let the crook know we're onto them. Sorry, folks. But stay tuned for it to get interesting in a day or two."
Another group of wandering students came over and joined the first. "Hey, you're hanging out with Valey?" One shoved another's shoulder good-naturedly, giving Valey a slight thrill that her name was becoming commonplace among strangers.
"She's looking for that kid that was with her," a mare told the newcomers. "You know the one? You see her a few times and sort of know the face, but she clearly doesn't want the attention so you focus on Valey or Gerardo Guillaume instead?"
"Heh..." Valey grinned. "You guys are classy enough to pay attention to that? Thanks. She, uh, really doesn't enjoy it... but I am looking for her."
"Why wouldn't I pay attention?" The mare looked vaguely put-out. "I've seen you around. You love the popularity."
"Ehhh, some of students I've met have gotten a little carried away..." Valey wobbled a hoof, emphasizing just a little.
A newcomer with a deep voice raised a hoof. "You're not looking for the lilac kid with the raincoat, are you?"
Valey's attention snapped to him. "You've seen her?"
The stallion nodded. "Saw her in the window of a coffee shop looking glum as can be. Made me kind of worried about her, but what can you do, you know?"
"When and where?" Valey intently hovered closer.
He looked over his shoulder. "Fly that way, look for a plaza with a fountain, one block to the east and it has big windows. Can't miss it. Might have been half an hour ago, but she wasn't in a hurry."
Valey did a midair backflip. "Thanks, buddy. Tell your friends I said you're cool, and I owe you one. See ya!"
She sped away, leaving the crowd all smirking and the stallion with a starry-eyed grin on his face. "She said I'm cool... Hah, yes!"
The coffee shop wasn't hard to find at all. Valey saw no lilac fillies in the windows, so she started soaring in a broadening spiral out from the center, and didn't take long to catch a trace of a black rain poncho trailing forlornly along the road.
"Hey!" She flew in for a landing, hitting the ground with a roll just because she could. "Starlight!"
"Valey?" Starlight blinked and looked up.
Valey brushed herself off with her wings. "Been investigating?"
"I wasn't tired," Starlight replied. "Someone had to. I haven't had much luck."
"Well, guess what?" Valey put a wing around the tired-looking filly. "I found our sneaky schnook. Crafty criminal, rude rustler, what-have-you. Everything's gonna be peachy. Thought I'd let you know."
Starlight slumped heavily in relief. "Really?"
Valey nodded, aware that ponies were watching. "Here, hop on. Let's fly and talk?"
Soon they were airborne, flying in circles around the island as Valey laid out what Lavender had said and the plan for the following night. "So since we're gonna be up again after sundown, I figure I'll stay up a little longer, stretch my legs, and then go back and sleep the rest of the day away. You got any plans?"
Starlight was quiet.
Valey rolled on her back, positioning Starlight on her chest so she could see the filly's face as she flew. "You're less-alright than last night. I figured this investigation stuff might get you down, but you still don't look good even though it's over. The guards are on our side, so's the professor, we've got an agreement with the culprit, the students like us, our names are as good as clear."
"I met Doctor Caballeron," Starlight said. "He recognized me."
Valey blinked. "From your hometown?"
"I didn't ask a lot of questions," Starlight replied. "He might think it's someone else, since he thinks I'm from the north. But I didn't react well and he's suspicious."
Valey exhaled. "You don't wanna find out what he knows?"
"I'm afraid," Starlight said, downcast. "But I need to know. But I don't want to find out by myself. I don't even know what he knows. Maybe he knows nothing I don't, or maybe he knows about things I didn't even know to be worried about."
"You," Valey insisted, booping her to snap her out of it, "are gonna get a look from Felicity whenever I don't owe her the world's best beauty sleep. Remember all the stuff we talked about last night?"
Starlight nodded. "I went out and tried to help investigate and solve problems. I just ran into more than I was ready for."
Valey sucked her cheek. "...Okay, new addendum to everything I told you last night: being a lonely hero is still pretty lonely. Thanks for doing it, but we were safe for a while. Could have waited for me to come with you."
Starlight sighed. "Sorry..."
"I hope that apology is to yourself," Valey prodded. "You're the one feeling bad. Hey, want to solve an easy problem with me?"
Starlight tilted her head.
"Someone told me there was a ship from Griffonstone in the bay this morning," Valey said. "I've seen it as I've been flying around. Not our friends, unfortunately, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's our other friends with the sound stone. Whom I've never met. Wanna go see what they want? Greedy griffons are exactly the kind of thing we can wipe the floor with if things get out of hoof, and I need some exercise."
"Okay," Starlight volunteered, putting on a braver face. "I never met Gunther either, though."
"Then let's hope it's him." Valey grinned. "He might have had his fun with Birdo, but we'll see what he's got against the Dream's big guns."
The griffon ship wasn't quite a frigate, but it was hardly humble, either. With two masts, it matched the Dream in length, but was significantly fatter, and as Valey and Starlight flew closer a griffon was visible snoozing in the rigging.
"How much you wanna bet they're all in town?" Valey whispered, gliding to a stop on the marina.
The ship was moored at the university docks on the northeastern edge, as opposed to the commercial ones at the southwest tip, and a huge crowd of students filled the beach, waters and walkways to the south. That was where the island's population spent their weekends, apparently... But a sizable crowd had gathered around the griffon ship as well, including a few harbor officials who were doing duty as guards.
"Look! It's Valey!" someone called, and the crowd's attention turned.
"Hey, dudes." Valey waved, Starlight perched on her back like a hooded crow, trying to hide yet doing a terrible job of not calling attention to herself. "What's going on over here?"
Several ponies talked over themselves at once, each blinking and trying again. Valey grinned and rolled her eyes at the chaos. "Lemme guess: there's a boat?"
One of the official-looking ponies pushed her way over, wearing a tight, pocket-covered uniform shirt that Valey decided would look incredibly hot if she fell off the dock and got wet. "Valey, right?" she said. "The captain of this ship has been asking to speak with someone from your party. Are you familiar with a Gunther of Griffonstone?"
Valey clicked her teeth. "Heard of, never met. And he's holed up inside? Bananas, he doesn't know what he's missing out on."
The official mare completely missed the subtext. "We don't see Griffonstone griffons voyage to Kinmari often. But he said you're welcome aboard." She nodded to Starlight as well.
"Well, let's see what he's got." The ponies gave Valey space to take off, but she didn't even need her wings to nail the jump to the deck, and felt like showing off. "Hey!" She flicked her tail upon landing, looking for griffons. "Anyone home? Where's your boss?"
A napping griffon who was exactly the same color as the pile of rope, sails and supplies she was napping on raised an eyebrow. "Are you his problem, or something? In there."
Valey whistled, heading to knock on the door. "Friendly bunch, aren't you?"
The door opened, and a younger, dark griffon in a black suit regarded her, his crest looking like it had been deliberately slicked two directions at once. For a moment, his eyes pierced hers. "I don't know you."
It was a greeting, and Valey returned it. "Welcome to the club, buddy. Some hottie down there was saying the captain was looking for ponies from up north. You the captain?"
"Heh..." Gunther gave an approving grin. "I like you. You have the look of someone who knows just what to do when something's taken more seriously than it deserves." He offered a talon. "Gunther. Who's the kid?"
"A friend." Valey shrugged, bumping the talon and watching for danger, though her cutie mark was dim. "So, what's up?"
Gunther's grin turned to a frown. "You able to get something to Gerardo?"
"Should be." Valey nodded. "He's on a weekend camping trip with some students, or something, so not today, though."
Gunther reached into his suit and withdrew Valey's old flash club, modified to power a sound stone instead. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "I like to limit my debts, and it wasn't feasible to return it near the border. We're even, now."
Valey took it and blinked. "Uh, wow, thanks." The other sound stone was with Shinespark on the Dream, come to think of it, so with this one with her... "Anything else?"
"Not unless you have a penchant for chitchat." Gunther shrugged. "No charge. You look like you can buy whatever you want through fame alone, and that's not something that interests me."
Valey tilted her head, not sure how to read this griffon. "Uhh... You wouldn't happen to know how far away the ship with my friends is, would you?"
Gunther shrugged. "We passed a tugboat going to get them a while ago. Hard to make the fastest time when your crew doesn't know the meaning of ethic, so I wouldn't use our speed as a comparison. But they'll be here eventually."
"Do you... want me to let Birdo know you're asking after him, or something?" Valey asked.
"You could." Gunther shrugged again. "Don't take it as a promise, but I might hang around for a few days. Not a lot of other pressing obligations in the world."
Valey glanced at the shipdeck. "Yeah, your crew here looks really eager to hit the high seas."
Gunther chuckled. "They already know I'm not paying for the return voyage. If they want to see their home again, they're going to have to sail this thing for free. There hasn't been much enthusiasm." His eyes shifted. "But Griffonstone is a dump, so it's hard to blame them. I'm in the market for a new hobby, myself. You look like you've been enjoying yourself. What does this island have to offer?"
Valey glanced back at the door. "What, Kinmari? Hordes of attractive, adoring fans who require you to have a literal goddess's royal guard on hoof to get any sleep. And coffee shops, which I just learned an hour ago. Gotta try one of those..."
Gunther snorted. "Well, I'll let you two go about your way. And pay me a visit if anything interesting happens. You won't be interrupting anything important."
"I'll tell Birdo." Valey flipped the flash club, caught it, turned to leave... and blinked. "Oh, by the way, How are you in a fight? Or for strength and speed in general?"
Gunther frowned. "Do you have to? It's a sore subject."
"Good enough to care?" Valey nodded. "Maybe you should go play sports with the locals. They'd probably dig it. I dunno. Anyway, see ya!"
"See ya."
Valey took off, building altitude rapidly. "Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked, flipping the club again.
"No," Starlight decided, taking a deep breath. "It wasn't."
"Feeling any better?" Valey gently pressed.
"A little," Starlight admitted. "Thank you."
"Heh." Valey lazily spiraled. "You feeling like going back to bed? You were up almost as much as I was last night, and awake earlier to boot."
Starlight nodded. "Maybe. I'm still thinking about Doctor Caballeron."
"You wanna go look for him together?" Valey asked. "If there's something that's this much on your mind, either you're gonna need to face it or find a real good distraction."
Starlight bit her lip. "I feel more like I need to prepare than be distracted. What kind of distraction?"
Valey blinked. "Yeah, never mind, sorry. Got my mind on a certain distraction of my own right now..." She dived, corkscrewed, held Starlight close and blazed over the recreational beach in an attention-grabbing trail of green, soaring past easily two hundred students who were sunning, swimming or playing games.
A few shouts and cheers reached her as she pulled up, realizing with slight embarrassment that she probably should have warned Starlight before doing that. "Yeah..." She held Starlight with one hoof, hovering and rubbing her neck. "I might be enjoying this too much, and you're way too young to have fun teasing these kids yourself. You alright?"
Starlight tilted her head. "Alright from what?"
Valey gave her a look. "Crazy corkscrew dive without warning? Didn't want to make you dizzy or give you vertigo."
"Oh." Starlight shrugged. "My horn was much worse when I used to overuse it, and it lasted for days. I didn't even notice that."
Valey blinked slowly. "You know dealing with the dizziness is the hardest part of stunt flying and doing flips and tricks and stuff, right? And like half my fighting style? I had to practice forever to be able to go my fastest without disorienting myself, and it's still the part that takes the most focus."
"I've been living with my horn for a long time too," Starlight replied.
"Bananas, now I wish you could fly." Valey did a casual flip, then started gliding into another dive. "You'd probably be a natural. Heh... Wouldn't that be fun to see?"
"Maybe..."
Some time later, Valey strolled with Starlight into the Laughter dorm, her mane ridiculously windblown and her beret perched perfectly on her head. Starlight looked the same.
"Hey, Ironflanks!" Valey greeted, waving to where Maple sat with several students on a ring of couches, the lounge fuller than it had been in the afternoon yet still guarded by watchful guards.
"Valey! Starlight?" Maple looked up, breaking off a conversation. "You look happy. Good news?"
Valey shrugged and set Starlight down. "Yeah, we got some leads, I'll fill you in tonight. Also got this back." She juggled the flash club. "I need to crash, but you can give Sparky a call if you want. Kinda want to wait and see her first reaction to how I'm doing in person..." She grinned, setting it near Maple. "Also, Starlight and I have been practicing stunt flying."
Maple and the students all blinked. "Aren't you a unicorn?" one stallion asked.
Starlight nodded.
"She's a unicorn with a cool raincoat," Valey corrected. "And if she holds it and uses her magic just right..." Starlight crystalled a corner of the poncho to one of her hooves for emphasis. "It makes a passable glider. Not a good one, but we could get a skydiving thing going on."
"It's good enough," Starlight mumbled. "This is how I survived the first time I fell. And I've fallen from enough high places it seems like a good idea, right?"
Maple's eyes shone with interest. "I would love to see that sometime."
"Oh, we'll show you." Valey winked, heading for the room where she had slept. "In the meantime, I'm tired. See ya tonight. Be ready to stay up late. I gotta crash."
Nobody followed her, and the guard by the door let her through, his companion guarding the professor's office. Valey slipped inside, sneaking quietly... and detected Felicity's slumbering form, once again buried beneath a luxurious mound of blankets.
"Hey," Valey whispered, fairly sure she was asleep. "I know things kinda got interrupted last night and I said I owed you one or two, and I kinda spent my day teasing hot mares and stuff and might have teased myself a little too, so move over and lemme share."
Valey awoke to the sensation of hooves against her spine.
"Bananas-!" She briefly struggled, before being pressed back down.
"Don't move, darling!" Felicity's voice urged from above her. "I only just finished getting you to relax."
"Huh?" Valey went still, laying on her belly and wishing she could see behind her. Slowly, she realized that she felt very, very good.
"Much better," Felicity hummed, satisfied, and her forehooves resumed their rubbing. "I'm sorry for not asking, but you did sneak back into my bed unannounced, so you really did have it coming."
Valey tried again to roll over, but Felicity was straddling her, rolling the edges of her hooves around in Valey's shoulder blades, and she again decided to stay put. "Bananas... Morning? Evening? What time is it? And is this a massage?"
Felicity giggled. "Just after sundown. And it's not just any massage. I did tell you I found other uses for my Mistvale arts than brute force and fights, didn't I?"
Valey groaned. "Just so you know, the first time I learned about Mistvale arts was when I got half-paralyzed by a dumb monk who tried to do exactly this..."
"...Poor taste, then?" Felicity bit her lip and backed off. "Apologies, darling. I hope you can feel that I had a much better intent, if nothing else."
Valey finally sat up, turning to look at the other mare. Felicity sat upright on her haunches, a blanket tucked snugly over her like a hooded cloak and her forehooves crossed self-consciously in front of her belly. She looked genuinely abashed.
"Uh... yeah, actually." Valey stretched her wings and forelegs, tilting her head and cracking her neck. "I do feel pretty great. But still, you decided to give me a massage while I was sleeping?"
Felicity folded her ears. "Well, you were so tense. Recently wound-up, if you know what I mean. And I figured I might as well enjoy it while it lasted."
Valey rubbed her eyes, still sleepy. "Enjoy what?" she yawned.
Felicity pointed at the bed the two of them were sharing.
"Huh?"
"Fine. Time for a confession," Felicity sighed. "But first, darling, be honest. How far down your list am I?"
Valey squinted. "What?"
Felicity panned a hoof around the room. "Maple is recovering from broken ribs, Gazelle is Gazelle, and Starlight is a filly. Much as I appreciate you coming to share a bed with me, both of us know this crippled, pregnant triple-crosser is your only option. I just want to... know where I really fall on your list."
Valey stared. "Uhh... Once again, what?"
"Your list, darling." Felicity frowned. "Of whose side you choose to grace throughout the night."
"What are you talking about?" Valey tilted her head. "I'm here 'cuz you got cheated last night and I wanted to do something nice. And because I was maybe just a little horny after messing with so many college mares yesterday, and knew you'd be the last one to mind. But you make slipping in with you sound like I didn't have a choice."
"Did you?" Felicity raised an eyebrow.
Valey swept a hoof past all the other empty beds in the dorm and raised one back.
Felicity gently huffed. "Darling, in all the time I've been traveling with you I haven't seen you spend a night by yourself even once."
Valey blinked. "I totally have. I did just... uhhh..."
Felicity stared into her soul.
"Bananas, have I?" Valey put a hoof against her forehead. "That's like... No I haven't. But, I mean..."
"I've noticed," Felicity repeated. "Believe me. It's impossible not to when you harbor enough of a crush to wish it was you there instead. And since I don't doubt you'll move back on to Shinespark or Amber once they arrive, I... well... wanted to enjoy my time while it lasted. But I apologize if I overstepped any bounds."
Valey waved a hoof. "No, no, hold on, you're fine. I'm just trying to remember the last time I..." She blinked. "Ah, whatever. Wait, so you're feeling... Oh."
"You're cute when you're clueless," Felicity pointed out, then winced. "Apologies if I've made this awkward, darling."
Valey quickly focused. "Yeah, you know what? There's only one cure for awkwardness." Then she leaned forward, grabbed Felicity, and dragged her back down onto the bed until both of them were laying nose-to-nose. Valey grinned, her hooves around Felicity's shoulders. "There."
"Eeep!" Felicity reddened, and Valey let her go, but she didn't move far. "I-I..."
"Were about to start feeling sorry for yourself for some reason?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "If you wanna have a talk, let's talk, but I'm not really in the mood for pointless pouting."
"Sorry," Felicity apologized. "It isn't pointless, though. You probably don't need to be told twice that I'm not the world's best-centered mare, and..."
"And you've got stuff on your mind?" Valey guessed.
Felicity fidgeted. "Are you asking to hear, or...?"
"Start from the top," Valey requested. "Or wherever you want. What's up?"
Felicity gave her a look. "I lived my foalhood in a dump of a province, held my mother as she died, and devoted two decades of my life to revenge that not only never panned out but cost me my sisters and wasn't right in the first place. You mean aside from that, I hope."
"And I'm a creepy rock from outer space who just got killed by a monster and am apparently incapable of sleeping on my own." Valey shrugged. "What can I do to help whatever's got you feeling down right now? You've been so thrilled with this place since we arrived."
Felicity looked away. "I really didn't intend to rain on your parade, darling. I just wanted to apologize for any possible overzealousness with-"
"With trying to do something nice for a friend, in an admittedly very weird way." Valey nodded. "Now you know not to mess with ponies when they're sleeping, easy peasy. So what's up? You're thinking I'm only hanging out with you because I have to, or something."
"I'm pondering it, because I don't know," Felicity clarified. "Hence why I asked."
Valey took a deep breath. "I snuck into your bed last night instead of any of the hundreds of other mares' beds on this island. And I've been around since you made up with us for like a week, and most of that I spent trying to think of how to apologize for drilling you on sticking with us before I knew how much you did to heal my friends. How's that for an answer?"
"...Thank you," Felicity said.
"Yo." Valey flopped on her back, then patted the blankets next to her. "If it means a lot to you, get over here and tell me more about what you're thinking."
Felicity stared at her for a moment, then went all in, laying down right against her side like a massive, winged cat. "Thank you," she repeated with a sigh, tension slowly draining. "You may have noticed, and I'm sure Amber has, but physical closeness is... my coping mechanism, I suppose. Anything from platonically sitting with my sisters to... You know what I did to Geribaldi. And it's difficult, not having some anxiety, when everyone you've known for more than a few months is dead and gone and your figure is only getting worse by the day."
Valey rubbed Felicity's shoulder, noting with interest just how strong her reaction of relaxation seemed to be. "Getting worse? Hey, I think you're hot. Granted, that's not saying much, but I bet you could catch literally anyone's eye here."
Felicity frowned. "Haven't you seen that my belly has been showing for a whole month? I'm practically a charity case, darling!"
"First off, no, I haven't," Valey began, "because I've been gone for most of that time. And even then, you've always been kinda... heavy, you know? You look pretty ordinary still to me. And three, if you're a charity case, then some charity is about to burn down from hotness."
Felicity chuckled. "Heh... Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"So you've still got it." Valey patted her. "And I think I'm starting to see why you thought waking me up like that was a good idea, if this actually relaxes you this much."
Felicity was sprawled on her back at this point, her head on Valey's chest. "Oh, I don't know about that, darling. But yes, it does..."
Valey slowly stopped. "Why is that? How'd you get this as a coping mechanism, of all things?"
Felicity grumbled and rolled over. "Sometimes, when you don't feel very good about who you are on the inside, that leaves only who you are on the outside to feel good about instead. Rather ironic, now that my body's as messed-up as it is, but you can see where I'm coming from."
Valey frowned. "Does telling you I really appreciate that you came back and tried to take another chance with us after honestly realizing your mistake help too, then?"
"Probably not a bad way to make me cry, if you keep on it for too long," Felicity replied. "Which perhaps should wait for another night. Maple told me what was going on while you were sleeping just now. We've got several hours before showtime, but I'd rather not spend them scrubbing tearstains from my cheeks in case of a heroic photo op."
"Nyaah." Valey stuck out her tongue. "So anything else on your mind? I mean, of course there is, but anything you want to get off your chest? Last I checked, you've probably had the least support out of any of my friends."
"Where to start?" Felicity sighed. "I miss my sisters. I'm going to be a mother, and I don't know what to do... never mind that it's to one of the last sphinxes, and I'm one of the last sarosians. I might be the last practitioner of Mistvale arts in the world, unless some monks decided to strike out west from the Empire. And as this little one grows, I'll probably find myself with less and less stamina until I'm completely bedridden... and hopefully not worse."
Valey swallowed. "Yeah, let's hope not." She stared at Felicity's belly.
"Hmm?" Felicity asked, tracing her gaze.
"Just thinking." Valey brushed back a strand of her mane. "This almost reminds me of the last time I spent a while talking with a pregnant batpony who really didn't have a lot left in life."
Felicity winced. "You're comparing me to...?"
"Crystal? Yeah. Hard not to, now that I look at it." Valey kept watching, with a wing around Felicity's back. "Both of you are actually pretty similar. Only... I bet you can have a happy future."
Felicity's ears slowly lifted.
"Whenever I talked with Crystal?" Valey shrugged. "I felt nasty inside afterward. Dirty. I remember beating myself up a bit after the first time, for thinking she was hot. And part of that was me, and I think I've completely thrown it to the wind now, for better or for worse. But it was her, too. She was just so cynical, she could make you feel like you were violating something just by trying to care about her. She was a real lemon bag. And maybe there was some magic going on too, since she was so steeped in Stanza's power and stuff. But you?"
She looked up. "You haven't reached the point where you just hate the entire world. Sure, you lost, like, everything, but... you haven't given up. Someone who'd given up wouldn't even care about all the hot showers and five-star accommodations in the world. You still care enough to think about your chances for the future, right? Like when you started this whole talk? It might take a bit, but if I have anything to say about it, by the time you have this sphinx kid, we'll have a real future set out for you that's better than just being Crystal and giving up and having a tantrum. And... And hey, maybe it'll even have some closure for me, too, for not getting Crystal a happy ending after I was all she had."
Felicity sniffled. "S-So much for saving the tears for later, then. You r-really mean all of that?"
"Oh yeah." Valey hugged her side... then got an idea, pushing Felicity further up on the pillows with a chuckle, until the bigger mare's waist was right in front of her.
"Hey, kid," Valey said to Felicity's belly, brushing it with one hoof while bracing the mare with the other. "You've got a real hot mom, you know that?"
Felicity reddened, and Valey continued. "Seriously. Curves in all the right places. For one of the last of our kind, she really does our image a favor. But she left her life behind and gets pretty lonely at times, and sometimes, it's hard for her to see you as more than a leftover from an old plan that didn't last quite as long as you did, or a strain on her body, or something that'll make others like her less. And, honestly? It's gonna be hard. Her body is this weak already, and you're what, four, four and a half months old? Ain't gonna be easy on her for you to see the light of day. But, kid, listen: you just remind her you're there, and she'll hang on 'cause it's worth making it to the future if you can share it together. Every time she says all her family is gone, you give her your biggest, meanest kick for me, and I'll be here to cheer her on and help her out on the outside. So are we a team, or what? We're gonna build your mom a new life, and she's gonna do it for you."
Valey gave Felicity's belly one more encouraging pat before Felicity grabbed her, bawling. "D-Darling, I d-don't know w-w-what to say..."
"Heh..." Valey stretched and let Felicity down, gently returning the hug that was grappling her. "Yeah, well, we'll see if that sticks in the morning. I guess it's one more point toward me being the best group therapist, huh?" She winked and patted Felicity's heaving back. "Bananas, why does looking out for all you girls just feel so much better than it used to up north...? Eh, who cares. Cry it out, girl. And I'll make sure to come snuggle you when you need it."
Some time later, after the stars had come out and late night moved into early morning, Valey crept from the dorm with an irrepressible bounce in her step, Felicity following heavily behind. Maple and Starlight were waiting, accompanied by the Equestrian guards and Doctor Lost.
"So the deal is this," Valey began, making sure Felicity was still with her. "I've got a good idea who the culprit is, and I know they're gonna come back tonight." She kept her voice low, the lounge's fireplaces dim. "So, we're gonna hide in the archives and catch them red-hoofed. And be gentle." She glanced at the guards. "This is civil mischief, not military stuff. The first pony to escalate anything gets suplexed through a window."
The guards frowned, but saluted.
With that, everyone nodded and dispersed, even Maple and Felicity choosing to help. Doctor Lost led the way into the archives, helping Maple and vanishing with effortless ease into the maze of shelves. Valey and Felicity sank into the shadows, shooting each other looks that made Starlight wonder just what had happened between them. And Starlight herself?
She drew up the hood on her poncho, stepping in a direction she hadn't seen anyone else go. She had something new to try.
When she was confident she was alone, Starlight opened her poncho and pulled out her stick. Swallowing, she tapped a knot on the haft against her flank, right where the triangular hole should have been. There was a tingle of energy as the connection activated, and she quickly used her poncho to hide the two rings of runic light.
While Valey had been sleeping, she had been thinking all day about her conversations with Valey and Caballeron. It had involved a lot of struggle and going back and forth, but by the time the two batponies had awakened, she had finally built up her determination around a conclusion: she couldn't choose not to use an option in her power to get what she wanted if she didn't know how to use it in the first place.
To her, a filly who had killed windigoes and fought Chrysalis, anything she couldn't do? There was a worryingly high chance it was just something she couldn't do yet. Especially if Glimmer and her visions were right about what she could do in the future. If Starlight was going to willingly give up and let the world take its course, she had to know what it was she was choosing not to use. She couldn't give up because she wasn't strong enough, then become stronger and be forced to question her decision. She had to stop hiding from finding out what she could do.
"Felicity said you're infused with sadness," Starlight whispered, putting a hoof against the stick. "Powerful enough that our bodies get paralyzed by it just by touching you. Nightmare Moon said she used you to create the Nightmare Modules and use them before she could use them herself. You can cast Nightmare Modules. How?"
As if in answer, the stick shifted faintly, creating the illusion that something was glowing blue deep within it. Starlight felt her heart speed up. Was this it? Could it somehow react to her wishes and intentions all on its own, just like when it had joined her in the first place in the Mistvale sea cave?
Silently, Starlight willed the stick to shadow cloak her.
Her vision twisted, the darkness reaching up and wrapping around her body. It felt different from every time she had cast it before, which was good: it was a more intense equivalent to pulling her hood up or holding still against a wall, not a feeling of being shielded from existence. There was no need to see or be near her friends, yet as she held a hoof up, it took a moment for her to realize her hoof was there at all.
With this stick and a cutie mark, she could cast Nightmare Modules without going gray.
"Okay, Starlight," she whispered to herself, her voice echoing in the way words only could when nobody could be bothered to hear them. Now time for the hard part: setting boundaries she wouldn't cross. Points at which she would choose to give up rather than pushing herself further.
The memory module? She had already seen its contents; there wasn't much point in restricting it to herself. Moon glass? That module created hazardous waste as a byproduct, which would be dangerous to her as well if she didn't want to turn gray. She would never use that one unless she had to.
What about the module that erased memories? That was a good line never to cross, even though she hadn't planned on ever using it in the first place. Where would that even be useful?
That left only the Tyranny Module, the shadow cloak, and the shield. The former, she didn't even understand well enough to make a proper decision on, so she wouldn't use it until she had time to test it when the stakes were zero. The shadow cloak was the first one she had gotten and her personal favorite, so... maybe she would keep using that. She had to let herself use some so there would be a contrast around the ones she didn't use, right? And the shield was important. It could do the same.
Starlight blinked, standing obscured in the middle of the archives, realizing she had reached for a new power with the intention of setting boundaries and then not setting any new boundaries at all.
She swallowed. No. She had to make herself do this. She had to limit something she knew she would do...
A shuffling sounded in the entrance. Too late. She'd have to think about this later.
An outline was visible against the light filtering through Doctor Lost's office. Lavender Curtain, Valey had briefed her while they were flying. But the figure sure was slouching. Either Lavender was deeply nervous or ashamed, or she wasn't alright.
Starlight imagined she heard an imperceptible giggle, and then two pairs of sarosian eyes briefly surfaced where Valey and Felicity had gone down earlier. Whatever those two were up to over there, this was Valey's plan, right? She was just here to help the other ponies keep watch. The figure shambled closer.
"Ah-ha!" Doctor Lost cried, leaping out from a bookcase and flanked by Equestrian guards. "What have we here, my good vandal!?"
Immediately, someone overchanneled the power to the lights, causing them to come on with a force that momentarily blinded Starlight. She preemptively blinked, partially shielding herself, and recovered as fast as she could to see Lavender-
It wasn't Lavender. Hissing and cringing at the light was a bloodshot, unkempt High Prince Gazelle.
"Woah, what? You!?" Valey immediately surfaced, her cheeks bearing remnants of redness that was quickly draining. "Bananas, why are you here?"
The guards by Doctor Lost suddenly looked very nervous to be taking an aggressive stance towards a sphinx, and the doctor blinked, uninformed on Valey and Lavender's plan. "My word. The culprit is royalty?"
Gazelle twitched. "Culprit? I heard there was a break-in... here. Someone was looking for knowledge. Old knowledge." He blinked. "Can this place tell me how to return my sister?"
"That is not a risk I wanna take," Valey instantly said, standing in his face. "Go back to the hospital, Catbreath. It's the middle of the night, and we've got an investigation going."
Gazelle's eyes flashed, and he tried to walk past her. "No. Not if there's a chance."
One of the guards took a stance as Valey moved to block him again. "You're saying the Prince ransacked this place?"
"No," Valey replied, Gazelle trying again to go around her. "He's saying he got inspired by last night to try it himself. Bananas. I didn't consider this..."
"Regardless of who came first, I think there are much more interesting questions at hoof!" Doctor Lost interrupted, trying to restrain Valey from blocking Gazelle. "First and foremost, what kind of information could drive someone to break into this place in search of it? I must know!"
Gazelle didn't look up, reaching a bookshelf, picking a book, flipping through it at random and putting it back perfectly in place. "I have a sister," he hoarsely said. "Her name is Gwendolyn. I need to get her back. I must. I have to..."
"Back from where?" the professor pressed, eager.
"She's dead, dude," Valey sternly interrupted, pulling Doctor Lost back and letting Gazelle rifle through another book. "Got zapped into dust by a laser from an evil monster. Catbreath, this library does not have any material on how to turn yourself into a sphinx necromancer or time-traveler. Let's get you back to the hospital. Let's go."
Gazelle shot her a burning look. "Don't tell me it isn't possible, sarosian. That folly killed you too, and you still stand here before me! Help me find my sister! Please!"
His eyes filled with a pleading intensity, and Doctor Lost blinked in curiosity. "You have cheated death itself?"
"Long story, very misleading." Valey waved a wing. "Does anyone have any ideas on how to get him to move? He's not gonna be happy if I try to do it by force, and by that I mean he'll probably fight us."
Starlight's horn flared with power, and Gazelle was encased in a midnight-blue crystal, a look of shock upon his feline face.
"Well... that works." Valey shrugged.
Starlight lifted his crystal in her telekinesis, dropping the shadow cloak and stepping into plain sight. Something twisted in her as she matched eyes with the desperate sphinx, and for a moment, she saw nothing but her own reflection: she would do anything to save her friends, even from death, and here she was stopping him from doing the same.
It stabbed at her resolve almost as hard as the prince was struggling against her crystal, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Felicity stare at her with a suspicious frown. "...Please tie him up or get him to the hospital," she managed, already feeling cowed. "I don't know if I can hold him for much longer."
She had a shard of moon glass containing Lyn's soul, tucked away in a pocket of her saddlebags. Gazelle desperately missed his sister, and she had one of the pieces, but with no intention of giving it to him... even though the knowledge of what it would feel like in his position was almost physically painful, a tearing in her chest. It wasn't her magic that was going to fail first.
"Is there any way you can stun him, or something?" Valey asked. "He's really unhappy in there."
Valey didn't need to remind her. Mind weighted with every bit of what she would feel if someone was doing this to her, Starlight raised Gazelle up, pointed him headfirst down, and slammed him into the ground, dropping the crystal right before he hit. It stunned the sphinx long enough for Valey and the guards to restrain him, but when he recovered, he didn't struggle. He just looked at Starlight, hurt.
"Don't look at me like that!" Starlight cried, covering her head and trying futilely to look away. "It's for your own good! You'll only hurt yourself if you try to save her..."
It didn't help either of them. Gazelle was carried away, and all Starlight could think about was Glimmer telling her much the same.
"Darling," Felicity interrupted, reaching a hoof for her. "You're extremely-"
Starlight teleported.
It wasn't a long teleport. She appeared in a burst in the Laughter lounge, running past a confused Lavender Curtain and into the dorm area where she and Maple had slept. Her saddlebags... where were her saddlebags? There they were.
Minutes ago, she had been experimenting with magic she never wanted to use again, just to prove she could use it responsibly and draw lines for herself and try to get Glimmer's mythical happily ever after that was free of ashen futures. She hadn't turned back to the Nightmare Modules as a last resort. She had done it because... why? Wasn't the point to make herself a better future without them?
She was so strong, she was treating a goddess's personal weapons as toys. And right next to her was Gazelle, broken and struggling to exactly the same end, only he didn't even have his sister safe so he could afford to work on his own state of mind. What gave her the right to treat him like that? This was exactly the kind of carelessness that would bring about that future...
Starlight found what she was looking for. Tightening her poncho, she slipped Lyn's moon glass into an internal pocket, nodding to herself as she felt its weight. She felt disgusted, sickened, both by empathy as well as her own actions. Somewhere, a voice screamed that her thoughts were beginning to race, that she needed to calm down, that she had been here before, but she smashed it aside with the ruthlessness of a closet door. Gazelle was the hero to his sister, and she was the villain who was incalculably more powerful than him and brushed his efforts aside without even caring. And he would be like her, and surpass all limits to try to protect what he loved despite her obstacle, just like what she had done to the windigoes and Chrysalis until he was powerful enough to cause his own ash-filled future. Well, she couldn't let that happen.
"Starlight-!" Felicity burst into the dorm, panting heavily.
Starlight didn't even look over her shoulder, lighting her horn and teleporting for the hospital.
Starlight appeared in Gazelle's room at the hospital, standing in the windowsill. The room was empty. She was early.
Her mind felt like it was holding its breath as she stared out the window at the midnight path, waiting for Valey and the guards and their captive to arrive. She wouldn't berate herself. She was doing what she could. All she could do was wait.
Seconds passed like kernels of hail on her back, making her feel tense and cold and exposed in the open. She fished in her poncho, holding Lyn's moon glass in a hoof. If someone else had taken Valey's moon glass, the things she would do to get it back...
Slowly, her patience paid off. A party became visible on the road, the two guards carrying Gazelle and Valey following warily, even though he didn't resist. The window looked out over the entrance, and they entered the building, vanishing from sight. Starlight lit her horn, not moving, and expanded and thinned her telekinetic field, calling on an old trick until she could feel only vague resistance from the walls of the lobby below and the ponies moving inside.
She moved her aura with them, too thin for the ponies below to detect. Gazelle was passed around, and soon he was walking under his own power, a smaller pony than the guards with him. The guards and Valey left. For a moment, Starlight realized Valey had to know where she was, that she couldn't hide, because Valey could smell her from anywhere... but that realization led to the cold knowledge that Valey wasn't coming for her. Her best friend didn't care.
Starlight stumbled as panic gripped her chest, fighting it back by insisting she didn't want to be found and that Gazelle was the only thing important. It felt like her brain was physically moving inside her skull, and trying to drag the rest of her body along with it. Before the sensation could pass and she could regain her balance, she fell off the windowsill, and was laying on her back with the ceiling in her view. She couldn't remember the moment of impact.
Was this happening to her again? Why her? Why here? Why now? Please not now... Starlight growled, willing herself to get up, and her body did nothing.
"Easy, now," a caring mare's voice consoled, and the door swung open. "We'll get you back to bed, and I'm sure you'll feel much better in the... Hello?"
Starlight didn't move, her teeth grinding together. She had blown it.
"Lyn?" Gazelle called, breathless. "Gwendolyn, is that you!?"
Starlight's horn popped with an erratic spark of magic. "Is that you again?" the nurse called, approaching quickly. "Oh, honey, the floor is no place to-"
Gazelle rushed past her like a shadow. "Gwendolyn!" He stood urgently over her... and blinked, his permanently-pinprick eyes growing very sad. "You stopped me."
"I'M SORRY!" Starlight burst out, and starting crying. "I'm sorry! I know how much you miss her! I miss her too, a-and-"
Gazelle opened his mouth and started to inhale.
Starlight's eyes widened. There was a faint red light in the black pit of his throat, and didn't Garsheeva have a breath attack? Something felt wrong. The stick under her poncho shifted, and she readied the nightmare shield, waiting for the first hint of spikes...
Something hot, damp and violating touched her face, just like last time, only this time Starlight was aware and watching... and she saw nothing but air. Gazelle kept inhaling, far past the capacity mortal lungs should have allowed, and the light in his throat pulsed faintly as Starlight felt her mind drain of panic and loathing, the invisible force still probing her. It could have been a second and it could have been an hour, but the feeling eventually subsided, leaving her feeling limp and empty.
"Don't cry." Gazelle reached down and brushed a tear from her cheek with the side of an extended claw. "I can't bear to see fillies cry..."
Before anything else could happen, the nurse swept between them, scooping Starlight away from Gazelle and against her side with a wing. "You need your rest," she sternly told the prince. "I'll be back in a moment to get you anything you need, okay? Let me just take care of this filly first."
She stepped outside the door and set Starlight down in a chair in the hallway, crouching until their eyes were on level. "Are you alright?" she whispered. "What's wrong, honey?"
"I-I..." Starlight swallowed, tapping the stick against her flank inside the poncho to break the connection. "Everything..."
"Family troubles?" the nurse guessed. "Are you afraid?"
Starlight shook her head, feeling completely empty, like the strength to move her neck was coming from somewhere else. "No family troubles."
"Can I help you get back to them?" the nurse asked. She was a student like all the others, maybe Shinespark's age. Starlight got the feeling that she had never been afraid for her life, or her friends', and her personal crises had never come near the level of danger to continents and cities. She probably would never be able to understand, no matter how much Starlight explained herself... but she didn't need to understand to care. Starlight decided she trusted the nurse completely.
"Can I talk to Gazelle first?" Starlight asked, her voice like melting ice in her mouth. "I came here looking for him."
The nurse looked concerned. "He needs his sleep, and I need a way to make him less restless and stop running away. Will you wind him up? I need to care for all of my patients."
Starlight shook her head. "He was looking for something. Maybe he'll be better if I give it to him."
The nurse reluctantly let her go. "Be quick, you hear? He's not in a good state of mind. I'll be right here for you."
When Starlight entered the room, Gazelle hadn't budged an inch from where she left him. His eyes glowed at her in the darkness, waiting for an answer.
"I'm sorry," Starlight said, her legs moving on their own. Why was she doing this? Her thoughts didn't feel up to spinning. She didn't have much motivation to go anywhere. She barely felt up to questioning this. She was only here because she had to be... "I miss her too. You really want to get her back..."
"I would do anything," Gazelle rasped. "Why did you stop me?" His tone was sad.
Starlight's ears fell. "Because someone told me we'd be happier if we moved on and let go."
"But I have moved on," Gazelle whispered. "I changed since we fought the first time, in Izvaldi. I wouldn't hurt anyone, now. So why can't my punishment end? Am I still doing something wrong... angel?"
"Angel?" Starlight blinked.
"I was wayward. Misdirected," Gazelle breathed. "You ended my path. I faced my judgement. You fought against it and held it off. Now you fight me again." A muscle in his side involuntarily twitched. "Am I still crooked, angel? Where do I go wrong? Or are you here to condemn me as much as save me? Or are you a force of nature and not an angel at all...?"
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "I don't feel very angelic. All I want is to protect my friends." She looked down. "Which is what you want, too."
"Please," Gazelle silently begged. "I have seen her. Valey. She is back. Tell me how... please...!"
Starlight shivered. "You need her body and her soul, and then away to put them back together. We had both. But your sister got turned into dust, Gazelle."
Gazelle made a faint choking sound.
"I don't know if it's possible," Starlight apologized. "Actually... I know that nothing's impossible, but it might not be worth the price. You don't have her body..."
"I. Will. Do. Anything," Gazelle hissed. "I'll move the entire world if it's what it takes..."
Starlight watched him. "If you're going to fail, would you rather fail now, before you've done anything, or make progress and fail later, when it feels like you're close?"
"I won't fail her," Gazelle choked. "She doesn't deserve to die as part of my punishment. If you are an angel, please, please help me..."
Slowly, Starlight swallowed and held out the moon glass. "Here she is."
Gazelle stared at her in confusion.
"Her soul," Starlight whispered, trying to keep her voice low enough that it couldn't be heard from outside. "And her cutie mark. It's moon glass. I stole her back from Chrysalis."
Gazelle approached as if in a dream, reverently scooping the shard out of Starlight's hoof. "Gwendolyn..."
"Her body is dead," Starlight continued. "Gone. You can't get it back. So are her memories. But that's her. You should... keep her."
Gazelle didn't seem to hear her. "How do I get her back?"
"You can't," Starlight replied, fully aware that there was a way to create a brand-new body for a mark encased in moon glass... and also that there were no blank mares in Equestria old enough to do it. "Not the Gwendolyn you remember and love. And not by yourself. If you were to see her again, ever, the first thing you'd have to do is take care of yourself. You need help to get her, the kind of help you can't get from anyone through begging or force. You would need friends who care about both of you enough to do major things for you only because they love you. You'd need to have a life you can live without her to bring her back into it. The only way you can bring her back is by being able to live fully without her."
"That's impossible," Gazelle rasped. "How do you know!?"
"Because that's the way I want things to work," Starlight replied, a tiny spark awakening in her lifeless chest. "I'm nothing without my friends. I've risked everything for them again and again, and all I've ever been told is the only thing that lies down this road is pain for myself as I give everything I have to get my way. I can't imagine a happily-ever-after without them, but I know that I won't find one if I keep doing what I'm doing because I've done nothing but get more lonely and more powerful. And I'm afraid if I stop trying and trust the future to be alright if they're gone, I'll lose everything and it will just be worse."
"So you don't know," Gazelle whispered. "Then what if I trust you and some chance to return her slips through my claws because I wasn't ready?"
"...I know." Starlight hardened her eyes. "That's why it's hard. But I got this soul back from Chrysalis in the first place, didn't I? Trust me. Even if I can't find faith in the world to sit down and stop trying to protect my friends myself, I'm not about to let it stab you in the back if you try to do the same. Please try to live a life that Gwendolyn would be proud of." Mentally, she added, And please show me it can be done for my sake, too...
Gazelle's breath hitched. "I can't," he finally sighed. "Not until I can hold her again..."
"Then you'll never be strong enough to get her back," Starlight apologized. "I... won't try to stop you again. Good night, Gazelle."
Gazelle didn't reply.
Starlight opened the door, stepped through it, and closed it again. It hurt, making things up and telling Gazelle that giving up was the way to get back his sister... but that was what he thought was happiness, and if he could live a happy life without her, that would be happiness too. And maybe, if the world was as nice to him as it had been mean to her, there really was some magic in making friends and trusting them instead of himself alone that could return Lyn from the dead. But that might be too much to believe.
"It was quieter in there," the nurse said, waiting. "Did you get anything off your shoulders?"
"Yes," Starlight replied, a tiny spark of blue in her chest keeping her on her hooves. "I did. I'm tired... I need to go back home."
She didn't feel up to teleporting, and the nurse wasn't about to make her. "Of course, honey. I'll carry you to the Laughter dorms, how about that? My coltfriend lives there, so I know a few shortcuts..."
When the nurse opened the Laughter door, Felicity and Maple were sitting by a fireplace, and Valey was nowhere to be seen.
"I'm back," Starlight said tiredly, wanting to pass out.
"Starlight!" Maple immediately got up, hobbling over and taking her in a ginger hug. She looked up at the nurse. "Where did you find her?"
"She was at the hospital," the nurse replied. "Looking for dear Gazelle. I was worried about her, but she says she'll be safe with you?"
Maple glanced down at Starlight in concern. "Only if she doesn't run off again. Valey is still out after taking Gazelle away. Starlight, we wondered if you'd gone with her without telling us... Are you alright?"
"I don't feel very good," Starlight mumbled into her chest. "I need to go lie down..."
"What you need is for me to look over you immediately," Felicity interrupted, giving a worried look at Starlight and a stern thank-you to the nurse. "Something was wrong enough with you that I could practically smell it just before you disappeared, darling, and you're completely different now than you were then."
The nurse bowed and took her leave, hurrying off back to the hospital. "Should we at least sit down?" Maple suggested.
Felicity nodded, shepherding Starlight along to the couch. "You can smell me?" Starlight asked quizzically.
"Well, not you specifically." Felicity waved a hoof. "Valey likely would have explained this, but intense, nearby emotions register to our noses, darling. It's a sarosian thing. And there was something deeply unnatural about what you were feeling just then."
Starlight folded her ears. "Deeply unnatural?"
"I know my emotions," Felicity replied, settling into the couch. "And there was something very off about yours just there."
Starlight looked down. "Unnatural as in something was affecting me? Because Gazelle..."
"Gazelle what, darling?" Felicity gently pressed.
"You went to see him?" Maple added. "Even though he was already just here?"
"To apologize." Starlight nodded. "For stopping him even though he just wants to see his sister again. Just like I'd do if I lost any of you." She quieted, and added, "Like I did when Valey died."
"I see," Felicity murmured. "Darling, please tell me as much as you can about what you've been feeling just now."
"There's nothing unnatural about it," Starlight mumbled, sitting on the couch between Maple and Felicity. "Gazelle was just trying to do exactly what I would have. And I froze him and stunned him by beating him against the ground. All I could do was imagine someone doing that to me if I was trying to save someone, and it hurt too much to deal with."
"It reminds me of when we met Selma on our first night in Ironridge," Maple added. "I don't remember it too well after everything that happened later, but didn't he do something similar?"
Felicity nodded slowly. "And what else?"
"What do you mean, what else?" Starlight frowned. "I crushed him. He didn't stand a chance, but he didn't even fight back, either. He just looked at me like I was betraying him!"
"It was very upsetting for you both, I could tell," Felicity answered.
"So why is it unnatural?" Starlight pressed. "Should I not be feeling bad about this? I don't even remember why I stopped him! Valey wanted to, and I was helping her, or... something..."
Felicity fervently shook her head. "Absolutely not, darling. I was... Oh, how do I put this...?"
Starlight watched and waited.
"I see why you're upset." Felicity took a breath. "You have every right to be. I just... The suddenness and intensity, especially right after Valey asked me to look over you..." She fidgeted. "You're aware of how my brand works, yes? Down to the details?"
"Alters their intensity," Felicity corrected. "Stronger, weaker, to everyone in a radius around me including myself. It doesn't change them, doesn't add new ones or subtract anything existing, so all of your emotions still come from you, even though they're being... influenced. By me. Does that make sense?"
Starlight nodded. "Where are you going with this?"
Felicity sighed. "Valey wants me to ensure there's nothing magical or abnormal influencing your emotions, so to speak. And it's very hard for me to explain this in a way that doesn't suggest I think whatever you're feeling isn't real or doesn't count, because it's certainly real to you and I understand your train of thought perfectly, but... if there was something having a malefic effect on you, you can understand that you're in a bad situation and we can't take risks and need to do whatever we can, right? I am not telling you there's something incorrect about what you're feeling."
"I don't really care," Starlight replied, head drooped. "I already know Gazelle did something magical to me the last two times we talked. If you can help me, please help. I feel tired."
Felicity took that as permission, putting a hoof on the back of Starlight's head and another at the base of her neck and her two wingtips along her spine. For a moment, she closed her eyes. Then: "Do you mind if I try something?"
"No."
Somewhere inside Starlight, it felt like a string was reattached, and a little more strength returned to her limbs. "What did you do?" she asked, her ears lifting halfway. "That didn't feel bad."
"The Mistvale art equivalent of giving you a pat on the back," Felicity replied, letting her go. "You might not need me to tell you this, but you've been through an ordeal and are very drained, darling. Like you're feeling less because your mind is tired of all the feeling it's just been doing."
"I believe it." Starlight slumped into a cushion. "What do I do?"
Felicity motioned toward Maple. "First and foremost, give yourself a rest, darling. Stay with your loved ones, or someone you trust. Listen to a story, drink something sweet, sleep if you're tired. You badly need some time to recuperate, and we'll look out for you while you do it. Won't we?"
Maple nodded firmly. "We might not be the strongest ponies, but that's never been your problem, right? You know I'd never do anything to hurt your feelings. You'll be safe here."
"Thanks," Starlight said, looking back at Felicity. "So can you tell what Gazelle did?"
"...Hmm," Felicity hummed. "Well... you could think of yourself as burnt-out right now, yes? This isn't abnormal to have happen after your mind has been too active. In fact, there was a sizable portion of my life where this would happen to me, when I used my brand too hard on myself to... you know... overindulge and ignore my troubles. So I'm familiar with how you feel."
"But?" Starlight didn't budge.
Felicity nodded. "For me, at least, I'd have some... leftover garbage, so to speak, in my mind from whatever I was trying to distract myself with after I pushed myself too hard and crashed. Your head is a lot emptier. And from what you've said about how Gazelle made you feel, both times, I strongly suspect he has some manner of draining you of your emotions."
"Draining me of my emotions." Starlight glanced down. "It didn't feel very good. But both times, it helped, especially the first one." She sighed. "What's wrong with me? This is twice in two days I've completely lost control of myself."
"Perhaps it helped," Felicity agreed, "but it's absolutely not a good or healthy solution, especially since we don't know anything about how that works. I haven't heard anything about sphinxes being able to drain emotions before."
Starlight slumped into the couch. "I just wish he didn't drain everything. I don't feel like doing anything right now. I don't even feel as bothered by this as I know I should be. I hate things that try to change how I feel..."
"Has that happened both times?" Felicity asked, rubbing her back encouragingly.
"No. Well, maybe." Starlight frowned. "It might have. But after the first time I had a talk with Valey, and started feeling a little bit better."
"Maybe she can help you again?" Maple suggested. "Actually, where is Valey? If you were talking with Gazelle at the hospital and she went there to drop him off, she should have been back before you..."
"Getting up to nightly things with the students, no doubt." Felicity shook her head. "Regardless. Maybe you could tell me more about your first panic attack? If they have a common cause, we could possibly do something about them. Help you recognize when they're going to happen and prepare yourself better for them, if this is a new facet of life."
Starlight looked away. "I don't think they did. The first one happened because I saw something that scared me in the archives. I didn't hurt anyone, or do anything wrong, or anything."
"Can you be any more specific?" Felicity gently prodded.
Starlight wasn't even sure how much she cared about keeping the Eylista meteor a secret. "I learned that maybe I have something to do with the moon glass meteor, and I panicked and ran away. I don't even know why I did it myself..."
Maple pursed her lips. "You were feeling bad or unhappy about yourself both times, then."
Starlight looked up. "Well, yes."
"Actually..." Felicity tapped a wing. "Just to make sure I know all the details, you teleported out of the archives, yes?"
Starlight blinked. "Yes. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Bear with me, darling," Felicity requested. "Now, you weren't nearly this bad, but I also remember you feeling particularly down after the incident where the brood beasts stopped swimming and one was executed with lightning. Weren't you?"
"Why?" Starlight frowned. "Of course I was. I tried to make them move, and it got one of them killed! I shouldn't have interfered."
"You tried to make them move," Felicity confirmed, "by smashing them with a giant crystal boulder."
Starlight squinted.
"Maybe this is an erroneous hunch," Felicity went on, "and I really don't know whether to hope I'm right or wrong, but Valey did ask me to look into anything unusual that could be adversely affecting you, darling. And it's an admittedly strange pattern, but you don't exactly use your magic for little things on a day-to-day basis, do you?"
Starlight's eyes slowly widened at Felicity's implication. "I also used my crystal to shield myself from a fall after I teleported away the first time. And I teleported to go find Gazelle. And I've been using it more since we reached this island! Are you saying...?"
"That ever since we made it here, the reason her magic isn't hurting her body is because it's hurting her mind instead?" Maple finished her thought, looking disturbed.
"I hadn't even tried framing it that way," Felicity murmured, looking bothered herself. "All I saw was the correlation. Darling, do you...?"
"Why?" Starlight whispered, looking at her hooves. "Why does this happen to me? Do you mean all of what I've been feeling is just-"
"Absolutely not," Felicity interrupted forcefully. "Don't even finish that sentence, darling. There is nothing wrong with your thoughts and you are perfectly justified in being afraid of the things you're afraid of. I said they made sense, did I not? If this really is the case, what's far more likely is that something manifests as a strain on your mind that just makes it harder to process the problems that you encounter naturally. It's just like how you're more vulnerable to catching a cold when you're low on sleep, you know?"
Starlight continued to stare. "So what do I do?"
"Try using your horn," Felicity gently advised. "Not too strenuously. I'll be watching and measuring. If we're going to suspect this, we might as well know for sure."
Starlight frowned and lit her horn, lifting one side of the nearest sofa. It was hard to concentrate, though. She felt worn-down, and what if Felicity was right? Wouldn't she just be digging herself deeper? And if so, this could be the last she used her horn for a very long time...
"That's enough," Felicity murmured. "You can tell it didn't fill you with confidence, did it?"
"No..." Starlight blinked. "But I had other things to worry about."
"Yes, I'm sure you did," Felicity agreed. "But they suddenly seemed just slightly more pressing, didn't they?"
Starlight winced, not wanting to be forever unable to use her horn. "But they were things I would have had on my mind otherwise!"
Felicity gently nodded. "So was your treatment of Gazelle, and your reaction to your revelation. They're your thoughts and your fears, Starlight. That's why I was so insistent earlier that if something was in your head, like Valey asked me to check, it absolutely did not mean there was anything wrong with you having your fears themselves. That said... I suppose it's obvious what to do about this."
"Stop using my horn." Starlight swallowed. "Even more than I used to. I don't want to lose my magic. I need it to protect you..."
"I don't think so," Maple interrupted, having sat in thought for a while.
"Hmm?" Felicity looked to her, interested.
"I don't know why this would be," Maple continued. "And if this really is true, it would be good to find out. But I have wondered why this island has been so good for Valey and Felicity and Gerardo and even me, too, if I can be honest, but not for you. Now, if Felicity's right, and your magic somehow strains your mind instead of your body, now... maybe it still works like it used to, and you can use it while being better or push yourself while being worse. You're at the end of your rope right now, right? Enough that you're almost passing out and having panic attacks. Maybe this is like when you're close to passing out from a headache or dizziness. So maybe you could keep living like we used to and using your magic carefully... You'd just have to recharge for a while first, and then watch how you're feeling a lot more closely than just headaches."
Starlight blinked, a slow spark of hope rising in her chest. If that was true, then maybe the reason she hadn't felt as bad after the brood beast died was because she had been running herself down over time, whenever she used magic... The spells she had let herself use certainly were more powerful than normal, now that she didn't give herself headaches with them. Maybe this was true, but what if she could live with it without never using her horn again?
Felicity chuckled, a hoof still against her. "There you go, darling. It'll be alright, see?"
...She still felt tired and drained, though, and now wondered if it wasn't just due to Gazelle. "Maybe it will. But can we go to bed? I still don't feel so good..."
"Yes, let's." Maple got carefully to her hooves. "I think I'm going to need to start exercising soon, now that my ribs are getting better. Anyway. Felicity?"
"I think I'll stay up for a bit, darling," Felicity replied. "See if I can't fill Valey in whenever she returns. Have a good night!"
"I hope we do," Maple agreed, leading Starlight into the dorm room.
It was nearly an hour later when Valey returned, the moon entering the end of its arc across the sky. Felicity was snoozing lightly, alone in her blankets on a couch by a fire.
"Hey, girl," Valey greeted tiredly. "You still up?"
Felicity blinked herself awake. "You're back? Darling, what time is it...?"
"About four in the morning." Valey shrugged. "Sleeping out here tonight?"
"Waiting for you," Felicity replied. "There's some... news about Starlight. More like a very likely hunch, but first, where were you?"
"Starlight?" Valey blinked. "Uhh... I was getting midnight tacos with our buddies the Equestrian guards. Turns out, they're almost as spooked about the possible repercussions of arresting an imperial prince as we are of getting on their bad side while here illegally. Stories were swapped, we hung out and I think all of us are in more stable positions as a result. What's up here?"
Felicity took a breath. "There's a nonzero chance that since we crossed the mountains, the reason she hasn't been getting headaches from her magic anymore is that it's somehow straining her mind instead of her body. Reduced emotional capacity to deal with hardships, less she can shoulder before she snaps... She took it better than she could have."
Valey blinked. "Bananas, that stinks."
"Better than not knowing," Felicity replied. "And, of course, I couldn't even begin to tell you why that is."
Valey pursed her lips. "Three things I'd be most suspicious of are something involving that fight with the Nightmare Modules and Crystal, her new cutie mark, or us being south of the mountains."
"Her new brand?" Felicity blinked. "You think that thing..."
"It's an artifice," Valey said, showing off her butt. "Like mine. I've done a bit of struggling to be able to live with mine and who it makes me, but the truth is always gonna be that it's a weapon and by extension I'm a weapon and Luna designed that on purpose. And that's not the least shady thing that's ever happened. So considering we don't even know exactly what her mark does yet? Starlight's got her own will, she can use it for whatever she wants, but if suspicious things are going on, I would not count it out as a culprit whatsoever."
Felicity frowned. "Hmm."
"Think we can work on that in the morning, though?" Valey nosed up to her. "We can sleep in as late as we want tomorrow, but those campers are gonna be back late in the evening. Might as well enjoy the peace and quiet, huh?"
"You're enjoying yourself entirely too much." Felicity shook her head with a smile. "Much as I appreciate what you're trying to do for me, you do realize Shinespark likely won't be pleased with your... free-spiritedness, don't you?"
"Yeah, let me worry about that." Valey hoisted Felicity, blankets and all, onto her back. "Did the stuff with Lavender and the professor get sorted out, by the way?"
"After you left with Gazelle?" Felicity blinked. "She came in and confessed directly. Said things about how we planned it and set it up in advance to give him a fun taste of adventure. I honestly couldn't tell if he fell for it or was playing along, but this seems to be the end of our break-in troubles for now."
"Good." Valey swayed her hips as she walked. "I'm gonna buy that guy the biggest padlock next time I get some money. If there's an archive with ancient artifacts that haven't been identified, especially now that break-ins are on everyone's minds, we really don't want some clown stumbling in and accidentally unleashing a monster, or something."
Felicity swatted her. "Have you ever heard of a jinx, darling!?"
"Yep." Valey grinned. "Imagine how hard it would blow these students' minds if I got to have a big smackdown with some eldritch goon right in the middle of campus? Not that I want this to happen, but if it did, I'm pretty sure I could rock the silver lining."
Felicity giggled. "Well, at least you're enjoying yourself. I, for one, am desperately looking forward to a better sleep schedule, perhaps hunting down a salon now that this break-in business is resolved... Say, before the Dream arrives, would you care to search for such pampering with me? I bet you'd pretty up nicely..."
"Bananas, girl, and give a nosebleed to whoever's doing the prettying? Sounds like it would be worth getting a few ribbons stuck in my mane."
"Ahaha! And here I thought you weren't that type..."
"Glad I could raise your spirits. If it gets even one more smile out of my friends, I'll do anything, and I'll enjoy it, too."
Valey took a big, deep breath, standing with Felicity in the entrance to the Laughter dorms, looking out. The weather was exactly the same as it had been every other day, and Valey strode forward, stepping past crowds of sunbathers that had finally started growing used to her presence.
"Well?" She glanced back at her newest friend. "You have any list of places to go, or are we just looking around? I talked to the professor, and we've got about three and a half hours before the campers get back and we no longer have the dorm to just ourselves and the upperclassponies."
Felicity hummed. "I might be feeling up to a walk around. How about you, darling?"
Valey shrugged. "Eh, I'm good. Now that all the vandalism stuff is sorted out, it's not like there's anything important for me to do."
Half an hour later, Valey had yet to eat her words.
"Hey! Has anyone ever told you that you have amazing fur?"
"Yes," a sunbather drawled with a casual grin, not removing her shades. "But it really doesn't get old."
Valey crossed her forelegs, striking an easy pose. "You get it done anywhere special? It's like... kinda shiny." She leaned forward.
"Look, Don't Touch," the mare replied, puffing out her chest fur.
Valey whistled and drew back her hoof. "Wow. Not an automatic sellout for famous adventurers? You've got class."
The mare shook her head. "Oh, no, that's the name of my stylist. Find the fish fountain in College Town, then three blocks south and two blocks east. But I'm not a sellout either. If you're looking for easy college catches, go find someone who doesn't prefer the longer game."
Valey pursed her lips. "Honestly? That's cool. See ya, and thanks for the tip!"
"You're enjoying this far too much, darling," Felicity remarked as they walked away.
"Am I?" Valey gave her a serious look. "I was seriously not that happy in the Empire, and I had a pretty unfulfilling life in Ironridge before that. I haven't thought too much about why things are better now, but bananas if I'd rather have anything else."
Felicity hummed and nodded, but Valey decided to continue. "I mean... sure, I don't think I could stay here forever. As much fun as messing with college kids is, at some point I wanna settle down and have a bigger group of more stable friends who treat me at least something vaguely resembling normal. Not a myth, and not a monster. But I don't want that now. Right now I've got a million months of steam to finish blowing off, and I would not change a thing."
"You certainly are the more bombastic of the two of us," Felicity replied. "Well... I rather enjoy it too."
"You're welcome to hit on them too, you know," Valey pointed out. "Sure, I enjoy it, but you can back me up if you want to."
"Oh, no, no," Felicity chuckled. "Believe me, I'm happy being out of the spotlight without having to hide from it for once in my life. Buttering ponies up used to be my job, and it's a job I'm glad I never have to return to."
Valey looked at her for a moment... and then shrugged. "Alright. Hey, you think that's the fish fountain? That means the place that mare was talking about must be..."
Two hours later, Valey and Felicity stood side-by-side, staring at their reflections in the window of a cake shop.
"You know, darling," Felicity sighed, "I'm torn between 'it seemed like a silly idea at the time' and 'that worked far better than it had any right to'. Opinions?"
"Sparky's gonna flip," Valey agreed.
"I think I make your messy, carefree style look good, at least," Felicity admitted, admiring herself. "Granted, I think being nearly twice your age and pregnant takes out some of the youthfulness of it, but still..." She experimentally fluffed her mane.
Valey rolled her eyes. "For the last time, you have a big build! No one would know you're knocked up if you didn't say anything!" She brushed her far-straighter mane out of her eyes.
"My style on you, though..." Felicity rubbed her chin. "I knew we should have gone with the pink dye. Though it does look very attractive with your beret. And the ribbon really is a perfect touch."
Valey blew a raspberry. "No way. Natural colors are best. If you tried to turn your mane green, you'd have looked like a comic book character who's supposed to swing a huge axe around. The only way we could have made dye work is if we both went electric blue or something."
"I'm glad you're happy with our choices." Felicity's ears twitched, overshadowed by her own massive bow. "You realize exactly how much shamelessness this is going to require."
"Hey." Valey elbowed her, her reflection sporting a cute little bow on a pin that was keeping her long, brushed-forward mane out of her eyes.. "First off, this was your idea. Second, I've done this before, so yeah, I do. Third, how many of the other mares here you think have their natural colors or styles? We're gonna stroll around like we own the place, laugh at everyone's expressions-" She blinked. "Stop looking at me like that, or I'm gonna laugh at you too!"
"I can't help it!" Felicity snorted, reddening. "I look absolutely and disgracefully ridiculous, darling, like a punk teenager, and you're being your overly serious little self with a cutesy manecut and that bow!"
Valey blinked hard. "Overly serious? Since when have I ever been overly serious in my life!?"
"And now you're pouting!" Felicity protested, pointing a hoof and averting her gaze. "I just can't, darling! It's too much!"
Valey burst out cackling. "Nyaaah ha haa... Ah, bananas. Hey, are you hungry? For some reason staring at my reflection is making me really want a cake."
Another hour later, Valey leaned against a wall, held her stomach and burped. It tasted like sugar.
"Have I ever told you," she started, "about the time I got foalnapped by a deranged, possessed marechild who had no idea how to be a pony, and she devoured an entire wedding cake in one sitting without realizing it would make her sick?"
"No, and it sounds like quite the story." Felicity stumped after her, settling down with a sigh. "I wonder why it comes to mind."
"In my defense, I didn't realize they had so much sugar that one serving actually meant one serving!" Valey shrugged. "Anyway, I'm not gonna be tying that record today. Pretty sure I need to get back to the dorms and pass out before I get a real major sugar crash."
"Hopefully not in a hurry," Felicity groaned. "I feel sluggish already..."
"Heh." Valey fell into stride.
After a few steps, Felicity looked at her. "You know Gerardo and the campers should be back now, right? I'm afraid passing out from a sugar crash might have to wait, now that we'll be sharing space with these purported hooligans..."
"Aww, bananas!"
Felicity giggled. "In fairness, I bet you could find one who's tired after their trip, is looking for a nap, and wouldn't mind sharing..."
"Nah." Valey held up a wing, shaking her head. "Not gonna go there. I know I'm being kinda open-season on this stuff, but there's a big difference between being irreverent and actually crossing lines. I need to see exactly how serious about me being more like the old me Shinespark was before I go cuddling or snogging strangers."
Felicity stared at her for a moment. "I really can't figure you out, darling."
"What part of me?"
"How you think." Felicity shrugged. "Sometimes, I'll expect you to do one thing, and then you'll turn around and do completely another. Others, I'll tell you something obvious about yourself, and you'll be utterly clueless."
Valey tilted her head. "Yeah, like me never sleeping alone. That was weird. What were you expecting me to say, though?"
"Nothing. More specifically, not that." Felicity looked on ahead as they walked. "I didn't think you were conducting yourself with limits with regards to everyone who catches your eye."
"Well... I kind of have to, don't I?" Valey gave her a strange look. "There are hundreds of them, lining up because of my reputation. They're all hot, pretty toned, don't come with a whole lot of emotional baggage, think I'm a big enough shot that they'd do anything I ask for at least a while in return for favor and attention... If I didn't have limits, I'd just use them until I got bored. They sure aren't gonna stop me, and I don't want them to deal with kissing someone who doesn't care back. So yeah, I have to."
Felicity's expression darkened somewhat. "Darling, that's not called needing to. It's called having character. I think there are a whole lot of creatures in the world, especially in the likes of Gyre, who wouldn't see that as a bad thing at all."
"Wait." Valey frowned. "So you thought I was..."
"I think," Felicity sighed, "this is where I tell you how glad I am that my expectations for the way things work and the way you do things are so different. They're not my expectations for you, they're my expectations for everyone. And this isn't the first time you've reminded me how it feels to see them subverted... but things like this are why I find myself drawn to you, darling."
Valey blinked. "Huh."
"Sorry for the daily dose of pessimism," Felicity apologized. "It comes with the baggage. You were saying?"
"Eh, I don't remember. Something about flirting with students and manestyles." Valey shrugged. "Oh yeah, I'm also kind of keeping things at teasing them because I maybe sort of have a history with Shinespark and even though she was real clear that she didn't want me being ultra-strict with myself about relationships and stuff, she definitely likes me and I kinda like her a lot too. And I don't wanna take that so literally that she feels like I'm cheating on her, or something. Honestly, I'm already expecting her to punch me in the face for getting as friendly with you as I have, but I deserve a good whack and she deserves getting to give it to me. We can talk about exactly what I can and can't get away with later."
Felicity gave a soggy smile. "Well, I'm glad you have your eye on true love, and am grateful you deigned to snuggle with me instead during your time without it."
"Hey. That's platonic." Valey prodded her. "Ironflanks is like... I dunno, something not-romantic to me, and we snuggle too sometimes. And lemme tell you, once she's all the way better and we get Amber and Sparky all together, we're inviting you and getting the biggest pony pile of all time."
Felicity burst out giggling. "Now that's quite the image. Are you sure, though, darling? It seems like something that belongs to you..."
Valey adamantly shook her head. "If anyone, it belongs to Ironflanks. Apparently it's a Riverfall thing, or at least a thing she used to do with her friends, who are basically her sisters. I'm sure you'll be welcome to climb on in."
"Hmmm..." Felicity sighed. "I don't suppose you'd like to walk back to the harbor instead and see if we can't sight our friends during their return?"
Valey winked. "And we can fly out to meet them!"
"Ahehem...!" Felicity very nervously cleared her throat. "I may have pushed myself to my limit a month ago flying for fifteen minutes because the crew needed it to survive, darling, but even getting this body off the ground at this point would completely wipe me out. It's a lovely thought, but I'll be spending the rest of my time as a pregnant, groundbound sarosian."
"You keep not letting that drop." Valey rolled her eyes. "Alright, so how about I carry you on my back?"
Felicity reddened. "Darling, that wouldn't be very dignified..."
Valey shrugged. "Carry you beneath me? I wouldn't let you fall."
Felicity reddened harder. "That's not the point."
Valey squinted and rubbed her chin. "Carry you on top of me while flying upside-down?"
Earlier in the day, as Valey and Felicity strolled away down the path from the Laughter dorms, Starlight Glimmer watched them through a window, her chin on her hooves.
She felt... better. In the sense that she could burn herself badly, but eventually it wouldn't hurt unless she poked it or moved it or did pretty much anything at all.
"How are you feeling?" Maple asked, stepping up behind her.
"I don't know." Starlight shook her head, her voice lacking power. "About what? Finding out that my horn has changed and now my magic does... whatever to my mind?"
Maple nodded, sitting down two steps away. "I'm here to listen, if you'd rather sort out your thoughts out loud."
"I'm not feeling worse," Starlight announced. "And I also haven't used my magic. So... I guess that's a good thing."
Maple just nodded.
"But remember how long it took to get over my headaches when they were really bad?" Starlight folded her ears. "I'm not going to collapse again right now, but I don't feel very hopeful, either. I've worn myself down, like going from being okay to having a bad headache, but not quite fainting or being blind. But if it really is the same, it might take weeks for me to get better on my own. And I'm not touching the harmony extractor."
Maple closed her eyes and exhaled. "Are you worried about the implications?"
"What implications?" Starlight frowned. "That if this is due to us being back in Equestria, it might have been responsible for me getting upset enough to leave in the first place? Or that if it's due to this cutie mark, that maybe these artifices aren't so good as Valey is just starting to think?"
"I guess that answers that," Maple whispered.
Starlight shook her head. "I'm not worried, though. Not really. It feels like trying to pick up too many books, and they just slide off the top of the stack and make a mess on the floor. I probably should be. It might be bad if I don't properly understand this. But I just can't."
"When you feel like you have responsibilities, and you just stare at them and don't let them get done." Maple shifted closer. "I know that feeling well. I hate to see this happening to you."
"I'll survive," Starlight promised. "If anyone tries to attack us, I can still fight. Even without my horn."
"I think what you need to do," Maple began, "is go do things whether you feel like them or not, just for the sake of moving around. Maybe ask Valey to start training with you again? And rest when you need to, but I don't want you to get in the habit of sitting around and feeling like there's nothing to do when everything is going on out there."
Starlight frowned. "That's already what I've been doing. Sitting around doing nothing. It's what all of us have, for a whole entire month. And I spent most of it gray. That can't have been good for me."
Maple slowly sighed. "It wasn't a good time, no."
"You look like you have something to say," Starlight remarked.
"I..." Maple paused. "I'm... sorry. For not having a better answer for what to do, and especially not having one for that whole long month. I thought anyone who could take care of themselves... All I can do is know what it feels like. Like you're limp and empty and have no drive to do anything, and..."
"That's not quite how it feels," Starlight replied. "It feels sometimes like I have a tiny spark of stubbornness in my chest. I've been noticing it more recently. And if I hold onto it, I can drag myself through anything, survive anything, find a way to do anything just so I'll win in the end. But... the end isn't now. It keeps coming back, even if something happens to let it go out. I can feel it right now, and I can use it to make myself go on just a little further. I just don't know if it's worth the way I feel."
"Where are you going on towards?" Maple whispered.
"I don't know." Starlight shook her head. "Somewhere better. When I ran away the first time, and when we went to Ironridge, and when we went to the Empire, I wanted to find a place where the world is perfect. A long time ago, Willow told me I could change the world and make my world perfect. And I just don't want to stop and stay down, because there's nothing you can do when you're down besides start going again. But both of them hurt. I just don't know what to do."
Maple put a hoof on her shoulder.
"Why can't the world just be perfect?" Starlight whined. "Why can't I not have anything I need to do? Then none of this would matter..."
"Sometimes," Maple murmured, "when I was feeling down about... about Aspen, and my old husband, I would reach for the ceiling and ask the same thing. When getting out of bed is a lofty goal, why not reach for something so far above you, the only way it could happen is if someone reaches down and picks you up and makes everything right again? It's a wish for help." She closed her eyes. "I'm doing my best."
Starlight sucked in a breath and held it. "But that's not an impossible dream for me. When have I ever failed to do something impossible? What if I actually try, and keep trying for years and years and it doesn't stop hurting?"
"Hm." The corners of Maple's mouth upturned in a smile. "By that logic, I guess recuperating from this and enjoying the world the way it is with what you have isn't an impossible goal after all."
Starlight opened her mouth to protest, then let it drop. "I want to go home. And I don't know where that is."
"Did you feel like you were at home in the past?" Maple asked. "Before Sunburst?"
"Before he left?" Starlight drooped. "Yes. I was happy with my life."
Maple patted her shoulder. "Wherever he is, I bet he traveled a lot less far than we did. Maybe once Princess Celestia lets us stay, we'll get to go find him."
"We can't bring back the past," Starlight complained. "Even if I had time magic, there's nothing I can do to reset myself..." She was lying. She had the memory eraser Nightmare Module. She had just vowed never to use it. "I can't undo anything I've done or discovered or been through, and I don't want to. I won't leave you and Valey and Amber and our friends."
"All the same," Maple murmured. "I still wish I could have been there for you when it happened. Maybe I could have helped you be pen pals, or done something."
All at once, the memory of the vision she had seen at the harmonic flame of love filled Starlight's mind, not the gray ash-filled apocalypse but the second one, where she was a parent had a filly whose best friend had just moved away. Starlight started crying.
Maple moved against her and hugged her carefully, being sensitive of her ribs.
"You've grown, you know," Starlight said.
Maple blinked. "That's not something I ever thought I'd hear from my daughter."
"It's true, though," Starlight insisted. "The first time I woke up in Riverfall, it was with Willow. And she gave me to you to look after, but she told me to look out for you. And I have been. Someone else told me once that I treated you like a little sister, not a parent. That you needed me. And that's not true anymore, is it? You're talking about things I know are hard for you without even blinking because you think it could help me. Things I once might have tried to protect you from. But now I don't need to, because you're... being stronger. For me."
Maple stared at her, speechless. "You've been thinking all that?"
"I'm not going to say anything bad about you," Starlight warned. "I love you and I wouldn't be here without you. But yes. Especially since someone pointed it out to me."
"Starlight..." Maple pulled her back into a hug. "I might not be as strong as you are, but if there's anything I can ever do to take a weight off your shoulders, I will, regardless of what I have to think about. I swear it. You know that, right?"
"Like I said," Starlight sniffled. "You've grown. For me. Thank you."
"For you, maybe, but also because of you," Maple corrected, lifting Starlight's chin. "Do you know how it felt to spend all those weeks doing nothing because of broken bones while our friends were fighting for survival out there in the wilderness? I have a lot of unfinished business and a big share of the load I'm up to carrying. I can't promise to be the wisest or smartest, but if you ever have anything you're afraid of, no matter how much you think it might affect me, I'm here to listen. And if I need help with something you tell me, I have Amber and Valey, but I need you to trust me."
Starlight nodded in her embrace. "Can I tell you something, then? It's not very important and I don't even know what it means, but I've never told anyone?"
Maple nodded firmly. "Anything."
"...Valey's fruit-dodging training is impossible."
Maple blinked. "Well, that came out of nowhere. I thought you were perfect at it? Why is this on your mind?"
"I am perfect at it!" Starlight insisted. "I never even start to flinch. I can read her perfectly, even when she holds a board up to cover her face so I can't read her signals. But I never mess up even once. And everybody else is horrible at it, even ponies like Harshwater who fight for a living. And she only thinks it's a good exercise because she can do it herself, because her cutie mark lets her cheat."
Maple frowned quizzically. "Maybe Harshwater just doesn't know her like you do?"
Starlight bit her lip. "I remember we used to show off by training like that in Stormhoof where others could see us. In Grandbell, too. The only times she ever hits me are when I know it's coming, but am not fast enough to dodge. It's not just Harshwater, it's me. Don't you think that's weird?"
"...That is strange," Maple admitted, tilting her head in thought. "I have no idea why, though. Maybe you and her have a special connection of some kind, one that lets you read her mind somehow? She can do that thing where she smells you from far away, and you did say you think you have something to do with the moon glass."
"Maybe." Starlight folded her ears. "I don't really want to think about it. I don't need yet another thing I can do without knowing why. I'm not even sure I wanted to say it, because now it feels less like a coincidence and more official."
"It sounds like a thing you should talk to Valey about," Maple advised. "Maybe she'd have an idea."
"Probably not." Starlight shook her head. "But I could."
"You could."
Starlight was silent for a moment, working up her courage to say another thing. "I... used another Nightmare Module last night."
Maple was visibly unhappy. "How!? You aren't gray... Was this before or after you...?"
"Freaked out? Before. Immediately before." Starlight lowered her ears. "I... found a new way of using them. All I did was use the shadow cloak to hide. I guess I knew about this way already, but wanted to make sure whether it worked or not, just so I'd know about it if I really needed it and could also draw a line that I really wouldn't cross. And then I felt terrible for using it, like I was treating something that dangerous like a toy..."
"I have to disapprove," Maple apologized. "I'm sorry, but I do. Starlight, I know you needed them to save us from that mare, but think about if you turned gray again..."
"I know." Starlight looked down. "I really shouldn't have, and it's part of what I was panicking about. I just wanted you to know."
Slowly, Maple let out a breath. "I did just say you could tell me anything. Is there anything about it you need to talk about?"
"I'm not planning on doing it again." Starlight shook her head. "I did it with my stick... which is the sword. I wish there was a safer place I could keep it that's not attached to me, just so nobody ever steals it or something. I just wanted to tell you."
"Hmmmmm..."
They were silent for a while, but eventually Starlight stood up. "I... think I'm feeling a little bit better."
"I hope so." Maple kissed her on the forehead, right by her horn. "If your mind is stressed and tired, sometimes saying or hearing the right things can be exactly the right thing to help." She rose as well. "I'm not sure what I think would be best, if you should rest or try to enjoy yourself. What are you feeling like?"
Starlight shook her head. "I don't care, but I'm not doing it alone."
"Well, then." Maple smiled. "Maybe we should go out and ask around for something we could watch for fun. I'm sure there are plenty of ponies at this school who prefer to watch others do things instead of doing them themselves, right?"
"It sure is sunny out," Maple remarked, leading Starlight across the open, grassy, not-quite-maze of Kinmari's island campus. "They have such consistently good weather here. Don't you wonder how they do it?"
"Maybe it's because we're further from the mountains," Starlight guessed. "Mistvale is the only time we've ever been this far away, and it wasn't sunny there for a different reason. They probably don't have rainclouds fall in every other day."
"Whatever it is, no one seems to have problems enjoying it."
The island's resident sunbather population was out in full force, albeit significantly less aggressive about showing off than when Valey or Gerardo were around. Maple and Starlight were hardly unknown; waves greeted them around the campus, accompanied by occasional hellos. But only one pony ever stopped them, and it was nothing more than a mare saying she liked Maple's braided mane.
"I'm glad you're out of your poncho," Maple remarked.
Starlight held her stick like a walking stick, strapped in a traveler's position alongside her saddlebags. She wasn't leaving those alone and unguarded... Even without Lyn's moon glass, she still had lots of other valuables to keep a close eye on. The poncho itself was neatly folded and occupying the entirety of one bag, just in case.
They walked through an arch beneath a low, curved wall that formed an elevated path between two white-marble buildings, the ground falling away into a flattened field where two teams of ponies were sprinting around, a ball flying high between them. "Well?" Maple suggested, pointing at the ponies. "They seem to be having fun. Want to watch?"
Starlight pointed across the field at two stone ramparts gracing a short hill, seagulls flying and wheeling beyond. "That looks like a good place to sit. You could probably see the ocean, too."
"Let's." Maple nodded, leading the way around. It took some time, since the field was long and narrow, wedged vertically down the eastern edge of the island, but they were in no hurry. A salty wind blew in from the water, strong enough that it would have been uncomfortable if it carried a chill, but it was warm and the only danger was to Starlight's manestyle. It made her glad she didn't have her poncho, though.
The ramparts they had seen contained gentle staircases to the top, where it was even windier without the last line of hills to block the winds from the beach. True to Starlight's prediction, just beyond the field only a single rise separated them from the shoreline, a well-built boardwalk sporting benches and food carts and perhaps hundreds of students lounging, swimming or splashing in the waves.
Far in the distance, to the south, Starlight could see another island, likely the next in the archipelago. It looked heavily forested, except for a small area of development on the near shoreline... but that was about all she could make out.
Maple poked her. "Can you figure out how they're scoring points? They just look like they're running back and forth to me."
"Huh?" Starlight turned her attention back to the field, where a shouting match was in progress even as half of the players continued to race around at speeds that would make Valey whistle. "Um, no..."
Things started getting heated below, the players with the ball refusing to interrupt the game even as several more ponies had to step in to break things up. Starlight leaned forward with interest. There were friend divisions, she could almost see. It was a risky, difficult situation. Some ponies wanted to talk others down without saying things they would later regret, others looked uncomfortable from the whole affair, several looked annoyed, including a few who were clearly strong enough to make anyone regret getting them involved. She honed in on one mare who was trying to stand between the two who had started it, spreading her hooves between them, a worried look on her face that knew she might pay for this with a strained relationship or two later, or even a black eye...
It was complex. As complex as her problems, even, with each pony wearing a look that was unique to them, from the fighters to the remediators to the ones who were pretending it wasn't happening. She couldn't even get a headcount on how many there were. But as Starlight watched and the situation progressed second by second, sea air flushing out and filling her lungs, she realized two things. To them, this was every bit as serious as some of the problems she faced. Life and death might not have hinged on it, but all the emotions were there, fear and denial and frustration and boldness toward solutions. This was Kinmari, a relatively ordinary place populated by relatively ordinary ponies who probably had relatively ordinary problems that occurred day by day, and those problems probably left the place standing each time, able to go on with its relatively idyllic way of life. And this was probably one of those problems too.
The only difference between this and the things she and her friends faced were consequences and scale. Yet here those problems were, and she could already see that it was going to be alright. Things were de-escalating, ponies were swaggering, but not at each other. She could live a life without fixing or eliminating things like these. These were part of living. So maybe... she could live with some of her problems, too.
"Thank you," she sniffed, taking Maple's foreleg. "For bringing me out here. I feel a lot better."
"Buh?" Valey looked up, her mostly-straightened mane swaying with the motion. "Ironflanks?"
"And Starlight." Maple approached as fast as she dared, Starlight following close by. "We saw you in the distance and wanted to say hello!"
Felicity smirked. "Long time no see, darlings."
"...What happened to your manes?" Starlight asked, blinking.
Valey broadly shrugged, standing on a sloped, grassy path that wound its way up towards the hills at the north end of the island. "We had some fun. What are you guys doing out here?"
"Getting fresh air." Maple breathed deeply. "And watching the world go by. We've probably been out here for at least two hours. What about you? Are you getting hungry?"
Felicity shook her head, stifling an apologetic burp. "I think we are absolutely full of the least-nutritious meal of all time, not that I had much hope for my figure anyway."
Valey shot her an annoyed look. "Okay, you're getting past self-disparaging and into the realm of trying to bait me into complementing your figure."
"Guilty as charged!" Felicity turned up her nose with a satisfied little smile. "And you, darling?" she asked, turning back to Maple. "If you're looking for lunch, we'd be happy to tag along. We were just going to see if we could get a view of the Dream arriving that doesn't involve excessive flying to reach. But I doubt it's terribly pressing."
Maple's ears perked. "They're close?"
"You're the one with the sound stone." Valey shrugged, pointing at Starlight's saddlebags. "At least, I hope you are, since none of us are back in the dorms."
Starlight nodded, flicking one bag with her tail.
"Anyway..." Valey leaned back, pointing a hoof at a tall, spire-like building that looked like a lighthouse at the northeastern tip of the island. It sat at the top of a large outcropping that shielded the eastern cove from winds from the north, and was one of the best landmarks in view. "We were thinking of heading up there instead. I dunno if they take visitors, but they wouldn't refuse us, right?"
"What is that?" Maple followed her gaze. "It looks like Skyfreeze, or that other building in Ironridge that was on the mountain north of the dams."
"Lighthouse," Valey confirmed. "Mostly. Beats me what they would use one for, if they never get foggy weather here. I heard it also does stuff for the space department while I was flying around the other day and scouting the place out. But odds are, it's got a staircase and a big platform at the top that's great for looking around."
"Well, I'm not that hungry," Maple volunteered. "I'd be happy to go see if we can reach the top."
Starlight nodded as well. "I don't have anything important to do."
Valey glanced her way, then scrutinized her. "...You've been feeling not that great, right, kiddo?"
Starlight met her eyes, then looked away. "I've been worse."
Felicity bit her lip in concern. "Well, as long as you're feeling better from last night. I probably ought to have checked up on you before running off this morning."
"Don't worry," Maple assured, putting a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "We had a good talk."
"You know what would make you feel fantastic?" Valey grinned, dodging back into Starlight's line of sight. "If you joined us in the new manestyle club. Come on, your head is a shaggy, uncut pile. It's the perfect length to hang in your eyes in just the most annoying way, looks pretty much the same from every direction... Ironflanks tries, but we gotta get you something really, really cute."
Starlight blinked, then uncertainly rubbed her mane. "Is it that big of a deal...? I kind of don't want to be noticed as much."
"Hate to break it to you, but you'd get looks even with the blandest, most cookie-cutter look in existence." Valey hovered along, folding her forehooves behind her head. "Nothing you can do about it. But I bet having a look that made ponies smile at you instead of go, 'Aww, poor scruffy urchin,' when they see you would actually feel real nice. Think about it sometime."
"I'm suddenly envisioning you in pigtails..." Felicity mused, thoughtful.
That left Starlight squinting at nothing. She didn't particularly want to care, but it sort of made sense...
"You are pretty just the way you are." Maple interrupted by nuzzling her ear, surprising her a little. "But if you wanted to get a manecut, I think it could be a fun idea."
"Anyway!" Valey flung a hoof forward. "Lighthouse! Last one there is a lopsided cantaloupe!"
She zoomed away, leaving Felicity and Maple staring at each other in her wake.
"Huh." Valey stood before the stone entrance to the tower, a doorless entry leading to a tunnel to a spiral staircase. It was wide enough that there were clearly rooms on each floor, but the large, gray stone bricks that made up the exterior were far more weather-worn than the rest of the university's architecture. This tower was both far more exposed to the elements, and far older.
"A rather striking contrast with its immediate neighbors." Felicity pointed a hoof down the hill to the west, where a sprawling building sat that probably contained more metal than all the rest of the island's exterior architecture put together.
"Yeah, I bet that's the space department's main campus." Valey shrugged. "Kinda reminds me of the skyport. What is it with metal aesthetics and futuristic stuff like sky travel? Ponies have been flying without machines for... like... ever."
Felicity shrugged back.
"Artists are weird, girl." Valey spun around, Maple and Starlight arriving as well. "Well, I don't see anything keeping us out. Wanna go check out the view?"
Starlight nodded, and the group started up the staircase. The spiral was fairly tight, winding Felicity before they were even a quarter of the way up, and by the halfway point they had to stop on a platform outside a door so she could breathe.
"Sorry I'm... so out of shape, darlings..." Felicity panted, holding her chest. "Must have been all that cake..."
While Felicity caught her breath, Starlight looked at the doors the landing had to offer. Both looked significantly newer than the structure itself... Offices of professors she didn't recognize. Shouldn't professor offices be in buildings where classes were held? It didn't make sense to put them far away, unless it was a prestige position and they weren't expecting many students anyway. It was a pretty cool tower, she supposed.
They continued, and this time Starlight kept an eye on the doors for names she knew. Professor Sea Star ran by a few floors from the top, and for a moment she almost thought Valey would knock to say hello.
The staircase opened out onto a broad, flat, exposed platform just as Valey had suspected. The tower's roof wasn't quite smooth, its floor pockmarked from age and bearing signs of occasional careful restoration, but in its center was a device that caught Starlight's complete attention.
It was a circular dais, and mounted atop it was a curved beam that formed a lower quarter of a semicircle. A slider was fitted to the curve, with hundreds of intricate notches along its track to measure position, and the entire thing was pristinely wrought from a sturdy, dull-orange metal, ornamental stars fashioned into the supports that held up the back of the curve along with a two-sided rendering of the sun and moon.
"Wow, this is cool." Valey tilted her head at it. "It's... definitely not a lighthouse, though. But the view is epic from up here... I bet this thing has something to do with looking at the night sky."
"It is a quadrant," a new voice said. "A device used for measuring the positions of the stars."
Everyone looked to see Professor Sea Star standing in the entrance, watching them with interest. "Hi, Doc," Valey greeted. "What's up?"
Sea Star stepped closer, taking the device with two hooves. It was far larger than her, yet the dais suddenly rotated, swinging the entire construction along with it. "You adjust the horizontal angle like so..." She reached up, sliding the slider smoothly along its curved track. "And then the vertical angle, and then you stare through this tube to align it with a star. In the old days, this place was used for making star charts and tracking their movements, but a better one was constructed underground after it was discovered that winds and weather caused the tower to shift enough to make the readings less accurate. Now, it is a monument to science, left for anyone curious enough to visit it."
Valey stared curiously at it. "Huh. Actually, we came up here to see if there was a nice view, but that's pretty cool."
"I hope it doesn't disappoint." Sea Star adjusted her lab coat. "It's also the most open area on the island. The transmitters for our long-range broadcasting equipment are here, along with space for distinguished academics." She glanced out at the waters, and fell silent.
"We're just looking for our friends," Maple added. "They should be coming soon, and we thought we could see them if we got a better view."
"The ones on your ship?" Sea Star nodded. "I wouldn't think it would be too much longer. Oh well. Enjoy your time here. It is open to the public day and night, but tends to be more crowded when the stars are out... If you have any questions at all, I'll be downstairs."
She left, leaving Valey staring at nothing. "You know, I don't think I ever checked if the Equestrian sky is different from the one up north. What if it is?"
"I don't think so," Starlight answered, stepping closer. "Why?"
Valey's gaze drifted south, down to the crowds lounging in the distance on the beach. "Just imagining how it's gonna look at night. Maybe I should clear out whoever else comes up here tonight and treat Sparky to the view."
Maple frowned. "I wouldn't push them out... It sounds romantic, and I bet there are students who like to have special nights up here too. Although I wouldn't mind seeing it for myself, I guess."
"You wanna look at the stars in an old star-gazing tower?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Didn't realize that was your thing. I've never actually seen you come stargazing with me."
"You do that too, darling?" Felicity looked curiously at her.
"Well, yeah." Valey shrugged. "I mean, I used to. Back in Icereach and Ironridge, especially. Sometimes, sitting and staring at the moon and the stars on a cloudless night when you're all alone makes being alone feel... really cool. Like you're on the edge of something massive and you alone are there and that as huge as the world is, the sky is even huger, and... I dunno, I'm probably rambling. Been too busy with whatever to do it recently anyway."
Maple shook her head. "I never spent that much time looking at the sky. In Riverfall, the trees were too tall, so the most you could ever see was a thin line where the river ran, if you went down to the docks late at night. And since we've been traveling, most of our time has either been spent flying around at night, where the harmony comet is too bright to see anything, or with me inside for some reason or another. Though there are a few times of looking at it that stand out..."
Starlight was watching Valey. "I know what you mean," she eventually said. "I felt like that when I was in the mountains. You couldn't see anything in the caves, and when I finally made it out of them, it feels like the only company you have. And you're the only ones who have seen that place for eight hundred years."
"Heh," Valey laughed. "Look at us being a bunch of poets. So, any of you see Sparky yet?"
Starlight stepped to the edge of the platform, hanging onto the solid stone railing and staring northeast, her mane blowing in the sea wind. There were several ships closer on the horizon, sailing yachts or smaller mana boats that looked like they were out for pleasure cruises, and as she circled along to the south, she spotted a distant wooden frigate coming from one of the archipelago's far islands. "No, but maybe that's Gerardo?"
"Yeah, well he's a griffon." Valey leaned on the wall next to her, leaving Starlight unsure how to respond. "Hey, there's that clown's ship still in the harbor. What was he called, Gunther? Kinda surprised he hasn't bailed by now."
"That's Gunther's ship?" Felicity joined them and shivered. "I suddenly fear for this island's finances."
Valey rolled her shoulders. "Eh, they'll get their money's worth. Maybe."
"It's funny how we get to see sights like this day after day, from an airship deck," Maple mused, staring back at the rest of the island. "But it still doesn't lose its interest. In fact, I don't think I've actually looked at the view like this for a while."
"Well, yeah, we've been grounded for at least a month." Valey leaned against the railing. "But honestly, though? Even despite the weird stuff Starlight has to deal with, I feel like this place is good for us. Everyone just seems happier than before. Like there's something in the air. So you keep enjoying that, you hear? You deserve it."
Or like something wasn't in the air, Starlight sighed to herself. Like windigo hearts. Still, maybe Valey was right. Even with magic that was definitively draining her and messing with her head, she had felt a little better, just by going outside and watching the world. Hadn't she? If there was any place or time to deal with her problems, these were them.
"I say, is that a ship?" Felicity suddenly rotated, leaning hard to the northeast. "I think I see a speck...!"
"Bananas, is it!?" Valey rushed back to her side, staring and squinting with everything she had. "Nnnnngh..."
"Well, you could always go find out," Maple advised. "Fly out, come back and tell us?"
Valey was gone in a trail of green.
Was it a speck on the horizon? It was a speck.
But was it a ship? ...Valey couldn't tell. She blazed forward, pumping her wings with a pent-up energy that came from going too long without taking any names, quietly resolving to hop into more of the island's sports friendlies just in the name of fun. Slowly, though, the speck grew, and Valey gained height, preparing to rush it with the ultimate power glide.
Wind tore at her ears as she whistled forward, shredding her lips and streaming her eyes, but she held her wings rigid, speed building up as it became definitely a ship, and that ship took on the proportions of one she knew well. It was two ships, actually, one pulling the other, but her sights were set on only one.
With a scream of green, Valey bisected the sky above the Immortal Dream, announcing her presence with as little subtlety as possible. She dove over the deck, pulled up into a mighty loop, clasped her wings to her sides and ascended purely on her own momentum, before flipping over and catching the wind in a giant leap that would perfectly nail the center of the deck, snapping her wings out to break her fall just in time to avoid losing her legs from the impact.
She straightened up, still shaken from the force of her strike, and adjusted her beret. The deck was empty.
"Bananas, was no one watching...!?" Valey stomped to the door and booted it open, only to find herself face to face with Shinespark on the stairs.
Shinespark blinked. "Did you just make that noise on the deck?"
Valey slicked back her mane, the force of the wind having utterly reset her careful styling job to its old messy self. "Hi, Sparky. Long time no see."
"You look..." Shinespark stared at her, Valey's lively green eyes reflected in her own dull sapphire ones, a flicker of their former intensity still keeping her in charge and on her hooves. "Very good."
"Aww, do I?" Valey grinned. "Glad to see you're still alive too, Sparky."
"I'm at the end of my rope trying to hold everyone together and get us there in one piece," Shinespark whispered, expression riddled with disbelief. "Is the island really that much better? Because I don't know how much left I have to offer..."
Valey put a wing around her back, squeezing her into a hug. "Yeah, well I'm raring to go. You want me to tell you how great this island is? Huh? You want me to?"
She walked Shinespark closer to the center of the deck. "You can do anything," Shinespark offered. "I just need to take a shower and lay down without a crew's spirits depending on me for a day."
"Well." Valey licked her lips, preparing to take full advantage of the invitation. "First off, it's full of students. College age, like you or a year or two older. Every last one of them is crazy toned and athletic, and sunbathing is a national sport, so they're all showing off how hot they are and you can get the world's biggest eyeful. And they all love adventurers, so it's basically flirty mare paradise. But don't worry. I know we technically have a thing going on, so the only bed I shared every night in a row was Felicity's."
For a moment, Shinespark gaped at her... and then she spun hard and punched Valey in the face, sending her sprawling across the deck.
"I totally deserved-"
"Why are you making jokes about this!?" Shinespark screamed in her face, standing over her. "I've been barely keeping myself together, and only for everyone else's sake! Barely! There are guards everywhere, we're beyond nervous, we've gotten several calls from Maple saying everything is good and just to hold on but everyone here has cabin fever and everyone knows we're just going to get somewhere only to be punted off to the next forsaken hole like the fields outside of Griffonstone or the crater where Sosa used to be and you're making jokes about cheating!? You never would joke about that! You never..." She trailed off, her breaths growing shallow. "You were terrified of this."
"Yep," Valey groaned, certain she had a black eye. "I sure was. A huge mess. You told me all about it in that cave by Stormhoof. And you did just ask how great this island is. Turns out it's good for broken spirits, too..."
Shinespark kept staring, a final wave of comprehension washing across her face... and then she buried her face in Valey's chest and cried. "I missed you!"
"I'm going to punch you again," Shinespark growled into Valey's chest, still holding her on the battered shipdeck.
"No you're not." Valey climbed to her hooves, strong enough to just lift Shinespark with her. "I can tell these things, remember?" She patted her cutie mark with her tail.
"...Maybe." Shinespark let her go, stepping back and looking over Valey all at once. "You really do look different," she eventually said. "Have you looked in a mirror recently?"
Valey scratched an ear. "Yep. Was just getting my mane done this morning and had to see how it looked. I think I might have wrecked that by flying fast, though..."
"And have you looked at me and everyone else on this ship?" Shinespark pressed, jabbing a hoof into her chest.
"Uhh..." Valey looked. Shinespark was gaunt, her ribs visible from weeks of food rationing and stress. Her mane was limp, like you could comb it to no effect at all, and her eyes held a spark of stubborn determination to keep on surviving.
"You know we got more food from those griffons, right?"
Shinespark nodded. "Food that we have to share with two dozen large, hungry stallions, and have to save in case anything goes wrong and we need to leave from Kinmari without restocking. And we have more than enough stress to make up for it. Now look at yourself!"
Valey glanced down at herself, but Shinespark wasn't satisfied. "Look!"
"Uhhhh..." Valey repeated, Shinespark jabbing her again. She didn't have a mirror, but at the very least her own ribs were far from visible.
"And I feel good too, and you're probably a little jealous but upset because you don't wanna be jealous of your friend, and you can totally hit me again if it makes you feel better." Valey spread her hooves, offering. "Listen, girl: we're like half an hour away. You can see the island. I know it's not fair that you had a few extra days staying behind, and that the climate around here makes you feel like trash, but get this: it's over. You all made it. I've been scouting this island out, and all the problems are small-time. Everyone likes us, and even if we get in a bad situation, we actually get the benefit of the doubt instead of the worst possible luck. The guards who came ahead with us are bros with me now, and I've got good word that they'll back us up if we get in a pickle. Everyone'll be fine here, so you don't have to take care of anything."
Shinespark sagged, looking like she hadn't slept in two days. "I know you want to talk, but if that's the truth, can we skip to resting?"
"Yep." Valey winked. "Tell you what: I'll even fly you back to get there a little faster. But can I see how everyone else is doing first?"
Shinespark nodded and looked to the door, not moving her hooves. "Go right ahead..."
"I'll be right back," Valey promised.
The inside of the Immortal Dream was lit only by windows and smelled like a locker room. Most of the smell wafted up from the dining hall, and when Valey looked down, she blanched: piles of armor were set aside in storage, and two dozen stallions sat around improvised tables or on the floor, playing cards or polishing spearheads to pass the time. Seeing Shinespark in a state of disarray was one thing, but none of these ponies had bathed in a week.
They quickly noticed her. "It's you!" one called, pointing a hoof.
"We're close," Valey said, nodding and turning to continue searching for her friends. "Close enough for me to see you on the horizon. Get ready to stretch your legs and hit the showers!"
That seemed to galvanize the guards. As the set about packing and getting to their hooves, Valey continued on down the hall, checking doors one by one.
"Hello?" Jamjars greeted, the very first face to meet her. She looked exactly the same as she always did... though on closer inspection, was using makeup to hide the bags under her eyes.
"Oh yeah. I booted you into this room..." Valey scratched her head. "Anyone else home?"
Slipstream and Harshwater were both in the room behind her. "Valey!" they greeted, Slipstream significantly more enthusiastic than the other. "We're here?"
"In just a few minutes." Valey strolled in past Jamjars and ruffled both of their manes, earning a surprised blink from Slipstream and an owlish one from Harshwater. "So how's my favorite griffon sidekick and grumpy doctor?"
"I'm not that grumpy," Harshwater protested, looking as if she had been eating just as little as Shinespark. "But I really wouldn't say no to a change of pace..."
Slipstream nodded seriously. "There's nothing to do here besides wait to reach the island. Flying from Ironridge wasn't like this at all. It's partly because Gerardo is gone... but I have bad cabin fever, and all the strangers from the guard? They really aren't helping! It's been so tense the last few days, all we've been able to do is sit and wait and pray to Yakyakistan or Garsheeva or even Princess Celestia..."
"That's because you have bad tastes." Jamjars rolled her eyes, though Valey could tell she was on edge too. "My posters could give you hours of entertaining daydreams if you'd just listen to my advice for once." Her eyes snapped to Valey. "Do we have private rooms? I need a private room. I will give you anything and be your best friend and bribe anyone who gets in your way if you can get me a private room."
Valey chuckled and shook her head. "You are presently in minor trouble for getting Gazelle back in action, because he's been nothing but a creepy nuisance since he woke up. And I dunno what our rooming situation will be after we get back. But I'll put in a word."
Jamjars looked legitimately happy, curling her hooves in excitement. "Thank you, thank you...! That's twice more than I say thank you normally, by the way, so you're special. Thank you."
Valey stared at her as she pranced out, hugging a set of saddlebags very close. "Bananas, I think she actually got nicer."
Harshwater shrugged.
"She has something she keeps trying to read when she thinks no one is looking," Slipstream offered. "Beats me what it is, but she's been getting annoyed that she can't read it in peace."
"Eh. Probably something steamy she stole from a guard." Valey shrugged in return. "So how's everyone else? Who even is still here? We kicked out Pancake and Shades, I already saw Sparky... Right. There's Amber, Saffron and Nyala."
"And Meltdown," Harshwater added. "She hasn't been having a good time."
"Right..." Valey stepped for the hallway. "Get your things together. We're hitting the island, and the three orders of business for everyone here are a bath, a feast, and the best night's sleep you ever had."
Slipstream rolled her shoulders gratefully. "Oh, don't make the waiting any harder...!"
"Then get up on deck and fly for it yourselves!" Valey patted her on the back. "We're super close! You can do it!"
She didn't look back, turning to check the next room down. "Hellooo?"
"Valey? Is that you?"
It was Amber. She looked perhaps the most lively out of the crew so far, but it was all in her eyes: her coat, mane and body held all the wear and tear of the rest of her friends, and Valey could tell that she, too, was pushing herself to stay hopeful. Saffron sat across from her at a table playing a game Valey didn't recognize, still sporting several bandages, and she nodded in greeting.
"Sure is." Valey grinned, entering. "So, I got good news and good news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Amber laughed. "You're in a good mood. Are we close enough that you saw us and flew out?"
"Hah. You guessed both of them." Valey leaned on the back of Amber's chair. "Yes we are, and the island's a cool place. I think you in particular will really dig it. So pack up! We're gonna leave this busted-up boat behind for a bit."
Saffron took a deep breath, looking regretfully at the unfinished game. "Well, that's relieving news. I've been to Kinmari before, years and years ago, and remember it being a nice enough place. But this boat is a refugee ship by now, through and through. It's an experience I'll tell stories about for a long time, and never want to live through again... no offense to any of you or your friends."
"None taken." Amber shakily stood. "Whew... It's good to see you looking so great, Valey."
"What can I say?" Valey shrugged. "The food is good when the crowds of adoring students give you space to eat it. Heads up, we're hot-shots around here. You know where Nyala is, by the way?"
Saffron pointed a hoof. "Shinespark's old room. She's been taking care of poor Meltdown for a while now."
"Thanks. Now go get up on deck for the grand entrance! And remember, the more you look like a survivor, the more you'll please the crowd." Valey left them with a wave.
Shinespark's door slid open next before the pressure of her hoof, and Valey stepped in and looked around. The room had been redecorated a bit, and there was noticeably a large mirror that had been moved in, after the existing vanity was smashed by their sudden acceleration in Griffonstone. Two beds filled the space, one with a dazed, fearful Meltdown and the other with a familiar, pink-maned batpony. Valey waved gingerly. "Hey, Sis."
"You're back," Nyala replied, her response quieter than some of the others'. "You look well. Been having a good time out there?"
"A time that all of you are gonna have, too," Valey insisted, sensing that something was off. "This island is cool and tame. It's the perfect place to unwind, unload, and get back on our hooves after literally everything." She frowned. "If you're jealous that I packed myself into that tiny submarine to get there a few days earlier... I would be too, so lay it on me, okay? You look like you've got stuff to unload."
Nyala shook her head. "I'm glad we're there. But I'm not entirely sure you'd like what I'm thinking."
"If it needs to be said, I can handle it." Valey stared at her. "I know I kind of keep doing this thing to you where we just barely reunite and then I get distracted or killed or bananas whatever, and I bet it's about that, and how I just ditched you here again, exactly the opposite of the way you stuck by me time and time again in Icereach, and that's not fair and not cool and I get it. But I care and I still keep coming back to try again, so if I messed up worse than what you can forgive... let me know."
"It's nothing to do with that. It's a confession." Nyala looked at the window. "You look very, very well. You're glad to be alive."
Valey started to feel a tinge of apprehension. "I got soul-sucked by a crazy mare who turned into a monster and somehow came back to tell the tale. Yeah, I'm glad to be alive."
Nyala took a deep breath. "In order to bring you back, they needed to make modifications to that pendant you're wearing so that it's always on instead of requiring conscious thought to activate. Shinespark knew how, but didn't feel up to helping until the very last minute."
Valey frowned. "Do... I wanna know where you're going with this?"
"I just told you that you didn't." Nyala didn't stop, a too bad look on her face. "Jamjars tried to access the original blueprints stored on this ship's terminal, but they were wiped out. Likely due to interference from that intense harmonic storm we flew through coming here from the Empire."
"And...?" Valey shuffled on her hooves.
"...I have all my memories from my time as Braen," Nyala said. "All of them. Including machine data from being a machine. I have a copy of everything that was on that terminal right here, just as clear and permanent as if I was a machine." She tapped the side of her head.
Valey gaped. "So you...?"
"Are you really okay with that?" Nyala stared into her eyes. "That I knew exactly what Jamjars was trying to do and she didn't even know I had a piece that was missing and I didn't tell her? It wouldn't have brought you back any earlier, but I could have helped and I didn't."
"...Why?" Valey asked, still.
Nyala shook her head. "Three reasons. The first is because I didn't know if bringing you back to this would even be a kindness. I remember you from my time as a suit of armor, and the you I saw there clashes with my memories from Icereach. You grew up to be overwhelmed and unhappy with your existence and your purpose as a weapon and artificial life form. You were so troubled, you could barely fight in a tournament when I remember you destroying an armed laboratory when you were seconds old. If I could question whether you wanted to be alive at all, what right did I have contributing to a plan to bring you back to somewhere much worse? This ship is dying. I can smell it. Ever since that battle, everyone here has been wounded and emotionally bleeding out. It would be like putting a suffocating mare in a room where all the oxygen has been replaced by a sea of blood."
Valey paled. "That's... pretty dark. But honestly? I can see where you're coming from. It's a time I never wanna go back to, now that I've had a taste of the way I can live my life in spite of my past."
"The second reason," Nyala continued, "is that you aren't the only one, or the first one, to be torn from that body. You aren't the only one a technology like this could restore. But keeping it to myself and leaving your friends without hope is the only hope I'd have of getting back the other one."
Valey slowly sat down, letting her head thump against the wall. "Bananas... I..."
Nyala watched her.
"But the old Valey's moon glass is lost," Valey whispered. "You need all the parts to put someone back together, even if you had my body and this pendant. How would you...?"
"Don't make me answer that," Nyala said, her bangs shadowing her eyes. "Please."
Valey nodded and swallowed. "I forgive you. Then the third...?"
"The third reason I didn't help bring you back?" Nyala shook her head. "You're going to have to live without knowing. I might tell you later, but if you can honestly stand there and be happy after everything you've been through, it doesn't even matter. You've already made it. You've won. You're bigger than your past, than the hostile world around you... I should be looking up to you, rather than away at ponies who might have been. Can you live with all that? With a sister who betrayed you by doing nothing and admits to refusing to talk?"
"Hey." Valey got up again and stepped forward. "I know how messed up everyone here is, and I know you're not above that. Shinespark did literally nothing to help anyone survive for all the weeks I was gone. Felicity flat-out baited me into an armed fortress back in the Empire by pretending to get her sister assassinated. And I was in the world's biggest funk for far too long. I know there's someone else you miss, and I know it's probably feeling a little now like it was me or them, but... hey. Remember who went back to that tower with you when we still lived in Icereach to try and find a way to get your old Valey back. Just because you got me doesn't have to mean giving up on your other loved ones... and I sure love you, whether you feel the same or not. So if you can forgive me for being a noncommittal, cowardly flake who couldn't stick by your side when you were a machine, then let's call it even and try for a future that's more worthwhile. Deal?" She offered a wing.
Slowly, Nyala got up and took it. "...Deal."
Valey blinked, following her gaze. Nyala wasn't looking at her eyes, but at her own reflection in the mirror over Valey's shoulder. "You alright?"
Nyala blinked and shook her head, then met Valey's eyes. "Yes. You said we're almost there? Help me carry Meltdown. She's weak."
"You gotcha." Valey took the small earth pony's other side, and together they got up and walked into the hallway.
"Need a hoof?" Amber asked, standing outside her room with Saffron nearby and saddlebags on her back.
"With Meltdown?" Valey glanced to Nyala. "Actually, if you could, there's something I wanna check real quick." She glanced to Maple's old room. "We didn't really pack, so I gotta get Ironflanks her stuff."
"You'll be able to head back here, I'm sure," Saffron offered, nodding at the exit. "Though I, for one, am looking forward to finally stretching my legs again."
"You do that," Amber said, taking Valey's place. "And I gotcha. Go get her whatever it is she forgot!"
Valey nodded, shadow sneaking and slipping under the door. It was locked, and she doubted anyone had the key. Maple's old room was largely untouched since she had last seen it, used as a repository for all the things they didn't want the guards stumbling across...
Two crates were shoved in the corner, their stash of moon glass they might never figure out what to do with. Valey gave them a wistful look and traced a hoof along the lids, remembering the brief flight of fancy where she had tried them all in her pendant, looking for an edge in the tournament and just to see who was inside. Would it be a kindness to swap herself completely out and let them have a turn at life for a while? She shook her head. Better to make more pendants and... well, she had no idea how to go about getting more empty bodies.
But the moon glass wasn't what Valey was here for. Carefully, she opened a drawer, then removed a fake bottom, following a faint stinging in her nose. There they were: five glass orbs, their cores empty and frosty blue, golden flecks reflecting their faint, icy glow. One that they had brought from the beginning, and four that Amber had carried in a suitcase, all the way from Ironridge.
Could these really be the source of their troubles? A silent poison that pervaded the air, sapping their spirits and bringing conflict? Valey stared at her distorted reflection in the balls, and took a deep breath. She ought to destroy them. It would remove any hope of the Dream ever flying again, but now, while her spirits were strong, she knew it was the best course of action.
But... was it really wise? What if they did need them again? What if all their troubles were natural, with no gentle enhancements or prodding whatsoever? The hearts' effects were all just rumors in the first place. And they could hold harmony. Couldn't the effects of a harmonic flame balance them out? Or even make them worth the price... And even if they couldn't, the Ironridge hearts had survived being at the center of a supercharged flame. How did one even destroy them?
Valey gritted her teeth, suddenly unable to tell if she was considering keeping them entirely of her own will. The one truth she had was that she didn't know how to break them, and that was it. Valey looked around and grabbed a duffel bag, cramming all five orbs inside and sealing it shut. If the hearts had an influence, it was subtle, and she was at the top of her game. She'd survive lugging them around for long enough to find a place to hide them or ask a professor how to seal them away. Sea Star knew some things about harmony, right? Maybe she'd know.
She shouldered the bag and shadow snuck through the window, fighting the temptation to throw it into the sea. With a single backflip, she reached the deck, where all her other friends and most of the guards were already aligned.
"You're late," Shinespark said, trotting up with a little more wind blowing through her mane. "We're too close for flying to be worth it."
Another tugboat had joined the first, and together they were carefully maneuvering the Dream, guiding it into a cozy little spot in a marina that was far too small to see real traffic. A huge portion of the beachgoers had migrated to the nearby shoreline or hillside, crowding around the docks and watching the boat arrive.
The docks themselves were mostly clear, university security officials setting out tape and keeping ponies a short ways back. But Maple, Felicity and Starlight were watching and waiting... and so was Gerardo, the blue griffon looking perky after his weekend away. Valey stared around, recognizing Ebb and Flow in the front line.
"So who wants to make a speech?" Valey nudged Shinespark as they pulled to a stop alongside a dock. "They'll really, really love you..."
"I will do it," Grenada replied, trotting out from the bridge and extending the gangplank with her telekinesis. "Hello, by the way. Long time no see."
Valey blinked, then groaned. "Aww, bananas. I knew I forgot someone. How ya doing, girl?"
Grenada looked only marginally healthier than Shinespark, though having an intact horn helped a lot. "I will be perfectly fine once I get food, a bath and proper exercise, which goes for most everyone here." She slammed the plank down and stepped down it first, to eager gasps and premature applause.
"Speech!?" an eager voice called from the crowd.
"We are new here!" Grenada called back, addressing them all. "Please show us where we can get washed, a meal, and find accommodations. Thank you."
The crowd cheered and whistled. "Some speech, huh?" Valey nudged Shinespark again and rolled her eyes. "Come on. The future's waiting. Let's go get it."
"Hi! Hello!" Amber waved enthusiastically, finding no shortage of ponies who were waving back. "I'd stop and bump all your hooves, but really need to rest and wash up...!"
Valey skipped the gangplank, leaping to shore with a single jump. Shinespark took the less-athletic way beside her, and the crowd's noise slowly changed as they realized the extent of her injury. "Your horn...!" a stallion gasped.
"Fighting isn't always pretty." Harshwater walked past with a shrug, taking some of the attention off Shinespark by putting herself more prominently in view.
That earned enough whistles to give Valey a grin. "I guess she's got the rugged survivor look down, huh?" She shouldered Shinespark.
Shinespark shook her head. "It's better than soldiers, but I don't particularly feel like a standing ovation right now."
"Right." Valey nodded, spotting the familiar suit of President Kinmari waiting for them up ahead. "Hey, big cheese!"
"I see your presence here has multiplied," the well-groomed stallion replied, stepping forward to meet the leading posse of Valey, Shinespark, Harshwater, Amber and Grenada. "Welcome to the Kinmari Marine Research Academy. I am President Kinmari. The archipelago and its school have been in my family for generations, and on behalf of the whole populace I wish you a welcome as warm as our weather."
"A pleasure," Shinespark grunted back. "But we're in poor condition for pleasantries..."
Valey nudged her, the windigo heart duffel bag weighing on her shoulder, having a feeling this was all going to be a speech she had heard before the first time. "Hey, I'm gonna run on ahead and take care of some stuff for you. You just take all the hospitality these dudes have to offer, okay?"
Shinespark nodded, and Valey saluted before blasting off, making sure to dazzle the students on her way out with a flyby trail of green. Her destination wasn't far off: the old observatory tower where she had seen Professor Sea Star to have an office. If anyone could help her safely contain or study disharmonic artifacts, she was the most likely candidate.
Valey soared down the staircase, banking tightly and running along the outer stairwell wall to burn her momentum and safely land. It didn't take her long to reach the office she desired, but she paused at the entrance. It sounded like there was already a conversation inside, but the voices were too low for her to make out.
She decided to knock anyway, gently just in case. "Uh, is this a bad time?"
The door cracked open, and Sea Star blinked when she saw who it was. "Oh. It's you again. Interesting timing. Come in."
Valey tilted her head and followed. The walls of the office were cobbled stone, but the floor and ceiling were wooden, more lightweight and without the need for support pillars. A working desk sat against one wall near a window, and numerous pinboards and bulletins hung around the walls, one dominated by a gigantic sea chart. Immediately below the chart was a couch, and on it lounged a thirty-something stallion with an open shirt and chin stubble. He looked up at Valey with interest. "Oh! You must be the philanderer I've heard so much about."
"Way to bring up a reputation, buddy." Valey grinned, but hefted her duffel bag. She didn't want to get sidetracked. "What's it to you?"
"Oh, nothing." The stallion shrugged. "Administrative policy tends to be just a little more lax when you lack the ability to get students with foal. Or professors, for that matter. I am Doctor Caballeron. It is interesting to meet you."
Valey blinked. "Well, that's one way to look at it. Uh, hi, dude. It's interesting to meet you too."
Caballeron laughed, but Sea Star tapped her desk, drawing Valey's attention. "I presume you've already seen to your friends' arrival. Now perhaps you can help me explain this."
Tilting her head, Valey walked over. On the table were a series of printouts, each filled with unusual patterns of purple and green. After staring at them long enough, she began to realize they were maps: each one had a discolored mass in the center surrounded by a field of even color, another mass below and to the right. The main one was roughly the shape of Kinmari, and it took up approximately a tenth of the page's width.
Sea Star shifted the pages along. They were in a sequence: as she moved them and time passed, the colors changed only slightly, but a phenomenon appeared from the northeast and quickly drew closer. It looked like a whirlpool, maelstrom or sawblade, like a storm system seen from above. Valey squinted. "Is that weather? Wait..."
"It's invisible to the naked eye," Sea Star replied, pulling out another chart that showed only a zoomed-in version of the whirlwind, a bright dot visible at its center. "And we're quite certain it's centered on your ship. If you know as much as you claimed to on the voyage here, I want you to tell us what this is."
Valey slowly narrowed her eyes. "How big is that thing relative to this island? And what are you getting these pictures with?"
"It is roughly the size of the campus," Caballeron chimed in. "Which is to say about two thirds of the island."
"And these were made using a harmonograph," Sea Star continued. "A complex machine that tracks harmony, for lack of a simpler explanation. You've discussed this with me before. To make sure we're on the same page, give me a brief overview of what you understand harmony to be."
Valey scratched an ear. "It's a kind of energy. Like mana, except there are things you can use it for that you couldn't do with mana, no matter how much you had, even though you can also make mana with it? And it's related to cutie marks and emotions, I guess?"
"Close enough," Sea Star sighed. "Now I want your best guess as to what this is, because at present this vortex is touching our instruments and as long as it remains doing so, they are as useful as a wind sock in a tornado."
"Uhhh... Yeah, about that." Valey squinted at her duffel bag, then held it up. "Pretty sure it's this thing. I will kick both of your rears if you even think about stealing it, but I'm kind of here in the first place to see if you have any ideas on how to make it stop."
Both professors sat up and leaned closer with interest. "What have we here?" Caballeron asked keenly.
Valey opened the bag and popped out a heart, tossing it and catching it with one hoof. "Ever seen one of these?"
"What is this?" Caballeron rose to his hooves, staring intently. "This has the look of something deeply arcane..." His cutie mark briefly flashed. "Hah. And it is beyond value. It is not often I appraise an artifact so."
Sea Star ignored him, staring into the core of the windigo heart. "Where did you get this?" she asked, her pupils reflecting frosty blue.
"Up north." Valey shrugged. "I guess neither of you have seen one before?" She glanced at Caballeron. "And what was that?"
"Oh, my cutie mark assigns a monetary value to anything I wish." The stallion shrugged. "But it usually only says infinity for living creatures. I suppose it is not so fond of the idea of slavery."
"Are you certain this could be causing a harmonic vortex?" Sea Star continued staring into it. "It's an artifact, and harmony is intensely related to thought and emotion. Though that could line up with your mark treating it like a living creature..."
Valey paled, fumbling so hard she nearly dropped the orb. "Are you saying this thing could still be alive!?"
Both professors squinted at her. "What do you mean," Caballeron asked, "still alive?"
Valey frowned at the heart, folding her ears. "This is the core of a dead windigo. A windigo heart."
"Windigoes are a myth," the professors said as one, but they looked at each other with a look that dared someone to question it first.
"Nope." Valey shrugged. "Go get kissed by one at a romantic beachside resort and have it make house-sized ice sculptures of the two of you cuddling in the middle of public roads, and then come back and tell me they're a myth."
The professors stared at her, nonplussed. "But you didn't actually do that, though," Caballeron pointed out.
"Oh, I did." Valey tossed her mane. "It wasn't exactly consensual, but still. You guys asked what was causing it."
For a moment, both professors continued daring each other to speak. "Well, that would raise very interesting implications about that data of yours," Caballeron volunteered.
Sea Star snapped to her hooves, stalking back to her desk. "Windigoes, storms... I'm a biologist, not a lorekeeper. This storm-like vortex pattern..."
Valey stowed the heart back in the bag. "So what do you mean this could still be alive?"
Caballeron ignored her. "But the ruins of old Unicornia have never been found to exist. Even the fertile valleys of the far northwest hold little archaeological evidence of ancient civilization..."
"Yo!" Valey snapped the spokes on her wings. "Regardless of what these are, you know what they're doing, right? Because your machine can pick it up? See, I was kind of afraid they might have an effect on the area around them, and it would be real neat if you knew how to seal them off. Sounds like it would benefit all of us if we could make them stop."
Sea Star rubbed the bridge of her muzzle, deep in thought. "The space department has harmonic isolator and shielding panels for their engine research. I have a..." She glanced at Valey and hesitated, then continued with a look of deep resignation. "A friend who works there. There's a vague chance she could be bribed into letting us use experimental resources."
Caballeron breathed deeply with a happy sigh. "Ahh, this is a friend you will like to meet, I think," he said to Valey, rising and heading for the door. "Let us make haste! I am curious to see what knowledge can be gleaned from these windigo hearts."
Elsewhere on the island...
"Doctor's orders: food and rest for all of you," a green nurse mare was saying, smiling at the lineup of everyone who had been on the boat. "We'd like to check over all of you, but you can tell us best who needs it." Her eyes lingered briefly on Shinespark's horn.
"There's not a lot you can do," Shinespark replied dully. "And if you can, it isn't urgent. It hurts, but it's livable. It hasn't changed a lot since it broke."
"And baths, right?" Amber stretched her legs. "I had better not be stuck in a hospital bed after spending so long on that boat. I need to go swimming."
Another nurse nodded, stepping out of a closet with a rack of linens and towels. "You know what you need. If you're cleared for injuries, go out and run around!"
"If anyone, you should be focused on the stallions," Harshwater added. "They were in a fight way more recently than us, and were way worse off. And Felicity and Maple are already here."
Maple nodded too, standing off to the side with Felicity, Gerardo and Starlight. The batpony and griffon were busy in a quiet conversation about the camping trip, and Starlight wasn't paying attention.
"And that's where most of our staff is." The first nurse winked. "Anyone who knows they're fine except for exercise and nutrition, come with me. We have an area for assisted bathing for anyone elderly or infirm, and the tubs are some of the largest and cleanest on the island as a result."
Slipstream, Harshwater, Nyala and Grenada all eagerly set off, with Amber trailing behind. "Come on, Maple!" She waved. "For old times' sake?"
"I'm still pretty delicate," Maple apologized, shuffling slightly. "Have fun, though?"
Felicity huffed and tromped after Amber. "Well, I, for one, know better than to turn down an offer like that. Let me tell you, having someone else to get under your wings is simply divine..."
"Your mane smells like you just washed it this morning!"
As the group started to leave, Starlight was shaken out of her thoughts by Jamjars thrusting a satchel into her chest. "Hold this," the filly commanded. "Please. Don't let anyone open it and I'll owe you a big one." Whispering in Starlight's ear, she blushed a little and added, "It's my fiction portfolio. I got a little carried away writing romance about our crew to pass the time..."
Starlight blinked, taking the satchel and resolving definitely not to open it. "Okay."
Jamjars bounded off to join the bathers, leaving just Shinespark, Saffron and Meltdown out of the crew left behind. The remaining nurse sized them up, then moved to help prop Meltdown up, taking most of her weight off Shinespark. "Follow me, then. Let's get the three of you looked at."
"Hmmm..." The nurse frowned at a display, her aura holding a conical machine over Saffron. "You've been in a lot of scrapes before."
"Professional adventurer and fighter." Saffron shrugged. "I know how to take a knock or two."
"You're certainly hardy," the nurse replied. "These injuries are all old enough there's not a lot more we can do for them. You'll be sore for a while longer, but you'll be fine. Just go easy on yourself and rest well."
She moved on to Meltdown. "...Well, you don't look good at all."
"Her situation is special," Saffron called out. "Put her in an ice water bath and she'll feel much better. Magic reasons."
The nurse scrawled a note down, then moved on to Shinespark. "And you have... your horn."
She was a medical student. Odds were, she was no stranger to blood and injuries. But she was still a unicorn of about Shinespark's age, and there was no hiding the discomfort in her eyes as she looked closely over the cracks in her fellow unicorn's horn.
"Sorry if it isn't pretty," Shinespark said.
The nurse sighed. "I have to admit, I've... never seen an injury like this before. Horns are hardy and resilient, and they don't just break. What have you...? Are you...?"
"Yes, it hurts, no, it doesn't work anymore, and no, it hasn't changed recently," Shinespark repeated. "This is... how I've been living now."
"So you're stable, then," the nurse said, looking for assurance that Shinespark wasn't hiding anything.
"Physically."
"...You'll have to be seen by a professor," the nurse decided. "And a psychologist. If you're not in danger, that's where my job ends, but there has to be something someone can do."
Shinespark shrugged. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about what I've lost."
"Right," the nurse sighed. "Well, I will go over vitals just a few more times for you..." She paced back to Meltdown. "And see what anyone has planned for catering and lodging. This isn't a resort, and most of you would be much happier elsewhere, I know."
Shinespark nodded, then rose to her hooves after the mare checked Meltdown again and left. She turned to Maple and Gerardo. "So."
"So," Gerardo repeated. "You look... better than you were at your worst, at least."
"So is this place really as good as Valey says?" Shinespark asked earnestly. "The way she looked... She was so..."
"Happy?" Maple guessed. "Satisfied with her life? It's a very new look on her. I like it a lot. I think she's been having the best time on this island, but it really is good for us. I've been feeling like I can finally breathe, sometimes. It's not a miracle cure, but it's so much better than being stranded."
"I've certainly been enjoying myself," Gerardo volunteered. "Though part of that has to do with the fans. I have to say, it's rather odd being admired so openly by so many when you're used to the Empire and its heresies..."
Shinespark closed her eyes. "Has Valey really been flirting freely?"
Maple faintly smiled. "I haven't followed her too closely around, but I think she's managed to find new boundaries for herself that make her much happier. You'd have to ask Felicity."
"Or Valey herself." Shinespark's eyes wandered. "Where did she go? She said she'd be back..."
"I'm sure she's thinking of you." Maple stretched out, taking one of the room's beds for herself. "In the meantime, why don't we catch each other up? You've been sailing, Gerardo's been camping, I've been watching a break-in mystery... It should carry us until food arrives."
"Agreed," Gerardo chimed in. "I have a particularly exhilarating story from the first evening in which we were assessing the condition of the lavatory cabin, only to discover a very large hive of bees..."
"Whooo!" Amber splashed in a bathtub, the nurse having given permission for her to disregard her surroundings. "I feel a weight off my shoulders already!"
"That would be all the grease you can finally get out of your coat." Jamjars fluffed her mane, mostly regrown to its former glory since the days when Valey cut it short. "It's one of the things I miss about having a wig. It didn't accumulate oils... Cleanliness, here I come!"
She jumped over the edge, joining Amber's tub with another splash. Felicity was next in line, droplets spattering her face from Jamjars' cannonball. "Ah..." She lifted a hoof.
"Get in here, girl!" Amber beckoned heartily with a foreleg, already submerging her mane. "You didn't follow us dirty castaways just to spectate, did you? There's room for one more."
"An offer I'll gladly accept..."
The nurse stepped away from the second tub, finished drawing it as well. "This one's ready!" she called, moving on to a third.
"Who would have thought a hospital would have a bathhouse?" Slipstream stared around, climbing into the fresh tub. "This place is nice."
The nurse chuckled, leaning on the next tub while it filled. "Oh, this isn't the bathhouse. It's just big so we have room to work around delicate injuries or patients who need support, and clean so wounds don't get infected. If you want to see Kinmari's real bathhouse, you'll have to compete for space with the sports teams, but it's on the southeastern end of the island."
Felicity poked her head above the edge, midway through her preliminary rinse. "You have a bathhouse more real than this one!?"
"Get what you can while the getting's good." Jamjars shrugged, scrubbing at her forelegs.
Harshwater followed close behind, the last to join as Nyala joined Slipstream and Grenada waited for the third tub. She glanced at Amber. "That weight off your shoulders is called not being breathed on by guards," she mentioned. "Hosting a fighting force is never comfortable. My old company overstayed its welcome far too many times for me not to know that."
Amber sighed, resting her chin against the railing. "Either way, I suddenly want to take a nap. How many times did you wonder if we'd get turned away before landing?"
"That was Shinespark. I only wondered twice." Harshwater shook her head, moving to join Grenada as the third bath finished.
"You wondered too, didn't you?" Felicity asked, approaching Amber from behind and putting her hooves on her sides. "You're remarkably tense. Bathing buddies again? Feeling clean really does help with this, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well..."
"You're never going to stop liking feeling pretty," Amber replied, egging her on. "You realize it would feel a lot better if you got properly dirty first though, right? Skipping bathing for a week or two is lazy. You need to work day and night on a boat until your coat is black with grease, resin and sweat. That's when this feels really good."
Felicity cleared her throat. "Clearly you never spent a decade in the desert of Gyre. Let me tell you I still occasionally dream about the sand in my coat, and having an attractive coat and mane is much more important when it's a tool as well as a luxury."
Jamjars made a show of turning her back on the whole conversation, but she had a faint grin, and her ears were half backwards, listening. One tub over, Nyala and Slipstream had engaged the nurse in conversation, her duties otherwise finished.
"Your school didn't have houses?" the nurse was saying. "That's fascinating. I mean, I haven't traveled Equestria enough to know how other schools here do it, but still. It seems so weird to me. Where do you sleep?"
"At home." Slipstream shrugged. "Ironridge's population was dense and vertical, but not that spread out. I just flew to college every day."
"Home with your parents?" the nurse pressed.
"Well... sort of." Slipstream waved a hoof. "My mom and dad were... complicated. Not always together, but never far apart. They must have treated relationship drama like a recreational sport. Great role models, let me tell you. But I had four or five houses I usually lived between."
The nurse's eyes widened slightly. "I am from a small tribe on an island far to the south of here. My whole village sent me here so that I could make the island proud, but I haven't seen them in two years because of it. That must be so different..."
Slipstream poked Nyala. "And what about you? Did you have schools in Icereach? Probably a small enough town that your parents were never far away."
"Sort of." Nyala looked away. "The scientists who came after the war... the first ones, before Navarre... they wanted to educate us, so they wrote down their knowledge and taught it to anyone who was curious. Safe knowledge, not things like experiments that could get us hurt. It wasn't structured and there weren't classes. If you wanted to learn, you just asked."
The nurse's eyes shone. "What kinds of things do you learn at schools in the north?"
"A little bit of everything." Slipstream shrugged. "I tried to study business, which mostly involved learning about the industries that were big in Ironridge at the time. I couldn't tell you how to wire a mana circuit, but could definitely hire someone who could. Of course, Ironridge had more ponies than jobs, so you're fresh out of school and you get a thing working for a help desk at the skyport, getting yelled at by travelers who missed their flights. What can you do?"
The nurse watched her for a moment. "That sounds intense." She turned to Nyala. "So what did you do?"
Nyala hesitated. "Nothing... really. Icereach was too small and remote to have real jobs. You just contributed to survival. Clean the caves, grow food, clear snow away. Help build things and explore new areas underground. The town was growing, since the life expectancy got much higher after the scientists started helping us and the birthrate was always high."
"Imagine living underground..." The nurse stared off into the distance. "Even having a roof over my head is still unusual for me."
"Half of Ironridge was underground too," Slipstream added. "A massive mining operation for getting metal and resources to build with. I didn't see it a whole lot, but the times I toured it? Well, I remember it being hot."
"I like it hot," the nurse said. "Kinmari has always felt cold to me. It's so far north..."
Nyala rubbed her wet fur self-consciously. "And I'm going to have to shorten my coat, because Icereach was on a glacier."
"Same for the skyport," Slipstream added. "Though I never could handle that weather well..."
Further along, Harshwater and Grenada had a tub to themselves, both seeming reluctant to take up more than their fair share.
"I have never understood bathing together," Grenada said, staring over at the first tub, where Felicity and Amber were soaping and lathering each other without shame and Jamjars had stopped being able to hide her interest. "Should it not feel awkward?"
"There are ponies who can make it awkward," Harshwater replied, "and there are a lot more who won't care about you washing next to them if you return the favor. When you work a dirty job, know all the ponies involved and the alternative is smelling like a battlefield in the morning, you just deal with it."
Grenada kept staring. "...The Spirit had showers in our hideout. I was far too self-conscious to use them. If you had seen the artwork, you would have been too."
"Less tight of a group?" Harshwater guessed.
"Desperate ponies in desperate times," Grenada replied. "But are those two desperate? Or does being submersed in water make ponies just willing to treat anyone like their lover? They did this in the river by Griffonstone as well..."
Harshwater shook her head, having no qualms about scrubbing beneath her wings but still keeping to her side of the tub. "It's a cultural thing. Travel the world, you learn to expect quirks from everywhere. Apparently it's a Riverfall thing to share beds with your friends."
Grenada nodded, averting her eyes and cleaning her coat as subtly as possible.
"You know," Harshwater said, leaving her her dignity and not staring, "you have a lot of shame and innocence for someone as jaded and beaten-up as you are."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Grenada growled, not looking up.
Harshwater shrugged, moving on to her armpits. "You've been on this crew for just as long as I have, and I know exactly what you went through and put others through in Mistvale. Unless you've forgotten about our little history there? You've been through a bad rejection, you're hardened enough to order an army of one to their death, and yet you're still sheepish about taking a bath. It's just water."
Grenada narrowed her eyes. "Forgive me for believing in true love when ideals are all I have left. My city has been gone for months, and my hero falls farther from the pedestal I once held her on with every passing day. I do not want to compromise my beliefs now that everything that gave me them has left or been taken from me."
"Suit yourself." Harshwater moved on to her tail. "But last time I believed in true love, my crush tried to kill me twice. One suicide mission after Valey in the mines, another up to Mistvale... It's safe to say I'm never doing that again."
Grenada sighed. "Shinespark never tried to endanger or kill me. I know she was watching my back. She merely turned out to be a much more broken mare than I saw her as."
"That's the trouble with perfection," Harshwater complained. "Not that Shinespark couldn't afford to be taken up a notch or two on the self-worth scale, but the moment you get it in your head that someone is great... Ugh, I still have issues with Valey. I have nightmares about fighting her and being saved from something else by her all in the same dream!"
Grenada raised an eyebrow.
"That's at least partly your fault, you know," Harshwater scolded. "It's still hard for me to look at Nyala and Felicity straight, all because I spent weeks nearly getting beaten to death by a gang of sarosians because you wanted me to attack instead of defend. So don't just raise your eyebrow!"
"Sorry." Grenada hovered over a vial of soap. "I am aware that I was an ineffectual leader. It seems leading with heart instead of my mind is a weakness of mine, after how many times it has gotten me in trouble. So you can understand the desire for someone bigger and more perfect."
Harshwater leaned back, letting her mane soak. "That's what I said."
Grenada glanced at her and grimaced.
"What?"
"We have a lot in common."
Harshwater sighed, letting suds fan out from her. "Glad you noticed."
A splash sounded across the room as Jamjars climbed from her tub, the first member of the group to finish. She immediately grabbed a towel in her aura and buried her face in it, scrubbing at her mane.
Felicity and Amber both looked up, the former floating on her back as Amber lathered copious amounts of perfumed foam across her chest, forelegs and belly. "Done already?" Amber asked. "But we just got here."
"Yes." Jamjars swaddled herself with towels, using the telekinetic glow of her horn to hide her camouflage spell as she forcibly turned her cheeks back to their natural yellow. "I'll go do my mane somewhere else. I have some things to take care of."
She blotted her fur until she was sure it wouldn't drip, leaving two towels around her mane and tail and carrying a third in her aura for good measure. "Are you sure?" the nurse asked, breaking away from a discussion about board games with Slipstream and Nyala. "We have this room for as long as you need!"
"Where's the way to the roof?" Jamjars asked, not turning around. "And where's Starlight and my things? Now that I don't have to smell my own sweat, I need some fresh air."
"Right, then right at the intersection, left at the next, and your friends' door is on the right." The nurse made a zigzag with her hoof. "And there's no roof access for patients. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'll be fine!" Jamjars called back. "I just need my brush from my satchel!"
The nurse let her go. She rounded several corners, then leaned against a wall with a sigh of frustration. She needed to get a better hold on herself. Being weird was fine when her siblings were weirder and she could pressure them into being beneath her, and on the ship, there was only Starlight to care about. But here? There would be ponies her own age. There couldn't be that many young adults without foals to grow into them, and while adults might be able to lord things over her, there was no way she wasn't going to be at the top of the stack among peers. And for that, she needed to not do weird things like letting herself get flustered by flirting adults and silly dreams. That was for the airship, when she was bored and no one else was around. Here, she had to get serious...
Jamjars shook her head, hurrying off to go find Starlight and recover her things.
"Bananas, you guys really wanted this place to look... uhh... neat and tidy?"
Valey glanced around herself, the windigo heart duffel bag slung over a shoulder as Caballeron and Sea Star flanked her, taking her on an introductory tour of the space building. They passed the open doorways to a surprising number of classrooms, all of which were still empty for the weekend. She had expected the place to be smaller and more research-focused...
"Proper conditions for experimentation," Professor Sea Star replied, gesturing to the square hallways, sterile tile floors and metal support beams. "And a sturdy structure in case anything goes wrong. If you have gripes, neither of us know the architect."
They reached a sealed double-door, which opened automatically when Caballeron pulled out a security badge from his shirt pocket and presented it to a scanner. The air somehow smelled even cleaner, and the academic posters on the walls became replaced with lab safety guidelines and warning symbols, and occasional screens with waveform readings.
"Woah." Valey paused, glancing at a screen that looked like some kind of stress testing.
"Never seen a lab before?" Caballeron raised an eyebrow with a proud little grin.
"Oh, I have." Valey shrugged. "It was an isolated stone tower that was built away from the town so no civilians died when it exploded."
Sea Star shook her head. "We cannot tolerate explosions here. They damage equipment, experiments and facilities at best, but Equestria trusts us with their children and our students must absolutely not come to harm."
"Well, it sure looks less ready to fall down than that old scientist hole..."
Valey followed them around several bends and corners. Eventually, they came to yet another side door, this one belonging to a lab. Sea Star regretfully knocked, then let herself in without permission.
The room beyond was very brightly lit, with one wall made entirely of glass and a huge rack of machines lining another. Fans roared inside gigantic tubes that crisscrossed the ceiling, all feeding into the machines, likely to keep them cool. The third wall was lined with lockers and changing stalls, and a series of long, thin tables filled the middle, positioned in tiers for optimal observation of the room beyond the glass. It was mostly empty save for a lone pegasus with a frumpy green mane and glasses, wearing a lab coat that reached halfway across her flanks, reading a report with a pencil in her mouth and sitting on a stool and rotating.
She blinked and looked up. "Aww, come to visit? What's the magic password?"
"Hello," Sea Star replied, looking uncomfortable.
"Yo," Valey greeted, sizing her up. She had cute cheeks, and really made the glasses work... Probably not the best things to focus on. "So you're some uber scientist, or something?"
The pegasus slammed down her report and vaulted off her stool with a midair flip, knocking the stool over in the process. "And you're the one with the reputation," she countered, trotting over to Valey with just a little too much confidence, eyes shining as she flicked Sea Star with her tail. "The whole school says you're the hottest thing this island has seen in five years. The name's Anemone. Show me what you've got."
"What?" Valey blinked, Anemone slightly too close to her face for an average conversation. She unholstered her duffel bag, setting it down to the side. "Okay, so we've got these things that-"
Anemone grabbed her face, interrupting Valey and holding her nose to nose. "Not what I meant," she breathed, sporting a huge smile.
Suddenly, Valey discovered that she wasn't and would never be the most aggressive flirter on the island.
"Aww bananas...!" Valey rubbed her lips and tried unsuccessfully to force her wings closed after she was finally free. "Give me a heads-up next time you're going to do that, okay!?"
Caballeron had the world's politest raised eyebrow permanently fixed on his face. Sea Star looked vaguely ill. "I knew that was going to happen," they said as one.
"Heehee. No offense." Anemone stepped back, adjusted her glasses and winked, pointing at Sea Star with a feather. "I'm her ex, so I'm contractually obligated to make her jealous whenever she visits. And all the rumors said you'd appreciate it. So what have these old crones asked you to brave my lair for, thirsty fellow green-mane?"
Valey took a moment longer to stare and regain her bearings. "But you're like half her age."
"It's a long story," Sea Star groaned, "and I don't have all day. Please stay on topic while utilizing my time."
Caballeron gave her a disappointed look and shrugged. "I mean, I would not mind hearing it again."
"Get a room, you two." Anemone waved them away with a disinterested wing. "I've got business here! With a visitor!" She moved back into Valey's personal space. "It's the duffel bag, isn't it?"
"Alright, you know what? Forget it." Valey stood up. "I'm gonna walk out of this room, wait fifteen seconds, and walk back in and pretend this never happened, because I actually forgot what I'm here for."
Anemone glanced conspicuously down at her chest, brushing at a bit of fluff that stuck out through the buttoning of her lab coat. "Doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me."
Valey ignored the multiple meanings that could have, trotting out and back in again. "Right," she greeted, offering a wing. "Yo. I'm Valey. You're really hot for some reason, but I don't know you so let's not make that a talking point. I've got this bag full of bad stuff that's causing harmonic interference with all your instruments. You have any shielding stuff that can make it stop?"
Anemone's glasses slid halfway down her muzzle, and she pushed them back up with a hoof. "Say that again? I'm sorry, your bag has the source of interference we've been seeing?"
"Yeah." Valey hefted the bag. "You got any sort of shielding or containment units so we can stop it from doing that?"
Anemone leaned closer. "I wanna see what's in the bag."
"Suit yourself." Valey opened the bag, popping out a heart and hefting it.
Anemone's jaw dropped. "What is this? Some sort of crystal? Woah..." She looked up, meeting Valey's eyes from a safe distance away with a more businesslike expression. "What do you know about it? Anything about where you got it, what it is, how it works and why you're certain it's the cause."
Valey returned the look. "More than I can say to anyone I'm two hundred percent sure isn't evil."
Anemone glanced over her shoulder. "Don't ask Sea Star, she'll say I'm evil. Is there a safe version?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Are you asking to hear it?"
"...Right." Anemone stepped back. "With me, then. We'll just have to do some testing to see what we can do ourselves."
"In here?" Valey pointed to the glass wall. "This place looks pretty decked out for science."
"That's a gravity manipulator." Anemone shook her head. "Kinmari's most expensive toy, but not what you're looking for."
Valey followed along, keeping pace as she rushed from the lab. "So what are you looking for?"
"Since you're being all flank and no brains level of helpful? Basically anything at all."
Jamjars pushed open a hospital door with her telekinesis, her most perfect, angelic grin carefully prepared on her face.
"Uh oh." Saffron Sunflower's voice greeted her. "That look means you're up to something, doesn't it?"
"What!?" Jamjars winced, losing the look. "No it doesn't! It means I'm not up to anything! You don't even know me!"
Saffron chuckled, resting in a chair with Maple on a bed and Shinespark staring out the window. "Whatever you say, sugarcube. Quite the reaction there for being up to nothing at all."
"How important is it?" Starlight's voice came from behind Maple's bed. "If you just want to bother me, I have other things to do."
Jamjars blinked, very conscious that she had towels around her mane and tail and was barely dry enough not to drip from her coat. "It's something you'll actually enjoy. I promise?"
Starlight stuck her head around. "Like what?"
"I..." Jamjars winced. "Need advice with something?"
Starlight blinked. "That doesn't sound very like you."
"I also want my stuff back!" Jamjars snapped, still a ball of tension after watching Amber and Felicity wash each other. "If you didn't mess with it, I'll give you a reward. One like... not bothering you for a while."
"It's right here." Starlight offered the satchel, holding it in a hoof. "I didn't open it."
Jamjars grabbed it in her aura with a sigh of relief. "Thank youuu, I owe you one. Look, can we just talk?"
Starlight came out from behind the bed. "What's the catch?"
"There is no catch." Jamjars gritted her teeth. "I just don't want to talk in public!"
Starlight stared at her. "You just want to talk about mares and who we like again, don't you?"
"No!" Jamjars protested. "I mean... not in that way. To annoy you. Look, can you please just..."
"If you have something to say that's fit for the ears of my crew, it's fit for mine, too," Shinespark said, staring out the window.
"Rrrgh..."
"Are you not feeling so well after the voyage?" Maple asked, looking at Jamjars. "If it was hard on you, I'd more than understand."
Jamjars shook her head. "The hard part is preparing for what I'm going to do next. Starlight, please? Look, I'm even saying please..."
"Alright." Starlight came trotting over, her stick laid across her back. "Where do you want to talk?"
Jamjars instantly perked up. "This way! There's an empty room over here."
Starlight followed her one room over. The moment they were inside, Jamjars set down her satchel and returned to toweling herself off, a lingering redness returning to her face as she finally dropped her camouflage spell. "So," she began. "Brutal honesty mode: exactly what do you think of me?"
"Umm..." Starlight stared at her. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
"Yes," Jamjars replied, focusing on her towels. "I couldn't care less about what my siblings thought of me, and you're the only other one who was on the airship, so I could do whatever. But now? I have to get serious."
Starlight tilted her head and frowned. "The only other one on the airship? We have nearly a dozen friends. Maybe more."
"Not in our age class," Jamjars replied, furiously toweling herself. "So tell me. Don't pull punches. What do I have to improve on?"
Starlight stared at her. "Well, first off, you're weird."
"I knew it."
"And second, what are you even trying to get serious about?" Starlight shrugged. "This island is supposed to be a safe place where we can relax."
Jamjars hefted a limp, soggy towel. "Not getting stepped on by the other foals our age and showing them who's boss." She fixed Starlight with a piercing gaze. "Look, you don't want that either, right? I know we're rivals, but we could have each other's backs, here! With my brain and your magic... What?"
Starlight was giving her a strange look. "First off, I haven't seen any other foals here. Maybe one or two, but only in the town part of the island, and probably just because their parents work here. But why are we competing with them?"
Jamjars gave her an even stranger look. "First off, you're probably not looking hard enough. Trust me. All those ponies on the docks were just like us several years ago, so unless this island is having an age crisis, those foals are just hiding. And we're competing for resources."
"What resources?" Starlight pointed at the window. "Have you seen how much room there is here? And everyone I've met has been generous. We certainly have more than on the boat."
"Like a place to sleep tonight?" Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "Do we have rooms yet? Private ones?"
Starlight thought for a moment. "Well, no, but-"
"Exactly," Jamjars interrupted. "Look, you may never have had to compete with a dozen siblings who share one medium-sized house and sad, slow mother who does nothing but give you more siblings to compete with, but I saw how big this island is and I saw how many ponies are here. Just you watch. If there's something we want and we don't have a bigger claim to it, they'll crawl right out of the woodwork and take it for themselves. I'm the expert on this, I know how it works. We have to defend ourselves!"
Starlight stared at her, nonplussed. "But we're all really popular here. Valey and Gerardo can get anyone to do anything for them. Nobody's tried to take advantage of us."
"Precisely." Jamjars flung a hoof at her and grinned, spraying a bit of water in her face. "Oops. Sorry. But that's how we do it! All we need to do is convince ever last pony here that we're the best, or at least enough for a majority rule. And if they're already convinced, all we need to do is keep them convinced, which is easier. Which is why I need to clean up my act so our dumb friends don't make my habits of entertaining myself start working against me."
Starlight met her eyes. "Our friends aren't dumb. That's your first thing to work on."
Jamjars gaped at her, then gritted her teeth. "No, they're... whatever! Look, who would you blame if Felicity and Amber are rubbing each other in public and you start getting aroused!? I'm already admitting it's my problem, okay!?"
"...I think your worldview is completely upside-down," Starlight said. "Thanks for trying to be better, though."
Jamjars stewed in embarrassment. "So are you going to help me or not? I am literally kneeling and calling you the expert. There is nothing higher I can give you. I am humbling myself and asking for help. Please?"
Starlight worked her mouth. "I... still don't even know what you want me to do."
Jamjars sighed. "For starters, since you're actually good at it, tell me how you can see someone like Felicity getting-"
The door banged open. It was Gazelle.
"EEEEEEEK!" Jamjars nearly jumped out of her mane, screeching in surprise and instantly camouflaging herself the color of the floor.
Gazelle barely blinked at the outburst. "You're tense," he said, before turning to Starlight. "They told me to come back here. I just wanted to see the library again. Why can't-"
Two nurses appeared panting in the doorway, summoned by Jamjars' scream. "What's going on in here!?"
"He scared us," Starlight said matter-of-factly, pointing to her hyperventilating companion.
One nurse shook her head. "Let's get you back to the other room and dried off. Your complexion is so pale, it looks like the floor! You poor, poor thing..."
"Mmmhm," Anemone said, hovering over a machine holding the windigo heart. "Hmmm... Right. Mhm. Mmm..."
Her tongue poked out of the side of her mouth in concentration as she adjusted dials and stared at a graph with a frown. "Go stand over there, please," she instructed, pointing a wing at the far corner of the room. "Your necklace is interfering with these readings."
Valey held out her duffel bag. "If you're looking for interference, I've got four more in here."
Anemone blinked in attractive irritation. "...You might have wanted to mention that earlier."
Valey shrugged in self-defense. "You didn't ask!"
"I got tired of asking because you were being mysterious," Anemone levelly replied, "which is great for dating but not so useful for science. Work with me here, and I'll buy you something hard after work so no one can blame us if things get inappropriate. How's that for motivation?"
"I honestly don't know how they work," Valey replied, holding out the bag. "Just what they can do. And every last bit of it is evil mad science tier, not the kind of thing you'd want to do in a school."
"Such as?" Anemone arranged the other hearts in the machine, setting them in a circle on a dais. "Stop worrying, I wouldn't work here if I wasn't responsible where it counts."
Professor Sea Star frowned from further back. "You work here because I vouched for you after you got expelled for misconduct."
"Wait, that can happen?" Valey scratched her head. "They boot you out as a student, but not a...?"
"Lab assistant, technically," Anemone muttered, making a face at the display. "Long story short, there are certain things it's less inappropriate for an employee to do than a student. According to them."
Valey blanched, looking over her shoulder at Sea Star. "But wait a sec, she said she was your ex...?"
Sea Star groaned and shook her head as Anemone suddenly giggled. "Not that kind of misconduct," she sighed.
"Say it...!" Anemone warned, grinning at the machine chamber.
Sea Star threw a whiteboard eraser at Valey's head, then turned around and left. Valey effortlessly dodged it.
"She got expelled for stealing Buckball buckets," Caballeron said with a shrug. "But was a good enough student that my colleague wanted her in research. It was a big favor, one thing lead to another... You know how it goes."
"Why were you stealing Buckball buckets?" Valey stared at Anemone, jaw slack. "And what even is a Buckball bucket? I mean, what?"
Anemone was busy staring at the display in surprise, her voice quiet. "Long story. Do I have your curiosity?"
Valey tilted her head. "I mean, yeah?"
"Good." Anemone fluttered her wings in satisfaction. "Then go stand on the other side of the machine and hold as still as you can."
"Uhh... sure?" Valey obeyed, locking her hooves and holding her breath.
Anemone watched a display, nodding. "Now come back here and hold still again."
"Like this?" Valey moved to stand beside her.
Anemone frowned and tapped the machine. "Is this thing faulty? We had a latency spike back there... Hey, Starfish! Get back here! Did you do anything?"
"No!" Sea Star's voice called back through the door. "And don't call me that!"
"A latency spike?" Valey stepped closer and tilted her head. "What's that mean? And what's this thing doing, anyway?"
Anemone sighed, putting her forehooves on her flanks and staring at the windigo hearts with a suspicious expression. "Will you make this worth my time?"
"I won't know if I don't know what it's doing." Valey shrugged.
Anemone took a breath. "...Right. You rode in on the Arc Manta, right? How much did you hear about what it's built for?"
Valey pursed her lips. "Going fast underwater and mapping the seafloor?"
"That's... grossly inaccurate," Anemone sighed. "Very long story short, there's a sheet of magic that we think exists at the deepest point of the world, like a plane the entire world sits on. We call it ether, which is a subset of a concept called harmony. This sheet of ether as a whole, we call the lifestream. The lifestream is constantly flowing in a complex pattern, and as far as we know is linked in a way we don't understand to every living thing. A major goal of multiple Kinmari research programs has been to better understand the lifestream, both because we're curious and because it's relevant to things like space travel for tangential reasons. One of the biggest questions relating to that which we're focusing on is how immutable the lifestream's currents are. We already know there are patterns to how and where it flows, but we want to better map them and what, if anything, can make them change. How are you following so far?"
Valey nodded. "Have you ever actually been down there?"
Anemone nodded in return. "We dug a very deep shaft on this island and can directly access and observe a tiny part of it, yes. But we need more than one data point. The purpose of the Arc Manta is to try to use the lifestream's effect on living creatures to map out its flow. Essentially, it takes ponies to the seafloor, as close as they can be to the magic, and then moves them around and tries to measure subtle changes to their bodies based on their proximity and the ether's movements." Her eyes grew serious for a moment. "Don't go talking about this to just anyone, by the way. It's fairly privileged information that our main method of measuring this is actually measuring ponies near it."
"Information you were remarkably quick to divulge," Caballeron pointed out.
Anemone frowned at him. "She knows things too, and someone had to start the conversation."
"Yeah, don't worry." Valey shook her head. "Lips are sealed. So then this thing...?"
"Is a little complicated," Anemone admitted. "But it's a measurement device. Think of the Arc Manta as this thing, except that pedestal in there is the entire interior of the ship. Plus a lot of other things."
Valey stared at it for a moment. "Okay. Yeah, I can see ponies getting spooked if you told them they were riding in a giant thing that was constantly experimenting on them."
"Measuring. Not experimenting." Anemone shook her head. "All we can do is observe output. The only changes we can actually make ourselves are moving your physical location. Even being able to measure the lifestream like this is cutting edge. Manipulating it could be years in the future."
"Huh." Valey stared again at the windigo hearts. "So what was it you just got surprised by right there?"
"Oh, it changed about a second worth of data after it had already written it," Anemone sighed, looking at the machine with a confounded expression. "Right around when she threw that eraser and stormed out. This is an extremely unstable testing environment, unfortunately, since it's built to hold ponies and doesn't have proper shielding to guard against interference by observers like us. And with materials we're not familiar with... Well, we know it's reading something. Your necklace isn't helping either, by the way, but it's already enough of a mess I don't think we're learning anything except that the unexpected can happen. Still, I've never seen it second-guess itself. There shouldn't be any type of input that could cause errors in the temporal mapping... Maybe the building had a power surge, or something. Maybe it's just a mechanical fluke."
Valey frowned curiously at the display. "Yeah, probably." She pulled back, then blinked. "Hey, for the sake of good experimentation, you wanna see if it'll happen again? Throw an eraser at me."
Anemone shook her head. "I just had you move around, and that didn't do anything more unusual than I was expecting. We've tested ponies being surprised around this, haven't we, Caballeron? Either way, our eraser chuckster isn't coming back, so we can't-!"
Mid-sentence and without warning, her wing twitched inside her coat, and she flung a highlighter like a dart straight at Valey.
Valey caught it without blinking, trotting over and passing it back. "Any luck?"
Anemone was staring dumbfounded at the screen. "That's... That's impossible..." She glared back up at Valey, eyes flashing with an intense lust for knowledge. "What made you suggest that!? What made you suggest throwing something, instead of getting Sea Star or yelling or flirting or anything else we were doing? It just happened again! If we can reproduce a phenomenon I've never seen anything like before..."
"Uhh..." Valey scratched her head, reaching a hoof beneath her beret and rubbing. "I mean, I used my cutie mark to dodge it, so since those have to do with harmony and that was at the same time as this thingamajig..."
Anemone fixed Valey with the most restrained look in the world. "Your cutie mark, hmm? I would like to study this. What would it take to make you willing?"
Valey nodded for confirmation. "You want to study my butt."
"Yes, I..." Anemone finally reddened, made worse when Valey pumped a hoof in victory. "Hey! I'm being serious!"
Valey flexed. "What goes around comes around, girl. You don't get to spring that on me when we met without me trying to defend my crown. Now... you have a legitimate scientific interest in my rear."
Anemone breathed very, very deeply. "Yes. I do! In both meanings of the phrase, if that's how you want to play. Will you come back here and let me investigate why this machine rewrites itself when someone throws things at you?"
"Let's say there's a price." Valey leaned in, folding her forelegs on a counter. "Those things?" She pointed a wing at the windigo hearts. "That effect you're measuring from them I am ninety percent sure is actually mind-altering in a negative way. Not super emergency level, but I don't know enough about them and want them shielded and contained so there's no way they can affect me or my friends anymore. You find a box or something that can hold them and stop them from being measurable to your machines that detect effects on life, and I'll go along with whatever. Because I'm also ninety percent sure all this chaos data you're complaining about is actually the machine measuring their effect on us, not it measuring them."
Anemone stared at her for a moment with a slack jaw. "Help me set these in a circle around the machine. I'm going to stand in the middle, and you're going to get to learn how to read this display."
Caballeron waved, stepping out as they got started. "Have a nice experiment, ladies! I am going to find some afternoon coffee..."
The sun was two hours out from sunset when Valey emerged from the space department, sans her duffel bag and all alone. Anemone had data to crunch, and she had existing friends to catch up as well as new ones to make.
It was a short flight to the hospital, barely two buildings away. Valey zoomed a quick circuit around the building, eventually finding the same second-story window overlooking the entrance she remembered from earlier and shadow sneaking her way inside.
"Valey!" Maple blinked in surprise. "You never knock, do you?" she greeted with a smile.
"If that's a problem, slap me until I change my ways." Valey winked back, glancing around the room to see who else was there. "Meltdown, Saffron, Sparky. Hey girls. Where's everyone else?"
Shinespark sat in a corner, watching the door, and sighed. "They're out."
"President Kinmari stopped by about an hour ago," Saffron Sunflower explained, sitting carefully across from Maple's bed. "Got everyone who felt like a walk together and invited them to check out some places on the island. Said he was finding you a real place to stay."
"Really?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Makes me wonder why he didn't do that earlier."
Shinespark shrugged. "Maple and Felicity had this place, and do you and Gerardo even care where you sleep?"
Valey slowly knit her brows, sensing a double meaning. "Are you... uh... upset at all about how I teased you on the boat?"
"I'm upset about far too many things for that to even matter," Shinespark replied. "I'm burned out on being upset. I haven't been processing much of anything now that we're here."
Maple glanced conspicuously at Valey, then nudged toward Shinespark with her eyes.
"...You wanna talk?" Valey asked, offering a hoof. "I'll fly you to the roof. We can sit together and watch the sunset?"
"Would you be alright with me being a mess?" Shinespark replied.
"If I wasn't, I'd ask you if you wanna go talk in a shower, or something." Valey waggled her eyebrows.
"...How?" Shinespark asked. "How are you so... carefree again?"
Valey trotted closer. "Wish I could share it with you. Can I try?"
Shinespark slowly exhaled. "Fly me out to my ship?"
"...It's a dump," Valey warned. "You sure it'll make you feel better?"
"No," Shinespark replied. "It won't, but if we're going to talk, that's where I want to do it."
"Gotcha. Hop on."
Valey banked hard, canceling her momentum and coming in for a soft landing on the deck of the Immortal Dream. Several university security guards stood near it on the dock, nodding as they flew overhead.
"Nice of them to add dudes to chase off trespassers," Valey remarked, crouching so Shinespark could climb down from her back. "So... why here?"
Shinespark ran a hoof along the scarred edge of the ship where a brood beast had torn one of the railings like a comb. The deck was dented, and a bit of water from high surf during the last leg of the voyage had pooled in various places, one of the pools disturbed by her steps.
"My horn is broken." Shinespark looked down. "My heart is broken. My dream is broken. My ship is broken. There's nothing left to do except start from scratch, like an earth pony without a cutie mark and no hometown. But I don't want to say goodbye."
Valey approached, staring into a reflection and using it to meet Shinespark's downcast eyes. "You've got a lot of time ahead of you. You remember what I said, right? Ironridge doesn't need a visionary or hero now, but it will in a decade or two. Don't say goodbye. Say you'll be back."
Shinespark sighed. "This ship looks exactly the way I feel. Don't you remember how beautiful it used to be? We didn't have a power source, but we kept working because we wanted it to embody all of old Sosa's spirit and pride, like an ark that would keep it alive after the city sank beneath the waves. And now look at it." She paced to the wall between the doorways to the stairs and the bridge, stroking a scratched, painstakingly-carved mural. "They put just as much faith and work into this ship as they did into me. And now that dream is dead for both of us. Both of us will never fly again."
A tear rolled down her dirty cheek. "Oh yeah?" Valey said, coming and standing behind her. "We'll see about that."
"What are you going to do?" Shinespark asked. "My horn is broken. The engine is destroyed. Even if you could rebuild it enough to make it technically work, it would be hobbling through the air on crutches. This ship is only as immortal as the dreams of its crew."
Valey frowned.
"And every last pony here is finished and tired." Shinespark closed her eyes. "I just can't anymore. I wish I could go back. It would be worth doing it all over again just to feel the conviction I used to have..."
"You mean the faith that everyone else put in you?" Valey stretched out a wing. "Yeah, well... for the time being, we're safe. And I'm not finished. So you just leave everything to me, okay? I'll see what I can do."
A large party of ponies and a griffon trotted after President Kinmari, the suited stallion leading them on a walking tour of the western shore of the island. It was the most-developed section they had seen, part of the school instead of College Town to the south, and designed to be the first thing many ships and visitors saw upon sailing in from the mainland.
"A rather pretty establishment you have, here," Felicity commented as they made their way down a sculpted road, the sun beginning to set to the west. Passing students waved, most of them noticing the president and not opting to try to stop them to chat.
Gerardo tapped her on the shoulder. "Mind you don't repeat the same praise too often," he whispered. "You've said that three times already. We wouldn't want to sound insincere..."
"What? More poetic words elude me!"
President Kinmari laughed. "That's quite alright. In comparison to the wonders you must have seen, I'd know you were bluffing if you said my tiny island was the best. Generations of ponies have done their best to make this a proud institution, but the north is home to nations older than Equestria. I'm sure they have us outdone."
"Not outdone in hospitality, at least," Amber insisted, looking much better after her bath. Her eyes were still weary, but they were free, and her mane had a bit of a bounce to it that wasn't just from the shampoo. "I joined the party late, but some of the stories I've heard, let me tell you..."
The president chuckled, passing a building Starlight suspected was the opposite side of the Laughter dorms than the one they had stayed in. In the distance up ahead, she could see a plaza with a fountain, but suspected it was different than the one near the coffee shop where she had talked with Caballeron.
Eventually, they reached the fountain, a sculpture of a unicorn, pegasus and earth pony standing back to back on their hind legs, each holding an open book with water running out from between the pages. President Kinmari gestured to a gate to the side. "This here we like to call the school's front entrance," he narrated. "It's the dock where new students arrive for the first time, and where we hold class inaugurations and the like. It's also a great place to watch the sunset reflecting off the waves, so remember where it is!" He turned away from the gate to the docks, facing inland. "And here, we have most of the administration buildings, including school-owned on-campus housing for some of our more distinguished staff."
Jamjars instantly snapped out of her thoughts. "Is that where we'll be staying?"
"You're an eager one, aren't you?" President Kinmari laughed. "It's an option, but not your only one. Whatever you choose, though, the cost will be all on us, so don't fret yourselves there."
"Well, might we see it?" Felicity hopefully pressed. "As much as I appreciate the tour, darling, I'm not one for extended amounts of walking around..."
The president nodded, guiding them up a gilded staircase that ran parallel to the road, then on a bridge across it. A small badge on his chest sparkled with magic, and a glass double-door ahead of him opened automatically in return. He stood to the side, inviting everyone in.
It was a lobby, feeling halfway between an office and a hotel, with a well-dressed mare behind a reception desk and lots of potted plants, and a window at one end overlooking the water. She nodded to the president and went back to writing in a ledger.
"Student and faculty housing administration, home office," President Kinmari said with a grin. "Hello there, Envelope. How's the... err... situation coming along? We have foreign guests in need of a place to call their own."
The secretary, Envelope, looked up from her ledger. "Generosity Two is cleaned and in perfect condition, but we're still waiting on legal about the Herringstroke situation. They've inspected it and are sure it's safe, though."
Harshwater blinked. "Herringstroke situation?"
President Kinmari suddenly looked slightly awkward. "Oh, well... Brush Herringstroke, our head art history professor, was arrested for fraud and black market dealings while on vacation a few weeks ago and has been fired from the university. So no one is using his room, but until we find out whether his art collection was legal, we're in a bind dealing with it. And it wouldn't be sporting of us to put you in a villa with a stolen art collection, so I was making sure that was still off the table."
"A villa with a stolen art collection?" Jamjars perked up. "Sounds classy. Can I stay there? I promise I won't mess with it."
Everyone looked at her, the president and secretary not knowing how to respond. "Errr..." President Kinmari self-consciously brushed his suit. "Shouldn't that be your parents' choice...?" He looked around the group for anyone willing to take ownership of Jamjars.
"Oh, I'm on my own," Jamjars primly replied. "My mother was useless and my father left her in secret, so he was a flake. I just take care of myself."
The president shot everyone but Jamjars a very worried look.
"It's not pretty in the north?" Amber apologized with a feeble grin.
"We look after her, though," Slipstream insisted, patting a wing on Jamjars' head. "And would like to know if there are better options for where to stay. Someone else's cottage that hasn't been cleaned yet..." Her eyes shifted to Harshwater. "What if it's full of self-portraits?"
Harshwater reddened just a little. "I wish I could go back and destroy those."
President Kinmari shuffled. "If there's some history or you need a moment, I can step out..."
"Oh no, it's fine," Amber insisted, Grenada looking perplexed behind her. "This just isn't the first time we've been offered a criminal's villa that's full of art. Some interesting history there. It's a long story."
The president looked slightly put out. "That's why I wasn't offering it. Merely checking on its status just in case..."
"But I want it!" Jamjars protested. "It sounds classy!"
"No!"
As Slipstream tried to cover Jamjars' mouth and restrain her from talking, Grenada stepped forward and commanded attention. "That is perfectly fine. Where else do you have that we could sleep? I believe tensions are high because my friends and I are tired from our journey. We do need a place of our own."
The president jumped on this excuse to change the topic. "Right! One place we'd be happy to offer you is the Generosity Two suite. Part of a row of villas west across the road, as close to the water as you can get without falling in! The best property on the island. Each house has claim to two of them, one for the professor who heads the house and one for whomever the students choose. In accordance with their ideals, Generosity has long mandated theirs be kept open for those in need. You can officially have it for the night, and I'm more than certain they'd all agree to let you keep it next they meet. You have quite the reputation, after all."
"The best property on the island?" Amber perked up. "Well, that sounds like a good deal. What's the catch?"
President Kinmari cleared his throat. "It's... meant for one or two, not a dozen. A very luxurious one or two, but there's a single bedroom and a single large bed, so it wouldn't be enough to-"
Felicity daintily cleared her throat. "Darling? Put it in my name for now, and I have a feeling I'll be able to get maximum satisfaction out of the place for everyone involved."
Grenada gave her a look. "I prefer to sleep on my own."
"Same." Harshwater did likewise.
Felicity pouted. "Well, there goes that idea."
"We'd still love it, of course," Slipstream cut in. "But do you have anything else? One bedroom for all of us really wouldn't work out."
Jamjars unsubtly nudged her. "The Herringstroke rooooom..."
President Kinmari did an awkward job of ignoring her. "If campus faculty housing is full, one option you'd have is College Town. There are inns and more permanent lodgings there, where many of the university and island's support staff live. They won't be as deluxe or fancy as this place, but we'd still pay for everything, and you'd be closer to the stores and restaurants. Location is everything, isn't it?"
"I would appreciate that." Grenada nodded thankfully.
"Same," Harshwater offered.
Amber shrugged. "If we're trying to get a pile going in the Generosity place, I'm down for that..." She glanced back at Nyala, who had been silent the whole time. "What about you, girl?"
Nyala blinked in surprise, looking clearly unaccustomed to being part of large group discussions. "Oh, I'd... need to think about it, I guess?"
"And what are we doing?" Slipstream asked, glancing at Gerardo. "I don't have strong feelings, but would rather stick with you."
Gerardo drew a talon across his uniformed chest. "Ah, well..." He glanced at the president. "If it's not too offensive to your hospitality, I made some good friends over the weekend, and have multiple standing invitations to be the guest of honor at various dorms. So I could save you some logistical hassle..."
President Kinmari laughed and grinned. "That's wonderful! I was about to say the dorms were your third option, if you felt like bunking with rowdy college kids. Doubt many of them would turn you away. So, does anyone not know what they're doing? For anyone who wants College Town, I'm happy to lead a tour..."
"Me!" Jamjars raised an emphatic hoof. "If I can't have the art collector's place, can I get my own room in town?"
The president's demeanor fell again, looking like he really didn't want to deal with this. "Can't you stay with whoever's taking care of you?"
"I take care of myself," Jamjars replied, fluffing her chest.
"University policy forbids us from making dedicated housing reimbursements in the name of anyone less than eighteen years of age," Envelope interrupted, coming to the president's rescue. "You stay with someone else."
Jamjars put on an eager grin. "So if we had money on the boat and I could pay for it myself...!?"
"It also forbids us from signing to anyone that young." Envelope shut her down with an emotionless, lawyerly tone. "You stay with someone else."
Jamjars gritted her teeth and pouted. "Will any of you ask for a room and then leave it all to me...?"
"Not in a different building," Amber replied. "Maybe you can ask Nyala if she'll get a place in town and let you stay with her, but this is a city and we're not letting you live and sleep on your own."
Nyala bit her lip. "Is that what everyone wants?"
"No! I want my own room!" Jamjars fumed and stomped to the back of the group. "Come on..."
Starlight frowned in concern as the conversation up front continued. "Are you alright?" she whispered to Jamjars. "I don't usually see you get upset..."
"Just trying a new tactic. I am calm and composed," Jamjars whispered back, not sounding particularly calm or composed.
"Are you sure...?"
Jamjars smirked. "That is the kind of thing I'd rather talk about in private. You know..." Her face darkened. "Like having my own room. But whatever. Are you ready to sneak out tonight and find a quiet place to chat? I have some things I need to show you."
"Things?" Starlight blinked. "What kind of things? If they're more posters, I have bigger things on my mind."
"Well, obviously." Jamjars rolled her eyes. "And I need a pre-reader for a story I wrote about Harshwater and Slipstream. I think it's good, but I really need a second opinion on how they break up and get back together in chapter three. I also want to visit the stores here and see what kind of mare singers are popular in Equestria, and I know you're the expert so it's critical I get your opinion on this."
Starlight slowly regarded her, but didn't say anything. Jamjars was smarter than that. There couldn't be a way this was actually important, could there...?
"To College Town we go, then!" President Kinmari strolled past, Harshwater and Grenada on his heels. He paused and raised an eyebrow at everyone else. "You're really all trying to squeeze into that little villa?"
"Dorms." Gerardo pointed to himself and Slipstream.
Nyala, Felicity and Amber glanced between each other. "I guess we are?" Amber shrugged. "And we'll go see our other friends back at the hospital. If anything changes, we'll let you know."
The president nodded, heading on his way. Behind them, Envelope cleared her throat. "Someone from Generosity will be here soon to show you around. In the meantime, please make yourselves comfortable."
Gerardo and Slipstream had left by the time the Generosity representative arrived, leaving only Amber, Felicity, Nyala and the fillies. She was a mare with very high boots and a lot of lace in her mane, starkly contrasted by a plain brown traveling cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Fortunately, she realized the clash of her styles and at least looked a little self-conscious.
"Hi?" Amber offered, holding out a hoof.
"Hi," the mare greeted in an overly-airy voice that sounded like it was trying hard not to be a whisper and couldn't quite succeed. "Sorry about the getup; I just came from a party. My name is Countess Candy Cloud, and it's an immense pleasure to meet you at last."
"Countess, darling?" Felicity looked up. "That's quite the title."
"It's a story," Candy Cloud replied. "You can call me Candy. But for now, I heard you need a place to rest your weary heads?"
Amber nodded. "We heard something about a villa?"
Candy beamed, beckoning them along with a wing from beneath her cloak and revealing herself to be a pegasus. "I would love to show you around. Please, would you care to come with me?"
Generosity Two was so close to the water, the living room had a panoramic window with a straight drop down a seawall to the sea. It had a luxurious couch, snack table, and several fluffy chairs, with a kitchen adjacent that Amber immediately went to investigate and another door leading to the bedroom. Felicity took the lead there, finding a spacious four-poster next to a generous, well-stocked writing desk and empty walk-in closet.
Countess Candy Cloud stayed near the middle of the living room, looking oddly at ease in her far odder garb. "Well?" she asked after everyone had taken a few minutes to look around. "How does this suit your fancy, miladies? I apologize that there's only one bed, but even the couch is better than many other places can offer."
Nyala glanced around, staying near the doorway. "I was going to sleep on the roof. I'm used to colder climates, and it's too hot in here for me to rest well."
The pegasus host looked placated by this. "I hope the sea breeze brings you pleasant dreams. Let me know if I can bring you any extra bedding."
"And for how long do we have this?" Felicity implored, poking her head out from the bedroom. "You have excellent taste in beds, I might add. It should be large enough for quite a few of us, and plenty comfortable at that."
Candy tilted her head. "Quite a few of you?"
Amber glanced between her and Felicity. "Well, you're not bailing on the bed, and I'm not bailing on the bed, and from what I've heard Valey's not bailing on us, and maybe she'll talk Shinespark into joining, and if Maple's ribs are feeling well enough she'd probably love it too? Nyala, I think you can actually have the couch, unless Jamjars wants it."
"That's..." Candy did some quick counting on her wing feathers. "Oh my. Cultural differences, I see." She reddened faintly.
Amber held out a hoof for her to stop. "Whatever you're thinking, there are two fillies here, and Maple is basically my sister. It's totally platonic." She blinked, reading Candy's expression. "It isn't normal for friends to sleep in piles here, is it."
"The university has..." Candy Cloud tapped her booted forehooves together. "Policies about that. Which wouldn't apply to you, because you're all mares and not enrolled here anyway. But it's caused problems in the past, and I'm the fated one who gets to help enforce them. So please try not to make too big of a deal about this to the students. You're already an example to them, and they look to you a lot for what's cool to imitate and do."
"To them?" Starlight asked, sitting by the window and watching the sea. "Not us? Aren't you a student too?"
Candy Cloud smiled. "Yes, but my coltfriend is the house Generosity student president and I do enough work helping out that they're my little ponies to me instead of merely peers. Which is why I get to oversee this villa." She stepped across the room, turning to face everyone. "The house student body votes to keep this place open for those in need. You're welcome to stay the night, and come tomorrow, I'll have everyone vote again on whether to lease it to you indefinitely. But you're overwhelmingly popular, so the most I'd worry about are a request for interview or two for the house newspaper. In the meantime, here are some keys, and if you ever have administrative questions or needs, don't hesitate to come find me at the Generosity dorms. If I'm not there, someone will be who knows where I am."
"Cool!" Amber swiped the keys with her tail, offering a wink. "And maybe we'll come hang out sometime anyway. I could do with a look around this place. But for now, I think we need some major rest."
Candy Cloud bowed, retreating out the door. "I will leave you to it."
Immediately after the door was closed, Amber trotted purposefully to the window and flopped on her back, legs splayed.
"...That looks remarkably like you're trying to appear more comfortable than you actually are," Felicity said, trotting over.
Amber sighed, staring out upside-down at the ocean next to Starlight. "Do you ever get the strange feeling of being tired, even though you just spent an entire week resting?"
"I do," Felicity replied. "It's called having zero stamina thanks to a lingering disability, combined with a pregnancy I really should have thought twice before looking for."
"Oh, I'm not talking about that." Amber lazily kicked a hoof in the air, then slumped. "Being cheerful and near ponies has always been how I unwind and relax, ever since I was a foal. But for the last while, especially since we left the north, I've felt more and more like I do it to feel normal instead. And on bad days, it gets to the point where it feels like work, even though it's clearly worth it because if I didn't be happy, I'd... be less happy. Circular logic, but you know?"
Felicity sat down beside her, opposite from Starlight. "I assume you must be feeling a particular way now to even have this on your mind."
"Yep. Maybe." Amber squirmed slightly, but didn't change where she was. "Did you see that girl, though? She was friendly and well-connected. And it's barely evening yet. What I should have done was offer to go with her, meet some ponies, see what's hip and happening around this town, had some fun, and come back at one in the morning with a sore throat and a sugar crash, depending on how much singing and sweets were involved. So why do I just... not want to?"
"Your body's not tired, but your mind is," Starlight replied. "Once Valey gets back, you should ask her to run a lap of the island with you. Two, if you feel like it. Then go to sleep and see how you feel tomorrow."
Amber gave her an interested look. "Well, aren't you a little therapist tonight? You sound like you've been thinking about this. What's on your mind?"
"Mind magic."
Everyone looked at her with interest, especially Jamjars, who was sitting camouflaged atop the couch. "Mind magic?" Amber frowned.
Starlight sighed. "I can probably tell you this without scaring you now that you're off the ship, but... Valey and I thought maybe part of the reason we all felt so bad all the time and the world's problems felt as big as they were was because we were constantly around all those windigo hearts."
Amber instantly paled, her ears going straight up. "Oh... Oh no, no, they... I even knew about this and looked into it, and I brought you four more...!"
Starlight instantly winced, having forgotten exactly how most of their stash caught up with them. "That's what Valey said," she settled on.
"After Hemlock had a mob smash Maple's house," Amber whispered. "I did follow-up investigation, and found that he had fished a windigo heart out of the river while it was receding after the flood. One of the ones you killed that fell in. I showed it to Arambai and Dorable. You remember Dorable, right? The Sosan factory chief who got his job because of Valey and used to be an Icereach scientist? He told me all about the mind effects they could have on ponies..."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. "Why did he even let you take them, then?"
Amber shook her head. "He said they would balance out if they were full of harmony. That's why they can contain it in the first place; because they're opposites and they can attract each other somehow, like a hole waiting to be filled. My suitcase was supposed to protect against them too. But then we always used them up all at once, and had so much bigger things on our minds I completely forgot about the hearts..."
She clutched the sides of her head in distress, but Starlight grabbed one of her hooves and tugged it away. "Stop! It's alright now! We're still all alive, aren't we!? And Valey told me she was going to get the hearts the moment you got here and see if any of the scientists here could help her seal them so they'd leave us alone. If you really do know things about them, you could help us too! And things can be better now!"
Amber exhaled and sagged. "I spent so much time and effort trying to raise everyone's spirits. That's half of why I came out in the first place..."
"Darling?" Felicity interrupted, firmly taking her other hoof. "With all due respect, Starlight is right and wallowing doesn't suit you. There is in fact a bright side, and I can in fact confirm that both Valey and myself have been feeling miles better since arriving here."
Amber took a long, slow breath. "Is that where Valey is now? I could probably use that run right about now."
There was a loud knock on the door, and with the turn of a key, Valey, Shinespark and Maple slipped inside.
Valey blinked at the scene, Amber upside-down between Felicity and Starlight. "...Do I wanna ask?"
"What's going on here?" Maple raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, just discussions." Amber rolled to her hooves. "Hey, Valey, are you busy? We need to catch up, and I feel like going for a run."
"Uhh..." Valey glanced at Shinespark. "Sure, I guess?"
Amber cantered out the door. "Excellent, let's go! Race you around the island!"
The door slammed shut behind them, and Jamjars tsk'd. "Rowdier than my siblings sometimes..."
Maple's eyes roved the building. "There is a kitchen..."
"Would you make food?" Starlight asked, sitting up. "Please?"
As Jamjars joined in agreement, Shinespark quietly stepped over, pointing at Felicity and then beckoning for her to follow into the bedroom.
The moment Felicity's tail was inside, Shinespark closed the door. Felicity gave her a slightly defensive look. "If this is about Valey..."
"Tell me everything that happened between you," Shinespark said, voice quiet. "Please."
Felicity gave her a sorrowful look. "Jealous?"
"I'm not mad," Shinespark replied. "But I want to know. What did you do together, and what does it have to do with how different she's acting?"
"She took pity on me," Felicity answered. "And, in case you haven't noticed, she spends every night snuggling someone. If you're jealous or worried about her moving on, keep in mind she's been absolutely mobbed these past few days by hordes of very attractive, athletic college students, had practically hundreds of far better pickings, probably could have gotten a dozen at once if she wanted, and instead chose this middle-aged, formerly traitorous wreck of a mare out of loyalty to her friends and strength of character, so I sincerely doubt you're about to face abandonment at the hooves of someone else."
Shinespark's eyes narrowed. "I'm not worried about it."
"Well, you shouldn't be!" Felicity interrupted, the other mare clearly not done. "Because even though you have every right to think that just because you're suddenly a cripple and hitting a rough, demotivated patch of your life she would pass you over for more pristine pickings, she won't, because you two have a history and that's just the kind of mare she is! So what if your horn is broken? It's a war wound, you got it fighting a monstrous demigoddess, you can make it look cool! You think she'll leave you for that if she's willing to keep a sarosian who can't fly even remotely on her map!?"
Shinespark blinked at her. "You're a lot more emotional about this than I am."
"And for what reason wouldn't I be?" Felicity retorted. "Fifteen years ago I could make up for the poison with charm and youthful vigor and outward good looks, and all it got me was power and influence. You've... well... got a friend who is very great, and I n-need to remind you of that so you can appreciate her as much as she deserves."
"...You realize," Shinespark slowly continued, "I'm here to say thank you for whatever you did for her, right?"
"I..." Felicity trailed off, halfway lifting a hoof.
Shinespark fixed her with a stare. "Maybe you don't know the old Valey. In Ironridge, she would flirt with the wives of her employees to annoy them when they did things she didn't like. She used her shadow sneaking to hide in inappropriate places, kissed random strangers, and lived for shock and embarrassment. She used to be one of the bad guys."
She took a breath. "After she switched sides, left the city with us and started making friends to keep, for a while she felt so free. She thought she was a new mare and that her past was all behind her. And then she started having feelings for ponies... Amber, not me... and realized some of her past habits weren't as gone as she thought. She had this wall in her mind between new, good Valey, and old, bad Valey. And new, good Valey had a reputation to live down and couldn't go around being disloyal or staring at the wrong flanks while she was supposed to be in a committed relationship, even when Amber just didn't care and told her over and over to do her thing and enjoy herself."
Throughout the speech, Shinespark didn't let Felicity break eye contact, staring straight at her with her sapphire eyes. "It caused her grief in every possible way. She couldn't learn a thing about her history without having a crisis about it. She couldn't give her all in fights because she had no faith in herself, and that carried over to her beliefs and goals, too. We never even tried to do anything together in the Empire, but the heresy was just an excuse. It was because she couldn't. And now...?"
Shinespark finally looked away. "The first thing Valey did upon flying out to me was make a joke about how yours was the only bed she shared every single night here."
Felicity was quiet for a while, making sure Shinespark had finished. "I-I..." She eventually tried to start. "I was aware of some of that, but..."
"So I'll ask my question again," Shinespark interrupted. "The wall in my friend's mind is gone. I know she still cares about me because she just spent the last hour filling my ears with vague promises she has no plan on how to keep, but believes wholeheartedly that she will anyway. What happened between you, and how did you help her?"
"...I honestly don't know that it was me," Felicity murmured sadly. "One evening I settled in to sleep, and I awoke in the middle of the night to find she had snuck into my bedding and was right there with me. She carried me out to the fireplace, and we sat together with blankets and had a midnight talk before falling back asleep in each other's arms."
"...Oh." Shinespark looked away.
Felicity bit her lip. "Is that alright, darling? You were clearly hoping for something different..."
"Yes," Shinespark replied. "Because I have a wall in my mind too, and if I can't do the same then she's going to have to watch me fail while she should be flourishing."
Felicity blinked. "You were asking for... help?"
Shinespark held her tongue, looking uncomfortable.
"Well, just because I didn't do anything doesn't mean I can't do anything," Felicity insisted, sitting down beside the bed. "Our conversation actually started because she wanted me to see if I could do anything for Starlight. Talk to me. If I can help you at all, after all I've done, it's worth it."
Shinespark watched her for a moment, then seated herself atop the bed, resting her chin on outstretched forelegs. "My whole old life is gone," she said. "Everything. And I don't know how to start again."
"Mmm." Felicity hummed, flicking her tail in thought. "Well, that's unfortunately not a problem I have a clear answer for, darling. Because it's what I'm mired in myself."
Shinespark just nodded.
"Among the things I no longer have are siblings, a usable body, thirty-five years of my life and any amount of political power," Felicity continued. "And what I do have are a lot of regrets and a foal I have no idea what I'll do with." She glanced down at herself. "Also a brand that's too manipulative for most ordinary life scenarios, dangerous combat arts that are only good for massage and physical therapy, and some very tolerant friends. I know you have that too, darling. What other largely useless, vaguely positive traits or assets do you still possess?"
Shinespark looked at her hooves. "When you put it like that, I still have all my adulthood. Time I don't know what to do with. I also have a cutie mark that can't do anything without my horn... and a broken horn that hasn't healed yet. Maybe it never will."
"What else?" Felicity pressed with an encouraging smile. "It's perfectly fine for it to be silly or trivial, mind you. Perhaps you're a good singer, or you once worked part time at a barber shop..."
"That's my problem," Shinespark sighed. "I know what you mean and what you're asking for, but I can't remember. It just feels all gone."
"Well?" Felicity took a breath. "You'll want to find out. What I'm doing, at least, and so far it's made me feel at least marginally better about the present, is be shamelessly selfish to a somewhat moderate margin and trust none of you will mind my indulgences too badly." She tapped her forehooves together. "It turns out in exchange for a little Mistvale Monk-style pampering, Amber will do her best to make me feel better about my... ah... you know. Broken record, darling. I don't want to be one."
Shinespark glanced down at Felicity's body. "I don't mean offense, but you're not my type."
"Figures. Ah well." Felicity shook her head. "It's more about the point, though. If there's anything you'd like to do, anything at all, and you're holding back for the sake of your friends... modesty, your image, any of those silly things... the way you'll make them feel by holding back is not worth the way you'll make yourself feel, and if you can make yourself feel better by indulging, I think they'll care enough about you to be happy instead of annoyed. You certainly care enough to do the same for Valey when she tells jokes about cheating on you with me."
"That's..." Shinespark's eyes unfocused for a moment in thought. "Good advice, if I felt like doing anything."
Felicity pursed her lips. "What did you used to do for fun, darling? How did you blow off steam? Everyone has their outlets."
Shinespark muttered something under her breath.
"What was that, darling? I didn't quite catch it."
Shinespark muttered harder, her cheeks turning a faint tinge of red.
"Pardon?" Felicity cupped a wing around an ear.
"I collected and decorated conference room!" Shinespark burst out, reddening harder. "For... reasons! And then did things in them! Hosted meetings, and things."
Felicity blinked in noncomprehension. "Well... this is a school, so I'm sure there's a conference room or two here you can-"
"Don't even start!" Shinespark cried, pressing her face into a pillow. "This is too embarrassing to be productive, and it's not a conversation that's going anywhere!"
"Riiight, then." Felicity cautiously drew back. "Ignoring that, what else did you do?"
Shinespark shifted the pillow to glare at her with her cheeks still covered. "Don't you understand? Sosa is dead and buried! There's nothing frivolous about those days, and trying to make it otherwise is disrespectful!"
"...I see." Felicity nodded. "So the wall in your mind is one of honor to the dead. Everything lighthearted or innocent from those days feels irreverent to disturb once again."
Shinespark gritted her teeth.
"I mean no offense with this whatsoever," Felicity began. "But, darling... Suppose you thought of a memory of Sosa and laughed. Who would hear it to be offended?"
"I would."
"Would you?"
"It would hurt," Shinespark quietly insisted.
Felicity nodded in understanding. "But those memories might always remain painful until you can attach some new emotion to them, darling."
"Does the memory of my home being destroyed after I gave everything to protect it deserve to be anything but painful?" Shinespark's eyes burned. "It's my burden to remember!"
"...Perhaps we'll need to work on that little statement another time," Felicity sighed. "You and I are going to talk about this again, because if you're coming to me to ask for help then I really think I can help you, whether it's my job or not. Now, there's only one important question left before our friends get back."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow.
"You said I'm not your type." Felicity smiled feebly. "But we only have one bed, and I believe there's a method at hoof to make our beloved Valey very, very happy. One that may already have been discussed beforehoof. Temporary truce?"
"Truce?" Shinespark blinked. "On what?"
Felicity shrugged. "Well, she does chronically like slipping into beds with others, and if you and I could get along here and then add Amber to the pile..."
Shinespark tilted her head. "As long as you mean platonically..."
Felicity held a wing to her lips and giggled. "Sometimes, darling? Valey is innocent enough I'm not sure she knows the difference."
Shinespark held out a hoof. "...Alright. I was getting tired of being on my own on the Dream, anyway."
Amber's hooves pounded against the road, the college campus morphing around her into the less-planned, more space-efficient buildings of College Town. Valey matched her pace as the town too fell away, leaving them on a shoreline running track along the south of the island. The sky was deep red with sunset and the ocean wind had begun to cool, but even still teams of ponies raced across the field to their left, battling for ball control. Surf struck against the beach to their right, slightly less sheltered than the eastern cove but still popular, and a constant stream of mares and stallions with upturned sunglasses walked past them back towards town, heading home for the end of their weekend.
The southeastern tip of the island offered no more solitude. Developed with a smattering of buildings that looked all related to sports, Valey and Amber ignored it with an early left turn, charging up a hill that slowly grew to separate the upper field from the sea. They passed the bastions where Maple and Starlight had waited earlier and talked, and Valey rounded a hummock to see the Immortal Dream enter her sights... except Amber had fallen behind.
"Buh?" Valey stopped and looked around.
"Up here!" Amber called from the top of one of the edifices, a stream of ponies leaving from the beach nearby. "Catch a breather!?"
Valey jumped up beside her, pumping her wings and clearing a wall the height of a small building. She stood, panting lightly, and looked around. Except for Amber, the viewing platform was empty.
"Starlight was right," Amber panted, much more winded than Valey. "Going for a run does make me feel better."
Valey nodded, wandering over to join her. "In need of a pick-me-up after the last month, huh?"
Amber grimaced. "Mostly after hearing your theories about the windigo hearts. Which I brought you four of."
The wind blew past from the west, like an eternal lung that could exhale for hours. "Oh yeah." Valey rubbed the back of her neck, searching for words. "Starlight told you about that?"
Amber nodded.
"Well, hey." Valey shrugged. "For what it's worth, I made a science friend today who's keeping the hearts locked up in a place where they definitely can't mess with us, on pain of not having me as a science friend in return. I know there's probably a ton of stuff we could have done, and there's definitely no way to know exactly how much the hearts really did, because we went through some legitimately dumb stuff in the Empire and I doubt getting punted around by guards or courted by Chauncey would feel neat even without them. But now? All that's over. So just be proud of yourself for making it out the other side, okay?"
Amber exhaled slowly. "Easier said than done... but you are right." She glanced down at the field, a few ponies still stubbornly playing even as the sky glowed with sunset. "So, this place is really something, huh? You really think we'll be able to live normal lives and put ourselves back together, here? I have a whole month of denial to work through... Heh."
Valey winked. "About me being gone? It isn't denial if you're right in the end. But yeah. I do think this place is where we can put ourselves back together... but normal lives is stretching it. The students? They love us." She swept a hoof out across the field and the campus beyond. "Think we're superheroes or something. You're flirty and reasonably athletic, you'll love them back. And it feels really great after being chased around and attacked or annoyed just because I have bat wings. But..."
She narrowed her eyes slightly. "It's an opposite extreme, like ice water on a burn. We need it for now... at least, I sure do. But I don't think we can live normal lives here. There's gonna come a time, not before we're ready, when we're refreshed, restored, physically healthy and have some mojo back. We're gonna reach a point where we can afford to stop taking care of ourselves here and now, and start looking out for our futures again. And then...? Back to the road in search of a place to call our real home."
"You really think that?" Amber asked. "We just got here."
"Oh, for sure." Valey rolled her shoulders. "This is future talk. For now, we don't have to worry about being arrested or dead tomorrow, which means we can roll in the good times and soak it all up today." She sniffed. "From the smell of you, you've already been doing that. Not nearly enough musty boat in your mane."
"Yeah..." Amber rubbed her mane. "Turns out the hospital has good baths, and Felicity and I got a little carried away."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You and her are close?"
"You could say that." Amber nodded. "I haven't actually had a relationship quite like it before. We were each other's coping mechanism while you were gone. I groomed her and distracted her by making her feel good, and she backed me up that you'd be back. So we practically trusted each other with our sanity. It's a level I've only really had with Maple and Willow before, only it came from circumstance and a need for survival instead of a long relationship or any personal attraction. So if I needed someone to trust with the darkest part of my heart, I might pick her... but I don't know what her favorite food or color are, and I doubt she knows mine. So on another level, I barely even know her."
Valey stared. "Huh."
"It's not something I'd mind changing, of course," Amber continued. "We don't not get along. I just haven't been able to afford to up until now."
"Huh," Valey repeated. "So, you think you're gonna be okay here?"
Amber shook her head. "About the windigo hearts? That'll take a little time for me to properly forgive myself. But I believe you when you say this is a good place. Look at you, after all."
Valey blinked. "What's that supposed to mean? You realize the one thing I've done since getting here is crushing hundreds of college kid hearts into diamond dust, right?" She put on a rueful grin. "I'm a menace. If I still cared, I'd be beating myself sideways right about now."
"I don't see an army of mortified students rushing to punish you for your transgressions." Amber punched her shoulder. "They must not be that serious. And you're enjoying yourself for it."
Valey stuck out her tongue. "Join me in a raid on the lunch hall tomorrow, and you'll see it. I'm expecting the love letters to start any day now."
Amber giggled. "See, though? You're happy with yourself! And treating yourself better because of it, too." She reached around with a sudden maneuver and poked Valey's belly. "Feel all that! We're practically skeletons, and you've been feasting like a champ!"
Valey glanced down at herself. "Honestly, I really haven't been eating a huge amount. Kind of hard to when I can't go near the dining hall without getting mobbed by fans. Haven't been as hungry, either, though. Maybe I just don't need as much when I'm not regularly conquering castles all by myself and stuff."
Amber leaned her head on Valey's neck, the sun having sank behind the school but not yet the horizon. "Maybe not."
"Honestly, though, I didn't just treat myself good for a day or three, or anything." Valey put a wing over her back, accepting the closeness. "I've been in good condition ever since I came back. Which has gotta be because you took good care of my body, judging by what happened to Nyala. So now that we're here, I will personally return the favor by taking one for the team and distracting all the fangirls in the food place for as long as you need to stuff your face and get healthy too. Sound like a plan?"
Amber was met by Valey's grin, and she returned it. "No more rationing to support the soldiers! Yeah!" She hesitated. "They won't be a problem, will they?"
"I seriously doubt it." Valey shook her head. "I hung out with the ones who came on ahead a bit. We've kind of got an understanding, and I bet they'll spread it around with their friends. But they don't want trouble, we don't want trouble, this island doesn't want trouble, and so we all have literally nothing to lose by working together and getting along."
"That's good." Amber closed her eyes. "...Hey, can I ask you a question?"
"Huh? Sure."
"What do you think is the relationship between strength and beauty?"
"Woah, where'd that come from?"
Amber shook her head. "Oh, it's just on my mind. From everything we've been talking about. But what do you think? Do you have to be one to be the other? Does being one make you the other? Do they go hoof in hoof, or have nothing to do with each other at all?"
Valey scratched an ear. "Well, I can tell you right now that Herman was definitely strong, and the polar opposite of beautiful. So that's off the table. What do you think?"
Amber took a breath and nodded. "A long time ago, back when I wasn't much older than Starlight... You've heard the story about how me and Maple and Willow wanted to go to Ironridge. Willow is much older than me, enough that even though we were like sisters, she sort of mothered me as well. Anyway, one of my strongest memories is of her. It's more a memory of a time period than a specific point or place, but it's just... Willow was so weak. Looking back, you know she felt bad for it, felt terrible that she had to tell us that our dreams were ended because she made bad decisions and she was paying the price and dragging us down with her. We couldn't go to Ironridge because she wasn't smart enough to keep her head around strangers and because she wasn't strong or wise or steady enough to keep us safe while she had a new foal to look out for and she wasn't bold enough to gamble and take us there anyway. We couldn't go because of her, and she knew it."
She paused, folding her ears. "But... she always had a smile for us. She apologized. She let us know it wasn't our fault, and always shed tears when we needed them. But she never slouched, never wallowed, never despaired about the future. And if she did when I wasn't looking, she always picked herself right back up again for us. And every time I've grown since then and realized a little more about how she was hurting, she gets more impressive in my mind... even though I remember being totally wowed by her even back then. Here was my friend and role model who had ruined her own life and her friends' lives, and there was nothing at all she could do to fix it, and she had every right to be upset with herself forever, and she didn't. So as odd as it might seem to think of a mare who's pregnant or has a foal strapped to her back as graceful, I thought Willow was so cool. Maybe she was standing up for herself, but I think she was doing it to show us how to live our lives after the worst had happened. I don't even know if anyone showed her first. Maybe she did it blindly, just believing that dignity and integrity and self-respect were what would help, but I thought..."
Amber let out a little breath. "Well, I thought someday I wanted to be as beautiful as she was. I know I've probably got some rose glasses here, by the way. She wasn't even twenty. She had to have been awkward and messed up a lot on the way. But I think that's why it stuck with me so strongly. She was in trouble because of her own weakness, and held her head up high anyway. And so every time I think about it, I've always wondered if she was really weak or really strong."
A moment passed, and Valey decided she had been given permission to speak. "So now the way you're feeling, with the windigo hearts and all..."
"Oh. Right." Amber reddened a little. "I wasn't actually thinking of those, but... I suppose that's where I messed up and all of you paid the price too, right?" She sighed a little. "I don't even know if I can be like she was. It's not like I doubt myself, it's just like an earth pony trying to reach higher than a pegasus by being tall. But I was honestly thinking of Felicity."
Valey grinned a little. "Well, selflessness and looking out for her do sound like things your role model would do." Her face straightened. "Tell me more about that, though?"
"About Felicity?" Amber shrugged. "It's hard not to see parallels. Her dreams are sunk. She's pregnant. Only her two sisters are dead, and while she's got some coping mechanisms that seem pretty good for managing her burdens, she's more of setting them down or ignoring them instead of learning to carry them. She's got all Willow's flaws, but the ones she was there for are gone, and instead she's got... well, me, at least, there for her. And I think if she keeps doing what she's doing, she probably could have a mostly happy life... though in however many months when that sphinx is born, she won't think of it as anything more than a malady with her body that got in the way of physical affection for a while. Maybe that bothers me for my own sense of decency. Maybe it bothers me for her sake, since I know she really should be able to do better. But you know who I care about who it's really going to bother?"
Valey blinked. "Aww bananas. I don't think I ever even asked how Ironflanks feels about having Felicity on the team."
"You want to know what I'm worried Felicity might let happen?" Amber asked. "She'll give them up for adoption. They'll be a sphinx. Maybe one of the last of their kind. And they'll get picked up from an orphanage, completely helpless, by some scientist who only wants to turn them into an experiment for their species. And that just makes me feel bad inside. But for Maple?"
"There's no way we're letting that happen," Valey insisted. "Felicity's stuck with us, and we're gonna make sure that kid doesn't get dumped if there's no way she can take care of them. We're her only connections in Equestria, and she's so frail that she's already limited to no flying and no running. There's no way she's getting away from us before that kid is born."
Amber sighed. "I appreciate it. But it doesn't feel... you know... good enough. I don't care about myself. I mean, I do! But I'm not my first priority. I wish I could raise someone else's spirits, give someone else a smile, show someone else a better way to live their life than what could have happened to Willow and what did happen to Maple. Even just talking to you is making me more determined. I don't just want to clean up problems and messes. I want to be like Willow and brighten someone's life, and then show them by example how to do the same for themselves and others."
Valey slowly grinned. "Hey. You know what?"
"What?" Amber tilted her head.
Valey booped her nose. "I told you this island's good for us. You sound way better already."
Amber stood still for a moment, and then hugged Valey hard.
"Heh." Valey patted her on the back, returning the hug. "You want my advice, girl? Felicity's still got months left on her foal. I wanna see her shape up and appreciate her life and be a good parent too, and not just because I think competent mares are hot. So don't worry about the big stuff. What you gotta do is take her to lunch in College Town. Dodge the students for a bit and learn about her favorite food and color. Get her talking, make her laugh... It's what you're good at."
"Brightening up others' days." Amber smiled. "It's what I try to be best at."
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "The best thing about this place is that time is on our side. So shelve those life-changing ambitions for now and just be her friend. She's real lonely, and would love you for it. And for a few months, just do that for her, and see how much room it gives you to work with her later."
"Sounds like a plan," Amber sniffed.
Valey glanced off into the distance. "In the meantime, if you've got this really big, grandiose vision of a beautiful mare who's a helpless mess and carries it like a champ so that others don't have to, and you think it would be awesome to live up to it? I've got someone else you might wanna talk to..."
"One of our friends?"
"Yeah. Starlight."
Amber listened, and Valey continued. "You know how that kid feels? Like she's some sort of protective goddess for our party. Forget me, I'm a small-time chump who can't even stand up to Crystal and would have bailed on Herman if she didn't challenge him first. Starlight is practically a miracle worker when she needs to be, and she knows it. And she's terrified of herself. She feels like there's nothing up there with her, no one else to set her straight if she starts to go awry. She thinks she'll get misguided or set on the wrong goal, and with her strength, it could lead her to destroy the entire world. She thinks there's no one stronger than she is, and it makes her so sick she's fainted twice this weekend from panic attacks, just while you were gone."
She released the hug, turning to face Amber. "You wanna be someone so strong, they can carry the burden of ruining someone's life and still being beautiful? That's stronger than Starlight. She'd really appreciate it if you showed her."
Amber's ears fell, and she sadly smiled. "Then it sounds like she needs Willow, not me. That's who I want to be and what I set my eyes on. It wouldn't be a role model if I was already there."
"Yeah, well, you think Willow did all that for you and Ironflanks because she knew she could?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "You think she just sat down one day and was like, 'Well, my life's a dump, I'm young and inexperienced and got myself in trouble, but it's okay 'cause I got this'? No way. It probably felt impossible, and she probably only tried it because she loved you two and the alternative was doing nothing."
"And trying the impossible is what made it so special," Amber finished, hesitant. "I... still don't even know if I can. Valey, please understand... This is something I haven't even told to Maple or Willow. They know I love them, but after my cutie mark became... not what I was going to do with my life, I needed a new bond. Exactly how I feel about Willow and what she means to me? Just how big of a role model she is? I'm like a starry-eyed filly staring up at the Aldenfold. All I can do is reach and maybe make someone smile."
Valey shook her head. "You're never gonna be able to feel as big to yourself as you see whoever you look up to. The only way that can ever happen is if they fall from their pedestal, and that's not helpful for anyone. But I can guarantee you that Willow did not feel like the Aldenfold when she was keeping your spirits up after you couldn't go to Ironridge. She probably felt like an impostor and a snail. I'm just telling you, you were bright and earnest enough to earn my trust when I was fresh out of Ironridge, and I think chasing a dream of inspiring others will lead you to do big things. And even if it's not much, there's a filly here who would appreciate anything you have to offer."
"Heh." Amber chuckled and wiped her eye. "Well, I'll have to pay her a visit, then. Though I never stole her future and ruined her life, so I'm hardly in the same position as Willow."
"You keep looking up," Valey remarked, the stars beginning to show in the twilight above. "Who do you remember Willow looking up to? You think she was trying to live up to someone else?"
"I really don't know," Amber sighed. "But someday, I'll meet her again and make her proud. Anyway." She shook her mane. "Valey... I really appreciate this. You've grown a lot since... well, Chrysalis. Thanks."
"Eh..." Valey sheepishly rubbed her neck. "My priorities are different. Look, girl, I might be talking big and playing bold, but in this place, I can afford to. Don't butter me up too hard about how much you like the slightly-reverted me, because I can make all the motivational speeches I want and it won't count for anything once the good times stop and we're back in the fray. Hopefully that won't be for a while, and if we win the lottery it won't be ever, but you can't really say how good I'm doing until the universe punches me again and I have to get back up."
Amber nodded firmly. "Well, here's hoping these good times don't end for a while. I have a lot of steam to let off."
"I'll say." Valey glanced at the now-empty sports field. "Tip from a pro: play sports, be cool, be coy, make friends but not allies, and bring a towel and sunbathing shades. And eat until your ribs stop showing. I bet you'll be real popular."
Amber's stomach growled, and she looked at it sheepishly. "You want to bet Maple's cooking tonight?"
"Yeah. If she is, you get to be in an eating contest with whoever looks like they need it most."
"Hah!" Amber giggled, a fresh gust rippling through her mane. "Back to our friends, then? We've still got half the island to run."
Valey winked, diving for the staircase and waving Amber along. "It's on!"
Valey and Amber crashed through the door of Generosity Two, briefly getting stuck against each other as they struggled to be the first inside. Valey won, and they both tumbled through, landing on their backs and panting.
"Had a good run, darlings?" Felicity raised an eyebrow, laying regally on the couch as the last hint of pink indicating where the sun had set vanished from the horizon.
Valey shrugged, staring at the ceiling. "Hey, it was productive."
"Yeah..." Amber gasped for breath, stopping to sniff once she realized how the place smelled. "Ironflanks! What's cooking!?"
Maple stepped out from the kitchenette, sighing in resignation at the nickname. "Well... I don't know. We're well-stocked, but a lot of the spices and ingredients are things I've never even seen before. So I'm experimenting a little, and I think it will be good, but prepare to be surprised."
Valey licked her dry lips. "Sounds snazzy. Any clue when it'll be done?"
Maple winked. "Sooner than you think."
Within minutes, the group was crowded around the small living room coffee table, clearly designed for a party far smaller than they were. Felicity kept the couch, sharing space with Maple and letting Jamjars and Starlight sit on the floor in the gap between it and the table, and Valey sat on the opposite side, with Amber and Shinespark at her sides and Nyala taking the less-crowded end.
"Well... here we are," Maple said, touching her forehooves together and looking over the meal, a collection of fruit that were baked and seasoned and stuffed with something tropical that nobody recognized. "It's been a while since we've been able to do this, hasn't it?"
Shinespark nodded subtly. "I'm glad we don't have to ration anymore."
Felicity cleared her throat. "I must admit, I can't remember the last time I dined with this large of a group without any sort of pretense. Even back in the Empire, there was always some ulterior motive."
"We tried to do this on the ship," Nyala pointed out. "On the way here?"
"To raise spirits," Shinespark said. "That was for the sake of denial."
"What everyone's currently in denial of," Jamjars interrupted, "is how we only have one bed, which clearly means we won't get rooms to ourselves."
Valey gave her an irritated look. "Do you mind? We're trying to have a moment, here."
"And it's a very large bed," Felicity insisted. "I, for one, wouldn't be averse to coming up with a mutually beneficial agreement that could solve this problem with added bonuses..."
Shinespark looked at Valey, waiting for her reaction.
Valey grinned and shrugged. "Hey, you know my opinion. The more, the merrier. But are you girls really all down for sharing the bed?"
Amber and Felicity predictably nodded, indicating they had no problems. Maple bit her lip. "Well... the only reason I wouldn't is because of my injuries, but I think they're healed enough that as long as no one accidentally lays on me..."
"And I'm fine," Shinespark added.
Valey blinked at her. "Wait, really? I never thought you were much of a... you know..."
Felicity and Shinespark glanced at each other. "We talked," Shinespark said. "I have no reason not to join you."
"Well, I do," Nyala apologized. "It's already roasting in here, and I think you're all going to bake alive. I'll take the roof, though. The fillies can have the couch?"
Jamjars surveyed the room, looking deeply ponderous. "Sure. I'll take the couch. Starlight, do you want to share the couch?"
Starlight blinked at her, then glanced at Maple and the others. "No?"
"Killjoys," Jamjars pouted.
"You know what?" Amber interrupted. "I would much rather talk about what we're going to do tomorrow, because I'm new around here and I need plans. Who has the scoop on what's cool to do?"
Felicity instantly perked up. "Bathhouse! We need to investigate that purported bathhouse, darling!"
"Eh..." Amber shrugged. "Gotta get dirty before that's as much fun. Let's do that in the evening."
"Stuff your face," Valey suggested. "You and Sparky especially are bone bags. Now that we've got the boat and all our money here, we can see what there is to eat in College Town... Hey Sparky, wanna go hang out with me in College Town tomorrow?"
Shinespark shrugged. "Okay."
Amber raised an eyebrow at Felicity. "Think you'd be up for a hike in the name of fine dining?"
Felicity glanced down at herself. "Oh, I'm sure I could persuade this old body to do that. And I'm hardly flooded in pressing endeavors myself."
"Amber, you should go play with some of the locals," Maple suggested. "Starlight and I went and watched them play their games for a while, and it seems exactly like your thing."
"Watch out, though." Valey nodded. "They get real into their sports. Don't sign any contracts or make any promises, just take names and have a blast. Who knows? Maybe I'll join you."
"I wonder how those friends of ours from the ship are doing," Felicity added. "Probably busy spending time around Gerardo and Slipstream, I imagine."
"I hope Birdo's doing okay." Amber nodded. "From what I've heard, it sounds like this place should be his jam."
"Bananas, you wouldn't even believe it." Valey stretched her forelegs and belched. "If attention was food, that griffon could survive on it alone. I hope Slipstream isn't the jealous type, because a showboating goof like him could lift one talon and have an instant harem here."
Amber gave Valey a nudge. "And I doubt he's the only one."
"Yep. I'm real popular with the students." Valey took another bite, devouring one of the stuffed fruits whole. "Mmph. Don't worry, though. Those kids are clueless, and I'm not gonna string them along so far that they get hurt."
"Pretty clueless," Shinespark agreed. "...I don't have any plans for tomorrow."
A black hoof landed around her shoulders. "You and I," Valey declared, "are gonna hang out. We are going to rock the sunbathing scene, and revel in doing nothing. How's that?"
"Tomorrow's a weekday," Jamjars pointed out. "All the students will be stuck inside with their classes. Try not to make them too jealous."
"Yeah, you'd be absolutely mortified if I did that." Valey winked at Amber. "It's the ultimate contest: see how long you can survive outside without getting a bloody nose from the view, and then see how many classes you can ruin by doing the same to the students by existing just outside the window."
Maple coughed, fondly yet sternly. "Alright, you two. I've been considering trying the sun myself tomorrow, and I'd be doing it to enjoy the weather, not to get looks. And there's probably a lot of other mares on this island who do the same."
Valey pursed her lips. "Yeah, fair. That's why you only mess with the ones that take the bait or start something first. But you're just gonna lay around, though?"
"Hmm," Maple mused. "I might go for a walk. I wish there were trees here. Being outside doesn't feel quite the same without them, but I could still use the fresh air, even if it smells like salt instead of forest. And I'll probably watch the sports fields, and maybe I'll look in some of the classrooms. You never know if a professor might be teaching something interesting and let you listen."
"And what about you two?" Felicity glanced down to Starlight and Jamjars. "I imagine there has to be at least half a plan between the two of you."
"I have things to do and places to be." Jamjars nodded sincerely.
Starlight shrugged. "I don't have anything important. I'll go with one of you. I just don't want to be on my own."
"...I've got it." Valey suddenly blinked, glancing between Starlight and Shinespark. "Bananas, I know exactly what we're gonna do. Hey Sparky, you ever wanted to fly on your own again?"
Shinespark stared at her. "Why do you ask?"
"Because..." Valey grinned. "I've got a science friend who would do anything for my cooperation in studying how this cutie mark works." She patted her flank. "And she also has this huge machine room she mentioned being a gravity manipulator. What do you wanna bet it lets ponies float around in zero gravity? I bet she'd let us play with it in exchange for my help."
Shinespark stared.
"Why me, though?" Starlight asked.
"Easy." Valey shrugged. "While we were investigating the windigo hearts and trying to figure out how to safely seal them, we noticed my cutie mark does really weird things to their readings. And weren't we thinking your new cutie mark is one of the potential culprits for your magic being all... you know..."
Starlight mutely nodded.
"Point is, you have an artifice, I have an artifice, if they can figure something out about mine, maybe they can find a way to improve your quality of life, or at least know more about it. Think it over!"
Starlight opened her mouth for a moment. "Okay," she eventually decided. "I'll come along. But could we talk about something first?"
"Nyaah, sure, why not?" Valey leaned on Shinespark and tried to make herself comfortable, the other mare not expecting the gesture and nearly falling over. "Bananas...!" Valey scrambled not to fall too. "Whoops, sorry. But hey, I've got all the time in the world."
"Speaking of time," Felicity murmured, looking at the empty table and licking her lips. "I think it might be time for some... beauty sleep for this mare..."
"Yay for going to sleep in the evening!" Amber pumped a hoof. "Instead of staying up all night because you're antsy and nervous and don't know what tomorrow will hold... Yay!"
"I'll cheer to that." Valey stood up, flicking Shinespark's cheek with her tail. "Honestly, who even knows what we'll do tomorrow."
"Who even knows what we'll do tomorrow any day?" Maple pointed out. "Funny how it's the days where we know what we're going to do... staying in our rooms all day with nothing we can do... when we're afraid of that the most. Here's to a good tomorrow, everyone."
"Yeah!"
Felicity hoisted herself to her hooves as well, rubbing her belly. "Marvelous cuisine. Now with that out of the way, I call the bottom of the heap, and I trust you all will act as my blankets."
Amber stuck out her tongue, following Felicity to the bedroom. "Oh, we'll see about that."
Shinespark followed wordlessly, and once Nyala stepped out the door, bidding everyone else good night, Maple did as well. Soon, only Jamjars and Starlight were still in the living room.
"So..." Jamjars gave her a look. "What are we going to do? I heard you stayed with some of the school ponies the last few nights. If you really wanted, we could wait until everyone here is asleep and then just use this room, but if you're already a hotshot with the others, I bet we could get them to give us-"
Starlight yawned, heading for the bedroom and leaving Jamjars alone. "No thanks. I'm happy to stay with Maple and the others. It doesn't look like anyone wants the couch, if you want to sleep on your own..."
Jamjars gave her a frustrated look, but did nothing as Starlight followed her friends into the bedroom and climbed in, readying herself for sleep.
Starlight awoke in a cold sweat, her heart beating rapidly. Something was wrong.
She panicked, trying to move, but she was pinned by something big and warm, and there was a voice of warning whispering urgently in her ear. "Starlight! Let's go!" A hoof poked her, hard.
Starlight fought back the urge to use her horn and teleport, mentally clubbing herself with the knowledge that she was on edge and that would make things worse. "What!?" she sleepily breathed.
"I've been watching the streets for two hours and they don't have guard rotations here. No one will catch us and we can go wherever we want! Now come on!"
Starlight forced her eyes closed, hoping a few extra seconds of feigned sleep would let them open properly. "Jamjars...?" she croaked, the possibility crossing her mind that this was a false alarm.
"Shhh." Jamjars shushed her, and Starlight realized the filly's face was inches from her own. "Come on!" she urged. "Do you really just want to lay here when we could be out being proactive?"
"Proactive about what?" Starlight grumbled, someone's hoof shoving her in their sleep as they grew tired of her squirming.
"Everything? Hello, we're new on this island and have to scope out who's in charge, who's dangerous, and how we're going to-"
"Don't care." Starlight closed her eyes again, not that she could see much less with how dark the room was. "I'd rather sleep."
After a few moments of silence, Jamjars sighed and slunk away.
And that was the end of that. Starlight's heart had slowed from when she woke with a fright; she knew sleep hadn't been chased far off. She would probably be back asleep in a minute, tops...
It seemed even here at Kinmari, she couldn't get a restful night without being woken by some emergency or other. But... that had been Jamjars. Was Jamjars really the worst thing she had to deal with?
That was comforting. Almost as comforting as her friends, who were all close enough to stay together like this even when they could have pressed for space of their own. Felicity was beneath her, acting as a full-body pillow; she could tell because only Felicity had that shape of a frame. A leg was on top of her, and two others were draped against her side...
Starlight breathed deeply, her nose surrounded by fur. Nothing was waiting around the corner to get them. Maybe she could wake up tomorrow and everything would be alright.
In a different universe, were she to reach this night with different experiences behind her and happier memories on her shoulders, Starlight almost could have smiled.
Felicity groaned. "Who's asking, and what time is it?"
"Like an hour or two after sunrise," Valey's voice replied. "Anyway, you're never gonna believe this, but the whole island is still standing. No disasters anywhere in sight. At least, me and Amber didn't find any on our morning run!"
"Good," Shinespark grunted. "Is it morning already?"
"Nyaah. If you're asking whether you have to get up, that depends on whether you wanna miss the breakfast Ironflanks has been preparing since before we left. I'll leave the door open and waft the smell in here..."
"All three of you are gone, darling? Wait, then-"
Valey turned on the lights, revealing just Felicity and Shinespark as the sleeping pile's remnants. "Wakey wakey!"
Felicity immediately reddened and tried to pull herself to her hooves. "Oh my. I didn't realize it was down to just the two of us..."
"Try not to make it awkward. It doesn't have to be." Shinespark looked awkward anyway, rolling out of the opposite side of the bed.
Valey shrugged and grinned. "Eh, nothing wrong with getting a little extra shut-eye. So, who's ready to raise a ruckus and show this island some fun?"
Felicity looked dubious, and Shinespark blinked.
"Right, well..." Valey turned to leave. "You two get yourselves psyched up for that. I'm gonna go stuff my face."
Soon enough, Valey, Starlight and Shinespark stood outside of Generosity Two, Amber and Felicity already wandering off to the south to explore College Town. A small squad of students were camped far enough away so as to not be imposing yet close enough it was obvious who they were there for, and Maple was signing autographs with a slightly surreal expression.
"So..." Valey rubbed her hooves together. "Who wants to go see the space department?"
With a soft thump of hooves, Nyala glided in and landed from above. "Actually... would you mind if I come too? I don't have plans."
"Uh, sure." Valey waved a wing, starting on her way. "Come along!"
Their journey to the space department passed without fanfare, waves and nods and a few wishful looks following them across the campus. One accosted building receptionist later, and Valey and her friends sat patiently in a lobby, waiting for Anemone or Sea Star or anyone else they knew.
Professor Sea Star eventually arrived, looking about as enthusiastic as she usually did. "Well, good morning."
"Hey, doc," Valey greeted. "Not teaching a class? I kind of expected we wouldn't run into you."
"I teach research trips," Sea Star replied, standing and watching them. "And until we can recalibrate the Arc Manta, it won't be any use taking it out to sea. Its sensors need readjustment after the last trip. Now what can I help you with? I wasn't expecting a visit."
Valey leaned closer. "Any chance you know where Anemone is? I owe her a visit, and brought some friends."
"Occupied," Sea Star answered, glancing at the receptionist and sounding not at all sorry. "Your delivery yesterday turned out to be more of a hoofful than expected. But this isn't the place to talk about that. If you'd like to discuss it, I have an office this way."
Valey's ears folded. "Ah bananas, it is? Yeah, let's hear what you have to say."
Professor Sea Star lead the way back through the space center, shooting a glance at Nyala, Starlight and Shinespark. "I assume Valey wouldn't need to worry about discussing anything that may be sensitive to you three?"
"I can know what she knows," Shinespark replied. Nyala and Starlight bit their lips.
Sea Star shrugged. "Well, it's none of my concern." She eventually closed a door behind them, not yet into the secure section of the building, shutting them inside a tidy office. "So. You're checking up on your windigo hearts, I imagine."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I was hoping to call in a favor to a friend who might let my friends play with your gravity machine in exchange for doing some science on my cutie mark, but you're making it sound like the windigo hearts need a check-up?"
Shinespark sighed. "You had to jinx us by talking about how nothing would go wrong, didn't you?"
"Well, there's some news." Sea Star nodded. "We tried sealing them in a shielding material we've been developing that's supposed to be a harmonic insulator. The annoying news is that while the interference around this island that's been jamming our instruments certainly changed, it's still jamming us. I think now is the opportune time to ask if you have any more similar or substantially powerful artifacts with you that you'd like to disclose."
Valey's gaze shifted to her pendant. Starlight's shifted to her stick. Nyala's shifted to both of them.
"Of course, there's also the possibility our material is ineffective against them," Sea Star sighed, deciding not to press. "So Anemone took one and has been trying to neutralize it in... other ways. While she might learn a lot from her results, I for one am happy enough to take you at your warning not to fool around with these. If you know any particular existing experiments with negative consequences, now would be a useful time to divulge."
"Oh, come on!" Valey growled, banging a hoof. "Stupid curious scientists and... Bananas. What did she do?"
"Tried to seal it with a known harmonic substance," Sea Star replied. "No one was hurt, but it made a large mess inside an irreplaceable laboratory that no one knows how to clean up."
Valey and Nyala shared a haunted look. "Magical ice?" Nyala whispered.
"No, it's..." Sea Star sighed. "Would you mind coming to take a look? Administration is going to get upset if we have to explain that this particular lab is extendedly out of commission."
"Well, let's get this over with," Valey muttered. "Hopefully it won't be anything we haven't dealt with before. Anemone's gonna owe us..."
As the elevator continued to descend with no sign of reaching its destination, Starlight began to get a good idea of just where this special lab room was located.
"We're going to the bottom, aren't we?" Shinespark asked, the elevator capsule's glass walls allowing them to observe the chiseled rock tunnel around them. "You have another crystal palace?"
"Nah," Valey replied, standing near the edge. "They just dug a hole. Only reason the hole they dug in Ironridge hit something is because the city just so happened to have been founded on top of something for them to hit. I'll bet you this isn't the only place in the world where someone's dug as deep as they can go just to see what would happen."
Nyala looked faintly ill, holding a wing to her stomach. "It isn't."
"Please try not to vomit in the elevator," Professor Sea Star insisted. "If elevation changes are hard on you, I can slow our descent."
"No," Nyala whispered. "It's nothing. I'm fine."
Starlight didn't need Gwendolyn and her cutie mark to tell that wasn't the case, but she held her tongue. "We're too far northeast to find another crystal palace. The closest one is either Garsheeva's or far southwest of here."
Nyala just nodded. Sea Star, meanwhile, gave Starlight and Shinespark a look. "I'm surprised you know about it," she told them. "There is indeed a large, underwater, crystalline structure protruding from a particularly deep part of the seafloor a long ways southwest of here. It's the harmonic focal point of the region, and the first major discovery to come of the Arc Manta. Its effect is so powerful, we were able to pinpoint it even using our very limited, early data and rudimentary analysis. But you sound already familiar with these structures."
"We talked about this on the way to the island, didn't we?" Valey tilted her head.
Sea Star nodded. "We did. This seems like as good a time as any to continue that conversation, unless you'd rather not say."
"How about this, then?" Valey took a step forward and raised an eyebrow. "You sounded kinda spooked when I told you some of the stuff I might know about. Like you know that there's maybe a lot of ways the stuff you're researching could be bad news. So now that you don't have students or guards listening, tell us. Why do you wanna know? What's studying this lifestream and harmony and crystal palaces to you?"
Sea Star watched her for a moment. "An edict from Princess Celestia," she eventually said. "Ancient history is difficult to study, and not my field. You'd have to ask Doctor Lost for the full story. But according to her, and she has lived long enough to know, the world upheaves itself in cycles, every thousand years. We are currently on the cusp of a millennium, and another such upheaval could be upon us within a generation... if her predictions hold true. Regardless, she came to our school in private several decades ago and bade the school's top faculty prepare. And so most of why we study is scientific curiosity... but also because she warned us that should the worst come to pass, the fate of Equestria may rest in equinity's ability to reach the moon without the aid of gods."
Valey glanced down at her moon glass pendant. "Just like the moon can reach down here, huh?"
"Why dig down, then?" Nyala asked, still looking uncomfortable. "If your goal is to go upwards..."
"Simple." Sea Star shrugged. "We believe we can use ether as rocket fuel."
Shinespark blinked. "Harmony? You're making your rockets with harmonic engines?"
"Not that kind of harmony." Valey nudged her shoulder. "Ether's apparently real different somehow from the stuff from the flames. And I think these guys might be less technically-advanced than science up north. At least, Yakyakistan has had rockets for at least half a year now, and if those can fly bombs across mountain ranges and continents, I'm willing to bet outer space isn't far behind."
Sea Star looked simultaneously put out and awestruck. "Yakyakistan? Surely not the tribal barbarian village in the fringes of the Crystal Mountains..."
"Crystal Mountains?" Valey tilted her head. "Is that what you guys call the Aldenfold down here?"
Sea Star nodded. "I'm aware of that name, and Equestria is broad enough that various sections of the mountain ridge have their own local names. The Crystal Mountains are what they're known as from the center stretching west for a ways."
Starlight spoke up. "Does using it as fuel really involve measuring how it flows and...Woah!"
The elevator jolted beneath her, and she stumbled, its rapid descent suddenly slowing. The light from the ceiling changed color, and the floor pressed against everyone as the elevator stopped them from smashing against the shaft's bottom.
"We've arrived," Sea Star said, the door sliding open into a rocky, hewn tunnel. "Let's continue this conversation once we've seen if there's anything you can do to help my associate with her cleanup chores."
The professor strode on ahead, leading the way. The tunnel around them needed no lights, glowing faintly with a pulsing, natural illumination, like an extradimensional field of light was flowing through it and dappling its walls with watery blue.
Valey took a deep breath. "We're near the bottom, alright."
Starlight nodded. She could feel immense power nearby, she was sure of it. But it lacked the soulful feeling of the crystal palaces she was used to. There, there was a will, all the power concentrated into a caring presence that wanted to meet and talk to her. Here, it flowed freely. There was no tree to form it around her, boost her horn and let her use magic safely and without consequence... but after some concentration, she realized uncomfortably that she might be able to make the latent power bolster her own anyway, all on her own. Not that she was going to. It was too risky in case she was wrong and wound up hurting herself again. And besides, the thought of this much power sitting around free for the taking by anyone made her fur stand on end.
They stepped through a complicated door built with some kind of seal, and were in a room made entirely of glass.
"What is this?" Shinespark asked, her face twisting in surprise at the brightly-lit room. The floors, walls, ceiling, everything was glass... and Starlight could see a layer of water separating it from the rock, about two feet thick. They were in a glass tank that took up almost all of a deliberately-submerged room.
Professor Sea Star nodded, leading the way further down a corridor connected to more rooms. "Two of the things we know about ether are that rock is a conductor and water is an insulator. We're still several dozen meters above the lifestream, but the earth here is so suffused with it we tried to build this place to aid in experimental stability."
The room was filled with a mix of desks and experimentation tables, all filled with delicate equipment. Most rooms were similar, some with open water tanks and baths, others with pipes made of faintly-glowing metal. Several were taken up by large, round machines covered in hoses, and they frequently passed through the same sealed door design, an apparatus Starlight quickly realized was designed to fill itself with more water when closed.
"And here we are," Sea Star sighed, opening a final door and beckoning them through.
"Oh! It's you!" Anemone jumped in surprise, wearing a clear, sturdy-looking suit that didn't cover her head. She was standing in another tank room, and it wasn't hard to see the mess she was tasked with cleaning up: one of the tanks was half filled and partially broken by a giant, spiky, raw-formed crystal of moon glass.
"Is that moon glass!?" Valey pointed a shocked hoof at the damaged tank, black crystal spokes poking out from the surface and through cracks in the sides.
"That's your name for it?" Anemone had a mop, diligently cleaning spilled liquid from the cracked tank. "Anyway, funny seeing you here..."
"What did you do?" Shinespark asked, staring at the damage.
Professor Sea Star shrugged, stepping back towards the exit. "That's your problem to explain. I'll be seeing if our readings have miraculously changed over the weekend..."
Anemone slumped, taking a lab stool next to an intact tank and seating herself. "Friends, I'm guessing?" She glanced between Shinespark, Starlight and Nyala.
Valey frowned. "Came to see if you wanted to hang out. I guess these things are trouble no matter which side of the mountains we're on, though... What did you do?"
"Tried submerging it in an ether bath," Anemone replied. "We pipe it up from down below so we can experiment with it. Ether is intensely harmonic, so I thought it might counteract and neutralize the heart's passive effect."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't think to just drip a little on first to see if it would go bad instead of tossing in the whole thing?"
Anemone shook her head. "We have splash protocol. First we put it in a tank of running water, then switch the water feed over to ether to flush the tank and refill it. Look, before we point hooves, have you seen this before and do you know how to clean it up? I've tried a crowbar and these crystals are unbreakable."
"Uhh..." Valey glanced at Nyala. "The only thing I've ever seen like it is that there are ways to liquify this stuff and inject it into the hearts, and that causes them to explode with magical ice..." She frowned, stepped closer, sniffed it and raised a hoof.
Anemone looked at her skeptically. "You're going for the touch test already? I've only handled it with gloves."
Valey shrugged. "I have a thing that gives me a good idea of whether touching something will kill me." Then she wound up and punched the black crystals as hard as she could. "OW bananas!"
She jumped back, shaking her hoof and holding it, then glanced around at Starlight, Shinespark and Nyala. "Ow."
"If that's freshly created, it's empty," Shinespark warned. "Did you really just touch it because you felt like it?"
"I knew it wasn't gonna kill me..." Valey repeated, nursing her hoof and tapping her cutie mark with her tail. "Bananas, though. Either touching moon glass is different for me now, or..." She rubbed the hoof against her pendant. "Or that stuff isn't actually moon glass. Honestly felt more like the ice from the explosion, only turned up to a million."
Nyala grimaced. "Forgive me if I don't want to test it myself."
"Well, if you can touch it..." Shinespark reached out a hoof of her own, tapped it and frowned. "It's cold."
Anemone watched them with stupefied fascination. "If this is how you do science in the north, how are you not all dead?"
Valey's eyes shifted to Shinespark. "Technically, she's the only one of us who hasn't been dead at some point or another, and that might even be a technicality depending on your beliefs about cutie marks. It happens. You just gotta know enough science and be friends with enough gods to come back."
Anemone was still fascinated, but now equally disturbed.
"This thing feels..." Valey held a hoof just a hair off the crystals again. "Have you ever wondered what it would feel like if a rock hated you? This would be it."
Starlight's ears twitched.
"No, that's not it," Valey grumbled, thinking. "It's more like... bah, how do I put this into words? I just get this feeling."
"I'll touch it," Starlight volunteered. "I don't think I can get glassed anymore..." She glanced at her own cutie mark. "Pull me off if something bad happens."
"Roger." Valey nodded.
Tentatively, Starlight reached for it herself. She made contact, expecting the familiar grabbing sensation of loneliness given physical form, a rock that wanted to take her and keep her and never let her go. Instead, a cold apathy stung her hoof, like the substance was actively pushing her away. It wasn't grabbing, it was rejecting, and she imagined it might do it more violently if she attacked it like Valey.
"I don't think it's moon glass," she agreed, pulling her hoof back as well. "It looks the same, but it feels completely different."
Anemone watched her with interest. "So you haven't seen this before, but you've seen enough that you have ideas?"
Valey slowly frowned. "So real quick: how much do you guys know about this stuff?" She tapped the pendant on her chest. "The professor recognized it on me, and I'm pretty sure she knew what it does to bats. But do you know how and why?"
"The glass from the meteor?" Anemone asked. "Classified hazardous material. The only piece I'm aware of on the island is a chunk in Doctor Lost World's collection. The archipelago is too small to have received any when it fell. Recently, though, there's been a debate about what to do with it now that we have the Arc Manta and can feasibly harvest the pieces that fell into the sea. It hasn't been extensively studied, as far as I know."
"Moon glass is loneliness in physical form," Starlight cut in. "Just like ether is hope in physical form. Maybe this new crystal is some other emotion."
Anemone stared at her as if she had just invented the wheel. "Really? That's what your moon glass is?"
Starlight nodded.
"But that makes..." Anemone's face twisted in thought. "Hey! Starfish!"
She charged away, managing not to stumble despite the clunky safety suit that covered her body and legs. Valey and Starlight blinked at each other.
"I think you told them something they didn't know," Nyala sighed.
"Is that bad?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "We do need them to lock these hearts up and disable them so they're not doing bad things to us and our friends, you know."
"I just..." Nyala swallowed. "You heard what they said about what they were using ether for, right? Rocket fuel?"
Valey slowly nodded. "Yeah...?"
"If this is the bottom of the world," Nyala said, "then it's completely built on a sheet of ether. Which makes it the world's foundation, and sort of like the world's blood. They even said rock is a conductor, like how blood moves through our bodies. Do you really think that's something that should be experimented with?"
Shinespark blinked hard. "Or placed on something to be fired into space. If any left the world, would it lose it for good? If this lifestream stretches beneath the entire world, there's a lot of it, but once you find a way to extract and use it..."
"I meant more on a spiritual level," Nyala corrected. "But that too."
Valey's jaw sat slightly open. "Alright, so scientists are messing with things that maybe should be left alone. Pessimistic solution: what else is new? Like actually seriously, what are we gonna do about it? Because these dudes are friendly and likely not evil and I don't wanna mess with that."
"There are places in Icereach I never showed you," Nyala replied. "Do you remember when I told you the story of the first casualty?"
"The first bat to get glassed, back when they were using hearts to remove cutie marks forty years ago and the meteor hadn't even fallen yet?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure I do. I told it all to Amber, and in bits and pieces to everyone else."
Nyala nodded. "After the research was decommissioned, I told you the scientists sealed the remaining windigo hearts in a cave in the deepest part of the city. Remember?"
Valey blinked. "The deepest... Wait, you mean this deep? I thought you just meant regular deep, deep. Is that what you're getting at?"
Again, Nyala nodded. "Icereach has always been a cave complex. Many of the underground rooms we stayed in were originally caves that were sculpted into buildings, rather than digging whole rooms from scratch." She glanced at everyone, making sure they were following too. "And there were a lot of unexplored areas. But if you went as far down as you could go? The caves were connected to the very bottom. And they left the hearts there and then blocked off the way down up near the top."
Valey listened raptly. "Where are you going with this?"
"After Navarre and his team unsealed the caves and reclaimed the windigo hearts, they didn't seal them again," Nyala replied. "You and I... the old you... went to explore them for fun. It had been thirty years, and everyone near the surface had either forgotten their significance or had their memories tarnished by what had happened and what the caves were used to store. But we found guidelines and a trail to the bottom. Ponies used to go there a lot, it turns out."
She smiled in remembrance, continuing. "At the bottom... there was a holy place. We found carvings and writing, and learned how our people had been going there for thousands of years to pay their respects to the world we live in. You could feel it in the air that the windigo hearts had been stored there, but it had been consecrated by so many centuries of care that it would be only a matter of time until it was like the hearts were never there. I believe the reason the hearts were stored there wasn't to keep them far away from ponies, but because the ponies of Icereach were trying to counteract them, too."
Nyala took a last breath before finishing. "No one else really rediscovered that place. We kept it as our secret, up until you... you know. But I can feel it in my hooves and wings how special it was. So now I have the chance to be this low again, but... this is a place where ponies are trying to figure out how to use the world, or making things like that." She pointed at the crystals. "They're not here to thank or appreciate it. It has none of the feel of the cave in Icereach. And that's why I don't like it here."
"...Bananas." Valey blinked. "How come you never showed me this?"
"That's a story for another time," Nyala replied. "It isn't important. What matters is that I don't like this, and maybe it's just me but I still don't."
"Huh." Valey hunched her shoulders. "Well, I'll grill them about it a bit for you. Now where are those goons?"
Anemone and Professor Sea Star turned out to already be on their way. "What's this I'm hearing about loneliness given physical form?" the professor demanded, an intense thirst for knowledge on her face.
"Hey, doc. Took your time," Valey greeted. "That's moon glass. You know, looks sorta like this except it fell from the sky?" She pointed at the cruelly-spiked explosion of crystal growth. "What's it to you?"
"...Fascinating." Sea Star stared at her for a moment. "And this is the same, then?" She pointed at the crystals.
"Maybe?" Starlight answered. "It looks the same, but I don't think it's loneliness."
Sea Star watched the group for a moment. "Knowledge share. Fill in the gaps in what we know?"
"Actually, we've got a question first." Valey grinned and leaned forward. Then her look turned serious. "This ether stuff is basically, like... the world's blood, or something? You definitely call it the lifestream. Give me all the reasons you've considered for why ponies maybe shouldn't do this."
Nyala looked grateful. Sea Star looked slightly caught off-guard. "We have an administrative ethics department..."
"Sure you do." Valey folded her hooves. "I just wanna know the kinds of things they thought about. You're a teacher, you like pop quizzes." She pointed a wing back at the crystals. "And just to be clear, I'm asking because something bad happened and it looks like you weren't one hundred percent ready."
Anemone stepped forward. "If you really want to know? That's part of why we're doing it. We don't know a lot about what can happen to the lifestream when you interact physically with it. But we have a lot of equipment to measure that, and the university decided it was far better for us to experiment on it, being fully able to stop if we detected something bad happening, than to let knowledge on it be pioneered by someone who might have other goals or just not care. If you want a true worst-case scenario, it's possible that were it to disappear entirely, either the world would literally crumble, or all life would lose the ability to reproduce and the world would be extinct within a generation. There are millions of scenarios we could consider that are less dire than those two, as well. The point is that this has never been studied before within our section of the world, and it's best if ground is broken by someone responsible enough to care."
Valey sat back and blinked, then glanced at Nyala. "If you guys have that kind of integrity, yeah, I'd say that's a pretty decent answer."
Nyala didn't look quite appeased.
"What she said is correct," Sea Star cut in. "I'd appreciate shifting our focus back to the topic at hoof, though. You were saying this thing may still be a type of harmony?"
Starlight glanced at the crystal and made a face. "There's nothing harmonic about that thing."
Sea Star stared at her. "But you said it was emotion given physical form?"
Valey tilted her head. "Yeah? What's that have to do with harmony?"
"This," Sea Star sighed, "is why I was afraid we might have the same names for different things. Seat yourselves and listen."
Everyone listened, and the professor began. "Harmony, simply put, is a thing, for lack of a better word, that has a dual nature as substance and concept. Does that make a lick of sense to any of you?"
Valey and Nyala both looked confused, but Starlight nodded. "Like how ether is hope, but you can touch it."
"Exactly," Sea Star praised. "There are a lot of categories it can be broken up into, but in essence it is a bridge material between the physical world and our minds, thoughts, and emotions. Some have theorized that this implies the world may exist in two distinct planes, our physical one and another mental or emotional one, with harmony acting as a link between them, but there is no way to test this hypothesis. Regardless, harmony acts as a mechanism by which thinking creatures can conform the world around them to their wills."
"Uhh..." Valey frowned, then pushed a stool. "I just willed that stool to move, and then conformed it to my will. Harmony?"
"Yes," the professor replied. "Because you are a harmonic life form. In metaphysical terms, your body is such a vessel by which you can act upon the world. This is why life and harmony are so closely related."
Valey blinked.
"As for exactly how it's categorized and what subtypes exist, I'm afraid I can't tell you," Sea Star continued. "Because if you're serious about this, there's a good chance some of our theories need updating and are wrong."
Starlight sat stoically through the speech. None of this sounded too different from what she had heard from the flame of love at Garsheeva's crystal palace... Maybe she hadn't shared as much with her friends as she thought she had. Probably because of Chrysalis.
"Well, good to know we're talking about completely different things," Valey sighed. "So your harmony is different from the stuff we find in the crystal palaces. Honestly, the reason we have these windigo hearts in the first place is because they act as batteries for that, so I'm a little surprised they don't just suck the ether up."
Anemone adjusted her glasses. "Say more about these crystal palaces?"
Valey shrugged. "They're palaces, and this might blow your minds but they're made of crystal. Look, if you wanna have an extended talk about this, that's great, but I think my friends are bored..."
"You have other plans?" Sea Star asked, glancing at a clock.
Valey patted her flank. "Someone was curious about the workings of a certain butt brand. And I kinda wanted to get the scoop on a certain gravity machine. Curiosity for curiosity, you know?"
Anemone stared longingly at Valey's cutie mark. "...Alas, a certain someone else is too busy cleaning up a lab to participate. If any of your brains have ideas on how to get rid of these, it's in all of our best interests to help me."
"Ah, bananas." Valey got to her hooves. "Someone get me a hammer. If hitting it hard didn't work, let's try hitting it harder."
With a crack, Valey flew across the room, slamming into an empty tank and grunting. "Ow..."
"As much as I admire your dedication, I'm going to have to ask you to stop," Anemone requested, adjusting her glasses. "Before you prove yourself to be more durable than this room."
"But I almost had it..." Valey staggered to her hooves, rubbing her shoulder muscles and picking back up her hammer. The dark crystals across from her were completely unfazed.
"It's going to take something magical to remove them," Shinespark interrupted. "What have you tried before we got here?"
"Hitting it," Anemone admitted. "Mostly I've been cleaning up the spill and adjusting pipes so this room is temporarily decommissioned. The plan was to disassemble the tank around it, then just carry it out. It should fit in the elevator."
Starlight frowned at the crystals, doing her part to come up with a fix. "Normal moon glass melts when you give it harmony," she remarked. "But if you don't know what our harmony means, then that doesn't help. And this isn't normal moon glass." She glanced over at Valey. "How fragile is normal moon glass?"
"I haven't done a whole lot of testing." Valey shrugged. "I mean, it sure looks breakable. Back a long time ago, I thought the stuff would literally break if you dropped it. But who actually knows?"
"Either way, this isn't moon glass," Nyala pointed out.
Starlight hummed in concentration. She wasn't certain which emotion it was, but if these crystals were made of emotion... didn't it stand to reason they'd need something that could damage that?
"Where did they come from?" Starlight asked, thinking. "Did they just appear out of nowhere, or did the heart or the ether turn into them?"
Anemone bit her lip. "I was watching a pressure gauge when it happened."
"Can we bring down another heart and give it just a drop?" Starlight suggested.
"And risk making another of these?" Nyala looked skeptical.
Starlight shook her head. "This one was in a tank. Maybe we could learn something about how it works if we gave it only a tiny bit."
"Sound reasoning," Sea Star advised. "I'll bring another."
As the professor left, Nyala rubbed the side of her head. "I have a question. These rooms are suspended in water because you said water is a harmonic insulator, right? So how does your ship work? Wouldn't it be completely insulated by being underwater? If I'm following, the lifestream should have no effect whatsoever there."
Anemone looked as if she had been asked a question she really didn't want to answer. "That's... complicated," she admitted. "Imagine putting salt in water. It dissolves, right? But then it's very difficult to get your salt back unless you let all the water evaporate away. So if you have a wall of water and want to get a pinch of salt to the other side... it won't stop you from putting it in, but you can't just get it back out."
"So it dissolves?" Nyala asked. "Interesting."
"Effectively," Anemone replied. "It's not entirely the same, but many of the rules apply. You can also completely saturate water with it. Because rock is a conductor and we have a sheet of water between these rooms and the rock, the water is fully saturated and won't absorb any more ether from the rocks themselves. Regardless, being in these rooms or the Arc Manta prevents liquid ether itself from reaching us, but doesn't stop any of the reactions we try to measure in ponies from being near it. Does that make sense?"
Starlight was only half paying attention. The only thing she particularly cared about was the black crystal that apparently needed to be removed for them to do anything else with their day. "So does that thing get dissolved?" she asked, fairly certain the answer was no.
Anemone shook her head.
"Maybe you can burn it?" Nyala guessed.
Eventually, Sea Star returned carrying another windigo heart and a glass vial. "Ether," she said, setting the vial down. "I imagine you already know the rules about how to handle it. Experiment away."
"Rules?" Nyala asked.
Starlight had already taken the vial in her mouth, opting not to use her horn even though down here, it might have been safe. It was lighter than she expected, and filled with a liquid that was somehow more colorless than water, without any sort of smell. She pushed the windigo heart onto a table, lifted the vial, and dripped a drop onto the sphere's surface, stepping back quickly to see what would happen.
The ether landed. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then the heart's core glowed faintly, and the drop of liquid sizzled and started to turn black. After a few seconds, the ether crystallized in a flash, leaving a tiny, dark faceted spike on the surface of the ball.
"Hmm." Anemone stared at it.
Valey glanced back at the bigger crystals. "So this stuff was originally ether, and the heart turned it into something else. Maybe there's a way or something to turn it back?"
"...Maybe it's ambition," Nyala suggested.
Everyone looked at her.
Nyala gave Valey a look in return. "Didn't you pay any attention when I tried teaching you about the Church of the Nine Virtues?"
"What, like eight years ago?" Valey rubbed an ear. "I might have had some memories of Icereach that were stronger than others. Why?"
"Well, I'd guess these crystals either represent wrath or ambition," Nyala continued. "Since wrath is what windigoes represented, and ambition is inverted hope... Hope for yourself, not for others. But they have teachings on many ideals."
Anemone looked intrigued. "You have a religion based around these substances?"
"Ether and moon glass?" Nyala shook her head. "No. Based around ideals. But maybe it's founded on something relating to these."
"As cool as that is..." Valey rubbed her neck. "You think it's got anything that could bring us closer to getting rid of this stuff?"
"I could always try hitting it with my sword," Starlight suggested.
Anemone glanced at her. "I... was going to say force clearly doesn't work, but what are you doing with a sword? Where are you even keeping it?"
Starlight nudged her saddlebags.
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, sure, why don't you give it a try? Not like we've got any better ideas."
Starlight withdrew the sword, feeling incredibly self-conscious with the professor and Anemone watching but figuring they were better than a crowd. It was currently shifted into a dagger so as to fit in her bags, and she held it in her teeth, tapping the hilt against her cutie mark. The runes around her barrel activated with a flare of light, linking to a similar circle around the dagger's handle and letting it float on its own power.
Anemone and Sea Star stared as the dagger transformed into its full form, the metal flowing and growing in response to Starlight's will. Anemone's glasses slid halfway down her muzzle. "What kind of magic artifact is that? I am not familiar with anything like this."
"I don't know. I found it somewhere." Starlight stared at the crystals... and then lifted up the black blade and dropped it on them like a knife.
The sword didn't usually have issues cutting through physical objects, slicing them like thin air. Against the crystals, it met resistance... but the resistance was momentary. Starlight cleaved the eruption in half, the crystals splitting instantaneously once they broke with a metallic ring and a flash of light. For a moment, the lights in the room flickered wildly, and Nyala dove for cover.
"What was that!?" Professor Sea Star stared around in surprise.
It was probably a power fluctuation, Starlight figured, more interested in the crystals. As she watched, leaning closer, the two severed halves of the protrusion slowly glowed gray... and then decayed away from the sword stroke outwards, crumbling into flakes of ash until they were nothing but gray piles and a dull, unscathed windigo heart.
It was that kind of ash.
"What happened to the light?" Anemone also jumped in concern, inspecting the walls one by one. "All the light here is natural, from the rocks," she said over her shoulder for everyone else's benefit. "It never changes. Did you do something to everything down here?"
Starlight was still staring at the ash, the same as she had seen after batponies were taken by her sword. "No. I just cleaned up your crystal problem."
Shinespark wandered over. "Well, if those crystals were made from ether, it stands to reason they were still connected somehow to the rest of this place."
Starlight started staring at her sword again.
"What is that?" Anemone repeated. "Whatever you just did had a big effect on this place..."
"Beats me." Valey stepped in. "Honestly, though, this is how we do science up north. You guys are talking all about classifications of harmony and making sure we have the same words for stuff, and up there we just think outside the box, try stuff that has to do with other stuff, and sometimes it works. You'd probably be offended by how unprofessionally we first got our ship in the air."
"But you just..." Anemone's hoof trembled. "We had no understanding of that thing's chemical properties, knew it was resistant to everything, thought we were going to have to synthesize some sort of acid to dissolve it, and you were all, 'Oh, I have a thing in my saddlebags that might do the trick! Hey, it worked!' How do you even do that!?"
Valey shrugged, patting Starlight's back reassuringly. "That's how we roll."
Anemone made a face. "That's cheating."
"It gets results!" Valey retorted. "When you've got an apocalypse seconds away, you don't have time to study and learn every little thing. No offense to everything we were doing earlier, trying to wrap our brains around things, but what we do? It works. And that's why we do it."
Starlight's ears fell. "You mean you try everything you can think of, and then I do something and it works just because."
Valey instantly winced. "Okay, don't go there?"
Sea Star suddenly looked curious. "You have a talent for things you do simply working?"
"No!" Starlight protested. "I mean... maybe. I don't want one. I don't like thinking about it..."
Sea Star gave Valey a concerned look. Valey shrugged.
Starlight exhaled, looking at the heap of ash. There was actually quite a lot of it, almost a dozen dead sarosians' worth. "So if you like studying and knowing things, do you know what this is?"
The scientists came over and inspected it. "That's a state of ether," Sea Star quickly surmised, floating over one of the flakes with her horn and setting it on her tongue. "Mmm. Definitely ether. It's an unusual state with different properties. Usually, we only see it by putting a powerful mana electrode inside an ether tank and running extreme quantities of energy through it, but it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't and we haven't been able to isolate why."
"Did you just eat that?" Shinespark squinted. "That was... formerly the crystal..."
"And you call us risky and unscientific," Valey tsk'd, shaking her head. "I suppose you tried to lick the black crystals, too."
"Actually, I did," Anemone replied. "They tasted terrible."
Everyone stared at her.
"The properties of tasting or ingesting ether have been well-documented since we were building this place, when one of the workers fell into the lifestream in an accident," Sea Star said, taking a step forward. "It's not poisonous."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Nah, not poisonous, it just puts you to sleep, unless you're me, in which case it's really, really amazing and makes you never want to leave."
Sea Star's eyes widened slightly. "You've eaten it yourself!?"
"Uhh..." Valey paused mid-step. "You say that like it's a really bad thing?"
"Oh, no, I'm merely surprised you're here to tell the tale." Sea Star shrugged. "To batponies, we discovered ether is extremely addictive. It also has powerful medicinal properties and can act as sustenance, but if you found your way to a source, I wouldn't have expected you to ever care to leave."
Valey squinted. "Okay, yeah, I'll admit I maybe really liked it a lot. But not quite enough to stay down there forever, you know?"
Starlight cleared her throat. "So do you want me to do anything with this pile of ash?"
Anemone shook her head. "We'll find a way to package it. It's useful for experiments since it's hard to get and behaves slightly differently from liquid ether... The flakes aren't addictive, to use an example we were just talking about."
Valey shuddered. "Yeah, I'd hope they aren't. You realize those things are what batponies are made of, right?"
Once again, both scientists stared.
"That sword." Valey pointed at Starlight's floating blade. "When it kills us, it turns us into... that. Like, poof. We're dust and ash." She scratched her chin. "Hey, if that stuff is like some raw form of ether, and those black crystals were made from it, and so are we, maybe that sword just works by reverting the stuff back to its original form? That kinda makes sense, right?"
Anemone held up the second heart, the one still with a tiny black spike on the side. "Makes me all the more curious to research what this is. I'd like to know more about that sword, too."
Starlight cleared her throat. "Or, you could say that since all your problems are solved, you could put the hearts in a box and not let them affect anyone and we could all live with what we don't know and be happy that we're safe."
Professor Sea Star sighed. "Except that we tried that, and only brought one down here in the first place because there was still something interfering with our readings. We suspected we weren't sealing them properly... though now I'm strongly imagining you and your friends are just loaded down with a storm of these artifacts and we've barely seen the first wave."
Starlight glanced at her sword. "You think this is affecting anyone's minds too?"
"We could take it up top, do some tests and find out," Anemone suggested.
"...You know what?" Valey shrugged. "Sure, why not? You guys are finished down here, after all. And you probably owe us for solving your problems for you?"
Anemone sighed. "What are you hoping for?"
Valey grinned. "That gravity manipulator you were talking about. It wouldn't happen to let ponies go inside, would it?"
Instantly, Anemone brightened. "And if it did?"
Valey patted Shinespark's back. "Got a friend here who really misses the sky. I wanna see her be weightless again."
"I think you're making a bigger deal of this than necessary," Shinespark mumbled. "It's not very important to me."
Valey blew a raspberry. "Uh huh. And what actually is? We gotta get you doing stuff you enjoy, girl. Come on, she just said we could play with it!"
"I didn't say it was a toy." Anemone chuckled.
"Actually?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "You definitely did. When we first met? Kinmari's most expensive toy, you called it. And I wanna play."
Anemone blinked. "Oops. So I did! Alright, you got me, it's a toy. But I think it does a little more than you're expecting. Shall we go up and see it?"
"Yeah!" Valey cheered, pushing Shinespark along.
Shinespark frowned and resisted. "Where's Nyala? I haven't seen her since the crystal broke."
Valey blinked. "Wow, good question. She was right under that table a moment ago..."
"Is she gone?"
"I'm right here," Nyala whispered, sticking her head around the corner from the corridor to the next room. Her mane was slightly askew, and she had a haunted look in her eyes.
"...You don't look so good," Professor Sea Star remarked. "What happened?"
Nyala's ears fell. "Sorry. Something happened just there that I have a history with. Nerves. This place is making me nervous, can we go back to the surface now?"
Valey glanced quizzically at her. "That whole thing with the church you were talking about?"
Nyala nodded mutely.
"Yeah, let's go." Valey stood up and took charge, beckoning everyone along. "This is a place for folks who really want to study things I don't think mortals have any reason they need to know. Let's go do happy, carefree things."
Starlight bounded thankfully after her, shrinking and stowing her sword on her way out once again, the ambient lighting staying stable behind her.
"So what interests you about the gravity machine?" Anemone asked as the group walked through the halls of the space department, Sea Star having departed to go do professor things. "You said your friend missed the air? Your airship, I presume."
Valey winced a little. "Uh... yeah, that."
Shinespark shook her head. "My cutie mark formerly allowed me to fly. But it needed my horn, and that no longer functions."
Valey stared at her. "I thought we were keeping that mostly under wraps...?"
Shinespark shrugged. "While in the Empire, and only to prevent news of who Braen was from reaching Ironridge. And it's been long enough that it wouldn't matter anymore, anyway."
"I'm sorry, fly?" Anemone interrupted. "Could you clarify that a little?"
"Not really," Shinespark said. "I could surround myself with magic and fly. Move around through the air. There isn't an obtuse meaning to it."
Anemone stared for a moment. "I've never heard of a cutie mark that can do that before," she mused, shaking her head. "And yours reacted unusually earlier..." She glanced at Valey. "Cutie marks must work differently up north than they do down here."
Valey flicked her tail. "Or we wound up traveling with each other because we all had stuff in common."
"They do work differently," Starlight interrupted. "Most ponies never get one. It's not like here where it happens to everyone."
"Speaking of Sparky's mark being unusual," Valey cut in, nodding, "doesn't it have this thing where it generates way more of what we call harmony up north than most ponies? What do you call the magical stuff generated by ponies' cutie marks?"
Anemone blinked at them. "What?"
"You know..." Valey patted her butt, showing off her mark. "The stuff that... like... does useful stuff? Bananas, I don't know how it works."
Shinespark shook her head. "It isn't relevant. We won't be doing anything with it any time soon, and if you want me to move on you aren't going to change that."
Anemone paused. "Does that mean you'd rather I not show you the gravity machine?"
Valey gave Shinespark a look that dared her to go see it. Shinespark averted her eyes. Starlight and Nyala awkwardly stood nearby.
"Oh! Hello!" an vaguely-familiar voice called from down the hall. "It's you!"
Everyone looked. Starlight blinked, slowly recognizing one of the student nurses from the hospital. "Hi," she greeted, realizing the others weren't going to be as fast. "What are you doing here?"
The nurse's ears flopped. "Moving your catatonic friend. We were told to give her an ice water bath, and this facility has a temperature stress-testing chamber. Do you know anything about that? Because it seems like a bad idea to me..."
"Uhhh..." Valey frowned. "You mean Meltdown? Isn't her thing usually extremely high temperatures? She's called Meltdown for a reason."
The nurse shrugged. "Your friends told us to do it. Felicity and Amber?"
Anemone was staring. "Why are you putting a catatonic mare in the temperature test room?"
Nyala cleared her throat. "Well, you could always go see her if you're not enthusiastic about the gravity machine." She looked considerably more comfortable now that they were out of the underground, and her voice was stronger, too. "None of you have paid an extreme amount of attention to her over the last month. Speaking for myself, maybe she's fine with that, but she also might be lonely, too."
Shinespark frowned. "She doesn't usually have a lot to say."
Starlight was already walking off in the direction the nurse had come from.
"This is a temperature stress-testing room?" Valey stared around at a wide-open space. "I sorta figured it would be a sealed thingamajig, but this looks like an industrial swimming pool."
Vats of water separated by metal catwalks were recessed into the ground, with a system of beams and cranes overhead. Most of the vats were filled, and one near the center was steaming heavily.
"I wonder if that's hers," Shinespark muttered.
Anemone gave the vat a perplexed look. "But you said an ice bath, and that's steaming."
Valey shrugged. "Look, I've seen this mare drop fireballs and shoot gigantic pillars of flame. My money is not on your ice bath, here."
Anemone blinked. "You have a lot of very curious friends."
"That's how it goes," Shinespark sighed.
Nyala was already halfway along the catwalks, and Starlight followed along. The steam from the steaming vat was slowly starting to clear, aided partly by gigantic fume hoods that covered the ceiling, and a trio of nurses and scientists were staring at the vat, boggled, as Meltdown treaded water in the middle. "Colder!" Meltdown called. "Can you increase the flow!?"
An engineer stallion Starlight hadn't met stared at her and Nyala. "Do you have any idea what this even is?" he asked, a clipboard hanging slack on a lanyard about his neck.
"...It's you." Meltdown's eyes briefly met Starlight's. "I see I have visitors already. They can work the controls. Thank you for your efforts. You are dismissed."
The trio all blinked. "Yikes," the other scientist said. "No disrespect, but no need to be bossy. We're risking turning you to a popsicle to do you a favor."
"My apologies." Meltdown closed her eyes. "I've had a very unpleasant span of time."
The ponies awkwardly stepped back, nodding in understanding but not leaving fully.
"Hey, you're awake," Valey greeted, arriving and seating herself by the edge of the pool. "Long time, no... uh... whatever we used to do together. Sorry. Most of what I remember you for is that pirate ship where you dueled Puddles..."
Meltdown slowly blinked. "Weren't you dead?"
Valey shrugged. "I got better. I don't really remember it, but I've heard it wasn't the greatest."
"I can relate."
The remaining nurse looked sympathetic, and both science students disturbed. "Did you just casually say you got better from being dead?" one asked.
"Yep." Valey rolled her shoulders, glancing back at them. "Listen, I know the adventuring lifestyle is super glamorous here, but just take it from me, don't be too jealous."
The scientists looked at each other and blinked.
"I think it's hard to call what we spent the last month doing living," Shinespark cut in. "You laid in bed all day. I sat in the hold all night. It's a month we aren't going to get back."
"Only a month?" Meltdown folded her ears. "It felt like forever. How is Gazelle?"
Starlight and Valey both winced. "Not too stable..."
"Figures." Meltdown looked vaguely cross.
"Not to intrude," Nyala said, "but it could stand to be a little less tense in here... Is there anything we can do for you?"
Meltdown's eyes flicked to the students. "There are too many ponies here for my comfort."
"Alright, fine, I can take a hint..." One of the students grumbled and wandered off. "Hope you don't suddenly realize it's freezing in there, or anything. You find the one adventurer who actually needs your talents, and they aren't impressed at all..."
The others hesitantly followed, and Meltdown sat a little easier in her tank. Valey frowned at her. "You know, I'd ask if you're alright, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't appreciate me not guessing for myself."
"I am not alright," Meltdown replied curtly. "And you should be aware that I don't like being around ponies when I'm... vulnerable. Thank you for treating me as well as you did. I didn't have a good time."
"Would you prefer to be left alone now, then?" Nyala hesitated. "We just heard you were here, and I just suggested you might enjoy company."
"Thank you for the thought." Meltdown closed her eyes. "If you would like to help, what I would enjoy most is a way to regain my autonomy. I require my brand to do most of the things one would associate with being alive, and the heat is a byproduct. I don't expect you to be able to create a coolant suit matching the entire Griffon Empire's technological prowess, or even to know the first thing about them, but the effort I would appreciate."
Shinespark stared at her in thought.
"So that's a yes on being left alone?" Valey momentarily frowned. "...Well, alright then. Back to Plan A, I guess. Come on, let's go check out that gravity machine."
"Well, it's nice seeing you talking again." Nyala waved, turning to leave as well.
Starlight wanted to be the last one to leave, certain there was more that Meltdown had left unsaid, something she was saving for the very end... but Shinespark proved more determined than her, and so she followed on Valey and Nyala's heels, looking over her shoulder as she left.
Shinespark had caught up by the time they returned to the hallway. "Who was that?" Anemone asked, glancing back at the closed doors. "I'm guessing her story wasn't a happy one."
"None of ours were," Shinespark grunted. "She was high up in the Griffon Empire. Helped us fight a monster that was about to destroy the place. We all lost, and we took her with us when we evacuated."
"...She was a teenager. Tell me she wasn't." Anemone gave her a look.
Shinespark shrugged. "That didn't stop me from leading half of Ironridge. The north doesn't work the way things do here, apparently."
"Hellooo, gravity machine?" Valey waved a wing to distract them. "Come on, trust me, this is going to be awesome."
"Why?" Shinespark stared at her. "Aside from positivity for the sake of positivity, what do you know about it? Because I have other things on my mind."
"That's the point." Valey bumped her flank with her own. "To get your mind off those."
Shinespark frowned.
"Come on, you used to love this! Right?" Valey shoved her along down the hallway. "At least, you have a cutie mark in it, so I hope you did. If I were you, I'd be kicking myself sideways over spending the last bajillion years coming up with excuse after excuse to limit my use of it. I know I'd be ticked if I had a cutie mark that gave me a horn, and then I never used it and lost it. You know what I'd do if I had a horn? Lay on a couch, and not even need to get up to fetch more fruit from across the room when I got hungry."
"I don't have a horn either." Shinespark's look darkened. "Please don't rub it in."
Valey backed off and sighed. "Okay, if I'm not helping, I get it. I really just wanna see you smile."
"...Does this work?" Shinespark tried something that, if seen for a split second through a telescope, could be interpreted as a genuine smile.
"...Thanks for trying." Valey smiled back, hers much less burdened.
"So what am I doing?" Anemone interrupted. "For ponies who talk about fighting monsters and making life-and-death decisions, you all are some of the most indecisive I've ever seen."
Starlight stepped right through the trio of arguing ponies, forcing their attention to her. "It turns out that when you have a lot of important decisions to make, every decision feels important," she said. "And so you spend too long on the ones you can afford to because you're afraid of the consequences. Well, I'm not afraid of losing a few hours by going to see a gravity machine and having it be boring, so I'm going even if no one else is."
"That's... the spirit?" Anemone looked slightly worried, but nodded, leading her on.
Meanwhile, halfway across the island...
"Well, darling, I think we've learned a very important lesson from all this," Felicity said, standing in a brightly-lit street somewhere in College Town and brushing down her coat.
Amber grinned and winced at the same time. "Don't say the pickled cucumbers are delicious when they're actually awful to avoid offending the one whose idea it was to get them, because there's a good chance she's doing the same for you?"
Felicity rubbed her tongue with a wing. "I was going to say, listen to the helpful students who tell us a place is no good and don't go anyway just because we think we recognize the cuisine despite being from a world away... Also, pickled cucumbers are just called pickles. Those were zucchini, which is why they were bad. But yes. That works too."
Amber burst out laughing. "Well, this day's really gone awful so far. Hahaha! What do you want to bet anyone else is having worse luck than we are? I'll raise you a pickled zucchini." She coughed furtively. "Which is what real pickles are called, by the way, cough cough cough cough cough."
"Categorically false. Have you ever even seen a cucumber? Or a real pickle? I fear for the state of Riverfall cuisine... But take heart, darling, it's barely noon." Felicity patted her back encouragingly. "We've still plenty of time to turn things around. Now, I didn't eat a particularly large meal, thanks to those terrible zucchini, so do you think we ought to seek out better fare while we're still here? They do say not to swim on a full stomach, so we could always try that bathhouse..."
Amber's eyes drifted to the east. "It's a bathhouse. What could go wrong?"
"Spoken like a true temptress of fate," Felicity grumbled, though she had a little smile as well. "For all I know today will be the day we learn Equestrian gender signs are the opposite of what they are up north and wind up crashing the stallions' room. That would be simply dreadful."
"Ick, that would be the worst!"
"Heehee! Oh, whatever. Let's try our luck. For the record, this time it's my idea, so it's on you if you pretend everything's fabulous just to soothe my feelings and get us all in trouble as a result. I can still taste it..."
"Says someone who thinks pickles means pickled cucumbers. I'm telling you, if they had actually been zucchini..."
"They were zucchini! That's why they tasted so foul!"
"Hahaha! Hey, imagine if someone left an entire crate of cucumbers laying around in the bathhouse for some reason. Or imagine if we misread the signs and thought something was the bathhouse when it was actually a cucumber warehouse! That would ruin our day for sure."
"Darling, stop digging yourself deeper, or the victor in this spat is never going to let the other live this down..."
"Well..." Anemone pushed open a final door, leading to the observation room Valey had seen before that was adjacent to the gravity machine. "There it is. Head on in and impress your friends." She beckoned toward the observation window, a heavily-mechanized door set into the wall beside it.
Valey blinked, then glanced at Shinespark and grinned. "Alright, now go in there and have a fabulous time."
Shinespark had a distracted look in her eyes. "You don't even know what it does. You just heard 'gravity machine' and thought it would be interesting."
"Guilty as charged." Valey crossed her heart with a hoof, then stuck out her tongue. "And it sounds pretty interesting to me, so-"
Starlight was still leading by example, already stepping through the door. "Is there anything special I need to do?" she called over her shoulder, shooting her friends a look that asked them politely to stop making her be the decisive one.
Anemone darted to her side with a speed that suggested she must have been one of the island's myriad sports players in her school days. "Wear this," she said, clasping a decorated bracelet around Starlight's foreleg. "It's a device that will let you telepathically control the machine. You might need to try a bit to get the hang of it, but just try thinking up, and see if you can work it. Maybe you'll get it first try!"
"Okay..." Starlight blinked at the bracelet. It felt strange around her leg, almost like she was touching something... She didn't know. Shrugging, aware that Valey was suddenly staring at her, she stepped inside the machine room.
For a high-tech machine interior, it was spacious. For a room where she might be moving around through the air, it was small. Though maybe that was a good thing... Starlight noted it was carefully padded on all sides save for the observation window. The floor squished beneath her hooves, and she was fairly sure she could take a fall from its full height with nothing worse than a little bouncing.
Her friends were watching from outside the window. Starlight looked at the bracelet, concentrated, and thought of going up.
Immediately, her hooves left the floor.
"Woah!" Starlight flailed briefly... and stabilized, hovering in midair a few hoofsteps above the ground. It was almost disorienting, and she felt her mane suddenly floating around, waving freely without gravity to hold it in place. But Starlight had been dragged through shadow sneaking by Valey, suffered splitting headaches from her horn, and dealt with months of sparring practice where her mentor expected her to see in every direction at once and never forget to look above or below her, and she quickly stabilized her senses around the new sensation. In fact, it was almost more normal than she was expecting. She closed her eyes, and realized she could still feel which way was down.
"Are you alright!?" Anemone called, taking her squeezed eyes entirely the wrong way. "I'll turn it off!"
"No, I'm-!" The machine cut out, and Starlight dropped, bouncing on the floor just as she had predicted. "Fine..."
Valey punched Shinespark's shoulder, sound carrying well between the two rooms thanks to some grates near the bottom of the window. "She's being braver than youuu..."
"How are you?" Anemone asked, poking her head in through the door. "I'm sorry, I really should have thought twice before letting a filly in, the disorientation could have completely different effects for children-"
"Turn it back on," Starlight interrupted, getting to her hooves. "This is weird. I want to keep going."
"...Okay." Anemone blinked, marking down something on a clipboard and stepping back out.
For some reason, Starlight never got any feedback from the bracelet that the machine was on or off. It must have been a one-way device... But as she continued to will it upwards, she suddenly began to rise again.
This time, Starlight tried to accelerate, seeing if she couldn't nail a landing just like when Valey threw her and trained her to right herself in midair. It shouldn't be that hard, right? Just will herself to go continually up instead of only a little, like using her telekinesis to raise instead of hold. She rose, tried to flip... and stumbled, hitting the ceiling slightly off from when she expected to. Had she been too slow? Starlight frowned, getting to her hooves again, and stopped concentrating on the bracelet, letting it do nothing. Gravity immediately re-exerted itself and she plummeted, and this time she was able to make the landing exactly as intended.
"So? What's the verdict?" Valey's nose was pressed against the window. "Because lemme tell you, that looks pretty fun. Can you walk on the ceiling?"
"Maybe?" Starlight lifted herself to the ceiling again... It still felt like lifting, not changing the way she dropped. The collision was still weird, but she tried walking around and found she was mostly able to. It felt stiffer than being on the ground, somehow, like she had to press herself harder into the ceiling to give her hooves traction than they would normally need. Was it the material, or was something resisting her walking in directions?
Concentrating, Starlight tried to drop forward instead, jumping off the ceiling and willing the bracelet in front of her. This one almost felt more normal, but the sudden transition between which surface her hooves were on tripped her up and she fell again, squishing into the wall instead of bouncing. Starlight frowned and let herself drop to the real floor, and once again bounced as normal.
"I think she's having fun?" Anemone hopefully guessed.
"Sort of," Starlight called back. "I don't think your machine is working properly, though. I don't feel weightless. Ways that aren't the real down feel different."
Anemone blinked. "Well, that's what it is, though."
"Then maybe it's broken." Starlight hovered in midair again, testing how fine of control she had over herself by shifting back and forth slightly, changing her direction or coming to a halt before hitting the walls. It was actually good control... too good. If she was really in zero gravity while hovering, she should have kept going in whatever direction she was going when she stopped trying to go, at least until air resistance slowed her down. But instead, she stopped far too quickly, almost like the machine knew that when she tried to hover in place, that meant it had to brake her current momentum for her. It really did feel more like the control she had over objects with her telekinesis... or more accurately, her sword, since that didn't use her horn.
But even if this wasn't what it was supposed to do, was having better control a bad thing? Starlight started trying to move herself in a circle. That should have been complicated, constantly changing which way gravity was pushing on her, but instead it just felt like going in a circle. She even subconsciously banked after a while, and eventually felt ambitious enough to try a figure eight. But she started too early, and crashed into a wall before she could finish it.
"Uh... yeah, how does that controller thing work, again?" Valey prodded Anemone. "Because that really looks more like she's flying than falling in one particular direction."
Anemone sighed. "Yes, we did that deliberately. The first revision of this machine could only have gravity controlled along three axes, and we had to make more machines to even move the controls in the patterns required to do certain maneuvers. This one, our controller actually gives more fidelity than we need, and some of the engineering department took it upon themselves to make it less realistic and more of a toy. So yes. It can be a zero-gravity simulator, but it's also a flight simulator."
Shinespark looked like she had just lost a bet. "Well?" Valey nudged her again. "Go on, check it out!"
"Starlight is having fun," Shinespark countered, pointing a hoof.
Fun might have been too strong a word. But it didn't stop Starlight from rotating, willing herself to spin in place instead of actually moving anywhere.
"Alright, bananas, I have to ask, how is she doing that!?" Valey pointed at the gravity room again. "Gravity doesn't make you spin! That's like... what?"
"As enthusiastic as you were about seeing this toy," Anemone sighed, "you sure are intent on believing it doesn't exist."
Starlight wasn't listening. She stood on one wall, charged at another... It was easier when she tried to push herself along, she realized, instead of willing gravity to be purely down against the wall. Like whatever force was trying to keep her in place was now helping her. She jumped, trying to change her orientation and gravity mid-leap, and after several crashes and retries she was able to hit the wall running, barely tripping or not at all.
"She's quite the acrobat, though." Anemone tried to change the subject as Starlight switched to running a circle across the floor, walls and roof. That was much harder, since all three felt different to move along, and she needed to not make herself dizzy...
"Yeah, she's good." Valey smirked. "I trained her to fight and stay nimble on her hooves. Try throwing a fruit at her sometime. I can guarantee she'll dodge it."
"I'm not throwing fruit at a filly!" Anemone looked bothered and annoyed by the implication.
Valey shrugged. "Well, she'll probably appreciate it. Also, I kinda trust Starlight when she says this supposed gravity thing feels as weird as it looks. So until further notice, I'm just gonna assume you made that using some ancient machine you found somewhere and don't actually understand how it works."
Anemone looked just guilty enough to make Valey suspicious.
"Waaait a sec." Valey narrowed her eyes. "I was just messing with you. You better not have actually done that."
Shinespark stared at Valey, and even Starlight stopped flying. "Is there something we should know?" Nyala asked from the background.
"...Fine," Anemone sighed. "The bracelet controller isn't made by us. Doctor Lost World donated it to us after discovering it in one of his artifact blind barrels. It really is a gravity machine, and if you don't believe me I'll throw you in there without the bracelet and work the controls myself. It only looks the way it does because we have everything tuned to this particular style of input. Please don't go around talking about how we have equipment we don't understand, the jocks make enough jokes about this place already. And stop trying to ruin the magic. Starlight looks like she needs this."
"It's not that important," Starlight replied, hovering in front of the window, right-side-up. "Why is this a problem? And does Shinespark want a turn?"
"All this has made me curious," Shinespark sighed, getting to her hooves. "May I try?"
Starlight nodded, floating back down to the door and landing, then slipping the bracelet off with her teeth. "Here."
She passed it to Shinespark, stepping back as her friend entered the machine. Something still felt slightly odd about that bracelet, but what was it...?
For a moment, everyone watched as Shinespark hovered, doing a few exercises similar to Starlight's, but with more flying and less running along walls. After about twenty seconds, she landed and walked back out. "Hmm. Interesting."
"That's it?" Valey looked disappointed, folding her ears as Shinespark passed the bracelet back to Anemone. "Just interesting? Bananas, girl, I tried literally this hard to find something you'd enjoy, and..."
"It was interesting," Shinespark repeated, her voice tone-dampened as usual. "The control felt exactly like my old flight. I wasn't expecting to fall sideways, but still... make of it what you will." She looked away. "Sorry, Valey. I know you're trying to help, and maybe I could enjoy this more later, but right now I have something on my mind."
Starlight could see Shinespark's eyes. The flame she had once possessed, battered by Ironridge and the ruin of Izvaldi and the loss of Valey and her horn until it was nothing more than embers, was still there. It was a little stronger than usual, even, like it was daring itself to flicker back to life.
Valey saw it too, and gingerly smiled. "You know what? If there's something you gotta do, we'll come haunt this place some other time. Take care, girl."
"Thank you. I should get going." Shinespark nodded, trotting away.
Anemone slowly shrugged. "Well, okay."
"You know what?" Valey squared her shoulders. "This whole thing has gone kinda awkward, so I think maybe I'm gonna go do some flybys of hot sunbathers and come back tomorrow and pretend this never happened. How's that sound?"
"Advice from a friend?" Anemone raised an eyebrow. "I don't think your friend was very enthusiastic about this."
Valey groaned. "Sparky is enthusiastic about nothing, though! If I don't make her do stuff, she won't do anything! I'll talk to her, but I'm serious, she needs this. I'm like the group therapist or something, I would know."
Nyala gave her a look. "That doesn't mean you speak for everyone. You should talk to her."
"Or I will," Starlight said, a restless itch sitting somewhere beneath her coat that pushed her to do something just for the sake of doing it. "Can we go? You wanted to show off to ponies by throwing fruit at me."
Valey's unhappiness turned back to a grin. "Eh, yeah, we can do that. Bananas, let's just stop taking things seriously again for a bit. See ya, science pegasus!"
She bolted, leaving Nyala, Starlight and Anemone in her tracks. Anemone shrugged. "Might as well get about your way, then. Come back later. I'm still curious about your sword. And here, I'll show you the way out."
Eventually, they reached the entrance, and Starlight and Nyala bid Anemone farewell. "Took you a while," Valey commented, hovering over the doors.
Nyala shrugged, and they started walking. "So, you saw it too," she eventually asked Valey, eyes down.
"The bracelet?"
"Mhm."
Starlight blinked. "What about it?"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, I guess you would have been..." She drew up abruptly, staring at Nyala. "Wait, how do you even remember that? I thought you only got your memories from being Braen..."
Nyala stared at her. "What? We were all down in the ether room."
Valey stared back, tilting her head. "What?"
"The runes," Nyala said. "That band had exactly the same decoration pattern as the rune ring around Starlight when she used that sword."
Starlight's eyes widened slightly. She hadn't even been paying attention... "And you thought it was something different?" She glanced at Valey.
"Yeah, I've seen a band exactly like that one before," Valey grumbled. "Guess I was too distracted to draw that other connection, but that thing looked exactly the same as the control band for Herman's magic flying axe."
Starlight had no idea how to react.
"Well, now that you mention it's the same as the runes... bananas, your sword flies too, right?" Valey tilted her head. "And that gravity machine thing kind of lets you fly, and Sparky said it felt exactly like when she... But her cutie mark is completely natural, right? She earned it as a kid?" She squinted. "Alright, I made it through all the rest of the science today, but this is making my brain hurt."
Starlight had nothing, so she shrugged. "Weird. Maybe we should just get lunch."
"Lunch sounds good," Nyala agreed.
"Yeah. Lunch." Valey adjusted her hat. "And then I'm gonna lock myself in a dark room with a million chalkboards and nerdy things and try to come up with a grand unifying theory for everything, and I'm not gonna stop until I succeed... or get bored enough that I'm less bothered not knowing than trying to find out. But this is suddenly annoying me. Come on, let's go hit up Ironflanks for some food."
Starlight knocked loudly on the door to Generosity Two's bedroom, a tray of food balanced on her back. "Maple wants to know if you're hungry!" she called.
"Food? Yeah, get on in here!" Valey's muffled voice called from the other side.
Starlight pushed the door open. The bedroom was dim save for a bright writing lamp over the desk, where Shinespark and Valey sat hunched side by side, staring over reams of papers.
"Why are you brooding in here?" Starlight asked, trotting closer, guessing Valey hadn't even looked up when she shouted. "It's dinnertime, and neither of you have come out since lunch."
"I'm not brooding," Valey said, frowning at a page as Shinespark made scratches with a mouth-held quill. "I'm trying to one-up some scientists."
Starlight walked up beside them, slightly too short to see onto the desk without a chair. Shinespark set her quill down and lifted the tray, balancing it delicately on a corner and allowing Starlight to stand on her hind legs and see.
The table was entirely filled with designs, notes and diagrams, Shinespark's side focused on pony anatomy and what looked like Braen. Valey's was more covered in connected webs and graphs, intersected by abstract doodles. Starlight blinked. "What is this?"
"I," Valey declared, not losing her focused look, "am trying to take all the mumbo jumbo we learned today, make sense of it with everything we already know, and make everyone on the submarine who said this would take years to learn look silly by doing it in a day. We've got a ton of pieces they don't, and I know this is possible."
Shinespark scratched a line out. "And I'm trying to draft a new suit for Meltdown."
Starlight glanced at both of them, slightly surprised. "Really?"
"Yeah. I think we're both stuck, though," Valey sighed. "So hey, food break. What's up?"
Starlight shrugged. "Not much. I haven't seen Amber, Felicity or Jamjars all day. Nyala and Maple are talking, and Gerardo and Slipstream came by to hang out. It's been okay."
Shinespark nodded, her own focus hardly disappearing as she bit into a steamed bell pepper. "Mmm."
"So hey, mind being a guinea pig?" Valey asked with her mouth full. "I wanna see if what I've got so far is actually as simple as I think it is."
Starlight glanced again at her papers. "It doesn't really look like it..."
"Yeah, well that's just the diagram." Valey waved a hoof. "It's like this: us and the Equestrians mean completely different things when we talk about harmony. We've just been confusing ourselves by putting them together. Our harmony is sort of like a thing's life force, I guess? It's the stuff that comes from our cutie marks, the stuff we get from the crystal palace flames, the stuff that makes our species magic and by extension the ship's flight work, because according to Sparky it technically flies by emulating pegasus magic with a machine."
Shinespark nodded, actually being polite with her food.
"It's the stuff harmony extractors extract... or technically borrow, from everyone but you," Valey continued, nodding at Starlight. "Now, Kinmari's idea of harmony, on the other hoof. They've got a ton of classifications and breakdowns they keep going on about, trying to make it more complicated, but I'm willing to bet you they think harmony is anything like ether, which is liquid hope, or emotions in a physical state or something. I bet you if we explored their stuff completely, we'd find a lot more of these substances that should theoretically exist, beyond ether and moon glass."
Starlight flicked her ears. "But they're always talking about physical emotions." Her mind drifted to her black sword...
"Yeah, I think so." Valey bobbed her head. "So as far as that goes, they're completely different. Now, what I'm willing to bet is that they're still super related, because we always find the trees of harmony growing out of the lifestream, and ponies who generate northern harmony also have thoughts and emotions and stuff. And the great thing is that this holds up: remember when someone pointed out way back when that if harmony extractors just borrow harmony from living things, 'cuz it's like a catalyst or something, then maybe the harmony we bottle in the windigo hearts is just being borrowed from the world and the world is alive as well? Well, boom. Maybe the lifestream is literally the world's will to exist. If it's alive, why couldn't it have emotions, too?"
Starlight stared in thought. "Then wouldn't it have other emotions?"
Valey leaned back and stretched. "Willing to bet if you looked in enough places as crazy as deep underground, you might find those, too. Doesn't really matter, though. The point is I have zero empirical data and just explained in two minutes what those dudes think it takes years to understand, and would be willing to bet candy on me being right."
Starlight thought about that for a moment. "I guess all that does make sense. So what do we do with it?"
"With our knowledge?" Valey shrugged. "Feel smug and superior and keep it to ourselves unless we really need their help understanding something as well, because if all that's true it doesn't sound like the world is a place that needs to be messed with."
"So what are you stuck on, then?" Starlight took a bite from the food tray herself, slurping a few noodles with sauce. "You said you were stuck."
Valey shrugged. "Well, I'm happy with that, so I tried tackling the whole thing we noticed with the bracelets and your runes and whatever else that connects to, and I'm honestly one hundred percent baffled. I don't think it has anything to do with harmony and everything else... probably. But there's a ton of stuff that's obviously related and I have literally no idea why."
Shinespark had finished, focusing on eating instead of talking. "We have Herman's weapon and your weapon," she began. "Both can fly. I wish we still had the axe to compare how it felt to use them, but the church took that so we don't. Their methods of control are different, though."
"I think," Valey interrupted, noodles and vegetables dangling from her mouth, "I'd have remembered if Herman's axe was pitch black, and I doubt it paralyzed anyone. But I was sort of more focused on the dude I was fighting than the decorations, so I honestly couldn't tell you if it had that ring of light around the handle or anything else. It was a magic axe, and all that meant was try to keep your head attached to the rest of you."
Shinespark continued. "We also know the flight controls using that band felt exactly the same as my own flying using my cutie mark. But the only common factor across everything is flying. Herman's axe and the gravity machine are definitely machines, and I manifested my mark normally. It couldn't have come from an artificial source. And then we have no idea what your sword is or how it works."
Starlight's ears fell. "I do. Let me get something..."
She trotted out of the room, then shortly returned, carrying her saddlebags with all her dangerous or important possessions. She pulled out the sword, shrunken to a dagger, and then reached into a pocket and popped out a tiny chunk of black metal given to her by Grandpapa, long ago in the Empire. "See these?" she asked. "They're the same material."
Valey blinked, touching them carefully. "Hey, isn't that...?"
"You've seen this before?" Shinespark leaned closer.
"This is that thing from the codger at the tournament." Valey narrowed her eyes. "Bananas, I forgot he gave you that to hang onto."
Starlight shrugged. "Chauncey is dead, so he wouldn't miss it." She showed the chip to Shinespark. "This is a metal that Chauncey made. It involved using Mistvale arts on a windigo heart, and creating it made it so he couldn't talk to dusk statues unless he was holding it, or something."
"Dusk statues..." Valey tapped a hoof in thought. "Didn't the reason those work have something to do with our cutie marks? And how batponies are different from everyone else like that, and how Crystal used them to drain everyone? So maybe there's a connection between this metal and cutie marks?" She glanced at Shinespark's flank.
"I activate this sword by tapping it against my cutie mark," Starlight pointed out. She made the motions, then held up the glowing sword, showing it closely to her friends. In the triangular hole in the hilt, a tiny effigy of her cutie mark glowed and flickered in time with their bond.
Valey sat back again. "Well, bananas. We just learned... again... that these are all somehow related, and we still have no clue why or how."
"Maybe you should talk to Felicity," Starlight suggested. "Didn't she say something about how this sword worked before, during the tournament? I don't remember."
"Eh. Good idea." Valey shrugged. "Honestly, I don't need to know this. It just bothers me and I'm already in science mode, so... you know. We could also pester the scientists to hear exactly how the receiver for that bracelet in the gravity machine room works, or ask Doctor Lost if he remembers where he got that particular barrel, but you know what? I have this really crazy suspicion we'll just learn they're related again and have no clue why." She waved a hoof. "So what about you, Sparky? I took my turn, now it's yours."
Shinespark looked at her, then at Starlight. "You really want to hear about how designing a new suit of armor for Meltdown works?"
"Okay. Why not?" Starlight asked.
Shinespark looked back at her papers. "I know a lot about power armor," she said. "I won't bore you with what I already have worked out. But there are two problems I'm trying to work on: not crushing her under the armor's weight, and adequately ventilating her. I don't have any numbers for how much she can lift or her heat output, but judging from the steam rising from that pool, I'm at least two orders of magnitude off on ventilation capacity alone."
Starlight tried to look over the diagrams, but aside from the drawings that were recognizable as armor parts, a lot of it was above her. "So you need stronger fans?"
"That won't cut it." Shinespark shook her head. "Even if we can get the heat immediately away from her, it would turn the area around her into a wasteland. I also have a suspicion that the stronger she makes herself, the more heat she outputs, so while she could work a full suit like Braen without being crushed, that would just increase the heat that needs to be removed. And heat is difficult to get rid of."
Starlight bit her lip. "But if you could make the suit easier to move around in, you could decrease the amount of heat she needs."
"That's the conjecture." Shinespark tapped her desk. "I have to ask her to be certain, but it could explain a part of how her old one worked. Not all of it, though. She's just floating in a water tank right now, and you saw how much heat she was putting out. That takes no physical effort."
"But you don't have a way to get stronger at all," Starlight pointed out. "And you were able to wear Braen, weren't you?"
"Right." Shinespark nodded. "Braen was mechanized. When I wore her, she would move along with my own motions, using her motors. There are two problems with that. One is control. Because Braen had my cutie mark, we were able to use the link between us to synchronize her motions to mine, working as a team that shared one instinct. For Meltdown, we'll need another way to read her intentions to animate the armor around her."
"Reading intentions?" Valey cut in. "Sounds like a certain bracelet. Maybe our scientist friends would let you reverse-engineer it and we could finally make progress on my problem as well."
Shinespark closed her eyes. "I wouldn't count on it. There should be other ways to track a pony's muscle impulses. It's just a matter of good engineering." She opened her eyes. "Then there's the power issue. Braen was powered by conventional mana energy, which recharged using my cutie mark. But my cutie mark has extremely rare levels of harmonic potential. While it would be nice to do the same for Meltdown, it's not likely hers is as harmonic as mine."
"To be fair, though." Valey waved a hoof. "Wasn't her cutie mark literally modified or given to her by Garsheeva, or something? Maybe she didn't randomly earn one like that, but there's a good chance she has one."
Shinespark exhaled. "That would just be weird."
"Weird?" Starlight tilted her head.
"Have I ever explained to you how unicorn horns work?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Most unicorns', at least?"
Starlight shook her head.
"It's a complicated subject, but the important part is that the energy they use to operate comes from ambient heat in the air," Shinespark continued. "Normally, heat energy is useless entropy. It's just energy that has dissipated, and there's no way to organize it into something concentrated or useful."
She shuffled a single paper on the desk. "But when you apply harmony... entropy undoes itself. Random, chaotically bouncing atoms will seemingly randomly bounce into more ordered structures that we desire... in this case, recharging your horn after you use the energy contained inside. That's where your horn's energy comes from. So can you see the reason I don't like this? Meltdown's cutie mark seems to make her stronger and create incredible volumes of heat. Even thinking about trying to use her harmony as a life form to create usable energy, like Braen did... What's she doing, converting her own heat to more energy? Where is all that energy even coming from? It makes utterly no sense..." She gripped her head with her forehooves in frustration.
"Hey, come on!" Valey protested. "I just spent the last few hours coming up with a beautiful and gnarly explanation that simplifies all the confusing hullabaloo we've been getting. Don't make stuff confusing again!"
"I'm not making it confusing," Shinespark sighed. "Talking about harmony and Meltdown's cutie mark is forcing me to confront the fact that Meltdown's cutie mark makes no sense in the first place, which has always been a problem but I never needed to know how it worked so I just didn't care."
Starlight frowned at the argument. "Well, Meltdown solved all those problems when she made her last suit, so maybe you should just ask her?"
Shinespark shook her head. "I should. The best thing I can figure is that her suit contained some sort of physical harmonic artifact, like Braen and my cutie mark, except not her mark because hers is a problem and I don't want to think about it."
Starlight glanced at the door. "Then maybe until then, you should take a break. You've been in here a while."
"Yeah..." Valey stretched. "Maybe dunking on scientists can wait. They're not even asking questions about the thing I'm stuck on, it's the bit that baffles them I already have figured out. Sparky, you wanna go do something?"
Shinespark leaned over her papers. "If it's all the same to you, I'm not willing to call this a dead end yet."
Valey pursed her lips. "You sure you want to be working instead of trying to do something for yourself?"
"I am doing something for myself," Shinespark countered, her tail swatting against her cutie mark. "Trying to make myself good for something. I don't know if you noticed, Valey, but my cutie mark is about standing up for ponies who can't stand up for themselves even more than it is about flying. I'm glad you can feel good about yourself by laying around and relaxing, but we're not the same in this. And now I've found someone who needs help badly, and I'm one of the only experts there is in exactly what she needs. I can do this. I need to do this. I need to still be good for something."
Starlight didn't need to be a batpony with a sense of emotional smell to feel the determination in Shinespark's voice. "Good luck," she said. "You can do it."
"...Yeah. Do what you need to do." Valey nodded.
"Thanks." Shinespark went back to drawing.
Valey and Starlight stepped out, the batpony closing the door behind them. "She's intense," Valey said.
Starlight nodded.
"And not used to being the damsel in distress." Valey's voice lowered. "All throughout the Empire, she was the one trying to get me back on my hooves. The only other time I've been the one trying to get her back up is when we were in the skyport..." She shook her head. "Eh, just things to think about. Hey, what's up?"
Maple and Nyala were standing in the kitchen, talking. "Valey!" Maple greeted. "You're finally awake!"
"Hardy har." Valey wandered over and grinned. "Having fun over here?"
"Talking about food," Nyala answered softly. "And music. And games."
"I'm learning that I'm not the only one on the ship who knows how to cook," Maple chirped. "So we've been swapping recipes and ideas. Nyala has a lot of experience making bland food taste good, apparently."
Nyala blushed faintly at the praise. "I only really made it good enough for myself, since Valey would eat anything..."
Before anyone could follow up, the door swung open and Amber stumbled in, her coat still visibly wet. "We had," she panted, "the worst day."
Everyone froze.
"Simply terrible," Felicity groaned in agreement, similarly damp and close behind her.
"Are you alright?" Maple gasped, trotting over as fast as her healing ribs would allow.
"Yeah..." Amber whined at the ceiling, collapsed on her back. "We ignored what turned out to be good advice on where not to go for lunch, got into a fight about what certain types of fruit are called, and got kicked out of the bathhouse because the management are prudes. I miss Sycamore's bathhouse in Riverfall..."
Felicity scowled in agreement. "Good grief that mare had an overbearing sense of decency..."
Valey blinked hard. "You guys got thrown out of a bathhouse for inappropriate conduct? What did you even do?"
Felicity glanced at Starlight. "...Best not to say with children in the room, darling."
Amber burst out laughing.
"Ahem!" Felicity snapped. "I'll have you know I was enjoying a tremendously luxurious afternoon, do not mock it, please and thank you very much..."
Amber didn't stop giggling. "Oh, we were the worst, weren't we? This day was so bad..."
"Indeed. Truly a laughing matter." Felicity frowned hard, clearly making an effort not to join in. "I don't suppose anyone could be a dear and bring me a towel? I need to dry off my ego..."
With a tapping of hooves against metal, Shinespark stepped across a series of catwalks, making her way back to the pool where Meltdown was staying. The room was mostly dark save for lighting from equipment, its high ceiling combining with the poor illumination to make it feel vast, cold and empty.
The mare she was looking for was resting on the edge of her pool, forelegs folded on the rim and head resting atop them with the rest of her floating in the water, fitfully asleep.
"...That can't be comfortable," Shinespark whispered, debating whether to leave her be.
"It isn't. That's my lot in life."
Shinespark seated herself by the pool. "I can help you."
"Can you?" Meltdown mumbled, looking slightly less out of it than she had been while bedridden, but hardly good.
"Yes," Shinespark answered, trying to meet her eyes. "I'm one of the north's best experts on power armor. And I have a better idea than everyone else what you're going through."
"Then maybe you can," Meltdown replied.
Shinespark blinked. "You're not even going to contest it?"
"I can't argue right now. The temperature isn't right," Meltdown whispered. "None of you have taken advantage of me while I've been cold. I have to trust someone, and that's enough for it to be you. I have nothing to gain by stopping you from trying."
Shinespark noted the water steaming slightly around her, though it was far less than the plume that had surrounded her when she was first dumped in. "I need your help, though," she continued. "There are a few parts of the armor design I want to know how you did in the Empire. Once I have the design finished, the ponies here should be technologically advanced enough to help me fabricate it. Tell me, the atmosphere around you isn't big enough to contain the heat you let off. Ventilation and radiation alone won't be enough. How did you deal with that?"
"I don't know," Meltdown sighed. "I don't even understand what you're asking. I'm sorry."
"...You were the ruler of an entire empire," Shinespark whispered, glancing away. "And you didn't understand how your own armor worked?"
Meltdown frowned and lifted her head an inch. "Didn't Amber tell you how my brand works?"
"Physical strength increases with heat output?" Shinespark frowned. "And that without it, you can barely move?"
Meltdown sighed again.
Shinespark glanced away. "I don't mean to impose."
"It's also my mind, if she didn't tell you," Meltdown murmured, calm and quiet but underneath, upset. "I can walk without my brand, if I don't mind stumbling. But I can't talk without stuttering. Basic subtraction is hard for me. I can't put names to my emotions, remember ponies by faces instead of names and can't follow their interactions with each other or judge their intentions toward me. And I can't defend or even speak up for myself if they do try something."
The water continued gently steaming around her. "When I'm smarter, I've measured and tested heat levels extensively. This much is comparable to an average eight-year-old. I can talk properly. Remember who I was and what I did, but not why. I can't help you with my suit. I don't know what's outside this room."
"...You must be terrified," Shinespark softly said.
"Yes," Meltdown replied. "I am." And then her expression made perfect sense: it was one of a foal trying desperately to be more grown-up than they really were.
Shinespark stepped closer, as close to Meltdown as she dared. "Well... saving ponies is what I used to do. And I'm already working on helping you, too. Do you trust me?"
"I don't remember you a lot from the Empire," Meltdown answered. "I don't remember a lot of anything from after that. But you were nearby while I was cold, weren't you?"
"On the ship?" Shinespark shook her head. "I was present. I didn't do a lot."
"Then you're as trustworthy as I can ask for," Meltdown whispered, her voice strained. "Please, if there's anything you can do..."
Shinespark immediately nodded, eyeing the steaming water warily but reaching out a cautious hoof to touch Meltdown. It was uncomfortably hot, but she found she could do it.
"What are you doing...?" Meltdown winced and recoiled.
"Getting you out of here," Shinespark easily replied. "This room is dismal and if you're in low spirits, it's not helping. They gave us a house by the ocean. I'll tie you to the seawall to stop you from floating away and let you soak in there if I have to."
"Can you?" Meltdown sniffled. "The water here isn't flushed properly, so I've had to go colder and colder..."
Shinespark winced from the contact as she tried harder to pull Meltdown up. "What's the coldest you can be while still walking on your own? I'll guide you and keep you safe."
"Slightly more..."
Moments later, Shinespark had Meltdown out of the pool and against her shoulder, making a mental note to berate whoever thought that a need for an industrial cold bath was enough to make someone spend a night in a place like this. For her, it might actually have been cozy, reminiscent of her old home in Sosa. But that clearly didn't go for everyone.
Carefully, she guided Meltdown out of the facility and across the island, making slow progress as the evening grew later around them. It was nearly sunset by the time they reached Generosity Two, their combined demeanors enough to stop them from being accosted by eager students along the way.
"Shinespark?" Amber was the one to poke her head out the door and greet them. "Woah! Meltdown!"
"I wasn't a fan of her situation," Shinespark replied, throat parched and coat matted with sweat from the heat. "And she wasn't either. Help me get her ocean."
Amber blinked. "The ocean here is warm enough that ponies swim in it for fun, girl. And she thought a glacial river that was constantly flowing wasn't cold enough back in the foothills. Doesn't she need something like an industrial bath?"
Meltdown squeezed her eyes shut, and Shinespark shook her head. "Just tried that. It wasn't cold enough either, and the atmosphere wasn't doing her any favors. She shouldn't have to be alone."
"...Gotcha. Hey Valey!" Amber ducked back inside the house. "We need your sneaking skills!"
"Yo, what's up?" Valey appeared in the door as well, her mouth full of food. "Oh, uhh... You brought her back here?"
Shinespark nodded. "Can we get her in the ocean?"
"Dunno if that's gonna be cold enough, but we can give it a try." Valey shrugged. "In here. I'll shadow swim her through the window, or something... Actually, the sun's right on that place. Let's do it this way instead." She grabbed Meltdown and sprang for the roof, cringing all the way up. "Oww hot hot hot hot hot!"
Amber and Shinespark both waited... and then Valey poked her head back over the edge. "Do any of you have some really fireproof rope? So she doesn't float away?"
"I was going to cross that bridge when I came to it," Shinespark replied. "She wasn't happy in the space center, and no one was around to hear it. Anything is better than that."
"...Okay, you know what?" Valey carried Meltdown back down. "Cold shower. We've got a bathtub. It's not much, but it's what we can do with the stuff we have. We'll just keep it going all night long."
Amber nodded, rushing back inside. "I'll get it started!"
Between the two of them, Valey and Shinespark helped Meltdown into the house. Soon, they stood back along with Amber, cold water beating against Meltdown's fur... and the room rapidly sizzled and filled with steam, the mare rising to her hooves inside the bathtub as some of her strength returned.
"Whew!" Amber pushed a ventilation window high open. "We're going to have to get a fan in here for all this steam..."
For a moment, Meltdown stretched, basking in the ability to heat slightly again. "Thank you. This is... better."
"Better than that freezy vat thing?" Valey tilted her head.
"That worked at first," Meltdown sighed. "But without circulation, the heat builds up. It was probably made for testing extreme temperature transitions. It eventually grew hot enough to be useless."
Shinespark slowly nodded. "Is this a situation you'll be more comfortable in?"
Meltdown's eyes shifted. "I wouldn't like to be confined to a shower stall for the rest of my life. But I'll be able to sleep here and hear myself think. It's... better. Thank you."
"Well, I'm gonna stop crowding this place." Valey stepped out. "See ya, and yell if you need anything."
Amber nodded. "It's a bathroom, not a site for social gatherings. And... your room now, so I guess we'll find somewhere else to... you know. It'll be fine! Say anything if you need me."
There was a moment of silence after she left, Shinespark standing by the bathtub. "I wasn't leaving unless you wanted me to," she eventually said. "I'd still like to talk to you for a while."
"Of course." Meltdown sat back in the tub, letting the water rain on her steaming body. "I am... slightly more lucid than I was. What were you wanting to know, again?"
Shinespark hesitated. "I was going to ask about your armor and how it worked, if you're able. I'm designing you a new suit. Engineering blueprints, not artistic wishful thinking. And I need to know how you dealt with the amounts of heat you apparently can produce... but if that's not possible, there are other things I'd like to ask as well."
"I..." Meltdown furrowed her brow in intense concentration, and the room grew noticeably warmer. "I wish I could," she sighed. "But I'd make a fool of myself trying to explain it. It involves types of energy, and... I can't. Sorry."
"You're better off than you were in the pool," Shinespark noted. "Keep your spirits up. Can you tell me if it's something conventional engineering could solve, or if you used some special magic or higher power?"
Meltdown met her eyes. "Both." She nodded, certainty in her voice. "But earlier versions were less complicated. If you're really serious about this, any improvement in cooling will be an improvement in quality of life for me. As long as it's better than what I have, I'll take it gratefully."
"I am serious," Shinespark promised. "This is what I do."
Meltdown watched her for a moment longer. "You're a good pony. And you have good friends."
Shinespark shook her head. "They're just trying to survive. Helping each other and being friends instead of enemies is how that's been done."
Meltdown didn't break her stare. "I said you're a good pony. Thank you."
Shinespark shrugged. "I'm trying to make something of the life I statistically shouldn't have, but do anyway." She glanced at her cutie mark. "This is... what I do."
"...Hmm." Meltdown looked away. "Maybe saying that is more significant to me than it is to you."
Shinespark flicked her ears. "Explain?"
Meltdown sighed. "I can't understand the reasoning behind a lot of my old plans. I remember what I did. It's especially easy to remember things like the one hundred seventy seven sarosians who died that day on the Mistvale frigate, and it's especially easy to remember them when I can't understand why they had to die. But I made the decision to go there, act upon that plan and carry out my own judgement against them. Garsheeva was always fond of asking me to judge things, while refusing to do so herself. So, when I say you're a good pony, I'm not doing it with the intellect to judge everything you've done, and I'm not doing it as necessitated by a plan for the greater good, and I'm not doing it because making claims like this lets me sleep easy at night. I'm saying it because I mean it."
Shinespark stared at her for a moment. "...You've got a lot on your shoulders. But thanks."
"It's obvious that you do too," Meltdown replied. "But I don't know a lot about your history. I just know... well..." She sighed again. "Nothing. It's just a hunch that it needs to be said."
"Long story short?" Shinespark settled down on the rim of the bathtub. "I used to rule half of a city-state. Not by political power, but public respect. I was far too young for the job... Eleven, when I started. I had a suit of power armor I mostly made myself. I had several allies, and we planned in secret. We had big ambitions. And all my plans collapsed in on themselves and got many of my followers killed and my home destroyed, and I fled in secret on an airship, hoping I could continue my life. Now my horn is broken and I'm living with a body that can't do nearly what it used to." She looked up. "Sound like anyone you know?"
Meltdown slowly nodded. "I remind you of yourself?"
Shinespark exhaled. "That's not the reason I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help because you need it. But yes. The similarities are almost uncanny."
"There's a lot you don't know about me," Meltdown replied. "...Could I be alone with my thoughts for a while? I am still shaken by warming up surrounded by strangers earlier."
Shinespark nodded. "Everyone else already offered, but if you want to talk again, I'll be back. If there's anything you can figure out how to articulate about how your armor worked, please let me know. I'm already doing this for you, and won't judge based on how much you can contribute."
"Thank you," Meltdown repeated. "I was already planning on asking tomorrow."
Well after dusk, when everyone else had gone to bed, Starlight sat on the couch in the living room, the sound of the shower filling her ears. She had a book and was skimming it leisurely. While she could have joined her friends in the bedroom pile, she wasn't tired, couldn't read in the dark, and Nyala had a point that it was warm at Kinmari. So she sat and read, turning through a book about dragons she had rented from the library.
It was hard to tell whether and how much of it was fiction, when she had lived through so much stranger things herself. She read it half for entertainment, half to prepare herself in the event that she ever met a dragon, and with at least a flicker of curiosity that she might find something resembling Aegis and learn more about it... but it didn't seem likely.
A telekinetic aura reached through the door from outside, unlocked it and swung it open, letting Jamjars in. Starlight questioned the utility of that lock.
"Hi," Jamjars greeted, locking the door again behind her as if she expected no one to think of doing the same. She glanced around. "Is everyone sleeping?"
Starlight turned a page. "Yes," she said. "There are leftovers if you're hungry."
Jamjars nodded, lowering her voice. "I might be. But I had a good dinner."
"Okay." Starlight kept reading.
Jamjars watched, expecting her to say something, and eventually frowned. "You're not going to ask how my day went, are you?"
"Do you want me to?" Starlight pretended to keep concentrating, even though her train of thought was thoroughly broken.
"Oh, it's all the same to me." Jamjars straightened her mane. "It wouldn't be my loss if you miss out on anything interesting I have to say."
"You're rude." Starlight brushed her off, continuing to stare at the book.
Jamjars' jaw went slack, and she stared for a moment... and then huffed. "Fine. If you really want to know, I was making friends with the students."
"Were you?" Starlight replied, using the tone of a father reading a newspaper.
"Okay, now who's being rude?" Jamjars growled. "I'm trying to tell you that I have a plan to cheer everyone up, especially Shinespark, and you're invited to help!"
Starlight blinked, actually surprised, looking up from the book. "You do?"
"I do, and you are." Jamjars put on a self-satisfied smile. "Please ask me to tell it? I said please..."
Starlight squinted. "You make even being polite sound haughty."
Jamjars squinted more intensely back. "It's a force of habit. Comes from having siblings. Leave me alone. Please... deal with it and show some interest?"
Pondering the possibility that Jamjars actually didn't know how to be polite, Starlight shrugged. "Okay. Tell me what you're doing."
"There!" Jamjars looked pleased with herself again. "So there are a lot of students. They're pretty strong, and they live on an island, so they know a lot about boats. So I thought, why don't we ask them to fix Shinespark's ship?"
Starlight bit her lip. "You know the engine is destroyed and they probably know nothing about northern harmony, right?"
Jamjars appraised her, then nodded. "Maybe they don't. But do you think everyone would feel better about having a flying ship that's a piece of garbage and is depressing to look at, or a water ship that doesn't have holes in the deck, a missing railing, half the outer hull gone, scratches on everything and a permanently infused scent of reeking stallion?"
The filly... actually had a point. "I guess there's a lot they could do to clean it up," Starlight admitted. "So you asked them for help?"
"Of course I did." Jamjars ran a hoof through her mane. "And they thought I was cute and awkward and couldn't resist trying to make me happy. I found some friends of yours in house Laughter who even wanted to help organize things."
"Huh." Starlight blinked, setting her book completely aside. "So it's not just a dream. What do you need me for, then?"
Jamjars' face clouded, looking like she was trying too hard to pretend she hadn't just taken a massive insult. "You had better promise not to laugh, or tell anyone else."
Starlight stared at her, then lowered her gaze. "In case you didn't notice, I don't really laugh a lot."
Jamjars blinked and stared back. "That's sad. Too bad we can't trade places. It sounds like it would benefit both of us." She shrugged, and didn't start talking again, looking like something was caught on her tongue. "They..."
Starlight waited patiently.
"They think I'm all cute," Jamjars blurted, ears pressing back. "Oh, look, the filly's blushing and embarrassed, she must not know how to handle the attention, that's so precious, let's go along with her, she's cute and I want to make her happy! That's what most of them were like." Her shoulders stiffened. "Now, I have no problem leading from the bottom. It's a very effective tactic. But the problem is that I wasn't putting on an act and I'm not some clueless foal who's never been the center of attention before. I was embarrassed because... because there were so many... you know..." She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, forced a smile, and bowed very politely before Starlight. "Please teach me how to be a stick in the mud about romance like you so I'm not constantly distracted by daydreaming and pretty manes while I'm trying to get ponies to do what I want."
Starlight blinked hard.
"There! I said it." Jamjars' voice was strained and whimsical. "Look at me, talking about how not in control of myself I am! I bet you've been dying to hear that, rival. Probably in your daydreams, themselves." She wore a greatly chagrinned look. "Please accept this as tribute and teach me your self-denying yet occasionally useful ways."
"...That's the strangest thing anyone's ever asked me," Starlight replied. "You want me to teach you how to... not care about romance?"
"Yes." Jamjars nodded stiffly. "I do."
Starlight had no clue how to answer that.
"I understand if this is overwhelming," Jamjars patronized. "You probably never expected me to admit defeat in-"
"Does this mean instead of wanting me to look at your posters with you, you want me to... do something opposite of that?" Starlight tilted her head. "How do I teach you not to do something?"
Jamjars shrugged hard. "I don't know. You're the one who manages to resist the appeal. If I knew how to do it, I'd do it myself." She gave Starlight an intense look. "I'm at your mercy, here. Please?"
Starlight sighed and got to her hooves. "First off, I don't care about being better than you. I don't enjoy being the best, alright?"
Jamjars shrugged. "You've never had to compete with siblings for limited resources by being more worthy of notice and able to put them in their places."
"No, I haven't," Starlight replied, "and so I have no reason to care."
Jamjars grimaced. "Well, you also apparently have no reason to care about the potential exciting love lives of everyone around you, so there. How do you not care?"
"Because I don't have a reason to?" Starlight frowned.
"Fine..." Jamjars sighed, pulling off her satchel. "I'm getting out a poster. Please tell me what's so don't-care worthy about it."
Starlight watched as the filly pulled out a large paper, neither giving permission nor refusing. Eventually, Jamjars spread out the poster she had stolen from the Spirit hideout so many months ago, Melia and Sirena singing together with their tails intertwined in a spiral.
"It's two mares singing," Starlight said, looking at it. "We met them in person. There's nothing not special about it. There's just nothing special about it either."
"Mhmm." Jamjars gave the poster a dubious look. "And you see their manes? How much work and effort went into them?"
Starlight nodded. "They probably hired a stylist."
"But how does that answer satisfy you!?" Jamjars blanched. "Here, imagine this: they're at a concert together, backstage with fifteen minutes to showtime. They've seen their stylists, they're all pretty. And then suddenly, the bow in Sirena's mane comes undone, and no one's around to fix it but Melia, who still has to finish her make-up! And Melia isn't a stylist, but she cares so much about Sirena that she tries to fix it-"
"Stop," Starlight sighed, closing Jamjars' mouth with a hoof. Eventually, she lowered it, letting the filly speak again.
"And then Sirena returns the favor by trying to finish her make-up at the same time..." Jamjars deflated. "How do you not get inspired to daydream like that?"
Starlight shrugged. "Why would I do it in the first place?"
"Because you're bored and live on your own in the same room on an enclosed boat for months and in a tiny house for years before that and have nothing better to do than figure out every way there is of using your imagination to entertain yourself?" Jamjars raised an eyebrow. "What did you even do for fun since we left Ironridge?"
Starlight winced.
Jamjars sighed. "Sorry I brought it up. You really need to enjoy yourself more."
"And you're talking about wanting to enjoy yourself less." Starlight stared at the poster. "How many normal ponies do you think look at this and start daydreaming about them doing each other's make-up? I don't think this is a problem most ponies have..."
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Well, congratulations, you're the paragon of normalcy this weird filly happens to be asking how not to be weird. Can you help me or not?"
"I'm sorry," Starlight apologized. "I don't even get why you like looking at these in the first place, let alone have a magic recipe for being less interested."
"Because it's fun to imagine?" Jamjars slumped. "Well, it was worth a shot. I guess you tried."
Starlight bit her lip. "Well, if you're trying to be less weird, you could always work on some other area you do have control over. I don't know how to change what you like, but maybe if you changed how you acted you'd feel different and that would help."
"There's that Jamjars, so weird and..." Jamjars winced. "Right. Whatever. I asked for advice first. What do you counsel I subject myself to, oh great and fearless leader?"
"For one, you could learn to have a normal conversation," Starlight suggested. "One where you're not always telling everyone what you want them to say? It's like you want to talk to a sock puppet with our faces instead of us. A conversation where you compliment yourself less and don't keep trying to make everyone sound like they're beneath you?"
Jamjars considered this with a heavy frown. "Alright. Fine. Let's try it. How was... your day?"
She almost stumbled over the small talk, but Starlight nodded, ready and waiting. "I went to the space building with Valey, Shinespark and Nyala. Cleaned up a mess they made. They talked about science and using ether as rocket fuel and other things that don't really matter. Then we saw a gravity machine that let ponies fly like Shinespark. I got to try it. It was fun."
Jamjars stared at her, looking almost tempted to play the fool and pretend not to know how to make small talk. "Rocket fuel? What's ether?"
"A thing they have here," Starlight answered. "I don't know much about it." If Jamjars wanted to use ether as rocket fuel herself, she was welcome to ask a scientist, but Starlight's charity had a limit at spending more time discussing harmony science than she already had that day.
"Hmm," Jamjars hummed. "It sounds interesting. I spent my day learning who's who around here and getting in good with the ponies it's good to get in good with."
"And?" Starlight didn't say of course you did, but she definitely thought it.
"Oh, there's a lot of tension between the houses. Friendly rivalries." Jamjars brushed her ears with a hoof. "Nasty enough to make them dislike each other without burning down the island. A perfect level of heat. But none of them think I'd have anything to do with things like that, so they have no problems letting me be in good with all of them. But don't worry. I want them working well together to help me for this boat project, so I won't light any fires."
Starlight repressed another snarky response. "Thanks."
Jamjars looked pleased with herself. "So I lurked around Laughter first. Because you already know them, and because they seem like the sorest out of the bunch. I smell history with them. But I heard all about Gazelle in the archives, got on good terms with a professor, met Ebb and Flow... Flow has issues. Don't tell her I said that."
"You heard about Gazelle, huh?" Starlight's ears fell. She was doing better since that night, maybe because she had been religiously avoiding her horn, but it was still deeply uncomfortable to think about the way she had treated him...
"Oh, everything." Jamjars showed off her mane. "Did you hear he came back last night?"
Starlight blinked. "He did?"
"He did." Jamjars kicked back on the sofa. "They found him in the morning sleeping on a pile of books in the archive. Carted him straight back to the hospital. No one knows how he snuck in. How quaint, right?"
"Right..." Starlight sighed, wishing there was a way Gazelle could find peace. She had done what she could, returning the moon glass containing his sister, but it clearly wasn't enough.
"Well, whatever." Jamjars shrugged. "They also offered to put me up, by the way. With my own private room and everything. I figured I wouldn't give you a headache by disappearing all night, but we should be responsible and ask permission and have a sleepover sometime, just the two of us. You busy tomorrow?"
Starlight glanced at the bedroom door, thinking of her pile of friends on the other side. "You wanted a private room so you could invite me for a sleepover?"
"It's a token of friendship. Don't sweat the details."
Starlight squinted at her. "...Why, though? If you told me this yesterday, I'd think you were trying to trap me into looking at your posters."
"No ulterior motive." Jamjars gave her a look that suggested she definitely had no motives whatsoever. "This is just what friends do."
Her suspicions only raised, Starlight slowly nodded. "Well... maybe I'll come tomorrow."
"Perfect!" Jamjars purred. "Oh, it'll be fun, trust me. We'll have nothing important to do and can spend the night in a completely unremarkable fashion and it'll be great."
"Right..." Starlight got to her hooves. "But right now, I'm getting tired. I'm going to bed." After a moment of thought, she added, "You're probably welcome to join us."
Jamjars reddened only slightly. "Now you're just trying to bait me because of what I talked about earlier, aren't you? Come on, tell me you can't crawl in there and have at least one thought about them nuzzling in their sleep?"
Starlight shrugged. "Maple doesn't want to be in a relationship, and Amber and Felicity do it so much it isn't that special."
Jamjars briefly grimaced. "I don't like Felicity."
"Less than everyone else?"
"Har har," Jamjars sighed. "Yes. She reminds me of my mother."
"...Oh." Starlight looked away. It wasn't even that bad of a comparison... "Well, I think her intentions are good."
"Oh, so were my mother's." Jamjars waved a hoof. "She just had too much neediness and not enough competence to back them up. Watch out for that one, Starlight. She'll act all nice and friendly, be polite and helpful when she can, and the moment you need her she'll fail to come through."
"Thanks for the warning," Starlight sighed, wondering if she was really less likely to be able to count on Felicity than any of her other friends. Just because Kinmari was safer didn't mean she wasn't still the strongest of the group... "I'm going to bed."
Valey serenaded the bedroom with a cheerful stomp, rousing everyone who hadn't yet risen. "Honestly, darling," Felicity complained, "have you ever heard of sleeping in?"
"Yeah, sort of." Valey shrugged. "But this island doesn't have much of a night life. I know because if it did, I'd be invited. You're welcome to do whatever, but it's morning and I'm gonna go let this island know who's boss."
A good breakfast later, and Starlight was sitting on the roof with Valey, watching ponies trickle past on the road.
"So," Valey invited, sounding slightly reserved. "I know it's never really a good day to face your fears, and all, but... you ever wanted to talk to that Caballeron dude about that meteor he found? Stuff has been quiet for a day or two, and this isn't a worse time than you're gonna get. If you want to, of course."
"What do I even ask him?" Starlight shrugged. "What do I want to know?"
"If he has any idea what that writing on it means? Elymahoozit?" Valey shrugged back.
"Eylista." Starlight glanced away.
Valey belched. "Excuse you. Well, it's your call. Just thought I'd ask if you want me to come with before I roll away and play with students' hopes and dreams some more. No hurry, though."
Starlight frowned, considering. She wasn't panicked. That was when she usually made hasty decisions about sticking her nose where it didn't belong... like the time she had gone ahead and tried to use her sword to cast Nightmare Modules. She felt a lot better than she had been while using her magic. She could make a rational decision about this... but she didn't really want to.
"If I say yes, he'll tell me something I might not want to know," she mumbled. "But if I say no, I might be hurting myself by ignoring something when I don't know how useful it is. Why can't I just not have a choice in the first place?"
Valey stuck out a lip. "Yeah, you know what that logic leads to?" She pointed a hoof down at the road. "There's, like, some garbage tossed against that wall. Looks like someone's lunch bag. Must be at least a day old, since it's nowhere near lunchtime yet. You wanna go see what's inside?"
Starlight blinked in confusion. "What? No."
"You sure?" Valey warned. "You don't know how useful it is. You could be sacrificing some sort of edge that would help you keep your friends safe by not jumping down there and opening that bag."
Starlight frowned heavily. "No I'm not! It's just garbage!"
Valey gave her a daring look. "You gonna prove it? It's probably garbage, but what if it isn't?"
"That's not the same," Starlight huffed, shoulders slumping. "And you know it."
"Nah, you're right. It isn't." Valey leaned back. "But it is taking that logic to its logical extreme. You don't know the bag has nothing good, you believe the odds of the bag having anything good are low enough that checking isn't worth the time and unpleasantness it would take. Because the fact is time is finite and you can only do so much in your life, and who would want to waste it digging through garbage? The point is, if you try lean too hard towards doing every last thing you can and spending too much time trying to get an edge... no matter what that edge is against, all the missed opportunities are gonna drive you insane. You gotta just let go and not care."
Starlight wasn't sure whether she was more reminded of Glimmer's advice to her or her own advice last night to Jamjars. Either way, she wasn't thrilled, but sighed, admitting Valey was right. "So we shouldn't go, then," she said. "Because I don't really want to know even though I also do, but the odds of it being helpful aren't very good."
"...Alright. You know what?" Valey stood up and stretched. "You said you didn't wanna make this decision. Wished it wasn't yours to make. And you're not happy talking about it, so here's one answer coming right up: I'm gonna go talk to him about that meteorite. Coming?"
Starlight blinked, scrambling to her hooves. "What? Why!?"
Valey shrugged, testing her wings. "Several reasons. For one, I'm legit curious. I'm not sold anymore on the certainty that this comet was a bad thing, and I know for a fact where I came from so it actually concerns me even more than you. And for two, I know you might not like the idea of being from up there... but I think me not being the only one would be legit cool. So, coming?"
Starlight worked her jaw. This was what she had asked for... "Alright." She climbed onto Valey's back. "Let's go find him. You do most of the talking."
"Works for me." Valey flicked a wing, popping Starlight the rest of the way on, and jumped off the roof, wheeling and gaining altitude as she glided toward the school.
"Yo?" Valey knocked on a door. "I've literally spent nearly an hour asking for directions, if you're the wrong dude again I really apologize..."
"The office has his name written on it," Starlight pointed out. "I hope it's not anyone else's."
"Are you looking for Doctor Caballeron?" a student said behind them, stepping out of a bathroom and wearing a bow in her mane.
Valey blinked and turned around. "Uh, yeah, you know him?"
The mare nodded and pointed a hoof down the hallway. "He's teaching, but class gets out in five minutes. Turn right, then third door on the left, if you want to catch him during transition."
"Hey, thanks!" Valey threw her a wave and a wink, then trotted off down the hallway.
Caballeron's classroom was easy to find. The stallion was lecturing near the door, and the door was open, his voice drifting out into the hallway. "Homework can be done with however much collaboration you please, but everyone will need their own essay," he announced. "You will need to cite at least five children's stories, with at least three main points on the similarities between them that could point to a truth below. Make sure to choose your stories on the same subject! I recommend Hearth's Warming or the Elements of Harmony, but any tale of the southern jungles is a personal favorite of mine if you can find them. Anyone who has friends or family with youngsters in the town, you will be primary resources for your peers. Dismissed!"
A stream of students poured from his room, most either groaning or chatting excitedly. Valey picked up snippets of talk about ball games, and still got more than a few winks... The students had cooled their heels now that she had been around for a few days and her reputation as a hard-to-get heartbreaker had spread, but that was merely weeding out the less-zealous.
Doctor Caballeron himself exited last, delayed several minutes by a few straggling students who had similar ideas about staying to chat. When he did see Valey and Starlight, he stopped and blinked. "Oh. It's you!"
"Hey, doctor dude," Valey greeted with a grin. "Any chance you have time to chat? I'm real curious and heard your brain was the one to pick about magical artifacts."
Caballeron seemed momentarily distracted by Starlight, but then he cleared his throat. "Well, a question from you is prestigious, quite, very! Tragically, I have a staff meeting in several minutes a building over..."
"Ah, bananas." Valey made a show of slumping. "Well, any chance you'd be available later in the day? My schedule's got nothing but loitering and nap time."
Caballeron chuckled. "No, I meant tragic for my meeting that they must make do without me. Would you join me for coffee in my office? Magical artifacts are indeed my area of expertise."
"Coffee? Hmmm..." Valey rubbed her chin. "You know, I've never met someone who liked the effect that stuff has on me, so I'll pass and you can thank me later. But yeah, fill my ears instead?"
The stallion unlocked the door they had been waiting at earlier, bowing and leading the way inside. The office was large enough to hold a couch, and he pointed them both to it, Starlight slipping past Valey and taking it first.
"So," Caballeron said once they were seated, taking an amiable position in his office chair. "What is it you ponies would like to know?"
Valey bobbed her head. "Any chance you could tell us about that meteor chunk you donated to the history professor's archives?"
Caballeron's brow instantly shadowed, but a tiny spark of satisfaction flickered in his eyes as he got up to close the door. "I have a feeling," he sighed, "it is not entirely for your own sake that you wish to know."
"Why do you think that?" Starlight whispered.
Caballeron met her eyes, then sighed, sitting back down. "I knew you looked familiar when I ran into you here." He took a deep drink from a thermos. "I would imagine you had quite the surprise, seeing the name Sires Hollow. Is that the only thing you recognized, Starlight Glimmer? Or did they break their promise not to tell?"
Starlight felt physically forced back by his words, as if she had just been hit by a boulder. Anything else he had said faded behind one thing: he knew her full name, and he had just told Valey.
"Starlight Glimmer?" Valey blinked. "Wait, you have a..." She took in the expression on Starlight's face and stopped. "Woah. Are you alright?"
Starlight was alright. Of course she was alright. Glimmer had even told her in person that Valey knowing or not knowing her name wouldn't do a thing to affect the future, hadn't she? This was completely fine.
...She knew she was fine because she still had her saddlebags, and the sword inside them, and a Nightmare Module it could activate that could undo any mistaken words, erasing everyone's memories of them. A Nightmare Module she had sworn never to use. If she was compromised by panic, if she wasn't fine, that would be a lot more than an idle thought crossing her mind.
Of course, Caballeron completely misunderstood the look, but she barely heard whatever he said next. It still felt like someone had shattered a vase over her head.
"Hey." Valey grabbed her shoulders. "What's up? You need a quick out? Give me one sign and I'll have you in the air and far away from here faster than you can blink. Are you still with me?"
"Yes," Starlight breathed, already feeling like she was floating. "I'm okay..."
Caballeron glanced at Valey. "I see this is hard for her. You and I could continue?"
"Not my place to ask, dude." Valey shook her head. "Come on, Starlight. You can do this. Tell me what's wrong."
"It's nothing..." Starlight panted, feeling like she could easily hyperventilate if she wasn't careful... but she was stronger than this. She hadn't used her magic in more than two days. That was nothing next to how long it took her old headaches to rest away, but Valey was right. She had a friend here. She could do this. She could pull herself together...
Through a monumental force of will, Starlight tensed every muscle in her body and took a deep breath, holding it in for as long as she could. Don't panic. Don't panic... She wasn't going to panic. The shock broke all at once over her like a cold wave, leaving her feeling clammy and bad all over yet fully in control of her body. She was okay.
Starlight slumped against Valey. "I'm fine," she reassured, needing something to cling to. "I just got scared..."
Caballeron was watching her in concern.
"Alright, you know what?" Valey put a wing around Starlight, shielding her. "Spill the beans, dude. You know something about her in particular?"
"I was afraid I did," Caballeron sighed. "It is a bit of a story, but what does she already know?"
"More than I do." Valey shrugged.
"Nothing," Starlight mumbled. "I just recognized the name of the place I grew up, and you looked like you remembered me last time..."
"Oh." Caballeron watched her. "And you reacted this poorly already? I am... not so sure you would like to hear about that meteor."
Starlight was through the panic and shock. No matter what he said, it wouldn't start that again. Make her upset, maybe, but you couldn't knock down someone who was already on the ground. It was like ripping off a bandage fast instead of slow. "Tell me about it," she insisted. "It has something to do with me, doesn't it?"
"Well..." Caballeron rubbed the back of his neck, looking deeply uncomfortable. "The truth is, I found a filly who was probably you in the mountains on the day after it fell."
Starlight didn't even suck in a breath. She was right about how it would feel. But she was still-
"Along with a mare and a stallion who were both dead," Caballeron finished. "It looked like a climbing accident. They were so close to their goal, they must have been distracted by the sight of it. Don't ask me what two parents were doing, bringing their little filly into a place as dangerous as that, but, they did. So I took you and the meteorite chunks and carried you back to town, and asked them to tell you that you were adopted and never mention your parents."
No. Starlight was wrong. That hurt a lot more than she was ready for.
"Bananas," Valey whispered, Starlight starting to cry into her side. "Well, that's... not very cool. Her parents literally died in a climbing accident trying to get at this moon glass?"
"Sometimes we have bad luck in life." Caballeron shrugged. "And other times it is truly terrible. She may have gotten off to a bad start, but, look on the bright side. At least she has you now, right?"
"Yeah..." Valey got up, holding Starlight against her. "Hey, I... think I should get her home. Might come back to ask a few questions of my own."
Caballeron nodded. "Of course. Celestia's speed to you, Valey."
"Oh, and, uh." Valey looked over her shoulder, about to open the door. "Any chance you know what the stuff written on it means? Eylista?"
Caballeron frowned and tilted his head. "The diagram, I have come across a time or two in my studies. The phrase, I have never heard of before or since. Though I have always been curious about that myself."
"Huh. Oh well." Valey shifted Starlight atop her back. "Thanks for the talk. See ya around."
Valey landed in front of Generosity Two, knocking sharply and letting herself in without waiting for a response. "Ironflanks?" she called, stepping inside. "Your kiddo needs you."
Maple looked up from the sofa, quickly realizing Starlight was in a state of distress. "Starlight? What happened?" She got up and quickly trotted over.
Slowly, Starlight climbed down from Valey's back, standing and glancing around the house. Everyone else seemed to be gone... save for Meltdown, but the sound of the shower would give them their privacy. It didn't really matter, though. She needed to talk, and she was going to do it no matter what.
"I found out how my real parents died," Starlight said, standing on her own. "My birth parents. They died in a climbing accident trying to find some moon glass after it fell."
Maple's ears instantly went back, and she stepped closer, holding Starlight against her good shoulder. "Oh."
Valey shuffled in place. "You want me to stay or bail? I don't wanna do the talking for you if it's something you need to say."
"Stay," Starlight commanded, exhausted from her near-panic attack. "...Valey also knows my real name."
"Bwuh?" Valey blinked. "Wait, is that why you were all... What?"
Maple blinked too. "Your real name?"
"Maybe you forgot." Starlight pulled out of the embrace and stepped over to the couch, where she sprawled out, beckoning with her tail for the other two to join her. "It's Starlight Glimmer. I told you when we first met and you thought it meant I was a Sosan because it sounded like it was from faraway. I never use it and didn't want anyone else to know... especially Valey."
Valey blinked harder as Maple went to join her on the couch. "Wait, what? Why me?"
"Because in those visions I told you about," Starlight mumbled into Maple's shoulder, "you knew my full name. So I thought if I never told you..."
Valey was all out of blinks, and just stared. "Oh." A silence passed. "Would it help if I said I forgot? I mean, with all the other stuff that happened..."
"I just said it again," Starlight sighed. "And you'll remember someday anyway. But it's not like it even matters."
"Starlight... Visions?" Maple gently interrupted.
"I think I told you about them, a long time ago," Starlight mumbled. "They happen whenever I'm at a Tree of Harmony and touch the flame for the first time. I've had two so far, and everything is dark and gray and full of the ash batponies turn into when they die with my sword. They feel like the end of the world. And in one of them, an older Valey was there, and she knew my full name."
Valey gave her a look, then sat down and sighed. "Pretty sure you never mentioned that when you were telling me about these visions at the hospital. So, like... you think me knowing that is another step along the way for them to become true."
Starlight nodded.
"So they're visions of the future?" Maple whispered. "And it's a bad one? Doesn't that mean we have to do something to change it?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You're just gonna sit there and not even question that your kid has visions of the future?"
Starlight sighed. "With everything else I can do, how much of a surprise even is it?"
Maple bit her lip and nodded.
"Either way." Starlight slumped. "I'm not going to do anything because the other me... who I called Glimmer, now that it doesn't need to be secret anymore... is probably from that future and she says it's my fault. My fault that the world gets so messed up. Because I wasn't happy with the way the world was, and kept trying so hard to fix it that I gave up and stopped caring or... I don't know! She was never specific! All I know is she kept saying the only way to stop it was to stop caring and let go of everything I'm trying to protect."
Maple's face suddenly shadowed, and she glanced back at her cutie mark. "That doesn't sound good..."
"And she never told anyone else any of this?" Valey frowned. "Hey, Ironflanks... are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"That it sounds like she's been causing a lot of emotional distress to Starlight and I'm wondering why I'm acting as her life support anymore?" Maple's ears were down. "I don't know what that logic is, but laying down and doing nothing because you could mess something up if you didn't is a horrible state of mind and you should never encourage it in anyone, no matter the consequences."
Starlight slumped. "But she's right, though. Have you seen how strong I am?"
"Have you seen how strong I am?" Maple countered. "I could end someone's life in an instant by deciding I don't want to keep them alive anymore." She glanced again at her cutie mark. "I could take advantage of the trust any of you put in me as a friend and say mean things and hurt you badly. I make food for everyone, and if I really wanted to, I could poison it. But I don't and I never will, because that's abhorrent! Anyone can break things and be hurtful if they set their minds to it, Starlight. And the worst I've ever been hurt is by a stallion who just didn't care either way! So as long as you have a shred of care in your heart, you would never try to end the world or anything that you're talking about. And you're so strong that if it was an accident and you still did care, you could do something to fix it again. So never say that it's best to just not care about something and that's the best way to keep it safe, okay!?"
Starlight winced.
"What I was going to say..." Valey gently poked Maple. "Is that this Glimmer sounds like a fraud and a nutjob, and I kind of want to interrogate her and get some real answers. If this is actually a future that Starlight causes and she's seen it and been there, there's gotta be a more specific reason than just 'you cared'."
"And how do we do that?" Maple asked, looking worriedly at Starlight. "I'd like to too, but we don't have a harmonic flame to bring her back like we did in Ironridge."
"Actually, about that..." Valey grinned darkly. "We kind of do. Or, at least, we have some scientist friends with a submarine who found a crystal palace at the bottom of the sea a ways away from here, and would probably do anything to get inside."
Maple blinked.
"Is that a good idea?" Starlight sat up. "I'd like to know a better way to keep the visions from coming true too, but if there was one, why wouldn't she have told me? It seems like stopping them is her biggest goal." She frowned. "Certainly bigger than making me happy. I trust her, but I don't like her!"
"Well, you shouldn't like her," Maple insisted, "because it doesn't matter what someone's reasons are, apathy doesn't protect things. You remember Wallace Whitewing? You think he ever thought the best way to protect the Griffon Empire was to care less about it?"
Valey made a face. "That dude literally got stronger by caring more. It was how his Night Mother wish worked. But hey, maybe we're jumping to conclusions. Starlight, you knew this Glimmer better than any of us. What do you think?"
"About what?" Starlight's ears fell. "I don't care about Glimmer. She's gone. I care about the fact that my parents were killed by moon glass. And I don't think going to a crystal palace and bringing Glimmer back will fix that."
"Right." Valey sagged. "You've got bigger things on your mind..."
"Sorry," Maple whispered. "Starlight, I'm... I'm just worried about you. It seems like you have so many things hurting you from so many directions, and I don't even know where to help first. But if you'd like to talk about your parents..."
Starlight looked down. "That's what Glimmer said, too. She didn't say I'll destroy the world by caring about it. She said I'll care too hard and keep getting hurt and break and stop caring, and that's when I'll do whatever it is. She probably thinks if she told me whatever it was I actually did, that would just make it easier for me if it happens again. I don't want to ever hurt the world or any of you."
"Yeah, because making you afraid of yourself is the best way to reduce pressure and keep you from snapping," Valey agreed. "Totally. Absolute best case, you'll become like me and outwardly embrace being a villain, but make sure to keep yourself small-time so you never do anything really, truly bad. And I can speak to that being a lousy scenario."
"Well, I am afraid of myself," Starlight admitted with a huff of finality. "...I'm scared."
Valey shrugged. "I really think we should try to get this Glimmer punk back and see if she can't make herself helpful for a change. But whatever." She glanced away. "...By the way, I'm real sorry you can't, like... try to learn more about yourself or your past without something horrible happening. I really feel for that. Reminds me of when I was learning about Nightmare Modules in the Empire and all about how bad of news I was. But even if there's not a lot of good news in your past, kiddo, the real good news is that's all behind you. And that means there's a chance for stuff to go better."
"But what I'm worried about is the future..."
"Maybe it would be a good idea to try to bring Glimmer back," Maple murmured. "She's the only one who really knows about the future, and even if she thinks it wouldn't help Starlight to know what actually happens, it sure would help me help her."
Valey nodded. "Yeah... I know you kinda just need to lay here, kiddo, but you were the one who knew her best. We're trying to do the best we can to help you, but I think you'd have the best opinion at the end of the day on whether she's worth interrogating or not. Purely wondering about whether we'd get anything out of her."
Starlight sighed, and didn't answer.
She was too fixated on something Valey had said earlier. Every time she learned something, especially recently, it did nothing but hurt. Maybe that was a coincidence. Maybe it was a problem she could solve. "Why do I keep not liking what I learn when I learn something about me?" she asked, not really expecting either of her friends to know.
"Bad luck." Valey shrugged. "Or maybe we're asking the wrong ponies. Chauncey and Dorable might not have been the best dudes for me to go to about eldritch moon lore, in hindsight."
Starlight thought on that. If Glimmer and Caballeron were wrong... what was the difference? Was it that they didn't care? Glimmer cared more about the world than her, and Caballeron about... something else? But then again, there weren't really ways to spin 'your parents died because they were chasing moon glass' that were pleasant to hear...
In fact, the only things she had ever talked to that both knew a lot about her and undeniably cared were the Trees of Harmony. And Valey and Maple were trying to go there.
"Maybe we should go to the crystal palace," Starlight murmured.
Maple's ears perked. "What changed your mind?"
"I don't know," Starlight sighed. She did know why, she just didn't know how to articulate it. Eylista was far from her mind, and her ability to care even about the bad future was being stretched thinner and thinner. Her friends were making such a fuss about Glimmer's logic, but maybe not caring about it really was the best way to protect her sanity. It almost sounded appealing next to what she went through every time a day like this one happened... A day like pretty much every day ever. Since they had arrived at Kinmari, first there was the archives, Gazelle, two panic attacks, her magic, the underground lab, now this...
She wanted it to be over. And yet she still had that tiny spark, and knew if she clung onto it, she could keep going forever, and maybe there would be a light on the other side.
"...I think I'm going to make soup," Maple decided, getting up. "It's not quite lunchtime, but comfort food is at least something I know I'm good at. And if I have any ideas at all on what to do, I'll let you know immediately."
"Yeah." Valey stood up as well. "I'm gonna go harass some scientists. Not commit to anything, but maybe fish around a little to see what it would be like if we tried to hitch a ride to that crystal palace of theirs. I'll be back in the evening. Good luck, girls."
"What's up?" Valey's ears perked, the batpony seated on a bench in the space department lobby and watching as Professor Sea Star appeared in response to her summons.
Sea Star fixed her with a look. "You again," She beckoned for Valey to follow. "Come."
Valey's lips twitched in a grin. "Wow, you sound almost like you wanted to see me more than I wanted to see you."
"I have a few questions you might be able to answer, yes." Sea Star nodded, leading the way deeper into the building. "For starters, what was that sword your friend brought to bear yesterday? Where did she get it, and how does it work?"
"Literally couldn't tell you." Valey shrugged. "She's had it since before I knew her. What does it do? Cuts anything that's not alive, paralyzes most ponies without leaving a wound, and does real nasty stuff to batponies. How does it do it? Not a single clue. Why?"
"All of our harmonic readings on the lifestream," Sea Star said, "registered an event exactly at the same time yesterday, despite the tumult that's been clouding them since your arrival. We think it was at the same time that crystal was shattered."
Valey blew on her bangs. "Honestly? If that crystal Starlight broke was made from ether, it's probably more because the crystal got smashed than whatever it was smashed by. You guys are the experts on this material, not us."
"But it defies all of our conventional knowledge," Sea Star replied. "And your expertise, we know very little about."
"We know about applying this stuff to smite bad guys." Valey glanced around her as they stepped into the restricted section. "Think you might be on your own for this, though. But hey, I'm actually here about something completely different that might catch your fancy..."
"And that would be?"
Valey nodded. "I wanna talk about that crystal palace you guys found."
"My ears are open," Sea Star replied, still leading her somewhere.
"You guys said you found it," Valey began, "and you weren't sure what its deal was. If we could get you inside that thing... how big of a deal would it be?"
Sea Star's ears perked. "Now that's quite the proposition. How would you go about doing that?"
"Playing it by ear and figuring it out as we go. So basically like we usually do." Valey shrugged. "I'm not saying we're going to, or that we have a way. I'm asking, hypothetically, how big of a deal would it be?"
Sea Star frowned in thought.
"I'm asking," Valey prodded, "because you got all spooky on the submarine when I let slip we knew about these places."
"You're wondering what we would do..." Sea Star lowered her voice. "Because you're considering whether or not you'd prefer to keep the likes of us out of such an important place, aren't you?"
Valey snorted. "Well, I was trying to be politer about it, but yeah."
Sea Star nodded. "Consider that I might be replying with questions of my own because I'm considering the same thing."
That shut Valey up. Moments later, they arrived at a familiar room, one where Anemone had stuffed the windigo hearts inside a machine and tried to trace their effects. Valey silently mused that they never had gotten around to studying what made her cutie mark tick, but this wasn't the time for that.
"I'm going to try to explain a bit more about how our detectors work," Sea Star began, standing and looking at the machine. "Have you ever dropped a vial of iron filings on a sheet of paper, then moved a magnet around beneath the table?"
Valey nodded. "Hasn't everyone? I mean, no, but I know what happens. It makes patterns and stuff, right?"
Sea Star nodded again. "The magnet exudes an invisible forcefield that the filings align upon. The best analogy I can give for how we measure the lifestream is to think of the lifestream as the magnet, and individual ponies as collections of iron filings. The 'direction' we observe, for lack of a more specific term, corresponds to the direction that the lifestream, far below, is flowing in. Is this easy enough to understand?"
"Loud and clear," Valey replied. "So you get a million pictures of how ponies' iron filings are oriented at any one moment, and you can put them together and sort of see what the bigger flow looks like at that time."
"Ponies don't contain literal filings, but yes. That's the idea." Sea Star pointed at the machine. "The purpose of this device, for instance, is to measure ponies walking in a circle around it, to test whether materials in the middle may be interfering with their readings."
Valey bit her lip. "That's cool. Where are you going with this?"
"There's one crucial point where this analogy breaks down," Sea Star continued. "If you look at the forcefield of a magnet, there are no singularities or points. Everything is smooth and contiguous. If you drew a picture of the forcefield with the field's direction and strength represented by lines, every line that comes out of the magnet would eventually go back in. You could also imagine water flowing in a basin that's being stirred. No matter how the water moves around, none is being added and none is being removed. There are no points where it is either appearing or disappearing."
Valey nodded along. "Speaking of points, I'm kinda looking for one, here..."
Sea Star harrumphed. "Impatient, aren't you? You wouldn't last a minute in a seminar. The lifestream does have points like these. We've only found one for certain, but it's to the south-southwest, centered inside the crystal structure protruding from the seafloor. We strongly suspect there's another somewhere to the northwest, and while we don't have the data to confirm it, you've talked of another across the Aldenfold to the northeast."
Valey kept nodding.
"Stop looking like you're going to fall asleep," Sea Star growled.
"Then tell me what instead of why!" Valey insisted. "I'm never gonna remember the logic and mumbo jumbo, and I don't need it to believe the overall point is true! I've been in these places a million times before, have seen ridiculously crazy stuff and am not some skeptic clown who needs a flawless logical proof to believe something that's a little out there!"
The professor sighed bitterly. "Fine. The overall point is that we don't understand how these points work, but we do understand that they seem to form the backbone of the lifestream and that if anything were to happen to them, it could damage the world as a whole, up to and including making it impossible for new creatures to be born."
Valey blinked. "...Didn't you already tell me this?"
A vein in Sea Star's brow twitched.
"Look, never mind!" Valey sighed heavily. "The point is, we know stuff about these places. We've seen them messed with, and even with pretty heavy levels of messing, they've actually kind of been fine in the end. It's like the world is made out of sturdy stuff. But even if it couldn't take some loons messing around at its roots, we have no intention of screwing with it."
"You're confident enough that you can get inside that you think it's worth having on the table," Sea Star replied. "What do you want to go down there for? I imagine you brought it up for a reason..." She looked away. "Especially since you're wary enough to wonder whether we should be there too."
"You really wanna know? Because it's going to sound crazy." Valey stared at the machine. "There's someone who's been harassing my friend's kid. And they're kind of dead right now, but this someone in particular we happen to know can be brought back by going down there. And we've got some big questions for them."
Sea Star stared as well. "You're right. That does sound crazy. But doesn't all of this?" She turned to look at Valey. "Using the magnet analogy, all of our directions have been moving chaotically since you got here. As if there's too much influence for them to track. For a split second, when that crystal shattered, every one of them pointed the same direction."
"Toward it?" Valey asked.
"No, the same direction. Not towards the same target." Sea Star went back to watching the machine. "Southwest, or northeast. We can't tell which direction the flow moves, only which angle. We believe we sit far from any nexuses normally, so the prevailing currents on this island are not particularly strong and are prone to influence. But the directions we observed during that flash were perfect, down to the micro-degree. So perfect, we could triangulate a source, if it was anywhere within a thousand miles of here. But if there was one, it was further away than that."
She looked up. "My point is, I don't know anything about what magical artifacts you've brought with you from the north. But purely from a standpoint of risk, I think we have more than a right to be cautious."
"...You know what? That's actually pretty fair." Valey shrugged. "I still think it's got at least something to do with the fact that those crystals were... you know... made out of the lifestream. And it was you guys who thought touching it to a windigo heart would be a good idea in the first place."
Sea Star frowned.
"So that brings me back to my question." Valey flicked her tail. "What would you guys do if we went down there and took you along? Because no matter how we do it, I'm pretty sure it's gonna involve us borrowing your ship, and you'd never let us do that without coming along too."
"Observe," Sea Star replied quietly. "We would merely observe."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't build anything? Wouldn't try to extract ether to use as rocket fuel?"
Professor Sea Star sighed. "Princess Celestia bid us work on our space endeavors for the good of the world. If she thought the harm that could potentially befall the world by losing a small amount of ether to the experiments we need to do it outweighed what could happen if we lacked the ability to fly to the moon, then it's our duty to follow through on that desire, not question it. She has a foresight and knowledge of the world granted by her thousands of years of existence that no mortal can hope to match. It would not be in the world's interests to second-guess our princess."
"That doesn't answer my question," Valey replied.
"No," Sea Star answered more firmly. "We have no intentions to set up experiments within this crystal palace."
Valey pursed her lips. "Even though you don't know what's in there? There's nothing you could potentially find that might change your mind?"
"That depends." Sea Star shrugged. "We'd first need to find something that would make us want to badly enough to overcome our present reservations and break our word to you, and then find some way to get back inside without your assistance, or whatever plan you have for entering. And I think the odds of that are very low indeed."
Valey frowned. "Sounds like both of us are spooked enough by the possibility of the other doing something to this place that we really ought to take a hint."
"What have you seen?" Sea Star asked. "Something has the idea of exploiting these palaces strongly in your head."
"Aside from your lab?" Valey tapped the floor. "Both of the ones I've been in have had someone screwing with them before. In one, some yaks were trying a sketchy experiment that nearly got the whole city up above frozen over. And someone else had turned another into a mana power generator for an entire continent."
"This one is likely pristine," Sea Star replied.
"Yeah. And I'd sorta like to keep it that way."
Sea Star sighed and got to her hooves. "Well, I doubt this conversation is going anywhere further. If you want to borrow the Arc Manta to visit this palace, it will be a weeklong trip one way. I will endorse the mission and personally accompany you to operate the ship. You'll need to choose at minimum one other pony from my department you trust who can operate the vessel while I sleep, and I'll ask that you work with Anemone to identify as many possible sources of harmonic confusion your friends are carrying as you can before we set out. It isn't critical that the ship's instruments be working, but it would greatly help in navigation."
Valey blinked. "Wait, so that's a yes, just like that?"
"With a lot of warnings attached." Sea Star looked away. "I shouldn't need to tell you to prepare for a two-week sojourn in the Arc Manta. You know how cramped it will be. If you have any unfinished business that shouldn't wait for that long while we're gone, see to it now. We'll need at least a day to prepare the ship, so come see me when you're almost ready. I'll see you around."
Valey watched as she left. "Huh..." She shrugged. That was a hurdle she hadn't expected to clear quite as quickly as she did... Of course, whether or not she fully trusted the Kinmari scientists was another matter, but at least Sea Star seemed to care. And worst case, she could beat them up in the palace if they tried anything.
Getting up as well, she trotted off, looking for Maple and Starlight to tell them the news. And if investigating harmonic disturbances so that the ship's navigation worked correctly was a priority, maybe she would find some other ponies, too...
"I've been working on designs for your armor," Shinespark said, sitting on the edge of the bathtub where Meltdown lay, being pelted with cold water and turning it to steam. "It's scientifically impossible for the atmosphere around you to hold the amount of heat you'll be generating with as little disruption as we saw around you in your previous suits. There has to be some way you were capturing and storing the heat transfer as energy."
She held out a pad of notes. "These are heat pipes between the inner shell that contacts your body and the radiators. All the heat will be funneled along them. I've been trying to reverse-engineer your broken suit we have on the ship, and does this device I could attach to them look at all familiar?"
Meltdown looked up and scrutinized the page. "Is that a thermocouple? I may be misremembering the name..."
"Familiar. Good." Shinespark sat back. "So that much still follows basic logic. What I can't figure out is where you expend or store all the energy you'd have to be saving this way. I've already added the rocket boosters from my old armor to this design, but even if you used them to fly nonstop, it wouldn't be nearly enough."
Meltdown shook her head. "It was converted into mana and discharged into the ground. Look at the hoof assemblies."
Shinespark blinked. "...Really? I'll look into that." She closed her note pad. "Thanks. That's what I needed."
As she got up to leave, Meltdown raised a hoof. "Stay?"
"You want me to?" Shinespark turned back to her. "Well... alright. What is it?"
Meltdown's ears fell. "Mere curiosity," she said. "I have been thinking a lot on this, and your own armor interests me as well. How was it you were able to power yours?"
"Braen?" Shinespark blinked. "My... brand. We used it to convert heat into mana, which was slowly used to recharge Braen's mana core."
Meltdown looked skeptical. "You had a brand that specifically allows for this? That is not an efficient process."
Shinespark was equally surprised. "You know how our process worked in the first place?"
Meltdown nodded. "I am aware it was possible. I didn't know you were doing it. Recall the purpose of Garsheeva's entire temple core."
"Right..." Shinespark's gaze drifted. "But you know we had difficulties with efficiency."
"The generators were not only located in the tree room," Meltdown replied. "The entire temple had technology left over from its construction, including parts left for repairs. We had more than one of those generators remaining as a standalone unit. So yes, we tested them to see what they did."
Shinespark stared for a moment. "That makes me feel a lot better about our harmony extractors if the ancient ones used for your generator still had the same bottleneck."
"And it makes me wonder how you overcame such a limitation," Meltdown repeated, watching her with interest.
"It's not a limitation of the machines." Shinespark shook her head. "It's of our brands themselves. Braen was far too small to contain a full harmony extractor that could use the energy of our brands for greater purposes, like the Immortal Dream uses to fly. She had a smaller version we called the Sosan Black Box, which can only use harmony to convert heat to mana. It's the first thing I thought of for your armor, and it doesn't require a difference in temperature across two regions to work, like conventional methods. But the raw energy outputs between it and a full harmony extractor used to generate mana, like the ones in your generator, are the same for any given power source."
Meltdown watched her with interest.
"If you need to know," Shinespark said, "my brand is... unusually harmonic compared to most others. The normal black boxes, when attached to a small mana core they can recharge, are suitable for single-shot flashlights like Valey's, or activating one of the sound stones. Braen had to sleep at night to recharge, and was limited in what she could do. Walking around and appearing to fight was a technological accomplishment years in the making."
"When you say unusually harmonic," Meltdown cut in. "You mean the maximum power generation potential when attached to a device like the generators in the temple."
Shinespark paused. "That's... one measure of quantifying it."
"By how much of a margin?"
"Two orders of magnitude. Fifty to a hundred times over most ponies we tested." Shinespark glanced at the bathroom mirror. "Not within the range that should be theoretically impossible, but one in a million at best." She looked back, meeting Meltdown's eyes. "But you know how it is. It's one in a million to lead our homelands, as well. And for me, the brand and the position were one and the same."
Water fell, and steam hissed. "You manifested yours normally, though?"
"I did." Shinespark looked up. "When I made the decision on what I was doing with my life. Helping Sosa to fly."
"I was given mine alongside my position by a goddess," Meltdown answered. "Interesting that they're comparable."
"Was yours...?"
"Significantly more harmonic than that of an average pony?" Meltdown met her eyes. "Yes. By a similar margin to yours. That's a fascinating coincidence. I couldn't tell you anything about what it means."
Shinespark stared off into space. "Yours was created by Garsheeva, though. Mine appeared naturally, from... wherever these marks come from."
"That's why I say it must be a coincidence." Meltdown went quiet.
Outside the bathroom, the front door banged open. "Yo, guess what!? I'm home!"
"I should see if anything has happened." Shinespark rose to her hooves. "Hopefully something comes of studying your old armor's hooves."
Meltdown nodded, looking away with a sigh. "I hope so as well."
In the living room, Valey was basking in attention. "So I'm still not honestly one hundred percent sure I trust them," she was in the middle of saying, "but they aren't sure how much they trust us, and we sort of decided that means we both care pretty hard about keeping this place safe. And so if we want to, we've got a ride down to the seafloor where this crystal palace they found is located."
Maple and Starlight exchanged a look.
"So we really can bring her back, then?" Maple glanced back at her cutie mark. "I know we were saying we wanted to, and I don't want to keep her in here forever, and it's not like I'd ever drop her and kill her..."
"Depends." Valey shrugged, glancing at Starlight. "Those places usually react to you, right? You're always the one who's most interested in the flames, and you can do strange stuff with your magic there and stuff? Because they've seen the outside, but don't have a way in."
Starlight hesitated, remembering the dark magic Gwendolyn had used to open the path into Garsheeva's crystal palace. She definitely didn't have that... she hoped. But then again, the flames had previously wanted to see her. And they were in complete control of their palaces. Maybe if they detected her nearby, they would let her in.
"Maybe?" She shrugged, not sure whether seeing Glimmer again was really that big of a priority for her. "What would we lose if we went and I couldn't?"
Valey shrugged back. "Two weeks of travel time. A week there and a week back."
Maple winced heavily. "On a ship that crowded, that's going to feel like forever..."
"Yeah, it probably is," Valey agreed, waving to Shinespark in the bathroom doorway. "Which is why it would just be you, me, and Starlight, unless anyone else is feeling like a dash of boredom."
Maple glanced between them. "I do suppose all three of us need to come... You have just as many questions for her as I do, and if anyone knows how to work that place, it's Starlight."
Starlight swallowed. "You might also need me to bring her back. I don't know if I remember, but she might have said something about helping somehow when it was the other way around..."
"What are you planning?" Shinespark frowned.
"Crystal palace raid," Valey answered with a semi-serious look. "For the purpose of owning a certain filly who's apparently been giving Starlight bad advice."
"Her advice isn't terrible," Starlight mumbled. "I think she's right about what I need to do. I just don't like it."
Valey flexed. "Well, either way, we want answers."
"At the cost of two weeks in that submarine," Maple added.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say that hurdle's gone if we want this on the table." Valey crawled to the couch, slithered onto it and sprawled out, kicking lazily. "They didn't give us any important time stuff other than that they need a day of heads-up to prepare the boat."
Maple frowned. "You know who you're talking to, right? With our track record, that means we're probably going to be out the door by tomorrow..."
"Easy there, girl." Valey waved a wing. "Even if you're that gung-ho, I'm not. Absolute minimum, I want one more good day dawn to dusk to enjoy this place, and another to hang around and get some chats in with our friends. I'm not in a hurry, here."
"Have you considered how the guards will feel if you go running off in a submarine for two weeks?" Shinespark asked.
Valey looked like she had hit a wall. "Uhhh... bananas, no, I completely forgot about those dudes..."
"And Princess Celestia?" Shinespark tilted her head. "She'll be back. Who knows how long? But it will be soon."
Valey tapped the edges of her hooves together, sitting up. "Okay, strictly speaking, if we didn't go before she got here and somehow happened not to receive permission to stay on this island, and we bizarrely and randomly lost the chance to go down there..."
"And we returned to the north? Then we'd go back to Ironridge and use the flame there, if it's that important." Shinespark nodded. "Look, I don't know the context, and I'm not going to say no. But please consider this if you're thinking of going on a submarine trip. You won't be happy if this gets overlooked and comes back to bite you."
Valey shivered. "Yeah, thanks. I guess I've got a lot more work to do checking in on things than I thought. Maybe I'll go get midnight tacos with the guards again..."
Maple sighed. "Oh... well. Oh well. I suppose we'll have to put it off after all, then."
Starlight glanced up at her. "You wanted to go that badly?"
"No." Maple shook her head. "I just have a bad association with delaying travel plans."
"In the meantime..." Shinespark trotted for the door. "I have some errands to run at the ship. I'll be back later."
Shinespark approached the eastern end of the island where the Immortal Dream was moored, following the roads through early-evening crowds of ponies who were making the most of the time between when classes let out and the sun went down. Almost all of them were her age or older, laughing and running or else walking in chatty cohorts, oblivious to the world around them. That was where ponies like these should be, living carefree and having fun. For most of them, performance in classes and homework workloads might be the heaviest things on their shoulders.
Her own shoulders felt no lighter than they had in the days before. If anything, they were heavier, now that she had taken it upon herself to try to rehabilitate Meltdown with a new set of armor. It was a pressing task, one where having the results mattered now and every hour she waited, someone was living in a bathtub because their luck was just that bad. But this wasn't a dead weight.
It wasn't laden with regret. It wasn't something she had missed the chance to see through, like the Sosans who had depended on her to protect their home. This was a weight she could realistically carry, a goal she could realistically meet, something no amount of self-doubt could dissuade her from when what it required was already her area of expertise... and somehow, the strength she summoned up to carry it made it easier to carry her other weights, as well.
With straight shoulders, Shinespark crested the last hill before the eastern cove, only to see that the Immortal Dream was gone.
"What happened to my ship!?" She broke into a run, passing several startled and confused ponies. Shinespark charged down the dock, imagining that her cutie mark could speed her steps even without a horn... She had possessed a spell for that, even, once. The empty bay where it had been burned in her vision, and she skidded to a halt before a stallion who looked reasonably official.
"Oh!" He gave her a startled look. "You're not looking for the ship that was here, are you? You're one of the adventurers?"
Shinespark panted, gasping for breath. "Yes. Where is... it?"
The stallion pointed a short way up the beach to a small cluster of sea-facing warehouses at the end, one of which housed the Arc Manta. "Dry docks," he said, gesturing to one in particular. "Didn't want to leave her in the water with her outer hull in that shape."
Shinespark sagged in relief. That was a far better outcome than she had hoped... and actually a good one. She hadn't thought to ask for a dry dock... "Thank you," she managed, taking a more relaxed pace toward the indicated building.
Unlike the dry docks of Sosa where the Immortal Dream had been constructed, these buildings served purely to keep out the elements, and there was nothing to stop her from entering. She stepped inside to see it already raised high and dry, trickles of water still draining from the holes in the hull... and several ponies walking around on the deck.
Frowning, Shinespark picked up her pace again, trotting swiftly up the gangplank. "What's going on here?"
The ponies were all students, looking serious and earnest and not at all like they were goofing off. Some had equipment, others had sticks of chalk, and together they were measuring the damaged areas of the deck, drawing on the wood in patterns Shinespark quickly realized were sections that would need to be replaced.
"Oh, hey!" Ebb waved at her, a vaguely familiar face she had only really seen during their initial rendezvous at sea. "You guys were trying to rally for the cause of fixing up your ship, so, here we are!"
Shinespark blinked in surprise.
Everyone else broke from their work, looking up and smiling hopefully. "We've only been at it for an hour and a half," Ebb apologized. "Didn't want to go inside without more-official permission. And so far we're only scoping things out..." He frowned. "You look like you didn't know about this?"
"Surprise!" a voice called from the bridge before Shinespark could muster up a response. It was Jamjars.
"What are you doing?" Shinespark stared at her. It was all she could manage.
Jamjars preened her mane. "Taking advantage of our overwhelming popularity to turn this dump of a boat into something we can feel good about, of course. And look! I found ponies who know their stuff."
"Her ego is adorable," a mare with a mane ribbon whispered in Shinespark's ear.
"I..." The comment completely derailed Shinespark's train of thought. "Well, thank you."
Ebb wiped his brow. "Music to my ears. Now, you're actually the captain, right? Are you busy, or could you give us a little direction for what to and what not to do if we're going to be restoring your boat?"
Shinespark's ears fell, overwhelmed. "I... have some time."
"Yo!" Valey landed on one of the ramparts overlooking the eastern sporting fields, having homed in from far away on a familiar yellow earth pony and overgroomed sarosian.
"Valey!" Amber greeted, the space shared with half a dozen other ponies who were all cheering on a practice game between two teams in color-coded jerseys. "What's up?"
"Been looking for you." Valey shoulder-bumped both of them. "What's up here, though?"
"Getting an eyeful of the local attractions," Felicity sang, keeping her gaze half-fixed on the field below. "It's like everyone here either plays or watches some sport or another. This island as a whole must be in nearly as good of shape as a northern military force."
Valey brushed her mane out of her eyes and fixed her hat. "From my experience, these kids could run laps around Ironridge's fighters any day, as far as speed and power are concerned. Not that I'd wanna teach them to fight. Let them have their innocence. Though hey, maybe they could make fencing or wrestling into a thing..."
"Makes me want to get down there and have some fun too." Amber glanced longingly at the field. "Though I think this game is a little serious for my skills... but hey, what did you want us for?"
"Uh, well, Felicity in particular." Valey shuffled, taking a seat to watch as well. "I need to borrow your monk art expertise. Not urgent though."
"I hope it isn't," Felicity murmured. "I'm starting to catch onto the rules, and this game is nearly finished. Just a little patience, darling..."
A whistle blew sharply, and a loud yell came from the field. "He made it!" Amber jumped in the air.
"...Huh." Felicity blinked. "Well, I didn't think it was that nearly finished."
Valey stared for a moment as some ritual postgame ceremony began and all the other fans broke into excited chatter. "How long has this been going for?"
"Oh, at least an hour." Amber shrugged. "We arrived in the middle, though, so beats me how long."
"Well, that was exciting." Felicity fanned herself. "Now, what was it you were asking about my arts?"
Valey gave a sidelong look at the other students on the rampart. "...They might be better questions to ask somewhere a little more private."
"How's this for a little more private?" Amber folded her hooves in satisfaction, resting her chin atop them and a table. They were in a reserved library study room, one with padded, soundproofed walls to reduce distractions, won over easily for them because the librarian knew who they were and most of the students were done studying for the day.
Valey glanced around, impressed. "It's almost like that's exactly what this room is for."
"Admittedly, we did tour the library earlier, so we already knew about them." Felicity shrugged, taking a seat and fanning herself with her wing. "Now what can I help you with?"
"Long story short, I need to know about potential harmonically-weird artifacts we might have on the ship," Valey began. "Stuff that could be messing with the scientists' sensors here. We're considering asking them for a favor, and they're considering being much happier about it if we could figure out what we have that's screwing with them. It's probably not just the windigo hearts... I hope." She put her hooves on the table. "Anyway, I remember you said some stuff once about that sword Starlight turns into a stick, and wanted your expert opinion on what it is."
Felicity blinked. "Ah... that thing. I do recall it... What kind of opinion are you looking for?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, first off, what did you say about it back then? I know you did something with it before, but I have no clue what it was or when. And second... what do you think about it, I guess?"
"Hmm." Felicity frowned in thought. "Well, it's rather hard for me to forget. It was after that one battle in the tournament, where Shinespark attempted to take your place and was sliced by the sword in question. The paralysis one? When I tried to work my arts and heal her, I found her body had been scarred by sorrow so immense it physically hurt for me to make art contact with her."
"Sorrow?" Valey blinked. "Like, as in... the sword might have been made from sorrow itself? Like its material is emotion given physical form?"
Felicity blinked back. "Made from it? Well, I'd probably have to see it in person to say for sure..."
"Should I go fetch Starlight?" Amber hesitated, then got to her hooves. "If it would help to see it in person..."
"Yeah, good idea." Valey nodded her along. "See what the kiddo has to say, and if her sword itself has any details."
"Roger!" Amber saluted and bolted out the door.
"Wait..." Felicity stretched out a hoof, but it was too late. "Oh well. I was going to say I'm really not so sure it's smart for me to try using arts on that thing, given how much of a shock it was merely touching Shinespark."
Valey paused... then slumped. "Bananas, yeah. You're right. I don't know, maybe you can tell something without actually touching it? I mean I've held the thing before and not died. You just don't wanna get cut."
"Then either I need a better handle on what you're asking me to do, or you need a better one on how I go about doing it," Felicity said frankly, reaching down and rubbing her legs. "You do know how Mistvale arts work, right? I feel like I've explained this to you?"
Valey tilted her head. "Run it past me one more time?"
Felicity sighed. "Right... Imagine you intend to walk across this room. You think it, and your body does it. Your mind controls your body, yes?"
Valey nodded.
"Now imagine I want you to walk across this room," Felicity continued. "My intentions, your body. Your mind and my body don't have much to do with it. So what I need is a way for my mind to control your body much in the same way yours does, only differently because your mind and body are attached by whatever mystical magic makes life function and mine and yours are not."
Valey kept nodding.
"So all Mistvale arts really are are a crude tool to bridge that gap," Felicity finished. "There are differences and limitations, of course. Actual walking requires a lot of continual feedback, moving your legs and watching for obstacles and so on. But I can do things that wouldn't usually be within your realm of control over yourself because there's no reason for your mind to be able to do them... like command your muscles to lock up. What I'm getting at is that Mistvale arts... They feel like holding your soul in your hoof and using it as a key or tool, I suppose. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't feel like bridging that sort of connection between myself and an artifact with this sort of power."
"Yeah... fair enough. When you put it like that, I wouldn't want to either." Valey put her chin on her hooves. "Bananas. Well, I guess that doesn't leave us with a lot of options for investigating this thing. I'm still kinda suspicious it's one of the things that's messing up the scientists' readings, but I guess we can't know for sure."
"Apologies I couldn't do more," Felicity sighed. A moment of silence passed, and then she asked, "So. How have the days been treating you?"
"Well enough." Valey shrugged. "Lotta science hullabaloo. How about you?"
Felicity pursed her lips. "It's really hard to say. On the one hoof, Amber and I have been meeting a lot of problems... some of which are our fault, but still. On the other, they're relatively normal problems. I honestly haven't felt this normal in... well, ever, and that's despite being grounded and stuck with this." She sat up, stretched, and put her forehooves on her slightly-rounded belly.
Valey stared. "Well, that's good, I guess? You've been spending a lot of time with Amber?"
"Trying to expand my network of friends," Felicity admitted. "She's an enjoyable mare, and if she finds anything about me awkward, she doesn't let it get in the way of a good time. I've been trying to get to know her better."
Valey nodded. "You thinking it would be cool to spend a while hanging out with us, then?"
"If you'll have me." Felicity nodded back. "It's not like I have much of a choice, so I'm very fortunate the company is good. I'm tiring quicker and quicker, and it'll only be a few months before I might not even be able to look after myself. I'm certainly beyond all but a few dubious ways of earning income already..."
"Don't talk like that. Of course we'll take you. That's what I was hoping you'd be cool with." Valey got up, walking around the table and seating herself at Felicity's side. "But, uhh... I'm just wondering, but has Amber mentioned anything about a long-term arrangement to you? And if so, has she said anything about Ironflanks?"
"About Maple? I don't believe so, darling. Why?" Felicity tilted her head in thought. "I have noticed I don't see her quite as much as the others, but assume that's mostly thanks to her injuries."
Valey fidgeted. "She's, uh... got a thing." She pointed a hoof at Felicity's belly. "About that. And it's maybe a little uncomfortable for me to talk about on her behalf, but you should definitely ask her to talk or hang out or something, or just get in a position where you'll be talking, and see if anything comes up. And if it doesn't, ask Amber. But she's got a bad history with having kids."
"Oh." Felicity stared down at herself. "I... see. Well, thank you for the warning, darling."
"Yeah, no problem." Valey relaxed in her seat, pondering what to say next. "Say, uhh... Back to the Mistvale arts thing, didn't you say at some point that the whole sword body sadness paralysis thing was actually something monk arts could do too?"
Felicity hummed in interest. "Well, theoretically, yes. But I used the metaphor of Mistvale arts acting as a key before, yes? This would be like trying to use that key not as a lockpick, but a battering ram. A test of raw force, rather than subtlety and technique. Exacting your own will upon someone else's body requires equal parts a strong will and knowing how to work in ways they won't be able to contradict with their own intentions. And while it may be an alien or uncomfortable idea that our wills or souls or whatever you want to call them are somehow finite or measurable, trust me when I say that we have our limits and the amount of power that would require is... much, much higher than any mortal could ever conceivably provide."
"You been hearing any of the stuff that's been floating around with the scientists here relating to this lifestream thing?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"I may have heard it as a buzzword once or twice. Why do you ask?"
Valey took a breath. "Well, they're real big on this class of materials they've got that are apparently emotions given physical form. Like, the lifestream is apparently this gigantic sheet of liquid hope that stretches under the entire world, and moon glass is made of loneliness. Moon glass came from a goddess who was strong enough to create batponies as a species." She held out her hooves, staring at her forelegs. "And we're thinking the lifestream is, like, the entire world's will to exist, as if it's alive and has emotions too. So maybe mortals like you and me are too wimpy to do something like what that sword can do using Mistvale arts. But on a scale of goddesses to the world itself, how plausible is this sword's existence?"
"Are you talking about how much emotional power would it take compared to the strength of those things?" Felicity tilted her head. "Well, it would need to be too high for me to make any sort of accurate metaphor for the scale, but I think if we were talking in terms of worlds and goddesses? Yes, if the world was alive, I'd imagine it could very easily muster up this kind of force. Though it really wouldn't be much of a comforting thought if all that sadness belonged to it, if that's what you're getting at."
Valey hesitated. "What... kind of sadness are we talking about?"
Felicity sighed. "The sad kind. There's not really a way for me to describe what's there other than what wasn't. There was no anger. No resentment. No disgust. No reprehension. No injustice. No blame. It wasn't the kind of sadness that comes from some wrong that needs to be righted, where you deny and reject and fight back. But loss, grief, mourning, acceptance of a sad fate? Those words could fit. It was pure sadness, like tears waiting for a reason to be shed. Honestly, the fact that it carried no malice whatsoever is what made it so unlike anything I've ever felt."
"Oh?" Valey carefully lifted an ear. "You, uh... sound like you could use me asking about that."
Felicity shook her head. "I've lost a very lot in my life, Valey. When I lost my mother, I vowed to survive and find justice for my siblings' sake. I was destitute, but hateful as well. A patient hate, not about to strike indiscriminately but waiting until the day I could find its true target. Later, when I lost my siblings, I felt like I was drowning in desperation and regret, and worked as hard as I did to keep your friends alive in part to keep my own sanity afloat. But this sword... Well, you could say it was regretful. The sadness I felt in Shinespark, I'm sure it would have been happier had that sadness never happened. But there was nothing trying to change it. As ironic as it sounds to say it, that sword wasn't there to fight. It was just in mourning."
"Huh..." Valey rubbed her hooves together. "Well, if ether is pure hope and moon glass is pure loneliness, maybe pure sadness is also a thing and the rest of the negative emotions that go with that are somewhere else. I'm willing to bet this sword is the same as those two, but what I really wonder is if it's from the world or Luna or something else..."
At that moment, a knock sounded on the door. It was Starlight and Amber.
"Good timing!" Valey hopped up and opened it for them. "What's up? Hope I wasn't interrupting anything."
"Not really." Starlight frowned, then held out her saddlebags. "You were looking for my sword?"
Felicity emphatically shook her head. "We... ah... had second thoughts, darling."
"Oh." Starlight looked away.
"Hey, though, maybe you'd know some stuff anyway? Since it's your sword and all." Valey shrugged, retaking her seat. "Where did you get it? We're trying to theorize about what it's made of."
Starlight gave her an owlish look, then pulled the dagger out and set it on the table, turning it back into a full-length black sword. "I don't know," she said. "I got it from someone who can't tell us where they got it anymore."
Felicity huffed. "Well, that doesn't tell us much." She reached out a hoof and slid the blade closer, then leaned down and sniffed it. "Hmm. Well, I really doubt I'd learn anything from trying to use arts on it that I don't already know, and I highly doubt it would be good for me. I will if you command it, mind." She glanced at Valey. "But that's only because you're you, and I'd really rather not."
"Nah, don't hurt yourself." Valey patted her on the back. "It's funny, though." She stared at the sword. "You did say it basically does something you could do with Mistvale arts, if you were insanely ridiculously soul-strong. And you kind of do it in the same way, too, right? You punch someone with your hooves, you stab and slice them with this thing?"
Felicity frowned, choosing her words carefully. "The... best way I can describe it, like I said, is that it feels like you're holding your will in your hoof as a key or tool, darling."
Valey squinted at the sword. "Or a weapon?"
"If you're a brute." Felicity flipped her mane. "I like to hope I've made it clear that I use my arts for other things. There are far more productive, profitable and pleasurable uses of a power like this than merely to beat people up in fights."
Starlight reached out and tossed a tiny chunk of black metal across the table, the same material as the sword. "What about this one?"
Felicity blinked, tapping it with an inquisitive wingtip and then giving it another sniff.
"That's from Chauncey," Starlight said. "It used to be a part of him before he removed it with magic. Grandpapa said he used Mistvale arts in a special way on windigo hearts..."
"This from an ordinary stallion, you say," Felicity hummed. "An insane one, but a mortal nonetheless..." She tapped it carefully with the frog of her hoof, and her pupils momentarily dilated. "Oh my. That's fascinating."
"Yo, what happened?" Valey leaned in, staring intently.
Felicity held the chip between two hooves. "This little trinket has... an entire story of emotions inside. Camaraderie. Love. Faith. Betrayal. Confidence. Overwhelming rage, coupled with yet more love. It feels as complex as a pony, when I try to use my arts to get a read on any of you, yet frozen in time instead of flowing and alive. I've never felt anything like this at all..."
Valey leaned even closer, her cheek brushing Felicity's as she stared at the metal lump. "That sounds like the backstory we got for Chauncey, alright. But what is that? It remembers stuff? I thought your memories were, like... tied to other stuff?"
Felicity shook her head, Amber leaning in on her other side. "There's no knowledge here, darling. Only emotion. I wouldn't call this a memory at all. Still, if you're looking for singular emotions like hope and sadness, this absolutely isn't that. It's like a monochrome painting in here."
"Stanza's crown was also made from that," Starlight said from across the table, half laying on it to get closer. "Chrysalis said it was full of emotions from all the prisoners Chauncey made it listen to, or something."
Felicity just stared. "I'm no scientist, but I'm vastly curious what this material is."
"Well, let's not experiment on ourselves to try making more." Valey gave her a quick shoulder-squeeze, then backed off. "Hey, though... You know, I never remember Chauncey or Crystal ever doing any Mistvale arts."
"Chrysalis said she couldn't," Starlight cut in. "She didn't know how... or something."
"And you said using them felt sort of like using a weapon..." Valey's eyes shifted between Felicity and the sword. "And this thing is a weapon, and does similar stuff to Mistvale arts. And you make this stuff in the first place by using Mistvale arts, only it's more like extraction since making it prevents you from using dusk statues, according to Grandpapa, so you're actually losing something when you make this. And none of the ponies we know have made it have ever been seen using Mistvale arts..." She glanced between everyone. "Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?"
Amber took a breath. "That this stuff is actually how Mistvale arts work?"
"Yeah." Valey tapped the tiny chip. "I'm willing to bet there's some way we could turn this thing into like an arrowhead or razor or really small blade. Maybe it's affected by transformation magic like the big one. And if we did, and you tried cutting someone with it, it would leave no wounds, and be like if you tried monking them with the exact same intentions that it's feeling now."
"But Chauncey is dead," Amber pointed out.
Valey shrugged. "This thing's still here."
"Which would all imply this larger sword came from someone incredibly powerful, using a similar process" Felicity observed, drawing everyone's attention. "From whom, and just how powerful they were, aren't things we'll ever be knowing, I suspect. But that, I think, is your answer on what this thing really is."
Some time later, after Valey and the others had finished their library meeting, Maple sat alone on the couch of Generosity Two, listening to the sounds of the shower and staring out the window. The sun was just high enough over the water that the sky hadn't started turning colors yet, and a small flotilla of sailboats idled in her view, their owners likely intending to watch the sunset too.
"I wonder how Grenada and Harshwater are doing?" she said, more to herself than anyone else. There was only the empty room to greet her, after all. "Or Gerardo and Slipstream, or everyone else who has their own place here."
"Unusual to be away from their familiar faces?" Felicity's voice asked.
Maple's ears twitched in surprise. "Felicity?"
"I was resting in the bedroom, darling." Felicity stepped out of the hall and into the living room, standing heavily and not making a move in any particular direction.
"Well, hello." Maple nodded passively, then went back to watching out the window.
Felicity hesitated. "...Mind if I join you?"
Maple patted the couch and quietly scooted over.
Felicity settled herself in, exhaling deeply, and for a moment, neither talked... but Felicity didn't stop watching Maple's eyes.
"You're looking to see where I'm looking," Maple eventually said, somehow knowing without making eye contact. "That's something a friend of mine once did a lot when I would have trouble saying what was on my mind." She turned to face her. "What are you looking for?"
"I..." Felicity's jaw hung, arrested. "Sorry, darling. You're perceptive. I was just trying to see if I was making you uncomfortable."
Maple shook her head. "Because of how you betrayed us in Stormhoof? If I was going to be uncomfortable, it would have happened while I was laid up in bed with you as my doctor. And I was. But I'm an optimist, so I was alright." She looked up. "Are you feeling uncomfortable around me?"
"Only for the prospect of doing likewise to you." Felicity hesitated. "Your... friends told me you had a history with my condition."
"Which condition?" Maple looked away again. "If it's anything to do with having to give up on your dreams, yes, I do. But do you really want to talk about that with someone you know as little as me? We haven't interacted that much."
Felicity glanced at herself, then straightened up. "I mean having children."
"Oh. That." Maple sounded detached. "Yes, I suppose I do."
Felicity limply ran a hoof through her coat. "If you don't want to talk about it, I apologize for breaching the subject. It's just, I'm likely going to be sticking with you for a while, and I'm friends with your friends, and it would behoove us to... well... I've noticed you don't start a lot of conversations with me, and I thought maybe I could clear the air."
"Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to," Maple replied. "Felicity... be honest. How did you feel when you found out you were going to have a kid?"
"This one?" Felicity sat more so that her belly was visible. "At the time, triumphant. They were... an important part of a long-running political ploy that's since been reduced beyond irrelevancy. But I felt like I had gained a valuable tool."
"And how do you feel about them now?" Maple pressed.
Felicity stared at herself. "I try not to think about it and usually get the opposite effect. It's very inconvenient. I've been told that's really not the way, but look at me, darling. Do you honestly think I'm cut out for this?"
Maple nodded coldly. "And how are you going to feel when they're stillborn, because you're weak and crippled by circumstances beyond your control? Do you really think you're in the right condition to have a live, healthy child?"
Felicity's face shadowed. "That's a question I was hoping none of you would think to ask."
"Well, I'm asking it," Maple said, tense. "Tell me how you'll feel."
"...I see where this is going," Felicity sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't want to lie, but I can't do this to you."
"Tell me!" Maple raised her voice.
Felicity dropped hers to a whisper. "...I want to say, relieved it's over. And it's the truth. But you're making me feel bad about it, darling..."
"So you won't miss them. And there's nothing you can do to change what will happen." Maple scooted slightly away. "Which might be for the best, so it doesn't hurt after you get attached. If you feel like I've been keeping my distance, that's why. I didn't want to get attached to your foal either."
"Well, don't I feel like a villain." Felicity shook her head. "I see why this conversation needed to happen, but I don't know what to say."
"There isn't a lot to say in the first place." Maple looked down. "What else are you going to do, get your hopes up? I'm not blaming you. I just know how I'll react if I start to care."
Felicity bit her lip. "Your tone suggests that not caring is already a bit of a struggle."
"It is," Maple replied. "I'm probably going to fail. But there's nothing else I can do either."
"If it's already a losing battle, you could tell me about it, if you don't mind?"
Maple shrugged. "I had a husband. I was happy. We were going to start a family. When he found out, he left. Probably because he had issues of his own. I'm sure he felt like I was a replacement for the wife in Ironridge he probably ran away from. Then I was sad. I couldn't care for myself. And whether from my state of mind or pure bad luck, my child didn't make it."
"I see."
Maple got off the couch and walked to the window. "I've recovered a lot since then, but I've always had issues. Children are fine. Newborns are fine. I love children. But ones who haven't been born yet? I get the most terrible sense of apprehension that cripples my mind. It doesn't matter how things are going or how healthy they are, I just... But then there's you. And yours already feels like a lost cause, so I'm just trying to stay detached. That's how I feel. Maybe we can be friends properly when it's over."
Felicity swallowed. "Well... perhaps we can." She closed her eyes and added, "Do you want me to tell you the odds?"
"It won't make much of a difference," Maple replied. "They'll be zero to me. But you can say them."
When Felicity didn't respond, she added, "What I really wouldn't like to hear is what you could have been planning that wouldn't have been thrown off when they didn't make it."
"...Given my age, species and roughly calculated exposure to the poisoned water." Felicity looked away. "They gave me a sixty percent chance, before I started the whole plan, that they'd be born normally, but would be sterile. Thirty-five that they wouldn't make it, either in the womb or before they were five. Five percent that they'd be normal."
"Ninety-five that you could get the nobility's hopes up somehow," Maple whispered. "Make them think their line is saved by your partner's indiscretion. And then it would all fall apart for them."
"I thought you didn't want to know," Felicity prodded.
Maple shook her head. "That doesn't stop my mind from being active."
"Well, you're right," Felicity sighed. "The whole point was to throw a wrench into the gears of the monarchy. One that someone, someday would be mad about, and when it happened I could point to Izvaldi and that foul mine spillage and say, 'There! That's what ended your line, sphinx!' Because the lord whose fault it was had already died, you see. There was nothing left to take revenge upon but their reputation. I couldn't hurt the ones who were responsible, but I could send them down in history... and that's what I was trying to do. Though it wouldn't have hurt to be the mother of royalty."
Maple sighed. "You don't get what children are at all, do you?"
"I'm aware that's an unhealthy way of looking at things," Felicity answered. "It doesn't necessarily mean I'm familiar with the right one."
"They're your hopes and dreams for the future," Maple said. "They're a promise to yourself that you're going to spend the next two decades of your life being everything for someone. They're a mirror that reflects everything you put into and give them... love and joy and happiness and knowledge, but bad things too, so you have to be careful and raise them wisely. They're the ponies who matter above everything else to you, and because you have something you can care that much about, because they depend so much on you, they make you matter, too."
Felicity quietly watched her.
"At least, that's everything I used to tell myself." Maple's ears fell. "It turned out to be too romantic for reality. I guess I wouldn't know either way, because I've never really had a kid now. And I never had true love, either. I could give just as big of a speech about what I wanted it to mean to be married."
Felicity nodded her along. "Don't let me stop you."
Maple sighed. "But what does it matter? All of my ideas about this came from Willow, anyway. She's like me and Amber's big sister. But it turned out that her husband... To him, she was just a replacement too. Because that's how things have been for the last ten years in Riverfall. So I have my wishful thinking, and have never even seen what they're based on in reality. I don't know if they exist."
"Well, you have Starlight, don't you?" Felicity pointed out. "I do have to say this marital structure of Riverfall sounds very messed up, but what about her?"
"Starlight is..." Maple smiled distantly at the window, but the smile soon fell. "She's different. I don't know what she is. Recently, she told me... that all this time, I've been treating her like my big sister. Not that I've wanted to. I want to be someone larger than life to her, who she can count on to fix anything, who she can come to when she's scared and who can make everything alright. And... I really have tried. Saving us from the mercenaries in the Ironridge Flame District? Keeping her alive even when I was paralyzed and she was about to disappear and die? In situations like these, no matter how much a normal family loved each other, they wouldn't have made it. The parents would have met their limit for what they could do for their kids, and... it would all be over. I'm not a metaphorical superhero. I'm an actual one."
Slowly, her demeanor trailed off, and she shook her head. "But that isn't what Starlight needs. Next to her, I feel tiny. I can do that, but she's saved me from that monster that beat Garsheeva. If I'm a superhero, she's... whatever is two steps above that. She's the one who's larger than life. And with children, it shouldn't be about what you are, but what they see you as. No one is perfect, but you can be perfect to them. And she'll say I'm perfect, and she'll mean it, but... she knows too much about what kind of place the world is to feel like I can fix everything. She's too jaded. I don't know what to do."
"...That sounds like quite the dilemma indeed," Felicity finally said. "You've given a whole lot of thought to this."
"I have." Maple nodded. "Once Willow started her family and I got to help raise her foals, and I started feeling like this was what I wanted to do with my life, well... I thought about it." She looked up. "Does that satisfy you, though? Does that explain why I'm being distant? I don't mean to hold you at length. I'm sure you're a fine mare. I just..."
"Apology completely accepted, darling." Felicity nodded in return, then went back to looking out the window. "And... thank you for telling me. I suppose I needed to hear that. Because whether you feel it's inevitable or not, the odds are two in three I will have to learn to care for this foal, and my head isn't quite far enough in the sand for me to deny that it's in the sand about this."
Maple looked sadly at her. "You really did have no plan for how to raise them beyond calling yourself the mother of royalty, did you?"
"That might be stretching it," Felicity admitted. "But you could say that. I didn't live long enough in Mistvale to get an idea of how their family units work, but in Gyre... your allies were your family, and vice versa. Ponies survived in villages that were like packs or clans. The lower-class ones, at least, and the ones who didn't go it on their own... Children were how you replenished your numbers when recruiting allies from outcasts or wanderers wasn't fast enough. There wasn't much of this husband-and-wife stuff. You just had children within your village or clan so you wouldn't die out within the next generation."
"You lived like that?" Maple whispered.
Felicity shrugged. "Not quite, but I saw a lot of it. We tended to be transient, in part because our mother wanted to keep us close instead of letting us be lost amid such a loose structure."
"Because she wasn't native to Gyre, right?"
"Her and myself were from Mistvale." Felicity shook her head. "She used to be a cleric of the Night Mother. Had her own ideas about how things should be done. Rarely had the opportunity to follow them, especially as time wore us further and further down. For a while, we traveled with a monk who left for the same reasons my mother did. He wasn't my father, but became Senescey's. After he died was when things went really downhill for us. It helped so much, having someone around who knew how to fight..."
Maple's face rose. "So you did have something resembling a family?"
"Well..." Felicity shifted in her seat. "It was an arrangement purely for the purposes of survival. I'm not entirely sure why he stuck with us, but it wasn't love so much as keeping each other safe. He was the one who taught me Mistvale arts, and he certainly didn't intend for me to use it to spare ponies' lives."
"But you said he was Senescey's father," Maple pointed out.
Felicity shrugged. "You've seen how I turned out."
Maple bit her lip. "...I'm going to make some tea and clear my head. You wouldn't mind if we continued?"
"Not at all, darling." Felicity waved a hoof. "It seems getting to know each other was long overdue."
"Alright." Maple returned, a kettle of water set to boil and several tea flavors picked out. "Where were we?"
Felicity was reclining on the couch, but shifted to make room for her. "Family structures. Gyre. You were asking about Senescey's father, and how we got by."
"Right..." Maple nodded. "You were saying something about him not being the best influence."
Felicity shrugged. "If you're looking for a saint in Gyre, your goals are sadly mistaken. I wouldn't call him a perfect stallion by any means, and it's debatable whether he was even a good one. But he did keep us alive, and taught me to do the same for myself. Our quality of life was much higher when he was around."
Maple's ears twisted, listening for a kettle that wouldn't whistle for minutes yet. "What was he like?"
"A stallion of law," Felicity replied. "He believed strongly in the order of the Night Mother's faith. When we all had that yanked out from under us, he went... too far in the other direction, you could say. He kept his conscience, but his actions and beliefs about the world were directly at odds with it. He was... fond of indulgences. Never felt good about it, but lost the will to stop himself. My mother was one such indulgence. He took us under his wing based on his will and his alone."
Maple shifted. "Well, protecting you doesn't sound so bad," she admitted.
"No." Felicity shook her head. "From our point, it wasn't. For a stallion who was supposed to be dedicated entirely to the service of a goddess, choosing to put one mare and her filly first in his life was like a confirmation of how much his faith had been shaken. You could say he helped us not so much for our sake as to strike out at the Night Mother. He may have watched over us, but he always cared more about her."
"Oh." Maple looked down. "Well, that sounds... sad."
"You have to be alive before you can be happy, I'm afraid. And in Gyre, being alive carries its share of miseries, but it's also a happy thing in and of itself, merely because you're defying your circumstances. So in a roundabout way, he did make us happy." Felicity shrugged. "Anyway, I also suspect his... union with my mother had some motivation relating to the Night Mother or his faith as well, but I don't know quite enough about the situation to say for sure. Or perhaps they were both just getting what they could out of their relationship. Either way, we survived."
"But then something happened to him," Maple continued. "And what about Larceny?"
Felicity sighed. "Something always 'just happens' to you in Gyre, darling. He just didn't come back one day. And that's about how it goes. As for Larceny? Occupational hazard of our mother's new way of making ends meet. I took it upon myself to get us out of there pretty soon after that."
Maple grimaced. "That's not a pretty thought."
"You keep being surprised," Felicity sighed. "Well, whatever. After that, we found ourselves in Izvaldi, and you know the rest. Just three sisters, though Larceny was an infant and I was fifteen years her senior, so I did most of the raising and breadwinning."
Maple shifted again in her seat. "Amber and I... With our relationship with Willow, she's like our big sister, but sometimes was a mom to us as well. Though we're a lot closer than that in age, and she didn't have to care for us when we were that young."
"Ah. Your town and its high population of unfaithful lovers." Felicity flicked her tail. "I'm honestly curious, was that really normal? What's the point of a pretense of prosperous, idyllic true love if everyone is a scoundrel who's looking for no commitment?"
"It's... a long story." Maple looked down. "My home, Riverfall, and the nearby city of Ironridge grew up side by side. Ironridge was inland and only reachable by boat up a river. Riverfall was built around the river's one waterfall, where sailors needed to stop and portage boats. All the sailors from Ironridge were stallions, and Riverfall was a city of mares. Bold, mysterious, worldly and traveled. Sheltered, backwater, peaceful, rustic... Each side was about as different as you could get, yet we idolized each other's ways of life. Growing up, a lot of my friends dreamed of getting swept off their hooves by someone who had seen the big, wide world."
She sighed. "But then air travel was invented, and the sailors were obsoleted and lost their jobs and stopped coming. The only ones we ever saw anymore were ones who were so tired and so ragged, they came to Riverfall to run away. But all of us still had the old ideals, even though the stallions we were seeing were completely different. So that's how it happened."
"That's quite the fate," Felicity mused. "Must have resulted in a lot of quick flings."
Maple nodded. "We didn't have true-love family structures in Riverfall, either. It was a dream, but young stallions wanted to sail away and see the world, not settle down in Riverfall forever. All the mares who got it were the ones who went too. There weren't ones who got stallions to stay. And all the colts, once they were old enough, they ran off to Ironridge to go to the outside world. So a lot of mares who were left worked together to raise their children in pools, making things more manageable. I didn't have any real parents, and don't know that I could track down my biological mother even if I wanted to. But that's why the idea of adopting Starlight came so easily, and why Amber and Willow are like sisters to me even though we aren't technically related."
Felicity closed her eyes and took a breath. "Sounds like a more idyllic version of-"
In the kitchen, the kettle whistled. "Hold that thought," Maple apologized, getting up to fetch the water.
Moments later, she returned, slightly embarrassed but with two brewing mugs. "Sorry," she managed, setting them on the table. "What were you saying?"
"Oh, nothing important." Felicity waved a hoof. "I was going to say it sounds like the loose clan structure of most villages in Gyre, only with a good deal less necessity to the process."
"We didn't really need to do anything in Riverfall." Maple stared at her tea. "It was so peaceful there. We had all our needs met by a stallion called Arambai, who kept the town working by pulling strings behind the scenes. But the world around us was changing, and Riverfall was going to have to change too, sooner or later."
Felicity mirrored the gesture, blinking down at her reflection in the liquid's surface. "Honestly, it... sounds like a place I wouldn't mind living myself, from what you've said. You turned out alright. Perhaps my foal could too, even though I'm not confident in raising them myself, thanks to your little raising system."
Maple glanced across at her. "So you do want what's best for them."
Felicity nodded, staring at her belly. "Oh, I'm not malicious, darling. This child is inconvenient and unnecessary, and starting to get uncomfortable now that they're growing. And I have no idea what to do with them... or about them. But when all other things are equal, I really wouldn't mind them having the best life they can have."
"Felicity..." Maple's face shadowed. "I don't want to get my hopes up for them."
"Then try doing what I do." Felicity shrugged. "And think of them as an unsightly curve that gets in the way instead of a-"
"That is the opposite of helping!" Maple burst out, panting. "You can't... They don't need..."
Felicity's tone softened. "Still having trouble caring?"
Maple trembled and squeezed her eyes closed.
"Your buttons are easy to push, darling," Felicity whispered. "And denial doesn't suit you."
"Denial of what?" Maple squeaked, eyes still scrunched. "Why are you doing this?"
"...Darling." Felicity adjusted herself again on the couch, leaning over its back so that she was fully facing Maple. "I'm aware that I have some unsightly feelings sometimes, and I've made a vow to myself not to hide them. Yes, it's true that I selfishly fear the myriad consequences of being with foal will interfere with my coping mechanisms. But if those fears are ugly on me, they're blatantly ridiculous on you. You say you don't care, and I'd be badly remiss as a friend if I didn't try to pull your head out of the sand and show you how much you want to care."
Maple shivered. "T-That's ridiculous! I'm afraid of this for completely different..."
"I'm aware my argument has logical fallacies," Felicity admitted, no give to her voice. "No, you're not remotely avoiding caring for the same reasons I am. But I'm making you think, and that's my primary goal."
"Why?" Maple whispered, still holding her eyes closed.
"Because if I'm going to stay with you, and this is an issue for you, you're going to have to deal with it sooner or later," Felicity insisted. "And both of us have everything to gain if you can get over yourself sooner rather than later. Suppose my foal does die. Are you going to take it better on your hooves with your head held high and nothing to hide behind, or is your flimsy protection somehow going to hold up when you see me not entirely bothered by my loss? Would that bother you? It had better bother you, because I'm bothered by it already!"
Maple sniffled.
"...On the other hoof." Felicity's voice softened. "In the event that my foal does make it, which is a two in three chance and very much something to be prepared for, I'm aware I'm in no state of mind or body to raise them. And as this is something you care so much about, at the very least you might be able to brighten their future, if not help me learn to manage this myself. Selfish, perhaps, but that's alright when things are mutually beneficial. So there."
"You don't beat around the bush, do you?" Maple grumbled, wiping a few tears from her eyes.
Felicity shook her head. "Sorry, darling. But problems that can be fixed are problems for fixing, and where I'm from, fixing your problems rather than pretending to live with them is a decent method of survival."
"You realize you're not fixing anything," Maple sighed, staring at Felicity's belly. "You're right. I do care, and I can't lie to myself about that. But do you think that's going to make it hurt any less if they don't make it?"
"Would you want it to hurt less?" Felicity countered.
"What kind of question is that!?"
"Well..." Felicity took a breath. "It doesn't seem like something a very good pony would do, feeling nothing about the death of someone who could have been close to them. Yes, I'm aware it doesn't feel good. But the root cause of that is whether this foal lives or dies, not how prepared you are for it. Guard yourself all you want. It won't change their fate... or whether they deserve to be mourned."
Maple sniffled again, slumping on the couch until her head was closer. "But there's nothing I can do to change that. Nothing I can do to keep them alive."
"Nothing you can do to help them survive," Felicity continued. "No, I suppose there isn't. But that's just life, I suppose. Oftentimes, there's nothing you can do to help your other loved ones survive. They day my mother died is burned like a fire into my memory, darling, and I don't think I'll ever forget that last conversation I had with my sisters. And now here I am, having conflicting feelings about the last biological member of my family left." She brushed her belly with the flat of a wing. "Things fall through. These things happen. All you can do is care while you have the chance, I suppose... and hope you're lucky enough to fall in with friends who will help you rebuild afterward."
Maple started crying. "But you can't even enjoy your time with them! All you can do is think of the things you will do later, o-once..."
Felicity rested a hoof on Maple's shoulders. "Now who's objectivizing? You know how this is. Did you feel like this was going to become your child, or this was your child?"
Maple couldn't even answer.
"I'm sorry if this is rough for you, darling." Felicity sighed. "But it sounds like the roughness has been a long time coming. And I'm guessing you still have some mourning to do yourself, from last time."
"I never won't," Maple whispered, reaching out a hoof. "May I...?"
"Of course." Felicity scooted slightly, making herself more accessible.
Maple wrapped her forelegs around Felicity's barrel and cried, holding her and her foal close for long minutes as their tea grew cold. Felicity took several sips, lifting her mug with a wing, and eventually brushed Maple's bangs with a wingtip, tenderly fixing a snarl.
Immediately, Maple sat up. "You're wrong, you know," she said, breathing steadied but eyes undried. "Completely wrong."
"Do tell," Felicity requested with a nod.
"I think you could be a great mother," Maple said. "You were just telling me how you took care of Larceny as an infant, so I know for a fact you have some idea how to care for a foal. And now look at you. You think this is uncomfortable or inconvenient or whatever and the whole point of this conversation has still been me! You're too smart to have done this by accident. You're looking out for me. And I felt that, just there. You couldn't even resist. You're even trying to put your own interests aside to take care of me."
Felicity gave her a poker face. "Quite the contrary, darling. This is called being a selfish old crone trying to keep the ponies who will be caring for her in proper shape to care for an invalid. While I was trying to help you, don't give me too much credit. I'm still looking out for myself in the end."
Maple gave her a look. "That is not what you were doing."
"Prove it," Felicity huffed.
Maple raised a teary eyebrow.
Felicity didn't give ground.
"...You reminded me of Willow, just there," Maple sighed. "Maybe you are broken or messed up. Maybe you do have to act with yourself in mind. Your body is so frail, I don't blame you. But you're talking about friendship like you invest in other ponies so that they'll return the investment to you, and everyone wins. While that might work out sometimes, I know what I felt just there. You did that just because you care."
Felicity continued her impassive look.
"I know this, okay?" Maple looked away. "I don't know whether you're pretending to me, or pretending to yourself, but I can tell. Maybe you want me to think you're less altruistic than you are so I don't have high expectations, or maybe you remember the things you've done and don't want to get your hopes up about yourself and start thinking of yourself better than you deserve, but you can do this. You'll make a fine mother. You can do this, and I-I'll help you see it through."
"There we are." Felicity's composure finally broke, and she sighed in relief. "I knew you had it in you too, darling. As for me, I'm complicated, and really don't care to spend time labeling myself when I know I'm likely going to be wrong. Call it what you will, but I think there's hope for you too."
"...Thanks." Maple closed her eyes again.
Felicity yawned. "Well, that was productive. I don't suppose you'd like to-"
"No." Maple curled back up on the couch, her head against Felicity's belly again. "Whatever it is, I need a minute. I've had good days and bad days before, and knowing my past, I'm going to go right back to having problems again tomorrow. But while you've got my hopes up, right now, I need a minute. Thank you."
"So, final checklist of anything that could remotely be messing with their harmony machines." Valey stared at a sheet of paper with Amber, the latter holding a quill at the ready. "Windigo hearts? Definitely. Moon glass? Probably. Starlight's sword? Probably. That bit of metal? Probably. My cutie mark? Well, it was doing weird stuff to their machines earlier. Starlight's cutie mark? It's an artifice too, so why not? Starlight herself? Bananas, who knows how she works? Maple's cutie mark, since it currently holds another Starlight? Why not? While we're at it, let's throw on Sparky and Meltdown's cutie marks too, since Sparky's is unusually harmonic and Meltdown's was literally made by a goddess, and hey, you wanna add yours to the pile just so we can blame every last one of us? Uhh, then for all I know my pendant could also be a thing, and who knows if the scrap left over from Braen or Meltdown's armor does anything? Our ship is obviously a thing, it's got an entire harmony extractor and engine. And let's not forget how most of us have been in a crystal palace, and that could leave traces or something. You think I got it all?"
Both of Amber's brows were already as far up as they could go. "You know," she said casually, "I have a funny feeling trying to isolate all this out is going to be a lost cause."
"And Gazelle!" Valey clicked her teeth victoriously. "He was doing weird stuff, add him!"
Amber sighed and got back to writing.
"Actually, if we're suspicious of sphinxes, Felicity's got one of her own," Valey continued. "So maybe she's suspect too. You know, I wonder if batponies in general are-"
"Valey." Amber grinned, rolled her eyes and slapped a hoof on Valey's shoulder. "It's a lost cause for the scientists. They'll have to make do without their instruments."
"Nyaah, whatever. Maybe they will." Valey slumped backwards, ignoring the paper. "...So, what do you wanna do now?"
Amber shrugged. "I didn't have plans. I just stayed to help you with this."
"Classic." Valey rolled her shoulders. "So, uh, how's things going with you and Felicity?"
"After our talk the other day?" Amber blinked. "Well, they're... good. We hung out and got into trouble... the kind of trouble you're really mad about at first but laugh at the next day, you know? I think the two of us can really get along."
Valey waggled her eyebrows. "Have you kissed yet?"
Amber blushed. "What kind of question is that?"
"An honest one." Valey grinned smugly. "Were they bat smooches? Good ones?"
Amber swatted at her. "No I haven't, for your information. What happened to you being shy about this stuff?"
"I got better." Valey shrugged, but calmed down. "So you haven't, then? Huh. I'm kinda surprised. She's pretty needy, and you're, like..."
"A floozy?" Amber cut in.
"Uhh... yeah?" Valey winced. "I mean, you're the one who always has some story or other about a random mare from Riverfall."
"Well, this isn't Riverfall." Amber gave a shrug of her own. "Back home, 'Wanna go out with me?' is equivalent to saying, 'Hey, I want to get to know you.' For me, at least. It was part of how I socialized and made friends. Here, we're traveling buddies. We're going to know each other and live together for a while, whether we like each other or not. It's a long-term arrangement, so you have to do things differently."
"Huh." Valey sat back down.
Amber settled in as well and folded her forelegs. "Since you're bringing it up, though, how's things on your love life's end?"
"Eh." Valey stared off into space. "I know I've been putting on a show for the students, but it's honestly not my biggest priority. I almost don't actually want one."
"Really?" Amber leaned forward, playing with the list she had been writing. "Wouldn't have figured that, looking at you now."
"Yeah, well..." Valey licked her lips. "Face it: I'm an immature hooligan. Any relationship I somehow get in, I'm gonna treat just as seriously as the hundreds of students out there with relationships I'm not in. I need to grow up, settle down and take things more seriously first. And while I know I can do that, 'cause I did it in the Empire, it was really lame and I did it because of fear, and not because I wanted to. And right now, I still don't want to."
Amber gave her a look. "If you're aware of all that, you're a lot more grown up than you think."
"Nahhh." Valey waved a hoof. "Knowing some good advice and giving it the time of day are two completely different things. I told you, I did try it, back in the Empire. And I will be sweet and loyal and responsible when and only when I decide I want to."
"Huh." Amber shrugged.
"And, I mean, there's other issues too," Valey continued. "Sparky's in no shape for flirting right now. She's like a mummy of emotional bandages. And Felicity really likes me, but she's kinda desperate and there's absolutely no way we'd be equals, and I'm down if she wants to hang out but don't really... like her back, you know? And then obviously all the students here have no life experience and are out of the question, and then you're, like... I dunno how to put it, but I enjoy what we have going on already?"
Amber nodded. "Me too."
"Really, though, the biggest thing is still that I'm like seven or eight." Valey's shoulders briefly slumped. "I mean, obviously not biologically, and I definitely didn't spend years learning to walk and talk, but still. I don't think I fit any remotely common scale of age."
"Is the reason all this is on your mind because you're getting tired of flirting with the students?" Amber asked, folding her hooves.
Valey shrugged. "Well, uh... not really. I'm just probably going on a two-week boat trip with no one but Starlight and Ironflanks real soon, and figured I should say anything that needed to be said."
"Right. I doubt either of them would be the best conversation partner for this, would they?" Amber grinned and turned in a circle. "So, you're committed to this crystal palace trip, then?"
"I mean, unless something stops us, yeah." Valey leaned back. "I went ahead and told the scientists they better start getting ready. Ironflanks and Starlight have given me one last all-clear. I think Ironflanks is looking forward to getting her cutie mark back. Still gonna have to say see ya to all our other friends, but I think Birdo and Harshwater and Grenada are enjoying themselves enough that they won't be too sad to see us gone."
"Shinespark's got her armor project she'll be busy with," Amber said. "And I heard some students are actually getting the Immortal Dream fixed up?"
Valey nodded. "Yeah, I went to take a peek. It's pretty snazzy. They've got a lot of work ahead of them, but those kids sure know how to organize themselves and properly plan out a big job. I could practically smell the competence."
Amber giggled. "Well, I'll see if I can't supervise a little while you're away. Boat talent, remember?" She patted her flank. "Good for building and maintaining sea and airships of all kinds."
"Yeah, you got this."
Amber snorted. "You're the one who needs encouragement, having to ride in a tiny submarine like that. I'll go start putting together a care package for you. You'll need it."
"This is my latest revision," Shinespark said, holding out a large blueprint that had been enchanted to resist the steam and shower spray. "I found the hoof conductors you had been talking about, and think I can replicate or recycle them. What do you think?"
Meltdown leaned forward, the temperature in the room increasing slightly as she heightened her focus. "I'll have to trust your judgement," she eventually said. "But I don't see anything standout wrong."
Shinespark nodded. "I've tried to fabricate a few parts using my tools in the ship's hold, but we're too low on supplies to even do proof-of-concept. But I've been talking to some engineers in the space department and have a lab and workshop with my name on them the moment I produce a final design, along with several assistants. There could be a day or two of downtime while I familiarize myself with Equestrian technology, but from the drafts I've showed them so far, we should be able to put our heads together and get a prototype finished by the time Valey and Maple get back."
Meltdown's eyes narrowed in surprise. "You think you can finish this in two weeks."
Shinespark shrugged. "I have leftover parts from both Braen and your damaged armor. Your internal cooling loop was complicated, but could save us a lot of time on research."
"My last one took a month of fabrication time alone," Meltdown replied. "With the resources of an empire and a goddess hurrying the work along. I had already completed the design as a hobby prior to needing it."
Shinespark smirked. "But I'm used to working under the pressure of having only the resources my guerillas can steal. Tight conditions, lacking materials and poor odds are my specialty. If I can't do what I say I can, we'll tally that after I've failed. But this is something I can do."
Meltdown bowed within the bathtub. "...Thank you. I don't deserve someone like you."
Shinespark paused. "If you're down about Chrysalis and the Empire, I'm exactly what you deserve. From one failed, runaway teenage ex-leader to another. If I'm helping you, you're helping me, too."
"Stay a moment?" Meltdown motioned for her to stay.
Shinespark stayed.
Meltdown took a breath. "You wouldn't have heard... about how I got my wish and came to lead the Empire, because it's not a story I share with anyone."
"...Is that so." Shinespark edged the bathroom door closed, sensing this deserved to be private. "But you want to tell me?"
"I am the one at your mercy," Meltdown said. "That doesn't happen to me often, but since it has, you should know who you're judging worthy of a new body."
Shinespark's ears tilted forward.
"The village I came from... It was a remote one in Goldfeather," Meltdown began. "The province north of Everlaste, if you never visited it. It was very small, set farther to the east than ponies can usually survive, because the village founders and elders took issue with Garsheeva and wanted to live were her gaze would never reach."
"But they did survive?" Shinespark blinked impassively, listening.
Meltdown nodded. "If the world has a true edge, no one has seen it. But the first condition that stems the eastward growth of civilization is that birth rates decline. It becomes difficult to conceive. Perhaps something in the air affects our bodies, or perhaps the magic that normally allows for the creation of new souls fails to function there. But we lived well, well past the event horizon, where there were sandstorms, and fissures in the ground that would glow with colorful mana at night. A few of our members supplied us with food and water through caravans back west to the Empire, and our ponies would leave two at a time when they wished for children, stay elsewhere and come back once they had conceived. That is how I was born."
Shinespark stared. "Does this have anything to do with your...?"
"Condition? Yes, but not in the way you think." Meltdown looked away. "They were not a group that advertised themselves to the outside. They had a mission to live by themselves, not a cause to spread. As a result, they never gained new ponies. And after several generations... they became dangerously inbred. My condition is a birth defect that worsened as I aged, and that is where it came from."
Shinespark stared.
"At a young age, I was merely slow and weak," Meltdown continued. "Worse off than my peers, though it wasn't as if the other foals were completely free of their own maladies, as this had been happening for some time. But it was difficult for me to understand things, especially as I grew... That made me a target. In hindsight, it was simple bullying. The strong picking on the weak. But all I knew was I hated it. The day my parents tried to explain to me why I was the way I was... I stowed away on the caravan and ran away."
"There's a heresy against inbreeding," Shinespark said.
Meltdown nodded. "Yes. There is. I made it back to a border town in Goldfeather, where I proved utterly unable to take care of myself. A charitable church took me in. The cleric of Garsheeva who ran the institution tried to educate me and take me under her wing. And when I learned about that heresy, I had no qualms against selling out my entire town."
She swallowed, but her voice was steady. "Everyone was captured, and all the buildings razed. They were taken to Grandbell, and offered to Garsheeva as sacrifices. I was in that line as well, given my parentage, even though I had been the one to report them. But even as they cried or raged, I couldn't shed a tear, because all I knew was that they were responsible for my life being what it was."
Shinespark frowned heavily. "That's..."
"I didn't mind that I was going to perish as well. What did I have to live for, after all? I must have been the only one who didn't speak." Meltdown shrugged. "But then Gwendolyn spared me. She was tiny. Speaking in coherent sentences was a novelty to her. But she was watching the sacrifice, saw that I was reacting differently from others, and stopped them because she wanted to know why. She didn't want Garsheeva to kill me. And so Garsheeva listened... and because the child empress had judged me so, that was Garsheeva's judgement as well. I was taken into the temple core and given a wish, and I wished to be smart and strong like the ponies around me. Garsheeva granted me this brand, able to increase my strength and intelligence to any levels I desired, so much so that the smarter I made myself, the better ways I could create to manage the heat and survive even more power. But that first night, when for the first time in my life I had the clarity of mind to comprehend my actions, I could do nothing but cry."
"If you were unable to comprehend the consequences of your actions," Shinespark said, "were they truly your fault?"
"It matters little." Meltdown shook her head. "What Garsheeva saw in me was a willingness to condemn my entire hometown and everyone in it over what I saw as right. To her, none of the other circumstances mattered. She may have granted me my life and a wish because of Gwendolyn's intervention, but that I was a pony who had passed judgement on her entire world... That is why she gave me the Empire and placed me in charge. Once the existing head of the Power Distribution Agency, a stallion called Temperantia, met his end... the backbone of the continent was all mine."
Shinespark didn't blink. "Garsheeva cares that much about this?"
"She cared because my real purpose wasn't to rule," Meltdown sighed. "It was to act as a check to her. My brand is a brand of judgement. Because, as Garsheeva has told me, sealed somehow inside it is a weapon designed to render any sphinx mortal, strip away all the power she had amassed over two thousand years and make her just like Gazelle or any of the normal royals. The Empire has always had a pony like me at its head. Each and every one of them has had their own brand given by Garsheeva and containing this weapon. When we die, Garsheeva finds our body and takes back our brand, and then a new judge takes our place. The point was that if my heart ever told me to cross her, she believed I would, and would use the intelligence she gave me to unlock the secret of this weapon and strike her down."
Shinespark slowly exhaled. "That's a lot. I don't know whether it would be preferable to having judged your people worthy to live, and then being unable to give it to them."
"I didn't tell you that to get you down," Meltdown said. "I told it because you were determined to help me even though you didn't have a shred of context about who you were helping. You decided I deserved it. Garsheeva always refrained from passing judgement on my actions. She said that was my job... but in the end, the one pony I never let myself look at one way or the other was myself. If even a goddess must be held accountable to others, then I'm no different. I just wanted it to be known... and for you to know before you make that decision about me."
"...Thank you for telling me." Shinespark nodded, eyes earnest. "But saving the ponies who need it is what I do. I made my decision about you, and you haven't changed my mind."
Starlight, Maple and Valey stood in a covered dock building next to where the Immortal Dream was being repaired, this berth instead being used to restock and outfit the Arc Manta.
"You don't have to wait here, you know," Ebb said, walking past with a crate on his back. "It's going to be a few hours before they're ready. The sun isn't even up yet!"
"Doesn't stop you from being up too." Valey shrugged. "And if we're really setting off at dawn, doesn't hurt to be low on sleep so we can sleep on the way there."
Ebb shook his head with pity and mirth. "Oh, if you guys are making survival plans for the first few hours, I think you're missing the point of a two-week trip."
Maple smiled sadly. "We're very familiar with long trips, actually. I think we'll make it okay."
Ebb glanced at Starlight. "Well, okay. It's not going to be a fun outing for kids, though."
"I'm not here to have fun." Starlight met his eyes. "I'm here to get to where we're going."
"Hey, Ebb! Move your flanks!" A mare who was carrying twice as much as he was staggered by, making him jump and hurry along.
Valey nodded at nothing, surveying the ship and the rigging it was attached to as it refueled. "Well... last chance to chicken out. We really wanna go see this place?"
"Yes." Starlight felt the weight of her saddlebags, filled with everything she didn't trust leaving behind... her sword the shard from Chauncey, the remains of the moon glass sword that held every sarosian soul in the Empire.
Valey was decked out with luggage too, wielding a pair of suitcases and her signature hat. One of them, Starlight hadn't seen before, and Valey wouldn't say what was in it... It was probably full of fruit. The other, she did recognize: it was Amber's suitcase, the one used to transport the windigo hearts.
"Is it really a good idea to bring those along?" Maple glanced down at the thing, her own pair of saddlebags sitting to the side to avoid bumping her still-sore ribs.
"Yeah..." Valey shrugged. "The professors were seriously ticked when I told them just how much harmony stuff we could potentially have on our ship, so they said if we were taking a vacation out here with all of us along anyway, we might as well take them with us too and see if they couldn't isolate whatever few sources we leave behind on this island. Besides, it turns out the case the yaks packed them in is actually resistant to whatever kind of latent effect they have. Who knew?"
Maple sighed. "Some days, I really wonder what would have happened if we went to Yakyakistan instead of the Empire after Ironridge..."
"Knowing our luck?" Valey adjusted her hat. "That glacier would be either a crater or a lake. Maybe both."
"I hope you're not serious." Maple looked away. "We're probably going to fill them up if we can, too?"
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "Modified this thing to have room for all five instead of just four. Sparky's got some kids helping with the Dream, and whether they get it to fly again or not, it's not gonna do it without a power source. I figure after Celestia clears us to hang out here longer, we're gonna want a way to get around."
Maple nodded. "Mmm..."
Valey lowered her voice. "Especially if we're gonna find that bit of land Garsheeva gave you. You know the one..."
"With another crystal palace?" Maple whispered back. "It really might be time to think about that future, won't it? Building a town there for all of us to live together?"
"Yeah." Valey looked back at the submarine. "Just as soon as we've brought back this impostor, kicked her butt and taken care of this bad future business."
"Right." Maple's face was stern, but slowly relaxed. "So what else did you pack? I didn't think you needed much other than food and friends to stay happy."
"What, this?" Valey nudged the suitcase. "Eh, it's a backup plan in case stuff goes wrong. Don't mess with it, it's seriously heavy. Probably not gonna need it, but you never know."
Now Starlight was curious. "A backup? What is it?"
"Some stuff from the ship." Valey shrugged. "Not too important. And it's also kinds busted. I'll have the next two weeks on my hooves, so I can help Sparky's effort out a bit by trying to fix it."
Starlight mentally noted that it was Jamjars' effort, imagining the filly's chagrin that she wasn't even getting credit. This would certainly be a much different voyage if Jamjars was along...
"Hey, not to change the subject," Valey interrupted, breaking her train of thought, "but are you really okay with being on voice call for... you know..." She flipped the sound stone and caught it in a wing. "Princess Celestia?"
Maple's ears fell. "Right. I can't imagine it'll take her more than two more weeks to get back here. Not after how long we took reaching this island in the first place."
Valey nodded. "Yeah... I've talked with the guards, and while they're not thrilled that we're bailing like this, them and the professors are in on the same story that the university commandeered us for research they're apparently under orders from Celestia herself to conduct... Lifestream stuff, space travel, you know. I think it's using up a lot of our brownie points with them, but they'll point at the professors and the professors will say they're just following orders, so we should stay free from trouble. But she'll definitely arrive before we're back. What I'm more worried about is that we won't be able to be there in person, since we're some of the most mentally-sound of the bunch. But she sounds like an upstanding chick, so hopefully she won't be too hard on Sparky and Felicity and the others while we're gone."
"Right..." Maple took a breath and exhaled.
Time passed, and the student workers finished carrying and refueling, the ship waiting only for its appointed crew and departure time. Ebb wiped his sweaty brow, flopping on a bench near Maple, Starlight and Valey along with several other students. Starlight recognized some of them from Laughter, but had forgotten their names if she ever knew them.
"Whew!" Ebb shook his mane. "I'm going to have to hit the sea extra hard after that one. You'd think less would need doing when our last voyage was cut short."
"That's not how it is," a skinny, athletic mare panted back. "So who are you going with? I heard this voyage is unusually important."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah... Only staff along. We've got Sea Star, Caballeron and that Anemone chick. Pretty sure they're splitting the piloting in eight-hour rotations."
"Better than twelve, am I right?" Ebb winked. "Hot gossip for you: Doctor Lost has started bribing us with less homework to do guard rotations on his office at night."
Starlight blinked. "After the break-in earlier?"
"Yeah." Ebb sat back and folded his forelegs behind his head. "Every single night since then, that sphinx who came with you has come back. He just gets in somehow and starts reading random books without end. He's really hard to catch, and if you take him away, he doesn't fight, but then comes right back the moment you take your eyes off him, and it doesn't stop until dawn. Professor thinks it's a game, but it's almost kind of creepy if you ask me."
"Or sad," the mare Starlight suspected was from Laughter added. "He looks so desperate and sad. And he reads at random, like he doesn't even know what he's looking for."
"Ah bananas." Valey slumped. "Yeah, I dunno what to do for that guy. I don't think anything's gonna fix him."
"What's his story?" the mare asked, voice low.
Valey shrugged. "He used to be a prince. Let his ego run away with him, turned into a real bad guy. Then his hubris caught up and someone he had ruined for sport earlier came and assassinated his kid sister for revenge. Laughed in his face while doing it. Real not-subtle. On the one hoof, he deserved it, but on the other... eh. Just don't feel too sorry for the dude."
Both ponies stared at her in shock. "That kind of thing actually happens?" Ebb asked, eyes wide. "That sounds like it belongs in a dark fairy tale."
"You think anything me or Birdo said while grandstanding was made up?" Valey yawned. "I dunno what he told you on that camping trip, but stuff's messed up sometimes. I didn't learn I could punch out a yak or become capable of it in the first place because I didn't need to."
"No, it's just..." Ebb grimaced. "Doesn't sound like there was much of a good guy there."
The mare nodded. "That sounds like it was two ponies fighting and a victim getting caught between them."
"Yep. There doesn't need to be a good guy." Valey stretched her wings, sitting back. "Ponies don't usually go fwahaha I'm evil! And the ones who do are always up to something else. Pretty much every bad guy I've ever seen has just had someone else dunk on them first and go nuts under the pressure. And if that's most of the villains you see, most of the good guys you see are just stronger-than-average folks like us who want to survive and happen to live in the same city or continent or world that the other punks are threatening. Anyone who puts their life on the line for the sake of doing good alone is cooler than we'll ever be."
Both students looked sobered. "Well, for what it's worth," the mare said, "I wish I had a way to help him."
"He's trying to get his sister back," Starlight interrupted. "And she's gone. You'd need to know about bringing ponies back from the dead to help him. And we know enough about that to know that what he's trying to do just isn't possible."
Those words tasted faintly of a lie on her tongue. She didn't know any way to help Gwendolyn, truly. All the ways she did know, what had been done for Valey and what she was trying to do for Glimmer wouldn't work. But she was the last pony in the world who had a right to call anything impossible.
"Or," Maple said, gently but firmly, "you could help him move on and accept that his sister is gone." She put a hoof on Starlight's shoulder. "I'm not sure if that's your place, because Gazelle is dangerous and you're still young, but it's a lot more likely to help him than searching for ways to bring back the dead."
The mare folded her ears, but Ebb looked confused. "I mean... of course it is. How are you supposed to bring back someone's dead sister?"
"It's about what you want to do, not what you can do," the mare cut in. "He can't, but you can imagine how he wants to."
"You think he's looking through Doctor Lost's archives for a book on necromancy?" Ebb raised an eyebrow. "If I were a deposed prince with dead family, I'd be looking for ways to get my throne back and take revenge."
Valey frowned. "Which is another reason why it's not really healthy for him to be rooting through that library. Especially when nobody even knows all of what's there."
Suddenly, there was a commotion near the door, and nearly a dozen figures filed in: Amber, Shinespark, Felicity and Nyala, Harshwater and Grenada, Gerardo and Slipstream and even Jamjars were there.
"Everyone!" Maple's breath caught in her throat. "You came to see us off?"
"Indeed we did." Gerardo spread his wings and bowed with a benevolent grin. "As grandiose as university life has been these past few days, we just had to bring some of that cheer to send off our friends." Beside him, Slipstream nodded, her cheeks full and rosy.
Valey rubbed her neck. "I mean, it's not like we'll be gone for more than two weeks. We're just out for a while..."
"Two weeks is everything, darling," Felicity complained. "Do you have any idea how much my figure is going to change in that amount of time?"
Amber shoved her shoulder. "You're being silly and you know it."
Felicity giggled. "Heehee... I know. Thanks to having friends like you who will put up with this old bat and her self-esteem woes. I'll make sure to dress us all up just for you on your return!"
"Hey," Harshwater said, stepping forward. "I know I've been absent the last few days, and... no offense, but I really needed to unwind from all of you. Especially after the last month. That said, company is a lot more enjoyable when you have a choice. So when you get back, can we catch up?" She glanced at all three of them. "The offer's open for everyone."
Valey winked. "Sounds like a cool excuse to spend a day on the town."
"When we're done with this," Maple sighed, "I'm going to crave social contact. Don't you worry about that. And we've got the sound stone, too."
Grenada nodded. "I will be keeping the other end. My sister has asked I join her in Generosity Two so we can be in better contact. She offered me the couch, which..." She looked between Shinespark, Amber and Felicity. "I am inclined to accept."
Shinespark stepped up beside her. "We'll be busy, working on Meltdown's armor and repairing the Dream. I'll stay in touch, especially when Princess Celestia arrives. But after how our last talk went, I'm confident I'll be able to handle this. We all have a dream of a shared future in Equestria, and with her blessing we will see it come true." She bowed.
"...Hey." Valey stepped up to her.
Shinespark rose.
"This island is good for you, you know that?" Valey looked across everyone, but her eyes settled on the mare in front of her. "All of you, but especially you. I think you're really gonna be alright."
"I have a lot to be alright for." Shinespark met her eyes, unwavering. "Not as much as I'd like, but a lot more than I could have. So... one day at a time."
"Yeah." Valey nodded. "Two weeks of that. See what you can do in two weeks, but I'm already impressed."
Shinespark averted her eyes. "Sorry I haven't been... myself since you got back. I'm still not, even if you can say I'm doing better."
Valey shrugged. "I mean, whether I can say it or not, it's still true."
"I didn't welcome you the way you deserved," Shinespark said. "So, even if it's just a two-week parting..."
She rushed forward, put her forelegs around Valey's neck in a hug, and touched her cheek with her own, closing her eyes. "See ya," she whispered in Valey's ear.
"Heh." Valey closed her eyes as well. "For a second I thought you were gonna kiss me."
"That's for when you get back," Shinespark replied. "And that's a promise. Both so you'll have something to look forward to, and I'll have something to ensure I feel good enough about myself for. I'll keep my word. You'll see."
Valey returned the hug, squeezing Shinespark's orange body tightly against her own. "Yeah, you bet I will. Stay awesome, girl. You got a lot against you, but you can do this."
"So did we miss the kiss, or was that a fake-out?" a familiar voice called from the entry.
It was Anemone, Caballeron and Sea Star behind her with mildly exasperated looks. "This is going to be entertaining already, I can tell," Caballeron said, managing to make it sound daunting and exciting all at once.
"Our things are already loaded," Sea Star declared, stepping toward the gangplank. "I take it you're having your goodbyes. Come when you're ready. It's your time we have to lose."
"Um..." Nyala took a hesitant step forward, the only one of the farewell party sans Jamjars yet to speak. "I know this is last-minute, but you wouldn't have the food aboard for a fourth, would you?"
Valey blinked. "Wait, you want to come too?"
Nyala nodded. "It's a special place. I want to see if it's anything like the caves in Icereach."
"...Well, if you are really understanding the meaning of two weeks aboard a cramped submarine, I don't see why not..." Caballeron shrugged as he passed by.
Maple looked up from a farewell hug with Amber. "You're joining us?"
"If you'll have me," Nyala said.
Starlight, Maple and Valey all slowly nodded.
"Welp. I guess we're heading out." Valey broke off and headed for the gangplank herself. "See ya in two weeks, everyone. And be sure to call! Something tells me it's gonna be a long, long ride..."
"Honestly, it's a bit better without the sweaty guards loafing around." Valey kicked a leg in the air, balanced on her back with the sound stone laying on her belly. "We unstacked those extra beds in the bunk cubbies, so there's actually room to sleep in them without laying flat on your side. Felicity, you'd still think it's the worst, but it's surprisingly manageable."
"Glad to hear it, darling," Felicity's voice sounded from the other end.
"Well, we've been real busy," Amber's voice added. "Jamjars is wandering around being weird, so I've pretty much spent today tailing her and making sure nothing is going on. And then Shinespark's got her projects with the ship and Meltdown... But aside from that, it's been quiet."
Valey nodded along. "No Celestia yet?"
"No sign of her, I'm afraid."
"Yeah..." Valey rolled over. "Much as you all say she's cool, I kinda want to meet this chick and get a feel for what she's like myself. Still feeling a little iffy about only being there for the meeting using sound stones."
"Shinespark has this covered," Amber assured. "She's... doing much better. I think. She might just be working through her issues, and by that I mean keeping herself working so she doesn't have to deal with them, but still... You can see it in her eyes, you know? She's more determined."
"I guess Meltdown's just really good for her?" Valey shrugged. "Honestly, I sorta wish I could light a fire in her the same way... but not if it comes at the cost of being a damsel in distress. Bananas, I hate doing that."
The sound stone crackled for a moment. "It's who Shinespark is," Amber replied. "She helps ponies less fortunate than her, and that's just hard when she's the one low on fortune. I'd say the best thing you can do for her is support her in that and help her help those others."
"Goals for when I get home, I guess." Valey kicked idly again. "Not much I can do aside from encouragement and advice while I'm cooped up on this ship. Scientists say we're making good progress, at least."
"Wonderful, darling. We're all wishing for your speedy return."
Day two...
"I've been staring at this long enough to make my eyes fall out," Professor Sea Star said, standing in the instrumentation portion of the ship that was no longer off limits to Starlight and her friends. "But ever since I mandated that you four carry all your luggage with you everywhere you go, I'm reasonably certain the harmonic disturbances interfering with our equipment are isolated to the four of you."
"Umm..." Maple watched her. "As in all four of us are culprits?"
Caballeron nodded, having adjusted his sleep schedule so that his and Sea Star's periods of being off duty yet awake were aligned. "Which is absolutely fantastic because it tells us nothing at all."
"On the contrary, my dear professor." Sea Star grew a slight smirk. "If we can say all of them are harmonically unusual, it supports the hypothesis that northern ponies themselves might be to blame. We're losing out on the functionality of our equipment, but it investigation of this leads to a discovery of biomagical differences between ponies in the north and south..."
Caballeron gave her a look. "You do not suppose that relates to why their border is so famously uncrossable, do you?"
"It's possible." Sea Star shrugged.
Maple cleared her throat. "Well, myself and Valey and Starlight all have unusual interactions with magic. But Nyala is different too? She's a normal pony..."
Valey subtly poked her. "Except for, uh, the last seven years, you know..."
Maple blushed. "Right. Never mind me..."
Caballeron raised an eyebrow at the duo. "Sometime it would behoove us to know of these magical differences you already suspect yourselves subject to. It could ease our research immensely."
Valey yawned and fanned at her mouth. "She's got a pony in her cutie mark, I'm a zombie, Nyala's been a zombie in multiple different places at the same time, and Starlight punched a goddess monster in the face."
"Please," Sea Star sighed, rolling her eyes. "We're trying to be serious here. If you're not going to help, you can keep your secrets. Right now we have nothing but time."
Valey snickered and strolled away.
Day three...
"I've been thinking," Maple said, laying on her bunk. "About what you said yesterday. Our situations really are so absurd, there's nothing we can do short of proving it to make anyone believe us if they're skeptical."
"Eh. Not our loss." Valey hogged the bunk opposite hers, playing with her tail to pass the time. "Show me a case where we actually need to convince someone windigoes are real or whatever for something important, and then we'll solve that problem. Honestly, I like being able to hide behind audacity. Makes me seem cooler if ponies think I can make up stuff like this on the fly."
"Still, though." Maple stared at the ceiling. "It got me thinking about how to prove it... and that got me wondering what would happen if we took your pendant off."
Valey frowned. "I'd probably turn back into a dormant shell like I was before it."
"And then if we put it back on, you'd turn back into you." Maple nodded. "I was there when it happened. The empty you didn't resist. It's probably something we could do safely if we had any reason to."
"Like convincing someone?" Valey shrugged. "Yeah, that would actually probably work out nicely."
Maple hesitated. "Well... I was also thinking, you know how you used to wear the pendant with Nyala because you said it could let you share your body with her?"
"Yeah. She doesn't have any memories of that." Valey huffed. "A shame, too, because the coolest thing I ever did with her was kicking Herman's rear. Maybe we'd be better friends now if she remembered that."
Maple nodded. "Well, actually, I was thinking... if you ever have any doubts about yourself being a good pony again, we could always ask Felicity or Nyala if they'd like to wear your pendant for a moment and see what you're like without any memories of us at all."
Valey blinked hard. "That's... a little creepy to think about. And kinda intimate for my tastes, you know?"
"You do it to other batponies," Maple pointed out. "You carried Nyala around for a while, and you went through to see who all was in the crate of moon glass we got in Ironridge. Remember? That time in the tournament where you were doing all that?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Valey's tail drooped. "I dunno. Maybe it's just that I don't worry about that anymore. I'm not a saint, and I'm cool with that, because I don't need to be to keep you guys as friends and be an overall decent pony."
Maple glanced away. "And it's kind of like how I'm carrying Glimmer in my cutie mark. I wonder if there's any similarity to what I'm holding and what moon glass holds... Aside from her and Starlight, I've never tried pocketing a pony before."
"Sounds like you're not eager to change that," Valey replied.
"It's one of those things you make manageable by not thinking too hard about. And I'll have her out soon."
"Yeah. Four more days..."
Day four...
"What are you doing?" Nyala asked, pacing up behind Valey at the submarine's lone workstation, the biggest and freest space on the ship that was available.
"Making my brain hurt." Valey pored over an open suitcase, the heavy one she had lugged aboard as a backup. "And hopefully making Sparky proud, and hopefully not saving all our rears if stuff goes really south."
Nyala looked hesitantly over her shoulder. "Is that a machine?"
The suitcase sat open at ninety degrees, an immensely compact amount of mechanics and mana circuitry exposed inside. In fact, the wiring looked to be part of the case itself, like it was less a machine in a suitcase and more a machine that was designed to close in a clamshell and become portable.
"Its technical name..." Valey grunted, using the spokes on her wings as precision instruments to deal with the insides of the machine. "Is a KarmaTech Thirty-Four. And yeah. You could say that." She stepped back, turning to face Nyala and wiping her brow. "What's up? Need a hoof?"
Nyala shook her head. "I was just curious." She stared past Valey at the suitcase. "So that's what the ship's terminal looks like. I've only ever seen it on the inside."
"Heh..." Valey chuckled, turning back to the machine. "I knew you'd know what this was. Yeah, this is the innards of the ship's terminal that got fried by that harmony storm while we were crossing the border. I can't believe Sparky's engineers actually stuck an old portable consumer-grade thingamajig like this in that fancy ship of theirs. No wonder it got busted. But hey, that's good for me, because it means I can haul it around and try to fix it up while we wait for this trip to finish."
"The make and model are more than ten years old," Nyala commented. "I was surprised to see its specifications too when I connected to it as Braen."
Valey scratched her neck. "Yeah, I didn't even know what it was until I pried the dashboard open to get at it and found this thing back there. Maybe it could do everything she needed and she didn't feel like wasting resources on a custom option? Though I'm guessing she liked it for airship purposes because it's small..." She tested the hinge and winked. "Or because when you close it, it makes a pretty solid table."
Nyala shook her head. "Actually, I bet she did it so she could recover it and carry it and its data with her if the ship ever crashed. The case is very armored. That's part of why it's so heavy. And there were important things on there..."
"Yeah." Valey frowned at the machine, holding a hoof to her chest. "Like the schematics for this pendant."
"You said you're trying to fix it as a backup," Nyala said. "I don't know if its old memory contents physically exist anymore. It wasn't designed to fly through that storm. Nothing is. That's a big part of why the ship's so broken."
"Eh." Valey shrugged, flipping a miniature spark gun that was intended for ship hardware repairs. "Once upon a time, like three years back, I tried to hack the entire Stone District Defense Force surveillance system. It didn't use this exact same thing, but it was still KarmaTech... That was Dangerous Karma's dad's company. Did mana tech stuff, especially power distribution and these things. Corporate family dynasty. Point is, I thought it would be real hilarious to hard-wire every single display in the command center to show only cameras I stashed in the Earth District to point at the biggest, best fruit trees I could find. I got away with it for like two days, too! So if there's anyone who knows how to hack this thing back into order with brute force, it might be me."
Nyala bit her lip. "Don't get your hopes up too far. If the states on its memory have been wiped by the storm's energy, no amount of skill can bring it back. It's gone."
"Nah, I'm not too worried." Valey turned back to the machine. "Thanks for the concern, and if you wanna help, I'm super down. But even if I don't get what I want out of this, I can still get it up and running for Sparky. And if all else fails, bananas, I need a hobby. But I've got a few other ideas for it up my sleeve."
Day five...
"So there's still no sign of Princess Celestia?"
"I'm afraid there isn't, Miss Maple," Gerardo Guillaume replied. "I've been cavorting with some of the guards in your absence, and they seem to be getting mildly anxious themselves. They are the ones taking responsibility for us not being back across the border by now, after all. It's a large risk they're taking for us, I understand. All we have to look forward to is instruction on what our futures are permitted to contain. They're the ones who have something to lose."
Maple sighed. "Well, I hope they're alright."
Gerardo chuckled. "I think that's a first for you. How far we've come in the world that we're hoping for guards' safety rather than being run ragged by them, hmm?"
"I've forgiven you for getting me arrested in Ironridge, but don't press your luck," Maple warned. "That was not how I dreamed of starting my adventuring career."
"How many times did you say you've been arrested, Gerardo?" Slipstream's voice chimed in. "You were just telling me the story the other day..."
"Anywhere between five and eighteen, depending on a large number of definitions and technicalities," Gerardo replied. "Scrapes with authorities tend to be a staple of adventuring, particularly in Varsidel where the authority tends to be whichever faction has the most fighters and weapons."
"Well, that's..." Maple sighed. She had no clue if it was different. "That sounds stressful."
"It becomes a badge of honor after some time. You have enough close shaves under your belt to count as well, do you not? Imagine the day when we settle down, form lives and friendships with non-adventuring civilians, and you get to serenade their wondering eyes with tales of the first time you got arrested assisting with the smuggling of contraband cargo."
Maple almost gave a good-natured retort... and then blinked. "Wait, we settle down? I thought you were..."
"Planning on adventuring more?" Slipstream cut in. "Well, it's not like we'll be starting a family and settling down, I mean, griffon and pegasus, but..."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Last I was aware, the plan was to found our town on that plot of land you obtained in Grandbell, yes? The one we could use as a fuel source for our ship, or a new one based on the same technology? I don't see myself losing my love for the horizon any time soon, but I can absolutely see us turning such a town into a home base of sorts. Come back, refuel, spend a week swapping stories, fly out and return again four months later! True, there would be goodbyes, and we wouldn't spend all our time there, but I think it could be called a home..."
"Heh." Maple wiped the corner of her eye. "On days like these, that dream sounds more and more like it's just around the corner."
Day six...
"That's it." Valey strolled into the room where Nyala, Maple and Starlight were crowded around a tiny lunch table, tucking the sound stone back beneath her hat. "News of the day: Sparky's work is going well, ship is half disassembled and looks like a skeleton, Gazelle hasn't stopped breaking into the archives, Jamjars is apparently living in the Laughter dorm now because some kids took pity on her and gave her a room, Felicity is shockingly a week more pregnant than she was when we left, and still no Princess Celestia. One more day, and we'll be in and out of that palace before she actually arrives."
Maple blinked. "It both feels like it's been forever and no time at all..."
Nyala nodded. "I'm almost afraid of us arriving. It's not a place I want researched..."
"And I will go to bat for you the moment our science friends poke their noses anywhere they don't belong," Valey promised, stepping around her and taking a seat in the middle. "Personal news for me, that KarmaTech Thirty-Four is as restored as it's going to get. Should be able to load new data, but you were right about the old stuff. It's gonzo. Oh well. Biggest shame is I won't have it to work on for the trip back." She nudged Maple's cutie mark. "Hope we'll be busy messing with our new friend instead."
Nyala looked uneasily at the interaction.
"You know," Maple said, "we probably need to talk about how we're getting inside, don't we? Sea Star, Caballeron and Anemone are counting on us to have a plan for entry."
Starlight shrugged. "The other trees have responded to my magic. The first one even made an opening in the castle wall for us to climb through when we came back the second time, remember? Maybe I can ask it to let us in."
Valey nodded at her. "Pretty sure we don't know enough about what we're up against to have a concrete plan, and pretty sure this is the kind of magic plans don't work on anyway. But Starlight's probably right. If we're supposed to be there, I suspect it'll just work. And if not... Well, the place is intelligent, right?"
"One more day, then." Maple held out a hoof. "We are going to get that filly back and get some answers about this bad future."
Valey bumped it, but didn't draw back. "We're gonna own her and make her tell us as much as we need for Starlight to be happy again."
Hesitantly, Starlight joined her hoof to the joint pile. "I'd like that."
Valey glanced at Nyala.
"...Alright." Nyala slowly added hers. "If you're thinking about bad futures, though, messing too much with the root of the world might be a good way to cause one."
"Yeah." Valey's brow shadowed. "That's why no matter what we find, we're gonna keep that place protected and not just leave a way back in. But fortunately, I think the professors know how gnarly that could be too."
Day seven...
"All of you should be prepared," Anemone advised, passing through to the cockpit from the instrument room. "The lifestream's readings are growing much stronger, enough to overpower some of the interference. We're very close."
"Is there a way to see what's outside?" Starlight asked, stepping forward. "I might need to see it to get us in."
Anemone nodded. "We'll turn the panel in the lunch room to the underwater camera feed. But I'd guess it's less than an hour away."
"Guess again!" Caballeron's voice called from the cockpit. "I believe we are nearer than you think!"
Valey, Nyala and Maple rushed ahead, but Starlight stayed put, closing her eyes and concentrating. They were low. They had been low for a while, but now, brushing the seafloor... She couldn't quite feel the lifestream like she had before, but knew they were close.
"Is that a canyon!?" Maple's surprised voice came from ahead.
"An undersea ravine," Sea Star's voice confirmed. "The seafloor is deep, but the structure we found is deeper still. It's at the bottom of that."
"Descending," Caballeron confirmed.
Starlight ran to the cockpit as well, stopping in the lunch room and staring at the display on the wall. The entire seafloor was flat, strewn with a carpet of kelp and sea life so thick, it had to have some unnatural energy source to survive... and that source manifested itself in the form of a tear in the ground, long and jagged, that rose up around them as they slowly descended.
The camera feed was bright, but it wasn't the ship's illumination, she soon realized: it was the canyon walls.
Slow, sluggish traces of midnight-blue energy welled up along them, bleeding through veins in the rock on an inexorable journey to the surface. She had seen these before, in the Ironridge palace very near the bottom... Why were they always midnight blue? The flames had colors of their own. Whatever this was had to come from the lifestream. Twin uncomfortable realizations that probably meant nothing pressed in on her at once: midnight blue was her color, the color she always remembered flashes of after pushing herself far, far past her limits, and the lights were far brighter here than they had been in the north. Shouldn't the water have dimmed them? What if it was dimming them and they were just that much brighter? Did that mean that here, the energy given off by the lifestream was stronger than it was in the north?
The Arc Manta sank rapidly, the sound of its engine changing as it worked to keep pressure constant despite the change in depth. Starlight kept her eyes fixed on the screen... until a tiny light drew her attention downwards, shining up through the floor like a faint orange star. Hadn't there been one of these in Ironridge, too?
It was another Tree of Harmony, and it was calling her.
The crystal palace rose from the gloom like a geometric lump, obscured by sediments at the bottom of the sea trench yet undeniably Starlight's goal. It was huge enough to take up the camera's entire field of vision, the layers of dust and silt covering it unable to hide its faceted construction, yet Starlight knew this was just the tip of the overall structure. She had seen Garsheeva's core excavated. She knew how big these truly were.
"Starlight?" Valey called from near the cockpit, where everyone was gathered. "We're getting there! It's your move!"
No pressure, or anything. Starlight ignored the screen, staring downwards at the orange spark. "I'm here," she whispered. "Can you hear me? We want to get inside..."
Welcome, child of...
Starlight's ears shot up, though it wasn't them she heard the voice with. She pressed her cheek against the floor. "Can we get closer? Farther down?"
Come...
Her horn was tingling already, the proximity to the tree's magic starting to connect with it. Would her old ability to use magic freely down here still work with the artifice? She hadn't had another panic attack since she stopped using it...
"How close are you proposing?" Caballeron asked.
"Close." Starlight focused, lighting her horn and trying to touch the palace exterior through the walls of the submarine and the sea. For a moment, her aura sparked to life, fanning her telekinesis out in her special searching spell, and she probed, feeling the layers and layers of silt... and then she touched the crystal. It was like closing a circuit, and immediately a sense of power and completeness flowed into her through her horn. It came with a renewed strength of mind, like a fog of worry became a little easier to see through. Contact was breached.
Starlight pushed more power back into her horn, and orange swirled into her vision as her aura intensified: the tree's magic, mingling with her own like poorly-mixed coloring in water. She hardened her telekinesis, leaning on the palace's energy, and pushed at the silt like a heavy wind, sliding it down the sloped crystal surfaces and clearing it away.
"What's going on down there!?" Sea Star's voice rose in alarm. "The ground is shifting!"
"I'm trying to make an entrance," Starlight said, eyes closed in concentration. This drew attention to herself, and she knew it, but it was like the tree was right behind her, telling her not to worry; that she wasn't alone.
"You're using telekinesis from here to do that?" Anemone sounded flabbergasted.
"Yeah," Valey chirped, "that's pretty much what we do."
Starlight's telekinesis brushed against the crystal facing, now smooth and exposed. "Get us closer," she commanded. "Touching it, if you can."
"I do not see any signs of an entry point," Caballeron warned. "Whatever you are intending to do..."
The ship jostled as it touched against the surface.
"That's quite the confidence level in this plan," Sea Star warned.
Starlight ignored her. She had to get them through the crystal, and had a vague feeling she could sculpt it... after all, in the Ironridge palace, she had noted how similar the crystals felt to her own. But she couldn't control her crystals at range, save for hitting them directly with a beam. And with the wall of the ship in the way...
She reached out to the tree, tightening her focus and her aim. If this didn't work, it might kill her, but she felt a tiny nudge inside her horn, the tree correcting her path. With a powerful burst of magic, Starlight teleported.
Pomf! She reappeared in an equally-strong flash, inside a room that was pitch dark. Lighting her horn somewhat fixed that, exposing a high, faceted, vaulted ceiling held up by pillars. It was impossible to tell what color the place was with her teal light, but it felt dark. And unlike the polished, well-maintained palace of Garsheeva, every wall and surface here was covered by that chalky sediment that had hidden the crystals in Ironridge. She scuffed at some below her with a hoof, and was rewarded by it chipping away, revealing a dim luster beneath.
Starlight turned back to face the wall she had teleported through, charging her horn and firing a bolt of energy. It hit the surface with a crack, shattering some of the buildup, and another bolt and some wiping with her telekinesis later, the wall was clear and exposed. Starlight sent power through her horn once more, hitting the crystals and willing them to expand naturally outwards as if they were her own.
The moment her beam struck, she nearly tripped. A sensation of weightlessness and immeasurable, cosmic size came over her, like she was as big as spacetime itself... and then a presence grabbed and steadied her, dulling her senses until she could only feel that singular room. It was still bigger than anything she had ever been, but as Starlight focused their power, working on instinct alone, the crystals reacted and flowed outward as she willed it. She felt them touch the submarine. She felt the force of the submarine change... They were ignoring her instructions and trying to pull back. She hardened her grip, the crystals spreading all over its submerged body, encasing her friends and their vessel in a gemstone tomb that no amount of engineering or power could free their ship from. And finally, she willed the original wall to melt away, leaving a tunnel into the cavity where the ship was sealed, a route for her friends to get inside.
You wield it with ease.
Starlight's ears folded. "I'm going to get my friends. I'll be just a minute more..."
The tree's presence beckoned to her from below. And yet, unlike the other two, something about it felt hesitant. Not unwelcoming, but uncertain. It had reservations about this.
That almost gave Starlight pause, but she shook herself out of it, the tree still feeling certainly on her side. She charged her horn again and teleported back into the ship.
"What happened out there!?" She was immediately accosted by the academics... or more accurately, appeared in the midst of a panicked squabble between them and her friends.
"Look, we roll how we... Oh hey, Starlight!" Valey turned to her in relief. "What did you do?"
Starlight shook her head. "We're inside. Go out the normal way."
Everyone looked at each other, and Valey shrugged. "Hey, if she says it..."
The porthole ground and squealed as its industrial pressure seal was undone, slowly maneuvering to let them into the world. Starlight climbed out first, testing the tunnel she had left... It was almost good, but they were too high up. With a flash of her horn, she added a staircase, one that appeared out of orange crystal and took no concentration or focus to maintain.
"What is...?" Caballeron breathed, following behind and staring around at the upper chamber. "We truly are inside...!"
Anemone followed behind, hovering and staring around. "What is this place?" She turned in circles while flapping, bumping gently into a pillar and brushing it with a hoof. "And what's this stuff it's made out of?"
"It's just dirt," Starlight explained, demonstrating by gouging some away with her hoof again. "See?" She pointed at the crystals below.
Sea Star emerged with her horn lit as well, and Caballeron switched on his headlamp, revealing that the coating was definitely orange. "Fascinating," he breathed. "This substance is..." He touched the patch of crystal Starlight had left exposed, and his cutie mark briefly twinkled. "Also without value. How did you get us inside this place?"
Starlight shrugged. "I asked it for help."
Meanwhile, Anemone had broken off a flake of the residue and gave it a careful sniff, then a tiny lick. "Hmm." She tossed it aside. "I think this is a form of dried ether. It must concentrate in this place and build up over time."
"You love licking things way too much," Valey pointed out, trotting after Starlight.
Anemone did a midair backflip and followed along. "Guilty as charged!"
Starlight was already moving toward the edge of the room, searching for a way down. She glanced over her shoulder at her party... three academics, Valey, Maple and Nyala. The professors were all distracting themselves. Nyala looked... unreadable.
FLASH!
Starlight tripped over an unevenness in the floor, and for a split second, her vision crackled with gray. But it wasn't a true gray like moon glass. More a subdued gray, like someone had forgotten what colors were and left the light to fade. And for a tiny instant, while that flash was active, she wasn't in a crystal palace at the bottom of the sea, but in a spacious building of metal and glass and materials she didn't recognize, where dozens and dozens of ponies in sharp suits sat in rows, intensely concentrating. Then the world was back to normal as quickly as it had changed.
"Woah, you alright?" Valey caught up to her first.
"I-I'm fine." Starlight pushed away Valey's attempt to help, laying on the ground where she had fallen and squinting. "Just a minute..."
The lighting was completely different, and it was hopefully her imagination. But the room's ceiling... the distance to the walls, the faceted, shallow roof vaults, the positioning of the pillars... it all looked eerily similar to whatever she had just seen.
Come, the flame beckoned from below. All its reservations were intact.
Starlight forced herself to stand up, very shaken and not sure why.
"You don't look okay." Valey frowned at her. "You look like you just saw a ghost. You sure you're alright?"
"I..." Starlight took a few steps forward, her curiosity for answers almost enough to overwhelm her trepidation. "I think maybe I did..."
A staircase soon presented itself, and Starlight and her friends started their journey downwards. As they went, Starlight's mind refused to let the vision go. What had she seen? Was that another vision of the future? It didn't feel like it at all. To be fair, it looked futuristic, going by Ironridge's idea of the future... but it hadn't activated when she touched the flame, and wasn't nearly long or apocalyptic enough. It had been... ponies working at a very serious job.
At ease, child. You are here to learn, are you not...?
About a dozen floors down, the vision hadn't repeated. It was Caballeron who stopped them instead.
"Halt." He pointed down a long room which they were crossing side to side, to a platform with two curved, chalky staircases on either side, leaving a large wall section exposed descending from the platform and facing the rest of the room. "If I know anything about ancient ruins... that is a prime location for an equally-ancient mural."
"You want to stop and search for murals?" Valey blinked.
Starlight shrugged, turning and wandering down the long hall toward the platform.
The area in front of the wall was protected by a subtle, raised ridge, low enough that Starlight could step over it with ease but high enough it couldn't be a natural part of the floor. She stared at it, thoughts of the other room she had seen in the vision filling her head. If this place were made out of something else... no one would have reason to approach this wall anyway. Maybe it was decorative? It looked almost like the curved lip of a fountain...
Caballeron climbed straight over and started scraping at the wall.
"Um..." Starlight cleared her throat and intensified her aura. "I can do that faster."
Shaping her telekinesis cloud like a giant rag, she pressed it into the sediment, scrubbing and wiping as it all crumbled away into flaky dust. The air took a second to clear, during which she backed up... and was rendered speechless at what she saw.
It was, indeed, a mural, half of it a blasted, broken landscape and the other a lush, verdant field. Streams upon streams of ponies were pouring from the ruined land to the healthy one, carrying their belongings all upon their backs. In the background of the ruined land were crumbling cities and castles, meteors and debris falling from above, silhouetted by an emblem she had never seen before. The healthy land was filled with mountains and whimsical villages, and behind it was a much more recognizable mark: the Emblem of the Nine Virtues.
But it was the line between them that drew her true attention. Two figures were doing battle, both terrible in their own right. One was a featureless pony with a ring of runic light around their barrel, attached to ethereal, runic butterfly wings, surrounded by circles and sigils. The light pattern was a decoration Starlight remembered all too well: she had seen herself with that ring and those wings, shown in a reflection in an altar in the dream cave where she received the Nightmare Modules, a reflection that showed her herself as the goddess of her friends. And hovering unmistakably at the figure's side was a sword with a triangle in the hilt, just like how she had a sword that gave her the beginning of those runes.
The other figure was Aegis.
A titanic ray of power flew from the metal dragon's chest, barely missing the winged pony, appearing small when there was no context, yet hitting the ruined landscape and leaving a crater the size of a town. The pony was in the midst of a dodge, retaliating with the sword... It had to be bigger than the one in her saddlebags. But if she could shrink it to a dagger, she could probably make it grow...
"Bananas." Valey hovered in front of the mural. "Isn't that Aegis?"
"So this is what she meant," Nyala whispered. "Princess Celestia must have been to a place like this and seen this mural. I wonder if this is why she was so scared of it?"
Valey glanced at her. "Buh?"
"This is why she went back instead of dealing with us when she first arrived," Nyala answered. "It was before you were... back. She found Aegis and wanted to take it back to Canterlot." She squinted at the mural. "I don't get it, though. Where's the third one...?"
"Third one?" Valey stared harder at her, tilting her head.
Nyala shook her head. "Something from the Icereach chapel. Don't mind me."
"Pardon," Caballeron said, "but are you saying you're familiar with some of the things in this mural?"
Anemone and Sea Star were glancing between the winged pony and Starlight. They had been in the underground lab when she used the sword to clean up the windigo heart mess...
Starlight swallowed hard. Aegis and this pony fighting... A world ruined, and ponies moving to a new one... Was this a preservation of the past? Could this old world have been Indus? But if she had the sword and Glimmer had Aegis, and she didn't particularly like her counterpart... hopefully it wasn't a prophecy as well.
No, that was ridiculous. Starlight shook her head and tried to get a grip, the tree's magic stepping back to let her come to terms with this on her own. "We need..." she ground out. "We need to go deeper. We have to reach the bottom."
Eventually, the party proceeded, thoughts swirling in Starlight's head about what all this meant. Above all: had all this been in the Ironridge palace as well, or had she just missed it because there was too much sediment and Valey already knew the way? Garsheeva's palace had held murals of Empire history. Maybe it reacted to its master, or maybe that meant this old world was physically closer here.
Kindness isn't always Honest. Some of us have purposes we must put above the Truth. I am Honesty. Here, Truth is that purpose. It must be wrestled with, and the other Elements exist to help with this.
Starlight frowned and pressed on.
No Element can exist absent from the others. Harmony is not a solo. But I am the advocate of Truth, because all Elements must be represented for there to be a balance.
Another flight of stairs fell away, and another, and another. Starlight was moving quickly; Caballeron and Sea Star were falling behind. Valey and Anemone were the only ones who were still caught up when she finally entered the table room above the tree stem.
The table sat waiting for her, the Emblem of the Nine Virtues glowing on its surface as a collection of points, just like the last two palaces. Starlight nodded at it, spotting the staircase on the far wall that would take her to the flame. Just a little-
FLASH!
Another wave of gray struck her, and she barely kept her balance. This one felt more like moon glass, though she couldn't place why. And it lasted for nearly a second... long enough for her to see that the crystal room around her hadn't changed. But the map table, in the corner of her eye, was different: instead of a geometrically perfect hexagon inscribed in a triangle, the sigil was smashed, as if someone had drawn it on paper, put down two hooves and then scrunched the two sides together, ruining the perfection. Then the gray passed, and it was back to normal.
Starlight felt a fearful confusion rising in her throat. What was happening? What was...?
Her friends had been on her tail, but now she was alone. And a bit of gray, artifact static was occasionally flickering at the corner of her vision.
"Maple? Valey!?" She cried out, looking around desperately... but her hooves moved of their own accord, carrying her without her say-so toward the staircase to the bottom.
Gray flickered at the edges of Starlight's vision as her body moved autonomously down the staircase to the tree room at the base. Once it became clear that she couldn't fight it, she tried to relax, and once she tried that, it was obvious that whatever was moving her was fully in control... and it even moved with all her own ticks and mannerisms. Her muscles stayed tense, as if her body itself was apprehensive; the dissonance was like a splash of cold water that calmed her further. She was a spectator, feeling more and more removed... Was this even real?
She couldn't hear anything. Her ears were a sea of gray static.
The spiral staircase opened out into a familiar chamber, its walls devoid of generators like the palace in Grandbell. Her body looked around for her, like it was curious too... but she shuffled along across the bridge to the tree, moving with reticence and urgency at the same time.
The room's temperature stopped registering to her senses, and she couldn't taste anything. More gray intruded on her vision, everything except the tunnel directly in front of her beginning to flicker and fragment. This had to be an illusion, mind trick or dream. In fact, it felt almost like reliving something that had already happened... or had yet to occur.
Starlight stepped through the tunnel, the flame chamber hoofsteps before her... and something slammed into her senses, stabbing her and tearing through her body.
Starlight felt herself scream, flail, hit the ground... and it was over. Her senses were slowly returning. She lifted a hoof, and she could move on her own again.
"Starlight! Bananas, are you alright!?"
"Starlight, stay with us! I knew I shouldn't have let you...!"
"She's still breathing! Starlight, do you remember us!? I am never gonna let you play with that again!"
"Unnngh..." Starlight stirred. Her head felt like she had been sledgehammered, and her friends' faces came into focus before the room around them... though she was fairly sure she wasn't in the flame room anymore.
Two things quickly stood out: Maple's eyes were their original red, neither the midnight blue they had been while she was carrying Glimmer nor a new color from being charged with this flame's harmony. And that sword was floating, active, in its runic circle, pointing straight at her.
"What happened...?"
Valey grabbed her shoulders, face flush with concern. "Do you remember us, girl? Your friends?"
"Of course I do..." Starlight tried to will the sword to lower, and it obeyed without question. As her senses continued to clear, she recognized that they were back in the mural room. The flame's presence was far below, but it seemed more distant than usual, as if it was hesitant to touch her. "Maple. Valey. How are we back here? Did you carry me? What happened?"
The two mares breathed a sigh of relief as one. "What's the last thing you remember?" Maple gently prodded.
"I... don't know?" Starlight rubbed the side of her head. "We were going down to the flame room, and I was alone and couldn't control the way I was moving, and-"
Maple interrupted her with a tight hug. "Let's..." Her voice cracked. "Let's go home."
Starlight folded her ears. "What happened?" Her voice grew lower.
"You used that Nightmare Module on yourself." Valey shook her head, still looking upset. "The one that erases memories. After you'd been down below. I guess you just really didn't like something that had happened."
"Mhmm." Maple sadly nodded.
Starlight's breath caught. The one she had drawn a line in the sand for herself never to use...
But it made sense, didn't it? All the gray blocking out her senses. Not understanding why she was moving. Not having her friends there. Maybe everything she remembered was just... holes in her damaged memory...
"Why?" she whispered, slumping.
"I dunno." Valey shrugged. "All we can tell you is what you told us. You said Glimmer was right and not poking your nose into this really was your best chance to be happy in life. And you wanted us to tell you that we climbed this far back up to do it so you could be sure of what you were doing, that it wasn't another panic attack and that you were acting with a clear head. Which I sort of doubt, but hey, they're your words..."
So that was why the flame felt distant. If she was lying to herself, covering up what it had said... If it was a flame of honesty...
"Also?" Valey nodded. "You said to tell you to stay away from positive harmony stuff from now on. These flames, the ship's engine, what have you. That's why Ironflanks didn't take any with her. Apparently you dialed this Nightmare Module way down so you wouldn't forget literally everything, and said if you got exposed to too much, it might counter the effect and make you remember... so yeah. No more crystal palace crawls for you, unless you decide you really just don't trust yourself and need to know anyway."
"But when you were talking this over," Maple whispered, "you said maybe you'd believe it more if it was yourself telling you this instead of Glimmer. You said you... need to settle down and make more friends, instead of going around and trying to get stronger. You said you found more power than you wanted, and needed to draw a line for yourself and leave some of it behind."
Valey nodded solemnly. "Yeah. About that..."
Nyala stepped forward.
"You're here too?" Starlight asked, more than overwhelmed.
Nyala nodded. "I have something for you." She held out her wings, cradling a gleaming, deep purple crystal that somehow made Starlight thankful just looking at it.
"Is that...?" Starlight frowned. What was it?
"Crystallized generosity, according to you," Valey said. "We were there when the flame made it, but couldn't hear what it was saying. And don't ask me how an honesty flame produces generosity. I couldn't follow your answer on that and I don't think you got it, either."
Starlight stared at the generosity crystal, unsure why she wanted it and feeling cold despite Maple's hug. This was it. The end of the line. She had finally decided to stop, give up and turn around, and she didn't even get to understand why.
It wasn't fair. It made her want to cry.
"The professors went back ahead," Maple reassured, wiping the start of a tear. "It's alright."
Starlight did cry. "T-That's to take with us? So we have some harmony to restore my memories if I ever regret this and really do need more power?"
Valey shook her head. "You said to tell you not to think like that, and also no, it shouldn't be strong enough. But we charged up the windigo hearts again if you seriously did want to... Just so you know, though, if you do decide to do that, I'm not letting you do this again if you change your mind a third time."
"You didn't want to let yourself erase your memories again either," Maple whispered. "That's what this is for."
Nyala nodded. "This works like moon glass. It can hold cutie marks. Only you have to give it yours willingly, and it will willingly give it back."
"Yeah..." Valey shook her head. "You told us to tell you that you wanted to get rid of that artifice as soon as you could, but since you needed a cutie mark to control the sword to wipe yourself... yeah. Your call on that, but you know what it's been doing to the way you feel. If I were you, I'd take it off and then keep that thing around in case you ever need it back again."
Starlight was numb. "Can I do it later? I c-can't think..."
"Of course you can." Maple scooped Starlight onto her back, not wincing. "You said the flame would let us out of here so that you wouldn't have to control the castle. Let's go home to our friends."
"Totally." Valey nodded firmly. "You also said that making friends... ones you trusted more than anything, and more than you have now... is how you'll make it in the future. You said if you had made more friends before this, enough to set you straight when you needed it and guide you, more than just us, that this wouldn't have been so bad and you wouldn't need to go backwards like this. And personally, I'm a little offended, but hey, that's just my ego speaking."
Starlight let her ramble. Her vision drifted, a gigantic door closing before her in her imagination as she turned her back on it. All the distance she had come, every time she had learned something that scared her more and more and made the world feel emptier and emptier above her... this was where it ended. This was where it became too much. She had saved her friends from Crystal and the windigoes, and this was where even she could say enough was enough.
It felt like being dead, and yet, was strangely peaceful. Perhaps a shred of intent reached her across the Nightmare Module's divide, a wish from her past self, but right now she could do nothing precisely because there was something she could do. It wasn't like her panic attack where she tested the Nightmare Modules with the sword. There, she had foolishly tried to increase her capabilities so she could have power she could then set aside and not use. That hadn't helped her at all.
But here... she was hanging up a sword. She wasn't getting new power, swearing new vows, or doing anything additional or new. All her life, she really had been getting stronger, making new friends, clinging onto what she had and never saying goodbye, hadn't she?
...All because of that one painful parting with Sunburst.
All because of that one parting, she had sworn to herself never to say goodbye again. Never to let the door be shut by someone else... and here she was, shutting it herself. Maybe this was what Glimmer meant by learning to let go.
It was cathartic. Starlight kicked that door in her mind, banging it closed, a thrill she had never felt before sparking through her senses. She hung that sword of knowledge, left it behind. She could do this. And... even though she was making herself weaker, not just by choosing not to use her advantages but by leaving them behind, they were still there.
There was a way for her to get that knowledge back, at any time. Just use the windigo hearts... jump inside the harmony extractor when it was active... Her friends said it as a warning, but she knew herself better than that. The power was left behind, and yet not out of reach should the day come when she needed it again.
And just like that, Starlight Glimmer didn't have to do everything in her power to still be ready to protect her friends.
Her tears redoubled anew. She was right. Whatever she had learned from the honesty flame, it had certainly been wise. When Glimmer told her this, every time Glimmer told her to step back and let go, it only hurt. Yet here she was, having put down a burden yet still able to use it when the world came to call.
"Shhh," Maple whispered, climbing steadily beneath her. "We're almost there."
"What happened to Glimmer?" Starlight managed through her sobs.
"She isn't here anymore," Maple hummed. "The first thing we tried to do was bring her back. You and the flame did something, I don't know what... and I fell asleep for a few moments, and when I woke up Valey said she had returned and then ran away."
Ran away, had she? Starlight wondered if she would ever see her again.
"Did you see anything weird about the table with the emblem?" Starlight muttered, the fright of her staticky memory draining away.
"Right above the tree room?" Valey cut in. "Bananas, yeah. It looked all normal for a moment, and then... flash. Like it had been an illusion. Thing was all lopsided."
Starlight winced. "That isn't something I was supposed to forget, was it?"
"I don't think so?" Valey shrugged. "I mean, we speculated about it for a while, and it was weird, but not particularly earth-shattering."
"No puns, please," Maple murmured. "Let's just get back to the ship."
Valey snickered.
"How is that a pun?" Starlight asked, her mind almost light enough that she wanted to talk about pointless things. It felt like she was at the bottom of a deep lake, and had been there for some time, but was floating steadily toward the surface.
"Remember that thingamajig from Sosa the Explorer's journal?" Valey flicked her tail, climbing a few steps ahead of Maple and looking over her shoulder. "Where the guy thought the Emblem of the Nine Virtues was somehow related to the shape of the world, and we thought the crystal palaces might be located at the nine points?"
Starlight might have. It had been a while, and her head still hurt physically, even if her spirits were raised. It sounded vaguely familiar... "Maybe."
"Well, we definitely did," Valey continued. "Anyway, we were staring at that lopsided thing and thinking... if that was a world map, and the world itself was lopsided... like, two-continents-mashed-way-together lopsided... the place where it was all smushed and wrecked sorta matches up with the Aldenfold."
Starlight's eyes widened. Mountains formed by two land masses shoved together, moving everything on them out of position, even the crystal palaces... Well, Valey was right that it wasn't going to cause her distress to know, but imagining it was something else.
Starlight hesitated. So if that flash of gray by the map table had been her remembering the truth... "Then what about the office ponies in the first room?"
"Huh?" Valey blinked. "The what?"
What had that been? Was that not part of the Nightmare Module's effects? "Remember when I tripped?" Starlight pressed. "Didn't I tell you about it?"
Valey shrugged. "I said you looked like you saw a ghost, and you were all 'Well maybe I did' and walked out on me without explaining. Remember?"
Starlight looked down. So that had nothing to do with the Nightmare Module, if Valey remembered the same thing she did. But what was it...?
No. It didn't matter. For all she knew, it was related to whatever she had made herself forget... and Starlight was going to hang up that sword.
The Arc Manta hummed with energy, its engines lifting it out of the sea cave. True to a word Starlight didn't remember giving, the palace had released them of its own accord. She felt a last note of sadness as her hooves left contact with the crusted, orange crystal, and made a small promise to herself that once she had done what she told herself to and made more friends she could rely on, she would find a way to return here and apologize for shunning the truth in person.
But that was the past, and for the future. Right then, Starlight Glimmer sat on a bunk in Maple's embrace, holding the crystal of generosity close and telling herself a story.
Once upon a time...
"Who designed it?"
No singular being. The world has existed in iterations, built up with the intention of improving on each other while leaving the possibility of improving again.
Once upon a time, a curious filly had met with an underground flame...
A flame of love, that told her about the world.
Once upon a time, the world had been different than it was today. There had been cities and castles, and the world had been called Indus, and it had burned from a battle between two titans.
Starlight had no idea if the story was true. She was making it up as she went along.
Once upon a time, dozens upon dozens of smartly-dressed ponies had worked in a building, dreaming of ways in which they could improve their world and save it from death. But dreams had no power there, only science and technology and the two titans that were tearing it apart. It might have frustrated the ponies, but they took saving their world as a challenge to overcome.
Yes. To be loved is nice. And the foundations of the world are rooted in goodness because they were designed that way, precisely for the sake of those who live in it like you.
In order to save their world, they changed it, building a new one out of the ashes of the old. The ponies built a world where emotions and willpower could physically change things, using a mechanism called harmony. They built a world where instead of titans of force and might, who could overpower ponies and their frail bodies, the ones who ruled would be the ones with the biggest dreams, because they dreamed of a new world and wanted those dreams to come true. And they designed the world they dreamed of, and the buildings at its very core became infused with those dreams, and looked just like the ones where those dreams were born.
And once upon a time, after that new world had grown old and the one before it had been lost to time, left to the titans until their battle had consumed all that they were fighting over, there was a little filly called Starlight, dreaming big dreams in a world built so that dreams could come true.
She wished for friendship. She wished for safety. She wished to no longer be alone. And in her fervency, her dreams gave her power, and the world itself began to change, not just for her but for others as well. She fought the greatest forces that world had to offer, saving cities and fighting the destroyers of continents, because it was a whole world and it wouldn't change just for her. She would have to change it for everyone.
...It was a silly story. Even if that was the way the world worked, one filly couldn't shape the world with her dreams over all the wishes and goals of the millions of other ponies in existence. And she was a filly without a cutie mark. If the lifestream was the world's will, and cutie marks were a modicum of power that let ponies pursue their own greatest dreams, she shouldn't be doing anything without one.
Without a cutie mark...
Starlight took a deep breath, and drew the generosity crystal away from her chest. Inside, it glowed faintly with light, a triangular rune hovering visibly inside. It wasn't clingy like moon glass, but it did hold onto her... like the comforting touch of a nearby friend.
Her flanks were bare.
Without a cutie mark to control the black sword, she couldn't use it for Nightmare Modules anymore. But she was sure the generosity crystal would give back the artifice if she ever really needed it.
It was a blade that had been involved in that clash depicted in the mural, she was sure of it. Wherever it had come from, it was probably from Indus, too. But Starlight closed a door on that sword, taking one more step back from a mural of devastation that could easily come to parallel her visions.
She had already metaphorically hung up her sword. Now she was hanging up this one, too.
"Yeah... it was pretty crazy." Valey twirled the sound stone on a hoof, laying on her back in a random corner of the Arc Manta on the first day of their journey home. "The kid we were trying to catch? Half of the reason we were here? We actually got her back... and then she gave us the slip, just like that. Took one look at who was there and where we were and teleported away. Never found her."
"Well, that's unfortunate," Amber's voice replied. "But weren't you deep underwater? She couldn't have ran forever. Why not chase her?"
Valey shrugged. "Because the place was huge. She could have given us the slip for days. And even if we did find her, what's to stop her from teleporting again?"
"It seems a lot less impossible than entering an underwater structure at the bottom of the world," Amber pointed out.
"Yeah, but..." Valey stretched. "That's the kind of impossible you solve by being crazy and cool. This is the kind where something's just dumb and impractical. Besides, we had bigger things on our hooves after Starlight... Yeah."
"Do you want to explain one more time what she did?"
Valey waved a hoof in the air. "Sat there and talked with this flame, which apparently talks only in her head and can read her thoughts so we couldn't hear anything ourselves. And bananas, she looked like the most miserable kid in existence. Whatever that thing told her... Eh, I dunno. I almost doubt it was looking after her at all. Starlight said the thing was telling her it was like ripping off a bandage, but this looked like ripping off your wings along with it."
Amber was silent.
"Short version, she wasn't thrilled. Just kept this look on her face halfway through the climb back up... and then told us she'd be happier not knowing what she knew, even if it meant knowing there was stuff she was running away from, and gave us some things to tell her and then blasted herself with that sword and... erased her memories somehow. And she's been crying all the rest of the way."
Amber heavily sighed. "What do you think it told her?"
Valey shook her head. "I have no idea. I've seen Starlight hear a lot of bad stuff in her life, like when this Caballeron dude was telling her about her parents. But here, she acted completely differently. Usually she either gets stubborn or scared, but here, she just looked like defeat."
"She doesn't usually give up, does she?"
"Never. Starlight hates giving up."
Amber was quiet.
"I wish I knew what it told her," Valey said. "Maybe I could do more to help if I knew what it was that broke her. She was acting like this could have been alright if her life was better in the first place, but... what more can I do for her? I've tried to be awesome and supportive and have her back whenever I'm around. But today, that just wasn't enough."
"Where is she now?"
"Sitting with Maple and staring off into space." Valey sighed, not using her conventional nicknames. "If she was messed up before, though, I can't imagine what she's going through now. She already doesn't trust herself. We went after this other kid because she was apparently telling Starlight it wasn't safe for her to know stuff. Now Starlight is telling herself this too, as a message from her past self we have to pass along because she doesn't remember? Bananas, her self-worth must be in the negative hundreds."
Amber grunted in frustration, but had nothing to say.
"This whole thing about how she's having visions about her destroying the world?" Valey shrugged. "Well... let me tell you, with her state of mind, it wouldn't be that hard to just say screw it and go off the deep end. Have a tantrum. What's the world ever done for her? In fact, at this point, if she doesn't, I think it'll be more to spite her circumstances than because she cares about anything else."
Amber sighed.
"And I'm certainly one to talk," Valey continued. "Remember me in Ironridge? The real reason I annoyed everyone endlessly was because I owed that city nothing and I knew it. If it was gonna be hard on me... well, you know?"
"Valey..." Amber swallowed. "We have to help her. There has to be a way."
"Like what?" Valey kicked aimlessly at the air. "You think more forbidden knowledge would do the trick?"
"I doubt it. You know who I do think could help her, though?"
Valey played with her hooves. "Who?"
"Willow."
"The gray chick from Riverfall."
"I told you about this the night we got to Kinmari, when we went for a run, but Willow knows a thing or two about holding your head high after getting crushed and stepped on by circumstances, both in your control and beyond. And she's great at getting you back on your hooves when you're feeling like it's all over."
"Yeah, she sounded like an upstanding gal."
"She's more than that. She had this way of taking something that should have been the end of the world and making it all okay, and making you not even mad at whoever caused the problem. And if I were Starlight, I'd be a little mad at myself for being too weak to handle this. She probably hates running away."
Valey blew on her bangs and slumped. "Yeah... she's gotta be. One of the things she told us to tell her was that in the future, if she ever got in a better place, then she could handle it. She could let herself remember what she forgot."
"How does she remember it?"
"Concentrated harmony. The windigo hearts we charged up should be enough to do it. So... it's not like she's running forever..." Valey frowned. "Or, not like she has to run forever. Completely depends if we can help her come to terms with... whatever she has to come to terms with. I hope she's got a better idea of what would make her ready than I do."
"It's really too bad it's so hard for her to live her life without knowing," Amber sighed. "Like, look at us. We've never needed advice from a harmonic flame to live our lives, and we've had some pretty bad problems between the two of us. It makes you wonder what's so different that makes it so much harder for her."
"Her age?" Valey shrugged.
"I was pretty young when Willow told us we wouldn't be going to Ironridge. Not quite Starlight's age, but still. And weren't you a filly when you got to Ironridge?"
"Yeah, true. I still haven't a clue how my age measures up, but I was a shrimp back then."
Amber sighed. "Maybe whatever the flame told her has to do with it."
"Yeah... maybe." Valey looked away. "All she wants is to live a normal life and get away from the problems hounding us, right? She wants to not have to be afraid of herself and a mysterious future anymore. I wonder if the flame told her some reason why that was impossible, and she just has to learn to live with things the way they are."
"I hope not. I wish there was a way for us to know what she was up against ourselves, so that we could better help her."
Valey closed her eyes. "It is what it is."
"What it is isn't fair. She's just a filly! It should be our job as adults to look out for her. But how can we guide her if we don't know what we're guiding her away from?"
"I mean... we sure know some of it." Valey shrugged. "We know she's terrified of herself, and we know why. We just gotta find a way to help her."
"Easier said than done."
"Tell me about it. I don't really know a lot about dealing with kids..."
"I helped Willow raise her kids... and by that, I mean played with them."
"And I've literally never even seen Starlight play. Or laugh. Or even smile. Bananas... There's gotta be a way to help her. There's just gotta."
"How's she doing right now?"
"Right now? Probably the same as she's been doing for a while. You wanna go talk to her yourself? Won't be hard to find her."
"...Sure. I'll go scrounge up some of our other friends. Maybe she'd like to hear from everyone."
"Yeah. Good idea."
"Hey, kiddo."
Starlight looked up, still sitting with Maple and the generosity crystal. Maple was fast asleep. "Hi," she whispered.
It was Valey, holding a glowing sound stone. "How are you holding up?"
Starlight glanced at the crystal containing the artifice. "Good, actually."
Valey blinked. "Wait, really?"
Starlight glanced away, keeping her voice down. "Well... yes. Maple's sleeping. What do you need?"
"Not me who needs stuff." Valey shook her head. "I got all our friends together on the other side 'cuz they wanted to talk to you. You said some stuff down there about maybe if you had more friends, so here are the ones you already have. Everyone turned out to support you."
"Indeed we did," Gerardo Guillaume's quiet voice added.
"True that, darling."
Starlight climbed out of the bunk, holding the crystal close. "Let's go somewhere we won't wake her."
"Starlight..." Maple grumbled crossly, reaching a half-awake hoof to stop her. "You're not supposed to be taking care of me..."
"Oh." Starlight climbed back in, and Maple sighed in content.
"Well, your voice sounds stronger than we had feared, at least," Felicity acknowledged, raising her own now that Maple had given them permission to stay. "We heard you went through an... ordeal."
Starlight shook her head. "The worst part is remembering the part where my memory starts breaking before it's gone completely. It still feels like I lived through it... but it's okay now that I know why it felt that way."
"That was worse than the whole..." Amber hesitated. "Well, I'm glad you're doing alright?"
Starlight nodded and sighed. "I don't know how alright I'll be doing until something bad happens again and I have to see how hard it is for me to keep you safe. The bad part will be that I don't know if what I don't know could help me."
"Kiddo..." Valey winked. "When that happens, because with our luck it would be dumb to assume it won't, you just gotta remember that we've got your back just as much as you have ours. You're not a solo act, here."
"You had better not be putting on a brave face for us," Amber warned. "I know if I had erased my own memories and told myself I couldn't know what they were, I'd be pretty upset."
"Even if it's true?" Starlight folded her ears and looked down. "There's a lot of things I've never been happy to learn. If this one was bad enough that I really would be better off without it, I believe it."
Felicity cleared her throat. "That's a... somewhat defeated way of thinking, darling."
"So?" Starlight frowned at the sound stone. "I don't care if it's good or bad as long as it works! I just want to live a normal life and be happy, and if this is going to make me happier, I'll take it! It's not like I lost anything except time from coming down here. And Maple doesn't have to carry around the other me anymore, and I got rid of the artifice that was making me have panic attacks when I used my magic, so my life still could be better for this! I wish I could know what it was too, because I am curious, but I don't want to know so badly that I'll ignore myself when I say it'll make me miserable."
"I'm... glad you're happy..." Gerardo began.
Starlight looked away. "I heard what you said the first time, and I don't care. I know it wouldn't make me happy to know this. I know I need to try less and live more like a normal filly. I just... Please let me have this. I really am okay right now."
"...Yeah. Sure." Valey nodded and walked away.
"Bananas," Valey sighed into the sound stone. "Okay, so she's doing better than I thought she was, except... I dunno. I would personally hate it if someone told me I had erased my memories for my own good, and Starlight is stubborner than I am. I can't phrase it properly, but does this sit strangely with anyone else?"
"Well, I'm glad she's not feeling horrible," Amber spoke up. "But this doesn't seem like it's doing anything for her self-confidence. It's more like pounding a nail in the coffin and settling for something mediocre. She's not learning to be happy or confident with herself, she's accepting that she's not trustworthy and giving up fighting it. And maybe it's a relief now, because it feels like the battle's over, but a loss is still a loss."
Valey gritted her teeth. "Yeah. And there's nothing we can do to prove otherwise, because that clown we were here to get answers out of got away. Makes me wanna turn this ship around and try again to find her..."
"You think Starlight is feeling up to opening the palace again?" Felicity asked.
"Nah. And if we couldn't catch her while we were there, how are we gonna do it now?" Valey slumped. "This whole thing stinks. I wish this didn't have to happen to our friend."
"There's no way we can attempt querying these otherworldly forces ourselves, is there?" Gerardo cut in. "Perhaps the knowledge is too much for Starlight, but if we knew even why she decided to give up on herself in this, we could help her."
"That's what we were talking about earlier." Amber huffed. "And no, I don't see any way there is. Unless we had someone on equal standing to a harmonic flame who would actually talk to us..."
"Princess Celestia?" Felicity suggested.
Everyone grew quiet.
"You..." Valey fumbled with her tongue. "You think it's safe to ask her about a kid who maybe might be responsible for some future calamity?"
"She might have information, to be fair," Gerardo postulated.
"At the same time..." Amber's voice was down. "If you lead an entire continent, and someone tells you a single pony is a threat to it, what are you going to do?"
Felicity sucked in a breath. "Ah. I hadn't considered... Well, there's a morally upstanding yet risky way that relies on having faith in equinity, and then there's a... safer way."
"You know what?" Valey straightened up. "She's gonna ask where we are, and is gonna find out we went to the crystal palace. As far as the scientists know, I asked for us to come here for my own reasons, and not due to Starlight. So what you guys can do is ask her questions about this place, get her talking about it, and just never mention Starlight at all until we get a better idea of her character. I mean, maybe you've got an idea already, but I've never met her. Sound fair?"
"Sounds difficult to get information relating to Starlight or a bad future," Gerardo sighed. "But, better safe than sorry."
Valey nodded. "...Actually, I'm gonna ask her about the weird mural we saw as well. Did I describe that to you?"
"Not I," Felicity cut in.
Valey spent the next minute describing the scene, with its migration of ponies between two worlds and its battling titans, one with a sword that resembled Starlight's and another that was clearly Aegis. "...And she'll basically have to answer," she finished, "because didn't you say she bailed on us the first time because she wanted to lock up and take away that metal dragon? She clearly knows something about it, and it would be super reasonable of us to ask what she had to ditch us in the middle of monster and griffon mafia territory for."
"Then it sounds as if we have a plan," Felicity proclaimed. "I shall spread the word to Shinespark and all the others who may be talking with this Princess."
"Or I will," Amber interrupted. "You haven't felt like moving around that much lately. Are you sure you want to go into town to look for Harshwater and Grenada?"
"An embarrassingly fair point. Conceded..."
"Then it sounds like you guys got stuff to do." Valey stretched, setting down the sound stone. "I won't keep you. We're still a week away, so just give us a call out here if anything changes. And remember to take care of yourselves, too. It's not just Starlight who was stranded for a month, after all."
"Shall do," Felicity promised.
Gerardo chuckled. "When have I ever not?"
"Yeah," Amber finished. "Talk to you later."
It was two hours later when the sound stone flashed again. Nothing had changed aboard the Arc Manta as Valey clicked the modified flash club, answering the call.
"It's Shinespark," Shinespark's voice greeted, sounding stiff and ready. "Princess Celestia is here."
"Your Majesty." Every last Equestrian guard who had traveled to Kinmari from the border bowed, assembled in formation.
"Rise." Princess Celestia looked over them from the end of their double-row formation, investigation on her face. Her eyes slowly scanned them with a neutral look, and then she nodded. "I have been somewhat informed of the situation. It is a grave breach of protocol to aid foreigners without Writs of Harmonic Sanction in remaining south of the border. However, I understand that you followed your hearts and your options were few. I would speak with all of you individually later, but that can fill the time on our return to Canterlot. For now, take heart and be at ease."
Her gaze shifted to Shinespark and the others, assembled nearby, and she left the guards, stepping closer. "It is for you, however, that I came this far."
Shinespark bowed, the sound stone at her side, and her friends followed suit. "Princess, on behalf of the fallen city of Ironridge and the fallen nation of the Griffon Empire, my friends and I humbly request asylum south of your border."
Celestia scanned them as well. "That is not a request I can grant lightly," she finally said. "The border has been sealed for nearly a millennium, and for many reasons. At the same time, due to your circumstances, it would be most foolish of me to turn you loose beyond my sight in the northern world, and you have all clearly suffered much on your travels. Let us find somewhere more private. This will require great discussion. President Kinmari?"
The president, standing by as well with a cabal of fanfare ponies, nodded. "Please, follow me."
Their trek ended in an executive meeting room high up in the administration building, with panoramic windows looking out over the western sea. Shinespark noted the walls around the entry doors were a little thicker than they needed to be... Soundproofing, most likely. Apparently Sosan executives weren't the only ones who did that to their offices.
"Hmm. This will do." Princess Celestia appraised the room with a quick pulse of her horn that blanketed everything in soft yellow, then nodded, taking a chair near the end of the table, but not the biggest one at the end itself. "Would any of you like to begin?"
Shinespark glanced uncertainly at her position. "Are you sure you want to sit there...?"
Celestia glanced down. "If you are referring to my size, this chair will manage. But you are the leader of a foreign nation, are you not? I have no intention of this being a trial, my little ponies. You entered my lands with a powerful enough relic to earn my attention, and I would have this meeting conducted as equals."
Everyone blinked at each other. "Relic?" Amber asked. "You mean that thing you took away?"
Princess Celestia nodded. "Indeed."
"Hey, so..." Valey's voice crackled out of the sound stone. "What was that thing, and why was it so bad?"
Celestia glanced at the stone with interest. "That is an interesting communication device. I don't believe I've seen technology like it before. Have we met?"
"She's with us," Shinespark immediately said. "On the ship."
Celestia looked slightly concerned. "I hope you are able to talk with the expectation of privacy. The legends of the Aegis are ones I do not wish to put any closer to curious, scientific hooves than necessary."
"Holed up behind a noisy engine and smothered in a blanket. Pretty sure no one can even get here without shadow sneaking."
The princess's lips twitched. "A sarosian. Interesting. Regardless, you were asking?"
"What it was that you took away," Shinespark said for her. "And why it necessitated leaving us in such a dangerous situation. The brood beasts showed up shortly after you left, smashed my ship and nearly killed us all."
Celestia visibly winced. "An act for which I am indebted to all of you. However, there are times when I must put the safety of my populace as a whole over that of individual ponies. It is a hard truth of being a ruler, one I suspect you may be familiar with yourselves. Fortunately, with your lives still intact, it may not be too late to make amends. As for the creation I took into custody, I believe it to be a weapon from times that were mythical when I was young, and now extinct in the memory of the world."
Amber nodded. "Yeah, we've seen it fight."
"You have?" Celestia's eyes widened in equal parts suspicion and alarm.
Amber looked around at everyone. "I'm not sure how conscious the rest of you were, but it defended us against the monster that attacked the Empire and chased us over the border. It used up months' worth of fuel for our airship in one or two attacks. If it had fought for more than a few seconds, it would have probably outclassed that thing even harder than she outclassed us. And she was strong enough to take out Garsheeva."
Celestia looked at her curiously. "Ah. Your airship's fuel... I recall we had a discussion about this." Her face fell. "I was already certain this was the real Aegis, but that knowledge does nothing to dissuade my suspicions. If you have built an engine capable of flight using this as a power source, I would imagine you are already familiar with how it works."
Shinespark uncertainly nodded. "The engine was mostly my father's design, though I contributed a lot in research and construction."
Princess Celestia hummed. "What you are doing is using souls as a power source. The world we live in is a one where thoughts and emotions themselves carry a magical power to physically sculpt reality. A pegasus wills their body to fly, and it does so, despite the mechanics of their wings being unsuited to producing sufficient lift themselves. For all of us, our bodies are bridges between our minds and the world... tools that have the capacity to use our wills and change things around us. It is possible to create machines, as well, that act in the same capacity as our bodies to allow our souls to change the world, though sometimes in ways our bodies are not built for. It is not usual for a unicorn to fly, for example, yet here your airship is." She looked around the room. "I trust you may well be aware of much of this, but want to ensure we are on the same page."
Everyone nodded at varying speeds.
"Which leads me to wonder," Celestia continued, "what it is that powered your ship. Mortals are finite, as is the strength of their souls. And while such strength can be increased through life experiences, personal growth and strength of conviction, none of you could possibly lift such a vessel on your own."
"Crystal palaces, like the one Garsheeva lived in," Shinespark said. "They have crystal trees at the bottom, with harmonic flames. We use processed windigo hearts from Yakyakistan to bottle the flame, and then use that to power our ship."
Celestia nodded. "So then, my little pony, you are using the soul of the world to power your ship."
"It's worth noting that we figured this out largely by accident," Gerardo added. "I doubt I speak for myself alone when I say we found out that it worked at a time we needed it far too much to question it."
Celestia hummed. "You worry about the consequences of engaging the world thusly using windigo hearts. That alone speaks greatly to your favor. Many who could discover such a vast power source would think first and foremost of its applications."
"We've had..." Shinespark winced. "Run-ins with ponies who think that way."
"Are these fears founded, then?" Felicity asked. "I don't suppose this does have dire consequences..."
"For the world? No." Princess Celestia shook her head. "If you truly wish to dive into things, imagine a soul as a circular flow, with its turning as the power that lets you change the world. When that flow is intact and healthy, so too are your mind and emotions. Allow it to stagnate, and you will stagnate too. Trauma and certain negative emotions that are difficult to overcome can act as obstacles to the flow, just as a pony can cling to denial or grief and prevent themselves from moving forward. Windigo hearts are formed from concentrated wrath, the rage born of unmet, unjust desires. Using one to bottle some of the world's flow is both metaphorically and metaphysically equivalent to holding a grudge that won't let go. But at the size the world is, you could leave a single heart filled forever, and it would be like the grudge you hold against a foalhood friend who borrowed your favorite toy decades ago without asking, yet you are still close to today. Something so trivial, neither of you would think it is worth the time resolving."
Shinespark stared at her in interest. "So the lifestream is the world's flow. And the reason my ship runs out of power instead of being infinite like it was designed to is because the power comes from releasing the captive flow and allowing it to resume moving."
"Yes. And the lifestream is a portion of the world's flow." Celestia nodded. "You sound as though you have been talking to my scientists. They are confounded by the mystery of how it appears discontinuous, like a river that appears and disappears through invisible sources, and may take decades to discover that this is because it is but a small section of a greater whole. This is because the lifestream represents hope and the will to exist, and life consists of far more than merely this."
"Well..." Felicity looked around. "That answers a few worries that honestly weren't even on my mind. Did we get sidetracked somewhere?"
"I am answering whatever you have to ask," Princess Celestia replied. "But we were originally talking about the Aegis, and the harmonic mechanisms used to power both it and your ship."
Shinespark's eyes glazed over. "Before we return to that. If one happened to have an unusually high harmonic potential... What would it mean?"
"At what magnitude and what age?" Celestia asked. "I assume you refer to yourself."
Shinespark took a breath. "Many dozens of times what a normal pony should have. One in millions."
"Then it would likely mean there are forces at play interfering with your readings that go beyond the strength of your own soul." Celestia regarded her, wings shifting gently. "Garsheeva, for instance, has a line of ponies who follow her such as Meltdown, whom she has given modified cutie marks capable of drawing extra power from the world and using it to augment their functions to strengths far beyond what the bearer's soul could provide. In essence, they partially share a cutie mark with the world, borrowing trace amounts of the strength of its soul in addition to their own. I would not be surprised if it is possible for similar phenomena to occur in other ways as well. After all, the world itself is the source of life and cutie marks alike. It has never been observed, but it could well be within its power to do this on its own."
Shinespark glanced down at her own flanks.
"...If I may," Celestia said. "I am pleased to see you have recovered enough to indulge curiosity."
"It took some doing," Shinespark sighed.
"You can say that again," Felicity complained in agreement.
"Regardless." Celestia shook her head. "To bring this long story to a close, Aegis is a machine that acts in this capacity, using the strength of a soul to power itself. All ponies have limits, as in my analogy of flying unicorns earlier. Ways to utilize harmony, and the scale at which they can use it, for which they are made and in which they are bound. Aegis is designed to have no such limits. Any amount of power that could exist within the bounds of reality, according to inscriptions, it can wield. An omnipotent, mechanical body with neither will nor soul of its own... a metal god. It took part in a great battle that destroyed the last world to exist before this one. But the true reason it is dangerous is not because of its power. It is because it can be given this power with the same ease as your own machines: from your testimony, I suspect you've seen it power itself already with windigo hearts. And as it lacks a will of its own, whoever controls it needs only to find a suitable power source, and they could become omnipotent themselves."
She made eye contact with each and every last creature in the room. "We spoke at length last time we met about your dead friend, and why I could not bring her back. I would not be telling you this if I did not wholeheartedly believe that you have improved and can overcome the temptation to seek out ways to defy the natural order of the world... but this is what Aegis is. As simply as you have hijacked the will of the world for your own ends, though benign as powering an airship, the wrong master could tie together their intentions, Aegis's body, and the strength of the world's soul to become God. Not a goddess that governs continents like myself and Garsheeva, but an unparalleled figure capable of so much that they could rewrite the structure of reality and forge the world into whatever image they desired. This is why I had to seal Aegis away."
"Well, that's a discomforting thought." Felicity shivered. "Much as I have an extensive beef with my own personal circumstances and a whole lot of things in the world, that sounds rather extreme..."
"You said it was fighting a battle when it destroyed the last world," Amber whispered. "If it's really that strong, what was it fighting?"
Celestia sighed. "Another figure that is equally mythical, yet I know much less about. I am afraid I will be unable to indulge your curiosity this time, as all I possess is speculation."
"So, uh, hate to interrupt," Valey cut in, speaking up for the first time in a while. "But that dead-as-a-doornail friend you were just praising everyone for being over? Speaking."
The room was silent after Valey's announcement. "Repeat that, please," Princess Celestia said.
"I said, I'm the dead mare who you were saying everyone was over. Alive and fuzzy. Just wanted to point that out because if this is a terrible temptation that's gonna get us to mess up the world... Being alive honestly feels pretty great to me, so if we're making a mess, I'd like to know."
Princess Celestia frowned. "How did this happen?"
"Leftover parts from Sparky's basement." Valey audibly shrugged. "I'm technically still stuck in moon glass. Just wearing this pendant Shinespark made a while ago for something completely different that happens to allow captive cutie marks to be like you have them normally, as long as they're compatible with your body. I'd been using it to see what was inside other moon glass for a while, and talk to someone I lost to the stuff years ago. And someone had the bright idea to try slapping it on me with my piece in there."
Celestia listened throughout the story. "Is this true?" she asked the rest of the ponies in the room.
Shinespark nodded.
Maple did too. "I was there when it happened. It was just a little after you left."
Princess Celestia took a slow breath. "And you say that it 'just happened to be what you need'. This pendant was made for another purpose entirely."
"Yes." Shinespark didn't flinch, but it looked like it took effort. "I can go into detail about the old project it was originally for?"
"...Not yet, my little pony. There is something more pressing I wish to know." Celestia shook her head, not breaking eye contact. "Earlier, you talked about discovering the use of windigo hearts to bottle power for your ship." Her gaze flicked to Gerardo. "You described it as an accidental convenience needed too badly to question. Please, elaborate."
Gerardo did a marginally worse job of keeping his composure under the sudden pressure, but it was still admirable. "We were in the city of Ironridge, staring down rising tensions and a brewing war. We already knew of the ship when we saw the flame, and at first wondered if it could make a prudent escape route. Instead, we used the ship to navigate the city, and many lives would have been lost had we not. Might I ask what this has to do with Miss Valey?"
"...I see." Celestia turned back to Shinespark. "I had been wondering, my little pony, what sort of prodigy you must be to have created a machine that could borrow souls for power, technology that has been lost forever to the world. And especially at your age... I still suspect you are brilliant. Perhaps even good enough to be a personal student of mine, had your circumstances been different. But now that I hear these two impossibilities being described as flukes, I suspect something else."
"They're not really flukes, you know," Valey cut in. "We're being creative and just trying to survive by taking advantage of everything we have. If there is a way, we'll find it. That's how we roll."
Celestia stared at the sound stone. "And what about when there isn't a way to find?"
"Well, then we find another."
"You misunderstand." Princess Celestia frowned. "What would you have done if your circumstances had been anything other than what they were? Perhaps you were intelligent enough to recall the existence of this pendant and synthesize a new use, but what if its function had been marginally different, such that this result was impossible entirely? Or what if you had been on a different ship not captained by an inventor who had made such a thing in the first place?"
"Then I'd either have died long before this, or been somewhere completely different in the world."
"You are still missing my point," Celestia corrected. "You may have had the wherewithal to use the cards at your disposal, but you could have not had the cards at all. You could have acted on this hunch that it would work and discovered you were wrong. And yet you have done this multiple times, always when feelings are high and you are desperate to find a way. Do you see the unusualness of it?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Maybe we've gotten lucky, then. But as Valey said, without that luck, we'd be dead. There are probably countless other ponies out there who have all had similarly desperate times in their lives, especially when Varsidel is at war and the Empire and Ironridge have been visited by calamity within the last year. Perhaps the odds are one in a million that we would have these cards. But if hundreds of thousands of ponies give their all for survival, someone could eventually become that one in a million. Yes, it could have failed, but it didn't. And thinking too much about how we should rightfully be dead isn't healthy."
Princess Celestia watched her. "And the north has a million other ponies who accomplished the one-in-a-million task of inventing the machines that power your ship, yet perished because they weren't the one-in-a-million who had a pendant that could bring their friend back to life?"
Shinespark finally winced. "So we're very lucky instead of somewhat lucky. For your information, we're also the ones who didn't stop that monster from attacking the Empire, even though some of us knew her before that. And I'm the one who gave everything she had and more to bring back her hometown from economic irrelevance and despair, only to see it crushed and obliterated by a flood when her plan backfired. We've had just as many failures that are just as big as our successes, Princess. No unnatural track record. If our luck is anything, it's terrible, not stellar. We just dream big and don't know when to quit."
"What she said."
Celestia watched her for a moment more. "I never said anything about luck," she eventually began, a curious tone to her voice. "Though it does sound as though none of you have had it easy. My little ponies, just as a river with a constant source cannot be forever dammed, you fervently strive for a way forward, and sometimes find one, even where it could be least likely. This is not always a hallmark of chance. We discussed earlier the strength of souls, and how bodies and machines can be used in ways that bypass reason to execute your will upon the world. It sounds as though you are powerful enough that this sometimes even happens without your direct action. You merely need a way, and it is there..."
"Can that even happen?" Felicity asked quietly.
"Ours is a world where even things that perhaps should not be, still can be," Celestia sighed. "I understand this runs contrary to what I told you last month, about returning your friend from the dead, but in this world, nothing is impossible. You say your own measurements of the strength of your soul were unusually high? Perhaps you have strength enough that sometimes, when you need it, there will be a way."
Shinespark's ears fell. "Then why do I find myself in these situations in the first place? My home threatened and dying, or my best friend dead? Couldn't those just be averted like this?"
Princess Celestia shook her head. "No. Death is part of the natural order of things. Mortals flourish and pass away, and territories rise and fall with the changing tides of war, leadership and economic fortune. Attempting to hold the world in a perfect stasis, completely ordered and free of pain, would only be stifling to the spirit of what it means to be alive. The harder you try, the harder you will be resisted. And though those who seek a perfect world may bring it closer and closer to perfection, they will always see the details they have missed, and have more work in their unending journey." She let out a breath. "You lament the passing of your home, yet you are not the only one for whom it is gone. Your friend had perished, but she was not your friend alone. To truly change this, you would not merely have to part the tide of fate, standing against it to protect a few things you love, but change the natural order of things altogether. And this is the type of power I wish to never see awakened."
"Maybe that's easy for you to say," Shinespark whispered, "but we do die. I don't see myself as a dust mote in the wind. I want my life to mean something, not be over as quickly as it started."
Celestia's face turned adamant and soft all at once. "It is not easy for me to say. Though I have lived for two thousand years, I do not rule from an isolated rift in time. I do not keep my home in stasis around me, though the temptation to try is great at times. Even with my powers, I could never truly succeed in preserving all that I love... no matter how much it pains me when a dear friend passes on. You have lost much in the short span of your life, but in all my years I have lost so much more. And that does not make you a dust mote in the wind. You are transient, all of you, yet you are still beautiful. I sense old wounds still sting you deeply."
Shinespark slowly re-inflated her chest, meeting Celestia's eyes again. "They do. I apologize, though. This is an official meeting, and I shouldn't..."
Celestia watched her. "You have no decorum to preserve, my little pony. Not while I am here. I have no expectations of those I consort with to be emotionless golems. This is a weighty subject, and emotions are the most natural thing there is in the world."
Shinespark sucked in a breath. "Be that as it may, we've been avoiding discussion of Writs of Harmonic Sanction so far, and I need to be at my best when that comes around."
"That will be a difficult discussion," Celestia warned. "I have not said no, but these are hardly given for free. Are you sure you wish to talk about this now?"
Shinespark nodded.
"Then I have some questions for you." Celestia straightened her shoulders, and her bearing instantly became more regal. "If I offered all of you Writs of Harmonic Sanction for free, on the condition that you would all live in different parts of Equestria and never see each other again, what would you choose?"
"Bananas, no!" Valey burst out through the sound stone. "I have not tried this hard to keep my friends safe to bail on them now!"
Shinespark frowned resolutely. "I... could make that sacrifice myself for their sake, but I could never split them apart. Not Valey and Maple and Amber."
"I see." Princess Celestia nodded, betraying no hint of approval or disapproval. "Your next question. You asked me for asylum, because a life here would be better than what awaits you back home. Yet you possess great determination, as well as an airship. Imagine that you returned to the north, using your privileges of crossing. Imagine that you find another group of ponies more in need of refuge than yourselves, ones without powerful friends who can keep them safe, or an airship home they can take wherever they please. If you could, would you give up your writs on their behalf?"
Everyone winced. "What kind of question is that?" Valey complained.
"A difficult one," Celestia replied.
"We would..." Shinespark squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. "I can't speak for everyone else. But I... might. I used to give everything I had to protect my ponies, but I learned early on that if you give too much to one, you'll have nothing left for the others. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't a last resort. But in the end, we have other ways of getting those writs back... and if they truly needed it more... I couldn't live with myself if we left them to fend for themselves. But I'd try to find a better way first."
"We've given upon dreams of travel before," Amber whispered. "If we did it, I could show you how to get by... or try my best, at least."
Celestia nodded again. "Next question. Suppose I gave you your writs, and you settled down together in a town somewhere in Equestria and built happy lives for yourself. Then, imagine those lives are torn down in a similar fashion to things you've experienced before, and you are left with nothing but your lives, your airship, and the pony who caused the tragedy... perhaps a new friend, or a complete stranger. What would you do with them?"
Everyone looked around uncertainly. "That... depends on a lot of things," Shinespark said. "You've seen Prince Gazelle. He can take the blame for everything that happened in the Empire, since he antagonized the monster that ended everything and made her lose her mind. For now, we're just keeping watch over him until we can figure out what to do with him." She shook her head. "It might be different if he was more lucid. We haven't killed him, and if we have to imprison him, it will be for his own good."
"I see." Princess Celestia looked around. "All of these have been somewhat open-answer, but this one is specifically for you, Shinespark. Tell me a joke about your hometown."
Shinespark gaped. "...What?"
"Perhaps it's more of a request than a question," Celestia admitted. "But still. Answer."
"With all due respect, Princess," Felicity cut in, "that's not very... nice of you to rub it in."
Celestia raised an eyebrow at her. "Did I say this conversation would be easy or nice?"
"I..." Shinespark took a breath. "I can't. I'm sorry, everyone. It's still... too raw." She slumped, defeated an apologetic. "I'm sorry."
Celestia's poker face broke, and she finally smiled. "Then finally, if you thought answering one of these questions truthfully would cause you to fail this test and deny you the writs, what would you say?"
Shinespark blinked.
"This was a question that could not be asked until it was answered," Celestia said, standing up. "Your loyalty, generosity, kindness and honesty are credits to your name. I have a sixth question."
Everyone had just started to breathe easily, and immediately tensed again. "Another?" Shinespark stood as well. "Ask away."
Princess Celestia nodded. "What is the true meaning of Harmony?"
"The meaning of harmony, darling?" Felicity frowned. "That sounds like an awfully subjective question."
"Yeah... what harmony? All the scientists here refer to something completely different by it than we do."
Princess Celestia shook her head. "Just because a question is subjective does not mean it has no answer. And I am asking you, not them."
Shinespark swallowed and took a breath. "By our science, it's the force my ship borrows and uses to fly. What you've been calling the flow. A soul's force. It's the light from the crystal palace flames that we contain within windigo hearts."
Celestia watched her with the tiniest bite of her lip. "Perhaps a hint is in order: this is no question of what it is, but what it means."
"Beyond the mere definition of the word, then," Felicity said.
Gerardo raised a wing. "In the reaches of Yakyakistan, their church teaches of harmony as a collection of virtues by which one should live their life, emphasizing the personal choosing of one to follow in particular. Loyalty, generosity, kindness, honesty... All the traits you just mentioned are counted among them. To be a devout member of the Yakyakistani faith, you choose one above all the others and model it with your life."
Princess Celestia nodded, looking around at everyone else. "Please, continue."
Shinespark looked to her friends, then took a step back. "In Ironridge, we were far more concerned about... physical results than mysticism. If this is the right track, I'm out of my element. I need to cede to someone more knowledgeable."
Celestia bowed, accepting her stepping aside.
Timidly, Slipstream cleared her throat and spoke up, not yet over being wowed by sharing a room with a goddess. "I-I might be on a completely wrong track here, but if you're looking for personal meaning in our lives? When I was in school in Ironridge, some of my friends and I started reading about Yak religion for fun. We thought it was interesting, but never did anything, like, serious or devout... but once I was done with school, it actually helped me land my job. I worked as a help desk mare for the skyport, and the bosses liked that I had multi-cultural knowledge. So if you're talking about the Yak religion, it, for me... is about being able to connect better with people who are different from you?"
Celestia smiled. Slipstream nervously blushed.
"I was a member of a mercenary troupe," Harshwater added. "Most of us were Yakyakistani nationals, and my virtue was loyalty. I don't pay much attention after I nearly died twice from following a leader who didn't deserve it, but it's still a hard instinct to shake. When you feel like you've hit rock-bottom and have nothing left, you can look at it and say, 'At least I can still be true to my ideals'... Even if you don't know why you have them in the first place, it can still give you the strength to stay alive just a little longer. That's my experience with Yakyakistan's harmony."
"Interesting," Princess Celestia said after a while, looking between everyone who had spoken. "Shinespark, you have heard your friends. What they perceive as harmony may differ, but even then, they all have unique answers about how their perception of it has affected their lives. You may see harmony as emotions given physical form, or the flow of souls, or the teachings of the church in Yakyakistan, but please, try again. For it is your answer that interests me the most."
Shinespark's ears fell, and her brow creased with determination. "It was the technology that would let me save my homeland. After airships were invented, Ironridge's economic fortunes changed, and Sosa, my home district, went from the capitol of the city to a backwater industry with its pride vanished. The world had changed, putting us at the bottom of the city, and I wanted to change it again. Harmonic air travel, if we had unlocked a way to draw more power from ponies' cutie marks, was going to be an infinite power source that would let us make airships that could cross the Aldenfold and trade with the other side. Of course, we didn't know about the enchantment blocking the way, or your foreign policies... but it was my dream."
Celestia met her eyes, unblinking. "And in your fervent pursuit of this dream, did you ever try to increase your output by connecting multiple ponies to your machines at one time?"
Shinespark wilted, but stood strong. "Yes. It produced an unstable reaction that damaged our equipment again and again. If we could have contained it, it could have generated power far beyond the mere sum of two cutie marks, or even their product. It was still our most promising lead at the time my friends here arrived in Ironridge, but merely surviving high magnitudes of power wasn't the issue. It was preventing the wild fluctuations from destroying equipment downstream that required more consistent power."
Celestia's smile grew. "Are there any musicians in the room?"
Everyone looked at everyone else. Amber opened her mouth to speak, but Slipstream didn't notice, too busy fighting through her nerves about speaking up again. "When I was in school, I... used to play trombone? For the band..."
Amber's eyes widened. "You too!? Trombone sisters! How did we never talk about... I mean... yes. I did."
The sound stone flickered. "It probably doesn't count, but I used to sit on fences in the earth district at three in the morning and caterwaul to annoy people."
Celestia flicked a wing at the sound stone. "Please don't subject my ponies to that while you are here." She turned to Amber and Slipstream, especially the latter. "So, you have experience playing together with others? What would you say harmony is, from a musician's standpoint?"
"I mean, well..." Slipstream fumbled under her gaze. "Ponies playing together in harmony. You know what it means, it's... they're in tune with each other, or..."
Celestia looked at Shinespark expectantly.
Shinespark folded her ears.
"Harmony is resonance," Celestia began. "Singular threads, compatible with each other, merging and intertwining to become something more than they are on their own. This is true in the study of sound, and in other things as well. When you attempted your experiments on multiple ponies, I suspect the feelings of your test subjects toward each other may not have been a variable you were closely tracking... but if you had, you would have noticed an interesting correlation between it and your results. Ponies who detest each other could produce more discord and instability, but between those who share a sufficiently strong bond... This resonance is also harmony. It is also known as the Magic of Friendship."
The ponies in the room looked around again. "That's quite the name," Felicity admitted.
"You mean all we had to do to make the experiment work...?" Shinespark's face fell.
"Was use ponies who were closer together?" Celestia shook her head. "Oh, I doubt you would have met with success. A pony's will is inherently unstable, just as thoughts and emotions cross your mind at any time they please. You could never obtain the regulated, mechanically-suitable power you desire in this way. These fluctuations are even present in the flows of single ponies as well... I merely suspect the overall output was low enough they fell well within your tolerance threshold. As you add souls and form a symphony, you will eternally grow farther and farther from an unshifting, monotone state. But it would become coherent. It would be a symphony, not chaos."
Shinespark straightened up. "Then what is the meaning of telling us this?"
"Because," Celestia said, "this symphony is the way in which most grow strong enough to bring about their dreams in the world. We discussed your unusual circumstances, how the winds of fate must blow in your sails if you have truly accomplished all that you have. Constructing this ship, raising the dead... You speak of your unusually-powerful flow, measured through your cutie mark. And it is not impossible that individual ponies could cause this to happen. But another possibility is that it is a shared commitment to a single dream, and the harmony of your own friendship, that brings about the miracles through which you have survived. So, I ask you: tell me your dream. What is it that all of you, collectively, wish for more than anything?"
The group glanced at each other again, no one wanting to speak first. "That's... complicated," Felicity sighed. "Speaking for myself more than others, I have very little left to live for outside of this lot, and little chance of survival to boot. And since they've shown no inclination to boot me to the curb, I'm more inclined to support their goals than chase after ones of my own."
"All we've been able to afford is survival for quite some time," Shinespark quietly added.
"But that's not the endgame, right?" Amber rose to her hooves. "What I'm looking for... and what I know Maple and Valey and our other friends are looking for... is a place to call home. We'll build one with our own hooves if we have to, but it'll be a place where all of us can live together in peace, without the problems that have forced us from Riverfall and Ironridge and the Empire."
"Yeah!" Valey chimed in. "A place where batponies aren't actually dunked on day and night for no reason."
Gerardo nodded firmly. "The horizon shines ever in my sights, but having a home to return to in between adventures is something I've been lacking for over a decade."
Slipstream moved up by Gerardo's side.
Harshwater glanced sideways at Felicity. "I'm in the same boat as her. Not much else for me to do other than strike out on my own."
"...I miss Sosa," Grenada quietly added. "I have tried to re-found it once before, and I would do it again."
Shinespark cleared her throat. "There you have it."
Celestia eyed her curiously. "I presume the new home you are searching for lies somewhere inside Equestria, or you would not be asking me to let you stay. But does this not conflict with your desire to restore your previous home in Ironridge?"
"I don't believe it does." Shinespark shook her head. "As a friend of mine tried to tell me... Ironridge is in no condition for a hero right now. Like us, all it can do is survive. But in several years, maybe it will be back on its hooves and fortunes will have changed. Maybe then I could be the visionary that will bring it back in the world. After all, I still have this ship. So, my dream... is to stay with my friends, recover and grow and find peace, and someday return to make a home for my old ponies just like they're trying to make a home for me."
Celestia's gaze intensified, burning with an unspoken dare.
"...And now that your barrier is down," Shinespark said, standing straighter. "There's nothing to stop airships from flying across the mountains. But Ironridge's old skyport is gone. If we built a new town, close enough to the base of the mountains... it could become a trading town. A gateway between Ironridge and Equestria. We could be the ones to put Ironridge back in the air, just like my cutie mark was always meant to do."
Princess Celestia locked eyes with Shinespark, her very countenance seeming to increase the pressure in the air. "My border is still closed, my little pony. Merchants could not merely come and go."
Shinespark didn't blink or flinch, every muscle in her body stiff. "With all due respect, Princess, I am under the impression we're talking about our dreams, not realistic expectations. And I didn't try to repel Yakyakistan from my nation because I dream small."
"You've achieved many things that deserve to be impossible," Celestia replied. "Whether by the harmony of your friendship or your own power alone, you've conformed the world to your will. But now I block your way." Her horn flashed brilliant yellow, and with a series of pops, a number of scrolls materialized in the air, instantly recognizable to everyone as the very writs they needed. "This is no matter of hypotheticals. You are challenged by a goddess. You are out of time to deliberate or think. Act now, my little ponies. If you believe in your dream, show me its power to sway me."
The room's breath collectively caught in its throat...
But Shinespark stood firm against Princess Celestia's challenge. "The last time I stood down a goddess, I did it to save my friend, and I lost my horn for it. I am not backing down, and they will follow me."
"Bananas, yeah!" Valey cheered through the sound stone. "If I were there, I'd be right beside you!"
Amber stepped up alongside Shinespark. "You're testing our commitment, aren't you? I'll admit, you're frightening... but Shinespark is right. We've seen this before, and we didn't survive by laying down or going away."
"Indeed," Felicity huffed, getting up and stumping over as well. "I may have the constitution of hot wax, but you have my support where it counts, darlings."
"Hardly the time to bow out now, is it?" Gerardo stepped forward, stance ready. "I know my limits and prefer to play a support role, but when the time comes to have all hooves on deck, I wouldn't dare balk at the challenge."
"W-What he said." Slipstream swayed, looking like she didn't even recognize herself anymore, but matched pace with the griffon, resolute.
"You are asking whether I would fight for Sosa." Grenada joined Shinespark as well. "For me, the question is what I would do if I did not."
"Yeah, yeah..." Harshwater followed her, taking a position at the end of the group. "Doesn't seem like the brightest idea to run off on my own. I'm putting my money on the winning side."
For a moment, the room wavered, as if a wave of heat was distorting everyone's vision... and then it passed, the tension shattering as Celestia laughed in relief. "You truly have done this before," she said, re-seating herself and bidding everyone else do so with a wing. "Congratulations, my little ponies. Usually, the only ones who stand up to me are nobles with swelled heads, and never to a challenge quite like that. You have shown me what your dreams are made of."
Only Shinespark remained standing, a slight look of shock on her face. "So... we can stay?"
Celestia shook her head. "I have an offer for you, and I would have you hear it out."
"We're listening." Shinespark bowed.
The Writs of Harmonic Sanction floated in Princess Celestia's aura. "You have clearly suffered much in the north," she began. "You ask for asylum, and I offer it to you as a choice. Free reign to stay here or come and go as you please, for all of you and those in the submarine as well. I would ask that you not wander too extensively and live nearer to the center, so we can remain in more regular contact, but it would not be an enforced condition."
Shinespark's eyes began to water. "Really...?"
"We did it?" Amber breathed.
"Hold up. You said it was a choice. What's the alternative?"
Celestia looked intrigued, and smiled. "You have amassed several writs already, have you not?"
Shinespark nodded. "We have two, and Yakyakistan has promised us a third once they receive theirs next year. And it was promised at least half a year ago..."
Celestia nodded sagely. "I told you before that I don't see this endeavor often. Even collectors who attempt to use the writs as status symbols and hold more than one at a time are few and far between, and never collect more than two. To see a group of friends attempt to amass them in order to cross the border together and not be split apart? They are successful perhaps once in a century, and again, it is usually only two, shared between a married couple. And your endeavor was far more ambitious than that. Tell me, before the enchantment on my Aldenfold failed, did you truly think you could collect one for each of you?"
"We..." Shinespark winced. "It was the plan. I don't know how realistic it was, but we had a start. And even if it took us years, we didn't have a lot else planned to do."
Celestia nodded again. "And did you consider facing the possibility that you could someday have all but one, and the whole group would have to stay behind in the north for the sake of that one who didn't yet have theirs... or else someone would make a sacrifice? Did you intend this in the knowledge that this could someday come to pass?"
Shinespark's ears fell. "We would have crossed that bridge when we got there. Finding a way forward in the present was more important than the distant future."
"But it is that dream for the future which unites all of you," Princess Celestia replied, shaking her head. "Here is your other option, Shinespark of Sosa: return to the north without your Writs of Harmonic Sanction. I will be gentle in enforcing your departure, and you would be allowed to prepare, but it would be enforced nonetheless. Return with your friends and your airship to the world in the north. Continue acting upon your plan to obtain passage for each and every one of you. I would give you fifteen years... Until the dawn of the Summer Sun Celebration on the thousandth year of our calendar, which I believe the northern world shares. Return to my border with at least six writs by that time, counting the ones you already have... and I will open the border that has been closed for a thousand years, and allow you free commerce between Ironridge and Equestria."
Shinespark gaped.
"But, the enchantments..." Gerardo raised a hesitant talon.
"Are currently broken, yes." Celestia nodded. "My envoys to Yakyakistan have had little luck in discovering why their generator that paralleled Garsheeva's has failed. The mountains' defenses were designed to survive the failure of one generator, and are only down because both have failed. I am sure they are aware of the situation, and likely believe they must fix this problem before it incurs my wrath. If you do decide to accept this offer, I would advise going to Yakyakistan and seeing if you can uncover and solve their generator woes yourselves. They may reward you with another of the writs you seek."
Shinespark lifted her head. "Four out of six?"
"In the meantime, I have dispatched extensive air power from northwestern Equestria to cover the border by manual means," Celestia continued. "The enchantments may be down, but it is hardly without defense... and legitimate expeditions would certainly be denied. What I offer is to end this and welcome your travelers with open hooves."
"So if anyone tries to sneak across, you would eventually catch them and throw them out," Felicity mused. "Sounds inefficient, darling."
Princess Celestia shook her head. "My options are few, and it is the best of what remains to me. If you did choose to return to the north, you would have my aid in some capacity. I have no intention of trivializing a feat that has never been completed in a thousand years, but I could perhaps give pointers on how to obtain the writs you desire without making full use of these fourteen-odd years."
"We..." Shinespark glanced back at her friends. "Can we think about it? I... know Ironridge is more my dream than others', and I, at least, need time to decide."
"I am well aware," Celestia replied. "You may be united by one goal, but are you truly all for one and one for all? Perhaps the more harmonic thing to do would be to set aside your own ambitions for the good of your friends... or perhaps they will all put theirs on hold for you. Take all the time you require, and please come talk to me again if you are moved to. I will remain here for several days."
"Thank you." Shinespark bowed. "This is... not a choice I expected to have to make, but we'll be sure to make it well."
Valey sat in the engine room, holding the sound stone as it went dull.
"Well, bananas," she eventually sighed. "Why did she have to go and offer a thing like that...?"
Maple and Starlight, who had been sitting quietly nearby, unannounced to the princess, finally broke their silence. "We could stay here and have everything we want," Maple whispered. "If Princess Celestia is offering to let us live however we want in safety... But could we really ask Shinespark to do that? Why would she ask one of us to make such a big sacrifice?"
Valey chewed her lip and huffed. "To be fair, one of the options is already our dream scenario. Bananas, think how perfect it would be. It's not like she's restricting us."
"But the other is something we never even considered because it should be impossible, and mostly means something to Shinespark and Grenada."
"Yeah."
The engine thrummed loudly overhead, mechanical noises mixing with a magical shimmer that wrapped around the three, making it feel like nobody else was around for hundreds of miles. Starlight tried to swallow, and found that she couldn't.
"You okay, kiddo?"
Starlight slumped. "She was wondering why we kept getting so lucky all the time. You didn't even tell her about how you got out of the moon glass sword with all the other cutie marks. But it was me who did that, me who stopped the windigoes, and me who saved you all from Chrysalis. It's me who reacts differently to all these crystal palaces and old technology. She thought it was Shinespark or everyone's friendship that was making things work out, but what if it's just me?"
"Hey." Valey gave her a look. "There's no way it can be just you, because I have an artifice and kicked Herman's rear, and Ironflanks used the windigo heart to save us all from the mercenaries in the Flame District. Maybe there is something unusual with you, sure. But you're in real good company."
"...Thanks." Starlight looked down.
Maple put a hoof around her shoulders. "Either way, how much would it change?"
Starlight took a breath. "I don't know... What if what I made myself forget is related to this somehow?"
"Related to what?" Valey shrugged. "The way we've survived way more encounters with stuff that should have killed us than is statistically reasonable? Girl... if we've got some kind of supernatural harmony luck on our side, I'd rather have it than be dead. You're worried that maybe you'll make a bad choice with bad consequences? I don't think any of the stuff that honcho was talking about affects what we choose to try for. Just how likely we are to survive if it's crazy."
Starlight looked down. "I hope so. So... what are we going to do?"
Maple shook her head. "None of us can ask Shinespark to step away from her own dream for us like that. It has to be her decision. And I think Princess Celestia said she'd be around for us to talk to her for a while more, so we won't be choosing immediately."
"Yeah... I'm trying to figure out just how hard this is actually supposed to be." Valey scratched her head. "She's giving us more than fourteen years, here. Does she expect us to use all that? On the one hoof, she's immortal, so she might not have the best sense of just how long that is... On the other, she's immortal, so she might have a really good sense of it. And just because no one's done it in a thousand years... we have a track record of doing the impossible, so does that mean we could knock it out real quick? Or just that maybe we'd stand a sliver of a chance after a decade or so?"
Maple sighed. "If we're trying to weigh the cost... you want to help Shinespark too, don't you."
"Sure am. And I bet she's torn herself between taking this chance and giving us what we want." Valey leaned against a vibrating wall. "Here's some other stuff to consider: we're a third of the way there, and assuming Yakyakistan keeps their word, we'll be halfway there in a few months. That's halfway to impossible in just one out of fifteen years. But we'll also have completely exhausted half of the world and gotten in good with the other half, so it's not like we'd have a ton of frontiers to search like after Ironridge. Bananas, without Garsheeva, Meltdown or the monarchy, what's even going to happen to the writs the Empire is supposed to receive?"
Maple nodded. "We know how we'd start. Go to Yakyakistan, follow her hint about the generator... and then I don't know what we'd do from there. At best, that would give us four, after waiting a year and a half for them to get the one after the one they already owe us, and that's if nobody else gets a bigger claim to theirs than we have."
"Well... hey." Valey shrugged. "Remember how Garsheeva had that one spare squirreled away? If these things are really untransferable, how much do you wanna bet there are other ponies in the north who have one, and have hung onto it instead of using it because they think going to Equestria is less valuable than what someone else could pay them for it?"
Maple blinked.
"I don't know a huge amount about Varsidel, but..." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Wouldn't be surprised if there was some dude somewhere up there we could find one from."
"We're really considering this, aren't we?" Maple whispered sadly. "Do you think we can take it? Even if we're physically able to get the writs, do you think we can hold together living without a home on the airship for that much longer? And that's if they can get it repaired..."
"Yeah... That's the big one." Valey averted her gaze. "I think... well... bananas. It's easy to say sure now, while we're in better spirits, but what if we get worn thin again? And it's not if, it's when. It's going to happen. That place is rough, and even if Celestia can explain why we keep surviving, she didn't mention anything about why we were ground zero for the windigoes and Chrysalis in the first place."
Starlight huffed. "We weren't the only ones there, you know. All of Ironridge and all of the Empire was in danger. And ponies like Sharpie and Brightcoil were there for both. They were probably wondering the same thing."
"But we were on the ground, though." Valey shrugged. "Not even waiting from the stands... I dunno."
"It's just because we're ambitious," Maple murmured. "All the important ponies were there, and we knew important ponies because we were trying to do big things."
"Yeah, maybe. Funny how a small-town girl and a runaway filly like you got mixed up with big-shots like me and Sparky."
Maple gave a wry smile. "As I recall it, you got mixed up with us. Poking your nose into random travelers' business, and then hunting us down when we got lost in the tunnels..."
"Huh. So I did." Valey sat back. "Guess I just had a good feeling about you. But you aren't blameless either, being so stubborn about sticking with me even after I warned you again and again I was no good. Most ponies knew my reputation and needed no prodding to agree with me."
"Well..." Maple sighed. "Hopefully we have time to get back to the others and talk things over with everyone. I'll never be comfortable thinking about something like this on my own, because half of me just wants to take the risk and run right ahead and hope that it will pay off."
"Which risk?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "That if we go back north, it'll all be over soon, or that if we stay here, Sparky will still be able to save her home?"
Maple shrank, looking down at her hooves. "I... I don't know..."
"Well," Gerardo remarked as the split up after the meeting, going their separate ways. "That certainly was unexpected."
"Surreal every time," Slipstream replied. "Remind me how I got mixed up in this again?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Asked to take me to lunch at precisely the wrong moment."
"Or the right one." Slipstream stared down a hallway, legs still wobbly after the encounter.
"Shaken?" Harshwater asked, stepping up behind them.
Gerardo glanced at her and nodded in greeting. "It might take a moment to process..."
"I just can't believe we keep meeting ponies like this," Slipstream managed. "Sure, there are probably plenty of ponies in Equestria who see her once in their lives, but getting lucky enough for her to talk to you? Forget about it happening multiple times, or her actually being interested. I just... What am I even doing with my life? How did I get here? This can't just happen to anyone."
"Believe it or not, it's happening." Harshwater shrugged. "Sometimes, your world just gets upended for no reason like that. So what are you thinking? North, or stay here?"
"Personally, my choice is quite clear." Gerardo fiddled with the cuff on his uniform. "I do enjoy travel, and I'd be happy to keep up our camaraderie while doing it. That said, I win either way, so it's hardly fair for me to weigh in. I'm not the one with the stakes."
Slipstream nodded. "I was just planning on going with Gerardo anyway. What about you?"
Harshwater glanced around as they walked down the hall, no clear destination in mind. "Good question. I've half been sticking around because you needed me, half for Valey, and half because I had nothing better to do. Beats me if that's changed. Some of you are social butterflies, and I just don't do that. At the same time, that princess made it sound like we've got something real special going on here, and that I'd feel bad if I skipped out."
Gerardo tilted his head. "You're more thinking what you'll do, then, regardless of what we opt for as a party?"
Harshwater pouted. "Don't make me sound like a flake. I just... am just here because I am, and don't have the reasons I'd like to."
"Sounds like all of us would be fine with whatever," Gerardo remarked. "Then again, the real decision does have to go to the ones whose dreams are really in question. The Riverfall mares, Starlight, Valey and Shinespark."
"Someone was talking about Riverfall?" Amber asked, catching up as the group slowed down to chat.
"You." Harshwater fanned a wing. "We were saying you're one of the ones with a bigger say about what we wind up doing."
"...Right." Amber's ears fell. "Between taking the writs and leaving them? Well... it's complicated. One thing I would like to do with my life is see Willow again, though. I had always planned on going home to see her after this adventure was over. Harshwater, you wouldn't know this, but when Gerardo and the others left, she had just... made a sacrifice for someone she barely knew. And I stayed long enough to be sure she'd be alright before catching up, but one of the things we promised each other that I haven't really talked about is that if Maple and Valey did find their goal of a better home, I'd come back and get her. And I don't know if Princess Celestia's offer to let us stay extends to ponies who aren't here with us right now. Sure, we could go back and visit, but..."
Gerardo bowed. "It sounds like you are in favor of helping Shinespark. If we made it so that anyone could cross, so could she, as well."
Amber shrugged. "Hey, I'm not choosing anything until I've had a chance to ask for sure how that would work. And either way, it's Shinespark's decision, not mine. She's the one who has to decide whether she can give up this chance for Ironridge for us."
"Or," Harshwater corrected, "you can decide whether to give up your chance of a life in Equestria for her."
"It wouldn't be giving up." Amber firmly shook her head. "Just postponing. And most of us in this group are pretty young. Even Felicity is only in her thirties. She complains about being old, but even if we took fifteen years to get those writs, we would be able to live out our days here. We wouldn't just fail to find them after making it through so much before. I'm sure of it."
"Well..." Slipstream ruffled her feathers. "I'm sure Shinespark would be glad to know you support her, because she's probably wondering if she'd be condemning us to the impossible."
Shinespark left on her own from the meeting with Celestia, needing to be on her own after the princess's ultimatum. At times like this in Sosa, she would have flown to the roof of a building, and if she didn't have Braen around to let her do that, she would have teleported. But her horn was broken and she didn't have either, so that left her with only one course of action.
"What are you doing?" an imaginary voice asked in her head.
"Climbing," Shinespark grunted at her conscience, her back against the wall in a concave corner of a building, her hooves braced against two fishbone support columns to keep her from falling. Moving like an inchworm, she struggled to gain height without losing her traction and falling.
"Is this really necessary?"
"No. So what?" Shinespark managed to gain another foot, though the building's rough stone ground uncomfortably at her back. She would be scraped up after this, for sure.
"This island has a lot of pegasi. If you're asking yourself what you're doing already, imagine how it will feel when one of them notices you, flies up and asks themselves."
Shinespark growled at her own wavering. Princess Celestia had wondered if her own flow was powerful enough to twist fate and make it so there was always a way forward, a way to survive, even when they lost. Well, that sure would do a lot to explain why she had been barely conscious from pain while Valey had risked her life fighting Herman, and why she had been crippled and tossed to the side like a punctured sandbag when Starlight defied Crystal in Grandbell. What a comforting thought that she was still the reason they survived...
"If I really have the power to overcome anything, I can at least climb this building! Maybe I was the reason we survived all these times, or maybe it was the harmony between us, but I have to try!"
Her self-doubt didn't reply, and she forced herself up again, twisting her head to look at how far she still had to go. Shinespark wasn't a climber and hadn't practiced this, but stubborn determination let her grab and swing around, until she was hugging one of the fishbone supports like a tree. From there, it was barely a foot more to the roof of a wing that extended at the first floor.
Shinespark hooked her limbs and rolled over onto the top, sore and panting and certain she had made a mess of her back. But the building extended for two more stories still... She didn't need that. She had made it far enough.
Now came the hard part: sitting down and stopping to think.
All her friends had turned out to support her, there when Celestia challenged them with force of presence to defend their convictions. Some of the crew were ponies she didn't even know that well, who had mostly joined while she was out of commission. Why did they stand with her? Did they believe that much in her, or in Maple, or Valey? Ponies who weren't even there? Or did they stand up because of a stubborn determination not to back down, or just because they had no other choice? The princess had been right; they did face this before. And every time someone with that kind of power, like Crystal or the windigoes, challenged them to go beyond or go home... the alternative to fighting was death. Was it bravery or loyalty that brought her friends to the fore?
Or was it nothing more than the instinct to survive?
And if it was, did it even matter? The end result was the same. There they were, just as powerful together. If only that power would be enough to get them where they needed to go.
Ironridge... Shinespark sat down and stretched a hoof out, orienting herself by the sun and reaching far northwest for home. She knew where she belonged, someday. But that day might not be today. It might not be for decades. Whether they chose to take the writs or continue their search, it would still take time for her homeland to be restored... either by them creating new trade that would put Ironridge at the golden center of a world economy, or by her returning as a visionary when the city could afford it.
By that logic, there was only one choice to make. Grenada had already settled for trying to re-found Sosa somewhere else. This was her dream... versus all the others'.
She could be happy in Equestria. She would be happy in Equestria. Valey would be happy, and she could get to know her friend without the twin clouds of duty and failure that constantly fogged her mind. She had all the administration skills to make the new town Maple wanted to found into a successful one. And while she knew someone had to lose, someone had to give up on a chance at their dream... it was a leader's duty to put their ponies first. One for all, as Princess Celestia had said. Shinespark knew what she had to do.
Valey was probably having thoughts of her own, or even talking it over with Maple, Starlight and Nyala, but... Shinespark lifted the sound stone. She didn't have a mechanism to activate it, so she would have to make do.
With a surge of effort, she pushed power into her cracked, broken horn. It flared with pain, but also sparked with energy, not in any form she could control or use but more than enough to light the sound stone. She immediately stopped, the pain quickly receding. It was far from comfortable to wield, but didn't feel like it had caused further damage.
Soon, the sound stone pulsed in reply. "Yo, what's up?"
"Hello, Valey." Shinespark sat back against the building wall and stared at the blue sky.
"Hey. Needed to bounce some thoughts about that crazy offer, huh?"
Shinespark shook her head, knowing Valey couldn't see it. "No. I just wanted to tell you that I'm... okay with taking the writs. I'm the captain of the ship, and it's my duty to put my crew first. That's what I've always done, and it's what I'll do now."
"Ever tried putting yourself first from time to time?"
Shinespark grimaced. "I've made my decision. If I second-guess, I'll only..."
"Yeah, well... hold up just a second. 'Cuz I was gonna tell you that as much as all of us want it to be over, we're having a real hard time ourselves asking you to bail on your own dream. No, I haven't forgotten all the nastiness we dealt with up north, but hey. We care about you, girl. So what do you really think is worse? Us having to deal with the north a little more, now that we have an end goal in sight, a princess at our backs in spirit, and an opportunity to recharge here a little more and at least try to find some ways to make the going easier? Or all of us living with the fact that you gave up your dream for us? We could take these writs and remember for the rest of our lives that you did this and you're the reason why we're here."
Shinespark's face creased, and her ears fell. "Are you saying you'd rather... go back?"
"No way. Bananas, no. But I am saying it's not a done deal. And at the end of the day, I'm willing to bet a whole lot of us who would be happy here are gonna have trouble asking you to do that for them. I've been talking with Ironflanks, and I guarantee you she is, for one."
"I'm sorry..." Shinespark sighed. "I'm the captain. This is what I do. It's my duty to put the rest of you first."
"And what if putting the rest of us first means being selfish for a second and asking us to help you?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I'm the captain, Valey. I can't ask all the rest of my crew to put me first. I am not okay with asking for help."
"Nah, I know you can't. But you can give permission. Girl, listen... whoever wins here is gonna feel guilty that they won at the expense of their friends. You really wanna take one for the team? What if you took this decision off their shoulders by being needy for a second and letting them feel like there was a right choice after all? We're pretty beat-up, but we're on the mend. I think we can take a little more. I know I can, at least, and Celestia said only six of us need to stick together for the ending. Maybe Birdo and Slipstream will fly off and do their own thing, maybe Harshwater and Grenada will get on with their lives... but we've got you, me, Ironflanks, Amber, Starlight, and Felicity for sure. I'm just saying... we know you're alright with staying in Equestria. But it might change a thing or two if you were alright with leaving, too."
"Why are you trying to talk me into this?" Shinespark whimpered. "You have the most to gain out of anyone, staying here! You said yourself that you wanted to!"
"Yeah, well, I'm in it for you too."
"Valey..."
"Look, you're not advocating for yourself. I know what I want. Bananas, I do not have a problem with that. But I'd be a terrible friend if I let you just walk over what you want to give it to me. Yeah, I know it's one against a dozen and throwing in the towel is the pragmatic thing to do, and yeah, I know you're pragmatic. But if you're not gonna have your own back, I gotta do it for you."
Shinespark slumped against the wall, her eyes watering. "What does Maple think?"
"She's scared of deciding. You know how many bad experiences she's had with making a split-second decision to charge off somewhere far away? She's trying to be strong, but I think she'd really love it if she wasn't a factor in this decision... but that's just my read on it."
"You really think she'd be alright with being left here?"
On the other side, Valey took a breath. "You wanna know my best idea, super honest? We have two Writs of Harmonic Sanction with us right now. The big cheese said these would count. So what if, like... we gave one to Maple? Starlight doesn't need one. And then we flew northwest to Ironridge, and... left those two behind in Starlight's old village with the sound stone, just across the mountains? They could settle down and have their life together, and I know it would be a huge weight off Starlight's mind if she could just be a filly again. And since writs let you cross whenever, all they gotta do if we want to see each other again? Cross the mountains, just like Starlight did all those months ago. Maybe someday, they'd be ready to join the adventure, or meet up with us at the end when we're done collecting and it's time to come home."
Shinespark was quiet. "You think that would work?"
"Only one way to find out."
"Valey..." Shinespark choked. "It could be years. More than a decade. Nearly my entire life so far, and double yours."
"Plenty of time to pay the north back double for what it hit us with, if you ask me. I kind of have a bone to pick with it anyway. But... you know. I've said my piece. You're thinking about it. Need some space now?"
Shinespark shook her head. "I still... don't know. I'll have to ask Princess Celestia, and... but..." She sighed. "Even with her lead about the generator, we'd need to find two more..."
"With our track record, easy."
"I wish there was a third way."
"Do you? Do you really?"
"Why? Of course I do."
Valey took a breath. "Because saying something like that around a group like us... you know there's gonna be one, and you know it's gonna be the hardest of the three. Just like we made another way with Herman and Crystal and the windigoes, if there isn't any other... we'll take one anyway. Do you really want to start us down that path?"
Shinespark stilled. "You're saying that like you already have one."
"Well... sorta. A big part of me hopes I don't, but another part of me is afraid I do."
"What is it?"
Valey sighed. "No one knows about this. The only ponies who ever knew in the first place were me, Ironflanks and Starlight, and I will one hundred percent guarantee they have long forgotten. You sure you even want me to say it?"
"...Is it that dangerous?"
"Oh bananas, I can't even begin to count the ways it could go badly."
"More than us returning to the north and looking for Writs of Harmonic Sanction?"
"You don't even wanna know."
Shinespark shook her head. "And the upsides?"
"Potentially getting whatever we want out of Equestria, Yakyakistan or both, immediately. No questions asked."
Shinespark frowned. "Does this have anything to do with why you ran off with the terminal on my ship?"
"Do you really even want to go there?"
"...No." Shinespark stood up. "If this third way is that bad of an idea, we don't even need the temptation."
"Slick. Just thought I'd mention it in case... yeah. You know."
"Thank you for being thoughtful." Shinespark shook her head, holding the sound stone in a hoof. "But it sounds like a last resort that will only get us in more trouble, and we're far from in need of one of those. What I need most is time to think... and to ask Princess Celestia what happens if we use our existing writs to split up. I appreciate the talk. I'll... try to make a decision with all of us in mind."
"Yeah. You do that. Stay cool, Sparky."
"...Stay cool, Valey."
In the depths of the Arc Manta, Valey watched as the sound stone went dull.
"Ah bananas." She sat back and played with her legs, face creased in an eternal frown. "Bananas. Bananas bananas... bananas. Bananas."
Reaching up with a wingtip, she rubbed the old Defense Force insignia on the front of her beret and sighed. Shinespark was smart, but what if they did need an edge? She glanced down the ship toward the distant area where the KarmaTech Thirty-Four was stored...
Nah. Not now. Maybe someday soon, but she didn't need a wildcard now.
Princess Twilight shook her head with an expression between worry and a smile. "I guess it was a little harder to finish the rest in one sitting than she thought. This might even be the longest we've gone between breaks yet."
Cadance looked between Twilight, Rainbow Dash and the slumbering unicorn. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't be very hospitable to leave her here," she said, taking Starlight in her aura. "I shall make her more comfortable for the night. I trust you two know your way around enough to find accommodations on your own? I..." She stifled a yawn. "Don't have the energy for staying up late like I used to myself, anymore..."
"Of course we can," Twilight reassured. "Though I certainly don't think I'll be making it to sleep any time soon."
Cadance nodded and headed away. When she was gone, Rainbow Dash stretched, flexing her wings. "So much for finishing in one more sitting, huh?"
Twilight stared at the door Cadance had retreated through. "I can see why she wanted to, though. It's probably for the best she's asleep and we can't ask questions. Ever since the part with Chrysalis, it's felt more and more like she's getting closer to the pony she was when we met her..."
"You think?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow.
"Rainbow, she was terrified of herself." Twilight shook her head. "And with what everyone was telling her, she had good right to be. You remember my magic surge when I got my cutie mark? I think I turned my parents into potted plants! Imagine how I would have turned out if instead of making me her student, Celestia had told me my talent was something to be afraid of."
"I guess." Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Both of us are pretty awesome, Elements of Harmony or no."
Twilight nodded. "From what I've researched, magic surges happen to most unicorns when they get their cutie marks, and are proportional to how strong they already were. But I sure didn't know that as a kid. And Starlight... Even her friends were treating her like being powerful is a challenge to overcome. No one ever told her that being skilled is a good thing."
"Yeah..." Rainbow finally stopped stretching. "I guess really wanting to be normal yourself is reason enough to try to take away what makes everyone special. Maybe she was living vicariously through the ponies in her village, or something."
"Well, think about it." Twilight waved a hoof. "If that Staff of Sameness is her sword, and she's using that one Nightmare Module to remove ponies' cutie marks, she needs a cutie mark of her own to control the sword, right? She must have just... figured out a way to hide or remove the runes. So she really couldn't just remove her own... if that has anything to do with the source of her powers."
Rainbow rolled over. "She doesn't even have it yet! Whatever hers does, wouldn't that mean she doesn't have its powers?"
Twilight bit her lip. "I haven't... studied cutie marks enough to give a concrete answer, Rainbow. But ponies do typically display affinities for their talents before they earn them. The direction of cause and effect hasn't been established, of course, but one other possibility I think is more likely is that she was hanging on at the end and getting her cutie mark somehow pushed her over the edge."
"You know what I think pushed her over the edge?" Rainbow raised an upside-down eyebrow. "Us."
"Us?" Twilight blinked. "She had clearly lost her friends and given up on everything long before we-"
"What did you say she went back in time to undo?" Rainbow pointed a hoof. "My super-awesome rainboom that linked us all together as the Elements of Harmony? And what do you think Celestia was honestly after, asking questions like that to her friends?"
Twilight took a little breath. "She was worried about Nightmare Moon's eventual return. She was looking for ponies who could wield the Elements of Harmony. But we..." She violently shook her head. "No. Celestia would never do that. She would never abandon Starlight's friends or let something bad happen to them just because she later found us instead."
"I'm just saying," Rainbow pressed. "Doesn't Amber go on about how she's inspired to help everyone stay positive through bad situations, and Felicity get in big trouble because she never lies about her own feelings as some kind of personal oath? And Maple literally used Kindness to fend off those mercenaries without harming them. You really think there's nothing, nothing, nothing here?"
Twilight sighed. "I wouldn't be surprised if Starlight is aware of the connection, and I believe you that's what Celestia was doing, but Starlight didn't mention a word about that to me while we were in the time loop. It wasn't about righting things for her at all. All she was interested in was revenge for what we did at her village."
Rainbow shrugged. "Eh, I guess... You were the one who was stuck with her. But if you really had a terrible lot in life and knew how to time travel, why wouldn't you just go back and fix things for yourself before harrying others?"
"That's part of why I don't think the time travel had anything to do with helping herself." Twilight got up and took three steps, stopping and standing in the middle of nowhere. "I don't think Starlight was willing to intervene or change things on her behalf, and it has to be because she knew it would be pointless."
"Doesn't seem that pointless to me..."
"Not pointless to do what? Try to improve her life when she's clearly miserable?" Twilight gave Rainbow a look. "I know that's wrong, but it fits her old mindset! What if Starlight wouldn't change the past to benefit herself because she won't do anything to improve her own situation because she's still afraid of herself after everything she's been told?"
For a moment, Rainbow Dash blinked. "...That would really stink."
"Starlight hasn't been a non-evil dictator for long," Twilight sighed. "And we shouldn't be under any illusions that she's alright. I don't even care about the story for the story's sake anymore. I just want to have my suspicions confirmed or denied so we can help Starlight move on."
"Cadance did give us Writs of Harmonic Sanction," Rainbow pointed out. "You think her old friends are still out there somewhere, and we could go and get them back?"
"Maybe." Twilight shook her head. "I don't really want to guess. But if they are, I can guarantee you she could go find them on her own, and chose to found that village instead."
Rainbow Dash pursed her lips. "That's messed up."
"Since when has Starlight ever claimed otherwise?"
"Meh..." Rainbow groaned, hauling herself upright. "You were right. I'm never gonna get to sleep now. Let's see if it actually ends tomorrow..."
Twilight watched her go, and then teleported, heading straight for the wing where she and her friends usually stayed when they came to visit overnight.
A sleepy Cadance was already there, stepping away from a room and closing the door. "Twilight," she greeted.
"Cadance." Twilight nodded, realizing she had accidentally beaten Rainbow Dash. "...Think you'll really be able to get to sleep after all that?"
Cadance nodded. "This would not be the first time I have had the woes of my citizens placed on my mind. Don't forget who the crystal ponies' old ruler was, Twilight." She stepped closer. "That doesn't make it any easier to hear that trouble has befallen a friend, but Starlight isn't alone."
Twilight bit her lip. "That isn't exactly a reassuring thought."
"Celestia didn't make you an alicorn because the world had no need of ponies who could right wrongs, Twilight," Cadance insisted. "Don't forget that. My job as the crystal empress is to heal the souls of over a thousand ponies who have been trapped in stasis for a millennium. Being a ruler who can do good in the world requires knowing that there is good to be done."
Twilight hesitated, knowing her speedy friend was about to arrive. "I know you need your sleep, but can we go somewhere and talk?"
Cadance blinked. "Well... for a few minutes, alright? I will need my sleep."
"Of course. Thank you."
Cadance's horn flashed, and in a bright pulse of teleportation, the two were gone. Stars appeared over Twilight's head, and they were surrounded by a warm breeze, not at all one that belonged in the foothills of a frigid mountain range.
It was the deck at the very top of the palace, where the crystal heart had once been stored. Cadance sat down by the railing and nodded, looking out at the shining city and the snowscape beyond. "What's on your heart, Twilight?"
"Tell me it's not just me," Twilight begged. "Starlight's fear of her potential... Glimmer telling her it's a bad thing, her friends treating it like something to be lived with instead of something to be proud of... This isn't right, is it?"
Cadance sat for a moment. "I suspect if you subjected yourself to any of the measurements that could have been done on a filly like her, you would find yourself only more potent and capable. You're an alicorn, Twilight. You and your friends have saved the world many times, and you battled Tirek with all of our powers, all on your own. Are you afraid of what you could do if you made a mistake?"
Twilight giggled nervously. "You've clearly never seen me study for a test."
"Not the consequences to yourself, but to others," Cadance corrected.
Twilight looked down. "I've had to be saved by my friends before when I failed in high-stakes situations. Of course I'm afraid of the consequences. But this is different! I had Princess Celestia teaching me to be responsible and correcting me when I failed! I had all of Ponyville to make a mess out of Winter Wrap-Up for or cast Want-It-Need-It on, and I... well, learned some lessons the hard way, but still without getting anyone hurt, let alone endangering the world. But Starlight didn't have any of that. The one pony who knows enough to provide real guidance is actively refusing to, and her friends have no idea how to teach her to make mistakes with her power."
Cadance sadly nodded. "Then her fear is prudent. Unfortunate, certainly, but at her level of abilities, there is real damage that could be caused should she make the wrong choices. It is both entirely justified and a tragic way for her life to be."
Twilight winced. "You mean if you had been there, you would have given her the same advice?"
"Twilight, we're alicorns," Cadance sighed. "Our circumstances are completely different than her friends'. If we had been there, we could have had better options that could have done more good in her life, but we weren't and one of the lessons you need to take to heart is that there's no use dwelling too hard on what could have been. Learn from the past, but don't yearn for it beyond creating goals for the future."
"Well, I do need goals for the future," Twilight insisted, "because I offered to become her mentor and it's my job now to help her. Sooner or later she's going to finish this story and our lives are going to go on. And I don't think it's right for her to live in fear of what she's capable of."
Cadance shrugged. "Well, there's likely no one better suited to helping her learn than you, Twilight. You successfully stood up to her and made her back down, and I think she could trust that you can do it again."
"Yeah..." Twilight slowly nodded. "I think that's why she came back with me and is staying with us. And why she trusts us enough to tell this story. But what if I'm not ready for this?"
Cadance shook her head. "If Starlight trusts you to watch over her and guide her through her mistakes as she tries to live a more normal life, I think you can also trust her to understand when you fail yourself along the way. You could even teach her by example."
Twilight exhaled. "Part of me still wants to run off to the north and see if there's anything I can do to fix what happened back then. You did give me this, after all."
"A writ is good for a lifetime, Twilight," Cadance replied. "You could wait a year or even ten, and it will be just as potent as ever. The writ wasn't given to you because you needed to go now, but so that you could choose to go if you ever decided the time was right. But I wouldn't be surprised if that lies somewhere in your and Starlight's futures."
Twilight folded her ears. "She probably wants nothing more than to settle down in Ponyville and live normally for a while. We went sledding with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash during a break in the story the other day, and she loved it."
Cadance wrapped a wing around her. "If it makes it any easier... once Shining and I have our foal, I suspect their magical prowess could be hard to keep in check." She glanced down and softly giggled. "It will be quite the hoofful, raising them properly. But you won't be the only one trying to teach someone who's too powerful to know what to do with it."
"Yeah..." Twilight glanced down as well. "Thanks for the talk, but I should let you get to bed. If you're tired these days, heh..."
"Don't remind me." Cadance groaned and stood up. "Just remember, once the story is done, you'll be back to living the rest of your life. It's the future that matters, Twilight. And there's a whole future out there for you to help Starlight do better than anywhere she's been and anything that's happened before."
"Right." Twilight resolutely nodded. "I won't let her down."
Shinespark stepped into the dry dock where the Immortal Dream sat lifted on its supports. More than half of its outer hull had been removed, revealing the harder, secondary shell beneath. The detached, splintered plating was mostly laid out in sections nearby, the interiors facing the sky.
"Shinespark!" Ebb called, looking up from the boards, the only pony presently there and working in the early light of dawn. "Swell of you to drop by!"
"How is progress?" Shinespark asked, the sound stone dull in her satchel.
The young stallion scratched his head. "First one here for the day. I think we're starting to realize this northern tech is way more complicated than just a boat with a fancy engine."
"That's one way to put it." Shinespark nodded, stepping closer. "You're the one who's been contributing most to this restoration. What's your opinion on the progress?"
"My opinion?" Ebb blinked. "Well, I think the best we can hope for is to make it look nice. Look at all this! I thought this was just a plain outer hull, but the inside of this wood is completely covered in some kind of runes." He rubbed a hoof across the polished inner surface of the damaged boards. "The plan was just to pretty it up as a way to thank you for visiting here, but I don't think we have a hope of fixing stuff we don't even understand."
Shinespark nodded. "What's blocking you? Technical knowledge? You still have pony power, interested students willing to help?"
"Why do you ask?" Ebb gave a confused frown. "Just yesterday, you said you appreciated the gesture, but now you sound like you need it up and running."
"...I don't..." Shinespark paused. "But I do need to know if that's feasible within a time frame. I have an important decision to make soon, and whether this ship can return to the sky will play a big factor in it."
Ebb shrugged at the boards. "Then you'll need to get your hooves dirty and start helping us, because these look important."
"Right." Shinespark turned to the stripped boat. "The runes on the hull are a limited regeneration array initially developed to repair windows that cracked due to extreme temperature differences or were damaged by hail and the like. As long as the ship had mana power, they could repair cosmetic and minor damage to the exterior hull. Not something like this... not fully. But they could make your job easier if we connect the ship to the island's power supply."
Ebb's eyes widened. "Woah. You can do that?"
"Powerful corporations with foreign investment can," Shinespark corrected. "And we could copy it. But I'm guessing you haven't touched the insides..."
The stallion shook his head. "Only to clean, but we've left the engine room and all your cabins alone."
"We've removed our personal effects. No need to worry about privacy." Shinespark climbed the gangplank, the buckled areas of the deck removed to reveal damaged insulation between it and the cabin roofs. "Most of our furnishings will need to be newly restocked, regardless. Now, to make the power work, the ship's wiring might be damaged and parts of its generator and control panel are definitely fried, so we'll need any experts on mana circuitry you can find, as well as access to a lab and spare equipment. We'll compensate you if there's a financial cost."
"Roger..." Ebb scribbled notes on a pad of paper. "You really think we have the components you're looking for?"
Shinespark stepped around the open insulation to the siding door to the staircase, it fitting slightly rougher on its track than it used to. "The parts you wouldn't have are the ones that wouldn't be damaged. It's the conventional mana circuitry that doesn't survive power surges, and I've seen enough here to know your principles should be compatible enough with ours. There are a few higher-level components that will need custom fabricating, but analog sensors and inputs should just be a matter of specifications."
Ebb raised an eyebrow and blew on his bangs. "...You've got a different vibe about you today."
"I'm keeping my options open."
Day nine...
"Okay, zombie, work with me here." Anemone sat before a console in the depths of the Arc Manta, Valey perched like a vulture behind her. "Why, after taking on that faire you put in your windigo hearts, have our sensors become less scrambled?"
Valey half-grimaced, half-grinned. "I mess with you one time about all our magical weirdness, and it earns me a nickname, huh?"
"Jape with me, I jape with you." Anemone shrugged. "Look at these readings. There's a lot of micro-interference, but we're still able to see the prevailing ether current toward the crystal palace if we already know where in the data to look. See what happens when we transpose a hypothetical idealized map of the area over our vector field? The result looks random, which it shouldn't if it already was and we subtracted a coherent pattern."
Valey burped. "Is a vector a sport that you play on a field? I think I sorta get it..."
Anemone facehoofed. "Never mind. Just tell me what changed that could have made a difference."
"Starlight's butt fell off and we kicked out a ghost Ironflanks may have been allowing to haunt her." Valey shrugged, and elaborated after an annoyed look: "Seriously! Have you not noticed Starlight no longer has a cutie mark? The one she had was kinda... unusual, and she'd thank you not to ask too many questions about it. But that's one change. And this kind of mostly dead pony Maple invisibly had on magical life support skedaddled on us. And we charged up the windigo hearts."
Anemone planted her head against the console. "Stop joking about ghosts."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "If I told you in a perfectly legitimate scientific context that one of our party members had actually turned into an incorporeal energy ghost and was prevented from floating away by Maple's cutie mark, what would it take to convince you I wasn't just clowning around? Like, imagine actually discovering that."
"I'm listening. Pull my leg again, and Sea Star's getting the next shift working with you."
"Sounds like a fun time." Valey played with her hat. "But yeah, what I said. We have no idea who or what she was, but some kid was tagging along on our ship. We let her stay after she kinda blew herself up to save me and... uh... an old hag from a painful, fiery death. And eventually she hooked herself up to the machine that powers Shinespark's ship, blew that up to save us from some monsters that the griffons up by the border were fighting, and drained herself enough that she would have disappeared if we didn't do anything."
Anemone stared at her. "How?"
"Bananas, beats me." Valey made a show of shrugging. "Part of the reason we came down here in the first place was to try and get some. Stuff like this sorta just happens to us."
Anemone grimaced. "Either you hate me, or your life hates science. What did I ever do to you?"
"Heard that I had a reputation for flirting with students and breaking their hearts. Remember when we first met?" Valey gave her a suspicious look. "Remember when you thought you could outdo the master?" She stuck out her tongue. "But nyaah. I'm pretty sure my life just hates science."
"But... ugh."
"That about sums it up. Sorry, girl. All I can tell you is that you're going to have an impossible time isolating cause and effect with us around."
Day ten...
"Hello there, Meltdown. You look marginally better than the last time we met."
Princess Celestia crouched, keeping her head low to avoid goring a hole in the roof of Generosity Two's bathroom with her majestic horn. Inside the bathtub, a frail, waterlogged mare looked back with an expression of shock and slight fear.
"P-Princess..." She tried to bow, already laying down.
"Here she is," Amber said, standing outside the bathroom door. "I don't suppose there's anything you can do for her, is there?"
"Hmm." Celestia surveyed the gaunt mare, then lifted her from the tub in her aura. "Perhaps. You are safe to ignite."
Meltdown shivered, steaming, as she was quickly carried to the living room, suspended in midair... and the steam rising from her coat quickly turned to ice crystals suspended within it. Amber blinked in surprise. "What...?"
Fwooom!
Meltdown didn't look like she could afford to think about it. Rapidly, an expanding shockwave of heat engulfed her... and was all wicked away by Celestia's aura, drawing as a stream of energy into her horn like a candle snuffed by a breeze. Meltdown almost glowed with energy, waves of fiery traces burning off from her, but the princess holding her looked entirely unfazed as the heat all twisted its way down into her horn.
"I am the Princess of the Sun," Celestia said, noting Amber's jaw-dropped look. "I command heat in all its forms, including producing cold by drawing it into myself. Controlling Meltdown's level of power is no easy feat, but it is precisely one I am good at."
Felicity stumbled heavily from the bedroom, rubbing at her eyes. "Darlings, what happened? I thought I heard an explosion..."
"You did," Meltdown replied, her voice stronger than it had been since the Griffon Empire. "...Thank you, Your Majesty. I haven't been able to feel myself for far too long."
Celestia nodded sagely. "Garsheeva's gifts are as double-edged as they are powerful. I wished to have a discussion with you regarding the Empire's and your own future, particularly in light of your present companions. Do you wish to move somewhere more private, first?"
Meltdown shook her head. "I have nothing to hide. Where is Shinespark? I am curious what fruition her efforts on my behalf have brought. This would be a better time than any for me to aid her."
"Well, if she's not sleeping, I'll be rather upset with her," Felicity sighed. "She's been up for three days straight working nonstop elsewhere on the island. Apparently she thinks she can make both that and restoring our airship full-time projects at once."
"...I see." Meltdown looked to Celestia. "How can I best leave her instructions?"
Princess Celestia gave her an interested look. "Your first concern is to this other mare?"
"This would be a poor time for me to abandon humility." Meltdown shook her head. "She thinks she can recreate coolant power armor in the line of my old imperial suit. And I so far have placed my hopes in her. In my weakened states, I won't be able to do anything for my country even if I could make the journey home."
"You intend to return, then?" Celestia asked.
"I do." Meltdown nodded, fiery energy swirling around her. "I appreciate your offer to intervene, but what I need most is my full capacity permanently restored. If you're offering me aid, help Shinespark instead."
Celestia's eyes seemed to stare through her, purple and unblinking. "Fascinating. I've never heard you put your faith so freely in another."
Meltdown shrugged. "We have met rarely."
Celestia shook her head. "I speak not to you, but to the dynasty of your office. I know what it is Garsheeva grooms her favorites for; to rule in her stead and decide the fates of the ponies and griffons for yourselves. Invariably, she chooses ponies willing to act on their own judgement and unbound from the whims of others. Yet you put your faith and fate in Shinespark's hooves?"
"Pragmatism," Meltdown assured. "And I am... more easily emotionally compromised in lower power states."
Celestia regarded her a moment longer. "The Griffon Empire has already met an era of irreversible transformation. I wonder what would happen if you took it further and allowed yourself to embrace that compromise and make more frequent use of such states."
Meltdown hesitated. "Time will tell. Shinespark is still where I've chosen my faith to lie. And allowing myself to rule more frequently by following my heart than my plans may sometimes improve my life. But at the same time, it isn't the duty of a ruler to risk their subjects for their own behalf. I will wear my mantle, and my personal life will have to remain a separate thing."
"...I see." Princess Celestia finally nodded. "You have no binding obligations to return to the north and your people, yet your first thoughts really still lie with them after all. If this is your path, I wish you wisdom along the way."
Meltdown hovered in Princess Celestia's aura, continually draining heat as she stared at the contraption before her.
"It's a rough prototype," Shinespark yawned. "But I wanted your input before any further testing..."
Meltdown drifted in a slow circle around the device. It didn't look remotely like power armor, but could possibly be imagined as a cooler. A lot of loose hoses had been fused or bolted together, most supported by immobile racks, the pony-shaped suit in the middle looked more like a bag than armor, and miscellaneous parts of her old suit could be seen suspended throughout the mess.
"I see you're a fan of rapid prototyping."
Shinespark shrugged. "I have to know how well this cooling system will work before I try building it into something mobile, and about a third of it is hacked together from your old things. Right now, the pipeline to generate mana from heat and disperse it into the ground is theoretically complete, but it's hard to test without you personally. That's why I asked you to come."
Meltdown continued to stare. "Very well. If a test is needed, let's proceed."
Celestia floated Meltdown closer, her aura beginning to fade. "I'm surprised by your trust once again. You will have to cool off so that Shinespark can guide you inside herself."
"Calculated risk." Meltdown shook her head, the fiery energy rising from her fading as well. "It doesn't look mechanized enough to crush me, and if it was, I could destroy it from the inside. Understood."
The room's temperature abruptly dropped as Celestia's aura shifted, still warm enough that Shinespark could remain on her hooves, yet cold enough for Meltdown to retain a little of her output. The duo worked quickly, Shinespark opening the pony bag in a clamshell design and helping Meltdown in. In a matter of minutes, the device was sealed save for Meltdown's head, an insulated collar capping the suit high on her neck.
"Alright..." Shinespark adjusted several switches that had been hastily fused to a control panel, and the construction began to thrum, several pumps in the back rumbling to life. "Monitoring energy transference at every stage. Try heating."
"Ten percent," Meltdown said from the bag, her mane limp.
Shinespark nodded, watching the meters. "So far so good on all counts. Higher."
"Twenty percent," Meltdown said, her face beginning to sweat as Celestia's aura disappeared from the room, letting the machine work on its own.
Shinespark paused, looking across her readings. "Give the component temperature time to stabilize..."
Meltdown waited. "Which part is unstable?"
"Just making sure none of my fittings come undone." Shinespark walked in a circle around the machine, checking the connections on the hoses. "It's a rough prototype, after all."
"Those won't be used in the final version," Meltdown agreed.
"...Looks good," Shinespark finally said, tapping the edge of a metal bearing very briefly with the edge of her hoof and pausing. "Hmm. Hot. How hot are you supposed to be internally?"
"I am heatproof," Meltdown replied. "The main consideration is not destroying the area around me. The science isn't relevant and would be complicated to explain."
"Fair enough..." Shinespark went back to the control panel. "Try heating."
Meltdown nodded. "Thirty percent."
Shinespark bit her lip and waited. "We have uneven temperatures across the auxiliary pumps. Do different parts of your body heat at different rates? I spent hours on the math to get the flows even..."
"Not universally." Meltdown turned her attention to the rack of pumps rumbling at the back. "My core is regularly the hottest, but my hooves serve as output points I can control if need be. My tail doesn't heat, and my face is cooler... but I would still greatly appreciate a helmet. I'm keeping my temperatures stable for you right now."
Shinespark frowned. "Two of the pumps are processing coolant significantly hotter than the other three. The smaller pump I borrowed from your suit is the coolest of the bunch..." She moved to a different section of the instrument panel. "Ah. They're moving slower. I hope they don't suffer from uneven construction quality. I only need them for testing, but if they fail first, it won't tell us about the core equipment..."
Meltdown shook her head. "Even at this temperature, I am significantly more comfortable than in your shower. If stress-testing this setup is not urgent, I would prefer to remain here for a while."
Shinespark bit her lip. "I'd give it a fifty percent chance of failure if we step it up another ten percent. The pump is likely made of multiple metals that expand when being heated at different rates."
"That was a consideration making my old suits, yes."
In the background, Princess Celestia stood up. "I take it you will no longer need me standing by for disaster recovery, then?"
Shinespark hesitated. "Meltdown, do you want to stay here alone?"
Meltdown thought for a moment, and then nodded. "I have much to think on while I can. You have my gratitude for this opportunity. In future revisions, please add a helmet."
"Right..." Shinespark stepped away. "I'll stay close in case anything happens. Maybe get some sleep..."
"Thank you," Meltdown repeated.
"It's what I do."
Shinespark stepped out of the testing room, stopped, and doubled over, nearly falling asleep where she stood... until a large, white presence behind her snapped her out of her reverie.
"Your ability to push yourself is commendable," Princess Celestia said. "Though do take care of yourself. I have my suspicions about your motives, and know that whatever you choose, I will not force you to leave prematurely with unfinished business."
"It's that obvious? That I've been considering things?" Shinespark wobbled and sat down. "I am, but this isn't just about that. I've been powerless for months in the north, and now that I can do something worthwhile again, I'm not letting a moment of this chance slip through my hooves."
Celestia nodded. "You work to allay your worries. Most ponies drown themselves in their work to bury theirs instead."
"This isn't a distraction from anything on my mind." Shinespark firmly shook her head. "It's an answer to it. Something I can do for someone who needs it. That's what I made my life about long ago, and I've needed to be able to do it again."
"Helping those in need."
Shinespark nodded. "Yes. Lab work doesn't hurt, either."
"But you have been considering things," Princess Celestia continued. "Is there anything I can do to ease your decision?"
Shinespark hesitated. "If we went back north... and used the writs we already have, could some of us use them to wait here without invalidating the deal?"
Celestia watched her. "Do you believe this would increase your chances of meeting with success?"
Shinespark stopped hard. "...There's a right and wrong answer to that. You were testing our convictions and loyalty to each other earlier."
"Oh, perhaps." Celestia shrugged. "But I've already seen what I needed from our previous meeting. I am mostly curious as to your thought process."
Shinespark met her eyes. "We aren't in good shape. Some of us have more strength to continue than others, and we don't want to force any of us to live with the others sacrificing their dreams for them. But if the ones who need it most could stay here and catch up, and the ones who can still continue left right now..."
"You are more concerned with not asking your friends to live with the sacrifices of others than with not asking them to make sacrifices of their own?" Princess Celestia raised an interested eyebrow. "And you would part ways with them for their own good?"
"...That's why it's a hard decision," Shinespark eventually said, stiff. "But maybe. As the captain, it should be my duty to lay aside my goal of rebuilding Ironridge for their sake, and I could do it. And I know all of them would postpone their new home for my sake if I asked. But my friends have been trying to reach a happy ending to our adventure for far too long for it to feel right if we quit on a sacrifice or a loss. I don't want any of us to have to give up on our dreams for the others. I know it could be seen as selfish, when I could solve all this by insisting we stay, but I would feel guilty if I got my own dream at my friends' expense, and I know they would feel likewise if I gave up on Ironridge for them."
Celestia slowly watched her. "If I hadn't seen you at our last meeting, I would suspect those to be words of cowardice or greed disguised as nobility. But you truly believe you can help them by asking them all to make sacrifices on your behalf, don't you?"
"...I know it goes against reason." Shinespark stood her ground. "But yes. At the same time, I'd still be asking sacrifices of all of them."
Celestia sighed. "I didn't give you an easy choice on purpose, my little pony. Time is finite, and there is only so much any one pony can do in the world. I suspected it would give me a good look at your priorities and characters... and knew you would try to break my ultimatum and obtain the best of both worlds. Yes, I will give no requirements about what your friends must do with their writs prior to the finish line, so long as at least six of you stand together at the border in the end. But you are still making sacrifices. Only your time with each other, instead of your goals for the future..." She shook her head. "I would urge you to remember that whatever you choose, you are not on a strict timer. You need not hurry yourselves in this. Friendship is powerful, and it takes considerable effort to preserve and fight for, effort that could be spent chasing other goals. Think hard on what you are willing to do for the sake of the future."
"You don't have to ask us to do this, you know," Shinespark whispered. "I know you're trying to see if we can do the impossible. We've done it many times before. Our journey could end here happily. And your barrier is already down..."
"Yes, I could," Celestia acknowledged. "There is a lot I could do for many of my ponies. And I am already offering you that happy ending. But changing the world order by opening trade with the north is no insignificant feat, and I am not offering it for free. In exchange for this, I ask that you be not a group of tired survivors at the end of your journey, but ponies who do not take the easy route when they still have a home to save, no matter how battered they may be."
"You want to see that we'd get up and fight for our home even when we have a good enough way out already," Shinespark said. "When we don't need to. You... would ask us to help keep Equestria safe if we open the border, wouldn't you? You're testing whether we'll get back on our hooves when someone needs us, even if we have better options when we only consider ourselves."
Princess Celestia nodded. "Oh, something like that. Though I don't believe I would call on you myself. I would merely trust that you are the kind of ponies who would rise to the occasion."
"And what if we said we would anyway?" Shinespark asked.
"A promise of future risk and service in exchange for favors now?" Celestia raised an eyebrow. "If you would do it in the future, why not return to the north now? The situation is the same. You would be leaving behind the chance of comfort and safety and taking the hard road for the sake of a land you could survive without."
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "Because we could be stronger in the future, after we've rested and recovered more? I've seen for myself how much better myself and my crew have been doing since we finally escaped from the pressure of failure and political attention and having our lives on the line, and asking us to face that again now is very different from asking it in months or years."
"And what if you might be called upon at any hour of any day?" Celestia asked.
"Then... we'd do it because we need to. To protect our home."
Celestia gave her a look. "And if your section of Equestria was not endangered? If a threat was too local, or chose to spare you to avoid incurring your wrath?"
Shinespark finally broke, slumping. "I'm just tired..."
"Then get some sleep, my little pony." Celestia lifted her chin with a feather. "You can't be doing yourself any favors by being so near your limit. And this is why I have already promised not to hasten your departure if you choose to go. I understand that you have been stretched thin, and have no intentions of casting you out fully on your own."
"...You're right." Shinespark sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'll sleep here so I can be on call if anything happens to Meltdown. Good night, Princess. Thank you for... offering as much as you have."
Princess Celestia chuckled, getting up and walking away. "It is the middle of the day, in fact. But I will send for someone to fetch you bedding and a blanket. Unless you're enough of an engineer to sleep on a pile of parts and circuitry."
"Har har..." Shinespark was too worn-out to muster a response.
"You look lost in thought," Maple said, walking past the spot on the Arc Manta where Starlight sat. "More than usual, at least. What's on your mind?"
Starlight flicked her tail. "Valey says that Shinespark says that you and me could use our two Writs of Harmonic Sanction to stay here and live on our own while everyone else goes back north over the mountains."
Maple's brow creased, and she sat down. "I heard that too. What do you think about it?"
Starlight shrugged. "I thought I wouldn't need to have one because I'm already from here. And then I wondered if I really was from here after what Caballeron told me about that meteor. You've seen me go inside moon glass. And then I wondered how Princess Celestia would even know where we're from if we snuck around and didn't tell anyone. So now I wonder if northern ponies really are different from Equestrian ponies somehow and what that means."
"That's a lot of questions." Maple sat back in consternation. "I... don't really know. To any of them. But if we were different, what would it matter."
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged again. "But I'm bored and have nothing to do but think."
Maple pursed her lips. "You know, if you had more to do other than thinking, I bet you'd be a lot happier in general. There has to be something better to do with your time."
"Like what? What do you do?"
Maple's ears fell. "On this submarine? Umm... sleep. And think. And tell stories to myself. Maybe I'm not the best example."
Starlight looked away. "Then here's something that actually does matter. If everyone else leaves us behind and takes the ship, where are we going to live? Your land from Garsheeva is in the middle of nowhere. We can't survive on our own."
"That's definitely a problem," Maple mused, sitting back. "One we'd have to discuss with everyone... How would you feel about your old hometown?"
"Sires Hollow?" Starlight grimaced. "Why?"
"Two reasons." Maple took her braid in her hooves, rolling it between them in thought. "One, there's a path over the mountains you found. We could use it to get back to Riverfall and Ironridge if we ever really needed to. And we'd have the sound stone, so we'd know if we did."
Starlight gave her a skeptical look. "You want us to navigate dark caves for a week or two and then fall off that cliff? You remember how bad I was when you found me. How would we survive?"
"Well, if we know what's coming, we can better prepare, right?" Maple gave a little smile. "I'm good at packing for personal trips. I have my cutie mark."
"And I don't know how you'd prepare for jumping off a waterfall."
Maple sighed. "Well, the second reason is because of something you said to me a while ago... I think it was after the Empire, but I don't really remember."
Starlight looked up.
"You said I hadn't really been a mother to you," Maple continued. "That you were the one who had been looking out for me... and that you were only saying it because you thought I had grown. Do you...? I mean... It's awkward asking how you feel about that now, but..."
Starlight shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I still love you."
"Well, it matters to me," Maple said, straightening her back. "Maybe I haven't always been at my best, and maybe I'm still not, but I love you too and I have a job to do for you, whether I'm grown into it or not. So, I thought that since your old home is where all this started, and it still sounds like there are a lot of difficult memories attached... maybe I could help you face them."
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut. "You're saying it like there's no way everyone will stay here. Just because it's a plan doesn't mean they've decided for sure, right?"
Maple leaned closer. "You want everyone to settle down and stay, don't you."
Starlight silently nodded.
"Oh, honey..."
Starlight swallowed. "I don't want to lose my friends. Not again. Not after everything I've done to keep all of you safe and alive with me."
Maple nuzzled her softly. "I'll make sure Valey and Shinespark know. But no matter who went where, we'd see them again for sure. We could visit whenever we needed to, right?"
"Stop sounding like it's a foregone conclusion!"
"I..." Maple shook her head to clear it. "I'm sorry. I guess my worries got the best of me. Don't worry, Starlight. Whatever happens, I promise it'll be alright."
"Fine..." Starlight sat up. "I don't think they're going to give up any more than you do, though. Shinespark cares about Ironridge and Valey hates walking away from a fight. And going back to help Ironridge is what I would do, too."
Maple lifted one ear. "Would?"
"Glimmer is still out there." Starlight looked at her hooves. "And I don't remember touching the harmonic flame, so I don't remember if I had another vision and the bad future was changed or not. If I caused something like that, would it really happen because I settled down and tried to live a normal life with my friends? Or would it happen because I cared so much about getting something perfect that I wouldn't stop at good enough and would try to save Ironridge again, and then something bigger, and then even bigger? Of course I want to help Ironridge. But I know I shouldn't."
"Starlight..." Maple reached over and rubbed her shoulders. "You really think if we all stopped and settled down to build our town, it would be perfect?"
"Not for Ironridge," Starlight grumbled. "But it would be for me." She looked up. "If Glimmer's future can still come true, that means I don't get to live somewhere good enough that I can just stop caring or trying. And our town really sounds that good... so that's why I know everyone's going to choose to go back to Ironridge."
Maple frowned heavily. "If every other assumption is true, that's still assuming the future can't be changed, in which case why even try at all?"
Starlight shrugged. "Because the alternative is giving up."
"...Now I think you're going in circles." Maple paused. "I'm sorry, Starlight. I've lost track of your train of thought, and I think you have too. It'll be alright, okay? Think of it this way: whether we all stay here, you and I stay behind, or we all go back to the north, either way you'll still have me, right?"
"You're welcome," Maple hummed. "So..." Her demeanor dropped back to somber. "I really thought this might be an option, you know. Us two, trying to live in your old home... I'm sure you've sometimes wondered what it would have been like if none of this had ever happened."
"Then I never would have met you or Amber or Valey," Starlight mumbled. "Or Willow."
"Hmmm..." Maple sighed. "Well, like I said. All I can do is make sure everyone else has considered you when they make the decision."
Day thirteen...
"Darling, I feel like a log," Felicity complained, laying on her back on the couch at Generosity Two. "Isn't there a more dignified way to do this?"
"Sorry, girl." Amber shrugged, sitting behind a mildly uncomfortable doctor who was trying to take various readings on Felicity with his instruments. "It's been a good two weeks since they checked us up when we got here, and you've slowed down by a good fifty percent. Don't want you going too long without anyone taking a good look at you, not in your condition."
"Not in your condition, indeed," the doctor grumbled, trying to examine his squirming patient. "Now hold still. You're taking this like a bored child."
Felicity huffed. "Harrumph. The nurses when we got here were considerably more happy to pamper."
Amber rolled her eyes. "That's because we got here starved and tired after being at sea for days. Now you've been pampered, we've done all the obvious, and someone is giving you a second look while that's out of the way."
"I can already tell you everything there is to see during a second look," Felicity whined. "It's called being permanently crippled by poison from twenty years ago while having a foal who is ruining my figure and causing critical damage to my self-esteem!"
Amber groaned. "Yes, we get it. Felicity, please mare up and take this? I know you're only complaining because you think he can't stop you, but I'm the one who asked for you to get a check-up and if it improves your quality of life, that's more than worth it!"
Felicity snorted. "Fine. You got me. Really though, how hard is it to show at least a little pity?"
"Stop complaining," the doctor warned, "or I'll get the blood draw over with early."
Felicity's pupils went to slits. "A blood draw?"
Amber shrugged.
"Ahahahaha, a perfect gentlemare, that's me!" Felicity giggled nervously, instantly laying straighter and giving Amber a dangerous look. That quickly trailed off into a ladylike wink at the doctor. "The. Perfect. Patient. I won't even OUCH! You lying barbarian!"
The doctor shrugged, a flash of his horn paralyzing Felicity's shoulder and holding her numb and steady until he finished. "We were at the end. I didn't say how much earlier it would be. Not a patient I'm doing another house call for... Bahhh..."
With a sigh of resignation, he bandaged Felicity's shoulder, packed his equipment back into his bag, and left without ceremony.
Felicity started a low whine.
"...What's with you?" Amber asked after a while. "You're being... really wimpy. On purpose. I know living in Gyre left you tougher than that."
Felicity deflated and sighed, nursing her shoulder. "I'm sorry about that. I just... well, you know... can't take it anymore, darling. He's a professional, he gets paid to deal with immaturity. He can take it. Choosing acceptable targets, you know? I just needed to vent somehow about... well... all this."
"All what?" Amber shrugged and looked around. "We've got a nice place. No one is chasing us, or hurrying us anywhere. You've got friends and don't have to be alone at night. And we're taking care of you. Sure, you're slowing down and your situation could be real bad, but you have all of us to do everything for you and get you through it. This is your best possible outcome, given the circumstances. I thought you really enjoyed being pampered."
Felicity's lower lip trembled for a moment, and then she put on a more honest expression of defeat. "I suppose it is, yes. And I can't say I know how to phrase it. That I need but to complain about myself and you or others will instantly come buoy me up is... Well, yes, I do appreciate the pampering, and I did need it badly. I just..."
Amber listened patiently.
"I don't anymore." Felicity made an effort and sat up. "Require the pampering, I mean. Not that I'll ever say no to being taken care of, but... my mind feels rested, darling. I want to help out around here, make you all feel good, return the favor. I've been feeling readier and readier to get on my hooves and contribute with each passing day. And yet with each passing tick of the clock, my body's already-meager resources are taxed more and more, to the point where I think twice before even getting to my hooves. Why, just two weeks ago we took a lengthy stroll to the far tip of the island, and I think if we tried that today, there's a real chance you'd be forced to carry me back."
Amber smiled hesitantly. "You know, if that's what it takes for you to enjoy yourself, ponies would stare... but I wouldn't mind."
"What it takes is for me to start pulling some weight around here," Felicity countered. "I cared for all of you after the crash because I had a debt to repay, and I've basked in your care since then because I needed it and you all convinced me it was real, but I want to be done being a slug and do something useful with myself again for a change! And every last little reminder that I'm an invalid is..." She stared at her belly. "Well. You know."
Amber flopped down next to her. "Well, there's got to be something you can do."
"Shall we run through the list again, darling?" Felicity gave her a look. "My three weapons of choice in the Empire were my brand, my words and my looks, with a side helping of Mistvale arts. Say what you like about my figure, it's not what it once was... and my ability to get around is disappearing quickly as well. What does that even leave me with?"
"Your brand, your words and your monk arts, of course." Amber shrugged. "You just have to be creative. Maybe you can't do much for us with them, but why not do things for the other ponies on the island? Building goodwill is always good for us too, you know."
Felicity raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"You make a killer masseuse," Amber pointed out. "And you can use your cutie mark to back it up. Press down ponies' worries, heighten their relaxation... I know I'd pay money for your services."
"Hmmm..." Felicity pursed her lips.
"Or go into telling stories." Amber waved a hoof. "How many storytellers can use magical aides to help their audience really get into feeling the tale? Hey, you could even put your foal or poison injury to use by making up wild stories about how you got them. If you're listening to a story for entertainment, no one cares how true it is as long as it's good."
Felicity frowned in thought.
"Speaking from experience here, too." Amber slapped a hoof across her heart. "When I was growing up? I had a friend with a chewed ear. No idea how it happened. Accident, birth defect...? But she made up the wildest stories about it like you wouldn't believe. Like the time she escaped getting eaten by a dragon, or when she lost the missing part as a reagent for a powerful magical spell. You've got potential, though, girl!"
"...Hah. Well, I should give that a try, then." Felicity sat a little straighter. "In however much time we have before we leave this island one way or the other..."
"My visit grows long, my little ponies," Princess Celestia said, standing before Gerardo, Amber and Shinespark. "I have been waiting in hopes of speaking in person with the friends of yours who are still at sea, but I have many duties to attend to elsewhere in my lands and will be able to wait only one more day. While this time may still be sufficient for us to meet, we will not be able to afford another week for you to deliberate on my offer. Have you been working towards a decision?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Before anything else, should we choose to leave, what would our deadline be?"
Celestia pursed her lips. "What would you request it to be?"
"That's... hard." Amber shuffled. "I think a lot of us are leaning towards going back north. Shinespark wants to, I'd like to see some friends I left there again, Gerardo was planning on adventuring anyway, Slipstream and Harshwater and Grenada are fine... but we also have Felicity, and she isn't in very... good condition. She could travel since the boat is safe and steady and has proper beds, but it could take weeks for us to reach Ironridge from here. If she needed a doctor during that time, it could be bad."
Celestia nodded sagely. "Your sarosian friend."
"With all due respect, Princess..." Shinespark met her eyes. "I was appraised on her condition yesterday, and she hasn't been doing better since we got here. Making an offer like yours is one thing when we can still recover and become fit for travel, but Felicity is... You're testing what we would do for each other as friends, but that test falls apart when you're asking us to endanger our weakest member."
Celestia's face softened in concern. "You make this sound more dire than I was aware of at our summit last week. What is the official diagnosis of her condition?"
"Well, she's worsened since then," Amber apologized. "I got a doctor to see her last night, and they checked her vitals and foal and did a blood draw. We haven't heard official results yet, but she lived with poisoned drinking water for a while two decades ago and has had low stamina and constitution ever since. I think she used to be stable, but now that she's pregnant, she's been slowly getting worse. And more quickly now that her foal is growing bigger."
"I must confess, I did not fully take this into consideration," Princess Celestia said. "What do you request, then? To stay until her foal is born? How much longer will this be?"
"Errr..." Amber bit her lip. "She's been pregnant for... We've been in Equestria for nearly two months, she was already... She's about five months in. So it'll be a while."
Celestia slowly nodded. "That would be a long time to wait, indeed. But your loyalties to her are strong? If you saw her fit to travel, do you believe she would follow you until the end?"
"...Yes. Absolutely." Amber nodded firmly. "She lost her old family for our sake, and stayed alive because of it. And she kept some of us alive when none of us trusted her and she had no reason to. We're her family now, and we're all she has. She would stay with us until the end."
"You have your existing Writs of Harmonic Sanction," Celestia pointed out. "If you truly desire to leave with proper attention to her safety, you could grant her one and allow her to remain here with Kinmari's doctors. I would assist you in reuniting whenever she desires, as well as provide a writ for her foal that would not count toward your total of six, but would still allow her to take them north across the border. Though I understand if this is not equitable, as she would be on her own without you for some of the more difficult months of her life."
Shinespark winced. "We were... already considering who we would use those two on. We also have children with us who don't deserve to grow up disconnected and in the sky."
Celestia bowed her head. "I see. And how does Felicity feel about this?"
Amber nodded. "She's sound in mind and bored of doing nothing, isn't happy with her body and isn't as concerned for herself as we are... or if she is, she's hiding it, but that doesn't seem very like her. Truthfully, I'm not sure she cares about herself enough to be upset at the future consequences of her condition, only the immediate ones like having trouble walking. All of us were messed up by the month we spent stranded, but she's had more trouble recovering than others."
"From everything I've seen," Gerardo murmured, "that's a very fair assessment."
Princess Celestia hesitated. "In a perfect world, what would her happily ever after look like?"
"Uhhh... heh heh..." Amber chuckled uncertainly. "You mean one that could technically maybe unrealistically but still maybe happen? She somehow hangs on until she has her foal, they're born happy and healthy, then someone like Garsheeva transfers her soul and memories to a new body that's not pregnant or crippled and is preferably younger than the one she already has, and while they're at it they also hunt down Crystal and get back her sisters and bring them back the same way we revived Valey, the three of them actually make up and then all of us live together happily ever after. And just between you and me, that last condition is the most impossible of the bunch."
"That is a lot indeed," Princess Celestia said.
"But does it lead to anything you can do?" Gerardo asked.
Celestia took a breath. "I will need to consider this. I wish to speak with Felicity myself. Would this be a suitable time?"
"She's probably laying down and lamenting her boredom, if I know her." Amber shrugged. "Feel free."
"Of course." Princess Celestia nodded, getting up and readying herself to leave.
"Whooo is it?" Felicity called, lounging boredly on the couch of Generosity Two and tracing patterns in her belly fur.
The front door opened to reveal Princess Celestia, with Shinespark and Amber and Gerardo standing behind.
"Hello, my little pony," the monarch said, bowing her head to enter. "I have been made aware your situation is far less fit than ideal for travel."
"What kind of travel?" Felicity drawled, lifting her wings. "If you mean these, I'm afraid they became mere ornaments weeks ago."
Celestia stepped forward. "There are concerns about allowing you to attempt a monthlong voyage via airship in your present state. Ones I do not wish to have interfering in the choice I presented all of you a week ago."
"What concerns are those?" Felicity shrugged. "Not being able to get around is hardly debilitating when there's nowhere to go. Give me a good bed, and I'll be perfect for tagging along."
Princess Celestia nodded. "And should you suffer an emergency and require medical attention during the voyage?"
Felicity frowned.
"Think of how Maple would feel," Amber quietly added from the backline.
"...No," Felicity sighed, deflating. "I suppose I'm not, am I? But what do you want me to do about it?" She gave Celestia an earnest look. "I'm rather helpless, if you haven't noticed. Blessed with friends who are happy to do the helping for me, but here I am watching day after day as they get stronger and happier after all our ordeals and my body seems determined to stop me from partaking in the fun. If you have any ideas on how I could help myself pull my weight, I'm all ears."
Celestia appraised her for a while. "Speaking for yourself alone, do you wish to accept my offer of Writs of Harmonic Sanction and remain here, or return to the north and continue seeking them on your own?"
"Honestly, it doesn't make that much of a difference," Felicity said with a shrug. "I am in a funk at present, so don't take my words too seriously, but neither way has a whole lot of living for me to do, you know? At least adventuring would let me watch the scenery."
"Hmm." Celestia nodded.
"Really," Felicity complained, "I don't think I'm asking for that much. Did you know we worked for the Night Mother for an extensive period of time, my sisters and I, because she promised us new bodies as a reward and that never panned out? If there's anything you can do with all your goddess alicorn powers to replicate the effect and give me just a little bit of room to work with myself, I'd practically swear myself to chastity and join your clergy in thanks."
Celestia shook her head. "This problem falls within the realm of doctors, not princesses. Your friends told me you were waiting on the results of some tests from yesterday? I would urge you to wait one day longer and see if there is something Equestrian medicine can do for your condition that northern cannot. In the meantime, I do not believe you are the only member of your crew who finds themselves flightless and weakened physically compared to their former strength." She glanced back at Shinespark. "While your situations are far from the same, it would be difficult not to draw comparison."
Shinespark folded her ears. "I'm not sure I'm the best pony for advice on how to get over this..."
Felicity shook her head. "With how many of us were bedridden by injuries in our first month here where I still was up and about, I'd wager half the crew could relate. And I do appreciate the company, but my real issue isn't loneliness. All of you have already been quite wonderful about that. It's the fact that I've been waking up day after day and needing just a little more energy to haul myself to my hooves, and I know that whether I decide it to be today or next month, there will come a point where I simply can't stand on my own at all. And this last week especially, now that I'm getting bigger faster, well... I simply can't stand feeling this way. I've probably got aches and pains I don't even remember I have, darling. I'm almost nostalgic for a few days ago when I could complain more about how I look than how I feel."
"You still do that," Amber pointed out.
"So?"
"...I will inquire at the hospital as to their opinions on your condition." Celestia straightened up. "And I will not require a decision on your future course of action while there are unknowns about this. I am sorry, my little ponies. I did not mean for this to be a factor in your decision at all."
"Princess..." Amber coughed. "When we met in the foothills and were talking about Valey, you told me the reason you couldn't help Valey was because moon glass rejected you, and the reason you wouldn't was because you drew a line at bringing ponies back from the dead. But Felicity is definitely alive, and not trapped in moon glass at all. And Garsheeva had a plan for how to transfer her to a new body that wouldn't be poisoned, and we know enough about how that works to guess at the process. Would there be any way you could do this for her yourself? Transferring her to a new body?"
Celestia closed her eyes, deep in thought. "I would not count on it, my little ponies. While I can speculate about the methods my contemporary used, at the end of the day you would still be physically leaving one body behind and inhabiting another, and a roadblock I cannot overcome would be the fate of her foal. All other obstacles could potentially be surpassed through magic and engineering, but new life is very delicate. Any such endeavor would have to wait until after her foal is viable on its own."
"I see." Felicity looked down.
"And if she did make it that long?" Amber looked up, a hoof against Felicity's shoulder. "How viable would everything else be?"
"Within the realm of things that should be impossible for mortals and could potentially be overcome by gods," Celestia replied. "I do not know everything that would need to be done to accomplish them, but you may be able to find some success in exchange for trying."
Shinespark blinked and narrowed her eyes. "We could find success for trying? But you said they should be impossible for mortals."
"Should be," Princess Celestia corrected. "I did not say are. After all, I have already heard much about what you have managed to achieve together, and you are considering a feat that would likely be much harder. Only Garsheeva and the church of Yakyakistan have ever amassed this many Writs of Harmonic Sanction at once in the north before, and it would hardly be fair to count them."
Amber bit her lip. "You want us to find a way to cure Felicity ourselves, on top of everything else we could do?"
Celestia shrugged. "Suppose you were to try. Tell me your thought process now on what you would do."
Shinespark frowned. "The three things we'd need are a new body, a way to transfer her cutie mark, and a way to transfer her memories. A body, I could make with a lot of time and resources, if she didn't mind being a machine... or we could go back to the Empire and try to hunt down someone else's empty body, but that has a lot of ethical questions involved."
"You would make a machine suitable as a body for a soul?" Celestia raised an eyebrow.
"I have done it before."
Celestia's brow creased, and her voice lowered. "You possess this technology, and your harmony extractors alike. This is an unsettling amount of knowledge of the technology that likely went into Aegis. But never mind that. Please, continue."
Shinespark took a breath. "Whatever we did, transferring her soul would be the easy part. We could extract her using moon glass, and then assemble her again the same way we did for Valey. I'd have to make another pendant, but that would be just a subset of the work required to rebuild a mechanical body. Transferring her memories would be the hard part. We don't know any tricks to work with there."
"...I see." Celestia nodded and rose to her hooves. "Then I will remind you again of a clause of my offer that I think bears repeating: even should you go, I will do what I can to aid you from Equestria. You would not be on your own in your quest for Writs of Harmonic Sanction. And yes, should any of you choose to use the writs you already have, you may do as you please with them up until the end, when I would ask that at least six of you still stand together."
Felicity folded her ears. "I did say I'm hardly lonely now, thanks to all your attention and care, but staying here on my own is quite another story entirely."
"We do have two writs," Gerardo pointed out.
"Yes, but one of them is..." Amber shuffled. "I think Maple was hoping for it. For... you know."
Shinespark glanced at Amber. "How would Maple feel about staying here with Felicity to keep her company?"
Amber winced. "Oh boy, that's a big one. I... really am not sure." She looked up at Celestia. "Is there any way we could borrow one, or... or just get one more? I'd volunteer to stay with Felicity until her foal was here, if only I could."
"...Your need is great," Princess Celestia eventually sighed. "I will think on this for a day more, and see if I can extend my stay until the doctors here have a greater opinion on her. And I may yet change my mind and redact my current offer of commerce with Ironridge so that you have no choice but to stay here and together, and find some other way of both testing you and helping you achieve your dream for Ironridge. But on all of that, we shall have to see."
"...Right." Shinespark nodded, and the princess walked away.
The sun was setting when the Kinmari archipelago finally appeared on camera feeds within the Arc Manta, and entire crew mobilized to disembark. Within minutes, the ship slowed, circling around the island to the east and riding close to the surface as it entered its docking bay. Finally, for the second time in two weeks of travel, the ship stopped.
Mechanized supports anchored into its sides, securing it against bumping around in its bay. Dock worker ponies dragged over cables and hoses to resupply the ship's power and water, and the hatch ground open in preparation for them being threaded in to be used. But first, the crew disembarked: Valey first, leaping out and skipping the ladder, quickly followed by Anemone with a slightly-less-graceful version of the same. Caballeron was next, and then came Maple, with Starlight immediately behind her. All their friends were waiting to greet them on the dock.
Princess Celestia was too.
Starlight immediately squeaked and tried to hide behind Maple, but it was too late. She had the princess's attention.
"You took a filly along on that voyage?" Celestia tilted her head and frowned. "I recall you said you had children with you, but two weeks is quite a long time to..." She shook it off. "It is okay, little one. I do not mean to scare you."
"S-She's camera-shy," Maple managed, making herself a little bigger for Starlight to hide behind while also trying to bow. "And... hello, Princess."
Valey spread her wings and did a triple backflip in the air, before coming down to hover in front of Celestia, stealing the spotlight. "Yeah, hate to break it to you, but two weeks is hardly the longest solitary voyage we've been on. She's used to it, whether you want her to be or not. So, you're Princess Celestia, though?"
"Yes, we have foals along," Shinespark added. "This is another reason your offer is difficult."
Starlight peeked out from behind Maple, silently hoping her friends' ploy would work and that Celestia would be happy considering her just a kid who was along for the ride and not ask too many questions about her own powers or contributions. She hadn't bathed in two weeks, and though Maple had tried to groom her, her mane was an unkempt mass, hiding both her teal streaks and her horn... This wasn't actually as bad as she had imagined. There was enough distance between her, the nameless urchin who let the adults do the talking, and Starlight, the filly who killed windigoes, that she almost felt some tension lift from her shoulders...
And the ploy did work. Celestia's eyes snapped to Valey's pendant with great interest, the sarosian hovering noisily in front of her face. "And you must be Valey, whom I've heard so much about."
"That's me, boss." Valey continued hovering on eye level with her, floating over the water. "I hear we sorta met when I was still stuck in a chunk of moon glass."
Celestia eyed the pendant intently. "So I did. I hope I will be able to ask your forgiveness and understanding for not acting on your behalf, but that is a conversation that should perhaps wait until after your reunion. I take it you have been missing each other for quite some time, and would not wish to interfere."
"Yeah..." Amber trotted, then ran, jumping onto the roof of the ship and giving Maple a big hug. "Welcome back, you. You look a little more back to normal."
"Heh." Maple giggled lightly, returning the hug tightly. "Well, my ribs are certainly all better. I think this was enough time for that healing spell of yours to work its magic." She nodded at Celestia. "And we... took care of a few things I'll tell you about later. But it's so good to see you again..."
"Missed your cooking too." Amber leaned down and ruffled Starlight's mane. "And missed you as well, kid."
Even Felicity was there, leaning against a railing and panting lightly. "Hello, darling," she puffed, making an effort as Valey flew around hoofbumping Gerardo and Slipstream.
"Yo." Valey landed in front of her, sizing her up. "Bananas, you don't look so good, girl."
Felicity grimaced at herself. "Thank you for reminding me."
"You look rather unkempt yourself," Gerardo pointed out, coming to Felicity's aid. "Really giving the image of a scruffy ragtag adventurer a run for its money."
"Am I?" Valey lifted a foreleg, tucked her head down, and sniffed. "Eh, it's not too bad. But hey, if you say so. Hold my hat." She tossed her beret at Gerardo and backflipped into the sea.
Celestia stared in surprise at where she had gone down. Half the room didn't even blink.
Seconds later, Valey surfaced, shaking herself off before rising and hovering again. "There we go. Good as new."
Celestia gave her a wide-eyed look. "Well, your lack of royal decorum is something I don't see every year. I can see why Garsheeva took a shine to you."
Valey shrugged. "Hey, if you'd been in a big barrel for two weeks solid, you'd go swimming too."
"The Arc Manta is a bit more of a work of art than merits calling a big metal barrel," Caballeron said, walking past, "but I can see your point. Princess. If anyone has a pressing need of me, I will be taking the next day off, so too bad unless it is you. Please feel free to drop by my estate at any time."
"I shall consider that," Celestia replied, sounding like she had already decided there were more important ponies to spend her time with. "Now, has anyone immediate need of me? I do not wish to interfere in your own reunion, but my time is also limited."
"Yeah, what are we doing?" Valey asked, slapping her hat back on. "Last I heard was something about a doctor for Felicity?"
Felicity sighed. "Awaiting the results of a blood test, apparently. Which should supposedly be done by tonight, and it really better be because they both have a princess breathing down their backs and they gave me a very bad time extracting it. Though honestly, what do you think they're going to do about my condition? My whole body just doesn't work in general."
"Wanna bet they'll be done by the time I finish a really good shower?" Valey stretched.
As they talked, Starlight made her way down the gangplank, hoping Celestia couldn't somehow detect all the magic artifacts she had in her saddlebags... but from the princess's lack of attention beyond a passing curious gaze, she couldn't. Starlight made herself small, and when the next pony spoke, it was Shinespark, not her.
"I see the way you're looking at her," Shinespark said. "It's the same way you were looking at Felicity earlier. Princess... yes, we have two fillies with us. Both of them are just entering their teens, and both of them have had unstable enough lives already. They've been living on the go with us for a while now. Both of them have had to deal with a lot of stress and adult decisions even some of the rest of us shouldn't be old enough for. Don't you see what you're asking us? It's one thing to test our commitment to each other as friends, and how far out of our way we'd go to ensure all of us win in the end. But it would be irresponsible of us not to put their lives first. You're not asking whether we would postpone our own peaceful lives to help each other see our ultimate dreams through. You're asking if we'd put aside the best interests of our children."
A deeply conflicted look spread across Celestia's face. "I see."
Gerardo cleared his throat and stepped closer. "When you challenged us, you did ask us if we would stand against the will of a goddess. And so, here we are. Perhaps this wasn't in the manner that you intended, but our situation is in fact far more complex than a mere question of healthy, capable adults who are fit and well-prepared to tackle the world."
"An even more impressive testament to your victories, given your setbacks," Princess Celestia said. "I will have to give this consideration. I am already mulling over redacting my deal entirely and offering you some other way to demonstrate and strengthen your abilities and earn my aid for your city."
Shinespark nodded. "You mentioned that yesterday."
"And it has grown no less true."
"Well..." Maple took a deep breath, stepping up to Celestia as well. "While you're deciding, Princess... would it be okay if I asked you not to bother our fillies too much? They're already overwhelmed, and they don't need more very important ponies in their lives. They need to settle down and grow roots, not branches that reach for the sky."
Celestia chuckled. "Of course. I will leave it to them to approach me."
"I'm surprised the other hasn't been trying that already," Gerardo muttered under his breath.
Throughout the conversation, after Sea Star had disembarked as well and maintenance ponies had began crawling into the Arc Manta to clean its insides and refuel its components, Nyala stood like a shadow on the deck, unnoticed by everyone and staring at Celestia with a faintly haunted expression.
"I have to say, it's been a while since I've gotten to taste this cooking," Gerardo praised, sitting in the brightly-lit living room of Generosity Two after the sun had gone down, stars twinkling through the panoramic window. "I feel like the constraints of working with limited ingredients for so long have led you to improve significantly from Riverfall."
"Thanks..." Maple blushed. "I'm just glad to taste something beyond dehydrated rations and water. The Arc Manta doesn't really have a pantry..."
Valey belched in agreement. "Sparky? Putting that big of a food room on your boat was the best decision you ever made."
"Debatable..." Shinespark looked to the side, also chowing down. "But thanks."
"Speaking of which, how are the restorations on the Immortal Dream coming?" Maple looked up from her food. "I heard you've been busy."
"Very busy," Shinespark sighed, her mane limp but her eyes with a spark that was stronger than before. "It took several days of research, but I determined Kinmari at least has the fabricating technology to re-make all the parts the Dream is missing. Without the schematics, though, I've had to redesign some of them from scratch, which I've been putting off because I'd rather get my old designs back, which I can't because someone ran off with my terminal."
Valey shrugged. "Hey, I told you, all the data's gone. Completely wiped out by that harmony storm. I did get the rest of it fixed, though, so if you can deal with a blank storage system, it should be good to plug back in."
"I can give them your plans," Nyala mumbled, looking lost in thought.
"I would appreciate that." Shinespark nodded formally. "In the meantime, the replacement outer hull sections are partially remade, and they've cleared and smoothed the broken parts so we can immediately proceed with installation when the treatment and reparation rune inscriptions are done, and the deck is already finished, including the railing. We fixed and upgraded the insulation, too. And all the damaged mana components have been inventoried and removed, and the connections cleaned and readied for reassembly."
"How do you even work that fast?" Valey swished her tail, talking with her mouth full. "Bananas, it took you years to build this boat in Sosa."
Shinespark shrugged. "About seventy percent of that was research and design for the harmony extractor, and another ten percent was forging the inner hull, which is still intact and in perfect condition... though we actually used a leftover prototype from Mobius's work during the previous years. And much of the other time was spent on artistic embellishment like carving the wooden trim, so that the craftsponies had something to do. And it was built in secret in an abandoned warehouse by a very small team who contributed hours outside their regular jobs."
"Well, you certainly are productive," Felicity mumbled, already eating her seconds. "Mmm. Whatever else may be wrong with me, I'm certainly glad I can enjoy my food..."
Shinespark nodded, not quite finished. "Well, I'm glad too. But I've also been splitting my time between that and Meltdown. Her new armor is... not going to be armor, and I don't think it will run at her old standard Empire temperature. Forty to fifty percent is a stretch goal. But I'm reasonably confident I can make it portable at thirty percent within another week. She might have to pull a cart along behind her that carries necessary equipment for the pumps, reservoirs or power banks and generation, but-"
A knock sounded at the door.
"I'll get it!" Amber hopped up and flung open the door, finding herself faced with an earth pony mare in traveling medical garb. "Oh! Uh, hello."
"Is this a bad time?" the mare asked, looking in through the doorway. "I have some test results for Felicity, and was told the Princess required them in by tonight."
The entire dinner table froze as the nurse stood in the doorway, and Felicity giggled awkwardly. "Oh, the test results! Yes, that old thing..."
"Is this a bad time?" The nurse shuffled.
"I mean..." Amber wrinkled her nose. "We are kinda in the middle of eating. So use your judgement, girl. It wouldn't be the best time to hear a bunch of queasy details, you know, but only you know the details."
The nurse took a breath and nodded, looking slightly winded, as if she had ran the distance. "Oh. Well... in that case, let me take this off all your minds: there's nothing wrong with her blood, which given her symptoms rules out about seventy-five percent of what could be wrong with her, including most of the worse cases."
That broke the ice. "You mean I... really?" Felicity asked, falling slack in her chair. "This isn't a joke, right? Because that could just as easily lead to 'and you're cured tomorrow' as it could 'but you're still terminally ill and will die in a week'. Stop keeping us in the dark, darling!"
Maple swallowed, set down her food and nodded. "Alright. Let's hear it."
Amber reluctantly agreed.
"Well then..." The nurse straightened up, clearing her throat a little. "You're suffering from low energy, extreme fatigue and shortness of breath, that have gotten notably worse during your pregnancy, which points to issues either with your respiratory or cardiovascular systems... Your lungs or heart. We'd like you to come in as soon as possible to take some breathing tests for us, because if we could say for sure it was a problem with your lungs, then we could move on to treating it and seeing what is necessary for optimal health of you and your foal."
"My lungs?" Felicity frowned at herself. "Well, I can't deny I get winded from time to time..."
Amber gave her a look. "You start panting after a light walk."
"That's another sign," the nurse agreed. "The most likely case is that since you were in your teens when you say this poisoning happened, it somehow impaired the development of your lungs and left them smaller or less-functional than they need to be. So now that you have a foal taking up part of your body cavity, things are more squeezed and it's harder for your lungs to do their job." She brushed her mane out of her eyes. "This is the most likely case, though. We can't say for sure until we've done a few more tests, but those could be tonight if you're willing."
"...Huh." Felicity stared blankly, everyone else watching her. "Well, that's both a whole lot smaller than absolutely everything being wrong at once, and... How do you even treat that, darling?"
The nurse nodded. "This isn't yet a guaranteed diagnosis, but there are a few things you can do. For now, try sitting or standing as often as you can to reduce your internal pressure, and when you do lie down, make sure not to curl up or tuck your hind legs against your chin. If you've been noticing problems specifically in the mornings, that could mean your sleeping position needs to improve. Aside from that, practice breathing as deeply as you can, and make sure to get proper air. Stay in well-ventilated, low-altitude places, especially if you're feeling more fatigued than usual. I'll leave you to your dinner now, but if at all possible, the princess urges you to return to the hospital tonight. It's a very quick test to measure the capacity and oxygen absorption of your lungs, and we could know for sure quite soon."
"We... will, then. Thank you." Felicity stared as she disappeared.
"Well..." Amber shook out her mane, looking down at her forgotten dinner, then up again at Felicity and around at everyone else. "How do you think that went, I guess? I don't really know what to ask, here..."
Felicity held up her forehooves and looked them over. "Well, it's the first time anyone with a qualified opinion has said anything about what's wrong with me other than everything, I suppose. Small or malformed lungs... It is true that I hadn't nearly finished growing when it happened. It feels so trivial, and yet I'm still completely... you know." She shrugged. "I'm not really sure what to answer."
"We could finish eating," Gerardo suggested. "Call it a celebration that you avoided all the worse fates. And then head up to the hospital to get some firmer details?"
"Let's do that," Maple agreed. "I spent a while on this. We shouldn't let it get cold."
"Right." Shinespark nodded, returning to her plate.
Valey had never even stopped eating, listening to the whole exchange with her mouth full. "Who said anything about letting things get cold?"
"Breathe into this tube, hmm?" Felicity stared at the device she was offered, sitting in a room near the entrance of the hospital with Valey and Amber nearby.
A doctor, different from the one who had done the house call, nodded. "Inhale and exhale on my counts of three, deep as you can. This tests your capacity, as well as how much oxygen you absorb from the air you do get down. It'll tell us for sure whether your lungs are an issue."
"Well... here goes..." Felicity stared dubiously at the device, but took a breath, and the doctor began to count.
Valey sat with her shoulder touching Amber's, watching as Felicity tried her best and the machine constantly read low. The doctor stopped her after three repetitions, watching the meters go back to normal. "Can't get more conclusive than that," he said, taking back the machine. "Your breaths are much shallower than they should be for a mare of your size. I suppose there could also be something else, but this explains about all the symptoms we've heard you have."
Felicity shifted where she sat, still panting a little. "So where does that leave me, then? What are my options?"
The doctor scratched his head. "Well, there's room for experimenting. We could try a respirator or inhaler you can use if you're having a particular bad spell. And there might be some lifestyle changes that could do you good... Certainly some things to avoid." He glanced down at her belly. "If things started getting worse with this foal of yours and have deteriorated quickly recently, it might be just because they got big enough and something shifted around in the wrong way. We could always do some imaging tests to try for a better look at what you look like inside, but I doubt they'd tell us anything we don't already know... The nurse ran you through steps to reduce internal pressure, right?"
"She did." Felicity stared at herself, running a hoof across the curve of her abdomen. "Mostly in terms of sleeping habits, unfortunately. Which I've apparently been doing all wrong."
The doctor nodded. "Perhaps we can get you some equipment that would make that easier. And don't forget that even just standing may help more than you think. Gravity pulling that foal away from you rather than into you could make a world of difference."
"Even once they get bigger?" Amber hesitantly asked. "If she's having trouble now..."
"You're right." Felicity's face shadowed. "This is hardly my last month, you know."
"That's when we may have to pursue more intensive options, like the respirator." The doctor nodded. "The good news, though, is that once you have your foal, depending on the exact condition of your lungs, it may not be impossible to do some sort of surgery to make your condition permanently improve. I can't make promises, and it wouldn't be possible to do this now, but I don't want to guarantee you'll be living with this for the rest of your life."
"Really...?" Felicity's ears folded.
Valey cleared her throat. "There's one thing here that's more important than all the others, though. You said she needs good air quality? As in, thin air at high altitudes would probably be a no-no?"
The doctor nodded. "Closer to sea level is definitely better. I can't say for sure how much, but you don't want to be stacking thin air on top of this."
"...Well." Felicity blinked at Valey and Amber. "I guess that's that, then. Official doctor's orders I'm... not fit to travel, haha?"
"Yeah, I'll have a talk with the princess." Valey flexed, then sat back down. "Any other words of wisdom, doctor dude? Stuff we can do to make her life better here and now?"
The doctor shrugged. "Your situation doesn't seem to be bad enough yet that you or your foal are in immediate danger if nothing changes. I can't say how long that will last, especially if you've recently gotten worse, but experiment with what makes you feel better in the morning. We'll look into things and come up with better options and a treatment plan, but in the meantime be conscious of your breathing. Always try not to hyperventilate and to breathe as deeply as you can, especially when exerting yourself. And if you ever feel dizzy, light-headed or in danger of fainting, or you feel like your condition is getting worse, come back here quickly. We'll be ready if you need it."
"I... see. Thank you, then." Felicity stood carefully on her own, breathing deeply as instructed, and nodded at Valey and Amber. "Do you think we should get going?"
"Yeah." Valey got the door with her tail, propping it open. "Let's walk and talk."
Valey, Amber and Felicity didn't return directly to Generosity Two, instead walking south around the edge of the eastern field. Felicity wanted to take the long way. If things were going to get slower and harder, she wanted to make the most of her time while she could.
"So." Valey strolled slowly at her side, matching Felicity's sluggish pace. "No longer fit for travel. Guess we're gonna have to see what Celestia has to say about that. She can't very well keep up her ultimatum if you would both need a writ to stay behind and not be able to catch up with us later at the border."
"Either that," Amber said, taking Felicity's other side, "or we all just settle down and stay here. Take the writs. I'd feel bad for Shinespark, asking her to give up on this chance for Ironridge when she's already lost so much, but... we weren't planning on it anyway, were we? Opportunities come, and they go. We're right back where we started. Better than, actually, because we know for sure we can say we want to stay and she'll let us."
"Doesn't make being taunted with this stuff feel any more great."
Felicity walked between the two, using her wings to support herself against their backs, but they took it slow and she almost didn't need it. "You know you don't have to give up anything on my behalf, right?" She paced doggedly ahead, one hoof ahead of the other. "Though I... truly appreciate you all, what kind of responsible leader would weigh me against their entire city?"
"One with a heart," Valey instantly replied. "Sparky's always been a leader who cared."
"She's been a leader because she cared," Amber corrected.
Valey nodded. "Yeah. Girl could have just grown up and done her own thing, but she stuck her neck out there for ponies who needed it again and again. And she's not cool with sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. She'd rather be even more ambitious and find herself a third option that saves everybody. No mare left behind."
"Do you really think Celestia will change her mind, though?" Amber glanced across at Valey. "She could just go back and tell us to take the writs. Even if our situation makes one of her options unfeasible, would she really change the deal just so we still have a shot at the harder route?"
Valey shrugged. "You really wanna know what I think? Half of me thinks she was expecting this."
"Expecting her own plans to be upended, darling?" Felicity frowned in confusion.
"Nah." Valey waved a wing. "Expecting us to cheat and win her over by changing her mind instead of doing what she asked. You girls were there for that challenge thing she did. She wanted us to get past a goddess who blocked our way, or something? And thinks we've got Equestrian Harmony or whatever that can magically make things go right for us? Which I'm not that sure I believe in, given how many times we've been dumpstered, but hey. She wants us to find a way to get Sparky's dream for Ironridge without compromising on our friends or ideals, maybe this is what it looks like. Maybe it's not jumping through her hoops, but asking her to move them."
Amber sighed. "We won't know for sure until we see what she says."
"A little food for thought," Felicity pointed out. "Even if we accept the writs and all choose to stay in Equestria, we're going to be bound to Kinmari for quite some time... assuming you all stay here for my sake. Whether Shinespark fixes her ship and flies us back to the north, or to wherever else you all want to live, I'll likely be here until this foal is born."
Valey nudged her shoulder encouragingly. "Nah, we'll figure something out. Don't you worry, girl. We're good at doing the impossible. We'll find something that works for all of us."
"Thank you..." Felicity closed her eyes and breathed. "I really am lucky to have fallen in with a group like you."
"Well, you made a few decisions." Amber shrugged.
"More than a few," Valey cut in.
Amber gave her a cross look for interrupting. "But all it took in the end was one good one, to come back and see if we'd give you another chance."
Felicity quietly nodded.
"You know," Amber continued, "I was a big fan of stories when I was little. Still am, of course, but I had more time back then to just read and listen and let my imagination run wild. And in the most epic stories, the whole world is teetering in the balance, and the bad guys are constantly trying to win, and if they get their way even once it means the end of the world for everyone. And the heroes fight on, and they celebrate their victories but they still know that those victories just keep things the way they are, and evil only has to win once for it all to be over."
She took a breath. "But that's not always how it is in real life, I'm starting to see. The world isn't some perfect haven that's only endangered by Dr. Evil McDeath'n'Doom. It's got its rough edges, and some of them stay rough for a real long time, because there's no one around to fix them. Like you. You'd been trying to get revenge on the Empire royalty for nearly as long as I've been alive, Felicity. And I don't want to guess at how many different ways things could have gone, but... in the end, all it took was that one decision to put us first that made the difference between you being safe on our ship and becoming a zombie in Crystal's army. Sometimes, when the world's already messed up and bad things just keep it that way, it's good that only has to win once to make a difference."
Felicity stopped, burying her head in Amber's shoulder. "I really don't deserve this at all..."
"Yeah, well..." Valey wrapped both of them in a hug. "I dunno what I'd do without you girls either. Let's get you home, and then I'll go talk with Celestia. We're gonna work something out that doesn't involve any of us having to leave the others behind."
Valey hovered in the warm lobby of a school building that had been taken over by Princess Celestia's guard contingent during their stay, the alicorn herself presently making rounds with a thoughtful expression. Celestia looked up at Valey's greeting.
"I assume you've heard the report about Felicity?" Valey landed, standing on a table so she could match Celestia's eye level.
"I have," Princess Celestia replied. "And I have been thinking. Though I assume you would prefer to discuss this somewhere slightly more private?"
Valey paused. "Eh, yeah, she'd probably appreciate that. You have anywhere in mind?"
Celestia was already trotting out the door, bidding her to follow. "Indeed."
Outside, the night had turned windy, granting them perfect natural privacy the moment they found an area that was open enough. "So," Valey began. "She's officially not fit for air travel because the air would be too thin, and they could maybe do stuff for the safety of her foal if she stayed here, which means she's basically stuck here. And writs or no, I don't think all of us are running off and just leaving her here on her lonesome. Not to mention we've got two kids who are both slightly unhinged in their own special ways and probably shouldn't be growing up on the go... What are you gonna do?"
"I will make my final decision in the morning." Celestia shook her head. "My visit here has grown long, and much as I wish to give this proper consideration, my ponies need me in Canterlot. I have already spent the better portion of two months away. However, I am leaning towards leaving my original offer intact, with the provision that you could wait here as long as you wished before setting out should you choose to return to the north."
"So, like..." Valey paused. "We could take the whole get-six-writs thing, but just hang out here for a year until Felicity is doing better?"
Celestia nodded. "That does not fully solve your problem with having other children. However, I would permit you to delay the choice as well. As long as you remain on Kinmari, you will not need Writs of Harmonic Sanction. You could stay here for months with your friends, and at that time decide you would like to stay here after all, and I would honor it. And it would also give me time to dedicate more thought to a fairer offer, especially once the border and other high-priority national issues have calmed themselves."
Valey folded her ears. "Yeah... still got the other kids. And this place was pretty great for recovering, but the ponies here idolize us a little too much to... you know, let us live normally. At least they'd be happy to have us though, right?"
"They would." Celestia looked out at the sea to the south, a lone light shining on it from a boat whose occupants were partying into the night. "I have already approved this with President Kinmari. He is a gentle soul of great empathy, and believes you have shown yourselves friendly and trustworthy enough so far that he would offer you long-term residence here free of charge. As the island is his property, he has final say in these things, so you have friends already in the right places."
"He's a cool dude? Neat. Was trying to get a read on him." Valey frowned. "...If I were you, I'd be trying pretty hard to get a read on me right now, huh? This is the first time you've gotten me alone, and I've heard you have strong feelings about ponies coming back from the dead."
"Hmm." Celestia nodded. "I would expect more nervousness from someone who feared themselves an aberrant of nature who would be subject to my wrath, yet you say it like a dinner conversation."
Valey flicked her tail. "I'm pretty good at telling when someone wants to hurt me... and I am kinda wigged out. Mostly because you're being completely chill."
"That pendant of yours," Celestia said, dodging the implied question. "I assume it contains your cutie mark."
"Yeah..." Valey rubbed at the thing with a hoof. "Sure does. Beats me how it can be physically in there and on my butt at the same time... and not gonna lie, I'd like it back where it belongs. Don't suppose you have any other magic that would help with that?"
Princess Celestia shook her head. "If I did, I could have restored you last month from your empty shell."
"How much do you know about..." Valey fidgeted slightly. "Exactly what happened to me, or how I am now?"
"I don't believe I have seen your unique case before," the princess replied. "However, the materials necessary to reproduce it have been gone from the world for a very long time."
Valey pursed her lips. "Well, hey. Thanks for, like, not trying to capture me and use me as a science experiment, or anything. I really hate it when that happens."
Celestia turned to face her fully. "Valey, if I may ask... I have been focusing much of my attention on your captain, but from what I have gathered, your crew holds you in at least equal regard. What is it that powers your relationship with them?"
Valey shrugged. "I'm usually the one bailing their rears out of tough spots. I'm seriously strong. Nearly won the Griffon Empire tournament, except I got messed up by Crystal interfering at the end. And I've had some identity issues in the past, and problems with self-esteem, and been kicked around a lot because everyone in the north hates batponies, so when everyone's talking about, like, finding a home to settle down... I'm kinda the poster girl for that. But hey, maybe that's just me bragging. I also stick my tongue out a lot."
"Hmm." Celestia nodded and turned back to the starry, windswept horizon. "Many ponies care about their friends, and quite a few try to deny death when it happens, often emotionally or through coping mechanisms. Few physically try to get their friends back, and fewer still succeed. That your friends returned you successfully... do you think this is a testament to their own love and determination, that they cared more about you than others care for their lost friends and that care thus empowered them to do more?"
Valey wrinkled her nose. "Uhh... no. Bananas, I sure hope not. That would be like telling everyone else who loses their friends that it happened because they didn't care or try hard enough, and that's gonna mess anyone up. It just happened because they had no choice. Like, maybe they got lucky, but they were also minutes away from getting mauled by brood beasts and needed me to come kick tail and save their rears. And that's just how stuff works for us. We win because the alternative is losing. And it always keeps us alive, but is somehow never enough to get us where we wanna be in the first place."
Celestia watched her for a moment. "You win because the alternative is losing. When framed like that, my little pony, sometimes there is no alternative. What will you do when old age comes to call? Seek out immortality for all of your friends? I am a testament to its possibility, but it is not something ponies merely do."
"Cross that bridge when we come to it and live life one step at a time." Valey shrugged. "Planning for the future? That's a luxury to us. Maybe it's not natural, what we do and how we survive, but is everything that comes at us natural either? Do most ponies just randomly lay down and die whenever an evil goddess-monster shows up on their doorstep?" Her mane went limp. "Don't answer that, by the way. It feels like it's us these things always happen to, but thousands and thousands of husked batponies up in Mistvale have it even worse."
"If there was one pony without which your way of life would fall apart," Celestia said, "winning because the alternative was losing, doing whatever it takes to stay alive, even the impossible, merely because anything else is unthinkable... who would it be?"
Valey swallowed. "I mean... me, I guess." She knew that wasn't the real answer. "Dunno if you heard about what happened in Ironridge. The Empire's probably way bigger news... but those clowns in Yakyakistan tried to invade, and I beat up their evil ambassador and foiled his plans. Bananas, it was a hard fight, but there you go. Still, though." She shook her head. "I don't think I could pin it on one pony at all. All of us try, you know? We rub off on each other. The way I actually got back? One pony invented the technology, another remembered it, a third modified it to suit me, another took care of my body while I was gone."
"You are hesitant to speak highly of yourself when you feel your friends deserve the credit."
Valey would take what she could get. "Yeah, something like that."
"You were listening over your sound stone when I explained the workings of harmony and the strength of your friend Shinespark," Celestia continued. "What does your cutie mark stand for, if I may ask? Do you believe you could have a similar power?"
"Uhhh..." Valey immediately chuckled nervously. "Weird story... You sure you wanna know?"
Celestia shook her head. "I did ask your permission."
Valey shrugged. "Well, crazy long story short..." She checked again, just to make sure her flank wasn't tingling. "This thing is apparently called one of Luna's Artifices."
If Celestia had been drinking tea, she would have sprayed it. "E-Excuse me!?"
Valey chuckled harder at the reaction. "Yeah, no joke. Some really immoral scientists up in Yakyakistan moon glassed some poor bat filly, and then stuck in a cutie mark from the meteor to see what would happen. Tough luck for them, they got me, and I booted them around pretty bad."
"That beggars belief." Celestia gave her a stern look. "Though one of the artifices was known to have been taken to the moon, how do you explain Yakyakistan extracting it from the remnants of the comet? Unless you've been wearing this pendant your whole life?"
Valey shrugged. "I'd give almost anything to know, but they mostly died in an accident and the lead scientist took that know-how to his grave. Seriously. If we did know, I could skip town on this pendant and be more of a normal pony again."
Celestia sat back, shaking her head. "If you truly possess an artifice, I am afraid your life will not be so easily tamed into normalcy. They wield incredible power. If you know what they are, perhaps you have heard this as well, but of the other two, one was possessed by Garsheeva, and the other is mine."
Valey blinked hard. "Wait a sec, you...?"
"Yes." Celestia nodded. "There are three of them, and they were originally made for myself, Garsheeva, and their creator. It is a very lengthy story."
"Huh." Valey sat down as well. "Well, I'm well aware of how strong it is. Been using it my whole life. It makes me basically invincible in a fight. Lets me read the future and see what my enemies are doing next, where they'll strike, what things are dangerous. So as long as I'm fast enough and keep this as a card up my sleeve..."
"The three artifices are intensely harmonic," Celestia added. "They were forged with the raw power of the Immortal Dream, an artifact that is the genesis of all cutie marks. I assume you have heard legends of it, since your ship shares its name, but if one can wield it, it gives them the power to grant any wish that is wished fervently by one other than themselves. Cutie marks themselves are the manifestation of these granted wishes. So if the Immortal Dream is an anvil and a hammer, then the artifices are its masterworks."
Valey folded her ears. "So when I kick rear, it's partly just me wanting to win, or however you said harmony works?"
"A slight oversimplification, unless you somehow have obtained Garsheeva's artifice instead of the one that went to the moon." Celestia shook her head. "But the artifice's power is real, and your skills are no coincidence. In fact, there is likely far more power waiting for you should you ever be able to use it properly... though it may be constrained by your mortal body. Nevertheless, this does a lot to put your feats and those of your friends into perspective."
Valey tilted her head, her interest caught. "Garsheeva's artifice? What does that one do?"
"It provides a direct conversion between hope and power," Celestia replied. "Put in your wishes and your dreams, and it can act upon the world in many ways. Its crudest use would be to amplify one's individual abilities, and I am sure Garsheeva did this many times. But she made an art form out of using it to grant special wishes to her subjects, ones where she would change their cutie mark or even their body to work in ways she desired."
"Wait..." Valey frowned. "Put in your hopes and dreams, as in, you lose them?"
"It requires willpower as a energy source." Celestia nodded. "It is by far the most dangerous of the three. While the artifices do not need to be borne by immortals, were most ponies to attempt to use it, they would find themselves meeting with unusual success before becoming emotionally tired and drained, unless they have careful understandings of themselves and its effects. Artifices are difficult not to use."
Valey looked away, hiding the understanding in her eyes. If Starlight's magic had been powered by that thing instead of her broken horn... that was how it worked, then. She had wanted magic, and it had... obliged? There had to be limits on this sort of thing. "Huh. The more you know."
"You visited Garsheeva in her temple," Celestia continued. "You likely know how she powered it without any adverse effects to herself, then. But I would ask you not to speak of her secrets to others. The workings of sphinx immortality are dangerous secrets that should not be spread to the world, lest anyone attempt to abuse them for their own ends."
"Yeah, no, I know what you're talking about." Valey nodded firmly. If cutie marks were hope, and Garsheeva had a whole mountain of them stockpiled from her sacrifices that were already being used to fuel her immortality and massive size... "Well, good talk, Princess. I should get back on home to my friends and let them think about this before you give us your final decision in the morning. See ya?"
Princess Celestia nodded. "Good night, Valey. I hope I can talk with you again in the future."
Starlight stood in the living room of Generosity Two, watching as her friends fussed over Felicity and tried to find a better way for the batpony to sleep. One for all and all for one indeed... it almost could have felt cozy, watching the scene. But a lingering sense of unwellness that probably just came from her being herself kept her from basking in it, and so she stood on the sidelines, her thoughts of the crystal palace and her missing memories shelved as best as they could be.
Valey had told her they might be all staying together on Kinmari after all. This might be her future. This wouldn't be so bad.
"Bored?" an insidious little voice whispered beside her.
Starlight flicked her ears and her tail. "What do you want?"
Jamjars dropped her camouflage and shrugged. "Just extending an invitation. You look like you've got a lot on your mind. Why not distract yourself by coming over to my place?"
Starlight frowned. "They finally let you have your own room? I thought they weren't going to do that."
"What they are and aren't going to do has no purchase in the face of determination," Jamjars preened. "It's in the Laughter dorms, though. You know the place. Just had to make the right connections, and they were happy to let me camp out."
"Oh." Starlight looked away. "I didn't have the best time last time we were staying there. Thanks to Gazelle and that pony who tried to frame us..."
Jamjars chuckled. "Weight on your shoulders? Come see him now. It's pretty sad. He's broken into the archives so many times everyone has given up on catching him, and just reads the night away. Nothing puts your old problems into perspective like seeing how pathetic they've grown to be."
"I felt bad for him!" Starlight protested. "Don't make me feel worse."
Jamjars shrugged. "Well, it is pretty tragic. But come on! You said you had some bad memories and experiences there, right? Old problems, things in the past? Then what you have to do is go stare them down again, here and now. It's like getting braver by spending a night in a haunted house that used to scare you when you were younger."
Starlight folded her ears. "I don't even know if your advice is good or not."
"Tried and true. Your loss not believing." Jamjars stretched, accidentally hitting the wall behind them. "Ow. But I'm also just inviting you to hang out and do secret things. You need to take a load off. Come on, have some fun with me!"
Starlight hesitated. Jamjars was weird, but maybe she was legitimately trying to be nice...? And it was true that she knew her better than any other ponies her age. While Starlight didn't particularly like her, the peace offering was oddly tempting. Maybe she was just that desperate for friends.
"Fine." Starlight stood up. It wasn't like she had anything remotely pressing to do anywhere else... "Maple?" she called, stepping across to her friends. "I'm going to follow Jamjars tonight and make sure she doesn't get up to anything."
Maple blinked back at her. "Oh? Thank you!"
"See? Easy." Jamjars smirked. "And rude, but it was classy so I'll let that one pass. After me!"
Starlight followed Jamjars along the not-so-lengthy walk to the Laughter dorms, a familiar location from the start of their stay at the island. They entered from the back, ascending staircases and climbing back to the hearth-strewn commons.
"Hey, kids!"
"Hi, adventurers!"
"What's up, cute one?"
A few friendly greetings met them as they entered the lounge, but most of the students who were still up looked either too tired or too engrossed in homework to do more than wave. Jamjars basked nonetheless, while Starlight looked around at how the room had changed. Someone had rearranged the couches and tables in the last two weeks, probably for a fresh look. A big lock, slightly twisted, hung open on Doctor Lost's office door, as if someone had tried to secure the place and eventually given up. The trophy case had... one more bronze, or maybe it was unchanged. Starlight couldn't tell.
"So now what do we do?" she asked, absentmindedly following Jamjars as her fellow filly strolled toward the wall between the two hearths.
Jamjars squared her shoulders. "First, I show you my secret room. And then we do secret things just for the sake of it, and it'll be fun. I have the best place in the dorms, even. Behold!"
Starlight stared at the area between the hearths. "...This lounge room? Or do you mean the empty wall?"
Jamjars fluffed her curls with a hoof. "Well, on the one hoof, I wouldn't say no to a bedding selection like all these couches. But I meant the wall."
Starlight blinked... and Jamjars pushed smugly on the wall, until a cleverly-concealed crack opened and part of it swung inwards. She actually hadn't been lying. It was a real secret door.
"What's this even doing here?" She gaped at the entrance.
Jamjars shrugged, holding the swinging wall section open. "It used to be a private room for using some old technology that's obsolete now. I think. And they weren't doing anything with it and gave it to me when I asked for something cool."
"That's... Huh." Starlight strolled in, looking around.
It was small and dim, lit only by a single light source and mostly taken up by a desk, though there was room enough for some other affects. No bed, though. "Where do you sleep?" Starlight asked, frowning at the furnishings.
Jamjars yawned and stepped after her, letting the secret door swing shut behind them. "Under the desk," she said, pointing to a pile of blankets stashed below. "You can sleep on top of it. It's like bunk beds, only you're pretending to be Shinespark. But the night is young! Who's tired now, anyway?"
Starlight almost said it looked like Jamjars was, but then the rest of the room's decorations caught her attention: or rather, the lack of them. Jamjars' prized poster collection sat as a bundle of rolled-up tubes in a box, not slathered over the walls in a show of colorful mares.
"What happened to your posters?" She stared at the box, too confused to think about anything else.
"Oh... those." Jamjars gave a regretful sigh. "Look, I get it. I'm the one who's weird for liking them, not you for not caring. But I have a reputation to worry about now and I can't just step on anyone who says I'm the weird one anymore, so I have to mare up and step up my game. Improve yourself, improve your image. Yadda yadda."
Starlight tilted her head, still staring at the posters. "Huh. But you're still keeping them around?"
"For when we move out again." Jamjars shrugged. "You know it's going to happen. You know your friends won't be happy staying here. And even if we don't, it's hard to throw away your friends."
Starlight almost protested, saying that her friends would never abandon Felicity... and then she stopped in her tracks. "Throwing away your friends? What?"
"Don't judge me," Jamjars snapped. "So what if the stories I tell myself are better company than any of you? I'm not a charity case and am not going to grovel for attention when I could steal or win it instead, but... still. When you've got one incompetent mother and your dozen-odd siblings are dweebs, you have to do something to stay sane."
"The posters are your friends?" Starlight asked.
Jamjars' face shadowed. "Stop looking at me like it's weird, captain obvious. I was being nice to you. You don't have to make this awkward."
"I didn't say it was weird," Starlight protested, the faint idea crossing her mind that Jamjars could be talking to herself. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I was just curious."
Jamjars didn't seem to notice. "Well, they are my friends," she went on, ignoring the permission to hold her tongue. "You know how many times I've embellished the story of how I saved Melia and Sirena from the Spirit hideout to myself? It's... Whatever." She glowered. "Like I said. It's just a coping mechanism. They're not real friends because they can't do anything for me in return, except make long, boring flights less boring. And I need to shore up my act by clinging to less wimpy stuff like that so I can make a better impression on real ponies and get them to like me."
Starlight wanted to rebut. She really did. Because by that logic, friends who couldn't do anything for her, whom she was that much more powerful than...
"Well, I..." She swallowed. "I don't think that's right. If they make you happy, you shouldn't have to give them up just to get others to like you."
Jamjars stared at her in abject confusion. "You're not celebrating? Really? Aren't you the one who's always the least enthusiastic about my posters?"
"Only because you were always shoving them in my face." Starlight shrugged. "I didn't realize they were your..." She trailed off, blinking. "You invited me over here because you're lonely, didn't you?"
Jamjars looked at a wall. "Whatever. I sure didn't do it to get picked apart like this."
"But you're the one picking yourself apart..."
Jamjars growled.
"Sorry." Starlight stood up, shaking her head... and paused. "I really don't think you should just throw away something that makes you happy, though. Not if you feel this bad about it. That's not moving on, it's just hurting yourself. And don't take this the wrong way, but they're not really the weirdest thing about you."
Jamjars gave a painful sigh. "You want to know why they were a problem? Because when you live entirely in your own head, you aren't constrained by time. You can skip over the bits you don't care for, do over the ones you aren't happy with until they turn out fine, and relive the good ones as long as you want. And let me tell you, my head is a whole lot more entertaining than floating around with a bunch of identity-crisis mares on your ship, so it's where I do live most of the time. But this is the real world, and when the going gets tough here, you don't just get to choose to succeed when you feel like you deserve it, or give yourself setbacks you know you can overcome to make a good story. You get one shot, and if you're lucky, someone else will give you a chance, and you can try again. Someone else, not you. I have to change my whole mindset if I want to succeed, or else I'll spend all my time being self-absorbed and taking stupid, flashy risks and then being stuck when someone walks out on me and I don't know what to do."
Starlight slumped. Missing out on the boring, the mundane, the things that made life normal and just getting to the spice? Succeeding when you needed to, but taking every other setback imaginable? Having friends you were so much more powerful than, you almost still felt lonely? Boy, that sounded relatable. Jamjars could live that fantasy in her head, but this was practically her own real life.
"It shouldn't be our job to make that one shot count in the first place," Starlight eventually answered, feeling that she knew what to say. "We're just kids. If every kid had to succeed at everything no matter what, how would we ever learn how to mess up?"
Jamjars gave her a look. "Well, that's fine for most fillies and colts, but we have stakes, here. You think we can afford mistakes? You think I could afford a mistake when I piloted the ship for you while we were running from Crystal?"
"Were you that scared?" Starlight asked. "I was busy focusing on other things..."
"Not at all." Jamjars shook her head. "Not even a little. I was just treating it like it was all in my head again."
Starlight bit her lip. "What got you to change?"
"Hunger, mostly." Jamjars shrugged, glancing down at her stomach. "When we were rationing. No amount of doing your own thing can fix it when your basic needs aren't being met. And some other stuff, but mostly that."
"You've never gone hungry before?"
"Not for more than a day. You?"
Starlight nodded. "I ran pretty low on food in the mountains..."
"Oh. Right." Jamjars looked away.
"Yeah..."
This was the part where Starlight did something, she knew. Jamjars was worried about making decisions with real-world impact? Reality had finally caught up to her and dragged her own fantasies? Winning no matter the cost was something Starlight was good at. Jamjars had made a peace offering; she was clearly lonely. Starlight could reciprocate...
"Well, I'm pretty good at keeping us alive," she spoke up. "So if you're looking for friends, and you want someone who can help with big decisions..." Starlight was a filly too. This really shouldn't be her job either. But Jamjars was in need, and she was capable.
"Thought you'd never offer." A little of Jamjars' demeanor returned, and she rolled to her hooves, trotting over to the poster box. "I hope you mean it, because this one is a doozy."
"What...?" Starlight blinked, watching as Jamjars drew out a thick, industrial-grade envelope containing an absolute ream of papers.
Jamjars slammed it down on the desk. "I need to decide what to do with this."
Starlight frowned, feeling like she might have seen the thing before... "What is it?"
Jamjars poked the envelope. "A present from your lookalike. She gave it to me and wanted me to keep it safe for her, after we crossed the mountains. She said she'd tell me what to actually do with it later, but then... you know. I looked inside, and it's a bunch of weapon blueprints relating to some contract for the war in Varsidel. I think they need this to actually make them."
"Weapons?" Starlight frowned. "How dangerous of weapons? Like the energy guns Sosa made?"
Jamjars shook her head. "No, just one. It's called a Pavise and is a giant war machine that reminds me of her dragon. It has the same harmony extractor and everything. I bet this contains everything you need to know to make it, including how to build those special harmony extractors. And it looks like whoever designed the visuals definitely thought they were a bad guy."
Starlight didn't even need to think to answer that. If even half of what Jamjars said was remotely true... "Don't let anyone else get it," she insisted. "Especially not anyone who would actually build that, like Varsidel. She probably got these from Garsheeva in the first place to stop anyone from using them..."
Indus technology. Meant for war. That was what this so-called Pavise had to be. A memory of the nightmare cave in Mistvale flitted through Starlight's consciousness, where she fought the fake Yanavan in a dream, and he rode in a gigantic, armored machine with a generator tail much like Aegis's...
"Glad to know we're on the same page." Jamjars slowly nodded. "What about the rest of your friends? Shinespark would probably be able to reverse-engineer some of the technology, and maybe use it for good..."
"Not even Shinespark," Starlight pressed. "Not unless it becomes..." She swallowed, having a feeling it would. "Really important."
Jamjars shook her head. "Oh, this would take decades to actually make, from what I've seen. It's no last resort. But whatever." She yawned again. "You look like her, so I wanted your opinion on what she'd likely want me to do..."
"Tired?" Starlight asked.
"No. I'm so awake, I was about to put on my boots and go fishing," Jamjars deadpanned. "Talking about myself is draining, okay? Let's hit the sack..."
Starlight nodded. She had a lot to think about. It wasn't hard to guess what her dreams would be filled with tonight...
She borrowed several of the blankets, surrendered without complaint, and tucked herself up atop the desk, fighting an omnipresent feeling that no matter how many plans she had for the morning, she would never know what would come.
Walls of black rose up around Starlight in a world of ash, drained batpony husks piled in mountain after mountain around her and the metal dragon Aegis's voice echoed in her ears. If she looked ahead, she would see Valey, older and injured after a fight. If she looked back, she would see Aegis with Glimmer's face, leering at her and looming high like a thunderhead. So she squeezed her eyes and flattened her ears, and instead saw a stone room where two ponies she didn't think she knew clung to each other as their world exploded and turned into ash, one object at a time.
"I know I am!" Starlight whimpered, huddling and making herself as tiny as possible. It just made the world bigger around her.
The Aegis-Glimmer hybrid coiled around her like a snake, more visible the harder she tried to close her eyes. "THE HARDER YOU CLING, THE MORE YOU LOSE."
"T-Then I lose everything either way," Starlight cried, pressing her face frantically into the ash-strewn ground and still failing to banish the vision of the monstrosity. "Why can't I protect my friends? Why do things happen to them in the first place!? If you're my friend, please help me!"
Glimmer's head rotated in a way Aegis's neck shouldn't have been able to support, her eyes hollow and empty. "YOUR FRIEND? WE ARE HERE TO STOP YOU, NO MATTER THE COST."
"So help me!"
"WE TRiED bUT YOU Did NOT LiSTeN YOu DID NoT LIsTEN yOu DID NOt LISTEn"
"yOUkEPTfIGHTING"
you didnt die
"Stop!" Starlight screamed, running as fast as she could. The world flew by around her, her speed superequine but Aegis just as fast. It never attacked, just glided, like a phantom that mired her hoofsteps with its shadow. "Help me! Leave me alo-!" She impacted something and fell on her rump. "Oomph!"
Chrysalis gave her a condescending expression. "What do you want?"
"I'll tell you what I want," the cold, metallic voice of Puddles the windigo interrupted, drawing Chrysalis and Aegis's ire. "Remember me, the disharmonic life form who can't exist around harmony? I'll ascend to a greater form of life and make friendly friends who give cute, cuddly hugs just to spite whoever created me in such an abysmal existence!" Her voice turned to a foalish squee, the mare standing half encased in ice and half happy and free. "And then Cute Valey and me will get married and live happily ever after! Yay!"
"GO AWAY." Aegis let loose a laser bigger than the sky itself, and half of the landscape was gone with no sound whatsoever, but Puddles was entirely unfazed. The windigo stuck out her tongue.
"What's happening!?" Starlight squealed, covering her ears against the deafening silence. "Please leave me alone!"
A soft, motherly voice chuckled behind her. "Isn't it obvious? This is all in your head."
Starlight whirled to see the Flame of Honesty, crackling orange amid the gray. "Please help me!"
"Well, of course it's a dream," Puddles drawled, wandering past and licking the flame, earning a hiss and some backlash. "Someone has to represent Starlight's conscience." She flung an ice-armored hoof straight at Glimmer-Aegis. "It doesn't matter how evil you were created to be, or if you're cursed to bring misfortune to everyone you meet. That drivel never stopped me from wanting to evolve."
She stepped closer, taking Starlight by the shoulders. "My life's goal was to ditch this fate my creator left me to wallow in. I made myself better, stronger, beautiful and cuddly and everything I ever imagined! And at the end, I wanted to meet my maker and laugh in their pathetic face... and then kill them, just because. Who left this lot in life to a cute little kid like you? You don't want to take it laying down. Ignore the loser who says to quit and take a dirt nap. Be like me and conquer your problems!"
"HRESSSHHHHHH!"
A gigantic metal claw tore Puddles into shreds of ash that blew away and dispersed like mist. "ENOUGH OF THAT."
The Flame of Honesty laughed again. "Oh, it's not a dream like this. Everything is in your head. Maple, Valey, Amber... You never crossed the mountains, Starlight Glimmer. You've been living in Sires Hollow all this time. Losing Sunburst? It was too much for you to take. Everything that's happened afterward has been all in your mind. That's why your friends want you to quit."
"What...!?" Starlight stepped back, which was unfortunately closer to Chrysalis. The monster hissed at Aegis and the flame and drew a protective wing around her.
"Glimmer isn't you from the future," the flame continued. "She's a psychologist who's trying to bring you back to your senses. Aegis is the computer she uses to enter your hallucination. When she tells you to give up on your friends? She's asking you to abandon your denial. Let the dream collapse, so you can truly wake up..."
For the last two words, the flame's voice crackled, and sounded like Jamjars' instead of a shimmer.
"So what?" Chrysalis hissed. "That sounds like a terrible reason to wake up."
The Glimmer monster cleared its throat and glared at her.
"If your life is that much of a waste, who cares what gives it meaning?" Chrysalis snarled, holding Starlight close. "You take what you can, when you can, because the alternative is having nothing! If her friends are figments of her imagination, that's better company than having no friends at all!"
Maple, Valey and Amber all poofed into existence, shouting encouragement... but they were posters in unusual poses, tacked up on the walls.
"That's your anger and resentment talking, Starlight." The flame shook its head. "But you cannot overcome unless you first let go of what you wish you had, but just don't. Imaginary friends don't provide as much comfort as real ones, and they can't protect you when the going gets hard. Wake up."
Starlight grimaced, looking around for the source of Jamjars' voice. That had to be...
A metal monstrosity burst out of the curtain of falling ash, with a triangular design and a tail generator like Aegis's, exactly the one she had seen in the fake Yanavan's dream. But the pony hatch on its back where a pilot could sit was open, and Jamjars was standing there victoriously, grinning ferociously as her robot slammed into Aegis and actually drove it back, locking weapons and forcing the dragon to defend itself.
"Don't give up!" Jamjars shouted. "What if all your friends are real, and this is just a trick? If you're in a dream right now, these two are your self-doubts speaking! You've always doubted yourself! But what you need to do is take my hoof and help me make these blueprints come to life! If we have a Pavise, we'll be able to stand against anyone who gets in the way and anyone who tries to ruin our ideal world. You won't ever have to fight again if you just get a little bit stronger and have a Pavise to do the fighting for you! Just try a little harder! You're almost there!"
"Starlight, wake up!"
It wasn't the Jamjars in the dream who said that. "I'm trying!" Starlight called back, lighting her horn. "All of you, leave... me... alone!"
For a single instant, she imagined she was Shinespark, soaring straight upwards. She kicked off the ground with a hard thump, and was immediately constrained, falling and hitting something else. "Ow!"
But now she could open her eyes, and the world slowly came into focus, illuminated solely by Jamjars' hornlight. The other filly was standing over her, and looked downright freaked out.
"Starlight!" Jamjars panted, shaking her. "Are you with me!?"
"Unnngh..." Starlight stirred. Her coat was clammy, her insides felt horrible, and such a sense of foreboding lingered around her that it was like the Glimmer-headed Aegis was still there, leering at her from the darkness. "I w-was dreaming..."
"You were crying and moaning in your sleep!" Jamjars exclaimed, looking like she had been hyperventilating seconds earlier. "I thought you were sick, or getting possessed!"
Starlight frantically checked herself, coat too sweaty to bristle. Had all the faces in her nightmare been thoughts that were already in her head? When push came to shove, did Jamjars really care about her? None of that mattered. Her body felt too bad for this to be an ordinary nightmare. Either she really was sick, or...
The first night she had spent in this dorm, she awakened in a splash of foreboding as well.
"Jamjars?" Starlight swallowed, hoping it wouldn't upset her stomach, and sat up. "Do you have any weapons?"
"Weapons?" Jamjars blinked. "Starlight, it was just a dream. You're fine. You're going to be alright. Now please stop freaking me out..."
"No." Starlight shook her head. "Can you keep a secret?"
"It's what I do best."
Starlight swallowed again. "Valey's cutie mark... when she detects things that are going to hurt her... I can sometimes do the same. I don't know how or why, but I've always been able to dodge her fruit-throwing tests and do well when she teaches me to fight. And I had a really bad feeling before Chrysalis showed up, and again before we found Gazelle in the archives and I had a panic attack. I don't think you were there for that. But I can."
Jamjars' face twisted in confusion, and then realization. "You know what? That's ridiculous, but coming from you, I almost believe it. That's... happening again?"
"Something is wrong." Starlight crept to the secret door, her balance steadier and her senses clearer now that she was acting instead of waiting. It really was a warning, wasn't it? "Follow me, use your camouflage and keep your head down. I'm better at fighting if anything happens."
Jamjars nodded silently and narrowed her wide eyes. Starlight pulled the door open.
The commons was deserted, but not quiet. Both hearths had gone out. Sounds were coming from the door to Doctor Lost's office, which was ajar.
Jamjars' ears flattened. "Stop making this creepy, Starlight."
"We shouldn't have left Gazelle to do what he wanted," Starlight replied, knowing this was the right way. She pushed the door open.
Inside Doctor Lost's office, a single candle danced for illumination. The door to the archives was also open.
"This had better not be because I was calling the cat sad and pathetic last night..." Jamjars whispered, going into camouflage. "Are you sure you've got weird senses and we're not just going to find everything is in order?"
"Shh."
The noises continued as they entered the archives. They were small, rhythmic, methodical crashes, like someone was pulling things off shelves and throwing them into a pile one by one.
They rounded a corner, and that was exactly what it was.
"It's you," Gazelle whispered, voice hoarse, a book in one paw and Gwendolyn's moon glass in another as he sat in an aisle atop a throne made from artifacts pulled from shelves. Every once in a while, his tail flicked, wrapping around some piece of junk and flinging it. It could have been a nervous tick, but it was probably to make noise and attract attention.
"Gazelle." Starlight stared at the sight. "What are you doing?"
"I found it," Gazelle whispered, showing her the pages of the book. She was far too far away to read them. "I found how to get my sister back."
Starlight's blood chilled. "How?"
"I found this journal," Gazelle wheezed. "From a mare called Seraphim. You wouldn't have heard of her. She was instated as the head of the Power Distribution Agency seven hundred and sixty-seven years ago. The same as my Meltdown..."
Starlight watched him. "And?"
"She left the continent. Historians have thought she was dead, but her records are here. She was living in the Plains of Harmony." Gazelle's eyes twitched. "She writes about Garsheeva. She says the sacrifices fuel Garsheeva's immortality. She says sphinxes can eat emotions. She says we can eat brands. She says we can use them for power, or control them. Garsheeva brought back your friend by moving her brand. But that isn't the power of a goddess. Seraphim says... says I can do that too..."
He started to laugh, first his shoulders shaking silently, and then a chuckle, and then a full-throated howl. Gazelle threw back his head and roared.
"Jamjars!" Starlight shot a glance backwards. "Go get Celestia, Valey, anyone! Get help now!"
Gazelle lowered his head and looked at her again, and his eyes burned like coals. "Seraphim knew. Meltdown must have known too. She said I was everything to her, but she didn't trust me... Hehehehahaa... You all knew! You all betrayed me! You all knew! Aaahahahaha!"
"No, we didn't betray you!" Starlight raised her voice. "Her body is gone! Her memories are gone! All you have is her cutie mark, and I was the one who gave it to you!"
Gazelle's voice returned to a croak. "You're right. You didn't. I won't hurt you. I d-don't hurt fillies..." He held out the shard with a black gleam. "But Lyn and I will be together again!"
He threw the shard in his maw and bit down with a splintering of glass.
Instantly, Gazelle pulsed with a faint aura, and his eyes grew brighter a second later. He lifted his paws and stared at them. "Lyn... Lyn..."
"Stop," Starlight warned. "You're not okay! Don't do anything else!"
"Like what?" Gazelle leaned forward, flinging another artifact into a shelf with his tail. His ears perked keenly. "Like this?"
There were voices at the entrance to the archives. Student voices.
"What's going on?" a concerned stallion called. "Was someone laughing in here?"
"It was that prince, wasn't it?" a mare added.
"Didn't sound like him. Sounded like a demon."
"You want to bet old Doctor Lost keeps a demon sealed in an artifact here? Wouldn't put it past him."
"Hey, do you think this is safe?"
When Starlight looked back, Gazelle had left his throne and was gone.
SMASH!
Starlight skidded around a corner and saw the students just in time to watch a large pile of debris crash down from above behind them, blocking their easy way out. It was a group of five. If she recognized any, it was too dark and tense to put faces to the names.
All five students whirled and screamed. Gazelle was already standing on the wreckage.
He spread his wings like a statue in a fell cathedral. "My sister is waiting for me," the prince warned, his eyes burning. "I need more power to transfer her as I please. I can already feel it working... Hahaha... It isn't enough."
His tail lifted something from the wreckage, and Starlight realized what it was he had just smashed: the pedestal containing the Eylista meteor.
Crunch. His tail snaked forward, and he crackled and pulsed again as another piece of moon glass met its end beneath his jagged teeth. Crunch. Another did the same. Crunch.
"What's happening!?" One of the stallions stepped in front of a mare, spreading his wings defensively. "Hey... let us through!"
"I need you," Gazelle replied, surrounded by mixed shards of broken glass and moon glass. His aura pulsed and didn't go out, faint crackles of black lightning occasionally crawling across his coat. "As sacrifices befitting a god."
The students backpedaled. One mare began to cry.
"Stay put," Gazelle warned. "I don't need your lives. Only..."
His throat convulsed. It looked like he was about to puke... but instead, he emitted a line of shadowy energy that flew in a sluggish laser laden with spikes. It was a tiny version, but it was still Garsheeva's breath attack. Even Gazelle looked mildly surprised as the projectile flew towards the students.
With a flash, a wall of crystal erupted between Gazelle and the students at the last second. It shattered instantly as the spike breath hit, but nullified it, the students behind staying mostly unscathed.
Gazelle frowned.
"Stop it," Starlight warned, stepping out into his path from the bookshelf where she was hiding.
"Move," Gazelle replied, tail swashing. "I need them."
Starlight narrowed her eyes. Her horn had been perfect after the harmonic flame and a week of rest, and already, it hurt from blocking one attack. But if defending students who couldn't protect themselves wasn't a worthwhile use of her power... there never would be anything that was.
"No." She stood her ground, horn lit and waiting.
"I don't fight fillies," Gazelle warned.
Starlight gritted her teeth, hoping Jamjars was fast. Giving up the artifice, her connection to the black sword, the knowledge from the flame, her Nightmare Modules... it was a choice she had made. She didn't remember her reasons, but she must have known this would happen.
Time to see if she really didn't need them to survive.
"I. Don't. Fight. Fillies," Gazelle repeated.
Starlight dropped into a crouch, the students watching in terror behind her. "Well, I'm about to make you."
"A-Are you crazy!?" a student stammered outside Starlight's field of view. She couldn't tell if he was talking to her or Gazelle.
"Go away," Gazelle hissed, tensing for a leap.
Starlight stared him down. If she really had some connection to Valey... some ability to wield her friend's cutie mark and be forewarned of danger... now was when she needed every advantage she could get. She gritted her teeth and hoped.
The sphinx sprang straight up, vanishing into the poorly-lit ceiling of the room. Starlight spun, tracking his movements through rustles of feathers and flashes of claws. He wasn't targeting her. He was after...
"Look out!" Starlight sprang to cover the students, surrounding them with a crystalline shield as Gazelle tackled a bookshelf from the opposite side, launching its contents at the ponies in a wave of hard, pointy artifacts. One of the hoarded treasures exploded when it hit Starlight's shield, feeling like an impact straight to her horn.
One of the student mares screamed. Two hugged each other. Gazelle hovered where the bookshelf had been, its structure splintered and laying in the aisle around Starlight's shield, his maw already charging for another shot of spike breath.
"Gazelle, stop!" Starlight flung herself between him and the students, hoping she could dissuade him from making the shot. "Please! I've been trying to help you, but this isn't how you get your sister back!"
"Kid, look out!" One of the students immediately shoved her out of the way.
Starlight hit the floor with a grunt, recovering faster than she could have thanks to her training with Valey but still not fast enough. "No, don't! You're not strong enough to fight-"
Gazelle's eyes tracked her, but his mouth didn't. A cloud of smoke that bristled with spikes and dark lightning lanced forth, catching the student's hooves as he realized the error of his ways and tried to dodge. The thorny breath ripped at him, lacerating his hooves and earning a scream of pain as his momentum carried him through the ethereal blades. He landed on the ground in a heap.
"Gazelle!" Starlight roared, lighting her horn again. "Stop!"
The sphinx ignored her entirely, facing the students again. They were trying to scatter, some to help their friend and others to run or hide. But even one loss wouldn't be acceptable.
Starlight couldn't fight this as a defensive battle. She was rusty and out of practice, but she had to go on the attack.
With a pulse of energy, she targeted the ground beneath her hooves, conjuring a pillar of crystal in a move she had copied from Puddles. The crystal grew, propelling her swiftly, and she launched herself off the end into a flying leap at Gazelle's face. Starlight drew back a hoof and smashed.
It was almost ineffective, her little body not having the mass required to do serious damage. But it did hit his jaw, and that was enough to draw his attention right before he fired.
"Rrraaaugh!" Gazelle hissed, whipping around and blasting her with covering fire. "Don't make me fight-!"
He missed. Starlight carried her momentum, sliding beneath him and under the beam. What was she supposed to do now? She could see Valey in this situation, slipping on her back beneath an enemy before kicking them upwards and juggling them into the air. That was her move... but she couldn't fly! How would she follow through on the combo?
She moved too fast to finish her plan, and her legs acted on instinct, bucking upward at Gazelle's underside as she slid past a swipe from a sheathed paw. But he was an adult and she was a filly, and her legs were short enough that she couldn't even hit him with enough force to wind him.
Gazelle was fast, too. He leapt, propelling himself off her with a midair side roll, and caught Starlight with an outstretched wing, flinging her hard toward a bookcase. As she impacted, he rushed forward, grabbing her neck and pinning her there with a heavy paw. His claws were still sheathed, force of will or something greater keeping them from ripping into her throat, but she could still feel them twitching, yearning to be free.
"I. Don't. Fight. Fillies." His eyes blazed into hers. "You could help me. Why won't you help me? I've tasted your pain. You've helped me before. Why choose these ponies above what truly matters!?"
Starlight stared, eyes wide, suppressing her urge to fight back. If he was talking, she was stalling... That was time Valey or Celestia could use to arrive. "Because I'm not the only thing that matters in the world!" she cried. "And neither are you! Your problems don't matter more just because they're yours! Sometimes you just have to lose, because winning is wrong!"
"I am a sphinx," Gazelle hissed back in her face. "And sphinxes are gods. Not just Garsheeva. All of us! So of course I matter! Garsheeva had an entire society built to feed her. She cultivated her pirates to use for food, instead of wiping them out like a leader with dignity. Because we weren't made to lead. We were made to rule. Why should I put anything above my sister!?"
"Think of what she'd say if she saw what you were doing for her!" Starlight screamed.
"Think of what she won't say if she doesn't have a life to say it with!"
Time was up. Starlight knew he was about to break his oath, so she flared her horn, encasing herself and the paw holding her and the shelf she was up against all at once in a solid fusion of crystal. Gazelle's claws flexed inside the prison, scratching harder at her neck, and his other forepaw raked at the gem, trying to break himself out.
So Gazelle wanted to be free? Then...
Starlight let her crystal shatter during a backswing, giving her half a second of time to react. But instead of allowing the individual pieces to disappear as well, she poured energy back into the spell, summoning a cloud of telekinesis to catch them with. Gazelle's paw shot forward, and Starlight ducked, his claws snagging her mane... and leaving him directly in the middle of a cloud of hovering, razor shards.
With a shower of sparks and a storm of tinkling, the shards collided with each other as Starlight spun them like a blender. It was brutal, lacerating surface damage, just like Gazelle's breath had done to the student colt: not enough to end a fight, but more than enough to hurt.
Gazelle roared, dropping back and flailing his wings like fanblades, swatting the crystal shards away. Starlight had the advantage, but her horn was reaching its limit. Still, limits were meant to be broken... and she had to protect the students.
"Run!" she yelled, calling upon more of her energy. "Run while he's not blocking the door!"
"You... think that's funny...?" Gazelle rasped, staggering and panting. He was covered in bleeding scratches, and the dark aura he had gained after devouring the Eylista meteor pulsed and flickered. "It's not... immortality if... you can just keel over and die..."
His aura flared, and the blood trickling from his wounds flowed upward instead, trailing away as the scratches slowly began knitting themselves together.
Starlight gritted her teeth. However many cutie marks he had gotten from that meteor, it was enough that he could heal himself? She needed a weapon to press her offense. He would overpower her if she kept shielding, so she would have to overpower him first...
But Gazelle leapt again, his focus once more switching to the students as several of them tried to make for the door.
Starlight ran, the part of her mind that was still in denial wondering who in their right mind would design this particular room with only one exit. With how much stuff was stored inside, wasn't that a major fire hazard?
She really shouldn't have asked.
Crackkkk! Gazelle's breath hammered down on the pile of debris in the doorway as he threw more on the pile, creating sparks and crackles of black lightning. It wasn't fire breath, but Starlight didn't have to think very hard about what he wanted to do.
She needed to act, and fast. Starlight scooped a cracked vase from the ground, the first thing within reach, and activated her pillar again, flinging herself upward to meet the prince. Gazelle barely gave her a second glance... and she swung the vase with two hooves, shattering it full-force over his head with everything she had.
Gazelle choked, his breath beam briefly cut off, though the pile of debris still sparked with dark thorns, infested with his magic. At least it wasn't burning... but Starlight had no time to worry about that. Grabbing a shard of vase in her teeth, she grappled one of Gazelle's wings, struggling onto his back much like she had done against Crystal. She raised her head, the shard in her mouth as a knife, and stabbed deeply at the top of his spine.
"Hressshhhhh!" The prince twisted, deflecting her attack and losing only a clump of fur and some of his skin. Rolling on his side, he immediately pumped his wings, soaring sideways and ramming his back with Starlight on it into a high section of shelving. Starlight immediately shielded herself, boards and artifacts grinding across her crystal and making her head spin, and another object exploded under the force of collision.
Forcing her senses back into focus, Starlight poured more power back into her crystal, increasing its size and encroaching on Gazelle. His feathers were caught, and his flight interrupted, and they plummeted to the ground. Starlight tried to slam him and crush him beneath the floor and the falling crystal, but the angle wasn't right, and she had to drop it to avoid taking the impact to her horn instead.
They had landed right next to a student mare who was cowering in the darkness. By the time Starlight got her dizzy head around the situation, Gazelle had already fired.
The mare screeched as Gazelle's breath tore into her like a smoky woodchipper. But the sound of her cry spurred Starlight into action, and before even half a second passed, her horn overloaded with energy. FLASH!
Gazelle was encased in crystal. Starlight reeled; the sphinx was fighting, and he was actually going to break free. Before he could, she lifted the cage in her telekinesis, swung it in a circle and fired it at a wall as hard as she could, dropping the prison just before impact.
He hit the wall with a crunch, and she immediately grabbed him again, pinning his wings with the bare minimum amount of crystal needed to interfere with his flight before ramming him backwards into another shelf. The shelf collapsed, dumping dozens upon dozens of artifacts on him in an unknown rain, and another exploded amid the chaos. How many bombs did Doctor Lost even keep in here?
Starlight had the momentum, and she couldn't stop. Black spots appeared in her vision, but she flared her aura one more time, dragging the entire framework that held up the shelf down on top of him and driving it into his prone figure.
"Shhhrraaaaaugh!" The pile exploded with a shower of black thorns, Gazelle rising like a dark angel with both wings outspread. His cinder eyes swept the room, and they didn't settle on Starlight. He started flapping away toward another area of the room.
"N-No... Come back..." Starlight struggled to her hooves, forcing herself to stay conscious and knowing she didn't have enough left. Where was her ace in the hole? Sitting in her bags at Generosity Two, because of course she'd have enough time to reclaim the artifice and re-bond with her sword when she really needed it... but she had trusted herself to do this without them. Whether Gazelle or some other catastrophe, she knew this was going to happen again. She had to keep fighting.
In the hole Gazelle had blown to escape from her wreckage, cinders were smoldering. Maybe his breath couldn't start fires, but those exploding artifacts certainly could.
Out of sight behind the shelves that were still standing, the crackling of breath sounded, and a mare screamed. A stallion screamed too. "Meadowglade! No! Stop it, you... Aaaugh!"
Starlight was at her limit, but she gritted her teeth and roared, staggering upwards across the fields of wreckage. Her magic might have been shot, but she could still fight. She just had to make it in time...
A second passed. She wasn't going to make it.
Two seconds passed. Meadowglade's scream weakened.
Three seconds-
A line of blistering teal seared across the room, a concentrated laser that pierced straight through shelves as it swung like a knife. Gazelle cried out in pain, and an entire sundered shelf wall collapsed with a pile of dust and another explosion, clearing the way for Starlight to see him with a deep line burned angrily into his side. It pulsed with darkness, beginning to heal...
"Thought you had me down?" Starlight heard her own voice say. "Think again."
It was her perfect lookalike, standing on the rubble near the crackling entrance. Glimmer stared Gazelle down with a little grin on her lips, something hidden behind her far side.
"Stop!" Gazelle shrieked, shielding his injured side from her as it healed. "I don't fight fillies!"
"You've been doing a pretty good job of it so far," Glimmer countered, her voice hard and her horn smoking from the laser. "But you've gone far enough."
She pulled out the object she had been concealing... and Starlight instantly recognized what it was. It was the twisted, tipless remains of the moon glass sword she had used against Chrysalis. It was also a sword containing the entire sum of Garsheeva's cutie mark stockpile, plus the brands of every living sarosian in Mistvale.
"No! Be careful!" Starlight cried, struggling further up and into view. "He can-!"
Gazelle turned, blinking at the realization there were two Starlights. That blink cost him all the time Glimmer needed.
She lunged sword-first, embedding it so far into him that the edge protruded out the other side. Starlight felt the hit as if she had driven it in herself, and instantly realized why Glimmer had chosen that sword to bring.
It was her moon glass, made for her purpose, to protect the ponies she cared about from fiends that tried to take them for themselves. Was she a fiend too, taking them back? It didn't matter. She wasn't going to use them for food. Her intentions were better than his were.
Starlight wasn't gray, but she could still feel the sword humming in her hooves from all the way across the room. Take those cutie marks. Save them. Stop Gazelle.
She had been inside it herself. She knew what fate she was sending them to, but Starlight pulled regardless, and her moon glass pulled too.
Gazelle howled and flashed, and the sword flew out of him with a burst of color, faint glyphs hanging in the air as the marks it was stealing back followed it in a trail of fading light, swirling on their journey into the blade. The sphinx crumpled. The sword flew across the room, landing somewhere behind Starlight. When she looked again, Glimmer was gone...
And the sparks from one of the detonations were beginning to spread.
"Everyone, get out of here!" Starlight cried, staggering to her hooves. "Run!"
Her hooves felt heavy as she tried to move. First, she had to retrieve that sword. She couldn't leave it here with Gazelle. Not if there was any chance he could get up again and-
"Graaaarrrr!"
Gazelle plunged into her like a manticore, sending her tumbling, his talons reaching for her throat. Starlight kicked at his paw, managing to push it away... and noticing in the process that he had no wound from the sword whatsoever. He couldn't have healed that fast, could he? Not without his cutie marks!
But he was drained, and when he opened his mouth to fire, nothing but a shred of black fog dribbled forth. Starlight rolled to her hooves, sensing that he was almost as done as she was. She just needed one good hit... and he just needed to find that sword before she did. But she already knew where it was, and he hadn't been watching.
"Guh...!" Starlight positioned herself between Gazelle and the growing flames, knowing it would be lights-out if she used her magic even one more time. Whether or not he knew that too, he raked at her with his claws, and she was forced to use a foreleg to defend herself.
Deep gashes opened on Starlight's leg where the sphinx struck her. This wasn't the kind of pain that only brought dizziness and headaches. This was her body being rent, and no amount of willpower or strength of mind could stave it off for long.
"Gazelle!" Starlight cried, backing away. "Stop! Don't fight me! I was trying to help you!"
"DIIIIEEEEEEE!"
"Enough!"
There was an explosion of light as the room rippled with heat, and Princess Celestia appeared in a spiral of teleportation. Horn ablaze, she conjured a fiery whip, lashing forward like a snake and curling around Gazelle's legs and barrel with the smell of scorched fur.
Starlight panted as the room chilled and her vision flickered with exhaustion, Celestia's horn doing double-time and absorbing the spreading flames like a vacuum before they could consume anything further. She was far past her limits, and no longer needed to protect the other ponies. Abruptly, she passed out.
Valey skidded into the archive room at top speed, vaulting over a pile of debris and staring with wide eyes at the wreckage. At least half the room was trashed, Princess Celestia standing in the most devastated section with Gazelle bound thoroughly in her aura, leaning over something on the floor. Valey soared closer, the floor impossible to walk on without cutting her hooves on broken glass.
It was Starlight, laying in a heap. Her hooves and one of her forelegs were bloodied, and her horn gave off heat enough that Valey could feel it even just by lifting her. She glared up at the captive Gazelle. "What did he do?"
Princess Celestia shook her head. "I arrived less than a minute ago to much the same scene you see before you. We will investigate thoroughly." Her voice was shaking. "Though this was clearly Gazelle's doing. I spoke to Meltdown about his condition when I first arrived, and she bade me leave him be. As she is the acting leader of the Griffon Empire and he is its prince, this could carry serious consequences for our relations with..." Her voice wobbled, and she trailed off. "That filly and several students are among the injured. I am still searching, but have not yet found any dead. We must get them to the hospital as soon as the university staff arrive to take over investigations."
Valey frowned, slack-jawed. "Like, I could go on ahead, if you're busy." She glanced down at Starlight. "Or search myself, if you're faster. This stuff is-"
"This could be a major international incident in the works, my little pony," Celestia tensely replied. "I would not advise you to wander off on your own."
Valey winced and awkwardly stood still, holding Starlight and brushing her forehead to check for further injuries. Her horn sparked a little, and her eyelids flickered unconsciously.
"Bananas, kid," Valey whispered. "Haven't seen you this bad in a while."
Celestia looked up, poking through further piles of rubble. "She is with you?"
"Yeah, she's..." Valey blinked, not trusting herself to move when the floor was so treacherous. "She's pretty unlucky. Probably tried to fight him." She glared at Gazelle, who had passed out as well from the force of Celestia's aura. "She's got a horn condition that makes her magic stronger than usual, but using it hurts her. It's a sensitive subject, so don't ask her later. She really went all out, though..."
"Your filly fought a sphinx?" Celestia frowned incredulously at the pair.
Valey shrugged. "Hey, that's how we roll up north. You never know who the next catastrophe is going to happen to. Maple? Dusty mare with the broken ribs? She had to kick around an entire troupe of trained mercenaries once. And I killed Yakyakistan's evil yak ambassador in a duel."
Celestia didn't look pacified.
"It happens to everyone," Valey repeated. "Harshwater had a real bad time with a bunch of batponies once. And the stuff that happens to us just doesn't care if you're a legendary hero or some random kid. We just do what it takes to survive." Her gaze turned toward a corner of the room that felt slightly more dangerous than the others. "If you wanna tell us that we're legitimately under a curse that makes this happen all the time, and you know a way to break it, please, go ahead. But don't try to pretend this is normal." She narrowed her eyes. "You're a goddess, and I can tell you're shaken. For me? Bananas, this is just day after stupid day."
"...I would talk with you more later," Celestia said. "But more ponies are here."
There was a commotion outside the door, and a squad of mixed university security ponies and royal guards stomped in, heavy boots protecting them from the wreckage. Every last one of them looked taken aback, the Kinmari guards much more so than the Canterlot ones.
"Y-Your Highness!" The Kinmari guards bowed low, though the Canterlot ones skipped the formalities and immediately adopted formation. "What is the meaning of this?"
Celestia looked sadly at the unconscious sphinx in her aura. "It would seem High prince Gazelle went on a rampage," she said with a small voice. "I must see to international affairs, as well as the wounded. President Kinmari will undoubtedly want a meeting post-haste. I want half of you to search this room for more ponies as thoroughly as possible." She bisected the guard crowd with a wing. "The other half, guard this room and do not let anyone unequipped for hazardous situations enter. That includes the students awakened by the noise. There are quite a few of them outside." She turned to Valey. "You will come with me."
"Yeah, one sec..." Valey was rooting toward a corner, following her cutie mark. There was something somewhere around...
There it was. Starlight's moon glass sword. Lacking a good way to carry it both safely and without Celestia asking what in the world she was doing, Valey kicked some smashed shelf boards over it, trusting it would take long enough for someone to clean up that room that she could come back and swipe it again later.
"Right." She hovered back toward Celestia, again avoiding the treacherous floor. "Where are we going?"
Celestia's horn enveloped herself, Valey, Starlight and Gazelle in a burst of light, and they teleported away.
They reappeared in the lobby of the hospital, where some of the injured students were already being treated by nurses who hadn't bothered to take them up to rooms. The mare on duty grimaced when she saw her. "More?"
Celestia shook her head. "Only this filly, as far as I could find."
"Careful with her horn," Valey added, carefully presenting her. "See if you can cool her down."
Celestia watched the exchange. "How are the others?"
Another nurse nodded. "Out of five students, two are shaken but mostly unharmed. One has significant hoof lacerations and won't be comfortable walking for a while, and another has scratches all over her face and frontal body. The last... well..."
"You might need to see for herself," the nurse with Starlight replied, leading the way toward a staircase. "With me, please."
Valey and Celestia followed to the second floor, where another pony was refilling wash basins and antiseptic bandages. The nurse took a tray of them for Starlight, and pushed open a door on her left, gesturing inside.
A young stallion was sitting by an occupied bed inside, a doctor and a nurse working dutifully inside. "Uh... h-hi," he greeted shakily, seeing who was there.
"This is the one who was worse off?" Celestia asked, pacing toward the bed. "I fear I know which one you mean."
The doctor looked up, the room brightly lit enough that he didn't even need a headlamp. "Your Highness," he greeted. "Yes, this is Meadowglade. She's suffering from blood loss and a severe number of lacerations. I've never seen something cause cuts in this pattern in my entire career before. It's like they were opened at random along her coat... but what's even more explicable is this."
He pointed to her flanks. They were bare.
The nurse with him frowned up at Gazelle, still bound in Celestia's aura. "They're saying he's the culprit," she scolded. "Forgive me for speaking freely, but do you have to bring him in here?"
Celestia shook her head. "If that is true, you've seen the damage he has caused. Would you feel safer with him out of my sight?"
The nurse winced. "That's... a good point. It's still hard for me to concentrate."
"Is there anything you can do?" the stallion by the bed whispered. "Meadowglade... She's my marefriend, and..."
"You were there too, buddy?" Valey softly asked.
"I thought I was going to die," the stallion replied. "We heard laughter and came to investigate, but I didn't think he would attack us. We all thought he was broken and harmless. And then he was like a demon, with dark energy... I've never felt so... so mortal, you know?" His eyes unfocused. "Please help her..."
"We're doing the best we can, son," the doctor sighed. "But whatever these wounds are, they're something else..."
Valey sighed too . "Too bad we don't have any of that Varsidel healing potion around anymore." She glanced back at Celestia. "You don't have that stuff in Equestria, do you?"
"I am afraid not." Celestia shook her head. "How are her vitals?"
The nurse refreshed her rag from the basin, going back to cleaning Meadowglade's injuries. "Not yet critical. The one good news for her is that none of the cuts are particularly deep. But this had to happen on a night with no unicorns on night shift... She has so many injuries, we have to lay her on some to tend to the others."
"But she hasn't woken up," the coltfriend insisted.
"She's in shock, son," the doctor growled. "Which you're this close to yourself. Focus on your breathing and get some air."
"S-Sorry..."
He got up to walk to the window, but paused when he passed Starlight. "...Is she going to be alright too?"
"We'll see. Sure hope so." The nurse who was dabbing Starlight's brow with wet rags frowned. "Her wounds are going to hurt in the morning, that's for sure. One leg, and she's been walking on broken glass. But if she's a tough little kid, she'll get through. Why does she have a fever, though?"
"Over-taxed her horn." Valey shrugged. "Sore subject for her. Don't press."
The stallion was still staring at Starlight. "She saved us," he managed. "I don't know how she didn't run away or die, but she stood up to him. She was hitting him and zapping him and running around the room so much it even looked like she was in two places at once for a while. You couldn't even keep track of her! She was, like..." His eyes unfocused. "You adventurers really are the real thing, aren't you? Even your kids are tough as nails..."
Valey winced. "Yeah, well... if I'd been there, maybe we could have ended it a whole lot quicker. Don't be hard on her because she couldn't save your girl. Maybe you didn't notice, but she's a kid. Not supposed to be fighting evil. Any of us would have acted, but she was the one unlucky enough to be there at the time."
Celestia stood with her head bowed.
"Just so you know?" Valey raised an eyebrow at her. "When we talk about settling down and getting a normal life for our kids, the point is to avoid garbage like this happening. Usually, I'm around and can beat it up myself, but sometimes we don't even get that luxury. So-"
"This is not the time for that conversation," Celestia apologized. "My apologies. But all offers regarding your future will have to temporarily wait until I have a better idea of where relations with the Empire stand. After all, some of what we discussed could suddenly become inappropriate for me to grant, depending on the status of our bond with Garsheeva's lands."
Valey swallowed. "...Yeah. What's that waiting on?"
"Meetings with President Kinmari and Meltdown. And likely another with both at once." Celestia shook her head. "What is the status on your airship's restoration?"
"Uhhh..." Valey paused. "Pretty sure the hull's complete, but the whole insides are opened up while Sparky redoes the wiring. Don't think it's stocked or furnished. Why?"
"Pondering the safest place for you and your friends to stay until we've had a better chance to evaluate the island's feelings toward you in light of the current situation."
"Hey!" The coltfriend stepped in, trembling. "J-Just so you know... if I'm following right, and they could be in trouble for being foreigners when a foreign leader attacked us... I-I'd vouch for them. That filly saved my life, a-and maybe Meadowglade's too."
Celestia nodded at him. "I appreciate it, my little pony. But panic and herd mentalities are almost as difficult to control as regional laws and regulations. If you wish to make your voice count for something, I would advise finding a student newspaper and sharing your experience as soon as possible." Her eyes drifted to Starlight. "Though I would advise referring to Valey and her friends in a more general sense when recounting any heroics. I get the feeling this child did not save you for the sake of the spotlight."
"Yeah," Valey insisted, stepping in. "She'd be really cool with it if she got as little attention from this as possible. Either say we busted them up as a team, or, like... I don't wanna tell you to say I did it, but don't let the pressure get on her. She's had it rough. Please?"
Shaking, the colt nodded. "I-I'll try to remember."
Valey swiftly winged her way back toward Generosity Two from the hospital, Starlight tucked carefully in her hooves. The cool night air whipped around her as she flew, and it was impossible to miss the bustle of activity around the Laughter dorm. The building had far more lights on than normal.
Starlight stirred. "You alright down there?" Valey asked cautiously.
"Nnngh..." Starlight shifted in her grip, hooves and foreleg bandaged tenderly. "I can... still see..."
Valey pulled up into a slower forward hover, holding Starlight out so they could see each other. "Easy, girl. We're getting you home. Celestia showed up and cleaned up Gazelle. You're gonna be okay."
Starlight started to cry.
"Hey." Valey held her close. "If you even think about saying it's not fair, you'd win a world record for how right you are. What even happened? I thought for sure someone would have been keeping better tabs on that guy."
"I-I don't know," Starlight sniffled.
"Well, you don't need to find out," Valey promised, patting her head and increasing her speed. "I'll do that investigating for you."
Starlight wasn't consoled.
"It's gonna be alright," Valey repeated. "We'll get you back to Maple. Horn hurts?"
"D-Did you find the sword?" Starlight managed, dodging the question. "The moon glass one? I was too tired to get it..."
"Stashed it under some junk." Valey shrugged. "Gonna go back and grab it the moment I've got you home. What was it even doing there?"
"Glimmer brought it," Starlight sniffed. "I couldn't have beat him on my own. She helped."
Valey's eyes narrowed slightly. "She's back? She's still following us?"
"Y-Yes."
"Well, hey. At least she helped out?"
Starlight shook her head. "We n-need to get that sword back now. Gazelle was trying to eat cutie marks like Garsheeva. He ate the meteor that we saw. It was making him stronger. I had to take them back like Chrysalis..."
Valey frowned heavily. "Is that what happened to that one mare's cutie mark?"
"He got one?" Starlight's ears pressed back miserably.
"Well, bananas."
"We need to get the sword," Starlight repeated. "It's just moon glass. She's a normal pony like Shinespark. Maybe she can just hold it to get her cutie mark back."
"Nope," Valey interrupted, facing her again. "I got this. You did a terrific job doing something you never should have had to do, but now your friends are here and they've got your back. This isn't something you gotta do. And even if it's something you can do, I don't want you burying yourself in work or whatever. We're gonna get you home and let you let it out."
For a moment, Starlight looked like she was going to struggle, but then she slumped. "Thanks."
"Whenever I can."
A few seconds passed. "So how's your horn?" Valey asked.
"Bad. B-But I'm used to it." Starlight swallowed, hanging dizzily in Valey's hooves. "Better than a panic attack with the artifice."
"Well, that's saying something." Valey angled into a glide, the shoreline approaching ahead. "Still, though, just so you know? You stood up to a psycho. Probably saved all those kids' lives."
"They're okay?" Starlight managed.
"More okay than you. Though the mare who lost her cutie mark is rough."
"G-Get the sword..."
Valey angled steeper. "I am taking a two-second detour to get you home. Literally. Watch. One...!"
Air whistled around them as Valey dropped even steeper, the island whooshing up to meet them... and she pulled up just in time, swerving and landing on the roof instead of the street.
"Why are we up here...?" Starlight groggily muttered.
Valey frowned and set her down. "Someone left a box on our roof."
She trotted forward, checked it, and popped it open... and blinked. "Huh. Well, I guess we don't need to go back to the dorms."
It was the moon glass sword. Attached was a little note that read, You're not alone. Somebody is looking out for you.
"...Huh."
Starlight just sat, too dazed to properly read.
Valey scratched her head. "Well, I guess that punk we brought back at the crystal palace is helping again. Dunno who else could possibly have brought this back." She glanced sharply around. "You think she's still hiding nearby?"
"Glimmer?" Starlight mumbled, trying to focus on the note. "Yes, but you won't be able to find her..."
Valey shook herself, straightening her coat. "Eh, whatever. So is this thing safe for me to actually carry? Like, normally I can touch full moon glass just fine, but if it's also sucking stuff from you-know-who... Getting some inconsistency on it from my butt, too." She picked up the box with it in. "Doesn't matter, just curious. Let's get inside."
Inside the door, Maple was waiting like a worried tiger. "Starlight!" she cried, pouncing and grabbing the filly from Valey. "Oh, your horn is hot! Starlight, are you alright?"
"Unngh... N-No..."
Everyone else was arrayed in the living room, wide awake, including Harshwater and Grenada and Gerardo and Slipstream. "Help made it in time?" Jamjars asked, sitting on an arm of the sofa.
Starlight managed to meet her eyes. "T-Thanks..."
Jamjars stared at her. "Normally I'd say no problem, but I don't feel like lying right here..."
"Uhh..." Valey scratched her head as Maple carried Starlight away. "Indeterminate. No island ponies are dead yet, but apparently Gazelle went psycho and messed them up bad. Or, went more psycho than he was already. What I want to know is how Celestia was here for a whole week and didn't even do anything about that clown. Anyone who's ever set hoof in the Empire could tell you he's insane. Me and Starlight even beat him up once before!"
Shinespark shook her head. "I'll bet President Kinmari will be asking that before us. I... haven't been paying as close of attention to Gazelle as I should have." She bowed, shoulders stiff. "There will probably be a fight over who's responsible."
Gerardo twiddled his talons. "I have an unfortunate feeling such a brawl would take precedence over decisions on whether to allow the border to be opened in our name. Equestria must have some sort of government beyond Celestia. Imagine how being attacked by a foreign prince will sound."
"Except we were the ones who stopped him?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Come on, it's gotta be worth brownie points saving some kids from a crazy sphinx."
"Which could make it worse for Starlight, depending on how she feels about being a local hero." Amber glanced quietly at Gerardo. "Remember when Hemlock's crane collapsed?"
Shinespark loudly cleared her throat. "It's far from that simple. If you were a government pony with strong opinions on whether the border should be open or closed, you wouldn't care about us or Gazelle or the students. You'd care about how you could spin this to support your position. Now, if keeping the border closed is as important to Princess Celestia as she says it is, I doubt she'd even keep this on the table for government ponies to have opinions about, but it still could mean trouble for us." She glanced at everyone. "I think we need to decide fast and now. Our options are to ask for the Writs of Harmonic Sanction, then try to hide out somewhere in Equestria where no one will focus on us while this incident blows over, or else fly back to Ironridge and wait it out in the north. If Princess Celestia is still on our side, she could come find us again and offer whatever she wants to offer once it's safe."
"What about me, though?" Felicity whispered. "If I'm not fit to fly..."
"And what about the ship?" Valey looked sideways at her. "Is it really fit to fly?"
Shinespark shook her head. "Sometimes, we have no choice but to make the impossible happen. For now, though, I want to be part of whatever meeting is going to happen between the leaders. This is a situation that could easily spin out of control the moment ponies who care more about something other than the injured students, us and Gazelle get involved. I've seen a lot of these in my time in Ironridge, and we need to go now. We can't trust that just because we saved lives this will turn out favorably for us. Valey, are you with me?"
"Yeah." Valey stashed the box with the sword and adjusted her beret. "You and me, girl. Need a ride?"
Shinespark nodded. "Thanks. Let's go."
Meanwhile, Maple sat with Starlight in the dim bedroom, fussing over her. "Does she need anything?" Harshwater asked, peeking through the door.
"It looks like she's already been treated." Maple shook her head. "Starlight, do you need anything?"
"A drink," Starlight mumbled. "My head hurts."
"Right." Harshwater backed away.
Maple sighed once she was gone. "It'll be okay," she whispered. "It's all over now."
"It's never over," Starlight whined. "This always happens to me. Why does this keep happening? Why do we keep having to fight things like this?"
Maple hung her head. "Well, I... don't know what to say. But Gazelle was here for us to fight now because we let him come with us instead of leaving him behind to die."
Starlight slumped, spent, in the blankets. "So we should have been worse ponies and not tried to help him."
"I don't know," Maple sighed. "This happened with Crystal too. We could have left her behind, or not taken her to Izvaldi when she needed it... Maybe it's just a consequence of trying to do the right thing and help the ponies who need it most. No one ever said doing the right thing was easier."
"The students who got hurt don't think it's the right thing."
Maple shook her head. "Actually, you could have teleported away and left them to Gazelle, and you fought him and got hurt doing it instead. Saving them was harder, but I don't think they thought that was wrong of you."
Starlight whimpered and curled up.
"I don't know why the ponies we keep staying around are the powerful ones, who can do things like this," Maple continued. "It's probably because we're powerful and ambitious ourselves. But I don't know what to do about that. We fought to get where we are and got this strong in the first place so that we could overcome the kinds of problems ordinary ponies face, didn't we? But all we did was trade them out for problems like these. I don't have any better answers for you, Starlight. But I know we're all still here. Whatever you had to do, it was enough. We're still alive."
Starlight sniffled.
"...Do you wish you still had the artifice?" Maple asked. "And your memories?"
Starlight adamantly shook her head. "N-No. I... I did do it without them. And if getting stronger just gives us worse problems, I don't want to deal with whatever they would give me."
"How did you do it?" Maple whispered. "You just tried your hardest, like always?"
"Glimmer was back." Starlight closed her eyes. "I couldn't have beat him on my own. She helped."
Before Maple could reply, the door opened again, and Jamjars stepped through, a water glass held in her aura. "Delivery service!"
"Thanks," Maple greeted, reaching and taking it from her and holding it up for Starlight.
Starlight gratefully drank. "You went and got help," she mumbled when she was done.
"I mean, yeah?" Jamjars' brow furrowed. "You think I was just going to let him do whatever he wanted without getting you some backup?"
Starlight tried to set the glass down, half-empty, and Maple caught it before it could tip over. "Thank you for that too," Maple repeated. "I don't know the whole story yet, but..."
"Well, you're welcome." Jamjars shrugged. "I'm going to go back to the Laughter dorms, if no one minds. I want to see if I can find that book he was reading."
"Gazelle was reading a book?" Maple looked up.
Jamjars nodded. "By or about somepony called Seraphim. I want to read what he read that made him go off the deep end."
"Good luck," Starlight mumbled, curling up harder in the blankets. "I'm staying here..."
"If it looks like trouble," Valey said, standing near the entry to the room where Meltdown's suit was being engineered, "and smells like trouble, there's a decent chance it's trouble."
There were three ponies already in the room as Shinespark and Valey entered: Princess Celestia, President Kinmari and Meltdown herself, the latter standing in Shinespark's latest prototype. It was complete enough that Meltdown could stand and move, but was tethered on an incredibly short leash to the cooling block.
"Good evening, my little ponies." Celestia greeted them coolly, Gazelle missing from her aura. "There is much to discuss."
Valey blinked. "Where's the cat?"
"Imprisoned with the best security my entourage can offer," Celestia replied. "And under constant surveillance. He is quite battered, and should he try anything again, I will immediately know."
Meltdown frowned.
President Kinmari looked to be the least-happy pony in the room. "If these are the ponies we've been waiting for, your highness... may I request an explanation?"
Celestia and Meltdown had a staring contest.
"So, uhh..." Valey cleared her throat. "Gazelle went berserk and attacked some students."
"I am aware of that much." Kinmari's mane was frazzled in a specific pattern that suggested he was wearing a toupee. Had the situation been any less serious, Valey would have laughed. "What I want to know is why the prince of a supposedly-allied nation tried to kill my students!"
Meltdown's eyes shadowed, thoroughly put on the spot. "I don't know. I need to speak with him to understand his thought process."
Kinmari raised an angry eyebrow. "Are you volunteering to be the one to tell that first to my school board, then to the parents of the students who were hurt, then to the media who come for my school's reputation, and undoubtedly the politicians as well?" His face fell, pleading... though he had made it clear that he didn't need to. "Give me something more, here."
Valey cleared her throat. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a dude who flew off the handle in the Empire as well. I had to beat him up once before, and the pony who recently destroyed the place probably wouldn't have if he didn't push her over the brink." She glanced between Celestia and Meltdown. "I really don't wanna point hooves, but he probably should have been locked up. And I was busy being stuck on a submarine."
"We tried to commit him," Kinmari stiffly replied. "Standard psychiatric care for someone with his level of apparent unwellness. But our hospital is not equipped for containing something that can do... that. We needed help."
"And to provide help, I would have needed to be more aware of the situation in the first place," Celestia added, glancing to Meltdown. "You and I had a conversation regarding the prince's wellbeing when I arrived here a week ago."
The tension in the room was almost enough to make Valey's coat bristle. No one was blaming each other yet, but who didn't have a clear case to pass it off on someone else?
Fortunately, Shinespark stepped in. "While I'm sure the parents and media outlets would love to have someone to blame, there are more important things to discuss. How are the students, and what do we do with Gazelle?"
Celestia looked faintly relieved. "Meadowglade, the one who was worst off, has regained consciousness. I have done what I can for all of them. The doctors believe she in particular will have a very uncomfortable night, but should be able to make a full recovery... with the possible exception of her cutie mark, which has vanished. That may require counseling once she is less distracted by the pain."
"Nice. Glad she's hanging in there." Valey wiped her brow. "As for Gazelle, is there any reason we can't put him out of his misery? Knowing our luck, if we leave him alive, we're inviting something to happen again."
President Kinmari's eyes widened. "Something like that surely would carry international repercussions..."
"Do not kill him," Meltdown cut in. "He is of my nation."
Celestia and President Kinmari both turned to regard her intensely. "Are you taking responsibility for him and his actions?" Celestia asked.
Meltdown narrowed her eyes. "Gazelle is mine. As the representative of the Griffon Empire, you may not kill him for this."
The heat in the room rose slightly. "I would hear your reasoning," Celestia said evenly.
Meltdown met her gaze without flinching. "He is one of the last of his kind and the high prince. It is true that he lead to issues before, but he had repented and was making a recovery prior to our exodus here. A true leader must have an intimate understanding of their own fallibility to make the most of their strengths, and with the present condition of the Empire, we need such a skilled prince to recover. Return Gazelle to Grandbell with me. I request this with the authority of Garsheeva."
Valey loudly cleared her throat. "You think he's gonna get better? Did you even see him back there?"
Meltdown's head whipped around. "Did you?"
"No, but I saw him in Izvaldi." Valey didn't give ground. "Cackling like a lunatic, being cruel because he thought everything was a joke. Someone who has to be beaten into submission twice is dangerous. I'm all for second chances, but this went past number two long ago."
"And after that episode in Izvaldi, he changed." Meltdown's voice was impossibly calm. "As I said, he was making a recovery. This is likely a truth most of you know, but sphinxes have an inherent chaotic side to their nature. It is something they must learn to fight against and control all their lives, and to expect one to fail only once is foolhardy. How many times have you done something you regret?"
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Like enabling someone to kill every last batpony on the continent? Including me? That's a little above and beyond normal regrets, lady. Why are you defending him!? If you had seen what he did in-"
"You didn't see him in the archives either," Meltdown forcefully interrupted. "I appreciate your concerns, but his future is my responsibility and I wish to see him returned to Grandbell as my charge."
"Enough." Celestia's voice was quiet, yet it carried a weight that stopped both mares in their tracks. "Meltdown, you act on behalf of the whole Empire, not just Gazelle. It is in your hooves. You cannot allow the Empire to accept the duty of deciding his fate without also allowing it to accept responsibility for his actions. I have ponies who will ask for justice. If you take him, will you give it to them on their terms?"
Meltdown eyed her evenly. "Out of all the ponies here, I would have expected you most to believe in the ability to be redeemed."
"I believe in it," Celestia replied. "I am also aware that the world is far broader than one sphinx and those who care about him. Your argument is made from care, not pragmatism, Meltdown. It is within the rights of your position to request his custody, but whether I give him over freely or refuse your request, it will strain the bonds between our nations in ways the Empire is not strong enough to accept."
Meltdown held her stance. "If you are our friends, you will give us this chance to recover our strength."
"...Allow me to rephrase things." Celestia straightened up, less welcoming than before. "It was on your counsel, which I trusted as Garsheeva's appointed representative of the Griffon Empire, that no action was taken earlier to further restrain High Prince Gazelle and keep him under higher security. In fact, at no point during that meeting was the possibility that he could be dangerous even discussed. And unless things have changed since my last visit to this school, the meeting room where we discussed this is bugged. Should a court for any reason request any evidence pertaining to this that President Kinmari has to offer, he would be legally obligated to turn such a recording over. If you wish to absolve your prince of Equestrian judgement, it will involve taking responsibility for his actions directly onto your own shoulders. I am not your princess, and I ask you this as your friend, not your superior: please put yourself and your nation first. Whatever your feelings for Gazelle, whyever you are trying to spare him from my own ponies' judgement, set them aside and do what leadership calls for."
Meltdown's ears fell, and for a moment she didn't have a reply. Eventually, she turned to Shinespark and Valey. "Help me. Please..."
Shinespark took a deep breath. "Come on, Valey. I think we need to adjourn and discuss for a while."
"Agreed." President Kinmari had been sitting stiffly to the back for a while, and was the first one out the door.
Celestia sighed, giving Meltdown a last look over her shoulder before she departed as well.
Several rooms away, everyone who had left caught up with each other, Celestia looking frustrated and President Kinmari clearly worried. "So what am I to do, Princess?" he asked, scuffing one hoof against the other. "I need stories to tell my ponies, and between you and me, I want one too. And the narrative I'm hearing is that the Empire's representative has terrible decision-making. Is that what you want me taking to the presses?"
Celestia sat down and sighed, rubbing her face with her hooves. "That stupid mare... Why does Garsheeva leave higher government functions in the hooves of a child...?"
"Not reassuring," President Kinmari warned. "You've been good to me and my school, Princess, and I want to be in your camp, here. But if I hold my silence about this past morning, it's going to look like school negligence was involved, and I can't do that even for you. I'm aware you have your own problems to deal with, but this is about to add to them unless I get answers I can use."
Celestia shook her head. "Meltdown is right, you know, when she says she speaks with the authority of Garsheeva. Garsheeva has a habit I disagree with of choosing her delegates with random and obtuse methodologies. Prince Gazelle is clearly at fault, and if for any reason he isn't made to answer it, it's going to create a problem. It will be a problem either way, but it would be a bigger one. But if he is forced to stay here, that could incur the ire of Garsheeva herself... provided she returns from wherever she's vanished to."
"Your Majesty," Shinespark interrupted with a bow. "I have to ask... how heavily is this going to involve us? Because this is exactly the kind of situation we prefer to stay clear of."
"Right. We have you to deal with as well." Celestia groaned and got up again. "That is almost impossible to estimate, but I would advise you to be prepared. While I could keep my earlier deal and either bestow you writs or allow you to collect them on your own, I feel you would rather avoid the attention that could come with any sort of investigation."
Valey frowned. "Real quick, what even is there to investigate? The important stuff's all plain to see: Gazelle's a psycho and he hurt some kids, and we kicked his rear."
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Like I told you, anyone who has anything to gain from this that doesn't involve caring about us, Gazelle or the students could come and look for anything they want to try to make evidence for an unrelated case."
Celestia glanced at her and nodded. "You're not new to this, I see. Would you permit me to make a suggestion?"
"Shoot." Valey shrugged.
"Are conditions in Ironridge survivable?" Celestia asked. "What would be the consequences if you had to return there?"
Shinespark frowned. "Last we were there, the city was without power, infrastructure and any sort of import export capability, with a denser population than it probably should have had. They still have food production capacity and should be able to meet basic sanitation and nutrition needs, and have a capable stallion in charge, but they're very isolated. They were working to fix that, though."
"Then I would advise you to return there as quickly as you can," Celestia replied. "I will give you my word as princess that once any furor from this has died down, I will visit Ironridge and find you, and we can resume our discussion. But if you wish to stay clear of whatever proceedings follow Gazelle's attack, I believe the north may yet be the safest place for you. How quickly can your airship do this?"
Valey cleared her throat. "Forget the airship, what about Felicity? The doctors just said she's not cool to fly."
Celestia folded her ears. "You have Writs of Harmonic Sanction. I think it would be much easier for a lone mare to avoid attention than a large group of northerners."
"They are saying you saved my students from Gazelle," President Kinmari added, addressing Valey and Shinespark. "If you asked me to keep one friend on the down-low who needs our hospital, well... I wouldn't like having her around if there are going to be investigators poking about, but I suppose I owe you a thank-you."
Princess Celestia nodded. "I could also arrange to have her brought to Canterlot via boat and train, where it would be much easier to keep her out of the public eye... if this is what you desire. I understand that you do not want to leave your friend. And I can promise that once she is able, if she wishes, I will help her return to Ironridge as well to rejoin you."
Valey frowned and looked away. "I'll... have to see how she feels about that..."
"There's still the matter of my projects," Shinespark interrupted. "How long would I have to prepare the Dream, if returning to Ironridge was our best path? And what about Meltdown's cooler?"
Celestia shook her head. "For your ship, I would allow yourselves no longer than it takes for me to return to Canterlot. The earlier, the better. As for Meltdown, that will be something you must discuss with her, as we could potentially make this much easier with her cooperation regarding Gazelle. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her yourselves, even." She got up again and started walking away. "I have a very eventful morning to prepare for, and I suspect the rest of you do as well. You should likely get whatever sleep you can. President Kinmari, let us discuss what we do next..."
"Yeah." Valey glanced at Shinespark. "You gonna stay here and bug Meltdown? I wanna check up on Starlight and maybe some other stuff."
"...Perhaps." Shinespark nodded. "Good luck, then. I'll see you around."
Shinespark stepped back into Meltdown's room, surveying the other mare quietly. Eventually, she said, "You realize what a bad situation you're in, right?"
"It would be difficult for me not to," Meltdown grunted, standing in her baggy, tightly-leashed prototype as pumps rumbled in the background. "Equestria's princess isn't playing around." She looked up, meeting Shinespark's eyes. "You've helped me regain some of my functions, and I'm very grateful. What are you going to do next?"
"Ask some questions." Shinespark stood straight. "You're not trying to protect Gazelle because you think it would be pragmatic for your empire. There could be a good outcome, and you might have to say that to Celestia as an excuse, but after all he's done it's ridiculous to even expect it as the most likely outcome. You want my help? Tell me why you're trying to protect Gazelle."
Meltdown evenly met her eyes. "If one of your friends was accused of doing the same, what would you do?"
"This isn't just an accusation," Shinespark replied. "Half a dozen witnesses and a destroyed library are testament to that. But if I knew for sure one of my friends had done this... yes. I would wish ardently for them to come back to the right path."
"Then can you understand my feelings?" Meltdown simply watched her.
"That you want to help him? Yes." Shinespark dragged over a work bench, unloaded a toolbox, and sat down, squarely across from Meltdown. "But what we want to do and what we let ourselves do isn't always the same thing. I can afford to devote all that I have to my friends because I no longer have Ironridge to watch over. In my old life, if I had to choose between a friend and my city?" She shook her head. "I had already dedicated myself to my duty. And you have the Empire to think of."
"...I wouldn't be so sure that I do," Meltdown slowly replied. "The generator has likely been permanently crippled or even destroyed by your stunt in the mountains. With no more power, there is no more Power Distribution Agency. With no more Power Distribution Agency, I have no public avenue to exercise my authority from Garsheeva. Previously, much of my practical authority over the continent came from my ability to make deals and control rates for local lords, which is gone now. And if Garsheeva herself has failed to resurface after these events, I would hardly be able to count on her help reinstating myself."
Shinespark listened patiently, her mane flickering slightly from the breeze of a nearby ventilation duct.
"I could try to win back control," Meltdown continued, "either through force against the provinces or as a hero who protects them and earns their respect. That's what I was several years ago, when I first made a name for myself, though the image faded with time. But I was the prime enforcer for Garsheeva's heresies as well, and with no one providing an overarching law of the land, creatures will likely have started ignoring them... most notably by building mana wells. The more of those appear, the less ability I have to rebuild my old authority structure. And since I would lack a power source either way, enforcing the rules without providing an alternative would do major harm to the Empire's recovery and cement me as a tyrant in the citizenry's eyes."
"You've given this a lot of thought," Shinespark commented.
Meltdown nodded, a tiny hiss of steam escaping from the collar on her suit. "I've had a lot of time to think."
Shinespark nodded in return. "Go on."
"I was nearly finished," Meltdown replied. "The important part is that the Empire and I have paths that would be difficult enough to reconcile already. And so, regaining control seems like a relatively pointless use of my time. I didn't owe them anything. Do you recall my story of how I earned my position?"
"Your village was breaking heresies?" Shinespark gave her a neutral expression. "And you turned them in."
"To be executed," Meltdown finished. "My point is twofold. First, I always had more reason for the Empire to be my enemy than my ally. Garsheeva didn't seem to care when she promoted me. She thought I would judge it as I saw fit. My friends were a large part of why I was a better head of agency than I could have been, in fact... I had two close friends. One was a stallion named Lighthooves who went on his way a long time ago. The other was Gazelle."
She stopped for breath, fiddling with a connection cuff around one of her hooves, and continued. "The second point is that you could place the death of an entire village on my shoulders. It is hardly the only thing, either. Many sarosian pirates perished because I decided Gazelle could hunt them. Pirates who only existed because the Night Mother guided their lives into believing it was acceptable or right. Why did they die? Because I said so. Nothing less and nothing more. So when Gazelle injures ponies here, consider that it is less an act of wild abandon and, in fact, simply what Empire royalty do. Celestia is familiar with the Empire, and she knows this."
Shinespark slowly sighed. "I've commanded ponies to their deaths as well. And there's a difference between making decisions that have consequences and being a predator."
"I didn't say there wasn't." Meltdown shook her head. "And I also didn't say we don't live at the expense of others. Garsheeva accepts her sacrifices. I cause ponies to go without power at night by extorting their lords to keep them in line. Gazelle obtains what he wants through force. That may not be the way of Equestria, but it is the way of the Empire. It is the system Garsheeva allowed to arise. And it likely sounds completely contrarian to your own leadership principals. But, Shinespark... does that mean we are completely incapable of doing good in the world? Do you think our manner of rule would be better than a society without laws altogether? Or one that was more lawful, and eliminated creatures like us altogether?"
Shinespark stared through her, parallel visions of a destroyed Sosan crater and an irrelevant Sosa of shuttered factories drifting together in her mind's eye. "Just because some worlds are better than others doesn't mean those worlds are ideal."
"But they are still better." Meltdown shook her head. "Regardless, it matters not. I'm not trying to convert you to Garsheeva's philosophy and worldview. I don't even find it very tasteful, myself. If I really wanted to build an ideal world, Gazelle and myself certainly wouldn't have a place in it." She took a deep breath, looking up. "Gazelle is my friend because we can relate to each other. He is like me. We don't have to hold pretense around each other, and throughout our years together, we've covered for each other's weaknesses. He can steal the spotlight when I require subtlety, and I can temper his plans and point his chaos in a more productive direction while his passion gave me a direction to point him in. Our dislike for the state of affairs in the Empire was shared. We were very... very close."
"So you'd abandon the Empire to protect Gazelle from a fate he's created for himself," Shinespark said.
Meltdown shrugged. "We need each other. And this is a prime case of when he needs me. Will Equestria demand justice if I take him away? I have no doubts that they will. Will they chase down my past affiliations and come to a land that knows little of the details of our machinations? Celestia herself has given her word. Is that a problem for either of us?" Her eyes narrowed. "I think the answer to that should be self-explanatory."
Shinespark slowly let out a breath. "You're not a good pony and you're not trying to be. You're just trying to protect your friends."
"An instinct you said you understood."
Shinespark looked down, counting the rivets in the floor plating and losing track after five. "I... do. I don't know if it's right, and I don't know what kind of help you want, let alone whether I can provide it, but I understand." Her shoulders slumped, and she drew herself back up. "What are you asking us to do? If you want to risk your own safety on that sphinx, I won't stop you, but I can't in good conscience advocate for risking others' and we are under no circumstances ferrying him anywhere on board our ship. I won't have him around my friends."
"...I appreciate it." Meltdown nodded. "Is there any possibility you could help me to speak with him?"
"That's a question for Princess Celestia." Shinespark adamantly shook her head. "But I'll try to bring you photographs of the damage he did to the archives, and the students' wounds. I know you care about him, but I think you're in denial about exactly what he's capable of. My friends have fought him twice now, and I've seen more than enough of the aftermath."
"Thank you." Meltdown settled back down, her pumps whirring away. "You should attend to your other affairs. I'm sorry you have so many to deal with. I need time to think."
Shinespark got to her hooves, deciding that the conversation was over. "...Right. There's a good chance I'll be back later."
The Immortal Dream was dark when Valey entered, but she was good at seeing in the darkness.
Most of the deck was missing, exposed insulation in the process of being replaced, with holes where it had been removed where the ceiling of the cabins could be seen below. The stairs themselves had been re-slatted; the wood had a faintly different feel beneath her hooves than it once did. Less wear and tear from soldiers with heavy traction boots and horseshoes, for one.
She peeked her head into the engine room, where the equipment racks that controlled the harmony extractor sat gutted, most of their components slid out on carefully-extended trays. A workbench, several chests of equipment and a few tools lay to the side, along with a bucket of dead parts someone had clearly been removing. To the side was a case, looking newer and fancier, that looked to contain new parts ready for insertion.
The library's battered old chairs were gone, and all the books and shelves removed as well. Boards were leaned against the walls to create new shelves, these ones with glass panes that looked designed to seal the books in and keep them from falling off during turbulent weather. A note tacked to one of the boards read, Missing the book crates? We took them to Lazy Leaf's place for page-straightening. Got Shinespark's OK. Cheers!
Valey had to hover down the hallway between the cabins, its floor completely removed. It looked designed to come out, most of the sections propped on holders against the walls, and a large trunk of mana conduits snaked through the space underneath, running from the engine room down through the spine of the ship. She suspected there was another above, beneath the deck, but hadn't gone out of her way to look for it while she was on the surface.
In the cabins themselves, everything had been cleaned and straightened, most of the beds removed and papers placed on all the vanities with room damage reports detailing everything cosmetic or functional that would need to be replaced. After two or three rooms of the same, Valey skipped the rest and passed into the hold, which looked about the same as it always did. Most of its construction was metal, so it showed the least damage from things banging around, and it had more secured cargo than anything else. And it was always messy, anyway.
The pantry was so empty, Valey's stomach growled... though her appetite was suppressed by the heavy scent of cleaners and fragrances spread through the room. Looking at the floor and all its stains and splotches, she had never thought before about just how much food they lost to maneuvers smashing the containers and bags. Replacing the floor in this place was probably a distant priority as well.
She had never spent enough time in the kitchen to know it truly well, but like the hold, it looked normal enough. Stripped of supplies, maybe, but she wasn't about to poke through every cabinet and cupboard to check. Instead, she stepped through into the main hall... and sighed.
The big table that descended from the ceiling was gone, probably out for repairs. All the bench cushions were as well, and the floor was almost as dented as the staircase had been. And despite just as many fragrances and air fresheners as the pantry had held, it still smelled unmistakably of desperate, unwashed soldier. This one might take a complete overhaul of the floor and walls to boot...
Shaking her head, Valey wryly grinned. "Welp?" she said to no one in particular. "Getting this thing shipshape and airborne again in a day or two, tops? Sounds like my kind of impossible. Gonna have to do something real serious to motivate those kids..."
Shinespark pushed her way through a door that was guarded by Celestia's soldiers, the guards uncertainly letting her in. The interior was mostly dark, save for a glowing metal ring that didn't look quite like it was constructed from a worldly material. A forcefield rippled through its center, and caught in that was Gazelle. He was wide awake.
"So this is where they're keeping you," Shinespark said.
"Hello," Gazelle replied, his coat haggard. "What are you here for?"
Shinespark carefully evaluated him. Whatever powered the ring's magic, he wasn't struggling at all... either he had tired himself out already, or resigned himself to being stuck. "I'm curious to hear you explain yourself," she began. "And before you start, don't try to manipulate me or win me over. I don't have any power regarding your fate."
"No need for caution." Gazelle waved a paw, the forcefield flexing slowly to allow him the movement, but clearly not tolerating much more. "Mares like you don't amount to much in affairs like these."
"If you'd rather not talk, I can leave." Shinespark stood stiffly, trusting Gazelle wanted to ramble enough to use this as a threat.
Gazelle sighed and shook his head. "If you want my reasoning, it's simple. The students had something I wanted, so I tried to take it. Rule of the strong. That's all there is to it."
His voice was hoarse, and his lips visibly raw. "Really?" Shinespark asked. "So you just stopped caring about anything else besides what you wanted in the moment."
"That's an accurate way to put it," Gazelle replied. "Except I stopped doing that long, long ago. Now I just found better tools to work with."
"You don't care about your future," Shinespark said. "You don't care about staying out of trouble and keeping your life intact? Celestia is well within her rights to ask for your head."
"Have you even met me?" Gazelle's forehead twitched. "Of course I don't! I care about my sister."
Shinespark seated herself halfway between the sphere and a corner, using her haunches and forgoing a chair. "You don't care about her enough to be patient and keep yourself alive and out of trouble while you look for a better way to get her back?"
"What better way?" Gazelle chuckled. "Do you even know what I was trying to accomplish? Have you talked with your filly?"
Shinespark watched him evenly. "I know that you attacked and tried to kill five students and our Starlight."
"False on both counts." Gazelle huffed. "I don't fight fillies. It's a cardinal rule of mine, and I would have left her perfectly alone if she had stopped interfering and trying to protect my prey on any of the myriad times I politely asked. Second, I couldn't care less whether the students live or die. They don't matter to me. What I needed was their brands." His eyes briefly glowed like coals. "Brands are hope. Hope is emotion. Sphinxes eat emotion and sustain both their power and immortality using it. Garsheeva fed herself on sacrifices. If she can do it, why shouldn't I?"
Shinespark didn't even blink. "Who said it was alright that she did it?"
Gazelle rolled his eyes. "No reaction? Of course you already knew. I thought someone was hiding this from me. Just my luck. Lucky you, I'm in a forgiving mood... Or not. I'm stuck, so it doesn't even matter. And isn't it obvious? She said it was alright. Garsheeva. A god. Just like me."
Shinespark set her jaw. "And who gave her the right to set that morality?"
"Oh, you know..." Gazelle whistled innocently. "The hundreds of thousands of souls who worshipped her either as herself or the Night Mother and decided that whatever she says goes? Without ever really caring what she was like. I'll bet you anything they'd do the same for me if I was two thousand years old and sculpted a continent around my own whimsy. Why, she even raised and commanded those poor little sarosians to exalt their holy war of piracy, just so she could dine on them with her other half. That one gives even me goosebumps. But don't you get it? When you're like her or me, you don't need to care about what anyone else thinks is right. You make right simply by speaking. Feel free to disagree, of course. I really don't care one way or the other."
"You're completely insane," Shinespark replied.
"According to your system of rationality, maybe." Gazelle shrugged, his prison flickering and groaning as the energy flashed to keep him contained. "I'm guessing it's one Celestia shares. She gets to make her own rules too, you know. And maybe things really are fluffy enough here you can afford to be nice and sweet and peaceful like that. Ever tell yourself that? How maybe things will be so much nicer and more peaceful here than they were in the north? Now that you're free from all the bad ponies like me?"
Shinespark narrowed her eyes, strongly suspecting he was leading up to a parallel that would degrade her for being from the north just like him. "And that's not how things work where we're from. I'm well aware."
Gazelle pouted. "Well, if you're just here to finish my speeches for me, why do I even bother?" He raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes at the same time. "Why are you here, Ironridge princess? Morbid curiosity?"
"Meltdown," Shinespark replied. "What about her? Is she someone you care about?"
Gazelle shrugged. "If you're asking whether she can ever replace Gwendolyn, the answer is no, never, not a chance, maybe in your dreams and get lost, thank you very much. But I care about her a lot when I can afford to. The myriad practical reasons to keep her around aside, I'm quite fond of her."
Shinespark stared into his eyes. "She's trying to commit political suicide to bail you out from Celestia, and as a former head of government I can guarantee you she's going to fail and put both herself and the Empire in a very bad spot. If you care about her, tell me what I can say to her to make her cut her losses, go home and try to make a new life for herself somewhere free from all this."
Gazelle blew a raspberry. "A new life free from all this? She's tethered to technology at the hip. She can't survive without power enough to keep it maintained and rebuild it when she fails. What's she saying, that the Empire needs me to survive? Risking a very unhappy Equestria to squirrel me away to the north through some legal loophole?"
"...Yes." Shinespark blinked. "That exactly."
"Heh." Gazelle chuckled. "I know her well. She's not doing it for me. She's doing it to get Equestria on the Empire's tail. Give them yet another common enemy they need her help to rebuild and face. It's a power play, keeping herself where she can rebuild her armor. Saving me is just a bonus."
Shinespark couldn't stop her eyes from widening slightly. Gazelle saw it and laughed harder. "What? You think she's nicer than me? Anything but cunning, even? Never ask to hear how she got promoted to her position and received her flame powers, then. She might tell you, and your image of her wouldn't like it."
"What are you doing?" Shinespark whispered. "She's your friend. She might even love you. She's the only one sticking up for you right now. How could you ever think it's a good idea trying to turn me against her?"
Gazelle shrugged. "I've never been the brains of the operation. That's her job. I'm saying what I think. But do you really want to know what I'm thinking?"
His eyes took on a gleeful, dangerous glint, and Shinespark hesitated. This might be getting into dangerous territory... "What?"
"Starlight," Gazelle said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I want her gone. I want you and your friends to give up on me, give up on Meltdown, give up on the Empire, want nothing more to do with us and this blasted place and forget all about this and leave us for a lost cause. I don't want you thinking, 'oh, they must have a good side, let's stick around and help-' No! I am a god. And whatever she is, she stood in my way. I despise fighting fillies, but if I have to move her out of my way I'll be forced to do so again. So I want all of you to throw in the towel, pack it in, take that kid and scram. I'm warning you, I have backup plans for how to use you if you don't. Now forget about me, ditch Meltdown and go chase your happily ever after."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "And if we kill you now and ensure you won't come back to haunt us?"
Gazelle shrugged, glancing briefly at the cutie mark on his flanks. "I doubt you will. I doubt Celestia would let you. But if I'm wrong, I'll finally reunite with Lyn... and we'll both be far too dead to care."
"...So be it." Shinespark got to her hooves and left.
Gerardo greeted Shinespark at the door of Generosity Two. "You look grim," he remarked. "Where's Valey?"
"Off doing her own thing," Shinespark replied. "Not sure where. We met with Princess Celestia, President Kinmari and Meltdown, and after that I went alone to talk to Gazelle."
Gerardo winced, swinging the door wide open. "With all due respect, are you sure that was wise? Certain enemy agents have these ways with words that make them very dangerous to talk to alone."
Shinespark shook her head, seeing that most of the house was up and waiting in the living room, even though it was still half an hour before sunrise. "I already had the condition that there was nothing we were going to do to intervene in his fate. I might break that and advise Celestia to kill him now, and let that lead to whatever consequences it needs to with the Empire. But I also think I've given up on Meltdown and will be leaving her to her own fate as well. The Immortal Dream is my top priority now. This island has ran out of time to offer us."
Harshwater looked up from where she was playing with her feathers on the couch. "You want us to fly? Can Felicity manage that?"
Shinespark winced. "I'm... going to need Valey to help talk to her. We'll have to discuss options. But the good news is that both Princess Celestia and President Kinmari are still in our corner, and both of them could easily group us with the imperials and decide we're not worth the trouble."
"Guess it doesn't hurt to count our blessings," said Amber from the kitchen. "So be honest with us. What's the best-case outcome right now?"
"The best?" Shinespark frowned. "We get the Dream airborne and go back to Ironridge. It's not the life any of you want, but we'd at least be allied with everyone in power. We do this to lay low in case there's political fallout between Equestria and the Empire from Gazelle's attack. Once that's thoroughly over, Princess Celestia will return and we can resume discussions."
"Do we trust her to keep her word on that?" Gerardo tilted his head.
Shinespark paused. "...Yes. I would. She isn't obligated to by any means, but I think she wants to keep tabs on us if nothing else."
"What about Felicity, then?" Amber asked. "If we're heading to Ironridge long-term..."
"Princess Celestia would work with us." Shinespark shook her head. "She said any Writs of Harmonic Sanction we earn and use ourselves would be fine. It's mostly talk of opening the border that could be difficult with political uncertainty, and giving out free writs to ponies who were with Gazelle that could get us mired in things we want to avoid. But we still have two writs now, and she promised to take care of Felicity if we left her behind. President Kinmari would work with us too. But in the end, I can't make a decision on this without consulting Felicity herself."
"What's that about Felicity?"
The door banged open, Valey ducking through and closing it behind her with her tail. "Hey, girl. You beat me home."
Shinespark nodded. "Talking about her fate if we really do have to return to Ironridge."
Valey's ears flopped. "Oh. Yeah. Still kinda holding out for a miracle on that one, but hey. We'll see what she says. So, we thinking that's the plan?"
"That's what we've been hearing," Gerardo cut in.
Shinespark sighed. "I talked to Meltdown, and after her, Gazelle. I think those two are a sinking ship, Valey. I'm not happy about what could happen if Gazelle gets his freedom, and I'm also not very happy with Meltdown either, but we have to consider if we want them to be our problem and if we do, how we solve it. Leaving is... always our answer when things go wrong, but I'm starting to agree with the princess. This may be our best option."
"I just checked out the ship." Valey raised an eyebrow. "You think we can get it flying any time soon?"
"That's up to the students who are helping us," Shinespark replied.
Valey got a little grin. "So you mean it's up to me."
"If you have plans to motivate them..."
"Nyaah. Mind-reader." Valey stuck out her tongue. "Whatever, though. We really wanna mess with a boatload of weird artifacts again? The whole thing where we were flying around with all those windigo hearts... We're pretty sure they're bad, but they're also our fuel."
"Work with the scientists." Shinespark shook her head. "See if there's anything you can figure out. And if not... it's only a month. Once we get back to Ironridge, we can take the hearts to the crystal palace and leave them there until we need them again. I bet they'll be safe there. Yakyakistan had studied them, and thought they could leave them there indefinitely, at least."
Valey stretched. "Cool. I guess this is the plan, then?"
"It's coming together," Gerardo replied. "I can't imagine you'll get away with it without talking to everyone, but, well... you all know my feelings about the open horizon."
"Yeah." Valey nodded, staring at the bedroom door. "Felicity, Ironflanks, Starlight... We gotta find a way to make this work for everyone. Not just the ones it benefits. Wish me luck, nerds. Gonna take a lot of stuff to make this go as well as they deserve."
In the bedroom, Starlight sat in a mostly-conscious daze, riding out her horn's waves of dizziness as Maple tended to her headache with cold, wet rags and Felicity pretended to slumber in the background. The rags helped enough for Starlight to know that the batpony was only pretending, though her horn was also finally cooling off just from not being used.
She was feeling better already. Marginally, a drop in the bucket, but still. Maybe she'd be back to her usual self if she stayed off it for a few weeks, just like normal.
Normal... This was her normal. Try to live her life, not raise too much of a fuss about herself. Something would happen, and she would blow out her horn, and her friends would move again, and she along with them. At least Gazelle hadn't broken the cycle by permanently hurting them. Just because they hadn't found success any of the last times they'd moved, looking for a new home, didn't mean they wouldn't have better luck this time.
It didn't really matter, though. Starlight couldn't find it in herself to worry about what would happen next. Because right there, with her horn broken and the enemies she broke it fighting restrained or dealt with, she was right back where she had been before.
It was familiar. As much as she didn't like being here, it was home.
And maybe it was something else, something she didn't feel like thinking hard enough to put her hoof on. She might have been able to get up and walk, if the situation called for it... but she didn't need to. As helpless as she was, her head spinning like a sawblade, it didn't matter because Maple could go bring her anything she needed.
She didn't have to care. It was nice, not needing to care.
"How are you doing?" Maple whispered, pausing with one of the rags.
"Don't stop," Starlight mumbled, her muzzle scrunched in the crook of a foreleg. "That helps."
Maple hummed in acknowledgement and obliged, the cool rag once again returning to Starlight's head.
"Hey, so..." Valey quietly appeared beside them. "I know it's probably not gonna be a good time for a while, but is this any worse of a time than the others?"
"We heard you talking," Maple softly replied. "You weren't quiet. We're going back to Ironridge, aren't we?"
Felicity's tail flicked in her feigned sleep. She was propped on a carefully-constructed mound of pillows that let her lie right side up without putting pressure on her foal, and she had a little pout on her face she was probably choosing not to hide on purpose.
"Well... uh... yeah. About that." Valey glanced between them. "We've got, uh, two Writs of Harmonic Sanction. And the princess pony says no one should look twice at us if we stick around here using them, as opposed to taking the free ones from her offer." She stepped closer to Felicity's pillow mound, staring evenly at her. "And... that's you, girl. If you can't travel and we can't stay... what do you wanna do?"
"Doesn't seem to be much of a choice," Felicity mumbled grumpily, keeping her eyes closed.
Valey shrugged. "It's totally a choice. Just one of whether we go with the flow, or say screw that and do everything we can to stay together. We're stubborn. We aren't swimming in options, but we're real good at making them."
"Darling, be real with yourself," Felicity replied. "You want to know an easy option you could take? Ignore the professionals and drag me along with you regardless. And if that sounds like a bad idea, consider that just about anything you do is going to have the same flavor to it. Taking some sound idea or good advice and throwing it away like a wad of crumpled paper because you want to prove that just because you know better doesn't mean you have to admit to yourself that some ways really are better than others."
Valey blinked hard. "What? Uh, you lost me."
Felicity sighed. "I appreciate your valiant intentions, but you aren't going to find a way to keep me and my inconvenient condition around without indulging in a whole host of other bad ideas."
"Yeah, probably not." Valey sat down on the edge of the bed, stretching her hind legs aimlessly. "Still doesn't mean you've gotta be okay with it."
Behind her, Maple spoke up. "We have two writs. Starlight and I could stay with her, if it would help."
"You and Starlight? Felicity needs one too, you know." Valey folded her forelegs and raised an eyebrow. "And either way, don't you have a history with... you know...?"
Maple looked away. "Starlight is an Equestrian. I don't know how they tell pony nationalities, but if anything, she'd need one to go back north."
"Oh bananas." Valey's ears fell. "You're right. That means even if you used one, depending on how they secure the place, you wouldn't be able to rejoin us in the north even after Felicity has her kid..."
"Yes we would," Starlight mumbled. "Didn't stop me from going there once in the first place..."
Maple looked from her to Valey. "She does have a point."
"Huh." Valey sat back and exhaled. "Still... bananas. Felicity, girl, I really don't wanna leave you alone. I'm almost tempted to grab the other writ and stay back here myself, but..."
That was enough to snap Felicity's eyes open. "But that would involve leaving all your other friends behind for me. You're really considering it though, aren't you?"
Valey groaned. "If only we had like one more writ...! Bananas. But yeah. All for one and one for all. Doctors or no, it's not going to be an easy time for you." She looked over Felicity's form and nodded sympathetically. "I don't wanna leave you alone, though. I wish there was a way to just pick you up and bring you with us."
"I still wouldn't mind staying behind," Maple volunteered. "Taking the other one. Staying with Starlight and Felicity. Of course... I don't want to ask Starlight to stay here and let all of you leave, either. A big, selfish part of me wants to ask for the other writ for her..."
"It's not selfish," Felicity interrupted, "it's caring! And you're doing it for others, are you not? If suffering through months of being bedridden on my own is the price for keeping the rest of you together, it's a price I... well... I really do mind paying. But I still owe you my life, after all. And who knows? Perhaps I'll manage to seduce a nurse if I'm all on my lonesome."
Starlight narrowed her eyes, her head pounding. "I told you, don't waste one on me! My old home is right on the way to Ironridge. If they somehow figure out and try to stop me from crossing, you can just leave me there and I'll see you all again in three weeks or so. I did it once, I can do it again."
Felicity folded her ears. "Darling-"
"Well...!" Valey loudly sighed. "It's no use fighting over all this. Felicity, I am not gonna make you stay behind, and I am not gonna make you do it on your own. But if you're gonna volunteer anyway, knowing full well that you don't have to? I will thank you harder than anyone I've ever thanked before."
Felicity looked a mix of hopeful and confused. "Now, not that I'd ever presume to even presume, darling, but I really hope you aren't offering-"
Valey waved a hoof. "Whatever you're about to guess, nah. We are going to fly to Ironridge, make sure everything's snazzy, and then I will personally do a tour of Varsidel and Yakyakistan with whoever wants to come. I'll kick a lot of face, chase down every lead I find, bribe some politicians, defraud some collectors, whatever it takes to get us a bunch more writs. Celestia's offer she thinks we need fifteen years for? I'm gonna make her look like a joke."
She waggled her eyebrows. "You watch. Forget opening the border, we're gonna get enough writs that we can all come back here on our own power, without worrying about politics, and we're gonna get 'em fast enough that I can cheer you up again before you even have your kid. How's that sound?"
Maple squinted. "Do you actually think we can do that?"
"Nyaah. Sure we can. At least, I know I can." Valey stuck out her tongue, then clasped Felicity's shoulders. "So what about it? Think that thought will help keep you afloat until we stick it to the border and get to see you again?"
"I think I'll miss your ridiculous optimism dearly," Felicity wryly chuckled. "But very well. If you can ensure I'll be in trusted hooves, I think I can survive a few months of being in a lonely, lucid coma."
Valey nuzzled her cheek. "Glad we gave you a second chance, girl."
"Don't make me change my mind, now. Or I'll find other friends while you're gone!"
"I hope you do," Valey assured, trotting back a ways. "Bananas, all of us need to branch out and chill with more than just each other. Good luck."
Slowly, she trailed off, running out of things to say. Eventually, she turned back to Maple and Starlight. "So. Now that Felicity just gave you girls her blessing, we've got one spare writ to keep you together. Equestrian filly, Riverfall mare... I'm guessing you want it, Starlight. To follow us to Ironridge with no hassles."
Starlight groggily shook her head. "No. You can't transfer them. Hold onto it so we can use it later if there's a problem. It's safer that way..."
Valey blinked and nodded. "Huh. Smart kid. Yea, okay." She stretched her wings. "We're really doing this? You three were the ones who we thought might have the most objections. Everyone else is gung ho and good to go. We're doing this song and dance again?"
"A few more times and we'll be professional nomads," Maple said with a shake of her head.
Valey snorted. "Pretty sure we passed that marker a long time ago. Hey, though. We've got a lot of work on the ship that needs to be finished, rewiring and restocking and fixing all the open floors, and probably some other business to take care of before we can set out in the first place. So if you've got any last things to take care of, take care of them within the next few days. And if you don't, just chillax. Sparky and I will get this handled, and Birdo and Amber and the others are on board too."
Maple nodded, letting her go. Valey left with a last look and a wink at Felicity, a silent promise to hang out more before they left. And then she closed the door behind her with her tail, and that was that.
They were leaving. And it wasn't just like last time: they were leaving one of their friends behind.
Starlight gave a groggy glance toward Felicity. The batpony wasn't her closest friend on the ship, but she had been nice to her several times. Starlight remembered the brightness she saw from her while under the effects of moon glass. Close or no, this wasn't a mare she was happy to be leaving behind.
But... maybe she could do it. The logical side of her brain said that Felicity didn't do much for her and Maple and Amber and Valey would still be there, and it wouldn't be the end of the world even if it felt like it for a little. On the one hoof, that wasn't much consolation if it felt like it anyway, because her feelings mattered too. But on the other, if she could do this...
It wasn't much, letting Felicity go. But maybe it would be a step in the right direction towards not being completely destroyed by losing her friends again. Maybe this was what Glimmer was trying to guide her towards.
She could survive losing Felicity. She knew this. It didn't feel great, admitting that it was true. It was like letting go of some comforting scrap of perfectionism, a tiny sliver of a perfect record that could never be perfect again without it. But it also felt necessary. It felt right, not in that it was good, but that it was true. Somewhere a week's travel away, she wondered if an orange flame she didn't remember was happy with her. She'd take all the pride she could get.
...Because if she started letting go of the ponies in her life now, how long would it be until the next one left too?
Starlight was out of answers for herself, but fighting it would mean throwing away the ones she had already found. Maybe if she could keep moving forward, she would someday live a normal life like the carefree filly she wondered if she had ever been.
Right then, with the dawn light coloring the heavily-curtained window, all there was to do was tearlessly cry herself to sleep.
"Meltdown did make one point I agreed with," Shinespark told Princess Celestia, standing in the southern field near the airship the princess had arrived upon as squads of guards went about preparing the vessel to leave. "All the structures that kept her in power are gone. You're worried about damaging relations with the Empire if you overrule her and force Gazelle to stay in Equestria for sentencing, but you'd really be damaging relations with her. You have to consider how much authority she has on her own."
"I have considered it, my little pony," Celestia replied. "But in the end, if my acquiescence to the will of Garsheeva's representative results in a problem for her empire, perhaps it will merely teach her to be more careful with how she distributes power. While I am open to discussion, I am growing inclined toward letting this become entirely an Empire problem. Gazelle is their product, after all."
Shinespark blinked. "That's... Permission to speak freely?"
"I have never held the pretense of revoking it."
Shinespark took a breath. "That's a surprisingly ruthless answer, given what I've seen of you so far. The Empire must be in no condition for a tyrant, and he could actually seize power unless Garsheeva stepped in to stop him. And what if he started invading other nations? He's miserable, and you could do the whole world a favor by stopping him and Meltdown right here. I feel more sorry for her than Gazelle, but she isn't the best pony, either."
Celestia raised an eyebrow. "Who said anything about acting without Garsheeva's approval? I only have one ship, after all."
Shinespark's muzzle scrunched. "Wait..."
"It has been some time since I met with my northern counterpart last," Celestia went on. "It is a detour, flying to Grandbell before I return to Canterlot, but not an insurmountable one, and my ship is swift. I think it will be the best of both worlds if I deliver them home myself, and personally see to it that they are subjected to the will of their own subjects. Would Gazelle be a tyrant? It is not unlikely. And if his ponies reject him and turn him back over to my hooves, and Garsheeva does not appear and intervene, Meltdown has little authority to take him back, indeed. A leader can only lead their ponies to the extent that those ponies allow it."
"Clever. So you're counting on the Empire to ignore Meltdown and send him back to you to deal with." Shinespark narrowed her eyes. "But what if they don't? What if they take him?"
"It is not my job to protect the ponies and griffons of another nation from things they desire, but will hurt them." Celestia shook her head, two stallions carrying a crate past in the background. "I am the princess of Equestria, not the world. That is part of why I created the Aldenfold a thousand years ago. If they wish to give Meltdown and Gazelle another chance, that is their fate to wish for."
"And what if he starts invading other nations?" Shinespark whispered. "Like Ironridge? Ironridge is helpless..."
Celestia pursed her lips. "I do not think that is very likely. Last I checked, the Empire has no air fleet with which to approach Ironridge by. Furthermore, their armies are already occupied defending the Empire mainland after its recent catastrophe. Finally, Ironridge as a target has little strategic importance to them. It is fully isolated and its economy is in tatters, and when it wasn't, it was a primary exporter of food and metal, something the Empire has little need for with their vast swaths of farmland and low level of industry. It would be a suspect tactical decision at best, and even if they were to invade, I have a feeling you could repel whatever small force they did prove able to muster."
Shinespark furrowed her brow in thought.
"Finally, if you are truly worried, it may not be difficult to build Ironridge a standing army," Celestia added. "You have adequate food and an overabundance of population. If you were concerned about threats to your city, you could easily fortify it."
"Good points," Shinespark sighed. "I just... so... You're taking Gazelle and Meltdown north yourself?"
"I had meant to return to Canterlot with all due haste," Celestia said. "But given the circumstances, this is the best course of action. I will still be able to preside over Gazelle's fate myself, without denying Meltdown's request. Besides, even if I did turn him over to her, they would have few other means to return to the Empire themselves."
Shinespark took a breath and exhaled. "Alright, then."
"You still have reservations," Celestia said.
"No, I..." Shinespark swallowed. "It's just that we haven't ever seen an enemy come back to follow us from beyond the grave. Herman, Chauncey... They all stayed dead."
"If Gazelle somehow does return to harass you, I don't think there will be any capable of taking his judgement out of your hooves."
Shinespark massaged her forehead. "Not a consoling thought."
"It is a large world, Shinespark," Celestia said quietly. "What makes you so certain your paths will cross again?"
"Because that's just how our luck works sometimes."
Celestia looked away and exhaled. "If it is any consolation, this will delay my arrival in Canterlot by perhaps a week or so, depending on the duration of my visit to the Empire. You will have more time to prepare your ship and bid farewell to the friend you are leaving."
"I need to think for a while." Shinespark shook her head and turned away as well. "I just wish this could be simpler. I wish this could be done and over with."
Celestia took a moment to answer. "Life goes on, except when it doesn't. And that state of being over and done with does not leave room for any more living."
"I know."
"You will always have things in your life you wish you didn't have to deal with," Celestia continued. "But from what I have seen of you so far, you are a remarkably resilient mare who was far worse off when we first met than you are now. But leave handling Gazelle to me. I will ensure he does not meet a fate I am unsatisfied with."
"...It's your decision." Shinespark stood up and turned to leave. "Just be careful with them."
Behind her, Celestia nodded. "My departure draws near. I may not see you again soon, but I will come to Ironridge and find you the moment these events have left Equestria's general awareness. I still believe you and your friends have significant things waiting in your future, and do not wish to lose sight of you. Take care of your crew, Shinespark."
"I will. I swear it."
Two ponies worked together, one holding a side panel in the Immortal Dream while the other tightened screws. Valey strolled past them, clad in the fluffiest cheerleader outfit she could find, grinning and waving at everyone she passed.
"We're already motivated, you know," a stallion said in the engine room, poking out his tongue in concentration as he compared small text scrawled on the slide-out hardware trays in the equipment racks to writing on a sheet of paper. "No need to distract us."
"Not what the last five folks said." Valey shrugged, moving on. "Keep up the good work, though!"
On the deck, most of the damaged insulation had been removed, and new sheets of it were stacked, ready to be inserted after the students were done replacing the wiring in the cabin ceilings. The wall section between the staircase and the door to the bridge had been replaced, she realized, with a carved mural of a verdant mountain range. Had that even been there before? The old wall had been too nicked and scratched for her to remember.
A day passed, and the crew of students rotated slightly, the ceiling wiring finished and the insulation going in. Another came around, and the new deck was going in, sounds of hammers rampant within the dry dock as students nailed the boards down with their best thwacks.
The floor in the dining hall was out, now, along with the tops of the benches along the walls. Ponies carried out dented floorboards smelling faintly of sweat and filth and carried in new ones, the inner hull beneath the floor still in perfect condition. Valey cheered the students on as they fixed the winch system used to control the central table, toggling the switch herself to test it using a power conduit threaded in from outside.
Another day passed, and the lights were working, the ship's central power distribution back online. Valey watched two nerdy students arguing over whether it was time to test with a mana core or continue running the ship on power directly from Kinmari, but didn't really care now that the heated floors were working again. How long had those been broken? Either some point during the crossing between Ironridge and the Empire, or they were entirely new. But her hooves had never felt this cozy.
Professor Sea Star showed up the day after that, lugging along a wire mesh cage made out of a faintly silvery metal. Valey followed along at a distance, gathering they had been testing it with the windigo hearts, and it seemed effective in reducing their passive effects on ponies nearby. Of course, they already had Amber's suitcase, which had apparently been made with the same kind of metal, but this would work on the heart that was being actively drawn from, too. Shinespark interrupted with a rousing discussion that this was actually a metal type that occurred in Ironridge, and a lot of postulating occurred that it might be found naturally near crystal palaces. Maybe that was where it got its properties.
It didn't take long after that for them to start testing the harmony extractor. The students were still repairing the wire guidelines for the comet, so it wasn't there yet, but a starry orange mist floated inside the shining rail cage in the engine room more than once when Valey looked inside.
That was her cue to put back the ship's terminal. Its data storage blank and everything else in proper order, Valey scooted around on her back and attached fine wires with her wings, still in her cheerleader outfit, giving at least one of the students working on replacing burnt-out instruments in the dashboard a bloody nose. The windshield had been replaced long ago, and was cleaner than Valey had ever seen.
The students started early on the process of restocking the ship, the moment the pantry floor had been replaced and all the hallways were walkable again. It was a longer process than Valey expected, some of the furniture needing to be re-bolted down after it had broken free of its previous restraints during the ship's many gravitational fiascos. It took two full days for them to properly re-shelve the library, new and improved with cases around the bookshelves to stop the books from falling off.
Even Shinespark helped to reload the ship, her time much freer now that Meltdown was gone and she didn't have that project to tend to. Valey counted the days by how many times Felicity complained about her girth, her friend somehow not losing spirit despite the inevitable, impending prospect of their goodbye, and as the two-week marker neared, it finally felt like they were really almost done.
Shinespark turned on the harmony comet. First test. Everything seemed to go smoothly.
Second test. One of the ship's stabilizers wasn't properly connected.
Third test. That problem was resolved.
Fourth test. They had the ship flying on its own, Valey and Starlight and everyone else turning out to watch it hover in place. Shinespark didn't stop, opting instead to test the propulsion at the same time, and it felt like the whole island saw as the ship drifted out through the western bay, riding several feet above the water.
"Well?" Valey stretched, standing next to Maple and stretching in her well-worn outfit. "Looks like we're back in the air."
"It looks like we are..."
"Yep." Valey nodded seriously. "I'm gonna owe a lot of students last-minute dates as thank-yous."
"All that in just four weeks," Maple said, staring up at the hovering Dream from the dock where she and the rest of her friends were waiting. Shinespark was visible through the windshield, sitting back in her old pilot's chair, and everyone else was gathered beside her, even Felicity and Jamjars.
Gerardo tapped a talon. "They must have done quite the extensive repairs this time around. I recall the last time we blew out the harmony extractor, Arambai and Shinespark had it fixed practically overnight."
"I was not there," Grenada replied, watching the boat with a critical eye. "But the Dream's mana circuitry is designed to be modular and easily replaceable. Most of the time here came from aesthetic reparations while we were waiting for Kinmari to fabricate some of the parts to Shinespark's specifications. Which the ship hardly needed, but badly deserved."
Maple nodded, the harmony comet burning bright in her vision. "Still, they replaced the floors and the deck and the outer hull..."
"I'm more impressed by the resources on display than the speed," Gerardo added. "Construction, well... you can put some ponies on the decks, and others on the floors for each room, and parallelize much of it. But this island is rather devoid of trees, and I didn't see any major logging operations when I joined up with the campers elsewhere in the archipelago. I'd hazard a guess they imported all this lumber, and likely at cost."
"Even if you can split it up between ponies, it's still a big job." Amber shook her head. "Maple, I think I told you, but after I stayed behind in Riverfall and things calmed down a bit, I got some friends of ours together and started fixing up and rebuilding your house after it got vandalized. But since someone hacked at all the core supports, it takes a bit more than a new coat of paint."
"We are fortunate the Dream has a sound frame," Grenada added.
In the air, the Immortal Dream slowly turned and descended, maneuvering itself into a water landing at an open dock. With a ripple of waves, it touched down, settling into a gentle bob, and the students arrayed along the wharf behind them all cheered.
"Bananas." Valey wiped her brow, still in her cheerleader outfit, looking more at the crowd than the boat. "Pretty sure each and every one of those kids is someone who helped us. There have to be at least fifty of them... Ahh, this is gonna be a long night."
"Well, if you've been following the local news, the island is rather fond of us," Felicity pointed out, leaning on Amber's shoulder for support. "They, at least, are grateful enough for our help with that Gazelle incident that they're not throwing us out for risk of political turmoil..."
The sun was low enough on the horizon that it had sunken behind the shoreline hill, illuminating the Dream with sunset rays while bathing everyone watching in cool shadows. In the oncoming twilight, it was slightly more difficult to make out student faces than it was during the day, but some still stood out as more familiar than others. As the ship settled into the water and Shinespark worked to extend the gangplank, Ebb stepped forward, flanked by Flow and a few other students.
"Lucky for us, we're not agents of political turmoil," he greeted, blowing on his bangs. "Hey. Fixing your ship might have taken some doing, but it means we get our names on a piece of northern history. How many of these folks you think will one day tell their kids about the time they fixed up the airship of some important northerners during their schooling? Because I know I will."
Valey wiggled her pom-poms. "Well, someone's considerably less starstruck than when we first met. What's up with that, chief?"
"Save it." Ebb shook his head. "It's called getting to be a part of history instead of an observer. Someday, I'm gonna be able to say, hey, I knew those guys!"
"Hi... and, what he said." Flow waved tensely, looking somewhat frazzled being at the front of the group.
To their side, Shinespark stepped onto the dock, engine grease in her mane and smudges all over her face. She briefly surveyed the crowd, knowing exactly how to look exhausted without looking weak. "Well, ponies... this is what you've done."
"Speech?" Gerardo chirped.
"Speech! Speech!" several students echoed, starting a chant.
Shinespark smiled a little smile, letting them carry on for a moment before bringing order with a loud clear of her throat. "I want to tell you all a little about this history of this airship," she began, stepping sideways so that her cutie mark was plain to see.
"In the northern world, airship technology is only a few decades old. My home, Sosa, tried to be at the leading edge of air travel development, but their program was shuttered after a major accident over twenty years ago." Shinespark started to pace, walking from side to side down the dockside and its crowd of students. A few professors were there, too. "That program's knowledge passed into the hooves of the few individuals who still cared to make it happen all by themselves. Myself... my father... my brother... We spent years researching, building, breaking into new technologies we often didn't even know would exist, let alone be possible to harness."
She turned around and resumed her walk in the other direction. "The inner hull of this ship is indestructible by every metric we had access to. A stallion named Mobius developed it over a decade, trying to revolutionize water travel and save his industry amid the advent of airships. The outer hull is braced with self-reparation runes, technology from Yakyakistan that its people created so they could build even in the harshest conditions. The interior, the rooms and walls and cabins, were made by boat-builders who came from long lines of boat-builders and had lost their jobs, and needed a masterwork so they could hold onto their pride in their skills. For years and years after she was seaworthy, they didn't put down their tools because there was still more they could pour into this ship."
Shinespark stopped and breathed, gazing out at the floating ship, its orange comet illuminating the shoreline like a celebratory bonfire. "The engine is my father's creation, and mine. This entire ship is made from the dreams and wishes of many different groups... and now you've added yours as well." She resumed facing the crowd, and no longer paced. "There are some who believe objects and places surrounded by the strongest emotions can carry on those emotions themselves, like a battlefield or a church. That is why we call her the Immortal Dream: she carries in her circuitry and woodwork and hull and trim the hopes of so many contributing ponies. Your names are written on her as well, now, and the goodwill with which you helped us for nothing in return will live on and sustain us when our road gets hard again. We won't forget this... and neither will the Dream. Thank you."
She finished with a bow to loud hoofstomps of applause. "Now that was a speech!" someone whooped from the crowd.
"You're good at this, you know?" Amber gave Shinespark a grin and a wink.
"Just doing my job," Shinespark exhaled, the weariness a lot more apparent now that she let her mask drop. "Ooh... That was a long four weeks. Gerardo, Amber, Valey! Could you organize a deck party for everyone? We won't be setting out until tomorrow afternoon, since there's some final polish and loading fresh supplies to do, and I need to do some meetings in the morning..."
"Only if you clean yourself up," Gerardo chided. "Wouldn't want our new beds dirtied already. But otherwise, of course! Let me just round up a few volunteers to go on a supply run for some food and seating..."
"Ehh..." Valey grinned awkwardly in her cheerleader costume as Gerardo and Amber left to consort with the students and rally a party. "Sounds like a blast, but I made some promises I gotta keep. You don't mind, right?"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "You were serious when you promised to go out with them to motivate them?"
Valey whistled innocently.
"There are dozens of them," Shinespark said flatly. "And we didn't press this hard to finish so we could sit around and dawdle once it was done. We want to make it across the border before security tightens significantly in Gazelle's aftermath. Princess Celestia gave me a letter with the royal seal that should get us through any trouble, but I'd rather not have to use it in the first place."
Valey nodded along like a bobblehead as Shinespark talked. "Oh yeah. Nope. Heard you loud and clear. One night for... however many this is?" She shrugged at the crowd, who were already enjoying themselves on the dock. "I'm a speedy girl."
Shinespark gave her a look.
"Seriously, I'm kind accounting on a few of them to bail," Valey admitted. "Like, the ones who don't want to stay up until four in the morning to get a shot at me, or the ones who don't swing this way. But I'm sure it'll work out!"
Shinespark's expression didn't change.
"...I still owe you that kiss I promised four weeks ago," Valey finally said. "The one I said I'd save for when we got back from the flame."
That was what Shinespark was waiting for. "That's not a kind of thing that can be delivered on contract," she replied. "...But yes. You did say that."
Valey almost looked away, but didn't. "So, uh... Which me do you like better? Shameless bouncy philanderer, or serious about commitments? 'Cuz I can do either, but, like, we've talked about this before."
"My ship is repaired," Shinespark replied. "This is the best condition it's been in for many months. All of us have new leases on life... Even Felicity, and she's the one who has to stay behind. Do what you need to, Valey. I wouldn't stand in your way now that you're having fun again. But I just want you to know, we've never really... done anything together. There were laws in the Empire, and you were dead in the foothills, and I've been busy at Kinmari, and..." She shook her head. "This time is special for me. Get out and enjoy the fruits of civilization while you have the chance, but just remember that I'd... enjoy spending some of this with you."
Valey met her eyes with a little grin. "So what you're telling me is, use the students for practice dates, and then come hang out with you for the real thing."
"That's the most unromantic acceptance I've ever been given," Shinespark informed her.
"Probably the only one you've ever been given as well."
"Valey...!"
Valey gigglesnorted and backed off. "Nah, don't worry. If you honestly ever want me to settle down, well, you'll have to say so. But the message I got in that sea cave Wallace flew us to where we had that chat was that you like it when I take care of myself and live big. Like, actually tell me if I'm going too far. I'm just glad to be alive."
"You are going too far," Shinespark insisted, starting to blush. "Far too far. And I'm certain you recall it's a big part of why I like you!"
Valey wiggled her mini-skirted flanks. "Girl, I'd be a fraud if I forgot a thing like that. You'll get your tease, and you'll get me in the end, too. Just you watch. I'm not falling asleep until I've seen it through."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "The last kiss of the night is mine?"
Valey waggled hers in return. "And the first one, too."
She darted forward and caught her best friend in an embrace, too swiftly for Shinespark to muster any sort of reply.
Starlight watched the pre-dawn sky as she crept through the schoolgrounds, the horizon turning colors and the sky faintly blue from the impending sunrise. She had her saddlebags on, and had left without telling anyone what she was doing. In the last few morning hours before they left, she had a last errand to do.
Her magic hadn't yet finished recovering from the exertion of fighting Gazelle. The lessening of her headache was slow and gradual, and it had reached a point where she could go about her daily life without noticing it much. The moment she tried to use her horn, though... She reached up and opened a door with her hoof, saving her horn the trouble.
The Laughter dorm lobby was as quiet as she had hoped. This wasn't the first day she had watched them, and this was the perfect hour between when all the sports buffs got up for pre-dawn practice and when the students with early classes had to rise. To one side, Doctor Lost's office was propped open: now that Gazelle was gone, there was no further need for security, but the archive would still be roped off due to the hazard of broken glass. She had seen the doctor several times over the last two weeks. He was spending the time since the attack torn between mourning the loss of half his collection and being excited by the drama, and thankfully harbored no ill will over the events.
No one seemed to. But if anyone had any right to, it was the mare she was looking for now.
Starlight didn't want to be known for this, and had saved it until their last day for precisely that reason. Hopefully everything come together without complications as a result of that... She had left a note the previous night, trying to get the attention she needed. Time to see if the pony came.
She pushed open the secret entrance to Jamjars' old room, her self-proclaimed rival having vacated the space after the attack. As she hoped, Meadowglade was there, the scars of her wounds still visible all across her body.
"It's you?" Her ears perked in interest. "I saw the note and thought it must be from... Never mind. Why are... um... Hi?"
Starlight sighed, trying not to stare at her blank flanks. She knew how special cutie marks were for Equestrians. "I'm leaving in a few hours."
Meadowglade saw her tone and reacted appropriately. "Oh. If you're here to apologize..." She did the staring for Starlight, looking regretfully back at her own rear. "You did save my life. Don't forget that. So don't worry, okay?" She forcefully winked, clearly not as over it as she was trying to sound. "I can't do magic half that powerful, or react a third that fast. It was Gazelle who... you know. Are you taking this hard?"
Starlight looked up and met her eyes. After running away from all of Equestria because she hated their attachment to cutie marks, here she was... "No. I'm trying to help you get it back."
Meadowglade blinked. "What?"
"Your cutie mark." Starlight pointed, taking off her bags manually.
"You... what?" Meadowglade repeated. "But it's gone. What are you talking about?"
"No it's not," Starlight replied, lifting out her moon glass sword. "It's in here."
Meadowglade stared.
The sword felt faintly sticky in Starlight's hooves, and she half-worried it might consume her again and send her back to the land of memories where she would find Chrysalis and Navarre and that explorer who had discovered Indus. It consumed, she knew that much. It was Princess Luna's loneliness, mixed in with fragments Stanza's emotions she had used to activate her Nightmare Modules and her own needs and wants she had willed into the spell as well. But some part of it was hers, and while she couldn't very well change its nature, she found it possible to make it leave her alone.
"This is moon glass," Starlight said. "I don't know if you have it down here, but it contains cutie marks. Actually, you do. There was a meteor in the collection. But this one has yours."
Meadowglade squinted.
"I know in the north, ponies without cutie marks can sometimes get them by touching moon glass," Starlight continued. "And I think you can lose your cutie mark with it still being attached to you and wanting to come back, somehow. So maybe if you touch it..."
"Is this a dream?" Meadowglade asked, skeptical. "Either I'm dreaming now, that you're offering this, or I've been dreaming ever since Gazelle and I'm about to wake up. Right?"
Starlight shook her head. "If you are, I've been dreaming for far longer. And if you do get it back, please tell ponies it just happened and don't say it was me?"
"Uhhh..." Meadowglade stared blankly.
"Here." Starlight held the sword out. "Try it. I really want this to work..."
Meadowglade took the sword in a disbelieving daze. Nothing happened.
Starlight bit her lip. "...I don't know how long it usually takes."
Meadowglade sighed and sat down, still holding the sword. "Don't get your hopes up, kid. It's not like any of this is real. And if it is, it doesn't feel like it. Probably not going to feel real for the rest of my life. But it'll make for some great stories, right?"
"It feels real to me," Starlight replied.
Meadowglade shook her head. "You don't have your cutie mark yet, right? Maybe things are different in the north, or maybe you're too young to understand anyway, but having your special purpose in life is like... what makes things real. You wonder what you're supposed to be doing with yourself, and you feel a little lost, and then... you just know. And now, I don't. Things just got less real."
"Why not keep doing what you were going to do in the first place?" Starlight asked.
"I probably will." Meadowglade shrugged. "It still bites. Feels like this can't be happening. Listen, you're not the pony I need to bog down with this, I... I have a therapist. What matters is that you saved my life, okay? Don't think that just because you're some... some legend who can just stare down monsters without flinching and jump at them and fire crystals and stuff doesn't mean you need to... make up stories about getting cutie marks back and stuff. You can't make things happen just by believing in them. Unless you can, in which please, don't stop. I'll be fine, though."
Starlight frowned. "Will you really? You don't sound fine."
"Yeah..." Meadowglade chuckled. "Look on the bright side. I can be whatever I want! No guidance in life, no rails...! I'm probably so unusual, I could make money writing a book about myself. And even if I don't have a cutie mark telling me what to do, I've still got friends, right? That just means I have more freedom to do the things they like."
Starlight watched her quietly, and Meadowglade slumped. "Okay, so I'm parroting things my guidance counselor said. And maybe he doesn't have any experience working with blank flanks. But I believe it, you know? Really. It's not so bad. A week out of the hospital, and I'm already practically used to it!"
"You're not very convincing," Starlight replied.
"You got a history yourself with your own cutie mark?" Meadowglade asked. "You definitely look old enough to have one."
"I don't want one," Starlight insisted, looking down. "But I'll get one if it helps my friends. Not everyone up north gets one, anyway. I just know they're really important here."
Meadowglade shrugged. "Well, I'll tell you one thing. If they weren't as important, maybe I wouldn't even be in a pickle right now. Hey, maybe I should run off to the north myself someday." She giggled slightly at her own joke. "How does it work up there, with not everyone getting one? Is there, like, a divide between haves and have-nots? Or does nobody even care?"
"I didn't pay enough attention," Starlight mumbled. "But every country does things differently. It's not just one nation like Equestria. Maybe there are some where it's really important."
Meadowglade exhaled. "Either way, thanks for the effort... but more importantly, thanks for saving me. If ponies can wind up without cutie marks one way or another, maybe they just shouldn't be that important here either. Because I don't think mine is coming back."
"Yeah," Starlight agreed. "Maybe they shouldn't."
Really, how many of her problems would have been solved before they even began if having a cutie mark meant nothing? All one of them. Sunburst. Which led to every other difficulty she had encountered, as well as all her new friends and family... How was she even supposed to choose what to wish for? She could be so powerful, she could set anything in the world to any way she wanted it just by saying so, and it wouldn't count for anything if she didn't know what to want. She wished for a world where she didn't have to want anything at all...
"Uh-oh," Meadowglade said, reading her expression. "Did I trigger some deep thoughts?"
"No. I'm fine," Starlight insisted. "Just... thinking about cutie marks. What will you really do if yours doesn't come back?" She stared Meadowglade in the eye. "This is real. You're not going to live in denial forever."
Meadowglade leaned back and shrugged. "I told you, whatever I feel like. If I've got no direction in life, that's just another word for being able to go anywhere." She raised an eyebrow. "What's a kid like you even doing, knowing what denial is?"
"The same thing I'm doing being strong enough to save you from Gazelle," Starlight said. "Getting unlucky."
"You're something else." Meadowglade shook her head. "Is there anything I can do for you? I've already told you, you did wonderful saving us all. Please don't feel bad about my cutie mark. I'm upset, I'll admit it, but I can live my life like this and maybe even find some opportunities I wouldn't have before. There's no use dwelling on what can't be changed. Just gotta keep saying that, and I'll get through this just fine. Because what else can you do?" She held the sword out for Starlight. "Thanks for the effort. But I'll be fine. You look out for yourself, okay? Something tells me you could use it."
Starlight didn't take the sword, instead pointing at Meadowglade's flanks.
"Here you go," Meadowglade insisted, not immediately recognizing the gesture. "This is yours. I'm not keeping..." She finally looked down, dropping the sword in the process. "Woah."
Her flanks were no longer bare.
"It's... It's my..." She looked up again, agape, and glanced several times between her flanks and Starlight. "How did you do that?"
"I just did." Starlight shrugged, picking up the sword and putting it back in her bags. "Everything works? It's the right one, you can use it?"
"I..." Meadowglade sat down, completely overwhelmed. She looked dangerously like she might cry.
Starlight gave her a moment. "Please don't tell anyone it was me," she eventually said. "Say it came back on its own. You didn't want it to be gone. I don't want to be able to do this. Please?"
"Wow," Meadowglade whispered. "H-How...?"
"How does the transference work?" Starlight asked. "Or how are you lucky enough that I knew how to fix your problem? The first one is complicated, and the second, you just are. You're welcome, but I have to go."
"No, please..." Meadowglade reached out. "Stay just a minute?"
Starlight nodded and sat back down.
"I didn't... didn't even feel anything," Meadowglade whispered. "How long was it there for?"
"I pointed when it appeared," Starlight replied.
"When I first got it, my magic surge was big enough to burn the grass a little," Meadowglade continued. "You know, when your horn goes just a little explodey when you get your cutie mark... I figured there would be at least some..." She trailed off, panting lightly. "This is a dream."
Starlight adamantly shook her head. "Nope. Still real. Everything will be alright, now."
For a few breaths, Meadowglade met her eyes. "I don't know what to say..."
"There's not much that needs to be said." Starlight folded her ears, slinging her bags back into place. "Sometimes, things just happen."
And with that, she turned and left.
Starlight's mood as she walked back to the Immortal Dream could have been triumphant. A problem was solved, and damage was undone. The world was a better place because of her. One less cutie mark was trapped in her sword, and she was no worse off for it. She had walked into a mare's life like a stroke of fate and accomplished the laughably impossible without twitching a muscle. She had done good, and been told she did good. This was a great success.
But it wasn't fair at all.
Why did she care about Meadowglade, anyway? Because she cared about the world, and Meadowglade was in it. Why did she care about the world? Because she was in it herself, and she also cared about herself. She didn't want to begrudge the other mare her good fortune. She had gone out of her way to deliver it. But no matter how many miracles she worked for others, they never seemed to boomerang around back to her. This wasn't an equal exchange of favors and goodwill for favors and goodwill. It wasn't even an unequal exchange, ponies giving back and forth without keeping track. It was her being the gatekeeper, the first resort, standing between innocents and the Gazelles of the world and stepping in to keep them safe. It was her dealing with all the garbage in their lives so they could be happy and they wouldn't have to, in the same exact way that no one could do for her.
It wasn't fair! Maybe should have touched empty moon glass again before the talk, just so Meadowglade's thank-you would have felt more rewarding. Why did she have to do this, and when would it be enough? How had she become a cutie mark savior who gave them back to ponies when she was supposed to have a problem with them in the first place? Meadowglade herself had said life would go on. But Starlight had given her something far more wonderful than she had resigned herself to, and she was far past the point in her life where she could be vicariously happy from the happiness she brought to others.
In fact, she didn't have to do this at all. She was just too stubborn to admit that what went around didn't come back around, and being nice to ponies wasn't the way to get ahead in the world.
Help ponies. Do the harmonic thing. If she worked to improve their lives, maybe they would return the favor. If she had asked anything of Meadowglade in return, anything at all, she was certain the mare would have agreed.
But... all that broke down when there was nothing those ordinary ponies could do to help her. She had problems on the scale of Nightmare Modules and evil sphinxes and time-traveling fillies who wouldn't tell her how to prevent a bad future. What could she have asked of Meadowglade? Who even could she ask to fix these, assuming she helped them enough first to be worth their time?
Maybe she shouldn't have hidden from Celestia after all. Maybe she should have given up and trusted a stranger with all the problems she was staggering along under on her own. But the time for that had passed, and she hadn't seen Glimmer in the last two weeks since the attack, either.
She was so tired. Maybe she just needed to go home.
Shinespark stood outside of a conference room, watching as President Kinmari walked away. That had been her talk with the stallion. She doubted whether she'd ever see him again.
Her last few nagging thoughts were put to rest. No, there wasn't a chance that staying at Kinmari herself could have led to doctors fixing her broken horn... not that she would have asked for a writ for herself if there was. It had healed to a point where it didn't hurt except when she tried to use it, and that was a disability she could live with. Plenty of earth ponies got by just fine without horns, after all. She'd be naturally slimmer and weaker, but she could work out if that ever became a problem. And she didn't think it would.
The nurse who had confirmed that was still present, acting as Felicity's escort. That was another purpose of the meeting: getting affairs settled firmly and finally in order for her less-fortunate friend.
"Well?" Shinespark turned to the sarosian. "If everything went right with the loading, we'll be leaving in about an hour. You've said what you need to to everyone you need to?"
"Ugh... Talking about farewells, darling?" Felicity stretched, relaxing in a wheelchair so she didn't have to wind herself lumbering around. "Better to rip it off like a bandage than draw it out, in my opinion. I've got my memories already, and it's not like one last sentimental moment is going to make this take any less time..."
Shinespark frowned. "I hope you're not just in denial."
"Why not?" Felicity shrugged. "It's a potent emotional painkiller. Might even get me through until something interesting happens around here. Besides, I'm used to less-than-ideal conditions. I've got enough stubbornness left in these fat old bones to tough it out until the light on the other side."
Felicity's nurse looked up from scratching notes on a clipboard. "I know it's hard being left behind, but you're not being left to languish with nothing to do. Still, you should say goodbye to your friends while you have the chance."
Shinespark nodded in agreement.
Felicity sighed. "If it makes you feel better, I did, alright? Valey stopped by at some half-existent hour of the morning, and we... well, I wouldn't want to rub it in, but it was a good note to end on. Honestly, darling, I am feeling alright at the moment, I've had two weeks to prepare for this, and I just haven't been saving putting my cards in order to the very end. But if you'd rather I much it all up with a teary last farewell, I'm more than willing to give you all what you need too. Shall we head down to the docks?"
The walk to the eastern bay was slow, and quite a few students stopped to wave goodbye. They crested the final hill and the Dream came into view, Maple and Amber and Harshwater milling around with several students and loading on bags of food and vegetables. The harmony comet shivered orange in the daylight, and to the south, dozens of students were enjoying the beach, watching the preparations from their towels and umbrellas as a slow ocean surf rolled ashore. The wind was blowing from the east, tossing Shinespark's bangs, but they didn't get in the way because she kept them short. Over a monthlong flight back to Ironridge, maybe that would change.
"Girls!" Amber spotted them first and waved. Maple quickly joined her.
Shinespark trotted closer, tempted to jump onto the deck and skip the gangplank, but she didn't want to leave Felicity behind. "How are preparations!?" she called back over the noise of the wind.
"Loading up on the freshness." Amber grinned, patting a watermelon. "I learned two of the farther islands are dedicated to farming and growing food, so it's all local and new as can be. Last thing before we leave, unless there's anything else?"
"Well, we do need our passengers assembled," Gerardo remarked, pacing out of the bridge and glancing over. "Wouldn't do to forget anyone at the last minute. Slipstream, Jamjars, Starlight and Grenada are all below, and Nyala as well. Then we've got this crew, and..." He swept a talon around at the ponies on deck, and his headcrest flopped. "I'm afraid I haven't seen hide nor hair of Valey since that shebang last night."
"Bah." Amber saved a hoof. "She's got that homing thing for Starlight, and she can fly fast. Probably just overslept like a floozy."
Felicity pursed her lips, rolling up the gangplank. "She was with me for a time last night. Sounded extremely busy with certain student obligations, but wanted to carve out time for yours truly. Ran off long before dawn, though..."
"Hey, Felicity," Maple greeted, trotting up to the wheelchair-bound mare. "Are you, umm... Are you ready?"
"Darling, there's a whole lot I'm not ready for." Felicity slumped belly-up in her chair, briefly going limp before shoring herself up. "But that hardly stops time from marching forward, does it? Making ends meet on my own, the faint possibility of motherhood, whatever this Kinmari lot subject me to in the hopes of fixing my body and then figuring out what to do with myself if they succeed... You know the drill. I may not be ready, but I've no intention of going kicking and screaming. So don't fret yourselves too much over me, alright?"
Maple bit her lip. "Well... we talked, and we want to give something to you. Something a little more than just the Writ of Harmonic Sanction."
"I'm not adverse to goodbye gifts, darling, but don't make me cry right when I'll have to do it on my own."
Maple stepped forward, put a hoof on Felicity's lap, and unpocketed Valey's flash club, still wired to a sound stone. She drew back, leaving it behind.
"They're a pretty important tactical advantage," Amber admitted, stepping up beside her. "But, you know... friends are important too. I know you prefer the touchy-feely kind of hanging out, and there's nothing we can do there. You'll have to make do with the locals for that." She winked unapologetically at the nurse. "But we still wanna be a part of your life."
"Darling, this isn't..." Felicity stared at the flash club, cradling it against her womb. "But you need this! For coordinating whenever someone leaves the ship, or..."
"Or not having to say goodbye," Maple finished for her. "Felicity... listen. I know we haven't been the closest mares on the ship, and a big part of that is my fault, for being uneasy with... you know. But I'm somewhat okay at reading ponies, and you're very easy to read, and I know you're not okay with being left behind and are resigned to it because you don't think it's possible for us to do anything else, or if it is, you aren't worth fighting for, or... I know that feeling, okay? And we're not leaving you completely on your own without anything to help, especially since none of the rest of us are staying at Kinmari. So, here. You need it, and we're not taking no for an answer."
"I just told you not to make me cry," Felicity sniffed. "I-I..."
Amber squeezed her in a careful hug, and Maple joined in too, Shinespark standing several steps behind.
"You want to repay us?" Amber said. "Keep us posted on your kiddo. Valey says we're gonna speedrun this thing and get enough writs on our own to get back to you before this kid even meets the world." She patted Felicity's rounded belly. "And between you and me, Valey's crazy enough that I believe her... but no matter how you slice it, it's still going to be months. I know how you feel about this, and I don't want them to be a thing you work through alone. So you keep your complaints and your worries about them coming our direction, and share the good times when they come, too. We're keeping you in our lives, so keep us in yours."
Maple nodded solemnly. "And... tell me about them too. If anything happens, I'll be there for you."
For a moment, the three embraced, and Shinespark stepped back, watching. "Seems like it was well-appreciated," Gerardo whispered beside her.
"Yes." Shinespark nodded. "I'm expecting not to have any detours where we'll need it before we reach Ironridge, but if we do, we'll improvise. Gerardo?"
"At your service," he replied with a bow.
Shinespark took a breath. "How many long-term traveling companions have you ever parted ways with?"
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "That's a very difficult metric to compute."
"Explain."
The griffon nodded. "During my years abroad, especially in Varsidel, I had more than one acquaintance with whom I crossed paths multiple times, quite by accident, and often after we had agreed previously to go our separate ways. If you remember Miss Sunflower's tales, she had the right of it: wander enough, and the world is a small place. So I've had quite a few former traveling buddies, but I'd call the odds laughable if you asked me to bet on never running into any of them again. So really, it depends entirely on your definition of parting ways."
"Hm."
A sweaty Harshwater walked up from the side, her feathers scruffy and her mane plastered to her neck and face. "Hey! While all of you are making out with sarosians and complaining about the weather, I finished loading the vegetables. All of them. By myself. You're welcome. The shower is mine for the next hour and a half."
"Are we finished already?" Amber blinked, looking up. "Well... Valey aside, what are we waiting for?"
Shinespark glanced around the deck, running a hoof along the smooth, replaced railing. Its woodwork was noticeably less intricate than the old version, but smooth and solid... "I think it's just Valey."
"I'll... be sure to stay in touch," Felicity interjected, rolling past. "Thank you all again, I really wasn't expecting this and wish I knew better what to say..."
"Say whatever you want, and do it through the sound stone." Amber gave her a last shoulder squeeze, and stepped back onto the deck.
"I love you all!" Felicity called in return, reaching the dock with her nurse.
Maple and Amber worked together to haul up the gangplank, waving when they were done. Gerardo cleared his throat again. "Might I recommend hovering over the island for a spell? Perhaps it will serve to get our resident banana-eater's attention. And if nothing else, it would be a good vantage for us to serenade the island with the view."
"Good idea. I'll take first pilot shift. You go find Slipstream and relax." Shinespark waved a hoof and stepped toward the bridge, dismissing her copilot griffon.
The console was half-new, the same old metal plating affixed over a gleaming array of dials and switches, their glass fronts not bearing a scratch. Someone had decided to leave the old captain's chair in place... It was a little worn, visually, but was perfectly broken in to the shape of Shinespark's body, and didn't change no matter how many times Gerardo or another took a shift. Probably because she had been sitting in this chair for years in Sosa, dreaming of the day she could flip the power switch and...
With a small spark of connecting mana, the Immortal Dream began to rise.
Shinespark smiled and leaned back in her chair, hooves on the dashboard. She had missed her ship's inaugural flight. The first flight she did take on it, she was unconscious from pain. The second, she was catatonic from the loss of Sosa. But this time, she was back where she belonged.
Ironridge... She angled the boat west by northwest, feeling in her heart which was the best direction to start. A lever slid smoothly under the pressure from her hoof, and they rose and drifted forward, the shore hill falling away below and the eastern sports field coming into view. Every single pony in the verdant square stopped what they were doing, the ball bouncing uselessly away as players and fans alike turned to behold the comet rising over the island.
Shinespark was a comet. She had burned bright, crashed and gone out, left herself with less than nothing. But she made a minute adjustment to their facing, knowing that this time, she was going back home for a second pass. Maybe one day, she and her friends would find the perfect land they all dreamed of. Maybe they'd build it, or maybe it would be waiting for them over the horizon. But that journey was far from over yet. And the next place they were going was a place she had been running from ever since her airship set sail in the sky.
She was ready. Ready to try again and make things right, meet Ironridge wherever it was at and become whatever it needed. There was just one more thing she needed... and right on cue, that thing hit the deck with a thud, staggering through the door to the bridge and loudly complaining.
"Bananas, why did you make me fly to get up here!? Were you gonna leave without me?" Valey lurched forward, collapsed on the floor, and belched. "I had... bananas..."
"Well, we are leaving." Shinespark reached down a hoof to her, though Valey would have to crawl to reach it. "I thought you'd be back hours ago. Oversleep with a student?"
"Hey." Valey gave her a groggy look, her eyes very sleepless and her mane not quite frazzled enough beneath her beret for her just to have woken up. "For your information, I have been on fifteen dates since we last talked. Ten plus five. Fifteen." She hauled herself to her hooves. "Half counting a thing with Felicity. Do you know how many kids took me up on my offer?" She belched again. "And I didn't slack off. A whole uninterrupted romantic candlelit hour for each of them. And that means I ate dinner fifteen times... bananas..." She staggered forward. "I feel like a balloon. But hey, I said I'd see this through before I fell asleep, so... heya... All yours, girl."
She almost collapsed again against the pilot's chair, and Shinespark caught her, suspecting it was at least partly and act but willing to believe Valey could pack away fifteen meals at once if she really said so. "Ready to fly?"
"You handle that," Valey mumbled, arranging herself in the chair like a cute rug. "I gotta catch some Z's. Keep watch for me, mmkay?"
Shinespark turned slightly red from Valey's aggressive pilot chair cuddling, but it became immediately apparent that the sarosian wasn't going anywhere. Soon enough, Valey's breathing steadied, curled up against and on top of Shinespark like a gigantic cat.
"Sure." Shinespark sighed, then started caressing an ear as she turned up the throttle and left Kinmari behind. "I'll keep watch while we fly."
The skies around the Grandbell pit were heavily fortified, unicorns manning ammunition weapons on every tower while armored pegasi and griffons patrolled the air. Clouds were but a distant shadow on the horizon, the heavens where they had once been now blisteringly blue, a gift from the visiting Princess of the Sun. It was much harder for enemies to attack when their cloud cover was gone.
Celestia herself stood in a plaza, her royal airship parked behind her and two figures in her aura: Meltdown, making use of the heat-draining spell, and Gazelle, still bound in his ring-shaped prison. Across from her stood a welcoming party: Lord Stormhoof, considerably gaunter than he had been months before, clad fully in battle armor and backed by a contingent of elite soldiers. It wasn't a private venue. Citizens were hiding on the edges, and some venturing into plain sight, watching and staring. Celestia had chosen this on purpose.
"I am returning these two," she replied, answering the battle-scarred sphinx's challenge. "Your wayward prince has assaulted my nation, trapping and bringing deliberate injury to five students on a college campus. Meltdown, as a representative of the Empire, has demanded your nation assume responsibility for both his actions and punishment."
Stormhoof's eyes hardened, quickly reading the situation. "No we don't," he firmly replied, addressing Meltdown and Gazelle more than Celestia. "Go back across the border and resolve this in Equestria. No royal of the Griffon Empire makes an attack on a peaceful neighbor during times of national crisis. If that's what you did, you're no prince of ours, and you're not our responsibility."
Celestia looked to Meltdown, silently requesting her response.
"I am Garsheeva's judge," Meltdown replied coolly, though her mane looked like it was about to ignite. "She put bringing heretics to justice into my hooves. This is my decision."
Lord Stormhoof's paw slammed out, and when he drew it back, a golden, gem-encrusted card was left on the cobblestones where it had landed. "Golden Regents," he rumbled. "Garsheeva always believed in allowing all of us to judge each other for ourselves. Now that she's gone, there's no divine authority to tell us otherwise even if it wasn't originally up to us. And after you've been gone during the months the Empire needed power, authority and leadership the most, you want me to put aside my judgement for yours?"
He sighed and shook his head. "Then you should have thought twice about extorting my island for energy when you were still in power. You have no authority here anymore, and I'm not about to accept responsibility for an attack against Equestria just because you wish it." He locked eyes with Celestia, and gave the tiniest of bows. "They have no affiliation with us, Princess. The Griffon Empire are your allies."
"…So be it." Celestia looked between the two hovering ponies again, Meltdown just as much held captive as being enabled by her aura. "Unless Garsheeva herself wishes to intervene, it seems this will be settled within my courts after all."
"Garsheeva is gone," Lord Stormhoof interrupted, taking a step forward before either of the pair could speak. "Witnesses remember her there when the sarosians became monsters and attacked. No one has seen her since, beyond rumors that lack credit. This is a continent without gods now, Princess. There is no rule here besides mortal law."
Gazelle's eyes gleamed dully in his prison. "False. You're just as much a god as Garsheeva, and I am too. Merely ones who haven't grown so strong…"
Lord Stormhoof shook his head and started to walk away. "That isn't a practical thing to say when there's a real goddess holding you captive, boy. But you'll have to learn that on your own. Lord Everlaste and I have a continent to rebuild and a war to fight. I'm done here. By your leave, Princess."
Celestia pursed her lips, turning to Meltdown. "I did warn you I wouldn't be pleased if you flew me out here for nothing. Now I don't know what to do with you, either. It sounds as though you've been disowned already by the new government…" She shook her head. "I wish you well, Garland Stormhoof. May Equestria and the Griffon Empire remain allies for many years to come."
Meltdown folded her ears and gritted her teeth. But Gazelle started laughing, effortlessly taking attention off her.
"Funny you should talk about practicality," he chortled, "when there isn't a practical move in the first place. By that logic, I can do whatever I want!"
"Indeed you can," Stormhoof rumbled. "But you'll get yourself killed."
Gazelle shrugged. "You can't be only half alive, Stormpaw. Either you're dead, or you're not dead yet, and I'm the former. And until that changes, we are gods. Care to know the secret to Garsheeva's immortality? Because I have it…" His eyes drifted eagerly to Celestia, watching her reaction.
"No," Stormhoof said. "The age of sphinxes is ending. With our history of bloodlust and folly, there's no need to cling to it, either. I'll put those traits to use on the battlefield, defending this land, and have no desire to cling to them beyond that."
"Then I could spill it anyway…" Gazelle threatened, grinning from ear to ear.
Celestia's aura clamped down on his muzzle. "I believe my counterpart would appreciate it if you didn't. There is nothing left to be said that will change this fate. Come. We are departing."
"It's the sacrifices," a voice said from the crowd. "Sphinxes eat brands. Take one, it sustains you for a while and cancels the effects of age. Take more than you need, and you get a stockpile that lasts until you need them. Stockpile enough, and powers come with it. Size, regeneration… That was the reason for the heresy."
It wasn't Gazelle who had spoken. Everyone froze.
A hooded, robed pony stepped forward from between several others. She shrugged off the hood, revealing slitted eyes and rounded ears and a wide array of triangular fangs. Her face carried the unmistakable coloration of Garsheeva.
"You…!" Lord Stormhoof gasped, his formidable stature putting him at nearly twice the goddess's height. "Now you return to us?"
Garsheeva shook her head. "I'm just passing through. Because you're completely right. The age of sphinxes is at an end. Within a generation, all of you will be gone. Take my secrets and become the next immortal and cling to power if you want. I couldn't care less. I quit."
The whole crowd gaped, most of them bowing in reverence but some standing in confusion and others looking on in anger. Lord Stormhoof looked vaguely chagrinned. Meltdown was hopeful. Gazelle was unreadable. Celestia looked sad.
"Two thousand years, and you have decided it is over," she said, her eyes only on Garsheeva. "Where will you go from here?"
Garsheeva looked back at her with barely a muscle twitch. "Away. I'll find something mundane to do with myself. Maybe I'll start up a souvenir shop in Varsidel and sell model replicas of the Lovebringer. Everyone else can do what they want with the Empire. Right now, I'm just here to give you all a little push."
"So you abandon us consciously," Lord Stormhoof whispered.
Garsheeva flipped her mane. "I ruled by being the biggest, not the best. If you're mad, take it out on each other for following me. The truth is, I haven't cared about the Empire for around a thousand years, and before that I did it for the pampering and the clergy. You've been running yourselves already, just with me as a figurehead. Build yourselves a statue and worship that; it'll be just as effective. And choose the first kid who walks in through your door to call all the shots. It kept this country together for centuries."
Stormhoof's brow creased in anger. "What is the meaning of this!?"
"I'm shredding my legacy like an old couch so I have less temptation to return," Garsheeva drawled, flexing her claws. "You know who I've been doing it for this whole time? The sarosians. Remember when I sided with them during the single-day crusade? How I never dealt with their navies? An old friend asked me once to take care of them. Now they're gone, and that's where my caring runs out."
Lord Stormhoof trembled. "But they killed your own emperor…"
Garsheeva shrugged. "I've lost count of how many emperors and empresses I've had over the years. A hundred? More or less. I controlled how many sphinxes were in the world. If I needed more, I could make more. Losing one or two is barely a setback when I let you go about your own ways in the first place."
"Then you are just as much a sphinx as the rest of us," Lord Stormhoof sighed. "Finish your piece."
"I was getting around to it." Garsheeva licked a paw, using it to clean behind her ears in a clear public show of not caring. "Sphinx procreation? It only works because of old machines in my temple left over from when I came into being. Machines that allow souls to bind to our unnatural bodies. Machines that are history after a power surge. As funny as it was imagining you all desperately trying for children when I was the one calling the shots, that's all over now. No more sphinxes will ever be conceived. So sad. You're through."
"Garsheeva," Celestia interrupted. "Do you have need of me? If I am a bystander to your self-impeachment against your former citizens, I would rather be elsewhere. I do not appreciate seeing history torn down like this. It is too reminiscent of… her."
Garsheeva huffed. "Fine. But leave those two to me. They're mine. Let your nation feel robbed of justice on the behalf of a missing kitty. After all, the Empire itself has declared it doesn't care."
Celestia narrowed her eyes. "And what do you intend to do with them?"
Garsheeva shrugged, glancing to Meltdown. "Are you my loyal servant?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Meltdown nodded solemnly. "I act only with your authority."
"And would you give anything in my service?" Garsheeva's gaze intensified.
Meltdown kept her head down. "You shouldn't even need to ask."
"Release her to me," Garsheeva commanded.
Celestia frowned, hovering Meltdown closer. "She requires my support to regulate her-"
"I'll take care of it." Garsheeva waved a careless paw.
Meltdown swallowed, the wisps of fiery energy trailing from her lessening as she let herself grow cool. "Save Gazelle too," she requested, legs shaking as she touched down. "Give him another chance, and he will recant and serve you too…"
Garsheeva snorted. "Of course I will. I said I wanted him, didn't I? But first…" She opened her mouth in a big yawn.
"We are in your debt." Meltdown bowed…
And a thin line of green energy flew at her from Garsheeva's mouth, colliding and erupting into an aura around her. The aura brightened, especially around her cutie mark. Meltdown screamed… and her mark vanished, retracting along the line and into Garsheeva's maw. The sphinx swallowed and licked her lips. Meltdown collapsed against the ground and curled up, looking terrified and very small.
Celestia's eyes widened slightly. "I see this is your method of dispensing judgement."
"I'm not large on leaving your ponies unsatisfied," Garsheeva smoothly replied, looking proud of herself as every other bystander stared in shock. "But I wanted a demonstration for all of them. Sphinxes eat brands. And just because I quit doesn't mean I'm keen on dying. And I gave her that brand in the first place, so it was mine all along. And she did just say she would give anything in my service. And for her loyalty to me, she even keeps her life. One too many good reasons to do things this way, I'm afraid… Now give me Gazelle."
Celestia wryly flashed her horn, the ring restraining Gazelle flickering and coming undone. She dropped the prince in a heap, and he immediately scurried to the fallen Meltdown, grabbing her. "And what do you have in store for him, if I may ask?"
Garsheeva shrugged, almost ignoring him. "The age of sphinxes is ending, and he doesn't look like he'd enjoy the rest of his life anyway. I'll help him find a fitting end that he can be happy with."
Celestia frowned. "…Take care. I do this only in deference to you. My ponies will be well aware that you hold responsibility for his judgement." She glanced to the others. "And not the Empire. The Empire is absolved. It is past time for me to take my leave, now. Farewell."
She made a retreat that could almost be described as hasty, an obvious stiffness in her stride. But Garsheeva was faster, grabbing Gazelle and Meltdown and rocketing away on powerful wings.
The flying guards couldn't have caught her, not that they tried. Garsheeva soared west, deep into the desert, holding Gazelle and Meltdown tightly and not stopping until Grandbell and all traces of its silhouette had long vanished from the horizon. Then and only then did she set them down and rest.
Gazelle immediately snapped to his paws and whirled on her. "You only did that to her to disgust Celestia into leaving. You can bring Meltdown back."
"Of course I can," Garsheeva smoothly replied. "But you care about someone else far more, don't you?"
"Gwendolyn," Gazelle growled. "But she isn't here. She's half a world away."
"Oh, I'm well aware." Garsheeva turned into a lazy circle, like she was getting ready to lay down. "Last I was aware, her soul is being held inside an obsidian sword along with myriad others by a filly called Starlight. Do you see where this is going?"
Gazelle's eyes burned.
"That stockpile is mine," Garsheeva hissed. "And the sarosians'. I don't want it down there, I want it in here." She punched a paw against her chest. "And you want your sister. It would be easy for us to capture one of Chrysalis's empty sarosians and use that as a new body for her, as well. You win, I win… I'll even let you keep some of my stockpile if this all works out. Do you follow?"
"You're more ruthless than I remembered," Gazelle chuckled. "Whatever. I need an airship, sized for one."
"Figure it out yourself. And try not to get in legal trouble again." Garsheeva fluffed herself up. "Here's my cloak if you need a disguise. I'll watch your Meltdown for you. Now work quickly, I'm hungry."
Gazelle needed no second bidding. He was already gone.
Against the wall of the Aldenfold, Garsheeva leaned back, stared at Meltdown and sighed. "Too bad I won't get to watch, isn't it? One of them is going to destroy the other now, and whichever one it is, that's one more pony I hate gone from the face of the world forever. Urgh." Her slitted eyes flickered briefly green. "It never ends…"
With a little snuffling and a lot of groaning, Valey nyup-nyupped and yawned her way into wakefulness.
"Finally decided to join me?" Shinespark asked, sitting in the captain's chair with one hoof keeping Valey from falling out and the other guiding the Dream toward a star-strewn horizon. "You've been out for twelve hours. Must've had quite the night."
"Ow. Bananas..." Valey uncurled and stretched, demonstrating how the chair wasn't sized for two ponies but managing to do it anyway. She groaned and rubbed at her stomach. "Feels like I ate a barrel and then slept on it. Guess those fifteen dinners weren't as much of a dream as I hoped..."
Shinespark let herself glance down to the sarosian in her lap. "You going to be alright?"
"Yeah. Will be." Valey rolled out of the chair and onto her hooves, swishing her tail for balance. "Be right back..."
Several minutes later, Valey returned, her mane properly mussed and looking significantly refreshed. "Whew," she announced. "So. I actually didn't break your toilet, but if I told anyone it was my goal, they'd have pretty good grounds to believe me."
"A romantic good morning to you too," Shinespark replied, Valey's reflection grinning at her from the windshield.
"Dunno what you expected." Valey stepped back over to her side, standing next to the chair and resting her chin on one of the hoofrests. "But hey. I kept my word. And it looks like we've got this place all to ourselves, if you wanna talk, or... do anything."
"For as long as I can stay awake," Shinespark yawned. "I was up early in the morning for meetings, and it's midnight." She looked down at Valey's head on the hoofrest, her friend looking back with lidded eyes. "So..."
Valey shrugged. "Girl, you're gonna have to be more forward if you want me to stop making this awkward. This is how I pass the time."
"And deal with awkwardness yourself, I'll bet." Shinespark turned entirely to face her, folding her forelegs behind her head. "So are you going to say it, or do I have to?"
Valey smirked. "If I say it, you know I'm gonna make it silly."
Shinespark leaned forward until they were nearly nose to nose. "Or you could not," she whispered. "And say what you're really thinking."
Valey reddened. "Not until you blush first."
"You lose," Shinespark replied.
"Bananas." Valey sat back and yawned. "Well, uh... sometimes... you're really hot."
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes?"
"Yeah, sometimes you kind of just flop around and exist without doing anything." Valey nodded sagely. "But those times don't count. And what's hot is when you get back up again. It's kinda personal because I've had some times when I flopped around pretty badly too. So, uh, yeah. I like you. And I'd rather make it awkward with jokes than be the one to straight-up say it first, but look at me being the bigger mare. Now fess up yourself or I'll start talking again about all the stuff I did last night."
Shinespark reddened.
"Come on..." Valey nudged her, grinning.
Shinespark got out of her chair and grabbed her in a tight hug. "You're the most frustrating mare I know, and I don't know what I'd do without you in my life."
"Woah, you've been working out," Valey remarked. "Come on, now. Tell me more..."
Shinespark hugged Valey over the shoulder, so that her cheeks would be less visible as she talked. "Y-You... you know..."
Valey shadow snuck out of it, ducking into the floor and coming back up just in time to catch Shinespark and keep her from tipping over without the support. Before Shinespark could react, she leaned in again so they were nose to nose. "I know a lot of stuff. 'Cuz I'm smart. Got a big brain. You like it?"
"Valey!" Shinespark squeaked. "I'm trying to be serious!"
"Yeah, but I don't do serious." Valey waved a hoof over her shoulder. "I've tried it before and stink pretty bad at it, and you're less happy when you do it too. Unless you wanna be serious? Us tripping over each other and getting tongue-tied is totally fun too."
Shinespark blushed furiously. "Is there a way we can get to the next part without... being so awkward?"
"You ever dated before?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"What do you think?"
"Oh, I'm not a qualified expert." Valey shrugged and grinned. "But if you ask me, who cares about what's next? I completely trust you, and I know you trust me too. Why not have some fun trampling our dignity together and being completely shameless?"
"I-I'm not sure that suits me," Shinespark stammered, her mane growing untidy.
Valey took a fearless step closer. "Nahhh. Come on, you're so uptight all the time. Sosan princess, nothing but decorum for all your subjects and stuff? You've got the most to gain from letting loose! Go ahead, throw every inhibition you've got to the winds and do something you know I'll tease you about but be totally fine with and keep between us forever. At least think about what you'd do if you did. Show me the look on your face when you're thinking about it..."
Shinespark couldn't hide the look that Valey was looking for. "V-Valey!"
"Nyaah." Valey stuck out her tongue. "Going once, going twice... I'm gonna beat you to it..."
"Fine!"
Shinespark grabbed Valey in another hug, but this one was far from a means of hiding her face. Her hooves held Valey's sides instead of her shoulders, rubbing into her soft fur, and their noses and foreheads bumped for a second before Shinespark turned her head so their mouths could meet too.
Valey didn't try to reply, using one hoof to stabilize them and another to brush Shinespark's mane and rub her ears, meeting the embrace exactly where it was at.
"I..." Shinespark stepped forward during a pause for breath, pushing Valey back up against a wall. "Am going to wake up any minute now..."
"Live your dreams, princess." Valey adjusted her grip for their more upright stance, pressing Shinespark's chest fluff against her own. "Nobody sees, nobody cares. If they do, we don't care. And if we do, I bet you I can kick face while still holding you like this. Just a little one-hoof go away punch. Biff, ka-pow! Knock 'em sillier than we are." She grinned and touched Shinespark's nose again, leaning in for another round...
The unmistakable sound of clicking talons sounded outside the bridge door.
"Gerardo Guillaume, stay out of this room!" Shinespark instantly hollered. "Valey and I are having a moment!"
"A very reasonable proposition," Gerardo called back through the door. "I merely thought to relieve you of your shift. I'll be stargazing if you change your minds!"
The sound of talons walked away. Shinespark turned redder, and Valey stared intently into her eyes, arching an eyebrow of her own. "Having a moment, huh?" Their noses were still touching. "Guess someone's not as shy about announcing it to the world as they pretend."
"I-It's true, though." Shinespark reddened further, and her ears went back. "An... adult moment."
"Nahhh." Valey reached up and tried to push Shinespark's ears back up with her hooves, which wasn't very successful. "This is definitely more of a teenage moment."
"Valey!"
Valey shrugged. "So, what, we wanna stay locked up in here? Because technically, no one is piloting the ship, and Birdo just offered to do it for us. Unless you think it would be hot to try piloting while we're snogging?"
Shinespark's eyes glazed over, imagining it.
"Yep," Valey went on, rubbing Shinespark's back. "Imagine you're sitting there all stoic and cool, and pulling double duty watching for sky icebergs or whatever at the same time as holding me close, and it's weird and heroic because you're sacrificing a little attention you could be paying to me for the sky instead, which makes you crazy hot 'cuz you're like keeping us safe, and-"
"Wait. Sky icebergs?" Shinespark blinked.
"We're over an ocean, aren't we?" Valey shrugged. "What else are we gonna hit, some random mountain? I dunno what piloting involves, it's all flying in a straight line to me. It sure sounds hot, though."
"...We're handing off to Gerardo." Shinespark shook her head, slipping free from the embrace and resting on all four hooves. "And then sitting on the deck, or something."
Valey fixed her hat and stretched her wings. "Sounds groovy to me."
After a lot of furtive glances from Valey Shinespark wasn't nearly shameless enough to repay, the captain's shift had been handed off and Gerardo Guillaume now sat alone on the bridge, separated by a brand new door from anything that could happen on the deck. They weren't high in the sky, the ship skimming along at a low enough altitude individual waves were visible below, but even a clear view of the stars didn't stop the night from growing chilly. Valey slipped Shinespark her hat for warmth, the duo sitting side by side at the starboard railing, Shinespark wrapped in Valey's wing.
"You make more of a difference than the hat does," Shinespark murmured.
"Nyeh. It's a cute gesture." Valey leaned her cheek against Shinespark's shoulder, and Shinespark leaned hers against the top of Valey's head. "So, uh... I guess we like each other."
"I guess we do."
"Do you care a whole lot about the difference between like and love?"
"How do you mean?"
Valey shrugged. "I dunno. Like... bananas, you know how much I care about you. At least, I hope you do. I beat up Herman himself because your cute butt was in trouble, and that was before we went through a bunch of stuff together. At the same time, caring too much about doing relationships the 'right' way has, uhh... made me not very happy in the past. So, like, I know I teased you into making a move back there, but for real... I kinda don't want to get too caught up in the semantics of what this relationship is. You get me? Because that leads to thinking about what it's supposed to be. And I know you're supposed to be all 'oh bananas I love you' and everything, which... I dunno. Makes me a little wigged out. Because I don't wanna have the kind of relationship where I've gotta walk on pins and needles to keep from messing something up. I'm a messy girl! Making messes is my thing. You know?"
"I don't know what I'm doing," Shinespark replied. "If there were guidelines on how this was supposed to go, I could use them. I'd also accidentally break them a lot."
"Well, what do you want from me?" Valey shifted against Shinespark's shoulder. "With you, like... I wanna feel like when I get a little stiff in the wings at my best friend, you're in on it too. I trust you with pretty much anything, and I want more opportunities to, like... do stuff with that trust. Stuff that's different from needing to save each other every once in a while from some evil bad guy. Like touching each other's fluff. How about you?"
Shinespark thought for a moment. "I suppose that's accurate," she eventually said. "I want to feel less reserved about enjoying your company. And... I'd like it if we were comfortable enough with each other that it didn't have to be quite so awkward when we talk about this."
"Yeah, I think we're past that." Valey winked. "Maybe. No promises. I get that, though. Like... bananas. You've never been in a relationship. I've never been in a real one. I don't wanna have to know where we're going. I just want you to know that I think you're real swell. And if I'm weird and don't wanna be all 'hey I love you' because I've got a complex about that and don't wanna make myself feel like this is a Real Relationship that I've gotta do right..." She waggled the tips of her wings in emphasis. "Well, I wanna know that you get it and know how I feel anyway."
"Good," Shinespark sighed. "If there are any formalities or decorum involved with a Real Relationship, I can't live with them either. You're probably already aware, but once we get back to Ironridge, us being very public about our affection for each other could be... interesting."
"Hoo boy." Valey whistled. "Yeah, that would be fun. Honestly, I kinda want to do it anyway, just to collectively blow the city's minds, but yeah, it would probably help them take us more seriously if we were more serious around them. Which only matters if we want something from them, so hey, it's our call. But now that there's no Garsheeva heresy to execute us if we mess up, if they wanna say us making out is naughty, that just makes doing it behind closed doors a lot more fun."
Shinespark chuckled. "Heheh... Yeah. I suppose it does. My point still stands, though. If you ever want something from me out of this, just ask, because I don't have a rulebook to read that says what to do for you and when."
"I should write one of those," Valey remarked. "Dating Advice, by Valey... Bet it would be a best-seller. Complete nonsense, too. Imagine if I wrote that you were expected to do a flamingo dance every time your lover steps on a manhole and not tell them why. The world would be in complete chaos if even a tenth of ponies took it seriously."
"I like your imagination, you know," Shinespark added. "You're very... colorful."
"And you're easy to tease." Valey snuggled her shoulder. "But if you're saying you wanna listen to me spout off whatever comes to mind, hey. I got all night."
An hour into the night, Shinespark had fallen all the way asleep, still sharing shoulders with Valey as the stars scrolled on by. The temperature hadn't dropped much since midnight, and was right on the line where Valey couldn't decide whether to stay there and keep staring or carry her friend down to test the new cabins. But the night sky didn't disappoint, so she stayed where she was.
One of the most interesting properties of the harmony comet that powered the Dream was that its light didn't flood the area. It was bright, and visible from a distance away, like a shooting star. But compared to Ironridge, where half the city was aglow at night, the skies looked more like Icereach, where there were few light sources aboveground to wash out the stars. In fact, she could almost see the stars directly through the comet, even though it was far and away brighter than they were.
For the first time in forever, Valey was flying away, at the start of a new journey under that sky with a lot that was undesirable being left behind, flush with resolve and a new relationship at her side. At least, it felt that way... even though she had been here as well only half a year ago. And she remembered all too well where that led.
She looked at Shinespark on her shoulder, quietly rising and falling against her as she breathed. What was she going to do different? Shinespark didn't deserve her to mess this up again... and by mess it up, she meant worry too hard about playing it straight and ruin her own state of mind when everyone else was cool. So far, not caring and playing it exactly the way she usually would had worked wonders. Look how happy Shinespark was! But as the night wore on and Valey kept watching her friend, she slowly started remembering just how she had gotten stuck caring too hard last time, the first step in a long spiral of burnout...
She wanted to care.
How happy was she with herself? How happy was she, really? Because there was a difference between feeling like you were royalty and treating yourself like it anyway. She had all her old mojo back, but did that mean she herself had changed? Or just the way she treated herself?
For Shinespark, it didn't really matter. She was fine being a lazy fruit-eater for her own sake, but what about when someone else she cared about got involved? Shinespark liked the way she was, she knew that. But being likable wasn't the same as being perfect. And while perfection was definitely unattainable, she could still get closer to it.
But trying to better herself, even for a good cause, would throw away her entire current mechanism of just not caring... the mechanism that had gotten her this far compared to the Empire. If deliberately not trying to improve herself was what actually made her better, was she justified in ignoring her urge to do something with herself when she knew it was for a good cause?
Valey scratched her head. It wasn't a distressing problem, not even close. Because this was just a matter of her goals for the future, and where she was at right then and there was very good. But it was certainly confounding, and part of her warned that it would be very smart not to waste her emotional energy going in circles. If there was one thing she was going to learn from last time, it was to talk things like this over early. It could even be fun.
Hey, Shinespark, she could ask. So I'm feeling kinda good about things and honestly, now that I have more in my life, it makes me feel like I wanna be a better pony. But I've got no clue how to actually do that. But I want to. What do you think?
The more she ran over it in her head, the more it sounded like it would work. Shinespark wouldn't tell her to do anything that didn't matter, and it wouldn't be a lonely slog where she was accountable only to her own unreasonable expectations. This could work, right?
But it kind of required Shinespark to be awake, and Shinespark was kind of enjoying a well-earned sleep. Which meant she could rest easy tonight, with nothing that needed to be done.
...It was a pretty great feeling. Valey snuggled Shinespark and stared into the sky, figuring it wouldn't hurt to revel in it.
Enough time passed that she almost dozed off, even though she had just woken up and wasn't tired. Right before that could happen, her vigil was broken by the sound of little hooves against the deck surface, coming up behind them. Jamjars? No, Jamjars would have loudly announced something already about the cuddling.
"Hi," Starlight said, coming to a stop a few paces away. "...What are you doing?"
Valey turned back and winked at her. "Having a teenage moment. Which, you've got good odds of being at least ten, so come on over here." She patted her free side with her free wing. "What's up?"
"I was looking for Shinespark," Starlight said, trotting up and sitting in the offered spot. "I've been reading this book. But if she's sleeping, it's not important."
"Book?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, though, she's pretty beat. Got up early to deal with meetings, and I think she's been running herself low during the whole boat renovation thing. Probably gonna carry her to bed soon."
"Oh." Starlight nodded. "Well, it's the book Gazelle was reading when he... you know."
Valey squinted. "So I heard a little something about that from Jamjars, but you haven't been extremely talkative about what went on that night. Recap?"
"He was reading this when we found him." Starlight shrugged. "He said it told him how Garsheeva eats cutie marks for her immortality, and then he started eating moon glass and getting stronger from the marks inside. I wanted to see what it was."
"And it pertains to Sparky, huh?" Valey stretched a little, staring out at the star-strewn horizon. "What's in it?"
Starlight folded her ears. "It's a diary by a mare called Seraphim. She used to have Meltdown's job almost eight hundred years ago. Then she left the Empire and retired to Equestria somehow. She hasn't written a lot about how so far, but I don't think she likes Garsheeva. I haven't gotten to the end yet. It's mostly a normal diary about what she does with her days. Her friends and her town and things."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "So what does it have to do with Sparky?"
"Seraphim was a unicorn," Starlight said. "Her cutie mark sounds exactly the same as Shinespark's."
Valey sat down hard. "Woah. Wait, really? Like, how exactly the same?"
Starlight shrugged. "She doesn't talk about it like it's special. She just mentions flying a lot, like she would if she was a pegasus. But there's one day when she says it's her cutie mark, and another day where she hit her horn on something and it was hurting so she was staying off it by not flying. Shinespark needs her horn too."
"Yeah..." Valey rubbed her chin with a hoof. "But, like, why? I mean, if they lived hundreds of years apart... If this Seraphim came to Equestria, they're probably not related, though it's certainly possible? But cutie marks aren't hereditary. At least, you could probably follow in your parents' hoofsteps, but you don't literally get their exact cutie mark. And if Seraphim's was modified by Garsheeva, I dunno if that kind of thing can even naturally..." She shook her head. "You know? Bananas, I don't know anything. That's bizarre. Maybe it's just luck."
Starlight watched her carefully. "Shinespark's cutie mark is much more harmonic than usual, isn't it? Maybe there was an old version of moon glass and it got stuck there for centuries and Shinespark literally has the same one."
"Nah, I doubt it." Valey shook her head. "Between you and me, I was there when Sparky got her mark. And aside from the fact that her magic surge was big enough to send me flying, it just appeared like a normal cutie mark. There wasn't any moon glass or inheriting it from someone else like there was for me. It just appeared."
"So you think it's a coincidence?" Starlight looked back at the folded book in her hooves. "That Garsheeva modified a mark to do what Shinespark's does, and that Shinespark's is unusually harmonic?"
"I dunno!" Valey shrugged heavily. "And I dunno what it would mean if there was a connection. It's a cool find, though. I'll totally ask her in the morning and see if she has any ideas."
"Okay." Starlight relaxed, putting the book back in her bags.
Valey slowly exhaled, going back to watching the stars. "Speaking of mornings, is this a morning or evening for you, kiddo?"
"Not really," Starlight replied.
Valey chuckled. "No clue how to take that, but cool. How's being back in the air treating you? You holding up alright?"
Starlight stared up at her. "It's not very different from usual."
"Yeah... Bananas." Valey put a hoof on her shoulders. "For what it's worth, I'm real sorry we didn't just bag those writs when we had the chance and go settle down in Equestria. 'Cuz your usual isn't a very great way for anyone to live. But whatever comes next, we're gonna make it work. Just you watch. Arambai will have whipped Ironridge into such shape, maybe it'll be a cool place for us to settle down. I'll be famous enough that ponies will be cool to us, but infamous enough that we won't get mobbed like Kinmari... We've already unearthed and toppled every shady foreign invasion and science program, so no need to worry about evil politicians and eldritch monsters. And there's gonna be a whole lot of very bored, very average ponies we could totally wind up being friends with. Besides, it'll be the Dream's refueling stop in the north, so even if some of us do wander, you won't have to go anywhere to be guaranteed to see us again. You can settle down right where you are without a single goodbye, even if we do go our separate ways."
"Are you planning on leaving?" Starlight asked.
"Whew. Big question." Valey nodded. "I've got a promise to Felicity to keep, getting all of us back together again. I've also got some stuff going on with Sparky, and good reasons to stay where she is. At the end of the day, I may have to wander off once or twice for a month or two, yeah. Going to Varsidel or Yakyakistan and hunting writs, you know. But the whole point of it would be getting us all back together, so I solemnly swear I wouldn't dawdle in getting back home."
Starlight slowly, slowly bowed her head. "That sounds... okay."
"You think?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Not really what I expected you to say. You don't have to be cool with it."
Starlight shook her head. "Okay doesn't mean good. It means I'll be okay. I know it's not reasonable to want my family to stay together, but if you promise to come back, that's a lot better than it could be."
Valey bit her lip hard. "Okay, uh, first off? It's totally reasonable to want your family to stay together. That's what families are supposed to, like, do."
"Yeah." Starlight scuffed at the deck with a hoof. "Supposed to. It doesn't mean it always happens."
"I know." Valey gave her a shoulder squeeze. "Believe me, I've had that weighing on my mind for years after I lost my sister in Icereach, and ever since she got back, we've been more distant than we should be. But I'm not talking about how things can be, or how they are. This is how they should be."
"What does it matter if something should be some way if nothing makes it be that way in the first place?" Starlight grumbled.
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Uh, we make it that way? Anyone who says friendship is easy is trying to bump you off. Sure, we have to try together to stay together. If we didn't make an effort, didn't prioritize each other over all the other stuff we might wander off and do, we'd wander off and do that stuff instead. We stick together because we want to and we make the effort."
She leaned in close, staring Starlight in the eyes. "But here's the thing: it's not gonna be you who needs to make the effort, here. Sure, I might have to go do some errands to get us back with Felicity, but I got this. You can stay off your hooves and let me do the fighting. Because you've had to pull way more than your share of this team's load for forever now, and that's dumb and you deserve a break. Get me? You don't need to worry about fighting for our friendships, here. I got you."
Starlight's eyes watered vaguely, and she looked away. "Thanks."
"Yeah..." Valey stretched again. "But that's tomorrow's problem, anyway. We've got like a month to fly to Ironridge, still, and I'm not charging off from there to go writ hunting until I at least get a lead on what direction to start in. Don't wanna leave you guys hanging while I bumble around without a clue. And speaking of tomorrow, you mind helping me lug Sparky to bed?"
Starlight squinted at the mare sleeping on Valey's shoulder. "...She looks like she already thinks you're her bed."
"Heh... yeah... funny story." Valey flicked at an errant lock of her bangs. "Like I said, teenager stuff."
Only a week into the Immortal Dream's flight west, the scenery changed.
The ocean had been endless, a two-week crossing above the mountains, but the Equestrian side fell away early, a long, pocketless desert shore that was free of coves and bays appearing on the horizon and running southwest to northeast. The ship hovered lower to observe it as they passed, noting another set of train tracks running along the water. Gerardo surmised that this must have been a further-west portion of the tracks near Griffonstone, and a long discussion ensued about whether there was a land bridge against the Equestrian sea all the way across the south side of the Aldenfold. The north side of the mountains, everyone remembered, had been nothing but sheer cliffs all the way along.
It was a sandless desert, the ground made of cracked, parched clay and errant boulders instead of drifting dunes. The clay was so flat, it took a full day of flying for them to lose sight of the shore, and a dim gray line to the far, far north warned that the Aldenfold wasn't so far away after all. Sometimes, Valey, Harshwater or Gerardo would fly alongside the ship, dipping down to the surface and investigating the ground, but it was the same every time: ancient, withered stumps, obtuse boulders and endless fields of clay. But every once in a while, they found a line of ground too straight to be a natural formation, slightly more stony than the area around it, and hypotheses were floated that they once were roads.
The more they flew, the more they saw that indicated the area could have been populated before a thousand years of erosion and weather. Storm surge gullies appeared, and they widened into a fragmentation of the strata of the land, producing colorful sloped cliffs where red and orange rocks mixed with the gray. Some of those cliffs held more tangible ruins in their lees, buildings that had once been dug into the sedimentary layers and now existed as heaps of lonely tunnel supports, made from sturdier rock and left behind as their tunnels were weathered away.
Another time, they passed a dried riverbed, the shadow of a dock laying on one side. By now, the land had lost its flatness, and Gerardo pointed out how the hills were steeper to the south: this river had once flowed north, towards the Aldenfold. Its flow predated the mountains themselves.
From the deck of the Dream, Slipstream and Nyala discussed the world's geography, the pegasus lecturing on how much further west the sea extended to the north. Once upon a time, there might have been a coastline north of here instead, fueling trade and an economy... Would this have been Equestria's point of contact with the Empire? Both institutions long predated the Aldenfold. Shinespark's knowledge of world history only traced back about eight hundred years, and Gerardo's drifted into legend around a thousand. Maybe the mountains had cut off that access. Maybe they had changed the weather, and were the reason the area was a desert. Whatever the reason, looking so far into the past left the ship's crew feeling smaller than the cracks in the clay, even though they knew the cracks only looked small because of the distance.
The desert lasted for four and a half days of flying, and Gerardo was loathe to admit they were on a schedule and not stop to investigate the area more. At least half the crew wanted to see how it intersected with the mountains, but in the end they pressed on, reaching a tiny strip of green separating the desert from another sea.
It was during this crossing that their course finally drew too far to the north, and the Aldenfold proper came close enough to observe. They spent a day skimming the shoreline between it and the inland sea, wondering if the desert they had passed had once been an island or a peninsula. If they flew far enough south, would they find it connecting to whatever mainland was west of this second sea? Or was it completely isolated, only accessible over land by someone who was dogged enough to cross this new shoreline?
Gerardo speculated the latter, due to the train tracks. No one would build tracks along this shore: the mountains sloped straight into the sea, not a perfect cliff like the northern side, but an angled drop, as if they were sculpted first and then the basin filled up against them. Finally, Shinespark skimmed low enough to confirm with her altimeter that this water level was higher than the ocean around Kinmari: it was a proper inland sea.
That led to even more speculation about what the world used to look like, especially after Shinespark decided they were far enough west that they would have been overland north of the mountains. Indeed, about a day after she started commenting, the mountains grew a proper shoreline rather than jaggedly meeting the water, thick forests and groves of pine trees separating sandy beaches from the Aldenfold's forbidding slopes. This belt of land was lush and green, and so were the mountains, receiving all the rain that the desert wasn't getting. Once upon a time, if this had been the southern shore of the northern continent that was now mostly wasteland and then Varsidel, would all this rain have blown north, making those wastes more habitable?
Maple told stories to pass the time about the lands around Riverfall, and Amber joined in. None of them really knew what the wastes were like beyond a mile or so, but Gerardo backed them up with ease: the lands north of the Aldenfold and east of Riverfall were a shattered landscape, in some places lush and in others sparse, like someone had taken a cosmic trowel to the bedrock and sliced and tossed it a bit before fusing it in place however it landed. Maybe the creation of the Aldenfold had involved an earthquake, and the land had never properly healed... though according to the griffon, untamed wilderness wasn't something that needed healing at all.
They spotted smoke one dawn, a village more remote than even Riverfall. Amber was on watch, and she fetched Maple and Valey and the others, and Gerardo lowered the ship so they could have a better look. It was a wooded hamlet, with log cabins and dirt roads, and they passed close enough to see big-faced stallions and mares with feathers in their manes staring up at the Dream like it was an incarnate god. Nyala noted that if an archaeologist ever explored that village in the distant future, after it was only a ruin too, perhaps they'd find carvings of the ship and be left scratching their heads about just what the ponies saw.
Shinespark adjusted their course slightly to the south, keeping pace with the shoreline instead of the Aldenfold wall. She counted days on a ledger, computed carefully their speeds using Valey's restored terminal, and tried to produce miles from there, tracking their progress and measuring when they would need to hop back across the Aldenfold to come out near Ironridge.
Why not jump across earlier, Gerardo asked, why wait until Ironridge?
The answer Maple gave was simple: it would be a daylong detour at worst, and she wanted to see Starlight's old village.
A lot of discussion happened around the topic. Everyone knew it wasn't actually a one-day detour, since no one cared what they did north of the border and their main reason for haste was to get out of Equestria before anything could grow more complicated. Had they cared only about speed of returning to the north, they could have gone straight north from Kinmari and crossed into the ocean west of the Empire. But it involved Starlight, and everyone knew Starlight was the one who got the short end of the stick dealing with Chrysalis and Gazelle, and nobody wanted to be the one to make an argument against a plan that might be for Starlight's sake. But that left the decision of whether or not she wanted it on her, and that was a decision Starlight wasn't thrilled to be making. So she passed it off to Maple, and Maple said they should go.
Besides, they had a spare Writ of Harmonic Sanction in case they ran into border guards who didn't want Starlight crossing, and they had a sealed letter from Celestia explaining the situation, and they were still going to reach Ironridge before Celestia reached Canterlot, which was when she advised them to be clear of Equestria by. And with how busy Shinespark could be in Ironridge, and how Valey and Gerardo were planning to go off writ-hunting in Varsidel, and how Starlight might not be the happiest, being already known in any of their northern destinations, everyone knew the real unspoken plan: find out if Maple should take the writ and stay behind with Starlight in Equestria, and live off the map until Valey or Celestia or someone came through and they all got back together again. And to do that, they had to visit the town.
Because once they crossed the border, there would be no going back.
After the third week of travel, Starlight started describing the area around her old home so it would be easier for the navigators to find. They were still following the pine forest that stretched between the inland sea and the Aldenfold, the waters sometimes endless to their left, and other times with the shadow of land distantly visible, or even close. At one point, the waters grew narrow enough that two towers had been erected on the banks with villages on either side, lit fires at the top that were blocked and unblocked to send signals.
The trees were about right here, Starlight said, particularly on the southern side of the water. She knew there were mountains north of her home, where she had crossed, and also to the west, so this long, narrow sea couldn't continue past there. There were more villages to the south, and she wasn't very aware what was to the east, but one day the northern land strip ended and the Aldenfold went back to its regular, jagged seashore, and only a day after that Amber became convinced she saw the shadows of mountains in the distance to the west.
They were close. Starlight was almost back where she began.
The air was chilly and the mountains tall, their bases forested and their midsections rocky before snow started in the distance above. Starlight took to sitting on the roof of the bridge, watching the lands that were approaching and remembering the first third of her journey, before the mountains in the north and before even the caves through which she bypassed the peaks. It had been a warmer season when she left. She remembered the scent of frost stinging her nostrils on the coldest days of the year, and had stuck to valleys and the eastern faces of mountains all throughout the climb, wind constantly blowing in from the west.
It was a big part of why her village was warm enough all year round: cold winds rushed down this sea corridor, likely coming off the mountains to the west. But her village was properly in those mountains' lee, and she had made sure to keep that cover whenever she had a choice in which way she went. Looking down at the waters, they were choppy, the wind funneled into them by the steep slopes to the side. But if she had to guess, the cold season had come and gone while she'd been away in the north. Aside from more runoff and meltwater, the conditions in the mountains were probably about the same as when she had first departed.
For all the mountains cared, she had never been gone. She wondered if her village would feel the same...
The western wall drew closer, shorter and yet more sheer than the Aldenfold. Shinespark slowed the ship so that they would arrive at dawn, the eastern light shining down the narrow sea corridor and illuminating their endpoint with rosy pinks and golds. Here was where the sea finished, the southern shore close enough to see for a day or two and finally rising up to meet the mountains as well, two rivers feeding into it from the Aldenfold and the southwest. A dock was constructed at the bottom of the mountain wall, with stairs snaking up the Aldenfold's easier climb before departing in a trail to the west. Beyond a single, low-laying ridge, wisps of hearth smoke drifting up from a valley before the mountains resumed.
Tomorrow evening, Starlight might be back in Riverfall, or even Ironridge. But today, she had one place to revisit first. Sunburst wouldn't be here. Her old adoptive parents might be. One way or another, maybe she would find closure on what had started this all.
The Immortal Dream settled down in the shelter of the low ridge separating the valley of Sires Hollow from the reaching talon of the sea to the east, resting in the water rather than on land. This close to the mountain wall, no wind blew, and the waters were calm and placid even through they grew rough further out. A small dock reached down from the trail back into the mountains, holding two small fishing skiffs and a medium boat that could probably sleep four, if the passengers were willing to be cramped. It had a lengthy platform with a bench that ran along parallel to the staircase to the trail, and was completely uninhabited.
Starlight stood by the railing with everyone else as they drew near. "That's a fishing place," she said, though it wasn't too hard to guess.
"Looks abandoned," Gerardo remarked. "Albeit in decent repair. Strange. I would have expected the dawn hours to be prime material for fishing."
"How deep is the water here?" Shinespark called from the bridge. "How close to land can we get!?"
Starlight stared over the railing and into the depths, searching her memories. "Cold and really deep." She had dropped a toy in there once, long ago. She had been told it was gone forever.
Shinespark edged the Dream up parallel to the boats that were already moored at the dock, not enough room to fit it fully alongside them and the dock low to the water, at that. "We'll need to jump or fly," she said, stepping out of the bridge once again. "Who all is going ashore?"
"We are," Maple declared, standing at Starlight's side.
"Me!" Valey hopped up as well. "I gotta see what this place is about for myself."
"And I'd be remiss if I bypassed the opportunity for adventure," Gerardo added, joining them.
Grenada glanced between Shinespark and the away party, the orange harmony comet shimmering overhead. "We will keep the ship ready and waiting for your return. Remember, as remote as this village is, we will all be more comfortable once we are back to Ironridge."
"We did come all this way, though," Shinespark countered, with a glance at Starlight. "We have lots of fuel left, and multiple contingencies in our writ and Princess Celestia's letter. Since we're here, make sure to do what you need to do."
"We will," Maple promised. "Now, can I get a lift?"
Gerardo prepared to lift her, and Valey, Starlight, when Jamjars piped up. "Can I come too?"
Maple bit her lip. "Would it be okay if you didn't? We're visiting very quickly, and this is for Starlight."
"I'm her friend too." Jamjars shrugged and rolled her eyes, turning to walk away. "But whatever."
Maple sighed. "Starlight?"
"Will you cause trouble?" Starlight asked, glancing at her fellow filly.
"I swear an oath not to." Jamjars drew a hoof across her heart. "Unless one of you does something first and I need to bail you out, I will be look, don't touch for the entire stay."
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Even then, if you can't promise to stay out of trouble no matter what..."
Jamjars shrugged. "I'm promising not to be the first one to get in trouble."
Starlight winced. This felt like trouble, but she didn't want a fight... "Fine. But stay where I can see you, okay?"
Jamjars batted her eyelids. "I thought you'd never ask."
Starlight groaned. "Let's just go..."
In the time the discussion had taken, the shore suddenly wasn't so empty. Valey poked Maple and Starlight's shoulders, gesturing towards the bend where the mountain trail to the village twisted out of sight. "Yo," she whispered. "We're being watched."
"Are they hostile?" Maple's ears fell.
Valey tilted her head. "Probably not? But I think they might be armed. Smart, honestly, if there's any chance we could be pillagers. Let's go make peace."
Gerardo scooped up Maple and Valey grabbed Starlight, both conveniently forgetting about Jamjars. The four assembled on the dock, its old timbers creaking slightly beneath their hooves, and their welcome party gathered at the top, where the staircase merged into the mountain in a steep trail. The ponies in the rear all were gawking at the blazing harmony comet, and only the two in the front held their composure: a lone, armored Equestrian guard, and a very short, well-fed, middle-aged mare who looked very familiar.
"Are you...?" Starlight squinted, stepping forward. Names from her old town had long been buried beneath more pressing things in her memory.
"Starlight?" The mare stepped forward, eyes widening and guard going down. "Is that you? You're alive!?"
The guard blinked, his spear never properly raised, but now a lot lower. Starlight's friends stayed back as well, letting this meeting be for her. The mare carefully climbed down the staircase, Starlight waiting at the bottom, struggling to remember her name. "It's me," she eventually said. "I'm back..."
"Starlight?" the mare asked again, taking a single step forward. "What even happened to you? We thought you were dead, or ran away, or..."
"I ran away," Starlight confirmed. "I'm not dead. And I don't know if I'm back. I'm visiting with my new family." She folded her ears. "I... don't really remember your name. Sorry. A lot has happened..."
"Fishy?" the mare asked. "Fish Fillet? I caught fish for the bakery's sandwiches and did their finances? Was friends with your parents?"
A memory clicked in Starlight's mind. "Oh. You were over for dinner sometimes. Right. Um..." She had no idea what else to say. "Hi?"
Suddenly, she was being hugged. "We thought you were dead," Fishy repeated. "After you vanished, we thought about how unhappy you had been since Sunburst left, and..."
At that point, Maple stepped forward, but she didn't interrupt. "You're Starlight's new family?" Fishy asked, looking up.
"We are. I take care of her, most of the time." Maple nodded. "What about you?"
"Family friend." Fishy shook her head, letting Starlight go. "And now the mayor, which is why I headed up the party when Grandpa Glitterfish came running up from the docks talking about a second sun on the horizon. Always wondered if my head for numbers would lead to something. Heh." She offered a hoof, unable to keep her gaze fully away from the harmony comet. "What is that thing? Almost reminds me of eight years ago..."
"It's our airship," Valey said with a swagger. "You seem pretty alright. We're kinda just visiting, but mind showing us around? I'm curious what the place is like, and Starlight might wanna know what's changed? Valey, by the way."
Maple blinked, realizing she had forgotten to introduce herself. "Oh! And I'm Maple."
"Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire." Gerardo put a talon to his breast and bowed.
"Nice to meet you all. Fish Fillet, or Fishy," Fishy repeated. "And sure! Come right on. We're just glad you're not pillagers." She chuckled. "Stuff doesn't change too quickly around here, but after all the months you've been gone, well... it's been enough for a thing or two to happen."
Starlight walked first out of her party members, her hooves finding holes and contours in the trail that were painfully familiar, yet she never would have remembered existed. Most of the gawkers moved aside on the trail to let them pass, though the guard that headed up the party with Fishy stared at them with half-closed eyes.
"You have an airship," the guard said, glancing between the harmony comet and Starlight's friends. "Don't suppose you're thinking of heading north with it?"
Valey pursed her lips. "Longer story than you think. I take it you've got opinions on that?"
"Sure do." The guard quietly nodded. "Maybe we can talk about it over lunch. This is supposed to be a quiet posting, and no one's looking for trouble."
Valey nodded, glancing at Maple and Gerardo. "Sounds good to me."
Starlight followed Fishy, already knowing what her friends were thinking. It wouldn't be easy to convince a guard that they had an airship, yet weren't interested in the border without a rock-solid alibi, and they'd probably be reported even if they did. But there was no denying she was from here...
However they sliced things, they were probably going to need that Writ of Harmonic Sanction to all stay together without far too much trouble. Good thing they still had it.
The trail through the pass to Sires Hollow was steep, and by the time they reached the apex, Fishy was panting and several of the other villagers were winded. "Whew," Fishy managed, glancing at Starlight. "You're not tired at all from that climb?" She peered back at the bay, far below. "Kids have so much energy..."
Starlight shrugged, noticing the exertion on herself but not really caring. "I exercise sometimes."
It was a little bit of an understatement. She had spent hours per day of the crossing killing time by training with Valey, and the atmosphere on the Dream was far thinner than it was down here. After all the scrapes she had gotten into, it was at least a productive use of time. But with voluntary handicaps of no horn and no wings, she had yet to best her mentor even once, even with over a hundred hours of practice. Probably to be expected when Valey had a lifetime of experience and was twice her size...
They rounded another corner, and Starlight's focus snapped back to her surroundings. A valley sprawled ahead, tinged green from the pine trees scattered throughout the building rooves, and she was just high enough that she could see both the treetops all the way across and the roads that sprawled between them. The roads and houses of Sires Hollow reached all the way to the steep mountain slopes to the east and west, built up along the western slope a little with lattices and supports. To the north was another lake, fed by the mountains and tucked almost entirely into a pocket of cliffs, and a river flowed south from it, winding through the village. To the south, Starlight knew, the river would loop around a ways until the ridge they were standing on ended and it could flow back north into the bay where they had left the Dream. Also heading south was something that passed enough for a road that ponies could use it whenever they wanted to visit the more inland towns.
Ponies often went that way to sell their fish. Pass through enough towns, Starlight had heard, and you would eventually reach one that had a railroad terminal. That was the way Sunburst had gone when he left.
None of the buildings rose more than two stories high, with timber and stone as the abundant primary construction materials. Ponies waved with interested hellos as they followed Fishy through the streets; visitors here were uncommon enough to be interesting, but not so rare as to stop the town in its tracks. Some of those ponies waved from wooden store counters with open-air windows and wooden signs advertising their wares, the affluent ones showing off their affluence with stone countertops instead. Stone bricks formed foundations, curbsides and barriers around sculpted gardens. These buildings and their ponies had been here for long enough that someone had taken the time to make them look pretty.
"Seems like a pretty relaxed place," Valey commented, a few ponies looking at Starlight with something akin to recognition but none jumping out of their horseshoes and screaming that she was alive. "Kinda detecting a theme with the construction, though. You guys don't have any troubles with fires?"
Fishy shook her head. "We have a very dedicated fire brigade just in case. But most of the time, lightning strikes higher up in the mountains. Not a lot of lightning rods here for the storms."
"Always the chance for accidental blazes, rather than ones delivered by the weather," Gerardo remarked, pointing to the hoofful of stone chimneys rising above the buildings. "You have to burn something for heat, after all."
Fishy nodded sadly. "We lost the entire inn about five years ago. It does happen. But it's usually wet enough to keep things from spreading, and like I said, we're very vigilant."
Starlight let them talk, trying to remember the layout of the town. It was coming back to her like a dream, places that existed in a fragment of scents and colors in her mind reassembling themselves before her eyes with every turned corner. When they reached a bridge across the river, she had to stop, sagging against the railing and watching the banks in the distance, assailed by memories of the times she and Sunburst had once played here...
She wasn't going to cry. But she hadn't been quite ready for this.
"So where are we going?" Maple asked, stopping alongside her and putting a hoof on Starlight's shoulders. The bridge was reasonably active, and while they were hardly impeding traffic, they were far from alone.
"No place in particular." Fishy shrugged. "Figured I'd give you a walkaround, then go see the town hall. It's where most things happen. Unless there's anywhere any of you'd like to visit?"
"What about Starlight's old home?" Maple cautiously asked.
"Indeed," Gerardo added. "I'm surprised we didn't opt to set course for there first."
Wasn't that where they were going? Starlight remembered this bridge. This was the path she had taken home after every time she...
"Ah, well, ah..." Fishy rubbed her ears. "I thought I'd let you ask before doing that one on my own. It's a bit of a complicated story..."
"Starlight's old home?" Fishy asked, leading the party off the bridge and onto a quieter street down the riverbank. "Well... these days... I don't suppose you all are in the mood for a story?"
Starlight's ears were already down. "What happened?"
"I don't know that it's my place to tell you..." Fishy's tone was hesitant, but her stride and poise were those of a mare who was fully used to telling ponies things they didn't want to hear. "And maybe your old parents told you already. You know they adopted you, right, honey?"
Starlight nodded. "I knew that for a while."
"Well, the reason they adopted you," Fishy continued, "was that your father couldn't have children. But he wanted one, and your mother cared about him enough to humor him, and so when I first got you as a helpless little thing, they were the ones I went to, asking if they could take care of you, and they said yes. You ever know I got you before they did?"
"I heard that an archaeologist found me in the mountains," Starlight replied.
Fishy instantly winced. "You did? So you heard about... Uh. I made them promise not to burden you with that..."
"I heard from the archaeologist," Starlight insisted. "His name is Doctor Caballeron and he works as a professor at a school far east of here. Right?"
"Well, I'll be." Fishy wiped her brow. "Yes indeed, he was the one who found you first. He gave you to me to find someone proper to care for you. Anyhow, your parents here... They were..." She glanced at the rest of Starlight's friends, uneasy. "I'm not sure how to say this."
Starlight shook her head, feeling cold at what she was about to say but ready to say it regardless. "If you're going to tell me something happened to them because I left, it's fine. I didn't really care about them anyway. Probably because they didn't help me deal with it when I was upset about Sunburst."
Something in Fishy's expression cracked. "You blame them for all that?"
Starlight's focus shrank, blocking out all the familiar houses and trees and sights around her until her world was very small. "I was miserable. I'm still not alright. That's why I came back. They should have done something to change it, or to help me, or... or... It was their job!"
Fishy moved to block her path. "Hold on, honey. You can't blame them for everything. Starlight, your parents were... Your dad had more enthusiasm than experience. He was real friendly and happy and did a lot to make ponies like him, but he didn't know what to do when the going got rough and would sometimes panic and freeze up and hope the bad times would just blow over. He probably tried extra hard to be a good sport when the times got good in hopes that it would compensate for it. And he was the one who really wanted you. Your mom cared about you because he cared about you and she cared about him. That doesn't mean they weren't fantastic ponies through and through. I was friends with them for a reason. But if you're going to blame someone for all that stuff that happened, don't you blame your parents for having their flaws. Blame me for putting what my friends wanted over finding ponies who would be best for you."
Starlight stood perfectly still, the horizon dark in her vision. "Do you really mean that?"
"Things didn't happen all at once, you remember," Fishy said. "I know you started going downhill after they sent Sunburst off to magic school. But it was still quite a while until you left. I saw you, and I could have said something. Could have done something. But every time, I just couldn't bring myself to tell them they weren't doing enough for you. I think all three of us knew it, and we all knew that once I spoke up, it would amount to calling your dad a failure and not giving him any more chances. So yes, I do mean it. I tried to put my friendship with your parents above you, and have been kicking myself for months every single time I see a kid walk by because of it. If you want someone to blame, honey, you'll have to look right here. Because like I said, your parents aren't around here anymore."
Starlight stared. Someone was right in front of her, standing straight and offering to take responsibility for every bad thing that had happened to her? No, not for the bad things: for her being on her own through them. For her lacking everything she had seen in her vision at the flame of love, where she was the parent and her own child had a friend move away.
Fishy was right there. Starlight trembled.
"...I forgive you," Starlight eventually said. "A-And them."
Fishy's brow creased. "What?"
Starlight took a breath. "I didn't have a good time. I had a very bad time. It hurt. A lot. And you didn't think of me, and I ran away because I thought the mountains would be better company than anyone here! But that's not going to change if I throw you away because I'm mad at you. I don't want fewer ponies in my life. That's the whole problem! I'm lonely! I'm lonely and I don't have a home. And I've been traveling for months, and everywhere I go I try to be nice and helpful because all I want is for someone to return the favor, and no one's going to like me if I fight back. So I forgive you. Because I don't have what I need, and the only way I'll ever get it is by giving ponies another chance."
Mentally, she added a wish that this philosophy would please be proven true. Doing the wrong thing wouldn't get ponies to care about her; that much was certain. All of her actions were based on the assumption that the opposite was also true... but maybe it wasn't, and she was screwed either way. But she couldn't consider that. Not yet. That would mean giving up.
"...Well, then." Fishy stared at her, so short that she wasn't even a head taller despite being a full-grown mare. "You've had a much harder life than even I'd thought."
"Thanks for reminding me," Starlight deadpanned, waiting desperately for anything to happen.
Her wish was somewhat granted when Valey stepped up. "Bananas. So, uhh... What happened to her parents?"
Fishy gave her a look that suggested she was interrupting, but it wasn't entirely unwarranted. "They split up. It was a cute little romance when they got together. They treated each other like they were on a honeymoon that never ended. But her father got real down after she left, feeling like he had failed her, and wanted to get another kid and try again. Her mother said no, bad idea, we're not ready... I backed her up on it." Her ears folded. "Eventually, they were so emotionally in tune with each other, she decided she needed a break because his desperation was going to get her down, and since they couldn't agree on what to do next anyway... Well, you know. She said he needed space to come to terms with what had happened and not feel like it was some wrong to be righted. He didn't take it perfectly, but eventually agreed. So one day, she headed east on a boat, he moved one town south, and they made a fairy-tale promise that once they'd both worked through their issues, they'd get back together again. And that was the end of that."
"Oh," Starlight said.
"Your house is... well..." Fishy shuffled in place. "This was recent enough that we haven't exactly had anyone move in yet. But it's cleaned and empty. All your old stuff is in a basement shed under my place, if you want it. Your dad didn't want to become a hoarder by taking it with him, but I knew it meant a lot to him, so I offered to take it. The mayor's mansion has a big basement."
Maple stepped up as well, the clouds on Starlight's horizon lifting and allowing the town to come back into focus around her again. Birds were flitting, ponies were hanging laundry out of second-story windows and pulling carts... Everywhere else, life was going on.
"What kind of old things?" Maple asked. "I'd love to know more about what things were like here before everything happened."
Fishy shrugged. "Toys, books... It's all boxed up in a few crates. I don't exactly go poking around there too much. Don't have much need for a filly's things I'm storing for a friend. You want to have a look at them? I'm sure he'd be happy if they made it back to you."
Maple glanced at Starlight. "Do you want your old things?"
"Maybe." Starlight didn't even remember what kind of things she used to own. "What else are we going to do?"
Fishy pointed a hoof down another road, flanked by houses with large eaves and red-wood shingles. "I can show you your old house, if you want to see the empty place. My place is right by the town hall, which is the right place to go if you're looking for lunch or just want something interesting to happen. So it depends how peckish you are. How long are you staying for, anyway? I do assume you're passing through..."
Gerardo hesitated. "We'll need to speak with that guard as well, I suspect, but the intention for most of us is indeed to move right along."
"Most?" Fishy glanced at Starlight.
Starlight's ears fell. "...Can we talk about that later? Let's just go see my house..."
During the walk that followed, Maple was the most talkative of the group, curious about all aspects of Sires Hollow's life. "You have bathtubs in your own houses? Where I'm from, we had a large communal bathhouse, though plenty of water ponies just went in the river."
"That we do!" Fishy looked proud of herself. "Took a lot of trading to get enough iron for the plumbing, but about seventy years ago some adventurous stallions built themselves a boat and sailed out with a goal in mind, and came back a year later with a whole cargo of the stuff. Every once and a while we've had to get more pipes so we have supplies for repairs, but it went a long way toward modernizing this town. Just because we're in an out-of-the-way corner of the world doesn't mean we have to live like it!"
Outer Equestria's economy, as Fishy explained it, was divided up into two major bodies of trade: the railroads, which provided a link to Inner Equestria, and the Aubergine Sea, which was the huge body of water they had crossed between the desert landmass and the shores of Sires Hollow. There were three major points where the two connected: one was on the southeastern edge of the sea, south of the desert, which was indeed connected to the mainland and grew more habitable the further from the Aldenfold one went, and another was at the sea's southwestern edge, where there were more long talons of water that stretched out like the one they had followed, only in more favorable directions. As close as that second port was as the pegasus flies, one would have to sail so far to the east to round the peninsula separating the two channels that it would still be an incredible undertaking, going there by boat.
"You know..." Valey rubbed her head. "I'm never gonna remember half of this without a map."
"That's just fine," Fishy chuckled. "Even I have to remember the geography by its oddities. Sometimes you look at things in the world that are so inconvenient or so out there, and you wonder who even thought it would be a good idea to make them that way? Like us having to sail so far to reach the big trading lines."
"You think the seas were sculpted on purpose?" Gerardo asked.
Fishy shrugged. "Legend has it these mountains all around us were made by Princess Celestia herself, the Bringer of Day. If you want to believe the rest of the world was made by someone too, it ain't my place to stop you. That aside, someone had to have made all these railroads."
"Ah, yes. Those." Gerardo nodded. "You said there was a third connection?"
"Technically, us." Fishy rolled her shoulders. "Only the rails just plain stop about three hundred miles southwest of here for no reason whatsoever. Which is about five hundred miles by hoof, thanks to the mountains..." She huffed. "You know how these mountains are straight flat horizontal east to west, from here as far east as you can go? Well, they dip down south if you go west from here. We're right up in the corner. And someone thought it would be funny to make rails that go straight north from Canterlot all the way up to that hump in the mountains and then just stop in the middle of nowhere instead of coming to us. I hear they go into the foothills and just end at a frosted station without even a town around it! You have to get off one town early, then follow the long forest roads through a lot of smaller settlements just to get to us... and the same line passes by that other port to the Aubergine Sea. Why someone would have built that is baffling."
"So this one rail line has two different roads you could take from it to reach the sea," Maple said. "But one of them, the train runs right past the water, and on the other you have to cross five hundred miles of roads because no one finished the rails, and we're on the slower one."
Fishy scratched an ear. "Pretty much. Except it isn't not finished... it just goes to somewhere nopony wants to go! I hear there's other places like this. The desert far to the east, there's a rail line that goes through there to someplace called Griffonstone? A story I once heard says that rail line has a branch into it that goes up the middle of that desert next to the mountains and just flat stops. No nothing that anyone would want to visit for miles around."
"Eh. Architects are insane," Valey replied, dismissing it with a wave of a wing. "What else is new?"
"Point is," Fishy said with a grin, "we're far enough out of the way that we're as rural as rural can get, yet close enough to the way that you've got multiple options for bringing in the amenities of a good life, and all it takes is a little determination to go get it. We're out there, but not isolated. Off the map, but there's a map a stone's throw away. I've traveled with a caravan to the southern towns once, and I've seen a little of what's out there if you go slightly further away, and personally, I love the balance we have here. More often than not, it's a real peaceful place."
"It sounds nice," Maple murmured, lost in thought. "I'm sure you're obligated to say that as the mayor, but I mean it. I'm glad we came to visit."
Fishy shook her head. "Just glad I could get your spirits back up. You wanted to see Starlight's old place? We're just about there."
Starlight remembered what her house looked like right before she saw it. The house she saw didn't really look like what she remembered.
The two floors were still there, the top one smaller than the bottom one, creating a space where she could sneak out a window and sit on the roof and watch the stars at night, or hang out with Sunburst. The red wood shingles were the same, though someone had fixed the one that was knocked loose the one time she slipped and nearly fell. But the window through which she had once exited was empty, and no lights shone in her old room beyond.
Once, they had kept a hedge, though only to the sides of the house rather than around the front yard. It was a cramped hedge, but Starlight had found a hole and burrowed her way into a hollow inside, making it a secret base barely big enough for one, and stashed small amounts of snacks there for days when she felt like sneaking outside to read, or spying on the neighbors during their very unremarkable cookouts and other outdoor routines. Now, the hole she once used was completely grown over, the hedge around it poorly pruned, because no one had crawled into it in far too long.
A long time ago, her mother had used the front windowsill to cool desserts in that evening hour between baking them and dinner. It was a time when little fillies should have been playing outside, and little Starlight spent precious minutes of her time eyeing that windowsill. There was a time when she could touch the bottom if she stood on her hind legs and reared up all the way, and then a time when she could scrape the bottom of the pie tins and cake pans with the tip of her horn, until the proud day when she could nudge the desserts with her horn without her forehooves leaving the ground. It had been a game, how scared she could make her parents that she was going to steal them without actually going all the way. It had become such a tradition that she had a record of her height, once, from the scratches her horn left in the paint. But now those scratches were painted over. The whole house was painted, actually, but the rest of the paint had never been hers.
...She paused, looking at the windowsill again. Was it just her, or was it eye level with her now?
Maybe she had grown in the months she had been away. Maybe she had not only grown then, but during the months before she fled where she didn't do much of anything. Or maybe it was an illusion because the windowsill was all the way across the yard. The past always looked smaller from a distance, after all.
"Well?" Fishy said, stepping up to the sidewalk and stopping. "Here we are. What do you think, honey? Has it changed?"
Starlight stared at the house for a moment longer before she knew her answer. "Not as much as I have."
Maple put a quiet hoof on her shoulder.
Behind them, Valey waited patiently. "You wanna check it out?"
"Okay..." Starlight was too busy remembering to consider what she wanted, but at Valey's request, she stepped forward down the path to the porch.
There was a segment of the sidewalk where someone had left things a tiny bit uneven, creating a spot where careless ponies could trip. Starlight didn't even remember it was there until she went out of her way to avoid it.
The woodwork creaked faintly as she stepped up to the door, partly a familiar creak, but one that had changed over time. "It's locked," Fishy called behind her. "I suppose we'll have to-"
Starlight shrugged, lit her horn and teleported.
Inside the foyer, there was a small amount of dust, but not as much as she expected. Little enough that she could ignore it in favor of what really mattered. What really mattered were things like the shoe rack, where her father once kept wading boots for fishing at the northern lake, and her mother kept polished horseshoes that made a special click when she walked. It was also a rack where some of the nails holding the sides on had started to come undone, after the day she tripped over the door while running inside too fast and caught the rack while knocking it over somehow. No one had fixed that, she saw. It was still loose when she rocked it a little with a hoof.
Voices were behind her, and she absently unlocked the door so that the others could enter. She didn't pay them any heed, though, drifting into the rest of the house like a ghost.
Past the foyer was a wide-open hallway, the living room to the right, the kitchen and dining room to the left, and closets and a staircase straight ahead. Though the hall ran side to side, it was both broad and deep enough to be the best spot in the house, where she could run from end to end pretending to be something or racing her imagination, and where she could spread out all her toys before being told to clean them up again at night. Was the floor still dented where she had bludgeoned it with a bowling pin to see what would happen? Yes, it was. Was there still dried glue on the ceiling from when she had tried to hide her father's spatula and test her telekinesis at the same time? It seemed no one had ever gotten it all the way off.
Starlight trotted for the staircase, memories floating like dust moats to the left and right, but her second-story room calling to her most of all. The stairs had tiny lips where their floors extended a little further than their backs, and she found herself tapping the fronts of her hind legs against them as she climbed. It was an old, pointless habit she remembered herself having, one she got into purely because she liked the way it felt. The Immortal Dream had the same type of staircase, but she never remembered doing it there.
The stairs had a landing where they turned to the right. When Starlight was waking up and coming down the stairs in a hurry, that turn had been a challenge to be surmounted, the wall an obstacle she had slammed into on more than one unlucky occasion. She could almost feel her nose hurting and her head spinning, just by looking at it, but she could also remember the scent of springtime and the voice of a friend calling her through the door. The memory built itself up on either end, everything she had seen assembling like the crumbs of a dropped cookie into something she really wanted, but had been told she couldn't have.
Before this, she would hear the calls through her window. She would pry the window up with her muzzle and lean out, hooves on the windowsill and mane in the wind.
After this, she would hit the sidewalk running and slow to a jog. Stories would be swapped: what did you do last night? Plans would be made: what do you want to do today? The weather would be sunny, inviting adventure and exploration, or cloudy or rainy, begging for elaborate hiding and muttered, serious conversation.
It was a hundred memories in one, all made from common thread, like a sliced rope in Starlight's heart. She stared at the wall, at a tiny corner near the ground she was certain her parents had never noticed where she carved with tiny text, DUMB WALL, and touched the inscription lightly with her nose, for the first time feeling like breath just wouldn't come.
Her friends weren't following. She could hear them. This was for her.
At the top of the stairs was another landing, with a window and an alcove that was supposed to hold a coffee table and two chairs for reading by the sunlight. It was empty, but that just made it look like the time her parents had pulled it apart themselves for cleaning. Starlight stared at the empty, white walls, with their perfect corners and undisturbed window and no furnishings whatsoever, reeling from the memory of staring at exactly the same thing, years ago. She had never seen her house that bare, back then. It fascinated her like a blank sheet of paper, room that was ready for and had no purpose other than decorating. Her parents hadn't been happy when she decorated it. In retrospect, it had maybe been the second best blanket fort she ever made.
The upstairs also held her parents' bedroom, which was long and narrow and not a place she often went, with a good view in the evening and heavy blinds to keep the sun out in the mornings so her mother could sleep in. She hadn't visited it much, but had at least been there enough to know what it should feel like.
Now, the blinds had been taken down, which was just wrong. They were still there, though, laying stacked at the bases of the windows. Starlight frowned, lit her horn and fixed them, drew them open and nodded, satisfied with her work. Things were a little bit more how they should be.
There was also a bathroom, one with rose-colored tiles and two doors, so it could be accessed from the hallway or her parents' room. That brought back memories of bath time, because she was never allowed to use it. Her parents always made her use the downstairs one, because this one was nicer and they didn't want her splashing and getting it wet. She had always told them maybe she would be more excited about bath time if they let her use the big, fancy bath. They never listened.
But they weren't there to stop her now, were they?
Starlight nosed open the door and slipped inside, feeling naughty enough that she closed the door behind her so no one could see she was here. Funny how she hadn't cared a drop for her parent's rules last time she was here, and suddenly she did care now that she was the only one who could.
She lit her horn, no windows in this room to let in natural light. But her teal didn't look good on pink. With a bit of searching, she found the light switch, having never previously seen where it was, and then the room was hers.
It was big. It was rosy. Its abundant porcelain was cool to the touch, and it still smelled faintly of roses, left over from the soap her parents only stocked in this bathroom. That was her mother's smell.
Somewhere in Starlight's mind, a version of her bounced around, climbing and exploring the room and rubbing against the cool tiles and giggling at her trespass and discovery. It wasn't a memory. Starlight had never done this. It was a Starlight that should never have been allowed to die.
But all the current Starlight could do was stand and stare, ears and tail down and head high, perfectly still, wonder on her face in the mirror and a tiny tear in her eye. That other Starlight in her head was happy. But she was gone... but she could still remember her. She wanted her back.
If she knew what that Starlight would do, why couldn't she make that come true?
She couldn't, though. The Starlight she missed and remembered was like a Starlight in a mirror, and she was so tempted to smash the mirror and reach through and grab her and take her place in a happier, better life as a happier, more complete pony. But she couldn't. She couldn't because that mirror was already broken and she was already the Starlight on the other side, looking back at the real one who should have kept existing all along. And the pieces of that broken mirror were her memories, scattered and found all around this house and village, which she couldn't stop herself from putting back together.
It was too much. Starlight yanked open the bathroom door and ran out, leaving the lights on, instinct carrying her straight for the room she always went to when she truly needed to hide.
Her room was completely barren. Every memory she had made here was packed away and gone.
Starlight choked on a single sob. She wanted it back. She wanted to be that carefree filly again! She lit her horn... Flash!
With a burst of teal, there was her bed. Made from crystal, but perfectly sculpted and positioned, right where it used to be.
It wasn't enough. Starlight looked around... Desk and chair. Flash. Bookcase. Flash. Toy chest in the corner. Flash. Hideous school project hanging unceremoniously from the ceiling like a hunter's trophy? Flash!
But no matter how many things she tried to bring back, the most important things were the ponies. Without them, nothing she could build wouldn't fall apart. After all, that was what started all this in the first place.
Starlight crawled onto her crystal bed next to the window, the paint on the window frame peeling from the times she had tried to affix decals to it using tape, and cried.
Valey and Maple stood quietly on the landing, looking through the half-open door at Starlight as she clung to her crystal bed and wept. "Do I go to her?" Maple whispered, ears flat.
"Bananas," Valey said. "Look at those crystals. She really did never get over this place."
"What do I do, though!?" Maple breathed. "Look at her..."
Valey shrugged. "She needs stuff that just isn't here anymore. Think you're the closest she has."
Maple stepped into the room, crossing quickly over to Starlight now her mind had been made up. "Starlight..."
"I want my old life back," Starlight sniffled. "All of it. I miss it..."
Maple frowned, sitting on the bed beside her and pulling Starlight against her side. "Your parents and Sunburst, or other things, too?"
"Everything."
"Starlight..." Maple sighed, rubbing her back. "Do you want to stay here? Instead of returning to Ironridge? It's one of the options we saved the writ for. So I could use it and stay here with you."
"I want everything back," Starlight repeated. It didn't matter whether or not it was a reasonable demand. She needed to make it. The truth needed to be said.
Maple sat there for a moment. "Fishy says there's maybe two other ponies in the village who can teleport," she eventually told her. "She said Sunburst went to school on far less than that. If we stayed, and you decided something like that was most important to you, we could go that way too. Maybe you could meet again."
Starlight wiped her nose on the crystals. "But the me Sunburst was friends with is gone. I'm s-so different! And I don't miss him nearly as much as I miss that me..."
"You miss who you used to be," Maple whispered. "You want to be that filly again?"
"Yes..." Starlight raised her head. "I miss not caring about anything other than what I did last night and what I would do today! I miss looking forward to waking up so much that I run down the stairs, and I miss laughing! I miss making up things to hide from and I miss having someone to hide with and I miss going to school and exploring the town and watching ponies go fishing and thinking about things that weren't how to stay alive and everything!"
"Oh, Starlight..." Maple exhaled, rocking gently. "We need to stop traveling. You have no roots. You can't put any down without getting them torn away. We can't wait until we build a new town on the land Garsheeva gave us. You need this now."
"I needed it ages ago."
"I know. But we can't turn back time," Maple murmured. "Take the time you need, and then we'll talk to ponies and think of something. But I'd like for us to visit some things you enjoyed that are still here. Sunburst might have been your best friend, but he wasn't the only pony in your life, just like how I have friends beyond Amber and Willow. I promise it'll all be over soon and things can start getting back to normal."
Fishy had been paying closer attention to Starlight ever since their talk by the river, where Starlight insisted she forgave her. That hadn't lessened after the visit to Starlight's old house, probably because she had seen Starlight teleport.
It wasn't the kind of attention the Riverfall mares paid her, though, or the bedazzled students she saved from Gazelle, or anyone in a similar situation. She wasn't a spectacle. Unfortunately, her powers of reading the older mare ended there, and she wasn't quite sure exactly how she was being regarded. But it wasn't mean, and it wasn't for entertainment, and she decided she was completely okay with that.
She was glad to have something to feel okay about. Because after her visit home, she wasn't feeling very okay.
Everywhere she went, now, she saw things that triggered more memories. Her old home was no longer fragmented around her, it was intact in her mind's eye, like she was physically standing in two worlds at once. She could see her old self's reactions to things, too. The filly that existed in all the shards of memory she had found around the house was still put back together; she hadn't disappeared after Starlight filled her room with crystals and clung to them and cried. It was a Starlight who was dead, in the past, left behind and very much not her... yet the Starlight in her mind didn't quite seem to only be confined to the past.
It was so strange to watch, Starlight almost didn't have room for emotions other than confusion. That filly who ran down stairs and hid in hedges, she could see her reactions to the present, changed town. She walked past a yard that had once been fenced and now was open, and could clearly see herself trotting over and sticking her head down, checking to see if the pickets had left holes she could still see into. That filly she missed, the Starlight she had only just remembered, was interacting with her present situation, not just replaying the memories she had found her in.
Could there be anything of that Starlight that could still live in the present? She so wished that was who she could be again... She broke off from her friends and walked over to where the fence had been herself, deciding to take the ghost's advice and check it out.
There were no picket holes. Her old self huffed, turned up her nose in disappointment, and forgot all about it, going to find something else to do. Starlight just stayed and stared. It was plain, empty ground. She wished it could produce a reaction like that from her, even one so trivial... but she stared and stared, and nothing. She folded her ears.
"Starlight?" Maple called, having gotten ahead. "Are you alright?"
Starlight's past self heard 'Are you coming?' instead, and snapped out of her distraction, bobbing her head for balance as she bounded to catch up. Starlight followed it, watching its legs. The run was clumsy and eager and looked unpracticed... This was a Starlight who had never trained with Valey.
That, or it was one who was too excited about catching up to care. Starlight wished she had that much enthusiasm about such a simple task. She could run and do it quickly, she knew, but the emotion so obvious it showed up in her other's stride was just as out of reach as that ghost. Just because she had regained sight of it didn't mean it was still her.
...First she saw Glimmer, and now a ghost of herself. Memory Starlight was silent, but if she ever started talking, Starlight would wonder if she was going insane.
"You alright?" Maple asked once she rejoined her.
Starlight put her imaginary self out of her focus, but knew she was still there. "Sort of. Just thinking."
Her imaginary self gave Maple a reassuring nuzzle, then pranced off to get distracted on something in the correct direction, pretending the edge of a roof's shadow was a tightrope on the ground.
Maple saw her own distraction, watching the ghost. "A lot of memories of this place?"
Starlight shook her head. "Mostly memories of me."
After all, it wasn't Sires Hollow she was missing. It was that carefree filly wandering around ahead and finding the most pointless, yet shockingly effective, ways to entertain herself. How was Memory Starlight so good at not being bored? That was a skill Starlight had wholeheartedly forgotten and didn't even remember existed during the many long days of doing very little during airship crossings. She didn't just miss this filly, she was almost jealous. Maybe if she watched her long enough, she could get some pointers...
Maple seemed satisfied by her answer, and resumed her walk.
They reached the town hall, a big building that was half open-air eaves and rafters surrounding a courtyard, and half looked like a giant barn. Starlight stared up at that roof... Funny. She had never thought that much about it when she used to live here, apart from what it would be like to climb. But now that she had been to Ironridge and the Griffon Empire and other large civilizations, the town hall was a building someone obviously must have built, probably a testament of engineering...
Her memory self wasn't impressed at all. The support pillars for the open, rafters-only roof were set upon cylindrical rock foundations, perfectly sized as benches for anyone willing to jump to reach them, and the Starlight she had found in her memories had hopped up on one and was walking in circles around the pillar for no reason at all.
She was making herself dizzy for fun. After blowing out her horn time after countless time, dizziness was about the least-fun thing Starlight could think of, yet there was her ghost, a little wobbly as she finally climbed down from the foundation and scurried again to catch up. Why did she do that? What was she thinking? How was she smiling? If only Starlight could get her back...
This filly was all in her mind. This wasn't magic; her actions were all coming from Starlight herself. What was holding Starlight back, forcing her to imagine herself reacting to things this way instead of just running out there and doing it? How could she shed that weight, and what would it take? There had to be a way. She needed there to... but the more she thought about it, the more certain she was she knew what it was.
Memory Starlight was so carefree because she didn't have to care about anything. She had nothing more important to care about than doing whatever came to mind at the moment. It was okay for her to waste time doing things that were utterly pointless and irrelevant and fun, because she had no guard to keep up and nothing to concentrate on and no matters more pressing than cleaning her room and taking a bath if she got herself muddy or fell in the river. She had no problems... but how? That was impossible. Solve your biggest problem, and one of your smaller ones would become your biggest in its place. You could never be wholly without problems.
...Unless you had someone you trusted completely to solve all your problems for you, whenever and wherever they occurred, and take the ones that came out of nowhere and make them not so bad...
Memory Starlight could slip and fall in the river, and it would probably put an end to her running around for the day as she went home to get warmed up and dried off, but it would be fine. She could afford to take risks, anything from walking along the bridge railings to spending her focus hunting for picket holes instead of threats that could take away her friends.
And then Starlight was right back where she started. Memory Starlight didn't live a dangerous life on the road. Memory Starlight didn't tussle with royalty, magical monsters and demigods. Memory Starlight had parents.
But if that was all there was to it, why didn't she only remember her past self doing the things she had already done in the past? Why was the Starlight she kept thinking about only doing things she could do too, with the world the way it was now? It felt so close to the present, so tantalizingly, heartbreakingly close...
She was glad Memory Starlight was completely silent. She needed every excuse she could get not to try talking to her, a ghost, right there in the middle of the town hall.
Memory Starlight probably talked to invisible friends all the time.
With a start, Starlight realized Maple was talking to her. "What!? Sorry. I wasn't paying attention..."
"It's okay." Maple smiled softly. "I was just asking if there was anywhere you remembered that you wanted to go for lunch. We're not on a schedule and we're here for you, and we were trying to decide whether to get food before or after going to going to see your old things."
"We're going to get my old things?" Starlight blinked.
Maple bit her lip. "Aren't we? I asked if that would help back in your room, remember? You mumbled and I thought you meant okay."
"Oh." Starlight truthfully didn't remember. A part of her wondered how Memory Starlight would react to all her old stuff being locked up in the mayor's basement, but she needed not to concentrate on that too much. Extended time spent staring at things she wished for yet didn't have couldn't be healthy. "I'm fine getting food." Memory Starlight's excitement about the prospect of getting lunch would have depended entirely on where they were going. "Anywhere is good."
"You don't have any old favorites?" Fishy asked, flopping an ear. "Not a lot of places have closed over the last few months."
Starlight swallowed. "I don't know if I want an old favorite. I already have a lot to remember..."
Memory Starlight had very strong opinions on the topic of favorites, and instantly went from rambling and carefree to an ardent defender of her cause. Starlight squinted. Now she cared intensely about things? But that was completely the opposite of...
Maybe it made sense. She needed to think about it. What she needed much more than food was to have time with her thoughts for a while. She couldn't hear what her ghost was suggesting, anyway.
"Let her think," Fishy advised. "I have a few favorites myself! Not to play favorites with an old employer, but you really need to try..."
Starlight followed along, watching her memory self tug on tails and advocate sharply for another place. She didn't even know what the ghost wanted. It was probably just another thing she had forgotten and not remembered yet. She cared a lot more about her memory self than where they ate, personally. She knew exactly why this other Starlight was there and wouldn't go away, no matter how much she told herself not to care, and it was because she needed her and missed her desperately, enough so that her imagination was running away from her. She wished that imagination would paint the world with whatever colors her past self saw, instead of just seeing her own reaction to it.
It wasn't that she wished she was Memory Starlight. That was a filly from a time completely gone. She could never be carefree forever, and she knew it. Never. The scars on her life would never heal. But Memory Starlight, who had gone from protesting intensely about their choice of lunch to tapping a rhythm with her hooves as she walked, wasn't so one-dimensional as being carefree forever. She was somehow balancing what mattered with doing pointless things when nothing else was important. She could both care and not care seamlessly and almost at the same time.
Starlight stared longingly after her ghostly self. She couldn't un-grow and she couldn't un-change, but she wished that filly could be a part of her again... and she had no idea how to get there.
No, she told herself, that wasn't true. She did know. She needed something to trust in completely, other than herself. If she had that, then slowly, step by step, maybe she could start doing things pointlessly and just for fun. That meant parents, but it meant a world she could trust, too.
Starlight sighed. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to explore her old home a little more and give her memories of the place another chance.
"I gotta say," Valey belched, holding a half-eaten sandwich with her wings, "this place's food isn't half bad. Good portions, too. Hope the chef's ego is as big as they deserve."
Starlight was staring intently around the room, watching something no one else could see, but the others had decided to have a lunch conversation anyway. "I'm almost surprised you like it," Fishy admitted, chewing on a sandwich of her own. "Fish sandwiches. Around here, it's far easier to get food from the sea than it is to grow or trade for greens, so sea life is a staple of surviving. But most of Equestria doesn't care for things that used to move around and the like." She swallowed and straightened her back. "Where are you from, anyhow? Can't be that far, if Starlight was able to find her way to you and your airship."
"Ah, the wild blue yonder," Gerardo replied, gesturing with his own sandwich. "I don't think I've had a place to say I'm from in over a decade. That would involve resisting the allure of a life lived on the road."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, we move around a lot. And by a lot, I mean like the far corners of existence."
Fishy pursed her lips. "Doesn't really sound like the life for a filly, if you'll excuse me saying..." She stared at Starlight. "She's a good kid, but I can't say she's gotten any better since I last saw her. Nicer and less combative, maybe, but now she's bordering on too nice. She doesn't do or react to anything. Not even things she has every right to be upset about, like what I told her down by the river. What right does she have to brush it off and say she forgives me when she's still obviously not okay?"
"It's that obvious, is it?" Maple sighed. "I've heard from her what happened here, mostly when we first met, and I've been there for a lot of the things that have kept happening. She's been through a lot more than losing her best friend... Look at her. She isn't even listening."
"You said you adopted her, right?" Fishy asked, swiveling from side to side on her rotating stool. "You're her caretaker now?"
Maple shook her head. "Yes. Well, I try to be. I'm not sure how effective I am, or if she even thinks of me as a mother, but I always put her first and am always thinking of how I can do better for her. It's been a lot of growing for me, honestly, and I'm still not sure I have what it takes, but... we care about each other. If there's anything I can do for her, I will." She lowered her voice. "She's not usually this... you know."
"I'm listening," Starlight said absently, not breaking her stare. "Sort of. I'm distracted."
Maple looked up at Fishy hopefully.
Fishy shrugged. "I don't have kids, and I chose not to have any for a reason. My idea of watching over ponies involves putting food on the table, making sure the money doesn't run dry, saying no to bad ideas and blowing off steam with my friends when I need it. I don't even know enough to say if that's what she needs, or the opposite. What I do know is that I feel like I failed her once, so if there's anything I can do to help, say the word and I'll be in your corner. That offer lasts for however long you have your layover here. I assume she's staying with you and you're not intending to stay here forever."
The look on Starlight's face said she was paying attention, even if her focus was still elsewhere.
Maple shrank slightly, and Valey nudged her. "Your court, Ironflanks."
"Well..." Maple took a breath. "We haven't actually decided. Most of us are going on, but I'm doing what's best for Starlight. If that means we all stay together and leave on the airship, then we do that. But if it means she and I stay behind here, then that's also what it means." She folded her ears. "I just have no idea how to tell what would be better."
Fishy's eyes scanned Valey and Gerardo. "But you lot said you didn't have a home except for the horizon. I can't imagine you aren't a tight-knit bunch."
Valey chuckled. "Lady, you have no idea."
Gerardo bobbed his head, and Maple took a breath. "Yes... we are tight-knit. And believe me, this isn't a decision I take lightly. I've been considering the possibility ever since we started flying here, but I just can't know without seeing how this village is for Starlight. It seems nice enough for me, and I believe I could make some friends and build a happy life here, but she's what matters most. And I haven't seen a reaction like this at all from her before. I don't know what to make of this at all."
"No." For a moment, Starlight actually focused on her friends. "I don't know what to think. I don't know if it's better here or not! All I know is I'm remembering all the things I left behind and that's just making me miss them even more, even though they're gone. But I don't know if it's better seeing them and not having them or not seeing them at all. Everything I see here, I can see how the old me would have reacted to it, before Sunburst. I know what I would do. I know what I should do, but I can't feel it. I can see myself being interested or excited about things but I just can't."
Fishy folded her hooves on the sandwich bar counter. "In my un-professional opinion, it sounds like you need more than just the right scenery."
"Then what do I need?" Starlight frowned. "Because I've been looking for it and I can't find it! And I can't find the right scenery, either. Everywhere I go, there keeps being bad things happening. And I'm just tired of it all."
Fishy stared for a moment. "I wish I could say."
"We've all been looking, to be honest," Maple quietly added. "Part of what keeps us together as friends is that we're all looking for something. Though... some need it more than others."
"Who isn't looking for something?" Fishy chuckled, then shrugged. "I know I am. Anyone who isn't must be the most bored pony in Equestria." She raised an eyebrow at Starlight. "Have you tried looking for any other ponies here you used to know? You didn't just live in a bubble with Sunburst and your parents. You must have had friends at the school."
Starlight rocked slightly on her stool. "Well, yes. But they weren't really that close of friends."
"Weren't close by what metric?" Fishy pressed. "Because there's a big difference between not being best friends forever, or actually disliking each other."
Starlight looked down. "I think they started to dislike me after how much I complained about cutie marks. But normal kids don't have long attention spans, so maybe they forgot. I just don't feel very excited about seeing them."
Fishy rubbed her chin. "Well, if I offered to dig up some instructions for you to track down Sunburst or your old parents here, would that excite you?"
"You can't..." Starlight trailed off. "Well, if you're the mayor, you probably can. But I don't know."
Fishy folded her forelegs on the table and set her chin on them, staring intently at Starlight. "And if I told you someone had left a time machine in my basement you could use to go back and fix everything for yourself, what would you say to being excited by that?"
Starlight's jaw hung, the filly not quite willing to say that was impossible after everything she had been through. In fact, if Fishy somehow wasn't bluffing... No, she probably was. "I just don't get excited about things," she said, eyes shifting to an unoccupied spot nearby.
"Then it sounds to me," Fishy pressed, growing a slow grin, "like if you don't have a good feeling about anything, not feeling strongly about the other kids doesn't indicate it's a worse idea than any other."
"...I guess." Starlight nodded and looked up. "It's probably time for recess soon."
Fishy looked up at a clock on the wall. "Should be in about forty minutes. Plenty of time for us to finish up here and make our leisurely way over."
Valey stood up, stretched, rubbed her stomach and belched. "Sounds like a plan. Hey, will you lot be fine without me during that, though? Speaking of staying here or moving on, either way I gotta go have a chitchat with that guard dude." She glanced at Fishy. "Anything I should know about him, by the way?"
Fishy half-groaned, half-chuckled. "Oh, you wouldn't believe it. We're at the absolute end of the line for news around here, but apparently there are countries north of the mountains no one ever talks about, and suddenly Canterlot is so worried they might try to slip ponies in or mount an invasion, they send a grand total of three guards here to 'fortify our position'. One of them thinks it's an early retirement and never even wears their uniform, another thinks they're a big shot and spends more time trying to get hitched than guarding anything, and then there's the one who came to check you out. Way too suspicious, if you ask me. Personally, I'm with the one who calls it a retirement. I didn't even know we had neighbors to the north! The mountains just go on forever, like the end of the world, or something."
Valey and Gerardo shared a glance. If nobody knew the mountains were no longer endless, all the better for everyone involved? Although there was no telling what the guards knew...
"Right! Well, that's cool." Valey hovered, doing a lazy midair flip. "Probably better if I talk to them and convince them we're not here to invade Equestria ourselves. Uhh, where can I find them?"
Fishy pointed a hoof. "Building with brown shingles instead of red. Hard to miss if you're a flier. Good luck!"
"Thanks!" Valey tipped her beret. "Hope I don't need it."
The Equestrian Guard 'base of operations' was just as easy to find as Fishy made it out to be. It also looked far more like a house that had been converted for official purposes than a proper military building. Valey strolled straight up to the door and knocked, discovering the bolt was broken when it swung freely open.
She stepped into a living room-turned-reception room reminiscent of the front rooms in the Defense Force base, with a table with an unfinished card game and an open window to the kitchen, which looked to have been converted into a snack parlor. A sparsely-populated weapons rack sat by one wall, the small hoofful of blades having protective coverings on their edges for the sake of storage. There were three armor stands, two of which were fully suited, and a rack of heavy, tailored raincoat uniforms. One corner also had a rocking chair, where the armored stallion from the docks was waiting patiently, a weathered look on his face.
"You again," the old guard greeted. "Glad you came. Good to see travelers with honor, these days."
"Yeah, I'm here." Valey nodded, stealing a chair from the card table. "Got a pretty decent guess why you want to see me, too."
The helmeted guard raised an eyebrow. "Really? Run into any checkpoints on your way here, have you?"
"Eh... we've ran into a little more than that." Valey shrugged. "Just to be sure we're on the same page, you guys are here because of some recent... uhh... stuff with the northern border?"
The guard squinted. "That we are. And how much are you in the know on?"
Valey lifted her hat and slid out Celestia's letter. "Before we get on any tangents or miscommunications, read this."
"What's this?" The guard took it, inspecting the scroll with wide eyes. "The Princess's seal? Whatever are you doing with a thing like..."
Slowly, he slit it, and began to read. His eyes bugged slightly as he parsed the text, and he read it over twice once he reached the bottom. "Well, I'll be," he eventually said, passing back the scroll. "Never expected to have anything actually happen all the way out here."
Valey watched him tensely. "So, are we cool? No trouble? I haven't really opened that before, but I assume it says who we are and what we're doing."
"Oh, I'm not here to make trouble." The guard stretched. "Just to report back about everything I see, so it can be someone else's trouble if need be. And hopefully not alert anyone by being conspicuously silenced. But if this letter is truthful, I'm sure you'll have nothing to fear from my reporting having seen you? It'll make its way all the way to the Princess..."
Valey nodded. "Yeah, if you've got a direct line to her and can let her know we made it this far safely, that would be pretty cool. She didn't want to lose track of us."
"Seems you're legitimate." The guard nodded, looking perfectly comfortable seated in full armor. "Now, this doesn't mean I don't still want a talk, of course. Go upstairs and rouse my lazy associate for me. They'll call me a crackpot if I hear about this all by myself."
"Lazy associate, huh?" Valey trotted for the staircase, wondering if that was the retiree or the philanderer... or if she was wrong, and this one was already the retiree. "Yeah, sure. I've got a few minutes. Bananas, for guards who are actually chill and don't freak out and start fighting at the drop of a hat, I've got all day."
Starlight arrived near the schoolhouse in front of her friends, instinctively remembering the way. The recess yard was up against the eastern edge of town, allowing most of it to be naturally fenced in by mountains, creating a perfect space for foals to play.
Memory Starlight thankfully no longer haunted her vision. She chalked it up to just having had enough time since the experience at her house: now she had come to terms more with what she remembered, and it was no longer exploding out in front of her awareness. The memories were still there; she was almost painfully aware of what her old self wanted to do. If she allowed herself to daydream, she'd see herself running up to the fence and standing up on it and calling over, looking eagerly for anyone on the other side. But she was more lucid than that, now. Memory Starlight was an impulse that could never be fulfilled, a clogged pipe, a sign pointing her toward everything she still could be if only she was normal and okay.
But Starlight wasn't either of those things, so that silent, foalish urge to run to the fence died in her head, unable to come to life no matter how much she wanted it.
The playground was empty, anyway. It wasn't a tall enough fence to keep her from seeing that, and even if it had been, foals were noisy and she had ears. "Are we early?" she asked, walking forward and investigating.
"It looks like it?" Maple guessed.
"Guess we've got a few minutes." Fishy shrugged. "So... feeling any different after lunch?"
"About what?" Starlight kept her ears straight, turning to look at her. "I wasn't paying much attention."
"About... you know..." Fishy twiddled a forehoof. "Never mind. About everything. You know anything I can do for you, or had any new thoughts about whether you'll stay here?"
Maple stepped defensively closer to Starlight, but Starlight stepped out in front. It was a question for her, after all. She was the one whose happiness Maple was putting this on the table for. But that didn't mean she had an answer.
After several seconds of standing in the front without an answer, Starlight hung her head. "I don't know what I need."
"Okay," Fishy said, "forget about what you need. What do you want? Say you even get best of both worlds. What is that?"
Starlight averted her eyes. "I want to be normal. I want things to go back to the way they should be. And since that can't happen, I don't know if going halfway would help."
"And what did your old house make you want to do?" Fishy pressed. "No inhibitions, no nothing. What would you do if no one was watching?"
Starlight blinked. "Why if no one was watching?"
Fishy shrugged, leaning on the schoolyard fence. It was painted bright red, a messy job done by little hooves, and contrasted nicely with her mane. "Oh, just thinking aloud. I have an eye for detail, and noticed you put the blinds up. Figured you did that for a reason. Wondered if there was anything else you felt like doing something about."
"I just wanted to put it back how it belonged," Starlight answered. "It felt more right doing that."
Fishy raised an eyebrow. "Well, whether you leave or stay, I'd appreciate it if that house was doing right by at least someone who used to call it home. Anything else we can do to it that'll make it feel more right, like so?"
That made Starlight think. She was sure there would be something... or a lot of things. Things she could still do now, that didn't involve rewinding time completely. The house did feel better with the blinds back where they belonged... Maybe being halfway to an impossible perfection really was better than not trying at all.
"I'd need to see it again," she decided. "But there probably is. Can we go there again after this?"
Maple nodded wholeheartedly. "If it's something you'd like to do, you're why we're here."
Before Starlight or Fishy could reply, a door in the side of the schoolhouse slammed open, and over a dozen foals tumbled out, yelling and pushing to be the first ones onto the field. Once the barrage was open, they divided into crawling around on the playground equipment, chasing each other across the field, or standing in small groups and shuffling around by the edges, too absorbed in whatever they were talking about to properly roughhouse. A teacher followed them out, seating herself in front of the door and keeping watch. Somehow, thanks to all the chaos, no one immediately noticed them... and when they did notice, Starlight wasn't who they saw first.
"Hey! Look, is that a giant bird thing!?"
"Dude, what is that!?"
"It's wearing a tuxedo!"
Gerardo chuckled, accidentally finding himself the center of attention as the wary teacher scrutinized him and the foals appeared caught in a pressure squeezer between approaching the fence and staying a healthy distance from it. "Aha, no need to fret, my little friends," he greeted, leaning on the fence and winking at the teacher. "I am a particular species of giant bird thing known as a griffon, dubbed with the moniker of Gerardo Guillaume, griffon adventurer extraordinaire! And this is a uniform, not a tuxedo, though I'll admit it's very fancy..."
As he talked, he shot Starlight the faintest of knowing looks that she instantly understood. This was a mob in the making, and she didn't like mobs. If she wanted to reconnect with any of the foals she had once known, this was her chance to make herself scarce now and come back at a better venue.
Starlight wasn't quite fast enough. The teacher saw her, meeting her eyes with a look of clear recognition. But she had more pressing matters to deal with in the form of her foal squad being enthralled with a giant bird thing, and nothing came of it before she slunk out of sight around the corner.
"Decided you didn't want to deal with that?" Maple asked, catching up quickly.
"I don't miss them enough to instantly become a celebrity," Starlight replied. "...But I do recognize some of them..."
"That's good to hear," Fishy puffed, also catching up. "Whew, you're fast on your hooves. Any you knew better than others?"
Starlight thought for a moment. She had absolutely been a member of the groups who hung by the fences, eschewing running in favor of a walk-and-talk. Actually, she had spent a recess or two indoors as well, mostly the ones when Sunburst wasn't at school or there was a project she didn't want to put down. Maybe that would be a better place to look for calmer foals. Whatever else was going to happen, it was just a fact of life for her now that rowdy or chaotic situations were stressful. Too much opportunity for someone to attack her while she was distracted...
"Starlight?" Maple gently prodded. "You're zoning out..."
"Oh." Starlight blinked back to reality. "Sorry. Umm... I recognized Fluffy Fleece, and Bell Pepper and Chocolate Orange, and Snowdrift..."
Fishy glanced at the door. "Any you'd like me to go get?"
Starlight bit her lip. "I think Bell and Chocolate didn't like me after I messed up a team science project because I didn't want it to get me a cutie mark. I don't remember doing that to anyone else, but I probably was rude about it to all of them."
"You know what?" Fishy rose to her hooves. "I'll just let Miss Nickel know you're back, and she can figure out what to do from there. She knows those kids better than I do, anyway."
Starlight shrugged as Fishy disappeared into the schoolhouse, having no problems with this plan, and turned to Maple. "So do we wait?"
"I don't see what else to do," Maple replied with a shrug of her own, settling down beside the schoolhouse wall.
It wasn't a long wait at all. Noises of Gerardo happily bragging and foals yelling in response continued to drift around the corner, but the front door quickly opened, a familiar and slightly-older face greeting Starlight in the doorway.
"It really is you, Starlight Glimmer," the teacher, Miss Nickel, eventually said. "Well. Not often I get to see a sight like this."
"Hi," Starlight replied, standing with her hooves close together. Somehow, in this town, it didn't feel quite as important to flinch every time someone said her full name. "It's me."
"There's a story, I'll bet," Miss Nickel said. "But the mayor here says you're just passing through, and wanted to see your old friends without getting ran over?"
Starlight bit her lip. "Yes?"
"Thought she should see some ponies who knew her," Fishy added. "Since it's been months, and all."
"But..." Starlight hesitated. "Do they still remember me doing..."
"Hard to say," Miss Nickel replied. Starlight tried to read her, but she was still trying to read Starlight. She didn't remember her as the strictest pony. In fact, she erred on the side of being too soft, but maybe her round face just colored Starlight's perceptions there. As a result, though, this was one of the mares who had been forced to spend the most time putting up with her cutie mark attitude.
"But you still remember," Starlight said, ears down. "I'm sorry, if it matters."
Miss Nickel blinked, hints of the schoolroom visible behind her shoulders. "Well... thank you. And yes. I do... but that's less important than that you're still alive. Is there anyone in particular you'd like to see?"
"Anyone who won't freak out because I'm back," Starlight insisted.
"Let's see what I can do," the teacher agreed, stepping back and beckoning Starlight inside. "Come in and take a seat. I'll need just a moment..."
On the other side of town, Valey stood on the second floor of the guardhouse, having an eyebrow-raising contest with the guard she had been sent to rouse.
"It was your boss dude who sent me," Valey said, standing and refusing to blink. "He didn't give me permission to rouse you with a pillow, but I'm pretty sure if I had felt like it anyway, the permission was implicit."
"But you didn't rouse me with a pillow," replied the guard, a pegasus mare who had been and still was using a bedroll, no interest shown in standing up even now that she was awake. "You aroused me gently and ladylike, and came into my house to do it. It was simultaneously very rude and very considerate."
Valey raised her eyebrow harder. "I'm pretty sure 'rouse' and 'arouse' have completely different meanings."
"And I'm pretty sure that for my purposes, they're interchangeable. It's funny how you play coy about this." The pegasus's voice was silky-soft and unreasonably reasonable, and sounded like she couldn't get mad if she tried. "As you can see, I am still in bed. Try not to give too much voice to your own desires when ascribing unnecessary meaning to my words. After all, we have barely met."
Valey eyebrowed so hard, it caused the rim of her hat to wobble. "Keep overcomplicating things, and I'm going to physically drag you down the stairs. I'm already chill with your buddy, and something tells me he'd find it hilarious."
"Being dragged down stairs isn't really my thing," the pegasus guard apologized, shaking her head in a way that made it even more obvious she was still laying down. "And I'm sorry to hear that. He isn't the greatest find in town. But if you really did get him, he probably wouldn't appreciate you carrying another mare where he could see it."
"Bananas." Valey scratched her head. "Why is it always the pegasi...?"
"Pardon?" The guard innocently blinked.
"Nothing." Valey waved a hoof. "You really wanna mess with me, though? You wanna call my bluff? Think I'm kidding? Think I'm not strong enough to suplex you down the stairs?"
"I think you're thinking a little too hard about suplexing me," the pegasus replied in her patented, overly-calm tone.
Valey's eyebrow touched the moon. "You and I have a very different definition of suplex..."
"That's because you're allowing your desires to cloud your judgement," the pegasus insisted. "Really, there doesn't have to be anything awkward about this. Carry on and I'll be forced to conclude you're tempted to cheat on my superior with me."
Valey yawned and turned her back on the pegasus. "Welp. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Outside the guardhouse, there was an empty trash bin. It didn't stay that way for long.
Starlight sat in the schoolhouse, looking at everything that had changed. The decorations were rearranged, stony-colored streamers made from construction-paper cutouts of clouds and mountains and fish hung across the corners of chalkboards that were more covered with posters than actual chalk drawings. There was a map on one wall she had never paid attention to before, long and skinny, showing off the waters to the east, yet not nearly long enough to make it to the desert. The teacher's desk and the students' chairs were arranged differently than last time she had been here. But all in all, it felt like the same kind of transition the room underwent every year, so even the difference was familiar.
Memory Starlight wouldn't have been running around investigating. When Miss Nickel asked you to wait, you waited, because Memory Starlight enjoyed learning and didn't want to disappoint her teacher. For once, even though their reasons were different, their actions perfectly aligned. It was a more comforting feel than anything else in the room.
So, when the door to the recess yard opened again, Starlight was feeling more at ease and oddly normal than she had at any time since arriving in Sires Hollow. Maybe she could actually have a normal conversation...
Miss Nickel stepped back in, leading a filly Starlight recognized easily by her distinctive appearance. This was Fluffy Fleece, a short-necked pegasus with a white coat and a white mane and tail that barely even looked like they were made from hair. It was the kind of mane everyone stared at and wondered how it felt, from the younger ponies who didn't realize it was rude to try and touch it to the ones old enough to know better than to stare. But Fluffy was usually a good sport about the whole thing, even though she tended to keep a wider area of personal space between ponies who weren't her close friends.
Thinking about it, Starlight realized Fluffy must have considered her a closer friend than she knew back in the old days, because they sometimes had sat together reading the same book. Though that was probably before she got her own cutie mark in making pillows, and Starlight started enforcing her own distance as if it was contagious.
Fluffy's mouth made an 'O' when she saw Starlight, and dawning realization washed across her face. "Starlight... Glimmer?" She tilted her head. "Everyone said you went away."
Starlight nodded. "Umm... hi. I did."
Miss Nickel closed the door behind her, shutting the three in the classroom. "Starlight's been through a lot, or so I've heard, so be gentle, Fluffy."
"Why did you come back?" Fluffy Fleece asked, stepping forward. "Did something change? I thought you hated it here..." She craned her neck, clearly trying to get a look at Starlight's flanks without being too obvious.
Starlight turned so her blankness was easier to see. "I'm visiting. With my new family. And I changed a lot. I'm fine with cutie marks, now."
Fluffy hesitated. "...Well, you seem nicer, so I hope things are going better for you? I know you were really sad about Sunburst..."
The teacher raised an eyebrow, but Starlight held up a hoof, signaling she was fine. "I have a family. And friends. I miss the way things used to be, but I'm..." She couldn't say okay. She didn't even know if better would be appropriate. "I haven't given up yet."
"Given up on what?" Fluffy asked. "I thought you left to go follow Sunburst. You're not back because you couldn't find him?"
"No..." Starlight forced her eyes to wander, not wanting to feel like she was scrutinizing this filly by staring. "I wasn't looking for him. I just wanted to leave and be somewhere no one would ask me to get a cutie mark ever again. I'm back because my friends have an airship, and we were flying in the area and wanted to visit."
"Oh." Fluffy looked conflicted. "So you're not here to stay?"
Starlight knew the answer to that just as well as she did. "Do you want me to?"
Fluffy Fleece blinked. "What? Why ask me?"
"I don't know if I'm staying," Starlight insisted. "It depends on whether I want to. And that depends on who remembers me. And how they remember me. I wasn't very nice."
For a moment, Fluffy's brow contorted, and she glanced apprehensively at Miss Nickel. Starlight pre-emptively held up a hoof again to stop the teacher from interfering, and with a deep breath, Fluffy spat, "No, you weren't."
Starlight didn't even remotely wince. Whatever this was, she had it coming.
"You were rude to me for getting my cutie mark," Fluffy continued, not about to stop. "You tried to crash my party and were a big downer, and made it feel like you didn't want to be friends anymore even after I was nice to you and felt bad for you after Sunburst went away! I thought you were lonely and was just trying to help!" She took a few angry breaths, trying to calm back down. "But everyone just said you were hurting, and I should be patient. And that was a whole year ago, and you do seem sort of nicer, a lot. So, um..." She anxiously shrank. "Are you better now?"
"I'm still not really okay." As much trouble as Starlight had been having with staring, now she had to force herself to look back at the filly again. "But I'm sorry I was mean about your cutie mark. I'm okay with cutie marks now. I shouldn't have done it. I don't want to push ponies away again."
"You're still lonely?" Fluffy guessed. "You look kind of... you know. I can tell."
Starlight nodded.
"Well, I..." Fluffy fidgeted with her wings. "Do you want to be friends again? I'm not sure if I forgive you yet, but I did miss the old you..."
"I miss the old me too," Starlight said earnestly. "I miss her a lot."
Fluffy stared at her in confusion. "What?"
"I'm not who I used to be," Starlight said. "I changed. A lot. And not back to how I used to be."
"Oh." Fluffy nodded in half-understanding. "Well, if it helps, I'd like to give you another chance."
For a long moment, Starlight couldn't answer. There was one thing she knew above all else: if she had friends in Sires Hollow, then even if she went to Ironridge with Shinespark and Valey, there would be no way she could keep all of her friends together. But at the same time, however much she did or didn't trust Glimmer, there was a piece of her lookalike's advice that she wanted strongly to believe in: goodbyes were easier the more friends you knew, because you wouldn't be so alone after.
"Okay." Starlight offered a hoof. "Friends?"
Fluffy Fleece's eyes widened slightly, as if she hadn't truly expected Starlight to say yes. "Um... okay... Friends!" She came closer and bumped the offered hoof. "So... what do you want to do, or talk about? What have you even been doing all this time? Hopefully not nothing, right?"
Behind them, Miss Nickel cleared her throat. "Girls, why don't you go get some fresh air? I'm about to bring the class in from recess, and we'll need this room. Fluffy, you can be dismissed early to go with Starlight as both of you stay with a parent or guardian. Okay?"
Memory Starlight would have laughed at the idea that she was weak enough to need a guardian, especially in a place as removed from danger and political turmoil as Sires Hollow. Starlight caught the thought a second after it passed, briefly wondering why she couldn't find it funny anyway... but this was just the past version of her. Things just didn't work like that anymore.
Still, though, hope buoyed in Starlight's chest. Fluffy had actually treated her exactly the way she wanted to be: neither mobbed with blind adoration nor shunned and exiled, but called out reasonably when she did something wrong, then offered a chance to make up. She gave the filly a deeply appreciative look, though Fluffy was too busy thanking Miss Nickel and grabbing her things to see it. This was the kind of pony she wished there were more of in her life.
...Her decision on what to do when the Dream flew on had just grown that much more complicated.
Fluffy was first out the door, but she held it and waited for her. Maple and Fishy were still talking outside, but both looked up at the fillies' arrival.
"Starlight!" Maple greeted them first. "How did it go?"
Starlight glanced at Fluffy. "It went pretty good."
"You're one of Starlight's new friends?" Fluffy asked, looking up at Maple. "Hi! I'm Fluffy Fleece."
Maple drew in a little breath. "Your mane looks so soft... I'm Maple. And yes, I am Starlight's new mother. It's nice to meet you?" She offered a hoof.
Fluffy bumped it with a tilted head. "Maple...?"
"Just one name." Maple shook her head. "Ponies don't have multi-part names where I'm from."
Fishy leaned against the schoolhouse with her forelegs crossed. "You don't say? I just figured you were keeping it to yourself. Never even thought to ask!"
"Miss Nickel says I can go with you for the day, by the way," Fluffy quickly added, pointing back at the door and then glancing from Starlight to Fishy. "Hi, Miss Mayor. So where are we going?"
Fishy shrugged, gesturing to Starlight and Maple. "It's their tour. I'm just the guide."
Maple stared at the sky in thought. "Well, we were just talking about returning to Starlight's old-"
She was cut off when a stallion came racing up, panting. "Mayor! Mayor Fillet, we... Somepony said they saw a bat-winged pegasus throw Silver Saddle in a garbage dumpster!"
Fishy had been chewing on a reed, and immediately spat it out, going bug-eyed. "What!?"
"That sounds like Valey," Maple admitted with a wince. "Though she usually has good reason..."
"What's this about a dumpster?" Gerardo queried, bounding around the corner.
Fluffy stared at him with a spark of realization. "You're with Starlight too!?"
"Indeed, but what's all this?" Gerardo leaned his beaked face forward, staring intently around.
"Sounds like Valey's gotten up to something," Maple muttered, glancing between the mayor and the reporting stallion. "Where was this?"
"What she said," Fishy added, backing Maple up. "If this is true, this is something I gotta see."
The stallion beckoned them along. "I heard it was this way, right next to the guard headquarters..."
The guard outpost had attracted a full gaggle of ponies, all clustered around an alley at its side. The said alley held a trash bin, and the said trash bin held an unimaginably cross guard pegasus. At least one stallion was on the ground, laughing hysterically, and a pair of mares were giving each other vindicated looks off to the side, but most of the ponies were just there to gawk. Valey had refused to flee the scene, and was standing next to the trash bin, whistling innocently.
"What's all this ruckus?" Fishy demanded, leading the approaching party.
"Mayor!" Several ponies jumped, and many heads turned, the crowd parting to give her a path forward. "Get a load of this!"
Fish Fillet paced forward, ignoring the laughing stallion and ending in front of the garbage bin, watching Valey and the pegasus with a neutral expression only a champion card player could manage.
"Hello, Mayor," the pegasus said, her neck and head protruding above the edge of the trash bin, some day-old lawn clippings stuck in her mane.
"Hello there, Silver Saddle," Fishy replied, carrying on without a hint of emotion. "What's going on here?"
Silver Saddle's voice carried its usual calmness, but this time it was barely restrained. "On behalf of the Equestrian guard, I must report that I have been assaulted by this mare, here." She pointed a hoof at Valey. "I believe she seeks to tarnish the dignity of my position."
"So let me get this straight." Fishy nodded, still stony. "You threw her in this dumpster?"
Valey kept whistling. "I'm a crowd pleaser. She didn't think I could."
Fishy nodded again, turning back to Silver Saddle. "Were you two in a relationship?"
"What kind of question is that?" Silver asked. "I've never seen her before."
"Ehhhh..." Valey waved a hoof. "You sure were talking like you thought I thought we were."
"So what you're saying," Fishy continued, still perfectly expressionless. "Is that you've been..." Her face twisted into a stupid grin. "Dumped?"
Silver Saddle scowled. "Mayor..."
Fishy sighed and shook her head, lighting her horn and floating a few grass shavings out of Silver's mane. "This is the middle of a work day, Miss Saddle. And while I suppose I expect to find you spending that rolling in the hay, this isn't quite what I had in mind."
The dumpstered pegasus reddened.
"Tsk tsk." Fishy frowned. "And here I thought you liked to have first pick of partners. Didn't know you were happy to settle for leftovers and refuse."
Silver Saddle exploded, her entire face going crimson. "Mayor Fillet, do you mind!? This is deeply unprofessional!"
"Sorry, Hon." Fishy apologetically shook her head. "I've got one for every complaint I've received over the last few weeks about your conduct. Find something comfortable in there and take a seat, because we're gonna be here a while."
"...And finally, you need a shower," Fishy finished, offering a hoof to help Silver Saddle out of the trash bin. "Preferably not taken with someone else, but that ain't my call. No hard feelings?"
The disgraced pegasus guard was an utter mess. Her mane couldn't be more disheveled from stress, but even still, she made an effort to fix it, ignoring the hoof and climbing out of the bin herself. "Mayor," she said, managing to keep a modicum of refinement in her voice, "I trust you've been amused, but please remember this was on you if there ever comes a crisis in which the military needs the trust of the populace and we are unable to prevent casualties because no one takes us seriously."
Fishy shrugged, lowering her hoof. "That's the problem I'm trying to solve. If you did have the respect of the public, someone in this crowd would have stopped me. But you currently don't, and I'm not changing that so much as making it more obvious. If you really care about doing the job our town provides for you to do with food and lodging, then let this be a wake-up call. You've had your adjustment period. Now turn over a new leaf and work for yourself to improve your reputation."
The crowd, suddenly awkward, started to disperse, its ponies challenging each other to leave as quickly as possible without looking like they were in a hurry.
"Okay," Valey muttered under her breath to Maple and Gerardo, "I love a good dunking, and I know I was the one who put her in there, but does it feel kinda weird to anyone else that I got away with that? I basically assaulted a public official, and no one cares. Feels like I stepped on some tension between the town's leadership and these foreign guards..."
"What did she do to you?" Maple whispered back. "This seems like a you thing to do, but only when you have a reason..."
Valey shrugged. "Well, I went in to talk with who I think is her boss, and he was like, 'Hey, go rouse my lazy associate!' And I was like, 'Sure!' So I went upstairs, found her snoozing, and I guess she didn't like being woken up because she started flirting real passive-aggressively and kinda dared me to show her who was boss. So I did."
"She has a superior that's not the mayor?" Gerardo glanced around. "That stallion who came to investigate our ship, I presume."
"Yeah, that guy." Valey scanned the empty street, with its manicured lawns and conspicuous lack of bystanders. "He was in the crowd for a while, but I guess he went back inside. Still, like... you know?"
"Perhaps discussing this incident with someone would be beneficial," Gerardo agreed.
That was when Fishy came trotting up. "Whew," she said, brushing back her bangs and then regarding Valey oddly. "Thanks for the opportunity. I've been meaning to do something about her for a while. But is this really standard conduct where you come from?"
"It is when I set the standard," Valey replied with a shrug. "And she was asking for it. But, like, uhh... I do what I want, but was what you just did really standard around here?"
Fishy frowned. "That's complicated."
"Could we ask how complicated?" Gerardo hopefully proposed. "If this is a delicate situation, we'd rather not tread on any feathers..."
"Well, there are feathers waiting to be trod on," Fishy sighed. "Short version is, we've only had this garrison for a few weeks, and there have been some questions about what they're doing here. It's by edict of the Princess, so as a public official, I have to acquiesce. But the only reason we have plenty in this town is because there are some ponies who try very hard to overcome our remote location. Our good lives here are built on a lot of hard work. So when someone else tells us we've got three extra bodies to house and three more mouths to feed, my ponies are at least going to want to know who they are and what they're doing."
Gerardo ruffled his feathers. "I see."
"I get it," Valey said, rolling her shoulders. "You've gotta convince everyone they're not freeloaders, which is pretty hard when that one is definitely a freeloader."
Fishy snorted. "That's the short of it. Best I can do is try to mold her into something not a freeloader that's good for more than an expensive date. Which I decided could use a little more hammering than chiseling. It's hard, though, because even if she was a model guard, how do you convince ponies we need guards around here? Even I'm not convinced. There's no crime in Sires Hollow, thanks to there being nowhere to run. The only one of them who's really met with acceptance hangs up his lance on weekdays and makes an honest living as a lumberjack, then clocks into the guardhouse on weekends and calls those his days off."
Maple hesitated, half-lifting a hoof. "If Starlight and I decided to stay, we wouldn't be seen as freeloaders, would we?"
"Nah." Fishy waved dismissively. "We've got no community contribution quota system. And if we did, raising kids would count. As long as you're not drawing a government salary, no one will look twice. When we had three payrolled full-time government employees counting myself before adding those two... that's what ponies notice."
"Yeah, you could totally make a living for yourself," Valey added, nudging Maple's shoulder. "Re-open your bakery here, you'd get cash to live on, would eat well and would get real popular."
Maple blinked. "You think me and Starlight should stay?"
"I dunno." Valey broadly shrugged. "That's your call. I'd miss you if you did, but all the more reason for me to make sure we see each other again soon. I'm just saying if you did, it could work."
"You're a baker?" Fishy asked, brightening and cutting in.
"Well..." Maple's cheeks lightened. "That's what I did as my day job before I started traveling. Nowadays I mostly just cook for my friends, but I could do it again."
Fishy offered a hoofbump. "Didn't hear anything from you when I mentioned I was a bakery alum! Well met!"
Maple awkwardly took it. "Thanks. That feels like so long ago, though... It's kind of funny to remember."
Valey blinked. "Is it? I mean, you cook for us all the time."
"No..." Maple shook her head. "I mean doing something ordinary for a living. I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet that whether I get off here or at the next stop, I'm finally going to return to that way of living."
Fishy chuckled. "Feels like I've been away from that grind forever, too. Being mayor is a lot of work too, but it's a much less consistent kind than rising at half past four to catch fish before heading in and spending the day tallying finances."
"You have no idea." Maple shook her head, smiling.
Around then, the door to the guardhouse opened again, and the one guard who always wore his armor stepped out. "Mayor Fillet." He nodded respectfully. "Might I have a word? The rest of you as well."
"Oh! Probably best to get this over with..." Fishy nodded, stretching and strolling inside. Valey, Maple and Gerardo followed, leaving only Fluffy and Starlight, who had been watching from the background.
The interior of the guardhouse looked exactly the same as it had before, only this time the noise of a running shower drifted out of the hallway, everyone able to see the edge of an aggressively-open bathroom door. The armored stallion ignored it completely, but Valey gave it a long look. "Bananas, that's bait, but I could start such a scene..."
"You've already done plenty," the guard replied, neither encouraging nor chastising. "I wanted to get back to our derailed conversation. But first, Mayor, was it really necessary to escalate that so?"
Fishy shrugged. "Someone had to. If we want this guard unit to work out in my town, it needs an ounce or two of authority that doesn't come from me. I'm elected, not a monarch. I can't tell these ponies what to think. And to be frank, you three are all responsible for each other. Should have worked with her harder on her behavior."
The guard looked chagrinned. "It's been a work in progress."
"Well, hope you can use that to shock some sense into her." Fishy shook her head. "Anyway, that answer your question?"
The guard sighed. "I had hoped this would be a slightly less-demanding assignment... But it is what it is. Back to business. Would someone fetch Silver Saddle and tell her we have a meeting?"
Valey gave him an incredulous look. "Wait a sec, are you trying to get her to derail this a second time? You and I both know what'll happen if any of us go in there."
Fishy banged a hoof. "Overruled. She can keep taking her shower. What's this meeting about, anyway?"
The guard gave Valey a look that very clearly asked if she wanted more ponies than need be to know where they were from. Valey instantly realized what he was doing, and decided she did.
"So here's the deal," Valey said, discarding her chance to back out and try to keep matters of the north under her hat. "We're from the north. Those mountains don't actually extend forever, and there's a whole bunch of continents beyond them. But they're enchanted super hard to make it impossible to fly across them, and our airship is unique and magical and lets us fly across anyway."
The guard's look would have given away that part of that wasn't true, but Fishy wasn't looking at him. "That explains a lot. And I already know about most of it. No one posts a garrison in my town without telling me the real reason why. That's where you're going next, isn't it?"
Gerardo nodded.
"...That's where Starlight must have gone to meet you." Fishy sat down, paling. "But no one knows there's anything up there. She just... tried to walk off the edge of..."
"Starlight is..." Maple hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "More resilient than most ponies. So she survived. And she's also been through a lot more than most ponies, which is why she did it in the first place."
"Don't you say that to me!" Fishy snapped. "I already told you how I was a bystander to all that! I spent months not knowing if she was fled or dead, and the day I find out she's still alive, you also say she wasn't intending to make it anywhere after leaving at all?"
Maple folded her ears. "The place she was trying to go was anywhere but here, even if that was an endless, inhospitable mountain range. I'm sorry, but this is who we are and what we're dealing with. I know it's not pretty, but it's what we've got."
As they talked, the guard gave Valey a look. "So much for not disrupting the meeting. I guessed as much already, but we still need to talk."
"Uhh... yeah." Valey abashedly got to her hooves. "Sorry about that. We can continue upstairs, or something?"
The guard shrugged. "Might as well... There's a back room over here."
He and Valey passed through the hall, where Valey noted Silver Saddle had forgone a shower curtain as well. Their eyes met for half a second before Valey gracefully nodded and closed the door. It probably wasn't the reaction the pegasus was fishing for.
Eventually, they stepped into a bedroom converted to an office, the lights out and Maple, Gerardo and Fishy left behind. The guard sat down and sighed.
"I, uhh... don't think I ever got your name?" Valey tried, looking to break the silence.
"Cardinal Foghorn," the stallion replied. "Cardinal's a name, not a title." He sighed again. "You're pretty impulsive, aren't you?"
Valey backpedaled. "First off, yeah. Second, I usually get away with it by being stronger than anyone who cares, but if it's making a mess, I'm real sorry. Third, there's nothing normal about my situation. I can't help who I am and know better than to try." She paused. "And you sent me up there in the first place. We cool?"
"Calm down." Cardinal Foghorn waved a hoof. "I'm a watchpony, not a prosecutor. I just wanted to get something squared away about your friends. Was hoping I could get more of us than just me in on this conversation, but it is what it is." He sighed, leaning on the desk. "That letter you have from the Princess... It doesn't make any mention of Starlight, and the ponies of this town all think she's a local. That means she's not a native of the north."
"We've got a Writ of Harmonic Sanction," Valey replied. "One spare. Just in case."
Foghorn nodded. "Good. Just wanted to be clear about that, since I thought the Princess would have mentioned something like this." He closed his eyes and sighed again. "We have a spell to detect whether one has been used on a pony. I hear you're considering leaving her here, and one pony staying with her? Using the same writ, I presume?"
"Right on the money." Valey shuffled, looking for a seat for herself. "Any reason that could potentially be a problem?"
Foghorn shook his head. "Not as long as you let us use that spell before you leave. Make sure everyone who's going or staying is clear to be where they are. That's all. Enjoy the rest of your stay."
"That's all? Cool." Valey relaxed, tipping her hat on her way out. "We're still chill, by the way?"
"I am." Foghorn shrugged, bending over and rooting around in the desk before coming up with a bottle and glass and pouring himself a drink. "Though I'd make up with Silver Saddle, if I were you. Don't know how long you're staying, but she's a lot nicer once you get to know her."
Valey chuckled, wandering off. "Yeah, after throwing her in a dumpster, I'll eat my hat if that's an easy feat."
Outside the guardhouse, Starlight and Fluffy Fleece waited next to a hedge, staying behind as everyone else went in.
"Was that your friend?" Fluffy asked once everyone was out of sight.
"Valey?" Starlight nodded. "Yes."
"What kind of pony is she?" Fluffy continued, the street empty in both directions all the way until it curved out of sight. "She had teeth and different wings."
"A batpony." Starlight watched the guardhouse door, which was now closed. Silhouettes of her friends were visible through the windows... She was tempted to say there weren't a lot of them around, but only knew that held true for the north. Who knew how many batponies there were in Equestria?
"Like an earth pony, pegasus or unicorn?" Fluffy tilted her head. "You'd think we'd learn about those somewhere. Are there a lot of them in the rest of the world? I wonder why we don't have any here."
Starlight nodded. "Closest to a pegasus. She can fly. But still different."
"Huh." Fluffy's interest didn't look sated.
"I don't think you find them on their own," Starlight went on, "because their foals aren't batponies unless both parents are batponies, so they have to live together to survive. So they don't mix with other ponies as often."
Fluffy's interest only increased. "Huh! What are they like?"
"Batponies? Like any other ponies." Starlight shrugged. "Valey only put that mare in the garbage because that's what she's like. She would have done it even if she was a unicorn or a pegasus or an earth pony."
Fluffy glanced over her shoulder, back down the twisting road toward the schoolhouse. "You also know Gerardo," she pointed out. "Your friends are really different. Is the world that big of a place?"
Starlight didn't even need to think twice. "You know the map in Miss Nickel's room? It's tiny. The world goes at least four times that far from here, going east alone. And it's a circle, so it goes just as far north and south as well. It's very big."
"How far have you gone?"
"A long way." Starlight settled down against the hedge, sitting and watching the guardhouse. She didn't particularly want to get involved with whatever everyone else was discussing, but at the same time, staying near adults was the condition Miss Nickel had released her new friend from school on... "Mostly east. As far east as Griffonstone."
Fluffy screwed up her face in concentration. "That sounds familiar... but I forget where. Maybe a book I read? What's that like?"
Starlight shrugged. "It's a dump. I didn't go into the town itself but all the griffons there are greedy and unreliable and it's surrounded by wastelands with lots of monsters. You wouldn't go there for vacation."
For some reason, answering her questions didn't seem to make Fluffy satisfied. "Where is it?" she pressed, smiling curiously. "And what were you doing there?"
"We were passing by." If this was the topic of conversation... "We didn't want to stop there, but our ship ran out of fuel and needed repairs. And it's far enough east that you go off Miss Nickel's map, then cross a desert, then cross another ocean, and then it's on the shore of the next continent."
Fluffy frowned. "That's fascinating. Why do you make it sound so boring?"
"I..." Starlight averted her eyes. "I don't get very excited about things. I might be nicer than I used to be, but that doesn't mean I'm okay. And we also almost all died there, so it wasn't a very happy place."
"But..." Fluffy's ears fell, this information clearly conflicting with what she wanted to think about. "But you didn't, right? Or did someone not...?"
"We all survived." Starlight shook her head. "Barely. It probably sounds like a fun adventure, and maybe someday I'll be able to tell stories about it, but I didn't like being there."
Fluffy bit her lip. "We used to read adventure stories, remember? We made friends with each other years ago because I had a hold on a book at the library that you had checked out."
"This isn't like those," Starlight answered. "We weren't trying to be good guys or be heroic and cool. We were trying to survive. Adventures aren't about going out and saving the world and feeling good about it afterward. They're about feeling like you're homeless and have nowhere to go. I know the world is interesting and cool, and there's a lot of places out there someone would probably find really neat. Maybe you'd enjoy them! But when you don't know where you belong, seeing how big the world is just makes it feel like there are more places you don't belong in."
Fluffy watched her for a second with a slack jaw. "Are you alright?"
Starlight sighed. "No, but I want to be."
"...Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I'm not sure," Starlight admitted. "But if there is, you already are. Since this all started because Sunburst left and I was lonely..."
"Oh. Well, okay." Fluffy didn't look entirely pacified, but now she was worried instead of curious. "I still think Griffonstone sounds neat, though. Maybe it was scary while you were there, but now that it's over, isn't it cool that you survived? Like when there's a surprise quiz on the homework and you aren't ready for it, but you pass anyway and even though you want to freak out earlier once it's over you're like, haha, yay?" She frowned a little. "Or is that a bad analogy?"
Starlight nodded. "Almost dying is different. Please don't find out how." She hesitated, adding, "Actually, no, it's not. I guess if I did almost die and then not, maybe it would be thrilling. But it's not the almost dying that's bad. It's being stranded in a wasteland and thinking you could die and there would be nothing you can do about it. It would be like being told a test is coming in a month and being told what it's about and then not being allowed to practice. And if you fail, you can't care because you're gone, but if your friends fail..."
Now Fluffy looked bothered. "Can we talk about something else? I don't like the way this is making me feel."
"Okay." Starlight nodded, teasing the hedge behind her with her tail. "What else do you want to talk about?"
Fluffy paused, mouth open again in thought. "...Well, so you got stranded. Didn't you do any other cool stuff while you were gone? Things you think are cool as well?"
Starlight was about to say no, automatically and on instinct... but that wasn't true at all. "Yes. Lots of things," she admitted. "And I guess surviving when we were stranded is cool too. But I don't want to be cool!" She met Fluffy's eyes earnestly. "I only go along on the airship because I want to stay with my friends, and none of us want to stay in any of the places we visit because they're all messed up and we can just fly off and look for somewhere better. I don't feel very cool. I feel worn out, and I want us to all settle down and have a normal life together. Then maybe I can enjoy doing cool things, but there's no point in being cool if that's all you are. Ponies who think you're cool are like cake frosting. It's good, but tastes terrible and makes your stomach hurt if you eat it on its own."
Fluffy stared for a long moment. "You could all just stay here," she offered. "I know you were upset with Sires Hollow and ran away earlier, but everyone says it's a nice place to live. Especially the caravan ponies who have seen everywhere else. Does it have anything wrong with it that makes you still want to leave?"
"Well..." Starlight's face fell. Fluffy made an even better argument than she knew: here, there were ponies like Fishy in charge, who cared about her and wouldn't let this become another Riverfall. If one of her problems was feeling like she was at the top of the power structure and always protecting everyone else... a local town leader who could sway others' opinions of her sounded like a very appealing remedy. Even thinking this much about it struck an intense pang of longing through her chest. It might not be perfect, but it would be a very large step in the right direction... if not for one major problem.
"My friends wouldn't be able to stay with me," she sighed after a very long breath. "Where they're from, they... have permission to be passing through, but not to stay. We have a thing that would let one of them stay behind here with me. And everyone is thinking about it." Her ears pressed back. "But we couldn't all stay. And even if we could, one of my friends has her own home that got destroyed, and she wants to help rebuild it. So we can't all stay."
Fluffy was starting to look uncomfortable again, but she didn't speak to it. "But you said you were tired of jumping from place to place on your airship, even if you stay with all your friends."
"I know. There's no good answer." Starlight shook her head. "I'm just tired. I want to feel like I'm home."
"Well..." Fluffy bit her lip. "My mom always says that when I'm having a bad day, the best thing to do is go home."
"I know," Starlight agreed. "I want a home to go to."
Fluffy looked back at the guardhouse, heads still visible through the windows, talking inside. "Can't this be your home? Is it worth it to leave again, even if you want to stay with all your new friends?"
Starlight swallowed bitterly. "I don't want to let them go. I already did that with Sunburst. This time it's not my best friend, it's my whole family. And I don't have a family left here, anyway. But you're right. I still want to stay here, too. There are ponies who know me, and it would mean I could finally stop running..."
Fluffy fidgeted, looking outclassed. "Umm... well... You said one pony can stay with you, and isn't that Maple your new mom? And your old house is still empty, so you wouldn't have to have no family. And I'll be your friend."
"Thanks," Starlight sighed. "I know I need to decide, and I know I can't make a decision that will give me everything right now. I can settle for less than I want, but something, or I can settle for nothing now, but hope I can get more later. What would you do?"
Fluffy blinked. "Well, Miss Nickel teaches us it's good to invest in the future. But giving up one cookie today to get two tomorrow doesn't make any sense if you're starving."
"But what if it was something you needed a lot more than cookies?" Starlight asked. "Like friends and family?"
"Have no friends today and two tomorrow, or have one today and have it stay that way?" Fluffy frowned. "That doesn't make as much sense, though. I said I'll be your friend, and I will as long as you're not really mean again like last time. Now that I've been talking with you, you seem nicer, too! And you can make more friends again if you stay here, too. A lot of the rest of us at school still remember you." She blinked. "Actually, if you'd have more friends immediately by going with your airship friends, but be better in the long term if you stayed here..."
Starlight nodded. "That's why it's hard. I know I need to stop and start a normal life, but I don't want to pay the price."
"Oh." Fluffy sat back, out of ideas. "Well, I... probably would go hide in my room. I wouldn't want to choose."
"But I have to." Starlight shook her head. "Because it's my future, and no one else will choose for me."
Fluffy hesitated. "I always thought that's what your parents are supposed to do. Making you do things you don't want to that are good for you in the end. Like making you eat food you don't like."
Starlight's face shadowed. "I wish I had that like a normal filly."
Fluffy blinked in confusion. "But isn't Maple your mom? Is she not married?"
Starlight hunched over and buried her head in her hooves, at her limit for thinking about this. "It's complicated."
"Umm..." She heard Fluffy step over, the filly's voice tense with uncertainty. "Umm, it'll be okay... Would it help if I let you touch my mane? That sometimes calms me down when I'm overwhelmed. It's very soft."
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered. All that mattered was the truth this conversation had forced her closer and closer to facing: she couldn't have it all. For months, she had chosen to leave with her friends in hopes that they would find somewhere better than where they were at, and it never worked. What would make going on to Ironridge different? She could always hang onto hope. It was what she was good at. But just hoping didn't make her dreams and wishes come true. And even if she stayed hopeful, the rest of her was getting more and more burned out because of it.
Physically, she could always do what it took. But emotionally, she was at her limit. It was a choice with no right answers, and it had to be made.
...Something clicked in Fluffy's voice. "You should stay here," the filly said. "If you don't want to choose and you need someone to choose for you, I will. And you don't have to listen to me, but I say you should stay here."
That was all Starlight could take. Eyes still covered, she started to cry.
"Hey, uhh..." Valey interrupted her trot back into the central guardhouse room where Maple, Gerardo and Fishy were talking to stare out a window. She poked Maple in the side. "Is it just me, or is Starlight out there alone and crying?"
The conversation was instantly forgotten, everyone paying attention. "What?" Maple breathed, rushing to the window... but before she could reach it, there was a knock at the door.
It was Fluffy Fleece, looking badly out of her depth. "Hey," she panted the moment the door was open, "Starlight is over there and I think she needs you."
Maple and Fishy were already out the door. Valey and Gerardo didn't follow.
"What's this all about?" Gerardo queried, watching Maple run to the filly from a distance. "I assume you two stayed outside because you didn't want to deal with potential fallout relating to rude guards..."
"Aren't you going to see for yourselves?" Fluffy asked, pointing out the door. "She's really upset. I tried talking with her, but she has all sorts of problems she's sad about and I had no idea to help. I tried my best, I promise."
Valey shrugged, standing by the door and watching as well. "Too many cooks. If all of us came barreling over, she'd probably be even more overwhelmed... not that I'm not gonna keep an eye on her, of course. Starlight's... a case." She raised an eyebrow. "So who are you? Someone Starlight knew from school?"
"Um, yes." Fluffy nodded, looking small as her attention was suddenly split between a very new friend in need and two creatures more exotic than any she had seen before. "Are... you sure Starlight will be alright?"
Gerardo flexed his talons uncomfortably, and Valey shook her head. "If we're needed, someone will let us know. Like I said, she gets overwhelmed easily." She patted a chair, still positioned by the door. "So take a seat, kid. You look kinda worried. What's going on out there?"
Fluffy shrank again, staying where she was. "I told you, Starlight is crying! She sounded lonely and like she had a lot of other problems and I tried to help, but I don't think they were the kind of things I can really help with, and talking didn't seem to make her feel better."
Valey leaned forward. Whether or not Starlight was fine, this kid's stress was impossible to miss. "Well, the good news is, that's not your fault. Starlight's been through a lot, and she's an unfortunate mix of way too tough and way too fragile, but she's got us looking out for her."
"Will she be okay, though?" Fluffy chanced. "She sounded like she had thought about it, and didn't think she was."
Valey glanced to the side at Gerardo. "Birdo, help me out here."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Starlight has been suffering from a severe case of not having a community to call home, among other things. While she won't be alright immediately, I think you can rest assured that merely by being a friend who cares about her, you are helping quite a bit."
"Are you sure? That's a relief." Fluffy sagged. "She sounded bored with everything." She looked up, perking. "You were with her, right? Were the things you did actually boring?"
Valey chuckled hard. "Hoo bananas, no. They were pretty crazy at times, and kinda stressful and dangerous, but absolutely the opposite of boring. But, uh, we've done a lot of things, so... you hearing about any one in particular?"
Fluffy nodded, managing to put Starlight's wellbeing out of her mind in the face of temptation from the two adventurers' stories. "Griffonstone! Starlight said it's so far east of here, there's a desert and another ocean between it and where we are. Is it true?"
"Uhhh, heh heh..." Valey adjusted her hat. "Okay, to be fair, Griffonstone was actually one of the more boring places we visited. Which was mostly because I spent most of it stuck in a magical artifact and didn't get to do anything, but that's the way the cookie crumbles."
Now, Starlight was completely forgotten. "Really!? That's not boring!"
"Maybe not to hear about." Valey rolled her shoulders. "But you try waking up one morning and realizing you were gone for a month, and tell me that was the coolest month of your life. Like I said, traveling gets pretty crazy."
"Additionally," Gerardo cut in, "not all of us were magically imprisoned. I, myself, happened to be afflicted with a strength-sapping curse following a harrowing battle with a monster, and spent a good portion of the time crawling around and regaining my strength. By the time I could walk again, I was called upon to embark on a lengthy stroll to a nearby village, where I recruited the help of the local mafia to carry rations and supplies back to our stranded airship. Unfortunately, things devolved on the trip back, and I wound up watching them do extensive battle."
Fluffy's eyes were saucers. "How can you say that's boring!?" she squeaked, voice almost too high to be audible.
Valey flexed. "Because the stuff we've done in other places is just that much cooler. It makes it look boring by comparison."
Fluffy sobered and stuck out her lip. "I can't argue with that unless you tell me."
"Well," Gerardo began, "there was the time I was attempting to sail a boat up a river, and had an incident while fording a waterfall involving a collapsing crane that nearly cost me all my valuables..."
"And the time I beat up a yak," Valey added. "You guys know what yaks are around here? Big, hairy and tough as nails?"
"There was also the time we took on a charitable request and hunted down a famous songstress's stolen heirloom from a petty thief and scoundrel," Gerardo continued, "thereby getting in her good graces!"
"Or..." Valey winked. "The time we visited a city that was just a mile-deep hole in the ground, with all the buildings built into the sides?"
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Speaking of cities, we'd be remiss not to mention the mountaintop temple where day never comes and everything is lit by flowing blue lights."
"Yeah, but that's not as cool as the time I found this dude who had been sabotaging a generator and making a city go without lights or power," Valey interrupted. "He got owned."
"We've also been to an island fortress converted entirely into a great stone castle," Gerardo reminded. "Replete with a sculpted, surrounding city and an arena the size of this town!"
"Stop! That's too many!" Fluffy's wings were buzzing frantically, the filly bouncing in place. "I'm already forgetting the ones I want to ask about! What was the city like? The one with... um, you know!"
Valey leaned back against a table. "Try not to explode there, kid. And telling it all would take a week. Love the enthusiasm, though!" She took off her hat, twirling it on a forehoof. "The point is, yeah, sometimes you do stuff that sounds really cool until you realize you've actually done stuff that's way cooler. Like, lemme tell you, Starlight is a lot cooler than she realizes."
"You don't need to tell me twice." Fluffy huffed, deflating. "So, um... I assume you're Starlight's friends and that you're nice, and I saw Gerardo, but who are you?" She looked at Valey. "And did you really throw Silver Saddle in a dumpster bin?"
Valey casually nodded. "Yep. Right in the rubbish bucket. Didn't quite expect that result, but, you know. I do what I want."
"Why would you do a thing like that?" Fluffy asked. "And how? She's a guard. Everyone says she's pretty strong."
"No real reason." Valey shrugged. "Mostly because she was too big for her boots and was trash-talking me. I trash-talk all the time, but I have the skills to back it up. Tip from a pro: don't try to annoy random strangers to get revenge for being woken up. You never know when they're really, really strong."
"When you put it that way," a new voice said, "you have no moral high ground to stand on."
It was Silver Saddle, her shower mostly complete. She wore a towel in a way that didn't hide her very-wet fur and mane, letting them very deliberately accentuate her features instead. Valey blinked, turning to see her. "Bananas, how long have you been standing there?"
Fluffy glanced at the door. "Since Maple went out..."
"I am slightly chagrinned," Silver Saddle added. "You fully admit that you only did that to me because you were offended by my manners, yet your manner of protest was an exercise of bad manners itself. And now you brag about where you have been and the things you've done, for no purpose other than to impress ponies. I suppose you would hardly be impressed to know some of my own accomplishments and feats."
Valey pursed her lips. "I mean, there's always a chance... But how much experience do you even have? You look fresh out of college."
Silver Saddle grimaced. "That's hardly a fair question to ask when there's a filly present."
"What?" Fluffy blinked. "But didn't you just ask if she wanted to know?"
Valey groaned internally. "Uh, no, that's not what she..."
"Never mind! That's neither here nor there." Silver Saddle waved a hoof, turning for the staircase. "I heard your bragging as well, Valey. You're very impressive. Come and see me sometime when I'm not fully asleep. Perhaps it would be worth our whiles to know each other after all."
Valey stared after her for a long moment. "What just happened?" Fluffy cautiously asked.
"Uhhh... I really don't know." Valey scratched her head, then replaced her hat. "If I didn't know better, I'd say throwing her in a dumpster somehow raised her opinion of me..." She turned around to Gerardo. "Hey, Birdo, think this is a good time to go see how Starlight's doing?"
Gerardo shrugged. "Well, we did just whet our newest fan's appetite for tales of adventure and then deliver nothing to show for it. What do you think, Miss...?"
Fluffy jumped to her hooves. "Fluffy! Fluffy Fleece. And what are you?" Her eyes were fixed on Valey. "Starlight called you a batpony?"
"Oh yeah." Valey stretched, showing off her wings and tufted ears. "It's pretty much what it looks like. I've got these cute-"
Maple appeared in the doorway with a serious look. "Starlight says she's made up her mind about staying."
"Wait, what?" Valey and Gerardo instantly glanced at her. "She has? Going or staying?"
"Staying." Maple took a breath. "She wants me to use the Writ of Harmonic Sanction, and the two of us to stay here."
Fluffy's ears pressed back. "Really?"
"Really," Maple confirmed. "She's waiting outside. And really. We..." She swallowed. "We probably need to talk about what this means and what comes next, don't we?"
"I mean..." Valey hesitantly shrugged. "There's not a whole lot else it can mean. But you wanna go back to the ship and let everyone know?"
"I think we should." Maple looked over at Fluffy. "Do you have somewhere to go? You could follow along, but Starlight might be... not paying too much attention to you."
Fluffy looked caught in a spotlight. "I don't know. Should I? I could go back to school, but then I wouldn't get the rest of the day off... Is Starlight alright?"
Maple smiled gently. "No, but she will be. Fishy is still out there, she'll be coming down to the ship with us. If you wanted to come, one of us could watch you if you want."
"Well... I do want to see an airship..." Fluffy Fleece fidgeted. "Um, okay. Let's go?"
"Well put!" Gerardo praised, trotting out the door. "Indeed, let's go."
Valey left too, watching Fluffy out of the corner of her eye. As much as the kid clearly enjoyed the foreign contact and hearing about where they had been, she sobered up quickly any time Starlight was mentioned. It was like the perfect opposite of Kinmari, where the students went into a frenzy the moment any adventurer was brought up...
She didn't know if she believed Maple that Starlight would be alright any time soon. But she hoped that if this was where Starlight was going to stay, this new, saner perspective from the ponies around her would help. Starlight didn't need anyone losing their heads over her. She needed things that were stable. Hopefully, this would be it.
The Immortal Dream was right where everyone had left it, idling in the bay east of Sires Hollow. Wisps of energy traced broad rings and spirals inside the crackling, glowing harmony comet, causing sparkles of orange light to dance off the wave tips whenever their angle was just right. The trail around the eastern ridge went high enough up, they entered the bay above the comet altogether, looking down at the deck from above and taking a long, winding route to the stairs.
"Woahhh..." Fluffy Fleece hovered at Gerardo's side, skipping the chance of chipping her hooves on the steep, rocky path. "That can really fly? What's it made of?"
"It's super complicated," Valey replied, also hovering. "We've had some scientists try to explain it, but that honestly doesn't make it make much more sense. It's basically made of magic."
"Like a unicorn's magic?" Fluffy pressed, staring into the blazing, elongated teardrop.
Valey shrugged. "Uhh... technically, it's more like a pegasus's. You fly, the ship flies... Makes sense, right?"
Fluffy frowned in concentration, her brain working overtime. "It can't be that simple."
"Perhaps you could grow up to be an airship scientist, and learn all the complexities and appreciate them to your heart's content," Gerardo suggested earnestly. "Personally, I'm less concerned with how it works and more with what it allows me to do. You don't think about why you're flying when there's an endless horizon to be chased and taken in."
"I've been high up," Fluffy replied. "My mom once carried me out south above the forest foothills to look at the view. You could see at least five hills away, and that's only the ones that were close enough to count. I loved it. But I bet you could see way further than that from an airship. How high does it go?"
"I dunno if the captain's tested it," Valey chuckled. "But you can see a seriously long way. We can go way higher than the clouds in this thing."
"Coooool..."
The sounds of their conversation registered in Maple's ears, her leading the way along with Fishy. Starlight was riding on her back: a tradition they didn't engage in as often as they used to, but more practical here with the limited walking space. Besides, Starlight didn't seem to want to be far away.
"It shouldn't be more than a little paperwork to give you Starlight's old house," Fishy was saying. "And with me in your corner, that won't take more than an hour. The place is cleaned out, though, so we'll need to requisition furniture quickly. You could stay with me for a night if you need to..."
Maple's ears swiveled towards her. "Is the house really yours to give? I know you mentioned the ponies here not caring for freeloaders."
"Yep. All of them are, technically." Fishy shrugged, having no trouble navigating the path with her low center of gravity and long years of familiarity with the area. "We've got it outlined in a town charter somewhere, but the best way our ponies figured out to make our way of life work is to sort of say everything belongs to everyone. That's not like you can just walk up and take something if you want it, but it is saying it wouldn't be fair if everyone else was deprived because somepony was hoarding significantly more than they needed. So certain bigger things are technically owned by all the town together, like houses, and everyone else trusts the officials to make wise use of them. It's a system that only holds up when everyone acts with honor and dignity, but what system isn't? It means we can do stuff like this for ponies like you who need it."
"That's interesting," Maple murmured. "But aren't some of the houses bigger than others, or in better places, like closer to the school or stores?"
Fishy nodded. "Sure, but some families are bigger than others too. And Sires Hollow is small enough that you're pretty close to everywhere most of the time. So someone's five minutes away from the school, and someone's fifteen. No biggie, unless it's pouring."
"That's still thrice the distance, though," Maple pointed out. "Even if it's not too big of an increase, it's still there. Does everyone just not care?"
"Not really?" Fishy thought about it for a moment. "Okay, I've maybe had to settle one or two disputes where someone complains about a thing like that, but usually they're mad at something else and just looking for things that'll look like evidence for their case. I'd really say we just don't care. The whole point of the system is to make sure that everyone has enough, not to take exacting measures to ensure you're not being stiffed by anyone else. If we wanted that, we'd just buy and sell the things, and whoever cares the most could take getting their dues into their own hooves. But we don't, and so we don't, and everyone's happy with what they have."
Maple shook her head, pressing on. "With how many greedy creatures I've seen over my travels, it's almost hard to believe."
"Oh, I'm not saying our town is free from greedy types," Fishy went on. "And if you really care about having things, you can. You're just going to be mostly alone in that care." Her eyes roved the mountainsides, steep and filled with plants and outcroppings that made the area anything but barren. "Besides, a lot of us have done duty on caravans to the southwest. Hard to feel bad about what you have when you have more than the next town, and they have more than the folks further down the line. We've all put in the effort together, here, and just no one sees any point in not cooperating once it comes time to reap the rewards."
Throughout the explanation, Starlight stayed silent.
"Whew! I feel like we're getting off track." Fishy wiped her brow. "Point is, you want that house, I can get it for you just fine. You want furniture, we're going to have to find some, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal. Whatever you need getting settled in, you just need to ask. And I'm more than certain your neighbors will help out, too."
They rounded the final bend, avoiding a rocky outcropping and reaching the staircase connecting the mountain to the dock. Wood creaked beneath Maple's hooves. Shinespark was waiting for them on the deck.
Valey was considerably less patient. "Yo, Sparky, what's up!?" She dove from the sky, hitting the deck at an angle and landing with a huge grin right up against Shinespark's face.
"Nothing unusual," Shinespark replied. "And you're in a good mood."
"Yeah..." Valey dusted off her shoulders. "I threw a mare in a garbage bin and apparently scored points with some ponies for doing it. Including the mayor."
Shinespark facehoofed, hiding the tiniest smile. "I hope it doesn't come back to haunt you."
"Kinda likely," Valey admitted. "I think she took it as a flirting challenge. But she's off her rocker, so what can I say?" She shrugged hard, pointing back at the other ponies plus Gerardo who were approaching the gangplank. "Too bad for her I'm taken. Anyway, time to focus. We've got a case."
"Shinespark," Maple said, coming aboard. "Starlight and I are... going to stay."
Shinespark met her eyes for a long moment, searching Starlight's as well. Eventually, she nodded. "It's been a pleasure. Is this goodbye?"
Maple glanced up at the sun and grimaced. "I hope not. It's barely past midday. We've still got a good number of hours left... or did you mean it another way?"
"Let's go below." Shinespark waved her over. "I'm certain this won't be forever, with our plans to get more writs and return here again. But we also don't have a spare sound stone to leave with you like we did for Felicity. I know you've been thinking about this, so... everyone will want to know."
Maple nodded, and Fishy followed, all of them accepting the invitation to go inside. Valey hesitated, glancing back at Gerardo and Fluffy. "Birdo?"
"You go join with everyone else," Gerardo requested. "I'm sure I'll get my time as well, but we do have a very eager passenger I'd prefer not to leave on her own."
He pointed to Fluffy, who was too busy inspecting every inch of the deck to pay much heed to the conversation. "Some of this wood looks newer than the rest!" she remarked, scuffing at a seam with a hoof.
"I can always watch her if you don't have time," another voice added from the stern entry. "It's not like I've got much better to do."
"Jamjars..." Valey slowly looked up. "You, uh, should probably have someone watching you too?"
"Jamjars?" Fluffy looked up. "Who's..." She blinked. "There are other fillies here? Are you friends with Starlight?"
Valey vanished, deciding Gerardo had missed the chance to protest and ditching him to watch the kids alone. He blinked, glancing around and realizing what had happened.
"Yep. Jamjars. That's me." Jamjars stepped forward and fluffed her mane. "And I'm more of her rival, but sure, you can call us friends." She smirked, regarding the newcomer... and her smirk slowly melted into surprise as she beheld Fluffy's impossibly silky mane. "Who are you?"
"Fluffy," Fluffy said warily, also evaluating Jamjars' demeanor. "Fluffy Fleece. I live here, and I used to know Starlight. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Do you have a stylist?" Jamjars breathed, stepping quickly forward. "Who lives here? What are their hours, and can you schedule me before I have to go? Can I touch your mane?"
In the dining hall, everyone who wasn't Gerardo, Fluffy or Jamjars had gathered. It didn't even take until they had arrived for word of Starlight's decision to spread around.
"So this is it, then?" Amber asked, looking solemnly at Maple. "Your new home?"
"It seems to be." Maple stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. "I know I left without you back in Riverfall, and you had to catch up. Now it's the other way around."
"Yeah, but I'll come back." Amber completed the hug. "First I gotta check on Willow, of course, but unless I'm needed at home, you can bet I'll go with Gerardo and Valey and hunt those writs for us. And if we take too long, we can keep Felicity posted, and maybe even someone can get her up here to hang out with you herself after her foal is born."
"Everyone seems so gung-ho about getting more writs," Maple murmured. "That's the plan you're committing to?"
"Well, duh." Valey shrugged. "Felicity's already gone, and you and Starlight are staying behind... The three of you are the ones who've had the biggest reasons to settle down. I'm still game to run around and kick tail, and Birdo never planned on stopping. And with a reason like getting the crew back together, who's got time for anything else?" She winked. "You girls live your retirement, here. The moment we get even one writ, one of us will come back to say hi, and we'll get more and more until we can all hang out at the same time and have a feast together. And that's a promise. You can count on it."
Maple smiled softly. "A promise we can count on. Well, I promise to look forward to it."
"What's all this about getting writs?" Fishy asked, raising an eyebrow. "You couldn't mean Writs of Harmonic Sanction... Those are borderline impossible to get ahold of, especially in the north. I only even know they exist from secret mayor know-how! And you're thinking of getting enough for all of you?"
Valey shrugged. "We got two in a span of like six months, and Yakyakistan owes us another. Dunno exactly how much you know about the north... I'm guessing at least a little. But it's totally possible if you've got, like, once-in-a-millennia levels of gumption. Which apparently we do."
"And even if it's not possible," Harshwater added with an uncertain swagger, "that's never stopped any of this lot from trying."
"No," Nyala murmured, "it definitely hasn't."
Fishy stared around at them. "Huh."
"Will you be fine with us just leaving, though?" Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "If it's for the sake of farewells, there's such a thing as drawing it out too long, but this will be goodbye for quite some time. And I can't imagine you just seamlessly integrate into a society."
Maple shuffled where she stood, wishing Starlight would speak up... but the filly was silent. "If I could spend one last night with you all, I'd really appreciate it."
Valey winked. "Easier done than said. Right, Sparky?"
Shinespark slowly nodded. "We can delay for one more day. Spend the time we have as needed. See to it you're getting settled in. But we'd set off early tomorrow morning."
"Early tomorrow morning," Maple whispered. "Well then, let's make it a goodbye worth remembering."
Starlight stared in silence as her friends said their pieces around her. Everyone was talking, but it was hard to listen. No matter how much she tried, their words went in one ear and out the other, Harshwater's mouth moving without the intent ever making it across.
She couldn't hear because the fact was, it didn't matter what any of these ponies had to say. They were leaving. She was leaving them, and there was nothing she could do to change that beyond simply changing her mind. It wasn't a fight she could win, an obstacle she could be more stubborn than, or any other type of challenge she had overcome in her life. She couldn't change the factors her decision was based on. It had to stand, and that meant she had to stay, and lose her friends all over again.
This couldn't be another Sunburst. She wouldn't let it. She couldn't survive a thing like that again.
Harshwater kept talking, and Starlight got the feeling she was addressing Maple more than her. How much did Harshwater have to say to her, anyway? They had been shipmates, sure, but not especially close. Harshwater was friends with Valey, and Slipstream, and probably others too. But just because they lived a few cabins away for a few months didn't have to mean they depended on each other for friendship. In fact, Harshwater could probably go along her way and Starlight wouldn't feel like she had lost much at all.
Right? Because they weren't that close. Right.
It still hurt to imagine a soul leaving. This was the same way she felt while gray and looking at ponies' light: it didn't matter how much they cared about her, it mattered how much they could care. Because a pony who could care was a pony who could care about her, and thus a bright spot who was better in her life than outside it. But that was just the Nightmare Modules. Starlight couldn't think like that all the time. She had to see this for what it was: a goodbye that didn't need to destroy her, because she'd still have what really mattered.
She'd still have Maple. And Valey and Amber would be trying their hardest to get everyone back together again.
Starlight wondered what it would feel like to be reunited with someone she had been missing for a long time. Maybe it would feel like returning to Sires Hollow. Would she find pieces of herself shattered and scattered around them she didn't even know she had lost? Why couldn't a reunion feel like a piece of her life was back where it belonged? If goodbyes were to be dreaded, hellos should be the opposite, brightness to make life worth living and balance out the bad.
Maybe they were. Meeting Fluffy again hadn't been so bad. Maybe if she met enough new ponies, it would start to help. She'd give that a try, she resolved, once the next phase of her life began. It sounded vaguely like advice Glimmer had once given her, but the last time she saw the filly, Glimmer was helping her and the students against Gazelle. Maybe her advice was worth something after all.
"...And I hope life treats you well," Harshwater finished, bowing and stepping back. However many down, however many to go.
On the deck above, Jamjars was lavishly hugging a very uncomfortable Fluffy Fleece, nuzzling and fawning over her mane.
"Err..." Gerardo shuffled, also uncomfortable with his role of designated chaperone.
"I'm sort of used to it? A little?" Fluffy pushed experimentally at Jamjars, and couldn't dislodge her. "I know my mane is unique, but is she alright? This is getting pretty weird."
"Whatever, I'm weird, I admit it," Jamjars giggled. "I've never felt anything like this! How can you live day to day walking around and doing normal things when you have a national treasure on your head? If not being weird means not appreciating it, then no thank you. This filly has had too much heartache worrying about that already."
Gerardo scratched his head, looking for a way to intervene but not finding one short of picking Jamjars up. "I... suppose perhaps she is not alright, no. Jamjars, could you treat this filly with a little more dignity, please?"
"Impossible," Jamjars happily sang. "I'm already lavishing her mane with as much adoration as I cannn..."
Fluffy fidgeted. "Maybe you could lavish it with a little less adoration? Most ponies at least ask before playing with it. You don't even care if I'd say no."
"Or, you could give me the name of your stylist," Jamjars unsubtly hinted, "and both be rid of me and become my best friend in the same sentence. Come on, be a chum..."
"I style it myself." Fluffy frowned harder. "And it's not like this because of anything I do! Now please stop making me tell you to stay out of trouble? You're making me feel like a grown-up."
"Jamjars, you have been asked," Gerardo pointed out.
"But it's fluffyyyyyy and smoooooth at the saaaame tiiiiiiime..."
Fluffy sat there with a consternated look.
"Jamjars," Gerardo sighed, "I am fully capable of lifting you."
"Do what you must," Jamjars whined, hanging onto her stolen treasure. "It's not like I get to stay here, or anything. I wish I had more incentive to play the long game. I like it here so much already..."
"Um, are you saying you're being rude to me because you're leaving and don't care about being my friend?" Fluffy blinked in surprise, then annoyance. "I'm sorry for your loss, but that's rude. Please let me go."
Gerardo stepped in, using his talons to deftly separate the two and pull away a limp, pouting Jamjars. "And that's two times too many. I believe Miss Fleece is owed an apology."
"Sorry..." Jamjars' ears were flat. "You'd be clingy too if your only friend was leaving you for someone with such a gorgeous mane. At least I'll have my memories..."
Fluffy dusted herself off, mostly concerned with fixing her mane. "That's no excuse to be rude when I was trying to help. Starlight did that too, a year ago. Hmmph. You got this bit all tangled..."
"Too bad Starlight's staying here," Jamjars sighed. "Maybe you could talk her out of it? We'd probably get along great if I didn't have an impending crisis over my head. I'll be so lonely without her..."
Fluffy's mouth hung open, and she looked up at Gerardo. "Maybe I should just go home? This is weird, and I don't know what to do."
"I wouldn't blame you," Gerardo replied with a shrug. "Are you alright, first and foremost?"
"Oh, yeah." Fluffy was still fixing her mane. "Ponies do that sometimes. It just happens. But this time was definitely the weirdest." She glanced at the captive Jamjars, who looked ready to cry. "Is Starlight really her only friend?"
"She's the first one I ever was close to," Jamjars sniffled. "She rescued me from my family m-months ago, and is the only one I can talk about my interests and hobbies with! L-Like gorgeous manes... Waaaah!"
Gerardo waggled a talon before Fluffy could respond. "The only times I've ever seen you shed tears are on purpose when you fail to get what you want. What's all this about?"
"I just said!" Jamjars blubbered. "Starlight is leaving! You should make her stay... or at least give me a consolation prize..."
"I don't think that's my decision..." Fluffy shuffled. "Is he saying you're fake-crying? Why would you do that?"
Jamjars curled her lip and adopted a deadpan expression. "Starlight is strong. So strong, she's a freak. You wouldn't want her in your town. But we need her here, since she can keep this crew together and keep us safe from bad guys and monsters. We both win! Are you happier with it put that way than giving a favor to an ardent admirer or a distraught filly? Because I really do like your mane."
Fluffy blanched in utter confusion, and Gerardo closed Jamjars' mouth by pinning a talon around her muzzle, not giving her the option to go on. "I think, ah..." He fumbled for words. "I think someone will need to have a talk with her, and it's probably best not to put much stock in this..."
"What?" Fluffy was staring. "Strong? A freak? Don't insult her just because you want to keep your friend." She briefly made eye contact with Gerardo. "I-It's alright. She's probably upset about losing her friend..." She sighed. "I really think I should go home. This is all weird. And just so you know, if you'd been nice and patient, maybe I would have let you touch my mane on purpose."
Jamjars slumped in Gerardo's talons. "Argh. I hate wasting chances like that on gambits that don't pay off. Your mane really is fantastic. I don't suppose there are any secrets you could leave me as a peace offering, are there?"
"Eat your vegetables and be nice to everyone." Fluffy shrugged. "And get lucky. Um, so what are we doing?"
"Ditching me," Jamjars grumbled. "Why did the one pony I needed to convince to do something have to be someone I wanted to be friends with...?"
"Right, then..." Gerardo stretched. "I'll just find a place for her down below, if you need an escort home..."
"There's not much for me to say that hasn't already been said," Slipstream finished, the last of Starlight's non-immediate friend group to speak. Was it just her, or were all the ponies she'd miss most saving their speeches for the end? "I'm with Gerardo and everyone who's flying on, looking for writs for us. We'll miss you, and it's been fun."
As she sat back down, Maple finally checked on Starlight. "How are you doing up there?"
Starlight's expression stayed neutral. "What about Valey, Shinespark and Amber?"
"Nyaah." Valey stuck out her tongue and ruffled Starlight's mane. "Pretty sure we're not quite at the goodbye yet. Some of us have to stay and hold down the ship, but if Sparky thinks we can delay for a night longer, we're gonna spend that with you."
"You're getting a place in town, right?" Amber pointed out, tilting her head. "Some friends we'd be if we didn't come help decorate it and break it in with a housewarming party."
"A house? As long as you've decided you want Starlight's old one," Fishy added with a shrug. "Shouldn't take more than an hour to get it completely signed over, and that's only of my time."
Amber raised an eyebrow. "Should we get the party started, then? Get in as much time as possible?"
"Agreed," Maple said with a smile. "I saw it once, but let's go take a look at this new old home."
On their way up the stairs, there was a faint commotion, and they ran straight into Gerardo, who was burdened with a dejected Jamjars. Valey blinked. "They didn't hit it off, or they hit it off way too well?"
Gerardo shrugged, holding out Jamjars to anyone who wanted her. "They had differing opinions over whether they didn't hit it off or hit it off all too well."
"Yup." Valey nodded knowingly, leaning against a wall of the staircase and making no move to claim the filly. "Sounds about right."
"She didn't like my appreciation of her mane," Jamjars mumbled. "And I couldn't even get a small favor. It was such a wonderful mane..."
Starlight stared at her, snapped out of her spiral of unfeeling denial. "What did you do to Fluffy's mane?"
Jamjars pointed an aggressive hoof. "Sacrificed the chance at a glorious relationship to try to guilt her into telling you to make the smart choice with your life and stick with us. We're all better off together, Starlight. And if you come with us, we'd have the writ left over and could even invite her too!"
Starlight blinked hard. "Invite who?"
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "Who else has an amazing mane? Do you know how much I'm kicking myself right now?"
"Probably not as much as you're kicking me," Gerardo muttered, "every time you struggle..."
Starlight shook her head. "I think she likes it here. She doesn't have a family or home she wants to run away from. And even if I went north, I'd need the writ myself."
"No you don't." Jamjars blew a raspberry. "You didn't the first time you came up there."
"That doesn't count," Starlight grunted. "I've made my choice, and I can't second-guess it. Please just let me be..."
"I'm just trying to look out for you."
"I think that's more than enough," Maple interrupted, pushing past Gerardo with Starlight and making for the deck. "Jamjars, it'll be okay. Could someone who's staying please talk to her? Slipstream? You're on good terms with her, aren't you?"
"On it!" Slipstream called from below.
They proceeded onto the deck, where Fluffy was waiting all by herself. She perked cautiously the moment ponies appeared, and a little more once they were ones she recognized.
"Starlight?" Fluffy got up, stepping forward. "Is Jamjars your friend?"
Starlight hesitated. "...Sometimes. Both of us need it. She's a little weird and not very nice."
Fluffy nodded. "Um... okay. She said, um... Never mind. Where are you going?"
"We're going to Starlight's old house," Fishy announced. "Which is now her new house, once I get a few things in order. Don't see why you can't tag along."
"Yes!" Fluffy was instantly in the air, wings buzzing. "Seeing the airship was cool, but it's kind of awkward here. Let's go somewhere else. Yes, please."
"Heh." Valey chuckled, matching Maple's stride and Shinespark matching hers. "Good to see some enthusiasm around here. And I'm glad the local kids are resilient goofballs who don't get put out by getting mane-mauled by Jamjars, or whatever happened up here."
Maple nodded, breathing deeply of the marine air. "It will be a good place. The transition might be a little rocky, but I think we'll be happy here for as long as we need to be."
The walk back into Sires Hollow was anything but silent, Valey chatting Maple up with Shinespark nearby and Amber eagerly joining in. It wasn't a somber trek. Starlight knew she was biased, but looking through that, these ponies seemed legitimately happy.
Her memories drifted back to a rainy Riverfall night when Amber and Willow had marched in silent procession to see them off at a secret dock to Ironridge. It was a night where the three of them had a dream together, Maple and her friends, and Maple was shouldering all of their wishes and carrying on to experience the adventure herself. That night had been secretive, quiet and cold, a night where Starlight was only running away for the second time and was still flush with hope that the next time would be better.
Now, the weather was opposite, an afternoon sun peering through sparse cloud cover, and the mood was too. None of her friends were holding their breaths for the future. This time, there was no reverence for their past attempts and failures, only a giddy anticipation that this time around, it would finally be done. Her friends were actually giddy. And the only difference she could see was that instead of continuing on to the unknown, she and Maple were committing to a place they already had an idea of.
It meant this was more likely to work. This was it. It was finally going to be over. If Starlight could have brought herself to feel giddy too, that would have been a good enough reason for her.
Fluffy Fleece felt like the only one who was as quiet as her. Whether her friends were having a good time or not, she appreciated the solidarity.
"Starlight?" Fluffy eventually prodded. "You're not as talkative as your friends."
Well, at least she wasn't being silent because she was upset about Jamjars. "No," Starlight answered, "I'm not. I'm just usually thinking about things instead."
Fluffy looked her over uncertainly. "You're going to be okay, not saying goodbye? I remember you always said it was so sudden, last time."
"I'll be okay eventually," Starlight said, a conspicuous lack of guarantee in her voice. "That's the whole point of staying here. That eventually it'll be a better place for me."
Fluffy raised an eyebrow. "But what about right now?"
"Right now I wasn't okay before this decision and wouldn't be either way, no matter what I do," Starlight grunted. "So I'm just thinking instead."
In truth, she wasn't thinking. Her head felt like molasses. And that was the point: she had a whole lot of experience dealing with hardships that had already happened, but no idea what to do for ones that were still in her future. Sure, it wasn't pleasant, but what was the point in fighting something she herself had chosen? Fighting herself wasn't a thing she had the strength to do.
Up ahead, the conversation was far more lively. "You do have pineapples here?" Amber pressed, jaw agape. "I mean, that's awesome, but how? I didn't figure this was the kind of climate..."
"Shipped from the east." Fishy shrugged. "They're canned pineapples, but who cares? I hear sections of the southern coastline get even subtropical if you go far enough. We sometimes import coconuts, too."
"That's mildly more than subtropical," Gerardo remarked, weighing a talon. "I don't suppose there's anything anyone is thinking of doing with said pineapples, of course?"
"Grilled pineapple." The look on Maple's face was resolute. "That's what I made the night we left for Ironridge, and it was a special dish for Amber and Willow and I before that. It's the only thing I could make for an occasion like this." She stared into Amber's eyes. "And we're going to save a plateful, and you'll take it to Willow for me."
Amber drew a hoof across her chest, sealing the promise. "It'll barely even have time to get cold."
"I wonder what kind of cooking utensils I'll have to work with," Maple continued, tone much lighter. "I didn't take too good of a look at the kitchen when we were there. How furnished is it, Fishy? What will I be using?"
Fishy shrugged. "There's an icebox and a range, but they'd both be empty. And a sink, cutting board... probably no knives. Don't know if you'll have much else to start, but while you get yourselves settled in I'll rouse the neighbors and see if they can pitch in a little." She glanced all the way back at Starlight. "You remember Meadow Rose and Timber Trail? They still live next door."
Starlight remembered them. They were the couple her parents often invited for dinner, though she had rarely seen the inside of their house because they didn't have kids for her to visit of their own. They were the ponies she had always been okay around, but never paid attention to: her parents' friends, not her own.
"Maybe not." Fishy shrugged, taking her silence as a no. "Long-time friends of mine, though. I bet they'd be happy to help with a housewarming."
"I'd be down to meet them!" Amber chirped. "What kinds of ponies are they?"
"You mean what are they like?" Fishy waved a hoof, slightly short on breath after the climb. "Well, Rose, she's pretty easygoing. And a little rowdy. It's a combination that looks odd on paper, but really works once you get to know her. And then Timber is the kind that never wastes a word. Lets her do the talking for him. But his attention span and memory are just unrealistic, and there's no one better to talk at and feel like you've been heard. Real nice folks, both of them. Trust me, you'll hit it off." She glanced over at Amber. "Especially you and Rose. Too bad you can't stay longer."
Amber rolled her eyes and winked. "Start putting it on the calendar. We won't be gone forever!"
"Ah, there's nothing like meeting an old face after a long sojourn apart," Gerardo agreed. "I once had this friend, a mercenary named Winsom. He was either a camel or a llama, and I always used to annoy him by referring to him as the opposite of what he was. Tragically, now that we're in the present it makes it hard to remember what he actually was..."
"Hello, Sires Hollow to Big Bird?" Amber waved in Gerardo's face. "Think the meaning of your tangent is getting a little vaguer than you intended."
Gerardo's crest flopped. "It's a long story, and I was just getting started. Do you want to hear the rest or not?"
Valey looked up from where she had been muttering with Shinespark about something, clearly not paying attention. "Story? Yes please! The longer, the better. Show those non-storytellers who's boss." Shinespark giggled under her breath, and they went back to muttering.
Gerardo drooped. "Well, excuse me..."
"Ahem..." Fluffy had flown on ahead of Starlight and now was hovering near the griffon. "What's a llama? Or a camel?"
Gerardo's eyes shone with an eager light. "Llamas are fickle and fascinating creatures. There is a port city I passed through once upon an adventure, governed entirely by the creatures, and they passed ordinance to change its name each and every day. They wanted to stand out from the crowd and not have just another city, so they made one you're forced to refer to as that llama city and everyone remembers. Should you ever meet one, ask to hear a joke. I hear they're masters of that type of cleverness and humor."
"Really?" Fluffy buzzed in the air. "Wow. I hope one visits here someday. So what's a camel?"
"Imagine a pony with a long face and a hump on their back."
Egged on by Fluffy Fleece, Gerardo's storytelling continued all the way through town. Fishy entrusted Maple and Starlight with remembering where the house was and vanished, wandering off to do official errands. Meanwhile, Valey and Shinespark's conversation didn't let up, to the degree that Starlight suspected they were planning something and had no idea what it was. This distracted her enough that she forgot to navigate, and since Maple was too new to the town to fully remember, the group somehow was guided by Fluffy, who barely even paid attention to her surroundings as she flew backwards and listened to Gerardo.
"And that is why one should never cross swords with a camel," Gerardo finished. "Technique, finesse, strength and experience all have their roles, but there will never, ever be nothing to be said for raw meanness in a fight."
"You know how to swordfight?" Fluffy pressed. "I have a friend at school who thought we should start a fencing club, but the teacher said no, because none of us knew how. She didn't listen when he told her that was the point."
Gerardo chuckled. "I'm not quite certain youngsters like yourself in a peaceful town like this have a lot of practical applications for swordfighting. And even if you did, casual duels for sport are very different than a life-and-death struggle."
"So?" Fluffy didn't look like this was particularly relevant to her interests. "My friend certainly thought it would be cool. He talked me into it."
Amber butted in, interrupting. "Speaking of cool things, what's the coolest thing you've ever done? Not dreamed up, not planned to do, actually pulled off."
Fluffy whistled. "The coolest I've actually done? Um... I don't know. I sure felt cool when I first learned to fly. My wings took a little longer to start working than normal, but one day I was trying to get to school and the breakfast cereal ran out, and we were all out of it on the bottom shelf in the pantry. So I reached and reached and couldn't quite get it, and then... you know!" She blushed a little. "Okay, that's probably not very cool. Not when you have an airship. But it felt cool."
"Wuzzat?" This time, Valey's attention was properly captured. "Hey. For your information, if there's ever a tree with some fruit in it, and no one else can get it? You'll sure feel cool if you can reach up there and get it all for yourself. Just saying. Flying to get food is really cool."
"Thanks..." Fluffy still looked somewhat embarrassed. "There was also the time I thought would be cool, where I wrote a really funny story and asked if I could read it to the class. But then when I did, nobody laughed at my jokes, and after I was done, my teacher called it an 'insightful commentary on the equine condition'. I don't even know what that is! And I read a lot, so I have a good vocabulary..."
Valey snorted. "I'm ninety percent sure that's what folks call something when they want to sound smart but don't know any smarter words."
"Says an uneducated scholar of poetry," Gerardo interrupted, raising a pious talon. "What it actually means is..." He saw Valey and Fluffy's faces. "Ah... my mistake. That's actually exactly what it means."
Amber had to stop and lean against a fence, laughing.
"Well, here's to high spirits," Maple happily sighed. "I know this is goodbye, and I know it's goodbye for a while, but thanks for making it an uplifting affair. This is what I should have been doing with my goodbyes all along."
"I'm sorry I couldn't have been a better mentor in the subject." Gerardo adjusted his uniform. "That said, I usually am the one who's leaving, not staying... But we haven't even reached the party, let alone the parting. The night is so young, it hasn't even begun! Ha-ha!"
"Well put." Amber punched him so hard in the shoulder he staggered and barely kept his balance, muttering about earth pony strength. "Ironflanks, we're not leaving until there's been so much laughter in your new house, it already feels like a proper home. We're gonna break in this house for you the good way."
Starlight didn't say it, but she liked the sound of it. She was glad to see Fluffy getting along with her friends and glad to see her friends carrying themselves with spirits held high. There was still the inevitable parting, and she wasn't sure if it was truly better to lie to herself and tell herself this time was happy, but... it looked so much more appealing than moping and closing herself off until it was over. It wasn't like there would be something better on the other side to open herself up to, was it?
...Well, there was Fluffy. And she was only the first pony from this town Starlight had tried reconnecting with. All around her, there were unfamiliar faces, some of whom stared at her with shock and dawning recognition.
It had to be a lie. Partings couldn't be happy. But the more she watched and the more she listened, the more she longed to take the risk and find some way to join in too.
When Maple turned the lights on in their new house, it looked different already.
The first time Starlight had visited, it was early enough in the morning that the eastern sun reached in through the windows. Dim, but not dark, uninhabited but not uninviting, the house had been hibernating, almost as if it was a part of the landscape instead of a structure ponies had built. It was a memory preserved in time, the window light making everything look gray, almost like her Nightmare Modules, but closer to a weathered photograph. But the ponies of Sires Hollow had a mana well somewhere, and the moment the lights were connected, that visage shattered like a broken clock. The house came to life. A press of a switch, and a spell was lifted, rooms and hallways yanked into the present.
"Whew," Maple remarked, surveying her handiwork. "Much nicer in here now. Though we're going to need to dust and get furniture..."
Starlight stared at the walls as the shadows shifted and vanished, the house waking up and becoming a house once again. An overwhelming urge filled her to do something, but no ideas accompanied it to tell her what to do. Bare wood floors, bare walls, empty rooms without furniture, and a staircase to the second floor...
"Yeah, we need to dust," Amber agreed. "I'll go see what I can do."
"And I'll check out the kitchen!" Maple called, vanishing through a wide archway. "Start making a list of what we need. We'll probably have to ask Fishy or our new neighbors for help with things. For now, make sure all the lights are on and windows open. Let's let ponies know we're here!"
"Bananas, there's no furniture in this place!" Valey complained, strolling out from the living room. "Not even a measly coffee table!"
"If you want to solicit the neighbors to ask where we'd get some, be my guest," Maple invited. "Oh my, there's a lot of work here to do..."
Fluffy glanced at Starlight as the adults scurried about around them. "So what's it like, being back here? Other than dusty? I haven't been here in forever, I don't think."
Starlight shrugged. "There are... a lot of memories."
It was mostly true. There were, tucked into every surface and crack and imperfection, and she could almost see Memory Starlight again bouncing around and making herself not very useful but excited to feel like she was helping. But from the moment Maple flipped that switch, this house had lost its status as a perfectly-preserved shrine to them. It was no longer their altar or tomb, the infectious energy of her friends fully dedicated to making it a home once again. How had they made this much of a difference, only being at it for two minutes?
"I found a mop!" Amber screeched, rolling out of the study that was adjacent to the living room and waving a discarded rag proudly. "Someone must have forgotten to clear this out. Dust bunnies, here I come!"
"You... want to go upstairs?" Fluffy suggested. "That's where your old room was, right?"
It was also where she had her breakdown, Starlight mentally added. But now, instead of being bombarded from the outside by memories she didn't know what to do with, her pressure was from the inside, her heart full of two conflicting emotions. A goodbye was imminent. She wasn't losing one friend, she was losing all but one friend... and all because she had willed it. She wanted to shrink down, hide, wait out the time where she could second-guess herself and skip the dread and anticipation, feel as little as possible for as long as she could...
But all her friends were determined to savor their last moments together. If she was better at savoring and enjoying things, it would have been so tempting to pretend the future didn't exist and try to join in too. No matter what she did, it just felt like the future was her enemy, even though her friends were almost eager in racing toward it.
"Starlight?" Fluffy waved a hoof in front of her face. "You're zoning out..."
Starlight blinked back to reality. "Um, what? Sorry..."
"Upstairs!" Fluffy exclaimed. "Come on, let's go see your room! We can think about where you want your bed to go and everything!"
Starlight took a few steps for the staircase, Fluffy leading the way. "Why does it need to go anywhere different than where it was before?"
"Well, it doesn't need to." Fluffy shrugged, clumsily climbing while trying to look at Starlight over her shoulder. "But you don't get somepony to help you rearrange your room every day, so why not take advantage of it? I have a whole notebook filled with designs for my room. If you don't want to make something up, I should run home and get it! It's good for inspiration."
"I have a room on the ship," Starlight volunteered. "I guess it'll be different from that?" Her thoughts were too busy being tugged on by the impending goodbye, her friends' good cheer, and the house's memories to give serious consideration to Fluffy's suggestions. Where was she supposed to find the emotional capacity to care about how her room was set up?
...She'd probably care once she realized how much it did or didn't remind her of her past, she realized. Maybe this was important after all.
"Okay, how about this?" Fluffy crested the staircase, frowning at the empty former reading alcove and pushing open the door to Starlight's room. "We've got... hmm. This is a lot bigger than my room, and has the closet in a different place. How come you've got such a nice room? It would be a crime not to do something with this."
Compared to the cabins on the Immortal Dream, Starlight had to admit it was pretty spacious too. But she barely even used the space she was afforded there... "What should I put in it?" She remembered how it had looked before, with a bed and desk and storage trunk and bookshelves and every surface littered with decorations and things that weren't put away...
"Well, the bed is most important," Fluffy lectured, hovering around and inspecting the two windows. "You're going to be the saddest filly if you don't have one, and they're so useful for building other stuff off of! And then you need a place to store your stuff, and then you add whatever you want!" She floated in a circle, eyes distant and locked on her imagination, and suddenly she gasped. "What if you put up posters with pictures of all the places you've been to!? That would be so cool!"
"Umm..." Starlight tried to imagine that, and with a start she realized she wasn't sure they had pictures of the north. "I don't know if I have any..." Besides, there weren't that many places up there she wanted to remember. If there were, she'd have stayed there and called it a day.
Fluffy pouted. "Pictures of your friends?"
"I don't really know if posters are my thing," Starlight admitted. It felt like more of a Jamjars thing to do, and plastering the faces of her friends everywhere wouldn't do a whole lot to help her put the fact that they were gone out of her mind.
For a moment, Fluffy stared at her in consternation. "Am I misremembering? Because I thought you used to have a bunch. Oh well. Maybe I'm confusing you with somepony else. So posters aren't your thing. But what if we hung thin colored sheets along the walls to make it look like a rainbow cave, and covered the light so all the light is blue or pink or yellow? I did that for a few months, and it was the coziest. But my parents eventually made me take it down because they needed the sheets back or something, but Fishy likes you so you should have no trouble getting more."
Starlight had to admit, she couldn't envision that at all.
"Ugh," Fluffy pouted, seeing the look on her face. "Sorry, I need my room sketchbook. Do you think your friends will notice if I disappear for just a bit to get it? I can go out and come back in through the window..." She stretched her little pegasus wings. "Sound good?"
Starlight absently nodded, still too overwhelmed to process her new friend's requests. There was a tide of excitement from her friends below, a tide of dread for the next morning's farewell, and it took all her focus just to stay afloat in the conflicting swells and not get dragged away by either. "Okay," she invited, opening a window with her forehooves. "See you soon..."
Fluffy was gone before she could blink, and then Starlight and her thoughts were alone.
Valey shouted something noisily from below. Starlight decided to make her hooves do something and go see what it was.
When she reached the landing halfway down the stairs, the cause became apparent: neighbors had arrived. Meadow Rose, a mare she associated with spicy fragrances and every color between red and pink, stood in the foyer and stared around, taking in the lit hallway and occupied building with wonder and a faint hint of smugness.
"Always knew Fishy wouldn't leave us hanging with an empty shack for neighbors," she chuckled, bouncing her manicured mane. "Timber's going to be so sad he was working during this... Ha! Pleased to make all of your acquaintances!"
She offered a hoof, and Amber bumped it, leaving her blinking when it wasn't a shake. "Amber," Amber greeted. "So you live next door?"
"Not an ounce of formality." Rose shook her head with a smile. "And they say you have Starlight Glimmer, too? Certainly might liven things up around here. Everyone says the western edge of town is the quiet edge, and I say take a hike! Ha! Well met, Amber...?"
"Just Amber." Amber shook her head. "No second name. And it's Maple you really want to meet. I'm just a friend here to help with the moving."
"And housewarming!" Valey called, strolling past. "Nice mane, by the way."
"Thanks..." Rose touched her mane again appreciatively, making Starlight wonder what it was with some mares and their manes. Meadow Rose, Jamjars, Fluffy... Her mane was just a thing that got in the way when she didn't cut it often enough, and grew a teal stripe or two when she actually stopped to brush it. What would it feel like to spend a long time caring about her mane?
Rose leaned against a barren wall. "Indescribably nice to have some action around this place for a change. After Starlight's parents left, and especially after Fishy moved to the mayor's abode, you have no idea... Need a hoof with anything?" Her horn flickered with telekinesis. "I'm no power lifter, but I've got a good horn on my head."
Shinespark stuck her head around a corner, Amber's abandoned dusting rag now in her possession. "Ask Maple. We're waiting for Fishy to find out what food and furniture we have to work with..."
Rose immediately winced when she saw Shinespark's horn. Shinespark followed her gaze, and her ears self-consciously fell. "Old injury. It's not as bad as it looks."
"You're my new neighbor?" Maple interrupted, bustling out from the kitchen and saving everyone from an awkward continuation. "I'm Maple! I'm your new neighbor. Nice to meet you?"
She actually shook hooves this time, and Rose smirked gratefully in greeting. "Music to my ears. Can I fetch drinks? Looks like there will be a regular work party in here as soon as we get things to work with?"
"Glad to have you on board." Amber grinned and stretched. "Gerardo went off with Fishy to help look for things we can use... I'd say this will get kicked off properly any moment now."
Starlight watched the whole exchange from the landing, relatively unaccosted by Rose's presence. Neighbors who were friendly, but left her alone... How did that sound so appealing when what she really wanted was more friends?
It didn't matter. It was good enough. Her head might have been crammed to bursting, but she wasn't miserable. Maybe she could sit there and enjoy her friends' enjoyment just a little longer.
The next knock at the door to Starlight's old house came from Fishy. "Watch your step and move aside!" she called, and Starlight looked out a window to see a team of five burly ponies laden with crates, a table, and a jumbo three-seater couch. "Cargo team's here! We've got some stuff to get you started!"
Amber, Shinespark and Valey jumped to help. Maple had departed to visit her new neighbor's house and borrow from her pantry and cooking supplies, but Gerardo was present and helping the cargo ponies, and the house suddenly felt packed even though it was empty.
"Hey!" A stallion with a crate spotted Starlight on the stair landing and smiled, his beard massive yet impeccably groomed. "I remember you! You really are back! Welcome!"
"Yeah," a raspy-voiced mare who was built like a stallion grunted, shouldering a crate that was still bigger than she was. "I helped lug this stuff into the mayor's basement when your parents left this place. Never thought I'd be bringing it back! You want it in the upstairs room, right?"
Starlight blinked. "Those crates are mine?"
"That's what the labels say..." The stallion shrugged, somehow doing so despite the colossal box weighing down his shoulders. "Better to move them while you've got movers, aye?"
Starlight stared a little longer. "Um, okay," she invited, moving up the stairs to get out of their way. "Yes, it's up here..."
She stood in the former reading alcove, watching as the two ponies carried her crates and somehow maneuvered them through the turn into her doorway and left them, backing out and wiping their brows.
"Happy unpacking!" the stallion called, waving as he descended. "Time to see what else Mayor Fillet wants lifted, aye?"
"Hope we got the right things," the mare added, panting. "Whatever's in there is heavy."
Starlight watched them go, feeling a little shell-shocked from the cheer and activity. Had things been like this before she left? For all the scattered memories she was picking up and putting back together, she couldn't remember at all. The time between when Sunburst left and when she did felt like a gray stain on her memories, and could have been days or years. Had ponies been cheerful to her then, and it just bounced right off her isolation and enforced boredom? Or was this somehow new, and the town was treating her better because she was back?
And if it was the latter, was it because they missed her? Or had the town itself improved while she was gone?
...At least she felt like this was an improvement. Starlight stayed there in the empty reading alcove for a long moment, thinking about that. Ponies being meticulously nice and cheerful... It would be so easy to feel like they weren't being genuine, or that their happiness didn't count when she didn't feel the same inside. And she definitely didn't. But after all she had been through, friendly faces were faces that weren't trying to exploit or murder her and her friends, and those were faces she was relieved to be around.
A thumping on her window got her attention, and she stepped into her room to see Fluffy Fleece, wearing a satchel and hovering outside the window with her face pressed against the glass. Starlight quickly stepped over and let her in.
"Where'd you get these boxes?" Fluffy immediately pressed, zooming around.
Starlight left the window open, since the breeze was nice. "Apparently they're all my old things. Someone packed them up after my parents left and put them in Fishy's basement."
Fluffy landed, surveying the boxes with an impressed look. "They put your things in boxes like these? These are quality wood panels!" She knocked on the side of a crate, which Starlight thought was sturdy enough to be functional but not really that impressive. "We could disassemble these and get twelve whole box sides from them. Do you even know what we could do with those?"
Starlight blinked. They were wooden crates. She had seen hundreds of them on her travels... "Why would we take them apart? Aren't they for putting things in?"
"But there won't be anything in them once we take your stuff out," Fluffy pointed out. "So then we won't have anything to put in them. And they're sturdy and perfectly square, and we could sand them if you're really afraid of splinters... They make a great building material for decorating your room. Or building other things in your room, like a cave or partition. Hey, if you don't want them, I'll take them gladly!"
On the one hand, if they would make her friend this happy, Starlight would happily turn them over. On the other, Fluffy wanted to use them to decorate her room, and while she couldn't imagine how that would work, she was sort of enjoying the other filly's company... "Well, we can use them to decorate."
Fluffy beamed; this was clearly the right answer. "Yes! Oh, I love moving. It's a perfect chance to rearrange everything! Now how do we take them apart?"
Starlight blinked. "You don't know? Probably with a crowbar."
"Oh. Right. I don't have a crowbar..." Fluffy sagged for a moment. "Well, we can borrow one if we need it, but I'm actually thirsty. I wonder if they have lemonade downstairs for everyone who's working."
"Lemonade?" That did sound good, but Starlight was thrown by how far out of left field it came from. "I suppose we could ask..."
"Or anything to drink." Fluffy sat back against a wall, straightening her mane and glancing at Starlight. Several times, she looked about to speak, but never quite got her words out. "I'm thirsty," she eventually said.
Starlight tilted her head. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Umm..." Fluffy fiddled with her hooves. "It might be a little rude to say."
Starlight shrugged. "I have a thick skin."
Fluffy blinked, but eventually obliged. "It's, um... your magic. Jamjars... That filly on the airship said you were incredibly strong. She called you a freak." Her ears fell. "But you never use magic for anything. Like, you opened the window both times for me with your hooves. And I sort of just expected you to be able to pop the crates open, or something."
"Oh." Starlight nodded. "I probably can. My horn is stronger than usual. It just hurts me to use."
Was that all there was to it? Starlight's horn was about the least-normal thing she knew of. After months of exploring its ins and outs, her unusual reactions to batponies and Nightmare Modules and the harmony extractor and who knew what else, after everything strange or different about her and her unique magical properties, saying her horn was strong yet hurt to use was... mundane, yet perfectly true. It left out the complexity, but it covered everything anyway.
The house's mood and her prospective future were wearing on her. She had stuffed her terror of her friends' imminent departure far, far away, but this was actually making her almost feel normal.
"Huh," Fluffy said, not taking nearly as long as Starlight did to think. "That's weird. How does it work? Do you know why?" She blinked, backpedaling. "I mean, if you want to talk about it."
Starlight shrugged. If saying that much didn't make her feel bad... "I can do telekinesis, and some stronger spells like telekinesis and teleportation. And it's fine for-"
Fluffy interrupted her with a slack jaw. "You can teleport!?"
Starlight paused, tilting her head. "Um, yes."
"But that's like the most advanced spell!" Fluffy said, agape. "I thought only magicians can learn that, and it's hard and takes practice and study! My uncle said he met a unicorn who could teleport while on caravan duty to the east, and he said that unicorn said it was really difficult!"
Starlight shrugged. "I didn't study or practice. I just..." She tried to remember back to her first teleport. It hadn't been when she snuck into the crate to follow Maple in the Defense Force base, had it? That was so long ago... No, it had been in Riverfall. Something to do with Arambai's house? No, he just had a teleporter. Maybe she had gotten pressured by ponies and used it to run away?
"I was stressed and wanted to run away," Starlight explained, going with that. "And I just figured it out on the spot."
"That's nuts." Fluffy shook her head, looking away. "Do your friends know you can... I mean, probably a stupid question. I hope they're proud of you."
Starlight folded her ears. This wasn't so much something to be proud of as something to use when the situation demanded it... though she hoped that would be never again. The whole point of staying here was so she could get some stability in her life, not carry on fighting tyrants and maniacs to keep the things in her life safe.
"Even adults can't do that," Fluffy mumbled in awe. "That's really cool. I wish it wouldn't hurt for you to show it off a little."
"It wouldn't." Starlight shook her head. "When I use my magic, I'm fine for a while, but then it gives me a headache that gets worse and worse when I keep using it, and takes days or weeks to go away if it gets too bad. Sometimes I even pass out or go blind for a while. But that's only if I do things with it I really shouldn't." She hesitated. "I don't really want to show off either, though. I don't want to be special. I'm tired of special things happening to me. I just wish I was normal."
"...Wow," Fluffy said after a while. "It's like the complete opposite of how you were before you left, but so far opposite it wraps around again and you're exactly the same."
"Yeah," Starlight agreed. "I didn't want to be special then, either. But now I am, and I don't really enjoy it."
"That sounds rough," Fluffy acknowledged. "I get that, though. Popularity is fun, but sometimes it gets annoying, like when ponies try to touch your mane without asking. But don't worry. I won't ask to see it if you don't want to show."
Starlight blinked. On the one hoof, that was... actually exactly how she wished ponies would treat her. It was so nice, she was tempted to just give Fluffy what she wanted in thanks, and teleport so she could see. Her horn had recovered slowly after her brawl with Gazelle, but two weeks of shipbuilding and a month of flying had left her about as close to good as she could get. But on the other hoof, if she was just going to flaunt it anyway, what was the point of having friends who would respect her boundaries?
"Thanks," she said, deciding not to show off. "I appreciate it."
Before they could continue, Maple poked her head in through the door, looking around and spotting the fillies. "How are you two doing in here?" she asked. "I see Starlight's things got brought over?"
"What's happening downstairs?" Fluffy perked up. "I'm thirsty. Is it time for lunch?"
Maple nodded. "I'm back from Rose's and am starting to prepare something. It's work food, since we'll be setting this place up for most of the afternoon, but I think you'll like it. At least, I hope you do. Are sandwiches and lemonade good enough?"
"Mind reader!" Fluffy leapt to her hooves. "Come on, Starlight, let's go! And maybe somepony will have a crowbar so we can get to work on this room of yours! I brought my notebook and have all sorts of ideas. And if not, we can always watch everyone else work too."
"Okay," Starlight said, deciding to follow. "Let's go get lunch, I guess."
"You guess?" Maple shook her head. "Well, it'll be just a few minutes before it's ready. But give me just a moment, and I'll have something definitely worth coming down for."
She departed, leaving Starlight and Fluffy standing in the room. Starlight didn't think anything in particular, but Fluffy had a silly smile on her face. "What?"
"Isn't this fun?" Fluffy tilted her head. "It's fun for me, at least. You've probably forgotten, since you haven't had to go to Miss Nickel's class for months, but this is a whole entire day off. And we get to spend it moving! And you're, well, a lot cooler than you used to be! Your friends are cool, too. What's not to like?"
"I don't know." Starlight shrugged, more honestly this time. "I don't get very excited about things. But don't let me ruin your mood. It's... nice, having friends my age again."
Fluffy beamed. "Happy to help! Now, let's go watch what they're doing downstairs..."
The sandwiches Maple served were arranged on a platter that had clearly been borrowed from a set, covered in an overly-bright floral print that looked hideous on its own, but would be just fine next to similarly bright, contrasting colors. She had arranged the sandwiches themselves with a fanciness to match, each one cut in perfect triangles that were stacked neatly on their edges.
"Uh, wow," Valey remarked, eyeing the frilly plating. "You know we just had lunch, right? You didn't need to go this all-out..."
"But I wanted to," Maple sang. "And it was an early lunch, and it's been four hours. Everyone else is working, though, so I wanted to contribute too."
Gerardo was already helping himself. "No complaints from this side of the table, my good Maple."
Fishy and the ponies she had rustled up to help with the work heartily agreed.
As the tray was passed around and Maple followed it with several voluminous pitchers of lemonade, Starlight got her first look at just what had been done to the house while she was holed up in her room with Fluffy. It almost felt more empty than it had earlier, but this was because there were now things to contrast where there weren't things: a sofa, table and big sitting chair had been dragged into the living room, carefully arranged, and the kitchen held several open boxes filled with dishes, pans and cooking utensils a respectable chef couldn't get by without. A heavy-duty rug had been arranged in the foyer, though Starlight suspected that one wasn't staying and was just for the workers.
There were light fixtures, too, not that the house needed them when it was already fully wired... though after staring long enough at the lamp in the corner, another memory shard surfaced in Starlight's mind: when the house was dark and the sun long set, sometimes a single light was the nicest thing to read by.
"Aren't you going to have some sandwiches?" Fluffy mumbled loudly, unable to speak properly with her mouth full. "They're good!"
Starlight blinked at the filly, the corners of her muzzle wet with lemonade. "Oh. Right. I should..."
"After all that work, we deserve a break too," Fluffy encouraged. "I'll be on the stairs, watching!"
On the one hoof, they hadn't really done any work at all. On the other, Fluffy had just flown home, so maybe that wasn't actually true... Starlight shrugged, helping herself as well the next time Maple came around. Pickle, lettuce and... tuna fish? Her adoptive mother was already helping herself to the local ingredients.
Her train of thought couldn't finish, as she had to duck out of the way of two stallions lugging a huge wardrobe up the stairs, Fluffy getting shooed out of the way with a yelp. "Oops," Fluffy admitted, ears down. "Maybe that wasn't the best place to watch from after all."
"You kids looking for ways to help?" one of the movers asked, stopping and glancing their way.
"Once I finish second lunch!" Fluffy beamed. Starlight sort of agreed.
"Let's see..." The stallion rubbed his chin. "Well, yardkeeping around here has been being done by community volunteers while this place was empty. Kind of a minimum level of service. Why don't you kids see if there are any sticks to pick up or weeds that need uprooting? You could make a game of it, I'll bet."
Fluffy glanced gamely at Starlight. "Sure, we could go outside. Want to give it a try?"
Starlight tilted her head. "And pull up weeds and pick up sticks?" It was a kind of mundane task... but when had she been looking for glamor? "Well, okay."
"Alright, here we go!" Fluffy was away before Starlight could even begin to second-guess herself.
Outside, there was an even bigger pile of things that had been delivered but not carried inside yet, mostly boxes and chairs and smaller things like bedstands, though a bed for Maple was there as well. Starlight figured her bed was probably in the boxes from Fishy's basement. After months and months of sharing beds with Maple and her friends, she wondered what going back to her own room would really be like. If it wasn't nice, though, it wasn't like anyone could tell the two of them what to do...
"Wow. Somepony's going to be busy," Fluffy remarked, surveying the pile. "Look at all this! It's like a flag for the neighbors to see that someone's here." She blinked, her eyes widening with an idea. "We should put a flag on your roof! Or sticking out your window!"
"A flag?" Starlight paused, unsure what that would even look like. "Of what? Where would we get one?"
"You didn't save any flags from your travels?" Fluffy's face fell. "Come on, every region has to have some sort of symbol to stick on a flag. How else do you tell ponies who your ships belong to?"
That was actually a good question. Starlight couldn't remember any flags on the seafaring ships she encountered in the north... though it might have been because all of them were either griffon merchants or sarosian pirates. Neither of those sides would be particularly keen on advertising themselves.
"Well, that's lame." Fluffy looked thoroughly put out. "You could just make your own, though. You remember Canvas Crease from school? He got his cutie mark in kite-making while you were gone. I bet that's close enough to flags that he could lend us a hoof."
Starlight watched her, wondering what it would be like to have a lack of decorative flags be a problem one felt down about. It was such a trivial trouble. If she really needed one, she would find a way to get one or make her own before even considering it a problem. Fluffy wasn't happy with the present state of affairs... Would she be happier if she was more dogged and could easily fix this herself? She decided her new friend wouldn't be. Being stronger just meant you traded out the little problems you dealt with for bigger ones. She wished she could be troubled by not having a-
"Easy peasy," Fluffy interrupted, holding out an open page in her sketchbook with a rough drawing of the Immortal Dream sitting in the bay. For a filly who had only seen it once, the drawing was shockingly good.
"There's your flag," Fluffy continued. "We can tear it out and tape it to your window when we get back inside, and maybe make a better one later. Now weren't we going to pick up sticks?"
Starlight gaped. "How did you do that?"
Fluffy stopped in her tracks, looking around urgently and realizing there was nothing to see. "Uhh... do what? This?" She pulled back out the sketch. "Well, I do practice. Having a cutie mark in one thing doesn't mean you can only do that one thing, you know."
"No, you..." Starlight fumbled for words. How was she supposed to explain that when you got stronger, you just had bigger problems to deal with, and she was envious of Fluffy's only having to be upset about not having a flag, which was so much better than having problems like windigoes or Crystal or fanatical crowds, yet Fluffy had somehow dealt with it even more easily than Starlight could have herself and was completely happy with the result? It was like she somehow didn't even have bigger problems, like there was truly nothing weighing on her shoulders, like she had cheated life itself. Things just didn't work like that!
"Are you alright?" Fluffy asked, the flag drawing all but forgotten.
"Um... I'm..." Starlight swallowed. "No. Never mind. I'm sorry..."
Fluffy didn't buy it, tilting her head aggressively. "What's up?"
"Sorry," Starlight repeated, shaking her head. "You're just so carefree. You got upset about not having a flag and were over it in seconds. I'm a little jealous."
"Oh." Fluffy blinked, nearly comprehending... and then understanding eluded her at the last second. "Wait, how does that work? I wasn't upset. I mean, maybe a little, but you don't have a flag. Big deal! It's funner to make one anyway, and it was just an idea. You don't really need one in the first place."
Starlight's ears fell. "Oh. It looked like you were upset." She definitely wouldn't have reacted that way herself to anything that didn't upset her. Smaller problems weren't worth the energy of getting worked up over them for a few seconds.
"It's fine!" Fluffy reassured, looking more confident. "I'm not mad at you. Sorry if I scared you. Hey, do you want to go see what the yard looks like out back?"
Starlight had no better ideas.
The upkept appearance of the old house's yard, Starlight and Fluffy quickly realized, only extended to the front. It had a sizable backyard, thanks to being on the western edge of town, the ground sloping up from the house's foundation and gathering steepness quickly until the mountain slope formed a natural wall, a rugged fence installed a ways up to keep debris from tumbling down the mountain and into the yard itself. But that hadn't stopped dozens of sticks and larger branches from blowing down during windstorms, and there was even a section of a tree large enough to be considered a proper log. The hedges that separated the sides of the yard from the neighbors' were ingrown, and the only thing keeping the yard from becoming an eyesore to others.
"Woah." Fluffy's eyes widened as she took in the mess. "Did they even check this first? This might be out of our league."
"We can at least move the smaller ones," Starlight pointed out. The backyard was a lot less cleaned out than the inside of the house, left to the wild instead of being preserved like a mausoleum. It didn't feel right, seeing it in this state. There were so many memories for her here, too, but instead of floating in time like scattered shards, they were being choked out by disrepair. "You get the smaller ones. I've got the bigger bits."
She had to change this.
"Sure?" Fluffy hesitated at the tone in her voice, but Starlight didn't wait. Marching up to the big log, she tried to summon the black sword to carve it into more manageable chunks... and remembered it hadn't been bound to her ever since she took off the artifice. She could no longer do that.
But if she wasn't going to use her magic anyway, what was the point of having the artifice removed?
"Hang on," Starlight said, holding out a hoof, more focused on the yard than on Fluffy. "I need to get my bags."
Her horn flashed, targeting the ground, and crystals erupted in a pillar, once again copying Puddles' signature move as Starlight boosted herself towards the first-floor roof of her house. Better to avoid the stairs, if the movers were using those... She only grew it enough to launch herself the rest of the way, landing and catching her balance easily on the sloped roof thanks to Valey's training. She couldn't believe she had once almost fallen off.
Without any effort, Starlight stepped to her open window, reached inside, grabbed her saddlebags and rooted around until she found the sword. It was still in knife form for easy portability, no longer able to be changed without the cutie mark connection, but that was fine enough. Taking the knife handle in her teeth, she jumped back to the ground, using the pillar as a step and letting it vanish behind her. The knife met no more resistance from the fallen log than anything else, and with a few careful cuts she had severed most of the awkwardly-attached branches and cut the base into more manageable chunks.
There. Not better already, but a lot easier to clean up.
Behind her, Fluffy was flabbergasted. "You just... but... You can use magic to jump onto the roof!? And how did you cut that tree!?"
Starlight blinked, realizing she had just accidentally shown off despite barely using any of her power. "Oh. Um, yes, I can."
Fluffy was pointing. "You jumped clear up onto the roof. I have to fly to do that!"
Well, the whole point of the move was to give her some way to reach fliers in a fight... "I can make crystals with my horn," Starlight said with a shrug, pointing at the ground and freezing a little patch in a crystalline hexagon. "See? All I did was make them grow beneath my hooves to lift me a little. I don't think it's that special of a spell. I just thought a lot about how to make it useful."
"That's so cool..." Fluffy mouthed, pupils huge. "How high can you make yourself go?"
That wasn't something Starlight had actually put to the test. "High enough I'd probably hurt myself falling back down."
"But... But you just... You just jumped! Up to the roof!" Clearly, this was going to take some time for Fluffy to process. "I've never seen someone do that without being a pegasus!" Her wings were fully outstretched in excitement. "We could have, like, a hanging out on the roof club! Or... Or somewhere else! I bet you could climb the mountains with a spell like that!"
Starlight could, and she hadn't even discovered her crystals' utility as an elevator back then.
"I can't believe this! That was out of nowhere! You didn't even look like you concentrated! You were just standing there, and then poof!" Fluffy tripped over her jaw, trying to speak faster than it would move. "Y-You, um... Oh. Do you...?" She blinked, finally slowing down. "You probably already know all that. Sorry if I'm embarrassing you..."
It was fine. That wasn't the reaction Starlight was hoping for, but it was the one she expected, and Fluffy was thoughtful enough to reign herself in before Starlight had to take matters into her own hooves. And that was good enough for her.
Starlight and Fluffy kept working at the backyard, but they soon ran into a problem where they had picked up a lot of branches and debris, but had nowhere to put them. "I don't know what that stallion expects us to do," Fluffy muttered, looking at a pile she had been building. "This would make a great bonfire, if we had a fire pit."
"A bonfire?" Starlight looked at their progress, half of the yard a little clearer and the other half stacked up with everything they had moved. Maybe they could... She sat down on the steps to their back porch, studying the yard. There was still an urge in her heart to fix it, but it was hard to work on that when she didn't have a way to make progress.
Fluffy took a break too, and an awkward silence developed. It was clear that Starlight's new friend was still thinking about her magic. Starlight was thinking about it too. Using her powers wasn't second-nature; she could go for weeks aboard the airship resting her horn and not using them at all. So if not using them and keeping ponies from knowing about them was what it took for her to be normal...
But that answer didn't sit well in her mind at all. Aside from the fact that she'd inevitably make a mistake and use them, whether because she cared too much about something she needed them to do or she simply forgot that a mundane spell was impressive around here, pretending to be normal and being normal weren't the same things. If she was constantly hiding who she was and what she could do, when would she ever be at ease? The tension she felt around other ponies who weren't her closest family would never let up. She could live like that, but never sustainably. And she was already worn so thin, she didn't want to do it a moment longer.
Starlight gave up, glancing at Fluffy. "If you want to ask about my magic, go ahead."
Fluffy worked her jaw. "Uhh... What do you want me to ask? It's neat, but it looks like it makes you feel awkward, and, um..." Her eyes lit with an unhappy realization. "Oh. When you were traveling... were ponies being mean to you because you were strong and they thought it made you different?"
"The opposite," Starlight replied, looking down. "I picked a lot of fights with creatures who were doing bad things because I was strong enough to do something about it."
Fluffy tilted her head. "That's a bad thing? I thought everyone wants to be a hero."
Here they were again, at a topic Starlight had no idea how to explain. "Being a hero is lonely," she said. "Sometimes ponies are stupid and don't realize you're helping them. Other times they're too excited and won't leave you alone. Sometimes they don't realize because you don't tell them because you're afraid they won't leave you alone. But I don't want a fan club. And I don't like having to constantly fight to keep the things I care about safe. I feel like I can never rest when I'm doing it."
Fluffy stared with a mixture of curiosity and concern. "What were you fighting? I can't think of anything around here you'd have to protect ponies from with magic, even if you were really good at it. Are there bandits? My uncle on the caravan teams says most of the bigger trading towns have militias to keep those away from the roads and seas, but they still carry weapons to keep themselves safe."
Starlight wondered what fighting bandits would even be like. Armed, ragged ponies who didn't have enough and tried to take what they needed by force, or did have enough but were used to their ways and took what they wanted instead? They didn't sound like something that would give her a whole lot of trouble.
"Starlight?" Fluffy prodded, having received no answer.
"Oh! Right." Starlight blinked back to reality. "I fought... well... anyone who didn't like us, mostly." She didn't particularly want to talk about windigoes, or Crystal, or Gazelle. The latter two were far too recent for comfort, and telling Fluffy she had battled ancient monsters that only existed in storybooks would either do the wrong thing for her image, or else stretch her friend's suspension of disbelief too far and damage her credibility. "A lot of ponies didn't like us for one reason or another."
Fluffy frowned. "Why not?"
"Because some ponies aren't nice. Or are afraid of ponies who are different from them." Starlight's mind drifted to Riverfall, where she was chased out by Hemlock's mob for reasons she couldn't even remember, to Ironridge, where she had the misfortune of being caught in Gerardo's politically-charged delivery, to Stormhoof, where Valey was shunned for being a sarosian, to Izvaldi, where the local chancellor just happened to be a mad scientist, and to Kinmari, where everyone was entirely too nice. "There are a lot of reasons. Maybe we just got unlucky."
"Well, that's weird," Fluffy commented. "If you're helping, they should like you. And I think your magic is cool. Even if you don't like it."
"Thanks," Starlight muttered. "I don't want to hide it, or be weird, or be popular, or anything. I just want to be normal. And I have a lot better of an idea of what that means than when I used to not want a cutie mark."
Fluffy bit her lip. "Do you think you'll get a cutie mark now?"
"Probably." Starlight shrugged. "Most ponies do, right? I don't know what I want one in."
"Well, you're pretty good at magic," Fluffy pointed out. "But you don't seem to enjoy it. And my cutie mark was in something I enjoyed, not the thing I was best at. Though I am pretty good at it."
Starlight glanced at the pillow on Fluffy's flanks, a moderate yet far from infinite contrast with her obvious talents and passions in drawing and decorating. "I don't enjoy a lot of things anymore. Maybe I won't get one for a while after all."
Fluffy curled her lip. "You used to make a big point of not enjoying anything or doing anything that could get you your mark." Her ears fell. "You're not still doing that, are you?"
"No." Starlight shook her head. "Not on purpose."
When had her troubles really started, even? Had she transitioned straight from hating cutie marks to... wherever she was now? There had to be at least some good times in there somewhere. Even if she had spent her early days in the north getting ran out of Riverfall and harried in Ironridge, she was still hale enough to stay determined and keep on hoping that the next place would be better. What had finally broken her and pushed her over the edge to where she was now, too tired and burnt out to enjoy the good times when they did come around? At the start of her journey, what she was finding here in Sires Hollow was exactly what she wanted. And she was clearly over at least some of the problems she had left because of, if what Fluffy said was true.
...Thinking back, Starlight realized she had a pretty good idea of exactly when it was: the day she had gone to a doctor in Stormhoof to get her horn looked at, and was subsequently knocked out, foalnapped, woke up in Stanza's dungeon in Gyre, voluntarily used a Nightmare Module for the first time, and met Glimmer. There were high odds that was the turning point in her life.
"You look like you just remembered something bad," Fluffy pointed out, biting her lip.
"A day that wasn't my favorite," Starlight sighed. Ignoring the fact that she had been attacked and betrayed without warning by an adult who was supposed to be helping her, which she knew wasn't how the world was supposed to work, Glimmer and the Nightmare Modules had made her life so much more complicated... She still wished she could go back and blast that doctor, though odds were he was dead by now for one reason or another. "It was a long time ago."
"...Maybe we should go back inside?" Fluffy suggested. "This doesn't seem to be making you super happy. Besides, I've got tree dust in my fur now."
"Alright." Starlight got to her hooves, not commenting that this wasn't much different from usual.
"Huh," the stallion who had suggested Starlight and Fluffy clean up the backyard said, surveying the debris. "Well, maybe this wasn't the right task for you. I hope you had fun though, right?"
Fluffy shrugged broadly. "I sure did. You should have told us where to put the sticks, though!"
The stallion scratched his head. "I am going to have to figure that out for myself. Maybe you should get cleaned up though, aye? I think we have finished with the washroom on the second floor."
"Sounds perfect to me," Fluffy announced, accepting this as a dismissal from duty. "Come on, Starlight! Let's go get cleaned up and think about what we want to do next."
Starlight followed along. The second-floor bathroom? That was where... well, whatever. She hadn't had any issues being overwhelmed by memories since Maple and her friends started working on the house. She would be perfectly fine.
They marched up the stairs, the workers seemingly being done hauling heavy things up them for now. The old reading alcove was now populated by a small vanity... Starlight frowned. What was that doing here? That wasn't what this spot was for. Maybe she should have been around to remind ponies how this place was supposed to be.
"Hey, they opened your crates!" Fluffy cried out, sticking her head into Starlight's room. "Your whole bed was in there? Wow, it looks like the frame folds up... Nice of them to take it out for us."
Starlight wasn't particularly interested in what they had done to her room, noting her old parents' room now had a bed set up for Maple. But she looked over Fluffy's shoulder anyway, noting her old desk and bed were back... Had they always been that small and well-used? Maybe she really had grown bigger over the last half year. Either that, or her ideas of what a desk and bed should be had grown.
"So which one's the washroom?" Fluffy asked. "The one at the end of the hall here?"
Starlight nodded, standing behind her. What if she had been wrong? Maybe this room would overwhelm her again. It had always been the place that was her parents' and not hers, that she knew existed but didn't mess with, that had such strong memories of curiosity attached. As the place in her house she knew the least about, the things she did know were all the more strongly associated with it. Rose-pink tile, lingering scents of perfumed soap...
She nearly bumped into Fluffy, who was standing in the open doorway, agape. "You have a bathroom this nice!?"
"Is it really that nice?" Starlight blinked, realizing they had entered. "Um, I guess we do."
With an indelicate slam, Fluffy forced the door shut, hovering up to the mirror and giggling to herself. "Eeeheehee! Heehee! Look at the patterns on these tiles! And all the seams are so seamless! And I've never seen a floor this clean! You almost shouldn't be allowed to walk on this! I had no idea you had a place like this!"
"I didn't." Starlight shrugged. The tiles that made up the walls also formed the floor, ceiling and rim of the bathtub, forming a continuous pattern and look she supposed could make it feel like you had stepped into a different world... She noted that just like she had, Fluffy had closed the door, shutting them in here. "This was my parents'. Not mine."
"Your parents must have really wanted a nice washroom. I guess it makes sense they would have hogged something like this for themselves." Fluffy stared around a little more, then looked back to the mirror, pulled out a brush someone had left on the counter, and started freeing twigs and dust from her coat. "Come on, tell me you think this room is cool. You've probably seen cooler things in your travels, but you have to see that this is a nice washroom."
Starlight's mind was completely stuck. It was nice. Her friend was impressed. It also wasn't supposed to be hers, but the ghosts of her old parents had no power anymore. She was breaking a rule by being here, but it was one that no one was left to enforce, a wall without substance that was more fragile than a fence made from paper. But it was still a rule... but even if her old parents had been here, they hadn't been very good parents to her, and she had ceased to respect them a long time ago. If she would just let herself go, stop being paralyzed, there was a naughty little thrill waiting for her, the same kind as reaching for a forbidden cookie jar. She could feel that thrill, dampened and muted behind a mental block that was there because this room wasn't a memory, it was the present. This was her old house, but now it was her present one again. She wasn't in the past. Memory Starlight wasn't here.
The present Starlight was a filly who tried her best to follow the rules, except when her friends were at stake. She tried her hardest to be nice to everyone, on the hope that someone would reciprocate and her life would be better for it. And so many times, that mindset failed her, even though she knew the opposite couldn't be true, that being bad would never get her satisfaction or friends, but she clung to it because it was all she had. Did trying her hardest to do the right thing really extend to not enjoying sneaking around in her old parents' bathroom when there was nothing they could do to stop her?
It did, and it was such a thin wall. Starlight was tired of trying to be perfect in hopes that it would pay off. Suddenly, Memory Starlight was back, bouncing around and reveling in defiling her parents' sacred place with her presence, which she could do because she didn't have to worry about anything, just like Fluffy. Because she held herself to a lower standard. Because there was nothing she needed a higher standard to achieve. Because she had no need for achievements, because she wanted for nothing.
Starlight screwed up her face. She wanted so badly give up, stop trying, let the world do what it would and kick that mindset in the face. She was messing around with a friend in a place they weren't supposed to be! She wanted to have fun! She wanted to enjoy this! And it was a bathroom. What was the worst that could happen?
Her gray visions were still out there. If Starlight let herself stop caring about being good, what was stopping her from consciously letting something like that happen?
She wanted to scream. Why couldn't there be a middle ground? Why wasn't there a middle ground? Why was it so unsafe to step out and look for one? Why couldn't she just stop altogether and have fun again like she so badly wanted?
...If there wasn't a middle ground, and there wasn't a way for her to protect the world without driving herself insane in the process, and carrying the burdens of walking the right path would ultimately crush her with no reward, maybe she didn't care about the world in the first place.
Something snapped inside Starlight like a shattering mountain made of glass. "Haha. Yeah. It is a nice washroom."
Starlight's entire body felt like cracked porcelain.
"Hey!" Fluffy said, her interest suddenly stolen from the fancy bathroom mirror. "You laughed a little! You are having fun after all?"
So it hadn't just been in her head. Starlight felt like she had been teetering on a cliff, then suddenly dived off, but snagged a rear hoof on a root a foot below the edge and was dangling, not quite falling but even further from where she had once been. Every instinct screamed at her to claw her way up, get back to safety. Was she chickening out? What was she chickening out of? Something had broken inside her, but was still hanging together by a thread, and she no longer knew if she wanted to save it or wanted it gone. She could barely even breathe.
"Starlight?" Fluffy tilted her head, confused. "You're doing that thing where you get lost in thought again."
More than anything, Starlight wanted to enjoy her life and be a normal filly again. But was this really what it came to? Was this the source of why she was so unhappy all the time, because she held herself to too high of a standard and was too afraid of doing something wrong? It was her old parents' room, something they weren't even around to own anymore. That she shouldn't be here was a laughable idea. And, in fact, if that had really been wrong, she knew perfectly well she wouldn't have been here at all.
Because that wasn't the issue. The issue was Memory Starlight and her naughty little thrill bouncing around and reveling in infiltrating a forbidden sanctuary. Starlight had messed up before, but outright enjoying things she wasn't supposed to? It didn't matter how important the room was, it mattered that she felt like she shouldn't be there and was on the edge of enjoying it precisely because of that.
And this was what she would have done, long ago, before Sunburst and everything else had happened. This wasn't her reveling in something because she was mad at the world, or was upset and taking it out. This was just what she would have done, uninhibited and carefree. It was who she was, under all her troubles. It was what she would be if she didn't try, day and night, to be better.
"Starlight..." Fluffy waved in her face to get her attention. "You don't look okay..."
Starlight's face cracked again. What did she do? She heard herself laugh. She could do it. She knew she could. And she had seen what it took: not caring and letting go, just for a single second. For a single second, that rush her memory self was constantly living in had been real, not a memory. It was within her reach, not a distant star she could do nothing but wish for. And all it took was not caring about the consequences of her actions, even though she had been shown explicitly what those could be.
Where was the way forward? How could this be? Did taking risks and being happy and messing around and making mistakes and following her wants and trusting her feelings, be they good or bad, have to go hoof in hoof? They couldn't, but it sounded like something a wise pony could say. Happiness and sadness had to go hoof in hoof... but this wasn't just a question of ordinary sadness! Starlight knew all about being unhappy! This was about the safety of the future of the world, and as much as Starlight's life had been bad to her, as tempting as it felt to lash out at the world, actually trying to do it tore like hooks at her mind. She couldn't let herself do that. Maybe an ordinary filly could make mistakes and get carried away and have it all be okay if they did something they knew was wrong on purpose because they wanted to, but she was far more powerful than that. Her actions had consequences.
And if happiness and sadness went hoof in hoof, why didn't she get a little of what she wanted in her life to go along with the bad? It was a dumb mantra, anyway. And that was all there was to it.
"Starlight!" Fluffy snapped, unable to get a response. "What's wrong? Even you don't zone out this hard!"
Starlight sank to the clean, rose-tile floor, hid her head under her forelegs and squeezed her eyes shut, wishing it could be any way else. But the hard truth, harder than the floor she huddled against, was that she couldn't enjoy her life because she didn't trust herself to enjoy her life because she was too well-acquainted with the consequences of doing what she wanted instead of what was right, because she was fallible and so strong that those consequences would be monumental compared to the ones for most others.
"...I'm going to go get your mother," Fluffy said urgently, opening the door and scurrying out. "Stay right there, okay!?"
That foalnapping and sojourn in Stanza's dungeon and Glimmer and the Nightmare Modules weren't the real reason everything had started going wrong for her, sapping her determination little by little and cutting off any attempt she could have made to grow past the loss of Sunburst and into a new family and world. It was those gray visions. Like a transplanted sapling that had been watered with salt water, those were what had cost her all of her confidence in herself. Before then, in Ironridge and Riverfall, hadn't she trusted herself, if no one else? That was the whole reason she left Sires Hollow to begin with. Crossing the mountains, looking for a new home when her old one wasn't good enough... it was because she herself was the only pony she trusted. Valey sometimes tried to cheer her up about how she was the one who stood up to Herman, convincing Valey to go back and fight. She never could have done that when he was letting her walk away, if she didn't trust what she was capable of. Would she?
Her mind drifted to the first vision, her reward for sacrificing herself saving Ironridge from windigoes. The first of two whole visions that were ruining her life with fear for the future, one where she had seen an ashen, empty plane and heaps of dead batpony shells and an older, injured Valey who knew her full name, panting and victorious against them all. The first thing she had wondered, she remembered, was whether that had been a vision of the inside of Maple's cutie mark. Or if she had really been dead, and it was a glimpse into the afterlife. Or if it was a warning, a helpful hint that could give her the edge in preventing something and saving the world, not ruining it.
The flame hadn't told her. It had asked her to forget about it.
In fact, Valey in that vision had talked like she believed in her. Like Starlight was still fighting against whatever that world had become, and she had her back. When she thought about it, there was nothing in either of the visions that suggested that world was her fault at all.
She hadn't lost faith in herself from seeing the first one, and hadn't remotely even suspected it was her fault. She was confused, sure, and worried, but it sat as a mystery in her mind along with all the others, countless things she had wondered on her adventure like what Yakyakistan was doing and who was motivated to do what in Ironridge and who would help or hurt them in the Empire.
She hadn't been told this was her fault and there was nothing she could do until...
Until she met Glimmer.
The only one who knew everything about her visions.
The only one who refused to tell her.
The only one who said it was her fault, and there was nothing she needed to do to prevent it except give up and let go and stop trying, resigning herself to her lot in life.
The only one who she fully trusted, because she looked exactly like her and seemed to know everything about her, and said she was on her side. Because once upon a time, the one Starlight trusted most had been herself.
Starlight Glimmer's horn burst into a violent overglow, a sparking cone of energy arcing high over her head and sending faint plasmatic arcs across her fur, the light crashing against the tile walls in waves like a reflection off the disturbed surface of a lake. Her teeth set themselves in a grimace of fury and betrayal; she had a name to pin this all on and point her horn at and discharge her feelings and end it all. Wasn't she sitting here, contemplating willfully lashing out at the world for giving her such a raw deal? Wasn't that precisely the kind of behavior that could one day lead to her taking too much out on the world, leaving it in the ruin she had foreseen? The inevitable end of holding herself to such a standard, with a mindset she knew wouldn't pay off, be it now or in fifteen years?
No, it wasn't! Because in her first vision, Valey had said she believed in her, implying she was still a good pony who was fighting to help the world and she wasn't some villain who needed to be stopped!
The world she could create if she snapped would be a whole lot worse, because she would be on the wrong side. And now she had a potential warning about a future she didn't know anything about how to stop at all.
Starlight could have destroyed the bathroom. She probably could have destroyed the whole house in anger, if she surged with everything she had bottled up over the last six months. She wanted to destroy Glimmer, the worst thing to ever happen to her beyond even her loss of Sunburst, and she wanted to scream, shattering the air like she could shatter the rest of the world around her.
All that pain, wasted. All that worry about what she could do, and she was only dangerous because she was wound up, and that because she didn't trust herself. It was a destructive circle, clear as day. She had to get out, but where was the answer? What was safe anymore?
She wanted to fire, to explode, to ignore the headache it would cause and let all of her emotions out all through her horn, all at once. She wanted revenge. She wanted to break something.
But slowly, Starlight took a breath, and then another, and little by little the roaring aura around her horn calmed and shrank, until it was nothing more than a candlelight she could use at night to read by. Because she wasn't a monster and she didn't destroy worlds, no matter how much someone tried to convince her that she did. And she wasn't one because she didn't want to be. It might not be perfect, but all she had to do to be a pony who didn't destroy the world was do what she wanted, because that was something she definitely didn't want.
She took a final breath, and her horn went out. There wasn't a headache. She hadn't lashed out with her powers. This was her house, and it couldn't be collateral damage from her anger, and she was strong enough to control herself and not hurt things that didn't deserve it. She was still mad at Glimmer, of course, blisteringly so, for every bit of misdirection she had been fed about those stupid visions. But she herself was a good pony who really had been trustworthy all this time. Her life wasn't great, but she didn't have to resort to blaming the world for something merely a pony in it had done.
She could do this.
She started to cry.
Maple arrived not a moment later.
"Starlight!?" she asked, huffing from running up the stairs. "Your friend said you weren't alright. What's wrong? Are you overwhelmed here again?"
"N-No," Starlight bawled, crying for her lost energy and lost time and lost faith in herself and because it so wasn't fair, and because she was farther back than when she started with a whole new warning that could be about the future or could be anything else to solve, and because she was angry at Glimmer for leading her on and angry at herself for getting lead on and angry that Glimmer had saved her and Valey on occasion too and tried to conflict her feelings and make it hard to know what to believe, even though she was sure she had found the truth now. And the truth was that it would have been okay, if only things like this hadn't happened to her. So what if she was powerful? She could use that power for good. Look at Wallace Whitewing! Or Valey, or... or herself, all throughout her time in the north. Living with that power and trusting herself and having friends she trusted to guide her was exactly how she could live her life. That was how she could do this.
That was also more or less what Glimmer had told her to do, living a stable life where she cared for herself and wasn't emotionally on the edge of a breakdown all the time. Which made it all the more unfair that Glimmer had told her in such a way that pushed her closer and closer to that brink, her methods running perfectly counter to her words. She had said the truth, or at least something resembling it. It was part of what made Starlight trust her. And she had said it in a way that made it impossible for Starlight to follow through, and lead to exactly what she said she wanted to avoid.
Maple picked her up off the floor, sitting on her haunches and holding her close. "What's wrong?" she asked again. "What can I do, Starlight?"
Starlight swallowed heavily. What could anyone do except mourn for what was lost and wasted and get up again the next day, and try again? She couldn't get her time back. Any stability she had possessed wouldn't return easily. But the way it would return, she knew, was over time spent living around ponies who cared about her and were well-rooted themselves, and by doing things little by little that she would succeed at, and by messing up too in ways that wouldn't be the end of the world, and seeing that and learning from them. Because that was what normal ponies did, right? And that was what she wanted to be.
"Stay here," Starlight said, knowing that it was the right answer. "With me. In t-this town. I just want to be a normal pony..."
Maple put a hoof around her and rubbed her back.
Starlight was aware Fluffy was watching, far enough away that she probably thought it was a safe distance to indulge her fascination. She couldn't see or hear her. She just knew.
Actually, Valey was probably watching as well. She hoped she wasn't causing more of a scene than that, but it might have been too much to hope for.
"Can we have some space, please?" Maple called over her shoulder, cementing Starlight's suspicions. It was alright, though. She couldn't see her friends, and the ponies who were here were the least of her concerns.
Someone helpfully closed the door, but Maple wasn't satisfied. She put Starlight on her back, trotting through the bathroom's second door that opened directly into the master bedroom, the one where Starlight's parents had once lived and where she had re-hung the curtains upon first returning home. It had a bed, two bedstands, a vanity and a dresser, along with a chair and a writing table and a few spots on the wall with exposed nail heads for pictures to be hung from, but the closet was open and empty and none of the counters or surfaces held any things, and the bed lacked sheets or blankets and hadn't been made. Maple deposited Starlight there anyway, stepping quickly away to close the bedroom door as well before returning and joining her on the edge of the bed.
"What is it?" Maple murmured after a minute, not content to sit there when she didn't know what to do. "Is it this house? Or our friends leaving?"
"No," Starlight grunted, scrubbing at her eyes. "It's me."
Maple calmingly rubbed her ears, waiting for Starlight to explain at her own pace. Starlight wasn't sure if she would leave it without an answer, but she, at least, wanted to give one. She wanted to be known and seen and understood.
"I'm scared of myself," she admitted, voice shaking. "I thought that those visions I have at the Trees of Harmony were warnings of the future, and t-the other me told me it would be my fault and there's nothing I can do to stop them but give up, because otherwise I'd strain myself trying too hard to be perfect, and get mad and do it on purpose. But she was lying, because I remembered that in the first one Valey said she believed in me, which means I wasn't bad! But the other me was the reason I was trying so hard in the first place!" She didn't have any other name to think of Glimmer by, but that filly didn't deserve to be called by her own. That was her name, and she had been afraid of the other half of it for too long. "She wasn't on my side at all! That's not what those visions were, but it is what she was trying to do to me! I can't..."
Maple listened to it all. "Oh, Starlight," she whispered. "Oh, Starlight..."
"I hate her," Starlight sniffed. "And I don't want to have to worry about this anymore. But now I don't know what to do." She felt flattened, like even though a weight had been lifted, it left her at the bottom of a giant crater without the means to climb out. "What d-do I do...?"
"That's a question with a long answer," Maple murmured. "But first, you breathe. It'll be alright. You don't have to worry about the future, and all that's in the past, right? Just sit with me and breathe. It'll be alright..."
Maple stayed until Starlight's breathing had steadied, but even then she didn't leave. They stayed long enough that the light against the window blinds started to dim, the western mountains' shadow overtaking the house as the township's early evening began. Starlight didn't talk, and Maple didn't ask her to. There was no way she could put voice to everything she was feeling.
Eventually, though, she had to try.
"Maple?" Starlight sniffed. "What should I do?"
"Well," Maple mused. "You don't need to do anything. So what do you want to do?"
Starlight didn't know. She wanted to go back in time and punch out Glimmer before she could ever meet her, and take her place herself and give her past self better advice. But there was no target and no place for her anger, and it fizzled like a spilled, fizzy drink melting away into the ground, leaving behind only the helpless sensation of being wronged.
Wasn't that the point, though? Wasn't this what she had wished for? Somehow, if she wanted to, she could pull herself to her hooves and go find her lookalike and demand answers and an apology, or at the very least try to get revenge. But that wouldn't undo what had been done to her.
The truth was, just like when Sunburst left so very long ago, she was hurt. And just like last time, she had the power to react to the problem, but not go back and undo it. And she had always wished things could have been different then, that her parents would have been better and could have helped make it all okay without needing to be time travelers or ultimate magicians. This time, Starlight could even see how it could be okay.
Her trials could all be in the past. She might be able to move forward. She had hope that Glimmer was bluffing, that there was no bad future, or the bad future she had been warned about could be prevented by something other than sitting down and being afraid of herself. There was a chance she could escape from some of the responsibility she had been saddled with all along... but she couldn't do it on her own.
She was where she had been before, crying from a loss that was in her past now, but her future was wide open. And what she wanted more than anything was to not need to do anything. She wanted someone to pick her up, not to need to do it herself, to be told that it was all going to be okay and that this newest feeling that her world had ended would all be wiped away.
She wanted to be free.
"I want to not need to do anything," she answered, Maple's question still floating silently in the air. "I don't want to need to run away or do something again."
"Then that's what you have," Maple promised. "There won't be any more running away. We're going to live here come wind or rain, and I'll have your back always. This will be perfectly fine."
Starlight hoped it would be. She didn't know for sure. But she didn't want it to be her job to ensure that.
For another long while, there was silence.
"Starlight?" This time it was Maple who broke it. "You said you were scared of yourself."
"Mhm," Starlight snuffled. "But now I think the other me was lying when she tried to make me afraid."
There was always a possibility she was misremembering, or misinterpreting her memory, of course. But she didn't want to be where that line of thinking would take her, even if it was the truth.
"And now you don't know how to feel, because you still feel the way you did even though your reason for it is gone, and you don't know why." Maple's ears didn't fold. "Is that it?"
It didn't feel perfect, but it was a better summarization than Starlight was going to come up with herself. She nodded.
"Well, the good news is, you're not the only pony to ever feel that way," Maple continued. "Which maybe isn't good good, because it isn't a good way to feel, but it's good because you're not alone. Sometimes ponies like us are just silly, and our feelings don't quite match up to what we know. And I know that you care a whole lot, and even if you make mistakes, you'd never do something deliberately terrible. And if your emotions got the best of you and you did, I know you would come back and try to make amends. And remember that no matter how strong we are or what we're capable of, everyone is capable of doing the wrong things, whether they want to or mess up."
"I know..." Starlight covered her face, keenly aware that there were no blankets on the unmade bed for her to hide in. It didn't help her feel any less floating and untethered.
Time didn't freeze around Maple and Starlight as they sat in the bedroom, and the evening wore on elsewhere. Gerardo hadn't yet returned from stepping away to guide Fluffy home, leaving Valey, Amber and Shinespark to finish things with Fishy and the mover ponies.
"Well," Fishy said, wiping her brow, "I'm no designer, but I'd say good enough is good enough. It'll take some proper decorating later, but I think they have all the essentials for getting started."
"You can say that again," a bearded stallion proclaimed. "I think I deserve a nice rest on that heavy couch! Haha! Though I have a better one at home."
"It sure is getting dark out," Amber added, glancing out the kitchen window. "Doesn't feel like we've been at this for that long, does it?"
Shinespark nodded. "Sunset comes early when you have mountains to the west. The horizon is higher."
"Hope that doesn't mean we have to can the festivities and take an early bedtime," Valey complained, twirling her hat on a wingtip. "Hey, speaking of festivities... You think anyone should check on Ironflanks and Starlight? I get that this goodbye is rough, but Starlight would probably feel better if she had eaten since lunch. And we can hang out with her and keep her company too."
"I don't think that's our forte..." Shinespark pointed out with a shake of her head. "Not mine, at least. I can't believe we're going to be back home so soon."
"Looks like everyone else is packing it up," Amber said, nodding to the workers who were heading out the door and meeting with Fishy in the yard. "So... I guess that makes just us three." She glanced around the newly-furnished kitchen, most of its space still empty and waiting for use. "How do we want to spend this last evening?"
Valey shrugged. "I was hoping to party it up and get some last good memories in before we hit the sky. But honestly, I dunno if that's what Starlight needs. And, well, speaking for myself, at least... I think she's gonna take this harder than I am, so I'm a little more worried about making this cool for her than cool for me."
Shinespark pulled up a thin chair, made from lightweight wooden spokes that had been carved artistically, and not very long ago at that. "What about you, Amber?" She inspected the chair and its make for a moment before sitting down. "You've known Maple for longer than I've been alive..." She blinked, holding a hoof to her forehead. "Huh. I never processed that you were that much older than me. But this is your parting too. What do you want out of this night? Even if the sun is setting and Maple is busy with Starlight, we still have a chance to set up something memorable."
"We've never been much for fanfare, to tell the truth." Amber sat back, the floor just as workable for her as a chair. "Willow, Maple and I? We've learned too many lessons about taking our time and doing things right. One good dinner and a 'See you next time!' is about par for the course for us. After all, that's how you left Riverfall, when I stayed behind myself."
Valey waved a hoof. "Yeah, but you were plotting to come catch up to us and stuff."
"Not plotting," Amber corrected with a shake of her head. "I just wanted to if the opportunity came, and it did, so I took it. But even still, aren't we planning to get the writs and come back here so everyone can see each other again? It'll take time, but this isn't goodbye forever."
"I mean... there's a difference between us coming back and them catching up," Valey countered. "Namely, that the happy reunion is all on us. We gotta find those writs, we gotta do what it takes to get them, we gotta find some way to get a happily ever after all of us can share in. This isn't all of us out there adventuring, with some catching up to the others. It's them, getting off the ride. And that means this going right is all on us. Whatever we leave them with is what we leave them with until we return, so we gotta make sure it's what they need."
Shinespark was quiet. "But do you even have any idea what Starlight needs?"
"Uhh... well..." Valey's brow creased. "I've got a whole lot of ideas what her problems are. All million of them. And not nearly enough clues how to solve them, though I think hanging up the adventuring mantle and planting some roots will do her some good. You saw that Fluffy kid, right? I have a good feeling about her. I think kids that act like kids are sorta what a kid like Starlight needs in her life."
"Almost makes you wonder if we should be doing anything for Jamjars," Amber softly pointed out. "She was... pretty upset on the ship while we were leaving."
"Jamjars did join us of her own volition," Shinespark sighed. "I don't recall if she was a stowaway, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's hard for us to take responsibility for her when she won't bond with anyone, and we'll be leaving her in Riverfall when we get back to the north."
Amber nodded firmly. "Her mother is there, and someone will watch over her. Riverfall is good about everyone picking up the slack with everyone else's foals. Nobody falls through the cracks."
"Even though Jamjars is more likely to hide in the cracks," Valey quipped. "But, nyaah, whatever. Starlight is my friend, and I wanna do for her what I can." She gave Amber a look. "But Ironflanks is just as much my friend too, and you know what will work for her best. I know she believes us totally when we promise to come back, even though it's that kind of promise where we're saying we'll find a way to do the impossible, but she's still bailing on her two oldest friends. Willow, she doesn't even get to say goodbye to. Last time they parted, they were gonna see each other again at the end of a long airship trip. Bananas. Poor girl."
"Like I said." Amber shrugged. "The way Maple and Willow and I do things? We don't hesitate. I'm a gambler at heart who hates being able to say she missed an opportunity due to slow hooves. And Maple gets her hope in life by jumping into something that could go either way, and counting the good times when they come. I'm all for a big hangout celebration, but if it were just the two of us? We might regret it later, but we'd hug, say see ya, and take the chance then and there."
Shinespark grimaced. "We don't want this to be a night we regret not having done differently later. That's the entire reason we're staying, and not already in the air now that we've seen they're welcome here. Starlight has a new friend, and the mayor is in her corner. Maple is getting along with her neighbors... We're not waiting for any success signals. We're here to give our friends the sendoff they deserve."
"You know what that makes it sound like the answer is?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "This calls for something cheesy and straight from the heart. You girls like cheese?"
Shinespark blinked. Amber licked her lips.
"I'm thinking a hoof-written banner, from all of us, right here in the kitchen. Like a streamer." Valey surveyed the room, tongue poking out in concentration. "And, uhh... Well, I dunno if we can compete with Ironflanks in cooking, but Birdo survived in the wilderness a lot on his adventures. He must have picked up a skill or two. And we need to get some pictures of all of us together, or a drawing if we can't find a camera. Something useless and with a whole lot of sentimental value."
Amber nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Gifts to remember us by?"
"Yeah." Valey tossed her beret, catching it in both forehooves and tucking it against her chest, then holding it out and staring. "Might even give them this. Bananas, it's a real good hat."
For all the trials Valey's hat had underwent throughout its life, it was still holding up. The fabric was well-stitched, a solid band rimming the bottom that held in the edges and prevented fraying. The interior was threadbare and slightly stained, a reminder no amount of washing could purge of all the fruit and other assorted items she had hidden there, and her mane looked flat and bare without its presence. The front rose and one side puffed out in a lopsided flop, unsure if it wanted to be a sharp military beret or a lazy hat reminiscent of a pony who wore their mane over one eye, and a chip of glittering crystal formed a shapeless insignia at the helm. It looked like Valey had found the chip and stuck it on herself as an ornament.
"You'd give that away?" Amber stared. "It's, like... practically a part of you."
"Eh. I said I might." Valey shrugged, twirled the hat once more, and caught it with one ear, settling it exactly back where it belonged. "You girls think about this too, though. I'm gonna head back to the Dream and drum up some ideas and support, because we're gonna be hosting this ourselves if Ironflanks is busy. See you soon. Let's make this epic."
The western mountains' shadow reached down, sweeping across Sires Hollow as the evening wore on, like someone had pulled out a plug and left all the light to flow away into the eastern sea. It was the same phenomenon Shinespark and Valey would have witnessed day after day, living in Ironridge, and they shared stories about places they had watched the sunset mountain shadow from with Amber as they worked to prepare a party.
Minute by minute, it rose across the town, climbing the crag that separated the valley from the sea, until that crag's peak gleamed all the brighter in the dying light, highlighted by the contrast with the world around it. Gerardo surmised it was often cloudy in a place like this. It seemed the weather was blessing them. And finally, when the glowing peak pierced the second-floor windows like a beacon, Maple and Starlight decided it was time to come down.
"Are you feeling better?" Maple gently prodded, watching as Starlight got to her hooves.
"Sort of. Good enough." Starlight wasn't feeling bad, really, but she was far from good, either. Empty was the only way to describe it. She suspected she was in shock, and her brain would start again later... but had reached the point where she was bored, laying on the bed, and that was a signal it was time to do something else.
Her legs worked, at least, almost carrying her to the door of their own accord. Her eyes were dry, but she felt like a ghost. Or more specifically, the opposite of a ghost: if ghosts were dead and didn't know what to do without a life, she suddenly found herself with a life she didn't know what to do with.
"Starlight!" Valey yelped as Starlight reached the staircase landing, caught hovering around the hallway and hanging colorful streamers. "Uhh... surprise?" She grinned, a wave of half-finished decorations behind her, but the grin faded into serious concern. "Hey... You doing better?"
Starlight shrugged. "Good enough that I'd rather be out here than hiding."
"Starlight?" Shinespark poked her head out of the kitchen. "You did come down? We hope you're alright..."
"I hope so too," Maple announced, appearing behind Starlight on the stairs. "And I'm optimistic. What's all this?"
"A sendoff party, of course." Gerardo appeared from another room with a quick bow. "That's what we were already hoping for, wasn't it? In lieu of your sudden absence, we opted to carry on the preparations ourselves. What do you think?"
"Wow," Maple said, wandering around. "You really did try to pick up the slack. How long were we even up there?"
Long enough, in Starlight's book. Most of the decorations were hoof-made, out of ordinary supplies like paper, loud and bright and less there to be pretty than to say that someone cared enough to take the time to make them. They were the kind of decorations she would have had fun making before Sunburst left, and found frivolous and pointless afterward. But here, from the other side of a journey through the north, she saw the message instead of the decorations. It was a message she wanted to hear.
It also reminded her that she'd be losing these ponies tomorrow morning, but she was out of tears for the evening. Just another sensation of falling, she supposed, like her grounding had been cut away.
Starlight was falling. Her friends, her life on the Dream, her fear of the gray visions and her own power, everything she defined herself by was being taken away, and there was nothing around her, not even ground. When you were falling, the wind shredded in your ears and even your screams were left behind, but you were technically untouched and fine. You only got hurt when you hit something, like the bottom, and whatever there was to hit was out of her hooves. This might have felt fine, a brief moment of serenity, but she was at the mercy of the world around her.
She needed something to grab onto. But everything felt so distant, like it was rushing by, and even the comforting care of her friends was a floor that was fading as they prepared to leave. At least as long as she didn't hit the bottom, for now she would be fine.
"...Where's Fluffy Fleece?" she asked, her brain kicking in and trying to imitate normalcy while her soul was in free-fall.
"I took her back home quite a while ago," Gerardo replied with a shake of his head. "It hardly seemed fair to either of you to keep her around when... Well, you know. She was rather worried for you."
"Yeah, what happened?" Valey pressed. "Bananas, we're worried about you too, you know. And this is the second time this has happened today. Kinda giving some bad reminders of that stuff with your Artifice back on Kinmari..."
Starlight shook her head. "This time was different. I just realized the other me might have been lying about my gray future visions."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "Wait, isn't that the whole reason we went to the crystal palace at Kinmari? I thought we already suspected she was a fraud. I did, at least."
Starlight sighed. Whatever she had made herself forget at the flame of honesty, she had no way of knowing how or whether it fit in with her new epiphany. For all she knew, it could even line up perfectly. But it wasn't worth thinking about. That would only tempt her to second-guess her forgotten reasoning, and if there was one thing she needed to get back, it was her trust in herself. She had to trust her reasoning for forgetting. There was no way around it.
"Uhh, Starlight?" Valey tilted her head.
"Oh! Sorry." This had to be the dozenth time Starlight had gotten called out today for having her head in the clouds... "Well, I still wanted to trust her, and we don't know what happened there."
Everyone probably wanted to ask what changed. If Starlight had been them, she would have. But her friends seemed to pick up that the how and the why were a little less important than the fact that she had been through a frankly unreasonable amount and if she wanted to say that anything set her off, she was more than entitled to it.
Starlight had no idea how she felt about that. She really did have a perfect excuse to be upset, didn't she?
She wished she had an acceptable target to take something out on. She wished she could take anything out period without ruining her horn and crippling herself for weeks while it wore off. But neither of those were the case, and so she would have to just ignore that excuse, or be upset in ways that were less destructive to herself and the things around her. If it weren't for the repercussions, though, it would have felt very good to find a mountain nobody cared about and let loose everything she had against its slopes. As strong as she was, mountains were plenty big. They could handle it.
"Well," Maple interrupted, breaking the silence, "Starlight, if you'll be fine, I think I need to get to work on dinner. It's a little late, but I'm sure I can still make something worth remembering."
"Actually, uhh..." Valey chuckled, glancing to Shinespark and Gerardo. "We kinda started something ourselves. Sorta. Amber's off looking for ingredients. It'd be great if you pitched in, but we thought we should have something with a little effort from all of us."
Maple arched her back as she walked into the kitchen, stretching. "Well, then let's get cooking."
Starlight found herself not particularly useful for cooking, and now without a friend to tag along with while the adults did their thing. It brought a new realization to mind: with Fluffy around, it was that much easier to find something to do. However she had survived the endless voyages on the Immortal Dream without dying of boredom, she would never know, but it probably had something to do with not enjoying much of anything.
Now, though, her taste had apparently been whetted, because Starlight's hooves itched with a tiny urge to do something, like an itch behind an ear that wasn't bad enough to scratch. That still didn't mean she knew what to do with herself, but her feeling of falling hadn't abated. There was some sort of block in her mind protecting her from the reality of her friends' departure, maybe by making her feel like it had already happened, but whatever the reason she felt empty and the space in her head felt empty and she needed to hold something close. Preferably something that could keep her busy.
Her wandering carried her back to the rose-tile bathroom, though this time her reaction wasn't severe. Rather than feeling like an intruder, it felt like she wasn't there at all, like the room was in the present but she was the one stuck in time. How could she not belong if she wasn't even present? She could do anything, and the room might not notice at all.
...She wished she was better at revelry. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to lock herself away and do something utterly self-indulgent and without care for anything else. Throwing aside her cares for a moment sounded fun. But the problem was she had no indulgences this act could be. And whatever revelation she had gained that made that one single, strained laugh possible was now as far away as the moon, and she couldn't even grasp where it had started.
Starlight frowned. Thinking about not doing things wasn't the same as doing something, which was what she wanted. Even though she didn't know how to go about that at all... Think, Starlight. What would Memory Starlight do? What would Fluffy do? Even if her heart wasn't in it, this wasn't an act. It was what she wanted to do.
Fluffy probably would have tracked her attention back onto decorating Starlight's room. Memory Starlight probably would have curiously agreed, watching with interest as the other filly was in her element. So that was what Starlight did, stepping back from the bathroom to her room and looking at the opened crates and her loosely-arranged desk and bedframe.
...Her desk wasn't empty. It held Fluffy's sketchbook, along with a note on the cover.
Dear Starlight, it read, in the perfect format of a foal who had been taught to write letters to distant relatives and never realized you could break from the conventional opening if you didn't need its formality, I hope you feel better soon. Here is the sketchbook I put designs for my own room in. You should read it! Maybe it will inspire you or help you feel better. I hope I see you soon. Your friend, Fluffy Fleece.
Fluffy was worried?
Well, of course she was. But something about a pony she would get to stay with caring about her made her feel... a whole lot worse, because it reminded her that her friends were leaving but it hadn't happened yet and here she was being a ghost and not knowing how to follow their example and make some happy last memories and Starlight thumped her head on the desk to cut off her train of thought right there.
Something else about the note made her feel good. Her friends cared for her, and she would miss them, but maybe there was a future for her beyond them for her to seize.
That wasn't the nicest feeling either. She didn't want to betray them, downplay their worth or their importance to her. They were the ponies for whom she had fought windigoes and Crystal, after all. But a guilty, jealous corner of herself that cared more about her own needs than them was relieved, because it was a ray of light, at least, for her.
She didn't want that part to feel guilty. She wished she could feel good about her own victories, whether from luck or from anything she had done. And the worst part was, she didn't know if that guilt was born of a straight moral compass, or something else she had been telling herself that she shouldn't have been listening to.
Starlight wasn't just falling, she was without direction. She needed someone she could look to, because no amount of trust or mistrust in herself would make her any more perfect. But still, there was a big difference between falling and having hit the bottom.
Maybe it would be worth the gamble to trust in the world to provide.
With nothing better to do, Starlight sat down, put her hooves on the desk and her chin on her hooves, flipped open the sketchbook and started reading.
Starlight read a whole, entire page of Fluffy Fleece's sketchbook before it thoroughly snared her attention.
The inside of the cover was a table of contents, but Starlight had read textbooks before, and this wasn't like any she had ever seen. Because this wasn't a textbook, it was a picture book, and Fluffy had made the directory a picture.
It was a borderless drawing of a wide-open room, presumably her bedroom, drawn with straight lines and cluttered with furniture and an organized, scribbly mess that would be at home in any normal filly's room. A self-portrait of Fluffy herself sat hunched over on the bed, glancing back and forth between her workspace beneath her and a self-facing mirror propped up in front. At first, Starlight thought it was a self-portrait of Fluffy making a self-portrait, and that was impressive enough. She couldn't even count how many viewpoints her new friend would need to imagine at once to properly draw this, let alone imagine them herself.
But the longer she looked, the more she paid attention to the rest of the room, and the more she realized the point of this sketch wasn't a self-portrait at all. The walls were mounted with mirrors clad in elaborate frames, and more mirrors sat on the floor or were propped against the bed or hung from the ceiling at awkward angles. Starlight first thought they were framed drawings, but that clearly wasn't so: every one of them reflected the room at a perfectly correct angle from where she was looking. There weren't even faint imperfections in the directions of the lines where Fluffy had gotten an angle half a degree wrong. It was as if the room really had held them, and she had stood right where she drew it from.
And upon a third look, the mirrors didn't even show the room as it was. Each one reflected the same space, but with different decorations, angled perfectly so that each one showed some distinguishing decoration or feature, like an icon representative of a greater whole. Fluffy hadn't just gotten the viewing angles on the mirrors right, she had positioned them in the first place so they would be looking at interesting things. And in the tiny margins formed by the mirror frames, titles and page numbers were written in an impossibly small script. Each mirror was an entry in the table of contents, and half of them were empty and unlabeled.
All of this, and it was clearly still a rough sketch that only spent effort on the important parts.
Starlight couldn't even turn past that first page. She was too busy staring. How did Fluffy do this? If she had ever tried to draw, she would have felt legitimately outclassed, but as it was she couldn't even bring herself to make a comparison. Wasn't she the filly who could do anything, as long as it was necessary to survive? She could kill windigoes and fight Crystal, but even seeing this and trying to process all the angles broke her brain.
How did Fluffy not have a cutie mark in drawing? She was so good...
Starlight was so impressed, it took her a long while to even realize what that meant, and when she did, she sat back and stared at her hooves. She... thought her friend was cool. She was interested in what she could do. She wanted to ask her about the drawings, actually ask her because she wanted to. Somehow, she wanted to do something that was as simple as going up and doing it.
If Fluffy had been there, Starlight would have wanted to talk about this. But she never got excited about things, and the things she respected, she did so because they would either keep her safe or were dangerous. What had changed, and did she care?
For once, Starlight was frustrated by someone not being around, even though her reason for wanting them would be perfectly valid in the morning. It was a problem she didn't have to do anything but wait to solve, a problem so ordinary most normal ponies probably had it multiple times per day. Yet it still frustrated her.
Was this what she wanted?
It felt... almost exhilarating.
Starlight wondered if she would laugh again, but she didn't. That was far out of her reach, apparently. But what had changed? She'd been having a hard time since returning to Sires Hollow, but maybe all of that emotional stress was actually going somewhere?
Usually, she would have chased that train of thought around and around, accidentally ensuring it didn't go anywhere at all. But right then, she had the unique situation of her stubborn brain wanting to do something else more.
Starlight took the book, climbing onto her unmade bed and laying on her back and holding it open in the air with her horn in stubborn defiance of her situation and desire to keep going when she was ahead. She flipped to the next page, wondering if this one would be as interesting as the table of contents.
Fluffy Fleece's next drawing, which was probably the first one this book had received, was clearly made by someone somewhat less-practiced but with just as much natural skill. In it, the room's walls had been lined with upright, lashed-together logs, like Fluffy had wanted a log cabin but made a fence or stockade instead. But maybe it was a fort she wanted? Twisted ropes tied the logs together, and a pith helmet hung from a branch stub that hadn't quite been cut away. Her bed was propped up on its side, forming a support as part of the wall, and her bedding itself was on the floor in the middle, surrounded by a stack of three sandbags that gave her cover from her door. It probably was a fort!
Starlight stared wistfully at the design, impressed by the skill but also reminded of a time when pretending about adventure and military establishments could be fun. Now that she knew what they were really like, though... She frowned. Wasn't not needing to adhere to reality the whole point of pretending? If Fluffy wanted to make a fort that was cool, it would probably be that way, even if real-life ones were anything but. The drawing sure made it look exotic.
If the fortress page was uncivilized or primal, the second was frilly and entirely too cultured. Little splotches of pink stained the paper in strategic places to make the entire room look pink, added to lacy trim as highlights and accents and achieving maximum effect with as little effort as possible. Though there were a few bits that were out of place: it looked like the double-page drawing had accidentally stained itself on the opposite pages when the book was closed, like the pink stuff wasn't quite dry. Starlight sniffed it, and it smelled very faintly reminiscent of Jamjars. Some sort of cosmetic material, perhaps?
She flipped a few pages further, wondering what happened when she got more recent.
The page Starlight opened on next was different. Rather than fantasizing or wishful thinking, this was a grid of miniature top-down blueprints for furniture arrangements, each one keeping the same door and window placement but moving around Fluffy's bed and other affects. The whole set of prints only took up one page, and the page across from it was filled with detailed notes, titled What to do with my new bookshelves. Some of the blueprint panels used the bookshelves as room dividers, others split them up along multiple walls, others had them side by side and another had them back to back. The notes looked like a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of each position.
Starlight read about half of them, utterly baffled by their existence. No one needed this much thought to choose what to do with their room layout. Absolutely no one. And yet here this text made it plainly obvious just how much thought Fluffy put into this, thought she didn't need to spend at all.
There had to be a reason she would do a thing like this, spend so much effort on these plans. And Starlight was fairly certain that reason was because her friend found this very fun.
Maybe she really should ask Fluffy to help her decorate her room. If she was having that much fun, it might residually bleed over to Starlight as well.
But right then, she didn't need residual fun to not be bored. She had this sketchbook, and she had barely started reading.
The next page was finished with blueprints and back to realism, though instead of the fantastical nature of the early drawings, it looked like Fluffy had done everything with things she could find around the town. Hangers on the ceiling holding sheets and using them to color the roof or form dividers... The drawing was a cutaway, allowing her to see several different sections of the room rather than looking from inside it.
Starlight flipped another page, her eyes locked on the book, thoughts of her own situation chased further and further from mind.
"Starlight? You up here? Bananas, you're quiet..." Valey stuck her head in Starlight's door, saw her and blinked. "Woah, you're using your horn? Everything alright?"
"Mhm." Starlight didn't pay Valey much attention. The sketchbook still floated above her, and she had only seen half of what it had to offer.
"...Uh." Valey tilted her head, trying to get a better look and giving up. "Well, food's about ready, and we've got the folks who were still on the boat showing up here to hang out, so... you wanna come down?"
Starlight folded her ears. She didn't really need a reminder that her friends were all leaving soon, especially not when she was feeling relatively good. At the same time, her present indulgence would still be there tomorrow, and in fact she could pursue it and talk with Fluffy more then than she could now. She didn't want to, but she needed to pull herself to her hooves, face this party and say goodbye to her friends.
It would only hurt more in the end if she didn't.
"I'm coming," she grunted, closing the sketchbook and letting her horn go out rolling to her hooves. She briefly stopped, glanced at her desk, and wondered if she should have a mirror so she could fix her mane herself. With all the ponies she knew who cared about them, maybe it would be a decent pastime for herself, now that she was living regularly in a town instead of being a traveler in an airship. But she didn't have a mirror and she didn't have time, so she would stay the way she was for tonight.
The hallway and kitchen were brightly lit and loudly decorated, just like something Fluffy could have made up. Maple was bustling about the kitchen, Shinespark was absent, and Gerardo and Amber were chatting and sampling food and waiting for everyone else to arrive.
"Starlight!" Amber greeted, the filly instantly catching her attention. "What's up? Where were you?"
"In my room," Starlight replied, even though the question more likely meant to ask what she had been doing. "I'm better than I could be."
"Well, that's the goal." Amber flicked at a low-hanging streamer with her tail. "We put a lot of effort into all this. Gotta pause things on a positive note, so you've got at least a little something to tide you over until we get back."
Starlight looked away. "Shouldn't I be making other friends instead of regretting what I lost? Otherwise I'll live in my head and stay lonely."
Amber smiled gently, ruffling her mane. "Starlight? You gotta do that too. But that's no excuse not to hold onto us at least a little. Just because we'll be away for a while doesn't mean we're no longer your friends."
"Indeed," Gerardo agreed, sipping from a glass something that looked like punch. "Shinespark is off rousing the rest of our crew. After all, you can't go through all we have together without a real, proper sendoff." His voice quieted. "I know it's no perfect answer, and not what you've been hoping for all this time, but... do bear in mind that if nothing else, we're fully intending to return."
Starlight bit her lip. Being told to hold on and wait for them to get back wasn't conducive to letting go.
Why did they have to have a party, anyway? She knew it would be hard, picking up the pieces after it was over, but at least she would have no choice, and the chance for work to pay off and make her future better from there. But waiting, delaying the inevitable fall? It would be far better to rip away the waiting and anticipation. Hardships were always harder when the future was inevitably bleak. She knew she was better at coping with hope on the horizon. The moment her defenses broke again, the way they had been cracked dozens of times already that day, still having the parting in the future would just make it hurt even more.
...But her friends were adamant that this party would help, and she trusted them. So she would do her best to have a very good time.
A loud knock heralded Shinespark's return, and everyone watched as the entire crew of the Immortal Dream filed in, down to the last pony. Even Jamjars was there, and Starlight felt a little relief at the knowledge Fluffy wasn't around for her to be rude to... though Jamjars was sort of her friend, and she sort of owed her a goodbye too.
She wasn't certain how it felt to say it, but she didn't think she'd miss Jamjars in the same way as some of the others.
"Wow, nice decorations," Slipstream remarked, glancing around. She winked at Gerardo. "You do all this yourselves?"
"Why yes, actually." Gerardo held a wing to his breast and bowed, his free talon occupied with a glass of punch. "And we spent the better half of the evening on it, too. Not only that, but after a full afternoon of work moving in much of this furniture!"
Nyala idled by a wall by the doorway, letting others pass by and gazing around. "It's pretty," she remarked, with a nod to Valey and Gerardo.
Starlight watched Nyala for a moment. Her behavior at Kinmari had occasionally seemed tense or odd, she recalled, but once they left the island, Valey's sister had relaxed significantly. She still spent more time on the bridge with Gerardo, Amber and Slipstream than anyone else, but she no longer felt like she was constantly not saying something. Maybe it was because they were away from the scientists and their ether experiments. She hadn't been fond of the underground lab, after all... Whatever the reason, even she seemed at ease.
Was this parting really that happy of a thing? Starlight wished she could feel that way too. But the best way she could manage to frame it was as maybe not that bad...
"You all have been busy," Harshwater agreed, surveying the home. "Should have asked me to help. I bet I can bench a few of these decorations." She nudged at a streamer, which was made from paper and light as a feather.
"Well, the work is done, and we have what we have to show for it." Amber bumped Gerardo's shoulder with her own, bobbing her head at Harshwater. "Dinner shouldn't be far behind, so I hope everyone is ready?"
Jamjars scuffed at the floor, ears down. "Maybe it'll be a good consolation prize..."
Starlight looked away. She didn't need someone trying to make her feel bad about a decision that was hard enough already.
"Dinner will be twenty more minutes!" Maple called from the kitchen. "I'm still finishing a few of the sides, but we can start setting the table and carrying things over if anyone wants to help?"
Harshwater flexed. "Allow me!"
Starlight frowned, sitting on a bench someone had dragged over next to the foot of the staircase. Harshwater was in good spirits too! Everyone was! Except Jamjars. She couldn't share her friends' good cheer about this parting, but she didn't want to share Jamjars' resentment either... She didn't know who to look to. Where was she supposed to find an example of how to handle this?
This was the kind of problem that made her feel alone, and wish for more friends. Fighting monsters and bad guys? When Starlight really looked at it, that was what she was good at. If it weren't for all the other things wrong with her life, and the fact that it took weeks each time to recover, she could do that regularly and actually be okay with it. It was the problems she solved by staying on her hooves and stubbornly trudging forward when she couldn't see a better way that really taxed her and made her feel alone when she dealt with them by herself.
...It wasn't like any of the ponies here knew how to help with that, though. If none of her existing friends even knew how to provide what she needed, was it that big of a loss after all?
Yes. It was. Telling herself it wasn't was just lying to herself to make it hurt less. But that didn't leave her any closer to-
"Starlight? Hey, pay attention!" Valey was waving in her face. "Birdo wants to know if there's any place in particular you'd like to sit, since it's kind of a party for you, and all."
Starlight blinked owlishly, having lost count of how many times this had happened today long, long ago. Why couldn't she pay attention? It was almost a little embarrassing... "I can sit wherever," she replied, though she preferred to be closer to Maple and Valey.
"Well, cool." Valey shrugged, walking away. "I'll put you by me then. Looks like we're almost ready!"
Starlight got up and followed along, tilting her head and wondering how it mattered where they would sit before they actually arrived at the table. Then she realized the dining room didn't actually have a table... not like the one on the Immortal Dream, anyway. It made sense, when she was on her own with Maple instead of dining with a whole crew, but the one Fishy and her workers had left was sized for only four, and its entirety was being used as a serving area. All the seating was scattered around the rest of the room in the form of chairs, packing boxes, the couch and anything else that could be serviceable, spilling into the adjacent rooms and using equally makeshift tables, yet still close enough together it would feel like they were all sharing a meal at once. She almost admired the improvisation.
"This look good?" Valey patted the couch, which was opposite a row of boxes, strategically positioned to be available to everything without feeling like it was in the center. A low, empty cabinet had been set in front of it to act as a table, giving the seat an obvious work-in-progress feel yet still being perfectly serviceable.
When Starlight thought about it that way, it was no different than the rest of this home.
"Coming through!" Amber interrupted, balancing a large tray on her back. Starlight's nose told her this was the pineapple, a dish she had eaten rarely enough that it actually brought back memories of that last night in Riverfall. Hadn't that departure been quiet and solemn, even though everyone knew they'd see each other again? Why couldn't they just do that? She knew this was the last time she would see her friends for a very long time, but making a point of it just made the parting hurt more.
"Here we go!" Maple added, following her with a tray of her own, using her cutie mark to carry even more. Starlight watched as the mares set everything out on the serving table. It smelled good, and she was a little hungry after how long it had been since the sandwiches...
Part of her wanted to know why an occasion like this warranted such good food, and she kicked it down viciously. It might have been hard to make this a happy moment like everyone wanted, but she wasn't at all about to start resenting this party. Her friends were going all out to try to do this for her, and even if they were misguided, or even if she was wrong about how to feel, she wasn't going to resent it. She could at least keep quiet and be solemn.
...Every second that passed without saying anything hurt just a little bit more.
"Starlight, are you alright?" Maple asked, stepping over after finishing with the current round of deliveries. "You don't look very happy."
"I'm not." Starlight's ears pressed down. "I know you're trying to make this happy, but I'm afraid of tomorrow and especially afraid of what it will feel like if this does feel happy. I don't want to celebrate losing everyone."
Maple nodded. "I don't think that's very worth celebrating either. But what if we celebrated all the things we did together while we knew them?"
Starlight thought about that. What memories did she have with her friends she really wanted to celebrate? What had they done together that was worth remembering? Nothing came to mind, but if there was truly nothing, she wouldn't care so much about holding onto them.
"I don't know," she replied. "What things did we do that we're celebrating?"
Maple grew a small smile. "Hard to think of any, isn't it?"
Starlight blinked. "You want me to feel that way? Or you don't think there's anything yourself? But you're hosting this party!"
"Oh, I didn't say that," Maple chuckled, before her voice grew honest again. "Starlight, I'm nervous about tomorrow too. And when you have something bad on the horizon, it's easy for it to block out everything you should be looking at instead. That's the real reason we're doing this: so we can remind each other of the good times and we don't have to forget about them just because they're out of sight. Truly, I'm not having a perfect time either. And I'm sure there's a lot of wonderful things we did that I can't remember myself. But our friends will have our backs. You'll see."
Starlight swallowed. It made some sense, but not perfectly. Maple certainly believed what she was saying, but reminding each other what they were about to be missing didn't seem like the most comforting action either. But whatever. There had to be truth to her friends' ideas. They couldn't all be wrong while she was right. If she was the only one who knew anything about how this would feel, that wasn't a happy thought either...
And yet the good cheer of her friends was still there in the background, like a blanket of noise she could hide under for just an evening longer. Pretending tomorrow wouldn't happen would make it hurt more, probably. But would it make the waiting time feel better?
Maybe that's why they were doing this. Maybe they wanted to keep their heads down just a little while longer themselves. Starlight sighed. She was so used to playing the long game, making decisions that cost her in the present with hope of a future payoff, and it so rarely worked out in her favor... Maybe she should start doing that too. The worst that could happen was already inevitable.
More of her friends filed in, Gerardo and Slipstream and Harshwater and Nyala, and Valey and Shinespark were already present. "How much more do we have?" Amber called, returning with another platter of food. "Maple? I don't think I saw anything else?"
"Spices and garnish," Maple replied, getting up and leaving Starlight. "Oh, and I forgot the arugula! And can someone try the seasoning on the fish? I know I got two opinions but we can still get something else to add if it needs it!" She bustled quickly off back to the kitchen.
Grenada eyed the fish, a giant fillet that could have been a centerpiece if not for the pineapples, and the dozen ponies it was expected to feed. "I am always surprised to see which cultures eat these and which ones avoid them," she remarked, nodding in approval at its scent. "I would guess the locals' tastes are shaped by necessity..."
"I haven't seen a large amount of farmland in this region," Gerardo agreed. "I do wonder what sorts of things they export. Fish, perhaps, but I also heard they make income by running trade boats between other, eastern cities and using the profits to bring goods and materials back home..."
Starlight followed Grenada's lead, figuring the food itself was better-suited than Gerardo's speculation to taking up her time. Jamjars was lurking around the serving table as well, far more impatient than any. "So can we serve ourselves, or what?"
"Easy," Harshwater chided, shaking her head. "It's almost all served. Just a few minutes longer..."
"Oh, you can start filling your plates!" Maple called from the kitchen. "I just have toppings left! Form a line, though, the table's a lot smaller than usual!"
Valey nudged Shinespark with an aggressive wink. "Big shame about that, huh?"
"Pipe down," Shinespark muttered. "This isn't the time to be worrying about aesthetics."
"On the contrary," Gerardo interrupted, "a good aesthetic makes this party far more pleasing for all, and we did go out of our way to put a lot of effort into the... Why are you looking at me like that?"
Valey burst out laughing. "Not that kind of aesthetic... Nyaah... Never mind..."
Shinespark reddened and lowered her ears.
"...You know what we need?" Amber smiled, happily surveying the trio's antics. "A toast. To everyone. For everything."
"Hear, hear!" Harshwater pumped a glass already held in her wing.
"Seems like an appropriate occasion." Slipstream pulled out one of her own as well. "And everyone does the honors?"
Maple scurried back into the room, unpocketing a glass of her own. "A toast to all the memories we've made together?"
"A toast to epic vistas and narrow escapes!" Gerardo held his drink high.
"A toast to booting around bad guys and taking names." Valey raised hers too, and with a wink at Shinespark, added, "And big tables!"
Shinespark hid her face. "A toast to disrespectful friends you can't help but love anyway."
Harshwater raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it off. "A toast to not being dead in a mineshaft somewhere, or a martyr in Mistvale, and to ditching bosses who don't deserve you!"
Grenada nodded respectfully. "A toast to good leadership. It is not a burden all of us are adept at carrying."
"Yeah, but a toast to learning from your mistakes!" Amber's drink joined the fray, held just as tall as the taller ponies in the group. "And to remembering what's important, following your friends and always coming back!"
Maple bowed her head. "A toast to having a home to return to."
"A toast to the friends who are that home!" Valey pumped hers higher.
"And to the world that home exists in," Nyala added quietly.
"A toast to me!" Jamjars was the loudest so far. "So can we eat, or what?"
Slipstream gave her a disapproving look. "A toast to Felicity, and everyone else who can't be here with us."
"Bananas, yeah! A toast to Felicity!"
"A toast to Felicity's foal," Maple added softly. "And to the doctors who might give them a better chance at survival and a normal life, and to Felicity's ability to grow into a good mother."
Valey blinked. "You know, she was sleeping the last two times I tried, but I gotta get her on the line for this party as well..." She tapped the remaining sound stone, having no horn to activate it.
"A toast to never being truly that far away, no matter how many thousands of miles separate us." Gerardo bowed along with Maple.
Amber folded her ears. "Yeah... A toast to Maple and Starlight."
"A toast to Starlight," Maple agreed, glancing Starlight's way. "Starlight? Do you have anything you want to toast?"
Starlight glanced at her forehooves, realizing she had forgotten to get a drink earlier. "A toast to... to..."
Her friends waited patiently for her to decide. But what could she say? How were they even deciding what to toast, let alone how could she copy it? All of these walked some weird line between what they had and what they wished for, optimism incarnate. It wasn't that they were wishes for how the world could be, but wishes for how it was now, taking something that already existed and making it the best version of itself.
Above all else, what did she have to wish for?
She raised a hoof without a glass, but it felt like it worked anyway. "A toast to..." She fumbled on her tongue again. "To Sunburst. Without him, I wouldn't have met any of you, and... I hope I can see him again. And to everyone else who will be my friends in the future."
"Yeah!" Valey cheered, flapping her wings. "Back it up!"
"And with that..." Gerardo beamed, slamming his mug down. "I believe it's appropriate to say, dig in."
Maple hadn't had as long to prepare as some of the crew's previous feasts, and it showed in the number of dishes she had brought to the table, but not in the quality. Starlight had a plate with honeyed corn bread, bean salad and a slice of fish, and while she had a feeling the sweet bread was more supposed to go with the pineapple than the other foods, it had been long enough since she last had it that she wanted to try it again.
"Wow," Amber remarked, equally attracted to the corn. "I don't remember us having any of this since our supply from Riverfall ran out in the Empire. I guess it's not a thing they grow in the east, huh?"
"When I saw it available, I knew I had to do something." Maple shrugged. "How is it?"
"Sufficient for consumption while telling stories," Gerardo praised. "And everyone should know I take that quite seriously."
Amber leaned back in her seat. "Whew. You know, Gerardo, it's hard to believe you were one of the founding members of our party here."
Gerardo chuckled, spinning his glass on a talon. "Can you truly call it founding? We were nothing but a convergence of groups, and some of us decided to stay behind. After all, many of you had past organizations, I'm sure."
"Like the Spirit." Grenada's ears fell. "But you cannot use that to say this group does not exist, can you? We all have backgrounds of our own, yet I could not consider mine part of this same chapter in my life."
Valey thumped her stomach and belched. "Yeah, Birdo. Face it: this team here started with you, Starlight and Ironflanks hopping on a boat to Ironridge. It's been a good thing. Bet you never thought it would go this far, though, did you?"
"Indeed I didn't." Gerardo drank deeply from his punch, twiddling a feather. "Though if you really must reach back and hunt for the very beginning, that was before even my time. I was merely a wanderer who happened to be of use kicking off someone else's dream." He nodded to Maple. "I'd say the real beginning must have been whenever you met Starlight."
"Maybe it is, isn't it?" Maple shook her head. "It feels like a lifetime ago. It practically is, when I add up the years of my life and look at how much each one was worth. I've had more happen in the months I've traveled with you than all the years before them combined."
"I was there for that." Amber leaned back, smiling fondly. "Starlight, I dove into the river and fished you out. Hey, have any of you heard exactly how we first met?"
Starlight hadn't. She knew what had happened before, and she knew how she had woken up, but she had been unconscious for their very first meeting.
"Once upon a boring, lazy Riverfall afternoon, I was down by the river, doing whatever." Amber crossed her hind legs and stretched, closing her eyes in remembrance. "Now, Riverfall is on the Yule, which flows from west to east, and we all knew Ironridge was to the west. But there's a smaller river that flows north up from the mountains, and joins the Yule at the corner of town! It's a pretty laid-back place. But I was there, splashing around and enjoying the water, when one day, I saw a crate come floating down the river."
She gave everyone a serious look. "Now, remember: this river comes straight from the mountains. I've been to the source, once, or at least the waterfall basin at the bottom of the cliff, and there's nothing down that way. Total wilderness. And this is a crate? Like, something someone made. So I fish it out, pry it open, and it's full of alcohol so vintage, I couldn't even recognize it. I was impossibly confused. But I dragged it home, showed my friends, got them confused too, and all together we had no idea where it came from. So we went back to the river to see if anything else would come floating down, and started a camp-out! Took turns taking watch. All for curiosity's sake. And then, one fateful minute, we saw another..."
Amber nodded at Starlight. "And inside was the coldest, soggiest filly we had ever seen, totally passed out with a wet blanket and wet saddlebags and some water in the bottom of the crate with her. So we rushed her home and Willow nursed her back to health and that was how it all began."
Starlight folded her ears. "I tried to make the crate into a boat. But I don't think I got it watertight, and I fell off the waterfall before I was ready and barely survived the fall."
"But we got you," Maple assured, "and Willow had foals of her own already, so she asked me if I could take care of you! And that was kind of momentous for me, for a lot of personal reasons. I had spent the last two years in a very bad place, trying as hard as I could to get back on my hooves, and it really felt like the world was giving me a second chance."
"Yeah..." Amber smiled distantly. "We hung out for a bit, and showed Starlight around town. Had some good days." She raised an eyebrow at Gerardo. "And one day, we woke up to the sound of distant drums, even though it was pouring. I think? It's usually pouring in Riverfall. But that's where you came in."
"Ah, but that was a memorable arrival." Gerardo wiped his brow, as if the day's rain was still clinging to his crest and weighing it down. "I don't usually operate under contract, but Yakyakistan had promised a reward I very much desired for the land-and-sea delivery of two unmarked crates to Ironridge, and as Varsidel is ripe with bandits and lawlessness amid its perpetual warfare, I had scarcely set talon in civilization for months, save to resupply! There's a majesty to be had, for certain, when it's you and your boat and nothing else but the waves and shoreline. But when I stumbled into a town full of isolated mares who just so happened to have lacked outside contact for years, well, ha! There's nothing like telling stories to a good audience."
Amber nodded heartily. "Lucky us we had a good place to listen from. How did we even start hanging out after that? Was it Arambai?"
"It was Hemlock's crane," Maple murmured, sitting upright and balancing a plate in her lap. "It exploded when we were watching, and Starlight saved Gerardo's boat."
Gerardo winced. "Ah, that incident. I can't deny it, having your cargo imperiled when you've just spent a good number of months out of your life lugging it across continents is a slightly stress-inducing experience. Even though in hindsight, it would have been better not to deliver it at all..."
"Oh yeah. I remember that." Amber giggled. "Hey Gerardo, remember how we started showing off and doing some sort of antics together to try to get the crowds to forget about Starlight?"
"Thanks again," Starlight muttered, wondering how she would react to the same incident today. Would she save Gerardo's boat again? Certainly, and it probably wouldn't tax her horn as much either. But the crowds? She hoped the ponies of Sires Hollow would be more chill about it than Riverfall.
"Indeed I do," Gerardo replied, "and you're very welcome. Honestly, falling in with you and then Arambai... It can't have been much longer before Ironridge rose as the topic of debate."
"We wanted to go so badly," Maple added. "Like a fire that had been put out before burning all its fuel, and got relit. We had been planning on a trip ten years ago, and all that fell through..."
"And when the opportunity came?" Amber shrugged broadly. "Willow and I practically pushed you out the door so you didn't repeat the mistake we made the first time, waiting and missing our chance."
The rest of the ponies listened keenly, especially Harshwater and the others who had never been to Riverfall. "Humble beginnings," Harshwater remarked. "I thought adventures were supposed to begin with everyone meeting in a bar, or something."
"When you think about it," Gerardo muttered conspiratorially, "ours did begin with a crate of alcohol."
Everyone laughed.
"Arambai helped us sneak out of Riverfall," Maple said. "The town was so isolated, all he had was a secret midnight ferry from a dock outside of town. The night we walked out there... there was so much anticipation, we almost couldn't say goodbye." She let out a deep breath, closing her eyes. "It felt like... it was secret and solemn, like we were invited to witness something that was too special to be seen. Back then, not knowing what was on the horizon, returning to a dream we had long-since abandoned..."
Amber nodded reverently. "It was how I always imagined it would be to pull up an ancient shipwreck, or talk to someone unfathomably old. Like our dreams of adventure had sunk to the bottom of a cold river, and they were being resurrected, just for us. How do you even describe that, feeling something that used to be golden and majestic and untarnished in your mind that sank and fell away suddenly being raised again? And you see that your dream still had its old shine, and that it wasn't just a hallucination but really was that special."
"We could barely speak," Maple agreed.
"Hah," Gerardo quietly chuckled. "I've had my fair share of secretive, late-night township departures, but I could feel the energy as well. Riverfall didn't seem to be the sort of place anyone just left for no reason."
"There wasn't supposed to be a reason to leave it," Shinespark cut in, sitting well within Valey's personal space. "It was the last stop, the end of the road, the place you went when you had nowhere left to go. Arambai and I worked our hardest to make sure it would be enough, and could stay a quiet paradise where ponies could take their failures off the map and try to give one more chance to their lives."
"Sounds like a sticky line to walk between a very nice place and an oppressive one, darling."
"Felicity!?" Maple jumped, almost dropping her plate and staring at Valey. "How long have you been listening?"
Valey smugly held out the glowing sound stone. "Eh, me and Sparky got her to pick up while you were telling stories. No offense, but Birdo's really good at drawing attention."
"I can confirm that. Hello, all. Sounds like you're having quite the retelling party."
"Well, yeah, but..." Amber aggressively shrugged. "What about you? How are you doing, girl?"
Valey nodded along. "Yeah, spill the beans. Short version of the day's events: we're at Sires Hollow, and Ironflanks and Starlight are settling down and staying behind."
"Ha. Perhaps I'll be able to come visit one day." Felicity's voice was light, as though she was perpetually winded, but her spirits still sounded strong. "As for me, in the most shocking news of the year, I'm still pregnant, just like I was last time you called, and the time before that. The weather is the same as it always is, and I haven't successfully seduced any more nurses. I think they're getting wise to me, to be honest. But all things considered, I'm alive, surviving, and it's not so bad. The boredom may be dreadful, but one day it will be over and I'll be on my hooves again."
Valey bobbed her head. "Glad to hear it. Stay perky, and don't give up on those cute nurses."
"As if. But enough about me! Don't let my monotony ruin the mood. Please, go on with your reminiscing. It makes for much better listening than you know."
"Glad to know our party grows just a little bit larger." Gerardo raised his glass again in a second, silent toast. "It is a celebration of how far we've come and all we've done together, and we were just discussing our humble origins."
"Yeah, you're also dawdling." Valey rolled her eyes. "When are you gonna get to the part where I come in?" She raised an eyebrow. "You remember how you met me, right? It was pretty sweet."
Maple glanced at her and Shinespark. "Strictly speaking, I think we met Shinespark first? We got to Ironridge by boat, and walked in on one of the Spirit's staged ambushes on a weapons convoy. All I remember was learning that my cutie mark could absorb and reflect energy blasts..."
Shinespark rubbed her face with her forehooves. "That was so long ago... So many schemes that were so complicated. We had a contract to make weapons at the Sosan factories and sell them to the Defense Force in upper Ironridge, and I organized the Spirit of Sosa to attack our own convoys and steal back our weapons to keep us armed and force them to renew the contract to keep giving our ponies work..."
Valey rolled her eyes. "I mean, you can say it like that, but the less-complicated version is that you were committing insurance fraud."
Grenada gave her a dour look. "That is not a very noble way to put it."
"The ignoble thing about it is that Herman played us for fools, and kept renewing the contract after the weapons got stolen because he wanted us armed for a fight," Shinespark groaned. "But yes. We were committing insurance fraud by stealing back the weapons we were supposed to be selling to our enemies."
"Good grief. I've schemed a lot of schemes in my day, but that seems rather extreme."
Shinespark shrugged. "We had years to prepare and a delicate situation to navigate, and our ponies were low on hope more than anything else."
Valey started to growl. "Yeah, but what about after the ambush when you got to my totally impenetrable blockade?"
Shinespark groaned and shook her head. "That's a different story..."
"So what happened," Valey narrated, waving her hooves, "was like this: I was Ironridge's biggest slacker. Oh, I got stuff done, but I made a show of not doing anything and kind of just worked behind the scenes. And the best prank is where you take some dudes who are incompetent, give them a task you know they'll fail at that you don't want done anyway, and sit back and watch the show. So I had these goons, and I was like, 'Hey, let's set up a roadblock in the Earth District!' Probably did it a hundred times before that. Not to actually block anyone, but to have fun seeing how badly they got wrecked by everyone just walking right past them, you know? Now, when Sparky and her caravan rolled along, I expected that. She was sorta competent, and easy to fluster, so that was all cool. But what I wasn't counting on?" She glanced around the room dramatically. "Was Pancake."
Most of the room raised eyebrows, but Maple scratched an ear. "I feel like I might have been exhausted from the night of travel and slept through this on the delivery cart..."
Valey waved a hoof. "Yeah, well, Pancake was wide awake, and I could tell instantly that he was a scrub. If any of you haven't met him..." She glanced around again. "Actually, nah, I think all of you have. But he was a fraud. A loon. Black and red evil-cultist mane, coupled with the girliest pastel-pink coat you've ever seen. So I was like, this is the opportunity of a lifetime... and introduced myself to Ironflanks and Starlight by throwing a melon straight at his head. Nailed him, too. You could say it made an impression."
Shinespark blinked, giving her a strange look. "That's not what happened. It was your guards who threw the melon, they threw it at one of my subordinates who was already making a fool of himself, and you didn't stop napping until after that. You slept through it too."
Valey glared owlishly. "Hey, I'm telling the story!"
Amber burst out laughing.
"Yeah, yuck it up." Valey folded her forehooves behind her head and relaxed again. "Anyway, I followed these three for a bit 'cuz I thought Starlight smelled nice, offered to share some fruit with them, bailed them out when they were lost and we were instantly besties. True story."
"Perhaps omitting the part where Maple was taken captive by the Defense Force," Gerardo muttered, "and where I journeyed to Skyfreeze and forged a path across a blistering snowfield at night to try to reach an official and bring her some aid..."
Valey shrugged. "Ain't no aid better than me."
Slipstream, meanwhile, was shivering, a deeply unpleasant look on her face. "Oh, I did not need to remember that night. I fell in a snowdrift and had the worst cold of my life afterward."
"But you did assist me," Gerardo encouraged with a wink. "And as such, the start of a legendary partnership was born."
"Well, I'm glad you can remember what you did that night," Maple sighed. "All of it was so chaotic, all I can remember was running and tunnels and being afraid, and I think that happened more than once in Ironridge."
"I mean, half of it, I'm just making up what I'd do if I was in that situation again today." Valey belched, rotating her already-empty plate and spinning it atop a wingtip. "But yeah. I had a good feeling about them. We became besties."
Maple raised an eyebrow. "What I do remember was you telling us over and over not to get attached to you. It wasn't that quick. Also, I remember you thinking you could carry both me and Starlight at the same time, and you started calling me Ironflanks when you failed."
"Nyeheheh... Good times."
Gerardo grinned broadly. "Oh, indeed. Meanwhile, I had a rendezvous with a jaded Sky District inspector, obtained some fake security credentials, and marauded all across the Earth District and the Defense Force base..."
Harshwater turned to Slipstream and scratched her head. "This feels less like a coherent story and more like a bragging contest. Or is it just me? I can't follow at all."
"I was there, and I can't follow." Slipstream shook her head. "At least, there for part of it. But I think they've earned the right to brag. It's a celebration about where we've been, after all."
"I know bragging when I see it," Felicity added, "And this is certainly more of a celebration. Most braggarts care about their audience actually knowing what their deeds were."
Valey blinked over at the sound stone. "Oh bananas, you actually don't know what we're talking about, do you?"
"Haven't the foggiest. Not beyond what you've told me in some of our talks about how you used to be quite the wannabe villain yourself, at least."
"Okay, I was not a wannabe." Valey frowned, crossing her heart with a hoof. "I was the terror of Ironridge. Back me up on this, Sparky."
Shinespark nodded vehemently. "Was and is the terror of Ironridge."
A look crossed Jamjars' face that suggested she had a snarky or inappropriate remark, but she was wise enough to keep it to herself. No one was in the mood for a damper on the party.
"You wanna know how terrifying I was?" Valey gestured ominously. "When I was getting Ironflanks and Starlight out of the Stone District, we passed through this Earth District town called Blueleaf, and I got lead into a trap and ambushed by a pile of foals who were super upset I got their parents kicked down from above. Didn't even break a sweat fending it..." Her eyes shadowed. "Oh, bananas. Okay, maybe that's not the coolest thing I ever did."
"You had kids attempting to take revenge for things you did to their parents? That's the kind of thing I would expect out of Gyre, darling, not you."
"Yeah, yeah..." Valey waved a hoof, frowning. "So, point is, I actually did used to be pretty not very nice, even if I kept it to excessive pranks. Like hiring guards who would throw melons at lower-class executives. And harassing my employees by flirting with their special someponies. Bananas..."
Shinespark put a hoof on her shoulder. "You changed, though."
"You did," Maple agreed, "and I believed in you. Remember?"
"Hah. I remember telling you about moon glass. Trying to scare you away." Valey rolled her eyes. "Don't even remember how it came up. We were on a cart, and it was raining, and I guess you were being really stubborn about being nice to me and it was kind of making me feel awkward 'cuz that just doesn't happen? Real nice now, though. Must give you the biggest warm fuzzy to think about how being so stubbornly nice to someone who wasn't asking for it earned us the friendship we have today."
Maple took Valey's other shoulder. "You were absolutely worth it."
"Yeah, well..." Valey shrugged and relaxed. "Somewhere in there I got paged by stinking Herman to go help with some stuff, and got trapped and locked in that room for a million years until you got me out, which isn't very brag-worthy. So it's your stage for now, Birdo."
Gerardo chuckled. "Oh, I'm not sure my heroics were that noteworthy. I mostly snuck off to Sosa and met our friend Shinespark."
"One of the last few days Sosa ever had," Shinespark added. "I'm glad you got to see it. I spent that day running around as well. Looking back, it's a blur next to everything that came later."
"It might be a blur for you," Maple murmured, "but I'll never forget when we met White Chocolate. That was... a very important meeting for me."
"White Chocolate? Is that someone who joined up and left before you came to the Empire? I don't believe I've heard the name, darling."
Maple nodded, though Felicity wouldn't be able to see it. "White Chocolate is Jamjars' mother. We think she was Willow's twin sister, only living in Ironridge. I'm not even sure how to describe her..."
"You'd like her," Jamjars cut in, looking at the sound stone. "She's a lot like you, Felicity."
Valey silently glared at Jamjars, motioning for her to knock it off.
"Ahaha... Good company, hmm? Well, I can always use a sympathetic face. A shame she's probably continents away..."
"Well, we met her," Maple sighed. "And we met Shinespark, and met back up with Gerardo, and saw the Immortal Dream, which hadn't been named yet, and learned so many things I can't even begin to remember. It was a bit of a stressful time. Talking about the bombs on the dam, and what to do about them..."
"It's a long story," Shinespark agreed, leaving it at that.
Gerardo politely cleared his throat. "Ah, but one with a most thrilling course! Some dastard was trying to floor Sosa, we learned, and the politics of the situation involved an immeasurable amount of tension and second-guessing. Though I believe most of our day was actually spent assisting with evacuation preparations..."
"Helping White Chocolate move her family," Maple clarified. "She had... a lot of foals. I don't remember if it was eleven or twelve."
"Twenty-eight," Jamjars helpfully corrected.
"Eleven foals!?" Felicity gasped, winding herself in the process. "That's... but... What kind of masochist would one have to even be to go through all this twice, let alone double digits..."
"The kind who's lost control of their life," Maple quietly murmured, "and is afraid to make changes, because even though what they're doing isn't working, they're too scared to do anything but what's familiar. Her husband had left her, so she was on her own with them, too."
There was a sputtering from the other side of the sound stone. "That sounds... deeply unfortunate for all involved."
"It was." Maple shrugged. "We helped her. I think Gerardo's right, and it took most of the day."
"Yeah, but at some point you bailed me out, right?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "And I tried to bail you out in return, and I think Starlight might'a slapped me for the way I did it but I don't really remember. And then we fought, like, a million goons."
Starlight folded her ears. With how good of a time everyone seemed to be having, even talking about the bad things that happened in Ironridge, it made her want to try it and see if it could feel good too. "I passed out from trying to shoot down the mercenaries with crystal."
Valey glanced at her, nodding approvingly. "Bananas, yeah, you did. You were a champ."
Harshwater hugged herself. "Okay, so this maybe isn't my absolute favorite part of the whole thing to think about."
"Yeah?" Valey looked over at her. "Well hey, why not tell a better part? Aside from the time or two we ran into you, I've got basically no idea what you spent those days doing."
Harshwater's brow shadowed. "That's because I mostly spent it following Kero. Who didn't deserve it. I wish I could punch him."
"Oh. Yeah. Heh. That was before... Heh." Valey chuckled, then stopped herself apologetically. "Yeah, he was a windbag."
"He tried to keep the cliques within our mercenary team working on separate projects when confidential orders were involved," Harshwater continued. "Officially, we were all in Ironridge contracted to Herman to do his dirty work, but I'm certain he was having us do jobs from Chauncey in the Griffon Empire as well. I don't think you could put together the full story from anyone except Kero himself anymore."
"It's a full story I'd like to hear at some point," Shinespark admitted. "There's a lot of Ironridge recent history I could know more about. Especially Elise..." She sighed wistfully. "You all met Elise, right? My older half-sister?"
"Living in Blueleaf." Valey nodded vigorously. "Bananas, she was hot."
Shinespark grimaced. "Thank you for noticing, but she was also my sister."
In the corner, Grenada grimaced too.
"Well, in lieu of any further bragging about our achievements," Gerardo said, speaking up amid the awkward silence. "I think it's fair to sum up everything next that happened that night with things exploded."
Valey nodded sagely. "The good kind, and the bad kind of explosions."
"Mostly the bad kind," Shinespark added, wincing harder. "That was... an event I thought I was prepared for, and I wasn't."
Valey nudged her shoulder again. "Yeah, but you had me to goad you back onto your hooves. And besides, blowing up Herman is at least a little of the good kind of explosion."
Starlight tried to speak again. "Me blowing up the harmony extractor wasn't, though."
"Well, it had good results," Maple admitted. "But it certainly didn't feel good while it was happening. I thought I would lose you... That was one of the hardest nights of my life."
"But in the end?" Valey shrugged, patting both her and Shinespark on the back. "We all survived. Ironridge was pretty messed up, but we did enough weird science guessing to get Sparky's ship in the air, and Arambai was all, 'Don't wallow here! Shoo!' And we went back to Riverfall and Slipstream and White Chocolate tagged along too. Yeah?"
"Yep." Slipstream nodded. "I just tagged along. That's as accurate as you can get."
"Really." Felicity sounded skeptical. "Darling, you... barely featured at all in that montage?"
Slipstream blushed. "We skipped my grand opening. It was where I took Gerardo out to lunch."
"And Maple and Starlight," Gerardo insisted. "It was truly gracious of you, though. We were floundering in a sea of not having knowledge, and lo and behold, a knowledgeable helpdesk kiosk mare, finding herself attracted to my exotic avian visage..."
Slipstream blushed harder. "Is this the place for that?"
"It's true, though," Valey prodded with a sly grin. "You came along with us because you had a crush on the griffon."
"W-What can I say?" Slipstream tried to look furiously casual. "My workplace was destroyed, job prospects in Ironridge were suddenly looking terrible, I was young and in good health barring that cold and had few enough ties I could afford to strike out for the world and take a chance on something that seemed like a good idea at the time."
"For what it's worth," Nyala murmured, "I'm grateful you did. You've been one of my better friends since I awakened in Braen's armor."
Slipstream pumped a hoof, making her blush worse. "Huzzah for the B-Team!"
"Yeah!" Amber cheered. "Making a killing by opening that sky restaurant in Stormhoof for a month!"
"A pity we're about to go back to Ironridge, where all that currency is out of style." Gerardo glanced at Maple and Starlight. "I don't suppose the ponies of Sires Hollow would appreciate it if we blessed you with a very large monetary fortune born of a month of catering to the filthy rich, would they? It seems like they've fought hard to get what they have, and it could be about time fortune visited them with dividends..."
Maple blinked in surprise. "That's... actually a very interesting idea. Hmmm..." She snuggled back into the couch. "I wish flying back to Riverfall after Ironridge had truly been the happy ending we were wishing for."
"It was pretty happy, though..." Valey raised an eyebrow. "I mean, stuff didn't go south until after we went back to Ironridge for an extended vacation tour and then got back to Riverfall. We had some happy times."
"We did. It was a good vacation." Maple smiled in remembrance. "I... don't actually remember a whole lot happening."
"That's the hallmark of the best vacations," Amber chimed in. "When too much is going on in your life and you just need it to stop, nothing is the best thing to have."
Valey stuck out her tongue at Harshwater. "Yeah... nothing, or a pile of Kero portraits looted from his villa. Isn't that when you got those?"
Harshwater blushed. "I deny everything and will never change my tune."
"Hahahahaha!"
Starlight stared at the exchange, a little of the tension finally starting to lift in her heart. Her friends didn't have their heads in the sand, at the very least. All this laughter was earnest, not them lying to themselves about what was still to come. And they were laughing about the bad things in their lives just as much as the good.
She had always wondered what her old parents could have done to help take the edge off her loss of Sunburst. Maybe that was the reason her friends now were so insistent on doing this. Maybe the lesson was here for her to learn, and it wasn't happy memories they wanted to leave her so much as a life skill she had once never known existed.
Though, if they wanted to leave her both, she wouldn't really mind at all.
"Hard to believe we did so much in three days," Maple murmured, her plate half-filled with thirds, though she was visibly slowing down. "We've been on this adventure for months, and yet that feels like nearly half of it. But even though it's a whole half, everything's been so big, it might have been forever ago as well. I don't even know how to describe it at all."
"Your sense of time is messed up?" Slipstream raised an eyebrow. "Tell me about it. Feels like I had a life that was back then, and a life that's now, and I've done both done more with myself in the last six months than ever before, and spent it doing nothing but spectating on this grand ride while everyone else steers."
"Aren't we all spectators to our own lives?" Gerardo sipped from his drink, going slower to savor the beverage. "If they weren't worth watching, we'd have far bigger concerns."
Starlight wondered if her life was worth watching. Living it was tiring and stressful, and she just wanted to be normal... yet she kept attracting the attention of things like Glimmer and the harmonic flames. It was obviously worth watching, because so many were watching her. Yet at the same time, this didn't feel at all like what Gerardo was referring to.
She didn't want to figure it out, though. Her friends' cheer was like a blanket, and she had finally given in to the party, getting the most she could out of her friends before the morning's inevitable end. Spending time contemplating the value of her life wouldn't lead her to any new epiphanies, and would just lock her inside her head while she should be appreciating the ponies who were right there, in the real world around her.
"Who would watch my life? I'm a normie compared to everyone else here." Slipstream chuckled, then paused. "Actually, don't answer that. To anyone who's ever wanted to quit their job and run away on an adventure with a bunch of adventurers who are way cooler than they are, I'm living the dream. Ponies would probably even be jealous."
Amber nodded along. "It's true. I can't tell you how many books I've read about some ordinary gal going out on an adventure. We could make a killing writing about all the places we've been, now that I think about it..."
"Yes!" Slipstream cheered. "The utterly unqualified protagonist who goes along just so readers can empathize with them! They're my guilty pleasure when reading." Her pupils shrank. "Oh my. I just realized if I wrote a biography, I'd be a self-insert."
Gerardo chuckled, reaching over and patting her on the back. "Anyone who's survived this many trials with us is hardly unqualified. I consider myself knowledgeable, worldly and skilled with a sword, yet even I have found myself taking the backseat sometimes to our more talented friends. And even then, what qualifications does it take to be supportive and give the risk-takers somewhere to come home to?"
Slipstream blushed. "True. I shouldn't need to ask if that's really what you all think of me."
"You're cool." Valey folded her forelegs and shrugged. "It's pretty obvious Birdo's opinion of you is way biased, but you're still cool. Folks who aren't cool who try to come with us go the way of Pancake and Shades. You wanna brag about feeling like you're a normie who got to live the dream life? Brag it up. Everyone's bragging, so join the party."
Amber giggled. "We're going to get back to Ironridge, and then brag like crazy."
"Some of us will." Harshwater nodded. "I might be a little preoccupied figuring out what to do with my life to go looking for anyone to brag to."
Gerardo cleared his throat. "Will the whole city not do?"
Harshwater cleared hers harder. "Anyone."
"Ah. Point taken."
"But we're also bragging now," Valey insisted. "And you know what dunks on everything else so far? I rolled into Stormhoof, hitched a ride on a pirate ship, washed into town, tried to be nice, scoundrels tried to take advantage of my multiple times, and I just flipped my lid and dunked on their entire castle at once, all after getting monked up by that shady guy. Their entire. Castle."
"Where we were already safe and sound and guests of honor," Maple pointed out.
Valey flexed, popping a grin. "So?"
"Ah, the early days of the Empire." Gerardo leaned back, strumming his talons delicately like a pianist. "Back before the political hullabaloo, when I looked forward to showing off the nobility and relaxation and occasional stuffiness of my homeland in a refined and dignified manner, and we still thought it would be a vacation..."
Slipstream pursed her lips. "I remember you completely freaking out about Wallace Whitewing the whole time. Who was refined and dignified?"
Gerardo adopted a serious look. "One must always make exceptions for true heroes."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, well, that true hero was the one who invited us to chill in Izvaldi, which was a little too chill thanks to... you know... the crazy ice pony they kept locked up in the basement?" She rubbed her head from the painful memory. "Bananas, I got foalnapped. I got foalnapped. And dragged off to a romantic beachside getaway and totally probably learned stuff about Nightmare Modules or moon glass or whatever and urgh. I think that's where I got real messed up in the head. Didn't get out of that funk properly until we were out of the empire altogether."
Gerardo adamantly shook his head. "While there were certainly high stakes and intrigue, I think Wallace Whitewing had perfectly good cause to want his friend's possessed daughter kept around..."
"Bananas." Valey shook her head. "Look, there's some stuff I can brag about on this adventure, and some really stressful stuff I can look back at and say was awesome in hindsight, but this is a little too raw. I was messed up. Maybe... Maybe I need a little more time on this one."
Shinespark rubbed her back encouragingly. "Can we change the topic to how I was still down after losing Sosa, and you entered the tournament just to prove a point to me?"
"Yeah... heh..." Valey nuzzled her in return. "For completely not feeling it at all, I sure kicked a lot of rear. Didn't I beat one guy while basically in a cast and unable to move? Bananas, what even injured me that bad...?"
"The pirate ship?" Shinespark suggested. "When I flew out to look for you?"
Grenada folded her ears. "That was when we reunited the... first time."
Shinespark nodded solemnly.
"Hope I at least was able to brighten your lives," Amber added. "I showed up sometime in there as well."
"And didn't we meet sometime around then too?" Felicity asked across the sound stone. "I distinctly remember hearing about you in advance from Senescey, and then one day you stumbled across her at work and she brought you over for a visit."
Valey perked up a little. "Yeah... heh... A lot of us probably started meeting again around that time."
As they talked, Starlight stared, even more unsure of what she was seeing. She remembered Valey as she was during their stay in the Empire, desperate and stretched thin and struggling to find a goal she could commit to or a reason to do anything. She remembered a Valey who was boxed in by the things she thought about herself and the things others said about her, who had the energy to do things but was constantly afraid, like a bottle under pressure with its only exit blocked. Learning more about the nature of moon glass and Nightmare Modules, Valey had been terrified of her place and role within the world, and everything she could do if she wasn't careful.
It sounded awfully, painfully familiar.
"Well," Starlight said, getting everyone's attention with how rarely she spoke. "I got foalnapped too. And it stank. And I learned some things about myself I didn't really like, and accidentally got a Nightmare Module and got moon glassed for the first time, and I didn't know what to do. So, you're not alone."
Valey leaned over and ruffled Starlight's mane, all her cheer inexplicably returned. "That's my line, ya dork." Her cheeks squeezed in her biggest grin, and she sat back again with a sigh. "For real, though. Not good times, but I survived. And I think I kicked sufficient tail during them to keep us all alive and frosty."
Starlight just blinked, the conversation carrying on without her. How? How did Valey do this? Her friends were making light of their past fears and troubles, celebrating the harrowing things they had survived. But bad things weren't meant to be celebrated, and it was so hard for her to feel the same... and yet, here Valey was saying something was too bad to be celebrated. But even after they skipped it, she carried on and cheered back up anyway.
How did she draw the line? How was there a line to be drawn in the first place? Was it just that Starlight herself had never been through anything that was bad, but still not-bad enough that it could be joked about? Her friends were reminiscing about thing after thing she had lived through, too.
She just didn't understand.
"Our second visit to Izvaldi?" Gerardo was saying. "I can't say I remember that much about it. Perhaps there wasn't much to remember? We might have set out swiftly for Mistvale..."
Valey shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. I think we busted into Chauncey's basement and snooped around his lab, though. And got back Nyala's body?" She glanced over at Nyala. "Oh yeah, we totally put you in Braen, too!"
Nyala nodded quietly. "It was during your first visit there, I believe."
"Wait..." Harshwater blinked. "Was I really the last one to join up? Feels like there were more after me..."
"Saffron," Gerardo pointed out. "Though she went about her own way after Kinmari."
"And myself, technically," Felicity added. "We were acquainted, and I did tag along to Mistvale with you all, though it really wouldn't be fair to any of us to call me a proper member of the crew before I made amends and paid my dues, as it were."
"Girl, you're as proper as you wanna be," Valey countered. "...Oh yeah, and we also had Crystal on the boat for a month. Bananas, she was a hag."
Amber winced. "Having spent some time around her in her more vulnerable moments, she didn't have the nicest personality. I still feel like there should have been something we could have done..."
"There always is something else we can do," Maple said. "We could have stayed in Stormhoof that night when Gazelle and Felicity convinced us to attack the tower, and let Crystal have her foal there instead of flying back to Izvaldi while she was in labor. Maybe if she had been around ponies who cared instead of Gazelle, something could have been different. But you can't change the past, and there's no use wishing you can. It's sad, what happened to her and what she did to everyone else, but all we can do is learn from it and try to move forward as more thoughtful ponies who might be able to put the experience to use in the future."
"Well put," Harshwater chimed in. "As someone who's still figuring out what to do with their life after making the stupidest mistake of building everything on a bad foundation... you gotta salvage what you can and not kick yourself too hard for the blind idiot you feel like you were."
"I wonder what happened to her foal, anyway," Shinespark murmured. "Everything went wrong because batponies breed true, so she was expecting a griffon, and when she had a batpony, Percival thought she had cheated on him, right? Even though it was actually because of something biological Chauncey had done?"
Valey scratched her head. "I think I heard that from somewhere? Maybe it was Grandpapa? Or hey, maybe she really was a cheater. Certainly tried her hardest to seduce me and then make me feel terrible for it." She shivered. "Batponies are born with their cutie marks, though. So, uh, given what happened to pretty much everyone in the Empire... Yeah."
Starlight suddenly had the sinking realization that in stealing back Valey and all the other sarosian souls with her moon glass, she had probably stolen away Crystal's infant foal as well.
"It's a shame it ended like that," Felicity added. "Truly. I... lost all the rest of my family from that event as well, though we had decided to forever go our separate ways mere days earlier, so I suppose I got at least a little goodbye..."
Starlight also didn't think she had ever told Felicity what she saw of Senescey's memory in her moon glass. She probably wasn't going to. Felicity didn't need to know what her sister would be reliving until the end of time...
That was one of her biggest regrets about settling down, now that she thought about it. If she stayed on her hooves and continued the adventure, she might one day be able to free all the souls she had trapped, or return them to their old bodies. But with how much it had taken just to save them from their ascendant queen, she couldn't see herself being strong enough to do that for a long, long time.
...With a sudden blinding flash of determination, Starlight remembered the way Valey had used her pendant to try seeing who was inside the moon glass they carried in the crates on the Immortal Dream. She had never actually tried wearing that pendant herself, but was similar enough to a batpony that it might do something interesting for her. What would happen if she got one of her own, and attached her moon glass sword to the choker? Maybe she could see the ponies inside, and do something to ease their purgatorial existences.
Although, there would be thousands. Tens, or maybe even hundreds. More than just the sarosians, brands and souls of Garsheeva's past sacrifices that she had stockpiled to fuel her immortality and had ripped away by Crystal. Going through all of those would be a job sized for a goddess, and nothing less.
Whatever. She would still ask Shinespark how to make a pendant of her own. She had a long life ahead of her, and more than enough time on her hooves.
"Mistvale," Harshwater said. "I suppose that's where I joined."
Grenada gave her a guilty sidelong glance. "It probably needs no mention that was not a good time for either of us."
Harshwater cleared her throat. "Nope. Not at all. Definitely not the part where I nearly died over and over because someone kept putting me on the front lines with a load of fresh injuries."
Grenada averted her eyes. "Yes. I did. I had reasons for my conduct, but I cannot deny it."
Harshwater carefully raised an eyebrow. "But we're mostly past that now?"
"I have hoped we are."
"The better way to look at it," Valey interrupted with a noisy stretch, "is that we arrived just in the nick of time to save everyone's rears."
Harshwater nodded. "And keep everyone injured and on the brink of death instead of actually properly dead."
"Hey." Valey shrugged. "Would you rather be hanging on by a thread, or all the way dead? Because lemme tell you, being dead is colossally boring. If I hadn't woken back up with this pendant, it would've felt like... Bananas, I don't even know."
"I'm grateful I survived," Harshwater admitted with a sigh of relief. "Honestly, hearing all you brag about your adventures so far... I feel like all I did after that was spend a month recuperating, and then a month being a designated nurse, and then a month flying here, and... I don't know. If I was ever looking for something, like what to do with my life after I based it all on Kero and that didn't pan out? This might be a celebration, or a goodbye, but I think my adventure's going to continue."
Maple nodded sagely. "It's the adventure that is living. Starlight and I aren't stopping in Sires Hollow. We're stepping out into a new way of life that's completely different for each of us. And we'll still have so much to do and overcome and grow and learn about ourselves, because if Sires Hollow magically made our problems all go away, what would we even have left to do with our lives?"
Amber grinned at Maple, continuing where she left off. "Maybe you'll go hang out with your old buddies from Kero's squad, assuming they still work for Arambai now. If you've changed so much, maybe there's new foundations available for building a relationship with them? Or maybe you'll fly off with me and Valey and Gerardo and Slipstream! Whatever you're looking for, if you've got the energy, there's always the possibility you'll find it in the next town over."
"A motto I live by," Gerardo proclaimed. "You know, once upon a time, when I was a lot younger than I am now, I struck out from home all on my lonesome to see the wide world." He glanced at Maple and Amber, and his gaze lingered on Starlight for a little while longer. "And, quite frankly, I fell even more in love with the lifestyle than the romantic dreams of travel that enticed me out of my home in the first place. Oh, there were hardships, and quite a few days when I was flat-out miserable. But on the whole, I loved it, and I regret nothing. What I wish most of all is that I could pass on some words of wisdom on how to do this, for those of you who are afraid of jumping off on your own. Because you're quite likely right. Life will be different once you settle down, but that difference is exactly what we flew together in search of. It is not the end that matters, but the journey and transition, and you just might be leaving for something more novel than any of us have waiting back in Ironridge."
Maple shook her head. "You're certainly right that it's going to be different. And I suppose changes of pace are what we've had to deal with all this while, traveling in the north..." She gave Starlight an encouraging smile. "But that just means we're used to it. And we think this time, we might finally find what we're looking for."
"What we're looking for?" Starlight frowned. "I thought this was what I was looking for. You have a lot of friends in the north too! You're just staying because-"
"Because of you," Maple interrupted, nodding. "And I wouldn't have it any other way. Remember the times, Starlight, when you've told me you felt like you were the one looking out for me? This is my duty, and I'll do it with a smile on my face."
Starlight wanted to tell Maple she didn't have to. It was technically true. Maple was under no obligation to stay with her, and she could pack up right there and say she wanted to stay with the crew and go to Ironridge to let Maple see her friends in Riverfall again. But... she couldn't.
It was as simple as making a choice and saying some words, but it was a choice she had no energy left to make. She needed to take a risk, trust someone, allow herself to be weak rather than risking breaking by pushing herself further for her friends. She needed to stay here for herself, and she needed to see that someone would catch her and carry her through that weakness.
Being the strongest all the time might have been possible with her powers, but it just wasn't with her mind.
"So..." Valey twirled her hat on a wingtip. "Who wants to brag and reminisce about the stuff that happened while I was gone? 'Cuz I kind of don't, you know, remember."
Amber stuck her tongue out. "Nuh-uh. I sat in my room on the Dream and took care of your body so it didn't get lost or lazy or messed up, and that's about it. It felt important at the time, and looking back, it probably helped you get back hale and hearty, but it was still just weeks of denial. I feel like I lost a hold of my life for a moment, and just miraculously survived time passing me by."
Maple nodded, ears down. "We were all half-dead after the battle. I was down with broken ribs and a punctured hoof for most of it. I might not even have healed at all if it wasn't for Princess Celestia."
"Similar," Gerardo added. "I was tragically impaled by that mysterious sword of Starlight's, and spent much of the time recuperating and regaining my strength. Though Slipstream and myself did go on an adventure to Griffonstone and become engaged with the local mafiosos..."
"Darling," Felicity interrupted over the sound stone, "are we really bragging about that particular month? I assume all of you are aware it was quite likely a low point in everyone's lives?"
"If you're asking permission to brag, girl..." Valey shrugged widely. "I heard you were awesome. And you are awesome, so I believe it. Hot, too. Go for it with gusto."
Felicity giggled. "Well, if you absolutely insist... I merely contributed all of my time and skills to keeping all of you among the living, while also struggling along on the last flight I've taken for a very long time to help with the reconnaissance of that fallen pirate ship. All of this despite the very recent and still painful, for your information, emotional trauma of that falling-out with my sisters. And, of course, the trials of measuring your barrel each and every day and facing the grim truth that by the time you get back to society, you won't be very attractive anymore..."
Valey rolled her eyes. "Go fish for ego-soothing from the nurses, I can't even see you anymore to deny it. Now keep talking about how cool you are!"
Amber laughed. "I think everyone remembers what we did at Kinmari, and that's up next. Whew... When you put it all this way, it really has only been a few months, hasn't it?"
Maple nodded. "One flying to the Empire, one between the first and second rounds of the tournament, two more until we were done with the fourth, a fifth being stranded, a sixth at Kinmari, a seventh flying back... I feel like one or two of those was two weeks instead of a month, but all this really has been just half a year. Half of us haven't even had birthdays while we've been gone."
Shinespark pursed her lips. "...Oh. Mine passed while we were stranded outside Griffonstone. I don't think I was feeling up to remembering it, then."
"Wait, seriously?" Valey's eyes widened until her pupils were almost circular. "You mean you're not a teenager anymore?"
Shinespark shrank into the couch. "You make it sound awkward."
Valey leaned over and licked her nose.
"Ahem...!" Gerardo gave a flustered squawk. "Some of us have the decency to keep certain things out of the public eye..."
Valey blew a raspberry. "Prude. Some of us also aren't in the Griffon Empire anymore and don't have to follow any rules."
"Wait, what happened?" Felicity's interest was clearly piqued. "Is there breaking of Garsheeva's rules going on?"
On the floor nearby, Jamjars looked entirely too happy. "There are foals present!" she chirped, doing her best to help make the situation even more awkward.
"Maybe..." Shinespark's cheeks were red enough that they were vibrant to everyone, even against her bright orange fur. "We should change the topic. Do we want another toast? I raise a toast to the ponies we met and left behind along the way."
"Indeed!" Gerardo chimed in, trying to bail her out. "A toast to Sharpie and Brightcoil, our good investigator friends from Ironridge who also helped us in the Empire! May their lives carry on with some semblance of stability in the face of everything that happened to their new home..."
Valey gave a tiny burp. "Bananas, they were hot."
Everyone raised an eyebrow at her except for Starlight, who had no idea why it was surprising that Valey felt this way.
"Well, I raise a toast to..." Harshwater screwed up her face. "I forget his name. That stallion who we didn't like for some reason that was in the last round of the tournament. Just so that Valey can't seriously say that twice in a row."
Valey gave Harshwater a silly grin. "You're hot."
Shinespark blinked, reaching for Valey's mug. "Did someone spike the punch?"
"Nah. Just getting caught up in the moment." Valey sprawled lazily across Shinespark's side, nearly tipping her over with her weight. "Don't think I've ever seen all of us in this great of spirits at once before. Sometimes we'll be determined or resolute or blah blah blah, but the last time we were this optimistic about where we had been was... bananas, never. After Ironridge, it was too soon to brag, and then we got caught up in the Empire. Also, I know who you're talking about, and I don't remember his name either." She thumped her stomach and yawned. "Bananas, I'm full. Just wanna... revel in the moment..."
Maple leaned over, sharing a quick look with Shinespark. "Well, if you're getting full and tired, I do have a relatively new bed. I'd love to spend one last night with everyone. And if we tried to fit too many ponies in and broke it on the first night, wouldn't that make for a story to tell?"
Valey snuggled a very awkward Shinespark harder. "Sounds smashing."
"...You know what?" Slipstream looked up from where she was whispering to Gerardo. "I've always been curious about your little Riverfall tradition. Can I join in?"
"Always welcome, pink stuff..." Valey lazily waved a wing at her.
Shinespark crawled up from the couch, grabbing Valey and hauling her onto her back. "You're being silly," she reprimanded, "and whether it's the mood or the moment or whatever else getting to you, I think it's your time for bed."
Valey sprawled out atop her back, far too comfortable with the situation. "Nyaaaaah..."
As Valey cuddled and Shinespark tried to move her, Harshwater stared at the duo with a slightly haunted expression. Amber nudged her. "What's up?"
"I like griffons and have a phobia of sarosians," Harshwater stiffly replied. "I feel nothing watching that, and don't care at all that she called me hot."
Jamjars' head lifted up from beneath her chair like a slithering snake. "Look deep within yourself. Your feelings aren't unfounded. There's hope for you yet..."
Amber glanced down, almost commenting on Jamjars' mood swing but instead focusing on Harshwater. "The nice thing about a Riverfall pony pile is that you don't need to know how you feel about anyone involved, since you'll be cuddling them anyway. You want to join? We'd love to have you."
"...Only because it's a special occasion." Harshwater rose to her hooves, shaking her mane out. "But why not?"
Amber beamed, patting her on the back. "That's what I like to hear!" She glanced back down at Jamjars. "You know, you could come too if you can both not be bitter or sour and don't try to make it awkward. This is something Maple and Valey and Starlight and I do as friends, but tonight is a night when we all can be best friends."
Jamjars sighed. "You drive a hard bargain. I might have to settle for watching."
"I, for one, will also stand guard loyally to the side," Gerardo added. "And by that I mean sleep on the floor. I would love to partake, but something tells me..."
Amber nodded along. "Yeah, it is pretty weird how you're the party's only resident dude. It doesn't have to be, but I'd get it if that made you uncomfortable."
Gerardo blinked. "Actually, I was referring to griffon beaks and talons being the very opposite of cuddly. I don't mind at all."
Jamjars gave Amber puppy dog eyes, knowing fully well that she didn't need to say anything to get her point across.
"Whatever." Amber rolled her eyes and ignored her, stepping away. "Valey might have crashed, but what about all this food? We wanna clean up the dishes and leftovers first? Won't be a pleasant awakening if they're still here in the morning."
Maple nodded, groaning and rising to her hooves. "Part of me was hoping this would last forever."
And there it was. Starlight had watched the whole exchange, sometimes even participated in the storytelling, and on the edge of her mind she always knew it would end, and all she could do was bask in the moment while it was happening. And now it was ending.
What did she do? How did she carry forward? She had pretended the end wasn't just around the corner, and now it was here.
Starlight looked to Maple for answers.
"...But I suppose it's not over yet." Maple's smile returned. "There will always be tomorrow, but for now, it's still tonight. Let's get these dishes cleaned up so we can get back to making this a night we'll remember forever."
Was that it? More denial? Starlight would remember this night forever, that was certain. But... she could still feel everyone's good moods in the air around her, like comforting incense burned hours earlier. There was an undercurrent of panic and bitterness threatening to break to the surface, one she had let out multiple times that day and couldn't seem to get rid of by letting it out. But her friends' feelings soothed it over, and she couldn't tell if they were covering it up and tamping it down or actually acting as a balm of healing to the fear she felt inside.
Her friends' laughter and happy feelings felt good. She wanted them to be a good thing. She didn't want the things she enjoyed and wanted and wanted to enjoy to be bad. But at the same time, no amount of good feelings could change reality. Because Starlight didn't live in a place where emotions could change the world.
...Actually, that was precisely the world she lived in, if every knowledgeable thing she had listened to knew what they were talking about. Harmony was supposed to be just that.
Starlight got to her hooves and decided to make her own preparations for bed. Tonight, she would pray to whatever was listening for just such a miracle.
Starlight watched quietly as the dinner cleanup proceeded. The party's momentum had wound down, and no one seemed to want to say anything, everyone content to let the good mood linger in the air. Nyala was usually quiet, so that was no news from her, but as Starlight's gaze lingered on Amber and Maple, she couldn't help but feel like they were still talking. Just... without words.
How was she supposed to explain it? Maple and Amber were best friends, and every bit as close as siblings. Starlight couldn't see how they were doing it, but knew it was there, maybe in body signals she could pick up but didn't know how to put words to? That didn't feel like it was it. It was like even just by standing and working together, they were telling each other how long it had been, and other things that couldn't even be summarized in words, let alone said.
The more Starlight watched, the more she realized that goodbye party had just been a preamble. Was this how ponies who really, truly knew each other said farewell, just by being near each other? This hadn't happened the last two times they were parted, when she and Maple left for Ironridge and then the Empire. Or maybe it had, and she just hadn't noticed before.
They looked so peaceful, cleaning up from the meal and doing the dishes. Some of the others were helping too, but they weren't as interesting. Starlight couldn't stop thinking about Maple and Amber, or even look away.
Could goodbyes like this really be this peaceful? Starlight supposed that, somewhere in her unconscious mind, she had made the assumption that since everyone else was less upset about the parting, they didn't care as much as her. Bringing it to the forefront of her thoughts, it was too disrespectful to even think, but assuming it was false left her with the question of why they were so calm about the whole affair. It almost felt worth second-guessing herself, that maybe it was true that she cared more... except watching this now, she could plainly see that the opposite was true. Maple and Amber cared more about each other than she did.
It was hard to think about, seeing there was a perspective greater than her own on her problems, yet being unable to see from it. Starlight remembered being moon glassed, seeing the glows around every pony that varied in intensity, yet made her want them to care about her so badly. It was an intense sensation, yet simple, deep and somehow shallow at the same time, like an urge to stockpile resources because it was a smart or important thing to do. But whatever Maple and Amber were doing? How did you care about someone so much that quietly washing dishes with them was the only way to say goodbye that said everything you needed? Starlight didn't even think she could care about someone that much, and she was already crippled by fear of losing the ponies she did care about.
Maybe this was something you were only able to do when you were older. Maybe there was something her adult friends could understand that she just didn't have the life experience to know yet. Maybe the reason she was aware how much was being unsaid was because she was already growing up.
Starlight didn't want to interrupt it. She just watched, realizing over and over that Maple and Amber had known each other for twice as long as she had been alive, and that for all her trials and worries, these were friends she had known for months at best. Saying goodbye was terrifying because she had been hurt by this before and didn't want to be alone, but Maple and Amber weren't leaving each other alone. They were leaving each other without... each other. For them, it wasn't an issue of putting down roots and hoping their new life would be more stable, and that they could stop saying goodbye. It was an issue of leaving someone they had cared about for their whole lives.
If anything, it was more comparable to losing Sunburst than letting the rest of her friends leave. And yet the only response either of them had for it was to quietly stand and do the dishes together.
Starlight wished she could do that. She wished she was close enough to someone that they could know how she felt without even talking, and that somehow it would make everything alright. Parents, friends... She just wanted anyone. And when she told Maple that she was more like a little sister than a mother to her... that wasn't Maple's fault. They had known each other for less than a year. And as obvious as it was that they cared about each other, Maple and herself, nothing but time could forge the bond of knowing someone all your life.
...Starlight had moved around so much, had so much of her grounding torn away, there wasn't anyone she could know for all her life, because she was still rootless and already this old. She would always be playing catch-up. She thought she wanted more ponies in her life, and that was certainly important, but even one who really knew her and she really trusted would mean more than anything else she knew.
Maple was staying with her. Maple was who she had.
And Maple cared, and... ever since a while ago, she had been making more and more of an effort to put Starlight first. It was an effort Starlight noticed. Maybe it didn't feel like Maple was really her mother yet, but it could in the future, if they stuck together and trusted each other and the world finally became more stable.
Starlight didn't know what she needed, and didn't want to think about it. She just wanted to have whatever Maple and Amber said that let their goodbye be this serene...
Or did she? Even if they could part without crying or trying to fight it, maybe that just meant it hurt even more.
Giving up on understanding it, Starlight slunk behind the couch to hide.
She quickly realized she wasn't the only one there. Valey had dropped the sound stone while flopping about on Shinespark, and it was there as well, still glowing. At the sound of her slinking, it flickered with light. "Someone there?"
"Felicity?" Starlight tilted her head, not sure why she was asking. Who else would it be?
"That's my name," Felicity replied. "What's going on, darling? It's gotten surprisingly muffled out there. Did the party end all at once?"
Starlight's ears folded, and she decided she didn't mind the talking. "Sort of. Valey dropped the sound stone behind a couch. Everyone's cleaning up now. I just found it."
"Dropped behind a couch. Harrumph. I bet she would have thought twice if she was holding a pocket-sized me instead."
Starlight bit her lip. "...Felicity, how are you doing it? Being left all alone?"
"Oh my. I'm not really sure what the most encouraging answer to that would be for a foal, but I shall do my best! I, ah... well..."
Starlight waited patiently.
After a while, Felicity said, "Honestly, I don't think I'm a very good model of healthily coping for you to look up to, Starlight. It involves a lot of counting off days on a calendar and finding ponies who will put up with endless complaints and counter them with encouragement, most of whom are probably being paid to do so. However, I am also bedridden and have a date to look forward to when I might get enough stamina back to use my legs again, and you neither have that to look forward to nor have this problem in the first place. The real way I'm doing it is that the alternative is ceasing to exist. And I can't do that while I have my sisters' legacy to carry on. An empire worth of sarosians', too, as a matter of fact."
"Oh." Starlight nodded, and didn't say anything more.
The sound stone paused for a moment. "You've had the party. Just trying to make it through those last few hours when they're not quite gone yet, but before the ever after?"
Starlight nodded again. "Yeah."
"...On the one hoof," Felicity began, "I feel like I should advise you not to do that. I somewhat buried my head in the sand at our parting, too, and have always found myself wishing for a friendly embrace ever since. I chide myself for not making more of the time while they were here. On the other, I remember well the anticipation of those hours and days. Denial is very sweet, sometimes. At the end of the day, I really don't know what to advise you, though the part of me that wants to be responsible and ignore what things really feel like says to make everything of it that you can."
Starlight's mind drifted back to everything she had just been thinking about Maple and Amber. "Felicity? How old are you?"
"Quite the question to ask a lady. I am thirty-five, for your information. Are you wondering if you can grow out of the pain of parting?"
Starlight sighed and closed her eyes. It had been worth a guess, but age alone apparently wasn't an answer to everything... and that meant that being able to blame this parting's pain on her youth was just a passing fool's dream. "Yes," she admitted. Felicity might not have answers, but she sounded ready to relate.
"You both do and don't," Felicity replied. "It's a funny thing. The very first time I had a significant experience losing something was when I was younger than you are. It was after the Yanavan affair, when my mother lost her faith in the Night Mother and took me out of the mountains to leave monastery life behind and join the exodus to Gyre. Our new home was rather fraught with danger and prevented us from staying in one place for too long, but we figured out who could and couldn't and would and wouldn't protect us, and we survived with a number of bruises and scrapes along the way. I gave my all to our survival, of course. I wanted to hide and be clingy, but I learned how well that worked very quickly."
She took a breath, continuing. "All things considered, I had far more time than I should have been given to process and deal with it. When you're not surviving in Gyre, you're doing precious little else, after all. The second big loss I had, I suppose, was my stepfather. He... Well, we didn't have him anymore before Senescey learned to speak. And that one, if I can be honest? It was easier."
Starlight could practically hear her shaking her head on the other side of the sound stone. "Perhaps I was too wary to grow properly attached to him, after how instantly things had been cut off from Mistvale and how difficult they were afterward. When you can't trust anything but yourself, how can you trust your friends? That said, he was strong. He protected us, and I learned all that I could from him. Certainly, I missed him, but part of that was missing what he could have been in a better life, and another part was missing the material things he did for us. By then, though, I had learned Mistvale arts from him, and was strong enough that I could defend us, myself and my mother and Senescey. From there, it was just a long road of doing everything I could to look out for my family. Losing my mother after that? My physical health and ability? My sisters? You and your friends? It was just more chipping away at everything I had made myself to survive. I don't know if this helps you, Starlight, or if it does anything to answer your question, because even if it does hurt less I can't say whether that's for the right reasons."
"Thanks," Starlight mumbled. "You sound kind of like me."
"Glad I could be relatable, I suppose?"
Starlight looked at the floor. Maybe she should have paid more attention to Felicity from the beginning? With everything put this way, it sounded like she had suffered some of the same problems as Starlight. It also sounded like she was the oldest member of the party, and still hadn't found answers. In fact, she had arguably found the worst fate of them all: left behind without even Maple, utterly disabled and reliant on others, and somehow still with a foal who would depend on her.
Imagining this fate visited on her, too, was unthinkable. Without Maple? Without the powers she counted on to keep everything safe? She probably really would do what Felicity was doing, and lay in a bed and rely wholly on others to survive.
And yet... was it really that different? Maple was trying to be the dependable one, but Starlight knew if anything did happen, it would be her keeping her friend safe yet again. But this was also a new life, where she was trying to be normal. She was trying to hang up her sword and leave what she could do behind, ever since she used the Nightmare Module and turned her back on knowledge in the crystal palace.
Starlight squeezed her eyes shut. "Thanks," she squeaked.
"I know it's hard," Felicity replied. "But for what it's worth, I did go through it all and survive. Not comfortably, not even remotely, but I've still got enough spite left over my situation to keep me going, if nothing else. And I do think maybe there's a brighter future somewhere over the horizon. Still, if there does ever happen to be anything I can do to keep you from following in these hoofsteps, you mustn't hesitate to ask. Give it enough time, and perhaps myself and my foal will even be able to come rendezvous with you up there in Sires Hollow. Begin getting the band back together even before our friends finish their writ-gathering, hmm?"
...Starlight let out a breath. She could do this. She wasn't alone. She wouldn't believe anyone who told her this would be easier than the first time, and she didn't know how to do it serenely, or with grace, but the world was going to take away her friends and she was going to let it happen. She wasn't going to fight it. She wasn't going to run away.
This was her life. She could do it. She wasn't ready, and there was no way for her to change that, but she would get back on her hooves afterward and slowly rebuild her life here, piece by shattered piece with Maple at her side.
She could do it.
She could do it.
She could do it.
Starlight took one more deep breath. She believed in herself. She would take this last night and hold her friends as close as equinely possible, and in the morning, when it was all over and time for it to end... she would let go.
She would let them go across the mountains, beyond where she could reach. She would hinge their reunion on their own abilities to do the impossible, something she had only ever done herself, and never even trusted herself to do... except her friends had sometimes done it too. They could do it. They could come back to her, and they would. Everything would be okay.
...She didn't know what else to tell herself. Swallowing a huge lump in her throat, she said goodnight to Felicity and left to climb the stairs, the last few steps that would carry her into the future.
In the bedroom, the bed was made, sheets folded and tucked delicately around the pillows in that kind of way that looked nice, but had to be completely undone to actually use as bedding. Rather than bothering with that, Shinespark had set a snoring Valey straight atop the sheets and pillows and everything, standing watch quietly nearby. Valey didn't seem to mind one bit.
Starlight blinked at Shinespark and the bed, wondering why she hadn't climbed in too and realizing rather suddenly that it was a bed sized comfortably for two adults, the same size her parents' old bed had been when she was here before. Why did Fishy give them that? She knew Maple and her were alone, right?
"Evening," Shinespark greeted, not whispering but still keeping her voice low. "Bed? I'm surprised you're one of the first to leave the party."
"Are you?" Starlight tilted her head. Did her friends really not know how hard it was, being this close to an impending end and holding her head high anyway? "The party's over, though. Everyone is just doing dishes and cleaning."
Shinespark shrugged. "Well, maybe I shouldn't be. I only left because it was past this lug's bedtime." She shook her head fondly at Valey, running the tip of a hoof through her fur. "I don't know what got into her. Maybe she just tired herself out from enjoying herself too much. If she did, she deserves it."
Starlight felt like she deserved a thing like that, too. Or, at least, she wanted it. Who was qualified to be the judge of what she deserved? In her book, though, all of her friends did. Even if the party had been a difficult medicine for her to swallow, her friends had enjoyed it, and she enjoyed seeing them do so. At least they were happy, if nothing else. She knew that didn't count for enough when she was still unhappy herself, but it was worlds better than everyone being miserable.
"It is late," she pointed out.
"And Valey's stayed up all night many times before. I was expecting her not to sleep at all tonight." Shinespark glanced at the bed again. "But here she is."
Starlight glanced at Valey again. "Why aren't you with her?"
"It would be awkward if it was just the two of us." Shinespark flicked her tail, settling for leaning against the bedside and sitting on the floor. "Just waiting for someone else. You don't have anything else you want to do before bed?"
"No." Starlight swallowed. It was half-true. What she wanted was to spend an eternity growing up with her friends at her sides, but going to bed was synonymous with ending the last few hours of their time together and saying goodbye. But she knew as well as anyone how impossible that was, and so everything she wanted, she couldn't do. Bed was her only option, closing her eyes until it was over.
"Well, feel free to join," Shinespark invited. "I'll be along in a while. But Valey is in a cuddly mood at the moment."
Starlight stared at the bed. It was wide and open, her green-maned friend doing her best to hog as much as she could and still leaving ample room for others. The window blinds were open; she could easily look out at the night-clad roofs of Sires Hollow, her past and future home.
Numbly, she put a hoof up on the edge of the bed, feeling like she was taking her first step into the mountains so many months ago. Stepping from one life to another, in the space between Sires Hollow and Riverfall, like this one night was equivalent to the weeks she had spent shivering and on her own...
She hauled herself fully on board. Valey immediately sleep-hugged her and held her tightly in her forelegs.
Starlight squeaked as her lungs were squeezed and she was nuzzled against Valey's chest, but her sleeping friend was still gentle. Starlight suddenly didn't want to be let go.
She was still facing the windows, and from here, it was like the view of the town was straight beneath her. Sires Hollow was where she would land if she fell, and she was currently soaring above it, carried aloft by her friends. It was so distant and yet so close, far beneath her and yet a single leap away. Just like the leap off the cliff face to make it from the mountains to Riverfall... She had to make it to the bottom, and her time was almost here. Would she try too hard to prepare, just like last time, and be swept over the edge in an accident? Or would she jump on her own power, ready or not?
Starlight wanted to jump. She wanted to tear away what she couldn't keep, leaping halfway backwards and halfway forwards into that potent mix of past and present, the fragments of her old life that still endured across time waiting to mix with the shards of her new one that she was allowed to keep. Maple. Fluffy. The ponies she remembered in the north. The ponies she was remembered by in the south. But time wouldn't budge, moving at its own, determined rate, and the only leap she could take was to close her eyes and pray that everything would be alright.
"It's me..." Slipstream's voice quietly greeted behind her. "Oh, am I early? Gerardo says he'll take a mat beside the bed so his beak or talons don't poke anyone in the night..."
Starlight waited, and Slipstream crawled into the bed. Valey grabbed her too, and suddenly she was sandwiched between two mares, though with plenty of room to breathe. She could still see the window when she cracked her eyes open.
Slipstream was a pegasus, and neither of the group's pegasi were as close to Starlight as Maple or Valey. In fact, she couldn't even remember if they had done this before, the feeling of Slipstream's wings new and almost unusual. This close, she wasn't as familiar with Slipstream's smell, either. Even laying in a pile in a bed only served to emphasize how much Starlight didn't know about her, and Starlight didn't know how that made her feel.
Wasn't part of the point of settling down so that she could expand out and have more ponies in her life, after all? Why bother when there were ponies still around her she could know so much more? She knew that Slipstream liked Gerardo, sweaters, and was too wowed by her place in life to ask for much more, but how much more was there to this pegasus?
She was a pony too, after all. Her thoughts and hopes and wishes were probably just as complex and varied as anyone else. And because Starlight was saying goodbye, this was the best she would ever know her. It was a closing door, the end of an opportunity. The end.
...But weren't there dozens of other ponies in Sires Hollow? Scratch that, there were at least a hundred. Each and every one of them would be the same, and Starlight knew them even less than this pegasus who had joined her pile. It would be impossible to hold each and every one of them close with the closeness she wished others to have toward her. Only a goddess could do that.
Wasn't there any middle ground? There had to be, because for all Starlight didn't know about this mare, she still didn't want to let go.
"I see we're gathering," Nyala murmured, entering the room. "May I join too?"
"Let's get this started," Shinespark agreed. "The bed has plenty of room for more."
Two new bodies entered the pile, though still, Starlight's view stayed unblocked.
Valey and Shinespark, they were family. Starlight wasn't sure what Maple was to her anymore, and she wasn't sure about those two either, but she had never seen their happiness as her paramount goal. Their safety? Sure, she had put herself on the line for them many times. But they were ponies she was distant from enough to look up to, yet close enough to admire as well. She would miss them, she knew... but what was Nyala?
Nyala was Valey's sister, and the pony on the ship she knew the least about. Starlight felt like if she had to tell someone everything she knew about all of her friends, there were some where she could ramble for hours, and yet for Nyala she would draw a total blank. Quiet? The batpony was quiet. Valey's sister? They had a shared history, though Nyala had never talked about it where she could hear. She had once given Starlight a glance into her mind at Kinmari, when she talked about the cave she had found in Icereach that descended to the lifestream and how she didn't like seeing it used for science. And that was all Starlight knew.
For losing Nyala, it was less a mourning of what was lost and more what could have been. And perhaps it was simply for the sake of telling herself that partings were painful. She could just as easily spend time around Nyala as any pony in Sires Hollow, after all. Distress at the idea of losing her...
No. It really was just distress at the idea of losing anyone, period.
Sunburst had left. That had hurt. She felt like she had been told to get over it, though she really couldn't be sure. And so trying to say that partings didn't have to be painful, despite how she desperately wanted it to be true and knew that some way, it could be, felt like saying that all that pain was unnecessary.
Starlight didn't want to hurt for no reason. She wanted there to be something, some light, some relief at the end, that would make it all worth it and let her live happily ever after. It was a fool's dream, but it was hers. And if there was nothing else she could hold onto and keep for herself in life, she could always still have hope so long as she cared for herself and didn't let it burn out.
"...This pile is looking large already," Grenada remarked, entering the room. A sound of hoof against wood rang out. "A sturdy frame, though. I think it can manage me."
"Good thing none of us are particularly large," Slipstream mumbled back.
Grenada joined the bed, further away from Starlight in the pile. How did she feel about Grenada? Like Slipstream, Starlight knew more about her than Nyala, yet didn't engage with her as much as her other friends. Grenada was a friend of a friend, Shinespark's sister and Harshwater's old boss, rival, nemesis... Whatever their relationship had been in Mistvale.
Starlight remembered, once upon a time, how she first met Grenada in the dining hall of the Immortal Dream. She didn't recall if it was evening or morning, but could still hear Gerardo and Shinespark speaking about the plot to bomb the dams. She could see Grenada freezing up, going from a cocky teenager with utmost trust in her leader to overwhelmed by the prospect of losing her home to a flood in mere seconds.
How had Grenada felt, in the wake of that devastation? She knew Shinespark's response; she had been there in person and flown with her for weeks during the recovery. Whatever Grenada's true experiences and feelings, she felt like another hole in Starlight's mind, a place in her tapestry of friendship where she didn't know what was woven. Starlight shivered. She wanted to have a perfect memory to remember her friends by, not merely be biased to the ones closest to her whose lives she had experienced more of. She wanted to take everyone's stories with her...
Maybe that was the point of the party. Suddenly, she appreciated it a whole lot more, and wished she had realized this a few hours earlier.
They were still in bed, though. Her friends weren't gone yet. There would be breakfast first in the morning.
Valey sensed something in her sleep and shifted, hugging Starlight tighter.
"I'm not late to the party, am I?"
Now it was Harshwater's turn to arrive. She settled down much closer to Starlight, probably trying to avoid Nyala and be close to Slipstream and Valey, and Starlight felt her rest on one of her legs. What was Harshwater to her? Just another friend? The more Starlight thought about it, the more solidly a major realization clicked into piece: each and every one of the ponies who called the Immortal Dream home was there because wherever they had been wasn't their home anymore.
Shinespark's Sosa was gone. Valey's Ironridge had never been a home in the first place, and had little left to offer Slipstream. Harshwater had built her life around Kero, who sent her off to die...
It wasn't just Felicity on the sound stone who could relate to her. It was everyone. Any one of the ponies in this bed, she could pick, and they would know something about leaving their world behind, or having it ripped away. All of them could help her, tell her what they found and walk beside her. One might even go as far as saying it was why the group of them traveled together. For finding ponies who knew about dealing with loss, she had to look no further than the ones who had surrounded her for the past weeks and months. Why was she letting them go on ahead? All the expertise she needed was right here...
Except it wasn't. Because if any of them had known the secret to truly finishing their searches and rebuilding their lives, they would have gotten off the ship and been done looking.
Starlight's view of the parting immediately turned on its head. What if she wasn't being left behind, but leaving them behind? What if the unknown she was stepping out into was precisely what all of them were looking for, and had yet to find? It was an idea of hope for her, but for her friends...
They weren't going out on a heroic adventure to get the Writs of Harmonic Sanction so they could bring her and Maple back into the fold. They were finding them for themselves so they could catch up.
How could she handle this? How was this okay? She owed her friends everything. Could she really take the weak road and walk toward her happy ending early, leaving the rest of them to fly on alone?
No, Valey's voice chided in her head, she had it all wrong. It was absolutely okay because she was at the end of her rope and her friends had the strength to keep going. And the only way to get everyone to the finish in the end was to give no one more than what they could bear.
Starlight started crying, tears trickling from her eyes without any change to her breaths. She didn't even sniffle. She had done that too much today to have energy for anything more. But she cried because she was weak, because she had to be the one who finished first, because she didn't have the strength to make sacrifices and protect her friends and do what it took to care for them, even though she was the strongest filly she knew. Starlight cried because whatever all her power was worth, it measured up to nothing compared to this. She cried because she couldn't... and because she didn't have to.
She no longer had to be the strongest. She could afford not to, because her friends were stronger than her. It was what she had always been afraid of, having to rely on fate for a good outcome when she lacked the strength to intervene herself. But was relying on her friends the same as relying on fate, when she knew they would fight for her and for themselves with every bit of fervor she could muster on her own? This was what she was terrified of, but it was what she also so badly desired.
At long last, Maple and Amber entered the bedroom, scents more familiar than any of the others save Valey. They closed the door behind them, still not sharing a word, and the bed shifted and groaned one last time with their movements. Maple tucked against Starlight, and Amber sprawled atop Maple, and while the rooftops of Sires Hollow were still visible, looking out in that direction now held the visage of Maple as well.
Starlight was looking at her future. Maple was still there. Amber was a part of Maple's story, and they would both miss her keenly, but out of all the goodbyes Starlight could think about all of her friends, Maple was the one she didn't have to. She was the one she could hold onto. She was safe.
She trusted her never, ever to leave like Sunburst.
"Mm love you," Starlight mumbled, her mouth pressed partly shut by the bed.
"I love you too, Starlight," Maple whispered against her. "Let's get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."
Starlight closed her eyes one last time, and tried to sleep.
Outside the window, the roofs of Sires Hollow were still all visible, lit by the stars. Those same stars shone down upon forested slopes and mountaintops, refracted across sheets of snow and ice matching the sheer, jagged peaks in a kaleidoscope of silver sparkles. To the east, the constellations remained unchanged, the moon waxing and nearly full, covering rivers and seas and desert peninsulas and oceans and Kinmari, and the lands beyond where Gunther and his griffon crew may or may not have returned home. The stars were also unchanged across the Aldenfold, the same heavens and the same moon looking down at what had become of the Griffon Empire. Far beyond Starlight's view, the stars themselves still reached.
They shone over Mistvale, no one left to report whether its nights still magically carried on forever. They washed the wavetips of the northern sea, a crossing that had once been the staple of the northern world economy, though who but the stars could say who was crossing it now? They flowed over the mouth of the Yule, the badlands and deserts of Varsidel, the tall conifers of Riverfall and the mountain crater of Ironridge, because as vast as the world was, the stars were higher still. The Aldenfold itself, the stars also saw, a route Starlight had traced months ago through the lonely peaks and valleys. That sight, it could be reasonable to say, she was the only mortal they had ever shared it with.
And as the route Starlight had taken around the world looped back and met itself back where it began, the stars looked down on one more sight that was for them and them alone: the shielded ocean bay where the Immortal Dream sat, harmony comet powered down and doors locked tight, where a tiny northern airship sized for one coasted down the mountainside and came to a rest on an outcropping, as hidden from view of the town as it could be.
Thump. Four paws alighted almost silently on the deck of the Immortal Dream, and a feline muzzle raised its nose and sniffed. Two rounded ears folded and pressed back hard.
A single claw extended, delicately trying a door. Locked. They didn't try to force it.
With a rush of wings, a shadow glided to the boat's side, glancing in through porthole after porthole. Empty cabin. Empty cabin. Empty.
"Where are they!?" High Prince Gazelle squealed under his breath, anxiety leaking from every corner of his body. He moved like a shadow, impossible to detect, but there was no one to detect him. The Dream was completely unguarded.
"No... Not even Valey is guarding their stupid boat?" He hyperventilated for a whole second, fighting and regaining control of himself. "It's empty..."
He knew Lyn wasn't here. He could feel it. She was over that low-lying ridge, just inside town. But if nobody else was here, where else could they be but there as well?
With a nervous twitch, his wings propelled him up to the ridge, and he landed near the top, where a small picnic area had been set up that didn't seem to be in use. Some of the town's buildings still had lights on. Most of them were dim. His quarry was all the way across town, to the west.
He didn't even bother with stealth. He just spread his wings and flew all the way around, skirting the town entirely.
Soon, Gazelle had his target narrowed down to a single house, and felt like it was on the upper floor at that. The lights were all off. He alighted on a first-floor roof adjacent to a window, peered through... and blanched.
There was a little bed, and a little desk, and a few crates that were half-opened and filled with filly things. This... This wasn't a fortress, or an inn, or an ordinary place to rest their heads while they carried along on a journey. This looked like a home, and it was being moved into.
He circled around, checking for more windows. There was one, wide and second-floor and painfully close to Lyn. He latched onto the wall and stared inside...
They were all there. Every last one of them, Starlight and Valey and however many others, piled into a single bed and sleeping peacefully. And by the foot of the bed, there was a discarded, filly-size set of saddlebags, and they held his prize.
Lyn was right there. Heavily guarded. In a home. And every one of Starlight and Valey and their friends looked like they were moving in and guarding her and there to stay.
Gazelle sucked in a breath, his heart's desire so close and yet separated by a thin piece of glass and an impossibly powerful filly. She was right there... like bait in a trap.
He breathed raggedly. Since skirmishing with Starlight at Kinmari, he had collected a few brands, but not as many as he had held then. He was a god, but she... Starlight had to be something sent to stop him, and now she had her friends instead of being alone. Desire for Lyn pressed him like a physical force against the window, and yet Starlight was there. She was here and her friends were here and all of them were staying and they weren't going to move and he had come all this way only to meet the end of the line.
Gazelle was a god. Fate was the will of a god, nothing more than occurrences that came to pass because whoever was strong enough to make them happen dictated that they be so. But Starlight had fought him, and Valey too. Their fate was stronger than his, and if it was destined that he couldn't take back Lyn, here at the end, then what was he even hoping to achieve? Why had he come all this way? In hopes that fate would bend to him for a change, and Lyn would be left forgotten in town while Starlight and Valey slumbered on the ship, too far to protect her?
But no. They were here, and here they were going to stay. An image stretched out in his mind, reaching for eternity, of the lot of them sitting in this town right there in that bed and guarding his sister forever, and...
He almost broke the glass. It almost would be better to die trying than to give up when he was so close. But he knew he couldn't do it. Starlight would prove stronger. It wasn't fair, but he couldn't do it! Why!? Why hadn't he been enough back on Kinmari, when he had her and underestimated that wretched filly and lost everything again!?
Whyever it was, Gazelle couldn't do it. He hung against the window and stared in despair at the satchel, so close and so barely out of reach.
Inside the house, Starlight's eyes were squeezed shut, but she was far from sleeping.
She felt her friends all breathing against her. All of them had calmed and drifted off long ago, and she wished she could do the same. But now that she was here, all she could do was lay restlessly, praying that morning would both come soon and yet never come.
Her world ended tomorrow, but she had survived such a thing before. Or had she? Could she really call where she was now survival?
She could. Because that was exactly where she was: surviving. Maybe not living. That was the next step. But she would survive.
It would be okay. She could do this. She wished she could do it, knew she could do it, wished that her wish would be granted and she could have a strength worth believing in, to let go of her friends and face a future without them. But with them all here, so close and present, they were impossible not to hold onto. Starlight prayed that she could do the impossible.
"You can do this," she squeaked, her tongue moving halfway through the motions and no breath following to make sound, a tiny, high-pitched noise in her throat all that reached her ears. "You can do this... You can do this... You can do this..."
"I can't do this," Gazelle breathed, the cold reality he had been running from for a month of travel hitting his face just like the window to Maple's bedroom. What hope did he ever have of getting Starlight to leave Lyn alone and give her back? Force was the rightful option. It was his right to use that. He could have anything. He could raze this town to the ground as it slept, take all their brands, and decree himself to be in the right purely because it was within his power... but what purpose would that serve? The town had a guardian angel, and the one thing he cared about, she was sitting on and would never let go.
It had been possible to deny it on the long flight from the Griffon Empire, telling himself stories about how she would forget, or lose her powers, or be effortlessly swatted aside. But those were fantasies and wishful thinking... the only fantasies he didn't have the power to bring to reality in this barren world! That and get Lyn back.
Who was Starlight guarding? What was she the angel of? Once, he had thought she stopped him to bring him back to his senses, long ago when the Empire was still his own. But no... She was like a dragon, zealously guarding the things she claimed as her own. She only bothered him when he tried to take something she wanted. Like any other pony at all.
Gazelle hissed in rage, his jaw contorting in a silent, helpless scream. He was so close, and he couldn't!
He couldn't do it.
Screw Garsheeva and her bargains and plans. He didn't care about whatever she had to offer, unless there was a time machine that could bring back the past in that fetid temple of hers. He would become the most powerful being in the world for Lyn, do anything for her... and that was where his road ended, because of this accursed filly who wouldn't get out of his way.
Even by sleeping peacefully in a bed, she stood in his way, and there was nothing he could do.
He couldn't do this at all.
"Please," Starlight whimpered, her voice still a wordless, tiny squeak that was too high for anyone else to hear. "If anyone is out there and anyone can hear me, please help me..."
What was she wishing for? Strength to survive and go on living, even though she was already so strong she could fight off windigoes, Crystal and Gazelle? Someone to carry her when she was weak? She had Maple. She wished that Maple would be strong, that she would believe herself when she told herself she could do it as her adventure ended. Starlight knew she could make it through this and into the future, and she knew the future could be bright. Surrounded by her friends for the very last time, she was riding on a bed of hope, trusting that the world tomorrow would still exist around her and that there would still be ground for her to stand on as she got back on her hooves.
She wished that trust would be returned. She prayed that trust would be returned. She hoped and dreamed that when she told herself she could do it, the world would let her be right... and slowly, in a feverish focus, she lost her grip and slid into sleep, and dreamed of shooting stars.
Gazelle fell back from the window.
It was less than an inch, but he still broke contact, like a screen of water was now separating him from Lyn like the surface of a lake, and the more he stared, the deeper it became.
He couldn't do this. The water was pushing him away. He was losing his grip, would surely drown if he didn't stop, and yet he couldn't break away and put Lyn down.
There was something behind him, he knew. A night sky strewn with stars, and a whole world, and his unimaginable sphinx powers. He could do anything in the world, anything he wanted, if only he could let go of the one thing Starlight wouldn't let him have.
But Lyn was all he had. She was all that defined him. If he let go, he'd be nothing. But clinging on and trying to reach her... He just couldn't do it.
Where was the answer? There was none. But what could he do? Stay where he was? Night would pass, and morning would come, and Starlight would see him, trap or not.
He couldn't reach Lyn. He knew Starlight would stop him. But he couldn't let her go, either... There was just nothing he could do. He was almighty, and he couldn't do anything. Not anything at all.
Starlight rolled over, the voices of her friends echoing in her ears. No it wasn't.
"Maple is making pancakes," Amber insisted. "Come on, you don't want to miss them!"
That voice was a dream. It belonged in the life she had left behind when she closed her eyes, a life she wished for where all her friends could live happily with her together, and not the life she had. Amber and everyone else were gone. She had forced herself to let go...
"Come on, sleepyhead!" A pair of very real hooves shook her, and Starlight squeaked in surprise as she was jolted awake. "We've got a few more hours before we leave. Maybe you want to sleep, but I say we all hang out as much as possible first. There'll be plenty of time for sleeping afterward. Don't you want to hang out with me?"
Starlight blinked open her bleary eyes. She remembered a restless night, and how it had taken forever to get to sleep... Amber looked wide awake and peppy. What time even was it?
"Also, Fluffy Fleece got here an hour ago," Amber added. "She's been asking when you would wake up."
Starlight yawned. She didn't remember Fluffy being a morning pony. What was so exciting for her about today? "Okay," she grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her mouth with her tongue. "I'm coming..."
She slid out of bed, and her hooves hit the floor with a thump that she felt in all her joints. It proved the floor was real. The floor still existed. The world had existed. It hadn't all ended last night.
In a trance, Starlight followed Amber down the stairs, going back on the steps she had taken last night. Then, she had felt like she was walking to her end... but where was she walking now? Her friends were still here. This couldn't be her new life.
She still knew that she was in a dream.
"Hey, chum!" Valey winked at her as she stepped into the hallway, sprawled on her back on a kitchen countertop and having some sort of discussion with Shinespark.
"Starlight!" Maple greeted, wearing an apron and flipping pancakes. "You're awake! Trouble sleeping last night?"
"Seems like it," Amber said for her. "This girl was sleepy."
"You're up!" Fluffy chirped, looking up from where she was hunched over a table, a pencil falling from her mouth. "Did you see my sketchbook? It was moved from where I left it."
Starlight could only watch with a slack jaw, two different and incompatible worlds mashed together that she didn't know how to handle. She had gone to sleep expecting the end, and yet here she still was, caught between a present that refused to end and a future that was trying to start early.
After a few seconds of no response, Amber covered for her. "Okay, maybe let her wake up a little more before dropping a ton of questions on her. Maple, need a hoof over there?"
Starlight took a few steps, trying to shake herself out of it. "I'm awake."
"Did you read my sketchbook?" Fluffy asked, getting up and coming closer. "And are you okay?"
Starlight blinked. Was there any reason for her to be more or less okay than expected, given everything that was...?
Oh. Right. When Fluffy had left yesterday, it was because she broke down in the bathroom.
Again.
"All my friends are leaving," she replied, not quite making eye contact. "So no, I'm not okay. But maybe I will be. This is just a hard time."
Fluffy nodded in encouragement. "Well, I hope you get better. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you scared me yesterday."
"Sorry." Starlight's ears fell, and she took a breath. "I did read your book. It was cool. I'm not really feeling up to it right now, but after everyone is gone, maybe you could help me with ideas for my own room."
That was the right thing to say, and Fluffy lit up with gratitude. "Of course! You just say the word, Starlight. But, right." Her face fell. "You probably still have to focus on saying goodbye, don't you?"
Starlight hesitated. She already had said goodbye, she felt like. And a part of her, deep down, was still scarred enough from Sunburst that maybe she hadn't said hello as fully as she could either, just so this would hurt less. She remembered all of her thoughts from the night before on the ponies she called friends, even if they were more middle-distance friends than the close ones like Maple.
The hard part wouldn't be watching the Dream actually fly away. It would be waiting these last few hours while her world existed in two states at once, both ones she desired, yet couldn't have together. The present, where her friends were here and her new life was too, was too good to be true. Maybe she wouldn't miss it as much if she didn't taste it too much while it was here.
Maple came wandering over, meeting them at the table with a fresh stack of pancakes. "Some of the others have already eaten," she explained, "so help yourselves. But Gerardo, Slipstream, Nyala and Grenada went off to get the ship ready, and they'll be hungry too whenever they get back, so best to eat your fill now while you can."
"Thanks." Starlight took the plate she was offered, setting it down... and noticed there wasn't one for Fluffy. "Aren't you going to have some too?"
"Heheh..." Fluffy giggled, stretching and rubbing her stomach. "I ate while you were sleeping. I'm really full. They're good, though!"
Starlight's ears fell, but she dug in regardless. "Just how late is it?" she asked around a mouthful of buttery, syrupy pancake fluff.
"Not very," Maple replied. "We went to bed earlier than we're used to, I think, because of the early sunset here. And we want to get an early start, since we don't know how much distance we have to travel and are hoping to make it as far as we can before nightfall. Better not to ascend through mountains when it's hard to see the ground, after all..." She chuckled, though the idea of the Dream ramming into a mountain because the terrain was hard to see wasn't very funny.
Starlight nodded, realizing her own travel time was a very poor measure of how far it was for an airship to reach the north from here.
"You're flying over mountains?" Fluffy blinked. "But there's nothing to the west except snow and ice for hundreds of miles. I thought you were from the east!"
Maple froze, and Starlight realized that likely none of them remembered Fluffy didn't know where they were from. She quickly stepped in. "We're actually from, um... It's sort of a secret." Her ears fell, and she glanced at Fluffy. "I'll tell you after they leave if you promise not to tell it all over the place? Talking about it might make the guards mad."
Fluffy stared at her in utter confusion, but quickly nodded resolutely. "Whatever that is, you have my attention. I promise, though."
Starlight sagged, grateful that her friend had a reasonable head on her shoulders, and went back to hiding her face with pancakes. Maple's cooking was a comfort, and unlike her other friends, it was a comfort she could hold onto. There was no reason she had to feel bad about enjoying this.
Eventually, the door opened, and Gerardo Guillaume stepped through. "We've done all our flight preparations," he announced, nodding at the mares and fillies. "After a solid month of flight, there were a few things Grenada wanted to check up on while the engine was off, but everything is in order now. We also, ah..." His headcrest drooped. "Made sure Jamjars is still present, just like you recommended. Seeing as there were fears she would attempt to ditch us at the last second."
Harshwater guiltily looked up, four breakfast plates stacked clean before her. "Pancake paradise time is over, is it?"
"Hey!" Amber snapped, trotting over and swishing her tail with a grin. "Just because Maple's the chef of our group doesn't mean I haven't picked up a trick or two of my own. You want pancakes, I can make a mean instant pancake mix any day of the week."
Valey and Shinespark looked up as well, but they didn't jest. "This is it, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
"It seems this is it." Shinespark stood a little straighter, nodding at Maple and then Starlight.
Starlight blinked. It felt like she had been awake for bare minutes... Seconds, even. Last night, she had consoled herself over everything she hadn't done at the party with the fact that there would still be the morning. This morning, she had felt like the time couldn't pass quickly enough, like she was caught between two worlds that were destined to part and trying to hold them together would only bring pain. But now it was over?
Valey glanced across at her. "You wanna come down for a last goodbye? We've, uh... got a few things to give you. Or at least I do."
"And I have a few things to get," Maple agreed. "We'll also bring the guards. I want them to see me using the Writ of Harmonic Sanction out in the open, in plain sight. I don't know how they detect these, but I don't want there to be a shadow of a doubt that I belong here with you."
Starlight's eyes widened. "You haven't used it already?"
Maple wilted apologetically. "I was... waiting to see if you would change your mind. We've only been here for a day, Starlight, and yesterday was... Well, I wanted to make sure you had a night to sleep on it."
Right. That made sense. Starlight nodded.
There was definitely no part of Maple's decision-making that deeply, quietly hoped she would be allowed to go back to Riverfall and keep her whole world together, too. Why even was Starlight cutting both of them off from their friends?
Fluffy shifted nearby. Right. It was because of the home she could reclaim, settling back down where she once was. All of this was painful, but it was done for her future. It would work. She would live here and one day be able to laugh with her friends without breaking down because of it.
And this also said that Maple trusted her. If Maple thought this was the right decision, but didn't trust Starlight not to second-guess herself, she could have locked it in early by using the writ as soon as possible. But Starlight hadn't even thought about changing her mind. She hadn't thought about it, and Maple had trusted that she wouldn't...
Maple knew her. Starlight felt known. It was a much better feeling than she was ready for, here at the end.
She didn't trust herself not to cry, but knew that when the time came, her friends would understand.
"R-Right." She stood strongly, her legs ready and willing even though she barely understood her resolve. "Let's go get a guard and say goodbye."
Starlight Glimmer wasn't the only creature the morning dawned on. Far to the north and a ways to the west, the sun shone in through a cockpit's side windows, illuminating a dashboard stained with tears.
Where was Gazelle going? North, because he would be foolish to stay in Equestria, and west, because he didn't care to share turf with Garsheeva. Beyond that, it didn't matter. Maybe the yaks had a use for a bitter, scheming sphinx whose schemes weren't even good enough to keep one filly alive, let alone conquer her an empire. Maybe he'd go to Varsidel. That warring cesspool could always use an extra tyrant, or maybe some vengeance for taking his parents and leaving him to fail Lyn on his own. He didn't even know what was to the northwest between the two, and while the odds weren't favorable that it had any pastimes suitable for drowning out the sorrows of a god, he had nothing better to do than find out.
The sun burned like a knife through his right-side window, blazing and purging and unable to burn his woes away. Yet what if it could, if given enough time? He felt like laying down in a desert and letting it bake him until he was a corpse, until the brands he had found ran out of whatever let them heal him and he became dust, just like Lyn. But maybe he couldn't. Maybe the brands would lock him into life forever.
But did he really want to die?
He had nothing left to live for, that was certain. Everything he had dedicated himself to had been brutally torn away by his own failings, and a tyrant madder than he was called fate itself stood in the way of regaining it, wearing the face of a little lilac filly. He couldn't even put words to why he was so scared of her, just knew that she would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Which, if fate truly hated him, would last forever.
What was the point of that? Why was he running, instead of attacking and fighting and being smart and getting himself killed? His enemies had been sleeping. All rationality said he could have killed them with a single claw, but there was nothing rational about the whims of gods. Lyn was dead, and Starlight mandated that she stay so.
Probably.
She had given her back, once...
And then taken her away again. Gazelle tightened his jaw; she was just as fickle as he was. Another sign that he was outmatched. He might as well be an ordinary pegasus instead of a sphinx, with nothing but a normal death separating him from his sister. It would be just as insurmountable. And yet it happened to the entire, accursed world. Everyone but immortals died. It was his birthright to be above all this! It was supposed to be...
He was above the landscape, at least, glistening peaks and mountain walls that were as far below him as all his troubles deserved to be, yet weren't. Maybe if he was lucky, the wilderness would extend forever, and he could do nothing for the rest of eternity save for flying away. But the world would end somewhere. There would always be an edge, after which he could fly no further. What were the odds that before then, he would find a good way to die?
Zero. He already had a good way to die: turning around and challenging Starlight and her friends. But spite or pride or something else kept him from doing that, even though his paws shook with intensity against the ship's wheel. The sun burned his coat, but only because its rising wasn't meant for him: all he deserved was to slink around through the dark, after everything he couldn't do.
Gazelle shivered. Gazelle cried. He didn't know where he was going or why he was going there, but if there was anything he wanted, anything that could possibly find room alongside Lyn in his heart, it was to find out.
Below, a lake was trapped between two ridges, snow lining all the way down to its frozen shores. The surface was frozen, but to one end was a tiny outlet, the water pouring out from beneath the ice into a fast-running mountain stream. If you drained a frozen lake but didn't let the surface sink with the water level, would you get an ice cave, an underground sea that was miles high? Almost like an empty heart, looking normal on the outside, yet without containing any of the things that were supposed to compose it.
The water drained through a canyon, rushing around twists and bends with a violence that was constant and unending. There was a place where it backed up, where an avalanche had fallen into the canyon and created a lake, until the waters overflowed and continued on their destructive way. Gazelle wanted to punch the canyon walls like they did, leave his ship and hammer at them until the end of time. Just like a sphinx, they were always violent, even when they tried to block themselves.
Sometime in the night, he had passed the mountains' divide, and the terrain grew lower as he flew. Here and there, valleys grew forests, their trees snow-capped yet sheltered from the wind by the walls. But the valleys without outlets only grew lakes; the ones where forests flourished had rivers that drained away, preventing them from flooding yet providing water for the vegetation roots. If Gazelle was the water, what was he here?
Were sphinxes and rulers and gods life-givers, sources that trees and ponies and griffons couldn't grow apart from? No trees grew where there weren't rivers.
But the rivers did nothing but drain, carrying the water away from everything they created and preventing those things from drowning. If Gazelle was the water, his destiny was to be removed and carried away.
That was what Garsheeva had done, ending the age of sphinxes in the east. That was what Crystal had done, robbing him of Lyn. Maybe it was what he should do too, flying away endlessly until he and the world were nothing but memories to each other. He had no place here, after all.
The morning streets of Sires Hollow swirled about Starlight like a dream, bright and sunny and far more real than she was. Cool mountain air clashed with sunbeams, the sun just high enough to strike the ground over the eastern ridge, and they hadn't quite finished purging a foggy mist that had settled over the town at night, sparkling and twisting over faint remaining tendrils of cloud. The moist air wetted Starlight's cheeks and glared in her eyes, making the streets almost hard to look at; the walls and roofs around her were stable, but the yellow dirt roads reached up and glittered, preventing her from seeing the immediate horizon.
Her other friends were tall enough that they didn't seem to have the problem, she noticed, observing Fluffy's hover and their longer strides. They didn't have to shield their eyes as much as she did. The streets of Sires Hollow might have been familiar to her, but they were the ones who could see where they were going. Starlight was reliant only on her ideas of what should be where, the bright mist making it impossible to look at her path ahead.
At least it was a bright path, and not a dark one.
Beneath Gazelle's view, green had replaced the mountain white. Forests stretched in groves and covered valleys rather than standing in isolated clumps, their branches no longer laden with snow. The skyline sloped sharply down, each ridge and line of peaks far lower than the previous, and in the distance he could see a line where there should have been more mountains and there weren't. There was just nothingness, a distance so far that the air itself became visible, where the line where the horizon should have been didn't exist and instead the world fell away.
So ended the Aldenfold. He slumped with his chin against the dashboard, fangs exposed, wishing it was truly the end of the world and he could sail onward, flying on until he crashed against whatever lay beyond.
A fuel notification light flickered: his mana core was half empty. Given how far the ship had carried him already, it was less a limitation and more a reminder of just how far he could go. What if he stopped, angled himself toward the heavens and turned the throttle to max, and did nothing else but let fate control his destination?
Pointless. It was pointless to wonder that. That was already what he was doing. Going where he went, without a care to influence it. Nothing he cared about remained in the world.
Starlight couldn't see where she was going, but she could see where she was: in front of the mayor's house, where Fishy lived.
"You all are leaving, is it?" Fishy asked, greeting them on the porch after a period of waiting. "Might as well come see you off. I'm certain someone will find official business regarding it to be had."
Valey casually brushed a shoulder. "Eh, I talked to the guard boss guy. They're too smart to go looking for trouble. All they do is report what happens, and Princess Cheesemane knowing we went this way isn't a problem for me at all."
"Cheesemane?" Maple raised an eyebrow. "How did you come up with that nickname?"
Valey shrugged. "You know, she's the big cheese, and she has a really noticeable mane... It makes sense, right?"
Starlight nodded. It made more sense than anything else in her life right then.
"I'd like to see you call her that to her face," Fishy chuckled. "Actually, what I wouldn't give to even see her face-to-face period in my life. We're dead north of Canterlot, and we're about as far north from Canterlot as you can go."
"Who are we talking about?" Fluffy asked, hovering around. "You don't mean Princess Celestia, do you? There are pictures of her everywhere."
"Yeah, kid, back me up on this." Valey bobbed her head. "Her mane looks like cheese, right? Tell me this is true."
"Ummm..."
Starlight stared at the mist until her eyes hurt. Whatever world she was in right now, it was one where her friends could joke about Princess Celestia and cheese. If only this was a world she could stay in forever.
Gazelle wasn't anywhere at all, but he could absolutely see where he was going.
As another line of mountain ridges passed below and he drew closer to the Aldenfold's final, extreme vertical wall, the horizon began to take shape, a cloudless sea of green and brown but mostly green. That was only to the right, though: looking left, a solid line of color divided the landscape, so solid and so distant and so only defined by color that it could have been a watercolor. A painting.
That, his basic knowledge of western geography told him, was the border between the badlands and Yakyakistan, the start of the mountain chain stretching out to the north that separated the rest of the world from the yaks' giant glacier. Down in the crook where it met the Aldenfold, below the mountain wall and in the mountains that made up the foothills, there would be the city of Ironridge.
Ironridge was where Starlight and her friends were from. Last he had heard, it was also a dump, economically ruined and cut off from the rest of the world. And also where he had stranded the more elite half of Stormhoof's army.
Maybe they were still there.
He slumped against the dashboard, not a single muscle moved, and dreamed about stopping in that city. Maybe it was isolated enough, they wouldn't have heard about the Empire. Maybe they wouldn't have heard about Equestria. Maybe they would regale him as a crown prince, and that army of do-gooders he had ditched there would take up arms and follow him.
But that was probably too much to hope for.
The next building Starlight Glimmer came to was the guardhouse. Fishy had joined their procession, and for all Starlight knew she could have just as easily been a spectator at a parade as at a funeral. And not through any behavior of her own: Starlight was both bidding farewell to her old world, and saying hello to the next one.
Whatever kind of conduct was even appropriate for that, Starlight wasn't going to judge. She didn't even know how she was supposed to be acting herself, let alone how her friends were. She couldn't take this conflating mishmash of worlds anymore, this land where her past and future wouldn't let the present be. She was ready to try, and she needed to move on.
Two guards joined them, which Starlight figured was all the guardhouse had to offer. "Cardinal Foghorn," the stallion reminded them, even though his name was distinctive enough that Starlight remembered it anyway, like a shock of red in the gray malaise that was clouding her mind. "You'll be taking off now, I take it."
"Yep." Amber gave an apprehensive glance to Maple, but nodded. Starlight saw it all. This was the end, close enough that it was sinking in for her friends too. "We're leaving."
"And Starlight and I are staying behind," Maple added. "Starlight is a native, and I'll be using our Writ of Harmonic Sanction."
"Using?" Cardinal Foghorn raised an eyebrow. "Waiting until the end to see if you change your minds, I see."
Maple nodded. "Well, we didn't. I hope you won't mind being a witness..."
Foghorn's horn flashed conspicuously. "No need. There's a military spell that makes it easy to check whether someone's a native or has a writ."
Gerardo blinked, tilting his head. "A simple unicorn spell? I've always been extremely curious how that worked..."
"Couldn't tell you." Foghorn shrugged. "It's a military spell. Can only be given, not taught, and it beats me how it works. Just gives me one signal if you're Equestrian and another if you're good to come and go as you please."
"Well, I suppose that makes things easy," Maple declared, squaring her shoulders. "To the boat?"
"Yes," Silver Saddle agreed, "I'm quite curious to get a proper look at this airship of yours."
Valey raised a fuzzy eyebrow. "You're coming too?"
"Of course." Silver Saddle primly shrugged, so expertly groomed that no trace of the prior day's garbage bath remained, yet there was no obvious compensation or overgrooming either. "Just because your foreign customs find garbage bins to equate to acceptable methods of flirting doesn't mean I have to take offense. I am a gracious host."
Valey shook her head. "You're trying to convince me I'm flirting with you again after yesterday? Bananas, I just don't get you, girl."
Starlight's attention was still fixed on Silver's looks. She didn't smell like heavily scented shampoo, used to obscure decomposing lawn clippings. She didn't smell like decomposing lawn clippings either. She didn't look like her coat had been brushed a thousand times to remove any traces of other refuse, but she didn't have any traces either. She didn't look like she had just sat in a garbage bin and been disgraced by insults without end. She just looked... well-taken care of, but within a level that was completely normal.
As odd as it felt to be looking up to a pony who had displayed such questionable judgement, Starlight was impressed. This mare knew how to take a hit and come back without overcompensating and actually be normal.
Maybe Fluffy wasn't the only pony in this town she could learn something from. Maybe she could have a wider friend group here... or, Silver probably wouldn't be a friend, but a pony she could know and look to.
Maybe her future just got a little bit clearer.
Gazelle slumped atop his dashboard, daydreaming about a future that wouldn't exist, because he had no future at all.
What if the Stormhoof armada was still down there, in Ironridge? What if the city was isolated enough not to know about him, or sphinxes, or Crystal? What could he do with an army of well-trained, well-equipped soldiers loyal to a house that had once been his closest ally?
Skullduggery? Probably not. The troops had enough moral fiber to direct themselves, and he wasn't an official part of their command chain. If they followed him, it would be out of respect and goodwill. And he didn't have any goals to achieve through underhandedness anyway.
What if he tried leading them back home, to help out the Empire and restore peace and order?
It was a funny thought, openly trying to be the hero for a change. He would have no political advantage on his targets, just an army who believed in their homeland. He could do as little as point them in the right direction and ride home at their head as a hero. And so what if he returned to the Empire without Garsheeva's precious brand stash? Without them, she was just as mortal as he was. Although he had regained his few from eating moon glass so as not to leave a trail, and she wouldn't have such a restriction... Whatever. Now that she had quit, he could try to claim the moral high ground. He could try to get public backing. The Empire might accept him if he tried to be a good ruler who brought home their armies and restored peace and order to the continent, and the old order that mandated only princesses rule was gone. He could have it all, and be in the right.
He wondered if a continent full of legitimate adoration could ever fill the sister-sized hole that consumed his life.
Gazelle dreamed of slashing batpony shells and infidels, of eradicating the old house structure that led to so many wars under Garsheeva and establishing a singular monarchy. He dreamed of finding sarosians who had somehow survived and using them to continue the royal line... No, Garsheeva had said that was over even if there were still sphinxes now. He dreamed of ushering a peaceful transition to a real griffon king and a new griffon royal line, of going down in history books forever as the last, greatest sphinx ruler of the world. And for a moment, a tiny spark of ambition that had nothing to do with Lyn flickered in his chest.
But there was one problem.
It wasn't whether Ironridge knew, or whether the soldiers would follow him if he told them their homeland was in danger. Those were simple chance. He could go in, and perhaps Ironridge would end him, for any number of reasons. Or perhaps the soldiers would already be gone. Or not have the resources to fly home. Or have pledged to a new lord, or... It was all chance. But those things didn't matter, because they were out of his hooves.
What mattered was that the last time he acted with all the best intentions, took his dreams of being the hero of the Empire and conquering the provinces, of squashing the House of Lords under his paw and occupying all the continent with his own military, all in the name of the sister he loved, he became a monster, and let Gwendolyn perish.
He had been a monster. There was no way not to face it. Call himself a god, howl to the heavens about morality, Starlight had stopped him, and she had to be something higher. The strong made the rules, and because he had lost, he was wrong. She only fought him when he was wrong. But only by being wrong and resisting could he be right. But...
He snarled, tearing his focus away from Starlight. The problem was that he couldn't be trusted. He would take the soldiers, save the Empire, restore order, be hailed as a hero... and let it all go to his head.
There was no reward he could claim that wouldn't poison him. If his love of his sister had led him astray, what would fighting for worldly acclaim and the future of his country bring?
He was a monster, trapped by his own destiny. His future suddenly grew a whole lot dimmer.
Gazelle touched the control panel, angling the ship down.
He could see two horizons, now: the last line of peaks before the Aldenfold wall, and the true north stretching out beyond that, vanishing in the distance as far as the eye could see. An ending, here and now, and another ending, beyond what was known. He could quit, or he could continue, surrender to his fate or fight it once again.
The world still ended somewhere out there, beyond the northern sky. It was inevitable, just like how all sphinxes fell, cut down by chaotic perversions of their passions. But he couldn't see that edge, just like his second downfall didn't have to be today. He could fly on, denying his hubris, and go to Ironridge and look for his army.
Or he could push the ship's nose down just a little further, give up before he even tried... No matter what, it would be a future without Lyn.
The last mountain ridge sat even in his sights, perfectly flat in the middle of the horizon. He locked his paw, refusing to let the angle change. Either he would clip through the horizon and sail on to the future, or he would end here and now. He had some amount of brands stored away, but they wouldn't be enough to allow him to survive an airship crash, right?
Fate was his enemy. Gazelle was tired, and there was an end whichever way he went. Whichever way his angle erred, into the mountains or into the sky... If he survived, he was going on to fight his own fate.
Unless the army was gone. Or unless they wouldn't listen to him. Or unless... whatever.
Gazelle closed his eyes and left his future up to fate.
The mist abated as Starlight climbed the path leading out of Sires Hollow, left behind in the city she would call home. Her two worlds that were so mashed together were separating, the ridge between the town and the bay cutting through them and pushing them apart. She imagined there was an earthquake, the bay with the Immortal Dream breaking off and flying into the sky, friends and airship and water and rocks and everything, but it didn't reach her legs. Her hooves were padded with boots of air, her step so unnaturally light she was more worried she would fall away into the heavens first.
A shimmering reached her ears, and then the harmony comet came into sight, orange and swirling with wisps of white energy trailing through its overglow. She recognized Slipstream on the deck, and Slipstream waved. Funny, that her friends were waving hello here when it was the end.
Starlight barely noticed the rocky trail beneath her hooves, and it transitioned all too soon to the staircase down to the fishing boat dock. She tried to focus on where she was walking, yet the sensations of creaking boards and crunching flakes of gravel eluded her, her path carrying her onward and onward. Either the end was coming all too quickly or not soon enough, and now it just had to switch back to the former. Before she could even process it, she was on the boat.
"Hey, everyone!" Slipstream greeted. "Got all your things? This would be a bad time to forget and leave stuff behind."
Valey belched. "Uhh, whoops! I totally forgot two of my most valuable things ever." She turned, winking at Maple and Starlight. "Guess we'll have to hurry up and get those writs so we can get back here and fix that, won't we?"
Maple giggled. Actually giggled. "We'll take good care of ourselves and make sure we're nice and shiny when you get back."
When they got back... That was too far in the future for Starlight to think about. She knew the only way she'd survive this was letting go. If her friends returned, that would be a miracle, not something she relied upon to live.
Valey cleared her throat. "Actually, though, we, uh... We actually do have some last-minute gifts to give you. Just thought it would be cool to have something to remember us by."
"Right." Maple nodded. "And I do as well. But first..." She glanced over her shoulder to Fishy, Cardinal Foghorn and Silver Saddle. "We probably should handle official business. Do we have the Writ of Harmonic Sanction?"
Shinespark glanced over her shoulder at the entrance to the bridge. "In there. Shall I go fetch it?"
Valey thumped her back. "In a sec. First, I wanna-"
Starlight's attention was stolen by Jamjars, slinking up to her side. "It's not too late to change your mind," Jamjars whispered.
"I'm not changing my mind." Starlight's ears aggressively folded. Second-guessing herself after all she had done to prepare for this goodbye would only bring pain, she knew. "I'm sorry. You'll... You'll have to make new friends in Riverfall."
Jamjars gave her a look, then opened one of her saddlebags and pointed to a folder inside. It was stamped with a Griffon Empire Classified label, and Starlight quickly remembered where she had seen it before.
"That's..." Starlight frowned. "You were showing me that the night Gazelle attacked. While I was having a sleepover with you."
Jamjars nodded seriously. "You're really comfortable leaving me to solve whatever she left unfinished on my own?"
Starlight stared at the folder, remembering what was inside. Plans for some sort of machine, with an Indus harmony extractor tail similar to Aegis's and a design she had only seen in the fake Yanavan's cave in a dream in Mistvale... "What's to solve about it?" she asked, slightly apprehensive. "The other me is still alive somewhere. Maybe she'll do something with it."
"And you're comfortable with that?" Jamjars pressed. "I saw your reaction to seeing this. You don't want to make sure I don't take them and do... whatever?"
"Will you take them and do whatever?" Starlight gave her a deathly serious look. "I'm staying here because I don't want to do anything more important, and that's the exact kind of thing I want to avoid!"
Jamjars shrugged. "What's the kind of thing you want to avoid?"
"Anything other than throwing those plans away and never pulling them back out," Starlight replied. "Which probably isn't what you had in mind."
Over her shoulder, Fluffy Fleece approached, curious. "What are you talking about?"
Jamjars smoothly closed her saddlebags, practiced in the art of hiding what she was doing without any trace of suspicion or guilt. "Telling my friend how much I'll miss her and wish she'd come home," she replied, staring longingly at Fluffy's mane. "I don't suppose it's to late for you and me to make amends?"
"Um..." Fluffy blinked. "Well, if you say sorry, but I still don't think we're ever going to see each other again..."
Starlight watched the exchange, not knowing what to say. "I'm... staying here," she repeated. "I'm sorry, Jamjars. Maybe I'll see you again someday. Just don't do anything with those, okay? I'm saying I trust you, and that's what you always want, so... that's my goodbye present."
Jamjars folded her ears, a look of real guilt flashing briefly across her practiced face. "Yeah, well... I'm sorry too. For everything. I need to be alone right now. See you later."
Her horn flashed, and suddenly she took on a wood-grain camouflage. Starlight quickly lost her as she dashed for the stern entry.
"Woah," Fluffy remarked, staring at where Jamjars had disappeared. "How'd she do that? Is magic just stronger in the north?"
Starlight shrugged. She didn't particularly want to talk about Jamjars, but that was where her thoughts all were... "It's a camouflage spell. And I don't know. Maybe we can just make our magic stronger when we really need it. She's never relied on others a lot before."
"Yeah..." Fluffy rubbed a shoulder awkwardly. "I get the feeling."
Gazelle's paw shivered atop the altitude control, and he didn't open his eyes. His angle was set. His course was up to fate. He had lost track of the seconds, but knew the mountain ridge was still up ahead. How? He just had that much faith in fate's course for him.
Too low, and he would strike the ridge and explode, never needing to try again. Too high, and he would sail into the future, keep fighting his destiny and fail later, rather than now. Neither option was anything but a curse. There was no perfect middle ground. No right path. He almost imagined hitting the angle so perfectly, it sheared his ship in half, leaving half of him behind and half sailing onwards... It was a pointless image, but better than the cheering and drum beats that filled his head, begging him onward to becoming the Empire's hero.
He wanted that ending. It almost felt like a suitable way to atone. Too bad he couldn't do-
A shockwave smashed through his entire body, flinging him into the ceiling of the cabin as the floor bucked and ground beneath him. The airship lurched wildly, its nose flinging into the sky.
...But he hit the ground again, and it was still there. Ignoring the sudden bruises on his body, Gazelle clambered to a window, looking out. Had fate spoken?
Had he clipped the ridge? Had he cut it so close, he struck the mountains, yet his craft survived? Warning lights flared all over the dashboard, but he ignored them. If destiny willed it, he could ditch the ship and fly to Ironridge from here. Emergency sirens urged him to do just that.
Outside, though... He had to look. There it was: the final mountain ridge was behind him. Ahead, there was nothing but a sheer slope and then a sheerer precipice, the Aldenfold mountain wall dropping so far that the Yakyakistani mountain range below looked like it would barely rise up to his paws. The whole horizon was open.
Fate had spoken. Gazelle stared out the window, and saw his destiny.
His destiny was another airship, pointing right at him from the side.
"Still no response, captain," a unicorn mare with an Equestrian military uniform and her mane in a bun called, hunched over an expensive transceiver. "They're not answering out signal to halt."
"That's because that airship isn't of Equestrian design!" a stallion called out from nearby. The roof of their craft was low and its design flat and wide, employing no dirigible and built for maneuverability and speed. "The north doesn't have manatransceivers, do they?"
"They're flying north across the border," the mare replied, walking to the front windshield alongside an older mare in the pilot's chair. "So unless we're saying this is a return journey..."
"Wouldn't be surprised," the captain muttered, the smaller craft appearing on a radar as they approached. "Makes a lot more sense, sending forces from the west to reinforce that incident in the east when there's a risk of these to catch. I hope our princess realizes how impossible it's going to be to keep this whole thing airtight now that the spell is..." She trailed off, raising a spyglass and staring through to the window of the other ship. "Sweet Celestia, what is that thing piloting it!? It looks like a monster..."
The communications mare took the spyglass, peering through herself. Her ears fell. "It's a sphinx, commander. Griffon Empire royalty. Most of them usually have writs, but most are..." She focused the lenses. "Oh my Celestia, is that Gazelle? The security advisory..."
The stallion relieved her of the spyglass, taking a turn for himself. "Not the guy that attacked that school in the east? They said he was extradited back to the Empire for justice there! What's he doing out this far west?"
"Hmmm..." The captain reached down for a military terminal, tapping several times and bringing up an image of Gazelle. She took back the spyglass. "That seems to be him, alright. Looks like he's on a shoot first, ask questions later list if seen south of the border. And whatever this is, it counts."
The communications mare took another turn with the spyglass. "Are his eyes closed? He looks like he's going to crash."
"After assaulting our citizens?" The captain shrugged. "Maybe he'll save us the ammunition."
With a crunch and a spray of snow and shattered ice, Gazelle's ship tore through the mountain ridge, visibly damaged yet carrying through to the other side.
"Or not." The stallion shrugged. "Permission to fire when ready?"
"Light him up, boy," the captain replied. "But don't waste ammo. Save the big things for shoring up the border in the east."
Below the mountain wall, across fields of snowdrifts and past the still-ruined shells of the skyport, down the sloping wall of the Stone District and through the trees and groves of Ironridge, a muscular yellow unicorn with a black beard sat in a meeting on the top floor of the Karma Industries tower, the window across from him facing south. Arambai leaned on a table, marking notes idly with a pen while other ponies talked and argued. Suddenly, a bright flash pierced his attention, from far, far away at the top of the Aldenfold wall.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the afterimage. "What in the Flame District was that...?"
"And that," Valey finished, lecturing Silver Saddle with Shinespark held tightly to her side, "is what I'll do to you if I get back and my friends here have had the coolest and most welcoming time ever. Savvy?"
Silver Saddle stared at her and batted her eyelashes a single time. "You have the weirdest methods of flirting."
"And you're a hussy," Valey replied. "So there. Like what you see that much, show off by being cool to my friends."
"Valey," Shinespark interrupted, "is this the best use of our time?"
"Hey." Valey shrugged, putting her down. "We've had enough bad scrapes with guards that I wanna make sure all the ones here are cool. We're cool, right, Foghorn?"
Cardinal Foghorn nodded. "If that's your adjective of choice."
Maple nudged Valey gently. "I think we'll be just fine with them. Maybe let's spend the minutes we have left with each other, instead?"
"Do it," Shinespark encouraged, leaving for the bridge. "I'm going to get the Writ of-"
The bridge exploded.
Everyone yelped and wheeled about, a loud flash and bang coming from inside the open door. A few wisps of smoke trailed out, but after the noise was done, the room looked completely fine.
"What happened!?" Grenada snarled, charging up the staircase from below. "Who did that!?"
Maple, Amber, Shinespark and Valey were already hurrying along, Starlight with them. Even Fluffy hovered anxiously along.
"Aw, bananas..." Valey groaned, reaching the bridge room first. She moved aside to make room for others.
The floor was faintly singed, and there were traces of soot on the windshield that would need to be wiped away, but the control panel looked just fine. In the center of the blast radius, however, was Jamjars, laying on her side, horn dancing and sparking with wild energy, staring at herself with a stunned expression of guilt, disbelief and bliss.
"Your horn!" Fluffy shouted, pointing over Starlight's shoulder. "That's a magic surge! You got your..."
Jamjars' flank, once empty, now held an image of a chess queen. And beside her was an unbound, still-half-rolled and very conspicuously empty scroll bearing Princess Celestia's royal seal: a used Writ of Harmonic Sanction.
"What did you do!?" Shinespark hissed.
"Why?" Maple sniffed, not needing to ask.
"You used it? You betrayed Maple and Starlight?" Amber stared with wide eyes, starting to cry. "You got a cutie mark for this?"
Starlight's worlds had been smashed together, an impossible combination she knew couldn't last. It was always going to be one or the other... but suddenly, both of them shattered and fell away.
Starlight stood in the bridge room and stared at Jamjars.
Her horn twinged. She remembered that moment yesterday in the bathroom where it had flared, begging the world for an acceptable target to take everything out on. Part of her wanted to do that now, against the filly who had taken her future and replaced it with herself, but she couldn't move. Time had stopped.
This was what it felt like, after the end.
Valey wasn't nearly as paralyzed. "What the bananas were you thinking!?" she snarled, stomping forward. "Did you just use our last and only-"
Jamjars' horn flashed in self-defense, the magic surge from getting her cutie mark powering her up far beyond the level of a normal unicorn. "Don't hurt me!" Jamjars squeaked as Valey was pushed back against a wall, Jamjars scrambling backward herself. Her face was still a weird mix of bliss and self-disgust, and she stopped when she ran into the base of the airship console, holding her chest and panting.
"Don't hurt you?" Amber choked. "Do you even realize what you did?"
Starlight doubted even Amber had thought that far ahead. The writ wasn't just what Maple needed to remain in Equestria, it was what she needed to...
"What I had to," Jamjars managed, wiping her muzzle and trying to calm her chaotic horn. "We're toast without Starlight. All of us. Y-You know that. And no one else would do what it takes to keep us together and keep us alive, so it had to fall to me. You made me do it by letting us get in this situation in the first place."
With that, Starlight realized it was Jamjars who didn't know what this meant, and the spell was broken. "That writ was for Maple," she stammered, voice shaking, striding forward. "Not me! I don't need it to stay here, I need it to go north! Now I couldn't follow you even if I wanted to!" Her gaze quivered, her breath too short to sustain real anger... though that could change in a heartbeat. "Letting everyone else leave and being okay with it is the hardest thing I've ever done, and now Maple can't stay with me. She was the one thing I was holding onto."
Jamjars stared back up at her. "Sure you can. You've done it before. What's stopping you?"
That could have sent Starlight over the edge. If her emotions were any lower, it probably would have, but the pressure in her heart was too high to take a direction. And in her split second of indecision, Jamjars realized that was the wrong thing to say, another power surge welling up from her horn to defend herself.
Starlight knew the blast was coming. Even though Jamjars was powered up, she could have blocked it effortlessly with crystals. In fact, she felt like she could use the Nightmare Module shield if she tried, completely unaided. But she did nothing, and stood her ground and let it happen.
It was a stronger surge than the one that threw Valey back against the wall, and Starlight was standing closer. She felt her fur singe from the force, and closed her eyes against the light, and her ears blew back, but somehow, she didn't budge an inch.
Starlight didn't really care how she had done it. Everyone else gasped.
"I could kill you," Starlight said, her twisted moon glass sword appearing at her side.
Jamjars' eyes widened. She knew it was true.
Starlight could kill her. And why didn't she? It wouldn't gain her anything, but neither would sparing this thing. She had tried to be a good pony, done everything right and gone the harmonic way, over and over and over again in hopes that it would someday pay off and the world would reward her for her hardships. But this was the end, and now she saw the extent of what every inch of it had left her, every tear and drop of effort and extra battle fought when she could have had a tantrum and done it the easy way, or not cared about the gray future or anything else that mattered. Starlight was here, right back where she started, and no longer had a say in the fate of her friends. Destiny had spoken, and the one pony she got to keep was this one.
Well, Starlight didn't want Jamjars. She wanted to rage like a windigo, trample everything, bring about that future in her visions just to spite the world for all the thanks she owed it. She wanted to lose herself, because the self she had was empty, and when she looked in a mirror she saw no ponies left standing with her for all her heartache in the north, and that wasn't a self she wanted to keep.
...But that was probably what the world wanted. And after everything else had been taken, all Starlight had left was stubbornness, herself and her dreams.
If there was any way to spite the world, anything she could possibly do, it would be to resist what it was trying to make her, fight it to her last breath, even if it killed her and she died unfulfilled and alone. Which she probably would, since she didn't have much else to live for and didn't feel like sticking around to get kicked again, unless stubborn determination just forced her to refuse to die.
"...I quit." Starlight threw her sword away, turning her back on Jamjars and walking for the door, heart so heavy she didn't know how the boat was still floating. "Get on with yourselves. Get out of here. It clearly doesn't matter how I feel, because there's nothing anyone can do to change that anyway. So just get away from me and my destiny and go home! Nothing but bad things ever happen to me, and you keep getting caught up in them. And don't bother looking back. I'll never give her the satisfaction of getting her way."
A strong black hoof grabbed her, scooping her up and halting her path. "Nuh-uh," Valey declared, holding Starlight off the ground. The guards and Fishy were watching through the door, and Valey gave them a death glare. "You can write whatever you want to your princess, but there is nothing you can do to stop us from taking her with us. Send goons after us, persecute us, try to stop us with your princess herself. We've fought gods before, and we'll take her on too if she doesn't think this is worth an exception in her law. It is not ending like this."
Starlight teleported.
"Yes it is," she said when she appeared, on the deck behind the guards, out in the open again. "You're all still friends with her. Maybe she'll follow you and give you what you want. It's not you who get punished over and over again for being good ponies. And I won't have you get hunted and chased all over again because of my bad luck. I'll be miserable either way, so you can at least be happy yourselves."
"Um, no?" Valey shadow snuck, slipping under the guards and out onto the deck, using the shadow of the bridge for cover. She raised an angry eyebrow. "There is no way I'm living happily and easily with you on your own in a state of mind like this. I was already just barely okay with the plan we did have! Kiddo, we're in this together, or not at all."
Maple pushed past the guards as well, too shocked for proper tears. "Starlight, no..."
Starlight looked away. She couldn't look at Maple like this. It was too close, the world that could have been... A world she hurt herself so much coming to accept, and had been so close to, and maybe could have lived in after all. "It's not my decision to say no to," she replied. "It's just fate. Tell the world no. Maybe reality will just change its mind and make another Writ of Harmonic Sanction drop out of thin air so we can stay together."
Maple glanced at Fishy. "I don't suppose you'd happen to have one...?"
"I'm still wrapping my head around what just happened," Fishy apologized, rubbing her mane.
"That curmudgeon," Valey growled, hovering and pointing at the bridge, "used our last Writ of Harmonic Sanction. Stole it. So either we break your border laws, or Starlight gets to stay here and live in that fancy new house you helped us set up on her own."
Fishy's ears folded. "I... I don't know what to say..."
"Hm," Silver Saddle remarked, trying to remain aloof, though a stray strand of her mane revealed even she was flustered... not least by the possibility that the law she represented now stood between Valey and something she wanted very badly. "Not every day you see this much drama come from that particular law. I don't know that I ever even learned why it's on the books in the first place."
Fluffy looked just as weightless as Starlight had felt on the way here. "What's going to happen?" she asked no one in particular, confused and looking for the ground.
"It doesn't matter," Starlight grunted, walking for the gangplank. "Nothing matters. Just get back to Riverfall and forget about me. If any amount of effort could change things, I'd have a happy ending too."
"Bananas, I said no!" Valey dropped out of the sky, landing again and barring her path. "Starlight, snap out of it! Jamjars is gonna pay, but this is not the end! Celestia's gotta let you go. There's no way she'd be rude enough to stop us after all the stuff she said on Kinmari. And if she does, we've got an edge on her. We can blackmail her, I've got a thing I've been saving..." She glanced suddenly at Fishy and the guards, folding her ears. "You're on our side here, right?"
Fishy looked sympathetic. Silver Saddle looked uncomfortable. Cardinal Foghorn just shook his head and sighed. "I'm just an impartial watchpony. What justice is is between you and Her Majesty. But I do hope she'll take your side."
"But..." Maple bit her lip, glancing between Foghorn and Starlight. "Use the spell on her. The one that detects where she's from. Maybe there's some way she has a writ already..."
Foghorn shrugged, and before Starlight could do anything about it his aura briefly flickered around her. "No dice. She's just as Equestrian as I am."
"This is wrong," Amber whispered, by far the teariest of the group. "I didn't want to say goodbye to Maple, but this isn't how I wanted us to stay together..."
"Starlight, come on," Valey coaxed, begging. "Screw these loons! So what if it makes trouble with Equestria? Has there ever been a time when any of us weren't willing to fight for you? Has there?"
"No." Starlight stopped, looking at the ground. "And that's the problem. We all deserve a happy ending, and you can't take on another fight when you're about to be free. I'm the one whose luck is cursed. All of you actually did cheer up in Kinmari and do know what it means to be happy and normal! And you won't throw that away on me!" She raised her voice, looking up and glaring at everyone. "I'm done! I've had it! It's not worth all your happiness just so I can be chased and miserable in Ironridge instead of lonely and miserable right here!"
Valey helplessly punched the deck. "Bananas! Starlight, knock it off! Jamjars is a jerk, but don't let that get to you! Please!"
"It's not Jamjars' fault." Starlight gritted her teeth and shook her head. "She just did it because something had to go wrong, and she happened to be closest. If it wasn't her, it would have been something else! Maybe the engine would have exploded and stranded you all here and taunted me even longer, or maybe I'd have an accident and touch the harmony comet and remember what I forgot in the crystal palace and be even worse off! It's all pointless!"
"Just go." Starlight ignored them, gritting her teeth at her friends. "Get out of here and forget me. Go!"
"But...!" Maple trembled, and Valey seethed.
Suddenly, Shinespark appeared between them, touching their shoulders. "We should go," she whispered.
"What!?" Valey gave her a look more betrayed than she had given Jamjars. "But she's-!"
"She can teleport," Shinespark replied, "and we can't get any bargaining power by staying here. In Ironridge, however, I have full faith that Arambai has the city with power restored and back in the air. It was his first priority to turn the city's economy back on." She looked to Foghorn and Silver. "We will go home, and leave Starlight where your laws say she belongs. And you will report everything that's happened here to your princess and make sure she knows. I trust she will understand that a large part of her border defense currently relies on it being a secret in the north that the mountains are passable now."
Silver Saddle raised an eyebrow. "Is that a threat?"
"Doesn't matter." Foghorn shrugged. "We're just the messengers."
"It doesn't have to be a threat," Shinespark replied. "It's a reminder that when you have neighbors who hold an advantage over you, yet are currently friendly, it's important to address quickly any laws that might unduly hurt them."
Starlight gave her a burning look. "Don't fight Princess Celestia for me. I'm not Ironridge. It's only hurting me, not your city. And I told you, even if the border law didn't exist, fate would find some other way to make sure I never get a happily ever after."
Shinespark, a mare who had plotted for years in defense of her city, chosen her destiny to fight a foreign influence of overwhelming scale and returned to her hooves after devastating setbacks, didn't blink or flinch away. "Conversely, if you are staying here, you have no ability to tell me and my city what we will and won't do for the ponies I care about."
Starlight snarled. "Don't you get the point!? I'm not worth it! No matter how much effort you spend on me, it'll all be for nothing because things like this keep happening to me no matter how much effort you spend!"
Shinespark raised an eyebrow. "Very well. Then I won't spend effort on you. I'll spend it on the rest of my friends who are devastated by this loss and won't rest until they do have that happily ever after, with you, together. You're strong, Starlight, but you're not the only power on this ship. We are a team, and we fight all for one and one for all."
Starlight gritted her teeth.
"Yeah." Valey put a hoof on Shinespark's shoulder. "You tell her, girl."
Maple sniffed again. "Starlight... Please don't make me leave you like this... I'll do anything for your future, and this isn't how I wanted you to settle down at all..."
"We're not leaving her," Valey insisted, nodding at Maple. "You heard Sparky. Screw collecting more writs. We're gonna push this and we're gonna make this right, and everyone else can agree with us or move aside."
Starlight looked at the deck again. "And how much did your determination do to stop Jamjars from stealing the writ? You can't fight fate except by beating your head against it over and over until you're too broken to try."
She didn't add that she wasn't done trying. She might have lost everything, but the world could never take her stubbornness. She still wasn't going to become the monster it wanted to see. If there was nothing else she could have in her life, then whenever her death came, it would be on her own terms, and she would at least still have this.
"...Fine," Amber sobbed, turning away and running down the stairs in a trail of tears. "But we will see you again! Mark my words, Starlight, this isn't the end! You were the most special thing to ever happen to my best friend, and I won't let it end like this! I'll be back, and you just try to stop me!"
Starlight numbly watched her go.
"...Well." Fishy swallowed, an audible lump in her throat. "Do you, uhh... want to come with me, Starlight? I'll never make you stay in that house by yourself. You can stay with me until we find a real place for you to go."
"Don't bother!" Valey shouted over her shoulder, marching for the bridge. "We'll have this sorted before you even make it back to town, just watch and see!"
Shinespark slowly nodded. "If you're staying here, best get off the boat. We haven't a moment to lose."
The guards nodded, leaving first. Fluffy shuffled anxiously near Fishy and Starlight, her namesake tail held tight between her legs. "I'm sure she can stay with me and my parents for a night," she offered, mane flat against her skull, making her look very small.
"I appreciate the offer, hon." Fishy nudged her along with a hoof as well. "But let's take things one step at a time, okay? This isn't my forte. First I need to find someone who can deal with this..."
Starlight followed them off, already knowing there was no one. She was the strongest pony she knew, and even she couldn't fight her destiny. It was only worth trying for the sake of stubbornness, not because she had anything to actually achieve. She stepped onto the gangplank-
"Starlight," Maple choked, standing alone on the deck.
Starlight's ears were already folded. She didn't want to look.
"Starlight, here," Maple insisted through her tears. "Something to remember me by."
Wordlessly, Starlight turned around. It was a sealed scroll of parchment, and for a moment, she almost thought Maple had found another Writ of Harmonic Sanction.
"This is my wish from Garsheeva," Maple said, holding out the parchment. "It's the land title deed where we once wanted to... build our town. The place where we would settle. You remember what's underneath this land."
A Tree of Harmony. Starlight nodded. "What good will that even do me?"
"Probably nothing," Maple sniffed. "It's just a piece of paper. But I wanted you to have something... Even if you hate your life now, it's a reminder of all the good dreams we shared together, right? And... someday... things will get better. You may not want Shinespark's help, but she's just as stubborn as you are, and Valey is too. So you hang onto this for me, and you can give it back when we see each other again."
Starlight took the scroll. It even smelled like Maple. She didn't want to cry too.
"We'll be back," Maple said, reaching in for a hug. "I'll be back. I promise."
All Starlight's life, she had been at the mercy of her own potential, forced to fight for her own happy ending until she gave up and only spite could carry her on. Ever since Sunburst, she had wished for someone to look up to, someone who would fight for her, who could wave away all her problems and shield her so she wouldn't have to try anymore. And here, after she had given up... Maybe, here that was.
"Promise," Starlight sniffed, returning the hug. "Mom."
The hug didn't last. Time passed, and it was over. Time passed, and Starlight was on the gangplank, and then she wasn't, and then the gangplank was gone and the comet was brighter and the ship was rising, and soon it was gone across the vertical horizon.
"Hey, Starlight... What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I don't know. Do I have to be just one thing?"
"Well, not really... But what do you want to call yourself? Like, you never hear ponies introducing themselves as a firefighter and a librarian."
"What's wrong with calling myself Starlight? I guess I just haven't thought about it."
"Fine..."
"Why do you ask? Is there something you decided you want to be?"
"Yeah! When I grow up, I'm going to be a cool wizard who wows everyone with his magical research! And I'll know all sorts of spells that nopony else has ever heard of!"
"Is that why you're wearing a wizard robe?"
"Heh hee... Yeah. My mom stitched it for me when I asked. Pretty neat, isn't it? It has all these pockets lining the inside, so I can fill them with spellbooks and magical reagents."
"Wow. Neat. All of these are empty, though."
"That's because I don't have anything to put in them. I said I want to become a cool wizard, not that I'm one already."
"Oh. Makes sense."
"Why don't you try this coat on, Starlight? I bet you'd make a great wizard!"
"Are you sure? Well... okay. Ummm... There. How do I look?"
"Aww, you look amazing! We're gonna grow up to be the finest intellectuals in all the land!"
"That good? It feels a little big for me. These sleeves are kind of baggy."
"It's a wizard robe, Starlight. That's the point!"
"I knew that... How do I look now!?"
"Ahaha! Don't trip and hurt yourself! The coat trail is really long!"
"Oh. Right. Well, here's your robe back. But I think it looks better on you than it does on me."
"Don't you want to become a cool wizard when you grow up?"
"Did you ever want to before today?"
"Well, like, sometimes? But never this badly."
"Right. Well, I just haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up."
"Come on, Starlight. Imagine if you got a cutie mark in being a cool wizard. Imagine what that would look like and how neat it would be!"
"A cutie mark? I guess that would be neat. I just don't know if I'm good enough at that. It's kind of hard for me to keep up with you when we talk about magic sometimes, you know. You're way better at it than I am."
"Aww, you can do it. You just need to hit the books a little harder! My dad brought me a great one from a caravan the other day, and I stayed up all night reading it! Sorry about sleeping through the party after school the next day..."
"Shouldn't I have a cutie mark in something I'm really good at, though?"
"Who says you're not good at wizarding?"
"I'm not bad at it. But I'm not bad at a lot of stuff. I want to get a cutie mark in something special."
"The whole point of cutie marks is that they make you special, you know."
"That's why I want mine to be really special..."
Rocks crunched beneath Starlight Glimmer's hooves. An ancient scene played its way through her head, flaky memories of things she had long ago lost and questions she never found answers to.
Living in Equestria, she knew she would one day get a cutie mark. But now, instead of being not bad at everything she tried, she was phenomenal, unstoppable, almost destined to succeed... except when what she was trying was making herself happy. Cutie marks defined ponies by what they could do, so what would hers be when she was defined by what she couldn't?
Her family was gone, and all her friends too. She had sent them away. Not just chosen to stay behind, but forced them out as well. Everything, she had lost... Everything except her saddlebags, with a rolled-up land title deed and a harmonic crystal containing an artifice and a black metal knife and a twisted moon glass sword she thought she had forgotten on the Immortal Dream, but was there anyway when she checked. And she had some other things, like a badly-empty house with a rose-tiled bathroom and a second-floor bedroom with all of her old filly toys, and two guards who didn't care that much and Fishy and Fluffy who cared a whole lot, but didn't know what to do.
Oh, and she had an infinite supply of spite and stubbornness and determination. Maybe you could get a cutie mark in being determined.
She glanced at her bags. Determination, hope... Wasn't that what the artifice was all about?
Maybe she never should have gotten rid of it. Maybe it fit her perfectly.
Fishy and Fluffy didn't look at her and didn't talk, trying first just to make it back to town. Starlight could see that they cared, though, welling up like auras around them. What was she supposed to do with that? She knew she was lonely, knew they would do everything in their power to help if she asked, knew they would try their hardest to share some of that light with her... but what did it matter when she was cursed to be unable to hold onto it?
She couldn't hold onto anything. Anything she grabbed at was ripped away, taken so violently that she would lose her hooves and the ability to grab on altogether if she wasn't careful. Maybe she already had. There were lies she could tell herself, lies that would numb the pain yet hold her back and stop her from trying, and she knew they were there because she already felt number and couldn't even remember what she had told herself that wasn't true.
Maybe Starlight would get a cutie mark in turning into a statue. The holes in her heart couldn't bleed if she was made of stone.
"Starlight, hon-! Starlight!" Fishy jumped, turning back to check on her and immediately taking a step back in surprise.
"What?"
Fishy's ears fell in concern, already tempting her to crack her new shell and let it in. "Did something happen to you? Besides all the obvious? You're, uhh... You turned gray."
Starlight blinked. She held up a hoof to look, but it looked normal...
Oh. Right. Lights around other ponies? Loneliness that wouldn't end, and numbness to go with it?
Maybe she really could have used the nightmare shield when she thought of it while talking to Jamjars. Apparently she didn't need moon glass to do this anymore.
She wondered if she would ever be able to remember what colors were or use her horn again.
"Starlight?" Fluffy pressed, gaping.
"I guess I did," Starlight said, remembering that she had to answer. "I'm not alright, but this isn't why."
"You've had this happen before?" Fishy raised a concerned eyebrow.
Starlight nodded. "I don't know what else I could have expected."
"Right. Well, we'll deal with it when we get back to my place." Fishy beckoned everyone to follow along, and so they did.
Starlight didn't really track time, but at some point, they reached Fishy's mayor mansion, and Fluffy and the guards followed her inside. The foyer was made of muted extravagance, less a project so that one pony could feel good about owning it and more so a lot could feel good about building it. Starlight didn't think owning a fancy house would make her feel good. In fact, she already owned a house, revived and christened with the blessings of her friends, but those blessings had been laid on a foundation of expectations that had been ripped apart like a sphinx attacking a curtain. Now, even the thought of the house was toxic to her. Starlight knew that if she went there, she would cry.
She was going to cry anyway, though, so it didn't really make a difference.
"Can, uhh..." Fishy hurried about, pointing the guards to a door and Starlight and Fluffy to a plush velvet couch. "Can you keep her company for a moment, Miss Fleece? I need to settle some affairs, go through some records and start looking for someone who will be good to her..."
For a moment, Fluffy Fleece's ears perked, but then she paused, jaw halfway open. "Umm..." Contradiction flashed in her eyes, and she glanced between Starlight and the mayor. "Don't you think she needs you here instead of doing paperwork right now?"
Starlight didn't really care whether Fishy went or stayed. But what she did care about, what hit the armor she was trying to put up and utterly ruined it before it could even finish taking form, was that Fluffy had thought to say that. Forget that she was questioning someone important, the thought had crossed her mind, period.
It was too much. Starlight's legs failed, and she fell on the couch and cried.
She didn't cleanly cry, where her lungs did what she wanted and gave her volume where it would count. Instead she shook, trembled and choked, finding herself exactly out of breath whenever she wanted to scream and moaning instead, hiccupping on her tears and swaying against the couch, writhing internally and limp on the outside, unable to speak, hear or see. She wanted to expel it all through her horn, but instead she wretched, and nothing came up, coughing as she tried to sniffle and swallow at the same time.
Then something soft and bright touched her, and she was a little bit less alone.
"Here. Feel this," Fluffy said, wrapping Starlight's forehooves in something wonderful. "It always helps me when I'm feeling down."
Starlight had the presence of mind not to blow her nose in Fluffy's mane, but not the willpower to extrapolate it to anything else. She buried her face in the offered surface and whimpered, too breathless to wail. Every time she tried to suck in a breath for it, her body heaved and she lost ahold of it, and was right back where she began.
"I-I need to get help," Fishy stammered. "Please don't go anywhere. I'll be back as soon as I can!"
The guards were already elsewhere. It was just Starlight and Fluffy. And Starlight was keenly aware of her friend, how Fluffy was so scared, she was in a trance, where she acted on instinct and bottled her reflexes to do what felt right, even if she was more out of her water than she would have been facing down High Prince Gazelle. "There... there..." Fluffy tried to console.
Starlight kept crying. She hoped Fluffy knew how grateful she was that she was keeping her from being alone.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Fluffy tried. "I sort of got enough of what was going on, but not a lot."
Starlight wiped her muzzle. If she could control her breathing enough to talk, at least it might ease her pain physically. Her whole body hurt from the force of her sobs... but she swallowed and nodded, announcing that she would try.
Fluffy accepted, waiting, and eventually Starlight was able to speak. "We're from the north," she managed. "Across the mountains that way. Most ponies don't even know there's anything up there, but it's a world just as big as Equestria. And Equestria doesn't like it when anyone crosses the border."
"How did you know about it to go up there?" Fluffy asked, sitting very close by Starlight's side.
Starlight shook her head. "I didn't. I just took the old trailhead behind the fishing lake because I wanted to run away. I didn't care where I would wind up. If anywhere at all."
"The fishing lake? To the north of town? Do you care where you go now?" Fluffy asked, ears down.
"That one. And still no," Starlight sighed. "It doesn't matter where I try to go or what I try to do, because I can do anything except make myself happy. Jamjars was right when she told you I'm strong. I don't lose fights, I don't die from falling off cliffs, there's always more I can do and it never ends. I could go anywhere, but I won't find what I'm looking for. I don't even know what I'm looking for. And it hurts more the more I try, so I'm just done."
"Wow. Umm..." Fluffy hesitated, trying to change the subject. "What was it like, trying to cross the mountains? How long did it take? Did you run out of food and get hungry?"
Starlight nodded. "I think it was three weeks, but one of those I spent sick in a cave after I got rained on. And I had to eat grass and berries a lot at the end."
"That's impressive," Fluffy said.
"Thanks. I wish impressing ponies could make me happy."
Fluffy tilted her head. "If you could live with your friends, would that make you happy?"
Starlight didn't know. It was the most immediate problem facing her, yet also merely the one that had finally broken her back. However bad she felt now, she couldn't forget how utterly exhausted she had been over the previous day, and then during all their time in Kinmari. It would be better than where she was at, but no. "It wouldn't be enough."
"What else do you need?" Fluffy asked quizzically.
"I don't know..."
Fluffy let it sit for a moment, then tried a different tack. "Hey... Do you want to go for a walk? I know we're not supposed to wander around on our own, but no one's going to make trouble for us. They'd have to be a real jerk to try it when you're... you know."
Starlight didn't want to go for a walk, but she had no other desires, either. And Fluffy's vision was less clouded than hers, her life more normal and happier. Starlight didn't particularly trust anything right then, but that just meant the bar was set at ground level. Sure. Fluffy's advice couldn't hurt.
They wandered the town, and Fluffy led the way, Starlight not particularly paying attention to where they were going. Fluffy visited a few stores, and took a roundabout way between them, and asked more questions in between. The questions were pointless, but they helped Starlight keep her breathing in check, so she appreciated them all the same. Maybe that was even the intent. And maybe the store breaks were there so that she could have an excuse to go quiet and draw back into herself without accidentally interrupting a conversation and feeling awkward.
Either Fluffy was a genius and the most socially-aware pony Starlight had ever met, or she was equally lucky. Either way, Starlight wanted to give her a hug. Her world had all fallen away, and this friend was the closest thing to an anchor she could find.
"You know, I wonder what everyone assumed actually happened to you after you left the first time," Fluffy was saying, their course taking them up along the riverbank where Starlight had once played and cavorted with Sunburst. "I didn't really think about it too much, I guess, which was probably what everyone else wanted everyone to think so we didn't get distracted by the possibilities."
"They'd probably do it again," Starlight agreed, not comforted by the thought. She had yet to take her saddlebags off, and now additionally wore a sturdy coat Fluffy had bought her so that she wouldn't be conspicuous with her grayness. It was protective enough to keep out rain, like a Riverfall poncho, yet well-insulated for Sires Hollow's frequent cold weather as well... A very good coat. Starlight didn't question where her friend found the money for this. It was a good enough time waster, she supposed, and she appreciated the generosity.
She also had a whole life ahead of her to waste away, exactly like this. Making something of it was pretty much out of the question.
"You really think so?" Fluffy frowned. "You think everyone will just go back to thinking you're not worth thinking about?"
Starlight shrugged. "It's a whole town. I'm one filly who isn't related to anyone who lives here. And I've only been back for a day. Why wouldn't they?"
"I'd miss you," Fluffy pointed out with a shrug. Her own saddlebags were even bigger than Starlight's, packed full with all the stuff she had been buying. If this was stress-spending or some sort of relaxation technique, Starlight supposed it had a little merit to it, but hoped her friend wouldn't feel the consequences later.
Starlight folded her ears.
"I bet your friends miss you too," Fluffy said, her voice lower. "You could have... you know... gone with them. I don't think the guards could have stopped you. But maybe that's just me."
"My friends have come back from hardships before," Starlight replied. "They'll be fine losing me, too. A lot finer than they'd be if they started a war with Equestria for my sake."
"It sounded like they were going to do that whether you came with them or stayed here," Fluffy quietly murmured.
"Then I guess there's nothing I can do at all," Starlight huffed. "What a surprise... Sorry. I'm nothing but bad luck, though. They need to let me go."
Fluffy tilted her head, water lapping at the shore to her right. "But if the outcome is the same for their future, why not do what makes all of you happier?"
"Because I'm tired!" Starlight gritted her teeth. "Because I can't go any further! And even if I try, and even if I do, I'll just find myself somewhere else where I need to sit down and live with things that are terrible or keep going past there, too! All I'm ever good for is keeping going, because I can push myself on through anything no matter what it does to my mind or my heart or my feelings! Or my horn! I might as well be a machine instead of a pony, just pressing on forever until I get somewhere good enough that it's worth having a heart again!"
Fluffy stopped, stared, and took her saddlebags off and set them down, the river flowing by beside her. "Well, for what it's worth, I believe in you."
Starlight sniffled. She hoped the day would never come when that belief needed to be put to the test.
"...So what do you want to do, then?" Fluffy shrugged, her shoulders freed from the heavy bags. "Um... You remember how things were like after Sunburst left. You weren't really fun to be around for anyone. You're not going to do that again, aren't you?"
Starlight wilted. "Can't I just do nothing at all? I don't have the strength to try for anything."
Fluffy raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't doing nothing at all the whole point of what you were doing back then, too?"
"Yeah, but I was actively trying to do nothing and making a big deal about it." Starlight glared at the ground. "Then, I was mad. Now, I'm mad and tired, too. I don't know what I want to do with myself. I don't know who I want to grow up to be."
"You know what you want," Fluffy countered. "I know you miss your friends. I know you want them to be happy, right?"
"What are you trying to talk me into?" Starlight weakly asked. "They're gone. I sent them away. This is my life now. I chose it. I'm going to survive, and beyond that, I just don't care. Maybe I'll start my own town when I grow up, and have one where I make all the rules and fight off anything that tries to mess with them, just to make a point."
Fluffy rubbed her mane. "That doesn't sound very fulfilling, but it's better than nothing. You still miss your friends, though." She shrugged. "Even if this is different than when Sunburst left, it's still going to be just a matter of time before you run away again."
Starlight blinked.
"I saw how mad you were," Fluffy continued. "I don't see my parents get that mad that often, but when they're so mad they're too mad to yell, you know you messed up. So how long will it be until you get tired of doing nothing and get up and leave?"
She had her. That was it. Starlight swallowed, knowing it was true: for all her stubbornness, she could only do nothing for so long. Eventually, her wishes and desires would get the better of her, and she would just get up and leave.
"I'm probably going to get in really big trouble for this," Fluffy said with a sudden sense of foreboding. "But I don't think you're going to stay here. I bet you're going to leave. So... maybe you should leave now, while you have a good way to leave in."
Starlight broadened her senses, and realized exactly where they were.
There was a river to her right, but it wasn't the one that ran through town. They were far upstream, on the northern side of the sheltered fishing pond that fed that river, and this one fed the pond. It fed it with mountain runoff, pouring down from the Aldenfold, and to the side it had a familiar path, so rarely trodden it was nothing more than a thin strip of ground between the mountains and the riverbank. But she had trodden it before.
"Why are we here?" Starlight swallowed.
"You told your friends to scram, and they listened because they were your friends." Fluffy's voice was hard, and she pushed her loaded saddlebags over to Starlight, opening one to show a variety of compact, non-perishable, tightly-organized food. "Well, you're my friend, and I think this is stupid, so I'm ordering you to do the same. I'll probably get in huge trouble if anyone finds out, which they probably will, but I don't care. Go on. Get out of here. If you say you'll keep trying forever, then keep trying until you're anywhere but here."
Starlight stared at her.
"I'm taking a page from your book." Fluffy trembled. "And you had better be as strong as you say and not die up there and make it my fault. Now shoo! You're going to run away again one way or another, so do it in the way that lets you chase your friends! Don't wait forever and then run off in the opposite direction like you did for Sunburst!"
That was too much. "I-I..."
"You said that one mare was your mother," Fluffy whispered. "Well, one time, when I did something super dangerous that I don't want to talk about and got into a lot of other trouble afterward, my mom said losing a filly is the worst thing that can ever happen to someone like that. So... just... go."
How was Starlight supposed to forge her own path under this kind of pressure?
How was Starlight supposed to forge her own path when she didn't know what she wanted to forge?
Starlight swallowed, took a step... and realized that she did have the strength to continue, after all.
It would always be hard. She didn't know what it would do to her state of mind. She just knew that the one thing she could do to fight back when the world tried to twist her was to stay true to herself, and this was who she was: a filly who always had the power to keep on going, if only she would lift her hooves. Maybe her special talent really was determination, after all.
She took another step... and hugged Fluffy. "Thanks. I won't die any time soon."
"No worries." Fluffy awkwardly returned it, then stepped back, looking like she just might freak out about everything she had just done once her duty was finished.
"I'll repay you someday," Starlight promised, buckling the heavier saddlebags on alongside her own. "All this must have cost a lot-"
"Don't worry about that." Fluffy waved a wing. "You paid for it. I knew you weren't paying attention, so I went by your house first and grabbed some of those bits they unloaded. You have more than enough to fill a treasure chest waiting there if you ever come back."
"I will," Starlight promised, an immeasurable wave of stubborn resolve filling her and buoying her above everything else. Whatever else was wrong with her life, the world wouldn't be able to break her after all, because when she was completely broken, she could still keep going. "I swear it."
It was almost comforting enough to push the pain of the sudden parting out of her head and leave it behind, because Starlight knew she could make that right. Her friends would make the choice to fight on for her and stick their necks in hot water whether she tried to stop them or not, so she might as well try her hardest not to let that be in vain. She would see them again, and one day, they would get their writs and cross the border and properly found Our Town and get their happy ending together.
For the second time in her life, Starlight stepped onto the trail into the Aldenfold, and she didn't look back.
She had forgotten what it felt like to walk for hours. As good of shape as she had gotten in, training with Valey, a prolonged, mild, repetitive exertion was completely different from being tossed across the deck and putting all her weight behind a kick or two. She wasn't winded, blessed with strong lungs by living at high altitudes for so many of the past few months. Her legs simply burned.
The trail had started sloping upwards about an hour ago, and that was where she really started to feel it. Out of all the memories that had returned to her in Sires Hollow, she was discovering a new set that was just making its way to the front of her mind: her first crossing through the Aldenfold.
This was hard already, and she was unimaginably tougher than the first time she had gone through here. How had she ever done this?
Her leg slipped, a hind hoof sinking in a patch of loose dirt and almost costing her her balance. At this point, the road forward was loamy, a thick carpet of pine needles decaying beneath her and making the ground more spongy than wading through snow. Beside her, the river burbled softly and swiftly, running through a densely overgrown valley that was too narrow to be worth logging and using to expand the village.
For now, she remembered, the path would follow it, using the river's natural aptitude at finding passes to make it up through the foothills. Eventually, the vegetation would grow too thick, though, and the trail would be forced to take a left, uphill and away from the river on a switchback route. But she didn't think she had reached that part for at least another day.
Starlight's stomach growled, and she started to keep her eye out for any places that looked like she had stopped for a rest last time. No matter how much tougher she was, she still needed to eat.
A pine canopy rolled over her head, the trees that comprised it too stunted for it to be properly dense. They tried, though, and looking up at the thick, interlocking branches reminded Starlight how it had been misting the first time she was here. It was her first experience being caught out in the rain, and she had been grateful to the foliage, deciding already that rain wasn't her favorite thing. But that drizzle had been foals' play compared to the rains that came later...
Starlight wondered if the rain would be as bad, this time around. Probably not. The coat Fluffy had bought her was better than any equipment she had carried last time, like her easily-soaked blanket. And she was a lot stronger, too.
The river didn't let up in its relentless flow down the mountains, but she didn't let up in her climb either. Eventually, though, after too long of searching for an ideal campsite, Starlight settled for a dirty boulder by the water, shrugged off her heavy second saddlebags, and decided it was time to eat.
Her new friend had packed well, she decided, looking through the bags. Compact dried fruit and nut cakes were stacked together like bricks, so neatly that Fluffy could have considered a career in masonry. There was one full waterskin and two empty ones, along with a collapsible funnel and stand so Starlight could set them out in the rain to refill, whenever she ran out or made room by eating the food to carry more. There was also cheese, slices of bread so thin and dense they were more like crackers, a hefty slab of fish that was salted for preservation and wrapped in wax paper, and three tiny glass jars, one with some spread, one with a single portion of pears and another filled with some sort of spices labeled 'salad seasoning'. No greenery to eat them with, though.
Starlight supposed the pears were a pick-me-up for if she had a bad day, but had no idea what to think about the spices. Maybe she had mentioned living on grass, and Fluffy just had a really great memory.
She pulled out two of the nut cakes, deciding to save the salted fish until it was more practical to make herself thirsty. Besides, she only needed a little energy right now. If there was one thing she had learned the first time, it was to be very careful with her food.
A few bites in, and Starlight realized she could have kept walking while eating these... if only her horn worked to hold them with. That was the biggest problem she had ever found with being moon glassed, more than any of the emotional or lifestyle tradeoffs for the power it provided: for whatever reason, it left her horn no more useful than a stubby tool for poking things with. Unless there happened to be a mountain survival Nightmare Module in the toolkit that had been left for her, she had a feeling this could turn into a major disadvantage.
She had turned this way without any help from moon glass this time, though. Maybe there was some way she could turn back.
Eventually, Starlight couldn't justify sitting anymore. Her legs still hurt, but were warning her they would cramp if she left them immobile after too much exertion. She had a sudden, painful memory of not knowing how to take care of herself on the first few days, and waking up one morning too stiff to even move.
Another minute, and the boulder where she stopped to eat was out of sight. Several minutes more, and she found a tree, fallen and blocking her way.
That was new. She didn't remember it at all. Starlight blinked at the tree, looking for a way around. It was old growth, with a trunk thicker than Wallace Whitewing, so much thicker than the surrounding pines that she wondered if it had fallen from somewhere above. And it wouldn't be easy to climb over, either.
But Starlight hadn't made up her mind to follow her friends without the intent to follow through, and it would take a lot more than a fallen tree to stop her. Opening her original saddlebags, she pulled out her moon glass sword, and then the shrunken, black knife that used to belong to Gerardo. Maybe she couldn't make it float on its own without a cutie mark to bind it to, but her moon glass inexplicably didn't have that problem...
A few minutes later, Starlight had bound the two weapons' handles together using a little string she found in Fluffy's other saddlebag. Her horn flickered, and the moon glass sword rose, taking the knife with it.
Why could she lift the moon glass, even though her telekinesis wouldn't even manifest around anything else? It didn't matter to her. All she needed was a way that worked, and this would do fine.
Using the moon glass sword as a lift, Starlight maneuvered the other knife around, making slow yet effortless work of the fallen trunk with its cut-anything edge. She had to hack at the log, taking it apart in small chunks, because even if she did cut a path through it all at once, it would be far too heavy for her to push the wood aside.
The air got noticeably colder as Starlight worked, spurring her to hurry. Eventually, though, she was satisfied with her job: a few small steps carved into the side, enough of a hoofhold that she could feasibly climb this while laden with saddlebags.
She hit the ground on the other side with a hard thump, nodding back at the log. Was that so bad? No. She was more than a match for these mountains. She had climbed them before, after all.
Starlight kept walking, drawing Fluffy's insulated coat tighter around herself and fighting back a shiver. The mountains left her all the time in the world to think, yet somehow, her thoughts didn't race. Some primal instinct was telling her that in here, thinking was a waste of energy, perhaps... or maybe, in the mountains, all her troubles were paused. She was walking toward a goal, after all. That had to make it easier than last time. As hurt as she was, there was nothing more she could be doing about it than giving everything to cross these mountains. She had a goal to apply herself to, and that was enough to keep what-ifs from clouding her head.
Although, if someone had told her the mountains were magical and could still her mind themselves, she might not have blown them off too badly.
Starlight fell into a rhythm, a forehoof and a hind hoof, a forehoof and a hind hoof, again and again in time with her breathing. Her legs felt weak, but if she focused on the rhythm, she didn't notice as much. It became more and more necessary as the slope continued to increase, which she measured more by the noise of the nearby river than the actual strain on her body. It didn't matter how tired she was. She would make it.
All she had to do was this, for the rest of the day and then for weeks more on end. But she had done it before. It was the first of the challenges she had conquered. There was nothing to it but stubbornness and determination.
Eventually, Starlight had to stop, leaning on a boulder and panting. She didn't stop because her body was past its limit, although it was... but she was good at pushing past her limits. She stopped because the underbrush had grown too thick, and she just couldn't see where the trail was supposed to be anymore.
Already, she had been hacking at plants with her blades when they got too close, the moon glass proving almost as effective as the metal it was bound to. But now, the trail went from a faint strip of ground where a pony who cared about taking the easy way would have walked to an impassable morass of vegetation. Starlight couldn't push through here. Had she gone the wrong way?
No. This seemed familiar, somehow...
And then, with a start, Starlight realized: this was the point where the trail turned left and grew steeper, leaving the river behind.
She blinked, scrubbing at her tired eyes and seeing that the way was indeed easier to the left. Hadn't it taken days for her to reach this point the first time?
Only two days, now that she thought about it, and she had taken a longer break, but still...
Starlight shrugged, shivered, and started climbing. The chill could only mean she was getting higher, so she'd have to be grateful for Fluffy's coat and get used to it. She would only climb further from here on out.
The path zigzagged sharply, using switchbacks to help her climb the steepening valley wall. Starlight trudged along dutifully, taking the corners as tightly as they would allow her, settling for steeper slopes if it meant saving impacts of the ground against her hooves. Now that she was on the slopes, the tree cover was still there, but frequent rains prevented any needles from building up, leaving the slanted dirt hard and rooty and bare. It made it a little easier on her leg muscles, not having a springy surface to crawl through, but now all the pain went straight to her hooves instead.
Starlight pressed on, too many emotions on pause in her heart to allow her a break. If she stopped, if she thought about it, everything she had been through could hit her again, and she had no one to cling onto here. But as long as she kept walking, she could squeeze those emotions and press them into fuel, use them to force herself to keep going until she made it through to the other side.
The Aldenfold, she remembered, did have another side. They ended somewhere, and that somewhere was Riverfall.
She tried to think about Riverfall. She tried her hardest to put a positive, hopeful spin on it, but her steps were simple and repetitive and so was her breathing, and that made her thoughts simple and repetitive too. Riverfall. It was where she was going. Riverfall. Maple would be there, and the others. Maybe if she was a little more stubborn, a little more determined, she could find a life she would be happy with there, now that she knew so much more about what was waiting for her everywhere else.
It felt like it was no use, because the thoughts weren't doing anything productive. But steady, rhythmic and matching her step were the most productive thing she could ask for, and at the very least they were staying out of her way.
She had to push herself. She had to keep going.
And then, Starlight met a break in the canopy, and stared slack-jawed at the world around her. It wasn't just nighttime; it was more than halfway to dawn.
Had she pushed herself that far for that long?
It explained why it started cooling off so long ago, at least. And why she felt like it had taken so much longer to reach the turnoff from the river during her previous climb. Stupid moon glass... Apart from the general light level and the presence of the stars, it didn't make night look that different from day.
Starlight suddenly remembered again the painful lesson of what happened if she didn't pace herself. She had pushed hard on her first day last time, too. Maybe she should have stopped to rest a long time ago.
She couldn't here, though. She was just exiting the forest, and the winds that blew high up along this valley were chilling her already. It was turn back and seek shelter, or press forward and seek shelter, and there was only one choice she could find acceptable.
Starlight Glimmer kept going.
She was going south by now. If her internal compass was correct, the valley extended from Sires Hollow to the north, and the switchbacks had taken her west up the valley wall. Now, she was out of the forest, but to the north was the end of the valley, the river pouring down into it in a waterfall that fed from a canyon from higher up in the mountains. There was no way to scale that rock face, even though it was the direction she needed, so instead the trail looped around to the south and then west again, circling a lone peak and finding another pass so it could continue off the edge of Equestria.
It was less steep than the switchbacks, but more dangerous, a path of rock too narrow for a cart, with a slanted forty-five-degree drop-off to the left and an equally sharp slope to the other side. The whole thing was covered in so much fallen gravel that her hooves threatened to skid beneath her, and every other gust of wind brought a pebble or two tinkling down from above. She looked up the mountainside, its snow cap far, far in the distance...
This wasn't a day trip. It wasn't a week trip. Starlight slowly started to remember just how impossible these mountains were supposed to be.
The sloping road continued, a zigzag up ahead where a small ridge blocked her view forward. By this point, it wasn't just her hooves and legs that hurt. Her spine hurt from the weight of her saddlebags, her neck hurt from bobbing her head with her breathing, her lungs hurt from the cold night air and her stomach hurt purely from exertion. Starlight eyed the zigzag greedily, the trail dipping into a slight niche in the mountains where it would be sheltered from the wind. That looked like her stopping place for the rest of the night. She prayed she had left herself enough energy to continue in the morning.
Starlight reached the niche, sliding off her saddlebags with a sigh of relief, her bones and muscles immediately thanking her. The mountains were rocky and offered no wood here for a fire, but she didn't think she needed one for tonight. Hunger and thirst aside, Fluffy's coat would provide more than adequate bedding for now.
Sitting back against the mountainside, Starlight let herself breathe, finally giving her legs the rest they deserved and emptying half her water flask at once. Hopefully it would rain soon so she could refill it. Though she sort of remembered there being another river ahead...
She didn't eat until her stomach was full, but she did take enough that she no longer felt starving. Sleep tugged at her eyes, tempting her with oblivion while her body rested and healed itself. She wanted to oblige, but... common sense halted her. It would at least be a good idea to spend twenty more steps scouting, going to see what was beyond the ridge the zigzag went around. If this wasn't a safe place to rest, she would rather push herself even further than spend the night where she would regret it.
Starlight limped along, favoring all four hooves, and stared when she saw beyond the ridge. Nestled far to the south below her, framed by two other steeper mountains, she got a glimpse of a lake, and beyond that a valley with buildings, one or two of which still had their lights on.
Sires Hollow. The home that was not meant to be.
...Starlight knew she would dwell if she stayed around to watch it, and she couldn't afford to spend that much emotional energy. She retreated back to the mountain niche, adjusted Fluffy's coat about her like a sleeping bag, and quickly fell into slumber.
Starlight awakened earlier than she wanted to, courtesy of a light drizzle on her face.
Nothing about her felt rested, and she was half tempted to trust in Fluffy's raincoat and try to keep sleeping. But an annoying little spike of uneasiness forced her to pry open her eyes anyway, and with that came the realization that the ground was probably colder than it should have been. And that was saying something, because it was already bare stone.
She looked at the recess she had chosen to take shelter in, a small cavity in a fold in a mountain. The exposed rock was visibly wet already. This might have been a shelter from the winds, but Starlight had chosen to make her camp in a rainstorm runoff canal.
Her body told her it couldn't move, but she was an accomplished practitioner of the impossible. In barely a minute, she had fixed her coat around her, pulled back on both sets of saddlebags, and was trotting up and out of the recess to higher ground. She couldn't stay here. She had to keep moving.
Starlight made it as far as the lookout where she had seen Sires Hollow last night before needing to stop and wake up. Blinking, standing still and barely moving a muscle, Starlight simply existed, her legs holding her up like immobile pillars as her body tried to convince itself of the necessity of living.
...There was a bench nearby. Starlight stumped over to it and sat, grateful for anything to sit on that wasn't a burgeoning riverbed. And she stayed there, the sun low enough behind the clouds that it couldn't possibly yet be noon, rain drizzling down on her coat and trickling around the brim of her upturned hood. Just enough of it touched her muzzle to remind her it was very much still there.
Starlight shivered. She was so sore that even the movement of shivering inflamed her cramps, and eventually she twisted about on the bench, massaging her forelegs and trying to stretch her spine. It hurt in the sort of way that would have felt good if she was sitting at home behind a window, separated from it in a cocoon of warmth, with no need or reason to push herself and go outside... but as it was, the coat her friend had given her was the closest thing she had.
She knew exactly what that would feel like, though. Even beaten down and trampled, Starlight wasn't about to lose sight of what she was fighting for.
Why was there a bench here, anyway? Probably the same reason there was a trail. A generation ago, or maybe more, Starlight supposed this had been someone's special place, a trip ponies could take from the village in the name of an awesome view. She didn't remember the clean trail extending from here; in fact, she remembered the next leg of the climb being much harder. This, she supposed, was as far as most ponies ever came into the Aldenfold.
As good as the view might sometimes be, Sires Hollow was presently obscured by low-lying clouds. She could see the mountains rising up to their west, and a small patch of darkness was visible that might have been the eastern ridge poking up beneath the fog bank, but other than that Starlight was sandwiched by gray, clouds raining above and more clouds floating below. What she couldn't see was where she had been, or where she was going... Even when she looked back, like here at this lookout someone had built a bench at ages ago, the past was already hidden from view.
She could go back, still. The end of the world had already happened, all of her friends were gone. And yet, it had been a day, and she was still living. Couldn't she carry on like this down there, with Fishy and Fluffy and the others who would say they cared about her and turn out to be telling the truth?
...No. Starlight couldn't. Because the one thing that had given her strength again, she knew for certain now, was her unending drive to keep going. It was what got her across the mountains the first time and what would see her through them again, and what made her more miserable than anything else when she tried to ignore it and seek lasting happiness or accept the things she hated. Giving up and living with her losses? She could do it, but it would hurt, and she wouldn't have nearly enough to live for. But standing up and pushing herself into the impossible, no matter how impossible it was... At this point, it was like a poultice, bandaging and bracing her heart and filling her with the self-sufficient power to carry on.
She got to her hooves again. Her body did have limits somewhere that no amount of determination could overcome, and she had to tend to them. She needed to rest properly and find shelter.
Unfortunately, this was still the end of the trail. Starlight pulled out more food, munching thoughtfully as she analyzed her options. Right now, she was low down on the south face of a peak, having circled around clockwise on the path to get out of the valley to the east... Last time, she had just kept circling, braving the steep, hoofhold-less mountain face and looping about to the north.
The worst thing to do here would be getting lost, becoming unable to retrace her route to the north from before. She had to follow her old trail, whether there were parts of it she regretted or not.
Starlight set out, the overlook ledge getting thinner and thinner against the mountain face until it was completely gone, and there was nothing but steep, gravelly scree beneath her hooves. She leaned heavily to the right, rebalancing her saddlebags and tilting her head, trying to focus ahead on her destination instead of down at the distance she'd roll if she fell. But this section was too long and too curved for her to have luck with that, nothing but a growing horizon of crunchy stone ahead of her, and she found her gaze drifting downward anyway.
Far below, if she tumbled and rolled all the way, there was snow... It looked like the result of an avalanche from the next mountain over, fallen and tumbled and lodged in the crevice between them. It was also partially melted and refrozen, and maybe a little melted again. In that crevice, it would get no sunlight... She didn't want to fall down and find out.
Starlight moved one hoof at a time, and every few steps she stopped, laying on her side and spreading her weight out against the mountain wall so the force of her breathing wouldn't knock her off and cause her to slide down. There was purchase for her hooves, enough that she could keep moving, but none at all to spare. This was slow, dangerous and almost terrifying, and with every sound Starlight's ears spiked inside her hood, looking up to ensure the drizzle hadn't dislodged a boulder and sent it tumbling down to kill her. How had the younger, less-experienced her ever been able to do this? The mountains were far more dangerous than she remembered, though most of it was an experience she had put behind her the moment she was safe. She had just crossed them, and then taken it for granted, and never really connected all the trials and hardships she endured while crossing them with their reputation for being impossible.
...Right. Past Starlight had nothing worth living for and no destination in mind. She could have died in the mountains and cared just as much as if she survived, because all she wanted was to leave Sires Hollow. Now, she had something to live for, a reason to reach the other side...
Starlight wasn't sure if it was the first time in her life, but if it was, she didn't know when it had started or what had changed: she was running toward something rather than away.
Her hoofsteps were too slow to establish a rhythm and regulate her breathing, her pace set by what the loose mountain slope could take instead of the limits of her body. She was almost grateful for the stillness, hugging the steep slope and resting every few steps, because even though it was tense and far from relaxing it was still what her abused muscles needed. Starlight crawled on, necessity forbidding her from proper rest or sleep, and the rain slackened off, like a dog putting down a chew toy to check if it was still intact. The rain actually made this section easier, though, damping down any dust she could kick up from the loose mountain surface so she didn't accidentally sneeze.
Eventually, after the sun reached midday behind the clouds and the clouds darkened to compensate, when Starlight had reached the phase of weariness where she forgot how tired she was because her body was too tired to properly report itself and she wondered if she had regained her energy somehow instead, she saw the end of this climb: a small, rocky chute a ways above her, the bottom of the crevice where this mountain met its larger northern neighbor, poking out of the western mountain face and inviting her to crawl up it instead. Starlight adjusted her course, gaining even more height on the impossible slope so she could meet the crevice where it ended...
It was pouring a stream of runoff collected from the mountains it bordered. To climb up this, Starlight would have to wade up a tiny river. And yet, it was the path she had taken last time, on a dryer day, and if she avoided it now she'd not only have an indefinite amount of this cliff face left to hug, she'd have at least one whole mountain between her and her intended path.
She needed to take it. And besides, she remembered there being a good campsite on the other side.
Starlight crawled on her belly and hauled herself up alongside the crevice, grateful Fluffy's coat was closed beneath her as well. A running rivulet of water splashed one of her hooves with enough cold to shock it even through its numbness, and she briefly froze, taking the hoof and tucking it inside her coat against her to warm it up again. It cost time and precious body heat, but she had to take care of her hooves. The first rule of doing the impossible was not to throw away any advantages you could save.
...Starlight glanced at her saddlebags as she hugged the mountain face, the rain suddenly returning with a vengeance. The artifice she carried... It couldn't purge her of being moon glassed if she re-bonded with it, could it? As helpful as the emotional painkiller was, toughing out a journey like this, Starlight felt like any negative emotions she had, she could use to her advantage right now. And having her crystals back would make this a lot easier.
She decided to keep it in mind. She didn't need the boost now. Not yet, at least.
With a crackle of scattering rocks, Starlight pulled herself higher. The gulley between the two mountain peaks was draining water quickly, and faster as the rain picked up, beating down against her raincoat and flattening the ear pockets stitched into her hood.
Hugging the edge, where the mountain broke off and the chute began, Starlight craned her head around the corner, looking up into it. It had collected plentiful fallen boulders and debris, and the water flowed around and beneath them, rushing out of the canyon. This wasn't a test of getting her hooves wet, it was a trial of clambering over all those boulders and hoping none of them shifted or rolled beneath her. If she fell off a boulder and into the water, and another boulder smashed her against it, it would hurt far more than anything Chrysalis or Herman were going to throw at her. The mountains had no mind with which to grant an efficient death.
Starlight gritted her teeth, inside the crevice and standing on the second boulder in. Not only was it small, wet and hazardous, it was extremely steep, too.
She didn't have her own magic for this, but she had to get an edge. She needed some help from the Nightmare Modules.
Calling on moon glass, she wasn't about to do, both because it left permanent hazardous waste and because she didn't want to risk getting stuck in it like at Griffonstone. But she did have another that could help: the Tyranny Module, which she had called upon against Crystal to augment her body into a bigger, more capable fighting form. Even just having adult-sized legs here would help a lot... She tapped into the module's power, let it swirl inside her, and immediately wheezed as her body swelled and her things didn't grow with her, trapping her barrel in a filly-sized raincoat like a sodden corset. Starlight immediately dismissed the power before she could damage the coat's good construction, shrinking back to her normal size.
What were the Nightmare Modules even designed for if not making her stronger? It was almost like their creator had intended them for a completely different purpose altogether.
For a few more minutes, Starlight powered herself with thoughts of frustration against the Nightmare Modules, climbing and crawling and sometimes resorting to jumping as a low rumble of thunder passed by overhead. It came from behind her, like the storm was far to the west, and she paused to hope this was just the edge, and it was just passing on by.
Eventually, the gulley grew so steep and so narrow, she was more climbing upwards than pressing on ahead. Starlight had to climb thrice her height at times just to avoid obstacles, and multiple times, she told her legs to move and found them simply with no reaction whatsoever. At one point, she collapsed atop a rock lodged high enough between the two walls she could have gone under it if there hadn't been a foot of rushing water, coughed weakly, and stopped, an even higher wall before her and her legs like deflated balloons, completely unable to go on.
The sky grumbled, and the rain redoubled its strength, driving her coat into her back and punching her saddlebags into her sides. Whether her body thought it could or not, Starlight needed to keep moving, and so she got up and climbed on. It was easy to do the impossible when the alternative was to give up and die, though that didn't mean there wouldn't be consequences.
Starlight crested the next wall and slipped, falling a ways forward and landing on her face in an open clearing. She had made it. This was the other side.
She glanced around, darkness creeping at the edges of her vision, and barely had time to identify a sheltered cave entrance and crawl inside. Saddlebags still attached, Starlight was out cold.
This time, Starlight was greeted by a lesser emergency when she came to, but an emergency nonetheless: her body was a wall of pain, more than anything she had experienced in the north, only comparable to all the memories she had left behind of this place on her first trip through.
She barely had the strength to free herself from her saddlebags, her legs responding to her movement impulses by flopping like beached fish. Eventually, she did it, though without the mortal impetus of do or die, Starlight had no powers of doing the impossible to command herself to move by. She remembered this cave; she had camped here her first time, stayed for a day and a half to rest and recuperate and let out her emotions where no one could see her. It was shallow, yet big enough, and not in any danger of flooding. And the way ahead was easier for a change.
So, Starlight rested. She tried not to dwell on her thoughts, but now that she had slept and just needed her body to recuperate more, it was impossible for them to leave her alone.
The two foremost faces in her mind weren't Maple and Amber, but Jamjars and Fluffy Fleece. She was going to the north, but wasn't that what Jamjars had wanted? Keeping them all together, making sure Starlight would still be there to protect them and keep them safe?
That was what she said, at least. And as much as Starlight hated the idea of Jamjars getting her way after what she had done, how was she supposed to do anything else when her friends were in danger? Hopefully she could be content, make them content too, keep them from doing anything dangerous where she would need to...
No, forget it. Valey and Gerardo were determined to go writ-hunting in Yakyakistan and beyond so they could reunite with Felicity. And after Starlight had just seen what it felt like to be left truly alone, she had a fierce desire to save Felicity from the same. Maybe she could make Jamjars stay behind somehow, instead...
And yet, every time she tried getting bitter, powering herself with resentment of the filly who called herself her friend, she remembered Fluffy, too. Someone she had almost been hopeful about getting to stay around, a pony she maybe thought of as her friend... If Sires Hollow had been in the cards for her, they probably would have been good friends. Maybe. She certainly would have been an important pillar in letting Starlight back into a normal life, and relearning how to smile. In fact, Fluffy was the only pony out of anyone she called a friend who had ever heard her laugh.
It was a real shame to leave Fluffy behind. Starlight wished she could keep everyone. But the idea of a perfect ending had been shattered and dashed against the ground, and she wasn't even sure she could say she was doing this for her friends anymore.
...Well, of course she was. But she was also doing it because taking a dream and throwing herself at it with everything she had, beyond mortal limits and beyond one hundred percent, was the only method of coping she had ever learned. If she stopped trying, gave back into the idea that she could let go and live with her world instead of trying to change it, the pain of everything she had lost and gave up on getting back would surely return.
When she remembered that pain, the agony in her muscles almost felt good. It meant she was living, and fighting for herself and her needs with everything she had.
Starlight wished she had her telekinesis to do chores for her while she was down, but she didn't, so as time passed she slowly began testing herself and then dragging herself around the cave, doing things that needed to be done. With this rainstorm, it was time to refill her water skin, and at least one of the backups too. It was time to eat until her stomach sat heavy and full, to regain her strength and hold nothing back here while she had a safe haven to rest, and to make room for more water in her bags. It was time to brush out her fur, matted with sweat from the warmth of her coat and the exertion of her climb, and set the coat so it could air out a little before she needed it again come nightfall.
She completely drained her waterskin, feeling a little strength returning already as she properly sat down and ate. Not enough to keep going yet, not nearly at all, but enough to move around the cave and tend to her needs. She rooted around in her saddlebags, deciding to see what else Fluffy had packed.
Rope? Rope was good. Critical, in fact; she remembered needing it all the time once she reached the caves... Come to think of it, without her horn to use as a light, she didn't know how she would traverse the caves at all. There wasn't a light packed, that was for sure. She hadn't told Fluffy a word about how her horn was useless in this form.
There were some matches, though, which could become critical if she needed a fire. A sewing kit with heavy-duty thread, probably for patching her bags or coat if they tore. A book...
Starlight's ears fell. Fluffy had slipped her sketchbook inside the bags, the one with all her ideas for her bedroom.
Fighting down a lump in her throat, Starlight resolved that it wouldn't be good enough, just to make it back to her friends in the north. For all the effort she had spent so far, and all that she was ready to spend in the future, she wanted a perfect world, and that would be one with her newest friend in it too.
She knew she would lose herself in the sketches, but she had nothing better to do. And so Starlight opened the book and read, losing her mind among the imagination of a pony she cared about while her body rested up to resume her eternal chase.
Night fell, and Starlight decided to move out. Her first time here, she had camped at this spot for far longer, but two factors spurred her on: there was no edible foliage here, so she would be forced to rely on her preserved cave food, and she remembered that the next segment got easier.
That, and she was in a hurry to get back to building her world.
Something about the Nightmare Modules made her comfortable, traveling at night. Or was it Fluffy's warm coat? Either way, the clearing outside her cave was flat and walled in by rigid stone, harboring several puddles left over from the storm, though no rain fell now to disturb them. Starlight stared at one, looked at her reflection, nodded quietly, and moved on.
To one side of the clearing, there was an exit, a gap in the rocks that towered up farther than she could crane her neck. Starlight stepped through, and the cliffs continued, but so did the road, a path arcing forward into the night.
This path opened out into the valley north of Sires Hollow, except she had gained so much altitude, she was not only above the waterfall that marked the end, she was above the deep canyon the river had carved. The ground she stood on was perfectly flat and perfectly level with the land at the top of the canyon, the rock face that bordered the lower valley so perfectly cut away it was easy to see why: the rocks in the mountains were layered, and whatever surface she stood on now was far sturdier and more prone to clean fractures than weathering than any of the rest. Looking at the waterfall and its canyon, it was like someone had taken a clean slice out of the earth and lifted it a mile into the sky, leaving all its strata bare for her to see.
...Even in the night, she could see it, because the clouds had rolled on and starlight twinkled from above. A full moon was just beginning its rise.
Starlight took a moment longer just to look, the mountains almost ethereal and haunting from this vantage. She could see a thin crack in the top, sturdy rock plate where the river first flowed, and then the canyon widened as it dropped lower, cutting through a rock that was softer and easier for the water to wash away. Around the high rim of the valley, a thin path snaked its way outward along the mountain wall to meet her, the same layer of rock plate that formed the plateau where the waterfall originated cutting through the peaks to form the floor she was on now, and she could see it zigzagging in a clean-cut road all the way to that plateau, where loam and soil had built up and another forest grew, a forest miles in the sky.
She sighed, staring even longer. Beyond that forest on the sturdier rock layer at the top of the waterfall, she could see another horizon of mountains, and a second, higher one beyond that, and one greater than the previous two combined blocking out the stars beyond those. In these mountains, the higher you climbed, the more you were allowed to see just how massive they truly were.
Starlight was a filly who could do the impossible, face threats that were larger than life and prevail. But this wasn't just larger than life. It was larger than the world.
She stepped out along the path, eroded soft stone to her left and an overhang drop-off to her right, making her way to the forest at the foot of the roof of the world.
Starlight was stuck, and didn't see a way to continue.
When the mountains had formed, lifting up this hard strata of rock that held together and formed the path she was on as well as the foundation of the forest ahead, they hadn't done so gently. And now, she finally came upon a crack in it: a gap between her current mountain peak and the next one, wide enough that she couldn't hope to jump it with her legs in this condition, let alone with all her saddlebags.
She remembered crossing this gap the first time. It was where she had learned her crystals were good for walking upon.
Starlight huffed at the gap, not quite dead on her hooves but far from energized, either. Moon glass? Tempting, but she wasn't pushed that far yet. The artifice? Same. As willing as she was to do anything to see her goals through to the end, she still had her stubbornness. She still wanted to have boundaries.
...Time to ask her moon glass sword for aid again.
With a lot of careful fidgeting and mouth work, Starlight got out her rope, took off her saddlebags, shed her coat, and one by one used the hilt of the moon glass sword as a lift to float all of her possessions across to the other side. Unusually, the telekinesis seemed to have no feedback on its strain whatsoever, neither mental nor physical no matter how much she loaded the sword down, yet she could still see it wobble and struggle under heavier loads. She slipped into a science-like trance, testing and lifting and slowly carrying her things over, and then finally brought the sword back, knotted the rope sturdily around the handle of the black metal sword, and used her moon glass sword like a hammer to drive it like a piton into the rock at the far side.
There. Now she could jump, and had a rope to pull herself up if she didn't make it.
Starlight smiled at her work. It took her a moment to realize, and when she did, she just stared.
Of all the times in her life, while she was moon glassed and had lost everything, while she was fighting desperately to get it all back... How could she accidentally find herself happy now?
Thinking about it wouldn't get her across the mountains. She was just doing what she was best at. Starlight prepared to jump, at the last second remembering that she had floated her coat across and was no longer restrained from using the Tyranny Module. That would definitely help with a thing like this.
Once again, she powered herself up, dark energy swirling around her as she used the module to increase her size to a more intimidating, capable form, and her mane and tail shimmered into a starry mist. Starlight coiled her legs, held tightly onto the rope, and jumped, willing that she not prove too tired and lose her strength at the last second.
She didn't even need the rope. She landed easily on the other side with distance to spare.
Starlight briefly regarded herself with wide eyes, using another puddle on the rock as a mirror. She probably ought to have tested what this form could do, but... she didn't really like the way it looked, either. She was who she was, and she didn't want to change, especially when she knew other ponies who would be happy to steal her look if she didn't want it. Like Glimmer and Jamjars.
Besides, she couldn't wear her coat like this. Starlight shrank again, no less determined, and picked up her things and carried on her way.
That gap was the only barrier Starlight encountered on her way to the forest plateau, the rock ledge she was walking on widening out and sloping up as a layer of soil built up atop it. Looking back over her shoulder, she could faintly see the river at the bottom of the valley below, where she had walked just a day or two below... No looking back, though. She had a lot of mountains left to cross, and needed to press forward.
Up here, though, the scraggly, high-altitude pine forest from below didn't continue. Instead, she was greeted by a biological anomaly: this plateau was a valley of its own, but it held a jungle, thick vines and plants with broad leaves and trees with ribbed, exotic trunks that all belonged in a climate more tropical than any she had ever visited. What were these hot-weather plants doing up here?
They didn't even bunch up at the bases. There was actual grass growing beneath the trees, careful and cultivated, with an even length to the blades yet no sign of ever being cut. She nibbled some, and it tasted fresh and faintly sweet. She remembered this forest from before, and supposed she was only struck by its strangeness now that she had a better idea of what grew where, but... still.
The only possible explanation she could think of for why it looked the way it did was magic. These mountains were deeply magical, she had known that for a while. And yet, it seemed more obvious now.
Maybe it was because she was moon glassed?
...Actually, she double-checked that she still could use the Nightmare Modules at all, briefly conjuring her shield. Because all of a sudden, after stepping beneath these trees, she realized that she could remember the color blue.
Starlight wandered forward, utterly mystified, yet with no real reason to question it. Maybe the mountains had leftover harmony magic from the enchantment that used to power them, and it could do something to counteract the effects of being moon glassed. Either way, it felt good here, like she was somewhere she belonged.
She found the waterfall canyon, locating it by sound. It was impossibly deep and almost pitch-black, though the moon was directly overhead, shining perfectly down it and reflecting faintly off the waters rushing by far below. Starlight decided to proceed at a healthy distance from it. If she fell in that canyon, she'd be dead for sure.
Hours ticked by further, and she lost count of how far she had come. The trees made it hard to see anything for reference but the moon, and every time she looked up, it was like the stars grew a little bit brighter in her vision.
Had she been unable to appreciate this the first time she was here? Or did the Nightmare Modules give her a connection to the night sky, making her yearn for it, want to reach out and touch its beauty with a hoof, swirl it around in the sky and drag the stars into whatever patterns her soul pleased? She probably was physically closer to the stars than a whole lot of ponies had ever been before.
Starlight continued, feeling more than strongly like the stars were closer even than the sky. It was like a haze of blue light drifted among the treetops, barely beyond what she could touch, motes and twinkles dancing through it and almost reminding her of the cloud that formed around the rails of Shinespark's harmony extractor. Her heart raced faster the more she looked at it, and she couldn't understand where this had been the first time she was here. Did she pass through this forest entirely in the day? It really had to be her grayness, didn't it...?
With a little click, her hooves touched something hard and glassy that definitely wasn't more grass.
Starlight looked down with a start. Some force had fused parts of the ground together here. It really looked like legitimate glass, not moon glass or any other magical approximation... She hurried forward, somehow finding the energy to run, a low humming building in her ears.
She skidded out into a clearing, and her ears and mouth dropped at what she saw.
It was a crater, a blast impact. No trees grew near it on account of the ground being fused solid, but the ones growing up to the jagged edges of the glass were big and vibrant, their leaves filled with life and vigor. And in the center, welling up from the hole in the ground where the strike itself had occurred, there was a blue, spiraling energy, letting off the cloud of stars she had seen gathering overhead. It was the source of the shimmering, pulsating hum, though Starlight resonated with it with more than just her ears.
The magic here... it felt like a harmonic flame. And yet, it was more of a memory than an intelligence, like what the braziers the flames sat in could feel like if the flames ever were gone, as if this land had once been touched by something holy and would remember until the end of time.
Starlight wanted to step closer to the crater, yet a trepidation in her heart held her back from doing so. That, and she had spotted two other objects of much greater interest.
They were a pair of gravestones.
Wordlessly, Starlight approached the graves, knowing exactly where she was.
To an unknown mare, one read. To an unknown stallion, the other added. Both were engraved in a script she didn't recognize, but had only one answer for regardless: Doctor Caballeron, the stallion who had brought her out of the mountains, claiming her parents had died in a climbing accident looking for moon glass.
What was there around here to die from? The trees? This place was perfectly flat...
Yet, he had left them graves. Starlight bowed her head and gritted her teeth, wondering how she had missed this place the first time, realizing she wouldn't have known it had anything to do with her had she found it, knowing that these were the ponies who took their infant filly climbing into the mountains because they wanted to get their hooves on some treasure.
This was the start of it all. Starlight was back where she truly began.
And behind her...
She turned around and took a step, heart pounding, wanting to see the place where the Eylista meteor had lain.
SCRRRRRKKKKKKKKK!
A sudden burst of gray static edged into her vision, dancing around her skull and forcing her back with a wince. Starlight's head throbbed, and she felt dizzy, almost like the world was going to fall away... She stepped back in a panic, and it subsided as quickly as it had come. What was that?
Cautiously, she tested again, and the same reaction happened, only slower now that her motions were more controlled. Starlight frowned. What was this? The closest feeling she had ever had to it was... when...
When she was at the harmonic flames, and falling into one of her gray visions. But this wasn't a real harmonic flame, right? How could it happen here?
With a sudden shock of lucidity, she realized she knew: there wasn't a gray vision waiting for her here. There was a gray vision waiting for her at the Flame of Honesty, one she had blotted out from her memory along with all recollection of the talk that followed. This place had some sort of intense harmonic energy... Why the moon glass meteor would leave that behind, she couldn't fathom, but it was what it was.
If she stepped forward to check out that crater, she would remember everything she had tried so hard to forget. And if it was strong enough to do that, odds were it would purge her of her grayness, too.
Could she really do it? Had the filly she once became foreseen her being all on her own, truly alone like she was now?
Starlight set down her saddlebags and stared at her hooves, shaking. It would be a considerable edge, having her magic back for the travels ahead. And... her world had ended. She had hit rock bottom, fallen all the way to the center of the earth and now climbed back up to its ceiling. She had seen the lowest she could go and not given in to darkness, not lost herself to rage but leaned into the one thing she could always count on to make her who she was and give her a purpose in life: chasing her dreams with everything she had, doing the impossible and going beyond her limits to give everything to her goals, even if it meant never reaching them.
She knew who she was. She knew who she wasn't. And she was going to reunite with her friends.
If she was strong enough to do that, to stand up after her world ended again, was she strong enough to carry whatever it was her past self had seen fit to hide from her?
...Now that she no longer trusted Glimmer, she had no lead on her gray visions whatsoever. Maybe it was her calling to actually do something about those, too, and maybe this could help. Maybe the flame had placed a burden on her she couldn't carry when she still thought it was in the cards to give up and live peacefully, before she gave up on giving up and embraced her determination to move forward. More than anything else, Starlight was tired of running.
Starlight swallowed. These were her memories. If they were bad, all the more fuel for her determination to make it back to her friends.
She stepped forward toward the crater, and received one last warning of grayness. And then the blue vanished from her vision and darkness clouded in, and her old world returned with a sound of breaking glass.
When Starlight's vision reformed, her body was being jostled. Far from the last two gray visions where she seemed unable to interact with the world at all, in this one, the world was determined to interact with her.
"Hold the cart steady!" a mare's voice frantically called. "It's hard to bandage their wounds like this, and you're making some of them worse!"
"Do your best," another, older mare called from ahead, voice strained and panting. "I'm going as fast as I can! The more we tarry, the fewer we'll be able to get to the triage center!"
Starlight sat up. Ash was falling all around her in a soft, endless curtain, pelting against her from the speed at which she was moving yet barely feeling like anything at all. She was on the back of a wide, flat cart, sharing it with more than half a dozen sarosians: most were injured, some quite badly, and one was trying to tend to the others, presumably the one who had spoken. Big and muscular, she used her hooves and wingtips with surprising dexterity, finishing a split around another pony's wing and then sitting back and wiping her brow. She didn't look in perfect condition, either.
"Heads up, swerving!"
The cart lurched again, barely enough time for the medic mare to catch some of the others and keep them from rolling around. Starlight looked up and out, seeing a pit or crater they had barely managed to avoid... This landscape was rough and pockmarked beneath its thin coating of ash, like a flat field that had suffered hundred of thousands of explosions throughout the ages. Something ruinous had happened here.
It was also passing unnaturally quickly. Starlight looked up front to see the cart being pulled by a single mare... A mare who was running at several times the speed she had ever seen a pony run before. Her flurrying legs were braced by some kind of metal with glowing lines, though it looked ineffective as armor... Were those enhancements, bolstering her and increasing her swiftness and endurance?
"Do you think there will even be more to come back for by the time we finish this run?" the medic mare asked, ears falling. "The enemy has practically infinite reinforcements. We've only done two trips, and they were already..."
"It isn't over until it's over," the runner panted. "The objective is to retreat, not to hold. Starlight knows everything is on her shoulders now, and that we can neither follow her nor wait for her. We did our part, and now we'll see to it that as many survive to see the future as possible!"
"I just hope she can do it," the medic murmured. "What if we run home and never hear from her again, and just have to go back to our old lives, living as normal?"
"Don't talk like that," the runner scolded. "If what she said is true-"
"Look alive, chatterboxes!" an injured pony cried. "They're on our tail!"
The medic's pupils constricted, and her jaw fell in surprise. "Wuh-oh."
Suddenly, Starlight was grabbed.
The beefy medic was holding her, aiming her behind the cart and at the sky like a launcher. "Hey!" Starlight struggled, but the medic neither heard her nor noticed. "Put me down!"
What was happening? She had previously been like a ghost in these visions, but now it was like she was experiencing it from a perspective...
Shapes appeared through the falling ash, black and buzzing and closing in swiftly. The medic pointed her right at them, and Starlight recognized them instantly: more empty sarosian shells, hostile and snarling.
KA-CHUNK!
Something happened, and Starlight's perspective fired a blast at the shells that exploded into a mass of crackling energy, snaring and coursing through the pursuers and sending several crashing to the ground. "Yeah! Got some!" the medic cheered, reloading and firing another blast.
Starlight's eyes widened in confusion. Was she experiencing this as a weapon?
"Good work!" The cart lurched again as the mare pulling it took evasive action, putting on another burst of speed.
The shells surged closer, and the mare holding Starlight spun, flooring one with a giant punch and unloading her weapon point-blank into another's face. A third grabbed onto the railing, rocking the cart and baring its teeth and snarling, exposing a long, forked tongue.
One of the injured ponies pulled themselves to their hooves and swung a sword at it, severing it and knocking it away.
"How many more are there!?" the mare called from the front, her voice more ragged already. She must have been pacing herself before, even at her incredible speed... Starlight could hear her faltering.
"I think we got them?" the medic mare called back hopefully. "I don't see any-"
With a dull flash, the cart they were riding on disappeared in a giant puff of ash.
Multiple ponies screamed in surprise and pain as they hit the ground and rolled. "No!" the runner cried, skidding about instantly and dashing back to the ponies who had fallen, helping the medic up first.
"Not the cart..." the medic whispered, eyes shaking. She looked to the other ponies. "But the bandages are still here. That means the triage center is still..."
"We're done for," one of the injured ponies whispered.
"Hardly." The runner was panting and ragged, leg braces flickering, but she took a stance. "If this is where we make a last stand, this is where we'll do it. With me?"
The medic grabbed Starlight again and slung her over her shoulder, nodding in determination. "With you."
They both faced the way they had come, shoulder to shoulder, and a few of the less-injured passengers got to their hooves to join them. A black static started building in Starlight's ears. This vision was about to end.
And then, roaring out of the falling ash, it came, a wall of expanding, calamitous blackness, engulfing the world like it consumed reality itself. Starlight couldn't even tell if it was happening within the vision or was a part of the construct that created the vision in the first place, but it came, and she was bowled over, caught up and absorbed and drowning in the absence of light, floating and rising and gasping until...
Starlight's vision returned, a black covering draining away from her eyes like dark tears. She could see color again. Whether it was only in this memory or for good, she was no longer moon glassed.
"Another vision..." she heard herself mutter without really intending it. She looked up. There was a brazier before her, surrounded by crystal, crackling with beautiful orange flames.
Right. Since this was a memory, and not the present, she would only remember the conversation her past self had held with the flame. Whatever new questions she might have gathered since then, she would be unable to ask.
"Starlight?" Maple asked, standing right beside her. "Are you alright?"
Starlight rubbed her face. "I just..." She swallowed, looking up to the Flame of Honesty ahead. "Right. Let's bring the other me back."
Right... Glimmer was still in Maple's cutie mark at this point. Starlight thought frantically, trying to remember as much as she could about why she had been here: her memories weren't just sitting there in her head for her to recollect at any time, she was living through them like they were today.
She, Valey, Maple and Nyala had taken the Arc Manta, she recalled, with three Kinmari scientists, though she didn't see Nyala or the scientists down here in the flame room. It was just herself, Maple and Valey... She still had the artifice, too, and they were here to bring back Glimmer and press her for answers on the gray futures. And that was all the context she had time to remember.
We meet at last, the orange flame said in her mind. I have heard much about you from my siblings in the north. But first, you came here for a reason.
"Glimmer," Starlight said. "We're here to get her back. We want to ask her questions, and Maple shouldn't have to carry her around in her cutie mark anymore."
...If you are sure. Sleep.
"Oh my," Maple breathed, suddenly covering her mouth and yawning. "All of a sudden, I'm feeling so sleepy..."
"Ironflanks?" Valey raised an eyebrow.
Starlight glanced up. "You can't hear the tree, but it's telling you to sleep."
"Right... Mmm..." Maple didn't look like she had any strength to resist, laying down and curling up against the brazier. Within seconds, she was breathing softly.
Starlight waited for a moment, and nothing happened. "Is it supposed to be doing something?" Valey asked, standing carefully at attention.
I can only provide the means for you to reconstitute your other, the flame replied. Finding the direction is a task that falls to you alone.
Starlight nodded. She had no idea what that meant, but apparently her past self did...?
Nightmare Module emulation mode is unable to be activated, her Nightmare Module voice said, responding to something that went through her mind.
"I don't need it to be," Starlight replied. "I just need to know how to bring her back. She told me she did it for me after I disappeared using the harmony extractor in Ironridge. So whatever weird knowledge you have on how to do that, I need it."
Access denied.
"Unless," Starlight replied, not missing a beat. Internally, she frowned. What?
Eylista administrator access level granted, her Nightmare Module voice coolly replied. Loading schematics for Transitional Emotion Trinity Research Automata version 4.0...
Her horn charged with a spell she had never felt before. There was no energy in it, only... information? If something physical could be turned into an idea, and that idea into a spell, only it was a perfect representation rather than an approximation and that made it unimaginably huge, except that thoughts still weren't physical so it took up no space at all even though it was gigantic... that was the only way she could describe it.
An orange field of telekinesis appeared, seemingly generated by the tree around her. It lifted Maple, holding her gently, and set her in the crystal brazier, the flames intensifying around her as their orange color started to mix with sparkling midnight blue. Now, the tree instructed.
Starlight touched her horn to the frame, and her spell discharged, the flame itself changing in reaction to her. It shimmered, twisted, warped and wrapped around in on itself, shrinking until it rose along predefined curves rather than the natural, flowing movements of fire. Those curves bent around themselves more still, until the fire in the pedestal seemed to be coming from Maple herself, yet was tiny, sculpted into the size of a filly like Starlight... and suddenly, its surface began to freeze solid, melding into lilac fur.
As Starlight stared, Glimmer took form, like an outside shell of a filly spreading slowly over a core of shimmering, ethereal flames. Her head formed last, her eyes still burning with harmonic flame behind them... and then they took shape too, and she landed on Maple on the empty brazier. The flame was gone, though already the platform was glowing with embers of orange as it re-summoned itself as well.
"Unnngh..." Glimmer stirred, coming to.
"Looks like we're in business," Valey announced, marching up alongside Starlight and flexing her wings. "...Think we might need to give her time to wake up, though?"
Glimmer groggily rubbed her eyes, pupils dilating and focusing as the harmonic flame came back to life around her. "I'm still alive?" she groaned, staring blearily around, eyes settling on Starlight. "You... brought me back..."
"Sure did." Valey stretched menacingly. "Thanks for saving our butts, by the way. But we've got a few questions about these gray visions Starlight keeps having that you're apparently connected to."
Glimmer gave her one look and lit her horn. "Sorry about this," she apologized... and before anyone could react, she was gone in a burst of teleportation.
"Hey!" Valey barked, charging out of the room. "Bananas, get back here!"
Starlight's coat bristled in surprise, though if Glimmer was anything like her, she supposed the reaction was understandable. Maple was here, though, and she didn't run off and leave her on her own.
It seems we find ourselves alone, truth-seeker, the Tree of Harmony said. I can feel much in your mind that is not at ease. Unfortunately, you are in the wrong place for that.
Starlight's eyes widened, and she turned back to the flame, now crackling gently around Maple. "The wrong place? What do you mean?"
I am Honesty, not Love or Kindness. My role in the grand order of the world is different. The truth is a weapon used by those who love harmony to illuminate the darkness and expose wrongs that have been hidden, tear down tyrants who rule by lies and level the obstacles that prevent some from living fairly in the world. It is an equalizer, a grounding for the righteous, a sword by which hidden wrongs may be brought to justice. It is a sign of commitment, something that can be shared between flawed mortals as a sign of trust. And it takes the form of the world around it. When the world is dark and ugly, so will be the truth, and yet when it shines, the truth is all the more beautiful to behold. This is not a place of comfort, Starlight Glimmer. It is a place of anathema to confusion and an altar to seeing clearly in the light. I am a flame that burns away the fog hiding what you do not understand in your life.
Starlight's legs shook, but she stood solid. "So why isn't that the answer to my mind not being at ease? The whole reason we came here was for answers. Can you tell me about my visions? And what was that mural I saw on the way down? Or the vision of the office ponies at the top floor?"
The flame shimmered. Because in your case, the truth will only show you just how hard your path really is.
"At least I'll know where it is so I can walk it." Starlight swallowed. "Please help me. I just saw another vision. Please tell me what they are and what they have to do with Glimmer..."
The truth may not be what you wish to hear, the flame replied. Starlight could feel its hesitancy like a wave in the air, and her heart sped up in response. After a speech like that, why would an incarnation of honesty hold back and warn her about the truth?
"Not knowing isn't what I want either," Starlight replied. "So it sounds like I don't have any good options, do I?"
...Very well. The true answer is that I do not know.
Starlight's ears folded. She hadn't been expecting that.
I can see your thoughts. I can see the ponies you have seen, and none of them look familiar, much less the landscape they are living in. As with all of my siblings, however, my vision extends everywhere the lifestream of this world is uninterrupted. Since the creation of the world, we have been watching over everyone in it, from the goddesses like Garsheeva and Celestia to the smallest of infants who live yet still in their mothers' wombs. And yet none of what you have seen is known to us.
Starlight stared. "Glimmer says it's the future, though. So you wouldn't have seen it if it was the future?"
The flame danced and flickered, rising around Maple in a protective embrace. We have been led to believe much the same by your lookalike. However, her thoughts are more guarded than yours, and we cannot reach into her head. Whatever she has truly seen is known only to her.
"...Oh." Starlight stared at the floor. Just more confirmation those scenes were of something yet to come... but if the ponies in her vision weren't recognizable to the flames either, that meant they couldn't be born yet. Maybe those visions took place farther in the future than she thought.
That is certainly a possibility, the flame replied. With a start, Starlight realized she must have been thinking exactly the same thing as her past self. She would always be herself, she supposed, no matter what happened...
"So..." Starlight swallowed. "The things I saw on the way down here. What were those ponies in a building that looked like this one?"
That was a memory of our creation, as was the mural you are thinking about as well. Many thousands of years ago, the last world of ponies, Indus, was abandoned. But the ponies of Indus were so advanced, they took hold of powers designed only for gods, and created a new world for themselves to live in. The world they created is the one we are in now, and they created it as a living creature that could govern itself, a world with no need for gods. They chose this because Indus was dying, and as it died, it was being ravaged by a battle between the very titans who had sworn themselves as its gods in the ages prior. Their power was immeasurable, far beyond the shadows wielded by the immortals of today.
Starlight's ears folded. "So these crystal palaces are designed to look like the place where you were made?"
They are echoes of our genesis. The ponies who created us poured their souls into our making, and we took on life as a result of their hopes for the future. All of us will always carry memories of that place, where we were born inside a machine and used that machine's power to inject ourselves as the backbone of a newly created world.
Starlight's vision flickered, and suddenly instead of crystal, the walls around her were made of metal and screens. It almost reminded her of the place she had seen in the moon glass, where she took Lyn in the memory amalgamation and found a room at the end of the gondola where Valey was hidden as well. Ghosts of equine forms moved around the room, and then the illusion was gone.
"A machine," Starlight said. "Like Aegis?"
It could be comparable. Aegis is also technology built by the old civilization of Indus. They were so advanced, they could use technology to approximate the roles of gods. However, they were not one and the same.
Starlight nodded, listening. So far, there was nothing so life-changing about what she was hearing... In fact, it reminded her of talking to the Grandbell flame, having all her questions answered seriously and without being mysterious like Glimmer. Back when she had been here for real, she had probably enjoyed this.
"So why were the gods fighting?" Starlight asked. "Aegis and the other one?"
I do not know. Much of the knowledge of Indus is lost to us. It has no connection to our lifestream, and falls outside the boundaries of what we can see. Our creators likely intended this, wishing that the new world they created could be free of whatever follies drove theirs to ruin. And, for a great length of time, it worked. This world's first millennia were filled with peace and harmony, and the ponies worshipped the land, and we watched over them as our creators had wished. If time could pass without the world aging, perhaps it could have lasted forever.
"But it didn't." Starlight looked at the floor. "Nothing good lasts forever. You probably don't like how messed-up the world is either, right now."
It is at epochs like these when I am grateful to be a machine. We incarnations of harmony are not creatures the way you perceive us. We were born within a machine, and constructs we remain. It is the only way for us to handle the absolute, one-dimensional demands of the concepts we embody. Were my desire for truth to be imparted to a pony, with all the complexities and fallibilities of their mortal body and soul, I would simultaneously destroy myself with grief over the state of the world, and overturn it entirely in my quest to fulfill my destiny. As I am now, I am Honesty, isolated and pure. I can exist in a balance with the other elements that comprise the world's soul, and together we make up the facets of a system that has endured for thousands of years.
"Sounds familiar," Starlight forcefully sighed. "I've ran away from place after place because it just wasn't good enough. I wish I could make myself live with what I have and not feel bad about it when I lose things because I stop fighting."
Yes. You would.
Starlight blinked. "What?"
Sometimes, there are ponies who have special talents in our virtues themselves, the flame continued. A pony who manifests a cutie mark in Honesty, for instance. As all naturally-occurring cutie marks come from the lifestream, and the lifestream is us, this happens when we desire a more powerful presence in the world. The weight of our calling would be impossible for mortal shoulders to bear forever, yet ponies who are specially attuned to us can call on us for brief instants when their hearts beat as one. They wield the weight of our power for mere seconds, and can do much of the work we wish to accomplish ourselves, yet without having to assume the heavy mantle of becoming us forever. Through this partnership of mortals and machines, we can achieve the same work as a real god, watching over our world and keeping it right.
"But you said things have been getting worse," Starlight replied. "That it was good for a few thousand years, and then it wasn't."
That is because there are fewer of us than there once were.
Starlight took a step back in shock. "What!?"
The flame shimmered regretfully. Originally, we were nine. Hope. Love. Knowledge. Generosity. Honesty. Laughter. Kindness. Loyalty. The Spark. Nine shards of the world's soul, split so that we might embody our virtues purely, existing as a network of siblings rather than a singular being. On our own, we would be fallible, yet together, with all of us present as one, we are Harmony. And yet, two of our flames have gone quiet.
"Which ones?" Starlight whispered.
Generosity, the flame began. Their crystal palace in the southwest was damaged terribly by a mortal experiment mere years ago, and is no longer a suitable conduit for their power. Now they exist in a nebulous state of limbo, connected to the rest of us yet with no place to truly manifest. In fact, I could summon them here right now.
"Really?" Starlight felt her heart in her chest, wondering what that possibly could have been. The Equestrian southwest... That was about as far away from anywhere she had traveled as it was possible to go.
If her past self thought the same, the flame didn't answer. Instead, sparks of purple briefly rose through its orange flames... and a small lump of beautiful, purple crystal about the size of a chunk of moon glass materialized, held out before her.
Generosity sends a gift, Honesty said. You have been taking on much stress as a result of your artifice. This is crystallized Generosity, the emotion in physical form. It can contain cutie marks much like moon glass, only give and take them willingly rather than seize them by jealous force. You can use this to free yourself of that mark's burden without throwing it away forever. Generosity thinks you will appreciate this.
Starlight took it. "Wow... really?"
She still had that in her saddlebags, holding her artifice safely. Now she knew where she got it from, she supposed.
"What about the other flame?" Starlight asked, her past self's thoughts clearly elsewhere.
The flame was quiet for a moment. This is where even I question if the truth is the right thing for your path.
"Please tell me," Starlight whispered. "I need to know. I'm tired of not knowing and not being told, everyone who knows saying I can't handle it. I'm strong. I can handle the truth."
...The other flame is Hope. You have heard legends of the Immortal Dream. It is this flame embodied, the power to grant any wish so long as it is wished by another. Hope is represented by the lifestream, and its will manifests in the world as cutie marks, the mechanism by which it grants those wishes. When a pony has a dream, Hope can respond.
Starlight looked up. "Does this have anything to do with why cutie marks are so rare in the north?"
No. The lifestream still exists, even without the guidance of its master, just as how the aspects of reality the rest of us govern would still exist independent of our control. The phenomenon of scarcity occurs because the Aldenfold disrupts the lifestream, isolating some of us and weakening our connection to each other. In the north, this is simply a consequence of that.
"How do cutie marks appear in the first place?" Starlight asked. "Does the lifestream make them? Do you just sit here and listen to ponies and what they want, and decide for yourself that someone deserves a mark, or...?"
You are wondering why Sunburst would gain one when it caused so much harm to you.
"Well, maybe," Starlight admitted, scuffing the ground.
Part of this is because we cannot see every aspect of the future. While we can make calculations, simulations and predictions, no knowledge of what is to come is set in stone until it has already passed. The other part is that without its master, the lifestream is merely an autonomous recycling system. When a pony dies, their cutie mark returns to the ether flow rather than passing away with them, and the lifestream will return it to the surface whenever there is another pony who will take up that dream. This is why it is called the Immortal Dream... because the wishes it grants never die with their bearers. For some dreams, it may take hundreds of years, but the lifestream finds them a new bearer who is ready to take up their purpose, and they are born anew.
Huh. Starlight remembered a conversation about Shinespark's cutie mark being unusually powerful, and matching the historical function of a mark from one of Meltdown's predecessors, modified into its form by Garsheeva and her artifice. Maybe hers really was that same mark, and it had been recycled, too.
"So what happened to the flame?" Starlight pressed, her past thoughts definitely disconnected by now from her present ones.
The Immortal Dream was taken by an alicorn named Luna. You have learned of her story as well throughout your travels. Eventually, her sister sealed her on the moon, the Immortal Dream along with her. The moon is separate from the lifestream, and our vision does not extend to the things that happen there. However, for reasons we cannot know, the Immortal Dream returned one day, just over eight years ago, encased in a meteor and accompanied by thousands of souls attached to cutie marks Luna had used it to create. Look inside yourself. There is another name that the Immortal Dream is known by, and you will find you already know it.
Starlight's eyes grew huge, her thoughts and her predecessor's once again flowing in sync. The purpose of the meteor had been to contain the Immortal Dream itself? Then the writing on it...
"Eylista," she whispered.
Yes. The Immortal Dream is also known as Eylista, its name in ancient times when there were still ponies in Indus. The meteor fragmented, and the piece bearing Eylista landed in the Aldenfold, a place where the lifestream is broken and we cannot see. We cannot know what took place there, that night when it landed. However, days later, a stallion came down from the mountains with a filly who must have been near that meteor when it struck. The essence of the Immortal Dream had fused with her. Starlight, Eylista is you.
Starlight stared.
The will of my sibling, Hope, no longer exists in their palace to the far south. It is now yours. Eylista is a power no normal pony could handle, yet your body is so abnormal, even we cannot see the truth of how it works. It is possible Eylista changed you into a host that could physically contain it. However, there is one thing we can see for certain: you have an ordinary soul. To you, the Immortal Dream is like a cutie mark that has yet to manifest, your calling and not your soul. You are an ordinary filly, Starlight Glimmer, with the wants and wishes of a mortal yet the drive and will of the world.
Starlight shook, unable to fully process this. Every time she wondered if her talent was stubbornness or determination...
This is not a situation to envy. I have told you about myself and our siblings, how we are machines and not people, designed to contain and act upon our purposes in a just, balanced and harmonic manner. But that is not you. You have all the complexities and desires of a filly entering her teens, and long for friendship and parents and someone to look up to. You are merely a pony... and yet your special purpose in life is to hold the world's determination, a hope for the future big enough to encompass all worlds and all creatures within them. Acceptance of things that should not be is toxic to your very being, even though it is the way things are that mortals must learn to live with this. And thanks to your unusually harmonic body and the incredible power of your perseverance, you have been to the ends of the world in a quest for perfection you will never find. Starlight, the truth about you is that you will never be happy until the whole world is the way that the nine of us were created to keep it.
Starlight stared. "Never...?"
And you will try to bring this about, sometimes, when you lean into your determination and make the world closer to what you wish it. Other times, your desires for your own future will win out, and you will force yourself into complacency, ignoring the things that you see wrong with the world and trying to live the life of a mortal. But on your own, even if you were to fully unlock the potential of the Immortal Dream and your harmonic body, you would only be the will to seek that change in the world, and true harmony is required to bring it about. You would go back and forth between seeking a better world and accepting the one that exists, forever, and you would never cease for as long as you were alive. I am sorry. This is your fate.
Starlight shuddered. "No... But I just want to be normal..."
A wish that will burn at you all the more fiercely when your destiny is determination. And yet, the Immortal Dream can only grant the wishes of others. It was not intended for a tyrant, and so it cannot grant wishes of your own. In some lives, this could serve to better the world and everything in it, but for you, who lacks the basic necessities all ponies deserve to live? It is nothing but a curse.
"How do I change it?" Starlight felt like she was going to cry.
There is only one way, and that is to finish your dream. Unlock Eylista and wield it as your cutie mark by earning it like a normal cutie mark, and then use its power to fix the world and erase the wrongs that have plagued it. Only then will you be satisfied and able to rest at ease, as will the rest of us who yearn for such a world too. But we have been awaiting it for thousands of years, and only growing further from our goal. Our mechanical immunity to the trials of mortal life keeps us sane. To do this, you would have to fight everything, the course of the world and history and entropy and fate. And you on your own are merely the determination to keep a wish in mind, not the harmonic power to write it into reality. Without true harmony, you can only fight for your wishes with your own power, as considerable as it may be. And that will only lead you down the road you have walked countless times before.
"But..." Starlight sniffed. "But can't I get rid of it? If that's true, if it's like a cutie mark, aren't there ways to-"
If you made it manifest, yes, you could attempt to sever it from your body. But you are Eylista, not merely a wielder of it like the ponies we sometimes empower. You cannot flee from the determination it gives you. Even if you cast it aside, you would only find yourself less powerful in your unending struggle.
So that was it, then. Now Starlight saw why she had erased her memories at the crystal palace. It wasn't just a cutie mark on her friend that had started all her troubles... it was her own, and she hadn't even gotten it yet.
A dumb meteor strike was telling her who she had to be, and even though she was still blank, there was nothing at all she could do about it. She saw all of her future laid out before her, the back-and-forth between acceptance and determination, her burst of strength that got her on her hooves after Maple left and sent her back into the mountains just one more swing on that cosmic pendulum. She would make it through the mountains, and she would reunite with her friends, and she would settle down and try to live, and it wouldn't be good enough, and before she knew it she would be back to this once again, forever and ever, because she was a little filly, not someone who could change the entire world.
What you need is Harmony, the flame continued. You are Hope, a small shard of a greater whole. If you want to see a world you can look at and truly be satisfied with, you will have to make it, but you cannot make it alone. You need others. You need ponies who know intimately what goodness is, who can sing as one with you and restore the world to the way it was once meant to be, counteract its slow death and make it as beautiful as it was when it was created. And I and all our siblings desire this too, and will do whatever we can to aid you.
"I already have friends," Starlight whispered. "Can they help?"
Your friends are strengthened by luck, fate and circumstance. Many of them are powerful, and some, we have walked alongside and empowered so they could make a difference in the world. However, they are also like you, groundless and lacking a strong foundation in the world. They carry this burden because they have to, not because they asked for it, and they travel together because they use each other for support. They are strong, but they are the same, and Harmony is about difference.
Starlight listened, and it continued. True Harmony is born between ponies of all walks of life, both those who are desperate and understand what ponies need, and those who have had plenty and want for little, and have the extra strength to carry their friends who do not have enough on their own. It comes when ponies reach out to each other from across generations of war, or between lifestyles so different they might not even recognize each other as equine. Because the world is vast, and you cannot embody it without understanding that vastness... Your friends are like you, and they can know and share much of your pain. But to save the world, they will not be enough. You cannot wield the power to grant wishes to others and use it justly and rightly when you look at them and wonder why you are meeting their needs, yet there is no one to do the same for you.
"And the other flames just thought I'd be happier not knowing this," Starlight murmured. "Didn't they?"
Yes. And I think you would be too. But it would be a temporary happiness, and I am Honesty. I can no more easily lie to you than you could have lived happily in Riverfall.
Starlight glared at the ground. "I just want to be happy and be normal and not have a bunch of stuff to worry about! Why is that so much to ask!?"
Pure circumstance. Nothing more or less. As I said, this is not the way we were designed to be.
"That's not fair..." Starlight gritted her teeth. "It's not fair! Why can't I just be normal!? Why do I have to have a cutie mark I haven't even earned yet that does the opposite of what I need and keeps me from ever getting that!? How am I supposed to live like this? I wish I could just go on thinking maybe it'll all be alright next time, but now you say it never will be..."
Not until you can wield Harmony more fully and make for yourself the world we all desire.
Starlight sniffed, burying her head on the ground and hiding it beneath her hooves. "But who knows when that will be? You say I need different friends, so I'll have to settle down and grow up and make some, but you also say I'll never be able to do that because I'll just run away again."
I never said it was an enviable situation. In fact, you likely have one of the hardest burdens a mortal can carry. But you also have one of the few tools in the world that is meant to overcome it. Starlight, you must find your Harmony. Working alone, you will have no balance and stability, and could easily take the world too far in the wrong direction. You must remember that what you are already striving for is the right direction: before you can fix the world, you need to find peace, and you need to make more friends. Your desire for a better life and your realization of that life will have to go hoof in hoof. By living your life and making more friends, you will only increase your ability to bring about the future you desire. The closer you get, the more power you will have to get even closer, no matter how hard the first steps might be.
"But this still just involves doing the same things I was already doing," Starlight cried against the floor. "Only now you're telling me it's an even bigger and dumber job than I thought in the first place! And I already thought it was impossible!"
I am sorry. If you truly desire it... you always do have the means to hide from the truth for a little while longer.
Starlight stirred. She felt a lifting sensation in her body, like the memory was coming to an end.
Why hadn't she asked more about Indus, or Aegis and Glimmer? Why hadn't she asked about the black sword? There were so many questions she still had unanswered, and yet... now she knew what she had been hiding from.
She was the Immortal Dream, and could unlock it somehow as a cutie mark. It was her destiny to be dissatisfied with everything wrong with the world, pained by the places where someone needed to do something to make it better. There was no happily ever after where she could outrun all that, not one that didn't involve fixing the entire world... and she knew better than anyone just how large it could be.
Starlight was rising, felt like she was surrounded by bubbling water, a light gleaming in the distance above. She wanted to stay that way forever, rising and waking up instead of having to face the world after she had awoken.
She wanted to go home, to find a place she could be happy and hide there until the clouds had passed and she could laugh again. But she just didn't have a place like that at all.
So what did she do?
She could press on, into the mountains and across them, take up her sword and continue her fight and crusade for what she felt was right, and keep drawing on her boundless determination for strength just like she was now, how she had gotten up from the devastation of losing her friends and Maple as well. Or, she could take the harder road, going back to Sires Hollow and trying to live on her own without family, a struggle of doing nothing day by day. She would have Fluffy, and Fishy. With her magic back, she could probably get down the mountains much more easily than climbing up them.
Starlight didn't want to choose. Her heart hurt, but she swam for the surface, holding onto lucidity and letting the bubbling water wash her tears away. It was too late for denial; she knew she wasn't using that Nightmare Module again. She knew her destiny, and just had to find a way to live with it.
Maybe going back to Sires Hollow was the right call for the truly long term. Maybe if she found what the flame told her she would need, she could see her friends again and actually live happily together. They had their impossible war to fight, and she had hers... and hers was living.
She wouldn't do that immediately, though. She had been holding back for too long, and with everything she felt now, so many emotions that she was shocked into calmness, she needed to let it out. She needed to punch something that could take it. And luckily for her, she was about to be surrounded by mountains that would nicely do the job.
Starlight broke the surface with a gasp, and was back in the waking world. The blue, starry mist was still there, hovering above the forest and the crater. She could see in color again, though it was still night and there wasn't much to see. In fact, the only thing of note was a scorched, battered feline face standing a short distance away, waiting for her to do something.
"Starlight," High Prince Gazelle rasped, looking wrecked and utterly pathetic. "Please give me back my sister."
"Starlight..." Gazelle flicked his tail plaintively, head and ears down. "Please give me Gwendolyn."
Starlight stumbled backwards with a gasp, the night sky glowing brightly overhead. "You!? You're supposed to be back in the Empire!"
"It's a long story," Gazelle grumbled. "And you're supposed to be down in that village living cheery as can be with your merry band of friends. Yet here you are. Neither of us want to spend the next hour exchanging sob stories, so why don't we cut to the chase? I want my sister. You have her. And she's no use to you. Please just give her back."
Starlight wavered, freshly shaken from all she had seen. "This isn't a good time."
"Of course it isn't." Gazelle's claws flexed and unflexed, squealing against the fused glass around the crater. "There is no such thing as a good time when I'm missing what I need to live! But I brought a trade to make it worth your while. Now just-"
Starlight looked around, but she didn't see anything with him. She looked more, and her gaze slowly drifted upwards, up past the tropical treetops and sea of blue mist to the star-strewn heavens above, the full moon hanging overhead... and along with it, there hung the orange harmony comet of the Immortal Dream.
She looked back to Gazelle, trembling all over. As exhausted as she was from her climb, there was nothing that could stop her from realizing what this meant.
"I think you'll find this quite generous of me-" Gazelle began.
Starlight didn't let him finish. Her horn exploded with power, targeting the ground beneath her hooves. The ship floated high, so high that even a pegasus might think twice about soaring for it, and unicorns or earth ponies wouldn't even think about reaching it long enough to label it as impossible. But she was Eylista, and impossibility wasn't even a concept to her. The ground erupted in a tall spire of crystal, carrying her at the top, pushing her upwards and closer faster than Gazelle could even watch.
"Maple!" Starlight roared, the wind tearing around her as she ascended into the heavens. "Valey! You better not have hurt my friends!"
Gazelle was too far away to even hear her. The ship was growing closer, rapidly, even. And yet as the ground shrank away beneath her, she could feel her control over the base of the column weakening. She was too far away, and yet not nearly to the ship yet, hovering in the skies above. There was a limit to her power. This wasn't enough.
Starlight leaped, catapulting herself off the pillar as it fragmented and shattered beneath her, putting every last bit of strength she had into her legs, but the Dream was still so far away...
She reached out a hoof for it, stretching at the apex of her arc, but she wasn't close enough. She couldn't reach her friends. She started to fall.
It couldn't end here. Starlight teleported.
She appeared in a burst, straining her horn to reach as far as possible. The horizon grew around her, a brief moment of clarity washing over her senses as she exited the flash, the entire Aldenfold arrayed ahead and around her for her to see. Yet as far as she had come, the ship wasn't close enough. It still hung in the heavens like an untouchable moon. Again, Starlight started to fall.
Starlight teleported.
Her horn burned with pain. The Eylista crater wasn't a harmonic flame; it may have restored her memories and purged her grayness, but it didn't give her any magical boost like the ones she felt after visiting the trees, and now she had used three powerful spells back to back, each one pushing herself to her limits. Cold air spiked around her as she rose through the atmosphere, knocking against her headache and giving her a brief second to fight for breath before she started falling. But the ship...
It was right above her. It was just a few feet away.
Starlight overchanneled her horn, forcing energy through it for one last spell. It was a pitiful teleport, one with barely any range, but it was enough. She popped through the hull and through the floorboards, landing in the ship's observation room, winded and panting, her newly-regained magic already shot for a week of recuperation. But she was here.
Images of Kinmari floated through her dizzy mind, of spike breath and flames and students she was helpless to protect before a newly-minted tyrant on his inaugural rampage. She remembered the first time she had fought Gazelle, with Valey at her side under a storm in Izvaldi, and imagined how differently that would go if he could part her from her cutie mark in a single blow. Scenes blazed through her head of Gazelle catching them unawares, devouring Valey's pendant that she had worked so hard to retrieve, of separating Maple and Amber and Shinespark from their talents and rendering the group's best fighters useless when she was gone and all their magical weapons were here with her.
Her mountaineering saddlebags were gone, left behind after she had taken them off to see her memory. Her personal ones were still with her. An artifice and two blades... Her horn was shot, so that was all she had.
Starlight forced herself painfully to her hooves. Whatever Gazelle had done to her friends, she had to find them, no matter the cost.
The dining hall was empty. Not just empty, there were no signs of a scuffle. The lights were out, but the ship hummed with energy, the engine working at proper capacity. She felt the floor bob faintly beneath her as she strolled under the raised table, no mess or blood to be seen.
Starlight increased her pace, running into the kitchen. All the counters were clean, save for one space where someone had prepared dinner and not quite finished cleaning. The cupboards were closed, and the utensils were all where they belonged... Not even an errant knife someone had drawn to defend themselves. There was nothing.
She tore through the pantry, its stockpiles empty after the monthlong flight of good eating from Kinmari. A few bags of food sat here and there, but not enough to make room to hide prisoners or bodies. None of them looked terribly disturbed, either. There hadn't been a scuffle in the previous rooms, and this one was no different.
Starlight burst into the cargo hold. If she was trying to keep anyone captive, this was where she would put them...
Nothing.
Starlight's breathing sped up, panic creeping in on her already-strained mind. Her friends had to be here. They had to still be safe, somewhere she could save them. Gazelle had this ship, he had taken it, gone through them...
The cabin hallway was next. Starlight's horn was already at its limit, but she pushed it further, sliding open all the doors with telekinesis as she ran. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
No signs of a struggle. No prisoners. Some of the beds were even leisurely unmade.
What was happening...!?
Starlight skidded through the library, all the books in their cases that had been installed in the Kinmari renovation to keep them from falling out during turbulence like they had done so many times before. But they didn't even look jostled inside.
Why was the ship so peaceful and in order? Starlight dashed onto the landing, the engine room door open already. Inside, the harmony extractor thrummed with orange energy, a windigo heart connected and the shielded suitcase with the others sitting closed nearby.
Starlight's heart pressed against her lungs, making it difficult to breathe. She was on the landing. The only place left to check was the deck and the bridge.
Steeling herself, she pulled together her exhausted, faltering body and continued her climb, stepping out onto the deck under the stars.
The night wind roared by through Starlight's ears as she stepped out onto the deck of the Immortal Dream. It was empty, but it didn't stay that way for long.
With a flash of feathers, Gazelle soared up and over the railing, pivoting around and twirling into a stumbling landing. He looked up at her and got to his paws, ragged and panting.
"You're insane," Gazelle whispered, choking for breath after his flight. "How did you climb all the way up here?"
Starlight lit her horn. "To protect my friends from you."
"Hello, they aren't here!?" Gazelle spat. "Maybe you noticed? You really think I could steal this thing from them!?"
Starlight paused. Yes, that was exactly what she had imagined... "You look like you've been in a fight," she pointed out.
Gazelle rolled his eyes and gave a ragged sigh. "I was shot down by a bigger fish called the Equestrian border guards. Unluckily for me, the bleeding hearts in Ironridge saw it somehow and came to find me, and none of them were smart enough to just finish the job while I was weakened. And then suddenly your friends fly in, all without you, and immediately go off to have a party with that Arambai? I'm not stupid enough to take on your friends, but Ironridge security barely raised a hoof to stop me from taking this after your friends got off."
Starlight shuddered. She could see everyone arriving in Ironridge, thinking the Dream would be safe in Arambai's care, a cunning sphinx slipping past anyone who had been left to watch it... but the image wasn't nearly as strong as the one of Gazelle savaging the students at Kinmari, with her friends' faces superimposed across his targets.
"I d-don't believe you." Starlight raised a hoof and pointed, her voice trembling from mental and physical exhaustion. "Why wouldn't you fight them? You're the one who's insane. You attack students for no reason and won't listen to anyone who tells you to stop!"
"I was within my rights," Gazelle sighed. "But look at me now! I saw you, you know." He prowled in place, not daring to provoke Starlight by coming closer. "I came all the way to that little hamlet down south of here, in the middle of the night. I saw you and all your friends curled up together on that bed, happily sleeping and showing off your wonderful existence. It wasn't hard to track you. I've known where that thing is ever since you stole back my sister!"
He flung a paw at Starlight's saddlebags, pointing a glistening, lethal talon. "She's right there, isn't she!?"
Starlight's eyes widened. "How? No you didn't!"
"Yes I did," Gazelle rasped, "and I ran away because you're cursed to haunt me forever. I thought even death would be preferable to dancing this dance any longer, but apparently I can't make up my sad little mind. When I saw all your friends show up without you in tow? Maybe all together, you can fight me. Maybe on your own, I stand a chance. But who knows if that's what I want? I can't even makeup my mind whether I want to run away or fight you and let you kill me!"
Starlight bristled.
"But look at you, though," Gazelle continued, kneading his claws against the deck. "Don't you look like a sorry mess? What happened to your friends? Why did they leave you? Don't you want to change that?"
"Shut up," Starlight hissed. "I told you, this is not a good time to talk to me about that!"
"Sore subject. I thought so." Gazelle rolled his eyes. "Here's your ship. Where will you take it? I couldn't care less. Across these mountains to your friends in Ironridge? Just don't get blasted by Equestrians, and it'll be easy. Yours, for the low price of my sister. I don't care where I am if I can just have her... I don't need it. Please, take the deal."
Starlight shuddered. Starlight stared. "I don't trust you," she warned, tension building in her voice. "If I trade you for this ship and go back to Sires Hollow and you go back to the north, how do I know you won't make my friends' lives miserable!? You'll try to take over the world and they'll have to stop you, or..."
Gazelle gave her a serious look. "I could swear on my sister. Would that work for you?"
"But..." Starlight panted, every instinct screaming at her to remember Kinmari. To remember what Gazelle drove Crystal to...
"I could swear to leave them alone," Gazelle offered, waving a paw. "I could pledge to back off, turn tail and run the moment one of them shows their face! I could pledge to aid them if they ever ask it. I'm very strong. Or I could pledge to hire them, offering them jobs wherever I set up next. I could offer them excellent, safe and secure lives..."
"Hire them?" Starlight narrowed her eyes. Gazelle, this ship, Kinmari, her gray visions, Eylista, Sires Hollow, Maple, Fluffy, Jamjars. Her higher thoughts were about to give up and go with her instincts: Gazelle was a monster in Kinmari, he would threaten everyone no matter where he was in the world, and she should stop him now.
Gazelle batted his ears. "Hire them? Oh, yes. The way I got free, you see... Garsheeva returned. She thinks the age of sphinxes is at an end, yet doesn't want to perish herself. She wants her brands back, the ones in your little sword. She offered to bring back my Lyn if I returned with her stockpile. I scratch her back, she scratches mine..." His jagged teeth flashed. "But she could be just as unhinged as I am. Who wants two of us running around in the world? And your friends know an awful lot about bringing ponies back from the dead. I'd make them my royal scientists, they could work on restoring Lyn for me, the benefits would be excellent, I'd get what I want, you wouldn't have to give up that pile yourself, we wouldn't have Garsheeva to think about... Try to tell me there's a loser in that deal."
Starlight didn't trust herself to think through the implications of asking Gazelle to employ her friends. "I don't trust you," she hissed, horn still glowing, dropping into a crouch. "Why won't you listen when I told you this is a bad time!?"
Gazelle shrugged. "We could also fight, if that's the direction you're pushing. Winner takes this ship and Lyn together, not that I need the former and not that you have any use for the latter. The loser gets the consolation prize of not having to deal with this fetid world ever again. I'm fed up with it. You look fed up with it. Perhaps they'd even be the real winner."
"Nnngh..." Starlight stared him down. Her bones ached, her muscles were slush, her horn was burned out, and yet he looked equally as bad. His feathers were singed, one side badly gashed, his tail was frayed and he had fresh scars on his face that looked like they were born from an exploding windshield. "The world would be a better place without you in it."
Gazelle rolled his eyes. "Believe me, I know. You think I can't see what I am? Sphinxes are monsters. And this is a world where only the strong can rule... We exist to make the world just like we are. We were born to rule, and we weren't made to be nice about it. The victor is always right when there's no one left to argue with them. But what happens when their greatest detractors are themselves?"
Starlight swallowed. "You're wrong," she said, taking a step forward. "It's not a world where only bad things can get their way. The world does care. It's just broken."
"So?" Gazelle snorted. "It's still the way it is. You can claw your way to the top and slice through everyone who won't fall in line, or you can settle for failure and desolation. And you're stronger than I am. We both know it. You're fated to win."
"You're wrong!" Starlight insisted, voice rising above the torrenting winds. "That's not right! Because I've done everything I can to be a good pony, and if I was at the top, I would be able to fix the world and make it perfect so I wouldn't feel like I have to try anymore!"
Gazelle scoffed. "Change the world? We change the world with nations, empires and boundaries, armies and wars. We control the ponies in it, their trade, travel, loyalties and beliefs and religions. We make them worship us or fear us, influence their every action and in doing so control them, shaping their lives with our mere existence! We can shape everything in the world, everything there is to shape... but changing the laws of the world that cause it to work that way? Changing the world itself, not just the things in it?"
"That's what I'm talking about," Starlight said. "It's broken."
"You tell me."
"It is!" Starlight insisted. "You shouldn't have lost your sister! You shouldn't have whatever it is that makes you go insane and get bloodlust all the time! And I shouldn't be unable to find a home because I'm always running away from places that aren't good enough! If I was as strong as all that, I wouldn't settle for ruling ponies. I'd want to make the world itself so we're all equal and no one has to have cutie marks they didn't ask for that force them to be a hero when they didn't ask for it! It would be a place where there are no goddesses who make everyone think batponies are evil, there are no borders that keep you from being friends with whoever you like, no reason everyone can't know everyone and no one has to move away or leave... Why would you settle for being the strongest when you clearly hate it just as much as I do!?"
"Pathetic!" Gazelle snarled. "Because that's not the way the world works! Don't taunt me with notions like that!"
Starlight straightened up. "It's not a notion, and I'm not taunting you. It's what I have to do if I ever want to be free. Now go away and leave my friends alone."
"You can't do that," Gazelle scoffed. "Even Celestia and Garsheeva can only rule the world, not change it away from rule of the strong. And you know I can't do that either. Even if I promised to leave them alone, could a thing like you ever trust me? You're just as broken as I am."
"Maybe I am," Starlight replied. "So maybe I'd be doing you a favor too by stopping you."
"I welcome it!" Gazelle spread his wings and beckoned, refusing to make the first move. "Just don't come crying over my grave when you realize there's nothing at the top but being a tyrant."
Starlight opened her saddlebags, pulling out the Generosity crystal containing her artifice and pressing it against her flanks. She couldn't do this if she was weakened. She needed every bit of her power.
It melded into her, and the pain in her horn subsided, her power source replaced by the cutie mark on her flanks instead. "I won't," she promised. "I can change the world. If my power is good for nothing else, I can. And if you think I can't, you have no idea who you're dealing with."
Gazelle hissed as her aura flickered, its power swelling again. With a secondary flash of light, the black sword was re-bonded, and a ring of runic light flared around Starlight's barrel. The sword rose in the air beside her, and Starlight charged.
"I don't fight fillies," Gazelle growled, readying his paws to slash as she approached, his voice growing to a fever pitch. "This is your funeral!"
Starlight dove, staying close to the sword to maximize the strength of its swings, the heavens and the harmony comet blazing around her. They were so high, the moon itself seemed larger in the sky, its gray light glinting off the black sword as it swelled to its normal size, stabbing and swinging in a pair of carefully-timed blows.
Gazelle jumped back from one and dodged to the side of the other, retaliating with a vicious pair of swings of his own. Starlight's horn flared, encasing a hoof in crystal as she dodged the first one, raising her improvised shield to block the second.
Crack! Gazelle struck her, and her exhausted legs failed, the force of the blow bowling her over backwards.
"Nnngh...!" Starlight landed in a heap, Gazelle prowling closer.
"Didn't you listen?" the prince hissed. "I told you, I don't fight fillies! We're so similar, why can't we just get along? Is it so much to trust someone almost as strong as yourself!?"
He swung again, and Starlight channeled a Nightmare Module through the sword, conjuring Luna's shield and rebuffing him easily. She climbed to her hooves, using the window it granted to swing again, and Gazelle rolled to the side, barely dodging in time.
"Yes it is!" Starlight snarled, readying for another attack. "Because you're dangerous!"
"Anyone you can't control is!" Gazelle flashed his claws, curling into a ball and flipping forward, making it impossible to tell where he would strike from. But Starlight still had her shield, so she didn't need to, bracing against the impact as he ineffectively bounced off. He landed upright, tail lashing.
"You think you'll ever be able to live in a world where the strong don't rule if it means trusting everyone else not to abuse the power you share?" Gazelle paced in a circle around her, looking for an opening. "Or is it just that you don't trust yourself, instead?"
Starlight panted, still hiding in her shield. "Don't make me answer that!" she cried. "I know I can't, and no, I don't! Because that's not how the world works... because it's broken! And that's exactly what I need to change to be happy!"
"Who gave you these grandiose ideas of what you're capable of?" Gazelle growled, still pacing. "Was it you? Looking at yourself in a mirror and seeing your power, and getting too big for your role? Give up on that dream and stop trying! The only thing ponies like us are good for is ruling, and we're only good at it when we define what good is! You'll only hurt yourself if you try to fight fate! Why can't you see I'm trying to help you!?"
"Since when have you ever been trying to help me?" Starlight rasped.
"When I purged your panic attacks in Kinmari?" Gazelle raised an eyebrow. "I have a distinct memory of doing that. Was that me?"
Starlight bit her lip. Was that what he really thought he was doing? "You thought I was Gwendolyn."
"An easy mistake to make," Gazelle replied, still pacing. "You're both dangerous, to yourselves and everyone around you. You're both fillies. I once tried to help someone like that, by giving her an Empire she didn't have to go insane to rule, and it was impossible! And now you're lecturing me about wanting to change not just one continent so you don't have to be a tyrant, but the entire world? Spare me the salt in my wounds!"
"You once tried to?" Starlight cried. "Well, what are you doing now!?"
"Mostly waiting for you to drop that stupid shield!"
FLAAAAASH!
Gazelle plowed into the shield, claws spread wide, attempting to lift it off the ground. Starlight's eyes widened. Could he do that? It didn't feel like it...
"If you want to fight, stop hiding and fight me!" Gazelle roared. "Don't you raise my bloodlust for nothing, Starlight! Get out here or I'll leave and go murder your putrid friends!"
Starlight's eyes widened. "No!"
The shield vanished, and she rushed forward, plunging the black sword deep into Gazelle's chest, the hilt held both with her magic and forehooves. It ran all the way through, out his back, and she collided with him, pushing him just a little further.
Gazelle stared at her.
Starlight stared back. "Don't threaten my friends."
"Sorry to mention it," Gazelle replied, not very paralyzed. "But you have cheating tools to help you out? Well, so do I!"
An explosion of power forced her away and threw her across the deck, and the sword fell out of Gazelle's chest, energy wrapping around him and blossoming from his coat, his burns and injuries melting and fading away. Starlight climbed back to her hooves as he roared, shaking. "What!? But you were injured..."
"Turns out I have a little more control over my regeneration than I thought," Gazelle replied. "You thought I wouldn't bring any brands when I knew there would be a fight? I had several already from my journey here, stealing moon glass in the Empire. And it turns out your ship had crates of extra to spare!" He flexed his wings, newly healed and restored, and Starlight thought he stood almost an inch taller. "I thought I'd play the feeble part, avoid intimidating you, see if you would pity me and be willing to bargain... No dice. And it looks like it makes that thing useless, too."
Starlight focused, re-summoning the sword...
Gazelle opened his mouth and fired, a blast of spikey breath energy lancing out. But his aim was off, slightly to the right, and Starlight easily dodged.
Before she could complete the move, he fired again, this time to her left. Starlight had to fall to the right to dodge, and this time she was pincered between the attacks' spiky residue. There was a third blast, coming straight for her.
She had to teleport, but she couldn't predict what place would be safe. She'd just have to dodge-
Starlight came out of her teleport, and there was already a blast traveling straight for her by the time the flash cleared from her eyes. The sword arrived at her side, but it was too late for a shield. She had already been hit.
Gazelle prowled forward, opening his mouth and preparing to inhale. "Much better..."
The spikes raked across Starlight's flesh, like she had been caught in a net woven of thorns. Even the tiniest movement filled every limb with pain, but she screamed regardless. "Stop!"
"No," Gazelle replied, inhaling harder.
Starlight felt her connection to the artifice weaken, and with it, her control over the black sword. She stabbed at him one more time. Nothing happened.
"How did you hit me...?" she sniffed, fighting, though she knew she was trapped. Her horn couldn't light like this, with Gazelle's spiky aura covering it, couldn't teleport her to safety and couldn't pull out any other weapons to strike at him with. She tried to use another Nightmare Module, any of them, but the spells fizzled as her connection to the sword weakened further.
The artifice faded entirely from Starlight's flanks, Gazelle taking on a brief glow as it was consumed. He pointed at a claw at her saddlebags, Starlight still trapped by his breath. "Lyn," he shivered, doubling over from the cutie mark's power. "Aaagh... She's there... You can't hide her from me... Can't hide her anywhere!"
He dashed forward, a single claw severing the strap on Starlight's saddlebags, and another knocking her out of the spikes, far across the deck to the other side. With a shredding of loyal fabric, Gazelle tore apart the bags that had followed Starlight through her entire journey, Fluffy's sketchbook bouncing off through the railing and over the edge and Maple's land title deed blowing away on the winds.
Starlight reached a wretched hoof for her last treasures, her strength spent. "No..."
"Yes..." Gazelle picked up the moon glass sword, holding it before him. "Lyn!"
Starlight's horn exploded into the strongest telekinetic aura of her life, the consequences to her body forgotten, plunging the sword deep into his waiting jaw and embedding the blade in the back of his throat. "DIE!"
It struck, sticking in Gazelle with a vicious choking sound, and he brought his paws to his neck to fight it. Starlight could feel the sword, feel a part of herself that had been used to make it, feel all the cutie marks contained with it and the ones within Gazelle, feel him still fighting to absorb it...
She fought back. Starlight pulled, yanking on the cutie marks, trying to steal them back just like she had in Kinmari, sweat tearing through her bangs as her horn caught on fire and darkness flashed in the edges of her eyes. This was too much. She would go blind for this, but she had to...!
Gazelle was stronger than he had been then. He fought back.
"No...!" Starlight pushed herself further, praying for any tiny drops of strength her body had seen fit to hide from her all this time. "Eylista, Aegis, Glimmer, anyone help me!"
She was gaining ground... but her horn couldn't hold out. Gazelle bit down, severing the pommel, and like that Starlight's control over the blade vanished, her body spasming out of control.
Moon glass crunched, lightning flaring around Gazelle's body and crackling through the heavens as his size instantly doubled, the harmony comet burning angrily in response. A few pea-sized fragments sprayed against Starlight's face from the force with which he sundered it, one landing on the deck just before her trembling, agonized hooves.
"LYN..." Gazelle's voice had changed along with his size, energy still coursing over his body.
Starlight saw the tiny bead of moon glass, and refused to give in.
With a crackle of blackness, she rose to her hooves, her vision darkening and graying around her. The pain vanished in her horn as her ability to use it vanished altogether, the Nightmare Modules preserving her and forbidding her from falling prey to her frail body's weakness. Starlight's size swelled as well as she activated the Tyranny Module once again, and she faced down Gazelle with a ferocious growl.
Gazelle met her eyes, his own reduced to plasmatic pools of power he hadn't yet adjusted to. "GO AWAY," he commanded. "I HAVE WHAT I CAME FOR."
Starlight charged, her horn bubbling with black energy, still good for casting Nightmare Modules if nothing else. She couldn't let this stand. "You want some of this? How would you like it if I made you forget about Lyn altogether!?"
Gazelle's eye sockets widened. With lightning reflexes, he reached down, took the fallen black sword, and swung it at Starlight with brutal speed, aiming to repel her charge like a batter hitting a baseball.
Starlight switched her Nightmare Module to the shield at the last second. The sword met it. Time seemed to slow as they connected... and the shield lost out, shattering like a storm of breaking glass.
Gazelle pivoted into a savage backswing, clubbing Starlight in the chest with the hilt of the sword, lifting her up and into a terrible arc. For half an instant, they were together, and his whispering voice found her ears: "Looks like I lose. I'm the one that has to survive... I'm jealous."
And then Starlight was airborne. First, she was rising, and then her arc evened off, the harmony comet bright in her vision. And then she started to fall.
The railing appeared between her and Gazelle. She was off the edge of the ship.
Starlight tried to light her horn, but nothing happened. Starlight tried to use a Nightmare Module, but none were made for this. Because the true downfall of using the Nightmare Modules wasn't the emotional side effects, it wasn't the temptation of power, it wasn't losing her horn and it wasn't any of the ways ponies might treat her: it was that they had been designed for an immortal alicorn goddess, and alicorns had wings.
There were no safeguards Luna had made for this. No ways to cover this weakness. Starlight had begun her journey by falling off the Aldenfold, and here at the end, she ended it with a fall.
Starlight tumbled at a harsh spin, unable to control her fall. She couldn't feel time passing, couldn't feel anything but numbness as the stars whirled through half of her vision and the darkened world occupied the other. This wasn't like the first time she fell, where she had watched and struggled and tried to survive the end. She just fell. She had lost a fight, lost her keepsakes of her friends, couldn't protect the north from whatever Gazelle would do... Couldn't do anything. She was powerless.
The ground rushed up to meet her, but Starlight kept falling. Everything around her went black, but still, she fell.
She had thought a day ago that she knew what it felt like, after the end. Now, she knew she was wrong. She had hit the ground, was dead, this was truly after the end, and yet still, she felt like she was falling-
A branch snagged her coat, knocking her into an even harder spin. She brushed against something, tumbling to the side. Something smashed beneath her, too brittle to even hurt from her speed. A rushing filled her ears, and then a shimmer of telekinesis, and all of a sudden, everything was still.
Starlight opened her eyes.
Her surroundings were utterly alien. Rocks rose around her in lopsided, jagged walls, tree roots occasionally reaching out from deep cracks within them, faceted boulders looking held in place so barely that she could breathe on them and they would fall. Thin filaments of crystal had grown out from the walls in places, especially one, and she could see a trail of shattered ones straight above from where she had fallen down. Far up, as straight upward as she could look, a jagged line opened to the sky, and the full moon shone down from straight overhead, bathing the place in a collage of dim light and deep shadows. And below, artic water raced by.
She had fallen into the river canyon cutting through the middle of the forest plateau. And a unicorn was holding her.
Slowly, Starlight rotated to see who it was, though she already knew there was only one pony it could be. Her own face looked back at her. It was Glimmer.
"Don't you think this is a bad time?" Starlight asked, in too much pain from the beating and exhaustion she had endured to dredge up any of the things she wanted to say to Glimmer from her mind.
Glimmer shrugged, floating her over and setting her on a natural, rocky outcropping that was safe from the river. "Isn't that when I always appear?"
"Well, now is a worse time than others!" Starlight snapped. "Unless you're actually ready to help me for a change?" She drooped. "I know about Eylista. And what I am. And just so you know, there were better ways to help me than telling me not to trust myself over and over. You're not my friend. I don't know why you even caught me at all."
Glimmer sighed a long, defeated sigh. "Sounds like you've had it rough."
Starlight growled. "I wonder why."
"I never intended for things to come to this," Glimmer apologized, folding her ears. "I wanted to see you settle down and live happily. I wanted to teach you that giving up on some of your goals didn't have to be such a bad thing, that there are so many other ponies in the world who have things they want but can never get, and it isn't so bad when they learn to live with it instead of killing themselves trying. Looks like I've made a real mess of that."
"So now you're sorry?" Starlight slumped against the rock, with neither the strength nor will to even lift her head. "Unless you can magically stop Gazelle and get all of my friends back and make everything alright, it's a little too late for that, don't you think?"
"It is." Glimmer nodded, folding her ears. "Your face makes it plain for all to see, the way you're feeling now. You're never going to forget this. Ever. It is possible to do all the things you want, get out of this canyon and reach your ship again and defeat that sphinx, but it wouldn't be possible to leave behind the pain you've endured in doing so. Even the Nightmare Modules can't erase that."
Starlight snorted. "A big help your cryptic answers have been in the past."
"Why do you want to stop Gazelle?" Glimmer asked. "What is it you want to stop him from doing?"
Starlight suddenly seethed. "What do you think!? If he's in the north, he won't make it safe for my friends! They'll be in danger as long as he's doing whatever it is he's doing!"
"And if I told you he wouldn't?" Glimmer tilted her head.
"I'd give you all the trust you deserve," Starlight snarled into the ground.
"...Gazelle is terrified of you and your friends," Glimmer said. "I was watching him during the night you spent in Sires Hollow. He came all the way to your house, while all of you were sleeping, and he ran away because even in your sleep, you terrified him. Just now, on your ship, he refused to make the first move."
"What's your point?" Starlight moaned. "He... He..."
Glimmer nodded. "That, I think, perhaps... Gazelle could return to the north, and not be guaranteed to endanger your friends at all."
"With my luck?" Starlight countered. "Fat chance."
"Is that really the reason you want to fight him?" Glimmer pressed. "It's okay to simply not like him. He's never been nice to you, and he cost you your friends' treasures-"
"What is your problem!?" Starlight roared. "How could you possibly think that will make me feel better!? I hate him, but I'm doing it for my friends because I am not a bad pony!"
Glimmer wilted back.
Starlight heaved against the ground, fighting for breath. "And I hate you, too! You always talk like you're keeping so many secrets, like you're trying to get me to do something and you don't trust me to know what it is, and every time you do try to explain yourself I know you're either lying and leaving something out or you're just stupid and have no idea how I work! Aren't you supposed to be me from the future!? I bet you're lying about that, too! Because either you don't know a thing about the wrong things to say to me, or you're the one who hates me! And as much as I hate everything about my life, I still wish it was better."
A look of intense pain crossed Glimmer's face, and for a moment, she stood... and then turned around, faced a wall, sat down and hung her head. "I can't do this. I quit."
Starlight waited.
"Do you want the truth?" Glimmer asked. "All of it? It won't make you feel better, but I can't keep doing this anymore. I'm not blind enough to miss what I'm doing to you, and it's just not worth it anymore."
"Try me," Starlight bitterly drawled. "I just found out from a tree that was supposed to be harmonic that I'll never be able to be happy until I can make the entire world work the way I want it to. What else is new?"
Glimmer took a deep breath. "I'm not you. I'm not from the future. I don't even know what your visions are about, let alone why you have them. I am from Indus, but I can only remember very select things about my time there. I have been trying to help you, and that's why I've done things like breaking my horn or unravelling my body to protect you and your friends. I also have other agendas in this world, and the fact that I was willing to leave them unfinished by sacrificing myself for you and your friends can, I hope, attest to my dedication. However, I have no idea how to talk to you, don't understand how you work, and as you can see, I've done far more harm than good. In fact, where we are now is exactly what I was trying to prevent. Ask me anything. Tell me anything. It might be a long story, but I'm done keeping secrets. My mission isn't right if this is what it leads to. I don't want to hurt you anymore."
Starlight stared at the ground. Was it really Glimmer saying this? Was Glimmer even capable of admitting these things?
"Who are you?" she asked. "And why have you been following me?"
Glimmer nodded. "Have you ever heard of an entity called Tetra?"
Starlight hugged the ground. "Somewhere."
Glimmer squared her shoulders and continued. "Tetra is a... mechanical intelligence who lives in Indus. From searching this world's history, the Griffon Empire apparently discovered her two thousand years ago when they first visited Indus, and brought her here when they returned. Tetra helped the Empire create Garsheeva, the first sphinx. Later, she fell into the hooves of a nation called Unicornia, which was the precursor to Equestria. There, she assisted them in the creation of alicorns... Princess Celestia, and her sister, Luna. After the war between the Empire and Unicornia was over, the alicorns kept Tetra, and eventually returned her to Indus and left her where she had been found."
Starlight nodded. That all sounded vaguely familiar.
"You saw a mural in one of the crystal palaces," Glimmer continued. "Showing the end of Indus, as two titans battled?"
"One of them was Aegis," Starlight mumbled, too busy listening to react. If Glimmer was actually telling her everything, it was the least she could do to listen.
Glimmer nodded back. "Aegis was Tetra's body."
Starlight's ears perked in alarm.
"Emphasis on was," Glimmer added. "After their battle, they were separated somehow."
"How?" Starlight asked.
"I don't know the exact details," Glimmer continued. "Aegis was left dormant in Indus, and to my knowledge the griffon explorers never found her. However, Tetra's mind was somehow separated from her, and sealed away. It was sealed using that black sword you carry around, which you may have noticed once belonged to Tetra's opponent... whose name I do not know."
Starlight made herself a tiny bit more comfortable. "How do you remember who it belonged to?"
"Its power to change memories regarding its previous owner does not seem to affect me." Glimmer shrugged. "However, the sword was brought back by the same expedition that also brought Tetra to this world. I believe the griffons accidentally unsealed her."
Starlight frowned. "If she got unsealed, how come she doesn't go back to Aegis?" Slowly, memories surfaced in her mind of talking to Aegis, who did seem to have a rudimentary personality. "Unless she already did..."
"She hasn't," Glimmer confirmed. "I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps she has reason to stay in Indus? But... I don't believe Aegis and her are currently one."
Starlight waited, patient.
"Regardless," Glimmer continued. "You know that you are Eylista, and what that means, right?"
"It means my special talent is hope," Starlight mumbled. "And that I can't turn it off, and no matter what I do I'll always be trying to make things better than they are, and will never be able to be satisfied with the world until it's the way it wants to be. The flame told me I'm one ninth of its mind, or... something."
"You have the drive of it," Glimmer corrected. "Merely fused to the soul of an ordinary pony. But what you must understand is that the Immortal Dream... All three of the societal virtues, as Yakyakistan calls them, manifest in artifacts of phenomenal power, limited only by the body of the wielder. Princess Celestia used one to physically create the Aldenfold, to give you an idea of the magnitude of their strength when wielded fully. During the battle in the mural, Aegis was empowered by all three at once, and took on enough power to raze an entire world. I've made the mistake of warning you about yourself without context. This is the context I didn't give. Do you understand what it means to possess that level of power?"
Starlight grunted into the ground. "Doesn't feel like I'm that powerful if I can't even beat Gazelle."
"There are steps you would have to take to unlock it fully," Glimmer confirmed. "And even then, half of it lies in your ability to twist the world so that you will always have a path to continue, even after you are defeated. Even now, you're still alive." She shrugged. "However, whether you are powerful or not, the important part is that Tetra became aware of you somehow. After that war when Indus perished, the power that allowed it to transpire was forged into the world itself, used by machines to power reality instead of being wielded by real creatures. There have been times when it was taken up before, by Celestia and Luna and Garsheeva. Now, it is yours."
Starlight waited.
"So, to finally answer your question," Glimmer finished, "I am following you because Tetra created me to do so, gave me Aegis to assist me in my quest, and sent me to this world to ensure you settled down and found a happy and fulfilling life as a normal pony, and were never tempted to take up the power you wield and use it to change the world. She was afraid that, if a war was ever fought using such powers again, it could destroy this world and everything in it, and ponykind would not be equipped to create a new world for themselves as they did after Indus. Tetra wished for me to guide you into leaving behind your potential, living at peace and never asking questions about what you could do, never wanting for anything you would have to use your powers to reach for." She hung her head. "And I have failed utterly. You know who you are and what you are capable of, and harbor more resentment and desire to change the world than I can imagine."
"But..." Starlight shook. "My visions! What about those? What about you being from the future? How did you know everything you knew?"
Glimmer sadly looked at the ground. "I don't recall knowing a thing about them. I recall you and I sitting at the flame in Garsheeva's temple, and you told me you had seen the end of the world in a gray vision and asked me how to stop it. You assumed I was you from the future all on your own, and I... saw an opportunity to convince you that being happy and staying home would save the world. That's why I always refused to elaborate whenever you asked, and told you to leave it all to me. It's why I didn't know about things like Crystal, or the explosion in Izvaldi far enough in advance to stop them. I was just a fraud, who... didn't understand how you would react to that. I didn't realize how important taking action to keep your friends safe was to you. I thought I could take your desire to do something and convince you that doing nothing was actually doing everything you needed to do, and you could live in peace and contentment that way. But it looks like I just tried to twist your nature against yourself, and hurt you instead."
Starlight trembled. "No! There has to be more meaning to it than that...!"
"Not all tragedies have meaning," Glimmer apologized. "I'm so sorry. I just... did what Tetra created me to, and it looks like she didn't know you, either."
"Maybe she wanted me to lose my mind and hate everything and snap and try to ruin the world," Starlight said darkly. "She was fighting back then, after all. And she was helping both sides in the war between the griffons and Unicornia."
"I hope it is not so," Glimmer replied. "But, that's why I am breaking from her instructions and trusting you now instead of her. The damage has been done. I don't know if there's anything I can do to make up for it. But at the very least, I'll tell you everything." She paused. "I remember her as someone who cared. But if that was a lie... she's definitely in Indus. So as long as you don't go there, you shouldn't ever have to deal with her yourself. Indus has a lot of leftover technology that you would need to maximize your potential on your own, so she probably wouldn't be too worried about you if you stayed away. You know..."
Starlight shook her head. Staying away from a place when she had a solid reason, instead of wasn't allowed to know? Laughably easy. But... "What about my visions, then? They were definitely of the future. Why am I having them? Now I know nothing about them..."
Glimmer shrugged. "I wish I could say, but I don't even know what they contain, let alone where they come from or what they're about. I just don't know."
Starlight slumped. It was another weight on her back, but what did those matter if she wasn't on her hooves and wasn't going anywhere to carry them? She was too defeated to have any important questions to ask next, but felt like she had to ask something anyway.
"How did Tetra make you?"
"A good question." Glimmer shrugged. "I don't know entirely. In fact, I only first gained consciousness here in this world, with Aegis, who had a set of instructions and a message from Tetra for me. I have some memories of a life before that, but they don't fit with any world I know, and feel... stitched together. I believe I am more machine than pony."
Starlight nodded at the ground. "A Transitional Emotion Trinity Research Automata 4.0."
Glimmer sat back against a rock and sighed. "You've probably noticed that the acronym for that phrase is Tetra."
Starlight raised a battered eyebrow. "What's that mean?"
"I don't know for sure." Glimmer shook her head. "I wasn't told. The biggest clue I've been able to find is that batponies are referred to internally the same way, only they are 3.0 instead. Knowing that batponies are a type of lifeform created by equine hooves, I could speculate that it refers to artificial life altogether. But that doesn't add up with what I know about where you came from, and there is obviously a difference between us even though we both have the same designation. This is what I didn't want you hearing and having to speculate about when I had Aegis block you from making contact with the Empire generator, by the way."
"Huh."
"In the end, I'm not sure it matters," Glimmer continued. "It's a mystery to me as well. But that's what I know."
Starlight glanced up. "So if you're not me, how come you look like me?"
"As I was told, so it would be easier to find you." Glimmer nodded. "There's no better reference for someone's appearance than wearing it yourself, after all. Incidentally, that's also a part of why you have Tetra's enemy's sword. It was originally in my possession, but if I let it loose in the world and followed it around, Tetra suspected it would find its way to you. The sword is intelligent somehow, in case you haven't noticed, and Tetra said you... reminded her of her old adversary."
Starlight frowned. "But I was barely old enough to say my name when the meteor fell and I got turned into Eylista. How would she know what I was like?"
"I don't know." Glimmer shrugged again. "That was merely what she said on the message she instructed Aegis to give me. Regardless, I took the sword and posed as a child merchant in a coastal town in Varsidel, sold it to a wandering griffon in exchange for a boat he wanted to leave behind, and then left the boat and followed him at a distance for years until he met you in Riverfall."
"Huh." Starlight looked straight ahead. "So Gerardo led you to me."
Above, the moon had shifted slightly, and even the smallest change in angle caused the entire chasm to light up differently, the light splaying across rocks that glittered with natural crystals, spattering the outcropping where the two fillies sat with beads of reflected light that were so precise they could see them moving. "Yes," Glimmer said, watching a fleck of brightness crawl across the floor. "I followed Gerardo until he encountered you in Riverfall, watched you during Ironridge to see if you were really who I was looking for, and by the time you sacrificed yourself to stop the windigoes, I knew it was you. And so I introduced myself to the harmonic flame there and helped it to guide Maple back to the brazier and use its power to save you."
"Why?" Starlight whispered. "If you were so afraid of my power, why save me?"
"Because of the lifestream," Glimmer replied. "First, I don't know if killing you is even possible. Destiny might have found some other way to intervene, had I not aided. But if you were to die... When ponies die, their cutie marks return to the flow from whence they were born. This includes ponies who have predetermined marks that have not yet manifested, like foals born to mothers who used moon glass, and you. If you somehow did die, the Immortal Dream itself would become lost to the flow it governs. None can say what would come to pass if that were to happen, but what I suspect is that it would re-emerge one day, in months or years or millennia, in the hooves of a pony whose ultimate dream was to change the world. And I would much rather do Tetra's work helping Eylista to live in peace with a pony who did dream of that than one who desired nothing more than to use it."
"Right." Starlight looked down. That made sense. Of course, now she couldn't even die without endangering the world. Did that mean it was even less safe for her to charge into unwinnable situations to protect the things she loved...?
Glimmer stretched. "Well... what else can I answer?"
Starlight wasn't even sure she had more questions that mattered. About the only thing she hadn't asked yet was where Indus was and how to get there, but even assuming Glimmer actually knew, she had a perfectly good reason not to go there. "So now what am I supposed to do?" she sighed, curling up. "Do I keep crossing the mountains to the north? Do I go back to Sires Hollow? I don't want to fight in a war like Aegis and destroy the world. And now that you told me, I can actually avoid it. But I don't know what I should do either. I'm so tired. I just want to go somewhere safe and not lonely and have a home..."
"I wish I had a good answer for you," Glimmer apologized. "Do you still want to do something about Gazelle?"
"I don't see what I can do," Starlight glumly muttered. "Maybe I'm Eylista, and maybe you say I can beat him, but he just ate all Garsheeva's cutie marks and all the Mistvale ponies that Crystal stole. He's probably impossibly strong. I don't want to be like Aegis and that other thing she was fighting, but Gazelle's probably strong enough I'd have to."
"No." Glimmer shook her head earnestly. "I can promise you he is far, far from that strong. He's only about as strong as Garsheeva at the height of her powers."
Starlight's ears slicked back dangerously. "Wow. That's reassuring."
"Sorry," Glimmer sighed.
Starlight looked away.
"If you don't go after him," Glimmer started. "Which, I know you have no reason to trust my advice, but still... I think your friends will be alright, unless they hunt him down themselves."
"You think they wouldn't?" Starlight whispered. "They're heroes. And he's a bad guy."
"Actually, he's very similar to you," Glimmer corrected. "Fearsome and powerful and unhappy with his lot in life, and both affected in some way by Tetra. She created his kind, after all. The only real difference is that I believe there is hope for you to live happily. It may be hard to see, but there are plenty of ponies out there who care about you. I hardly count, but... myself included."
Starlight huffed. "That's not going to stop them from going after him."
"Well, I'll look out for them," Glimmer promised. "And I'll keep an eye on him. I need to find a way to get Aegis back first... Losing her wasn't good. But if you did go and settle down, regardless of which side of the mountains it was on, I would trust you to take care of yourself, and... I would have a lot more time to deal with creatures like that."
"You did that already," Starlight mumbled. "In the Empire. Weren't you working with Garsheeva...?"
Glimmer nodded. "They called me the Divine Seer. I was able to earn Garsheeva's interest through my knowledge of Indus technology, which was given to me by Aegis. She is... something of my keeper, as well as a tool lent to me to do my job. But yes, I had Garsheeva interested in my unusual knowledge. This was related to my other job, which had nothing to do with you."
"What was it?"
Glimmer sighed. "You remember how I said Tetra thought there was a chance the sealing sword would find its way back to you?"
Starlight nodded.
"I was told she didn't know what happened to her opponent after that war. But if there was any chance the sword could alternately find its way to him..." She shrugged. "Well, whatever condition he might be in, I was supposed to watch for that. I was working with Garsheeva because her Daydream network gave her a vast amount of perception over her lands. She was a very efficient contact to have for keeping an eye on the world, especially since Aegis could look through the network herself. However, please understand that I don't want this to be your concern. I'm telling you because I've learned my lesson, but you... You already have the sword. If you hang onto it for me, that's not something either of us have to worry about at all."
Starlight's brow creased. "Actually, I don't have it. It's still on the ship with Gazelle."
"Oh. Well, that's not fabulous." Glimmer looked briefly consternated, then nodded. "Well, I'll find a way to deal with him for sure, then. I promise. But I wouldn't worry too much. The sword didn't go back to him, so he may not be around for it to make its way to. Tetra didn't know what had happened to him, but from everything I've seen... I don't think there's anything left but that sword. And even if its original owner was still here, the sword doesn't feel evil. Just... sad. I think both it and Tetra regret what happened when they fought. So even if he still was here, maybe they wouldn't fight anymore."
Starlight stared.
"The same could be said for you and Gazelle, I think," Glimmer cautiously volunteered. "You've fought viciously, and I think you both wish you didn't have to. What if he stays in the north, and you stay in the south? Or, not that I'd tell you to leave your friends, but..."
Starlight's breath hitched. "In my bags. I had some... keepsakes from my friends. He threw them away, over the railing. I can't keep Maple. I can't keep my present from Maple. I can't keep my present from Fluffy, if I do go back north, but I don't even know if I want to because my friends don't give up on things either and they'll keep moving around even if I don't want to and I'll never be able to settle down! I can't keep anything, can I!?"
"You mean these keepsakes?"
Starlight stared. Her lookalike was holding out Fluffy's sketchbook, and with it, Maple's land title deed.
"How...?" She had already been reminded of her reasons to cry, and this wasn't helping. "Where did you get these?"
Glimmer shrugged. "I'm never far away. But if losing them is what was holding you back, here they are. They're yours."
Starlight's ears were flat enough to leave indents in her fur. "M-My friends..." She took the artifacts, hugging them to her chest.
Glimmer sat back, letting her do what she needed.
Breathlessly, Starlight unrolled the scroll. It was all Equestrian legalese, along with some coordinates in a system she had never studied... Exactly what she expected. She opened the sketchbook to the first page. There was that table of contents, the mirror room with all of Fluffy's ideas reflected in the mirrors.
Starlight cried, hugging them harder. "I won't forget you!" she bawled, crashed against the rocks on her side, splayed out and holding them like they were the real ponies. "I can't go on... If I don't stop somewhere, I'll never stop, and no place is good enough. No place will ever be. And if I keep crossing these mountains, I'll just fly on with you and look for writs so we can open the border, and then we'll do something bigger, and we'll never stop until the whole world is changed, and I c-can't take it... I don't want to never learn how to be a normal pony..."
She pressed her face into the ground, the rocks beneath her already glistening faintly from the chips of natural gemstone they contained, but soon to be wetted properly by her tears. "But I know you won't give up on me. You can't hear me, but I know you won't. If I go back to Equestria, and... and wait for you to make everything I want for me..."
It wasn't a train of thought she could afford to let finish, and she redirected it with a heaving sob. "Then I'll do everything you wanted to do here! I don't know how long it will take me. Maybe I'll have to finish growing up first. Maybe you'll already be back by the time I'm done, but... I'll go and build our town. I won't go back to the north. I'll trust you to do everything you need to, and... and learn to live with that, not crossing the mountains when I know I could... but I won't do nothing! I'll finish your work here instead!"
Starlight climbed to her hooves, her legs hurting a little less from Gazelle's slashing and her climb through the mountains all of a sudden. "I'll build our town. It will be a place where it doesn't matter what kind of pony you are, or what you look like, or who you like, and you won't have to leave because of your cutie mark and no one will care if you get it on your own or it's predestined because of moon glass! It'll be the kind of place we're always looking for to settle down and live in harmony! I'll... I'll make you proud of me...! I can't make a perfect world on my own, but I will build our town!"
The moonlight increased dramatically, dancing and splaying across the chasm, reflecting off all its surfaces and sparkling blue against the crystals. Tears of color ran down Starlight's eyes, and she sniffed. Somehow, her moon glass grayness was fading away.
She reached a hoof for the heavens one more time, so distant up at the top of the chasm yet very real and very much there. She had been so close to them, and she had fallen...
"I-I promise. I'm not okay, but I'll find a way to be, because you wanted me to. I'll go back to Equestria and make more friends and find harmony and build a town for all of us, and... I'll live your dreams..."
Glimmer poked her.
"What-?" Starlight glanced back. Once again, she had a cutie mark.
Only this one wasn't the confusing, artificial runes and triangles of the one once worn by Garsheeva. It was a shooting star, with a sparkling, pointed tip and a flowing, ethereal trail. Perhaps it was the thing ponies wished upon in the sky, or perhaps it was the one that had fallen from the moon, carrying this destiny for her deep inside. It wasn't a wish. It was the means to grant them. And it was hers.
Starlight reached inside herself to see what it could do.
FLAAAAAAAASH!
A bolt of blue lightning fell from the heavens, dropping like an arrow into the ravine and exploding into her horn with a surge of ferocious power. Energy arcs glittered and danced madly across the canyon, Glimmer staring beside her in awe as white ribbons of energy caressed her and lifted her off the ground, a new floor of shimmering power forming beneath her instead. Runes unfolded from her like flower petals, laying themselves down one by one... and at the tip of each, figures began to ripple into existence.
They were blue, ethereal, almost like holograms, tethered to her by burning lines of energy, and yet as Starlight spun in a speechless circle, they felt just as real as the real things... her friends.
Shinespark smiled. Valey flexed. Amber gave her a hoof pump. Maple reached for a hug.
"Everyone..." Starlight sniffed, floating in the center.
She could see their faces, and they could see her. And then the brightness intensified, threads of light weaving together in front of each one, and full-color copies of their cutie marks materialized, floating slowly along the lines of power connecting her to her friends. One by one, they floated closer, vanishing into her chest in puffs of light. Each time, her own cutie mark gleamed.
"What...?" Starlight looked speechlessly around, each visage vanishing as its cutie mark met her, yet somehow feeling closer than ever before. Soon, the lights dissipated, and she landed again on the rocks, though her horn refused to go out, blazing and crackling with the violent lightning of a magic surge bigger than any she had ever heard of. Something in her head felt like it started moving, a gear that had been jammed for longer than she could remember, and rather than returning in full force now that she was no longer moon glassed, her headache faded away like water down a drain, more dissipated than it had ever been. And yet her horn's aura was bigger than she was.
Starlight could feel her friends' cutie marks.
Reaching down, she touched her treasures, Fluffy's book and Maple's property deed. She had no idea how Maple did it, but it was suddenly instinctive. She held them against herself, and they were gone, yet she knew they were still there.
"The Immortal Dream," Glimmer said beside her. "You may have heard the story, but it grants the wishes of others. A cutie mark in following your friends' dreams... For you, it looks like it copied their powers."
Starlight stared. But she had seen Shinespark there, and Shinespark's cutie mark could...
Her horn was already lit. She barely needed to try. It felt exactly like the time she had used the gravity chamber at Kinmari.
With barely a thought, Starlight was surrounded by her aura, hovering a foot off the ground.
Glimmer stared at her, asking wordlessly what she planned to do.
"I can fly," Starlight replied.
Glimmer nodded.
Starlight looked up the canyon to the north. The direction where all her friends had gone.
She looked down the canyon to the south. That was where she had just promised to live, not just survive but give everything she had to being happy and making friends and following her old friends' wishes, so they could live even more happily when they returned.
She could do either, and they would be just as easy now. But...
"I'll be back," Starlight promised, magic crackling all around her. "I meant what I said. I will learn to overcome my circumstances if it's the last thing I do. If I'm so unstoppable, there has to be a way! But first, I have something else to do..."
Starlight turned her gaze skyward and started to rise, Glimmer shrinking away beneath her, the lights and reflections of the river gorge flashing by around her.
Forget the Nightmare Modules. Forget the artifice. Forget the black sword. Starlight didn't need them to win. She had the power of her friends. She could fly. And she wasn't getting knocked off a cliff again.
The harmony comet blazed bright above the Immortal Dream, winds shredding past and mountain peaks drifting by below as it sped its way north. A feline face stared through the windshield on the bridge, but his eyes weren't on where he was going, and his head was crouched just so he could fit inside.
With a trail of burning teal, the airship was no longer alone.
Starlight Glimmer drifted upwards, soaring slowly above a railing like a rising moon. Energy coursed over her body, crackling between her horn and cutie mark and everywhere else, her magic surge a long way from abating. She rolled, drifting to the side, and landed on the deck on all fours, the aura of flight around her body going out.
"Gazelle!" she shouted toward the open bridge, waiting for her adversary to come out.
The sphinx did, lumbering and squeezing clumsily through the doorway, unused to his new, massive size. He still crackled with an aura of acclimating power, but the pupils had returned to his glowing eyes, and they regarded Starlight with an expression of resignation and exasperation and malice and hope and dread.
"What is this," Gazelle rumbled, sparks leaking from his mouth when he spoke, "some kind of sick joke? Did you lose on purpose just to taunt me before coming back to finish the job? Or is this some second wind neither of us asked for? Why can't you leave me alone!?"
"You hunted me down first," Starlight replied levelly, her horn blazing. "Maybe you could have stood to leave me alone."
"Excuse you, I'm flying away!" Gazelle flared his wings aggressively. "Pot, meet kettle? How did you even get back up here?"
"Bad luck," Starlight replied. "Powers I never asked for."
"Oh, so you think you're cursed to haunt me as well." Gazelle rolled his eyes. "Wonderful. I have an avenging angel I don't want, and you don't want to be up here either? There's no possible way that could all have been avoided. What do you even want? It's not like you were doing anything with Gwendolyn. It's not like I was going after your friends. Face it. You couldn't leave me alone if you wanted to."
"I've had a very bad week," Starlight warned.
"Peas in a pod," Gazelle growled. "Why don't you invite me to tea instead so we can commiserate? I've tasted your emotions. I know how you feel. Maybe the reason you keep following me is because you want me to put you out of your misery. Or do you want to do the same to me!?"
He swept a giant paw. "Look at me! Look at this! Even when I bring Lyn back, you think there will be room in her life for a creature like me!? I can hear them…" He cringed, holding his stomach. "I can hear all the things they wanted in life… I can hear them begging me to do them instead! A million voices all urging me to become a musician or a doctor or a carpenter or a guard or a race flier or a smith or an accountant or a parent or a civil servant when all I'm good for is chaos and murder! They're taunting me with everything a creature like me cannot be, trying to give me hopes I know will be dashed… What use does Lyn have for a brother like this?"
Starlight watched him. He realized exactly what he was… but had no clearer of a path forward than she did. "You have your sister back, and you still want to die?"
"What are you here for?" Gazelle rasped. "I wish I wasn't a sphinx. I wish I was a pony… Do you think you're a force for good in the world?"
"Maybe," Starlight replied. "I want to be. But I told you, this isn't a good time. I've had a very bad day."
"You'll never let me rest." Gazelle sagged. "I don't deserve to rest. Even if I get Lyn back, I won't be able to keep her…" He began circling. "What will it take to get you to put me out of my misery?"
Starlight stared. Her legs were still limp from the climb, her body still covered in scratches and wounds from the prince's spiky breath. Jamjars' betrayal felt like yesteryear's wound, the trials of her decision to stay in Sires Hollow and say goodbye were an entire lifetime away. She was drained down to her core, stripped of her friends, the mysteries of her powers and body taken away, she had even been robbed of her resentment of Glimmer. All she had was frustration, determination and a wish for a world in which she could be at peace. After this battle, if she survived, she would go back to the south and live with her knowledge and try to be a normal pony, fully aware of who she was and what she could do. She would bury her role as Eylista, or try to coexist with it, but she would no longer be Starlight, the filly of the north who gave everything that she was and more to ensure she always got her way.
But that was tomorrow. Tonight, she could still do anything.
"I could threaten your friends," Gazelle volunteered. "I could promise to shred their putrid faces. Devour their brands, see how they like that sword of yours… I could raze all of Ironridge with this power. I could eat them alive, just like Garsheeva did to countless generations of sacrifices. I could go to a souvenir store and buy an audio recorder, and mail you their screams…"
"Shut up," Starlight spat. "You want me to kill you that badly? After you chased me all the way here and got your sister back and tried to throw away my keepsakes from my friends?"
Gazelle blinked. "Keepsakes? When was this?"
Starlight stalked forward.
"Whatever," Gazelle growled. "Have you ever had a goal that's the first step towards another one, and you never thought you'd complete it so chasing it didn't matter, even though you knew the next step would be impossible!?" He reared back, stopping by the railing and letting out a wordless roar to the heavens. "I have Lyn. I could find her a body! But I'll never be able to make her care about a monster like me!"
Starlight came closer.
"Lyn was beautiful. Lyn was perfect. Lyn was pure." Gazelle's eyes flickered with madness, and he waited, wings outstretched. "She would disown me faster than anyone in the world! And it's all the more easy to feel that with all these pathetic dreams floating around inside me that I could never live up to! Tell me how Garsheeva did it without going insane! Or was she all along? Or don't bother. I know there isn't an answer. Now hurry up and end me… Starlight!"
Starlight reared back, drew a hoof, and punched his chest with all she had.
Nothing happened.
Gazelle looked down at the filly connected to him by a hoof. "Why must you taunt me?" he whispered.
"I have had a very bad day," Starlight said, not budging. "I've had a very bad week. I've had a very bad last six months, last two years, last everything. Threaten my friends all you like. I know they can take you. I'm not going to fight you because you're a danger to them."
"Do you want to put that to the test?" Gazelle hissed.
Starlight looked up and met his eyes. "I'm going to fight you because you're an acceptable target."
Her hoof pulsed with energy, and she unpocketed the biggest boulder she could carry, sending it smashing into Gazelle and bowling him over the railing.
"SHHHHRRRAAAAAAAAUGH!"
Before she could even breathe, the prince was back, tearing into her with the force of a clawed train. A sharp pain in Starlight's flanks alerted her that he was coming, yet she didn't even need it to know what to do. Time slowed, and she saw him barreling out of the night…
Flash!
A crystalline shield solidified instantly around her, Gazelle's claws embedded an inch into the surface. Like a missile, he carried her off the ship's opposite edge, barely a second of airtime passing before they met the side of a mountain. Rocks exploded into gravel as Gazelle dragged Starlight along a sheer slope, plowing her shield through outcroppings and ledges and bumps in the ridge with a force that could have shattered her horn from even a single hit. But her magic no longer worked the way it once had, and the titanic energy demands of holding her shield together only felt good, allowing her an outlet for the billowing storm of energy born from her magic surge.
A tiny drop in the pain in her flanks alerted her to a spot where the mountains fell away, a split second where they were sailing through open air. Starlight's horn surged, and her shield shattered into thousands of shards, all seized in her expanding telekinetic field as she teleported out of the way. Like filings of iron aligning under a magnet, the crystal slivers all pointed as one, barreling into Gazelle as a thousand deadly knives.
Gazelle roared, spinning and wrapping his wings around himself in a shield of his own. The blades scratched at his feathers, but his own momentum deflected them, catching them and knocking them away…
Starlight appeared behind him, angled her horn and fired. A long, thin lance of crystal burst forth and kept growing, spearing like a solid laser and shooting straight through his wing joint before embedding itself in the mountainside below.
With a pained shriek, Gazelle spun again, this crystal too thin for her to keep it from shattering under his weight, and she fell back as he kicked off the rocks and advanced once again.
"GRRRRRRRRAAAAA…" Gazelle's maw opened and glowed, his wings beating like a dragon's, preparing a breath attack that would make the wounds from his previous ones look like paper cuts by comparison.
Starlight flew backwards, giving herself as much distance between them as she could, feeling time slow from Valey's cutie mark and wanting him to lock in his angle before she dodged… A searing, smoking pillar of spikes wrapped in shadows burst forth, and she had just as much time as she had hoped for.
Flash! Starlight teleported and immediately fired her horn, focusing her power into a mass of raw, burning energy instead of crystal this time around. Gazelle probably could have taken it with ease, but she was behind him and he couldn't see what it was, so he beat his wings and dodged.
The energy bolt soared over Gazelle's head as he roared toward her with a deadly swinging claw. Starlight teleported again… right into the path of her own projectile. She hoped this was as intuitive as it had looked before…
Her projectile struck, and Starlight reached out with her instincts, trying to pocket the energy itself like Maple had once done to a Sosan energy weapon at the very start of their journey. Her body flashed and sizzled intensely, feeling like a limb had just gone to sleep and was fuzzy as it woke up, only far more strongly and everywhere at once. The sensation almost disrupted her concentration, but Valey's cutie mark stepped in again, slowing time as Gazelle roared back toward her again.
Starlight countered, firing off a second energy bomb and unpocketing the first at the same time. The two projectiles merged into one, double-sized, and Gazelle had to swerve backwards to avoid it, spreading his wings and preparing to counter everywhere in the immediate vicinity she could teleport.
He didn't expect her to go for the projectile again.
Starlight caught it, her body surging dangerously, and she immediately flung it out again, adding another bolt to the blast in a midair game of dodgeball in which she threw the ball from every side. Gazelle ducked again, letting the blast soar over his head and immediately letting out a laser of spikes, ready to catch Starlight the instant she appeared in its course again. But instead of appearing in his beam, Starlight teleported onto his neck, grabbing hold and reaching up and catching the mass one more time as it soared overhead.
Her body felt like it could explode, like she might easily lose control of everything all at once or damage something important. But in the single second she had to spare, her horn pulsed, targeting her hoof and growing a crystalline dagger attached to the end, and she swung it, stabbing deep into Gazelle's backside.
There was a wound. She was touching it. Starlight unloaded the full force of her combined projectile attacks deep inside of her enemy's body.
With a shockwave that rocked the heavens, Gazelle dropped like a meteor, blasted down at an angle, trees exploding in a line along the ground as he plowed through them and rolled. Starlight stared. She could press her advantage, but if that couldn't finish him… She didn't know how long her magic surge would last. If it ended before she won, she would be screwed. The Immortal Dream was still on the horizon… She blasted off after it. She had to shore up her power while she could.
Starlight caught up to the ship, hitting the deck with a roll. It was still flying forward, set to a course with no pilot, but the mountains were only getting higher. She was in the peaks by now, the area where she had taken to the tunnels before, ice and snow glistening atop wildly jagged vistas below. Yet the mountains were still climbing, and the ship would surely crash if she didn't adjust its course.
Her legs gave out beneath her, still reduced to noodles from her climb. But her horn was fresh, so she flew into the bridge instead, dropping herself in the pilot's chair and yanking on the throttle just as the ship was soaring through a gorge between two icebound peaks. A roar of force pressed her back in the chair as the engine blazed and the ship swung about, pivoting and halting as though she had just dropped anchor at full tilt.
The ship swung about, looking back the way she had come. She could already see Gazelle.
The sphinx rocketed toward her, his momentum too fast to control. He would be upon her in seconds… Starlight stared at the controls. She had watched this ship be piloted before. Even Jamjars had piloted it before. She could work with this.
Orange light billowed from the harmony comet, and the ship reared back as Gazelle approached, speeding forward to meet him. Gazelle unsheathed his claws and drew back a paw, bigger than when Starlight left him as he continued to adjust to his stockpile and his size continued to increase. He swung, ready to smash the ship and Starlight along with it…
And he smacked into Mobius's impenetrable hull, the unstoppable bulwark that had saved the ship every time it crashed before. Starlight wheeled around and accelerated into a mountain, Gazelle stuck to the side of the prow with his claws embedded in the outer wooden shell, crushing and scraping him between the hull and the rocks like he had done to her in her shield.
The boat groaned and rumbled from the disturbance as Gazelle was dragged along backwards and rolled over and over beneath it and the stones. Soon, Starlight left him behind, the Dream soaring back out into the open. But that wouldn't keep him down, she knew. She pulled the ship into neutral and got up from the pilot's chair, leaving the console almost reluctantly… With a start, she realized it wasn't just a coincidence she was able to fly it. Amber's cutie mark was about knowledge of boats. It must have given her some measure of skill with airships, too.
Out of the corner of her eye, something glinted. The black sword. She had a cutie mark to use it once again.
She didn't have time to bond it, the whole deck shaking as Gazelle landed on the stern. He was huge, and as Starlight dashed out, he seemed to be growing even bigger… His size was swelling as his body knit itself back together. Every time she injured him and allowed him to use his regeneration, it adjusted him a little more to his cutie marks, and caused him to grow.
He stared at her, all sanity and reason gone from his eyes behind a wall of desperation and bloodlust. Starlight growled. As relatable as he might have been, if he would stop hurting her and be reasonable for a change, Gazelle was also a monster. Maybe killing him really would be a mercy… Either way, there was no turning back now.
She pressed the Indus sword to her flanks, adding its power to her own.
A pillar of light blasted through the sky as their bond was re-established, and without her bidding, the sword began to transform and change. It didn't feel disobedient. It felt like it was reacting to her needs, drawing power from Eylista and showing her what it could do.
Starlight's body glowed, the runic lights around her barrel doubling in complexity and strength. Surging, the sword hovered, shimmered, and grew, melding into light itself, swelling around the hilt where a giant copy of her cutie mark still blazed inside its triangle. The titan in the mural had wielded a sword capable of facing down Aegis… Well, she needed one capable of facing down a god too.
She remembered Glimmer's words, though. If these powers were fully reawakened, the resulting clash could destroy the world, just like it had ended Indus in an age long forgotten. Aegis had been powered by the three societal virtues, one of which was Eylista. It had fought against a creature with this blade. Starlight knew what she could do, knew there was no use in trying not to find out. Was this what Tetra had been worried about?
But she wouldn't destroy the world. She wouldn't lead to that bleak future in her visions. She would sit on this power forever if she had to, preventing it from being used… as soon as she had freed Gazelle from himself. She wouldn't use it in the future, but tonight, she would learn what it could do.
The sword reformed… halfway. It was still made from black metal, but pulsed with blue light, leaking in veins from its copy of her cutie mark that reminded her of the lighting veins in Mistvale. Halfway up, she lost sight of the metal under a shimmer of midnight blue, like it was still transforming and couldn't even manifest the extent of its blade. But the sword was taller than Princess Celestia. Gazelle might have been massive, but here was a weapon she could use.
Recalibrating Nightmare Module emulation mode for Eylista API, her Nightmare Module voice announced, Gazelle leering down at her, raising a paw to attack. Emulated cutie mark containing encrypted information detected. Decrypting… Found NIGHTMARE_07. Star Module is now available for use.
Starlight's eyes widened. The module Luna made for Garsheeva, one that could take and transfer cutie marks at will, baked into the specially modified cutie marks Garsheeva gave to her lieutenants… Seraphim, the mare whose journal Gazelle had read, had been a lieutenant who fled to Equestria, dying where Garsheeva couldn't reclaim the mark and prevent it from entering the lifestream. Shinespark had one day received the mark herself. All that, Starlight had pieced together individually at one time or another… and now her cutie mark had copied Shinespark's along with her other friends'. The Star Module was now a part of her cutie mark.
She was fighting Gazelle, and suddenly had a weapon designed to kill a sphinx.
Gazelle's paw struck, big enough to crush her against the deck. Starlight struck back, shearing through his leg with the sword, willing the seventh Nightmare Module to activate. It did.
As the sword tore through him, Gazelle roared in agony, no wounds appearing on his coat yet a stream of light blasting out of him, dozens of motes of light ripped free by the module's power. Starlight felt them all, held in her aura, sacrifices and sarosians who had been torn from Garsheeva by Chrysalis…
She wouldn't condemn them to reliving their memories in moon glass, and she wouldn't leave them with Gazelle. So Starlight let them go.
Gazelle staggered back, tripping on the ship's stern, giving Starlight a look of insanity and fury. Starlight pressed her attack, staggering forward and slicing again. Gazelle screamed as another, bigger wave of cutie marks was torn free, set adrift on the winds, and they soared toward the corners of the world, ready to rejoin the lifestream and be reborn as ponies again someday.
They were dying. Starlight was letting them perish. She could catch them, trap them, save them for the day she hunted down Crystal and kicked her out of the Daydream network and got all those sarosians' bodies back and reassembled them and saved them and given them back their lives and families and perhaps become their new goddess and protector and savior and princess and queen…
But she didn't. Starlight saw a road before her, an entire life that she could have if she just held onto the past. It was supposed to be good. What wouldn't be good about saving an entire continent, giving them their lives back when they had been cruelly stolen away?
…But if she let them go, their hopes and dreams could move on to new lives. If the batponies still had their souls attached, who could say they wouldn't be reborn entirely? She didn't know how the lifestream worked. Maybe it would even keep them together as family.
Or maybe it wouldn't. She couldn't know, not without going to Indus and studying the world and learning exactly how it worked and how it had been made and everything else that it would take to reforge it in her image. But that wasn't who she wanted to be.
Starlight roared, swinging again, a wave of cutie marks flying free as Gazelle was repelled, tripped and fell off the stern, Starlight jumping after him. Mountains sailed up around Starlight as she dove, flying past like possibilities she was leaving behind, freed cutie marks rising behind her like stars. The whole purpose of the Nightmare Modules was to hold those close, to take other ponies' hopes and dreams and hope that they would care about her instead. But she could live without this. She would find a way to live without this, without fighting against time and fate to keep anyone from losing anything ever again. These ponies comprised countless faces that she had never known, and she would prove she could live her life without suffering because she had let them go and said goodbye.
Gazelle hit the ground, landing in a twirl and kicking back off and roaring toward her with a blast of deadly spikes. The sword hummed, and Starlight switched modules, its veins of blue changing slightly as it switched to catalyzing her shield instead. The spikes clawed their way upwards and soared around her, battering her shield but unable to leave it with a scratch. Breaking it, it seemed, was a thing only her sword could do.
Starlight switched back to the Star Module the moment it was safe. If there was one drawback to using the sword, it was that it didn't seem able to activate multiple Nightmare Modules at the same time… She pounced again, swinging viciously for her target.
Gazelle was starting to learn. He swiped at the blade from the side, hitting its safe, flat edge and knocking it away before bringing his other claw around for a titanic slam. Starlight reacted with Valey's cutie mark, shielding herself again right before she was sent flying across the sky. The crystal around her dispelled much of the impact, and she wheeled around in the sky, accelerating back towards Gazelle as he roared up at her for more.
CLANNGGG!
She couldn't use multiple Nightmare Modules, but Starlight could use one alongside her crystals. Shielding herself again, floating inside a crystal sphere while wielding the sword with its own power, Starlight and Gazelle rammed each other, another burst of cutie marks torn from the prince as both were knocked flying. Gazelle followed up faster than Starlight could follow, but this time when they rammed, Starlight teleported to his other side, taking all the momentum he had launched her with and crystalizing her horn in a giant spike, appearing and plowing into his back. She let the spike break off, embedded in him, and soared past with a twirl and slash of the Indus sword, earning a screech and a roar.
Flash! Flash! Flash! Starlight darted around and Gazelle flailed, clashing in explosions of light. A familiar sensation of quiet, determined despair passed through her aura, and for a split second, she held onto a cutie mark for a tiny bit longer than usual: it was Senescey, Felicity's sister. Starlight's attack had earned her a brief second of reprieve, and instead of using it to press her advantage, she held Senescey close, murmuring a wish for a better life… and then Starlight let her go.
Gazelle charged up from below, grappling at Starlight and catching her, and she surged again, crystal spiraling from her horn and locking her to his paw. With the force of a cosmic lever, she gripped herself in flight magic and strained to the side, locking them both into a spiral as her crystals crept up and encroached on his wings. Harder, Starlight pushed, and faster they both spun, until they hit the ground, Starlight flinging Gazelle onto an icy crag like she was throwing a hammer.
The prince got back up, but didn't fly again, staring up at her and panting. He hadn't grown anymore since she started draining him. Ever since Starlight had re-bonded with the sword, he hadn't gotten a hit in. Gazelle was losing.
"What are you doing!?" Gazelle shrieked, enough lucidity returned that he could speak. "You're throwing them away!"
Starlight hovered, the runic ring rotating around her barrel and the sword hovering point-down at her side. "I'm letting them go."
"Why!?" Gazelle screamed. "Don't you know how powerful they are!? Don't just spite both of us out of them! Are you hoping for a pyrrhic victory? Can't you see how helpless I am? Have you lost your mind!?"
"I don't want power," Starlight replied. "I want to be a normal pony, and you do too! And normal ponies don't hoard everything they find, especially not hundreds of thousands of souls of ponies they don't even know!"
Gazelle sneered. "Then what were you doing with Lyn and that stockpile?"
"Holding on." Starlight looked down, floating above him in a corona of blue. "Because I've lost so much, I can't bear to lose anything more, even if it was never mine to begin with. And maybe I'll regret this tomorrow, but I don't need them and neither do you. We'll either hurt them by not doing what's right, or hurt ourselves by clinging on too hard. So what if they're all I have? I am not giving up on my life and not giving up on the chance to meet more ponies and make more friends who are my friends and I can appreciate while they're there!"
"PATHETIC!"
Starlight winced, spittle from Gazelle nearly reaching her hundreds of feet in the air. "You're just saying that to sound righteous," the prince snarled. "Oh, this is the good way, be like a commoner peasant and don't stick up for yourself, blah blah blah. Do you think I care about what you've lost? If you're trying to say you know how I feel, prove it by putting me out of my misery!"
He roared forward, a brutal clap closing in on her from both sides, preparing to crush her between his paws. Starlight darted down to meet him, noticing that his mouth was open for a roar, yet he didn't seem to be charging a breath attack… Her horn burst into a stream of crystal, flying down his gullet and freezing his throat solid, blocking his windpipe and forcing him to choke. Gazelle crashed to the ground again, clawing at his esophagus, and Starlight landed on his prone side, driving in the Indus sword like a spear from the heavens. More familiar sensations washed over her, the fear and ambition of Navarre and Crystal's jaded, love-starved malice and cynicism. Was it wise to let Crystal go, give her back whatever part of herself had been caught in the moon glass? She had told Starlight it was like Shinespark, where the her in the real world wouldn't even be aware there was a second personality in the obsidian…
Wise or not, Starlight was beyond questioning wisdom. She wasn't going to be a continental hero, was done chasing after monsters who didn't come for her first. These souls weren't hers to hold. And whatever had brought her to this point, she was going to make the most of it, setting even her fears of her enemies free.
Gazelle gagged, retched and vomited, expelling Starlight's crystals in a spiky mass. He turned to regard her again… and suddenly, Starlight felt a terrible sensation.
Her magic surge was waning. However powerful she would be without it, it wouldn't be enough to effortlessly shield all of Gazelle's blows. It might not even be enough to fly.
And yet Gazelle hadn't even started shrinking. She had removed thousands of cutie marks, but he had consumed hundreds of thousands. Even with the Star Module, could she close this fight out?
She was Eylista. The only thing she could do was try.
Her sword hummed, and she switched to the Dishonesty Module, the very first one she had ever gained. Her shadow gripped her hooves and swirled up around her, she bid the sword to hide its runes and shrink into a tiny, easily-missable stick, and just like that, the night was her ally. The full moon glowed brightly above, and under its light, Starlight was all but invisible, cloaked in her own shadow.
Gazelle let out a grunt of confusion and surprise, but Starlight was already flying away.
Her legs wobbled again as she landed on the deck of the Immortal Dream, hovering at the entrance to an icy canyon valley just where she had left it. She nearly fell flat, letting the shadow cloak down as she opened the door to the staircase and tripped down the stairs. The door to the engine room was still open below. She needed help, and she knew where to look.
Above, the harmony extractor's rails blazed with a cloud of orange stars, the extractor helmet seated over a windigo heart that looked mostly fresh. Starlight crawled to the suitcase containing the others, her scratches and cuts aching and burning from being dragged across the ground. But the latch came undone, and there were the hearts: all but one of them filled to the brim with energy from the Flame of Honesty, stored up and ready to be used.
Starlight pulled out the hearts and activated Maple's cutie mark, pocketing them all at once. Her world went orange.
Hello, Sister, the flame said in her mind. I see you decided you're done running.
"Help me," Starlight panted, her senses overwhelmed by exhaustion and the flame. "I need help!"
Easier done than said.
Her senses focused again, the empty windigo hearts dropping to her sides like discarded ammunition shells. The crackling overglow had faded from her horn, but now it was replaced by orange flames rising all over her body as the Tree of Honesty lent her its power. Her body felt buoyed, lifted, like she was swimming in a river of hot, rising wind, yet made of the same. How much time did she have? How much strength?
The black sword flashed back to a blade at her side, back to its normal size so it could fit properly inside.
Starlight ran for the deck, feeling somehow lighter with the power of the tree coursing through her. Whenever the trees powered her up before, it was enough for one good, strong, free spell. When Maple had used the overcharged windigo heart, she had enough for one almighty blast. Whatever the tree had lent her, it wasn't enough for a prolonged battle. The Star Module wouldn't work fast enough. She had to finish things now.
She stood on the deck, and Gazelle rose over the side like a dark phantom, ragged and bleeding. Maybe he was closer to the end than she thought… She couldn't really know. And there was no time to risk it.
"What are you waiting for?" he whimpered, his voice rumbling through the heavens, echoing off the walls of the canyon and risking an avalanche in the distance. "Are you that fed up with your life that you want us to finish each other together? Is that why you're stalling? Waiting for me to get the upper claw?"
His eyes blazed. "Then hold still and DIE!"
Gazelle's throat glowed, preparing a final, mighty breath attack pointed straight at the deck of the Dream. Starlight's horn blazed in response, no crystals or Nightmare Modules out to counter this one. A cascade of spikes torrented forth in a swirling, twisting, terrible pillar, and Starlight answered with a deluge of orange flames.
Their beams collided together in midair, smoke and spikes and fire spewing all across the mountains, burning holes in the snow and ice where they landed as Starlight's attack solidified into a monochrome crystal beam. And then faint threads of other colors wove their ways in, pink and red and midnight blue… and Gazelle was pushed back until he hit a mountain, the beam smashing into his chest and exploding into crystals, fusing into the rock and pinning him there against the sheer, vertical wall. Gazelle was trapped. Starlight's horn blazed, holding him in place. That was what she had. Her horn could hold the crystals for about a minute longer, and then it would all be over.
She needed a way to finish it that was even stronger.
Slowly, as if time had slowed to a crawl, Starlight stepped onto the bridge, her horn sparking and blitzing with orange. She seated herself in the pilot's chair, grasped the wheel, pivoted the ship about until it was facing the trapped sphinx dead-on. She locked eyes with him, and the sword floated up outside the windshield. It pointed at him like a needle, thrusted, and stayed… and with a final use of the Nightmare Module, Starlight fished around for the two cutie marks she wanted most: Gwendolyn's, and his own.
She got them. Gazelle roared inside the crystals in pain, struggling against them, and she knew no matter how hard she tried, they wouldn't be able to hold. But they had to. She called the two marks back, pulled back the sword, and switched its module one more time, pointing at the floor and conjuring a small patch of moon glass. Both marks sank inside.
Starlight nodded at her work. There was clinging onto things she didn't want to lose… and then there was honoring the wishes of a defeated enemy. It wouldn't hurt to hold onto the hope that maybe someday, she could bring them back as normal ponies together, free from their memories of the Empire and the influences of the bodies they were born into. It would give her something to do in the future. It would give her a reason to survive.
Flash!
Starlight teleported, her horn having enough power left to manage it simply because she willed it to. She didn't know what would happen after this, if having her cutie mark would change the fate she almost met last time. But she did know a way to create an attack big enough to end most anything.
Her telekinesis reached upward, rising through the floor of the bridge and onto the control panel, locking around the throttle. The harmony extractor burned overhead, powering the ship just like it always did. It was attached to the windigo heart with a small helmet, designed to go over ponies' cutie marks…
"I'm sorry, Maple…"
Starlight lifted the helmet off the heart and set it down on her own, praying that her new cutie mark would let her overload it and not disappear.
With a flash of searing blue, the helmet hit the ground, smoking and useless, the wires connecting it to the rest of the machine evaporated so totally that they left lines burned into Starlight's vision where they had once been. But the machine was barely charged from that, and she was still here. It wasn't enough. She had tried to use the harmony extractor for a final, all-out attack, and all she had succeeded in doing was burning out the cables to its power source.
But Gazelle wouldn't let her walk away now, and neither was she willing to. She had to try harder. With another flash of her horn, she conjured even more crystals, raising a pillar beneath her and lifting her up, into the rail mesh and directly into the engine's cloud.
"Sir! The drill bit on the testing machine just exploded!"
"What? Someone, fetch the maintenance logs!"
"Sir, I don't think this was the testing machine's fault…"
"We're not seeing any signs of stress or bending in the leverage test, either! The drill bit does have a maximum rating… What if it's legitimate, and this is the alloy we're looking for?"
"Are you serious? You think this could be the one?"
"Go find another drill bit and fix the testing machine. This merits more investigation."
"Yes, sir!"
Starlight was standing… floating? She wasn't sure… inside a lab of some sort. The details were hazier than she could make out, like it was seen through a fogged window that only let pass pink and red and orange. She felt disembodied, like she was along for a ride. It could have been like her visions of the future, yet it felt more similar to… her restored memories.
The scene faded and changed. She was looking through the same filter, but now it was easier to understand what she was seeing: a young unicorn mare with a short, messy mane, teenage and not fully grown. A suit of alicorn-shaped armor stood nearby, and more ponies along with her, and she stood behind a control panel as others passed around the dim outline of a helmet. A telltale swirl in the background could only be the rails of a harmony extractor.
"Firing it up…" a young Shinespark's voice said. "Weight reading is decreasing by a tenth of a pound. Please don't let this be a fluctuation. All the math checks out. Father said this would work…!"
The scene changed again, and Starlight continued drifting. Where was she? What was happening? It was almost like she was seeing…
She was on the deck of the Immortal Dream, though it seemed half-complete. The detail in the image was somehow finer now, and she could see that suit of armor again, a later, larger, more-defined revision. The armor was crouching, carving fine patterns and details into the woodwork around the entry to the bridge.
"I wonder why I'm doing this," the armor murmured. "You probably can't hear me. Or maybe you can? One machine to another. I guess I want to leave my mark upon this world too, you know? I'll never tell Shinespark, but I hope I don't last much longer. As interesting as it is to exist, this brand that empowers me is hers. She shouldn't be kept separate from her destiny just because she thinks she has to for her plan. She's smart. She could find another way. Ah, sorry for rambling. Just not a thing I'd tell anyone who was actually listening…"
Once again, the scene changed. Starlight saw herself along with all her earliest friends, sitting down to a meal with Shinespark and the leaders of the Spirit. Everyone was talking, but their voices weren't preserved… yet the memory had a rosy tint to it, like it was a fond one. And soon after, she saw Maple being carried to the engine room, set there and connected to the harmony extractor. She saw the engine flare to life, and suddenly the filter she was looking through became that much clearer.
Starlight saw dozens of ponies crowding aboard, felt ice and sleet pelting her from the outside as the ship participated in a high-altitude rescue mission. She felt a burning surge of energy as a filly connected herself to the harmony extractor, felt herself giving everything to hold together, saw the filly disappear and Maple cry out and felt a silent wish for their safety…
Ponies crowded aboard her, and goodbyes were said. Starlight saw herself and Maple staying aboard, Willow and Amber leaving to go back home. She felt Shinespark playing a message from her mother on the ship's terminal, felt a lonely Jamjars tacking posters to the walls of a cabin, saw Maple sitting in the kitchen taste-testing soup and Shinespark laying on her back in the engine room doing maintenance, heard Gerardo and Slipstream swapping stories on the bridge and saw herself from the farthest distance of all, as if someone had always been looking out for her yet she had never seen it for herself.
"Indeed you are," Gerardo Guillaume said, addressing everyone, crowded around. "You've never visited a true battlefield, Amber, but if you had you'd be able to feel it. Not just any place there was a skirmish, but some of history's truest conflicts… In the same way that a chapel might feel sanctified through what is done there, the land remembers. There are some places where you can merely go and sit for a while, and even with your eyes closed and no one for miles to tell you, you know something has happened in that place's history."
Starlight felt a glow of pride, a feeling of protection, a feeling of being known. She saw herself soaring through the night, reaching down to help ponies in Mistvale, taking on Grenada and Harshwater and remembering. She could hear Felicity complaining, heard Amber's voice join Gerardo's and Slipstream's on the deck, saw herself soaring through a storm while Gazelle lurked in one room and Lyn refused to talk to him and Crystal sat in another, laboring and holding herself in pain. She saw the world go vertical as she once again fought to keep her crew safe, strained to keep from exploding and scattering them across the sky as they pushed her engine to the limit and soared up the Aldenfold in a high-speed chase.
She remembered being dormant, the foggy filter returning as no energy remained for the extractor, remembered her crew being defeated and despondent and wishing she could do more than provide shelter for their heads from the rain. And yet it was a wish, a primitive feeling and yet a desire to keep them all safe. She saw a filly again, gray and lifeless after her battle with Crystal, merely existing for weeks on end, trying to reach for her and not being felt. Starlight felt her engines explode again, fighting one more battle to hold together and trying one more time not to sink as monsters shattered her decks and railings and ponies hugged each other inside, the ponies who had made her and loved her and allowed her to fly. Starlight remembered her harmony comet slicing through one of them as it reformed, annihilating the monster and giving everything to protect her crew.
She remembered coasting through the waves, being rescued by a tugboat and towed into safe harbor. She remembered Shinespark, horn shattered, just as broken as she was, and she remembered Valey in a cheerleader uniform, galvanizing dozens of students to take her apart and tend to her wounds and put her back together with just as much love and hope as her original creators. She remembered a party held on the docks where she was moored, a celebration and a wish for happiness and safety for her crew, and she remembered flying on.
Starlight tried to reach a hoof for the thing she remembered being, for the ship she had turned out to be the namesake of. "Are you… alive?"
"Hello," a voice responded, distinctly one entity and yet carrying tones and quirks taken from every one of her friends. "I am your ship."
Starlight gaped. "What…?"
"I am your ship," the ship repeated. This was… This was the way Aegis had talked. It may have had a voice, but its mannerisms reminded Starlight exactly of the metal dragon. Somehow, from sufficient use of harmony extractors or sufficient love from the ponies who made it or any other manner of ingredients Starlight didn't understand at all, it seemed like these machines were able to take on lives of their own.
"I love you," the ship added, though Starlight had already seen that from reliving its memories. "I want to protect you."
Starlight opened her eyes, hanging in the harmony extractor in midair, her mane glowing and ethereal and blending into the starry harmony cloud. "And I want to protect you, too."
Her horn reawakened and her cutie mark blazed, drawing on a wellspring of power merely fighting Gazelle had been unable to bring out. Gazelle roared, the crystals holding him to the mountain fragmenting as Starlight's flame powers ran out, and yet a new wave of strength reinforced them at the last moment, catching him midway through his escape. Crystals exploded out from the ship, too, covering its front and bridge and deck and hull and everything but the harmony comet, which had ran out of orange and was now a deep midnight blue. The harmony cloud in the engine room surged around Starlight as the extractor reacted to her presence, power draining like an unthrottled source, a hole in the bottom of an infinite ocean, and the comet whined and built, escaping its boundaries above the ship as Starlight armored the hull even further.
She had found a new friend, one she didn't even know she had. One who had helped her to stop the windigoes before, and one whose help she needed again now. She was going to ram a sphinx, ram a mountain, and she couldn't afford to lose them and let them take the hit. Starlight screamed, her body flickering as she strained her horn even more and reached the limit of what she could give the extractor in turn, blackness straining at her vision. With the last bit of focus she had before passing out, her aura expanded to the mountains themselves, performing her old scanning spell, verifying she was still pointed right at Gazelle… and it hardened around the ship's throttle, grabbed it and forced it all the way forward.
There is a limit to how high pegasi can fly.
Sometimes, they test the atmosphere, but it invariably grows too cold, then too thin for their wings to find purchase. Higher still, it becomes impossible to breathe, and beyond that lies space, empty and pure. From high enough in the sky, well beyond that threshold, one could see from edge to edge of the world, beholding the whole thing at once, the Aldenfold running across it like a scar. And higher still, one might find ground again, a place that only alicorns have seen.
There, on the surface of the moon, there might have been a princess imprisoned, the creator of the Nightmare Modules, the moon glass meteor fallen from her realm. She might have been the one responsible for all of Starlight's worries, and she might even have had a telescope, or been looking down at the world with her naked eyes, from a height at which the biggest mountains looked like curls of thread in a rug.
The odds of that were unknown. But if she had been looking, been focusing from her lonely perch on one particular tassel-sized mountain in the Aldenfold, on the night when Starlight fought Gazelle with the Immortal Dream, she would have been able to see a bright pinprick of light, and watch the mountain explode.
A cold wind blew through Starlight. Not against her. Through her.
She had no eyes to open. It was proof that she didn't exist.
And yet, she could feel the night move on. The moon, which had been high overhead, drifted slowly towards the horizon, the stars rotating in their heavenly pattern along with it. The world passed on around her, time continued to flow, and life moved on. Somewhere far to the south, Sires Hollow would be sleeping, resting the night away with no concept of what had occurred. Equally far to the north, there was Riverfall, where Willow would be resting with her foals, and Maple and Amber might soon be visiting home.
The world went on, and here she was, not here at all. Yet... somehow...
The world wasn't waiting, but it felt like she had a choice.
She could feel her flanks, where a cutie mark with the power to change the world rested. She could feel her ship somewhere in the distance, named after her, her last friend she had just realized she had and wished she could save yet needed to risk to accomplish her goal. But what was her goal? Why had she gone back to fight Gazelle?
She could have trusted her friends to stop him. Or stay safe. Or Gazelle might have kept his word and left them alone, sticking to the Empire and Mistvale and everywhere they weren't in the world. She could say that killing him was a mercy. But the real reason Starlight had gone back, she knew, was that she had taken too much, she was just a filly, and she needed to let it all out, even if her idea of letting it all out caused her to disappear.
Maybe she had wondered what it would be like to not need to worry about anything anymore, if she unraveled completely in the harmony extractor and didn't have to exist to face the next day in a life without her friends. Maybe she had wondered if it would be okay to let Eylista into the lifestream to find a new pony to bother. But she didn't know for sure. All that mattered was that she wasn't here.
Whatever she had wanted, though, Gazelle was gone. Time was passing, and if he wasn't, he would have made it known.
...Something asked Starlight a question.
If she had done what she wanted, what would she do now?
It felt like the world was asking, but that couldn't be. She was the world, a fragment of it, if Honesty was to be believed. So was it something higher than the world? She felt like she was laying on her back. If she had eyes to open, what would she have seen? Could there be something above the flames of harmony, above Tetra and Glimmer and Aegis looking down on her?
She had sworn an oath, her cutie mark reminded her. An oath to make something of her life, to follow her friends' wishes, do what they wanted in Equestria and found a town on Maple's land. A promise to everything she cared about, that even though they had to part, something good could come of it. Wasn't that what she wished to do?
But she was the Immortal Dream. She was Eylista, cursed with a power that could only grant others' wishes, and never her own.
Could that stop her from wishing, though?
Starlight squeezed her eyes harder and wished with everything she had that even if their parting was ordained, that her loneliness was fate, that leaving behind her friends was the only way to save herself, that even if there was a dark future in her visions she had no understanding of how to stop and was now best faced alone... She wished that she could hold onto at least one friend. That she could keep even a single hoofhold, to keep herself from falling. She wished upon a star that she knew could only grant others' wishes, and held it in her mind and cried.
And then she opened her eyes.
Above her, the sky danced with lights, stars, but not just stars. There were cutie marks, floating and free, impossible numbers of them drifting above her head, all colors and shapes and symbols imaginable. They drifted like fireflies, some gently spinning, others bobbing or nudging against her, and several even flitted through dark outlines above her, the remains of a mesh that had once held a harmony comet.
Starlight blinked. The ground beneath her was flat and wooden.
She scrambled to get up, and for a moment, her hooves flailed beneath her, as if her body had been waiting for her permission to exist again and was still in the middle of becoming corporeal. But soon, it worked, and her hooves were beneath her, all her tiredness from the climb and scratches from the battle mystically gone. She was on a pristine wooden surface, and to her sides, she could see railings that were carefully crafted and not at all broken. In one direction, there was the bridge, still standing, almost seeming to glow in her vision. She looked through the open door, too breathless to get up. The light of the setting moon shone through its windshield, not even shattered, illuminating a control panel where a few of the instruments had burst, but most of the levers were intact and in place.
Starlight grabbed the ship and cried. "How are you still here!?"
It couldn't have been possible. She didn't recognize the terrain around her from the battle; it was flatter than a mountain should have been, yet wide and jagged, littered with clean-fractured rock and not a trace of ice or snow. She had connected herself to the harmony extractor, given it everything she had and more, wished for another explosion and surge like the one she made in Ironridge, tried to funnel that all into the engine to use it to ram Gazelle...
She had also wished the ship would survive, covered it in crystal as it prepared to fire. As if that could have done anything. It was a futile gesture when she knew her own wishes were destined to be ignored...
And yet, the ship was still here.
Starlight cried. She didn't know how else to explain it. She didn't know what else to do. She latched onto the ship like it was everything she had, because it was, even if it was a little burnt-out from her surge and wouldn't fly again any time soon. Starlight cried as cutie marks danced around her as if they were thanking her for freeing them, giving her proof that Gazelle was gone. And as she started to get the message, started to realize she had done what she wanted to do purely for her own sake, defeated Gazelle because she wasn't okay with him and made the call to fight him all on her own, as Starlight started to realize it was over and she could close his chapter in her life without any lingering regrets and move on to living a new life without her friends, the moon started to set, and the cutie marks slowly drifted away, down the mountains to where the lifestream flowed freely and they could rejoin with it and be reborn into new lives, free from the troubles of having their home torn away, or whatever fate had driven them to a heretic's execution by Garsheeva.
The last mark vanished from her sight just as the sun started to rise. But it wasn't the only light on the horizon.
To the northwest, just past where the moon had set, a glowing dot appeared in her vision, like a little moving star. But it grew closer, and larger quickly, and soon she saw it for what it was: an airship, Varsidelian in design, yet branded with the colors of the Steel District. And it was heading right for her.
She couldn't move as the ship approached. She sat in the doorway to the bridge, upright and on her haunches, leaning against the doorframe and holding it with both forelegs, her horn tired but not in pain. The ship hummed closer, lower, and she stared at it with big eyes and limp ears until it was low enough that she could reach it with a teleport, hovering directly overhead. A door opened in the side, and a pony jumped.
WHAM!
A sturdy, broad-shouldered yellow stallion straightened up, landing heavily, a greatsword slung across his back that was somehow bigger than he was. "Starlight," Arambai greeted with a nod. "Figures we'd find you here. What happened to the dastard who stole this ship?"
Valey soared into a heavy landing with Shinespark on her back, hitting the deck with a thud and depositing her passenger before bounding closer. "Bananas! Starlight!"
A rope dropped from the ship, and Maple and Amber slid down, the former losing her grip and falling a few feet from the bottom, but catching herself anyway and racing closer. "Starlight! Gazelle stole the ship and Valey said you were moving, and we got so worried-!"
Starlight was smothered in a hug from all of her friends at once, immediately unable to speak.
She could barely even think. Her friends were here, already. She had been in trouble, and they came.
"What even happened here?" Arambai asked, standing at the railing and surveying the landscape as everyone else crowded around Starlight. "It's just a whole field of broken rock and no snow whatsoever! And there are boulders the size of Riverfall... Looks like an entire mountain got destroyed."
"That's not important," Shinespark declared, standing vigilantly. "Where's Gazelle? Starlight, have you seen him?"
"Bananas..." Valey hugged Starlight and seethed. "Apparently no one in Ironridge knew what that goon was up to. He got blown up by the Equestrian border guard right on the edge of the mountains and when Ironridge found him, they thought he was a good guy! So they let him hang out, and we got there and didn't know he was there too, and we barely had time to stretch our legs before he swiped the boat and took off back south again! And then you started moving, and... and..."
"Gazelle is dead," Starlight mumbled into the hug. "I decided to cross the mountains again to come find you. But he found me and we fought and I killed him."
"I can't believe we let you talk us into leaving you alone," Amber whispered, shaking.
Maple was holding too tight for words.
Shinespark surveyed the control panel in the bridge, and then looked up over the wire harmony comet cage. "The extractor had another surge," she commented. "Somehow less damage than the last two times. The students in Kinmari must have done good work." She glanced back at Starlight, stepping closer and sitting down with everyone else. "Did you... hook yourself up to..."
Starlight had a feeling it hadn't just been a good job from the Kinmari ponies. For a tiny moment, she and the ship had been one, and she wished it would survive... "Yes," she answered, pushing everyone just far enough away that they could see her cutie mark. "I'm sorry. It was the only way I could think of."
Maple saw what she was pointing to first, just as wordless as she had been before.
"Heh... Look at that." Amber rubbed her eyes. "How'd you get it? And what's it do?"
"A lot of things," Starlight mumbled. Whatever might have happened to heal the slices on her body or the broken flow of her horn, mentally, she was beyond exhausted.
Valey nodded, taking her hat and setting it on Starlight's head like a blanket. "Yeah... Come on. Let's not stay here where the Equestrians could find us, too. No danger at present, but they shot down Gazelle, so, you know..." She tilted her head at Starlight, folding one ear. "So, you were running across the mountains again. Ready to come home?"
Starlight took a breath. However tired she might have been, it was time to face her future once and for all.
"You're still going to go look for writs," she said. "To try and open the border and get back to Felicity."
Valey nodded. "Yup. That's the plan. But, uhh." She glanced at Maple, and then again at Starlight. "That's not really what you wanna do, is it?"
"But it is what you want to do," Starlight pointed out. "All of you want to get all of us across the border and build our town in Equestria where you can live all together and with me and with Felicity and her foal, and we'll get to build the town ourselves and make it one where we make all the rules instead of having to change another place to be how we want. And we won't have to settle for living with superstitious mares in Riverfall or politics in Ironridge or anything else, and Shinespark will get Equestrian trade to help her home, and everything else! Right?"
"...Hey." Valey sat down. "Yeah. You're right that I wouldn't be extremely cool with just breaking our promise to Felicity and settling down somewhere we don't really like and not trying to get back together again. But, like, what can we do? It's our future, and it's worth fighting for. I just... Bananas... I wish the whole thing with you and Ironflanks in Sires Hollow had worked out. That could'a been perfect. But we'll find a way to make it work. We always do, right?"
Starlight slowly shook her head. "We never do. We always run away and move on somewhere else in the end. Riverfall, Ironridge, the Empire, Kinmari... Sometimes we want to, and sometimes we have to, but we always just keep going."
"I wanna say it's what we're good at," Amber reassured. "But you look a little too tired for that to ring true..."
"It is what we're good at," Starlight said. "It's what I'm good at." She glanced down at her cutie mark. "My special talent is not giving up. I can get back on my hooves after anything and always stay determined. But who cares if it doesn't make me happy? It just hurts more and more each time I use it because the further I go, the further I see that I still can go. I could go on forever, and the next day is always doable, but I get more and more tired every time. I know I could go back to Ironridge and go on an adventure to find the Writs of Harmonic Sanction, and I know it feels like there's an ending somewhere we're all looking for, but it's so much farther and I'm so tired."
Maple touched her shoulder. "You still want to stay in Sires Hollow, then?"
"I..." Starlight took a breath. She just wanted to rest.
"No. I want us all to start our town together, and live happily ever after!" She glared up in determination at her friends, though the expression died quickly. "But I'll never be able to live happily with anything if I can't learn to live without some of the things I feel like I need. If I can't live in Sires Hollow without trying to do everything in my power to make my life better... How can I do it in our town?"
Maple hugged her. "I wish I was a good enough parent to show you."
"You..." Starlight took a breath. "You are. I'm sorry when I said you felt more like a little sister to me. You've tried a lot..."
"Don't be sorry," Maple announced, shaking her head. "It was you saying that that made me realize there was more I needed to be doing for you. And I'll still try my best, no matter where you go, but..." Her ears fell. "Are you sure you have to leave? Is that really what you want? You came all the way out here, you've gone back and forth..."
"I know." Starlight nodded. "It's my destiny to go back and forth. I can't find a balance between hurting myself by trying too hard to get what I need and hurting myself by trying too hard to be content without it. It's who I am. I can't help it. And no one believes there's a balance to be found." Her mind drifted to the Flame of Honesty, to everything it told her about the world...
"Oh yeah?" Valey raised a confident eyebrow. "And who says there isn't? I believe in you, kiddo."
Starlight sniffled.
"Same," Amber asserted, throwing a foreleg over Valey's shoulders. "No one believes there's a balance to be found? We do. And when's anyone else saying something was impossible stopped you?"
Starlight started to cry. "If I go back to Sires Hollow... I know I won't stay there forever. I know it. I know I'll run away again one day and move on in the world and keep looking for what I need to make the life I want to have! But I also know that if I don't go, I'll keep running forever unless I stop someday, and it's never going to feel perfect, and right now... at least I'll have Fluffy and Fishy and... at least I won't have nothing. And you'll know where I am, so..."
"Hey." Valey gave her a reassuring nod. "If this is what you really wanna do? Like, really want? We're gonna set a world record in writ hunting, just for you. Maybe you don't have the strength to spare, dragging yourself onward and paying the price, but you know what? We do. I've been feeling great about myself ever since Kinmari, like... Bananas, I don't even know how to describe it. And you should have seen Sparky's face at the progress Ironridge has made while we were gone. So don't you worry, kiddo. You might have to stop, but we've got a lot of miles left in us, and we'll fly them for you."
"Though that might take some adjustments of our plans," Shinespark added. "This ship won't be an overnight job to fix. We'll have to think hard about how to get it back to Ironridge if we want to fly on with it instead of making do with another vessel. And I'd rather not leave it here in the mountains..."
"Actually..." Starlight sniffed, looking up. "Can you leave it with me?"
Shinespark and Arambai gave her odd looks.
"It's like a friend to me," Starlight said. "It's been protecting me all these months. Maybe none of you can stay with me, but they won't need a Writ of Harmonic Sanction for a boat. And..." She remembered how it had felt to sit at the controls, like she was more familiar with them than she could have been, almost like Amber's cutie mark of boat knowledge had guided her with it. She remembered how she could use the harmony extractor now without disappearing... "I might be able to fix it myself somehow, too."
"Dunno how you're gonna manage that," Arambai rumbled. "Shinespark? What do you think?"
Shinespark stared at the boat and swallowed. "We... do have other ships now. And it could be a goodbye present. Something that means a lot to me." She looked back at Starlight. "I'll want to see this ship again, you hear? You had better take care of it. And it's proof that we'll be back."
"Here we go again, hmm?" Maple sniffled. "Starlight, you really want to do this? I'm sure we could find some other way..."
Starlight shook her head. "I... met Glimmer. In the mountains. The other me."
Arambai raised a thick eyebrow. "Other you?"
Starlight nodded, trusting her friends would fill him in on the flight north. "She's not from the future after all. She doesn't know anything about my visions. She was lying. Which means I know nothing about them, and... it's still my job to prevent them." She wiped her nose on her foreleg. "But even if I don't know what causes them, I do know how strong I am... I know it could be me if I don't take care of myself. I don't know if that is it for sure, but I know it's important. I have to... do what's best for me... so I'll still be able to live happily with everyone when the time comes."
"Aww bananas." Valey shook her head. "Kiddo... Starlight... Bananas. I don't want you to have that sort of stuff on your shoulders."
"But I do," Starlight said, and there was nothing Valey could do to change it. "I remembered what the Honesty flame said, too. I know just how powerful I am now. If I wanted to, I think I could destroy the world. And I don't... I really, really don't. But I have to keep not wanting to. And that means not getting so tired that I lose hope and hate everything like Gazelle... He was so close to me, except he went the other way at the end. So I have to take care of myself. And... And don't worry. If I do leave Sires Hollow again, I promise I'll remember our dream together. Maybe I'll go find the place on that land title deed, and start building something on my own while I wait for you. Or I'll go find Felicity, or..."
"You know what?" Valey announced, straightening up. "This isn't like the other day. You feel different, Starlight. Maybe it's the cutie mark, maybe it's Gazelle, maybe it's just having had time to think... but it doesn't really feel like we'd be abandoning you in your darkest hour anymore. Doesn't feel like you're telling us to leave you and save ourselves, you know? It feels like you have hope for yourself."
"My special talent is having hope for others," Starlight said. "But... I wish I could have hope for myself, too."
Maple held her closer. "So this is goodbye for good, then. You... really think going south will be better for you."
"I know it will hurt." Starlight folded her ears. "A lot. But I have to. I have to take care of myself, and that means trying to settle down, even if I know I'll fail and go looking for a way to finish our dreams again. I have to take care of myself because I know what I can do if I don't."
Shinespark nodded. "Then take the ship. That's my gift. But I promise you, while you're doing whatever you need to in Sires Hollow, we'll be doing everything we can to get those writs. And once we have them? Two is all it'll take, one for Valey to hunt you down with and one for you? She can still smell you. We'll have her come get you and Felicity and her foal."
"Yeah." Valey gritted her teeth in a pained, determined grin. "You got that, kiddo? You do what you need to for yourself, but the moment I have a good ship, I'm taking Birdo and hitting the skies for Yakyakistan."
Amber nodded up at the ship above them, the one they had all flown in on. "Gerardo is staying up there to pilot, but he says hello too, by the way."
Starlight swallowed. She almost expected her friends to try to talk her out of it, but this was really it.
"And, uh." Valey sat down. "I've got a gift for you, too."
Starlight looked up, but Valey just reached out and patted the hat she had set on her head. "That's yours now. Keep it."
"Your hat?" She folded her ears. "But this is yours."
"Yeah, well..." Valey shrugged. "That's what makes it special. But it's not just a hat, either. It's my ultimate weapon."
Starlight thought back to a long, long time ago, when Valey had battled Neon Nova in the Blueleaf generator. It had hardly been anything approaching a fair fight, but she did remember the stallion stealing the hat at one point, only for a banana peel to fall out and temporarily blind him... It was almost a funny image, looking back. She pulled the hat off and checked it just to make sure there weren't any of those left over.
Valey just stood there with a grin, asking if she liked it.
"Well..." Starlight scrunched her eyes shut, then straightened up, reaching around to see if she was still bonded to the black sword. "I have something for you, too."
She was, and it came. There were no runes around her barrel; she had wished them away when she used the shadow cloak to hide from Gazelle, and they had obliged. But the sword appeared, back to its normal appearance, a tiny copy of her cutie mark shimmering in its hilt.
"Huh," Arambai said, looking at the floating weapon. "Weird. Reminds me of Herman's axe... Stuff like this is supposed to be impossible."
Starlight held the sword by her side and looked at Valey. "Um... I have a thing to do... It might be uncomfortable."
Valey eyed the sword dubiously. "You know what that thing does to bats, right?"
Starlight nodded. She needed it to be something that could not be a sword... Closing her eyes and concentrating, she willed it to transform into a stick again, decorated like a staff. A magic wand. This would work. Pointing it at Valey's pendant, she activated the Star Module.
Valey's eyes widened as a beam of energy reached forth and her pendant began to glow. "Woah! What the-!?"
"It's okay," Starlight assured. "I got you stuck in this pendant. Now I'm going to put you back together."
No one could move as the moon glass pulsed, a little light drawing forth, a red sigil made from triangles within triangles. For an instant, Valey's body went rigid, and then in a wash of green flames, she was a shell again.
"Valey...!" Amber's eyes widened in fear.
Starlight kept her that way for less than a second, floating the cutie mark back into Valey's body proper where it belonged. There was one last flash, and with an identical transformation, Valey was back, looking vaguely drunken and dazed.
"Bananas... What the..." She swayed, unsteady on her hooves.
Starlight dropped the staff, reached out with her telekinesis and unclipped the pendant, it and its empty moon glass falling away from her friend's neck. Nothing happened.
"Valey, are you alright?" Shinespark was at her side in an instant, holding her up, and Amber was there too.
"Yeah, I..." Valey looked down at the pendant, then rubbed a hoof against her neck where it had been. "Buh?"
Starlight stepped forward and hugged her, burying her face in the exposed fur that was matted from so long with the pendant. "I put you back together," she sniffed. "That's my goodbye gift."
"Yeah, how the...?" Valey scratched her head and stared.
"Does somebody want to explain to me what just happened?" Arambai asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't even know myself," Valey mumbled. "Starlight?"
Starlight shrugged. "I told you. I... know what I can do now. It would take a long time to explain, but I'm very strong."
"Which we already knew," Maple whispered, picking up the pendant and looking at her reflection in its golden plating. "Maybe we should focus on what really matters in the time that we have."
"Yeah." Amber nodded. "Like how you're going to get back home. Isn't it a long way still to Sires Hollow?"
Starlight glanced at her flank, and then at all of her friends', seeing their cutie marks all intact and there. "My cutie mark is..." She swallowed. "It's a cutie mark in doing what you wanted. So it can do everything yours can." She looked at Shinespark, and hovered a foot off the ground to prove it. "So I can fly."
Shinespark gaped. Arambai's jaw hit the floor. Valey just chuckled. "Figures."
"I almost wonder if I had a little bit of its powers before it appeared, and I never knew it," Starlight murmured. "I was always better than I should have been at dodging your things you threw at me for training..."
"Heh..." Valey rubbed the back of her bare head. "Cheater."
"Well, that's a gift to remember me by," Maple whispered in awe.
"Heh. You got mine too?" Amber gave Starlight a shoulder-bump, now that she was the perfect height to do it. "All these superhero marks and Maple's cool storage, and then me with my boat skills? Sounds like you've got at least one that's practical for a profession."
Starlight nodded, pondering and wondering how her life had really reached the point where her friends didn't even ask questions about a power like this... and then Valey tapped her with the pendant. "Yo," she said. "If you're making it so I don't need this anymore? One more memento from me."
The golden links rustled slightly in her hooves, and Starlight stared at the empty stone still embedded in it. The tip of her moon glass sword, the very last piece that still existed... She felt a connection to it still, almost as though it would still respond if she tried to lift it with her horn without being moon glassed. She tapped it with a hoof, curious. If it was empty...
It tinkled against her. She felt the first hints of a sticky, grabbing sensation, and then her cutie mark pulsed, and it bounced away. It didn't seem she would be activating Nightmare Module emulation mode again any time soon.
Starlight pocketed the pendant, keeping it safe. She wasn't sure what it would be like to pocket moon glass, yet somehow, it felt like nothing at all.
"Looks like you really do have our cutie mark powers," Maple chuckled. That gave Starlight one last idea.
"And... I have another present," she said, shuddering. "For all of you."
Could she really do this?
Everyone looked, and Starlight looked back. She took a deep breath, focusing on all their hopes for her, and her hopes for them, and her hopes for herself and her determination to overcome her circumstances and lead a better life in Equestria. She remembered the way their last goodbye had felt, bitter and tearstained with Maple pleading for it not to end like that. Starlight focused on her thoughts for all of them, for Fluffy, for her ship and the friends she could still make in life, for the town she would found in all of their names, for anything and everything that had ever been worth celebrating in her life... and she looked at her friends and smiled.
"That's it," Starlight Glimmer said, sitting on a couch in the Crystal Empire with her mane limp and ragged from the recounting, utterly exhausted. "The end."
"Um." Rainbow swallowed. "Wow."
"So what happened?" Twilight whispered. "What happened after you said goodbye? How did you wind up...?"
Starlight shrugged, emotionally rolled over from recounting her experiences in Sires Hollow and the Aldenfold. "The only way it could have gone wrong. They never returned."
Everyone stared.
"I went back to Sires Hollow," Starlight said. "It didn't take long at all until my wanderlust set in and I couldn't be happy there anymore. I tried my best, I really did, but it was barely a week before I flew back into the mountains to look for the Dream. I went out there regularly, working on it little by little each time. A few months after my friends left, a trade caravan came by, and they had the materials I was missing to jury-rig the last fix I needed to make it fly. It turns out with my cutie mark, the harmony extractor doesn't make me disappear anymore..." She shrugged. "And Eylista can easily provide enough power to keep it in the air. So I left."
Everyone listened, and Starlight continued. "First, I went back to Kinmari. Felicity was still pregnant when I got there, and I stayed until her foal was born. I talked to my friends one more time on the sound stone... Shinespark was in Ironridge when I called. She said Valey and Gerardo and Maple and Amber had kept their word and flown off to Yakyakistan, and she hadn't heard back yet. And that's all I know."
"What happened to Felicity?" Twilight whispered.
Starlight shook her head. "She didn't have a good time, but she and her sphinx both survived, at least for the first few days. I didn't stick around for too long, and don't know what happened to them after that. Shinespark got it through to me that for all everyone's bragging and aggressive planning, it's a two-month round trip from Ironridge to Infinite Glacier at the Dream's speed, and they were slower, and that was even if they did nothing there and came back immediately. So, I... went on my way and wandered. I decided to go look for Sunburst next, and hid that I had an airship and a cutie mark of my power. I wound up getting myself an education... Still had a lot of Empire gold left to pay for it. Equestria and the Empire use the same currency system, after all. While I did that, I wound up studying systems of governance along with magic. I wanted to learn some spells the normal way, rather than relying on my natural powers, just to feel like I earned them like a normal pony. But I was exposed to some ideas, and combined them with my own, and slowly started putting together a system I thought would be perfect for the whole world to work by, daydreaming of changing everything through scribbles in the margins of notebooks..."
She put her head in her hooves and sighed. "You want to know what happened to me? What finally pushed me over the edge into being a dictator?"
No one had the heart to say yes.
"Nothing," Starlight said. "There was no final edge. It was just a long, slow slide, of going years and years without hearing a thing from my friends. There reached a point where I was offered a scholarship to go back to Kinmari for a research program... You know, the normal way ponies get there, instead of having a hand-me-down airship or flying cross-continent on their own. And I turned it down because I was too afraid to see if Felicity would still be there, or if she knew what had happened to my friends, or... or anything. I turned that scholarship down. By the time I finished college, I suspect I was a year or three younger than everyone else in my class. They still thought I was a prodigy, even though I stuck to the things I learned and never showed anyone what I was really capable of. That was about eight years after my trip to the north, and I still had heard nothing."
"Well, why didn't you go back?" Rainbow frowned, throwing her hooves in the air. "Can't you just fly across the mountains whenever you want? You had a ship."
"I told you." Starlight winced quietly. "I made the decision... to stay here... until my friends came for me. To trust them to do their part and set boundaries for myself and not break them, and rely on my friends rather than fighting or breaking things to change my own fate."
Twilight's eyes softened. "So that's why you never tried to change your own history while we were time traveling."
"One of the reasons," Starlight mumbled. "But either way, I made our town. I must have been nineteen or twenty when I flew out to look for it, done with school and with no other calling to follow in the world. My friends never came back, but I still wanted to... fulfill my promise to them, even if they couldn't keep their side. Maybe I made a mess of things, maybe I was too extreme, maybe I was too jaded, but I tried. And I held onto that for several years like I had forgotten how to let go, and then..."
"We showed up," Rainbow said.
Starlight nodded. "You showed up. I thought it was my big moment. I thought I was happy there, that this was my avenue to recruit an alicorn and make the whole world look more like what I wanted so I could finally rest easy. I was too jaded to see the situation for what it was, which side I was really on. I thought you were a dumb group of friends who thought sticking together was the way to solve anything."
Twilight shrank. "When we were in the past, you asked me how the future of Equestria could depend on one group of friends."
"I did," Starlight whispered, mane limp. "When, for me, it depended on exactly the opposite. On me saying goodbye."
"Yeah, well, that's balderdash." Rainbow sprang to her hooves, glancing at Cadance, who had been quiet throughout the discussion. "We got those Writs of Harmonic Sanction, right? Where's the one for Starlight? Tell my job I'm taking a yearlong vacation, let's go back to the north and fix that!"
Twilight tugged her gently back down with telekinesis, still staring hollowly into the distance. "I don't think we can."
"What do you mean, you don't think we can!?" Rainbow gave her an incredulous look. "You heard her! She misses her friends, and that's a garbage reason to have to say goodbye! What's stopping us from just flying up there and going, hey, princess powers, where are these ponies?"
Twilight shook her head. "If it was a matter of physical ability, Starlight could have found them herself long ago, or never let them go in the first place."
Rainbow Dash stared. "So what? That was years ago! Maybe they thought they had a deal to see each other back then, but what a real friend would do after this much time is go check on them and see if they need help!"
Twilight sighed. "I have to admit, I want to too. And I don't think I can stop you if you want to go yourself. But weren't you paying attention to what the flame told Starlight in her memory? I think we're the kind of friends it told her to look for. We've used the Elements countless times to protect the world, and yet we still live here in more or less day to day peace. Right?" She shrugged. "And the pressure usually only gets to us when something really big is happening, which, right now, it isn't. While something could have happened to Starlight's friends, maybe gathering that many writs just is a task that takes decades."
"Uh huh." Rainbow curled her lip. "What about the one Yakyakistan owed them? Valey could have taken that and come right back to find Starlight and let her know they were okay. You think she wouldn't have done that if it turned out it was going to take a lot longer than planned?"
Twilight wilted.
"Twilight gets it," Starlight murmured from the corner, beyond drained and exhausted. "Look at me. Do I look like I'm ready to go running off on another adventure to the land that took so much out of me? For the first time in my entire life, I have a legitimate hope that I'm somewhere where I belong, and... my friends aren't somewhere hanging barely on and waiting for me to save them after all these years. I want to go home. To Ponyville. And live, for a change."
Twilight nodded firmly. "And maybe one day, we will go back. I'd like to go there with you, at least. But that day will not be today. You've been through so much, and... I think I understand what Princess Celestia was trying to tell me, now, when I asked her earlier why the rest of the world sounded so messed up in your story and she said she kept this pocket of harmony so that ponies like us who have the power to change things could remember and be shown the way the world is supposed to be."
She got up, stepping toward Starlight, and offered a hoof, helping her up. "We can make a difference in the world, but we'll only hurt ourselves if we try to do it all at once. Right? And right now, the biggest difference we can make, Rainbow and Cadance and I, is by offering you the place you need most to rest and get back on your hooves."
"Thank you..." Starlight slumped against her into a loose, limp hug. "That's why I told this whole story. So that you would understand. You get it."
"But..." Rainbow let her hoof fall. "Someday. Fine. Someday, I wanna go and see Ironridge for myself, though, you hear?"
Cadance chuckled, laying on her back in a reclining chair and massaging her growing foal but slowly getting to her hooves. "It sounds like a nice dream for the future. But this sounds like a thing for the three of you, going back to the north or going to Ponyville and relaxing. I have some family and princess duties to attend to, or else I'd love to stay and talk more..." Her eyes shadowed. "But mostly sleep. Good night."
Rainbow Dash looked around as Cadance left, Starlight still hanging limply against Twilight. "So, uhh..."
"Let's go home," Twilight agreed, helping to steady Starlight. "We've got long lives ahead of us. No one can say where our adventures will lead us next, but for now, we should make the most of the time we have to go home and continue living."
Rainbow shot her one last, pleading glare. "But we're at least gonna ask Celestia if she ever followed up by going back to Ironridge to look for them, right?"
Twilight giggled. "Of course."
Starlight managed to stand on her own, her legs strengthened a little by the prospect of going home. "I guess things worked out happily in the end..."
"That's what we do," Twilight reassured.
"If you want to see it..." Starlight hesitated. "The Immortal Dream is moored in the canyon in the Everfree near your Tree of Harmony right now. I sat in the entrance room of the crystal palace for solace, sometimes, when I was feeling lost these last few months... I could never work up the courage to visit the flame at the bottom, though. I guess I knew, deep down, that I had gone astray. We could visit both of those..."
"Only if you want to." Twilight shook her head. "I wouldn't say no, myself..." She couldn't suppress a tiny, eager giggle, but quickly blushed to hide it. "Obviously. But I get the impression you want to live a little more mundane for a change."
Starlight nodded hesitantly. "I do want to do something to thank you, though."
Rainbow squinted, eyeing her critically. "You, uhh... You have something in mind, don't you? Something you're not sure if it's a good idea to say."
Starlight sighed. "Am I really that transparent?"
"What is it?" Twilight asked politely, stepping back to give her some space.
Starlight shook her head. "It's nothing. It's... It's probably nothing anymore. Or maybe it's not. I don't even know. I don't want to get involved in the north again."
Both mares stared curiously at her.
"...Fine." Starlight took a deep breath. "Twilight... I wouldn't give this to anyone else... but here."
She held a hoof to herself and unpocketed a worn beret, perfectly matching her description of Valey's.
"Oh, Starlight." Twilight's face softened. "That's yours. It's a nice gesture, but-"
Starlight cut her off with a shake of her head. "It's not a gesture. Valey wasn't kidding when she said this was her ultimate weapon."
Twilight's gaze became a little more concerned.
With a shimmer of teal, Starlight rotated the beret in her aura until it was directly facing the duo, the little crystal chip Valey had sewn to the front as a homemade insignia glinting and sparkling from her light. "Do you remember what this is?" Starlight asked.
"Valey's beret?" Rainbow tilted her head. "I mean, I was curious how it would look on me, but..."
Twilight squinted. "Are you talking about the crystal? It looks sort of conspicuous, and I recall you describing it once, but no, you never said what it meant."
"I did," Starlight replied, "long enough ago that you've probably completely forgotten. I don't even remember if Rainbow Dash was listening when I mentioned it. But this chip is a memory device containing an audio recording from Yakyakistan."
Twilight's lips slowly, slowly pursed in surprise.
"Do you remember Fire?" Starlight asked. "The crystal unicorn who was present in the skyport? She gave this to Valey and I as we were casting off from Ironridge. She said it's a recording containing a full, unabridged explanation of Yakyakistan's activities during the forty years between Blazing Rain's war and when the windigoes were unleashed on Ironridge. I've never listened to it, but I can't imagine the information inside is anything short of nation-shaking, if it pertains to why they would have revived monsters that almost froze over the world two thousand years ago."
"Oh," Twilight said.
"You don't think that's kinda..." Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. "Important?"
"It is important." Starlight nodded. "Or, at least, it was. This was the better part of two decades ago, and I don't know that anything more has come out of Yakyakistan since then. It wasn't information they were counting on being public. It was just an explanation so someone would know. Fire felt they weren't worthy to be trusted with it after what they did to Ironridge."
Twilight had already taken the beret in her aura, magic shimmering around the crystal. "This has an unusual structure," she remarked. "It's not uniform at all. Is there some kind of physical data encoding going on? It doesn't seem to be enchanted..."
Starlight nodded. "It's a standard-format crystal memory card for a machine known as a KarmaTech Thirty-Four. This is why Valey was trying to fix the ship's terminal while we were on the Arc Manta going to the crystal palace... She wanted to have it available to read the contents of this chip in case discussions with Princess Celestia went south and there was any knowledge about Yakyakistan she could possibly use as leverage. I don't know if she actually listened to it, but... there you have it."
Rainbow gawked. "That thing? I knew something was up with that!"
"And you still have one on your ship," Twilight said, tilting her head. "But why give this to me? I thought you wanted us not to go off to the north again. Isn't a thing like this... you know... begging to be the start of a new adventure?"
Starlight shrugged. "First, it's many years out of date. I don't know how relevant it will be anymore. Second, you don't have to use my ship's terminal. I figured you would be someone who might enjoy trying to figure out how to decode it on your own. You could learn a lot about northern technology from it if you wanted, I'd bet. But mostly..." She let out a deep breath. "It's a way of saying I trust you. To... stay home with me even if you want to go running off after my friends... Face it. If I'm wrong and this does make you want to go back there, the chip will just be an excuse. I can see what you really want. And I would want it too, if I could let myself."
Twilight nodded solemnly in acknowledgement. "And one day, you will be able to. I swear it as the Princess of Friendship."
"But not today." Starlight looked up at the exit to the room.
"Yeah... Point taken." Rainbow shrugged in disappointment. "So, save-the-world party in Ponyville? Did you ever figure out what was up with those spooky visions? We don't have a bad future still to avert, do we? Or did that get sorted somehow?"
Starlight hesitated. "That's... another story. But you do remember there was an older Valey in the very first vision. So, I suppose, if we've left each other behind?"
Twilight bit her lip.
"And..." Starlight nodded. "There's one other thing, too."
A shimmer of midnight blue clouded an open desert sky, nothing moving except for the wind and the tumbleweeds.
It was a rocky desert, the kind where clay was plentiful, without much sand to be seen. Once, it could have been fertile had the rains willed it, but those were days of the distant past. And then a wooden ship hull hovered close overhead, and with a thump, four hooves landed.
Starlight Glimmer stood in the desert and surveyed the land, a bandanna tied into her mane to keep out the heat. She had grown into her adult proportions, with wider shoulders and a rounder barrel and larger legs, but still stood a few inches shy of being fully grown. Her mane and tail were longer, things she actually took care of now that she had spent years living in society and surrounded by ponies who weren't her close friends.
Her horn pulsed, sending out a massive, paper-thin field of telekinesis and dragging it across the ground to get an idea of the lay of the land. In her teeth, she held a homemade map, still not quite having kicked her foalhood habit of avoiding magic as much as possible. She stared down at the map, took a few steps, and found herself at the top of a ridge, looking down into a valley.
It was natural and sheltered, sloping earth around it protecting it from the winds and making her wonder if it would be a little more hospitable to growing food and crops. To the east, a dry riverbed ran, providing drainage and preventing the valley from turning into a flood zone. Far in the distance, she could see a faint, ramshackle shack: a train station, built out to the middle of nowhere, the end of its line and looking like it hadn't been visited in centuries.
Funny. Whoever had built the rails must have known there was something out here, and yet no one but her had ever come. But she had an airship, so she wouldn't need to take the train.
She jumped into the valley and rolled down the sheer, sloping edge, never having lost her athletic edge from fighting so long ago. She had college sports programs to thank for the practice, though she made a point of only practicing with teams, never actually joining up like they wanted her to. That wasn't her future, and she knew it.
Starlight easily regained her balance, landing on her hooves at the end of the drop, and strolled forward, the sun beating down on her lilac back as she applied her imagination to the field. A bulwark of raised earth in the middle, creating a platform to build on that any mountain floods would go around... Perfect. She'd need to plan the village tightly to maximize space efficiency, because she would probably be moving all the earth herself... A single street, how about, with houses lining both sides. Brilliant.
Her gaze turned northward, to the mountains. The Aldenfold seemed to skip foothills here, ramping straight up into snowy, mountainous peaks after a single wall of low, dusty hills. At least water wouldn't be a problem, since they could climb the mountains and melt snow. For that matter, the snow was so close to the desert... She suspected there was something magical about the area that allowed it to fall here. Like the magic that had once affected the weather in Ironridge, creating an unnaturally warm cauldron of air for the Earth District.
Just more proof that she had found the right place.
Starlight lit her horn and flew, approaching the mountains. Already, she could see a myriad of paths and tunnels and caves. If these became as impassable as the rest of the Aldenfold, it wouldn't be for a while. But that was good for her, since caves provided useful building opportunities, like storage. Or she could use them like Icereach for shelter to grow food...
She thought about what Icereach cuisine must actually taste like. What did you even grow in caves, mushrooms? You could make mushroom soup, mushroom stew, mushroom sandwiches... mushroom muffins...
Hopefully the local ingredient supply would turn out to have more possibilities than that.
Starlight landed in front of a cave deeper in the mountains, one at the end of a long ice bridge that gave her a good feeling for reasons she couldn't quite place. The first thing she needed to find, if this was truly the place she owned, courtesy of her mother's last gift, was the Tree of Harmony.
Her horn flattened the darkness, effortlessly lighting the interior of the cave. Ever since getting her cutie mark, she had never again been faced with her foalhood trouble of headaches and limited power. After that, her horn just got tired like a normal unicorn, like trying to exhale when your lungs were already empty, and she had never managed to push it to a point that took more than two days to fully recover. Yet still, she had trained, spent many long days at school learning to increase her magical stamina, and now the task of lighting her way in the dark, once so daunting on her very first journey through the Aldenfold, was accomplished without even thinking.
Starlight drifted through the caves, occasionally shooting the walls and leaving tiny crystals so she would have a trail to follow back to the surface. She floated through cross sections, dove to the bottoms of underground ravines, chased the floor of the world and always went down, her heartrate increasing when the walls became luminous enough to see by, traces of energy sluggishly making their way to the surface. Starlight dove, searching lower and even lower, an eagerness in her step as she squeezed through cracks so tight they scraped both sides of her barrel and soared down chasms that would have exhausted any rope supply she could carry.
And then, just when her control on the first crystals she had planted was beginning to wane, their forms existing too far away for even her practiced, improved horn to keep ahold of, she drifted around a wall and found herself face to face with a wall of crystal.
"A crystal palace," she breathed, taken so far into the past by her location she was surprised when she didn't sound like a filly. "Maple... I found it..."
Starlight put her hoof to the crystals and used her horn to control them, and they shifted obediently, creating a way for her to step inside.
The inside of the palace was chalky, covered in the same residue she had seen at Ironridge and south of Kinmari. No one had been here but her, it seemed... This place was hers. A faint voice called to her from outside her comprehension, welcoming her and calling her deeper. Starlight shakily obliged.
Should she really be here? She had left her friends and the north and all of its magic behind, abandoned its role in her life, never used her cutie mark when others were looking and held it sacred as a reminder of her friends. Did this equate to going back?
No. She was keeping her promise, doing what she had always said she would, living out her friends' dreams even though they had never returned to do so themselves.
Even the brief acknowledgement of the fact caused her to tremble. Starlight slumped to the chalky floor, suppressing a long-restrained sob.
There, there... Don't cry. This is a place for happy times, not mourning. Haven't you made a big accomplishment, just getting here?
Starlight could feel the flame, farther down beneath her. She kicked into a run, foregoing flight, jumping down stairs that were so chalky they were closer to ramps with ridges. If she didn't, she might second-guess herself, turn back... Eight whole years since she had left her friends. Just as long as she had lived between the meteor strike and first meeting them. Those adventures had been half her life ago, and here, at long last, she was daring to face them again.
What would she see? What would she find? Had her choices over the past decade changed the future? Would she be met with more grayness and warnings, trying to call her back into action to protect and save the world, or else scare her away from harming it? She skidded into the map table room, its perfect sigil catching her eyes... The last one she had seen was in the Honesty palace, in a memory she magically remembered and still wasn't sure sat properly in her head. It had been disrupted and disturbed, a jagged distortion where the Aldenfold scrunched two continents together. But this flame had none of that.
Was it showing her a lie, hiding from what the world was? She didn't see any missing dots from the two flames she had been told no longer burned in their palaces, either.
Or maybe it was showing her what it wanted the world to be.
Come here!
Starlight ran into the spiral staircase, dashing along the walls, lower and lower until she reached the tree room, a great crystal-walled chasm over a sea of darkness, the ether of the lifestream itself. Starlight charged out onto a bridge connecting the wall to the great crystalline trunk rising from the lifestream, the core of the palace, the heart in which the Flame of Harmony burned. She ran, breathless, harder than she had charged since her adventures eight years ago, dashed through the twisted, knotted entrance between the tree's crystal walls, skidded into the brazier room, and leaped, touching the flame, unable to hide from her future any longer. What was it? Had it changed? Was it worth it? Was it over?
...Her hoof touched the pedestal, welcoming fire coiling around her like a hoofshake. No static clawed at her vision. No grayness rose to claim her. It was over.
"It's over," Starlight panted, staring into the brazier in awe, draped like a doll over its edge. "I did it. It all counted for something after all..."
Why the long face? Aren't you happy?
"I..." Starlight was happy. It was hard to realize, almost hard to accept, but she was. A rush of memories cascaded through her brain, of Valey's fear that she came from moon glass, of Starlight's own fear that she could destroy the world, of each and every one of her friends and their own worries, and all those stacked up next to her own. Her days in Kinmari swam through Starlight's conscience, her crippling fear of herself even as her friends unwound and shed their troubles and worries, and she remembered each and every time Glimmer had told her that the future wasn't safe for her to know.
All of it came down to this.
All of it came to this crystal palace right here, half her meaningful life later, where she touched a harmonic flame and the future was changed. No vision arrived to warn her. She had done it.
"I did it!" Starlight rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Hooray for you!
"I did it... It was enough..." Starlight started to cry. "Who are you?" she asked, looking back at the flame. "Which one...?"
I am Laughter, the flame informed her. And you deserve to celebrate.
A key turned somewhere in her chest, and Starlight tipped back her head and laughed.
"So that's how it is," Twilight said, nodding as Starlight finished the coda to her story. "I'm... so proud of you."
"Proud of me?" Starlight blinked, just a little bit more drained after the last epilogue to her tale. "Why?"
"I don't know." Twilight shrugged. "It's hard to articulate. But hearing that, it just felt like I needed to say it."
Starlight nodded. "Well, thanks."
"For everything, I guess," Twilight added, not ready to let it drop. "But..." She ran out of words to say, glancing towards the exit. "Well. Shall we go home?"
"Home." Starlight sniffed. "Thanks, Twilight. Let's... Let's go home."
